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secretbangtnn · 4 years ago

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Best Of Me | One

Pairings : →ot7 x reader, poly!BTS x reader

Genre : → vampireau, yandere!au, age gap, gore, obsessive behavior, ddlg/caregiver, poly, fantasy, supernaturals

summary : It’s quite unusual to find a little baby on your doorstep, especially that their area was not of the poorest - you could say that a vampire town was efficient with money and snobby creatures. However over time the first idea of just giving back the little girl seems more and more radical and those moody vampires slowly start perceiving deeper feelings to human they even wanted to kill.

notes ~

So im not really as happy as i wanted to be with this chapter, but its the first one that i needed to translate. Suprisingly Its easier for me to write the whole thing myslef than translating it from my native language. + Remember to leave something and im happy to say that we can start an ask game with the characters from my books

Surprisingly this day was awfully ugly for such a beautiful season. Heavy rain was falling on the ground creating the big sheets of wall with those millions droplets that practically covered the whole view outside of the freshly cleaned window.

Tired sigh pierced the quiet, as for the household members, house only causing the weird tension to increase that was there from the early morning. Dark hair of the boy moved with him, now facing the cold, wet window.

Hyung…” Groaned the boy crashing on the couch closing the eyes in the process a little frustrated. Walking just next to him, a little taller man with bright yellow hair, looked at the dark haired one with a tired stare.

“I don’t have time Jungkook, go torture Yoongi or something.” A snort came out of the older one after the not so innocent proposition, as he kept carrying the big basket full of clothes.

And again he was alone. The youngest of the brothers, being the one who never knew what to do with his free time, wandering in the halls and every couch he could spot in their cosy house. His dark chocolate hair falling on his face, a little too long for his liking, but he was too lazy to actually do something with them.

Again that not happy groan left his lips, and wriggling similar to a child that did not get a toy he wanted, in the end forcing him to sit on the couch with a big pout. It was not normal in this household, the whole quiet and calm act, especially considering the residents he shared the home with.

They are more similar to animals than gentelems that appreciate a quiet time. So the weird atmosphere was definitely an unsettling thing for the youngest.

Again looking at the dark view outside the window, he tried to see the cause of all of this. Completely as if something was meant to happen, like the quiet before the storm.

And let me tell you, Jungkooks 6th sense never fails. Just as he thought that maybe just maybe this time he was wrong, a ring echoed in the whole household.

“Someone is gonna open it?!” He shouted being too irritated to even do it himself, despite being the closest to the doors.

Of course, nobody answered. So angry he was at this moment he got up from a nice cozy couch and with heavy steps he came to the big chunk of the wood.

He opened the door not that gently, mumbling an annoyed “what?”

So how irritated he got when he saw nothing, a void, the same doorstep and gate that stood there everyday, now with a big wall of rain to spice up the view. He looked around, now a little confused, while thinking that maybe someone was in the mood for jokes. But how stupid the idea of that was when he remebered, that for his hundreds years of living in this world the first time that actually someone managed to make fun of him was today.

And oh god he started to get so pissed.

So imagine how shocked he was when just before he closed the door he heard a really unusual sound coming from his feets. Unhappy sobs rang in the quiet afternoon immediately attracting his attention.

The young vampire was more than shocked, looking at the child in the pille of pastel colored blankets. Small sobs now increased in a big crocodile's tears with disturbing sounds of the kids crying.

“”No, no, no, please be quiet, we don’t want to wake up the old, ugly, moody grandpa. do we?” He panicked, whispering the words to the child that now laid in his arms. He just prayed that the actual old vampire really didn't take up because of the cries.

As the kid started to calm down, he stared at it with an unreadable emotion. It was a weird feeling, holding the delicate creature in his arm, knowing that just one wrong move, and the child would never cry again.

So what was that feeling that stirred down his stomach as the little creature grabbed his finger with a big open mouth. The sick emotion only made him panic even more, while looking back inside the house.

He decidied,. Sneaking was nothing new for his ninja move, and he strongly believed in his skills of not getting caught with a surprise in his arms. In the end the spiderman socks were a good choice, as their soft material made nearly no sound on the floor.

His stress level went higher with each step that brought him closer to the room that he knew he could not miss. The sound of a knife and cutting rung in his ears is similar to the music in horror music he likes to watch, now making him understand a feeling of pure fear.

Eyes closed while praying that the blonde man won’t turn around catching him in his act. But how wrong he was to believe in such a miracle. Nothing and absolutely gets past Kim Seokjin.

“Jeon Jungkook…” He died, completely freezing in place. Not opening his eyes he waited thinking that maybe it was just his head messing with him, and the blonde boy never actually turned to him. “What have you done again. If I need to clean the mess once again from the ketchup, I'm not going to…”

And as Jungkook thought that nothing can go worse, the little chil laughed a happy giggle while making the grabby hands for his bracelet.

“Jungkook?...What exactly are you holding?” The question like a knife cutted the heavy atmosphere in half. The silence just after that louder than everything he has heard before. He was even sure that he felt his nonexisting heart stopping. “Did you fucking steall a child?! I can’t be…”

“No! It’s not like that I swear I found it on our doorstep.”

“Do you really think think I am that stupid? How even the child could just appear there hm? Rolled there or better flyed on its plush unicorn?”

“Hyung, please you are going to wake up others.” He didn’t even hesitate to beg, looking at the blonde with such terrified eyes. The child in his arms happily munching on his bracelet completely unaware of the tension.

“Why would I care about others! You brought a child Jungkook, how can i be calm!?”

Dark haired unconsciously looked around with gritted teeth, now just waiting for the rest to appear. And he did not need to wait long, as just after he looked back at the blonde, someone came from the other side of the kitchen door.

Tall man with peachy hair and raspy voice, trying to get rid of the rest of his sleep, now scratching his head with confused expressions. Who wouldn’t be confused in this place, seeing a literal child in a house full of old vampires.

“What is this mess all about? You know what hour it is?” Said the tallest one. Blondie one only snorted as if offended while crossing his arms. “What?”

“Nothing.” Oldest mumbled irritated. The tallest only raised his brow, and repeated the question once again. Jungkook being now forgotten with the child trying to catch his attention with little sounds. “You dare to remind me of the hour?! Do you know how many nights I didn’t sleep because of you! If I just could silence you for good, you would have long ago ended like the voldemort, yes i'm talking about that nose of yours”

The taller one immediately touched his nose gasping not believing in what he just heard, now trying to silently disappear from the harash stare of his older brother.

As the peach hired one hid behind a counter, the attention now came back to the snaking Jungkook. More pairs of footsteps rang in the quietness of the home, slowly showing other people.

“Jin-hyung is angry again? What happened I want to see.” Announced the newcomer, sliding on his perfectly white socks.

“Who is angry here?! You want to see how angry I can be you...you…”

“You silly goose?”

“No that's to lame.”

“Dipshit?”

“You dipshit! Thank you Namjoon.” He finished with a red face. The newcomer only rolled his eyes, while making the shortest of the brothers that came with him laugh.

“Since everyone is here…” The tallest started.

“Wait, where is Yoongi.” Asked the red haired one, while leaning on the counter with a mysteriously made coffee.

“Here.” All of them shouted, hearing the sudden voice, and seeing the new person that appeared with a lightning of thunder. “So what’s this mess about?”

Everyone in the room simultaneously looked at the dark haired boy that immediately stopped in his tracks hoping for some power that could help him disappear. All the eyes slowly drifted down his arms, now staring at a bundle of blankets that started to move as if it knew of the attention.

“What is that?” Asked the tallest looking straight at the irritated blonde.

“Don’t ask me, I’m not the one that gives such a stupid example, making those idiots steal children.”

The kitchen is now again quiet, all the eyes on the little creature in the arms of the youngest. Only sound now being the child starting to sob again, making everyone tense.

“Shut it up you morons.” Said second oldest, annoyed at the loud cries. The blonde didn’t waste time, knowing how bad noise is for the black haired. Small body now shuddering because of the sobbing making the oldest coo at the little child.

His arms soon hold the bundle of blanket, trying to calm the kid down with his baby voice. It wasn’t hard to get lost in its eyes, them being mysterious and full of innocence, drawing up the blonde one. His big hand now on its red cheek, trying to feel the texture of the soft skin under his fingers.

And as the cries never happened, the child started giggling again trying to grab Seokjin hands with such a beautiful smile. It was a really soft sight to see making them all calm and giddy inside. But as the child opened its mouth Seokjin's smiles disappeared.

“What the matter?” Asked Namjoon a little bit taken aback by the change of his hyungs mood. The oldest only looked back at the rest of them with a terrified expression.

“It's a human.”

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cathrrrine · 3 years ago

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RUN | Pietro x Reader

Originally from my Wattpad

CHAPTER 14 - SLUG

"Let's begin with your name."

"You already know my name." I groaned.

"Your real name."

I sighed, "You already know it. My real name is Y/N L/N."

"See? Not so bad." Natasha rolled her eyes as she tilted her head slightly to the left, a mannerism of hers that she often displayed. "Now, your age."

"Oh, that's strictly confidential." I shook my head curtly.

"Y/N..." She warned.

"All I can tell you is that I'm an adult."

She raised an eyebrow in defiance, but she didn't push further. Natasha had brought me to an interrogation room, yet again, but this time it was a different one. It didn't have the big, ugly two-way mirror attached to the wall and instead of hard, uncomfortable chairs, this one had couches. Natasha sat on the one across from me, while I had been instructed to sit on the one with it's back to the wall. The room was annoyingly comfortable, in a way that made me want to vandalise every single object in a room.

It looked like they believed my surrender after all and the change in the way they handled me showed that. For starters, I wasn't in handcuffs. But, to be fair, I guess being in the same room with Romanoff was more than enough security, maybe even more than being cuffed.

Even if I knew I could fight her well.

"I don't need to tell you twice. You lie about anything at all, the deal's off."

It was another interrogation session. Oh my god, I hate that word. I hate even just thinking about it. I've thought about it and said it at least twelve thousand times, and frankly, I've gotten tired of it. If they kept this up, S.H.I.E.L.D would have wrung me dry by the end of the week.

If I wasn't so adamant on surviving, I would've thrown myself off the side of the building by now.

"Don't you think I've been through enough interrogations?" I voiced my thoughts aloud to the redhead in front of me, picking at my nails in boredom.

"There's no such thing as enough interrogations."

"God, you people are scrutinising." That earned me a huff. "And you make me yawn."

"Better safe than sorry, that's the motto." She replied sarcastically. "Next question, how long have you been with Hydra?"

That escalated quickly.

I gulped automatically, not out of fear, but out of habit. "Ever since..." I was born. "For as long as I can remember."

I wasn't lying. But that didn't mean I had to tell the whole truth.

"And you left when?"

"As soon as I could." On my 18th birthday.

"Why?"

"There it is! The hard-hitting question. I've been waiting for that one." This was harder than I thought it would be.

"Why did you leave Hydra?" Natasha repeated the question without a hitch.

"Well, I didn't like it."

"That's all?"

"What do you mean that's all? You don't like something, you leave. Common sense."

She stared at me intently. I've gotta say, she does this thing a whole lot better than Fury. I could technically see the gears in her head turning, calculating every emotion and every word. This woman knew how to play me at my own game. She didn't crack at the silence that ensued. My skin almost crawled at her stare.

Keyword, almost.

"Staring's not going to drag the answer out of my throat, you know." I leaned back on the soft, velvet couch.

They said I had to be honest for them to trust me, but honest hadn't even been in my vocabulary until 12 hours ago. What did they expect me to do? Immediately lose every sense of self-worth and start throwing every single fact about my life, every detail of the trauma that I've endured–to them?

Doing this meant saving my life, but it also meant having to give up at least a sliver of my secrets. Was it worth trading my secrets to these people for my life? Why did the price have to be so goddamn high?

I took a deep breath. "I was 10."

"Pardon?"

"When they first ordered me to kill someone."

I remember the weight of the gun in my small hands, the smell of blood in the air when I shot the man, and the sound of his body thumping on the gravel in the dead of the night.

"I don't remember who it was or why I had to kill him. But I remember enough to know that it was..." I trailed off against my will, the memory getting the best of me. As if the whole situation wasn't already pathetic.

I cleared my throat. "I remember enough to know that it wasn't right. I felt it in my bones."

Natasha stayed silent, willing me to continue. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm an angel or whatever. As I grew up I understood that I didn't want to be associated with these people. Hydra wasn't exactly a paradise, obviously. But it took me a while to understand that. And once I did, I took off."

"And they've been looking for you, ever since?"

"Yes."

"Does that explain yesterday's events?"

Him. "Unfortunately."

"How long?"

"How long, what?"

"Have you been running from them?"

My mind went blank. How many years has it been? Time looked like one long line for me. I mentally calculated the amount of days, months, years that it took for me to hide.

"6, 7? I don't remember how long it's been." I bit down on my lower lip, hard. "No one's ever asked. I never bothered to keep count either."

She nodded, uncrossing and recrossing her legs and shaking out her hair. The redhead woman seemed to contemplate what she was about to say next. For a second there, I was curious. How unsettling could the question be to make her visibly bothered?

When the words spilled out of her mouth, I wish I never wondered. "This is an important question—are you Enhanced?"

I winced. One question, out of all the other ones, was all it took the break the dam that I've built in my head. Memories came flooding back in, in flashes, in the aches of my muscles, pouring mercilessly into the forefront of my brain.

Muffled voices, bright fluorescent lights shining into my eyes, cold-sweats...my head pounded vigorously. I pinched the bridge of my nose, praying hard that I was hiding my discomposure well from her.

Was it worth it?

"You have to be honest, Y/N. We need to know if we can trust you."

Strenuous hands pulling at me, strapping me down, dilated pupils, the whirring of their monstrous machines...

"Yes, Natasha. I am."

———

SIX HOURS EARLIER

"She can't be trusted."

"She's done nothing that says so, so far."

"How do you know that, Maximoff? She's sly. She's sneaky. This could just be another game of hers."

"We could be very well falling into a trap right now."

"Send me in." Natasha crossed her arms, her expression unreadable. "I'll get her to tell us what we need."

"I don't doubt your interrogation skills, Nat, but do you really think it's a good idea? I mean, she's a lot like you." Clint remarked.

"That's exactly why I should go." There was an air of mystery to the way she insisted upon it.

They all looked to their Captain for his approval. Steve had both palms on the table, his head slightly bowed. He looked up to his team, eyeing every single one of them before his eyes landed on Natasha's.

"She's right." He stood up straight, mirroring Natasha's pose. "Nat, you bring her to the interrogation room. Do whatever you need to make her talk. Get all the information we need to know about her; her past, her abilities, her name for God's sake."

The redhead nodded, gesturing for him to continue.

"Wanda, I want you to sit in the next room. Read her mind. Make sure she's telling the truth."

"But-"

"Pietro, you go with her, make sure things don't go out of hand. And don't worry, kid. She can't hurt you, especially not when she's basically just waved the white flag."

He paused for awhile before continuing. "If it ultimately goes well...we should let her into the team."

"Are you kidding me?" Tony bit back.

"No. She's an asset. She's got useful information and skills we could put to use."

"Steve. What if she goes rogue, huh? And she decides to wake up one day and kill us all? This is a situation bound to go awry. We can't let a former Hydra agent in just like that." Tony ran a hand across his face before adding another comment. "I made the mistake of giving her the benefit of the doubt before and it only got us in trouble."

Steve pondered upon Tony's opinion for a while before nodding once and announcing his decision. "So, we put her on probation. Let her know that she's not totally off the hook, see where it'll lead."

"Rogers, are you sure about this?" Natasha pursed her lips.

"Yes." He uncrossed his arms and put his hands on his hips, in true Captain America fashion. "Let her know that she'll be pardoned if she tells the whole truth. Maybe it'll encourage her. I'll inform Fury about this whole thing."

The meeting room was silent for a while before the team began to disperse. Steve was the last one to go, but not before Natasha stopped him.

"Rogers. I need to tell you something."

———

PRESENT TIME

She looked surprised, but not as much as I thought she would be. I was expecting a little bit more than raised eyebrows. Maybe even a gasp. "What can you do?"

I chuckled dryly, "Maybe it's better to show than tell."

It was her turn to chuckle, not an ounce of humour in it. "Now's not the time for your sweet little antics. This isn't a talent show."

"Oh, really? Then what is this? I thought I was auditioning for your makeshift boyband."

"Well, maybe if you talked more and sassed less, you'd make the cut."

I shook my head again, slowly. I had to be careful with what I told them. The walls seemed to look duller and the couch I was on felt like a boulder instead of the plush heaven that it was.

"I'm an Echo."

"What does that mean?"

"It means exactly what it sounds like. I echo people." My hands trembled slightly at the mention of it. "I absorb other people's powers and I amplify it."

This was as much as I've ever told anyone ever since I ran from Hydra. Genuinely? I'm a little freaked out at the fact that I just did so. But it had to be the right decision. I couldn't afford to make another wrong turn.

Besides, I was in control here. I had the choice to tell them what I wanted to tell them and what I wanted to keep from them. I figured they should know that I had that little something up my sleeve this entire time.

After all; they were my only lifeline at the moment.

"Was that how you beat us the night we caught you?"

I thought back to that night, when I ran as fast as Pietro did and broke through the barriers of the Witch's force field. I shrugged, not bothering to please her with a response.

"Tell me more about your past."

I narrowed my eyes at her, "Really, Romanov? Digging for more? I already gave you enough, don't you think?"

Natasha blinked once, but didn't back down. "I ask, you answer. That was the deal, wasn't it?"

The smile didn't reach my eyes when I jut out a grin at her. "What do you wanna know about my past?"

"The basics. Where you're from, how you're here."

"I'm half-Russian." I shrugged. "And you already know how I got here."

"No. I know how you came to S.H.I.E.L.D. We brought you here. What I need to know is how you got into this whole ordeal."

A scoff escaped me, "Is this a therapy session or an interrogation?"

"Y/N."

"No, seriously, you're asking me about things that don't matter-"

"Y/N." She repeated, more sternly.

I tucked my arms to my chest so I wouldn't flinch as I said the words that haunted me.

The ones I knew haunted her too.

"I was born into it." My tongue felt heavy. "They raised me in the Red Room."

For the first time since we started, Natasha Romanoff gasped. It was barely audible, and it wasn't the show-stopping theatre moment I'd been looking for, but it was a gasp in itself. It's funny, though. I thought I'd be more amused. But the heavy feeling that sat on my chest drained all the humour out of me.

Natasha immediately rose from her seat, staring at me with possessed eyes. Her face had gone white as sheet, her lips pale.

"What did you say?"

"You heard me, Romanov."

She sauntered over to me, one foot stepping in front of the other. "Don't you dare lie to me."

"I'm not." My voice was weaker than I would've liked it to be, barely above a whisper. "I was trained in the Red Room. As soon as I was old enough, they shipped me off to the hands of Hydra."

She wasn't listening as intently anymore. Her eyes were locked on mine, but I could tell she wasn't exactly in the room anymore. Her head's probably off in the same place mine was in just a few minutes ago.

"Is that enough for you?"

Just like that, something snapped within her. "Tell me more."

"I already did."

"You're hiding something!"

I stood up so I was level to her height, my eyebrows knitting in anger. "I gave you what you wanted. I gave you the truth."

"No." She shook her head. "I want the full one."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

She trudged towards me, lifting up her shirt so her abdomen was exposed. "Do you know who gave this to me?"

It was a long scar on her hip, positioned slightly to the left of her belly button, the skin raised and bumpy. "How the hell am I supposed to know?"

"I got this on one of my first missions. I was assigned to escort a nuclear scientist out of Iran." She seethed. "We were ambushed by Hydra at the rendezvous in Odessa. My tires got shot, the car ran off a cliff."

"Where are you going with this?"

"I managed to save us both. But as soon as I did, the assassin who ambushed us open fired. Killed the scientist. Straight through me. Left one hell of a scar." She let go of the hem of her shirt. "A soviet slug."

It was my turn to grow pale. There was only one person who could do that. And I was far from ready to say his name.

"You knew him didn't you? I should've known all along."

"How?" I begged, the somewhat 'calm' demeanour I've tried hard to keep was long gone.

"Does it matter?" Her gaze was threatening. "You were trained by The Winter Soldier, weren't you Y/N L/N?"

#the winter soldier #damn i couldnt wait to write that #run pietro x reader #pietro x reader #pietro maximoff #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #miss romanoff hello maam can u pls step on me? thx #avengers #avengers reader insert #avengers x reader #wanda maximoff #steve rogers #pietro fanfiction

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writingtoforgetreality · 4 years ago

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You’re A Winchester? - Part Two (Castiel x Winchester!Reader)

[Supernatural-Masterlist]

Part One

Summary: The case in Wisconsin got complicated. In more ways than one. Cas was not sure what happened to you but you were acting different. He had to find out why. He had to know if he did something wrong.

Words: 4,053

Warnings: language, kidnapping, angst, little bit of fluff?, Sam has the brains, angels are dicks, I feel like this could actually become a miniseries?, Do you want me to continue? I’m not sure…, (Y/E/C) = your eye color

If you like my work & wanna support me: a coffee would be highly appreciated ❤

The drive to Wisconsin was slow & exhausting. Throughout the long hours, you did some more research on the case. It looked like an easy one, actually. Almost too easy for your liking. But who were you to bad talk an easy hunt? After all, you were still somewhat new to this business. Though, nobody would realize that. If they did not know, they would believe you had been hunting for your entire life.

“We’re almost there.” Cas broke the silence that had been accompanying the two of you for a while. A look out of the window & you could make out the small town you were rolling in. Almost immediately, a strange feeling washed over you. By the way Cas’ body tensed up, you knew he had a similar impression of this place.

“Cas?” you questioned. No way would this turn out to be an easy case.

“Yes, I know.” he soothed your thoughts a little. Something was off & neither you nor Cas could tell what it was. Not yet, at least. The ’78 Lincoln Continental Mark V came to a halt in the parking lot of an old-fashioned motel. Same old, same old. Back in your universe, you had never had enough money to afford an actual hotel so usually, the cheap version had to do. So, not that much had changed.

The two of you checked into a room, not bothering to get one with two beds since Castiel did not sleep anyway. The motel literally looked like every single other one across the country. Same uncomfortable bed, same ugly wallpaper, same ancient furniture. Moments like this, you missed the bunker an awful lot. Deciding to give your brothers a call, you dialed Sam’s number.

“(Y/N), hey! You already there?” Sam’s voice came through the speaker.

“Yep, it took forever.” sighing out tiredly, you plopped down onto the mattress. “I gotta say, though…something seems a little off.”

“As in…?” he inquired curiously.

“We don’t know yet.” your head was put into your hand. The traveling tired you out & you craved a few hours of rest.

“Okay. And besides that? Everything alright? It’s not…weird, is it?” it almost sounded like he was uncomfortable while asking this question.

“Should it be weird?” your eyebrows furrowed at his use of words.

“I don’t know, you tell me.” you could hear the smirk in his tone. That was when the realization kicked in.

“You’re talking about me being alone with Cas?” looking around, you were glad that the angel was still outside, grabbing your luggage.

“I might be.” Sam mumbled, then his voice got louder again. “Look, all I’m saying is take care & uh, use protection.”

“Oh my God, Sam.” shaking your head frantically, there was another sigh from you. “I’ll call when we’re done here. You’re a horrible brother, by the way.” your body was on fire. Embarrassed that now, even Sam called you out on your crush.

“I love you, too. Bye, (Y/N).” the call ended & you fell back onto the mattress. A second later, the door opened & Cas walked in. At least he missed that talk with Sam. Otherwise it would be painfully awkward between you guys.

In the morning, Cas & you went to investigate a family. They were close to the person that had been mysteriously killed & you hoped to receive a bit more background information from them. The couple seemed nice. Wealthy husband being incredibly happy with his beautiful wife. An apple pie life. Like the one Dean wanted Cas & you to have. Obviously, that would never be the case. Not when you were part of this business. Not when you were a hunter. When they offered, you thanked them for the coffee they brought you. Something that Cas could drink as well. The talk was not necessarily helpful. Nothing you had not already found out yourselves. Still, you acted politely towards them. After all, they had been very hospitable. Before leaving the house, you asked if you could use their bathroom. The man showed you the way. This family was not connected to your case, not in a way that helped you anyway. Which meant that you had to do more research. Yay. Finishing in the bathroom, you were confused when the door did not open. Like it was stuck. Rattling on the door knob a few times, you used your other hand to knock on the door. You had to bring their attention to you. But it seemed like nobody heard you. The bathroom was not that far away from the living room area so it did not make sense to you that they did not hear you in there. The lock clicked & you sighed out in content when the man who had lead you here helped you out a second time today. Your warm, thankful smile faltered when something hard hit your head. Darkness met your body after that.

Heavy eyelids opened slowly. The light blinded you & out of instinct, you squinted to avoid it. After a few more seconds, you adjusted to the light. Looking around, you found yourself inside an unfurnished room. The chair you sat on the only piece. But wait. Your wrists were tied to the armrests. Your legs strapped as well. Tightly. Painfully tight. No matter your efforts, it did not move an inch. How did you get here? Where was Cas? Looked like your assumptions about this family were wrong. Because kidnapping was not part of your plan. And you being trapped here changed your entire view of this case drastically. That strange feeling you had in this town was not for nothing. But who were you up against? No vengeful spirts, no demons, no witches. What else could it be?

“Would you look at that, the princess is awake.” the same man from earlier entered the room, a creepy smile adorning his features. It made you gulp. Your heart quickened its pace. You were skilled when it came to fighting but right now, there was not a lot of room left to move around. Which left you vulnerable.

“Aw, honey. You scared her. Can’t you see the fear in her eyes?” his wife followed, that sweet voice of hers erupting the room.

“(Y/N)…Can I call you (Y/N)?” the only response he got was a deathly glare from you. One, that made him chuckle enthusiastically. “The newest addition to the Winchesters. Leaving her universe behind to go live with her brothers.” he recapped the last months for you as if you had forgotten already. “You shouldn’t even be here.” remarking with sympathetic eyes, he walked closer to you. Kneeling down so you were on one level.

“You see…we wouldn’t care much for you. Another Winchester do deal with? Okay, fine. But there’s one thing we cannot accept.” the woman spoke up again.

“And what would that be?” sarcastically asking, looking between the pair in front of you.

“We can’t have you close to Castiel.” the kneeling man finished. Your expression turned into one of confusion. “Don’t play innocent here, sweetheart. We’re not that stupid.”

“You’re angels.” you concluded after piecing everything together. “That case in Wisconsin. It was a trap so you guys could get to me.”

“100 points for our contestant.” the woman fake cheered.

“You know, there would’ve been easier ways to catch me.”

“True but where would the fun be in that? Besides, we couldn’t have you close to those brothers of yours. Too protective over you for my liking.”

“Okay, Mister. But you do realize that Cas is here somewhere & he’ll try everyth-“

“Ah, I’ll stop you right there.” his finger lifted to shut you up. “You cannot reach him here. It’s…how do I say it? Castiel safe.”

“What do you want from me then? You wanna kill me?” though it was hard, you tried to hide how scared you truly were right now.

“I know you’re smarter than that, (Y/N). If we wanted you dead, we would’ve killed you already. Castiel would be after us if we did. We simply wanted to warn you. Stay close to him & you’ll regret it.” his threat was intimidating.

“How do you define close?” it was a legitimate question.

“You know what we mean…This room will be Castiel safe for a bit longer. After that, you can pray to him & he’ll hear you. If I were you, I’d think of a good excuse in the meantime. Don’t forget…one wrong move & we’ll be back. Goodbye, (Y/N).” & with that, the two of them left you alone. They did not tell you when it was possible to send out a prayer. They did not tell you where you were exactly. All you knew was that they were serious. And you should not mess with them. When Dean had told you that angels were dicks, you did not think that was what he was warning you about. Their condition was simple. You should stay away from Cas or you would regret it. And you assumed that these angels were a lot stronger than you could handle. You did not want to die & neither did you want to risk Cas’ well-being. Immediately, you started prayer after prayer. He had to hear it sooner or later. All you could do now was try.

It felt like days passed. Hundreds, thousands of prayers later & still no sight of Cas. Maybe that was your end. All those years of unsuccessful searching for your family only for you to end up in another universe. Reunited with your brothers. And that was how you would go? Not what you imagined your life to be if you were completely honest. You were close to passing out. No food, no water, nothing. Your body was weak. You were weak. By now, every last ounce of hope had vanished.

“(Y/N)?” the last thing you saw before falling unconscious was Cas running to you.

Castiel had finally heard you. Begging for him to help you. To rescue you. No time was wasted. He found you soon after, shocked by the state you were in. Three days ago, he left you out of his sight. He had not stopped looking for you but it seemed useless. Until a small, broken voice appeared inside his head. Yours. Desperate words reached him. He knew he had to act fast. How he had lost you? No idea. Everything went so fast. Before he knew it, you were gone. Of course this family hid more than they let on. The second he found you, a weight got lifted off of his shoulders. No way could he bear losing you so shortly after you got closer. Immediately, he went to heal you. No bad wounds were adorning your body. Just your weakness was present. Yet, you could not stay awake any longer. Cas did not know how long you had been in there but from your exhaustion, he assumed just as long as he had searched for you. Freeing you of the ropes that were holding you to the chair, he picked you up bridal style. Teleporting to your motel room where he laid you on the bed gently. Looked like you were not planning on waking up anytime soon. So Cas packed all of your stuff & got his car ready. He no longer cared about this case. All he cared about was you being safe. And the bunker was the best safety you could get. He could deal with this hunt later.

Sam & Dean had no idea about your state, they thought the two of you were still in Wisconsin. Wrong. And they started worrying like crazy the moment Cas entered the bunker with you in his arms, unconscious. Question after question was thrown at Castiel who seemed to ignore his surroundings entirely. He just wanted to get you to your bed. The entire drive was spent asleep & he knew you would be like that for a while.

Sore. Your body felt sore. Like you had not moved in ages. Like the smallest movement took too much strength. Strength you could not muster right now. A familiar smell filled your nostrils. The sheets welcoming you. These were no motel sheets. No. You were home. How did you make it back? You definitely were not in Wisconsin anymore. Wait a second. There were no angels to hold you hostage anymore. Had Cas heard your prayers? Seemed like it. You could yell for him, for your brothers, but no words came out as soon as you opened your mouth. The hours of sleep you got did not change the fact that you were incredibly tired. Exhausted. Groaning, you stood up from the comfort of your bed. If nobody was here with you right now, then you had to take matters into your own hands. A glass of water. Something. You needed something. Your body made this task unnecessarily hard, though. One step after the other. Small, slow steps & you would reach the kitchen not long after. You got this.

Your walk to the kitchen was cut short when Sam saw you walking unsteadily. Running over to you, he picked you up a second later & brought you to the main area in the bunker.

“(Y/N). Why didn’t you yell for us?” the concern was audible.

“My voice.” creaking out, Sam’s eyes widened in realization. He left only to return a second later with a glass of water in hand. Gladly, you took it from him & enjoyed the cold liquid soothing your throat. Downing the glass, you handed it back to him. In this moment, Dean & Cas entered the room. Noticing you were awake, the two of them jogged over to you.

“(Y/N)? Are you alright?” Cas cupped your cheeks, caressing your soft skin with his thumbs. How you wanted to enjoy this moment. How you wanted it to never end. But your conversation with those angels came into your mind again. You leaned back, out of Cas’ reach. Eyes training down, you hoped nobody would question you.

“Um, yeah…I’m okay now. Just a little sore.” three pairs of eyes bore into you. They knew something was off. Dean was the first one to speak up.

“What happened?” sighing loudly at his question, you knew you had to improvise now.

“I didn’t do enough research. The case wasn’t as easy as we first thought it to be. The couple Cas & I were investigating? Witches. It was my fault they caught me, really. I should’ve been more careful.” after finishing, you risked a look at the three men in front of you. Did not look like they bought your little lie.

“There were no hints of witches there. We would’ve noticed.” Cas argued & you rolled your eyes.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Were you the one they kidnapped?” snapping at him, your voice was sharp. It was not your intention to sound so rude but everything overwhelmed you. Jumping up a second later, you ran back to your room, leaving them behind dumbfounded.

A soft knock was on your door. Maybe if you kept quiet they would leave you alone. Today was not your lucky day, apparently. Dean opened the door slowly, peaking his head inside to make sure you were not sleeping.

“What do you want, Dean?” you sat on your bed, back pressed against the headboard.

“Something’s wrong.” he noted, approaching you.

“I guess being kidnapped does that to you.”

“Cut the crap, (Y/N).” his voice raised slightly, immediately shutting you down. Your head hung low. “What’s wrong?” now, much softer, he took a seat on the edge of your bed.

“Nothing, Dean.” sighing out, your head was thrown back, eyes closed in frustration.

“I think I know you well enough to notice when you’re lying.” & he was right. There was not a lot of things you could keep from him. Sam did not always tell when you lied to him but Dean could see right through you. “So, let’s do this again…What’s wrong?” his sincere eyes locked onto yours & that was when you knew you could not keep this from him. Not all of it.

“Cas kissed me.” Dean’s eyes widened at your statement. It took you two long enough. But when he saw your features change, he could tell that something about this was bothering you.

“But?” his question followed up.

“But it didn’t do anything with me.” your own words broke your heart but you could not risk it. Could not risk Cas’ safety. “The witches I could handle. Well…you know what I mean. They didn’t hurt me, just trapped me.” fiddling with your hands in your lap.

“What are you trying to say? You don’t like Cas?” Dean was confused. More than once had you let on that you liked the angel & when he talked to Cas about all of this, then he found out that he liked you, too.

“No. I do. Just not how I thought I would.” quieting down, you were done with the conversation for now. “I’m tired, Dean. I’ll join you guys later today, alright?” Dean nodded, stood up & left your room without another word. Though, his mind was running. Something about this entire situation felt wrong. Right now, he could not tell why. But he was sure he would find out sooner or later.

“Cas, man. What the hell did you do?” Dean was livid. For months, you had had eyes for the angel. And now, you told him he kissed you & you did not feel anything? What was going on?

“What?” Castiel was confused. Confused by Dean’s angry tone & by his accusation. Did he do something?

“You & (Y/N).” he pointed out.

“What about us?”

“Seriously? So I have to watch you guys dancing around your feelings for months only for her to tell me that when you kissed her it didn’t do anything with her?” his eyebrows raised, clearly waiting for an explanation. Cas, on the other hand, did not understand a single thing.

“She said that?” the angel’s voice was barely above a whisper. You kissed him back. Before you drove to Wisconsin, it was you who kissed him the second time.

“Yes. So you owe me an explanation before I kick your ass.” there it was. Dean’s protective side. He did not think, when you first came into their universe, that he would care for you on such a deep level. But here he was. And he could tell that Cas broke something in you.

“Dean, nothing happened. I kissed her, yes. But she kissed me, too. I thought we were fine until she woke up & didn’t want me to touch her.” it did not make sense to him. Was all of it a lie? Were you just playing around? He did not think you to be that kind of person. Whatever he did, he had to make it right before it was too late.

Later that day, you risked leaving your room once again. Hopefully, you would not come across anyone. You still had to greet Jack but that could wait. For now, you just wanted a little something to eat. It had been a while since you had your last meal & your stomach was rumbling with protest. Cas’ silhouette was in front of you. Shit, you really were not in the mood to interact with him. Yes, it hurt to know that whatever the two of you started the other day could never be. Before you could turn around & leave again, Castiel faced you. The hurt in his face was present & the guilt set in. He was like that because of you. You were the reason for his pain. And this thought itself hurt you more than anything. His feet dragged him over to you. A little step back from you made him stop. Apparently, you did not want to have him close.

“(Y/N)?” his tone brought tears to your eyes. But you would not let them fall. You could not. “Talk to me, please.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” you were being cold towards him which was uncommon. It was not in your nature to act like that. You were the sweetest soul Cas had ever met. Whoever was standing in front of him right now was not you.

“What did I do?” his concerned eyes locked onto your (Y/E/C) ones.

“You didn’t do anything, Cas. Believe me, please.” your plea was almost inaudible. No longer could you bare looking at him. You would break down in tears.

“Something changed you when you were trapped.”

“Cas, can we not do this right now?” closing your eyes briefly, you let out a sigh to calm yourself down. Leaving him no time for a response, you left the room again. Still no food inside of you. But you lost your appetite anyway.

The next morning, when you made your way back to the kitchen area again, you were glad when you were only met with Sam. His warm smile was welcoming. Something that let you feel at ease.

“Good morning. Coffee?” he offered you a cup & you gladly accepted. “I made pancakes. Are you hungry?”

“Starving.” chuckling when your stomach grumbled. Sam handed you a plate & you sat down, quietly munching on your breakfast. At least he did not ask you about the case.

“What do they hold against you?” Sam asked after a few moments of silence.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I did my own research on your case. No witches whatsoever. Though, it was a good excuse, I gotta admit.” your eyes widened. Shit, if he found out what went down then he sure as hell would tell everyone. “Everything leads to angels. They didn’t hurt you. But they told you something. So…what are they holding against you?”

“Sam.” you sighed loudly. “You have to keep it a secret. Please.” staring at the tall man sitting opposite of you, you saw a sympathetic smile on his face.

“(Y/N)…”

“Okay, you wanna know what happened? Those angels threatened me. Said if I stay this close to Cas, I’d regret it. That they’d come after me or Cas. No way in hell will I let this happen.” due to your rambling, you did not notice Cas entering the room. Only when Sam coughed did you look around. What was it with him overhearing conversations?

“(Y/N).” like the night before, Cas approached you carefully. This time, you did not move away from him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I’m scared.” you admitted quietly. While you were a great hunter, you were not sure if you could handle fighting against angels.

“Sam & Dean are your brothers. Jack is the strongest being I’ve ever met & you’ve got me.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t there, Cas. We really shouldn’t mess with them.”

“And you thought it was a good idea to ignore Cas?” Sam chimed in. Right, you had almost forgotten that he was still there. Casting your eyes down in embarrassment, you suddenly felt an arm wrap around your shoulders. It was Cas.

“I won’t let anything happen to you, (Y/N). I promise.” he put a soft kiss on top of your head. You knew that. Castiel would do anything to keep you safe. But those angels scared you so much. You could not live with it if you were the reason of Cas getting hurt. Or worse. Looking up again, you noticed that Sam had left the room during your little interaction. Cas’ hands cupped your cheeks. Barely. Scared that you would not want to be touched by him. You did not move, though. No, you leaned into his touch. Closing your eyes to fully enjoy this intimate moment with him. His lips pressed against yours. Softly, as if your were fragile. When the two of you moved in sync, every little ounce of uncertainty washed away. You knew you could not stay away from him. But at the same time, you knew they would come after you now. This kiss would change everything. Whatever was awaiting you, it could not be good. But maybe, just maybe, if you went ahead & dealt with this together, nobody would get hurt.

~to be continued? (idk just yet)~

Published (03/31/2021) by Cathy

Tags: @vicmc624, @ayamenimthiriel, @teelagurl558, @babymango-writes, @hollymac79, @longinusfilibuster, @insanebot109, @down-down-inanulearan (thanks for your support <3)

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meliorist-midoriya · 4 years ago

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confessions for dummies

the request: HELLOOO KELLEY MY LOVE HEHE feeling sUper soft for shoto rn so could i please request a fluffy fic about him trying to work up the courage to confess to the girl he likes :"))) tHANK YOU BABYYY i love you uwu <333

synopsis: knowledge is power, and todoroki shouto doesn’t know what do to with what he’s learned.

pairing: todoroki x reader

genre: fluff

warnings: n/a

word count: 1.3k

a/n: HIIII SOPH I LOVE YOU TOOOOO!!! i hope you like all 1.3k words of this clueless baby HJSDFHJDSHJ thank you for requesting, and happy reading! the title was inspired by those old “(insert life skill) for dummies” books. does anyone even remember those?

Todoroki Shouto could say, in confidence, that he had no idea what the hell he was doing.

Learning he liked you was the easy part, the romance-starved girls of 1-A all too eager to jump at the chance of helping him to his epiphany, and an epiphany it was. (He made a mental note to send Tsuyu a thank you gift for keeping the girls from getting too crazy.) All the warm faces, fluttering heartbeats, and clammy hands suddenly made sense now.

Not that it made them any better.

If anything, they got worse, suddenly hyper aware of all your little likes and habits and everything in between that had him using his right side more often just to pull the flush from his face.

Now, he was stuck in the limbo in between realized feelings and acting on them. Was this what people called a crush? Pining?

He hated it.

He’s spent all his life hiding how he felt, and now the one time he wanted to let his feelings be known, some unknown force was stopping him.

Every time he got close to confessing, his tongue stalled and his heart stopped, ice colder than anything he could create dripping through his veins and chilling his nerves, freezing him before he could get a word out. Other times, one of the girls would miraculously suspiciously pop in right as he got over that barrier, dragging him away and scolding him for his terrible timing.

So many things to think about, too many. He was forbidden from using the internet as a source like he usually did, so now he was completely and utterly lost. All that needed to be done was make his feelings known, why did it have to be so complicated?

The conflicting information he got from the group he deemed to be his only source of information wasn’t great either.

“It would be nice if you did it under the cherry blossoms-”

“Stop projecting Hagakure, it’s winter already and I think Todoroki’s going to combust from impatience before we get to spring. A sunset confession would be nice though, maybe play her a love song or something.”

“Who’s the one projecting now, Jirou?”

Todoroki pinched the bridge of his nose and allowed himself a quiet sigh.

This was going nowhere.

Today was the day.

He was sure of it.

He finally had a moment alone with you, comfortably studying in your dorm room. The only thing he had to do was find the timing.

“Y/N-”

Wait, he didn’t mean to do that. His mind had run faster than his mouth and your name had slipped by accident. Well, might as well go with it and-

You looked up, pretty eyes wide and curious, and the words died in his throat, leaving him with his jaw hanging around the half-formed syllable as his heart did a funny little flip in his chest.

“Yes, Todoroki?”

Just say it, you’re already here.

Alas, his rapidly beating heart pushed ice through his veins and his determination crumpled pathetically in the face of you and the confused tilt of your head.

“C-Can you tell me what you got for, ah, number… 7?” He lamely bluffed, his Quirk not enough to hide the flaming red of his ears that he hoped his hair would cover in its stead.

“Oh! It’s…”

He pressed his face into his hands, barely holding back a groan as you looked away to check your answer to a question he’d already solved.

Today was not the day.

“How do you confe- Shouto, you like someone?” Fuyumi gasped in shock, emotional at her baby brother growing up. Todoroki was already slightly regretting his decision as he watched her wipe away tears before they shed. Anything was better than going to Natsuo, though.

“Yes. So, how do you?”

“Hm, well…” She stared thoughtfully at the now forgotten book in front of her, “It changes from person to person, I think. What they like, what seems romantic to them, things like that. Overall though, as long as it’s a good atmosphere and you’re considerate of her feelings, I think you’ll be okay!”

Never mind, Todoroki regretted nothing about asking her. That was the most coherent advice he’s received in the past two months. He nodded along to his sister’s words as she continued, absorbing everything he could and comparing it against the advice he’d received before. Slowly, bits and pieces of his knowledge were discarded and replaced, or reinforced. Hagakure’s “romantic” confession idea sailed out the window (honestly, that had been on the chopping block for a while now) and Fuyumi’s broader advice slipped into its place.

So, considerate of your feelings. That part was easy.

Good atmosphere…? Should be easy enough.

Not easy, actually.

The one thing he forgot to ask was the very thing he was agonizing over right now. He had no idea what constituted a good atmosphere. What made an atmosphere good or bad? The people? The mood? What the hell even defined the mood?

All of this, crammed into the short wander from his dorm to the common room at an ungodly hour. On a normal night, he would’ve slept through the night into the next morning, but nothing has been normal these past two weeks and there were a few nights his sleep suffered from his constant pondering.

Tonight was one of those nights.

He shuffled into the kitchen, blearily rubbing the sleepy blur out of his eyes long enough to find the bottle of water in the fridge. This would help nothing but his dry throat, but that was one fork out of his back, at least. Tired fingers unscrewed the cap and he raised the bottle to his lips as he shuffled his way back to his room.

“Oh, you couldn’t sleep either?”

Todoroki choked on his water.

He painfully swallowed the loud cough his lungs tried to force through in favor of clearing his throat a little quieter instead (still sounded half-strangled, but anything was better than hacking his lungs out in front of you), and turned to the one he didn’t notice sitting in the dimly lit common room.

“Y/N? What are you doing up at this hour?” He winced at his raspy voice, still recovering from the water that went down the wrong pipe, and he cleared his throat again.

“I could say the same to you.” You scooted over, a silent invite to join you that he had no qualms taking you up on. Todoroki slowly realized too late that it was only the two of you, cast in the strange intimacy of shade and moonlight, and suddenly his left side felt a little too warm. Gingerly, he let his Quirk pull away the flush from his cheeks, praying to whatever deity that would listen that you wouldn’t notice the flame licking at his shoulder or the sudden chill at your side.

“So why couldn’t you sleep, Todoroki-kun? If you don’t mind me asking.”

God, if you were the one speaking, he wouldn’t mind anything you had to say.

He pushed down the thought before his sleep-loosened tongue betrayed him again. Alas, where he held back one thing, another slipped past. He pressed a cold hand into his suddenly clammy palm, his racing heart nearly shaking his voice from the force of his heartbeat.

“…Kept thinking about something, and the more I thought about it, the more I stayed awake.”

“Thinking about what?”

He’d blame it on being half-asleep later, he’d blame it on his loose tongue, or on the mysteriously intimate midnight silence of the dorm. He’d blame it on anything, but for now, seeing the moonlight filtering through the tall windows illuminate you in a silvery glow and reflecting off of eyes that he could never seem to look away from, he couldn’t help the answer that slipped past his lips.

“You.”

Todoroki would lament over this in the morning, but the slow realization and joy spreading across your face let him forgive himself just a bit.

He wasn’t the only one thinking about the other, after all.

#todoroki shouto #todoroki shoto #todoroki shouto x reader #todoroki shoto x reader #todoroki fluff #bnha oneshot #mha oneshot #from the typewriter #alternative titles:#confessing your feelings 101 #how to confess in three (not so) easy steps

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knchins · 4 years ago

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Heaven Sent, Hell Proof - Two

Summary: An angel named Keigo is assigned to win over the soul of a mysterious woman for heaven. He quickly finds that he is not the only one with his eyes on her. Can he get to her before his arch rival does?

Pairing: Angel!Hawks x Reader x Demon!Dabi

Rating: M (for now)

Word Count: 3k

Bingo Prompt: Angels and Demons

Warnings: Mentions of noncon, minor yandere themes

Notes: This is only going to be three parts! I figure it was going to be around 10k and it looks like I was right lol. I hope everyone enjoys part two! And stay tuned in the upcoming weeks for the final part that will include some very...steamy scenes.

Part One → Part Two → Part Three

Keigo had always been confident in his speed, especially while flying. What he wasn’t confident in, however, was how skilled his demonic adversary was in tailing him. Any time he left headquarters, he would sense Dabi nearby. They were after the same thing of course, but what the red winged angel didn’t understand was why he didn't try to find her independently. Why was Dabi so focused on whether or not he could find her himself?

On the third day, he finally got sick of it. He coasted back down to the ground where the demon was hiding in plain sight and landed right in front of him. “Shouldn’t you be out searching for my girl instead of sniffing after my trail?” He asked, an indifferent look on his face.

Dabi smiled in a particularly devious way that had Keigo taking a step backwards. “What’s wrong, Feathers? Can’t take the heat of a demon on your six? Don’t you trust me?”

“I trust that you have some ulterior motive.” Hawks snapped back, wings flexing behind his back as some sort of show of strength. Not that it had any affect on Dabi.

The demon shrugged nonchalantly, “Actually, I thought maybe we could team up this time. Just this once. This girl is something special, don’t you think? Half angel, half human, left to live on earth and not in heaven. Definitely the sluttiest virgin I’ve ever met. I can’t wait to rip that flower from her dainty little hands.”

Dabi noticed the sharp feathers of his wings puff out, standing on end as they tended to do whenever Keigo felt threatened or aggravated. “Don’t talk about her like that. You are not going to defile an angel.”

“She’s not an angel, Keigo.” Dabi said, his voice turning serious suddenly. “She is an abomination, said so by the gods. She belongs in hell with the rest of us. Do you not read your own holy scripture? What do you think they do with nephilim in heaven, bird brain? You think they let them exist as they are?”

Keigo was silent. That had been what he was led to believe. That their half angelic souls resided in heaven. That they were given the same treatment as any god-made angel. However, Dabi was right. The scripture did state that hybrids between man and the celestial were not natural. However anything beyond that just fell short from his memory.

“The pages were missing, right?” Dabi said, seeing the turning wheels in Keigo’s head creaking to a stop as they were met with an impasse. “Ripped out of every version in heaven and earth. Trust me, I know. I know because I’ve been there- and you know that I was. You work for my father, after all. I fell because I wanted answers no one could provide. The gaps in memory. The rules that didn’t make sense. The missing information. It’s all in hell, bird brain. I know everything your daddy wants to keep hush hush.”

“Why would the creators do something so demonic?” Keigo asked with a huff, his feathers relaxing the tiniest bit. “What purpose would that have?”

“What purpose?” Dabi scoffed, “What did my father tell you about this girl? That heaven needed her for the apocalypse? Do you always believe everything you’re told?”

Keigo stared at him with a blank expression, unsure of how he should answer. Why would Enji lie to him? Why would anyone lie to him? Again what purpose would that serve? He was clearly growing frustrated.

The demon knew exactly how Keigo felt, because he too had once been in his shoes. An angel trying to do the right thing. When would he learn that Heaven wasn’t always about doing the right thing? “Listen, Feathers, the reason she was able to live this long is because no one could find her. Her powers only recently awakened and when they did it was like a homing beacon for everyone above and below. She’s more powerful than the average nephilim because of her lineage.”

“Who is her father?” Hawks asked, tired of the run around. “If he is so powerful then why could he not find her?”

“He kept her secret, no one knew she existed until a week ago. Why they sent you, bird brain, I’ll never know. Maybe my dear old dad just enjoys using his little soldier boy to do his dirty work. Maybe you’re just so naive and eager to believe their lies that they thought you could be trusted. What they didn’t count on was me.” Blue flames sprouted from either of Dabi’s hands. “If this is such an important mission, why not send the angel who sired her himself? Why not let him deal with it?”

Again, Keigo was quiet. Dabi did have a valid point. If something as big as the apocalypse was on the line, then why send a lower ranking official such as himself. “Who is her-”

The flames grew brighter. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? Angels that copulate with humans get dusted. They get thrown down to hell. But this angel is so powerful that Heaven wouldn’t dream of doing that. Who is the one angel that that could possibly be?”

His golden eyes widened, jaw slackening, “Toshinori Yagi…”

The urge to use her powers had been growing more and more prevalent in the back of her mind. She had lived twenty years without them, so why did she suddenly feel the need to use them at any time she could? Was it simply because of convenience? The thrill of teleporting anywhere in the matter of seconds was just so exhilarating. No more driving, no more waiting at the bus stop, and no more walking. Just pop in and pop back home, that’s it.

She had lived in isolation for most of her life without the need for others. True, up until a year ago it had been with her mother and at first the loneliness was suffocating, but now it was just simpler to be by herself. She didn’t have to explain why she could do the things no one else could. She didn’t have to worry if they were really an angel or demon in disguise to whisk her away. The only one she could trust was herself and that was the one person in all of the realms that she needed.

While she had conceded that not interacting with people was necessary, she did admit that it could be quite lonesome. She had found herself watching more and more romance movies as a way to surrogate that feeling of being with someone. Twenty years old and never been touched, what a joke. Virginity had been hammered into her brain since she was old enough to understand what it was.

But since that fateful encounter with the red winged angel and burn scar demon, she had found herself longing for companionship more and more. The demon had spoken incessantly about the things he would do to her, and at this point she kind of hoped it was more a promise. To her, her innocence was a curse that would haunt her until she could finally get rid of it once and for all.

She had been praying to her father at night for guidance, but she had heard nothing in return. Typical. She had never seen his face and didn’t know his real name. Heaven’s mightiest angel, my ass, she thought bitterly as she walked down the street to the convenience store.

Her mother had taught her not to trust neither angels nor demons. Other angels would kill her and demons would want her for more nefarious purposes, ones she didn’t have to think too hard to figure out. Maybe though, just maybe those things wouldn’t be too bad. Was it possible for her to fall into hell and become a half-demon instead of half-angel? She wished she had asked her mother while she was still alive. It was too late now though.

A sigh left her lips as she lifted her head. She walked past an alleyway where she could hear two men talking. She stopped abruptly, recognizing the voices.

“Toshinori Yagi…”

The name stirred something deep within her, she recognized it but couldn’t place who the person was. She blinked in surprise, having never guessed she’d run into the two after her randomly like that. Not after she had taken precaution not to use her powers and keep herself hidden.

Something stopped her from running away. Fight, flight, or freeze as they say. She stood still, watching them with a curious mixture of horror and fascination.

Dabi noticed her first, a smirk on his mismatched face. “Well, looky here. Guess we don’t have to keep combing the city any longer, bird brain.”

Keigo turned his head, eye widening when he saw her. She was radiant as ever, standing there with a dumbfounded look on her face. Clearly she wasn’t expecting to run into them either. Quickly his eyes snapped to Dabi, “Don’t you dare lay a finger on her.” He said through gritted teeth. His feathers stood on end once more, wings flexing as they tended to do when he got anxious.

“Please, I wouldn’t dream of it, Feathers. At least, not while you’re here.” Dabi said in a sly voice as he approached the nephilim in front of him. “Don’t you want to come with us, doll? Maybe decide who’s side you want to join? The one willing to snuff out your existence or the one that will make you more powerful than you can even imagine?”

Her eyes seemed to grow even larger at his words. Power? Did she want power? There was no denying that the small amount she had been playing around with since her gifts awakened had breathed new life into her. All her life she had felt as if she were going through the motions, not real thought put into anything she did. She kept her head down and kept out of sight, doing the same boring thing day in and day out.

Now that she could do so much more, she truly felt alive for the first time. It was amazing, euphoric even. She knew the gods would rip this power from her and dismantle her existence into nothingness. Were the demons any better though? What would they do to her besides a lifetime of torture? Of course, that was just what her mother told her. She had never had any contact with an actual demon, though she was reluctant to even trust what one would tell her.

“You can give me that?” She asked tentatively, her voice portraying her uncertainty. Dabi didn’t seem to take an offense to this as Keigo watched him with doubt.

The demon reached out, brushing her hair back behind her ear in a way that caused butterflies to erupt in her chest. “I can give you that and so much more.”

Suddenly Keigo’s hand was on Dabi’s wrist, ripping the scarred hand away from the woman before him. “Wait a minute, I deserve a chance for her to hear my side too.” He said, releasing the demon once he was confident that he wouldn’t touch his charge again.

“Settle down, I said she could decide, didn’t I?” He asked with a scoff. “Though once you know the full truth, I believe you may be more...accepting of my offer to her. After all, heaven would have her smote for simply existing.”

Keigo fell silent once more, his gold eyes piercing the half-angel. Her beauty was astounding, captivating him yet like a shiny object might a crow. He didn’t know what to think about what Dabi was confessing to him, but he did know that he would do anything to protect her. Even if that meant he had to fall from heaven to do so. He took her delicate hands into his. “Please, come with us.” His voice was deep and pleading. “I’ll keep you safe, no matter what.”

She quickly realized she had no will to resist him and found herself nodding her head. She took both of his hands into hers as she fell deep into his bright golden eyes. “What is your name?”

“Keigo…”

The three of them arrived at her apartment and she told them to make themselves comfortable. Dabi took the opportunity to tell her that the only way he’d be comfortable was if he were between her naked legs, but she chose to ignore the statement.

Hawks sat on the couch while Dabi took to the plush recliner. Their host was in the kitchen making tea for the three of them. “I have always heard conflicting things of what would happen to me if I were to ascend to heaven.” She said, speaking loudly enough for her two guests to hear her. “My mother would say one thing and then turn around and contradict herself in the same breath.”

Dabi was nodding his head, despite her inability to see it. Keigo was giving him a wicked side-eye. “So what have you heard, princess?” He asked. “Just so I can point you in the right direction.”

“Heaven wants me dead.” She said calmly as she entered the living room with a tray of hot tea and a small assortment of cookies. “However, also that angels were trustworthy and will protect me. My father loves me, but won’t respond to my prayers or give me some kind of sign that he even knows that I exist.”

She took a seat next to the angel as she poured herself some tea. “How can angels be trusted if they only want me dead? How can my father love me if he denies my very existence?”

The demon tutted, giving her a mock sympathetic look that she saw right through. “I bet bird brain here will tell you something similar. That you are important to heaven and that you will be reunited with your family there once and for all. The truth is, princess, heaven doesn’t just want you dead. It wants to see your existence completely erased for good. Nephilim don’t go to heaven or hell or even purgatory. The road stops completely for them. Only a god has the power to make a soul completely vanish, but I can assure that every single nephilim that has ever existed has wound up in the hands of one in one way or another. And that’s because they employ some idiot lower tier angel to guide them up there sooner rather than later.”

“You see, we’re only sent after people that are about to die. Your time on Earth was counting down the second we were assigned to your case.” Dabi said rather nonchalantly as he sat with one leg thrown over the arm of the chair. “So this here angel is trying to aid in your demise. You don’t want that, do you?”

Keigo was uncharacteristically silent. Was what Dabi was saying true? Would she vanish without a trace as soon as he took her to the proverbial pearly gates? He had never in his life been faced with such a terrible decision.

He had never felt enamored with anyone before her. The need to wrap his wings around her and shield her from harm felt like his most basic instinct at this point. No other charge had that sort of affect on him. And because of that, he was actually thinking of believing Dabi. He took the demons words in carefully, assessing them, and searching for any sort of dishonesty.

His heart shattered when he could find none. He knew in the deepest recesses of his soul that Dabi was telling the truth about what the gods would do with his little half-angel. Nothing was more terrifying to him than losing her.

“I am…” he almost choked on the words, hating himself for having to even say them, “in agreement with Touya- I mean, Dabi.” He said, correcting himself. “It doesn’t seem like heaven will be a safe place for you.”

She looked at him with warm and caring eyes, clearly seeing how much he was hurting. Many angels had empathic abilities, so it wasn’t farfetched to think that she would have them too. “Demons are supposed to be great liars, but even I can sense that he’s telling the truth.” She said, rather plainly. “But if I do choose him and descend into hell, then what will become of you? I do not want you to get in trouble for my decision.”

“I will go with you.” He said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the mortal world. “Tear my wings from my back and accept damnation with open arms as long as I could stay by your side.”

Dabi straightened himself in the chair, somewhat surprised by his confession. Was his arch rival serious in changing sides? Falling from heaven, transitioning from angel to devil, was an extremely painful process. Obviously, he had the scars to prove it. Keigo’s signature red wings would be ripped from his flesh and a creature that had previously never known the feeling of pain would know nothing but. Some didn’t survive the fall and instead descended into madness.

There was always a chance of something going wrong, however the demon kept it to himself for the time being. “I know how to take care of you two birds with one stone.” He said, unable to stop the twisted smile that graced over his mismatched features.

Keigo didn’t like that look, not one big. The nephilim next to him was also feeling a little weary, thinking that perhaps she should take more time in her decision. “What is it?” She asked tentatively.

“Feathers is not going to like it.” He said in a taunting voice, as if he were dangling something irresistible over their heads.

Keigo’s sharp eyes were narrowed with distrust. “Just spit it out, Monster Mash.” He said in a rumbling tone as one feathered wing flexed to wrap around his charge so that he could force her closer to him for protection. She moved so that she was sitting right against him, his wing enveloping her with his body heat.

“It’s time for you two to pop your cherries.” He said, grin growing even wider in the process. “And I’m going to be the one to do it.”

Masterlist || Request Rules

Tag List: @dabi-hates-fish, @hawksward, @httppariis, @kurinhimenezu, @sinclairsamess (comment/message to be added to the taglist to the final part or my permanent tag list!)

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nicelytousled · 4 years ago

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Dear Joseph,

[nicky x joe | oneshot | 1564 words | T]

There’s another world war on, and Andromache says their skills are best distributed widely. The world is a safer place, she says, when the sun never sets on them, so they split up.

Nicky misses Joe with his entire body. Thank God for the postal service.

alternatively read on AO3 here

Dear Joseph,

I hope you’re in good health. I’m safe, or as safe as I can be. I cannot say where we are newly stationed, only that our boots are no less muddy than they were a fortnight ago. On the way here I met a young woman, who called herself Elise and said she knew Booker from running correspondence to his paper office. She told me he was in good health, or at least not drinking himself to death, and I don’t know if she was tipsy herself when we met but she spoke of him with such fondness that I think she’s half in love with the man. She said, and I quote, that he is far, far too irresistible for a time of such résistance. I wish we were all together so you could tease him about it.

I pity the fool who falls half in love with you, Joseph. I know there is someone, or at least I like to think so because the thought amuses me, who has gone quietly mad about you. Someone who stands by your side in silent infatuation, because you are kind and enigmatic, and so very easy to grow fond of.

Yes, I pity the fool who falls in love with you. The fool who longs to keep a photograph of you in their wallet. The fool who wants to be in a photograph with you, so that in some small way they can always be next to you. The fool who writes you letters, and won’t give them to you but will imagine that if they did you might tuck one into the breast pocket of your uniform, so in some small way they might always be close to your heart.

I pity the fool who admires how you try to keep everyone fed and dry and in good spirits, even those you don’t particularly like. The fool who dreams of you as you stay up for nights on end, figuring out how to keep on living, not just surviving. I pity the fool who lends a secret ear as you sing under your breath, or as you tell stories and quote poetry, and who listens captivated when you recite the Qur’an. It’s a book whose words are meant to be spoken aloud, and you are a man made to speak them. You embody their meaning, you truly understand it all, and I pity the fool who prays that they might have been made just to listen to you.

I pity the fool who longs to be led by you. Joseph, you dance like you never had to learn. You dance like you invented every foot change, every rise and fall and dip and spin. I pity the fool who asks you to teach them to dance under the guise of impressing someone else, who makes mistakes on purpose so you might linger and correct them, who glances away so you might tell them to look back at you, who steps on your toes with their toes. I pity the fool who wants you to teach them to lead just as well, with the same kindness and patience and forgiveness. The fool who through some kind of osmosis wants to share your sense of justice, or your sense of humour, your self-assured nature and your steady hands.

I pity the fool who examines your drawings, a glimpse of how you see the world. The fool who longs to be drawn by you, to see how you see them, or simply to have your attentive gaze for a short time. The fool who craves your full attention so badly it hurts, so badly they imagine they will feel drunk with it when they get it. I pity the fool who sees how you take your time with things that are beautiful, who hopes you might take your time with them just the same.

I pity the fool who feels weak when you smile, or when you laugh, who forgets what to do with themselves as they watch you comb your beard in the reflective surface of a window. I pity the fool who wishes they were more like some of the men around them, abrasive and bitter, grown cold from watching the world unfold in every terrible way it can. The fool who wants to be like a man who has never loved anybody, who sees the world in black and white, give and take, desire and apathy. A man who doesn’t crave the clarity of being understood, who is seemingly incapable of being lovesick. I pity the fool to who's lovesickness you are both the cause and the cure.

I pity the fool who misses you when you are asleep, and the fool who can’t sleep for thinking about you. The fool who stays awake and imagines you lying with them, tracing the space next to them with their fingers like they can wish you into existing by their side. The fool who sleeps flat on their bedroll with their rucksack pressed against their back to mimic your body. The fool who reaches for you when they wake up and don’t yet remember where they are.

I pity the fool who wants to wake up next to you. Who wants to watch you get dressed in the morning, wants to watch your back disappear under your shirt, your fingers as you button up your trousers, the curve of your neck as you sit on the edge of the bed and put your socks on. I pity the fool who would like to get used to waking up next to you every day until the novelty wears off and bleeds into something old and familiar and safe.

I pity the fool who admires your hands, for everything they make and unmake, for the grace you have when you tie your shoelaces or snap your fingers or dismantle a rifle. The fool who touches themselves and imagines their hands are yours, and that maybe the places on their palms that are worn and callous match the places on your palms. The fool who in such an unsteady world craves solace and pleasure in your steady hands. They will come to understand what it means to be insatiable, hopelessly so.

I pity the fool who wants to kiss you, even when you are covered in mud and another man's war and ruin, even when you have not cleaned your teeth. I pity the fool who wants to kiss the inside of your elbow. I don’t know why but I can’t stop thinking about doing exactly that.

I pity the fool who is glad to have been able to stand in your sunlight for even a few short years. The fool who will sigh when you sigh as you talk of home, of your family and the food we will eat and how merry we will be when we’re reunited. The fool who wishes you would take them with you when this is over. I pity the fool who can only hope you will both still be here when this is over, who can only hope and doesn’t have the security of knowing. My love, I wish we had the security of knowing.

I pity the fool who imagines the space between you both, across a room or a field or a sea, and feels sick with longing. I pity the fool who wants to reach a point where they have been by your side for longer than you have been apart. I pity the fool for who time feels infinite whenever you are around. There is no such thing as enough time with you.

And I know I shouldn’t indulge in such self-pity, Yusuf, but I do. I cannot help it.

I miss you. I cannot help being a fool for you.

Maybe I imagine this mystery person, this admirer of yours, because I wish to be less alone in my foolishness. It’s less all-consuming to imagine someone else feeling what I feel, so for a moment I don’t have to bear it all myself. Maybe I’m just somewhat jealous that it’s not me who is by your side right now, standing in your sunlight.

I understand that recently your letters have been short for reasons you are not allowed to write about, and that's okay. I almost wish it was the same for me. The past few weeks we have had nothing but time and nothing to spend it on. Owen continues to be right, most of the time nothing happens. I’m sure that when something does eventually, inevitably happen and we must get back to work, that I will remember writing this and call myself a fool for wishing it so.

I’ve written the word “fool” so many times it no longer looks like a word. I’ve written this letter dozens of times over to get it right and I still don’t know how to end it.

I'm no good with endings, and neither are you. We're a pair, aren't we?

I want you to know that I love you, and that I think of you often, and that I know you love me, too. I want you to know that we are never really alone, Yusuf, even when we are lonely.

I hope this made you smile. I love you.

Yours foolishly,

Nicky

#the old guard #nicolo di genova #yusuf al kaysani #joe x nicky #kaysanova #nicky x joe #nicolo x yusuf #yusuf x nicolo #bird makes stuff

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writeblrfantasy · 4 years ago

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a king and his knight 2 | part 2

the knight of the tower, as she told him she was, explained the problem with the tower. it had been cursed to make her fight it at every turn, though she and her family had owned it for generations. the man who’d laid the curse had free reign of the tower thanks to it, she couldn’t force him out. thankfully he left her alone most of the time, disappearing to a corner of the tower she couldn’t fit into.

the knight needed to help her get rid of the man and lift the curse in order to win his tournament. “i’ll give you a portion of my riches if you help me,” the knight of the tower promised, and the knight vowed not to leave until he’d helped her. she’d attacked him because she was now wary of strangers and angry at everything, and she didn’t have time to waste with travelers or those who needed her help. the knight, though, was happy to provide his.

however, he sensed that there was something more to this than just the tower. if his tower was stolen from him, he’d be annoyed and a bit more coherent, but his fellow knight seemed almost scared. she wouldn’t stop gnawing on her lip, closing her eyes and sucking breath in, ducking her head to pray. she removed her helmet to reveal greasy and knotted blonde hair and dirt streaked across her face, bags under her eyes. the knight tried unsubtly to guide her to the nearby river to wash. he asked her outright what was wrong, why this meant so much to her, to get her distracted as they both washed. at least they didn’t have to worry about a water source.

she told him that the man who’d cursed the tower had kidnapped the woman she loved most in the world, a queen whom the knight had heard of. no one had heard anything about it because the woman’s domain was significantly smaller than all those around, and this had just happened in the past month, when the queen and this knight had gone away for a bit. no one expected them back for another few weeks, and it was too far to travel to ask for help. besides, this knight didn’t want to leave her queen alone. the knight would’ve felt the same in her place.

he also suspected that she had a sense of responsibility for her queen, that it should be her and only her to rescue the queen should things come to that. not every knight was in love with a monarch, but those that were were strict to themselves about protection and earning the gift of their monarch’s love.

“if you are a knight, why the crown?” the knight asked.

“she gave it to me when she was taken,” the woman said sadly, staring blankly at the water. “i wasn’t fast enough to take her back, but she tossed that to me and made me promise to keep it safe. her safe. i failed, but she still believes in me.” her eyes went dull and sad again, and the knight forced himself to wonder how it would feel to fail his own king. the heaviness and panic in his chest were enough to guess.

“we’ll get her back,” the knight said, touching her wrist to get her to look at him. she blinked back shining tears and nodded.

“do you have someone back home?” the other knight asked, probably to take her mind off of her misery.

“the king, actually,” the knight chuckled. his thoughts wandered, as they did every day, to his beloved. what was he doing right now? how much was he missing the knight? was he thinking about him nearly as often as the knight was about him? just picturing his face, closing his eyes and imagining the weight of him in his arms, sleeping on his chest, felt like a soothing balm to every hurt in and out.

the other knight’s eyebrows lifted and a ghost of a smile graced her face. the knight wondered how this could be the same fierce woman he’d fought. perhaps fighting was her way of distracting herself from her troubles. “really? tell me about him.”

the king was the easiest thing to talk about in the world. the knight didn’t realize how long he’d been rambling until the sun flashed into his eyes and he saw that it was sunset. he smiled, embarrassed, and helped the other knight to her feet. they’d been sitting with their feet in the river this whole time. it’d given him time to rest his leg, at least. she didn’t have bandages, but he tore a piece off his trousers and tied it tightly around the cut as a makeshift bandage.

“thank you,” she said, wiping her clean hair off her face. the knight had shared his soap. “i didn’t realize that i needed someone to talk to. i’ve been going out of my mind here, alone, with this stress. i didn’t know what i was going to do.”

the knight smiled. “you’re welcome.” they pulled their washed clothes back on and the female knight led him to the tower. she could go in it and occupy it, but it didn’t trust her like it had before. it could do anything to her. that was why having control of it was so important.

she provided him a meager meal of old bread and jerky, saying that the tower usually provided its own meals but those had been lost to her as well. they sat on the hard cold stone floor and ate, and the knight was too ravenous to care about the quality. “tell me about your queen,” he said. the woman was more reserved with her stories, but she clearly loved her queen just as much. though the queen hadn’t returned her feelings yet.

she described the queen’s beauty, dark skin that supposedly glowed in the sunlight and a smile that reached her warm brown eyes and welcomed anyone. she wore the grandest of gowns, beautiful flowing yellow silks, and the handsomest trousers and tunics in greens and reds and browns.

she turned the queen’s crown over and over in her hands, a silver circlet of leaves. her queen was fair and just to all, and the knight remembered the exact moment she’d fallen in love with her.

she’d come to the queen’s court from the tower years ago without a penny, seeking pity, any help at all, and the queen had smiled and taken her hand and promised that she wouldn’t let anything happen to her. this knight had known she’d do anything to keep the queen and her fair legacy alive, and she’d been sworn in as a knight that same day, earning money with the skills she’d developed as a young girl.

the knight couldn’t remember ever meeting this queen himself, though he knew his king had for trade and diplomatic visits. “she sounds lovely,” he said. “and you are devoted to her?”

“yes,” the woman said without hesitation. “utterly.”

the knight smiled at the familiar tone.

“you, however, sound more than devoted,” the woman said with a larger smile. “you sound utterly whipped.”

the knight laughed, happy to see the woman in a good mood. “so what if i am? for him, i’m happy to be.”

the woman gave him a spot on the floor to lay his bedroll, close to hers so that they could protect each other. the knight couldn’t sleep, expecting this mysterious curser to jump out at any moment, but with his sword clutched in his hand, he could eventually sleep. the woman appeared to have no problem falling asleep.

she probably stole any moment she could to sleep. this was her tower, and she would die defying the curse and defending it. she slept with that monster of a sword in her hand also. even though he’d beaten her, the knight would be scared of the woman sleeping with that in her hand and stay the hell away. not to mention her thick, chiseled arms and legs, her height, everything about her at first glance was scary.

they made it till morning with the only evidence of the man being some food stores missing, they began outlining an idea for getting the tower and the queen back. the woman had a fair idea where he was hiding out when not invading her tower, where he was keeping the queen. “there’s a series of underground tunnels a mile or so out,” she said. “you can easily get lost there, but if you can find your way around, you’ll be fine.”

“a ball of string,” the knight suggested instantly. the woman nodded and said they could buy some on the way.

the two knights packed their packs, trying to stow their nerves. the woman didn’t have a horse, so they shared the knight’s. the feel of her arms around his waist made him think of his king, and he forced back a pang of want. he asked the woman to talk about some of her favorite moments with the queen, funny stories, anything to distract him from his pining. god, he missed the king. he missed him so much.

think of those rewards. that loot. his smile when he sees them. his kiss.

and he did, of course, want to save the queen for her knight. would he be a chivalrous knight if he didn’t?

shorts taglist: @magic-is-something-we-create @missingpeace @lunarmoment

i am very tempted to draw some art of these two knights kicking ass they’re so cool

i am also DEFINITELY going to write a spinoff about these ladies

also shoutout to pax for giving me the idea to give this lovely lady a queen love interest

part 3 coming soon!! thanks everybody for reading!!

#writing #writing shorts #lgbt writing shorts #writeblr #fantasy writeblr #fantasy writing #lila's short stories #lgbt writing #lgbt character

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tazzytypes · 4 years ago

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Apocalypse: Sanctuary - Chapter 8

Hey guys! So sorry it took a bit longer this time to get a chapter out. As always I love hearing from you guys and every comment and Kudos keeps me going. Realy, your support, no matter how small you think it is, means a lot to me. This chapter is a bit slower, in my opinion, but I hope you all will like it!

Read on AO3 or see Masterpost for more chapters!

Em had decided to drop the investigation into the Geiger counter and focus on more productive investigations. The work schedule and manual from Mead’s closet would bear more fruitful and usable data, but it didn’t mean that moving from it was easy. Something about Stu’s death was off, they all knew it. Em knew about answer lay in that single page of shorthand gibberish.

Now they were in the library... her and Emily at least. Timothy was in a meeting. Langdon had the worst timing... or the best. Depended on what eyes you looked with.

A book sat in her lap, closed after she had read the last page. Dante’s Divine Comedy — she had meant to read it above ground but... well she had meant to do a lot of things. As the days went on the more worry she had over an idea of an afterlife. She was desperate for it and if, as an unbeliever, she was cast to hell, she’d much prefer to have an idea what torture she faced.

Frowning, her hand went to her throbbing leg. Em prayed her sewing skills were enough to mend the wound, small but deep. She had dressed it with some cloth from the towel she had bloodied and tied it in place with a ribbon. Most of the time she could hardly feel it, but one wrong move and she was hissing in pain.

Emily was doing some reading of her own, that of the more productive sort. She understood science much better than Em did and was having a go at the Geiger counter note.

“You know what I hate most about stories?” the brunette mused aloud after staring at the ceiling for a good twenty minutes.

Emily’s eyes didn’t leave her book, “What?”

“The ending.”

Her friend's nose scrunched for a moment before she turned to her, “isn’t that the whole point of reading? To make it to the end?”

“It’s sad,” Em sighed, “isn’t it?”

Em shrugged, watching her friend stare at the sky, “depends on the ending.”

“No... happy or not... it’s sad.”

Emily sighed, closing her book and stashing the note in her corset, “I think you’ve been spending too much time in your own head.”

“So have you,” Em reminded.

“Because I’m trying to figure something out.”

This piqued Em’s interest, eyes glimmering with the excitement of something new as she leaned towards her friend. “A mystery.”

Emily laughed and shook her head at the other woman’s antics, “you make it sound dramatic.”

“We’re some of the last people on earth... everything we do is dramatic as there is nothing to compare it to.”

“You’re eccentric, you know that?”

Em was starving for something new to investigate. Her mind needed a focus or else it would go into the worst places. “What’s the mystery, Miss Holmes?”

Her friend rolled her eyes but quickly turned to business.

“Venable is hiding something.”

“Venable is hiding a great deal of things,” Em noted, “that isn’t something new. So is Langdon, but that’s part of his job description.”

“Why the secrecy, though?”

“Knowledge is power.”

“But what is the truth?” Emily said, “we’ve been here for almost two years and all we’ve found out is when certain Wardens work and decontamination procedures and whatever else is in that manual.”

“Then how do we find out their secret plot?” Em asked, “preferably before we have to put that manual to good use.”

Emily rose from her seat and quickly made sure the library was empty. It wasn’t a particularly large library... about the size of the one at her high-school. She looked down every aisle before coming to sit back down, leaning in close to Em.

“Timothy and I are working one out,”

“Oh?” Em asked, raising an eyebrow.

Emily’s face flushed, “Not like that!”

“Don’t dash the power of a romantic subplot.”

“Did you always speak in poetry or have you finally gone insane?”

“I’ve simply lost my filter,” Em dismisses with a wave of her hand, “this plan of yours?”

“We need you to distract Langdon.”

El laughed, quickly quieting when she realized her friend wasn’t laughing along.

“That man would see right through any attempt.”

“He likes you,” Emily reminded, “why else would he call you to his office so often?”

“Bored cats will catch mice and watch them run around, barely surviving death for hours on end, just for their own amusement.”

“...so Langdon’s a cat.”

“He something far worse.”

Emily sighed, “will you help us or no?”

Em really didn’t want to tell her friend that she would be a hindrance to the investigation due to her injured leg. However, saying that would bring up more questions and she really didn’t want the girl to think she had completely lost her mind. Blackouts were one thing... homicidal urges were something else entirely. And the possibility of them happening at the same time? Not a cocktail she was willing to try.

“Your best bet is to observe his behavior and watch for patterns,” She noted, “find out when he’s distracted. You’re smart, Emily, that’s why you’re here.”

“So you’re not going to help us?”

“I want to live,” Em insisted, “the best I can do is keep silent while you two work. Venable’s already watching me like a hawk and she’d gladly take down all of us if it meant killing me.”

Emily understood her friend’s reluctance. Last time Em had a more hands-on role. She could take action if things went wrong.

“Don’t you want to know?” She asked, grabbing her friend’s hands and squeezing them, “knowledge is power, right?”

Em remembered her vision, Emily and Timothy laying on the floor while foaming at the mouth. Their eyes staring desperately at the sky as if begging god to spare them.

She cursed under her breath and pulled away from Emily’s touch, pinching her nose and sighing.

“Where do you need me to be?”

--------------------------------------------

By the time Timothy arrived Em and Emily had long grown bored of talking plans. In all honesty, the less Em knew of what they were doing the better it was. If she got caught there’d be nothing to pry from her. All that mattered was Em would make a distraction at the right time, pretend to search through his office while Timothy and Emily searched his room.

For now, however, they were content to play Heads Up and pretend the real world didn’t exist.

“Am I a pretty… lady?” Em asked. She was never good at this game.

Emily was sitting in Timothy’s lap, draped over him like a cat with her legs propping up on the armrest of the sofa.

“Would she be?” Timothy asked her.

Emily hummed, “I’m not sure.”

“Let me rephrase it,” Em proposed, turning to Emily, “is she my type?”

“Yes,” Timothy answered a bit too quickly, Emily giving him a look and shaking her head.

“But she has—” he tried to reason.

“But she doesn’t have—” Emily reminded, the pair staring at one another until they burst into laugher. Emily curled into Timothy, her head resting in the crook of his neck.

They were interrupted, as always, by a screeching of the library doors. Laughter halted in their throats, eyes turning towards the sound of feet on carpet as silence overtook the room save the small sizzling of melted wax meeting fire.

Mead appeared from the shadows of the room, arms crossed as she came to stand before them. Her eyes narrowed as she realized two-thirds of them had a piece of paper taped to their heads, something written upon them which she could not see.

She turned to Em with and sighed, “Michael wants to see you.

Not bothering to hide her annoyance, Em rolled her eyes and rose from the armchair.

“Who was I?” She asked the pair.

“Gwyneth Paltrow,” Emily said with a smile.

Em turned to Timothy and gave him a look. Her type? Really?

“Oh, honey,” She said, “bless your heart.”

Emily smiled and leaned in to whisper in his ear, “That’s southern for stupid.”

“You said Pepper Pots could get it!” Timothy exclaimed.

“Pepper Pots is a badass,” Em noted before turning to follow Mead.

“They’re the same person!” Timothy shouted, exasperated as Emily’s laughter echoed through the room. It only stopped when the door closed behind Em, sealing off the pair from the rest of the world.

“You have a—” Mead noted, motioning to Em’s head.

“Oh!”

Em laughed and took the card from her head, staring at it for a moment before turning to Mead.

“Do you mind?” She asked the woman, holding out the card. There were some things she’d like Langdon to not know, small as it may be.

Mead sighed, trying to sound annoyed as she took the paper.

“Half the time I don’t know what to expect with you three.”

“Have to pass the time somehow.”

“Who’s Gwenneth Paltrow?” Mead asked, opening the paper and turning it back and forth in her hand.

“Actress,” Em told her, side eying the paper and trying not to think of the dull ache in her leg, “always on about that crazy new-age stuff that makes no sense.”

Mead shrugged and pocketed the paper, “never was one for all that crap.”

“Me neither,” Em admitted, “only know the name because she got into some crazy cult shit.”

Her companion let out a barking laugh, an infectious smile crawling onto Em’s lip, “so did half of Hollywood.”

The woman showed no hint of suspicion towards Em. Then again, Mead was the type of person who knew how to control her speech and emotions until it was time to strike.

A familiar sound of a cane caught the pair’s attention as they made it up the stairs— tap-ta-tap, tap-ta-tap. Em looked to Mead, trying to read any emotion on her face. There wasn’t… something that wasn’t much of a surprise.

Venable’s face greeted them as they turned onto one of the many upstairs hallways. Em took some satisfaction in the momentary widening of her eyes as the woman saw them. The expression quickly straightened, lips pursed as Venable tore her eyes from Em and laid them upon her escort.

“Miss Mead,” she said, voice reminding the brunette of when her parents pretended they weren’t at one another’s throats just a moment before they sat down for dinner, “May I have a word.”

Mead’s only response was a subtle nod before she turned to Em, “you know the way.”

Em offered her a friendly smile, making sure it remained on her face as she walked past Venable. Her contempt was so easy to read.

“Have a good day, Miss Mead.”

-------------------------------

Langdon was standing by the fire when Em entered. It felt like he hadn’t moved since their last visit, affixed to the same spot she had left him with his hands behind his back. She took a moment to read the room as she closed the door quietly behind her.

There were no wardens in the room, meaning he probably didn’t see them in Mead’s room and that Venable most likely didn’t inform him of her suspicions. So Venable didn’t trust him… that was revealing.

“Is this another interview?” Em asked as she took a few steps forward. She imagined he already knew she was there, but her words finally forced him to turn and acknowledge her. A smile flickered to his lips as he turned to her.

“This time more of a social call.”

“Oh?” she said, a brow quirking up her forehead and a smirk finding it’s way to her lips, “Is that what you’re telling residents now?”

Langdon glanced to the floor, still smiling as he shook his head. Finally, he gestured to a set of armchairs facing the fire. She rounded them, taking the one on her right. Her hands rested on the back as she waited for Langdon to move.

His eyes were focused on her skirt, eyes slightly narrowed in thought. Her awkward gait was obvious to him, slight as the limp may be. Langdon didn’t note it, simply staring at the woman until she finally sat. Em did so with a sigh, eyes turning to the chess set that sat on a small table between them. It looked like he had been mid-game with someone.

“You play?” she asked as he sat next to her, legs crossing as he turned towards her ever slightly.

“On occasion. You?”

“I used to be good once,” She admitted with a rueful smile, hands going to straighten one of the knights, “but I haven’t played since I was a child.”

This visit felt different from the others. Langdon seemed almost relaxed, leaning back into his chair and hands free of any files. The fire crackled before them, making the world feel a little more quiet than usual.

“Why is that?” he asked. She felt his eyes on her but refused to look at him, occupying herself by fiddling with the pieces.

“My parents weren’t overly fond of spending time with me… though they pretended they did.”

“Perhaps I can reteach you.” Langdon offered.

Finally, Em’s head rose from the chess set. He watched as green eyes flickered between himself and the fire, never quite meeting his gaze.

“I’d like that.”

They set to fixing up the chess pieces, exchanging pieces that lay on the other’s side. He chose the black pieces and she took the white — she’d have to make the first move. Though, that wasn’t surprising when it came to conversations with the man.

“You’ve spoken a lot about your parents,” he noted, “what about the rest of your family.”

“Emotionally abusive father and a codependent mother,” she noted, “are a perfect equation for isolation. One that kept us from reaching out to others and ensured that my siblings would rarely return home.”

“You feared him,” he noted, taking a bishop she held out to him, “your father.”

“Fear,” she corrected, “present tense.”

“But the bombs—”

“Fear is illogical that way,” Em noted, “What about you?”

“Me?”

“What was your family like?”

Langdon paused, eyes betraying his amusement as he debated what he said next. A few details wouldn’t hurt.

“I was adopted by a family friend after my grandmother committed suicide.”

She didn’t apologize as most people did. Her eyes said enough. He expected the usual questions, the kind one would encounter in therapy. Em was debating which ones would be appropriate.

“Do you miss her?”

“Which one?”

“Either.”

Langdon sighed and placed his last pawn in place, “someone once told me that nostalgia is much nicer than true memories.”

“smart person,” Em noted, moving her first piece — a knight.

“She was.”

He was quick to counter her move, choosing to move a pawn near the outer edges of the board. The fire crackled as a log snapped in two, settling into the center of the fire with a rippling crack.

“I have to admit your quick thinking is intimidating.”

“Take all the time you need,” he reassured.

Her hands hovered over the board, fingers twitching as she ran through possible outcomes in her head. When she spoke, her voice sounded distant.

“So you can pick at my brain while it’s distracted?”

Langdon chuckled, moving a piece after she moved forward another knight, “Something like that.”

A comfortable silence filled the room as they got into the game, Michael’s movements quick while Em took more time to play out moves in her head.

“Are you sure about that?” he had taunted at some point, a devilish grin on his face. Em paused for only a moment. If she didn’t move the rook to take his bishop he’d have check in two.

“Fuck off, Langdon,” she laughed, moving the piece despite his warning. Her laugh was infectious as he shrugged his shoulders and moved another piece.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Langdon won, naturally. Though Em had a feeling he hadn’t played fair. His smugness filled the room, leaning back in his chair with an air of content at having beaten her. It both annoyed and amused her — like when her brother beat her at Super Smash Bros.

“Another round,” she demanded and he rose a brow, sitting up in his seat. He rose an amused brow and she shook her head. “This time we play checkers.”

“Checkers?”

“I lived in the south,” she reminded, ignoring a stare that displayed how much the man was judging her, “there were Cracker Barrel restaurants on every major exit. One was right across from the college dorms I stayed in.”

“So you’ve had a lot of practice.”

“Don’t worry,” she teased, “perhaps I can teach you.”

He smiled and put the chess pieces away as she pulled the checkers out from the compartment inside the board. She set them out and waited for him to make the first move.

“Can I ask you a few questions?” Em said as she quickly countered his move. He chuckled at the symmetry of her actions and waved his hand for her to proceed.

“Why was this place designed to fail?”

The way his hand hesitated over his piece betrayed his surprise, quickly recovering and completing his move. Her pieces clicked against the board as she countered, waiting for him to respond.

The blond straightened back into the iron mask he wore around the rest of the residents. “What makes you say that?”

Answering questions with questions. That was also a game she knew well.

“This whole place was designed on the tip of a knife,” She explained, balancing a checker on the tip of her finger, “We’re just waiting to lose our balance.”

To emphasize her point she allowed the checker to fall. It clattered on top of the other pieces she had stolen from Langdon.

“And what would you do to make it better?” he posed, lips pressed into a thin line.

“Do you want me to alphabetically or categorically?”

Langdon leaned back with a short barking laugh. He stared at her with what she’d almost consider pride… the cat’s favorite mouse. He waved a hand again, prompting her to continue.

“Whatever is easier.”

The board lay between them, game abandoned in light of a more interesting chain of events. She mirrored his actions, considering which point to bring up first.

“This place was built by the rich, yes?”

He nodded, watching her intently.

“Why the hell would the rich settle for unfulfilling cubes?”

“Those cubes—”

Em cut him off with a sigh, “have all the nutrients we need but not all the calories. An extreme coupon mom would have a greater quantity and quality of rations than we do.”

The blond prepared himself for a long conversation, leaning his head against a hand that was propped up on the armrest of his chair. She stared at him, waiting for a response.

“What else?” he asked with a sigh.

“The Cooperative put in place a NASA-esk water filtration unit, but couldn’t find a way to have a self-sustaining food resource?”

“You make it sound easy,” he noted.

“It is,” She stated, “Scientists already had designs in place before the bombs dropped.”

“This does nothing to prove we intended the worst,” He nearly sang.

“Then why do you claim there is a sanctuary more equipped for this? Why is that not the standard for all the outposts?”

Langdon thought back to his first interaction with the girl. Her first accusation. He should have known she’d be trouble from the start… but perhaps he could use this to his advantage. Leaning forward, he moved another piece across the board.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Em was intent to get to her thesis — the final blow.

“You intended this from the beginning — make people desperate enough to see their true colors then pick them off one by one.”

He chuckled, twirling one of her pieces in his hands and he shook his head and stared into the fire.

“Someone’s done their research.”

“Venable and yourself are the most openly condescending people I’ve ever met… you both think you’re so smart and with this crowd that’s mostly the case.” She said with a scoff.

Em took one of his pieces, then another, “you’re so pleased with yourselves that anyone with a brain can look right through you and see your intentions. No offense.”

“None taken,” he said with a smile, “…Mostly the case?”

“Timothy and Emily were chosen for their genetics. That’s the only good choice The Cooperative has made thus far.”

“Your care for them makes you blind to their faults,” he noted, “no offense.”

“None taken.” Em said, offering a shrug as she collected three more of his pieces, “King me.”

They lapsed back into a comfortable silence. Langdon lost and as she had expected he did so poorly, immediately challenging her to another game. That meant what she had said had some effect on the man. He sought to cover his fumble with conversation as they began the next round, asking about her observations of Outpost Three’s inner-workings.

Even that conversation came to comfortable silence, Langdon far more intent on this game compared to the last. Em stared at him when he wasn’t looking, too busy playing out moves in his head. His lips would twitch ever slightly when he thought.

“Do you ever feel lonely?” she asked him, playing the question in her head a few times before speaking.

“Lonely?” He echoed, voice distant as he finally moved a piece, “I thought we already had this conversation.”

The brunette sighed and stared at the pieces for a long moment as she ran through what to say next.

“Do you ever have that feeling that something is supposed to be there, but isn’t?”

He also took a moment to think, mouth open for a moment as he chose the right words to say, “I’m afraid I am unfamiliar with the emotion.”

“You’re lucky then,” She admitted, “sometimes it’s often claustrophobic in nature… like looking for a friend in a sea of thousands.”

“I thought you said you were content with your own company?” he asked, moving his piece to the other side of the board, “king me.”

“I am, but… I can’t place it. It feels different somehow.”

He looked at her, brows knitted together as he moved another piece, “how so?”

“It’s the same yearning I feel for a sense of purpose,” she said, shaking her head and speaking before she could think. Her eyes were on Langdon, but the man could tell she was looking at something past the physical realm. “But more specific. I yearn for someone or something, but I can’t place it’s… like I’m looking at it through a fog.”

“We all left things behind in the old world,” he noted, giving her his full attention “perhaps you are searching for something you lost.”

She sighed, “but reminiscing on such things is a fruitless task. Nostalgia is only healthy in small doses.”

“Nostalgia can be good.”

“Too much of anything is a bad thing,” Em noted.

“That it is.”

A buzzing in her head made Em focus back on the game before her. The sound of pieces moving made the blond turn back towards her, out of his thoughts and back into the current moment.

“What is it like?” Em asked, changing the subject, “traveling from outpost to outpost?”

“Is that what prompted your question?” he asked, sighing as he forced his mind back on strategy.

“In part.” She admitted.

“I’d call it a time to reflect,” he noted with a sigh, “but it’s hard to think when you’re keeping an eye out for cannibals.”

Em’s gaze turned to the fire, brows bunched together at the bridge of her nose. Venable had been right. She had somewhat hoped the monsters the woman spoke of would be nothing but fear-mongering.

“It’s only been a year and people are already—”

She cut herself off. Biting her lips and shaking her head, she chided herself, “no… that’s not fair of me to say.”

“Law was the only thing keeping humankind from its unlimited cruelty,” Langdon noted, hardly phased as he got yet another piece to the other side of the board. He was a quick learner. “The outcome isn’t that much of a surprise.”

Em was quick to change the subject, “What did you see out there?”

“Nothing pleasant.”

For some reason, he wished to keep the reality from her. Whether out of compassion or a desire to keep her ignorant, she couldn’t quite tell.

“I’d like to know,” she finally insisted, “Venable has only told us so much and we’re forbidden from leaving the premise… even with hazmat suits.”

Langdon nodded. He expected as much from the two women — Venable and Em. Pausing from the game, he gave her his full attention — turning in his chair and resting his elbows on the armrest closer to her.

“The trees are barren and everything is covered in thick green fog,” he said, slow and methodical as if he were trying to recall every last detail, “the animals have gone rabid or are in the very late stages of cancer. You cannot see the sun in the sky… an eternal night.”

“What about the people?”

“Killing each other for food or simply out of paranoia. Cancer and tumors are the norm for most.”

Her arms had come to brace themselves on the arms of her chair, knuckles white and jaw clenched. She stared into the fire but did not see it, darkness clouding her vision as she was sent back into that first day in the outpost. How many of those messages weren’t their last? How many survived only to face torment? How many had she abandoned in the wastelands?

“The children?” she forced herself to ask, forcing herself to look at him. His eyes widened every slightly before he glanced away, conflicted. She watched his chest rise and fall, his eyes close momentarily as he centered himself before speaking.

“On the way here, I came across a woman,” He told her, “A young mother, with two children. They were some of the unlucky ones who were far from the blast radius to survive the fireball, but… not the radiation.”

Em’s mouth opened every slightly in shock as she realized he was crying, a single tear breaking free and racing down his cheek.

He held his hand up, the other hovering over it and tracing up his arm as he continued to recall the incident before resting at his chest, “they were covered in tumors — sores. Their lungs were burned from the toxic air.”

With a clench of his fists, he fell back in his chair and refused to meet her eye, “After a few moments I realized that the child she was carrying in her arms was dead. She was begging for us to murder her other child out of mercy… she didn’t have the strength to do it herself.”

Em didn’t even realize she was crying until he turned to her. She stiffened as he reached out a hand to her cheek, cupping it and brushing away the tear gently with his thumb.

“Did you?” she asked, voice hardly above a whisper and his hand still on her cheek.

Blue eyes refused to look away from her, “Did I what?”

“Have mercy.”

An emotion she had never seen on him before tainted his features. It made his face fall, his eyes shine in a way that wasn’t pleasant and his lips part every slightly. His hand pulled back from hers and he turned away from her, closed himself off.

“No,” he finally answered, “I couldn’t bring myself to.”

Langdon felt regret… shame.

“I doubt anyone could.”

“Why do you cry for them?” he asked.

“I have nieces and nephews,” she said, “friends and—”

A frog sat in her throat keeping her from speaking. She waited a few moments before clearing her throat and drying her eyes, forcing the unpleasant emotion back from whence it came. After a few more breaths of unprompted tears, she spoke again.

“I’m sorry for bringing up a depressing topic.”

“Knowledge is power,” he noted, “and the desire of power is in our nature.”

Langdon cleared his throat as well before turning back to the game. It seemed both of them were content to pretend the last few moments be forgotten… for now, at the very least.

“What would you do to survive?” he asked her, waiting for her to make a move.

She sighed rather loudly. Naturally, he was using interview questions to take back the power he had relinquished for but a moment. Still made her head feel light like she had whiplash.

“What would I want to do?” she asked, moving a piece without much thought. Langdon was keen to take advantage, quickly moving his piece to take over it. “Or what I would actually do?”

He scoffed, “is there a difference?”

“Of course. I’d like to think I’d preserve some of my humanity — morality and the like.”

“But in reality?”

Em opened her mouth and closed it again. What would she do? So far she had certainly become more… adventurous wasn’t quite the right word. Admitting that, however, would be giving him and, in turn, The Cooperative more information than she was willing to part with.

“I don’t know,” she said, “It’s hard to know what you’d do until you are forced to take action.”

“You like to skirt around questions,” he notes, “despite my warning against hedging.”

“You want honest answers,” she reminded, “that required introspection — especially with these questions. It’s rarely linear.”

“How do you react to conflict?” he asked, sounding like he was reading from a list. Em wouldn’t be surprised if he had all the questions memorized at this point.

“What kind of conflict?”

He sighed, trying to be annoyed but failing as a hint of a smile let itself be known, “Your answers tend towards the circumstantial.”

“C’est la vie,” Em said with a shrug, moving a piece and watching Langdon frown as she captured one of his kings.

“It certainly keeps at least one of these conversations interesting.”

Em gave him a look, “is this a conversation?”

“We’re communicating, are we not?”

“You’re asking questions and I’m talking about myself for…”

She glanced at the clock in the corner of the room, “… an hour. Not much of a conversation.”

“Therapists would disagree.”

“You’re my therapist now?

He didn’t look at her, but she could see him smirk, “…of a sort.”

The brunette leaned forward in her chair, regarding him for a moment, “Then what do you see?”

Langdon’s head quirked to the side as he eyed her, “I see a woman who hides her insecurities behind bold and intelligent words… a philosopher without students.”

Em could only laugh, sparing him an amused but unbelieving look, “You give me far too much credit.”

“My records indicate you were quite introverted and withdrawn before,” he noted, “What changed?

“When you stare at death he does not care what mask you ware,” she told him, voice distant as if it was not her own, “so why bother with pretenses and polite society?”

“Why, indeed?”

They finished the game, coming to an impasse with two kings following each other across the board. Langdon rose from his chair and wandered over to the pitcher of water from before.

“You care for some?” he asked.

“Yes, please.”

He turned to her with a Cheshire grin, “what happened to polite society?”

“Born in the south, remember? We mind our P’s and Q’s and say ‘bless your heart’ instead of ‘go to hell.’”

“I hear it’s quite pleasant this time of year,” he said, turning with two glasses of water.

“Hocus Pocus,” she noted.

“A staple in my house during Halloween,” he noted, a sad smile coming to his lips.

She rose and took a step forward as he approached her, hand extended to take the glass from his hands. A thankful smile turned tense as too much pressure was placed on her bad leg. After sitting for so long, she had forgotten it was there. She leaned back on her good leg and regulated her expression.

Langdon didn’t seem to notice and she pulled back and carefully lowered herself into the chair, waiting for him to move and do the same. Placing the glass on the table beside her, she turned to make a comment about a third and final match only to find him crouched on the ground.

Red coated his fingers, a small puddle on the ground the size of a silver dollar. One of her stitches must have torn. Of all the timing…

“You’re hurt,” he noted, looking up to her, “where?”

“Oh,” she tried to write off, “it’s embarrassing, but I think that’s— “

His eyes were deadly as he stood and stepped towards her, a growl in his throat, “we agreed not to lie.”

With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, Em lifted up her skirt to reveal the comically small injury that sat three inches above her knee. As she feared, unbinding the bandages revealed the stitching had come undone.

He kneeled down in front of her, hand hovering over the wound. “What happened?”

She tied the bandages around it, resolving to cauterize it later as she knotted the ribbon extra tightly around her leg. Langdon retreated as she threw her skirts over it once more, obviously not wanting to let the incident rest or for her to leave his office without treatment.

“A fucked up side-effect of conditioning.”

Langdon sighed, “this is why I said—”

“I’d be better off acting on my anger?” she snipped, “oh, yes, I remember. You were quite insistent on that point.”

Em averted her eyes, staring past him and into the fire with venom. From the corner of her eye, she could see Langdon sigh, shoulders falling ever slightly.

Her shoulders tensed as she felt a hand upon them, finally turning towards Langdon as she realized he refused to pull away. He wanted to speak, she could tell that from the way his lips pressed together. Why was he speechless? Langdon had a response for everything.

Green eyes couldn’t look away from him— his knitted brow and the frown that marred his features. His hand rose to her cheek and all she could feel was her heart beating in her ears as the heat rising up her neck. His thumb ghosted under her eyes, over the tired circles where tears had been not even thirty minutes before.

This strange and witty woman… why did she have such an effect on him?

Hands curled around the back of her neck as he moved her hair from around her face. The pieces she had pinned back had begun to fall from their confines.

His fingers pulled her forward, thumb hovering under her chin. She felt like she was under a spell, unable to move. Did she want to move? All she could feel was her heart trying to force its way through her chest.

She smelled sweet— lavender and earth overwhelming him in the best way. His eyes flickered between her mouth and her eyes, his neck craning to the side as he felt her breath on his face.

Then, she suddenly tensed. Breaking free of the spell, she pulled back�� jumping off the chair and past him to the door. She had let her guard down and… she didn’t know what to feel. The hammering in her heart told her to run, but—

“I’m leaving,” She whispered.

Langdon took a step towards her, a hand outreached. He moved as if he were approaching a wounded animal, slow and tentative.

“The interview isn’t over,” he said, hand coming gently around her wrist.

“Yes,” She growled, realizing something that made her steel herself against him and tear her hand from his grasp, “it is.”

“This could forfeit your place—” he began, cursing himself as he realized how he sounded.

“So be it. I don’t care.”

She tried to open the door and his hand went instinctively to keep it from opening. He needed her to understand. He needed—

“I’m not here to hurt you,” He all but pleaded, “take a seat.”

“…You’re right—” she finally said after a moment. His grip on the door loosened and a smile of relief came to his face, tenseness leaving his body.

The door slammed into his head as she threw it open. With a grunt of pain, he fell back and gripped at his head. When he looked up a satisfied smirk was on her face, the door blocking her body from him like a shield.

“— My anger is best used outward instead of inward.” She said, disappearing back into the hall. By the time he stumbled to the door and threw it open once more she was gone… like she had never been there in the first place.

The thought of that terrified him.

---------------------------------------

Em was… well, she wanted to pace, but the newly cauterized wound on her leg would have protested too much. So there she was, seething on her bed. Her hands dug into the comforter, pretending it was someone’s throat.

At least this time she had been sure to put away her knife first. Then again, the now blistering skin took care of any destructive and impulsive urges she may have.

She had been blind, the desire for having her life mean something clouding the reality of logic and fact. Langdon wanted her to depend on him. He wanted her to think she was special. Em wasn’t. She was an average person with a tragic childhood. A dime a dozen case.

Coco probably got the same treatment. They were both single and desperate to survive, desperate to be wanted. Langdon weaponized sex.

… But that wasn’t what it was. Not to Em, at least. It was vulnerability, understanding, trusting someone with—

He was playing with their emotions. All their emotions. Part of her was willing to be strung along. Was certainly an easier route.

With a sigh, she hung her head in her hands. She didn’t know what she wanted anymore. To live or not to live… wasn’t that the fucking question? She was supposed to graduate this year, get a shitty job with shitty pay, and live in a shitty apartment. It’s why she had sacrificed so much, stayed in a less than happy place in the hopes that one day—

A knock at the door pulled her from the spiral. Straightening her back and clearing away her misty eyes, Em turned to the door.

“It’s unlocked,” she informed the person on the other side.

“That’s new.”

Emily’s head pocked through the door before she slipped inside, closing the door behind her after checking her six, “You didn’t come to finish our game.”

The bed dipped as she took a seat next to the brunette. Her worry was transparent on her face, lip quirking to the side and eyes focused on Em’s face as she waited for the woman to say something. “We were worried.”

Em could only shake her head, “I can’t do this anymore.”

Though her eyes were focused on the floor, she could feel Emily’s hands cover her own. A familiar squeeze curling around her hand.

“We’ll make it through this,” Emily assured. It did little to convince Em. No matter what the brunette did, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being on the wrong path.

“And then what?” she couldn’t help but ask, teeth gnashing with every word, “we leave here and play the game somewhere else in some mysterious sanctuary or play Mad Max as we slowly die from cancer?”

For once, Emily didn’t have a retort.

“I can’t live like that anymore!” Em hissed, finally turning towards her companion, “My whole life I’ve lived one day to the next just to say I made it another day. I can’t! I— “

Her companion could only stare at her friend, mouth open but no words. What could she say? Emily hadn’t much thought about what would happen next, the cost of living. It was quite like what doctors faced, wasn’t it? Determining whether quality of life justified the means to the end. What was the future when they faced the end of the world?

Em shook her head, “I just can’t.”

#michael langdon x reader #michael langdon x oc #michael langdon #ahs x reader #ahs x oc #ahs #ahs apocalypse #ahs fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction

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incorrectsmashbrosquotes · 5 years ago

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Reflections of the Demon King

*A bit of a character study of our favorite Demon King. Please enjoy!

This was submitted by @ganondorfthedarklord and we worked together on it. Thanks bro!

Within his personal quarters did the infamous demon king spare glance at tapestry and relic, art and artifact. The Gerudo who stood an immortal king had lived millennia, his memory stretched far and vast, and pieces of himself could be drawn to a time before time itself existed. He was draped in soft scholarly robes over metal boots, black etched over with gold as he allowed himself a moment outside his conflict. As fingers slid across the stitching of textiles from his own time, preserved through extensive magics of his own making, he began to settle into contemplating that long past, back to his youth, considering how he came to be as he was now.

Fingers drifted from art that depicted his home to things far more personal, a wooden mug, roughly carved from a solid chunk. It was not something fit for a king, it was rugged, uneven, but fit for his enormous fingers and shaped comfortably. Even now he recalled the day he received it…

One year. Only one year had passed since he had been crowned King of the Gerudo, and already dozens of the desert tribes had fallen to his might. Some called him the Witch King, others the Dark Master. In the end it didn’t matter to Ganondorf what he was called, so long as they fools knelt before him.

On this day, the one year anniversary of his kingship, the leaders of the tribes he conquered presented him with gifts. Some were extravagant works of gold and silver, others were wickedly sharp weapons. He had received little else, save for a few scrolls containing spells of which he already had mastered. He was mentally dividing up the gifts, intending to use them for more useful pursuits than gathering dust on his shelves, when he was interrupted from his thoughts.

“Your Majesty?” came a shy voice. Ganondorf turned to see a little girl, no older than eleven summers, standing near him, nervously shifting about. She was of the Jabari Tribe, one of his conquests, but there was clearly Gerudo ancestry in her features.

“What?” he questioned, dutifully keeping his voice neutral.

“I… I know that… that I have nothing worthy of you… but I wished to give you a gift anyway.” she said. Without another word she presented a simple wooden cup to him. The Dark King took up the offering, examining it critically. The rough hewn wood was nothing to show off about, but it had obviously been carved with care.

Ganondorf turned to the nervous girl and spoke with clarity something he had never said before.

“Thank you.”

As Ganondorf drank from the cup he inwardly chuckled at the memories of the odd looks he’d received from nobles due to his use of this cup. He never bothered to share the story of it, they had been unworthy to hear it anyway. Simple yes, but it was his. He shook himself from such thoughts and returned his attention to the tapestry before him.

His time before his ascension was a mystery to many, but he remembered it well. He had been born to a young she-warrior whose name he had never learned. It had never truly seemed important really, she had died birthing him after all. Nor did he know his father, save that he was a wandering Hylian Knight who had been taken by the Gerudo for a short time. In truth he had been a child of the Gerudo Tribe, rather than any individual. They had forged him into what he was. They had taught him to stand, to strive, to slay. What need of traditional parents had he then?

Upon his thirteenth summer the wisest and strongest of the Tribal Elders, Koume and Kotake, had taken him into their hands. He knew that they had loved him, but it was not a gentle love. It was a cruel love, hard and sharp like a sword. They had turned him into a weapon of magic and steel. No mistakes had been tolerated, and any he made were punished harshly…

“Fool of pup!” screamed Koume at the prostate child before her. “You are to be King of our people! A savior! And yet you continue to make mistakes that a brain-envenomed Goron wouldn’t make!” she shrieked in Gerudo tongue.

“I… I am sorry, Elder Koume.” he ground out.

For that she blasted him with dark fire that etched into his skin. He took it silently, malice building in his gut. “Never apologize you weak pup! Kings do not apologize! They simply are!” Ganondorf stood, feeling the aches in his muscles. Something was building inside him. Something ancient. Something terrible.

Something very, very, angry.

“Perhaps then, it is your fault.” he said, not fully conscious of his actions. He only knew that what was inside him NEEDED to be free. “Perhaps I make mistakes because my teacher is a wretched, ugly, weak, PATHETIC BAG OF DUST!” he thundered. The world seemed to fade around him, his nose picked up the faint burn of ozone in the air.

“You- you wretched-” Koume never got the chance to finish her sentence as Ganondorf loosed a beast’s roar, and with it a bolt of solid black energy from his mouth. It smashed Koume through solid stone.

With that he fell to the ground. The last thing his senses could grasp before losing consciousness was Kotake walking up and standing over him, a broad smile on her wizened face.

“Finally.” she said.

After that his strength grew in leaps and bounds. He learned every spell his teachers knew, practiced every martial skill his tribe could offer. His nights were consumed by scrolls and books, filled with the sciences and philosophies of the wise and powerful alike. He became voracious, seeking every scrap of knowledge and power he could find. Soon he towered tall above all his peers in both body and mind. The many scars of his pursuits were left untouched, he took pride in the growth drawn from each cut.

The path forward had become clear to him. To be free one must have power, to have power one must be intelligent, one must be strong, one must be cunning, one must be willing to utilize that which was necessary. To be a true sovereign one must be able to overcome all that could question him, and in later ages which he had not yet reached he would come to include the gods among those who must be overtaken. He would learn self-reliance as the only reliance. For then he still prayed to the gods to better his lands and strengthen his might.

Perhaps the only person who ever truly knew him beside himself was his second, a young Gerudo girl who had managed to sneak into his training sessions during that age. For a time, she had been a trusted and wonderful companion a few years younger than himself, sharp of tongue and mind with strength that could hold longer than any other of his kin against him. Such trust was misplaced, he would later learn, as she was not as loyal to him as her own ideas of the Gerudo, and over time their visions of the future would irreconcilably divide. She hid her betrayal well, and it had been wrenching to learn of this treachery.

It was first with hope that he approached Hyrule, while he had long studied the history he was yet young and naive in all practical sense. War had long existed, but there was perhaps some potential for a more peaceful progress. He soon learned the truth of the Hylians.

They were a soft people. A people made weak by wealth and plenty. Their King was nothing like what a king should be. He was like his people, soft and weak. A sorry excuse for a monarch. And slowly,steadily, Ganondorf became angry. These weak creatures hoarded and hoarded all they could, unwilling to share with his own. The so-called blessed races which infested the mountains, fields, forests and hills shared in the plenty, but his own were outcasts in the desert wastes.

His fury could not truly be described. Soon he realized that the only way forward was domination. Control. Conquest.

Ganondorf began with his native home. He turned the Gerudo people from warriors to soldiers. He forged them as they had forged him. An army was born. And one by one, the tribes of the great Southern Desert fell to his rule.

His rule was not as stable as he had anticipated. He was far more young and ignorant than he had believed of himself, his older self understood. That passion, that fury, had not yet been as under control as he had believed and in frustration he made many mistakes which further destabilized his rule. He may be proud and unrelenting, lacking in regret, but one did not grow so powerful without correcting where one faulted or erred.

He had tried a measured hand, but the pride of the tribes he conquered refused to be denied. He was plagued by little rebellions, internal conflicts, and assassination attempts. Slowly he applied more and more pressure upon his conquered peoples. Blood and steel became the law of his rule, but he never went further than what he deemed necessary. For every ten rebels he executed with a swift and brutal hand, another thirty were cowed into submission. He came to realize an important truth: Men do not fear swords. They fear Monsters. And so a monster he became.

It was that philosophy that finally led him to the Triforce, and to Hyrule’s conquest.

But it was in his seventh year of rule and conquest that his greatest failure came. His confidant and friend had betrayed him. Only through his mothers did he even allow suspicion of her, allow himself to question her. It should have been obvious, but he had been blinded by the trust he had placed. Such a mistake he would not make again, and he swiftly discovered another most trusted servant had never been on his side at all. It was rare any saw what he did not, such mistakes boiled in his veins and he cursed and spat. Steadily, rather than the support he had intended, he had lost ground.

Defeat was long and it was attrition combat which finally wore his powers from him. He had total confidence in himself all throughout that fight, he needed to, for he was to conquer the heavens themselves, he had brought Hyrule to heel, he had taken their most sacred relics and children were all that faced him. He did not see the gods behind them, and he fell into his hatred, let it control him in ways he would not allow again so easily.

Many foes had claimed he did not feel as man did, could not see as a person, but something almost all failed to realize is he empathized greatly with those he slew. To manipulate as he has one must truly understand those they are using, and he did not ever act without reason when he had sound mind, but he was ruthless and ceaseless, endless, eternal in his conquest. It was not without consideration that he would end a life, rather he considered each greatly, but of comparison to his goals there was little to decide. Zelda herself had done similar such things in her battles to bring down his reign.

Ganondorf set his sentiments from the ancient past aside and beheld the present as he rose, though the mug never left his hand, to the bright stained windows which peered into the realm beyond. He saw out into the era as it was. Here he stood outside of his time and realm among countless beings of differing origins beyond his own. Such ripe pickings, such choice pawns and pieces, and the most loyal of servants of all time did follow him again. There was much that had happened here. He deliberated on it as he drank deep of his liquid caffeine.

Ironic, that one of the beings who most spent her attention upon him was a goddess of light in her world while the other a powerful witch, one of not insignificant strength and deeply wrapped in darkness herself. He had hesitated to call the bonds shared with them love at first, despite the deliciously debauched acts they participated in, but competition as the two challenged him deeper into the embrace was ever driving, as was his passion. As tightly controlled as it may be, upon release his passion was consuming and he was one to fight in every battle before him, even ones of affection. Those bonds developed much further than he had ever anticipated.

This established, none of the trio possessed the same beliefs, the same ideals, and he well knew they would often come against him no matter how pleasing their time together. It was refreshingly pleasant, though, to take this occasional escape from his constant war. In a way it reminded him of his youth, rejuvenated him. Such bright passion was not as common in him these days, the flare of heat was appreciated. The joining of flesh also produced something he had wanted but not anticipated finding before his final victory — children.

An heir was something Ganondorf long sought despite his immortality. While there had always been many who sought him it was difficult to find one capable enough, enticing enough, powerful enough for him to even lightly consider the idea of truly bedding. He had first come to have a biological one, and he managed two such children with the first of his mates, the witch, but they had not joined him in his cause. The first had become a beacon of justice in his own world, making himself a symbol not unlike Ganondorf himself. The second had trodden a path similar to his own, rebellion against authority and the divine. Although his actions were far more… altruistic in their motivations.

But despite their difference in goals he was still proud of both of them. However, no matter his pride, neither could be his heir.

Then whispers had reached his ears of another child. One so like him yet so very different. A child filled with rage and darkness. A devil in the making, soaked in the blood of genocide and betrayal. He had sought out this child, and the little demon had been everything he had hoped. And so he had his heir. From this child he would forge a scourge upon the Sacred Realm itself. All of creation would one day tremble before this creature… this Angel Fallen Underground.

Ganondorf once more returned attention to the ancient mug as he considered his relations and reflected upon the state of his kin. He would never admit it, but it had been gutting to see what had become of them.

The last and yet living king of the Gerudo was a man well out of time, he had long recognized. Life changed around him, the Gerudo were long dead; while others might question him of the statement they had died millennia ago. What remained of them was a corpse mutilated into something he cared nothing for. Gone was their savage strength, their terrible will. They had been… domesticated by that wretched scourge that was Hyrule.

Independence had died, rebellion gone, their leadership had been gorged out and replaced with one far too similar to that of the Hylians. Worse still they now served under the family of Hyrule. It disgusted him to see such proud resistance fall into line beneath the kingdom he fought. The only value of it was the idea of resurrection, he had forged it once, he could forge it again in the crucible of blood and steel. The world had indeed changed, but never was it to benefit him lest he force it.

Ganondorf contemplated the future, turning from the window toward his maps and plots where much was yet to be subjected and subjugated to his influence.

What still stood before him was Hyrule, and with it the Triforce. It remained difficult, but to him there had never been such a thing as the impossible, merely heightened and difficult obstacles to overcome. Even fate was one to be taken and conquered. Once he finally wretched these things from the gods and their champions he would have all in hand. From there he could forge all existence as he desired. From there he could remove the thrice damned gods from their thrones. They were his truest of enemies, and such cowards they were to hide from him in the heavens behind their champions.

Though he rarely spoke such words he truly respected those two ceaseless opponents, both nearly as stubborn as himself. The princess could meet him in wits, the boy in swords, and though separate they could never defeat him they could gather quite the remarkable forces to lead against him together. Each piece of the pair impressed him. He would have to overcome them alone one day, and he would not have it otherwise. For him his victory must be complete and then he shall be able to end all who would stop him. It must be total, eclipsing, and it shall be, no matter how long it takes. He has lived countless centuries, he can take countless more. Existence will cease before he would do so.

The mug disappeared from his fingers in a mix of black and purple flames, off to a safe location, as did the soft cloth which had cloaked him during this time alone. Donning armor of war made of dark metal detailed in gold and cloaked with crimson beneath fiery hair, the time for contemplation had ended. The time to act neared, he was to convene his forces and prepare for it. Nothing would ever stop his march, only delay, only slow. Fierce fangs glinted in a smirk formed from devious designs taking shape. The giant pair of metal boots moved ever onward to a faint, almost silent, rhythmic click. Always forward.

Because for Ganondorf, forward was the only possibility.

#incorrect super smash bros #super smash bros #incorrect quotes #submission #Smash Bros #Ganondorf #Nabooru #Bayonetta #Palutena #Joker #Captain Falcon #Chara #Legend of Zelda #Kid Icarus #Persona #F-Zero #Undertale

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drawlfoy · 5 years ago

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Friends p.1

masterlist request guidelines

pairing: draco x slytherin!reader

request: yes! thank you!

summary: draco and reader break up. slytherin family vibe with blaise, pansy, and theo. will they get back together? hmm probably because this i have a mad crush on him

warnings: nothing new from what i’ve written before. maybe if i’m feeling crazy i’m gonna add some makout scenes but idk i write these before i write the story like an irresponsible woman

a/n: this is actually really ironic because i’m starting to feel a little unsatisfied with my own relationship and realizing that it’s probably not going to last into college like we want it to because the distance and length of time is unreasonable, so i’m starting to peel myself away from my fantasy of spending the rest of my life with him since i don’t think it’s feasible, and plus, a part of me really wants to be set free so i can live for no one but me and travel and not be tied down and everything, but i can’t live like that forever. idek guys i’m listening to angsty songs for this fic and it’s putting me into feels. so enjoy this fic as i’m literally writing Y/N as me right now oops

music recs: don’t wanna be your girl by wet, the predatory wasp of the palisades is out there to get us by sufjan stevens, sweet disposition by the temper trap

word count: 1,755

“A break?”

The words left Draco’s mouth like they had been ripped from his throat.

“Yes, Draco, you heard me,” Y/N told him gently, her own eyes welling up with tears. “We aren’t...good together right now. I feel like...”

Y/N sucked in a shaky breath.

“I feel like I’m not treating you well, and I just feel so afraid of commitment, and it’s not you, it’s definitely me, it’s just that...”

Another shaky breath,

“It’s just that you deserve so much more than what I can give you right now, and I don’t... want you to resent me. I care too much fo-for you.”

There. It was out--the musings that had bugged her for so long, they had finally been solidified. There was no going back--no taking a shower and trying to brush it off, no crying it out alone and then pretending like it never happened, no crawling right back into his arms and kissing up his jawline, praying that the shows of affection would dismiss her feelings.

Before Y/N could manage anything else out, her eyes began blurring with the thickest layer of tears she had ever felt. It was uncontrollable, and while her poker face had years of experience, nothing could stop it.

“Oh, no, oh, no,” Draco began murmuring, stepping forward to gently cup her face. “You’re already so much, princess, please don’t cry, please don’t cry, we can work through this.”

His thumb began wiping away the tears that were cascading down her cheeks, but that hardly helped. Y/N could see his own eyes shining with the limited light in the common room and felt her heart break once more.

“Please stop touching me,” she whispered. “You can’t fix this. Only I can, I just need time, and if you want to...”

A sob caught in her throat, but she swallowed and pushed it back, just barely.

“If you want to see other people, that’s okay, I’m just such a mess and I need to figure it out...”

She had never seen Draco so hurt before as he pulled his hand away from her face, quickly wiping his own tears away.

“You’re sure?”

Y/N began shaking. She never thought that he would jump so quickly at the offer to date other witches, and oh, merlin, did it hurt.

“Yes,” she managed. “Yes. I hope you know how much I love you.”

She didn’t know what to expect. A part of her hoped that Draco would wrap her up in a hug and tell her that he loved her too and that he’d always wait for her, but instead, he just stared at her. She swore that she could hear something snap inside of him.

“I want to still be friends,” Y/N pushed. “I don’t want you out of my life, I love you, and I can’t imagine my life without you...You just deserve the world, and I can’t give it to you right now.”

This wasn’t real. Y/N felt like she was acting this out with him, like in a moment they’d both snap out of it and offer comments on each other’s acting skills, but once she saw Draco lower his head into his hands and heave, she was hit in the face with the fact that this was reality and she had just immeasurably hurt the love of her life.

“Can I be alone?” he asked between strangled breaths.

Y/N couldn’t take it anymore. She turned and ran to her dorm room.

♥♥♥♥

“Oh, no, Y/N, sweetheart.”

Pansy’s voice was paired with a pair of gentle hands on her shoulders, steering her towards her bed.

“I did it.” Y/N sniffled and wiped her runny nose with her sleeve. It was gross and would’ve made her cringe in every day life, but this wasn’t every day, and she was desperate for any comfort. “I told him how I felt, and he sat there, and now he’s crying out there, and now I don’t know what I’ve done, and oh my god what if I didn’t want this and what if I want him back and what if I’ve ruined this for us because it’s all my fault and it’s my problem and it’s me who’s the problem and he’s always so perfect and so good to me and it’s him who has to hurt because of my own mistak-”

“Y/N,” Pansy interrupted. “I understand if you want to talk, but it’s just making you feel worse.”

Y/N began to sob harder. She’d fucked it. She had completely fucked it. She’d thrown away her shot at getting married to not only someone she loved to the end of the earth but also someone with perfect circumstances--parents that adored her, an amazing trust fund if anything goes wrong, and such an attractive face.

And she’d just ruined it.

Pansy waited for Y/N to wail one more time before she wrapped her arms around her friend and rocking her back and forth, brushing her hair out of Y/N’s face.

“Y/N, Y/N,” she cooed, wiping away her tears just like Draco had done moments ago. Tears pricked at the brunette’s face as well as she watched her best friend sob her heart out. Out of all the people at Hogwarts, Y/N was the least deserving of this amount of pain.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Pansy instructed her after about ten minutes of Y/N’s hysterical sobbing. “Come one, up you go.”

Pansy hugged her one last time before dragging her to her feet, tugging at her robes and pulling them off.

“I think this calls for some old sweats,” Pansy told her, going through her drawers in search of the baggy sweatshirt and fuzzy socks Y/N often wore when she studied for exams. During her search, she came across a particular oversized sweatshirt with the name MALFOY written on the back. Hoping that Y/N didn’t see, she shoved it under the rest of the clothing in the drawer. Y/N didn’t need that right now.

Locating the green sweatshirt, she held it out.

“Come on, change out of it. I’ll be right back, I need to get some things for you. Don’t go anywhere!”

Y/N nodded solemnly, flopping back on her bed to change into the ratty sweats.

♥♥♥♥

Pansy dashed down to the kitchens, praying that no one else would be out to see her like this--her hair undone, her robes ruffled, and her mascara smeared. She had a short conversation with a house elf and snatched a plate of cookies that she nearly dropped when she spun around and slammed into someone.

“Blaise?” she asked, covering the plate to seem a little more mysterious.

Out of all the people. why did it have to be Blaise?

“Hey, Pans,” he said, his deep voice a little shaky.

“What brings you down here?”

“Oh...you know.” Blaise shrugged and shifted uncomfortably. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Oh, er, I’m sure you’ve heard about Y/N and-”

“Draco?” Blaise’s interruption confirmed her suspicion. “Yeah, I know. I’m trying to get him some food to get him to be quiet for one second. He’s been crying like a baby ever since he came into the room.”

“Same with Y/N. I’m bringing her cookies and praying it’ll calm her down some.”

“I never saw this coming. I don’t think Draco did either.”

Pansy nodded,

“Yeah. I guess the unexpected tends to happen, though, yeah?”

That didn’t make any sense, you’re not a poet Pansy scolded herself.

“I should get going and make sure Y/N is okay.”

“Me too. With, er, Draco, I mean.”

The two parted ways, Pansy sprinting back to her dorm room. What if Y/N wasn’t there when she got back? What if she was writing overly emotional letters to Draco and seconds from sending him? Oh, no, she couldn’t let that happen.

♥♥♥♥

Y/N was splayed out on the bed when Pansy returned, her face cleaner and her body still.

“Y/N? Y/N?”

Y/N sat up groggily, wiping her eyes and smiling sadly at her.

“I brought cookies,” Pansy said, setting the plate down on her bed next to her. “I’m here. For anything you might want to talk about.”

“Okay,” Y/N responded. “Can I tell you what I’m worried the most about?”

“Of course!”

Pansy leaned forward and grabbed Y/N’s hand, squeezing it encouragingly.

“Well, I told him that he could see other people,” Y/N told her. “And I guess I just assumed that he would immediately say that he wouldn’t ever do that to me and that he’d wait for me as long as I’d like because that’s the Draco I fell in love with but he just...”

“He just what?”

“He just asked me if I was sure!” Y/N’s voice had been calmer when Pansy had first entered the room, but now it was shrill and panicked. “Oh my god, oh my god! He’s going to date other girls! And I’m not ever going to be into someone as much as I’m into Draco--as much as I was into Draco--and I don’t know if I can see that happening!”

A fresh batch of tears overtook Y/N as she keeled over, letting go of Pansy’s hand and instead wrapping them around her midsection in an attempt to calm herself.

“I messed up so bad, Pans,” she gasped, swaying back and forth. “I messed up so bad. I never should’ve done this.”

“I know you probably don’t want to hear anything about him,” Pansy began, “But I saw Blaise while I was getting these cookies. He says that Draco was crying nonstop in his room. I don’t think he’ll be dating around any time soon.”

Y/N only sobbed harder.

“Hey, hey,” Pansy began again. “He cares about you! That’s all this means! He just cares a lot. And he isn’t going to stop right now.”

“But how do you know that?”

Pansy didn’t know what to say.

“He didn’t tell me it back.”

“What, girly?” Pansy sent Y/N a look of concern. Y/N had stopped rocking and was instead staring at her hands.

“He didn’t tell me he loved me back.”

Y/N curled up into a ball on her bed. Pansy was at a complete loss for words. A part of her knew that there was no combination of words out there that would make her friend feel better. All she could do was be there for her, whether it be physically or mentally.

With that, Pansy laid down next to her, wrapping her arms around her friend and holding her as she cried.(a/n: this is literally the exact moment in my life where i began to realize that i’m probably not 100% straight. i have such a crush on the pansy that i write wtf)

final a/n: okay so i’m stopping it here so i have an excuse to write this to be longer. i might do alternate endings, one where the reader ends up with pansy and one where the reader ends up reconciling with draco because oh my god my sexuality is suddenly being very questioned right now lmao. i can’t believe this happened in real time while i was writing a fic

#draco #draco malfoy #draco x reader #draco imagine #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy imagine #harry potter #pansy parkinson #pansy x reader #blaise zabini #slytherin #ravenclaw #hufflepuff #gryffindor #severus snape #pansy imagine

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monkey-network · 5 years ago

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Good Stuff's Best of 2019

WARNING: Just wanted to say cheers to you for making it through another year. I send you best wishes for next year to be fruitful. Thank you, take care out there, and enjoy. (Best of 2017) (Best of 2018)

Dedicated to Russi Taylor, John Witherspoon, Rip Torn, Tartar Sauce, Caroll Spinney, Peter Matthews, and the many of KyoAni lost in the arson incident. You all did wonderful; rest in peace.

Welp, I figured the last year of this decade would be the most chaotic one by far, then again everything peak after 2012. As for now, I am counting down the best cartoons/animations/comics I’ve seen and loved this year in no particular order other than #1. Same rules apply: No sneak previews of future projects, no repeats, and this time anything goes.

Runner Ups: Superman Smashes the Klan, Marvel’s Aero, Infinity Train, Enter the Florpus, Amphibia, Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart, Helluva Boss, Meta Runner, Lego Movie 2, Forky Asks a Question

Anyways, Badda boom bang whiz, let’s do this shizz...

10. Super Mario Bros GT

Nostalgia can be quite a mystery, especially one that can come out of nowhere. Super Mario Bros Z kicked so much ass as a kid that now, it still frustrates me to this that it got a cease & desist from Nintendo, even the reboot from the same person couldn’t last long. But the gods have offered a slight miracle in the form of this new spiritual successor that has heart and soul put into every pixelated frame. There is much to celebrate with Youtube animation, where many say it’s dying due to the algorithm and all of the site’s corporate bullshit, but it’s stuff like this which helps me understand why we should celebrate. Against all odds, channels like Smasher Block willfully put their works out their for the people and continues to because on top of getting a little dough, it’s what they want to do.

9. DC SUPER HERO GIRLS (2019)

Awwwwww yeah, this is She-Ra and the Princesses of Power done right. Diverse female squad, each given a quality screen time to truly shine (Beecher especially) on their which makes the episodes where they’re all together feel earned and joyous to watch. Certainly reminds me of Friendship is Magic, which is coincidental since they were created by the same woman. I’d like to think this and MLP G4 were the answers to Faust’s cancelled project Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls where multiple personalities collide to one extraordinary superhero team of girls capable great feats that are lifted from their insecurities or drawbacks. And on top of this being a fun series to kick back to all around, it’s a comforting, somewhat aspiring thought to consider.

8. JOKER

I am somebody that rarely goes to the theaters to watch a film; you have to hook my tight just for me to even think of buying a ticket, no less plan to. But honestly, Joker was worth the hype, the ticket, and the fact that it wasn’t the incel uprising that buttfuck normies tried to make it out as. It’s lower on the list because in thought, there definitely could’ve been some tweaks to the dialogue and a couple scenes that I felt didn’t work in the long run. But really, this movie to me worked because of the escalation that leads to a cathartic climax and ending that left me in actual tears. I don’t give a shit if it “doesn’t fit”, having Frank Sinatra sing the film's credits put me in shambles. Joaquin Phoenix was phenomenal as Arthur, and this movie felt authentic in its many details. This is definitely up there with my favorite comic book films of all time. Good thing, too, Spider-Man was taking up most of that shelf.

7. TUCA & BERTIE

This series being what I can’t help but say is a spin-off to Bojack Horseman, a show I respect, was enough to pull me into watching it. But it being like Bojack where it’s tight-roping between a bouncy comedy and a grounded drama was what kept me around for more. It is a damn shame this was cancelled after one season (while 13 Reasons Why gets FOUR seasons like what the fuck), because while this did feel enough like a complete series, I was certainly interested for more because I really enjoyed it all. I have my issue with a couple choices in the show, but I am sure this series would’ve addressed them later down the line. I can see why some women would find this personally endearing, it felt like the personal stories of actual people, and it deserved better. Either way, I enjoyed this series and I recommend it just as much as Bojack.

6. PRIMAL

Genndy Tartakovsky is that kind of cartoon creator where you feel he’ll go beyond if you give him the right amount of space. He’s not a perfectionist like John “Dirty Diddler” Kricfalusi, but with things like Hotel Transylvania and Samurai Jack, he certainly has proven to have the range in animation where you know how he plays. Primal showcasing his noted skill in dialogue-less storytelling and dynamic action scenes, able to convey everything clear with its ruthless yet careful protagonist and his dinosaur friend, all on top of the most luscious backgrounds. This is a series that definitely feels like Genndy’s taken what he’s used from his previous works and putting it together for a brutal yet passionate look at the prehistoric life. He truly brought us an adult series to enjoy and to look forward to more in the coming year.

5. SPINEL

Bet you didn’t expect a character to be on this list, eh? Spinel is the best thing to come out of Steven Universe in general; makes me wish she was in a better movie. The crew certainly did their darndest to make her not only an enjoyable and connectable character through and through, but a very versatile character that the fandom could take in any which way. Call it corny, but Spinel perfectly represents SU as a whole: a lovable goof that can certainly mean business but deep down is deserved of a hug because of what she’s gone through. Wish she had a more satisfying resolution in her respective debut, but really it’s the balance between those three elements mentioned that makes Spinel almost eternally wonderful.

4. MOB PSYCHO 100 II

As someone that doesn’t like reading, I’m a firm believer that the best animations or visual medias elevate the writing to a memorable degree; the visuals hook to the point where you want to think about what you saw and how it was conveyed. Mob Psycho 100, for two seasons now, does this in spades where Studio Bones throw them bones in animating one of the most dynamic animes of the modern era, providing the writing and characters a proper chance to flex its muscles. The characters are especially what makes this and MP100 as a whole work so well, the story being about a boy learning to be more sociable as well as emotionally stronger all while helping others understand maturity and empathy. For more on this, I recommend Hiding in Public’s video(s) on Mob. But with the animation, Bones was able to provide a sense of impact and immersion to the moments that matter, not making it an overstimulating mess, and putting some respect on ONE’s webcomic art style.

3. KLAUS

Hands down, this is a great Christmas movie. Take away the animation and you have a charming, wanna say ground and authentic, story about the makings of Santa Claus. With memorable and likable characters, a nice escalation in terms of the plot, and moments that are/can be so satisfying, they can bring you to tears. A couple overdone tropes in the road that doesn’t make this the most perfected story, but those sincerely minor compared to everything else that makes this story the best. Now. Add in the animation, and you have a gold, nay a platinum animated story of the year where the visuals definitely enhance the story to a degree where they’re undoubtedly inseparable. The visuals alone is enough to check this movie out and it’s eye-opening when you learn of how it’s all done. Klaus is a film that did it’s job and then some, and I hope this will be well remembered as a classic holiday film for it deserves that status.

2. BEASTARS

I’ll be fair, I’m mostly referring to the manga and not the anime but since the anime premiered this fall, it counts. Because be it the anime or the series overall, Beastars has such well intricate world building all while offering a little something for everyone (violence, romance, slice of life). The story is well paced and even when we aren’t focusing on the main characters momentarily, Itagaki is surprisingly able to make every supporting/side character we come across memorable in their own way; like I said before, the city is much a character in this story. Oh yeah, and the mangaka is the daughter of Keisuke “Grappler Baki” Itagaki, that in itself is a treasuring bit of trivia for this. Everything about Beastars is enticing and Studio Orange certainly helped in giving this series more of a following.

1. GREEN EGGS & HAM

Well, well, well. Guess Netflix is three for three in terms of bringing its best foot forward among its few steps back each year. The best term to describe this series is surprising. Surprising that this is a Dr. Seuss story that got expanded a 13 episode series, that has fleshed out characters, fun hijinks, an easy story, lovely emotional, more quieter moments... on top of being 2D hand drawn animated. I mean, what else is there to say? Green Eggs and Ham is to Dr. Seuss what Seven was for Final Fantasy, what Friendship is Magic was for MLP, what watermelon was before a nice menthol cigarette. This definitely took the top spot because to me, it was able to bring many good elements from the previous entries and knot it all together into a well kept bow that I never knew I wanted until now. I’m genuinely glad this show got to exist the way it is and I am hoping, praying, that the second season keeps that momentum up.

That leads us to the actual number one which is

1. STEVEN UNIVERSE FUT-

Total Dramarama is now the two time World Heavyweight Champion, babey. Will 2020 give us a quality contender? Will the streak last another year?

Stay tuned, and always seek out the Good Stuff.

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night-filled-mountain · 5 years ago

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I haven’t written about my D&D game in ages, and I’ve convinced my husband to run a session via Skype this weekend (one of our players lives out of state), and I have an absolutely terrifying staff meeting at work tomorrow, so I thought I’d pop up and ramble about this campaign to distract myself. 😛

My party consists of my own beloved, cheerfully morbid tabaxi puppet bard, Cadence of Rain (who speaks with an accent that apparently sounds vaguely Eastern European, even though she hails from what is basically Fantasy Mexico, because I...am not a voice actor); a lizardfolk sorcerer and bounty hunter named Kepesk, who does not tend to understand humor, sarcasm, or emotion in the traditional sense, but thinks life is better with his friends than without them; and Wyatt: human rogue with a noble background; cat burglar of middling skill; pretty, charming pansexual disaster; alternately cautious to the point of borderline cowardice and reckless to the point of blatant self-sacrifice; genuine yearner for a quiet, normal life as a tavern-keeper with a side job translating books; and ruler of my heart, even as I spend like half the campaign wanting to throttle him.

Wyatt is just...special, okay? He was the youngest son of an abusive family (I don’t know all the details of this yet, but he’s apparently terrified of his older brothers), and he ran off to make his own life in Waterdeep as a gentleman thief (and to entice charming folks into bed at every opportunity). At first, his parents grudgingly sent him a regular allowance, which made the thieving more of a hobby, and proved quite the perk to the less affluent bard and bounty hunter he eventually befriended. The three of us all moved into fairly upscale accommodations, plied our various trades, and enjoyed ourselves immensely. And then, after our found family had been together about a year (a.k.a. right at the start of our campaign), Wyatt’s parents decided to cut him off financially.

And Wyatt decided not to reveal this to Cadence and Kepesk.

Therefore, along with battles and mysteries and thrilling adventures, the early sessions of our campaign were rife with intra-party shenanigans as Wyatt struggled to conceal his newfound poverty. This became extremely difficult when we were given a straight-up mansion in Waterdeep as payment for a rescue mission, and set to work furnishing it and preparing to open a tavern on the first floor. Kepesk’s bounty hunting and Cadence’s puppet shows could only get us so far. Wyatt started trading on credit, flashing his family insignia ring here and there to accumulate more stuff for his family while his debt piled up. Finally, he resorted to some increasingly risky solo burglary heists, which culminated in his getting arrested, word getting back to Cadence and Kepesk, and Wyatt persistently evading their questions and refusing to explain the situation.

Cadence was displeased with this. Highly displeased. She expressed her disappointment in his lack of trust and stormed off to bed. Wyatt instantly concluded that she hated him now and did not want to be friends anymore. And his solution to this problem was to...open up to her? Confess everything? Apologize for his behavior and assure her that he saw her as family?

No. He decided he had to kill her a monster.

What resulted is one of the most nail-biting sequences I have ever witnessed in a D&D game. Dragon (Kepesk’s Role Player) went completely off-book; Kit (our DM, and my husband) had to scramble for ideas on the fly; and Unicorn (Kepesk’s player) and I basically sat back and wrung our hands while Wyatt stopped by a bar, enlisted the help of a former one-night stand who wanted to prove herself in order to win a place in the City Watch, descended into the sewer to hunt for glory or death--and almost suffered the latter at the hands of a goddamn darkmantle. Seriously, you can’t imagine the cinematic scope of this battle. It was all in darkness, and we barely knew what was going on half the time, but it was never, ever good. Long story short, Wyatt ended up unconscious, his NPC companion long quiet and presumed dead, until one lucky roll on the part of said NPC allowed her to burst out of the darkmantle’s hold, fatally run it through, dump a healing potion down Wyatt’s throat, and, wild-eyed and feral, drag both him and the darkmantle corpse back to civilization.

Cadence, who has a thing for taxidermy (a story for another time), was delighted with the corpse, if not entirely pleased to hear of the risks accrued in obtaining it. Wyatt drunkenly confessed all his secrets to her not long after. And the NPC, I hope and pray, is in the City Watch now, because gods know she deserves it.

#dungeons & dragons #d&d #dnd #cadence of rain #...this came out of NOWHERE but it was fun!!

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despairko · 5 years ago

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Radio Waves: A KomaHina AU

Description: Hajime Hinata is a nighttime radio announcer for a station that broadcasts poetry, but his life is stuck in a rut and he dreads coming to his job every night. That is, until a mysterious anonymous poet catches his attention with an unnamed submission and turns his entire life upside down. Chapter: 1/5 Word Count: 4,777 Archive Warnings/Rating: No archive warnings; suitable for all audiences

Read it on AO3

“Thank you to all the listeners who tuned in again tonight, may we stumble across each other again. Goodnight.”

The faded red broadcasting light blinked off, and Hinata let out a relieved sigh. The first order of business was to toss the clunky black headphones on the table. The second, he decided, was to leave as fast as possible. Still, he couldn’t help but to take a moment to throw his head back and slump down in his chair, burying his face in his hands and rubbing at his eyes. They burned a bit already from the hours spent awake, staring at the station-provided laptop screen, and he could feel the blood pulsing behind them, thudding fists on the walls of his vessels. He let his hands fall, stared at the white spotted ceiling and the dancing dots that colored his eyes, then shoved himself out of the seat with a start, using what seemed like all of his energy just to get himself to his feet.

His heart dropped as the door swung open. In walked his producer, a small, rounded man with cropped, greying brown hair and glasses that slide down his nose when he talks too vigorously, which he makes a habit of (much to Hinata’s dismay).

“Another successful show, Hinata!” He slapped his arm with an overwhelming amount of force, causing Hinata to stumble forward and bump into the table, shaking it. Without seeming to notice, he continued. “You always manage to read things just right. You really have a knack for radio!”

I don’t have a “knack”, I have 8 years of experience, Hinata thought to himself. His voice came out a low mutter. “Thanks.”

Without looking at the loud, imposing figure in front of him, he made a beeline to his bag, shoving in the laptop and beginning to dig for his keys. Beyond all hope, he prayed for his producer to leave it at that, say his goodbyes, and disappear into the next day like he was planning on doing, but his boisterous booming continued.

“You know, Hinata, we really ought to advertise this show more. I think we could pull in a lot more listeners. We could do a press tour, maybe a couple TV spots, hell, maybe even a billboard! Think about it,” he dropped his voice, conspiring excitedly. “Your voice, lording over everyone on the route into town in every town.”

“People don’t like poetry that much,” he murmured.

“But they could!” The producer slapped him on the back, still too hard and Hinata had to catch himself to keep from falling over.

He pulled himself upright, having fished his keys from his backpack and thrown it over his shoulder. “I don’t really want to do all of that. I don’t really want my face ‘lording over everyone on the route into town in every town.’” He shrugged. “I’m perfectly happy with how the show is going right now.”

As he said that, he knew it wasn’t entirely true. He hadn’t been happy in this god forsaken job in well over a year. If you do anything long enough it turns into sleepwalking.

The producer’s face stiffened slightly, the smile falling into a straight line. The creases on his forehead deepened, as did his tone as he said “My boy, you really ought to consider the future of this show. There are things you need to pay attention to.” His smile returned, but more cautiously. “Just give me the word, though, and I’ll get you everything you need!”

“Thank you, sir,” Hinata bowed slightly. “But I already have everything I need.”

Before the producer could wander into a minefield and step on another topic, Hinata rushed to the door and pushed his way out into the mostly deserted hallway. The corridor was lined with dirt, topped with fluorescents, and filled with the disgusting and visceral experience of both. The smell was subtle but somehow overwhelming, earthy and slightly sweat stained. He made his way to the fingerprint pocked glass doors at the front of the studio and pressed his way into the fading night. Slight hints of sunrise were already showing themselves over the rooves of the scattered cars in the parking lot.

Stumbling through the grey light, Hinata pulled himself into his car, jammed the keys roughly into the ignition, heard the old rust bucket sputter to life, and, with another tired sigh, drove off into the last clinging moments of the night.

The hike up to the apartment was marked by four infinitely steep sets of metal stairs, weaving back and forth across the hollowed space; a few lights buzzed along the walls, their posses of moths swimming around them dutifully. Hinata pushed through the fire door and rounded the corner, shuffling down the hallway to his front door. Unlocking it, he lets himself in.

He dragged himself over to his bed, swayed, then fell onto it with a soft thud. The springs sputtered. He slid his backpack off of his shoulders and dropped it over the edge onto the floor next to him, heard the thud of the laptop. Crawling further onto the mattress, he tossed the blankets over his body, and closed his eyes tightly, letting his head sink into the pillow. Thoughts swarmed his head, a low and indistinguishable hum with very few recognizable features. The most familiar of these was the one screaming how tired he is.

Still, his body refused to calm. He turned onto his side, then the other side, flopping onto his stomach then rolling onto his back, shifting his arms and legs in a dance with exhaustion that left him somehow more awake. Each turn somehow becomes more uncomfortable that the last.

Eventually he sat up and clicked on the lamp on his bedside table. The blackout curtains were doing their job, but a cool glow around its edge told him that the day was coming and coming fast. Frustration welled, hot in his chest. Checking the time, he saw it has been only about an hour, though that hour was poised as if swimming upstream and failing against the current, slipping slowly but steadily down the river anyway.

The beauties of the graveyard broadcast slot.

He leaned over the edge of the bed and pulled the station laptop from the bag, tossing it onto his lap. Shifting his body back, he leans against the wall behind the bed. A familiar screen greeted him when he swung open the lid. The viewer submissions page.

The station insisted that the best way to build a base of loyal listeners was to have most of the show devoted to their writing. Hinata, who had been seventeen when his job on the show started, had not considered how miserable of a task this would become. He supposed he’d been somewhat naïve in letting the producer convince him to become a co-host, and then a host, but it was money and he was at least decent at his job. He didn’t have a particularly special voice, but he was able to bullshit his way through most of the analysis, a skill he learned well in high school, and the audience (what little of it there was) seemed to buy it with blood. And those same listeners submitted poem after poem for Hinata to slog through. He very rarely saw even one that piqued his interest, especially after eight years.

He started at the top and scrolled through each poem, skimming most and skipping some entirely. Words blurred together; ideas spat at him indiscriminately.

He stopped. Leaned closer. Read.

All the stars in all the skies, their sparkling teeth, their glaring eyes,

stare down on all the little ants, point magnifiers, watch them dance.

Aloft the mountain, stare in glee as gods cast down magnanimity—

I await my turn in line, cast in either role I’d be fine.

- A.I.

His eyes hovered over the words. It was… good? Not great, not by any stretch of the imagination. But it was simplistic, lyrical almost. The last stanza is weak, sure, the rhyming is too simple and the word choice too direct, but there was something about it that made him pause. Something. Something. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he marked it as “Read on Air,” and continued scrolling.

Hinata woke up with his laptop still open, the screen black. It had died while he slept. He was able to get about seven hours of sleep after his late-night leisure reading, and he had a few hours until his next broadcast started. Struggling against the tangle of blankets, he rose from bed and put the laptop on his nightstand, plugging it in to the nearest outlet to charge.

While making breakfast, he found his mind wandering back to that poem. His listeners tended to be wannabes—they tried too hard, picked words and images that made no sense. They likened love to a spatula or pain to a straw basket. Hinata spent too much time with his nose in a dictionary because his listeners spent too much of theirs in a thesaurus. It wasn’t a great poem, it was somewhat enjoyable at best, and the author—A.I.—certainly wasn’t publisher-ready material, so why was it sticking to him?

He pondered this over his coffee, taking slow sips and watching his cereal slowly dissolve. His phone buzzed, snapping his mind back to the moment. He looked at the caller ID. Producer.

“Hello,” he started, his voice sticking slightly with the still lingering grogginess. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hello.”

“Hinata! I need you to come in a bit earlier starting in about two weeks. We have to discuss some things with the station manager, but he’s out of town on business until then.”

“Mmhmm,” he said, not registering the request fully. If he allowed himself to get frustrated about it now, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to say anything but a polite “fuck you” to this man, who just so happened to be his boss. Not a good look. So instead, he sighed and let his producer continue.

“Also, you need to select some more poems for tonight. We’re about six short.”

“I already went through all the submissions, I can just—”

“Pick six more. The listeners love it.” A lot more than the other shit you read. Okay, well fuck them.

“Alright. I’ll find some.”

“You can look at some of the submissions from the past couple days and pick from there, too, if you’re really pressed about it. We need to fill the air space.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t forget, two weeks. An hour early.”

“Okay.”

“You’ll get overtime pay.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t forget.”

“Alright, I won’t.”

“Okay, then, see you tonight for another great show!”

“See you then. Bye.”

The producer hung up, letting Hinata drop his phone to the table with a clatter.

“Now,” Hinata said, his voice my full and warm than usual. He let the character of the radio announcer take his place as he zoned out, sure to soon find himself wandering in an unfamiliar field of his mind, naming flowers he’d never seen before. He smiled, a red light blinking in the corner of the room. He remembered that his producer had told him as soon as he’d walked in the door that they would now be running a YouTube channel for his show. “To get a bigger audience.” Of fucking course, it was. The red glare let him know that people were watching, or at least they would be watching in about twelve hours’ time. He smiled because he had to.

“It’s time for everyone’s favorite portion of the show, user submissions. These daring people have graciously shared their writing with us, and I have personally chosen their works to be featured. As always, I’ll be reading the poem and giving my thoughts on it, then accepting calls from listeners who want to say their piece.” Hinata tried not to look at the camera, its glassy eye unblinking, so he instead turned to his laptop, the first poem open and ready for reading. “The first piece is called ‘Eye of the Storm’, by Ari Fukawa. Say, that name sounds familiar, I wonder if our author is in any way related to novelist Toko Fukawa? Maybe it’s a pen name. But, if the two are related, writing seems to run in the family. Without further ado…”

Hinata’s voice carried on without him, a skill grown from the labor of thousands of hours. He dropped to a whisper when the words felt small, and grew infinitely larger when they rose, like waves rocking to a steady lyrical tempo. He could understand why people enjoyed his reading, but he could always hear a hollowness in his own voice when a poem’s voice didn’t harmonize.

He finished his reading, letting the silence linger a moment. “Don’t hesitate too long,” his former co-host, Mori, had said smugly. “Don’t want them to think you died from how horrible it was.” Somehow, he had hated this show more than Hinata, and was gone within a year or his arrival. People initially held a lot of animosity towards Hinata, because he had dared to replace the show’s creator. The last thing he needed was an ego inflation, but when someone sent a lock of their hair to him and, in the same breath, threatened to bomb the station all he did was laugh and say, “That’s show business, baby!” It didn’t take long for the audience to forget him. Hinata’s youthful voice and sense of humor won them over without much resistance and, thankfully, no bombs. That’s show business, baby.

He sighed, easing the silence out. “Wow, what a piece. There were a lot of really unique details I noticed that the author used very well. Speaking of the author, let’s read the their submission notes.”

“’I wanted to submit this poem because my life has always felt like it has existed at the eye of a storm. Around me, everything is spinning out of control, and all I do is keep moving, taking in the chaos as I go. But at the same time, since I’m surrounded by chaos I can’t exist without it, and it’s hard to reach people when I’m surrounded by such a violent aura. I hope that I can hear your thoughts on this, since I’m such a fan of your show. Much love, Ari Fukawa.’ Well, thank you Ari, that is very sweet of you to say.” For a moment, his voice becomes more boyish and playful. Then, he sinks back into his smooth cadence. “And I think that your poem expressed this feeling very well. The motif of the storm…” his words even out, business as usual. Chaos, huh. It’s a good idea, strong, but way too well tread to be original, especially with how cheesy the whole thing is. It’s hard to take a poet seriously when they describe an infinite state of unrest with the phrase “kind of crazy, never lazy, a world of ideas foggy and hazy.” It’s juvenile. But the words out of his mouth, instead, are words of humble thanks. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, your writing, your creativity. Thank you for listening, thank you for submitting. Thank you for spewing your bullshit. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Poem after poem, the same empty thank you. Caller after caller with prewritten responses in order to sound smart, so many people calling in “anonymously” to compliment work that is “definitely not theirs” and call the author the next Homer or some fucking reach. It’s exhausting. But the smile stays on his face. For the camera. For the listeners. Mostly for the paycheck.

And his heart skips when he sees the next poem. An unnamed, anonymous submission from someone going by the initials A.I. He’d been looking forward to this. His breath caught for a moment, and he had to force it out. His mind stalled, unable to conjure the words to introduce the poem. In that moment, he realized he didn’t want to share it, he wanted it all to himself. But the silence was creeping up on him. Don’t hesitate too long, the voice echoed in his head. Fractions of a second were precious on the air.

“Our last piece is an unnamed submission from someone who signed their work ‘A.I.’” His heart wasn’t beating particularly fast, but he noticed every pulsing thud in every part of his body. Calm down. It’s not even that good. Just read it. “Thank you, A.I. You know, AI refers to artificial intelligence, which almost makes me laugh.” He forced out a light chuckle, trying to trick his body into relaxing. “Because the thing I noticed most about this poem was how human and honest it felt. But that’s for later. Let’s start by reading it.”

He stared at the words on the screen, letting his eyes dance between them. Suddenly, the letters became incomprehensible shapes, but still his lips moved knowingly. In a moment of unreality, he was sure he was losing his mind. It’s average at best! Relax. He didn’t.

When his tongue finally stumbled across the familiar final syllables, he pulled himself back to reality. He felt the redness grow in his cheeks, trying to stuff it down. Damn it, he scolded himself silently. I never mess up my readings. “Well, listeners, I think that for such a short poem it’s clear that the author has a lot to say about the nature of tragedy and loneliness.” His voice waivered. Get it together. “The structure is clean, and the imagery is strong, wouldn’t you say? The idea of distant, watching eyes—” he glances at the camera, then pulls his eyes back, shaking his head. “—creates a powerful image of an uncaring deity. Waiting to see you fail. You are next in a long line of disappointments. You are nothing to them.” Anger. Where is the anger coming from?

Breathe. Calm down.

What are you doing?

Calm down. Fuck.

He lowers his voice, trying to cool the rising temperature of his words. “It’s a… a strong… image… if somewhat weakly said.”

What am I saying? I’m not supposed to actually criticize the listener submissions. The producer had warned him not to be harsh on the listener pieces after one incident where the author had complained to the station manager and put the producer on probation for “failing to properly monitor content.” Not to mention that actual criticism keeps people from submitting again.

He could feel himself getting flustered and began imagining the worst. His breathing shortened, and the panic started to contort his face. He struggled against the growing tightness in his chest and swallowed, trying to clear the way for something else to say. Be nice. Say the nice things. Don’t mess this up.

“The, uh, the,” he cleared his throat again, and his voice evened out slightly. “The word choice manages to be both accessible in terms of level of understanding and complex in terms of how it’s used within the structure, though this falters a bit at the end.”

What. The. Fuck.

The little semblance of control he had begun to feel suddenly slipped loose; whatever rope that was tied to his harness had snapped. He was falling.

Stop talking, go to the phones. His experience took over, and he was able to cut in on his own mind. “Overall, it’s a great piece, thank you A.I. Let’s see what the other listeners have to say about it!” Click. A phone call, someone talking. Their voice is distant, muted, somewhere underwater. Or is he underwater? He slapped his hands to his face, feeling his hot cheeks. He closed his eyes to keep them from being open too wide, looking like a deer in headlights. He was aware of the camera, but he couldn’t lift his head out of his hands, afraid it would roll right off his shoulders. He almost wished it would. As the caller began to slow in their explanation, Hinata began interjecting more “uh huhs” and “mmhmms” to convince them that he was still listening.

He’s started to talk again, but he didn’t know what he was saying. Calls continued to roll in, and he picked them up, let them ramble, let them feel important, meanwhile he sat trying to zip up whatever dead thing he just awoke. He turned off the mic for a moment, just breathing, or at least trying to. By the time all his callers had worn themselves out, he had mostly regained his composure. Never before in all his miserable years at the station had he ever wanted to leave faster. By the time the producer had walked the two-door gap to the room and pushed open the door, Hinata had already sprinted out of the studio and burst into the cold dawn air.

Unsurprisingly, he got a call on the way home. He reluctantly picked up.

“Hinata!” the familiar voice boomed from other side, enthusiasm poorly masking a hint of anger. “Where did you go? I wanted to talk to you about your show tonight.”

“Ah, s-sorry, I was feeling kind of sick, so I wanted to get home.”

His voice lifted a little bit, though a hint of darkened doubt still hung over them both. “Oh, alright! Well, I don’t want you to make yourself sick, but that… last poem.” There was a pause. Silence was so rare with the producer. Being in radio, he was not a fan of dead air.

“Sorry.”

More silence. Flatly: “Whatever that was, never again.”

“Understood.”

“Good.”

The lights whirred by outside Hinata’s car. A few raindrops threw themselves on his windshield. He thought he could feel the steady rotation of the earth. He was hurtling.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Hinata. Get some rest.”

“Thank you, sir.” The phone line clicked. Dead.

Hinata looked down at the phone in his hand, watching the screen go black again as “call ended” faded away. He took a deep breath and tossed his phone into the passenger seat, looking up in time to see a red light.

He slammed on the brakes, his tires squealing and jerking against the asphalt, as yet another surprise greeted him. A garbage truck, much larger than his beat-up compact car, blew through the intersection.

It took him until he was lightheaded to realize he hadn’t been breathing. He felt the sweat slowly trekking down his cheeks. He forced himself to blink, consciously reminded himself to close his mouth, swallow, breathe. In the silence, he realized he hadn’t remembered to turn on the radio when he got in the car.

At some point while Hinata was asleep, the producer had uploaded the video of the show highlights to the brand-new YouTube channel, though parts of clips were conspicuously missing or dubbed over, specifically the last five or so minutes when he had lost his cool. Instead, there was audio of the conversation over unused footage from earlier in the broadcast. It was surprisingly well matched, especially since the mic frequently covered his lips. You almost wouldn’t notice it.

But of course, Hinata knew. And there was something else that he knew that no one else did.

The sound of his voice. His own voice. It sounded so different than the rest of the show so, to him, it stuck out like a rusty nail, though he doubted anyone else could tell. When he was reading the last poem, his radio voice had faltered. It was still smooth, light, expressive and interested, but it wasn’t Radio Hajime, it was him.

He sat in bed and closed his eyes, listened to that part of the broadcast over and over, trying to figure out what happened. It was a simple poem. Written well enough, but nothing special.

And why did he lose his fucking mind and start criticizing it? Nerves? He hadn’t been nervous on air in years, at the very least not since high school. But nothing like this had ever happened before.

A.I. Are those your initials? He turned the letters over in his head. Who are you?

A few more days passed with no incident, and no more poems from the mysterious author. Things returned to normal. The hours passed more and more slowly until they once again felt like a slog. The producer seemed more than happy to forget what had happened, and the station didn’t receive any complaints. Hinata, however, couldn’t help but feel like he’d scared A.I. off. It ached a little to think he’d lost a listener because of whatever was wrong with him that day. He pretended to be content thinking he’d eaten spoiled sushi that had temporarily made him lose his mind. What else could it have been?

That made it all the more jarring when, Friday morning, he woke up to another submission by the mysterious A.I.

He hesitated.

What if he hated it? Then he could probably move on and be done. But it would hurt. As stupid as it seemed, it would feel like a betrayal.

But what if he liked it? Or even loved it? Then it could happen again. And he couldn’t afford that.

He skipped the poem and continued reading the other submissions. He deleted some, selected others, set others aside for another day if he got desperate, until it was just A.I. and him, alone, staring back at each other on an otherwise blank webpage. He closed the laptop and set it aside.

The radio show went off without a hitch, but Hinata couldn’t get the poem out of his mind. Again.

He had to know. He had the weekend to himself, since a different (more popular) broadcast aired in his time slot on the weekends, so he could just read it and decide over the next couple days.

When he got home, he resolved himself to sleep, but once again found himself unable to stop the whirling in his head. This is ridiculous, he told himself. I should just read it and get it over with.

He yanked the laptop out of him bag, and it dawned on him just how much free rent this had been taking up in his head for almost a week, and he still couldn’t quite understand why. He propped the computer up in his lap and opened the lid. The submissions page was already open, as usual, and a few more had come in, so he had to scroll past them in order to get to the one he couldn’t get out of his mind.

This one, unlike the previous submission, was titled. The Lotto. A little cliché. He chuckled to himself. Maybe he had overestimated A.I. After all, he wasn’t a master. It was possible that the way he’d written was simply a fluke. As his eyes scanned the lines, he realized that he was wrong.

An oaken spine holds aloft my head, beneath the hourglass I’m led by hand to face his sunken form, embraces cold, misted breath warm. I skin the tree and peel its flesh, carve numbers in the space it left submit my lotto to the brook, for Earth to steal, a whimsied crook. He spends my riches, has them mugged saunters streets—dismal, drugged; skin caked in deluded mud and tree his oceans wander back to me. Roused anew by needled rain, coerced to carve my hopes again, return them to the current drift to give willingly a reluctant gift.

Fuck. He sighed to himself. It’s… it’s better.

He could still go through and pick it apart line by line, find things wrong, poke holes in its weaknesses. It would have been stronger with a more consistent meter, even though the syllables largely match-up between stanzas. The rhymes are relatively simple, as is the structure.

But what he couldn’t do was get his heart to slow down, or get his body to move, or pry his eyes away.

Until they drifted to the author’s notes.

Hinata,

Thank you for reading my previous poem on air and thank you for your honesty as well. Your opinion means the world to me.

With love,

A.I.

His fingers tingled as they hovered over the keys. What would he write if he could describe this feeling? A gentle acid, diluted within his own sweat, warm and swelling. The overwhelming physics of dancing atoms charged and drifting. The pin pricks of static, radio static doodling shapes in his brain. It was all bullshit. None of it made sense.

He marked it as “Read on Air,” rolled over, and drifted off to sleep.

#danganronpa #danganronpa fanfic #komahina #komahina fanfic #komahina fic #au #my writing #mine #just mute me bitch

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shera-dnd · 6 years ago

Text

Catra and Adora’s Tome of Love

That is both the longest I’ve spent writing a fic and the longest fic I’ve ever written, but here it is: D&D AU’s official Trash Wedding Fic™, because that is exactly what we all needed in preparation for the emotional roller coaster of the next season.

Very few people would be glad to spend their saturday running errands around a bunch of tents in the middle of the woods, but Glimmer was one of those people and she had good reason for doing so. Two of her best friends were about to get married and she would do everything in her power to make sure this would be the perfect wedding.

She didn’t know whose idea it was to make the entire ceremony D&D themed, but she both loved and hated that person. Loved because she got to rock a cape along with her favorite purple dress and hated because getting the outfits, decorations and renting the damn LARPing space, was a logistical nightmare that she was a part of from the very beginning. Curse her good nature.

Chairs were set, decorations were placed, food was tested - for legitimate reasons, of course - now she just had to check on the brides before they both instantaneously combust. She was halfway to one of the little dressing room-tents when she was stopped by the familiar voice of the GM calling her name.

She turned around to see them covered in a black robe, with a hood that covered their face. She tried to suppress a giggle at that. Well, it made sense if everyone was dressed as their characters then of course they would dress as the mysterious figure orchestrating it all “How do I look?” they asked and was that the wrong question to ask.

“Like you’re ready to stab a hobbit”

“That bad?” They sighed “Go do your thing. I’ll try not to disappear into the lake in shame before I have to officiate all of this”

“Ok then. If you see Bow tell him to go check on Adora” They just nodded and left. Now back to her original mission: Making sure Catra did not explode. She quickly jogged towards Catra’s tent and was greeted by the sounds of an angry Catra and a - mostly - calm Angella.

“Just calm down, Catra” She heard Angella say “The dress looks fine”

“Of course the dress looks fine. It’s my dress and I’m wearing it. That is not the point” Catra shouted back “The point is that this is uncomfortable and dresses are the worst”

“Then just put away the dress and we can find you one of those tuxes you like so much” Angella tried to bargain, but it would fail. Catra was in full aggro mode.

“Fuck you, this is my wedding and I’m gonna look like a goddamn fairy princess if I want to and I fucking want to”

Glimmer took a deep breath to prepare her nerves and finally walked into the tent. She found Angella trying her best to stay calm and collected while dealing with a Catra that was clearly nearing a meltdown “Boss, why don’t you go check on Casta? I can handle it from here”

“Ah yes, I should make sure she doesn’t dehydrate from all the crying” She got up and gave Glimmer a little pat on the shoulder “Good luck” she mouthed to Glimmer as she left. Great, now she was the one dealing with Catra losing her shit.

They both stared at each other in silence for a moment “So….how are you holding up?” Glimmer tried.

“How does it look like I’m holding up?”

Ok, bad start. She had to fix this mess “Catra, it will be fine. You-”

“No it won’t be fine. Have you any idea of in how many ways this could end badly? I do. I have been thinking about it all day” Catra shouted. Oh god there was no way to stop her now “It could start raining, I could fall and ruin my dress, my parents could show up. The list goes on”

Glimmer sighed “It’s gonna stay sunny all week, I’ve known you for five years and never seen you even stumble, and your parents don’t even know you’re getting married - which is weird and you should deal with that, but that is besides the point! - The point is that I’ve seen you and Adora salvage even the most absurd situations and if all that stuff does happen I know you two can handle it”

Glimmer didn’t even realize she had started clenching her fist mid speech, but it was adding the emphasys she needed, she wanted Catra to know how serious she was about her trust on her and Adora. So she was a caught a little off guard when Catra started laughing “Are you seriously pulling an ‘anime power of love’ speech on me?” Ok not the reaction she wanted, but at least she isn’t yelling anymore “Alright, Sparkles, I think I can handle it from here. Go check on Adora for me”

“Don’t worry, I had Bow check on her before coming here” Glimmer stated with certainty, but Catra’s raised eyebrow made her question that decision “Oh god, she is probably the one taking care of him now. Time to go save the bride, I guess” Catra laughed one more time, before turning back to her preparations. This was gonna be a big day and Glimmer would make sure it was perfect.

~~~

Catra may have had a meltdown or two or twelve in the last twenty four hours, but really who doesn’t have some of those before their wedding? This was all just a side effect of how meticulous and dedicated she was in every aspect of her life. She was clearly not just a pile of screaming emotions right now and maybe if she kept repeating all of this to herself she would stop freaking the fuck out. This was basically the most important day of her adult life and she wouldn’t let anyone get in the way of that, including herself.

She looked herself over in the mirror one last time. Even though she hated wearing that damn thing, she had to admit that she looked great in her new dress. Entrapta really outdid herself with this one. Turning a stealth uniform into a delicate wedding dress took some skill and the bouquet she was carrying didn’t look all that bad either, the flowers were chosen as a joke, but Perfuma still managed to make it fit everything else. Yeah, things were looking good, she didn’t have to worry so much about things, she would walk out there and marry the woman she loves.

Things stopped going according to plan the moment she stepped out of the tent. She was supposed to walk down the aisle on her own, but Angella was - for some reason - waiting for her, so she just lend her her arm and smiled like this was all part of the plan “What the fuck are you doing?” Catra whispered.

“Glimmer told me your family wasn’t gonna show up and I wanted to show you some support” Angella answered so quietly Catra could barely hear it. Catra was halfway through mentally listing all the possible insults towards Angella, but that had quieted her down.

“Thank you” Was all she had to say and continued to walk with her emergency mom.

Friends and family - mostly friends really - flanked them on either side. All dressed in RPG parodies of formal clothing, suits covered by capes, armored dresses and more pointless belts than a Final Fantasy character. They were all stood around them in no particular order, they were all great friends to the both of them so choosing a side seemed quite pointless - Adora’s twin brother, Adam, did sit on Catra’s side just to spite his sister - and atop the altar, by the lake, stood something breathtaking.

No, not the GM looking like they were ready to steal Kingdom Hearts, but a shaking, nervous Adora, trying so hard to look regal in her clothes and damn what were those clothes? That white and gold suit was already gorgeous, but of course Adora decided to be as extra as possible and just cover her entire right arm in golden plate armor. Catra could barely believe she was gonna spend the rest of her life with someone that beautiful and that dorky and by the look on Adora’s face she couldn’t believe it either.

After reaching the altar it took everything in her not to start crying immediately, but she managed. She was at least gonna get her vows out before breaking down in tears. “You may all sit down now” The GM had begun speaking “Dearly beloved, you’ve been summoned here today to witness these two nerds join together in holy matrimony” Catra could barely hear their speech, but knew it was probably snarky or silly, she was too busy looking at her beautiful bride in her beautiful suit and praying that this moment wasn’t all just a dream.

“I think you said you wanted to say your vows first” Adora whispered to her. Oh shit, did they get to that part already? Ok she practice this, she could handle it.

“A wise man once told me that ‘excellence is pure habit, we are what we repeatedly do’ I took that message to heart. Everything I did I put my all into it. My hobbies, my work and, most importantly, my relationships. Because being good at something and having a good relationship takes habit, takes repetition, it is something you have to practice everyday and everyday there has been nothing I’ve practiced more and that I’ll continue to practice more than loving you. Then if we really are what I repeatedly do, I promise you that for the rest of my life what I am, most of all, is this love I have for you”

She could hear Bow and Glimmer crying nonstop and could even see tears in Adora’s eyes. She wondered for a moment if this speech would’ve had the same effect if they knew the ‘wise man’ was a boss from a video game.

Adora had to take a few deep breaths to recover her composure and start taking her own vows “Hey, Catra” Adora began, getting a few laughs from the crowd and even from Catra “I’m not a good writer so bear with me for a second” she took another deep breath “Of all the dozens and dozens of campaigns that we played our characters always had one thing in common. We were always lost, no family or friends to help us and guide us through all the hardships in life, but they always had each other. In the end the only family they needed was each other. It was like this in Ravenloft, The Forgotten Realms, Halcyon City, Eberron and now it will be like this here. We’ll be there for each other through every celebration and through every hardship. This I promise to you”

Ok Catra could cry now, she really needed to cry now. Oh she was crying now and there was nothing she could do to stop it. “Are you okay, honey?” Adora asked her and Catra could do very little besides sob, so her answer was a little less coherent and controlled than she wanted “Fuck you! This is my wedding and I get to ugly cry as much as I want”

Adora smiled at her and Catra just wanted to cry even more now. She barely noticed Frosta approaching with their rings. Copper for Adora and Gold for Catra. Each matching the other’s color scheme. They were both shaking as they put the rings in each other’s hands.

The GM cleared their throat “If anyone objects to this union speak now-” She could see Adam getting up in the corner of her vision, please don’t let Adora’s stupid brother make a scene “and face one of the brides in combat” Adam immediately sat down “No one? Very well. Then by the powers vested in me by the internet I hereby declare you wife and wife. You may now kiss the bride”

It was a simple and chaste kiss, compared to all the others they had shared, but this one meant so much more. Their first kiss as a real couple “Are you feeling better now?” Adora asked and Catra could only nod “Good, let me handle things from here” She dipped Catra and gave her a much more passionate kiss. She was vaguely aware of the GM covering Frosta’s eyes.

“God, you’re so full of yourself right now” Catra said, laughing.

“I’m full of love” Adora punctuated with another kiss and now Catra had gone from uncontrollable crying to uncontrollable laughter.

“Come on, you dork, we have a whole day ahead of us” She straightened her self as best she could and looked into the small group of close friends and family “Listen up, who wants some Protection From Evil and Good?” she announced while waving her bouquet around and even though most didn’t get the joke, no one wasted time gathering close to the altar for a chance to grab that bouquet.

Catra turned around and tossed it with all her strength. Which was probably not a good decision, because it flew above everyone’s heads and straight towards Mermista. Catra wished she had a camera on her, both to capture the look of shock and horror on Mermista’s face and what she did next. Not even Mermista knew what kind of dumbass reflex took over her that moment, because she simply gave that bouquet the strongest kick of her life and sent it flying straight into the lake.

Everyone stood in stunned silence at what had just transpired. Mermista turning several shades of red as everyone stared at her in awe. “I’ll get it” Sea Hawk announced, taking off his shirt and diving into the lake. That was enough to turn the silence into rolling laughter. The crowd applauding as a very wet Sea Hawk emerged with the mostly ruined bouquet and a flower in his mouth for dramatic effect.

“I think Mermista and Sea Hawk just stole our wedding” Catra said, still in awe at the mess she just witnessed.

“Let’s go steal it back”

~~~

After the ceremony itself was done they had all retreated to a nearby ‘Authentic Old Inn’ that was one of the big selling points of this particular LARPing space. Catra had gone off to help with some last minute problems, while Adora decided this was a great moment to yell at her twin.

“You’re so dead, Adam. I don’t care how funny you thought that was gonna be. Even if the GM didn’t mention the duel I would still let Catra kick your ass”

“Relax, I was just messing with you and also Glimmer pulled me down the moment you looked at me” Adam laughed as he answered “I haven’t seen you in ages. This is just me making up for lost time”

Adora rolled her eyes “You are the worst” She didn’t completely mean it, but she was still gonna give him a hard time. She also had to make up for lost time after all.

“Now care to catch me up on this? Five years ago you were complaining that you would probably have to move just to avoid that ‘annoying bitch’ at the game store and now you’re married to her” God, Adora was regretting inviting him.

“First, only I get to call my wife that. She is a bitch and I love her, and second-” Her train of thought was disrupted by the sound of mic static. She turned around to see Catra awkwardly standing next to Sea Hawk’s DJ stand with a mic on her hand.

“Hey, Adora, I know this isn’t exactly what we had planned and this isn’t exactly what people expect from a first dance, but after all this time practicing it just felt wrong to celebrate all of this without me at least singing you something”

Adora was frozen in place as everyone around her opened up space for her. She couldn’t believe Catra was doing that, but she had no objections to any of it. Catra gave Sea Hawk a thumbs up and closed her eyes.

You make me breakfast in bed

When I'm mixed up in my head

You wake me with a kiss

I could get used to this

For a moment there was only Catra in her world, as she slowly walked towards her.

You think I look the best

When my hair is a mess

I can't believe you exist

I could get used to this

She took Catra’s hand in hers and pulled her close as she put down her microphone. “Oh you think just because you’re wearing a suit this time you’re gonna lead?” Of course Adora didn’t think that, they had practiced the whole dance with Catra taking the lead, but Adora didn’t mind letting Catra get her ego boost.

The song was fast and intense, there was plenty of spinning and dipping and lifting and by the end of it they would both be out of breath. In a really stupid way it kinda mimicked their relationship. Well, that was Catra’s excuse, but they both knew she really just liked the song.

When the song finally slowed down they were holding each other very close. The plating on her right arm was getting uncomfortable and she had really started sweating in that suit, but she didn’t care. Right now all she cared for was the woman in her arms and the feeling of their hearts beating so close together. Catra would absolutely hit her with The Pillow if she said any of that out loud...she should probably do that later tonight.

They parted just enough to look in each other’s eyes, just enough to talk to one another “Wanna skip all that other shit and go get something to eat? I’m fucking starving” Catra sure knew how to make a woman feel special.

“Thought you’d never ask. No one told me this would take so much time” They both laughed at the silliness of it all “Just hold on a second, I need to grab something” She was already eyeing that something and Catra was quick to pick up what that was.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to do that” Catra sighed, but Adora was already doing that. She grabbed the replica Sword of Protection off of the wall and started making her way to their wedding cake. Catra rolled her eyes “Let me help you with that. I don’t want you cutting your fingers off before our wedding night”

They huddled up close around the cake so they could both hold the sword. The cake was small and simple compared to the crazy stuff they usually saw on tv, but it was special. Sitting atop of it were the two miniatures Bow made for them for the Princesses of Power campaign. A mini She-ra and a mini Catra, holding hands - or the closest they could get without damaging the miniatures - Adora was trying her best not to accidentally cut into the miniatures, the table or herself, she really had to thank Catra for the help later.

Carefully they cut a small slice from the cake. Catra put it aside and grabbed the sword to cut Adora her own slice, but Adora stopped her. She started cleaning the frosting from the blade, just to wipe her hand clean on Catra’s nose, cheeks and lips. She looked shocked for a second, but Adora was quick to fix it, by kissing her several times until she had cleaned alway all the frosting.

Catra giggled as she hurled several colorful insults towards Adora. She didn’t mean a single one of them and Adora knew. “Alright, dumbass, I’m clean” she giggled a little more “now let me have a taste of it” then she gave Adora a long and deep kiss “Hmmm, strawberries”

Like that the celebrations went on. They would dance, kiss and be the most beautiful couple in one moment and then start poking fun at each other in the next. It was a nice and comfortable rhythm, the kind of stuff that came naturally with years of intimacy and caring for one another and though they both knew their hardships were far from over, they knew they could face it all as long as they were together.

#catradora #dnd!au #the wedding fic #really stupidly long

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