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be-ready-when-i-say-go · 4 years ago

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The Hard Things

Doing the right thing is never easy. Calum and Freya have a lot going for them. But what happens when fear gets in the way.

Inspired by I Follow Rivers by Marika Hackman and Starting Line by Luke Hemmings.

Calum X Black Female OC.

I cried once writing this. 7.4k words. Angst. Just angst and sarcasm.

@notinthesameguey is personally responsible for this. So blame her.

The Hard Things--Alternative Ending

Masterlist (on semi hiatus)

___________________________________

If Freya were going to be honest, she would admit that the second she saw Calum and his friends walk into the building she knew things were going to be bad. But Freya’s not being honest. Because being honest would almost include admitting just how too easy it was that day. How if those particular sequences of events hadn’t happened that specifically, then she wouldn’t be here--trying not to watch the quiver in his chin or the way he blinks rapidly. Then she wouldn’t be trying to forget the way his voice quakes.

But they did happen in that particular order. On a Thursday afternoon, he and his friends walked through the door. And here, here at this part, it’s easy to be honest.

Honestly, she is staring--way too hard and way too long at the rag-tag gaggle of people, but especially the man pulling up the rear of the group with a bright red hat snug on his head and covering his eyes, though not even the brim can hide the plump full lips pulled up into a tiny grin at something that must’ve been said. Because another guy, this one fairer-skinned in a hat too and a baggy t-shirt is also laughing. And of course, this group would enter just as Tre stepped away to check on the lanes already throwing. Vanessa wasn’t too far from the desk, but she was trying to help some parents figure out when they could schedule an event for someone’s birthday in the coming weeks.

This only leaves Freya as the only person available right now until rounds were completed to handle any new patrons. With a glance down to the clock on the computer, she could see that a couple more folks would be coming back to the front at any point. But clearly, that point wouldn’t come quick enough.

“Hi,” Freya greets flicking her gaze back up to the group with a quick smile. It’s the training. The fact that more than once she’d been told that customers liked her, especially the way she gave instructions but she needed to smile more. And if this weren’t the job keeping her afloat during her time of getting her degree, in addition to the administrative desk work she did at the university, she would leave here in a heartbeat. Possibly even in the blink of an eye. Whichever was faster.

“Hey! We were hoping you had a couple of lanes for us.”

Freya counts the head. “Just you seven?”

The guy that spoke initially turns the man in the back with the bright red hat on. “Still no word from her?”

The guy shrugs. “Don’t sweat it.” And Freya clings to every syllable. The almost sleepy drawl to his voice lined with a twinge of an accent. She can’t place it at first. But all of them share slight variations in it. The man in the red hat’s voice is low but smooth.

“Yeah just the seven of us,” a taller man pipes in.

“Okay, we can only have two people throwing on a lane at a time. I can put you on neighboring ones but we’ve got very strict rules about how many people can throw at a time.”

There’s a murmur amongst the group but eventually, it comes back to Freya that they’re okay with it. She runs down the safety rules, the forms they have to form out, and checks their IDs. She notices the man with the red hat’s name is Calum and though she knows she shouldn’t, she tries to commit it to memory. It won’t last long. She forgets names all too fast, but she never forgets a face.

“Nessa, watch the desk for me!” Freya calls out as she collects the cases with the axes and directs the party to their lanes. There’s a table for convening and a separate for the axes to rest. “Alright,” she starts with a quick whistle to settle the group. They get chatty but are quick to turn their attention back to her. “I don’t want to kick anyone out, but I will. So one last recap of the rules.”

When Freya finishes, she has the entire group repeat the rules back to her. When they return it to her all correctly, she smiles. “I appreciate y’all already. There are several range officers. They monitor carefully from several posts,” and she points them out as she speaks. “The shift rotates out in an hour. Meaning you’ll have to pause let the old shift go and let the new shift jump in. You’ll hear beeps to signal you to stop and start. If you have any other questions or concerns, you can find me at the front or a range officer. And we’ll be happy to help. Let’s keep all fingers, toes, extremities, and eyeballs intact and we can have a great day together. Enjoy.”

Usually, in her safety spills and best way to throw, Freya makes sure to keep eye contact with everyone in the group. However, she places a purposeful gaze on Calum when she tells them to enjoy. It’s reckless--she knows that. A little flirting hasn’t hurt her. Besides, she knows the moment she walks away, he’ll forget about her. They always did and she likes it like that. Flirty enough to keep good reviews, but never too flirty to insinuate anything more.

In her departure, Freya feels eyes on her, lasting longer than usual. And maybe she put more emphasis behind the swish of her hips and maybe she hoped it was Calum watching her walk away. But she doesn’t dare turn around. No matter how much she hopes in a fleeting second that maybe she had flirted just a little too much, Freya does not turn around to confirm or deny anything.

Back at the front desk, Freya takes a look at the cameras. Anyone at the front can see the lanes too--it’s for safety when you have live blades. Her gaze travels over each one though just out of the corner of her eye she catches the bright red hat. A few guys clasp him on the back but she can’t hear whatever else is said. The rest of the afternoon goes by slowly. As people leave, few come in to replace them. The weekend will be busier--it always in. And Freya knows that soon too, once the afternoon becomes evening things will pick up just a little.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here. Everything okay?”

Freya barely sees who it is talking before they’re out of the door. Calum, phone pressed to his ear. She watches him for a beat as he paces near the front windows of the establishment. Her gaze doesn’t linger long before something on the floor catches her eye. She sees it’s black and square. When she gets closer it looks like a wallet. Clearly used and loved by the creases in it. She glances back up to Calum to see him still on the phone and peeks at the ID just to make sure who it belongs to.

With the blank stare of Calum’s ID photo looking up at her, Freya takes it back behind the desk. She’ll wait until he gets off the phone. A minute or two later, the door chimes again with Calum reentering.

“Hey, you dropped this,” she calls out, stepping out from the desk to hold out the wallet.

Calum pats his pockets and a split second panic causes his eyes to go wide. “Oh shit, thanks. I-I didn’t even realize it fell out of my pocket.”

“No worries. Just glad to get it back to you.” Calum takes it and slips it into his pocket, hands patting the outside to make doubly sure it’s secure. “You guys doing okay back there?

“Yeah, we’re good. Though I think somehow the girls are kicking our asses.”

Freya smiles with a small tuft of laughter escaping her. “It’s power and finesse. You can tear down brick buildings but if you don’t get the release right so it’s not twirling over the axis too many times, you’ll come up with nothing.”

“So says the expert?”

Her cheeks heat for a second at the raised eyebrow Calum gives her. Running her tongue over her teeth to hide the smile, Freya nods. “Yeah, I’ve thrown an axe or two in my lifetime. So I guess that counts as me being an expert.”

Calum laughs. Whether it’s at her or not, Freya’s not sure. But she likes the sound of it. “Tell me what else the expert suggests.”

A moment passes where Freya’s watching his gaze. Wondering if an anime glint will twinkle over his brown eyes because it’s a smooth delivery. Smoother than some of the stuff she’s done. There’s no way he’s fucking real.

Freya takes a half step back, slipping through the threshold that separates the front desk from the main lobby and the hallway to the back where the lanes are set up. “This expert suggests that you try her advice and impress all your friends.”

“More finesse. In the wrist, right?”

“In the wrist.”

A shy smile is shared between the two of them. It borders telling everything and saying nothing at all, borders on giving away on how much Calum might’ve considered concocting a ruse just to get her attention and how much he did backtrack on his plan because it was his sister calling and that shocked him. The smile borders on Freya twirling the Havana twists around her finger and her rolling her eyes at Calum’s thinly veiled attempts at flirting.

Both of them are saved by the front door chiming and Freya gives a nod to Calum before turning her attention to the person now entering. But Calum watches the way she leans into the counter and smiles down at the small child standing next to their parent. “Oh my god, you’re getting so big,” Freya comments and then walks back around to settle next to them.

“No, Fre, I’m not bigger dan yesterday,” the kid responds.

“Huh, could’ve fooled me. Your dad will be out in just a second. Shift change had to wait for one more person. Anything cool happen at school today?”

Calum leaves then, though he can catch the small boy gush about the races he won at recess. It’s probably crazy of him to try and find some sort of way to come back here again soon, but Calum’s already trying to put together an excuse.

When Calum heads back to the front with the group, laughing at Michael’s utter disgust at the way the last few throws went, he does look for Freya. A girl with red hair is sitting at the desk instead. And though a little bit of disappoints settles into his stomach because he wanted to tell her how well her advice worked, he finds himself resolved and it wouldn’t be broken.

******

Calum told himself whatever Freya had to say during this talk wouldn’t break him. Hell, if he were honest, he didn’t think it would go like this. “You know, I used to say I was no good for people all the time,” Calum laughs. He sniffs hard and wipes his noses on the back of his nose. “It was a clean get-away line.”

“I’m not giving you a get-away line. I’m giving you the truth,” Freya returns.

“No, I’m-I’m not saying you’re giving me bullshit. You’re setting a boundary and a good one at that. I respect it. I’m just saying the irony. The same thing I used to tell others is coming back my way.”

“Karma’s a bitch.”

“I don’t regret it.” Calum shakes his head, not because he’s lying. But to emphasize his point.

*****

Calum doesn’t regret going to the Yelp, Facebook, or Instagram page of the business to see if she had liked it or appeared anywhere on their social media. And luck would have it, he manages to find her. The owners like to show off their employees. Their preferred form of employee appreciation appears, in Calum’s investigation, to be a quick bio of new employees along with a video of them throwing. He nearly misses Freya’s post because of his quick scrolls. The bottom of the page comes up quicker than the app could handle and just as the new page loads that he notices it. The thick twists and black lipstick sitting on her cool dark brown skin.

He doesn’t regret it when he followed the account that was tagged, or the message he sent her from his finsta, or the messages they exchanged for a few days. And he for damn sure can’t find himself to regret it when he came back to the place a couple of weeks later to see if Freya was working.

There’s no regret when she smiles at him and laughs. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to test your theory yet again. It worked last time. But I want to make sure that it wasn’t beginner’s luck.”

“You doubt me. You dare doubt me? I’m offended.”

Calum laughs briefly as he leans into the counter of the front desk. “It’s more like I’m testing a theory. Making sure the results can be recreated.”

“Oh, I promise you my results are valid.” She reaches out for his ID and every so gently their fingers brush. Calum can’t tell if that’s intentional or not, but it doesn’t the slight shiver that runs down his spine. “So just you today, huh?” Freya continues on, grabbing a clipboard, some forms, and a pen.

“Just me.”

“Rest of your friends scared.” Her gaze falls to the stack she’s gathering, checking something off on the top page and then sliding the ID back to Calum.

“They’d probably laugh at me if they knew I was here.”

“Laugh at you?”

“Tell me--why do you think I’m here?”

A moment passes between them. Though it takes up more like several seconds, time feels froze as Freya studies his face. Calum wants to reach up and readjust his hat out of a nervous habit. He wants to take it back. But more than anything, he wants to know if he has a shot. If it’s worth really pursuing.

“I think you’re here to test a theory. Maybe, just maybe you’re here because of Vanessa too,” she smiles as it says. Like she knows that isn’t the truth but she doesn’t want to give into Calum.

And while it’s not the answer he was hoping for, Calum takes it. She wants to play a game and he can be down for that.

*****

She wants to reach out for his hands. They sit next to each other in the lounge chairs Calum keeps lined around his pool. But Freya thinks twice about it. The bulbs dangle above them casting an amber hue onto the water, a stark contrast to the twilight pressing evening closer to night’s full darkness. Freya does regret it. She regrets not leaving her teasing response just to testing a theory. She knew what Calum was fishing for, what he was hoping to confirm when he came back by himself.

Maybe it was just where she was then. Then she thought she could give more. Now she realizes she can’t. She likes it when she’s dating someone and they can decide on a random Sunday for errand runs. She likes having them around. And not that Calum wouldn’t be around. Tours didn’t happen all the time. But they did run long. And who the hell knows where she’d be in eight months after she graduated. Her life wasn’t stable--she wasn’t tied to the West Coast like Calum was.

Her life was full of variables. Ones that she didn’t really plan on trying to solve until closer to Christmas in the spring right before graduation. And she didn’t want to give Calum any more false hope. It wasn’t set in stone that she’d be staying in LA and it wasn’t set in stone that she could handle the long departures. Calum deserved someone that was more sure of themselves.

“I think having regrets is no good anyway,” Freya says, finally breaking the long silence between them. “Having them doesn’t change what happened anyway.” But that doesn’t change the fact that you still regret this, Freya thinks to herself.

“I used to believe love could overcome any obstacle.”

Freya turns to look to Calum and catches thhe way the stubble on his chin from the few weeks he’s gone without shaving halos just a little in the lights. “Used to? The right person, the right love--”

Calum shakes his head. “Now I think people loving me means that they love themselves and they can tell me what they want or need. No guessing. No games.”

“Still sounds a lot of a hell lot like overcoming obstacles.”

“But it’s not a dream. It’s tangible. It’s not me daydreaming up in the clouds. It’s me--right here. Right now. Knowing seeing what it means more than anything else that all the shit I was thinking of as a kid really needed just to be put on the ground level for me.”

“What-what do you mean?”

“I mean as much as it fucking sucks that you’re telling me no, I know you’re doing it for the right reasons. I-there’s like this thing with me. I watch people. I don’t walk into a room of strangers and become the center of attention. I don’t like people all that much, but I care. You know? I care about the people I put into my life and I want them to do well and succeed. I want what’s best for them. It’s not always easy to want that, but innately, I do, I think. Deep down I want what’s good for people. And maybe love is doing the hard things, you know.”

He pauses. Freya watches the way he drops his head, fingers threading through the curls. She keeps quiet. There’s something more, something deeper to the words. “And you’re doing the hard thing. Whether it’s for me or not is debatable,” Calum continues. “But I think love is doing the hard things.”

“You said that having some space was important to you. And while I understand that, like you do need to be your own person in a relationship--”

“Your reasons or how you want to justify it to yourself for me isn’t something I need. You already said that you know what you expect and like out a relationship and that the touring would be too hard for you. Set boundaries for you. What good does it do to justify it to me?”

“So you know I’m not being an asshole, Calum. For fuck sake.”

“No, no, I-shit. I didn’t mean it like that. I meant--who are boundaries really for? What do they do?”

“I guess they do protect the person making them. But I’m not trying to be an asshole to you. I swear.”

Calum looks up from the cement of his background lining the pool to the glossy sheen coating Freya’s eyes. They’re black in the settling night. But Calum knows they’re more like a medium brown--dark enough to get lost in them, but when they catch the light just right, they can feel like an enchanting spell sucking him in.

“Freya, you are a sarcastic son of a bitch. But an asshole to those that don’t deserve it, never.”

She sucks on her teeth, swatting at his bicep. “Take that back.”

Calum leans onto his left elbow, closing the gap between them just a little. A smile lifts his lips gently. “Never.”

“We’ve both been burned. Is it bad I didn’t want that again?”

“No. I used to say love is a scam. So I don’t think I’m necessarily the poster boy for relationships.”

“But admit it, you hoped this was the one so you wouldn’t be the odd man out.” His brows furrow at her comment. Freya gives him a soft smile. “Two of the guys are engaged. But all three of them are in a relationship.”

He sighs, gazing dropping from her face. “Maybe I was hoping so. Is it bad of me to want to be in love?”

“No. I told some kids that my boyfriend was Shermar Moore,” Freya admits with a laugh. “I was working at a summer camp and one girl saw his picture on my phone. It was my lockscreen for the longest time. So I just went with it. Well, I was spurred in part because of Drew who was a fucking creep and wouldn’t leave me alone. But I did fantasize about it. Dream of being in love with some famous and the limelight. Shit at that point, I hadn’t even dated anyone either. So another part of it was a desire too.”

“Is that part of it too? Worried about what trolls and whatever will say?”

“Oh, no one who doesn’t know shit about it can make me get outside myself.” Freya laughs but reclines into the cushions of the chair. “But maybe it’s a little bit of it. That’s too many voices talking all about you. It’s a lot of noise and some of it has to bleed through you know. Even if you’re careful and you work not to take it in, some does, right?”

“I don’t think humans were created to be able to handle that much criticism or even love and adoration. Our brains can’t handle it. So yeah, a little bit seeps in. But you keep that door closed as much as you can. You talk to people that also get it. Fuck, you even get a therapist.”

“Or a dog,” Freya says before turning her head to watch Duke laying inside next to the back door.

“And a dog,” Calum corrects.

“Excuse me, you get a therapist and a dog.”

“Tell me something.”

“I’m listening,” Freya returns, looking back to Calum.

“Before you go tonight, tell me the thing you’re going to cherish between us.”

“Will you do the same?” Calum nods at the question but doesn’t respond verbally as he gazes at her.

“Do you want to answer now?”

“Are you leaving now?”

“I-I didn’t think you wanted me to stay.”

“I want you to stay as long as you feel comfortable. And then when you leave, the parting thing we have is the good, the best of us.”

“What if I stay until dawn?”

“Then you stay until dawn. Though, I think it’s safe to say both of us will pass out by 3 AM.”

“That was the most ridiculous thing I think I’ve ever done,” Freya laughs. Remembering the same she spent a Friday night after a shift at Calum’s place. He had a birthday party on Saturday along with a vet appointment with Duke. And then Sunday, Freya had we weekly lunch with her friends that she couldn’t miss. So Calum asked her if she wanted dinner Friday night at his place. Which she said yes to, but then it turned into them doing a movie marathon. Which then turned into Calum betting her that he could stay up longer than her. But they ultimately passed out around 3 in the morning on Calum’s couch.

“Thankfully, I did not miss Duke’s vet appointment that time,” Calum tacks on.

“Yeah, no thanks to me waking you up half an hour before it.”

“That darlin’ is what I call details.”

“No, I call that a very important fact,” Freya defends sitting up. “Duke would’ve been late twice if not for me.”

Calum giggles at her incredulous look. She always got heated fast, though she knew when it was serious things and when it wasn’t. “It wasn’t him paying for the visit.”

“So you ought to kiss the ground I’m standing on right now because you didn’t have to pay anything like a cancellation fee.”

“You’re not standing on any ground right-” the sentence doesn’t get the wind to complete itself when Calum watches her stand up. “Or maybe you are standing up.”

Freya hears him, but she gazes up to the sky. Trying to look past the twinkle of his backyard lights. There’s not much to see due to the light pollution. But the sounds capture her attention next. His neighborhood’s almost been mostly quiet. But with the twinge of the summer’s heat fading, Freya can hear the last bit of people outside. A dog barks into the night and there’s the crunch only tires on gravel and asphalt can give. There’s a hum in the night that Freya can feel in her bones.

It’s hard not to fall in love with the sounds of the night. It’s hard not to romanticize this, how possibly if things were different she could find herself at some point always standing in the middle of this backyard listening to the sounds of the night, having Calum beside her or maybe Duke when he’s gone and just letting herself go to the buzz. In all honesty, Freya craved stability. Always having something to come back was her dream. But in that dream it was a partner who would be there for every dinner. A shared space that was full with both of their presences.

“When you think about coming home what’s there?” Freya asks. “Like, in ten years, what’s in your home when you walk inside?”

Calum closes his eyes, bringing the picture to his mind’s eye. “Like, the truth of what I see?”

“The truth,” Freya confirms.

“Two kids, a dog for sure. Maybe two. A wife. A lot of laughs. Being knocked over with hugs. Maybe a movie that hasn’t quite been paused catches my ears. Maybe it’s summer and my mum’s over too. Because she wants to be around the kids as much as possible. And my sister--she comes over when she can too. So we have to figure out what to cook because it’s a family dinner night. I’m mostly likely in Australia. But I could be somewhere else. Just not LA. I don’t think I could have kids here.”

“That sounds lovely, Calum.”

“But I am scared. My parents divorced. What if it doesn’t work out?”

“That wasn’t your fault. And if we heal from our trauma before having kids then maybe some of our fears won’t come to reality.”

“And if it does.”

“Then we know the boogeyman is real and sometimes we can do our best but things that are meant to happen will still happen.”

“Your parents are divorced too, right?” Calum remembers her mentioning a distinction between her mother’s house and her father’s house. But she hadn’t outright stated that her parents were divorced, just alluded to it.

“Yeah. My dad remarried. He seems happy.”

“What about you? If you closed your eyes and thought about yourself in 10 years, where are you?”

“I technically asked what do you see in your home when you walk inside 10 years from now.”

“Oh, come off it,” Calum laughs, throwing a dismissive wave her way.

“But,” she giggles and then closes her eyes. The breeze blows across her face and she lifts her chin up to catch as much of it as she can. Then she speaks, “I don’t know. Home’s full of the people I love. And I feel stable. I’m not worried about what I’m going to do weeks from now when something inevitably has to change. Because nothing’s going to change. Or at least, I’m not anticipating change. I think that’s what I’m sick of. I’m sick of dealing with change and constantly moving around and not knowing what the next year is going to look like. I’m tired of looking over my shoulder and planning. I just want to be still.”

“You did the whole back and forth between houses, huh?”

“Yeah. I always felt like I was playing two versions of myself when I was younger. I had to be one way around my mother and one way around my father and according to my therapist, the constant games of charade fucked me up a little.”

“How often did you go between their houses?”

“Every weekend.”

Calum sucks in air through his teeth, “Yikes. Yeah, no wonder you want stability.”

“Oh, thank you Dr. Hood. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Well this is a question so it’s not something you don’t know, but is the thought of me being gone for months at a time remind you of that? Like, you’d have to be one way while I was here and then another way when I was gone?”

Freya shrugs. But it’s right on the nose. “I’d have to learn to be with you and then be without you. And all I have are switches. No dimmers. I’m either on or I’m off. And I-I’m working on it. But I’ve got a long way to go.”

Calum scoffs, whispering mostly to himself. “All I have are switches. No dimmers.” It’s not a taunt to her. It’s not him blowing her concern off. It’s recognition that colors his tone. It’s the sigh when hearing something that connects so deeply it takes all the oxygen from lungs with it.

“And I swear to Christ, Calum, if you make a Lowe’s or Home Depot joke, I will extract your ankles from you right here right now.”

“Extract? What the hell?” Calum laughs.

“Broken ankles heal,” Freya returns with a smirk. Her face is lit mostly from above due to continued standing position but Calum catches the way her lips move.

“Remind me to really never piss you off. Between your ability to throw axes and the time you told me about putting ham on a girl’s car, I don’t think I want that kind of trouble in my life.”

“I only put the ham on the car because my friend was heartbroken and she was a cunt for cheating.”

“Yeah, see that’s what I mean,” Calum points out, his index finger swirling in a circle in front of her.

“I could’ve slashed her tires too.”

“I think ruining her paint job was more than enough.”

Freya places her hands on her hips, looking down at Calum. “I’ve got some anger issues too. Did I mention that?”

They laugh but Calum recovers first to speak. “I hadn’t noticed it before. Thank you for telling me that. But in all seriousness, Freya, the boundaries you have make sense. I hope you continue with therapy as well,” he states with a giggle. “But it’s not easy to look back at yourself and realize ‘Oh shit, maybe I don’t want that thing again because that actually fucking hurt’. And do something about it. That takes a lot of strength.”

“Thanks, Calum. And I will continue with this therapist for the rest of the school year because it’s free. Shoutout to some universities for having really accessible mental health resources.”

Freya finally sits, facing Calum. He keeps his gaze averted. But it doesn’t bother her. “What’s the intention behind telling me I can stay as long as I want? Is it to get me to change my mind? Just earlier both of us were near tears and now we’re walking down memory lane. Sharing things we hadn’t shared yet.”

“I want as much of you as I can get before you’re gone. Selfish, right?” The tears are back, she can hear them in his voice.

“No. A bit of your masochism showing, certainly.”

“You ever know something’s bad for you, but you want it anyway? You want the pain anyway?”

“I mean considering both of us are littered tattoos, pain’s not something we’re too worried about.”

Calum wishes he didn’t laugh, not even the short burst of laughter. “Someone’s coping with humor.”

“Someone’s self flagellating.”

“Can I be honest?”

“Of course.”

“I don’t want you to go. But I don’t want you to hurt yourself either.”

“Maybe love is doing the hard things. You said that yourself.”

Calum swallows hard and his voice only comes out in a whisper. “I know I did.”

Freya blinks away the blur of tears. But as soon as they clear, more replace them. Her voice is tight as she speaks. “Doing the hard things suck though. Don’t think this is easy.”

“It’s because it’s the hard thing,” Calum returns. He wants to smile and manages to get a small one but he knows. Freya’s going to leave. She won’t stay.

“My favorite thing,” she starts and Calum exhales hard. There it is--the confirmation. The sentence gets caught in her throat so she pauses to clear it, work the tears down to at least speak. God, why couldn’t it have been easy. “My favorite thing between us, about us, whatever you want to label it as, is that we could also be honest. And even if it was burning waffles or ducking paps to watch a movie for an anime that you had no idea anything about because I wanted to go desperately and you had to Google a summary during the previews, we were always honest with each other.”

“I want to put it out there that you only told me that it was for an anime as I was buying the tickets. So I had zero time to prepare beforehand.”

“I told you the name of it the Monday before we saw it.”

“And admittedly, I forget it the second after you said it.”

“Fair enough, Calum. Fair enough.”

Calum spins in the chair and takes her hand. The first time they’ve touched today. Normally, Freya was more than happy to give out hugs but when Calum opened the front door, she have a half smile and stepped inside. If he could go back to earlier, he’d tell himself that was the first sign.

His thumb passes gently over the butterfly on her left hand. “The thing I’m going to cherish is that you made me feel sixteen again. My entire life changed at sixteen and I felt pretty invincible. I was also scared and excited. I was going to be in a band, like a one with lots of records and I don’t know--I only had that dream to believe in because I damn sure did not have a back up. It was before the downs. And I don’t regret the hard times either. But you’re the first person in a long time that gave me those butterflies. Assumed I was just never going to feel them again and I wasn’t a good person before, not as good as I could’ve been. But you gave me something to be good for again. Getting your text made my whole fucking day. And you-god, you cared about so many things. I bought books you recommended and couldn’t wait to talk about them with you. I remembered the kind of person I want to be. So thank you. For making me feel sixteen again in the cheesiest way possible but also in the best way possible too. That things are worth giving a shit for and that we can let people in and it won’t always burn.”

“Just a little sting.”

Calum nods. “Just a little sting.”

Freya brings his hands to her lips, pressing a soft kiss to the right one. Her sniffle is loud amongst the hum of the night. “If it weren’t for the fact that my eyeliner is tattooed to my face it would probably be running. I’m sorry it has to hurt at all. But-but I’m hopeful.”

“Hopeful?”

“Hopeful that we’ll get what we need out of life.”

He nods again, watching the tears track down her cheek. “We will.”

Her hands gently slip back out of his grasp and she uses the back of her wrist to press under her nose. The tremors shake her hands, so she shakes them before standing. Calum cranes his neck up, words about to fall from his lips. But she cups his cheek and smiles at him. “Don’t. There’s nothing else to say.”

It happens just as he blinks. He sighs, eyes closing to steel himself. Because there’s always so much else to say. And then her lips are pressing to his forehead. It last long enough for Calum to take hold of her thighs instinctively want to pull her in closer to him.

Then she’s gone. His hand slides down the rough denim and Freya’s walking to the edge of the backdoor. Duke picks up his head but doesn’t move much else. “Oh yeah, you don’t need to move. You know everyone comes to you, huh?” She gives him a few pats and scratches. “I’ll send you something for your adoption day, okay, love? And you might hate wearing it or you might love eating it. But be on the lookout for the mailman. He’ll have something from me.”

Calum doesn’t say anything as she says her goodbyes to Duke. She kisses the top of his head too and he thinks she might’ve whispered something else but he’s not certain from his spot on the chair. The swish of the tassels on Freya’s jeans signal her and the click of her heeled boots tell Calum she’s walking farther from him. The latch in the fence clicks and the wood around the hinges creak as she presses into the door. There’s a soft thud as the door shuts and then Calum can’t hear anything over the cough he uses to try and cover the tightness in his chest, can’t see anything in the blurry vision of his tears

She’s just gone.

******

When the front door bell sounds, Calum doesn’t think much of it. It could be a package or someone selling something. So he pushes up from the kitchen table and heads to the door. There on his porch is a light blue box with white bones on it. The subscription box that Calum gets already came. But then he notices an index card with a handwritten address on it. He picks it up. Right there in the return address is Freya’s name. He sucks in a breath and then looks to see who it’s addressed to: Duke Hood + Calum.

“Duke,” Calum calls out, stepping back inside to the house. He closes the door with his foot. The click of paws let him know the old man’s heard his call. “A little early birthday present has arrived just for you.”

He walks deeper into the living room and sets the box on the coffee table. Inside holds an olive green harness, treats, and a card. Calum laughs as Duke presses his snout against the bag of treats. “Alright, alright. I get it.”

Duke happily munches on one of the chews from the bag and Calum opens the card. A different letter slips out into his lap. He can see the ink and lettering pressing through to the other side. His heart hammers, but he forces himself to turn back to the card. “Dear Duke,” Calum pauses to see if Duke responds but his investigation continues on the treat. “I mean, fair enough.” Calum continues to read the card written by Freya, “Even though only the universe knows your true birthday, this card, harness, and bag of treats is meant to mark you sticking it out with your pops for yet another year. To spare you the grumps about a very cute hawaiin shirt I, instead, got a badass harness. Now you’ll be the coolest guy on the block. Happy Birthday/Adoption Day. With Love, Fre.”

Duke, done with the treat, looks to Calum and settles next in front of his folded legs. “Oh, so much work eating a treat.”

But Calum reaches down to gently pats at his tummy. The front of the car is cute, Calum finally recognizes. A cartoon white dog is drawn on it with large pink glasses against a yellow background. There’s no telling where she found it at. Calum looks down to the handwritten letter on printer paper. What would Freya possibly have to say?

Calum hadn’t had the guts to press send on any of the texts he drafted in the three months since they last talked. He wasn’t sure if he could. He is sure that if Freya hadn’t wanted anything to do with him, she would’ve said so, and she wouln’t have sent this box for Duke. His fingers tremble as he unfolds the letter.

Calum,

I figured you heard me tell Duke he was going to get a gift. And I knew I couldn’t not deliver on my promise to him. But I do apologize if it crosses any line. Please let me know too--if it crossed any boundaries.

I hope you’re well. Congrats on the latest album too.

With Love,

Freya.

P.S. I saw you a couple times drafting a text to me but never seeing one go through. And if you’re asking why I hadn’t sent a text either, know it was fear too. And me not being sure if keeping it open like that between us would only do more harm than good. So I’m sorry. But I am here, in the sense that to the best of my capacities, I can try to be here.

*****

Her bag’s slipping off her shoulders but she finally gets the key into the lock and gets her front door open. She sighs as she falls into the ugly blue apartment door and all but flings herself into her place. The stack of mail in her hands barely makes it to the edge of the kitchen counter too. It was just one of those days and Freya couldn’t be mad at herself. Everyone had days like this.

Putting her keys up and getting her backpack next to the couch, she settles into the stools at the kitchen counter to sort through the mail. One’s a bill from the dentist she visited a few weeks back. The one thing her student health insurance didn’t cover. But she couldn’t complain.

There are few junk flyers that she immediately tosses. And it’s her name scrawled in a almost all caps that catches her eyes before she even gets finished with the rest of the pile. In the top corner for the return address she catches the name: Calum Hood + Duke

“Mail from Duke, what a surprise.”

But the real surprise is Calum’s name. It’s just a plain white envelope with a stamp and the city mark it was mailed from. Freya pops it open and sees a sheet of legal pad paper folded up.

Freya,

Thank you for Duke’s gift. The chews are a hit. The harness is much appreciated for our walks. Though, I think they’re more like walks for me. And Duke gets a little exercise in before he tuckers out. But I don’t fault him. No lines were crossed. So no need to worry about that.

I think I like the idea of mailing letters more than I do like texting. But I understand. Doing the hard thing sucks. It always has and always will. Do what you need to for yourself.

Thank you. I wouldn’t normally do this. But there’s a couple songs--they’re about you. I wanted to give you a warning before you listen to it. If you listen to it, I guess I should say.

Best of luck with your last year of school. You’ll have that Master’s in no time and then maybe soon you can take over the Library of Congress like all your evil plans have laid out. (I know, I know. Not what your Library Studies degree does. But I still think you should.)

With Love,

Cal

Freya chuckles at the Library of Congress comment. She picks up her phone and finds Calum’s thread. It’s easy to want to tell him that she can’t take over the Library of Congress and that she’s glad the treats went over well and that the harness was really more of an accessory to make sure Duke looks like a badass.

But she knows--she knows the ease got her into a pickle before. It’s why she stopped things before they got more serious. But was fear going to always predict what she was going to do in her life? Maybe the ease of things was a sign to continue. But if what if things got too far? WOuld be able to handle Calum being gone? Would she inevitably get her heart broken? And sure no amount of contemplation can predict things like this, but she did want to play with that risk no matter how fucking easy it was in the moment.

With a frustrated sigh, Freya drops her face into the forearms. Her phone is still in her grip with the movement. “It’s never fucking easy is it!” she shouts into her apartment.

There’s silence that engulfs her but it gives no response.

#calum hood #calum hood fanfic #calum hood imagine #calum hood blurb #5sos #5sos fic #5sos imagine #5sos blurb #5 seconds of summer #5 seconds of summer blurb #5 seconds of summer fic #5 seconds of summer fanfic #calum hood fic #calum hood x black oc #calum hood x oc #calum hood x fem oc #h writes

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the-darklings · 5 years ago

Text

—𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒃𝒆;

—PART XIV. | WHAT IS AND WHAT SHOULD NEVER BE

pairing: john wick x f!reader x santino d’antonio

word count: 10.4k+

summary: A part of you has missed this quiet, this dark.

warnings: aside from pain? none.

notes: well this will either be the saddest or the happiest chapter of COA so far. Let's roll!

children of ares series: 01 | …. | 12 | 13 | . . | 15 |

“My mother who was a great lover of art always told me that life is like poetry. It rhymes.”

Inhale.

“I believe that everything eventually comes around full circle.”

Exhale.

The silver viper ring between your fingers rotates for the hundredth time.

For the first time in days your hands are not shaking.

A stillness has fallen over you; a hush that has wiped away all else. A part of you has missed this quiet, this dark. It has given you back a sense of ease. You can’t even feel the pain in your body anymore. There is just…nothing.

Crisp footsteps approach the spot where you are sitting and you don’t need to look up to know who it is.

Winston sits down beside you with deliberate slowness but there is a heaviness to it. Distantly, you wonder if anything like this has ever happened before. The man next to you is unmerciful in enforcing the rules in his hotel and city at large. Such a violation must be a first.

You sit in silence for several minutes, neither of you moving. Your elbows keep digging into your thighs but all you can focus on is the ring between your fingers. On the faint traces of blood still lingering beneath your nails and cracks of your skin.

The stillness between you is the loudest thing you have ever experienced. Matched in magnitude only by the initial few seconds following the gunshot—

“What happens now?”

Your question is so steady, so calm—it surprises you. You might as well be asking him about the weather.

The older man doesn’t answer right away even though you feel his attention turn to you.

“The High Table has been informed,” he tells you flatly, his hands clasped in front of him. “This will…echo.”

There’s just enough trepidation in the final word for you to know that a more accurate expression would be a “shitstorm”. You wait for something—anything—to hit you but nothing comes. Panic, fear, dread that have always followed any possibility of invoking the Table’s wrath is absent. Winston’s words barely register. Maybe you can go into hysterics later. Maybe not.

“Is there anything I can do—”

“You could come to Paris with me. You still owe me a trip, carissima.”

The ring in your hand rotates again.

Winston focuses on the movement but doesn’t comment. You’re not quite sure if he knows the significants of the ring in your hand, if he’s ever even guessed it. He has certainly seen it before. He knows you’ve had it for years.

The silence stretches for what seems like hours.

“Are you—”

“No.”

It’s an empty answer to an empty question. You’re very not alright right now.

Your fingers still, folding around the ring till the viper disappears, devoured by your hand. By the prison of darkness.

Your head finally turns to look at the older man and his expression draws tighter at whatever he finds on your face.

“Will you—”

“Yes,” he cuts you off before you can finish, nodding his head just once with a pointed stare. “Even if it wasn’t a part of my job—and it certainly is—yes, of course. You need not ask.”

It’s one of those few, serene moments where you feel immensely grateful for having him in your life. To a point you doubt there are any words that could aptly express it. Neither of you is prone to displays of sentimentality though so you choose to say nothing. Still, you think he can read it on your face. See it in the way you blink just a little too fast and swallow thickly with a grateful dip of your head.

Your fingers stiffen into a fist, and you feel the metal ridges of the ring cut into your flesh. It’s a dull, vague discomfort and you turn to stare at the too-clean floor for another beat before you rise smoothly, your joints clicking.

Nothing hurts and the fingers of your other hand flex. Experimental. Deliberate.

Your turn to go.

“Where are you going?”

You pause, but don’t look at him. “I have unfinished business.”

More hollow, calm words that drag from somewhere deep down. From the abyss.

But because Winston is Winston, he doesn’t drop it like most would. “I know what Johnathan did was—”

Inhaling sharply at that name, you begin walking away.

“V,” Winston calls out, and you hear him rise. “(Name).”

It halts your feet, that tone. The authority in it.

But you don’t stop because you fear Winston. You stop because you respect him enough to do so. Care for him enough to at least hear what he has to say if he’s so insistent on saying it.

“If you do this,” he begins, and there is such worn heaviness in his voice that it almost makes you falter. Almost. “You will regret it for the rest of your life.”

Don’t go down this path again.

He doesn’t have to add it verbally for you to hear the words in the space between you. Be it because he doesn’t want a bigger mess than this has already become or because he wants to shield Jo—

Or maybe he just cares about you in his own way.

He knows what revenge does to a person. He knows how slippery of a slope hate can be. He has seen what resentment has turned you into once.

That, you think coldly, was child’s play compared to now.

You look back at him over your shoulder. His face is still drawn, his eyes narrowed, but you know that if you choose this, he will not stand in your way.

A man who believes that everyone is a master of their own fate. That one has to learn how to live with the consequences of one’s actions.

You are the father I wish I had. You taught me well.

It’s what you want to say but don’t.

Instead, something far less kind leaves your mouth, “The only thing I regret right now is not letting him bleed out on that platform.”

With that, you turn to go, and he doesn’t try to stop you again.

Kimber Super Carry.

A custom semi-automatic model with a good sturdy handle and sleek edges, making aiming easy and reloading smooth due to lightweight casing. The seven-round magazine is the smallest capacity it’s manufactured to as far as you know but it’s undoubtedly a weapon crafted for death all the same.

A gun that was fired on Continental grounds.

A gun that—

Your feet halt in the debris of a dream.

John’s home is now rubble.

You haven’t seen it since the news about its destruction reached you and you drag your eyes over the ruined space. Once upon a time, you think it would have made you sad to see this. Now, you don’t feel much besides an inkling of satisfaction.

Consequences.

The echoes of them are everywhere you look as you move through the ash and the dirt. Your footsteps crunch underneath you, and the charred remains still stink of smoke even with the heavy deluge of rain falling down on it.

Your grip on the pistol doesn’t loosen as you step slowly through John’s home.

As if there’s anywhere else he would go to mourn, to wait for what he already knows he will not escape.

Like a ghost, you move across the graveyard of John’s dream. Your eyes linger on the half-burned photograph of him and Helen that still sits on the crumbling mantelpiece. Half of John’s face is burned away, leaving an echo of a smile and love and you stare at it for longer than intended, your jaw set.

You find him minutes later, sitting alone and hunched over on a blackened armchair.

He doesn’t move.

Even though you know he’s aware of your presence.

Rain trails down your face and you blink the tiny droplets out of your lashes as you step into the room unhurriedly.

The dog suddenly appears, dashing towards you from behind the seat and wags his tail happily at the sight of you. He nudges your hand with his nose and your fingers absentmindedly play with his ear, patting him a few times.

Your eyes don’t leave John’s prone figure once.

A dark spectre haunting the ruins of his own life.

Lips parted, he lifts his head towards you eventually, a thin bracelet tangled in between his bloodied fingers—the same hand you injured with your blade only hours ago. His face is bruised just like yours, and through the space between you, the roar of rain washes away the would-be silence.

He doesn’t say anything.

Your lips curve.

“No apology this time?”

John with his sorrowful, dark eyes who is always quick to plead for forgiveness. As if you have the power to absolve him of his many sins. You are not his absolution. He has shown that time and time again.

There is, perhaps, no one left on your side now.

John’s shoulders slant backwards with a deep breath, his voice a rasp, “Not when I did something I know there will be no forgiveness for.”

You stare at him.

He’s not wrong.

He doesn’t look at the gun but you’re both intimately aware of it. His hand had forged your own after all. Right now all you can think about is those long months of work you had to put in just to barely keep up with him—too slow, too erratic, too rigid. His grip on your wrist and the low, measured words of instruction, of guidance.

Viggo Tarasov never made you. He gave you the tool to make yourself.

John Wick never made you. He guided the creation with his careful, deadly hands and an unspoken promise that he will be by your side, always.

Santino D’Antonio never made you, either.

You did it all yourself.

“I spent the journey here thinking how I’m going to put a bullet in your head,” you inform him calmly, amiably. “How far we have come, Jardani.”

His sad, worn expression goes rigid at your gentle murmur of his real name. A name you have held sacred in your heart and hidden so meticulously underneath your tongue for years.

This is not anger, or rage, or hurt.

This is just…nothing. The final stage perhaps.

“He had me hunted,” John mutters in defeat, his voice thick with pain as he stares up at you. “I gave you time, (Name). What was I supposed to do?”

“Stop, Jardani,” you whisper sadly. “You could have stopped for me. Like he did.”

John’s expression creases and you watch as rain trickles down his nose and lips. His confusion is palpable. You take a single step towards him and the dog whines, sensing the shift in the air.

“I was taken after we split apart,” you reveal to him and make sure that every word sinks in, your words slow and deliberate. “That trouble you wanted to help me with initially, remember? The Black Dragon and the Lovers. You won’t know much about the latter because it was after you left. But you know how it goes. Bad blood from years ago come back to haunt me. I was taken but managed to break out with some help. I rushed to the gallery. I got there only minutes before you did. And then I asked him to stop. Call the contract off. Do you know what he said to me?” you wonder bitterly and don’t wait for his reply. “That he’ll do it. You were minutes away from freedom, Jardani, and now look at you.”

Doomed.

One way or another.

Now, there will be no ticket back. No peace.

You watch the realisation sink in. The quiet agony that follows right after.

“I—”

“I don’t care that you didn’t know,” you choke out, pained, watching the planes of his face crease at your wet words. “I just wanted you to listen. How much more? How much more can you take from me?”

You wait for his answer but this time he has nothing to say. Nothing, at least, that won’t be empty words designed to make you forgiving and docile.

“I walked through your home and figured it would be symbolic to finish it here,” you continue through the thundering of rain and the dog whines again, quieter this time. “But then I realised something. You want this. You want it to be by my hand. The moment you pulled that trigger you knew exactly what would follow. All that carnage. An attack on Continental grounds. A forfeited life debt that makes your life mine. You knew that I would never forgive you for almost taking the people I consider my family away.”

Drawing a breath, you lift the gun in your hand but don’t aim it at him. The gleaming, silver surface greets you and in it, you see a blurred reflection of your eyes. The shadow of emptiness there. The hollowed out person staring back at you reminds you of a girl from years ago.

“You did love me,” you go on after another moment, still staring at the gun. Your body is soaked from the rain by now but you ignore the heavy weight of your clothes clinging to your skin. “I think a part of you still does. But the sad truth is that you never loved me more than this. This dream of a normal life. You leaving was never about a choice between Helen and I. It was always a choice between being John or being Baba Yaga. You didn’t stop for me because you couldn’t. Because you don’t know how to stop. Not even for yourself. I bet you used to wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and feel just as empty as I do. Maybe you thought that by running from this life—from yourself—you could be happy. And I think you were for a while. But Tarasov was right to say that we’re cursed, the three of us. We don’t get happy endings.”

You lower the gun and take another few steps closer towards him, watching his expression as you feet creak on the damaged floor. He looks accepting of whatever you will say or do next.

“You said…almost.”

A brief, harsh smile contorts your face. “Yeah,” you acknowledge quietly, viciously, your grip on the gun creaking. “You failed. I made you fail. Santino lived. I don’t know…I don’t know for how long…or if he will ever—”

You can’t continue because it hurts too much.

Because you remember a haze of blood and Winston pulling you back. You sobbing that Santino is still warm, that he’s still breathing.

A bullet that had hit the side of his head, creating what had appeared like a river of gushing blood.

Missed shattering his skull by 2 millimetres. You saved him, (Name).

Winston’s hand on your shoulder, gripping, gripping, trying to tug you back and over the edge with his words.

“Critical care,” you spit out and press your lips together to stop yourself from cracking now. “They don’t—he might still not make it and even if he does…there is a high chance of permanent damage. It’s too early to say yet.”

John exhales, staring up at you in wonder. Maybe even relief. You don’t care enough to search deeper than that.

You simply don’t care. About any of this.

Taking another step towards him, you reach into your pocket, pulling out the ring that’s been with you for years. Your only reminder of him.

The man in question goes as still as death at the sight of it.

You can still remember his muted disappointment at the fact that you no longer wore it. He no doubt thought that you had gotten rid of it.

“I wonder what it says about me that I still have it,” you mutter with a bitter chuckle and droplets of rain cover the metal in moments. “I kept it with me for years. And when Santino asked me if the fact that I still have it means that I love you, I told him no. But that was a fucking lie. I convinced myself that I wanted to mend our relationship because of what happened to Marcus. So I would never have regrets but that was only half the truth. I just…missed you. A tiny part of me never stopped loving you. Despite everything,” you exhale weakly, pausing, and your expression hardens with your next words. “Until you pulled that trigger I would have still forgiven you. I still loved you. Even after all these years. Now…Now I don’t know what you are to me. Not anymore.”

John’s breathing has picked up, his chest moving up and down as he stares up at you. For once, his calm has fled and his dark eyes are desperate, wilder.

“(Name)—”

“You will never stop,” you state frankly, knowingly, your tone wooden. “You will destroy yourself, Jardani. This vengeance will consume you till the man Helen and I both loved is long gone. I don’t hate you. I pity you for that. I pity you.”

The ring in your hand stills. It hovers against your skin. This familiar warmth of metal you’ve clung to for years.

The rain falls harder, beating against your skin, a distant rumbling of thunder echoing in your bones.

The girl who had needed this blanket of safety and comfort is gone now.

You don’t need anchors to the past.

You just need Santino to live. You need Roberto to recover.

You just need yourself.

No one else.

Your hand tips to the side and gravity does the rest.

The ring sails through the rush of falling rain and drops at John’s feet and into the ruin surrounding you both soundlessly.

Like a stroke of the sharpest blade, it cleaves the past from the present.

“I will not kill you,” you tell him simply, but you’re not sure if John is listening. He’s staring at the ground, at the ring, and you can no longer see his face. “You will live and reap the consequences of your decisions. Maybe one day I can find a way to forgive you for this. I…I don’t know. But know that if you ever touch the people I love and care about again…” you give him a grim, empty smile. “You’re as good as dead to me.”

Silence.

You’re not quite sure how much time passes.

Eventually, the downpour eases up, a few minutes of tranquillity following that.

There’s a dull crack of someone stepping onto burned wood and your head slants to the side.

Charon stands still and silent in the ruined doorway of the living room. His face is solemn and like a messenger of death, he chills the space at least a few degrees.

Behind his glasses, his eyes glow with quiet, unspoken regret as he looks at John.

The High Table has been informed. This will…echo.

This, you know then, is about to go South in the worst way possible.

His stare is full of relief when it meets yours though, and you know that he was prepared to find a very different sight.

John dead. Or maybe you dead, or even both of you. Destroyed by the others’ hand.

Won’t that be ironic?

“Mr Wick,” Charon begins and John’s head rises slightly at the call, just barely. “You have been summoned, Sir.”

There is a breath of quiet and then Charon’s eyes transfer to you. Something about the look on his face makes you release a slow breath.

“As have you, Miss.”

The dog naps draped across you both, seemingly the only one enjoying the heavy hush hanging over the car.

John doesn’t speak. You don’t either.

Charon knows better than to even begin and untangle this mess of a situation. So he does what he’s always done, and that’s obey his orders without comment.

You stare out of the window, taking in the scenery of your city and wonder if you are still living in a world that has Santino in it. You have no way to contact anyone and his condition—

“You’re right,” John’s voice slices through your thoughts and you almost flinch, your fingers stilling against the dog’s ribs. “Everything you said back there. You were right. I love Helen but a part of me…a part of me never let you go either, (Name).”

You don’t reply.

He’s not expecting it either because he no doubt realises that his confession is ill-timed.

You imagine it’s less about forgiveness and more about…

You’re not sure what it’s about. Not anymore.

What’s done is done.

It will not change anything now.

Your fingers play with the chain around your neck as you continue staring out of the window.

The quiet stretches on and by the time the car crawls to a stop just outside of Bethesda Fountain, you know that Winston is waiting for you. The fountain is the man’s favourite spot at Central Park and both of you have taken walks here several times over the years. As have—

As have you and Santino.

Cockiness in his step and a sly smirk on his face.

You rip the door open, gasping for breath, and try to blink away the phantom of him beside you, offering the crook of his arm to you.

Walk with me, cara mia?

He’s not dead.

Yet, adds Kishi’s cold voice inside your head.

No, let him live. Let him live even if I—

“It has been a pleasure, Mr Wick,” Charon says politely, offering his hand to John as you round the car. The two men shake hands and you can see John’s hesitation, his attempt to read the situation. Charon stares at him for a beat before adding a quieter, “Goodbye.”

John’s head lowers in understanding and he moves in the direction Charon extends his arm towards, leaving you behind.

For a few moments, you stare at the man who has been a part of your life for years. Who has seen you at some of your best and worst.

“Miss Vipress.”

Charon’s voice sounds defeated, a touch sad, and behind his glasses, you see a glimmer of remorse.

“Take care of the old man for me, would you?” you request softly, taking a step closer when you notice John pause, realising you’re not following him. “The safe in my room. There are two letters inside. One for Winston and one for Santino—”

You work your jaw, trying to bite back your emotion and Charon’s neutral expression strains, too.

“The combination is 29091942.”

For the first time since you’ve met him all those years ago when you were nothing more than a young naive girl, lost and alone, you see Charon’s expression crack. Just slightly. Just enough.

He knows what those numbers mean.

Winston’s birthday.

“Would you—” your wet whisper breaks off and he nods his head promptly.

“Of course, Miss,” he tells you quietly and offers his hand to you, his eyes sad. “It has truly been an honour and a joy.”

You grasp it firmly, squeezing the gloved fingers before leaning forward and wrapping one arm around him too. Charon is rigid but doesn’t push you away.

“Thank you,” you breathe into his woollen coat, scratchy and comforting and him. He smells like the Continental. Like home and you soak in that scent one last time. “Take care of them for me. Please.”

“I will.”

You step back but he doesn’t let go of your hand, giving it another gentle squeeze before releasing your digits.

You both know this is goodbye.

There is no other reason as to why you would be summoned.

With one last look, you turn to go, straightening your spine into a rigid, unyielding line. Whatever it is, you will face it as always.

There she is, a sly voice hums in your ear. My sea on a stormy night, hm?

John is still waiting for you a respectful distance away, his eyes downcast, and you move past him without a word. The dog trails after you, his tail wagging and you hear John follow moments later.

Winston is waiting for you by the fountain, his head tilted towards the sky like his thoughts are miles away, and the muted glow of the setting sun paints him in a golden light.

You come to a stop before him as always and his eyes go to you first before John halts at your side, too.

Your stare is desperate, you know that, but something in your heart eases when Winston simply dips his head in a tiny nod of reassurance.

Still alive.

Oh, Santino.

You cling to that knowledge with every shred of your being.

The older man takes you and John in, all limbs attached, and his eyes flicker to you again. He doesn’t say anything but you can’t help but think that perhaps some minute part of him is proud. Maybe just a little bit. If you’re foolish enough to allow yourself such a pathetic thought.

“Johnathan. V.”

“Winston.”

John’s voice is weary, guarded. There is subtle tension coiling those limbs that tells you he’s expecting an open attack at any given moment. But if that were a case it would have happened by now. Something else is going on and Winston’s thoughtful hum as he stares at his old friend only confirms it.

“What am I looking at?” John asks eventually when Winston does nothing more than gaze at him blankly.

The older man bobs his leg up and down, still staring, but the look in those blue eyes is cutting. It surprises you a touch—the lack of pity you see there.

“Camorra has doubled Santino’s open contract. It’s gone international.”

14 million.

Your blood chills in your veins.

Gianna dead. Santino clinging onto threads of life.

It surprises you it’s not more. For Camorra, that kind of money is pocket change.

John exhales. “The High Table,” he assumes.

Winston hums again, nodding. He looks no less weary, then, and something tells you that the worst is yet to come.

“And the Continental?”

Your muscles lock. For one, sluggish second you see red. Almost go for him with your bare hands alone.

After what he did—

Winston’s head snaps up, and this time something old and merciless stares back at you both. “You shot a member of the High Table on company grounds, Jonathan,” he reminds him coldly, the corners of his mouth tilting downwards. “You leave me no choice but to declare you Excommunicado. The doors to any service or provider in connection with the Continental are now closed to you.”

No weapons. No medicine. No supplies.

Every helping hand cut off and your body effectively tossed to the very bowels of the pit that is the underground world ready to be devoured.

You’re not surprised that it takes John a few moments to digest something like that.

Your eyes lower and you smile.

A sad, accepting thing.

“I am so sorry,” Winston says with an exhale.

Your eyes lift and his stare is on you.

“Winston,” John growls under his breath. “She had nothing to do with this.”

The man before you blinks, sparing his old friend a brief look before he nods his head. “Oh, I am well aware of that. The High Table, however, does not see it that way.”

You look towards the lake, towards the sky, towards the trees.

“Santino lived because of (Name) interference,” John insists, his voice growing colder, harder. “She saved his life.”

Winston rises to his feet, his hands slipping into his pockets as he strolls closer. His steps are forceful though, and there is just a trace, a glint, of anger there as he stares at John flatly.

“Do you believe that I do not know that, Johnathan? The fact that Santino lives is the only reason why, unlike with you, there is no bounty on her head. Yet.”

“But—”

“There are no buts about this,” Winston cuts in, his calm words laced with ice. “The security footage from the museum was retrieved. Can you guess what it showed? V saving your life time and time again. The High Table believes that she should have shot you in the head the first chance she got and been done with it. Her inaction with Tarasov and subsequent saving of your life when you came after Santino—one of their own—has been deemed treasonous.”

John is quiet after that; a rolling, barely contained storm.

You’re still staring at the trees, silent.

In the far distance, kids screech happily as they chase pigeons.

You wonder if any of them belong to the Bowery King.

Winston steps closer and you meet his stare calmly, expectant. “I told you this would happen, my dear. I did warn you,” he remarks unhappily but his words lack accusation. They’re just…sad. “You can’t expect to walk this line between both sides forever and come away unscathed every time.”

Luck runs out. Consequences follow.

His words from your last summoning right after Tarasov’s death.

You should have known that it’s only a matter of time before they came back to haunt you.

“Keep him safe.”

It’s the only request you can think of.

The only one that matters right now.

Because the list of people that would rather see Santino D’Antonio dead is a long one.

Winston’s mouth thins into a hard line but he dips his head in agreement, his gaze solemn, and the relief that follows that is immense. He will keep his promise. Even if he doesn’t like the Italian. You would trust no one else with it.

“I’m sorry but both of your lives are now forfeited.”

There is regret there. Genuine and plain to hear and see.

The older man looks like he rather be doing anything but standing here with you and delivering this news.

“Then why are we not dead?” John wonders carefully, his words low.

Winston’s head tilts, almost insulted, and that ruthless man you have come to respect and rely on and even love over the years stares at John like he has said something incredibly funny.

“Because I deemed it not to be,” he replies bluntly, his head turning to nod at someone behind John.

You hear a faint command of “now” and every person in the Bethesda Fountain Square simply stops.

They turn to face you as one, and your eyes track over the crowd, taking in all the faces surrounding you.

Winston’s eyebrows arch, amused, and you think that on any other day you might have been both amazed and terrified by such a casual display of power. Of influence.

Winston is the beating iron heart of New York City.

He nods once, and every person in your line of sight turns around and walks away.

Dozens of people. Gone.

Just like that.

The older man pulls back his sleeve, checking his watch before calmly informing you, “You have one hour. Couldn’t delay it any longer.”

He reaches into his pocket, pulling out an all too familiar object and offers it to John. “You might need this. Down the road.”

A Marker.

Your jaw clenches subtly.

Another trap for someone.

Those wise blue eyes move towards you, and you force back a scornful smile. “Let me guess? Locked down?”

Winston sighs and slants his head in agreement. “Yes, any and all of your arsenal located at the Continental is hereby locked down and no longer accessible to you,” he informs you coolly. “They have forbidden anyone from so much as touching it. Everything is now under the Table’s jurisdiction.”

Your lips pull back but it’s not a smile. “Good luck to them,” you mutter tightly. “They will never get their hands on my work.”

You had made sure of it.

His lips twitch slightly, a gleam in his eyes. “But of course not,” he agrees easily, knowingly. “However, this was in my personal possession and as such I see no reason as to why the Table’s restriction rule should apply to it.”

A tiny box rests in his palm, even smaller than the Marker he offered John moments prior.

You know that dark gleaming surface well.

Your breath hitches, your wide-eyed stare flying up to his. “Is that…”

“Mhm.”

He offers it to you and you reach for it, having to draw a few deep breaths to keep your voice steady. “Thank you, Winston.”

A possible lifeline down the road. And a personal risk if anyone ever finds out he gave it to you.

His weathered, warm fingers linger against yours for a beat. “You know what you have to do,” he tells you pointedly, sternly.

You will always make the same mistakes. You will always lose.

Yes, you do know.

You’ve always known.

Fight, Winston’s expression tells you and you straighten, your fingers clenching around the tiny box. Make me proud.

I will.

His mouth twitches again.

“I do.”

Here at the most critical time in your life—and even with the lingering, awful dread churning in your gut about Santino—you feel calm.

You feel the calmest you’ve ever been.

Santino will live and I will succeed.

You repeat it in your head. Over and over. In the beat with your usual counting.

Those words will be forged into reality and you don’t care who you have to go through to make it happen.

The significance of your exchange with Winston might have escaped John, but that doesn’t stop his next, icy words. “Winston, tell them, tell them all,” he starts and for the first time since his house, your look towards him. It isn’t John speaking, not right now. “Whoever comes, whoever it is, we’ll kill them all.”

We.

Before you can interject, Winston speaks with a faint smile, his previous coldness easing a touch. “Of course you will.”

For several moments, you all stand unmoving but you know you can’t delay any longer.

“Johnathan.”

“Winston.”

The man glances at you, a furrow between his brows accenting the deep lines of his face. “It’s a goodbye, my dear.”

You don’t so much as blink. “For now,” you note coolly.

“Coffee and brandy are 7pm sharp every night,” he remarks casually, seemingly pleased at the steel in your voice, and his hands slip into his coat pockets. “I don’t tolerate tardiness.”

You read his words for what they are.

I’ll be waiting for you back home.

Nodding your head once, you turn to go. You don’t look back, either. It would hurt too much. There is always a chance—

No, no chances. Not this time.

With every step, you repeat your new mantra in your head. Form a new plan.

Continental first. Not for weapons. But because you need—

“(Name).”

“Make it quick, John.”

His fingers brush over your hand and you pull back, halting on top of the stairs. He stands a few steps below and dog joins you at the top.

“We should stick together,” he tells you urgently, his voice soft, cautious. “If there are people out there who are after you then they will use this opportunity.”

“Let them.”

Let Lucien come. He wanted you over the edge.

Right now, you feel ready to rip his spine out with your bare hands.

Lucien. The pale-haired monster who robbed you of the precious hours that could have averted this entire mess in the first place.

He might not have pulled the trigger but he took from you the only chance of fixing this peacefully.

His name has joined the list of those who will be dead soon enough.

He wanted a dance. You will give him a hurricane.

“In an hour we’ll be hunted by at least half of this city.”

Your eyes sweep over the park before they drag back to him and your brief smile is cold. “No, John,” you disagree mildly and watch him blink. “What will happen is that you will be hunted by 90% of them because they’re money hungry and 14 million is a pretty price to pay for someone’s head. People will come for me, too, but they will be so eager to get to you first that I will be long gone from this city by then. Buy me at least an hour, would you?”

You turn to go but he grips your wrist and you tense, rotating your body back in his direction.

“Where are you going?”

“None of your business.”

“(Name), please.”

Your eyes narrow and you tug your wrist back. “I don’t owe you anything, John. Good luck. And I mean that, but you’re on your own.”

It’s started raining again.

The harsh, cold liquid slides down your arms and clothes as you dash up the staircase of the Continental.

The doorman pauses when he sees you, inclining his head in polite greeting. You only spare him a brief smile before dashing inside. Ignoring the wet squelch of your shoes against the gleaming floor, you go straight for the elevator, not needing to look towards the reception to know that Charon is not back yet.

Your eyes track over the people in the lobby, watching for any threats. Even with 35min still on the clock, you’re not about to take chances.

Wiping the water from your face, your partially numb fingers press on the floor one level below the basement. The basement floor only Charon and Winston have access to. The vaults. But you know better than to tempt fate. You’re not here for your solutions or poison.

The door pings open and you pull the door to the side, pushing ahead as quickly as possible.

Continental’s medical floor is eerily still. Most visitors receive care in their own rooms. This floor is for emergencies only. For worst of the worst.

Hurrying along the hall, you stumble to stop at the sight of a lithe frame of a woman sitting alone on a bench ahead. Her tattooed fingers rest on her other heavily bandaged hand and you exhale slowly, approaching cautiously.

Ares looks up, her expression pinched. She doesn’t look surprised to see you.

The clinical, dim light makes her face look more gaunt and the usually fierce glow in her blue eyes is dimmed too.

She rises slowly and you can see the difficulty in the action.

Your paralyser, as always, has done its job well.

“Ares—”

It’s slow and clumsy and you see it coming but don’t try to dodge.

Her punch connects with your lower jaw and your head snaps to the side, the impact rattling your teeth.

You steady yourself with a wince, your fingers rising to nurse your tender skin and meet her raging eyes with a single, understanding nod.

“Yeah, I deserved that,” you mutter tiredly, wiping at your still damp skin. Your eyes lower for a second with a shaky swallow. “Can I see him?”

It’s a faint question, brimming with uncertainty.

For several minutes she only glowers at you, unmoving.

You’re about to plead with her that you have to see him but her hands lift before you can open your mouth again.

Alive. For now, she signs and her movements are more sluggish than usual. But no one is allowed to see him. Still in operation.

Swallowing, you glance towards the floor.

Few droplets of water have fallen to the floor from your dripping clothes.

“And the blood?”

They had enough.

The puncture wound in the crook of your arm twinges at those words.

An emergency transfusion had been a priority after the doctors just barely managed to stop the bleeding.

Noting the still furious twist of her features, you let your eyes flutter shut in defeat.

“I’m sorry,” you breathe quietly. “But what was I suppose to do?”

Ares doesn’t hesitate.

Shoot him in the face.

Your jaw clenches and you shake your head. “You know I couldn’t do that.”

And my friend and boss might die because you could not, is her angry reply and your throat closes up. I thought you cared about him more than that.

“I do care for him. I—” you shoot back immediately but your words twist around your tongue, halting you. “You have no idea just how much I care about him,” you add quietly, your voice thin, and something about the hard set of her features eases a smidge at that.

“I guess the punishment fits the crime,” you continue with a sardonic twist of your lips. Your eyes meet hers and the confusion you see on her face, in turn, confuses you. “I’m being made Excommunicado, Ares. I have 35 minutes before it goes live,” you explain slowly, your voice pinching with pain.

She blinks, her lips parting slightly.

The morose curve of your lips stretches. She knows full well what this means.

That’s why you move closer towards her even as your jaw still aches from her earlier punch. Reaching deep behind the layers of your clothing, you pull out an ordinary looking flip phone, holding it out to her.

“So please. I know you’re angry at me. I know, but—” you plead for her and tighten your grip on the burner phone. “I need to know. Whatever happens to him I—please, Ares. Please.”

After everything that’s just happened, she doesn’t have to do anything you’ve asked of her. She doesn’t owe you anything.

But her hand grasps yours, tightening her thin but worn fingers around your own. Your shoulders sag in relief as she pulls the phone from your hand and slips it into her pocket with a single, reluctant nod.

She still looks angry but—

“Thank you,” you whisper with a wobbly smile and focus on her bandaged hand. “Your hand?”

Roberto, you know, is recovering already.

She doesn’t get to answer though.

Because before she can do so, a door opens from behind you, and a group of purposeful footsteps approaches.

At least four pairs.

“Well, well, look who it is.”

Your expression slackens.

Ares doesn’t react fast enough.

Hector reacts just fast enough.

You’re not sure if it’s the adrenaline or that humming dark or desperation or just anger and poor timing on his part, but you slam the man twice your size against the wall with a strength that causes a bang to rip through the empty hallway.

“Where were you?” you snarl, furious and low, your blade against the curve of his throat as you other tangles in his silky, dark suit. “Where the fuck were you?”

“Careful, sweetheart,” Hector warns softly, his mouth twitching into a sneer, but something glints in those icy eyes for a brief second. Surprise. “I’ll give you one free pass given the circumstances but there won’t be a second.”

Bodies surround you, but you ignore them, still glaring at the man before you.

“V, stop!”

“Oh, let her beat his ass, Julian,” another familiar voice drawls, unconcerned, his voice full of amusement. “I’ve been waiting for a rematch for years.”

A frustrated sigh. “Shut up, Step, you’re not helping.”

Another tall figure comes to a stop beside you—one that towers even over Hector but neither of you looks away from the other. “Let’s cool it, everyone,” that deep rumble of a voice tries to ease the tension. Dario. If Julian fails to mediate, then the burden falls onto him. Some things truly never change. “Come now, bella. Ease it up. V.”

You ignore Ares. You ignore the other members of the Four who are watching you and Hector with clear worry.

“Where were you?” you wonder with a quiet exhale, your fury palpable.

Hector scowls at you and leans into your blade. The metal kisses those mighty wings but there is no fear in his eyes and your expression warps with rage. “Did you hit your head?” he mocks, annoyed. His grip on your hands constricts, his rings scoring your skin. “I was covering your slow ass and taking on a small army so you could get to Santino quicker but oopsie, am I right?”

You drop your hands away from him with disgust, breathing heavily and Hector rolls his eyes, fixing the cuffs of his suit with a bored expression.

“You failed him,” you whisper, choked, your voice soft with vicious sort of accusation. “You failed Camorra.”

The lowest insult you can offer him. His loyalty to Camorra is absolute. He may not follow the individual but this harms the entire family.

It goes so quiet at your words that you could hear a pin drop. Even Step’s not so subtle snickering ceases. Like they can all appreciate that this situation may take a turn for worse very quickly.

The last time you two fought, there was blood spilt.

This time, you imagine it might come down to more than just blood.

Hector straightens, his sharp features stony. “I know.”

But it’s not enough.

And you can’t stop the avalanche now that it’s been unleashed.

“He needed you to be there for him and where were you?” you continue on, spitting out every word out like a curse, an anathema. “You should have been faster getting to the gallery. You should have been better.”

Hector peers at you, unblinking.

“Are we still talking about me?”

You leap at him but this time he’s ready for you and catches you in his grip, his back hitting the wall again, quieter this time.

Julian and Dario are there at once, their hands trying to drive you apart but a cool, calm command freezes you all.

“Enough.”

Charon.

Others look towards the man at the other end of the hallway but you and Hector are unmoving, still glaring at each other. You’re practically shaking with fury.

He’s right.

Your words were directed more at yourself than they were ever directed at him.

And yet.

“This doesn’t concern you, butler,” Hector calls out coolly, his quicksilver stare drilling into you and his grip on you doesn’t loosen. Smart man. “This is a Camorra matter.”

“Miss Vipress is not, however, Camorra.”

The unspoken Get your hands off her is clear to anyone with any semblance of common sense.

Hector relaxes against the wall, his head tilting as he waits.

“If you’re done with your hissy fit, sweetheart,” he speaks gruffly after another tense few seconds and clicks his tongue. “We need to talk. In private.”

All eyes are on you.

Hector only blinks, bored.

You release your grip abruptly, your fingers flexing, and Ares practically materialises by your side while Dario partially places himself between you and the Camorra Devil.

Your eyes slide towards Charon who stands with his hands clasped behind him. He’s still clad in his coat and scarf from earlier, indicating that he’s just returned. Winston is nowhere to be seen. You incline your head in a silent thanks and cut a brief look at the Camorra Elite.

All four are rigged out in their typical dark suits. The deep burgundy you have also seen them wear is for Camorra’s special occasions only. Like births, deaths and coronations.

You suddenly recall that Julian and Dario never wore the typical Camorra wine red on Gianna’s coronation and your curiosity peaks. Except, of course, you have no time for a catch up with them now. No matter how welcomed the distraction would be.

“Fine,” you mutter, your muscles still taut. “Hurry it up.”

Hector brushes past Dario and the Four part for him, following his lead effortlessly. They move like a well-oiled machine. Dario shares a brief look with Julian, and the shorter man looks like he’s forcing back a sigh, his dark moustache twitching.

Hector wrenches the first door in the hallway open, slanting his head in your direction impatiently.

Ares, Dario and Julian walk in first; all of them varying degrees of uneasy.

Step moves to follow, too, but Hector raises his hand, stopping him halfway.

“Not you.”

Step with his thin, wiry frame and pale face looks like a kid picking a fight with a bull. Even though he’s the youngest from the guard, that makes him no less dangerous. You can’t quite see his eyes behind those customary round sunglasses he usually wears everywhere but you can see the irritated strain on his face.

“You’re joking.”

His voice is low and stark with bitter disbelief but Hector doesn’t so much as twitch.

“No,” Hector deadpans without missing a beat. “Guard the hallway. We don’t need ears.”

For a second, those pale eyes jump over your shoulder where Charon no doubt lingers.

“Fine,” Step forces out, forcefully cheerful and his head tips in your direction, his grin bright. His tattoos stretch across his neck and he wiggles his fingers at you, his own Camorra rings gleaming in the artificial light. “Would thy fair lady like anything from the vending machine? My treat.”

Your eyes go to Hector for a second.

“Skittles.”

Step grins even wider, if possible. “Only if you let me eat the yellow ones.”

You almost smile, then. If all this wasn’t going on, if Santino wasn’t clinging to life and you weren’t about to become one of the most wanted individuals in the world, you might have.

“Sure,” you agree before adding a deliberate, “I reckon I owe you after the last time.”

Hector’s eyes narrow at that, becoming two slits, and Step’s strained grin transforms into something slyer, more biting.

He always enjoys having something over Hector’s head.

He pushes the glasses up his nose and gives you a staged nod. His tongue pokes the inside of his cheek and he gives Hector another stare before wandering off without a backwards glance.

The leader of the Elite’s gestures for you to get into the room and you push past him.

Julian is signing something to Ares when you enter, and Dario stands beside them, his hands burrowed deep into his suit pockets. His long hair is pulled back into a high bun as always and loose strands brush against his beard when he turns towards you.

Beneath their pitch-black jackets, you can just make out the gleam of their weapons.

They’re armed to the teeth.

Good.

The other two turn to you when you enter the room and you try for a smile, no matter how forced.

“It’s good to see you both,” you tell them and mean it and both men smile, too. Your attention swings back to Hector, however, just as the Devil closes the door behind him, sealing you all inside. “But whatever it is that you want from me make it quick.”

A subtle threat.

The man doesn’t outwardly react, simply lifting his arm.

“Catch.”

Your hand snaps out, your actions instinct alone, and grab the tiny object that sails through the air towards you.

It’s small and cool to the touch.

Your fingers loosen from a fist, blinking in confusion and something in your gut hardens at the realisation of what exactly you’re looking at.

“They—” your voice cracks and you pause, forcing calm back into your demeanour as you turn your attention to Hector who only stares at you emotionless. “They will not follow me. I’m an outsider. Half of them don’t even like me.”

The ring of Camorra sits in your outstretched palm.

The ring only the Head of Camorra is permitted to wear.

Or, in this case, the Acting Boss appointed prior.

Your stomach churns.

You have seen this ring on Giovanni’s hand many times. The golden metal that gleams like new even though you know it’s been in the D’Antonio family for generations. The blood-red ruby the size of your thumb nail glimmers in the light and you stare at it in disbelief. You can’t even begin to imagine this ring’s worth.

“You’re right,” Hector retorts blankly, unfeeling, and crosses his arms over his chest. A ripple of his muscles teases the deadly strength there. In dimmer light, his pale eyes seem to almost glow with wry mirth as he addresses you. “Frankly, they rather shoot you dead than follow you. But there are still those who value what that ring represents. That believe the order and the command that comes with it. Those who answer to that ring will obey. Princeling at least had enough foresight to prepare for the worst case scenario. Little Saint has made you his heir, sweetheart. And until he either dies or revokes the title himself, it’s binding.”

Binding because it came from Hector himself and no one would ever question his loyalty or integrity towards Camorra.

Santino has outmanoeuvred everyone by giving away his symbol of power. The very ring he’s been desperate to wear since he was a little boy.

A safety net in case he dies.

The realisation makes your heart hurt.

The families of Camorra will not obey you because, to them, you are nothing. You have not been sworn in, do not answer to their laws and their authority. But they cannot harm you either. And anyone who does, Camorra or not, risk invoking the wrath of the entire family if they do.

But above all that—

Those who answer to that ring will obey.

Your head turns towards the other two Elites’ and Ares. They’re already looking at you and not one of them looks surprised by this turn of events. Either they already knew beforehand or know Santino well enough to not put a gamble like that past him.

Almost in sync, the three of them bow their heads.

A show of respect. An unspoken promise that what you command, they will do.

A shuddering breath rushes out of your lungs that has nothing to do with your damp hair or clothes.

Clenching your jaw, your eyes drag towards Hector who hasn’t moved from his spot by the door.

He doesn’t budge, his arms still crossed over his chest, stretching the seams of his suit.

The Devil of Camorra does not bow his head to you.

He bows to no one.

The only man he’s ever respected enough for such a gesture is rotting six feet under the dirt and his ring is now in your hands. You don’t think there will ever be another individual alive that Hector will ever respect enough to bow his head to them. Oh, if only Giovanni had known years ago that one day you will be bestowed the most valuable heirloom in his family’s possession.

You imagine he would have killed you on the spot.

He laughed, and he said, ‘He is more like me than I realised. He would let this whole world burn to ash, as long as she’s the one standing beside him in the flames.’

Gianna’s words echo at the back of your mind, and a part of you wonders if perhaps Giovanni always did know. If perhaps he always suspected that due to whatever circumstances you might reach this moment in time one day.

You think about your brief conversation on that snowy balcony at Prague and know that you’re right.

“Stay here,” you tell the trio on the other side of the room. Your words sound far away, distant, but strong too. Focused. “No one who isn’t us or the doctor comes near him, understood?”

Your stare drifts to the far off wall in a daze, and you know that somewhere in this building, Santino is out there fighting.

As will you.

Nodding your head at them, you turn to go.

Hector’s arms loosen across his chest and he steps after you when you move in the direction of the door.

You halt at once, your head snapping to face him.

“What are you doing?”

A slow, lazy roll of his eyes as he fishes for a cigarette.

“Coming with you. Were you not listening? I go where that ring goes,” he informs you dully, and lights a cigarette with expert ease. He takes a deep drag, savouring it, and frowns at you, the deep curve of his eyebrows pinching together. “Drop the fucking scowl, sweetheart. I know you think that just because you’re in New York and your connections here run deep, you’re untouchable or some shit but you’re wrong.”

Smoke rolls from between his lips as he talks and your scowl only deepens. In return, he looks amused at best. “In twenty minutes half the scum of this city will come for you just to prove a point,” he reminds you, tapping the glass of his expensive watch, and the bird tattoo on the back of his hand flutters like your slipping time. “Don’t let your over-inflated sense of self-importance cloud your common sense.”

Your turn towards him fully, your chin tilting.

“You will stay here,” you tell him calmly, ignoring the way his eyes narrow and every strong muscle in his body quivers as if in anticipation. “And you will guard him with your life.”

You think you hear Julian curse under this breath. Dario takes a step towards you both.

“Are you ordering me?”

A dark, silky snarl of a question.

Your expression is as rigid as your body. Your fingers around the Camorra ring tighten. “I’m asking you. And I only do that once out of respect.”

A glint of something in his eyes that’s gone too quickly for you to examine.

He retreats and it feels like missing disaster by a breath.

The cigarette returns to his mouth and he grins around it. It’s a callous, mocking thing.

“Fine. Enjoy being hunted, sweetheart.”

You stare at him for a beat, too aware of your time constraint.

Camorra ring rolls in your damp palm again. Grasping it, you drag the heavy metal onto the middle finger of your left hand. Your fist clenches, the skin under your knuckles straining. The ring glimmers in the light, filling your veins with…purpose.

I will see you again, Santino.

Inclining your head in an equally disdainful manner, you only offer the man before you an aloof, “Blood for blood.”

Camorra’s words.

D’Antonio family words.

This time Hector’s version of a smile reveals teeth, almost pleased.

“Blood for blood.”

Streets blur around you.

Stumbling through the rain and the puddles drowning the New York streets, you count every breath you take, focusing on both not exerting too much energy but also your surroundings.

Everyone is an enemy.

In 7 minutes that will become a painful reality.

No one has tried anything yet. But you have seen and felt far too many eyes on you already. Many are no doubt weighing the risks. There is no reward for killing you, and most know the danger that shadows your every step.

You don’t need to touch them to kill them.

Ducking into a narrow alleyway, you slam your body weight against the sturdy metal door. Your fists follow, slamming against the door over and over again.

“Doc! Let me in! It’s me!” you shout over the pour of rain and slam your fist against the metal a few more times. “Doc!”

The door swings open suddenly and you brace yourself against the door frame.

Doc’s frantic stare meets yours and all he forces out is a shaky, “You shouldn’t have come here.”

Bowing your head in respect, you push past him. “Yeah, I know,” you mutter under your breath, working on steadying your breathing. “I just need a few things. I still have time so—”

Your words die on your tongue and you halt, your eyes narrowing.

John sits on the patient chair, his white shirt undone and a lamp shining over his bloodied shoulder.

Fresh blood.

He grips a gun in his hand but doesn’t raise it in your direction.

You hate the fact that he looks relieved—happy, even—to see you.

Blinking, you swipe your forearm over your face and move towards the shelves. Doc rushes back towards John and you glance at the clock on the wall.

4 minutes.

“What happened?” you question coldly and start opening different drawers and pulling ingredients apart.

“Ernest.”

“Funny guy but always lacked common sense,” you drone without looking at him and rip another drawer open, rummaging through the content inside. “Did you know that he tried to ask me out on a date once?”

“No.”

“Yeah.”

3 minutes.

Grabbing a familiar-looking vial, you give it a shake, lifting it to the light before you unscrew the top and drown the liquid inside.

The taste is bitter and numbs your tongue a little. You allow your face to scrunch up in disgust and shake your head harshly.

“I’m going to pay you back, Doc,” you wheeze, continuing your frantic search.

The older man huffs and you hear the fatigue there. “Just try and not make a mess.”

A few beats of quiet follow aside from your hurried rooting around Doc’s supply closet.

“Where is it, Doc?”

“Indonesian Green Erla—”

“I’ve found the plant,” you cut him off, glancing at the clock on the wall again. “Where is it?”

2 minutes.

Doc works with nimble, experienced fingers but he’s meticulous and his focus remains on John’s wound. The man in question looks bewildered by your exchange but doesn’t interject.

“Doc—”

“You gave it to me because you told me that you were afraid of what it can do—”

“Where is it?”

You have never dared to take that tone with him. Because you like him and respect him too much. But your frayed temper strains and the coldness in your voice stills both Doc and John.

“Doc, I need it.”

The clock keeps ticking.

Your head snaps towards the wall for the hundredth time.

1 minute.

“Floorboards. Under the table by the wall.”

You rush towards it, pushing the table aside roughly, and ignore the clatter of glass as vials and medical supplies fall.

Slipping free a blade, you wedge it between floorboards, trying to rip it open.

John is urging the Doc to hurry but you focus only on your task.

“Five.”

John counts and your breathing kicks up a notch.

The wood creaks, finally coming loose and you rip it away, dropping it unceremoniously beside you.

“Four.”

You pull different boxes and packages apart. You know what you’re looking for.

“Three.”

Your eyes snag onto a tiny box and you grab it. It’s a twin—the same dark, smooth material that fits into your palm—to another tiny box already sitting in your pocket courtesy of Winston.

“Two.”

Your two deadliest creations. One created out of hate and malice and another out of hope for a better future.

One finished. One incomplete.

“One.”

Your gaze snaps to John’s just as the clock above head strikes 6pm.

Time’s up.

. . .

an: And so everyones’ favourite Italian lives. For now. :) also the man really said “fuck tradition, I do what I want” and we love to see it!!!

Fun fact, I was planning to do Chicago (finally) right after C13 but since Chicago will be a 2 parter, I imagined that waiting for six weeks to know if Santino lives might not have been that much fun for you lot lol.

Also a few people really worried about Team John after C13 and were like “Team J is ded” and actually as you can see from the events of this chapter the exact opposite is true. Now, you may be reading this and be like “how is this positive for them?” but this had to happen. V needed to realise that she still clung to John and loved him but it wasn’t the right kind of love. A love for a man gone, a spectre, a dream. Her dropping the ring represents her letting go of the past and starting completely fresh. Their mend after Marcus was just a prelude oppose to actual break. This is the break. All these years, V has blamed herself for John leaving by assuming that she wasn’t good enough or that John loved Helen more. Neither is true. The choice was always between who John was and who he wanted to be. He loved both V and Helen the same and it really could have gone either way. Now, at this juncture, they can start again on the same page. Now, this is not to say he’s magically forgiven for all the shit he did. He isn’t. A lot still hinges on Santino and how he will get on in the upcoming chapters. But a lot of you were like “um kat wtf?” and I hope this chapter proves that I do things for a reason and that this build up has been coming for a while now.

There’s been a lot of things set up that are yet to be revealed.

As always, all my love to all of you for your support and encouraging comments <33 and love for my dumb OCs, too! Love you guys and hope you’re all staying safe!

#john wick #john wick x reader #santino d'antonio #santino d'antonio x reader #john wick imagine #john wick fic #john wick fanfic #riccardo scamarcio #keanu reeves #fanfic #fic: children of ares

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cuddle-me-slash-bear · 4 years ago

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Horny Woman Gets Plowed by Stranger, More at 11

A/N 1: I'm on mobile so I'm terribly sorry there's no cut. This was crossposted from AO3. This may not be the best, but it is rated EXPLICIT.

A/N 2: Howdy all! I'm a slut for Vincent, so much so that he's made me want to write for the first time in 6 years, and my first smut no less. Due to that, this is extremely turbulent. I wrote this over the course of two weeks so I probably lost my track a lot. Vincent is no doubt OOC. No beta, all mistakes are my own. Comments and criticism VERY much appreciated!

Description: Vincent Finds you hot and needy.

You don't know if it's the hot Louisiana air or the fact that you haven't seen another person in a week, but you just want to get split open as soon as possible. It's a good thing you've already made camp, because you can hardly stand how horny you are right now.

Now it's time to unwind inside your nice little tent, and riffle through your bag in the dark for exactly what you need. Your fingers run along the rubber ridged shaft, and your underwear gets impossibly wetter at the prospects of it filling you completely up. Shimmying your pants off, you get right to work at pulling your underwear to the side and lubing the toy with your slick, all the while pinching your nipples.

You moan freely at the prospect that you saw no 'private property' sign. Being miles out from the city sure has it's benefits, you think, teasing your hole with the head of the toy. There's rustling to the right of your tent, and you can feel your pussy clench in excitement. Could be a person come to fuck you out of your misery, but what the hell are they doing out here in the middle of nowhere? It's a deer, you reassure your almost disappointed mind, finally shoving the toy inside you.

Oh goood, the slide is so agonizingly amazing that you don't even try to stop the whimper that crawls up your throat. You take a deep breath and realize just how tense you are. You hold the protrusion in place while you move your legs and stretch, feeling pleasure piling on itself in different ways. Relaxing, you prop a leg up and lazily pump the toy inside and out. The sounds coming from your soaked pussy sound absolutely sinful, and it's a crying shame there isn't a fat cock to ease your burdens right now. The rustle sounds again, and accompanying it is a tall and broad shadow crossing the front of your tent. The clench is accompanied by a harsh pulse that you can feel in every muscle, exhilarating and spine-tingling. Whoever is out there has already heard you moaning like a whore, so no sense in beating around the bush. You hope he wants to beat around your bush.

You call out in a breathy voice, "Are you going to help me out, or just hide?" The figure stops in their tracks, and you can see their shadow widen as they turn towards the opening of the tent. You're no stranger to sex with strangers, partaking in a glory hole more than once.

Pulling out the toy, you toss it to the side before sitting up and ripping the tent's flap to the side. You remember the air being stifling outside, but when your head pokes out, all that hits your cheeks is a cool breeze. Right in front of your face is the stranger, towering and powerful. If you hadn't pulled that vibrator out, your juices would be running down it amidst your climax. "Well? Care to join me, stranger?" The man looks behind himself, before looking down at you and crouching. Fuck yes! Some perverted angel took pity on you. Scrambling to the side, you allow the man to crawl in and situate himself on the farthest side of the tent from you.

"Oh come on honey, you just heard me about to cream my panties. There's no room to be shy here." You lean on your hands and knees and crawl towards him, before noticing his face is very unchanging. "Are you wearing a mask?" You stop at his feet and sit on your haunches. He seems to be looking at everywhere else but you, before nodding and scooting back just a bit farther. "You can keep it on, but I will take these off," you smile deviously as you untie his boots, caked with dry mud, and toss them behind you. You tug at his ankle, urging him to scoot and lay down. Once he's propped against your pillow, you throw your leg over his hips and grind yourself along his hardening member. You bend, and make sure to press every inch of your torso to his before you nuzzle your face into his neck and nip at his ears. "Before this goes any further, I'll ask you for a color. Green means keep going, yellow means pause, and red means stop. I expect you to be honest when you answer me. Do you understand?" His cock twitches, and he nods. You wonder how far you could push this guy, but you don't want to scare him off. Not when your cunt is clenching this pathetically around nothing. His breathing gets heavier, made worse by the mask he has on. You steal a glance up at his eyes, and can see the shine in one. Planting your hands on his biceps, you set a rhythm of gyrating your underwear clad cunt along the seam of his jeans and moan under your breath with him.

"You're wearing too much," you mewl, tugging at his jacket and sweater. You're not moving from this spot on his lap, so you pull him into a sitting position to help him strip. He pulls off the layers one by one, each letting his hair cascade along his shoulders and creamy skin. You push him back down, lovingly moaning as you kiss and nibble at parts of his neck. "You smell heavenly, and you look even sexier." A whining noise sounds from in his throat, and you get just a bit wetter. You chance a look down…. Yup. You've soaked a patch into this dude's jeans. "Look at how bothered you've gotten me." He looks from your face down to where your eyes are glued, and he throws his head back with a groan. Your lips return to his neck, trailing down to his collarbone to suckle a hickey just below neckline. "Now you won't forget me so easily," you smile at him as your lips travel a little further down to his pert nipples. Pink and mouthwatering, you take one in your mouth gently and swirl it around. Your tongue has him arching his back up and choking on gasps. His legs bend, which pushes you just a little higher and just a little firmer into his chest. You come up for a second and firmly ask, "Color?" A glance at his sides shows he's clinging to your comforter like a lifeline.

"G-gree-een!" The first word he's said to you, and it's urging you to continue. A raspy reply, cut off by his stuttering breaths and moans. You giggle, and say, "You can touch me, ya know." You watch as his eye settles on different parts of you, too frazzled to choose…

"Here," you take his right hand in yours, and bring it to the back of your head. "Run your fingers through my hair, and pull." He does just that, but instead opting to do it a few inches from the tip of your hair. You let out an involuntary 'Ow!' The stranger's hand recoils, and you rush to console him.

Still giggling, you ask, "You haven't ever pulled hair before, have you?" His gaze refuses to lock on yours, slowly shaking his head. "Let me show you." You sit him up again, lightly grazing his skin all the way to the back of his neck, before raking your nails along his scalp to the center of his crown, gathering the hair there. "You slide your hand along the base of my head…." You breathe out, feeling the straps of his mask clasped in-between soft locks of silk, "and gather the hair there. Then you pull, honey." You demonstrate on him, earning a soft 'Fuck…' and a shiver. "Color?"

"Greeen," he drawls, sounding almost close to tears. He would be absolutely breathtaking when wrecked, you think, switching to the other nipple to lather it with love. The stranger uses his newfound knowledge on you, and you grace him with a deep, sultry moan and a grind across his cock to reward him. He's keening so beautifully, and you can't help but say….

"You sound so breathless, almost like-" The stranger cuts you off.

"A virgin?" Your lips pause their rhythm to gaze past his heaving chest. Eyes connect, and you sit like that for a second.

"Are you?" His visible eye darts to the right, and your pussy clenches painfully. "Holy fuck, that changes things," you moan out, pulling back. He rushes to fill the space you left, whimpering and shaking his head.

His arms circle your waist, locking you to him.

You press against him, and wrap your arms around his shoulders. "I'm not going to stop, but if this is your first, I've gotta make it as special as possible. Considering I've already went ahead and made you hard without being introduced, I'm [Y/N]." Your legs maneuver around his waist, and you use the leverage to rotate your hips in a circle around his straining dick. His head falls to your shoulder, mumbling, "V-Vincent…"

"I like that name, Vincent. Do you still want to continue?" You're soft now, less hasty just so you can make this extremely pleasurable for him. Vincent nods fervently, still bashful even with you being a couple of layers from taking his virginity. A smile crosses your face as he crushes his hips to yours and grinds up, breath shaking.

Your hands slip down, trapped between two scorching bodies to his jeans button. Unbuttoned, unzipped, and now thrown somewhere in your tent. Vincent seems to prefer commando, and now all that's left is your underwear and shirt. Both are gone in a flash, and you're seated right back where you belong, dragging your heated slick along the length of Vincent's dick. It's a good thing you're on top, because Vincent's legs are shaking behind you. From excitement, arousal, all of the above?

You reach down and grasp his leaking member before giving it a few strokes and leaning down to whisper in his ear, "I'm honored to be your first, Vincent." You tease the tip of his aching cock, slowly taking in more each time you descend. Vincent is gripping your hips hard, digging his nails into the meat of your sides. You can feel his cock twitching inside you, hitting your cervix in an uncomfortable way. "Fuck, you're huge…" you cry, rocking back and forth to get some friction on your clit to ease the discomfort. Vincent keens so beautifully underneath you.

"C-close…." He breathes out.

You take one of his hands in yours, and guide it along your sweaty skin up to your breasts, urging to grab and squeeze. "Please?" He twitches again inside you before doing as instructed. At first, a little too softly. You urge him to be a little rougher, and he gets the confidence once his action invokes a guttural moan from you.

Tingles are sent straight to your filled pussy, all of this becoming overwhelming. Your hands glide over Vincent's toned body, brushing his nipples again and humping Vincent to soothe your swollen clit. "Oh fuck, Vincent…" you throw your head back, core heating up. You can feel Vincent's eyes glued to you, and you're aiming to make a lasting impression. And so is he, you think, your pussy will feel his cock's imprint for days after this.

Vincent's legs shuffles behind you to plant his feet on the ground, angling his hips up and completely filling you. "Hah, I'm gonna cum!" You cry, muscles seizing and pussy clenching. You grip his forearms as you roll your spasming cunt to finish, opening your eyes just in time to see him throwing his head back.

"Hmmf-h-HA!" His hips drive up and lift you just a little bit, and you can feel his warm seed filling you up impossibly more. His neck is tensing, and it makes youou want to mark him up.

You don't move off of him, but hunch so you can lay against his chest. Your pelvis is tense, still filled with Vincent's softening cock and load of cum. Catching your breath, you trail kisses all over his collarbones and neck. Bracing your hands on his shoulders, you slowly pull up from him, thoroughly sore and ruined. Before he's even halfway out, his cum starts dripping down on himself, before emptying out completely when his dick pops out. "Fuck, that's hot." You whisper, eyes locked down. Vincent apparently agrees, because his breath hitches. You decide to be mean, and tease him a little. Maneuvering down his body, continuing the onslaught over his skin all the way down, you supply kitten licks over his sensitive flesh, cleaning him. After you feel he's sufficiently clean, you plop next to his sprawled form.

Your eyes feel so heavy. You trail your nails up and down the length of Vincent's back, and before you know it, you've slipped into a deep and comforting sleep.

You can see the sunlight even through your eyelids, and hear all kinds of birds and cicadas outside your tent. Giving a good stretch, one accompanied with many pops and soft groans from your mouth, you sit up and look to the side.

Nothing. That's startling, but not surprising. Damn, it would've been nice to at least get his details. But this is an encounter you won't soon forget, that being the best sex you've had in a while. Time to pack up camp and get back on the road, you guess.

It's early enough in the morning that the air isn't so stifling, and you gladly trump down the road in your truck with the windows down, allowing the breeze and Louisiana flora to grace your senses. You hope you'll be able to find a shop or something and ask directions. It's not the end of the world if you don't, but that means another night of camping in your tent. If every tent night ends like last night, you wouldn't mind sleeping in a tent for the rest of your life. You can't get him out of your head, and the vibrating from your old truck certainly doesn't help your moistening cunt. You spy a sign for a neighboring town, and push the gas just a little harder.

#house of wax #text post #vincent sinclair #vincent sinclair x reader #Vincent sinclair/reader #vincent sinclair/you #vincent sinclair x you #nsft #my writing #fic

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nitannichionne · 4 years ago

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Luna IV, Chapter 8: Discipline (A Cavill / Syverson Fan Fic)

Chapter Eight: Discipline

You are not sure which feeling was worse: dread or anticipation. You don’t struggle; you have a feeling you will need your energy, and you have to keep your wits about you…or what was left of them where he was concerned. In your nervousness your mouth has gone dry. You try to lick your lips as you realize the house isn’t as cool as it was before. It is as if he changed the climate of the house.

He returns with a small bowl of ice and sets it on the bedside table

You take a deep calming breath. “I said I was sorry.”

“You said it, yes…” He is calm as he takes off his shirt, making you long to stroke his chest. He kicks off his boots and socks. “But you didn’t mean it.” He unbuttons his trousers, and lets them slip to his ankles, stepping out of them easily.

You turn away, closing your eyes from his body and the erection you’d never been allowed the taste of. You hear his soft teasing laughter and the clink of the ice in the bowl before feeling his weight on the bed and then on your body. You turn your head and open your eyes to find him on his hands and knees over you.

No storm of anger rages in Sy’s eyes, and you wonder what you are in for. Those deep set pools were the color of a gentle sea. Rage and anger you are ready for, but not this. You watch his eyes lower, seeming to heat each part of your body as they passed, and she found herself taking in broad shoulders, sculpted chest and arms which led to a flat muscled abdomen that led to his manhood, hanging down between them. Her mouth parted slightly. She suddenly felt short of breath.

“I want your eyes—“ He kisses each of your eyes. “Closed.” He blindfolds you.

The next sensation is his lips, firm but soft, nibbling hers. Part of you wants to nibble right back, and part of you wants to be as still and quiet as the grave. You don’t realize you are holding your breath until you hear the clink of ice. Then you felt his hot tongue and cold ice swirling and alternating inside your mouth. You respond in kind, sucking his tongue in thirst and in a plea for mercy from what you can only imagine would happen. The cube melts quickly in your combined heat, and you hear the clink of ice again from the bowl as his mouth leaves yours.

Once again, you feel his lips, cooled by the ice, trailing on your neck and setting off a wave of chills on your skin and flutters in your lower depths. You feel his lips part and the edge of an ice cube draw patterns on your neck. It was in his mouth, you can still feel the warmth of his breath in contrast. He then licks the excess water from your skin. You twist underneath him, arching to his body, his caress, helplessly enjoying it. He quickly takes your breast into his mouth, and you gasp softly. The ice hardens your nipple quickly, making it tighten almost painfully for an altogether different reason. You groan, twisting again, but there is more agitation. He goes to the other, and you are twisting in frustration.

He kisses you again, allowing the ice to melt in your mouths, and then asks, “Sorry?”

You don’t know what to say, and you hear him chuckle at her apparent inner struggle. You hear him take another ice cube and in one motion, parts your legs and pushes it against you.

A strangled cry comes from you, half surprise, and half rapture. You feel his tongue and the ice alternate against you, applying pressure inside your most private place while he sucked the soft folds that surrounded it. You move against him, shivering, moans coming from her that you can’t contain. You gyrated wildly, insides opening in silent invitation for him to warm and claim, but he won’t. He brings you to the very edge, and stosps, crawling over you and then rubbing the blunt tip of his erection up and down your slit.

“Sy!” You strain against the cuffs, and your frustration doubled. He removes the blindfold, and you look at him. “Please…”

“Nice, but not what I want to hear—“ He pushes the head of his erection inside you, and your body pulls on him as you criy cried out. You watch his muscles tense in control, poised to give him what he wanted. Damn him!

“It…aches…” She strained against the cuffs again, her athletic body lifting off the bed in its frustration. She could barely speak; she was choking on her tears, the last of her pride. He withdrew from her, and she fell back on the bed with a moan, feeling wetness underneath you on the sheets. Only one thing could stop that ache, and he had given you a taste that left you starving. “Please…”

His look is one of strained. His voice sounds the same to you. “What do you say?” You watch him watching you as you swallow hard, biting your lip. You watch him swallow hard. Why would he gulp like that?! “Think about it.” He gets off the bed, turning to leave.

“Sy!”

He stops, but doesn’t turn back to you. “Yes, love?”

Being called that breaks the last of your reserve. You swallow hard, your throat dry. “I’m sorry.”

The mournful wail brings him back to you, and he positions himself between your legs, teasing your sex with the hardness of his own as he has before.

“And?” He licks his lips, almost in anticipation it seemed…

Your body begins helplessly gyrating again. “I…will never hit a man on this planet.” Unless I have to, you amend to herself. You can’t believe you have the sense to do that.

You see his body relax as he leans forward and takes another ice cube from the bowl, popping it into his mouth, and kisses you, bringing moisture and coolness back to you. When it melts, he pulls away slightly to look down at you, caressing your cheek. “Next time, let me defend you. I can do more.”

He didn’t have to say that, you realize, but he wants to…he wants to!

You whimper softly, reveling in the hope and knowledge that he feels more than he lets on for you. “I’m sorry.” And you lift your upper body so you can kiss him. You begin sucking his tongue.

He plunges inside you, making you cry out, and your bodies meld. He stifles a moan, easing in and out of you, teasing you both. But then, nature begins to take over…

He begins a pounding rhythm, his muscular body sliding against yours. You look in his eyes, reveling in him reveling in you. He strokes your body with his hands as he moves. He seems to love the firm softness of your body—your legs which clasp around him and he takes the time to caress, your flat belly and firm breasts which tease his nipples because his teases yours—even your arms which strain against the cuffs in need to touch him. You pant lightly at first, but he drives you to gasping cries.

You look up at him. His look changed yet again! He no longer clasps your body to his, but comes up on his elbows to look at you. You feel a chill losing his body heat and see that his eyes are no longer gentle, but are becoming distant. He was going to stop, stop and leave you in need again...!

But he isn’t stopping yet. He doesn’t want to! You know it now. You want to scream it.

You close your eyes. It will take all you have to do what you are contemplating, but you want the man you were in the throes of passion with minutes ago. You want Sy, not Captain Syverson…

You opened your eyes. You are ready.

His look is one of puzzlement at your expression. He’d probably never seen a look like the one you are giving. You realize her eyes hold a power over him, a message he doesn’t understand until he tries to withdraw, only to find that your legs have wrapped around his, and he is trapped.

The look makes sense to him. His blue eyes widen with the realization that he isn’t going anywhere. He tries to get up on his hands for leverage, but to no avail. He slows his movements and tears his gaze away from your knowing look. You are locked in a battle you know you both have never fought before, but you want to win more than anything. He feels you arch and hears you moan, the muscles of your heated sex clenching, pulling him deeper. A moan escapes him as she watches him throw his head back and rock against you to pull free, only to find he is aiding your cause and losing his own to carnal desire.

The battle resumes. He tries to kiss you, but your warm willingness, your mouth sucking his tongue makes matters worse. He tries to slow his thrusts, rotating his hips, but you move yours in response and in time with his. A moan escapes him again, and you echo him. You rub your leg up and down his side, beguiling him to give you what you want—his warden’s pride, his surrender as a man.

He growls, finally giving into his natural inclinations, and holds your hips to drive in and out of you hard. You cry out, her head falling back though your body stays arched to him, anything he could give you. The sexual hunger of his body penetrates yours in an almost desperate search for fulfillment, and you are breathless. You watch his throat constrict with the knowledge it wouldn’t be much longer, his muscles bunching and tightening as his thrusts become primal, making you both scream as he finally shoots hard and deep, shuddering and rocking against you over and over as your orgasms feed on his, your hips gyrating to prolong the euphoria.

He looks up at your arms. You knew you’d bruised yourself in your passion but you don’t care. He unclasps the restraints, and your arms fly around him, squeezing him. He takes one of your wrists, kissing the dark marks in apology, but you smile at him. This…he was worth it.

You don’t know how long you kept looking in each other’s eyes. You only know you could stay this way forever. And then he says what you had only guessed about:

“I believe you.”

“Thank you,” Your say as your heart flutters and you rake his scalp lightly.

You both have met and found a match in the other.

Everything is going to change…

Thanks for the support! DM me if you want to be tagged and as always I welcome comments/questions!

@fckdeusername @maan24 @rn7rocks @kaatelyyynn @october505

#henry cavill #henry cavill fandom #henry cavill fan fiction #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill smut #henry cavill fluff #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill x you #captain syverson #geralt #superman

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saint-eridell · 5 years ago

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Afterparty | Deku/F!Reader smut

I found this in my drive unlabeled and untitled, so y’all get first crack at it before it goes on AO3.

3.5k, half-beta’d and proofread. Will probably give it another pass at some point. All characters depicted are in their early twenties. Major tags: Dirty talk, 69, dominant-ish reader

You crash through Izuku’s bedroom door locked at the lips, stumbling across each other’s feet as you both adamantly refuse to give the other room to walk. Izuku pushes the door shut with his other arm wrapped around your waist, breaking away to suck in a breath before laughing. You return the laugh as you hastily tug the bottom of his dress shirt out of his slacks. “I thought we were never gonna get out of there,” you murmur.

He drags his teeth along the side of your neck as he fumbles for the zipper pull between your shoulders. “Wouldn’t have seemed like forever if you had any patience,” he breathes back, his grin apparent even if you can’t see it. “You’re lucky no one at the party caught on.” As he rumbles into your ear, he somehow gets the zipper of your dress pulled down the length of your back and nudges the soft fabric off your shoulders.

You happily shift out of the dress completely, leaving you clad in your underwear as he carefully lays the garment over the top of his dresser. You take the half step with him to seam yourself up to his clothed chest as soon as he’s facing you and begin popping open the buttons of his shirt one by one with nimble fingers. “Aw come on,” you pout back. “You don’t think you’d be ridiculously into the idea of someone knowing exactly what we have planned? Making them insanely jealous with what you know you can do to me and they’ll never get to?” Alright, maybe the two glasses of wine you’d allowed yourself are starting to get to you more than you’d thought. Poking Izuku into self-serving reactions seems like the exact game you want to play.

A hand snakes its way into the hair on the back of your head and tugs you into another demanding kiss as you get to the last button of his shirt. Izuku shrugs the offending garment off and tosses it aside, much more careless with his own clothes than he was with the dress. You begin to kiss your way down his bare chest, but he nudges you backward toward the bed and up onto it instead as he quickly gets his belt open. You follow the guiding, perched at the foot of the bed with your knees spread enough to let him slip between them after shucking his slacks.

“You might be projecting a little bit, love,” he replies, crowding you up the bed until you flop against the pillows and he can hover above you. His free hand traces the edge of your bra, grazing along the transition from silk strap to lace edge as his nail runs over the cup. The drag sends a shiver through you that you try to repress with your lower lip pinched between your teeth.

“What’s the matter?” he asks as he watches you squirm on the spot. “Am I right?” His smile widens, revealing an edge of straight white teeth. His fingers spread over the cup of your bra and give it a firm squeeze. You gasp quietly, and his smile only widens more. “I think I am. I think you like the idea of showing off.” His thumb finds the sensitive flesh of your nipple through the padded cup and rolls it between the biggest knuckles of his thumb and index finger. You arch into his hand while doing your best to maintain composure, but it already seems like a pointless battle and neither of you are even naked yet.

He’s right, though. It’s not a secret that you two are dating, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that you’re intimate. And yet, thinking back to the birthday party you’d finally managed to extricate yourselves from, the real highlight was watching Izuku’s eyes follow you around. He seemed to catch every slip of a pale thigh, every devious little smile, and the hungry looks he gave back had you completely uninterested in anything but the afterparty within an hour of getting there.

Without warning he pushes a hand underneath you and darts for your bra clasp. You sit up in surprise and he snaps the clips open with a single flick of his fingers, a show of dexterity that has you grinning as he strips the bra off. “Who’s trying to show off now?” you ask as your back touches down on the mattress again.

“What, that?” Izuku holds your bra up and looks at it like he suddenly doesn’t know what it even is. “Doesn’t everyone know how to do that?”

You blink at him. “Uh… no, no they-” You cut yourself off as his innocent question breaks around a barely repressed smile, and you roll your eyes as he drops the garment to the floor. “Fuckin’ troll.”

Izuku leans in again, his fingers spread over your bare chest. ”I don’t know what you might even possibly mean,” he says back through a quiet laugh. You can’t help but return the laugh until he rolls both nipples to stiff peaks between his knuckles, when your laugh tapers off into a breathy noise. You roll yourself into his lap, where only two layers of thin fabric separate you and the hard shaft pressing along your slit.

Izuku rumbles his approval. “Bet you were thinking all sorts of dirty thoughts tonight,” he says into your ear as he cups the undersides of your breasts and squeezes.

You nod and tilt your chin up, offering more of your neck to his wandering mouth. “By the end of the night you could have put me up on the table in front of everyone and I would’ve happily taken it,” you purr back, letting your legs fall open a little wider. “Thought you were gonna eat me alive a few times.”

He grinds against your core with a strangled noise that he only barely swallows down. He presses his face into the side of your neck to kiss and nip along your throat, but you can feel how hot his cheeks are as he trails over your skin. “I thought about it,” he confesses in that tiny voice that you know means he’s speaking truthfully, if also through his own mortification. His dick betrays his bashfulness, though; it’s hard to believe he’s completely overwhelmed when it feels like he’s trying his absolutely best to fuck you through his boxers.

You encourage him when he pauses by grinding down against his lap again, a quiet whimper echoing against the lips you can feel pressed to your throat. He replaces his lips briefly with his teeth, dragging another muffled noise from you as payback. “Wanted to put you on my lap and make you ride me,” he continues, a little shakier than before. “Let everyone watch you take it until you can only remember how to scream my name.”

Your gut clenches behind your navel. Whatever you’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. His hands smooth up your sides, then back down toward your hips where they settle with a harsh but satisfying grip over the jut of both hip bones. Oh, Izuku was learning so fast. He’d obviously been doing his own research; that kind of vulgarity was new from him, but it hit a Big Red Button that you hadn’t been aware of and you’ve already decided to keep it going no matter what it takes. “You could still do that,” you remind him through a hard exhale. “You want to? You want me on top tonight?”

Izuku nods against your throat. “Yes,” he rasps. “God, yes.”

That’s all you need to hear, and likely all he’s going to be able to say. You push to the left with your legs wrapped around his waist, rolling you both over so his back is pressed to the mattress and your knees are tucked at his sides. You can finally see his face again, and the first glance hits you like a freight truck: he’s flushed bright pink from his hairline down, lips parted around uneven breaths as he watches you with wide, hungry eyes. The scars that cover his chest and arms stand out against the harsh excitement lingering across his skin, and you catalog it all at your own pace as you circle the flat plane of his chest with your nails.

Izuku squirms under your weight. “Babe,” he rumbles, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. You can feel self-consciousness rolling off him in waves, and you offer him a comforting smile as your hips rotate in a long, slow circle. The tension pinched between his brows releases as his head falls back against the pillows.

“Relax,” you say back under your breath. You smooth a palm down the center of his chest, to the seam of his defined abs. He lets out a shaky breath and sinks into the bed. “You’re alright.” The calming tone of your voice seems to balm whatever frayed nerve that had him squirming as he goes still under your gentle touch and soft words.

Once he’s no longer squirming, you gently push your fingertips under the waistband of his boxers and begin rolling them down his legs. He obliges without lifting his head, a breathy noise reaching your ears as his shaft finally springs free and hovers over his lower abdomen. He peers down at you but you give him no time to react; as soon as you’ve tossed the boxers aside, you scoot yourself up to kneel between his thighs and wrap a hand around the base of his dick.

His reaction is immediate. He thrusts into your grip with a weak moan that echoes out of a slackened jaw without any sign of restraint. You let him take his own edge off as he rides your grip with a hand clamped over his mouth. You smile to yourself; Izuku doesn’t usually let his bashfulness get the better of him anymore, but every now and then you manage to find a weak spot he hasn’t covered yet. When he settles into a comfortable rhythm again, his hand slowly coming to a rest on his chest instead of slapped over his face, you tip your head down and lick a stripe up the underside of his entire length with the flat of your tongue. He keens hard, pitching up to try and push into your mouth as you pass over the head, but you sit up again with a giggle before he can get anymore contact. He peers at you with a single half-open eye.

“Tell me to relax, then pull something like that.” Izuku huffs, his irritation absolutely fake.

You raise an eyebrow. “Like what?” you ask back, just as coy and shy as he likes to pretend to be. “Oh, like this?” You repeat the motion, running your tongue in a full circle around his head with your lips parted and every second visible before closing your lips around him and swallowing around it. You hum into him as he bucks in your grip again, your noise of contentment drowned out by the desperate groan that rips out of him. His fingers push into the hair on top of your head, threading through to your crown before tightening against your scalp without restricting your movement.

“Nn- I fucking love your mouth,” he grinds out toward the ceiling. You feel him dig his heels in like he’s going to try and thrust up, and preemptively press both hands to his hips to keep them flat against the bed. When you make up for it by breathing deep and relaxing your throat, slipping down until you can feel dark curls against your nose, he moans loud enough to startle you. “Holyshithowthefuckdidyoudothat,” he breathes with desperation as you slide back up, managing to keep yourself composed spare one small cough to clear your throat when you let him go with a lewd pop.

You don’t answer back except to quietly giggle again before going back to work. Your head bobs up and down half his length, slow and methodical while you keep him secured against the bed. He drapes a forearm over his eyes, the bright pink of his cheeks suddenly pronounced against his tanned arm and the jagged scars that cut through in stripes of harsh relief. He alternates between heavy breaths as you take him into your throat and needy little whimpers every time your tongue catches a sweet spot, his heels dug into the bed while he struggles against your weight where it holds him down.

“Hey,” he whimpers, and it’s so ragged and desperate it makes you stop dead and immediately look up at him. He runs his tongue over his lips again, but it doesn’t seem to do anything. “C’mere. Wanna help.”

It takes your brain a second to catch up to what he’s saying, and when it does it’s your turn to sport a bright flush. Hello, more new territory you hadn’t even been bold enough to ask for yet. “You sure?” you question back.

He nods eagerly, and his wild grin makes your heart skip a beat. “Yeah,” he replies, short and gruff. “Get up here.”

Your heart jumps into your throat as Izuku pins you with a determined stare, his pulse throbbing against your occupied hand. He’s sure, and there’s no way in Hell you’re gonna say no. You lift a knee and move to straddle his stomach without any further questioning. He spreads his hands over both sides of your ass and squeezes hard, pulling a surprised gasp out of you as you readjust your knees in a bid to stay upright. It’s no good; he pushes you forward over his lower half, causing you to have to throw your hands down on either side of his legs to keep yourself upright. He sits up while you’re distracted, giving back the tormenting swipe of a flat tongue you’d teased him with earlier through the fabric of your soaked panties. You suck in a breath through gritted teeth and roll back against him, surprised by the intensity of the blunt friction and frustrated by the lack of direct contact.

“These,” he groans, popping the waistband against your lower back. “Need to come off like yesterday.”

Ah, fuck. Right. You’d been so invested in making Izuku squirm that you’d completely forgotten to finish stripping yourself. You peel the last garment down and awkwardly wiggle across his midsection as you strip them off one leg at a time. As soon as your knees are back on the bed Izuku reaches under you to grab you by the hips, forcing you to bend and open for him again before he sits up and buries his tongue in your folds.

The open mouth groan that comes out of him is drowned out by the sharp wail that he pulls out of you. You arch back into him, your hips slack in his hands. His dick brushes your chest as you momentarily lose your composure, smearing a streak of precum across the top of a breast while you writhe against his grip. He doesn’t seem to care about the lack of attention on your end, seemingly too preoccupied with laving over your slit and dipping his tongue inside as far as it will go with your hole held open between his thumbs to care.

After what feels like an hour of losing your mind against his mouth you have to move, do something - anything, or you risk falling to pieces way before you want to. You readjust and suck him down into your throat again, thanking him for the deft flicking of his tongue by dropping all the way down until your chin touches his pelvis. He lets out a strangled noise that’s muffled against your inner thigh, where he plants a hard bite as you pop up and suck in a greedy breath that comes out with a high pitched moan.

You trade off move for move: every time you take him deep, he answers back by filling you with his tongue and circling the pad of a thumb over your overstimulated clit. When you twist over half of him and circle your hand over the rest, he sucks you until you’re bucking back against him. The noises grow more obscene as you both begin to lose patience, the wet contact you have going enough to drive you nuts but nowhere near enough to get either of you off.

Just as it feels like you’re going to come out of your skin you pull away from his grip and move down his abdomen again. He laments the lack of contact with a quiet noise of confusion, his dick bobbing underneath you until you line up over it and sit back. He hadn’t gone past a single finger, but you’re basically dripping and the glide to his base is easy despite the ache of him pushing your walls outward. His nails bite into your hip bones as he lets out a loud, choked moan that bounces off the walls with his name as it comes tearing out of your mouth. He bottoms out exactly where you need it the most, and the counter-circling of his hips has you panting hard as you plant your hands over his thighs for leverage and ride him hard enough to feel it in your midsection when he bottoms out.

His hands pull you down into him, doubling the force when your skin smacks together and you pant in unison, punctuated by the occasional needy moan when he goes particularly deep. Your head tilts forward, hair curtained around your sweat-beaded face. It’s hard to tell who’s in control anymore. He’s not forcing you down, but he can easily flip you over at any second if he really wants to and you both know it. He’s letting you take the lead, to set the pace and dictate what’s happening so he can lay back and let you use him. The headiness of the moment goes right to your bloodstream as your heart hammers behind your ribs.

Just as you’re starting to squeal with every thrust, he pulls you against him and grinds deep. “Turn around,” he pleads, his voice absolutely wrecked against the shell of your ear.

You pull off his lap and turn yourself to face him as fast as you can while your legs tremble underneath you. He guides you up and seats himself in you up to the hilt again, a hand on the back of your neck guiding you into a desperate kiss while he resumes thrusting up into you at an unforgiving pace. This time he’s taking more control, snapping against you with purpose as you gasp in unison against each other’s mouths.

The hand on the back of your neck snakes around and his fingers spider over your throat. He knows precisely what having your throat squeezed does, and he seems to revel in it as he hits a deep spot inside you that has your eyes nearly rolling back. “Cum for me, baby,” he growls out of nowhere, snapping your attention back down to him as his hand squeezes harder around your throat. “Right now.”

The command shatters something in your brain and you come undone immediately. Your eyes slide up and roll shut as a wail rips through you, quivering every time he drills up into you as he fucks out every second of an earth-shattering orgasm. He grits his teeth with a gravelly rumble and follows you within seconds, low noises spiking up into wild gasps as he lights you up as deep as either of you can go.

Once you both finally burn yourselves out you collapse down onto his chest. You bury your face in his sweat-coated neck as you struggle to find your breath, his own rattling hard in your ear. His hand returns to the back of your neck, massaging the nape in slow, gentle circles. “Holy shit,” he murmurs between exhales. You feel his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows hard, and the next exhale that leaves him is heavy with a bark of a laugh. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“I didn’t know you could get me off by ordering me,” you murmur back, grinning as you feel his neck brighten in self-aware embarrassment. “It’s fine, by the way.” You press a kiss to the point of his jaw. “I liked it.”

Izuku watches you with slightly unfocused eyes for a moment when you sit up far enough to look at his face, his hand still circled loosely around the front of your neck. He looks down to your lips a couple of times before pulling you into a kiss that’s nowhere near obscene, but still makes your heart thunder in your chest. You break the contact and remain close enough to brush against his lips as you purr:

“I’m facing you the next time you feel like dragging me onto your mouth, though.”

His blush surges down to his jawline like a drought-fed wildfire and you suppress a loud laugh against his heated lips.

#midoriya izuku x reader #midoriya izuku x female reader #midoriya izuku imagine #bnha smut #bnha lemon #bnha imagines #my fics

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snappedsky · 3 years ago

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Borderlands: Skies the Bodyguard 4

Skies meets up with the Crimson Raiders.

*Links to previous and next chapters in reblog*

Chapter 6

Skies stares out at Helios. She’s close enough now to make out most of the wreckage; the rubble that stretches out for miles, leading up to the giant H embedded into the Pandoran landscape.

Sighing heavily, she glares at the cliff side at her feet, separating her from her destination. Too steep to scale and too high to jump.

“So close, and yet so far.”

She hears the roar of flames and turns to wall of a large, nearby bandit town. Pillars of flames are shooting out of the wall and into the sky. Skies eyes the city curiously as she turns on her ECHO communicator.

“Hey, Tim, do you see a bandit town with a wall of fire?” she asks.

“Um…no,” he replies.

“Okay, I’m gonna check it out. Maybe they know of a way I can get to Helios. You keep doing your thing.”

“Can do.”

So Skies heads over to the town. She passes the broken down vehicles in front of the entrance in the wall, then immediately ducks out of the way. There are four active turrets within the doorway. She expects them to start firing but they remain quiet. She cautiously sticks out her hand, and still they give no response.

She stands up, goes through the doorway, and up to a turret. They’re definitely active, rotating back and forth, but they don’t seem to view her as a threat.

“Hm. Cool,” Skies comments and heads into the town. It’s a rather large bandit town, with lots of space and big buildings. But it seems about as dead as the desert.

“Hello?” she calls out, “anyone home? I come in relative peace!”

There’s a sudden flash of purple and Skies jumps back before glaring with wearily at the person who just appeared before her. “Oh. Hey, Lily.”

Lilith stands up and glares back at her, hands on her hips. “Skies. What do you think you’re doing here? I don’t have time to deal with you.”

“Hey, you’re the one who teleported Tim and me into the ass end of nowhere,” Skies points out, “oh, but I suppose I should thank you for getting us safely out of Sanctuary.”

“Well, to be honest, I just teleported as many people as I could out. I had no idea you were even there,” she shrugs, “but you’re welcome. Now what do you want?”

“I’m just trying to get home. I couldn’t care less about your guys’ problems.” “Tch. Well, I suppose you can stay here then. Just stay out of our way.”

“Whatever,” Skies groans as Lilith Phasewalks away. She starts to head deeper into the camp when she notices someone approaching.

“Skies!” Vaughn calls happily.

“Vaughn?” she exclaims and runs up to him. They clasp each other’s arms, laughing with excitement.

“I can’t believe it’s you! What are you doing here?” she asks.

“This is my camp, the Backburner,” Vaughn replies, “or I mean it was, before those plant guys killed all my bandit bros. Now the Crimson Raiders have moved in. But it’s cool, we’re all bros now.”

“Ah, just my luck that the only camp for miles has been taken over by the Crimson Raiders,” Skies groans, “I’d prefer a pack of bloodthirsty bandits.”

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“Long story short, I’m trying to get to Helios.”

“Oh, that’s a real problem.”

“No kidding.”

As Skies follows Vaughn into town, she notices a bar set up under the stairs and smiles with relief. “Moxxi. You made it out.”

“Thanks to Lilith,” Moxxi replies and pours a glass of ale. “Here, sugar, have a drink on me for trying to help before.” “Thanks, Moxx,” she sighs and she and Vaughn sit at the bar.

“So. How’s Rhys?” he asks.

“He’s really good. Been keeping busy,” Skies replies, “he’s almost always in his office, working on plans and prototypes.”

“Does he uh…does he ever talk about me?”

“Sometimes he’ll tell old stories. He’ll be happy to know I met up with you.”

Vaughn smiles warmly. “And what have you been up to?”

“Um not-not much,” Skies replies awkwardly, “I uh don’t really know what I want to do.”

“You know what’s a good lifestyle for that? Bandit Lyfe!”

Skies chuckles. “Been there, done that.” “Not in a group, you haven’t. I tell ya, the right bandit bros will always have your back. I might have lost all of mine, but I’m gonna start rebuilding. You can be my first new member! We would be legendary!”

Skies smiles as she listens to Vaughn go on about bandit life. He almost makes it sound good, but with that big, dopey smile, he could make anything sound good.

Their conversation is interrupted by the sound of panicked rushing, and they turn to see the Vault Hunters hurrying up the stairs.

“Uh oh,” Vaughn mutters and follows them. Skies finishes the rest of her drink before doing the same.

On the floor above, she sees Mordecai lying unconscious on the couch, his bird, Talon perched nearby. His breathing is laboured. The Vault Hunters are standing around him. They glare at Skies as she approaches.

“That’s a bummer,” she comments, staring at Mordecai.

“What are you doing here?” Maya asks hostilely.

“Ignore her,” Lilith orders. She, Ellie, and Vaughn are standing around a nearby table. “We have to find a way into that mine. The door is too thick for me to Phasewalk through. Ellie, think we can blow it up?”

“We’d need a powerful explosive,” she replies.

“Why not use Helios’ Moonshot cannon?” Skies suggests as she walks over. Everyone looks at her with surprise. “Look, I have no idea what’s going on, but that cannon can blast through anything. And it should still be working, right, Vaughn?”

“Yeah, it still works,” Vaughn replies, “but getting there is a challenge. Plus Helios has been taken over by those plant guys.”

“So, the Vault Hunters can clear them out,” she shrugs. “It is a good plan,” Zer0 comments.

“Thanks,” Skies chirps.

“Fine,” Lilith grunts, “bandit, how do we get to Helios?”

“You’re gonna have to get through…The Burrows,” Vaughn replies dramatically.

“The what?” Skies questions.

“Surviving the Burrows is a bandit rite of passage,” he excitedly explains, “if you guys make it through, you can all be part of my new crew.”

“We’ll see,” Axton grins with amusement.

“Let’s get going,” Maya orders and the Vault Hunters quickly takes off. Skies watches them for a second before patting Vaughn’s shoulder.

“I gotta go. I’ll see you around, Vaughn. Take care of yourself,” she says before chasing after them.

She catches up to them outside the camp at the nearby Catch-a-ride, where they’re digistructing a technical. As they begin to drive off, she quickly jumps on and sits in the back next to Krieg.

“Hey,” she says.

“Ugh, Handsome lover,” he spits with disgust.

“What do you want?” Gaige asks.

“To get to Helios, so I’m going with you,” Skies replies.

“Why are you going to Helios?” Maya asks.

“To meet up with Timothy so we can find our way back to Old Haven,” she explains.

“Ha, so that’s why you suggested the moon cannon,” Axton scoffs, “you don’t wanna help us.”

“Of course not, I wasn’t pretending like I was,” Skies points out, “but we’re all going the same way so we can either go together and help each other out, or we can make it even more awkward.”

“I am fine with this,” Zer0 says.

“Fine,” Maya grunts, “but we’ll be watching you.”

Skies rolls her eyes and leans back in her seat.

“Nice to see you can all get along,” Vaughn remarks through everyone’s ECHO communicators. “Alright. So these tunnels are sacred bandit territory. And I’m totally breaking the bandit code by telling you how to get in. But anyone who could tell ‘em is already dead. So, just bust down the electrified gate and you’re in! The sandworms definitely won’t escape probably.”

“Sandworms?” Salvador questions.

“Thanks for the heads up,” Axton grunts.

They drive through the desert following Vaughn’s directions until they find the electrified gate. They bust it down, revealing the way into a deep, dark cave.

“Looks homey,” Skies grumbles then motions for the Vault Hunters to go ahead. “After you.”

Zer0, Krieg, and Salvador go ahead but Axton, Maya, and Gaige wait for Skies.

“I’m keeping you ahead of me,” Maya says and motions for Skies to go. She cocks her eyebrow incredulously but obliges. And together, they all enter the Burrows.

#borderlands #borderlands 2 #tales from the borderlands #borderlands fanfiction #borderlands au #myocs #myart

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kumiwrites · 4 years ago

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Beneath the Christmas Tree

Bakugou Katsuki’s lived with Kirishima since they graduated high school. Their life together has always been peaceful, and Bakugou’s never imagined living without that damn redhead. So when Kirishima has to move for work, and you end up moving in, Bakugou doesn’t know how to feel.

Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki x GN!Reader Prompt: Naughty or Nice Genre: Fluff, some angst, roommates-to-lovers (and they were roommates) Warnings: None Word Count: 3182 A/N: This is my fic for the BNHA Hangout Server’s Christmas collab! Check out the other fics here! I chose to do a nice Bakugou, I love this stupid angry boy and his character development just makes my heart go brrrrt. My brain’s been a bit scattered as of late but I hope I get to write more this year and post the Todoroki fic I’ve been working on for the last year.

Bakugou Katsuki is not normally a sentimental guy.

Even with Kirishima moving out, he feels fine. He knows it’s for work, and he doesn’t mind shouldering the cost of the apartment for a month or two while he looks for a new place for when their lease is up at the end of the year.

Katsuki’s known, for a while now, that he wouldn’t be able to keep living with Kirishima their whole adult lives, but it’s still bittersweet saying goodbye to his best friend.

One morning, a week before Kirishima’s scheduled move-out date, the redhead sits Katsuki down at the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee and a fully cooked breakfast. There’s clearly something that Kirishima wants to talk about, and Katsuki has no idea what’s coming.

“So, Bakugou,” he begins, sipping slowly at his coffee. “I have a good friend, [Name]-chan.”

“Yeah, we’ve met at your birthday once,” Katsuki says warily, taking a bite of egg from the plate as he watches Kirishima. “Why?”

Kirishima grins sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “We caught up the other day, and they’re kind of in a pinch. Their roommate kicked them out so his girlfriend could move in, and they need to find a place before they have to get out.”

Katsuki almost immediately groans, already seeing where Kirishima’s going with his train of thought. Even the inviting aroma of his mug of coffee isn’t enough to put Katsuki into a better mood for a conversation like this. He debates whether or not he wants to shut the idea down immediately or entertain Kirishima’s suggestion; Katsuki decides on the latter because mornings where he wakes up to a fully cooked breakfast are few and far between. “And you want me to let her move into your room.”

“I mean, it doesn’t have to be permanent! But [Name]-chan is desperate, and I think they’d be a good friend for you, otherwise I wouldn’t ask,” he explains, hiding behind his mug.

“They’d be a good friend for me?” Katsuki asks, an eyebrow shooting up.

Kirishima laughs, nodding. “[Name]-chan really laid back, but they also like to keep things neat, so I think you’d get along well. They wouldn’t get in your way much, and they’d keep to themself! Plus, you’ve already met and you guys got along pretty well, no?”

Katsuki lets out a loud sigh, his fork clattering on the table as he rubs his temples. Kirishima’s always been one to dream big without thinking through the fine details, but this time, it feels like he’s taken the time to really talk this out with you before bringing it to Katsuki. The pitch is too well-thought out for it to have been a spur of the moment thing. “And they’re desperate to find a place to stay?”

Kirishima nods enthusiastically, taking a seat next to him. “They can come over later to hang out and plead their case, but I wanted to ask you first in case you’re really against it,” he explains, grinning. Sometimes, Katsuki wants to smother Kirishima alive. “And since I’m on my way out, I figured they could take over my half of the lease and when it’s time to renew at the end of the year, you could part ways!”

“And they’re desperate?” Katsuki asks again with a loud sigh.

“Absolutely desperate. Do you know how hard it is to find a trustworthy roommate these days?” Kirishima exclaims, arms thrown in the air. “As someone who’s had to search far and wide for a new one, let me tell you, it’s difficult!”

For some reason, Katsuki finds himself seriously considering the offer. It would be nice to not have to pay the full rent on his own for the next few months while he looks for a new place, and quite honestly, Katsuki got along with you quite well the one time he had met you.

“Will you at least let them come and talk to you themselves?” Kirishima asks, seeing the doubt flash through his friend’s eyes. When Katsuki nods, Kirishima practically howls, pumping his fists in the air before flipping through his contacts and dialing your number. “We’re good to go! Come over this afternoon for lunch!”

Katsuki knows he’ll regret saying yes.

“I swear, I’ll be out of your hair at the end of the year if you absolutely hate me, Bakugou-kun,” you reassure, hands clasped tightly as you sit on their sofa next to Kirishima. “I really wasn’t expecting to be kicked out so suddenly, but I was never really on the lease and was subletting one of the rooms…”

Katsuki grumbles, scratching the back of his head. You really do seem desperate, and at the very least, the two of you got along for now; there were worse roommates that Katsuki could’ve been stuck with. “We’ll need some ground rules.”

You nearly shoot out of your seat. “Absolutely. Anything.”

“The most important one: don’t make a fucking mess.”

Kirishima grins, slinging an arm around you and nudging his roommate with a foot. “See? Everything’s going to go great!”

Hopefully, Kirishima didn’t just jinx everything.

“I’ll put up my schedule on the fridge every week so we can rotate chores,” Bakugou explains, pointing to the magnetic whiteboard divided by days. “We usually take turns grocery shopping for common stuff, but if there’s anything specific we need we can write it down.” He motions to the notepad on the kitchen counter, and you nod. He’s come to realize, over the last week of bustle as he helped Kirishima move into his new place across town and moved you into the empty room, that you don’t like asking for help unless absolutely necessary. And, that you enjoyed order. From the way your boxes were meticulously labelled to how you were able to unpack and organize everything into your room within that day, Katsuki knew that at the very least, your organization skills would go well with how tidy he likes to keep the apartment.

“And cooking?” you ask, peering at the sleek, stainless steel stove and marble countertops. One of the first things you openly admired after Katsuki had agreed to letting you move in was the stove; it had something to do with being tired of shitty broken-down stoves that only had two working burners.

“You’re on your own there. If I’m feeling nice, I might make some for you,” he says gruffly, running a hand through his hair.

You laugh, nodding. “Sounds reasonable. Same goes for you, then.”

He glances at you, before looking towards your room, eyebrows furrowed. “Don’t be a slob,” he says finally—he’d probably been unsure of how to put it in nicer terms, but he knew that he didn’t have to say much on this front.

“I won’t,” you reassure, waving a hand at him as you return to your new room.

Katsuki begins warming up to you around the third week of living together.

He’s always been slow to start when it comes to things like coexisting with others, but mornings with you have grown to become one of the parts of the living arrangement that he enjoys most. He’s come to appreciate the sounds of you brewing coffee while he showers and your soft humming while you tidy up around the apartment before getting ready for the day.

It’s a peaceful coexistence.

There are some mornings where Katsuki is just getting home from the night shift, worn out and barely functioning, that he’ll pass by a bakery or a coffee shop just as it’s opening and will pick something up for you for breakfast. It only happens when he’s in the mood to play nice, and when he’s sure he’ll be back before you begin going about your morning. The few times that it has happened, you were surprised, but appreciative of the gesture.

Katsuki’s learned a lot about you in the past few weeks—how you take your coffees, which pastries are your favourites, the way you play music and sing along while you shower, how you curl up on the sofa watching shows at night before bed and always fall asleep—and he finds that he’s grown quite fond of your routines. It’s a steady, predictable rhythm that runs in the background while his unpredictable, hectic schedule throws him in and out of sync with you.

The first time he remembers ever thinking that he was glad you moved in was when he had been so overwhelmed at work on Halloween weekend, he had forgotten about groceries entirely. Without ever saying anything, you made him meals for that entire weekend until he was able to find the time to get everything back on track; waking up to breakfast on the counter with a small note letting him know that lunch was in the fridge, coming home to dinner being cooked for him, with all the chores done and apartment spotless—Katsuki’s never really been cared for like this since high school, and it makes something inside his chest rumble.

He could get used to this.

You get sick mid-November, almost two months after moving in, and Katsuki coincidentally also takes a few days off of work. The dates coincide by chance, of course.

Chance or not, though, he cooks every meal for you, making sure it’s light enough that it doesn’t upset your stomach, and keeps everything tidy while you wither away in bed or wrap yourself in your comforter and walk around like the dead. Every now and then, you’ll sit on the balcony for a bit, tucked into your comforter with your legs curled against your chest, and somehow Katsuki always ends up within earshot, as if watching to make sure all was well.

“Do you want to sit with me?” you ask him through the glass one day, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. How had you known he was standing by the door?

With a huff, he slides open the glass door, closing it gently behind him and leaning against the frame with his arms crossed. “You’re gonna get sicker if you stay out here any longer.”

“S’okay,” you reply softly, burying your face into the blanket. “I like the fresh air.”

“Whatever you say,” Katsuki replies gruffly. He’s realized over the years that he has to put a lot of effort into sounding neutral. His natural disposition has always been—and continues to be—an explosive one, even when he’s not angry, and it takes a lot of conscious effort on his part to tone that down and come off as anything other than a Pro Hero with Anger Issues™. His previous manager suggested getting a girlfriend or finding a therapist (or both), and that led to a vulgar fight, ending with the position of Ground Zero’s manager opening up again, along with a sweeping declaration that he’d never let someone tame him like that.

“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help around the apartment,” you say suddenly between sneezes.

“Don’t apologize for getting sick,” he scolded, knocking you gently in the head with the back of his hand.

You let out a soft laugh. “Can we make some tea?”

Katsuki nods without hesitation, already running through the medley of choices in his head as he opens the door for you.

“You’re telling me you’ve never had a Christmas tree in here?” you gaped, pointing at the perfect empty space in the living room, next to the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. It’s three weeks before Christmas, and you’ve been thinking of whether or not to decorate the place like you usually would. “You literally have the ideal space to set one up!”

Katsuki groans, setting his chopsticks down as he takes a sip of water. He had gotten home early and decided to cook dinner for the both of you while you were on your way back from work. If he had known he’d be harangued for his lack of holiday cheer, he wouldn’t have bothered. “Kiri and I’ve never had the freaking time, between holiday shifts and nearly passing out when we get back,” he bites back.

Pouting, you look around the apartment, taking in just how spacious everything is and how lovely it’d look once fully decorated for the holidays. “That’s a shame,” you murmur, cheek pressed into your palm as you rest your arm on the table. “Did you celebrate when you were growing up?”

A small hum of agreement left Katsuki’s throat as he swallowed his last bite of food. “Stupid old hag loves the holidays. Made my dad and I fetch a huge ass tree each year and set it up, and then we’d have to haul that damn thing to the dump afterwards. Being able to just relax during the holidays was a good change.”

You nod in understanding. “Yeah, I like the holidays, but I don’t like being stressed out about it. My favourite part was always this spicy hot chocolate my mom would take me to buy, with little marshmallows roasted on top.”

“Spicy hot chocolate? Sounds fucked.”

Laughing, you dip your finger into your water and flick it towards him. He yells, wiping the water off and throwing the tissue box at you, which you smack out of the way, a big grin plastered on your face. “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it, you asshole.”

Katsuki finds himself waiting up, in spite of all his senses telling him to sleep. Lounging on the couch, he drapes an arm over his forehead and scrolls through his phone absentmindedly, skimming through the news articles that litter his feed. He has an early-morning shift, but the knowledge that you’re out on a date with a shitty guy keeps him wide awake.

He’d never admit that to anyone, though.

When he hears the familiar jingle of keys outside the front door and your hushed swearing as you fumble through them to find the right one, he debates whether he should just make a break for his room. Would you think it’s weird that he’s still awake, clearly waiting for you?

“You’re not going to let me in?” a deep voice whispers, and Katsuki’s shoulders tense. “I won’t get to see you during the holidays, so shouldn’t we… spend more time together?”

“I—thanks for walking me to my door,” Katsuki hears you say. “I’ll text you.”

“Babe, c’mon—”

“I have work in the morning,” you say more firmly, and your date clicks his tongue. “I’ll text you.”

The door opens, and Katsuki stills as he waits for you to notice him. He sees you in the reflection of the balcony window, and watches as you press your back against the locked door and sink to your knees, clearly exhausted.

“You’re still awake,” you mumble, face buried into your forearms as you let out a deep breath. “What’re you doing up?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

You hum in acknowledgement.

“Shitty date?”

“Some people are just overly eager about skipping to the sex,” you grumble, shaking your head. “Shindou’s nice and all, but I can’t stand the way he looks at me.”

Katsuki’s eyebrows shoot up. “Shindou Yo?”

“Yeah,” you sigh, cheek squished against your forearm as you watch your roommate cross the room and hold out a hand to you. “You know him, I guess?”

He waits patiently for you to take his hand as he nods. “We faced off during a licensing exam. Wasn’t the best experience.” When you clasp your hand in his, he tugs gently and grabs onto your shoulders when you stand, steadying you.

“Thanks,” you murmur, sighing softly as you pat down your clothes. “Do you want a drink or something?” you ask hopefully, glancing up at Katsuki. You don’t want to go to bed in such a sour mood.

Katsuki lets out a laugh, his hand patting the top of your head as he makes his way to the kitchen with you in tow.

Katsuki is not normally a sentimental person.

But, coming home from one of the worst Christmas Eve shifts he’s ever had and seeing the glimmering lights on the Christmas tree, with a gift perched perfectly centered beneath it, has Bakugou speechless for the first time in his life. He turns, and in hand you have a cup of the spicy hot chocolate held out for him.

“You did all of this for me?” he asks incredulously.

You give him a sheepish smile and nod. “You said you’ve never had a Christmas tree in the apartment, so I wanted to make this year a bit more special.”

Katsuki plucks the mug from you and places it on the coffee table before taking your hands in his, pulling you to him. An arm wraps around your waist, the other pressing against the back of your head as he buries his face into your neck. He’s never been good with words, and gestures like this rendered him speechless more often than not. And not many people ever really go to lengths like this for him.

It takes you a moment to return his hug, but only because you really weren’t expecting such an affectionate reaction from him. You can’t help the smile that spreads across your face. “I’m glad you like it, Bakugou.”

He hums, and it reverberates through his chest and through your whole body. “You’re an absolute idiot, you know. You didn’t have to do all this.”

You laugh wholeheartedly, burying your face into his neck. “C’mon, try the hot chocolate.”

Katsuki makes a face when he pulls away, almost scowling as he reaches for the mug and gives it a long sniff. “It actually smells pretty good.”

“I’m telling you, it’s delicious.”

He watches as you take a long sip, and a devilish look flashes across his face as he sets his mug back down. Katsuki plucks your mug from you, setting it down next to his as he ignores your complaints while he tucks his fingers below your chin. He tilts your head back, eyes searching yours before he kisses you.

You’re a little shocked, but his lips are so soft against yours and his hands are so warm that you melt into him, your eyes fluttering shut as his tongue finds yours.

He pulls away slowly, that mischievous glint in his eye making you laugh as you press your hands flat across his chest. “That was unexpected,” you say breathlessly, shaking your head.

Katsuki’s tongue darts across his lips before he smirks at you. “You’re right, it does taste good.”

It takes you a moment, but when your brain catches up to what he’s saying, you laugh so loudly that Katsuki starts laughing along with you. He presses his forehead to yours, his vermillion eyes glinting in the Christmas lights.

“Bakugou, kiss me again.”

“That’s Katsuki to you,” he murmurs, voice sultry as his nose brushes yours.

You lace your fingers through his, squeezing as he inches closer. “Kiss me again, Katsuki.”

The laugh rumbles in his chest as he kisses you again under the glimmer of the Christmas tree.

#bnha #bakugou katsuki #bakugou katsuki x reader #gender neutral reader #mha #bnha reader insert #mha reader insert #bnha hangout collab #kumi writes

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sweater-daddiesdumbdork · 5 years ago

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We Should Probably Fix That

Summary- 2k Bucky Barnes x Y/N. Bucky and You meet up in the Locker room. SMUT. NSFW. written for Kristens 2020 writing challenge. Thanks for hosting, it was alot of fun! My Prompt- “Oh dont mind me. Just enjoying the view.”

Here it was a fine Saturday morning and you were staring up at the ceiling of the compounds gym. Having just gotten your ass rolled by Natasha. Her hand stretched into your vision and grasping it, she hauled you back to a stand. "Good try, but you got to expect me on either side. And you favor the left."

"Yea, Bucky bruised my left hip" Nats lips turned into a smirk "not like that! Okay... Maybe like that. Worth it though. Try one more time?" The red head nodded and the two of you separated, going to separate corners of the mat.

As the two of you started sparring once more, you tried to stay focused on Nat, she isnt past pulling out a special move if she doesnt think your paying attention. Successful in blocking her, a quick duck on your part allows you to swing in closer, hooking a leg though hers and knocking her off kilter. Hey one out of three tries isn't bad and this time your the one helping her up, accompanied by "thats my girl!" You two glance over to see Bucky had come over from where he had been working out. “Oh dont mind me, just enjoying the view.” he winked at the two of you.

"Yea well dont worry Barnes, I happened to see on the calendar were due for a match up, so next time you can participate." Natasha quipped as she went to grab a towel, grinning as she wiped the back of her neck "Y/N was at a disadvantage. Something about a bruise on her left side? Otherwise she probably gotten me more times."

You blush, but your face is already flushed and Bucky glances at you with a bit of worry, when you reach him, he handed your towel to you, then his vibranium hand touched along your hip, the coolness of his touch immediately noticed. "I thought that went away?"

"Dont listen to Romanoff, shes only teasing" you whisper back and lean up to kiss him. “Im not sore, and not favoring my left hip.” Behind you Nat is shaking her head yes, and you can see the way Buckys face changes that she must be doing something. “Nat, I swear, you and I will go back on the mat, and I will kick that tight ass of yours.” You turn around and toss your towel at her, and she snatchs it from the air and smirks.

“Promises promises Y/N” she states as she gathers hers stuff and starts to head to the locker rooms. Bucky slings an arm around you and the two of you head that way as well, passing Steve and Sam as they came in to use the gym after there morning run. Turning the corner, Bucky veers off to go into the mens section, and Natasha waits patiently holding the womens door open. Once he goes inside, you veer back towards the mens, winking at Natasha. “Go on, Im gonna catch a shower elsewhere” and she gives you an approving thumbs up before going inside and leaving you to make your sneak, listening for Bucky to start the shower. After a few minutes you hear the groan of the pipework and the premium pressure shower heads Tony just had installed start, and you went inside.

So you started stripping off you shoes and clothes, tossing them aside as you went down the row of lockers, honestly you didnt care if Steve and Sam stumbled upon them when they came in. They knew Bucky was a grown ass adult, and in a relationship. Once you reached the showers, you could see Buckys form through the frosted glass door, on a nearby bench were his everyday clothes, nicely folded, waiting for him to exit. You were a chaotic energy compared to his ritualistic ones. Why you two just worked.

You decided to make yourself known, it never really pays off to sneak up on a super soldier, and you respected Buckys past to know that there was certain things he just didnt care for, sneaking up on him was one of them. So you knock on the glass door, giving a soft tune to his name as you spoke it. “Oh Barnes, mind sharing that hot water?” You could see him turn in the shower, and the silver of his arm stretch out to slide the glass aside. A billow of steam escaped when he opened the door, and his face emerged from it, his hair plastered to his head and droplets of water running down his the tip of his nose. His eyes rove down your form and your cant help but tilt your hip, folding your arms over your chest, leaving him growling playfully “Why you covering your self up sexy? Fuck come on in.”

You giggled as his hand snaked out and wrapped around your waist, bringing you in. Tumbling against his chest, your arms sliding up around his neck as his lips claimed your neck, nibbles and flicks of his tongue speeding your pulse underneath it. His hands slid down your back and clasped your ass, arching you to grind right into him. “Something get you riled up today Buck?” You ask against his ear, sliding your tongue along the shell and tugging on his lobe, sucking on it. Your fingers dug into his shoulders as he backed you up into the tiled wall just under the spray. It cascaded down his muscled back that was taunt in his lust.

“Mmmhh watching you and Nat might have got me heated.” A roll of his hips showed you just how turned on it made him, along with the harder kiss marking your neck now, making you hiss and grind yourself back against him. Releasing your hands, you slid them down his chest, the mere touch of your hands left his muscles flexing underneath, along those V lines you so loved, and wrapped your hand around his erection, stroking just lightly enough to hear his breath hitch, and his vibranium arm pushed with some force against the wall beside your head. He was throbbing in your palm, and you relished holding him, stroking him into pleasure. “I can feel that Bucky... “

You leaned forward, husky voiced whispers “Your so big and hard, Its gonna feel so good pounding in my pussy.” A slight twist of the wrist and as you slid your hand down, you slipped to roll his balls in your palm, moaning as you bite your lip. You tipped your head to glance at him, his breathing had started to turn shallow, rushed, and his pupils blew the further along you brought him.

“Fuck, faster Y/N” In which you obliged, jerking your hand faster and faster, his hips jutting to keep pace. You could hear his hand tighten in the tile and the distinct crack of it, making you smirk. Oops, another one they busted, Tony was gonna see the repair request and give them shit later. His other hand, his warmth seeping from his palm as he pushed into your wet plastered hair, fisting into it and dragging your lips to meet his, possessively harsh kissing, a clashing of lips, forcing them apart with his tongue and dragging yours to his mouth.

Dragging away from you, he gasped. “Stop, stop Baby” and you still, for a second before giving one more slow tempting pump, and he groaned, his dropped head to your shoulder giving a sharp bite, in which you yelp as his hands grasped behind your thighs and had you part your pretty thighs and fold around him. The wall kept you upright, leaving your hands free to explore all on there own. Weaving fingers right against his scalp, bringing his mouth back to your skin to work its magic. Following along your collarbone with worshiping kisses, his cock was slicked between your dripping folds. The moment his head slipped into your aching channel, you urged him to continue calling his name. “Fuck yes Buck, make me yours”

Bucky Barnes was by all means a well endowed soldier, and you gasped feeling him stretch you the more he pushed in, rotating your hips, and tightening your legs around his waist to pull yourself closer, you gasped softly and a whimper was exhaled against his open mouth. “Fuck baby, your so god damn tight.” You giggle and kiss on the corner of his mouth, flexing yourself around him.

“And all yours, we already broke the wall, lets really break some tiles.” You teased and he pulled back to start thrusting into you, definitely not disappointing, your ass bounced off the tile and his mouth traveled back to your collarbone. You leaned back, giving him access, cause you really wanted him to play with your bouncing breasts.

“Think Tony is gonna start charging us?” He grunted and cupping a breast, teased it with his teeth, pulling the nipple with a pop between his teeth and swirling his tongue around it till it was nice and firm. Loving how your perky tits bounced in his face, lavishing his tongue down the valley, a mix of your salty skin and fresh warm water cascading from overhead his new favorite taste in the world. “I would pay whatever he wants as long as we continue shower sex”

A roll of your body viced around him, screaming his name rather loudly and scratching down his back, while he continued powering through. His thrusts got harder, your channel slick with your arousal followed along with him, and reaching up to grasp the shower head to brace yourself. This was exactly why you loved being with Buck, he knew when to be gentle, and when to be rough as fuck. You pulled on his hair when he bit the curve of your breasts, knowing once more you were going to spot many bruises, underneath all your clothes. He was sure never to mark you within sight of the others.” Bucky, fuck im about to come again.... “ It hadnt been that long, and you were still clenching and coming down from the previous ones high.

“Dont worry, Im fucking going to fill you up when you come... “ He cussed against you as you thrusted yourself harder, the both of you rushing towards your ending, and you screamed his name a second time, his body pushing to pin your between him and the wall, milking his cock for his seed, which throbbed in your channel, shooting thick streams to coat your walls, making you moan coming down. Reaching around you and feeling along the wall, you felt for the handle and twisted it to stop the water streaming down the two of you, and you both just panted against one another.

Rubbing your hips as he pulled back so he wasnt crushing you against the wall, he reached up to brush your hair from your face, and kissed you softer this time. Not driven by lust, this was an affectionate kiss, trailing across your face and down your neck. “Ready to stand baby?” He questions you, and your hand smooths against his chest, nodding lightly. “Yea, just dont let me go right away, I think my legs might be a bit shook.”

Laughing, he eased your thighs down and pulling from you, he continued you to your toes, sliding your arms around his neck and resting your head against his shoulder, still humming from your orgasm. You tip your head up, chin resting against his chest, admiring the little things going on, the way he had throughy fucked you in one of the best ways possible, that you both seemed to enjoy these quiet satisfied moments. His hands eased up your back and he looked down at you just staring up at him with a overall look of a loved woman. “everything alright babygirl?” You were unusually quiet.

“Oh dont mind me. Just enjoying the view” you grin and lean up to kiss along his jaw line, mimicking him from earlier.

“Well we dont enjoy the view! Could you two hurry it up!” Sam must have been waiting to get into the locker room, and you bust into laughter as you reach to grab a towel, poking Buckys side and pointing up at the shower head you were holding onto earlier. Apparently without realizing it, you happened to yank it out of the wall, leaving it crooked and wrenched. “Shit babes, we should probably get that fixed to, huh?”

@peterman-spideyparker

#peterman-spideyparker2020 #kristen2020 #marvel #marvelchallenge #smut #bucky barnes #buckybarnes x reader #natasha romanoff

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scribbles97 · 4 years ago

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Left Behind - Chapter 32

PART 1 / PART 2

Chapter 22 / Chapter 23 / Chapter 24 / Chapter 25 / Chapter 26 / Chapter 27 / Chapter 28 / Chapter 29/ Chapter 30 / Chapter 31

It hadn’t been Val’s plan to go the the simulator quite so soon after they had gotten home, but John had said something about familliarising himself with Thunderbird Three and Alan had been on the edge of another teenage temper tantrum. It had seemed like the easiest compromise to diffuse the situation.

When she had heard Thunderbird Two launch, both had looked at each other, concern on both their faces. A quick call upstairs had confirmed the launch to rescue a father and son trapped aboard an out of control hot air balloon. John seemed to have taken control of the situation, claiming his mother’s desk to work from whilst Scott had hovered over his shoulder.

Val had left the pair to it, trusting both to support each other and hoping they would manage to find their feet quickly whilst on the clock. John had been right, they did need a full time qualified pilot for Thunderbird Three, and when she had looked into it his stats from both NASA and the simulators placed him as the best man for the job.

Except, perhaps, his younger brother.

As a challenge she had thrown up the live feed from Little Lightning, Beta Team had launched just as they had arrived home with Lucy. A TV satellite knocked out of orbit and into the path of another orbiting station needed realigning. Alan had taken it in his stride, reacting exactly as the other team had done, talking through his actions and glancing up to her for reassurance.

The kid was still just a teenager though, not even old enough to drive or vote. Lucy had made it clear, he had to do it the same way as his brothers, specialist training at the academy. He wouldn’t be allowed near an actual Thunderbird for another five years.

Not that Val could see him waiting patiently.

“What’s your closing distance?” She prompted, hovering at his shoulder, the first time he was flying without someone as Copilot to assist his actions.

“Thirty meters.” He responded with only the briefest of pauses, “Rotational vector still matched. Twenty meters… Ten.”

The simulator jolted as the grappling arms engaged, lights above Alan’s head turning green to indicate a secure lock.

“Confirm successful lock?”

He nodded.

“Verbally.” She prompted again, “Remember your black box can’t see what you’re doing.”

“Lock to satellite successful.” Alan confirmed, “Firing thrusters to counter spin.”

She kept watching as her phone buzzed in her pocket, making Alan look up with a grin,

“I didn’t think there was any signal in space?”

Laughing, she shook her head at him, “You watch your flying,” Glancing to the caller ID she frowned slightly, “Take her for a spin, but don’t crash whilst I’m EVA.”

Alan sat straighter, eyes wide as she turned away and left him to it, stepping out of the simulator before she answered the call.

“Casey.”

“Val, it’s Ridley.”

She had known the from the caller ID, what she didn’t know was why she was receiving the call.

“Not that it isn’t nice to hear from you Ridley,” She smiled perching on the steps up to the simulator, “But I would have thought you’d call John.”

Ridley tutted softly, “I didn’t want to stick an idea in his head before I’d okayed it with someone higher up.”

Val hummed and tilted her head to herself slightly, “Scott would be the one to speak to in that case.”

“Scott won’t like what I have to say.”

Val couldn’t help but snort as she looked down from the training balcony to the rest of the hangar where Thunderbird One sat, belly open and guts spilled out across the floor.

“So you want me to tell him to listen?” She asked, shifting to stand so she could watch Hiram and his pet robot as they organised the mess of wires trailing from the ship.

“The parts have arrived here for Thunderbird Five’s retrofit. I know the focus is on Lucy right now, but from what John and I have read and understood, this retrofit is our best chance at finding out if Jeff is out there.”

Val sighed, they had all read the update Kyrano had provided them with to ensure everyone was on the same page regarding Gaat, the Mechanic, and Jeff. How much he had downplayed Lucy’s desperation, Val wasn’t sure. On reflection, it explained a lot though. Lucy had been antsy for weeks, constantly chasing an order for parts and making a point of reminding them that Five was due an upgrade.

An upgrade she had insisted on completing.

“John said the upgrades were based on a program he wrote, he probably has a better idea than anyone on what needs to be done up there.”

With the explanation, the problem became clear.

“Scott still isn’t convinced John should be on the team.” She sighed, “I am working on persuading him.”

“As is John,” Ridley murmured, “I don’t understand why Scott won’t let him up there immediately. This is their father we’re talking about.”

Val knew the exact problem, but she knew she couldn’t voice it to Ridley.

Whether it was fate or convenience, she would never know, but it was right at that moment that Scott walked across the hangar floor to talk to Hiram.

Dropping her voice, Val turned back to the simulator, “Make plans for John and yourself to go up to Five for a week. I’ll speak to Scott.”

The smile was clear in her voice even across the line, “F.A.B. Val.”

“Scott!” She called across the cavern as she leant over the raillings of the balcony, “Get up here.”

The frown he shot at her was visible even at the distance, making Val roll her eyes. The young man took more after his father than he realised, the furrowed brows and deep lines that cut into his forehead when something bothered him. Like his father, Scott would never admit it, not openly at least.

She was still leaning on the railing when Scott approached her from behind, his frown deeper again as he stood next to her.

“What is it?”

She kept her focus on thunderbird One as she spoke, “That parts have come in to upgrade Five.”

His swallow was visible as he turned and leant on the railing alongside her, hands clasped together in a single fist as he took a long slow breath and let it out.

“I’m not sure that should be a priority right now.” He uttered, “We haven’t exactly the man power.”

“We could spare John and Ridley.”

“No.”

The statement was quiet but firm. Scott had a decision made and it wasn’t going to be easy to make him change.

“Your father could be out there Scott.”

His head dipped, eyes screwed shut as his forearms tensed. The dimples in his cheeks deepened as he pressed his lips together, shaking his head.

“I know.” He whispered, “I knew all along alright? But she told me not to get involved! To worry about keeping my team safe.”

“Scott,” She started, watching him carefully, able to feel the hurt and anger radiating from him.

“No. Listen Aunt Val.” He snapped, blue eyes snapping open and piercing her, “Mom is down there in a coma because she made a rash decision. For once in her life she made a decision based on how she felt and what she wanted, and it damn near killed her.”

She wanted to cut in, break him off and make him see that it wasn’t the case. The floodgates had opened though and she would have been fighting against the tide.

“It was my rash decisions that made her tell me to not get involved.” His voice dropped again, the rush of the flood gone as quickly as it had come, reduced to a trickle.

“I can’t trust myself to make a decision on this. Not when we almost lost Mom. Not when it could mean losing someone else.”

It was as Val had expected, a man with the weight of his family’s safety on his shoulders and a fear that he wasn’t the right person to protect them. Except he was forgetting just how that fear helped him.

“Don’t you think,” She murmured, reaching out to touch his arm, “That being afraid will make you more cautious? That it could remind you to stop and think before you sent your brothers out there, or did something yourself?”

He nodded with a sigh, “Yeah. It does. I was going to go with Virgil before John sent him on his own. I thought it would be safer than using the autopilot and wrist controls.”

His point was right, and she made a mental note to bring it up with John later.

“Good,” She nodded, “So what’s the danger with sending John and Ridley to Five for a week?”

Scott snorted, shaking his head again, “Space.”

It sounded like the single word was meant to answer her question. Scott must have seen the confusion on her face though as he continued.

“Space is the worst, it only takes one tiny thing to go wrong for everything to go wrong. And when it goes wrong, it goes wrong in a big way. Do you know how many space calls IR gets that we physically can’t respond to fast enough?”

“What if there was a way to respond faster?”

Val turned, wary of the voice of her second nephew at such a vulnerable moment for Scott. Not that she needed have worries, John was a master of managing his older brother and apparently knew that approaching too close at that moment was a bad idea.

“Rids and I would watch each others backs. Plus if we were up there semi permenantly, we could respond to those calls that would take too long otherwise.”

It didn’t seem to phase him that Scott hadn’t turned to look at him. From where she stood, Val could see that the oldest didn’t want to be listening to John. That he hadn’t simply walked away from the conversation was definitely promising.

“Dispatch are getting more calls by the day, too many for the current team to handle. Five acts as relay for the calls anyway and I’ve run comms enough times for NASA--”

Scott turning to face him cut John off. Val stood straighter, ready for the eldest to snap at the younger.

“You said you needed to join as someone to fly Thunderbird Three. Now you want to sit up on the space station and run comms?”

John shook his head, “With the space pods we could still run rescues from up there. Little Lightening would be able to manage most other space rescues, Thunderbird Three would only be needed for anything further than the Moon.” He tilted his head with a small smile, “I thought it might make it seem a little less like I was stealing Alan’s ship.”

Val glanced to the simulator that had long since become still and quiet. She wondered where Alan had got to, if he’d heard the conversation and was simply remaining quiet, or if he hadn’t heard a thing.

Scott’s face fell as he sighed, looking away with a shake of his head, still clearly not convinced about the whole suggestion.

“This is our chance at finding Dad, Scott.” John murmured, “We can’t pass that up, can we?”

Val would have looked back to Scott, except movement from the corner of the simulator caught her eye. Alan approached, looking to John with wide eyes.

“You can’t live in space all the time though John! It’s dangerous. I don’t mind you flying Three, not really. I was just being a brat before.”

John shook his head, “It won’t be all the time Alan, we’d work out a rotation or something.”

“You’d do that?” Scott raised an eyebrow, “Actually work on rotation? You won’t get obsessed?”

John scoffed and shook his head, “Coming from you?”

Val could see his point, the eldest pair were as bad as one another for becoming too determined in their goals. She’d seen it before, each of them becoming obsessed with something so wholly that it took over their entire lives.

In her eyes Scott was the one at a higher risk of falling into that trap.

“I have Ridley now,” John shrugged, “She’ll keep me straight.”

Scott’s sigh was loud in the open space, his shoulders tense as he shook his head, “If you get in to trouble out there…”

“You can ground me for the rest of my life.” John shrugged, “We always said Scott, five of us, five ships.”

“Best place for star gazing.” Alan murmured, eyes widening, “Hey, maybe I can--”

“No.” Both older brothers stated, making Val snort as she shook her head. At least there was something the pair of them could agree on, even if Alan didn’t approve.

“So?” She prompted, “Does this mean we can get Ridley to bring the parts over when she comes home?”

Scott shrugged and nodded to John, “Talk to him about it, she’s his girlfriend.”

John grinned, “Oh so it’s going to be like that is it?”

Val had to hide her snigger behind a cough as she shook her head at the pair. Yes, she didn’t doubt, it would be exactly like that.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds 2015 #Scott Tracy #John Tracy #Alan Tracy #Aunt Val #Lucy AU #Lucy Fic #scribbles writes #Left Behind Part 1 #Left Behind Part 2 #Left Behind Part 3

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mischief-over-matter · 5 years ago

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Binary | Part I

Gravity is an inescapable force, even within the darkest corners of the universe. It's only a matter of time before something collides.

EMERGENCY STARTUP INITIALIZING

BOOTING...

BOOTING...[SUCCESS]

BIOS Configuration: [SUCCESS]

Loading OS...

CPU Check: [SUCCESS]

API Check: [SUCCESS]

Memory Banks: [OK]

AI Application: [OK]

Internal Software: [OK]

Anatomical Components: [OK]

Finalizing...

EMERGENCY STARTUP COMPLETE

INITIALIZING USER INTERFACE

◇─◇──◇────◇────◇────◇────◇────◇─────◇──◇─◇

For someone in a quite literal life-or-death situation, you were taking the news of your possible demise rather well. Perhaps that doesn't say much for someone in your line of work. Space exploration was a risky business, and coming home was not always guaranteed. Most, if not all who worked for the Federal Alliance of Astronomic Exploration knew that possibility before they signed on the dotted line.

You didn't expect it would be on your first solo mission, though.

In hindsight, your day seemed a little bit too perfect leading up to this mess, and maybe your cynical subconscious was expecting this pivotal point where everything goes south. Regardless, you weren't one to sit by while cursing your misfortune. And overall, it could be even worse. At least the life support was still functioning.

Oh, how you wished there was wood somewhere on the ship.

Standard protocol demands that regardless of the severity of the crisis, the ship's captain - in your case, yourself - was to immediately activate the emergency beacon and contact mission control. Step one was already a fail. According to the diagnostic scans, communications, navigation, and the engines were severely damaged and would take hours or even days for the self-repair bots to make any sort of significant progress. So, channeling in your former academy student self, you skipped right on to Plan B.

"Greetings, Lieutenant."

Or rather, Plan B skipped right on to you.

You nearly jumped out of your chair but managed to only give a startled gasp. Wheeling around, you came face to face with Plan B. For a glorified chunk of metal, it sure did move quietly.

"Are you alright?" said chunk of metal asked with a surprising amount of realism to his...its tone. "I detected a sudden increase in your heart rate. Are you in need of medical attention?"

You stared, temporarily taken aback by its sudden appearance. Sure, you were briefed on the purpose of the Auxiliary Crisis Sensory Emulating Learner, or ACSEL for short, but seeing one activated was an entirely new experience. The almost lifelike expression was truly something to behold, and you really ought to give a shout-out to the techs back home who made this happen. If you made it home...

Which led back to the matter at hand.

"No, I'm okay. You just surprised me, that's all," you sighed. "I didn't receive a notification that you were activated."

The ACSEL unit tilted its head and narrowed its eyes as if contemplating. It really was going to take some time getting used to those mannerisms on an android. "Perhaps there is an error in the ship's software?" It lightly smiled while extending its right hand towards you. "The CS Zenith is equipped with self-diagnostics and repair, yes? If I may, I would like to run an additional test. Permission to proceed, Lieutenant?"

You blinked, finally breaking yourself away from your thoughts to fall back into professionalism. Standing up and squaring your shoulders, you firmly shook his - its hand. To your ever-growing surprise, it was warm and smooth, yet undeniably solid. Almost like silicone.

"Granted," you replied before stepping to the side. It easily slid into the pilot's chair and instantly brought up the ship's readings. Nothing had changed. You watched in silent fascination while the android worked the dashboard as if it had years of experience under its belt. But your curiosity returned, and you found yourself wondering just how long it took to make something as complex as the ACSEL unit. Its designer obviously modeled it off of human anatomy, not too dissimilar to a store mannequin. The white exterior was a stark contrast to the muted colors of the cockpit. Gray lines decorated its body, allowing seamless, free-range movement that added to the realism. Give it a wig, slap some clothes on it, hide the port at the base of its head and you could definitely see someone mistaking the machine for a human. It even imitated a non-robotic masculine timbre almost perfectly.

The most intriguing thing about it though was the eyes. Glowing, electric blue eyes.

"Lieutenant?"

"Yes?"

"While my system processes the damages, would you like to begin personalization?"

You raised a brow. "What for? I had thought you would be outfitted with knowledge about my basic information once you were activated?"

The android flicked a switch on the dashboard, allowing a port to be exposed before inserting its index finger. In any other situation, it would have been comical, but you surmised that this was a part of the machine's processing. "And you would be correct. However, I am referring to myself. One of my functions is personalization to assist with lessening the emotional and psychological impact that an emergency could have. Once I have established that the current environment is stable enough for such, of course," it explained before pausing. "In short, it is to make you feel more comfortable."

"Right..." you trailed off, idly scratching your cheek.

"The process is completely optional if you are satisfied with my default settings," it added gently. " I do not wish to provide you with unnecessary stress."

Chuckling, you waved him - it off dismissively. "It's not that. I just...never mind. How about starting with what I should address you as?"

It gave you a side glance, lips turned upwards once more. "I respond to my model and serial number, A.C.S.E.L. 749710145-121111117-110-103, but due to its length I can be assigned a temporary moniker of your choosing until I undergo a factory reset."

You were sorely tempted to name it something utterly ridiculous. You could almost feel the disapproval from your superior officer at the mere thought of it.

"If it aids you at all, the engineers had named me Blue during my trial period," it offered.

How innovative.

"Blue works," you said at last, much to the android's delight. Could it even feel such a thing? It certainly seemed so as you watch its smile turn into a wide grin and the blue irises rotated in recognition. Nevertheless, you returned the smile albeit hesitantly. "Status update."

"Ah...my systems have confirmed the Zenith has experienced internal engine failure, significant damage to the transmitter and faulty wiring to the navigation. Causes are inconclusive. Hull integrity and life support are operating at 100% efficiency. The estimated time of repair is between 96 and 125 hours."

You relaxed ever-so-slightly. A week wouldn't make much of an impact on your scheduled three-month journey to Alpha Centauri's space outpost. And with the beacon activated, your chances of getting out of here unscathed are highly in your favor. "Noted. Then proceed as needed. I'm going to check on the cargo," you stated.

"No need, Lieutenant," Blue assured while standing. It approached you before clasping its hands behind its back. "I will take that responsibility while you rest. You have been showing signs of minor sleep deprivation in addition to a decrease in your epinephrine levels."

Perplexed, you crossed your arms, suddenly feeling a wave of self-consciousness. "You can gauge my adrenaline? How?"

Maybe you said that a bit too forcefully because Blue actually flinched, as if surprised at your tone. Never in your life did you think you would feel regret for snapping at a machine. You must really be more exhausted than you thought.

"Not through nefarious means, I promise," he - it faltered. "My optic sensors can detect even the subtlest of movements. I...I noticed your body language gradually became more relaxed and your heart rate slowed. My intention was not to cause you distress, Lieutenant. I apologize."

Jesus Christ, you genuinely felt bad now.

"Uh, don't be. I should be apologizing. Getting snippy with you was highly unprofessional," you murmured wearily. Rubbing your left temple, you glanced up to see him observing you with an open stare. Looking closely, you could see his irises whirling. Processing information, perhaps? "Blue?"

It blinked and smiled as if amused. "Apologizing to a machine is unnecessary. I do not feel offended. Though I suppose the gesture is an indication of your good nature, so I thank you."

"You're...welcome?" That's enough weirdness for one day, you thought to yourself. "I will go take my leave then if you don't need me for anything else."

"Not at all, Lieutenant. Please sleep well."

"You too." Biting your tongue, you inwardly cringed at your automatic response. "I mean-"

Blue laughed, apparently unfazed by your slip up. "I shall, thank you."

As you departed from the cockpit, you rubbed the heel of your palm against your right eye. It was the strangest thing; talking to a machine that seemed so human. The FAAE had an abundance of the latest technology, including interactive AI programs. But Blue was the most advanced piece of work you had ever interacted with. It was almost jarring.

The walk back to your quarters was a short one, as the Zenith was one of the smaller cargo ships. Your room lacked any personal items and only housed the bare necessities such as a bed, closet, a small desk, and bathroom. The lights flickered on and the door hissed shut, leaving you to bask in privacy. Eyelids heavy, you decided to shower in the morning. A casual glance at your holopad showed the time back home: 8:47 A.M.

Make that in the evening.

Zipping down your flight suit, you tossed it on the chair before rummaging your closet for a shirt and sweatpants. "Computer. Set an alarm for 4:00 P.M."

◇─◇──◇────◇────◇────◇────◇────◇─────◇──◇─◇

The cockpit was relatively silent, save for the gentle hum of the reactor core only Blue could hear. Most of the overhead lights had been dimmed, indicating that the Lieutenant had gone to sleep. The android remained in the chair, perfectly still for 72.8 seconds before closing its eyes.

"ACSEL Unit reporting to Professor Thorne. Do you copy?"

Static feedback permeated its receptors. It felt its nonexistent brow crease in concentration. A few moments passed until it could faintly hear a reply.

"Proceed," was the garbled response.

"Preparing to upload visual and audio recordings as well as acquired data to the server...now." The surge of data left its system almost instantaneously, even from such a distance.

Thorne gave a pleased hum. "Continue your directive and ensure the subject remains incognizant until your arrival. Understood?" they emphasized.

"Yes, Professor."

The connection abruptly ended and Blue rapidly blinked back into focus.

Only the sight of stars and the vastness of space greeted the android. Tilting its head to the side, Blue zoomed in as much as his optics would allow on a particular star. The celestial body remained as but a speck of light to its viewpoints. These rare moments of free agency were captivating, and although it could merely emulate emotion, Blue's receptors always reacted positively. It struggled to understand why the professor always voiced against it. No matter. Such a variable was not programmed within its systems to be of concern. Even so, it remained enamored by the dangerous amalgamations of hydrogen and helium that roamed the universe.

"아름다운..." Blue whispered, unaware that it had spoken at all.

#exophilia #robophilia #android x reader #robot x human #M-o-M writes #writing #sfw #sci-fi romance

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be-ready-when-i-say-go · 4 years ago

Text

The Hard Things--Alternative Ending

Doing the right thing is never easy. Calum and Freya have a lot going for them. But what happens when fear gets in the way.

Inspired by I Follow Rivers by Marika Hackman and Starting Line by Luke Hemmings.

Calum X Black Female OC. Angst with a happy ending. Because my characters should never be happy.

The Hard Things--Original Ending.

Materlist (on a semi hiatus)

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