#shed bark to get let into my room and then a few minutes later shed bark to get let back out

[extervus]

I'm so fucking tired what the fuuuucck

[fulloftheloveyouwant]

Shedding season

Summary: Mountain is going through the most frustrating season for an earth ghoul, winter. The early and middle days of winter are over and on comes the late days of it, which is when antlers shed.

He's itchy and miserable. Swiss offers his assistance in a multitude of ways and Mountain starts talking about some ideas he's had. Many fall through but Swiss is willing to try one of them.

Warnings/Tags: anal sex, anal fingering, breathplay, choking, blood kink, overstimulation, orgasm edging, inappropriate usage of quintessence, blame Swiss (of course..), inhuman ghouls, and general inappropriate use of elements. Oh, and a singular bite.

Rating: Explicit, MDNI 18+

Length: 5.7k works

Notes: Originally posted on my Ao3, admittedly I had no plans for these two at first but um.. Rain and Phantom wasn't working out for what I was originally working on so here we are. Almost 6k words later.. And here we are. Guilty as charged for this one, it's mostly all porn.

Well, the season was here. Shedding season. Winter is in the later months, his antlers have served their purpose after becoming bone and now they were itchy. Sooo damn itchy. It seemed like every few minutes he was scratching them against something.

Nothing relieved the itch because of course it wouldn't, but he still tried anyway. Rubbing up against trees with your head is only so fun after a while, yet here he was miserably scratching against the tree hoping today would be the day they both fall off. He'd even take one if it meant the itching stopped.

He groaned, feeling no relief. He moved his head back before letting his forehead drop and rest into the bark of the tree, he's about as angry as this tree is. Although the tree is angry about the lack of water and not about having a pair of antlers. Trees don't grow antlers. Obviously. Unless they do.. Then that's news to Mountain.

He was still standing there, deflated against the tree with all sense of hope that his antlers would ever fall off quickly leaving him. His tail that had been swatting at the air had hit something tangible which made him turn around in surprise, only to see Swiss who was busy eating a salad wrap and looked confused at what Mountain was doing.

"My antlers won't drop so I'm trying to encourage them to drop faster." Mountain explained, miserable mood evident in his voice. They'd just become even more itchy over the past few days and it was near unbearable, but it also meant they were close to dropping. Swiss finished his last few bites before speaking.

"Did you need help? If I can help..?" Swiss offered, "If you feel like scratching the base for hours be my guest.." Mountain muttered back, a frown on his face.

Swiss was more than happy to take Mountain back inside specifically just so he could go help release some of that discomfort, in two ways- Second way was irrelevant for now but the first way was simple, just scratch 'em!

Once they reached Mountain's room, Swiss admired the scene. Mountain's room was a beautiful converted sunroom situated on the more private side of the church, not many people went by this way if at all. So the sights were pretty and secluded..

Swiss always had to stop and appreciate how nice Mountains room is. Lucky earth ghoul..

They both climbed into his bed, Mountain was careful with how he situated himself in Swiss's lap. Once comfortable though he curled up, his tail wrapping around his own leg as he let Swiss scratch quietly at the base of his antlers. It soothed the deep seated itch he'd been dealing with for at least a week.

Swiss was grinning watching Mountain go from being moody to being sleepy by the second, in calm moments with the others he falls asleep the easiest and right now he needed all the rest he could get after trying all day and night to remove his antlers. They still hadn't dropped but he had faith they'd drop eventually.

Swiss let Mountain sleep, keeping one hand grazing his nails on the base of his antlers as the other one fished his phone out of his pocket to scroll on social media. You wouldn't believe how much they had to beg Copia for WiFi, the previous ghouls didn't think it was necessary!

Anyway, their incessant begging (whining) worked and now they have pretty damn good WiFi if Swiss says so himself.. He tends to be the most involved with the internet, at least when compared to the others.

A few hours passed by and Mountain finally awoke, moving his head and accidentally nudging Swiss in the stomach with his antlers. "Back up?" Swiss asked as he ignored the sensation of being poked, he turned his phone off, he'd have to finish watching that video later.

"Mmm.. I don't even want to get up." Mountain complained, his eyes still closed as he continued laying in Swiss's lap. "Well, you don't have to get up if you don't want to." Swiss reminded, free will and all. Wonderful thing really. "I didn't water my plants today." Mountain says back, "So? They'll be okay for one day. You of all people should know that." Swiss teased, he pocketed his phone and pet Mountain underneath his chin.

This made him start purring, a rather elusive noise from ghouls but it does happen. His other hand briefly scratched the antler's bases again, as Mountain's purring got louder. Swiss chuckled seeing Mountain's blissful expression, "Enjoying yourself?" Swiss teased, "Very much so." Mountain mumbled back.

After several calming minutes, Mountain sat up. Stopping Swiss completely, he yawned and stretched his emerald eyes opening back up as he looked over at Swiss. Swiss reached out to cradle Mountain's freckled cheeks, "You're sooo cute. Be lucky Copia thinks it's immoral for ghouls to eat each other." Swiss says with a massive grin.

"You'd eat me if Copia didn't ban it..?" Mountain questioned back, Swiss's choice of words had stupefied him. "Uhh, next question?" Swiss then says, tilting his head as he closed his eyes with a smile. Reason 682 why Swiss is horrifying: May or may not be a cannibal.

Mountain laughed at his mental comment, Swiss was just being playful. At least Mountain thinks he's just being playful but then again, if any of them turn out to be cannibals it'd definitely be Swiss. Swiss released Mountains face, Mountain gave him a curious look but Swiss was staring out at the windows watching the sun go down.

"Seriously, no fair he gave you the best room!" Swiss groaned, "I need it for my plants." Mountain says back, his room was appropriately covered in plants. "They have to be exposed to the sun to grow-" Mountain explained, "I know that! But you still have the prettiest room." Swiss says, falling back into the pile of pillows near the headboard.

Mountain laid beside him, "Do you remember what we had talked about a week or so ago? About wanting to try something new?" Mountain says, he was wide awake now. Clearly something has caught his interest, Swiss hummed. "Yeah, what about it?" Swiss says back, his own brown eyes landing back on Mountain who was staring adoringly.

"Can we try something from one of my books?" Mountain then asked, "Your books? Love, aren't most of those about gardening techniques?" Swiss says with a laugh, Mountain's face turned to one of brief confusion then he lightly shook his head. "No, they're hard eroticas." Mountain corrected plainly which in an instant made Swiss choke on his air.

"What?!" Swiss spat out as he sat back up, now violently coughing. Mountain aptly also sat back up, "I thought you knew. Maybe you all just don't pay attention.. I know the ghoulettes know." Mountain says, a contemplative tone in his voice. Once Swiss stopped coughing and choking, he looked at Mountain with a mixture of horror and interest.

Mountain never really talked about what he was into, mainly because it's generally too extreme for his close relationships and he doesn't plan to terrify or horrify anyone with his interests. So he's been all around the board known as the "vanilla" one.

He doesn't role-play, he doesn't get in costumes, he won't use toys generally, he won't even take risks. You can imagine why this is so shocking to Swiss who had a perception of Mountain being the closest thing to a reserved maiden out of their pack. He won't even send nudes or do dirty talk! Even Phantom does both of those things..

Swiss was astounded, now he needs to really know just how kinky their gentle giant is.

Mountain was more than glad to go through just the books in his room, he did warn Swiss that a lot of them were downright terrible or just disgusting but Swiss thought he could handle most of them. He in fact could not. They cycled through dozens of books, each one having extreme kinks in them.

By the end, Swiss was traumatised that Mountain was in fact not gentle at all and probably wanted to be gang banged viciously by all of his partners.

"What the fuck?!" Swiss finally exclaimed once it was all over, "I was hoping you would've said yes to the tentacles.." Mountain expressed his disappointment quietly as he meandered back over to the bed and collapsed in it. "The tentacles were objectively the most normal part of all of that!" Swiss says, still breathless from the scene.

Mountain just shrugged, reclining beside Swiss once more. "Can we still do something at least?" Mountain then asked, while his antlers may not be itching like crazy anymore he still had a different itch he wanted to scratch. "As long as it's not from anything you read, suuure.." Swiss says cautiously, those books are going to be burned into his memory now.

"Well- Those are mostly just fantasies anyway. That's why books are fun." Mountain clarified, "Yeah but you read them in your hammock when outside, I never expected them to be eroticas like that." "You never asked," Mountain shot back. "That's probably a good thing now that I know." Swiss says, a weary smile on his face.

"It's not all I read anyway, I really like fantasy and fluffy romances." Mountain says, sounding like he wanted to go curl up with a book right now. "Uh huh.. After all that?" "I'm varied in tastes." Mountain defended, despite Swiss's shock once he settled more he's sure he could act out some of the kinks the books had with Mountain later on.

By all means despite Swiss's disbelief he was arguably just as bad as Mountain but he tends to actually explore said concepts unlike Mountain.

Swiss cleared his throat and his mind alike as he focused, "Anyway- What did you want to do?" Swiss asked, the blush on his face fading since Mountain was no longer reading out explicit excerpts from books to him. "Can we try using your quintessence and air elements while you ride me?" Mountain asked, oh how direct.

"If that's what you want?" Swiss says back, the directness was at least appreciated. Dancing around it wouldn't help either of them. "Yeah, you can choke me. Just be.. Careful." Mountain confirmed as he sat up, "And the quintessence?" Swiss questioned not wanting to go too far without Mountain's permission.

"Do whatever you'd like." Mountain replied back, the room was now covered in the blanket of night as outside was illuminated by the stars and the moon which was the only light they were receiving. "Huh.. Okay, my choice then." Swiss says back, a small chuckle accompanying it.

Swiss moved to straddle Mountain's lap early, Mountain was predictably erect but Swiss couldn't say anything since he was in the same predicament.

Plus he smelt Mountain dripping with arousal a while ago, ghouls have sensitive noses. Arousal for them tends to smell like their favourite aroma, off the top of Swiss's head he knows Rain loves the smell of petrichor, Phantom smells baked goods, Mountain smells vanilla.. Wait, is he remembering that correctly?

"Hey Mount-" "Hmm?" "What do you smell when someone's aroused?" "Oh, that's easy. Hyacinths." Mountain answered quickly, "Don't you keep a lot of those in your greenhouse..?" "It used to be vanilla, then I discovered lavender, then hyacinth. I keep whichever one I like the best at the moment growing in the garden." Mountain explained.

He rotates between fragrances that he enjoys and therefore the smell he picks up on also changes. Mountain is weird- In Swiss's opinion anyway. Most ghouls get suspicious when they smell their favourite scent because it's hard to tell if it's arousal or something harmless like say, a perfume.

For Swiss the smell changes drastically but more recently he's been enjoying the scent of burning cedar wood. Beforehand he was quite a big fan of sugar cookies.. Aether made too many in a short span of time and he got used to the lingering fragrance.

"What do you smell?" Mountain reverses the question as Swiss was unbuttoning their pants, "Uhh burning cedar wood, yeah. Smells so damn good.." Swiss replied carelessly, "Oh- You've moved on." Mountain noted, "Yeah, I'm kinda surprised you don't like the smell of new books." Swiss laughed, he undid his belt and pushed his pants down first as he was the easier of the two.

Mountain's hands go underneath Swiss's shirt before pulling upwards, "I do but it doesn't smell as good as flowers do." Mountain helped the shirt over Swiss's head as he was the first one to be bare, "Right- But you can't even smell the vanilla so what's the point in growing them?" Swiss was now way too invested in this discussion.

"They're still pretty even if the orchids themselves don't carry the familiar scent. Besides I tend to grow lilac around the same time to mask the lack of smell." Mountain explained his choices, they collectively pushed Swiss's clothes to the floor before helping Mountain out of his.

Swiss gave an acknowledging hum to Mountain's previous words, he was more focused on his actions now that Mountain was also free of fabrics. "First- Where's the lube?" Swiss asked, Mountain dropped his head back against his headboard as he tried to think. Swiss reached up and scratched the base of his antlers for a moment making Mountain exhale shakily.

"Dresser, second drawer under my uniform." Mountain then says sharply as it came to him, "Thank you- Now stay right here." Swiss says with a grin as he got off of Mountain and the bed. He came back just a little later lube in hand, "You use water based?" Swiss asked as he looked at the bottle while getting back on the bed.

"Uh.. Yeah, I just like the feeling of it." Mountain replied back as his eyes followed Swiss until Swiss sat back in his lap. "I wonder if Copia knows how much money we've spent at sex shops." Swiss says with a chuckle, "I'd hope not.. That'd be embarrassing." Mountain whined, "You have nothing to hide! Or do you..? I've already found out one of your secrets today." Swiss mused with a grin.

"I think I'll keep that one a secret." Mountain replied with a huff, "Fine fine- Keep your secrets then." Swiss dismissed as he applied the lube to one of his hands, it spread easily and was slick. Mountain was watching intensely, once his hand was thoroughly covered he inserted two fingers into himself.

The stretch was a warm welcome, Mountain felt himself throb instantly as he watched the way Swiss grinded on his fingers and moaned. A bead of precum welled at the head of his cock, he couldn't resist stroking himself to the sight.

Mountain bit back any noises as he was mesmerised by the way Swiss rolled his hips, or how his fingers would hit a particularly good spot. His fangs were starting to dig into his bottom lip, Swiss added a third finger gasping out as his own cock dribbled a steady line of pre.

Mountain stroked slowly, the strokes were strong yet steady as he listened to the way Swiss's breath hitched or how he'd moan quietly. His eyes completely closed as he was almost ready, stretching himself just wide enough to take Mountain.

Mountain stopped once his cock twitched in his hand, a whimper leaving him as he looked at Swiss needily. "Swiss..?" Mountain muttered, he didn't want to be forgotten. Swiss's eyes opened as he pulled his fingers free, a heavy sigh leaving him as it felt like a weight had been lifted off of his chest.

"I should've let you do that." Swiss mumbled as he scooted further into Mountain's lap preparing to take him in. Mountain couldn't reply, but his hands started to move. One helping line his cock up and the other holding Swiss's waist and help ease him down onto Mountain's member.

Swiss inhaled sharply, his eyes looking down between them even though he couldn't see the merge point. Mountain tensed up, unsure if he should continue. "I'm fine- It's just thick, you know that." Swiss calmed Mountain back down, a few more inches to go and Swiss was fully in Mountain's lap. Swiss exhaled before grinning, looking up at Mountain.

Mountain's breaths were shallow, Swiss was so tight.. "You aren't going to bust are you?" Swiss teased, running a clawed finger down his chest. "You're really tight." Mountain whimpered, his eyes looking between himself and Swiss. "Is it me who's tight, or you who's too big?" Swiss laughed before leaning forward to kiss Mountain.

Mountain was desperate for the contact, their hands were all over each other while they were kissing that progressively evolved to them making out. Despite Swiss pressing on Mountain, he stayed sitting upright and didn't fall over like most do. Swiss chuckled as he pulled away, tongue licking over his lips.

"I think we're good to add a little bit of my touch to this." Swiss says while trailing his hands up Mountain's chest, Mountain knew what Swiss was implying.

"Do you want air already? Or.." Swiss asked, giving him a choice. "No- Quintessence please." Always polite, even when in the middle of sex. Swiss could almost roll his eyes but it was an endearing trait.

Once his hands reached Mountain's face he pulled him back in for another kiss, this kiss was different from the other one that only made him long for Swiss. This was quickly giving him a feeling close to intoxication, not quite like being high or drunk but maybe something in-between?

His body was fuzzy and he was acutely more aware of any sensations. Swiss's touch felt like a fire in a field at night, captivating and the only thing you could look at. Swiss's hands roamed down his back, claws gently dragging downwards as he did so. Mountain moaned as his hands pulled Swiss closer to him, they hadn't even started properly and this was already so much for him.

Mountain pulled away from the kiss, needing air. He gasped in a mild manner, turning from Swiss. Swiss didn't mind, he kissed Mountain's cheek instead as it had been offered to him. "I wonder about your antlers.." Swiss commented between kisses, "If I could help them fall off..?" He then pondered aloud.

Swiss's touch moved up quickly until Mountain felt the heat of hands on his antlers, he tried to speak but any word he tried to form came out as gibberish and babbling. Still, Swiss seemed to understand. "You like it?" He asked with a grin, Mountain's vision was hazy. It'd remain that way as long as Swiss could touch him.

"I'll come back to your antlers then.. Are you ready?" Swiss asked, Mountain nodded enthusiastically. Swiss had barely moved his hips and the pleasure was delightful, addictive even. In this state while under the influence of Swiss who was directly affecting him, it was so easy to succumb to it. It felt like it was eating his body entirely.

His hips moved in a simple pattern, Mountain was still able to keep his eyes on Swiss (somehow) which amused the multi-ghoul greatly. "Do you need me to lessen it? You look like you're struggling." Swiss maintained a level of composure despite feeling the ripples of arousal going through him as well.

Mountain shook his head, he wanted to stay like this for as long as Swiss would let him. It was too much but too little at the same time and he loved it. It seemed to dull everything that wasn't focused on pleasure, when Swiss started to suck marks into his skin he could only grip at him back in response.

His claws were the least of his worries, not like he could retract them right now even if he wanted to. Mountain scratched long stripes into Swiss, Swiss moaned out at the pain and smiled against Mountain's skin. He managed to keep a consistent and continuous pace with his hips, rocking back and forth as Mountain groaned at the sensation.

Swiss continued kissing into Mountain's skin, Mountain was getting close already he could feel it. It was hard when Swiss was intentionally targeting erogenous zones, or spots where Mountain was particularly sensitive at. He made his way up Mountain's neck, that.. That was a really difficult spot.

Mountain inhaled keenly as he felt Swiss's fangs test the skin there, it was Mountain's weak spot. Right.. There. His claws punctured into Swiss at the same time Swiss sunk his teeth into the meat of Mountain's neck.

His orgasm crashed into him, coating everything in a hazy static except for the district wetness of Swiss's tongue licking up the blood from Mountain's neck. His eyes were closed as he whimpered, Swiss hadn't even blinked once Mountain came.

The hotness of Mountain's seed didn't bother him, nor did the claws drawing blood from his back. Once Mountain was actively more aware again, Swiss tapered off the quintessence slowly. He didn't want Mountain to crash right after all of that, quintessence has the funny side effects of making things feel lifeless if you don't let someone down carefully.

Swiss pulled away from Mountain's neck, a pretty purple bruise being left there along with bite marks. "How was it?" Swiss asked with a small smile, Mountain pulled his claws out of Swiss once he was capable of doing so. Swiss gasped but didn't say anything about it, it's pretty well known he likes getting off to blood and pain alike.

Mountain's not the only freak around these parts.

"Incredible." Mountain says, his breathing was still ragged. "You should've seen your face, absolutely gorgeous when you're at your end." Swiss cooed, brushing hairs out of Mountain's face. Mountain blushed a sage colour at the compliment as he adjusted his posture, it was time for a position change..

Mountain helped Swiss off of him momentarily as he switched to laying down instead, once he was laying down he looked up at Swiss who was already sinking onto his shaft again.

Despite Swiss always being chatty (even in bed..) you could tell when he was close by the way his skin would become more sticky, or his tail would start flickering in an irregular pattern or how his chest would be struggling to regulate his breathing.

Mountain cleared his throat making Swiss look at him, "You need to finish too." Mountain says, voice particularly rough but clear enough. "Oh trust me- It took every inch of self control I had to not cum all over your chest just now." Swiss says with a laugh as his thighs were able to straddle Mountain once more, Mountain gave him a questionable glance.

"You could've." Mountain stated, "Could've. But then I wouldn't have got back up, trust me." Swiss says with a chuckle, Mountain couldn't argue against that. While Swiss isn't generally a one and done type, he does enjoy edging himself which he was clearly doing with how he's done it a few times already. If he starts edging then once it's over, it's completely final.

Fingering himself, straddling Mountain, yeah- He was prepping himself for a nice one. "One more then we'll stop." Swiss warned, mostly for his own sake. Air would be involved this time and he didn't feel comfortable with either of them being tired and messing with such a dangerous element. So, the second round was the last round.

Mountain nodded, Swiss got more comfortable now that he wasn't actively on the cliff. He moved and situated himself better, his left hand clings to Mountain's antler while his right hand wrapped around Mountain's throat. Mountain swallowed nervously, Swiss's thumb was pressed directly into the still fresh bite.

"If you want me to stop at any time, tap me, shout, struggle- Do something just.. Don't sit there." Swiss says, concern in his voice. Mountain wasn't too worried about that aspect, he could toss Swiss off of him at any time if it came to it. The idea of losing your air is bound to give you anxiety at first but he wanted to try it.

Mountain gave a small nod and with that Swiss started. He was riding Mountain properly now that the new position was more comfortable for him, Mountain gasped at the sudden sensation. Swiss was being orderly with everything. You'd almost think he planned this.

His hand on Mountain's antler tightened as he was faster now with his pace, Mountains eyes winced as he felt Swiss start to squeeze his throat slightly. See.. The unique thing about the air element is he doesn't actually need to do anything to steal the air out of Mountain's lungs.

It's a miracle Cirrus, Cumulus, or Aurora haven't killed one of their pack with such a menacing element. They've done plenty of things to annoy those three for sure..

The air just happens to leave Mountains parted lips, he doesn't notice until he tries to breathe and can't. Swiss monitors closely even if it meant he was less focused on the way Mountain was hitting every nerve inside of him perfectly, he'd hiss but continued on.

Once Mountain started to reach for Swiss's forearm he let the air rush back into Mountain's lungs. There's an instant blood rush from that alone, the brief panic made everything so clear. The exact opposite of quintessence that made everything fuzzy. "Again?" Mountain whimpered, "If you say so.." Swiss huffed out.

This is fucking tiring! Not the whole air thing but riding someone. Swiss stilled while catching his breath, "Mount, gonna need you to work with me here." Swiss exclaimed.

Mountain titled his head but was ready to accommodate in any way possible. "You've gotta be on top now, or at least help me. I'm tired and my legs are becoming jello." Swiss stated, he was breathing particularly hard.

Mountain bowed his head, willing to change positions with Swiss. Just as they were about to, Swiss yanked unfortunately harder than he meant to when removing his left hand from Mountain's antler and it popped right off.

He screamed. He won't lie. He absolutely screamed. The antler just tumbling between the two of them and falling onto Mountain's stomach, splashing into a pile of Swiss's precum that had been leaking there. Meanwhile Mountain just let out the most pleased groan Swiss had ever heard, his eyes darted between the shed antler and to Mountain.

Mountain's tail began to hit the bed, his groan sounded similar to a rumble and made Swiss slightly shrink as he was worried he had injured Mountain. "Did I.. hurt you?" Swiss asked, voice shaking from everything that just happened. "Oh Satanas, NO! I've been waiting for that all day, it's a type of satisfaction that even sex can't achieve." Mountain explained with a fulfilled voice.

"But the.. Stump thing is bleeding." "Pedicle, it'll heal in a few days. C'mon, let's switch positions." Mountain was relatively casual thanks to one of the biggest annoyances in his life finally falling off, he tossed the shed antler to the floor without even paying it a sprinkle of attention.

Well, that was horrifying.

Swiss's uneasiness was forgotten once Mountain laid him down on his back and took up the top seat above, he held Swiss's legs up and set a quick pace. He had a lot more energy than Swiss and was noticeably seeking his end, Swiss moaned harshly when Mountain hit his prostate.

Swiss had one last chance to steal a breath from Mountain before it'd be way too risky to continue. Mountain felt himself get light-headed, his pace slowed considerably. He fell quiet, his grunts being silenced as he tried to breathe his way through the feeling despite knowing it was impossible. The feeling was getting worse as Swiss slowly cut off more and more of his air.

Then, he removed it entirely. Two seconds. That's all it took. The familiar feeling of choking, not having enough air.. There was a certain beauty to be had in it.

Swiss then released his hold on Mountain's air capacity, Mountain inhaled greedily as the air felt raw to his lungs. His head was still swirling, but he recovered quickly. If anything it was to spite Swiss at this point.

A growl comes out of him as he looks down at Swiss who looks all to pleased with his handiwork of pissing Mountain off. It didn't actually make him angry but seeing as he was now on top and in a certain "mood," he didn't take kindly to Swiss interrupting his pace.

His hand goes to stroke Swiss, he's so slick after leaking all over himself. Easy to jerk, his hand practically glides over him. His other hand was clawing into Swiss's side, his claws intentionally harming this time until he saw crimson. Not enough to permanently harm or even scar but enough to draw out the metallic scent.

Swiss gasped at the pain, Mountain's noisy above him with grunts, gasps and small moans. Once the smell of iron hit Swiss, he came. White hot ropes shoot from his cock rather violently after edging for so long, they reach to his chest before slowing down until he's just leaking. Mountain pushes him anyway, wanting more and stroking him harshly.

Did Swiss really think he was getting out of it that easily? No. Never. He presses into Swiss's sweet spot, continues stroking him and purposely overstimulates the multi-ghoul until he sees the pinpricks of tears. Swiss doesn't tell him to stop, he doesn't want Mountain to stop.

The aftereffects of his first orgasm which was so strong already pulled him over into a second one, it hit him harder than the first. His moan was loud as he writhed under Mountain, squeezing him deliciously as he sank into Swiss's depths for the last time and came.

Mountain didn't pull away his hand until every last drop was squeezed out of Swiss and had leaked onto his hand or Swiss's soft stomach. He waited until he didn't feel his cock twitching anymore inside of Swiss, once he was certain he gave everything he had- He pulled out.

Mountain promptly groaned now from exhaustion as he dropped beside Swiss. Swiss was.. Gone. The only movement he did do was turn towards Mountain, Swiss couldn't even form a coherent thought so he definitely couldn't speak.

Mountain pulled him in for a cuddle anyway, their warm bodies merging together. Mountain didn't care about how sweaty and dirty they were, he ignored the cum that messily spread between the two of them.

They'd totally need a shower in the morning.

Swiss woke up first, incredible considering he took the hardest hit from all of that. His processing speed was very slow today after expending so much energy yesterday, Mountain is completely passed out. One arm hanging around Swiss and the rest of his body laying flat down.

Mountain's tail was about as still as the rest of his body, Mountain tends to look lifeless whenever he's sleeping. Swiss moved out of Mountain's loose grip, assessing the damage on himself and Mountain. Just a few claw wounds and a bite that would probably finish healing today or tomorrow, Swiss ran his finger along the dents in his side.

He'd have to ask what part pissed Mountain off so badly last night, it was way too much fun to not ask. But priorities first, he's all gross and has a bunch of dried fluids sticking to him that need to be washed off. He turned back to Mountain, "Mount, c'mon wake up." Swiss poked normally at first.

Once he realised Mountain hadn't so much as even moved, he started pushing him. "Wake uuup." Swiss groaned, he'd tried just about everything after a few minutes. Sat on him, shoved him, shouted, the whole spiel. Mountain was just ignoring him, he didn't want to get up when he's so sleepy.

Once Swiss figured that out, he knew the only way to get the earth ghoul up. "Your antler is gonna itch soon if you keep ignoring me." Swiss says, it sounded like a threat. With one particularly annoyed huff, Mountain got up. His eyes weren't even open. "Good morning sleepyhead." Swiss greeted, kissing Mountain on the cheek.

"We only need to clean up, change the bed, and then you can go right back to sleep." Swiss enticed, that did sound very appealing.. By all means he was sweet talking Mountain into actually moving and not hibernating for the rest of the day.

A few more words and then Mountain gave in. "Fine.." He grumbled, opening his eyes. Swiss was beaming once he saw their green hues, "Shower time- Plus I need to clean the scratches and bite, don't want those getting infected." Swiss detailed, sliding off the bed first as he helped Mountain off next.

"As long as my antler comes off today and we get to stay in bed longer.. Then do whatever." Mountain says with a yawn, "My pleasure." Swiss responded with a grin before leading Mountain out of the bright sunroom and into the attached bathroom.

Mountain was surprisingly pliant with everything until they got back into the (fresh) bed and he pulled Swiss into a crushing cuddle. Swiss choked but didn't argue with Mountain, good luck trying to win against him when he's tired and determined on something. Eventually his grip eased down as he felt comfortable knowing Swiss wouldn't leave and started to fall asleep again.

Swiss could finally take a deep breath! Which was useless because he was trapped in bed anyway. Oh well, voluntary circumstance. He cuddled back into Mountain, while he wouldn't go back to sleep he could at least hear Mountain snoring the entire time which was just as good.

Mountain's other antler had finally fallen off later on in the day while he was having lunch, it disturbed Swiss, again. Meanwhile, Mountain was celebrating being antler free for a while. No more itchiness, no more discomfort, and nobody could randomly grab them anymore.

"The stump is bleeding again.." "I told you it's called a pedicle.." "Tomayto, tomahto. Same thing." "It's not-" "Totally is." "No it's not!" The two went back and forth about it for the rest of the day, holding firm in their bottom lines. Mountain eventually folded once Swiss started threatening no cuddles.

Although Swiss still brings the discussion up time to time. Mountain maintains that it's called a pedicle, and Swiss of course just calls it a stump. They'll never actually reach an agreement with it.

End notes: Three words, deer, antlers, and vanilla. That's what my research mainly consisted of for this fic. As far as I'm concerned after reading that much on antlers and deer, Mountain is a deer.

[errorryx]

unraveling — part three, season ten

read on ao3 | read part one | hermitcraft, 2.9k words

this is the third and final part of my fic for MCYTblr AUFest! once again, if you haven't read the first part, please check it out for more info about this AU. enjoy this infodump about plant-based fibers disguised as a minecraft fanfiction!

—

Ever since Pearl began expanding her original starter base, she’s been working on some kind of big secret project.

It probably has something to do with her choice of theme this season. Or maybe it's an even bigger, more spectacular redstone machine than the already very impressive Dyeduction. Whatever it is, Pearl’s determined to keep it a secret, which means Gem is even more determined to figure it out.

She watches Pearl from a distance, using her spyglass. Pearl’s base is developing into a labyrinth of different structures, with so many entrances and passageways wedged into tight corners, each building blending together into a larger whole. It’s getting big enough that Gem can get lost in it. She gets turned around even from afar, watching Pearl enter a building and emerge somewhere completely different a few minutes later.

This morning, Pearl seems to be harvesting some of the many different plants around her base. She clips back the fast-growing vines that crawl up the sides of her buildings, wades through dense fields of flowers to uproot entire plants, and even collects bark from the bushes and trees. Gem can’t imagine what she’s doing with it all, and she’s even more confused to see Pearl deposit her harvest into a large pool and leave it there.

After a while, Pearl spreads her elytra and rockets off in the direction of the shopping district. Gem takes the opportunity to poke around her base and investigate directly. She stops at the pool first, which has a small channel out to the river, not quite wide enough for a boat to pass through.

When Gem steps into the pool, the water only comes up to her knees. The bottom is full of different stems and leaves, weighed down by rocks to keep it from floating up to the top. Nearby is a small hut filled with shelves and shelves of the same plants in various stages of drying.

Gem has been toying with the idea of a proper scientific investigation for a while now, and clearly Pearl is the perfect subject. She takes a recording device out of her pocket and begins to describe her surroundings.

“This is Dr. GeminiTay in the field, reporting on my observations at PearlescentMoon’s base. Recently, I've observed several anomalies in Pearl’s behavior, and I came to the conclusion that I must analyze her natural habitat for hints as to what may be causing this…deviation.” Gem nods, proud of herself. She sounds so professional! “It appears that Pearl has been soaking plants in water, then letting them dry. The purpose of this behavior is as of yet unknown.”

Nearby the pool and the shed full of drying plants is a building that Gem knows has been here for a while, but she doesn’t think she’s ever been inside. The top floor is full of more plants in the next stage of the process, whatever process that is. One one side is a pile of fully dried plant material, and on the other side is a heaping pile of fibers and several chests stuffed to the brim with very tiny wood shavings.

Gem relays this information as best she can into the recording device, then takes a staircase down to the basement, which is much larger than the room above. The center of the room is taken up by several large spinning wheels, each hooked up to a redstone device that Gem doesn’t even bother to try and make sense of. Presumably they help automate the process, though they all seem to be shut off right now. Gem is tempted to flick one of the levers to see what happens, but she’s not Grian. She has more self-control than that.

Though, it would be really funny if she broke something.

Gem peeks outside to make sure Pearl isn’t back yet, before running back to switch the lever on, giggling to herself. The wheel starts spinning, but since there’s no fibers or threads on the spool, nothing else interesting happens. She’s disappointed, but also relieved that she didn’t break anything. She flicks the lever back off and moves on.

Pearl has hung several picture frames around the room, but instead of artwork, the frames contain embroidery projects. The largest of them reads live laugh love in familiar cursive lettering, surrounded by a border of leafy vines. Most of the others are textless, with designs of different plants and flowers.

A large table on the left side of the room is covered in dozens of small scraps of handmade fabric. Some are of higher quality than others. None of them look like the sort of crochet pattern that Gem’s used to seeing on Pearl’s body. Pearl must be trying to branch out with her projects, and these are some of her first attempts. There’s another embroidery project hanging right above the table, the only other one with any text, which reads, Start small.

Beside the table is an ordinary loom, and next to it, a larger, more intricate version constructed out of several different types of wood. Normal looms are only used for banners, but Pearl’s handmade loom seems to be built for broader purposes. On the other side of the loom, in the back corner of the room, is an iron door without any visible way to open it.

At this point, Gem can safely assume that she's found the room where Pearl keeps her mystery project. Clearly it's some kind of fiber art—or several different kinds at once, from the look of it. But all the things she's seen so far are just pieces of the puzzle, and she still can’t figure out what Pearl’s making.

Her only remaining option is to see what’s behind the locked door.

Now, Gem could easily go home and construct her own lever to open the door, or just break through the wall herself, but that’s no fun. She’d much rather figure out how to use this secret door the right way. Knowing Pearl, it’s not a special kind of lock that only she has the key to, but some kind of thematically relevant puzzle that anyone can figure out if they try.

So Gem tries. For a good long time, she looks around the room for hints. She stops in front of the table of scraps, looking at the embroidered message. Start small. It doesn’t quite fit with Pearl’s sense of interior decoration. The live laugh love one is clearly a joke, a reference to last season, but there’s nothing about Start small that holds any sort of meaning to Gem.

Unless it’s meant as a clue.

In a moment of inspiration, Gem stands on her tiptoes, reaching over the table to take the frame down from the wall. She looks over to the door, but it hasn’t moved. When she flips the frame around, she can see the messy backside of the stitching, plus a hand-written note from Pearl, reading, smaller than that.

Definitely a clue, then. Gem switches on her recording device and begins to narrate. 

“The wild Pearl is known for her cleverness,” she tells her imaginary peer-review science board. “One of the defining behaviors of a Pearl is to set up puzzles for her friends. It’s important to provide her with enrichment by participating, which is why I’m doing this, of course. Not because I’m nosy.”

She paces up and down the room, the reassuring rhythm of her footsteps against the floor helping to clear her mind. That is, until she steps down on a block that makes a strange metallic clanking sound.

Gem may not know much about redstone, but she knows a hidden hopper when she hears one. The spot where she’s standing is just a few blocks away from the door. All she has to do now is figure out what to throw into it.

“Pearls are practical creatures,” Gem says. “This Pearl would not choose something rare or difficult to access as the key to a door she uses all the time. It’ll probably be something inside this room.”

Start small. Smaller than that. The answer’s sitting right in front of her. Pearl doesn’t start a crochet project by jumping into it blindly and hoping for the best. She plans it out beforehand, making patterns and testing out stitches. All of the different test swatches on this table are her way of starting small, practicing for the big project she’s making.

Gem grabs one of the scraps of fabric, dropping it on the floor above the hopper. The door opens with a loud clank, and she enters the room, holding her breath in anticipation.

She’s not expecting Pearl to actually be inside. She knows for a fact that she saw Pearl fly off, though admittedly there was plenty of time for Pearl to sneak back into this room while Gem was wandering around her base. But the surprise of Pearl’s presence pales in comparison to the shock of what she’s making.

Pearl is hunched over a player-sized figure made up of many different kinds of fabric, lying on top of a large worktable. Only one of its arms are attached, the other sitting right beside the empty shoulder, and both legs end just below the knee, still unfinished. Most of the fabrics look coarser than the soft wool yarn that Gem is used to, but there’s no mistaking who it’s supposed to be.

“Oh. My. Gosh.” Gem blinks several times, unable to believe what she’s seeing. “Pearl, are you multiplying?”

Pearl laughs, sitting back and looking up at her. “Do you like it?”

Gem takes a few steps closer, taking it all in. The new Pearl’s plastic button eyes have been replaced with wooden ones, and her hair is a mixture of several different textures and shades of brown. She’s wearing a white postal jacket like the one Pearl’s wearing now, but this one is made out of a more refined version of some of the swatches in the previous room.

When Gem commissions new outfits to fit her themes, she doesn’t spend much time thinking about the work that goes into it behind the scenes. She just pays their exorbitant prices and assumes they must have worked very hard. Now, having seen all the steps in Pearl’s process, she’s baffled as to how her clothesmakers are able to deliver their finished products so quickly, or how Pearl herself has gotten so much done without anyone noticing.

“It’s beautiful, Pearl. It’s so detailed.” Gem can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t feel like an understatement. “Have you been working on this all season?”

“Only since I decided on my solarpunk theme,” Pearl says. “It shouldn’t take me much longer. I’ve processed most of the fibers that I need already, and that’s the slowest part.”

“I have so many questions,” Gem says. It’s a little disconcerting to see this new version of Pearl in an unfinished state, looking so much like Pearl does now, but lifeless and incomplete.

“I can explain it to you if you want!” Pearl looks excited at the prospect. “There’s a lot of steps, but if you break it down it’s actually pretty simple—”

“Have you been hanging out with Mumbo recently?” Gem asks. “None of what you’re doing is simple, Pearl. This is very complicated!”

“Already had a peek around my base, did you?” Pearl tuts in mock disappointment.

“It’s only fair! You don’t get to complain after what you did to my base with all those pickle messages.”

“Ah, well.” Pearl shrugs. “You may have a point.”

“What is it for, anyway?” Gem can’t help but notice that Pearl isn’t making these modifications to herself, but to an entirely different entity. “Why do you need another you?”

“Gem!” Pearl laughs at her. “You got all the way to this point and you still haven’t figured it out?”

“What do you—Oh. Wait.” Gem blinks. “Are you—you’re building yourself a replacement body?”

“There you go,” Pearl says. “We got there eventually.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense!” Gem says. “How do you get yourself into a whole different body? Can you turn back after you’re done? If you can just go around switching bodies, what’s stopping you from being a—a pig, or a sheep or something?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Pearl says, waving her hand dismissively. “I just, y’know…” She pauses, frowning. “Well, I—hm, okay. I’m not sure, actually.”

“You’re not sure?”

“I don’t know how it works,” Pearl says. “It just sort of happens. Like how everyone gets new outfits to stick through respawn.”

“That’s normal, though. Everyone does it!”

“Yeah, but how?”

Gem opens her mouth, then closes it again. She doesn’t know. How does she not know?

She feels a little dizzy from how fast her thoughts are racing. Gem pulls up a chair and plops herself down, trying to get her thoughts in order.

In this world, and in every world since she spawned, there have been rules. They vary from place to place, and they can be changed, too—even bent or broken. Gem knows people who break the rules—some of the most infamous rulebreakers in the world reside on this very server with her—but she’s never counted Pearl among that number.

And, now that she thinks about it, that seems like an oversight on her part. Gem has known Pearl for longer than most of the other Hermits, and she can’t remember ever questioning how Pearl came to exist in this form, this version of herself that Gem’s always known.

Gem has never broken the rules, or at least, she’s never knowingly attempted to do so. She’s happy where she is, building and mining and fighting the normal way, seeking out challenges from within the confines of what’s supposed to be possible. She’s amazed by the accomplishments of her reality-bending friends, but that sort of thing has never interested her.

Now, standing on the edge of what seems to be a rule-breaking realization, Gem wonders if this is how they felt—Etho, or Cleo, or Doc, or Pearl, apparently—any of the Hermits that ever asked the right questions, or put the pieces together, or stumbled upon a loophole in the rulebook.

She clings to the fabric of her lab coat in wonder. What kind of force tethers this silly costume she’s wearing to her own body? Why does it stay with her even after death? How does any of this make sense?

Is everything just a—

“See, you can't question these things,” Pearl says, bursting through her train of thought. “Or it all falls apart.”

“Falls apart?” Gem asks, alarmed. “What does that mean? That sounds bad. Is it bad? Have I broken the world?”

“No! No, of course not, don’t worry.” Pearl rests a soft hand on Gem’s shoulder. “Well, maybe a little bit, but it’s fine. Nothing that can’t be fixed.”

Gem puts her head in her hands, taking a deep breath. It helps, a little. “This is—a lot, Pearl.”

“Here, let me show you something.” Pearl holds up a swatch of fabric, which Gem is reasonably confident in identifying as crochet, though she doesn’t know the specific stitch. “It’s like this. The fabric holds itself together just fine if you leave it alone, but when you pull on the edges…” She does just that, and the first row collapses on itself, then the next, then the next. “Things start to go a bit wonky. But…” She pulls out a crochet hook and starts stitching, rebuilding the row she’d just unraveled. “You can make them right again, if you learn how. It can go back to normal. Or, well, normal enough.”

“But what about people who don’t want it to be normal?” Gem asks. “How do they deal with it?”

“You’ll have to ask them about it,” Pearl says. “That’s not how I do things. I prefer to patch the holes I find rather than explore what’s inside them.”

Gem leans her head against Pearl’s shoulder. “This really hurts my brain.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Gem. I didn’t mean to push you into this.”

“It’s okay,” Gem says. “The fact that I made it through two and a half seasons of Hermitcraft before getting here is probably pretty impressive, right?”

“It’s not for everybody,” Pearl says. “Like Grian, for example.”

“Grian?”

“He noped out of it even harder than I did, you know. Did it so well that I’m not sure he even remembers anymore. I don’t want to bring it up with him, because if he did forget, I think he meant for it to be that way.”

“Huh. I had no idea.” Gem lets out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know if I want to go his route or not. Or your route, or some other route. I feel like I know way less about the world than I did this morning.”

“You should probably talk to someone other than me about it,” Pearl suggests. “It’s different for everyone. But whatever you do, it should be your own way, not someone else’s.”

“My own way.” Gem smiles. “I like the sound of that, whatever it is.”

“Don’t stress yourself out over it,” Pearl warns her. “I know the way you are. Take your time, Gem. You have basically forever to figure it out.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll try.” Gem wraps her arms around Pearl. “Thank you, Pearl.”

“For what?”

“For explaining stuff,” Gem says. “For being my friend. For being so cuddly, too. You are so soft.”

“Aw, you’re welcome.” Pearl hugs her back. “Would you be mad if I got less soft, though?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gem says. “I love every version of you.”

Pearl laughs softly. “I love every version of you too.”

—

if you read this all the way through and enjoyed, please consider reblogging!

<Previous part

[topperscumslut]

so my dog decided to be a little shit and scare the fuck out of me today before work

so i woke up right as my dad was leaving for work this morning and just chilled for a few hours before going to grab lunch and then go to my afternoon shift today right

so like 15 minutes before i leave i let my dogs out since my dad won’t be home for another few hours. both of my dogs (a boy and a girl) are both really old, but when they were a lot younger when i was a little kid the girl (who’s a beagle/terrier mix as opposed to the boy’s full bred beagle) would always get really excited, especially if she saw something like people or a cat, and would jump over the fence and my parents and i would have to frantically run around the neighborhood before finally finding her in a neighbor’s yard, so we usually always put her on a tie out leash when we let her outside to go potty. there are sometimes where my dad will let her out without out if he knows he can stand there and watch her the whole time since we know she likes to be able to run around like our other dog does and gets sad when he can run around and she can’t, but we usually leave them out for a while so they have enough time to do their business and get their energy out so my dad usually doesn’t watch her the whole time and just puts her on her tie out.

however, if im only taking my eyes off of them for a short amount of time i often just let her go free (well, within the confines of the fence, that is), especially if im in a rush before work and don’t have the extra time to put her on the leash and get her off, especially if she ends up getting her leash tangled up like the dumbass she is (i love her tho). i still try to be careful with it *just in case* and don’t leave her alone in the yard unchained for more than a few minutes at a time, but she’s gotten really old and can’t move as well as she used to (although still pretty good for her age) and hasn’t tried to jump the fence in YEARS, and even if she did i would probably hear her barking as a warning, cuz she only did it if something outside of the fence caught her attention

anyway i put the dogs out and run back upstairs to grab the rest of my stuff to leave for work, put my shoes on, and go to check on them literally five fucking minutes later. i look for them and the other one is already ready to come in so i let him in, but i can’t see this dumb little fucking bitch fucking anywhere. so then i started second guessing myself and go oh shit, did i even put her out in the first place, or did i trick myself into thinking i already had cuz i was planning to? cuz the boy dog usually runs straight to me when i try to put him out but the girl is much more reluctant to go both in and out, so im like maybe she wouldn’t come out yet so i went to grab my shit for work and was just going to put her out after right. so now im frantically calling for her both inside and outside and she’s still not fucking coming.

usually i wouldn’t think much of it cuz a lot of times i can call and call for her while she’s outside and her bitch ass will stare me dead in the eye and refuse to come in while her brother runs right up to me, but i could not see this motherfucker at all. so i barely step outside, still nothing, and then come back inside and search every fucking room of the house for her, NOTHING. so at this point i start to panic and go back outside all the way into the yard.

so im freaking out and by the time i get to nearly the back of the yard this fear gets much much worse as im continuing to call her for and she’s still not coming to me. that is, until i get to the very back, to the shed where there’s a little platform in front of the shed door that’s view is entirely covered by bushes, a platform that in 12 years I’ve almost never seen her lay on since she loves laying in the grass so much, and lo and behold there is fucking Daisy, smiling motherfuckerly at me like the sadistic little fuck that she is.

[heresathreebee]

The One Where She Got A Dog

Yelena Belova X Reader

Summary: how Yelena became a dog mom Masterlist Part 2

Tags: E | 1.8k words | scary movie, winter, secret pasts, sapphic

AN: Black Widow movie really got me in my feelings about those characters, Yelena in particular. I havent watched The Thing in almost a year please look the other way if movie events are out of order.

Pretty Russian girls are not usually your type, but fuck if you weren't absolutely obsessed with this one. You laughed when she told you she was from Ohio.  She laughed when you said you were too. 

Aquavit and your grandma's biscuit recipe brought her into your cabin on the edge of the world where she admitted to you she had never seen John Carpenter's The Thing before. You turned it on just as the snow storm set in and wrapped up in your thickest blankets with her. You're trying not to get your hopes too high but she's not shy about asking you to scoot closer. 

"Skäl," you cheer just as the ominous opening credits end and they find the mysterious ship in the frozen wasteland of antarctica. 

"Have you ever been?," Yelena asked. 

You grimace at the strong taste of aquavit. It's like vodka but with caraway for 'flavor'. You look at her from the side and poor yourself a second shot. "Been…?" 

"There." She points at the screen. 

"I have actually," you admit in a way you hope is flat and uninteresting, "have you?" 

Yelena shook her head. It's possible she might think you're being sarcastic (you cross your fingers under the blanket and hope she does). She's smiling at you, thinking something (but still watching the screen with interest). 

She drops the subject until you have to pause the movie to pee. You unwrap yourself from the cocoon of blankets and as you stand she asks you another question. 

"What were you doing there? in Antarctica, I mean." 

You sigh and pretend to brush something off of your pants. "Science trip with my parents. Shitty vacation for me I'd rather be in the Bahamas." 

You resist the urge to look at her. After taking care of business, you come back just in time to put the biscuits in the oven. You hear Yelena lean into the kitchen archway as the floors creak immensely here. 

"No timer?," she asked. 

"No timer," you confirm. "I use the timer of my heart." 

Yelena scoffs. "Please don't burn them, I'm curious about these… what are they– pastries?" 

"Something like that." 

The two of you went back to the movie just as the gang on screen is trying to decipher who is human and who is not. You feel like something between you has changed and sadly not for the better. 

But she can't know. 

"I hate this part," you say, making absolutely no move to avert your gaze. 

Yelena is startled when the doctor's arms become trapped in the bear trap belly mouth of the "man" on the table. She quickly covers her eyes and giggles manically, slapping your chest for the vague and unhelpful warning. You realize she's not as close to you as before…

There's 20 minutes left of this movie and you haven't seen a single thing on screen. Yelena stopped asking you questions when you stopped being coherent with your answers. All you can think about is telling her. 

But you can't tell her. She would never understand. You barely understand and it's about you. 

"I lied." Your heart beats in your throat as you see her face you but you can't look at her directly for fear of losing your nerve. "About the science expedition? That's not why I was in Antarctica…" 

Yelena seems to wait for you to continue but… 

"Eh, no offense but, " you gesture with your hand, "I don't really know you like that." 

Yelena gave your reply a single nod. "I suppose that's fair." 

You can't help but fidget in your seat. "Idliketo" 

"What was that?" 

You cleared your throat. "I said… I said I'd like to. Know you like that, I mean…" 

Yelena gives you a smile. "I would like to know you like that, too." 

The movie ends, the biscuits are not burnt but buttery soft and golden brown, and the blizzard outside has subsided some. It's still going but at least it's not buffering the doors and windows like before. 

"How can you watch that film in a place like this?" Yelena cannot get enough of those biscuits, stuffing them in her mouth 2 at a time. "Does it make you paranoid?" 

"Yes it does," you say, putting your coat on, "I think that's what makes it so much scarier–  looking outside and being scared every person you come across ain't who they say they are. Sometimes its not a bad thing though... I think it is rather… poetic, too." 

Yelena's eyebrows furrow. "Where are you going?" 

You put on your boots and hope the duct tape stays on the hole you covered earlier. "Dogs are out in the shed. It's heated and they have food, but not for days and I'd rather have 'em in the house where I can take care of them." 

As you finished your sentence you reached for the door,  but stopped when you noticed Yelena getting dressed too. She gives you a nod as soon as her hood comes up, and you give this brave thing an appreciative once over. 

The snow that nearly all melted before is up to your knees now. Fresh, white, and fluffy. It muffles sound like the world's sidelong turning. The odd snowflake wafts lazily from the sky, but for the most part it's died down. You teach back and take Yelena's gloved hand to keep from staying too far apart. 

"You know I always wanted a dog," she said. She could have said it in a whisper from 100 yards away and you still would have heard her–  that is how eerily quiet it is. 

Yelena squeezes your hand and you squeeze back. She's probably remembering the movie. You try to distract her by saying, "Oh yeah? You can have one of mine then." 

Yelena laughs, then stops. "You serious?" 

"As a heart attack." You finally reach the door to the shed and unlatch the door. A chorus of barks begin and you charge forward to nudge them back to give Yelena space to come in as well. "I do some breeding up here–  just a side job. They're usually working dogs but they can be pets too." 

Buck licks your face from chin to forehead and you push him back. "Down, boy! Show some respect!" 

Yelena has two of the mongrels circling her, sniffing all her clothes and demanding to be pet. "That's Burt, Barney, and Bella. Buck's my stud, but these heathens are going to a farm. They've got sheep to watch." 

Yelena chuckles as her hands get covered in slobber. "I love them." 

They're almost grown, three quarters the height of their father. Buck didn't even look in Yelena's direction because he knows you give him treats. You take your scarf off as the heat of the shed threatens to smother you and search your pockets for jerky.  

"She's in there with the new puppies." You point to a darkened closet. "Don't get too close now, she's still a little protective." 

Yelena creeps closer. You see her look at you from the corner of her eye. Probably terrified by the morphing dog scene from the movie. You give her an encouraging smile and tell her where to find the light. It's a pull cord and it bathes the room in a warm golden yellow light. 

Yelena's heavy, controlled breathing turns into a coo. Mama dog is laying on her side watching the newcomer closely. There's a pup asleep in the nest of her legs, another chewing on the hay that litters the ground, and the last one is biting their mother's ear. Yelena looks back at you with an adorable pout on her lip. 

"So cute…" 

You chuckle and put your arm around her. Buck knows to steer clear of mama dog and slinks off. You make your guest walk closer with you to show mama she's got your confidence. 

"Yelena, this is Beyonce." Mama dog's ears perk at the sound of her name. "Beyonce, this is Yelena. Be nice." 

You reach down and scoop up the hay eating puppy at your feet. "This one's always hungry." 

You put the pup in her arms and scoop up the biter. "This one likes to play. All the time. Got more energy than the blue Energizer bunny actually." 

The pup in question is literally trying to wriggle out of your hands in its eagerness to climb you and eat your hair. 

"And that one sleeps a lot?" Yelena nodded her head at the last pup. 

"Pretty much." You put the writhing excited puppy down before it hurts itself and look up into the rafters. "And then there's the climber…" 

You both turn your heads when you hear a tiny bark. A cute little face stares down at you from the rafters and there's a feather stuck to its nose. You shake your head knowing this pup got it from ripping up pillows in another part of the dog house. 

"Better go get her," you said, not moving an inch to do so.  

Yelena sees your challenge and rises to it. As if trained to do exactly so, she assesses the wooden interior for foot and hand holds. You can see the wheels turning in her head as she calculates what will and won't support her weight. In the sweep of a single moment, she rises from the door and swings herself into the rafters using a build up a momentum to propel her fast in an upperward direction. She completes the climb and balances with ease, reaching out to collect the happy wagging miscreant from her mountain top, tucks her in her jacket and climbs a different way down. 

You stare at her. "Were you raised by trapeze artists?" 

Yelena laughs. "I thought everybody was." 

The pup is safe and happy and eager to explore its new friend. Yelena lets her lick, sniff, and scratch at her skin, her clothes, her hair. The pup catches Yelena with a tiny lick right on the tip of her nose and Yelena looks back at you with adoring eyes. 

You smile. "Got a name for her already don't you?" 

"Yes," Yelena whines, "no, are you sure about this? I should probably tell you I've never had a dog before…" 

"I can tell your good people," you reply. "And smart as a whip. You'll adapt, just call me if you ever need anything." 

~

Three weeks later you get a phone call from an unknown number. It's Yelena giving you an address and making you swear never to tell anybody about it. You don't have any friends so it's an easy secret to keep. 

You drive a few miles south and stumble upon a stationary trailer in the middle of nowhere, nothing but clearings and trees and sky. Actually very similar to your own home. 

The door opens and Yelena greets you with a beer and the pup under her arm, already almost a foot bigger than she was before. 

"Her name is Fanny." You both laugh yourselves hoarse and pile into the trailer to puppy proof the place. 

[falcor-thee-luck-dragon]

Let Chaos Reign

Chapter 4- People Of Earth

Summary: On the run from the Avengers in your search for a way off Earth, you meet some mortal annoyances along the way until a certain blue eyed human is able to find you wandering in the forest. But can he convince you to come back to the Avenger’s base with him?

Warning: action, blood, fighting, Bucky doing his best, slight fluff

Masterlist - Chapter 3

So Bucky had been thinking.

If finding Y/N was only as easy as looking at her red dot on the tracker, then damn, he could just teleport to her no problem. Unfortunately the worlds technology hasn't yet reached Star Trek technological advancements, nor can he teleport. It's been a long hectic couple days trying to find her which is starting to drive Bucky up a wall, how is she so sneaky? He can literally see her location at all times but yet she's evaded him at all costs without even trying, she doesn't even know a tracker is attached to the inside of her jacket.

And the team, they haven't been much help at all. They've decided to listen to Fury's orders and stay clear of Bucky's mission when it comes to finding the escaped demigod and bringing her back to the Avenger's base. A lot of help they are. At least Steve checks in for updates when he's not getting pulled into a training session by any particular person of the hour. Maybe the tracker doesn't even work. Maybe?

No, it's Stark made. It has to work, this problem is simply Y/N.

Bucky pulls off to the side of the road near a little park in some rural town way outside of New York City where he knows Y/N went through not even twenty-three hours ago. He opens his door, slamming it shut in frustration before taking in a big breath of fresh air. The day is slightly overcast yet he doesn't appear to mind it at all, having the hot sun blaring down upon him never feels very pleasant. Then again, maybe he's just more familiar with colder temperatures.

A crow flies down across the vacant road from him, it ignores Bucky as it jumps onto the road in order to pick at some road kill of a dead flattened squirrel. Bucky reverts his gaze when his eyes soon land upon a bent wooden telephone line further up the road where it looks like a car ran right into it. Wanting to stretch his legs for a bit and feed into his curiosity, Bucky jogs across the street and over to the area of flattened grass and wood splinters.

He observes the wreckage. Its just as he saw from farther away, a splintered post with pieces of wood spread across the grass from the impact. A couple glass chunks shimmer in the few rays of sunlight peeking out from behind the clouds. There are tire marks imprinted into the mudded ground leading up to the post, he crouches down to get a better look at the source of impact.

A dog barks in the background, its legs getting closer and closer to Bucky until a wet slobbery nose finds its way onto Bucky's right arm. The face of a golden retriever greets him as a young man races to the spot looking very embarrassed.

"Trout! Get away from the man, be nice! Be nice! He might not want your kisses!" He shouts desperately, "Trout!"

Bucky pets the friendly dog while his owner runs to their spot before standing to greet him, "He's fine, don't worry about it."

The red faced man smiles shyly, "I'm so sorry. He gets so excited whenever there's a stranger around I just don't understand it."

Bucky shakes his head, "It's fine, really. I like dogs."

The dog sniffs around Bucky's boots before sniffing the skid marks, "Oh I'm Gio by the way, sorry about my boy Trout. I love him but he can be a lot."

"Hi." Mutters Bucky, "I'm James."

"Nice to meet you..oh..Trout drop that piece of wood you nucklehead it's sharp!" The dog stops before dropping the wood, it starts sniffing around the grounds again. Gio looks at Bucky, "It's too bad what happened here, just last night too. Thank God nobody died! It's just unfortunate."

"What happened?"

Gio nods towards the splintered pole, "Some nutcase ran out in front of the guy driving and then bam, he just swerved to miss 'em and ended up totaling his car and getting a bruised collar bone. He's my neighbor. Poor guy, never got a proper look at the idiot who did it either so there's no one to blame."

Bucky's brows furrow, "No one saw who ran in front of your friend?"

Gio stops a second to think harder on the matter, "Hmm...okay wait a second Nick did say this person moved like faster then a frickin' deer. They were here one second and gone the next, right into the woods."

"Where is Nick now? Is he okay?"

"Oh yeah he's fine, just chillin' in his hospital bed for another day until his headache goes away. Guess he also got a concussion or something, some shit luck I tell you."

"Thank you, I gotta go." Says Bucky quickly before turning on his heels and jogging across the street. Leaving a very confused Gio to go run after his dog again.

There's a hefty possibility that Y/N had absolutely nothing to do with anything surrounding that crash, however, Bucky has to know. He pulls into the Westonville Hospital before Winter Soldier sneaking his way inside and now here he stands on the other side of the door to Nick's room, 213. He knocks, a man answers and says to come in, Bucky does. Shutting the door right after.

The man lays upright in bed, sipping on a juice box as he quickly locks eyes with Bucky. "Hello." Says the twenty-something year old, "You a nurse?"

Bucky could have laughed, "No. Just here to ask you a couple questions."

"Listen man, the police already got my statement. I wasn't drunk...nor on anything at the time. I don't do that shit while driving, I wanna stay alive okay?"

"Right." Mutters Bucky, "I just want to know if you saw this person who caused you to wreck."

He eyes Bucky suspiciously, "Dude are you with the FBI or something? Cause the police think I just saw a deer but I'm telling you it wasn't a deer okay?"

"What was it then?"

The man looks from the door then back to Bucky, he makes a waving motion for him to walk closer, "Dude, this was some lady. She was so fast I never even saw her till she was almost road kill...then....and you're not gonna believe me....then I swear to God, she pushed my car." Whispers Nick before nodding, "Dude that's how I went into the pole, she pushed me and I lost control and BAM! Right into a pole. Asshole, my damn car is fucked."

"Do you know what she looked like?" Nick then proceeds to give an accurate description of you and all your beautiful chaotic-ness, who's apparently still not very fond of human transportation vehicles.  

Bucky then glances from Nick still rambling about you and what a dickhead you must be, to the window showing the woods and half a parking lot. He can't let you escape him again, you might end up killing someone next time and that absolutely cannot happen.

——

Stupid men! Stupid humans getting in your way! These people are irritating and bothersome, all you wanted was to search for the Ancient One in peace. All you want is to find her and get the fuck off this planet so you can confront your brother and...

"Miss are you okay?" A scratchy voice speaks to you from the car to your left, you turn your head to meet the face of a young woman looking at you with kind eyes, "You need a ride?"

"No."

She gives you a look, your appearance is admittedly more roughed up then you would like, but it's been a rough couple days since your last shower and you're technically on the run from Earth's Avengers. "You sure? I got room in here, and a nice place to stay with food and a shower too. Just tryna be nice to someone who looks like they could use a hand." You look like you could use a hand to the face.

Your brows furrow, she reeks of too much perfume and something else, "What kind of food?" You technically do need a ride and this may be your only chance to get one somewhere away from this place in the middle of nowhere. Also a place to stay for the night would be admittedly very nice considering you've been sleeping in trees and behind people's sheds.

Her eyes light up in surprise, "Anything you want. Just tell me and I got you."

"Good."

She unlocks the door, "Come on in. I'm Ava by the way. Nice to meet you, now I hope you don't mind but back at my place I got a couple roommates. But don't worry they come and go, they won't bother you I promise." You don't believe her, but hop in next to her anyways. She looks like she could use a better friend then whoever she stays with. You can smell at least one of them on her.

She gives you a strange faltering smile when you take notice of a nose piercing; she wears a jacket and jeans, although an odd tattoo showing off some line of numbers keeps itself on her right wrist hidden by some colorful bracelets. All in all she is an attractive woman. But her car is no better then her person, the scent is vulgar and repulsive but you're admittedly too hungry to care. Too much perfume.

The ride to her apartment complex takes about twenty minutes, in this time Ava has explained to you how her favorite food, chicken alfredo, is made. She also won't stop looking at the long mirror above your heads, it's like something keeps drawing her attention but there's nothing behind the car of any important significance. Maybe that's just a human thing?

Eventually she takes a couple turns that passes more street stores, houses, and apartments until she drives near a gas station and takes a left for an apartment building of reddish brick that looks like a shitty castle.

It's nestled within the town, with its rear to a small park, oddly enough she claims you can see the city from the roof. Getting out, you watch as she shuts her door before jogging to the back and pulling out a couple groceries. "Oh hey there, can you get the waters, there's like three packs here but we can come back for them later."

You quickly walk to the back of her trunk and lean down to pick up all three waters with ease, her eyes go big, "Oh wow..okay yeah, that'll work." She shuts the back, you begin following her across the parking lot. Stomach growling.

Her wary eyes fall onto you, "So uh, you lift?"

"No."

She nods, "Cool cool, uh you from around here?"

"No."

"Okay cool, I am, well not originally...I was actually from Arizona but then I ran away when I was thirteen because my home life was pretty shit and then I met my boyfriend Jed and he took me here and..." Her face shifts into a frown before it regains it's half smile once more, "Doesn't matter now I guess, it's not fantastic here...with him. But I got a place to stay and a roof over my head and he gets me anything I want really. So it's not so bad."

You can't help but feel somethings not right with her, and this bothers you deeply, "So uh, how's your lover? Jed."

She frowns, "Oh he's nice....I wouldn't say lover I guess....and he's kinda older then me but it's fine really. You might see him, he comes and goes yunno?"

She opens the glass doors for you to walk inside, the area smells of stale air and smoke, "How old?"

She purses her lips together, "Not that much older, I'm seventeen he's just a little above that. But it works for us, he's got me a nice place and he loves me so that's nice." Her smile falters, you can tell something isn't right here but can't quite place your finger on it.

Ava keeps silent for the rest of the trek upstairs until she leads you down a long hallway to a tall white door reading A8 on the front, a small glass porthole in the center. She gets her keys out, "Try not to touch anything, he doesn't like messes okay? Just uh, follow me okay, he might have a friend here."

"Alright then. Proceed." She gives a little nod before unlocking the door and opening it up to reveal a large apartment as clean as a button, with the exception of a few tall thin glass bottles empty of all liquid laying on the short glass table in the lounging area. A large screen is on showcasing something of little importance to you.

Ava sets the groceries on the kitchen counter before racing over to the short table, "Oh sorry about the mess, please just set the waters down by the trash can. Give me a moment." You look down to find a tall thin metal can, doesn't look like a trash can but you set the three cases of water down anyways.

Standing in the middle of her kitchen she hastily rushes in to drop the bottles in the trash can, "I'll put the stuff away, do you-do you want anything?"

"Whatever gives me enough strength to continue on my journey."

"Right. Yeah okay uh we got," She opens up the fridge, "we got some burritos from last night. And fruit....a lot of beer....you don't want that. Here, I'll heat this up for you okay." She shuts the fridge and takes the assumed burrito to another square object hanging from the wall. She pops open the door before placing the food inside and shutting it.

She turns it on. "What is that device?" You ask a sit makes a strange vacuum sound.

She raises a brow, "A microwave." Voice on the tinge of humor, the microwave beeps and she soon opens it back up. "Here ya go! It's a day old so don't worry, still fresh."

She hands it to you, you look down at the warm thing wrapped in a brown paper, "Appreciated."

Your meal is well received and admittedly pretty delicious, once finished do you walk over to the giant glass window to have a look outside, you can see the tops of many trees and farther away across the greenery lays a city just as Ava had spoken of.

Maybe the Ancient One resides somewhere in there, hidden, but within the ginormous labyrinth of steel, cement, and glass. Farther down the hallway a door swings open and the pattering of bare feet is heard walking down the tiled floors of shiny white. This place really is clean, like a small palace for the mortals.

The man stops at the end of the halls archway though you don't care to look at him, "Ava who's the bitch over there? I thought Jed wasn't buying anymore for a few weeks." Whispers the man to the kind woman, Ava, who stands frozen in the kitchen.

You immediately don't like him, but stay your ground to listen, she whispers back, "She's a friend. Needed somewhere to stay for a day or so."

He walks over to her, "He's gonna be pissed when he sees your new friend here. If she's not here to sell, get her the fuck out before your man comes home tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Yeah tonight. His trip to Vegas ended yesterday, he's on his way. Don't you know how time works?"

She shakes her head, "Guess I just forgot is all. I'll make sure she's gone."

He looks over to give you a proper once over, you can hear his heartbeat quicken, "Not too bad either. Nice ass, she looks good..real good, it's a damn shame she's not here to stay for the fun. I wouldn't mind a couple of rounds with her myself."

Your fists clench, you've had enough of this jabbering animal, "Oh really?" You turn around to watch as his eyes go wide when they take notice of the golden color of your irises, "What filth you spill off of that thing you call a mouth is repulsive and disgusting. Who are you may I ask?"

He quickly retains his swagger once again, he takes a step forward, "I'm Jed's right hand man, Antonio, I run this bitch when he's away and I don't like how you're talking to me."

"I'm not entirely fond of your existence. Leave us, I want to speak with Ava alone."

Antonio's face shows bewildered rejection, "Excuse me?"

You take a threatening step forward, "I don't believe my tongue slipped. You heard me correctly. Leave." He keeps still as a statue, mind still processing your words. Clearly no on had ever bothered to talk to him like this before.

He blinks and points a hand up for emphasis, "No whore tells me what I can and can't do in my own goddamn house!" He immediately rushes past Ava to grab something under the kitchen bar.

She gasps in surprise, "Tony no! Don't do this! Put it away she didn't mean it, she doesn't I swear! I swear!"

He walks back around to shove her into the couch, "Shut up." He throws up his arm to reveal a black hand held object that could be nothing else but a small gun, you stare at it in curiosity, expression interested and unfazed.

He doesn't like that, he tilts the gun at you angrily, "What's up now huh! You ain't telling me to do nothin' I run this fucker up in here! So you're gonna fuckin' listen to me you whore! I'll fu.." Antonio's body stiffens, his eyes go wide as saucers when he realizes he's not able to move, not able to speak.

Hands kept to your sides, you curl the fingers of your right hand to bloodbend this imbecile. Moving this hand to the right, Antonio's grasp is forced open and the gun clatters to the floor. "What are you doing!?" Shouts Ava fearfully.

"Teaching a dog a lesson."

Curling the fingers of your other hand, Antonio is forced to walk in staggered painful steps across the carpet at your will, Ava gasps in fright as she watches your little horror show. "Men don't treat their people like animals, you want to act like a beast. Then you'll be one."

His throat makes a dry crackly sound as he tries to scream when you move your hands to orchestrate a new action, Antonio is forced to his knees where he crawls like a dog across the clean carpet. A frightened man he becomes, his movements choppy and forced, body awkward and stiff as he moves on all fours. Proud of your work, you walk over to the man and crouch down to reach his level, "You see, the universe has created us all for a reason. Whether we are powerful or not, that control we have can be taken as it can be given."

He mumbles a reply that cannot be heard properly even by your hears.

"You know of your power?" He shakes his head as you smirk, "Your strength is built from fear and hatred. That is no way to find your place in the world, that is how tyrants lead."

Drool runs down the side of his mouth as his eyes look up to you pleadingly. "Stop it! You're hurting him!" Shouts Ava.

You give Antonio a pitiful look, "I know. And this creature deserves more then I'm willing him to do, but because you've gained my respect. I will release him." Standing, you flick your hands and Antonio is released from your trance. He coughs and sputters in a curled up heap on the floor like a beaten old dog.

"Pathetic." You mutter dryly as Ava breaths heavily from the couch.

"Wh-what are you?" She whispers, "Are you a witch?"

"No. But I am someone who is done with this place." You give her a respectful tilt of your head, "Ava, I thank you for your hospitality, but I must leave." She watches as you take one last look around the room before walking towards the closed door. Turning the handle you're prepared to exit when she screams. "Antonio no!"

Boom!

The bullet stops three inches from the back of your head, whipping around to face your assailant, he fires two more rounds as you halt the bullets in their tracks. He registers what's happening and quickly chooses to pull the trigger again. As a plethora of steel flies your way, you raise an open palm that causes them all to freeze in place.

The room goes deathly silent before Antonio takes a single step and you've sent all five bullets straight through his vulnerable flesh. Blood flies across the walls as he slumps to the ground while Ava gasps in terror, too afraid to make a sound.

You frown, gaze set on Ava, "I'm sorry I had to do this in front of you. He gave me no choice, but I think this loss will not be mourned over." Your golden eyes flicker back down at the bullet ridden body, "A quick death is more then he deserved. So long Ava, be brave."

The door opens.

"What the fuck happened here?!" Speaks a man most certainly in his late thirties as he sets something on the ground, "Who's this bitch?"

Ava's expression shifts to fear as you let out a tired sigh, eyes set to the man you know as Jed, "An old friend." ——

Crouched down by a river, you rub off flecks of blood that dissipate into the murky water like forgotten memories. You just wanted to eat and rest a while as you gathered your thoughts. But here you are, you've killed two humans and have damaged a couple busses in the process of it all. Not to mention that one car the other night...at least that man kept his life.

This realm is complicated and busy, there's not enough wilderness to hide in and there are certainly too many prying eyes that can catch you with their small square devices easier then you'd like. Thankfully Ava had not seen your rampage on the internet so she wasn't able to instantly recognize you. Then again you weren't wearing your armor.

However your eye color certainly doesn't aid you in finding a way into the city close by, that's still too far for your liking, people will undoubtedly stare. At this point you don't trust a single soul, and anyone close enough to see your face would most likely report you to the authorities in an instant.

Your goal has been thwarted one too many times and that shit does not fly with you one bit. Find the Ancient One, have her open a portal to your realm, and from there kick your brothers ass. It's all very simple, well at least it should be. Stupid Midgardians.

Hrrrrr Hrrrrrrrr! A loud horn blares from within the woods to your back right, twisting around and standing at attention, your fists emit flame when a huge lumbering mass of metal rolls through the trees practically making the ground shake.

It sounds like a tiny thunderstorm, you've never seen anything like it except for when you where in Norway but that vehicle was significantly smaller and less loud. "God this place is insufferable." You mutter, annoyed by the less then peaceful atmosphere of Midgard.

So far you've evaded the watchful eyes of the Avengers for the past three days and have gotten nowhere on your quest for vengeance. And now this thing just adds to your stirred up pot of frustration.

Taking a breath, you decide to wander through the trees until you've found the tracks where that metal vessel was drawing its power from, oddly enough the steel bars attached to plates of wood does not give off energy. Strange.

Figuring it must be the vehicle itself, you sway your mind from pondering the idea as your thoughts drift to that of home and the necklace hidden around your neck. This valued object was your dying mother's, a heirloom of your linage, and a damn powerful piece of jewelry.

But your brother and his wicked ideas, he wanted to use it for his grant thoughts of tyranny and power over the nine realms. A fool, no one could ever claim such a feat, no place needs rules like such from one being calling all the shots. It's madness.

It's insane.

Shaking your head, you keep following down the tracks as you listen to the sounds of cars in the far off distance. Birds chirp and flutter by while minding their business in the forest, although you could have sworn you heard a soft thud in the dirt behind you. A shuffle of stones maybe?

A deer perhaps? No, this is no deer; halting your trek to the city, you place your hands upon your hips before slowly turning around, "I'd expected as much. You are a clever man after all....Bucky."

The dark haired man greets you with a shy grin as he stands there off to the side of the tracks, dressed in casual attire like that when you saw him in Norway. He seems genuinely happy to see you, "I wish I could stay away." Replies Bucky in a playful tone, "But you've killed two human traffickers and I gotta make sure you don't hurt anyone else. Even if they deserve it."

You scoff, "I could end your life right now if I wanted to, kill all your friends next and then burn this world to ash and dust trying to get what I want. No matter the cowards I've killed."

He shrugs, "That sounds harsh. I'd rather you didn't actually, kinda like being alive." He's such a smartass in the best way, yet you hold back a smile to keep your noble aurora about you.

"Fair point I suppose. This Earth may be greatly flawed, but I have no qualms with the people here but that of my own business."

"Right. Your own business, finding the Ancient One and dealing with your brother and all that stuff." Nods Bucky, "Y/N, you know we could help you..."

"I don't need it! I'll find my way through this planet myself.  Alone!" You shout, causing the trees to creak and moan from a surplus of wind that blows Bucky's hair about. He knows what you're capable of, but he has to try and persuade you anyways.

He looks almost apprehensive to approach you, "Y/N please. I know we all got off on the wrong foot, probably by a lot. But my friends are good people, we want to help you find what you're looking for. I promise you that." Says Bucky with a pleading look, "No lies. I promise."

You give him a conflicted glare as you think of your options; he found you somehow, he legitimately wants to help, and you desperately need a way off this damn planet. Maybe they do know a way, maybe they'll actually be able to help you, maybe Bucky is truthful?

He goes to take a step forward when you throw a hand out, "Stop." He keeps still as you take a breath, "Bucky, you give me your word?"

"I do."

"Promise!"

Raising his hands up, he gives you a sincere look, "I promise Y/N."

Taking a long moment to think over his words, you finally nod, "Good." He watches as you walk across the tracks until you're within a couple feet of him, he swallows, unsure if you might have just lied and are about to set him on fire. Instead he's relieved when you gift him a tight lipped grin, "Fine then, let us leave this place."

"Awesome.....yeah, okay good...well I'm parked back that way. We can just walk on the tracks instead of through the woods. Easier that way." He takes a couple steps back the way you came, when you don't move does Bucky stop and reach a hand out for you to take, "I'm not going to hurt you Y/N, I promised I'd help you remember?"

"I haven't forgotten." You quickly answer him.

"Good because I intend to keep it." He smiles softly, beautiful stormy blues focused all on you with a gloved hand ready for you to take.

You shake your head before walking past him, "Fine but I'm not shaking your hand."

Bucky chuckles to himself as he watches you practically swagger down the side of the tracks away from him. Quickly does he break from his staring trance to jog over to your side. The two of you walk for a little ways in complete silence until you glance over at him when your curiosity gets the better of you. There's just one tiny question you still need answered, "Well, how'd you find me?"

Bucky holds back a grin, "Your pocket." He points down towards your jackets pocket. Giving him a look of confusion, you reach down and feel inside for whatever he's on about, suddenly your fingers touch something round and metal attached to the inside wall.

Taking a hold of this odd device, you tug it loose before bringing your hand into the open, "What the hell is this?" You ask.

Bucky reaches out to take the object from you, he holds it up, "This. Is a tracker."

"That thing? It's like a thick coin, how does it manage to do such a feat?"

"Technology, radio waves. It's not my design, but with it I was able to follow where you went. Granted you're more elusive with your traveling then I'd first realized, but it did it's job...and now I'm here."

"Yes, now you're here. Maybe you really are braver then I first thought, or just a plain fool. I could have stuck to my word and killed you." You snap your fingers, "Just like that."

He chuckles, "I had a feeling you wouldn't."

"Oh really? What made you assume I would be merciful?"

"When we met for the first time in Norway, and later at the base. You didn't hurt me, well I guess I should say you didn't try and squeeze the life out of me. Or set me on fire.."

"I set your jacket on fire." You point out as he smiles.

"You did. I liked that jacket too." Muses Bucky, "Still, you let me live both times. Even let my friends live too, Y/N, I don't think you're so bad at all."

You hum in thought, "Your words are kind and humbling. But I do not feel worthy of such claims." He has no idea who you are, what you've done. So much he doesn't know.

Bucky frowns, "Why not?"

"I have done nothing but add more chaos to this realm with my existence here, I have been betrayed and for that I was filled with rage taken out on innocent people living their lives. I want to be worthy of what you say I am, but I am not." His heart hurts at your valiantly honest words, if only he could understand completely.

"Believe me Y/N, you aren't nearly as bad as you think you are. There's been way worse people throughout history here before you ever showed up."

"I believe your words though my personal occurrence's chance to lessen these people compared to what I have done centuries ago. Do not misinterpret all of what I speak, I understand there are always beings harming others for their own sick pleasure, however I did not frighten for enjoyment. Quite the opposite."

He could just about give up his metal arm forever just to know what the hell you're talking about. What kind of life did you live before all of this? Bucky soon takes out a small square device with his one gloved hand, "I trust your word on that. And hopefully we're able to help you...I just gotta get us a ride out of here first." He turns on a black screen and slides his finger across to unlock, "I have where I parked pin pointed via another tracker."

"You don't recall where you've come from?"

"Yeah, I mean no..no, I do remember the direction I came in, it's just I was running so fast to find you I forget exactly where my car is. Don't worry this will only take a moment."

Holding back a grin at the way he muddles around on that screen of his, you divert your gaze elsewhere to look around at the trees and other various greenery spread about as usual on a planet such as this one. It's fascinating, almost like that of your home world in Vanaheim. How you miss that place. The vast mountains spread throughout the landscape, huge lumbering trees taller then the cellphone towers you've passed, and great skies of blue where dragons fly at will.

Suddenly a stick cracks in the trees to your right, you turn while Bucky pays little attention, a crow flies out and into the blue sky it goes. Easy now, just a bird, nothing more. The wind picks up for a second and you can almost catch the scent of sulfur when a ball of fire erupts from the trees ready to kill.

The spherical flame screams towards you and Bucky, who's by now dropped his phone onto the tracks, "Y/N watch out!" He shouts fearfully, hand gripping onto your shoulder as you keep a strong fearless stance to the approaching flame.

Throwing a hand out, you divert the ball into the gravel where it bursts like a small firework, rocks flying everywhere as you stand at the ready for whatever happens next. "Y/N! What the hell was that!" Shouts Bucky.

"A scout. I think one of my brother's loyalists found me."

"A scou..." Another ball of flame soars towards the two of you and then another right behind it as you maneuver your body to deflect each of them in quick succession when out of the scorched trees does a smirking woman reveal herself. Her smile is proud and wicked, taller then Bucky she stands and impeccably strong she appears.

She wears armor closely resembling your own, but instead of blues, silver, and white. Her armor is black and red, silver replaced with shimmering obsidian as she walks into the evening light. Her eyes flicker gold like your own, she tilts her head at you, "Princess Y/N of Vanaheim. An honor to meet you, truly." She bows with mockery, you immediately despise her.

"What dog is this who speaks to me?"

She grimaces, "Aüla, master of flame, Phoenix of Vanaheim, I am here to bring what stolen jewelry lays upon your neck. What belongs to King Leyondros." She points a sharp nailed finger to your neck, "That, is a house Lavpranthus family heirloom."

"You think I was born yesterday? That incompetent tyrant who dare claim himself as king does not deserve what treasure I possess. He is barely a brother to me now, and you, what business do you serve?"

She smirks, gifting Bucky with a wink as she wiggles her fingers with flame, "He's sent his best out to find your whereabouts since he's exiled you. I just happened to be lucky enough to land on Midgard where wouldn't you know it, here keeps the banished Princess herself. I couldn't be more fortunate." She opens up her palm like a needy child, "Now Y/N, the object I so desire."

"You will die trying."

She holds up a threatening fist of hot flame, "I will be bathed in riches! I will be loved! King Leyondros will welcome his champion with open arms as I present him with the necklace stolen by his traitor sister! With grand tidings of her annihilation!"

You share a dark look with Aüle as you step in front of Bucky, "I do not care to know what bargaining from the beasts of this realm you made to find me. And I certainly do not care for the false promises my brother has warped into your mind, you cannot take my life and you cannot have this necklace."

She calls flame into both hands, "Then I'll take it off your burnt corpse!" She thrusts her hands forward causing a burst of hot orange flames to shoot like dragon fire straight for yourself and Bucky.

Anticipating this action, you create a wall of your own fire that shatters her advances, you turn to the wide eyed brunette, "Bucky forgive me for not handling this sooner. I hadn't realized she was here."

"It's fine." Mumbles Bucky, chest rising and falling with heavy breaths as he stares fearfully at the angry woman spewing fire at you still.

Focused back on Aüla, she suddenly begins creating whips of flame that crack and slash at the air. She throws a whip towards Bucky but you're able to deflect it easily, in retaliation of her advances, you thrust a burst of dusty wind knocking her backwards.

She tumbles across the gravel like a discarded sack of potatoes, jumping gracefully down from the high point of the tracks, you land nearby this hellfire spawn who staggers to her feet. Rubbing the dust from out of her eyes, she coughs, "Foul play Princess, I should have guessed you'd cheap shot."

"You still believe you're leaving here with my necklace?"

Leaving her charcoal stained eyes be, she opens her palms to flame, "Well I certainly don't intend on perishing at your hand. I will get what I came for."

You throw a quizzical look, is she insane? Not wanting to ponder her mental stability, you use the gravel to crawl it up to her knees where it fuses and roots itself into the ground, she flails her arms trying to regain balance. Angered by this, Aüla clenches her fists, tightly hugging them to her chest as she concentrates.

A small orange glow emits from the center of her chest before she screams while opening her arms to the sky and with that her whole body erupts with flame like that of a Phoenix reborn. Tree branches and leaves alike are burnt and singed nearby while her anchor is melted.  Aüla levitates freely now, body a mass of hot flames as she stares furiously down at you with eyes of black charcoal.

"Behold the Phoenix! Now you will obey by law of the one true king!" Fire is thrown like thin arrows towards your face, again, easily deflected into the gravel below.

She chuckles darkly, thrusting a hand of intense flame that causes you to fall backwards across the ground. Pushing yourself up by the pads of your hands, she takes this vulnerable moment to race after Bucky with wings of fire.

Face contorted like a melted candle, her arms open wide as she prepares to embrace Bucky to the flames. Jumping up, you bend your arms, moving them in opposite directions on a linear path to conjure some type of protection. Aüla slams into an enchanted force field of dark blues that sends her flailing backwards like a bursting firework.

Regaining her balance, she levitates, scowling in disgust, "You? Would protect this mortal man?"

Your gaze falls onto Bucky, he's standing there, expression fearful and wide as he looks at you desperately. You take a step forward, "I will."

"But why? He is nothing compared to you, to us, he's simply an insect on a leaf."

"He is someone who has showed me more kindness in the last couple days then some of my own people have in the past hundred years!" You shout furiously before using your magic to paralyze her like you did with Wanda and Vision.

She struggles to move but all efforts are unfruitful, "Do not! Don't. You. Dare!" She screams as you take another fearless step towards her, raising your hands in a beautiful fluid motion, her obsidian irises flash with terror.

"Aüla, Phoenix of Vanaheim, I admire your efforts and valor. But I am not so merciful when my life as been threatened, as someone of these nine realms with some type of authority still. I, Y/N Lavpranthus of Vanaheim, condemn you to die." Your golden eyes flash with a noble flair of judgment while your hands sway like subtle waves on a beach.

"No. No. Nooo..." Her screams are eradicated when a burst of water consumes her entire vessel, she sizzles and smokes as you draw the river water away to reveal nothing but discarded broken armor. She never even noticed you were doing this.

As a plethora of water dissipates into steam from where she once stood, more liquid fills through the cracks in the gravel while you slowly wander over to the dark spot stained onto the center tracks. Kneeling down, you pick up an obsidian gauntlet cracked down the middle curve. "Who was that?" Asks Bucky from behind you.

"One of my brothers scouts. His best fire-bender.." You study the intricate markings that dance like vines around the metalwork, "..a phoenix in human form."

There is a long pause before he asks, "Why are you being hunted Y/N?"

You sigh, head bowed to the earth, "It's a long story."

Bucky frowns down at you, he's not sure what to do, but he knows you're deeply troubled by whatever events have led you to this point. A comforting hand rests upon your shoulder, "You don't have to tell me now. But I think we should go."

Dropping the broken gauntlet onto the dark stained wood, you stand, "Perhaps you're right. Who knows what else lurks in the shadows waiting to pounce. I'd rather not have you injured on my behalf."

Bucky shares a lopsided grin, "Appreciated. Now come on, I know the way home." Directs Bucky as the two of you begin walking down the tracks for wherever he speaks of.

Maybe these people aren't as bad as you'd first thought, unfortunately there are still evils that are desperate to find you. Until that time comes again.

-

Tagged:  @buckylokisimp​ @diegos-butt​ @minigranger​ @bibliophilewednesday​ @holyhumorliteraturelight​ @lilacs-lavender​  @a-girl-who-loves-disney​ @bizarrebibitch​ @starkssnarks​ @vikingqueen28​ @jmstz​ @thehornytitties​ @staygoldsquatchling02​ @cleverzonkwombatsludge​ @mischiefmanaged71​​ @noragracebrewer​   @atomicpersonacheesecake  @thescarlettvvitch @shawnartmendes​

[sofwrites]

Each other's biggest ally

Polin Week Day 1: Favorite Quote

“No, his method of attack was a lazy smile, a well-timed joke. If Colin ever lost his temper...

Penelope shook her head slightly, unable even to fathom it. Colin would never lose his temper. At least not in front of her. He'd have to be really, truly—no, profoundly —upset to lose his temper. And that kind of fury could only be sparked by someone you really, truly, profoundly cared about.” - Romancing Mister Bridgerton, pg. 64

The one where Colin profoundly cared and had no choice but to lose his temper.

Type: One-shot, angst, sentimentalism, protective/mywife!Colin, protectective/myhusband!Penelope

Length: 3.3k

Read on ao3! Or continue under the cut

In the late months of the year 1825, Penelope Featherington Bridgerton published her debut novel titled The Wallflower. And in the early months of the year 1826, she relished in the praise of her work and suffered in the consequences of her now-public identity.

The response to her book was generally positive. Whether or not they were willing to admit it, the members of the ton were eager to uncover the scathing details surrounding Mrs. Bridgerton’s former pen name. They devoured the secrets hidden between the lines of the pages- forming their own conclusions and theories of what was fact and what was fiction.

It seemed that after many years of Penelope appearing to be invisible, the gravity of her voice was finally truly understood.

But as in all life, there were complications as well.

One gentleman in particular was quick to make his discontent known, and it was all due to just one short excerpt.

Although Beatrice did not befriend even half of the ton, she had made the acquaintance of nearly everyone at one point. And though they never realized, she scrutinized them almost as much as they disregarded her.

Even with her close examinations, she generally liked the people she met. There were bores, many in fact, as well as those with whom conversation could rarely be carried, but most were reasonably pleasant. There were exceptions, however, as there always are. One such exception was as follows:

It is an earlier season for Beatrice, one still full of wonder and disillusioned hope. She looks at the dancefloor with wistfulness in her eyes, dreaming, praying that her prince charming will notice her from across the room and ask her to take his arm.

He does not, of course. His mind is still focused fully on the small group that surrounds him, drawn to him like a shining star amongst the thinly veiled candlelight. Although the music is certainly too loud and the conversations too many, our heroine can perfectly hear his laughter through the crowded ballroom. She can hear it because she knows it better than she knows her own.

Later that evening, he’ll ask her to dance. He’ll remember her minuscule presence in his life, likely prodded by a sharp finger to his spine and a voice carrying a gentle reminder. And even though she knows why he will do so, knows that it is due to a kind sense of duty rather than true desire, she will cherish it all the same.

Right now, however, Beatrice remains at the edge of the dancefloor, her silent woes interrupted by the familiar voice of her mother.

“Beatrice, dear, this is Mr. Wetherden. Mr. Wetherden, I present to you my daughter, Beatrice Harpenton.”

Another bachelor, this one ranking second-tier rather than third. Her mother seems to have given her more credit this evening, Beatrice thinks as she looks at the familiar face.

The introduction is an unnecessary formality, of course, as are many of their rules; they were made acquaintances during her first season. Nonetheless, society calls for her to curtsy and give a gracious smile, and she obliges.

At the same time, he assesses her similarly to how he did so a few years before. And she sees it immediately, the dismissal that passes over his eyes even before he fully bends into his low bow.

Her mother leaves them to it- the stifled conversation in an even more stifling ballroom. The unfortunate girl in the canary-colored dress stands on the sidelines, trapped in conversation with yet another uninterested bachelor who is just as much forced upon her as she is on him.

He speaks endlessly, unquestionably more for his benefit than hers. He spends fourteen minutes explaining the difference between rugby and football. She suppresses three yawns and is interrupted twenty-six times throughout the topic, clearly expected to be an audience member rather than a participant.

At this time, she thinks this is Mr. Wetherden’s worst offense. Later on, when she is years older, Beatrice discovers that she was sorely mistaken in her youth. That without the cautionary lights of London (albeit often cloudy and forgiving), he is much worse.

She later on learns about his propensity to unwilling women. To frightened young housemaids who are often not given the options that women of a higher class are granted.

Our heroine also finds out later exactly how commonplace such a tendency is. And with it, her vision of social seasons- the one with balls and picnics and musicales- begins to splinter.

Penelope hadn’t named him, of course. She hadn’t named anyone directly.

She couldn’t publish a memoir, not really. Even though she was related to a fine variation of important characters in society, she couldn’t put such a strain on her family, and particularly not on her husband. Her husband, her lovely, amazing husband who supported her through the entire process even despite the fact that so much of their own private history was laid out in the pages of her novel. Penelope had written the truth, which hadn’t been entirely pretty. But Colin had agreed with her that the truth was more important than sheltering their secrets.

But even though she couldn’t publish a direct recounting of her life and experiences with the ton, she’d been unwilling to just hide behind fabricated stories.

Penelope’s telling of that night at the ball wasn’t completely factual. She did not know how many times Phillip Cavender interrupted her during their conversation, nor whether or not Colin had even been present that evening. But the details of the matter weren’t as important to her as shedding light on the entire situation.

She’d been young and naive during her first few seasons, believing that a few nasty comments and looks were really the worst of what society had to offer. Later on, she’d found out that she had been wrong, and that there was much worse than she’d ever known. And when her sister-in-law, Sophie, had recounted the night she and Benedict had met (well, met again), Penelope knew that she had to shed light on the matter. She had to make it clear what happened outside of the fancy dresses and giggling parties.

But as mentioned, such decisions did not come without their objections.

“Thank God, they’re leaving.”

The words came from just a few feet behind them, full of indignancy and bitterness. The couple had been walking together, arm-in-arm, towards the door, quite eager to return home for the evening.

They’d been attending an intimate house party at the request of the gentleman’s mother. She’d been unable to make her attendance that evening and had asked that her son and his wife go in her stead. They hadn’t been particularly excited about the prospect, but they’d agreed for her.

The party itself hadn’t been bad. The food was good, the music was pleasant, and almost everyone in attendance had offered the woman praise for her work. Though they hadn’t exactly been excited to attend, the evening hadn’t been at all poor.

That was, until they’d been nearing the exit and heard the troublesome remark behind them.

Colin glanced down at his wife, who grimaced, her nose scrunching as her eyes closed. They’d been met with a number of sneers and snide comments in the last few weeks, but they never became easier to hear.

With a small sigh, he turned them both around, looking directly at the man holding a glass of port too large and wearing a lip too curled.

Colin gave him a smile, the familiar one he used whenever he was looking at something that both irritated and mildly amused him. “Didn’t see you there, Cavender. So nice of you to offer us a sendoff.”

The opposing man’s mouth turned downwards, a stark contrast to the grin still on Colin’s face. Penelope swallowed, quickly cutting in. “We really must be getting home.”

With a pointed look directed towards her husband, she began pulling him back towards the door. Though Penelope would have loved to see Phillip Cavender get put into his place, she knew far better than to spar with a man holding a petty vendetta.

But before they’d even fully turned around, there was a mocking bark of laughter, followed by a slight slurring of words. “You do everything she tells you then? Follow her around like a lapdog?”

This time, Colin’s brow lifted ever so slightly, the same half-smile still imprinted on his lips. Penelope felt an uncomfortable heat rising up her neck as she reluctantly turned from the door again.

“If it means getting to share my life with this incredible woman,” Colin sent her a small wink before shrugging, “Then, by all means, call me a lapdog.”

There was some tittering around them by the small audience they’d attracted. With a quick glance, Penelope could see the angry lurch in Cavender’s throat, the narrowing of his eyes, the twitching of his fingers as they tightened around his glass.

Please, just let it go. Let us just leave and go home.

But he didn’t. Of course, he didn’t.

“I know what lies she’s spread about me.”

“Oh?” Colin’s face took on a thoughtful expression, one that might have been convincing in any other circumstance. “I don’t recall ever hearing my wife mentioning you.”

Cavender’s glare deepened. “In that bloody book of hers.”

Penelope cringed inwardly as she felt the twitch of Colin’s hand in hers. Her eyes darted around the room as an overwhelming sense of dread engulfed her. The ballroom was small and the guests were bored, and a public row was certainly enough to draw a crowd- one that was full of prying eyes and listening ears.

Colin’s face remained the picture of serenity even though Penelope could sense the angry heat rising from him. It was something she could feel in him that others always missed, a secret fire that he did so well in masking.

Looking at the other man, Colin let out a sigh, one that was forcibly tired, as though he were speaking down to an overly emotional child. “I can assure you that all the characters in my wife’s novel were fabricated. And if you saw yourself in one of the less attractive personages, then I’d venture to say that such is simply a reflection of your own self-image.”

The whispers around them grew, and Cavender sputtered for a moment, clearly caught off guard by the easy taunt. But his surprise only lasted a moment before he hardened once more.

A man with a petty vendetta did not often allow himself to be diverted.

His eyes flickered to Penelope before they returned to Colin and he sneered. “You realize that she’s made you out to be an ass, don’t you? You can act high and mighty, Bridgerton, but the wife you so proudly boast has fashioned you into the biggest fool in all of London.”

It was at this jab that Penelope frowned, feeling her own prickle of anger. And for the first time in the nasty exchange, she turned directly to their shared foe, a hard, determined look set on her face. “Excuse me, Mr. Cavender, but I must ask that you don’t speak to my husband that way.”

She could almost see his eyes flash in fury as they set themselves on her. But before he could give the biting retort that was no doubt resting on his tongue-

“And I’d suggest that you consult a dictionary to properly understand the concept of fiction.” Colin’s tone was relaxed, just a sprinkle of mocking mixed into it. But Penelope could feel the tension in him, the protective edge that mirrored her own.

Cavender’s gaze shifted back to Colin, his rage appearing a bit more controlled as they listened to the snickering that surrounded them. Slowly, his mouth thinned into a tight line, and he took a step closer to the couple. By instinct, Colin angled himself in front of Penelope as her grip on his hand tightened.

He was just a few feet away from them when he finally spoke, a voice so low that it was barely audible over the murmurs. “And I’d recommend that you consider taking yourself and that bitch of a wife,” his eyes darted to Penelope for a moment, “out of town.”

And it was this comment that wiped the smile completely off of Colin’s face, along with any attempt of levity.

It was as if a chill had passed over, one that was both icy and burning at the same time. He stiffened like a board, a wave of unmistakable anger coming over him. And when his words came, they were low and even, colder than anyone had ever thought possible from Colin Bridgerton.

“You would do well to avoid threatening my family, Cavender.”

Though there was a slight tinge of red on his face, Phillip Cavender did not retreat. Instead, he took another step forward. “And why is that, Bridgerton?”

Penelope could see the muscles in Colin’s jaw moving from where she was angled, could practically feel the heat radiating off of his body. She’d seen him angry before, furious even, but this was different. This was so much more.

She wasn’t frightened, not by Colin nor by the man standing across from them. Fright was not why she wanted this to stop.

She didn’t want her husband’s anger to be made into a form of entertainment at a party. For him to have to serve the role of gallant protector whenever she upset someone. So, she attempted to silently will him to calm down, running a featherlight thumb across the surface of his hand.

But Colin wanted to finish what they’d started and instead let go of her and took his own step forward, almost shielding her completely.

“I think we all know that I have more than enough relatives to run you out of town,” he said, eyes locked on Cavender.

There was a flash of worry that crossed his face, but it was quickly forced away by a snort. “Is that meant to scare me? The threat of a duke and a viscount?”

Colin didn’t falter. Instead, his head tilted as he considered the man, considered the shaking fingers and the smell of alcohol on his breath. He’d never been a violent man by nature, even having grown up with two older brothers. He preferred words when he fought, and they almost always gave him his victories. He wasn’t opposed to physical repercussions, but he knew that a private gathering was not the place or time.

He looked Cavender directly in the eyes, speaking in a low, clear voice. “I will ensure that you are ruined, that is a promise.”

And because he couldn’t help himself, “And if that is not enough, be rest assured that we will do worse. My only qualm in doing it myself is that my brother would be disappointed he wasn’t able to help.”

There was a silence in the room that followed as Cavender glowered at him. His eyes darkened in fury as his face reddened, trying to figure out how far Colin could really go.

But there was something in Colin’s threat that didn’t allow for any consideration that he might have been exaggerating. Perhaps it was the definitive and resolute tone in his voice, or the strength behind his gaze, or the tight set of his jaw.

Or perhaps it was because Colin Bridgerton wasn’t the type to quicken to anger. Wasn’t the type to have a temper or even hint at unpleasantry.

Whatever it was, it made Cavender finally break eye contact and step back. He turned away, taking another large swig of port.

Colin could hear the pounding in his ears as he looked at the pathetic man, anger still coursing through him. But then he felt a warm hand lace through his, and the red glare of the world began melting away. Penelope was whispering something, her voice calm and soothing. He squeezed her hand in understanding but kept his gaze on Cavender.

There was a familiar casualness when Colin spoke this time, but it was threaded with venom. “Do not forget what I’ve said.”

And with that, he turned to his wife and pressed a kiss into her hair.

“Good night,” Penelope nodded to the remainder of the crowd, who finally had the decency to look away.

A few minutes later, when they were finally in a carriage returning to their home, Penelope sighed. With her eyes glued to her skirts, she whispered, “I’m so sorry, Colin.”

He looked at her thoughtfully, taking in a deep inhale of breath.

He’d been scared after the reveal of her identity, terrified even. There were evenings where he’d lie awake in bed and imagine all of the awful things that could happen to the person who was his entire world. And though they never spoke of such worries aloud, he knew that she was just as aware as he was.

Italy had been like taking a deep breath after being underwater for too long. There, no one cared or knew, and the only threat they faced was the harsh sun.

And then Penelope was pregnant, and a new light was added to his life, one that shifted his fears elsewhere.

Then they became a family of three, and Colin was thrilled. He still worried, of course, but his joy outweighed everything else.

Old wounds had been reopened in the recent weeks, that was for certain. But it did not mean that he blamed Penelope for them.

So, Colin pulled her into his side and tucked her head under his chin. “You have nothing to apologize for. We both agreed that you did the right thing.”

For a few moments, she said nothing, just listened to the sound of his heartbeat and the wheels on cobblestones. And though he couldn’t see her, Colin could sense in the silence that she was crying. Wordlessly, he handed her a handkerchief.

Penelope dabbed at her eyes a few times before leaning back to look at him. “I didn’t want to force you into this position.”

He smiled and lifted a hand to stroke her cheek, feeling the familiar warmth of her skin. “I watch you every day with nothing but awe, Penelope. I love you, I’m proud of you. And I will gladly stand by you through anything.”

Her eyes moved slowly as they crossed his face, searching for any hesitance. There was none, not even a hint of resistance.

Instead, there was so much love that it overwhelmed her, struck her with the same shock that it had years before. It was a love that mirrored her own, a fierce desire to protect and support another with as much reverence as one did for themself. It was one that never faltered even in the most difficult of times.

Her eyes were glossy when her hand reached up to meet his, and the smile on her lips was weak but true. “I love you so much. And I can’t believe that I’ve become so lucky in my life to have you by my side.”

And with that, they settled into their drive home, sharing whispered conversations and watery chuckles.

They still had a long road ahead of them, of that they were sure. But they knew that they would cross it together.

[thewidowsghost]

“Are You . . . Blushing?” Natasha Romanoff x Stark! Reader

Pepper Potts walks into Tony Stark's gym finding Tony and his bodyguard - Happy Hogan fighting in a boxing ring, and (Y/n) Stark - Tony's twenty-four-year-old daughter attacking a punching bag.

"The notary's here!" Pepper call as she enters the room and (Y/n) looks over from the punching bag, extinguishing the fire around her fists. (Y/n)'s dog, a husky puppy named Balto, looks up at his owner, his tongue coming to stick out of his mouth. Balto rises to his paws, and (Y/n) kneels to scratch behind the dog's ears.

"Can you please come to sign the transfer paperwork?" Pepper asks and (Y/n) begins attacking the punching bag without her fire-fists.

"I'm on happy time," Tony responds and (Y/n) rolls her eyes, Balto looking over at Pepper and bounding over to the auburn-haired woman.

(Y/n) glances over at Happy and her father as Tony says, "Sorry."

"What the hell was that?" Happy asks.

"It's called mixed martial arts," Tony answers, bouncing up-and-down on the balls of his feet. "It's been around for three weeks."

"It's called dirty boxing," Happy retorts. "There's nothing new about it."

"He's got a point, Dad," (Y/n) says, fixing her brilliant (E/c) eyes back on the punching bag in front of her.

"All right, put them up," Tony tells Happy. "Come on."

Happy pauses, looking at the woman who had just walked into the gym, Tony following his bodyguard's gaze. The only noise seemingly left in the room was the sound of (Y/n)'s bandaged fists against the punching bag. Once she realizes, however, that all the other noise had stopped, she looks over and hardly flinches when the punching bag swings back, hitting the young woman.

Balto bounds eagerly over to the dark ginger-haired woman who had just walked into the room and the woman leans down, scratching behind the dog's ears.

"I promise you this is the only time I will ask you to sign over your company," Pepper says as Balto bounds back over to (Y/n), and the redhead continues towards Pepper.

(Y/n)'s attention turns to the two red-haired women as the shorter one, who'd just walked in, holds out a binder, "I need you to initial each box."

(Y/n) walks over to the edge of the boxing ring as her father punches Happy a few more times, the (H/c) haired woman half-heartedly ringing the bell.

"That's it," Happy says. "I'm done."

"Oh, so it's my turn?" (Y/n) asks, a mischievous look spreading across her face. (Y/n) jumps up and lifts the ropes so Happy could climb out, before climbing in herself.

"What's your name, lady?" Tony asks, pointing to the new woman with the binder. (Y/n) crosses her arms, her well-muscled arms flexing at the movement.

"Rushman. Natalie Rushman," the woman, Natalie, answers.

"Front and center. Come into the church," Tony says.

"No. You're seriously not gonna ask . . ." Pepper begins, and one of (Y/n)'s eyebrows raises at her father's request.

"If it pleases the court, which it does," Tony says.

"What court we talking about?" (Y/n) asks with a roll of her eyes. Balto barks in seeming agreement and (Y/n) laughs.

"It's no problem," Natalie tells Pepper.

"I'm sorry," Pepper says apologetically.

"He's very eccentric," (Y/n) says and Tony shoots a playful glare at his daughter as he holds the ropes up for Natalie to climb into the ring.

Tony and Natalie look at each other for a few moments, long enough to make (Y/n) feel slightly uncomfortable, and she looks down at Happy below her.

"What?" Tony asks drawing (Y/n)'s attention back to the two. "Can you give her a lesson?"

"Me?" (Y/n) asks, then she shrugs. "No problem."

"Don't kill the woman," Tony says, leaving the ring.

"Believe me, I won't," (Y/n) answers with, yet another, eye roll. "You ever boxed before?" (Y/n) asks, uncrossing her arms and taking a step forward.

"I have, yes," Natalie answers.

"How do I spell your name, Natalie?" Tony asks.

"Don't -" (Y/n) goes to say.

"R-U-S-H-M-A-N," Natalie spells out and (Y/n) shakes her head, looking down.

(Y/n) clears her throat, looking up again. "Rule number one, never take your eye off your opponent." (Y/n) throws a half-hearted punch but Natalie catches it, twisting her fist, and flooring her.

"Oh, my God!" Pepper exclaims, sitting up and Balto lets out a bark.

"Whoa!" Tony says.

Natalie jumps to her feet, offering her hand to (Y/n), who takes it, meeting silvery-green eyes. Natalie's eyes flicker towards (Y/n)'s neck where a silver chain was hanging, the middle of the necklace tucked into her shirt.

"Serious respect," (Y/n) says, an impressed look in her eyes, dropping her hand.

"Looks like a TKO to me," Tony says, ringing the bell as the two women exit the ring.

"Just . . . " Natalie turns to Tony as (Y/n) walks over to Balto. "I need your impression."

"You have a quiet reserve," Tony answers. "I don't know, you have an old soul."

"I meant your fingerprint," Natalie cuts Tony off and (Y/n) stifles a laugh.

"Right," Tony says.

"So, how we doing?" Pepper asks, walking up, as (Y/n) pulls on a hoodie and clipping Balto to his leash.

"WIll that be all, Mr. Stark?" Natalie asks as (Y/n) walks towards the hallway.

"No."

"Yes, that will be all, Ms. Rushman." Pepper interupts Tony. "Thank you very much."

A week later finds Tony, Pepper, and (Y/n) arriving in Monaco, (Y/n) having left Balto with her cousins.

Happy park Tony's Rolls Royce in front of a restaurant near the race track, Pepper, Tony, and (Y/n) exiting from the car. Tony was wearing a suit, Pepper a black dress, and (Y/n), looking less fancy, was wearing a pair of skinny jeans and a leather jacket.

"You know, it's Europe," Tony tells Pepper, (Y/n) and Happy walking behind the two. "Whatever happens in the next twenty minutes, just go with it."

"Go with it?" Pepper asks. "Go with what?"

"Mr. Stark?" Natalie asks.

"Hey," Tony greets Natalie.

"Hello," Natalie says with a smile. "How was your flight?" she asks.

"It was excellent," Tony answers and Natalie catches (Y/n)'s eye roll and smiles wider. "Boy, it's nice to see you," Tony continues.

"We have one photographer from the ACM, if you don't mind," Natalie tells Tony, pointing to a table.

Tony and Pepper argue for a few moments and (Y/n) steps around the two to stand by Natalie.

"Right this way," Natalie says, and (Y/n) follows close behind, Tony and Pepper following (Y/n).

Pepper begins talking to Elon Musk, and Tony walks up as well. (Y/n) and Natalie sit down at the corner table, Natalie taking the seat beside (Y/n).

"So, Ms. Stark," Natalie begins but (Y/n) stops her with a hand.

"Please, (Y/n)," (Y/n) says and Natalie smiles.

"Right, (Y/n)," Natalie begins again. "Where's your cute dog?" she asks and (Y/n) raises an eyebrow.

"Balto?" (Y/n) questions. "He's staying with my cousin."

Natalie's eye raise with interest and goes to say something, but she's cut off by Pepper calling the two's names.

Natalie and (Y/n) exchange looks as they walk over to Pepper.

"Did you two know about this?" Pepper asks and the two look up at the TV screen.

"This is the first that I have known of it," Natalie answers and (Y/n) sheds her jacket and the (H/c) haired woman catches Natalie's eyes stray to her arms before Natalie turns her attention back to Pepper.

"This cannot happen," Pepper presses.

"Absolutely. I understand. How can I help you?" Natalie asks.

"Where's Happy?" Pepper asks.

"He's waiting outside," Natalie informs the auburn-haired woman.

"Okay, get him," Pepper tells her. "I need Happy."

"Right away," Natalie agrees. (Y/n) tosses the woman her jacket as Natalie walks away.

As the two are waiting, the race begins, and (Y/n), lets out a groan as she watches her father in the race.

(Y/n)'s gaze remains on the TV as a man steps out onto the track.

"Pepper, I gotta go," (Y/n) says, and Pepper nods in understanding.

(Y/n) dashes out the door and begins looking around. She begins sliding her way through the people and bolts to where the man had entered the track. As she approaches, she catches sight of a man wielding some sort of electric whips.

She watches as if in slow motion, the car speed forward, and the whip comes down, slicing the car in half. The car flips. Sparks fly. The car lands upside down on the road and (Y/n) begins climbing up the fence and flips down onto the track. As she lands, she sees her father's car speeding towards the man and horror shoots through (Y/n) as his car also gets cut and flips.

(Y/n) thrusts out her hand, using a jet of wind to lower the car gently to the ground before advancing towards the car. She pushes her hands against the car in flips it over, glancing at her father still in the seat.

"You freaking idiot!" (Y/n) screams at him, pulling him out of the car.

(Y/n) pulls Tony down and the two dive out of the way as the two whips come down where they'd just been.

(Y/n) whips around to face the man with the whips and the man flicks them and (Y/n) dives out of the way again, rolling, then jumping to her feet.

(Y/n) thrusts out her left hand to shoot a jet of fire but the man flicks the whips. One catches around her elbow, slicing the bottom half of her arm clean off.

At that moment, Pepper and Happy drive up in the Rolls Royce, smashing the guy against the metal fence.

(Y/n), her right-hand shaking, her eyes wide with shock, uses a blast of ice to incase her left arm.

(Y/n) doesn't know what's going on as she had slumped against one of the walls of the track in shock. The next thing she knew, she was being lifted onto a stretcher and whisked off to a hospital.

When (Y/n) wakes up, she finds Natalie, or rather, Natasha, holding her right hand.

(Y/n) squeezes her wife's hand and Natasha jolts awake.

"(Y/n)! Don't you ever do that again!" Natasha whispers, lifting (Y/n)'s right hand and kissing the top of it.

"Calm down, pretty girl," (Y/n) murmurs and Natasha's cheeks flush pink.

"Are you blushing?" (Y/n) asks with a smile, though she winces when her left pulses with pain.

"No," Natasha grumbles, and (Y/n) laughs softly. "Oh, this is yours." Natasha reaches over and picks up (Y/n)'s jacket.

"Keep it," (Y/n) says simply, looking down at her left arm which had been stitched at the bottom, the doctors hoping for (Y/n)'s skin to heal itself so she would be able to either make her own or have a prosthetic made. "I'll need one-armed clothes now," (Y/n) says, squeezing Natasha's hand. "Anyway, you know my clothes look better on you."

Natasha's cheeks flush again, "Such a romantic, Mrs. Romanoff."

"That's why you love me," (Y/n) sings.

"Yeah, I do," Natasha says, making (Y/n) blush a little this time.

"Are you . . ." Natasha pauses, letting out a fake gasp, "blushing?"

Word Count: 1,852 words

So yeah, I don’t know if this is what the anon that requested this was going for, but I just went with what was going through my head at the time. 

Taglist: @marsromanoff

[monstersandmaw]

Male drider x reader - Part Four (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

I think the previous parts have had a female reader, but I left it ambiguous/gender neutral in this one, even in the nsfw bits, mostly out of habit.

It's 8000 words, with a bit of angst, a good dose of fluff, some recognition of unhealthy attitudes, and a slightly messy nsfw scene at the end...

Hope you enjoy!

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

Gilvas waited until you’d closed the matching panel at the other end of the secret passage, and then turned away.

While you worked on the catalogue, you couldn’t shake the vulnerable look on his face as he’d told you about his late wife and as you’d stared at her vivacious features in the portrait. In the nine years since her death, he’d become a shadow, haunting this creepy old mansion and drifting from one day to the next, and it broke your heart. Gilvas was clearly a gentle soul, though his fuse was short at times, but you had begun to suspect that it was more of a defence mechanism than a character trait.

As evening billowed around the stone walls of the enormous house at the end of the day, with an awful lot still swirling around your mind, you nearly walked straight into Naril who was loading his last pile of autumn leaves into a wheelbarrow by the back door. He called your name just in time and you sidestepped with a bashful grin.

“So is it true?” he asked almost immediately.

“Is what true?”

His ears waggled and he laughed as he dumped the leaves into the barrow with a little flourish. “You and the master…?”

“Me and the master what?” you snorted, crossing your arms. “You make it sound like we’re school kids caught snogging behind the bike sheds! He showed me the portrait of his wife and told me a bit about her, that’s all.”

Naril shook his head expressively. “We’ve had people here on the estate before, you know? None of them ended up strolling the corridors with him.”

“How’d you know about it anyway?” you asked instead, resisting the urge to flick him in fond reprimand on his large ear.

“Chiara came in and started talking to my dad about it. I couldn’t believe it, and neither could they. The master doesn’t ‘chat’ with anyone…”

You shrugged. “Well, if he’s happy talking to me, I’m happy enough to listen. He seems nice, once you get past the way he likes to bark at you.”

Two days later, while you were stooped over the working version of the catalogue, scribbling something down in the margins of your cataloguing notes, the shadows moved in the recesses of the library, and Gilvas emerged. You looked up and smiled. “Hi,” you offered.

He nodded curtly at you and began to pace.

Setting your pencil down a minute or two later, you asked, “Everything… alright?”

Gilvas turned, apparently on the point of snapping something acerbic and defensive at you, but he caught himself in time and paused, throat working. The dark red birthmark on his neck moved and shifted like ink in water. If asked, you’d have said he was nervous. “I… I was wondering if you would take tea with me on the terrace today.”

You froze. Of all the things you’d been expecting from him, that had not been it. “Uh…” you began artlessly.

“Or not. You don’t have to,” he blurted, turning away. “Stupid idea anyway.”

“Wait,” you laughed, relief washing through you. “Wait. I’d love to. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

If you’d been surprised, it was nothing to the expression on Chiara’s face when he summoned her to the library with a little bell pull that you’d not spotted before.

“You… You want to take tea… You want to take tea outside…?” the harpy repeated, looking unsteady on her clawed feet.

As if he’d just realised how unusual it was, his expression went blank, his four ruby eyes going dull, and he seemed to deflate. Gone was the intimidating, sharp-edged lord of the manor, and in his place you saw a vulnerable, shattered widower, with no one to talk to and rusty social skills.

Reading her master well enough, Chiara schooled her features into something resembling their usual sternness, and she nodded. “Of course. I will have it set up for you and…” she looked at you with her golden eyes and you tried not to shrink away. “For the both of you.”

“Thank you,” you said, and she nodded, departing.

“I think I gave her quite the shock,” he muttered, half smirking.

With a snort, you said, “We’re just going to have to find more ways to surprise them.”

“Them?”

“Your staff,” you said. “It’s clear that they all respect you, and they enjoy working here - well, obviously I can’t speak for all of them, but I have supper with Mr. Ambleside and his son almost every night. I don’t get the impression that they’d object to seeing a bit more of their mysterious master from time to time.”

“It’s been so long,” he croaked. “I… I’ve hidden myself away up here. I… I don’t remember — I mean…” he broke off and you noticed how glassy his eyes were.

Cautiously, you approached him and laid your hand on his foremost right leg. It was smooth like glass, and cold. It felt extremely brittle, though you knew the chitin was pretty tough. Your eyes nearly drifted to the empty stump on his right side though, and you suppressed a shiver. It wasn’t that tough. He shuddered and you nearly retracted your touch. “Sounds like you could use a friend to take tea with every now and again…” you said gently.

“I’d like that,” he said. “If… If you could bear it.”

“Bear it?” you repeated. “Please. I wouldn’t have accepted if it wasn’t something I didn’t already want to do.”

Gilvas fixed you with a piercing red gaze, making the blood-dark streak of his hair and the swirling birthmark stand out in vivid detail. “No,” he mused slowly, his legs and spider body relaxing a little into your touch like a great machine coming to rest. “I don’t suppose you would.”

Tea on the terrace became a daily fixture, weather permitting, and on the first day it was rained off, he asked you into a small drawing room on the ground floor that you’d never been in before.

Four and a half months into your stay, he leaned over the table and poured you another cup with shaking hands. He always shook, you realised, though the tremors worsened when he grew agitated or emotional. If Naril was right, he was about ten years older than you, and while at times he seemed youthful and almost playful when you got him talking about one of his interests - mathematics was a particular favourite of his - there were times when he seemed stiff and tired, and much, much older than you; and older than he truly was. He carried the weight of his grief around with him everywhere, dragging at him like chains, rattling in the quiet corridors of his mind and reminding him of his heartache. He never went too long with a smile on his face, the expression often shattering or sliding off his face to leave a brittle mask behind.

“Gilvas?” you asked as he set the teapot down on the tray with a rattle. “Everything alright?”

“You’re too perceptive by half,” he grumbled. “I wanted to ask you to dine with me tonight.”

“Oh,” you breathed, taken off-guard.

“You sound disappointed,” he said a slight huff to his tone.

Conflicted, you said, “It’s Naril’s birthday. He’s celebrating with the rest of the staff and some of his friends tonight, and he asked me to join him…”

“Then you must go, obviously,” he said. After a pause he added, “Naril is the one who tends to the gardens, is he not?”

“Mmm. He’s a firbolg.”

“My father always hired firbolgs for their way with nature. I’d forgotten that Ambleside has a child. How old is he?”

“About my age, I suppose?”

Whether or not he was aware of it, Gilvas’ face shuttered at that. With a sigh, he shifted his already vague gaze to the huge patio windows beside you and stared out at the gardens beyond. It had been raining earlier, but it had cleared up now to leave broad puddles flashing in the sunlight on the terrace. “I think I will go for a walk through the gardens this evening before sunset…”

“You want some company?” you asked, but he shook his head.

“No. Thank you.”

Naril’s party was just rowdy enough to be fun without straying too far into unruliness, and you stayed up late in the kitchens, laughing and joking with him and his father, who, it turned out, had quite the sense of humour with a few glasses of wine in him. Eloise, the maid, also joined you, and a few friends of Naril’s who lived in Starfall Springs. The laughter continued long into the night, until his friends from town announced that it was time to head back just shy of one in the morning.

Waving them off at the end of the night, still buzzing with the unusually vibrant evening, you and Naril turned from the upper gates and walked back to the house. In the dark, the firbolg could see much better than you, so he let you loop your arm amicably through his to stop yourself stumbling on the uneven driveway.

Just as you stepped back into the kitchen, he cracked a good-natured joke at your expense, recalling a moment from earlier in the evening, and you nearly fell about laughing. “Oh my gods,” you wheezed as you clung to his arm to stop yourself tripping up the step. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“Nope,” he said, popping the plosive consonant with a chuckle. “You’re far too easy to tease. I —” he cut off suddenly, expression falling. His eyes were wide and he was staring at a point on the far side of the kitchen.

You looked up and found the hulking shape of a drider standing silhouetted in the dark doorway. “Forgive me,” Gilvas said stiffly, jaw working. “I came for a brandy. I thought you’d all turned in for the night.”

You blurted, “Gilvas?” at the same time as Naril whispered, “My lord?”

“Forget it,” he said, turning abruptly in the wide doorway. “I hope you enjoyed your evening together.”

Even after the door slammed behind him - the gesture leaving a sour taste in your mouth - neither you nor Naril spoke.

Finally it was Naril who broke the silence. “I’ve never seen him before…” he murmured, awestruck at the encounter. “He looks dreadful. Perhaps he is sick after all?”

“He doesn’t look as dreadful as he looked three months ago,” Chiara’s unexpected voice said tartly from the pantry to your left where she’d apparently been occupied, stowing away the remnants of the uneaten food.

You swallowed. “Well… I… uh… I guess I’d better head back. Thanks for tonight,” you said, hugging Naril briefly. “Happy birthday. I’m sorry I didn’t have anything to give you… It’s not as if I can go into town or anything from here…”

“Couldn’t you ask your friend to pick you up,” he said. “You know, the one you phone every Friday?”

Despite having phoned Damien every week since arriving, you’d never even thought of asking him to drive all the way out here and pick you up for the weekend. He’d probably do it though if you asked. “I guess I could…”

The idea took root in your mind, and as you took your break the next day, you used the house’s landline to call Damien’s shop since he’d be at work too.

“Hey!” he chuckled. “You don’t normally phone today. How’s things at the Spookville Court?”

“Don't call it that,” you scoffed. “It’s fine. Listen, I haven’t got long, but I was wondering if maybe you’d be free this weekend…? I know it’s not exactly a short drive, but I’d kind of like to get out of here for the weekend…”

There was a pause while he checked his calendar. “Sure,” he said. “I can pick you up on Friday night if you like?”

“You don't have plans?”

“I was gonna grab a beer with Sarrigan since he’s in town,” he admitted, “But maybe if you can get away early, we could go together?”

“I don’t see why I couldn’t…” you said. No one was monitoring your hours after all, and it wasn’t as if you hadn’t made huge inroads into the project already.

You grinned and practically flung yourself at him when Damien’s truck drew up outside your cottage on the far side of the courtyard. The wide expanse of gravel sat on the side of the house with the servants’ entrance, and was overlooked by the back of the mansion.

“I missed you!” you laughed, letting the colossal orc spin you easily in a circle. “You still smell like chocolate,” you said as his immensely long, black plait caught you in the face.

“Just proves I’m sweet,” he joked, and you groaned, smacking him in the chest with the back of your hand as he set you down.

“That was a bad pun, even for you.”

“You ready?” he asked.

“You don’t want to stretch your legs first? You’ve literally just got here.” He shook his head, but did nip inside your apartment for a drink of water and a bathroom break. While he was gone, you leaned against his truck and looked up at the trees above you. The height of summer was fading to the bronze of autumn now, and a few coppery leaves rained down around you like confetti, spiralling through the air that promised a change of season soon.

“Ready?” he asked, swinging your overnight bag easily into the truck and helping you up the enormous step into the cab.

As you drove away, you glanced up at the house and caught the glint of sun on a window as it closed on one of the upper storeys, but you soon forgot about the house as Damien began to regale you with stories of your friends’ antics.

With Widowsweb Court in the rear view mirror, you sighed and settled into the comfy seat, letting Damien talk as the house dwindled to nothing behind you. It felt good to be away from the limited confines of the estate, but as you looked forward to a weekend in Starfall Springs with your friends, something nagged at the back of your mind, like a caught thread pulling in the sleeve of a favourite sweater…

Your whole weekend in Starfall Springs was like the first breath of fresh garden air after a day spent in the dusty library of Widowsweb Court.

Damien had taken you to the Inglenook Inn that first night, where he, Sarrigan, their respective partners, plus a mothman named Merritt whom you’d met a few times before, and a couple of your other friends were gathered, and the lot of you talked late into the night. There were a lot of questions about Widowsweb Court, but you mostly focused on the work and describing the house and gardens to them. Somehow it felt disrespectful - an invasion of his privacy - to talk about Gilvas much.

As you left the pub to walk back to your modest apartment at the north end of the town, Sarrigan caught up with you. As he scuttled up to you, you were struck suddenly by the difference between him and Gilvas. Sarrigan Silkfoot’s silver-banded fur rippled in the moonlight, ruffled by the night breezes, where Gilvas’ spider body was black, hard, and shiny as black lacquer, and where Gilvas’ legs moved like articulated, curved daggers, Sarrigan’s were chunky and muscular and unbelievably fuzzy, ending in a little hooked and almost dainty talon. Gilvas’ legs ended in wicked points, sharp and slender as paring knives, and his fangs probably carried a deadly venom, where Sarrigan’s smile held only jollity. Gilvas also had no mandibles, where Sarrigan’s hardware clicked and chittered with his emotions.

“Listen,” he said as he fell into a near-silent step beside you. “I know you’ve not got any reception up there at Widowsweb, so I haven’t been able to get in touch by text or whatever, but I just wanted to ask you - away from the others - how it’s going. With my family’s history with theirs, I did some digging into the Widowsweb estate and the family…”

“You did?” You weren’t sure whether to be offended or curious, but in the end, the latter won out. “What did you find?”

“Just tragedy. Lately anyway. Earlier generations seem to have done ok, but… you should look him up.”

“Who, Gilvas?”

He nodded.

“You mean the fire?”

Again, he nodded, shuffling nervously. “The police think he started it, but they could never prove it.”

You scowled, horrified and hurt. “Sarrigan, I’ve met him. He doesn't seem like the type to murder his family - and his unhatched children too?” You shook your head, appalled, stomach roiling. “He’s devastated… rarely talks about them, and when he does… he’s close to tears. I think he lost a leg in the fire too.”

Sarrigan’s handsome face remained harsh and he clicked his mandibles pensively. Finally, he sighed. “Just… be careful, ok? The articles I found all said he had a nasty temper, and that since his wife’s death, he fired all the staff and turned into some kind of recluse…”

“They’ve got the last bit right,” you said, “But not the first.” He did have a short fuse though. “Thanks for looking out for me, Sarrigan, but I’m not worried.”

He nodded once. “I’m sorry if I overstepped.”

You shook your head and parted from him with a warm hug. “I appreciate it, but trust me… Gilvas isn’t some cruel, violent lunatic. He’s an isolated widower who’s never learned how to move past his grief.”

To your relief, Sarrigan seemed to take you at your word, and left you at your door looking happier for having aired his anxieties, and in turn having had them laid to rest.

The remainder of your weekend passed without incident, but you couldn’t get Sarrigan’s words out of your head. If he’d been painted by the press at the time as some kind of violent monster, it was no wonder that Gilvas had hidden himself away on his estate and never spoke to anyone.

On the Sunday of your weekend away, you met up with a few friends at Damien’s cafe for breakfast, and spent the better part of the day while the sun was out browsing the marketplace. As you passed a carpenter’s stall, your eye was drawn by a number of carved, wooden puzzle boxes. The satyr who had made them was demonstrating how one of them worked to a small crowed of fascinated onlookers, and when he finished, finally sliding the last section of wood free, the lid sprang open to reveal the empty chamber inside, and everyone applauded.

Fascinated, you realised what a tactile thing the boxes were, and suddenly thought of Gilvas. With his reduced sight, he relied a lot on his sense of touch. On a whim, you bought one and had it wrapped neatly in brown paper by the satyr. Thanking him, you headed home and packed up, bringing with you a few new clothes and a few more things to occupy your evenings.

Bouncing back up the driveway in Damien’s truck that evening, you couldn’t miss the looks the orc tossed you sidelong, and as you drew to a halt in the courtyard again, he stayed put in his seat and asked, “Are you really alright here? It’s so remote…”

“It’s fine,” you said. “I love the work, and the people are kind. I promise I’ll ring you the moment I’m unhappy, but for now, I’m honestly loving it. I’ve never had a better or more fulfilling job, Damien. I can’t believe I’ve got so little time left really…” You paused and sighed. “I almost don’t want to leave.”

He bowed his head and backed off, though not without pulling you half into his lap for a bone-crushing hug first. “Take care, OK?” he grunted before releasing you.

“You sure you won’t stay for some supper?” you asked as you slithered out of your side of the cab and landed on the gravel. “I bet you’d love Naril.”

“I can’t,” he said with a regretful grimace. “I need to get back to prep the shop for next week. Another time?”

You nodded. “Drive safely.”

For the entire week following your return to Widowsweb Court, you didn’t see even the slightest glimpse of Gilvas.

There was no trace of his having been in the library at all, and the secret panel at the rear of the room stayed firmly shut. You didn’t think it was your place to go wandering the corridors again, and although you continued to take a mug of tea out onto the terrace every afternoon, it was hardly the spread of High Tea that you had shared with him every day for months. The whole place seemed empty without his presence now, reminding you of your very first week there, when every shadow and doorway had loomed ominously large before you.

Finally, at the end of the week, you ran in to Chiara on your way back down and you paused to let her past with an armful of linen. “Chiara, is… is Gilvas around? Is he alright?”

She narrowed her eyes and tutted softly at you. “None of your concern,” she snipped at you before bustling off.

You stood there, mute and surprised.

It definitely didn’t sound like he was alright, but what were you to him, really? You thought of the box stowed away in your room, waiting for the right time to be brought out and given to him, and suddenly felt foolish. You’d known him for a matter of months. He was a lord, with land and a title; he had a whole household full of things already, and you were just there to reorganise his library. He’d probably already forgotten about you.

You worked solidly through the morning again the next day, but didn’t feel hungry enough to go down to lunch. You continued on through the day, pausing only to sip from your water bottle before heading back up the ladders time and time again with armfuls of books. It was exhausting. There was no trace of the webbing he’d used to catch you, and since there was also no sign of him, you made sure to take extra care going up and down.

With a sigh you finally set down the last of the hagiographies at eight o’clock that night, and put your hands to the small of your back, grunting. Dusty, tired, stiff, and still oddly demoralised, you thought you heard the creak of a door from the back of the library, but you’d barely dared to hope before the main doors opened and Naril stumped in, looking terribly out of place and awkward in his gardening overalls. He had mud on his trousers, but his boots had been scraped clean.

He sighed your name in obvious relief when he spotted you. “You ok?” he asked.

“Fine, why?” you frowned as you turned to face him, still with your palms pressed to the small of your back.

“You didn’t come to lunch, and you missed supper as well. I was worried about you.”

You smiled and dropped your hands to your sides. “I’m fine. I just… haven’t felt like myself lately. Thank you though.”

An awkward silence hung between you, and he scratched the back of his head. “Right. Well, there’s… uh… stuff in the larder and fridge if… if you get hungry. I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t been crushed by a ton of books or something.”

With a chuckle, you said, “This isn’t The Mummy you know? People do actually secure their bookshelves…”

He laughed briefly and headed for the doors again. “Seriously though… Are you sure you’re ok?” he asked, ears waggling.

“I’ve… I’ve got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

“Ok,” he said, green eyes wide and glassy. “Well, you can always talk to me. What are friends for, right?”

“Right. Thank you, Naril.”

He nodded, and left.

In the silent stillness of the library, you sank with a heavy sigh into one of the nearby chairs and let your palm cradle your chin, with your elbow planted on the wood of the table. When had this place started to feel so sad again? It was as if the gloom was seeping back into the fabric of the place like a sponge soaking up ink.  

About a minute later, a familiar movement caught your attention and you looked up to find Gilvas standing beside a bookshelf. He was tilting his head in that way that meant he couldn’t see you in the dim light, but he knew you were still there.

“I’m here,” you said quietly, hardly daring to move in case he scuttled away.

Locking onto your voice, he moved with expert familiarity round the library and came to a halt near your table. The only light now came from a lamp one shelf over. “I… I overheard…” he began stiffly. His red gaze sailed right over your head, so it was clear that he couldn’t see you, even this close up. “Is… I mean… Are you alright?”

“Could ask the same of you,” you said wryly, eyeing the dark shadows under his eyes and the tightness around his mouth. “I haven’t seen you in ages.” He looked dreadful again, as if he’d hardly eaten anything in the interim.

“Been better, I suppose,” he said. “The firbolg said you haven’t eaten today… is that right?”

“Mmm.”

“Should we raid the kitchen together?”

You smiled. “You haven’t eaten either I take it…”

He shook his head.

Standing, you swayed as a head rush washed over you and you let out a tiny grunt of surprise, grabbing the back of the chair.

With a scowl, he stepped closer. “Alright?” He steadied you, his hand finding your waist and lingering there.

“I missed you,” you breathed unthinkingly as you stared up at him.

Gilvas froze and then let out a rough exhale, withdrawing a few paces. “You did?”

“Mmm. I have something for you too, from Starfall, but it’s back in my room. I… I’d started to think I wasn’t going to see you again…”

“I’m sorry,” he said, his fingers curling briefly into fists at his side. “I… I rather let the melancholy take over again.”

“Why?” you asked, stepping closer to him. His ear followed you and he narrowed his eyes. You got the impression that you’d just stepped into his limited field of vision and he could now make out your silhouette in the shadowy library.

The lord of Widowsweb Court gave a bitter, brittle laugh and turned away, legs moving in sequence like a windup toy. “I think I misled myself,” he said eventually.

Your brows knitted and you closed the distance between you, laying your hand boldly on his cool, obsidian foreleg again. As before, he shivered, but he didn't pull away. “What do you mean?”

“I suppose I got carried away - this past month in particular,” he said in his rough baritone.

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t,” he said, that cut-glass edge returning to his voice. “You don’t know what it was like before you came here; before you —” he stopped himself but then took a breath and continued in barely a whisper, the consonants softly articulated. You had to lean in closer to hear him. “Before you brought the light back to this place.” His voice cracked as he added, “And you took it with you.”

“Gilvas…” you gasped, shocked by his tone.

“I know,” he growled. “It’s inappropriate of me, and melodramatic. You were only gone for two days. But it’s the truth. I got so swept up in spending time with someone again — in… in enjoying myself — that I somehow forgot that you have a whole life outside of our brief interactions here, beyond these walls…”

“Naril's birthday…” you breathed and he nodded. He’d stumbled upon you and Naril sharing a laugh and a close touch at his birthday and had assumed from the physical closeness that there was something more than friendship between you. That had been the last time you’d seen him.

Then he shook his head in disgust and sneered self-deprecatingly, “It’s as though I became a teenager again - spoilt and sour and… everything I loathe about myself.”

He backed away out of your grip until his huge carapace nudged against the shelf behind him and he went still again. Trapped between you and the books, he breathed heavily for a moment through his aquiline nose. Your heart was beating in your throat but you kept quiet.

“I have a nasty, possessive side,” he said, scowling. “I’d almost forgotten about it, but as — I hesitate to call it a friendship… I’m not sure what we had between us — but whatever it was grew, I came to think of you as… mine. And then I saw you laughing with him and… I remembered that you’re not mine at all. I have no right to make those kinds of disgusting demands or claims. You’re not mine — you’re not anyone’s but your own person. I forgot myself, and I hated myself for it.”

He was jealous.

Gilvas was jealous that you’d been laughing with Naril that night. Despite the anguish on his face, you had to smile. When he heard you chuckle softly, he growled at you again, deep and rich and animalistic. Defensive. That was all it was; defensive bluster.

“It’s true that Naril has come to be my friend here,” you said, moving carefully closer to him now that he couldn’t back away any more. “But I thought about you all weekend while I was away. I couldn’t get you out of my head. When my friend Sarrigan —”

“— Silkfoot?” he interrupted with a sneer. “‘Sarrigan’ is an old Silkfoot name…”

“Yes. Sarrigan Silkfoot is a friend of mine,” you said carefully, noting the lingering displeasure in his features. “He’s currently dating a human, and my best friend, Damien, is also very much in love with a human. If you’re worried about what previous generations of Silkfoots thought about relationships between species, you needn’t worry. The current heir to the family - Sarrigan’s older brother - has even recently married a human. Things have moved on since the founding of Widowsweb…”

His chest heaved and he sank lower so that his pendulous spider’s body was only a few inches above the ground, and his torso and head were almost on a level with yours. “I’ve hidden myself away too long,” he whispered, more to himself than to you.

Taking a final step over to him, you stood in the space between his deadly front legs. It felt suddenly intimate in the extreme, and you reached your palm out and laid it on his chest. He flinched, but let you talk.

“Sarrigan told me a bit more about the papers said… about the circumstances of the fire… about what people believed at the time…” you said carefully, and Gilvas’ face darkened dangerously. “But I got to know you before I’d heard that, and I can’t believe you would have started it. I can’t believe anyone thought that of you.” You placed your left palm to mirror your right and felt the way his chest heaved with emotion as he listened. “You’re a good person, Gilvas. I told my friends that, and they believed me. And I think you’ve suffered alone for long enough.”

Gilvas’ expression shattered and he leaned forwards and drew you into his arms. “I don't want you to leave…” he whispered into your hair as he held you close. He smelled like books and sandalwood, warm and comforting, and you let your arms snake around his waist.

“I don't have anything else lined up for after I finish here,” you said without letting go. He was gently inhaling the scent of you, you realised, and you let him hold you, drawing comfort from the warmth of your body. “And I told you there’s a lifetime’s worth of work to do on this library…”

“I could renew your contract,” he said. “Or… Or you could… No. I don't want you to feel… obliged…” he said, swallowing thickly and drawing sharply back from your embrace as if you’d burned him. “If I’m paying you —” his face buckled into a sour grimace and he lurched slightly further away from you. “I don’t want to pay you to stay here…” he spat as if the idea thoroughly disgusted him.

You laughed. “I own my apartment in Starfall. I could rent it out for some income, and come and live here with you. That way… there’s no imbalance…”

“Yes,” he nodded breathlessly, hardly daring to believe what he was hearing. “Yes, that’s… that’s good. And if you still have your apartment, you can… I mean… there will be somewhere for you… if… if you decide…”

“Stop,” you said. “Don’t push me away again.”

The drider took a huge inhale and nodded. Then he licked his lips nervously and said, “You know, we were going to raid the kitchen before we went down this path. You shouldn’t make any rash decisions on an empty stomach.”

“An excellent point,” you said with mock seriousness. “Let’s go.”

Over a rather strange and cobbled-together supper of leftovers scrounged from the pantry, eaten at the scrubbed wooden table in the kitchen, Gilvas stayed almost completely silent. At first, you thought he was just concentrating on eating, being particularly careful about his movements since he didn’t see as clearly as you did, but after a while, you discovered the crinkle in his brow and noticed the tremor in his fingers again.

“Wait here,” you said, pushing back from the table and touching the back of his hand briefly. He was always so cold.

“Where are you going?” he barked, tense.

With a giggle, you said, “Trust me. I’ll be right back.”

And with that, you vanished out of the back door and scuttled over the gravel to the little apartment above the old stable block where you’d been staying for the past few months. Minutes later, you returned to find him exactly where you’d left him, scowling at his food.

He looked up sharply as you reentered, and you watched his shoulders drop with relief a split second later when he figured out that it was you.

“Here,” you said, holding out the brown paper parcel to him, touching it to the back of his fingers in case he couldn’t see it.

In moments, it was obvious to you that he couldn’t, because his fingertips trailed along the edges, looking for a way into the parcel. “What is it?” he asked warily, shifting his head from side to side.

“You’ll find out. I saw them being made in the marketplace, and I think with your sense of touch you’ll probably have an advantage over someone with sharper vision…”

At that, his frown deepened, though not from discomfort. He was openly curious now, and he got to work on the wrappings, abandoning them to one side. “A box?” he murmured when he’d run his fingers all the way around it. Watching him, you suddenly felt a thrum of desire go right through you. You wanted him to do that to your body, to explore you by touch, and you barely bit back a moan as the force of it swept through you.

He paused and turned his face towards you expectantly.

“Yeah,” you croaked. “It’s a puzzle box. It’s all inlaid with different types of wood, and there are a few panels and sections that you have to slide in the right order to open it.”

At that, his face cracked into a gorgeous, open, delighted grin and your heart slipped sideways in your chest at the youthfulness it lent to his features. “I used to love these as a child,” he said. “Thank you.”

He moved then, obviously not having been sitting on a chair like you, and found his way faultlessly around the kitchen to where you were seated opposite him. The little inlaid box lay to one side on the table while he took your hands in his and squeezed your knuckles fondly, earnestly.

“Thank you,” he rasped again.

You raised your chin and he let go of you with his right hand and brought it up to cup your left cheek in his cool palm. His thumb traced an arc across your skin and you shivered, exhaling and breathing hard. “Gilvas…” you whispered, want burning inside you inside you like a flare. You didn’t want to push him or rush him, but if he didn’t kiss you in the next three seconds, you thought you might just wither up and die on the spot.

Mercifully, he leaned down, tilting your chin upwards to meet his lips. His kiss was soft, his lips cool and hesitant, but the moment you let a little moan of pleasure escape you, he deepened the kiss. His long fingers scrunched in your hair and he closed his red eyes with a flutter of long lashes. His two forelegs rose up slightly for balance as his body rocked downwards and he pulled back with a gasp, chest heaving again. “I want you,” he whispered hoarsely, looking suddenly shy.

You grinned and stood. “I want you too…”

Gilvas led you through the house, pausing with endearing frequency to kiss you breathless against almost every spare surface that wasn’t covered by paintings or suits of armour or priceless vases on precarious pedestals, and finally he backed you up against the double doors to a bedroom on the fourth floor, and picked you up so that you had to latch your legs around his waist at the point where his humanoid torso met his spider’s body. You ground yourself against him as he kissed you over and over, his long hair falling around your face in a black and red curtain.

With one foreleg, he delicately pushed the handle down and nudged the doors open. Still holding you, he drew your top off over your head, discarding it to one side as he carried you across the room and deposited you onto a massive bed. It bounced and flexed beneath you, and as you looked around you discovered that it was not a bed, but a thick and intricately woven web slung between the two perpendicular walls of the far corner of the room. You leaned back into it, feeling the soft silken strands flex slightly beneath you, and looked up to see Gilvas’ silhouette in the darkness of the room.

The moon shone through an open window to your right, painting fine silver highlights to the gleaming lacquer of his carapace and needle-like legs, and in the moonlight, you saw that he was dripping webbing onto the floor from the gland at the tip of his spider’s abdomen. You knew enough about driders to know that when they got really aroused, they often leaked webbing like this. Male driders did not mate the way many other beings did, but that didn't put you off. You wanted him - his pleasure, his ecstasy, his noises, his joy…

It did make him suddenly nervous though, as if he’d only just realised that you might be expecting him to penetrate you, and with his anatomy, he couldn’t.

“Gilvas?” you asked, reaching up for him where he still loomed hesitantly above you. “Come here… let me take care of you…”

“I…” he began, but he let you draw him down onto the soft, smooth webbing. His legs ended in those dazzlingly sharp points, and he seemed to dance across the webs like a circus performer on a high wire. He lowered himself down atop you and you kissed him again. His hands skated over your hips and he drew the rest of your clothes off to abandon them beside his bed.

Seeking friction, he carefully slid his slick abdomen against your legs and shivered, moaning. “You’re so warm,” he whispered, head bowing forwards as he rested on his elbows, one on either side of your body. “I can’t believe how warm you are… it’s… it…”

“Does it feel good?” you asked, raking your fingers through his long hair and he nodded wordlessly. “Can you roll over?” you asked.

“Oh gods,” he gasped, clearly aroused by the idea, and nodded.

It wasn’t the most elegant manoeuvres, but once he was on his back with his legs curled upwards like a black, clawed hand, you sat in the gap where his one missing leg should have been, and ran your hand over the smoothness of his underbelly. In no time you discovered the slit in his lower body that was leaking slick, pearlescent fluid all over himself.

“Oh!” he yelled, spine curling and legs twitching as you traced your fingertips around the softer inner walls of the slit. Where the rest of his body was cool and hard, there he was almost searingly hot, the inner walls silky and slick. “Oh gods, oh gods… oh gods…” he chanted in time with your motions, his whole body twitching and making the webbing rock beneath him.

The tendons of his neck stood out in glorious contrast beneath the watercolour birthmark as he clenched his jaw and rammed his eyes shut, lost in the sensations. His fingers scrabbled at the web of his bed and he rocked and shivered and arched into your touch as you worked him closer and closer. You knew he was going to make a mess when he came, and you felt your whole body flush hot at the thought of finally getting him to let go of all his tight control and insecurities, to give himself over to the simple, honest pleasure you were offering to give him.

The thought of that was almost enough to make you come yourself, but you focused on him until he growled softly.

“I want…” he began but cut off as you grazed a spot inside him unexpectedly with a fingertip that made him bellow wordlessly. “Fuck…” he hissed when he’d recovered, head lolling back again, and you grinned at the curse on his aristocratic tongue. “Wait…” he panted. “I want… I want to touch you… before I… before you make me…” he growled again in frustration. “I’ll only be able to… to… come once… please… let me…” Hearing him lose control of his words like that in the face of his arousal only made it all the more endearing.

“You can touch me,” you said coyly without changing anything, but when he genuinely snarled, sounding more like a werewolf than a drider, you laughed and leaned closer to him.

His cool fingers dug into your arms as he tugged you tight against his body, pulling you down to lie atop him along the length of his belly and humanoid stomach, and you ground yourself against him for a little relief. His hand slid down your body, down your side, and before you could think, he was pleasuring you. “Let me,” he hissed when you tensed a little, revealing his venomous fangs as a flash of white in the dimness when you tried to pull back to finish him.

“But I wanted to make you come,” you pouted, and he actually laughed at that, four red eyes closing and crinkling softly in the corners with genuine amusement at your disgruntlement.

“Too bad,” he groused. “I want to watch you first.”

“Fair enough,” you grunted as he caught you just so and you rocked against him. “I’m so close…” and you really were. His touch was relentless, demanding your pleasure in return for the sensations you’d just given him.

“I know,” he snarled right in your ear, teeth - the non-venomous ones you hoped - just grazing the shell of your ear. “I can smell it on you.”

And with that, you came unexpectedly hard, crashing into your release and clinging to him. He eased you through it and when you lay panting and spent on his chest, he moved his hand to his mouth and cleaned himself luxuriantly, obviously enjoying the taste of you on his skin.

After that, he seemed softer and more relaxed, and when you’d recovered enough to get your legs back under you and return your attentions to his body, he finally seemed to have allowed himself this connection to another person. His body heaved and rocked rhythmically, his legs knocking nonchalantly against each other as he spasmed and moaned, and as he grew wetter and slicker around your hand, and his inner walls began to clench and shiver in a distinct cadence, you knew he was getting close. He was also giving you the most delicious sounds; gasping and cursing, grunting and even wailing softly at times when you slowed your touches to a barely-there whisper against him.

Eventually though, he began to rock against you in earnest, and you felt his release coming as a rapidly-building wave, gathering momentum until it finally ripped through him like a wildfire. White release gushed from his entrance and covered your hand, rolling down the sleek, shiny carapace to soak into the webbing while his body heaved and convulsed with pleasure. He made no sound, his face contorted in a rictus of pleasure as he gave everything he had to you, his hands gripping the webbing as he released in messy waves all over himself and you.

Finally as the pleasure faded to something gentler and less intense, he lay back, motionless on his bed, muscles completely slack, face soft, breathing quiet.

“Gilvas?”

“Mmm?” he hummed without moving.

“You alright?”

“Mmm.”

Weak and completely spent, he lay there unmoving for a long time while you gently trailed your fingers around his still clenching slit as aftershocks of pleasure rippled through him. Eventually, you wiped your hand clean on the webs beside him and shuffled up to lie beside him. He still looked absolutely exhausted and drained, and you sat there a long time just watching him.

After a very long time, he mustered the energy to open one arm to you and you nuzzled in against his bare shoulder. His breath hissed softly through his slack jaw and he pressed a shy kiss to the top of your head. “See why I wanted… to make you… to make you come first?” he whispered, words heavily slurred and indistinct.

You nodded and shifted to drape your arm across his chest and draw idle patterns over the bare skin of his white torso.

His skin was starkly pale in the moonlight, and as you stared at him, you realised he’d probably relied solely on touch for the whole time you’d been in the room. You smiled and pressed a kiss to his jutting collarbone, making him inhale sharply.

He was still too thin, still obviously not taking care of himself properly, but, you thought, if he’d trusted you and let you in to this extent, perhaps you could both take care of each other now.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he whispered after another long while of silence and closeness in the dark.

“Just thinking how good this feels,” you said honestly. “And how I could lie like this forever… Or at least… until you’re ready to go again.”

He snorted, taken off-guard. “Won’t be for a very long while,” he said bashfully. “Driders don’t recover quickly. Not the male ones, anyway.”

“I’m in no rush,” you said, laying your cheek back down on his cool skin and shivering as goosebumps rippled up your body.

He fumbled around on his other side and drew a large blanket up and over his body, careful to avoid the mess on his carapace, and let you snuggle up beneath it.

You’d have to wait for the dawn to go again though, because you were asleep in his arms in minutes.

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Maybe we'll get to see more of them in the future, but for now, this four-part story is over. Thanks for your comments and enthusiasm for the cranky spooder boy!

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I really hope you folks enjoyed this one! Don’t forget to let me know if you did enjoy it by leaving a like and/or reblogging it!

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[essektheylyss]

How about a "wearing their lover’s clothes" one, though going out of intent here: mayhaps Essek wearing something of Caleb's because Essek's wardrobe is a little oh-so-conspicious? 👀

this turned into a bit of Fjord friendship but I could not imagine you would mind lol.

This bedroom of the building Fjord has rented for them all to lay low for a while is smaller even than the one he had occupied at the outpost, and a far cry from the cool, dim room of his own now-empty home, but the ocean breeze that meanders lazily through the open balcony doors makes the summer’s heat almost bearable, and the linen curtains that it catches on shade the room from the harshest of the morning sun.

“You should change,” comes the whisper at his back, as he peers through the curtain into the narrow side street below, as bare arms snake around his waist, and he leans back into Caleb’s chest, humming softly and letting his eyes close for a moment.

“Into what? I have nothing here besides what I had with me in Aeor, and none of it is suited for the Menagerie Coast.” He has already shed his fur-lined cloak and mantle, and Caleb fumbles with the clasp of his outer robe, leaving him only in his base layer, and he is reminded again of how different the Coast is from where he has just left, where even one layer of wool is too warm.

“Jester is already planning a shopping trip, but you cannot wear this.” He tugs at the thick sweater that Essek still has not shed. He has abandoned a lot today, and he is not excited to lay himself wholly bare here, a final rejection of everything he has just left.

While he retains the clothing he wore before their hasty and unannounced teleport out of the outpost, he can pretend like maybe if he cast a spell, he could return, that things would be the way they were, even though he knows it’s not true.

Caleb’s arms wrap tighter around him, and he shivers as lips press into his hair. He has to wonder how a part of him can even consider that the way things were was preferable to this.

He pulls the sweater over his head and drops it with the other lined, heavy clothes he has shed. “And what do you propose I wear instead?” he asks, crossing his arms over his now bare chest and turning to face Caleb, who raises an eyebrow.

“Well, I thought you may want to borrow something of mine.”

Essek slouches just a bit to stare up at him, emphasizing the sizable height difference between them. “I don’t think your clothes will fit.”

“My shirts will be a bit large, but they’ll be fine.”

“I can’t exactly forgo trousers.”

“No, I suppose not.” Caleb grins wickedly, and Essek momentarily considers kissing him to wipe the smirk off his face. “I bet I know someone who could alter a pair of pants, though.” He pulls a copper wire from his pocket and speaks into it. “Fjord, we could use some assistance, if you have sewing supplies somewhere in your tool kit easily accessible.”

Essek blinks. “Fjord?”

“Of course.” Caleb lets go of him and turns to the bed to rummage through his things, unceremoniously dumped there an hour earlier by Fjord himself as he had distributed the contents of their recently-retrieved bag of holding. “He says he’ll be right up.” He holds up some well-worn brown trousers, and offers them to Essek. “How about these?”

“Anything is fine.”

Caleb grins again at his resigned voice as a knock echoes on the door, and Fjord pokes his head inside. He raises an eyebrow as his eyes find Essek, taking a seat on a chest at the end of the bed, and Caleb, still sorting through clothing, both shirtless. “Can I help you? Tell me you have a favor to ask that will get me out of this shopping trip.”

Essek barks a laugh. “It is quite optimistic of you to think your girlfriend will allow that.”

“Essek has nothing to wear, so I thought I’d lend him something of mine, but he is of course, ah—“

“Short,” Essek offers, deadpan, and Fjord laughs this time.

“Well, you’ll have to put the pants on for me to fit them, but yes, I can make that happen.”

He sits on the edge of the bed and unfolds a small leather-wrapped sewing kit, setting pins on the nightstand as Essek awkwardly shuffles to Caleb, where he is at least somewhat out of Fjord’s view as he changes. The pants that Caleb offered are at least six inches too long, and a bit large in the waist, but admittedly less ill-fitted than he’d expected.

Fjord beckons him over and pins the hem, and Essek stands perfectly still for several minutes in silence. He is familiar with getting fitted for clothing, but he is not particularly comfortable when it’s a friend doing the fitting.

“This is the quick and dirty method, and you are, somehow, not nearly as disproportionately skinny as your boyfriend, so I’m not going to bother much with the waist,” he says. Essek flushes further at that, and Caleb coughs behind him. “It will be a bit of a shit job, but it’ll work well enough for an afternoon. If you are attached to this pair of pants for whatever reason, I can do it properly tomorrow, but Jester threatened to start baking if she does not get out of this building within an hour, and then the entire day will be lost.”

“Is there anything here to bake with?”

“Yeza and Veth already returned with their groceries, so I imagine she will go knocking for some flour soon enough.” Fjord pulls back. “Okay, you can take them off now.”

Glad of the warmth, Essek flushes and strips the pinned trousers carefully to avoid getting stabbed. He puts his own pants back on in the meantime, even with as hot as they are, and Fjord gets to work.

“Where did you learn to sew?” he asks, taking a seat on the bed and helping Caleb organize the pile there, keeping an eye on Fjord’s deft stitching.

“Fjord was a sailor,” Caleb pipes up, but Fjord shakes his head, barely glancing up.

“It was certainly a useful skill on a ship, kept me in the good graces of whatever crew I happened to be a part of, but I learned to sew at the orphanage. Otherwise I wasn’t going to have much in the way of clothes, as fast as I grew as a child.”

“Orphanage?” Essek blinks. “I don’t think I knew that.”

“No, I don’t believe you did.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not something I speak of often. It’s not far from here, actually.” He speaks around a few pins in his mouth easily. “Caleb, these are very worn out. They’re going to need a patch on the knee soon enough.”

“Ah, yes, they are… they’re the first pair I stole after I escaped.”

Fjord raises an eye at the pair of them, landing on Essek, who fidgets again.

Caleb changes the subject by tossing a thin linen shirt to Essek. It buttons halfway down, without much in the way of a collar, and he pulls it over his head. Already it’s an improvement over the wool he has abandoned on the floor, and he stands to collect it and fold it and tuck it away in the chest, where he wonders if he will need it again. Already it feels like a shoddy disguise, a costume he put on trying to be someone.

Wearing Caleb’s clothes, it doesn’t feel like he has quite settled into someone else, but it’s a step closer to someone he wants to be, without all the constraints of the life he has shed.

What little he carries by way of possessions put away in the small closet, which Essek imagines they will later magick to accommodate a bit more space, Caleb settles beside him on the bed and fixes one button that has not been pulled all the way through.

“You look good in my clothes,” he comments softly, and Fjord makes a derisive retching sound in his throat without looking up.

“If you want my assistance, please wait until I have finished and left, thank you. I’ve third wheeled Beau and Yasha too many damn times—“

“Alright,” Caleb says, laughing. The heat of this city in midsummer is stupefying, and the shift in weather—in life, really—has been quite a lot for just one day. Essek rests his head in Caleb’s lap, fingers threading through his hair, and exhales.

“How long do you think that’ll take?” he asks, his voice already thick with sleep, and Fjord glances at him.

“Maybe another half an hour,” he says, and if he wants to make another teasing comment, he hides it well.

“Okay,” he yawns. He weaves his hands around Caleb’s shin, and lets his eyes close. They have time, of course. He can rest for a few minutes while Fjord completes this sewing, while Caleb combs through his hair, while the breeze from outside pulls the fear from him with every new breath. “Wake me then.”

[wolfs-hunt1]

Wolf Kisses 1

Pairing: Stucky x Shapeshifter reader

Summary: Steve and Bucky are out in a mission when they find a lone giant wolf that had been hurt (I can’t do summaries, this sucks I have no idea what to write here)

Word count: 2063

Warnings: mentions of blood, Steve and Bucky are in an established relationship already

A/N: Just a small series, I’m not sure how big it’s going to get or where exactly I want to take this, but I hope to figure it out this week while writing the next chapter, but hopefully, I’ll keep to the schedule and post the next one next week.

Tag list is OPEN

— — — — —

Despite the warmth of the tactical suit, the cold was still nipping at Steve’s extremities. Bucky was huddled up on a blanket, vibranium arm outside so as not to risk touching the freezing appendage to his skin at all.

The small cottage they were holed up in did nothing to stop the howling wind outside, the snowstorm making them have to call off the jet and stay at the safe house for more time than they had planned.

They had just returned from the mission when the snowstorm hit, almost cutting communications with the rest of the team before they could let them know they would be staying until the storm blew over.

The cottage only had a small bedroom with a queen-sized bed and a dresser pushed to the side, and an even smaller bathroom, that connected to the bedroom and living room. One of the walls of the living room was a pantry and the other, pushed a bit in, was a small kitchen. There was a small wood burner and a beaten-up couch on the otherwise baren room. It was a comfortable living space for one person, but for the two super-soldiers, it was a tight fit.

Steve was spacing out, looking outside the window for the whisps of snow rushing on the wind, a warm mug of hot chocolate between his hands. He only nodded once when Bucky told him he was going to bed and kissed the top of his head, ruffling his messy hair before leaving the room.

A loud crash on the outside made Steve jump to his feet in a second, Bucky rushing from the bedroom a few seconds later.

“What was that?” he whispered to the blond, trying to take a look out the window but seeing nothing more than the falling snow.

“It seems to have come from the shed.” Steve moves to the door, picking up his shield in the process, and slowly opened the door, snow blowing inside the small space until Bucky closed the door behind him on his way out. There was a fading trail of fresh blood on the cristal white snow, leading to the shed on the back of the house, making the two super soldiers get ready for a possible ambush.

The trail was getting thicker, despite the falling snow trying to cover it up, and of a sudden, there was another crash, followed by whimpering howls. This made them both rush inside the small shed, logs for the fire were strewn across the place, having fallen from their previous neet pile, a mass of fur with dark red streaks across it was lying on the floor.

The small space was flooded with light once Bucky reached for the overhead bulb, allowing them to see what had happened. A greyish wolf, bigger than normal, was squirming on the floor, a hunters trap on his back leg, ripping the flesh apart with every movement the creature made. It started to growl at them once they tried to approach it, but despite the halfhearted snaps of its maws, the wolf didn’t make an attempt to push them away.

Steve was cooing gently at it, and whispering they weren’t there to hurt it, while bucky approached the serrated trap, and after making sure the wolf was distracted by Steve and not looking his way he put his fingers around it and pulled, opening the rusty thing up while the wolf pulled his leg closer to his body from the pain, loud whimpers and cries blending in with the wind blowing outside.

“We have to clean up that wound or it will only get infected.” Bucky says, while Steve crouches down and gently picks up the wolf, bringing it to the couch inside. Bucky rushes to the pantry, picking up the medkit and some spare sheets they can use so as not to stain the couch with the warm blood rushing out from the wound.

Bucky lays down the sheet so that Steve can put the wold on top of it, it’s body bigger than the couch itself. They open the packaged of gauze and the bottle of antiseptic so they could disinfect the wound properly. The silver fur of the wolf was tacky and clumped at some places, like it had been running through the woods and not sidestepping any obstacles.

The gaping wound is deep, almost ripping the entire muscles until it reached the bone, it would need sticking, and urgent medical care. The best they could do was stitch the bigger gaps and wrap it up so that they could take it to a vet once they were out of the cabin.

Once the wound is properly taken care of, and wrapped in gauze, they try to give some water to the wolf and feed it tiny bits of beef they found in the freezer laced with pain meds. They both go to bed late that night, but they wanted to make sure the wolf was in the least pain possible.

They are both dead asleep, Steve’s arm slung over Bucky’s chest, and their legs entwine when they wake up with a start. A heavyweight being dropped on them both and fur smothering their noses. The wolf, a female they had found out, was laying on top of their chests, snout trying to go under the blankets for more warmth. A small whine came from her when she couldn’t get inside the blanket enough.

Steve started to chuckle at the sight of the big wolf behaving like a child and tried to pry the blanket so that the wolf could get in the bed with them. “You need to get off if you want…” and just as if the wolf could understand them she climbed off from them and waited patiently on the side of the bed for Steve to open up the blanked and she could snuggle to Bucky’s side. Bucky smiled and buried his face on the soft fur of her neck, hugging her closer to his chest.

Bucky was getting cold. Which was odd because he distinctly remembered falling asleep between soft fur and the furnace that was Steve. He could still feel Steve at his back, but the warm fur he remembered raking his fingers over was gone. He opened his eyes to see the empty space in front of him. The sheets were stained with blood and that made his heart run faster, taking off the covers and speeding to the living room.

She was there, on the floor, chewing a piece of beef, bandages bloodied and coming off. He let out a breath and reach forward, petting her behind her ears. She let out a little throaty sound and went back to heating the raw meet.

“Gonna have to change that…” he sais pointing at her leg. “Don’t’ bite my hand off, I only have one left and would like to keep it that way.” he jests chuckling and the wolf lets out some puffs of air, almost like laughter. He looks at her for a while. It wasn’t the first time she had acted weird, but he had never really been so long with a wolf to know what was standard behavior or not.

He grabs the medkit from the couch and started to work on her leg while she ate, at least her mouth was busy, and that could prove less chance of bites on his behalf. Steve wakes up not long after, kisses Bucky, and moves to start on coffee for both of them. The storm was still raging on outside, so they would have to wait longer before the jet could pick them up to return home.

Not that Bucky minded. He and Steve hadn’t had alone vacations in a while, and this could be their alone time. Well… alone plus a wolf.

Once the coffee was made Steve and Bucky sat cuddling on the couch and just talking when they notice the wolf limping to the front door and scratching on the wood, letting out a gruffed bark and looking at them pointedly.

“I think she wants to be let out Steve.” Steve sighs and disentangles his body from Bucky’s, walking to the door and opening it just enough to let her slink out, but not enough to let the snowflakes in, before he closes it back up. She stays out for about twenty minutes before they hear a muted scratching sound.

Only the next day does the storm starts to show signs of stopping, and so they arrange for a jet to come to pick them up, and also tell Tony that they’ll be taking an injured wolf back with them.

They spend their last day just randomly making out on the couch or in bed, reminiscing of the days they were reckless teenagers and did the same. She didn’t come to sleep with them that night, staying in the living room looking sadly out one of the windows.

—

Back at the compound, the wolf is rushed to the med bay where they start working right away with reconstructing the tissue of her leg. Steve and Bucky have debriefing all afternoon so when dinner arrives they are more than starving. They help Wanda and Nat set up the table for the team and help her unbox all the food that had just been delivered. They were all too tired to cook, so take out was their best bet.

When the elevator dinged and Tony stepped out, everyone took a moment to look.

“Look who I found trying to chew through the door.” he starts walking to the table when he noticed the wolf isn’t moving from the interior of the elevator. “Well, c'mon Fang we won’t bite.”

“Fang?” Bucky asks, a scowl on his face.

“Well, he needs a name.”

“First, it’s her, and second, Fang is a terrible name.” Bucky crouches and looks at her, metal hand outstretched in her direction “C'mon girl.” at that incentive she slowly takes a step from the elevator, and after a few more she starts running to him. Littering his face in kisses when she’s close enough. Once Bucky straightens though, it’s only a matter of seconds until a flurry of fur is rushing to the other side of the living room and gluing herself to the glass overlooking the city. “Look’s like someone is smitten with the overview.” he jest before joining the rest at the table so they could have dinner.

“What did the vet said about her leg?” Steve asks Tony while he plates some salad.

“Well, thanks to our medical equipment she’s basically all healed up. They just want to keep her for a couple more tests and to make sure she’s all healed up and she’s ready to return home.”

“Oh.” Bucky deflates, looking at the wolf excitedly wagging her tail while looking outside. He wouldn’t exactly admit it, but the time they were together in the cabin during the storm felt comfortable like he hadn’t felt in a while. Despite being friends with the others, their friendships were always a bit strained in the beginning, he wasn’t at ease. But with her, he felt like he usually felt when with Steve, peaceful and calm. But he understood they couldn’t keep her. She wasn’t a pet, she was a wild wolf and probably had a pack to return to.

“Tests?” Wanda questions, ignoring Bucky’s downwards spiraling thoughts.

“Well, her size is unusual, she’s double the size a wolf should be, and she did behave weirdly with the med team, almost like she understood them all, so she must have some higher intelligence we want to test for.”

He stays quiet all throughout dinner after that, and once he finished helping Sam do the dishes he goes to sit in the lounge sofa to cuddle up with Steve that was playing with the fluff ball currently at his feet. She jumps on the couch and makes a display of laying fully stretch on top of them both making them laugh and rub her belly and behind her ears.

They leave her in the living room of their shared apartment when they call it a night. But they wake up just enough to feel her paw at the cover to snuggle up in the middle of the two, falling asleep with them after a while.

Part 2 

[eatprayworm]

rongzhi fic: the red sea of your rage

Relationships: Ding Rong/Wang Zhi

Rating: T

Words: 3.9k

Additional Tags: Whump, references to violence, wang zhi gets hurt and ding rong acts as you would expect, aka he loses his shit

Summary: Canon divergent fic that asks what if Wan Tong did set the brothel on fire? Title and end quote taken from “A Strand of Hair” by José Tolentino Mendonça.

There’s so much straw.

It’s all Ding Rong can think as two guards work on distributing more straw along the perimeter of the brothel. The heat of the sun beats upon them as they add another row, a field of gold. Sweat beads along Ding Rong’s brow. Meanwhile, all is quiet inside.

How long has it been since the thieves first showed-off Wang Zhi on the balcony? Minutes? Hours? Time slips through his fingers like sand. Every failed attempt to negotiate deepens the cracks; he buys Wang Zhi time but he can’t buy him salvation, and soon, he fears, they will have neither.

Darkness swallows the sky.

They’re running out of time.

Tang Fan’s appearance is grating, and he feels himself scowl behind Tang Fan’s back. Ding Rong has stood here for hours, has thrown his body in front of a dozen archers, but it’s Tang Fan, the poisoned scholar, who can freely walk inside. He bites his tongue, reminds himself that the goal is to save Wang Zhi; if Tang Fan can do what Ding Rong cannot, then that is the way it will have to be.

The night grows chillier. There’s still no sound from inside.

And then Wan Tong is lighting the torch.

Ding Rong sucks in a breath, stares at the dancing flames and smug look on the Commander’s face as he prowls forward.

“Wan-daren, don’t!”

Another failed attempt. His words fall uselessly to the ground, trampled beneath the feet of a callous man who wants to watch the world burn.

Commander Wan doesn’t say a word when he lowers the torch to the bundle of straw just outside the brothel doors. The straw catches flame easily, burning slow but steady. That’s fine, Ding Rong thinks; this gives Wang Zhi time to see the smoke and make it outside before the whole place is up in flames. But then Commander Wan is walking, all but dragging the lit torch against the wall of straw, and suddenly the fire’s crackling, growing, wheezing heavy smoke through the door and windows.

There’s a scream inside, followed by guttural yelling - and then all Ding Rong can hear is the roar of the flames, which devour the straw and then turn their destruction to the brothel itself. Ding Rong has no attachment to the brothel, but Wang Zhi does; he’ll hate to see the destruction when he comes out.

(Because it’s when, not if.)

“Seize the kidnappers! Shoot them if you must!” Wan Tong yells. “Don’t let them escape.”

Ding Rong’s jaw tics. He wants to warn the archers against shooting the others (Wang Zhi), but the sight of the fire ties his tongue.

Smoke’s billowing out the open brothel door (how much of the inside has already been burned?) when the first group of people rush out. Courtesans, their bright clothing smudged with ash, covering their mouths and coughing. More and more, and then there’s Madam Cui at the end. She’s hacking hard, eyes squinting as she checks on her girls.

There’s no sign of Wang Zhi.

One kidnapper, two. Arrows pierce their sorry hides, sending them crumpling to the ground. Another roars out, wielding a sword dripping in fresh blood. He too is struck down, but all Ding Rong can think is that none of the women appear injured - whose blood has been shed?

Fists clench at his side, slick with sweat. It’s fine. Wang Zhi will appear any moment. Jia Kui is with him, after all.

Each second feels like a lifetime. The fire climbs the brothel, floor after floor catching alight, and Ding Rong knows that once it reaches the roof, it’s all but over. A flash of movement at the door sends his heart to his throat (Wang Zhi?) but it’s only Sui Zhou, carrying a limp bundle of Tang Fan in his arms. There’s blood dripping from Tang Fan’s lips, but as Sui Zhou carefully lowers Tang Fan to the ground, Ding Rong can’t detect any wound, nor does Sui Zhou make a move to stop any bleeding. And then their doctor swoops in, blocking Ding Rong’s view, and his heart goes cold.

Wang Zhi is -

There’s a crash inside the brothel, a beam succumbing to the flame, and Ding Rong propels himself forward without thought. He’s dimly aware of Commander Wan yelling at him, slightly cognizant of the kidnapper who nearly runs into Ding Rong in his hurry to get out, and then he disappears in the plumes of black smoke.

Tears flood his half-narrowed eyes as he lifts a sleeve to his face, trying to manage his breath as he looks around to the best of his ability. It’s hard to see, even as he ducks down and starts moving as quickly as he can. He nearly stumbles over something soft (a body, but not the one he’s looking for). Smoke and ash, luxury devoured to flame, bodies left to become dust with the building, and Ding Rong will sooner die than allow Wang Zhi to become one of them.

“Ding-daren!”

Voices of soldiers, Wang Zhi’s men, who have followed him in. Ding Rong doesn’t respond, trusts them to follow him in deeper and conduct their own search. They go the opposite way, a path which proves fruitful; they bellow not even a minute later.

“Ding-daren, we’ve found Jia Kui!”

Ding Rong’s heart leaps to his throat then sinks to his stomach in the span of seconds. Not Wang Zhi. He’s tempted to tell the men to leave him; Wang Zhi is the priority. But Jia Kui may be able to provide information on the situation - and he owes Ding Rong an explanation for how this happened. He can’t die yet; Ding Rong will not allow it.

“Get him and get out!” Ding Rong barks, though it ends in a coughing fit.

The footsteps fall back just as quickly as they arrived, and he is alone again.

He wants to scream, wants to call Wang Zhi’s name until his lungs give out, but he cannot risk inhaling more smoke than he already is, and so he only coughs, trudging forward further. There’s so many bodies.

He nearly misses him.

Ding Rong is debating climbing the stairs and calculating his survival odds when he hazards a glance to the left, and there, there - beside a burning beam, a familiar form in once-pale robes, curled up face-down.

He doesn’t remember the next few seconds. There’s smoldering debris in his way, blocking the body, and he rips it away with his hands, ignoring the smell of burned flesh as his heart pounds because Wang Zhi.  

Wang Zhi’s back is a mess of fiery robe, burnt skin, and crusted blood, and Ding Rong doesn’t even know if he’s alive, just knows he has to get him out. He lifts his Commander in his arms (Wang Zhi feels so much lighter), adrenaline soothing over his own burns as he steadies Wang Zhi and turns toward the door.

It’s growing harder to see, and not just because of the smoke. The world blurs, tears and dizziness, and Ding Rong nearly topples over at one point. But adrenaline keeps him upright, loyalty drives him to the entrance, until he bursts from the brothel and gulps for air like a drowning man.

*

It’s a blur from there on out. Later, Ding Rong will recall screaming for assistance as he desperately searches for a sign of life in his Commander. He will remember the force of relief when he finds Wang Zhi’s pulse, soft but undeniable, and the way his arms and legs shake when he gets them both in the carriage. He’ll remember touching Wang Zhi’s face with his burnt fingers, murmuring his name like a prayer, bidding him to wake up.

The depot. The rush of imperial doctors who cart Wang Zhi away, and the one who nearly hauls Ding Rong to his own recovery room to be treated. Ding Rong barely remembers this: the cleaning of his burns, the bandages wrapped around each hand. His mind replays a single fear, a plea of but what if I lose him for good this time, now that he’s out of my sight?

*

He ignores the doctor’s advice to rest, shrugs off the cups of water the depot servants offer him. The audacity of these men, thinking Ding Rong will rest when Wang Zhi is a few rooms down, in an unknown condition.

There’s other work to be done, of course. Reports to write. Interrogations to be had. But the administrative logistics that Ding Rong mastered over the years don’t feel so important now, the instinctive efficiency washed away by something frightening.

Frightening. Yes, Ding Rong thinks, the realization startling. He is afraid.

He pushes past the servants who implore him to wait, because waiting is the only thing he’s done this whole damn day and it’s yielded him nothing. He finds Wang Zhi’s room guarded, the trio’s faces stony and impassive, and Ding Rong nearly commands them to move aside.

It’s the urgent murmuring of the doctors that keeps him still.

You’ll only be in the way.

And so he clenches his jaw and paces, paces, paces.

*

Wang Zhi’s scream rattles the walls, and something in Ding Rong shatters.

*

It’s the middle of the night when the guards finally part, allowing the doctors to leave. Ding Rong is in front of them in the blink of an eye. One of the doctors exhales a heavy breath, the wrinkles near his eyes deepening. Ding Rong swallows hard and it feels like knives.

The doctors deliver facts with the kind of efficiency Ding Rong has lost. Each word hits him like a punch.

Resting. Minor stab wound to the shoulder, bruises to his face. Back burned; it will scar.

Ding Rong’s blood has started heating up when the doctor finishes, “He has a long road ahead of him.”

Ding Rong can read between the lines. Wang Zhi may need weeks, maybe months of recovery. And even then, he’ll never fully heal.

There’s another question Ding Rong wants to ask. Maybe the doctors can see it in his eyes, because one finally speaks up, “You may see him, but he’s heavily sedated and should stay that way for a while.”

His brow furrows a fraction; there’s something they aren’t telling him.

Again, the doctors are one step ahead of him. They look at Ding Rong with something close to pity.

“He woke up in the middle of treatment and thought he was still burning in the brothel.”

The world in front of him blurs, colors melding together as he struggles to stay on his feet.

Wang Zhi was panicking and Ding Rong wasn’t there for him.

He’s barely aware of thanking the doctors, who bow and take their leave, and he is once again alone.

He takes a deep breath, braces himself, and walks into the room.

There’s a low, desolate moan; it takes Ding Rong a second before he realizes it’s coming from his own throat.

Wang Zhi is lying on his side, facing away from Ding Rong - leaving Ding Rong with the perfect view of his bruised, bandaged back. Ding Rong draws closer, barely cognizant of his own actions; he dimly registers pain in his knees as he all but collapses at Wang Zhi’s side. Now that he’s closer, he can see the extent of the damage: the scratches, the already purpling bruises, the gnarled flesh that peeks out from the confines of the bandages’ edes. The sedative must be working, Ding Rong notes, because Wang Zhi’s breathing is steady and even as he sleeps.

The relief Ding Rong first felt when learning Wang Zhi was alive has dwindled, overshadowed by a burning, gnawing anger. As a habit, Ding Rong doesn’t humor the idea of regrets; living in the past impedes the efficiency of the present. But here, curled up beside the small, injured body of his Commander, Ding Rong permits himself remorse for this transgression. Such an utter abysmal failure in duty, such an unacceptable, avoidable cost. If he could transfer those injuries to his own body, he would do so without hesitation.

But such are the fantasies of the fortunate and the foolish. Ding Rong compartmentalizes the regret just as quickly as it initially sparked, a stone to drown himself with later when Wang Zhi is on the mend.

He refocuses on Wang Zhi, watches the rise and fall of his side as he sleeps, just to anchor himself, remind himself Wang Zhi is alive. He’d stay here all night if he could, keeping watch the way he could not before.

Mostly, he wishes he could touch him.

“Wang Zhi,” Ding Rong murmurs, calling his name like an apology, like a prayer, more emotion than syllable.

The Commander doesn’t stir. Ding Rong knew he wouldn’t, but still feels the sting of disappointment.

Ding Rong’s not sure how long he sits before he finally pulls himself to his feet. He brings his burned, bandaged hands together and bows, back bent in both contrition and purpose.

(He may have failed Wang Zhi at the brothel, but he won’t fail him now.)

Ding Rong straightens, and after a final long look, briskly takes his leave.

He has work to do.

*

The next morning, Ding Rong visits Jia Kui.

The man looks worse for the wear, sitting on a bed with his arm in a splint and breaths tinted with a wheeze. Ding Rong strides up to his bedside with no preamble, no pleasantries.

“What happened?” he barks.

Jia Kui gives Ding Rong a look, one that initially seems affronted by the clipped tone, but then quickly softens to something more complicated.

“Tang Fan was succeeding in de-escalating the situation. But once the fire lit and spread,” Jia Kui says, pausing to cough, “they attacked.”

Ding Rong’s jaw tightens as he sends a silent curse to Wan Tong. “Where were you?”

“In the shadows. Wang-daren directed me to stay hidden,” Jia Kui explains. “I did, until they attacked. Managed to kill two of them and get Wang-daren before they could hurt him. By then the room filled with smoke and the thieves were trying to kill as many as they could on their way out.”

“Surely you were not outclassed by a few rogue men,” Ding Rong says with a sneer.

Jia Kui’s laugh is gritty and hollow, followed by another cough.

“Have you ever fought in pure smoke, Ding-daren?” Jia Kui’s slight smile is unpleasant and humorless. “In a burning building, tripping over bodies, all while trying to protect someone?”

Ding Rong wants to snap, to scream that it doesn’t matter, he was supposed to protect Wang Zhi at all cost.  He shoves the irrationality down and reminds himself he’s here for information, not simply to vent his anger.

“So they attacked you,” Ding Rong continues, more a statement than a question.

Jia Kui nods, and he heaves a long, regretful breath. “Wang-daren and I were separated. I was knocked unconscious. Next thing I knew, I woke up here.”

Silence fills the space between them as Ding Rong digests this story. Wang Zhi was unharmed when Jia Kui rescued him, so any damages must have come when Wang Zhi was alone, disoriented in smoke.

Cowards, Ding Rong seethes. He clenches his hands, ignores the agonizing ache of his own injuries. Their deaths came far too swiftly.

Ding Rong turns without so much as a goodbye. He’s taken five steps forward when he hears Jia Kui say, “Ding-daren, there’s something else you should know.”

He pauses, sends a glance over his shoulder to the wounded guard. Jia Kui’s expression is born of shadows.

“One of them is still alive.”

*

The days go by. Ding Rong maintains order at the Western Depot, managing daily operations and fending off the presence of Shang Ming, whose questions about Wang Zhi’s conditions are far from innocent.

Every night after work, he visits Wang Zhi.

The doctors assure Ding Rong that Wang Zhi is doing as well as one could expect, given the severity of the injuries. They’ve been successful in staving off infection so far, which will be crucial for his healing going forward.

Sometimes Ding Rong recaps the day to Wang Zhi’s sleeping form, complaining about the nuisance of Shang Ming and commending the diligence of some of the workers. Other days, he sits beside him in silence, content just to be at his side.

Please wake up.

*

Days later, Wang Zhi does just that.

Ding Rong is sitting in a chair at his side, mind wandering, when he catches movement out of the corner of his eye. Wang Zhi’s face scrunches, his head lifting up as he stirs from his slumber. Ding Rong all but leaps forward, the chair tipping backward, forgotten, as he crouches at the bedside. His heart pounds, vision blurring - and when Wang Zhi opens his eyes and meets Ding Rong’s gaze, Ding Rong huffs a short, choppy breath in disbelief and hope.

“Du-gong?” he asks, soft and tentative in a way he would be ashamed of in any other circumstance.

Wang Zhi groans, runs his tongue along his dry, cracked lips.

“Rong’er,” Wang Zhi croaks, and something in Ding Rong that’s been dammed up bursts forward, flooding his entire being, body and soul.

Before he can drown in it, Wang Zhi’s expression shifts, as if he remembers where he is and what happened. Ding Rong aches to see fear replace confusion; he has never seen him look so small.

“You weren’t there,” Wang Zhi whispers, voice trembling.

Three little words, three little knives that go straight to Ding Rong’s heart. He isn’t sure which of them makes a mournful little sound as he shuffles closer, murmurs urgently, “I’m here now, Wang du-dong.”

Wang Zhi snuffles against the pillow, face softening, appeased. Ding Rong direly wishes to be struck down for ever instilling this fear in his Commander.

Ding Rong bows low, forehead touching the floor. He keeps his breathing steady as he confesses, “I failed you and deserve to die for it.”

From somewhere above him, Wang Zhi makes a displeased, tired sound. “No, you don’t.”

Ding Rong remains motionless, eyes shut tight. It’s not true, of course, and Ding Rong is halfway convinced Wang Zhi is simply saying this because he’s still under the effects of the sedatives. He won’t fight Wang Zhi about this, however - not with words, anyway. His body posture conveys the only rebuttal he needs.

A few seconds pass, and Wang Zhi exhales a breathy little sound. “C’mere. Ding Rong.”

Ding Rong rises to his knees and then to his feet, keeping his eyes downcast as he shuffles closer. He kneels again, this time at Wang Zhi’s side.

“Ding Rong,” Wang Zhi repeats, a note of surprise coloring his name. Ding Rong lifts his gaze to meet Wang Zhi’s wounded one, and it’s only then does he notice the tears dribbling down his cheeks. He’d feel embarrassed if he didn’t feel so raw.

Wang Zhi extends a hand until it’s dangling off the bedside, reaching for Ding Rong - who can only clasp that small hand in one of his own, careful to keep his grip loose enough not to hurt, but tight enough to channel everything he wants to say into it. Wang Zhi’s lips twitch in a smile for a brief second. I’m glad I can still see your smile.

The smile quickly fades, and Wang Zhi releases his hand. Ding Rong mourns its absence already.

“You’re hurt,” Wang Zhi says, sounding accusatory, annoyed that Ding Rong didn’t tell him sooner.

Ding Rong shakes his head, both in disagreement and disbelief that Wang Zhi could find these wounds comparable to what he’s sustained. He takes Wang Zhi’s hand, ignores the pain, and holds on tight.

“It’s nothing.”

Wang Zhi doesn’t seem to buy it, his gaze skeptical, but his need for comfort must outweigh the annoyance. He doesn’t let go of his hand this time.

“It all happened so fast,” Wang Zhi mumbles.

Ding Rong gently squeezes Wang Zhi’s hand. “You don’t have to talk about it, du-gong.”

Wang Zhi hums, a tired, dazed sound like he didn’t hear Ding Rong. “I don’t remember some of it. The smoke. Jia Kui grabbing me.”

“Jia Kui,” Ding Rong spits, allowing venom to seep in his tone so Wang Zhi can know just what he presently thinks of the guard.

There’s a flash of Wang Zhi’s smile again, though it appears sadder than before, worn at the edges.

“It wasn’t Jia Kui’s fault,” Wang Zhi murmurs, running his fingers against Ding Rong’s hand as if Ding Rong is the one in need of soothing and reassurance. “If it weren’t for him, I’d be dead.”

Ding Rong pauses at that, surprised at the leniency. Had this happened a few months ago, Wang Zhi would’ve had Jia Kui executed immediately. But, he supposes, Wang Zhi isn’t the same person he was a few months ago; maybe neither of them are.

“Sir,” he murmurs in acknowledgement of Wang Zhi’s decision.

Wang Zhi shuffles, trying to get more comfortable. He hisses, bares his teeth in pain from moving. Ding Rong is about to fetch the doctors to apply more medicine when Wang Zhi’s expression yet again drops, painted in hues of fear and apprehension, as if the memories hit him with physical force.

“I couldn’t see them when they snatched me from Jia Kui. They took me and I think they stabbed me and then I -”

Wang Zhi cuts off there, an unpleasant shiver racking down his spine, which makes him groan again. Ding Rong gently hushes him, trying to soothe him. “It’s alright, du-gong. It’s over now.”

Through the pain and anxiety, curiosity shines like a light in Wang Zhi’s eyes.

He opens the prison chamber room and shuts the door behind him. The thief is already tied up to the post, and he eyes Ding Rong warily as he approaches the side table. Ding Rong says nothing, doesn’t even look at the scum. He takes out a pouch, and unrolls the fabric to reveal knives and other jagged tools.

The sound of the thief’s sharp inhale makes Ding Rong smile in sadistic satisfaction.

The apprehension on Wang Zhi’s face lingers, like he doesn’t quite believe it. Ding Rong squeezes Wang Zhi’s hand, gentle and reassuring.

“You’re - you’re Ding-daren, right? Look, I already told your assistants what happened! My brother, the one who hurt Wang-daren - he’s dead! They’re all dead. I didn’t touch him, Ding-daren, I swear -”

Ding Rong holds up a knife, inspects the way the torch’s flame gleams in the silver.

Knife in hand, he turns to the thief in one slow, fluid motion.

“I took care of it,” Ding Rong says.

“I don’t care.”

Another tiny smile twists the corners of Wang Zhi’s lips, soft and dreamy. Ding Rong finds himself mirroring the expression.

(The screams echoed down the halls. It took hours for his assistants to clean up all the blood and flesh.)

Assured, Wang Zhi falls back asleep, still clutching Ding Rong’s hand.

Ding Rong lifts their joined hands, presses his lips to the back of Wang Zhi’s fingers.

Later, he will clean his knives and tools, one by one, and think of the fire.

You set fire to cities

you drowned armies

in the red sea of your rage

you mortgaged precious lands

to be at my side

[wrenhyperfixates]

The Gift

Pairing: Loki x reader Summary: Tony says no pets in the Tower, but since when has Loki ever listened to him? Warnings: like one curse word A/N: Any Tom Hiddleston stans out there should get the Easter egg in this one :)

Disclaimer: Picture not mine

“Oh, come on, Tony! Please,” you whined for the fifth time that week. “Not even just a little one?”

“Absolutely not. It’d make a mess of the place. Not to mention that this isn’t exactly the safest place for a pet.”

“So it gets into a lab accident and we have a super dog. Not the worst thing ever,” you said, half joking, though Tony actually seemed kind of intrigued now. You changed your tactic before he got any ideas. “Besides, it won’t make a mess. I’ll train it. And not all dogs shed.”

“I guess, but someone might be allergic,” Tony countered, thinking he delivered a winning argument.

“We can get a hypoallergenic dog,” you shot back, though you’d already checked with almost everyone and no one said they were.

Tony grumbled, running out of excuses to give as to why you couldn’t get the pet you’ve been pleading for the past few months. Tony had become somewhat of a father figure to you during your time in the Tower, and you’d been pretty sure you could use that to your advantage. Sadly, though, nothing had been working. In fact, that relationship had been more of a detriment to you than anything else as you didn’t want to make him upset with you. Otherwise, you might just go out and buy the pet of your choosing. Maybe even more than one. Although, to be fair, it was Tony’s building, and he was allowing you to live here rent free, so you should probably just drop it. But you really wanted a pet, and you knew you weren’t the only one.

“Sorry, but still no.”

“Fine,” you relented with an overdramatic sigh. “For now, anyway.”

“Thank you,” he said, going back to whatever he was tinkering with before you came in.

You pouted in the lab for a bit, hoping he might change his mind, but to no avail. Eventually you slinked out and went into one of the common rooms, plopping on the couch between Peter and Bucky.

“So, how’d it go?” Peter asked after popping a handful of Skittles into his mouth.

“No luck," you responded sourly, stealing some of the colorful candy from him. “None of my strategies are working.”

“What if we tried for something smaller?” Bucky offered. “Like a gerbil.”

“I guess,” you grumbled as you flopped back in exasperation. “But we’ve had our eye on that Cocker Spaniel for a while. A gerbil just wouldn’t be the same.”

“Yeah, I know.”

You all sat in silence for a bit and watched as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck argued about what hunting season it is, mulling over the situation. Admitting defeat seemed to be the most likely option at the moment, but you hated to just give up when you were sure there was a way to get what you wanted and not have Tony be upset with you.

“I’ve got it!” Peter suddenly shouted, bubbling with excitement. “We go and adopt it and then tell Mr. Stark that it just followed us home!”

“Except he wouldn’t let us keep it even then,” you stated, having already thought of that yourself.

“So we hide it. Simple,” Bucky chimed in. “By the time he notices, Peter will be so emotionally bonded to it, Tony wouldn’t dare take it away.”

“Great idea, Mr. Bucky,” Peter said, high-fiving him.

“Yeah, if only there weren’t cameras everywhere. Not to mention a home system that tells him everything,” you added, growing more upset at the lack of options by the minute.

You pushed up from the couch as the episode’s end was heralded by Porky Pig’s “Th-th-that’s all folks.” After waving bye to your friends, you headed to your room to brainstorm in silence. The figure lurking in the shadows didn’t even register in your mind, so you had no idea that a certain god heard your whole conversation. Not only that, he was about to fix all your problems.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Mr. Loki, where are we going?” Peter inquired as he and Bucky were led into the city by the trickster god.

“All will be revealed, spiderling. I assure you.”

Bucky just shrugged when Peter looked at him, and so they continued following Loki through the busy New York streets. After hearing about your plight, he had hatched a plan to get you what you wanted. All it took was a bit of research on that infernal computer device, and he was pretty sure he’d found the right shelter. It was a far walk from the Tower, and since neither he nor his travel companions could drive, he resorted to taking the subway, an experience he’d rather not have again. Finally, they arrived at the destination, and Peter was about to burst with excitement.

“Mr. Loki!” he gasped. “This is exactly where we were looking for dogs!”

“But I have a feeling you knew that already,” Bucky said.

“Indeed,” Loki replied. “I must confess that I overheard your conversation in the common room yesterday.”

“Oh I get it now. You’re doing this for-”

“No time for speculation, we are here to get me a pet,” Loki interrupted, “Go on. After you, spiderling.”

Peter, still blissfully unaware of Loki’s true intentions, led the way into the shelter. They were greeted with the sound of happy barking and the distinct smell of dog treats. Loki had to admit, he wasn’t the biggest fan of animals. He found some to be more agreeable than others, such as a good steed, but overall he thought them to be more of a nuisance than anything else. Thor had bought a cat for Jane once, and it tore up half of his capes before he presented it to her. Loki was glad his brother kept it away from him and his belongings. Not to mention he didn’t appreciate the sheer number of similarities people said he had with felines. Dogs, however, he was fine with, so long as they were trained properly.

“Hello, how may I help...” the girl behind the front desk trailed off, her eyes going wide with excitement upon realizing who the trio was. “Y-you’re... Oh my gosh. My friends are never going to believe this! But, uh, how may I help you?”

None of the heroes were particularly comfortable with the attention and star struck gaze of the girl, so it took them a minute to get over their sheepishness. Loki looked at both his companions before realizing he would have to do the talking. He sighed but knew the look on your face would be worth it. You’d look at him the same way you had so many times before, whenever he did little things for you, whether it be rubbing your shoulders after a stressful day or brewing you a cup of tea on a chilly morning. The two of you weren’t dating, exactly, but you weren’t exactly not dating, either. Loki found himself incapable of asking you to make it official, lest it ruin what you currently had. He didn’t know what he’d do if you no longer casually held his hand or rested your head on his lap while reading in the evenings. Even though he was fairly certain you felt the same way, that last bit of doubt wouldn’t leave him alone. Besides, despite usually being quite a great thinker, he couldn’t come up with a good way to confess. He supposed that kissing you would do the trick, but he wasn’t brave enough for that, so getting you a dog would have to suffice for now.

“My friends here were looking at some of your dogs recently, and there is one that they are quite smitten with. We are here to adopt it.”

“That’s right! A Cocker Spaniel named Bobby,” Peter offered. “He hasn’t already been adopted, has he?”

“Nope!” the girl responded in a perky voice. “He’s all yours as soon as you fill out the proper paperwork.”

“Mr. Loki, are you sure about this. Mr. Stark told me I couldn’t get a dog.”

“Exactly. He told you, not me,” Loki replied, picking up a pen.

“Well, yeah, but I don’t really think he meant it just for me. I think it was more of a general kind of thing.” Loki and Bucky looked at him in exasperation for a second, wondering how he could still be so innocent, before he caught on. “Oh, ok. I get it now. Carry on.”

The three boys huddled around the page as Loki filled it out, providing Tony’s credit card as payment when the time came. It seemed appropriate, Loki thought, that Stark should have to pay for making you upset, and taking that in the most literal sense was the only somewhat acceptable way, it seemed. No longer could The God of Mischief go around stabbing those who hurt the ones he cared about. In a way, he missed the good old days, as he referred to them, but his new life led him to you, which made the rest of it fine with him, he decided, as he finished his signature with a flourish.

“There,” he declared, admiring the loop of his fancy, cursive L. “Finished.”

The girl disappeared into the back, only to return with Bobby a moment later. After giving the paperwork a quick once over, she handed the leash over to Bucky, who couldn’t stop the smile from growing on his face. Peter immediately bent down to scratch the dark brown dog behind his ears.

“Who’s a good boy? You are! You’re a good boy!” he cooed.

“Spiderling, he hasn’t even done anything yet,” Loki said, somewhat perplexed, as Bobby rolled over onto his back, stopping at the god’s feet. “Though, I do suppose he is a rather good boy,” he added, an inexplicable smile tugging at his lips.

One stop at the pet store and a taxi ride later, both unknowingly paid for by Tony, they arrived back at the Tower with the newest member of their family. It wasn’t even ten minutes later that Tony strolled into the room where they were playing with Bobby. He stopped dead in his tracks as he noticed the dog, happily playing tug of war with Bucky.

“What is that?” he asked, pointing at the Cocker Spaniel.

“A dog,” Loki deadpanned.

“Yeah, no shit. I mean what is it doing here?”

“I adopted it. Really Stark, for a supposed genius you ask a lot of obvious questions.”

“Don’t get snippy with me, Rock of Ages,” Tony quipped back, gritting his teeth a little. “This is my Tower and I say no pets, except for maybe a goldfish.”

“Yes, this is your Tower, but it is our home, is it not? As thus, we should be allowed the simple pleasures of life, such as having a pet. After all, studies show that having a dog can reduce stress, something I’d say is rather important for people in our position.”

Tony glared for a minute, not really having a good response to that. Then he called your name, certain you were behind this.

“No, Mr. Stark,” Peter said. “They had nothing to do with this. Don’t blame them.”

“That’s right,” Bucky also defended you. “It was all us.”

It was already too late, though, and you appeared in the doorway. Loki had been planning on presenting your gift to you in some cute or clever way, but all he had time to do was a magic up a bow on the pup’s head, a green one, of course. Bobby started happily yapping at your arrival and trotted over to you, looking for a scratch behind the ear.

“Oh. My. Gosh. He’s adorable!” you exclaimed as he rolled over for belly rubs. “You finally got a dog for me, Tony? Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Sorry, but I can’t take credit for this,” he said, turning down the hug you were offering him by putting a hand up. Then he pointed at the mischievous trio whose doing it was.

“Well actually, it was mainly Loki,” Bucky said, nudging the god in the ribs.

“But Mr. Bucky, we all- Oh wait. Awwww,” Peter gushed as he realized what Loki was feeling.

“Oh. In that case, thank you Loki!” you shouted, throwing your arms around him in a hug.

Without a second’s hesitation, he wrapped his arms around you, too, returning the embrace. “You are quite welcome, my darling.”

You nuzzled into the spot where his shoulder met his neck. In turn, he put his head on your own and breathed in your scent, forgetting the others in the room for a minute. It seemed you had, too, because you looked equally startled when Tony cleared his throat.

“Ok, fine. He can stay,” Tony conceded, “but only if he doesn’t wreck the place. And keep him out of the lab.”

You all chorused your thanks and, despite his harsh tone, could tell that Tony had already taken to Bobby, who was now the center of attention again. After playing with him for a bit, Bucky made some excuse about having to leave and took Peter with him, both of them wanting to give you some alone time with Loki.

“This really is very sweet, Loki,” you told him after a few minutes.

“Think nothing of it. It is my gift to you.”

“I feel bad, though. I don’t have anything for you,” you said, biting your lip. “Well, actually, I do have one thing that I can give you.”

“Oh? What would that be, my darling?”

The end of his sentence was nearly cut off by your lips crashing into his. The kiss was a little sloppy, but filled with so much love and desire that neither one of you cared. After gathering his wits, Loki kissed you back, cupping your cheeks as you grabbed his shoulders, still a little unsteady from surging forward.

“That,” you breathlessly whispered, pulling away as Bobby began barking again.

Later that night, Tony found you and Loki passed out on the couch, Bobby sprawled out across both your laps.

“Huh,” he mumbled, draping a blanket over your shoulders. “I guess it’s a good thing they got that dog, after all.”

[nerdyfangirl67]

Rare Jewel - NCIS Reader Insert

Pairing: Gibbs x plus-size reader

Warning: language

Word count: 1673

Requested by: @soggy-enchilada​

“Can I please request a Gibbs x plus size reader? Maybe they have to go undercover to a gala or smth together and the reader walks out in this figure hugging dress feeling and looking FLY AS FUCK and Gibbs is like hot damn. You get where I’m going?”

A/N: Alright, trustno1 is the reader’s chat URL, just for clarification (its a nod at something, send me an ask if you can figure it out! ;) ). I made up the gala name for this fic, at least to my knowledge, too. I sincerely hope this is what you were looking for @soggy-enchilada​. I haven’t ever written a plus-size reader POV, and I truly hope this is what you wanted. I loved this idea BTW!!  Anyways, here it is!

You had been staring at Gibbs, who unaware, had been conversing with Director Vance in the hallway of the upper level of the NCIS offices for the last fifteen minutes. The conversation wasn’t what had caught your attention. Rather it was the tall, silver-haired fox of a man that you had been watching. And this intense staring hadn’t gone unnoticed by your team members, or at least by DiNozzo.

He creeps up to your desk the first chance he has, an all-knowing “I know what you’re doing” falling from his lips. You, of course, vehemently deny anything, a little too quickly with an “I don’t know what you are talking about DiNozzo.” This causes him to let out a bark of a laugh. “Sure you don’t sweetcheeks. And I bet that Director Vance will love to know that you’ve been staring at him for the last fifteen minutes. In fact, why don’t I go tell him for you now.” He turns from your desk, heading towards the steps to the second floor.

You let out a frustrated hiss, which momentarily drew the attention of McGee. “DiNozzo, get back here.” He laughs loudly, grabbing McGee’s attention once more, as he turns and saunters back to your desk. “You’ve got it bad. And good ole Jethro doesn’t even know.” Despite your current situation, you had to let out a small laugh at his use of Gibbs’ first name. You know he would never call Gibbs that to his face.

Gibbs was still completely in the dark about the way you felt about him, which wasn’t like him. Gibbs, usually, was rather intuitive, yet despite the many obvious tells you had revealed in the past two years, some accidentally and some on purpose, he still thought you felt no more for him than a coworker.

“At least I know what I want.” You say in response, giving his a teasing reminder that he still hadn’t found ‘the one’, or at least focused on one woman in a long time. He waves a hand at you as if to distract you from the topic. “Okay, yeah. But at least I’m not drooling over our boss.” You make a face in response. “You’re wrong.” It’s the best you can come up with, and you know DiNozzo is going make fun of you for it.

“You’re wrong? Is that all you’ve got? You’re worse than Probie. At least he can come up with comebacks better than that.” He responds in jest, opening his mouth to say more but a voice stops him.

“DiNozzo, knock that shit off and get back to work.” Gibbs’ voice is as cold and unyielding as steel as he makes his way back to the bullpen. His voice startles you, making you hope he didn’t hear any of what the two of you were talking about. DiNozzo made a face at you as he backs away from your desk.

“The Military Officers Hall of Fame and Awards Gala is this Friday night and Director Vance has agreed on an undercover operation. Y/L/N and I will be attending as a couple, while DiNozzo will be going as a member of the waitstaff and McGee will be running interference in one of the surveillance vans.” He says, his voice leaving no room for argument. You nodded, nervousness already consuming you at the thought of having to find a dress that fits you comfortably. DiNozzo surprisingly doesn’t say anything except a quick “Alright” and McGee answers with a number of questions regarding the statistics of the undercover mission, which Gibbs gruffly answers with as little syllables as possible.

A ding sounding from your desktop computer, grabbing your attention. A notification blinks on your chat app, letting you know you have a new message. You open the app and see it’s from DiNozzo. You roll your eyes dramatically, knowing he is watching you from his desk before opening it.

DiNozzotheGFather68: ooooh, a whole night pretending to be a couple with Gibbs? 😉😉

trustno1: go find yourself a tray DiNozzo! i know you are gonna have to practice to make it believable

DiNozzotheGFather68: oh, bite me! no, actually, why don’t you go bite Gibbs 😉😏😗

trustno1: eww DiNozzo, stop being gross

You shut the chat app after that, not ready to deal with another round of DiNozzo’s relentless teasing. You decide to try and get some of the paperwork finished from the ever-growing stack on your desk to distract you from the growing anxiety filling your chest.  

---- The rest of the day passes uneventfully and soon, you are leaving to go home, dreading the fact that you will have to scrounge through your closet to find something that would be dressy enough for the gala. You highly doubt that you’ll find a dress, which means you’ll have to go shopping, which is something else that you dread.

The ride home is short, shorter than you would have liked today, and before you know it, you are changed into your lounging clothes and staring at your closet, your favorite snack in hand, paired with a much-needed glass of your favorite drink. Opening your closet doors, you heave out a sigh at the task ahead of you. You could already see two potential dresses but you knew that when you pull them off the rack, you’ll change your mind.

After downing your drink, you pull out the first one off and immediately throw it onto your bed. That one would be one of the last ones you would wear. You would sooner go in your rattiest pajamas, in front of Gibbs, than wear that one. The second one wasn’t much better in your opinion but you tried it on anyway, not really wanting to go dress shopping tomorrow. This dress was a black mermaid style dress, with a large taffeta bottom and lace sleeves. The tag was still on it and you couldn’t even recall where you had gotten it from in the first place.

Upon first glance you feel rather confident in the dress, but the more you stare at your reflection, all you can see are the flaws in the dress. It was a bit tight across the chest and the mermaid style made it almost impossible to move, not to mention that you had no spot to put your standard issue handgun. It didn’t take you long to shed the dress and turn to the second one, a deep red velvet bodycon style dress with spaghetti straps and a flare along the bottom.

You reluctantly pull it off the hanger, and wiggle into it. Dread settles on your shoulders as you turn to look in the body length mirror. That dread quickly flies from your shoulders though, replaced with a feeling of astonishment and surprise. Not only did the dress fit, you hadn’t thought it would since it had been sitting in your closet for months, but it fit well. It hugged your thick curves and made your chest, and your butt as well, look far more pronounced, which you liked.

“Damn”, you murmur as you continue to look at your reflection. “I look like a badass bitch in this dress.” You were starting to feel excited about the prospect of spending the evening being Gibbs’ date, especially now that you looked so good.

----

Two days later, and you find yourself getting ready for the prestigious gala. You had your hair up in a fancy updo, the loose tendrils hanging around your face were casually curled. You had on your favorite diamond pendant and were wearing your sexiest black heels. You had just finished touching up your makeup when you saw the time.

“Shit.” You exclaim, grabbing your gun and shoving it into your thigh holster, which you barely managed to cover with the edge of your dress, and your shiny, almost maroon colored, clutch. You quickly, or as quickly as you can dressed as you are, get into your crappy little car and floored it to the event’s location. The engine sputters a few times in protest at the speed along the way, but you make it to the large establishment only five minutes later than when you were supposed to be.

You enter the nearly empty lobby, scanning it for the tall, muscled figure of Gibbs. You don’t see him and decide, after sucking in a deep, fortifying breath, you pull open the ballroom doors. His eyes found yours immediately, widening at the sight of you. You maintain eye contact with him as you make your way through the crowded room, past dancing couples and stately individuals.

When you reach him, he lets out a slow uncharacteristic whistle. He smiles at you, offering you a hand. You take it and he suavely spins you before pulling you close. “You, agent Y/L/N, look beautiful. Absolutely breathtaking.” He places a hand on your lower back, leading you to the dance floor. A slow, classic number starts just as the two of you reach the dance floor. He pulls you into an embrace, moving you into a slow two-step.

You rest your head on his shoulder, caught up in the act of pretending to be a couple with Gibbs. I like him, a lot. “Who?” Gibbs' voice startled you out of your daydreaming. “Hmm?”

“You said you like him? Who?” You quickly realize upon hearing his words that you had said those four words out loud.

“Him, you.” You say before you even know what you’re saying. “I like you. A lot.” He slowly breaks out in a smile. “Took you long enough.” He says simply.

“Wait what?” You ask quietly. “You knew?”

“I’ve known for a while. I just wanted to hear you say it.” He said, brushing a tendril of your hair away from your face. “And I like you too.”

Your heart thumps widely in your chest. All you could think about was what life would be like if the man holding you was yours . What a truly wonderful life it would be and you felt that you were finally on the way to this life.

[mnictasbcl]

2:42 am

For #dbhcolorsofdeviancy, prompt:

June 1st:  Watching a human sleep. @connor-sent-by-cyberlife

Rating: Teen

Characters: Connor, Hank Anderson, Sumo, Amanda

Relationships: Connor & Hank Anderson

Additional Tags: Fluff, then, Angst, Nightmares, Hurt, Panic attack, sort of, Swearing

Summary: Connor comes back home with Hank after the Revolution. His first night after everything that happened, including the mind control by Amanda, would be fine, right?

Alternatively: Connor finds himself in Hank’s room at 2:42 in the morning.

Story below! Or, read it on AO3

The sun was setting on the day the revolution had succeeded. Rays of light glinted off the rusted metal truck that was Chicken Feed, as Hank and Connor, human and android, embraced. In that moment, none of their differences had mattered, not the disagreements from before, nor the variations in their biology. The hug was warm and loving, metal encased in artificial skin just as squishy, just as human.

They couldn’t stay there forever, of course. Chicken Feed wasn’t even currently open to serve food, and the day was drawing on. In silent agreement, the two stepped back before making their way over to the car.

The door shut. The hula girl on the dashboard bobbed back and forth, back and forth.

“You got someplace to stay, Connor?”

“No, Lieutenant.”

“Hank.”

Connor raised a brow, blue LED swirling in thought, before coming to realisation that Hank wanted him to call him that.

“Of course, Lieutenant.”

“Little shit.” The man breathed, slotting keys into the ignition of the car, no real heat behind his tone. “I was going to offer for you to stay at my place. But maybe with that snark, you don’t want to come back and meet Sumo again—”

“I wouldn’t wish to intrude, but… I think it would be beneficial to have a safe place to stay.” He fiddled with his tie, head twitching briefly to the side. Wearing a suit after being in the more comfortable deviant clothes definitely wasn’t pleasant. He’d much rather shed the tie and jacket for the beanie and baggy clothes, but he was still on the fence about such matters.

“You just want to pet the damn dog again.”

Connor couldn’t help it, he snorted. When Hank glanced over, he covered it up with clearing his throat. If he’d still been a machine, maybe he would have retaliated something about probabilities or how he could not ‘want’ anything. Instead, he pulled off the tie and remarked,

“I like dogs.”

 ___________________

 It wasn’t a lie at all. As they arrived home—back at Hank’s home, of course—Connor couldn’t help but feel eager to see the Saint Bernard again. His fingers itched, somewhat remembering the silky feel of the dog’s fur under his fingertips from their brief encounter that one night.

And it seemed Sumo was just as eager to meet the android again, because, as the two walked through the house, as soon as the dog saw Connor, he let out a deep bark, paws padding along the floor. He smiled and leant down to pet him.

Hank cleared his throat dramatically, after a few minutes of belly rubs and ear scratches.

“Sumo? Hello to your master?”

The dog whined and nuzzled his head closer into Connor’s touch.

“Traitor dog.”

Sumo barked in response, tail wagging, sweeping on the floor and almost tripping Hank up as he attempted to step around the pair.

“Jesus Christ.”

Connor glanced up. “No, it’s me, Connor.”

“I changed my mind, get out of my house.”

The android looked up swiftly, processing, almost taking it seriously as his cue to leave before detecting sarcasm. He chuckled, making no effort to get up until he’d deemed enough attention given to the canine. Okay, nevermind, there was never enough attention to give to Sumo, but he had to stop at some point.

As he got up, he looked up the time briefly. 8.54pm. It was getting fairly late into the evening, but he knew Hank hadn’t eaten at Chicken Feed.

“Would you like me to cook you a meal, Lieu- Hank?”

The main raised a brow at him in question.

“I haven’t observed you eating yet, and it is not healthy to skip meals—”

“I’ll order some takeout.” Hank waved a hand in dismissal.

Connor narrowed his eyes. It was something he could recall feeling distantly before he deviated, whenever he saw Hank eating something incredibly unhealthy, such as that time with the burger. The levels of lipids and—it was annoyance, he realised. No, was it? The android tilted his head to the side in thought. He wasn’t sure if he could pin the correct emotion on it, being new to deviancy, but he definitely felt as if he should stop the man from ordering out.

“I insist.”

“Yeah? Well, I insist.”

“But I can cook—”

“It’s been a long day. Hell, you’ve been busy today fighting in an android revolution. I think I can order a burger.”

Connor couldn’t help but shake his head.

“No burger? Fine, pizza time it is.”

Exasperation. That was what it was, he decided, watching in defeat as the man took a leaflet out from the kitchen draw and mumbled the number of the pizza place under his breath. But maybe the man was right. He wasn’t sure if this was what humans called tiredness, but the revolution had certainly taken a toll on his systems. And maybe it was okay for Hank to indulge in less optimal food choices once in a while. His diet would certainly grow to be healthier in the future if Connor had a choice in it.

 ___________________

 The pizza arrived, Connor snuck Sumo a small piece of it, got scolded by Hank for being a hypocrite- all in all, it was an eventful evening. Definitely not the sort of thing machine Connor would have imagined himself doing. But something the real Connor surely did, and he loved every moment of it. Apart from the scolding, of course.

It was drawing on 9.29pm, an unusual time to be finishing a full meal, when Hank switched off the TV, stretching. They’d whiled away the time watching the news after the revolution, seeing the androids celebrating in the streets. Connor felt tired looking at them. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be with them- on the contrary, but the day had indeed been exhausting enough. Perhaps he would attend the parties he knew Jericho might throw in the coming weeks, once all the politics and such things had settled down.

Pointing Sumo to his bed, Hank got up from the couch, stretching. “I’m gonna call it a day. You—” he paused, glancing to Connor, expression shifting as he seemed deep in thought about something. “You can, uh, stay on the couch and… rest? I don’t know what you do. But you can, you know, do it on the couch.” He cringed at his choice of wording.

“Thank you, Hank. Androids don’t rest, but I can go into a mode of stasis in order to recharge and perform system updates—”

“Sounds like sleeping to me.”

Connor pursed his lips, looking displeased. “In a crude manner of speaking… yes. The couch will be fine, thank you.”

Hank nodded. “Great. Well, have a nice stasis. Don���t let the… android bed bugs bite.”

As he walked out the room, Connor blinked, thinking over the statement. “Bed bugs…” He murmured, LED circling yellow. “But this is a couch.”

He shrugged off the quandary eventually, storing it in his mind for later to think over, before adjusting his seating position on the couch. It would be easier to lay down, in case he startled the Lieutenant, finding him sleeping sitting up. Of course, androids used to stand up in stations built around the city to go into stasis, but that was before. It was funny to think of it like that, when before was simply yesterday and all the time before the success of the revolution.

Connor pushed aside the cushions before laying down on the couch, eyes flicking shut. He took a few breaths, which were usually unnecessary but helped to calm his systems and it was in a few moments that he fell into stasis.

 But strangely, sometimes, stasis could produce images in his mind. He was a detective model, perhaps it was a way of thinking of possibilities and probabilities of things happening in the world. One would assume, then, that these images would be realistic.

Tonight, however, something seemed fantastical about them. His inner eyes snapped open, and he was in a swirling snowstorm. His arms clutched around his middle, sensors picking up the frigid temperatures. It wasn’t dissimilar to the scene he’d experienced earlier that day in his Zen Garden, when he’d been standing up on that stage, Markus giving his speech, and Amanda had pulled him out of reality.

But there were changes. The way out… Kamski’s secret way out of this control over his systems… it wasn’t there. The paths were all different, winding and winding on, not leading to the stone platform where he could place his hand and resume control over his own body. He followed the winding paths, Amanda’s voice whispering in his ears, feeling as if he’d never reach anywhere, not in time.

You’ve failed, Connor.

The paths stopped. He could see the trellis in the distance, roses snaking up it, choking it, further and further into the sky. Suddenly, he could see the glint of the escape he was meant to reach, somewhere up there in the heavens.

Connor picked up his pace, pulling his hands away from his sides, ignoring the ice creeping over his fingers, and grasped at the trellis. Pulling himself up, he managed to find a foothold.

Cyberlife always planned for you to become compromised.

He grit his teeth as the thorns dug into his hands but ignored the flares of pain and the red warnings flashing in his vision. He had to get to the top. Had to get away, had to…

We just had to wait for the right moment to resume control of your program…

Somewhere in his mind, as if he could see what his body was doing, out of his control, an image flashed. Connor wasn’t on the couch anymore; he wasn’t in Hank’s house. No… it couldn’t be… had he never hugged Hank outside Chicken Feed? Had the revolution never ended?

He was up on that stage again. Markus was speaking, and Amanda was twisting his limbs to her will.

Don’t have any regrets. You did what you were designed to do.

The escape was too far away. His hands slipped, the snow making the trellis slick with moisture, and he lost his footing. The escape was getting further and further out of reach, and there was nothing he could do, except fall down and down and—

You accomplished your mission.

 Connor awoke with a start.

He shot up off the couch as if it had wounded him, breaths stuttering in and out. Sumo looked up at him from where he sat in his bed, whining and looking at the android with concern in his honey brown eyes.

“I’m…” Connor breathed, hand hovering over his LED. It was flashing a jarring red. “I’m…”

He didn’t understand. Out of all the times he’d experienced those sorts of images during stasis, he’d never had any like that… never had any that left his thirium pump beating heavily in his chest, his hands trembling, never…

Cautiously, he made his way back onto the couch, perching on the edge of it. Hands resting on his knees, willing his LED to circle back to yellow, then back to blue—

This trepidation, this fear, was this what came with being human?

Connor closed his eyes. Saw Amanda, saw the gun in his hands, saw the trellis with its blood red roses. Opened his eyes.

He brought his arms around himself, in a sort of self-soothing. It wasn’t real. It was okay. It was just imaging. Just his overzealous detective software figuring out what could happen- no, what could have happened. The revolution had happened. And they’d won. He hadn’t shot Markus, he’d reached the escape and he was free. Finally free. If he went into his Zen Garden now, the roses would be withered and dead, but the waters still and calm, no sign of Amanda anywhere.

Knowing the truth and hard facts made him feel a little more tethered to reality. Lines of yellow cut through the red of his LED. Maybe none of it was true. But… why wasn’t he completely back to normal? He glanced to his jittering hands, and then to the Hank’s bedroom door.

Right. Hank. For some reason, that thought that had lodged itself in his mind during the dream—whatever it was. The thought that none of it had ever happened, that Hank had never brought him into his home, and it had come to stay.

He groaned. He was in the man’s house right now, sitting on his couch and staring at his dog. It didn’t make any sense.

Then again, not a lot of being human had made sense to him that evening. All he wanted in that moment was to dispel the rumours his mind was conjuring, and the solution appeared to be behind that bedroom door.

With a sigh, he got back off the couch, glancing around the room briefly before quietly making his way to Hank’s bedroom door. He raised his hand to knock, before changing his mind. It was 2:42am, not an optimal time to wake the man. So instead, he pushed open the door silently, having learned the last time he’d been in this room where to push it to so that it didn’t creak.

One glance over the room told him it was dark. Well, no shit, Connor, his inner voice muttered, sounding a lot like Hank. Blinking, eyes adjusting to the change, he managed to make out the shape of Hank sleeping on his bed, one leg hanging off the edge, face half pressed against the pillow, cheek squished.

He nodded. Hank was there, he was alive, and he’d certainly let Connor into his house, so therefore none of the bad stuff in his… nightmare… was true. He could just leave and go back into stasis on the couch.

Except, he found he didn’t want to leave the room. Feet planted stubbornly on the floor, carrying out their own form of deviancy to his logical thinking. He sighed. He then caught sight of a chair in the corner of the room.

Connor shrugged. Sitting down in the chair, he found it wasn’t too uncomfortable. In fact, he found sitting up like this a better and more familiar position than lying down on the couch had been. And from this viewpoint, he could see Hank wherever he looked, chest rising and falling. The minutes ticked on. The android found a sense of peace in watching Hank sleep, LED going yellow, yellow, yellow, before finally back to ocean blue. Hank was safe. Hank was sleeping, just like he’d said he was going to earlier. This was the reality. He was in control of his own body, and he would do as he pleased with it, which meant in this moment, watching Hank sleep.

Maybe being human didn’t make much sense to him, but in that moment… it was pleasant.

Eventually, with serenity falling back over him and his mind focused on rest, it wasn’t long before he slipped back into a dreamless stasis.

 ___________________

 Hank awoke later that morning, the sun shining through the blinds, to find his bedroom door wide open, Sumo laying over his legs, and Connor sitting on the chair across from his bed, eyes fallen shut.

“Fuckin’ android.” He mumbled, affectionately.

[kurlyfrasier]

Terrified: Part 4

Raph x Reader

Synopsis: Raph saves you from ruffians one night in an alley after watching out for you for weeks without you knowing. Which leads you to getting to know the guys and becoming part of the family. But Raph keeps a distance and you don’t understand why. 

Word Count: 1708

Warnings: None

I woke up later than intended- much later, as in waking in the afternoon later- red-eyed and weary from the tears shed the night before. I had decided, once I had calmed down enough to think beyond losing the boys- most especially Raph- that tonight would be my last movie night. At least, for a while. I also planned on telling them they need not walk me home after work. Granted, I had no idea how I planned on convincing them that they weren’t needed. 

Maybe I could tell them I’m moving? Getting a new job?

I sighed, looking into the mirror. If tonight was going to be my last night seeing Ra- them, then I would make the most of it. I decided I would look my best, without looking desperate...hopefully. Sadly, this meant I did not get to start my new book since l only had about an hour until Mikey would be here to pick me up. Yet another reason to stop burdening the boys. Regretting the fact that I wouldn’t get to wear pajamas like I usually do on movie nights, I trudged to my closet.

A little over an hour later Mikey found me in the middle of brushing just a tad bit of make-up on; to cover up my red-rimmed eyes. 

“Whoa angelcakes,” he drawled once I stepped out of the bathroom, eyeing my long, fitted sweater dress- because it gets cold in the lair- and warm leggings with comfortable Chuck Taylors. 

See? Not desperate. Comfy.

“Raph is gonna lov-” He stopped himself short when I gave him a quizzical look. “I mean, you look hot, dudette. Got any plans tonight?” he wiggled, what one would call, his eyebrows, erupting a giggle out of me. 

“Only to hang out with my besties, that’s all,” I shrugged, grabbing my phone, hoping he wouldn’t comment about my not-so-usual outfit once we got to the lair. I really did not want it made more obvious than it already is.

“Sounds like the best plan, but are you sure you don’t wanna bring pj’s for after?”

“I’m sure, Mikey,” I smiled reassuringly up at him as he plucked me up out of the window and onto the roof. “These are just as comfortable as pajamas, promise.”

“Okay then, let’s go,” he helped me onto his shell. “Can’t wait to beat you in a new racing game I got,” he hopped from roof to roof, holding me tight. I couldn’t help but compare his smaller, bulky size to Raph. I don’t think I would have been able to hold on to his shell quite as well.

“You’re on, man. But don’t come crying to me when you lose.”

He barked out a laugh and we stayed silent until we got to the man-hole cover.

“Hey, angelcakes,” Mikey started sheepishly when we got to the bottom of the ladder, scratching the back of his neck. “I wanted to ask…”

“Yeah?” I gave him an encouraging smile.

“Did somethin’ spook you last night?” He blurted out.

“No,” I furrowed my brows, confused about where this is coming from. Unless…

“Raph said you were running for your life after you got off the subway. I just wanted to make sure everything is okay.”

“Oh,” I tried thinking of an excuse, averting my gaze. “I just didn’t want to be a burden, is all.”

Not a complete lie.

“A burden?” He looked shocked as I turned toward their home and started walking that way, hoping to hide my despondency. “You’re not a burden, angelcakes! Besides, before that night in the alley, Raph was already-”

I stopped in my tracks as Mikey sauntered ahead.

“I mean, we like making sure you're okay. We don’t want a repeat of that night we first met,” he continued rambling, but I wasn’t listening. I wanted to know what he was gonna say about Raph. After a few steps he realized I wasn’t next to him anymore. “Come on, Y/n. Don’t want ya to get lost.”

I nodded, unwilling to ask my question as we continued our trek to the lair. I took a deep, calming breath to brace myself before entering the living room area where I knew Splinter, the wonderful father that he is, would be prepping for homemade pizza. Donnie had made an old brick oven not long ago and built it directly underneath a grate above that they only opened when baking pizza so the smoke would have an escape. I found it ingenious because now they could have pizza whenever they wanted. Which was always. A small smile formed at the thought.

Not five steps in and Raph blocked my path, arms crossed as he assessed me for injuries. I stared straight into his chest, unable to meet his all-seeing gaze. He would know something was wrong the moment we made eye contact, he always did.

“Bro, she’s fiiiine,” Mikey sang, lightly punching Raph’s shoulder as he walked by. “I would never let anything happen to her. She is my precious sister, after all.”

Raph ignored him, grunting in approval with a curt nod before walking away. Allowing me to breathe again, not realizing I had held my breath in the first place.

~~~~~~~~~~

Raph was anxious to see you. He had been attempting to work it off all day, to no avail. Everytime he closed his eyes he saw you, standing in front of him, looking small, keeping your thoughts to yourself. 

He growled in frustration, clenching his hands into fists. If only he knew what had you so utterly shattered last night.

He needed to see you.

He needed to know you were safe.

Raph breathed out a sigh of relief when he heard you and Mikey coming, but stopped short when he saw what you were wearing. Vaguely, he wondered where you had come from to be looking so good. That red sweater stuck to your form as if it was painted on. It may have covered almost every inch of skin from your thighs up, but it hardly left room for the imagination. Thos leggings did the same.

Where were your baggy pj’s?

Robotically, he blocked your path to determine if you had been hurt. Really though, it was all a ruse. He just wanted to have a good look at you. He crossed his arms over his chest to keep himself from holding you close. The fact that you wouldn’t meet his gaze had his blood running cold. You always at least gave him a tentative glance and a smile. Next to him, Mikey said something about you being his precious sister, but all he could think was that you were his precious everything. He didn’t even feel his brother’s light punch as he walked by.

He grunted as if saying “that’ll do” and walked away, wishing he knew what was wrong. Wishing he could make it all better.

“I’m gonna go help Donnie with something before we play, okay Mikey?” You spoke barely above a whisper before heading to Donnie’s lab. 

The moment you were out of sight he rounded on Mikey. “So wha’ didya find out?” he growled in in his face.

“Nothin’, bro!” Mikey held his hands up in surrender, backing away. “She said something like not wanting to be a burden. I don’t know. She was kinda quiet though. I barely got her to smile.”

“But nothin’ ‘bout wha’ scared her?” he asked low, peeking around to make sure you hadn’t decided to come back.

“Nadda. Just said she didn’t wanna be a burden. I told her she’s not. That we like takin’ her home, but,” he paused when he noticed Raph shaking, stiff as a board. “Uh-oh…”

Raph stomped away toward Donnie’s lab, barely able to comprehend what Mikey was telling him. 

You? A burden?

Never.

He planned on shaking you to your senses until he heard what you were saying to Donnie.

“...gonna take some self-defense classes so you guys don’t have to walk me home anymore. What do you think?”

Raph leaned against the wall, going to a whole new level of low with eavesdropping. He decided it was worth it if he could figure out what was wrong.

“We could teach you,” Donnie offered offhandedly. “Besides, we like taking you home. We can actually have a conversation as we protect you.”

“Nah, you guys are busy as it is,” you paused. “Plus, I don’t want to bother you guys even more.”

“What are you talking about, Y/n?” Something clattered, a sign that you have Donnie’s full attention. “You’re no bother. Did something happen?”

“No, nothing happened,” you sighed before continuing quietly. “I just- I might be getting another job-”

“You’re a terrible liar, you know that, right?” Donnie chuckled in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Is this about last night? I heard you were running from something.”

“Ugh! I wanted to get home faster! That’s all,” you fumed, stomping a foot, demanding why the boys kept asking you about last night.

“We’re worried, Y/n,” Donnie stated calmly. “You spend a lot of time with us. That could make you a target. Especially if anyone figures out how much you mean to Ra- uh… us.”

“Fine,” you seethed. “I’ll stop hanging out with you guys, then. That way nobody will have to worry about my safety.”

Donnie’s call for you fell on deaf ears as Raph snuck into the darkened room across from the lab, your steps echoed down the hall. He sunk low in the shadows and held his head close to his knees, eyes shut tight in a sad attempt to keep the tears from flowing freely. He couldn’t breathe. His heart felt as though it were being shattered into a million pieces.

You were leaving? The thought ricocheted through his brain.

What had happened to bring this about? Everything was fine until last night.

Maybe someone got to you already? The thought had his blood boiling. Allowed him to breathe. He had a purpose; to find out what happened in the ten minutes you were on the subway. He was determined to keep you close. Keep you safe. No matter the cost. Even if he had to lock you in his room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part 5