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silentangel00 · 11 months ago

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The Batman

(Reader Insert)

Chapter 6: Busted

Chapter 5: https://www.tumblr.com/silentangel00/736690947543416832/the-batman?source=share

Batman slowly comes to only seeing blurry faces as Y/N looks down at him in worry, shining a light in his eyes. Voices start to fade in as he notices the cops huddled around him.

"Who do you think he is under there?" One cop questions. Gordon holds him back slightly giving him a light warning to take it easy.

"What is that thing? Leather?" Another cop questions pushing in to get a better look at his mask. You huff out of frustration at the cops crowding around you, making it hard to give him a proper examination.

"Can you please give me some room to work here fellas!?" They ignore you though and continue to bicker amongst themselves.

"What's he got on his eyes?"

"Who cares? I just wanna see his face!"

"What are we doin' here? Let's just take it off" A cop pushes past you and reaches for Batman's mask. Your eyes widen and you yell at him to stop but Batman's hands are quick to reach up and grab the cop by the wrist. The room comes alive with officers yelling as Gordon and you push them back giving Batman room to rise off of the interrogation table. You push yourself between him and the cop who tried to unmask him as you press a hand to his chest trying to keep him from breaking the cop's arm. Instead, he lets go of the cop and pushes you behind him to protect you from the cops who decided to draw their guns on him.

"Relax, Goddamit!" Gordon yells at everyone at the room finally quiets.

"You protecting this guy Jim?" Chief Bock questions pointedly, "He interfered in an active hostage situation! Colson's blood is on his hands!"

"Maybe it's on yours." Batman accuses narrowing his eyes at the Chief.

"What'd you say?!"

"He'd rather die than talk... What was he afraid of?... You?"

The Chief steps forward calmly but fuming as he gets in Batman's face. " You sonuvabitch! You have any idea what kinda trouble you're in?! You could be an accessory to MURDER!"

Suddenly another cop steps forward "Why are we playin' games here chief?" He grabs onto Batman's cowl yet again. This causes Batman to erupt and knock the cop back off balance. More cops launch themselves at Batman as the room goes crazy, you crawl up on the table trying to avoid getting hit as Batman has his way with them in a wild melee. Alarmed Gordon yet again tries to break it up.

"WOAH!-- Back off!-- BACK OFF!" Gordon yells doing everything he can to hold the crowd back.

"Great! Now I got you on assaulting an officer!" Chief Bock announces. Batman glowers at him.

"You got me on assaulting three..." He tries to step up to the Chief but Gordon quickly shoves him against the window surprisingly hard to stop him.

"Hey!-- Whats the matter with you?! This isn't the way to do this!" He chastises. Batman stops, shocked with his eyes flaring as their eyes lock. Gordon glares back in seriousness.

"You too now?" Batman says as he fills with contempt. Gordon keeps his dark eyes on Batman as he speaks to the Chief.

"Lemme handle this Chief... Gimme a minute."

"You gonna put yourself on the line for this scumbag Jim?"

"Just give me a minute and I'll get him to cooperate!"

The Chief stares for a second considering Gordon's request before he nods, "Ok, give him the room."

The cops begin to crowd out in displeasure as they leave the room. You slide off the table breathing heavily as you pat Gordon on the arm and he nods silently at you that he's alright. Batman watches as you leave the room and close the door behind you, watching as you walk into the crowd of cops and disappear.

He's violently interrupted from watching after you as Gordon gives him a slight shove.

"You listen to me!" and they face each other with angry expressions, "We gotta get you outta here..." Gordon utters lowly.

"That'll put a lotta heat on you," Batman responds in kind, making it look like an argument to the crowd of cops watching from the other side of the window.

"Well, you punched me in the face."

"Uh-huh," Batman nods liking this plan.

"Take this key," Gordon sneaks a key into his hands, "Through that door. Hallway to the stairs that go to the roof."

Batman's eyes clock the door, then turns to the silent room of cops as he hears a detective conferring with you. Struck by the realization that the detective talking to you is the same bouncer from the Iceberg that he got into a fight with the night before. His eyes narrow as he leans in to whisper to Gordon.

"Who's the mustache with the broken nose?"

Gordon looks into the crowd and then turns back, "That's Kenzie, he's in Narcotics."

"... he's one of the guys I got into it with at the Iceberg Lounge."

"... what are you saying? Kenzie moonlights for Penguin?"

"...Or he moonlights as a cop."

As soon as Kenzie notices Batman staring at him his face pales in alarm. Without warning Batman punches Gordon in the face causing Jim to fall to the ground as he makes a break for the stairwell. You exclaim as you shove your cup of coffee into Kenzie's hands and run into the room trying your best to keep your balance as cops push madly past you and down the hall after Batman. You crouch next to Jim who's still on the floor slumped against the wall.

"You ok?!" You ask worriedly checking him. He nods and briefly looks around before looking at you as you examine his face.

"You think that was believable enough?" He asks giving you a small smile. You pause and stare at him puzzled for a second before it clicks.

"Jesus Christ," You can't help but chuckle in disbelief, "You two are crazy."

You help Gordon up as you stand and make your way out of the interrogation room, "I'll be right back with an icepack."

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It's a little while later and Alfred is just now putting tea on the stove as he hears a knock at the door. He quickly walks over to the entrance and opens the door smiling as you lower your umbrella and turn to him.

"My darling girl!" He warmly says as he opens his arms for a hug not caring that you're a bit wet from the rain, "You can't imagine my surprise and absolute elation to hear from you tonight." He leads you into the living room next to a fireplace he already had lit for your arrival.

"It's so good to see you Alfred... It's been to long," You look down in guilt, "I'm sorry about that." You say with sadness. Alfred reaches over and shakes his head as he takes your hand into his.

"It's not your fault dear-- trust me, I'm aware..." He gives you an understanding smile and an intense feeling washes over you causing you to break down into tears. It's a feeling you haven't felt in way to long -- Comfort.

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Concealed in an alley behind the Iceberg Lounge Gordon and Batman watch closely waiting for any activity.

"Kenzie and the twins coming your way." Gordon radios over to Batman in a separate vehicle as he watches Penguin exit with Kenzie and the twins. Kenzie is holding two duffles which he stuffs into the back of a car. "Wonder whats in the bags... Do you wanna move in?"

Gordon waits tensely for Batman's answer with his walkie as he watches Penguin and Twins get into the vehicle.

"Let's follow," Batman replies.

They follow them through Gotham til they arrive to a lab warehouse. Gordon cautiously comes to a stop from a safe distance and radios Batman.

"They stopped on Waterfront Street -- The Pharmaceutical Labs..."

Batman looks down from the roof of the warehouse at the sign with disdain as his chest clenches in painful realization. 'Y/L/N Pharmaceutical Laboratories'

"I'm here..." He replies to Gordon as his brain thinks through a million things at once. He observes from a skylight as workers lead Penguin to a crew in surgical masks filling vials with chemicals by bubbling cookers and beakers. He watches as eye-droppers are screwed onto the vials. With displeasure, Batman whispers into his wrist, "They're making drops. This is a buy..."

"Looks like they got Maroni's operation up and running again."

"Or they never shut it down at all..."

"You saying the biggest drug bust in GCPD history was a fraud?"

Batman doesn't answer with his thoughts because his most prominent thoughts do not concern Maroni. He's heavy-hearted as all he can think about is you. Is she involved in this? Does she know about this? Is she working with the Penguin? Maybe I can't trust her after all...

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Alfred and you laughed as you caught up with one another, sharing stories of everything over the past decade. You sit relaxed, after asking Alfred for a bit of whisky with your tea, in the study as he sifts through that day's mail.

"My brother's face was absolutely priceless!" You say with a laugh as you shift to lay sideways, your legs falling over the armrest of the office chair. Alfred looks at you and chuckles as he continues to slice open mail.

"Your brother was always a... special boy," You roll your eyes and nod in agreement, Alfred pauses, "How is he doing? Last I heard he was..." Alfred trails off and you sigh.

"Last you heard was the last I heard as well... trust me," You look down into your cup sullenly and shake your head in disbelief, "Haven't heard from him or about him in years, I don't even know if he's alive. -- Even though he was a jerk and a... 'special boy' I still miss him and his craziness sometimes. I mean despite some of the messes he would get himself into, he was always there for me, even in my darkest times -- like when I broke up with my ex..."

"You had a boyfriend?" Alfred asks trying to change the subject to a hopefully lighter one. Little did he know.

"Yep, my one and only so far... we were high school sweethearts and then we graduated, talked about running away together, and then he..." You trailed off as the memories came flooding back. Maybe I should've stopped two cups ago. "Let's just say I had a quick learning experience about never really truly knowing someone..."

Alfred eye's you out of the corner of his eye as he pretends to read a letter, "So he put his hands on you." He said in a very straightforward manner. You sat up immediately eyes widening in shock at him.

"How did you...?" You stared at him for a moment and soon realized he wasn't going to offer to explain. You flopped back in the chair and sigh, "It was only once and that was enough for me." You then stand up immediately regretting getting up so quick as the world spins for a second, but eventually find your bearings and leave the room to grab a glass of water. Alfred sifts through more mail about to open another letter until he notices a bulging manila mailer. He picks it up curiously as he reads the scrawled letter on the front 'PERSONAL/CONFIDENTIAL -- FOR BRUCE WAYNES EYES ONLY'. Alfred opens it and pulls a green gift-wrapped box with a silver envelope taped to it out of the mailer. His eyes widen in shock as he discovers the envelope reads 'FOR THE BATMAN'.

You walk back in the room with a glass of water and make your way back the chair you were sitting on next to Alfred til the envelope in his hands catches your attention and you stop dead in your tracks. An awful feeling creeps into your gut as you slowly walk closer eyeing the Green package in his hands. He flips the envelope puzzled as he finds a 'Fireproof' label on the back. You see it as addressed to the Batman and fear immediately takes over your whole being as you run to knock the box out of Alfred's hands.

"Alfred!"

But he seems to have caught on as he glances in alarm at the gift-wrapped box spotting a red pulsing light glowing from within. He immediately throws it and dives to cover you as the package erupts. The force of the blast knocking you unconscious.

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Bruce gazes through the window of the ICU room at Alfred. Alfred's bandaged and still unconscious as he's breathing through an oxygen mask. Nurses bustle around his room attending to him as a doctor emerges and moves towards Bruce looking at him with a grave expression.

"We've sedated him, we just have to hope he stabilizes..."

Bruce nods, but it's not clear he's even heard what the doctor said as the doctor stares at him and continues gently.

"Is there anyone else to notify? Next of kin?"

Bruce turns to look at her disoriented, "No.... it's just me..."

The doctor nods and walks back into the room. Bruce stands looking through the window a moment longer before turning about to leave. He stops as his eyes land on you walking towards him with a bandage on your arm and head.

"Bruce?" You pause wide-eyed before you proceed to quickly walk up to him and embrace him in a tight hug. Bruce stiffens not reciprocating the hug and you pull away giving him a once over, "Are you ok? I have been worried out of my mind when I realized you were this psycho's next target!"

Bruce doesn't respond as he stares into her eyes trying to read any signs of dishonesty. "Why were you at the tower?" He asks eyes narrowing at her. She flinches at his tone, gruff and guarded.

"I called Alfred to catch up... He invited me over for tea." She chuckles wryly as her eyes drift to Alfred's form, tears start to prick at her eyes. Seeing him in this state was to much, "I owe him my life, he took the full brunt of the blast for me."

Bruce continues to gaze at her with uncertainty, but he can't waste another moment here, he has to much work to do and very little time. "I have to go." He says blankly and starts to walk away. You turn to him in disbelief and call out to him.

"Where?"

"Home," He says starting to feel irritated. Your presence was confusing him and he can't handle it right now.

"I don't think that's the safest place right now..." You say softly as you approach him, he suddenly turns toward you making you stop in slight surprise.

"How would you be so sure?" He stares at you accusingly. His aura was not friendly and it was confusing you where this hostility was coming from, but you try to shake it off.

"Listen, I know I haven't been around for... a very long time. So it's probably not my place to say this but I feel like you should stay here with Alfred. Be here for him when he wakes up."

Bruce takes very quick and long steps toward her, startling her as he now stands right in front of her, his voice low but stern, "You're right it's not your place anymore. You lost that privilege ten years ago. So don't think you can come here and pretend to be family again."

"What are you- All I want is for us to be friends again! Why is that so hard?"

"We've changed."

"We? WE? -- No you, have changed."

"Stay away from Alfred."

You pause in shock, "Bruce wha-"

"One of your labs gets busted for the production of Drops and on the same night you happen to be at the Riddler's next bombing location, is that a coincidence?"

You stop and stare in disbelief at Bruce. How did he know about the Drops bust? You had only just heard about it an hour ago, already resolved to make a visit to that lab as soon as they discharged you tomorrow morning.

"You think I planted that bomb in your home? That I'm working with that psycho?! That I intentionally want to hurt you and Alfred?!"

"I don't know what to believe," Bruce whispers out as he turns and walks away leaving you distraught as you fight back tears. Your head is pounding, you don't know if it's from your head injury or from being accused of wanting to murder the two people you would give your life for without hesitation. All you know is that that wasn't Bruce... You don't know who that is anymore...

#batman #batman 2022 #batman x reader #batman x y/n #bruce wayne #bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne x y/n #reader insert #gotham #robert battinson

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raventroll80 · 1 year ago

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Stowaway

Chapter One: The Carrier

In this chapter Seth tries to settle in on the ship, but a surprising discovery leads him to many questions, meanwhile Em struggles to get her bearings strait and find somewhere safe to hide on this ship full of humans. (This is a rewrite of my unfinished fic Stowaway, any and all feedback is welcome, and encouraged!)

Edit: Heads up this chapter contains Animal Injury, and Injury

It had been about three days since the ARC complex was attacked, and about three days since the intern, Seth had met the Doom Slayer. He was still riding the adrenaline high from meeting him… and almost dying, that also happened. Since then, his division of the ARC had managed to relocated to the ARC’s Command Carrier. It wasn’t to overrun with demons surprisingly, but the carrier was damaged from a previous attack. Everyone was working double time to get the carrier up and running proper as they had rushed things in order to leave the harbor as fast as they could.

Now that they were out at sea everyone was a little less tense, but still on edge none the less. Seth found himself in the cargo bay with one other person taking inventory. The carrier was massive and it would take hours to check the bay on his own though Seth still felt alone in the massive bay.

He hadn’t seen the other guy in quite some time when he had heard a noise coming from behind some crates. It sounded like plastic crinkling mixed with some grunting.

“Hello? Who’s there?” he asked, hand on his holster. Seth slowly peeked around the corner before jumping out with his gun drawn. Though what he saw made him feel a bit foolish for drawing his gun. All there was, was a large mouse nibbling on some sort of food, the wrapper it was in crinkling as it ate.

“Well, aren’t you an adorable little guy,” Seth said, putting the pistol back in its holster before getting down on one knee to get a closer look at the mouse. “Definitely not a demon, no sir,” the mouse turned to look at him before scurrying off.

“Too bad I’m gonna have to report you, can’t have you getting into the food stores, can we?” he picked up the food the mouse had been eating and stuffed it into his pocket to throw away later. Out of the corner of his eye saw another one dart out of sight, catching a flicker of red on its body as he stood up.

“Oh no, poor thing…” he thought to himself as he stood up. Dusting himself off Seth picked up his PDA and logged his discovery of mice in the cargo hold before he continued his sweep of the cargo bay.

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Em breathed a sigh of as the human walked away. She barely had time to react when the human jumped out form around the crates, she was too preoccupied trying to wrestle her food from the mouse to notice his approach. She had managed to hide behind one of the crates as he crouched down and started talking.

She briefly though the human was talking to her before realizing he was actually talking to the mouse, though that didn’t make what he said any less concerning. He had said something about reporting it but she wasn’t fully listening due to her senses practically screaming for her to run.

She would have listened to it if it weren’t for the fact that she was starving and was hoping the human would leave the food behind. But predictably he didn’t and instead picked it up and stored it away to probably eat later… at least that’s what she’d do. Em was starving and food was scarce or locked away by the humans and larger folk. She was lucky that the Grimmars’ were letting her and Nimbus stay with them, let alone share their rations with them.

Em was hoping to find something to give to the couple as thanks for their generosity, but her borrowing trip had been cut short when those bodies reanimated. Em was glad she had brought the glider or she wouldn’t have escaped the fight on deck, though she will admit the landing could have gone a bit better… and that an elevator shaft wasn’t the most ideal place to test it either.

The glider in question had broken during her flight when she had failed to steer away from one of the support beams. The fact she didn’t crash into the ground was a miracle, though her hitting one of the few support beams was less than lucky. But none of that mattered now, what was important is that she finds some food and try to find a way off the ship before it left port. If she didn’t then Em would have to hope Nimbus stayed on the boat, If she didn’t then Em would truly be alone for the first time in her life…

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Half an hour had passed when Seth had left the bay with the other intern, he had deposited the half-eaten food in a garbage bin before submitting his report and dropping off his PDA on the bridge before heading to the cafeteria for dinner. As he ate, his thoughts drifted back to the mice he found in the cargo bay, specifically the injured one he saw. At least he thought it was injured, he didn’t get a good look at it before it scurried away.

The longer he thought about it the more Seth started to wonder if what he saw was a mouse. Yes, it was small and had a tail but, the red was a bit too dark to be blood. “Maybe the poor thing’s sick,” he thought to himself, “I hope not…”

Seth finished his food and returned to the bridge to continue his shift. The rest of his day was spent running diagnostics on the ship and fixing what he could and logging what he couldn’t. So far most of the problems were due to faulty and damaged wiring, presumably caused by the demons and mice. Security cameras were offline too. No doubt he’d have to fix those tomorrow, the general wanted to make sure that the carrier was completely secure before they made it to the Arctic Safezone.

After wrapping up his final report on a broken elevator in cargo, Seth clocked out of his shift on the bridge and retired to his room. The clock read 12:04 when Seth had flopped onto his bed. He rolled onto his back and removed his glasses, after cleaning them off Seth put them in the cubby above his bed. It didn’t take Seth long to fall asleep, the sound of distant thunder being somewhat soothing for once.

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Back in the cargo bay Em was on edge as she darted between the boxes, trying to stay out of sight as she made her way to the elevator shaft. The cargo bay was crawling with humans setting up mouse traps. She needed to get to the glider before they did, if she didn’t the humans would definitely know something was up.

Em had squeezed herself between some crates just in time for a human to walk up and lay down a trap. The fear was paralyzing as the human set up the trap. It was a standard snap trap with bait. If she wasn’t so terrified, Em would have attempted to try and swipe the bait once the humans left, but decided against it. The “bait” in question was nothing more then a glob of peanut butter. Not only would it be messy and she wouldn’t have the ability to clean herself off effectively, leaving her sticky and possibly smelling enough like it to attract rats.

The human walked away and the tingling subsided long enough for her to dart to the next hiding spot. She continued this routine of running and hiding until she managed to get well ahead of the humans. Now fully sprinting down an aisle, Em made her way back to the elevator shaft. After a minute of franticly searching Em was able to find her glider, it was a bit more broken than when she had left it.

Damn rats, she thought to herself as she gathered what was left of it.

Looking around, Em saw a pallet of cargo covered by a large black cloth. Perfect, or at least it was before she noticed that the cloth was nailed to the pallet, nothing a knife couldn’t fix though. Taking out her knife, Em cut a tall vertical line into the cloth, hoping that nobody would notice. Em brought the glider to the pallet and dragged it in. As she was pulling it in, something began tugging on the glider, the lack of tingling in her spine signaling that it was another rat looking for scraps. Not wanting to risk the glider being found Em began trying to pull the glider back in, though she quickly found this to be a losing battle.

Unsheathing her knife once more, Em gave one last yank on the glider before lunging forward and sinking the knife into the rat, the rodent shrieked in pain before scurrying off. Em gave a heavy sigh as she slumped back, her blood was pumping, her adrenalin was through the roof, and the pounding of her heart was deafening.

Her scalp and spine tingled like a limb that went to sleep, the pins and needles stabbing at her nervous system. She quickly dragged the glider in and pulled her cloak over her mask. By doing this Em was nearly indistinguishable from the other mice and rats that called this ship home. She then wedged herself between two crates, or at least she thought they were crates when she saw them.

As she waited for the humans to leave, Em could feel a deathly cold emanating from the containers next to her. Once the humans left and her senses calmed Em inspected the containers she had hid between. What she had thought were metal storage crates turned out to be large stone containers, whatever they contained would have to remain a mystery as there was no way Em could ever open them. Hell, by the looks of it even a human would struggle to open them. With nothing else to do Em removed her mask and took out her flashlight and decided to properly assess the damages done to the glider.

The right wing had been snapped in two during the crash, the outer half apparently having been dragged away by rodents. The left wing was a bit less damaged, but was still relatively inoperable and heavily chewed. Em doubted she’d be able to repair the glider, even then what purpose would it serve. She had no was to gain upward momentum whilst using it aside from doing small dives, but that was nowhere near enough to get her back up the shaft.

Em huffed in defeat and lied down to get some rest; it wasn’t like there was anything else to do anyways. As she lied there, Em fiddled with her cloak trying to get comfortable, doing so caused the hide to rip further. In her haste to deploy the glider, Em had hooked the right drawcord through her cloak causing it to rip during the crash. Now the tear was twice as big and exposed even more of her clothing, specifically her red shit, which was less than stealthy. Giving another annoyed huff Em gave up and went to sleep, hopefully she’d be able to find something to eat tomorrow.

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The beeping of his alarm woke Seth from his sleep. The clock read 5:30 as the intern prepared for the busy day ahead of him. Seth put on his glasses and grabbed his PDA before quickly jogging to the bridge for the morning meeting.

The meeting had begun with an announcement that the Slayer had been spotted on the UAC Phobos moon base, and had apparently shot a hole into the centner of Mars via the BFG 10K and had commandeered the BFG 9K. A murmur rippled through the morning team, a mix of shock, concern, and confused celebration was heard, the ARC was still unsure of whether or not the Slayer was on their side.

The rest of the meeting was spent assigning everybody’s jobs for the day, as expected Seth had been assigned the task of checking the cameras for damage and mapping the blind spots. Seth and the other interns looked out the massive windows that made up the front of the bridge at the massive thunderstorm that was currently pelting the carrier.

Oh joy…

Seth found himself clinging to the railing as he stumbled his way across the upper deck. It had taken them about two hours to make their way outside and the storm hadn’t gotten any better, in fact Seth was pretty sure it had gotten worse. The flight deck wasn’t too slippery but Seth wasn’t a big fan of heights, and the semi frequent bolts of lightning didn’t help to calm his nerves. He was about to do a radio check when a hand clasped his shoulder.

Seth yelped in alarm, dropping his radio and PDA. A commander yelled over the storm. “Willems! What the hell are you doing out here!”

“We were told to map the blind spots sir!”

“And none of you’s though that maybe the outside cameras could wait?”

“… no sir,”

“Let’s get inside before someone gets struck,”

Back inside Seth and the others were informed that the outside cameras could wait until the storm passed, though the hangar would still need to be check since it was covered. Seth passed by the bridge to pick up a new PDA as the other one was surely toast.

The small group slowly worked their way through the ship, stopping around noon for a lunch break before continuing their job. Whilst in the hangar Seth and a technician noticed a pair of large black birds perched atop one of the jets. The two birds had gathered quite the crowd as a few more technicians and soldiers watched the birds.

“What kinda bird do you think they are?” one of the soldiers asked, gesturing towards them.

“Probably crows,” a technician replied.

“Nah, too big,”

“Then why’d you ask,” Seth submitted the blind spot map as the two continued to argue about the birds. Their bickering caused the birds to fly off into the rafters, where Seth saw another much larger bird shuffle out of view.

“Poor things,” the technician he had been working with sighed.

“Huh?”

“The birds, they must have been roosting while the ship left port, we’re way too far out for them to make it back.” He replied. Seth looked back up at the pair, the two were huddled close together on the rafter. “I might try and sneak them some food, hopefully they can make it to the Safezone,”

“Yeah, I think you might need more than a sandwich though, I saw something a lot bigger up there,” Seth replied, pointing towards where he last saw the other bird.

“Might’ve been a vulture, those things seemed to be having a grand old time during this whole apocalypse,”

“Don’t blame them though, with all this hellgrowth and dead meat everywhere, must be heaven for ‘em,”

“At least for the ones who haven’t choked to death on the air, I’m surprised any birds survived this,” The two walked past another group of technicians and repairmen working on a broken elevator. Seth waved to the technician as they parted ways. Seth made his way down to the cargo bay; he radioed the other interns to confirm they were there before he began to map out the cargo bay.

Seth was walking down one of the corridors, when out of the corner of his eye he spotted it, a flash of red amongst brown fur. He immediately turned his head to look for the injured mouse and watched a tail slide between some boxes. He ran towards the opposite side of the boxes and gasped.

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Em had been scavenging about, hoping to find an unlucky mouse who had gotten killed in on of the traps. She had almost made it back to where that one trap had been placed when a far too familiar tingling feeling began prickling her spine. Stopping in her tacks, Em just barely stopped herself from running into the shoe of a human, and not just any human. It was the same human from yesterday who had almost spotted her.

She immediately turned tail and ran. She felt her tingling shift as she ran from the human, by the time it registered what that meant it was too late. Em now stood face to face with a wide-eyed human who had gasped upon seeing her. Fear paralyzed her as the human crouched down and a scream escaped her throat as the human snatched her up. The human quickly stood up and brought Em up to their face. Her eyes began to blur, unsure as to whether it was from fear or tears.

Em’s heart was pounding in her chest and her head was spinning as she rose above the floor. After some effort Em was able to dig out her knife and stabbed it into his hand. The human yelped in pain and dropped her, Em braced for impact as she hit the floor. Em gasped as the wind was knocked out of her, but she quickly recovered. Not wasting any time Em took off sprinting while the human was still confused.

Her heart continued to pound in her chest as she ran, threatening to beat out of her chest with each step. Finally, Em spotted a cargo pallet covered in a thick netting, she dove in and wedged herself between the crates. Slowly Em felt the adrenalin drain from her body, leaving her tired and scared. She curled up into herself and soon passed out from the exhaustion.

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Seth had picked up the tiny person so that he could get a better look at them and to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. Though he quickly regretted the action once he was able to see their face clearly, a look of terror was plastered across their face, and he could feel their tiny heart racing in their chest. He was about to say something when he felt a sharp pain in his hand. Seth yelped at the sudden feeling and ended up dropping the small human when he noticed that they had stabbed him.

Mild panic had set in as he removed the knife. They had stabbed him hard and deep, with the tiny knife having been pushed down almost to the handle. By the time he was done the tiny person was nowhere to be seen, they must have run off to somewhere else in the cargo bay. All that Seth could find was the small bag the person was wearing when he had picked them up, they must have left it behind during their escape.

Seth pocketed the bag before continuing his work, not wanting to get into any trouble with the higher ups. He quickly wrapped up the blind spot mapping and sent in his report before leaving for the mess hall, though not without stopping by his room to put a bandage on his injury and drop off the bag on his desk.

Dinner was eaten slowly as Seth replayed the events from this afternoon in his head. “Was it a mouse? No, it had a knife. Was it a hallucination? It couldn’t have been, they stabbed him. I shouldn’t have grabbed them though, they looked terrified. Are there more of them or are they alone, if they are alone than are they alright? Are they hurt, that was a long drop for someone that small… What were they?” all these thoughts swirled about his head as Seth picked away at the stew, “I wonder if they’re hungry…”

Seth finished his food and left the cafeteria. The walk back to his room was fairly quiet, once and a while he’d pass a small group of people leaving for their shift of duties and he’d give them a polite wave as they passed by.

Once he had reached his room Seth got ready for bed. Although the day had left him exhausted, sleep seemed to be evading him. Seth laid there in bed staring up at the ceiling, all he could think about was how strange the day had been.

First, he nearly concussed himself out on the flight deck, not to mention he had lost his PDA in the process. Then there were the birds in the hangar, he was pretty sure they were all carrion birds, so maybe the had been helping themselves to some corpses when the boat left. Then lastly there was the tiny person he found in the cargo bay…

Seth stared at the bandage on his hand, it didn’t hurt too much but it was still pretty deep. Once again, the same cycle of questions about that tiny “human” spiraled about his mind. “Were they a human? They couldn’t have been they had a tail. Were they some sort of human-mouse hybrid? Was that why they were on the ship then?”. Seth sat up and looked over to his desk, maybe their bag had some answers…

“No, that’s rude,” Seth said to himself as he flopped back down, he wasn’t just going to look through someone else’s belongings…

He dragged his hands over his face and groaned as he stood up and put his glasses back on. Seth walked over to his desk and sat down.

Turning on the desk lamp Seth began to inspect the bag. The bag appeared to be some sort of messenger type bag; it was made out of a dark red fabric with a dark yellow floral pattern. A red and white ribbon was used to make the shoulder strap, and the flap was held shut by a purple button.

It took him a moment to open the bag but after some finagling, he was able to inspect its contents. One of the first things he found was the sheath to the knife that he had been stabbed with, Seth picked up the knife and wiped the dried blood off it before returning it to its sheath. He set the knife aside before continuing to search the bag. The next thing he found was a small empty bottle in the shape of the fish, it looked like one of those little soy sauce bottles that came with takeout food. It looked to have been cleaned out and repurposed into a water bottle.

He also found a small bulb from a string light taped to battery with some electrical tape. One of the wires was untapped but still had a small piece of tape attached to it. Seth pushed the loose wire onto the battery and the bulb lit up.

“Huh, clever,” He mumbled to himself as he pulled the wire back off. There wasn’t much left in the bag, just a spare battery, some fabric, thread, and some small pieces of graphite. He checked the bag one last time and found two small pieces of paper that had been folded up. He opened the two and found that they were maps, one was of the harbor that the carrier had been docked at, whilst the other appeared to be a map of a town, though the map was too small for him to read, or make out anything other than the fact that it was next to a body of water.

Seth packed the items back up into the bag as they were before and closed it. He turned the lamp off and sat back down on his bed, taking his glasses back off and setting them and the bag down in the cubby above the bed. Seth once more found himself staring at the spot on his hand where he had been stabbed, this time the weight of sleep was slowly crawling over him until he was fast asleep. Though this sleep would be far from peaceful…

#my writing #stowaway g/t #g/t #giant tiny #borrowers #doom g/t #I’ve decided to break up chapters into two separate chapters so there isn’t too much happening in one chapter #might take a bit for chapter two and three #work is so tiring #and I feel drained afterwards

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much-obliged-timothy · 2 years ago

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Winter Whumperland #11

Borderlands - #11 - Strangulation

Timothy Lawrence’s hands were clammy as he walked into Handsome Jack’s office. It was the only outward sign of the raging anxiety he felt within.

If all went well, Handsome Jack would die in this office today.

If all didn’t go well, Timothy Lawrence would die in this office today.

Timothy had grown sick of working for Jack and committing the same atrocities over and over again. The murders, the tortures, the blackmailing, the need to crush his morals just to survive under Jack’s brutal employ. He’d reached his breaking point when Jack forced him to execute a woman in front of her two young children, all because she’d stolen some scrap parts from a Hyperion facility in an attempt to earn enough money to feed her starving family.

Timothy had reached out to the Crimson Raiders, risking death or torture at their hands rather than keep working for Jack. He knew Jack would kill him at some point anyway if he didn’t leave. Jack was too unstable to ever be safe around.

The Crimson Raiders had taken a bit before they gave Timothy their trust. He’d had to betray nearly every Hyperion secret he had and help them organize some serious strikes against Jack to make it happen.

But they were finally working with him. Trusting him enough to kill Jack.

The plan, in theory, was simple. Timothy would come into Jack’s office to deliver his report, just like he did every single day. Only instead of delivering his report, he would deliver a bullet into Jack’s skull and then allow the Crimson Raiders access to the Hyperion fast travel stations so they could take over the station. The end goal was to find where Jack was hiding the vault key - information even Timothy didn’t have - and put a stop to its charging.

Timothy kept his hands loose at his sides, striving desperately for calm and casual. He always had a gun holstered to him when he walked around Helios. It wouldn’t draw Jack’s attention.

Timothy’s gaze immediately shot to the shield Jack was wearing. All he had to do was get behind Jack, put the gun right up to his head, and pull the trigger twice. Even Jack’s shield couldn’t save him from that. The first bullet would shatter it and injure him, and the second would kill him.

“Well?” Jack asked, leaning back in his chair and looking up at Timothy.

Timothy strode up to his desk, leaning against it and crossing his arms, tucking his sweaty palms into his elbows to try and dry them. How embarrassing it would be for his gun to slip from his hands at the crucial moment. For all of Pandora to be damned just because Timothy had some nervous sweat slicking his palms.

“Things seem quiet on Pandora,” he said. He let a moment of quiet pass, then pushed off the desk and began to pace. “Too quiet, I think. They’ve got to be planning something, Jack. There’s no way they’d make such a big move and then just slink back up to Sanctuary and let things settle.”

He increased his pacing. Pacing was not uncommon for him, as it was not uncommon for Jack and Timothy had adopted his habits to better imitate him. Timothy paced around the desk to the window, pretending to gaze out into space. He could just barely make out Jack’s reflection in the window. Jack had turned to watch him.

Timothy placed a hand on the window. “It just doesn’t make any sense to stop after such a bold move, Jack.”

Jack’s reflection turned back to his desk, bending over his paperwork again. “I’ve been making up a list of potential targets. Gimme a sec to dig it out. I want you to canvas each one and figure out where they’ll strike next.”

He began to look through his many papers. Timothy silently slipped his gun from the holster with a practiced movement. His feet were silent as he moved across the floor, crossing the distance between them and slowly raising the gun to aim at Jack’s head. His heart beat hard and fast, but his hand was surprisingly steady.

His finger rested over the trigger. Time to end this.

Only, before he got the chance, Jack had lurched up from his chair, smacked the gun out of Timothy’s hand, and tackled him to the ground. Jack grabbed a handful of Timothy’s hair and slammed his head against the ground once, then twice. He looked down at his dazed doppelganger with a dark smile twisting his lips.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know?” he asked, almost gently. “I gave you two pieces of information I didn’t give anyone else. The Crimson Raiders acted on one of those pieces of information.”

Timothy felt numb. He stared up at Jack, knowing he should fight back. But the world was tumbling about in his vision as his head ached. Something warm was leaking down his neck.

“Oh, kiddo, it was a good try,” Jack said, patting his cheek fondly. “The kind of initiative I like to see. Just, you know, not against me. That was your biggest mistake.”

He wrapped his hands around Timothy’s throat slowly. Timothy lifted his arms, trying to grab at Jack, but Jack took a moment to slam his head against the ground again.

Jack took Timothy’s ECHO from his belt and set it on the ground. “Attention idiots: You’re not nearly as clever as you think. He’s a good actor, but not very bright otherwise.”

And then his hands were back around Timothy’s neck, tight enough to cut off his air. Timothy struggled, trying to buck Jack off of him, trying to claw Jack’s hands away from his throat, trying to free himself. But Jack just smirked down at him. He could hear Roland’s voice over the ECHO, but he couldn’t make out the words over the sound of his heartbeat pulsing in his ears.

His gun was so close. He strained to reach for it, but it was only close enough to taunt him. His vision was growing black around the edges.

He looked up at Jack’s grinning face and felt the fight die out of him. He should’ve known he was never going to make it out alive. He should’ve known he’d never be the hero who took down Handsome Jack.

He should’ve known. But as Jack had pointed out, Timothy was not very bright outside of his acting.

As his vision blacked out and Jack’s grip grew tighter, Timothy knew this would be his final mistake.

#amow winter whumperland 2022 #strangulation #borderlands #timothy lawrence #Handsome Jack

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aetheternity · 4 years ago

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I have a request

Levi's wife y/n and 4 or 5 year old son get kidnapped by kenny and the military police. They get taken to the crystal cave with eren and historia. So when levi comes to save them he is livid and is quickly taking down every mp in his way. Luckily both y/n and her son make it out safely with levi and his squad.

Levi, y/n, and their son have a soft moment and they all hug and give kisses 😚😚😚 and day squad teases them

(I added my own little spin to this where Y/N is playfully argumentative and sometimes wild with Levi. Hope that's ok! I also thought it would be cute if Levi and Y/N’s son was named after Levi’s late friend Farlen.)

"We have more than just Historia and Eren now." Levi grunted, facing Hange. "My son and Y/N were taken as well."

"We can't wait then. We'll leave as soon as possible."

Levi squeezed the paper Hange had given him earlier in his grasp as his squad whooped and hollered behind him. Kenny probably wouldn't kill them, they were insurance after all. Which was that much worse for Levi.

He already knew if he didn't manage to calm himself before they got to Kenny he would lash out recklessly. The one thing he'd told his wife and son to never allow themselves to do.

~~~~

"Oi." Levi stepped closer, concern etched onto his face. His eyebrows scrunched where he looked into his wife's eyes. "If you continue moping around our child's health will be at risk and yours. The doctor already told you that."

She turned, eyes narrowed and lips tight where they were pulled into a frown. "What else am I supposed to feel? The father of my baby is running around dodging death. Am I supposed to be happy Levi?"

Levi rolled his eyes, his hand already coming up to the bridge of his nose in expectation for the upcoming brawl of sorts. "I'll be alive for the birth of our son."

"Will you though?" She stepped closer, challenge rising in her tone and eyes.

"I'm not leaving you or the soon to be kid we've made. And you already know that." He fought back. "I'd sooner go back to the underground."

Her hands ran up to his collar tugging him closer. And he let her, let every bit of fury trapped beneath those stone cold eyes run over his spine like a flash of lightning all with the same neutral expression.

"I'm so serious you wouldn't even believe. If you don't come back one of these days and I have to raise this baby all on my own. I'm gonna bring you back to life just so I can kill you again. Do you hear me Levi Ackerman?"

Levi let out a little huff and a small smirk ran over his lips. She let him go and he straightened out his collar. "You get scarier everyday." He remarked "Way scarier than any damn titan."

He grabbed her wrist, pulling her down the mostly empty corridor. "You saw the doctor again today right? Tell me what happened."

"We've got a healthy Ackerman on our hands. He's grown bigger than he's supposed to be at this stage actually." She smiled softly as she placed a hand on her belly. "Probably cause he has your blood."

"Tch, moron. He's already his mother. Constantly kicking every time I touch your belly. He's gonna be a brat just like you."

"I hope he gets my height and not yours."

"For his sake your height instead of your mouth would be good."

"My mouth has gotten you through many long nights so I wouldn't complain if I were you."

Levi playfully rolled his eyes as Y/N's soft laugh filled the corridor. Her eyes shining brighter than they had her whole pregnancy. It was weird Levi had always heard about new parents being scared but he barely was.

When he'd found out he'd been more surprised than anything but he'd barely even had the time to over analyze the situation until that night. This unbelievably wild girl was the mother of his child. What more could he want.

Fear did dawn on him. Knowing he'd have something new in this world that needed his protection. Something so precious and small to protect. But another part of him knew that kid would be safer if he got his mother's fighting spirit.

"Hey, you better not be thinking about other girls." Y/N huffed as she poked at Levi's forehead.

Levi grabbed her finger. "Dumbass, no one else would be able to handle you if I left."

"Just sounds like you're making excuses so that you don't have to tell me, you adore me and could never find anyone else who brings you this much joy."

"No." That barely even scratched the surface..

~~~~

"Do you have a location on them?" Hange asked

"There're a whole bunch of military police and Kenny's squad is surrounding the entire area. But no sign of Kenny himself or any of the people who were taken." Sasha replied

Levi huffed, brain not wanting to retreat to the worst possible scenario. Besides the conversation currently developing in front of him there was a sort of quiet drifting in the atmosphere.

"We have a plan right?" Armin suddenly asked

And Hange nodded, "You're gonna need these." Her hands clasped around the cool metal of the signal flares.

"Signal flares??" Jean stared in disbelief

"Don't worry, we're getting out of here alive hostages and all." Hange stated before turning to Levi. "They're ok."

Levi blinked, slowly but surely uncurling his fists. He looked around to the others their faces a mix of concern and in certain cases glee. But they all had the same sentiment.

"Put the plan into motion." Levi stood

~~~~

It went surprisingly quickly. From the barrels they'd deployed to the signal flares being shot off. Sasha and Mikasa taking out the military police like no one's business but Levi could already feel his Ackerman rage growing.

Where the hell was Kenny? He thought.

His question was soon answered when a bullet flew past his cheek immediately drawing blood. The next bullet striking an ice pillar with a hard crack as he ducked for cover behind it.

Levi paused repositioning himself to jump and land behind one another of the thick pillars searching for the source of the bullets. "Where the hell are they?" He grunted voice raspy, thick and loud where he called to the only person that would be behind this.

Kenny's laugh was boisterous, heavy where it bounced between each pillar. The amount of sweat that had collected on Levi's palms had his weapon slippery in his grip and the vein in his forehead was close to popping.

"I think you have other things here you should be concerning yourself with."

In the blink of an eye Levi's head shot backwards, Jean's scream mixed with the heart shattering sound of Hange hitting one of the pillars caught his attention. A bullet releasing her blood as she slipped and rolled over against the ground like a discarded toy.

"Tch!"

"Levi! Oi you should be worried about me. After all. Your little family dies by my call!"

If Levi was boiling before his blood was erupting now. With incredible skill and speed he bounced his way around the pillars dodging each bullet as Kenny shot them out. His agility raised as he flipped over Kenny's form and behind him. In an instant Levi was tossing a bag full of flammable liquid in time to meet his next shot.

When the bag tore open Levi flew forward, through burning flames created by Kenny's gun tossing his blade. The motion caught Kenny off guard but he managed to dodge it, his hat flying off into a nearby pillar along with Levi's blade to hold it up there.

Levi's heart was hammering taking the advantage he'd managed to get he flew at Kenny with incredible speed slicing through his torso almost like it was butter. In the heat of adrenaline Levi watched as Kenny's body fell to the ground of the cool cavern.

He landed with a hard breath before retracting the odm gears hooks. He couldn't wait any longer. He couldn't stop himself from running forward no matter how stupid and dangerous it was.

He heard bits and pieces of speech behind him. "Follow Captain!" And "Wait, hold on!" But none of it stopped his feet.

He skidded in his pace as he heard soft calls of, "Dad! Dad!"

And he was immediately headed for it. A bit of relief flooding his chest as he heard the faint sounds of odm gear clanging behind him. His squad clearly keeping good pace.

When he arrived he instantly locked eyes with his five year old son and wife.

"Dad!" Farlen's voice echoed. He didn't look injured from what Levi could tell and neither did Y/N. Farlen's hair tosseled as if he'd merely been running outside.

"Where are Historia and Eren?!" Mikasa called as she ran up behind Levi.

"Guys!" Historia's voice boomed. She slunk forward barely supporting Eren's weight. His shirt gone and his face covered in blood.

Levi quickly ran to untie Y/N and Farlen immediately embracing Farlen when he jumped into his arms. If he were any other kid Levi would probably be questioning why he hadn't shit his pants and why his face was tearless. But he definitely wasn't any other five year old.

"Geez, you guys took forever." Y/N remarked, stretching her hands above her head. "I was about to wreck all these Military brats butts for you." She said with a smirk at Levi.

Levi huffed, rubbing his son's back. "Next time you can save yourself then." He remarked giving Farlen a soft head rub.

"Ugggh Mom.. Dad not now.." he sighed

"There won't be a next time!" Y/N fought back. "I'll never get caught up like that again."

"Tch, whatever."

"Are you challenging me Mr. Ackerman?"

"You're a brat, Ms. Ackerman."

"How about I show you how much of a brat I can really be?" She chuckled with a dark smile etching over her features. She pulled him closer, hugging his and Farlen's form with a firm hand on Levi's lower back.

"Don't start something you can't finish." Levi whispered back.

"Ewwwwww.." Farlen mock gagged between them.

Y/N just laughed loudly. "You'll understand when you have someone you love to hate, Farlen."

"Yeah.. I'm with Farlen. That's eww." Connie remarked with a shake of his head.

The others soon joined in with their own little laughs and teasing words. "I can't believe how soft Captain can be." And "They're such a cute family I hope I get that some day."

Levi repositioned Farlen on one arm ignoring all the chatter. Though his cheeks bloomed a rosy color that was extremely unmistakable "Historia, where's your father?"

"He escaped before you guys got here. He's headed toward the wall." She replied

"We've gotta hurry then."

(I'm so sick of people on the internet rn I swear🙄)

#aot x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi x reader #shingeki no kyoujin x reader #attack on titan #levi ackerman #levi x y/n #shingeki no kyoujin levi #snk x reader #levi imagine #levi ackerman scenario #levi ackerman headcanons

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ziracona · 2 years ago

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New chapter! Kotarou finally. As per the norm, Tumblr gets it first, but less proofed u know glass half empty, glass half full, but I like to think of it as a nice positive 70-30 split myself.

[Fate/GO AU – The Kid (pt: 1, … 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, ?)] {Some spoilers for original Grand Order run/through Temple of Time}

“Alright,” says Doctor Archaman, sliding his hand along the blueprint to flatten it, “Here’s what we’ve got. Now. This is going to be partial—bare bones. Mages are always secretive about their work, so any blueprints beyond the original, observable skeleton from the outside, are going to end up being practically worthless in a corporation like Mercury.”

“Well,” observes Robin Hood, leaning a forearm across the top of a chair and leaning forward over it to see better, “Least it’s smaller than Ur-shanabi.”

“Smaller, yes,” agrees the doctor, glancing at him, “But on high alert, and less predictable. We should move fast, to have our best chance. My guess? Word will be inescapably out that Ur-shanabi was hit, but they’ll be trying to cover how bad the losses are, so there’s a good chance they don’t know the cause was someone freeing the heroic spirits yet. It’s only a matter of time before they get alerted by someone that their own might be at threat, and any time a mage facility in your vicinity is attacked by an unknown source, everyone else goes into lockdown. Speed is our best bet. The quicker we mobilize, the better our chances they’re not prepared for us yet.”

“But, you said we have no idea what they want—I-I mean, what they’re doing, as a company?” pipes up Ritsuka, looking up from her water bottle.

“No,” agrees the doctor, “They’re extremely secretive. But, I can make a few guesses. Just, take them with a grain of salt.”

“Only way I take anything,” says Robin with a smile, and Billy the Kid grins at him.

I’m still not sure what the hell to make of this doctor. Except that he’s highly goddamn suspicious. What honestly throws me off the most is David. He knows something, but he’s not telling the rest of us. At least now Robin’s back to keep an eye out too. This whole situation is exhausting, but I guess it’s turned out surprisingly well so far, all things considered. Which makes me antsy. Things usually don’t go this well, not for anyone. Not for this long.

“Well,” says the doctor slowly, glancing at the group and getting a Go on gesture from David, “Each mage organization tends to have its own focus. Of course they’re all after knowledge and power, in some forms, but you have lineages who focus on combining modernization with magecraft, you have ones focusing on creating familiars, or magecraft through specific genetic modifications, ones interested in research into lost arts, ones trying to find The Root. Defense, offence. Places like Atlas cut off from the rest of the world entirely. Of the organizations in the immediate area,” he takes Ritsuka’s little whiteboard and wipes it clean with an arm, then starts to draw, “we have Ur-shanabi, Mercury, and several families of note. Mercury had much less interest in Ur-shanabi’s research, than gaining a power source, so we at least know they’re not gunning for the same sort of development—unsurprising, as I know they only contacted Chaldea because they knew we were taking a …different approach, to any work with spirits. I think they tried to cut true rivals out entirely.”

“Our director,” he continues, making a note on his little chart, “Animusphere, has had little to do with Mercury, which means they don’t seem to be a threat to our work, and that they don’t have research we need right now. Since Chaldea is focused on research, defense, and observation as areas of study, and Mercury had little interest in Ur-shanabi aside from acquiring a power source, my guess would be they’re developing offensive technology, probably in areas they know would provoke action from the Mage’s Association if it came to light. They also chose Fuuma Kotarou, as the spirit they purchased. There are some options like safety to consider, like uhm—obviously I would never participate in that kind of behavior anyway,” he says nervously, glancing at Cu Chulainn, “But in a hypothetical scenario where I did, I would not have chosen him, because I don’t care what the setup is—the odds of him breaking out and killing everyone would be too high.”

Lancer looks extremely pleased with himself. I can’t exactly say Doctor Archaman is wrong, though. Idiotic to have a spirit like him imprisoned in the first place. They were asking to get ripped to shreds. That would be like expecting long-term containment of a living atom bomb to go well.

“That said though, he’s not the only choice. I don’t mean to be…” he gives up on whatever he’s trying to say politely, makes a hopeless gesture, and just while looking sorry adds, “It’s worth noting that while David, Salieri, and Cu Chulainn would have all been risky choices, they came when Billy the Kid was still in confinement, and he, Robin Hood, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would all have been levels similar to Fuuma Kotarou’s as far as their likelihood of escape. And they still took the assassin.”

Salieri does not seem to appreciate the second comment, even though it’s not about him, while Mozart has little reaction aside from looking like he wishes he wasn’t remembering whatever he’s remembering, Billy looks angered in a quiet way, but not towards the doctor, and Robin has no discernable reaction, but he’s listening intently. God I hate that he keeps doing what I know I would do. I guess it’s a mercy he doesn’t seem to remember me though. It would only fuel bad blood now, and we don’t need that. Still, it’s not exactly bad to have him on the team. As annoying as seeing similarities in someone else can be, they’re useful too, especially under pressure.

“This is based off of one single interaction I had with their staff when they were in Ur-shanabi,” continues the doctor, “but my guess is they chose him out of that list based solely on the visual design of the trap.”

“The visual design?” echoes Ritsuka.

“Yes,” says the doctor, somber, “Out of all three, I think, without going into detail, it would appeal the most to someone with a…military mindset. It was…formal, clean, and absolute. And…cruel.”

“So, if you’re right, we can except heavy resistance,” says David.

“Yes, although I expect in the form of more modernized weapons. Less creativity, and I’d be surprised if they had someone with abilities like Toujou’s on their staff. I’m…sorry, that I don’t have more to go on,” he adds.

Hm.

“Look,” I say, stepping forward from my spot against the wall, and the others turn, “Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate that you’ve reliably done several things to help us at this point, but if we’re going to go into an incredibly fortified mage stronghold, depending on you for information, then before we go on, we should clarify something. So.” I look at David. “Explain. We’ve gone on faith long enough. You know him. You have some reason for thinking he’s trustworthy, clearly, and you have since the moment we saw him in Ur-shanabi. What is it?”

The doctor looks a little taken aback, but David almost looks enthusiastic about the question.

“Oh, have I not said?” he asks innocently, all charisma, moving up to the doctor and clapping an arm forcefully around his shoulder while the man grimaces and then gives him a nervous look.

No. You haven’t, I think, crossing my arms and tilting my head, waiting to hear it.

“I knew him! Before. I know his father very well—I fought for him in a ritual. Very wonderful, dependable man,” says David carelessly, exceedingly pleased, “talented too! I would have explained sooner,” he adds apologetically to Ritsuka, “but I was not sure at first—only that he was familiar. He was quite a bit younger when I saw him last. And he’s changed his name. I didn’t figure everything out until we were heading back from the vault.”

“R-Right,” says Doctor Archaman, looking anxiously from David, to Ritsuka, “it was a long time ago for me too. I wasn’t sure he’d recognize me—spirits don’t always keep their memories after a summons, and if I’d tried, and he hadn’t, it would have made things even worse looking for my trustworthiness.”

A plausible explanation, although while it explains David’s attitude towards the doctor earlier perfectly, it hardly explains Archaman’s towards him. If he’d really been hoping David would recognize him on his own, why was he working overtime to do anything but make eye contact when we ran into him in the lab?

“That’s enough to make you sure?” asks Salieri, following his own logic path, tone hard to read.

“Oh yes,” says David carelessly, letting go of the doctor and waving the concern aside, “You would not understand since you were not there, but I have complete faith in him. It was a bit of a complicated relationship, his father and me, and the time I spent with him, but I can say I am very certain. And haven’t I been right so far?”

Well. That’s true anyway. I still don’t think this is the whole truth, but I don’t think all of that is a lie either. The best lies are always partial truths, and that’s how this feels to me for sure. Well. It’s better than nothing. What kind of relationship with a mage did you have to feel that positively about their kids though? If you saw one after- … …I guess I really shouldn’t talk. Sure, it’s rare enough, but. I can think of more than two mages I myself would probably put a little faith in the children of… Out of some kind of pathetic nostalgia, if nothing else…

I sigh.

I guess it’s enough for now…

Still suspicious, though. All of it. But I get the impression whatever isn’t true, David is very sure of this man, and David seems…maybe not the most reliable man on the planet, but hardly the kind of person who would backstab his master. So I can work with that, for now. There’s always the chance he’s deceived though, I add mentally, eyeing the doctor again.

I just don’t get it. If he gave me some kind of bad feeling, I’d feel a lot safer around him, but he doesn’t. I don’t like feeling like I can’t read someone at all. I guess that’s not exactly how I feel about the doctor, but feeling like the read I get can’t possibly be accurate equates to about the same. Who are you? Why are you like this? And is it genuine, or is this some big act?

He returns my glance a little nervously, which seems to be his default state, but again, it’s not the kind of anxiety that would usually make me suspicious. It’s less…’I don’t want to get caught’ anxiety, and more ‘I’m out of my depth’ social anxiety. The guy gives me a weak, hopeful smile, and it’s unnerving how sincere that reads to me.

Shit, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we’ve just stumbled onto two of the strangest, and nicest currently living members of the mage world. The odds for that have to be almost impossible though, and in 24 hours?

Mozart breaks the silence, asking something about if we should get back to strategy now that that’s all cleared, but I miss the details because for a second I’m hung up on what I just thought. Best currently living mages? Shit, it’s what, 2015? She’s twenty-eight right now. I’m out there somewhere, traveling I think. December?

…I can’t remember. …anymore.

…Fuck!

It isn’t fair. I’ve tried so hard, to hold onto the things most important to me, and it doesn’t matter. The throne takes what it wants. So much is just burned away.

Nothing though? Nothing at all?

Two-Thousand-Fifteen… We. …

I don’t know.

I don’t. It’s gone, now. All of it.

God, that hurts. More than anything I’ve thought about in a while. I fucking hate being summoned to the time I was alive. I always think about it more, at least once or twice, and it feels like this. I bet if I saw her, she’d try to get me to stick around, as horrible as that would be for the me now, and the me I am. What’s worse is she could probably find some terrible way to make that work out.

I smile to myself, even though it hurts. Thinking about that last goodbye on a hilltop. Things that never happened, and the few things I can remember that did.

Are those even my proper memories? It’s hard to know anymore. They weren’t originally, but they are now. Maybe that’s why I’m not allowed to remember them as well, even if they’re my favorites. Part of me still wishes to god I’d killed him. But, I don’t mean that. Not all the way, not anymore.

I remember. I remember. One thing, from the end of this year. October…fuck. I can’t even remember what day it was anymore. His birthday. It had been in late October, I know that. She’d taken him…they were overseas, and she’d taken him to a market. They’d had things to do, but she’d done what she always did, and bullied him out of the house, all smiles and unstoppable like a force of nature. The market had been huge, and beautiful, and confusing. And she’d taken him to buy things to cook with, kept asking him…questions, that was right. About what foods were that she didn’t recognize, and what spices were good with what, what different dishes were like, and how they were made. I smile. It hurts.

I don’t even know if you really didn’t know any of the things you asked me about, or if you just wanted to keep me talking about something I loved. Probably a bit of both. It must have been so boring, hearing about spices and ways to use roots, for hours. But he’d been so happy, and he hadn’t even noticed until part way into the afternoon what she’d been doing at all.

Thank you, I think to the slight possibility there’s something out there that shows occasional pity towards me at all. Maybe it’s her, exerting her influence over the universe again, just like old times. For letting me remember something.

Fuck—I’m not paying attention at all!

Struggling to refocus, I turn my attention back to the table, listening.

“Well,” Mozart is saying in response to something I completely missed, “I’m all rested up now and feeling very ready, but what about the rest of you? Miss Fujimaru? You just underwent an operation, right? Are you sure you’re ready to go right back out there? You must be exhausted.”

An unexpectedly fair point from the caster. Especially with the emotional toll from earlier tacked on to everything else? Yeah, the kid’s got to be wiped out.

“I’m okay,” says Ritsuka as convincingly as she can.

“I highly doubt that,” I say, uncrossing my arms to gesture, “You’ve done a frankly dangerous amount of physical exertion already. If we want to be smart about this, we should combine being quick with being practical. Eat a little more, then get at least two hours of sleep. Being rash can get people killed just as easily as hesitating can.”

“He’s got a point,” says Billy, giving Ritsuka a concerned glance, “You ain’t had real rest all night, and you were so tired after rescuing me that you were passed out on the floor. Been through some battle, multiple contracts, and two magic operations since then. Least a little shut-eye seems needed.”

“But. Won’t we run out of time for Fuuma Kotarou?” she asks the doctor worriedly.

He gives her a kind smile and shakes his head. “We shouldn’t wait too long, but a little time to regroup is probably wise. Most of the spirits could probably use it too—certainly Cu Chulainn can.”

I don’t think Lancer enjoys being singled out as in need of R&R, from the look on his face, but I don’t think the doctor is wrong. Healed or not, I doubt even whatever magic the guy was able to pull off is the kind that just lets somebody bounce right back from a spirit core that was about to crack in two.

“Well,” says Ritsuka, looking us all over.

“It’s wise,” I agree, “We could all use a brief rest.”

Salieri seems like his mind is on something else, but he gives a distracted nod of agreement, and Robin gives a more tuned-in one.

“Same for you, Doctor,” says David, clapping a hand on his arm, “I know you’ve had some, but you were nearly dead a few hours ago, and you humans don’t heal the same way we do. Even with the magic I used, you’re going to be exhausted and a little sore—besides, you performed some heavy magic just now yourself.”

“Well, I’m not exactly going to be boots on the ground, but, point taken,” admits the doctor in the manner of someone mostly admitting defeat because they see their opponent is going to crush them if they try and fight it.

“Someone should keep watch,” says Robin Hood, “Obviously. I’m up for it, if the rest of you need some down time. I took the battle pretty well, comparatively.”

“No, I’ll do it,” says Mozart, standing up and stretching, “I already got my sleep, and besides, it’s usually up to the caster to acquire territory and set up defenses, yes? I should get something in place before we leave the doctor here on his own.”

Again, surprised pretty intensely by the level of capability and pragmatism I’m getting from Mozart. He seem—acts—like one of the most carefree and irresponsible spirits I’ve ever met, but I guess he’s not stupid.

“Have you had time to recover yourself?” asks Salieri unwillingly.

“Of course! Did you think I was napping for fun? I can strategize too,” says Mozart proudly, “Go on. I can handle guard duty.”

That I don’t buy—I believe he’s smart enough to suggest this, but no way he’s someone acting with that amount of forethought. Still, I’ll take what I can get.

“Fine. We should all be trying to conserve our magical energy best we can, anyway. Even if she’s got a vast supply, for a mage, she’s already supporting what—seven spirits? Alone?” I say.

“And looking to add an eighth,” chimes in Robin Hood.

“Well, I’m doing pretty okay now, but I guess that’s a good point,” says Ritsuka, standing up, “I’ll put together some more food while Dr. Romani keeps going over strategy, and we can all eat to help you replenish your magical energy too.”

There’s something painfully familiar about that. This little redhead getting up to hurry off to the kitchen to make a meal before battle like it’s the most natural choice in the world. Like looking into an old mirror, and I don’t like it, but at least for once I don’t feel anger. Just sadness.

She isn’t you, I tell myself, It won’t be the same.

“Are you hungry?” she asks the doctor, sticking her head back out from the little kitchenette.

“Oh, uh,” he starts, surprised.

“—Yes!” answers David for him without hesitation, “Thank you!”

The doctor gives him some kind of a look, but just accepts that. I swear, there’s something almost recognizable about their behavior. I guess at least it’s not giving me warning bells.

“Uhm,” comes Ritsuka’s voice from the kitchen, “I know some of you already had the curry, but there’s more if you’re hungry, and I have a lot of snacks! I’ve got chips, and pocky, and some chocolates, if you want something sweet.”

Billy the Kid’s eyes light up with excitement.

“I’ll take whatever you got,” says Lancer with a careless shrug and a grin.

As she gets things together, Doctor Archaman continues his strategy breakdown. There’s not a lot to go on, but he seems pretty sure from the layout that they’re keeping the most important things in the operation about dead-center in the building—most reinforced walls there, and it looks like the best point of entry for us will be from the roof. Shame we’re breaking in to get an assassin, instead of bringing one with us, because getting into places unseen is what they excel at. Can’t be helped, I guess.

After a minute of listening to discussion between the others about how well trained to expect personnel to be, I get up and walk over to the kitchen and glance in.

This poor kid. She’s got a whole row of plates on the tiny counter-top, balanced precariously, doing her best to keep a big pan of curry from burning, while checking ingredients and throwing together what else she can. Guess she was really planning to only be entertaining Billy, and while she over-planned for that, her supplies are looking stretched pretty thin.

“Need a hand?” I ask almost under my breath so the others won’t hear.

She looks up at me in surprise—guess she didn’t hear me coming, and then looks embarrassed, kind of downcast. “I-I guess so…I’m. Not so good at this, huh?”

I smile and move into the small space. “I wouldn’t say that. Looks like you’ve already made the best choice you can with your supplies. You’re running low on powder, it looks like though. I can improvise something with the spices you’ve got.”

“Really? But I have so few,” she says in surprise, moving to give me some room.

I smile to myself, remembering things I haven’t thought of in…years. Things that seem like somebody else’s life. “Not the first time I’ve had to improvise, and you’ve got a lot of onions—that’ll help.” Actually, that’s a shit-ton of onions. Why the hell did she get so many??

Whatever.

“Okay,” she says, almost excited now, “What can I do to help?”

“Just give me a full count of what you’ve got left in the way of meat and vegetables, to start,” I say.

As she counts off potatoes and carrots, I tune back in to the strategy session. Huh. It’s a pretty large amount of soldiers expected, and if they really are a military organization of some kind…

“What about a feint?” asks Robin Hood.

That’s just what I was about to say.

“That could work,” chimes in Billy the Kid, “We have a main group put up a real fight somewhere they’re worried about, and they all come runnin’—meanwhile, one or two of us goes and gets the assassin out.”

“To do that, we’ll have to make them think our objective is something it’s not,” observes Salieri, “But we don’t even know what they’d have to steal.”

“We don’t have to be stealing anything,” says Lancer with conviction, tapping an area on the bare-bones blueprint near the front, “What if we’re just there to destroy them? Mages do that shit—use us to wipe each other off the map. That works on its own.”

“In that case, the frontline should be the spirits they’re least likely to recognize quickly,” says Doctor Archaman, “So not Billy the Kid, Robin Hood, or Mozart.”

“Fine by me,” says Robin Hood with a shrug, “We can take Mmm—Ritsuka, around the long way from the roof. Get the assassin out. Three of us should be more than enough.”

“Mmm, I think I should stay,” says Mozart, “I don’t have the concealment skills an Archer has, and I couldn’t keep up with you two either.”

“Yeah, but you could keep an eye out for traps,” says Billy the Kid.

“I didn’t think about that,” says Mozart.

That is more what I expected from him. Still, seems workable enough for a thrown-together plan.

“I’ve already got the potatoes and the rice done,” says Ritsuka, smiling up at me. She’s sweating and a mess and looks dead-tired, but she looks happy too.

It makes me tired to see her. I really hope the world doesn’t chew her up and spit her back out, but that’s usually what happens to people like this.

“Good,” I say, not showing any of that, because it’s not like it’ll do her any good, and I add my improvised powder to what she had left, and absently summon a blade to slice through some of the extra vegetables.

“Whoa,” she says, “You’re really good at that.”

I guess. Ah, my most useful skill, I think bitterly. Still. Doesn’t exactly feel bad to be doing this again after such a long time.

“How do you do it so neat and so fast?” she asks, trying to push up on the counter to get close enough to see better.

For a beginner? “Here,” I say, passing her a carrot and summoning another chef’s knife for her and passing it over, “Like this.” I hold up my own hand and tilt it, showing the grip. “Take it so you’re holding the back of the knife itself, not the handle, with your thumb and index finger. Better control. If it’s something like a carrot, that will slide around, square it off first-“ I quickly do with my own, removing the edges so it’s blocky, “-Then, off hand grips the thing you’re cutting at an angle, like a claw, so your knuckles are closest to the knife as you slice, not your fingertips. This keeps you from slicing into your hand when you go fast. That, and you don’t really move the tip of the knife off the cutting board. Like this—like—a rocking horse.” Shit, was that really the best metaphor I could come up with? Uhg, no one’s asked me to explain this before. “Tip stays on the board for better control, base is raised above the vegetable to slice in, and after a slice, you move your hand a little closer to your knuckles to get the next slice. This allows you to go quickly with optimal control, and to not take off a finger, because you can’t.”

I demonstrate, letting the back of the knife hit my knuckles as I move it to the side. It’s not raising enough to slice through them, and it’s hitting them and stopping well before it is in reach of my fingertips.

“Give it a go?”

She watches me intently, then cautiously copies the technique—correctly, if a little hesitant, and then, excited by it not blowing up in her face, goes faster, and looks up at me eagerly for approval.

“Not bad,” I say with a nod, trying not to smile.

“Thanks,” she says, “That’s a lot easier.”

“Just don’t miss too much of what they’re saying,” I remind.

She nods, and glances back towards the table for a second, then slices a few more vegetables for me.

“You said you had snacks?” I ask as I work.

Ritsuka nods.

“Go ahead and pass them and some drinks out then, if you want. I can finish this—it’ll give you a chance to rest. I already got some while you were working on getting the crest transferred.”

“Are you sure?” she asks. Man, she looks ready to drop.

“Yes. Here.” I take a bit of the curry I’d thrown together with the vegetables and meat she already had prepared, and add it to one of the plates of waiting rice, “It’ll be a bit before the rest of this is ready, but you can test out the spice mix—see what you think. Then sleep. I know you feel responsible, but you’re keeping all the rest of us up. The most responsible thing you can do is get the proper rest to keep doing that.”

She gives me a very sincere nod, and takes the plate and tries a mouthful of the curry, and her eyes light up. “How?” she says, “It’s even better than the mix was?”

“Trade secret,” I say, indicating the rest of her supplies with my head, “Now go on. I’ll finish up here. Pass things out, make sure there’s nothing you missed about the plan as it stands, then get some sleep.”

Ritsuka nods again and gets an armful of bags, one hand precariously hanging onto her plate, and shoots me a grateful smile. “Thanks, Emiya.”

Still not used to being called that. I wish she’d just stuck with Archer. But I guess it is what it is.

“I’m really glad you were the one who came,” she adds, and then, suddenly embarrassed, hurries off to the rest of the room, where I hear chatter as she passes out snacks. And just for a moment, I don’t mind the sound of it so much.

Only for a moment, though.

I look down at the sizzling food beneath my fingertips, and it’s all too familiar to me. I feel like I’m reliving something terrible, but as an outsider, and for a second I forget to stir. Just look at nothing.

That was strange, I think to myself slowly as I begin to move again. It could have just been me, but I don’t think it was the cooking. I think it was something else in my head, for just a moment there. I felt like I was seeing…

A sky? Why on earth would a night sky make me feel like that? Why do I have a memory of that at all? I’ve never met this girl before.

No, maybe it’s my imagination. I have an old memory of looking up at a sky myself, that made me feel that way. That’s probably all it is. Just. Too much a little too familiar, at once.

Hm, I think with an odd sense of pleasure for an instant, a feeling that’s almost foreign at this point, It’s been a long time I guess, since I cooked for heroic spirits.

Funny it felt so natural to do. I guess old habits die hard.

————————————————-

I let out a slow breath, turning my head back the way we came from and listening, hand up in a sign of halt for the others in the shadows.

One. Two. Three. Four—

There—in the distance, I hear a thud.

“Okay, let’s move,” I tell the other three mentally, making a motion with my hand.

Billy gives me a nod and falls into step behind me, crouched by the wall, Ritsuka just behind him, Mozart bringing up the rear.

“We should rethink this formation,” I tell Billy mentally as I lift off one of the duct covers and motion the others past me, watching Billy leap in carefully, and then taking Ritsuka as I lower her by the hand. “As much as I’d like you watching my own back, we can’t put Master or the Caster in the back of the group.”

Billy gives a little nod. “You want point, or rear guard?”

I watch Mozart land, and then silently follow suit. Give him a glance. There’s cameras, but I can tell they’re currently deactivated. Emiya sent Salieri to do something he said would give us about four minutes—knocking out the power grid for the whole block. Two, if they’ve got heavy enough backup generators. Which we all expect they do. Still, it’s decent time. Thank god it takes a lot to power something this big. Whatever he did he said should knock out the power with a surge, so it’ll take things longer than normal to reboot, and trigger safety checks in case it was a cyber attack. Still, better hurry.

The place is dark. Eerie. Much wider halls than at Ur-shanabi, I can tell, but somehow it still makes me feel claustrophobic. A very different vibe than that lab was, but it’s not a better one. Least I can safely say Dr. Archaman was right on the money with his military applications guess.

“Rear,” I decide, “We get spotted, they won’t realize I’ve seen them if I stay invisible—might buy us a few seconds. And you’re a quicker draw—point suits you.”

He shoots me a grin, a little nervous, then glances at Mozart too.

Finished his read of the area, the caster glances back at as and mentally says, “There’s no traps near us. A few basic alarm triggers and such, but I should be able to fool them if we don’t go too quick. I can sense several massive concentrations of mana, but there’s only one servant signature.”

“Wait, you can sense him?” asks Ritsuka in surprise, “I thought they’d hide it.”

“I couldn’t pick it up at all from outside,” says Mozart, “But in here, there’s basically no shielding for sensors.”

Over-confident, then. Or criminally inexperienced, and I’m willing to bet it’s the former. Good.

“Let’s move,” I say, giving Billy a nod, and he hurries down the hall going the most in the direction Mozart indicated the servant signature was in, Mozart right behind, and Ritsuka after, me last.

I pop up my hood and vanish as we pick up speed, keeping my eyes open and senses on high alert.

“Just like old times, huh?” says Billy happily inside my head as he checks a corner ahead, then motions us to follow, and we dash.

I smile automatically. “Yeah.” It’s nice, even if I don’t really remember the old times at all, thanks to the throne. I still know this is familiar, and familiar still feels good. “Just missing Geronimo.”

That’s right. I said it without thinking, but of course that’s right. Three of us. There’s supposed—there were—the three of us.

“Yeah,” says Billy, sounding sad and fond at the same time, “Wish the bloodstained warrior could be here too. He’d like Ritsuka a lot, I bet.”

Yeah. Well, who wouldn’t? I sure with every spirit I like could have gotten this kind of summons—it’s practically a vacation compared to what we usually get, even with the constant fighting.

“On the left—one second,” comes Mozart’s voice, cutting off something Billy was starting to say in my head that he couldn’t hear. The halls all look exactly the same, long, square, steel—way too shiny. Gives away how new everything is. No matter how hard you polish, there’s just a level of ‘new’ things never get back to. Makes me feel more confident we’re not dealing with the most experienced group though, so I welcome the sight. There are markers on the halls, numbers and letters, the only indicator of where you are. It would be damn disorienting if I couldn’t sense as well as I can—I mean, it’s still disorienting, just, I don’t feel blind as a bat at least.

There’s a quick pulse as I study the hallway, and I feel Mozart’s energy flash up ahead, and only after he’s done something to it do I sense the panel in the wall up ahead’s sigils.

“Disarmed it?” I check.

“Mmm,” he says like ‘kind of,’ smiling, “Figured that might tip them off, so it’s more like I uh---covered it up? I don’t claim to be the best Caster around, but even for me, it’s not exactly a feat.” He notices Ritsuka watching him with curiosity as we take off again and adds, “You know, uh, in spy movies--when there is a camera and they take a photograph of the scene the camera is viewing, and then just tape the photo to the camera? I did the sigil version of taping a photo. Very poor security on all the traps I’ve seen so far. That’s the first one I’ve even had to slow down to cast over, and I’m not even good at this kind of magic.”

Well, that’s a relief. Nothing as reassuring as your enemy’s own incompetence.

We’re not too far. Not exactly close either, but I’m feeling pretty confident about our odds. I couldn’t sense the other spirit as fast as Mozart, but I can now, faintly, and that level of horrible shielding in here bodes real well for us.

“…Hey, Billy,” I ask after a second, since I feel like I can allow some chatting and still have the focus I need for this particular task. We can all hear the fighting out front, but so far we haven’t seen a living human, and nobody is shadowing us, I’ve made sure. “How much do you remember, about how we met?”

Most people, I wouldn’t ask—wouldn’t care to let on I don’t know, but uh, Billy’s really not the type to be affected by that. And if he remembers more than me, I’d like the secondhand memories back. It would…be nice.

“Huh?” he says, glancing back for a second before refocusing on the goal ahead as we finally hear living people up ahead, and take a couple of corridors out of our way to skirt around them, “Oh—Uh.” He makes a considering grimace. “Not sure, actually? I know that’s a weird answer. But uh, it’s like I remember tons of little things, but I got no clue what we were doin’, y’know? I remember you’n me met pinned down in this tiny town, somewhere on my home turf. Holdin’ out against a whole army, all our own. For days. Geronimo was workin’ with us, and someone else. Don’t remember who—but he dropped by with news and supplies. We really had it rough in a choke point a while. But you’n I held ‘em off until…” He smiles sheepishly and sends another glance my way. “…somethin’ happened. Can’t rightly remember what, but. We did make it! N’ I remember I told you we would when you figured we wouldn’t, and I was real smug about it.”

I grin. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” Pinned down, huh? I remember…A little of that, now that he’s put a name to it. Sometimes things work this way, and it’s a relief. I don’t remember as much as he seems to, but I remember calling out to him over a wooden windowsill. Something joking about how I was sure if he prayed for help, we’d be saved.

“Don’t remember much I take it?” he asks me.

“No,” I sigh, “But I got pieces.”

“Yeah, me too,” he says like it’s a pity, which it is, “Still!” he perks up, “I sure remember you!”

Yeah, me too, I think right back, smiling to myself. “Well, we’re both pretty hard to forget.”

“Sure are!” agrees Billy, “Same for Geronimo.”

“Remember anything else?” I ask him.

He considers. “Mmmm.” His face falls a little, and he looks far away for a second, regretful. “Pretty sure I bit it before you. Think I failed to save Geronimo too.”

Shit. Wouldn’t have asked if I’d remembered that kind of thing. “It’s just how being a heroic spirit is,” I say, “It never really ends happily. You know he knows that too.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, smiling a little weakly, “Wish that made it a lot easier.”

Yeah. Me too.

“So it was America?” I ask, trying to shift his mind to something else.

“Oh—yeah. Out west somewhere. Maybe like, N—”

There’s no sound, but there’s an explosion of mana from back by the main gates, and Ritsuka doesn’t seem to feel a thing, but the rest of us three spirits turn our heads to stare at what we can’t see.

“W-What happened?” asks Ritsuka, noticing us freeze, and skidding to a stop herself.

“Front gate,” I answer without any detail, because, well, there isn’t any to give. She gets it, though.

“Emiya?” she calls mentally, “David, Salieri, Cu Chulainn? Are you okay?”

There’s nothing, then a harried, “Uhhhh yeah,” from Cu Chulainn, which surprises me because I sort of expected any of the other three to answer first. He’s not entirely convincing. “We’re handling it. They’ve just got some. Weird shit out here. Took us by surprise.”

“How weird?” I ask, “Bad enough we should be concerned weird?”

“Uhh.” Emiya this time. Clearly mid-battle from the sound of his voice.

“They’re more…inventive than expected,” comes David’s voice, “And we think we know why they purchased a spirit.”

“Wait, he’s out there?” I ask without thinking, but when I sense, I can still clearly feel a heroic spirit up ahead, and no one but our own towards the gate.

“No, they’re skimming energy off to infuse their weapons. We took a hailstorm of ammunition that shouldn’t have done any real damage, and it almost put a hole through us,” says Emiya.

Interesting. Not actually the most complicated or original idea, but I’ll keep that in mind.

“We should keep moving,” I say out loud to Ritsuka.

She gives a nod, and we start out again.

“You’ll be fine though—you can handle it?” Ritsuka asks as we go.

“Easily,” says Emiya at the same time Cu Chulainn says, “Easy,” and there is a brief, unhappy pause in the second after.

“Be careful, though,” adds Emiya, breaking in, “If they’re using him as a resource beyond a generator, it’s pretty likely they’ve got better security that we initially suspected for the room itself.”

“Thanks for the heads up! Watch each others’ backs and stay safe, okay? And keep me updated if something happens, so I can help,” says Ritsuka.

I grin to myself, dipping deeper into my hood to hide it before I remember my stupid, tired self is invisible right now. She’s doing a pretty good job, though. At being a Master—leader—I mean, I guess. Strategist. I was surprised she had so little problem when the Doctor offered to run support for the frontal assault so she could focus on this, but that seems to be paying off. Guess she’s got decent instincts for what other people can be trusted with—well, that or she’s lucky, and honestly, either one of those abilities is an asset.

“Well, we’re getting close,” whispers Mozart, “so give me a second before we go any further, alright?”

He’s right. We’re almost to the room. This is the most boringly designed building I’ve ever been in—it’s like a warehouse. But for all that, at least it’s easily and quickly navigable. We haven’t even had to blow through walls to save time, like we did in Ur-Shanabi.

Mozart whispers to himself and waves his arms like a conductor, which is the goofiest way I think to date I’ve seen a caster, uh, cast. But hey, gets the job done.

“Anything?” At first I think Billy is asking Mozart, but I realize he means me.

“What, tailing us? No,” I confirm, and he gives a nod. We’re still clear.

“Alright,” Mozart lets out a breath and smiles. “He was right! This is more heavily guarded. It’s…interesting, though. I’d have thought there would be a lot more alarms and guards, but it’s mostly traps.”

“Traps?” echoes Billy.

Mozart nods. “I mean, there are alarms. But not as many more as I expected. It’s weird, isn’t it?” he adds, glancing at us, “I mean. I don’t know what any of you three know about magic, but alarms are more easy to miss and trigger, and they’re more effective if all you need is an alert, because they only take one mistake to work. A trap takes at least two—being set off, and hitting. Traps are also more complex, bulky, and difficult to hide. So it’s odd, isn’t it?”

He doesn’t sound worried, but that kind of made me uncomfortable about this. He’s not exactly wrong. I’m no mage, but I used my fair share of traps and warning systems in life, and sure, traps are a hell of a lot more useful in battle, but if all you need is fair warning, something that makes a sound or alters you some other way is way easier to make, hide, and make a lot of.

“Well…can we take care of the alarms and traps?” asks Ritsuka.

He gives a nod. “I can handle the alarms the way I have been, but the traps are more…tricky.. Honestly, I could try to diffuse or get us past them all, but it might be more efficient just sort of beat down the door and rush, letting them go off just not with us in them, and get out quick. Nobody’s close, right?”

We exchange glances.

“Well…Not that I’ve seen or heard,” says Billy uncertainly.

“Well, we need to get a little closer for me to finish covering the alarms, so we have a minute to think about it,” says Mozart, moving forward again.

Billy thinks for a few seconds as we go, then glances at Ritsuka. “What do you think?”

“I…” she considers. “…think we should be careful, even if it takes a little longer. Emiya said they’re handling it okay, and they haven’t told us we need to speed it way up. If we get inside and it takes longer to free him than we expect, we could be in real trouble.”

“Well,” I say, “You heard the little lady. So, what’s the plan of attack for avoiding traps?”

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to come up with one,” says Mozart with a cheery sigh, “But I guess I will now.”

That inspires confidence…

We hit an area really close to the room I can sense a Servant signature coming from. An assassin would usually be impossible for me to sense unless they wanted me to, but I doubt presence concealment is on his mind. Honestly, if anything, he probably is trying to shine like a beacon on the off chance someone comes to save him. Or put him out of his misery.

How long could a person stay sane like that?

Shit, that’s a thing to consider. Sure, we’ve all been through hell, but Billy and I were both dying in a way that let us go in and out of consciousness. Blood loss isn’t a fun way to go, but it isn’t exactly the worst one on the table either. As much as a bullet wound hurts, it’s not like being halfway to beheaded—whatever that even means. Which is…how Fuuma Kotarou died. Mozart’s setup sounds like it might have been as bad, and Cu Chulainn’s was pretty grisly, but neither of them had been summoned as long. If Kotarou’s been here long enough to have been picked out and sold, that means at least a few weeks. How much of his version of dying can a mind take before it shatters?

I’ve been feeling pretty secure about diverting some of my attention to thinking ahead, because there’s nothing much for me to do while our Caster does his thing with the alarms between us and the last room, but there’s a little burst of static from my ear then, and the communicators we’ve been given so the Doctor back at our home base can contact us in an emergency come on. Which cannot possibly be good.

“Hi, uh—we’ve hit a problem.”

Shit. Figures. This was going too smoothly.

“What happened?” asks Ritsuka into hers.

“Well, uh. Okay—several things,” comes his voice, quick and frazzled, “—we lost the Archer.”

Yeah, that clarifies nothing.

“There’s more than one of us!” calls Billy, voicing my thoughts.

“S-Sorry, uhm—Emiya,” he responds, “David’s alright. Right now. Uh. Sh-shit—Uh—”

“LOST?” asks Ritsuka in horror, and she shuts her eyes to concentrate—Oh right, I can do that too.

I do, feeling for the connection, and it’s still there, so he can’t be dead, but it is fucked. There is some energy coming from it I can’t even really describe, except that it does not feel promising.

“Wait, but he’s still here,” she says, opening her eyes and looking confused and relieved.

“Right—sorry—not dead—Go! Take the left side—it’s narrow!” he adds to someone who is clearly not one of us—I guess one of the other three he’s been trying to help strategize on the frontal assault. “They had something—some kind of weapon. Hidden with their regular rounds. I don’t really have time to explain, but there’s stuff inside a holly grail that corrupts heroic spirts, among many other things, and this wasn’t that, but whatever they used, it has similar energy. I can’t be sure if it’ll wear off. We might need you to get down here and see what you can do with a command seal, but—”

“—Wait, he turned on us??” asks Mozart in confusion, finally breaking concentration on his actual job to glance back at the rest of us.

“Well no—it’s more like it uhhh…It seems to have an effect like a much worse version of a madness enchantment,” comes the frazzled, staticky voice of the doctor, “It’s like it caused him to frenzy. Not for or against anyone, but, a spirit doing that is still a problem.”

Poor Ritsuka’s turned white as a sheet.

“The Lancer’s got it handled for the moment though,” assures the doctor quickly, “That’s not the real problem. Uh—the real problem is that we’re down those two because of it, and we lost Salieri too.”

Mozart’s face goes the color of Ritsuka’s. “He. He got hit too?” he asks in the tiniest voice imaginable. Yeah. I’d be fleeing the country if I was you right now, given even my weak grasp on the situation between you two.

“No—No, he wasn’t hit,” says the doctor, “But when they used their weapon, they hit a lot of their own forces—mostly vengeful spirits—not that powerful, but, a lot of them. Lots of necromancy. Uh—their own undead went into a frenzy too, though—broke formation and are heading towards anything that moves. We lost—David and I lost Salieri in the confusion. He’s tried to talk to him, and so have I, through coms, but no response. He’s still up, though, and he doesn’t seem to have been infected. Just---I-I don’t know. Anyway, the bigger issue is it’s just David with Salieri missing and the other two, uh, indisposed in combat. And the biggest source of ‘things that move’ for all these monsters to target is-“

“-The city!” says Ritsuka with horror.

“R-Right,” says the doctor, “David’s slowing them down well—we’ve got a little time, but if you can spare one or two of the others, we might need that. If the Lancer can’t fix things quickly, or we can’t find Salieri fast enough…”

She’s clearly thinking a million miles an hour, face grave. “Mozart,” she says quickly, “How much is left?”

“Traps?” says Mozart, incredibly anxious himself now, “Uh. About five. Movement sensitive,” he says, indicating an area of hall ahead, then another, “pressure sensitive,” he points to a third, “heat sensitive,” he indicates a fourth right by the door, “and that one senses mana,” he adds last, indicating the area surrounding the room at large. “Uh. If Salieri has lost composure out there, though, and you’re not going, I think I would be more effective going to try and stop-“

“-I know,” agrees Ritsuka with a shaky smile, “You think if Billy and I rush it, we can make it in alone? Like you suggested before?”

“Oh? Uh, yes,” says Mozart, lighting up, at the same time Billy says, “Hell yeah we can!”

Hopping forward to put a hand on her shoulder, Billy tugs Ritsuka closer and gives her a sure grin. God he’s short—hilarious this teenager is taller than him. I can’t help but smile at the fervency though.

“If worst comes to worst, I got an ace up my sleeve to get out of any trap!” declares Billy with a grin, “So don’t even worry—worst happens and we don’t get past one, we’ll still get past it! Promise,” he adds, shooting me a smile too.

I give a nod. “Okay then. Mozart?”

“Right,” says the caster, straightening up, “We should probably run.”

“Yeah, we’re going to,” I say, and I give the other two a nod, and tear off. Over coms, I hear Ritsuka say, “Billy and I are going ahead alone; we’ll meet back up with you out front once we’ve saved Fuuma Kotarou! I’m sending Robin Hood and Mozart on ahead.”

Right.

“Billy,” I call mentally to him and just him.

“Yeah?” he asks in surprise.

“Just, it’ll probably be okay, but the assassin’s been under tremendous mental strain, what with the way he died. It’s possible he…won’t be entirely, uh, there by the time you get to him. Just. Be careful. Make sure M—make sure Ritsuka doesn’t pay for that.”

“You got it,” comes Billy’s cheerful voice, with a note of sincerity to it, “Catch up to you soon.”

Right. I let out a breath as Mozart and I dash through another hall and towards the front of the building, paying no attention to security this time, only the sounds of violence getting louder and louder up ahead, and turn focus to the new task in front of me.

————————————————-

“’Kay, hang on tight, aright?” I say.

I have an arm around Ritsuka, holding her up, and she wraps one arm around me to stay steady and gives a nod.

Let’s do this, I think, mentally timing out the spaces ahead of me. We’re absolutely getting blasted by whatever the traps are, but if I’m quick enough, it won’t matter. You got this, Billy.

“Ready?” I check, nervous suddenly as I am reminded by the thudding heartbeat I can feel from the chest against mine that I am not responsible for just my own safety, but also safety of someone a lot more frail’n me.

It’s funny, looking at her face, I wouldn’t know she was anxious at all. She looks so ready and serious. Makes me smile. Makes me calmer, too. That steady look on the face of a girl whose heart I can feel knocking around at 100 miles an hour.

“Ready,” she agrees.

I bolt.

The first trap would have killed a normal person. It’s not a trap so much as an execution. The second we move through the hall, the walls slam together, crushing anything not moving fast enough through it to break the sound barrier, into pulp. Luckily, we are. I jump and propel myself off the wall on the right as it tries to crush us, using the force and strength my Servant body gives me to dive through the second motion sensitive trap. I don’t even have time to see what that one does, and I don’t want to, but I can smell the static of electric charge in the air so thick I smell the edges of my clothes and hair burn for just an instant, and then we’re past it, on to the area Mozart said was pressure sensitive. That, I know how to avoid, and I turn in the air and fire off Thunderer for the extra momentum to shoot us the last twenty feet down the hall without touching a single surface, land right by the door, skid on my feet and whip around to fire at the wall and break us through.

I know I got seconds. I can feel the time slip away. This one is mana sensitive, he said, and I’m about to use some, but I’m made of mana—I subsist on it. It ain’t gonna matter. He said two traps, heat sensitive too, so we’ve already tripped both. Come on come on. “I’ll put a bullet right between your eyes!” I call, and the magic rips from my gun barrel, tearing through the wall in a shower of sparks and dust and particles of metal and mana, and I can tell what the first of the two traps is as a canister releases and gas cascades into the hall. Shit!

“Hold your-!” I start to call, and then I can’t. There’s a seal here—a trap, like the one in Ur-shanabi, but weaker, and it lights up around me, reacting to the mana, and I can’t move. Shit-shit! God damn it! Uhg, being a newer spirit sucks—I got the magic resistance of nothing! If I was Emiya, I could probably just jump right through this, but I ain’t designed even with the resistance that would usually go with my class. O-Okay—you were hoping not to have to do this, but it’s fine! We’ll make it! Just gotta use my—

“No wait!”

I stop in surprise, halfway to calling out my second phantasm, and turn to look at Ritsuka as she lets go of me. Huh?

Her face is scrunched up with what must be a big breath of oxygen she sucked in before the poison hit, but I can tell past the puffy face that she’s smiling at me.

“I got this! They expected either humans or something magic like you—not both! Leave this one to me!” she calls in my head, and to my intense surprise she reaches over, grabs me around the waist, grunts, and throws me over a shoulder like it ain’t nothing, then books through the hole I tore in the wall. The second we’re through, I can move again, and still on her shoulder I lean around and fire my gun through the hole again, aiming for the cannisters still shooting gas that I didn’t see before. That’s half the problem solved.

Seeing I can move, Ritsuka lets go, and I hop down and frantically look for anything I can use for the second half of the problem. Gas in the air is gonna go everywhere fast—that’s what gas does, and that ain’t good for Ritsuka! The room we’re in is big and dark—not as in dim, but as in totally unlit—only reason it seems large to me is the echo I hear when I hit the ground. No good options appearing, I panic and shoot around a panel of the ceiling above me as fast as I can, because what else am I gonna do? –snag Ritsuka, hop out of the way as it falls, and then grab it and shove it up over the hole we came through, and kick it so hard it dents outwards, close as I can get to an airtight seal on short notice. Don’t smell much in the air though, so I think it’s okay to breathe.

“Seem okay?” I ask her mentally.

She hesitates, then takes a cautious breath, and then nods and gives me a smile.

“Quick thinkin’” I say appreciatively, shooting her a grin, “You’re pretty strong, too!”

“I’ve done it before,” she replies proudly.

That’s right, guess she has.

There’s a sound like something dying. A gurgle. An incredible unnerving sound to hear come out of anythin alive at all.

It’s coming from deeper in the room, and Ritsuka and I turn as one, but I can’t see, and I’m sure she can’t either. Even with a chunk of ceiling gone, it’s pitch black, because the room above was too, and there’s no cracks to let in light behind us from the hall.

“You got a light?” I ask, surprised to feel nervous. I guess what Robin said is in the back of my head. It’s gonna be real bad if we get to this guy and it’s too late. Won’t be anything we can do, I guess, except put him out his misery, and that ain’t fair. I don’t really wanna see what they done to him, but I guess we gotta.

Ritsuka takes out her phone and turns on a flashlight from it and holds that up. It ain’t much, but I can see pipes. Thick, heavy feeling, running along the ceiling and floor and walls, all to some little boxy shape in the dead center. Side from that, the room’s entirely barren. We hear the awful choked gargling sound again, and it’s coming from there—from the dead center, and we exchange looks and a quick nod and move forward.

“Careful,” I tell her, passing on Robin’s concerns.

She pauses in surprise to give me a worried look.

“You remember how David acted before we could calm him down? This might be like that, but a lot worse. Sometimes you go through too much to be thinkin’ much anymore.” I say, and she gives me a solemn nod.

I move up ahead, hand on my gun, careful, Ritsuka right behind me. It’s a big room, but it still ain’t far.

As we get closer, I can make out enough to tell there’s a body on the ground there, with something near his head. I can tell he hears us, too. He can’t seem to turn his head at all, but he’s twitching, and the sounds increase in franticness and frequency. It’s awful. A bubbling, strangled, wet, agonized sound.

And then we’re close enough I can really see the setup.

It’s simple, kinda like mine was. Just a metal plate the thick metal tubes along the room all seem to hook into, sort of on a very slightly raised dais, but only to about knee height. He’s bolted down to the metal plate—band around his forehead, his chest, stomach, arms and legs in several places. I doubt he can move at all. And it’s so fucking clean it makes me furious. There’s a drain, right beneath his neck, for the blood. And he’s small, like me. Maybe about the same height. Younger looking than I thought too—shit, he could be Ritsuka’s age. Red hair like hers, just a bit darker. Matted to his face with sweat, covering his eyes. He’s so pale he looks like a corpse, and he’s shaking. It’s the only movement—I can’t even tell he’s breathing, though he’s gotta be. And the thing by his head is almost nothing at all. It’s just a stand. A katana stand, with a sword on it. A sword resting so fucking effortlessly and gently, like a trophy display case, only, it’s resting halfway through his mostly severed neck.

Ritsuka sucks in a breath and flinches and almost cries at the sight. She looks like she’s trying not to vomit. Honestly, I about am too.

Fuck—we—we’re off to the side a little—we came from his left and a little behind him, and he’s in our line of sight, but he can’t even tilt his head, so we ain’t in his, and I can see him breathing now, because it’s frantic and shallow. He’s trying so hard to make sounds and failing. Desperate, almost crying sounds through that severed throat and what’s left of his vocal chords. That’s cruel—I didn’t mean to—b-but, to him we could be anything, come to make this worse.

“Hey,” I try, moving before thinkin because being fast seems the most important to me, and I step right up by and in front of him, doing my best to get into his line of sight.

His bangs are long and stuck to his skin, but I can make out part of one eye, dilated pupil finding and fixing itself on me in a barely there panic.

“’S okay,” I promise, spinning my gun into its holster and holding up my hands, palm out, “We ain’t with them—we’re here to save you.”

I…shit, I guess that was the wrong thing to say somehow, because there’s this awful look on his face then, like I’ve just watched the last of his sanity shatter. His pupil expands and constricts and expands rapidly, unnaturally; his breath hitches and stops and then begins frantically again, but the line of his mouth doesn’t move an inch. I-I don’t understand what…

“Hey.” Ritsuka, moving up beside me. I step back a little to make room. She gives me a worried look, then kneels by the spirit. His eyes leave me and go with her, blood seeping out of his neck and neatly into the drain beneath it as he struggles to breathe and chokes. “You’re Fuuma Kotarou, right?”

He stops breathing for a second completely. His expression goes completely blank. I-I freak out for a second and think he’s dead, but then he breathes again, making an awful squelching sound from his throat, and a choked sound like a sob if it could come from your neck instead of your mouth. God, I-I can’t watch this. I will though. Fuck.

“I’m Ritsuka Fujimaru,” says Ritsuka, placing the hand with command seals on her chest. His eye flashes to it and back to her, and I see abject terror in it now.

“It’s okay!” I promise, moving up again, and his frantic eye darts towards me, “She ain’t a real mage. She’s just a kid—she’s helpin us out. I was in a trap like this too, and she broke me free. We’re tryin’ to get everybody.”

Worried, she looks from me to him, and nods. “I-I’m not like the people who did this. He’s right, I-I’m not really a mage either. I can’t even really do any magic, except a little healing. But I want to help.”

Shit, hope I didn’t offend her. ‘Not a mage’ is a compliment around heroic spirits, but not sure she knows that.

Kotarou looks from me to her with the one eye he can see out of, desperate, and then settles on her again. Scared, eye big, but listening. Guess I’d listen to anything too, if I was in his trap.

“I’m gonna try to get you out, okay?” says Ritsuka, and again, he has that look on his face. Like he’s shattered at the words. He’s suddenly looking at her and at nothing, and he makes the worst, wettest weeping sound in his throat I’ve heard yet and sustains it for a few seconds before he seems to come back, but I realize slowly this time I think I was wrong. I think that look is relief. A kind of relief that looks like despair that I don’t quite know how to describe. Relief that came too late maybe, or relief that doesn’t believe in it itself and is terrified to.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I promise, more relived and more worried about him now.

“Right,” agrees Ritsuka, looking grateful, and then her expression falls as she looks over the bolts holding him down, and the sword, then back to me. “W-We. If we move the sword, do you think he…?”

“Almost immediately,” I agree, “It’s the only thing keepin’ the blood from coming out so fast it’s killed him already.”

Frantic, his eye darts from one of us to the other and his breathing becomes so fast it’s hyperventilating, sucking against the sword in the half a throat he has, and I realize he thinks this means we might give up.

“O-Okay,” says Ritsuka before I can say something, looking back at Kotarou, “I’ve only got one idea. You’re hurt really, really bad. We can’t do anything to heal you until the trap you’re in is broken, but as soon as we break it and move the sword, you’ll die. But if. If you form a contract with me, the second we break the trap, I can use a command spell.” She holds up her hand to show him the array, two left. “To heal you. And I think we can do it fast enough, you’ll be okay.”

He stops moving again, blank wide eye fixed on her. He looks so pitiful. He’s gotta be a teenager, the age he was summoned. That’s a cruel thing to do. I guess I’m lucky in a way that I made it to 21 to die. I know he did too, and past, so I can’t imagine what justification the throne gave for sending him back like this. Gotta be worse for Ritsuka too. He could be a classmate in another life. Could be her.

“I promise. I know you don’t know me, but I won’t do anything to hurt you or force you to do anything at all. I just want to help. I-I’m sorry the only way I know how to help is like this. But please, please, if you trust me, I can save you,” begs Ritsuka.

I look at Kotarou. He has no expression at all. He’s staring at her, but nothing changes. He doesn’t move, or make a sound, other than the awful, agonized, sucking breathing coming from his throat. Just blankness. And then, slowly, his eye wells up and spills over down against his cheek, and keeps going. Silent. I don’t know if it’s fear, or misery, or hope, or despair, or things you can only feel in that much pain, but I want to help it stop.

“I promise,” I tell him myself, “I wouldn’t lie to another heroic spirit. Not about a thing like this. We’ll help you.”

He makes an agonized sound, then again, and again, and one like a whimper in his chest. The liquid pouring out of his eye becomes thicker, more, and I realize he has no way to say yes or no. He can’t speak.

“C-Can you move your fingers?” I ask him.

His eyes widen, and immediately, his left hand, trembling, taps its ring finger against the ground.

“Okay. One for no, two for yes,” I say.

He taps twice, fast, then pauses, and taps again, then again, and then he just keeps going and doesn’t stop, the thick liquid seeping out of his eye so fast it’s starting to swell.

“Okay,” promises Ritsuka, desperate too, “yes—we hear you. We’ll do it. It’s gonna be okay.”

He takes an awful, shuddering, squelching breath, and stops tapping. Makes a pained sound best he can.

“Billy?” says Ritsuka, looking at me.

I give a nod and move to the other side and kneel, hand hovering by the handle to the katana. I see Kotarou start to tremble. Hang in there. I know this can’t be doable, forget easy, but you’re almost there.

“Go. I’ll rip it out right when you reach the end. All he has to do is accept, and you can save him,” I promise.

“Are you ready?” she asks Kotarou.

His left hand taps a weak double-tap.

“My soul becomes your will; your spirit becomes my destiny. If you hear my call and accept me, then bind to me, Assassin!” she calls, starting calm and ending almost at a fever pitch in her own desperation. At the name of his class, I rip the katana upwards, and he jerks and makes an awful, headless scream, and in the same instant I see him frantically slamming his fingers against the ground, trying to accept, and I praying to God to please let it work, and it must because Ritsuka raises her hand skyward and shouts, “HEAL!” at the top of her lungs, and I feel a massive surge of power burst out of the command seals and slam into the assassin beside me, and his body jerks and convulses the little it can nailed down, then goes still.

“Kotarou!” calls Rituska, scrambling on her knees to be by his head. His neck is solid again, and I can sense he’s alive, but his eyes are shut. He coughs then, an awful, wet cough, sending blood over Ritsuka’s sleeve, groans, and goes still.

“Billy!”

“Right!” I call, breaking my own trance, and I rip Thunderer from his holster and blow the restraints off one by one, starting with his head, careful to be precise predicting the angle of the shrapnel.

Soon as he’s free, Ritsuka drags him up and partially onto her lap. “Hey! Are you okay?” She looks frantically at me. “D-Did I do it wrong?”

“No, I don’t-“ I start to reassure, stooping closer, when Kotarou coughs again, a deep, wracking, wet cough, expelling more blood, and then he takes a weak gasp and his eyes half open, dazed and sunken.

“Hey!” calls Ritsuka, relieved, “You’re okay! Oh I was so scared y-“

His eyes weakly move to look up at what he can see of her, and then he closes them and begins to shudder and weep, and she stops. I stop too.

“H-Hey,” she tries after a second, nervously placing her hand gently on his head and when he has no response at all instead of flinching, she tries stroking it to calm him down. “It’s okay. You’re out now. It’s over.”

The teenage spirit keeps crying—starts to have trouble breathing through it, and then suddenly he moves, dragging himself off of her and back, and I panic for a second and get my hand on my gun just in case, but all he does is collapse on his knees with his head against the floor, bowing.

“Thank you, Master,” he manages through crying he hasn’t really been able to stop. It sounds painful to speak, and his voice is shaking like his body. “Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you.” The words come out choked, almost a whisper. “I-I’m yours. Anything, ever. I’m yours.”

He’s still crying. I rarely get to feel older than any heroic spirit I’m spendin’ time with, but it hurts to see that, and I do.

“I-I,” Ritsuka falters, overwhelmed, and she looks to me, so I try to give her a reassuring look back. She hesitates again, then scoots closer on her knees and puts a hand on his shoulder. This time he does flinch, but he stays where he is. “It’s okay. You’re welcome, but I’m not your Master. I just want to be your friend.”

From the side, I see his eyes get wide and confused, worried almost. Then she reaches and straightens him up a little on his knees so he’s even with her instead of bowing, face still dirty with blood and tears, and shivering like a leaf.

“You’re your own. But, if you want to stick around for a little bit, we could use the help,” she adds, giving his worried face a tentative smile, “I brought a lot of friends to help break you out, and they’re fighting the people who kept you trapped right now, and it’s going pretty scary right now. You don’t have to. You can run away if you want, or we can take you somewhere safe-“

“-I.” He stops immediately and flinches, realizing he cut her off, but when she waits and just smiles at him, he keeps going. “…I don’t understand,” he manages with his damaged voice.

She cocks her head. “Which part?”

“…W…” He stops, eyes darting a little, frantic and desperate for a second, then looks back at her. “Why are you doing this? You don’t…”

“Uhm…I guess I don’t have a really interesting reason,” she says, flushing a little, and its his turn to cock his head and blink, trying to understand. “I just. Found out this was happening, so I tried to stop it. That’s really all of it there is.”

He looks at her for a few seconds, then me, and I give him a grin. Yeah, this shit never happens to us.

“R-Really?” he asks, sounding more like a kid and more like a normal person for the first time.

She nods.

“W-Well…” He thinks again, worried, then looks up at her. “What do I call you, M-…Uhm.”

Now he looks embarrassed. She smiles. “Ritsuka, i-if you want!”

Ah, her turn again. I forget that first names are kind of a big deal here.

He seems surprised, then cautiously smiles back, and it’s almost painful, the way he looks, to see that. “Okay,” he says softly, “Uh. Then. My Lord Ritsuka, you said…there’s more of you, fighting the people who trapped me here, right now?”

She nods.

Kotarou holds up a hand and concentrates painfully, and a belt with pockets and various kunai and tools strapped to it appears in his outstretched fingertips. Breathing hard, he turns and offers it to her. “I want to help.”

#the kid (fic)#the kid #fate grand order #fate au fic #fate fic #fate #fgo #billy the kid #ritsuka fujimaru #fuuma kotarou #emiya archer #cu chulainn #antonio salieri #wolfgang amadeus mozart #romani archaman #king david #robin hood

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h0rnyshakespeare · 3 years ago

Note

could you do a fantasy au with bakugou as a kitsune? you’ve just recently moved into a cottage in the woods to get away from your previous life, when you stubble across baku in a trap surrounded by hunters! you of course aren’t going to let some assholes hurt an innocent creature, so you devise a plan to get him free. you draw the hunter’s attention away from the caged baku, causing them to run off. you then get to baku, and are able to free him. though a slight problem, the hunters are coming back, and they see you messing with their ‘find.’ while you’re frozen in place, baku literally picks you up, and jumps into the trees, evading gunshots. he keeps you there until the hunters go away.

after all this drama, you start hanging out with the kitsune more and more. you two get closer as time goes on, and bakugou becomes more and more infatuated and protective of you. he’s touchier, softer, and overall more gentle with you. he even lets you touch his ears and tail. everything is all well and good when oh no, the hunters are back, and they’re out for revenge. while you’re at the cottage, they ransack your home, chasing you out into the woods. you’re sprinting, calling for bakugou as the hunters are gaining. just then, none other than the fox himself jumps in and beats the absolute shit outta the hunters. he then turns to you, worry as well as rage in his eyes. he sees they’ve hurt you, and that’s the final nail in the coffin for what he’s about to do. “Stay with me.” he pleads. “you don’t have a safe home anymore, and even if you did, i can’t promise your safety. i NEED you to be safe, okay. stay with me as my mate. i’ll hunt for you. i’ll protect you. anything, and you’ve got it.” you’re stunned. eyes wide, you ask him why. why does he care so much? nobody else ever did, so why does he, as powerful and as beautiful as he is. the answer isn’t as hard as you would think “it’s because i fucking love you...”

OKAY this is definitely long and more of a vent than anything but i think it’s so cute! just imagine cuddling with him as soft and as cute as he would be, hanging over you like a jungle cat. very nice, very nice indeed

kitsune!Bakugou x gn!reader (I couldn't think of a title, sorry)

Genre: Fantasy

Warnings: Swearing caz Bakugou, brief mentions of gunshots (that’s it I think?? But if there’s anything I missed please let me know)

Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: Tysm for requesting, this was such a cute idea! I’m sorry this took some time, exams are coming so my writing’s a little slow haha. I wrote this to be gn!reader but if anywhere implies otherwise please let me know :) And to everyone else who requested, I’m working on them!

Y/N: Your name

L/N: Last name

You had recently moved into a little cottage in the woods, not too far away from the main city, but enough to be away from the busy, commercial life you once lived. Others might disagree, but you felt more at peace among nature, like you were truly satisfied. You had never enjoyed living among many people, so you were excited to start your new life, out here in the woods. As you walked back to your cottage after taking a walk to familiarize yourself with your new surroundings, you heard a few voices up ahead. You groaned, not wanting to socialize with anyone, but before you could turn to take a different route to avoid whoever was there, you overheard one of the voices say, “We’re gonna get a fine amount of money for this creature’s fur, ya hear me? So make sure the trap is secure.” A couple of other voices mumbled in agreement. You frowned. Although you could not really make out what animal they had caught, you did know that whatever they were doing, it sounded illegal. You sighed. You did not want to confront anyone, but you made your way towards the voices. You saw three men surrounding a cage, holding… guns? “What have I gotten myself into?” you internally groaned, but it was too late to turn back now. “Um, excuse me?” you called out hesitantly. They turned at the sound of your voice, looking displeased. You smiled nervously. “Hi, um, it’s actually illegal to hunt in this area…” you trailed off, seeing their annoyance. “How would you know, you little punk? Go braid daisy crowns or whatever you do in this dump,” one of them sneered at you. You were slowly growing irritated, but you kept the smile on your face, determining to help whatever animal they had imprisoned. “Ok, well, I was going to let you know that if you walk a few miles from here, there is a hunting area. You guys aren’t the first hunters I’ve seen around here,” you lied through your teeth, trying to distract them to give you enough time to release the trapped creature. “If you check it out, I’ll forget I even saw you guys here, and no one will know that y’all were hunting illegally, ok? Plus, I’ve seen a lot of finer animals in that area.” “Maybe we should listen to her, boss,” one of the hunters said to the one who had spoken to you first. “I mean, it is just a fox, and if we’re caught…” he whispered the rest of his sentence to their leader, who in turn frowned. “Fuck, whatever. How far is the hunting area, kid?” he asked, the question directed to you. “Oh, um, about… 10 miles from here? In that direction,” you said, pointing. “You better not be lying to us,” the hunter glared at you, making you gulp. You tried to act nonchalant until they were out of sight, then immediately rushed to the trap. You gasped when you saw a beautiful fox with… tan, almost golden fur. You had never even heard of foxes that colour. The hunters were idiotic to listen to you and leave this amazing creature, but you were glad they did. The fox made a low, growling noise, snapping you out of your trance. “Ah, right, I’m sorry, I’ll let you out now, don’t worry,” you said, suddenly feeling stupid that you were conversing with an animal. You quickly set your attention onto setting it free. The trap looked complicated to deactivate, but you realized it was actually quite simple, and you managed to free the fox in no time. “There you go,” you smiled, “You’re free now.” Surprisingly, the fox lingered, studying you with beautiful carmine eyes. First tan fur, now red eyes? “You’re like something outta a fairy tale, huh? So pretty,” you said softly, gazing at it at wonder, when you heard distant voices shouting.

Crap. The hunters.

“You really thought you could fool us! There were no animals in that area!” “Ahaha fuck, I’m in trouble,” you murmured, thinking of a way to escape, when you remembered the fox was still here! “Hey uh, you really should get outta here-” you said, turning to find not a fox, but a man with fox ears and a- no wait, nine tails. Your eyes widened, freezing as you tried to process what just happened.

“Oi, dumbass, if you’re not gonna run they’re gonna get you, you know.”

“I- uhhh… well this is a weird dream,” you chuckled nervously. “Tch, idiot,” was all he said before picking you up bridal-style and running faster than the hunters could catch up. You felt something whizz past your ear. “HOLY FU- THEY’RE SHOOTING AT US!” you yelled, grabbing at the man’s collar. “Thanks for stating the obvious, dumbass!” he yelled back. “Now would you shut up so I can focus on not dying?” You quickly turned silent after that statement. Without warning the… man? fox? man fox?? suddenly took a huge leap into the trees, landing on a branch that somehow held his weight. You yelped, then quickly covered your mouth in order to keep quiet as you saw the hunters running past from underneath. “They’re gone now,” you heard the man speak as he set you down on the branch. The tree you both were on was sturdy, giving you a secure foothold. You turned to face him. “Uh, thanks for saving me back there, but I’m pretty sure you were a fox when I first saw you…?” “Tch. Humans really have gotten dumber over the past few years haven’t they. I’m a kitsune. Ya know what that is?” Your eyes widened. “A-a kitsune as in the ones in the fairy tales? The foxes who can shapeshift to humans, and have many tails…” you trailed off, feeling stupid that you had not noticed earlier. The kitsune smirked in response. “Yeah, and I have nine, meaning I’m the most powerful. You’re lucky I was there to save you.” “You saved me? Who was trapped in a cage, huh? If anything, you should be thanking me,” you huffed, annoyed. Who did he think he was? He said nothing, simply gazing at you with interest written all over the flaming pools of scarlet that were his eyes. You tried not to feel intimidated by them, not knowing what powers this creature possessed. You could not deny that he was beautiful as a human, alluring even, with blonde hair similar to his fox fur, and his body looked as if it were sculpted by gods. You gulped, forcing yourself to stop staring at all the scars scattering his bare chest. He smirked as if he knew exactly what you were thinking of, causing your face to heat up. “Where do you live, dumbass? I’m sure you can’t climb down trees.” You rolled your eyes, embarrassed that he was right. “Not far from here, I’ll manage.” “Don’t be ridiculous,” was all he said before he lifted you in his arms again, leaping to the ground and taking you home in no time. “I didn’t even give you directions,” you said, confused. He sighed. “I could smell your scent from here. Why do you live in the middle of the forest?” “Caz I want to??” you said. “That’s weird,” he responded. “Don’t you live here too though?” you retorted. You saw a smirk flicker briefly on his face before being replaced again with his bored expression. “I’ll see you around then, dumbass.” He said, turning to leave. “Wait!” you called out, immediately regretting it. Why’d I do that? But there was no time to question your actions as he looked at you, eyebrow raised. “Uh, I-I just wanted to know your name,” you said a little breathlessly. “Katsuki Bakugou,” he said, never breaking eye contact. “Bakugou, huh? Well, I’m Y/N L/N,” you replied. Bakugou shrugged. “I’ll be leaving then dumbass.” You huffed. “I literally just told you my name!” “And?” was all he said, before vanishing through the foliage of trees. You exhaled slowly, feeling a little disoriented. You had so many questions but decided not to think too much of the day’s events, instead opting for relaxing in your new home.

The next day, you decided to just hang out at home, yet you could not get the kitsune out of your mind, making you frustrated. “Ah, fuck it,” you mumbled, before heading out. You were not sure where you were going, but you walked in the same direction you did yesterday. “What are you doing this you idiot? What if the hunters find you again?” you thought, yet your body did not listen, continuing to walk in the same path. You did not run into anyone on the way. Unfortunately, that included Bakugou. You decided to just sit down under a tree and read the book you had brought with you. You had been peacefully reading for a while, the sounds of the forest soothing to you ears.

“Well fancy seeing you here.” You whipped your head at the sound of his voice. You saw the fox with tan fur you rescued yesterday. “Bakugou?” He transformed into his human form, grinning as he did so. “So, what’re you doing here, dumbass? Missed me?” You rolled your eyes. “You wish. I came here to relax for a bit.” “Whatever you say, dumbass. What’re you reading?” You showed him your book, causing him to snort. “What?” you asked, slightly irritated. What was his deal? “Your taste is so bland, I’m not surprised.” “Fuck off,” you responded. “As if you’ve ever even touched a book before.” “I have,” Bakugou said, raising his eyebrows. “Didn’t peg you as the type to read,” you said, getting back to your book. “Is that all modern-day kitsunes do these days?” Bakugou shrugged. “I’ve never met any others here.” You looked back at him, surprised. “So… you’re alone?” “Tch. I just prefer to be by myself.” You nodded. “Me too.” “Pfft, you? You look like someone who would love being around people, with how much you talk and all.” You glared at him. “And this is exactly why I like being on my own.” He raised his arms. “I guess I’ll leave then. Since you seem to really hate company, right dumbass?” “My name is not dumbass, it’s Y/N. Why’re you so rude?” you hissed. You were met with silence when you realized he had left. You could not believe you actually came out all this way just to talk to him, only for him to randomly leave mid-conversation. You huffed, shifting your position to get more comfortable. “I’m still here you know.” You jumped, hearing his voice from above you. “What the hell?” He snorted in amusement. “You really think you could get rid of me that easily, dumbass?” You rolled your eyes, but inside you felt secretly happy that he had stayed, and you hated it. “You’re so annoying,” you retorted, turning a page in your book, yet somehow not really seeing the words. It was quiet for a while, before Bakugou jumped back down to the ground, sitting next to you. “Read that for me,” he said in a tone unlike his usual one. “What?�� “You seem to like this trash so much, so read it,” he said, making himself comfortable. You sighed. “Fine.”

And so began the afternoons you would spend with him. Every day, you would meet him under the same tree and read. Sometimes he would fall asleep next to you, exposing a more soft and vulnerable side of him, contrasting to his normally brash and rough personality. It was pretty sweet, and over time, your feelings for him only grew. You were not sure, but you felt that he too had become softer and gentler around you as time went on. He even let you pet his ears, blushing whenever you did so, trying to hide his flusteredness behind his colourful words. He even went as far as falling asleep on your lap in wolf-form, making you happy he could trust you with the more vulnerable side of him.

You were at home, about to leave to meet Bakugou, when you heard some commotion outside. You were about to check when you heard the door break open. “Find them!” you heard a loud voice say. Your blood ran cold. The hunters? Why were they so set on revenge? You heard something break as they stormed through your house. Before you could grab something to defend yourself, one of them burst into your room, causing you to freeze. “There you fucking are,” he said moving towards you, blocking the exit. Thinking fast, you opened the window next to you and jumped out. Thankfully, it was close to the ground, so you easily picked yourself up and you ran, not daring to look back, but you heard them shouting and running after you. You sprinted down the familiar path, calling for Bakugou as you did. “Goddammit, where are you Bakugou?” you yelled as the hunters gained on you, when-

“The HELL you fuckers think you’re doing, HAH?”

You had never felt so relieved to hear his voice. “Bakugou!” “Stay behind me,” was all he said before going absolutely feral. He beat them up in no time, then watched as they ran away in terror. When he made sure they were gone, he turned to you, anger dissipating, his eyes filled with worry. “You ok?” You nodded weakly, then raised your arm, showing him the wound you had gotten when one of the hunters had shot at you. “It’s not bad, don’t worry. The bullet didn’t hit me, just grazed my skin.” “Shit,” Bakugou cursed as he took your arm in his hand, examining it. “That’s definitely more than a fucking graze.” “It’ll heal, I’m good at first aid,” you said. Bakugou looked at you, incredulous. “Dumbass, this needs more than first aid, are you really that stupid? Don’t move,” he said as his hands began to glow. He positioned them above your wound, using his power to heal you. “Thanks, Bakugou,” you said when he was done. “Really, I appreciate everything.” “Katsuki,” he said, not looking at you. “Huh?” you said, confused. “Call me Katsuki, dumbass.” A playful smile made its way on your lips. “Sure, when you call me Y/N.” He chuckled, then looked at you with a serious gaze. “I want you to stay with me.” You looked at him, dumbfounded. “W-What? What do you mean?” “Your home isn’t safe anymore. Those hunters could come back anytime, I went easy on them. I need you to be safe, Y/N, I-” he ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “What would’ve happened to you if I wasn’t there? Just… please, become my mate Y/N. I’ll do anything for you, I’ll hunt for you, protect you, anything you want.” You were stunned, trying to process what he had just asked. “Y-You want me to be your… your mate? Why? And why would someone like you care so much about someone like me when no one really ever has?” He blushed, looking away to glare at the grass. “Fuck, I don’t know, maybe it’s caz I fucking love you, dumbass.”

#kitsune!bakugou #bakugou katsuki #katsuki bakugou #anime #bnha oneshots #mha oneshots #mha #bnha x reader #bnha x y/n #bnha x you #mha x reader #mha x y/n #mha x you #bnha fics #mha fics #katsuki bakugo x y/n #bakugou x reader #bakugou x you #bnha fantasy au

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totiredtowrite · 3 years ago

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"ＴｈｅＳｈｅｒｉｆｆ"

Warnings - Mentions of Guns, crime, mentions of bleeding

Note: Part 1 of the wild west series. Was it a mistake starting this? Maybe. No going back now though 🥰

FEM READERS DO NOT INTERACT (SHE/HER, SHE/THEY)

/̵͇̿̿/’̿’̿ ̿ ̿̿ ̿̿ ̿̿

Not much went on in the town after dark.

Shops were closed, people were in their homes. The occasional whinny of a horse or crumple of a wanted poster the only noticeable sounds. The bar was open, of course, though only one or two people were ever left. The only person you could be certain was up at this time is the sheriff.

"What are you doing here."

His hand was already on the pistol at his side. Even from under your hat, you could see the glint of the badge on his vest. His voice, as always, wasn't outwardly threatening. Gravelly, smooth on the tongue. You knew there was malice behind his tone, though only because you'd heard it so many times.

Truly, even as enemies, you knew each other better than anybody else.

"Can I not pay you a visit, Sheriff?" You sounded almost like you were taunting him. Lifting your head, you pushed your hat back and smiled at him through bared teeth. Daichi did not look amused.

Any other law man would arrest you on the spot. The wanted posters all around town told the story for him. Robbery, unlawful gunfights, property damage, arson. You'd done a lot.

Except, of course, actually hurt anyone.

He ran his free hand through his cropped brown hair best he could, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. He knew he should arrest you. Lock you up and let the judge do the talking. Still, in any case, he couldn't bring himself to.

"I'll ask again. Why are you here?" He lowered his hand from his pistol slowly, instead opting to lean against the door frame. He knew jail cells wouldn't hold you. Maybe he should just play your game. If bars couldn't keep you in check, maybe he could.

You hummed, sliding out of the padded seat to approach him. You could practically feel his body tense, with how still the air was. "I'm here," you lifted your hand to his chest, "Because," you trailed your finger up his chest, "I wanted to see you." A cocky smile made its way onto your lips as your finger rested underneath his chin.

His expression didn't change.

At his lack of response, you frowned. You let your hand fall from his chin and you turned your back on him. "Honestly," you shrugged, "I don't know why I'm here." You reached up to remove your hat, shaking your head a bit.

"You know why," Daichi pushed off of the wall, "Or you wouldn't have come."

Blowing out a breath, you turned back to face him. "Stress, maybe. Who knows."

Daichi raised his brow. "Stress? (L/n) (y/n), notorious outlaw, stressed?"

You glared at him and nodded yes, pulling yourself up to sit on the worn mahogany desk. You didn't meet his eyes.

When it became apparent that you weren't going to say anything else, Daichi sighed again. "And you came to me." He stated it as a fact, though you could tell it was a question. Again, you'd heard him so many times. Every single incident where he showed up to 'arrest' you, every little interaction. He's an open book to you now. And, no doubt, you are to him as well.

"Of course I did!" You barked out a dry laugh. "Who else would I go to?" While you said it in arguably the most condescending, bratty tone of voice Daichi thinks he's ever heard, it's easy to see that you did think about it. You thought and thought, eventually coming to the conclusion that out of everyone in this town, he was the least likely to turn you in. Ironic, considering his standing in this place.

This time he hummed.

You turned your eyes to the ground, a look in them that Daichi doesn't think he's ever seen before. It was...remorseful. Sad might be a tad bit simple for it. You looked tired. If he didn't know any better, he'd say you were about to cry. Your hand twitched as he approached.

His hands, calloused and strong, rested on either side of you. "I find it surreal," he started, "How you, the criminal, can only come to me."

Your eyes finally met his. You considered the words for a moment, sentence backed up in your throat. "I don't have anyone else," you eventually said. It didn't sound like you though. That boisterous confidence, the attitude, none of it was in sight. Only a soft, wavering sentence.

Daichi didn't say anything for a moment.

Maybe you did only have him. And, on the contrary, maybe he only had you. You brought your hand to his cheek, cupping it softly. "Please?" You whispered. You weren't even sure what you were asking for. Maybe you just wanted to spend time near him, maybe you wanted to have a conversation that wasn't just sheriff and outlaw. Right now though, you just really wanted to kiss him.

He leaned into your hand, only slightly. Just enough so you knew he was okay. "Stupid, stupid boy," he sighed.

You brushed off the comment. After all, you knew he didn't mean anything by it. You were used to just grabbing roses anyways, no care for the thorns. "Please," you asked again, voice more firm than it was before. He only grunted in response, leaning in ever so slightly.

"Thank you," you whispered, just before gently placing your lips right on top of his. For a guy like him, his lips were surprisingly soft. Warm. You melted into it instantly, Daichi faring no better. After a second you let your eyes fall closed, the hand on his cheek drawing him closer to you. The sheer passion in such a soft kiss was enough to throw him off. It felt like it fit, though. And who was he to deny what felt right?

You knew it was stupid and reckless. Daichi knew it too. Even as you both drew shaky breaths in between kisses, even as the heat slowly rose into the both of your cheeks, you knew it.

Daichi never did learn just why you were stressed. Even still, he got a slew of new things to think about, to worry about.

Grabbing roses without caution was never a good idea anyways. You were always bound to get pricked.

Do not repost, translate, or copy my work on to other platforms.

#hq x male reader #m!reader #anime x male reader #x male reader #male reader #haikyuu x male reader #sawamura daichi x male reader #daichi x male reader #sawamura x male reader

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thran-duils · 4 years ago

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I Crave Annihilation (P.2)

Title: I Crave Annihilation (Part Two) Summary: Fem!Reader x Mafia!Dark Tony Stark. Tony works for the reader’s very influential politician father moving guns and drugs. She starts flirting with him and he is returning the vibes. She moves into her own place out of her parent’s house and texts him to come save her from a house party. Smut ensues. Words: 3,450 Warnings (for the fic in entirety): Smut, HUGE age difference, angst, violence, infidelity, possessive behavior

Part One || Part Three || Masterpost (mobile) || Fanfic masterpost

“Who does this pussy belong to, baby?”

“You, sir!” you keened, your knuckles white grasping your blankets.

Tony slowed before laying a hard smack across your ass, drawing a cry from you. He kneaded at your ass roughly, groaning. You could feel him pulling your cheeks apart as he thrusted, a low hum leaving his mouth. He was definitely relishing in watching his cock moving in and out. He laid another hard smack and you whined for him.

“Such a good girl,” he husked, resuming his brutal pace.

<><><>

Tony left the bedroom, closing the door behind him. He smirked to himself, knowing he had worn Y/N out; she was going to be sore tomorrow. Just like how he liked to leave her so she remembered who she belonged to. Descending the stairs to the ground floor, he stopped seeing two girls sitting on the couch, looking pretty intoxicated, still holding drinks in their hands, Taco Bell wrappers spread out along the coffee table. They had not heard the girls come home; not a surprise considering how loud him and Y/N had been. He surmised they had been there for a while with the food and had been listening to him completely wreck Y/N upstairs.

He threw them a charming smirk and asked, “Roommates?”

“Yeah…” one said slowly, trying to hide the smile on her face. She was looking him over, taking in his tailored pants and pressed dress shirt.

“I wasn’t here. Right?” Tony responded, cocking his head in expectance. They both nodded and Tony winked, and he saw them both turn bashful in a second before he turned, opening the door and walking out.

As soon as he got outside, he pulled his phone out and texted Y/N.

Your roommates are downstairs. You might want to talk to them about keeping their lips sealed.

<><><>

You read the text and your eyes widened. You got dressed quickly and rushed out of your room but stopped at the top of the stairs. What were you going to say? You had been trying to keep this a secret for months.

Moving controlled down the stairs, you came to the bottom and turned to face the couch. They were both looking at you, bursting at the seams. Suddenly, they burst into laughter – the both of them – holding onto each other.

“Y/N! Do you have a sugar daddy?” Mara guffawed. She saw the look on your face, and she leaned forward, waving her hands in surrender. “No, no! I’m not judging! I’m just curious. He’s hot!”

“Oh my god, no wonder you don’t take guys home,” Lisa said. “Holy shit. He could beat the shit out of them if he ever caught you in bed with someone else.”

“How long were you guys here?” you asked uncertainly, worried about how much of it they had actually heard.

“Um… from the first ‘are you a dirty girl?’ I think?” Mara asked, snorting again. “And then every subsequent smack after that. How is your ass?”

“Oh, shut up,” you said as the two of them erupted into giggles again. “You can’t say anything!”

Lisa crowed, “Oh, it’s a secret! Oh okay.”

“I’m fucking serious,” you snapped, much to their amusement. “Now did you leave me any food or what?”

Mara laughed pointing at the bag, “Yeah. And I’m sure you’re absolutely famished.”

<><><>

Where are you?

You looked down at your phone, confusion coming on. You had told Tony what you were doing and where you were at when he had asked about an hour ago.

At the bar I told you.

I know, but where inside.

Are you here?

You know how much I don’t like people answering my questions with another question, baby.

I’m in the back.

Come to the front then.

Well, that answered your question well enough.

You made your way through the crowded back room, through the hall. You looked in the first front room and did not see him anywhere and you went through the doorway to the main front room where the bigger bar was set up. You spotted him and Steve sitting in a booth against the wall. He had told you that Steve was aware of your relationship, which had made you nervous, but Tony seemed to trust him, so you had to trust in that.

Sliding into the booth next to him, you asked, “What’s going on?”

“Figured we would swing by and see if you wanted to go out with us and Steve’s lady for the night.” Steve smirked at the comment. “Exclusive place.”

“You couldn’t have just texted me to get the answer?”

Tony simpered, “I wasn’t really looking to ask.”

Of course not. He was not the asking type.

“When are you going?”

“I’d prefer sooner rather than later. This bar is pretty… college-y.”

“I’m not entirely complaining,” Steve said finally speaking, his eyes wandering around the bar at all the people. His eyes lingered on one in particular and he winked at them, causing them to smile shyly.

“Can I get my drink then? Before we go?” you asked. “I was just about to.”

“If you move, I can go grab it for you,” Tony told you.

You shook your head, and he narrowed his eyes slightly. You quickly explained, “My friend owes me one. I bought the first round.”

“If you insist,” Tony said bringing his glass to his lips.

You tapped his arm before getting up again and walking through the tables to go back to the hall leading back to your table. You walked up to the table and your roommate, Mara, that was out with the small group asked you where your drink was. You eyed the line at the bar back here and frowned at how long it was.

“I’m gonna get but I wanna take that shot,” you said over the music to your friend, Gabriel. “Wanna come back up with me to the front bar? There’s less of a line up there surprisingly than the one back here.”

Mara was eyeing you knowingly, a smug smirk on her lips. You had been seeing Tony now for months since they had caught him leaving. You glared at her, willing her to stay quiet, as you grabbed your purse, and she held back a laugh.

Gabriel followed you up to the front bar and you shot a quick look in the direction of the booth to make sure they were still there. Tony was not looking at you but Steve was. Gabriel was talking to you and drew your attention away, your back to the booth now. The line went quickly and the two of you ordered your shots, took them, and left the glasses on the bar. You gave him a quick hug before parting ways.

Steve was getting up out of the booth, avoiding eye contact as he straightened out his leather jacket.

“I’ll be outside,” he said to Tony more than anything.

Tony finished off his drink and got up as well, his body brushing yours. He was peering down his nose at you and asked, “Anybody I gotta be worried about?”

“What?”

“The guy?” Tony asked.

“Yes, my friend.”

“’Friend’.”

You realized where this conversation was going and you sighed heavily, “Tony, don’t—”

“Don’t what?” he asked, a dangerous tone underlying.

“I promise you I mean it when I say a friend,” you told him, leaning into him. His expression was stern, and you grabbed the lapels of his jacket, to pull yourself closer, and said, “Trust me.”

Tony’s tongue ran across his lower lip and he finally said, “Don’t betray that trust, precious.”

Later outside the high-end club, Tony and you took a break from the atmosphere to mess around in the backseat of his car. Foreheads pressed together as you straddled him, low moans filling the space in the car until the two of you came tumbling down.

Tony pressed his nose at you to get you to move your face and his lips found yours, his hand at the back of your head holding you tight.

“I gotta go on a trip for a week overseas,” he murmured.

“Where?”

His eyes crinkled with a tickled smile, “You really think I can tell you that?”

Shrugging sheepishly, you said, “No, I guess not.”

He pecked your nose, “I’ll be back before you know it. Promise. And I’ll bring you something back.”

That perked you up much to his amusement.

<><><>

You were coming back from the pool house a month later when you saw Tony coming up the path. You faltered in your steps as he advanced. He barely broke stride as he grabbed your arm and began pulling you along with him.

“What are you doing?” you asked him alarmed, stumbling once as you worked to match his stride.

He did not answer.

He was drunk, that was apparent.

You had been out with your mum shopping and she had asked you to take the new towels out to the pool house. Tony was over watching a football game with some of the other men and you noticed he had caught sight of you walking from the hall to the kitchen. You had tried to ignore his stare as you disappeared again, heading out the door. You had turned him down earlier in the week about him coming over and he being his persistent self, had shown up at your place anyway, only to find you gone. He had called you and you had had barely any signal as you told him you were not there, you were up in the mountains with your friends. You had not told him you were going on a trip considering it had been decided on a whim and that had only irked him more. You had not spoken since you had gotten back.

It seemed he did not pick up on the hint to be subtle and let it be until a better time.

“Tony, we can’t—” you tried to plead. You were terrified someone was going to catch you here and he was too gone to either care or think of that. Even if you were in the pool house, someone could have seen you two sneak in.

“Tony, my mum sent me out here to put the towels out here. We had more things to put away inside! She’s gonna wonder where I’m at!”

He was still ignoring you, dragging you and he shoved you inside the bathroom.

“Tony!” you tried again.

“Be quiet!” Tony ordered you, turning you around forcibly. Your hands sprawled on the wall, your ass pressing into his pelvis. His breath was hot on your neck when he said, “You ready to apologize?”

“Apologize—”

“Avoiding me?” he growled.

“I’m not—” you said trying to turn around, but his grip flexed, forcing you to stay as you were.

“Don’t lie to me,” he snapped, hiking your dress up and shoving your thong aside to give him access. “How long have you been back?”

“A day—” you started to say but it was strangled in your throat as he began stroking your nub.

“A whole damn day and no text. No call,” he muttered angrily underneath his breath, working you up to get you ready for him. “Nothing to let me know you were back. That’s fucking naughty of you.” You ground against his fingers, biting your lip, whimpering. Upon hearing your arousal, he sneered, “You’re lucky I’m even taking the time to get you ready at all, precious.”

You felt and heard how wet you were getting – he knew how to play you like a fiddle.

Tony’s fingers disappeared and he kicked one of your legs out to spread you out further for him. Without much warning, he was pressing in roughly, his hands gripping at your hips. You moaned lowly as he stretched you out and let out a sudden cry as he pulled out and slammed back in. His thrusts were causing you to have to press your hands painfully into the wall to keep steady. He was not going easy at all.

One of his hands left your hip to wrap around your throat, holding your head back as he drove himself deeper. Your ass was clapping against his pelvis, mixing with the moans and his lewd taunting.

“You little slut, thinking you could hide from me,” he growled, giving a particularly hard thrust. “I thought I taught you better manners than that!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” you keened.

Tony only stalled to yank you away from the wall and whirl you around to the sink, bending you over it before resuming his brutal pace. Your fingers dug into the countertop, as you begged, “Please, please, please.”

“Please what?” Tony husked, his hips snapping.

He was driving deep, brushing your core with precision and you cried out again.

“Please fuck me, make me cum,” you whined in response, drawing a strangled laugh out of Tony.

“Just can’t fucking help yourself, can you?”

You heard the door open from behind the pair of you and your stomach dropped to your feet.

“What the hell is this?” you heard your mum exclaim.

Tony was out of you in a second, stuffing himself back in his pants. You craned your head around mortified, finding your mum staring at the two of you, disbelief splashed across her face.

Her gaze snapped to Tony, suddenly murderous. She slapped him across the face with all the strength she could muster and shrieked, “You absolute piece of fucking shit! She’s a child!”

Tony looked furious at her laying hands on him.

“Now, Rebecca,” Tony said loudly. She went to hit him again, but he was quick, and he pushed her to the wall as you rushed to push your dress down. He had her pinned there by her collarbone.

“Tony!” you pleaded, coming up towards them but he held his hand out, warning you to stay back.

You stopped, looking between the two of them wildly. Your mother only had eyes for him, trying to pull his hand away with no avail.

“Let me go!” your mum demanded, trying to push his hand away but your mother was a very small woman and Tony was so much larger than her. “Are you insane? Do you know what Damien—”

“Are you? Are you insane?” Tony asked dangerously, their noses brushing. She struggled again but he shoved her back again roughly and she finally stilled, glaring murderously at him. His voice was low, “You don’t want trouble with the mob. Running off and telling your husband is only going to cause that. If he loses his temper, they’ll take my side on this and all the power he’s got is going to be compromised because he’ll lose our support. How do you think you two would fare without that support, hmm?” He was searching your mother’s face, who was silent now. He scoffed when he saw she knew what he was saying was right. He dug his hand in again and she only flinched slightly, “And Y/N’s an adult, not a child, as you just so stupidly said. She can make her own fucking choices.”

“Let. Me. Go,” your mother said, enunciating every word. “I got the message.”

Tony only held on for a few more seconds before he pushed away from her. He tore his eyes away from her before saying to you, “I’ll text you later.”

He left the room, leaving the two of you standing there, staring at each other. The tension in the room could be cut with a knife and you hated the disappointed look on her face. Time seemed to expand into an eternity that the two of you were standing there before she finally spoke.

“How long?” your mother rasped out. You looked at the ground and you felt her gaze boring into you. She demanded louder, “How long, Y/N?”

“Since October,” you said weakly.

“Christ,” she half sobbed. “That’s almost a year, Y/N! What were you thinking?”

You shrugged helplessly, “I… we have a relationship.”

Your mother shook her head and snapped, “You can’t!”

“I love him!”

“Y/N, you don’t know what love is. He’s twice your age! He’s using you!”

“No, he’s not. You don’t know—”

“I know what I know!” your mother exclaimed, causing you to close your mouth. She looked heartbroken, her eyes watering. “I know, Y/N. I know men like him. I’ve dealt with them too! He’s taking your most formative years and weaving himself into them! You can’t let… you can’t let him do that. You can’t build yourself around him.”

“I’m not!”

“I don’t want you to see him.”

“I can make my own choices!” you said firmly.

She scoffed loudly, wiping away tears that had started to fall over. “What would your father think?” Your face screwed up in worry and you started to argue but she cut in forcibly, “I know! I know Y/N! That fucking… bastard is right. I won’t… I can’t say anything.” Her eyes met yours again and she shook her head. “Jesus, Y/N. I can’t look at you right now.”

Jaw clenched, you got the hint and stormed past her to leave and go home, irate and miserable at how the night had turned out.

<><><>

You had still continued to see Tony much to your mother’s disapproval. You meant it when you said you loved him, and you resented your mum telling you that you did not. But after seeing how he had treated her in the pool house, a small part of you was unsure now about the longevity and stability of the relationship. How could you stay together in secret like this forever, especially when he was ready to threaten anyone that tried to separate the two of you?

Unfortunately, you did not get the chance to make the decision for yourself.

“What happened?” you asked concerned, coming up to your mum quickly in their living room. You had come over to have dinner with them, but it did not look like dinner was going to be happening for a while or at all.

Your father was shouting into the phone on the patio, a few of his guys outside with him. There was fury and desperation in the air.

Your mum pulled you aside and said, “Something happened. I mean, obviously. sorry. Um,” she paused, stammering, as your father let out a slew of cuss words. “Um, your dad is trying to get control of the situation. Pull himself clear of it.”

“What situation?”

“There was a… police bust. Some of the men got arrested for… you know, it doesn’t matter what for. But, just let your father do his thing. Stay out of his way. It’s what I’m doing. How about you and me go out and grab food? It’s best for everyone to just let him be.” She paused and then added, “And honestly, this situation is best for you.”

The way she said that…

You knew who had been arrested.

Pulling away from her, you saw her start to say something else, but you turned abruptly, taking off down the hall towards the entrance way where you had left your purse. You dug through it clumsily before getting your phone out and dialing Tony.

His phone went straight to voicemail.

<><><>

~7 years later

You pulled up to your parent’s house seeing the copious amount of cars lined along the driveway. They were having their annual beginning of summer get together and as usual, you were invited as well as your closest friends, so you had people to hang out with. Some of your friends had already arrived, more than comfortable around your parents without you there.

The person that mattered the most to hang out with though was sitting in the passenger seat.

Your husband smiled at you and said, “I am very much ready for your mum’s crab cakes. Well.. you know, Willa’s crab cakes. Your mum just oversees the process.”

You snorted at this and said, “I know you are. And yes that is very true.”

It was hard to try to keep your heartbeat even now that you were here. You were going to have to face him. Tony and the others had just been released days before. You needed to steer clear of him after having ghosted him when he got arrested. You had been young, so young, and he had been sent to a different state for prison. It had been easy to make excuses and your mother had encouraged the excuses.

Your husband would shield you. You would make sure of that.

~~~

Forever tags: @coconutqueen21 @undecidedsworld

#tony stark x reader #dark tony stark #dark!tony stark #dark marvel #dark marvel fic #mob tony stark #my shit

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penandlandship · 3 years ago

Text

Anonymous asked:

Hi hi. I may or may not be working on some HCs for the Arknights Doctor but it’s a work in progress 😗👍 anyway, I Ioved your Passenger and Sesa in love with the same reader story! Could I possibly trouble you for a kind of part 2 where Sesa, Passenger, and reader have to go on an operation and Sesa and Passenger begin arguing during a battle until reader ends up badly hurt because they were trying to protect the two from an incoming attack?

(Oooo? That sounds interesting! I would love to read your headcanons!)

Sesa + Passenger feelings for same Reader? (Part 2)

It had been about a week since Sesa and Passenger had that little argument. For the most part, they tried to put that behind them. But it was difficult, Passenger was just better at hiding this fact then the grumpy Sesa. Both would avoid each other and you noticed this. Trying to get them to hang out together but it was no use.

So you would hang out with them one at a time, talking with Sesa and drinking tea with Passenger. That was until one day. The Doctor had called all three of you and as such you met up in their office. After going over the mission, clearing out some bounty hunters from a small town, you all set off! However the entire ride there was tense. The tension was so thick that it was almost blinding. As you tried to strike a conversation with the two men. They would only give small answers and then glare at each other.

Soon you would arrive in the Kazimierz town, to find the villains terrorizing the population! You three would get into action! It was a surprisingly tough fight but you all managed to beat them back. However throughout the entire time Sesa and Passenger shot angry glances at each other. Soon Passenger would take out an enemy Sesa was fighting.

“The fuck man?! That was mine! Damn it!”

The Sarkaz growled as soon the tension broke once Passenger spoke up. “Calm down gun nut. You’re alive aren’t you?”

“Screw you! Gods I hate you so bloody much. Y/N does not deserve you!”

That got the Caster’s attention as he stopped attacking and stormed over to Sesa, poking him.

“No. I am the one they deserve to be with, not a danger prone asshole like you!”

“Up yours soft boy, they are mine!”

You would sigh and shake your head. So that’s what this was all about. You would turn to speak to them before you caught something at the corner of your eye. A crossbow bolt! Two of them launched at the arguing men.

Thinking on your feet, you rushed forward and jumped in between them and the bolts. Both Sesa and Passenger turned to look at you with eyes widened in shock! Pain would shoot through you as one bolt hit your shoulder and the other your stomach! Blood stained your clothes as the fell right there in front of them. Your vision slowly grew hazy as your eyes threatened to close.

All you could hear now was both of the Operators crying your name out in shock before everything went black.

...

You would wake up to the sound of beeping. Opening your eyes would cause the light to hit you. You would blink a few times, struggling to get used to the light. Two voices would draw your head to move to the side. A familiar man gripped your hand. It was Passenger! tears in his eyes, behind him you noticed Sesa sitting on one of the chairs nearby.

Just seeing this, you realized that you were in the Medical ward! Once your eyes glanced down at your body, you would notice that it was bandaged. Everything felt stiff and the wounds stung but you would be fine.

“Y/N...”

The Caster spoke, drawing your attention to him as he looked down.

“I-I’m sorry...about what happened. Just seeing you with Sesa made me so angry that I couldn’t think...b-because I love you...”

You would try and calm him down with a small smile as you notice Sesa get up and stand on your other side.

“A-and I am sorry too.”

His voice was quiet now. Not the same loud voice he normally had. Not boasting, not talking himself up. No this was solemn and it seemed extremely genuine. As if you were actually talking to the real Sesa.

“I also love you but that got in the way of the mission and...you got hurt. I’m so sorry...”

You tried to calm him down too with the same smile and a weak pat to his hands and it did help a little bit before you spoke. Saying that you want to talk about this with them but for now...they would stay with you until you felt better.

They loved you after all.

#Anonymous #Sesa x Reader #Passenger x Reader #Arknights x Reader #Mission Accomplished - Inbox

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slasherhaven · 4 years ago

Note

I hope you're having a good day ! I love your writing so much ❤️

That being said may I please get a one shot with Bo sinclair x reader? Reader has a major anxiety attack and is hyperventilating. It gets bad to the point where reader passes out in his arms. How would he react?

Thank you !

Bo Sinclair when his S/O has a major anxiety attack:

You have had panic attacks around Bo before. Ever since you met him, there had been a series of stressful situations, so of course you have had a couple in front of him. But they where small ones, you just needed some quiet and time to collect yourself, and you were fine in no time.

This one was different.

This was bigger.

And, for once, Bo found himself worried.

A group of teenagers had been brought into town, the usual, nothing too knew. However, knowing how you were prone to anxiety attacks, Bo liked to keep you away from all the action.

This whole situation had caught you all off guard. All you knew was that one of the victims escaped and had ran into you, proceeding to attack you. Whether it was in self defence or meant as a warning to the brothers, you weren’t sure. It didn’t really matter.

Bo had been right on his tail so you were fine...your body just didn’t know that apparently.

You could already feel the attack coming on as you stumbled away from the man, hearing Bo shouting as he got closer but you unwillingly focused on the sound of the shotgun cocking rather than his voice.

Before you knew it, Bo was in front of you, shotgun aimed at the wide eyed, terrified, victim.

Bo shouted something but you were focusing on your breathing, which was getting harder and harder by the second.

“B-Bo” your hand instinctively landed on his back, gripping at his coveralls.

He spared a quick glance back at you, instantly recognising the look on your face. Shit.

“Vincent!” Bo called. If his twin didn’t get her soon, he would just shoot this guy, not caring if they turned him into a figure or not.

He couldn’t take the gun off of this guy but he wanted to check on you. He waited a little longer.

Finally Vincent showed up, surprising the victim from behind and subduing him.

“Get him outta here. I don’t care what you do with him, just get rid of him” Bo ordered harshly and Vincent nodded before dragging the struggling victim away.

Bo maintained his protective stance until they were out of sight, then he turned to you.

“You’re alright” he told you as he placed the shotgun down, gently taking hold of your arm and drawing you into him, holding you against his chest.

Usually holding you worked, it helped you ground yourself, you would slowly steady your breathing and go back to normal...that wasn’t happening this time.

This time, your hands were clutching at his coverall and you were hyperventilating.

“Hey, hey, look at me” Bo cupped your face in his hands, forcing you to look him in the eyes. “Vincent’s dealing with it. You’re safe, nobody’s going to hurt you, you know I wouldn’t let them” his voice was stern, trying to get through to you, but there was a tender edge to his words.

You were safe now. Why weren’t you calming down?

“Y/n, doll, you’re okay...Y/n” his concern grew when you didn’t respond to him, looking at him but not seeing him. Could you even hear him?

Just like that, your knees gave out underneath you. Luckily, Bo was quick, wrapping an arm around your waist to hold you up. “Alright, let’s go back to the house and-Y/n” his eyes widened slightly as yours closed and your body went limp.

Again, he managed to catch you in time. One arm wrapping around your back and the other hooking under your knees to lift you up, bridal style.

Okay...now Bo was more than worried.

He was downright scared.

You had passed out right there in his arms, because of a panic attack induced by the gruesome side of his life. It wasn’t a great feeling. Bo found himself hoping that Vincent was making the man, who scared you so badly, suffer. If not, he would.

Leaving the shotgun where it was, he could get it later, Bo carried you back to the house. He headed straight for the bedroom, laying you down on the bed so that you were comfortable.

He wasn’t good at this. He wasn’t good at comforting or worrying, he didn’t like the way it felt and he just wasn’t good at it. He hadn’t worried and cared like this until you came along. He wishes he could resent you for it...but he didn’t, he couldn’t.

Bo changed into some clean clothes before settling down on the bed. He knew he shouldn’t try to wake you, he should let you rest and come out the other side of it. And he knew you would.

He sat beside you, sighing to himself, and stroked his hand over your hair, pushing it out of your face. You had looked so fearful and panicked only minutes ago but now you looked so peaceful, but he knew better.

Bo just waited, not having anything else to do, not wanting to do much else. He waited until you finally shifted. His gaze shot down to you, watching you slowly wake up.

“Bo?” you asked, squinting slightly, as you took in your surroundings and figured out where you were. You were in your bedroom, at home, with Bo. It was safe.

“...how are you feeling?” Bo asked, his voice surprisingly gentle, as you sat up.

You looked at Bo and opened your mouth to talk but any words died in your throat.

Bo was a little taken back as you wrapped your arms around his waist, burying your face into the crook of his neck, but he still wrapped his arms around you.

“You’re alright now...I’ve got you, doll” Bo spoke as he comfortingly stroked your hair, hoping that he was providing you with some comfort.

Then he felt you start to cry, your hold on him tightening.

“I’m sorry...I’m sorry that about what happened. I should’ve done more to keep you away from it” Bo sighed as he rested his head on top of yours, adjusting his hold on you.

He didn’t like this...this feeling. He didn’t like that he felt guilty for this. You had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, the victim had ran and just so happened bump into you. He couldn’t control that but...he was the reason you were in the town anyway, he was the one who turned visitors into victims, he was aware of that. And he had never felt guilty about it until it effected you.

“It’s not your fault...” you sniffled, slowly relaxing and making yourself more comfortably, “...thank you” you lifted your head to look up at him, making him lift his own as well.

“What you thanking me for?” Bo asked, his face scrunching up in genuine confusion.

“I dunno...just being there. If you weren’t, it would’ve been a lot worse” you told him, unconsciously leaning into his touch as he cupped your cheek in his hand.

“It would have?” he asked and you nodded.

“I knew it would be okay because you were there. I just couldn’t steady my breathing and that made me panic more, but I knew I’d be alright...you were there” you explained quietly before resting your head against his shoulder.

For once, Bo didn’t have anything to say, he wasn’t sure what to say. He was...amazed. In some sense he knew that he made you feel safe, after all he always told you he would protect you from anyone who came into town, but knowing that you actually believed that was something else. You thoughts things would be okay simply because he was there, he made you feel that safe just by being around.

But this feeling...this feeling he liked. He liked that you felt like you could rely on him. Oddly enough, it made him feel even more protective over you.

Bo tightened his hold on you, letting you relax against him and get some rest. Vincent was dealing with the last victim now, so anything else could wait until you were feeling better.

#bo sinclair x reader #bo sinclair #house of wax #slashers x reader #slashers #slasher #slasher x reader #my writing

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celestialmango · 3 years ago

Text

Unwilling prey, tw death(it's background characters), reader insert(you're a space mechanic), size difference, soft vore, safe vore, space pirate pred

🥭🍡🥭🍡🥭🍡🥭🍡🥭🍡🥭🍡🥭🍡🥭🍡🥭

The clack of footsteps against a grated metal floor is the first significant sound you've heard in the few days it's been since the transport ship you had been working on had taken to the stars and got caught in a battle between two galactic pirate ships, you remember both crews had boarded the transport, the sound of lazer fire, clashing blades, the sounds of panicked screams and smell of blood as innocent people were cut down while the two crews battled to claim the small starship.

The last thing you remember was someone chuckling as they smashed your head into on of the engine consoles you had previously been working on, you had taken cover behind it when the fighting began and your vision faded to black as they said words you couldn't really hear to someone else in the room, then you woke up here chained 8ft in the air in the middle of a cell by your arms, in the few days you were chained you were given very little food or water.

The footsteps stop in front of your cell and the door opens and too weak to lift your head or put up a fight you just hang there dull and almost lifeless, you hear the familiar voice of the person who knocked you out only your brain isn't rattled by an impact, you can understand them now as you hear them speak "There they are Cap'n, strung up all nice and pretty for ya." You hear clacking footsteps draw close and see boots follow by a tall body enter your vision, your chin is grasped by a large hand and your face is lifted up to meet the expressionless face of the pirate captain, their uncovered eye scans your face and they turn your head side to side taking in every detail of your weak state before letting go and letting your head hang.

you can't help but shiver a little as they turn to face the crew member, 'Fuck' you can't help but think 'They're terrifying and even dangling 8ft off the ground they tower over me', their cold monotone voice cuts through the air "we have rules." The crew mate sputtering tries to plead their case "well yes bu-" a bang cuts them off and you hear the thump of a body collapsing on the floor you squeeze your eyes shut as your hear them reload their gun expecting them to fire on you next.

Two shots and you let out a surprised squeak when the chains holding you up shatter and you drop to the ground, you try to adjust yourself up to a sitting position but your arms can barely lift your torso off the floor and large boots enter your vision once more and you freeze as you're lifted off the ground by the back of your shirt and you're face to face with the captain. Your stare at them awkwardly trying to figure out what may be going through their mind while they gaze at you silently.

It cross your mind for a moment that from an outsiders perspective you're the size of a cat compared to them and they're holding you like you're a naughty kitten, you don't know what compelled you to do so, maybe you were delirious from the lack of sleep(quite difficult when you're hanging from your arms), maybe it was just stupidity or the untreated concussion you may have seeing the how much dried blood is in your hair but with all the strength you have left in your body, you meow at them.

It seems they have realized it too as their lips twitch upward and the let out a single amused huff before they grasp your bare legs, they open their mouth as the lift you up and your feet are suddenly in their mouth, you grimence and they begin to slowly but surely swallow you, you can't do much but wriggle a bit in their grasp, they take their time and eventually the move their hand from your thighs and move to grab your torso not even bothering to restrain your arms weakly pushing at their face.

You both knew that it's futile, you lost any chance at escape the moment your thighs pasted their lips, you even as you weakly try to keep them from consuming you, you can't help but notice they are being surprisingly gentle with you, softly shifting and prodding to keep you from getting nicked by their surprising sharp teeth, before you knew it they tilt their head up, their throat opens up wider and with a surprise yelp you find yourself slipping down quicker as gravity aids them in finishing you off and they snap their jaws shut when your fingers pass their teeth.

With one more gulp you're fully in their throat and quickly feel your feet slip through a ring of flesh as the Captain thumps their chest continuing to swallow and you're not so gently stuffed inside their gut, it gurgles and twitched around your form before it clenches tightly as the Captain lets out a thunderous belch before quickly swallowing a bit more air, it's not roomy but with those few gulps of air it's not uncomfortably tight either and the gurgling has settled down, the chamber softly groans around you and you take the time to investigate too exhausted to panic, it's tiringly warm, the firm yet squishy walls of the Pirate Captain's stomach pulse and sparkle with veins of light in time with the beat of the Pirate's hearts, if you die here at least it's "pretty" the last word that is said aloud before you drift off into unconsciousness.

---------

It seems you didn't recognize them but the Captain certainly recognized you, with a puff of air they pat their gut as they hear the soft word that left your lips as you fell under, they call someone to dispose of the rule breakers corpse and head to their cabin as they think about when you encountered each other on that neutral planet a few years back, you looks haven't changed much, they remember after you had help them with fixing a few broken parts they took from their ship, they had shown a hologram of you to their crew and gave them a rule, if the crew saw you they were to leave you be, but before they left the port station the Pirate told you if you ever crossed paths with them again they would eat you.

'after all' they thought as they smiled with a satisfied sharp toothed grin 'what better way to keep a treasure safe then by keeping it as close as possible' walking calmly as they tap their fingers against their gut, an after thought crossed their mind and they huff in amusement 'it was still funny that they meowed at me and I'm am going to tease the hell out of them for thinking that was a good idea'

#safe vore #soft vore #unwilling prey #v*re #tw death #v0re

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therenlover · 3 years ago

Text

Brutal (A Demon!Daniel Bruhl x Starlet!Reader Ficlet)

(So, this is the first little ficlet in my Sour series, which can be found HERE! I hope you enjoy it! Also, enjoy blurry Checo, because he’s who @creme-bruhlee and I imagine as demon!Daniel)

“And I'm so tired that I might / Quit my job, start a new life / And they'd all be so disappointed / 'Cause who am I if not exploited?”

Synopsis: A crime of passion accidentally summons a handsome demon who offers to make your deepest desires come true... for a price, of course.

Rating; M (16+)

Warnings: Vague Allusions to Past Dubcon/Noncon, Explicit Language, Implied Sexual Content, Non-Explicit Murder, Making A Deal With A Demon, Maybe A Tiny Bit Of Monsterfucking???? If You Squint??? Not Really Though

Word Count: 1500~

-------

“What is it that you desire?”

The man- no, creature- before you was shrouded in the darkest corner of your dressing room, perched languidly upon the chaise lounge that had been oh so kindly included in the rider of your contract by whatever filthy fucker decided they wanted to have you this time. He didn’t matter now, though. No, not now that his brains were splattered against the carpet. The only thing that mattered anymore was the creature in the corner.

Even in the darkness, you could see its razor-sharp teeth glinting in the low light.

Trembling with unused adrenaline, you smiled back at it, hands still covered in blood. “I’m not answering that until you answer a few questions of my own,”

Surprisingly, the thing seemed to lean further back into its plush seat as it nodded, long pointed tail undulating slowly, like a python preparing to strike. “Very well. It makes no difference to me how long you draw out our little deal,” slowly, the thing chuckled, “Besides, for you, pretty one, I’d wait all the time in the world,”

You groaned at his exaggerated wink.

Still, it was too late to turn back now. With the blood on your hands for the death of the man at your feet, both physically and metaphorically, there was nowhere to go but forward. Maybe making a deal with the devil wasn’t your original plan, but it sure as hell was better than prison. With a sigh, you sat down heavily into your high-backed makeup chair.

“So I’m assuming you’re a demon?”

The creature in the corner made some sort of deep, proud noise in its chest as its two, shadowy hands came up to stroke its curved horns, much like a goat’s, with a certain puff-chested reverence. Even while beholding it in that darkness, its features shrouded in black, there was an allure to the strange monster, a strange, sick draw. You were helpless to whatever had appeared before you and all its powers. Somehow, though, you had seemed to intrigue it despite your comparative weakness.

“I go by many names, but demon is one of them,” it purred, red eyes glinting with something more than bloodlust, “I prefer others,”

“What should I call you then?”

“Whatever you please,”

You scoffed. “You said you had many names, why can’t you tell me even one?”

It huffed a long sigh, and if you didn’t know better, you would’ve said that you saw smoke erupt from where its nostrils should be.

That being said, it didn’t seem like the thing was frustrated. If anything, the creature seemed amused. From its words, you could only assume it had been hundreds of years since it had last entertained itself on the human realm. You could only hope your rage was entertaining enough to keep any of its less desirable emotions at bay.

“Names have power, Schatz. I can’t just go around telling everybody who I am,” it’s accent felt thicker as it leaned back, “but I suppose, if you and I were to make a deal, that I could allow you to name me something. Or I could choose one for you,”

“What if I didn’t make deal with you?” you challenged the creature with a smirk.

It hummed low in its chest as it pondered your question. “Now that would be no fun,”

“For me or for you?” You asked, crossing your arms over your chest. Time was getting short now, with the clock on the wall ticking down the minutes until someone would arrive at your dressing room door to lead you out towards the set where the rest of the cast and crew were waiting. If they found you with the body it was over. Things with the demon needed to be resolved, and they needed to be resolved fast.

Thankfully, it didn’t toy with you any more than you expected it to.

“For both of us,” it replied, tail flicking almost excitedly, “I can’t touch you if we don’t make a deal, for better or for worse, and even then your soul wouldn’t be mine to toy with until the deal was complete. That being said, you’re in a pretty sticky situation. I think you need me just about as much as I need you, so I’ll ask again; What do you desire?”

You swallowed thickly.

On one hand, you couldn’t imagine things would end up very pleasantly for you once the dark shadow who had staked its claim on that awful chaise lounge finally did have a chance to get its clawed hands on your soul. On the other hand, though, you had nothing left to lose. Fame, especially so young, always came at a price. You would wager to guess that even if your soul hadn’t been claimed by a demon, that it had already been stolen away by the producers and directors that pulled the strings of your life like you were some obedient little puppet dancing for an audience who wanted to devour you whole.

In the end, an eternity in Hell with whatever was grinning at you like the Cheshire cat from the shadows might even be preferable to the horrors you’d already seen.

Slowly, you answered its question.

“I want to make every single person who ever took advantage of me suffer the same pain they put me through,”

The creature’s face split into a toothy smile.

“Now that’s what I like to hear,”

Moving like smoke on water, it stood from its place on the chaise lounge, morphing in shape and size as it approached and held out it’s newly human-shaped hand to you. In his new form, at least, you assumed it was a he, the creature was handsome, all dark eyes and slick hair. He looked young, and somehow, even with his new, thin lips and human teeth, he retained his signature smile. You took his hand and shook it without hesitation.

Even with your heart beating almost out of your chest, you had to admit that, with a demon at your side, you felt more empowered than you ever had before.

He noticed.

“I am known to my kin as Asmodeus,” he cooed, long eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks as he drew near to you. You couldn’t bring yourself to mind, “You, though, my sweetest pet, may call me Daniel,”

Daniel.

Somehow, even after you had seen the faintest traces of his beastly form, you had to admit that the name suited him. Maybe not as well as Asmodeus, but it worked well enough. You looked up at him through lidded eyes. “I’m-”

Before you could answer, he pressed a finger to your rouged lips.

“I know everything about you sweetling, no need for introductions. There is one last thing we need to do to seal the deal, though,”

A pit formed in your stomach as you gulped, caught in Daniel’s entrancing gaze. You had to assume there was some sort of magic to it, a spell that kept you trapped for all long as he could stare down into your eyes. Still, it would do you no good to fight it. Besides, the pangs that were making their way through your whole being weren’t fear.

Oh no, they were something much worse.

“What do we need to do?” You asked, wetting your lips with your tongue.

Daniel replied with a sly smile and a soft chuckle. “I need you to kiss me, of course,”

Who were you to disagree with the expert?

With all the strength and bravery you could muster, you surged up and met Daniel’s lips with your own, melting into the kiss as he quickly took over, skilled tongue darting into your mouth to claim it as his own. He bit hard on your lip, hard enough to draw blood, but you couldn’t bring yourself to mind, not when your hands were busy exploring up under his shirt and finding purchase on the firm muscles that waited below.

To be fair, he wasn’t exactly keeping his hands to himself either.

Sooner than you would have liked, though, Daniel was pulling his lips away from yours. It was just a fraction of an inch, your swollen mouths still connected by a string of saliva tinted a dark red with your blood, but you were already keening from the loss of him the second you caught your breath. The sound pleased him.

“What are we to do first, sweetling?” he purred, letting his nails run gently against the soft skin of your waist, “I’m at your command,” His breath was hot against your fact, and he smelled like gun smoke.

It drove you wild.

You snuck a look at the clock before turning back to him, eyes aflame. “In about ten minutes we’ll need to have the mess in here cleaned up with any evidence gone, but before we do that, I want you- no, I need you to fuck me. Can you make that happen?”

Daniel beamed.

“Oh, sweet girl, anything is possible with me at your side,” As he whipped you around to push you against the chaise lounge, licking his lips, he couldn’t help but add, “I believe this is the beginning of a very beneficial partnership,”

And against all odds, as you hooked a leg up around his waist and pulled him in for another searing kiss, you had to agree.

--------

a/n: WOW WOW WOW THAT WAS GARBAGE BUT I LOVED IT. I finished season 5 of Lucifer yesterday, so I was in the mood for some demonic shit. I hope it was at least semi-enjoyable despite being straight up shitty writing lol.

Taglist: @tatestripedsweater , @elaineygrace , @multiyfandomgirl40 , @lovelymischief , @be-cautious-around-bri

#daniel bruhl #daniel bruhl x reader #daniel bruhl smut #demon!daniel

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nevervalentines · 4 years ago

Text

(went looking for) a creation myth [read on ao3 here]

With the Vytal Festival just weeks away, Yang is left looking for answers to questions she is too scared to ask.

***

Yang and Blake, before.

[7k words of a speed run enemies-to-lovers, roughhousing with bladed weapons, and sexually charged hair washing]

Blood is seeping through the fabric of her top, and her tan jacket is gritty with dust. It’s enough to staunch the tacky, rust-colored stain, but only just, and the cut stings with sweat and friction as Yang raises her forearm to run it across her brow.

She slicks her bangs out of her eyes, and reloads her gauntlets with a tight punch at her side, bracing her arms for the recoil as the shells drop into their chambers. Ember Celica is overloud in the sudden quiet of the clearing. Moss-dampened and studded with new spring growth, Emerald Forest is surprisingly silent, as if Yang hadn’t been booking it for her fucking life thirty seconds before.

Then, just there, through the trees – she sees it. Yang’s heart drops, and she risks a step forward, eyes scanning the mulchy cover of dead leaves and underbrush for a trip wire. There’s the potential for anything, from a steel-jawed bear trap to a cartoon-esque snare and net. She really wouldn’t put it past them.

She sees nothing and raises her eyes to scan the trees, finds only the pale underside of the arcing canopy and the gnarl of tangled vines. Grinning, she feels an early flush of victory, a rush of satisfaction that pounds like a second heartbeat. She might actually win this thing; the others be damned.

Bleeding side forgotten, fists held loosely at the ready, she is about to take the final steps toward her target when the metallic click of a safety releasing freezes her in place. Yang winces her eyes closed, breathes out shakily. She feels the mouth of a pistol nuzzle in between her shoulder blades.

Yang knows who it is without turning around. Which is to say: the worst-case scenario. She swallows, hard.

“You don’t want to do this,” she says. At a firmer nudge of the gun against her back, she raises her hands, obedient. “You can just pretend like I was never here.”

“And why would I do that?”

She turns slowly in place, arms still raised above her head, and finds herself face to face with her captor, finds narrowed, golden eyes, Gambol Shroud pointed squarely at her chest. Blake is wrinkling her nose in the way that means she’s biting back a laugh.

“Because you love me?”

Blake bites at her lip, considers. Shrugs. “Maybe. But not enough to let you take our flag.”

“I was so close,” Yang whines. She pivots her head over her shoulder, pouts in the direction of the blue fabric hanging from a flagpole just a few yards away.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Blake says, stepping closer, until the heat of her thigh presses against Yang’s, “you really weren’t. Pyrrha’s had you in her sights since you crossed the creek.”

“Have you considered,” Yang says, flattening her hands against the back of her head in a way that she knows pushes her chest out, in a way that, without fail, means Blake’s eyes will flick down to her cleavage, “that I was just a distraction?”

Blake hesitates for just a second, but it’s a beat too long, and Yang lashes out her leg, timing the strike perfectly with Weiss’s rush from the trees on the far side of the clearing, darting from glyph to glyph, a lightning-crackling Nora close on her heels.

Yang and Blake go down in an undignified heap, and Pyrrha’s shot spears the space she was in just moments before.

The scramble at the base of the flagpole dissolves into an all-out brawl. A petal-blurred Ruby drops from a tree and gamely tackles Weiss, and her subsequent shrill scream makes an entire flock of birds flee their roost from the above canopy.

More players from both teams race into the clearing, skidding through dead leaves and debris, pant legs flecked with creek water and mud, more roughed up than a 50-minute long, single class period game of capture the flag has any right to make them.

From her spot on the ground, the sky wheeling overhead, Yang distantly hopes some people stayed behind to guard their own flag, but the odds aren’t looking good.

At the edge of the tree line, Juane trips one of the exact traps Yang had been wary of, something rigged so quickly and neatly it has to be Ruby’s handiwork, and it hoists him overhead by his ankle. He dangles, looking resigned, sword sliding out of its scabbard and thunking Cardin squarely on the top of his head.

Cardin goes down like a brick.

Juane cheers.

They’re on the same team, but no one seems to remember the red/blue delineations at this point. The flag all but forgotten, Weiss and Nora are facing off against an odd match-up of Ruby and Ren, and Yang tries to clamber off the ground, ready to provide back-up.

But in the split seconds it had taken the feverish mob to descend, Blake has twisted on top of her, and is driving the hilt of Gambol Shroud down towards Yang’s face. Breathing hard, knees hugged tightly at Yang’s waist, she’s all lithe and muscle – completely unlike close quarter sparring with Ruby.

Yang catches her wrists and squeezes, and Blake drops the blade and scabbard, until the two of them are grappling like teenagers, pressed too tight for Yang to feasibly use her gauntlets, just adrenaline-flushed and tangled limbs, Blake’s eyes flashing, mouth open in an unexpected grin.

“If you wanted to wrestle,” Yang says, twisting on her back in the dirt. “We’ve got beds back at the dorm.”

Blake cuts her off with a forearm to her windpipe, presses down. “I want to do it here.”

Yang knows Blake can be playful – has seen her gloat after a long-fought evening of board games, or loopy with lack of sleep after a few too many all-nighters, pulling dry jokes that make Weiss cringe.

But this – the full weight of her levered onto Yang’s chest, bursting into a laugh as Yang’s hips jump, hands and legs meeting in a mishap of strikes and punches that would make Glynda weep – feels so young. It’s like the tether that tugs at Blake, forces her eyes over her shoulder, knots her brow with worry, has been cut free. Like just for a moment, just for now, it’s only the two of them tangled in the sun-dappled clearing.

They manage to roll to their feet, and Yang shakes her hair out of her face, cocks her fists loosely in front of her chin. Gestures Blake forward.

“Let’s see how nicely you play without your toys, Belladonna.”

Blake’s mouth pulls tight, and she drops into a crouch, leaving Gambol Shroud half-buried in the leaves.

Despite the weight of it, Yang barely remembers Ember Celica exists. It’s been an extension of her own body since her first years at Signal, but suddenly she’s much more preoccupied with how to best get both of Blake’s hands back on her.

“Yang,” Blake says. She flashes teeth. “Stop stalling.”

Behind them, Ruby and Ren are gamely losing, and Pyrrha melts out of the trees, cutting Juane down from the branch with a smile and a well-placed spear throw, catching him before he can hit the ground. All the partners had been split onto opposing teams, but Pyrrha leverages him gently to his feet anyway, backing up a few steps before gesturing for him to challenge.

Cheek smushed into the forest floor, Cardin has begun to drool.

With the full weight of Blake’s attention on her, Yang feels that same second-heartbeat-flush, better than any almost-victory. It’s a feeling she has been careful not to examine too closely for fear of what she will find.

They’ve been partners now for almost two full semesters, and she’s spent too much of it avoiding stating the obvious – avoiding the thing building in between them as if averted eyes will stop the pot from boiling over.

The few slip ups she chalks up to chance, to hormones, to a laundry list of excuses that Blake’s own silence seems to affirm.

It’s working, she tells herself. It’s working, it’s working.

Hair a tousled ripple down her back, Blake’s black cravat had dislodged at some point during the game, leaving her neck bare, skin shining with sweat, glistening in the hollow of her throat. She flicks her bangs out of her eyes and tenses under Yang’s gaze, firming her jaw until the muscle pops, half-smiles.

If Yang didn’t know any better, she would think Blake is enjoying this.

Blake moves on the offensive first, and it catches Yang off-guard, forcing her to step back to dodge a flurry of quick jabs before taking a fist squarely to the jaw. Blake flinches harder than Yang when she lands the hit, immediately backing off.

“It’s okay,” Yang murmurs. Her aura absorbs the punch, and she can feel her semblance simmer, heat lighting under her skin like the kiss of a match against a gas burner. “You can even go harder next time.”

Blake rolls her eyes, but acquiesces.

Even sparring, Blake is careful not to touch her hair – and part of Yang wants to tell her to stop taking it easy, to grab it, pull it. She wants to know what it feels like when Blake plays dirty.

Inevitably, always, Yang comes out on top, breathing hard, the both of them breathless with laughter – unsure what to do with her victory. She knows both of their aura levels are sinking, and Ruby – all but fleeing from Weiss across the clearing – has dropped dangerously low.

When a shrill whistle interrupts the scramble – the flag still dangling untouched, she and Blake immediately deflate, the fight going out of them as easy as it came. Yang heaves a noise of exasperation, drops her forehead onto Blake’s chest. When she lifts her head, Blake’s arms have wrapped loosely around her back.

“Call it a draw?” Yang says, digs her chin hard into Blake’s sternum. “I pretty much had you.”

“Nice try,” Blake says. Her words reverberate in her chest, and Yang feels every moment of their conception, the slight intake of breath into her lungs, the buzz of them as they carry through her throat.

Professor Port’s voice is like a bucket of cold water. He’s standing at the edge of the wood, brandishing a silver whistle, looking at them with ill-disguised exasperation.

“Class,” he says, “I believe the directive was to steal the other team’s flag, not to scrap like children on a playground.”

“Who won?” Weiss pipes up. She’s scraping her hair back into a neat ponytail, standing over a prone Ruby who must have fallen, and has wisely chosen to stay down.

“Everyone lost,” Port says, cheerily. “Back to the school. After that display, I don’t trust you all out here after dark.”

Despite the game’s failure, he seems in good spirits, clapping Juane on the back, and chiding Pyrrha about helping the opposing team mid competition. As punishment, Juane is saddled with Cardin, likely concussed, and directed to help him back to the infirmary.

Hauling herself off the ground, brushing clinging soil off of elbows, picking leaves out of her hair, Yang reaches for Gambol Shroud without thinking. It’s half-submerged in the close-knit groundcover, and she untangles it from curling tendrils of green, robotically sheathing the blade back into the blunt scabbard.

Only after, does she freeze, halfway to her feet. It’s an unspoken taboo to handle other huntresses’ weapons, certainly not without express permission, and here she had done it so casually, tactless.

But Blake, one arm stretched over her head, shoulder muscles rippling, doesn’t bat an eye. She accepts it from Yang gratefully, fingers brushing as it passes between them. She slings it over her back, and reaches toward Yang, pulls a twig free of her hair.

Wordless, they head toward the group, Yang trying to gauge if she’s going to have to piggy-back Ruby to the dorm room. Still lying prone, Weiss is poking at her with the toe of a boot.

It’s only then, so brief she almost misses it, that Blake reaches between them, brushes her fingers over the cuff of Ember Celica. It feels like the answer to a question Yang hadn’t known how to ask, and the last of the fight, the tension she didn’t know she was carrying, coiling at the top of her spine, ebbs entirely.

They fall into step easily, automatically, and together reach down to help Ruby off the ground. Like a top-heavy punching bag, Ruby lists once she’s on her feet, limbs weighted with exhaustion.

Though Yang reaches out, it’s Blake who steadies her, one hand brushing Ruby’s bangs out of her eyes.

“Reunited at last,” Yang says, laughs at Weiss’s pinched expression. “Can’t believe that game had the audacity to tear us in two.”

“Shut up,” Weiss grumbles, but she’s smiling, and half-heartedly accepts Yang’s high-five. Yang bullies them into a bear hug before they join the others, an eight-legged jumble of girl-sweat and protesting laughter, leaning so hard on one another that when they begin to fall, they topple in turn, like dominoes.

***

After Port’s dismissal, they troop back to the Beacon dorms leisurely. They have an hour of free period before dinner, and no one in seems to be in any rush to get to the dining hall, content to nurse bruises and grievances, ribbing each other good naturedly, flags forgotten.

Ren is quietly chastising Nora about what looks suspiciously like a human bite mark wetting the sleeve of his tunic, and Juane brings up the rear of the group, quietly sulking, a blessedly out-of-it Cardin’s arm slung over his shoulder.

The wooded forest bleeds into a scrubby grassland, and they wade through waist-high wheatgrass as the spires of Beacon come into view, dodging prickly burs and seedpods that cling stubbornly to their socks and hemlines.

Yang presses her palm to her side. It comes away tacky with old blood, and she grimaces. Her aura had strained to heal it, skin stitching together to staunch the flow, but the last of the fight had drained her reserves, and it reopened easily in the struggle. Catching the movement out of the corner of her eye, Blake grabs for Yang’s hand, frowns down at her skin like a disgruntled palm reader.

“How did that happen?”

What she doesn’t say, plainly written on the landscape of her face in a language Yang is just learning to read is: is that from me?

“My own fault, actually,” Yang says. “We really don’t need to get into it.”

She ignores the stinging pain in favor of Blake’s fingers, stroking carefully over the dips of her knuckles.

“She fell out of a tree early in the strategizing process,” Weiss says. She’s snuck up on them, appearing at Yang’s elbow, face drawn with disdain. Her voice lilts, obviously mocking. “Oh, don’t worry about it, Weiss. I’m just getting the lay of the land, Weiss. Those branches aren’t too thin, Weiss.” She sniffs. “You could have broken your neck.”

“See,” Yang says, slinging an arm around Weiss’s shoulder, pulling her against her side, “she does care.”

“I didn’t say it would be a bad thing,” she says. But Yang doesn’t miss the way she turns her face into her casual embrace, her hand coming up to tug at the back of Yang’s jacket affectionately, clumsy, like it’s an action she’s unfamiliar with.

Blake smiles, ducks her chin. “Don’t say that. I like having her around.”

Yang quiets her internal rejoicing to a silent cheer. She feels, helplessly, like a child picking petals from a wilting stem. She loves me. She loves me not.

She beams, bumping her shoulder against Blake’s. “From Blake, that’s practically a marriage proposal.”

Cheeks flushing, Blake tucks a strand of hair behind one ear, looks away. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“Who’s getting married?” This from Ruby, fending off an assault from Weiss who is trying to pat down a stubborn cowlick in the tangled mess of her hair.

“No one,” says Weiss. “You need a haircut.”

“Me and Blake,” Yang says, cheerfully. “She was the one to propose and everything, it was super embarrassing.”

“Congrats,” Ruby says, batting at Weiss’s hands.

“Long time coming, really,” Yang says. She smiles at Blake. “I’m picturing a summer wedding.”

Blake rolls her eyes, but smiles. A rare one, with teeth. Yang almost stops walking, just to take it in.

Clearly over their antics, Weiss lengthens her stride to catch up with Pyrrha, Ruby trailing behind.

It leaves Blake and Yang alone, shoulder to shoulder, picking their away along the muddy, tire-rutted path that meanders toward the eastern portion of the Beacon grounds. In the distance, the colorful, striped tents of the Vytal Festival fairgrounds are just visible, the encampment half-pitched in preparation for the festival, mere weeks away.

The skeleton of a mostly-assembled Ferris Wheel crests over the treetops, like the pale, bleached bones of a Goliath, its mechanical frame at odds with the verdant landscape.

“Excited?” Yang asks. She bumps her shoulder against Blake’s, jerks her chin toward the pennants lethargically drooping in the stagnant spring heat.

“Hardly,” Blake says. She peeks at Yang out of the corner of her eye. “The tournament might be interesting, at least.”

“All the people, the spectacle, the fried festival food,” Yang reels off, ticking up her fingers, “it sounds like your –”

“—worst nightmare,” Blake says.

Yang laughs. “Maybe so, but,” she shrugs, “meeting new people, smashing their faces in, it’s the huntress way.”

“Now that,” Blake says, “I can get behind.”

Ahead of them, Weiss seems to be trying to engage Pyrrha in an in-depth analysis of the capture of flag bout, looking seconds away from pulling out a notebook and taking notes on every one of Pyrrha’s absentminded observations.

“This is painful to watch,” Yang says, gleefully. “If Pyrrha touches her, she’s going to –”

Pyrrha sets a hand at the small of Weiss’s back, guides her around a rock pitting the dirt path.

“Oh, there it is,” Blake says. She’s actually biting her lower lip to hold in laughter, eyes squinting with mirth. “Someone check the girl’s pulse.”

Like this, sun-lit and flushed, wearing her in-on-the-joke smile, Blake is radiant. She’s a little roughed up from the fight, ribbon a dark, striped wreath around her forearms, her top mud-streaked, the single button of her vest undone.

Yang is enamored. She offers her an arm to use as a crutch, and Blake leans into, buries a laugh in her shoulder.

Ahead of them, Weiss seems to be staggering her way through a conversation about semblances, ponytail swishing. She only comes up to Pyrrha’s shoulder, and when Pyrrha pauses, blithely rubbing at a scrape of dirt on Weiss’s cheeks. Yang can see Weiss’s face blush and burn, even from ten feet away.

Ruby, lagging a few steps behind, looks chuffed to be the most intelligible person in the vicinity.

“Why don’t you look at me like that?” Yang murmurs. They’re winding their way through a spindly grove of peach trees, the last surviving vestiges of the orchards that used to grow on Beacon’s loamy, river-rich soil.

Unkept, the trunks fork and spur, rough bark splitting like over-risen bread, papering off in grey-brown patches. This early in the season, the fruit is small and green, but Blake pauses under the heavy boughs anyway, tilts her face upward.

“What?” she says, studying the waxy, canoe-shaped leaves, veins bleeding from the midrib in furrows. “Like I’m going into cardiac arrest?”

“No,” Yang says, teeth parting around a laugh, “like you adore me.”

Blake gestures Yang forward, touches a palm to her cheek, guides Yang to look up to the branches above where, inexplicably, Blake has spotted a single ripe peach.

Without needing to be asked, Yang knits her fingers at her belt buckle like a basket, offers it to Blake who leverages herself up to grasp a branch, just high enough to pluck the peach from the stem. She lands lightly on her feet, offers it first to Yang, who cups the fuzzed, sunrise-bodied fruit in her palms.

“Maybe you’re not looking hard enough,” Blake says.

Reaching out, she lifts Yang’s hands, brings the peach to her own mouth, and takes a bite. Juice dribbles from her lips, wets Yang’s knuckles, the vessel of her palm. Blake does not meet her eyes.

A world away, the dinner bell clangs on campus, and the sound reaches them across the grounds. From just ahead, Ruby yells for them to catch up.

Yang’s sweating again by the time they enter the Beacon courtyard, the sun creeping west across the sky. Already, the moon, in fragments, hangs low over the horizon like a coin toss, illusory and half-spun. Heat shimmers off the gray cobblestones, a sun-stoked haze that blurs the geometry of fountains to a mirage, and she wriggles out of her jacket, stripping down to her orange tank, hissing when the rotation of her shoulder pulls at her side.

Blake looks at her, and immediately cuts her eyes away. Looks back, lingers. She has an affinity for Yang’s freckled shoulders, has said as much, and Yang exposes them around her as much as possible.

Between them, Blake’s fingers brush the back of Yang’s hand. She thinks, for a moment, that Blake might take her hand in her own, and the idea alone leaves her with a wanting so keen it embarrasses her.

It’s compulsive, chemical, that Blake’s presence pulls her attention like gravity.

A touch curls at the inside of her elbow, and Blake tugs Yang gently toward her, sidestepping a water feature that looms, overlarge and obvious.

“You were about to walk into a fountain,” Blake murmurs. One of the loops of her bow flicks, a smile ghosts the corner of her lips.

Yang jerks her chin up, begins to apologize, and Blake shakes her head. “As fun as that might have been, I don’t want to miss dinner because I’m drying you off.”

“I think I could have handled it on my own,” Yang says, leans into Blake’s touch.

“What kind of betrothed would I be,” Blake says, releasing her elbow and moving toward the mouth of the dining hall, “if I left you wet and alone in your time of need?” She only spares Yang a glance before stepping out of the final slash of the sunlight, into the shadow of the doorway.

Frozen, Yang roots herself into the flagstone – tries to parse apart if Blake could have possibly intended that as – if she would have ever said something so – and no, right? No.

“Blake – ” she says, helpless. But Blake is already disappearing inside with a light laugh, leaving Yang to flounder in her wake.

In the early evening sun, buffered by classmates on either side, Yang stares after her, desperately trying to do the math, imagines petals shedding like snowfall.

It’s Blake who offers, which surprises each of them, but most of all Yang.

They’re scattered around the dorm room after dinner and a short stint in the library, Weiss pulling her pajama top over her head, Ruby dangling upside down from the top bunk, while Blake smooths a bandage over Yang’s ribs.

In just a sports bra, sitting on the edge of her desk, Blake’s hands trailing over her side, Yang feels like she’s lost control of the situation. Blake mistakes her shuddering breath for pain, and winces in sympathy.

“I’m sorry.” She presses down the adhesive of the bandage with her finger gingerly, nails skirting the rungs of Yang’s ribs, prodding the skin as she checks for inflammation. “I’m almost done, I promise.”

“All good,” Yang says, strained. She’s trying to decide if flexing her arms, like, only a little bit, is going to be a dead giveaway. “Take your time, really.”

Across the room, Weiss scoffs. Yang tries to pin her with a glare, but Weiss evades, busies herself tidying her discarded clothes from the day. Weiss must be the only person in the world who folds her shirts before she puts them in the dirty clothes hamper. It causes Ruby endless amusement, and she swivels her head to watch.

Blake’s hands are cool, and Yang can smell the citrus-perfume of her soap, the soft cotton of her t-shirt rubbing against Yang’s bare shoulder as she leans closer to survey her handiwork.

“I think you’re going to live,” she says. She meets Yang’s eyes glancingly before her gaze drops down, hovers somewhere around Yang’s mouth.

Ruby clambers from the top bunk and comes up on her feet, shaking her hair out of her eyes. Weightless with static from the thick, wool blankets, it frizzes and wisps, too short for a ponytail, and too long to do anything but make her look like a disgruntled miniature pony.

Pulling away from Yang’s side, Blake turns to Ruby thoughtfully. Yang, immediately missing the warmth of her, falls back onto the desk, her muscles popping gratefully with the pull of the stretch. She examines the pulpy, drop-tile ceiling studiously, trying to calm her heartrate, embarrassed at the rush of longing Blake always seems to leave in her wake.

“You know, I could cut it for you, if you wanted,” Blake says. This to Ruby, whose eyes go wide, a little shy, a little pleased.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Yang turns her head, grinning again, shrugging the melancholy off like shedding a second skin. “Now this, I’ve got to see.”

***

Blake drags a desk chair from the bedroom, positions it in front of the sink. She’s spinning a small pair of silver scissors on her pointer finger when she ushers Ruby into the bathroom, and Yang and Weiss troop in as well, like it’s a given.

With the four of them crammed in the tiny bathroom, it’s a tight fit, and Yang leans with her back against the door, Weiss perched on the edge of the tub.

“I didn’t realize I would actually have an audience,” Blake says, quietly, but she isn’t successful in hiding her smile, mouth turning up at the corners.

The sink is running, and she dips two fingers under the flow, waits for it to warm, flicks water in Ruby’s face just to tease.

Shoulders relaxing, Ruby barely grumbles as Blake pushes her gently down into the chair, tilting her head back until her hair wets under the faucet’s flow.

“Too hot?” Blake asks. She cups water in her palms, diverting it until it wets Ruby’s hair to its roots, slicking her bangs out of her face with careful fingers.

Ruby shakes her head, bare feet swinging over the tiles. “S’nice,” she slurs, lashes fluttering against her cheek. “Mom used to do this, remember?” This to Yang, one eye cracking to look at her before closing again.

Arms crossed, Yang nods. “I do.”

Her voice sounds strange, swollen, even to her. She clears her throat, looks to Blake who is looking back at her, gaze soft and steady. The mirror over the sink is fogging with heat, and Yang is stupidly glad not to see her own expression reflected in the glass.

The memory is blurry with overuse, and she feels selfish for hoarding it, something she and Ruby talk about so rarely – the short window of domesticity, the four of them, together.

Blake must sense her discomfort and leans over Ruby, carding through her hair gently, warm water swirling down the drain.

“We’ll just do a trim, okay?” She tilts her head, considering. “Just enough to get your bangs out of your eyes.”

From her spot on the lip of the tub, Weiss is watching the them with open interest, dressed in her slouchiest pajamas, hair loose around her shoulders.

Blake looks back at her. “What do you think?”

Weiss looks surprised to have been asked to weigh in, and shifts unsteadily, pinning her hands under the backs of her thighs, lips tucked into her mouth.

“It will look nice,” Weiss ventures. Then, unsteadily, like she’s unsure if that’s the right answer: “Fine, I mean. It will look fine.”

“Weiss thinks I look nice,” Ruby says, dreamily, eyes still closed.

Yang laughs. “Anything to stop you from going into fights blind should do the trick.”

Blake is methodical and careful, her movements practiced, and Yang watches her hands closely, fascinated by the routine of her gestures. Her long fingers are sure as she brushes out Ruby’s hair, fixing the lengths of hair between two fingers, snipping, tendrils of dyed red spiraling to the bathroom tile.

“You’re good at that,” Yang says, careful not to pose it as a question, even if her curiosity is clear.

“After I left home,” Blake says, tilting her head to frown at Ruby’s hair, thoughtful, “there weren’t places where – well, there weren’t many places that would be willing to serve Faunus, let alone cut our hair.”

Focused on her task, Blake fits two fingers under Ruby’s chin, lifts until she’s staring straight ahead. She hums, approving. When she began to talk, Yang, Blake and Weiss each stilled, incremental, like curious children unwilling to startle a flighty bird.

It’s rare for Blake to offer much from before, even after all these months, and Yang squirrels away every piece of information she manages to glean, coveted closely in a well-hidden corridor in her chest.

“It was a necessity at first, we were moving around a lot, but I like it now,” Blake says. “It’s soothing.” She scrubs her hand under the fall of Ruby’s hair, appraising her work. “I wish we had some clippers, you would look really good with a, like, undercut.”

Tilting her head to look back at Blake, Ruby grins. “Yeah?’

“Oh, yeah,” Blake says. “Very edgy.”

Ruby’s eyes flutter closed again and she leans back into Blake’s hands, accepting the easy touch, pleased.

Watching her like this, the baby round of Ruby’s cheeks, her deep-set eyes, so like Summer, Yang’s heart pangs and pulls. She looks so young, and it’s been so long since she’s seen Ruby find comfort and closeness in groups like this. At Signal, she was always worlds apart.

Too young to hang out with Yang and her friends, and too buried in her comics and starry-eyed dreams of far-flung heroism to mesh easily with the other kids her age. Weiss is watching, too, almost hungry. She is starved, Yang has come to realize, in similar ways – for family, for acceptance, for the way Blake look back to ask her opinion, listening intently when Weiss ventures an answer.

“Okay,” Blake says, steps back. “All set, I think.”

Ruby pops up out of her seat, swipes a hand through the mirror’s condensation to look at her reflection, tilting her head this way and that, before grinning, bright.

“It’s perfect.” Then, shyly, “thank you, Blake.”

“Anytime,” Blake says. “We can pick up dye next time we’re in Vale, recolor the ends.”

Yang groans. “Don’t get her started, she’s been threatening more drastic dye jobs since grade school. I’ve had to talk her out of lime green more times than I can count.”

“The red suits you,” Weiss says, pushing off of her perch to more closely examine Ruby’s bangs. Ruby obediently stops fidgeting, submits to Weiss’s hands, but not before shaking her wet head like a dog, sending water droplets flying.

Aghast, Weiss hisses a chastisement, but cards her hands through her hair, all the same.

“I could cut yours,” Blake says to Weiss. Appraises her, head tilted. “It’s getting long.”

Weiss looks shocked at the sudden kindness, turning a gradient of shades, from a light pink to a dark red the longer Blake looks at her.

“Oh, no,” she says, haltingly. “I have a standing appointment at an Atlas salon but,” she trails off.

Blake nods, that tiny smile still evident on the puzzle-box mystery of her mouth.

Ruby looks on with interest, pokes at Weiss’s cheek, but knows better than to comment.

With a final thanks, the two of them troop out of the bathroom in a snippy caravan, Weiss already haranguing Ruby about an assignment due in the morning, Ruby loudly asking Weiss if she’ll brush her hair before homework, anyhow.

Their departure leaves a vacuum, a pocket of silence, just Yang and Blake, who both seem to realize how close they are standing at the same time, all excuses having fled the room on the heels the others.

“Thank you for doing that,” Yang says, quietly, she reaches out hesitantly and takes Blake’s hand, rubs her thumb across her knuckles. “It’s nice not to do all the mothering, for once.” She shakes her head. “I tried to cut her hair once, must have been about 13. Dad almost had to shave her whole head.”

“She would have loved it though,” Blake says. She doesn’t pull her hand away.

Yang laughs. “Yeah, probably.” She steps closer, emboldened by their hands clasped between them, by the way Blake tilts her whole body toward her, magnetic.

“It was really nothing,” Blake says. “Ruby restitched, like, four pairs of my leggings last week, anyway.”

“It was sweet of you to offer a trim to Weiss, too.” Yang lowers her voice, though the other two are well out of earshot, having closed the bathroom door behind them. “I don’t think she was ready for you to send her into a full-fledged sexual identity crisis.”

Blake throws her head back in a laugh, exposing the long line of her throat, cheeks dimpling. “Oh, no. That’s what Pyrrha is for.” A beat. “I don’t think I’m her type anyway.”

“How?” Yang blurts, clumsy and unthinking, tries to amend it with – “I think you’re everyone’s type,” which really just digs the hole deeper.

Blake looks at her steadily, in that awful way she does, and shoves a little bit at Yang’s shoulder, bullies her toward the chair.

“You should let me do you next,” she says. She must misinterpret Yang’s expression – which flatlines at an alarming speed, elevator music starting to play behind her eyes – and hurries to correct herself. “I mean, not a cut. I know how you feel about your hair, but I could wash it?”

“Wash it?” Yang looks at the sink, back to Blake. The air in the bathroom seems to be getting thinner, and she can’t stop looking at Blake’s forearms, the flex of them as she toys with the scissors, running her thumb lightly over the tapered point.

“You’ve still got leaves in it from earlier,” Blake says, words taut with amusement, “and if you lift your arms over your head, you’re going to undo all my hard work anyway.”

The cut is mostly healed, barely a pale scar at this point, and they both know it. Yang wonders how long they will continue to run round these excuses.

It’s working, it’s working, it’s – “Let me touch you,” Blake says. She presses down on Yang shoulder, guides her toward the chair. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

The chair creaks under Yang’s weight, and her outstretched legs butt up against the opposite bathroom wall. To maneuver around her, Blake has to step between her legs, her hips pressed tight against the inside of Yang’s bare thighs.

Unsure, Yang leans her head back, feels the porcelain cold against the back of her neck. “Like this?”

“Just like that.”

Blake turns on the faucet, and the lull of running water, the warmth of it, is enough to make Yang drowsy and pliant, hands clasped obediently on her lap.

“I love your hair,” Blake says, quiet, confessional. She runs her hands through it, pulls gently, the sensation sending tingles to Yang’s scalp. Yang’s eyes close, and she breathes out through her nose, shifting unsteadily in the chair.

She hears the plastic click of a shampoo bottle, and lavender perfumes the air. Yang thinks of gardens, of soft-petaled flowers, of sunlight and checkered blankets.

“We should have a picnic,” she murmurs. Her muscles feel putty-soft, and Blake’s hands, slick with water and suds, are drawing tiny circles under the fall of her hair, thumbs pressing ecstatically into the corded muscle at the base of her neck.

There’s laughter, barely hidden, in Blake’s voice. “Come again?”

“A picnic.” Yang doesn’t open her eyes. “Just you and me.”

“Did I knock you too hard in the head today?” Blake asks. “Give you a concussion?” Her fingers slip up to prod at Yang’s temples before her fingers firm, massaging there. Yang groans. For her sake, Blake pretends not to hear it.

“I’m not concussed,” Yang says. Against the back of her eyelids, there’s a constellation of color. Blake sluices warm water through her hair, washing out the last of the shampoo. Yang’s hand ventures from her lap, hooks her fingers in the soft cotton pocket of Blake’s shorts. “I just like you.”

She still doesn’t open her eyes, worried that if she does, reality will solidify, transport her away from the dreamy-liminal of this unspoken space, Blake’s hands in her hair, Blake’s body warm against her thighs.

“I like you, too.”

“Actually, I think you said you loved me earlier.”

Blake laughs. “I didn’t. You said I loved you.”

Yang does open her eyes now, finds Blake startlingly close, her gold-flecked eyes, the laugh lines that crease the corners of her mouth like the seams of a love letter, folded over, then folded over again. She steps out of the bracket of Yang’s legs to fetch a towel. Yang reaches to take it, but Blake pushes her hands away, preferring to towel at Yang’s wet hair herself, leaning across her body, her chest pressing against Yang’s shoulder.

Embarrassed now, Yang squirms, but submits to the attention, lets Blake dab away beaded water at her hairline, droplets dripping into her ears, wetting the shoulders of her t-shirt.

“But you were right,” Blake says, so matter a fact, Yang almost doesn’t understand her meaning. Comprehension pales in comparison to the sheen of water on Blake’s hands, her wrists, as she wipes them dry, her hair spilling long and dark around her shoulders, the ends wet where she had leaned over the sink. Blake tosses the towel underhand toward the hamper behind the door, reinserts herself between Yang’s legs. “I do love you. I really do. And yes.”

“Yes?” Yang asks, dazed, still stuck halfway inside the feeling of Blake’s body, pressed up firmly against her own.

“Yes to the picnic,” Blake says. “Just the two of us.”

She loves me.

Yang shifts to prop herself upright against the body of the sink and frames Blake’s hips in her hands, guiding her firmly into the V of her legs. Blake concedes, arms wrapping around Yang’s neck, petting through damp hair. The hem of her shirt scrunches under Yang’s fingertips, slipping up to reveal the unblemished hollow of her hip, the skin of her sides, goosepimpling under the duress of Yang’s touch.

“We should do that thing again,” Yang says, a wish, a confession. Said aloud, she’s worried, like memory, she’ll bleed away the magic of unspoken things, but it only seems to strengthen the energy between them, the accumulated weight of all that they never talk about.

Blake plays dumb, but she’s smiling, ducking close even as she asks, “what thing?”

Her breath is warm against Yang’s ear, and she presses her mouth just there, against the round of Yang’s cheek.

“Close,” Yang says. She exhales, grip tightening.

Blake drags her lips to Yang’s jaw. Then to the dimple of her chin.

“Closer.”

Blake kisses her, proper, all it takes is a tilt of her head, nose nudging into the plush-round of Yang’s cheek. They both breath twin sighs of relief, like the pressure of playing coy has been alleviated in a single moment. Blake’s hands knot in Yang’s hair, fingers threading.

Yang smiles, murmurs: “just like that.”

It isn’t their first kiss, but it’s close. New enough that Yang still isn’t used to the shape of Blake’s mouth, the rhythm of her kisses, or the taste of her breath. New enough that this alone is enough to alight a heady, perfect rush, the thrill of two whole, perfect things slotting into place.

Her hands slide to the small of Blake’s back, splaying wide across the ridge of her spine, and Blake whines low in her throat, tilting her head until their mouths catch in full, her teeth scraping against Yang’s bottom lip.

Blake swings her leg over Yang’s hip, then the other, settles on her lap. The warmth of her body like a weighted blanket, her chest pushed flush to Yang’s. Pulling back, breaths ragged, they survey each other, eyes bright.

Blake drops a kiss on the bridge of Yang’s nose. Again, on her mouth. Yang tilts her chin up, submits. Nods lazily into another kiss, rolls her tongue into Blake’s mouth.

They don’t talk about it, but they never do.

In the crowded, humid heat of the bathroom, the silence is enough, both smelling like the same shampoo, like lavender, trading kisses until their mouths are slick and pink, until Blake has a strawberry bite under the collar of her t-shirt, and there is no excuse they can make to Ruby and Weiss to explain the lost time.

Exiting the bathroom feels like stepping through a portal – the air of the bedroom is stale and cold, and tastes like the bitter-metallic spit of the cranky window unit that churns, futile and constant.

They shouldn’t have worried. Ruby and Weiss are passed out on Weiss’s bottom bunk, tilted into each other, Weiss’s head leaned up into Ruby’s chest, a textbook open on her lap.

Blake smiles at them, soft, and Yang presses a finger to her lips. Sound asleep, neither stirs when Yang removes the book or when she shifts both of Weiss’s legs to the bed, pulls the lip of the comforter up over their bodies.

Weiss does move then, but only to turn her face into Ruby’s throat, fingers curling into the sleeve of her shirt.

Across the room, Yang watches Blake walk through the final stages of her night time routine. Removing her rings, one-by-one, setting them into a china bowl at her bedside. Toeing off her socks – because anyone who sleeps in socks is a serial killer, yang – and turning back the cool underside of her covers.

Yang, suddenly shy, mythical, waits for an invitation.

“It’s only fair,” Blake whispers. She shifts over to make space against the hollow of her body. “Turn off the light.”

Yang does, the room plunged to darkness, and she feels that little-kid thrill in the few steps it takes her to cross to the bed. By the time she reaches it, she fears Blake will already be gone, leaving her only with under-the-bed monsters and grasping hands.

She shivers into the sheets, and it’s Blake’s warmth that accepts her, slinging a long, bare leg over her hip, claiming her cheek with a warm palm, stroking her bangs out of her eyes.

“We need to talk about it,” Yang whispers.

She can see Blake’s eyes gleam in the darkness, a flat sheen. Yang swallows, wriggles closer until she can insinuate her thigh between Blake’s legs, suddenly desperate to be close. She would swallow her whole if she could, sink themselves inside of one another, like nesting dolls, like palms cupped in prayer.

Yang’s eyes adjust in the half-dark in the time it takes Blake to answer, moonlight shredding through the parted curtains. When Blake opens her mouth, the wet of her mouth refracts light, the uncurling of her tongue.

“I know,” Blake says, voice small.

Their hips-stomach-breasts bully into one another, until every breath is a part of a cycle.

“If we don’t, we’re just going to keep colliding until something breaks.”

“I know,” Blake says, again. “There’s just so much I haven’t told you yet.”

Yang runs her hands up and down Blake’s side, slips her palm under the hem of her shirt to feel the blanket-heat of her bare skin.

“We have time,” she hushes. She tilts in, her lips find the corner of Blake’s mouth, press there. Retreat. “After the Vytal festival, then. We can have our picnic. We’ll talk about all of it.”

Blake nods, nose pressing into Yang’s. She giggles, readjusts, turns her mouth into Yang’s cheek. “Okay. After the festival.”

Pinkies twined under the covers, they seal it with a kiss. Blake nods more kisses against her mouth, slips a tongue behind her teeth, until the taste of her lingers well into Yang’s dreams.

Yang won’t remember falling asleep.

#janurwby #bumbleby #my beacon days prompt fill got a little out of hand #my writing #rwby #here's to overtly intimate hair washing

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xwing-baby · 4 years ago

Text

Impulse: El Ojo (Javier Peña x f!Reader)

Summary: Top of your class, the DEA have sent you to Colombia to be the poster child for their new ‘placement program’. You’re thrown in at the deep end into the drug war. With Agent Peña as your mentor, what could possibly go wrong?

Warnings: swearing, injury to reader, alcohol and drug abuse, threatening with guns, brief mentions of torture, description of injury and blood, unwanted touching, flirting, bad thought processes (addiction). PINK SHIRT

Word Count: 5k

A/N: Had a little change of plan last week, this is now the final chapter of this series. I am so sad to end it now, I’ve loved writing this so much. My first time writing for Narcos so thank you so much for all the support y’all I’ve given me with this. I love you all. I hope you enjoy this chapter!!

<-- Previous Chapter // Masterlist // Next Chapter -->

You were on a winning streak. Since you’d found the list of sicarios and matched that up with the more current information, you’d presented it to Carrillo and surprisingly he was on board. With his help, you had brought down five, admittedly low level but increasingly more valuable, sicarios. If you didn’t think about the torture and abuse each of them undertook once captured, used to break them into more telling more information, you could say you were doing a good job. Escobar’s organisation was shaking. You were coming for him.

You and Steve leant against a wall, soaking up the sunshine chatting amongst yourselves when you saw Javier arrive. You hadn’t expected him to come at all, having disappeared without a word early on in the morning. He parked his truck close by, walking over to you and Steve with his vest in hand. You grinned and jabbed Steve when you saw the shirt Javi was wearing.

The pink shirt had been a long-standing joke since you’d found it in his closet a few months ago. He had many colourful shirts, was known for them, but the pink one always seemed like another level. You and Steve teased him about it constantly, though you had to admit it did look good on him now. Javi scowled when he saw you and Steve’s mischievous grins, immediately realising his mistake.

“I know you get called the Whore of Bogata but you don’t need to dress like it! Jesus christ Javi!” You fanned yourself with your hand, grinning at him, “really I’m going to need a minute,” Javi flipped you off as you laughed hard.

“Shut up, I look great,” He grumbled.

“Just thinking about the poor flamingo you rinsed for that colour,” Steve joined in the teasing, shaking his head sadly.

“You are just jealous you could never pull this colour off,” Javi said smugly. You laughed.

“Maybe you shouldn’t come out today, could be quite distracting,” You said, pretending to be thoughtful. Javi’s frowned, only making you and Steve laugh more, “Aw don’t get pissy, Baby. We love you really” You teased him in a mocking voice, pouting at him. “You and your flamboyant choices,” You ruffled his hair up as you passed him. He tried to duck out the way but you caught him. He shoved you away, muttering expletives under his breath. You skipped a few paces out of his reach, flipped him off.

“L/n!” Somebody called your name across the street, one of the technicians you’d been talking to before Javier arrived. You left Steve and Javier to talk.

The technician explained the problem again, showing you the options for moving forward. It was quite common that things would go wrong before any kind of mission. Today was no different, the technicians had lost a signal and were now not sure that the address you had swarmed was correct.

You chewed your nails while you thought. You could risk getting the wrong house, letting the sicarios know you were on to them and you’d lose them again. You could come back another day, but risk losing them again. Or you could ransack some innocent person's house and have Carrillo on your ass for ruining his reputation in the one week he’d left you in charge.

If you messed this up it would mean your stronghold would be lost. There would be time for them to work out what was going on and move everything again.

At a loss, you excused yourself needing to take a break and a few minutes alone to think without soldiers trying to put in their two cents.

As your work life had become more stressful over the last months. You had found some relief in, ironically, coke. It wasn’t a habit you were trying to form, but you had learnt just what good taking just a little bit could do for you. It quietened down your worried brain and made you simultaneously more aware of everything. You were better when you were just a little bit high.

You had started keeping a small amount in your pocket. Hidden in a small sewing tin in your jacket pocket, you had started keeping a little coke on you especially for moments like this. You could take it, have a breather, and come back with a solution. It was fine. Nobody would know.

You’d spotted a cafe across the road, and hoped they had a restroom. You gave an excuse to the soldier you’d been talking to and walked across the street.

“Oi Rookie!” Javi called as he noticed you walk past on the opposite side of the street. “Where are you going?”

“Going to the bathroom. Women’s issues,” You called back, Javi and Steve grimaced. That was always the best excuse.

While you wouldn’t do it at the compound you didn’t have any reservation here. You’d been itching for a hit all morning and there was only so much more you could take. You walked into the cafe, asked for the direction of the restroom, and locked the door behind you once you were inside. Small, dark and stinking of pee, it was not the best place but hygiene wasn’t particularly an issue you were worried about.

You tipped a small amount from the box onto the sink counter, lined it up with a card from your pocket, bent down and took it up your nose. You grimaced, while it had burnt your nose somewhat it still stung. But it was worth it when the feeling began to kick in. You smiled at your reflection and double-checked your appearance in the mirror, wiping your nose. Nobody could ever tell.

As usual, the drug kicked your brain into gear again and everything fell into place. The raid went brilliantly, by pure coincidence you’d bagged two sicarios in one as your original target had invited your next round for dinner with his new girlfriend. Your plan well into the swing of things now, much to everyone’s surprise.

—

Like every weekend for the last three months, you were going out. The line between enemies and friends was long since blurred, hanging out with ‘Isabela’s’ friends was not an issue. Most of the time you weren’t even trying to get anything from them, you’d got what you needed months ago. As fun as Javier and Steve were, it was much more enjoyable to hang out with people your age. And they wouldn’t give you cocaine, María had it on tap.

You were dressed up, recently treating yourself to a new outfit as a job well done. A black off the shoulder top, covered in lace, and a little black mini skirt. You felt sexy, you were going to have a very good night.

“Rookie!” Javier called out to you as he came out of the apartment building. You were standing outside waiting for a taxi, smoking a cigarette.

“Javi, baby, you’re looking slick! Where are you going?” You checked him out. He wore his signature tight blue jeans and an equally tight black shirt that was almost bursting at the seams. He looked incredible, as he always did.

You were thankful that things had gone back to normal between you and Javier. The awkward stepping around each other had gone, you weren’t jealous. You acknowledged you would probably always like him a little more than was professional but that had fallen into a fun flirty banter that more than anything just wound Steve up.

You found yourself calling him Baby more than his name, it’d started as a joke to get back at him for always calling you Rookie but now it was so commonplace people had stopped picking you up on it if it slipped out while you were working.

It was fun. You cared for each other, that was clear to even a blind man, but there was no romanticism to the relationship anymore. There was no need. It wasn’t good for either of you. You’d found a comfortable rhythm and were going to stick to it.

“Out,” He shrugged, “That’s a new top,”

“You noticed?”

“Course, can’t keep my eyes off you,” He purred, happily playing along with your game.

“Thought you’d be more interested in the skirt,”

“Will you two quit it?” Steve’s voice interrupted your flirting as he walked down the stairs. You barked in laughter.

“Steve! So it’s a boys night I see? Where was my invite?”

“Figured you’d have your own plans,” Steve said.

“And you are correct Murphy but it’s always polite to ask,”

“Next time,” He assured you. “Where are you going tonight?”

“I don’t know. Some club, El Ojo or something?” You shrugged, “Seeing as this is maybe Isabela’s last time out I am going to go out with a bang, literally,” You raised an eyebrow, insinuation of your worlds made Steve roll his eyes.

You were hoping within the next few weeks to be able to close in on some higher level sicarios and associates to Escobar. Drawing the noose in slowly so he wouldn’t notice until it’d choked him. That meant your position as Isabela was going to have to come to an end to keep you safe from your own program. You’d discussed it at length with Peña and Murphy, while you didn’t agree you had to listen to them. They were still your superiors after all, no matter how close friends you were.

“If you told past you you were going to willingly sleep with a Narco I think you would have passed out,” Steve laughed.

“I’m a changed woman Murphy, what can I say,” You smirked, “Imagine what I’ll be like by the end of the year,”

“God help us,” Javier shook his head, a smirk plastered on his face. You laughed and stubbed out your cigarette with your shoe as your taxi pulled around the corner.

“Here’s my ride. Have a good night, boys. I will be back in the morning,”

—

El Ojo was just as María had told you. Modern and smoke-filled, people were filling every inch of the space. You walked in and couldn’t help the smile that grew on your face. This was exactly what you needed. Crowds were anonymous, nobody cared who you were or what you were doing. Everyone was just there for one reason, to have a good time.

You ordered a drink at the bar, flirting with the man next to you briefly before taking the drink and finding your friends. As usual, they were up in the VIP area, courtesy of the Parreño name. You walked up and were let inside the cordoned-off area to find Diego stood up on his seat, wild-eyed, shouting about something. It wasn’t until you got closer that you heard what he was saying.

“I’m telling you Isabela is lying!” He shouted above the music.

“What’s going on?” You asked. None of the ten people surrounding the booth noticed your approach, their eyes shifting awkwardly when they saw you.

“You! You’re a liar!” Diego pointed down at you, hatred burning behind his eyes.

“What is going on?” You asked again. You looked around for María, she was usually the one to step between you and Diego, but she was nowhere to be seen. This was not the kind of conversation you’d wanted for this evening.

“You were the only one to survive that raid at Carlos’,” He continued, jumping off the couch to your level, “That fucking maniac Carrillo killed everyone but you! You’re working with them, aren’t you?”

“You’ve lost it,” You rolled your eyes, “Completely lost it,”

“You don’t deny it!” He yelled. You gulped, trying not to look scared of the man but the rage in his eyes was shaking you. You stepped backwards as he advanced toward you

“You’re insane!” You laughed in his face, “I’m not a fucking spy, especially not for Carrillo,”

“Bullshit,” He spat, Suddenly he pulled a gun from his back, waving it in your face. People shouted and screamed around you, scattering as the metal glinted in the light. Your eyes remained on his, not saying a word as he pressed the barrel into your neck. You didn’t move, barely breathing, “You’re a fucking rat,” He growled.

“Diego!” Finally, María stepped in, running over when she heard the commotion. “Stop it, put it away. Idiot,” She pulled the gun from his hand, standing firmly between you and him. “Ignore him. He’s paranoid. Someone’s leaking information and he thinks it's you because he’s a jealous asshole,” Maria explained, swiftly pushing him backwards until he sat back in the booth again, “How fucking ridiculous would that be? You? A spy!”

“Insane,” You agreed through a clenched jaw. Diego continued to glare at you dangerously, leaning over to whisper something to a friend.

“I swear if we get banned from this club because of you Diego I am leaving you,” María said angrily, “Come on, I want to party,” She linked her arm through you, not caring that you were still in shock from having a gun held to you, and dragged you to the bar.

Fortunately, copious amounts of vodka and tequila were great for calming your nerves. In a few hours, you had nearly forgotten the entire ordeal. You couldn’t think about anything more than the music ringing in your ears and how good it felt dancing on the stranger behind you.

After a while, María pulled you back up to the booth where Diego and his friends were still sitting. You did your best to ignore him, chatting to one of the girls at the table instead. You laughed and did a few lines, generally relaxing into the evening. So relaxed you didn’t notice the newest member of the group until he finally addressed you.

“Don’t I know you?” You looked over and panic spread over you like a bucket of ice water over your head sobering you almost instantly. He did know you. The man before you was the first man you had arrested, almost six months ago. He must have been bailed out for jail.

“No,” You answered confidently. You didn’t lie. You didn’t know him, not really.

“Gabriel, sit down!” María cheered, “Isabela this is my cousin, Gabriel. Gabriel, Isabela,” She introduced you. Her cousin. Of course. You smiled politely, praying the dim lights would hide the nervous sweat that had overtaken you.

Gabriel looked confused but didn’t say anything if he did recognise you. Not that that would matter anyway, as soon as he spoke to Diego his memory would no doubt be jogged. If he found out you were a DEA agent you would be dead. You had to leave.

“Here take my seat, I’ve got to get some air for a minute,” You stood up, letting him take your place next to Maria. You caught Diego’s suspicious look as you walked past, spotting the nearest exit door.

Your hands were shaking, your body not sure what to do with itself. The cocaine and alcohol said to go back inside and take them all out. What was left of your rational brain was consumed by fear and kept you outside. It was bad enough if someone like Senator Parreño had suspicions about you but Diego? Gabriel? Diego had already shown he wasn’t afraid to threaten you in public. Of the two of them joined heads they would connect the dots and your cover would be blown wide open. So would you, you thought morbidly. Coke and anger never mixed well.

You took breathes of the warm summer air, leaning against the wall of the club as you tried to calm yourself down. You shouldn’t have taken the last shot, now verging over the edge of blacking out; your vision was spotty, sound not registering properly and your tongue felt heavy in your mouth.

You wondered if Steve and Javi were nearby, the fresh air having the opposite effect than you’d wanted. You would blackout and you were going to need help to get home if you did. But you didn’t recall either of the men telling you where they were going, they could be anywhere in the city.

Stumped for the moment, you decided to wait it out, lighting a cigarette hoping that might help sober you up. You pulled the packet from your purse

“Need a light?” A man appeared next to you, lighter in hand. You nodded and he flicked the flame up, you bent over and lit your cigarette between your teeth.

“Thanks,” You mumbled, turning away from him, hoping he would leave. He didn’t. Instead, the man continued to stare at you, following you into your personal space as you shuffled away from him.

“Can I help you?” You snapped, immediately getting a bad feeling about him. You crossed your arms over your chest, frowning at him.

“No need for that tone baby. Come on, I wanna talk to you,” He purred. His eyes dipped to your cleavage, a lustful look in his eyes.

“I’m not interested,” You said, stepping backwards away from the man. He seemingly didn’t hear you, continuing to get into your personal space, arms reaching out to grab your hips.

“You were interested earlier. Come on, baby,” He purred, pulling you close to him, pressing his hips against yours.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” You yelled, pushing him off hard enough to make him stumble backwards.

“Fucking bitch,” He growled.

If you were sober the situation would have a very swift end. You would punch him square in the face and he would leave you alone, scuttling away with a broken jaw and a shattered ego. However, you were not in a state to do that now. He had the upper hand. All you could do was run, hoping once you were back amongst people he wouldn’t attack you. You looked up the alley, the open street was just a few feet away.

You bolted.

Unfortunately just as you didn’t have enough coordination to punch the man, you didn’t have enough to run in heels on the uneven floor. Not even ten foot away your legs wobble, heels falling into a pothole sending you forward. You fell into a dumpster, head hitting the corner of the metal with a thud. You yelped, vision going black for a moment as you lay on the concrete.

“Hey hey hey,” A man ran over, instantly scaring the man off of you. He knelt by your side and helped you up from where you’d fallen. You groaned and pushed yourself up, head throbbing harshly, warm liquid trickling down your face. Your world was spinning even with your eyes closed. “Y/n, Fuck are you okay?”

“Get off me!” You exclaimed, trying to push the stranger off, not that your shaking arms were very effective.

“Y/n hey it’s me, you’re okay!” You looked up and saw Steve through a haze of blurred vision. You squinted as something dripped over your eye. Steve then saw the cut to your head, “Oh shit,” Your eyes are glassy and blown out, you mumbled something to him and pushed yourself out of his reach again, wobbling and tipping backwards. He caught you before you hit the floor again. “Y/n what are you doing out here? Weren’t you with your friends?”

“Her brother was the first guy,” You said, your speech slurred so much Steve barely understood what you were saying.

“Rookie, you’re not making sense. What are you on about?”

“I’m so fucked,” You sighed, letting your head rollback. You giggled as the world spun.

“Yeah, I can tell, come on let’s get you home,” Steve stood up, holding his hands out to you and pulled you up to standing again.

“Where’s Peña?” You asked.

“At the bar,”

“I want to go talk to him, let’s go talk to him!” You exclaimed. You began to walk in the opposite direction, dragging Steve along by the arm. He pulled you back with ease.

“You can talk to him in the morning, we’re going home,” He insisted.

“But I have to tell him about the brother he’s going -,” Your rambling was interrupted as you threw up, barely missing Steve’s leg. He grimaced and jumped out of the way, “I have to talk to him,” You said quietly once you were done.

“Tomorrow, Kid,” He repeated himself.

You pouted, tears of frustration welling up in your eyes but you didn’t fight him. Despite how drunk you were you knew that going home would realistically be the best course of action right now. You could barely string a sentence together let alone get anything important out coherently.

Steve got you into a taxi, luckily the driver paid no attention to the blood dripping down your face. You were falling asleep on his shoulder as you pulled up to the apartment, Steve pulled you out of the car and up the stairs to the apartment. Only when he opened the door, he was met by Javier and Vanessa also on their way inside.

“Woah!” Javier instantly turned his full attention to you when he saw the state you were in, hanging onto Steve’s sleeve, “What happened?”

“Some guy tried to touch her up, she hit her head, I’ve got it covered,” Steve explained.

“Hey Baby,” You grinned, obviously giving Javi a once over.

“She doesn’t look alright,” Vanessa commented, “Did she just call you baby?”

“It’s a long story,” Javi dismissed the comment. “She doesn’t look okay,”

“I’ve got it covered. I’ll get her to throw up and get some water to sober her up,” Steve said, “We’ll be okay, won’t we Rook?”

“Fine and dandy!” You grinned.

“If you’re sure,” Javi said hesitantly. You were gone, hanging onto Steve’s arm to hold yourself up. Your eyes were blown out and blank, if you remembered anything in the morning it would be a miracle. His first reaction was to help you, not sure Steve could handle you alone. Steve wasn’t exactly sober himself, sinking a good few beers with Javier in the bar before he’d left. However, his decision was made for him as you and Steve began walking up the stairs, Vanessa’s hands were back on him and any worry was squashed as she dragged him into his apartment.

Upstairs, Steve took you into his apartment. He took you to the bathroom, sat you on top of the toilet and rooted around the medicine cabinet to find some cleaning supplies so he could patch up your bleeding head.

“Connie’s probably got something in here,” He rooted through the cabinet. Connie had gone back to Miami for the week to see her family, inconveniently right when her skills were needed. Steve’s tipsy attempt at first aid would have to do,“Ah-ha! Here we go, clean that cut out with this,”

“Ow!” You whined, flinching away from him quickly when he showed you the antiseptic bottle.

“I didn’t touch you,” Steve chuckled, “Hold still,” Carefully he poured the liquid over a cotton ball, took hold of your face in the other hand and dabbed the cotton on your cut.

“Ow! Steve that fucking hurt,” You complained, flinching away from him as the alcohol stung the wound on your head. You frowned at him, tearing up a little.

“Don’t be a baby,”

“I am a baby!” You exclaimed. Steve grabbed hold of you again, he needed to clean the wound if it was going to heal properly. You whined and hissed at him but eventually, it was clear.

“Look, all done, got the grit out,”

“Thanks, Steve,” You kissed his cheek quickly.

“You’re welcome,” He laughed awkwardly. “Come on, you can’t sleep on my toilet. Bedtime,”

“You’re not my type,” You scrunched your nose and leant away from him.

“Ouch way to break my heart Rook,” Steve chuckled, “No, you’re going to your own bed, by yourself,”

“It's so far away!” You whined.

“It's across the hall!” He copied your tone making you laugh.

Steve pulled you up from the toilet and managed to wrangle you across the hall. Half asleep, leaning into Steve before you even got inside the apartment, you fell into bed without protest. Steve pulled off your shoes, throwing them on the ground before stumbling back to his apartment to collapse in his bed.

—

Waking up in your apartment unsure of how you got there, was a strange feeling. What was even stranger was the harsh throbbing on your head. You blindly brought a hand to the sight, recoiling instantly as you touched something sore. You sat up, slowly opening your eyes to the daylight and looked at your reflection in the mirror opposite your bed.

You groaned when you saw the gash on your forehead. Dried blood sat in the creases of your neck, and underside of your jaw as well as being crusted into your hair. You tried to remember how you’d gotten the injury but came up blank. You couldn’t remember anything from the night before. Not unusual for your almost nihilistic habits, but it was concerning given the infliction.

You looked at the clock. 9 am. You’d slept in. Since you were up you decided to clean yourself up. You padded to your bathroom, wincing at the harsh light inside and the grinding sound of the extractor fan. You filled the sink with warm water and gently cleaned the blood from your face with a cloth, only once stopping to throw up into the toilet.

You showered, hot steam help clear your brain fog but not helping the cut on your forehead which now stung immensely. But that wasn’t the feeling you were concentrating on.

A new kind of hunger, one you weren’t yet familiar with had settled in on the back of your tongue. A repeating idea chanting over and over in your head. It had partly been cocaine’s fault you’d got into this mess, but it would get you out of this hangover now.

You remembered you had some in your jacket pocket from the day before, leftover. Once you’d thought about it there was no stopping you. You didn’t have to take it all, you could stop yourself if you wanted. You pulled the tin out from your coat, sit it down on your dressing table while you pulled on some clothes.

You sat back at the dressing-table again once you were done and stared at the box. You’d not done it here more than once or twice. Never by yourself. Something about being at home with it made you feel guilty, possibly because you were surrounded by your friends who also happened to be DEA agents who would kill you if they found the stuff in the building.

You picked up the box, contemplating it. You could get something done if you took it. Wouldn’t have to sit in your hungover state and wallow in self-pity until the headache left. You could go for a walk. Do nice things. Taking the cocaine would bring you nice things, as it always did.

You opened it.

“Morning,” Javier’s voice inside your apartment suddenly startled you, causing you to spill the contents of your box all over your dressing table.

“Fuck,” You swore out loud.

“Okay in there?” You regretted giving him a key. You did not need the interruption. His voice snapped you back to reality. You decided you didn’t have time, or rather not wanting to be caught red-handed, you decided to leave it and greet your surprise guest.

“Good morning,” You said brightly, opening and closing your bedroom door tightly behind you. Javier was standing in the middle of your living room, a book in hand flicking through it. He discarded it back to the coffee table where he’d found it when you appeared.

“Just wanted to check you were alright, you looked rough last night,” Javi said, “that cut looks sore,”

“It stings but it’ll be ok in a few days,” You shrugged. Javi looked at you strangely, “Did you come up here for something?” You asked.

“You don’t remember what today is?” He asked. You frowned and thought for a moment.

“It’s your birthday?” You asked slowly.

“No,”

“It’s my birthday?”

“I don’t know when you’re birthday is,”

“Javi I’ve obviously forgotten please just tell me,” You pleaded.

“Searchblok, you and Steve swapped. Remember?”

“Shit!” You exclaimed. How could you have forgotten?! You scrambled back into your room to get changed, boxer shorts and a hole-ridden t-shirt wouldn’t cut it.

“I should write you up for the mess you were in last night,” He called through the door as you rushed to get dressed, pulling on the nearest jeans on your floor. That’s not the only thing you should write me up for, you thought looking at the cocaine on your dressing table.

“I should write you up for sleeping with hookers,” You said back.

“Nowhere in my contract does it say I can’t! You however have a reckless behaviour clause,” He said. Your heart stopped at that, opening the door quickly to pop your head out.

“Javi-“

“I’m joking Rook, don’t worry!” Javier laughed. You rolled your eyes and shut the door again, pulling on a fresh shirt. A few seconds later you stepped out, buttoning the last of the clasps on your shirt. “I was worried about you but you’re fine so we’ll forget it ever happened,”

“Thanks, Baby,” You grinned at him. Javi rolled his eyes.

“You need to stop that though,”

“You love it,” You teased him. He didn’t reply, turning on his heel and walking out. You hesitated for a moment, glancing back at your bedroom door. The coke was still lined up in there, calling to you. It would only take a few seconds to do it and get rid of your hangover for a few hours.

“Rookie, hurry up!” Javi called you from the hallway, audibly impatient. You decided against it, grabbing your keys and a jacket and running to catch up with him. He was already waiting by the truck by the time you got downstairs. “Did anything interesting happen last night, then?” Javi asked. You tried to think for a moment, you remembered something important had happened, something you’d wanted to tell him last night but you couldn’t remember what. You shrugged.

“Apart from getting this,” You gestured to the injury to your forehead, “I can’t remember. There was something but I don’t know,”

“Can’t have been very important then,” Javi added. You shrugged and shook your head.

“Guess not,”

Next Chapter -->

Finally we’ve come full circle, I am so sad it’s over I have absolutely loved writing this series. Again I want to say a massive thank you to everyone’s that read the series, it means more than you could imagine. I love you all. I’m going to have a cry and make a start on all the other things I’ve been neglecting to write this.

The ending is already written and posted so if you haven’t read it go enjoy :))

tag list: @beskar-falcon @peterssweetpea @beskarbabs @all-hallows-evie @harrys-stan @wille-zarr @danniburgh @rentheisopod @urbankaite2 @whataloadofmalarkey @ahsofka @yeetus-my-feetus @sara-alonso @xiao-lusi @all-good-things-have-an-ending @eternallyvenus @ajeff855 @mayangel19 @1950schick @pedrosmustache @wantingtobekorra @balmasedas @angelsunflxwer @brujademente @kingsmanandqueens @igotissueswithfictionalmen

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