#so those were free points i gave up bc of panic
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theresa-of-liechtenstein · 2 years ago
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literally outperformed half the class on the mechanics midterm but still got a 58.5/100. hashtag engineering life
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gingergofastboatsmojito · 5 months ago
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RECYCLING /REPURPOSING
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I've been sitting for days on the recycling concept of these 2 mirroring scenes this fucking SOB Storer planted there in plain sight for us.
I hated the Carmy scene soooooo much that I was blocked. So I postponed analyzing it all together. Till today.
I couldn't believe Storer fucked up soooooooo much.
CARMY'S VERSION:
Carmy sounds completely OC, who wrote this?!?!?!
He's talking nonsense. As if the entire S2 never existed, as if his realization during the panic attack never happened, and as if all the things we all know he feels for Syd were never there, as if Braciole never happened either, is a complete OVERWRITTING OF THE CHARACTER! He sounded as if a whole new team of rookie writers came in and wrote this P.O.S. scene on their first day on the job and then Storer signed off on it and shot it, with the money I pay HULUUUUUUUUUUUUU every month!
I figured: "It has to be on purpose! This can't be THIS BAD, it has to be good like deep deep down, and I'm fucking missing it."
Well... turns out I was missing the PURPOSE. Or the re-purposing, I should say.
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Carmy, with the help of the other 2 clowns that were absolutely unnecessary but had a point bc let's face it, he shoulda sent a SO SORRY text as soon as he got out of the walk-in and he didn't do it not only bc he's an avoidant asshole and didn't get Syd's clearance that put his priorities in order, which he took as the perfect excuse to AVOID taking responsibility, was trying to re-purpose Claire, but here's the catch→ HE FAILED. He gave up on her.
Eventually, we saw all of that giving up on her altogether attitude in a more apparent way, yet still quite symbolical, too symbolical if you ask me, in the freezer in 03x09, he took his time, he doubted, and to me, that was a huge statement so I dedicated that moment alone several posts already:
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Syd's version:
Syd, on the other hand, all by herself, like the independent G woman she is, is in the dumpster:
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Also recycling the fucking cardboard boxes that those 2 clowns SHOULD HAVE TAKEN CARE OF as if she had any fucking free time to on top of EVERYTHING SHE ALREADY DOES AT THE RESTAURANT and had to also recycle because the fucking Faks fucked up and failed to do their fucking job! Completely different energy than the "boys talk" the 3 other idiots had in the dumpster while calling the MPDG "peace"/piece of ass.
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So she is in the middle of trying and failing (that’s why she didn’t sign the agreement that day either even though Nat urged her to) to recycle her whole purpose of being there, working at The Bear, because it's obviously not turning out to be what she expected or wanted, she's masking the disappointment she really feels with anger and frustration because the partner she trusted last season in, to make sure this didn't blow up in her face like last time, should be RECYCLED ASAP:
So Syd is in the process of losing and having to recycle her purpose to stick around, which is obviously what the Jocker's offer triggered in her but was simmering under the surface since even way before he tried to poach her.
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She's in the middle of a purpose crisis too, but totally different than Carmy's.
Parallels:
His crisis has to do with his feelings for a girl he can't make himself love and has decided to leave behind, knowing where that may take him down the line → UNSTUCK FROM HER MUD WITH ALL THE IMPLICATIONS THAT HAS IN REGARDS TO OTHER FEELINGS HE DOESNT WANNA FEEL, which I went over HERE.
Syd's repurposing crisis has to do with: CARMY and whether or not she's gonna keep on giving him more chances, whether or not she should stick by his side, because this, as it is, is just not working for her. But that doesn't mean she thinks Shapiro will work. It means she wishes her disappointment didn't exist, not that she wants to continue taking chances on chefs and risking getting burned AGAIN. That's her crisis. That's why she's losing purpose now, this is her current DUMPSTER CRISIS. The only piece of ass she's thinking about is Carmy’s and she has to re-purpose their entire relationship, which the Joker/trickster Shapiro brought up to the forefront of her mind in that ep. The same ep where we learned about Legerdemain
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It's all about:
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Or more like... lack thereof.
Remember to follow my tag #Gingerpovs 💋
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schneesisterss · 4 years ago
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Do you have any head cannons for the other Dimitrescu sisters? I loved your takes on Cassandra!
thank you! <3 and Of Course I have headcannons for the other two. (though not as extensive as the ones I have for Cassandra bc you know... brain rot) BUT HERE:
Daniela:
ADD/ADHD representation
stims include, but not limited to: jumping, hard blinking, leg bouncing, word/phrase/noise repetition, and fidgeting with her clothing
and i’m also CONVINCED she gets the zoomies at random times of the day
Alcina, hearing loud and fast footsteps up and down her hallway at 3am: *sigh* “Daniela! Take it outside!”
followed by a loud THUMP and painful groan (she definitely ran into a wall)
hates loud noises but simultaneously has no volume control
especially when she gets excited
Cassandra has to constantly remind her to lower her voice
“AND THEN I TOOK MY KNIFE AND STABBED THE LYCAN IN THE NECK AND IT WAS SO COOL—”
“Dani, i’m standing right here, why are you yelling?”
she loves play-fighting with her sisters
Cassandra is more willing to entertain her than Bela but the both of them like to see their sister happy. so whenever they recognize Daniela getting antsy they’ll wrestle with her a bit
(Cassandra gets way to into it sometimes and makes Bela be the referee lol. Cass always ends up pinning her younger sister with a proud, competitive smile on her face. Bela let’s Dani win, but we don’t tell her that)
has the keenest senses of the three which makes her the best at stalking/killing pray
and since she can hear the best out of all of them, she unintentionally eves drops on conversations
so Daniela, bless her, has all the tea
tactile learner
will just. touch things
“Life hard, Mothers gown soft”
can get trapped in her own head and doesn’t know how to express to her family what’s bothering her
this can make her very reserved at times and she’ll distance herself for days on end
her mother is really the only person who knows how to get her out of that state. Alcina walks up the long flight of stairs to the highest point of her castle. her youngest daughter likes to come here sometimes when she needs the quiet. “Daniela? Are you up here?”
“Hello, Mother.” Alcina looks up to see her daughter lounging on a banister high up on the ceiling.
“What are you doing up there, my love?” Daniela rubs the fabric of her dress between her fingers. “Cassandra and Bela were arguing again. I don’t like when Cassandra yells.”
Alcina shakes her head. Those two were always going at it. She’ll speak to Bela about it later. “I haven’t seen you in a few days.” Daniela then grabs a fist full of her dress and tugs at it, blinking hard. “Come down for a moment. Talk to me, baby.”
and Daniela simply rolls herself off the banister and into free fall. Alcina, already prepared, catches her with ease and holds her bridal style against her chest. Daniela runs her hands over the sleeve of her mother’s dress.
Alcina gave her youngest child time to gather her thoughts, knowing it sometimes takes longer for her to be able to understand them herself. Daniela finally spoke up: “It’s been very loud recently. Around the castle. Small things, like footsteps or glasses clicking, they sound so loud in my head.” She covers her ears with her hands. “Even now I can still hear Cassandras voice through the castle, it’s pushing in my ears. My head hurts, Mother.”
Alcina gave her daughter a quick squeeze before setting her down. “Follow me baby, I want to show you something.” Daniela followed her Mother through the twists and turns of the castle until they ended up at a door that was just like all the others. It blended in and maybe that’s why Daniela has never noticed it before. “In here.” her mother guided.
Inside was a small library and lounge room. A fire place tucked in the corner and, of course, a wall a wine next to it. Daniela looked at her Mother questioningly.
“Listen.” her mother said, and Daniela did. She heard... nothing. Nothing outside of the quiet cracking of the fire place. “This room is sound proofed. Come here whenever you feel overwhelmed.” She leaned down to stroke her daughters head. “Just don’t tell your sisters I showed you my secret getaway room.” and with a wink, the tall woman exited the room and shut the door behind her.
The next day Daniela was at breakfast like nothing had changed. She didn’t even mind when Cassandra yelled at a maiden for breaking a plate, it only made her laugh.
(if you get overstimulated you KNOW what i’m talking about)
personal space? never heard of her.
loves to cling to Belas arm and Bela let’s her bc she thinks it’s just. so cute.
will also sometimes just crawl into her mothers lap and fall asleep. then Alcinas like: “well.. i guess i’m not moving for three hours”
Daniela: “if I run an jump at Cassandra, she’ll most certainly catch me.” *takes off in a full blown sprint*
Cassandra: “NO IM HOLDING HOT TEA—” *drops tea to catch Daniela* *proceeds to cuss her younger sister out, all while Dani is wrapped around her like a koala*
(this happens a lot. Dani will just... climb on Cassandra. piggy back rides, getting on her shoulders, wrapping her hands around her neck from behind and letting her feet drag on the floor, etc. Cassandra complains adamantly but never once moves to get her off)
Cassandra: “hey Dani, I dare you too—”
Bela: “Mother said Daniela isn’t allowed to accept dares anymore.”
Daniela: “apparently I have ‘no regard for my personal safety.’”
it takes a lot for Daniela to get genuinely angry, but when she does, it’s.... bad.
Very Very Scary when mad
turns into a completely different person that you Do NOT want to fuck with
dangerous and violent
much more dark and sadistic as compared to her normal personality
came home one night covered in blood and laughing hysterically. it scared the shit out of her sisters bc if they would try and get close, she’d slash at them with her weapon.
(this was one of the only times Bela had seen Cassandra genuinely worried and afraid for their sister)
when Alcina came to see what was wrong, Daniela, still laughing madly, swung at her too. Cassandra quickly shot out her arm and grabbed Belas elbow to stop her from getting involved. Bela whipped around with a growl but Cassandras glare and squeezing nails told her to back down. Mother can handle it.
Insane Laugh™️
thinks it’s funny to intimidate the maidens by showing her fangs and snapping her jaw
she often likes to find Bela when she’s reading a book to convince her to read to her (Bela almost always complies)
that’s it for Daniela. just a hyperactive baby with a murder streak <3 ONTO THE FINAL SISTER
Bela:
Mama’s (and I cannot stress this enough) Girl
needs constant reassurance that’s she’s doing a good job and yes this reassurance can ONLY come from her mother
INSOMNIAC
this girl never sleeps, pls baby you need some rest
she spends the time she should be sleeping reading books or running errands for her mother (whether Alcina asked her to or not)
she has read almost every single book in their giant library
Cassandra doesn’t understand this at all
“Why are you always cooped up in here?” Bela glanced up over the pages of her book at her younger sister. “This is the library Cassandra. Take a wild guess.” her voice was completely level and had no inflection. Cassandra gritted her teeth, “You think your so much better than me.” Bela sighed and closed her book. She didn’t want to do this again. “No. I don’t.” she said seriously. Cassandra eyed her for a moment then looked away, Bela saw the guilt on her face before she turned on her heal. “You’re so boring.”
because she reads so much, she is incredibly smart and just knows facts about random things
Daniela, daydreaming: “I wonder why grass is green.”
Bela, immediately: “the pigment that most grasses produce, Chlorophyll, absorbs almost all blue and red light and reflects green light which is why we see green. so I mean, technically grass is every single color EXCEPT for green.
Dani, confused as fuck: ....
Cass: “Bitch, how do you even know that?”
Bela’s sisters just end up using her as Google
“Hey Bela, how far away is the moon?” “238,900 miles.”
“Hey Bela, how many different climates are there?” “Twelve”
“Hey Bela, what’s the worlds deadliest poison?” “Botulinum... why?” “No reason.” “Dani. WHY?”
“Hey Bela, how much can I sell a human skull on the black market for?” Bela, concerned: “Cassandra why would—” “HOW MUCH?” “Well... are all the teeth still in tact?” “...No.” “Than only about $500.” “FUCK.”
“Hey Bela, I have this weird rash on my back and—” “Daniela. Do not finish that sentence. Go ask Mother.”
she is so quiet
and not just because she doesn’t talk very loud or even much at all. she’s just So. Silent. when she moves
just pops up in random places without anyone hearing her approach
even Daniela can’t hear her coming, which is saying something
Cassandra, minding her own business, drinking blood tea: .....
Bela, suddenly right next to her: “Hey I was wondering if— stop screaming, it’s me— have you seen Mothers lipstick? It’s missing.”
refuses any type of help with anything or else she feels like she failed that task
Never asks for help, Never asks for favors, and Never Ever will burden her Mother with any of her problems. Ever.
(Alcina thinks this is ridiculous. her eldest daughter pushes herself too hard.)
Anxiety™️
sometimes when her anxiety becomes too much she shuts down and becomes very indifferent to things around her. this has caused many fights between herself and Cassandra because Cass will get really fired up when all Bela does is respond with a monotone voice and blank stare.
overthinks literally everything and is a perfectionist
this makes her prone to panic attacks :(
when this happens she shuts herself in her room, not wanting to bother her Mother or sisters
Bela closes her bedroom door behind her and stumbles to her knees. she can’t seem to get air into her lungs no matter how hard she tried. she had failed. Mother asked her to bring her the head of that stupid man-thing, but somehow he knew their weakness.
how could he know? are Cassandra and Daniela ok? where are they? where is Mother?
Belas breathing was shallow and short, her chest burns as she presses her forehead into the ground. She claws the skin of her chest raw, leaving angry, red marks behind, desperately trying to open her lungs.
she stays as quiet as she can, only gasping few and far between. she will not be a burden. she should deal with the consequences of her failure. alone.
a sudden knock on her door makes her scramble backwards on her bottom till her back hits the opposite wall. then Belas worst nightmare, her Mothers voice.
“Bela?! Bela, is that you?” Alcinas words were rushes and worried. the door handle jiggled. “Bela, baby the door is locked, please let me in.” Bela covered her mouth and cried silently while her Mother begged to be let in.
the sound of snapping wood had Belas eyes flying open, her Mother had broken down the door. Bela shrunk into herself. She’s going to be so mad. I’m a failure. the ringing in her ears became so intense she couldn’t hear anything else.
large, soft hands cup her cheeks and a muffled voice through the air: “Bela, my love, you’re alright thank god. Are you hurt anywhere? Let me see.”
Bela pushed weakly at her Mothers arms and said between sobs, “I-I’m sorry, M-Mother.”
Alcina looked at her eldest daughter with confusion, she had no physical wounds, but the look on her face was heartbreaking. “What are you sorry for, my love?” this only made Belas breathing spend up even more, her face red from the lack of oxygen. Alcina quickly pulled her in close.
“Now Bela, listen to the sound of my voice,” she said it gently but just hard enough to grab her daughters attention. “I need you to copy my breath. Do it now, love, listen to me. Do what i’m telling you to.” Alcina took exaggerated breaths and noticed that instantly after her command, Bela had tried to follow, but the smaller girls breath was still choppy and small. Alcina rubbed a thumb across Belas cheek. “You’re doing so well baby. Keep going just like that. Good girl.” a smaller hand was placed on her arm and grabbed at her sleeve. “Good baby, use me to ground yourself. Keep breathing now, you’re doing so good.” Alcina kept whispering soft encouragements and praises until her daughters breathing was back to normal and she was laying limp on her chest.
Alcina moved the hair away from Belas face. “What a good girl, you did so well.” Bela squeezed her eyes shut and pushed into her Mother until her face was hidden. “I’m sorry Mother.” came a muffled apology, though her voice was much more steadier than before. “I failed you, I couldn’t stop the man-thing. He shot at the windows! He knows our weakness, Mother. What are we going to do? Where’s Daniela and Cassandra, are they ok? I should have stopped him for you I’m so sorry I—”
“Quiet.” Bela immediately seals her lips and looks away, already extracting herself from her Mother’s arms. She probably hates her. Alcina simple tugs her back and forces Bela to look in her eyes with a quick tap to the forehead. “Bela, I need you to listen to me very carefully.” Her daughters eyes go wide and she nods. “You have nothing to apologize for. This is not you’re fault and I will not allow you to think that way. Plus, the man-thing won’t bother us any longer, I took care of it.”
“But—” Alcina raises an eyebrow and Bela gives in, nodding hesitantly. “Good girl.” Bela exhales through her nose at the phrase and squeezes her Mother’s sleeve again. They sit like that for a few more moments, calming down.
Bela suddenly shoots up. “Daniela, Cassandra, are they—” “They’re fine my dear, Daniela got a little banged up, but Cassandra was already patching her up before I could even get close. We didn’t know where you were, that’s why I was so worried.” Bela relaxed and again nuzzled her nose into her Mother’s chest, took one more deep breath, then stood. “I’m going to go check on them.”
She steps through the now empty door frame and pauses. She spoke without turning around: “I won’t fail you again, Mother.” and shifts into a cloud of flies and disappears.
(am I projecting again? idk help)
can play the piano
no like you don’t understand, she is so good at piano
this girl has mastered songs by composers like Liszt, Beethoven, and Ravel
she’ll play for hours on end, if she starts a new piece she Will Not get up until she can play it through perfectly
she pretends not to notice Cassandra secretly listening to her play, hidden behind a nearby bookshelf
while her younger sisters always jump head first into a fight, Bela takes a more calculating approach. learning her enemies movements from afar before advancing and ending it in like 3 quick moves.
“Well Bela, if Mother asked you to jump off a bridge, would you?”
Bela, already climbing over the railing: “Hm?”
and there you go for Bela! my sweet child.. please learn self-care.
*ahem* I went overboard again didn’t I? WELP. I regret nothing. Give me more headcannons.
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lovely-echoo · 4 years ago
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Sleepy Bois Inc x FranBow!Reader
In-game AU
Part 2/? PT.1
Plantonic!SBI x Young!Reader
(10/11 years old)
Headcanons
Genderneutral reader (they/them) 💜
INFO; If you haven't played or seen game play of Fran Bow then you can skip this if you'd like. If you don't care then go ahead.
Summary; Basically if you've seen/played the game you should know how this goes, you take place of Fran. So you go/went through the same things she did and you still have Mr. Midnight. This takes place while Fran is still in the mental hospital and then got teleported near the SBI.
If I get any info wrong, I'm sorry! I rewatched Markiplier's game play so it shouldn't be way off.
P.s not everything is described the same.
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(^ art by sunquids on twt)
CW/TW: mentions/includes of cussing, food/not eating properly, screaming, murder, death threats(?)
First Impressions
Philza
Was terrified honestly-
Thought you were dead at first
Mans was just walking around with his son when he heard a thud
Was 1000% not expecting a kid and a cat
Even worse when he tried to get closer the cat got defensive and swatted it’s claws at him
And when you woke up-
Oh boy-
You barely acknowledged him and picked up the cat
Which btw, the damn cat changed so quickly- it perked up and was all happy and shit
The sudden anger to happiness gave him whiplash the poor guy
Then when you started crying which that scared him to
But either way he wanted to help you
Blame the father instincts ig-
He saw the way you looked thinner and not in the way as in ‘I was born with a fast metabolism/naturally like that’ but in the way of ‘I haven’t gotten proper food in a while’
(Btw if you are a plus-sized reader, the same goes for you. I don’t want to specify anything, especially body types. But he could tell you haven’t eaten actual food :) bc we all know that asylum food is shit)
He also saw the way you lowkey gaped at his wings but shh-
^ Lowkey feels prideful about it but you didn't hear it from me-
He really tried to approach you as calmly as possible to not scare you
Can I also mention that when he saw how dull your eyes were he felt his heart shatter
He also physically winced when he heard you speak for the first time
Honestly got lost in thought with a bunch of concerns, worries and shit
Final Thoughts;
Thinks you're absolutely adorable
Wants to punt whoever left you here
Lowkey scared of your cat
Technoblade
At first did not care
Like at all
Also thought you were dead at first
Still didn’t care
But the more he examined you when you first met
There’s something about you that kinda…
Clicked?
Idk
But yeah
Was ticked off when you talked back but also impressed
Like he’s Technoblade, The Blood God.
Usually whenever he makes eye contact with people- especially kids
They cower, scream, panic and ect.
But you didn’t waver
But either way, he’s still very skeptical.
Will absolutely stay on guard with you around
Unless you don’t give him reason to
If the some of the voices are right
He will dropkick murder you
So just keep quiet about it for now, okay?
He actually kinda finds you interesting
He doesn’t know why, he just does
Maybe it’s your mannerisms but eh
Just watch yourself around him
He’s so stiff and stern around you to the point that you think you won’t wake up the next morning
Final Thoughts;
Still really iffy about you
Get's the most ill vibe from you
Wants the voices to stfu about how 'cute' you were
TommyInnit
Ima be completely honest with you-
He screamed.
Like as soon as he made eye contact with your bloodshot eyes
He just full on screamed
You don’t know what you did to scare the poor teen
But I guess you’ll never know
And ima be honest with you again
He doesn’t either.
Maybe it was the way your eyes bore into his when he first saw you
Lowkey thought you were half dead or a zombie or some shit
You just looked so…
Dead…?
You kinda looked like a doll to him
He’s not a fan of dolls
Will he apologize for screaming the first time ya’ll met?
Because that is lowkey rude to do-
Yes but actually no-
He feels bad but he’s got to much of a stick up his ass to apologize directly
But he’ll make it up to you one day
I hope-
But other than that
He’s happy to not be the youngest one around tho
Final Thoughts;
Still thinks you look like a creepy doll
Gets this vibe from you but can’t put his finger on it
Lowkey wants to take you out on an adventure and maybe introduce you to Tubbo
Wilbur;
He was actually in his room chilling
Practising his guitar for a new song he wrote
He was vibing
Then he heard a scream
Thought a cat or smt was being murdered
So he rushed downstairs expecting a dead animal or shit
Turns out it was just his younger brother
Was gonna scold him but he saw you and your cat
That btw, you were holding him in such a cute way and looked at him with these doe eyes
Mentally, emotionally and physically awed
Your farming his aw’s hold on a sec-
He’s in love omg-
Please he’s already thinking about doing sibling shit with you
He knows his dad will adopt you even if he said ‘They're staying here for a while before they go back home.'
Wil knows that’s a lie and you’ll be staying here for a lot longer
With your consent ofc
Either way finds you adorable, smol and just
You’re baby
To him, you’re baby
Final Thoughts;
You're baby
Wonders if you like music
But also gets a weird vibe from you
Bonus;
The Voices
Oh boy-
So many different opinions
Some want you dead
Some want to hug you
Some want your cat
Some hate your cat
It’s all a mess
But let’s focus on the positive ones-
A lot of them are still chanting ‘protecc tiny bean’
Some are talking about you, others the cat
‘protecc tiny beans’
Is now what they decided to chant
They love you bby dw
Even the harsher ones, they love you
They just don’t show it
For the ones who really want you dead and shit
They’ll warm up
At least I hope so
But they don’t get the chance to say more mean shit like wanting you dead
Because those voices are getting attacked by your fans
Yes, your fans
They’ve nominated themselves as your fans
Yes, they do fight for who’s the number one fan
Final Thoughts;
If Philza likes you then they do (for the most part-)
Protecc tiny beans?
Protecc tiny beans.
Feel free to submit suggestions for this series! Could just be headcanons, reactions to ___, or anything!
Taglist;
@killermich-blog | @cl0udy-grey | @roxy3457 @itsberrydreemurstuff | @shuriosansshitposts @frowningsmiles | @muchrooomm | @novelist2 | @xx-smiley-xx
Lmk if you want to be added!
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stargazer-balladeer · 4 years ago
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Adopting a Child [Genshin Impact]
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Characters Included: Albedo, La Signora & Scaramouche
Notes: All of the character’s I have least experienced with all in one post :D alright— let’s see how this’ll go- also,, hope they aren’t too OOC ;;w;; (and yes,, i made this whole hc bc of la signora- got a problem with it? HAHAHA) hope ya’ll like this!
Additional Information: You aren’t their kid. Just a random kid they found in the street who decided to follow them until they adopted you as their own :D
Reader’s Gender: Neutral
Warning: me cursing like usual 😃
Dedicated to: @meepmonster7 :D
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Albedo
For some reason, I can see him knowing how to handle a child, since he takes care of Klee as well- so when it comes to taking care of you, he’s practically a natural at it.
At first, he’ll be a bit turned off by you since he sees you as a bit of a nuisance. But over time, you’ll grow on him. He’ll come to love you as his own-
As an artist man himself, He teaches you how to draw. From plant, to animal, to people. He teaches you the techniques he used for drawing. You bet that he loves every drawing you gave to him, even if its a stickman, this man’ll treasure and cherish it with his life-
This man loves spoiling you with things, it got to the point where you didn’t know how to use all of the things he’s given to you. Sometimes, Jean and Sucrose has come in and told him to stop spoiling you too much-
Albedo’s a scientist right? Head scientist, alchemist, whatever. So you bet your ass that he’ll be teaching you some alchemy at such a young age- bro,, u can be the next einstein with how complicated things he’s teaching you-
Whenever he has free time, he loves spending it with you. He would share his findings with you, even though you can’t understand what he’s saying, he would still tell you. Sometimes, he would put on a show for you while telling stories using his vision and alchemy- he would always smile at your awestruck face as he tells the tale.
Playdates with Klee is a must- he would sometimes leave you under the Knights of Favonius’ care and you’ll be found playing with Klee. At first, he’s worried since he knew what Klee’s like. But if Jean decided its okay, then its okay.
If ever you were attack or gone missing, Albedo would be furious and immediately go to you or search for you. The ones who stole you away or attack you no longer exist btw 👀
Overall, even though you suddenly came to his life and became his unexpected child, he would love you as his own.
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La Signora
La Signora is a fucking natural at taking care of a child, change my mind 🤧🙃. Like if a child is crying and can’t be tame, just drag her over and that child would stop crying- maybe its bc she has a motherly aura around her (besides the fact that she almost kills Venti- 😃)
I think she willingly adopts you, not bc she’s obligated. She would guess that it’s because of her motherly instinct inside her when she finds you following her- she takes you in without any hesitation-
“But.. La Signora-“
“Even if you beg in front of me, my answer will not change. I will take this child as my own and none of you can stop me-“
La Signora would take you everywhere with her, but if its a mission that requires some.. blood, that’s the time where she wouldn’t bring you. She would drop you in the Northland Bank for a while before coming back to pick you up. She would let you explore the area since she knows that children likes to venture around new areas-
As much as La Signora is ruthless to the people around her, she would undoubtedly be soft towards you. Like she’ll be like medusa one second then the next she’ll be gushing at you-
She is the kind of woman that shields you from the world, who would protect your innocence than destroy it. So, in order to protect it, she wouldn’t tell you about her profession. All she would say is, “Mother is doing some secret business work.”
La Signora would spoil you rotten, whether from gifts or affections. If you want something, it would be given to you. She’s really rich, ya know? 👀 she loves carrying you, especially during times where she can cover your eyes- 👀
Even though she spoils you, doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be hard on you. If you do something she doesn’t like, she would punish you. She would also train you with your desired weapon, stating that it would help to protect yourself when she can’t-
I feel like she would let you meet her fellow Fatui Harbingers, but its not like their close with one another- 👀 but Childe is one Harbinger that you often play with. Even though he hates La Signora, he wouldn’t deny that he enjoy playing with you- so you can be found either with La Signora or with Childe-
If you ever get attack or was taken away, you can bet that La Signora is livid- furious- and she’ll hunt down whoever attacked you or decided to kidnap you. And she would NOT show mercy.
Overall, she would treat you as her own and would give you the world if she could- she would protect you from the darkness of the world. Whatever it takes..
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Scaramouche
Ha! Scaramouche with a child? Everyone is doubtful at best. He was already a whiny bitch. It’s not a wise decision to give him a kid- he can hardly care for his subordinate, what about a fucking kid-?!
You can tell Scaramouche despised your presence just from his face alone. Even as days and months go by, he would still despise you. But if you manage to rub off on him by staying with him for a year or two, he would start accepting your presence… slowly. He would still make that disgusted face whenever you’re around, but you can tell he’s soften around you and acknowledges your presence-
Scaramouche would be hard towards you, even if you’re a kid, he would still treat you just like he treats everyone. But to those people who knew him well (like Childe, Signora and other Harbingers-), they could tell Scaramouche is going easy with you-
Scaramouche isn’t that affectionate so he wouldn’t spoil you with affections or gifts, but he tries. He’ll leave some trinkets he found while he’s out and about in front of you before leaving promptly- (i swear he’s a tsun-tsun :3-) this cycle would continue even as years go by.
Scaramouche would train you harshly and isn’t afraid to force open your eyes to the harshness of reality- just bc ur a kid doesn’t mean ur an exception to the rules of reality. (“You’ve got no choice but to accept it as it is.” Scaramouche said, almost sadly while staring as someone was killed in front of you two-).
He would let you play with Childe (Childe is good with kids, okay? He has siblings for Teyvat’s sake-). He might as well give you to Childe with how often you are seem with the hydro-user instead of the 6th Harbinger- but you would always go back to Scaramouche.
Everyone would always ask you how you handle the harshness of Scaramouche (it’s no secret that he’s the least liked Harbinger-), but your response is always the same- “because I love him! He’s my older brother!” (Whilst Scaramouche is blushing behind the wall-).
Scaramouche is protective of you, believe it or not. So if you are with him while he’s outside, he’ll keep you close with him and doesn’t allow you to wander off. If you do wander off, he would panic as he searches for you. He would most definitely scream at you before hugging you- (he’s relieved that you’re unharm- 👀)
If you’re being attacked or taken away, everyone in the Fatui would be so scared of him as he goes out to search for you. If you’re kidnapped, he would let out a search party. And they aren’t allowed to be back unless you are with them (unless they want to get some beating from him-). He would immediately kill whoever attacked you or kidnapped you, even if you’re there to witness it, he would still kill them.
Scaramouche, overall, isn’t perfect. Afterall, he still despised you even after years go by- but he’s grown attached to you. Just,, be patient with him and continue to love him.
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volturiwolf · 4 years ago
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The Volturi Princess - A Felix Volturi x fem!Reader Story (part 1)
A/N: This is the first Volturi- and Twilight-related story I ever started writing and it is quite long and elaborated/complex, as I tend to overanalyze in many parts. I have wrote a few parts until now and I'll be uploading them in the future. I have been quite emotional throughout writing it, trying to understand the reader's point of view.
A/N 2: I'm sorry if something doesn't make sense. English is not my first language. I also include Italian through the story, with translation, but I'm not a native or a speaker, so I'd like to apologize in advance to those who speak Italian. Enjoy :)
A/N 3: According to "The Amagi" on Youtube, Felix was born in 250 BC (their thumbnail), so I used that in my story.
No of Words: about 5347
Mentions of: Abandonment, Abortion, Anxiety, Blood, Bruises, Coma/Comatosed State, Death Emotional Abuse, Emotional and Physical Pain, Gaslighting, Greece/Greek Language - with translation, Heartbreak, Italian Language - with translation, Manipulation, Murder, Pain, Panic Attacks, Pregnancy, Suffering, Suicide/Suicidal Thoughts, Swear Language, Throwing Up/Puking, Witches/Wizards/Witchcraft
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My heart felt heavy. I may have just escaped the cruelest vampire of all, but I also ran away from the love of my life, my mate, the only person who could fully understand me in this world. I asked him to run away with me, but, although our bond was strong, he felt obliged to stay loyal to his master, his creator. I drove as fast as I could, away from the sunny Volterra, and away from him.
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(Y/N) grew up quite privileged, in Vampire terms. Being born into the Volturi coven was something many vampires could only dream about. (Y/N) was abandoned by her parents when she was a baby, but Aro, one of the three Volturi leaders, took her under his protection, and offered her more things than she could ever have imagined. After all, she was his only biological granddaughter, the “Volturi princess”, an heiress to the throne; her mother lost that “privilege” when she met and fell in love with a wizard.
(Y/N)’s mother soon got pregnant with her, and then later turned her husband into a vampire to help her with her pregnancy, and stay together forever. However, (Y/N)’s parents couldn’t raise her because they wanted to run free and careless, not commit to anything permanent, so Aro took over and raised his granddaughter with the highest honors and privileges, “as a princess should be raised”.
(Y/N) was a mix of Vampire, Witch and Human, due to the grandmother, Sulpicia, being human when Aro found her; Sulpicia later fell pregnant with (Y/N)’s mother, and Aro transformed her to vampire, as he had planned all along. Aro raised (Y/N) according to his own rules and morals, teaching her how to kill humans to feed from, how to attack and slip away from her opponents, how to lead other vampires, and most importantly, how to keep her identity and existence a secret, not only to humans, but other non-Volturi vampires as well. No one could know that there was a possibility of a vampire having a child with a human, and that the child could be effectively controlled and raised as a regular vampire.
As (Y/N) grew older and older, reaching the human age of 25 within 7 years of her birth, Aro would spend more and more time with her, examining and studying her possibilities and her potential powers’ development. (Y/N) grew up to be extremely strong and fast, an excellent tracker with great intelligence and understanding of the world around her. However, Aro could not risk sending her to “Volturi duties”. She was his hope for a stronger coven; with (Y/N) in the throne, Aro felt like he could conquer the vampire world with ease.
That’s why he was always searching for the best guards he could find, to protect the coven and do his work instead of himself, Caius, or (Y/N). He couldn’t rely on Marcus, as he proved to be too emotional since Didyme died, but was still valuable for his plan. Caius, on the other hand, although powerless, was far more sadistic and “diligent” in following vampire rules, and (Y/N)... (Y/N) was just too obedient, following every order Aro gave her - a strong asset for the Volturi.
Aro was changing guards and trackers quite easily, disposing them when they were no longer needed or when he found better ones. He needed talented and strong vampires to serve the coven and do their work.
Chelsea was the very first vampire Aro created solely to serve the Volturi, after recognizing her potential when she was human. Chelsea’s gift of relationship manipulation was truly useful in bringing new vampires into the coven and was used thousands of times during Volturi's reign. It could also easily dispose of them, making their bonds with other vampires break at will; those vampires were isolated by the other vampires and then killed - Aro couldn’t risk letting them get away knowing the Volturi’s secrets and life.
About 100 years later, Corin joined the Volturi, just a couple decades after (Y/N)’s birth. Corin’s gift of addictive contentment was the one which kept Marcus in the Volturi after Didyme’s death - along with Chelsea’s to make him committed to Aro’s greater plans, and was also used on Sulpicia, Athenadora and any other vampire in the Volturi guard to keep them satisfied being in the Volturi. Under Aro’s instructions, Corin was keeping Chelsea content with being in the Volturi, and Chelsea was keeping Corin loyal to them, each of them using their gifts against each other, without their knowledge.
Sometime between 230 and 220 BC, while travelling in Rome, searching for additional vampires to add to the coven, Aro supposedly met a young, strong and ambitious fighter, who wished to become a gladiator one day, named Felix. Felix did not only look, but also was physically capable of fighting even with beasts, during his short time as a fighter, way before the Colosseum was built. Born into a poor family, his strength was his only way of making money, and becoming a gladiator was his only way out of poverty, a way to provide for both his family and himself.
When his family was almost imprisoned by Roman army officers for outstanding debts, Felix was forced to make a deal with them to fight, in whatever they ordered him to. Fighting turned out to be the only way for Felix to deal with his emotions and rage towards people in power. When Aro approached Felix, he was promised a good life, where he wouldn’t have to worry about surviving another day. Felix did not seem willing enough, not being fond of the idea of serving people in power, who he so despised.
Luckily for Aro, Chelsea was the one who “convinced” Felix to join the Volturi guard, with Aro changing him afterwards. Unlike previous guards, Felix showed impeccable strength, speed and talent towards both dodging and initiating attacks, eventually making him a permanent member in the Volturi Guard, along with Chelsea and Corin.
Felix was assigned as the leading guard for the three kings’ protection, this role extending to the protection of their two wives and (Y/N); though Aro knew that, if it came to anyone attacking his granddaughter, she would be able to handle it by herself. However, he still wanted to make sure that she was safe and that Aro would do anything to protect her.
For about a couple millennias, (Y/N) was content with her situation, being the “Volturi princess” and all that. Besides, having Felix in the Volturi was another reason to stay in the coven, apart from staying loyal and true to Aro for taking her in, when she was abandoned.
Every time Felix looked into her eyes, she felt her whole body burn - though, it wasn’t a feeling of suffering, rather a feeling of longing, waiting for something to happen so badly that her body couldn’t control itself. Although she was partially a vampire, (Y/N) would feel like she couldn’t breathe, like her legs were ready to give up on her, like she wanted to grab Felix and never let go.
Felix, although not admitting it even to himself, would feel the same way, but he knew that his position would not allow him to approach (Y/N) in such a way. He was just a guard - although he was the strongest of them all, and she was the Volturi princess, one of his masters, whom he was only allowed to approach in order to protect. He didn’t want Aro to know he saw his granddaughter like that; it could cost him his position in the guard, or even his life. So, he kept these feelings deep within him, not allowing them to resurface, or act upon them.
However, every time these two existed at the same place, the invisible sparks between them would fly left and right. And only one vampire was able to see them. One who hadn’t felt these sparks in centuries.
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(Y/N)’s POV:
I yawned loudly as I woke from a long, much needed sleep. I was the only vampire around who was able to sleep, mostly due to my non-vampire natures. I didn't really need to sleep on a regular basis, but when I did, I could literally sleep 3 days straight and nobody would be able to wake me up. “For my own protection”, as Aro said, I would always have at least two guards outside of my room’s door, in case anything happened while I was sleeping. Like what could even happen? My room was at the furthest side of this huge castle. I’m pretty sure that if there ever was an attack against the Volturi, it would most probably have been dealt with immediately, and the attacker wouldn’t make it anywhere near my room.
I felt the warm sun on my skin, slightly glowing and sparkling beautifully. My eyes, mostly (Y/E/C) with a golden ring around the pupil, could easily adjust to the light. Unlike the other vampires, I could easily live among humans; I could sleep, eat human food, my skin not being as sparkly as others, and I could control my thirst far better than others.
Since Jane and Alec joined the coven, Aro would show an immense interest in them and their skills, helping them train daily and develop their powers further, eventually forgetting about me. I would spend more and more days away from the castle, “protected” by my anonymity, getting to know humans more and more. The longer I was observing them, the more they would trigger my interest in them. They could feel true emotions, real pain, real hurt, real love. They had their families, they received an unconditional love that I could never have.
Unbeknownst to Aro or anyone else for that matter, I have started developing new powers, similar to the other vampires in the Volturi coven or anyone else outside of it. I have also started noticing that I may have an immunity towards others’ talents, feeling that neither Corin’s addictive contentment made me satisfied with being in the Volturi, nor Chelsea’s relationship manipulation could keep me loyal to Aro anymore. If it weren’t for Felix, or Demetri and the Twins, who have all become my best friends by now, I would have probably left.
A vampire named Carlisle Cullen had visited the Volturi and stayed with us for a while, about 100 years ago. He saw the way the Volturi treated humans like they were nothing, and how they were as cruel as to kill other vampires, with the excuse that they were exposing our kind with the way they lived. Entire covens had been wiped out due to such excuses, a way to eliminate potential enemies from becoming too powerful and find as many talented vampires as possible and force them to join the Volturi.
Carlisle was talking about a new way of life, where vampires wouldn’t have to kill humans to survive, a life where vampires and humans could live in peace, without harming each other. He was insisting that vampires could survive on animal blood just as efficiently as with human blood; that animal blood would not make them weaker, and that it would be a much more ethical and sustainable way to feed.
Of course, Aro and Caius were the first ones to mock his proposition, clearly not caring about humans’ feelings and pain. Marcus did not budge at all, his heartache making him indifferent to anything around him. But I was growing more and more interested in this alternative way of life; I was, after all, feeding on human food already, so that I was feeding on human blood as little as I could.
It was a few years after Carlisle left Volterra that Eleazar joined the Volturi. Aro forced him to join after finding out he could detect if someone had any special ability. Aro considered his gift useful in identifying if any of his enemies had any special power when in battles, or when he sent Eleazar around the world to recruit talented vampires.
Eleazar was clearly not liking the way the Volturi forced their ways and wants on others, and how they could take advantage of others for their own benefit. I could just sense that he was displeased and was forcing himself to stay in the coven, one, due to Corin’s and Chelsea’s gifts, and two, out of fear of what could happen to him and his mate, Carmen.
Carmen, a vampire from Spain, like Eleazar, met with Eleazar while he was a guard here, they fell in love, and eventually, Eleazar decided to leave the Volturi and run away with Carmen. Aro decided that he did not care about him and his gift as much as others’, so he let him go unharmed, “blessing” them for safe travels.
Just a few days before he left, I consulted him on my own powers. Though a lower member of the guard, Eleazar had his own room, a decent place to stay, and spend his endless hours in. I knocked slightly on the door.
“Come in”, a calm voice was heard. I opened the door and came into his room. Carmen was sitting on the edge of their bed and Eleazar was reading a book on his desk. They both smiled sweetly. I just felt and knew they were too nice to fit anywhere in here, among the cruel and strict Volturi.
“(Y/N)! So nice to see you!”Carmen exclaimed and stood to hug me. The second we hugged I started seeing parts of her life in Spain, the calm waters of Catalunya, the vast vineyards where she would spend the early years of her life… I quickly detached myself from her embrace. I just couldn’t invade her privacy like that. She and Eleazar both looked at me worried, as if I had offended them.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t let you “show” me your whole life like that!” I looked at Carmen apologetically.
“(Y/N), you saw Carmen’s life?” Eleazar continued, intrigued by my words.
“That’s why I came to talk to you. I..I feel like I’ve been developing a gift, or a few gifts, to be completely honest. And I feel like.. like I have a specific power one day, and another power the next!” I stated frantically.
It was the first time I have openly talked about my powers to anyone, and I was shaking just by the words that came out of my mouth. Eleazar did not say anything, he just stood there for a few minutes, I supposed “examining” me, as if a doctor checking on a patient.
“Remarkable.” He said calmly. He looked at his mate with excitement, as if he just discovered a lost treasure. “(Y/N) has one of the most remarkable gifts I have ever seen.” He then turned to me. “You, (Y/N), are able to copy anyone else’s gifts and keep them as your own. You don’t even have to be in contact with them. Just by meeting someone, you can obtain their powers. I have never met anyone like that. You also seem to have obtained immunity to others’ powers, kind of like a shield. I have met such vampires before. From the stories Aro has been telling, your mother was like that. It is likely that you copied that gift for her. Such vampires are extremely useful to themselves or even others, in battles. Like themselves, you can use your gift to protect others from others’ powers, beside yourself.”
That came too sudden to my ears. I have assumed that I may have at least one power, but I didn’t realise I could copy others’ powers. That is why I was showing signs of Aro’s power!
“How can I train my powers? Eleazar! Carmen! You have to help me!”
“As you know, we will be leaving soon. I don’t know if there will be enough time to train you.”
“It’s okay. We will train as much as you want. Please, Eleazar! Please, Carmen!” I started begging them. As if they were hypnotized, they quickly looked at each other and agreed to help me.
The next few days, before Eleazar and Carmen’s departure, included intense training, far away from Volterra, deep in the woods, where no human could interrupt us. I couldn’t say the same for vampires, but I hoped nobody would cross paths with us. Eleazar and Carmen helped me develop my self-control and self-awareness, concentrating through the deepest parts of my mind, resurfacing my shield and expanding it beyond my existence. I started to have control over it, as if it was an actual solid substance, a veil floating around me towards any direction I ordered it to go.
After Eleazar and Carmen left, I started travelling the world more, trying to copy as many powers as I could come across with, while also training my shield. My excitement for the endless possibilities was what kept me going - kind of when Aro would add another talented vampire to his Guard. His Guard. Felix. I wonder how he was. I hadn’t seen him in a while. I wondered if he thought of me like I thought of him.
After travelling pretty much anywhere I could reach, I eventually went back to where it all started: I went to Greece. Aro met Sulpicia here, apparently my mom met my dad here. Maybe I could find out, understand why they left me. I have never met them, but I felt as if my tracking skills could detect them through my own existence.
I started travelling through the country, hoping that they stayed here or, at least, that they’re alive. I spent about 2 or 3 years in Greece, trying to take in every different place, while also avoiding the battles that seemed to take place in every other corner. I was feeding off animals mainly, mostly when I couldn’t find any other human food. I was washing myself in rivers, streams, whatever I could find.
I was stopping by any village that seemed to be still standing, asking about the current situation. The Greek Revolution, which started a few years ago, seemed to still be going on. The Ottomans, who had been occupying Greece for almost 400 years, could not allow Greeks to turn against them and start claiming their rights within the Ottoman Empire.
Many Greeks I met and talked to, admitted that some of the Ottomans were actually being nice to them; it was only the Ottoman government ordering their armies to execute massive massacres against Greeks, and after all this time, a few Greeks started gathering up and planning a revolution, away from Greece, in fear of being caught. They started getting organized and finding possible allies to help them with the Revolution; they just couldn’t risk getting caught within the country that they were hoping the independent Greece could become. The battles were becoming more and more intense, both on the mainland, as well as on the islands.
I started looking for answers, anything that could suggest that my parents were still alive and somewhere in Greece. To my surprise, I crossed paths with many Greek nomad vampires all over the country. They were also fighting against either Ottoman vampires or each other for territorial claims; however, they all talked me out of travelling north, towards Macedonia. The region had started being reclaimed back by Greek humans, but vampires were also seeing the potential for the area and they fought against each other for the land.
All of the nomads I encountered were talking about some of the most vicious vampires claiming the land, their enemies being literally slaughtered and burned to set an example for other vampires to back off their territory. I was intrigued, and I knew that, most probably, I would be able to deal with them or flee before they got to me.
So, I started travelling north, through the woods and mountains, in order to avoid any possible battle between humans, though many of them seemed to hide in the mountains, preparing for their battles. Macedonia was a quite big and vast region, so I had to travel quite a few days and search every possible corner.
I know I shouldn’t have done this, but I was feeling exhausted from all the searching. I haven’t fed in quite some time, and my throat was burning by the familiar need for blood. I haven’t seen any animals all these days, and I was wondering if they were gone or hiding.
Sadly, I came across a human. He seemed to be wounded, probably during a battle, his blood gushing out of his body. I couldn’t help myself, when I breathed in the smell, the burning sensation becoming unbearable. I thought of approaching him slowly, so as not to scare him, offering to help him, but deep down I just wanted to feed off of him.
“Γειά! Συγνώμη αν σε τρόμαξα. Σε είδα από μακριά. Μπορώ να σε βοηθήσω με κάποιο τρόπο; (Hey! Sorry if I scared you. I saw you from afar. Can I help you in any way?)” I offered calmly.
The man was trying to suppress his growls. I could sense his pain. I tried to help him stand on his feet, and then I saw all of his memories. He was in the army, fighting alongside Greeks against the Ottomans, in Macedonia, just outside of Thessaloniki. I didn’t even know I was so close to a city, let alone Thessaloniki.
He was trying to pass through the woods, when he came across what seemed to be two red-eyed vampires, one male and one female. They tried to attack him, but someone else managed to shoot him first, forcing the two vampires to run away. I don’t know how or why, these two felt familiar to me, I could feel that through his memories.
“Γειά! Μπορείς.. Μπορείς να πας στο κοντινότερο χωριό; Νομίζω.. Νομίζω ότι είδα κάτι στο δάσος, δε νομίζω ότι ήταν κάτι φυσιολογικό! Πρέπει.. Πρέπει να προειδοποιήσω τους άλλους! (Hey! Can.. Can you get me to the nearest village? I think.. I think I saw something in the woods, I don’t think it was something normal! I have.. I have to warn the others!)” He mumbled in between sharp shoots of pain.
“Με συγχωρείς πολύ! (I’m really sorry!)” I plead with guilty eyes. I put my hand in his wound, searching for the bullet, while he was consumed by pain. I took the bullet out of the wound, and quickly attached my lips on his skin, sucking the blood as fast as I could, biting deeply unintentionally. His screams were becoming louder and louder, so I covered his mouth with my hand, while trying to shut him up or break his jaw. A few seconds later, he stopped screaming, and I let his lifeless body fall, completely numb and drained out of blood.
I felt renewed, his blood travelling to every part of my body and giving me a new kind of strength that I haven’t felt in a while. I still felt guilty for killing him, but he was already wounded and I couldn’t risk him exposing our kind to others. I assumed that whoever found him - if anyone found him - would also assume that he died of blood loss, so I tried to position him in a realistic pose for that purpose, as best as I could. I left him there, and continued the search for my parents.
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I was running through the woods, trying to locate the two vampires from the guy’s memories. My mind was chaotic, I wasn’t thinking about something specific. I stopped in my tracks. What Aro taught me, and what I understood from Demetri’s tracking skills, is that you have to stop, take a breath and realize your position in the world. Then, you would be able to realize everything around you and find your targets. I have successfully found other vampires like that before, vampires who I have either met in person or smelled their scent, but I didn’t know if I could find someone through someone else’s memories of them.
I took a deep breath and tried to concentrate as best as I could, focusing on the smaller details of the guy’s memories of these vampires. I felt two vampires running on my west, about 10 kilometers away, and I ran after them. They were running fast, but I was way faster. Within a minute or two, I was running right behind their tracks. They must have realized that a stranger was following them, but, instead of running, they suddenly stopped. I stopped as well, and we were now facing each other.
The female had long, brunette, curly hair, and the male short, dark brown, straight hair; both of their hair looked shiny, healthy, and rich. They were of average height and their eyes were piercing red, as if they also fed quite recently. The female was exceptionally beautiful and enchanting; I could only compare her to Heidi’s exceptional beauty. The male looked quite stoic and austere, though still beautiful.
Both of them on defensive positions, waiting for me to attack. I wasn’t planning to move any further from my position; I was only waiting for their own reactions. I felt that kind of a burning sensation within me again, like a feeling buried deep inside me, trying to find an escape.
Suddenly, the male growled at me, flames springing out of his hands, and being thrown at me. I felt my heart fall out of my chest, fearing that this would be my end. As if my body reacted on its own, I felt my own shield extending out of my body, building a wall around me and protecting me from the male’s attack. My hands started burning and flames came out, ready to counterattack the male. The male looked at the female, dumbfounded by what he witnessed, still in a defensive position, but ready to attack again.
“I’M NOT HERE TO FIGHT YOU!” I shouted at both of them. “I’M JUST SEARCHING FOR SOMEONE!”
The male shrinked back, the female following close by. “Who are you looking for? We haven’t seen you around. Who are you? Why are you here?” The male requested. His voice serious, but smooth at the same time; a voice I could only describe as the warm earth below their bare feet.
“No, I’m not. I come from Italy, though I think I was born around here. My name is (Y/N), I’m looking for my parents. I don’t quite remember what they look like, but I’m pretty sure that they lived around here. They abandoned me when I was a baby.”
“This has been our territory for almost 3 millennials! We would have known if any humans abandoned their offspring around here!” The female exclaimed, as if she didn’t believe a word I said. I didn’t want to tell them the whole story, but I had to show them that I didn’t mean to fight in any way.
“I never said they were humans. My mother was actually sort of a vampire, like you.”
The female started letting her guards down. “What do you mean sort of? I’ve never heard of a “sort of vampire” before!” She continued doubtfully.
“Believe me or don’t, my mother was born half vampire, half human. My dad wasn’t even a vampire before she met him. He wasn’t even human to be honest.” My eyes started stinging slightly. I could have had a good, happy life if they didn’t abandon me. I wouldn’t have to grow up with Aro.
“You said you were from Italy.” I nodded at the male, as he continued. “You never said where exactly.”
I wasn’t sure if I should tell them my real origin; I wouldn’t like them to know I was a Volturi, but I knew I needed help to find my parents. If they were actually here as long as they say, they might have known or met my parents at some point.
“Volterra. I was born here, in Greece, like my mother, but grew up in Volterra with my grandparents.” I looked down, kind of scared, kind of anxious, waiting for their next move.
The female gasped. “Are you a Volturi?!” I looked at her, straight in the eyes, swallowed, and nodded. “I know the Volturi. Who are your grandparents?”
“Aro and Sulpicia.” I answered so quietly that, if they weren’t vampires, they wouldn’t have heard me, my voice trembling slightly.
The female suddenly fell on her knees, the male wrapping his arms around her, comforting her. I didn’t know what was going on. Did I say something wrong? Were they scared? The sheer mention of the Volturi would scare a lot of vampires, but I thought that maybe these two seemed strong enough to deal with them.
The female started sobbing, no tears coming out of her red eyes, her body shaking. I felt something within me break. I felt that I didn’t want to upset them, that’s why I was hesitant in telling them who I really was. The male looked at me, pain in his eyes. I saw a familiar look. I saw me in his eyes, what I looked at in my mirror anytime I was thinking about my parents, or, sometimes, when I thought of Felix.
“Are you a half witch?” The male asked quietly. Something snapped in me. How would he know that?
“I swear, I didn’t do anything to your mate! I DIDN’T!” I shouted at the male. I didn’t want him to think that I would hurt his mate, or himself.
“I know you wouldn’t. It’s just..” He looked at his mate who had stopped sobbing, but was still down on her knees, unable to stand up. “..my mate is Aro and Sulpicia Volturi’s only daughter.”
My body tensed and shivered. If that woman is the only daughter Aro and Sulpicia ever had...could that mean..?
I took a few steps back. “AM I YOUR DAUGHTER? ARE YOU MY PARENTS?” I looked at them in disbelief.
Those were the people who abandoned me! That let me grow parentless, under Aro’s rules and directions! I was breathing heavily, in between sobs. I didn’t even realize that I set my whole body ablaze, until both vampires looked at me shocked. I didn’t feel any pain, but I couldn’t stop the flames licking my body, and in my frantic state, I started panicking even more.
The male started approaching me slowly, trying to not scare me away. “Shush, shush. You’re okay. You’re doing okay. I know how it feels at first. You’re experiencing some aspects of the life as a witch. It’s okay. Close your eyes and picture the flames in your head.” I closed my eyes and tried concentrating on the flames. “Now, imagine them burning out, becoming smaller and weaker.” I focused on the flames, imagining them weakening. After a few minutes, I felt them getting smaller and smaller, and finally disappearing. I opened my eyes slowly.
The female was standing next to the male, watching me carefully. In a quick motion, she pulled me and embraced me, stroking my hair lightly. I breathed in her scent, a mix of mountain flowers and the saltiness of the sea. Her touch was soft, and filled me up with what felt like a thousand different emotions.
But, I mostly felt safe. It was the first time in my life that I actually felt this safe. And whole. I felt like I actually belonged somewhere. I hugged her back. Tears started spilling from my eyes. That was my mom! That was actually my mom! After all this time, we were finally together. I felt the male, my dad, hugging both of us, and in that moment, I felt my legs giving up on me, and I finally fell into a long sleep.
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pftones3482 · 3 years ago
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Sometimes Stupid
Commission for @randomfandomfan from one of their many prompts they gave me. Took forever bc of work and life and also???? Now I have a cat??? So that's fun. But this was fun to write. Read it here on AO3
Set post TLO and pre HOO (and a little bit post HOO). Under a cut for length.
~~
Contrary to popular belief, Leo Valdez was not stupid.
He was an idiot, at times – for instance, maybe running away from his seventh (fifteenth? He’d really lost track at this point) foster home wasn’t the best decision he could have made, especially given that it was the middle of summer and oh, also, hurricane season. And okay, maybe he should’ve taken more with him than a single change of clothes, a box of Ritz crackers, a pocketknife, and a water bottle that had definitely seen better days, but he was in a rush, okay?
But he wasn’t stupid.
When he ran away from his foster homes, Leo tended to stay away from people where he could. And if he had to be around them, he cleaned up, smiled brightly, “Yes ma’am”ed and “Yes’sir”ed to an obnoxious point, and lied his pants off. People were less likely to call the police on a Hispanic kid if they thought he was just a darling little angel waiting for mom at the grocery store, and the last thing he needed was the cops in his business.
Not that it hadn’t happened, of course. He’d dealt with cops of all kinds – nice cops, bad cops, black cops, white cops (WAY too many of those, in his opinion), the occasional cop who would speak Spanish with him, cops who were just there to write a report and move on with their days – cops.
He tried to stay away from them.
Which meant sticking to beaches and forests, lakes and campgrounds, middle of nowhere places with no people for miles. Leo was good at disappearing. Hiding.
But there were always times when he needed an adult. When he needed to hitchhike, or when he needed food to the point of near passing out. Once for serious medical attention. There was a system to what adults you could trust.
Never cops. You could never trust the cops, no matter what naïve white parents thought. Leo had been in cuffs enough to know that was false.
You also couldn’t usually trust priests. They meant well, sure, but they always ended up calling the authorities in the end. That, or they tried to convert Leo to Catholicism, and while one of those encounters had ended with a swiped bottle of watered-down red wine and a night that made him vow to never drink again, he wasn’t trying to contact the church.
(THAT night, Leo would say he had been stupid. He could admit that)
Homeless people were usually okay. While a lot of them were very suspicious of everyone, almost every homeless person he’d ever met would point him in the direction of food, water, free showers, free clothes, or a library (his saving grace during the heat of the summer and the cold of the winter). The times when he came across gay homeless people were when he felt safest – they especially never pressed him about his background. Ironic, really, that he felt safer with strangers on the street than his foster homes.
Moms were sometimes okay. Especially if they were Hispanic, or black, or just anything but white. They, at least, wouldn’t call the cops on him. But they were also hit or miss – sometimes they helped in way of a meal, or a new bottle of water. One mom even took him to the store and got him new socks and underwear (he had cried that night). But other moms rushed him away from their precious babies. Some moms called him ungrateful for the “space he had.”
Dads were a never. Leo never went to men if he could help it, even if they had children with them. He didn’t trust them as far as he could throw them, and that wasn’t very far.
But it was hurricane season. And he was on the coast. And it was downpouring, and he was starving, and the only people he had seen for miles were a white couple, a man and a woman, standing on the porch of a somewhat rundown shack that Leo would’ve probably thought was abandoned if he hadn’t seen them there.
The man was tall, peppered hair that was shifting more to salt, with a rough beard and a pair of glasses perched on his nose. The woman at his side was short, probably Leo’s height, with dark curly hair and vibrantly blue eyes. It was streaked with gray, but she was, admittedly, a very pretty woman. Something about her smile put Leo at ease.
He clutched his backpack tighter in his fist and stumbled over the sand towards the shack, ankles rolling uncomfortably on the wet ground. He was sure he looked atrocious, sure that the moment they spotted him, they’d shriek and cuss him out and lock the door.
But then he coughed, hard, his shoulders shaking, and the woman whipped her head around. He watched her eyes widen, watched her tug at the man’s sleeve, and then she was bolting – barefoot, Leo noticed – down the steps and over to him.
He flinched when she wrapped an arm over his shoulders, jolting out of her grip more from habit than anything else. She froze, holding both hands up and relaxing her stance. “Hey, honey. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Somewhere deep down, Leo’s brain was scoffing at the patronizing words. But on the surface, he focused on the words, and then sharpened his eyes onto the man as he approached, phone in hand. “I-I c-can’t-”
The woman looked back, down at the phone, and her shoulders stiffened. “Paul, put the phone away, please.”
Her voice held an intonation that Leo couldn’t decipher, but the man – Paul – instantly shut the phone off and pocketed it. The moment it was gone, Leo let his shoulders loosen, and he looked at the woman anxiously. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I-I just…”
“Hey.”
Her arm was more cautious this time, sliding around Leo’s shoulders with a pace that would let him move if he wanted. He didn’t, just let it happen, and then the woman was easing him over the sticky sand and up the steps of the shack, Paul close behind them. He stopped at the door, pushing back hard against the woman’s guiding grip. “I don’t want to ruin your house,” he managed.
The woman’s laugh was…well, to be perfectly honest, it made Leo feel warm. Like she could never hurt him.
Those are usually the most dangerous people, his mind tried to reason with him.
“Sweetheart, it’s just a rental cabin. Besides, I’ve had far worse than a little sand and water on my floors before.”
Before he could wonder at that sentence, she opened the door and nudged him inside. The second that Paul closed the door, the sound of the wind died down and the chill in the air evaporated. Leo realized he was shivering.
The woman’s hands were warm on his cheeks. “My name is Sally, hon. You are-?”
He usually gave a fake name, but – “Leo, ma’am.”
“Don’t you ma’am me,” she scoffed, her voice easy as she helped Leo to the couch. “I’m not that old, am I Paul?”
Paul put his hands up. “I abstain from answering.”
Sally scoffed and pressed a cool hand on Leo’s forehead. “Can I take your backpack, sweetheart?”
Something like panic flared in Leo’s chest, and Sally must have seen it, because she pulled her hand back and held it up. “I’m not moving it far, I just want Paul to dry everything out for you, okay?”
Fingers shaking, Leo shrugged off his bag – the one he’d been carrying for nearly three states – and passed it over to her. She took it like it was a priceless artifact, and handed it to Paul with more tenderness than Leo had ever seen given to an inanimate object. “I think my son might have left some clothes here while he was with us last week,” she said, voice soft. “He’s a little older than you, so some things might be big, but is it okay if we give you some of his clothes while we dry out yours?”
Leo swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Um. Yeah.”
She stood up and left with Paul, giving Leo a moment to be alone and take in the cabin around him.
It was old, but obviously well taken care of, with weathered planks of wood gracing the walls and the floor. He was in the living room, full of mismatched couches and chairs and a bookshelf stacked full of books and games. He didn’t see a TV in sight, but he wasn’t expecting to find one. He stood shakily, suddenly very aware of how wet he was getting the couch, and wrapped his arms around himself as he explored the rest of the main room.
The kitchen was small and cramped, but he could smell something full of tomatoes and spices in the oven that made his tastebuds water. He didn’t dare look for fear of getting caught, so he stepped away and into the tiny dining area. There was sand on the floor, spread thin and fine, and it was such a small thing, but it made Leo relax even more – Sally meant it when she said she didn’t care about him ruining her floors.
But she and Paul had been gone for a while, and Leo wasn’t stupid, okay? It didn’t matter how well intentioned someone was, they always thought they knew better, and if they were gone too long, it meant they were trying to decide for him. So he crept towards the hallway they’d vanished to, praying that he didn’t step on a squeaky board. Old homes always had them in the most inconvenient places.
“-not answering?” he picked up Paul’s voice saying.
“No,” Sally said, a sigh in her voice. “He did say he and Annabeth were on a date, but I didn’t expect them to be in Paris of all places. How did they even-?”
“Can you get ahold of Chiron?”
Not the police, then, Leo reasoned, unless they knew an officer by that name. He leaned a little closer.
“No – I try not to call the camp unless I need to. Phone lines and all that, you know?”
Paul huffed. “I know. And Rachel is at art camp, right?”
“Yup,” Sally said, and Leo heard a sound like a blowing raspberry. “He clearly isn’t aware of anything, Paul. He’s terrified.”
“Probably a runaway,” Paul hummed, and Leo flinched at the damning statement. “Met a couple kids like that teaching.”
He looked like a teacher. You couldn’t trust most teachers either, Leo had learned. They were just like priests. Tried their best, but they always inevitably called someone.
“What did you do? Who did you call?” Sally asked, and Leo stiffened. Here it comes, his brain taunted.
“No one,” Paul said.
Leo blinked, taking a slight step back. What?
“Kids don’t run away for no reason, Sal. Especially not kids like him. Perce taught me that. I mean, maybe in my early days of teaching, I might have called the authorities, but ever since this summer I…how could I risk that? Even before then, I mean…the stories I’ve heard from some of these kids I’ve talked to. We don’t know anything about him. If he ran away, all this way, in this weather? It was bad, love.”
Leo’s throat ached.
He’d never, the whole time he’d been in foster care, ever heard an adult admit that they were wrong to call the authorities on him. Never heard an adult take his perspective into account, especially without even knowing him. Never had an adult admit that his life could be anything other than ideal.
He took another step back and oh shit, there it was, the cursed piece of wood in every old house to ever exist. He cussed under his breath and ducked his head as Sally stepped into the hallway. He refused to look up at her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You were just gone for a while a-and I thought you might be calling someone.”
No verbal response. Instead, a soft bundle of fabric was pressed into Leo’s hands. He startled, gripping onto the clothing, and looked up at Sally and Paul with wide eyes. Paul shook his head. “We’re not calling anyone, son. Not if you don’t want us to. But we do ask that you get cleaned up, before you catch pneumonia.”
Sally tilted her head towards the door across the hall. “Let me know when you’re done, I’ll toss your clothes in the dryer. Paul was just finishing up dinner when you came along. Do you like lasagna?”
Leo’s mouth watered at the thought of eating any kind of food that wasn’t stale crackers and canned tuna. “Yes ma’am.”
“What’d I say about that ma’am nonsense?” Sally scolded.
Leo ducked his head, trying to press down the tears. “Yes, miss,” he chuckled.
Sally laughed as Paul headed for the kitchen. “It’s a start, love.”
~~
Sally’s son’s clothes were soft, well loved. They smelled like sea water and lavender detergent, and though the t-shirt was a gaudy orange with letters so faded that Leo couldn’t read them, he sank into the fabric with a sigh. Sally had also passed him a pair of sweatpants, and Leo hoped that her son wouldn’t be mad if he ever found out that some random foster kid had borrowed them.
If he was anything like Sally, though, Leo had the feeling he’d like him.
His hair was still wet, but this time from a shower, and Leo couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten to stand under an actual stream of hot water without people literally timing him to make sure he didn’t take too long. He stood in front of the mirror, sighing a little at how skinny he’d gotten. He’d always been small – being skinny only made him more of a punching bag for the bigger foster kids. His hair, untamed from weeks of running, hung in his eyes, and he wondered briefly if Sally might have a hair tie he could borrow.
He left the bathroom and crept into the dining room, where Sally was setting the table and Paul was pulling one of the most beautiful lasagnas he’d ever seen out of the oven.
“-texted me, said they’d be back tomorrow morning. He offered to come back sooner,” Sally was saying as Leo stood in the doorway, “but I know he and ‘beth haven’t really gotten to go on any non-monstrous dates recently.”
She blinked when she saw him standing there, and her smile softened into something warm and inviting. “Come on, hon. Paul was just getting dinner out.”
Maybe it was the malnourishment, or Paul’s cooking skills, or Leo’s exhaustion, or a combination of the three, but Leo had never tasted such good Italian food in his life. He downed one, two, three pieces and a full salad before he finally slowed down. To his relief, neither Paul nor Sally gave him any grief about how many pieces he took. Honestly, he thought he watched Paul actively make his slices bigger than theirs.
They’d clearly been talking about their son when he came in the room. This guy was in Paris, on a date with his girlfriend, and he was coming back tomorrow. Leo wondered just how rich this family was – the dad was a teacher, but Sally hadn’t said what she did, and Leo was a little afraid to ask.
When Paul brought out a pie for dessert, Leo almost cried. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had any dessert fancier than a stolen Ding Dong from a corner store. Paul definitely gave him a larger slice than them, and as he ate it, Sally poked at her own pie.
“Leo, we’re not going to pry,” she started, gentle. “Your story is yours, and I know how tricky it can be to share yourself and your past with new people.”
The sad smile Paul shot her didn’t go unnoticed by Leo, and he internally bristled at the thought that this wonderful mom in front of him could understand anything about how he felt, because that meant that she’d gone through shit she didn’t deserve. He said nothing, though, just nodded.
Sally eyed her pie thoughtfully, stabbing a blackberry that had escaped the crust. “But I feel like…well, I feel as though my son especially can relate to how you’re feeling, or at least some of it. If you’d be willing to wait for him to come home, maybe we can figure some things out together.”
Leo felt lost. He’d been lost a lot before, but this was the first time it was mental and not physical. “What?”
Sally looked up, seeming to realize that she’d baffled him. “I mean…”
She looked at Paul, and Leo looked between the two of them, tightening his grip on his fork. They were having a silent conversation. Leo hated when adults did that. “You mean you want to wait until I’m asleep so you can call the cops o-or foster services or-or just wait until your son gets back so he can tell me to get out.”
He shoved his chair back from the table, tears prickling at his eyes. Every time. Every time. He always got his hopes up, always thought he’d found the perfect people, people who got it, and every fucking time, he-
Hands settled on his shoulders, and he ripped away, scowling at Sally. Her eyes were sad, and Leo felt an unwelcome stab of guilt in his chest. “That is not what we were suggesting, ever, honey. I would never call foster services, first of all. They’re atrocious, especially for kids of color.”
Leo jolted back. He’d never had a white woman actively acknowledge his race so bluntly before – it was usually partnered with some demeaning comment about “his kind” of people. He eyed Sally warily.
She lowered her hands, keeping them on her hips where he could see them. “Second, I’d never call the police either. You’re not a problem, and my son has had enough unfortunate encounters with them for me to…distrust them severely, to say the least.”
Her son had-?
“I just…we know a place. Where you would genuinely be safe, hon. No foster homes, no cops, with people who get it.”
She was lying. She had to be lying, no matter what Leo’s heart said. But she wasn’t going to let this go, and he knew it. So he sighed, fidgeted with his fingers. He wished he had something to build. “Okay. I’ll wait for your son to get home.”
Sally relaxed, and Leo gave her a thin smile.
He helped her and Paul clean up the kitchen, put away the leftover lasagna. Sat with them and did a puzzle, played a game of Clue with them. Fixed their radio for them, much to their surprise, and then watched with a small smile on his face as Paul and Sally danced around the living room together. They tried to get him to join, but he’d never been much of a dancer, so he declined.
They bid him goodnight around 11, and he shut the door of their son’s room, let the hours tick on.
At three am, he got up, changed back into his own clothes, left the borrowed ones folded neatly on the foot of the bed. He took a flashlight from the bedside table and slid it into his backpack, stepped out of the bedroom and avoided the squeaky floorboard.
The tool kit from fixing the radio was still on the coffee table, and he picked it up with only the slightest feelings of guilt. Went through the cabinets and pulled out sleeves of crackers, a box of granola, eyed the leftover lasagna with a sad gaze. He found a roll of toilet paper under the sink, a bottle of hand sanitizer in a junk drawer.
He paused by the game of Clue, left out on the table from their match, and let his fingers trace over it sadly. His gut screamed at him to leave. His heart screamed at him to stay. He wasn’t stupid.
Leo had always trusted his gut.
He pocketed the candlestick piece and turned for the door, flinching the second his eyes landed on Sally.
Her hair was done up in a braid, her pajamas wrinkled, and the moon shining through the window reflected the sadness in her eyes. Leo opened his mouth, but couldn’t find it in him to speak – the lump was back.
She stepped forward and he shut his eyes, expecting a lecture. Instead, her hand cupped his cheek. Her other hand pressed into his, and he gasped as he felt the telltale touch of money in his fingers. He looked down at the wad of cash – he couldn’t see how much it was, but he knew that he didn’t deserve it. He looked up at her, panicking. “I can’t-”
“Stay, I know,” she whispered, and that wasn’t what he’d been planning to say, and he knew that she knew that. “I understand, Leo. I understand, sweetie.”
The sob slipped out before he could stop it, and Sally’s eyes softened. She bent at the hip, pressing a soft kiss to his curls. “When you end up meeting my son,” she murmured, “come visit, okay?”
Leo had no idea what that meant, but he nodded, if only to appease her. “I’m sorry,” he croaked.
She squeezed his shoulder. “Nothing to be sorry for, honey. Be safe.”
Sally watched him go, watched him shut the door behind him, and he looked down at the money in his hands with a choked feeling in his chest. It was more than he’d held in his entire life. He couldn’t take it, but he knew she’d be upset if he didn’t. And if there was one thing Leo refused to do, it was make Sally more upset than he already had.
So he pocketed it and, with an aching heart, stepped off the porch of the cabin. The storm from earlier had died down, and, fingers tight on his backpack straps, he started making his way up the beach.
~~
Percy was bouncing up and down at the entrance to Camp Half Blood, fingers curled around Annabeth’s hand. “Do I look okay?” he asked for probably the thousandth time that morning.
Piper rolled her eyes. “Percy, it’s your mom. She doesn’t care what you look like.”
Percy shot her a mock glare. “I haven’t seen her in over a year, McClean, sue me.”
“You look fine, Perce,” Annabeth laughed, kissing his cheek. “She’s gonna mostly care that you’re alive.”
“Okay but this tattoo-”
“Sorry, you vanished on me for over a year, crossed the globe, and you got a TATTOO?” came a very scolding, very obviously Mom Voice, and Leo snickered, turning to see who was about to absolutely whoop Percy’s ass.
And he stumbled on his own feet, lips parting as Sally (Sally Jackson, his unhelpful brain mocked) appeared at the top of the hill. Her hair was a little grayer than it had been when Leo met her, her hips a little wider, but her smile was the same, her laugh as Percy launched himself at her the same peal of delight Leo remembered on his toughest nights, and when she caught his eye over Percy’s shoulder, her smile only widened.
Okay, so sometimes Leo Valdez was kind of stupid.
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watchmegetobsessed · 4 years ago
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VALERIE - Part IV. (Harry Styles)
hello loves!! thank you so much for the feedbacks on the previous part, i love to see your thoughts at reactions so please keep them coming for the upcoming parts as well! i was informed that the posts weren’t showing up under the hashtags bc i had an extrernal link to the spotify playlist, so that won’t be available in the next parts, but you’ll always be able to find it in the masterpost if you’d like to give it a listen! those were the songs i listened to while writing the story! now, i dont want to keep you up any longer, here is part 4, one of my personal favs, and im excitedly waiting for your feedbacks on the post! have a wonderful reading!
word count: 4.5k
SERIES MASTERPOST
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Valerie is curiously watching her dad work on the portable bed they’ve brought over for the night, her little hands clutching onto Rosa’s shirt as she is telling you all about the list she has made for you. It’s not a long one, but you try to focus on every word she says, making sure you won’t mess anything up.
“I put an X behind the important ones,” she explains pointing at the paper and you nod, eyes roaming down on the few X’s on the list. “The other ones are just suggestions, things I thought you should know.
“Got it,” you nod again, biting into your bottom lip. Bath time, feeding, sleep time, everything is covered in the list and you’re happy she even mentioned the smallest details. Some things might be natural for her as she’s been doing it for months, but it’s your first time completely alone with a baby. You surely don’t want to mess this up, especially because you want her to trust you and let you look after Valerie more often. They deserve a break now and then.
Steven finishes the bed and backs out a few stuffed animals along with two blankets into it, making it look cozy and familiar for Val.
“But most importantly,” Rosa starts and you look her in the eyes. “Call us anytime if you need help or want us to take her home, and I mean it.”
“Not gonna happen,” you shake your head, earning a sigh from your sister.
“Y/N, I’m serious. We are thankful for the help, but it’s not your duty, alright? Just call us anytime, really.”
Nodding your head you flash a smile at her, knowing well nothing on Earth is gonna make you call them tonight. Okay, maybe there are some cases when you would call, but those are quite unlikely to happen.
She hands Valerie over who curiously eyes you before grabbing a handful of your shirt and making herself busy with the fabric.
“It’s gonna be fine. Have a great night, you deserve it,” you smile at them. Steven straightens up and curls an arm around Rosa’s waist as they watch Val in awe, clearly a little worried they are gonna spend an entire night without her, but you can tell they also can’t wait for some alone time.
“Alright, we should get going,” Rosa sighs and stepping closer she kisses Valerie’s head and then your cheek as well. “Have fun with your aunty! We’ll be back for you in the morning, Sweetie.”
She runs her hand over her little head and Valerie smiles at her happily, completely oblivious to what’s really happening. The joys of being just a baby!
Steven says goodbye to her as well and you all head to the door. 
“So, we’ll be here around eight, she is usually up by six. Do you want us to pick her up sooner?” Rosa asks standing at the front door.
“Sooner? I was about to tell you to sleep a little longer, you don’t have to come so early.”
“But we don’t want to take away your whole day, you need to rest too,” Steven explains, worry all over his face.
“Stop worrying about me, I’ll be fine. Just enjoy your night off! Come on, I’m throwing you guys out, time for the sleepover to start,” you tell them, shushing them out the door. 
It takes some time to finally get them to leave, but they eventually do. Then it’s just the two of you, alone for the first time.
“Ready for your first sleepover, Val?” you ask her, standing in the hallway of your apartment. She just stares back at you, saliva drooling from her mouth but even that looks cute on her. “Alright, let’s do this.”
You braced yourself for the worst. Thought about all the possibilities how the evening would go, but you hoped they wouldn't become reality. Unfortunately, baby Valerie had different plans for the two of you.
The first hour goes by fine. You feed her, have a little play time, reading her favorite book to her, but slowly, you notice her losing interest in anything and everything. Soon enough, you see her face distort into a grimace and a few moments later she starts crying and it’s straight downhill from there. 
Nothing can get her to stop. No food, no toy, absolutely nothing. You clown around, trying everything that pops into your mind that would calm her down, but it doesn’t seem like she is about to stop anytime soon. 
You start to panic. Rosa told you how fussy she is because of her teeth coming, but you didn’t think it would be this bad. When she’s been crying for an entire hour straight, for a split second, you think about calling Rosa. 
“No, not gonna do that,” you say, while Val is still screaming in your arms. “Valerie, what do you want? Tell me and I’ll give it to you, I promise! Just please stop crying!” you whine desperately, but, no surprise, no answer comes from the screaming babe in your arms, just more tears, puffy eyes and red cheeks from all the crying she’s been doing.
Trying to rock her into calmness you are moving around in the apartment when you hear your phone ringing. You instantly think it’s gonna be Rosa, wanting to check in on you, but how are you gonna answer the call when Valeries is screaming from the top of her lungs? She’ll come to pick her up straight away, no doubt about that.
Rushing into the kitchen you are relieved to see that it’s just Harry calling you.
“It’s not the best of times, Styles,” you sigh as you answer the call and put him on the speaker, leaving the phone on the countertop, so you have both your hands free for Valerie.
“Hey, I was just-- what the fuck is happening?” he asks hearing the deadly cries of Val through the line. “Is that Valerie?”
“It is! I’m looking after her so Rosa and Steven can celebrate their anniversary, but she just wouldn’t stop crying! I don’t know what to do!” 
You’re absolutely desperate. It’s so bad you can feel your throat closing up, nearing the edge of your patience, tears threatening to roll down your cheeks, but you tell yourself only one of you can cry at a time and Val has taken that spot quite some time ago, not even giving you a moment to let loose.
“Text me your address, I’m leaving now,” he orders and you snap your head towards the phone.
“What? No, Harry--”
“Just text me the damn address, Y/N!” he barks and the line cuts off right away. 
Your desperation pairs with shock now, not knowing what to think about this short, but quite eventful conversation you just had with him. It takes you a few moments to collect your thoughts, but you end up sending him your address. 
Nothing changes in the twenty minutes while you are waiting to hear anything from Harry following your text to him. Valerie keeps crying with three seconds of pauses when she takes a few deep breaths only to start screaming once again. Aside from the headache she is causing you, it’s becoming pretty impressive how long she’s been doing it. You probably would have fainted by now, but it seems like Valerie is running on an endless battery.
“You are really making it hard for me to be a cool aunt, Val,” you mumble, the baby still in your arms as the tears keep rolling down her face. Your light grey shirt is now soaking wet, both from her tears and your sweat from the anxiety she is giving you, mixed with some other things you choose to ignore where they came from.
The doorbell makes you jump, but Valerie doesn’t even bat an eye at the sound, she just keeps going.
“You need to teach me how to have this much energy,” you mumble under your breath as you walk over to the door. 
Opening it you find yourself staring up at Harry who is wearing a brown coat, dark jeans and a black hoodie. If you had to guess what he was doing on this weekend evening you would have said he was out with friends somewhere, picking up girls, but he surely doesn’t look like he was anywhere else than his home, the clothes are hanging messily on his frame, like he just threw them on in a rush.
His green eyes look straight at you at first before moving over to the crying child in your arms. You fully expect him to say something along the lines of “this is the kind of effect you have on others” comment, but it seems like he notices the fear and despair in your eyes and he keeps his mouth shut.
“I honestly have no idea what to do,” you choke out and the tears start flowing from your eyes as well, making Harry have to deal with now two crying human beings.
“Oh my, please don’t cry, I can’t take two crying women at once,” Harry begs as he steps inside and shuts the door behind him. Turning to face you he reaches for Valerie, you hand her over to him, hoping she would magically stop the crying, but she clearly couldn’t care less.
“Why, can you take one?” you ask with a bitter chuckle as you wipe your cheeks.
“Not really,” he admits, making you smile. “So what have you tried?” he asks as he starts swaying and rocking Valerie in hopes of getting her to stop, but not even Harry’s charm stands a chance with her right now. Deep down you’re happy you weren’t the reason she got so fussy and upset, would have been pretty awkward if she stopped the moment Harry took her into his arms. 
“Literally everything,” you huff, shoulders falling forward. “I went over the list Rosa gave me, tried everything, but she wouldn’t stop. She’s teething, but this is… It seems like there might be something else maybe?” you tell him worried that something serious might be behind her behavior. You really don’t want to call and bother Rosa, but you are nearing the point where you’ll give up and ask for help.
“Maybe she needs to be changed?” Harry suggests holding her up, giving her butt a sniff, but you roll your eyes at him.
“You don’t think that was one of the first things I did? She is as clean as she could be. Maybe I should just call Rosa,” you sigh in defeat reaching for your phone but Harry snaps at you.
“No! Don’t, we can figure this out. Steven has been so excited to have a night off, we can’t ruin this for them. Come on, we have to have the slightest parenting skills and solve this without them.”
Nodding you agree with him, but you’ve completely run out of ideas.
“So what do you suggest?”
You can see the gears turning in Harry’s head as he is trying to come up with a plan, but it’s not like either of you have any experience with babies. The idea of calling Rosa is starting to burn in the back of your head, fear of failing this challenge taking over your thoughts.
Then Harry looks at you with a look that screams that he has an idea. You’re just about to ask what came into his mind when all of a sudden he starts to sing.
“Well, sometimes I go out by myself and I look across the water, and I think of all the things what you’re doing and in my head I paint a picture…”
You instantly recognize Amy Whinehouse’s iconic song, the one that’s also behind Valerie’s name, you know that for sure. Rosa was obsessed with the song growing up, she would sing it on the way to school, in the shower or while making dinner. You weren’t surprised she chose this name for her first daughter.
What surprises you that Harry sings like a literal angel. He hits the notes perfectly, nailing the lines like not many can and you listen to him with parted lips, eyebrows raised. This was the last thing you expected from him, but then again, it’s not the first time Harry has surprised you through the years of knowing him.
Valerie stops for a moment, her hiccups shaking through her body as her tear-filled eyes look up to Harry, and you both think this is gonna be the moment when she finally calms down, but he doesn’t even reach the chorus before she starts crying again, a defeated sigh erupting from him.
“Maybe she wants it instrumental,” you suggest and Harry gives you one of those ‘are you fucking kidding me?’ looks as you leave to run down the hallway, right into your bedroom.
“How am I supposed to make it instru-- what the hell, Y/N?!” He gives you a weirded out look when you return with a guitar in your hands. “Since when do you play the guitar?” 
“Since like… eighth grade,” you tell him as you sit on the couch and holding the guitar on your lap you try to find the right accords. “I told you, you know nothing about me.”
Harry nods with a surprised but amazed look on his face as your fingers strum against the chords. It takes a few minutes but you figure it out and glancing up you give a questioning look to Harry.
“From the start?” you ask and he nods his head, continuously bouncing up and down to try to calm Val down.
You start playing the song and soon enough Harry joins you with the singing, the two of you perfectly nailing it even without any practice.
“Stop makin’ a fool out of me, why don’t you come on over, Valerie?”
Maybe it’s the guitar, maybe it’s the singing or maybe the fact that the song has her name in it, but by the time you reach the halfway point in the song Valerie’s crying slowly starts to fade. You instantly share a look with Harry, but don’t stop, fearing that she might start again if the music stops. 
Her tear soaked cheeks smooth out as she is not screaming anymore and you can actually see her irises finally, her long lashes are sticking together from the salty tears and you know it’s gonna take some time for her to regain her normal state, but at least the crying has stopped. 
“‘Cause since I’ve come on home, well, my body’s been a mess. And I’ve missed your ginger hair and the way you like to dress…”
You tear your eyes off Valerie for a second, letting yourself wander over Harry’s features as he sings. He slightly furrows his eyebrows focusing on the lines, so his forehead has a few creases on it. His lips form the words so clearly and elegantly, you wonder how often he sings. Is it something he only does when he is on his own or he likes to perform as well? 
The only time when you heard him sing was at the bar when the two of you slayed the karaoke machine with that Avril Lavigne song. You were smashed by then, you remember that he had a nice voice but it was the last thing you paid attention to. Besides, he was kind of equally drunk as you, it was all for just fun, but now is a completely different situation. 
It’s no surprise Valerie finds his voice soothing, you’d probably stop whatever you were doing if you heard him sing. There are people with a good voice and then there are the ones that not just have a good voice but also that small something, that extra magic in them that makes you melt as their voice caress your ears. Harry is definitely the second case, for a moment you forget where you are or why he is there singing. It’s just his voice and the gentle strumming of your fingers on the chords. 
At the end of the song he starts repeating Valerie as the song slowly fades into nothing and you both stare at the little girl in his arms, clearly afraid she might start crying again. Unfortunately, your reservations become valid when you see the corners of her mouth curls down and you and Harry share a shocked look immediately.
“What else can you play?” he urges as Val whimpers in his arms, letting you know she does not appreciate that the singing has stopped. 
“Shit, shit! Um, something from ABBA?” you propose and Harry nods quickly, not even asking which song you know, so you take it as a sign that he probably knows all of them.
The first song that comes to your mind is Andante, Andante and you don’t hesitate to start playing again, just in time. Valerie was just about to start crying again, but as soon as the melody hit her little ears she calmed down and listened to it with tired looking eyes.
“Take it easy with me, please. Touch me gently like a summer evening breeze…” Harry sings the words and you can’t hold a smile back as he, once again, hits the notes just perfectly without missing a beat.
You’re convinced there’s not one person on Earth who has never heard a single Abba song, most of the population knows them by heart, but somehow you couldn’t really imagine Harry to be a person who knows the lyrics to the songs as well. But he does and sings it without messing it up even just once. It’s hard to imagine a younger version of Harry singing ABBA songs when they come on the radio, but the more you think about it the more the picture paints itself in your mind.
Valerie lays her head to Harry’s chest, stuffing her thumb into her mouth as she listens to the performance. She is probably enjoying the vibrance of his voice shaking through his chest and maybe this is what brings her the peace she’s been looking for all this time. Your heart skips a beat at the sight of them.
Harry glances at you, eyes so soft you melt under his gaze. However nerve wrecking it was to have Valerie scream for hours, she is still the cutest little thing ever as she rests her head on his chest, her long blinks giving it away she has definitely lost most of her energy. 
You don’t dare to stop the singing and playing. When you near the end of a song you quickly think of something else and whisper it over to Harry, who then gives his feedback on it with either a nod or a shake of his head. Most of the time he knows the songs you suggest so the show continues without a stop. 
Half an hour passes by when you see her eyes slowly closing. You still don’t stop though, only when Harry tries to listen to her breathing and he realizes that it was completely slowed down. She is out.
“Holy shit,” you breathe out quietly, your fingers feeling numb from the playing. You haven’t had a guitar in your hands for this long in a while, probably for years. Harry shares your relief, his throat has completely dried out and he is happy to finally breathe evenly, not just sneak a few breaths in between lines. 
“And now what?” he mouths as he is still gently swaying around with the sleeping Valerie in his arms. You put the guitar aside and check if she is for real asleep. Her long lashes are spread out on her puffy cheeks, gently snoozing into Harry’s chest as if she weren’t screaming for dear life just an hour ago. 
“Let’s put her down,” you whisper and nod at him to follow you. 
Reaching your bedroom you only switch your bedside lamp on so the light doesn’t wake her up. Pushing the stuffed animals to the side you grab the blankets and let Harry do the critical job. Leaning down he oh so slowly starts to pull her away from his chest, careful not to move too suddenly, it all feels like in those action movies when they are trying to get through the lasers without triggering the alarm. One bad move and the screaming threatens to start again and that’s the last thing you want, after all you’ve done to calm her down. 
You don’t even realize it but as you watch her little head reach the mattress you hold your breath, almost wincing upon seeing Harry’s hands slide out from under her sleeping frame. As if you wait for something to go wrong, both of you freeze for a moment, expecting her to start moving around and wake up, but she stays still. 
Eyes snapping up to Harry, you exchange a look and then you both head to the door, careful not to make any noise that can possibly shake Valerie up from her dreams.
“This was more tiring than running a marathon,” he huffs, throwing himself to the couch and you do the same next to him. 
“Have you ever run a marathon?”
“No,” he confidently answers and you look over at him with a puzzled look. “But I can imagine how tiring it is.”
You let out a chuckle, letting your eyes close for just a little bit. You haven’t even had the chance to realize how much this whole struggle with Val sucked the energy out of you, but now that you’re half lying on the couch it hits you all at once.
“I should get going,” you hear Harry mumble, clearly just as tired as you are, but he doesn’t move. 
“Mhm,” you hum, feeling yourself drift to sleep.
Neither of you moves and it doesn’t take a whole five minutes for the both of you to completely doze off.
The next time you wake up you feel an arm curled around your waist and someone is definitely pressed up against you while your back is against the back of the couch. It takes you a couple of moments and some blinking to realize it’s Harry you are all snuggled up to and the reason why you woke up is because Valerie is crying again. 
“Shit,” you mumble to yourself, mind still groggy from the sleep as you push yourself up on the couch. Just moments later Harry’s eyes flush open and you’re not sure it’s because of the crying or because you moved next to him. His arm slides off you as he looks around a little confused about his surroundings.
You don’t have the chance to think about how the two of you ended up cuddling on the couch, though it lingers in the back of your mind. Basically crawling over Harry you rush into your bedroom where Valerie is lying in her bed crying. It’s a different kind of cry, not like the one you were stuck with for hours before and you know she must be hungry.
“Ah, come on, little girl. It’s alright,” you coo at her scooping her into your arms. She immediately cuddles to your chest hiccupping against it, her little hands fisting your shirt. You leave to go to the kitchen and feed her, but just as you’re about to step out of the room you bump into Harry.
You bounce back from his chest, but his hand immediately reaches for you and grabs your arm, holding you in case you might fall back.
“Sorry,” you breathe out, thoughts still foggy a little. “She’s… hungry,” you explain, but he is standing so close to you, you can feel his body’s warmth and it instantly ignites the memory of being pressed against his side on the couch just moments ago and you can’t stop yourself from inhaling a shaky breath. 
“Let me help,” he croaks out and the two of you walk into the kitchen. Putting on her bib you hand her over to Harry who sits with her on his lap on a stoop as you get the baby food, warm it a little before joining the two of them and you slowly start feeding her.
“What time is it?” you ask realizing you have no idea how long you two have been asleep on the couch.
“It’s three am,” Harry answers before smiling down at Val. “Good job, Val!” he hums watching her take the spoon into her mouth.
You finish up feeding her, then give a try at burping her even though Rosa said it’s not necessary anymore. She just hums to herself so you head back to the bedroom, her eyes already threatening to close. By the time you put her back to the bed she is out again, so no private show is needed this time.
Walking out of the room you see Harry putting on his shoes and coat. For a split second you feel disappointed that he is leaving, but then your rational side puts you to your place. Of course he is leaving! Val is fine now, there’s no other reason for him to stay, right?
“Harry,” you softly say and he looks at you. “Can you please not tell Rosa and Steven that I needed help with Val?” you quietly ask, though there’s no doubt your eyes are practically begging him.
“No way I’ll ever admit to Steven that I sang ABBA to his child, so don’t worry about it,” he chuckles making you smile as well. 
“Thank you. And for helping me as well. I was really close to giving it up,” you admit folding your arms on your chest as Harry stands at the front door, hand on the door knob as he is looking back at you.
“No problem. Now you owe me one,” he smirks and you can’t hold yourself back from rolling your eyes.
“Sure,” you say with an airy chuckle. “Good night, Harry.”
“Good night, Y/N,” he smiles at you sweetly before opening the door and walking out. 
You take his place at the door and watch him walk down the eerily quiet hallway. He turns back to you one last time waving in your way and you nod back smiling before he disappears around the corner.
Closing the door you lean your back against it, taking a deep breath. Your eyes wander over to the couch where you and Harry were sleeping not so long ago. The feeling of his arm around you is still burned into your mind and you breathe in shakily as a memory snaps into your head of the exact same thing, only years earlier.
You lied almost exactly like that in his hotel room that night. His strong arms wrapped around you as you had your head laid on his chest, listening to his heartbeat that was slightly faster than the normal. Though you were still quite drunk, this feeling imprinted into your memories, because you felt so safe with him. Like nothing could ever hurt you if he was there with you.
Unfortunately, that feeling faded into nothing when you woke up in the morning quite fast. But this time, instead of disappointment and disgust, the only thing you still feel is the emptiness at the lack of his touch. 
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ibis-gt · 4 years ago
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i made a fairytale au for cam and luther and then wrote nearly 5k words of fic for it?? which is wild bc i am not much of a writer. but. that’s under the cut. content warning for a pretty violent scene towards the end but there’s a happy ending i prommy
Once upon a time, there lived a prince. This prince, Luther by name, lived in a kingdom that was plagued by monsters. His father, the king, had gained his throne by feats of heroism, most notably by slaying a fearsome dragon that had ruled the land for years. The time came for Luther to prove he was worthy of the title of prince by slaying a monster of his own… 
Down in the countryside, farmers have been complaining for weeks of an ogre stealing their cattle and frightening their children. So Luther sets off in a splendid suit of armor, with a sword sheathed on one hip, a quiver of arrows on the other, and his bow slung on his back.
Luther rides his horse down to the village where the ogre was last spotted. He talks with the locals and gets a description of the creature. At least forty feet tall, they say, with greenish-grey skin and dark hair and teeth the length of a man’s forearm. Luther leaves his horse behind with the farmers because he doesn’t want her getting hurt and marches off, following a set of giant footprints left behind by the ogre, sword in hand. He would have to admit that he isn’t the best at sword fighting, and that really he’s never faced a monster on his own. But his father gave him a crucial tip: every monster has a weak point. Find the weak point, exploit it, and you’ll win every time. 
The footprints lead through the plains of grass, past the area where the farmers let their cattle out to graze, and into a dark forest. The sun is going down before he manages to find the ogre, so he sets up a little camp with a little fire and rests his tired bones. His armor isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, but it takes forever to get on and off even with someone helping him, let alone by himself. He sits with his back to a big boulder so nothing can sneak up behind him and eventually drifts off.
Luther awakens the next morning and groans at how stiff and sore he is. He sits up and pauses, brow furrowed, remembering that he’d gone to bed sitting upright. But just now, he’d been lying on his back. And he’s not the best tracker, but those giant footprints look… disconcertingly fresh. These things add up in his mind. He just about passes out. He crouches down and puts his head between his knees for a moment until he can breathe again and his heart stops pounding quite so hard. He was right next to it! He fell asleep leaning on it! If his father heard about this he’d give him such a beating. How could he not have noticed that the boulder was actually - 
His stomach rumbles, interrupting his panicked thoughts, and Luther remembers that the last time he ate was back in that farming village around two in the afternoon yesterday. He digs out a bit of beef jerky and morosely works at it. His father swears by the stuff, but it just makes his teeth hurt. Luther dreams of the kitchens back home and drools a little.
He gives up on the jerky and manages to take down a couple squirrels with his bow and arrows. He gets his fire blazing again and sets them cooking over it, and sits down to draw in the dirt and form a battle plan. He gets wrapped up in his drawing and loses track of time, but is startled violently back to reality as a deep booming voice from behind him says, “Your squirrel’s burning.”
Luther’s eyes snap up to the fire. He hastily pulls the stick with his squirrels off of it, waving it in the air to put out the bit of squirrel that had caught fire. He blows on it and inspects the damage. Not too bad, a little charred. Still definitely edible. Then realization dawns, and he slowly looks up and over his shoulder.
That’s the ogre. He’s unmistakable. Huge, greyish-green, with shaggy black hair and big tusks that jut out of his mouth. He’s down on one knee looming over Luther, modesty barely preserved by a loincloth stitched together out of the pelts of many different furry animals. Luther wills himself to not faint for the second time that day. 
“You gonna eat that?” The ogre booms. “’Cause I will if you won’t.”
“W-well, yes, I was planning to,” Luther quavers, “But there are two, so, um, you can have one if you want? We can share?”
He takes the non-burned squirrel off the stick and holds it up. His hand only shakes a little. The ogre takes it carefully between thumb and forefinger and tosses it in his mouth. With such a tiny morsel, he’d usually just swallow it whole, but an interesting flavor makes him stop and savor it for a moment. 
“What’d you do to it? Not like any squirrel I’ve eaten. And I’ve eaten a whole army of squirrels.” He slaps a hand on his formidable belly. The sound makes Luther jump. 
“I- I didn’t do much, j-just some seasoning, I-I’m sorry, I d-didn’t mean to, please don’t eat me next." 
"You?” The ogre laughs. “Why would I eat you? You shared your food with me. That’s mighty polite. I’d say that makes us friends now, and I don’t eat friends.” He grunts as he shifts position, sitting down heavily and stretching out his legs. “Bad knees,” he grumbles. “Sat like that too long, but I wanted to see what you were drawing." 
Luther is now horrifically aware that he is directly between the ogre’s legs. He is also horrifically aware that he was drawing himself hitting an ogre with a sword. He hurriedly kicks some dirt over it. 
"Nothing. Nothing interesting. I’m a bad artist anyway.”
“Sure. What’s your name, little tin man? You didn’t seem too talkative when you snuggled up to me last night, but I thought maybe you were just tired. I’m Cam." 
"L-Luther.” Oh god. He was supposed to kill this thing, it - well, no, not ‘it’, he can’t think of Cam as an ‘it’ now he knows his name - he’s terrorizing folks, stealing their livelihoods, he’s supposed to drive him away, save the day, bring peace to the kingdom. Instead he’s sharing his meager breakfast and making friends with the monster. How did it all go so wrong!!
“So, Luther, you made of metal? I thought you were gonna take all that off, looks pretty uncomfortable, but you wore it all night. Unless it’s like… you?" 
"No, no, um, it’s just… it takes a long time to put it on and take it off? And I usually need help.”
 "Well shoot, friend, why didn’t you say so?“ Before Luther can object, a giant hand descends and plucks him up. He panics, struggles in Cam’s grasp, and Cam tsks at him. "I can’t get all that off you if you don’t hold still. Don’t make me squeeze." 
Luther goes still. If Cam squeezes the armor, it’ll stay squeezed. He wouldn’t want to still be in it if that happens. Cam clearly has no idea how to get someone out of armor though. He just pulls at clasps and buckles till they break, then shucks the metal off of Luther like an ear of corn. His helmet comes off first, freeing his dark brown curls.
“Aww,” Cam says, “lookit you. You’re kinda cute for a tin man.” He musses up Luther’s hair with a fingertip. "You’re like a little crab,” Cam chuckles. “Crack open the hard shell to get to the soft stuff underneath.” The food metaphor does not put Luther any more at ease as the rest of his armor is pulled off and tossed aside, piece by piece. Cam even strips the chainmail off of him and dumps it on the ground. This leaves Luther in his shirt and breeches, shaking like a leaf and terrified for his life. 
“Oh, you cold? Here, I gotcha.” Cam sandwiches him between his hands. Luther awaits the pressure and the horrible crunch that will no doubt be the end of his short life, but it never comes. Cam just holds him there, and truth be told his hands are very warm, and it had been a chilly morning. Luther relaxes very slightly.
After a few minutes, Cam lifts one hand a little and peeks at Luther. “Better?" 
"Much better, thank you. Even a little too warm, actually? Can I, um, come out now?" 
Cam laughs and opens his hands like a book, then tilts them so Luther tumbles into the palm of his left hand. "So what’s a fancy little shrimp like you doing all the way out here, with that tough shell and those sharp weapons? You huntin’ something?" 
Luther hesitates. It’s not… technically a lie, just an omission of truth, right? "Yeees…. Hunting.”
Cam laughs out loud, leaning back and slapping his knee with his free hand. “HA! You are just about the worst liar I ever met, Luther. Whew.” He actually wipes a tear from his eye. Luther feels his face heating up with anger and embarrassment.
“I am hunting! I’m hunting you!” As soon as he says it he regrets it. He slaps his hands over his mouth and cowers back as Cam sits up straight again and looks down at him, raising an eyebrow. 
“That so? Huh. Well, you found me, oh mighty hunter. And you fed me, and let me take your armor off you, and left all your sharp things on the ground while you sit in the palm of my hand. So, uh… how’s that goin’ for ya?”
“It… I… um… please don’t kill me?”
Cam grins. It’s not a nice grin anymore. It shows off too many teeth. “Lotsa folks have hunted me, you know. Not a one has succeeded. Most of ‘em can’t find me in the first place, not unless I want them to. Neat little trick we ogres have. We blend in well. The ones who did find me, they regretted it pretty quick. When I heard you clanking along with your silly armor and your little sword, I thought oh boy, here comes another one. But it turns out this one couldn’t find his own ass with both hands and a map, so he ain’t one of them legendary monster hunters lookin’ to claim some bounty. And he’s a little scrawny slip of a thing, too, and he keeps stopping to look at birds. I kinda liked you. And honestly, when you found me, it took me by surprise. Thought I had you pegged all wrong. Then you made your little fire, curled up next to me, and went to sleep, and it took everything I had not to bust my gut laughing right then and there. And now… well, I don’t rightly know what to make of you. Cute little thing, I know that. But cute won’t save you if you wanna tussle with me. So, little hunter… what’re you gonna do now?”
Luther’s nearly in tears. He manages to say, “Then… were you just… toying with me? This whole time? Waiting to see what I’d do?" 
Cam shrugs. "Pretty much.” That does it. The waterworks are in full swing. Luther’s chin trembles, his lower lip wobbles, and then tears are streaming down his face and he’s sobbing. 
“Y- you’re s-so-ho meeeaaaan,” Luther wails. “Y-you’re j-just making f-fun of me, I thought w-we were friends!” 
Cam has absolutely no idea how to respond to this. For some reason he actually feels guilty. “Aw - no - now look, there’s no call for - just… just stop crying, okay? Please?” Luther continues to sob, heedless of Cam’s pleading. “There, there,” Cam tries, patting Luther’s head. “I’m not going to kill you. Okay? How’s that? I’m sorry I called you - well. All those things. I’m sure you’re a great hunter. Look, you got those squirrels. And hey! That one I ate tasted great. You got some real skill there." 
Luther wipes his eyes and looks up, teetering dangerously on the edge of another sobbing fit. His eyes are all watery and a little red-rimmed. "R-really?" 
"Yes! Of course!” Cam clings to the compliment like a life preserver. “I bet you’re like, like the king’s cook or something, right? Cause you’re the best in the land?" 
Luther’s face crumples a little and he looks down, mutters something. 
"What?” Cam holds him up a little closer to his ear. 
“’m his son,” Luther mumbles again. 
“His son? You’re a prince? And you’re all - oh, hell.” Now he’s really put his foot in it. Luther bursts into tears again and curls up in a little ball.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I - oh, ugh, you’re getting my hand all wet.” Cam picks him up between thumb and forefinger and shakes the little tear droplets off his palm. “Now look here,” he says, attempting a sterner approach. “You’re a prince, all right? You can’t be crying and going to pieces just ‘cause some big bad monster was mean to you. You gotta kill big bad monsters, right? So here’s what you’re gonna do.” Cam sets him down gently, picks up his sword and hands it to him. “There you go. You’re gonna take that sword, right, and you’re gonna really let me have it. That’ll make you feel better, won’t it?“ 
Luther purses his lips and looks up at him. "But… all I can hit from here is your foot. That’s no good. I need a shot at something vital." 
"Oh fine, fine, Mr. Picky,” Cam grumbles. He shuffles his legs to the side and leans down til he’s practically laying on his belly. “Face shot. Free one for ya. Go on, hit something good.” Luther considers. Just as Cam realizes how ridiculous this whole thing is, he draws his sword back and plunges it into Cam’s eye.
- Almost plunges it into Cam’s eye. The ogre moves suddenly, turning his head to the side to avoid the blow. Luther makes a deep gash in Cam’s cheek, and Cam roars. “Oh, you sly little shit. Very good, very sneaky. You almost had me there. Fine. We do this the hard way.”
He gets to his feet, draws himself up to his full, impressive height, and looks down at the dirt where Luther was a moment ago. Cam blinks in surprise. “Where’d you… goddammit…” He looks around, trying to catch a glimpse of where Luther could’ve gotten to. 
Luther was not about to let the golden opportunity to run and hide during a big dramatic show of power go to waste. He slides into a patch of underbrush, catches his breath, and takes stock. He has no armor, no food, no bow or arrows. Those are all back at his camp, which is currently ogre territory. He has one sword that he’s okay at using. The ogre has the homefield advantage, and some kind of ability, possibly magical, to hide himself from those who want to find him. Luther shouldn’t let him out of his sight. But he should work on camouflaging himself. He takes a handful of dirt and smears it on his face and shirt. The sword he can’t do much about, he’ll just have to try and keep it from glinting. He glances to his left, away from where Cam still stands, turning in circles and peering around. Luther had only gone a little ways into the woods before he stopped for camp last night. He can almost see the forest’s edge from here. He could dart for the grasslands and try to make it back to the village, but he’d be in plain sight as soon as he’s out of the trees and there’s no guarantee Cam won’t just follow him all the way back. The further he goes into the trees the more firmly he is in Cam’s territory, but the more coverage he has. 
Possibilities begin swirling around in his head. His best bet is trickery rather than a face to face confrontation. He’s got a running list in his mind of Cam’s weak points now. Food, monologuing, emotional outbursts. Although that last one’s probably off the table now. Bursting into tears isn’t going to get him out of a second pinch. Bad knees - if he can trip Cam up, he can get a shot at his face again, maybe cut his throat or get at his soft belly and sides. Cam’s a talker and likes to gloat, maybe if he gets him distracted by looking pathetic he could get him to walk right into a trap of some kind. He likes food… but Luther doesn’t have the resources to make a big feast to distract him or sate him, just a pouchful of seasoning that he never leaves home without. His lip wobbles again as he thinks about how that’s back at his camp… he may never see his precious seasonings again.
Meanwhile, Cam is getting frustrated. “Well, the little shit can’t have gone far,” he grumbles. “Just gotta flush 'im out.” Luther watches, petrified, as Cam lumbers over to a nearby patch of underbrush and without warning stomps down on it hard, twisting his foot and smashing every inch of it. He steps back and leans down to inspect what’s left. Luther bites his lip hard to stifle a whimper. 
“Nope, not there,” Cam announces. “Eeney, meeney, miney…..” Another bunch of bushes are mercilessly ground into the dirt. “Moe. Hmmm. Where are you?”
Luther can’t stay in his hiding place for long. It’s only a matter of time before Cam gets to him. He needs an opening to make a break for it though, if he runs now Cam will spot him right away. As slowly as he dares, he picks up a large, flat rock, then skims it like a frisbee off to his right, where it hits a tree with a satisfying thock. Cam whirls around, and Luther bolts out of the brush. Cam hears the leaves rustling and turns back around, catching sight of him as he flees. 
“There you are! Hold on now, don’t go running off! I just wanna talk, I swear. The whole monster-slaying prince thing not working out for ya? I got a better job offer! You can be my dinner!” Luther keeps sprinting as fast as he can, not even bothering to glance behind him. The last thing he needs is to miss a fallen branch or a groundhog hole and trip.
On flat, open land, the ogre would outpace him easily. But if he can get deeper into the forest where the trees are closer together, that could slow him down enough for Luther to get some distance and hide again, have a moment to breathe and think so he can work on his plan. He’s starting to get an idea of what he’ll need. He needs the element of surprise for sure, and he needs more than just his sword. If he had some rope he could set up a tripwire, maybe. He curses himself for not taking his father’s advice about packing, for letting Cam strip him, for being too weak and scared to do anything when he had the chance, for being born in the first place. His eyes well up with tears and he scrubs at them furiously. He can’t afford to have his sight blurred right now, he needs to keep his head clear and keep moving. He can hear Cam’s thudding footsteps behind him, gaining quickly. He can cover so much more ground in a single step. It’s simply not fair. The little bit of distance he was able to gain with his rock trick is disappearing fast and it won’t be long before he’s in arm’s reach.
Almost as if he can read his thoughts, Cam lunges forward and takes a swipe at him, trying to knock him off his feet. Luther hits the deck and Cam overbalances, stumbling and crashing into a tree. The tree snaps when his weight collides with it, and Cam has to windmill his arms to keep from falling over. Luther scrambles to his feet and keeps running. He even manages to put on an extra burst of speed when he hears Cam roar with frustration behind him. He’s not as fast as he could be because he’s lugging the sword along with him, but he doesn’t dare drop it. It proves its usefulness in the next minute. Cam closes the distance and grabs for him. Luther sees the shadow fall over him and whirls around, lashing out at the reaching hand. He slices across Cam’s palm, and Cam howls with pain and pulls back. Luther dashes away, and Cam stomps his foot in frustration. 
"Hold still, dammit! You’re just making it worse for yourself!” He takes off after Luther again, but his stamina’s flagging. It’s harder for a creature his size to haul himself around and he’s used to running down his prey in the first minutes of the chase. This has dragged on long enough to tire him out, but he’s not willing to give up just yet. “When I get my hands on you, tin man, you’re paste,” he growls. “They’re gonna have to come up with new words for how dead you’re gonna be.”
The trees start getting close enough together that Luther has to dodge around them from time to time. He can hear Cam behind him crashing through them, spluttering as he gets a face full of branches and leaves. Luther smiles to himself. That’s nice, at least. At last he gathers up his nerve and dodges to the side behind a particularly large tree, hoping that Cam’s too busy navigating the foliage to notice. His gamble pays off. A few seconds later, the ogre goes lumbering past him without so much as a sideways glance. Luther waits just a moment more, then bolts in the opposite direction.
He’s got a plan now. He probably won’t be able to find Cam again, but Cam can find him. So he’ll set up an ambush. He circles back around to his camp and grabs his supplies as quickly as he can, his bow and arrow, his helmet, his tinderbox, and most importantly, his seasoning. He hunts for deer, takes down a decent-sized buck, and sets up a new campfire, deep in the woods, where the trees are close. He’s hoping that Cam will think that Luther thinks he’s safe in there, and that the smell of the meat cooking will lure Cam in. He takes off his shirt and fills it with twigs and leaves, sets his helmet up on a stick driven into the ground, and makes a decently convincing decoy Luther that he leans against a log. The helmet tilts at an angle that makes it look like he’s fallen asleep. With that set up, and night closing in, Luther climbs up a nearby tree and waits, sword in hand.
He doesn’t watch the fire. He wants to keep his night vision sharp. And sure enough, before too long here comes Cam, moving surprisingly quietly for his size. He squeezes through the trees with barely a rustling of leaves. Cam’s eyes are fixed on the fire and the silhouette that the decoy makes against it. Cam gets right behind the decoy and slams his foot down on it. He grinds it into the dirt with a relish that makes Luther shudder. Then Cam looks at the deer cooking with that lovely smell rising off it, and his eyes go big and shiny. As Cam bends down to pick it up, Luther chooses his moment. He drops like a stone and buries his sword lengthwise in the back of Cam’s neck. The impact sends a jolt up his arms and he hangs on as tight as he can. Cam lets out a garbled scream of pain and collapses face first on the ground. Luther gets to his feet, pulls his sword out with some difficulty, takes a deep breath, and begins to chop.
It’s messy, horrible work. By the third swing tears are rolling down Luther’s cheeks. By the seventh, he’s sobbing. After the twenty-third cut, Cam’s head is finally severed, and rolls to the side. Luther stumbles back. He’s trembling, covered in blood, panting and crying, but it’s finally done. 
And then Cam’s head says, “Wow, kid. I didn’t think you had it in you.” Luther watches, dumbfounded, as Cam’s body sits up, searches around with its hands, locates his head, and puts it back on his shoulders as the flesh knits together again. Luther drops his sword in disbelief. He falls to his knees. That was it. That was all he had. He can’t even imagine what he could do against a foe who can just reattach his own head. 
“Oh,” he says quietly. “Okay. Um. Make it quick, please?” Cam had been planning to crunch the little shit once he was back on his feet, but he can’t help but feel a pang of guilt at how despondent Luther looks.
“Aw, no, no, don’t give up so quick! Really, you almost had me!” Cam scoops him up and pats him on the head. “Look, it was a good effort. I’m sure if you had known I can’t be killed, you wouldn’t have spent all that time and energy trying to kill me. Just do a little more research next time, yeah?" 
"Next time,” Luther repeats, and gives a hollow laugh. “There isn’t going to be a next time. I’m not welcome as part of the royal family if I can’t kill a monster. Even my sister’s done her first slaying already. A whole nest of vampires! And I can’t kill one measly ogre." 
"Hey, watch who you’re calling measly,” Cam warns, but his heart isn’t in it. “Jeez. You’ve got some issues, kid. Not much of a fighter, I take it?" 
Luther shakes his head and sighs. "I’m just not very good at it." 
"Well they chose one hell of a first mission for you, that’s for sure. Ogres are tricky ones. We’ve got a lot of defense mechanisms.” Cam thinks for a moment. “You know what you are good at, though? You’re a good talker. Very convincing. I mean, you really had me going, with the crying and all? It was a really good ruse." 
Luther bites his lip. "Um…" 
"Okay, so it was for real and not a ruse. But you made the best of a bad situation! That’s also a good skill for a ruler to have. You just gotta show your family that your skills are less conventional, but still effective! Like, okay, why do you have to kill me? What’d I do?" 
“You’re eating all the farmers’ cattle and scaring people." 
"I thought free range meant I had free reign. Eh? Eh?” Cam pokes Luther in the ribs. Luther frowns at him. “Oh, fine, whatever. No sense of humor. You know, that’s pretty important for a king too. Yeah, all right, I’ll leave the cows alone." 
"And the sheep,” Luther says sharply. “And the pigs, and chickens." 
"I haven’t eaten any pigs or chickens,” Cam protests. 
“Not yet. I’m being proactive." 
"There you go!” Cam says, beaming. “There’s that negotiator skill! But seriously, if I can’t eat the cows and sheep I’ve got to eat something. Can you make it worth my while? 'Cause I’m not going back to squirrels." 
"Well…” Luther says slowly. “What if… I hire you?" 
"You… hire me?" 
"Yeah. Like, as a bodyguard or something. Then I’d have to pay you, right? I could pay you in food?” 
Cam is quiet for a moment. He brings Luther up closer to his face and scrutinizes him. Luther’s heart is pounding out of his chest. For a moment he thinks he’s made some horrible mistake and offended Cam and it’s all over for him. "You’re serious? Not kidding me, here? That’s your offer?”
“Y-yes? Is that… is it bad?" 
"Bad? Bad? That’s the best offer I’ve ever heard! Pay me in food? HELL yes, kid! That’s what I like to hear!” The force of Cam’s enthusiasm knocks Luther over on his back. He stares at the sky for a moment. His life is so goddamn weird.
~~~~~~~~~
Luther’s father’s dragon slaying days are behind him. He’s an old man now. He has good days and bad days, but even on his best days he frequently needs help getting around. But when he sees that giant ogre enter his royal halls, he reaches for his spear. Luther eases it out of his hand. 
“No, see, it’s okay. I didn’t kill him, but I stopped him terrorizing the countryside, and I kind of… hired him. As my bodyguard. This was easier, and we both benefit, see? Also, um, were you going to tell me ogres are immortal?" 
"You were supposed to figure something out,” his father says. “Since you’re so damned smart." 
"Well, I did figure something out. Just… maybe not what you wanted me to." 
Cam waves lazily. "Hi, Yer Majesty." 
"Cam,” Luther hisses. “We talked about this." 
"Oh, fine, fine,” Cam grumbles, and takes a knee to bow low before the king. “I humbly pledge my service to your son,” he intones, hamming it up just a little. “Please allow me to protect him from all harms, and so on." 
The king glares. His stabbing hand is itching. But he doesn’t currently have a better plan, and this’ll keep the peasants quiet for a bit. "Fine,” he spits, “But you’re taking care of him. Feeding him, walking him, cleaning up after him, whatever. No getting the servants to do it for you. He’s your responsibility now." 
Cam grins at Luther. "So, speaking of feeding… when’s dinner?”
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staytiny-yaps · 4 years ago
Note
heya! I saw your post about requests so can i have like a Regulus x reader? Maybe Regulus and reader went to the cave together? (died or survived? idm) ty! love your works
A/n: Dear Lord I need to get my act together w my writing. I'm so sorry to the people who have requested and not got theirs for like- months. Hope you enjoy! Sorry I decided you were a hufflepuff bc lets be real, if Reg lived, he would've married a puff. As always constructive criticism welcome, but pls polite 💖🥰
Call Her Mistress
You stood in the dark of the cave glaring at the liquid in front of you. When Kreacher told Regulus of what Voldemort had done, his Master decided to find the locket and he begged you to stay behind.
So naturally, you wrapped your arms around him and told him there was no way in hell.
A soft, cold hand made its way into yours and squeezed. You looked up at the man next to you.
"You have to drink it?" You asked him, voice a lot shakier than you intended.
Regulus' hand squeezed yours again and his eyes flashed.
"Yes, darling."
"And I just have to... to what? Stand here? Watch you?" Regulus let out a resigned sigh as he listened to your worries.
"Yes, darling. Kreacher will force the drink down my throat if he needs, just as he has been ordered. And if I don't make it-"
"You'll make it!" You cut him off with a yelp. He winced at the pain in your voice.
"If I don't make it, you and Kreacher take the locket and destroy it. Kreacher is also under orders to protect you." He says slowly.
His voice is low and it's almost as is he has given up already.
You pull him close and rest your free hand on his cheek. His light grey eyes glisten with tears, yet they're still the most beautiful things you've ever seen.
His silken, black hair tickles your hand as it moves against your hard brrathing and you close your eyes for just a moment, relishing the feeling of his cheek against your palm. The feeling of your hand in his.
"You. Will. Make it." You stated defiantly and brushed your lips against his ever so lightly.
When you pulled away, Regulus chased your lips for a real kiss and you pressed a finger to his lips.
"You'll get more when we get out of here."
"Are you trying to bribe me into surviving?" He asked with a small glint of amusement in his eyes.
"Is it working?" You asked, biting your lip and he let out a humourless chuckle.
"I love you Y/n."
"I love you too Regulus."
🔸️
Only a few days ago were you sitting in a library with your love, giggling as he placed kisses all over your face. Now you held him still as he screamed and thrashed while Kreacher tried to pour the horrid substance into his mouth.
Well, you held him as still as you could.
Even weakened this way, Regulus was much stronger than you and his body was currently pumping him full of adrenaline.
"Come on Reg just a little bit more. Please Reggie for me, just a little bit more I promise. Kreacher, how many more mouthfuls?" You stroked Regulus' hair with one hand as the other held his mouth open.
"About two M-" He stopped when he realised he didn't know how to adress you.
"Two more, my love. Two more mouthfuls, please..." You begged him as he pleaded with you and the house elf to let him free.
Your heart broke every time a strained plea left his mouth. His cheeks were wet with tears and your eyes blurred with your own.
Horrible thoughts raced through your mind as his screams echoed about the cave. You must be a monster to put the love of your life through this. You should've done it yourself.
Next time you go after a horcrux, it's you who goes through the pain.
You and Kreacher coaxed the last drop into his mouth and then you let him go.
"W-water..." He mumbled and you nodded.
"Yes sweetheart. Kreacher you stay with him, I'll get him water." You ordered and pressed a kiss to Regulus' head before you ran off.
His hair was stuck to his face with sweat and you could've cried with how greatful you were.
Regulus leaned forward and muttered some words to his house elf. Kreacher looked unsure, but a weak, yet stern glare from his Master seemed to convince him.
"M-Mistress no!" Kreacher yelled, stumbling over the first word, unused to calling you, a hufflepuff of all things, Mistress.
But it was his Master's orders.
You stopped still at Kreachers yell, standing only feet away from the water.
"Mistress musn't go any further. Do not call attention to the Inferi!" Kreacher warned and as you began to back up, a sickly hand popped out of the water and landed on the stone in front of you.
"Shit!" You shrieked and scrambled back up to where Regulus lay.
"Kreacher can you apparate us out of here?" You asked before conjuring some water directly into Regulus' mouth.
He spluttered and choked for a moment beacuse of how he was laying, but soon swallowed the water and begged for more.
"I may be able to, but there are many defenses in this cave Mistress. It may take Kreacher a while." He answered as you pulled Regulus' head up onto your lap to get him into a better position for drinking.
"That's okay, do whatever you can just please get him out of here." Hundreds of Inferi were crawling up from the water at a swift pace.
Your heart was beating out of your chest and your throat tightened in fear, you didn't want to die.
And more than that, you didn't want Regulus to die.
"I'm under my Master's orders to keep you alive." Kreacher pointed oif while scrunching his face up, digging around his magic to gather the strength to apparate the three of them out of there.
"Yeah well you call me Mistress, which means I can give you orders too. And I order you to save him at any cost." You cried out trying to stifle your sobs in favour of keeping Regulus calm.
"W-water..." He rasped again and you complied.
"Yes dear, water. Stay alive and you can have all the water you want I promise you." You pushed his hair out of his eyes and gave him more water.
Your fear and panic was rising and making it harder for you to cast spells.
"Kreacher hurry!" You yelled out as you felt a disgusting, bony hand wrap around your ankle and begin to drag towards the water.
"Y-Y/n!" Regulus' head had gathered itself together enough for him to realise you were in danger.
"Master Regulus must stay calm." Kreacher told him and Regulus panicked as your body was pulled from underneath him.
"Kreacher save her!" Regulus screamed as he began to sit up, crawling towards the Inferi.
"Stay away from the Inferi Master Regulus!" Was the last thing you heard before you head hit a jagged piece of stone and the world around you faded from existence.
🔸️
"Y/n... love?" A small voice echoed through your head. You knew that voice.
Did this mean you had both died?
"Sweetheart... please... please wake up..." The voice you loved more than anyone elses sounded through your head again.
His voice was strained and tired and it pulled at your heart.
Your eyes slowly blinked open to see a blurry figure above you.
"Y/n! You're alive!" He rejoiced and you blinked slowly.
"I am?" You muttered as you began to sit up. Pain racked through your body and your head pounded.
"Doesn't feel like it." You groaned, but nevertheless stayed sitting up.
You looked around the room and found yourself on the ground of the small apartment you shared with Regulus since the beginning of your seventh year at Hogwarts.
Regulus still looked like death, but here he was kneeling over you.
"W- how?" You asked and Regulus let out a breathless laugh.
"The Inferi got you, I crawled after you and Kreacher crawled after us. He apparated us out of there. He's fine. He's drawing us a bath now, then he'll be returning back to my parents house."
You looked at him with wonder. How lucky could you have been to not only have landed a man like him, but go through that and both of you come out alive.
"You're a bloody idiot Regulus Black." You laughed and surged forward to kiss him.
After a few moments of sinking into the comforting feeling of your lips on his he pulled away.
"One more thing."
"But I promised you those kisses if we survived. What, now you don't want one?" You giggled, but his eyes had turned serious - filled with love - but serious.
"I told Kreacher to call you Mistress because... I was hoping you would be." He admitted solemnly and you raised a brow at him.
"Y/n please, please, pretty please marry me?"
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mysmegrace · 3 years ago
Note
can i pls request the rfa comforting mc bc she is really stressed because of school (they find her crying because something a teacher said to her)
hello anon! of course! we've all been there and i know how overwhelming it is. if this is happening to you and you wanna chat, i'm always open <3 btw i'm gonna write the mc as a college student because of the romantic nature of this fic. if you would like another fic that has all the rfa members together helping you platonically, feel free to ask! stay safe <3
RFA Comforting an MC that is Stressed because of School
---
yoosung kim:
today was a tough one to say the least.
you were up until 2am last night doing an excessive amount of homework only for the professor to put you down for a few questions you got wrong.
as you laid in your bed looking out the window besides you, your mind keep replaying the scene over and over again.
almost like it wanted to torture you.
the professor piercing through your soul with the rage he held in his eyes.
the degrading words he spewed at you, calling you every insult in the book.
and worst of all, he did it in front of everybody.
you have never felt so embarrassed.
these replaying memories made you cuddle up with your bundled blanket and simply start to sob.
you couldn't understand why people were so cruel sometimes.
little to your knowledge, yoosung was planning a date night out to celebrate your 100th day anniversary.
the professor had got you so upset that you forgot about the occasion.
so low and below, 15 minutes into your sob session was when yoosung came in unexpectedly.
the flowers he carried in his hand quickly dropped.
he ran to your sobbing figure and gave you an awkward hug from behind.
that was when you came to your senses and shot right up.
he looked at you like he had just seen a ghost.
his forehead written with concern.
your tired red eyes were a clear giveaway of your upset state.
there was no way you were covering this up.
yet you couldn't continue holding back your tears in front of him.
so he brought you to his chest as you sobbed for the second time tonight.
throughout your cries, you were explaining what the day has done to you.
how the professor belittled you to the point you had been on the verge of crying yourself to sleep.
yoosung listened closely, rubbing your back while you got it all out.
he decided that the date night could wait, and he would dedicate these nightly hours to comforting you.
he give you many reassurances throughout your time together.
he always validated your feelings.
he always looked at you with intense love and care.
he always told you how smart and stunning you are.
his actions made you cheer up a bit.
you were still on edge, but you knew it would get better eventually.
everything would turn out okay with this man by your side.
hyun ryu / zen:
you were only on the bus coming home, but your tears already started to flow.
the professor made a complete mockery out of you.
you felt hurt to your core.
he insulted everything about you, completely going off.
at first, you figured he had a bad day and was just finding someone to let it out on.
but as the insults kept spewing, they became incredibly more personal.
nothing was safe.
the way your nose crunched when you smiled was "ugly".
the sweet tone of your speaking was deemed "annoying".
the way your hair bounced when you walked was seen as "repulsive".
nobody had hurt you so much and your mind couldn't cope with it.
through silent tears on the bus, as you reached your stop you stopped them within an instant.
zen would be waiting for you at home.
the last thing you wanted to do was make him worried about you with the addition of his insanely busy day.
repressing the tears, you eventually made it to the front door of your now shared home.
the door sounded when you arrived, alerting zen as he went to meet you at the doorframe.
you pulled out your most convincing fake smile and greeted him.
but you could tell when the mix of confusion and concern flashed over his face.
apparently your eyes had given you away.
but you didn't remember them being puffy or red.
however, zen knows you like the back of his hand.
like the soulmate he was, he could read your soul through your eyes.
he embraced you and encouraged you to tell him what was wrong.
but you wouldn't budge.
he gently tried again, but to no avail.
lost on what to do, he embraced you again.
but this time, he wasn't letting go.
and that was enough to make the tears start pouring out.
you were both standing in silence.
the only sounds bouncing off the walls were those of your tearing cries.
once you had calmed down a bit, he calmly asked you what happened.
and when you explained, his body filled with rage.
who let the professor be so rude to you??
in true zen fashion, his first instinct was to reprimanded the teacher face to face.
the sound of your next cry made him rethink his protentional course of action.
you were right here in front of him, so broken and hurt.
you were his first priority, not mr. dumbfuck.
and out came the words that always made you feel so loved and protected.
he reminded you of your beauty and his love towards you.
he had seen you as a goddess for the time since he's met you.
your evening was very laidback after the ordeal.
tonight would be focused on you.
jaehee kang:
you had been sitting up at your computer with the event that tore you down so significantly in the back of your head.
you couldn't take it anymore.
how could a person be so rude because of a simple mistake?
however, you couldn't just cry right here right now.
your love was sitting beside you afterall.
so you ever so subtly left the room.
you felt so numb while walking to the only room the insured complete privacy in the apartment.
or so you thought.
closing the door behind you, you were met with the reflection of your face.
the one he had broke apart and shattered.
you started to cry uncontrollably.
you watched as your eyes turned visibly irritated, your mouth turned downwards ever so slightly.
you felt so numb inside, yet the gem-like tear that rolled down your cheek was a reminder of your living form.
the noise leaving your mouth wasn't loud.
but it wasn't quiet.
however, it was enough for jaehee to hear.
confused, she left her chair.
the sharp pain in her shoulder was a reminder for her to get up and stretch a bit.
following the tears, her feet met the bottom of the washroom door.
knocking softly, waiting for an answer.
yet nothing but the crying noises rang out.
so she tried again, calling your name in the softest tone she could produce.
you heard.
and you were now in a state of panic.
how would you explain this to her?
you didn't want to get her involved or worried over you.
but you knew you eventually had to come forward to her face to face.
hesitantly, you opened the door.
just a crack.
not enough to expose the entirety of your broken face, but enough to make subtle eye contact.
your efforts were short lived.
she took the door, moving it open to see you fully a few seconds later.
her first thought was to hug you, hence the tight embrace you quickly found yourself in.
you couldn't hold it back any longer.
so you remained in her arms crying for the next couple of minutes.
not long after, you started spilling out the entire story.
she was enraged alongside you.
but, being more rational, she knew there was nothing much she could do about it.
so she just listened and understood you.
she validated your emotions, making sure you knew you weren't going crazy and that it was okay to feel upset.
eventually, you find yourselves on the washroom floor.
sitting together, basking in each others love.
your worries were washed away by the woman you would continue to love as long as your life allowed you to.
jumin han:
your soon to be husband was waiting for your presence with a bottle of wine to share for the evening.
the only thing he was waiting to be finished was your class.
he felt at peace knowing his private driver would be picking you up safely.
what he hadn't expected however, was the message he was given by the driver.
on the way to jumin's penthouse, the driver had quickly sent jumin a text.
the text read "i'm texting to briefly let you aware of mc's status. mc appears to be healthy but in an emotional state. i suggest you have tissues prepared for her."
you, on the other hand, had been getting ready to hide your upset state.
you knew the man jumin was.
he would have the professor fired as soon as he heard of the disgusting things he had said to you.
you were never one to escalate things to that extent.
you would rather let both parties go on with their lives.
plus jumin's schedule was stressful enough already.
you didn't want to add onto that.
so with your lines to convince jumin that you were alright, you got out of the car, swiftly heading up to the penthouse.
he greeted you with a sad expression.
almost as if he was prepared to be upset with you.
you gave a confused look, trying to convince him that sadness wasn't even on your mind.
his hand reached out to you, containing a tissue.
you, still giving off the vibe of "i'm not upset", pushed his hand back gently.
now it was his turn to be confused.
only his was genuine.
the tears were building up in your eyes.
"fuck, not now" you thought.
his hand reached out again, questioning you.
you couldn't hold up anymore and gave up on hiding it.
taking the tissue, you started balling your eyes out.
rambling words about your feelings towards what the professor said.
how he had brought your very existence down to nothing but dirt.
jumin was listening, but planning what he could do to the professor at the same time.
this behaviour was simply unacceptable.
you couldn't convince him otherwise.
but in the meanwhile, he was determined to comfort the crying beauty in front of him.
much like everyone else, he reassured you of everything.
you would never hear the end of it from him when it came to how talented and gorgeous you were.
and it didn't matter what anyone else said.
as long as he was by your side, you would survive.
it would be okay.
the rest of the night consisted of the constant reminder of your worth.
from sun rise to sun set, he would never look at another woman the way he did you.
saeyoung choi:
in some ways, online classes were harder than in person.
sure, online you could get away with cheating easier (though you were never like that), you could take naps comfortably in between classes, you wouldn’t have to get dressed.
looking at it like that, it doesn’t seem so bad.
unfortunately that was not the case for you.
your professor used this as an opportunity to diminish you to your core.
he would send you private messages talking about how stupid you were, how you failed in every possible way.
even going as far as saying you were a waste of space in the classroom.
that someone much better could’ve taken your place.
and all of that made online learning incredibly hard for you.
you would participate in classes from the side of your bed.
saeyoung laying right besides you, listening in like the goof he is.
even going as far as to help you.
today though, the professor got extremely bold.
he had moved from sending private messages to spewing hatred in front of the entire class.
and saeyoung heard all of it.
he reached over to your laptop and exited out of the classroom.
he didn’t want to listen to you endure that any longer.
at first, it looked like his words didn’t bother you.
perhaps you were used to it at this point.
but once saeyoung asked if you were okay, you couldn’t control the tears starting to run down your face.
you were so tired of being treated like shit, and saeyoung completely understood.
he was baffled that a professor would say something so cruel out in the open.
you two laid there in silence, a peaceful silence.
you explained how this had been happening for a long time. 
however, you just wanted to get over it.
you went on with your day, but saeyoung could tell that it still bothered you.
so he did what he does best.
with a little bit of this and a little bit of that, you meet a new professor the next day.
he announced how he was taking the place of the previous professor after he had lost his job.
you turned behind you with a shocked smile, and saw the man you loved smirking like a child.
god you loved him.
51 notes · View notes
loth-wolffe · 3 years ago
Note
About that Fox post: i absolutely love you for writing it, thank you for that
Also, for your consideration:
- Where were you during the zillo beast attack?
- throwing a surprise birthday party for him?
- going shopping together
- I have a scenario that him dating an investigative journalist would be very chaotic, any thoughts?
- what's the friendship with his brothers like?
- why do i fell he would be good with kids? Like your nephew or something
- on that note, does he get the dad genes from Jango?
- post-war AU? in the timeline where Palpatine chokes and dies like he's supposed to
- Getting!! Married!! (eventualy)
many Fox thoughts today, many thoughts
sorry this is so long, I have little self control and a lots of love for fox. i love u so much for asking this and letting me explore what a life with fox would be like.
also I apologize for being a h*rny bitch and not controling myself, so nsfw thots are marked like this so if u wanna skip that's fine.
and uh, first I'm gonna answer the investigative journalist hc and base everything about this in that solely thought because that's a galaxy brain thing to say.
I have a scenario that him dating an investigative journalist would be very chaotic, any thoughts?
AHDJSJ I LOVE THIS. okay okay but I feel like because of this job this is exactly why you guys met, like you needed some info and you asked some shiny but he didn't know a thing and you were like "is there someone I can talk with about this?" and when he's about to reply, Fox enters in action and he's like "need anything?" but sO COCKY.
he hates journalists mostly because some of them treat the clones very badly and never talk about the casualties or that kind of stuff about war, right.
like, it would turn into this-- banter filled with sexual tension that would've ended up in a make out session if 1. fox didn't have that much of self control and two if he weren't wearing his bucket.
it'd be like
"listen man-"
"it's commander for you." a pause, "or sir."
or like
"i need to do other things if you don't mind."
"i can think of a few you could be doing right now." and the way your eyes run through his entire body, even if he's all covered in plastoid but damn you if he isn't the hottest man walking, and he actually shivers, and gulps, because it's not like he wasn't thinking about that either, pushing down your pants and railing you right then and there in that fucking filthy alley. he is well aware how his suddenly codpiece feels too tight, but you only smirk and go, "you know, like giving me the information I need?"
KDJSJ IMAGINE THE POWER. THE POSSIBILITIES.
it'd be so ridiculous, but you also caused this impression on him that when you turned away to go on your business he was dEVASTED, but he didn't want to let u know he actually liked you. He's stubborn, that man.
So by some miracle when you're investigating something, you guys run into each other bc he's on patrol or something and he's GIDDY. but also frozen in place bc he didn't think he would ever see you again, mostly because Coruscant is big and has too many people in it. and you're like
"ah, commander fox, isn't it?" and he quickly resumes to say something that shows how aNNOYED he pretends to be, but he ends up tagging alone because "these parts are not safe"
"oh?"
"you'd need protection."
and the smirk you have is sO ARROGANT because it's not your first rodeo.
"you wouldn't want to have a civvie getting killed or something on your watch now, would you?" and he clears his throat and nods sharply. and you give him this innocent eyes and bat your lashes, "my hero."
and if you think those words didn't do aNYTHING to him, you're mistaken u hear me, he's instantly hARD.
so anyways after that YOU ask him out, and he's like, stuttering and saying yes and all.
now some random thoughts on this magnificent hc.
• if it can't be himself, he would always have the men he trusts the most going on patrols around the zone you're around in case something happens.
• he lOVES when you rant about something new you discovered, and when he asks for mOre info bc he's a, how do you say chismoso?, he loves gossip??? anyways and you're like "nu huh, you gotta wait till tomorrow, foxie"
• he aLWAYS makes sure to read/see your job, either if you work for some newspaper, magazine, etc or if you're on the TV he nEVER misses it.
• if you work for the TV, his brothers are always like "fOX YOUR GIRL IS ON THE HOLONET LIKE RN!!!" and he gives them this bitch face because he kNOWS THANK YOU.
• alright but imagine going on dates with him and being like "did you know there was an investigation last year around this part that–?" ROMANCE AT ITS PEAK.
• if his shift ends before you even think of going home, he definitely joins you on your investigations.
Where were you during the zillo beast attack?
uhh, I think you'd be home, like maybe you turned in early and fox maybe didn't know, so he was almost in tears when he called you after the whole thing happened because he was so worried.
of course, during the attack, he tried to push the thought aside, bc I think all clones have this, uh, switch, that makes them not worry during missions that much? just like, have this thought here and there but nothing serious that would make them paralyzed and have a panic attack right there. but every second he thought of you and hoped you were alright.
unlike you, that were worried sick because you saw the chaos unfold, the troopers arriving in shuttles and the jedi doing whatever they were doing and you just heard destruction. you DID cried a bit and when fox called you, you cried even harder. and he was like "it's alright, I'm alright baby."
that night he hold you SO tight, whispering sweet nothings on your ear and never stopped kissing you once. you barely got any sleep because you were so afraid of waking up only to find out the other died on the attack and it was all a dream.
throwing a surprise birthday party for him?
AAAAAH THIS IS SO CUTE.
now, clones don't exactly have a birthday???? but he did all these nice things for your birthday (he and the boys baked you a cake that was sO UGLY and tasted a bit weird) so you thought you could surprise him too.
it's most likely he gives you the date when he graduated from Kamino or something and for all the years you're with him, you never miss his "birthday" at first you did something quiet, like a dinner at your place, bought him something nice, gave him a bath or something and spoiled the shit out of him.
so for the second year, you threw him a party in his office, made him this cake or whatever and decorated with red and white balloons and invited a few troopers that wanted to help you and he was stoic for a moment, but then you were like "hAPPY BIRTHDAY!" and hugged him so tight and he relaxed under your touch and whispered this small "thank you baby"
everyone congratulated him and he was a bit awkward but when they start telling all these stories of them and fox on the job, he starts to loosen up a bit, so while everyone is eating cake he hugs you from behind and chuckling lowly in your ear as he listens to his brothers.
he dOESNT like pda like I said but he forgets for a moment because he just loves you sO SO SO SO MUCH. it's also easier for him to whisper filthy things into your ear and mumble how good you are for him, that he doesn't deserve you, that he can't wait for everyone to leave cause he wants to have his present (you) nipping your earlobe and making u all hot and bothered and would def fuck you nice and hard on his desk. yup
going shopping together
imagine, jUST IMAGINE, he'd look like your personal bodyguard 😭😭 like, he'd be behind you carrying most of your bags and people would look at you wondering who are you, why are you sO important to have the commander of the Coruscant guard with you???
but like, you don't care and fox doesn't even notice, and he'd be so attentive, faking to be both annoyed and uninterested but he'd see this nice shirt or dress or whatever and grumble something like "you'd look good on this" i just-
and like when you pass by the lingerie store, dUDE, he'd make you model for him, him sitting like he fucking owns the place, getting harder and harder every time he sees you in a new pair of underwear and when you show off this cute little red set. damn.
if you go to the market or something, he'd always love to show you these things like "look at that" or just pull you towards this stall and you'd adORE to show him stuff like, "ohh, fox here try this" or "what you think about this?" and stuff like that.
what's the friendship with his brothers like?
i think it'd be very easy-going and light, they would tease you sometimes, but they really like you, mostly because they see fox isn't as stressed as before and they see how happy he is when around you.
they think he deserve it, to have somewhere where he's free and loved, so yeah.
they sometimes ask him about you and never miss a chance to say hi when you stop by the office.
the boys absolutely ADORE you.
why do i fell he would be good with kids? Like your nephew or something. does he get the dad genes from Jango?
HE WOULD AND HE DOES.
like, I think at first he'd be very hesitant when it comes to children, like he'd be nervous when you introduce him to your niece and when you ask him if he wants to hold her, he says a quick no and just prefers to watch you, heart feeling funny when you make faces at the little baby in your arms.
at some point he dOES hold her, with such care and a gentleness that makes your heart flutter, and he coos softly as she sleeps soundly in his arms, rocking her with a delicacy you thought impossible from such hard man, and when he looks at you his eyes shine with this flash of something you can quite place but makes your heart skip a beat and think of how much you'd love to have this, with him, a little family, a baby that has his curls and maybe your eyes, a mix of your skin color with his and maybe his stubbornness completed by your charisma. a perfect little thing for you two to hold and care and love.
he'd be such a good dad, but then again every clone would be the most fantastic dad bc it's literally in their genes.
if you have a nephew that is, u know, older but still a kiddie, like 5 or 6, the lil boy would be aMAZED by fox, he'd love him so much, like imagine, always asking for the commander, wanting to play with him, asking fox to carry him eVERYWHERE, and at first fox would be like, shy and uncertain and he wouldn't know how to act until he accepts the fact that this little boy really likes him and looks up to him and fox becomes The Cool Uncle™
post-war AU? in the timeline where Palpatine chokes and dies like he's supposed to and Getting!! Married!! (eventualy)
well, in my post-war AU, clones get Rights™ and get paid and have vacations and stuff, sO, maybe you get to have Fox for a little more time and his schedule isn't as bad as it was during the war, so maybe after the war you get home to a nice dinner and fox using this silly apron and sometimes you come home early just so you can cook with him.
maybe you go on holidays to these nice places, going to the beach or the woods and finally settling somewhere quiet, start a family in this nice house or if you don't want kids then it's just the two of you and maybe a few pets.
i think the wedding would be officiated in Coruscant, of course, so his brothers and your fam can go, he'd definitely cry when he see you walking down the isle or when you put the ring on his finger and he'd be so so so happy, dancing with you all night, being so clingy because he's just Over the moon, y'know, kissing your cheeks and neck, whispering how lucky he is and how much he loves you, and how good you look, never leaving your side and always leaning over with pouty lips for you to kiss him.
when he proposed it was during one of your sweet, soft times with him, maybe in the aftertaste of your sexy times, as he holds you close to his chest, fingers running up and down your skin, as he stares at the ceiling and the question comes out as if he were talking about the weather, his heartbeat is slow and steady and it's one of those times he feels confident and sure.
you have talked about a future together, so he knows you'd say yes.
it's more a statement than a question, really.
"marry me." he would say, so quietly, almost a whisper. and when you look up you only find this beautiful emotion filling his eyes.
"what?" you just want to make sure you heard right, he'd smile softly, cup your cheek and as his thumb caresses your skin he'd whisper.
"will you marry me?"
you oBVIOUSLY say yes while ugly sobbing.
41 notes · View notes
eleanorfenyxwrites · 4 years ago
Text
Hold On Tight, Learn To Behave (Ao3)
[Wenzhou one-shot set post-canon, after episode 36 but before the bonus - NSFW and a quick warning as well for some blood/rough sex]
@evilteddybear requested: I’d love WKX and ZZS to have a conversation on all they’ve hidden from one another by the end of the series. WKX lied about his death, then ZZS, then WKX again. Talking isn’t dramatic enough for TV so they never reach true honesty. They love each other but also hurt each other. And I am not sure that WKX ever realizes that hurting himself hurts ZZS too.
and an Anon requested: I would love to see something set post-canon where ZZS's body is like a live-wire where instead of it being hard (lol) to get off, he manages it really really easy bc suddenly everything has come back and it’s A LOT. I just wanna see WKX fuck several orgasms out of ZZS (literally or in other ways) and ZZS being a mess about it bc holy shit he can FEEL again.
(special thanks/shoutout to @omgpurplefattie for suggesting that these two prompts go well together, you gave me the idea to combine them!)
--
“Lao Wen!”
Zhou Zishu sits up sharply, tongue still locked to the roof of his mouth from shouting his lover’s name, and he raises trembling hands to scrub tiredly at his face.
“Ah-Xu?” Wen Kexing’s voice is sleep-ragged at his side and Zhou Zishu does his best to slow his breathing, to try to stop his heart from pounding in his chest. He tries to stop seeing his zhiji dead right in front of his eyes, but if it’s not the sight of him falling off a cliff then it’s that of him lying dead and still in a burning shed, and if it’s not either of those two haunting memories then it’s the most recent, that of opening his eyes to find Wen Kexing fading right in front of him, hand in hand as his qi drained out of him like water through a sieve. A sob manages to escape his throat despite his best efforts and Wen Kexing is on him in an instant.
“Ah-Xu!” he gasps as he sits up and wraps long arms around him, hugging Zhou Zishu close to his chest. “What is it? What happened?”
Zhou Zishu knows even as he does it that it’s petty, but he pushes Wen Kexing away. Not as strongly as he has in the past, perhaps, but he does it, an elbow to his lover’s side that makes him wince and loosen his grip though he still doesn’t let go entirely.
Zhou Zishu’s hands curl into tight fists in the blankets still covering their laps and he tries to forget about Wen Kexing’s hands, ice cold and limp in his grip as Zhou Zishu had scrambled to find some way to pass his qi back. His arms remember the weight of Wen Kexing’s corpse, the way it had felt to gather his lifeless body close to his chest and bury his face in that silver-white hair, the only outward sign of the strain Wen Kexing had forced himself through just to make Zhou Zishu immortal - with no regard for his own life, or for how empty Zhou Zishu would find the world without his zhiji at his side.
And mourning these incidents feels so strange when the man himself is not only alive and perfectly fine at his side, but at fault for each and every one. It’s this thought that sends him staggering from their bed to shove his feet into his shoes.
“Ah-Xu wait, where are you going? It’s the middle of the night,” Wen Kexing points out like he doesn’t already know it. It doesn’t take Zhou Zishu long to find his outer robes to shrug on over the layer he sleeps in and he doesn’t even bother tying them shut before he stalks from the room and out into the rest of the sprawling armory around them.
He hears Wen Kexing curse and tumble out of bed behind him but he doesn’t stop to wait for him, he just starts wandering in an attempt to soothe the itching under his skin. In the aftermath of everything, after Zhou Zishu had found a way to pass their refined qi back and forth, after Wen Kexing had remained unconscious for over a month recovering from nearly fizzling out into nothing, they’ve been too happy about being reunited in the past few days since he woke for Zhou Zishu to find space to comfortably fit the fact that he’s angry as well. It hardly feels fair to say anything now, and he’s been forcing himself not to give a voice to the ugly thing in his chest mainly because he feels that he knows what Wen Kexing will say. That he lived, that they’re here now, that they finally have as long as they want to be together so why spoil it with unhappy things?
And Zhou Zishu is trying, but it’s so hard. He shoves it all away in his waking hours but then it comes back to haunt him in his sleep and he has to watch his zhiji die over and over again, every single fucking night.
Zhou Zishu comes to a stop at random and begins idly running his hand over the books on the closest shelf, searching for something he hasn’t read yet, or even just something he read so casually first as to be able to enjoy it a second time. Anything for a distraction, anything to try to get rid of the sourness of the bile rising in his throat from the remembered panic of opening his eyes, his senses fully restored, only for the first thing he felt properly since the application of the Nails to be his lover’s dead body. Well, nearly-dead, but it had certainly felt close enough to his newly awakened senses.
Wen Kexing finds him as he’s still brushing dust off of the contents of one of the cubbyholes in the shelf.
“Ah-Xu,” he calls, quiet in the gloom of the sparse few lanterns and the moonlight filtered through vents in the mountainside high above their heads, reflected and magnified by a neatly hidden collection of mirrors far above their heads. “There isn’t light enough to read by tonight. What are you doing?”
“Go back to bed.”
“Ah-Xu -”
Zhou Zishu moves without conscious thought when Wen Kexing reaches for him, fingers just catching on his sleeve before Zhou Zishu whips around to grab him and pin him to the shelves, a furious glare in his damp eyes. The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scuffle isn’t nearly enough to wind either one of them, but they’re both breathing hard anyway into the scant space between them. Perhaps Zhou Zishu shouldn’t be surprised to find that it only takes the span of a single breath for Wen Kexing’s concerned gaze to go steely, rising to meet the fury he must find in Zhou Zishu’s glare.
“Go ahead,” Wen Kexing challenges with a haughty jerk of his chin. “What is it?”
It’s easier like this, with Wen Kexing seemingly angry right back at him. This is not his Lao Wen, this is the Chief of Ghost Valley - fitting, when he feels less like Ah-Xu and more like the leader of the Window of Heaven, full of a cold sense of merciless righteousness that usually ends with blood on his hands.
“I’m tired of dreaming about all the times you ripped my fucking heart out,” Zhou Zishu finally manages to spit and when Wen Kexing bares his teeth at him in a parody of a smile it’s almost a shock to see his teeth gleaming white rather than stained pink with someone else’s blood.
“Is that so? The feeling is mutual.”
“How many times would you have continued to make me watch you die if we hadn’t trapped ourselves in here?”
“You trapped us here with your avalanche trick, and I would have kept doing it as many times as necessary to keep you alive!” Wen Kexing is practically snarling, though he doesn’t fight against Zhou Zishu’s hold keeping him pinned to the shelf.
“You didn’t have to follow me here!”
Wen Kexing does fight back a bit then, just a savage jerk of one arm that frees it from Zhou Zishu’s grip so he can reach up to curl his fingers into a fist in the front of his robes for the purpose of jostling him, as if shaking him will help him understand as he shouts, “After all this anger over my plans to save you, you have the nerve to also be angry that I didn’t stay put when you left me behind to go die anyway?!”
Zhou Zishu is the one to bare his teeth next, but Wen Kexing takes advantage of his moment of trying to formulate a reply to flip their positions so quickly Zhou Zishu nearly becomes dizzy even before his back is slammed against the shelf and Wen Kexing’s forearm presses against his throat.
“After everything we’ve done, everything we had just lost, you left me,” Wen Kexing says next, no longer shouting but the faint glitter of tears in his eyes and clumping his lashes together is somehow more cutting than if he were. “If you die I die, how dare you take my choices away from me!”
“Your choices?!” Zhou Zishu bites back, finding his metaphorical feet again even as he has to go up on his toes a bit to accommodate the way Wen Kexing is pressing him higher with the arm on his throat. “Your choices are why I was dying so quickly in the first place! I was going to be healed, Da Wu was going to fix everything but your plan that included everyone but me forced my hand! Why would I continue living without you after watching you die? How could you not have known I would try to follow you even after Ye-qianbei stopped me from jumping with you?!”
“How could you throw your life away so quickly?!”
“There is no me without you!”
Zhou Zishu’s shout rings off the stone around them. Wen Kexing slowly releases the pressure on his throat as the reverb of it fades into nothing but silence again broken only by their breaths, too fast and out of sync. But they’re both here. They’re both breathing. They’re glaring daggers at each other, but they’re both here.
“A day without you, a week, a year, an eternity? I don’t want any of it,” Zhou Zishu continues eventually, voice low and fervent. “Of course I tried to follow you. What else would you expect me to do?”
“And then at the last, you turned around and abandoned me. Are you really such a hypocrite, Ah-Xu?”
Zhou Zishu doesn’t refute that, though he can’t quite help but grind his teeth and curl his hand still holding one of Wen Kexing’s wrists a little tighter.
He is, abruptly, exhausted. Perhaps it’s the sleepless nights of relieving Wen Kexing’s ‘deaths’ from every angle. Perhaps it’s the stress of having kept all of this tucked close to his chest since the moment Wen Kexing returned during the second heroes’ conference. Perhaps it’s the way the fight leaves Wen Kexing’s eyes as quickly as it had appeared. Perhaps it’s none of these things, or all of them, but whatever the reason, the thought of somehow keeping score for the next however many years they live, of holding onto resentments and bitterness and playing a constant game of who-owes-whom makes him so tired.
Zhou Zishu tips his head back to rest against the shelf at his back, baring his throat (perhaps unwisely, when Wen Kexing is still so angry at him) and closing his eyes against the sight of the filtered moonlight overhead.
“We can’t keep living like this,” he mutters and he feels Wen Kexing’s body go stiff against his where they’re pressed together practically from chest to ankle.
“Like what? Don’t tell me you regret this already, Ah-Xu. It’s not even spring yet, you have to at least wait for the thaw before you can decide to leave me behind again.”
“Lao Wen!” he protests sharply with a jostle of Wen Kexing’s arm in his grip. “Like this, angry with each other for things that we’ve done because we don’t know how to live for each other. This is getting us nowhere.”
Wen Kexing takes a long, slow breath in and Zhou Zishu is about to drop his head again to look at him when he’s abruptly stopped in his tracks by the feeling of teeth on his neck, too sharp and insistent to be comfortable. He gasps and can’t help but jerk a bit in Wen Kexing’s grip, a frisson of heat slinking down his spine and out towards his fingertips as he follows it with a soothing but possessive pass of the flat of his tongue, hot and wet against his skin.
“Lao Wen?” he manages to gasp around the too-intense pressure of Wen Kexing’s teeth around a different section of his throat, more sensitive than the last - so sensitive his knees nearly threaten to buckle, though that may also be because Wen Kexing chooses that moment to dart a clever hand between the drape of his robes to grab him through his trousers. There’s nothing gentle in the gesture, it’s hard and possessive. Painful.
They haven’t been intimate since Wen Kexing had finally regained consciousness. Between adjusting to their new reality, Wen Kexing finally having an opportunity to begin grieving for Gu Xiang, and Zhou Zishu working to build them something of a permanent living space in the armory, and with an as-of-yet undefined eternity stretching on before them, they’d just...settled. Tried to relax and let time pass as it would now that it’s no longer their master.
Zhou Zishu realizes belatedly that he should have anticipated that it would feel different with the return of his senses, but he is somehow still blindsided by the shock of it, crystal clear and overwhelming. He can feel Wen Kexing’s too-quick exhales against his freshly bruised skin, hot and damp in the chill of their new home. His hand is painfully tight between his legs and Zhou Zishu gasps again as his grip tightens even further, bucking his hips back to try to escape Wen Kexing’s groping but there’s nowhere for him to go. He bites down again and Zhou Zishu swears he can feel every single one of his teeth - no longer just the muted sensation of more pointed pressure than his hands could provide, now he can feel his skin protesting the sharp crush of capillaries, red bruises blooming like aching flowers under his lover’s mouth.
“If you want to be angry then be angry,” Wen Kexing growls into the point of his collarbone, and the bite he leaves there has Zhou Zishu’s back arching without his permission though he at least manages to keep a pathetic whimper locked in his throat. “You’re not getting rid of me so easily.”
Under such an onslaught, it doesn’t take long at all for Zhou Zishu to find his temper again. Wen Kexing is harsh and cruel with him, offering no reprieves or mercy as he takes what he wants. Zhou Zishu has absolutely no qualms about giving him the same in return, digging in with his nails until he pierces his skin, and only then does he scratch up his back and leave bloody furrows in his wake. He bites whatever part of Wen Kexing he can get his mouth on, and finally when Wen Kexing is ever-so-slightly distracted with gathering all of Zhou Zishu’s hair into one hand to yank on it, Zhou Zishu manages to get his ankle hooked behind Wen Kexing’s to kick his leg out from under him. Paired with a shove of the hand he has bunched up in the front of Wen Kexing’s robes, it’s a perfect move to unbalance him and send the pair of them tumbling to the hard ground.
Zhou Zishu doesn’t bother feeling guilty for cushioning his own fall with Wen Kexing’s body, he just sets about continuing what they’d started with a sort of hunger that startles even him, but that Wen Kexing seems to take in stride. He had started this, after all, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that he’s prepared to see it through to the end no matter how rough it should get.
It’s a messy thing, quick and aggressive with absolutely none of the finesse they’ve managed to find together in all the times they’ve done this before. By the time they’ve finished, Wen Kexing’s bared torso is a mess of blood and come - from both of them. Zhou Zishu brushes the back of his hand against the swollen curve of his bottom lip without any regard for the flare of aching, burning pain he finds there where Wen Kexing has bitten him bloody.
“You got hard,” Wen Kexing finally mumbles through bright red lips. Zhou Zishu can see that his teeth are pink as he speaks and he wonders if it should worry him that that feels right. What he had actually said filters through the haze a moment after and he huffs a humorless laugh as he shakes his head a bit and leans back on his heels where he’s straddling Wen Kexing. The motion grinds his ass down against his softening cock and Wen Kexing hisses a little, shuffles his feet like he’s going to try to get away though he settles again after a moment, allowing the overstimulating pressure.
“Philanthropist Wen so kindly traded his life so that I could have all my senses restored,” Zhou Zishu retorts as he crosses his arms over his chest and grinds himself down more purposefully into Wen Kexing’s lap until the man’s back arches and his hands fly down to grip his hips tight enough to bruise there too.
“A fair trade,” Wen Kexing mumbles, still staring at him in bleary wonder. Well, not at him. At his cock, which hasn’t even managed to go entirely soft. How can it, when he can finally feel Wen Kexing’s hands on him properly? When every place their bodies are touching feels like the spark of a struck match?
“And if I hadn’t found a way to pass the qi back to you such a ‘gift’ would be absolutely wasted on me living here alone!”
“You’re still angry after that?”
Zhou Zishu doesn’t even deign to respond to that with words, rather he just grinds his hips again and Wen Kexing chokes on some sort of wounded noise that ends with a whimper. His teeth are no longer bloody though he certainly looks worse for wear, his lips still red even where Zhou Zishu hadn’t split his bottom lip straight down the middle with a particularly vicious bite. There are bruises already blooming dark and possessive all over his chest and shoulders, the imprints of Zhou Zishu’s teeth stark on the pale canvas of his skin. His silver hair is a tangled mess underneath him, his robes equally dishevelled where they had been shoved aside to give Zhou Zishu room to work. As he watches, Wen Kexing releases his hip to drag one elegant hand up his own stomach, his long fingers smearing through the mix of blood and spend to swirl them together before he continues his dragging touch. He smears the mix up his own chest and then pops his fingers in his mouth as he looks up again to meet Zhou Zishu’s gaze.
“In that case, you can have me like that again, if you’d like,” Wen Kexing mumbles as he withdraws his fingers, seemingly uncaring of the mess he’s making of himself as he reaches down to scoop more of their come onto his fingers. Zhou Zishu reaches out to stop him with a hand tight around his wrist.
“Hurting you isn’t going to make me less angry about what you did.”
“Nor I, but it’s nice to get the energy out anyway.”
Zhou Zishu licks at a trickle of blood he can feel beginning to weep from his own split lip and Wen Kexing tracks the movement as if mesmerized by the briefest glimpse of his tongue. Zhou Zishu releases his wrist then and he expects Wen Kexing to return to his task of licking his fingers clean, but instead he drops his hand down again, this time to press his whole palm to the mess on his abs. Before Zhou Zishu can wonder what his fascination with it is, Wen Kexing is wrapping his slicked hand around his cock - and he goes properly hard again so quickly his head spins.
“Oh,” Wen Kexing says softly, eyes wide, as he strokes him just once and Zhou Zishu can’t help but shudder with a punched out little noise that he’s too late to stop. He squeezes his eyes shut and leans forward until he can rest his weight on one hand pressed to the floor next to Wen Kexing’s shoulder, his lips parted as he suddenly struggles to catch his breath. “Oh Ah-Xu, our first time when you can feel me properly shouldn’t have hurt you so much.”
“It’s only fitting that it should be too much,” Zhou Zishu manages to grind out. He opens his eyes to find Wen Kexing looking anxiously back and forth between them, his eyebrows drawn up in open concern, so different from the furious hunger of just a few minutes ago. “Too much - and not enough. Try again.”
“Mn?”
“Hurt me again.”
“Ah-Xu -”
Zhou Zishu catches Wen Kexing’s chin in his free hand, harsh and unforgiving. “Again, Lao Wen. You think I’ve been waiting for you to wake up all this time just for you to be afraid to touch me? Make me forget what it was like to feel you dead in my arms.”
That seems to do the trick. Wen Kexing’s eyes flash and Zhou Zishu isn’t even startled to find their positions reversed; the only concession for the stone floor that Wen Kexing gives him is a hand behind his head to keep him from hitting it too hard as he’s thrown down on his back - other than that he’s just as harsh as he was before. They’re already ragged and bloodied, it doesn’t take nearly as much effort the second time for Zhou Zishu to lose himself in the ache of Wen Kexing pressing on his new bruises, biting even fresher ones next to them.
He gasps and exhales a moan that echoes off the stone around them as Wen Kexing bites his neck hard enough to draw blood there too at the same moment he slides two spit- and come-slick fingers inside his body with absolutely no mercy. It hurts, but his Lao Wen and so he doesn’t complain. He’ll never complain as long as it’s Wen Kexing who’s the one bearing down on him, pressing into him, working him as expertly as ever even though so much internal attention isn’t necessary now that he can finally get hard again. It doesn’t seem to matter what he needs or doesn't - his entire being belongs to the man on top of him and he knows that Wen Kexing enjoys reminding him of that.
The only reason the second round lasts anywhere close to the same length of time as the first is because this time Wen Kexing forces him to wait every time he trembles close to the edge of orgasm, until by the time he finally allows it Zhou Zishu is so overstimulated it hurts as much as it pleasures.
“Enough,” Wen Kexing pants when he’s finished and they’re now both sporting the same messes on their chests. “Enough Ah-Xu, no more angry sex tonight. Alright?”
“Fine,” Zhou Zishu pants as he stares unseeingly up at the ceiling. “Tomorrow, then.”
“No.” Zhou Zishu closes his eyes as Wen Kexing starts stroking his cheek with his hand that’s still relatively clean, but he frowns when he feels the now-familiar sensation of shared qi flood through his meridians.
“What are you doing?”
“We’ll heal faster if we share it.”
Zhou Zishu darts his hand up to grab Wen Kexing’s wrist to force his hand away from his face and he opens his eyes with an effort to meet Wen Kexing’s confused gaze.
“Leave it.”
“Ah-Xu?”
“Penance.”
Wen Kexing blinks at him for a long moment and then the last of the fight truly drains out of him as he hangs his head, his hair sliding over one shoulder to hang between them and the rest of the room. In the moonlight backlighting it it almost seems to glow and Zhou Zishu’s breath hitches in his chest as he looks at it, this reminder of how much Wen Kexing had tried to give up. For him. He had never asked so many people to want to die for him. All he had ever wanted was the people he cared about to live, why were they all so determined to leave him behind anyway?
“Come back to bed,” Wen Kexing says and Zhou Zishu can hear the tears thick in his voice though he can’t see his face. “Please.”
Maneuvering up off the floor and righting their robes at least enough to make the chilly walk more bearable takes a surprisingly long time, but thankfully Wen Kexing had kept track of where he was going as he had followed Zhou Zishu through the armory and so he just has to follow behind him as they return quickly enough to their ‘bedroom’, for lack of anything better to call it. As they walk, his own anger ebbs back out of him, as it always does, to be replaced with a soul-deep grief. His anger is really only a poor cover for that lurking sorrow anyway, and it consumes too much energy to maintain the front for too long. By the time Wen Kexing is helping him out of his outer robes and nudging him in the direction of their bed he feels so weighed down by the ghosts of his mistakes that all he can do is obey and sit heavily on the edge of it.
“ ‘Penance’,” Wen Kexing muses with dark humor as he returns Zhou Zishu’s robes to their spot and begins to strip out of his own. “Are we not already paying penance having to spend the rest of our lives in the cold? Away from Chengling and Four Seasons Manor? It’s a price I’m willing to pay a thousand times over in order to live this life with you, but it is still a sacrifice. Don’t you think that’s penance enough?”
Zhou Zishu doesn’t even bother looking up from his hands between his knees as Wen Kexing talks to him, only raising his eyes with a sharp inhale through his nose when the other man comes to kneel in front of him, though he can still only stand to look around the vicinity of his chin.
“Ah-Xu. What are you punishing yourself for?”
“You have to ask?”
“I do. We’ve already forgiven each other for the lies we told, you don’t fool me. What are you really angry about?”
“I’m not trying to fool you, I am angry that you lied to me.”
“And you have lied to me. We’re even as far as I’m concerned, and I think it would be useless to keep score from here on out. What are petty disagreements to immortal lovers, hm?”
Zhou Zishu finally lifts his gaze the rest of the way with an effort to look Wen Kexing in the eyes. They still manage to shine somehow even in the dim light of the candles guttering in the corners of the room, and Zhou Zishu can’t quite resist reaching out to hold his face with both hands. Hands that can now feel how soft his skin is, how warm. He strokes his thumb slowly along the plush curve of his bitten bottom lip and the softness of it, the easy give of it beneath his touch, have him aching to bite him again. Again and again and again until he no longer feels quite so hungry for him, so desperate.
“Ah-Xu,” Wen Kexing murmurs seemingly for no reason other than to call for him. Zhou Zishu lets his thumb move with his lips as he does so, the drag of the warm, damp skin against his fingertip a concrete reminder that he hasn’t lost Wen Kexing. He’s here, alive and breathing and determined to live for the rest of their forever at his side.
“I want to stop seeing you dead,” he confesses, much less angrily this time than the first as he allows his grief and fear to take their rightful place at center stage. “I want to but I can’t. You were so cold, Lao Wen, the first thing I felt was you so cold-“
Wen Kexing’s brows knit together as he turns his head just enough to press ardent kisses to his palm, his long fingers curling around Zhou Zishu’s wrist to hold his hand still for it.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes and Zhou Zishu’s breath hitches in his throat. “I’m sorry, Ah-Xu.”
Zhou Zishu coaxes Wen Kexing into turning his head forward again with a press of his palm to his cheek only to meet him more than halfway in a kiss that’s messy and clumsy and perfect in every way he needs it to be. Wen Kexing surges up to deepen it, to loom over him and then press him back insistently with his whole body as he climbs onto the bed first to straddle him and then to lay him down, kissing kissing kissing all the while.
Even in what Zhou Zishu has come to think of as his ‘first’ life - his life before Wen Kexing - he doesn’t think anyone’s touch ever affected him as much as Wen Kexing’s does now. His hands, though they’re cool simply by virtue of where they live, feel like branding irons as they skim down his chest and arms, dragging his dishevelled sleeping robe off in their wake. He shivers in the chill of the cave as the cold air meets his flushed skin and even that, somehow, adds to the overwhelming flood of sensations from Wen Kexing’s hands alone.
“I’ll make you forget it all,” Wen Kexing promises as he drags those burning hands up to grip the sides of his neck, press his thumbs under his jaw to coax him into tipping his head back so he can kiss the bruises he’d left. “I’ll make you forget everything but me right here with you like this. Alright?”
“Alright,” Zhou Zishu breathes, at a loss for anything else to say. Why shouldn’t he agree? It’s impossible for him to forget it all but he’d like to try, and Wen Kexing has made so many impossible things happen already. Maybe this one is in his power as well.
He lets himself get lost in the way each kiss and caress feels brand new, and so quickly it could almost be embarrassing he feels his cock growing stiff again, his entire body reacting to each brush of fingertips or soft hair or lips against his skin like it’s the first time he’s ever felt such a thing. It’s the first time he’s ever properly felt Wen Kexing, at least, and he can’t help but think that that’s good enough; his first time feeling his zhiji’s touch the way it’s meant to be felt. If this is what he’s felt every time Zhou Zishu touches him then it’s no wonder Wen Kexing has so often begged and coaxed him to go just once more, to kiss for just a little longer, not to separate yet if they don’t have to. Not that Zhou Zishu hadn’t understood the desire to be close before, of course he has, but this really elevates things to a new height he had been incapable of even imagining.
Zhou Zishu sees stars the moment Wen Kexing leans in to take him into his mouth. He doesn’t come but it’s an extremely close thing, and there’s no stopping himself from whimpering and shifting restlessly as he tries to chase the pleasure Wen Kexing is offering him. He’s stopped by Wen Kexing’s wide hands heavy on his hips pressing him down into the bed and keeping him still so he can focus on working himself down the length of him painfully slowly. There have been times, usually in the afterglow of particularly good orgasms, when Wen Kexing has told him that if he could use all his best tricks then Zhou Zishu wouldn’t stand a chance against him, and Zhou Zishu has always scoffed, never believed such assertions could be anything but empty bragging. He should really know by now that Wen Kexing doesn’t brag without reason - if he says he can kill someone then he will. If he claims he can exact a fitting revenge against the world that wronged him, then he will. And now Zhou Zishu knows intimately that when Wen Kexing has said that he knows precisely how he wants to rip Zhou Zishu apart, he has meant every word.
He feels like he’s being slowly flayed apart, seen and known at every level of his being solely so that Wen Kexing can understand best how to destroy all of his defenses. Not that he should be surprised, of course - this is hardly the first time Zhou Zishu had thought he was fine only to suddenly find that his walls have been smashed to rubble and Wen Kexing is standing too close to him in the aftermath of it, smirking at him and leaning in to say something filthy in his ear to make him blush and snap at him even as he tries to pull him closer.
Zhou Zishu comes for the third time that night with his hands in Wen Kexing’s hair and his legs wrapped haphazardly around his ribcage, head thrown back and throat tight around a strangled moan that ends on something that sounds suspiciously like a sob.
Wen Kexing gives him absolutely no time to recover. He keeps his mouth on him until it turns genuinely unbearable and then he’s back, kissing him like he’ll die if he doesn’t taste every inch of his mouth at that very moment and slamming home inside of him between one breath and the next. Zhou Zishu doesn’t bother trying to restrain the pained noise that escapes him at the intrusion but Wen Kexing ignores it, instead just setting up a punishing rhythm that leaves Zhou Zishu no time at all to try to come down from his third orgasm before arousal builds in him again.
Wen Kexing is an absolute monster, and Zhou Zishu loves him so much it’s a physical ache in his chest. And there, at last, is the root of his anger. Wen Kexing makes him hurt so much, it’s only natural for him to want to protect himself from it, to put distance between them with frustration and bluster, to keep the unbearable ache of such consuming love from taking him over completely. It’s been necessary, until now, to maintain that distance even after they were in agreement that they were all either of them needs in this world. The fact then had been that Zhou Zishu was going to die and leave Wen Kexing behind to mourn him, a fact they had frequently done their best to ignore but at least Zhou Zishu had never managed it, and he was fairly sure Wen Kexing never had either. He’d spent so much time expressing concern for Zhou Zishu and his injuries, it stands to reason that he’d spent even more time thinking about them than talking about them, and any time the barest whisper of a possible cure had reached their ears Wen Kexing had always pounced on it like a street cat, vicious and single-minded as he’d dug in with his claws to drag out any information he possibly could.
Zhou Zishu’s fourth orgasm of the night leaves him feeling hollow and satisfied, finally, even as Wen Kexing spills inside of him, fills him up. As they share hot, too-heavy breaths in the aftermath, as Wen Kexing presses wet kisses to his lips and cheeks and jaw, as Wen Kexing settles his weight over him and slides a hand up into his hair to cradle him and hold him close, Zhou Zishu releases the anger that’s nothing but a smokescreen for the ache of loving too fiercely for his heart to contain it all.
“I love you,” he says into the intimate silence but for the rhythms of their living and breathing and the soft rustle of skin and cloth rubbing together as Wen Kexing readjusts his legs and attempts to get comfortable on top of him. “That’s what I’m angry about. I love you.”
“Reasonable,” Wen Kexing mumbles muzzily into his shoulder with a lazy kiss. “Will you elaborate or am I meant to just understand why loving me should make you so upset?”
“You expect me to believe that you don’t love me so much it somehow becomes other emotions as well just so your heart can contain it all?”
Wen Kexing is silent for a few long moments as their breathing slows in tandem, fingertips tracing slow, gentle circles around the ball of his shoulder as he turns his head a bit and shifts a few times until he’s settled even more comfortably.
“Ah..Perhaps I do understand, then,” he finally murmurs, and Zhou Zishu can hear a faint smile in his voice. “Is that what you’re seeking penance for? Loving me?”
“Maybe. Or maybe for everything else I’ve done before you. Maybe I have to pay for it to deserve being able to keep you until we get tired of this life and decide we’d like to end it.”
“Ah-Xu,” Wen Kexing tuts and he’s definitely smiling now. “You’ve said it yourself that if a man sets aside his weapons he’ll become good. I don’t believe you need to punish yourself like this. You don’t need to find a replacement for the pain of the Nails just because you’ve survived your torment.”
Zhou Zishu’s breath catches in his chest and he tips his head enough to try to look down at Wen Kexing. One of his eyes is visible at this angle and Zhou Zishu is unsurprised to find his gaze full of a quiet understanding.
“That’s...hm. Alright. I suppose it’s useless to argue that, I’m sure you already know exactly how to win against me.”
“Of course I do,” Wen Kexing replies with a tired chuckle. “But there’s also no point in arguing it simply because I’m right, and as I said before - what use is there in keeping score? Time and debts and the measure of good and evil are nothing to us anymore. We’ll do as much good as we can from here, and when we’re ready we’ll re-enter the world and continue to do good there until we die together. The past doesn’t concern us anymore.”
Zhou Zishu hums softly and finally finds the energy to raise one hand to begin combing his fingers through the snarled mess of Wen Kexing’s hair, keeping his touch light even when he encounters snags and knots. Wen Kexing melts into him as he works and when he starts breathing deeply, the rhythm regular, Zhou Zishu doesn’t bother resisting the desire to turn his head and press a long, slow kiss to his forehead. He lifts his free hand to curl his fingers around Wen Kexing’s wrist and, as has become a habit that’s as natural as breathing, he lets their energy circulate together, fitting himself easily into the familiar paths of his love’s qi and speeding up the healing process as much as he can, for both of their sakes, as the love of his life sleeps comfortably in his arms.
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merakiui · 4 years ago
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my mind is going at 51616112 mph today oh damn anyway I just had a thought (with a lot of plot holes but hear me out)
You know Victor, the fatui guy in Mondstadt who’s trying to recruit people? Yeah what if Albedo’s (or any character in Mondstadt really) darling snuck out and basically said that they’d gladly join the fatui but victor had to get them out of Mond before morning (assuming that it’s night and albedo is off at Dragonspine or in his lab). He’s got absolutely no reason to take them back to albedo because his loyalty is to the tsaritsa, in fact he seems to be extremely bored with Mondstadt so chances are he’d say yes just to see what would happen.
Also, since he’s not blinded by appreciation for Albedo, he’s probably noticed that something is up those times when the s/o is outside; they don’t seem happy at all, in fact quite disturbed. He’s been there for a while, so he’s probably witnessed their fighting spirit. The only thing that could be an issue would be the child, but the s/o can take care of themselves and depending on their state of mind they probably wouldn’t be against getting an abortion as soon as possible.
They could be out of Mond before dawn, and no one would realise until it’s too late to bring them back. As soon as they’re in the Fatui, or even just in Liyue for a short while, they’ve got free reign. Everyone is worried sick because someone pregnant just disappeareared overnight? And they’re suspicious of the fatui, but they can’t prove anything, especially because the s/o brought some of their own belongings, so it seems planned but why would they leave?
Also I’m a sucker for ‘betrayal’ plots. The s/o coming back maybe months or even years later, possibly a powerful member of the fatui (harbinger is a bit too much but at the same time it’s a fun idea), and meeting with Albedo and the people that used to be their friends; probably acting like an entirely new person, because being stuck with a yandere for so long while being baby trapped definitely gave them trauma, and going from that directly to the fatui? They’re definitely not the same they were, and they’re way more powerful as well. Maybe add that they’re with Childe or Scaramouche, either as work partners and friends or in a relationship (tho I can’t imagine the s/o would want that anymore) and it’s very obvious that they see each other as equals but still above everyone else. They’re powerful, and they know that Albedo can’t get to his precious darling anymore, ever.
Or I’m just extremely spiteful. Either way I hope this wasn’t trash bc I might just write something for it. I hope you have a nice day!!
This idea is so good, anon!! Regardless of plot holes, I think it works very well. It’s satisfying when the darling manages to escape the yandere and can go on to become self-sufficient and strong. Although they’ll still have the trauma and pain from it. 
It works very well in Albedo’s case because he’s at his lab in Dragonspine and perhaps his darling manages to escape only to run into the many Fatui that are at camps within Dragonspine. And the darling is begging them to let her join because this is the only way out. Or, as you wrote, she meets Victor and practically beg to be accepted into the Fatui. She’ll do anything at this point and that sort of desperation makes Victor curious. Whatever this darling had to endure must’ve been horrendous if she’s so willing to join the Fatui.
But if she’s pregnant, I think she would have to consider an abortion if it isn’t too late. Imagine the panic her yandere will feel when they realize their darling is gone. Maybe Diluc is worried that the Abyss Order took her or Albedo’s afraid she strayed too far on Dragonspine and is freezing to death in the cold. Or maybe it’s Venti who realizes he shouldn’t have gotten so drunk, thus giving his darling an opportunity to slip away. Whoever it is, they’re going to be worried sick because their darling is pregnant and it’s not safe for her to be wandering around dangerous areas. 
Imagine their surprise when she shows up some time later and is now part of the Fatui, no longer pregnant and seemingly much happier than before. Sure, the darling still bears the emotional and mental trauma of being kept against her will and being forced to go through with a pregnancy she didn’t want, but now she can fight for herself. She’s stronger now and won’t allow herself to go through something like that again. And all her yandere can think about is how they should have protected her better. They’re definitely mourning the loss of their child and darling, and perhaps some even plot to take her back. They’ll find a way to get her back at any cost, even if it’s more challenging than before.
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yikesola · 4 years ago
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Hiii!! I couldn’t resist and read all the spoilers you posted lmao 😂😂 thank you for posting them!!! But as you’ve finished the book- do you think there was a lot of juicy dan stuff in it? He kept saying there would be but I saw some perhaps questionable anons on some other accounts saying that it was all stuff we’d know already. What are your thoughts?
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So I’m bundling these just bc it’s easier lol hope this helps!
It’s not a memoir, he didn’t get into salacious deets— but it’s not a wellness brochure promising a little yoga and celery and deep breathing will magically cure you either. he was personable and chaotic :’)
There were definitely moments he bared his soul, but it wasn’t an exclusive tabloid scoop, if that makes sense. It wasn’t “you won’t believe who Dan’s been sending nudes to” and “this relative said a ~slur~🤭” and “top five youtubers dan will NEVER collab with again!”
And the therapies/exercises were semi-familiar to me but explained in such a helpful way that like ,, I might actually effectively use them. Like instead of my therapist saying “just pay attention to your body when it tenses” and me saying “..okay?”
I also can’t praise enough that I think it’s so appropriately paced for what is immediate concerns (coming down from a panic attack) to turning point concerns (exiting a depressive episode) to long term concerns (meds and lifestyle and non-linear healing)
He wasn’t lying about the number of Easter eggs which us in the know ,, will know akdjf but I also think the general public will find it so damn helpful for what it is
there was A Lot about financial insecurity, which we like /knew/ about his upbringing and student loans and moving to london broke, but it just really put into context for me that like ,, until tabinof they were living off ramen and still not making rent :( which idk I knew they moved as a risk but then I assumed working for the bbc paid Something! It gave really good context for their work work work anxiety ;__; and it stopped any like “poor little rich boy” the mean corners of my mind would’ve wanted to pull forth, in a similar way to when he’d mention “and I’m British so I know I’m privileged to have health care, and I’m a white guy so I’m given systematic advantages in that way, other people will have additional hurdles and that simply isn’t fair” which was always a nice reality check
there was a bit about the canceled Philippine ii show which we all at the time assumed was a customs issue, and it kinda was but it was even Bigger than we thought, like all the stage equipment was detailed and the crew and them were detained and they couldn’t talk about it publicly and dan went into problem solving mode while Phil and the crew panicked and he admits like ,, he could’ve just panicked with them. It was a very panic-worthy moment, there was nothing HE could do to solve the problem! :( like I don’t want to say the Asian phannies who traveled very far specifically for that show had no right to be upset by the last minute change, I’m saying dnp don’t do things flippantly or callously and this is a really large scale example of how some things are simply out of their hands
he talked about making online friends on guild wars and how hard that is to make those specific friends but he did what we all do: scream at people and hope they like us lol and some of them did, some were weird, some ghosted him, and he’s got some he talks to all the time and who love him and check up on him and it reminded me so much of how us dumb phannies are and I hope he understands he and Phil have given us that :’’)
There was a lot of anecdotes that like the examples above we ~knew~ about, but now there’s a clearer and more human picture 🥺 stuff about his dad and about his “gonna get out of this small town!” compartmentalization and about his many many visits w doctors and therapists til he found the right ones, and so much more. It wasn’t necessarily brand new stuff he was offering unless Dan is new to you — what he gave was “Daniel and Depression: Extended Edition” and “Basically I’m Gay: Extended Edition” woven between genuinely digestible mental health exercises and contextual validation. Which makes sense, this isn’t a book Just for us, it’s gotta be accessible to more than his core audience, and saying things like “juicy” and “tea” might be kind of just promo language depending on what you’re looking for when he says something like that. But :’) I found it really satisfying. And it’s okay if you don’t, but I hope you do or at least helpful/enjoyable/interesting on whatever level you end up engaging with the text
It was good ;__; It wasn’t the big tell-all memoir I’m counting on him releasing for free as a pdf in 45 years, sure, but it was still very intimate and personable and Very Dan between the techniques and terminology ✨
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unstable-sapphic-hoe · 4 years ago
Text
The Ultimatum
AN: I got a lot more free time on my hands since they gave us a month's worth of academic break a few weeks ago due to covid, bc we have to physically retrieve our modules from the school and there's been reports of people getting covid in our community. ALSO, we're getting on to the more exciting part of the story. *evil laugh* Also, I'd love to hear y'all's feedback on the story, I'd appreciate some constructive criticism. Also also, tell me if any of y'all wanna be added to the taglist <3
1,200+ words
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Chapter 4
Masterlist
Two months flew by swiftly. Kara’s nightmares were getting better each week and everyone has formed a bond with each other. They were happy. Diana was the soft, kind and slightly strict mother, Artemis was their other more mischievous and laid back mother. Life was doing great. Both of them even tried learning Kryptonese for them, which was going great. Kal and Y/N picked English up pretty fast too.
Another thing was Diana talking to Kara and Y/N about the possibility of going to school. Diana and Artemis knew that they could more than afford it if they decided to enroll them into private school, their savings going all the way back from when the first world war happened, which have accumulated due to well-placed investments.
Currently they were in the living room for family game night. It was Uno night. Kara was sat on the floor beside the coffee table with Y/N beside her, while Diana and Artemis were sitting away from each other on the couch, with Diana occasionally shooting glares at the redhead after a little mishap that involved Diana gaining 8 more cards, and Kal was on the couch between them, his eyes glued to the TV screen that was playing Little Einstein, clapping along whenever there was a song on. Right now it was currently Artemis’s turn, after a minute of debating, she placed down a blue reverse card, which made Diana groan, while Kara and Y/N giggled at their antics.
After a few minutes, an argument escalated between Diana, Artemis, and Kara on whether or not Artemis’s move was valid, with Diana and Kara being on the same side. None of them noticed Y/N grinning mischievously.
“Uno” they said, placing down their very last card.
Three heads swiveled around in their direction as they smirked proudly. They all looked at them, bewildered. The moment was broken by Kara laughing as she congratulated Y/N while ruffling up their hair, Diana lifted Y/N and spun them around, making the girl giggle, asking to be put down, and Artemis grinned at her, giving her a high-five. The night ended with pizzas and laughter.
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The next week, after dropping Kara off at an art class she wanted to take, (“It’ll help with my powers and keep me occupied”), They made their way to the park.
Y/N and Kal ran off, with Diana running after Y/N and Artemis after Kal. Diana was there to guide them through some of the obstacles like the zip line and the fireman pole. Diana enjoyed moments like these, where they were a family. She and Artemis have always wanted children, but it never seemed to be the right time. She was glad that they took the chance and basically adopted the three Kryptonians.
She was briefly distracted by a call from work. And Diana would have sworn down to her grave that she left Y/N for just one minute. But when she glanced back at them, they was standing face to face with a kid at least a head taller than them, while a little boy was on the ground behind them. Just as she was about to take a step towards her, the boy said something to them, and next thing Diana knew, Y/N threw a right hook right at the boy’s face, causing him to fall down.
Now, Diana wouldn’t have worried so much about them punching another kid in the face if they were human, not that she was condoning Y/N’s actions, but Y/N wasn’t human, they were Kryptonian. And with those came powers, specifically super strength. So you could imagine Diana’s horror and panic as she rushed over to Y/N.
“Y/N M/N PRINCE”
Y/N’s head whipped so fast towards Diana’s direction, their face reflecting panic, but not the same type as Diana’s.
“William” they heard another woman yell, coming near them. The woman fussed over the kid, William, as another woman came and picked up the boy Y/N was protecting. “Look at what your child did!” The woman exclaimed, showing them her son’s face that was already forming a bruise. Though Diana silently thanked the Gods that Y/N didn’t seem to use their super strength.
“Well your son’s being a jerk” Y/N said stubbornly with a stubborn little scowl on their face, “He pushed Mateo and was bullying him” she told the lady.
“You’re just a spoiled little brat, aren’t you?” the lady asked.
“And you’re a mean old lady who has a jerk as a son. What’s your point?” Y/N replied. Diana stood in shock, though she didn’t let it show in her face. Y/N’s been watching too much TV, and probably a little bit of Artemis’s bad influence. Gods knew that she had zero to no filter. At this point the lady was too furious to reply and realized she looked stupid arguing with a child, so she left with her son, fuming. Beside her she heard stifled laughter. She turned her head just in time to see Artemis high-fiving Y/N, a grin on her face. Diana just shook her head in exasperation, though she was betrayed by the small smile on her lips.
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“Yu-huh” Y/N said with an enthusiastic nod, recalling the events at the park. “And then the mean lady left. And Mateo and I became friends too”
“That’s great, Y/N/N. But remember, violence is never the answer.” Kara said.
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“Have you found a worthy champion for us?” a voice sounds from behind them says.
“We have” another voice confirms. They nod towards the modified gateway window they had, allowing them to see through it, finding a child standing over another child on the ground protectively.
“They are but a child” the voice replied back, bewildered. What could this child possibly do?
“Yes, but they will learn. They are worthy, I’ve seen it.” The other voice insisted. The window the allowed them to look at the child changed into another image. This time it displayed one where someone with y/h/c and bloodied armor stood, panting in exhaustion. A moment later she raised up her fist and let out a yell that was echoed by thousands of other voices.
“You of all people know that the future is never certain, my friend.” A sigh was heard from the voice.
“What else do we have? This is the best outcome we have foreseen so far. No one else came as close to success as they did.” The other voice insisted once more.
“How many possible outcomes are there if we choose them as our champion?”
“Three. One where they lead us to success, one where we fail, and one where they… join…them. The only thing left to do is to call for the Fates to change their path.”
The voice let out a big sigh, knowing there was nothing they could do now but help their champion to the best of their abilities.
“I will call upon the Fates”, the voice sighed once more before continuing, “Gather all those who you deem will help her on her journey. We must pray that the gods heed us”
The other voice looked at them with an amused expression.
The voice chuckled. “Even the Gods have their Gods, my friend.” Then took their leave.
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