#some of his decisions are decidedly odd

[iliiuan]

Robert Jordan: There are seven ages, seven ajahs, seven seals on The Dark One's prison...

Also Robert Jordan: Weeks have ten days

[bluemerakis]

┌── ˚*❀*̥˚ ─── ˚*̥❀*˚ ──┐

✐ᝰ bluemerakis

┗━━• ❃ ° •° ❀ °• ° ❃ •━━┛

❝ nothing left to lose ❞

⤷ Word count: 5.2k

It’s that time of the month (yippeee) and my hormones are all over the place. And then I found this gif and I just need this man to hold me this way because I feel like it could solve a world crisis. Thank you.

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WARNINGS:

Cussing, fluff, mentions of reader on her period, tame cutesie stuff

SYNOPSIS:

It had been another fairly quiet day as you lounged about the Sanctuary, your mood only dampened by the first day of your period. You were perfectly content to dwell in your bed and rot away for the remainder of the week, not so eager to do much else when the twisting and contracting of your stomach was so prominent, but those plans are set awry when Negan makes a stop at your room with his usual request for a good time.

When you enlighten him on your situation, he decides he’d like to stay regardless and indulge in your company, revealing a side to him you weren’t aware he had.

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It had been roughly a month since a group of saviours had scavenged you from your pathetic life of living off the woods. You’d been practically half-starved when the saviours had found you, a pitiful amalgamation of skin and bones that served no purpose other than to earn their ridicule. They’d have put you down and served you up as walker deterrent for their borders had it not been for one of the men recognising your face.

You’d been tracking the Sanctuary’s dealings for quite some time then, successfully managing to map out their routines and planning sparse trips to steal a few supplies from the pick up points. You’d had a few close calls, but even then you were like a goddamn shadow, in and out quicker than a blink. The men had never managed to catch you—up until that day, at least. The man had insisted you be dragged back to the Sanctuary, where Negan would hear of your actions and decide the best manner to make you atone for them.

Much to everybody’s surprise, though, he’d been oddly impressed with your skill—despite it being a massive leech on their supplies. His anger was more directed at the inability for his men to contain your posed threat, especially since you were no more than ‘a ghost of a woman’. You’d decided to ignore the implied misogyny in his words, instead focusing on the relief in his decision to spare your life—tied to the condition that you become his wife, of course. You’d reluctantly obliged, acutely aware of how the title would come to violate your own morals at some point, but he’d promised good treatment and up until now, he’d been nothing but true to his word.

The murmur of a light rain trailed through the crack of your partially opened window, infusing the atmosphere of your dim room with a further sense of serenity. You were curled up between the sheets of your bed, lounging on your aching stomach as you paged through your book of the week—a one thousand-paged hardcover on the tragedy of wars. It didn’t play into your usual tastes—it was far from it, actually, but there were so few options available that you couldn’t afford to be picky. It was amazing, really, what things you could convince yourself to indulge in when you were burdened with nothing but free time.

When you’d decidedly punished your stomach—and your mind—enough, you sluggishly rolled onto your side with a groan, flipping the book closed in the process. You didn’t think you could endure another mention of forced cannibalism, and you were only two hundred-odd pages into the historical hell. You doubted you’d find the strength to power through this pick, never having been much of a history fan to begin with.

Your back was turned on the book now, and there it stayed out of sight and out of mind as your eyes fluttered closed around a pressing series of cramps. You instinctively tucked into the foetal position, as though it would somehow lovingly cradle your stomach cramps and encourage it to ease off its painful hold. When the sensation didn’t budge, you opted for resting your eyes, allowing darkness to consume you as you fried to focus on the pattering of the rain against your window. In a way, nature had always been a mother, the rain her very own gentle lullaby that encouraged warmth and a long, peaceful sleep. You’d never get tired of that particular song.

A string of impatient knocks booted your door. You’d barely managed to open your eyes and give permission to enter before you heard the wood creek open, heavy footsteps striking the floor for only a few moments before silence re-emerged. Your head remained pressed against your pillow, your eyes squinting against the dim air as you managed to make out the tall figure of Simon. His arms were crossed against his chest as he glared at you motionlessly through the haze. You didn’t offer the courtesy of sitting up to greet him, which is as much as he’d offered by not waiting for your answer at the door.

“What?” You demanded, the echo of your voice damped by the downfall of rain.

“You know what,” Simon answered bluntly with that coarse annoyance edging his tone. “I don’t make a habit of visiting you for fun. If I’m here, it’s cause Negan’s in the mood for your goods.”

“God,” you groaned, finally lifting your head to properly glare at Simon. “Don’t ever say that again.” You settled for turning onto your back, your head upturned to face the white ceiling. There was a brief moment of silence before you sighed and said, “tell Negan that I’ll be unavailable for the next week.”

“Unavailable?” Simon echoed with a scoff. “You got some other plans we don’t know about?”

“Just my period, dipshit,” you responded thinly before lifting your hand in a shooing gesture. “Now scoot.”

Much to your dismay, Simon’s footsteps seemed to grow closer instead of further, and moments later his silhouette appeared at the foot of your bed. You felt a spark of annoyance at his insistence—the blood that quite literally poured from your insides left you little patience for social interactions.

“You think a little blood’s gonna deter Negan?” The man asked you, his tone mocking at the idea that you could be so stupid. “You’ve seen the guy, he can’t go a single day without that shit smeared all over him. Matters little to him how the blood is obtained—you know?”

You did. Murder and women, the two things Negan couldn’t absolutely ever have his fill of. But you also knew that you’d never been the one to frolic around while on your period, a fact that Negan would have to make peace with. Not only did you find it unappealing, but needlessly messy, too, and you’d rather not spend the aftermath of it all wringing your sheets out. No, your answer was final.

“You’re ruining my peace,” you told Simon pointedly, your eyes still studying the beams that reached between the walls of your room and upheld your pointed ceiling. When he didn’t seem to falter from his position, you sat yourself up with a huff, your fingers clutching your propped up knees. “Tell Negan that I politely decline his request—that is, if you have the balls to. Clearly you’ve got some reservations since you’re still loitering in my room after my many invitations for you to take your leave.”

Simon ignored your jest, running his hand across his hair to tame rogue strands. “He ain’t gon’ take nicely to your answer, sweetheart,” he said.

The pet name made your stomach curl beyond the cramps. “He’ll get over it when he gets on-top of the next wife.”

“Nah,” the man disagreed, rubbing a hand across his moustache. “You know he’s got some special obsession with you. You’ve been here for what—less than a month? Yet you’ve already left quite a mark on the boss-man.” He paused as his gaze lowered across you. “Can’t say I get the charm beyond your beckoning tits and ass.”

You glowered at his crudeness. “Gross, Simon. This is why you’re going to die alone, and the only hint of action you’ll ever experience is the caress of that explosion of bad taste stuck beneath your nose.”

Simon looked briefly offended by your dig at his stash, his jaw evidently clenched around his reckless temper, but he didn’t dare to unleash his fist or tongue. One of the few perks of being Negan’s wife was that you were awarded the opportunities to condescend his men time and time again, yet they were completely helpless in returning the sentiment—that is if they wanted to remain in goodwill at Negan’s side as opposed to being plastered along Lucille’s length.

“I’ll let Negan know,” was all that Simon offered before he departed your room, clearly eager to preserve what little dignity he had left. He made a point to slam the door behind him, which only made you chuckle.

Oh men and their fragile egos.

You could hardly believe they’d been made to rule the earth when their entire masculinity could so easily collapse at their rejected cock. You eased yourself back against the mattress, unable to help the faint smirk spread across your lips as your eyes fluttered closed once more. You were prepared for your second attempt at a nap, the rain growing progressively louder beyond a light drizzle. You remembered seeing the swath of grey clouds stretched across the horizon like an impending doom when you’d opened your windows this morning. It seemed that they’d finally arrived to deliver their promise of a heavy downpour.

It wasn’t long before the hum of the rain became distorted by your amassing fatigue, sleep arriving hastily to claim what remnants of your consciousness remained. You had surrendered all control, so eager to melt into the peaceful expanse of black where you could leave behind your mortal pain. You’d barely been gifted half an hour of that haven before Negan’s voice tethered you and withdrew you from the dark breaches of your mind, your eyes flickering open. You hadn’t even even heard him enter the bedroom.

“Holdin’ up there, sweetheart?”

The second greeting of his presence came at the menacing outline of Lucille, remarkably propped along his broad shoulder as he idled a few steps from the foot of your bed. You drew a clumsy palm across your tired eyes, attempting to chase away the drowsiness that clung heavily to your lids.

“Did something get lost in translation?” You managed to say, your voice slightly abraded by grogginess.

“Not the warm greeting a man expects to hear from his wife after a long and shit-filled day,” Negan said with a sultry gruffness, moving to take up a seat beside your torso.

The mattress dipped beside you, prompting you to turn your head and glance at him. “I’m sure one of the other girls can pick up my slack,” you suggested bluntly.

Your disinterest only seemed to earn that all-knowing smirk from Negan. “Goddammit, woman, you’ve got balls,” he remarked though that wide grin, his head slightly cocked to properly glimpse your face. He lowered Lucille from his shoulder, his hands propping onto the hilt as he planted the bat against the ground and leaned his weight onto it. “And that’s exactly why you’re my favourite wife. Hell, you even got me to walk the extra mile just to come and see you.”

“Not on purpose,” you sighed dejectedly, your eyes wandering along the glinting folds of his leather jacket. He did look good in that jacket—not that you’d ever milk his ego by admitting it. “If Simon truly had the nerve to refer my answer, you’d know that coming here was a waste of time. You’re going to have to fill your blood quota elsewhere.”

“Ah, come on,” he drawled, his gaze unrelenting through those darn hypnotising eyes of his. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but ain’t a good poking of the colons a great way to relieve some of the pain?” He asked pointedly. “In other words, you ought to let me fuck those asshole cramps right outta you. What’s a little blood, anyways?”

At that statement, you couldn’t help the flit of your eyes toward Lucille, the object always so menacing even when benched on the sidelines. You dragged your attention back to Negan’s expectant expression with a beleaguered sigh. “I don’t care what you get off on, Negan,” you told him. “Have your bloody fill of it anywhere else, but not here. I said no, and I meant it.”

You half expected him to further knead at the angle he was currently working, eventually wearing you down to a state that could almost be called consent—what more could you expect from a sadistic, murderous fanatic? A sudden cramp displaced that particular trail of thought, causing you to discreetly tense your lower half, inside of your lip taken into bite as an instinctual coping mechanism.

Negan’s head tilted back slightly with a trace of a chuckle, his tongue then poking through to glide along his lower lip as he gazed at you through narrowly thoughtful eyes. “All right,” he relented—much to your surprise. Had somebody knocked Negan out cold on the way here and taken his place? “If you’re going to deny my very eager balls a pleasurable time, the least you can do is entertain me with a conversation.”

You challenged the weight of his stare—ever so flirtatious regardless of the circumstances. “You’ve literally enslaved an entire selection of women,” you pointed out crassly. “Go bother one of them instead.”

“Enslaved?” He repeated, his eyebrows perched on a look of incredulity. “I didn’t enslave any one of those women. I’m a fair man—I believe in free will and I always honour my word. I weigh the options, I offer a choice—” he lifted one hand to gesture to himself, “—and they made their choice.”

“After you coerced them,” you said around a thick yawn, blinking away the moisture along your eyes as you focused your growing alertness on him. You sat yourself up with a muffled grunt, ignoring the sharp pains that struck your stomach with the movements. “You’re not a democrat. You’re just a bully with an unhealthy attachment to a bat. It’s like Negan’s version of Bonnie and Clyde.”

Negan fixated you with a long look, his expression ever so unrelenting on what thoughts were passing through that tainted mind of his. “You’ve got an awful lotta spunk for somebody actin’ like she’s on her deathbed,” he deflected, a short moment of silence following shortly after. “What about you—girl who knows what she wants and doesn’t take shit from the next gapin’ asshole?”

“What about me?”

“Did I coerce you, too?” He inquired huskily, his eyes narrowing in an almost dare for you to answer honestly.

You hadn’t ever needed much convincing to speak your mind. “Absolutely,” you answered simply, then paused before adding, “have you honestly managed to convince yourself that either one of your wives want to be here?” Your head was slightly tilted out of sheer curiosity, amazed at how painfully naive he appeared to be—for once.

Negan’s lips were spread thin with a smirk, parting as he said, “I appreciate your honesty. Although I’d be lying if I said I ain’t a tad bit hurt.”

A severe cramp seized your stomach, causing you to throw your face into your pillow. “Oh, you don’t know hurt, Negan,” you groaned. “If you truly had the capacity to feel, please be so kind as to spare me your company so that I can rot away in peace.”

He straightened up from the Lucille’s prop, his expression becoming inquisitive. “All right, I’ll leave,” he eased off, attention dropping to his lap, where he carefully rested the bat and stroked suggestively at her barbwire-infused wooden length. “And I guess I’ll be takin’ these with me,” he added, one hand dipping into his leather jacket to pull out a small, plastic cylinder labelled ibuprofen.

Your eyes practically bulged at the offering. Pain medication was strictly reserved for post-surgical cases and the physically wounded—those marred by gunshot wounds, blades, or even brute fists—you name it. That was Negan’s self-imposed rule. In this dying world, pain medication certainly wasn’t a medical luxury extended to lesser problems like a woman’s period pains—despite the entire gender technically being a victim of the repeated assault of severe period cramps. For at least a week of every month. For at least five decades of their lives.

“The fuck?” You murmured, hand reaching for the medication as though needing to feel it’s physical form to believe it’s existence.

Negan plucked it out of reach with a shit-eating grin. “You want it?” He taunted, propping his elbow onto his knee as he rattled the container between his fingers.

Your hand hesitated mid-air, expression becoming bleary as you hesitantly asked, “what’s it gonna cost me?”

“Question of the century,” he answered vaguely, intense stare beating down on you. He looked almost scheming, and that wasn’t a strange mask to wear—not for Negan Smith. But for once, his actions surprised you in a way that wasn’t coupled by repulsion. “Y’know, you’re a pain in my ass, ‘cause I can’t help but have a soft spot for girls like you—all feisty and opinionated and sure as hell ready to give my big balls a real good talking to.” The hand which clutched the medication gravitated toward you, offering it up without the tether of debt. “On the house, since I’m the boss man around here callin’ all the big, bloody shots.”

Your eyes narrowed cautiously, your hand slowly reaching to acquire your personal saving grace. You half expected Negan to yank it away as a feat of ridicule, but his hand remained steadfast, his expression eerily intense as he overlooked your internal war with a light undertone of amusement quirking the corner of his lips.

“Ya want it, or not?”

You took it from his grasp, bringing it closer to examine the legitimacy of the label. “I’m the only thorn in your foot because everybody else is scared of you,” you said distractedly, eyes then flickering from the medication to meet his idling stare.

Negan adjusted his torso to appear taller, Lucille slipping between his thighs to prod the floor under his guiding grip. “But not you,” he reaffirmed.

“I used to be.”

“Yeah?” He husked, eyes narrowed interestedly, tongue momentarily poking through his grin—as it so often did. “The hell’s changed? Real world toughen you up? Ya got a pair o’ steel down there now?”

You brushed aside his snark. “Nothing’s changed, really,” you admitted, attention drifting as you popped open the lid of the container. “But I’ve got nothing left to lose, and the worst you could do is make jam out of my brains.” You dispensed a tablet into your palm, then clicked the lid closed. “But you won’t,” you stated, meeting his gaze boldly.

Negan’s head tilted with a far too entertained air. “Why’s that?”

“Same reason you’re here. I’m your favourite wife, apparently—and what’s a man like you to do without his wife? You might just implode without a place to stick it,” you jabbed. “I’m always the one you come running to with all your shit—god knows why.”

“I gotta say, that’s mighty cocky of you,” he drawled through a grin, hand moving to whisk across his bearded jaw. “And that’s comin’ from me.”

You offered him the ibuprofen, a ghost of a cheeky-lipped grin setting in. “Force of habit when I’m obliged to be at your side every other hour of the day. Honestly, you only have yourself to blame.”

His grin widened, eyes leering you over before dipping to the container you re-offered him. “Nah,” he murmured. “Keep it. And not a word ‘bout it—I ain’t got time for ants up my ass when the other gals get wind of the shit I ain’t doin’ for them.”

“That supposed to make me feel special?” You jested. “Or just a threat?”

Negan’s lip hitched with a smirk—silent ambiguity, and reached a hand into his pocket to procure a fresh orange, bottled water and a packet of chips—your favourite chips. “That shit’ll put ya in a grave on an empty stomach,” he averted, chin jutting to the pill in your palm. He leaned over to place the snacks on the bedside table, offering you a sidelong glance. “I know your panties get all hot for this stale sack of shit,” he said, beckoning to your chips, then added, “and the orange will keep up that energy of yours—y’know, boost the spirit and fuel that friskiness o’ yours.”

You scowled indignantly as he took a swipe at your taste in chips. “Those aren’t my favourite chips,” you lied defensively, moving to place the pill beside your newly acquired snacks. “It’s practically the only brand that’s left in the midst of this dying world—so none of us can afford to be picky, can we?”

Honestly, you’d have to admit it to yourself that the chips being spared even in the midst of the apocalypse didn’t bode well for your case, but why go down without a meaningless fight?

Negan chuckled all-knowingly, settling Lucille onto the ground before he leaned his elbow onto the mattress beside you and brought his lips into the proximity of your face. “Tasteless or not, I’m willin’ to bet my dick that you’ll be back asking for more,” he murmured, hazel eyes glazed with that bedroom sex-haze as he delicately searched between your eyes.

Your attention flickered between him and the flashy, grit teeth poking through the lips you’d tasted countless times, his words so open-ended for interpretation—because Negan Smith loved playing games. “Are we still talking about the chips?” You asked softly, eyebrow hitched expectantly.

“We can talk about whatever you goddamn want,” he grumbled huskily, lips making an advance for yours, but you brought your hand up to press an index finger into the divot of his chin.

“I told you,” you began, “not happening—not today. So, off you scamper to the next wife for a good tickle.”

“Cut that crap,” Negan chided levelly, then reached for your hand and pried it from his chin. “The others can wait, let’s just get you up and runnin’ because it’s been a goddamn buzzkill on my dick.”

“Oh, how terrible for you,” you sniped, brows furrowing at his nerve.

He seized your hand in a tight grip to place a kiss to your knuckles, his eyes narrowed around an intense gaze as he maintained eye contact throughout the gesture. You fought the urge to yank your hand free out of spite. Once his lips retracted from your skin, he tucked your hand between your bodies as he leant down to place a kiss on your forehead instead. It was a rather gentle touch—the most intimate one he’s ever bestowed on you, but it didn’t linger long before he pulled back and released your hand.

“Jesus, burnin’ up all for me?” He remarked, pressing the backside of his fingers to your forehead before they caressed the expanse and moved to push back the loose strands of hair that cascaded around your view. “You’re hot as shit.”

“I am, thank you,” you said suggestively, adding more earnestly, “it happens sometimes—I think my body is literally trying to kill me.”

He pulled back his hand from your hair, finger trailing down the angle of your jaw before he withdrew his touch entirely. “Yeah, well, you’re tough as nails, so tell the biological bitch to dial it down a notch.”

“Duly noted,” you murmured, reaching for the orange atop the bedside stand, your attention deliberately downturned to the fruit in clutch as you began to peel it while simultaneously reflecting on the situation presented before you.

You were thankful for the medication, but it felt odd to hold a sense of gratitude for a man like Negan, and you had not the slightest idea on how to handle the foreign phenomenon. Even a month ago, when he’d quite literally plucked you from death’s claws, there was no gratitude to behold—his motives in sparing you had always been selfish. But this instance? This was an action you thought beyond his emotional capacity. You’d thought his better conscious had been so far lost to a history of bad and reckless decisions that there was not a slither of DNA left still capable of holding regard for others—but this action alone prompted you to reconsider that notion. After all, he owed you nothing, and you owed him everything, yet it was him that had come to settle.

A manipulative tactic? Possibly. You weren’t all that naive to allow this instance alone to so easily sway your opinion on him. He was still of questionable character—and that moral debate could ricochet for an endless amount of hours. You spared yourself the turmoil and brought yourself to it, lifting your head to meet his stare once more. He’d been watching you enigmatically, without his usual running commentary to fill the void—it felt uncomfortable to have a silence so long settle between the two of you.

You decided to settle for a simple, “thanks, by the way,” as you set aside the discarded orange peels and began to thumb at the centre to separate the slices. “For the medication,” you clarified, popping a slice into your mouth. The first bite was an explosion of sultry sweetness, a true pleasure to behold.

Negan gave somewhat of an accomplished smirk. “I got ya,” he answered, his gaze lingering incoherently on you before he blinked away the haze and straightened himself from the bed with a grunt. “Take a hot bath—” he suggested, hoisting up Lucille from her position on the ground, “—hopefully that Lady Uterus o’ yours will let loose for a bit.”

He strung the bat across his shoulder—the rightful queen atop her throne, and turned to begin his amble toward the door.

“Are you going to draw it for me?” You asked him hopefully, which made him halt and partially turn his torso to face you.

He gave a half-hearted chuckle. “What’re you, ten?” He jested.

“If only,” you retorted wistfully. “The only stomach ache ten year old me ever got was because of one too many bags of chips.” You caught yourself at the mention of chips, then felt the need to clarify, “the good kind, not these ones.”

Negan lips spread with amusement. “What a goddamn time to be alive,” he stated.

“I’ll say,” you murmured, then turned your attention back to your diminishing orange. “Anyway, if you’re done bothering me now, I’ll draw that bath.”

“Damn, I stick my neck out for you and I don’t even get to stay for the show?”

“You’re always getting a show,” you retorted. “Let a girl have some alone time, for once. Besides, there’s no such thing as you sticking your neck out, seeing as you’re the one usually holding the guillotine.”

Negan chuckled, his eyes holding a mischievous glint. “Touché,” was all he offered. “I’ll draw you that bath.”

You perked with surprise, the last orange slice popped between your lips. “Only enough water for one,” you mumbled around the sweet, stringy flesh, brows lifted with implication. “Just in case you were getting any ideas.”

“Oh, I got ideas,” he hummed, scheming grin on his lips. “The meds I got ya? On the house. This? This’ll cost ya a little something. And once you’re feeling right as rain, I’ll come and collect.”

You gave a slight flicker of your eyes. “Okay, tax man,” you said, reaching for the bottled water and pill. “Whatever Negan wants.”

“Atta girl,” he praised, hand raised to point an index finger in your direction. “Now you’re startin’ to sound like a commendable wife—almost enough to make good ol’ Lucille here jealous.”

“Leave your weird bat out of this,” you said before splitting open the seam of the sealed bottle and taking an eager swig at the liquid. You popped the pill into your mouth shortly after and gave a hard swallow, your expression furrowing in disgust when it momentarily lodged itself against your tongue with the kiss of a bitter tang. After another gulp of water, it slid down uninterrupted.

“Somebody’s parched,” Negan remarked. “Never seen you take my seed that eagerly.”

You gave him a hearty middle finger, to which he scoffed amusedly and disappeared a short distance into your offside en-suite. “How hot?” He called back to you. “Three quarters to the hottest?”

“Sounds right,” you called back to him. “And add the bath oils, too!”

“Useless shit.”

“Let a girl indulge, for fuck’s sake,” you muttered, settling against the mattress while you listened to the sound of the drawing bath. You noted the calm of the weather beyond the window, where a barely perceptible drizzle thrummed down gently.

It wasn’t long before Negan reappeared at your side, Lucille carefully discarded onto the foot of the bed before he inched his way onto the mattress and you felt his frame curl around your backside. Heat radiated from his body and flushed your back with a sense of comfort, his lips then finding the nape of your neck. He pressed a kiss there, his hand gently curling around your abdomen, as though he knew to take precaution around your sensitive area.

You shifted your neck away from his teasing lips, casting him a glance over your shoulder. “Why are you doing this?” You felt compelled to ask—this tender facade of his was disconcerting.

Negan’s held your stare levelly. “You’re my wife,” he stated simply. “A real man takes care of his wife.”

“Yeah, but that’s not real,” you said. “None of this is real—it’s all a made up, a twisted way for you to pass time. Us wives? We’re nothing but entertainment to you—so why all this effort?”

There was a brief pause from his side before he answered you with a sense of solemnity that you’d never truly seen him possess. “I said I’d take care of you, didn’t I?” He asked. “Hell, I know what desperation feels like. She’s a stone cold bitch, and you were nothin’ more than a husk of a person when we picked you up in those woods. You’re a fighter—death ain’t got a fuckin’ lead on you. I mean, shit, that deserves some respect—and I give that only where it’s due. So, call it respect, call it whatever you’d like, but just take the goddamn win, won’t ya?”

You listened intently, an emotion of something other than annoyance settling within your chest at his somewhat glorified image of you. For the first time ever, you didn’t know how to respond. It was easy to strike back when most of the conversation shared between the two of you was shallow, bitter banter, but as of this moment, this situation-ship was starting to feel as though the foundation was being built on something other than debt, and that thought was daunting.

“Bath should be drawn by now,” you said eventually, settling your head back into the pillow, glad to displace the view of Negan’s face.

The hand at your abdomen slid away as he lifted himself up with a grunt of effort. “Then you best go and dip your toes,” he said.

You took a moment to heave a breath before rolling over and sitting yourself up from the bed, to which Negan stepped a pace back to allow you the room to stand up. You straightened from the mattress that had held you captive for the entirety of the morning, offering Negan a long stare, who returned it with a grin that felt as though your thoughts were transparent to him.

You shouldn’t, but you wanted to. Fuck it, you would—you’d said it yourself, nothing left to lose, right? You brushed past him and hoisted a beckoning hand over your shoulder, followed by a sparse, cheeky glance.

“Come with me,” you told him.

“I like the sound of that,” Negan chuckled, trailing after you with a confident charisma. “Looks like I’m gettin’ that show after all.”

“Shut up about it.”

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Tags: @bohemianblasphemy @violent-darkness @gibson-g1rl

[jelzorz]

160.

inspired by a single line from @raayllum's the purpose of a knight

It's only a cold, claims Opeli. Nothing she can't handle, nothing she hasn't worked through in the past, and to her credit, she had looked mostly fine. Soren will give her that much. He'd only noticed to begin with because he's grown so used to her. Callum and Ezran and Rayla don't--they're their own little trio, caught up too often in each other's dramas and emotions that they forget, sometimes, to take in the drama around them. In any case, it's not like Opeli has made it easy: she's been very good at making everything around them look and feel fine, and, for some reason, is insistent that this is her job and her job alone. She doesn't take breaks, and she's obviously doing too much, and she refuses help too often, so of course this was going to happen, and well.

This is how Soren finds himself tending to her in her chambers while she fights off a fever that has her shivering in the summer heat.

"I don't think this is a cold, Opeli."

She grimaces and has the grace not to deny it. "I think you may be right," she grumbles. The way she pouts about it would be funny if she weren't huddled sadly under her sheets. "My apologies."

Soren raises an eyebrow at her. "For being wrong?"

"For being sick," she corrects. She shifts guiltily under the covers and accepts the cup of tea that he hands her--lemon, honey, and a little ginger for her sinuses, cooked up specifically for her by Barius who's been all but pestering her to just sit down for weeks. "I've left you all in a lurch, and there's so much to do."

Soren makes a face at her. "Are you being serious right now?"

She makes one back. "I'm certainly not joking," she grumbles, although whatever indignance she meant is lost when she sneezes and almost spills her tea. "Ugh, excuse me. What poor timing, I'm so sorry."

Soren presses his lips together, borderline offended that she thinks anyone would care about the work more than her health. "Stop that," he scolds. "Sources, Opeli, no one blames you for being sick. You work harder than anyone else in the castle, it's amazing you're not sick more often!"

She smirks weakly over her tea and sits up a little straighter, wincing the whole way. "Just unlucky this year, I suppose. Regardless, I'll be fine. Let Ezran know I'll be back tomorrow. I just need the day."

"Um. No." Soren crosses his arms over his chest and frowns, which is an odd and kind of funny role reversal: usually she is the one being disapproving of his shenanigans. "You're going to stay in bed until your fever breaks, and then you're going to take the rest of the week off to rest."

Opeli gives him a look. "Are you a physician now?"

"I'm Ezran's Crownguard, and my duty is to the Crown."

She snorts at him. "I am decidedly not the Crown, Soren."

"No, but Ezran is, and if you make him sick with whatever the hell you've got, I'll have you kicked off the council."

There's a pause. Opeli makes a face so shocked and so scandalized that Soren has to bite back the laugh rising in his throat. He smirks at her, victorious, and waits, daring her to argue against the health and safety of her King.

"I won't let you harm the Crown, Opeli," he lilts, enjoying her frustration maybe a little too much.

"I would never," snaps Opeli.

"Then rest," says Soren, uncrossing his arms to push her back into bed by the shoulders. "Please. I am begging you to just--let yourself recover, and if you're going to refuse to do it for yourself, then do it for Ez. I'm not above accusing of treason if you don't. I mean it."

"But--"

"I mean it." (He doesn't, and she knows this, but the point still stands).

Opeli scowls and slurps at her tea, frustrated but defeated all the same. "Does it have to be the whole week?"

"It has to be the whole week," says Soren decisively. "I'll come and check on you personally and bring you your tea and stuff just to make sure. You and Zubeia, Moon and Stars..." He shakes his head. "Just, like." He huffs. "You work too hard. You gotta let us look after you too. Okay?"

He expects her to be furious about it. He half expects her to get out of bed and accuse him of treason or something--but in the end, Opeli ducks her head over her tea and sighs.

"Fine," she mutters. "One week."

"One week." Soren tilts his lips upwards at last and pats her shoulder for good measure. "I'll check back in in a bit, yeah?"

"Okay." Opeli grumbles a little bit more over her tea, but she doesn't protest, and when Soren turns to go, she sighs. "Thank you," she says, resigned. "I appreciate the effort."

Soren grins. "Any time," he says. (He does mean that, and he knows she knows it).

[lemonluvgirl]

The Designation Games (Part 3)

She closed the door to her rooms with enough force that it would have been a slam if she hadn’t refrained just the slightest bit. 

Sweat slicked her skin under her clothes, from the nape of her neck to the backs of her thighs. And there was a decidedly different type of wetness pooling in her underwear. 

Her head was spinning. 

Panic, confusion, and something akin to longing was all bubbling underneath her skin, clawing at each other for dominance. 

The roar of her wildly conflicting thoughts was almost deafening. She struggled to ground herself in something concrete, and real. 

All she had were three unwanted truths. 

She was an Omega. 

She was going into the Designation Games in a little under a week. 

She would face 12 unmated Alphas in the training room tomorrow morning. 

When she was reminded of facing the other tributes the next day, something inside her strengthened to steely resolve. 

She shut Peeta and what had happened on the rooftop out of her immediate thoughts. The Omega inside her whined at the decision, but Katniss beat back her desperate whisperings of “Alpha, Alpha, go to Alpha and let him…” until she was nothing more than background noise again. 

Haymitch had been right. 

Her Omega was untrustworthy, and Katniss wasn’t about to roll over for anyone simply because her biology tried to trick her into it. She needed to keep her head on straight and her wits about her. It was just a strategy, a mutually beneficial one that they were both using to better their odds. 

She was not his Omega. And he was not her Alpha. 

She was stronger than that. She would be stronger than that. 

.

.

.

.

Breakfast was an awkward and stilted affair. Katniss arrived late and tried to focus mainly on the food and not the way the gland on her neck throbbed when she first glimpsed her District partner sitting at the breakfast table. He was sipping a warm brown-looking something that steamed lightly from a cup in front of him while Effie blathered on about the different kinds of specialty chefs the Tribute Center employed. 

She dodged his gaze when he tried to catch her eye. Instead, she basked in the yummy scents wafting around the table. There were fruits and loaves of bread along with meats and eggs. But the smell that called to her most was the one that she detected curling in the steam above Peeta’s drink. 

It wasn’t coffee. Or the same tea from last night. Her heightened sense of smell told her that much. 

It was something that smelled sugary and rich and—

She couldn’t resist turning her head as he broke off a corner of his bread roll and dunked it in his cup, tapped it gently on the rim to rid it of excess drops of moisture, and then brought it to his lips for a bite. 

“They call it hot chocolate. It’s good.” He told her after he had swallowed. She fought a blush at being caught looking at him. But he didn’t respond with a smirk or a conspiratory look as she would have guessed. He simply reached out to grab an empty cup to pour some of the sweet, and creamy smelling liquid into it. 

He gently placed it in front of her, leaning across the table slightly, and then retreated to his seat with a nervous-looking expression. 

She wanted to refuse. She should refuse. Especially since the Omega voice whispered from the back of her mind about Alphas and gifts and attention. 

 But the cup smelled so wonderful. 

The first sip was hot and almost too saccharine, even so, she couldn’t help but take another. Though the piles of eggs and bacon and other breakfast delicacies beckoned, they sat ignored until her cup was drained. 

Peeta moved to refill her cup before she could reach for it herself. She blinked in confusion at the gesture, but then he pushed the little basket of rolls that would have kept the smaller children in the community home fed for almost a week toward her. 

“The bread helps cut the sweetness.” He told her, softly. 

She looked up at his eyes and immediately looked back down at her plate. She clenched her jaw at the way the Omega inside her was preening and prattling on about good Alphas providing and such nonsense. 

She made herself take three bites of her eggs and two of bacon before she took another sip of the hot chocolate. 

Then, after she was sure he wasn’t watching anymore, she reached out and tentatively took a roll. She broke off a corner and dunked it into her cup. 

She frowned after she tried to stifle a contented sigh as the bite slid down her throat. 

He was right, about the bread and the chocolate. 

.

.

.

.

Haymitch dragged himself to breakfast even later than she had. Her plate was almost empty and she was mainly just sipping on her second cup of hot chocolate by the time he decided to grace everyone with his presence. 

He poured himself a cup of black coffee and grabbed a muffin from the small tower of baked goods at the end of the table and promptly sat down.

That concerned look from last night was lingering in the tightness of his eyes and the lines of his mouth that threatened to pull into a frown as he regarded his tributes. He was dressed in a suit, much like the one he had worn for their entry into the Capitol. 

“We need to discuss what to expect today,” Haymitch said after he spiked his coffee with a moderate pour from his breast-pocket flask. 

Katniss saw Peeta sit up a bit straighter from the corner of her eye. 

“You’ll spend the first half of the day in training, and the second half meeting your stylists. By now your genetic testing will have come back and your stylists will have a better understanding of those traits that they want to show off to potential sponsors.” 

“Traits?” Katniss asked. 

“Your genetic profile will have several measurable markers for overall health, strength, intelligence, and…virility,” Haymitch replied. 

Effie let out a scandalized gasp. 

“That is not a proper topic for breakfast discussion!” She admonished their mentor in a harsh tone. 

Haymitch simply rolled his eyes at her. 

“If your gonna clutch your pearls and faint go do it somewhere else.” He bit back. 

“They are children Haymitch!” Effie protested. 

“They’re competitors! In a very adult Game that is set to take place in less than a week. They need to what they’re going to be judged on.” Haymitch retorted.

At this, Effie fell uncharacteristically silent. 

While Katniss felt privately grateful for Effie’s well-intended, if not well-placed concerns, she knew Haymitch was correct.  

No matter how much she hated having this conversation she knew nothing was sacred in the Games when the cameras were rolling. They captured Alphas and Omegas courting and coupling with the same unabashed scrutiny as they did the gory violence and death. 

Effie got up and stomped out of the room in offense, but Haymitch turned and focused his attention solely on the two of them. 

“You only need to worry about your training session right now. Effie will escort you down to the training room, but the two of you will walk in by yourselves. This is where your teamwork comes in handy. You play up the friends' angle. Stick together, and don’t let anyone catch your partner alone or unaware. Katniss, the Alphas will most likely make a few demonstrations to get the attention of the Omegas. Don’t pay them any mind. Peeta, the other Alphas will probably try to draw you into a competition or confrontation of some sort. They’ll feel you both out and push your buttons to see what you might react to. Ignore them as much as you can but don’t turn your back on them or approach any of the other Omegas aside from Katniss no matter how good they smell—” 

“That won’t be a problem,” Peeta interjected and Haymitch shot him a glare. 

“Their scents will be concentrated along with the scent of the aggressive other Alphas. Your instinct will be to square off against them, to protect the Omegas that are frightened, but you need to avoid getting into a fight at all costs. The penalties for fighting before the Games begin are steep. So no matter what they say, don’t react.” Haymitch said, eyeing first Peeta, and then Katniss. 

“What if someone picks a fight with us first?” Katniss asked. 

“Walk away and let the attendants take care of it. They’ll be a lot of them, ready to break up fights and stun anyone causing trouble. All you need to do is go to a few stations and learn some skills. Which plants are ok to eat? How to tie some knots. Don’t attract too much attention but don’t cower in a corner either. You want to shoot for the middle of the pack, easy to forget but not entirely dismissible. The only time you’ll want to show off will be during your interviews, and your private sessions with the Gamemakers.” Haymitch told them. 

Peeta nodded and Katniss let out a short sound of acknowledgment. The three of them stood up. 

“And on that note, it's time for you to scent the boy, sweetheart,” Haymitch said turning to Katniss whose eyes went round with realization. 

“Quid pro quo and all,” Haymitch added before snatching a glass of orange juice off the table and pulling a different flask out of his back pocket. He poured the contents of it into the juice and offered Katniss the glass first. 

“You drink half and give the rest to the boy.” He instructed gruffly. 

Katniss stared at the glass. 

“Time’s a-wastin’ and we got places to be, so bottom’s up, girl,” Haymitch ordered in a more authoritative tone that scent a zip of energy down every inch of her spine. 

She looked at him and growled, low and warningly, right in time Peeta’s deeper baritone joined her in what was more like a soft roar. 

Haymitch blinked at them both, confounded. 

“What the hell?” Haymitch demanded after he recovered.

 Katniss snapped out of it, at the sound of his bewildered voice. She angrily downed half the glass of juice and then turned to Peeta. 

She hastily pulled him down by his collar and sealed her mouth over the gland on the side of his neck. 

She gave it three purposeful licks, just to make sure. 

She ignored the way his eyes widened, and his pupils seemed to swallow up his irises. 

She ignored the way he panted shallowly when she sucked just a tiny bit. And the sound he made deep in his throat. 

Ignored the way that sound floated out between his gritted teeth and lodged itself in her chest, curling around her ribs and nestling itself somewhere profound. 

Ignored the way her Omega crooned and chirped happily, basking in contentment. 

Ignored the way her own body responded. 

The way his taste saturated her tastebuds and clung to the roof of her mouth. 

The way her heart pounded uncertainly in her chest, in terror or…..

She walked away from her mentor and her tribute partner and headed for the elevators, willing herself to keep it together and make it through the morning. 

At the very least. 

.

.

.

[hintsoftheredlightdistrict]

spoilers for the newest scanlated ToG chapter under the cut

if im understanding the most recent ToG chapter correctly, at the time of the flashback the 10GF and Jahad had already sealed their own memories once? the incident that Gustang is learning about from the book Bam absorbed is, I assume, roughly analogous to the current flashback - although interestingly the current flashback lacks a single focal character; much of the recent chapters centers around Traumerei and Enkidu but a variety of things have happened throughout the recent chapters that aren't known to either of them. these don't seem to be Gustang's memories either.

It's almost more like the collective memories of the major figures from that time were sealed. However, there may be a different explanation. The book is not the only source of 10GF memories in Bam - he also has the Leviathan that Traumerei sealed his memories inside. a lot of people, myself included, have been asking why Bam needed the Leviathan powerup at this point in the story. I think this might be why.

The power of the Leviathan hasn't been particularly well defined, which might be because the powerup is a complete red herring, and the main reason SIU had Bam absorb the Leviathan was to justify the commingling of Traumerei's memories with Gustang's

Gustang went into this in search of his own memories, but he got Traumerei's as well. This might change Gustang's agenda going forward pretty significantly, compared to what it would have been if he just recovered his own memories.

To return to my initial confusion, it seems that the 10GF already had their memories of a particular incident sealed some time before the events we are currently seeing. My interpretation of the timeline is something like this:

10GF and their companions ascend to 134th floor. Something happens here, 10GF choose to seal their memories about it and stop climbing. Jahad may or may not also have his memories sealed at this time.

Various parties dissatisfied with the decision make moves against, or at least in defiance of, Jahad and 10GF.

This dovetails with Enkidu's inferiority complex and Traumerei's incel awakening, leading to some kind of major disaster probably involving the deaths of Traumerei's fiancee and one or more other important figures.

10GF choose to have their memories sealed, imprison Enkidu, and vow to no longer concern themselves with Regulars. Once again, Jahad may or may not also have his memories sealed at this time.

The thing that sticks in my craw abt this timeline a little bit is the emphasis on Enkidu's feelings of inferiority and the way the 10GF and their travel companions already seem to put their connections to each other above their more recent relationships. It doesn't explicitly contradict the prev narrative of the event with Enkidu causing the 10GF to distance themselves from the Regulars but it does seem like there is already a kind of explicit rule the 10GF follow governing their relationship to the Regulars.

Maybe this is the case, and what we are seeing is the sequence of events that led to the rule being changed. If true, this is interesting in itself. It seems to imply that the Great Warriors and their travel companions had some kind of internal code of conduct prior to Jahad declaring himself King of the Tower. If this is true, it could be that all of the anti-Jahad movements we're seeing up to the present from FUG and the "revolution" have their roots in an early schism of this group.

It's been very odd to me how easily the revolution has been able to identify and exploit the internal politics of both the Po Bidau and Lo Po Bia families. I had previously chalked it up to the sort of prognostic ability displayed by Guides, Khel Hellam and others - abilities we can be fairly confident that the Captain/Boss has been utilizing since the time of Genesis.

But if FUG and the revolution are led by old traveling companions of the Great Warriors, we have a decidedly less magical explanation for how effectively they're manipulating everything right now.

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ninja Daily: Clarity 5

As it turned out, her partner was a little unnerving. How long did he spend painting his face like that? What an odd hobby. Maybe it was some sort of artistic statement about the dichotomy between oppositional energies like yin and yang?

'I wonder if he does that every morning, or just when he goes on missions? I bet it's an intimidation thing.'

Aiko gave Zetsu a queasy smile, hesitating a moment too long before she gave a polite bow. "Please take care of me," she mumbled, nearly stumbling over the platitude.

"A pleasure to meet you, Uzumaki-san," came the neutral reply. That would have been fine, if the sentence "Or something like that," hadn't tumbled out in a deep raspy voice on the heels of the first sentence.

Uncertain, Aiko glanced up at Obito. He was wearing his orange mask again, but he gave her a surreptitious thumbs-up sign in encouragement.

'I can do this. He's probably a really nice guy.'

She beamed at her new partner. This was an adventure, and nothing was going to bring her mood down. "So, what's the situation?"

"We should hurry," Zetsu said politely, sounding distantly pleasant. "Kakuzu-san has arranged for us to meet our prospective client a few hours from here. It would be unwise to be late."

"Impolite," he added a moment later, once again slipping into his lower register.

Ok-ay…

"Alrighty then." Aiko managed to straighten her face into something a little less confused. "Lead the way, then."

Traveling with Zetsu was an awkward proposition, in no small part because he chose to seep hip-deep in the ground. Aiko stared, thrown off-guard. He heaved a beleaguered sigh and wavered back up until all but his shins were above ground, giving her a pointed look.

She didn't know what that was supposed to mean.

"So, we aren't running?" she asked uncertainly. She'd thought…

"This is much faster," Zetsu said curtly. "Grab on. We risk being late."

"Have a good first day back at work!" Obito waved from the door, clearly amused in the moment before he whirled away in a smear of orange and black.

'G- grab on? I begin to suspect that I have questionable taste in friends and associates,' Aiko thought with the air of a shocking revelation. Gingerly, she walked up to Zetsu and hesitated a moment before shrugging and tossing her arms around his waist, hugging him from behind. "Like this?"

"Hold your breath," he ordered curtly.

There was barely time to obey before they were enveloped in the earth. It didn't feel like she was moving, so much as that the ground was moving around her. The feeling was strange and not entirely pleasant—there was pressure all around, but much more around her feet and legs than on her upper torso. Did that make sense? It didn't seem to, but it was still true, even when she anxiously tangled her legs around Zetsu's shins and tried not to cling too desperately.

'It's strangely cold. I would have thought it was stuffy in the dirt. That's good to know, I think?'

If today was at all indicative, that knowledge was going to come in handy. Next time, she would find a jacket. And layer socks, instead of just stuffing a rolled-up pair in the toes of her boots.

That decidedly banal thought was cut off by her body's increasing demand for oxygen. Eventually she was forced to gasp—and took in air, instead of dirt.

'He's maintaining an air pocket,' Aiko realized. 'That's what is keeping us from being smothered. But that can't last long.'

A little frightened but certain that Obito hadn't rescued her just to have Zetsu suffocate her, Aiko stilled and tried to keep her heartrate and breathing low to save on oxygen. An approving rumble shook the bulky torso she was pressed up against.

Remaining calm had been the right decision. Zetsu seemed slightly less cool and disapproving when he popped up to the surface like a sprout, exposing both of them up to their waists. "Air," he commanded gently. Aiko tilted her neck back enough to pull her face out of her companion's black and red cloak and indulged her body's need for oxygen.

"I expect you to learn this jutsu as well," he remarked mildly, not struggling for breath at all. "I am currently shielding you from the negative effects of underground travel for the sake of presentation, but I do not intend to make that a habit."

Aiko opened her mouth, ready to respond when Zetsu sneered and growled out,

"It's a pain."

She blinked. It was probably better to ignore that. Still, he had a good point. She didn't have a latent yearning to get filthy, but it would be rude to depend on her partner to take care of everything. "Would you teach me?"

With her arms still wrapped around his torso, she couldn't see his face at all. That left her off-kilter when all he said was, "Hold your breath."

This time, Aiko sucked in a huge amount of air and immediately tucked her face into her companion's back.

"It can learn," Zetsu hissed, darkly amused. There was no time to respond- It? really, It?- before they were suddenly surrounded by pressure and cold once more.

'At least I wasn't surprised this time. It's easier not to panic that way.'

They traveled that way for a what seemed to be a painfully long time, broken up as it was by trips back up to the surface when the air pocket that Zetsu held around them began to stale and thin.

In reality, it only took two hours and twelve minutes. By the end, Aiko had managed to fall into a nearly meditative state, carefully controlling her breathing and trying to enjoy the body heat that she could borrow off of her comrade.

"Thank you," Aiko mumbled when they finally stood on solid land again. She carefully unlaced her stiff fingers and disentangled her arms out of the folds of Zetsu's cloak. She hadn't even noticed that her arms had worked their way under the buttons in a sad search for warmth.

It was lucky that he was such a nice guy. She rather imagined that not everyone would tolerate their coworker inadvertently feeling them up for hours at a time.

"Don't mention it." He hesitated, and this time she noted that his eyes glazed over slightly before he added, "Please."

'Does he not even know when he's being mean?' Aiko wondered, pretending not to notice the second statement. That seemed like a solid working policy.

"You will approach the client alone," Zetsu muttered, shaking his head and dislodging a bit of dirt that she hadn't noticed. Wondering if her hair was dirty as well, Aiko swept her hand over the top of her head and shook out her ponytail before she realized that her companion was giving her an impatient look.

"Why?" Aiko tilted her head slightly to the side, watching him a little warily. She liked the idea of being in control, but on the first job she remembered doing?

Nerves bubbled up in her gut, and she chewed on a nail. Until she realized that Zetsu looked like he was considering cutting off her hand. Aiko moved to meekly move her hand down, realized what she was doing, and took one last defiant nibble while maintaining eye contact. As if to say that she didn't take orders from him, thank you very much. Then she shoved that hand in the pocket of her skirt.

"I have a memorable face," Zetsu bit out.

Aiko took a moment to wonder if it was really his face that lingered in one's mind, or the enormous green fronds curling around his head. Either way, the point was fairly valid.

So she shrugged. "Alright by me."

"So you are the nuke-nin that I've agreed to hire? You do realize that I require the utmost discretion and speed. You must have completed this mission and meet me at the Nakamura waterfall by that evening at the latest."

The tall, thin man seemed a bit skeptical, frankly, at the disheveled and slightly muddy teenage girl that had shown up in his sitting room.

Aiko beamed up at him, radiating friendliness. She didn't want him to regret his decision.

"Yepp! I'm happy to work with you, Atsushi. You can call me- Masashi," she hastily decided. Damnit Obito, he totally sucked for putting that stupid boy's name in her head. It was somehow his fault that she blanked out at the last moment.

Her prospective employer cringed. His mouth dropped open in what was probably shocked outrage, but his brushy mustache partially disguised the motion.

'Did I say something? Was I not polite enough?'

"I mean, really happy," she over-corrected, widening her smile to contain an obscene amount of teeth. "I bet this is going to be very profitable for both of us."

Shimizu Atsushi, the third-richest man in Grass Country, wondered if this woman was balls-out crazy or actually so dangerous that she didn't see a problem in referring to her social superior in an incredibly inappropriate, familiar manner. He considered being offended, and thought better of it. It would be best to just get her out of his home.

He'd already fronted half of the payment to the intermediary, and getting it back would be difficult. If she failed and died, at least it wouldn't be in his front room.

(His prospective employee had genuinely forgotten about the polite convention of using honorifics. Obito hadn't cared or used them.)

"You will be helping me regain property that was stolen by a former retainer," Atsushi said sternly, shaking away the oddity in favor of professionalism. "The scoundrel has fled with my daughter."

"Alright," Aiko nodded slowly. "What's the missing property?"

Atsushi gave her a look that implied she was a moron. "My daughter Koto," he repeated slowly. With a sigh, he turned away. "Most importantly, of course. They also took a great deal of money and some heirloom jewelry, including my mother's wedding ring. I suspect that they will sell as much of it as possible. Recover both of them and what you can. If I know her…" the man sneered. "They will be headed for the coast."

'So… his daughter eloped, and stole a bunch of his stuff?' Aiko furrowed her brow, but took the information she was provided and left the manor to meet with Zetsu.

'I guess that makes sense. Even if she was his daughter, it was wrong for her to steal from him. I'll recover that and ask her to come home and apologize. And bring back the real thief, of course.'

She shook off the unsettling implication that Atsushi had referred to his daughter as property—he had probably just misspoken—in order to set off on her very first mission.

Well, sort of. She was counting this as mission number one.

At least the little brat was fast. Zetsu might have lost his temper and eaten her if she were completely incapable of keeping up.

He was sullen about his assignment, but maintained focus and contained his temper. This mission was more important than the brat realized, after all. If she were more aware, she might have wondered why such an apparently straightforward mission had been contracted out through a missing-nin instead of a proper village.

Missing nin were often used and discarded by employers because they had no village backing to protect them. That strategy made sense when the mission contracted out was prohibitively expensive or so blatantly dangerous or amoral that the proper village wouldn't take it.

Nuke-nin with any sense for self-preservation would be wary of a mission that seemed neither illegal or excessively easy. There weren't many reasons for a client to prefer to contract out a missing nin over someone from a ninja village.

It could always be that the customer was a criminal too wary of drawing attention to engage in legal business. Zetsu was unfamiliar with the client on a personal level, but most rich men were criminals in some way. Of course, that didn't mean they wouldn't risk going through legal channels if the job itself seemed legitimate.

As far as Zetsu could tell, there was no particular reason that the requested job would have been rejected by a shinobi village. That implied that the choice to hire a missing nin might be based on the fact that it was easier to get out of paying missing nin, or avoid the full price.

Kakuzu didn't have the ability to negotiate anything other than the highest price, even if the intent was to teach Aiko a lesson about nuke-nin getting fleeced. So there was no probability that the promised payment for this mission was low.

With that possible explanation out of the way, Obito had discerned that the client would probably try to have his hired thug killed after she had completed her mission. There was no reason for him to think the plan wouldn't work: that sort of thing happened all the time. Aiko hadn't laid claim to any frightening reputation, and the client hadn't been informed that he was hiring Akatsuki.

Aiko's job was to complete the mission, and discover that the world was shitty and people were cruel and stupid. As much as it rankled to play the hero, Zetsu would save her at the last moment, take her straight to Obito, and let him use the experience as an example as to why change was needed. When he then offered a potential cure for humanity's corrupt nature, Aiko would be ready to hear it.

"Hey, Zetsu? Are we going to stop somewhere for the night?"

'Already? She wants to rest so soon?'

Zetsu scowled. What spoiled, lazy shinobi Konoha turned out. It was no wonder that Madara-sama had attempted to fight the regime that led to such weakness.

"No," White Zetsu responded shortly. "We will press on and overtake them in the night. Once they are in our control, I will watch as you rest a short while before we return. Civilians are slow and not hardy. They cannot have gotten far in the course of two days."

'Obito coddled her by putting her in a house and buying her fancy equipment,' Black Zetsu scoffed. 'He should have let her walk about in the hospital garb and sleep on the cold ground a few nights, until she realized she could take what she wanted from those weaker.'

No, no, that wasn't how Obito wanted this to go. In order to ensure that she would be a suitable carrier for the Rinnegan, the child must be slowly acclimated to share their vision. That began with showing her that humanity and the current order was flawed and amoral, and then having Obito present the solution. It would be highly foolish to make the same mistake that Madara-sama had made in giving the Rinnegan to an unpredictable pawn. She wasn't particularly powerful as she was, but the Rinnegan could turn almost anyone into a respectable opponent. They did not have time to waste bullying a recalcitrant dojutsu user. She had to be molded properly before she was honed into a sharp tool.

They traveled running aboveground, despite the fact that traveling underground was faster. The head-hunter jutsu was very useful, but it did not enable tracking. Luckily, civilians left obvious trails. Not for the first time, Zetsu noted that his traveling companion was almost twitchy in the brush and copses of trees that they traveled through. Her head was constantly swiveling towards the smallest sounds, although she eventually began to be able to control the urge to look.

'She was a jinchuuriki's child,' Zetsu remembered idly from old conversations with Obito. 'I had forgotten that. Her senses are likely heightened due to fetal exposure to such a powerful source of animalistic chakra. The Nine-Tails is a fox, so her hearing and sense of smell are likely the most affected.'

Foxes weren't known for their vision—in fact, her eyesight probably was not augmented at all. But now that he knew what to look for, Zetsu was positive that the brat's senses surpassed what she should possess without conscious memory of training in chakra augmentation.

"What's this?" The brat stopped suddenly. Zetsu shot ahead of her several feet before he managed to stop, turning to glare at the waste of time.

It was wasted. She was on her knees, examining markings in the dirt with a little frown of concentration.

"I should know what this is."

"Yes, you should," White Zetsu agreed.

"This was where they camped last night," Black Zetsu cut in derisively. "Baka. You waste time."

The brat blinked at him. Zetsu suppressed a sigh of irritation. "Come," he bit out tonelessly, turning to move again. "They will be bedding down soon."

It took another four hours to cross the distance that their prey had managed in twelve or fourteen hours of daylight. The brat was flagging but focused through the minute trembles of her ill-used muscles.

It didn't matter that she was in excellent condition for a village shinobi. Missing nin lived much harder lives, and the organization formerly known as Akatsuki was composed of only the best. The brat would need to toughen up.

The camp was small and dark. Their client's former retainer was no slouch as a woodsman—their fire had been expertly covered, and they had been eating off of the land.

Yellow eyes glinted with the pale moonlight that provided the only visibility available. He shifted to check his companion: from her line of sight, he supposed that she could clearly see the slowly breathing figures curled together under a single blanket. The blue fabric had been pushed down far enough that the man was exposed head and shoulders. Only the woman's face was showing, curled as she was with her face on her partner's chest.

Neither was particularly interesting to Zetsu. Both were rather fit for civilians, but they were otherwise unremarkable. Human faces all looked so much alike.

"Immobilize them," Zetsu ordered in a low mutter. They were being paid to return the two alive, after all. If they woke and ran, the brat might get sloppy. She wasn't used to adjusting her force to cope with civilians after having trained with Obito.

The brat stiffened a little at being given orders but pulled a brace of glittering senbon out from her hip pouch.

He silently approved: it was difficult to kill someone with a senbon even if one's aim was poor. Even if she failed, her target would likely survive.

The first senbon flew true, four more flickering on its heels into the meat of the man's neck. He stiffened momentarily before going completely limp. For a moment, Zetsu was reluctantly impressed. And then the sleeping woman moved in her sleep, caressing up her lover's chest. The Brat didn't adjust her sixth needle in time, accidentally pinning the woman's hand to her lover's chest.

She woke up with a scream. It died in her throat an instant later when Zetsu shot a cloud of paralytic gas to mist over the two. He sneered at his companion, noting the frustration on her features.

"Incompetent," White Zetsu muttered. Black Zetsu just hissed.

The large pack the man had been carrying was indeed full of pilfered goods. Unzipping it revealed a careless tangle of necklace chains and bracelets, with rings clanging around the bottom among a pretty set of jade statuettes and an engraved puzzle box of some sort. Only one piece really caught Aiko's eye.

'Oh wow, that is pretty.' A bit guiltily, Aiko held up a jeweled hairpin so she could examine it better by the moonlight. 'I really like this.'

The hairpin wasn't even especially valuable or beautiful for the large collection. But something about the little blue dragonfly sparked at her memory and made her feel happy. Not just happy, but… safe.

Weird.

She wished she could keep it, but dutifully put it away and zipped up the bag.

It was hard to feel satisfied about that even as she re-packed the stolen paraphernalia (she would be the one carrying it from now on) and settled down in their targets' camp. Failure was sour and hot on Aiko's tongue. She had a hard time getting to sleep, kicking her feet against the hard ground and shifting around in a half-assed attempt at comfort.

Sourly, she tossed a glance over at the tangle of unconscious civilians. They both looked spectacularly uncomfortable, faces locked into grimaces. She couldn't bring herself to pity them, pathetic as they were. How could she? They were barely even the same species. They weren't anything like her. She was a monster, and had been long before she was an undead monster. The brief flashes of memory she retained were all of death and violence, a good deal of which she dealt out. If violence was what she had to offer Obito, she could at least have the decency to be good at it.

'I can't believe I messed that up.'

Sleep didn't come. Eventually, she gave up and turned to find her disgruntled partner. Zetsu's mood had become even blacker after her failure. He had left her sight, but she didn't think he would have gone far.

Surely enough, Zetsu slunk into visibility when she craned her head to observe the clearing.

"We should just go. There's no point in staying here if you don't intend to sleep and I can't."

For the first time, it seemed she had said something vaguely agreeable to her companion. Zetsu nodded. "You will run," he rumbled. "I will transport them with my digging technique. I cannot transport three dead weights."

Aiko winced at the truth in that. "Of course," she agreed. At least she could run without messing anything up.

She was starting to change her mind on Zetsu. He was a genuinely unhappy individual, and not friendly in the least. At least he was competent and efficient. He wouldn't be a terrible long-term partner.

'and I won't be either,' Aiko promised internally. 'I'll keep working and get better.'

It had been such a rookie mistake to let her needle loose. She had even seen the muscles tense before the woman move. Aiko just hadn't put that observation together with her chosen action in time to adjust her motions. The problem had been her perception and reaction time.

Experience would make that better, but so would practicing.

She forced away the temptation to mope and instead tried to encourage determination to do better. As soon as this mission was over, she was going to work her tail off. A good shinobi was efficient, quick-witted, tough, and endured all sorts of uncomfortable things like sleeping in the dirt and... and…

Hmm.

'Alright. I'm amending my resolution to be a better shinobi. That's going to be without the outside bits. I don't like sleeping outside and I'm not doing that.'

Aiko ran as hard as she could, until sweat dripped down into her eyes and mouth and she thought she was going to taste salt forever. She had to stop at one point to throw up. Unfortunately, that was several miles before she came to a fast-running river where she could rinse her mouth until her teeth were painfully cold. She made a sad attempt to clean off her face, but gave it up as a bad job. Soap would be required before she was anything approaching clean.

(At the time, she had not gracefully accepted that reality. Aiko cursed like a sailor when she remembered that the soap was in Zetsu's pack).

Despite pushing herself past what she thought was reasonable, Zetsu still beat her to the rendezvous point. Aiko slumped, mildly disappointed. She missed the appraisal her companion gave her.

"We will have to wait to return them," Zetsu said simply. "You are not expected until the next evening at the earliest."

Aiko looked at him for a long moment. Then she looked at the sad, filthy civilians awkwardly sprawled on the ground where they had been dropped. She wasn't an expert, but she began to suspect that Zetsu had drugged them enough to keep them unconscious and immobile for days.

"I'm going to get a hotel room," she said flatly. "Come or don't, I don't care."

He didn't. In the morning she checked out of her room with clean hair and a still-damp outfit that she had washed in the tub by hand. She found that Zetsu hadn't moved an inch, as far as she could tell.

Aiko got his attention by clapping her hands, though he undoubtedly already knew she was there. "How are we doing this, then?" she asked briskly, nodding towards the chumps they'd gone after. "If you can't be seen, this is slightly complicated. I don't think I can carry both of them."

She definitely couldn't carry both of them, although she could probably drag either one a fair distance by pulling on their ankles. That would have to be her backup plan.

Zetsu made a strange crackling sound that Aiko had no idea how to interpret. After a moment, he sullenly added, "I have little skill with genjutsu. I will wake one of them and it will be your job to convince them to return with you."

Aiko pursed her lips and looked down at the couple collapsed on the ground. She was tempted to wake the man, but he seemed highly competent. The woman was a cloistered noblewoman. She would be more susceptible to persuasions.

"Wake the woman."

Zetsu raised the smooth skin where another man might have had an eyebrow, but obligingly smeared something sharp-smelling over the woman's lips.

"Meet me two kilometers north of here when you are done," he instructed harshly before sinking down into the earth.

Fair enough. Aiko took a deep breath, tapping her fingers rapidly against the beautiful curved kunai that Obito had gifted her with, considering her strategy. By the time the woman groaned, her long, pale face contorting in discomfort, Aiko was ready.

"Wake up." Aiko bent and slapped the woman, and stared into startled green eyes for just a moment before fear filled them. She might have forced a thin smile over her face if she thought she could manage it convincingly—but she knew she couldn't it. If she moved her face from the impassive mask she was wearing now, she wouldn't be able to hide her own nerves.

All she had to do was out-bluff a civilian girl. A non-violent offender, one who had committed a crime but didn't deserve harm. Aiko carefully avoided looking at the bruise on the girl's left hand with a perfect dot of dried blood in the middle.

It wasn't anywhere near the brutality that she saw in her dreams or that she was capable of, but it was proof of the first time she remembered harming another human being.

She didn't need to hurt the girl, but the civilian needed to think that violence was a possibility to scare her into compliance.

"What's going on?" Consciousness didn't really improve the sour look of Koto's face. She was closer to handsome than pretty, with a long face, pointy chin, and slight bags under her squinting eyes.

'Wow, her voice is an annoyingly high pitch. That's positively grating.'

"Who are you?" Koto demanded, shaking her hair and struggling to her feet. She glanced down, noticed her lover, and turned white with what might have been rage or fear.

The silence didn't last long. It turned to shouted recriminations, insults based on Aiko's appearance, and threats that the other teenager had no chance of carrying out.

"-at bitch! What did you do to him? I'll-"

'If she were my daughter, I might have let her go. Jewelry or not,' Aiko mused impassively. Was this really what civilians were like? No wonder that Obito didn't let her mingle with them long than she had to.

"Ugly cunt!" Koto outright screamed in Aiko's face, her unimpressive chest heaving and eyes wide. She was shaking violently and apparently thought that getting louder would force Aiko to react. It didn't. "Fix him, or I promise I will cut you! I have friends who will come after you!"

Aiko watched Koto boredly. The taller girl fell silent once her voice went raspy, chest heaving with the effort of her vitriol.

"Are you quite done, Koto?" She guessed that the outrage and confused fear in other girl's face was a victory. Aiko capitalized on that momentum, keeping her voice a steady, inflectionless drone that all but screamed disinterest. It claimed she did this every day. "You're almost home."

She was surprised by the choking sob the other teenager let out, but didn't let that show.

"You really shouldn't have stolen from your father," Aiko mildly scolded, letting just a bit of disapproval color her tone. "I'm taking you home, and you're going to tell your father that you are very sorry."

"W-what? Apologize- what are you, my grandmother?" The other teen seemed flabbergasted. Kami only knew why. Surely she expected that her father would want her back? Granted, he'd chosen a strange messenger considering he was wealthy enough to have his own staff. But whatever, if he felt like throwing money at Aiko, that was just fine. "There's no need for that," Koto tried slowly. "I can pay you."

Aiko raised an eyebrow. "With the things you stole from your father?" she asked dryly, pointedly lifting her shoulder so that the pack on her back was more obvious. It was the one that Koto's little boy toy had been carting. "What kind of girl do you think I am?"

Koto opened her mouth, furrowed her brow, and then shut her mouth. She appeared to be momentarily broken.

Absolutely no sympathy stirred in Aiko's chest. The girl shouldn't have stolen: she'd written a check that she couldn't cash. Koto didn't even seem regretful. She just wanted to avoid the consequences of her actions. What a brat. She was far too old for that sort of behavior. If she had any dignity at all, she would accept responsibility and go home, now that she'd been caught.

"Please," Koto said, very quietly.

'Little weasel.'

Aiko felt her lip curl in revulsion despite her resolution to remain impassive and detached. "You're annoying." Against her will, her fingers curled around the one kunai in her weapon pouch. The other girl's wide eyes clearly caught the motion.

'I'm getting overly involved. I need to stay detached. This is just a job. It's not my problem that she totally sucks.'

Koto considered her chances for a long moment, staring at Aiko's face. Awkwardly, Aiko forced the tiniest smile onto her face, because the alternative was letting her resolve waver. She'd been trusted with a straight-forward mission. She could do this, even without Zetsu's help on this last part.

Koto crumbled. "Alright," she said quietly. "I'll come."

"That's good," Aiko chirped, turning away and giving a stretch. "You'll be dragging lover-boy here home. I certainly couldn't do it, I might break a nail." She rolled her neck, yawning. After a moment, she added in an undertone as if it as unimportant and not another threat, "If I'd had to carry you, I don't know how he was going to get to come with us."

The implication being, of course, that she would kill him.

The other girl wasn't strong, even for a teenager. Aiko would have done a much better job at pulling the unconscious lump of quietly drooling young man the mile or so to the isolated meeting point not far from the client's manor. But she much preferred to have her hands free. Sweating and huffing would have undermined the image she needed to portray. If she were in Koto's position, she would be looking for an opportunity to attack the bullying ninja and make free.

That wouldn't work, of course, Zetsu was probably somewhere nearby. He was a few miles at the absolute most, and would notice if Koto tried to make a break for it. Aiko still wasn't going to let it get to that point.

She mercilessly pushed Koto on, even after her pointy and not entirely pretty face was red as a cherry and her breathing had turned to harsh gasps.

"Maa, Koto," she drawled, not knowing why the taunt sounded so right, "Are you tired already? Do you want a break already?"

Aiko was pretty sure that Koto hated her, but they were making pretty good time, all things considered. She hadn't been to the meeting spot, but it was easy enough to recognize from the description that she'd been given.

There couldn't possibly be that many waterfalls around.

"Just drop him," Aiko advised carelessly, waving a nonchalant hand behind her and hopping up onto a large rock in the middle of the angrily bubbling stream fleeing the short waterfall. Well. She thought of it as short, but it was a good twenty feel from top to bottom.

If she wanted, she could probably run right up it, although it would be much easier to take the rocks.

(She privately resolved to do that once the exchange was over. It would probably be really fun to leap off the edge into the deeper pool collected at the bottom).

The sound of Koto's breathing became muffled—she put her hand over her mouth, Aiko decided—and footsteps that the civilian probably thought were quiet sounded out behind her.

'I'm surprised it took this long.'

Aiko turned lazily, her right hand whipping up to grab Koto's wrist. She twisted, letting the momentum force the girl to drop the jagged rock she had picked up. Aiko gave a not entirely pleasant smile.

"At least you're not entirely gutless," she remarked, watching the determination in Koto's eyes turn back to hopelessness. When the other teen wrenched her arm away, Aiko let her. "But you're going to have to do much better than that. Try not to embarrass yourself next time you try to kill someone who kills for a living, yes? Or just be smarter."

Wow, this was kind of fun. It was all bluffing, but Koto didn't have to know that.

(it wasn't exactly bluffing. She knew that she could snap a man's neck with her bare hands if she had to, and that wasn't the only way she had seen her dream-self brutalize another human being. If she had to, she could do things Koto couldn't imagine with just one little blade. It only took one).

Koto whimpered, spineless again.

Ugh.

Disgusted, Aiko gently pushed the girl backwards until Koto stumbled out of the river, falling to her bum on the mud.

"Stay there," she sighed. "Or come up with a better plan. It'd be better than glaring at each other for another hour," Aiko mumbled under her breath.

Koto's hostility simmered like a physical thing, leaving her practically generating a stormcloud over her head.

It didn't exactly enhance the wait.

When Shimizu Atsushi strolled into sight, it was with two men at each shoulder. To be more specific, they were burly men, carrying unconcealed weapons. They looked like hired muscle.

Aiko frowned, unease stirring. She hadn't seen anyone like that on the premises when she had met with Atsushi before.

Koto gave a strangled sob, climbing to her feet and brushing a bit of hair off of her face.

"Masashi, I didn't expect you to beat me here," Atsushi remarked, turning curiously calm eyes on his distraught daughter and the limp form of her lover on the ground. "You do good work. Koto-chan, I'm glad to see you unharmed. I was so very worried."

Oddly, she glared at him.

Atsushi's face twisted in concern. "Kinji-kun, would you please secure Aki-san here? I feel nervous knowing that a dangerous thief is unsecured."

The man furthest from Atsushi's right shoulder nodded, muscling his way past them. His thick geta sank slightly into the soft turf and his tan pants and shirt fluttered in the wind. Aiko caught the motion out of the corner of her eye, but didn't turn around enough to keep her focus on 'Kinji-kun'.

Something wasn't right. Aiko moved slightly, opening up her chest and shoulders so that she could keep an eye on the entire clearing.

Strangely, Koto was the only other person who really seemed tense and alert like that. Atsushi and his four staff members were all relaxed looking.

And then 'Kinji-kun' picked up Koto's lover like he was a doll, easy as you please. He gave one last glance at Atsushi before he grabbed the unconscious man's lolling chin with one enormous hand and twisted, bracing the handsome and suddenly very dead thief against his chest.

The quiet pop was almost shocking.

Aiko's mouth dropped open in shock.

'Well, I honestly did not expect that.'

In the moment of quiet, Koto's voice was very clear. "Ninja-san, they'll kill the two of us as well. That's the kind of man my father is. Fight for me."

That wasn't a half-bad argument. She palmed her kunai warily, taking a step backwards.

Atsushi left out a barking laugh. "Koto-chan, you're not supposed to share family secrets. You see, this is why we have problems." He took a casual step forwards, rolling his shoulders. "Yes, ninja-san, I'm afraid that I don't intend to pay you. No one would disbelieve me when told that a violent nuke-nin attacked my family and attempted to rob me blind. It's just business, I assure you."

'I can't believe this crap.' Aiko gritted her teeth, deeply unhappy with the change in situation. 'He asked me to come here with the intention of killing me once I did what he asked to save a couple bucks? What an unmitigated buttmunch.'

That wasn't the kind of dickery she could overlook. True, she could easily run away. There were problems with that. First of all, it would feel like letting Atsushi win, and her pride couldn't tolerate that thought. Secondly… she maybe owed Koto an apology, because apparently there was a good reason not to want to spend time around her dillweed father.

The decision she was about to make was a terrible one, frankly. The first time that she picked a fight probably shouldn't be when she was tired from running over ten hours yesterday and outnumbered. But apparently, she wasn't a practical kind of girl. That was good to know.

'Well, shit. Now would be an awesome time to have backup. Where the hell is Zetsu when I need him?' Stubbornly, Aiko took a deep breath and decided that now would be an excellent time to switch loyalties.

"Koto?" She prompted, widening her stance. "Suggestions?"

The relief that washed over the other teen's face told her that she'd made the right decision. "Stop them before they stop you."

Well gee, you think?

Apparently Koto wasn't going to be much help. Ah well. It had been a long shot anyway. She could probably do this.

Atsushi didn't seem like a combatant to her, but Aiko was reluctant to rule him out. His daughter was scrappy enough that she was wary of him—it had to come from somewhere. That meant she had at least four opponents, possibly five. Four opponents of unknown skill was a poor match-up for her first real fight. They wouldn't be gentle with her like Obito was. In other words…

'I don't think I can afford to let them make the first move.'

She assessed the situation with a blink. Kinji was still away from his fellows, ten feet separating him and backup. She stood roughly equidistant from him and his peers.

That was why Aiko swiveled on the balls of her feet and took a running leap at the loner, counting on the comforting weight of the blade in her right palm. He dodged to her left—

Which was perfect. She side-stepped behind him with a swivel and cut his throat from behind. He dropped to her feet with a gurgle.

(She winced, but pushed the regret and disgust away. She couldn't be bothered by this, this was what she was supposed to do it was who she was it was what she'd been training for).

Someone screamed, but she didn't know who. Blood was pounding in her ears and she had to move, had to move, she'd seen this a dozen times in her sleep if she didn't move fast enough they would get her and she would be dead for real this time.

Aiko ignored the hot blood making her grip slippery and took a step backwards, forcing the fastest bodyguard to make the choice between jumping over his dead fellow or lose momentum by stepping around him. The dark-eyed man chose to take a graceful leap over Shinji, moving to bring his blade out to meet her.

It was the wrong decision. He couldn't dodge while in the air, and his hand couldn't move rapidly enough while weighed down by his sword.

Her target was fairly obvious. The simplest, most direct solution was the best.

She let her kunai slide into his right wrist and jerked it haphazardly up into the meat of his arm, intentionally brutalizing the hand holding the short sword in his grip.

He screamed like a stuck pig and stumbled when his feet hit the ground, sending his weight crashing down. The downed man was struggling and moaning, clutching at his wrist with his free hand, but Aiko didn't have time for pity. Unless he was ambidextrous and realllly determined, that should be good enough. She probably didn't need to have killed the first one either, but in her defense, she'd just watched him kill a man.

'They're so slow,' she noted in mild surprise, comparing her opponents to Obito, her only other sparring partner.

Perhaps it had been premature to jump straight towards so much force. They were… they were just civilians, apparently. Hired tough guys who basically amounted to genin level fighters. With that in mind, she adjusted her grip on the kunai to leave the blunt head uncovered. The weight was a comfort in her hand as she danced around the second man who had attempted to rush her. The last was standing in front of his nervous-looking employer, attempting to look menacing.

Her heartbeat slowed to manageable levels. It was hard to believe she had been so nervous about the thought of a real fight. She'd seen this a dozen times and her body knew the motions like it knew how to walk. It was piteously easy to give the man she'd stepped behind (a scarred bear of a man with a blonde ponytail) a good, hard whack on just the right spot on the back of his head with the blunt end of her blade.

He dropped like a rock.

Aiko sighed, shaking her hair back as she turned to look at the two threats left. Judging by the way they were gaping at her, she looked pretty badass at the moment.

The moment was ruined by a piteous whimper from behind her.

'I completely forgot about him. That's…embarrassing. What if he'd gotten back up and rushed me from behind?'

Her face went red as a tomato. "Oops?" she half-asked, rubbing at her head until she realized she was smearing blood over her hair. Atsushi turned a remarkable shade of purple.

"Stop her!" he snapped, shoving weakly at the bulky guard in front of him.

The remaining bodyguard looked a bit conflicted. His clear blue eyes looked at Aiko. Then he glanced at the man crying –something about his mother?—and shaking his mangled wrist. Then he looked back at Aiko with a question written on rugged features.

"I don't have a problem with you," she offered, shrugging.

He smiled, tense shoulders relaxing visibly. "Good to know, shinobi-san. I think that it is time for me to look for a new job."

"Probably," Aiko agreed, watching Atsushi shake with impotent rage. "You won't be getting a letter of recommendation from that one, I think."

He paused, giving a deep sigh that loosened the tight material of the red yukata across his chest. "…I don't suppose you might be looking for a hired thug? Or that you won't mind if I don't change my sinful ways?"

"Thug away," Aiko instructed, a smile tugging at one side of her mouth despite herself. "But I'm afraid I don't need any assistance today, kind gentleman. We should part ways. If I see you again, I'd love to work with you."

"Excellent. My name is Akemi, shinobi-san. Please take care of me."

Aiko paused, frowning. She was pretty sure that was an alias. "That's a girls' name."

Akemi (and he was such a large person for someone named 'beautiful brightness') raised an eyebrow. "Coming from you, Masashi-san, that rings a bit hypocritical."

Fair enough. She didn't say another thing as Akemi reached out and thumped Atsushi on the head impersonally with a meaty fist, idly catching the bony man before he fell and tucking the now-captive under a well-muscled arm.

That might have been the end of it. She had nearly forgotten that Koto was still there, until the other teenager stood, brushed off her clothes, and said in a very dry tone, "You do realize that they weren't the people my father was intending on betraying you to. He didn't expect you to defend me. You're a terrible missing nin, by the way. Utter shit at your job. And this is coming from someone raised in the yakuza, so I know what I'm talking about."

Aiko frowned at that, not sure if she should be insulted. "Then who was he planning on selling me out to?"

Koto sighed, rubbing at her face tiredly. She looked like she'd had a hell of a week. "If I know him, he's contacted a village. They'd reward him half of whatever bounty you have, which would mean you'd dragged me back nearly for free. You got cheated, moron."

Oh. Other shinobi were coming. Probably a whole team of them, too. Hmm.

Yeah, she wasn't sticking around for that.

"I should go," Aiko mumbled, wiping her blade off on her shirt and tucking it back away. Then she aimed a beaming smile at the other two, hands clasped in front of her torso. "It was very nice meeting you all! I'm sorry about that misunderstanding Koto, if I'd known he was going to kill your boyfriend I wouldn't have brought you back. I'll just take this bag as payment."

Something twitched in Koto's eye. She conspicuously said nothing.

"I should go too," Akemi said awkwardly. "I'm a deserter and all. I suppose you should tell whoever shows up that you were attacked by rogue ninja who robbed your father or something so that you don't get arrested."

"I will try to remember that," Koto all but hissed, before turning a sneer at her very unconscious father. "Although it won't matter what I say, once father wakes up."

Akemi looked down at his burden, and then nodded. "Ah. I see." He hit Atsushi again, much harder this time. That was satisfying, actually. Aiko smothered a rather vicious smile. She really shouldn't mix business and pleasure, but the man had tried to have her killed for doing the job he hired her for.

Koto blinked. "That'll work."

Aiko was already halfway out of sight.

"Uzumaki," Zetsu hissed like a curse, sliding out of the ground. That had not gone as planned.

The idiot civilian girl that he had dragged across the countryside shrieked when she saw him for the first time. It took only a moment to shut her up, and not much longer to tip her unresisting corpse up into the hungry plant material around his chest and store the nutritious meat for later. He killed the two thugs that the brat had left unconscious (one was nearly bleeding out anyways) and hunted down the runner to do the same.

It was positively infuriating; he wallowed bitterly as he ripped the last witness to Aiko's face apart. No one had done what they were meant to. Atsushi had improperly timed the ambush and then shown his hand too quickly, robbing Zetsu of the opportunity for his scripted 'rescue' of the brat, who would then feel loyalty. The brat had erred just as badly by forgetting herself and making friends with people that she should have been killing. When he returned to the rendezvous spot (after a short break to begin digesting in peace) Zetsu aimed a baleful glare at the redhead. She didn't even seem to notice. Moron.

Fuck it, Obito could sort this out. And come up with a less convoluted plan with reduced risk for error next time.

The very lucky and very late Kumo nin who responded to honored tradesperson Shimizu Atsushi's call for assistance were baffled when they arrived seventeen minutes after Zetsu left.

[cyarskj1899]

There’s some great movies. And then there’s some that are total flops

The 25 best movies of 2022 — and the 5 worst

Yahoo Movies Editorial

Tue, December 20, 2022 at 8:00 AM PST��20 min read

In this article: 

If there are a couple themes to the past year in movies, they'd have to big swings and long runtimes.

Matt Reeves reinvented The Caped Crusader as an emo Bruce Wayne in the 176-minute-long The Batman. The directing tandem known as The Daniels made the best multiverse movie of the year (sorry, Doctor Strange) with the mind-bending Everything, Everywhere All at Once (140 minutes). Todd Field opens Tár (158 minutes), his first film in 16 years, with a 15-minute long Q&A with Cate Blanchett's titular character. Ruben Östlund centered the entire second act of Triangle of Sadness (147 minutes) around explosive bodily functions on a luxury yacht. Steven Spielberg made his own biopic with The Fabelmans (151 minutes). James Cameron took 13 years to follow up Avatar with Way of the Water (192 minutes). Ryan Coogler had no choice but to go bold with certain decisions after losing his lead actor in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (161 minutes). All make our list of the best films of the year.

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Not every swing was a home run. We're decidedly mixed on the frenzied, borderline-parody Elvis (159 minutes), Damien Chazelle's cocaine-fueled Old Hollywood odyssey Babylon(189 minutes) and Andrew Dominik’s agonizingly depressing Marilyn Monroe story Blonde (166 minutes). But at least none of those ended up on our "worst" list.

Here are our 25 favorite movies of 2022, and five for the birds. — Ethan Alter, Marcus Errico, Chrissy Nguyen, Kevin Polowy and Raechal Shewfelt

25. Barbarian

Not surprisingly behind the chills and jump-scares one of 2022's most shocking horror movies: The Ring and It producer Roy Lee. Surprising: That it was all birthed from the mind of writer-director Zach Cregger, (previously) best known for his improv comedy stylings on The Whitest Kids U Know. Georgina Campbell stars as a woman whose rental home was double-booked. Campbell's Tess decides to stay at the place anyway, albeit with a completely unknown man (Bill Skarsgård), leading to what can only be described as a gruesome, truly unnerving, very surprising nightmare. — R.S.

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24. The Northman

After The Witch and The Lighthouse, maybe Robert Eggers didn’t want to be pigeonholed as the slow-burn folkloric horror guy. Because Eggers unleashed a can of fury on us with The Northman, his pulsating 136-minute fever dream of pure uncut revenge savagery starring Alexander Skarsgård as a Norse prince who goes full-tilt Inigo Montoya on the bastards that killed his father when he was but a wee viking boy. Nicole Kidman is in it, too, and she brings the fireworks. Focus Features gave Eggers upwards of $70 million to make Northman, but the film failed to crack even. Let us repent by all watching it at least 10 times on streaming. — K.P.

23. Smile

Sometimes the best horror movies come from the very simplest concepts. A shark stalks teens swimming in the ocean. A kid sees dead people. A videotape curses you to death if you watch it. In Smile, Parker Finn's gloriously terrifying feature-length adaptation of his 2020 short film, it's witnessing one spectacularly creepy smile that damns victims in a Ring-esque death chain. Come for the multitude of spine-tingling jump scares, stay for the gutsy performance of Sosie Bacon (daughter of Kevin Bacon, being psychologically tormented in nearly every minute of the film) as the psychologist desperate to break the cycle. Those smiley Trader Joe's employees will never seem the same. —K.P.

22. Triangle of Sadness

Ruben Östlund (The Square) swears he's not shouting "Eat the rich!" with his splendidly odd dark comedy about a feuding model couple invited onto a luxury cruise for the obscenely wealthy. Part Parasite, part Captain Phillips, all Östlund, Sadness's madness has become most famous for its extended (like super-extended) puke-and-poop sequence as spoiled seafood clashes with heavy turbulence, but it's the film's surprising third act — cleverly kept secretive in the marketing — that reaps the biggest rewards. What a voyage. — K.P.

21. The Batman

Robert Pattinson as an emo Caped Crusader... really? While not the most conventional casting, R. Pattz delivers in Matt Reeves's reimagined take on the iconic hero. The film leans into the character's Detective Comics origins with the Dark Knight matching wits with Paul Dano's twisted Riddler, trying to solve a series of grisly murders (inspired by the real-life Zodiac Killer) while navigating a romance with Zoë Kravitz's proto-Catwoman. Unlike another would-be DC franchise launcher this year (*cough* Black Adam *cough*), we're looking forward to spending plenty of time in The Batman's expanding Gotham in the coming years. — M.E.

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20. Fresh

What's more terrifying than online dating? Well, according to Fresh, nothing. A Sundance breakout, this utterly delightful horror flick is anchored by Sebastian Stan’s unhinged performance as a charming cannibal who supplies victims’ meat to carnivorous gazillionaires. While Stan chews up scenery along with victims, co-star Daisy Edgar-Jones holds her own as his one female captive who refuses to end up on a serving plate. Chock full of twists and squirmy-gory meal prep, Fresh will make you think twice the next time you swipe right. — M.E.

19. Nanny

The big winner at this year's Sundance Film Festival, Nikyatu Jusu's debut feature confidently blends the real-life horrorsof American domestic work with eerie elements borrowed from African folklore. Anna Diop's mesmerizing star turn bridges the gap between the two worlds, capturing both the vulnerability that can accompany being a Black woman in white spaces and the resolve of an immigrant who refuses to be exploited. With methodical style and slow-burning tension, Nanny offers something more lasting than easy jump scares — it's a plunge into psychological horror from a bold new filmmaking voice. — E.A.

18. Fire of Love

Talk about your fiery love stories. The award-winning documentary Fire of Love profiles married volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who criss-crossed the globe from one hot spot to another until their untimely deaths during Japan's Mount Unzen eruption in 1991. Director Sara Dosa was granted full access to their archive, and unearths some of the most spectacular volcano footage ever to play on the big (or small) screen. But the beating heart of the movie is the lifelong partnership between the Kraffts, who lived — and died — their way. — E.A.

17. Hustle

Hustle combines two of Adam Sandler's favorite things: sports, and continually proving to the world that he's one of the best actors in the whole damn industry. Three years after delivering a career-best performance in the cinematic anxiety attack Uncut Gems (a performance apparently no one at the Academy saw), Sandler shines again as a scout for the Philadelphia 76ers who bets his livelihood on a diamond-in-the-rough prospect (Juancho Hernangomez) he discovers on the streets of Spain (there he is betting again). And it's funny, it's touching, it's exhilarating. Hollywood has proven it's not that difficult to make a good sports movie. But we weren't expecting this one to be so great. — K.P.

16. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

Nicolas Cage got a lot of attention, and rightfully so, for his stellar (if not reaching) performance as, well, Nic Cage in April's unbearably great The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. It's one of the national treasure's best performances since we got double the Cage in Adaptation. But let it also be known that Weight is also one of the best bromantic comedies to come from Hollywood in years thanks to the deliriously fun chemistry between Cage and co-star Pedro Pascal. Everyone around them wants chaos; they just want to bro out and watch Paddington 2. — K.P.

15. Avatar: The Way of Water

This is the way… that James Cameron returns to Pandora andthe top of the box office charts. The boundary-pushing filmmaker waited 13 years to release his follow-up to the 2009 global blockbuster, and the next-level visuals featured in The Way of Water proves that his army of tech wizards weren't sitting around twiddling their thumbs. An enjoyable — if long — adventure on its own terms, the sequel also effectively lays the foundation for the next phase of the Avatar franchise, which Cameron promises "goes nuts." As a certain cyborg once said — we'll be back. — E.A.

14. Nope

Jordan Peele making an eerie homage to Steven Spielberg? Yes, please. Keke Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya give impressive performances as siblings who run their family's animal wrangling business, while Steve Yeun plays a former child star who's the sole survivor of a horrific on-set incident and Brandon Perea amuses as a tech operator. If you haven't seen Nope yet, that's really all you should know going into it. It's fitting that Peele tried his hand at producing a Twilight Zone reboot, because Nope feels like the most cinematic, visually stunning Twilight Zone story ever told. — R.S.

13. Women Talking

Adapting Mariam Towes's acclaimed 2018 novel, writer-director Sarah Polley retains the basic setting and narrative: a religious community where the female population (played by Rooney Mara and Jessie Buckley, among others) is seeking to leave after enduring a series of attacks committed by the men in their midst. At the same time, she also expands the book’s intimate canvas into a deeply moving parable for what one generation of women owes to another. Trust us: You'll never hear "Daydream Believer" the same way again after Polley's epic needle drop. — E.A.

12. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Before she very nearly became a statistic in the opioid epidemic, celebrated photographer Nan Goldin saw numerous family members and close friends die before their time. Laura Poitras's remarkable nonfiction portrait connects Goldin's personal history with her present-day activism, spearheading a campaign to hold the Sackler family accountable for their role in unleashing Oxycontin on the world. Even as her efforts succeed, Poitras reminds us in a devastating finale that full justice for the wealthy and powerful can remain elusive. — E.A.

11. The Menu

We'll have what Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy are having. The former Voldemort and future Furiosa head up a sterling ensemble cast in Mark Mylod's pitch-dark "eat the rich" comedy, set in the world of high art Haute cuisine. As Fiennes gleefully chews the scenery as a Jim Jones-esque chef, Taylor-Joy grounds the proceedings with grace notes of spiky defiance and winking humor. Already an under-the-radar theatrical hit, The Menu will re-heat well as a streaming-era staple. — E.A.

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10. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Director-writer Ryan Coogler had the unenviable task of making a sequel to global phenomenon and Oscar Best Picture nominee Black Panther in the absence of Chadwick Boseman, who portrayed the titular hero before passing away from cancer in Aug. 2020 at the age of 43. Packed with stellar performances led by Letitia Wright (Shuri), Angela Bassett (Queen Ramonda) — both reckoning with grief and loss in the aftermath of T'Challa's death — and newcomer Tenoch Huerta (Namor, the mutant god-like leader of underwater city Talokan), Coogler succeeds with the emotionally rich, visually stunning and action-packed Wakanda Forever. The sequel's greatest strength lies in how it deals with the passing of T'Challa head-on, never shying away from the sadness of a life cut short too soon. The carefully-woven narrative manages to honor the legacy of Boseman without sacrificing its superhero thrills and still pushing the beloved franchise forward. Wakanda Forever is certainly the best of the MCU's Phase 4, a film that managed to exceed unprecedented expectations. — C.N.

9. Descendant

In exploring the discovery of the sunken Clotilda, the last known slave ship to arrive in the U.S. (more than half a century after the trafficking and sale of human bodies was outlawed) in Alabama's Mobile River, documentarian Margaret Brown also turns the lenses on the people of Africatown, known descendants of the enslaved people on that ship, in this phenomenally illuminating and profound history lesson. In turn Descendant makes one of the most striking arguments for reparations ever put on film, the people of the reeling, polluted Africatown still being victimized by the same wealth and racial power structure today that existed in the 19th century. The argument "but that was hundreds of years ago" simply doesn't cut it here. —K.P.

8. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

It took Stanley Kubrick and company 400 days to shoot the master filmmaker's final movie, Eyes Wide Shut, which he called his "greatest contribution to the art of cinema." It took Eric Appel and company only 18 days to film this actual masterpiece, and I call it that with only the slightest hint of hyperbole. Of course, a Weird Al "biopic" is complete farce, somewhere around three percent true, according to Appel. Yankovic is one of our greatest satirists of all time. And Daniel Radcliffe and Evan Rachel Wood are Oscar-worthy (again, only slight hyperbole) as Weird Al and his "girlfriend" Madonna. Between Spinal Tap, Walk Hard, Popstar and now Weird, here's hoping Hollywood never stops making fake music biopics. — K.P.

7. Tár

Todd Field's penetrating drama isn't technically a documentary… but don't be alarmed if you come out of the film believing Lydia Tár is a real person. That's how deeply Cate Blanchett burrows into the role of the titular conductor, who experiences an epic fall from grace over the movie’s expansive two-and-a-half-hour runtime. Directed with pinpoint precision by Field, Tár is one of the most intensely insular movies ever made, with audiences invited inside of Lydia's increasingly troubled mind as she goes from celebrated to canceled. It's a ride that might be too intense for some, but if you're on the movie's peculiar wavelength, it's a symphony of greatness. — E.A.

6. Top Gun: Maverick

It's a tall task to produce a sequel to any movie as ingrained in our culture as 1986's Top Gun — the motorcycle ride to "Take My Breath Away," swooping fighter jets, that volleyball game and the bar scene with pilots serenading their instructor — let alone 36 years later. But somehow director Joseph Kosinski, returning star Tom Cruise and company did it. They forged an action movie entirely fit for 2022, with just enough nostalgia sprinkled in to make fans of the original cheer. No wonder it was also a big-time winner at the box office, becoming the fifth highest grossing movie of all time. — R.S.

5. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Rian Johnson has done it again. It would've been damn near impossible to top the writer-director's brilliant 2019 whodunit Knives Out with this highly anticipated follow-up. But the fact that he comes even close is a triumph in itself. Glass Onion is just as star-studded (an Elon Musk-like Edward Norton! Janelle Monáe! Kate Hudson! Daniel Craig again, of course!) and again takes some mercilessly hilarious stabs at the rich and the right, but it's also a far showier affair, leaving New England for a private Greek island overflowing with tech gadgetry. Most impressively, though, is how Johnson once again crafts an impossibly meticulous murder mystery that's ridiculous fun lies in peeling off its layers — and maybe crying some with laughter, too. — K.P.

4. The Fabelmans

In the wake of Avatar 2 premiering, there's been a lot of talk about "betting against James Cameron." Namely that you should never do it. What about Steven Spielberg? Was there ever any doubt that his most personal story yet, the heavily autobiographical Fabelmans, would also be one of the best films he's ever made? It’s fascinating watching his cinematic alter-ego, Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle) fall in love with filmmaking, sure, but the deep emotional resonance of Spielberg's self-told biopic comes with the heartfelt revelations he makes concerning the demise of his parents' (Michelle Williams and Paul Dano, both stellar) marriage. Plus that final scene (and surprise cameo) is an absolute banger. — K.P.

3. The Woman King

Move over Maximus, and back to the rack with you, William Wallace. Viola Davis looks Gladiator and Braveheart right in the eye and says, "Hold my sword." The dramatic powerhouse-turned-action star headlines Gina Prince-Bythewood's rousing period epic, which elevates history into myth — much like the films the director is clearly inspired by. Set in 19th century Africa, it deals directly with the continent's brutal legacy of slavery in the context of a dramatic story about mothers and daughters. And did we mention the action? Prince-Bythewood stages multiple battle sequences that'll leave you rattled and rolled. — E.A.

2. The Banshees of Inisherin

British-Irish writer-director Martin McDonagh has made a lot of fans over the years with sometimes violent, darkly comedic crime fables like In Bruges (2008) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017). Banshees, however, is the most glorious thing he's done yet. McDonagh loses the crime element, mostly — unless suddenly deciding you no longer like your best friend and drinking buddy is a crime (and it should be), as is the case with the stubborn Colm (Brendan Gleeson) and poor Pádraic (Colin Farrell). This delightful, hilarious, moving and just-bloody-enough gem features Farrell's best performance to date and infectious "fecking" Irish dialogue as memorably distinct as Fargo's Midwestern quips. One of the few movies from 2022 we'd watch over and over. — K.P.

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once

The best superhero movie of the 2022 also happens to be the best film of the year. But in a twist, this feature wasn't churned out by the Marvel machine or the DC crew; and instead of a Hollywood Chris, it was fronted by an unlikely, middle-aged duo of Michelle Yeoh and former Goonie Ke Huy Quan. Everything Everywhere All at Once is a heart-rending dysfunctional-family dramedy disguised in trippy, action-packed multiverse mayhem, at turns breathtaking and mind-boggling. A rewarding watch, no matter which universe you’re from. — M.E.

And the five worst…

5. Don’t Make Me Go

A bittersweet father-daughter road trip dramedy starring John Cho, whom we agree should be starring in pretty much everything? We were prepared to love the stuffing out of Don't Make Me Go, which follows a terminally ill single father who drives his daughter across the country to meet the mother who abandoned her. Most of the movie itself is fine — never that funny, never that heavy, never that memorable. But its god-awful ending is one of the worst, most manipulative climaxes we've seen since Robert Pattinson died on 9/11 in Remember Me. We won't spoil it here, but please don't let anyone make you go and find out. — K.P.

4. Hotel Transylvania: Transformania

You'd think losing one of its main stars, especially when that star is Adam Sandler, would contribute to the fourth installment of Hotel Transylvania being a total yawn. But to his credit, Brian Hull fills in dutifully for The Sandman (who must've really known considering he passed up that sweet, relatively easy animated franchise money) as Drac. Beyond finally revealing what The Invisible Man looks like (grasping at straws here), the plodding, very sporadically entertaining Transformania offers nothing new. Critic Christy Lemire said it best, though: "There's no reason for this movie to exist." —K.P.

3. Deep Water

Once upon a time, a sex-drenched, star-powered drama overseen by Adrian 9 1/2 Weeks Lyne would have gotten moviegoers all hot and bothered. Sadly, not even the prospect of seeing real-life exes Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas get it on onscreen could put a pulse into Lyne's first film in 20 years. To be fair, this adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel feels like it was heavily re-edited after the fact to omit the salaciousness that runs underneath the director's signature works in favor of a more somber tone. Fatal Attraction? More like, Fatally Boring. — E.A.

2. Moonfall

In a generously candid Director’s Reel interview, Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, etc.) admitted he's never been very fond of the "master of disaster" nickname he's been bestowed. And yet he keeps making them. Unfortunately, Moonfall might be his most disastrous release yet, an epic box office bomb that can't even make its absurdly ridiculous B-movie premise (yep, the moon is actually falling, which spells certain doom for Earth!) remotely watchable. — K.P.

1. Morbius

Despite Jared Leto's best efforts, Morbin' time was over before it even began. After extended COVID-related delays, Sony's Spider-Man spinoff about Marvel's vampish anti-hero finally arrived in theaters where it promptly withered like a bloodsucker who went too long between feedings. And while Morbius acquired a temporary second life as an internet meme, that didn't translate into ticket sales. Sony is still forging ahead with plans for a live action Spider-Verse with the upcoming Kraven the Hunter and Madame Web films, plus another Venom sequel. But Leto's living vampire seems DOA for now. — E.A.

Sent from my iPhone

[allthemusic]

Week ending: 21st November

Is 21t November the earliest we've seen Christmas music, so far? I think it might be - and you thought that the ever-earlier Christmas radio creep was a modern phenomenon! I have to say, there's something very odd about listening to Christmas tunes in August. And it doesn't exactly get less odd with our second song.

Mary's Boy Child - Harry Belafonte (peaked at Number 1)

This is a funny one, because this is quite a well-known Christmas song, but listening to it, I've realised that I mostly know the Boney M version. It's not that I didn't know that this was the original, and it's not like I've never heard this version, but I can absolutely see why this version gets less airplay - because it turns out, stripped of the distractions of a driving beat and some disco sensibilities, you're actually left with something that's kind of weird.

I think part of it's the delivery. Because this song is so soft and gentle. Harry's voice is usually quite mellow, but he goes above and beyond here - fittingly, for a song about Jesus, he just sings with a sort of reverent wonder, never going all out or showboating. And the music itself fits with this, with its smooth strings and minimal guitar part that's honestly kind of reminiscent of Silent Night. The whole thing feels a bit Silent Night, actually, and I do wonder if it was a conscious decision.

Even if it wasn't, there's something decidedly carol-like about the song. If it hadn't come out in 1956 by a popular recording artist, I think we would call this a carol. But by dint of being modern, and by dint of there being a disco version, this gets counted in the category of "Christmas song" rather than "Christmas carol". Which is really odd, because at least in my mind, Christmas songs are secular things, all about the traditions and feelings around Christmas. But here comes one that turns up and proclaims that Long time ago in Bethlehem / So the Holy Bible say / Mary's boy child, Jesus Christ / Was born on Christmas day. You don't get much more Biblical than that!

Heck, in the chorus we even get into matters of salvation, and about how man will live forever more / because of Christmas day, which just feels wild to have in a popular Christmas song. Like, that's not even the comfortably familiar school-play territory of the nativity story, that's full-on gospel. Personally, I love that it's there, but it strikes me as decidedly odd that this has been embraced as a standard "Christmas playlist" addition. (Incidentally, the Boney M version, which is even more popular, adds a bridge that goes even further in this direction, so go figure...)

Anyway, all this is odd, and that's before we get to the calypso stylings. It's not odd that calypso carols exist - people are Christian in the Caribbean, it makes sense that they might right Caribbean-sounding carols - but it does feel wild to me that such a carol is making it to number one in the UK charts, particularly given the strong patois elements you get here. Because have maybe been little bits of Jamaican-inflected English in Harry's other hits this year, but this song really goes in on the patois. It's striking even today, so I can only imagine what people thought in 1957, upon hearing lines about how them find no place to borne she child. Clearly it didn't put anybody off buying the song, but I'll bet it turned heads.

I should be clear that I really do like the song. But yeah, the more I listen to this one, the weirder it feels, occupying a decidedly uneasy place in the Christmas playlist canon. Good, but odd.

I Love You Baby - Paul Anka (3)

And fresh off one oddity, time for another. This one, though, doesn't feel like it ought to be odd. The title, "I Love You Baby", is bland almost to the point of parody, and Paul Anka's one of those early pop artists who does standard-issue pop tracks. He generally does them quite competently - the other songs of his that I've heard, I have quite liked - but I wasn't expecting anything too crazy, here, going in.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I clicked play and got a straight-up traditional jazz track that I feel like could have been a hit back in 1927. I think a lot of this is in the instruments, honestly - from the get go, the track's heavy on the clarinet, alto sax and trombone, and you've got that thing going on periodically where the different instruments go off on little independent side-quests and tangents, completely divorced from whatever Paul's doing. It's a fun, carefree sort of sound, and I like it a lot.

The lyrics, when they come in, are equally carefree and cute, all about being in love. Some lines could easily feel bland - like the one about how I need you honey, I'll never ever let you go - or could just come off as too twee to take seriously - like the line about how I see little bluebirds making love while I pass - except Paul's careful to balance the sappier, lovey-dovey lines with more specific, concrete details that serve to ground the track a bit more. Mostly these are just different things he sees while walking around town, from the sea-shore grass he's walking through at the start of the track, to the tree that him and his love used to carve their names into, to the nostalgic music drifting from the candy store. Everything around Paul reminds him of his love, it's a cute concept.

I think it also helps that Paul sings with a confidence and a gloss that's tangible. He sings like a man in love, full convinced of his own invincibility, and it's really quite charming. He comes off as earnest, but never smarmy, lighthearted, but not silly, secure in his love, but not cocky about it. And then you get a few fun little moments towards the end where he just makes these noises, a little rrrrrrrrah at the start of a line, or a chuckle at the end of one, a little whoah! It's all very charming and cute, and really keeps the energy up. I'm a fan.

I'm also a fan of the bells that periodically turn up. They're not overused, and they're solidly unexpected when they do turn up. They almost but don't quite give the song a Christmassy feel, and at one point they introduce a key change, which, you know, awesome. All key changes should be heralded with bells.

Throughout my first listen-through, I was also struck by the feeling that this song felt familiar, and I've realised since that it's also giving me some major Randy Newman vibes. Like, this is giving Toy Story or Monsters Inc, for sure. I like both of those films, so this is absolutely not a problem for me. Just interesting.

Well, those songs were delightfully weird. Good job, 21st November. Both of them unexpected, both of them songs that I liked more and more, the more I listened to them. The Paul Anka song, in particular, feels worth a listen, just because it's a fun, happy tune with a lot going on, all of it very competently handled. Highly recommended.

Favourite song of the bunch: I Love You, Baby

[electricbluebutterflies]

Jess x Leto ~ first kisses

Early-era, PG-ish / a bit fade-to-black, also on ao3.

Skies, why did this seem like a good idea?

It had looked perfect on paper, as such things do. He is young still; a capable woman might tether him, and a pretty one would be a safe outlet for desires, and-

Alone in a cold room and expected to consummate the binding, Leto is decidedly less sure about the advantages of this set of decisions.

“May I touch you?”

She nods. She didn’t speak during the rituals earlier either. He wonders if she even can, and why does he suspect he’ll spend far too much of the rest of his life worrying about her, and-

He gets close enough that he could do something before admitting to himself that he has no idea where to even start. He’s had lovers before and that part will be fine, but attempting to help undress a woman in so many layers is a whole other animal and-

“Let me. You’ll tear something if you’re not careful.”

Something in her soft voice like an accusation, like his own uncertainty is nothing compared to how much she would rather be anywhere else right now, and that is a complication he did not see coming. Women of her order, or at least the ones that get placed in powerful men’s beds, are not supposed to be…

“Show me how. For next time.”

“There won’t be a next time with this many components. I can’t imagine how that would be more pleasing for either of us.”

She does have a certain point, and it is still fascinating to watch her hands slip up and unpin what turns out to be two separate veils, and he is-

She’s pretty. He knows all the rumors about how women like her are placed, and he shouldn’t be so surprised, but-

Slightly angular features, sharp eyes, delicate in a way he already knows not to trust, the kind of forced confidence he is all too familiar with and-

“Your hands won’t break me.”

He takes this as permission to touch her face, watching for any changes in her body language and finding none. He would like to think he’s already figured her out, but-

“May I kiss you?”

“Do as you will.”

He decides to interpret the lack of outright contempt as permission enough. There is an innocence to her that clashes with the other shreds of personality slipping through her careful masks, and he is curious about that, curious about so many things and he shouldn’t be and-

He moves away and she follows, taking another kiss, matching intensity. Like she wants to be good at this, like she wants-

“If anything is uncomfortable for you, stop me. I won’t fault you for it.”

“I have been told what to expect. I will endure.”

“That is not… I am unsure of this, but I do not want-“

“You have already been more cautious than I expected.”

He suspects he won’t like the answers to questions he doesn’t feel the need to ask anymore, and… he can understand the temptation to ravish her, but that is not who he is. One of the few decisions he’d managed to make in a situation otherwise so far above his control was to do this part somewhere neutral, and if it goes badly-

“I won’t have you fear me.”

“I fear nothing. Not even you.”

If they talk more, he thinks, he’ll just end up more worried about her and that will be at odds with activities he still means to do and… kissing her is easier. Kissing her is pleasant, and they have time, and he wants to see if she can melt a little, and he wants-

“Give me a moment?”

He watches her remove a few layers of clothing. There are more pieces involved than he thought, and a certain way to her movements, and she is not yet exposed when she puts the folded pile aside but-

“Are you cold?”

She doesn’t quite make eye contact, but-

“I am not used to… the planet I was raised on was a much drier kind of cold, and… I was told I was being placed on a water planet and I-“

He moves to hold her, and it is the first part of this encounter that actually feels natural and instinctive. She fits perfectly against him and some of those rumors about preferences may not be a problem, and he wants to make promises she won’t believe, and he wants-

“We could do everything else under blankets, if you’d like.”

“I would assume you’d like to see-“

“I do mean what I said about-“

“I see that now. You are… not quite what I thought.”

He is unsure if she means that well, but at least his attempts seem to be going somewhere, at least-

“I am curious about you, but… I can wait.”

“If you’re sure…”

“However many times I have to say that I want you to be-“

“Thank you. I would like that.”

Already not going according to plan, he thinks as he decides this is as good a time as any to start undoing his own layers. There goes… possibly the rest of his life.

Is it wrong that he already doesn’t mind?

[honorhearted]

Ben wasn't sure he liked being appraised this closely. There seemed to be no ill intent in Kasia's gaze -- if anything, it was unfathomably the opposite -- and mouth dry, he swallowed and darted his eyes in between her face and the ground.

Upon hearing her question, he offered an incredulous smile. "How could I do anything else?" he softly asked. "Where I come from, I was a schoolteacher. It was my job to listen and guide and love children. That hasn't changed."

Forgetting his self-consciousness, Ben glanced toward the tent flaps and smiled more freely. "Auggie is one of my first and finest pupils in this camp. He has no mother nor father to speak of, so I...I opened my tent to him, and offered to teach him to read. He is a bright, remarkable boy. And if I survive this terrible fight, then...well..." He chewed his cheek. "I intend to make him my son, if he will accept me."

It took a moment for him to realize that Kasia had stepped toward him. Of their own accord, they both seemed to realize the improper breach at once, and bemused, he stumbled back just as she did, shaken. What did she see in him? he fearfully wondered. Could she see into his mind at his innermost thoughts?

Rattled, he found all he could offer in response was a tight nod. She was right. Washington likely had kept him in the dark out of some sort of misplaced protection, but Ben was no boy. He'd seen and experienced far more than most would ever have to, and it bothered him that he hadn't been given the decision on what he could handle all on his own.

Returning with Kasia into the tent, he was relieved to find Augustus teetering on the thin dividend between wakefulness and sleep. What he hadn't expected, however, was her to soothe him into repose with a lullaby.

Skeptical, Ben appraised her more openly, yet he remained on his respective side of the tent. It was...odd thinking of her with a decidedly human upbringing. "Was the song magic?" he asked. A tart coil of unease writhed within his chest, and shifting his weight from side-to-side, he only relaxed again once he spotted the soft, gentle rise and fall of the boy's chest.

He was breathing. He was safe.

Carefully, Kasia rose and then deposited herself onto the floor in a most unladylike position. Had she not been wearing breeches underneath, Ben knew he would have blushed. Making a face, he darted his eyes in between her and Augustus, watchful despite his leeriness, before he finally took note of her fidgeting.

"Does it hurt?" he asked. Stupid question. Rolling his eyes, Ben amended, "I'm sorry -- of course it hurts. I am no stranger to injury. I just...if you are magical, can you not heal yourself?"

light hues observe, kasia's head tilted ever so slightly to the side in consideration. he speaks with reverence about his commander. he was a good soldier, she decided, yet moreover, she felt it was not mere duty which adhered this man to washington. he trusted him, respected him, a loyalty build upon something. it was honor. lips upturn in the night. she has known many an honorable man, though, in her experience the world was also wrought with many the dishonorable too. but this human, perhaps he was a rare credit to humanity. she did not believe him capable of the many things she's bore men to cast upon her kind though she has no real basis for such a belief in him aside from his words to her. his conviction inspired a strange kind hopeful faith within her. perhaps washington would be the salvation of them all. in the least his vision could be. perhaps there truly was room in this new world, for all of them. was that not the dream which brought an order which typically took no sides within the wars of man to the cause? was it not what brought her to the cause? perhaps she was a foolish girl, an accusation which had been cast upon her often in those early days with zalan before they'd come to respect each other. before he'd molded her into what she was now. only time would tell. "i should hope to believe it."

fog swirls within the air catching drizzle and creating dancing wisps of mist. it's cold and it begins biting at her skin again tough she's hard-pressed to acknowledge. perhaps if she can muster the mental power to ignore it, it will simply go away. one could dream, after all. or in the least, present the power of the mind over the matters which assaulted it. it was something the young yaling had often spouted on about and kasia idly wondered how she was fairing across the vast ocean that parted them. kasia expected her brother had his hands full with the free-spirited vampire. these thoughts were, scattered, unrelevant to the current happenstance however, so kasia diverts them. blames the way her arm throbs for how distracted she's allowed herself to become upon this night. surely when she is well-rested, for perhaps one day such will be the case, her mind will find clarity. "a noble cause. i grant you credit for admitting to such a goal. most men, in my experience, do not respect children enough to understand the wonders we can learn from them."

she takes a step then, the intension to enter back into the tent halted as she turns back toward him and finds herself standing closer than intended. she takes a breath and steps backward a single step, gives them both space. kasia can see the way realization flashes across his face and feels a tinge of guilt over her own part in the events which brought it there though why she's unsure. "i can not hope to speak for the general as i am not familiar enough with the man beyond our small councils these last two days." a pause. "however, i urge you to consider his lack of confiding within you may have been out of a desire to protect you from that which he was still judging for himself." there had been a moment, upon the battlefield of which kasia had come to see as a turning point. a moment where washington had seen the honest truth within the words she had regaled him with previously. the moment he'd seen the true nature of enthralled creatures, of the lengths certain sects within the british forces were willing to go and seen that she and her people were truly willing to fight against it, that had brought washington to dedication to their agreement. perhaps he had not revealed the truth of things to the man before her until he himself was steadfast in his own judgement upon it? it is not for her to know, only her to surmise.

in any case, she does not grant tallmadge time to ponder her words outwardly, instead, moves on to respond to his other statement. "you need not my permission to remain if the boy wishes it. i will stay here, if you do the same is your matter to attend to." with this she moves past him and into the tent, features immediately softening toward the boy. strange how a child she has known for barely a half passed an hour has already ingratiated himself to her. "worry not your mind upon what we spoke of. all that matters is that we both shall remain here and defeat anything which shall seek to harm you again." she moves forward then, gently tugging at the blanket and tucking it more securely around the boy. it seemed this child, like her brother, had the habit of causing blankets to become tangled. "sleep auggie. it will serve you well."

there's a tentative kind of peace which falls upon the tent in time. the boy resists sleep to the best of his ability, making whatever small talk he can muster until kasia finally huffs out a laugh at the child's antics. she moves to sit upon the cot with the boy, telling him that brave boys got restful night sleep so that they might face the challenges of a new day, her finally offering a soft lullaby in her native language in bemusement. this, finally works and kasia smiles in satisfaction when the boy's eyes close and stay closed at last. "it always worked on my brother and i, when my mother sang to us." it's a quiet comment offered toward the man more bore out of her own physical state than some supposed confidence that might be upon them.

the storm has died down into a soft rumble now and kasia moves off the cot to seat herself upon the floor next to it in vigil over the body. pants peeking through the sides of her dress as it pools around her in some strange hybrid form of fashion. it's now she begins to actually survey the damage upon her arm, picking at the red-tinged fabric that's tied haphazardly over the wound. it's sticky and it's temporary nature proved to her that she would actually have to do something about it soon. had it been made by mere swordplay it would have already begun to heal, slowly. she was not inhuman, though her own magic could draw upon her spirit to aid in the acceleration of some healing, but this was no normal wound, it had been committed against her by a creature. because what she fought was more creature than man. a being she was beginning to think may have been touched by something darker if how frenzied they had been was any indication. noah hadn't been wrong in his look of chastising her either for not addressing it beyond a mere makeshift cloth to clot bleeding. she had the distinct feeling it was going to scar. face twists into resigned frustration, a sigh emitting from her as she watches the way her arm has developed a tremble of it's own volition.

[in-silks-and-flesh-and-leather]

I am a sucker for all your stories, they are so unique and I love your voice <3 But I am dying for more ready or not! do you have plans on continuing it? would you consider posting some more of it?

[the bride wore red]

Summary: Ready or Not AU, set in the 19th century (so the mansion and weapons aren’t anachronistic) Kylo is part of the Order, a cult of Devil worshippers led by Lord Snoke. When Armitage Hux loses his twin sister, and his family and bloodline are near extinction, Snoke offers him a deal – join up with the Order and be rewarded with all their wealth and power. All he needs to do it play a game on his wedding night. Kylo is chagrined when he realizes the bride does not know what she is in for. Now, here’s the catch – the bride has already done this. Many times. She has been stuck in a loop, repeating the night and all its terrors, trying for a very specific outcome.

POV shifts between Kylo and RC, italics are past loops and they sometimes appear out of order.

CW: all of them?, strong language, death, gore, implied intercourse, implied incest, cult behavior, mental abuse, sugar, spice and everything not nice

Word count: ~4k

*

Kylo crowded into a chair that was at least a size too small for him, grappling with a disapproving scowl on his face. He didn’t tell her, Kylo clenched his jaw, the snivelly lying spineless little ferret didn’t tell her. He wondered if he ever believed Hux at all when he assured him that he had, or if he was only trying to appease his own conscience. But now, there he sat, conscience decidedly unappeased as he looked at her, walking headlong into a trap, unaware. The other brides he had seen marry into the Order wore a face of determination or a deranged kind of anticipation. He never so much as pitied them, whether they pulled one of the good games or one of the horrifying ones. The odds were an almost fair 50-50 and if they won, they still got to join the Order. The crucial difference, however, was that they knew.

Kylo was stewing in his righteous anger, telling himself in some distant, secret corner of his mind that he would do something about it. Help her, surreptitiously somehow, even kill his own brethren if they were particularly bloodthirsty or played unfairly. He would actually gleefully murder Hux given even a shadow of a reason. But he knew all this supposed determination was for nothing – even if he did have some moral fiber, which was disproven time and again, it wouldn’t avail to anything. Le Bail always won in the end. He resumed listening and plucked a few of those fateful words of covenant out of the air, wedded husband, honor and keep, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live. His interest in the insipid words waned as his attention was caught by a marked change in the bride’s expression. She stiffened, like she suddenly woke from a nightmare, face darkening and growing contemptuous. He glanced around himself and no one else seemed to notice right away. ‘No,’ she answered resolutely, snatching her hands back from Armitage’s and stepping away. No one reacted for a long, incredulous moment. Things like these simply didn’t happen outside of novels, and even there, they beggared belief. She stepped back again, and again, more surely, and within a few steps, she was making her way backwards down the aisle. Murmurings started, but still no one thought to take any decisive action. Had she run, hunting instinct would have sent dozens of people descending on her. Yet, her strange confidence in leaving almost leisurely created a sense of normalcy, like this was the right thing.

She locked eyes with him. Deliberately. The look ripped through him like a bullet. He got the odd, yet undeniable sense that she was saying something to him – saying a lot; so much all at once that he could decipher none of it, except that it was deathly important.

*

The commotion finally started outside the church; Hux came to his sense at last and perfunctorily raced down the aisle to catch up. It was no trouble on your end to explode on him, not after the night you had just had, screaming yourself hoarse about what a liar, coward, pitiful, wretched, twisted, disgusting creature he was, that you’d rather die than marry him. Being exactly the coward, pitiful, wretched, twisted, disgusting creature you knew him to be, he just stared, first in shock, then indignation and, finally, humiliated fury as you stalked off. The guests gathered around him, gobbling like confused, outraged turkeys, faces suitably red and wattles jiggling under their weak chins. The Order gathered in a separate circle, talking with hurried, loaded glances. Lord Snoke landed his heavy gaze on Kylo. ‘Find her. Convince her to come back,’ he commanded and Kylo nodded, a habit upon receiving an order. It would be easier said than done.

*

“You’ve been helping her?” Hux demanded, outraged. Kylo didn’t see who it was that actually dealt the blow, but his clothes were quickly drenching with blood, the warmth almost pleasant. An axe lodged itself deep in his chest and his lungs refused to breathe through the sharp, scorching pain.

“You of all people should be thanking me,” he managed to gurgle, the effort of it almost impossible. He was fading fast. “She’s your wife.”

“What are you talking about, ‘my wife’? Are you trying to get us all killed?” Hux bellowed in hysterics although plenty of the night remained still to do the ritual. In his limited, and shrinking, field of vision, he saw how she struggled against the pitiless arms that closed around her, trying to reach for him, eyes desperate to express how sorry she was for what happened to him. He knew. He was sorry too. They had been so close, the gate was right there. It was careless to stop and share looks. Try to express this madness that seemed to develop between them. It cost them everything in the end.

Spitefully, Hux rose to his feet next to Kylo’s prone body and stomped the axe further in.

*

There was nothing to be done today, Kylo assured himself as he walked aimlessly around, circling a statue tucked far away in a corner of the enormous yard. It was some saint or another, face carved into a desperate plea for something. He often found himself there; the statue, overgrown with moss and forgotten, expressing the turmoil in his stead.

The day would be eaten up by appeasing guests, trying to save face, and likely sacrificing a goat – maybe a lamb this time? - or something equally innocent to Le Bail so he doesn’t avenge himself on the Order. He was overdue a bride, or at the very least a groom, thirsting for blood that was human. The wedding would be postponed and all would be well, he thought. Well. From the Order’s point of view, that is. What is good for the axe wasn’t necessarily good for the tree. He had chosen to be the axe and there was no going back, he protested against himself, against the queasy roiling in his gut. He thought he had made his peace with it long ago, but every now and again, something woke his nagging conscience and he was left wrestling with it in the impenetrable dark, and each time, he came closer to losing.

“You should take me away somewhere. Hide me,” she told him, not making it a demand, nor a question either. He knew he would, and she seemed to know it too. He should feel like she fell into his lap, appearing here out of nowhere, but something told him her actions were more purposeful than that.

His father’s house.

It meant nothing to him personally, Kylo had insisted, but it was real estate. They gained nothing from getting rid of it. And one never knew if they may one day need an out of the place hovel to hide in. Reluctantly, Lord Snoke had accepted his reasoning, but both knew he didn’t quite believe it.

Snoke never cared about the humble little house either, he only wanted to sever Kylo’s ties to his family. There was too much of his father in him, he had complained pointedly, making Kylo feel small, ashamed, unworthy.

*

You shuffled quietly down the corridor, back against the wall for safety, and slipped into the study like a shadow. Kylo was waiting there, as he always did, a rifle slung over his shoulder, slumped in a chair at the head of the desk. You stared wordlessly at the back of his head, listening for anyone in the corridor outside.

“I have to call for them. You know that,” he kept his eyes on the long desk in front of him, shined up and stretching deep into the room.

“But you won’t. You want to make it fair for me, at least somewhat. To give me a head start,” you countered, quiet and as collected as the surge of panicked hot blood rushing through you constantly for days and days now would allow you to be.

Ten seconds, Kylo had decided, sitting in the room. He would count slowly, he knew that as well. That didn’t seem too egregious a thing to do and if you proved resourceful and smart, then he would be vindicated. Then he could do more without feeling like a fool and a traitor. But how did you know that?

He turned and the corner of his mouth curled in a strange sort of delight. You had already gotten rid of the excess on the bottom of your dress, making it easier to move. If he wasn’t mistaken, a small dagger you picked up along the way was fastened to your forearm. It almost felt like you had come prepared for this very eventuality.

You came close, laying your hands on the desk and stooping to be on eye level with him. You caught him with your eyes and leaned in, coming intimately close. “You know about the hatch under the landing on the staircase,” it wasn’t a question. “I’ll hide there – you come find me when you’re able.” You could see his face pull into confusion and suspicion, a dozen questions crowding on his tongue. “Just do it. Please,” you gritted out, eyes boring into him, deep and unyielding. His gaze flickered over your face, taking it in. It didn’t feel like some desperate ploy to throw yourself at him, at anyone, and buy your life with your body. Others had tried that, and it never panned out anyway, irrespective of how cheap it was to begin with. No, this was something else. He didn’t understand it, but time was short. He knew he wanted to hear more.

*

“Get me out of this thing,” she demanded this time, like the dress was burning her. Kylo didn’t react immediately. This should be the groom’s job. Was he really devoted to Hux at all, or simply to social mores; what was holding him back? She needed to get of that dress eventually anyway, he rationalized, urging his legs to move.

It was her voice, the tone she used. Familiar and unabashed, like she wasn’t afraid of him at all. Like they had known – trusted – each other. Pushing with defiance against the flutter that gave him, Kylo looked the dress over and tackled his task.

She was buttoned and laced in, from the wrists to the elbows and from the chest to the chin. The rest of her dress followed her curves until it flared, gauzy and dreamy, giving the appearance of an angel. Or a ghost.

His progress was slow; fingers too large and clumsy to fiddle with the delicate buttons and lace. His pride was wounded when a voice in his head reminded that it had been a very long time since he had laced a woman out of her clothes too. He wouldn’t be this clumsy if someone put a cold rifle or a knife in his hand. But a warm, soft, attractive woman… That was a novelty.

She had both her sleeves all the way unbuttoned and he was still making his slow way up her spine, hands clammy and growing shakier with every passing moment. She moved her hair obligingly from her neck when he made his way up. Almost done. Confidence bloomed in him for a moment; he could do this. Finish the last button and let her return to the master bedroom, if one could call it that. It was a room with a bed that was less uncomfortable than the long bench that protruded from the wall in the dining area, bare wood and punishingly narrow. He resigned himself to it, knowing he would wake up stiff and achy. But he needed to do the gentlemanly thing if she stood a chance of convincing her to go back and go through with the wedding.

The last button came undone and her body slumped in relief, grateful to be free of the binds. The two sides of the dress came apart, sending a rush of cool air across the sensitized skin, making her shudder.

He could not do this at all. As though pulled by a magnet, his fingers ran down the trail of spine he had previously exposed and his heart raced from the contact, pounding in his ears. She shivered some more.

It was a terrible, stupid, wrong-headed idea. He was weak and this would end badly, so badly. Kylo chastised himself bitterly as she turned and caught him by the collar; as she seared her lips into his; as she pulled him inside the bedroom. He screamed and hurled insults at himself in his head as he pulled the rest of the dress off her; as he helped her undress him; as he groaned with need at the lightest touch. He admonished himself as he tumbled back on the bed; as he relished the sensation of a slick, hot cunt around him; as he stared at the ceiling, buzzing and empty, vowing to continue the barrage in the morning.

*

It was bound to happen sooner or later. He had died already several times, by someone else’s hand and once or twice by yours. A mistake once, he snuck up on you in the dark. It wasn’t instantly fatal, he bled out slowly in your hiding spot and you found him, pale and lifeless, at dawn. Another time when he was caught under the wheels of the carriage hurrying you out.

You had revealed too much, pushed too hard, made him nervous. You knew too much of exactly what you shouldn’t and he panicked.

*

He wanted her, from the very first time, when it was all terrifyingly new. And, while he didn’t remember the loops, not in the literal sense, that feeling accumulated. So when she pushed and yelled and went from that meek, but intelligent creature he felt so much tender compassion for to an angry, demanding mess that led him expertly through passages and hiding spots even he barely knew, it was too unsettling. ‘Are you a spy? Who sent you? Who told you all of this?’, he demanded, shoving her against the wall as soon as they ducked into a hidden passage that she by rights should not have known existed. ‘It’ll sound crazy,’ she bemoaned, eyes hopelessly filling with tears. She knew she had overstepped and his temper flared, fearing the danger he imagined in her, ‘but you did. We found it out together, over time.’ He faltered for a moment and she called his name, as if she knew him, as if she expected him to save her.

He pushed her harder against the wall and squeezed his gloved hands around her neck. Black spots appeared in her vision, further obscuring the already dark passage. He didn’t mean to; he thought she would crack and confess. But Le Bail, unseen but felt, stoked his rage and he didn’t even know his own strength in that moment. The windpipe between his squeezing hands was crushed. Moments before, she seemed like a hurricane, capable of crumbling everything, and then she snapped between his hands, fragile like a bird. Kylo slumped in time with her body, in a grotesque act of mirroring, and was crying before he ever touched ground. This was the last thing he wanted. She wasn’t dead yet and though the body could have survived had it received the oxygen it cried out for, there was no longer any way through the ruined throat. Her eyes were bloodshot and a tear slipped silently down her face. She reached for him, hand crawling pitifully in his direction. It felt like grief, and forgiveness. She could no longer feel it by the time he peeled off his gloves and lunged for it, squeezing her hand uselessly with both of his.

*

Kylo woke up with the glare of the sun on his face. He remembered that the day before, a part of him was wondering if he and the Order he belonged to would survive to see this dawn. If he did, he questioned how he would feel about it. It seemed endlessly distant in this moment.

Snoke and the Order were far, and in this small house, out of the way and humble, one could imagine the Devil was far away too. What would He want in an unremarkable place like this?

She was asleep still, breathing deeply, her shoulders rising and falling slowly. She had not redressed last night and neither had he. Her hair, carefully done up for the wedding, was ruined by what they did last night and now stuck out in places it shouldn’t. He wanted to touch it, cradle her head and cup her cheek. He wanted to be given kisses and have breakfast, in no rush to go anywhere or do anything.

Instead, Kylo slipped carefully out of bed and got dressed, scribbling a short note with his finger into a mirror that hung on a wall and gathered a generous coat of dust since the last time he visited. He should bring some essentials to the house; paper, ink, food, clothes.

Stay, it read, and he placed it on his pillow.

*

Hux’s nose cracked under Kylo’s knuckles and he cried out like a dying animal.

“Shut up!” Kylo descended on him when he fell to the floor, grabbing his collar and pushing a knee on his chest. The broken nose was for his own satisfaction – Hux would have squealed under the mere threat of physical violence. So he waited to make his demand until after. “There’s got to be a place to hide here, somewhere where we won’t be found for a long time. Or at all,” Kylo snarled and Hux looked from him to his bride and quickly surmised that compliance would keep him safer than trying to cry out and alert anyone to their presence.

Hux led the way to a small room, tucked at the end of a series of winding and largely forgotten passages. Parts of old mansions became disused over time and building projects were abandoned over the years, leaving all sorts of nooks and crannies behind. One such room, once a part of the old cellar and later used for storage, became the place where Hux and his twin sister Madeleine would run off to and hide. It had a sofa, an old dresser and some chairs that were broken or out of fashion. There were some clothes scattered around and a small desk with paper and an ink pot. A few cups and plates, along with a long empty cask of wine, showed that the pair spent many hours there once upon a time, away from prying, judging eyes. Even before they knew the word for it, before they were made to understand some things were unnatural and simply not done, the twins knew those looks the nannies gave them were reproachful, suspicious. They knew they wanted to be alone for it.

Kylo knew very well what the room meant, but beggars can’t be choosers. He hoped she wouldn’t infer anything distasteful. Once he was satisfied that the three of you were out of the way and there was very little chance anyone would happen upon the room, he whirled on Hux. Armitage was about to plead for his life, but Kylo was fast, slamming the butt of his gun against the side of his head. He collapsed and, just to be safe, Kylo stuffed some fabric – a stocking by the looks of it – into his mouth before tying his wrists and ankles together.

“You should be safe here,” he walked the few paces over from where he stuffed Hux in a corner. “I’ll go--”

“Stay,” she asked, timid but sincere, clasping her fingers around his wrists.

*

“Stay,” you pleaded, tired of the screams, of blood, of running. Three days in a row, no rest, no breaks. Who knew how many more. Maybe none, maybe this would work. Maybe a thousand more.

Kylo followed and sat opposite you on the sofa. The air was thick with questions, with incredulity, impossibility. Perhaps he ought to apologize, on behalf of Hux and the Order, for trying to ritualistically kill you. Would it make you feel better to know that he wasn’t even sure he believed that all of this served a purpose? Le Bail could be nothing more than a superstition. That would probably only make it even worse.

“You said you…” he started, voice betraying how dry his throat was, “ahem, that you… have done this? Before?”

You nodded. How could you explain? If you said you struck a bargain with the Devil, would he think you were insane or merely stupid for doing it?

“Can you” he started the question, not sure if it was fair to ask what he was about to, “tell me how this all started?”

*

“Congratulations,” a voice said, gleeful and unearthly.

You ignored it, staring out the window at the dawn. Blood and viscera were splattered all across the walls, the ceiling even, you realized as an unidentified part of some unknown cultist dropped from it, landing with a wet plop on the table where not too long ago masked Satanists were trying to cut you open. Their insides on your dress felt dirtier than anything you could imagine, so you ran your hands down your now red dress, wiping off what you could.

“It’s rude not to respond. Especially when you are being congratulated,” the voice went on, vibrating through your bones.

“Am I free to leave?” you asked, trying to project a confidence you did not entirely feel.

“Yes, but surely we can talk as you go?” the voice said and you made your way out of the room, down the grand staircase, over the hatch you didn’t yet know was there. “What are you going to do now?” the voice asked just when you dared to hope maybe it was all a product of your rattled imagination.

“I’m going as far away from here as possible.”

“Oh, really? Don’t you want him?”

You froze. Before he said anything else, before you even turned, you knew what he was talking about. Kylo was lying dead on the floor, where he had been shot while trying to sneak you out. It seemed Le Bail did not blow him up into smithereens at dawn. Maybe he didn’t bother because he was already dead.

“No,” you said feebly, not wanting to look. There was so little holding you together after this night, you couldn’t stand to see him lying there.

“You kissed him out by the gate, behind that big tree when you thought you were alone and no one was watching. Someone is always watching,” he whispered confidentially.

“So?” you scoffed, trying to lie to the Devil, as if he couldn’t see right through you.

“You asked him to leave with you. So sweet. He wanted to, you know. He was this close to taking you by the hand and running out with you right then and there.”

“I don’t want to hear this anymore.”

“We can keep playing.”

“I don’t think so.”

“He helped you. Once, and again. You don’t want to help him at all?”

“I’ve seen your games, I’ve played one. There is no winning,” you said, reminding – convincing – yourself. You were mere steps from being free.

“But you did, you won. You can do it again; I believe in you. And this time,” he added, as though sharing a secret, “we’d both be playing for something that we actually want.” Your eyes were coaxed to go where they didn’t want and landed on Kylo’s lifeless body resting in a halo of his own blood.

“When does the game end?”

“You’ll know when it’s over.”

“How many tries do I get?”

“As many as necessary. Until he is either yours or mine.”

*

[one-boring-person]

Need.

Moritz de Vries (Parfum) x f!reader

Warnings: NSFW, smut, masturbation, slight voyeurism, swearing, slight cum-eating

Context: this came about from a conversation with a good friend, so voila, my first Moritz fic👍😅

Masterlist

Tagging: @alan-is-my-ginger-princess (credits for helping me with the idea) @lemairepstuff @creme-bruhlee

Like my work? Buy me a coffee! 😁

My hand slows where it is writing notes across a page, my attention once again drawn to the muffled sounds coming from further into the apartment. It's the third time now I've had to stop, irrational discomfort rising in me with every sound I hear; as far as I know, I'm the only one in the apartment, so there shouldn't be any weird noises coming from anywhere. 

I turn slightly as I hear it again - a soft shifting sound, like rustling cloth, coming from the apparently not-quite-empty flat. Confused and worried now, I stand from my chair and go to the door, looking out into the dark lounge room, still not seeing any of the telltale signs to say my flatmate is home, his usual long overcoat not hanging from the usual perch, his shoes not in their usual position by the door. Frowning, I go into the room and flick a light on, scanning the surroundings as the yellow cast floods the room. Still nothing out of place, no reason for the sounds. 

Just as I'm about to go back to my room, I hear the sound again, a little louder. 

This time, I can hear where it's coming from, my head moving to stare at the one place I wasn't expecting to hear anything from. 

Moritz's door is usually closed, never pushed-to, the man particularly valuing his privacy, especially with his aversion to letting "contaminating smells" into his room. I've never been inside, not properly, always a little too shy to interrupt him whilst he's doing god-knows-what in there. The man himself often makes me a little uneasy, but I've long since found I like him, his quiet, clever nature suiting my own, eventually leading to my inevitable attraction to him. At times, I've seen his more teasing, witty side, but not often, although I have enjoyed being on the receiving end of some of his more playful jibes. Those almost cold, constantly calculating eyes have often featured in my wildest fantasies, setting me alight with a burning lust. 

Now, however, the door is cracked open, a soft light emanating from the space behind it. 

Curious, I go to it, being as quiet as possible, listening as the sounds get louder, quickly becoming clear enough for me to discern what they are. Moritz grunts and pants behind the door, breathy moans twisted into the mix as a very familiar sound accompanies these utterances. A flush of arousal goes through me as I realise exactly what he's doing, my heart pounding in my chest at the thought. Immediately I'm intrigued, torn between silently trying to watch and going back to my own room to pretend I never heard anything. The latter is the more sensible option, and yet the former has me desperate for more. 

A quick internal debate plays out before I make my decision, softly pushing the door until I can slip inside, pushing it to again behind me. Instantly, I'm hit with an odd combination of scents, each of which somehow blends together to create a wonderful smell that is undeniably him, underpinned now with the decidedly strong odour of sex. My eyes find the figure I'm looking for almost instantly, fixing on his sprawled frame fast. The breath in my throat hitches at the sight.

On an old armchair across from me is Moritz, his head tilted back slightly, eyes closed, lips parted in pleasure, hair somewhat dishevelled. One hand presses to his face, seemingly clutching something, the perfumer taking deep inhales of whatever it is he has, groans leaving him with each breath,the other hand moving quickly over his exposed cock. Swallowing, I stare at it, enthralled by the drag of his palm over his considerable length, watching as his fingers pull back his foreskin, twisting over the tip quickly before dipping down to apply pressure to thick veins that wrap around the length in his hand. Precum glistens on the tip, smeared around by the hand working his cock so deliciously. Every so often, his hand dips down to lightly pull on his balls, biting back sharp moans as he does so, hips bucking into his fist.

Arousal floods my body, a wetness quickly forming in my underwear as I watch the man in front of me jerking himself off, spurred on by the object in his fist. Eyes wide, I follow the movement of his hand as he adjusts the thing he's holding to his face, my breath catching sharply as I realise exactly what it is: a pair of my panties. 

The lust and desire that suddenly washes over me is nearly crippling, my legs almost buckling underneath me, making me fall back against the wall, my hand going straight into my trousers, fingers starting to work myself, moving my wetness around my now aching pussy. The fact Moritz is getting off with my scent has me biting back moans of my own, my eyes fixed on the man as he rubs his thumb over his slit, his whole body shuddering at the feeling. As I watch this, I can't quite catch the whimper that leaves me, my fingers ghosting over my clit until I realise that he's stopped, his eyes fixed on me in shock and surprise, having heard me.

Horrified, I stare back at him, mouth opening and closing as I try to think up a reason for my presence until he starts to move again. Keeping piercing, lust-clouded eyes trained on me, Moritz starts to move his hand faster, fingers curling around his base, squeezing as he moves to his tip, panting now. Spurred on by him, I continue myself, making small sounds of need and want as I draw circles on my throbbing clit, dipping my fingers down to my entrance. Biting my lip, I slide one inside me, trying to fuck myself with it in my underwear even as he starts to play with his balls again. Suddenly, he groans loudly and drops my panties to the floor.

"Come here, fuck, come over here...I need to smell you...I need you…" He growls, beckoning me over with both hand and arm movements, looking hungry now as I willingly oblige. 

Moritz moves to sit forward in the chair, instantly wrapping his arm around my waist as I draw near, pulling me close to him. Pushing apart my legs, the perfumer keeps me standing, pulling my trousers down enough so that my underwear are exposed, instantly using that hand to grip my ass. With this hold, he forces my crotch close to his face, instantly pressing his nose to the area above my hand. Almost immediately, he groans, a deep guttural sound of ecstasy released straight against the point just over my clit as his hand starts to move over his cock faster. Arousal washes over me once more and I start to fuck myself again, rubbing over my clit even as I feel his hot breath through my panties, every grunt and pant he makes vibrating deliciously against me, the grip on my ass pressing me desperately closer. Moans start to escape me now, my free hand in his hair, trying to hold onto him as the pleasure coursing through me makes it hard to stand, his hot breaths making it no easier for me. 

"Fuck, you smell so good...so fucking good...shit, I need you...I need to cum…" Moritz moans out, opening his mouth to press hotly over my panties, breathing in deeply. 

The resulting groan of approval and need, mixed with the sound of his hand moving faster over himself, suddenly throw me over the edge, my climax exploding within me so that I have to fight to stay standing, colours flashing behind my eyes. Crying out in euphoria, I try to catch myself before I fall against the man before me, unable to help the shudder of pleasure as he moans deeply into me once more, almost whimpering needily as his hips buck into his hand, his cum likely landing on my trousers as he fists himself through his orgasm, pushing his face even further into me, trying hard to make sure he can capture my scent. 

As he and I come down from our highs, he collapses back into the armchair, his grip on my ass pulling me down onto him. Yelping softly, I fall into his lap, landing against his chest as he moves his hand from his cock, my own hands moving to steady myself. Noticing, Moritz gives me a sly look, eyes glinting as he takes the hand that was in my pants in the hand that had held me to him and presses it to his face, breathing my scent in deeply before slipping his tongue out to lick around each digit. A soft moan escapes me, evolving into whispers and whines as he lifts his own hand covered in his cum to my lips, dark eyes watching as I eagerly lap at his seed. The feeling of his tongue on my skin spurs me on, cleaning and sucking each fingers carefully as he softly groans around my own, his eyes boring into me. 

When we finally pull apart, he smirks and pulls me closer, wrapping his arms around my back, face suddenly very close to mine. He chuckles as he sees my nervous response, able to read me like a book.

"Relax, I don't bite. Unless you want me to." Moritz grins lazily, leaning in to nose along the underside of my jaw, breathing in heavily, muttering something in French that I don't understand. 

As he pulls back again, I'm surprised (and excited) to see the dark, lustful look has returned to his eyes.

"I have one favour to ask of you, (Y/n)."

[mfingenius]

Hey, I’d love a drarry in 4th year where Draco is Harry’s second task and/or they go together to the Yule Ball (a lot of provocation between them!)

Harry's staring; logically, he knows he should hurry, knows he doesn't have time to simply float around, contemplating life, but Malfoy is there, floating motionlessly beside Hermione and Gabrielle Delacour and Harry is confused.

Cho was obviously Cedric's task; that had been clear enough even before Cedric had grabbed her - while Harry had just watched, as confused as he is now - and Hermione has to be Krum's. There's no Durmstrang student, and - as far as Harry knows - Krum only talks to Hermione.

Gabrielle Delacour is Fleur's. She's her sister, it's as simple as that.

Which means that whoever designed this Merlin forsaken task thought Malfoy was 'what he'd sorely miss'.

Where the fuck were they getting their information?

Harry's startled out of his silent shock when Krum pushes by, half transformed into a shark, and frees Hermione.

He gives him an odd look while he swims back up, which is quite an impressive feat with what is possibly the least expressive animal's head as his own.

Right.

Right.

He frees Malfoy with a quick Diffindo, and grabs his wrist so he won't simply go away while he looks around; his time must be almost up - he can almost feel it, the effect of the gillyweed beginning to fade, his lungs beginning to feel unpleasant with water in them - which means Fleur needs to show up to get her sister, soon, but she's just - not.

He looks at Malfoy's face; he looks unexpectedly young and - handsome, almost - like this. There's no denying his aristocratic nose and high cheekbones are appealing - at least to Harry, who doesn't know how Ron could possibly think Malfoy's 'weird-looking' - but Harry doesn't usually have time to appreciate it, since Malfoy immediately ruins it by opening his mouth.

Fleur is still not showing up.

Gabrielle, who looks exactly like Fleur, looks like a kid even to Harry; if he'd been deemed too young to participate in the games, why is everyone in this task as young as he is, or younger?

Surely, he tries to reassure himself, the heads of school wouldn't let them rot here.

Even if the egg said they would, even if it said it 'wouldn't come back'. These are children.

Harry only has to ponder half a moment more before he decides that he doesn't trust adults that much.

A matching Diffindo frees Gabrielle, and he drags her and Malfoy up with merepeople grabbing at his feet, with his lungs filling with water, heart bursting in his chest and vision darkening at the edges because he can't breathe and he can't get out and-

He breaks the surface and hears screaming, and he's coughing up water and maybe blood - or maybe it's not his, but someone is bleeding, because the water around them is turning pink - and he wants to sink right back down, wants to rest.

"Gabrielle! Gabrielle!" Fleur's shrieking is louder than anyone else's, but Harry thinks that's fair; he's never had a sibling, but he can't imagine thinking they were going to die because of a school approved activity.

Everyone else is cheering, he realizes; they're happy for him, for them, they think this is good.

He manages to catch sight of Cedric's, Krum's, and Fleur's faces, and none of them look like they're feeling anything even slightly positive.

"Potter?" He finally looks at Malfoy. "What the bloody hell are you doing?"

Harry can't help the laugh that bubbles out of him. What is he doing? What was Malfoy doing, representing the thing Harry would sorely miss? Dumbledore - or the merepeople, or whoever made this decision - could've taken Ron, could've taken any Weasley, hell, they could've taken bloody Mrs. Norris, and Harry thinks they would've been a better choice than Malfoy.

He tightens his grip around Malfoy's and Gabrielle's arms, and begins dragging them towards the other contestants; as soon as they're there, hands are reaching in and pulling them all out, wrapping them in blankets, and Fleur is hugging Gabrielle and crying and Malfoy's teeth are chattering and Harry can still feel water in his lungs and he can't think.

"Merlin, Harry, you're bleeding!" Hermione exclaims.

Harry looks down and realizes she's right; the merepeople got him with their claws.

"Come on," she says, cheeks red from the cold. "We'll get you to the infirmary."

*

Slytherins keep making kissy sounds at him in the hallways, and it gets worse whenever Malfoy is around; he'd think this is Malfoy's doing, except the bastard looks just as embarrassed as Harry - if not more than Harry - when it happens.

They can't quite even look at each other anymore, let alone argue, because if they even say a word to each other, there are three dozen people suddenly watching.

Which is how Harry finds out he would kind of miss Malfoy if he were gone.

In the totally not friendly, even less romantic, entirely normal rival kind of way.

Obviously.

He likes to think Malfoy misses him a little bit too.

Which is, of course, why Harry seeks him out after checking the Marauders' map and making sure there's no one else within a hundred meters of them.

"What the-" Harry has to cover Malfoy's mouth, because if not, it would ruin his plan of quietly shoving Malfoy into the broom shed.

"Shut up, you git," he says, looking around and shutting the door behind him; Malfoy bites his hand, hard, and Harry muffles a yelp, pulling it back.

Malfoy smirks, looking quite pleased with himself, and Harry glares.

"What do you want?" Malfoy asks, looking around and upturning his nose; his features are decidedly less appealing when he's talking; Harry wants to shut him up. "Why'd you bring me here? It's disgusting, Potter."

And yeah, okay, the broom shed isn't quite nice - it has just as many spiders and much more dust than Harry's old cupboard under the stairs - but it's not like they could talk anywhere else.

"I didn't want other people listening," he says.

Malfoy looks at him incredulously. "Listening to what?"

Which makes Harry realize that he didn't really have a plan after this, and yeah, it might've been a bad idea.

What does he want to do? Talk to Malfoy? Apologize? For what? Insult the bastard? Argue? It wouldn't be too hard, considering Malfoy's a pointy, contrarious git, but Harry suddenly doesn't know why he dragged Malfoy in here, either.

He can't let Malfoy know that.

"You never thanked me," he says.

Malfoy's look turns more incredulous, first, and then his eyes narrow furiously, jaw tightening.

"Thanked you for what, Potter?" he asks, crossing his arms. "Making sure every single person in this awful school thinks we're secretly dating? Making sure I can't get down a bloody hallway without some idiotic Gryffindor asking me something beyond inappropriate about you? Making my parents think there's something going on between us so they're threatening to disown me?"

"What?" Harry asks, immediately thrown off. "Your parents would disown you if we were dating?"

Malfoy looks taken aback, like he didn't expect himself to say that, and he looks away. "Forget it. I'm not thanking you."

"Your parents would disown you for dating me?" Harry asks, still stuck on that fact. "Why?"

Malfoy looks troubled, and he shakes his head, looking at the door like he wants to flee; unfortunately for him, Harry's blocking it.

"Are we done here?" he asks. "I'd really rather not spend time in a shed with you."

"Oh, please, you'd love to spend time in a shed with me." Harry rolls his eyes, because he, too, is easy to goad into an argument, as long as it's Malfoy doing the goading.

"Yeah? What part of this do you think I'm loving?" Malfoy asks drily.

Harry doesn't have an answer except for the realization that he himself isn't having the worst time of his life. He isn't even having the worst time he's had today.

"Arguing," he says dumbly.

Malfoy looks at him incredulously again, and then he shakes his head, almost to himself.

"Go to the infirmary, Potter," he says, sliding past him, twisting himself in an almost impressive way so he doesn't touch Harry at all. "Tell Pomfrey to check for head injuries."

"Would you care if I did have a head injury?" Harry asks, already knowing he doesn't have one but not willing to quite reject the idea, because he's enjoying time with Malfoy. He's enjoying arguing with Malfoy.

Malfoy snorts and rolls his eyes. "Sure, Potter. If you end up in the infirmary with a head injury, I'll visit and even bring you flowers, I pinky swear."

He leaves the shed, and leaves Harry blinking after him.

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

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Commissions

[crystalmarred]

It had been a decidedly unusual day for X'kijin—which meant to say it had been the picture of peace. No one had even made threats to annihilate the star! It was a unique opportunity, X'kijin had thought, when he'd woken up two bells later than was typical when the world teetered on the brink of destruction for this reason or that reason.

So he had ventured outside the Rising Stones to take in Revenant's Toll. How long had it been since he was allowed to do so without the burden of Hydaelyn's blessing? So often it called him to action—whether he had wanted to or not—that it had started to feel more like a noose.

Though his life had taken a turn for the better because he'd joined the Scions, the responsibility hefted onto his shoulders still choked him, at times. Which, perhaps, was what had prompted him to take up more hobbies. That and the fact that nobody would let him nap, so he had to do something in his rare spare time. But today, he'd chosen to cook something.

It wasn't all that unusual a decision for him, given how much he loved cooking. But it had left him idle at the market for longer than he'd like to admit in a debate with himself about what to make when a familiar face approached him and—

X'kijin blinked owlishly at the stranger, eyes wide with surprise as he pointed out what was... probably the most obvious feature about X'kijin.

King's Whiskers, the man said. He... Had he heard that one? He was used to hearing by the Twelve or Thal's balls, but that one was... unusual. Certainly not typical of any Eorzean he knew. Something about it sounded so familiar, though...

Being called tall certainly wasn't new. He got that from just about every Miqo'te man he'd ever met and some others. What got X'kijin's attention most of all was the next thing that was said by this strange... Miqo'te? The ears certainly fit, but a quick glance past them to the strange tail told him otherwise.

It reminded him of that giant, pink rat he'd fought a while back when Nanamo had needed his help.

But if he'd thought to question the strange tail—and probably a few other things that were odd for a Miqo'te, if he were to look—that was whisked away when he continued to speak.

"I'm... huh?"

He's what?

As this guy—Ji Ji, he introduced himself—went on, he fumbled on a myriad of other words and gave X'kijin no better clue as to where they might have crossed one another. The clouds? Maybe he meant the Sea of Clouds? But wouldn't he remember a guy that looked as odd as this one?=

"I'm sorry? I think?" X'kijin said, unsure if it was meant to be an apology for his confusion or for being half a bell away from destroying Ji Ji's perception of the Warrior of Light, as he likely knew him?

Hydaelyn knows he didn't fit what most people thought of when they considered who the Warrior of Light was. Most people expected an armored warrior, not a crafter with calloused hands walking around in a skirt with a Dalamud popoto in one hand and a La Noscean orange in the other as he debated heavily what exactly to cook.

"I'm not... Uh... It's not that inspiring," he said as he lifted the hand with the orange, as if he had referred. "Wait. Actually... Should I make roasted canard or deep-fried okeanis? ... Or do the easy thing and make buckler stew?"

[An Introduction, Kupo?]

[Closed Starter for @crystalmarred ]

-

“Hey, you’re the Warrior of Light!” Paws tapped against stone, one after the other with a short statured gait before the padded beans heel-turned to pace the other way again. Feline ears flicked atop glossy white locks as the young man continued to wrack his brain, speaking aloud with a mock of conversation.

“Oh? Wow! Funny meeting you here! You’re… uh, that’s… hrm…” Gemmed eyes closed as Ji Ji pouted his lip, arms crossed with claws tapping ever so slowly to his tanned forearm. In the passing of heartbeats the dip of his pommed tail began to lower until the reddened fluff touched the cobblestone behind his feet.

He didn’t remember the warrior of light’s name. That, that was a problem.

It had been quite some time since he’d seen them in the clouded dragon-filled skies of Sohm Al. A stretch of time that the Miqo’te-hidden-Moogle couldn’t really comprehend in the schedule of landlocked men. Forgetting a difficult thing like an Eorzean name wasn’t too far off the mark…

“Kee…..Kaa… No, no there was something before that.” Running a hand through his hair, the moogle hummed before leaning around shadowed corner of a building in Revenant’s Toll, most of his body stepping out into the light as he stared at the aforementioned recognized-idol who loitered (with seemingly some kind of purpose if the similar waiting posture was any indication) and found himself caught up in once again, the same sparkled-eyed remembrance of when he’d first happened across the party of adventurers.

Ji Ji shook his head vigorously - hands pointed forward as if blinders to the task as he brought himself to focus once again. Just, talk to him, thank him for teaching him the world below the clouds existed, leave him to his day.

Softly the fluff of his pom swung with a shiver as he forced himself to take a few steps forward - freezing as an antelope before the wolves as the true-Miqo’te’s ears turned at some sound - causing the youth to dart back around the corner like the coward he really was.

“Come on Mogjiuri, you came down here cause of him, because of-“ Blinking before slapping one hand into the other, the fog of memory cleared as his excitement spouted the sudden clarity in an instant; “X'kijin! That’s it!”

Boosted by this surge of confidence - and perhaps a bit of lacking forethought - the moogle suddenly found himself once more warmed beneath the noonhigh sun, a beaming smile on his face as he approached that collected, cool, and-

“-King’s whisker’s you’re tall.” The observation came without prompting, slipping out right as the youth stepped into the shadow of the ‘other’ Miqo’te. Realizing just as quickly that was the first sentence of this impromptu introduction. The First impression.

With his whole body stiffening as if frozen, Ji Ji found his ears raised high and gemmed eyes wide as he stared up at the warrior he’d only seen from afar, now, focused on him and his idiocy.

“…You’re my inspiration.” A statement, fumbled with mixed order as he tried again. “Wait- I uh. I’m Ji Ji, You went to the clouds and- I mean. X’kijin you- No. What? I wouldn’t. Know…You’re…”

Star freckled cheeks flushed red with embarrassment as his voice sputtered out into a mogish squeak, and with hands tangled in the strings of his clothes, he couldn’t force another word onto the pyre he’d built.

Abort, nope. Failed step one.

[coalitiongirl]

Fic Recs (under 300 edition)

So I wanted to get back to reading Swan Queen fic regularly, and I asked people to rec longfic that they'd read (not written) and loved that had fewer than 300 kudos! I haven’t read most of these, but I’ve collected them here so y’all can go through the list and discover some new fics with me! Please try to kudos and review every fic that you read! It means the world to the writers and will keep em writing, and then we all win. 😁

Atonement by SgtMac (M): With Regina's magical heart failing thanks to years of previous evil, Emma and Regina and Henry (and Granny!) set out to save her life by traveling to the Enchanted Forest and requesting help from ancient magical beings known as the Guardians. Given a mission as simple as it is impossible - to achieve atonement by creating peace - the ladies find themselves joining a rebellion and fighting for the very soul of the Enchanted Forest all while trying to help Regina to understand that the self-loathing and guilt which have driven most of her actions don't have to doom her chance for a new beginning or even, a chance to live and love again. A S4(ish) SQ love story set against the turmoil of war and the chaotic savagery of the old world.

Blood and Sand by cheshire6845 (E): A/U The Savior is a slave forced into the role of fighting as a gladiator for the House of Hearts. The odds are against her survival as she will have to win in the arena, navigate Cora's schemes, outlast a general's vengeance, and not be killed out of spite by the current House of Hearts Champion - Regina the Undefeated. This story follows the major plot points of Starz Spartacus with some twists along the way.

But what if there was no time by KizuRai (M): When she wakes up, it's dark. She can't move, she can't see, she can't feel and she can't hear. Where am I? She feels a forceful oppression, pressing her down, draining her of her energy and she's powerless to stop it. How did I get here? The question of here is relative, she's not even sure where here is. What happened? There must be some reason for being stuck here but her memory is fuzzy, like all her thoughts are being sifted through a filter. Who am I? She's not sure if she actually exists or she suddenly became sentient in the darkness.She hears a voice reverberating in the distance, it's distorted and quiet but she hears it all the same. It breaks the monotony of the silence. Someone's coming for her, they will get her out. She's just not sure she wants them to as the price might be too great.

Finding Home by evl_rgl (T): “I wanted to remember you so badly that I pulled back your cursed town just so that the memories would make sense. I needed you so badly that even when I had no memory of you, I still tried to find you.” Regina gave Emma and Henry memories of a happy life together before they fled Pan’s curse, leaving them with no memories of their lives in Storybrooke. However, when the memory spell shows signs of failing, threatening to rip apart the minds of both Emma and Henry, Regina makes a drastic choice to go back and fix it, understanding that it will mean living alone in a world where her son doesn’t know her. Was the spell really faulty, though? (swanqueen)

Five Flames by MariaComet (U): In the past, Emma Nolan disconnected from her peers in high school, preferring to keep to herself. In her sophomore year of high school, she decided to try and join the boy’s wrestling team because she was bored. She didn’t expect herself to become the champion of the most bullied kid in school or the secret best friend of the school queen. She also didn’t expect to join a club that would change her life. In the present, Emma is trying to cope with a humiliating loss in her martial arts career. She claims to be “training” but is stuck in limbo between wanting to retire and try again. She is isolated from her former best friend, Regina Mills, a local celebrity chef and the rest of her old friends. When one of them calls her with an idea to honor their deceased teacher, she is confronted with unresolved feelings and questions about how powerful love truly is.

A Glamour of Truth by PrincessCharming (T): After 2x10, Regina uses magic to show Emma the obvious truth. A tentative trust forms between them amid hilarious bickering. With Emma's help, Regina struggles to regain a place in her son's life... until Cora arrives, wanting her daughter back. Pieces of Regina's past emerge showing that the board was set long before the game started. The final battle begins soon.

His Dark Materials 'verse by MoonlitMidnight (M): A modern Alternate Universe in which Dæmons (the external physical manifestation of a person's 'inner self' that takes the form of an animal) are present. In which Emma and Regina have led slightly different lives and they make slightly different choices.

How Many Miles to Avalon? (WIP) by RavenOutlander (E): Regina would do anything to save Emma from the darkness and bring her back home safe and sound. Even put up with the two idiots, Captain Guyliner and a bunch of dwarves she decidedly wanted to drop off at the nearest exit. But in their search for Emma, they find that she might not need that much saving after all. Caught up in a search for the infamous Philosopher Stone, an all out war between DunBroch and Camelot, and ghosts from the past to haunt her every waking moment, Regina finds herself scrambling to keep her and her family's happy endings from falling apart.

The Hyperion by FrankenSpine (M): After wishing upon what she believes is a shooting star, Emma Swan finds herself aboard the Hyperion, the royal starship of an alien Queen from a faraway galaxy. She quickly learns of the tensions between the Queen's people and her own, but the Queen takes an interest in her and agrees to take her away from Earth forever. Adventure awaits. *(Loosely based on Guardians of the Galaxy with just a hint of Farscape)*

If Wishes Came True (It Would've Been You) by Angeii_K (M): After Regina films a guest appearance on her friend Neal’s popular show, he invites her to spend the weekend with him and his girlfriend. What she never expected was to actually like the woman. Sparks fly between the two, which results in them questioning everything and making choices they will later regret. 4 years later, they meet again in the most unexpected of ways. Now co-stars on the same show, they are forced to work through the emotions from their last encounter. What will happen next? Only time will tell.

The King Doesn’t Have To Know (WIP) by highheelsandchocolate (M): The White Knight had never seen anyone like her before: the Queen was nothing short of mesmerizing. Her possessive yet neglectful husband, however, was another thing entirely.

The Lich by Dangereaux (M): Gay disaster Emma, exasperated Regina, and a monster. A Halloween special.

Maybe if We Close Our Eyes we Can Reach the Stars by wellthizizdeprezzing (T): Emma is a lonely astronaut. Regina is an adventuring alien. Their paths cross leading them onto a journey of new discovery. Between galaxies and many miles of cold black space, despite not speaking the same language, they manage to fall for each other. An out of this world love story.

A prisoner long forgotten by sugarsweet_19 (M): ‘I wish I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood and as black as the wood of the window-frame. Soon after she had a little girl, who was as white as snow, with lips as red as blood and with her hair as black as the ebony of the window-frame. She was therefore called Snow-white.” This is how our story starts but how will it end?The evil queen as been locked up in a tower and forgotten that is until princess Emma looks for a place to hid from her parents after they tell her she has to marry Neal the son of the dark one.

Revenge of the Three Little Pigs by mskyo (M): Regina and Emma find themselves alone and looking for the rest of their party. The Evil Queen must face the consequences of her past actions. Will Emma come to her aid, or understand that justice must be served... *Some chapters have fairly graphic sex, and violence*

Things I Almost Remember by cheshire6845 (T): A/U Despite an oncoming war between the Dark and the Light, Emma and Regina are best friends growing up in the Enchanted Forest. When war does come, they find themselves on opposite sides. Regina will have to defy her mother to save Emma. Will Emma be able to save Regina when Cora curses her daughter to live in the Land without Magic?

What We Make (WIP) by DiazTuna (M): “My mother.” He says calmly. He’d known all along, she’s aware. But he’d known that today would be the day that would get this going. She wants to ask what it was like, to have woken up this morning, laced up his boots and walked into hell just knowing. “It’s programmed the cyborg to kill her. Before I have a chance to be born.” -In which the leader of the future sends his best soldier back to the past to save his mother from a killer cyborg. Terminator AU.

The Wrong Way by pcworth (M): Takes place right after Zelena steals Regina's heart. Zelena offers Regina a chance to go back in time with her and change both of their lives for the better. But what will be the price of that decision. Slow-burn to SwanQueen

zombie trash by 13pens (T): Zelena could have her brain and eat it, too. Fic operates on three premises 1. this takes place in any universe where zelena is a reformed asshole 2. zombies are a thing and exist iZombie style 3. i have NO chill

[hopeswriting]

EVENT: KHR Rare Pair Week 2022

PROMPT: Day 2 - Bodyguard AU

PAIRING: Skull/Arcobaleno

SUMMARY:

As he makes it more and more famous in the stunt industry, people inexplicably start targeting Skull’s life. Naturally, his manager hires bodyguards to keep him safe.

Seven of them, just to be safe rather than sorry.

RATING: G

AUTHOR: @hopeswriting

TAG WARNING: Mild Swearing

WORD COUNT: 3325

LINKS: Ao3 & Ff.net

[Plain text:

EVENT: KHR Rare Pair Week 2022

PROMPT: Day 2 - Bodyguards AU

PAIRING: Skull/Arcobaleno

SUMMARY:

As he makes it more and more famous in the stunt industry, people inexplicably start targeting Skull’s life. Naturally, his manager hires bodyguards to keep him safe.

Seven of them, just to be safe rather than sorry.

RATING: G

AUTHOR: @hopeswriting

TAG WARNING: Mild Swearing

WORD COUNT: 3325

LINKS: Ao3 & Ff.net /End PT]

*

Skull opens the door to the meeting room, smoothing his grumpy face for a more professionally unwilling and disapproving one, his manager and his two perfectly capable bodyguards following in his steps. The seven people already sat at one side of the long table turn their eyes on them, and the blond one whistles loud and drawled out, unmistakably appreciative, looking him up and down.

Dead silence falls in the room, Skull and his team pausing in their steps. Blondie widens his eyes, slapping his hand against his mouth, his golden, tan skin taking on an increasing red tint. One of the two women at either side of him lets out a brief burst of laughter, then slaps her hand against her mouth too to muffle it. Some of the others snicker more discreetly than hers, while the rest of them simply smile, more or less wide and mocking.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry," Blondie says, "that was so inappropriate. I don't know what came over me, but please, don't let it affect your decision or reflect on my teammates. I swear it won't happen again—shut up," he grits through his teeth in a low hiss at his colleague, but she just turns her head and leans it against the shoulder of her colleague at her other side, still laughing as quietly as she can in her fist, her shoulders shaking. Blondie turns back to him, his face decidedly red now. "I'm so sorry."

"It's fine," Skull says, trying to restrain his smile for his sake, and maybe now feeling a little less unwilling about this whole meeting thing, and what about it? He didn't even try for it, wearing a plain all black outfit—hoodie, pants and snickers—, though he still did his hair and makeup. "Thanks."

Blondie groans, hiding his face in his hands as he leans his elbows on the table. Next to him his colleague has yet to stop laughing, sounding like she's choking on her laughter now, but none of her colleagues seem worried about it, so Skull doesn't either.

He makes for the other side of the table, flicking his eyes over them. They all look very professional in their black suits, each wearing a dress shirt of a different color under their jackets. One of them wears an indigo cowl matching with their dress shirt, the hood up and low enough it hides their eyes, an upside down purple triangle tattooed on their cheeks. Another one wears an Asian suit from the look of it, a Chinese one he'd guess, while he thinks he glimpses a fedora on the lap of the one with a yellow dress shirt.

Their suits look very expensive too, and very pretty, which he can't help but notice because he has two functioning, seeing eyes, and it's a bit hard to keep his eyes up and not to stare.

He takes a seat across the woman next to Blondie, the one not still currently laughing, sitting in the middle of them—or almost in the middle, seeing as they add to an odd number. His manager takes the seat next to him, while his bodyguards stand behind them.

The woman has a little orange tattoo under her left eye looking like a flower, and from up close, the other one next to Blondie has what looks like a burnt scar curling around her right eye and down her cheekbone, and just now is making herself stop laughing.

"Good afternoon, sir," the woman with the flower tattoo says, sliding a stack of business cards over to him past the file in front of her. "My name's Luce, nice to meet you."

"Yeah, good afternoon. Nice to meet you too, but you can all just call me Skull." He flips the cards one after another, catching the different names on it. He catches the names of different agencies too, raising his eyebrow at it.

"Please, excuse our colleague's…" she glances at Blondie, still hiding his face in his hands "...uncharacteristic behavior."

"He meant no offense," the man at her other side says, the one with the fedora on his lap. He sits like a king in his chair, his legs crossed at the knees, somehow managing to smirk professionally. He has the blackest eyes Skull's ever seen, seemingly seeing right through him, cute, curly sideburns at either side of his face. "On the contrary, clearly."

Blondie groans loudly, abruptly leaning back against his chair, still hiding his face in his hands. "Just kill me now."

His colleagues laugh at him again, and he forcefully ruffles his hair, not dislodging at all the bandanna holding his hair away from his eyes. He crosses his arms on his chest then, his face still red, and he's clearly not looking at him.

"It's fine," Skull says again, biting his lip to restrain his grin, but he doubts it's doing much. "None taken. Surely you already knew how I look like, though?" he can't help but ask.

"Of course we did our homework in the case you should decide to hire us," Cute Curly Sideburns says smoothly, his voice syrupy sweet, "but I have to admit too that none of the pictures I've seen of you do you any justice face to face." He very pointedly looks him up and down then, but somehow still makes it look like a casual, absentminded look when he catches his eye again.

Skull gaps, and does not feel himself blushing.

Oh, oh, that little—that—that devious man!

What the hell, what even was that? That wasn't very professional now, was it?

Was that even legal? Or was it a marketing strategy, seducing his employers-to-be to make sure they do end up as his employers? Not that he did anything much, or would ever need—no, not the point, Skull, focus.

Oh, this is so not fair.

"I'm Reborn," he says, just as Skull remembers to close his mouth and is about to look away, and he just knows Reborn chose his timing on purpose to force him to keep his eyes on him. He offers his hand. "Pleased to meet you, Skull."

"Me too," Skull says, shaking his hand, totally not blushing no matter what Reborn's smirk is telling him.

Next to Reborn, the one with the cowl huffs, sounding like they're rolling their eyes under their hood. "Viper."

"Fon," the man next to them says, bowing his head slightly, a smile on his lips.

The woman next to Blondie nods. "Lal."

"Verde," the man next to her says, green hair just as bright as his purple hair.

"Colonnello," Blondie says last, and apparently put himself back together enough he can look him in the eye now. He even offers his hand for a handshake, big and cold and calloused, and his own shivers a little at the contact.

Skull gives them all a brief, polite smile. "Nice to meet you all." He clears his throat. "So. Seven of you?" he asks, almost rolling his eyes.

Really, his manager is just too much sometimes. The hell is he supposed to do with seven bodyguards? The hell are they all supposed to individually do with him when there's seven of them?

"Your manager let us understand it's a necessary measure," Luce says.

Skull turns a deadpan, pointed look at his manager, who splutters in his hurry to justify himself. "It is! Do you even realize how many people tried to kill you by now? The lengths they've gone to in their attempts to kill you? I can't even begin to imagine why you'd be targeted with so much prejudice, but do I need to remind you the—

"Okay, yeah, fine," Skull cuts him off, frowning a little, because, yeah, it is starting to get a little out of hands. Who is he, the queen of England? "But seven of them? How are they even—" he whispers, then glances at them before looking back at him. He lowers his voice another notch. "Where are they even—"

"Of course we won't all be with you at all times," Luce is quick to reassure him. "We'll work in smaller teams so to cover all your bases, though one of them will have to constantly stay with you, keeping you safe and getting you safely wherever you'll need to go."

Skull scoffs, and he didn't really mean to, but, yeah, no. "No, thanks. I can get myself wherever I need to just fine all by myself, thank you very much."

Verde scoffs, glancing up at his bodyguards before looking back at him. "And they just let you?" he asks, clearly distasteful and judging.

"Yes," Skull stresses pointedly before his two perfectly capable bodyguards can voice their offense should they feel the need to. "On my demand. And I am the one ultimately calling the shots, am I not?"

"I can think of ten ways off the top of my head I could kill you by messing with your personal vehicles," Viper says.

Skull stubbornly crosses his arms on his chest. "Yeah, well, I can think of twenty ways off the top of my head I could live through your ten ways of messing with my personal vehicles, and still get wherever I was going to with them."

"In the case of a car chase—" Verde tries again, but Skull scoffs again, loud and disbelieving, almost bursting out laughing.

"I thought you all did your homework already?" he taunts.

He expects Verde to react negatively at that, but he smiles instead, looking amused. He looks a bit condescending too, like he's looking at a kid overestimating his abilities when Skull meant every word, thank you very much, but it is quite the nice smile on his lips.

At the corner of his eye Colonnello and Lal are grinning too, pleasantly surprised as far as he can tell, while Reborn's low chuckles tingles his skin down his spine, and is it suddenly hot in the room or what?

He shouldn't have put on a hoodie.

"Skull," his manager starts, displeasure clear in his voice.

"It's fine," Fon cuts him off, his voice placating. "There's no need to fight among us about this matter. Whichever personal vehicle you use, there'll always be at least one place for more, yes?" he asks, but it's a rhetorical question. "One of us can always take a ride with you. Would you be okay with that, Skull?"

Skull has still plenty to say on the matter, but good lord, does Fon have arms if he's ever seen ones. And muscles hugged just right by his suit.

Skull isn't even religious, but he's really going to need a divine intervention to stop being distracted by the sight in front of him.

What do they even look so pretty for anyway? Can people even look that pretty? Do people that pretty even exist?

He knows he exists, obviously, but that's different and not the point, and he's still staring at Fon's arms, isn't he? Fuck, move your eyes upwards, you hopeless simp—

"Wonderful," Luce says, taking his silence for an agreement. And what did he just say? A divine intervention, at the very least. "Glad we've gotten at least this one issue out of the way. Anything else you'd like clarifications on?"

"Yes," he says, wrenching his eyes away from Fon, trying to hold on his dignity and ignore the knowing looks they're all giving him. Like Skull hasn't caught them staring too. "What about my current bodyguards? They were there first, and I'm perfectly satisfied with them."

"Of course they can stay," Lal says, her arms crossed on her chest, all business-like all of a sudden, not that she wasn't already before. "If the level of threat you're under right now is to be believed, we definitely could use the extra hands to keep you, your team, and anyone you'll be working with safe, as they're likely to be targeted too to get to you. Or you can send them on paid vacation until we're done doing our job, as it's only meant to be a temporary measure until we've dealt with the threats on your life."

"On that note," Colonnello says, a serious look on his face too, "anything else you can tell us about that? About whom or why? Anything would help."

His manager and him exchange a glance.

His manager shakes his head. "Like I've already said," he starts, sounding apologetic, "I really have no idea why this is happening. And if Skull knows, he didn't see fit to tell me about it."

"Dude!" Skull blurts out, equally amused and incredulous. "Way to throw me under the bus, what the hell? You're supposed to be on my side here."

His manager purses his lips. "This is really not a joke, Skull. Your life literally depends on it, so please, take this seriously."

"Do you know something?" Luce asks.

Skull almost rolls his eyes, but he knows his manager means well and only has his well-being in mind, which he's grateful for. He shrugs. "I don't know," he lies. "Maybe some really obsessed fans? Or some jealous haters? I'm becoming really famous by now."

He does have a guess, because they're all weirdly committed to this, and actually only try to kill him after Skull turned down their weird recruiting thing for God knows what. But no one else has to suspect it, let alone know for sure about his very literal immortality, which he can only assume is what it's all about.

"Strongly doubt it," his manager says. "We're a far cry from the usual stalker behavior or kidnapping attempts, and even from the attempted murders by knives or guns."

"There's nothing usual about me, that's why."

That gets a little laugh out of all of them, even Luce, seemingly despite herself. It drops her business facade for a second, but then she catches herself, bringing a graceful hand to cover her mouth. Her eyes remain crinkled at the corner and full of mirth though, and she steals his breath away just a little.

She clears her throat. "I see. In any case, ultimately the why doesn't matter, so there's nothing for you to worry about. We'll still thoroughly deal with all of them, and make sure no one else even thinks about trying ever again." Skull raises his eyebrow, then exchanges a glance with his manager. That was foreboding. "Anything else you'd like to know? Something about us or our services, maybe?"

"I don't want your services," Skull says, pouting, maybe now being difficult just for the sake of being difficult.

But also totally not, because how is he supposed to keep himself together with them as his bodyguards? With them as his bodyguards looking like that? Do they expect him to be and remain professional about it? Do they expect him to draw a hard line about them not being anything but professional with him should they feel otherwise?

Yeah, right. Because that totally sounds like him alright.

Oh, yeah, he'd also have to make sure they don't learn about his immortality, which is hard enough with two bodyguards, let alone seven.

"Skull," his manager hisses in his ear. "Just make an effort, will you? Do you even realize just how expensive this meeting alone is?"

Oh, right. "What are even your prices?" Luce smiles, and then says a frankly outrageous number, and Skull should be given a medal for not bursting out laughing. He can't possibly have heard that right. Who are they, the kings and queens of England? "Come again?" he asks, his disbelief thick in his voice.

Luce laughs indulgently, while the others smile, some even chuckling. "We're the best of the best in the field, that's why. None of the people we've ever protected got even if only a scratch on them, let alone died under our protection, so please, trust me when I say we're worth the investment."

"No, please," Skull says, still wondering if he should bow or get on his knees or something. "Do tell me your prices again so I'm sure I've heard you right."

"We have a deal," his manager cuts in.

Skull gives him a look, opening his mouth, but he gives him a look, and he closes it again. He huffs, slumping in his chair. It's totally not like Skull is the boss of him or anything.

Luce claps her hands together. "Wonderful! Thank you for your trust. Here." She slides her file to him. "Those are our contracts. You can get back to us tomorrow at the latest, so please, take your time reading them."

"Thank you very much," his manager says, taking the file while standing. Luce stands too, and Skull does the same because he's not that rude. "Thank you for having us."

"It was our pleasure," she says, offering her hand to his manager, then to him. "I'm looking forwards to this partnership."

Skull gives her a polite smile, taking her hand in his.

Luce pulls him forwards as glass shatters, his manager yelping in surprise and falling back on his chair, Colonnello seemingly having tripped him under the table. Skull catches himself on the table with his free arm, something wheezing above his head then crashing against the wall.

His bodyguards hurriedly move, cursing, taking out their guns and switching the safety off. One stand next to him, turned to the door, the other next to his manager, turned to the window, both shielding them from—from what?

"Sirs, are you alright?" one of them asks.

"They're fine," Luce answers for them when they both miss a beat.

What the hell just happened?

No, that's not it. He knows what just happened, because God knows it annoyingly happens too often by now, but how did she know? How did they apparently all know for that matter?

Skull cautiously straightens himself, leaning his hand on the table. There's a bullet hole in the window, and a frankly worrying, big impact on the wall opposite where the bullet landed, without first going through his manager's or his skull, lucky them.

He looks at Luce, who looks like nothing happened, entirely nonplussed.

"I'm sorry for the abrupt save," she says, briefly grazing her fingertips down the arm he used to catch himself. "You are fine, aren't you?"

Skull is distracted from answering her by the others standing, all of them looking nonplussed, and straight up happy, even, smiling excitedly.

Colonnello, Reborn and Lal take out their gun, switch the safety off, and Skull didn't know the motion and ensuing, resounding click of it could look and sound so hot, but goddamn, did it ever.

"Dibs," Colonnello says.

Reborn clicks his tongue, catching his eye.

"Oh, shut up, the both of you," Lal cuts him off before he can even say anything, rolling her eyes. "I'm sure there'll be enough of them for each of us to have a piece of the cake."

They exchange a glance, baring their teeth more than grinning at each other, and wow, Skull's so bi and is so fucking happy he is.

"Aren't the windows bulletproof?" Verde asks, walking to the window, while Fon and Viper walk to the door.

"It was," Luce says. "Until they obviously found the right bullets."

"Or maybe you're just becoming sloppy," Viper taunts, making Fon laugh.

Luce just rolls her eyes, then catches his eye. "Shall we?"

Skull blinks back to reality. Right. He straightens fully and away from the table, glancing down—and oh, right, he's still holding Luce's hand, isn't he? He should probably let go of it. He clears his throat, not letting go of it, but Luce doesn't let go of his hand either, so. "Sure," he says, smiling, and this time means it. This is going to be an absolute disaster, but who is Skull to suddenly start making responsible, reasonable decisions? "After you."

*

I’ll simply never have enough of Skull simping after the Arcos (and the Arcos simping after him right back). And no, it’s not me projecting onto him, I don’t know what you’re talking about at all.

Hope you enjoyed, and thank you for reading!

[Plain text: “I’ll simply never have enough of Skull simping after the Arcos (and the Arcos simping after him right back). And no, it’s not me projecting onto him, I don’t know what you’re talking about at all.

Hope you enjoyed, and thank you for reading!” in bold. /End PT]