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vagrantblvrd · 5 years ago

Note

Can I get some Freewood love with the not!fic prompts?

Friend, omg, yes!

I was thinking about various ideas for these two and was blanking on something that didn’t fizzle out after the first bit?

But I woke up to snow this morning (we usually don’t see a lot of it where I live) and I was like !!!

Because, look, okay. Those snowed in fic tropes that often go hand in hand with a ~remote cabin?

But also I’ve been thinking a lot about bounty hunter-y AUs lately. (I blame all the cheesy movies/tv shows I grew up on).

SO.

FAHC-ish AU where Ryan starts out as this bounty hunter-ish guy. Works with Michael after there was a Situation that amounts to your typical buddy cop kind of deal?

(Loose cannon/idiot Ryan who ended up in the business after some shenanigans that’s part of his Tragic Backstory and somewhat less of a loose cannon Michael who was just tracking down this asshole who owed him money and got dragged into the whole thing and realized he wasn’t bad at it/kind of liked the work? And then like. They started a business together because that’s what happened in a lot of those terribad movies/tv shows I watched I guess?)

ANYWAY.

Bounty hunter Ryan who’s gaining a reputation for being a creepy bastard – that sense of humor of his and jokes that don’t land right with certain audiences. Also, doesn’t talk a lot on jobs because as Michael’s pointed out flubbing his words makes him look like a dumbass? (More of one, anyway.)

So he channels the Cool Guys from terribad 80s movies and such when he’s working, and there was that time the masks came into play because Bigger Baddies and it was a panic!moment and there was a mask kiosk right there, it’s not like he fucking planned it, Michael. (Being the nerd he is, though, he immediately gravitated towards the skull mask and now it’s part of his aesthetic. Because reasons.)

Michael’s back in Los Santos dealing with paperwork and recovering from their last job – took a nasty spill off a low roof and sprained his ankle/fractured something/whatever works as a legit Plot Reason for him not going with Ryan on this latest job.

Hacker who got into stuff he shouldn’t have – businessman or politician or other Upstanding Citizen who has all these Rumors floating around them that went to Ryan and Michael about their problem.

Offering them a shit-ton of money to bring this hacker in, no questions asked and all. Best not to, really, because the little weasel is just full of lies and would say anything to save their skin. Honestly, just trust the businessman/politician explicitly and ignore the hacker’s lies and it’ll all be fine.

(Yeah, not sketchy at all, but the guy’s got some muscle-bound goons with him and they’re definitely the kind who’d have no problems killing a couple of nobodies like Ryan and Michael and what pleasure it will be to do business with them, yes indeedy)

Anyway.

Of course this asshole hacker is Gavin and of course he went digging into stuff he shouldn’t have and oh, God, he should have taken Dan up on the offer to visit him earlier.

Now he’s being chased all over the place by this lunatic in the leather jacket and nothing he does seems to slow him down for long.

Traps and lies and doubling back and hiding and whatever else that ends up with them up in the mountains somehow? Gavin running to this little town – supposed to be able to find a small airport nearby and a plane he could ~borrow to put some space between himself and all these bastards in Los Santos only to find out it was all in vain.

The plane he was told about rusting away, bullet holes all along the fuselage and ripping through one wing and he doesn’t know what happened here, but it can’t have been pleasant.

And then Ryan showing up, all Scary Spooky with his stupid everything (no mask because it really was a one time thing, why won’t you drop it, Michael?) and the piece of junk car Gavin stole to get out there and this ridiculous ~chase up a winding mountain road.

Up high enough for there to be snow, a light dusting of it on the ground and too focused on not dying to notice the storm about to hit, and anyway, anyway.

The car dies halfway up the mountain and Gavin makes a go of it on foot for a bit. Remembers seeing a cabin or such on a map he looked at way earlier, or maybe a gas station attendant mentioned it at some point, whichever.

He gets a fair distance away, Ryan bitching as he gives chase and at the start of this whole merry chase Gavin was !!! but as things went on and Ryan stumbled/fumbled along behind him grumbling and complaining and such he’s more ??? because who the hell is this guy?

Not like the other people this businessman/politician sent after him – those were more likely to just kill him and bring his body in, real unpleasant bastards, but this guy?

Gavin doesn’t even know.

They’ve had those intense face-to-face confrontations that could have gone Badly a time or two, always interrupted by some unsuspecting passerby or stray jumping out of hiding to startle them enough for Gavin to slip away.

Just enough for Gavin to wonder if maybe this one won’t put a bullet in him so he can’t run – one of the others tried that and thank God Gavin stopped by an Ammu-nation before hand to grab some body armor under his clothes or he’d be very, very dead, wouldn’t he?

Make him curious, because for all the inconveniences and such Gavin tosses his way, all the angry yelling and bitching and complaining Gavin catches wind of? He hasn’t decided to hell with it and shot Gavin when he had the chance. (Or worse, because wow there are all these ways he could have killed Gavin by now.)

Anyhow, Gavin’s still running, yes, but he’s not flat-out terrified the way he was at the start. All the traps and whatever else he threw at Ryan intending to slow him down, but no real concern about any injuries that might be inflicted in the process.

Now Gavin finds himself dismissing things that might do serious damage to Ryan even if means Gavin could actually escape. (Stupid, stupid, stupid, because no way to know if he’s right about Ryan or if he’s just looking to collect on a bigger payday for bringing Gavin in alive, but yes.)

And then!

In their run through the woods or whatever is taking place, Gavin has to cross this rickety bridge over a river and is terrified the whole time it’ll give way under his weight, but by some miracle it doesn’t. He gets across just fine, and is almost out of sight when Ryan comes charging across, and of course that’s when the damn thing gives up the ghost.

Gavin pulled up short by Ryan’s startled yelp, turning around just in time to see him swept away by the current and almost, almost taking the opportunity to get the hell away.

But, no.

Because of course he damns himself for being an idiot, a fool, and runs along the river bank after Ryan. Keeps track of him as he pelts along until there’s a safe(ish) spot for him to fish Ryan out, pull him to solid ground.

Ryan who’s been doing his best not to drown, trying to remember all the things you’re supposed to do in that kind of situation and certain he’s going to die out here and Michael will bitch about how fucking stupid he was for the rest of his life, because of course he would.

And then there are hands grabbing at him and he’s being pulled out of the water and onto land and he gets a glimpse of a too-familiar face (annoying as hell and goddamn Ryan hates the little shit so much) before he passes out.

Wakes up who knows how much later in this dusty, rickety old cabin in the middle of nowhere freezing his ass off and also kind of without the clothes he was wearing earlier?

Musty blanket and jacket he doesn’t recognize thrown over him and someone (with an accent) muttering to themselves as they struggle to start a fire and what the hell happened?

He must say something or make too much noise while getting his bearings because the hacker whips around clutching a sad little book of matches in his hand and looking like a trapped animal as he watches Ryan nervously.

“Ah, hello,” the hacker says with this awkward little laugh. “You’re awake?”

And then, you know.

Ryan finding out the hacker dragged Ryan all the way up here just as the snowstorm hit and did what he could to warm him up. Was just starting to work at getting a fire started to warm things up faster when Ryan woke up and looks like they’re going to be stuck up here for a while, you know?Ryan half-frozen and clearly in no shape to hike down the mountain even if the storm wasn’t shaping up to be a bastard of a storm. (Supposed to last a couple of days, dump a significant amount of snow and no one in their right might would be out in it.)

And Gavin is still staring at him warily, keeps out of arm’s reach and skittish as hell and with the flickering light from the lantern Gavin managed to light Ryan can see how tired he looks?

Exhausted and run ragged (literally) and just as beat up after the last however long he’s been on the run. (Way before Ryan and Michael got pulled into things, that’s for damn sure.)

“Oh,” Gavin says, and fishes Ryan’s phone out of his pocket. “Michael wanted you to call him back when you woke up.”

Which.

What.

Gavin shrugs and explains that after he ~borrowed Ryan’s phone off him earlier that day, the day before in one of their face-to-face confrontations Michael called it expecting to get Ryan.

Turns out he’d been doing some Investigating, talked to a hacker buddy of a friend of his (Matt and Jeremy, respectively) and found out the asshole businessman/politician who hired them didn’t tell them everything.

That oh, hey, maybe it would be a good idea to keep Gavin alive and meet back in Los Santos somewhere to discuss what their next move was because they’re pretty much guaranteed to end up dead if they don’t. (The businessman/politician intending to double-cross them and either get them thrown in jail or outright killed rather than risk loose threads and such. What with that being the case with all the others they sent after Gavin and just. Yeah.)

And of course Gavin was like, ??? and talked to Michael about things and they’ve got this truce/understanding thing going on and Michael telling him Ryan’s a stubborn fuck and it might take a while for him to come around. (Also, don’t let the idiot die if at all possible.)

Gavin wary of a trap, but also this tiny grain of hope maybe things wouldn’t end with him dead, and then the bridge and the river and that moment of hesitation he feels guilty/ashamed of as he hands back Ryan’s phone.

Battery’s almost dead and there’s a sliver of a signal up this high/remote location, but the fact Gavin gave it back is…promising?

Not exactly trust but pretty damn close, and Ryan calls Michael and isn’t sure if the asshole hears him or what, but he tells him about their current situation and a place they could meet in a few days before it completely cuts off/dies and then, well.

Then it’s him and Gavin and this cabin in the middle of nowhere and ALL the huddling for warmth and sharing stories and FEELINGs.

Soft looks when Gavin falls asleep somewhere in there, exhausted as hell and the kind of trust/nothing left to do so in Ryan’s presence after everything they’ve been through.

Usual romcom stuff and when the weather clears and they make their way down the mountain to meet up with Gavin run into some baddies and have to fight their way free.

Another day or so to get to the meeting spot with Michael – small town nearby and this abandoned gas station or something like that on the outskirts.

So of course the asshole businessman/politician and his musclebound goons show up. There’s all these veiled/not-so-veiled threats thrown Ryan’s way when it’s obvious he Knows Too Much.

But maybe, the asshole says. There’s a way out of this for Ryan, because the asshole businessman/politician could use resourceful people like Ryan and Michael. Just let him have Gavin and keep his secrets and he and Michael could be looking at a lucrative job offer, if Ryan knows what he means.

Gavin getting all twitchy and fidgety because it’s a good deal, and really, they’re not friends, him and Ryan and Ryan would get to live. (He wouldn’t blame Ryan at all for accepting the offer, maybe tells him with this odd little smile it’s a good deal, you know? Ryan would be a fool to turn it down.)

Ryan watching Gavin who won’t meet his eyes and of course he’s going to tell the asshole businessman/politician to go to hell – even if he hadn’t caught feelings for Gavin he would have – but Gavin seems to think he won’t, and that’s just.

Ryan doesn’t know, really, because one of the goons gets impatient and goes for Gavin and Ryan just reacts – no conscious thought to it at all – and the goon’s on the ground howling about the knife in his leg and Ryan sweeping Gavin behind him before the shooting starts.

They get pinned down and have that Intense Eye Contact Moment where they’re sure they’re about to die and ~confess their love?

But that’s when Michael and Jeremy barrel on in, driving one of Jeremy’s ridiculous Rimmy Tim-ified vehicles and maybe hitting a goon or two along the way.

More shooting and yelling, but this time the odds are more in Ryan and Gavin’s favor and by the time the smoke clears the asshole businessman/politician’s escaped and the goons he left behind are super dead.

Also, the realization they’re all fucked now, because the asshole businessman/politician is definitely going to spin things to make them the villains of the story and him as the Upstanding Citizen most people know him as and, wow, okay, not cool?

But whatever because Ryan and Gavin are being totally obvious about their mutual feelings to the point Jeremy who doesn’t even know them can see it. (And he’s an idiot, as Michael can attest to. Like. Christ, it took forever for Jeremy to realize Michael was flirting with him and they were living together for months before the asshole caught on to the fact they were dating??? Like fucking Christ, what is Michael’s life???)

They end up having to ~go underground in Los Santos to avoid being murderized by various peoples, and people think they’re just another gang/crew in the city so why the hell not live it up, or something.

Hitting back at the businessman/politician by going after his ~unsavory allies and from the outside it looks like any other criminal squabbles, you know?

Rimmy Tim was a joke, but it becomes Jeremy’s Thing. Mogar happens when Michael picks up the leather jacket with the snarling wolf’s head at a thrift shop and someone asks him a dumb question and things go from there.

Gavin is just. He makes the most of being a little shit, and everyone despairs of the day he and Matt meet properly because oh, God, no.

Ryan embraces the stupid skull mask because Michael still won’t leave it alone (and also keeps people from recognizing him). Gavin’s the one with the idea for the face paint, some stupid joke that suddenly wasn’t one day.

(And oh God. Gavin being the one to do his face paint that first time, before they got their shit together and the intimacy of being that close to one another and touching Ryan’s face? Getting him to turn his head for a better angle to work with using a light press of his fingers and sudden awareness of everything about something like that and FEELINGS and maybe, maybe, that’s the first time they kiss?

OR.

Some awkward throat clearing and eyes being averted with all the !!! of realizing the oh, no he’s hot thing is NOT going to go away anytime soon, what do???)

At some point Geoff and Jack and the people they stole away from Burnie and the Roosters happen and they join forces because wouldn’t you know it? Part of the reason Geoff and Jack and everyone they brought with them are even in Los Santos has to do with the asshole businessman/politician.

Bastard making a grab for Rooster-held territory and/or interests to the point they felt they needed more of a presence in the city, which is where the Fake AH Crew comes in.

And then just.

A lot of shenanigans and assholes getting along too fucking well for anyone’s peace of mind?

Also, also.

Ryan and Gavin finally getting their shit together and smooching the fuck out of each other. (Maybe there’s one close call too many, or Pretend Married for a job, or just. Absent-minded kiss and then the !!! and following panic before they’re like.

WAIT.

Realize they’re basically an old married couple at this point and are like >:((((((((((((( at all the time they wasted when they could have been smooching and so on instead and decide to make up for it.

(The others go from being amused to exasperated to annoyed as fuck in quick succession because goddamn they’re the worst, okay. Sappy motherfuckers who are also assholes and do what they can to make everyone’s life a misery, sometimes even intentionally.)

#ragehappy #freewood #jeremichael (background)#techncially not a fic #vagrant fic #prompt fills #long post #Anonymous

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ghostpal · 2 years ago

Conversation

Me: I'm going to be super normal about this fic i'm writing. Nothing crazy or in depth, its just for fun. This is super normal

Also Me: *Creates an in depth system for name tags including contents, accessories, and how changing the badges work. Creates a detailed system regarding photos with the band*

Still Me: *does thorough research into the layout of the Pizzaplex. gets frustrated by the maps not clearly lining up and considers making one of my own*

#this is techncially relating to #fnaf sb #but like.... its also just a fic writing thing so #fanfic authors #funny #its funny right?

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sabraeal · 3 years ago

Text

We Seek That Which We Shall Not Find, Ch 8

[Read on AO3]

Written for @eveluboi for winning the Obiyuki Trope Madness 2021 betting kitty! I meant for this to be out way back in June, but it quickly slipped from a 4-5K projected fic to 7K 😂

Cold porcelain presses up against her palms, slick from where her fingers wrap around the sink’s edge. Shirayuki bows her head down, watching the water spiral down the drain, and breathes. In and out; in and out. If she hadn’t left her phone out on the table, she could look at one of those gifs she bookmarked; the one where the triangle becomes a decagon maybe, or where the star burst becomes a mandala. But she did, so instead she has to visualize it, counting out the shapes behind her eyelids.

It doesn’t work, but at least it’s something.

There’s something distinctly high school dance about hiding the the bathroom-- though in here, it’s impossible to just sit on the toilet and brace her legs against the door. Not that she needs to; unlike a bathroom stall, this door actually locks. A feature she’s sure has nothing to do with whatever the Wisterias plan to get up to in that Jacuzzi tub.

Shirayuki frankly refuses to speculate on what that might be. She still has to look Izana in the eye tonight, and the last thing she needs is to be thinking about him doing-- things in here, with people. Maybe he just has a compressed spine at the ripe old age of twenty-five, the kind that can’t be alleviated by anything less than eight massage jets.

In any case, this whole strategy of retreat isn’t really her style. Or at least, it hadn’t been, until...before. Which was a blip on an otherwise spotless record of confronting her problems head-on, with the sort of determined attitude Jaja fondly refers to as foolhardy, and Busha calls bull-headedness.

Her fingers grip the bowl firmly, levering herself up to stare into the mirror. She can do this. She can go right out there, sit down, and have Lynet reject this proposal. Because a normal person wouldn’t hide in the bathroom to avoid a fictional conflict.

Right. Shiaryuki drops her hands, giving her reflection a steely nod. It’s not like this is her first time turning down a boy; even if Shuuka throws her in a dungeon, he’ll still have taken her rejection better than the last one did, and that was a real live person. Not that Raj is much of a measuring stick for any kind of model behavior, but-- still. The point stands.

The door gives beneath the pressure of her hand, opening with a silence that’s confusing rather than comforting. Zen’s house might not be as old as hers, but it’s still not new; the apartment went up in the last five years, and its doors still hang crooked, screaming every time they move more than an inch. She can’t imagine Izana going around oiling hinges.

“Hey.” A hand catches her, strong fingers banding around her wrist. Pale ones, slender and well-trimmed; she traces them right up a crisp flannel to find Kiki frowning down at her. “I would give it a minute.”

Shirayuki blinks, and suddenly the world refocuses. It’s oddly silent in the basement, only the thin tumble of dice from the floor above. Obi’s either up to something or Beaumains is in trouble; she can’t even beging to guess which one would be worse.

And Kiki’s leaning here, right against the neutral paint, waiting for her. She shifts, casting a worried look toward the game room. “Is something--?”

Mitsuhide clears his throat; it echoes down the empty hall, a sound that fills the space like thunder overhead. Shirayuki bites back the impulse to count until next lightning strike; even though she knows it should be the other way around, that light travels faster than sound, but this--

“Is something wrong?” Zen drawls, sounding nothing like the boy who sits next to her in homeroom. No, sounding like this, he’s every inch Izana’s brother.

-- this is different. Bedwyr uses his words before he dares draw his blade, and it comes too naturally to be anything besides pure Mitsuhide, just like Beaumains’ quick tongue is the same one that wags in Obi’s mouth. He rumbles before the strike, and this one is destined to hit too close to home.

“Zen.” There’s something about how Mitsuhide wields a name; Shirayuki hardly knows him-- not as much as Zen and Kiki, anyway-- but when he says hers, it’s like having those giant arms cradling her tight against his chest, in a way that is less romantic and more like a tiny kitten living in a jacket pocket. When he says Obi’s, it’s a buzz, a burr, the sound before a siren wails, a warning that will never become a threat.

And when he says Zen’s right now, it’s a weight, a boulder to bear like Atlas shoulders the earth. It’s the moment before the punishment comes in the last act; the last temptation to turn the antagonist back onto the path of the righteous. “You should rethink your behavior tonight.”

“My behavior?” Zen squawks, chair clattering beneath him. “I haven’t even done anything.”

Mitsuhide’s silence speaks volumes.

“I haven’t,” Zen insists, though it’s weaker this time. “You’re the ones who are just letting Obi act like the rules don’t apply to him.”

“We are?”

“Well...” The pout sits sullenly on this tongue. “Izana is. And you guys aren’t doing anything about it either!”

Mitsuhide heaves a sigh that would make trees sway. Kiki’s fingers flex in sympathy against her shoulder. “I think you’re being a little unfair.”

“Unfair?” The word squeaks at the end of Zen’s range. “What’s unfair is that Izana invited that guy for the specific purpose of scaring Shirayuki off, and no one seems to care.”

Shirayuki only realizes she’s moved when Kiki’s grip holds her back, one foot still hovering over the floor, poised to make a very determined stomp. Words are welling up in her like ground water during a storm; a whole monologue that threatens to flood the basement of her common sense. The whole night comes back to her in inches; every slight, every complaint is magnified tenfold now that she knows it comes to this, and she--

“Give them a minute,” Kiki murmurs. “Sometimes Zen just needs a swift application of a boot to his ass.”

She blinks up at her, body vibrating with a need to do something. “And Mitsuhide will do that?”

A picture might be a thousand words, but somehow Kiki’s eyebrows could compose a novel. She lifts them a bare, dubious inch, and Shirayuki knows that chapter one starts with, and you think you’d do any better? “You’ll see. He’ll come around. Have a little faith.”

Bitter words lick up her throat, a carefully composed diatribe furiously scribed by her irritation. A list of all Zen’s petty squabbles, of all the times he’d tried to sideline her or sequester Obi ready to spill out, but--

But she swallows it down. Tonight’s tried her patience for sure, but it’d been Zen who leaned across the aisle in homeroom her first day. The one who’d stuck out a hand and said, you must be new. The one who had made sure she’d had somewhere to sit at lunch-- sure, Kihal had found her by then, adopting her like a baby bird fallen from a nest, but he’d swung by even though his wasn’t until next period.

That’s what’s so frustrating, to be honest-- she knows how good he can be. So the fact he’s choosing to act this way instead...

Her shoulders sag under the weight of Kiki’s hand. “I’m trying to.”

When Mitsuhide speaks again, it’s even, patient; she’d be tempted to say it was like a parent to a child, but there’s no condescension, no sense of speaking down but rather across. “That’s possible. But you’re still the only one acting hostile at this table.”

Zen’s huffs, indignant. “So you want me to just sit here and let them ruin Shirayuki’s experience?”

Kiki pushes past her with a parting pat, sauntering into the room. “How could they when you’re doing such a good job of it yourself?”

Shirayuki can’t see either of the boys, but she can see Kiki when she spins a chair around, dropping down to straddle it. “You may not have noticed, but it doesn’t look like Shirayuki minds Obi being here. At least, not as much as you do.”

“Kiki,” Mitsuhide sighs, a warning. “That’s enough.”

Kiki must not agree, since she leans in, smile sharp enough to cut glass. “Maybe you need to lighten up, brother dearest.”

Zen sucks in a hard breath, like he’s been hit. “Don’t--”

The door rattles at the top of the stairs, a muffled voice turning to a dry laugh as it opens. Her stomach lurches like that moment at the top of a coaster, looking down at the track below. It’s Obi.

Kiki is a flurry of motion; her chair flips beneath her, and she sits back down hard, feet kicking up onto the table. When Izana and Obi emerge from the stairway, it looks like she‘s been idling at a casual tilt for hours, not seconds, but still, still--

Izana lifts one elegantly arched eyebrow. No matter how cleverly they all compose themselves, he almost certainly knows every word that’s been said.

“You’re back?” Zen coughs, his words hobbling awkwardly, dragged down by guilt. Izana’s other eyebrow joins the first. “What happened?”

Obi drops into his seat, cradling chin in hand. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I would,” Zen snaps, irritation already rising. “That’s why I asked.”

“Oh, don’t worry--” Obi tosses him a wink designed to send him through the roof-- “you’ll find out.”

“I--”

“If there’s any other business, tell me now,” Izana says, taking his place at the head of the table. “Otherwise, you’ve slept through the night.”

Obi flutters his eyes, grin taking on a feral edge. “Well, you know I’m all taken care of, Majesty.”

“Anyone else?” Izana sighs, long suffering. His eyes flick out over the table, settling into a frown. “Does anyone know where Shirayuki is?”

“Bathroom,” Kiki offers too quick, gaze cutting over to where she hides in the hall, before darting back. The corner of Izana’s mouth pulls deeper, and his eyes lift--

“Ah, I’m here!” Shirayuki hurries out, slipping into her seat. When she looks up Zen’s watching her with wide eyes, gears clunking along behind them as he looks from her to the hall and back, doing the exact equations she was hoping he couldn’t. “Sorry.”

“It’s not a problem,” Izana assures her, keeping his eyes fixed to the screen in front of him. “Did you have anything you needed to do before the night is over?”

“Ah, um.” Her fingers stretch wide over Lynet’s sheet, tips gripping at the table. “Yes. One last thing.”

The stars are bright tonight, shining in the firmament like jewels in velvet. Ancient poets would invoke Diana at the sight, at the thousand heroes and maidens consigned to shine above for defying their fates. Older ones still would call upon Arianrhod, the silver wheel, mother of wind and skies alone, praising the complexity of her beauty.

But when you raise your eyes to heaven’s glorious vault, you see only kingly gift laid at your feet, unasked. And when you lower them, another waits for you in Shuuka’s smile, devastating and earnest.

“A fine night, is it not?” His breath mists in the air between you; a lucky thing, since it obscures your grimace. “In all Our Lord’s creation, a man could not find one finer than this.”

“It is a wonder,” you murmur, stirring the fur at your cloak’s collar. “But I have seen so little of this world that I hesitate to say that in a thousands nights there would not be one that could surpass it.”

His mouth spreads wider still, the pearl of his teeth glimmering in the moon’s light. You’ve pleased him, somehow. “You can only say that, my lady, since you are graced with your own presence every moment, and I have only these. For now.”

Your feet stutter beneath you; the leaves crunching makes him turn, brow raised in concern. “Shuuka...”

“Ah, yes. You wished to speak with me, did you not?” His boot heels clack against the cobbles, coming to perch on the raised bed beside you. He is not close, even still, but having his eyes level with yours makes this moment too intimate for you to keep him fixed in your vision. Instead you turn, leaving him looming at the corner of your eye. “I am your servant in all things, my lady. Speak.”

“My lord,” you begin, for politeness seems the only kindness you can extend to him, “I believe there has been some misunderstanding.”

His head tilts. “A misunderstanding?”

His voice is lower, a manly rumble instead of its usual reedy melody; a child playing at a man. A man he only wishes to become because it might make you happy.

You sigh, your gut tangling as easy as your fingers do above it. Were you any other woman but yourself, you would be pleased to have made a match as fine as this. Perhaps even mere months ago, you would have been comforted by the thought of marrying a man you had met before, even if he had been a silly, sobbing boy at the time. But now, as you are, you cannot care for this-- this life your father wished for you, with no thought to your own.

“About the state of the agreement between our fathers.” Your breath catches in your chest before you manage, “They are both gone.”

Shuuka peers at you with shining eyes, and oh, if only you could choose your words as gently as he deserved. But you know better; a man who wears a hard helm often keeps a harder head beneath it, and women’s words only penetrate such a barrier if they are drawn to a point.

“That I know,” he says, so soft. “And I am sorry for it. But we may yet do what they willed for our future.”

“That is not all,” you continue, each word stinging with guilt. “This understanding was dissolved long before either of them was brought back into the great shepherd’s fold. When my family fell upon misfortune...”

You had hoped it would be easier to speak of it, but the words stick to your teeth, refusing to leave the safety of your mouth. Shuuka reaches out, clasping his hand in yours with far too much understanding for what you wish to say.

“I am not proud of what my father did,” he tells you, sincerity ringing from his words, clear as a church bell. “Though I am certain he thought it would be for the best, at the time. He never pledged my troth to any other, and above any other woman he had entertained to be the Lady of Laxdo, it was of you he spoke most highly.”

“That is--” hard to believe. Not when you spent most of your betrothal dance trodding on his son’s toes-- “Kind of you to say. I know that you value the words of your father above all others--”

“My father’s esteem is exceeded only by that of the Lord in Heaven, may he ever sit at his right hand.” Pain hollows his eyes, so raw that even in health he gleams gaunt beneath the moon’s light. You have both lost your fathers, but this wound is fresh, bleeding still, and yours--

Well, yours sewed up just fine with a little needle and thread. How quickly a wound heals when you must see to it yourself.

“Would that I could talk to him,” Shuuka rasps, fingers clenching around stone. “But I trust that if he could see you now, he would see a daughter still.”

His grief burns brightly, a halo that surrounds him-- no, a shroud, the sort that might bury him beside his fathers bones if he did not take care. It is that which makes all this worse, which turns what you must do from a discomfort to a cruelty. But it is better yet than what it could be if you indulged him, if you let pity and kindness stand where only love should.

“Yes, I understand,” you murmur, gathering every last draught of courage. “But I must admit, my lord, that I do not hold my own father in such esteem. You are a kind man, Lord Shuuka, the sort any woman would count her blessings should she find you as her husband, but I...”

You flounder, the night pressing in thickly around you. What you wouldn’t give for crickets, if only to break the silence.

“Ah.” There is a wealth of hurt hidden in that breath. “But you mean to say that it shall not be you, Lady Lynet.”

“What?” Zen’s eyes blink wide, so bright, so blue across from her. “You’re turning him down?”

Shirayuki stares. “What do you mean?”

“He’s a lord, isn’t he?” It’s a strange thing to ask, especially when they just spent the last week and change-- well, four hours really-- at his castle, but here was Zen, looking toward Izana like he needed clarification. “Wouldn’t Lynet, you know...?”

“Um.” Even with a sweep of Zen’s wrist and the emphatic lift of his eyebrows, Shirayuki still can’t see how that sentence might finish itself. “No, I don’t.”

It’s quiet enough to hear a pin drop, so when Obi lets out a hiccup, isn’t not exactly inconspicuous. She glances over at him, and from the way his mouth twitches at the corners, she’s hardly the first. “Is something...?”

Wrong, she means to say, but Obi gives a single solid shiver and collapses onto the table, head buried in his arms.

There’s a breath where her fingers go numb on the table, where her heart beat practically deafens her as it pound in her ears. She’s not here in the room, she’s out in the yard, a wrinkled arm reaching out to her, and all she can think about is where her phone is, whether she can reach it from here--

“My, my.” Izana’s drawl rattles her back to the table, gaze skittering over Zen’s forbidding glare, the clasped hand over Kiki’s mouth, Mitsuhide’s wide-eyes-- “Isn’t that an interesting question. Now just what does make Lord Shuuka such an attractive partner?”

Obi lifts his head, still trembling, but it’s not some medical event. Oh no, he’s just-- just laughing. Shirayuki catches her breath, holds it, and thinks of a triangle becoming a decagon.

Nothing is wrong. Everyone is safe. Healthy.

“W-well.” Zen’s voice creaks from the reach she suspects he’s about to make. “He has ah, hmm...”

“Large tracts of land?” Obi offers, so helpful.

Zen hands stiffen where he holds them out in front of him. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

His brows give a wiggle. “Looks like it.”

“I--”

“Castle Perilous already has land,” Shirayuki interjects, hoping the tremble hasn’t reached her voice. “Plenty of it.”

Obi leans back in his chair with a grin. “Castle Perilous has everything! Large tracts of lands, at least two level or dungeons, an ominous name...”

She flicks him a flat look. “My point is, Lynet doesn’t need a manor to maintain-- she already left that to save her sister. She has a quest, she doesn’t need--” she waves her hands, steady now-- “romance.”

Obi’s brow ticks up, just the tiniest bit.

“I mean, not with a man she’s only known a week,” she blurts out, feeling heat simmering beneath her collar, licking at her ears. “Why would I be playing D&D if I just wanted to-- to marry Lynet off to the first guy she saw?”

Zen’s mouth fall slack, eyes glued to his character sheet. “Huh.”

“Gee,” Kiki drawls, “all that production for nothing.”

“Shut--”

“If we’re all quite done?” Izana suggests pointedly. “I believe Lady Lynet is not quite done breaking her beau’s heart. Also--” those pale eyes cut toward her, eyebrow quirked pedantically-- “it’s Pathfinder, by the way.”

Kiki lets out a huff. “It’s the same thing.”

With exaggerated care, Izana nudges her character on the map. “It’s really not.”

You take Shuuka’s hands in your own; they’re soft, callused on the mounts like Arturius’. A swordsman’s hands, though not a warrior’s. He flushes beneath your touch, and you wonder if he is bothered by the rough touch of your own, marred by scrapes and scars, so unlike a lady’s that you might as well be a different country. That is what your father had called you once: a different country, the fondness thick in his voice.

That had been before. He had been a different man. You had been a different Lynet. A time you would long for, if you thought it might make any difference at all.

“I have my own path I must tread, my lord,” you murmur, “one that cannot be turned aside for my own comfort.”

He nods, head heavy. “I see. You too have your own quest of honor, like His Grace. A glory that only you can seek.”

“If only it were for glory--” your fingers stiffen in his hold, teeth gritting down on the troubles that long to pass through them-- “instead of to right the wrongs that have been done.”

His brows lift, and you do not imagine the offer in his eyes, the one that says you would only need to breathe the word, and he would raise his own blade in your honor. “To you?”

Your tongue would tie itself in knots if it could. “Among many.”

“I understand.” His hand squeezes yours so gently, as if you were a thing that could break, a glass woman cradled in his palms. That is a thing these lords do not understand; glass may be delicate once blown thread-thin, but it is first forged in fire, born at a temperature that would char flesh. “Perhaps, though, when you are done...”

It feels cruel to reject him, a man that loves the lady you could have been, but it is crueler still to give him hope where there is little to spare.

“Perhaps,” you say, stilted. It is too mild an answer for the passion in his eyes, but you learned long ago that fate’s whims could not be foreseen by any mortal heart. “But please, my lord. Do not wait for me.”

“It will be hard not to, my lady, for a woman like you is not easily found. However--” he lets out a raw chuckle-- “I do know what love sounds like when I hear it, and it...does not warm your voice when we speak.”

“I...”

Shuuka holds up one hand, chagrined, the other still wrapped in yours. “You owe me no explanation. I only mean to wish you well.”

He lifts your hand to his lips, laying a soft kiss to its back. “May God go with you, my lady. I pray you will not forget your loyal servant in your trials.”

“I...will not,” you breathe, wishing you might be the girl that could love this man. You cannot, you cannot, but oh, how much easier your road would be if you did. “Thank you.”

“Well,” Mitsuhide hums, smile hung awkwardly. “He seems nice!”

Zen nods, pink looming just under the apples of his cheeks. “A good, ah, potential ally.”

Shirayuki stares.

“You two,” Kiki starts, every syllable so overflowing with derision they practically leak, “are ridiculous.”

Obi looks fit to bursting as well-- at least, if the state of his twitching mouth is anything to go by-- but before he can get one word in edgewise, Izana clears his throat.

“Now that this little interlude is complete,” he drawls, casting a wary glance over the table. “I expect that we can move on?”

“No, wait, I’m sorry!” Shirayuki bursts out breathlessly. “Just--” she glances at Obi, squirming under the question in his eyes-- “just one more thing. I promise.”

Izana settles back in his chair, brows raised. “Oh no, by all means. Color me...” His mouth curves into a smirk that would cause a cleverer woman to reconsider. “...Intrigued.”

Your neck aches; beneath your veil, your hair lies heavy on your scalp, pinned and tied to within an inch of its life. There is no more of it than usual, you are sure, but it weighs on you now, a fetter meant to hobble your steps. A shackle meant to drag you down, to halt your progress forward. Perhaps that is always what it was meant to be.

A proper lady would not remove her covering until she was safely ensconced in her chambers; such manners had been pressed upon you since your first courses, first by your nurse and then again by your father. Modesty was a woman’s shield, and you clung to it then as if it could protect you, afraid of what might happen to you without it. No, afraid of who you might be.

But you are no fine lady, not by anything but birth. Such trappings were ripped from your hands, and now--

Now you are Lynet, alchemist and arcanist, and you keep nothing that will not serve you. Your fingers wedge beneath the fine linen, pins falling to your feet as you work them free. Everything about Laxdo may squeeze you, trying to fit you back in the mold your father made, but you will not, not ever again.

It may have been years since you last stepped in Laxdo’s halls, but this past week has made it something like a home, your feet carrying you with ease through the twisting corridors. A different answer but a moment ago and these would have been yours, your home in truth, but to stay here, to forget the power that you tamed with your own two hands and become nothing more than Shuuka’s wife--

It’s unthinkable. A life not meant for you. Though your sister would like it fine enough.

Your feet stutter beneath you, breath caught tight in your chest. Who are you to say what she would want, when you--

You shake yourself. This guilt won’t serve either, not if you let it hold you in place. Your gaze lifts, and finally you see where your industrious feet have brought you: Beaumains’ door.

It was inevitable that they would; your own chamber is on the same hall, mere steps away. But you had not meant to come here, to linger, save that-- that you had, for he has been on your mind since he delivered you to the dais, since Arturius had him sent from it to the revelry below. His voice has thrummed beneath your veins since you looked across the hall and saw him missing from the tables below, your mind turning over every word he spoke this night to see if his disappearance is merely a missing piece to a puzzle you have already solved. But no solutions have appeared before you, and now--

Now you stand here, head bare at his threshold, wondering whether you will be welcome.

You hand raises, hesitating above the grain. You could leave now, and no one would ever know. But if you did, if you simply left with no word, and found him gone on the morrow...

You knock twice. Then thrice. There is not a whisper from the other side of the door. You know better than to assume that means there is no man, not such a one as Beaumains.

“Beaumains,” you murmur, palm pressed flat against the wood. “Beaumains, if you are there...”

Your lips press to a thin line. You had not planned this, planned any of it, and your words will not come. You do not even know which ones you speak if they would.

Your forehead rests against the door, the ridges of its grain digging into your skin. “If you are there, I am here.”

There is no answer but silence.

“Goodnight,” you say finally. “I will...” You hesitate, breath catching in your chest. “I will see you on the morrow.”

Izana, at least, is happy to move on.

“If you have spells to prepare,” he offers graciously, “you may do so now, before we start the morning.”

Kiki raises an imperious brow. “I take it we’ll be doing combat, then?”

With a beatific smile, Izana informs her, “You may prepare for any eventuality you see fit.”

“Yeah.” Zen sighs, flipping to his spell list. “Combat.”

Shirayuki shuffles through her index cards, chewing on her cheek. Next to her Obi has affected a casual slouch, arm thrown haphazardly over his chair back and legs stretching well onto Zen’s side of the table. He doesn’t seem stressed, not like how she feels sitting in the splash zone of of their high stakes game of I’m Not Touching You during this fantasy field trip.

Her phone slides into her hand easier than it ever has, thumb sliding surreptitiously across the keyboard. Are you okay?

Her teeth grit down as soon as it’s sent, regret bitter on her tongue. It’s a stupid thing to ask; a feeling that grows when she watches him work his phone out of his pocket, eyebrows lifting as he reads.

His mouth curls into a satisfied smirk. peachy keen

Are you sure? Shirayuki peeks up from her cards, casting a subtle glance toward the end of the table. Izana’s bowed behind the screen, pen gracefully curving over page-- notes. He’s taking notes. I wanted to make sure Zen isn’t scaring you off.

lol impossible

A breath hisses out her nose, fingers tightening around the case. Leave it to Obi to make this into a joke. He’s really not a bad guy, I promise. I don’t know why he’s choosing to act like one.

A smothered noise hiccups out beside her, too loud in the room’s silence. Four heads bob up, three blond and one brown, and Obi smooths the noise out into a cough, a gentle clearing of his throat.

“Dorito,” he says with a tight wheeze, mouth twitching. “Musta gone down the wrong pipe.”

“Ah,” Izana hums, his eyes narrowing. “Of course.”

Zen, however, frowns. “We have Doritos?”

Obi’s mouth stretches into a smile. “You did.”

“How--?”

“Are we done with preparations, then?” Izana asks smoothly, settling back in his chair. “Should we continue...?”

“Ah, no!” Zen grimaces, ducking his head. “Just-- another minute.”

i got a good idea, Obi texts once. heads are down. but don worry im not going newere His teeth flash as he sends, jus had 2 take care f s/t

She glances up, and his grin is there to greet her, only growing wider when he reads the question in her eyes.

“Don’t worry, my lady,” he murmurs, shifting close enough for the words to ghost over her cheek. “Trust me.”

You wake to hue and cry, to chaos in the halls. A lord’s daughter might lay abed still, waiting for her maids to fetch her, but you were the Lady of Castle Perilous; when Morgaine comes to fetch you, you are already dressed, tucking the last tresses of red beneath your coif. She blinks, those midnight-dark eyes going wide before her expression settles into something far more grim, something more resigned than surprise.

“Beaumains isn’t in his chamber,” she tells you, no cushion in her words, only the bruising impact of the truth. “We suspect he never made it back to it.”

Your breath catches in your chest, struggling against its cage. “That can’t be true. Last night I...”

Spoke to his door, with not a single sign of him within.

“When the maid came to tend his hearth this morning, his cot was undisturbed and the fire burnt down to embers.” Morgaine fixes you with a steady gaze, braced as a man about to take a blow. “We mean to look for him.”

You snatch your cloak from where it hangs, winding it about your shoulders. “Then let us go. If he has been taken, then--”

“I suspect he has been taken by naught by stupidity, the same as any man,” the princess grouses, falling into step beside you as you hurry down the steps to the yard. “My brother wounded his pride, and he sought to restore it. Or at least commit some feat to let it scab cleanly.”

It rankles how much each word rings true. You had no brothers at Castle Perilous, but men you had in spades, and every one fool enough to put himself in mortal peril to salve his pride. “Let us hope you are wrong?”

Morgaine lets out a rasping laugh. “You prefer him to be in the hands of the enemy, then?”

“Rather than his own stupidity?” you ask, breathless, waiting for the yard’s door to open. “Always.”

When they do, your heart stops, stuttering right up into your throat.

“Alas.” The word hisses through Morgaine’s smile. “You are destined to be disappointed.”

Beaumains sits in the yard, perched merrily atop a cart drawn into the middle of it. You cannot, from this angle, divine what it is filled with, only that it is solid enough to hold him and his ego. Temper climbs up your neck, as choking as any ivy; to think, you worried about his heart enough to trouble your own, and now he sits here as if naught but a moment has passed from the night into the evening, as if this were but yet another day he spent in your company.

Oh, how you could climb that cart yourself to give him a piece of your mind. You do not-- would not, before all these men of Laxdo-- but the temptation lashes yours soles as thoroughly as any devil.

“Beaumains.” Arturius marches forth from the crowd, wrath crackling in the air as he walks. “What is the meaning of this? We awake to you missing, and now--?”

“So I heard.” His smile shines in the morning sun, just as brightly as his horns. “I was here, of course. Waiting.”

The Prince of the Angles flushes crimson, the whole of his frame shaking. “Then why would you not--?”

“For a lark.” His teeth flash; fitting since he wields his words like a blade. “Though I did leave last night. You see, something bothered me, and not just your manners.”

“Demon--”

“Devil,” Beaumains corrects, as fastidious as any tutor. “And you see, all this celebrating, it didn’t make sense. Not when we hadn’t solved who cursed our friend here.”

He holds one dark, clawed hand out to where Shuuka stands, gaping. “Me? But I thought--?”

“You know as well as any that we have been searching tirelessly,” Arturius snaps, temper well and truly frayed. “And now you come to mock us for it? Is it a fight you ask for? Is that what you desire? For I am happy to give it to you, if you do not--”

“I want no fight,” Beaumains scoffs. “I want results. And so...”

With a desultory kick, the back of the cart falls open, and out of it--

Ah, and out of it pours forth a mound of bodies.

“And so,” he continues with relish, “I got some.”

“You can’t do that,” Zen murmurs, but it’s not in anger. No, that’s shock that slackens his jaw, and with the number of tokens Obi just dropped on the map, it’s working on Shirayuki too. “That’s not-- he can’t do that, can he?”

“He just did,” Izana replies, somehow both weary and amused at the same time.

“But...” Zen stares at them, more than a dozen tokens sprawled over the grid. “How.”

Obi grins. “Skill.”

Izana casts him a dark, yet exhausted, glance. “He rolled very, very well.”

Shuuka skirts nearer, his face pale with shock. “Those are the men who sold us firewood. The very same you pulled from our hearths.”

“That they are.” Beaumains sits back on the cart; now that you can see inside it you see his seat is not a crate, as you had assumed, but two bodies stacked atop each other, the blood drying around their mouths and necks. “Or at least that’s what I was hoping, Master, since otherwise I’d have made a mortifying mistake indeed.”

Arturius has not moved, instead staring down at the hand that laid at his feet, at the twisted grimace the deceased’s face has twisted into. “You did this alone? With no other man to help you?”

“I surely did,” the devil sing-songs, his grin honing to a point. “Could you find me such a one, daring enough to help on a night so dark as the last?”

The prince’s jaw sets hard as granite, but his eyes belie his sternness, shining with heady mix of admiration and something that savors strongly of jealousy. “Well,” he grits out, shoulders jerking towards his ears. “I cannot fault you your skill, devil, but now there is no chance of us learning how or why this deed came to be done.”

Beaumains scoffs, enjoying every moment he sits above the Prince of all the Angles. “Have a little faith, O Master Mine. Before they met the fates they bought with their cursed coin, I asked them what man or beast compelled them to act. And they told me--” his eyes flash with triumph-- “a man in red.”

There is no chance for you to stifle your gasp, not when you see that armor shining before you, crimson in candlelight. Not when even now, that spiked gauntlet reaches toward you--

“Lynet?” Morgaine’s grasp brings you back to yourself, to the moment you inhabit. “Are you well?”

“Fine, fine,” you assure her. “It is only--”

That you may know who this enemy of Laxdo is. That you yourself have come to see him vanquished, but yet--

You cannot speak of it. Not even if you wished.

“You may thank me at your leisure, sirrah,” Beaumain crows, getting to his feet. Even now your stomach roils as you look, the blood nothing more than a black sheen on his boots. “I am ever at your--” he leaps, landing on the ground before Arturius’s gaze. “At your service.”

And with a singular, extravagant bow, Beaumains tips face first into the cobbles.

“Wait.” Shirayuki blinks down at the toppled figure, resting on a spray of tokens, right next to a white-painted 1. “What just happened?”

“Beaumains--” Izana’s mouth twitches at a corner-- “had but a single hit point left.”

Long fingers pluck the die from its resting place among the bodies, as if quick reflexes could keep them all from seeing the rock Obi just dropped. He glowers down at it-- all black and golden and glimmering, just like him-- and shoves it back into his bag. “And glass ankles, apparently.”

A low, heady laugh rolls across the table, Kiki kicking up her feet with a smirk. “This is why we invest in CON.”

Obi scoffs. “Please, I made it out with HP to spare.”

“Yeah,” she says, “one.”

“Well,” he grumbles, “it was enough, wasn’t it?”

You stoop to where Beaumains sits, propped up by the stable’s post and Bedwyr’s shoulder, hand raised to heal--

“Please.” Bedwyr’s impressive hand gently guides yours away, his smile tight and concerned. “You must save your strength, my lady.”

“I just awoke, sir,” you remind him, mouth pulled into an irritated line. “I am as fresh as I shall ever be.”

The knight cants his head, though you know him too well to believe he might fully acquiesce to you. “I know that well enough. But it is your talent we will need, should any challenges arise before day’s end. And this is entirely within my--”

“No, no.” Beaumains stirs at his side, eyes sliding open to relieve the unrelenting shadow of his face. “Let the pretty lady lay her hands on me, paladin. Her touch is far softer than yours.”

Ah, it would have been best for him not to say such things before the whole of Castle Laxdo. Or at least, not in front of its lord. The weight of his gaze already presses heavy on your back, growing only more weighty as Beaumains sears a bleary line up you with his gaze.

He’s far to gone to keep it steady; already it wanders, tracing Bedwyr’s lines as well, and--

“Wait, no, never mind,” he slurs, squinting up at that giant of a man. “You’ll do too, sir, if you’re so eager to put your hand--”

Bedwyr presses a palm to the center of Beaumain’s forehead, and with an authority you know can only come from the Lord in Heaven, he intones, “SLEEP.”

“You know, big guy,” Obi drawls, grin already stretching from ear to ear. “I’m pretty sure paladins don’t get those spells. And fighters definitely don’t.”

Mitsuhide glances up from his sheet, straight at Izana.

He smirks. “I’ll allow it.”

Beaumains sleeps the slumber of the ensorcelled. That is, complete and utterly quiet.

Bedwyr peered down, and with a nod of his head, declares, “That’s much better.”

#obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #dungeons & dragons au #my fic #ans #listen i know i said ONE chapter until the end of this arc #but like #TECHNCIALLY next chapter is gonna be the OOC wrap up for this arc #the session is complete though!#fans of this fic may REJOICE #you have two updated planned over the next two months too #Ch 9 is already in progress #and provided it does not grow out of proportion...should be complete by mid-september #and there's another update planned for late october that should hopefully kick off next arc #and perhaps...a POV CHANGE >:3c

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grittyreadsfic · 2 years ago

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march fic stats / i also read four books!

#techncially i’m currently reading 2 books too so #normally i’d post a lil later but gritty is hosting a potluck so i’ve got to make soup and host soon #2023 fic tracking

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fzrticv · 3 years ago

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#when there theards idea #or some other points you would like to explore #ut cant cause yneed #the canon context for this.im happy fizz gets more attion upcomming season but mannn #im spoiled having muse #who backstory is either vague as frick #or only bit been shown explained #so i could come up with the rest #and other then with hazbin helluva techncially is airing #hmppf..#.the mun | just talking to myself #well at last have some fics to read who explore it a lil bit #xD #tbd.

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denim-mixtapes · 2 years ago

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(Must've Been While You Were Kissin' Me) Part 2 of 4 Word Count: 4k+ Pairing: Eddie Munson/Fem!Reader Tags: EXPLICIT SMUT, 18+, MINORS DNI - Rockstar/Radio DJ AU, canon divergence, set in 1992 and Eddie has more piercings and tattoos than ever, thigh riding, semi public sex, very slight voyeurism/humiliation kink if you squint, oral sex (m&f receiving), dirty talk, rough sex, unprotected p in v sex (do not do this), light spanking, come eating, pet names instead of y/n (sweetheart, doll, baby), really lame open end for a potential third part, idk man this got away from me.

Summary: Working as a woman in Rock n' Roll radio, you encountered your fair share of flirtatious rock stars. Often, they would flirt to belittle you, to question your love and knowledge of the genre, but Eddie Munson, front man of Corroded Coffin seems to know just which buttons to put to get on your good side. (Part 1) ... and into your pants (Part 2)

[A/N]: This is part 2 to You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth, and TECHNCIALLY can be enjoyed as a stand alone fic, but it'll make a lot more sense if you read part 1, so I recommend it! Also I DID kind of allude to a third installment, and I've already got some ideas floating around for it so gimme some love on this guy and let me know if you want to see a third part!

[Part 1] [AO3] [Part 3]

An hour after you wrap up your show, you find yourself climbing out of a cab with your coworkers and the members of Corroded Coffin.

You watch the smoke on Eddie’s breath billow up towards the sky as he leads you into the bar. Lazy, curling wisps of it floating up above your heads and dissipating in front of the harsh neon sign. His arm is slung casually around you, fingers curled possessively on your shoulder, while the rest of the group trails clumsily behind you.

It was tradition, the station taking the night’s guests out for drinks after the show, but it wasn’t something you were typically this eager for, it wasn’t usually your scene. Not that you’d admit it now, tucked under Eddie Munson’s arm and being marched toward the very small VIP section of the only club worth a damn in Fort Wayne, without so much as a second glance from the bouncer.

Harrington, Henderson, and the station assistant (a doe-eyed, often starstruck little thing named Darla) offer to go get the first round of drinks as you settle into one of the large, circular booths around a too-small cocktail table in the corner.

Never have you been more grateful for the anonymity that radio provides. You can feel the attention of nearly every patron in this bar, their eyes glued to the members of the band, no doubt surprised by their presence. Even moreso, you can feel the jealous eyes and hot stares of the women (and a few men) who wish they were in your place. If any of them were to recognize you, you’re sure years of professionalism would be flushed straight down the toilet. Still, with fingertips drawing shapes into the skin of your shoulder and the rumble of laughter under the weight of your body leaning into his, you’re not so sure how professional you can claim to be.

It isn’t clear how you got here, how he convinced you to come. Every pet name he called you, every brush of his hand against your waist, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. Letting habitually flirtatious rock stars down easy was your bread and butter, but somehow this one got to you. The gentleness in his eyes or the way he didn’t ever interrupt you just to disregard your opinion and make an offhand comment on your appearance. In the cab to the bar he even commended your research into the band, claiming nobody ever digs far enough to get past the murder charges. Even now he seems impressed, when you clock the song playing over the thrumming sound system.

“What?” You giggle, thanking Darla with a smile as she passes you your favorite drink, “It’s literally my job to know music, what did you think, I wouldn't recognize fuckin’ Metallica?”

“Jesus Christ,” he scoffs, beer bottle to his lips, “not Disposable Heroes, nobody knows Disposable Heroes.”

“Well, I do!” You snark though a prideful wrinkle of your nose, and hold your bottle up. He taps the neck of his own against it. Unsure of what else to say, you throw out the world’s lamest last minute toast. “To a successful show at the Slippery Noodle tomorrow.”

He raises a brow, his stare intense and taunting, “and a good time to be had tonight.”

You flush as you take a sip, wishing you could hide behind your beer.

So you drink.

You talk with him and the rest of the group, rowdy at first, voices tangling and building above each other. Another toast, plastic cups and beer bottles cracking against one another in the middle of the boisterous group.

You drink more.

Jeff and the Freak find a pool table and disappear there for the rest of the night.

You lean heavier on the solid body beside you as a pleasant buzz takes over.

Gareth finally works up the nerve to ask Darla to dance, and they’re off.

As less people surround you, Eddie’s touches linger longer, press deeper into plush skin wherever his hand may rest at the moment.

Henderson and Harrington head back to their hotel with a stern warning to not get into too much trouble, and then it’s just the two of you.

When your drinks continue to sit empty well into the tale of your first punk show, you regretfully peel yourself away from his body, put the story on hold, and make your way to the bar. He calls, “hurry back, sweetheart,” to your backside as you walk away, as if you weren’t already practically skipping to get back to his side faster. Another round of beers ordered, you duck through the crowded dance floor to join him back in your secluded booth in the corner. Upon your return, you set both bottles onto the table and try to take your seat in the booth again, but greedy, eager hands grab your hips, pulling you into the seat of his lap instead.

A breathy giggle erupts from your chest, but you don’t protest, letting him wrap an arm around your middle to continue doodling absentmindedly on the hip bone exposed by your cropped tee.

“You know there’s plenty of room on this bench,” you chide, “I think I can fit.”

He hums in contemplation. You aren’t sure if it’s the bass from the dance music rattling your chest, or the tickle of his breath across your neck that raises goosebumps on your skin. “Maybe,” Eddie muses, nosing at the spot just behind your ear, breathing you in. “But I like you right here.”

How charming.

You stutter a soft, “fair enough,” but it’s all you can manage, distracted by the feeling of his lips on your neck, exploring your heated skin, seeking out the places that make you sigh.

Smirk pressed to your pulse point, he hums again, arm tightening around you. “Well?” He urges, “go on.”

“Go on with what?”

The ghost of a laugh dances along your skin, “You were telling me how you got into the industry. C’mon doll, I was fascinated, don’t let me distract you.”

There wasn’t a hint of sarcasm in his voice when he expressed his interest, so you try to push through the haze that’s quickly clouding your mind, and continue on with the story you started before finding yourself in his lap. You paint the picture, talking about the colorful characters at your very first punk show and the feeling of the bass in your chest that only made you crave more. He continues to mouth at your neck, tug on an earlobe with bared teeth, savoring the way your breath would hitch or you would fumble over your words when he found a particularly sensitive spot. You reach the end of your tale, breathless and acutely aware of your surroundings, and turn as best you can in his arms.

Round, deep honey eyes shine as they lift to yours, tongue skating across his lower lip before rolling it lazily between his teeth. You don’t even try to avert your gaze.

Shameless.

“Are we done with storytime now?” You ask through a poorly disguised sigh, tacking on a playful, “I simply can not go on with you distracting me like this.”

His response comes in the form of a hungry kiss, more teeth and tongue than anything else, but it’s even more intoxicating than any drink you consumed so far tonight. Both of his hands grip your cheeks, holding you in place to deepen the kiss, hot, curious tongue licking as far into your waiting mouth as he can. Your hand fists in the cotton of his tee shirt, a soft moan passed from your lips to his, drowned out by the loud music around you.

It feels like hours that you’re wrapped up in one another, all roaming hands and shared, ragged breaths and desperate sounds swallowed quickly by the other. You don’t realize you’ve fully turned to straddle him in the tight space of the booth until his hands on your hips drag them down into his. The harsh drag of denim against your center drawing a strangled moan from you as you break from his lips. Both of your chests heave, foreheads pressed together and your breaths mingling between you. Wordlessly, he nods toward the back hallway to your right, eyes crinkling with mischief, fingers bruising on your hips. You flush, adrenaline and the heat of his stare prickling your skin. You should be ashamed of how quickly you nod, your motions clumsy as you climb off of him, but your racing heart and the cool bite of metal from his hand on your lower back guiding you forward allow no room for shame.

He leads you to the bathroom with the kind of confidence that only comes with stardom, like he’s daring anyone to stop him, knowing they won’t. You, however, peek nervously over your shoulder at the bar. Cigarette smoke and the fog from the dance floor casts a haze over the room, offering you some cover and comfort.

The slam of the lock brings you back to yourself as you take in the scene around you. Stickered, graffitied walls, a flickering vanity light, and a faint musty stench.

But then Eddie’s crowding you up against the locked door, a palm pressed to the space above your head and his own scent of smoke and sandalwood and leather taking over your senses. He wedges a knee between your thighs, smirking at the keening sound the action draws from your throat, and continues his earlier assault on your neck. Behind closed doors, his attention is even hungrier. A possessive hand grips your neck, tilting your chin away to expose more of your throat to his eager mouth. He brings his other hand to ruck up the hem of your top, fingertips skimming the warm skin as he exposes it, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

“You know,” he mumbles into your skin, palming at you through the thin material of your shirt and humming in satisfaction when you arch into his touch, hips still rutting against the thigh between your legs. “Didn’t peg you for the type to be into this kinda thing,” he pauses, drags a knuckle up the column of your throat. “Dirty bar bathroom and all that.”

“‘M not,” you mutter in protest, your body betraying your words and grinding harder into his thigh, seeking any sort of relief from the needy ache in your core.

A dark laugh accompanies his words as he asks, “then what do you call this?” His face is cocky, he knows he’s caught you in a lie, and his look darkens as he tears your top up and over your head.

You return the favor, pulling clumsily at the leather of his jacket until you can wrench it off of his body, his shirt following immediately after. Eyeing the ink littering his body, the dark contrast against his pale flesh, harsh scars and coarse hair dusting the skin of his abdomen, you suck your bottom lip between your teeth and quip, “an exception.”

The smart comment you’re sure he’s building up to is cut short in his throat when you sink to your knees – the cold, hard tile biting into your skin through the rips in your jeans – and make quick work of his belt. Opening his pants, you adjust them just enough so that his cock springs free, your mouth watering at the sight. He’s not even fully erect yet, but it’s long and deliciously thick, flushed red at the tip. Reaching out to stroke him, you savor in the groan he lets out, feeling him harden even more at your touch. Then another, as you lean in to run your tongue along the underside of his cock.

As far as you’re concerned, you have all the time in the world in this bathroom, nobody is waiting outside the locked door.

You take your time, switching between tiny, teasing kisses and long, broad licks up and down either side of his gorgeous length. Eddie swears and a hand flies to your hair, fisting in the length of it as you finally take him into your mouth with a happy little hum, tongue swirling around the head before sinking lower. His hand in your hair guides you even closer as he takes control and fucks into your open, waiting mouth with shallow thrusts, a string of expletives falling from his lips. You swallow past your gag reflex, and look up through batting lashes at his face twisted in pleasure, giving the tiniest nod as you allow him to thrust even deeper into your throat. The sounds he makes are downright pornographic, deep and rumbling and desperate. You swear you can feel them in your cunt, thighs pressed together seeking out any sort of relief.

With your nose pressed firmly into his skin, he stills you, holds you in place and brushes the backs of his fingers along your cheekbone. It’s a gesture that you would even call gentlemanly, if not for his cock in your throat.

Breath faltering, you gag around his length and he pulls you off of him by the hair, leaving you with ragged breath and a trail of saliva still connecting you to his cock. You lick it away, mouth agape, nothing but a simple dart of the tongue, but his eyes follow the motion just as subtly.

A hand scrubs across the lower half of his face, dragging his lip in its wake. “Shit,” he breathes, a hand cupping under your chin to coax you back to your feet, “get up here.” When you’re standing in front of him again, he grabs a handful of your ass, fingers slipping past the waist of your jeans, cool steel stinging against your hot skin, and pulls you into him. The other hand pops the button on your pants and his deep inhale is practically predatory, his pupils blown and the brown of his eyes so dark that they look black.

“I can smell how wet you are,” he murmurs into your neck, squeezing at the globe of your ass again before retrieving his hand to work your pants and panties down your legs in one go. He’s right. The cotton of your panties sticks to you with your slick, the scent of your arousal filling the room as he exposes you. The sight of him circling you, eyes roaming your skin like you’re his prey, has you speechless. All you can do is whimper in response and follow him with your eyes, anticipating his next move. With a hand on your shoulder he urges you to bend over the edge of the countertop, and you comply, shivering under his attention and the cool air that hits your exposed, dripping center. You grip the edge of the sink, breasts pressed firm into the marble countertop, and wait. He continues, “all this,” emphasizing his statement with a rough drag of his palm across your lower lips, smearing your juices across the backs of your thighs obscenely, “just from sucking my cock?” He prods at your hole, middle and ring fingers sinking inside you easily. The cold steel of his rings kisses at your entrance and pulls another wrecked sound from your throat, thankful to finally feel some sort of relief. Wet, squelching sounds fill the room alongside your cries as he fucks roughly into you with his fingers. “Oh I don’t believe you for a minute that this is an exception. You’re soaked, you love this.”

You want to stutter a protest, tell him he’s wrong, but then he curls his fingers inside you and strokes against your walls and you’re bucking back into his ministrations instead, argument long forgotten.

Cocky chuckle on his lips, fingers buried deep inside you, he continues monologuing. “Turns you on, doesn’t it? The thought that everyone who walks past this door knows just what’s going on behind it, that someone could try to walk in at any moment and catch you like this. Debauched,” he punctuates the word with a sharp, teasing smack! to your backside. It’s barely anything, you can tell he’s testing the waters, but even the thought of another has you clenching around his fingers. His tone darkens and he does it again, harder, sharper, with another accusation. “Lecherous.” Another blow, harder even than the last, is dealt to the opposite cheek. Your skin stings when he runs a soothing hand over the pink, angry mark he left behind. Withdrawing his fingers to toy lazily with your clit, he leans over you, breathing his last statement into your ear, “fucking desperate, practically begging me to fuck you right here in this bathroom.”

Oh, so it’s begging he wants?

You decide at that moment that you aren’t above begging. Literally anything to offer you some sweet relief because once again he’s teasing. Featherlight touches compared to the rough hands that were on you only moments ago.

“Please, Eddie,” You whimper, arching your back. His fingers slip between your lower lips, collecting the wetness he finds there, but the touch is gone as quickly as it appeared. Fed up, you glare over your shoulder, only to find him licking his own fingers clean, a blissed out smirk on his face. You groan at the sight of it, dropping your head back onto your crossed arms with an impatient huff.

“Please, what, sweetheart?” He taunts, spreading your lips with both hands, thumbs teasing at your cunt but not ever pushing inside.

Your response is a babbling mess of desperate words, a series of wanton pleas falling from your lips in no particular order. It’s near unintelligible, but he makes out a few key phrases that are more than enough for him. “Please just touch me,” and, “fuck, anything, just please,” and, “whatever you want, just fuck me.”

The head of his cock notches at your entrance, head just barely pushing inside, and it silences your babbling, your breath hitching in your throat.

His voice is saccharine, sweet as honey as he says, “if you insist,” before driving his hips forward, filling you quickly with one harsh snap. The sudden fullness is intoxicating, a stinging stretch that has you moaning loudly, not a care in the world who hears. “That’s it, baby,” he grunts, pulling almost all the way back out before slamming back into you, punching another heady noise from deep within your chest. “Let it out.”

Eddie’s motions are frenzied, fucking you with a renewed energy, skin slapping harshly against skin. Another rush of arousal floods your core when he reaches out to fist in your hair again, wrenching you up and off the sink and into his chest. Your hip bones slam into the marble with every thrust, surely making just as much of a mark as his bruising grip on your waist, but you can practically feel his cock in your molars he’s hitting so deep and all you can really focus on is the delicious drag of his length against your inner walls and the overall feeling of being filled to the brim.

Reaching a hand up over your shoulder, you tangle your own fingers in his hair, steadying yourself, turning just enough to catch his lips in a sloppy kiss, if you could call it a kiss from this angle. It’s more of a swapping of spit and a shared, hot breath between you, but his fingers tighten at your scalp and he fucks up into you even harder so you really couldn’t care less.

There’s a rattling from the doorknob, a harsh pull that has you gasping in surprise, but Eddie can feel the way your walls flutter around him and it only spurs him on more.

Then, a knock, another jiggle at the door handle. A faint, annoyed voice from the other side.

Eddie growls, practically roars, “occupied!” Letting his grip on your hair loose, his now free hand works its way down your body. Splaying over your throat to feel the noises he’s drawing from you, down dragging his nails over the swell of your breast, pinching a nipple through the delicate fabric of your bra. Then, burying his hand between your legs, he murmurs in your ear, “c’mon baby, let ‘em hear you.” He circles your clit, agonizingly slow at first, then speeding up in time with his thrusts.

“Fuck!” You moan out, hips moving on their own accord to meet his with crude, wet sounds. His fingers work harder against you, the tension building in your stomach, your pussy squeezing eagerly at his cock. Your skin is alight with heat and everywhere he touches you sends pleasure straight to your core. Eyes wound shut, your voice comes out weaker now, “Eddie, please.”

“I got you, sweetheart,” he consoles before sinking his teeth into the curve of your neck, doubling his efforts on your clit, his thrusts shallow and disconnected. He’s just as close as you are.

Your orgasm takes you both by surprise. One moment you’re teetering on the precipice and the next you’re thrown over the edge, head thrown back onto Eddie’s shoulder, shuddering with a spent cry. Your hips twitch, channel milking his cock for all its worth, your release triggering his own.

He stills, spilling into you, squeezing a bruising handprint into the meat of your hip. When he pulls out, you can feel his cum leaking out of you, a fact that you should be appalled by, but the feeling of it dripping down your thighs only makes you clench around nothing, the sudden emptiness.

You remain draped lazily over the counter as he rights himself, doing up his fly and shrugging on his shirt. You know you should move, get dressed, get out of there so that people can actually use the bathroom for its intended purpose, but your legs are jelly and you don’t trust yourself to move quite yet.

Eddie’s hand on your lower back reminds you that you should get moving, and you hum, mumbling a soft, “mmh, gimme a minute, I’ll get dressed in a sec.”

“Like hell you will,” he scolds, sinking to his knees behind you. You look over your shoulder quizzically at him, a soft confusion painting your features and a little ‘hm?’ caught in your throat. It endears him to you even more, he chuckles lightly, lifting one of your ankles and pulling it free from the confines of your pant leg.

“You know, this feels like the opposite of what should be happening,” you point out, but when he nudges your knees apart, you comply, spreading your legs further.

“Look at you,” he scolds, “you’re filthy. Gotta clean you up before we head back out there.” Before you can question him, he dives forward, licking at your messy folds with a satisfied groan, your own moan echoing him. He spreads your lips with two fingers, digging into your hole with his tongue and slurping at the mixture of your combined releases. It’s obscene, the sounds coming from behind you, and you can’t help but press your aching cunt harder into his face. “Eager little thing, aren’t we?” He taunts against your pussy, words muffled.

“S-says the man who won’t even let me get dressed,” you tease back. Not that you’re complaining, at all.

He doesn’t justify that with a response, just continues to eat you out slowly, lazily, thoroughly until he can only taste you in your cunt again.

He doesn’t give you the satisfaction of another orgasm, though he brings you right up to the edge, and he chuckles darkly when you whine as he helps you back into your jeans.

“Gotta leave you wanting a little more, right?” He quips, flashing a toothy grin as you pull your top over your head. He takes your hand and kisses your knuckles, yet another chivalrous gesture wildly contrasting the romp you just shared. Then, reaching down to grip your ass as he guides you to the door, he leans down to your ear and murmurs, “gives you something to look forward to when I bring you backstage after the show tomorrow.”

Typical rockstar, expecting you to be at his beck and call…

…but you both know you’ll be there with bells on.

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