#the amount of men who come frothing at the mouth to me and I’m like you’re hot too dude and they’re like no I’m ugly as shit | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bestiesenpai · 4 years ago

Text

youtuber Sukuna

I beg you to read the shitposts I made about this, they are delicious. You don’t have to of course but...if you loved me you would :) s/n = screen name, and I hope you chuckle at Sukunas screen name

Content warning: uhmhm lowkey incel shit(mean internet comments and whatnot)

part two --- part 3

Name: Sukuna. Age: 25. Height: 6 foot 5 inches. Occupation: toxic Youtuber, fitness trainer and hot guy.

Sukuna wasn’t exactly known for being kind. He wasn’t nice to others, rarely having anything good to say about anyone, and he’d made a successful Youtube career out of it. First starting as a fitness trainer at his gym, through encouragement from his clients and the notion of a quick cash grab, he started Youtube.

He didn’t care about it and that reflected in the quality of his videos and editing. He didn’t have consistent uploads, just filming and posting videos whenever he wanted, analytics be fucked. But somehow, that worked out for him, and he quickly found himself with over two million subscribers just frothing at the mouth for his next video.

And those subscribers were some of the worst people. Sukuna didn’t care about fostering a safe space online for others, not in the slightest. His comment sections were atrocious, both on his Youtube and his Instagram. It was full of toxic men one-upping each other constantly and dragging on each other for not being able to work out as much as Sukuna did.

Sukuna was a large part of why his fanbase were so toxic. He himself often made bad comments about others, whether fellow creators or people that happened to appear in the backgrounds of his videos, and on more than one occasion he’d been ‘cancelled’. None of that mattered though, all he cared about was shitting on other people and making money.

Sometimes he played video games and posted it, but not too often. Sukuna often stated he wasn’t so much of a fucking lonely loser that he’d play video games all the time, and so the gaming videos he did post were few and far between. He played angry shooter games and GTA, mindless button clicking he could get lost in for a few hours for a video.

Laying in bed one night after uploading his most recent video, one where he rages at 12 year olds on GTA online, Sukuna was just scrolling through his phone mindlessly. After he uploads video game content, like clockwork, he gets recommendations for gaming channels. He only watches a few of them, mostly leaving mean comments saying what losers they are, but one catches his eye.

He’s never been recommended this kind of video before. The thumbnail is light and bright with some pink aesthetic lights in the back. But the most enticing thing is the person in the middle, cute pink cat ear headphones on and a bright smile.

“Let’s see…” Sukuna mumbles to himself, mindlessly clicking the video. He hasn’t even read the title, he only clicked it because they were cute, and here he is nearly blinded by the bright setup they have.

“Hi everyone, it’s (Y/N) here and I’m really excited today! We’re going to be playing this new game I found!” Sukuna is immediately enraptured by the sound of your voice, watching how your face changes as you talk. His eyes drift off to the decor behind you, cute plushies and healthy plants, and some twinkling fairy lights. There’s books as well, and your chair is one of those ergonomic gamer chairs he has as well but in pink.

Sukuna watches the video dumbly, totally in the dark about whatever you’re doing, but loving it all the same. All he knows is that he likes the sound of your voice, and when you laugh and smile at a funny part in the game, it makes a light flush come to his cheeks.

It only takes one video for Sukuna to spiral into more of your content. He watches a video on your gaming setup, and he’s surprised that so much technology can come in pink. He watches a video on how you edit, a few of you cooking in your kitchen, and even a few vlog videos.

He quickly subscribes to your channel, and when you plug your social media, he immediately goes there. Pulling up your Instagram, he stares at your profile picture and almost audibly coos at you for being cute.

Your profile is just as cute as your videos are and Sukuna barely remembers to follow you before he’s going through your whole feed, liking every picture he sees. Sometimes he leaves comments, only one word though, ‘cute’. He’s never liked something so outright cute before, it wasn’t who he was and it definitely didn’t fit with his brand.

Falling asleep after following you on every platform, Sukuna wakes up thinking about you as well. And he also wakes up to hundreds of comments from all his accounts, bombarding him with questions and screenshots from last night.

‘SUKUNA WHY WOULD YOU LIKE THIS SHIT?!’

‘OMG Sukuna liked (Y/N)s posts!!’

‘Sukuna is so gross and toxic, you better stay away from (Y/N)!’

‘SUKUNA YOU GAY NOW’

‘EW why the fuck do you like this bitch?’

There were hundreds of comments that he waded through. Most were from his fans, expressing disgust at how many photos of yours he’d liked and wondering why he, Sukuna, most heterosexual alpha male on the planet, would like a pretty in pink Youtuber who had bubbly intros and whined when their animal crossing villagers wanted to move away.

Other comments were from your fans, some in awe that he would like you considering how much he said he hated overly cute things. Other fans expressed concern, worried what this might mean for their favorite Youtuber. Did Sukuna want to cause problems, potentially hurting you? He did have a reputation of bullying others, so this wasn’t far fetched.

Checking your Instagram, you didn’t make any comment about it. There wasn’t any update or anything, but on his end he was being tagged in endless Twitter threads with screenshots of him liking your posts and commenting under them.

“For fucks sake.” He grunted, clenching his phone in his hands. The amount of notifications he was getting were starting to upset him and he nearly threw his phone to get them to stop.

Ignoring his phone for the rest of the day, Sukuna went to the gym like he always did and trained with his clients. Some of them brought it up to him, asking him if he had a mind break last night and forgot what he was doing. Sending them harsh glares, Sukuna refused to talk about it.

“Oh my fucking god.” Sukuna nearly wailed when he got home, finally checking his phone. His name and yours had begun trending, and the hashtag #protect(Y/N) was also. Muttering angrily under his breath, Sukuna turned on Instagram live.

“Okay what the fuck!” He shouted, seeing the live become instantly flooded with people all screaming about you and him. “You’re all fucking annoying, you know that?” Glaring harshly at the camera, he read some of the comments that went by.

‘WHY’D YOU LIKE (Y/N)S POSTS FROM 2017’

‘Are you two secretly dating??’

‘COLLAB!’

“Who gives a shit why I liked their stuff, you’re a fucking weirdo for keeping track of me. And we aren’t secretly dating, dipshits.” Rolling his eyes, Sukuna scoffed as more comments came in begging for a collaboration. “And think about it you morons, why would we collab? Our shit is too fucking different, what would we even film about?”

Sukuna stayed on Instagram live for nearly an hour answering questions asking about you. Every time he had to answer that you weren’t secretly dating, he got a little more annoyed. Not at the comments themselves but at the fact that it was true; you didn’t even know he existed.

Ending the live in a huff, Sukuna didn’t feel any better than before, and it was made even worse by the fact that everything he said was being relayed to Twitter, and you were tagged in every tweet.

“These idiots!” Staring at his phone, Sukuna couldn’t believe what he was seeing. On your Instagram stories, you’d posted a q&a for your followers, and nearly all of the comments were about Sukuna.

“Hi everyone! No, me and Sukuna aren’t dating!” You said, laughing a little to ease how uncomfortable you were. “To be honest, I’ve never even heard of him before! As you know, my content is very...different from his, so our circles don’t exactly intersect. But I’m always happy to have new followers and potential friends!”

“Fuck me.” Sukuna groaned, cringing at how uncomfortable you looked having to address the sudden onslaught of questions. For once he wished he’d actually given a shit about his online presence, so that maybe one day your circles could intersect. He knew he scared you, he scared a lot of people, and this was just proof.

“Uh, Sukuna if you see this, hi it’s nice to meet you!” You said in the next slide, puffing out your cheeks and waving cutely at the camera. It made Sukuna blush, and he hated it. “Thank you for following me and liking my content! I was very surprised that you found me!”

“Of course I did, idiot, you’re fucking cute.” He muttered under his breath.

“I know a lot of people are asking for us to do a video together and I know our content is really different, so don’t feel pressured to respond or anything, but the offer is open! If you’d like, we can collab on something.”

“On what?” He asked like you were there.

“I cook sometimes, and I know you cook too! Maybe we can make a cooking video? You can teach me how to make healthy food or something!” Sukuna could tell a fake laugh when he heard one, and you definitely had one right now. “Anyways, thank you! Bye Sukuna!” But hearing you say his name cutely like that made him not care.

He nearly responded right away, accepting the collab offer now that you’d spoken about it, but he didn’t want to seem desperate. He watched through the rest of your Instagram stories, going back and replaying the parts where you talked about him over and over and his heart clenched every time when you said his name.

In the dead of night, Sukuna DM’s you after watching your latest video and leaving the simple comment ‘check your DM’s’.

“Fuck, what should I say?” He’s suddenly stumped as he looks at the keyboard. Typing and retyping a message, in the end all he can say is hi. He doesn’t expect a reply, ever, but when he gets a vibration on his phone two seconds later he jumps to read it.

(S/N): hi Sukuna! :)

(cursedgod): hey

Real fucking smart, repeating what he just said.

(S/N): is there something you wanted to talk to me about?

(S/N): I hope you haven’t been annoyed at all the notifications you’ve been getting!

(cursedgod): No it’s okay

(cursedgod): we can collab if you want

Good Sukuna, good. Play it cool, don’t let them know that your fingers are actually trembling because you’re nervous.

(S/N): do you want to?? I don’t want to pressure you! I know we’re pretty different haha

(cursedgod): yeah, let's do it. Cooking?

(S/N): sure!

Looking around his home, he was suddenly assaulted with the fact that he didn’t have any furniture. He barely had a proper bedroom, just a mattress on a bare frame and a dresser. His lounge room was the same with his computer setup in one corner and then nothing else. There was only a couch, a mounted TV and a fold out table and chairs for his dining room.

(cursedgod): I know a studio kitchen we can use, I’ll send you the address

Thank god he’d done promo work for a brand in a studio one day, otherwise he’d be fucked.

(S/N): awesome! I’m free next Saturday!

And just like that, it was a date. Well, a meeting. Sukuna knew it wasn’t a date, but his heart still thumped like it was one. Confirming the time, he ended the conversation with a curt goodbye and obsessed about it throughout the night.

When the day to meet you came, Sukuna nearly ran late trying to pick out his clothes. He’d never cared about looking good or presenting himself well in front of others, whatever version of him he turned up in was what they got. But for you, he wanted to try a little harder.

Waiting outside the studio space, Sukuna rubbed his hands together nervously. You’d messaged a day or two ago offering to put the video on your channel since it probably wouldn’t fit his aesthetic, so he didn’t have to bring his shitty camera equipment.

“S-sukuna?” Snapping his head up, Sukunas mouth fell open looking at your curious face a few feet away, an Uber driving off behind you. You were even cuter in person, just his fucking luck. How was he expected to act like a normal person when his recent obsession was here looking better than he could have imagined.

“Hi.” What comes out is a grunt, not the smooth word he’d hoped. He can see you eyeing him up, taking in all the thick and corded muscles of his body. It made his chest puff out a little, he worked hard for this physique and to have you so openly looking at him made him happy.

“It’s nice to meet you!” Sticking your hand out, you smiled politely at him.

“Same.” Shaking your hand with a firm grip, Sukuna could feel the difference in your palms. Yours was soft and nicely moisturized and he had callouses everywhere and a few cuts and scrapes.

Opening the door for you, Sukuna led you to the studio space he’d rented out. It was a clean and modern kitchen, not unlike his own, but it had appliances and looked actually lived in. Helping you set up a few camera angles, Sukuna felt a pang of nerves hit him in the stomach.

“Sukuna, can we take a picture together?” You asked before starting, and Sukunas brow furrowed deeply. Why would you want to take a picture with him? His expression must have scared you, because you quickly backtracked. “F-for promo for this video, on Instagram and stuff!”

“Sure.” God, did he feel bad or what. He shouldn’t have made that face at you, now you wouldn’t look him in the eye. Crouching down to get the right angle for you, Sukuna watched you pick a cute animal filter.

“Just do what I do.” Throwing up a peace sign, you cutely tilted your head from side to side and smiled. Sukuna tried to do the same but he looked awkward, and most of all he was blushing pretty bad.

You snapped a multitude of pictures, some at different angles and some with different filters, and in all of them Sukuna was blushing at least a little. He managed to smile more as it went on, even laughing at one of the filters.

“Thanks! I’m going to post these really quick and then we can get started!” Giving him a brief smile, you turned back to your phone and set about editing some of the pictures. Looking over your shoulder, Sukuna could see that he looked like a blushing high schooler meeting their idol for the first time and not a grown man.

Once the photos were posted and you tagged him in everything, it was time to start. Setting up your marks on the floor, you took a generous drink of water and cleared your throat.

“Are you ready for the intro? I’ll start it and introduce you, okay?” You’d actually prepared a script for yourself, and showed Sukuna as well.

“Okay.” Stepping in front of the camera, Sukuna bristled at feeling you so close to him. Your arm brushed his casually as you were fixing your shirt, and Sukuna was glad he’d worn his most expensive cologne for this.

“Hi everyone, welcome to today's video! As you know, I’m (Y/N), and today we have a special guest today!” Throwing your arms in the air, you motioned to Sukuna.

“Hi.” He nodded, barely cracking a smile. He could feel you looking at him like you wanted to say something, but he didn’t look.

“So, many people have been asking for us to do a collaboration and it’s finally here!” Clapping your hands lightly, you rocked on your heels and nudged his shoulder with yours. “Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?”

“Uh-” The playful nudge you’d given him was enough to make Sukuna short circuit. “I-I-” He suddenly couldn’t remember how to speak. “Rice?”

“Let’s try that again.” You laughed. “Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?” This time, you didn’t nudge him with your shoulder.

“We’re gonna…” the words were on the tip of his tongue, they wanted to come out and be spoken but he couldn’t do it.

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Nodding reassuringly, you took a deep breath in and out, and Sukuna shakily copied. “One more try?” When he looked at you, Sukuna expected to see a hint of annoyance in your face, but there was none. You were just smiling softly at him, waiting for his answer.

“Yeah. I’ll uh, I’ll get it next time.” Stepping away from the camera, Sukuna took a drink of water and cleared his throat. Cracking the bones in his neck, he took a deep breath and came back. “Let’s do it.” No more fucking embarrassments.

“Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?” You asked for the third time, slightly swaying your body side to side this time.

“We’re gonna make katsudon today.” Finally, the words he wanted to say came out.

“That’s right! As you can see, Sukuna is really fit!” You immediately hopped in, giving his arm a brief squeeze. “And he knows how to make a ton of healthy meals!”

“Mhmm.”

“So I asked if he could help teach me, and all of you at home, how to make it!” Smiling at the camera, you waited a few seconds before relaxing and turning it off. “Did you like that? We can refilm it if you want.”

“No, it’s okay.” Running a hand through his hair, he pointed to the bag of rice he’d brought. “Let’s get started on this shit.”

Taking fifteen minutes to film the two of you filling up the rice cooker, when it was over, you set about getting aesthetic shots of the other ingredients. Sukuna tried to seem casual off to the side on his phone, but he was really watching you.

Getting started on chopping the ingredients, Sukuna somehow managed to say the things he was supposed to without stuttering too badly. He was amazed that you could make the things he was doing sound so interesting, your narration as you held the camera and tried to do things yourself was impressive to the man that barely knew anything about cameras.

“Sukuna, I need help cutting the meat.” You whined, tapping the meat on the cutting board with a knife. “I don’t remember how you showed me.”

“Here.” Without thinking, Sukuan grabbed your hand with the knife in it and moved it for you. “You just have to move your wrist more, it’s not that hard.” Doing it a few times, when Sukuna felt your chest expand with air against his, that’s when he realized how close the two of you were. “S-sorry.” Immediately jumping back, he stared at the floor.

“Thanks!” Giving him a smile, you kept at it.

“I’ll fry the meat.” Stepping in as soon as you were done, Sukuna already had the hot oil ready. He was eager to cook and do something with his hands instead of - what he felt like - was awkwardly watching you off to the side.

“Okay!” Grabbing the camera, you focused on the pan. “You’re really good at this, Sukuna!”

“T-thanks.” Staring directly at the pan, Sukuna didn’t look away. Even with the hot oil popping up from the pan a few times and burning his fingers, he didn’t flinch at all.

“Ow!” But you did. Your hand had gotten too close, and when Sukuna flipped the meat, some of the oil had gotten on your hand.

“Shit.” Abandoning the pan, Sukuna was ready to drag you over to the sink for some cool water.

“I-it’s okay, it was only a little.” Shaking your stinging hand, you point to the food. “But I think the meat might burn.”

“Shit!”

Narrowly avoiding disaster with the meat, when it came time to cook the eggs, you made a joke about how you liked your eggs in the morning and Sukuna burnt them almost immediately. While not an overtly sexual comment, the implications of the words still affected him.

Somehow, he managed to make the dish come together and while his plated dish didn’t come out the best, yours looked at least halfway decent with overcooked meat and burnt eggs. The only things not messed up were the rice and vegetables, and even then Sukuna was surprised.

“We did it everyone, we made katsudon!” Holding up the bowls, you smiled big and nudged Sukunas shoulder again. “You saw we had a few mishaps along the way, but that’s okay, that’s what made it fun.”

“Yeah, it was fun.” Sukuna chuckled. Despite him being more nervous than he’d ever thought possible, he had fun cooking alongside you.

“Sukuna, will you try mine? I made it super pretty and everything.” Holding your dish up to him, Sukuna wasn’t expecting you to do that. Now he felt bad that his looked so ugly and like a teenaged boy made it; he almost said no.

Eating yours though, somehow it tasted better than he was expecting. It must have been how you prepared it, and the fact that you cared so much about the presentation. Eating it in silence, he let you eat in peace as well for a few minutes and compliment the food to the camera.

“Alright, that’s the end of the video!” Putting your bowl down, you turned to Sukuna. “I had so much fun today, thanks for filming this with me.” Now was his chance to make everything better. Putting his bowl down and bolstering himself with confidence, Sukuna threw his arm over your shoulder and pulled you close to him.

“Thank you (Y/N), I really did enjoy today. I hope we can film again soon!” He squeezed your shoulder and smiled really big at not only you but the camera as well. He knew he was blushing, he knew that even the tip of his nose was a nice rosy shade, but he didn’t care. If people teased him for it, then so be it. But he wanted you to know how he truly felt.

“R-really? You want to?” You asked, looking up at Sukuna from your place smooshed against his body.

“Really.”

“Aww, well you heard it here first everyone! Sukuna wants to shoot another video with me!” Clapping your hands a few times, you waved at the camera. “Okay, bye everyone!”

“Bye.” Sukuna waved too, waiting a few seconds before letting you go and turning off the camera.

“Sukuna, did you really mean it? You want to film another video with me?” You were in utter disbelief. All this time, he’d just seemed very standoffish, if not a little awkward around you. You were happy to film this video with him, he had way more followers than you and it would help boost both your channels, and to hear him say that just made it even better.

“Yeah, I was serious.” Sukuna spoke around stuffing his mouth with the food he still had left. He was more hungry than he thought, the nerves doing a good job of twisting his stomach during the video. Now that it’s over, he can finally relax.

“That makes me really happy.” Eating the rest of your food as well, you leant against the counter. “This is gonna sound kind of mean, but I was really scared to film with you today. I thought you were going to be really mean.”

“Shit, you did?” He grimaced, letting out a sigh. “Sorry I had you worried.” He could already imagine the comments you would get from his fans.

“It’s okay! You’re actually way nicer in person, I was surprised!”

“That’s good.”

“And you’re really buff, you have muscles in places I didn’t even know were possible!” You laughed bashfully at that comment, and avoided looking at him when he stared at you in shock. “I couldn’t help but notice…”

Were you checking him out? Had you been checking him out this whole time and he didn’t even realize? He had seen you eyeing him up when you first met, but were you looking at him like that at other times as well? Now he’d really have to watch your video to see if it was true.

“Thanks, it’s my job.” Could he have said that any lamer? “My job outside of all this, I mean. I’m a trainer at this fancy gym downtown.”

“Oh, I’ve seen some of your videos at your gym! I know which one you’re talking about.”

“You do? You’ve seen my videos?” If he wasn’t surprised before, he was now.

“Yeah, you know I had to do a little research beforehand.” You nodded, beginning to clean up the dishes around you. “And I know you’ve already watched almost all of my videos, so it only seemed fair.”

Did you have to bring that up? Now Sukuna was embarrassed again.

“Y-yeah, I did.” Clearing his throat, Sukuna helped gather the dishes. He took up washing them, another task he could do to get his mind off you. As you took down the camera equipment, he nearly broke several dishes and utensils from scrubbing too hard.

“I’ll call you an Uber.” He said when all was said and done and you were back at the front of the building.

“You don’t have to, it’s okay.”

“No, I want to.” Quickly calling you a ride, Sukuna fiddled with his phone a little more. “Uh, could I- could I-” His voice kept leaving him, and he had to cough a few times. “Can I get your number? I really liked your camera shit and I want to improve mine.” Okay, it wasn’t a total lie. He did like your setup and wanted to make his just as good, but he really wanted your number to potentially talk to you more about things outside of Youtube.

“Sure! Go ahead and type it in.” You were quick to give him your phone, a cute pink phone case on the back of it. Typing it in, he can’t help but notice the little devil emoji you add by his name. He wants to ask, but your ride is already pulling up.

“Bye!” Setting all your camera gear inside the car, you turn and wave goodbye.

“See ya.” Just as you’re about to close the car door, Sukuna gets a burst of confidence. “Text me when you get home, okay?”

“Okay!” And off you go. Sukuna watches the car drive off until he can’t see it anymore. He takes his time getting to his own place, eagerly awaiting your message with every step. But even when you do message him, all he can do is send a thumbs up back and nothing else.

It’s about two and a half days after that that you text him again, letting him know you’re done editing and that you’re going to post the video soon. It wasn’t a very long video to begin with, so the editing was simple enough. Sukuna replied with what appeared to be a lackluster ‘can’t wait’, but on the inside he was shaking. He’d already screenshot all the pictures the two of you took together and added them to a folder.

“Here we go.” As soon as the video went live, Sukuna watched it. He was mortified as soon as it started at the blush so evident on his cheeks, and how it stayed throughout the whole thing. He groaned at the part where he helped you cut up the meat, he almost wishes you’d cut it out. Every little detail that made him embarrassed was there, every little nuance of his actions you’d managed to capture and make it cute.

(Y/N): How do you like it??

You texted him after twenty minutes, eager to hear his thoughts.

(Sukuna): it’s good, good editing and stuff

(Y/N): yay! I’m going to read comments in a few hours, you should too! I bet people will be really shocked!

(Sukuna): yeah no doubt

Oh, he was definitely going to read the comments. Whereas you were going to wait for a fair few to come in before commenting, Sukuna frequently refreshed the page and read the new ones as they came in. You were right, a lot of people were surprised, but he also saw a lot of his fans as well.

‘Ew Sukuna really cooked for that bitch? They can’t do it themselves?’

‘Yeah, why do they have to rely on him? Useless as fuck lol’

‘Sukuna only did this to get laid, (Y/N) looks like an easy fuck’

All of those comments, and many more, made his blood boil. Usually, he wouldn’t care at all about the comments, letting them fester in his comment section and spiral out of control. But for you, it was different.

‘Fuck off and die you pieces of shit. Leave (Y/N) alone or say it to my fucking face’

Sukuna sent that message, along with a variety of other threats, to all the people that insulted you. He didn’t care that this wasn’t his channel and that you would deal with it in whatever way you wanted to. He needed to defend you against the unwanted audience he’d brought you.

Luckily, after seeing Sukunas messages, all of his fans backed off. They knew how serious he was about his threats and there were many rumors that he actually did go and beat people up who said things he didn’t like. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of his torment.

With Sukunas name attached to the video and his heavy presence in the comment section, the video easily went viral. It was easily the most viewed video on your channel, getting on the trending pages of several different platforms.

(Sukuna): hey

It’s nearly a week after the first video that Sukuna messages you, and the hype is still going strong, and your follower count grows greatly from it.

(Y/N): hi! What’s up?

(Sukuna): do you want to film a video for my channel now? We can play a game, I have a few

(Y/N): sure that sounds fun!

Oh how wrong you were. The game Sukuna chose was a scary game, a shooter game with scary zombies and a lot of possible jumpscares. He doesn’t tell you either, so on the night of filming - he insisted on it being nighttime to get the full scary effect - you were caught off guard.

“I don’t know about this.” You whined once you saw the title. The two of you were video calling alongside playing the game together, and Sukuna’s eyes flicked to your figure on the screen.

“It’ll be okay, I’ll carry you, don’t worry.” He had started filming as soon as he’d set up the game, and you were filming yourself as well for him.

“You promise it won’t be too scary?”

“If it’s too scary just close your eyes and I’ll protect you.” Smiling softly at you, he started up the game. The beginning was fine, just a quick introduction to the game, but as soon as things started to get moving, you were scared.

“Sukuna a zombie is eating me!” You screamed, frantically pushing buttons in an attempt to get it off.

“It’s okay!” He quickly got rid of it, and made sure to stay close to your character as the story progressed.

“(Y/N) stay by me, there’s about to be a whole lot of them.”

“Close your eyes there’s about to be a jump scare here.”

“Don’t worry about getting that item, I’ll grab it for you!”

Sukuna nearly forgot he was being filmed, saying sweet things to you to help encourage you and make sure you weren’t overwhelmed. There were many parts where you screamed in fright and Sukuna was there to coo at you and tell you it was okay. He made sure that your character never died, making sure to keep you close until the end of the game.

“Sukuna, that was so hard!” Squishing your cheeks in your hands, you looked at him through your phone.

“It was fun though, wasn’t it? I had fun with you.” Completely abandoning the game, he stared down at his phone with a soft smile on his face.

“Yeah, when there weren’t so many zombies.” You stuck your tongue out at him, and it made him laugh. Leaning his head into his hand, Sukuna grinned when you yawned.

“Aw, are you tired? Better go to sleep soon.” His voice dropped to a lower volume, like you were right next to him.

“I will.” You yawned again and it made Sukuna yawn as well.

“Get off the phone and go to bed, you’re making me tired too.”

“Fine.” Whining out the word, you waved sleepily. “Goodnight Sukuna, I’ll send you the video files in the morning, okay?”

“Night.” Waving back, Sukuna waited until you hung up to turn his stuff off as well.

In the morning, Sukuna was ready to edit. What usually took him a week to edit out of laziness, he took only a day to edit this video with you together. Rewatching the footage, he nearly gagged at seeing how soft his face got when he looked at you, and most of those parts were left in because he couldn’t stand to watch them and fix them.

(Sukuna): videos up

The next day, he messaged you. Once again Sukuna patrolled the comments, swiftly deleting any that said even a hint of a bad thing about you. There was less this time, what with Sukuna adding a warning at the beginning of the video threatening anyone that talked down at you.

This video, like the first, went viral. But for a much different reason. Since Sukuna was emotionally unable to deal with how sappy he was and edit those parts out, everyone got to see how soft he was for you. If the comments weren’t mean, they were screaming about how you and Sukuna must be dating now, because why else would he look at you and talk to you like that?

And much to Sukuna’s dismay, there were also fancam edits of you two together. Any clippable moment of him being sweet on you in the videos you’d made together along with the photos you’d posted on Instagram were edited together and posted on Twitter. You both were tagged in every single one, making sure Sukuna saw all the videos of you and him together. He saved all of them too, delighting in the way you looked with him with all those pretty filters.

By the end of the day, people were trying to put a ship name together for the two of you and he’s seen you repost a few fancams with cute messages of thanks as well. Seeing you receptive to the fans screaming about the two of you made him happy, even if he was still too nervous to text you about anything outside of Youtube.

As more comments came in, people on Twitter were begging him to do a vlog with you. You had quite a few on your channel, going to cafes or filming what your day or week was like. Sukuna had watched them all and was jealous of every single person that appeared alongside you.

(Y/N): hey I’m doing a live on Instagram if you want to join me! I know people really like us together lol it’ll be great for views

(Sukuna): sure

Did you want him to join now? He’d just gotten out of the shower and thrown on a pair of sweats, he wasn’t exactly decent. But he didn’t want to waste time getting ready only for you to end the live.

“Hi Sukuna!” You smiled and waved when he appeared on the screen.

“Hey.” He waved back, not caring about the angle he was holding the camera in. He saw hearts begin to fill up the screen and comments started to fly by, almost all in caps about the fact he was shirtless talking to you.

“Guys, don’t be weird! Who cares that Sukuna is shirtless?” You tried to stop them, but it was clear you were flustered as well. You weren’t looking at him, peeking at him through the screen a few times.

“God you’re all thirsty as fuck.” Sukuna finally looked at himself on the screen. He was shirtless and in bed, hair slightly damp and tousled on his pillow. Reading a few comments, he shot up. “Of course I’m wearing pants, you nasty fuck!” Storming out of bed, he stood in front of the only mirror in his house that wasn’t in the bathroom and turned the camera around. “See, look!”

“Oh.” Gasping softly, you were glad Sukuna didn’t notice you screenshot the live. Clad in only gray sweatpants, Sukuna’s freshly cleaned skin gleamed in the light of his bedroom and every single muscle and edge of his body was on display.

“There, told you I wasn’t fucking naked.” Rolling his eyes, he flopped back down on the bed. None of the comments had gotten any better, all of them talking about how hot he was and how you were so lucky to know him in real life.

“L-let's talk about something else.” You stammered, not showing your face on camera for a few minutes. Sukuna laughed at the comments teasing you for being embarrassed, agreeing with some of them under his breath.

“So, what the fuck are you all doing here?” Sukuna posed the question at the chat, but at you as well.

“Well before you came everyone was talking about you...and you know how everyone has been begging for us to vlog?” You started off slowly, peeking an eye at his face.

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to call you to ask how you felt about that?” How he felt? Why did you want to know?

“You couldn’t have texted me that?” That wasn’t necessarily what he wanted to say, but it made you chuckle, so it was okay.

“No! I wanted to ask so everyone could know!”

“I don’t mind it.” If you wanted to vlog with him, he would do it in a heartbeat.

“So…” Worrying your lip, you looked off camera for a few seconds before looking directly at Sukuna. “Would you like to be in a vlog with me, at a cafe? It’s outside the city, kind of far, but we can rent a car or-”

“Yes.” Sukuna interrupted, nodding his head quickly. “I’ll come. We don’t have to rent a car, I’ll drive.”

“Really?” The comments were just as shocked as you were. Sukuna never filmed anywhere but his home and the gym, this would be a monumental occasion.

“Did you want me to say no?”

“No!” You screamed immediately, nearly dropping your phone. “I just- I wasn’t expecting you to say yes!”

“Well I did.” Sukuna bit his lip, running a hand through his hair and flexing his arm. “So I guess it’s a date, huh?” His normal asshole confidence was back now that you were appearing through a screen and not right next to him. A surprised sound came from the back of your throat, and you nearly dropped the phone again.

“Y-yeah! A date!” It felt good to have you flustered for once and not Sukuna. Laughing heartily at you, Sukuna smirked at the comments.

“Was that all you wanted to ask me or was there something more?”

“No, that was it!”

“Alright.” Licking his lip and letting his tongue hang out of his mouth a little, Sukuna watched you bite your lip as well. “Well I’m gonna go, I got stuff to do, but I’ll text you later (Y/N).” Dropping his voice as he said goodbye, Sukuna left the livestream.

“Holy fuck.” As soon as his phone was off, Sukuna let out a breath he’d been holding in. His heart was pounding hard despite how confident he was in his actions. Flirting was nothing new to him, but with you it felt different and like he’d never done it before in his life.

He watched the rest of your livestream while he finished getting ready for bed, laughing at the comments still teasing you about getting flustered with him. The notifications for Twitter were going off as well, and he knew for sure that there were new fancams for him to check out later.

(Y/N): Sukuna!! You’re so embarrassing!

Texting him after your stream, your cheeks were still burning at the memory.

(Sukuna): hey, you said it would be good for views and it was

(Y/N): I know…

(Y/N): did you really mean it, about coming with me?

(Sukuna): of course. If I didn’t want to I would have said no

(Y/N): that’s good lol!

There was a lull in conversation, and Sukuna nearly fell asleep waiting for you to either text him again or for him to figure out what to say next.

(Y/N): so, a date huh? Are you going to bring me flowers?

Now he was awake. He didn’t expect you to bring that up again, and his eyes flew open. Sukuna’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, mind going blank on what to say.

(Y/N): lol just kidding! I know you only said that for the stream! I’ll text you later about the details, I’m about to knock out

(Y/N): goodnight :)

Well shit. Now he definitely wanted it to be a date.

#jujutsu kaisen #ryomen sukuna #sukuna x reader #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen fanfic #jujutsu kaisen imagines #jujutsu kaisen scenarios

1K notes · View notes

cinebration · 4 years ago

Text

Give Me Peace (Geralt of Rivia x Reader) [Request]

I always had a vision of the witcher where reader is a siren (alternative, land walking type that can still enthrall ppl with her beauty) and her and Geralt always bump into each other over the years. Ppl are always hunting her since sirens are worth a lot of money so he decides to help her. Geralt refuses to admit his feelings are real for her until he figures out that witchers are immune to siren songs. Basically, lots of angst but a fluffy ending! — Requested by anon

I know this was supposed to have a fluffy ending, but it turned into something else, and I couldn’t bear to change it.

Tagged: @bichibibi

Warnings: death

Gif Source: august-walker

Over the span of five decades, you and Geralt crossed paths more times than he had ever crossed anyone’s, Jaskier and Yennefer included. The hand of destiny seemed to be at work, nudging you both into each other’s path every ten years or so.

It started first by the ocean. You had spent much time there in that first decade, drawn to the sea and your marine cousins, the sirens of the water. You were a siren of the land, beautiful beyond measure but lacking the enchanting voice of your sea cousins. You did not call men to their deaths as they did. Instead, your beauty drove men to madness.

Perhaps you were the more dangerous breed.

For the first few years, your beauty kept you safe, as no man who laid eyes on you and met your gaze was safe from your spell. You could topple kingdoms if you so felt with that kind of power.

But there came men and women who coveted the prize of a slain siren, especially one poisoning the minds and hearts of their very best.

Thus came your first encounter with the witcher, Geralt. Hired by the townsfolk, he sought you out on the shores of the sea, where you sat on the rocks in low tide and gazed out over the choppy waters. Careful to avoid your gaze, he drew near, armed not with his sword but with his wits, ready to be enthralled.

Hearing his step on the sand, you glanced at him and paused, stricken by his rugged beauty. Never had you seen a man whose looks could entice you as you enticed others. Though he averted his eyes, you saw their vivid yellow irises glinting in the setting sun.

“Witcher,” you called, “have you come for me?”

He grunted.

“You would kill me for something I have no power over?”

“You’re driving the town mad.”

“They are driven mad by their own desire. I can’t hide myself.”

“They don’t see it that way.”

“How do you see it?”

He cleared his throat, glanced over his shoulder to see if any of the townsfolk had followed him.

Slipping down off the rock, you approached him. He took a step back, shifting into a defensive stance. You ceased, bare feet digging into the cooling sand.

“If I paid you more than they did to protect me, would you?”

The muscle in his jaw flexed. “Only if you leave.”

With a sigh, you looked back over the ocean. You would miss it, but forests and mountains were your home; to them you would return.

The following decade, Geralt heard news of a beautiful woman bewitching men near Brokilon. At first he thought she belonged to the druids that populated the dangerous forest, but as he heard report after report of men driven to madness, raving of beauty and unearthly eyes, he knew the woman to be a siren.

He knew it had to be you.

The villagers sent him forth to kill you. Traveling through the forest on the outskirts of Brokilon, careful not to trespass, he found a small hut near the road, partially obscured by the trees but by no means invisible.

Through a half-shuttered window, he glimpsed you brushing your hair. In the light from the fire burning within the hearth, he glimpsed the faint lines of sealed gills. He had heard that land sirens had come from the sea centuries before, but nothing had offered so much proof as the vestigial, malformed organs on your neck.

“Witcher,” you called, seeing him through the window, “have you come for me?”

He grunted.

“You would kill me for something I have no power over?”

“The villagers don’t see it that way.”

“What am I to do? I can’t hide myself.”

“You could do a better job.”

“Come into my home, witcher, and warm yourself.”

Shaking his head, he unsheathed his sword.

“If I pay you double what the villagers are paying, will you spare me again?”

He considered for a long moment. You stared at his face, but he refused to meet your gaze. Out of his peripherals, he saw something of your beauty. It was stellar, he would agree, but it stirred nothing more within him than he expected when seeing a beautiful woman.

It almost made him want to meet your enchanting gaze.

Discipline and strength won out, but not entirely.

“Yes,” he answered. “Just leave.”

Sighing, you put out the fire and gathered your things, amounting to nothing more than a small sack over one shoulder.

“Witcher,” you called, “I have been attacked twice now.”

He nearly met your eyes, so sharply did he turn back to you.

“Men shot arrows through my window, tried to set fire to my home.”

“You are a monster to them.”

“So are you, but you are allowed some peace.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Few men think they can kill you. Every man thinks they can kill me. There is peace in the former.”

Shouldering your sack, you struck off down the road, fixing your gaze on the mountains.

Geralt watched you go until even his enhanced vision no longer saw your figure, your words echoing in his mind.

In the third decade, Geralt came upon you by chance. He passed a hunting party made of hardscrabble men practically frothing at the mouth with anticipation. They rained arrows down into the ravine from their position on the mountain face, arrows with fire burning at the ends. Geralt would have walked on if one of them had not cried, “Burn, enchantress!”

Geralt paused to look down into the ravine. A small shack leaned against the wall, situated by a thin stream. You stood in stark relief among the basalt, knocking away the arrows with a poor shield. One arrow caught in your thatch roof, caught fire.

Geralt hauled the nearest archer off his feet, slamming him against the cliff face. The other men spun, glimpsed his white hair and murderous glare. They fled, screaming obscenities in your direction.

“Witcher,” you called, “have you come for me?”

He didn’t answer, unsure how to.

Running into the burning shack, you stumbled out with your bag and watched the rest of your ramshackle home burn. By the time it had been reduced to a pile of ash and cinders, Geralt had made his way down into the ravine. He avoided your gaze but stared at the curve of your neck.

“They grow bolder every year,” you informed him. “See?” Slipping off the shoulder of your tunic, you presented a livid scar not many months old. “They will be the death of me—and I have not driven any of them mad.”

“Sirens have gone up in price.”

“I have no money to pay you, witcher, to spare me.”

He grunted. “I wasn’t hired to kill you. This time.”

“Until next time, then.”

“Wait.”

You obliged, dropping your gaze slightly so he could look on your face. Wary, he only glimpsed it before averting his eyes.

“They’ll keep coming,” he said.

“Yes.”

“What…will you do?”

“Nothing. We all die at the hands of men.”

Geralt felt something strange constrict his chest. “You can go to the Edge of the World.”

“The elves have no love for my kind. We are as dangerous to them as we are to humans. But thank you for the advice.”

Geralt watched you follow the river through the ravine and wondered why he wanted to tell you to stay.

The fourth decade, he was hired yet again—by you. You tracked him for miles, following instructions given to you by a man in the town. No one had been bewitched therein, for you had bound your eyes with cloth, preventing them from being enthralled.

Only as you navigated the unused road did you remove the cloth. After a day of unceasing travel by foot, you approached Geralt’s campsite. Roach whinnied as you drew near, but she did not rear or cry out in alarm. Geralt sprang to his feet.

Having blinded yourself again with the cloth, you stood at the edge of his campsite.

“Witcher,” you called, “I have come for you.”

“Why?”

“I am being pursued.”

“By?”

“A group of armed men. They seek me out especially, not solely because I am a siren, but because I am the siren.”

Looking on your face, he saw weariness and fear lining your features. The tops of your eyebrows were drawn together, indicative of your distress.

“I have no coin,” you told him.

“You have to pay me.”

“I feared as much.” Pulling tight your threadbare coat, you asked, “May I at least share your fire? I have a penny to pay you for some food.”

Geralt hesitated. As much as he wished to help, felt compelled to—a feeling that worried him—he couldn’t help but wonder if it was a trap. A slip of his guard would be all you needed for you to enthrall him and make him do as you wished.

“I will wear the blindfold,” you assured him. “You won’t be afflicted.”

Grunting reluctantly, he tossed you a hank of meat from the spit roasting over the fire. You ate ravenously with less grace than he expected. Only then did he notice how frail you seemed beneath your coat, how few plentiful days you had seen since he last crossed your path.

A surge of feeling coursed through him, one he identified with an urge to protect. Protection wasn’t strictly in his purview, as he was more of an offensive weapon than a defensive one. Yet the urge remained as he watched you warm yourself in front of the fire, eerie with the blindfold covering nearly half your face.

“Have you found your peace?” you asked in the quiet.

“No.”

“A pity. But neither have I.”

“You don’t actually expect to find peace.”

You smiled thinly. “Surely I do. In death.”

Geralt nodded.

“There is a madness in driving men mad,” you said. “I can find no solace among people, and so, living alone in the most terrible of ways—among others—I know what it feels like to be driven mad.”

Geralt watched you as you spoke. The firelight flickered shadows across your beautiful face.

“Few sirens know it themselves. They live free in their youth, reveling in their power. Few make it beyond that. But those that do begin to run, and that marks their end.” You shook your head. “None of us choose this.”

Geralt tried to quell the emotions rising within him. He hadn’t chosen his path either, his life. Destiny had worked hard to bring him here, with all of life’s misery and suffering multiplied tenfold for his status as a witcher. If only the rumors of the elixirs and Grasses were true, that they could make him an emotionless monster.

Instead, he silently suffered beside a land siren who knew suffering intimately.

You disappeared by morning. The band of men pursuing you crossed paths with Geralt a few hours later. Choice words and a rough scuffle sent them back home.

In the fifth decade, Geralt felt drawn to the sea. There was no work there by the ocean, but he drifted there anyway, away from the turmoil of the interior. Two miles away from a fishing port, the beach was unblemished, free of humans.

Only you were there, seated upon a rock at low tide, overlooking the serene waters.

“Witcher,” you called, “have you come for me?”

“I have.”

Geralt mounted the rock beside you, sat down on the rough and slimy surface. You stared out at the horizon, knees held against your chest.

He dutifully avoided your gaze.

“Witcher,” you said, “you shouldn’t fear me.”

He grunted.

“I do not affect your kind.”

Frowning, he glanced up, found himself staring directly into your eyes. They were gorgeous, truly enthralling—but though his heart rate spiked at being exposed to your naked gaze, he felt no different than he had upon arriving at the beach: pained and joyous. He couldn’t believe it.

“See? You are unaffected.”

“I…why didn’t you tell me?”

“What good would it have done? You needed something to fear to still consider me a monster.”

He cleared his throat. “You’re not a monster.”

“Neither are you.”

He wanted to say otherwise, but you were staring at him again. Fighting the feelings in his chest, he reached up and brushed away the hair from your eyes, curling the strands around your ear. The faint gills on your neck revealed themselves.

Leaning forward, he pressed his lips against yours. You kissed him back gently. You tasted salty, much to his surprise.

When he pulled back, he discovered it was because of the tears streaming down your face. He brushed them away, but you shook your head, holding his hand.

“Give me peace,” you whispered, “and return me to the sea. I was never meant for the land.”

Geralt avoided the ocean for five decades after, but the salty taste of your kiss never left him.

#Geralt of Rivia x Reader #Geralt of Rivia #Geralt of Rivia imagine #Geralt x Reader #Geralt #Geralt imagine #Witcher imagine #Henry Cavill x Reader #Henry Cavill #Henry Cavill imagine #The Witcher #requests

795 notes · View notes

calcifermovesthecastle · 4 years ago

Text

Shared Language

Ghiaccio x Florist!Reader, gn pronouns, fluff ending

1000 follower giveaway for @therealcozyy after a million years I’m so sorry

Warnings: kind of angst, hospitalization and IV’s but nothing major

At the end of a busy day, all you want to do is close up shop and trudge to the apartment the floor above you, and collapse into bed. Thirteen Bridal Bouquets, Add on roughly six each for bridesmaids, as well as walkin customers have you frenzied and harrowed and exhausted, your hands aching with the amount of work you pulled today. Annoyance shoots through you when you hear the patronizing ring of the bell, signaling someone new, and you squeeze your eyes shut, collecting yourself before you turn around.

"I'm horribly sorry, but we are closed for the night, so-" Your voice trails off when your eyes graze over the Passione pin glinting on the man's shirt, and you visibly wilt when your eyes travel up to his face. "Of course. How much do I owe you?"

"It's a protection fee. It's not any lower or higher than it's ever been," He responds, looking just as annoyed with the situation as you feel. You sigh, biting your tongue, and crouch behind the counter, skimming the shelves for the envelope you usually keep the fee in.

"Right, here you are. Um, let me count it out just to make sure I have it all, if that's alright?"

His eyes meet yours, narrowing, before he shrugs, resting his hands on the counter. You flip through the bills, organizing them by every fifty euros. He watches you count like a hawk, his eyes flicking to your face when you purse your lips in a particular way and freeze.

"Shit."

You disappear into the back office, and he can see you rummaging around, looking more and more stressed as you go.

"Is there a problem?" He calls after you, an edge to his voice.

"No, no, it's-" You come back out to the front, looking near tears as you open the cash register. Your voice cracks when you speak again. "No, there's not a problem. Give me just a moment."

By the time you've finished counting, there's ten euros left in the register, and tears have started to pool into your eyes. You have to swallow to speak, and when you do, your voice is soft and catches on each word.

"There. Ten-Ten thousand Euros." You recount once more just to make sure it's all there, tucking it back into the envelope and handing it over to him. His eyebrows knit as he glances to your register, and your lip trembles when you speak again. "Now, really, sir, I do have to close up for the night."

Even though he's left your shop, he remains in his car, watching you lean over your desk and cry as you appear to do some calculations. Wordlessly, he drives away.

You're in the middle of arguing with a customer on the price of a standard funeral basket when the bell rings, and one glance over at the door has you panicking.

"Shit, sir, you need to leave," You usher the fuming customer out the door and swivel, your eyes wide, at the man from last night. "Was it not enough?! Are you going to take my-"

"Woah, slow down!" He holds up his hands. "I just- do you want- cazzo," He spits, shoving his hands in his pockets. You shift nervously, hysteria quickly threatening to well up past your throat. "Shit. I saw that you didn't have much left yesterday, so I wanted to- buy you lunch."

You aren't sure if you heard him properly, but when what he says finally registers, your legs crumple underneath you.

You wake to a concerned blue haired man, and a curious purple haired one who's taking your pulse and checking you over for injuries.

"Oh, good, you're awake," The purple haired one smiles cooly, helping you sit up. You press a hand to the back of your head, wincing. "Ghiaccio here called me in a frenzy when you passed out. I'd pass out too if he ever asked me out to eat."

The blue haired one- Ghiaccio, glares daggers at his companion, practically frothing at the mouth, his teeth grinding back and forth. The purple haired one pays him no mind, continuing his conversation with you as if you were old friends.

"I don't think you need to go to the hospital, but my advice is close early and get some rest.

"I- what?" Your mind is still trying to catch up to what's happening- two men from Passione acting so casual with you it's like you've known them for years. You frown, gingerly rubbing the back of your head. Not Ghiaccio chuckles, the corners of his lips quirking up with the action as he repeats himself.

"I- I can't. I can't afford to close early. My rent is due in three days and I have 300 euros. That makes me 1700 euros short and if I'm short again I'll lose my business."

"Have you eaten since last night?" Ghiaccio speaks up, his words harsher than he probably intends. You stare at him blankly.

"No?"

"Do you want to?"

"I-" You glance at the clock. "I would, but…"

"What if we brought you some food back here?" Not Ghiaccio coos, earning a death glare from his companion. You bite your lip, slowly getting to your feet.

"I guess so? If you're offering."

"I'll be back in forty minutes," Ghiaccio ushers his companion out of your shop, and you're left alone to mull over what happened.

True to his word, he strolls back into your shop forty five minutes later, a bottle of water and a box of margherita pizza in hand. He sets it on your counter, biting his bottom lip nervously.

"Are you pitying me?" You ask him quietly, reaching out for the bottle of water, pausing just before you grasp it.

"Since when is doing something nice for someone pitying them?" He looks genuinely taken aback, and you can see anger rising in his face. You decide to let the issue go, opening the box and taking a slice of pizza.

"It's not something you had to do," You take a bite, feeling a little awkward that you're eating in front of him. "But thank you."

He takes a slice of pizza for himself, looking uncomfortably stiff as he eats. You share a tense silence with him, your mind reeling with the possibilities of his presence.

"Are you not enjoying yourself?"

"I could ask you the same thing," You turn to him, pulled out of your funk. "You're standing in my lobby still as a statue, looking like I just gave you the worst news of your life."

"What the hell does that mean?" He snaps, stiffening even more. You cover your mouth to hide the smile forming on your lips. Maybe you could enjoy his company after all.

"It means if your eyebrows knit together any further, you're going to form a unibrow," You take a discreet sip of the water he gave you, laughing when he swivels to face the window, trying to see what you're describing.

His heart stutters when he hears it, the way your mirth sounds so musical and carefree. God, he thinks to himself. He could listen to that forever.

"Hey, listen," You set the bottle of water down, moving around behind the counter for a moment. When you look satisfied, he watches as you come around the counter and present him with a small bouquet, mixed with white clover, pink sweet pea, Hydrangeas, and peach colored roses. "Thank you."

His face burns as he reaches out and takes the flowers, his heart hammering in his chest when his hand grazes yours. You smile gently at him, retreating back behind the counter. He can't find anything else to say, so he gives you a gruff goodbye and leaves your shop, sitting in his car long after he arrives home.

"Who're the flowers from?" Prosciutto looks up from his book, eyebrow raised in question as Ghiaccio enters the hideout. Ghiaccio balks, stammering in a mix of embarrassment and indignation.

"The florist three blocks down. Why do you need to know?"

"Oh? They never give me flowers when I collect their protection fee," Prosciutto hums, tilting his head.

"When's the last time you bought them lunch?" Melone drapes himself over the back of the couch Prosciutto lounges on, grinning coyly at Ghiaccio as he searches for a vase. Prosciutto hums again in understanding.

"Their shop still not doing too well, huh? How much did they have left this time?"

"You make it sound like you want their business to fail," Pesci whines, jutting his lower lip out. "They're always so nice to me when I collect the fee. They'd lose their home if they shut down."

"They had ten euros," Ghiaccio answers, grabbing a cup and filling it with water, setting the arrangement of flowers inside and carrying it to his room. He gingerly places it on his windowsill, tilting it until he's satisfied that it would get the best amount of sunlight. Prosciutto appears in the door, entering without asking and leaning over Ghiaccio's shoulder to peer at the flowers. His mouth quirks up into a smile when he's satisfied and turns to leave.

"What? What's that face for?" Ghiaccio stops him from leaving, his tone demanding. Prosciutto looks too smug for his own good, his eyes slanted downwards as he studies Ghiaccio's form.

"Look up the meaning of those flowers and you'll understand," Prosciutto sidesteps and leaves with a wave of his hand, leaving Ghiaccio fuming.

He had wanted to come by sooner, but unfortunately, got caught up in an odd schedule where he'd travel from job to job, and got stuck in Rome for a month on a hit that only paid One Hundred thousand euros. By the time he'd come back home, he did nothing but sleep and keep up on the paperwork for two days.

The next time he shows up at your shop, you're not there, and the windows and doors have been boarded up. The sign on the entrance says "Gone out of business."

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit!" He kicks the door frame furiously with each swear, earning some strange glances and some comments.

"Christ, man, they weren't even the best florist in town. It's a wonder they stayed afloat as long as they did."

"Heard it was because they couldn't pay their rent this month. Honestly, with how much Passione charges, it's not even a protection fee anymore, it's an eviction notice waiting to happen."

"Honestly, they're just flowers. Why is he so worked up?"

"The person running the shop wasn't even that personable."

The crowd he'd accumulated falls silent when he turns around, his expression nothing less than smoldering. Some furtive glances at his pin, and soon, the street is empty.

He meanders back home, kicking pebbles to the side, glowering at anyone even remotely in his way, and slams the door so hard it almost falls off of the hinges when he arrives, earning a displeased look from Prosciutto.

"What's the matter with you?"

"Where the fuck are they?"

"That's rather vague," Prosciutto lights a cigarette and leans back on the couch, resting his ankle on his knee. "Did you have a hit go wrong, or-"

"The fucking-" Ghiaccio all but stomps over to where his colleague sits, ripping the cigarette from his mouth and taking a deep dreg himself. Prosciutto's brow furrows in annoyance, but he doesn't say anything as he pulls out another from his silver case and lights it. "The florist. They went out of business. Where did they go?"

"Like I should know the answer to that," Prosciutto scoffs, tapping his ashes into the tray on the end table. Ghiaccio follows suit, taking another deep inhale, sputtering when it goes up his nose. Prosciutto huffs again, shrugging. "What am I? A babysitter? I told you they were going to go under."

"Well, who collected their fee last?" Ghiaccio throws himself into the chair perpendicular to Prosciutto, tapping his ashes out. Prosciutto hums.

"Had to have been Risotto. The rest of us were all on hits at the time it's usually collected."

Ghiaccio bolts up, putting out his half smoked cigarette, earning a glare from Prosciutto.

"If you're going to steal my smokes, the least you could do is finish them. These are expensive, you know."

"Then buy a cheaper brand," Ghiaccio retaliates, walking back towards Risotto's office. "We're on a budget anyways, aren't we?"

Just barely in earshot, he can hear Prosciutto telling him to fuck off. Inhaling deeply, he knocks on his capo's door.

"No clue."

"What the fuck do you mean, no clue?" Ghiaccio's voice is nearing hysterics, and he taps his foot fast, his eyes blown wide. Risotto's demeanor doesn't change, he just hums.

"Exactly that. I collected their fee two weeks ago. I was in and out. I didn't even know they were shut down until just five minutes ago, when you burst in here screaming about it."

"Cazzo. CAZZO! Fine, I'll find them myself!"

"You said Melone went and helped you with a fainting spell they had? See if he can help."

"See if that slimy- oh."

Of course.

Of course it had to snow.

You sit against the brick wall of the alleyway, doing your best to ignore the drug deal to your left, and the way your stomach twists painfully.

"Hey! Hey, you!"

You hunker down, your brow furrowed miserably, and close in on yourself a little more to stave off the cold.

"Hey, you, on the ground! Get the fuck outta here. This is my turf!" Your screamer's legs appear in front of you, and you look up at him, dead eyed. "Jeez, you look like real shit, you know? When's the last time you ate?"

"Leave me alone."

"What, not even a hello?" Your perpetrator sneers, crouching to your level. You don't have it in you to even glare. You're too hungry. He scoffs, eyeing you. "Tch. Find somewhere else to starve to death, huh? You're making it hard for me to do my business."

"Do you have to humiliate me any more than I already am?" You sigh, trying to get to your feet. "Fine. Just leave me alone."

You lean heavily on the wall, your legs trembling underneath you. Homelessness has not treated you well, and the stares your emaciated body receive only further your spiral into despair.

You've barely made it to the next alley over when your legs give out, and you collapse face first into the accumulated snow. Hazily, you think to yourself that you have to get something to drink somehow, and pull yourself up, grabbing handfuls and shoving it into your mouth, nevermind how cold you already are, your thin long sleeves and tattered excuse for pants clinging wetly to your body. The only thing you can do now is wish for death to come faster than it does. You fall down onto your side and stare blankly at the opposite wall, willing yourself to fall asleep.

You think you see a pair of legs come to a halt in front of you before you slip into a haze.

When you wake again, a flat white ceiling greets you instead of a cloudy sky, and you notice the weight of a blanket on you. Hazily, you glance over and notice an IV drip hanging out of your arm, and a somewhat familiar blond haired man in a suit sitting next to your bed, smoking a cigarette and absentmindedly reading a newspaper. His eyes flick over when he senses your movement, and his brow shoots up. The paper is set aside, and he takes a generous hit from his cigarette before speaking.

"Good morning. We weren't sure if you were going to pull out of that or not. You've been asleep for almost four days. It's funny. You lose your business, and suddenly, you drop off of our radar. It was quite a chore to find you, you know."

"Are you mocking me?" You croak, trying to pull yourself up into a sitting position. The blond appraises you for a minute, puffing smoke out of his mouth. "Are we in a hospital? I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to smoke in hospitals."

"I doubt the staff is going to give me a hard time," The man speaks lightly, lounging back. "You certainly are something. You've been awake two minutes and you already have a smart mouth?" A small smile lights up his features. "I guess you could say that you're a trooper."

"I'm starving," You bite your lip, turning away, your eyes widening when you finally place the man. "Shit! You're from Passione! Oh my god, oh, I lost my-"

"I already know that," The man waves you off. "I'm just here to keep an eye on you and take you home once you get discharged."

"But I don't- I don't have a home," You place your thumbnail between your teeth, looking at him anxiously. He dismisses you again, snubbing out his smoke.

"That's why I'm here, kid."

His vagueness annoys you, but one glance at the box of apple juice and ham sandwich on your bedside tray has anything you want to say dying in your mouth, and by the time you've scarfed it down, tears spark at the corner of your eyes, and any animosity towards the gangster has dissipated.

"Thank you."

The blond- he's since introduced himself as Prosciutto, drives in silence away from the hospital, not saying anything to you about where you're going. You fidget nervously in the passenger seat, jumping when he parks the care and tells you that you've arrived.

You're still a little unsteady on your feet, so Prosciutto guides you down the stairs with a hand on the small of your back, and leans across you to unlock and open the door. The minute you step inside, you're greeted with almost everyone who's come to collect your protection fees. The only one missing is the blue haired one who bought you lunch- Ghiaccio.

The...boss… Risotto, as introduced, gives you a quick tour of your new residence, telling you that everything is free range, that he's going to have you take on some of the deskwork in return, and shows you to your room. Inside is a bed and a few changes of clothes in the closet. At this point, you're teetering on the edge of bawling your eyes out, and you can barely choke out a thank you, giving him a wobbly smile. You swear you can see him smile in return.

You're sitting on the edge of your bed that night, fidgeting nervously, your mind spinning 100 miles per hour, when there's a knock at your door. You practically jump out of your skin, and call out a shaky "Come In."

The door creaks open slowly, and there he is, his hands hidden behind his back.

Ghiaccio.

You stand slowly, your eyes searching his face.

"Did you-" You catch yourself, starting towards him hesitantly. He seems just as hesitant as he walks towards you. "Did you make this happen?"

"Not really," His voice is soft and hoarse, and the way his brow is furrowed tells you just how worried he was, but the light in his eyes shows you how relieved he feels to see you in person again. "I just suggested it, really. Sort of… Panicked... When I saw your- your shop-" His voice falters when you reach out and grab his shoulder. Tears are welling in your eyes for what feels like the eightieth time today, and your lower lip trembles when your hand comes in contact with him. He's a little cold to the touch, but it's comforting and refreshing.

"Thank you," You manage. He swallows thickly, revealing his hands and shoving something harshly in your direction. He's beet red now, and looking anywhere but you. You grab it, taken aback, and look down to inspect it.

Now you really start to cry, tears spilling onto the arrangement of Daffodils, Daisies, purple lilacs, irises, and lavender roses. So much said in one little bouquet. A sob expels from your throat, and you look up at him, catching him watching you out of the corner of his eye.

You set the flowers on your bed, stepping forward to wrap your arms around him.

"They're good?" He sounds nervous, and stiffens at the contact.

"They're wonderful," You confirm, your voice thick as you bury your face into his shoulder. His arms wind around you, then, and you can hear the relief in his voice when he murmurs to you again.

"Welcome home."

#Ghiaccio x reader #jjba x reader #jojo x reader #jojo no kimyou na bouken #JoJo's Bizarre Adventure #jjba #jojos #jojo's #la squadra x reader #Prosciutto #Ghiaccio #Melone #Pesci #risotto #la squadra

165 notes · View notes

honeysidesarchived · 4 years ago

Text

WHERE THERE IS NO TEMPTATION, THERE IS NO GLORY.

⊱ a santino d'antonio / oc short-fic

euphemia volpe has never wanted for very much; a safe place to sleep, a soft place to land. to love someone, and be loved back. she has all of those things now, but it's most unfortunate for her that she has fallen in love with a man who will never be satisfied with what he's got.

pt. i: contact is crisis

words: 3.3k

warnings: language, some depictions of a relationship that is not entirely healthy, extensive use of my very basic knowledge of italian (padded with google translate, thank you google!), and an unfortunate amount of endearments and pet names. this does not deviate from john wick chapter 2's canon ending, so please bear in mind this will contain major character death.

rating: m for mature language ??? probably closer to t, but will change later on.

notes: as some of you may know, this has been (unfortunately) sitting on my drive since i first watched john wick chapter two almost a year ago--maybe over a year! i can't remember. all i remember was seeing santino and going "SOMEONE has got to kiss that man". so you know, here i am. this short-fic (only a few, short parts) will take place over the span of the events of john wick chapter 2. yes i built some tiny amount of lore for the camorra. yes i had the opportunity to write a fix-it fic and did not. no i am not taking criticism at this time !

special uber big thank you to my beta and my wifey @starcrier who read this a year ago and when i casually said, "hey, so what if i posted this" told me to do it. also @faithchel, who through the occasional sly prompt slid in from ask games (i see you) has been a true angel while i sort through this, and equally as encouraging!

and of course thank you to you all, who read this. i know this is not the usual content you followed me for but i appreciate you all the same. <3

“I cannot believe that I will marry a man so stupid.”

Euphemia is practically frothing at the mouth, she’s so mad; she storms into the chic New York loft, tossing her purse onto the nearby counter, her heels clipping against the polished floor decisively. It’s late; the silk slip of a dress draped across her body brushes the floor in a sweeping train, and she balances herself on the counter with one hand while she steps out of the stilettos with the assistance of the other.

“Euphie, luce della mia vita,” Santino says, striding in after her and completely at ease. He is, infuriatingly, as he always is; perfectly composed, his dark curls in place and his suit immaculate. Euphemia eyes him through the mirror of her vanity as he sidles up behind her. “We’re not married yet, princesa, so you have nothing to worry about.”

“Luce della mia vita,” Euphemia drawls mockingly. She drips the words in honey on the way out of her mouth, sliding a dainty, glittering bracelet from her wrist and dropping it on the counter. “You sound like a fucking idiot, Santi.”

His gaze darkens, but his voice is still silky when he says, “Watch your tone, cara mia.”

“What for?” Euphemia thinks she wouldn’t be able to watch her tone even if she wanted to; not anymore, not with this hanging over her head. She turns to stare at her fiancé, pressing her index finger to his chest. “You’re going to get killed by Baba Yaga anyway. No point in behaving myself, is there? Idiota.”

“Euphemia.”

“You leave John Wick alone, Santino,” she bites out. “You don’t ask for a thing from him. Of him. About him. I don’t want John Wick near my life.”

Santino grabs her wrist, the hand with the engagement ring sitting on it—snatches it out of the air like a cobra striking, grips it with hands that usually are much kinder.

“Everything that you have now is a gift from me,” he warns her, voice pitched low. “You like your nice engagement ring? Your nice dresses? This nice loft we live in?”

His fingers grip, nearly bruising; these are the only times that he doesn’t handle her with care, that his elegant fingers don’t splay against her skin reverently—when she’s pissed him off.

“I’ve given it all to you, all of these things, this life that you like having and don’t want John Wick near, so I would suggest watching your tone for that.”

There is a brief moment where Euphemia thinks she might finally, right now, resort to the violence of slapping Santino in the face. The threat is not lost on her; it’s Santino’s favorite thing to do when he’s angry. And for her to commit an act of violence against her fiancé would be unthinkable almost every other time, in any other situation. Euphie would not have considered it in the least, but there are times—on occasion—where she thinks for a second that she doesn’t recognize him; that he’s become some amalgam of all of the men who have grabbed her too hard or told her she owes them. Men who have used her meanly.

And Santino has divulged his plan to push John Wick for a favor.

So, yes: she thinks she might, but then her hand is moving of her own volition, sliding the engagement ring off of her finger and stuffing it into his jacket pocket, the more pacifist choice than what her mind is screaming for her to do.

“You have never had nothing, Santi,” she says, biting out the words, “so allow me to enlighten you; I have had nothing before you, and I will be just fine having nothing again.”

His eyes narrow, gemlike slits that sit heavy on her. She yanks her wrist of his grip and says, “And it is a good thing we are not married, si? A divorce would have been so messy.”

“Euphie,” Santino says in a sigh that lacks venom, as though he weren’t just threatening to take everything from her, as though she were the hysterical one, “don’t fuss.”

Don’t fuss, he says, because Santino has only ever had women before that bend themselves over backwards until they break for him; don’t fuss, he says, because he likes and maybe loves her, she thinks, but he doesn’t like or love when she talks back. Santino has always had someone to wait on him, to serve him, and Euphemia has never seen his parents together but she would that his only vision of marriage is that of a subservient, dutiful, loving wife.

“Oh, but my darling,” she coos, very undutiful and decidedly not subservient, “I wouldn’t want you to have to worry about all of the nice things you give me. You can enjoy them all yourself, for the brief time before Baba Yaga kills you for asking him to do a job he does not want to do, when he has announced his retirement.”

It’s a terrible way to feed the monster inside of her. That monster is a pusher, a puller, the kind that picked and chipped away at Santino until he lost that shred of his manicured control and gave her something, anything she could work with. It was impossible to love a man who was so buttoned up there was nowhere for her to put her love.

His expression tightens in the way that she recognizes as his controlled fury; bottling it, merchandising it, saving it for later. Santino is not incapable of killing his sister himself, but for some reason—a reason that Euphemia is sure is only known to him—he won’t. Some stupid shit about blood and family, probably.

“Take the ring back.” Santino’s voice is smooth, belying the danger lurking just beneath. He fishes the engagement ring out of the pocket of his suit jacket, where she’d dropped it, and picks up her hand again; this time, his fingers don’t grip with bruising force, but cradle. Euphemia thinks she might have pushed him, then, right to the line, because his eerie calm is unsettling as his fingers meticulously slide the engagement ring back into place.

He says, “There, you see? This is where your engagement ring belongs and will stay. Here, on your hand. Just like this is where you belong and will stay—here, with me.” His hand comes up to her face; she turns away, and he catches her chin and forces her to look back at him.

“You know I will get you anything you want,” Santino murmurs, “but you have to ask.”

Nicely, is the implied word. A good fiancé, a good wife, wouldn’t storm out of the car after he mentions John Wick in passing, ripping through the loft, calling him names. She knows all of this and she thinks, then maybe I’m not a good anything.

But she can tell when she’s pushed Santino’s buttons just enough—enough to make a point, and not enough to incur his wrath. Not entirely.

“Please, Santi,” she says, her voice still hard but softer than it was before, and already Santi is shaking his head so she plunges on recklessly, “do not cash in John Wick’s debt to you. Ascoltami, I know you—I know you will do something to put yourself and John Wick on opposite sides of the playing field.”

Santino’s gaze is sharp and clear. He drops his hand from her face, shrugging, and says, “So what? I will be playing chess, and John Wick will be playing checkers. You worry too much, Euphie.”

“What you mean to say is that I think before I act.”

He shrugs, and threads his fingers through her hair, reaching up with the other to brush loose strands of it from her eyes. He rumbles pleasantly, “Don’t you trust me?”

Euphemia grits her teeth. Her hands come up to grip his wrists, watching him with a prickle of dread in her chest. “Don’t you trust me, Santi?”

Santi’s gaze darkens. Like that, he drops his hands from her, tucking them into the pockets of his slacks as he turns and wanders further into the bedroom, taking all of his warmth with him and leaving Euphie to marinate in the cold glow of the vanity’s lights.

“You can say no,” she says after him, frustrated. “You don’t have to keep an air of mystery about it.”

“What do I do then, tesora?” Santino demands, turning to look at her from the foot of the bed where stands. “Kill her myself? You know I can’t. You know that you cannot ask me to do that.” A pause, and then, with an added air of entitlement: “And Wick owes me.”

There are complicated feelings wrapped up in the whole of it, she knows; Santino, who wants what his sister was given, but cannot bring himself to end her. Euphemia, who only wants Santino, who doesn’t care if he has a seat at the High Table or if he’s a sister-killer or not, who only wants him to look at her longingly like he did when they first met, just for forever instead of a brief moment in time.

And both of them, intrinsically linked, because Santino isn’t wrong when he says that he’s given her everything she has now and Euphemia isn’t wrong when she says she would be okay with nothing again.

She doesn’t ask it of him; he is right, that she can’t, that she wouldn’t. Gianna has only ever been kind to her, at least face to face, and if Santi’s sister had any reservations about Euphemia, then Euphie would find herself in a completely different situation. Not engaged to the only other heir to the D’Antonio empire, that was for certain.

Instead, then, she says, “I cannot ask you to do it, you’re right. I cannot ask you to do it, and I cannot keep you, and I cannot throw you away, Santino. I was less tired when I had nothing.”

She turns away and walks herself into the bathroom, fingers trembling as she undoes the delicate zipper of the gold dress, letting it pool at the floor in a whisper of fabric. The engagement ring sits heavy on her hand. It’s beautiful—and just what she wants, and also the thing that she fears the most, because she doesn’t know what it means to Santino and only what it means to her.

“Euphie.”

His voice comes from the doorway of the bathroom. She turns on the hot water in the tub, a beautiful porcelain clawfoot that she picked herself. It was one of the first things that Santino gifted to her, the first essence of her in the loft that is now almost entirely half-and-half the two of their tastes.

Euphemia doesn’t say anything, because she doesn’t know what to say, so she ties up her hair and shimmies out of the last of her clothes. She can feel his eyes on her, waiting for her to flower into submission and turn around and beg, oh, please Santino, forgive me, but he should know better because she has never and will never do that for him.

“Cara mia.”

“Do not.” Euphemia’s voice wobbles. She slides into the bathtub before it’s full, the water stinging her skin where it touches. “I can’t stand to hear your voice saying sweet things to me when you are willingly walking yourself into your grave.”

“You are being a little dramatic.” He makes his way over to her, kneeling down beside the porcelain tub, ghosting his fingers over her forehead and then the bridge of her nose, fluttering in a way that treasures her and causes her grief all at once. “Just one job, Euphie. That’s all I’m going to ask of him. And then it’s done, and you won’t have to be worried about the Boogeyman.” The pads of his fingers dip into the hot water and then skim along the slope of her collarbone, raising goosebumps on her skin. “And John Wick, whose lifelong peace you are very concerned about, can go back to his dog and his car.”

Euphemia thinks, it’s never just that, with you, because she knows Santino—she knows he’s hungry, has always been hungry, a boy magicked into a man’s skin all hurt and needing and starved, unable to inhibit himself properly. No self-preservation telling him when to stop, never telling him when enough is enough. Not really.

I see you, though, she thought, her gaze flickering over Santino’s face to trace the handsome lines of his expression. She would have never agreed to marry a man before she saw him without his face off; without knowing the monster underneath.

But while she knows this, and she sees Santino D’Antonio for what he really is, she is an idiot and a fool and loves a man sick with the magic of his own perceived destiny, a destiny he believes he is owed, so she says softly, “Promise me, Santi.”

“On my life,” Santino replies with that boyish charm she knows so well. He speaks as though he is not going to leave her in the morning to visit Baba Yaga, as though she doesn’t fear he won’t ever come back. “Now give me a kiss, princesa.”

“I mean it, Santino—”

“I do, too.” He cocks his head to the side. “I won’t ask twice.”

Euphemia acquiesces; not because she fears what he’ll do if he does feel he has to ask twice—because he does hate that—but because as much as she says she would be happy to have nothing again, she is content to bask in the something that she has now, while she has it.

She kisses the corner of his mouth. He slides his damp fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck and says, “Do you love me?”

“Of course.” Her voice feels rough with an emotion she doesn’t want any of. “Of course, Santi, that’s why I—”

“All I need is a yes or no, my little fox, not an essay.”

Her eyes narrow. She turns her face from him; he shifts his position at the end she’s leaned against, dragging his hands along her shoulders to ease the tension in her muscles. Her body reacts instinctively to him. She is a long cry from the girl scamming rich men out of their wallets and time, but there are some things she is still weak to; touch, the acknowledgment that she has a body, that she is real, to be reassured that she is alive.

Santino is so very good at that. He leans over the end of the tub and kisses her cheek, fingers working into the knots of her shoulders.

I am so afraid, she thinks, her eyelashes fluttering shut. I am so afraid that I will never see old age on you.

“Tesora.” His voice is a lull. Pulling her back in, pushing her back under, reminding her that to relinquish herself to someone is a luxury she does not want to go without anymore. To let someone else take control, to not have to worry about making decisions all the time; this is something that she always wants.

“Yes,” Euphie says, “of course I love you, Santi.”

She can feel his smile against her cheek.

“Good girl.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Tell me your favorite words.”

It’s both early and late; the clock’s cool blue numbers are keeping her awake; Santi’s hand slides along the curve of her hip admiringly above the silk of her nightdress, and his nose brushes the bump at the base of her neck. Euphemia shifts. When she does, the edge of her engagement ring catches on the silky pillowcase, but she doesn’t care—it will always do that, because Santi won’t pick another and Euphie won’t ask him to.

Goosebumps prickle along her skin with the air conditioning, cranked as high as she likes, whispers across it when her shoulder slides out from underneath the comforter. She rolls over to look at him. It’s unsurprising that he’s still awake, and he doesn’t look surprised to see she’s awake, either.

“My favorite words?” she prompts. Santino brings his hand to her face, his thumb dragging absently along her lower lip.

“Si,” he replies. “You are always reading. You can speak a few languages. You must have favorite words, no?”

His request does bring a smile to her face, tired as it is. They may have spent the rest of their waking evening wandering around each other like wounded dogs, wary and licking their wounds, but they are here now, together, in their bed.

Euphie says, “It is late, Santi.”

“And I cannot sleep.” He brushes his nose along her jawline. “But perhaps the soothing voice of my one greatest love will lull me.”

She laughs. Her hand finds his, their fingers interlacing, woven together. He pulls back from her and kisses the engagement ring, but he is waiting. He means it.

“Tendresse,” Euphemia says, the word rolling soft out of her mouth from misuse. Santino quirks a brow expectantly and kisses the pulse point of her wrist. “Tenderness.”

He nods sagely. Against the soft skin of the inside of her wrist, he murmurs, “You are a most tender creature, Euphemia D’Antonio.”

Her fingers slide out of his, running along the slope of his cheekbones and then the bridge of his nose. “That is Euphemia Volpe. If you’ll recall, we’re yet to be married.”

Santino leans in, captures her fingertips playfully with his teeth, and then kisses her palm with a warm, rich chuckle that sends pleasant heat spiraling down her spine. “You will never forget that I was fool enough to say that to you, will you?” he asks. “Tell me another.”

His eyes are just as warm as his voice, and twice as earnest. In these moments, Santino is the most charming; boyish and quick-witted, unburdened by the elements of the world, by his own desires. He thinks of nothing except them. Euphemia feels like she’s in her own little world with him, in their bedroom at three in the morning, while the air conditioner whirrs and ticks and he asks her something so unimportant, like what her favorite words are.

And then, Santino leans in and kisses her cheek, the corner of her mouth, and the underside of her jaw to prompt her.

“Amore,” she murmurs, feeling like the breath has been sucked out of her lungs by his longing. His tenderness.

“Oh,” Santino says, against her temple, “I know that one.”

When his stubble tickles her neck, she squirms, shifting away from him so hat she can take a breath; but he chases her, leans in and captures her in his arms so that he can nose the hair by her ear and kiss there.

“Euphie, my gorgeous girl,” he says in the way that wrenches her heart; drenched and drowned in adoration. “Perfetto e tutto mio.”

Santino wraps his arms around her and pulls her to his chest, his fingers tracing constellations on her back where the night dress slips away from her shoulder blades. Sweet Santi, covetous Santi; she is his greatest art piece, his favorite collector’s item, and in these moments she has never felt more treasured. There is something equal parts safe and selfish in wanting someone to treasure you.

“Say it for me, Euphie. You know I love when you do.”

She buries her face into his neck. Her eyes burn. He will go to Baba Yaga tomorrow, and she will have to pretend not to know, or it will wreck her. Euphie considers ways to keep him in bed in the morning; delay him, make him forget about John Wick and this glory that he is chasing forever.

“Sono tuo,” she murmurs. Tears sting at the corners of her eyes If he feels them against his skin, Santino makes no indication than to card his fingers through her hair. “Always, Santi.”

Always, always, always yours.

#john wick fic #santino d'antonio x oc #santino d'antonio / oc #spilled ink #c: euphemia volpe #c: santino d'antonio #i have nothing to say for myself except thanks and ily all <3 #scheduled post #x: senza tentazioni senza onore

49 notes · View notes

torialeysha · 4 years ago

Text

Cold feet - Part 16

Bakers redemption

A/N: I’m on a roll guys! Your love, patience and support for this story fuels my fire for writing, a fire I thought I had lost and for that I am eternally grateful. Thank you all <3

Songs: Carry me home - Jorja Smith ft Maverick Sabre

Can’t buy happiness - Tash Sultana

Fortunately the awkwardness of the journey home was lost on you as all you could do was think about Alfie. You questioned the sincerity of his visit and wondered why it had taken him so long to realise you had lied about the ridiculous possibility of him not being the father of your unborn baby? He had asked you for forgiveness. A shot at redemption. Could you give it to him? Could you allow him another chance when he had already let you down not once but twice? Were you foolish enough to give him the opportunity to do it again? Would he do it again? He said that he had seen the error of his ways and that he really did want the baby. Did he mean it? Could you believe him even if he did? He said he could prove it to you and you were curious to see how. Silently you pondered, driving yourself insane with question after question that regrettably you didn’t have the answers to.

After a tedious battle with the London traffic the car finally pulled up outside the opulent townhouse Charles was renting. The atmosphere still frosty and tense as you crossed it’s threshold. You were in the process of removing your coat when one of the butlers collared Charles.

“There’s a Mr Changretta waiting for you in the lounge, sir.” He announced casually as he took your coat. Your hair immediately stood on end.

“Ok. I’ll be right there. Meanwhile, could you please fetch Ms Y/L/N something to eat.” Charles hands his coat to the butler then turns to you. “I won’t be long. Feel free to start without me.” He told you coldly. But you were no longer worried about food and more concerned about the fact that Luca Changretta was in the next room.

Fraught, you staggered to the dining room and began to pace, anxiously wondering what the occupants next door were discussing. You manoeuvred towards the wall that separated the lounge from the dining room and placed your ear against it, hoping that the divide was thin enough to be able to hear their conversation. Their muffled voices vibrated through the wall. You edged closer to the crack of the locked double doors that connected the two rooms and the voices got slightly clearer.

“...And you really trust this broad? You’re sure she isn’t the problem?” It was Luca’s voice.

“Of course I trust her! I wouldn’t have involved her if I didn’t.”

“How much does she know?”

“Hardly anything. She asked me some questions about the club. Why I bought it for her and why I insisted I put it in her name and not mine, but her curiosity is only natural, Luca.”

Your stomach rolled realising they were talking about you.

“What did you tell her?”

“I fed her some bullshit about wanting to give her the world.”

“Nice. So she doesn’t know anything about the money coming in from New York?”

“No, I take care of the books and I keep them locked in my safe.”

“Good.”

There was a brief silence before Luca spoke again.

“Tell me, Cuz, what are your feelings for this broad? You still intend on marrying her when this is all over?”

Cuz? Why would Luca call Charles that?

“Yes. I love her.”

Charles’ confession made you feel sick.

There’s another long pause before Luca speaks again.

“Then you have my blessing. But I’m warning ya, I don’t know if my dear Aunt will be as accepting. You know how she only wants the best for her son.”

Cousin? Aunt? Son? You felt the colour drain from your face as realisation dawned on you.

“Y/N is best for me. Now can we please stop discussing my personal life and get back to business.”

“Of course. I hear what you’re saying about the Jew but we need him alive for now. I think he’ll be able to help us deal with Thomas Shelby.”

“Solomon’s is tight with Shelby. There’s no way he’d sell him out.”

“Oh, he will.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse... Don’t look so worried, Chuck, all will be revealed soon. You just carry on doing what you’re doing and remember that we’re doing this per la famiglia. Luca’s foreign tongue made you shudder. “Once Solomon’s, Shelby and Sabini are dealt with. London will be ours for the taking.”

You pulled away from the door just as Charles was asking about Sabini. You had heard enough.

It was worse than you or Tommy had anticipated. Charles and Luca wasn’t just business relations, they were blood relations. His money was their money. Your time and efforts had been in vain. Any hope of sabotaging their connection was gone. Replaced with an overwhelming sense of alarming trepidation. You had to leave. There was no way you could stay now knowing what you know.

The main door of the dining room swung open, startling you.

“I’m terribly sorry miss. I didn’t mean to scare you.” The flustered housemaid apologised as she shuffled in with your supper.

“Please don’t apologise.” You told her shakily.

“You’re white as a sheet! I must’ve given you a proper fright. Poor thing. Sit ya self down and I’ll fetch you something to drink.”

“No, no. I’m fine. It’s just-I’ve received word today that my friend isn’t well and it’s come as quite a shock. I would like to check on her to see if she’s feeling better. Could you let Mr Fenton know that I’m going to visit her and I won’t be back until later.”

“Of course, Miss, but what about your tea?” She signals to the silver tray she’s carrying.

“I’ve suddenly lost my appetite. I’ll eat it when I return.”

“Ok, Miss. I’ll put it by for later.” She took off with the tray of food and without a second thought you made for the door without even stopping for your coat or purse.

In a daze you wandered down the street, feeling hopelessly lost in a city that had been your home for 20 odd years. You headed north, knowing that regardless of your current uncertainty towards Alfie you would have to warn him and get word to Tommy. Without your purse you had no money to jump on a bus or the underground. Your only option was to trudge the busy late afternoon streets to your destination. It would take roughly an hour to get from Central to Camden, probably the same amount of time it would take Charles to suspect something was amiss. It was a distressing thought that caused you to pick up pace. To make up time you decided to take a shortcut that lead you along the river and down the canals. It was a risky move as the muddy banks of the canals were refuge to some unsavoury characters - mainly drunkards - desperate men that would find easy prey on a young woman trekking the waterways on her own.

The sun was slowly sinking into twilight by the time you had reached Camden lock. Despite your exhaustion you were relieved to have made it in one piece but you shouldn’t have spoke too soon. In the distance you could see a group of what looked like 3 men huddled together along the path which you needed to pass to get across to the bakery. Your blistered feet slowed but it was too late, they had already spotted you. You quickly tried to think of an alternative route. The only other way was to swim across but jumping in and braving the grim green water that was frothing with rubbish and other questionable substances wasn’t tempting to say the least. There was nothing you could do now except carry on walking with your chin held high as if their shady presence didn’t intimidate you. You argued with yourself as you approached that maybe you had jumped to a brash assumption and that they were in fact a harmless trio who would just let you pass without a second glance. As you got closer they rose from their makeshift perches and swayed towards you. It was then you knew that your brash assumption had been correct.

“Evening treacle.” One slurred. “What brings you down ‘ere then?” He smiled, revealing a row of yellow teeth that were gradually rotting a browny black. You ignored him and tried to pass but he obstructed you.

“Let me pass!” You ordered him.

“Now then, that’s not nice. You could at least ask nicely. Say please.” He slurred.

“Please let me pass.” You said through gritted teeth.

The other two came to stand beside him. Panicking, you tried hard to conceal the trembling of your body.

“Beg.” He tells you through a snarl.

“I love it when they beg.” One of the other men chimed in, earning a chortle from his soapy comrades.

You laugh as if joining in with their sadistic merriment. Then quick as a whippet you tried to barge through their burly blockade, effectively knocking one of the men into the drink. The middle one grabbed you. You turned as he did so, kneeing him between the legs. He dropped to the floor and you made to escape but was grabbed again by the last remaining man. His filthy hand covered your mouth, cutting you off mid scream. You thrashed in his arms. Your eyes widening as the man on the floor rose slowly.

“We’ve got a feisty one ‘ere, Del.”

“Let’s see how feisty she is once I’ve finished with ‘er.” The man you knocked to the floor was now fully upright, stalking towards you.

You closed your eyes, helplessly awaiting your fate.

“Get your filthy fucking hands off ‘er!”

Your eyes shot open at the unmistakable voice coming from behind you.

The man turned suddenly with you still in his arms. Your eyes landed on Alfie and Ollie and you wanted to cry out in relief.

“Mr Solomon’s - I was only helping the poor Lass. She was lost, ya see.” He muttered a sheepish reply. His arms loosening around you. You pushed away from him stricken and lurched into Alfie’s arms.

“Are you ok, Yahalom?” He asked, pushing away the hair from your face and checking you over for any sign of injury.

You noded, clinging to him.

“Run!” One of the men shouted and they both fled in opposite directions. The one who had hold of you tried to leg-it past Alfie who with a flick of his cane tripped him before he could get any further. Alfie pushed you to Ollie, and pounced on top of the fallen man. Savagely he landed a shocking set of bone crunching blows upon the sputtering and sobbing man on the floor.

You started to shake uncontrollably. Your chest heaving to draw in breaths.

“Alfie, stop now. You’re scaring ‘er!” Ollie yelled at Alfie who stopped immediately.

“Get ‘er out of ‘ere!” He shouted.

You felt Ollie tug on your arm.

“No-I c-can’t go-I need t-to talk to A-alfie.” You chattered numbly.

“It’s ok, Y/N. Let’s wait for him inside and you can talk to him then, yeah?” Ollie asked you soothingly. You stopped resisting, allowing him to guide you over the bridge of the canal and inside the huge double door entrance of the bakery. He set you down on a crate.

“Are you ok?” Ollie asked. Kneeling in front of you.

You shook your head from side to side, unable to speak through the loud chattering of your teeth.

“We were just leaving. You’re lucky we spotted you, ya know.”

You didn’t answer him. Instead you reached out and gave his hand a grateful squeeze.

Alfie exploded through the doors, making you and Ollie jump. His blood splattered face was a fit of pure rage.

“How many fucking times have I told you not to walk the canals on your own? If me and him would have left ‘ere half hour ago like we were supposed to, what would have happened then, ay?” His eyes flickered as he tortured himself pointlessly with the sickening possibilities.

“Alright, Alfie. Calm down, ay? We left at the right time and luckily Y/N weren’t hurt-“ Ollie started calmly before Alfie interrupted him.

“- You sure they didn’t hurt you?” Alfie asked.

“I’m sure.”

“The fuck was you thinking, Pet?” His stern voice was slightly softer now.

“I-I wasn’t-“

“-Where’s your coat?” He asked suddenly. “Them cunts take it?”

“No, I left it behind-there was n-no time- I had t-to get out of there fast-I left my coat behind along with my p-purse-I’ve had to walk from Central-thats why I t-took the sh-shortcut.” You stuttered senselessly, barely pausing to take a breath. Alfie took off his coat and draped it over your shoulders. You pulled it tightly around yourself. His musky scent clung to the heavy wool material that was still warm with the heat of his body. You inhaled deeply, feeling instantly calmer. “I couldn’t stay there, Alfie. I had to leave, I had to get out of there!”

“Calm down, Yahalom, and tell me exactly what’s happened?” He ordered, his eyes wild.

“It’s Charles. He and Lu-ca Changretta are related. They’re cousins. I-I overheard them talking. They said something about money coming in from New York and taking over London. They’re going to take down everyone in their way - you, Tommy, even Sabini. Everything Tommy said is true and there’s nothing I can do about it. We have to warn Thomas.”

Alfie exchanged a look with Ollie.

“Did he know you were listening in on his conversation?” Ollie asked.

“No. But he’ll know I’m missing by now and maybe he’ll put two and two together. I told the housemaid to tell him I was visiting an ill friend but I’m not sure he’ll believe that.”

“Right then. Well, first things first.” Alfie put his arms around your shoulders and lifted you gently from where you rested. “I need to get you out of here.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stay here and help sort this.” You told him wilfully.

“You’ve done all you can, pet. Let me and Tommy deal with this now.”

“So all of this was for nothing? Me staying with Charles, weeks of misery and sneaking around. That was all for nothing?”

“This isn’t your fight, Y/N. It never was your fight.” Alfie sighed.

“They’re planning on killing you, Alfie - the father of my unborn baby. Tell me how that isn’t my fight?” You sobbed angrily.

He grabbed your shoulders, shaking you lightly.

“Look at me.” He said firmly. Your wide eyes rose to his. “I can handle it, right. What I can’t handle is the worry of anything happening to you. Which is why I’m getting you out of ‘ere, even if I have to drag you kicking and screaming. I’m taking you and that unborn baby of mine to safety. You ‘ear me? That’s our priority now, yeah?”

“...Yeah.” You whispered, knowing he was right.

“Come on.”

You held on to him as you walked, your weary feet stinging with every faltered step you took.

“You need me to carry you?” He asked.

You shook your head weakly.

The sun had now almost set but the brightness outside was still blinding as you emerged from the darkness of the distillery.

“Get in the car.” Alfie ordered.

You did as he said, sliding into the front passenger seat and trying to avoid looking across the canal where your attacker still lay, a lifeless crumpled, mess on the floor. You blocked it out and focused on Alfie through the windscreen instead. He was leant into Ollie, telling him something. Ollie gave him a contrite nod and handed him what looked like a set of keys. With a pat on the back, Alfie left him to climb in to the drivers seat. He started the engine.

“Isn’t Ollie coming with us?”

“Na. He’s got to sort a few things out for me.” He replied, shoving the shift stick into gear and pulling off. You watched him intently. An unsolicited heat crept over you as he manoeuvred the machine with a confident ease that you couldn’t help but find alluring.

“Where are we going?” You asked croakily.

“Let me worry about that, right. You look exhausted. Rest your head and I’ll wake you when we get there.”

Too weak to argue you did just that. Leaning your head against the window which was slick with condensation. The soft purr of the cars engine lulled you rapidly into a deep and dreamless sleep.

You were roused from your confined slumber by Alfie as he lifted you from the passenger seat into his arms. Your neck throbbed where you had laid awkwardly propped up against the window for God knows how long. You let the aching heaviness of your head rest against Alfies chest as he carried you. A whooshing noise echoed familiarly in the blustery background, intertwined with what sounded like crunching gravel beneath Alfie’s feet as he walked. Curiously your sluggish eyes peered at your surroundings. You could just about make out the silhouette of a building and an unusual looking tree against the dark blue of the night sky.

Exhausted, your head fell back onto Alfie’s chest and you buried your face in the crook of his neck to shield it from the tenacious chill of the night air. He came to a stop holding you tightly with one arm as the other searched his trouser pocket. A jingling of keys and the sound of the lock turning, then you were finally inside and out of the cold.

The smell of fresh paint and varnish filled your nostrils as he carried you over the foreign residence. After kicking the door closed with his foot, you felt him ascend a set of stairs in the darkness, effortlessly, as if he was already well acquainted with the steps. A door creaked open and then shortly after you were being lowered. You unfolded from him as he placed you on the soft cushioning of a mattress. Your head sunk into the fluffy pillows, your arms stretching across the width of the spacious bed. Your eyes opened when you realised Alfie wasn’t joining you.

“Don’t leave me.” You begged.

“Sssh.” He soothed softly. His heavy hand brushing back your hair from your face. “You’re safe now, Yahalom.”

Your eyes closed, his reassuring tone and tender touch settling you back to sleep.

You awoke with a start. Looking around the huge room that was now highlighted by an orange hue emanating from the fire that crackled and danced in the fireplace adjacent to the bed. The ceaseless whooshing you heard earlier broke in from a set of french doors to your left and you raised from the bed to investigate. Pulling back the floor length curtains that decorated them, you were shocked to see the mosaicked balcony and the beach landscape that it overlooked. At a glance it appeared that Alfie had stolen you away from the perilous situation in London and brought you to Margate - your safe haven. But what was this place? It wasn’t a B&B or a hotel because you remembered that Alfie had entered with a key - you assumed the same key Ollie had handed him before you left. You glanced around the room once more, the unfamiliarity of your surroundings causing you great unease. And it was quiet, too quiet. Where was Alfie?

You poked your nose out of the bedroom door and peeked down the length of the darkened hallway. A sliver of warm light shone from a partially open door of one of the rooms and cautiously you ambled towards it. You lingered outside, your nerves settling when you heard Alfie’s hushed tone beyond the wood.

“Did you get hold of the rabbi?”

There was a long pause before Alfie spoke again.

“I don’t care what fucking time it is just keep trying. I want him up ‘ere by the end of the week, before the fight... Yeah? Well make-fucking-sure.” You heard a crashing bang which you guessed was the receiver of the telephone being put down on whoever Alfie was talking to.

“Are you gonna stand out there all fucking night or you gonna come in?” He shouted out to you, causing you to smile.

You entered slowly, stalling in the doorway.

Alfie was sat at a desk, a much neater, more fancier desk than the one he usually occupied at the bakery.

“You alright?” He asked, watching you intently as you came to sit in front of him.

You nodded absentmindedly, too busy taking in the plush interior of the room.

“Did you speak to Tommy?” You asked eagerly, your eyes finally meeting his. He waited a moment before answering you.

“Na, I ain’t been able to get hold of him. I’ll try again in the morning...You sure you’re alright?”

“Where are we?” You queried, ignoring his question.

“Margate.”

“No, I mean here.” You pointed to where you were sat. “Whose house is this?”

“This is our house.” He said casually.

You look at him stunned. Your mouth agape.

“Our house?”

He nodded simply.

“W-when? How?” You stuttered, dumbfounded.

“I bought it a while back, after I saw you again at the Eden. It was in a bit of a two an’ eight when I bought it. Taken me an’ the boys a little while to do up.”

“I’m confused.” You shook your head. “You’ve bought a house in Margate? But we’re so far away from London, from your businesses. What about the bakery?”

“I’m retiring, Yahalom. I’ve sold up all the properties I own and I’ve handed the bakery down to Ollie. This was my plan all along. The only way I knew I could keep you safe.”

It took you a moment to process everything and still you were stunned speechless.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I thought this was what you wanted?” He cites.

“It was-“

Alfie narrowed his eyes at your use of past tense.

“-I mean is.” You corrected swiftly before carrying on “It’s just come as a bit of a shock is all.”

“Hmm.” He let out a suspicious grunt. “It’s not the best timing after the day you’ve had, I get that. But that was out of my control wern’it?”

You nodded solemnly. Still trying to wrap your head around everything.

“I thought you’d be happy, Yahalom?”

“I am.” You frowned.

“At least show it then. Crack a smile or summin. You’ve got a face like a slapped arse at the minute.” You heard a frustrated annoyance creep into the grimmess of his voice.

“I don’t know how I feel about it, if I’m being honest. The last few months have been a whirlwind for me. I haven’t slept properly in days, weeks even. Weary to the bone. Wracked with guilt and worry. I honestly don’t know wether I’m coming or going. And now you’re telling me that you’re selling up. Leaving behind everything you’ve worked so hard to build and for what?”

“For us!” He barked. “For us to be together without the worry of someone hurting you to hurt me. And yeah, I’ve worked hard, I’ve earn’t my money, however, it’s time for me to rest now and enjoy the fruits of my labour.”

“I’m not sure, Alf...” You hummed uneasily.

“What’s there to be unsure of?”

“I still ain’t sure this is what you really want!” You snapped frustratedly. “A quiet life by the sea, a child you never wanted...I just can’t see it.” You admitted sadly.

He exhaled harshly, rising from his desk and stepping round to extend a hand to you.

“Come with me. I wanna show you something.”

Reluctantly you took his offered hand and let him guide you back out into the hallway and along to a room that was situated next to the one you had been resting in earlier.

He opened the door and moved aside for you to enter.

The waxing moon shon brightly through the bare windows, lighting up the room with it’s spectacular lunar glow. You stepped through noticing immediately the cot that lay new and empty against the far wall, next to it was a matching chest of drawers and a rocking horse that looked like it had been plucked from a fairground carousel.

Your eyes shot to Alfie whose bear like frame was leant in the doorway studying your reaction.

“When did you do this?”

“A couple of days ago. The room needs a lick of paint but I thought you might wanna choose the colour.” He came to join you in the centre of the room.

“So you did all this before you come to see me? Before you were even certain that the baby yours?...Why?”

He was silent for a moment, deep in thought.

He shrugged. “I s’pose deep down I knew you were lying and that the baby was mine... or maybe I didn’t fucking care, I dunno... doing this...it just felt right.”

“But you said-“

“-I know what I said but saying don’t mean fuck all does it. Actions speak louder than words.” He motions to the room. “And this speaks fucking volumes, dunnit. I mean if this doesn’t prove to you that this is what I really want then I don’t know what will.”

Reassurance drifted over you as you looked once again around the unfinished nursery.

“Say something.” He requested quietly.

Wordlessly you rushed to him and threw your arms around his broad shoulders.

“You like it then? You’re happy?” He confirmed uncertainly.

“I do. I am. It’s...wonderful! Thank you!” You choked a reply, your voice struggling past the forming lump in your throat.

He pulled you closer, his shoulders relaxing as if a weight had been lifted off them.

“You want me to show you round the rest of the house?” He whispered gruffly into your hair.

“Not tonight. Show me tomorrow in the daylight so I can properly take in the beauty of it all.”

“Alright. Well, what shall we do now then?” You were sure you heard a seductive undertone in his question and took full advantage.

“Take me to our bed.”

“You ain’t gotta ask me twice.” He said. His eyes lighting up at your words.

You squealed when he lifted you in his arms and carried you to the next room.

“Cor blimey. You’ve got heavier already.” He huffs.

“Oh give over, I ain’t even showing properly yet. You’re just getting weaker with age, old man.” You teased him.

“Oi! I’ll have you know that there’s nothing wrong with my stamina and I will gladly prove that to you in a minute.” He threatened hotly. Sending your pulse racing. “There’s just one more thing I’ve got to do first.”

He set you down carefully on your own two feet.

“Can’t it wait?” You whined as he stepped away from you and headed towards the door.

“It won’t take me a minute.” He assured you.

You stood in the middle of the once unfamiliar room that you now knew was yours and Alfies. Sighing happily, you glided to the french doors and tried the handle. They opened willingly under your touch. The chill of the night air was refreshing as you stepped out on to the balcony. Leaning on the stone balaustrade, you observed the unrelenting waves that stretched the distance, relishing in the peacefulness of their crashing melody. Nothing could ruin this moment, not even the ugliness of the Changretta situation. All that mattered right now was your future with Alfie, a future that this morning never even existed.

“Yahalom?” Alfie called, having returned.

You spun to look at him. He marched skittishly towards you, his hands behind his back, as he joined you on the balcony.

“I know I’ve asked you this before but as you so poignantly pointed out to me the other day, it’s a proposal that has since expired. So, I’m gonna ask you again... Y/N Y/L/N will you marry me?” He asked gruffly, his eyes so intense you thought they could set you on fire. You gasped unexpectedly. Although it was the second time he had asked you, it was the first time you had heard him say those words aloud.

“Oh, Alfie. Of course I’ll marry you.”

“Thank fuck for that. Here then.” He produced a ring that was hidden in his clenched fist behind his back. Grabbing your hand he slipped it on your finger. You stared down at it in awe. A ruby once again burned brightly on your finger but it wasn’t the one you were used to. You frowned down at the foreignness of the rings delicate beauty and the circle of winking diamonds that surrounded the red gem like a halo.

“I searched high and low for the other one in the bakery but couldn’t find it. So I bought you another one. D’you like it?”

“It’s beautiful... I was just expecting to see the old one.” You replied, your heart sinking at the thought of your first engagement ring being lost forever. It was only supposed to be a temporary ring, taken from Alfie’s pinky finger until he had gotten you a proper one. There wasn’t much to it just a thick gold band with a faceted ruby so red it was hypnotising. Back then you had persuaded Alfie not to buy a replacement, that you wanted to keep his one as every time you looked at it it reminded you of him. Now, thanks to yourself you’ll never see it again.

“That’s old hat now that one though, innit? a token of who we used to be. We’ve been through a lot of shit, right, shit I wanna leave in the past. I want us to have a fresh start, a clean slate, and this house and this ring is where it begins.”

Previous Next

Tag list: @storm-bjorn @alsheyra @lililolli @jaegers-and-kaijus @lightwoodt @stars-trash-18 @anrm1 @innerpaperexpertcloud @alitheamateur @hardygal69

#alfie solomons #alfie solomons fanfiction #alfie solomons imagine #alfie solomons x reader #peaky blinders #peaky blinder fanfic #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fanfiction #by order of the peaky blinders

93 notes · View notes

angelic-kisses13 · 5 years ago

Text

Claiming- Part I

Authors Note: Here is Part I I hope you enjoy!

Warning: Violence, gore, swearing, Vampire Charles Brandon, mentions the word Rape (Not described)

“Master, the treaty has been fractured. Two bound of blood plotted against the all-knowing, thus leading to a betrayal of the Children of the Night. Inevitable despair of two warring Kingdoms will befall both heads of houses. “

“How do we halt this coming demise, Mother Seeress?”

“The Treaty dictates an eye for an eye.”

Another war was close to brewing and Charles was close to just sending his men out and taking care of the neanderthals across the river. The memory of his best Generals head rolling across his throne room was forever ingrained. The trail of blood forever staining the stone. He remembered the rage and remorse that colored his person as he noticed the missing fangs. He had been dishonored by the beheading but the knowledge that someone had dared desecrate his culture and lineage would forever strike fear in his people. He would never forget the scent of the vile human carcass that dared trespass on his land. Since he was king, however, he couldn’t do as he wished, without causing massive disruption to his kingdom and the other neighboring ones.

Charles forced his tightly wound body back against the carriage wall, he was on his way to the disgrace of a kingdom now, the King claimed to have a peace offering for him. A sacrifice for the vampires so that they would hopefully look past their transgressions.

Charles was surprised at himself for the amount of rage he held for the whole notion, he was never one for sacrifices but he had to uphold the ancient traditions. It would make matters worse and as much as a war sounded fun and a great time killer, he wasn’t willing to put his people through that. He had seen enough bloodshed to last millennia.

He was dragged out of his thoughts by the carriage stopping and his footmen opening the door for him. He sighed but pulled his robes around his body carefully, arranging them neatly. He climbed down the carriage steps, dusk had fallen and he relaxed under the twilight.

A scuffle to his left drew his attention and he watched as a young woman was dragged across the courtyard, insults flying from her lips faster than he could process. A smirk fell across his lips as she turned and spat at the guard who had the gall to slap her ass in a warning. She was a plump thing, where there should have been harsh angles on her body, were instead rounded curves that screamed for him to run his fingers over. He had always had a soft spot for women who had more meat on their bones. The fact is that he had more to hold onto, more to drink from and more space to paint his mark across, making their skin his canvas.

“I REFUSE TO BE USED THIS WAY! I AM NOT SOME COMMON CRIMINAL YOU CAN DO WITH AS YOU WISH!” Her words made his eyebrows raise in surprise, now this was going to be interesting. The guards all laughed in delight,

“You’re the only criminal that no-one has claimed. The King, for whatever reason, paid your bail, therefore, you are owned by the King and he can do with you as he wishes.” Just as he was about to follow after the young woman, a stable boy came running up, he bowed before Charles, his little body shaking at the sight of him.

“Y-your Majesty, the K-King awaits yo-your arrival.” Charles hummed as he put the young woman out of mind and followed the boy into the palace. The boy left him standing in front of the throne room doors, where two guards stood on watch. He watched out of the corner of his eye, as one of the guards turned his head and glared at him with disdain.

A smirk fell on his features as he swiftly pinned the guard to the wall and bared his fangs, a glint entering his eyes as he sealed the man’s fate. He drank for a few moments before pulling away and dropping the man to the ground. He smoothed his cloaks out before entering the Throne Room. He was instantly assaulted by the familiar stench, his eyes narrowing on the three occupants of the room. He sniffed a couple of times, trying to ascertain the culprit. His senses zeroed in on the Prince. Satisfied he was the vile carcass, he then spots the trophies around the young man’s neck.

“His Majesty” stood at the top of the stairs in front of his throne overlooking his kingdom from the stain glass windows, the prince lounging behind him, drink in one hand, the fangs of his General lay nestled against his greasy portly neck. His scrawny half-Witt of an advisor stood off to the King’s left. They were whispering, but Charles could hear every word.

“King Charles’ sacrifice refuses to come out, the stupid girl is going to put us all in jeopardy with her tantrums.”

The King sighed as he reached out and patted the Advisors shoulder,

“Try and convince her one last time, King Charles will be here any second and I don’t want him to have more reasons to go to war.” The advisor bowed before turning around and halting in his tracks, Charles watched in quiet delight as the Advisors knees buckled beneath him.

Charles grinned, the blood on his fangs glowing in the candle-light as he licked at the drop of blood on the tip of his left fang. He preened as the blood from the advisor’s face drained, an audible swallow was heard before the man kneeled.

“Your Majesty. It is a humble delight to see you.” King Indulf stiffened before turning to face Charles, a strained smile painting his features.

“Advisor.” That was the only word needed before the poor man was up on his feet and hurrying, in a dignified manner, back towards the Throne Room’s doors. It was silent as they appraised the other, looking for any tell-tale signs of weaknesses. One could only hope for a quick signal to end the other.

“Charles, how kind of you to travel and accept our gift of dinner and women. I’m sure the one we have picked out for you will be enough to appease.” His tone was bordering cordial and impertinent. Charles’s jaw tightened, just as he was about to voice his displeasure about the ordeal, the doors were opened and in walked a delicate flower, brown hair done up in the traditional braids and pinned into an intricate bun on the top of her head, her skin was painted flawlessly and her white dress left nothing to the imagination, her skin showing through the sheer fabric.

She bowed at their feet, before coming and kneeling on the second step, her hands resting on her thighs, back straight, head tilted to the right, baring her neck showcasing her pulse and vein beautifully. She was stunning, but she was meek and unfit to be the sacrifice.

“She is a fine specimen but she is unfit for the role, far too weak, Indulf.” The King spluttered, his face an ugly puce color as he refrained from shouting.

“We were just supposed to give you a woman to sate your declaration of war, Charles. As you can see, we have lived up to our deal.” Charles snorted, unable to contain his mirth for a moment longer.

“You stupid excuse of a King. The terms of the sacrifice were agreed upon when the contract was drawn up. Every detail drafted down for future generations. It outlines everything specifically, clearly, you have read it to be able to coach her on how to sit and dress. Did you honestly think I wouldn’t notice? This “sacrifice” is dying. Do you believe that this painted whore would hold the same status as my best General?” His voice became a roar by the end of his rant, his eyes a burning crimson.

“King Charles, she was the only eligible candidate we had, surely you can overlook the one rule.”

“Surely, you have noticed your ill-mannered son displaying the fangs of my fallen comrade. The contract is void, prepare for war Indulf, you have insulted me and my people one too many times this evening.” He hissed and turned on his heel, preparing to depart when the throne room doors were thrown open and a woman came in kicking and screaming. Her eyes flashing as her mouth opened in a snarl. She was tossed at King Indulf’s feet.

Charles had just enough time to move out of the way before she was up and throwing herself towards the Prince. Her screeches and wails filling the hall,

“I WILL NOT BOW DOWN TO YOU! I AM NOT YOUR CONSORT! I AM WORTH MORE THAN THAT!” The Prince quickly grabbed the little spitfires’ wrists before throwing her down and backhanding her face. She sprawled across the stone floor, a hand reaching up and brushing over her busted lip, coming away red with blood.

“THAT IS ENOUGH YOU INSOLENT BITCH!” Charles’s eyes flashed when the scent of her blood hit his senses. She was delectable, fiery, and willing to fight to the end.

Her chest heaved as she watched them, her tongue darting out to swipe the blood up. She grinned at the three men, her teeth painted in her blood. Charles had to suppress the growl that threatened to escape his mouth. He wanted to grab her by her meaty hips and pin her against the floor, his tongue diving into her mouth to lick every last drop of her blood from her teeth and tongue. Charles took a step forward only to be hit by the vile stench of the Prince. She was covered head to toe and it brought the memory of his dead General to mind.

The enraged King frothed at the mouth, “I paid your bail, you ungrateful heathen, that means I own you, I can do with you what I want when I want. You are to be my son’s consort, a high honor if I do say so. One someone like you shouldn’t get, but your parents were good people and I promised I would look after you.” A manic cackle fell from the woman’s lush lips as she rolled from her side and onto her knees.

“My parents were traitors that you honored to make yourself look good, they don’t deserve to have me as their daughter. I will never be your sons, I would rather be his sacrifice,” she angrily threw her arm out, finger pointed towards Charles, “than live in this palace and be raped by your precious prince another day.”

“You think you are worthy enough to be a King’s sacrifice?” Indulf’s body was vibrating with barely contained rage.

“I’m worthy enough for your son to be sullied over.” A laugh escaped Charles as he kneeled down in front of the woman.

“My little lamb,” He smoothed his thumb over her bruised cheek before pulling his hand back, her warmth seared his skin, she was perfect. A raging inferno waiting to be tamed. He looked up at the King, a challenging glint to his eye.

“Sacrifice accepted.” The occupants of the throne room gasped in shock as Charles bent down and swiftly picked up the dirtied and bloodied rag of a woman, before disappearing, a cool breeze rustling through the room in his abrupt departure.

Taglist: @agniavateira @cavillanche @cavillunraveled @dancingwendigo @dreamwritesimagines @ficsandcatsandficsandcats @hlkwrites @hnryycvll @honeychicanawrites @iloveyouyen @johnmotherfuckingshelby @ladyreapermc @laketaj24 @littlefreya @ly--canthrope @mary-ann84 @mrsaugustwalker @ohvalleyofplentyyy @omgkatinka @sciapod @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @supersweetstache @thethirstyarchive @the-winter-witcher @thegreattodd @tumblnewby @viking-raider @white-wolf-of-rivia @witcherwrites

#henry cavill #reader insert #Vampire Henry Cavill

156 notes · View notes

deputyrhiannonhale · 5 years ago

Text

Nodus Tollens Chapter 2

(ooc) In this chapter, the same general trigger warnings are applied here! And once again let me know if you wanna be tagged or don’t anymore!

Chap 1

tagging: @returnofthepd3 @ja-crispea @f0xyboxes @shelliechen @xbaebsae @deputyjessicaquinn @dieguzguz @hopecountygazette

~~ It took Rhi longer than it really should for her brain to register the imminent threat of drowning, and the fact that Burke was once again not giving a second thought to making sure she was ok, just swimming away from the truck as it sank closer to the river bed.

'Just wait until I get to the surface. I'll kick your ass before the Peggies can.' Rhi thought to herself as she pushed against the metal of the truck door to propel herself upwards and began kicking her legs.

When Rhi broke the surface, she gasped loudly, needing oxygen badly, before she paddled towards the bank. Rhi crawled up on the soft muddy surface, flipping onto her back, still taking in deep breaths, staring up at the starry night sky, fading in and out of consciousness.

"Stop! I'm a U.S. Marshal!" Burke was screaming off to her left and Rhi lifted her head to see the bouncing beams from flashlights and her heart rate spiked again. She still couldn't relax, footsteps brought her head to her right in time to see a tall bald man standing above her. He didn't have the cult look about him, but he still looked menacing in the paleness of the moonlight, she wanted to run, but the darkness pulled her under completely.

Rhi vaguely remembers being carried, she groaned a few times, but couldn't keep her eyes open. Flashes of her past with John filled her mind's eye. How sweet and kind he had been towards her. Spending months together as she recovered, learning about each other, and yet...he kept something this big from her. Had it been obvious and she was just too naive to put it together? Probably.

It was the night before Rhi was leaving to go back to Billings, she was packing her bags, getting ready to say goodbye to everyone, when an unexpected tapping sounded from her window. She jumped in surprise, her head snapping to the right to find John peering in her window, he gave her a small smile and a wave, motioning for her to open the window.

"What are you doing here?" She whisper-shouted at him, laughing as she opened the window and leaned on her elbows onto the window pane.

"You really didn't think I wouldn't come and see you off, did you?" John replied in his normal almost cocky manner and Rhi scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"Considering I asked you not to because goodbyes are really hard for me and I can't get out tonight...yeah I did." She admitted, resting her chin on her palm, giving him a playful smile and wink. "Also...why didn't you just come to the front door? At least then you coulda come in." She asked, her brows furrowed in confusion, a subtle shift in his gaze went unnoticed by Rhi and John shrugged, chuckling softly.

"I guess I figured this seemed more Romeo and Juliet." John answered, causing Rhi to snort loudly, and she covered her mouth and nose quickly, until the laughing passed.

"Well...that's a love story that ended really well, huh?" They both shared a laugh then before John motioned for her to climb out of the window and join him. She knew she shouldn't, she needed to finish packing and go join Earl for dinner. Rhi looked over her shoulder at her door before finally deciding. "Fuck it." She clambered out the window, and took John's hand.

Rhi startled awake to find her hands zip-tied to a bedpost. She yanked at her restraints, growling loudly. She was mad at herself for being so stupid, that fucking look in his eyes that night should have been a warning. Mad at being restrained by who knows who, she was just mad at the world at this point in time.

"Why the fuck am I tied up?!" She shouted, yanking with every word, as she looked around the room and spotted the man she seen before she passed out.

"The cult is looking for ya. Smartest thing for me to do would be to hand you over." The man answered and Rhi scoffed, giving him a very vicious smile.

"Please, please do it. Let me at that fucking cult." Rhi was nearly frothing at the mouth in her anger, still pulling and twisting her arms trying to get free. The plastic ties were beginning to burn her wrists as she struggled as the man approached her, pulling out a knife and sliding through the makeshift cuffs. Rhi growled, tossing the zip ties across the room before rubbing her wrists gently.

"Now, there's some clothes over there that should fit. We need to burn that uniform." The man pointed over to a line of lockers against the wall as he spoke, and Rhi stood to her full height, giving him a quick nod. "Meet me in the back once you're done."

Rhi sighed loudly, opening up the lockers and digging through what meager amounts of clothes were there. None of it was her style, however that didn't matter at this point in time and she understood that; a denim vest, a shirt with 'TROUBLE MAKER' in black letters across her chest and a simple pair of jeans and combat boots were the closest to comfortable she was going to find.

Strapping her sheath with her bowie knife to her right thigh, she began to make her way to where she heard the man's voice calling out to different individuals.

In this room, Rhi discovered a conspiracy theory style mapping of Hope County complete with Joseph's, Jacob's, John's and a woman named Faith's pictures. She studied each person and what this man had written about them. Her anger had been so high she hadn't registered Faith standing behind Joseph as well at the church. She hadn’t shown much interest in Rhi considering her outburst.

"Oh good, you did find something that fits. I didn't properly introduce myself properly before. I'm Dutch." Dutch stated, as Rhi approached him, she gave him a quick but polite nod.

“Rhi Hale.” She introduced herself, holding out a closed fist, offering it for a bump in lieu of a handshake. Dutch stared down at her closed fist long enough to make Rhi shrug and give a heavy annoyed sigh and shove her hands deeply in her pockets.

“Wait, you’re Earl’s niece, right?” Dutch finally said after a few more beats of silence. Rhi gave him a tight smile, and another quick nod.

“The one and only. Now about getting to those fucking peggies...they’ve got Earl. I’m gonna get him back.” Rhi promised, looking over Dutch’s shoulder at all the monitors on his table top, and he laughed.

“Well, there’s a problem missy. I haven’t-”

“Don’t call me that.” Rhi interrupted him, her eyes shifting back to him to give him a very stern look, and he held up his hands in a placating manner.

“Understood. However, I still haven’t heard from Eli, Jerome or Virgil. I think the cult has messed with the radio tower on my island. Think you could help me out? You do this for me, and I help you however I can.” Rhi rocked on the balls of her feet as she thought about his request. She didn’t know him, even though he seems to know her, but given her affiliation, that wasn’t overly surprising. Yet, she still wondered if she could trust him. How does she know that he isn’t a part of the Project, and just steering her into more danger? Rhi let out another heavy sigh. She knew she wasn’t in a position to be picky at this moment. She had people to help. She pinched the bridge of her nose before running her hand through her hair.

“Yeah, I’ll help. I’m sure you’ve got people out there too that need help. This isn’t just about me.” She said on an exasperated sigh, what has she gotten herself into. This isn’t how her job as a police officer in a small town like this was supposed to go. Rhi expected the occasional drunk and disorderly kind of stuff and it’s nearly always the same people every weekend.

“There’s a gun and map in the safe over there that you can have. Once you get your bearings I’ll let you know where to go.” He instructed, pointing over to the safe to Rhi’s right back towards where she had come in here. She mumbled to herself as she walked over to the safe, picking up the gun and ejecting the magazine to check it, finding it not fully loaded. Replacing the magazine back into its spot, she racked the slide and placed it at the small of her back before picking up the map. Giving Dutch a two finger salute, she left the room to find her way out of this bunker.

Rhi shielded her eyes when she emerged, the sun proving to be way too bright for her, cursing under her breath at how much it stung her eyes. Once her eyes adjusted, she looked around at all the vegetation surrounding her, it was deceivingly peaceful here, she even took the time to breathe in and just bask in the natural music of the woods, but that didn’t last long before her radio beeped.

Rhi trekked on, after finally having received more information from Dutch about how the cult was snatching people and how she should try and save as many as she could to get them on her side. Done and done she has told herself, knowing she would need as much help as she could muster from the way Dutch made it sound. She froze when she heard voices and what sounded like a loud punch, Rhi crouched and eased forward until she found the culprits; two cult members and a civilian.

Rhi didn’t even waste time, she picked up a metal bat that was leaning against the tree she was behind and snuck up to the female cult member, standing at the last second and thwacked her hard on the back of the head. The two men left looked at her in surprise as she pulled out her gun from its spot nestled at the small of her back and she trained it on the other cult member firing without hesitation. The man she saved stared up at her from his position on his knees, it was clear in his eyes that he was unsure if Rhi was a savior or more bad news. She finally smiled at him, replacing her gun at the small of her back and extended a hand to help him to his feet.

“Name’s Rhi.” She introduced herself as he dusted himself off, and she bent down to pick up the rifle one of the cultists dropped and tossed it to her new found friend. He caught it and juggled it a couple of times before finally giving her a quizzical look. “And you are?”

“T-Tom…” Rhi gave him a bigger smile and winked at him.

“Hope you know how to use that Tom, we are going Peggie huntin’.” She informed the still confused Tom as she walked by him and he turned, falling into step with her.

“Wait...you’re the new deputy, right?” Tom was a nervous man, she could tell just by his tone alone, she used to sound just like that in her younger days, and it took her back to all the times she tried to ask her step-ass for anything.

“I am. I’m going to take this cult down for fucking with me. Can I count on ya, Tom?” She looked up at the taller man, and he was smiling, the fire was lit behind his eyes.

“Absolutely!”

Tom proved to be more of a fighter than she had given him credit for, he was very stealthy, very quiet even when moving through the brush and tall weeds. He informed Rhi that it’s all about knowing her own body and how it moves, while also keeping the wind in mind. Move when the wind moves the weeds, and stop when it does. It was all information Rhi was taking to heart, knowing anything valuable now would prove priceless later. With Tom’s help, it didn’t take Rhi long to clear out what Peggies were inhabiting Dutch’s little island.

“You know where the radio tower is, my dude?” Rhi asked Tom, smiling triumphantly at him, and he returned her bright smile, before motioning with his head over his shoulder.

“Just right over this way.”

Rhi stood at the base of the ladder leading up to the top of the tall tower, her hands on her hips, her head tilted all the way back, staring skyward. “Fuck…” She whispered to herself, before eyeing Tom. “All the way up there, huh?” He chuckled before punching her shoulder in a light playful manner.

“After all that, you trying to tell me you’re scared of heights?” Tom teased her and she laughed weakly, pushing him gently.

“Not the height...the fall is more the problem.” She confessed, as she rolled her shoulders, and began her climb to the top.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking, and no, I’m not gonna have you climbing radio towers all over the county. Just this one.” Dutch radioed to her and she scoffed, pulling the radio off her belt once she made it to the first flat surface.

“Not really...what I was thinking. But that’s good to know.” Rhi countered sarcastically, which caused Dutch to chuckle slightly.

“Same humor as your uncle. Now, don’t go falling.” Dutch suggested and Rhi rolled her eyes, sighing heavily.

“How did you know what I was planning, Dutch?” Rhi retorted, Dutch replied with a sarcastic ‘har-har’ before Rhi put the radio away and continued climbing.

Rhi hugged along the center of the tower, moving easily to the switch to bring it back to life, the wind stronger so high up and she took deep calming breaths, as she looked down. Big mistake, now all she was thinking about was missing her footing and falling to her death.

“You’re doing great!” Tom’s faint voice reached her ears and she couldn’t help but laugh, he obviously couldn’t see her sweating bullets up here. Rhi pulled in another shaky breath before turning and pulling the switch to start the radio signal again.

“Hey, that definitely did it, kid, I’m getting a good signal now!” Dutch praised her, and she slid down to a crouching position while she waited for more instructions, trying to steady her shaking hands. “Fall’s End needs your help. That’s in the Holland Valley. John Seed’s region.”

“Of course…” Rhi muttered out before grabbing the radio. “Do you know where Earl is at?” Dutch remained silent for a moment.

“Sorry...I don’t know that kid, but I can ask around for ya.” Dutch promise and she couldn’t ask for more.

“Thank you Dutch.” Rhi put the radio back and looked around, there was a zipline attached to the radio tower and she debated if she wanted to take the quick way down. Sweat was trickling down the back of her neck, and she looked down the ladder. Either way she could fall, but maybe the zipline would be faster, and she wouldn’t have to be worried about her freezing up halfway down, and having to embarrassingly call down to Tom to rescue her. She took a deep breath and zoomed down the zipline.

Right as her feet touched the ground, she wobbled trying to catch her balance and her radio beeped again, assuming it was going to be Dutch, she was shocked to hear John’s voice calling out to her.

“Deputy.” His tone was dripping with contempt, and it caused her to growl. As if he had any right to be upset about her for anything when he lied to her for so long.

“What do you want, bitch?” She hissed, her fingers squeezing hard on the device, and she heard him chuckle on the other end.

“Now...is that anyway to address an old friend?” He taunted her, provoking her to let out another growl, and she used both of her hands to mimic a strangling motion on the radio, pretending it was John’s neck.

“Friend?” She hissed again. “What kind of friend hides something so major?” John made a tsking sound at her question.

“Judging by your uncle's reaction, you hid our tryst from him.” That pulled Rhi up short, she hadn’t lied about her relationship with John back then, but Earl had also not asked her what she had been doing either. Earl had always just been concerned with getting her better from her head injury, bless his soul.

“He never asked, so I never brought it up.” She responded lamely, and she mentally slapped herself for sounding so stupid.

“Omission of truth is the same as a lie, my dear.” John continued to taunt, knowing he was getting under her skin just by how heavy her breaths were coming out.

“Fuck you ‘its the same as a lie’!” She shouted into the radio, shaking it violently. “You’re in a brainwashing cult.” She bit out as harshly as she could. “You were trying to get me in there! Do you even give a fuck?”

“We are not a cult!” He shouted back just as loudly, but then there was a long pause as he collected himself. “Why don’t you come by my place and I’ll show you how much I care.” John's tone was velvety smooth, and Rhi glared at the radio in her hand, had he really just tried to flirt with her? She grimaced, the audacity of this man was baffling to her.

“Not in a million years.” She quipped, a frown deep on her face, daring him to say one more thing.

“You couldn’t stay away from me, even if you tried.” Came John’s cocky response, and Rhi’s brows furrowed and she tilted her head, anger quickly rising in her soul. She bit down on the radio hard enough for it to creak in her wrath, and she promised herself shouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. Just as she was getting ready to find Tom, the radio beeped again, and she nearly threw it into the woods when Dutch’s voice sounded.

“Earl is in Faith’s region. Don’t believe everything you see there, and don’t listen to what she says, you got it?” Dutch had come through for her. John thinks she can’t stay away? Well, she will show him.

#far cry 5 #far cry 5 oc #far cry 5 john seed #john seed #rhiannon hale #deputy rhiannon hale #hope county montana #hope county #earl whitehorse #dutch #nodus tollens #faith seed #cameron burke #john x rhi #far cry 5 fanfiction

20 notes · View notes

ad1thi · 6 years ago

Text

four weddings and a funeral

this is very very fluffy, and then very angsty you have been forewarned

@theavengays Stars, this is for you

The first place they get married is Amsterdam.

Tony shows up in a three piece suit to Edwards, and finagles with Rhodey's superiors until he gets extremely annoyed and simply says "If you don't give Private Rhodes leave, I won't give you anything"

Things go pretty smoothly after that, and Rhodey is on the jet within the hour. Tony crowds him into the sofa, straddling his waist and whispers, "Lighten up sour patch we're getting married," before nipping at his neck

Rhodey's so surprised that he forgets to be mad about Tony using his considerable leverage and tugs on Tony's chin until he's facing Rhodey completely

"Say that again," he says softly; not letting up his hold until Tony sighs and starts talking

"Netherlands legalised same sex marriage yesterday. We're getting married sour patch"

Rhodey moves his hands until they're intertwined in Tony's hair; tugging softly and leaning up to capture his lips once, twice, a thousand times because they're getting married

Tony's still laughing as he spreads him out against the couch, to keyed up to shift them to the bed, but he looks up at Rhodey with such unabashed fondness that Rhodey doesn't even try to shut up- just focuses on turning his laughs into gasps and moans

Later, when they're curled up in each other- limbs entangled; Rhodey moves his chin from where its resting on Tony's head and says "that's a horrible way to propose, I want a re-do"

Tony turns to him, eyes bright and replies, "What makes you think this is your first wedding?"

and Rhodey laughs until he gets a stitch; and spends the rest of the journey showing Tony just how much he loves him

When news reaches Iraq that Massachusetts is the first state to legalise gay marriage, Rhodey cashes in all his pending leave and gets 10 days off.

When he touches down in Logan, Tony is already there- and the jet is covered in heart shaped decoratives.

"You realise that we aren't flying anywhere right? We can't fly around Boston and rappel down in MIT, we're going to normal way; by bus"

Predictably, Tony shudders against him; and turns to Rhodey with his lip jutting out "Please don't subject my derriere to public transport, I'm too rich for this"

He nips at the offending lip and whispers, "Don't worry- you can sit on my lap"

They pull it off splendidly, a bit of slurring and swaying and everyone is convinced that Tony is just drunk and overly physical- instead of sober and just affectionate with his husband

They get married at the chapel just outside MIT, and the pastor knows them well enough that Tony doesn't even have to buy his silence

Rhodey allows himself 10 minutes of close contact with his husband before they keep careful distance; just because Massachusetts has legalised it doesn't mean DADT isn't still in effect

The distance lasts until they make it to the penthouse suite, and Rhodey slams Tony up against the door; latching onto his neck immediately and rubbing the back of his palm against his hardening dick

"Happy honeymoon husband," he breathes against his skin before dropping to his knees, and Tony just moans in response

The day DADT gets repealed, Rhodey goes up to General Macweather and says, “I’m gay.”

To his credit, General Macweather just blinks and says, “so you’ve been fucking that Stark boy?”

Rhodey bites down all cutting responses and nods once, “Sir as I understand it, its pretty normal to fuck your husband”

General Macweather just raises a single eyebrow, and Rhodey is genuinely terrified that the general can hear his heart pounding

“I assume you’re here to ask for leave,”he says finally; and Rhodey just about holds in a sigh of relief

“Sir yes sir,” he says and spreads his legs slightly so he’s standing in parade rest

“You get 7 days off at the end of the month,” General Macweather says, “but if, and only if you hold off telling your squadron for another week.”

“Sir?” this time Rhodey doesn’t keep the bite out of his voice

“Pipe down Lt, there’s been a poll going around the base ever since Washington started making noise about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and I stand to lose a good 3k if you come out this week”

“You’ve,” Rhodey’s throat is dry, “you’ve been betting on my sexuality Sir?”

“The whole damn world knows you’re gay Lt Rhodes, you only got to spend 5 minutes around you and that Stark boy to know he’s got you wrapped around his pinky finger”

“Now keep your trap shut and don’t cost me three thousand, and you can leave at the end of the month to go marry him all over again”

There’s a brief second before he’s dismissed, but Rhodey can feel the weight of their secret pulling him down every second he’s not near Tony. There’s this newfound urgency now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has been repealed, this newfound desperation to let the world know that Tony is his

He touches down in New York, where Tony has temporarily relocated so that he can fulfill his desire to build a massive Tower and fuck up the Manhattan skyline forever, and he doesn’t even think; he gathers Tony in his arms- wrapping Tony’s legs around his waist and slants his head up to kiss him

He’s barely aware of the cameras and the media and the insane amount of coverage this must be getting; too caught up in the feeling of Tony against him, pressing smiles on his lips

“Lets get married,” he whispers, setting Tony down and pressing their foreheads together, “lets have a huge crazy society wedding; marry me again Tony Stark”

and Tony kisses him and says, “Always”

After Carol brings him back from Space, Rhodey can’t seem to leave Tony’s side. He’s been through the routine of losing Tony so many times that its almost an old trick, but Rhodey couldn’t stop thinking of all the nights he’d had to wake Tony up because of this very nightmare and there was some finality to it that terrified him

He uses any excuse to touch Tony, to hold his hand, to balance him by placing his palm on the small of his back, to curl his arms around him on the couch; until one day Tony snaps

“I’m not a fragile doll!” he yells and Rhodey’s arms are stretched out in an aborted motion to hold him that Tony’s slipped out of, “so you need to stop treating me like one”

They stay like that for several seconds, Rhodey on the couch with his arms outstretched, and Tony, standing, with his arms crossed against his chest in defiance

“I can’t - ” Rhodey wets his lips, “The six months you were in Space were the most terrifying six months of my life. I need to touch you, to remind myself that you’re still here”

Tony’s gaze softens, and he comes closer to press a delicate kiss on the corner of Rhodey’s mouth

“You know,” Tony murmers, “its been about 20 years since our first wedding? What do you say we go full camp and have a vows renewal ceremony?”

Its a small affair, and Tony debates whether or not to call who’s left of the Avengers; but he’s not seen Steve since he collapsed in front of him in a fit of rage; and his wedding didn’t really seem like the time to rehash all that

They call Happy and Pepper, and Pepper’s eccentric uncle Morgan because Tony absolutely adores him; and the whole thing is over in 30 minutes

They kiss and everybody throws flowers, and if Rhodey turns away to hide his tears in the crook of Tony’s neck; nobody says a thing

They’re lounging in the backyard, neck-ties pulled off and sleeves rolled up- lazily exchanging kisses when a black sedan pulls up

Steve and Natasha step out, and Tony tenses against Rhodey

They’re with Scott Lang, who everybody assumed had died in the Snap, but somehow survived and now has this crazy time travel idea

“Wait wait wait,” Rhodey says, looking up at Scott from where he’s sitting, “Are you telling me that your idea of time travel is based on Back to the Future?”

Scott nods, and Tony doesn’t even try to suppress an eye roll

“The answer’s no Cap, I’m sorry”

Steve sighs, “Tony I get it, and I’m happy for you, I really am. But this is a second chance?”

Tony looks up from where he’s curled against Rhodey’s chest, “I got my second chance right here Cap, can’t roll the dice on it”

Later, after they’ve left, Rhodey turns slightly and says, “It would be nice if your spiderkid were here for the next one”

“The next what sugarplum?”

“The next wedding. We’ve had about 4 now and we’ve never really had everyone attend. It’d be nice, get the whole family together; really celebrate us”

Tony just hums, “maybe for our 25th anniversary. We’ll get Pepper go wild”

They never have a fifth wedding

They never reach their 25th anniversary

There’s a thrum of power that surges through the battlefield, and the aliens froth and blend into the sky, dispersed into the wind; and even before he turns Rhodey knows what’s happened

He knows as he pushes the boots off the ground, soaring across the battlefield, looking; until he sees Tony- sagged against a boulder

He’s bleeding from his temple, half his body is charred, and there, clasped in his right hand; is the infinity gauntlet- frozen in a snap

He sets down lightly, flipping up the faceplate and bending down so he’s at eye-level

Tony’s eyes flail for a couple of seconds, glassy and unfocused until they zero in on him

General Macweather had once told him, Son, the battlefield is no place for tears, so Rhodey just smiles, cups Tony’s face as best he can and says “Its okay, you did good Tones”

Tony’s lips move ever so slightly, and his voice is barely a whisper, “love you,”

and Rhodey watches as the lights fade out of his eyes, and his chest rises and falls for the last time, and his head lols back

Rhodey watches, as his husband dies; and only once Tony’s body collapses within itself- falling against Rhodey; does Rhodey let himself cry

All around him, the men and women Rhodey has fought alongside, kneel

They kneel for their saviour, for the man who sacrificed everything

but Rhodey just cries, clutching onto his limp husband’s body like it will somehow bring him back to life

Fin

156 notes · View notes

unabashedrebel · 5 years ago

Text

RP Snippits

{Below is a piece written alongside @dae-shadowvale ft. @simplysoriya . Sometimes i like to torture my characters a little too much. So yeah, uh, this happened. It’s pretty long, you’ve been warned.}

A soft smile graced his lips as she saved him from himself, and that fear of saying something dumb just when things were getting emotional. "I've been doing some side work. But basically until I decide to go to therapy I'm off active duty. They've been taking it sort of easy on me since I was a POW." Though before Kirollis could expand on just how much he hated therapy, the fishing line began to stir. It started at the tip at first, gentle jerks and pulls that went unnoticed. But in the midst of their conversation the thin piece of wood bent completely into a curve as something snagged on the line.

"Oh shit! I think I got something!" He exclaimed.

Dae felt her chest involuntarily tighten at the mention of Kiro’s imprisonment, and while she did what she could to keep that mental flinch from broadcasting itself through her expression, there was likely a lingering flash of sadness in her gaze as she listened to his response. Yes, there was the obvious reminder of the toll that time had taken on herself - all the hopeful glances toward the cafe door every time she heard that bell ring, only to feel her heart sink over and over again - all the nights of falling asleep with her comm in her hand, hopeful that she would hear his voice break through the radio silence, and terrified to hear someone else’s - the emotional torture she put herself through in those weaker moments, wondering if he’d just... left. Now? Thinking back to that period of time, knowing what he had gone through, it made her feel guilty. The fact that he’d waited so long to at least let her know he was alive was still a very sore spot for her, and there was still a lot of emotional ruin to wade through, but there would always be space in her heart for the snarky rogue and his daughter. She wanted to ask him how things had been going with therapy, if he felt like it was helping, if he’d be returning to active duty when he was able, but as fate would have it, none of those questions would make the journey from her thoughts to his ears.

Her eyes widened at his exclamation and she glanced quickly to the place where his fishing line disappeared beneath the water’s surface in a seamless shift into excitement. “What are you waiting for?!” She took one final pull from her bottle, emptying its contents, and leaned forward to peer down into the water. “Reel it in!”

Kirollis gripped tightly on the fishing rod as tremors rocked through the thin wooden frame. Whatever was on the other end of the line was big, and angry, at the rogues resistance. Not entirely lacking in the physical department, either, Kirollis looked like he was struggling to keep up. His feet planted with their heels dug in, only to find nowhere to get a good footing on the wooden and worn planks of the Booty Bay docks. His knuckles creeping into a feint white coloring as he vigorously pulled with both hands on the handle. It was as if he was completely oblivious to the dancers advice. Sufficiently stunned by the monster that lurked under the docks, snared by his hook. But eventually he did turn to her adding a sarcastic, "Ooooooooh." With a smirk. "By all means, you're more then welcome to help." The rogues voice strained and rough, coming in a guttural tone from the throat. But once he was situated, and the fish offered a brief repose, Kirollis took the opportunity to just that. Carefully leaving the tension of the rod to one hand as the other didn't stray too far to the metal reel line. Painstakingly cranking the lever in a vain attempt to land his prize. All it managed to do was tick every other second as the rod looked increasingly stressed by the rogues efforts. By this point Kirollis had slowly been dragged, unnoticeable by how small the increments, until the tips of his toes hung off the edge of the dock. Curling and clinging to the planks, even if it was likely more for personal comfort then actual strategy.

"It's all in the hips!" A voice echoed from the far beach as Soriya seemed to have taken an active role in watching it all unfold. While she was too far away for expressions to be read, it was a fair assumption to either of them that she wore a shit eating grin at her fathers troubles with a fish.

"Okaythisisn'tworking." Kirollis grunted out quickly to himself. Though determination still sat strong on his features. One finally jerk from the rod was all it took to deflate every ounce of confidence he had. Unceremoniously loosing his balance, one leg jutted out awkwardly as if to purchase some. Though even that proved to do little as another shift from the rod tipped him right over the edge and sent him plummeting to the waters below.

The whole scene unfolded in slow motion for Daelynn, which only served to enhance the hilarity of its outcome. One second, Kiro was beside her on the dock, heels dug in firmly as he strained against the pull on his line. The next, he'd disappeared in a woooosh of air, tumbling head-first into the water, and leaving her somewhat perplexed for a second or two. At first, the dancer rose to her feet - an instinctive reflex of concern for the rogue's well-being - but that reflex was fleeting, at best, and she was quickly overcome with laughter. It poured out of her with the ease of water rushing over the falls; unbridled, jovial, breath-catching laughter that had her clutching her stomach as she sunk to her knees, tears collecting at the outer corners of her vision. There was nothing malicious about her reaction, even as she struggled to find her voice amidst each strained gasp of air, and though the simple fact that watching someone take such an impromptu swim was funny in its own right, there was one glaringly comedic addition to this situation in particular; something that clearly hadn't gone unnoticed by the brunette he'd left behind on the dock.

Kirollis Duskhaven - slayer of men, master of blades, expert of sneak - bested by a fish.

It was true that Kirollis was a lot of things. That he had a long history of being the capable sort. From assassinating Generals without so much as an alarm, to running smuggling rings that spanned across the Eastern Kingdoms and beyond, to a competent spy, and so many other accomplishments. Not a single one of them mattered as Kirollis plunged face forward from the docks down into the crystal clear water below. What would have normally been easy to see was obscured by the milky froth and unsettled water as bubbles raced to the surface following his decent beneath the waves. Angry flailing and churning from beneath that was so violent one could swear they heard curses bubbling up to the surface.

As was above, was to below. While Soriya was busy lounging on her surfboard with her face down. Soaking in the sun and enjoying the day. While she always made it look graceful and effortless, the ocean and the tide had a way of tiring out the body more then most would expect. That amount of control and poise, and maintained at such a level? She was wiped out, and made no efforts to hide it.That was until she heard the telltale sign of weight crashing into water with a bassy PLOOOOP. Instantly her head periscoped, flicking her attention toward the sound. While her facial expression would be near impossible to tell from a distance, the look of confusion sat on her features. Swiftly she tried to make sense of it all as she looked over the disturbed water. Then up to the rapturous sounds of laughter. Tilting her gaze up to find Daelynn, and only Daelynn standing on the stilted docks, leaning over the side as the music of her uncontainable laughter said it all.

It took only a moment for Soriya to understand what happened. And even less time for her to join in to the chorus of cracking up, so loud that it could be heard in tandem with Dae's own on the dock. Uncontrollable and consistent, those jovial expressions tumbled out of her as if she had little choice in the matter. Gripping on the sides of her board tightly as the young monk doubled over, laying her face down flat on the board as she continued. Before long Soriya rolled right off and into the water- Though unlike her father, she at least seemed to do it intentionally. As if the scene before her was too much for her to take, and she relented to immerse herself beneath the waves in a vain attempt to save her father a little face.

Before long, Kirollis himself surfaced. Lacking the fishing rod that had proven to be his bane, lost and gone to the tides- and the one creature that did manage to best him-.... a fish. Sputtering out water with aggressive and loud raspberries from his mouth, both hands would come up to clear his eyes. Tipping his head up to look at the dancer, who was Still laughing at his pain. Of course he had to say something. "Yeah, sure. Laugh it up. Real nice. What if I couldn't swim? Would you have jumped in after me?" He teased in mock aggravation.... and perhaps a little embarrassment.

“Ohhhh c’mon!” Daelynn retorted, still unable to keep the grin from her face... and still struggling to regain her breath from the sudden, and powerful, outburst of laughter. “You would be laughing just as hard if I was the one taking a dunk and you were standing up here, nice and dry,” she lifted a hand to wipe a stray tear on its way down her cheek with the back of a knuckle, “And you know it.” Kneeling down at the edge of the dock, Dae lowered her voice some, speaking in earnest while the corners of her mouth continued to curl themselves upwards. “If it makes you feel any better, I promise to keep this little incident to myself- outside of teasing you about it for the foreseeable future, of course. Though, I can’t speak for all witnesses...” Her gaze lifted from the sputtering rogue as he continued to tread water, focusing briefly on the mostly-submerged brunette floating out in the distance, and lifted her hand to wave - an acknowledgment of their shared laughter, and also to notify the woman that her father wasn’t in any immediate danger. She returned her attention to Kirollis himself, smirking as she braced herself against the dock with one hand, and extended the opposite arm as far as she could. “Let’s get you out of there before you melt, or something,” she teased, tossing a wink down to him.

"I mean I-.." Kirollis held up a finger in protest. Yet after a moment all it did was curl down, deflated, much like the rogue himself as his jaw hung agape. The logic bomb Daelynn had dropped on him critically hitting, and it showed. In a brief and resilient rebuttal he managed to mutter out, "Well, but I would have at least tried to hide it." Breaking into a chuckle soon after. If there was anything he knew how to do, and do well, it was laugh at himself. The gesture dispelling any notion of hard feelings over the hilarious happenings on the Booty Bay docks.

"Ohhhh no." Dae shook her head, vehemently. "Nonono. How many times have you sprung from the shadows with the sole purpose of scaring me half to death?" She didn't give him even a second to respond before jumping right back into it. "AND out of all those times, how often did you ever attempt to hide your amusement?" Again, she left no room for a rebuttal. "I'll tell you how many." She held up a hand, fingertips curling around to meet the end of her thumb, forming an obvious 'O'. "None. Exactly zero. So enough of this 'woe is me' act... you big baby." The tone she used was teasing in nature, peppered here and there with a chuckle, but there was no denying the accuracy of her response, and the look on her face was irrefutable proof that she knew she had him at a stalemate on the matter.

By the time a pause marred the pairs playful jabs Soriya had made her way over to make it a trio. Of course she had to laugh at her fathers pain as well chiming in the midst of her paddle, "Dad! Come on, we went over this, you can't just jump in and try and stab them." The monk chirped out with a voice full of giggles. Repositioning to sit up on her board near where her father recovered from his plunge, letting her legs lazily dangle off the flanks and into the water.

"Oh come on." Kirollis protested to the unforgiving crowd, his arms outstretched in an expression that matched his words. Knowing full well that he had, on several occasions, taken great joy in scaring both women- much to their respective disdain. She had him, he knew it, his daughter knew it, and most importantly Daelynn knew it. Turning to Soriya in a bid for some relief, he found no such thing.

Instead the brunette scrunched her youthful features toward their center. Casually shrugging to her fathers desperate plea. With small and rapid nods of her head, the look she gave him in reply all but said You're on your own. Reaffirming the floating mistweaver added, "I'm pretty sure you laugh all the time. You think your slick. But we see it, clearly." Soriya motioned between herself and the dock bound Daelynn.

It didn't take long for Soriya to snap her attention over to Daelynn, happily raising up her hand in a wave before excitedly shouting up, "Hey Dae!" in greeting. "Literally the two of us here and he still gets himself into trouble. Did we really even want him back?" She joked. Blissfully unaware of how her words might hit the dancer. Too caught up in the joy of the moment and the fact that this was one of the rare times the three of them were all together. Not to mention the overwhelming fact that her dad had just been bested by what she could only imagine was a tuna.Shifting to her father once more Soriya asked, "You okay, pop?" She asked with concern.

Kirollis for his part had done his best to roll with the punches. But as always he was dramatic about it, sporting an overly animated pout as his arms crossed over his chest. A sarcastic chuckle escaping him after it was all said and done, "Yeah, sure, you know just my ego is a little bruised. But sure. I'm okay." Of course he wasn't angry, but far be it from him to not ham it up. "You two gonna gang up on me now? Is this like a thing?" He lamented as a hand unfurled from its counterpart and motioned between the two women. A tired sigh escaped him as he shook his head. Defeated and deflated. "Alright. I relent to my watery fate." He resigned to a surrender, with his hands hoisted near his ears in a carefree manner. Though he did chuckle a little at his own expense when it was all said and done.

"It's good to see you, Sori," Dae turned her attention to the monk, flashing a vibrant smile before her expression shifted into one of feigned grief, "though, it's a shame it had to be under such tragic circumstances..." An exaggerated frown followed, aimed at the drowned rogue, and while Sori's off-the-cuff remark did strike a little close to the chest, Dae managed to keep that pang of emotional discomfort from rising to the surface. "You should stop by the cafe before you leave the Cape - I'll send you off with a box of goodies for the kids."

"I could go for some lunch." Soriya chimed in a little too quickly after Dae had offered. Showing a little more excitement that two of her favorite people were in the same location. Not a thought given to over imposing on the kindness. "Why don't we meet you there in a little bit?"

Thirty minutes later...

Soriya walked through the door first. A mess of jovial giggles and her cheeks bright red. That smile she loved to wear pulled to its limits, even showing a rare display of dimples in the process. Her hair still wet from the ocean and attire that suggested she was going right back out, only having put a t-shirt and flip flops from the previous bikini. Though once those teal eyes found Daelynn in the Cafe, her arms came to the front door as to present, "So dad totally bought my silence."

In walked an exhausted, yet dry, Kirollis. But quite noticeably the rogue wore a bright pink t-shirt that looked just a tad too tight- 'Badazzled' written across the front in an arc in rhinestones. Of course it was. Complete with a pair of shorts and a damp burlap bag in hand. "Dear diary; worst day ever."

#stories #RP #canon #poor Kirollis #RP snippets #Old Flames #kiro & sori

16 notes · View notes

justalosersdiaryofmisery-blog · 6 years ago

Text

A Necessarily Sober Night’s Ramblings

I’m sitting here in my bed, writing on a shitty, hundred dollar netbook that rests on a book thicker than my fist to prevent overheating. The floor of my room is covered in a disgusting salad of dirty laundry, trash, and books, all sprinkled with a frustrating amount of cat litter from the box a few feet to my right. A space heater with more personal space than anything else in the place keeps me warm in the mornings and nights, and the fan that’s blowing my hair at the moment keeps me cool during the afternoon and whenever else I’ve been drinking.

I’ve got Altered Carbon playing beside my word processor; just started watching it. It’s impossible for me to focus on any one thing, so its there just to keep the excess ‘brain energy’ or what have you busy while I try and write this all out. All this nonsense. The lamp resting on my nightstand, which is currently sitting in the midst of the chaotic disaster that is my floor rather than being pressed up against a wall, is annoying but helps keep the anxiety down a bit.

The anxiety is still drumming my heart and shaking my hands, but it would be worse in the dark. I enjoy knowing what’s surrounding me. If I turn off the light, I can only assume what rests in the darkness. I don’t think there’s any monsters hiding beneath my bed amidst the beer cans and paper plates, I’m not a child. But there’s knowing, and then there’s knowing. When the light is gone, the whole world becomes Schrodinger's fun house.

Plus, if I turn out the lights, the odds I step on a sharp piece of aluminum on my way to the bathroom magnify ten fold. Foot lacerations are the fucking worst. Slicing your palm isn’t that bad because you don’t always have to have your dick in your hand. Plus, for the most part, your always aware of the palms of your hands. You forget the bottoms of your feet, and the trail of blood you leave behind is a bitch and a half to clean up.

Not that I’d clean it from my own carpeted floor, but there’s certain expectations for the world outside the stained and battered walls of my bedroom. Smiles required, pleasantries demanded; it’s a whole other ball game out there. That’s not some dramatic piece of speculation either. When I was a child my parents threatened to beat the frowns from my face and decried my silent coming and goings as disrespectful disobedience. Now that I am a man in age and burden if not status however, I am free to move more freely. The habits have already taken root though.

Despite my already volcanic anxieties simmering and sizzling beneath my flesh, I’m having another energy drink, my third of the day. I went to the store earlier for something fizzy and calorie free to drink, and despite knowing I must be wary of caffeine, I was swayed by a little sticker promising ‘3 for $5!’. It’s a rare moment that I’m without thirst, but unless I have sweat through my clothes in exhaustion (an even rarer moment) or am exceptionally hung over, drinking water gives me heartburn.

It’s a touch allegorical, really. Water, that most basic material of life, burns the ever living shit out of my throat.

People don’t take caffeine seriously enough. It’s just like any other drug, if a bit milder. At first it puts a bounce in my step, then in a few minutes my mind will be racing with dark thoughts and fears, and if I go without it for too long my head feels like someone is taking an ice pick to the top of my skull. Sometimes the initial jauntiness is worth it though. That ‘sometimes’ keeps me coming back.

There it is. Reading this back, you won’t remember the pauses between sentences, the distraction filled minutes as Altered Carbon takes priority over writing between paragraphs. I say that so it won’t feel quite so jarring when I say that anxiety is carving a butcher’s knife through my gut and up my sternum after just mentioning the jauntiness caffeine can bring.

Anxiety and just a hint of anger are filling me. Thinking on it now, and exploring this idea for the first time (though I’ve brushed against it like a virgin schoolboy ‘accidentally’ bumping into a pretty girl before), I’m realizing there’s always anger somewhere in this stack of flesh. Anger I was bred into, that was taught to me, beat into me. It’s always there. Just, I keep it buried away and hidden. Once, I did that so that I wouldn’t get in trouble, so that I would be safe. Now I do it so that the people around me will be happier.

The only people I’ve ever intentionally physically hurt are my male family members. My younger brother, in adolescent rage reminiscent of my father’s, has been strangled, punched, thrown, and kicked. It was never unprovoked, but always unearned given the severity. I never bruised or truly damaged him, but still. Trauma is trauma. The words I spewed at him were instinctively and specifically chosen to hurt him, to damage him. It’s left me with a quandary similar to that of the chicken and the egg. Did his little man complex come from my infrequent but scarring abuse, or were the assaults unleashed by his constant needling and provocations?

Then there’s my father. Him I tried to kill once. He was drunk, and violent. He was roaring and screeching with anger at my mother, worse than normal. I went to figure out what the fuck was going on, he put his hands on me, and I snapped. I threw him to the ground, and amidst his punches and slaps and scratches I began to choke him. Tears and spit pouring from my face I bared my fangs and produced more animalistic sounds than actual speech.

My mother was futilely trying to pull me off, begging me to stop. I didn’t care. I was beyond reason at that point, my id was in full control. Like a flare in a moonless night however, a thought brought me to a stop. I had my second day of work at a new job the next day, and couldn’t afford to spend at least the night and next day in jail for murder. That lone, paragonal thought amidst a sea of frothing rage was all that saved my father’s life.

Other than those two examples however, I’ve never allowed myself to be a violent person. Or rather, I’ve never had the courage for it. I get the fight or flight shakes just from passing a slow moving vehicle, let alone a face to face confrontation. I wonder if that’s who I am, or who I was made to be.

My first girlfriend, who could technically be called my ex-fiancee if you don’t dismiss a six month, hormone-fueled, teenage puppy love engagement, was victim to some verbal abuse throughout the two or so years we spent together. She was a piece of work herself though, and although I cringe to think back on my words and feelings back then, I don’t think less of the man I am today for them. I see it as character growth. She cheated on me, lied to me, and was certifiably crazy herself. She and I have both come a long way since then though, and I’ve learned to be a better man based on the awful example I set for myself.

I say we’ve both come a long way, but in reality, she’s got a college degree and is dating a successful musician while working for a governor. I’ve got a GED, am entirely alone, and as of the end of March jobless. There was a brief spike in my life a little over a year ago. I only weighed one-hundred and sixty pounds, I was on the second rung of the company I worked for’s ladder, I had a girlfriend, I was happy. That’s all long gone now though.

See, even though I hunt for zero calorie sodas and energy drinks, I still eat too much food. I drink too much alcohol. I lay around in bed like a fucking pile of ooze. I was going to call myself a slug, but even those invertebrates get more exercise than I do. I probably weigh Two-ten by now. Two-fifteen maybe. I’m sure if I were sitting on a scale right now it’d read in the two-twenties, between my clothes, belly full of spaghetti sauce-drenched pizza, and general fat ass.

As of today I’m twenty-two years old, five-eight in the morning and in shoes, with short brunette hair and just the one tattoo, a coyote on my left arm. My upper right arm and my left ‘tit’ are covered in scars. I have a handful spread over the rest of my skin; faded ones all across my legs, one across my stomach, one on my right ‘tit’, three partially faded bands on my right forearm. All self-inflicted, obviously. I have a small patch of fur all across my chin that struggles to reach the center of my lower lip, stubble spreading back from it towards my throat, and a curled moustache above my mouth.

I fucking hate when television shows have non-English parts. It prevents me from being able to just spend the extra ‘brain energy’ on them, and instead I have to divert more of my direct attention to follow along.

Sometimes I want to carve out my own eye. Even though my left eye is (diagnosedly so) the weaker of the two, whenever I envision it, it’s always the right one I slice out like an avocado pit. The cut would start close to the center of my forehead and run all the way down to my jaw, stopping just a hair over the line and onto my throat.

I don’t think that comes from any weird sort of mutilationist fetish, or one of those weird (Ha, who am I to judge?) mental illnesses where a part of your body feels alien. I think its just a desire for attention? If that’s the right way to phrase it. I want to be special, look special. All those bad-ass pirates and fantasy characters have facial scars, typically over their eyes, and I want to be like them. I want to be special.

I want to be special. I want to be important. I want to feel like I actually matter. No amount of self reaffirmation has ever been enough for me. I’ve always needed ‘affirmation’ from others, and I’ve rarely ever received it. And it can’t be just anyone who gives it to me, it has to be someone special, someone whom I respect. The words of those I subconsciously deem as ‘below’ me mean absolutely nothing, no matter how reverential or supporting.

As for who I respect, which isn’t the right word at all, I’m not really sure. Beautiful women. Impressive men. Members of authority. People with experience in fields that I respect (this time it is the right word). I’ve had coworkers who practically begged me to hang out, less than attractive women who nearly molested me in their flirtations. All it ever did was annoy and nearly disgust me.

It’s a strange dichotomy, my ego and self-loathing. On one hand, I’m disgusted by myself. I look in the mirror and see a hideous, fat, disgusting, waste of human existence who could die tomorrow without the world so much as blinking. On the other hand, I recognize my intellect, sense of humor, virtues, and what few skills I have as being exceptional.

I hate myself, but somehow still place myself above others.

It’s funny how little self control I have compared to what little drive I have. I crave love, yet haven’t been able to muster the willpower to eat healthy and exercise. I crave fortune, yet haven’t been able to finish writing (Really writing, with editing and everything) a book. I crave attention, yet stay hidden away in my room and when out in public avoid standing out at all. When I crave a McChicken, I’ll drive to the McDonalds across town at 3 AM for it.

I guess I’m just short sighted. Back when I still played chess, I could never think more than a single move ahead. When a problem has a single-step solution, I can find it near instantly, no matter how obscure or obfuscated it is. Throw in just one more step, however, and suddenly I’m lost as an orphan looking for his mother in a department store.

That applies to long term goals too, even when the answer is spelled out for me step by fucking step. Step one, cut the calories down to less than two-thousand. Step two, take the dog(s) for a walk everyday. Step three, repeat steps one and two for the next six months. Just like that, I go from fat lard-face to looking like a young Leonardo DiCaprio.

But I just don’t do it. The one time I succeeded with a diet, it was based on routine. Every morning on my way to work, I’d get two McDonalds burritos with mild sauce and a large diet coke, no ice. Every night after work, same thing. Right now, jobless and hopeless, there is no routine in my life. That’s just an excuse though, I know that. Doesn’t mean I fucking do anything about it.

It also helped that back then I spent every night with a woman I was in love with. Kira. Black haired, thin as a skeleton, cheek bones like daggers. Her nails were more like claws, and she’s never without her eyeliner that stretch out like wings from her beautiful brown eyes.

When we met, she hated me, so of course I sought her approval. She hated me just because I sat in her spot one time. She, never to my face, called me an inbred hobbit. After several random encounters at work (which is where I met her), we also bumped into each other at the vape store. A casual, friendly conversation lead to her messaging me at work the next day, and a friendship quickly formed.

After that, it didn’t take long for love to form. One sided love. I asked her out, she rejected me. My love diminished but quickly re-blossomed. I confessed full-blown honest to god love to her. Again, she rejected me, with a full (and requested) letter explaining why. That letter tore me to pieces. Not because it destroyed my hopes for ever having her, but because every reason she listed was (to my eyes) nonsense.

She said I wasn’t artistic, I consider myself to be a great story crafter and a half-decent writer. She said she thought I’d be controlling and possessive, when I am nothing of the sort. She said I wasn’t ‘edgy’ enough, in so many words, even as I carved my flesh into ribbons. Even to this day, when she describes her perfect partner’s personality, she describes me to a T, or at least to a lower-case t.

I treat our bond as though we are siblings, and I believe that’s how she sees me, though I feel a much stronger love than that for her whilst single, and she feels nothing for me. She treats me like garbage. One time I begged her for company, knowing that if left alone I’d make an attempt on my life, and she said no. No one else came either, but I thought she of all people would understand and care. But she didn’t. And despite the handle of vodka, bottle of nyquil, assortment of pills, and sheer amount of blood loss I endured that night, I lived to suffer the pain of her betrayal.

With her it’s always apologies and broken promises. She’s sorry she abandoned me for the millionth time to be with her new abusive boyfriend, she promises it won’t happen again. She’s sorry she disappeared without a word of warning, and promises she’ll warn me in the future. She’s sorry that she broke her promises, she promises it won’t happen again.

And yet I love her. I’ve given her thousands of dollars. I’ve bought her over a hundred meals. I take care of her when everyone else abandoned her. I helped her get her shit together when agoraphobia had grabbed hold of her. I’ve given her everything I could possibly give, sacrificed everything she’s ever asked for or needed that I had.

But its never enough for her. It never will be. She will never care about me and my needs. I don’t need her romantic love, as much as I would enjoy it. But never once has she sacrificed for me. Never once has she gone out of her way to make me happy. She gave me a stack of ‘coupons’, to be redeemed for things such as ‘a guaranteed hang out session’ or ‘You can pick the music all day’. The one time I tried to redeem one, the first one I mentioned, she blew me off.

But of course, she moved to a whole other state for her drug addicted, physically and verbally abusive boyfriend. Then when she came back I took her back following a promise that she was completely done with him. I’m sure she will, or already has, broken that promise.

Despite all that, she is the most important person in my life. The thought of her killing herself makes me genuinely want to die too. Without her, there’d be absolutely no one in my life that I truly love. She is a fire amidst a barren tundra without which I’d freeze to death, even if she flickers in and out of existence that I’ve wished to die in her absence.

My only other friend is Whitney. The strangest person I’ve ever known, and one of the most genuinely wholesome and good people you could ever have the pleasure of meeting. She’s sweet, kind, caring, generous, intelligent, and fun. She’s also asexual, so there’s no hope for romance there either. She lives a busy life, between college and work, so it’s rare I ever get to see her.

Everyone else in my life is temporary, fleeting. They either abandon me purposely or drift away like clouds.

My last girlfriend, the only other serious one I’ve had besides my ‘ex-fiancee’, abandoned me out of the blue. One moment, she was saying that she loved me and that I was her perfect man. The next, she provided a list of issues she had with me and said that they were irreconcilable. She left me with trust issues that have plagued every attempt at romance I’ve had since. I lost my virginity to that girl.

And when we broke up, you know what happened? Her shit head best friend went and spread all of my personal information to our mutual friends, in a horrific way that painted me to be a violent and hurtful man who was ruining her life. And they believed him. Even though he was known to be an over-dramatic, hyper-aggressive piece of shit, they believed him. In spite of all the good things I’d done for them and absolutely no personal experience with me to back his words up, they took it as gospel. I had non-romantic commitment issues before then, but damned if they weren’t magnified ten fold after that.

Every other romantic trist I had after her has had its issues. One time, whilst I was seeing a shrink and given pills that amplified my anxieties to levels beyond my control, I went full blown crazy with a girl. Demanded to know where she was, why she was ignoring me, sent over thirty texts in as many minutes. I quit that medicine the moment I ‘came down’.

Another I ‘broke up’ with after we agreed that she couldn’t handle just hanging out in my car, and I can’t handle going to clubs. Another couple ghosted me. Another was even flakier than Kira, and far more blatant about it. Another just wasn’t that into me, even if he (an FtM transgender person) wouldn’t admit it.

Right now, the biggest source of my anxiety is the fact that Kira has yet again disappeared. I’m used to that, but this time she explicitly said she would text me ‘soon’ when we hung out three days ago. The girl is a fucking suicidal drug addict, and doesn’t care about the pain it causes me when she disappears like this. The fears and anxieties that fill me hurt so bad you wouldn’t believe it. I’ve told her this countless times. She just, doesn’t, care.

I want to punch something, tear my room apart. Its a disgusting mess now, but the mess is settled at least. A path to the door amidst the refuse, big piles pushed against the walls. It could be much, much worse. I feel like I’m about to explode, all these feelings bursting out of my fucking rib cage. But she doesn’t care about that. All she cares about is herself.

There’s only two people in the entire world I’ve truly cared for, like really, wholly, undeniably loved and felt empathy for. My ‘ex-fiancee’, and Kira. But even for those I didn’t feel that way for, Whitney or my ex-girlfriend, I treat them right. Better than right. I buy them gifts, I look after them, I tell them I love them, I do my best to be the best friend or boyfriend I can be.

I’m a heartless monster, but at least I have the manners to act better than that.

You know something, I legitimately can’t remember the last time I cried. Probably when Kira and I first started becoming friends, she demanded I open up and tell her everything if I wanted her to do the same. So I did, and I broke down. Since then, not a drop. I just don’t have it in me. I’m tired. I’m tired of being alive, but outside of drunken and seemingly random spikes of suicidal ideations, I’m too scared of death to try and kill myself tonight.

The thought of death, of everything just disappearing, terrifies me. It has since I was a little kid, we’re talking four or five years old. I don’t want to die, I never want to die. I want to live forever, or at least to know that there is reincarnation or an afterlife. I fear the ocean too, specifically being in the middle of the water with no land in sight and seeing a silhouette approaching me. But that’s not what my fear of death is. That’s a shock, a jump in my seat when I watch a video on youtube.

My fear of death is primal, unadulterated terror. It keeps me up at night, it forces me to keep a light on when I want to sleep, it gave me a love for twilight hours as they brought an end to the darkness when I was a child. It brought me peace.

Kira finally texted me back, simply saying ‘’I love you’. It could be her last words, it could be an apology for going back to her shit head ex, it’s definitely a lie to either herself or to me. It brought some measure of peace, though left a trail of underlying fears in its wake.

I just wish I could be happy, but for that I need at least one of the three B’s. Booze, blood, or betrothal. The last B is hyperbolic, I don’t need that much of a commitment, just some sort of romantic connection with someone. Gotta keep the pattern going though. When I’m drunk, my troubles fade away. When I’m cutting, the pain distracts me. When I have a girlfriend, I feel accepted.

Right now I have none of those things. I might cut my arm here in a bit, but I doubt I’ll be getting a girlfriend sometime tonight; and its too risky to be drinking on a night like this. So, I’ve just got to wallow in my own misery.

I meant to write chapter two of a new book I’m working on tonight. It’s a dark, nautical comedy set in a fantasy-ish world about a dull yet narcissistic pirate captain and his misadventure to regain his fortune. I started writing it to keep myself busy while I wait to distance myself from the first book I wrote, a more serious piece. That one’s about a man and his new apprentice facing a rebellion of monsters who are supposed to coexist with humans, but are sick of their treatment as second class citizens.

I need to distance myself from it because every time I look at it I want to delete the whole thing. It all feels too fresh, too personal. I can remember every keystroke that I put down, and since I was the one who typed it all, it must be trash. That’s how my mind sees it. I need to forget.

I’ve just started episode five of Altered Carbon, haven’t paused it once, haven’t stopped writing except when they speak in another language or I don’t know what to wrtie next or when Kira texted me. I’m starving. By starving I mean I’m hungry, just enough that my stomach hurts. I’ll probably go grab more food like the fat ass, no-self-control shitstain that I am.

I hate when people tell me I’m not fat, or when people say it shouldn’t matter. I am fat, and it matters to me. I don’t find fat people attractive. Never have, never will. I remember once, back when I was dieting and nearly at one-sixty, a (fat) girl said to me “Why are you still dieting? You look great.” I responded by lifting my shirt up (I didn’t have the scar on my stomach at the time) and jiggling it, which immediately elicited an ‘Ew!’ from her. I said, “That’s why.”

It’s not a crime to be fat, nor do I treat fat people any worse than their skinny counterparts. I just think its extremely unattractive, just like me. I don’t want to be fat. I just don’t have the willpower to put a stop to it. And I hate myself for it. Maybe if/when I get a new job I’ll be able to get back into my routine. It’d be a lot easier if I lived on my own, and could choose the pantry and fridge’s contents myself.

But for now I’m stuck living in my parents’ house. I thought once I bought a new car, I’d be able to save up and move out. Then I met Kira, and spent thousands on her. Then I allowed myself to be talked into going to therapy, a waste of time that I put a stop to after being told that I’d never be happy and to keep on cutting, that put me in debt to pay for. Then my car broke down, and I’ve had to open a new credit card for over nine-hundred dollars and spent another four-hundred up front, and her check engine light is already back on.

Oh, and I don’t have a job anymore after getting fired for spending too much time helping coworkers, so its not like I can get a place with the two-hundred and twelve dollars I get a week with unemployment. I’ve dreamed about living on my own since before I was even a teenager. I’ve always hated my parents. Every time I think everything’s about to turn around fiscally, life comes around and shits down my fucking throat and cuts a hole through my trachea so it can fuck my feces-stained esophagus. Every, single, fucking, time.

God that therapy was fucking worthless. I did what the guy said in regards to cutting. I tried rubber band snapping, icing, writing out my feelings. None of it had the same sense of distraction and gravitas. So, he told me if it helps and I’m being safe, keep doing it. So I have. I wanted to stop though, not for my own sake, but because the people who say they care about me (in other words, Whit) don’t like it and I can understand why. Again though, no will power.

When it came to my moods, I told him about as much as I’ve told anyone in my life about myself. At first it felt good, he looked at me like some sort of specimen. By our last session though, it felt more like I was a chore to him, a frustrating waste of time. Although I didn’t bother to remember the words verbatim, he more or less told me that sometimes there just isn’t anything you can do to stop being miserable, and you’re just stuck that way. So, since that was the case, I stopped going.

There was another professional I saw there, a woman who was there to actually prescribe medicines. After the first one ruined a budding and potentially great relationship, I was hesitant to try another. Given the fact that it was also expensive as fuck and I was constantly broke, with or without hesitation I couldn’t try another kind. She refused to prescribe me medicine for my ADD either, even though she did diagnose it. Said we needed to get the depression under control first. Maybe I’d be less fucking miserable if I could concentrate on one thing at a time instead of constantly having my attention diverted between two to three things every waking moment of my life.

It’s funny, when I finished my first book, I thought I’d be happy. Filled with a sense of pride and accomplishment that would spur me forward in life. So I rushed it. The last couple chapters were far below my typical word count. Whitney pointed out that fact, and the fact that a lot of the earlier chapters were subpar comparatively, so I went back and finished it ‘for real’. I rewrote most of the earlier chapters, filled in the later chapters, got a real, proper first draft done. And still nothing.

Now I’m telling myself that once I can edit it properly instead of just grimacing through the prologue I’ll feel it, but I don’t believe it. Maybe if an agent wants it, I’ll feel it, but I don’t believe that. If it were miraculously published, then, then I might feel a hint of genuine joy, but I don’t believe that. I keep pushing the goal posts of finding happiness further and further back to excuse my failure to do so.

Fuck, I don’t even know why I wrote all this. I don’t feel any better. I feel like an overdramatic, self-important, delusional cunt. Same old same old I suppose.

1 note · View note

lookingforodysseus · 7 years ago

Text

The Usual

A/N: SO, I usually don’t post stuff like this, but the wonderful @startrekkingaroundasgard had a 2K writing challenge about tropes and no one had taken the coffee shop AU yet, which I thought was a shame and a disaster, so here we go. Hope you enjoy :D

Tony had always thought he would despise working in the service industry. Given the amount everyone around him complained about it, he had expected he would be trying to commit harakiri with a milk frother within the week, since whatever Hades had in store for him would be less bad than dealing with one more person who pronounced cappuccino wrong.

And yet, now that he's here, he's enjoying himself. The coffee shop, called Impresso Espresso (insert forced laughter here), is across from a college campus, so most of his customers are caffeine-addicted students, hands shaking and eyes wide open from either too much Redbull or too much cocaine (it's a toss up at this age, really) and their professors, with under-eye bags so large they can put all the assignments they still have to mark in them, leaving their hands free for a carton cup with seven shots of espresso. Tony enjoys winking at all of them and trying to make them laugh, every smile a reward better than the free coffee that comes with the job.

During the classic afternoon lull, when the students are in bed and the professors in class, Tony puts the mechanics degree that put him deep in debt but didn't provide him with a job due to his well-meaning but obnoxious demeanour to good use by upgrading the ancient coffee machines, that were apparently purchased in the late seventies, max- or maybe modern technology just isn't as great as people often make it out to be.

Tony's manager, Matt, captain of the American football team who likes his coffee like he likes his math problems, simple, watches this thirty-something man become increasingly comfortable in a coffee shop populated mostly by those ten years younger or older than him with a mix between amazement and amusement. Besides, the coffee machines, that previously took ten minutes of gentle conversation with an increasingly impatient customer to create something as simple as a cup of tea, can now whip up a doppio in a record-holding 17.8 seconds, according to Tony. To Matt, it just feels like approximately 20 seconds, but, apparently, the exact time is of great importance to Tony, who, one night during midterms season when the coffee shop is open 24/7 to accommodate all the students pulling all-nighters, calls Matt at 3 am to announce he has shortened this time to 17.7 seconds. Apart from that hiccup, though, Tony is a good employee and Matt is satisfied.

On a dreary Thursday in February, one of the other baristas asks Matt: "Have you seen the professor around, lately? I feel like it's been awhile since we've had a queue of 20+ people- do you think he's ill?"

Matt smiles. "Don't worry about him, he's at a conference. He told me about it last time he was here, right before he told me off about not stirring his coffee correctly, or putting too much syrup in it. I'm not sure what it was that time, but it was clear he wasn't happy."

The barista laughs. "Is he ever?"

Tony, who is leaning on the counter, watching the students run by, text books over their head, more concerned with protecting their haircut than the $200 the book cost them, hears the comment. "Who are you talking about?" he asks, intrigued.

"Just this crazy customer who comes here a lot," Matt says. "He teaches something very scientific and complicated, and his order is absolutely ridiculous. You should be glad you're first month here has coincided with a four-week conference in Silicon Valley he had to go to. He's a nightmare."

Tony laughs. "Oh come one, he can't be that bad."

Matt rolls his eyes at the other barista, pulling off her apron now that her shift has ended. She waves at the two men behind the bar before exiting the coffee shop, the door being held open for her by a customer just about the enter the shop.

The customer enters the cafe, his eyes gliding over the neon Impresso Espresso sign behind the counter like he is disappointed still no one has realised what a horrible idea it was to put it there. Behind Tony, Matt sighs. "That'll teach me to speak of the devil. That's him, the professor. You take him, you've never had to suffer through his demands."

Tony steps up to the register just as the man reaches the counter. He is wearing thick, black glasses that almost completely hide his grey eyes. The top button of his checkered shirt is undone, but it doesn't look on purpose, more like he just forgot there was another button before he finished dressing himself. His large, black cardigan is wrapped around his body like a blanket. He is younger than Tony expected, for a professor being invited to month-long conferences. He also doesn't look like someone who has an order complicated enough to make his colleagues this bitter (pun intended).

When the man opens his mouth to place his order, Tony expects the other employees to have pulled a prank on him, expects the man to just order a black coffee, and maybe, maybe, make a joke about the colour of his soul. Instead, he hits Tony with this beauty of a coffee order: "I would like a latte, but instead of only milk, I would like half milk half hot water. The milk should be equal parts almond and coconut, with an extra dash of soy. Stir that exactly two and a half times clockwise. Then, add in a full glass of skimmed milk, that has been frothed for exactly 12.5 seconds, shake it up with ice, pour half of the drink out, and heat the other half up again, which needs to be stirred twelve times anti-clockwise at a temperature of 63 Celsius or 145.4 Fahrenheit. Take it off the heat at 98.7 Celsius or 209.67 Fahrenheit. I would like three and a quarter pumps of sugar-free vanilla syrup, seven packets of sugar, two pumps of caramel syrup, make sure to add that in after the sugar, otherwise you ruin the taste, and .4 pump of hazelnut. Then, I would like some cocoa powder, pour the coffee in with ice and shake it up again. I would also like whipped cream on top, but then please shave it off again, so there's only a little bit of whipped cream left. Pay with card, please."

Tony's mouth falls open. "You're kidding!" he exclaims. Behind him, he hears Matt snicker. The man begins to explain the importance of each individual step to the flavour of the beverage, but Tony interrupts him: "That's my order!"

A smile forms on the man's face, grey eyes sparkling. "Finally, someone with good taste around here," he says, giving Matt, whose jaw has slammed through the floor of the coffee shop and is currently making its way to the centre of the earth, a side eye. "You'll know the crucial timing of the stirring, then."

Tony nods. "Of course, of course," he says, with a stern face, fully aware of how important these things are. One of the reasons he had decided to start working in a coffee shop was that he would finally be able to make this order perfectly for himself. He can't believe another person with a brain as small as a human's has been smart enough to realise this order is the only way coffee is anything near drinkable. "Name?"

"Bruce," the man answers, and Tony hits the buttons on the register to allow the man to pay for his drink, even though he believes that thinking like that should be rewarded with a free coffee, before writing Bruce on the cup in his squiggly handwriting.

A solid twenty minutes and 27 grumbling people in line behind Bruce later, Tony presents the coffee with a flourish Shakespearean actors would be jealous of, putting a lid on the take-away cup before sliding it across the counter towards Bruce. "Oh, I don't need a lid," Bruce says, and pulls on the lid. However, in his enthusiasm, Tony has pressed down a bit harder than was fully necessary, and, no matter how much Bruce pulls, the lid is not giving way.

Tony snickers. "Well, someone's got muscles that would give the Hulk a run for his money."

Bruce laughs, too, and pushes the cup back towards Tony. "Can you do it?" Tony easily takes of the lid and slides the now lidless cup to Bruce. With a smile and a nod of his head, Bruce exits the coffee shop.

Over the next week, Bruce comes back twice a day, once in the early morning, and once for a pick-me-up in the middle of the afternoon. Tony learns his schedule quickly enough, and ensures he arrives a bit too early and leaves a bit too late for his shifts, so he can be there to make Bruce's coffee. He doesn't ask for the man's name anymore, instead scribbling Hulk, No Lid on his cup, something that amuses Bruce, which is only indicated by the sparkle in his eyes when he reads it. Most of Bruce's emotions seems to be conveyed through his eyes, and Tony starts making subtle alterations to his order depending on the look in them- an extra shot of coffee if they're especially tired, some more syrup when he's looking down, and some extra milk when Bruce's eyes are dull, in replacement for Tony's wish to put his hand on his stubbled cheek and his lips against his forehead to soften the pain he sees hiding behind the grey clouds in Bruce's irises. He knows Bruce notices, when his eyes regain some of the sparkle Tony had seen that first time they had met after he takes his first sip, thanking Tony with a simple nod of the head and a half-smile, which Tony cherishes more than the few coins Bruce drops in the tip jar whenever he visits the shop.

They talk every time, sharing jabs and ideas, words and looks, until Matt has had enough of it. One particularly rainy afternoon in March, he punches Tony's arm in a way that's soft for a quarterback such as Matt, but hard for a skinny 5'9 guy like Tony, and he has to take a side step to prevent himself from falling against one of the coffee machines.

"When are you finally gonna do something about that, man?" Matt asks. Tony raises an eyebrow, innocence painted on his face. It's as much of a forgery as most of Da Vinci's paintings, though, and Matt knows it. "You kids have been flirting under my nose for over a month now," he continues, ignoring the fact that both of the men he's talking about are at least ten years older than he is. "You need to make a move, dude. Now!"

Tony gestures at the window, where Bruce can be seen crossing the street to the college campus, coffee in his hand. "He's gone, Matt," he says. "What do you want me to do? Go after him?"

Matt nods enthusiastically. "That's exactly what you should do! Run after him, ask him out! Don't be such a wimp!" He pulls Tony's apron over his head and pushes him towards the door.

Tony struggles against Matt's indisputably superior physical strength. "I never took you to be such a romantic," he says. "Might harm that cool image you've got going on."

Matt snickers. "You're not talking your way out of this one, Tony," he says, opening the door with one hand and pushing Tony through it with the other. "Now, go!"

With not much other choice, Tony runs across the road, waving at the sleek black car that almost hit him, driven by an extremely annoyed-looking red haired woman who seems to have half a mind to simply step on the gas and run him over. He makes it across the street in one piece though, and yells: "Bruce!"

The other man is so shocked by someone yelling his name that he promptly drops his coffee cup. He spins around, hands risen next to his head as if showing he has no weapons. His wet hair is plastered to his forehead, and his navy blazer darkens where the rain hits him, since he isn't wearing a coat. Neither is Tony himself, he realizes, now that the rain is making his white T-shirt quickly turn see-through. "It's just me," Tony says.

"Oh, yes. Did I forget something?" Bruce pets the pockets of his blazer.

Tony shakes his head. "No, I eh… I…" He has always been a man of words, but now, faced with a nervous, drenched professor whose coffee is spilling all over the pavement between their feet, he doesn't know what to say. "Can I buy you a new coffee?" he asks, hating the clenched way his voice comes out of his mouth. "Maybe we could, you know, talk. Somewhere else than in there." He gestures at Impresso Espresso, where Matt is grinning broadly behind the windows. "Somewhere he can't see us."

Bruce smiles, with both his eyes and his mouth, and Tony has to resist the urge to run back and high-five Matt. "That would be nice. There's a decent place just up the road." He gestures in a vague direction, and Tony isn't sure which road he's indicating, but he doesn't care. He would follow this man to a coffee shop three cities over, if he really had to.

When they walk into the shop, water forms small pools by their feet, and a single, bored barista is leaning over the counter. The neon sign behind her reads Cool Beans Coffee Bar. Bruce sighs. "Do all coffee shops have those?"

Tony laughs. "Federal law requires it. That's top secret, though, don't tell anyone."

Bruce mimes locking his lips and throwing the key away, and, grinning, the two men step up to the counter. Tony eyes the other man. "The usual?"

Bruce nods. "The usual."

#nicolas2k #the avengers #tony stark #bruce banner #fanfiction

12 notes · View notes

star-trekkin-across-theuniverse · 7 years ago

Text

Escape, pt 1

Author’s Note: This fic is part of a series, all titled off the songs on Awesome Mix Volume 1. I am not finished it - there’s still 3 or 4 songs to go. PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY, let me know if you like this one or not - I don’t have to post it if you all hate it. <3

TAGS ARE OPEN FOR THIS - LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT ADDED :)

Summary: When Peter Quill wears out Awesome Mix (Volume 1), he drags the team to Terra to find someone to repair it.

Word Count: 3179 Tags: @samaxraph99 @shewhorunswithfandoms @distinguishedqueenofbooks @anyakinamidala @anotherotter @little-study-bug @rampant-salamander @goodnightwife @wanderingkat77 @bluebird214 @superwholockedbeauty @eyeofdionysus @all-time-foes @girl-next-door-writes @feelmyroarrrr Warnings: This is a lot smuttier than I usually write? But not this chapter.

“Pinnnnnnaaaaaaaa Coooooollllaaaaadaaaaaaaaaaaas –“ The tape was distorted, stretched. It was to be expected after 25 years of constant use. In fact, it was a miracle it had last as long as it had. Peter knew that, but it made his heart ache to know that Awesome Mix (Volume One) was worn thin. It was one of the only things he had left from life on Terra. He had even less to remind him of his mother, who was beautiful right up until the last breath escaped her. He rubbed at his chest absently and wondered out loud if the air filters in the Milano needed changing. His eyes were irritated, and kept watering. He walked out of the cockpit, muttering about space dust and allergies.

Gamora rolled her eyes, but elbowed Rocket in the ribs when he moved to contradict Peter. Rocket scowled at her. “What? He’s crying!” He whispered.

“And you watered Groot for months with your tears. Yet you won’t let us remind you of it,” she scolded. Rocket glanced at Groot, still and stoic. He was growing at least. It was a good thing the salt tears hadn’t killed him.

Peter reappeared and took over the controls, keying in a long sequence of coordinates wordlessly. Rocket shot a worried look at Gamora, then one at Drax. They weren’t coordinates that he recognized immediately, and they were distant. He brought up the destination on the console in front of him and threw his hands up in disgust.

“Terra? A whole universe to look after, and we’re headed to Terra? Shoot me now!” Rocket bellowed. Drax looked up, concerned. He was slowly becoming used to the rest of the group’s use of hyperbole and exclamation, but he still had difficulty discerning when they were serious. When he saw that neither Peter nor Gamora had moved to kill their crewmate, he relaxed.

“Someone there will know this tech. Someone there will be able to help me restore my cassette,” Peter explained. They shot into hyperdrive and left Knowhere behind.

A jangle of bells warned Roxanne that she had a customer. She ran her hand through her hair and tied it back before leaving the shop books in the backroom and coming to the counter. The music store had been her salvation for years, and as much as she hated to admit it, it wasn’t making money. Not anymore. Not now that mp3s and iPods and digital music was taking over. She kept it open as a hobby, paid her staff because they were passionate about music. But sooner or later, she was going to have to consider closing the doors. It would be the end of an era. When the store had opened, in 1978, it had been part of a big chain. When the chain had gone under in 2001, Roxanne had been quick to buy the location. It was a standalone shop on a busy retail street. At the time, the street was on a downturn, but the whole hipster thing had happened and now it was the cornerstone of a quirky consumer renaissance. They specialized in vinyl, but also carried used CDs, cassettes, and stereo equipment. When Roxanne had purchased the building, she’d gained access to the basement. That turn of events had been what made keeping the store open worthwhile. There were literally thousands of dollars of merchandise that had never seen the light of day down there. Albums that had been critical failures by bands that had fallen apart and then gained cult status, band t-shirts that had been written off for loss because there were only three size smalls left. They’d rebuilt the store into something new, and gained a reputation as being helpful, friendly and having a quirky variety of hard to find items. It made them one of the most popular music stores in Portland. And if Roxanne wasn’t crazy about the hipsters that paid the bills, she never really let anyone see it. It just wasn’t her scene. At thirty-four she’d already seen the world, been chewed up and spit out and found out what was important in life. She remembered the music the hipsters were frothing at the mouth for when it first came out. She often laughed to the guys that she was a hipster before it was cool to be a hipster.

The guy who’d walked in was not a hipster. His legs weren’t skinny enough, first off. His pants were some multi-pocket variety, but they weren’t loose like cargos usually were. They very nearly clung to his thighs. Roxanne felt her mouth go dry, and she quickly looked up. T-shirt, ox-blood leather biker jacket. Definitely not a hipster. His t-shirt was just a touch too tight, and his pecs were just a touch too perfect. She swallowed thickly and looked at his face. Guys with bodies that great usually didn’t have great faces.

“Oh, fuck,” she breathed. He was gorgeous. She couldn’t tell if his hair was red, or brown, and settled on calling it auburn. It didn’t matter really; it was his jaw that knocked her out. Strong, chiseled, and with the exact perfect amount of stubble. He walked with confidence, and Roxanne felt her interest deflate. Hot guys with that much swagger were usually total d-bags. She plastered her best customer service smile on her face, cursing the Sunday girl for no-showing for her morning shift.

“Hi, how can I help you?” She tried to look as bland as possible. It wasn’t going to be hard. She was dressed for bookkeeping in the back. Ratty band t-shirt that was three sizes too big, garish print leggings. No make-up, hair up in a severe ponytail. The guy leaned on the counter, and smiled. Predatory. Roxanne shuddered.

“My cassette needs repair.” He had a peculiar accent that she couldn’t place. Midwest maybe? Sorta-south?

“Your cassette? The deck?” She tried to clarify.

“No, the tape. It’s stretched.” He pulled it out of his jacket and placed it reverently on the counter between them. It was well worn, the plastic case scuffed, the hand-lettered label peeling up on one corner. It had to be twenty years old if it was a day, but it was in better shape than any of the cassettes she might have had hidden away under her bed.

“You can’t repair tape that’s stretched. You need to replace the whole thing,” she explained. Cassettes were really old technology. Maybe he didn’t remember. Or maybe he was younger than he looked. The rumpled vulnerability that fell across his face took at least five years off her guess. She’d figured he was her age. But thirty would be young enough to not quite remember cassettes well enough to remember how easily mix tapes got wrecked.

“But I need to repair it.” His accent was really distracting. Roxanne made eye contact with him, and immediately wished she hadn’t. There was panic in his eyes, and she watched him blink, trying to stem the tears that were welling up.

“The best I can do is burn you a CD of the stuff on the tape or load it to an mp3 player. If the case has liner notes from whoever made it for you, I could probably do that by tomorrow,” she blurted, trying to stop his reaction. He blinked slowly and narrowed his eyes.

“A CD?”

“Compact disc. It was the industry standard for, like, 20 years.” Roxanne quirked an eyebrow at the guy. Hot, but weird. They always have something wrong with them. No matter how pretty and flawless they seem, men always had something wrong with them once you peeled back the layers.

“Right,” he responded. He almost looked like he was following her. “My, uh, vehicle. It doesn’t have a CD player.”

“Ooh! Well no wonder you seemed confused. A CD’s not gonna help much, is it? And really, CDs aren’t the industry standard anymore anyhow. If you have an mp3 player, I could load it on that, and if you don’t have a cassette converter, I just so happen to have a few on clearance,” Roxanne felt a bit like an idiot, but the feeling passed quickly, as she realized the guy was staring blankly at her again.

“You’re gonna have to start over. And this time, speak English.” He was definitely weird. And where was that damn accent from, anyhow? She’d been all over the States, and through Canada, and she couldn’t place that accent.

“Where’ve you been for the last ten years? Russia?” Roxanne realized it sounded rude, but the guy was weirding her out a little. And after nearly twenty years working at this particular music store, that was saying something.

“Something like that. Listen. How about you pretend I am a complete idiot. I will also pretend I am a complete idiot. But I am a complete idiot that wants the music on that cassette, and I’m a complete idiot that will spend a ridiculous amount of money to ensure I have it. Can you set me up with a way to have that music, and listen to it, in my vehicle and when I’m out? You know, doing stuff?” He asked. Roxanne nodded.

“Sure. I’m going to assume you need a whole digital set-up. Gimme twenty-four hours and I’ll have it sorted for you,” Roxanne said. “Actually, make it 48. I have some stuff tonight.”

“It have anything to do with this?” He pointed at a flyer sitting by the cash register. “Starlady and the Astronauts, Live at the Aladdin.”

“It might.” Roxanne smirked.

“They any good?” He asked. Roxanne took pity on him. She was curious what she was going to find on the cassette because the guy seemed oblivious to modern technology. So maybe the rock he crawled out from under hadn’t kept up with the times.

“Can I tell you a secret? On their last tour, the lead singer from Pixie Stix discovered that one of the guys in their opening act had a master’s degree in astronomy. They then discovered that another big band had a guy with a PhD in metallurgy. When the tour was over, they all got together and started jamming about space and stuff, and one thing led to another and they decided to do a show. They’re all still with their bands and all. But it’s like an alt-pop Traveling Wilburys. And maybe the names involved are smaller,” Roxanne explained.

“Who are the Pixie Stix?” He asked. Roxanne quirked an eyebrow again.

“Russia? Or outer fucking Mongolia? They’re the biggest thing to come out of Portland in years,” Roxanne exclaimed, pointing to a life-sized cardboard cut out from the band’s recent release. The guy shrugged. She felt a shudder of embarrassment for her outburst, but he didn’t seem the least bit fazed.

“I guess I just love the classics,” he admitted. Roxanne smiled.

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with that,” she agreed. “I’m gonna need your name, and some way to contact you.”

“Peter Quill. I haven’t set up contacts yet. I’ll just come by in a couple of days.” He picked up a copy of the concert flyer and stuck it in the same pocket he’d been storing the cassette.

“Okay, Pete. I’ll have your system ready for you on Tuesday. If I’m not at the counter, ask for someone to grab Roxanne.” She scribbled a few notes on a post-it and stuck it to the cassette. He smiled, and once again, Roxanne was struck with how hot he was.

“I’ll see you Tuesday, Roxanne.” He wandered over to the Pixie Stix stand-up. “Why can’t you see their faces?”

“Look at the name of the album,” Roxanne explained.

“Everyman?” He read off the bottom of the stand-up. “Oh, I get it. Cool. How big are they? Like, local gig big?”

“Major label and selling out stadiums big. Triple platinum album big.” Roxanne could feel herself blushing.

“And they did their most recent record launch here?” Peter asked, as though he didn’t think it possible.

“They’re really active in the local scene, despite their success. Give back to the community, and all that,” Roxanne blurted.

“And the lead singer is sneaking out to do a concert with a bunch of other dudes tonight?” He pressed.

“Yeah,” Roxanne nodded. “It’ll be pretty awesome. But remember, it’s a secret.” Roxanne contemplated correcting his assumption that the lead singer was a guy, but changed her mind. He probably wasn’t going to the concert anyhow. Mr. I guess I just love the classics was probably going to sit in his mother’s basement and listen to Barry Manilow.

“Sure,” he nodded. Roxanne rummaged around in the box behind the counter to try to find a cassette deck while Peter looked around the store. The bell jangled, letting her know he’d left, and she headed to the back to find what she was looking for.

The din in the bar was just as loud as anything he’d heard in any bar anywhere else in the galaxy. Some things were universal, he supposed. He made his way to the bartender and ordered a beer before he made his way through the crowd of people and over to a table near the front of the stage. He was glad he’d left his jacket on the Milano. It was hot, and either there was no air conditioning or it couldn’t keep up with the crowd. It seemed, to Peter, that maybe more than just he knew about this special band line-up. The crowd was filled with excited conversation. But when he strained to listen in, he discovered that most people had come just because they loved live music. He never once heard the name Pixie Stix, and he almost thought maybe they weren’t a big deal until a girl in a tank top splashed with their name sat down at his table.

“This seat taken?” She dropped her purse on the table and started rooting around for something inside it.

“Well, no, but –“

“Awesome. Have you heard of this group before? I haven’t heard of this group before. At least, I don’t think I have. But the Aladdin always books good bands, so I figured, even though it’s a Sunday, it’s worth coming. I hope it’s a good band.” She spoke too quickly, and Peter had a hard time keeping up. She pulled a tube of lipstick from her purse and lined her lips, making an elaborate show of blotting on the cocktail napkin beside Peter’s drink. He raised an eyebrow. “I heard that the guitarist tonight is from Dr. Schrödinger’s Kitty.”

“I have no idea who that is,” Peter admitted.

“Oh my god, seriously? They opened for Pixie Stix on their European tour last spring,” she explained. “The guitarist is some sort of super smart science dude. Apparently everyone in the group is. I think I’ve figured out where the bass and drum players are from, just by googling Portland science and music, but I can’t figure out the lead singer.”

“What the fuck is a google?” Peter asked. The girl looked at him and shook her head. Before she could answer, the band came out on stage and launched into their first set. The audience cheered as they recognized some of their favourite local musicians, and Peter took a slug from his beer. They were good. There was no singer on stage, which Peter thought was weird until he heard the vocals starting. When the singer ran on stage at the swell of the end of the first verse, the crowd went nuts.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, THAT’S ROXY RAIN!” The girl grabbed his arm and shook him. When he looked blankly at her, she pointed at her chest and flicked her tank top at him. “From Pixie Stix!”

“The lead singer from Pixie Stick is a woman?” He asked. The girl furrowed her brow and shook her head.

“Where have you been for the last five years?” She grabbed her purse and moved to another table, closer to the stage. Peter felt himself getting more into the music as the set progressed, and when the opening riffs of Moonage Daydream came on he realized that they’d been alternating covers of space-themed songs with original music. He liked it all, but the familiarity of some of the songs caused a flood of memories to rush forward. Things he hadn’t thought about in years, since leaving Terra. The lyrics of the song pulled at him back to reality and he found himself watching the lead singer, watching her movements, and the way she sang. It was no wonder her band was huge. Her stage presence was amazing and she was hot. He felt a tug of lust and recognized that that feeling also probably helped boost album sales. The lead singer of Pixie Stix was sexy, she knew it, and she used it.

He got lost in the music and roared to his feet with the rest of the crowd at the end of the concert. On the way out, he willingly dropped the cash for a t-shirt before heading back to the ship.

Once back on the Milano, he flopped down in the pilot’s chair and spun around to face the crew, dopey grin plastered on his face.

“Did you meet a woman? I thought you said you were going to go listen to music?” Gamora immediately began interrogating him.

“I saw a band play. They were awesome,” he sighed. “Their lead singer was super hot. I want to meet her.”

“So meet her,” Rocket shrugged.

“Not really that easy. She’s a rockstar. Like, hugely famous,” Peter explained.

“How do we find out more about her? Track her down? I would take her for you,” Drax offered.

“Somebody said something about the google tonight. I don’t know what the google is, but it apparently has information about musicians on it,” Peter offered.

“Seriously kid, how long has it been since you’ve been back to Terra? Google is a online information system, linking most of Terra,” Rocket explained.

“Like the info bank on the Milano?” Peter asked.

“Yeah. Only with information exclusive to Terra,” he continued. Peter leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin.

“I’ve got another day to wait until my cassette will be fixed. We should find a google portal so I can search for her.” He chewed his lip.

“You said yourself she’s hugely famous. You won’t be able to find her using this info bank. Famous people guard their privacy, Peter,” Gamora scoffed. Peter shrugged. “If you want to work your questionable sexual magic on the women of Terra, maybe choose one who is more attainable.”

“Well, maybe I can just get a new poster then.” He pushed himself out of his chair and headed to his bunk. His ears were still ringing from the concert and he had a lot of questions for Roxanne from the music store when he saw her next. He’d apparently missed out on a lot of music, if the concert was any indication.

#Guardians of the Galaxy fic #Guardians of the Galaxy fic with OFC #Peter Quill x OFC

51 notes · View notes

fyodorsuggestions · 7 years ago

Text

Dance while we Burn

The spray of blood is messy, the arc of it perfect, the spatter of it beautiful. Oh is there anything better than this, can there be anything better? So many freed of the sin of existing so simply and so easily, without a second to suffer, without the breath to scream. This is easy, this is simple, this is kind. No bullets tearing through muscle and bone, bringing pain with them and taking lives as they go. No knives slicing through throats and leaving nothing but searing agony in their wake, no bones breaking, snapping, cracking under unnatural pressures.

There is no God of War on a rampage here, no fire racing through the streets and eating men whole. There is no God of Light searing the infidels and burning sins with Their divinity. There is no Goddess of the Hunt tearing through the poor domesticated cattle. There are no boys with birds’ feathers stuck to their arms, there are no wolves prowling by, there are no rich Kings or mad dogs, there are no exotic pets or idealistic fools.

There is nothing but a silent spectre bringing death, there is no delusional psychopath waging his war against innocents. If there is a God here, if I am it, then I am the one who seeks to soothe the world. I am the one who wants nothing more than equality and innocence, purity, I want to scrub the earth clean; scrub, scrape until my fingers bleed. And if I can’t, if the filth is a stain, if the corruption is too deep, then I will raze it all to the ground and salt the earth after me.

Isn’t that what a just God would do? Isn’t that what a good God does? To protect the people He so loves, to bless them and protect them, wouldn’t He destroy the devils underfoot to save a soul? So tell me, is what I’m doing so wrong then?

“Is it? Tell me if you want,” I murmur as another body falls to the ground, another of many, a woman with soft brown hair. She didn’t have a chance to suffer, my curse is merciful at least, as violent as her death is she felt none of it. Dead the instant my fingers brushed the nape of her neck, dead before she could even feel my presence behind her because all of humanity deserves a swift death.

I smile as I leave her there, bleeding out onto the already bloody tiles. The entire building gets to look like a sadistic madman’s macabre wax house, full of figures so carefully crafted they can’t be real and so bloodied you hope they aren’t. Oh but they are and I’m not, a madman, crazed maybe but not insane. Flitting from room to room, feeling my heart racing in my veins as I slip behind all of these poor unfortunate souls and release them from this pitiful existence as I was meant to do.

Hiding behind screens works but only to a point. There comes a time when you need to do these things yourself and if my servants would prefer to do nothing but bitterly serve then I won’t use them. If my dear worshippers want to go back on their belief then I won’t stop them but I won’t trust them either. No, if the Wolf wants to accuse and claim I’m so much worse than him, then who am I to contradict his beliefs? A better man would transcend the label, a foolish man would fall for the machinations and a stupid man would even twist his own morality to sate the hunger under his skin.

“Isn’t it convenient I am greater than Man then?” I laugh as I slip on a smear of blood and crash into a wall. The impact of it is enough to snap my teeth together and blur my vision, it hurts, oh it hurts, but I don’t really care. The laughter bubbling and boiling in my throat scalds my tongue as it pours out of my mouth, it burns my lips as froths past them; crazed isn’t the word for this but it isn’t sane either.

Laughter ringing through a morbid house of horrors should be crazed shouldn’t it? Bouncing off the walls, dancing down the halls, it should send chills down the spines of whoever’s left alive, it should act as herald and death bell but this isn’t that. Throwing my head back as I dash down the corridor, slipping and sliding through puddles of blood, this isn’t how a madman acts or sounds. My laughter is joyous, almost reckless and wild, childish? Am I nothing but a psychotic child playing at being God?

“Oh does it matter?” I snicker as I crash into a door hard enough to bounce off it, hard enough to tell the last few people alive that their death’s arrived. The last few people in this restaurant who don’t even realise what’s going on, who probably won’t right up til they’re slumping to the ground.

“Hello, can I help you?” a woman asks as I let myself in and she’s all bright smiles and innocent eyes. She looks like any other manager of any other restaurant, inconspicuous and approachable even though any other manager would’ve already called for security when a strange man walks into their office. She doesn’t know who I am but she’s used to well dressed people filtering through her office as they please, she probably didn’t even care when I slammed against her door because this normal.

When you work for the mafia, laundering their money and giving their people safe places to be, then everything’s normal. Having security cameras on you at all times with no access to the footage is normal, keeping strange hours because you never know who might need your services is normal. For the amount she’s being paid, normal can look like anything, for the amount she’s being paid she doesn’t deserve to burn with the rest of them but the world’s hardly ever that fair.

“Maybe,” I tell her, smiling as she shifts behind her desk, as she glances past me to the open door. They don’t leave door open when they conduct business, they don’t smile as her like this, they don’t bite their fingers and I think she realises. I think she realises something’s not quite right as I reach her desk and no one else follows after me, I think the fear starts to squirm in her stomach as she looks me full in the face.

“Yes I think you can,” I murmur and her brow furrows as she draws the breath to ask oh but she never finishes, the breath never reaches her lungs and the light leaves her eyes before she even feels my palm against her cheek. She barely even makes a sound as she slumps forward, dribbling her mouthful of blood as her brain hemorrhages and shuts down in less time than it takes to think. As I said, nothing is simpler and nothing is easier and nothing is kinder, she felt no pain and now she’s dead.

She’s just another casualty in this war, her and her entire staff, dead in their places without a chance to suffer. Hmm, more mercy than her employers would have offered her, they would’ve had her sacrifice herself for them while not lifting a finger to help her. They value loyalty but so rarely return the courtesy, more’s the pity.

“Your death wasn’t because of who you were or even who you worked for, you were a victim of consequence darling,” I explain with a sigh, “because I can be selfish too and I can be mad and I can be nasty.”

Burning things is an art, arson is a skill and fire is a tool. A tool to start over, a tool for tearing down Empires and leaving nothing behind but ashes. This restaurant doesn’t have a stockpile of weapons, this building isn’t made of wood but we made do, don’t we? We prepare and I prepared for this, I brought my accelerants to soak the bodies with and I know how to start kitchen fires.

When they look, all they’ll find is an unfortunate accident. When they look deeper, they’ll realise complacency is death and demons have their own twisted morals.

“Will you think I’m doing this to get your attention?” I wonder aloud as I carry my containers of gasoline through the building, splashing it wherever I please and watching it mix with half dried blood.

“Will you think I’m a child throwing a tantrum?” I muse as I pour oil into the saucepans and pots and put them all on the abandoned stoves. So late at night there shouldn’t have been anyone here but isn’t that a risk you take when your restaurant isn’t for selling food?

“Will you even stop to consider beyond yourselves? No, I don’t think you ever have, none of you ever have,” I tsk as the oil starts to boil and another laugh falls from my lips. They’re all so short sighted, only caring about themselves and whomever they claim to love as if the rest of the world doesn’t matter. They’re all so selfish, everything is about them and hasn’t it always been?

How do they fill the emptiness in their black hearts, how do they make the most of their lives, how can they rise through the ranks, how do they achieve their goals? None of them care and all of them kill and yet they have the audacity to say they’re better. Why? Because they have more power? Because they don’t really enjoy the evil they do, they had no choice, they were manipulated from birth?

We all were darlings, we all were and yet who among us is accepting responsibility for our actions? You’re letting the villain be better than you? You’re letting the murderous bastard, the evil demon, have higher morals and values?

“I’ve done terrible things but I don’t pretend like I haven’t. I don’t lie, and I don’t excuse,” I giggle as the kitchen heats up, as I pant for breath because it’s so hot.

“I don’t go back on my word and I don’t change my mind after committing so is it really too much to expect honesty from any of you?” I ask, breathing deep as the fire starts, crackling and snapping as it catches itself. Oh it’s intoxicating, it always has been as a pitiful thing in a cold alleyway to the only light on a dark night to now.

“I wish you were here to burn too,” I groan as the fire flares up and scorches the ceiling so lovely. I watch it for a few more seconds, the way it searches for something, anything to latch onto and spread along. Grease fires are hard to fight once they’re out of control and when this one spreads far enough to find the gasoline then it won’t be able to be stopped.

Which is good, I want this building to burn to the ground along with the mafia’s front and their money. Is it petty of me to do this? To take out one of their most lucrative launders just because I needed to burn something? Maybe, but I don’t care because these aren’t good people and even if they had no choice, it doesn’t matter because they wouldn’t have made a better one anyway.

#fi-fi fics #arson

11 notes · View notes

saibh29 · 8 years ago

Text

Thief (Part 3)

Pairings: Bellamy / Reader (grounder)

Warnings: Swearing, Violence, Torture....

AN: I’m on a role with this story inspiration suddenly just hit massively so this is kind of a long chapter.

You can find the previous parts of this story here: Thief Part One Thief Part Two

@angelaiswriting @selldraug @georgiagrl1990 @angryares @coffeebooksandfandom @ka-x-in

Life was often funny in the ways it threw things together, the way it threw people together. When you’d agreed to Anya’s plans to steal the bullets from the sky camp she couldn’t have predicted that you would end up meeting a forming a friendship with Finn Collins. A friendship that included mutual loyalty and currently feelings of uncertainty.

You’d seen the flurry of activity around their camp earlier today and also seen Finn being carried back within the walls. He had a dagger sticking out of his chest that you recognised. It wasn’t a weapon you’d want stuck in your chest or infecting your blood stream.

You had two choices available to you right now, you could do nothing and Finn would almost certainly succumb to the poison on the blade, or you could try and enter the camp somehow getting them to believe that you were trying to help them.

What made up your mind was the idea that with Finn gone there would be no one in their camp willing to fight for peace between the two tribes.

You jumped down from the shelter of your tree landing on the ground, you walked slowly into the view of the guards on the wall. You kept your hands up and in view as their shouting became loud and angry.

Eventually though the gates opened and a group of sky people came flooding out headed of course by Bellamy Blake, holding a gun up to your head.

“You” he spat out obviously unhappy to see you again.

“You have bullets for that gun Bellamy?” it was antagonistic and probably not helpful “look I’m here to help”

“You’re here to help us?”

“You no. Finn yes”

“What do you know about Finn?” he demanded eyes never once leaving your face. Weapon never wavering.

“I know that the longer we stand here talking the more likely it is that Finn is going to die from the poison in his blood”

“Poison?”

“Finn was stabbed with a grounder knife. 1 that I know even from a distance. The owner will had poisoned the blade. Even if you’ve managed to remove the knife and stop the bleeding he’ll still have fever and pneumonic symptoms. He needs the antidote before it gets beyond the point of no return”

“And why exactly should I trust you…thief?”

“What other choice do you have?”

He had none and you both knew that as with a nod of his head you found your hands tied tightly in front of you.

“Friendly” you muttered but didn’t complain as you were led through the camp to the dropship. You ignored the stares from the other people instead following Bellamy into the ship.

Clarke was leaning over Finn along with the mechanic from before. Finn was laying between them pale and with a small amount of froth building at the corners of his mouth. The poison already taking hold.

“I need to look at him”

The girls jerked at your voice, confusion coming to their faces as you moved over to Finn. Examining the prone body of your friend.

“The thief?” Clarke sputtered “what…?”

“She walked up to the gates, said she could help him”

You ignored them speaking about you instead concentrating on Finn. He was fading fast and without an antidote soon he would be past a point where you could help him.

“He doesn’t have much longer left”

“I took the knife out” Clarke protested “the operation was a success”

You didn’t know what an operation was but she would have to be a poor healer to miss the other signs of Finn’s illness.

“He’s poisoned. His heart rate is thread, breathing shallow and there is…” you didn’t know the words in their language “he is breathing water. Here” you placed your hand on Finn’s chest to show Clarke where you meant.

She pushed your hands away to lean down resting her ear against his chest listening to his rattling breathing.

“How did you now that?” she demanded standing back up.

“I know the poison. It’s a common addition to some blades. You need the antidote and quickly. He won’t last much longer”

“Antidote? How do we find it?”

“Untie my hands and I’ll get him the antidote” they looked at each other cautiously obviously not wanting to undo the bonds. Sighing to yourself you manoeuvred your wrists out of the rope yourself. “No matter I can do it myself”

Bellamy was pointing the gun at your head again. “Wait just one minute, how did you do that?”

“Not important at the moment” with yours hands now free you opened Finn’s eyes checking his pupils and the reactions there. “I need the knife he was stabbed with”

They were back to staring at each other awkwardly again. “It’s upstairs”

“Let’s go”

“No” Bellamy grabbed your shoulder holding you still “I’ll get it. Stay here”

You may have listened if it wasn’t for the sounds of shouts above. You moved before Bellamy could try and stop you, scaling the ladders to the top level.

The men there were stunned into silence at your arrival. You didn’t care though. What you cared about was that they had Lincoln tied arms akimbo with blood running down his head from a cut on his brow.

“Lincoln” you flew across the room, lifting his face with your hands “Lincoln, look at me. Are you ok?” you’d gone back to speaking in Trigedasleng and at the sound of his own language Lincoln managed to get his eyes to focus on you.

“Y/N what are you doing here? How?”

“Shhhhh, Lincoln” you ran a hand over his cheek “I’m getting you out of here”

“Y/N that’s your name?”

You span around to glare at Bellamy who had followed you up the ladder.

“You bastard, I’m taking him out of here right now”

“I don’t think so” Bellamy was surround by the other men on the dropship. You weren’t a warrior, sure you could fight but your skills revolved more upon the element of surprise which at this point you didn’t have. “He is staying right here, as are you until Finn is awake and well”

Your eyes flashed as from behind you Lincoln spoke again. “Finn, the boy who I stabbed. You were going to help him?”

“He want’s peace Lincoln. He’s willing to help us get there”

“Stop!” Bellamy demanded, he reached forward and grabbed you, pulling you away from Lincoln. “Speak English”

Lincoln had jerked as Bellamy had grabbed you, but you shook your head.

“Easy Lincoln, he won’t hurt me”

Lincoln didn’t look convinced but remained still as Bellamy stared down at you. “The antidote Y/N”

“No”

“No?!” the grip on your arms tightened as he stared at you. “You said you were here to help us, to help Finn”

“I was, but as long as you have my friend tied up like that then I’m afraid Finn is on his own” you wrenched yourself out of his hold crossing your arms over your chest. “I hope you know something about herbs and Poisons Bellamy Blake or your friend is going to die”

Bellamy looked quickly at Lincoln over your shoulder “I may not be the only one to lose a friend today Y/N” he turned to the other men on the level “tie her up with him, and watch her hands”

“Look at that you’re learning”

He ignored you as the others led you over to Lincoln, ropes were roughly and tightly put around your wrists.

Lincoln beside you was staring at the ropes, your skill for slipping knots was well known throughout the whole of Trikru.

“Can you get out?”

You wriggled your fingers experimentally making the man who had tied them jerk forwards in warning. “I can” you agreed smiling at the guard. “But I don’t want to just yet. Let’s give them some time to think things through”

“Think?” Lincoln didn’t sound convinced “You think they will be reasonable?”

You didn’t but what you did think was that they at least deserved the chance to try and be logical.

“I think there friend is dying and I think that gives us a rare chance to witness what they do when they panic”

“And what if panic only incites torture for us?”

“Then at least we know they deserve what we both know Trikru is planning on doing to them”

Lincoln remained silent at that beside you. Your good gesture to try and save Finn had turned out very differently than you had thought.

While you were thinking Bellamy came back up into view, coming and standing right in front of your face. His hands reached out and undid the ties on your wrists.

“That was a quick captivity”

He smirked “You aren’t free Y/N” he put your hands behind your back redoing the knots and pushing you forwards towards the ladder.

“You can’t think I’m climbing down there with my hands tied behind my back”

“Jump” Bellamy stated flatly “I know you can do that”

You stared at him equally as blankly.

“Y/N?” Lincoln said softly, you just turned and shook your head at him before going back to looking at Bellamy. He still had no expression on his face.

“Alright” moving to the edge you stepped off dropping to the floor and landing in a crouch that jarred your knees but otherwise left you unharmed Bellamy followed you down the ladder grabbing your arm and moving you out of the dropship and away from Finn.

“Oooo do I get my own private cell Bellamy”

“No” he said pushing you forwards and into one of the structures they must use to sleep in. Stumbling you turned to face him as he followed you through the entrance. “Me and you Y/N we’re going to have a little chat”

He crossed his arms over his chest as you stood there staring at him. He was serious he wanted answers and this time unlike with Finn you had the feeling he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

120 notes · View notes

ongames · 8 years ago

Text

The Best Instagram Accounts To Follow For Yoga

Maybe you’re already into yoga. Maybe you think it’s not your style.

The truth is that yoga is for everyone ― no matter your size, age or religious preference. Don’t believe us? Scroll through our favorite yoga Instagram accounts. They’ll inspire you to hit the mat and reap the health benefits of the practice, which include reduced stress, increased physical activity and and lower risk of chronic disease.

Check out the list below:

Colleen Saidman Yee, @colleensaidman

Eka para sirsasana. One foot to head seat. This is a great party trick. But, be careful. You really need to warm up the hips with external rotation such as pigeon and cobblers with forward bends. Practicing poses that really round the spine, like cat and rabbit poses are also good. Try a lunge and work the shoulder underneath the front thigh and maybe contemplate getting your head behind the calf. It's fun. Go slowly and remember our motto @TheYogaShanti... "any amount". #focusfriday

A post shared by C O L L E E N • S A I D M A N (@colleensaidman) on Dec 16, 2016 at 6:44pm PST

Colleen Saidman Yee is an author and international yoga instructor. Designer Donna Karan tapped her and her husband Rodney Yee to help create the Urban Zen’s Integrative Yoga Therapist Program, which brings yoga and eastern healing techniques to hospital patients in the United States.

Valerie Sagun, @biggalyoga

There was a great article my friend @themilitantbaker wrote for @ravishly recently talking about gaining weight. This made me think back to January 2014 when I was practicing yoga the most and felt my most active with biking and practicing. Since then I've definitely gained a lot of the weight back which I'm content with. A lot has happened since then. As Jes had talked about in her article, everything is always consisting changing, one year we can have more time for things, and other years things can take up your time. I know I always get those comments asking why I haven't lost any weight after practicing yoga for the last 5 years. I've never used my practice as a source of weight lose. I personally don't think it should be used for that just because there are so many other elements to practicing yoga. I lost most of my weight back in 2014 because I was biking, which is what I believe was the source of my weight loss, though the reason I biked was because it made me feel free and happy. Losing weight just happened to be a by-product. I've consistently advocated to just do active things just for the enjoyment of it, and not have to obsess about how many pounds you've lost. The more you obsess, the more expectation you put on yourself. That if you didn't do your physical activity something extremely bad will happen to you. Don't worry you'll be fine! You don't need to beat yourself up about it. Those extra pounds are okay! Be content with your body whether you have time for physical activities or life has to happen. We all have complicated lives. When you know you have the drive and time come back to it and be appreciative of yourself. Direct link in description: http://ift.tt/2mjAtoh Also this bikini pic is for @curvesbecomeher after her article for @wearyourvoicemag talking about a photo of herself and friends in bikinis that was taken down. Big and beautiful women rocking bikinis! Bikini outfit by @torridfashion Mat by @liforme

A post shared by Valerie Sagun (@biggalyoga) on Jun 3, 2016 at 12:38pm PDT

Valerie Segun practices yoga, encourages body positivity and shows her 145,000 followers that every body is a “yoga body.” Segun’s Instagram is especially valuable for people who think they can’t get into a challenging posture. She’ll frequently post inversions, such as a shoulder stand, to encourage people with varying body types to try something out of their comfort zone.

Derrick “DJ” Townsel, @dade2shelby

☝ ️ Spirit making the most of their human experience @dharmayogawheel #RastaYogi #Yoga #OnlyTheAvatar

A post shared by DJ Townsel #RastaYogi (@dade2shelby) on Dec 9, 2016 at 7:40pm PST

DJ Townsel, also known by the hashtag #RastaYogi on social media, is a former NFL athlete who is now a certified personal trainer and a yoga instructor in Florida. Townsel’s mission is to be “an inspiration to thousands who didn’t think a passion for fitness or yoga could be a possibility for them, mainly men and people of color,” according to his blog.

Rachel Brathen, @yoga_girl

God lives in wild, reckless abandon of structure. Shake things up. Say yes when you normally say no. Break all the rules. Follow your intuition. Travel. Talk to strangers. Laugh out loud. Dance like you don't give a fuck. Yell at the ocean. Hug a tree. Spend all your money. Cry when you feel like it. Be naked more. Eat whatever the hell you want. Quit your job. Start a new one. Speak your mind. Fall in love. Have your heart broken. Fall in love again. Live your life for YOU! You were born a free spirit. Act like it. _______________________________________________________ (found this quote in my notes this morning. feeling just as rebellious today as I did when I first wrote it!) #tbquote #wild #free #love

A post shared by Rachel Brathen (@yoga_girl) on Dec 28, 2016 at 4:46am PST

More than 2 million people follow Rachel Brathen, an international yoga instructor and author who lives in Aruba. Brathen is also founder of OneOEight, a company for web-based yoga classes accessible on your computer, phone or tablet.

Michael James Wong’s “Boys Of Yoga,” @boysofyoga

We were all born somewhere different, but we are all here together now ✌ #boysofyoga • our BOY @victorchauyoga for @boysofyoga

A post shared by BOYSOFYOGA (@boysofyoga) on Feb 1, 2017 at 3:52am PST

Yoga instructor Michael James Wong created the project Boys of Yoga to get more men into the practice. “Some guys think yoga makes you less of a man,” he wrote of the project on Instagram. “The truth is it makes you a better one.” The Boys of Yoga Instagram feed features photos of men practicing yoga all over the world.

Laura Kasperzak, @laurasykora

We support the @LoveYourMelon organization and the @CUDenverLYMCrew because cancer sucks and we desperately need to find a cure! Love Your Melon is a nationwide organization in over 700 colleges and universities whose mission is to put a hat on every child battling cancer in the US and raise funds to support the fight against childhood cancer. 50% of the net proceeds of each purchase goes to pediatric cancer research and family support. . Pose inspired by @chubbypoptart ❤

A post shared by Laura Kasperzak (@laurasykora) on Feb 8, 2017 at 11:58am PST

More than 1 million people follow Laura Kasperzak for yoga inspiration. She does post solo poses, but often the yoga instructor’s practice is a family affair. Her son, daughter and husband are regulars on her mat and Instagram feed.

Chelsea Jackson Roberts, @chelsealovesyoga

Still thinking about how you want to begin your New Year? Join me and a room full of beautiful humans tomorrow at @greentreeyogala in Los Angeles There are only a few spots left, so reserve your space today by visiting the link in my bio. • This class is ideal for beginners who are just beginning, returning to, or interested in really getting grounded through accessible movement and breathing exercises. In other words, this is the perfect class for slowing down, grounding, and feeling the breath come alive✨Hope to see you there, #LosAngeles

A post shared by Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts (@chelsealovesyoga) on Dec 31, 2016 at 8:46am PST

Chelsea Jackson Roberts is not only a certified yoga instructor devoted to bringing the wellness benefits of the practice to marginalized communities. Roberts founded Yoga, Literature, and Art camp for teen girls at Spelman College in 2013.

Briohny Smyth and Dice Iida-Klein, @bryceyoga

"Mutual respect is the foundation of genuine harmony" - The Dalia Lama @actionhiro Wearing @aloyoga

A post shared by Briohny & Dice (@bryceyoga) on Jan 25, 2017 at 9:01pm PST

Co-parents Briohny Smyth and Dice Iida-Klein run yoga teacher trainings, classes and yoga workshops in exotic locations around the world. Their Instagram feed is full of posts from these travels. Next up? Koh-Samui, Thailand in July. Take us with you, please?

Jessamyn Stanley, @mynameisjessamyn

I almost cried during my interview with @selfmagazine when they asked about my experience with self hate- honestly, it's bizarre to me that I'm perceived as such a confident person when I spent such a huge chunk of my life buried under truly toxic body shame. And it's not like those feelings have completely dissipated- just like anyone, I have ups and downs. And I always roll my eyes whenever people draw the conclusion that yoga is the source of my body confidence. I mean, Instagram is littered with proof that an aggressive yoga asana practice can unintentionally sow the seeds of body negativity. But there's no doubt that yoga has made me stronger- but the physical strength isn't really the point, is it? If you want to watch me get choked up and talk about body shame, click the link in my Instagram header! Photo by @nadyawasylko (Btw, I can't remember who made this sports bikini but I EFFING LOVE IT and need it in every color. I only ever want to practice in my underroos and when the #teamSELF crew said "...are you cool with wearing this?" I almost started frothing at the mouth from excitement. THIS IS WHAT FAT GIRLS WANT. )

A post shared by Jessamyn (@mynameisjessamyn) on Sep 21, 2016 at 2:33pm PDT

More than 280,000 people can’t get enough of Jessamyn Stanley’s Instagram. Stanley is a certified yoga instructor based in North Carolina with a fierce body-positive attitude. Her book, Every Body Yoga, will be published in April 2017.

Caley Alyssa, @caleyalyssa

When things get a little crazy in your life where do you turn for peace, for clarity, for wisdom? What grounds you and illuminates your best course of action? _ For me, it's always nature. Mother Nature has a way of calming the storm (whether it's inside me or outside of me) and creating space for me to see clearly. It allows me a buffer zone to feel into the absolute best course of action to take for me. And to realize that sometimes my path might be very different than those around me. _ Now is a time for wisdom. Now is a time for clarity. Now is the time for you to gather your faculties and walk down YOUR path. Stand up for what you believe in the ways that ring true for you. But stand up either way. Take action either way. Do this with love, and compassion. For others and for yourself.

A post shared by Caley Alyssa (@caleyalyssa) on Jan 29, 2017 at 10:13am PST

Caley Alyssa used yoga to transition out of a nine-to-five job in finance into the career of her dreams. She now teaches yoga classes and retreats around the world. Her Instagram feed features yoga poses (and how to modify them), healthy food and travel.

Now, if you don’t mind us, we’re going to browse these accounts again and then settle into our Savasana.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

The Best Instagram Accounts To Follow For Yoga published first on http://ift.tt/2lnpciY

0 notes