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vacant--body · 3 years ago

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MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING: Su!c!de attempt, graphic description of bl00d, mentions of death, medical procedure talk, loss of pregnancy, PTSD, lots and lots of angst, mentions of drinking.

Female!reader, love triangle with Steve and Bucky (kinda?)

Word count: roughly 2,076

Please don't read if any of these warnings will trigger you :)

I'M SO SORRY PLEASE DON'T HATE ME

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Bucky's eyes snapped open, his advanced hearing honing in on the soft wails coming from down the hall. It was you, it always you. He inhaled sharply and pushed himself out of his warm bed, his dog tags clinking against his bare chest. It gets worse when Steve isn't here; your night terrors. He's the only one that can rock you back to sleep, soothing your tear stained cheeks and calming your raging mind. Bucky isn't very good at it, but he can get the job done.

His door slid open and he walked quietly down the hallway, careful not to wake anybody else up. Tony had to semi soundproof your room. When you first came to live in the compound, your screams would keep everyone up all night. Now only Bucky and Steve could hear your cries, which often made for sleepless nights. But lately it’s been getting better, which he was thankful for. Both for your sake and his sake.

Bucky stopped in front of your door, expecting it to just slide open like it normally does. But it didn't. Confused, he waved his hand in front of the sensor but it didn't budge. "Friday?" He yawned, annoyed. What couldn't Tony just put in normal doors? They're so much simpler. "What's wrong with the door?"

"It seems that Ms. Y/L/N has locked it." Strange. You never lock it.

"Well, unlock it." He snapped back at the AI.

"I cannot. She has over-ridden my capabilities to unlock it."

"What?" Bucky asked, suddenly more awake. The hairs on his arms stood up and a gut wrenching feeling began to churn in his stomach. He could hear you on the other side, still crying. "Y/N!" Bucky yelled pounding on the door. The cries grew harder. "Y/N open the door!"

"Go away!" You screamed. "Just go!" This wasn't a night terror, you were awake. “I don’t need you, Bucky!”

"Friday, get Tony down here." Bucky yelled, pounding on the door again. "Y/N please just open the door! Let me help!"

"Don't need your help." There was the sound of the bathtub starting up. "Just go."

"Bucky,” A tired voice groaned from behind him. Sam. "It's 2:30 in the morning, why in the hell are you screaming."

"Y/N locked us out." He muttered, pressing his ear against the door. He could hear you whimpering on the other side. "Friday can't open it."

"Friday, get Tony-"

"He is on his way." She replied back. "Ms. Y/N also disabled her cameras. I can't see inside there either."

"Y/N!" Bucky tried again, his voice cracking just enough for him to notice. Hopefully not enough for Sam to notice.

"Does someone wanna tell me why I am down here in the middle of the god damn night?" Another voice said behind them.

"Just get the fucking door open." Bucky snarled. Tony took note of the worry and urgency in his voice and unlatched a panel that was next to the door. He moved some wires around and the door hissed open.

Bucky rushed in and the state of your room hit him like a truck. It was a wreak. Your mattress was halfway off of its frame, your dresser was knocked over with all the clothes torn out, and there was a smashed chair in the corner. You had also punched out your mirror, making Bucky's footsteps crunch as he walked through her room. How did he not hear this? Why didn't he wake up? But that's not what bothered Bucky. His nose instantly picked up on a coppery smell that stung the inside of his nostrils, making him instantly nauseous. He pushed into the bathroom, where somehow the cupboard was shoved in front of.

The sight before him was enough to make him cry and vomit at the same time. You were submerged in the bathtub, the water stained a bright red color. A long shard of glass from the mirror was laying on the floor, stained with your crimson blood. Two deep long cuts had been carved into your forearms. The ringing in his ears slowly subsided and he heard the sound of either Tony or Sam dry heaving behind him. He wasn't sure who it was.

"Friday, prep medical bay. Get Banners ass up. Now." He heard Tony growl.

Bucky sunk to his knees, his sweatpants become stained with the blood soaked water that had sloshed over the edge. "Y/N." He muttered. She was pale. Too pale. "Y/N!" He yelled grabbing her by the shoulders. “Open your fucking eyes and look at me!" You didn't open her eyes, the only movement was coming from your chest. You were taking quick short breaths, which Bucky figured wasn't good. "Please don't do this to me, please. I need you, fuck-" He choked back a sob.

"Buck, we have to get her down to-" Before Sam could finish his sentence, Bucky was lifting you out of the water and took off towards the med bay.

Banner was already down there, a suturing kit already laid out. "How much blood has she lost?" He asked immediately as soon as Bucky came barreling through the doorway.

"A lot." Was all he could manage. He carefully laid you down on the cot. His thoughts were going a mile a minute. You were supposed to be getting better. Sam and Banner were supposed to be helping you, the therapy was supposed to be helping. Not killing you. Why wasn’t it helping? Why were you so selfish? How could you do that to us? To me, to Steve. To this whole team?

"Well good thing most of the team is A Positive so we have some on standby for her." Banner said. Bucky wasn't sure if he was talking to him or to himself.

Banner flushed out your wounds with what looked like water, and carefully began to stitch you up. Bucky noticed the slight shaking in his wrist and he pulled your skin together.

"Where is Steve?" Bucky whispered to Tony, not taking his eyes off of Y/N and Banner. For once, you looked like you were at peace. Your features were smoothed and relaxed, nothing like your previous state.

"His teams on their way back. ETA 4 hours." Tony whispered back.

A heavy silence fell over the med bay. Bucky felt drained. He couldn't keep his thought straight in his head, and it was numbing. He just kept asking the same thing. Why? You were doing so good. You were laughing, smiling, and actually making progress to talk to people outside your comfort zone. Of course you were still having night terrors, Sam said those wouldn't go away for a long time. But other than that you were fine. You said you were fine. He couldn't understand why.

Banner was done with one side. He moved over to the other and began to repeat the process, but one of the machines she was hooked up to began beeping rapidly. His head snapped up and his brows furrowed.

"Friday do a full body scan please." He grunted.

"What? What's wrong?" Bucky pleaded, his skin tightening and his stomach doing loops.

"Blood pressure is dropping. Not good." Was all he heard over the several machines firing at once.

"There is hemorrhaging. Location: uterus." Friday said back. "Surgery is recommended."

Banner quickly finished the last of the sutures and yanked your water and blood soaked sweatpants off. There was a large amount of blood pooling in between your legs.

"Bruce what is that?" Bucky yelled rushing over to them. "What's wrong with her, did she stab herself there?" He felt like he was going to vomit.

"Bucky-" He started as he fumbled with some tubing.

"What are you doing to her?!" Bucky yelled again his voice become more and more distressed. "You're gonna kill her please help her!"

"Tony get him the hell out of here!" Banner screamed finally, the Hulks voice peaking behind his anger and frustration.

Bucky was being yanked out of the bay by Sam and Tony. He could fight back easily, fight them off so he could be with you. But his legs were so shaky he could hardly stand on his own two feet. The windows that looked into the bay dimmed and Bucky caught one last look as Banner yanked down Y/N's underwear. A sob escaped from Buckys lips as he crumpled to the ground. What was happening now? Y/N must be so scared. He was so scared.

He felt that hot tears prick at his cheeks and dribbled down into his beard hair. He was crying. Crying for the first time in who knows how long. He couldn't loose you. You were the only one who truly understood Bucky. You meant too much to him.

"Buck-" Sam started but Bucky just cut him off.

"Leave me alone." He sobbed. It felt like a metal pipe had been shoved down Buckys throat. He couldn’t breathe. "Please just go away." Tony and Sam shared a look before the disappeared down the hallway.

He sat there for what seemed like days. But it was only hours. Soon enough Steve came jogging down the hallway to where Bucky sat.

"Buck." Steve gasped, kneeling down next to him. "What happened?"

"I thought she was having a night terrors." Bucky's voice was raw and it hurt to swallow. The crying must have stopped hours ago, but he couldn't remember when it ended. "But she locked me out. Tried to...tried to..."

"Oh god." Steve whimpered, understanding what he was saying. “Is she...?" Bucky shook his head.

"She started bleeding. I think Banners still doing surgery." Steve's face was screwed tightly together as he stood back up. Bucky couldn't tell what he was feeling. He paced the hallway for a bit before he slid down against the wall across from Bucky, his eyes blankly staring at the door. He could see the trembling in his chest when he inhaled.

They sat there in silence for about another hour, when suddenly, the doors to the med bay swung open. Banners eyes fell on them. He sighed heavily and put his hands in his pockets.

"What? What is it?" Bucky pleaded getting to his feet, which caused Steve to stand up.

"Is she okay?" Steve asked, his brows closely knit together.

"Yeah. She's stable. Woke up for a few minutes but she's sleeping now. I had to give her some medicine to calm her down. And I had to..." He trailed off. "Restrain her. She's very agitated." Bruce exhaled and wrung his hands together.

"Then what happened? Why did you have to do surgery." Bucky prodded. He could tell Banner was hiding something.

"The bleeding was caused by a mixture of shock and her blood pressure tanking. I couldn't-" He cleared his throat like he was keeping back tears. "I couldn't save the fetus. She miscarried."

It felt like someone had punched Bucky in the gut. Fetus? Miscarried? She was pregnant?

"From what I could tell she was about 15 weeks along. I ran the DNA because I wasn't...I wasn't sure who the father was."

"I had a child?" Steve whimpered. Tears were falling freely down his face.

"No, Steve.” He whispered softly. “Bucky, it was yours.”

"What? No. That's impossible." Steve scoffed. "You must have your science shit mixed up. There is no way."

"No, he's right." Bucky whispered, absolute shocking talking grip of his body.

"I'm sorry. It was a boy."

"What? No. No! It's wrong. Go test it again Banner! I know it's wrong!"

"Steve-"

"You were fucking her?!" Steve screamed, turning to Bucky. "You knew I was in love with her and you were fucking her?!"

"It was once Steve! Almost 3 months ago! We were drunk and you were away on a mission and I came onto her!" Bucky bargained, staring into the flames of his best friend’s eyes.

"You fucked my girl! My girl!" Steve was irate, barely able to contain himself.

"She isn't yours Steve, you're not even together!"

"I told her that I loved her! And you went and fucked her anyway! What, do you always follow your dick!? I bet that's why she refuses to look at you!"

"No, she told me that she loved me!" Bucky screamed back, his voice echoing in the hallway as silence washed over them. Bucky took a deep breath. "She said it first. And I told her it was a mistake and should be with you." He said quietly.

Steve let out an animalistic growl, and his fist made contact with the side of Bucky's cheek and the back of his head smashed against the wall.

"I love you Bucky." Y/N's soft voice said. Your head was currently buried in Bucky's bare chest. "It's you. It's always has been." You whispered.

Bucky reached down and cupped her cheek, making you look at him. He has been waiting to hear that since they first met. He didn't believe in love at first sight but ever since he first laid eyes on you, he started to believe.

"You don't mean that, doll." He muttered back. Alcohol was still running its course through their bodies. "You're drunk."

"Drunk words are a sober mans thoughts."

"Y/N-"

"I want you Bucky. Just you. No more going back and forth between you and Steve. I can't do that anymore, Bucky. Please believe me." You pleaded, your large eyes staring into his.

"You deserve someone like Steve, not like me. You can't love me." He sighed, letting go of your face.

"I love Steve. He’s amazing and kind, but I love I have for him isn’t like how I love you.”

"No. You love the thought of me." He snapped, rising off the bed. "But you don't love me Y/N. I promise you, you don't. You shouldn't." He gathered his clothes from the floor and shimmied into them. He reached the door and stopped at the sound of your voice.

"But-" Bucky winced at the sound of your voice as it was filling with tears.

"I'm sorry." He whispered turning away, his own eyes brimming with tears. "I don't deserve you. You can't love me. I'm sorry."

part 2

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spitpr1ncess · 3 years ago

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BRUISED BODIES CHAPTER 3 LEVI ACKERMAN X READER

(not my image)

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Gentle rays of sun push through the curtains that protect you from the outside world, they fall like precious feathers across your sleepy face, you rouse from your restful slumber and bring yourself to open the curtains fully, letting mother nature embrace you as you appreciate another day alive. You have an alarm clock but you find the natural light is much more kind to you. You take a deep inhale and breathe life into your lungs, you close your eyes and scrunch them as tight as they will go as you exhale, letting any tension and anxieties about the day evaporate.

You set about making your bed, the beautiful ivory sheets are pulled taught and your duck down pillows plumped, you fold your nightdress and set it down on the chair next to your window. A few years ago, Boss had bought you a record player for your 18th birthday, and it was crisp mornings like this that called for some soft, classical music. You place a record down gently and lift the stylus, as it makes contact your room is filled with ethereal sounds, you hum and dance around slowly, opening your heavy wooden wardrobe to pick something out that will adequately satiate Boss’s hunger.

You hold up a few lingerie sets in front of your nimble body and stare into the mirror, you’ve lost a significant amount of weight the last few months, you notice your chest has all but ceased to exist at this point, Boss will not be happy about that. You decide on a soft cream set, a corset that pinches your waist in and pushes your chest up to its maximum capacity, with beautiful satin panties that you’ve altered yourself. With your weight loss, a lot of the clothes you wear leave you swimming in them, you stitched darts into the front, pulling them in and creating a feminine silhouette that accentuates your barely-there curves. You pull a pastel pink silk gown over your arms and set about applying a little make up. Pinching your cheeks and lips to draw the blood to them, you give yourself a natural blush. You pull a dark brown pencil through your brows, add white to the waterline of your eye and brush a few strokes of mascara over your lashes, finishing with a little clear gloss on your lips. Last night you’d painted your finger and toenails a soft cream, you add some pearl earrings and the necklace that Boss had given you when he first took you on.

You give yourself the once over in the mirror, making sure to not look too close, you figure that you don’t look as exhausted as you usually do, and for all intents and purposes, are ready. You wait. Its ten minutes to ten, when Boss is due, you sit patiently on the edge of your bed, your heart hammering in your chest, you’d stopped the music a few minutes prior, you know Boss likes silence, and you want to appease him. You roll your pearl earring between your index finger and your thumb anxiously, you hear the gate buzz and Jools answer. It’s a few moments before you hear his heavy footing stalks toward your door, you glare at the golden door knob, it turns, painstakingly slow. He knows you’re apprehensive and he likes to remind you of that. The door finally pushes open, assaulting the empty space between it.

You stare at him, he looks you over. He looks as grimy as ever, he is a short and stout man, with snow white hair and a beard to match, the golden tooth cap that covers one of his front teeth blinds you as he smiles from ear to ear, if you weren’t under so much pressure to please him, you might’ve thrown up at the sight of him.

“There’s my girl, as innocent as ever,” he looks straight through you before turning, closing and ensuring to lock the door. “don’t keep me waiting, stand up.” The instructions are clear as day, you stand on your weak legs, focusing everything you have on not letting Boss see how anxious you are. He steps toward you and reaches out; he draws a line from your bottom lip to your right nipple with his thumb. Your corset protects you from feeling his perverted touch, suddenly you are over the moon with your choice of undergarment. He picks at the hem of your pretty pink gown, he lifts it and you raise your arms instinctively, it’s soon removed and discarded on the floor behind him like a rag.

“I thought you might like this one, Sir.” Your breathing hitches as you await his verdict.

“You are right, little girl.” You feign a smile and give him your best doe-eyed look. He sighs, tired, turned on or frustrated you cannot tell, you wait anxiously before taking your next breath.

“I’m going to inspect you now, I have to make sure you are worth keeping, little Olive.” He moves to stand behind you and begins to unlace your corset. He easily removes it and places it carelessly on the bed. He steps so close you can feel him breathing down your neck, he looks down and observes you, with his hands reaching out he cups a breast in each hand. He places his thumbs and index fingers over your nipples and rolls them roughly, his cold, hard fingers fighting to get a physical reaction, you are not attracted to Boss in the slightest so it is hard to pretend you want him to continue, but if you close your eyes and think hard enough, you can just about picture somebody else, it’s what makes this whole ordeal that little bit more manageable.

“You’ve lost weight.” He observes, you panic.

“I have been working such long days, Sir, it was not on purpose, I promise.” You are apprehensive for what he will say next, to your surprise, he isn’t angered, in fact, he apologises.

“I have obviously not been supplying enough food, I will do better, and you shall have less work.” he continues his silent abuse on your tiny body, pulling your soft, brown hair over your left shoulder and continuing to roll your right nipple. He leans in and inhales your scent, you feel him let out a low growl, you can’t help the physical shudder that courses through you, you worry that you will start convulsing at any second, but Boss must have taken your shuddering as a sign to continue, something in him changes as he kicks your legs apart with his foot. Standing there in just those soft, silk panties, you are vulnerable, alone, completely at his mercy. You suck back a sob and picture all the times you have been at a mans mercy, you pray to a God that you do not even believe in that this will end soon, you are exhausted, completely shattered, absolutely broken. You just want peace.

He reaches his left hand into the front of your panties and feels your softness, “You are a good girl, keeping all tidy for me. I bet you even oiled yourself up this morning in anticipation. You did, didn’t you?” You can sense the dirty excitement in his voice, you nod, meekly in response, you have learnt very quickly that you need to sell whatever sick fantasy Boss is having to keep living comfortably, how you must remain his little bitch, to get your own way, eventually. You close your eyes and let go of any shred of dignity you were still grasping onto, you begin to grind into his hand, silently begging for him to give you something, to make him feel like you need him, he lets out low, perverted, guttural moan.

“You’re desperate for me, aren’t you?” It’s working.

“Please Sir. Touch me, please.” A silent tear breaks loose and wets your cheek, his erection tents and you feel it pressing against the arch of your back, you dare to reach a hand behind to palm him, he moans, without warning, you feel a finger roughly enter you, Boss layers his fingers with expensive and unneeded gold signet rings and although you hate to admit it, the cool of the jewellery feels fucking good. His alien finger curls upwards as your breathing hitches, feeling the golden rings rub against your hole.

“You are as tight as the day I took you as a young girl.”, you cringe at him bringing up your broken childhood as another silent tear falls, you try to ignore his perverted comment as you continue to palm his erection from behind you, he abruptly pulls his finger out as you are violently bent over your bed, he tears your pretty panties down to your knees.

“Put your hands above your head, and don’t move them, I’m going to inspect your holes now.” You feel him as he gapes you wide open, running a finger from your sensitive clit, to your pussy, he circles it, slipping a finger in to the first knuckle, you sense the second about to plunge into you when there is a strong knock at the door.

“I TOLD YOU NOT TO INTERRUPT ME.” You are frightened by how angered the man looming above you sounds. Afamiliar cold voice answers back. “Sir, it really cannot wait. Its E.S.” silence befalls your little room as the tension rises, you’re face down with your hands above your head, a finger in your cunt and your ass spread wide. You’re thankful there is a door separating you from the voice outside.

“Do not move, little girl.” You are frightened by the anger behind his words, you remain where you are, Boss stands up straight and strides to the door opening it wide.

“I will go, you are to take over here, make sure she is worth keeping, I’ll expect extensive feedback on my desk by eight tomorrow.” And with that, you hear his footsteps fade as he paces toward to exit.

You suddenly realise that someone is standing at your door and heat flushes to your ears, you jump up snatching what little dignity you could salvage as you speedily pull your panties back up, you protect your chest with your arms. Glaring at you, you meet the same pair of eyes you did yesterday afternoon, you are mortified, you try to say anything but nothing comes out and you stand there with your mouth wide open.

“You’ll catch flies like that, whore.” Levi retorts, this is the last thing you wanted to happen right now, or ever really. You barely have time to think before you instinctively bite back; “You’ll catch a slap if you keep staring at me like that,” you immediately regret saying anything, “what I mea…” you are interrupted as he strides toward you at a sickening pace, roughly grabbing your delicate throat, you whimper in response and a small smirk forms at the corners of your mouth.

“You’re disgusting.” Levi practically spits, this piques your interest.

“Are you going to inspect me, Mr Ackerman?” You should’ve closed your stupid mouth, but something inside of you wants to antagonise him, needs to antagonise him.

“If I had a choice, I’d not step within fifty metres of you.” He doesn’t hesitate for a second and you almost feel bad, but your mouth works faster than your brain.

“But you don’t have a choice, so are you going to?” He releases his tight grip of your neck and spins you so effortlessly you may as well have weighed the same as a stuffed toy, the next thing you know, you are face down in your mattress. With his palm forcing you down, he spits in your face, “you deserve nothing more than a beating followed by a rough fucking, I’ll teach you a few things about respect.” He’s angry, and you’re finally excited, you asked for something new, something different, and here it was, pinning you down and spitting in your face. Your heart swells.

You bait him, your next mistake.

“You think you’ll be able to teach me about respect? I apologise Mr Ackerman, but you are the man who just spat in my face. At least aim for my mouth next tim…” you are cut off as grabs a pillow and forces it over your face.

“I’m sick of the noise coming from you and I can’t stand the sight of you.” Levi stands up straight, letting the pillow go so it sits over your face as he removes his jacket, you hear him fold it and place it tidily on your chair, this humours you and you let out a muffled giggle. Levi pauses to look at you before he chooses to ignore you, giggling and with a pillow over your face, ass up in the air, he almost grabs it before continuing with his before task. He pulls a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and kneels, leaning over you and removes the pillow.

“Open.” His command is simple and you immediately follow, like a little puppy, his jaw tenses as he stuffs the handkerchief in your mouth.

“I do not like you, or even respect you, but I am not a monster, so, as I inspect you, if anything makes you uncomfortable, you are to raise your hand and I will stop. Understand?” You nod meekly and hide the blush rushing to your cheeks, never in your life has someone shown you such kindness, much less someone who so say hated you.

“You’ll use your hands now and spread yourself so I can inspect you now.” He sure wasn’t being unbearable, but he sure wasn’t living up to the beating and rough fucking he had promised you, his energy had changed, he was almost soft, or maybe you’d imagined that. Levi pulls a tight-fitting leather glove out of his pocket and slips his hand into it. He steps up behind you and grasps your little legs, and like you are nothing more than a doll, lifts you up onto the mattress with the rest of your top half.

“Keep your head down but stay on your knees,” he runs his hand over your soft rump and presses the arch of your back down, “well trained pets arch their back; it gives a better view to their owners.” The way he calls you pet makes you quiver with anticipation and you feel the slick building between your thighs. Levi must have sensed it because he pulls them down over your ass, painstakingly slow, you’re sure he’s doing it do you’ll feel them pull away from the slick forming at your embarrassingly eager cunt. Letting them fall to where your knees are planted he moves his face dangerously close to your slick covered hole, you feel his warmth in places you have never had touched before. You feel his finger circle your clit, being gently with his touch, sending shivers up your spine as a result. You dare to lean back into his touch. Men never touch you this way, really its only ever you who has circled your swollen bud with your nimble fingers, chasing your own orgasm, a real orgasm, not like the ones you orchestrate for the male gaze.

You wait for Levi to say something but he doesn’t, instead, he increases the pressure to the circles he is tracing, causing your breath to catch in your throat, you let out the tiniest mewl praying that he doesn’t hear it, he pulls his hand away.

“You are not supposed to be enjoying this, whore.” You let out a defeated sigh. Levi doesn’t move for a few minutes; you blush as you feel his eyes boring into your slick covered holes, you cannot see, but he is contemplative, he is thinking, wondering. You pray that he will say something else. Once again, he does not, he simply circles your swollen lips and probes his leather clad middle finger in. You swear you hear him let out a strained breath, but you’re not sure, your head is spinning and men don’t really take pleasure in stuff like this, do they?

He pushes in again, the furthest knuckle meeting your lips, he curls his finger upwards and rubs it against your walls, you know better than to make a sound, slowly, he pulls his finger out and you cringe at your wetness, your body must cringe physically as well because Levi picks up on it.

“Do you not like the sounds? To me, it is one of the best parts. I like to hear myself playing with the holes I fuck. It is a reminder of how depraved you are, how wet you get being manhandled.” With that he forces both his middle and ring finger into you, he curls up and rubs against your walls again, pulling his fingers back out, thrusting them back inside and repeating it over. You mewl again, but this time he does not stop.

“Listen to yourself, pet.” He continues his internal assault, though usually where you hate the assault left by men, you were enjoying his, you were hungry for it.

“Can you feel it building? Inside of your tiny body? Chase the end for me, I want you to.” Levi leans in and spits on where his fingers continue to scoop out of you like he was deseeding a melon, you squeeze your eyes shut and let the fire build in the pit of your stomach, you cry louder, your breathing speeding up, this pleasing him, Levi spanks you hard, his hands are heavy, and it hurts like hell, you feel your body about to reach its peak, you’re not sure how long you can hold off.

“I’m so… I’m so close… Please.” you try to cry out, but it comes as pathetic muffles through the handkerchief Levi had shoved inside your mouth, with that, he stops dead. In what feels like a nano second, you are flipped onto your back, held to the bed with Levi grasping your neck again. He straddles you, you cannot breathe he fists your throat so tightly you fear you may pass out, but you do not signal for him to stop, not once

His eyes stare into yours, they are full of lust; causing you to wonder if he secretly was enjoying this, that he may even like you, he shakes his head as if he heard your thought, you try your luck and dare to lift your hand and palm through his jet-black hair.

“Do not touch me.” He warns as he pins your hand above your head, his eyes turn back to the cold glare you’ve become quite acquainted with, he stands up and pulls you with the hand that was pinned against the bed.

You are thrown onto the cold wooden floor and your knees echo a cracking sound as they make contact, it stings, like an injured animal you try to crawl away but Levi is hot on your trail, he steps on your leg, just above your ankle, you are pinned, you try hard to wriggle out, but he is not weak. His shoe is freezing cold on your skin, the pain is manageable as he is holding back a little but you can feel a bruise forming already.

He violently pulls his belt undone and yanks his trousers down releasing his sizeable cock from the restraints of his boxers, “You’re making this harder for yourself, just stop wriggling.” You comply, feeling tired now, your little body starting to feel the abuse given to you over the last half hour, Levi’s eyes show a little pity as he flips you back onto your front, you knowingly kneel and push your holes on display for him as he removes his leather glove, with his trousers crumpled around his knees, he lines up behind you, he smacks your bare ass a few more times before collecting your slick on his fingers then coating his straining hardness with it before he palms it himself a few times. He presses the very tip against your hot lips before sheathing himself inside you completely.

Levi is much bigger than the men you usually take and you cry out and cover your own mouth with your hand, he reaches and pulls both of your arms tight behind you, grasping them both with one of his stern hands and the other continues to assault your ass cheeks with hard smacks.

“Don’t silence yourself, I want you to serve me as you would serve any other man, I want to hear you cry out, I want to hear you beg for me, I want to hear you come for me. Do you understand, pet?” You choose to stay silent, instead spitting out the handkerchief.

“I understand that you want me to do my job, I’m not stupid y’know.” A stupid, snide remark from you as he chokes you again, his fingers pressing into your windpipe. You’re sure he will kill you if he presses any harder. Levi slaps you hard, once, twice, thrice, you feel blood pool in your mouth as you realise he has cut your lip, you don’t hesitate as you spit in his face, the blood painting an ugly picture.

He licks his lips and contemplates his next move, he bucks his hips into you hard, you cry out, in pain or in pleasure, you are not sure but he continues to thrust in and out of you, reaching so deep inside you that you feel like breaking, yet you do not raise your hand. He releases the grasp on your arms, and they fall forward to support you as you are fucked, rough.

Levi reaches a hand around your legs and feels for your clit. He begins to rub slow circles again, and you feel it radiate deep inside your little body, he is unrelenting on his mission to make you come.

“Don’t hold back. I can feel you’re getting close.”, he reaches his other hand and pinches your left nipple between his fingers, he twists it hard and you mewl.

“Please don’t stop. Please. Please I want to come.” You’re barely audible as you practically whisper through your moans, the pleasure from Levi is unbearable, as t reaches its peak you see stars, you’ve never come like this before, like he truly cares about your pleasure, your body trembles and you come under his control, you can’t help but hold your breath as he releases his fingers from their current roles, and they grab your hips and fuck you back into him.

Continuing to come undone as Levi chases his own finish he grunts as he unloads ropes of come deep inside you, it’s warm and you welcome the feeling of being filled, suddenly, you are empty and his cock is gone, you feel his seed dripping out of you, your eyes grow heavy and you feel your chest heaving, the last thing you see is Levi scooping you up into his arms, you swear you saw a look of softness across his face, a look of hurt.

When you awaken, you are tucked into bed, a large t-shirt swallowing your sore body, you sit up and your head spins, it’s is dark outside and there is a glass of water and a small note on your bedside table, you sip from the glass and apprehensively thumb the note.

“I’m sorry” it reads. Levi. You cringe as you remember begging him for your orgasm. You’re pulled from your thoughts as your door quietly opens and Jools enters.

“Are you okay Olive?” he sounds genuinely concerned, “you’re covered in bruises… did he hurt you?” He looks away, clearly uncomfortable, again, you cringe as you recall the experience.

“I am okay Jools, I promise. How did I get to bed?” You expect Jools to say that he came and rescued you, but he doesn’t, instead he hesitates before beginning, “Levi… He, well, he bathed you, he applied creams, washed your hair, and he put you into bed. He hung around for a few hours, y’know. In case you awoke. Then he asked for some paper, wrote you a note and left.” You smile at that knowledge, regardless of what the note says, you feel that he wants to see you again.

“What did the note say?” Jools questions.

“Nothing important, just an apology, its weird”.

“Oh. Okay. If he really hurt you, you are to tell me. It is not usual for Levi to… Engage with women like he did with you. His behaviour was strange I don’t trust him”.

You look at Jools, he reaches out to touch your face, it aches, you remember the blows to your face, you are probably bruised there, too. “I am fine Jools, I was just doing my job, I am better for it, considering I didn’t have to engage with Boss!” You feign a smile, though Jools can see its fake, he trusts you enough to talk to him when you are ready.

“You had better go to bed then, Levi paid off your afternoon caller, by the way, I’m not sure about him, so be careful, please.” He turns and leaves, the door closes and you lay your heavy head back on your pillows, a curious shadow lurks by your window, but you miss it, falling into a deep slumber.

Just some peeping Tom, probably.

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everyhowlmarksthedead · 4 years ago

Text

GET IN THE RING.

Angel Reyes x Reader

Anon asked: angel reyes x reader in which a fight (you two are like frenemies) leads to sex

Word Count: 1.8k

Warnings: NSFW, smut.

Thanks to my lovely beta reader @starrynite7114 💘

Author comments: This is the first part of Get In the Car. I hope you all enjoy. Gif credits to: @angels-reyes

Tag list: @starrynite7114 @chibsytelford @dazzledamazon @mara-mpou @sammskellington @gemini0410 @1-800-imagines @briana-mishell24 @sassymox @whyisgmora @aquamento @sadeyesgf ✨ (if you wanna be tagged, send me a message!)

You break in laughter because of one of the bad jokes that Tranq usually does. You're sitting on the couch with your legs over the next table with a beer between your hands. Taking a break from car scrapping. Bishop and Taza are playing pool talking loudly about the last trip they did, cause they almost fucked up but, as always, they safely made it home. Some motorbikes ride the front yard, parking next to the others. And you don't give it any importance listening to the boys laughing, till you hear a hard crash. Your heartbeat stops for a while. Everyone inside the clubhouse is staring at you. Your blood starts to boil, jumping off of the sofa to run towards your car.

Angel is pale. So pale, trying to cover whatever that happened. EZ, Coco and Gilly don't know where to hide themselves. You notice the strange way his motorbike is parked.

“I swear I'm gonna fix it!” Angel is terrified, and you can see it on his face.

You two have never been best friends, more like co-workers who respect each other. But sometimes, you want to kill him. For example, right now, you definitely want to kill him. The rest of the crew is behind you, shaking their heads while Bishop rubs his temple. Your car is the most precious possession you have, being the last present that your father gave you before he died. You love the car as you could love your own child. So, a tear is running down your cheek when you push him away.

On the left side of the bumper is a dent without paint and the headlight is smashed. You kneel with your trembling hands trying not to touch the bodywork. Your Mustang is an old model, so fixing it is going to cost you a lot of money and time. Especially for the painting. You could destroy his bike as payback, but even if you know it is an accident, you need some kind of revenge.

“Get in the ring.” You say in a whisper, with your eyes fills of tears and a hoarse tone of voice in your throat.

“What?” He asks, chuckling.

And that only makes everything worse. Getting up, you tangle your fingers on his shirt.

“Get. In. The. Fucking. Ring”. You repeat. Slowly. So close to him that you could touch his lips with yours.

“He said he's gonna fix it, mami.” Coco intermediates, trying to calm the situation.

“I'm not gonna fight with ya.” Angel says, removing your grip on his shirt.

You smile softly, licking your inner lip, before hitting his nose with your right fist. The oldest Reyes falls to the floor, and even if Taza and Tranq try to catch you, you're faster than them. Practically jumping on top of him to continue hitting him. And Angel tries to defend himself, punching you on your abdomen, to make you fall by his side. There's blood on his face and you can't breathe well, coughing for a second, before the Mayans manage to get you up and separate you from the other.

“I’m gonna fucking kill you, Reyes, I swear!”

“It was a fucking accident, you’re fucking crazy! You broke my nose!”

“‘I’m gonna break you something more! Let me go! Let me go!” You yell at him, squeezing under Tranq's strong arms.

Two shots in the air have your attention, freezing your blood and moves. You turn to Bishop, with an arm raised up and his gun in his hand. He looks upset and you understand him. But they should think about how they would feel if someone crashed their bikes. Tranq finally lets you go, fixing your shirt when he does.

“Angel you're not gonna ride till her car is fixed.” Bishop declares.

“What?”

You chuckle in silence because, at least, it's something.

“And you...” The president points at you, while you cross your arms and lift your chin with some pride on the gesture. “You're gonna fix him up.”

“What? He has two hands, what the hell, Bishop? He can do it by himself!” You claim with a frown.

“Don't yell at me again, you hear me? Shut the fuck up and do it.” His voice is so calm that it scares you more than anything.

You swallow, cleaning your tears with the back of your hands, full of anger. With a simple nod, you walk towards the clubhouse through the open door. And you can hear the heavy steps of the oldest Reyes following you cautiously, in case that you try to punch him again. Crossing the hallway to the main bathroom and opening the medical kit, you grab some cotton, two stitches and a bottle of surgical alcohol.

“Sit.” You just say, pointing to the toilet.

“Hey, I'm truly sorry.” He replies as he follows your instructions.

“Shut up.” You try to breathe, long enough not to hit him again.

Kneeling again and making you some space between his legs, you wet the cotton in alcohol breaking it into two pieces, for every hole. Angel growls closing his eyes hard, and you could have been more careful but it's part of your revenge. The nose isn't broken but, even so, you stick one of the stitches on the bridge of it pulling the skin closer, hoping that it also helps with cutting the bleeding.

After it, with some more cotton you clean his face. He sighs for a moment, grabbing your wrist to grab your attention.

“Coco pushed me and my bike fell on your car. I know, I know what it means to you, and I'm truly sorry, (Y/N).” He says then with a soft tone.

You let go of his hand, shaking your head as if you wanted to downplay it, because it doesn't have much more solution. Getting up, you clean your hands with water and soap in the sink, drying them on a towel. But, when you're about to leave the bathroom, Angel closes the door on your face.

“Could you please talk to me? Say something. Whatever.” He demands, sounding... desperate?

“Like what? Like that I'm fucking tired of all your foolishness and your actions without thinking?”

“It. Was. An. Accident.” He defended.

“Then fix it, and stop pissing me off.” You try to open the door again, but he closes it. “You're still doing it.”

“'Forgive me?” He asks, starting to make you lose the little patience you have left.

“No.”

“Then, you're not going anywhere”. Angel rests his back against the door, locking it, cross-armed.

“Fine! You got it! Now, let me go. I have work to attend to.”

“A kiss.” He says pointing at his cheek while he leans towards you.

You snort rubbing your eyes with two fingers, shaking your head for a while.

“If you turn your face, I'm gonna rip off your balls.” You threaten him, before holding his chin to press your lips over his beard. “Now, let me go.”

“Another one.”

“Angel, I am not in the mood to play one of our ga...”

He interrupts by kissing you. At first, you can't move. You don't have any reaction. Only your mouths pressed against the other. And you want to run away when your cheeks start to redden, but he locks you between his body and the closed door.

One of his hands travels to a side of your neck, with his lips tasting yours slowly, and his free arm surrounding your waist. No, you can't run away from him, and you're not even sure if you want to do it. Your mouth and your desire betray you, falling into his claws. He puts the hand on your nape wrapping your throat, straining one leg between yours. His knee pushing you to the limit, rubbing your crotch, while you fight against yourself to not moan, drowning every one.

“I bet you're fucking wet.” He whispers against your lips.

“I'm more dry than the desert, Reyes.” You say back, pushing him away with both hands on his chest.

You're trying to recover your breath, resting your weight against the door. But you're not gonna open it.

“Okay... Plan ‘b’.” He nods chuckling, before lifting you up, hitting your back to the wood and his fingers nailed on your ass.

His lips are now attacking your neck, sucking, biting and licking your skin till you finally set free a heavy gasp with a hand on his head, pushing him closer. His waist is moving between your legs, looking for more friction to satisfy his hunger. One of Angel's hands travels to the aperture of your work jumpsuit, straining it inside the clothes. Sliding his middle finger in you, making you growl, he laughs against your lips.

“You fucking liar.” He mutters fingering you faster, with the clear intention to make you scream out his name. “Don't be so fucking proud, mi dulce... Ask me to fuck' ya.”

His orbs are burning with lust, as are yours. You swallow your saliva, with your mouth next to his, looking how much he's enjoying pounding you and adding a second finger.

“Shit, Angel.” You leaned your head back against the door.

“What'? You wanna cum, huh?” He asks playing with your mind, dragging his teeth over your collarbone.

Yes, you want to cum. You need it. His hand are fucking you so hard that you can't fight against your body and every reaction he provokes on it. Devouring his lips desperate, moving your hips above his fingers feeling more needy than ever, while his tongue finds yours pressing it.

“Cum for me, mami... C'mon.” Angel begs with his forehead resting against yours, shaky breath and eyes closed. He really wants it, and you too.

“Harder, papi... Do it harder.”. You ask him, taking it as a command.

His fingers moving deeper, pounding you as hard as you ask 'cause your wishes are an order to the oldest Reyes. Your legs trembling, his darkest gaze on yours and you biting your inner lip. Moaning louder, Angel has to cover your mouth with his free hand, feeling the orgasm running all over your body.

“Oh, god, Angel!” You drown against his palm.

He laughs in silence, sinking his face on your neck, satisfied with the result. You hate him. You hate him so much, and he's gonna pay for it. Three knocks on the door push you two out of your own atmosphere, claiming for your attention.

“This is not what I meant when I said ‘fix him’. Get back to work!” Bishop says between laughters, before walking away from the bathroom.

“I'm gonna fuck you inside your car, when I fix it.”

“You better do, Reyes.”

“Fix your car, or fuck you, mi dulce?”

#mayans mc #mayans mc x reader #mayans mc imagine #mayans x reader #angel reyes x reader #angel reyes #angel reyes fanfiction

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pedros-mustache-main · 4 years ago

Text

if you leave before the start (i)

summary: he’s your husband, but that doesn’t mean you have to be his wife.

word count: 7.7k+

series masterlist

chapter warnings: arranged marriage ceremony, unlikeable reader (y’all she is a straight up meanie!), alcohol, language, innuendo

glastonbury, somerset, england. 1840.

according to your father, it is a good match, a very good one indeed.

he has wealth, status, a sizable estate. you have a healthy dowry and connections to parliament by virtue of your father. he will give you a safe life in the countryside, and you will provide him access to the inner-workings of government and an heir to carry on his family name. together, you will live in wedded bliss—no troubles, no worries to turn your hair gray, but perhaps the odd village scandal to keep things interesting.

really, you should be happy. dozens of your friends have gone to the marriage bed and found themselves sated by romance and fripperies. you are no different from say, sally, who met her intended the day of her wedding and wrote to you a week later that her husband proved to be a delightful man with amiable qualities. in all truth, you are merely one in a long line of women who have been pawned off to the highest bidder. you are not the first to meet such a fate, and you certainly won’t be the last. there is nothing unique about your situation. your father reminds you of such when you smash a chinoiserie vase to the floor at his pronouncement that yes, you are to be married to gwilym lee on the first of the month and you will be quiet about your rage.

god, you hate them both.

you’ve seen this gwilym lee only once, on the day of his meeting your father. you’d crouched at the top of the stairs, peering over the railing into the vestibule below where your father stood with mr. lee, shaking hands over the arrangement. from your vantage point, you could see mr. lee was tall and well-built, that he had a soft, genial face, and a well-trimmed beard peppering his jaw. when he’d laughed at your father’s joke—the timbre of his voice filling the hall—you’d risen to your feet, rushed to your room, and slammed the door behind you with enough force to ensure everyone in the house knew of your distaste for the matter.

insufferable prat. where did he find the nerve? entering your home, passing pleasantries with your father, all the while intending to steal you from the nest like a common viper? it makes your blood boil.

so much so that on your wedding day, stood before the mirror in your room, a cream gown pinching your waist and pearl-pins digging into your scalp, you want nothing more than to take ahold of the mirror and ram your knee into the glass, shattering the pane. you hate it; you hate every bit of this. and your father is sorely mistaken if he thinks you will go quietly.

you look magnificent, this you will concede. the gown your mother bought suits you well, though it is a tad demure for your taste. it’s silky to the touch, the short sleeves capped by an inch of lace. your back is held straight by the tightness of your corset, and the neckline exposes the crest of your shoulders. it’s simple—nothing compared to the gown rebecca wore on her wedding day—yet it should leave those in attendance breathless. you smirk as you glance over your shoulder, your eyes running over the cloth buttons decorating your spine and the swath of garment circling your feet. yes, though plain, it will do; you are the diamond which sparkles within the box, the true gift.

a knock sounds on the door of your bedroom, and you shoo your maidservant to answer the call.

“your mother, miss,” abby whispers.

you huff, twisting side to side as you smooth a hand over your stomach. is that a wrinkle? you frown as you pick at the fabric. “let her in.”

the door creaks as abby widens the opening, and your mother, with all her self-important and put on airs, sweeps into the room. she’s dressed in her statement color of purple, and a heavy necklace rests around her slender neck, the diamonds glittering in the light pouring through your bedroom window. she stands behind you, her delicate hands on your shoulders, her gaze shimmering with unshed tears.

“oh, my dear,” she says. “you look marvelous.”

you arch a brow in a silent challenge. “i know.”

if your mother sees the bait dangling before her, she does not rise to the occasion. she merely tightens her grip on your shoulders, the edges of her smile stiffening. “i’ve brought you something. an early wedding gift.” removing her hands from your shoulders, she motions to abby, who brings forward a square, velvet box. “this was my mother’s before me and her mother’s before her. now it is yours.”

abby opens the box to reveal a gold necklace within. the necklace chain is thin, the heart shaped locket at the end trimmed with yellow garnet stones. four small birthstones, each no bigger than the width of the nail on your pinky, rest in the center of the heart.

“the birth stones of your family tree,” your mother says, noting the way your eyes linger on the colored stones. “i’ve added yours—sapphire—next to mine.”

emerald, aquamarine, ruby, sapphire. four women, four lives, four marriages arranged by money, position, and power.

you wave your fingers in dismissal. “it’s gaudy, mother.”

in the reflection of the mirror, there is no mistaking your mother’s disappointment. it swallows her face like a shadow and erases the single spark of joy dancing around her irises. she looks down, fiddles with her fingers, and you are struck by her frailty in that moment. she’s haughty on her good days, a tyrant on her worst, but she’s never frail. you open your mouth, unsure of what will come out, but then you see her wedding ring and you look away.

“tell me, mother, since i am to be married in much the same fashion as you: will this gwilym insist on sleeping with the maid staff as your husband does?” her head lifts, fire lurking beneath her gaze. you narrow your stare. “when was the last time father laid his hand on you outside of the public eye?”

there’s a long pause as your mother considers you with her fire-laced eyes. you can feel the heat of her glower on the back of your neck, and you stand straighter.

“i’m sorry i ever birthed you.” her voice is low, gravelly.

you snort in amusement. “at least on this we can agree.”

she shakes her head, and a curl tightly wound against her scalp breaks free of its pin. “you will be a curse upon your husband. i am sorry for him.”

“i take that as a compliment. any man willing to all but purchase his bride deserves nothing but a wretched wife.”

turning, you lift a veil from the end of your bed. you hand it to abby and lower your knees to aid her in the process of pinning the veil to the crown of your head. once your veil is attached, abby slides a stem of baby’s breath behind each ear. you apply the finishing touches—pearl drop earrings, elbow-length gloves, a pair of silk heeled boots, a pale pink bow over the laces—then face your mother.

“well?” you spread your arms. “how do i look?”

your mother reaches out and brushes her fingers along the edge of your gloves. “like a dream.”

you tilt your head as you gather the train of your veil from the floor and shove it in abby’s waiting hands. “funny,” you say. “this feels a lot more like a nightmare.”

sidestepping your mother, you glance over your bedroom one last time then hurry down the stairs to the overcrowded foyer. as per your father’s request, the household staff have arranged themselves in two formations on either side of the room. it is unlikely you will return to this house after the marriage ceremony. you parents will come and visit you at mr. lee’s manor home, and you will never have the pleasure of darkening the halls of your childhood home again. thus, it is time to say goodbye and, loathe as you are to admit it, you feel a lump of emotion rise in your throat as you survey the faces you’ve seen slip from room to room or wait behind every corner your entire life.

your father stands before the door, already cloaked and ready with his top hat. he nods to the staff and then meets your gaze. he beams with pride, with pleasure, and you feel sick to your stomach.

“well, i dare say it is about time we made our way to the church.” his shoes clip against the marble floor as he crosses to your side. “you look a picture of a blushing bride, m’dear.” he offers is elbow, and you fit your hand in the curve of his arm.

with all the air of queen victoria on her way to marry prince albert, your father parades you down the foyer, his steps slow and regal. the servants on either side bow or curtsey in deference, the tops of their heads the last thing you shall ever see of the people who have been your confidants in moments of crisis and your playfriends in childhood. the air in your lungs feels hot, and something wet pricks the corners of your eyes.

it’s all slipping away before your very eyes—anything you once held dear—and you are powerless to stop it.

two footmen pull open the double doors, and sunlight streams into the hall, sparkling in its intensity. for a moment, you are blinded. you lift your hand to block out the sun, blinking against the pain lingering between your brows.

“[y/n]?” your father must mistake the moment as sentimentality rather than pain. “do not cry, m’dear. you are on the threshold of a new life.”

you lower your hand and turn your face to him. he’s smiling, truly convinced of his goodness to you. he looks older than you remember. his beard is peppered with gray, his forehead wrinkled. when did he age so? when did you stop paying attention?

the weight of the universe presses in on your shoulders, and you wish for all the world that you could turn back time and be his little girl again, content to worship at his feet. but you are his jaded daughter now, on the precipice of ruin, and he is your condemner, not your savior.

“father, i—”

he cuts you off with a finger. “mr. lee is a good man, [y/n]. he will take care of you, of that i am sure.”

“but i—”

“no buts, daughter. what’s done is done.”

at his gentle prodding, you leave your childhood home and any girlish notions of love behind.

your walk down the center aisle of saint peter’s church feels much the same as your walk down the foyer of your once-beloved home. guests stand on either side, wide skirts and tailored suits smooshed in the narrow pews. your footfalls echo in the cold chamber. it’s a steady beat, unlike the rapid tempo of your heart. beside you, your father radiates all the joy you should be feeling as the bride, so you feel no compunction to paste a smile on your face. he’s happy enough for the both of you.

the only difference between your walk down the aisle and your walk down the foyer is what lies at the end.

at home, there had been sunlight. it blinded you, yes, but it was warm and comforting against your frozen skin. it reminded you for the briefest of moments that the sun continues to rise on the darkest days. perhaps, you’d thought, at the end of the tunnel, there is hope for you yet...

here, between the gray stone walls of the church, there is a man waiting for you at the end of your journey. the sight of him—tall and effortlessly handsome—grinds that sliver of hope to a pulp. you’ve never hated anyone more, and your future stretches out before you in a chasm of disappointment.

it’s hard to focus when your father kisses your cheek and hands you off to gwilym. the blood rushing to your ears is loud, and it clogs the rest of your senses. you can barely breathe, so stunned by the turn of events that has brought your existence to this. the hatbox of girlhood fripperies that is shoved beneath your bed—full of ribbons and wedding announcements and dried flowers from the garden, each an image of the life you thought you would lead—withers to dust in the back of your mind. it is replaced by a steel trap, and when gwilym places his warm palm in yours, you lock your heart deep within the trap’s depths. you resolve then and there that no man shall move you—not one.

you cannot seem to tear your eyes from gwilym’s profile as the priest begins his droning. you knew gwilym to be handsome in the brief glance you’d stolen from the top of the stairs, but he is unnervingly good looking up close. from the vantage point of any of the wedding guests, you’re sure you look like a besotted fiancé, but your scrutiny runs deeper than mere appreciation. it confounds you. how could a man such as this one, with his grecian face and soft eyes and curved mouth, resort to a bride package? surely he has a handful of paramours eager to be in your position. he could have his pick of the litter.

but then you remember: you are more than a bride. you are an open invitation to a seat in parliament and an untainted womb and pretty piece to hang off his arm. disgust roils in your stomach, and you finally look away.

a low bench digs against the flesh of your knees when you kneel to take the lord’s supper. you open your mouth, accept the thin wafer and the wine, and snap your jaw closed. gwilym has the audacity to reach for your hand and squeeze your fingers while the priest recites a blessing. without sparing him a glance, you pull your hand away, thankful for the layer of fabric that kept his skin from touching yours.

during the vows, you meet his gaze. you’ve never seen eyes so blue. they look like the english sea, pale and dark and churning with foam and still all at once. you move your stare to the center of his forehead and repeat the vows when you hear your mother roughly clear her throat after you hesitate too long. you trip over the word obey and sneer at the idea of life with gwilym until death.

it’s the pronouncement of a kiss that hurtles your attention forward. the blood pumping in your ears drains; the buzz of frustration at the back of your head fades; and all is silent.

“gwilym, you may kiss your bride.”

gwilym looks between your eyes as if he’s considering. you narrow your stare on a challenge, and something flickers across his face. frustration? disappointment? you cannot tell.

when he leans forward, you stiffen and move your chin a fraction to the right out of impulse. he hesitates, then, and you can feel his breath fan the side of your face. your eyes flutter shut; you grit your teeth.

his mouth lands on the corner of yours, nothing but a brief touch to signal two souls becoming one. to you, it feels like a slap to the face. unbidden tears rise to your eyes. you choke them back when gwilym turns you to face the wedding guests. you know less than half the people in attendance, your family being smaller than his, and the unfamiliar faces smiling back at you needles the anger simmering below the surface.

how dare they all turn out in their most resplendent gowns and pressed suits and grin and clap as if this wedding were more than a sham! how dare they congratulate gwilym when he ushers you down the aisle as if you were no more than a prized hog won at the county bazar!

you hate him. you hate him. you hate him.

there is no time to make your hatred known as your mother comes to sweep you along to the wedding breakfast. she tears you from gwilym’s side before you can share a single word with your new spouse, and she tucks you close in the carriage bound for hiraeth manor.

her breath is warm against the side of your face, and her fingers adjust a loose strand of hair slipped from the chignon at the base of your head. her motherly doting, so out of character, threatens to break you entirely, fraught with emotion as you are, so you turn your head to face the window. the somserset landscape hurtles by, the rolling hills and towering trees, and you bite hard on your lower lip to keep the tears at bay.

“you shall be ever so pleased with life at hiraeth, [y/n],” your mother says. “your father is not without his wealth and position, but the lee family? goodness, they put us to shame.” she reaches for your hand and curls it between both of her palms. “you will have hiraeth to run, of course, and then the townhome in bath and forty-five thousand a year? you will want for nothing, daughter.”

you say nothing. you keep your gaze trained on the countryside, your stomach weak with the jostling of the carriage.

“i do wonder if i have trained you well enough for the job of running a household. hiraeth is larger than whitemarsh, to be sure, but—”

“mother.” you blink and remove your hand from her grasp. “stop talking.”

she is quiet a moment before whispering, her voice edged with thinly-veiled anger, “[y/n], I know we shared our own disagreements this morning but you are my daughter and i am pleased for you. you would do well to recognize what an opportunity your father has given you in this match.”

you do not hesitate in a biting retort. “the moment you allowed father to barter me off in exchange for a bump in position i ceased being your daughter. i am my husband’s wife now.”

“continue with an attitude like that and you will be a cuckolded wife, left alone to wither while the world continues to turn.” your mother’s nostrils flare. “you are lucky mr. lee is of a forgiving nature. any other man would have your tongue snipped after hearing such insolence.”

“i wouldn’t know about mr. lee’s character, mother. I have yet to exchange pleasantries with my husband.”

your mother falls silent, and her skirts rustle as she scoots away on the padded bench. the movement, small as it is in the cramped interior of the carriage, sends a sharp pain through your heart. you clear your throat to swallow a sob.

you will not cry—not now, not ever.

but truly you want to cry. you want to curl your head in her lap and release the tears you’ve been tamping down since your father told you of the match. you want her to stroke your hair and tell you it will be alright, that you’ll be alright. you want her to tell you that she’s sorry.

she’s not sorry, and she would never cradle you. she did not swaddle you in her arms as a babe; she won’t start now.

the carriage takes a sharp turn, sending you lurching against your mother’s side. you grunt with the effort it takes to reposition and disentangle yourself from your mother. she fusses with her now-wrinkled skirts and tuts under her tongue about proper decorum, but you’re not listening. you’re too busy leaning forward, your head knocking against the window pane as hiraeth manor comes into view.

“fuck me,” you breathe, throat gone dry in surprise.

your mother give an unladylike snort of derision. “yes, i’m sure he will—eventually.”

hiraeth makes whitemarsh, an altogether stately and proud manor home, look like a factory worker’s hovel. it is large, sprawling over the hilltop on which it overlooks rolling meadows on all sides. the tan facade glitters in the reflecting pool at the base of the hill, and an ancient willow’s dangling limbs skim the water’s surface. you shrink back against the bench as the manor draws closer. it seems to grow with each moment, new wings and additions sprouting before your very eyes. all this—yours to manage. the task is a formidable one, and your mother must know she has not prepared you for something like this.

the carriage rumbles over a cobblestone drive edged with flowering shrubs and rolls to stop in a circular receiving area. a nondescript footman unlatches the carriage door, and you tumble into the fresh air. you try not to gape, really you do, but it’s hard when such an estate looms before you. if your husband will not swallow you, make you insignificant in your own right, then this house surely will.

an arched door tucked in the corner of the courtyard opens on a heavy creak. you turn to see a short girl exit the home, followed by a wiry woman. the girl drops to a curtsey, her pale cheeks flushed.

“welcome to hiraeth, miss,” she says, a heavy lisp on her tongue.

“mrs. lee, how wonderful it is to finally welcome you to hiraerth!” the wiry woman stretches out her arms to take your hands. her sculpted face pulls into an eager smile, and you resist the urge to lower your defenses. “my name is mrs. brown and i’m the housekeeper here. this is angelica, your personal maid. we thought we’d be the first to greet you before escorting you to the breakfast. everyone is already here and waiting in great anticipation of your arrival.”

you look between mrs. brown and angelica, gauging their sincerity, before motioning to your mother. “we were held up briefly. my mother gets ever so sick on these winding roads.”

“[y/n],” your mother hisses.

mrs. brown gives an uncomfortable sort of chuckle as she looks over your mother’s pinched face then takes your elbow in hand. “no matter, no matter. you can follow me to the breakfast hall. there’s no time to freshen up now, but angelica will show you to your rooms as soon as she has the chance.”

you bristle at the idea of a room set aside solely for eating breakfast, but as mrs. brown guides you through the winding halls of hiraeth, the idea make more sense with each hallway and room you pass. it’s clear mr. lee has more space than with which he knows what to do. a breakfast room indeed.

the room in question is not far off from the entryway of hiraeth. there’s little chance to take in your new surroundings, so you set your jaw and square your shoulders as mrs. brown opens the door of the breakfast room. you step across the threshold, your mother close behind, and hold your breath.

you meet his eyes—gwilym’s—before anyone else’s. he sits in the middle of the arrangement of tables, an empty seat by his side. you glance at the chair to his right then at the other empty space at the far end of the room. the four tables are arranged in a sort of a square and, if you look the empty spot furthest away from gwilym, you’d be fortunate enough to neither hear his voice or see his face. a towering bouquet of flowers sits in the center of the table, and that spot has a particularly nice view of the white roses. you make to take the spot with the view of the flowers, intent on letting everyone in attendance know your feelings on the matter, but your mother beats you to it.

the bitch.

with a huff, you curl your hands to fists and all but stomp to the only remaining seat. the room is quiet, heavy with anticipation as you drop to the chair. your arms itch to fold themselves over your chest, but you are wise enough to resist. though you will not mask your anger, you will tamp it down to a degree. it wouldn’t do to wake up tomorrow and see your name in the gossip columns. that would be a dreadful start to a life in a higher societal position.

beside you, gwilym openly runs his eyes over your profile. you can feel him study you, but you do not flinch beneath his inspection. you keep your eyes on the centerpiece and drum your fingers on the tablecloth.

rising to his feet, gwilym picks up a glass chalice and lifts it. “my friends, i am very glad to be sharing this morning with you all. since the passing of my mother, hiraeth has been without a mistress, and it brings me great happiness to finally have a wife of my own who can fill this house with as much joy as my mother once did.” he twists to look down at you and settles his hand on your shoulder.

you look up, frozen under his touch. his palm envelopes the entirety of your shoulder. his gaze is soft, much to your surprise. as it was for those brief moments in the church, he looks at you only with tenderness; perhaps even pity. there is nothing angry about his eyes; it seems it might be impossible for his face to be anything but mellow. you harden your stare.

“[y/n]”—your name in his mouth. you want him to wipe his tongue and promise never to speak it again.—“welcome to hiraeth. from all of us to you, i truly hope you will be happy here.”

you blink, your mouth parting when he sits and motions for the covered platters around the table to be uncovered. leaning forward, you lower your voice and speak to him for the first time without the aid of a wedding script.

“i’m sorry,” you whisper. “all of us to you?”

gwilym thanks the man sitting to this left when he is passed a tray of eggs. he scoops some onto his plate then offers the platter to you. “would you like some?”

“uh—yes, yes—i suppose.” he drops of pile of fluffy eggs onto the cream china then passes the platter to the woman on your right, who you belatedly realize is none other than mrs. brown. you scoff and whirl to face your husband. “mr. lee, are we eating with the hired help?”

the fork that’s halfway to his mouth pauses, and his brow pinches in a confused frown. out of the corner of his eye, he looks at you. “is it wrong to celebrate nuptials with one’s staff?”

you sputter. the linen napkin in your hand bunches in your fist. “yes!” your voice is too loud for the gentle and amiable air of the room, but no one makes a move to correct you. they wouldn’t dare. “wedding breakfasts are for family and friends, mr. lee, not servants and scullery maids!”

gwilym swallows the food in his mouth and shrugs. “this is my family, [y/n]. i am celebrating—forgive me, we are celebrating with our family.”

you must look ridiculous, your forehead wrinkled with a frown and eyes narrowed in disbelief and mouth agape, because gwilym laughs and points to your plate with his utensil.

“eat your food, wife, before it gets cold. you will come to understand how hiraeth runs in due time. if it eases your anxiety,” he adds, “we will celebrate with my friends in the coming week in bath. that is the celebration you are anticipating, i’m sure.”

he returns to his conversation with the man—the butler or valet or hallboy—at his side, effectively dismissing both your outrage and your petty insolence with nothing but a gentle reprimand.

you hate him.

you do not eat your breakfast. you sit with your hands fisted in your lap and your jaw set hard. across the table your mother purses her lips and looks pointedly at your plate. you turn your gaze away.

gwilym must truly be a nincompoop if he believes you will simper and bat your eyelashes and allow him to treat the staff as family simply because he is your husband. never have you heard of such a foolish sentiment. there is a clear boundary between staff and family never to be blurred.

your skin itches, and you long for a hot bath.

as breakfast continues around you, you survey the room. the eggshell blue walls stretch to meet a high ceiling, the trim around the border a bright white. you catch a glimpse of yourself in one of the gilded mirrors hanging between a pair of large windows. you look sour, like an over-ripe lemon on child’s tongue.

the breakfast concludes some time later when the kitchen maids rise from their places to return to their duties. a skinny girl with glittering eyes takes your plate still laden with food. her voice is airy when she speaks.

“did you not like the breakfast, ma’am?” she balances your plate on her forearm, another stacked along the inside of her elbow. her cheeks flush when she moves to take gwilym’s empty plate and he smiles at her.

gwilym answers for you. “of course she did, gildy. what’s not to like when you and mrs. cliff are at the helm? mrs. lee is simply overwhelmed by the talent you possess. she confessed that all your sweets were nearly too delectable, she could hardly take another.”

sucking in her lower lip, gildy beams at the scuffed toes of her boots. “thank you, sir.” she bops a curtsey before scurrying through a side door.

you flash gwilym a harsh look. “i can answer for myself, sir.”

“i would prefer you answer with a modicum of kindness.” he nods his head to the side in consideration. “i’m not altogether sure that’s possible, so i thought i would save gildy the heartache.” he drops his napkin to the table and stands, offering you his hand. “come—would you like to see your rooms?”

spare gildy the heartache? he did no such thing for you when he agreed to taking—no, stealing—your hand in marriage.

you leave his hand hanging midair when you stand, adjusting the bustle of skirts around your legs. “i would, yes,” you say. “it’s been a trying morning, and i’d enjoy some silence and a bath so i can rid myself of the filth eking through my body.”

the jab does not land where you intended as gwilym merely laughs at your discontent. his laugh is loud, startling in the now-quiet breakfast room. he reaches for your arm and fits your hand in the curve of his elbow, patting your still-gloved fingers with his.

“your father said you were a spitfire,” he says, shaking his head in his amusement. “i see now he was not mistaken.”

at the arched doorway through which you entered, you bid your parents a hasty farewell. it is not an overdone affair—no tears, no final embraces. the days where you held your mother’s hand or clung to your father’s leg have long since passed. you merely wave them off with an upward tilt of your chin and a half-hearted promise to write before the yuletide. gwilym makes no comment on the stilted air between yourself and your parents. perhaps he knows you would stamp on his foot the moment a question slipped beyond his pretty mouth. you’re not entirely above stamping on his foot just for the sake of it. you resist the urge, however, knowing there’s bound to be a maidservant or hallboy lurking around the corner, waiting for a drip of juicy gossip to bring back to the servant’s quarters. you’ve already given them enough fodder for one day with your behavior at breakfast.

once your parents are securely in their carriage and enroute home, gwilym tugs you further into the manor. “come, your rooms are this way.”

you say nothing, question nothing, about separate bedrooms. it is a relief, in all truth, though you wonder if he will darken your doorway come the evening. your throat clenches. you pray to all the saints he will keep his grimy hands to himself or you’ll do more damage than a crushed foot.

you pull your hand from the crook of his arm as he guides you, preferring to keep your hands clasped behind your back as you walk. gwilym pauses in his explanation of the home’s original construction. he goes so far as to stop walking, and you pass him before realizing he is not by your side. in the wide hallway—one side boasting an array of polished windows, the other decorated with marble busts of his family tree—he blinks at you.

“you don’t like me very much, do you?”

you have to laugh. the sound resounds in the empty hallway, and you toss your head back in a fit of amusement. “goodness, you’re slow, aren’t you?”

he frowns, the first inkling he may possess anything other than an easy-going nature if pushed. “what is it i’ve done to offend you?”

you gawp and try to keep yourself from falling to the floor in surprise. “you must be joking, surely.”

shaking his head, a line forms between his brow. “no. i don’t understand why you are so cross.”

you turn your face away for a moment, inhaling slowly. you cross to the wall of windows and count to ten. the grounds of hiraeth are lovely—forest green grass, neatly-trimmed hedges. far as the eye can see is yours. in the span of one morning, you have gone from moderately wealthy to blessed beyond your wildest imaginations. your husband is handsome and thus far been nothing but considerate of you. it could be worse. and yet, somehow you feel as if you are the only woman who has been made to suffer a fate such as this.

you turn slowly on your foot and meet his gaze. he’s patient, you’ll give him that. he simply stares at you, waiting for some sort of explanation.

you decide to give him one.

your jaw tightens as long-neglected rage begins to boil in your stomach, and you draw in a deep breath before unleashing your indignation in a measured, even tone that fills the hall with its power.

“i am cross, sir, because i believe you to be a viper. you have stolen me from my comfort of my mother’s nest, and i fully anticipate you swallowing me whole. you are no better than the scottish barbarians who kidnap their brides and hide them away in the countryside. you are a thief and a coward, evidently unwilling—or perhaps unable—to woo his own choice of woman. i did not even have the pleasure of seeing your backside before being made your wife, and for that offense, i will never forgive you. marriage is meant to join two people who at least have been made somewhat acquainted before the ordeal. our marriage is a sham and an offense before god. so, you’re right—i don’t like you very much.”

it pleases you to see him so pale, so undone by your words. his chiseled jaw scrapes the floor, and a flush breaks out on his cheeks. you smirk in triumph.

at the sight of a maid inching along the wall at the far end of the hall, you hold up your arm and snap for her attention. “oh! girl!”

you hasten away from your husband, leaving him in the wake of your outburst. your skirts swish along the waxed, hardwood floor, and you meet the maid halfway down the hall. she stares at you with wide eyes, fear lurking beneath the surface. she must have heard. you’ve never felt more powerful.

linking your arm tightly around hers, you cast a look over your shoulder. gwilym’s hands have turned to fists. “my husband and i are finished speaking,” you say, your voice loud enough for him to hear every inflection. “show me to my rooms, won’t you?”

the following week is a rush of gown fittings, growing accustomed to the running of hiraeth, and attempting to make your husband’s life miserable.

the gowns are meant to fill your wardrobe for the social season. you arrived with a handful of dresses, yes, but with a home in bath, it is likely that you will spend a significant amount of time at dinner parties or galas. so tuesday afternoon, the day after the wedding, you are presented with an array of fabric and fashion sketches. from your place on the fitting stool, you glance over the options and pick your favorites: the teal blue which will come with an embroidered bodice; the scarlet red with lace-fringed sleeves; the dark green which will host tiered-layers cascading to the floor. it’s a hefty bill, but your husband has money enough to spend on four separate wardrobes if you so choose.

wednesday morning, mrs. brown insists you take a tour of the lower floors and accustom yourself with directing the maid and kitchen staff. you begrudgingly follow her and offer tight-lipped smiles to the flushed and nervous faces staring back at you. you truly could care less about the goings-on downstairs; that was always your mother’s job. but your mother isn’t here, and it’s up to you to preside over the well-being of the household staff. there’s so many of them, you wonder if gwilym will have annulled your marriage before you have the chance to commit all their names to memory. you can certainly pray that will be the case.

throughout the week, you revel in spurning gwilym’s kindness. you avoid him, mostly, choosing to take your breakfast in bed and your afternoon tea in the garden. you suffer through dinner with him, sat across from him at the end of a long table. you ignore his polite comments and questions and simply focus on eating your food. when he leaves a gift outside your bedroom door—a single white rose and a newly printed copy of a novel he thinks you might enjoy—you simply turn up your brow and send it back to his office. he invites you to ride about the grounds with him, and you scoff at the idea, turning on your heel and waltzing down the hall without a fare-thee-well.

to his credit, he does not shout, does not so much as grit his teeth. he bears it all with grace and composure, and that’s what frustrates you the most. you wish he would shout. you wish he would tell you to grow up and act your age. something—anything—other than the saccharine care with which he treats you. a snake with manners, it seems.

on friday morning he catches you in the breakfast room. you openly sigh when he enters, setting down your knife and reaching for your cup of tea.

“i thought you had gone,” you say, your gaze trained on your reflection in the mirror across the room. your skin is clear, your hair piled atop your head in a mess of artfully arranged curls and pins. you tilt your head to the side. hm, you really are a sight to behold when done up well. your husband is blessed.

the husband in question drops to a seat opposite you, and, for a brief moment, you note the way his waistcoat fits snug against his broad chest. you look away. “no, actually. i was hoping to steal a moment of your time this morning.”

“you’ve done a lot of stealing from me already, mr. lee.” you slide your gaze to him, challenging. “are you sure you want to continue down this path of thievery?”

as you anticipated, he does not rise to the occasion. he actually smiles and shakes his head in amusement, the knob. you roll your eyes. “your tongue does not quit. it truly amazes me.”

“i’ll have to increase my efforts to anger you, then.”

he smirks, continuing to spread butter across his piece of bread. “there is a party this evening,” he says, catching you off guard with his change of topic. “i don’t know if you recall me mentioning it, but my friends in bath are throwing the two of us a wedding party. we’ll be leaving late this morning in order to arrive before nightfall.”

“oh, that’s a shame.” you place your teacup on its saucer, pat the corner of your mouth with your napkin, then meet his eyes, yours round with innocence. “i’m afraid i can’t attend.”

he pulls an incredulous face. “it’s not an option, [y/n]. my friends are most eager to meet you, and they’ve worked very hard at making this party something you and i will both enjoy.”

a heavy moment of silence passes. you smooth your hand across the tablecloth and smile sweetly, lifting your gaze from beneath your lashes.

“i understand that, mr. lee, and i am sure your friends are lovely people. however, i simply cannot attend.”

his knife hits his plate with a bit more effort than is necessary. you bite your lower lip to keep from smiling in triumph.

“why ever not?” he asks. there is an edge to his voice; it’s slight, but it’s there. your heart lifts with glee.

you shrug, and your earrings sway against your neck with the movement. “well, i just don’t want to.”

gwilym sputters, and his hands clench on the table. inhaling deeply, he holds your gaze, and a muscle ticks on the side of his jaw. if you weren’t so intent on hating the man, you might find his anger thrilling.

instead of shouting, gwilym rises from the table and gently pushes his chair in. he clears his throat and drums a finger along the chair back before saying, “we leave at eleven o’clock, [y/n]. please be ready.”

you bat your eyelashes and take a bite of a pastry, grinning, giving him no promises.

at ten-forty-five you are dressed, but have no intention of joining gwilym on the trip to bath. instead, you study yourself in the floor-length mirror in your dressing room. much to your surprise, one of the gowns recently drawn up had arrived the night before, and after taking breakfast, you’d grabbed angel and had her help you into the dress.

you sway back and forth before the mirror. a wine red, the light catches in the folds of the skirt and the ruching over your chest. a pearl pendant rests in the middle of your breastbone, a teardrop pearl dangling from the pendant itself.

“don’t you like it, angel?” you ask.

from behind you, hands clasped before her waist, angel nods in earnest. “oh yes, mum! you look like a goddess.”

“i do, don’t i?” you pout and turn to face her. “shame about not going to the party. who will see me look so splendid?”

before angel can answer, your dressing room door bursts open. you gasp, whirling to face the storm cloud of a man in the doorway.

“gwilym!” you hold a hand against your heaving chest. “you mustn’t scare me like that!”

he looks well, dressed in a crisp suit complete with black tailcoat and trousers and deep green waistcoat. he wears no tie of any sort, though a gold pocket watch chain hangs from his waistcoat pocket. despite his arranged clothing, his demeanor is decidedly less put together. his face is splotchy with an angry flush, his eyes boring holes into yours.

“goodness, what has gotten you into a tiff, husband?”

his nostrils flare. “i told you to be ready by eleven.”

“and i told you i am not going. did you not hear me?”

“i told you it wasn’t an option.”

you sigh and level him an unamused stare. “i am ever so tired of people making decisions for me.”

“we are going—together—to bath.”

you glance down at yourself and lift your arms in defeat. “i’m not dressed for the occasion, so i shan’t keep you and make you late.”

gwilym’s eyes dart to angel then back to you. he seems to be weighing his options, whether or not giving in is worth it. he runs his hands around the brim of his hat, his eyes narrowing in thought. finally, he seems to make up his mind. he pops his hat on and just when you’re ready to wave at his retreating back, he stalks into the room and loops his arms around your waist. you screech when he lifts you, throwing you over his shoulder as if you weigh no more than a feather.

mortification and seething anger crashes over you in rush. the feeling is hot, like boiling water beneath your skin. “unhand me, you villain!” you beat your fists against his muscular back.

he says nothing.

“i swear to you, gwilym lee, if you do not put me down this instance, i will scream!”

again, he says nothing. he walks toward the waiting carriage, the hallways and rooms in which you could seek shelter whizzing past you with the speed of his gait. you kick your legs out like a donkey, attempting to connect with something which might impede his progress.

nothing helps.

the outside air is cool against your hot skin, and you fight him all the way—all arms and legs and nails against whatever flesh you can find—until he deposits you in the plush interior of the carriage. he slams the door in your face, adjusts his crumbled waistcoat, and rounds the carriage to the other side. once seated beside you, his breathing labored and jaw tight, he taps the roof of the vehicle.

“onward, smith!” unlike his breathing, his voice is steady, and you want nothing more than to reach across and tear his windpipe out of his throat.

powerless to stop it, the carriage begins its journey toward bath.

taglist: @im-an-adult-ish @itsametaphorgwil @queenmylovely @captvinswaan @joeslee @gwilymleeisbae @ineloqueent @queen-paladin

#gwilym lee #gwilym lee x reader #gwilym lee fic #bohemian rhapsody #bohemian rhapsody fanfiction #j writes #if you leave fic

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thiswasinevitableid · 4 years ago

Note

Have you seen the post going around about the zoom class with one guy and his full streamer setup vs the guy whose just in the middle of the woods? I know you have a prompt list rn but I’m just saying there’s a sternclay fic in there somewhere...

It is! Here you go!

Life is better with order. Or, at the very least, with some attempt at patterns, organization, or consistency.

Which is why Stern has carefully arranged his desk, his chair, and his equipment in the background. Streaming as a hobby and a side hustle means he has some (okay, a lot) of practice making his digital self look just right. He needs to make a good impression on the first day of the semester.

Unlike some people.

“Holy shit man, are you in the woods?” Duck, the guy in a “Monongahela National Forest” shirt, grins as he asks this of another student whose screen consists of a forest clearing, a log, and the name “Barclay.”

“Yeah. Hang on, lemme finish getting the phone balanced.”

“Dude, that’s like, way better than my background” this comes from Jake, in front of a poorly rendered half-pipe.

“Can’t really take credit for it, just where I ended up.” Barclay sits down, and Stern gets his first look at a man so tall he barely fits in the frame, with a short, coppery beard and an honest-to-god man-bun.

Damn west coast schools.

“How is your battery going to last long enough for class?” Stern leans back in his chair, certain Barclay will have “battery trouble” halfway through as an excuse to cut out early.

Barclay smiles, lifting up a small green and black rectangle, “solar battery. Not everyone needs fancy gadgets for school.” He aims a pointed stare at Sterns set-up.

“It’s important to have the right equipment.”

“Whatever you say, man.” He lifts a cup of iced coffee into the frame, sipping it through a straw. It’s the picture of relaxation, as if nothing is wrong in the world. As if this is all totally normal.

Stern wants to reach through the screen and slap some sense into him. Preferably while he’s shirtless.

He chalks that thought up to not having gotten laid since last December and pulls up his note taking software as Professor Chicane enters the room.

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

Private Chat 9/20/20

Duck (he/him): I timed it, we’re already at ten minutes of arguing.

Indrid (he/him): I know Ned enjoys their demonstrating the different modes of rhetoric, but this is a bit extreme.

Duck: To be fair, Joe does seem kinda uptight.

Indrid: Yes, but Barclay should know by now that zeroing in on him during our practice debates only results in this.

Duck: Yeah. Oh shit, are they for real wrapping up you think?

Indrid: We can only hope. Skype me tonight?

Duck: Of course, sugar.

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

What is Joseph’s problem? He’s got a set-up that would make a pro-vlogger jealous, what looks to be a well-lit apartment with some houseplants and the kind of coffee-cups that are weirdly lacking in personality. His clothes are immaculate, his hair slicked back as if he;s in a business meeting rather than an online class in the midst of a chaotic world. So why is he acting like everything is terrible? And why is he always arguing with Barclay, when there are plenty of other people in the class to disagree with?

“Now” Mr. Chicane’s voice booms through the tiny speaker on his phone, “if you all had a chance to read over the instructions, we will begin the first mock debate. Do we have any volunteers?”

He and Joe raise their hands at the same time. Mr. Chicane raises an eyebrow.

“While I appreciate your eagerness, gentlemen, I would like two other volunteers this time.”

That’s fine by him. It’s not like he likes listening to Joseph get all wound up and passionate, making everyone on the call sit up and take notice of him. It’s not as if he enjoys being the center of his focus.

Nope, not at all.

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

Private chat 10/11/20

Jake (he/him): Dudes, did you see who got paired up on the final project?

Aubrey (she/her): Chicane must be getting them back for all the times they’ve hijacked discussions.

Duck (he/him): Man, for their sake I hope it works out.

Indrid (he/him): This is going to be a disaster.

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

“Are you out of your mind!” Stern is talking before Barclay’s video is fully on.

“Nope. And you don’t have to yell, my speaker works just fine.”

“You’re outside, for all I know there’s a ton of ambient noise.”

Barclay, phone obviously in his hand as he walks through the trees, groans.

“And don’t try to derail this; how can you possibly suggest I come out there so we can do the project in person? We’re supposed to be limiting travel and gatherings.”

“Look, Joseph, we both agree that trying to generate our own cryptid hoax is the best way to demonstrate all the techniques Ned wants us too, right?”

“Yes” he hides his answer behind the rim of his coffee mug.

“We’ll do a way better job if we work in the same space. And if it makes you feel any better, I haven’t had any human contact in three weeks; all quarantined up, unlike whatever you’ve been doing in the city.”

He sets the mug down with a thunk, “I haven’t been out in a month. And before that was only for one grocery run and a hospital visit.”

“Uhhh-”

“I cut my hand cooking. So. Yeah.”

Literal crickets chirp, courtesy of Barclay’s end of the line, as the silence stretches on.

“If it helps, it’s real easy to stay isolated here, and I’ve still got utilities and everything.”

“And you’re not subsisting only on MREs or granola or something?”

A deep chuckle, the kind that makes his skin prickle, “Nope. That much I can promise.”

Stern glances around the studio apartment, clean and empty.

“What’s your address?”

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

Look, all Stern is going to say is that he’s seen and read plenty of stories that start with a cabin in the woods and none of them end well. Which is why he’s still sitting in his car, parked beside a beat-up Subaru, rather than knocking on the door.

Breathe in, five counts. Out for four. Repeat four times.

Waiting for him on the door is a note.

Joseph,

Key under mat, make yourself at home.

Barclay.

He brings in his bags (a matching set of three, a gift from his aunt last year), placing them in the tiny guest room. It’s not much more than a bed, a dresser, and a tiny table. But there’s a heating unit below the window looking out into the woods, which is pretty pleasant. He’ll be keeping the blinds closed at night, though; he hates the thought of something being able to look in.

Stern’s busy evaluating the laundry closet when the front door opens.

“Hey, glad you found the place okay.”

Barclay stands in the doorway, a basket full of fruit in one hand. He’s remarkably kempt for a man living in the woods and that, combined with the deep voice being even richer in person and the fact Stern has to actually look up to meet his eyes, has him stumbling for words.

“Your directions were very thorough. Thank you. Um. I put my things in there, should I, um-”

“I can give you the grand tour.” The taller man sets the basket on the dining table, notices Sterns puzzled expression “there’s a piece of property about a mile thataway that has orchards they don’t really use. They let me come and pick whenever i want, less for them to clean up.”

Barclay keeps up a steady monologue as he shows him the cabin. The lower level is the living room and dining area, a kitchen which leads onto the back deck, Sterns room, and a bathroom. As the cabin is A-frame, the upstairs is Barclay’s room, all dark wood and pine colored plaid. It’s as Barclay is telling him about the woodpecker that sometimes nests in the eaves that he realizes why he’s talking so much.

He’s nervous.

Neither of their nerves improve when he gets to his last point of order.

“Uh, so, the bathroom downstairs is only a half-bath.”

“So...if I want to shower, which I do, I have to come up here.”

“Yeah.” Barclay scratches the back of his neck, “sorry. I don’t, like, sleep naked or anything so we should be fine.”

“Disappointing.” Stern sighs, only to sail past sarcastic and land face first in sincere.

Barclay blushes, then shrugs, “Trust me, after the first night, you’ll see why.”

Stern does. He’s warm as long as he’s in bed, but the moment he ventures into the bathroom in the middle of the night he’s cocooned in cold.

The morning brings cinnamon and coffee on the draft coming under the door. He plods into the kitchen in search of caffeine, finds Barclay in an pron, the counter covered in trays of dough.

“Morning!”

“Morning. Coffee-”

“Right there, sugar and stuff’s in the cabinet above it, cream and such is in the fridge.”

Blessedly, there’s heavy cream to be found, and soon he’s sipping from an enamel mug emblazoned with a UFO made of veggies.

“Is this all for your job?” Barclay mentioned he was a cook during an icebreaker.

“Yep. Way it works is I bust my ass baking once or twice a day, and Thacker, who works with Mama at the Lodge in town, comes and takes them over there. Normally I’d just be there but, well, y’know.”

“Everything is on fire? Figuratively, I mean.”

“Sometimes literally too, but yeah.”

As he’s turning to grab his clothes and head showerward, Barclay adds, “You a scone man, coffecake man, or a cinnamon roll man?”

“Coffeecake?” It comes out hesitant.

“There’s no right answer, man.” Barclay sounds amused, “what do you want?”

“Cake, definitely.”

“Cool. I’ll save you a slice.”

Once he’s showered and on the wi-fi, his day runs like normal; one lecture, reading, a research paper, his initial half of their project, and working either his copy-editing or transcription job in between, and planning his next stream. Barclay comes and goes, stops now and then to see if he needs anything, leaves a sandwich in front of him around dinner time. Then it’s time to crawl under the covers and dream of a less-stressful world.

The next day, just before one, Barclay taps him on the shoulder.

“Ready for class?”

“Yes…” He gestures to his laptop and notebook.

“C’mon, join me out here, it’s way nicer, and we can share the phone.”

“Barclay, it’s a nonsensical way to attend class, just stay in here with me! Even this set-up has to be better than the woods.”

“This set up. You mean my house?” All the friendliness leaves hi voice.

“Yes. Look, I agreed to come out because you’re right, if we want to ace this thing that’s worth sixty percent of our grade, this is the place to do it; I don’t have to go along with the whole self-sufficient woodsman aesthetic while I’m here. “

“Yeah, I’d say you’re pretty far from self-sufficient. See you in class.”

Stern stews through the entire session, but where he’d usually find something Barclay says to latch onto, he instead gnaws on himself. Why didn’t he just go with him? Why snap at someone who’s been nothing but nice since he got here?

Whatever the answer, how can he fix it?

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

Barclay tromps back through the twilight, done with his second class of the day. If Joseph is in the main house, he plans to ignore him until tomorrow morning. That all goes out the window with the clank of dishes from the kitchen.

Peering in reveals the other man bent over, pulling a casserole from the oven. He waits to announce his presence until Joseph is out of the danger zone, enjoying the view as he does.

“Smells good.”

Blue eyes flick over to him as Joseph opens drawers, “it’s mostly cheese and chips, so I’m not surprised.”

“Servers are in that one.”

“Thank you. Nacho pie?” He scoops some into a bowl, holding it out.

“Sure. Uh, look, Joseph I-”

Joseph holds up the server, “Wait. Before you apologize I, um, I wanted to say I’m sorry for my comments. And for being so...me-ish.” He sighs, staring at the utensil in his grip, “I’ve always been a little bit tense, tried to be polite and effective and friendly in spite of it. The last six months made that harder to do. I don’t love it when I can’t be organized, when normal systems go out of place. But that’s no excuse for being rude to you, even before you invited me here. You’re just so...you’re always so calm and relaxed, like nothing was wrong and I just honed in on that way more than made sense. I’m sorry.”

“If it makes you feel better, I kinda did the same thing. You’re always so put together, it looked like you had this organized life in the midst of this whole shitstorm. I feel lik everything is slipping away, like my world is just this cabin. I mean, I assumed you were seeing friends in the city, while I haven’t seen Mama in person since April. So” he sets the bowl down, rests his hand on Joseph’s shoulder, “I’m sorry too.”

Joseph laughs, softly, “turns out we both had failures of imagination, huh?”

“Yeah” he runs a hand over Joseph's back, “now come on, this dinner’s not gonna eat itself.”

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

“You sure you don’t wanna wear the bigfoot costume?”

“Positive. Besides, it suits you.” Joseph finishes styling the fur on the head of the costume to look more realistic, “I just hope we get this done before that storm comes in; as mush as the rain would add to the mood of the scene, that’ll be hell to dry and you’ll be miserable. So, go lurk over there while I finish up getting the camera settings where they need to be.”

“Yes sir” Barclay pops the head on, leaves crunching as moves to his appointed tree. He smiles as he watches Joseph fiddle with the camera; things have been so much better between them these last two weeks. They trade off cooking dinner, study side by side, and watch movies or play games in the warmth of the heater. They have a similar sense of humor and taste in books, and are tidy to boot. Joseph’s even come with him to listen to lectures in the woods, the pair sharing a thermos of coffee under the astonished gaze of their classmates. There’s just one problem.

Barclay’s buried crush is now blooming in every direction. Animated, argumentative Joseph was attractive. Joseph, in all his moods and mannerisms, is devastatingly enchanting. He’s come close to telling him this, but the other man is his guest and also only here for another two and a half weeks, so a confession is setting himself up for heartbreak at worst and awkwardness at best.

He almost blew it last night when they were washing dishes (Joseph scrubs, Barclay dries and puts away).

“Last one.”

“Thanks, blue eyes.”

“What was that?”

“Uh, blue eyes? Like a, uh, a nickname?”

Joseph laughs, “Sounds like something from a Raymond Chandler book. I like it.”

On the plus side, if Joseph thinks it’s just a nickname and not a pet name, maybe Barclay can keep using it.

“Are you ready?’

He sticks up a hairy thumb and calls, “you know it, blue eyes.”

That same laugh as Joseph takes up his position. Maybe it’s the weird film over the costume’s eyes, but Barclay swears he sees a blush.

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

Stern trawls through the search results. Their video is getting some traction, with two cryptid hunter sites claiming it’s credible footage. He’s making note of how the information spread, which threads lead to belief and which to doubt, when Barclay calls from upstairs.

“Joseph? Little help?”

The other man is in the bathroom, and when Stern knocks he says, “Think the pilot light on the water heater went out again, all I’m getting is cold water. Can you go relight it?”

“Sure.” He gets to the stairs then, stops, “where’s the key to that closet?”

“Huh? Oh, shit, right, hang on” Barclay says at the same time as Stern’s “don’t worry, I can find it.”

Which is why the instant he turns back into the bedroom is the same instant Barclay steps out of the bathroom, blue towel around his waist.

Any blood that doesn’t head south goes instantly to Stern’s cheeks.

“You okay there, blue-eyes?”

“It’s completely unfair how good you look without a shirt.”

He clamps a hand over his mouth.

“Idn’t ean to ay at out oud” The mumbled explanation makes Barclay smirk.

“You like this, should see what’s under the towel.”

The unusually bold statement from Barclay kindles his own confidence.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, big guy.”

“Who says I won’t.” Barclay sits down on the edge of the bed, nonchalant and leaning back on his hands, “got plenty of time to make good on them.”

“We literally don’t. I go back in a week and two days.”

Barclay toys with the lint on the towel, “you could stay. Through break, through next semester, for however long you wanted.”

“Do you mean that?”

A shy nod, “I like having you around, Joseph. Even beyond the huge fucking crush I have on you I...everything is a little better when you’re around.”

“I, um, I guess it could work. We know next semester is online too, and so is work, so…” there must be variables missing, something he’s not seeing, some reason this is too good to be true.

“You want some space away from shirtless me to think about it?”

“That’d be great.”

Barclay stands, hesitates, then plants a quick kiss on his forehead, “take all the time you need, blue eyes.”

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

Private Chat log 1/11/2021

Barclay (he/him): Did you see the look on Duck’s face when we turned up in frame together.

Joseph (he/him): Yes. Pretty sure Aubrey yelled something about him needing to pay up. I wonder what the bet was.

Barclay (he/him): Whatever it was, pretty sure I came out the biggest winner.

Stern snorts, trying not to blush on camera, and leans over to kiss his boyfriend on the cheek.

#agent stern/barclay #sternclay #taz amnesty #college AU

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warren-lauren · 4 years ago

Text

‘I do’ under the stars - Present Day!Brian May x Danish!reader

This was actually happening. You were actually going to marry the man you loved. You stared at your reflection in the mirror, still finding it hard to believe you were wearing your wedding dress.

"Y/N?" You heard Roger's voice after a short knock on the bedroom door.

"Go away, Roger," Sarina sighed as she got up from the chair she was sat in and opened the door a peak. "We're not read-"

"I know that, love, I just-" Roger let out a heavy sigh, "It's Brian,"

Your eyes widened as you heart tightened hearing those words. You spun around and marched barefoot over to the door, pulling it open. "What's wrong, Roger? Is he okay? Is it his-"

Roger shook his head, smiling as he looked you over. Beautiful. "No, love, he's okay... He just, he wanted to have a word."

You let out a relieved sigh, "I'll kill him," You smiled softly, "Where is he?"

Roger rolled his eyes. "That's the thing, I haven't a clue. He just said, tell Y/N/N I need to have a quick word, and then he buggered off." Roger huffed as he folded his arms across his chest, clearly stressing out.

You shook your head smiling, "Don't worry, Rog, I know where he is." You pressed a kiss to his cheek.

"Y/N, your shoes!" Sarina turned around to grab them for you but you had already left.

You weren't going far. You climbed the flight of stairs and crossed the landing until you came to a large wooden door and opened it. You began grinning to yourself as you looked up into the darkness at the top of another set of stairs.

"Brian? You know we're not meant to see each other." You smiled, slowly walking up.

You heard Brian chuckle as he approached the top of the staircase. "I'm a bit old to believe all that nonsense, don't you think." He held his hand out for you. "You look beautiful, my love." He pulled you closer to him, pressing his lips against yours in a soft kiss.

"What's wrong, Brian? Are you having second thoughts?"

He shook his head, and began guiding you over to the large telescope that was set up. "Of course not, love. I just wanted to show you something before we said 'I do'." He grinned.

You raised your eyebrow, "Brian, what could you possibly have to show me?"

Brian nodded to the telescope. "Just look,"

You let out a small scoff but looked anyway. "How many times have you had me look through this thing? I think I've seen--Oh my God!" You pulled back and looked up at Brian. "Is that a,"

"Comet?" You nodded, "It is. I remembered you saying, you'd never seen one so," He smiled as he wrapped his arms around you and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

"Wait," You turned around in Brian's arms, "Bri, is this why you insisted we get married at this time?" You grinned up at him.

Roger had joked about Brian being a science geek when he suggested that the two of you got married under the stairs. Having your special day in the comfort of your home, away from prying eyes as you committed your love to one another. You thought it was a rather romantic idea.

Brian's cheeks began to blush as he nodded, "Hmm, yes. I heard along the grape vine that, you'd be able to see the comet tonight so-"

You pressed your lips against his in a loving kiss. Your arms wrapped around his neck as Brian held you close to his body, kissing you back with just as much love.

"Excuse me!" Roger called out from the top of the stairs, glaring at the two of you.

You looked over Brian's shoulder with bashful smile, trying to laugh as his red cheeks hid behind his beard. "Sorry, Rog," You smiled at him.

He held his hands up, "Whatever. It's not like you've got a ton of guests waiting or anything. I swear, if you ask me to be your best man again, I'm saying no, having me running around. I'm too old for this shit." Roger huffed as he turned around and made his way back down.

You hid your face in Brian's chest as the pair of you shared a laugh as Roger continued to moan as he walked away.

"We should probably get to our wedding." Brian whispered.

You nodded, lifting your head so you could look at Brian. "I can't wait to be, Mrs May." You smiled loving up at him.

Brian grinned, "C'mon, before Roger has a stroke or something." He chuckled taking your hand in his.

----------

-Flash back-5 years ago-

You let out a heavy sigh as you tapped your pen against the table. The black printed letters on the page were starting to jumble together, but you had to study. Why you thought getting a summer job as a personal assistant for a band was a good idea, you'll never know. But here you are at midnight, in the hotel restaurant trying to figure out how to stop cats from pooing in a plant pot.

"Ugh!" You groaned and dropped your head onto the table in front of you. You were glad there wasn't many people down in the restaurant at this time.

"I thought I'd find you down here," Brian spoke softly as he walked towards you putting a smile on your face. "What have we said about staying up past midnight?" He teased, sitting down opposite you.

You smiled, "Just because you're an OAP."

Brian chuckled, pulling your text book across to him. "Cheeky." He smiled before closing it. "Why are you our personal assistant if this, is what you want to do?" He said as he tapped your text book on Clinical Animal Behaviour.

"Needed a job," You shrugged with a cheeky grin, "When I go back to school, it's going to be all work, and this seemed like a once in a life time opportunity." You smiled at him.

Brian hummed, "Still makes no sense. It's not exactly the most idle place to study, on the road, fetching and carrying, and looking after us old codgers." You laughed at him, shaking your head as you began to put your things away. "Wouldn't you rather, go home to Denmark and see your parents?"

You let out a soft sigh, "As much as I miss them, Bri, I spent all my life with them. I want to take this time to, be me." You shrugged. "Does that sound selfish?"

Brian shook his head, reaching over to pat your hand. "Not at all, love. Some times you've got to think of yourself before others." He smiled, "Right, I think it's bed time, young lady."

You chuckled, shaking your head. "Whatever you say, old man."

----------

-Present Day-

"I do," You smiled teary eyed up at Brian as the two of you held hands as you stared lovingly at one another, your friends and family watching as you shared your vows.

"I now pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss the bride." The vicar announced you man and wife, and in front of your loved ones, you shared your first kiss as husband and wife.

As Brian held you in his arms and kissed you with such passion and love, the memories the two of you had shared over the last five years span through your mind.

Even though there was an obvious age gap between the pair of you, I mean you were a lot closer to 30 than Brian was, it didn't seem to matter so much. There was times where it was apparent, like when Brian had found himself having some health issues. The heart attack really knocked you for ten, but in true Brian fashion he bounced back after some time to recover, more loving and caring than ever.

He was always willing to learn something new, and so the two of you had visited your parents in Denmark and you'd tried to teach him as much as you possibly could about your home.

At first your parents were more than shocked when you told them who you were dating. You had the whole 'he's too old', 'he's taking advantage of you', ‘you can't see a future with him', blah, blah, blah. But once they actually met him, after a lot of arm twisting that is, they saw the man you did. Not just a famous rock star who they thought was just having his way with you because you were a pretty young thing, but a man that saw you as a smart and bright woman who was capable of great things.

Of course your romance wasn't always so easy, what with the media sticking their nose in, and the fans having their own opinion. It was because of this that you and Brian took so long to admit how you felt about one another. There was a lot of longing looks, and lingering touches on both parts. It took Adam and his drunken big mouth to drop you in it for Brian to work up the courage to ask you out.

-Flash back-4 & half years ago-

As much as he hated being in a loud night club, barely understanding what was being played over the speakers, Brian happily sat in a big comfy chair along with Roger and Adam as you and Sarina danced with one another. Although he was doing it out of habit, he was watching you, a fond smile on his face as he watched you laugh and have the time of your life.

Roger rolled his eyes with a scoff, "He's like a bloody teenager." He chuckled pointing over to where Brian was, paying him nor Adam any attention. "Oy!" Roger threw a balled up napkin towards Brian, laughing when Brian jumped.

"Piss off!" Brian glared at him.

Roger rolled his eyes again, "Sorry, mate, have I distracted you from your perving?" He teased.

Brian blushed once again telling him to piss off. "I'm not perving."

Adam nodded laughing, "Don't worry, Bri, Y/N's just as bad."

Brian's brow creased and he turned in his seat so he was facing the younger man. "What on Earth are you talking about?"

"Are you serious, right now?" He huffed, "You really must be blind if you don't see the lady boner she gets whenever she's near you."

Brian shook his head as he looked to Roger. "Lady boner?" He asked looking confused.

Roger burst out laughing, almost dropping his drink on himself. "Oh, fuck." He quickly put his drink down still laughing. "Oh, God... He means, she's got the hots for you, Bri."

Brian's eyes widened. "Y/N?"

"Oh, yeah," Adam nodded, "She's even had a couple of saucy dreams about you, Bri."

Roger's head snapped to him."Has she?"

Adam "Oh, Dr. May, fuck me with your-" Adam stopped his terrible impression of you as you came to a stop in front of him, unimpressed to hear him exaggerate what you had told him. "Oh, hey, girl-"

"Don't." You glared at him, snatching your purse off the table. "I'm off." You huffed and turned on your heels.

Brian was quick to get up, calling Roger and Adam tossers before he followed after you. He caught you just before you left the club, holding your hand softly as he pleaded for you not to walk away from him. You told him you just wanted to leave for your hotel, and Brian was more than willing to escort you, to make sure you were safe.

'I wouldn't be much of a gentlemen if I let you go on your own, would I?'

----------

-Present Day-

"Look," Brian pointed up to the sky. The pair of you stood in each other's arms, slow dancing as the night wore on.

You smiled up at the sky as you watched the comet move across the black sky. You cuddled into Brian's warmth. "It's beautiful, Brian." You lifted your head to look at him. "Thank you."

Brian grinned down at you before slowly pressing his lips against yours, pulling a soft moan from you. "Jeg elsker dig, fru May." Brian whispered his love for you in Danish making you grin. He shook his head with a soft chuckle, "Doesn't sound as romantic with me butchering it."

You giggled shaking your head as you reached up and cupped his wrinkled face, his youth still there as he smiled down at you. "I still love you, Mr May." You whispered as you leaned up and pressed your lips against his.

#present day!brian may x reader #pd!brian may x reader #present day brian may x reader fluff #brian may x reader #Brian May fluff

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buoyantsaturn · 4 years ago

Text

Bring On The Monsters (1/?)

summary: A rewrite of the percy jackson series? starring solangelo instead? it's more likely than you think

word count: 2455

read on ao3

Some things happened too fast for Nico to register. Bianca often talked faster than Nico could process the words, and he couldn’t play a lot of action-heavy video games because his character always died before Nico ever saw the attacks coming. Other times, time seemed to drag on around him, like he was the one moving at the speed of light, but the world wasn’t turning beneath his feet. He didn’t know which feeling he hated more.

It always felt so unnatural whenever he seemed to move out of sync with time itself. Like his mind was straining to either speed up or slow down, but it couldn’t figure out which was which. Eventually, when he finally figured out why he had felt this way, he couldn’t decide if things had really made more or less sense.

See, his father - a man Nico had only met once or twice that he could remember, but even that seemed to get foggier and foggier the more he tried to think about it - had decided to send Nico and Bianca on a little vacation. A week in some hotel a few blocks down from the hopping Vegas Strip, supervised but only the dead-eyed employees who wouldn’t let them so much as crack a window in their bedroom for fresh air.

When they finally left, it wasn’t their father that picked them up, but his lawyer - a grouchy woman with her hair pulled into a bun so tight that it lifted all of the wrinkles she should have had. She had ushered the children into a car without letting them enjoy the sun and the breeze for even a second, and refused to answer any question the two of them had (like: “How did they build so many new hotels so fast?” and “Why is everyone dressed funny?” and “Where are we going?” and “When can we see our mom again?”)

Even outside of that hotel, with wind blowing through his hair from the cracked-open car window, Nico felt like he was moving outside of time. Nothing looked familiar anymore, besides the green grass on the roadside and the blue sky above. The cars were smaller and shinier than anything Nico had ever seen, and every inch of roadside was covered in advertisements. Somehow, without him noticing the passage of time, they’d wound up in New York, speeding down country roads as the ground started to shake behind them.

Nico turned around in his seat and knelt on the cushions so that he could look through the back window. It was dark outside, and it had just started to rain, so he couldn’t make out any distinguishable figures - until lightning struck. The flash was so bright that, for just a second, Nico could a hulking shape a few hundred yards behind them - like a man who took bodybuilding too seriously, or a bull that learned how to run on its hind legs.

Nico grabbed his sister’s shoulder and began to shake it. “Bia, look! There’s something out there!”

Bianca glanced over her shoulder, but turned back around soon after. “You’re seeing things, Nico.”

“You didn’t even look!” Nico argued, tugging on her shirt sleeve. “It’s like a giant guy running after us! He was right there, I swear!” Lightning flashed once more, and Nico saw the figure again, closer, clearer, spotting two pointed horns on the top of its head. “There it is! It’s closer now!”

That made Bianca move. She turned around, mirroring her brother’s position, and stared out the window. “Nothing can run as fast as a car, Nico, you know that. And I don’t see anyth--” Another flash, and Bianca screamed. The creature was right there, almost close enough to touch, and it jumped. It tried to grab onto the back of the car, but the rain-slicked metal left nothing to hold onto, so the creature fell, but not before taking off the back bumper.

The car swerved for a moment, and the lawyer shouted, “Children, in your seats!” The car picked up speed, but it wasn’t much - that creature could easily catch up again.

Suddenly, the back window shattered, and the bumper was wedged in between Nico and Bianca as they screamed. The car swerved again, this time going off the road and colliding with a tree. Nico’s head hit the back of the seat in front of him, leaving him dazed, the ringing in his ears overpowering the shouting going on around him. Somebody grabbed his arm, and he was pulled underneath the bumper and out the opposite side of the car. He thought he heard the lawyer shout, “Up that hill! To Percy’s tree!” but he was starting to think this was all a dream.

His feet carried him close behind Bianca, but he couldn’t feel when they hit the ground beneath him - not until he slipped on the soaked grass and fell face-first into the mud. Bianca tugged him up again. They kept running. He glanced over his shoulder, watching as the bull-man figure approached the abandoned car, and the lawyer jumped out - except, no, he didn’t remember the lawyer having wings.

She scratched the creature with hands like talons, but before she could fly away, a big, meaty hand reached out and pulled her down by a leg. The lawyer was slammed against the round, and Nico watched her dissolve into a coppery powder.

He was dreaming. He had to be.

Bianca continued onward, up the hill toward a giant pine tree. If it hadn’t been for her vise grip on his hand, Nico never would have been able to catch up. He kept slipping and tripping, and his head was starting to pound. He flinched at every flash of lightning that seemed to burn his eyes.

Then that thing caught up.

It grabbed his leg and pulled him away from Bianca, raising him into the air. It took a moment to sniff him - gross - before Nico was dropped. He managed to catch himself on his hands before his head hit the ground, but something in his arm snapped with an audible crack!, so painful that Nico’s vision blacked out.

“--and I mean, Chiron said that the two of you are probably going to be really powerful, but I don’t think I was supposed to hear that. But, you know, maybe he shouldn’t talk to himself so much when just anybody could be waiting around the corner, right? But, like, I mean, your sister killed the Minotaur, with her bare hands! That must mean you two are powerful, but I just wish Chiron told me what was going on, you know?”

Nico didn’t know where he was, or who this blond boy was that kept rambling at him, but since Nico didn’t know what to say, he found himself, for the first time, speechless.

After probably five minutes of listening to this kid, the boy finally looked at Nico to see that his eyes had opened. “Oh! You’re awake! Let me get you some water!”

He jumped out of his seat and turned his back to Nico, filling up a glass of water from a pitcher that sat on the other side of the room. He helped Nico sit up before handing him the glass. “How are you feeling?” the boy asked as Nico drank. “You had a concussion, and I’ve never fixed one of those before, but I think I did okay, you know, since you woke up again. So? Does your head hurt?”

Nico shook his head. “Um. What happened?”

The boy frowned at him. “Do you have memory loss? Maybe that concussion was worse than I thought. What’s your name?”

“Nico.”

“Do you know where you are, Nico?”

He shook his head again.

“You’re in the infirmary at Camp Half-Blood. Do you know what year it is?”

Nico hesitated. “Um. 1939?”

The boy looked shocked for a second, then laughed. He had a nice laugh. “Okay, I get it, you’re messing with me. You and your sister were fighting the Minotaur last night, but you got knocked out. I treated you for your concussion, and now you’re caught up!”

“Treated me? But you’re just a kid.”

He grinned at Nico. “So are you.”

Nico frowned. “What about my arm? I thought I broke it.”

“Oh! You did! I fixed that, too.”

“In one night?”

“Yeah, I’m good like that,” the boy said, looking awfully proud of himself.

“What’s your name?” Nico asked.

He looked surprised at the question. “Me? I’m--”

“Hey, Will,” somebody else called out, stepping into the doorway - he looked like he could be the boy’s older brother, with the same freckles and blond hair. “Chiron said to tell him as soon as this kid wakes up. You promised me I could trust you on this one, right?”

“You can!” the boy - Will, Nico figured - exclaimed. “I was just making sure his concussion was healed! We’re going right now, I swear!” He jumped up and grabbed Nico’s hand, tugging him out of bed. “C’mon, Nico!”

They brushed past Will’s brother and out of the building until they were on a large, white porch that seemed to wrap around the side of a house. Will pulled Nico around the bend and up to a card table, at which three of the four seats were filled - one by Bianca, the other two by a couple of grown adult men.

One of them, a man with a friendly smile and a brown beard, says, “Ah, Nico! You’re finally awake. Please, take a seat. We need a fourth for Pinochle.”

Nico hesitated, then let go of Will’s hand and sat down in the open chair, next to the other man who was covered in leopard print from head to toe.

“Will,” the first man said, “please go to Cabin 11 and make sure Luke has prepared enough space for Bianca and Nico.”

“Yes, sir!” Will said, and turned on his heel to leave.

The bearded man folded his hands on the table and turned his attention to Nico and Bianca. “Now, I’m sure the two of you have plenty of questions. Where would you like to start?”

Nico couldn’t wrap his head around any of it. He was supposed to believe that he was the child of a god? He was going to have crazy powers and learn how to fight with a sword? Don’t get him wrong, it was the coolest thing he’d ever heard, but how could it be real?

Bianca had gone off to make friends as soon as Chiron had finished explaining things to them, but Nico couldn’t make himself leave the Big House. If he stepped out into that world, then everything would become real. So instead, he sat on the porch steps, arms wrapped around his knees, and watched the campers around him.

After a short while, someone came to sit next to him. It was Will, who immediately started picking at a bandaid on his scraped knee. “It’s crazy, right?”

“Huh?” Nico was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about a little bit of peeled skin.

“The whole gods thing. You understand what’s going on, right?”

Nico huffed. “I get it. I don’t think I like it.”

“Yeah, it’s a lot to take it. I hear it gets easier once you’re claimed.”

“Claimed?” Nico repeated. “What’s that mean?” “It’s like… So, I know who my mom is, because she raised me, but I don’t know who my dad is, because he’s a god. But I don’t know which god. So claiming is, like, when my dad finally tells me who he is. Once you get claimed, you get to move into the cabin where all of your siblings are, and you get to do your activities with them, and you get to learn how to use your powers - if you have any.”

“Like you have. You healed me.” Nico said. “So you have healing powers, right? Who’s your dad?”

Will blushed and looked away. “Okay, so, I might have...lied to you about that. See, I really, really want my dad to be Apollo, because then I’ll get to hang out in the infirmary all the time and learn how to heal people, but… Lee actually healed you, not me. All I can do is give people ambrosia, and even then I have to have Lee portion it out for me.”

Nico frowned. “But… You and that other guy, you look so much alike. I thought you were brothers.”

That seemed to perk Will up again. “You think so?” Nico nodded, and Will’s smile brightened. “Okay, who do you think your parent is?”

Nico shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I can help you narrow it down! Is it your mom or your dad?”

He tried to think, but it was like something was blocking his memories. He couldn’t remember who had raised him. He tried to remember his mother, but the only face he saw was Bianca’s. Did he even have a mother?

“I...don’t know.”

“Oh. I mean, that’s okay! Let’s go through your options.” Will reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small deck of cards. “Have you ever played Mythomagic?”

Nico shook his head.

“It’s this game where you can fight using the gods as your weapons. Kinda like Pokemon, you know?”

Nico didn’t. He nodded anyway.

Will started laying out cards between them, naming gods and explaining their basic roles in the universe. Nico noticed that Will had called Zeus and Poseidon Big Three gods, but after he’d laid out the twelve cards for the twelve cabins at camp, Nico never heard the third name.

“Who’s the third Big Three god?” Nico asked, frowning down at the cards between them.

Will started searching through the remaining cards in his hands. “Oh. I mean, there’s like, zero chance that you’re the child of a Big Three god, because they made this pact that they would never have children again. Because those kids are way too powerful, you know? And the last time the pact was broken by Poseidon, well…” Will’s eyes drifted toward the edge of camp, and Nico followed his gaze, but all he saw was a standalone pine tree at the top of a hill. “It didn’t go well.”

Will placed the thirteenth card on the step between them. “The last of the Big Three is Hades. He doesn’t have a cabin here because he doesn’t have a throne on Olympus. He’s kind of the black sheep of the family - the god of the dead and the Underworld. He hasn’t had kids since World War two, I think. So, it’s more than likely not him. Besides, you kinda look more like an Ares kid to me, you know?”

[buy me a coffee] | [more solangelo stuff]

#solangeloweek2020 #solangelo #will solace #nico di angelo #mine #my writing #garbage site doesn't support html but am i surprised? no

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eirabach · 5 years ago

Note

What was *that scene *in renegades?

Well since you askedddddd 😍😍

----

Grace leads her to a little treehouse away from the bustling centre of their town. It’s rustic - she’ll be picking splinters out of her hands for weeks probably - but it’s warm and dry, with a handmade chair and a straw bed covered with a thick wool blanket, so she doesn’t have to fake her gratitude when Grace shows her the balcony she can hang her damp clothes from, or the metal grate where she can light a peat fire.

It almost feels like a home.

Grace leaves her, and Emma finds herself pottering around the small space, sniffing distastefully at the slightly goaty cheese on the ramshackle table and fiddling with the kettle over the fire. Her thoughts constantly wander to what it might have been like to live in a place like this. To live a life like this, with warmth and food and someone to come back to.

A home.

“Don’t get comfortable.”

Hook lets the door slam behind him and it bounces off its hinges, once, twice, three times until the latch finally clicks into place. He still looks like thunder, and Emma eyes him cautiously, keeping the table between them until she can get a better read on what’s going on.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” she says. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

He lifts his chin and tilts his head to one side - but the smile he gives her is the one she’s seen him throw at half a dozen whores, the wide one with too many teeth and not enough lines around the eyes. It doesn’t fool her one bit.

“What makes you think something’s going on?”

She leans forward against the table and nods down to the curved steel peeking out from under his coat.

“You’re wearing the dagger and Roland’s still alive. Something is clearly going on.”

He looks down at himself briefly, seemingly almost bemused at finding the dagger there, then casts a rather desperate gaze around the room until it alights on the bed.

“This bed is looking awfully lonely. If you’ll excuse me I intend to rectify that at once.” He grins that terrible grin again, and sidles past her, casting off first his coat and then his sword belt before collapsing face down on the soft straw with groan of such pure ecstasy that Emma almost regrets the sneer behind her next words.

“Oh, you get the bed do you? It’s like that now.”

He rolls onto his back and folds his arms behind his head, looking at her with such wide-eyed innocence she’s not sure if she wants to jump him or brain him.

“You hate me being gentlemanly, so I assumed you’d want to take the chair.”

“You’re a bastard,” she snorts, and he gestures to his too-innocent face as if to say what, me?

“Not guilty. My parents were legally wed, more’s the tragedy.”

He wriggles his hips, pretending to get comfortable while simultaneously watching her like a hawk. Well, if he thinks he can distract her that easily… he winks - a pathetic, sleepy sort of thing - and she sighs in defeat. He’s probably right.

“Oh, shove over.”

He looks a little gobsmacked, and she can’t really blame him. She’s a little shocked herself. Yes, she’s lain with him in far fewer clothes than her chemise, and yes, he’s the one who started it by claiming the bed for himself, but it’s still different, squeezing herself into the space at his side sober. It’s different, they’re different. He’s different.

He’s hiding something, but then she’s starting to think maybe she is too.

“Swan…”

She grins at how horrified he sounds, pressing herself up against his side just because she can.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she drawls, “I’m tired.”

“Emma,” he warns in a low voice.

“I said don’t,” she says, but there’s no venom in it.

Very little truth either, in all honesty.

“No - I,” he swallows hard, so hard she can feel it vibrate down the length of her arm where it’s pressed against his. “I made a deal.”

“You don’t say.”

She smiles up at him, a bright, open smile that she hopes he’ll return with some openness of his own, but instead she watches as his face seems to crumple, his eyes squeezed shut as if he’s in physical pain.

“Emma, you have to go home.”

She blinks at him, gobsmacked into silence for a moment, before hot rage simmers its way through her veins.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I shouldn’t have let you follow me in the first place, but you’re so bloody stubborn and I - well. It doesn’t matter, not anymore. Roland has agreed to help you make your way home. Whatever provisions you require - maps - ”

She shakes her head in disbelief, but now he’s started it’s almost like he can’t stop. As though he has to spit the words out before they swallow him whole.

“I have a few things you can take to ease your passage, I won’t require them so they may as well go to you, the Jolly is probably long gone, but if you find her I’m sure you wouldn’t be adverse to a bit of plundering - “

“Hook,” she tries, but he rambles on.

“Unless you’d rather stay? I can see the appeal, and no doubt Mr Hood would be delighted - “

“Killian!”

She's never used his first name before, not ever, and judging by the look of shock on his face he's probably forgotten he ever told her it. She presses her hand against his chest, half to ground him and half to reassure herself of the beating of his heart.

“Why are you talking as though you’re writing a will?”

He shrugs, his hand coming up as if to cover hers before he apparently thinks better of it and let's it drop to the blanket, his fingers twitching restlessly.

“Well. I suppose I am. Had to happen eventually, even to me.”

She tucks that weird bit of phrasing away for later consideration, and hoists herself up onto her elbow so that she can look him in the eye.

“Tell me. What the hell have you done?”

Hook closes his eyes and let's out a long sigh. He looks older, suddenly. His face tight and lined like a man who's seen too much horror and not enough softness.

She knows that look, knows how it feels, and she wants to kiss him. Wants to make him smile the smile that wipes it all away. She wants a lot of things, here in this secret space where there's no one but them, but then he’s speaking. So she pretends she doesn't.

“The Hood boy, he told me all about his parents. How they lived peacefully outside of the laws with others who had no place to go - no where to call home. He made it sound idyllic.”

“Yeah, he told me, too.”

“It wasn’t though, not always. His mother was killed by the Evil Queen when he was barely more than an infant, and that’s when his father began to build a world of their own, a place they could defend, where they could feel safe. She attacked when Roland was nine, razed the trees to the ground and disappeared into the night, taking his father with her.”

“That must have been awful,” she says, and means it. To have never had something, someone, is miserable enough. But to have it and lose them? Her fingers tighten around the material of Hook’s shirt.

“According to Roland, she ripped his father’s heart right out of his chest, and the man just followed after her - meek as a lamb.”

Emma balks, her face scrunched up in disgust.

“She can do that?”

“I’ve seen it done,” Hook says, and there's an undercurrent to it, something dark and angry that colours his next words. “It does things to a child, being left alone like that. Scars them. Makes them think a little differently, like they see the world through the bottom of a glass.”

“You think he’s wrong?”

Hook shrugs.

“Not sure what I think matters, Swan. But it explains what he’s asked me to do. In return for giving me the dagger, he wants me to kill her.”

Emma raises her eyebrows.

“And you don’t think you can?”

He shakes his head and let's out a puff of air that might have been a laugh.

“Oh no, I know I can. I will.” He says it casually enough, but his gaze is still fixed on the ceiling. “But you -”

“I’m tougher than I look,” she says, mildly offended, and the corner of his mouth quirks up slightly.

“And you look very tough indeed, but lass, this isn’t an adventure story. We won’t come out covered in glory. Only regrets and the blood of other people. I want better for you.”

“Maybe I want better for you,” she says, her hand creeping up his chest to cup his jaw.

She can feel the muscles twitch under her palm as he fights between the urge to press closer or pull away, so she rubs her thumb gently over his beard until he seems to decide, relaxing into her touch.

“I’m beyond saving, Emma,” he sighs.

She tightens her grip, turns his face to hers. “You can let me be the judge of that.”

They lie like that, noses almost touching, breathing each others air, for what feels like minutes. Emma finds herself cataloging every freckle, every eyelash, her fingers coming up to rest lightly over the cut he'd received in the battle with the knights back at the dock. It'll scar, she thinks, but she won't mind.

She has the sudden all encompassing feeling that she could look at him forever, scars and all.

“Why did you follow me?” he asks in barely a whisper, his eyes flitting hopelessly from her own to her lips and back again.

Emma smiles, and lets her hand move round so that she can run her fingers through his hair.

“Roland says you're my friend.”

He smiles back, genuine and soft, and shuffles his body just a little closer to hers, his hook resting cool and heavy on her hip.

“Oh yes? I'm not sure I've ever had one of those. What's that involve, then?”

“Nor me,” Emma bites her lip and watches his eyes flash dark. “But I think… Maybe something like this?”

It's a peck, a breath, just a lightning spark of lip against lip, but it's enough to send sparks flickering along her spine and set her heart pounding, and the little sound he makes - desperate and guttural right at the back of his throat - fills her with the burning need to hear him make it again, make him burn with her until he's hers and he’s hers and gods she wants to keep him…

The hammering on the door sends them flying apart, Hook landing ungracefully on the floor just as Roland bursts into the room.

“They've found you,” he gasps out. “The Knights. They've found the camp. You have to go, now!”

Emma scrambles for her clothes.

“They were following us?” she asks, furiously tugging on an overskirt. “Since when? We came by boat!”

“Not us, not as such,” Hook says, his face as grave as it ever was. “They're after this, still.”

He rests his hand on the dagger, and stares at her from under furrowed brows.

“There's still time to back out, Swan.”

“What?” Emma blows her hair out of her face and whips her cloak around her shoulders. “And leave you to get yourself killed? Not likely. You can't get rid of me that easily.”

“No,” he says with a hint of a smile. “I don't suppose I can.”

Roland looks nervously over his shoulder before beckoning them out of the door, the sound of shouting and the clash of ste echoing from somewhere below.

“Go North,” he says, thrusting something round and golden into Hook’s hand. “We’ll hold them off - keep going till first light and you should be safe a little while longer.”

“Oh, comforting,” Emma grumbles.

Roland flashes her a quick, apologetic smile before turning back to Hook.

“You won't forget what I told you?” he pleads. “You'll do everything as I asked?”

Hook nods once, then swings himself onto the nearest rope ladder.

“Coming, Swan?”

She spares Roland a smile and a friendly squeeze of his arm, and, taking a deep breath, she follows Hook into the unknown.

#clare vs writers block #renegades #ask games #katie-dub

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ansgar-martinsson · 4 years ago

Text

Fair Winds and a Following Sky - Part 3

Kaffe Lilljekvist, Malmskillnadsgatan 50, Stockholm, Sweden. 9:42 am, 20 July.

Fair Sky hitched her backpack higher on her shoulder. Between the heft of it, the heaviness of her fatigue, the heat of the day, and the lurch of jetlag, she felt as if the world were weighing her down.

The pockmarked, tattoo-necked teenager at the fifteen-dollar-a-night hostel had told her that the cafe’ was within walking distance -- just a left and a few rights and another left and she’d be there in no time. Well, she surmised after getting lost, consulting the maps app on her phone, after plotting and replotting the route, after twenty-five minutes of walking -- that the Swedish must have a different idea of “walking distance” than she, or most Americans, did.

By the time she arrived at the end of the street named Malmskillnadsgatan - a name that had taken her five tries to even pronounce correctly - she figured she’d walked at least two and a half miles; and by the time she’d reached No. 50 on that street, her feet were, quite literally, dragging beneath her.

She’d intended to get there at half past nine, with the understanding that Ansgar Martinsson would be there at quarter ‘til ten; and that she could have a cup of coffee and some sort of unfamiliar Swedish pastry, take a few minutes to collect herself, and be fresh for when she....

When she....

When I what? She sighed, lowering herself gingerly, achingly into a padded, high-backed armchair, a small table before her and a massive window beside her. She dropped her backpack on the floor, the weight of it making a loud whump! and slumped into the chair, elbow perched on the arm, chin buried in her hand. “How the hell am I supposed to do this? What do I say?”

She sat up, straightening herself in the chair. She adjusted her high ponytail, faced out the window, took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. “Hello,” she whispered, trying out the phrase. “Hm, no.” She shook her head, grimacing. “How about.... Been a while, hasn’t it?” Again, she rejected that, clearing her throat. “Or....” she groaned, her breath held while her mind churned. “Fuck....” she swore, and swiftly dropped her head into her hand. “You’re an idiot, stupid... stupid....”

“Kan jag hjalpa dig?”

“What?” Anna jumped, startled. “Sorry, I...I don’t,....”

“Oh, English, ja,” the waitress smiled, took a breath and spoke again. “May I help you? Would you like a kaffe?”

“Yes, please, I...,” she stammered. “Just... just a black coffee.”

“Iced?” the girl inquired, pointing out the window with her pencil. “Sunny day... it’s hot outside, no?”

“I... yes” Anna replied, feeling somehow calmed by the idea of an iced coffee, by the girl’s manner, by her quite un-Swedish looking rounded face and dark hair. “Yes, that would be nice.”

“Right away,” the girl nodded, stuck her pencil in her apron pocket, and stepped away.

“Wait,” Anna stopped her, a hand on her elbow. “Just a second, please.”

“Would you like something else, miss?”

Anna sighed, “I... um....,” she hesitated. “I guess I’m looking for someone, someone who should be here by now, but I haven’t seen him come in yet.” She pointed out the window toward the front door. “He probably should have been here about five minutes ago.”

“Are you meeting him here?” the girl peered around the nearly empty cafe. “Not too many people today, not with the heat.”

“I’ve been told he comes in here a lot... for... for... what’s that called?”

“Fika?” the girl smiled. “Everyone who comes in here is having fika.” The girl lowered herself down to Anna’s level, sitting back on her haunches. “Tell me, though. What does he look like, this man you’re meeting? Maybe I can help you.”

“He’s um....” Anna began, her hands fidgeting in her lap. “I haven’t seen him in a long time, but, well... he’s tall, very tall, and fit, about thirty-seven years old.” She licked her rapidly drying lips. “He’s got blue eyes, kind of longer, brownish wavy hair... and I think... he has a little beard thing, around his mouth,” she indicated, her fingers circling her lips. “Sort of like that.”

“Handsome, is he? Dresses well?”

“Yes,” Anna nodded. “That... that sounds like him.”

“Hm,” the girl’s lips twisted and her eyes narrowed -- a sage, knowing, yet wary expression. She braced herself on the edge of Anna’s chair and turned her head, her neck craning to peer toward the back of the coffee house, up through a square opening in a dividing wall. “Looks like he’s sitting in his usual spot, if that’s who you’re looking for.” She lifted her chin in indication, and shifted her gaze back to Anna. “Are you, by chance, looking for Herr Martinsson? Ansgar Martinsson?”

Anna followed the girl’s gaze, and caught sight of the back of his head. Him... unmistakable, even from the back. Him... Her blood went cold. She swallowed, inhaled hard, and exhaled sharply. She sat back in the chair as if she could hide within it, as if it could swallow her up and transport her magically, Harry Potter-like back to Oklahoma. Her hands had gone numb and her eyes felt dry and hollow at the sight of him, even from a distance, at the sound of his name... of his real name.

“I er... I suppose I am.”

The girl stood and peered down at Anna, still smiling. Her face lost no sign of amiability, but her words cut Anna to the core. “Good luck with that,” she said, not sharp or unfriendly, but not warm either. “You’ll probably need it.”

“Please,” Anna breathed, her fingers once again twisting in her lap, “don’t tell him... don’t... don’t say anything to him about... about me.”

The girl nodded. “Of course not,” she lifted one shoulder, her lips curling downward in an ennui-laden expression. “We don’t ever really talk to him. And you know,” she added, pointing out the window, “you wouldn’t have seen him if you kept watching the front door. He always comes in the back way. Anyway, I’ll just go get you your kaffe.” And with that, she was gone.

And Anna was left, once again, alone.

She shuddered, hunkering even further down in her chair, if that were at all possible. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, and peered, shaking, out the window. After a moment, she turned her head, cocked it, and chanced a second glance through the square opening, and found him still sitting there, his straight, proud back to the rest of the cafe. “Fuck this,” she spat, once again whispering to herself. “Fuck this... fear.”

What is he? Is he some kind of asshole? Will I end up hating him? Will he... will he send me away? Was I wrong about him? Was he... was he dishonest with me? Well, of course, you idiot. Of course he was dishonest with you. Never even told you his real name! But... was he... did he pretend to want me? Did he pretend to ... to like me? Oh, God... God, was I wrong... was I wrong to come here?

She closed her eyes and forced herself to rest back into the chair. She breathed deeply, trying desperately to calm herself, to meditate on the voice of her spirit, of the voice of her mother, listening for her wisdom, her spirit. And, as always, her mother came through. “Remember him, think of him as he was with you, that is who he is, let your spirit find him and you won’t be afraid....”

And so, she did. Just for a moment -- fleeting, a split second -- did she find him. Him. The feeling of who he’d been with her -- it was suddenly all there, all at once, all in place. She saw him clearly in the eye of her spirit.

Him... with a tool belt slung low around his waist, shaggy beard, long hair tied back in a ponytail, baseball cap on his head, borrowed old t-shirt and jeans covered with sawdust and whitewash paint. Happy. Smiling.

Oh, that smile -- he took a tall, icy, dripping sweet tea from her hands and drank deep, bursting forth with a loud “ah!” at the end of it. The plastic cup clattered as he slammed it, satisfied, on to the saw horse. He swept her close to him with one arm, his other still curled casually around the rung of the aluminum ladder. He kissed her then, long and hard and wanting. With a moan, he pulled back, grinned yet again, and asked, a wicked glint in his eye, “What’s for supper darling? I’m fucking starving,” he winked. “Or maybe I’m just starving for a fuck.”

She felt herself relax, even smile a little, as she breathed. Her spirit cleansed her, washed out all the doubt, all the negative opinions of others she’d heard over the last twenty-four hours. For a moment, she actually felt him beside her, felt his presence; his presence a wonderful thing -- the light to drown out all of those that called him a “shark” or told her “good luck” when it came to talking to him, those in the media who had called him ruthless, crude, arrogant, sharpish, and shrewd.

She sighed, deep and long, and, feeling ready, feeling centered, feeling... brave... she finally opened her eyes.

“Ah! Shit!” she cried, scared out of her wits by the man himself, standing, no... lording over her. His shoulders were square, back straight, his hands folded calmly at his waist. Yet, his hardened, fixated eyes, tight lips, and sharply cocked eyebrow telegraphed his confusion, shock..., and anger.

“Do you mind telling me what the fuck you are doing here?”

#fair winds and a following sky

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golddaggers · 6 years ago

Text

come here, lover boy

pairings: thor x reader, steve x reader (tho its friendship only)

warnings: hmm, cursing and mentions of sex. but not reaaaally explict.

a/n: i wrote this after i watched dirty dancing. what? its one of my comfort movies. either way, it’s just a short, quick thing that i hope y’all enjoy (?). well. lemme know.

word count: 1,5k+

If there was anything that could tear apart his soldier focus, it was definitely the rhythmic sway of your hips, going low as they wiggled to the late seventies song. It was sexy, hypnotising even. Thor just couldn't keep his eyes away, wishing he could go up there and wrap his arms around your waist, feeling the gentle rub of your ass against his own hips as you two danced together.

Sighing, he sat back on the couch and took a sip of his bear in hopes that it would help soothe the discomfort growing within his trousers. It was taking all of his strength to not drop your mutual agreement to keep your relationship a secret from the rest of the Avengers, because all he wanted to do that very second was to feel your skin, your arms around him. And pretty honestly, your wet pussy under his fingers. He wanted to show you off.

"You should talk to her, you know," Bucky said, sitting beside him and giving a friendly pat on Thor's shoulder. "She doesn't bite."

"Oh, but she does." The thunder god mumbles under his breath, smirking upon remembering the events from the night before.

"What?"

"Nothing. You're right, I should talk to her." There's a heaviness in his words, suddenly doubting why you should keep your love a secret. There were good points when you talked about it, though he could only really focus on the tight bra pushing up your breasts in a way that it was not fair. "Is she with someone, though?"

"Hmm, I mean, I don't know." He shrugs. "Maybe she's got a little thing going on with Steve, but he wouldn't tell me no matter what I did, so I can’t tell."

"Oh really?" A pang of jealousy hits him hard, gazing up to find you still dancing excitedly, the cute, tiny dress going up and down tauntingly. "What makes you think so?"

An answer wasn't necessary as a loud squeal brought the men's attention to the centre of the room, you jumping happily to the track that had just begun.

Since it was a seventies night party, all it had been playing was some old tunes you apparently love, Thor presumed. This one, however, he knew you liked quite a lot because very often he'd find you dancing to it.

"Steve!" Your voice got Thor's eyes sewed to you. "Come on, dance with me. You know this one!"

"I'm not sure, Sweetkins." The nickname makes a smile creep up in your lips, a thunder cracking in the clear sky as soon as you do so. You have learnt to ignore when that happens, every minimum disturbance on Thor's emotions can cause such things. "I can't really dance."

"Oh shut it, Stevie."

The "Love is Strange" lyrics are still playing in the background when you engulf Steve into your arms, guiding his hands dangerously low on your hips, then resting yours on his shoulders. You had on the highest heels in your wardrobe, possibly why you were able to dance nicely with him, your bodies grinding together to the sexy tune.

It was mean of you to tease him like that, to bring out the jealousy from the depths of your thunder god. In your defence, you had told him countless times Steve was just a friend you liked hanging out with, that he was nice and sweet. Plus he had his eyes on somebody else, which was exactly why you were dancing with him like that. You wanted to urge jealousy from her so she’d finally speak up about her feelings towards Steve.

“Thor is going to kill me.” He mumbles into your ear, your body being thrown back lightly only to be jerked back up. “Have you seen the way he’s looking at us?”

“Shhh.” You giggle, placing two fingers against his lips. “Only you know, Steve, plus I told him nothing is going between us. He trusts me.”

“I don’t think he trusts me, though.”

Hiding your face on the crook of his neck, you laugh again, another thunder roaring outside. You remark yourself to have a really serious conversation with him about that. The song was nearly over when you were startled by the sound of a door being slammed, so strongly you feared it'd go off of the hinges. A sigh escaped as you unwrapped your arms from your friend, whispering that you'd take care of that situation.

As you made your way into the balcony, your mind swirled around the fact if your friends suspected of your involvement with the mighty Thor, they were now sure something was going on. Not that you were embarrassed by him or anything. God, no. You wanted to rub him on each person who ever diminished you and made you feel hard to love.

Thor loved you easily, that's why you wanted to keep him as your little secret.

"Thor…" Carefully placing your hand on his middle back, you feel him tense up. "Why'd you leave like that?"

"Why do you care?"

"Oi!" It comes off louder than you expected it to be. "Don't treat me like that, mister."

"Fine. Then tell me something." Thor suddenly turns to you, eyes in a dark shade of blue, filled with resentment. "You work so hard to keep us a secret, you say that it could be dangerous for both of us, but I don't see you holding back with the Captain."

"Because everybody knows he's just my friend." A low grunt rumbles on his chest, you inch closer to him. "Are you jealous, my love?"

Dropping his shoulders in defeat, Thor gives his back to you, gazing up at the dark sky, greyish clouds gathering together once he does so. It looks like it's going to rain soon. You realise that this little stunt of yours got to him more than it should have. You hate that you made him feel insecure about your relationship, it was never really the point.

If Thor wants a dance, he’ll get a dance.

"Come here, lover boy." You mumble, mimicking the song you were dancing with Steve just a few minutes ago. He doesn't answer, he doesn't even flinch. "Oh, lover boy…"

There’s a slight change of weight between his long legs, although he’s still not looking at you. Smacking your lips, you move closer to him again, wounding your arms around his waist, your hands dipping under the loose t-shirt he was wearing, crawling up to his chest, brushing the sizzling skin. Only then you notice him relax a little, his guard still very much up.

“Baby...” Tracing up to the toned muscles on his back with your nose, you take in his inebriating smell, clinging to the feeling of him shuddering under the palms of your hands. “My sweet baby…”

In a swift movement, so fast you can’t even tell what’s happening, Thor has you pressed against the wall, the chill temperature and the fact he’s so close to you makes it hard to breathe. Your breasts bump into his abdomen lightly, arms wrapping around his neck while he lifts you up by holding the back of your thighs, hands so large gripping the tender flesh.

A quiet moan leaves your lips, fuelling him to move his hips against yours even further.

“You’re the one.” You finish. “The only one for me, my love.”

“I cannot stay mad at you, can I, my queen?” Thor’s voice is raspy, so deep that if your core could scream, it would be doing so at full lung capacity. “Do want to leave his party?”

“I have the feeling that if we don’t, you’re just going to take me right here.” A chuckle trembles on the crook of your neck, the prickling of his beard lighting a fire within you. “And I’m really not in the mood to put up with Tony’s witty remarks about my sex life.”

“So you are no longer concerned about them knowing about us?” It shoots off mixed sensations, a wave of guilt washing over you again.

“No. I don’t care anymore.” You answer softly, cupping his cheeks. “I love you. You have no idea how much.”

“So do I, Sól mín.”

The sound of his voice when speaking in his first language send chills down your spine, so you hug him like you’re afraid to let him go or move away from you. Every moment with him is like that, an abrasive will to forever be by his side, to eat him whole and be eaten by him. It was crazy how much she needed him.

“What does that mean?”

“My sun.” He says, helping you down so you can finally leave. “That’s what you are to me.”

“The sun is actually a pretty small star.”

“Hmm, you are a pretty small star too, my queen.” Thor mocks, patting the top of your head. “But I love you nonetheless.”

“Come, otherwise we will have to put up with Tony’s jokes because I most certainly will rip your clothes off and make love to you right here.”

He laughs, guiding you out through the people and towards the exit of the building. The eyes of all of your friends never leave the two of you, but, at that moment, you’re happy and nothing else matters.

tags!

marvel: @frenfics

thor: @lancsnerd @odinson-barnes

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beatlejuice64 · 5 years ago

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Destiel: Season 8 - A catalog of Supernatural episodes

A catalog of each episode in Supernatural that features scenes related to Destiel. This includes scenes between Dean and Castiel, scenes with other characters that address their relationship with each other, and scenes that allude to Dean’s bisexuality.

Season 8 Summary Analysis

Cas does whatever he can to keep Dean safe while in Purgatory. Dean is determined to rescue Cas from Purgatory and blames himself for failing to do so. Dean suffers intense survivor’s guilt at losing Cas there, and he’s thrilled when Cas returns. When Cas reveals that he didn’t want to be saved and won’t go back to heaven because of the shame he feels, Dean makes space for his vulnerability. Cas grows more distant as he is brainwashed by Naomi, but Dean’s profession of love for Cas helps him resist her command to kill Dean. Dean is hurt when Cas leaves with the angel tablet, and Cas desperately tries to make things right by working with Metatron.

My interpretation: Cas and Dean grow closer during the time that Dean and Sam spend apart. Dean represses his love for Cas for most of the season, but he starts to grow more comfortable with his bisexuality over time, particularly through Charlie’s influence. When Cas disappears for a while mid-season, Dean realizes just how much he needs Cas and misses him. Dean was able to let go of his friendship with Benny, but he realizes that he can’t make the same choice with Cas. Dean finally voices his feelings for Cas in episode 17 (the line “We’re family” was originally written to be “I love you” Source: https://fandomdebunker.tumblr.com/post/64507789422/the-rumor-that-jensen-confirmed-the-i-love-you). Naomi recognizes that Castiel’s primary source of rebelliousness comes from his feelings for Dean, and she thinks that training him to kill Dean will stamp out his love for humanity and free will. When Cas breaks free of Noami’s mind control, his desperation to make things right with Dean leads him to be taken advantage of by Metatron.

8.01 We Need to Talk about Kevin

Cas leaves Dean when they first get to Purgatory to protect him from Leviathan that are hunting him.

When Benny approaches Dean with an offer to escape Purgatory, Dean insists that they find Cas first.

8.02 What’s Up, Tiger Mommy?

Dean is relieved to find Cas in Purgatory. He gives him a big hug and compliments him on the beard he has grown: “Nice peach fuzz.”

Cas is not exactly happy to see Dean, and he explains that he left Dean on purpose when they first got to Purgatory. Dean says he prayed to Cas every night after he left and is upset to find out that Cas heard him and chose not to respond. Cas explains that he’s been keeping his distance from Dean to keep the Leviathan away from him: “I have a price on my head, and I’ve been trying to stay one step ahead of them, to keep them away from you.”

Dean tries to convince Cas to go with him to escape Purgatory: “Cas, buddy, I need you.” “Let me bottom-line it for you—I’m not leaving here without you. Understand?”

Cas is concerned for Dean’s safety, but agrees to go with him and Benny.

8.05 Blood Brother

Cas repeatedly expresses concern that the doorway out of Purgatory will not work for him, and Benny complains that Castiel’s presence is going to get them killed because he draws the monsters to them. Dean remains stubborn that Cas should stay with them and that he will find a way to get Cas out.

8.07 A Little Slice of Kevin

In Purgatory, Cas appreciates Dean‘s efforts to save him: “I’m just saying, if it doesn’t work, thank you for everything.”

Dean starts seeing Cas in random places intermittently—on the side of the road, out the window. Sam tries to console Dean, who is still dwelling on losing Cas in Purgatory: “You know, I could’ve pulled him out. I just don’t understand why he didn’t try harder.” “Dean, you did everything you could.” “Yeah, but why do I feel like crap?” “Survivor’s guilt? If you let it, this is gonna keep messing with you. You gotta walk past it.”

Dean is happy but incredulous when Cas shows up for real.

When Cas comes out of the bathroom after getting cleaned up, the camera pans up on him slowly, and Dean shifts in his chair. When Cas asks, “Better?” Sam looks over to Dean, who nods awkwardly.

Cas is pained to learn that Dean blames himself for not saving him: “It’s like you just gave up. It’s like you didn’t believe we could do it. I mean you kept saying that you didn’t think it would work. Did you not trust me? I did everything I could to get you out—everything! I did not leave you.” “So you think this is your fault?”

When going to save Kevin, Dean shows concern for Castiel’s safety since his powers haven’t fully returned: “That was a bonehead move back there. You could’ve gotten yourself killed. Why didn’t you wait for me?” “Well, I didn’t get killed, and it worked.” “And if it didn’t?” “It would’ve been my problem.” “Well, that’s not that way I see it.”

Cas tries to help Dean understand that he shouldn’t feel responsible for everyone around him: “Hey, everything isn’t your responsibility. Getting me out of Purgatory wasn’t your responsibility.” “You didn’t get out, so whose fault was it?” “It’s not about fault. It’s about will. ... You remembered it the way you needed to.” “Look, I don’t need to feel like hell for failing you, okay? For failing you like I’ve failed every other godforsaken thing that I care about. I don’t need it!”

When Cas explains that he wanted to punish himself, Dean is visibly concerned: “See, it wasn’t that I was weak. I was stronger than you. I pulled away. Nothing you could have done would have saved me, because I didn’t want to be saved.” “What the hell are you talkin’ about?” “It’s where I belonged. I needed to do penance. After the things I did on earth and in heaven, I didn’t deserve to be out, and I saw that clearly when I was there. I planned to stay all along. I just didn’t know how to tell you. You can’t save everyone, my friend, though you try.”

8.08 Hunter Heroici

While talking to Cas, Dean makes a reference to Vermont, one of the few states that has legalized gay marriage (the first state to do it through legislation): “So what now? Move to Vermont, open up a charming B&B?”

Cas says he wants to become a hunter and be Sam and Dean’s “third wheel.”

Dean teases Cas when Sam outsmarts him with his superior detective skills: “Strike one, Sherlock.”

Cas learns more about humanity and social interaction from working the case with Dean and Sam.

When Cas starts rifling through Dean’s toiletry bag and says he’ll stay in their hotel room, it makes Dean uncomfortable: “Cas, you gonna book a room or what?” “No, I’ll stay here.” “Oh, okay. Yeah, we’ll have a slumber party, braid Sam’s hair. Where are you gonna sleep?” “I don’t sleep.” “Okay, well, I need my four hours, so...” “I’ll watch over you.” “That’s not gonna happen.”

Cas is annoyed when Dean asks him to lift a heavy anvil—he wants to prove that he’s worth more than just his supernatural powers.

As Cas is looking though John’s journal, Dean asks him how he’s doing and shows genuine concern for his well-being. When Cas gets defensive, Dean makes space for Castiel’s feelings of vulnerability: “How you feeling, Cas?” “I’m fine.” “Well, I just... I know that when I got puked out of Purgatory, it took me a few weeks to find my sea legs.” “I’m fine.” “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy you’re back. I’m freakin’ thrilled. It’s just this whole mysterious resurrection thing, always has one mother of a downside.” “So what do you want me to do?” “Maybe take a trip upstairs.” “To heaven?” “Yeah, poke around, see if the God squad can’t tell us how you got out.” “No.” “Look, man, I hate those flyin’ ass monkeys just as much as you do, but...” “Dean! I said no!” “Talk to me.” “Dean, I... when I was bad, and I had those things, the leviathans, writhing inside me, I caused a lot of suffering on Earth, but I devastated heaven. I vaporized thousands of my own kind, and I... I can’t go back.” “‘Cause if you do, the angels will kill you.” “Because if I see what heaven’s become, what I made of it, I’m afraid I might kill myself.”

When an old woman flirts with Cas, he is visibly uncomfortable, but Dean is amused by it.

Dean compliments Cas and appreciates his help on the case: “Cas, you get to ride shotgun. You done good.”

Dean is disappointed when Cas says he won’t be sticking around with him and Sam.

8.10 Torn and Frayed

Naomi sends Cas to rescue Samandriel, and he seeks out Dean’s help. He shows up while Dean is sleeping and watches him for a while. When Dean wakes up to see Cas standing over him, he’s startled: “Damn it, Cas. How many times I gotta tell you, it’s just creepy!” (Apparently, this has happened many times before.)

Dean tries to hide his porn from Cas when he opens his laptop (note: he never tries to hide his porn from Sam). Cas reacts awkwardly, almost as if he’s curious to see it, but he looks away to protect Dean’s privacy.

With Sam gone, Dean and Cas investigate on their own. Their interactions indicate a high level of closeness: “That’s his serious face, yes.”

Cas helps bring Dean and Sam back together. He recognizes that they need each other, even if they won’t admit it: “We need everything, Dean. And I need both of you, as you say, to stow your crap. Can you do that?”

When Castiel’s eye starts bleeding from Naomi’s mind control, Dean expresses concern for his well-being. He also picks up on the fact that Cas has been acting strangely.

8.11 LARP and the Real Girl

When Dean talks about letting go of relationships, Charlie thinks he’s referring to a break-up of his own: “Trust me, this life, you can’t afford attachments. You just gotta let go.” “Are we still talking about Sam, or did you break up with someone, too?” (Dean could be referencing either Benny or Cas here.)

8.13 Everybody Hates Hitler

When Aaron flirts with Dean at a bar, Dean gets flustered and acts super awkward about it. Dean tries to make the excuse that he’s on an FBI case and cannot fraternize, but he stumbles over a chair on his way out: “I’m sorry, man. I hope I didn’t freak you out or anything.” “No! No. I’m not freaked out. It’s just a, you know, a federal thing.” (In previous years, Dean might have told the guy that he isn’t interested because he doesn’t swing that way, but in this instance, he doesn’t reject the idea outright.)

When speaking to Sam, Dean refers to the bar interaction as “a gay thing.” When he finds out that Aaron was just tailing him, he takes it in stride: “That was really good. You really had me there. That’s very smooth.”

8.16 Remember the Titans

Dean hasn’t heard from Cas in a long time, so he prays to him for help with Sam, exhibiting the implicit trust he has for Cas: “Cas, you got your ears on? Listen, you know I am not one for prayin’, ‘cause in my book, it’s the same as beggin’. But this is about Sam, so I need you to hear me. We are going into this deal blind, and I don’t know what’s ahead, or what it’s gonna bring for Sam. Now, he’s covering pretty good, but I know that he is hurting, and this one was supposed to be on me. So for all that we’ve been through, I’m asking you... you keep a lookout for my little brother, okay?”

Dean has grown accustomed to Cas always being there for him, and he’s disappointed and downhearted when Cas doesn’t respond to his prayer: “Where the hell are you, man?”

8.17 Goodbye Stranger

We find out that Naomi has been training the brainwashed Cas to kill Dean.

Naomi wants Cas to continue lying to Dean and Sam, but he tries (and fails) to convince her that they would be more helpful if they knew the truth about his search for the angel tablet.

Dean is pissed off that Cas is behaving standoffish with him and recognizes that something isn’t right: “Well, he puts the ‘ass’ in ‘Cas,’ huh?” “He’s definitely off.” “Off? He hasn’t been right since he got back from Purgatory. We still don’t know how he got out of there.” “I don’t know, Dean. If he’s so sketchy, then why were you praying to him?”

When Sam and Dean find out Cas had lied to them, Dean takes it personally, but Sam doesn’t.

Meg flirts with Cas as he treats her wounds, and he doesn’t deny that he has a fondness for her. He even admits to enjoying the kiss they shared the previous season, and he seems to express interest in further sexual experiences: “These wounds have festered.” “You really do know how to make a girl’s nethers quiver, don’t you?” “I am aware of how to do that, although it doesn’t usually involve cleaning wounds.” “Why are you so sweet on me, Clarence?” “I don’t know, and I still don’t know who Clarence is.” “Would it kill you to watch a movie, read a book?” “A movie, no. But a book? With the proper spells, yeah, it could theoretically kill me.” “You know, you’re much cuter when you’re shutting up. So which Cas are you now? Original make and model or crazy town?” “I’m just me.” “So your noodle’s back in order?” “Yeah, my noodle remembers everything. I think it’s a pretty good noodle.” “Really. You remember everything?” “If you’re referring to the pizza man, yes, I remember the pizza man. And it’s a good memory.”

When Dean refuses to give the angel tablet to Cas, Naomi orders Cas to kill him. Cas tries (and fails) to convince her to let him reason with Dean instead: “I can reason with Dean. He’s a good man.”

Cas tries to resist Naomi’s mind control: “This isn’t right.” “Do you realize what that tablet can do for us? For heaven?” “I won’t hurt Dean.” “Yes, you will. You ARE.” “What have you done to me?”

Even as Cas is attacking him, Dean still believes that Cas would not hurt him on purpose: “Cas, fight this! This is not you! Fight it!”

Cas nearly kills Dean, but he stops at the last second after Dean professes his love for him. Cas chooses Dean over heaven (again): “Cas, I know you’re in there. I know you can hear me. Cas, it’s me. We’re family. We need you. I need you.”

After the tablet breaks Cas free from Naomi, he heals Dean by cupping his face in his hand (as opposed to touching his forehead as he’s done before). He is appalled at what he’s done to Dean.

Dean is pissed off when Cas leaves with the tablet.

8.18 Freaks and Geeks

Sam asks Dean if he’s okay after getting pummeled by Cas, recognizing that it was probably an emotionally traumatizing experience. Dean brushes him off with humor to avoid talking about it: “Cas dinged you up pretty good.” “And?” “And I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” “What, like my feelings?” “If that’s what you want to talk about, sure.” “K, I’ll tell you what? Why don’t I go get some, uh, herbal tea, and you can find some cowboy junkies on the dial, and you know what? We’ll just talk it out.”

8.19 Taxi Driver

Naomi tries to convince Dean that she is trustworthy and that Cas was misguided, but Dean defends Cas and chooses to believe his side of the story: “Now Castiel is in the wind with a Hydrogen bomb in his pocket, and I’m scared for all of us.” “Save it. See, I don’t trust angels, which means I don’t trust you.” “And yet you haven’t warded this place against us. I know, you’re hoping Castiel will return to you. I admire your loyalty. I only wish he felt the same way. I know you don’t wanna believe it, Dean, but we’re on the same side—shutting the gates of hell, bringing Castiel in from the cold. Take a moment. Think about what I’ve said.”

8.20 Pac-Man Fever

While talking with Dean, Charlie refers to Cas as “dreamy.” (This is most likely for Dean’s benefit since we know from previous episodes that Charlie is only romantically interested in women.)

After sharing a traumatic emotional experience together, Charlie and Dean grow closer. Charlie’s influence helps Dean accept his feelings of vulnerability, which leads him to show affection for Sam and stop coddling him out of fear of losing him. Dean develops a deep respect for Charlie, and her example of self-acceptance also leads Dean to be more accepting of his own emotions.

8.21 The Great Escapist

Cas quotes Dean in defiance against Naomi: “In the words of a good friend, ‘Bite me!’”

8.22 Clip Show

When Cas returns, he apologizes to Dean, but Dean is angry at him. Dean is still hurt that Cas didn’t trust him with the angel tablet: “Dean, I’m sorry.” “For what?” “For everything.” “Everything. Like, uh, like ignoring us?” “Yes.” “Or like bolting off with the angel tablet, then losing it ‘cause you didn’t trust me? You didn’t trust ME.” “Yes.” “Yeah. Nah, that’s not gonna cut it. Not this time. So you can take your little apology and you cram it up your ass.” “Dean, I thought I was doing the right thing.” “Yeah, you always do.”

Sam tries to convince Dean to let up on Cas, but Dean is having trouble letting go of his hurt: “Dude, go easy on Cas, okay? He’s one of the good guys.” “Look, if anybody else, I mean anybody, pulled that kind of crap, I would stab ‘em in their neck on principle. Why should I give him a free pass.” “Because it’s Cas.”

After watching the exorcism video, Dean continues to be standoffish with Cas, who is frustrated that Dean won’t seem to give him a chance: “Dean, I just wanna help.” “We don’t need your help! Just stay here, and... get better.”

In an effort to ingratiate himself with Dean, Cas goes to a convenience store to pick up supplies, including jerky, Busty Asian Beauties, beer, and pie. When the clerk says they’re out of pie, Cas grabs him insistently: “You don’t understand. I NEED pie.”

Out of a desperate desire to make things right with heaven and with Dean, Cas unwittingly agrees to help Metatron, who takes advantage of his emotional vulnerability.

8.23 Sacrifice

When Cas comes to Dean for help to save Metatron from the other angels, he agrees to do it, despite the tension between them.

While waiting for a cupid to show up, Dean and Cas reconcile at the bar because they think this might be the last time they get to see each other: “Talk to me. You sure about this? I mean, it’s one thing, me and Sammy slamming the gates to the pit, but you, you’re boarding up heaven, and you’re lockin’ the door behind you.” “Yeah, I know.” “You did a lot of damage up there, man. You think they’re just gonna let that slide?” “Do you mean do I think they’ll kill me? Yeah, they might.” “So this is it. E.T. Goes home.”

When Dean realizes the cupid set up two men to fall in love, he’s awkwardly dumbfounded. (Dean’s deeply ingrained heteronormative worldview continues to trip him up, but this instance helps chip away at his social conditioning.)

When Sam collapses after stopping the third trial, Dean calls out to Cas for help.

#dean x castiel #destiel #castiel #dean winchester #supernatural #spn #deancas

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fatcatsarecats · 6 years ago

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a little bit of amnesia!Tim

—

The world comes to him in slow, churning waves. Tim squints at the ceiling as he tries to blink away his bleariness.

His pillow is plush and soft—that’s the first thing he notices. It smells like fresh sheets, specifically the laundry detergent he uses at home, and something warm, earthy, and comforting. He’s lying on his side under a duvet and there’s a heavy arm slung across his waist. That’s the second thing he notices.

In all honesty, it’s not too strange to wake up and find a limb thrown over him. Whenever his stunts becomes a bit too careless, or whenever his teammates need a little touch to ground them, he usually finds Steph, Cass, or any of the Titans huddled under his sheets. Cass is a bed hogger, Steph likes shoving her cold feet under his butt, and Bart, especially, is a bit of a spooner. Thus, an arm hugging his waist isn’t the strangest thing he’s ever woken up to.

His body aches, the way it usually does a day a particularly strenuous workout. His arm twitches in protest as he reaches for his phone on the bedside table and frowns at his screen.

His phone screensaver is a picture of Jason—Jason sleeping, in his grey-blue turtleneck, face planted into a pile of books on a table.

It’s not that it’s a particularly bad photo. In fact, Tim might even say that Jason looked cute snoozing without a care, his rough edges softened in sleep. It’s the fact that, the last time he checked, his wallpaper was of the Bat-Cow licking a disgruntled Damian. Someone must have been tampering on his phone without Tim knowing, and that knowledge bothers Tim completely.

His bedmate rustles behind him. The arm around his waist tightens, pulling him flush against warm, solid muscle.

Tim resists the urge to melt into the cushioning heat.

Someone’s nose, slightly chilly at tip, buries itself in the crook of his neck, and nuzzles up the mouth pressing a kiss behind his ear.

“Morning,” a voice grumbles, rough and deep, and in no way at all like Bart’s in the mornings.

A cold breeze brushes against the back of his neck. Tim’s whole body stiffens.

Still drenched in a sleepy haze, the mouth drags itself a leisurely trail down his neck in way that’s more familiar and sloppier than Tim’s ever had with anybody and—this is definitely not Bart.

Tim jabs the body behind him with his elbow, before throwing himself out of the bed. An ‘oof’ behind him, followed by thud as Tim smacks against the floor, his legs tangled in the bed-sheets.

It’s only as he’s scooting his back to the wall that Tim finally recognises the voice mumbling his curses.

“Tim, what the fuck?” Jason asks, one arm rubbing his rib, his words still slurred with sleep.

Tim just barely stops his jaw from smacking onto the ground.

What is going on here?

“All right, I get it,” Jason says, combing a hand through his messy hair. “You’re not a morning person. Seriously, though, would it kill you to pull your punches?”

“I—uh—what?” Tim asks.

Jason flops onto his back. “That actually hurt, you doof. I’m going to need, like, a million back rubs to get over that.”

“What?”

“Ugh. Whatever,” Jason says. He pats the mattress. “Come back to bed. I want to sleep a little more. We don’t have to get up till ten today.”

No response from Tim. He stares at Jason and the line between his eyebrows crease grows deeper and deeper as each second passes.

Jason pokes his head up. “Tim?”

Tim’s aware that he could sound paranoid, but that’s never bothered him before. The picture in front of him is unsettling. Discordant from their usual tone of interactions. Everything seems too genuine; the cuddling, the confusion, the kissing—the sensations are too nuanced and full for it to be a hallucination.

Jason in bed, his hair rumpled and sticking up, a small growth of beard on his chin. He’s like an open book, unguarded and vulnerable. It’s strange to see him like this when the Jason that Tim knows would never let Tim see him as anything other than a sharpened blade or a finger on the trigger of a fully loaded gun.

Even when this Jason is confused at Tim’s behaviour, he still smiling at Tim’s like Tim’s the cosiest thing Jason’s wanted to hold since he’s woken up.

“Babe?” Jason asks again. “What’s up?”

Babe? Tim thinks. What the heck?

“Tim?” Jason asks.

“I don’t think I’m your Tim,” Tim blurts out. “ I have no idea how I woke up here, and I have no idea how to get back. I think something must have happened and I’m another Timothy Drake Wayne from another universe.”

“Right,” Jason says. “This is why you should never steal Bart’s protein bars. They really fuck you up the next day.”

“Jason, I’m serious.”

“So am I.” Jason shakes his head. “Bart’s metabolism isn’t something to mess around with.”

“Jason.”

The desperation must have broken through in his voice. Jason frowns at him.

“I’m… I’m not joking about this,” Tim says, rubbing his face wearily. “We’re not together in my world. I’m not sure if we’re even…”

“Even what, Tim?”

Tim pauses. “I’m not sure if we’re even friends,” Tim finishes weakly.

Jason stares at him, his frown growing more and more pronounce. Then, “Lift up your shirt.”

“Excuse me?” Tim says, folding his arms.

“Your scars,” Jason says. “Just trust me, okay?”

“Right,” Tim says, but he doesn’t move. “Trust.”

The bad word. The cursed word. Saying that things between Jason and Tim are terse in their universe would be an understatement.

They aren’t enemies, but, like Tim said before, they aren’t friends. Trust was handled on a case to case basis, usually strictly for the field, and that’s how they liked it. Other than that, they’d hardly crossed paths

It’s not like Tim can’t understand Jason’s feeling of anger and rejection—he can to a point. Resentment is an ugly, complicated, torn wound that bleeds more painfully with time, and it’s hard to discern where it spills over from Bruce and Dick to Tim at times. Tim, his replacement, whose obsessive qualities models after Bruce, and Dick, whose more like Bruce that Dick likes to admit.

Still, even if Tim understands, he’s still wary. Hard to be anything more when you’ve been someone’s emotional punching bag in the past.

Jason thins his lips, and there’s a tic in his jaw.

If Tim isn’t mistaken, Jason seems hurt.

Staggered, Tim blinks, completely blindsided.

But he couldn’t be, right? Jason would never put Tim in a position where he’d have any kind power over Jason, much less enough power to hurt him.

Then again, Tim had just woken up in Jason’s bed. This really isn’t his Jason, is it?

“Tim?” Jason asks, and this time his voice is softer.

Slowly, Tim walks closer until the fabric of his pyjamas touches the side of the bed. He lift his shirt up, but he doesn’t take it off. Having to hold it there gives Tim something to focus on, a barrier between him and the intense way Jason’s registers each mark on his skin, .

He turns around to show the scars on his back when Jason asks him to, and he can feel Jason’s gaze burning a trail on his back A promise of heat touches his skin before it quickly disappears and cold air brushes where the heat passed.

“Sorry,” Jason says. “May I?”

Tim nods, and he can feel the rough pads of Jason’s hand trace over the shape of his scars and his tight skin.

Jason’s touch is careful, Tim thinks, a little dizzy from the realisation. Almost… reverent. As if Tim is someone precious and sacred to him.

“None of these are off, not even by a millimetre,” Jason murmurs. "There's a high change you must be from our timeline then; the odds of encountering every incident in the exact same manner that it led to your scars to form identically is unbelievably small. And now that I’m thinking about it, you do look younger. What was the last thing we did in your timeline?"

Tim thinks on it. "We had an overlap on our cases," he says. "You got shot. I stitched you up, and then you cried during the first two seconds of Happy Feet while we were waiting for Cass with food.”

Jason chuckles. It’s a little strained. “That was fun,” he says. “I was in so much pain.”

It was really funny; Tim was recording a blubbery Jason extolling about the beauty of fluffy penguins until Jason had sat on him like a super heavy, violent, drug-addled cat and threatened to paint Redbird highlighter orange if Tim hadn’t deleted it.

Since Redbird is his baby, his one true pride in this bleak, desolate, depressing world, Tim had complied…

To Jason’s knowledge.

“You did?” Tim asks, surprised. “Have fun, I mean. I knew about the second bit because your voice cracked when you saw how ‘round’ and ‘soft’ the penguins were.”

“That would be,” Jason pauses, almost in surprise, and rubs his jaw with one hand, “huh, that was almost four years ago.”

“Four years ago?” Tim squawks. “How…?”

“You still have the video,” Jason says. “It took me a while, but I found it.”

Damn. And Tim thought he was so sly.

Jason chuckles at Tim’s expression. “Oh yeah, you’re not as sneaky as you think you are.”

That was some priceless blackmail material. Tim couldn’t just delete it. He just made drug-addled Jason think he deleted it, when actually, he sent a copy to his wireless cloud and now every device in his ownership has the incriminating video.

That aside, it was the most positive interaction they’ve had in months.

Tim can hear Jason’s thoughts halting to the same stop. His mouth dips into a small grimace, and Tim’s own smile falters.

Jason sighs, and his face twists into something exhausted and worn. Even though they’re four years apart, surely Jason shouldn’t look so old.

“You’re really not my Tim, are you?” Jason asks.

Tim doesn’t have the heart to tell Jason what he already knows, especially not with the tired way Jason’s rubbing at his own face.

“God, sometimes I really hate our job,” Jason mumbles. “Guess we have a lot of work to do.”

Minutes ago, he could feel a smile forming at the edges of Jason’s mouth when he was pressing kisses into Tim’s skin, and Tim knows he means more than just sending him home.

“Yeah,” Tim says. “We really do.”

#jaytim #my writing #part one of idk lel #hmmm maybe #writing

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leviloviatar · 6 years ago

Note

You literally understand these characters so much i love it. It’s by no means a matter of course esp with this crap show that butchers Arya and Gendry’s characters (and bran too :(() but what are your favourite character traits of Gendry? And in what ways are Robert and Gendry similar and different?

OK YOU GUYS I AM EXCITED

First of all anon thank you so much!!! Not only was I blessed with this amazing ask, but I also got this similar one:

You’re active again omg I love your blog and your gendrya posts :D so I wanted to ask in which ways Gendry and Robert are similar and in which ways are they different? I think he is kind of a mixture between Robert and Stannis

I don’t know what I did to deserve my asks to blessed with these amazing anons but I LOVE YOU and since you both just happened to ask me about one of my favorite subjects of all time…*cracks knuckles*

Let’s talk about some burly, beautiful, Baratheon boys, shall we?

So the most glaringly obvious similarity between Gendry and Robert has got to be the “Baratheon Look,” right? GRRM takes great pains to remind us, time and time again, that Gendry looks like Robert. They both have the classic Baratheon features - tall with dreamy blue eyes, thick black hair, and very big muscles.

*Its important to remember, that although when we first meet Robert Baratheon he’s gotten old and fat, back in his day he was a damn fine looking man.

Fifteen years past, when they had ridden forth to win a throne, the Lord of Storm’s End had been clean-shaven, clear-eyed, and muscled like a maiden’s fantasy. Six and a half feet tall, he towered over lesser men, and when he donned his armor and the great antlered helmet of his House, he became a veritable giant. He’d had a giant’s strength too, his weapon of choice a spiked iron warhammer that Ned could scarcely lift. In those days, the smell of leather and blood had clung to him like perfume.-AGOT, Eddard I

For reference as to how ripped Robert was, Ned Stark, who wields a two-handed broadsword (note: that’s really fucking heavy) can barely even lift the warhammer Robert is swinging around…Robert was ripped.

Speaking of hammers, Gendry has literally grown up swinging a hammer (albeit around a forge) but remember when Tohbo Mott tells Ned that Gendry was made to swing a hammer? And since we now have show!Gendry swinging a warhammer, I have high hopes that book!Gendry will also follow in Robert’s footsteps as to his weapon of choice. In case all that hammer imagery doesn’t hit hard enough (pun intended and also I’m so sorry lol) GRRM is constantly reminding us that Gendry looks like Robert. I mean, when Ned first discovers Gendry, the reader is given the literary equivalent of a big blinking neon sign that says ‘hey look at this kid, he looks just like King Robert’ -

The master called over a tall lad about Robb’s age, his arms and chest corded with muscle. “This is Lord Stark, the new Hand of the King,” he told him as the boy looked at Ned through sullen blue eyes and pushed back sweat-soaked hair with his fingers. Thick hair, shaggy and unkempt and black as ink. The shadow of a new beard darkened his jaw.-AGOT, Eddard VI

And just so we seriously don’t forget, there are plenty of reminders throughout the books that hey, this guy really looks like a Baratheon. For example:

Strands of thick black hair, still wet from the bathhouse, fell across his deep blue eyes. - ACOK, Arya II

When she spied Gendry, his bare chest was slick with sweat, but the blue eyes under the heavy black hair had the stubborn look she remembered. -ACOK, Arya VIII

Remember when Brienne first sees Gendry, and for a second she thinks its Renly? (AFFC, Brienne VII, I think?) Well, despite his inconsistent eye color…“Renly was handsome as Robert had been handsome; long of limb and broad of shoulder, with the same coal-black hair, fine and straight, the same deep blue eyes, the same easy smile.” (-ACOK, Catelyn II).

Another thing Gendry shares with Robert is a bit of that famous Baratheon temper. “Ours is the Fury” are the house words, after all. This is especially true of Robert, who is a bit infamous for his “fury,” and we see his temper quite often. For example:

“Gods,” the king swore, the word exploding out of him as if he could barely contain his fury. -AGOT, Eddard VIII

and with the king in such a black fury … -AGOT, Eddard VIII

Robert was in a fury, until he heard talk of some monstrous boar deeper in the forest. - AGOT, Eddard XII

Robert Baratheon’s fury had soured the ironmen’s taste for the new gods, it would seem. - ACOK, Theon I

This is also the man who, despite already having killed Rhaegar Targaryen, still dreams about killing him every single night of his life. Have you ever been so angry at something that after you’ve smashed it to bits, you still want to smash it? Robert Baratheon has. But for me, the very worst example of his temper that we see as readers is when he slaps Cersei, and then threatens to do it again (I feel like the fact that Robert feels guilty about this says a lot about his inability to control his temper, more on that in a sec). Point is, Robert has a bad temper.

But we also see traces of this famous ‘Baratheon fury’ in Gendry. Although it mostly surfaces as his stubbornness (oh hi Stannis), we do get to see instances of Gendry’s temper getting the better of him (my personal favorite being the Peach, but also see jealous!Gendry). But the important thing is, that Gendry is able to control his temper much more effectively than Robert. This is most likely due to the fact that he has to. Robert is the king, he can do whatever he wants with no consequences. But Gendry? A lowborn bastard with no money or connections? Yeah, he can’t go around doing that. Losing his temper could also mean losing his life, no matter how strong he his, because of his position in society, which brings me to the most important part about these two which is their Big Differences:

Robert is the legitimate son and heir of a wealthy and powerful noble family

Gendry is a very poor, lowborn bastard with no family

Robert was an infamous womanizer who fathered many bastard children

Gendry is a blushing virgin who only has eyes for Arya Stark and would literally never touch another woman ever fight me

I feel like Robert and Gendry are sort of like a case study in nurture vs. nature. Despite their many genetic similarities, their vastly different socioeconomic environments shaped them in very different ways. Robert grew up as the eldest son of a Great House - he lived in a castle, knowing that he would inherit that castle, and all the lands, titles, and privileges that come along with it; other lords owed him allegiance; he was wealthy, powerful, and on top of that, he was good at everything he did (much to the chagrin of his younger brother Stannis). He wasn’t just any lord, but the Lord of Storm’s End, a very important position in society, and then he went on to become the fucking King, arguably the most important person in society. So what does he do with all his money and power?

Robert Baratheon had always been a man of huge appetites, a man who knew how to take his pleasures -AGOT, Eddard I.

And what does Robert have an appetite for? In his own words: “warring and whoring, that’s what I was made for.” - Robert to Ned, AGOT, Eddard VII. Drinking, fucking, fighting, that’s what he likes. (We could talk about how much of that is actually a coping mechanism but let’s save psychoanalyzing Robert’s actions for another, crazier post lol).

Gendry being both a lowborn and a bastard is crucial in shaping the man that he becomes. Gendry grew up in essentially the exact opposite circumstances that Robert did. Not only was he lowborn and extremely poor, but he had to live with the added stigma of being a bastard (and an ‘unrecognized’ bastard at that, which we see in ASOIAF is very different than being a ‘recognized’ bastard). As we know, being a bastard is something that Gendry is painfully aware of. (Unlike Robert, who doesn’t seem to give a single fuck how many bastards he leaves behind). Gendry hates the father he never knew. And on top of that, his opinion of Robert is pretty damn low as well…

“That old drunk?“ said Gendry scornfully. “He’s dead, some boar killed him, everyone knows that.” - ASOS, Arya II

I think the reason Gendry doesn’t have the inclination to abuse alcohol or women in the way Robert did because this is the world he was born and raised in. Gendry could never afford to be the womanizing drunk his father was. Of course, I’m not saying that if Gendry had the same upbringing as Robert then he definitely would have turned out the same - maybe, maybe not. I’m merely saying that the possibility of becoming someone like that doesn’t exist for Gendry. This is someone at the very bottom of the social ladder, someone with no money to spend in taverns or brothels. Actually, even engaging in consensual sex would be pretty risky for Gendry, because it could lead to huge ramifications, for example, fathering a bastard he couldn’t afford to care for, or pissing off the wrong father or brother. Stepping out of line could literally mean his life, since someone like Gendry could be killed in the slums of Flea Bottom with literally no ramifications.

To me, this is also what makes Acorn Hall such a big fucking deal - Gendry Waters pulling Arya Stark down to the floor and rolling around with her like that is BOLD AF and Gendry knows that. It’s one of the main reasons I squeal every time I read it. I really do think there’s a very Baratheon-like part of him that comes out, especially where she is concerned. Speaking of which, Gendry and Robert both have remarkably similar (excellent) taste in women - all those Arya/Lyanna parallels aren’t there for no reason!

Another interesting parallel between Robert and Gendry is their experiences with war. Robert loved war. I mean he really loved war. He was good at it. It made him feel exhilarated. And most importantly, the horrors of war didn’t really impact him because he was part of the aristocracy. Gendry’s journey, by stark contrast, has literally taken him through the devastating impacts of war on the common people. He has seen the worst of it - the myriad of ways that wars waged by the nobility literally destroys the people those lords are supposed to be protecting. In my opinion, these experiences are exactly what would make him a good king, not only better than Robert, but also better than Stannis or Renly, because Gendry understands on a very real level the suffering of the people.

(Personally, I would love to have more about the young!Baratheons, like growing up at Storms End together, and see how their personalities developed into the men they became. If this is a fic, somebody link me!)

Ok so I’m really gonna wrap this up now before it becomes so long that no one ever leaves me asks again, but remember what Donal Noye said about the Baratheon brothers?

“Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He’ll break before he bends. And Renly, that one, he’s copper, bright and shiny, pretty to look at but not worth all that much at the end of the day.”

Well, I know I’ve said this before but I think Gendry is Valyrian Steel. He was forged differently from the others, but because of that he is uncommonly strong, sharp, and exceptionally valuable.

#anon ask #gendry waters #Robert Baratheon #gendry baratheon #asoiaf #i love you so much anons thank you for giving me life with these asks #i will happily talk about the baratheons all day long

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moondancewrites · 7 years ago

Text

Star-Spangled Hot Dogs

Part 7 of the Lunch Break Series that can be found on my Masterlist

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x Reader

Warnings: NSFW foreplay, teasing, Robert Downey Jr’s smile

“Looking for a ride?” A familiar voice said from behind you. You turned on your heel, finding Sebastian standing right behind you.

“Sebastian?” He smiled and you threw your arms around him. He hugged you close, lifting you up. When he let you down, he gave your nose a little kiss. “What are you doing here? I thought I was going to get an Uber because you had training.”

“Cancelled it,” he said with a shrug. “God, you look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” you said with a smile. You wore a yellow cotton sundress with lace trim. It was your favorite. Your hair was down and in loose curls with one side pinned back. “You look beautiful, too,” you told him as your hands moved over his muscular shoulders. He was just wearing a blue v-neck and jeans with a baseball hat on, but he really did look so beautiful. Your entire body warmed just at the sight of him.

“Well, thanks,” he said, licking his lips and smiling down at you. He leaned in a bit and you thought he might kiss you, but you weren’t sure if it was such a good idea in such a public place. The thought, apparently, did not cross Sebastian’s mind. He closed the gap between you, connecting his lips with yours in a soft, gentle kiss. Luckily, it was a holiday weekend and the place was a madhouse so nobody really took notice of Sebastian or the woman he was kissing. “I almost thought i’d miss you. I got stopped by some fans on the way here. I can’t really say no to them, ya know?”

“You’re a very sweet guy, you know that?” You kissed him back, rubbing his chest.

“Mmm hmm,” he hummed, keeping his lips hovering over yours for a moment. “Shall we?”

“We shall,” you told him. He grabbed your bag from you and you started walking through the airport. Sebastian wrapped his arm around your waist.

“Is this it or do we need to go to baggage claim?” he asked.

“Well, I’m only here 4 days,” you said.

“And you probably won’t be spending too much time wearing clothes, anyway,” he whispered, leaning into you as he spoke. He smelled absolutely amazing and the gleam in his eyes was so full of lust that you had to bite your lip to keep from moaning. “It kills me when you do that, you know.”

“Yeah, well … ditto,” you told him. He laughed, biting his lip playfully at you. You elbowed him playfully and he grunted.

“How was your flight?” he asked.

“Oh, just lovely. I sat next to a woman who brought her own breakfast, which included fantastic smelling hard-boiled eggs.” Sebastian threw his head back and laughed. “And she spent the whole flight telling me about how her family doesn’t appreciate her and how she was dreading the holiday. She was just a delight. We’re hanging out next week.”

“You’re too much,” Sebastian laughed, pulling you closer and kissing your hair. “Let’s go home, hmm?”

“Please.”

“Holy shit … you live here?” You gawked at the gigantic house that Sebastian was pulling up to. House was probably not the world. Mansion. It was a mansion.

“For now. But, honestly, I kind of hate it.”

“Wha- .. why?” Your jaw was still on your lap as Sebastian turned off the car.

“I’m a city kid. This is all too big for me, especially since I’m alone now.” Now? So, someone lived with him before. You hadn’t really talked too much about that stuff yet. “I’m honestly thinking about selling it and just going back east for good.”

“Oh?” You looked over at him.

“Yeah. I tried the LA thing … it’s really not for me. Everyone is just so … LA.” He made a face that made you giggle. “Plus, there’s this woman that lives in New York …”

“I see.” You nodded. “You … like this woman?”

“You could say that,” he said, shrugging and scrunching up his nose in that adorable way that gave you butterflies.

“Mmm hmm,” you hummed. Sebastian leaned over to you, brushing his lips across your cheek.

“She kinda drives me crazy,” he whispered, his voice scratchy and lustful. Your breath caught in your throat.

“Does she?”

“Mm hmm. I can’t stop thinking about her.” He kissed right below your ear and you shivered. You felt him smile against your skin - he knew how much you liked being kissed here, even though you never said. He knew you so well already; at least physically. He kissed you again, his hand coming to rest on your bare thigh, slowly moving up under your sundress.

“What do you think about?” you asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he teased, nipping at your neck playfully. You gasped and he chuckled, kissing where he bit you. “I could tell you, I suppose … but I’d think we’d both enjoy it more if I showed you.” His fingers were millimeters away from your panties when he pulled them away. You didn’t realize until that moment that you were holding your breath. “Come on.”

“Tease,” you said under your breath.

“What was that?” Sebastian said with a sly smile.

“You know what I said,” you challenged. He just winked and got out of the car, running around to open your door before you got a chance to. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” He held his hand out for you and when you took it and stepped out, he pulled you up into his chest. “Hi.”

“Hi,” you replied, putting your hand on his chest.

“I really want to kiss you, but I feel like if I do then I won’t be able to stop and we’ll never make it inside.”

“Better wait then,” you told him, patting his chest before pushing away. Sebastian grabbed your bag and then took your hand, walking up the driveway and into his house.

The inside was just as impressive as the outside. It was tastefully decorated in cool colors of blue and green and grey. It definitely looked like a woman had a say in the decorations. “How long have you lived here?” you asked, trying to gage when his last relationship was.

“About a year,” he told you.

“Ah … and … how long have you been alone here?” you found yourself asking. You didn’t want to, but you were curious.

“Three months,” he told you. “We haven’t really … talked about that stuff yet, huh?”

“No, we haven’t. But, we don’t have to talk about that stuff now …”

“I guess we’ll have to eventually,” he said, scratching his beard. You shrugged and he took a breath, dropping your bag. “Let’s go sit?” You nodded. He walked into the living room with you and motioned for you to sit on the plush grey sofa.

“This is comfy.”

“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “So …” He took his hat off, running his hand through his hair. It was getting long, and your fingers itched to touch it. But now wasn’t the time.

“Sebastian, this is all still really new … we don’t have to go into all of that stuff yet if you don’t want to.” You put your hand on his thigh and gave him a little squeeze.

“It’s fine,” he said, brushing your hair back behind your ear. “I bought this place with my ex. I guess it was kind of our last ditch effort to stay together. If we had a place together, we’d work harder at it … you know?” You nodded. “Bad idea, it turns out. In more ways than one.” You raised your brow in question. “She slept with our neighbor.”

“She did what now?” Your jaw dropped. How … how in the hell could someone ever cheat on a man like Sebastian? He was sweet and funny and the sexiest man you’d ever met. She must have been insane.

“Yeah...that was three months ago. So, now I’m alone in this big house. Luckily, the bastard next door moved into a bigger mansion on the other side of town so I don’t have to see them ...canoodling by the pool.”

“Sebastian…. I’m so sorry.”

“It was a good thing. We fell out of love with each other. I was just holding on because … Actually, I don’t really know why. But, I’m glad one of us actually did something to end it, even if it was a really shitty way to go about it.”

“Incredibly shitty.” You scooted closer to him, turning into his body and caressing his cheek. Sebastian turned his face into your palm, kissing it.

“If I was still with her when I went to New York a few weeks ago, you wouldn’t be here right now. Everything happens for a reason.” You nodded. “I’m just really glad I got lunch there that day. And that you said yes to a date with me.”

“I’m glad I said yes to that night cap,” you told him, smiling as you leaned in to give his lips a soft kiss.

“I will never forget that night.” He pulled you closer, his lips brushing up against yours. “I think about it … often.”

“So do I,” you told him, gazing up into his eyes. They flickered.

“Oh?” he asked.

“Mmm hmm. And the next day.” You kissed his neck. “Especially that little trick you pulled with the whipped cream. I think about that a lot. At night. When I’m alone … and all….” You took his lobe in between your lips, sucking gently before sinking your teeth into the soft flesh before whispering, “achy.” Sebastian breathed in sharply. You put your hand on his chest, feeling his heart pounding. “My fingers don’t feel nearly as good as yours, though,” you whispered.

“Jesus Christ,” Sebastian groaned. He pounced on you, pushing your back down on the couch. His lips were on you before you could even gasp; his kiss hard, rough, and wanting. His body felt heavy, but you loved the way he felt. You wrapped your leg around him, pulling him closer. Your hands pawed at his shirt, desperate to feel the warm skin underneath. Your hands moved up the back of his shirt and your nails dug into his back. “Fuck, Y/N,” Sebastian growled, taking your bottom lip between his teeth and tugging.

“Bash,” you whimpered, moving one hand up to his neck to pull him back into a fiery kiss. Sebastian’s tongue licked at yours almost violently, as if he were desperate to taste every part of you. One hand supported his body by your head while the other moved down over your thigh, going back up under your sundress to the apex of your hip. His fingers hooked into the cotton of your panties and he gave them a little tug. “Here?” you breathed.

“Mm hmm,” he hummed against your jaw before his lips drug across it. But then he lifted his head and looked down at you. At the same time, he pulled his hand out from under your dress. “Unless you don’t - do you not want to …”

“Are you kidding?” you said with a chuckle, grabbing him by the back of the neck and pulling him into a lustful kiss.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then?” he asked when you finally came up for air.

“Hell yes,” you said before pulling him closer. You pulled at his shirt and Sebastian turned to the side slightly to make it easier for you to pull it up, but he turned a little too much and rolled off of the couch with you rolling right on top of him. His head hit the hardwood floor with a thud and he made a pained face. “Oh, God! Sebastian … are you okay?” You put your hand behind his head and rubbed gently. Sebastian didn’t answer. Instead, he started to laugh. Loudly. The vibration from his chuckle went through your chest and you couldn’t help but laugh with him.

“That was graceful,” he said when he finally got over his case of the giggles. His hand went to the side of your face, cupping your jaw. “Are you alright? You aren’t hurt, are you?”

“You kind of broke my fall,” you said.

“Well, I think I deserve a kiss for that.”

“Oh you do, do you?” Your lip hovered over his; your fingertips brushing over his trim beard. He nodded, licking his lips and staring up at you.

“How hurt are you?” you asked him. He made a face in question. “Well, I feel like the worse the injury, the better the kiss….”

“Ah, well in that case … my entire body is broken.” He looked like he was going to cry. “Everything hurts.” His eyes were actually welling up. “I think I may be dying.”

“Jesus.” You pushed up on his chest a bit and looked down at him. “I retract the statement I made when we first met about your acting ability. Are you actually crying?” Sebastian’s pout turned into the biggest smile you’d ever seen. “You jerk!” you exclaimed. Sebastian grabbed you and starting tickling you. You rolled over onto your side and he followed, still tickling you. “STOP!” you shrieked through hysterical laughter. “STOP! Oh my God!” You squirmed in his arms and he just laughed, attacking your neck with kisses. His hands stilled and you pushed at him. “You do not play fair.”

“What’s the fun in that?” he said, winking at you. You glared at him. “Where’s my kiss?” he asked, leaning in.

“Oh, you think you’re going to get one now?” you asked, pulling back. “Nu-uh.”

“Uh huh,” he retorted, peppering your jaw with kisses. His hand moved to your hip, pulling you into him. He kissed up to your cheek, moving his hand down your thigh before he pulled it over his waist.

“I don’t think so, buster,” you told him, playfully pushing at his chest. “You think you can con me into giving you a good kiss with those crocodile tears.”

“Baby,” he cooed, “every kiss from you is a good kiss.” He kissed the corner of your mouth. You just rolled your eyes at him. “Scratch that … a great kiss.”

“Damn right,” you told him before pulling at his neck so your lips crashed together. Sebastian groaned into your mouth, his tongue playing with yours once again. His hand moved up your dress, back to the panties he was tugging on a few minutes before. Once he got one side down, he moved his hand over your bare backside and gave it a squeeze. You gasped, your body jerking up against his. He did it again and you gasped.

“You really like that, don’t you?” he asked in between short, heated kisses.

“Uh huh,” you mewled, tightening your thigh’s grip on him. Your hand went up the front of his shirt now, pawing at his chiseled abdomen.

“And this?” he asked before giving your butt a little tap. You looked up into his eyes through fluttering lashes, nibbling on your bottom lip and nodding at him. “Okay, these need to come off.” He tugged on your panties more. “Now.”

“So do these,” you replied, grabbing his belt and undoing it.

“You first,” he said. He pulled your panties down around your ankles and you kicked them off. Next, he went for your dress. When he saw that you weren’t wearing a bra, he smiled. “That makes things easier.”

“I can’t wear this dress with a bra,” you said with a shrug.

“That makes it my new favorite dress,” he said before pouncing on you once again. When your naked back hit the cold, hard wood you gasped. “You okay?”

“Cold wood,” you told him. “And hard.” Sebastian nodded down to his crotch. “Not that one,” you laughed.

“Come on … let me take you to bed.”

Before you had a chance to respond, he scooped you up into his arms and took you to his bedroom, where he showed you just how much he had missed you. In fact, he showed you three times - once before lunch and twice before dinner.

“So … We’ve kind of been invited to a 4th of July party,” Sebastian said as you were doing dishes after you made homemade chicken pesto pizza. Sebastian was quite the cook. Thank goodness, because you weren’t the best.

“A party? What kind of party?”

“A beach party. It’s at a friend’s house.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Do you want to go?” he asked. “I mean, we don’t have to. We can just chill here and watch the fireworks from the deck. But it sounds like a pretty cool party. Good food, good people, the beach, fireworks … kind of the American dream.” You could tell by his tone that he really wanted to go.

“The American dream, huh?” You bumped his hip with yours.

“Yeah, and ya know … being Romanian, I never really got to experience-”

“You’ve lived in America since you were 12, so don’t pull that nonsense on me,” you laughed, pointing at him with a dishrag in your hand. Sebastian put his hands up in protest. “A party sounds fun. Where is it?”

“Malibu,” he said with a smile.

It wasn’t until two days later when you were shaking hands with Robert Downey Jr. that you realized that he was what Sebastian meant by ‘friend’. You may not have been a huge movie person, but you sure as hell knew who he was, especially after having watched the first two Iron Man movies with Sebastian a few weeks before. You were a tiny bit starstruck, if you were being honest with yourself. He was ridiculously handsome and even more charming.

“Seb’s told me all about you,” he said with a moviestar smile.

“He … has?” you asked.

“Well, I mean, he told me he was dating someone and that he wanted to bring her and that she was great and stuff, so, sure. He’s told me about you.” He patted Sebastian on the back. “You kids have fun, huh? And don’t do anything I would have done in the 90s.”

“Sure thing, Bob,” Sebastian said with a laugh. When Robert walked off, Sebastian put his arm around you and chuckled. “You okay there, hun? You look a little starstruck.”

“Why didn’t you tell me it was his party?” you asked, jabbing him playfully in the rib. He groaned, kissing your cheek.

“I guess it didn’t cross my mind,” he said with a shrug.

“Liar. You knew it would freak me out.”

“Why would it freak you out? He’s just a dude. With a gigantic Tony Stark mansion in Malibu and … yeah, okay. I get it.”

“He rented a freakin bouncy house, Bash. And ponies!”

“Those are for the kids,” he said with a laugh.

“Are there a lot of kids here?” you asked.

“Well, there’s his … and Hemsworth’s and Renner’s and … I think Evans brought his dog, which is definitely his kid.”

“So like … all of the Avengers are here?” you asked. Sebastian shrugged. “This is going to have to take some getting used to.”

“I’m sure you’ll adapt just fine.” He kissed your cheek again.

“There are models here. I’m pretty sure that one was in a Cover Girl commercial.” You pointed at a gorgeous woman in a bikini strolling by the pool. “I honestly feel like I’m in the middle of an episode of the OC.”

Sebastian laughed and said, “Gossip Girl was better.”

“Agreed.”

“Wait … you watched Gossip Girl?” he asked you.

“I’m pretty sure everyone my age did,” you told him. “I kinda loved that show, actually.” Sebastian stared at you. “What?” you asked. He motioned to himself and it took you too long to get it. “Wait … were you … oh my God. You were on Gossip Girl!”

“Sometimes,” Sebastian said with a laugh.

“Wait … I know who you were … don’t tell me … Carter!” Sebastian just shrugged. “Holy shit. I hated you.”

“Well, then I did my job,” he quipped.

“I mean, I thought you were hot, though. In an asshole kind of way.” He shrugged. You grabbed his cheeks and looked at him. “I see it now. You had such a baby face back then.”

“And now?” he asked. You moved your hands to his neck, still inspecting his face.

“Now, you’re all man. How long ago was that, anyway?” You dropped your hands from him, but he grabbed onto one of your hands, lacing his fingers with yours.

“The first season was 11 years ago. Jesus, has it been that long?” he said, running his hand through his hair.

“I’d say you aged quite beautifully. Men always age better than women. It’s not fair.”

“Well … “ Sebastian stepped in closer to you. “I didn’t know you back then and I’m sure you were pretty damn cute, but now you’re … intoxicatingly beautiful.” The way he said that sent a shiver through your body. He leaned in to give your cheek a kiss. “You’re the most beautiful woman at this party.”

“Liar,” you laughed, thinking about the Cover Girl model again. She was perfect.

“I’m not lying, Y/N. I’d never lie to you.” You turned to look at him and he gave you a kiss. “What do you want to do first? Get a drink? Or maybe go down on the beach and swim for a bit?”

“I think a drink would be a good idea,” you said. You were always super friendly when you were drunk, and the nerves that were coursing through you at thought of meeting all of your boyfriend’s famous friends needed to be calmed.

“Drinks it is.”

The whole afternoon felt like a dream. Not only were you on the grounds of a ridiculous mansion with a bouncy house, ponies, face painting, a dance floor, a pool, a private beach, volleyball, a full bar, and amahhhzing food, but you were with someone who looked at you like you were truly the most gorgeous woman there, even though you knew that wasn’t the case. The two of you did everything there was to do. Yes, even the bouncy house. Although, admittedly, that wasn’t the best idea after a pina colada and a hot dog. You recovered on the lanai on a chase. Sebastian laid down with you resting between his legs, your head on his chest.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Sexy Seabass.”

“Mackie?” Sebastian patted your shoulder and you sat up for him to get out from under you. He walked over to his friend that you had heard so much about, embracing him and giving him a pat on the back. “I didn’t know you were coming!”

“Miss a party like this? Are you kidding me? Hell no.” Anthony looked at you. “You’ve got to be Y/N, or else Seabass is in a lot of trouble.”

“I’m Y/N,” you said, shaking his hand.

“Wooo, Seb - you did good, my dude. She is fine.” Anthony smiled widely at you. He was exactly as Sebastian had described him. “If I were single, he’d have some competition.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sebastian scoffed, shaking his head. “Enough flirting. Why don’t you go stuff a foot long in your mouth?”

“You mean like you did that one night in Bangkok?” Anthony said with slanted eyes.

“Stop it.” Sebastian was trying like hell to be serious, but you saw the laugh teasing at the corner of his lips. “You’re putting ideas in her head.”

“I’m just messing,” Anthony told you.

“I don’t know … the way he downed that hot dog earlier, i’m inclined to believe you,” you told him. Anthony full on guffawed, grabbing his stomach and throwing his head back.

“You keep her, Seabass.”

“Planning on it,” he said, giving your hair a kiss as he wrapped his arm around you.

“Check you later, my dude.” Anthony patted Sebastian on the shoulder and walked away. “I gotta go find Renner. He owes me some money.”

“So… that’s Anthony.” You looked up at Sebastian and chuckled. “He’s exactly as you described.”

“Isn’t he? I love that dude.” If Sebastian were a meme, he would have been the heart eyes mutha fucka meme at that very moment.

“I can tell. Listen, if you want, I can go find something else to do and you guys can go off into a dark corner and-”

“Shut up,” he growled, pulling you in for a kiss. “Let’s go swimming in the ocean.”

“I dunno … the sun is starting to set.”

“Swimming in the ocean at sunset sounds pretty great to me. You’re wearing your bikini under your dress, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but everyone here is so… everyone is so … perfect.”

“Including you,” he said matter-of-factly.

“My thighs jiggle….”

“Your thighs are fucking amazing. Don’t be self conscious, okay? It’s a party … let’s have fun.”

Robert had a pretty big stretch of the beach that was owned just by him. There were covered lounge chairs down by the water and back towards the staircase that led up to the lawn was a volleyball net where some people were having a rather rousing game. You recognized a few of them, mainly the guy who played Thor. He was hard not to look at.

“Ahem,” Sebastian cleared his throat when your gaze lingered a little too long.

“What?” you asked.

“I asked you if you wanted me to order you another drink before we go into the water. Cuz you’re looking prettttyyy thirsty.”

“Huh? No. I’m good.”

“I would say I’m hurt, but I get it. He’s a speciman.”

“A little too big,” you said, shrugging. You put your hand on Sebastian’s stomach and rubbed him a little bit. “You’re perfect.”

“Damn right,” he said with a nod, taking off his shades. He took off his shirt next, and you stared at him. “Okay, I feel better now.” He winked at you. “Last one in is a rotten egg!”

“Oh, is that how we’re playing it?” You started taking off your dress but Sebastian already had a head start into the water. You ran after him, jumping on his back.

“AH!” He exclaimed, grabbing onto your thighs as you wrapped yourself around him. “I beat you.”

“It wasn’t fair … you were already undressed.” You bit at his shoulder playfully.

“Careful, sweetheart. We’re in public.”

“Oh, shush.” Sebastian responded by diving into the water with you on his back. When you came back up for air, you pushed off of him. “Not cool.” You splashed him.

“Oh, you didn’t-” You splashed him again - right in the face. “You’re going to get it.” He lunged for you, but you jumped out of the way, splashing again. He splashed back, getting you right in the face. Salt water went straight up your nose and you started to cough. “Shit, baby… are you okay?” He came over to you, putting his hands on your shoulders. You pushed him back into the water, laughing. “WHAT?! No!” He lunged again, this time grabbing you around your waist and lifting you up high, almost above his head.

“SEBASTIAN! Put me down!” You exclaimed. He smiled at you.

“As you wish,” he said before dropping you into the water. When you came to the surface, you lunged for him and he took you in his arms. You were going to push him in the water but he kissed you and before you knew it, you were distracted and making out with your boyfriend in the Pacific Ocean.

“Ew,” a kid from the party said from a swan-shaped raft behind you. Sebastian laughed and you buried your face in his chest to hide your red cheeks.

“Where can I get one of those?” he asked the kid.

“Over there,” the kid said, pointing to the beach. There was a vast assortment of different rafts - everything from a sprinkled donut to a whale to a banana.

“Wanna ride a banana?” Sebastian asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Maybe later …” you ran your ringer down the center of his chest, “if you’re good.”

“Me be good? You’re the one who needs to be good.” His hand was dangerous close to your backside. “You look really good wet …”

“Be good, Sebastian,” you told him, swimming away from him.

“Stop making it so hard, then!”

“That’s what he said,” you teased. Sebastian laughed, grabbing at your foot. “Ah!”

“I’ve got you and I’m not letting go.”

“You better not.”

Robert and Susan, his lovely wife whom you had the pleasure of meeting over the course of the afternoon, set up their gigantic pool house as a changing area. There were not one, but three showers. There were also robes, hair dryers, lotion, and everything else you could think of for a post-swimming touch up.

After a fun but exhausting time in the ocean, you both went up to the pool house to get changed for the rest of the evening. After you’d showered, fixed up your hair and make up and put on your dress, you walked outside to find Sebastian. But as you turned the corner, you heard him talking to someone.

“It wasn’t serious. We both agreed, didn’t we?” he said.

“Yeah, but you said you’d call me when you got back from New York last time …” The voice belonged to a woman. You couldn’t see her, but she sounded pouty. “I thought we could have a little bit more fun before you go back to do that play.”

“I told you … I met someone.”

“Yeah, I saw her. Really, Seb? She’s so … not your type.” Okay. Now you were really curious. And a little pissed. You stealthy peaked around the corner. Sebastian was talking to that woman you’d pointed out earlier - the Cover Girl one. She was dressed in a black bikini with a sheer cover. She was gorgeous. And she was all over your boyfriend. Her hands rested on his shoulders. “We both know I’m more your speed.”

“Lilly,” Sebastian sighed, peeling her hands off of him. “We had fun. But that’s all it was. I was upset and you were great, really ...but I’m with Y/N now.”

“Yeah, well can she make you howl like I can?” she asked, grabbing Sebastian by the shirt and pulling him in for a kiss. That was all you needed to see. You ran.

“Hey there, Y/N, where you running off to?” Anthony asked as he came through the door. You didn’t answer - you just ran.

“Y/N! Hey! Wait! Y/N!” You heard Sebastian calling, but you ignored him, running down to the beach.

#Sebastian Stan #Sebastian Stan x reader #Sebastian stan x you #Sebastian Stan fan fiction #fan fiction #lunch break series #moondancewrites

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sabraeal · 6 years ago

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Desert & Reward: Chapter 4

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

Chaput is a man of Conti, four generations long to hear him tell it; a man more gnarled and twisted than the oldest birches on the preserve, but spry.

“Driven carriages my whole life, sir,” the man grunts. Time has worn his voice down to a rasp. “First for Conti’s grandfather, then the man himself. Now you.”

Obi closes teeth around, don’t get used to it.

“Fallen down in circumstances, then.” His mouth lifts at the corner, trying to make humor where there’s none to be found. He was good at that before he became a lord.

Chaput just coughs, mouth a knotted line in his craggy face.

Hopefully he’ll learn the trick of it again, after he’s not.

“Your name is fine as any man’s,” Chaput says at last, patting the shoulder of one of the leads. It snorts, nosing the man’s pockets like it expects a treat. “Old, for certain. Clearly breeding don’t matter a mite, considering how Conti ended up.” He cranes his neck north, wary. “That’s how a lot of lords have ended up, this time ‘round.”

Clouds hang heavy over the roofs of Cacciatore, bellies tinged a foreboding black, blacker than the lacquer on the carriage. Chaput’s face angles toward the sky, squinting into the distance.

“Maybe we shouldn’t risk it, sir,” he grunts. This conversation is as many words as Obi’s ever heard him string together at once. “Won’t do to get the wheels in a rut naught but a few hours’ ride from home.”

“There’s no use,” Obi tells him, “His Majesty will probably send a search party if I’m an hour late from when I should arrive.”

“Hn.” The man scratches at his beard. “The king expects troubles then.”

A grin twitches his lips.

“His majesty expects I am the trouble. Besides--” His eyes catch on the figures emerging from the house, clad in dour black. “I think I would rather risk foul weather than Mrs Carre’s mood.”

Chaput coughs. Obi suspects it might be a laugh. “Fair enough, sir.”

“I don’t like it,” Mrs Carre grouses as soon as speaking wouldn’t require shouting. Beside her, Morel startles, clutching at his heart like he’s near apoplexy.

“Mrs Carre!” Scandal seeps from every syllable. “You shouldn’t use such a tone --”

“Says you,” she snips cuttingly. “I’m not scolding him. I just think His Majesty could have waited until after the mistress arrived to call his lordship out. It’s all very sudden!”

Obi feels his mouth settle in a grimace, but he pushes it into a smile – a smirk, when it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Come now, my dearest Mrs Carre,” he cajoles, trying for his most charming, “coming when his master calls is the one duty a southern lord has.”

“Do you honestly forget?” Yori grunts as he passes, heaving the luggage onto the carriage. “You’re a southern lord too.”

Obi stutters in place, the thought, not for long, rises up, unbidden. He forces a grin on his face, forces himself to say, “A little humility impresses the ladies at court. You might learn some, Yori.”

“As you say, my lord.”

Mrs Carre’s mouth still sits in its thin line when he turns back to her, and he squeezes out just a bit more good humor. “It’s only a delay. We can have Miss come once I’m back. I’ll even write her when I leave Wistal to let her know.”

Guilt stings him when this mollifies her, but –

But what harm is it to tell this little lie, among all the bigger ones? None, just another on the pile for when the new lord arrives. The real one.

“I’ll be off, then,” he says, wishing there was some script for a lord bidding goodbye to his servants. Perhaps there is, but a man like him doesn’t know it. “I trust you all to take care of things while I’m gone.”

“Of course, my lord,” Morel hurriedly informs him. “All will be as you left it.”

Better than, he knows, but – but –

“Good. I’ll see you all when – when I return.”

What’s one more lie, for the road?

Chaput closes the door behind him, and Obi sighs, lets the mask fall as they ride away, and –

“Homesick already, my lord?”

His eyes slam open. “Yori?”

“We’ve barely left,” Yori presses, almost worriedly. “You won’t be like this the entire time will you? Does Wistal have parapets?” He settles back into the velvet, thoughtful. “Ah, but they would have guards to keep…people off them.”

“What are you --?” Obi can hardly move from shock. “How --?”

“I’m your valet, my lord,” Yori supplies easily. “Wistal supplies domestics, I’m sure, but when – when our last lord went to the castle, he would bring his own. I’m taken to understand this is how things are done.”

“You can’t come,” he blurts out, heart pounding in his chest. “What if – how could --?”

“You can send me back, but you have to explain it to Mr Morel.” His tone belies the confidence of his words. “Since I won’t survive it.”

Obi doesn’t need to imagine the storm that would cook up over Cacciatore for that. “Fine,” he sighs, settling back against the velvet. “You’ll come.”

“As you say, my lord.” Yori eyes him warily from his seat. “You did think to bring more than black, didn’t you?”

His mouth pulls flat, and he makes a show of craning his neck out the window, nearly head and shoulders dangling. “I wonder if there’s rails on this thing’s ro--”

“Black!” Yori blurts out, gaze rolled to the ceiling. “Lovely color. Hardly ever need too worry about matching.”

Obi sits back with a grin. “Can’t quite make it out from here. I’ll have to check at the inn.”

“Excellent, my lord,” he squeaks, face pale. He reaches over, fingers trembling, and yanks down the shade. “An answer I’m sure we’re all interested in.”

Dearest Miss,

I know you will be most disappointed, but I’m afraid sharing my bed will have to wait…

It’s half a week to Wistal, and Obi’s convinced that they’ll have to swim the last leg.

The sky opens just outside of Cacciatore and does not let up; they arrive at washed out bridges, detouring around to higher ground, only to get caught in ruts or sink into mires made nearly overnight. Of course it’s this trip that drags, that keeps him from – from whatever punishment His Majesty will dole out, that leaves Obi to imagine what sort of humiliation he could invent, given a few extra days.

There’s no use keeping a spy who can’t spy. Maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll be sent back to Wilant.

“I asked Chaput,” Yori mentions, closing the blinds to keep out the rain. “There’s no towers between here and the capital. You’ll just have to do with brooding in dark rooms like the rest of us, my lord.”

He lifts an eyebrow, trying to smooth the twitching on his lips. “Don’t be ridiculous, Yori,” he drawls, affecting a disaffected mien, “I’ll just do it on the inn roofs.”

Yori stares, eyes wide, and, ah, perhaps if he can keep that dismay on his valet’s face for the rest of trip, it won’t be so bad.

My most benevolent Mistress,

I suppose I could say I’ve got both bad news and good news. You won’t get to sleep in my fancy bed at my estate, but at least I’ll be returning to warm yours soon…

He doesn’t know how to start these letters. It had seemed simple to keep the joke going, to reply to every flirtatious venture on Miss’s part with an even more brazen one. He hadn’t expected her to match him, to exceed him, to make him think –

It doesn’t matter. Not now. The joke has run its course, clearly.

“My lord,” Yori sighs, as other might sigh by the gods. “Perhaps just start with that you miss her.”

Darling Mistress,

I miss you. Also, I think His Majesty is almost certainly torturing me on purpose…

Lords enter through the Poet’s Gate.

He may not have spent long at Wistal, all things considered, but he’d learned that quick enough. Still, as he sees it drawing closer, fancy carriages slipping in and out of its shining pickets, Obi directs Chaput to the west.

The Poet’s gate might be for lords, but Obi is only one for a few more hours now. Better to slink in Starlight than to leave Poet’s in disgrace.

It’s too much for him, even then -- he doesn’t like this, doesn’t like being so conspicuous when he knows there’s a tree that hangs over the gate, when all it would take is a jump and a shimmy and he could stroll off to the west wing no one the wiser. The carriage grows a size smaller with each turn of it’s wheels and --

And it’s barely stopped before Obi bursts out of it, gasping for breath.

Gods, he hates those things.

“Obi!”

Of course, it would be too much for a moment alone, for a moment to catch his breath.

Master is a flutter of silk as he storms down the stairs, brow knitted in fury. Obi curses being caught in an open pavilion; there’s no way to throw himself out a window without walls, and no way to disappear into the underbrush when everything is stone and decorative shrubbery.

“Obi!” he shouts again, closer now, Mitsuhide following close behind, and Hisame trailing a dignified distance after. “You’re here!”

“Master!” Obi greets, ignoring the surprised glance Yori gives him as he steps out. “I am!”

“Good.” The word bites ominously into him as Master turns his back, as he gestures for him to fall into step. “We’ll go see Izana now.”

Obi stumbles a step, like a broken marionette. “I thought…” He glances back at Yori, who is very firmly doing his job with the luggage, and not at all eavesdropping. “I thought His Majesty would want to wait --”

“There’s no need,” Master tells him firmly. “We’ll sort this all out now.” He claps Obi on the back, his smile all teeth. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle my brother.”

“Zen,” His Majesty remarks mildly as the door to his study swings open. His gaze slips over Master’s shoulder, catching on Obi, and he wishes he could be anywhere else. “And Obi. Or should I say, Marquis Conti.”

“Should you?” Obi chokes out, swallowing down the lump in his throat. At least Yori wouldn’t be here to see this, even if he’ll have to send him home with the news. Maybe it will be more palatable from him, rather than the new lord.

“Should I?” His Majesty raises an eyebrow. “Ah, of course. I mean, Marquis --”

“We’re not here to debate titles,” Master snaps, throwing himself into a chair.

Obi just holds back, we’re not?

“Are we not?” His Majesty drawls, a second brow joining the first. He nods to another seat, and Obi scrambles to take it; anything to not make him the tallest thing when lightning strikes. “Then what could we possibly have to talk about that cannot wait until after the marquis has had time to freshen himself up?”

Master’s eyes narrow. “You know what. You’re not going to – to trap Obi like you did me.”

“I wasn’t considering it a trap,” His Majesty’s gaze flicks between the two of them, lingering awfully on Obi. “A problem arose, and I saw an amenable way to solve it.”

“You didn’t ask.” Master’s fingers drum restlessly on the carved arms of the chair. “You just decide.”

“That’s why I summoned him.” The king of Clarines folds his hands over his desk, slim fingers knotting over papers than decide life and death. That decide the fate of former assassins, who have somehow tricked their way into becoming lords. Obi swallows. “You’ll learn one day; some things are best broached in person.”

Master bridles. “And you think he would say no, when you have him here?”

A small smile creeps across His Majesty’s face. It is...amused.

Obi feels sweat prickle at his hairline.

“Why, no,” the king says, with the sort of tremor that would mark laughter, in a normal man. “I did not think he would say no.”

“You weren’t going to give him a choice.” Master’s fingers grip his chair like claws. “Just like I didn’t --”

“You did.” His Majesty had been known as the Ice Prince once -- still, if the gossip of the kitchen was to be believed -- and he earns it with the chill in his tone. “I am afraid princes don’t have choices than can be made without consequence. Do not blame me that you did not like the one that would come if you said no.”

“But this --”

“Life isn’t fair, Zen.” For a moment, he almost looks sorry for it. “It’s the only way to solve this, unless you think Obi would object to the match.”

That wakes him. “Match?” he interjects, blinking. “You’re trying to get me married?”

That’s -- that’s a world of difference from what he thought. Married.

Zen winces. “Obi, it’s just a --”

The door opens. His Majesty’s mouth curls into a self-satisfied smile.

“Ah, wonderful,” he sighs, standing. “I’m glad they were able to catch you in time.”

“I’d only just arrived,” says the intruder, breathless. Obi’s heart catches at the sound of her voice. No.

“Sir Obi,” His Majesty drawls, holding out a hand. “May I introduce you to your wife?”

Obi stands, and it’s as if every noise in the room has stopped as his gaze meets familiar forest green.

“Though,” His Majesty continues, more than a little pleased with himself. “I suppose your already know each other.”

“Miss,” he breathes, just as Master yelps, “Shirayuki!”

May I introduce you to your wife?

Something in his chest aches. It cannot possibly be his heart, not when it’s so clearly stopped.

“Perhaps,” His majesty says after a long moment, “we allow Lady Shirayuki and Sir Obi to freshen up before we get into the details.”

#obiyukibingo2018 #arranged marriage AU #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #desert and reward #my fic #ans #a slightly shorter chapter #because i am a bitch who loves drama #but SURPRISE #glad no one managed to smoke me out on this plan #I WAS WORRIED

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