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baelpenrose · 3 months ago

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Nihilus Rex 45: Event Planning

Nils and Lash make up and make plans. For the record, I was SO HAPPY when Light told me what the theme of the Met Gala had been that year. I had wanted to work Paradise Lost jokes into this story so badly and that just lined it up so, so well. Co-written, obviously, by @canyouhearthelight

Nils

I woke up with arms full of Lash, feeling good for the first time in weeks. I was back, motherfucker. My girlfriend and I were working together, Weasel was on his way out, the fibbies were going to be gone soon, and we had ideas for our next step - global event.

At some point I was going to want a major publicity stunt to draw attention to the cause and grab up more followers, but that was further out than we needed to plan for just yet - something to put a pin in.

World cup had potential, for global, for America, maybe the Superbowl? World Series Baseball? I pondered as I fried eggs for me and Lash, and put on the tea. I set on some music as I worked, something quiet and slightly funky.

“Hey, babe, so…” I twitched slightly to the music. “How’s your sister holding up, by the way? And…should we start planning on ‘put Gray down’ contingencies now, or do you want to hold that for later?”

She detangled a part of her hair with her fingers with a thoughtful look on her face. “I think we still need him for expansion and rallying the troops here, at least through… Super Bowl and Oscars? That’s January and March.”

“Let’s start there then. Thoughts on publicity stunt to grab up more followers? Maybe in line with Met Gala next year? Perfect time for it, the sickening display of American capitalist decadence, thrown in the face of the desperate - and we can interrupt it with an easy logo, PFP, announcement of what we’re up to and about if we’ve gotten enough momentum going, a plea for people to join us. By then we’ll have the momentum that people will be afraid, wondering what’s going on. Swap that fear for anger at those in charge, something to believe in, and that’s one hell of an explosive mix.”

She stopped fussing with her hair and grinned in what I could only think of as a predatory way. “Oh, did you see the theme? Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.”

“What a beautiful accident.” My mind was already whirring. “Do you have feelings on Paradise Lost?”

“As our theme, or the work?”

“I mean, we’re crashing a Catholic-themed Met Gala. I’m a scion of the white American upper class very much bringing about their doom. Can you think of a better theme?”

“I like it. Let’s do it.”

I paused. “You want to crash the party and then broadcast from inside with a recorded signal when we do it? Leave before the signal starts?”

She snorted. “Clearly someone doesn’t follow the Gala… The event has more security in the week leading up to and during than the White House at any point in time excluding 9/11. It’s literally the A-list of the A-list in Hollywood and fashion. Crashing isn’t an option, especially if we plan to live through this. Hosting a warehouse Masquerade and using it as cover to broadcast the signal? More doable. Especially if we leave that before the signal kicks off.”

I debated telling Lash that anyone at said Masquerade was almost definitely going to get arrested when the cops traced the signal, so we couldn’t invite any of our actually trusted lieutenants - then realized that that would be a delightful way to get rid of Gray, actually. Bring him, a few of his gun bros, a few of the weird, flaky chicks who’d started following us online who seemed too unstable to actually be helpful…

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Worst case scenario,” she waved vaguely, “cops show up over a broadcast hijacking, most people get out in the scramble, anyone who gets caught literally has no fucking clue what we did, they showed up for a rave. Maybe some light possession charges.”

Or we could do that. That seemed smarter. Of course getting rid of Gray wouldn’t be that easy, I cursed myself.

“Okay. So. We have a plan to get attention, raise the profile, and do some quick attacks during high profile events. I like where we’re going. We’ll have the FBI back on us after we use up Weasel, but by the time that’s done, we’ll have enough fires on enough fronts that they’ll be playing catch up.” I thought about it. “There’s probably? Something to be done with that League tournament in Korea, but I don’t know how to make that more annoying to rich people than to random gamers - data strangles on banking, maybe? Data flow is already going to be weird, there. We can always move it around more, have it blamed on the tournament.”

“Or attack something wholly unrelated, since no one will be looking at it,” she pointed out. “Like with the Super Bowl - we aren’t going after the NFL, we’d go after…. I don’t know, stupid charges slapped disproportionately against minorities or something. World Cup? Global stock market, something along those lines. Just spitballing.”

“Point. Ideally, have multiple things going. Diversions, too. There’s always more police presence around sports events, so if we can cause riots around them to pressure cops it won’t hurt us. At some point, this thing does need to allow allies of ours to either carve out autonomous zones or seize power.”

For what seemed to be a lack of anywhere better to drum her fingers, Lash drummed hers against her chin. “Spin up those who want violence to riot outside, while we attack something completely unrelated but more important? That’s what you’re saying?”

“Yep. Keep Interpol’s eyes on the agitators behind the riots, ideally - try to keep that on Gray’s side of the show. Skulls for the Skull Collector, and Gray for Interpol, since the FBI probably aren’t going to cut it with him. He destabilizes hostile forces, we get a free hand to tear open the IMF while Interpol isn’t looking.” I was already thinking about it, trying to figure out the scale of the forces involved, the institutions that would be clashing. Interpol and local law enforcement often collided over jurisdictional crap, so that would be one angle where we’d get a smokescreen, be allowed to run the game out longer. “And if it keeps Gray too busy to stab us in the back til we can Order 66 him…”

Rather than balking, Lash leaned into the idea. “Who is our current time-delay specialist? We can’t have these connected if we want to use this model - Stochastic, that’s the term you like, right? We need someone to make it look random, like an attack of advantage rather than coordinated efforts.”

“At some point, someone is going to be able to piece it together if they aren’t totally braindead,” I said, mulling over her point, “I mean, financial attacks at multiple major spectator events, with riots that draw local law enforcement? That’s a pattern after a while. But yeah, longer we can draw them off thinking it's stochastic or a chain of copycats rather than a singular entity, the better. Currently our smartest guy for timing is Bishop, but he knows some other people who might know law enforcement analysis or event timing better than we do - I’ll poke him.” I rubbed my temples, still thinking. “Once they do determine it’s a singular entity, and start targeting Gray, we need to at least think about claiming responsibility for the attacks for the credibility. Yeah, raise our profile and draw all sorts of attention we don’t want, but it’ll also draw more people to our cause in ways that…I mean, not the happiest comparison, but those ISIL dipshits were literally crucifying people and they made it work with a little media manipulation and some branding. We can definitely do it.”

“I’ll be honest, part of me feels like you aren’t seeing the big picture I’m pitching,” Lash confessed, scraping the last of her breakfast into her mouth. “I’m thinking varied delays or even lead times to the physical riots, with what seem to be unrelated attacks from the online perspective. Super Bowl riot, same time hit something. Oscars, a week before or after hit something that seems unrelated. League of Legends Worlds, hit something EssKay centric that doesn’t even matter to the U.S, maybe next day, doesn’t matter. Does that make sense?”

I slapped myself. “Yeah. okay…That…” I shook my head, trying to clear it. God. Damn. Had to lay off the drugs. I was tempted to grab an Adderall to feel a little less stupid but I knew if I did I’d be stuck back like this a few days later. “Yeah. That makes perfect sense. Though the advantage of the events as diversions only lasts if we hit while they’re on…” I bit my tongue. “We’ll talk to Bishop and whoever he can dig up, but you’re absolutely right, that’s something to think about. Getting too much attention too fast fucks us over.”

I paused. “Wait. Lead-in or followups, totally unrelated to the initial attacks, do different attacks in different styles. Convince them that everything is being done by different groups, each copying each other. Lead-ins and follow ups can be ‘sloppy’ insofar as they can be low-value targets more meant to cause chaos than actually accomplish anything. Roll a d20 or other nerd dice for number of days before or after strike, coin flip for whether it’s before or after? Convince them that there’s even more random crap happening? At some point people are gonna join in.”

She winked and shot me finger-guns. “Now we’re in the same book. Love the randomizing concept, won’t lie. Nothing they can create a pattern from, since there literally isn’t one. It’s just chance. And the more unrelated the causes seem, the harder it will be to connect them…. Especially if we cultivate imitators, right?”

“Yeah. I have concerns if our imitators start going off on tears and try hitting the same targets we do, but…” I trailed off. “Honestly as long as we don’t trip over them it shouldn’t be a huge problem, and if they get intercepted they can work as a diversion.” Wait, no that was dumb as fuck. We’d have to keep an eye out for imitators as we went. I realized that as soon as it was out of my mouth, cyberspace didn’t work like meatspace, everyone was everywhere all at once if you were doing the same thing. “No, wait, -”

“No, it’s good,” Lash confessed, snagging my plate as she headed towards the kitchen sink. “I hate it, but if we’re willing to throw right wing chucklefucks under the bus, we have to be willing to let the people who don’t coordinate reap the whirlwind.” She held a hand to her chest, carefully placing the dishes in the sink while clearly taking several deep breaths. “I want to vomit from saying that, but if I do, I’ll never get past the hard truth.”

“Focus on the fact that we have no better choices. That this chess game started before we were ever born, and the role in history we were born into was either being blind to it or to try to win.” I said, hoping I was failing to achieve my usual level of eloquence because that also sounded dumber than shit. I could do better than that normally, right?

Holding one last breath, she nodded. “This has to be done. And there are going to be people who think they are doing the right thing - and some might be right - but like those guys who got shot at the bank, stupid games, right?” She suddenly started doing deep breaths again.

“Stupid games, stupid prizes. And if we win, they win the prize that their kids don’t have to do this. Get to live in a better world than the one we’re in.”

That seemed to steady her. “Clean water. Less scarcity. Fewer diseases.” She nodded firmly before repeating. “Less scarcity. I know they say money is the root of all evil, but that’s because scarcity is the true evil.”

“Lack of racists with a monopoly on violence. Probably fewer racists. In general.” I added. “We’re doing a good thing. We’re solving problems. We’re just doing it in…unusual ways. Ways that wouldn’t be necessary if everything awful hadn’t been entrenched for centuries.” It sounded true when I said it, and I wasn’t even on triple my recommended dose of stimulants. That was probably a good sign.

She tucked herself back into the corner of my couch that she seemed to prefer, a careful positioning that never failed to fascinate me in its precision. “Redistribution of wealth is on the agenda, just to confirm we’re on the same page? I know we are, but I like hearing it out loud every now and then.”

“That is very much the goal. Giant universities. Free entry. Libraries. Free healthcare.” I smirked as I cuddled into her. “Men’s fashion that isn’t so fucking depressing. A rule on the books that says if you burn a book you go on the fire after it.”

“Unless it’s indoctrination about Dianetics?” she pleaded, grinning and tugging on my hair.

“No, that gets shelved next to the works of HP Lovecraft like everything else about Cthulhu. Obviously. Every extant copy gets big, bold stamping that says “fiction.” That’s much, much funnier. We still ban all the insane bullshit religious people do to their kids in the name of god though. No more marrying as children, genital snipping, beating for being gay, leaving them alone with priests who interrogate them about sexual sins. All that shit goes away.” I paused. “Offhand, are we actually planning on ruling the world? Like, I get the whole aesthetic, but I have…no interest in actually getting a crown on.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Ewwwww… ruling the world sounds like a ton of work. No thank you. Can we delegate it?”

“So we get to look cool, take over the world, then hand it to someone else. Love that.” I leaned in. “I am so happy we found each other.”

Petting my hair, she leaned over to kiss my forehead. “Me too. Fix the world, find someone to keep it on keel with the knowledge we can take them out of power, vanish to do boring shit and have sex until we die. Love the idea.”

“Boring…Yeah.” I trailed off, eyes wandering. “Hey. After I message Bishop, is there some of that ‘boring’ stuff you’d like to try?”

She abruptly stood up - fair enough given that I’d dropped her on the rug earlier - and walked towards the bedroom, dusky hands grabbing the back of her shirt collar. “I’ll be in here, don’t be long with Bishop.” Even as she said it, the hem of her borrowed shirt showed more and more of her underwear.

Yeah. If that wasn’t proof I needed to hire a time management guy so I could spend less time crunching logistics…

“Bishop. Do you have anyone you know who knows something about…event planning, spacing, and time management who’d like to work on our project? Who would also be a good fit?”

I sent the text, knowing it’d be a bit before Bishop got back to me - he worked during the week. I casually stood up and headed back to the bedroom.

#Nihilus Rex #writeblr #writers on tumblr #afterverse #miys prequel #arcadian inquisition prequel #traumatized characters #modern dystopia #cyberpunk

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hellbentcon · 4 months ago

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Origins of Hellbent Con

We've received some interest in how Hellbent Con was originally founded and how we managed our first year!

long post under the cut:

Very basically, we started as a group of friends with a bit of con experience between us. Mostly as attendees and art vendors. We were lamenting the lack of conventions in our area, and how difficult the existing cons were to get into.

We decided we wanted to host our own convention to hopefully add to the community!♡

From the first mention of the idea, to the actual convention, time for our preparations was only about six months! This is an incredibly short amount of time for a project this size, but our incredible staff really buckled down to make it a reality♡

We were inspired by other online conventions that we had participated in, and wanted to try our hand at hosting.♡ We decided on a Hellaverse theme as most of us were fans of both series!♡

A huge appeal for the convention being online for a lot of our mods was being able to run the convention at home. A lot of us are disabled, so having an option that didn't require us to travel was an absolute blessing!♡

We discovered that a lot of fans felt the same way, and a lot had other reasons that made attending irl conventions very difficult! We were delighted that so many people were so happy to be able to have an event where they could connect with other fans!♡

For one of our mods, arranging Hellbent Con gave her her spark back! Being able to work on this project inspired her to take her art more seriously, and motivated her to plan to participate in more events in the future. Thanks to our wonderful attendees, her panels went amazingly, and really helped her over her stage fright! Please keep cheering for her as she plans more events and panels in the future!♡

As for the rest of our mods, such a successful first year has really motivated us to keep working hard at bringing our con back for a second year!♡

We would love to thank our mod team for their tireless effort over these past few months, our wonderful vendors for their beautiful art work, and our amazing attendees for pouring your heart into this convention's very first year!♡♡♡

♡Thank You!♡

#about us #hellbent con #our posts #always feel free to message us if you have any questions~☆

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taintedevesayori · 1 year ago

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⚰️ Diatober ⚰️

Day 25: Corpse | Prompts by @fruit-of-infidelity | Masterlist

youtube

((This is the third part in the four part mini series I'm doing. Parts one and two are linked below.))

Part 1: Poison, Part 2: Possession, Part 3: Corpse, Part 4: Insanity

TW: Death

“When the ticking stops This world will end Words that can only wish Couldn’t have meaning Smile a little Pray a little If you can’t hear me Just kill me”

Sayo was on her bed when she woke up again. Laito was sitting by her bedside once more. He looked even more concerned than the first time.

“Sayo…” he let out a sigh of relief when she turned to stare at him. “Reiji was here a minute ago. He examined you to try to figure out what’s wrong with you.”

“And? Did he figure it out?” She asked.

He didn’t miss the strange tone in her voice.

“No…He went to his room to analyze that black stuff in the blood on the floor.”

“I see,” she smirked. “That gives us time, then.”

“Time?” He asked, confused. “Time for what-?!”

She grabbed him by the shirt, pulling him on top of her.

“Time for this,” she wrapped her arms around him, leaning up to kiss him.

He was shocked. This was what he had been waiting for. It’s what he had wanted from her for a long time now. So why did it feel wrong? This didn’t seem like Sayo.

“What are you doing?” He tried to pull away.

“More like what are you doing? I know you want me. What are you waiting for?”

“You’re acting strange…This isn’t actually what you want.”

“You’re right,” she smirked. “I want revenge for my death.”

“What…?” He stared, unsure what she meant.

He hadn’t noticed she had it in her hand until her pocket knife was embedded in his heart.

“Y-You…? Sayo…?” He coughed, blood spilling from his lips.

She giggled, a look of delight in her eyes. “Wonderful! That’s the look of despair I wanted to see! Imagine how I felt when my beloved sons tried to kill me? Now the woman you love has killed you. How does it feel, Laito? When she regains consciousness, I’m sure it will break her…and then this body will be completely mine.”

“M-Mother…” he glared. “How?!”

“Do you really want your last words to be to me? Shouldn’t you confess your love to this woman? Tell her how much it hurts to be killed by the one you love!”

“Sayo didn’t kill me…it was you…She never did believe me…but I do love her…”

With that, Laito fell onto the bed, never to move again.

“Poor fool,” she chuckled. “Reiji, was it…? Seems like he’s infatuated with her as well. Why stop with just one?”

She laughed, deciding to push Laito’s body to the floor where it wouldn’t be immediately visible when Reiji came back.

She was extremely bored by the time Reiji returned to Sayo’s room.

“You are awake,” he noted.

“I woke up not too long ago,” she nodded.

“I thought Laito was going to stay with you.”

“He had to get something. He said he would be right back. You were analyzing the black substance in my blood?”

“Correct. It is a toxin that allows for mental manipulation. Certain insects and such use it to control or immobilize their host or prey.”

“Why would something like that be in my blood?”

“That is what I would like to know. Have you eaten anything strange recently?”

“Not that I remember. Is this toxin dangerous?”

“To an extent. It must be why you do not remember waking up and walking around. It could be just in your digestive system, but there is a chance it also moved to your circulatory system. I would like to check your blood to determine if that is the case.”

She resisted the urge to grin. What a perfect opportunity.

“Of course,” she got up, walking over to Reiji.

He brushed the hair away from her neck before biting her. He was so focused on her blood that he didn’t notice her pull out her pocket knife before she wrapped her arms around him. It was only as she flipped the blade open that he noticed the new bloodstains on her bed…but it was too late to stop her from stabbing him in the back, right through the heart.

“S-Sayo…?!”

“Not quite,” she giggled, pushing him off of her. “You look just like Karl did when we first met. Killing you is quite the shame…but rather entertaining. And killing both you and Laito will shatter this girl’s spirit.”

“You…Who are you?” Reiji glared.

“Does it matter?” She laughed. “I said the same thing to my idiot son, but do you really want to say your last words to me? Don’t you have anything to say to this woman?”

“Tch…’This woman’ as you say, is special. She can handle whatever you throw at her. You will not win against her.”

“I already have,” she smirked.

Reiji tried to say more, but the last of his strength was fading.

“I’ll give you your body back one last time, Sayo,” Cordelia giggled. “After you see this, you won’t want it anymore.”

“Let me hear your voice Please get rid of this sunken heart I’ll bury the canvas of lies with you If I can’t leave the evidence For your and my existence Engrave me with this warmth And kill me Leia… Leia…”

#diatober #diatober 2023 #diabolik lovers oc #diabolik lovers #sayori makina #laito sakamaki #reiji sakamaki #cordelia sakamaki

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wiypt-writes · 4 years ago

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Murder, He Wrote

Part 1

Co-written with @southerngracela

Summary: You’re sent by your asshole boss to do a review of a Celebrity Host Haunted Mansion, hosted by none-other than the arrogant, wild-eye browed actor Lucas Lee, but you’re worried you’ve missed the boat…that is, until at the last minute, an email arrives to say they can let you in on the last admission that night, which just happens to be Halloween… When you arrive, you’re actually kind of excited and intrigued…but it isn’t long until that excitement and intrigue give way to fear when you find yourself in a helpless situation.

Warnings: A creepy house, bad language words. MATURE (NSFW 18+) NON-CON situation, kidnap, violence. DO NOT READ IF ANY OF THOSE TRIGGER… READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!

Pairing: DARK! Ransom Drysdale x Reader

A/N: So this is a collaboration between myself and the wonderful @southerngracela for @jtargaryen18 ‘s Haunted House 2020 challenge…and will be a mini-series, with an as of yet undefined number of chapters.

Once again READ THE WARNINGS!!!! This is a DARK Series… don’t @ us if you can’t follow simple instructions and end up with butt-hurt. And if you’re under 18…get off my blog.

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and by writing it does NOT mean I agree with or condone the acts contained within. This fiction is classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar reader and any other OCs that may or may not be mentioned. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Murder, He Wrote Masterlist // Main Masterlist.

"Y/L/N," your dick editor poked his head into your office rather gruffly. "I'm gonna need that celebrity haunted mansion review on my desk by tomorrow morning. I want to run it ASAP.”

"I can't even get in, not even with a press pass, I've been trying for two weeks, Mick!” you looked at him, your mouth slightly open. You’d told him this countless times at morning briefings. You hadn't even heard back from the organizers about sneaking around the press pass issue and offering an exclusive on the joint, a small fact you kept Mick in the dark about.

"Make it happen." He said simply, before he turned and left.

You glared at his retreating form. What the fuck did he not understand about the situation? Mind you, what did he understand about anything? There was a reason everyone working for him called him Mick The Prick.

There was also a reason he was being extra prickish to you. Earlier in the spring time of the year you’d run an article on Ransom Drysdale- the stuck up, trust fund asshole who had literally gotten away with murder. He’d confessed to murdering his grandfather’s house keeper, attempting to murder his grandfather and then, in a violent showdown with 2 police officers and a private detective present, he’d attempted to murder his grandfather’s nurse, Marta. And he would have succeeded, except the knife he’d used had been a stage prop. It was like some fucked up Murder, She Wrote plot, and when you’d interviewed the real life Jessica Fletcher (in this case the rather charming PI named Benoit Blanc who’d been a character to say the least) it got even more confusing. Ransom had hired Blanc in some elaborate scheme to frame Marta for Harlan’s death to do her out of the inheritance via the Slayer Rule. That had back fired spectacularly when she had unwittingly switched back the vials of medication Drysdale had tampered with, meaning Harlan had truly committed suicide.

The article was supposed to be done showing his side of the story, a way for him to set the record straight, but the more you’d dug and spoken to people surrounding the case, the more you were absolutely convinced of his guilt, not least because he’d been acquitted on the murder and attempted murder charges on technical grounds due to his confession being, allegedly, obtained under duress and without a brief being present. The only thing they’d managed to pin on him was the arson which had burnt the Chief Medical Examiner’s office to the ground, and when his brief had successfully argued mitigating circumstances- he wasn’t of sound mind given the shock surrounding him being cut from his grandfather’s will- he’d basically ended up being released on license.

It was a joke, and that was basically what your article had said. You’d written a scathing attack on how money could basically render you untouchable by the law, highlighting the failures of the Criminal Justice System. At the time, Mick the Prick had been delighted with it, publishing it under your suggested head line “Murder, He Wrote”- ha, go figure, and copies had flown off the shelves, the article online going viral.

And then money had talked once more, and the Drysdale’s had threatened to sue for defamation. That in itself was a joke, as you knew full well his mother, Linda, was only doing it to salvage her own reputation, the same reason she’d worked so hard to find a lawyer to get him off the charges despite the fact she knew full well he was guilty as sin. Mick The Prick had attempted to throw you under the bus spectacularly when the board had come looking for blood, but as editor the buck stopped with him, and he was given a formal warning whilst you were forced to publish a retraction and offer a written apology much to your utter chagrin.

Which was why he was now making your life as hard as possible, and your Investigative Journalism skills, that you’d honed over the last decade; from high school paper, college tribune and now your current employer, over the last 10 years or so since graduation were now being focussed on covering stories about housewives who found Jesus’ face in a slice of toast, or in this case a fucking Celebrity Host Halloween Haunted House review. Whereas you had dominated the first 2 pages once upon a time, you were now lucky if you made it further up than page 11.

With a groan you banged your head on your desk. Why had you not listened to your dad and become a damned teacher instead of a journalist. Dealing with snotty nosed brats would be easier than this.

By the end of your day, you were burning what felt like the midnight oil however it wasn't very late at all. Dark had settled in but it wasn't late by time. Just before you were to log off and leave for the night, a TV dinner and pint of mint chip waiting for you in your freezer (and probably a job search too seeing as you would no doubt be fired tomorrow morning for failing on your deadline) your email pinged on your desktop. You frowned at it, wondering who could possibly be emailing you this late but then you recognized the sender.

It was the reply you'd been waiting on from the organizers from the Celebrity Host Haunted House. Clicking the email open, your eyes scanned the message. The organizer was setting you up with a private tour, TONIGHT. "9 pm," you finished reading aloud, relief flooding your entire body. It meant a long assed, sleepless night whilst you wrote your article, but it was better than the looming threat of unemployment. Plus, on the upside, as it was a charity gig the organizer had pulled out the big guns and the blurb on the email told you that it was to feature none other than Lucas Lee, a once-upon-a-time famous A-List Movie star, who was possibly just as arrogant as Hugh Ransom Drysdale, but you had to give it to him, in the films you’d seen he was actually damned good, and also pretty hot so…every cloud.

Glancing at your clock, you had just enough time to clock out and grab a quick bite at a drive thru on your way. The location was nearly an hour outside the city so you needed to get gone and fast. A quick reply telling the organizer you were on your way was sent out and you grabbed your coat, pulling it on over your sweater dress and were gone.

It took a good hour like you'd estimated and that was with stopping for a quick meal, to reach the address your GPS brought you to. It was creepy even at its first glance so you could only hope this payed off. With a quick swig of your watered down and flat fountain drink, you grabbed your bag and phone, exiting your vehicle and locking it shut. The cool night air bit at your exposed cheeks and you were glad you'd worn your coat and tights.

As you stood, gazing at the dilapidated house you shivered, as though, ice had replaced you spine. The walkway leading up to house was cracked, blood red roses grew wildly in thick batches by the gate and the moonlight cast a ghoulish glow on the house. Vines formed a twisted maze upon the side of the of the house's walls which showed the black decay of neglect, in between which splotches of original paint hinted at the house’s former prosperity. Cobwebs covered the corners of the doors, tiny black spiders threading towards their prey and you gave another shudder, as far as first impressions went, yeah, it was fitting for a Halloween Haunted House tour.

Pulling out your phone, noticing you had no reception (of course you wouldn’t, wasn’t that the cliché?) you took a few photos to use in the article and then gave a little squeak as the door creaked open on its own. Arching your eyebrow slightly, in a manner very much like the man you were here to meet, you strode forward and into the house. Immediately a musty, dank odour crept into your nose. The house was deadly silent except for the intermittent creaks and moans typically associated with a property that age. Black and brown mold dotted the ceiling of the tall hallway you stood in and the windows that framed the door on either side were covered with grime and dirt meaning the calm moonlight struggled to penetrate the darkness in thin thread rays, the main source of light being the open doorway. Sharp shadows roamed around the room and as your eyes adjusted to the dim light you noticed that there was a bright white envelope almost perched on the wooden table to the side of the hall. It was the newest thing in the room, so was obviously there for you.

You crossed over, the heels of your suede boots clicking loudly out in the silence of the hallway, and gently reached out for the envelope. A single word- Start- was written on the front in cursive, looping scrawl, very fitting for a spooky note. Another detail you committed to memory for your write up. You slid your finger into the crook of the envelope and slid it open. Inside was a small, white card, containing a message written in the same writing.

To ensure that you don’t become tomorrow’s big news, In this envelope you’ll find the first of 6 clues Of your super sleuth skills you should be proud, So make sure that you read your answers out loud. As one by one they lead to your ultimate demise. Which may or may not be a scary surprise…

Okay, now you were interested. This wasn’t just a walk through some scary assed, supposedly haunted house where Lucas Lee was no doubt set to jump out at you in some ridiculous disguise. This was a scavenger hunt, and your natural inquisitiveness was piqued. 'This could be fun', you thought as you reached for the next card that was in the envelope, reading the first clue.

I’m tall when I’m young, and I’m short when I’m old. I also give heat but, not enough to prevent cold

You pondered for a second, heat was leading you to think of a fire, and they certainly grew shorter with time, well eventually when they burnt out…but then again, the longer they went the hotter they got, and they certainly prevented the cold. Scanning the hallway for anything that might fit the description, your eyes flicked up to the ceiling which held an elaborate, but tarnished candelabra style chandelier. And then it hit you. Tall when young, short when old.

“Candle…” you spoke “The answer is Candle…”

At that the door leading to the outside slammed shut behind you, and you gave an involuntary scream as the dominant source of light was sealed off. You spun round to look at it, and then your scream turned in to a laugh as you shook your head, for an Investigative Reporter you prided yourselves on steely nerves but so far that was twice this adventure had caught you off guard.

Turning back round, you then spotted that the door at the end of the hall was open, and you could clearly make out a Jack-o-Lantern looking at you, the candle inside flickering. Its face was creepy, really creepy. The nose and eyes were harsh triangles and the grotesque, twisted smile it sported was constructed of sharp, jagged teeth. You reached into your pocket and pulled out your phone. You may have had no service, but the flashlight was working. Keeping the light held in front of you so you could watch your step on the cracked tiles of the hall, you made your way towards the lantern and found yourself in a large, run down kitchen. The lantern and your flash-light provided the only light in the room as the windows were all overshadowed by gnarly trees, their branches every so often scratching the glass as they swayed slightly in the wind outside. The only other sound to be heard was the drip, drip of the faucet in the porcelain Belfast sink.

A closer look revealed the discoloration of the water, a brownish concoction as it swirled down the plug. There was an envelope on the side of the counter by the lantern and as you crossed towards it, a movement in your peripheral made you spin round only to see a lone mouse scuttling away across the dirty wooden floor. You placed your phone down, flash-light up causing it to light up an area of the Artex plaster ceiling, and picked up the envelope, tearing it open to find your next clue

Mr Jack-o-Lantern lights the night His eerie face is shining bright The ????? that shaped him lies around And holds your next clue safe and sound

“Oh come on…” you muttered, “That’ ones obvious. Knife, the answer is knife…” You picked up your phone and shone it around the various surfaces of the kitchen and your eyes honed in on a wooden knife block containing a solitary knife. You crossed the room towards it and as you closed in on it, you noticed that the handle of the knife was an ornate silver filigree. It was no ordinary kitchen knife and as you pulled it form the block you realised it was in fact a dagger, antique by the looks of things. The blade was curved slightly, reaching a sharp point, the silver tarnished. But the more you looked at it, the more you suddenly became horribly aware that it wasn’t merely a dullness of colour at all. It was blood.

“Dramatic…” you mumbled, and with a sigh you then realised there was no clue attached to it. Was this a distraction? A decoy? You were just about to stat ransacking drawers to find the actual knife you needed, when you glanced back at the block the dagger had been held in and noticed a flash of white peeking from underneath. Picking it up and moving it aside you smiled as you saw the same cursive writing, spelling out the word three. Seeing as you might as well play along, you used the dagger to slit the envelope open, tossing it back down on the counter as you read the next clue.

Many a Child on me they may play Any time be it night or day. My surface is hard, on it you can knock I have many keys, but can’t open a single lock…

“What has keys but doesn't open a lock?" You pondered aloud. Adjusting your cross-body strap, you sigh. Then the answer came to you, "a piano."

You fell silent, your mind racing to how the hell you were going to find a piano in this decrepit and yet enormous house. Then, your ears heard it. The subtle note from deep inside the house. It was a single key. But now that wasn't your concern, no, it wasn't the mice or the bugs or even the brown water. Your heart raced at the notion that someone was in fact in the house with you.

"Alright, Lee, you were always one for a flare of the dramatics, let's see what you've got."

Step by step you followed the note that chimed every few steps and you found yourself beginning to wonder if it was a recording or if someone were really playing it, timing their play with the sound of your boots over the rotting floor. You wound your way through the narrow hall, ancient wall paper peeling from its tack, mastick and plaster falling away to reveal studs in places.

Finally, to your left you heard the key loud and clear. It was in that room. Steeling yourself for a possible encounter, you carefully pushed the sliding door away from its hinge. Your booted feet traipsed across the brittle carpet, dust swirling in the air in front of your face. Cobwebs adorned many of the surfaces and there were dirty white sheets covering the various pieces of furniture in the room. Apart from, that is, the large ornate grand piano that sat in the middle of the room.

The stool in front of it suddenly jolted back and tilted toward you, making you scream at the gracious invitation by an as of yet invisible host.

“Get a grip Y/N” you mumbled to yourself. You were surprised to find just how much this place was starting to set your nerves on edge. You took a deep breath, the pounding of blood in your ears began to quiet and you took a look around the room. There was no one in there with you, you were alone.

With slow, deliberate steps you moved towards the piano, your eyes sweeping over the mahogany surface, searching for an envelope with the next clue, but there was none to be found. The surface of the piano was thick with dust and grime, but as you scanned over it you suddenly stopped. On one of the white keys the dust was disturbed, as if it had been wiped away and you instantly realised that had to be the key that your so far elusive host must have been playing. You paused, biting at the nail on your thumb of you right hand, before you reached out with your left and tapped the key. The melodic note rang around the room, clearly, echoing in the silence and for some reason you were taken back to a part of the article you had been thinking about earlier that day, and how Detective Blanc had told you that he had ‘played a key’ during the various family interviews ‘to make my point without interruption’. It didn’t pass you by how fitting that actually was at that moment but you didn’t have much time to reflect on it, as you heard a creak and a grinding noise and you spun to your left to see a panel in the wall sliding open. It made you jump slightly, but this time you didn’t scream.

Not for the first time, you had to admire the effort Lucas was going to here. It was clear he had a flare for the dramatic, anyone could see that from his films and interviews but this was pretty damned good. It was making you wonder how he was doing it. Was he somewhere watching, pressing buttons to enact the various parts of his show? Instinctively you glanced up, looking for a camera or something you were being monitored by but you found no evidence of anything.

“Well, in for a penny…” you muttered, crossing towards the small hatch. It was just wide enough for you to get your hand into, but you really didn’t want to. You grabbed your torch and shone it into the hole, finding nothing but the envelope so deciding it was safe you reached in and pulled it out.

Sometimes coloured, sometimes plain sometimes frosted, sometimes stain Be you short or thin, or fat or tall, this simple invention, lets you look right through a wall

You pondered for a moment, before the answer came to you. Fairly quickly you might add. Feeling a little smug you smiled and cleared your throat.

“Window. It’s a window.”

Usually, at that point, something happened to point your attention to the place you should be looking but this time, there was nothing. Instinctively you looked out of the one on the wall by the piano, but as you stared at nothing but the darkness outside you realised that was too obvious. Just then your ears picked up a sound you couldn’t quite figure out, but it was familiar all the same. And then it came to you, it was the familiar click and clack of a skateboard, the wheels gliding over the brittle old floor and you span round in the direction it was coming from to see a window you hadn’t noticed before, this one was an ornate, stained glass window which bore some kind of flower design that faced directly out into the hall.

He passed by slower than a flash but just enough to allow you to catch only a glimpse. You audibly gasped, your breath coming in a sharp intake of fright, because until then you had been alone on this chase. But it appeared you dramatic host had finally come out to play. He was merely a shadow, bulky in frame, tall and dressed all in black as he moved past but it was enough to puzzle you. You didn’t remember Lucas being that broad, or tall. With a frown you ran into the hall to catch him but saw nothing, and heard nothing, the only thing to indicate he had been there was a faint smell of the cedar and amber of what you assumed to be cologne.

You paced quickly down the hall in the direction the figure had gone but as you passed the stairwell the light flickered on, instantly attracting your attention. You’d only briefly noticed the ornate staircase before, but with the lack of light you certainly hadn’t noticed the writing on the wall, dripping in fresh paint. Swallowing, as you mouth suddenly felt dry with fear you stepped onto the first stair, and as soon as you did you were plunged into almost complete black. Letting out a shriek as, once again, he’d managed to get the drop on you, you shook your head and reached for your phone, taking another few steps up so you were level with the next clue which you read aloud.

“Tonight is not all fright and fear, a trick or treat is waiting near, the bedroom holds a sweet surprise, there solve the clue to claim your prize.” You bit your lip and looked up at the top of the stairs, wondering when someone was going to jump out at you. Taking a deep breath, you made your way up, cringing at each creak your feet caused on the old warped wood, but it didn’t sway your determination to make it to your destination.

Halfway up, a shadow flickered at the corner of your vision at the top on the landing and you froze, your mouth going dry once more. As you stood there, shining your light into the dark you caught the same scent from moments ago lingering in the air only this time it was stronger, far more powerful and you were able to denote even more of the notes within. Alongside the amber and cedar your heightened senses picked up deep, earthy, sandalwood notes with a hint of citrus in the background. And it was familiar for reasons beyond the fact you’d smelt it down stairs. But, as you’d surmised earlier, it was a cologne. Probably one worn by a few people you knew.

Yes that was it.

“Jesus Christ Y/N what has gotten into you?” You rolled your eyes and continued up the stairs, clearly your ‘Celebrity Host’ was once more nearby.

You cautiously got to the top of the stairs and glanced around. Nothing. So turning to your left you entered the first room you found on the hall. It was empty bar a creepy looking doll that had been separated from its head which lay about a foot to the right. As you looked around the room, the wind intensified outside, the rustling of the leaves and branches became louder, as did the creaking of the house…and then you gulped, as you realised it wasn’t just the house that was creaking. In the corner of the room, the little chair had begun to rock, slowly. Blowing out a breath and shaking your head, you looked around at the thin strips of wallpaper which showed little trucks. Crayon markings scrambled upon the wall where wallpaper used to stick but other than that there was nothing in there bar some pretty good theatrics. You had to hand it to Lee, the creepy feel was fantastic and you were going to give him one hell of a write up for this. You took a while longer to take in the detail, smiling to yourself before you closed the door and headed to the one over the hallway.

This room was a little lighter thanks to a lamp which stood on a nightstand. It wasn’t bright, by any means, but it was enough so that you could clearly see the bed in the middle of the room. And there, placed by the pillows was a thin box. On unsteady legs, you shuffled slowly towards the bed, the box before you making you quiver, your insides churning. A shaky hand tilted the lid open slowly, afraid something would pounce in a sneak attack. You shut your eyes ready to protect them in case a bat or bugs flew at you and when nothing happened, you opened them slowly and inspected the boxes contents. There was no envelope this time, just copy of a newspaper. Your newspaper. And you felt your blood run cold as you recognise the bold headline across the top. Murder, He Wrote: A twisted tale of Inheritance, Crime and Exoneration "Drysdale," you whispered in realization. But now, while you were well aware of what the article meant and who it was referring to, your brain shut down processing how on earth Lucas Lee and Ransom could possibly be connected. Your breathing deepened and you moved to pick up the article, but then the lid to the box caught your eye and you froze, for on the inside of the lid was another clue, only this one was a straight forward question which was spelled out using cut-out letters from the newspaper in question.

I’m light as a feather, yet the strongest person can’t hold me for five minutes. What am I?

You froze, for the answer was simple. Breath. And that was it, you needed to get out. You started to back away from the bed, but before you had so much as made it 3 steps you collided with something hard. A forceful arm across your front pinned you to a firm and broad chest that engulfed your frame while a cloth with a distinct smell and cool moisture covered your airways.

"Surprise" The voice in your ear, calm, deep and known, was all you heard before nothing consumed you.

*****

When Y/N went limp in his arms, Ransom laid her across the bed only leaving the room to hurriedly cover his tracks, blowing out candles and removing any trace of her that had been in the house. His time as his grandfather's research assistant gave him far more experience than it should have. When he returned to the bedroom she was still out cold but light as a feather as he carried her downstairs and out the back door to the awaiting SUV, smug that his plan had gone so well.

But then, didn’t everything for him? He was Ransom Drysdale, and he was fucking untouchable.

He drove away from the scene of his new crime towards the city, driving through the dead of night, on the beltway, and continued twenty minutes outside downtown Boston before pulling into the garage of a large red cedar and quartzite home. He killed the engine and closed the garage door, pulling Y/N from the seat she was slumped in when it was clear to do so.

He couldn't be seen, he wouldn't be seen. He carried her inside the spacious home, his boots tapping heavily against the dark marble floor of the kitchen and finally the lush carpeted staircase that wound down into the basement.

This is where he laid her, in the basement, on a bed, but not just any bed, the one that would now become hers. He adjusted the lighting in the space, low enough not to disturb her, but bright enough to give the room a glow so he could finish what he'd set out to do. In the shock of the struggle in the bedroom, she’d dropped her phone and he’d made sure to smash it long before he left the haunted house, making sure there'd be no device to track her. He'd already disposed of her car while she was playing his little game, every loose end as far as he could see was tied up.

And now she was all his.

He brushed the hair away from Y/N’s face where it had fallen over her eyes. With gloved hands he manoeuvred her undone, black woollen coat off her body, leaving her in the bottle green turtle neck sweater dress and thick tights she was wearing before he tossed it over the chair in the corner of the room and then undid the zips on her brown suede knee high boots. He dropped them to the floor, kicking them towards the same corner with the equal carelessness he’d shown her coat. With a final meticulous movement he rearranged her on the bed, so he’d appear more comfortable and just before he left the room, he wrapped the cool, metallic cuff around the ankle. It locked in place with a clink and with a final glance at her still unconscious form, he turned and exited the room, the door latching shut and with the snap of the deadbolt he locked her in.

*****

Your head pounded, your nose burned and your mouth felt dry with the faintest taste of something foul lingering as you swallowed. The light was low but still your eyes ached. You tried to decipher exactly what the hell had happened to you while you got your bearings. You tried to sit up but your body felt heavy, the soft bed you now realized you were lying on was not your own. Your breathing rapidly increased as you started to move in fear but a clink caused a screech to escape your throat. You felt the weight of the cuff around your ankle and a full panic set it.

Your night flashed quickly through your glutamate and adrenaline flooded brain

You remembered getting the email from the Haunted Mansion supposedly hosted by Lucas Lee. You had arrived and were sent on what you thought was a fun and exhilarating maze littered with clues and riddles and then you remembered the last piece of the puzzle. You gasped as you remembered how his breath felt hot on your skin and how his voice registered in your mind.

"Drysdale," you repeated the last word you had spoken in a shaky, frightful voice. "No."

Rage and fear collided in your chest as you screamed out the only thing you could think of, "HELP!" A strangled sound left your chest followed by another cry out for help, "Please, someone, HELP!"

The door to your room, now coming into focus around you, flew open and there he stood, smug smirk, raging ocean blue eyes, hair neatly in place, dismantling frame clothed in a black sweater and dark denim, heavy footfalls sounding against the thick carpet under his feet.

"Nice to see someone's awake," Ransom deadpanned.

You stared for a brief moment and screamed for help again, louder, and louder, and louder until you felt your voice crack and strain, your cords burning as the sound shattered away.

"Are you done?" He cocked his head to the side and folded his arms across his chest as he stood firm and tall in front of the bed.

"What the hell are you doing? Why am I here?" It hurt to speak but you had to ask.

“Because I want you here, Sweetheart.”

"I...I'm not, don't call me that," you spat defiantly as he moved closer, taking you in, his predatory eyes moving over your body. This was it, you were going to die all because some trust fund prick was a hurt baby about an article (that you forcibly apologized for) revealing the sick and sadistic truth about him, his family, money and the justice system.

"Are you gonna kill me?” You watched him carefully as he crossed the room towards you, trying to keep your voice calm so as not to betray the utter fear that was coursing through your veins at the fact you were trapped, fuck knows where, shackled to a bed with a murderer being your captor. “That's what this is about, right? My apology wasn't enough?"

"Your apology was forced bullshit.” He responded, his voice carried a hint of amusement, because of course, this was all a game to him. “You smeared my name, dragged my reputation though the mud and you expected an apology like that, half assed and full of more crap than your original hatchet piece, to be enough?" He was standing damn near over you now, a hand moving up your leg that was held by the cuff, your body frozen in a confused silent argument of fight or flight.

"You... Killed... Him." You grit out through clenched teeth, and his hand was on your throat before you finished your breath, squeezing just enough to make a point.

"No. I. Didn't." He lied and you had to hand it to him, a lesser person might have bought the garbage he was talking, because he was good at it. Lying must have been enough of a second nature for him that he actually believed everything he said himself. But then again, it wasn't actually a lie was it? Sure, he'd planned on indirectly killing Harlan and that plan had backfired and Harlan had actually slit his own throat. So at most he was indirectly responsible for his death, but none of that had stuck with the prosecution and so now here he was, a free man.

A struggled chuckle came from your tightened throat, "Jesus Christ, you actually believe your own bull shit don't you?"

"You've got a fucking mouth on you," he breathed as his body loomed ominously over the bed and your frame, tiny in comparison to his.

You swallowed, feeling the hard lump strain to pass his grip, "Not really, you just don't like hearing the truth."

His eyes bored into yours and you struggled for breath as his hand constricted around your neck whilst he squeezed a little harder "Oh shut up Y/N."

"Or what, Hugh?" You croaked.

A little flash of anger tore through his ocean blue eyes like lightning in a storm. His eyes bored into yours as you fought to swallow.

"Or I'll shut you up myself."

"Try me, you son of a...." You didn't expect his lips to cover yours but they did. Unexpectedly warm and soft, despite the painfully harsh kiss. You managed to pull away but his hand still gripped at your throat and you felt the fear constricting your chest. But you were damned if you were going to show him a shred of weakness.

“You’re an asshole, Hugh…” It was all you had, the only thing you could use in your arsenal given your situation. You still had your voice. And you’d noticed that for whatever reason he appeared to hate that name.

“Don’t... fucking call me that!” his voice rose to a loud, angry instruction, apoplectic rage seeping from him to you, and it was almost stifling.

“Or what? You'll kill me?” your voice rose in both volume and pitch as your desperation began to show. “We both know you're gonna do that once you've fulfilled whatever sick, twisted little fantasy this is. What are you waiting for, Hugh? Huh?”

Ransom scoffed, "Kill you, no, see I'm gonna teach you a lesson. One about how money and status get you anything you want.”

You frowned, as you looked into his icy blue eyes, utterly confused “Anything you want? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You'll see Princess” was the sole explanation you got as he knelt between your legs.

You stayed stock still as large and surprisingly gentle hands trailed your curves up the outside of your thighs to your hips. As he reached the hem of your sweater dress he paused as you wrapped your hands around his wrists.

"Don't" you squeezed, attempting to stop his wrists and close your legs.

“This will be much easier if you just play-along, sweetheart” he muttered as he pressed his lips to your neck. You let go of his wrists and raised your hands, laying them over the wool of his cable knit, palms flat against the plain of muscle as you attempted to push him off.

“I said no.” you tried to keep your voice stern, despite the fact you were fighting back the fear and sadness at the realization of his task was now at hand. His large hands smoothed over your dress, cupping your breasts and he let out a moan as you bit back the bile in your throat that was threatening to spill from your mouth. You pushed harder trying to force him off of you but it was of no use, his broad frame caged you in, engulfing you under him.

“I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.” He ground out, his lips inches from your ear as he nipped at your skin. He was impressively strong and balanced, his weight even through his body as he kept his knees between your legs, a hand against your breast and the other stroking your sides and up your thigh. All the while, his lips sucked at your neck, teeth grazing your pulse point as you turned your head away, tears filling your eyes

"Please, stop," you managed. "Hugh, stop!"

“I told you not to call me that.” He growled against your skin and pulled back, his eyes blazing as they locked on to yours. In sheer desperation, you managed to wrench a free hand from between you and gave him a slap, nails biting at his skin. Instantly you knew you’d pissed him off. His nostrils flared, his jaw set and as his eyes filled with fire and rage.

And you knew then, you were in for it.

“Bitch…” he snarled as he raised his left hand to his face where you had struck him, and then both his hands grabbed yours, yanking your arms up, pinning them above your head. You bucked upwards, violently in an attempt to shake him off, but it was futile. He was far too strong. His grip on your wrists grew tighter and despite yourself you let out a small whimper of fear.

In one hand he had the ability to cuff both of your wrists and he did so while his other grabbed at your dress, shoving it further up your body, fingers curling over the waist of your tights and panties, a handful of the material fisted in his palm. They wouldn't slide down quick enough and you felt your body lift away from the mattress slightly as he ripped away the material, the snap burning your skin. You fought, boy did you fight. You had no control of your hands or arms as he had them easily pinned, but your legs and the rest of your body gave as good as they could. You thrashed from side to side all the time screaming your objections. You drew your knees up to your chest in an attempt to buck him off. You screamed protests, threw every insult you had at him, but it was no use. He was simply too strong.

He didn't even bother with his belt or button, he just unzipped the flies on his jeans, pulled his solid cock free and slid in. You were wetter than you expected to be, but it still burned with friction and ached from the thick stretch against your tight walls. It hurt, definitely hurt.

"You know you want this. I know you want this." He rasped as he pulled out before thrusting back in, his face twisted in a look that was halfway between being smug and satisfied. Just looking at him made you feel sick but for some reason you were unable to look away as he continued his slow assault, before he picked up the pace slightly, his groans of satisfaction filling the room as he bottomed out, balls deep and it was at that point you closed your eyes and tried to block out what he was doing to you. But try as you might to remain mentally detached from the situation, your body was anything but. And the more he moved in and out of you, the more you could feel your physical reactions. You were powerless to stop them and the heat between your legs and in between your belly was spiking with each thrust into you.

It felt good. And you knew it shouldn’t. So you fought it, but eventually, you couldn't fight it anymore, not with the way his thick cock filled you, velvety smooth skin sliding in and out of your defiant core. You didn't want to cum, but your body told your brain it was going to and Ransom nearly puffed his chest as he fucked you into your body's submission.

"You're gonna fucking cum, aren't you, Sweetheart? I can feel it," he ground out, chasing his own release. You remained silent, breathing heavily as your insides coiled and tightened. "Fucking tight ass pussy," he gritted. You refused to cry out, not wanting to give him anything you were able not to, and it took everything you had to remain silent. In desperation, to quell the cry that was rising from your throat, you bit your tongue, tasting the coppery taste of blood in your mouth as you came hard around his cock.

“Fuck, yeah…see…” Ransom’s hips began to move faster, and then with a sudden movement he pulled out of you, making you wince involuntarily at the sting. He shot his load all over your thighs, a growl bubbling from his throat, the warmth of his release trickling down your leg made you feel even more dirty than you already did.

“Not so fucking smart are we now, huh, miss Investigative Reporter…” his snap was snide, and childish, but you knew he couldn’t help himself. Your head remained defiantly in its position on the pillow, turned to the right, eyes focussed on a spot on the wall. “Look at me, bitch.”

When you didn’t do as he asked, he grabbed your chin bruisingly, making you wince as he pulled your face round so he could see you. You knew he would be able to see the tears on your face, and you hated that. Hated that he would see how much he’d hurt you, scared you even,

His hand let go of your face and you stared at him, swallowing, trying to gather your voice in your painfully dry throat.

"That's all you got? You're a fucking child, Drysdale. It's why you’re doing this." You said, your voice trembling and croaking from the fear and exertion of what he had just put you through and you shook your head. “You’re a fucking man child with mommy and daddy issues. A spoilt, little whiney brat who can’t bear to be told no.”

That struck a nerve, you could tell, as his jaw clenched tight and his fists clenched around the sheets by your side to the point they were shaking. He grabbed your chin once more with his right hand and pinned your face still, forcing your eyes to look back at his

“You'll be begging me to accept your apology.” He snarled, his face contorted in rage “You'll see who the whiney child is soon enough. I promise Princess, it's not me”

As you looked at him, you felt your anger starting to simmer. This fucking ass hole had just raped you, and he had the gall to be saying you were going to tell him that you were sorry. No chance in hell. You knew you were screwed, literally and figuratively. Whilst he had you captive behind a bolted door, shackled to a bed you had nowhere to go, he knew that you knew that too and you could see it in his face as a smug smirk flickered on his lips. Well fuck this, if you were going down it was with a fight. With a sudden movement, that caught him off guard you moved your head slightly as much as you could in his painful grip, and spat right in his face.

Ransom blinked, his anger morphing to shock, then back to fury once more as he released your face and with a flash of his hand he back handed you straight across the face. The blow to your right cheek snapped your head to the left, sucking the breath from your lungs and leaving you a little dazed.

“Fuck you.” He sneered as he rose to his feet, wiping his face. Silently he rearranged his pants, tucking his now soft cock back inside them, and swept from the room, locking the door behind him.

***** Ransom stormed up the steps to the kitchen of the house, slamming the top door behind him and bolting that one shut too. He was furious that little bitch had scratched him and no doubt marked his face. He strode over the marble tiles of the room and walked into the large hallway and across into the den. He made his way straight to the bar, poured himself a healthy measure of good scotch, slopping a little on the dark wooden counter, before he glanced up at the large mirrored surface of the bar behind the shelves.

He could make out three vivid red lines down his left cheek where she’d dug her nails into his flesh and his jaw clenched. His hair was out of place, his cheeks flushed and his normally cold eyes were blazing with anger. But as he stood there staring at his dishevelled reflection, he knew it wasn’t the fact she’d scratched or spat at him that was pissing him off so much. It was the fact she had persistently voiced a name he despised, one that was used to control those lower than him in his every-day life. One reserved for The Help, for outsiders. It reminded him of his family, of his mother and father, the two people in his life who should have loved him unconditionally but instead had him out of ‘duty’ and had taken every opportunity to pass him off into the care of others they could. It reminded him of Walt persistently telling him he was a no-one, that he would amount to nothing over than a trust-fund baby.

It reminded him of Harlan. The one person in that entire fucked up patriarchy that had shown him an ounce of care. But who had screwed him over in the end.

The anger that had been simmering inside him boiled over, the blood pumped into his ear and with an angry yell and an almost involuntary action Ransom hurled the glass tumbler straight at the wall where it smashed against the tasteful silver and white wallpaper, the 25 year old single malt trickling down the wall…just like the tears and trickled down Y/N’s cheeks as he’d forced her to look at him whilst he took what was his.

As she’d glared up at him he’d noticed a fierceness in her eyes that he was surprised to find had unnerved him a little, because she clearly wasn’t going to be as easy to break as he thought.

“Fuck it.” He mumbled to himself, grabbing the bottle from the bar before he turned and left the room, taking a large swig as he went, the burn in his throat going someway to settling his nerves.

This would work out, because he was Ransom fucking Drysdale, a man who always got what he wanted in the end, and she was going to be no exception.

**** Part 2

#murder he wrote #j's haunted house 2020 #dark ransom #dark ransom drysdale x reader #dark ransom drysdale x you #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale x you #ransom drysdale #reader insert #chris evans #chris evans characters

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crowfootwrites · 4 years ago

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The Boyfriend | Part II [Taza Romero x Fem!Reader]

Y'all! I did it! I wrote a second part! I actually sort of struggled with the setup of this, but once I started writing the angry, angsty shit I was like, "OH, WE IN BUSINESS." So, please enjoy.

Warnings: language; family drama (arguing); attempted physical violence; pregnancy | Words: 1,734

Part I of The Boyfriend

“What do you mean he wants to come see your motorcycle?” you asked, panic rising in your voice. It had been a few months since the ill-fated family dinner, and aside from a few texts asking about work, you hadn’t heard from your father. So, you assumed his motorcycle chat with Taza had just been polite conversation.

Taza glanced at you across the kitchen table, his full fork of frijoles pausing halfway to his mouth. His eyes softened when he saw the concern in your expression.

“Relájate, mi amor (Relax, my love). He doesn’t have to come here. I can meet him somewhere else,” he said calmly. He watched as your head dropped into one of your palms on the table and the other rested on the top of your very noticeable baby bump. He paused, then put his fork back down on his plate.

“(Y/N), maybe this would be a good opportunity to tell them,” he started, keeping his tone gentle. “I know you don’t want them involved. I understand that, and I will do whatever I can to keep things the way you want them.” He reached across the table to rest his palm against your knuckles. “But the baby will be here in a few months, and hiding it from them is just drawing out the inevitable.”

Emotions rushed over you. You knew that telling them didn’t have to mean anything more than that; Taza would protect his family no matter the cost, and if you didn’t want them involved, they wouldn’t be. But the prospect of having to deal with your mother filled you with a deep-seated dread. You knew she wouldn’t approve. And you didn’t need her approval, but your relationship with her had always been messy and complicated. And some part of you still wanted her to accept and respect you. Angry tears sprang to your eyes, which made you even more frustrated – the pregnancy hormones made you feel like you were losing your mind.

A tear dripped onto the wooden surface of the table and Taza was immediately out of his seat, tugging you out of yours and wrapping you in his arms. He smiled at the feeling of your belly pressed between the two of you.

“Hey, abejita, está bien (little bee, it’s ok). We don’t have to do anything that will make you uncomfortable,” he murmured against your ear, rocking you side to side slowly. He rubbed circles on your back as you regained your composure.

“No, you’re right,” you said with a sniffle. “We need to get this over with.”

Taza’s lips pulled into a wry grin. “That’s a wise choice, I think.”

***

“Ok, I think everything’s pretty much ready,” you told Taza as you flipped the final tortilla on the comal. He came to stand beside you and pressed a soft kiss to your temple.

“How can I help?” he asked as you pulled the tortilla off with your bare fingers and tossed it into the basket, waving your fingers as the heat sank into your skin. He laughed and gripped your hand, blowing gently on your scorched fingertips.

You couldn’t help the affectionate tears that collected in the corners of your eyes. In an effort to keep you as comfortable as possible, Taza suggested hosting dinner with your parents on the ranch. You would be on your own turf and could call the shots. If anything got ugly, Taza promised that he had no qualms with making your parents leave. To your modest relief, you also felt a little more like yourself today, like you’d happily tell someone where to shove it if they upset you.

“Just being here with me helps,” you mumbled, tucking yourself into his arms.

“Nowhere else I’d rather be,” he said quietly. The two of you lingered like that for a moment, enjoying the calm embrace before the storm you knew was about to happen.

And sure enough, a moment later, the doorbell sounded. Your eyes jerked immediately to Taza’s. You struggled to discern if the rolling in your stomach was pregnancy-related or anxiety-induced as perspiration collected on your palms.

He ushered you onto the back patio, helping you to sit in the worn wooden rocking chair before heading back inside to welcome your guests. You listened nervously for the creaking of the front door, which was quickly followed by the drifting voices of your mother and father.

You pulled yourself out of the chair, straightening the soft cotton of your dress over your bump, just as Taza stepped through the door. He came immediately to your side, schooling his features into a calm and neutral mask, tossing an arm around your shoulders. Your father was the next through the door and you bit back a grin at the series of emotions that passed over his face in the span of just a few seconds. Confusion, certainly, and shock, but then pride and excitement and finally, unbridled joy.

Time seemed to slow down as your mother stepped towards your father, her confused gaze traveling from your father’s face to you, eyes widening as they landed on your belly. For the first time in your life, your mother was speechless. She stood on the threshold of the patio door with her mouth open as your father rushed towards you.

“Oh, my baby girl!” he exclaimed, pulling you into a loose hug around your bump, kissing your cheeks delightedly. He turned immediately to Taza, pulling your boyfriend into a strong embrace, clapping him heartily on the back.

“Congratulations, you two! This is wonderful news! Oh, goodness, I’m going to be a grandfather!” he announced in wonderment as he pulled back, turning to his wife, whose eyes were still glued to your stomach.

“Dear?” he asked her, cautiously, but with a hint of something firm in his voice. It was something you had never heard from your father before. You wondered fleetingly what that was about.

His voice seemed to snap her out of her trance. Her eyes met yours and she smiled tightly. “Congratulations,” she forced out and you noted acrimoniously the clenching of her jaw.

Your eyes narrowed. Your heart sank with her false smile and immediately, resentment scrambled into place to protect you. You suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to haul off and smack her, but you quickly chalked that up to hormones. Probably.

Intent on making this a pleasant evening for your completely delighted father, you turned away from your mother with a withering look and plastered on a smile, motioning for everyone to take a seat at the table laden with food you had spent most of the day preparing.

Dinner was an awkward affair. Taza sat beside you, his hand never leaving its reassuring place on your thigh, as the two of you answered your father’s abundance of questions.

Baby Romero is due in November.

We’ve decided to wait to find out the sex.

We don’t really have a preference as long as they’re healthy.

Your mother’s eyes bore holes into you, but she remained silent, except for one question, manifested tersely into the space between the four of you. “Are you going to get married?”

“We haven’t really talked about it,” you replied, surprising even yourself with the strength in your voice. Your mother blinked at you, her expression disappointed, but she said nothing, returning her gaze to her plate.

When everyone had finished eating, your father clapped his hands together and asked Taza if they could take a peek at his Harley.

Taza turned to you, searching your eyes. “¿Estarás bien a solas con ella (Will you be ok alone with her)?”

You nodded at him with a wily smile. “Yo sé dónde están todos los cuchillos en esta casa (I know where all the knives are in this house).”

A loud, deep laugh belted from Taza’s chest as you stood and began collecting plates. You could see him shaking his head out of the corner of his eyes, motioning your father towards the garage.

You were standing in front of the sink, rinsing dishes when you heard the clicking of heels behind you, your mother coming to stop across the counter. You waited with bated breath for the inevitable confrontation, your stomach in knots.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked finally, a bitter edge of hurt creeping into her voice.

You looked down into the sink, realizing you were white-knuckling a spoon. “Why would I?” you demanded. “The last time I saw you, you made it very clear that you don’t approve of Che.”

“I just want what’s best for you!” she insisted, her hands clenching by her sides.

“You don’t know what’s best for me! I’m not you!” You slapped the faucet off and grabbed a kitchen towel to violently dry your hands, coming to face your mother completely. You watched as her eyes flickered quickly to your belly and then back to your face, the sight seemingly fueling her fire.

“I do know that you have no business having children out of wedlock with a man who’s twice your age,” she snapped, stepping closer to you, and your body reacted to the perceived threat, your heart thundering against your ribcage, heat radiating from your face.

“You don’t get to make those decisions for me! Che is the best partner I’ve ever had and he’s going to be an incredible father. Which you would know if you even gave him a chance, but you won’t. You refuse to accept that this is my life, and I’ll live it however the fuck I want!” You could hear your volume rising, but you were beyond controlling it. By the end of your rant, you were screaming, inches from your mother’s furious face, her eyes glinting and her lips set into a scowl. Suddenly, Taza was running into the house and coming to a stop behind you, pulling you gently away from your mother while your father tugged your mother away from you.

“I can’t believe I raised such an ungrateful bitch,” your mother spat, and you swung. Luckily for your mother, Taza had pulled you out of reach, and your fist missed her by several inches.

“Get out of my house!” you hissed, struggling against Taza’s arms, angry tears staining your cheeks.

Your father, looking appropriately mortified, dragged your mother out of the front door and into their car.

Part III of The Boyfriend

#mayans fx #mayans mc #mayansmc #mayans imagine #mayans fanfic #mayans x reader #taza romero #taza romero x reader #taza romero imagine #che taza romero #mayans oneshot

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willowbleedsonpaper · 4 years ago

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Winter In The Shade IV

Part IV

Sirius Black x Ravenclaw Reader

W.C. : 2504

Requested by @amourtentiaa : It is Sirius' fifth year at Hogwarts, the same year he ran away from home and to the Potter's. Soon, he discovers the unfamiliar sight of his brother Regulus smiling and looking truly happy, next to him a Ravenclaw girl who immediately captures his interest. What will happen when the Black family gets involved in their sons lives and the ones they hold close to their hearts?

Warnings: None

Want to know when I post the next part? Add yourself to my taglist!

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

As the days grew colder and a thin layer of snow covered the entirety of Hogwarts, the enthuthiasm was more than present over the students, after all, it wasn’t every year that the school hosted a small party for the students that decided to stay at Hogwart for the holidays. The cold halls were softly illuminated with the small flames from candles, the elves worked hard on the kitchens, the smell from their meals nothing but mouthwatering to anyone that walked past the great hall; stepping outside from the castle into the courtyard and the hills that rolled down to the black lake, you were met with nothing but never ending whites from the soft snow that fell from the sky at all hours. It was truly magical.

“Don’t you love it?” you said, extending your hand in the air as little snowflakes settled on your palm, the tingles rushing up your arm from the coldness making you erupt in giggles as you shook your hand. You rose your gaze to see Regulus sitting on the edge of the fountain, the water that usually flowed now frozen in eccentric shapes that you could easily think was the picture of an explosion that froze before it scattered all over the floor. And of course, Regulus was breaking the tiny pieces of the tips for his own amusement “Stop that!” you laughed, coming to sit with him as you took his hand away “You’re destroying mother nature's art.”

He chuckled lowly, taking his hand away from yours “That’s hardly art.” he argued “Besides, I can always re-shape it so it would actually be some kind of sculpture.”

“Right.” you scoffed, narrowing your eyes at him “What would make a good sculpture, Michelangelo?” you asked.

He playfully glared at you but then took a moment to think, both of you sitting on the edge of the fountain while facing the frozen water. People walked past the two of you, no one taking a moment to stop and wonder what Y/N and Regulus were up too, they all had stopped asking questions about what you two did with your time.

It was late during the day, one evening when the sun was setting and the stars started to appear in the sky, Professors and students alike started to follow the trail of water left in the stone floors of the castle, the worry rising as they all wondered what had gotten inside the halls of Hogwarts that left such a trail as if someone carried buckets of water only to pour them all over the floor. In the end they found you and Regulus, sitting in one of the balconies of the second floor. You were both dead silent, sitting close to each other as if you were glued; your hair was flat and sticking to your face while Regulus’ lips turned a deep shade of purple and his skin became more lighter than anyone thought possible. Both of your teeth chattered as a puddle of water formed at your feet, but you refused to move. A crowd formed before you but neither one of you said a word, eyes narrowed and empty of any emotion as you stared into the void. It wasn’t until the shock had left the Professor's bodies that they jumped into action and made you both go get changed, breaking the crowd with the help of the prefects until there was no one left but you two and the professors. You never said a word about what happened, no one ever knew what had you both in such a state; and even after the month's worth of detention you said nothing, not to a Professor or to other students.

People stopped wondering about you two after that.

“It could be a monster.” he said, pointing his finger at the tallest part of the fountain “See, that’s the head of the monster,” his finger lowered, making shapes in the air as he narrated the image in his head “This part here is the splashing water from the sea and all the thicker parts of ice are the tentacles.”

You tilted your head, side glancing between him and the frozen water. He turned his eyes to you, watching as you tried to follow his description. Your eyes widened and you sat straight, turning to him with a smile “Merlin.” you breathed out “You’ve finally lost your mind!”

He glared at you, a smirk forming quickly on his face. You were laughing loudly, holding onto your stomach as you threw your head back, when immediately you rolled back with the force of something hitting you right across the face. You fell with a squeal, the last image that Regulus saw of you being your eyes wide as you flew your arms up in the air trying to hold onto something.

“Regulus. Black.” you muttered, your head barely peeking from behind the mountain of snow you fell over “I’m going to kill you!” you yelled, sitting in the cold snow as you threw a snowball at him, one he easily dodged.

“Try actually hitting me first.” he mocked, the glint in his eyes daring as you jumped to your feet. He had run over the opposite side of the fountain, the both of you mirroring the others movements like a hunter and a prey. Which one were you? That was to be seen.

“Oh, don’t try me.” you said, trying to put on your meanest face which only made Regulus smile widen. In his eyes you were anything but menacing.

But he was too occupied watching you try to be intimidating and you knew that, he never registered the fact that your hands were moving where he could not see them, a snowball on each hand ready to attack. You threw the first one, missing him on purpose to watch him peak his head to mock you, and then, you took your chance.

“Ha!” you yelled in triumph, throwing your hands in the air as the snow stuck to his face and rolled down to his scarf. “Take that, you...NO!” you laughed, starting to run as you saw his face morph into one that let you know he was the hunter.

You ran as fast as you could, not once looking back as you knew it would only slow you down but he was faster, the feeling of his arms coming around your waist and lifting you up the ground only making you scream in delight as he spun you around. Your arms and legs fought in the air to get him to let you go but he had a strong grip on you, so you did the only thing that could save you now, become dead weight.

“What are you doing?” he asked, once you stopped fighting him “Y/N…” But he reacted too late, letting all your weight go onto him, he stumbled back, falling on his back with a thud that only worsened with your weight falling on top of him. “Merlin.” he whispered, his voice out of breath.

You quickly rolled to his side, both of you staring at the sky as you laid on the ground not once minding the snow soaking the back of your clothes, soft smiles on both of your faces as you lived inside the bubble you created. No one could bother you there.

“Want to go to the library?” you asked, turning your face to him. He turned his face to you in thought and you rolled your eyes. As if it was even a question “C’mon.” you said, getting to your feet and helping him as well.

He took hold of your hand and linked your arm with his, starting your walk to the library “Y/N.” he called.

“Yes?” you asked him, not turning to look at him but listening carefully.

“Do you want to go to the Christmas party with me?” he asked.

You turned to look at him, the smile that formed in your face reaching your eyes as you nodded “I would be delighted.” you said “Although, you know it will only fuel the rumor that we are dating, right?” you informed him, raising an eyebrow at him.

He thought about it, his lips in a line as he looked down at you “I’m fine with it if you are.” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

You both nodded in confirmation, continuing your path to the library like it was any other day.

*******

Friday morning came around faster than you ever thought possible, the last day of classes you had to endure and then you were free for weeks. But it also saddened you to leave Regulus behind, even if it was for a couple of weeks, you were sure you would miss him, going from spending time with him everyday to not seeing or hearing anything from him was going to be hard. You could only hope that one day you could celebrate the holidays together.

You had asked your mother if he could visit and she gladly agreed, even your father was eager to know the only friend you cared to mention in your letters. You had jumped and danced when she said Regulus could go home with you, running the halls to find him and tell him the good news. Sadly, he couldn’t go back to your home with you. Walburga Black was very strict with her sons being out of home for the holidays, a celebration for the family and family alone. Regulus color drained from his face at the mere thought of not being home for Christmas, so you didn’t insist. You told your family you would be staying at Hogwarts with Regulus, even if it was a lie, you prefered to be at Hogwarts than spend the entire winter break bored inside the walls of your home.

Officially, the classes ended that day. However, the students who wished to assist to the party were allowed to stay three more days at Hogwarts, until the day the party was being celebrated.

You still had until the party to be with him before you had to go your separate ways.

“Good morning.” you greeted Regulus, going to sit across from him at the end of the Ravenclaw table “You’re up early.” you said, giving him a soft smile.

“More like you’re late.” he said, looking up at you with a knowing look “Let me guess. Five more minutes turned into half an hour?” he asked.

You groaned loudly, rolling your head “Maybe…” you mumbled, glancing between the table and his knowing look. You dropped the fork in your hand with a huff “How do you know?” you asked with a groan.

He shrugged his shoulders “Maybe we’ve developed a mental connection and I can read your mind.” he said, giving you a funny look.

You dropped everything you had in your hands and leaned down on the table, staring into his eyes as he mirrors your movements “Tell me what I’m thinking about. Go.” you said.

Regulus stared deep into your eyes, and as you tried to focus on his gaze your attention drifted, the sound of laughter and the voice that hadn’t left your mind for days making it the more difficult to stay focused. Looking over his shoulder you saw him, standing next to Peter as he wrapped his arm over his shoulder, muttering something in his direction that made all four boys erupted in laughter.

Sirius most have felt your gaze on him, looking over Peter’s shoulder he met your eyes. You felt the air get stuck in your lungs, as natural as the act of breathing, he winked in your way and directed his attention back to his friends like nothing ever happened.

Regulus' voice broke you out of your haze, taking in a deep breath that caught his attention. He stared at you and then turned to where your eyes were glued, the now empty space where not a second ago his brother and his friends stood.

“Are you in shock because I did guess what you were thinking and we did develop a mental connection or you just had a revelation?” he asked “Y/N?” he called for you again.

Wide eyed you stared at him, opening your mouth with no words coming out from it. What had just happened?

Luckily for you, the owls saved you. The sound of wings filling the Great Hall as packages and letters started to drop in front of students. You and Regulus always watched from afar as everyone got their mail, the both of you knowing it was only on Mondays when you got letters. So it came as a surprise when an owl flew over you, dropping a small package in front of you.

As you stared with confusion at the small box, Regulus followed the owl with his eyes “I know that owl.” he muttered before he turned to you once more “What is it?” he asked.

You took the box, turning it in your hands before you shook your head “No.” you said, throwing it to Regulus “You open it.”

“Why me?” he asked, sliding the package back to your side of the table “It has your name in it.” he stated.

You argued back and forth for a couple of minutes before you finally ran out of patience “Fine, I’ll open it.” you grunted, taking the box from him and slamming it on the table.

With quick movements you untied the golden bow that kept it closed, the lid loosening enough so you could take it off. Softly you took it away, staring at the inside for a second too long. A blue rose.

“I think someone is asking you to the party.” Regulus said, his eyes fixed on the Rose.

You moved to look up at him and then back at the small rose. It was beautiful and ...normal. Muggle. A smile was drawn on your face as you picked it up, being a witch you would have expected a show from a gift like that one, to find a charmed rose that flourished right before your eyes but this one was a single normal rose, the more you thought was done to it being the color. Your house color.

You let out a nervous laugh, hiding the Rose before anyone could see it. “Well, that’s too bad for them.” you said, shoving the box inside your bag “Because I already have a date.” you said, smiling tightly at him “And I wouldn’t change it for anything. We will have the best night of our lives so far, we’ll have fun and possibly embarrass ourselves.”

Regulus nodded, but gave no answer to what you had said.

“You know who this is from?” he asked you.

Your eyes snapped up at him and you shook your head “No idea.” you mumbled.

But deep down you knew, looking past Regulus and to the Gryffindor table, grey eyes already staring at you.

TAGS

Skittles

@iwritesiriusly / @trinimalfoyyy / @megaprincesscakes / @lunalovegoodsgirlfriend / @amourtentiaa

Marauders

@destourtereaux

Winter in the Shade

@plethoraofpuppies / @dracoissohot / @funravenclaw2002 / @nehireerdogan / @ktyflwr / @lilyevanswhore / @edithsvoice / @medalloway-blog / @falconxbarnes / @blackst0nes7077 / @gabitanaka47 / @padsfirewhisky / @lazzwhile / @lilylikethefl0wer /

#winter in the shade #sirius black #sirius black x reader #sirius black x you #sirius black x y/n #regulus black #sirius black fanfiction #the marauders #marauders era #marauders era fanfiction

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some-kindofgnome · 4 years ago

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these violent delights, pt. i

In an immersive theme park where cutting-edge technology makes your wildest dreams come true, the line between fantasy and reality begins to blur. enter westworld, where artificially intelligent automatons known as ‘hosts’ are programmed to fulfill your every delight.

(westworld AU, eventual host!dabi x reader, host!keigo takami x reader, eventual shouto todoroki x f!reader)

part one | part two | part three

featuring: hanta sero, denki kaminari, katsuki bakugou, momo yaoyozoru, eijirou kirishima

part one: you prepare to enter the park for the bachelorette party your bridesmaids wanted. meanwhile, westworld’s capable employees prepare to roll out the latest programming update.

wc: 8.7k

pt. i warnings: smut (18+!), sci-fi dystopia, artificial intelligence, medical/surgical procedures, body modification. gun violence, robbery, kidnapping, drinking, death, no beta we die like teddy

notes: this is part one of my entry for The Smut Pile’s Western Collab! this is my very first server collab and I am so thrilled to be kicking it off with this plot monster. this is the first of three parts- it leans a little heavy on the world building, so stay tuned for parts two and three. the action dials up from here, promise! i’m excited to be putting out one of my first plot-heavy stories on this blog!

please note: part one borrows several events from season one, episodes one and two of the series. the story will branch off in its own direction in parts two and three. you do not need to be familiar with Westworld to enjoy this fic- so please give it a try! 💖

(MASTERLIST)

“This doesn’t feel right.”

Livestock Management technician Hanta Sero drifts idly from tool cart to operating table with his raven hair pulled back. He’s clad in a protective latex apron and gloves, approaching the table with a blowtorch in one hand and a long, slim pair of forceps in the other.

“That’s what it says here.” Denki Kaminari stands across the black-tiled room, his back reflected in the glass walls of the operating facility. He scrolls mindfully through a folding datapad with a crease of deep concentration in his golden brow.

Snapping his datapad shut, he lifts his chin to find Sero’s conflicted gaze across the lab.

“The specifications were pretty precise.”

“I know what the briefing said,” Sero retorts. “I just…”

He ignites the blowtorch and takes a deep breath, letting his gaze over slowly over the pale, unmarked flesh of the body stretched out on the table in front of him.

“What?” Kaminari takes in the sight before him. He lifts his eyebrows. “Oh. Well-“

He gets up from his stool, tugging his gloves back over his shirtsleeves and crossing the room toward Sero and the body in question. He picks up a scalpel, making a clean little cut just below the subject’s left nipple without any hesitation.

“Dude, stop!” Sero reaches with the hand still clutching his forceps, blanching as a thin well of blood trickles onto pristine flesh.

“He’s offline,” Denki chuckles. “He can’t feel a thing. You’ve patched these guys up a thousand times, Sero. What’s the problem?”

“I dunno,” Sero muses, drawing the back of one glove nervously over his temple. “I dunno. I think they’re starting to get too real. It’s messing with me.” He shoots Denki a weak chuckle and shakes his head.

“What do they need this guy all burned up for, anyway?”

“Momo told me he’s for the new narrative,” Denki replies, puzzling over the red hair and immaculate pale skin of their unsuspecting victim. “Some kind of grizzly new villain who’s supposed to stir up trouble.”

“Better make him extra fucked up, then.” The blowtorch, extinguished in Sero’s panic, is ignited again, but he’s still hesitating.

“Hey,” Denki prompts. “Why don’t we start with the system update? That’ll kill some time. And then- hey.” He reaches across the tool cart, grabbing for the bottle of black hair dye that came with the host’s modification kit. He shakes it in Sero’s face, letting a smug grin cross his features.

“I’ll do the carpet if you do the drapes.”

Sero and Denki find their rhythm easily enough. Before long, the tension dispels and they’re letting conversation flow smoothly between them, making weekend plans while Sero pushes polished silver staples into the now-scarred flesh of the transformed host.

“This guy’s older than he looks,” Denki quips from the tool cart, where he’s selecting an appropriately sized needle for the delicate work ahead of him. “His systems haven’t been updated in years.”

“I’ve never seen him in the park before,” Sero admits. He’s finishing the clean row of staples that trail from the corner of the host’s mouth to his ear, struggling to push the staple into the skin at the edges of his face. The sharp prongs don’t hold as well in the spots where the muscle and flesh thin to just skin stretched over bone. He looks up in frustration, shaking the spots from his concentrated gaze.

“Whoa,” he starts as he spots the way that Denki’s moved up between the host’s lean thighs. “You’re really gonna-“

“That’s what it says in the briefing,” Denki presses. He’s got the aforementioned needle in one hand and a bowl of curved barbells in the other; he’s gone a little grin about the gills, too.

“Sick fucks,” Sero snorts, shaking his head. “Doesn’t feel very historically accurate, does it?”

“Please,” Denki pushes. “If you think this has ever been about history, you’re in for a nasty surprise.”

“Christ, you wanna talk about nasty surprises,” Sero replies, blanching and averting his eyes while Denki inserts the first piercing. “Just wait’ll the guests get a look at him.”

"Bakugou's outdone himself this time," Denki agrees, brow furrowed with sympathy and panicked concentration as he unscrews the first barbell. "Those idiots won't know what hit 'em.”

“Bring yourself back online.”

Head of Programming Shouto Todoroki sits in front of the park’s newest addition, datapad spread across his lap. Sero and Denki’s work paid off; the new host is looking fiercer than ever.

Not new enough for Shouto’s tastes, though. He can still see the blue glint when “Dabi,” as his new narrative calls him, shifts into wakefulness and lets his eyes flutter open. He shoots Shouto a sinister grin but does not move from his seat.

Shouto doesn’t want to believe what they’ve done to him. He’s still nude, putting all his new modifications on brilliant display. The staples in his flesh look angry and inflamed. The scars, done perfectly to appear long-healed, still make his blood curdle.

He can’t even think about the flashes of silver that catch the light when Dabi crosses his legs.

“And who are you supposed to be?" Dabi growls an opening line that shakes Shouto more than it ought to. He sports a brand new drawl that fits the world he’ll be slotted into soon enough, but it’s too much, bouncing off the pristine glass and shiny tile beneath his bare feet.

“Lose the accent,” Shouto commands. Dabi's expression shifts a little, but he does not drop eye contact.

Shouto can’t help but wonder if they all stare like this. He hasn’t been alone with a host in a very long time. Especially not one with this kind of significance.

“Do you know where you are?” He presses, determined to push forward. The sooner he gets Dabi through analysis, the sooner he can pretend like the unsettling host doesn’t exist.

But Dabi’s voice with no drawl is even more spine-chilling.

“I am in a dream.”

“And… do you want to wake up from this dream?”

Dabi’s eyes drift away in a direction they’re not supposed to. For a moment, he casts his gaze down and to the left, letting it sweep across the edge of the room as his brow creases with terrifying subtlety.

The gesture is minuscule, almost as if he's recalling a distant memory. For a moment, Shouto can only admire its beauty.

Then he realizes it’s not supposed to be there.

“Yes,” Dabi continues, his voice soft and lilting and almost wistful. “I’m terrified.”

“Freeze all motor functions.” Shouto’s heart pounds in his chilled throat. His extremities have gone cold. But Dabi follows his instructions to the letter, freezing before he can even blink. Shouto questions why he expected any differently.

Not two minutes later, Head of Behaviour Momo Yaoyorozu ducks gracefully into Dabi’s glass prison. Shouto is still sitting exactly where he began, perched on a little rolling leather stool. Six feet away, Dabi has not moved, bare and frozen on a stool of his own.

"I got your page," Momo soothes, shutting the door quietly behind her and unfolding her datapad. The hinges go rigid when they sit flat, blending seamlessly into a broad tablet that she taps and scrolls quietly through.

“I checked his programming on the way over. There’s something new here,” she concludes. “But I don’t know who added it. Must have been one of the interns, or-“

“I know who it was,” Shou answers grimly, already scrolling meticulously through the lines of code that make up Dabi’s new personality. Momo freezes, looking up at him with cold surprise.

“You don’t think…”

“I do,” he confirms. He takes a deep breath to quell his racing heart and shoots his closest colleague a shaky look. “You’re going to want to see this.”

“Incredible,” Momo gasps a few moments later when Shouto asks Dabi the same series of questions and gets the same frightening response. He knows why it shakes him as much as it does, but it hasn’t occurred to him that someone like Momo would actually… appreciate them.

“It’s like he’s-“ she starts, then stops herself. The conclusion she’s drawn should be as impossible as it sounds. But it’s staring them both in the face.

“Like he’s remembering something.” She finishes her thought this time, and Shou clenches his jaw.

"He must have slipped the code into the update," he determines. "In the programming, he's calling them Reveries."

“Kind of poetic,” Momo muses, still admiring the way that Dabi’s eyes seem to mist as they stare into the middle-distance. “It makes him look so real.”

“The code pulls memories from his earlier programming,” Shouto continues, looking up at Momo and waiting for her to be as spooked as he is.

He’s almost frightened that she’ll be defensive. But she’s sharper than he’s given her credit for, and that revelation is enough to pull her from her stupor.

“That could cause a lot of problems,” she muses. “Especially if the loops haven’t been closed properly. They’re supposed to be wiped after every cycle, but if there are links pulling them back…”

“I know,” Shouto emphasizes. Momo straightens, planting matter-of-fact hands on matter-of-fact hips.

“What are you gonna do about it?”

“I don’t think there’s anything I can do,” he confesses, turning back to catch another blood-chilling glimpse of the all-too-familiar host. “I can’t just pull the programming out from under him. He’ll know.”

“You can’t send him into the park with it. If it’s slotted in with the update, he could spread it to the other hosts.”

Shouto pushes his datapad aside and leans forward, steepling his fingers as he sighs deeply and descends into even deeper thought.

Momo’s right. With the Reveries included, the update has potentially disastrous consequences. But that’s operating on the assumption that his father makes mistakes, which most people would confirm is simply impossible.

If he clears the programming before letting Dabi go through, however, he’ll be facing the wrath of his father.

Shou purses his lips, lacing his fingers together but leaving the pointers extended and pursing his lips against the smooth joints.

“I think we’re going to have to.”

The glossy, perfect train- the first of many you'll take today, as you're told- pulls into a station that's even whiter than the train itself. Polished white floors and perfect whitewashed columns are the first things you see out the massive panoramic windows as the cars pull to a complete stop. When the doors glide open, your maid of honour touches your sleeve as the other girls filter out of your private compartment and onto the platform.

You’re far from the only ones disembarking the train. The rest of the platform is soon crowded by immaculately-dressed guests from all over the world. They bow and shift like a flock of starlings, moving in stark contrast past the perfectly-still bodies of the white-clad staff waiting to greet them.

A tall, statuesque woman with raven hair steps forward, addressing your maid of honour by name. She gives you an apologetic wave and a see you in there before disappearing amid the writhing sea of people.

You’ve been reading up on this place for weeks, scouring pamphlets and websites and guest reviews for every detail about the induction process you can glean from public knowledge. Details of the park itself are kept very private, but you’ve learned all you can about the way you’ll be introduced to it.

This place was not your first choice for the occasion at hand, but your friends practically insisted. You know it’s for selfish reasons- it’s the only chance they’re ever going to get to see the place for themselves- but you can already think of several places you’d rather celebrate your coming nuptials.

Not exactly your typical bachelorette party fare. But your friends agreed to wear matching dresses in that shade of pale green you couldn’t stay away from, so you’re giving them this.

Before long the platform is nearly cleared. You’re just starting to make your way toward the escalator, wondering what exactly became of the host who was supposed to greet you, when a soft croon of your name over one shoulder nearly shocks you out of your sandals.

Your host has arrived, and he’s even more gorgeous than you feared. Graceful and lithe-looking, he’s clad in a pristine white suit and turtleneck that contrasts the bold flashes of his golden hair perfectly. He shoots you a smooth smile, lit by razor-sharp tawny eyes and as he turns his face to catch the light, you can see that his jaw is grazed by the barest hint of scruff- perfectly groomed, just like the rest of him.

"Hello," you greet, trying not to lose your breath. You clasp the fingers of your right hand around the ring finger on your left- the remnants of your favourite new nervous habit. You've taken to twisting your engagement ring in moments of idleness or anxiety, but for safety's sake, you've left the flashy diamond at home.

You know you’re engaged. That’s what matters most.

“Good,” the host croons. You’re getting quickly used to his honeyed brogue, strong and low and sweet as he takes your hand and drops a suave kiss to your knuckles. “I’m glad you found your way here.” He jerks his head toward the emptying escalator, eyes never leaving yours.

“Follow me.”

As you’re ascending through the polished storeys of the park’s immaculate headquarters, your attendant rattles off a long list of mundane medical questions. He’s tapping away on a datapad as he walks, and you’re sure that whatever information he’s taking down will be swept away for later use.

Finally, he brings you to a plain-looking white door. He tucks away the datapad and slips his hands into his pockets. He’s graceful and perfect- too perfect. You’re starting to suspect that he’s no ordinary employee.

“Go on,” he urges, nodding toward the door. You shoot him a sideways little glance but step forward, hooking your fingers around the polished handle and pushing it open. You step inside.

The interior of the room- or closet, as it would be better described- is lit almost exclusively by glowing strip lights hidden in the crevices of the doorway, racks of clothing, and bordering a large series of mirrors that stud each wall.

It’s the biggest walk-in closet you’ve ever seen. And it’s filled to the brim with racks of clothing, all appropriate to the vague late-19th century setting of the park.

“Everything is bespoke,” pipes your immaculate attendant as he shuts the door behind him, “and exactly your size.” Painfully, you remember being asked for your body measurements in anticipation of this visit. Did they custom-tailor everything for each guest?

Or are you being given special treatment?

“You can pick out anything you’d like,” he continues, moving toward you, “and your other clothes will be waiting for you when you’ve finished your stay.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” you muse, fingering the raspberry-coloured silk of a lavish-looking day dress.

“The clothes you choose will determine the course of your experience.”

Your attendant is right beside you now, so close that you can see the way his golden eyelashes brush his tanned cheeks. He’s leaning in to examine the silk same as you, but his shoulder pushes just a little close to be solely practical. As he grips the material between lithe fingers, he lifts his gaze to yours on purpose. There’s a charming lilt to his smile that you can’t help but admire.

He pauses, dropping the silk and turning to face you head-on. Though the smile has slipped from his features, he still eyes you with interest.

“You want to ask, don’t you?”

Your brain catches up immediately, confusion swelling and fading in the span of a heartbeat. It tightens to thick dread in your chest.

He’s right. You do.

“Are you real?” The words sound even more ridiculous in the air between you than they did in your head. But ever since you boarded the train it felt like you could never be sure. And he’s perfect. Too perfect. Even the way he takes your question seems scripted and rehearsed.

He gives a low chuckle and takes your hands, stroking smooth thumbs over the backs of your knuckles. Then he peeks up at you from beneath flawless dark lashes and flashes a hint of pearly canine as he speaks.

“If you can’t tell, does it really matter?”

You don’t need him to expand.

“Come,” he prompts gently, dropping one hand to pull open a drawer of delicate slips and shifts, sitting in neat, folded piles of undyed linen. Some are plain, others trimmed excessively with lace and ribbons. You’re drawn to the coloured ribbons immediately- pale peach, soft blue, mint green. But the brassy gold of your attendant’s eyes is even more magnetic and you can’t look away for longer than a handful of seconds.

“You know,” he continues, squeezing your fingers gently and moving back in to run his knuckles up the inside of your wrist. Every single one of his touches is delicate, fluttering like a songbird against your skin. But there’s nothing gentle about the way he looks at you.

“Some of these clothes are a little difficult to put on alone.”

He does not explain further, but he watches as you’re drawn to the same conclusion that he is.

You have to roll this one over in your mind for a long while. You left your engagement ring behind, but the engagement itself still stands. Then again, he told you to enjoy yourself here. ‘Make every use of the park’s benefits,’ he’d suggested.

He’s just a computer, you tell yourself. A glorified sex toy. Maybe he walks and talks and flirts like a real human being, but…

There’s something about him that’s making it hard to turn him down.

After a silence long enough for any normal person to question, you look up at your attendant once more. He’s patiently awaiting your response, having gone uncomfortably still. You're not even sure he'd blink if you stare long enough.

You give a tight little nod and he’s smiling again, the same lazy smile as before. His default expression, you’re beginning to gather. He reaches for your coat.

“Wait.” You stop him with one hand on either forearm. He’s touched you before, but it’s still shocking how warm he is. Even though the sleeves of his perfect white jacket, he feels unquestionably alive.

"Don't you have a name or something?"

“Of course I do,” he responds. “Would you like to hear it?”

“Um…” Your brow knits. “Yes.”

He slips around behind you, curling his fingers into the open folds of your jacket and beginning to slide the weighty material off your shoulders. As he does, he leans forward, letting his lips draw close to your ear and making you shiver.

“Call me Keigo.”

“Keigo,” you repeat. It’s pretty and rolls easily from your mouth in a slow purr of desire. You can’t help yourself anymore. Keigo’s been programmed to put you at ease, but he’s doing much more for you now.

He undresses you methodically, pausing only briefly to run a hand down the curve of your waist or dip his fingers under the point of your chin when he catches you looking down. Even when you’re standing completely naked in front of him, he does not move to touch you in any untoward manner.

Whatever unspoken arrangement you thought you had formed is obviously not as unspoken as you’d hoped.

With his help, you select some period-appropriate undergarments. He helps you into your breezy linen shift first, lovingly tying the drawstrings into a neat little bow at the centre front. The corset is not as uncomfortable as you'd anticipated, fitting you devastatingly well. Keigo’s skilled hands pull the laces with precise tension, and the whole time he breathes soft commands and inquiries over your shoulder.

“Too tight?” He whispers, holding the laces taught at your waist. You take a slow, deep breath, then shake your head.

“Good.”

He ties the laces off and helps you into two petticoats- one of plain white cotton, the other of decorative silk and lace. Then he sits you on a cool, leather-covered sofa on one edge of the room and drops to his knees in front of you.

“Uh-“ you start, but he produces a pair of silk stockings from seemingly nowhere, smirking over the tops of your knees.

“Let’s get this out of the way.”

He pushes your airy petticoats up from your ankles, letting the backs of his palms brush the insides of your knees. He shoves the material up to your thighs and your confusion is multiplied now- is this what you think it is?

The way he admires your thighs as you shyly press them together certainly makes it seem so.

"Keigo," you gasp, curling your fingers against the edge of the sofa. The leather is supple and delicate beneath your touch like you could tear it if you wanted to.

He looks up just in time to watch you hook a bare thigh over his shoulder, and his brows shoot into his pointed hairline.

You’ve decided what you want out of this trip.

"Dove," he chides, setting down the stockings and pushing them gently aside. He takes both hands up the backs of your calves, stroking perfectly manicured fingernails into the tender skin at the backs of your knees.

He drops a kiss to the inside of your thigh. His face disappears behind the swath of frothy white petticoats gathered in your lap, but you feel his hot breath on your skin clear as day.

“If you wanted something from me,” he purrs, “all you had to do was ask.”

“I’m asking now,” you hum, letting your head fall back against the back of the couch. He’s easy enough to convince. Somehow, the fact that you didn’t have to work very hard for this almost makes it feel more acceptable.

“Here’s my answer,” he replies, sinking his teeth into the flesh of your inner thigh. You let out a strangled gasp, thigh jolting against his face as he slips his hand under the other leg- still hooked over his shoulder. You let out a low, shaky breath, trying not to think about the mark he’ll leave.

He pushes your leg away after biting it, shoving your knees apart and leaning eagerly forward. His head is fully buried under your gathered petticoats at this point, and you can feel him nosing his way into the crook of your groin, sliding a few free fingers up to prod gently for your hair-dusted folds.

“Wet already, bluebird?” He chuckles into your skin, sending shivers up your spine. “I’m flattered.”

“Stop,” you groan. There’s heat rushing to your cheeks with every word that tumbles out of his pretty mouth. You don’t want any of this to stop, but the heat between your legs is the one quickly growing unbearable.

“Do you want me to?” Keigo sits back almost immediately, ridding you of the delicious tingles his close breath were sending across your skin.

“No, no!” You yelp sharply, indignantly, digging your bare heel into his back to keep him close. He stops as soon as you apply pressure, letting out a quiet little chuckle.

“Keep going,” you pant, curling your toes against his pretty jacket.

“Your wish is my command,” he hums, already leaning into your flesh again. He does not hesitate this time, burying his head between your legs and giving the weeping slit of your cunt a long lick.

His first touch is all it takes to remind you how long it’s been.

“Fuck,” you gasp, low and languid. He doesn’t hesitate to close his lips around your swelling clit and suck. He makes sharp, sloppy noises with his lips and tongue, and the way they resonate in your ears near-doubles your pleasure. He’s eating you out perfectly, with terrifying precision. The strength of his jaw and tongue remains almost painfully consistent.

All the better for drowning him out. Despite his easy-flowing attitude and suave charm, he’s not a person. And it isn’t unfaithful to want him like this.

Even if you know he wouldn’t like it.

Keigo is diligent and careful, plunging his tongue in and out of your needy hole before finding the nub of your clit again, hard and sensitive. When he flicks the tip of his tongue against the tender front of it your legs spasm and you cry out softly as sensitive goosebumps rush across your ribcage.

“Like that,” you plead breathlessly, drawing your foot up between his shoulder blades as the tension builds. “Again, please.”

You’re holding the swells of your petticoats up around your thighs for him, but your fingers are beginning to clench in the delicate material. You’re not going to last long at all beneath a tongue as talented as his.

“Don’t worry, dove,” he purrs into your body, sending thick vibrations through every nerve in your system, “I won’t leave you unsatisfied.”

As he settles into his rhythm again, he plunges two fingers into your messy depths. He curls them tightly inside you, massaging your tender walls with a blunt and careful touch.

It takes little more than a few methodical strokes to make you fall. You cum with a tight little squeal, closing your thighs tightly around his head while you spasm and buck and sigh. He’s attentive enough to keep pumping his fingers through your orgasm, drawing out the pleasure as much as possible and greedily lapping at the wetness that trickles from your clenching pussy.

"That's it," he soothes, easing you down from your high with one calming hand on the column of your twitching thigh. As you settle, sweat-soaked, back into your seat he surfaces, sweat and shiny, sticky fluid sticking in the bristles of his perfect scruff. He licks his lips and you realize you’ve unconsciously mirrored him, doing the same.

In the moments directly following your peak you say nothing, looking down to meet his brassy gaze as deep uncertainty settles into your gut.

What happens now?

Keigo sits back on his haunches, pulling the folded pocket square from his breast and mopping up the mess on his chin and jaw like he'd done nothing more than spill a glass of wine or splash water over his lips.

“Much better,” he croons, reaching for the discarded stockings from before. “Feeling a little more relaxed?”

You swallow hard.

“I’d say so.”

His smile is surprisingly bright and sunny.

“Good.” He hooks his fingers under your knee again, unhooking your leg from his shoulder. Sliding a palm down to your ankle, he fits one stocking deftly over your foot and slides it up your calf, continuing his work as if uninterrupted. He fits the stockings over your knees and ties them off carefully with slips of silk ribbon, sitting the knots just below your knees so the stockings won't fall. Then, he gets to his feet and offers you a hand.

“Let’s pick out the rest of your clothes, shall we?”

The park is even more immersive than you imagined. The photos do it no justice. When you step off the (genuine steam-powered) train at Sweetwater Station, it’s accompanied by a very real twinge of anxiety. The village is like a scene out of a Clint Eastwood movie. Only there are no cardboard sets here. The saloon doors really swing inward. The shops and businesses that line the main street are built from real, weathered lumber. The dust that’s kicked up by the hosts that go about their daily lives is already beginning to coat your new boots.

You sneeze.

“God bless you,” greets a kind stranger in a rough-hewn grey coat and white hat. He’s got a very apparent drawl to his voice, but the glint in his blue eyes is kind.

Back at the facility, guests and hosts were easy enough to distinguish from one another. Out here, it’s a little more difficult. You’re not sure whether to believe that everyone is real or assume they’re all fake.

Luckily, there are four women beside you whose humanity you are acutely aware of. You’re lucky enough to have found your bridesmaids on the train in- all clustered in the bar car, but together nonetheless.

And they’ve insisted on keeping the party going.

“C’mon, bride-to-be,” your maid of honour chides, grabbing you by the hand and pulling you out of your reverie. “I know exactly where we need to go first.”

“It’s not even noon yet,” you protest, but the others are already miles ahead of you. You’re dragged easily into the broad, dusty street and toward those broad, swinging doors. The saloon stands proudly in the centre of town on a prominent corner with faded signs advertising its wares. And your maid of honour eagerly bats the doors open, striding boldly into the sun-soaked saloon.

The tables are surprisingly crowded for this time of day. It’s most likely a flood of guests, disembarking the train and heading straight for the local watering hole for a real taste of the action. Beyond their idle chatter tinkles the bright keys of a player piano against one wall. You can see the player scroll turning in the piano’s upright fixture, but that doesn’t change the unsettling way that the keys seem to press themselves.

It’s an eerie fixture in a town populated by walking, talking player pianos.

The man behind the bar bleeds Old West stereotypes from every pore. He’s got a huge, exaggerated greying moustache and a tweed waistcoat with shirtsleeves bound back for work. He’s polishing an empty glass with a cotton rag, but you spot him just in time to watch him politely greet a guest and reach behind him for a frosted bottle of unlabeled whisky.

The only other fixtures in the place are the women patrolling it, clad in colourful, lacy outfits that you’re certain violate some kind of historical convention. But they’re all breathtakingly beautiful, bosoms heaving over tightly laced corsets and fluttering from table to table like songbirds. They seem to provide little more than decoration and, as you settle into a table not far from the door, they fade easily into the background.

Until one of them screams.

You’ve read as many stories as you could scour the internet for before coming here. You know this place can get intense. Details of the park’s narratives and interactive storylines are kept under wraps as much as possible, so you can’t be sure whether this is out of the ordinary or not.

But when you whip around to find the source of the blood-curdling shriek, it doesn’t feel scripted.

It doesn’t feel scripted when the pretty girl in peach lace flings herself to the feet of a brand-new guest, here with his wife and their young son gaping from across the table. It doesn’t feel like she’s supposed to be wracked with sobs having never exchanged a word with this man.

It doesn’t feel like she should be pleading with him.

But the sobs wrack her body anyway, and her rosy little cheeks are flushed deeply now as she sniffles and blubbers.

“My daughter,” she begs hoarsely. “My girl, my daughter, please, I know you have her. Give her back to me, please. I know you took her. Give her back to me, I’ll do anything.”

Whether the father-of-one knows what she's talking about or not he's white as a sheet, stumbling backwards against the edge of his wife's table and pushing his arms forward, trying to keep her away.

The player piano finishes its tune, keys stilling as the saloon’s patrons look on in shock. And for an honest handful of heartbeats, the saloon is silent save for the host’s ragged sobs.

It takes a few moments for the player scroll to re-align itself before the tune restarts, and as the familiar notes cycle back through the saloon the host re-centres herself, climbing to her feet. There's a hardened resolve on her tear-stained face as her target looks around, gathering his wife and son with a this is bullshit and turning to leave.

“Don’t you dare walk away from me-“ the host begins to snarl. She lunches for the man, hands outstretched for the back of his brand new jacket, or maybe the brim of his crisp Stetson.

“Freeze all motor functions!”

A deep voice booms from the door of the saloon, amplified and simultaneously muffled with the use of a megaphone. The girl, and every other host in the saloon, freezes in place as though they’ve been paused. They don’t just stand still- they’re paralyzed. The smiling bartender is stalled with a glass in his hand; he doesn’t even blink.

In the doorway stands a hulking man of at least six and a half feet, seeming nearly as broad across the shoulders as he is tall. He wears a black uniform, armored black vest and heavy combat boots with a head of brilliant red hair spilling over his shoulders. As he lowers the megaphone he’s grinning, the bare flash of a sharp canine catching the low light of the bar.

“Sorry for the intrusion, folks,” he declares, striding across the floorboards toward the frozen host. Her expression is paused in a sneer of sheer horror and aggression, her hand outstretched for the man who has long since stepped aside.

The red-haired guardian angel, who has the name Kirishima stitched neatly onto the breast of his protective gear in white thread, catches your gaze. He shoots you a familiar little wink and a nod, a soft y’alright? escaping his throat in a quiet little growl.

You lick your lips, nodding slowly. Kirishima averts his gaze and reaches for the frozen host. As soon as he touches her skin she goes limp, falling easily into his powerful hold. He hoists her body over one shoulder and surveys the saloon, touching two fingertips to his forehead in a bright little salute.

“Please, don’t let me intrude on your stay any longer,” he continues. “As you were, everybody. Resume.”

The last word seems to be a command for the hosts in the room, as they spin to life again. They resume their rounds as if no time had passed at all; as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever transgressed.

Spooked, but encouraged by Kirishima’s smooth removal of the offending host, the guests around you go hesitantly back to their conversations. The player piano, also halted by Kirishima’s commands, has resumed its delicate play, and slowly the environment returns to the way it was before.

Your friends are among those willing to brush off the incident.

"What happened?" mumbles your maid of honour across the table, as if the host were still around to overhear her. As if the host's friends might be listening in to see if anybody's talking about her.

“No idea,” quips one of the other girls. “Must be some kind of glitch.” She looks over her shoulder, watching the remaining hosts at the bar. “I wonder if it happens often.”

“Absolutely fucking not.”

Head of Narrative Katsuki Bakugou slams a stack of papers onto the table in front of him, disrupting the intricate hologram that provides a real-time, scale model of the park to the room’s occupants.

“Katsuki!” Momo scolds, watching the hologram stutter and flicker. It’s not the first table he’s damaged.

“You’re not pulling my fucking narrative. It rolls out today. Do you have any idea how many writers I had busting ass on that thing?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” she retorts, tapping the screen of the datapad she’s got hooked tightly in the crook of her other arm. “You saw the host that Eijirou pulled, didn’t you? The fact that he had to step in at all means things got way out of hand…”

“Bullshit,” Katsuki retorts, sweeping his papers off the holo-table (and shattering the image one more time). “That was a fucking glitch. You don’t even have the results back from Behaviour yet.”

“I already know what they’re going to say,” Momo continues.

“That’s right,” Katsuki snarls. “I forgot you know everything around here.”

“She was carrying the latest update. There must be something wrong with the code.” Momo tries not to remember Dabi and his distant stare. She swallows the part about the extra coding slipped in by the man who could do no wrong.

She flips her datapad shut- it’s doing her any good, since Katsuki’s right. The results from Behaviour regarding the misaligned host won’t be ready for some time.

“You can’t. Pull. That. Narrative.” Katsuki’s squared up now, all the gathered papers tucked under his arm. His jaw is ticked, nostrils flaring as his eyes flash. “An entire trainload of guests is wandering around Sweetwater looking for the stories they fucking paid for. If you pull the plug, there’s nothing left.”

He’s right again.

“Look.” Katsuki crosses to the holo-table one more time, only this time it’s without the murderous intent in his gaze. For once he’s ready to use the table as intended, pin-pointing the broad, dusty street of Sweetwater’s main strip and bringing up a live feed of the bustling little town.

"Dabi is riding through here in less than two hours," he continues. "Dial-up his aggression a little. Make him shoot up the place. If you want to pull the hosts, at least let them go out with a bang.”

Momo isn’t convinced. But it’s the closest thing to a happy medium she can picture at the moment. Katsuki, as prolific as ever, knows how to think on his feet.

“How many d’you think he’ll take out?” She probes quietly, quirking an interested brow.

“Enough to keep the guests AND your Doctor Frankensteins entertained while I find us some more loopholes.”

Her mind races through more questions. But the panic, fluttering high and shallow in her chest, has somehow been replaced by a delicate sort of reassurance.

She flips open the datapad one more time, activating the remote host commands available only to an employee of her standing. Finding Dabi’s program file, she does exactly as Katsuki suggests and dials up the aggression in his behaviour stats by eighty percent.

“This had better work,” she threatens softly, but Katsuki’s already folding his arms across his chest, looking far too satisfied with himself. His ego is insufferable, but his talent is unmatched. Worth suffering for.

His mouth splits into a triumphant grin as he shoots an idle glance at the live Sweetwater feed. The only stage he’s ever needed.

“’Course it will.”

The afternoon sun has nearly dipped behind the tallest rooftops in Sweetwater when your friends stumble out of the saloon. Your friends are already tipsy, giggling and clutching each other as they try not to trip over the hems of their skirts. They’re all a little too eager to pull out the extravagant lace fans that pair perfectly with their colourful dresses and fan at their heaving bosoms.

As you bound down the steps and into the dirt road, you dive seamlessly into the milling crowd of hosts and guests, starting to swim. If you’re about to be caught in the eye of a devastatingly orchestrated narrative maelstrom, you’re blissfully unaware.

“Give me the time,” Katsuki grunts from the Sweetwater side of the holo-table. Momo glances up at the digital clock on the wall.

“Thirteen fifty-eight, forty-two,” she notes. Katsuki’s got the camera feed trained on a lone trio of riders, clad in black and plodding steadily toward Sweetwater. He watches carefully, keeping an eye turned on the clock.

“They’re going to be late,” he grunts bitterly, folding his arms over his chest. Sero, Denki and Kirishima, who have all crowded around the holo-table on their lunch breaks to watch the show, snort in near-unison.

“I don’t think anyone down there’s keeping track,” Denki quips, smoothing his palms down the front of his crisp shirt, apronless for once. Katsuki shoots him a vicious glare.

“You wanna go back to your sewing room or what?”

Denki goes quiet.

Inside the park, the sun passes behind a cloud. The light shifts just enough to draw your gaze, and when you look up, you’re among the first to spot a few dark shapes approaching. They’re close enough that you can make them out as riders, all on horses as black as the wide-brimmed hats on their heads.

There’s something about them, their precise formation and the slow, plodding, deliberate pace of their horses that holds your attention. You can’t quite write them off as guests, no matter how much they stand out from the dully-dressed villagers around you.

You glance across the street just long enough to spot a WANTED poster tacked to a column not far off. You can’t make out any of the writing on it, but the face is distinct- dark, shaded patches covering his jaw, chin and lower lip, carving out two shadowy patches under his eyes.

There’s something about the narrow shape of his cheeks that pulls familiar.

But you don’t have to wonder much longer.

The three riders ride quietly into town, the crowd parting around them with little more than low murmurs and dull, lidded fear. They pull to a stop in front of the saloon, barely twenty feet from you.

The cowboy in the grey tweed coat who caught your eye fresh off the train approaches the riders. He’s got a revolver holstered on one hip, and he draws it slowly out of its pouch as he squares up with the horse at the lead of the pack.

“Haven’t you seen the signs with your mug on ‘em?” He drawls, his face drawn into an expression of tense righteousness. He jerks his chin toward the nearest one, the WANTED sign you’d seen seconds earlier. “You’re not welcome here, Dabi.”

The taller rider in the centre- Dabi- tilts his chin into the sunlight, and that’s when you catch sight of its purplish colour. His face glints with silver, a perfect match for the drawing posted across the street.

He does not hesitate, drawing his own revolver in one smooth motion and shooting the cowboy in the chest. The gun discharges with a crack that’s louder than you ever imagined it could be, punctuated by the screams of bystanders nearby.

As the village descends into panic you stand there dumbstruck, watching the chaos unfold.

“Wait for it,” Katsuki grunts, hiding his satisfied grin as his colleagues watch in rapt fascination. Sero hasn’t blinked since the action began.

“You sure?” Dabi rasps, voice muffled by the feed. He produces a shiny golden badge and flipping it, like a silver dollar, onto the expiring corpse of the righteous host.

“No,” Denki whines. “He killed the sheriff?”

“Shut up and keep watching,” Katsuki growls, quelling the proud adrenaline pumping through his veins. There’s nothing quite like seeing his hard work come to life- supremely worth fighting with Momo over.

Dabi smirks, tipping the brim of his hat.

“Seems like invitation enough to me.”

He swings capably off his horse and you can’t deny your fascination with the mystery surrounding him. You should be terrified, but there’s something about the cool confidence with which he carries himself that you can’t quite put aside.

If the women flocking to the windows on either side of the street are any indication, you’re not the only one who feels that way. In a brief moment of lucidity, you take a glance around you. Your bridesmaids have disappeared, disappearing in the panicked mass of flooding crowds after the scarred rider fired his first shot.

He’s followed by a second rider on his right flank, both quickly disappearing into the bar. The third rider- a petite blonde woman swathed in a heavy coat- gets down off her horse and turns quickly toward her saddlebags. When she comes around the front side of her steed, she’s got a shotgun in her hands.

She’s loading it. The pandemonium amplifies. At her feet, there’s a long, thick coil of rope that’s partially unwound and trailing into the saloon. It’s unwinding slowly, with dull screams and shattering glass echoing from inside.

That’s all you have time to notice before another shot goes off in front of you. The little blonde girl’s levelled her shotgun, emptying her rounds at anyone who raises a weapon against her. You’re barely standing ten feet away. But she passes you clean over.

Is it because you're a guest? The only ones who have fallen at her hand are the hosts, capable of being hurt by her gunshots. The guests who haven't taken off are clustered in the windows of shops or hiding behind broad wooden columns, but there is no fear painted on their faces.

You know the hosts can’t hurt you. But there’s something about the thrill of it all that sends adrenaline pumping through your veins anyway. There’s a cool mystery to all of the black-clad riders.

A part of you wants to join them. If you can be anyone you want in here… why not one of them? Why not swing cooly down from your horse and terrorize, when there are no consequences to your actions?

You take one step backwards, then another. Your senses are finally coming back to you. You should run. Disengage. Maybe you can’t be caught in the crossfire, but you can’t stand dumbly in the empty street, either.

Something has to change.

Before you can make it to the safety of a storefront, a pattern of three gunshots in tight succession from inside the saloon triggers something in the blonde, still picking off hosts. There are bodies littering the street.

She lowers her shotgun and hops back onto her horse, spurring it on with a sharp whistle. The beast takes off without hesitation, and it’s then that you realize the other end of the coiled rope is wound around her saddlehorn. As the horse strains its haunches and pushes forward the rope goes taut. And as the pair of them take off down the street, the spoils emerge: a heavy wrought iron safe, bursting out of the saloon doors and leaving nothing but splintered remains in its wake.

It bounces and rolls down the steps and slides smoothly as soon as it hits the dirt street. The blonde shooter and her horse disappear, safe in tow.

You wonder what became of the bartender inside and his friendly moustache.

Dabi emerges seconds later, a fresh rifle clutched lazily in one hand. His companion’s lost his hat in the turmoil inside- he’s blonde, too, with a deep scar splitting his forehead from hairline to brow.

"Let today be a lesson for every one of you," Dabi calls, re-cocking his shotgun as he surveys the fresh bodies and fleeing guests. You've stopped dead all over again, drawn to him like a magnet despite your best judgement.

He levels the shotgun, aiming it about five feet to your right. You follow his gaze. In the window over your shoulder, with her hands pressed to the glass, is a little girl no older than five. She’s watching Dabi and his riders with fearful fascination and does not seem to realize that she’s been targeted.

You don’t care if she’s a guest or not. She’s a human girl with big, lively eyes, and your adrenal glands work faster than your sense of logic.

Dabi shuts one eye, tilting his head. The corner of one lip curls ever so slightly as he concentrates, taking aim. “And that lesson is-“

“Stop.” You step in front of the window, spreading your arms and drawing his attention for the first time. When he looks at you over the top of his shotgun, his expression goes slack. He drops the shotgun and his eyes are wide, wider than they’re supposed to be, almost.

You’re close enough to see that they’re a shocking shade of blue. That blue strikes an achingly familiar chord in your heart.

You recognize those eyes.

“What the fuck!”

If the holo-table didn’t weigh half a ton, Katsuki would’ve flipped it on its end. The feed is as smooth as ever, but his face has gone scarlet as he paces away from the table, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“What? What’s wrong?” Kirishima’s well past the end of his lunch break by now, but there’s no way in hell he’s going back to work before seeing the way this plays out.

“He stopped,” Katsuki growls. “He’s not s’posed to fucking stop.”

Dabi’s been stopped on the brink of a speech that took Katsuki days to put together. He’s been waiting to hear it delivered for weeks. It’s the speech that Dabi’s entire narrative was hinged on, forged out of countless sleepless nights and careless notes scribbled idly on coffee breaks.

“Holy shit.” There’s a genuine shock in Denki’s voice that’s enough to make Katsuki turn around. Denki’s gone white, Sero beside him, too.

“You’d better get over here and see this, dude,” Kirishima mutters, jerking his chin toward the feed. Momo’s watching over his shoulder, too, one hand pressed to her pursed lips.

“That’s a guest, isn’t it?” Sero quips. Silence settles over the room.

“I’ll get Shouto,” Momo declares, turning away and opening up her datapad.

“What’s going on?” Shouto bursts into the holo-room not two minutes later, mismatched eyes lit up with urgent concern. “Did I read your message right? I-“

Katsuki’s pacing the room, quieter than ever. Denki, Sero and Kirishima are still gathered around the feed, winding back the stream to replay the events that have sent them all spiralling. Momo’s the only one who even acknowledges his presence.

“Something’s happening in the park,” she explains, hushed and tight as she meets him at the door. “Another updated host is off-script.”

“How bad is it this time?” Shouto asks, hiding the dread that’s spreading in his gut. He had hoped that the girl from the saloon was just an unexpected glitch, but the results from Behaviour told another story.

Still, two deviances in just the first day of the update feels worse than he dreaded.

“You’d better take a look for yourself.”

Momo leads him to the holo-table and the feed, letting the other boys step aside. Shouto steps up to the projection, watching Dabi ride into town. Watching him break into the saloon with Twice and Toga, two other repurposed hosts, by his side.

He watches Toga ride off with the safe behind her and watches Dabi start his speech. And then, from a near-birds-eye view, he watches Dabi spot you of all people. Dabi lowers his rifle and strides toward you.

Shou’s heart leaps into his throat.

With dull horror he watches Dabi slip a leather-gloved hand under your chin. He watches you tilt your jaw into his touch. You’re fascinated by him. Even though the dust and pixels it's painfully obvious.

Dabi seems to notice, too, since he stoops low and hoists you over his shoulder without another word. You struggle, but he holds you fast. He strides across the road to his horse and sets you- still squirming and fighting- in the saddle, climbing on behind you and grabbing you tightly before you can escape.

Just before he spurs his gargantuan black steed forward, he pauses to glance over his shoulder. Shouto can’t be certain, but for a moment it seems like Dabi’s found the camera, staring plainly up at Shouto through its low-quality lens.

A breath passes. He looks away, gives a whistle, and disappears into the wilds beyond the town.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Kirishima presses. “Katsuki, you didn’t program him to kidnap a guest, did you?”

“Of course not,” Katsuki snarls from across the room, his nerves fraying dangerously. “What kind of idiot do you think I am? Do I look like a walking liability to you?”

“Look, it’s fine,” Denki chimes in. “It’s not like he can hurt her or anything. Just chalk it up to the park experience. Tell her Dabi kidnaps random nobodies all the time.”

The room goes quiet as a crypt. Kirishima looks at Shouto. Shouto looks at Katsuki. Katsuki looks at Momo, and Momo takes a slow, deep breath.

“Do you want to tell him, Shouto?” she asks, “or should I?”

Shouto closes his eyes and tries to quell the panic rising in the back of his throat. He shoots Denki a cold look, jaw ticked but eyes blazing.

“That’s my fiancé,” he mutters, low and shaky. “Dabi kidnapped my fiancé.”

#hawks x reader #dabi x reader #shouto todoroki x reader #dabi #hawks #hawks smut #hanta sero #denki kaminari #eijirou kirishima #katsuki bakugou #momo yaoyorozu #tw guns #tw gun violence #tw death #tw drinking #tw body modification #reader insert #westworld au

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unpopularwiththepopulace · 3 years ago

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Michael Riedel vs Bernadette Peters – the Broadway Battle of 2003 and beyond

My previous piece gives a fairly comprehensive look at Bernadette and Gypsy through the ages; though there is at least one aspect of the 2003 revival that warrants further discussion:

Namely, Michael Riedel.

Today’s essay question then: “Riedel – gossip columnist extraordinaire, the “Butcher of Broadway”, spited male vindictive over not getting a lunch date with Bernadette Peters, or puppet-like mouthpiece of theatre’s shadowed elite? Discuss.”

It’s matter retrievable in print, or even kept alive in apocryphal memory throughout the theatre community to this day that Riedel was responsible for a campaign of unrelenting and caustic defamation against Bernadette as Rose in Gypsy around the 2003 season.

While “tabloids may [have been] sniping and the Internet chat rooms chirping”, when looking back at the minutiae, none were more vocal, prolific or influential in colouring early judgment than the “chief vulture [of] Mr. Riedel, who had written a string of vitriolic columns in which he said from the start that Ms. Peters was miscast”.

He continued to find other complaints and regularly attack her in print over an extended period of time.

Why? We’ll get there. There are a few theories to suggest. Firstly, how and what.

Primary to establish is that it perhaps would be foolish to expect anything else of Riedel.

Also an author and radio and TV show host, Riedel is best known as the “vituperative and compulsively readable” theatre columnist at The New York Post.

He’s a man who thrives on controversy, decrying: “Gossip is life!”

The man who says, “I’m a wimp when it comes to physical violence, but give me a keyboard and I’ll kill ya.”

“Inflicting pain, for him, is a jokey thing. ‘Michael has this cruel streak and a lack of empathy,’ says Susan Haskins, his close friend and co-host.”

And inflicting pain is what he did with Bernadette, in a saga that has become one of the most talked about and enduring moments of his career.

From the beginning, then.

Riedel started work at The Post in 1998.

His first words on Bernadette? “Oddly miscast in the Ethel Merman role,” in August of that year on Annie Get Your Gun. It was a sentiment he would carry across to his second mention six months later (“a seemingly odd choice to play the robust Annie Oakley”), and also across to the heart of his vitriolic coverage on her next Merman role in Gypsy.

Negative coverage on Bernadette in Gypsy started in August 2002 when Riedel discussed the search for trying to find a new American producer for the show. It had initially been reported in late 2000 that a Gypsy revival with Bernadette was planned for London, before it was to transfer to Broadway. To begin with, Arthur Laurents was “eager to do Gypsy in London because it hadn't been seen in the West End since 1973”, and he “wanted to repeat [the] dreamlike triumph” he said Angela Lansbury’s production had been. But economic matters prevented this original plan, leaving the team looking for new producers in the US. Riedel suggested that Fran and Barry Wiessler step up as, “after all, they managed to sell the hell out of "Annie Get Your Gun," in which Peters…was also woefully miscast.”

He also quipped: “Industry joke: "Bernadette Peters in 'Gypsy'? Isn't she a little old to be playing Baby June?”, calling her “cutesy Peters” and again a “kewpie doll”.

Bernadette here seen side by side with the actual Baby June of the 2003 production – Kate Reinders.

Other publications to this point had discussed her “unusual” casting. Which was fairly self-evident. In contrast to being a surprising revelation that Bernadette Peters was not, in fact, Ethel Merman, this had been the intention from the start. Librettist Arthur “Laurents – whose idea it was to hire her – [said] going against type is exactly the point,” and Sam Mendes, as director, qualified “the tradition of battle axes in that role has been explored”.

It was Riedel who was the first to shift the focus from the obvious point that she was ‘differently cast’, to instead attach the negative prefix and intone that she was actually ‘MIS’ cast. According to him then, she was unsuitable, and would be unable to “carry the show, dramatically or vocally”. All before she had so much as sung a note or donned a stitch of her costume.

So no, it wasn’t then “the perception, widely held within the theater industry,” as he presented it, “that Peters is woefully miscast as Mama Rose”.

It was Riedel’s perception. And he took it, and ran with it, along with whatever else he could throw into the mix to drag both her and the show down for the next two years.

As to another indication of how one single columnist can influence opinion and warp wider perception, just look to Riedel’s assessment of the show’s first preview. It is typically known as Riedel’s forte to “[break] with Broadway convention, [where] he attends the first night of previews, and reports on the problems…before the critics have their say”. This gives him “clout” by way of mining “terrain that goes relatively uncovered elsewhere”, and it means subsequent journals are frequently looking to him from whom to take their lead – and quotes.

At Gypsy’s opening preview then, he reported visions of “Arthur Laurents [charging] up the aisle…on fire”, loudly and vocally expressing his dissatisfaction with the show as he then “read Fox [a producer] the riot act”. Despite the fact that this was “not true, according to Laurents,” the damage was already done, with the sentiment of trouble and tension being subsequently reprinted and distributed out to the public across many a regional paper.

News travels fast, bad news travels faster.

And news can be created at an ample rate, when in possession of one’s own regular periodical column. This recurring domain allowed plentiful opportunity for attack on Bernadette and Gypsy, and Riedel “began devoting nearly every column to the subject,” which amounted to weekly or even more frequent references.

As the show progressed beyond its first preview, Riedel brought in the next aspects of his smear-campaign – assailing Bernadette for missing performances through illness and accusing Ben Brantley, who reviewed the show positively in The New York Times, of unfair favouritism and “hyperbolic spin”.

The issue is not that Bernadette was not in fact ill or missing performances. She was. She had a diagnosis at first of “a cold and vocal strain”, that then progressed more seriously to a “respiratory infection” the following week, and was “told by her doctors that she needs to rest”. So rest she did.

The issue is the way in which Riedel depicted the situation and her absences via hyperbole and “insinuating she was shirking” responsibility. He went further than continual, repeated mentions and cruel article titles like “wilted Rose”, or “sick Rose losing bloom”, or “beloved but - ahem-cough-cough-ahem - vocally challenged and miscast star”. He went as far as the sensationalist and degrading action of putting “Peters' face on the side of a milk carton, the kind of advertisement typically used to recover lost children,” and asking readers to look out for “bee-stung lips, [a] high-pitched voice, [and a] kewpie doll figure”, who “may be clutching a box of tissues and a love letter from Ben Brantley”.

It was quantified in May of 2003 after the show had officially opened, that “out of the 39 performances "Gypsy" has played so far, [Bernadette] has missed six – an absence rate of 15 percent.”

As an interesting comparison, it was reported in The Times in February 2002 that “‘The Producers' stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick have performed together only eight times in last 43 performances due to scheduling problems and health concerns,” – an absence rate of 81%.

Did Riedel have anything nearly as ardent to say about the main male stars of the previous season’s hit missing such a rate of performances? Of course not.

Riedel arguably has a disproportionate rate for criticising female divas.

One need only heed his recommendations that certain women check into his illuminatingly named “Rosie's Rest Home for Broadway Divas.” Divos need not apply.

Not that he was unaware of this.

In 2004, Riedel would jovially lay out that “Liz Smith and I have developed a nice tag-team act: I bash fragile Broadway leading ladies who miss performances, and she rides to their rescue.”

Donna Murphy was the recipient of what he that year dubbed his “BERNADETTE PETERS ATTENDANCE AWARD”, when she began missing performances in “Wonderful Town”, due to “severe back and neck injuries and a series of colds and sinus infections”.

This speaks to his remarkably cavalier and joyful attitude with which he tears down shows and performers. “The more Mr. Riedel's work upsets people, the more he enjoys it.”

He knows he yields influence – it was recognised he had “eclipsed Ben Brantley as the single most discussed element in marketing meetings for Broadway shows” – and he delights in his capacity to lead shows to premature demises through his poison-tipped quill yielding.

When it was reported Gypsy would be closing earlier than had been planned, he made mention of “hop[ping] around on [its] grave” and debonairly applauding himself, “I suppose I can take some credit for bringing it down”.

His premonition from the previous year’s Tony’s ceremony was both ominous and prescient, when he predicted the show’s failure to win any awards “could spell trouble at the box office”. He was right. It did. The 8.5 million dollar revival closed months before anticipated and failed to return a profit.

Multiple factors can be attributed to Gypsy’s poor success at the Tony’s, but it’s clear to say Riedel’s continual bashing leading up to the fated night throughout the voting period certainly didn’t help matters.

His suggestions to do with Bernadette’s performances were not helpful either.

After alleging Laurents as the director of the 1991 revival “practically beat a performance out of” Tyne Daly when she was struggling with the role, he proffers that to improve Bernadette’s success, “it may be time for [Laurents] to take up the switch and thrash one out of Peters”.

Great.

It was irresponsible and unrelenting commentary that did not go unnoticed.

His “ruthless heckling of beloved Broadway star Ms. Peters” was deemed in print “his most egregious stunt so far”.

Vividly, in person, Riedel was accosted at a party one night by Floria Lasky, the venerable showbiz lawyer, who “grab[bed] Riedel’s tie and jerk[ed] it, nooselike, scolding, ‘It was unfair, what you did to Bernadette’”.

Moreover, the wide-reaching influential hold Riedel occupied over the environment surrounding Gypsy was tangible in the fact his words spread beyond just average readers, and even unusually “started seeping into the reviews of New York's top critics”. Riedel himself, as the “chief vulture”, was indeed what Ben Brantley was referring to in his own New York Times review by stating how the production was “shadowed by vultures predicting disaster”.

Even more substantially, the “whole Peters-Riedel-Brantley episode” became its own enduring cultural reference – being converted into its very own “satiric cabaret piece, ‘Bernadette and the Butcher of Broadway’”. All three parties were featured, with Riedel characterised as the butcher, and it played Off-Broadway later in 2003 “to positive notices”.

But penitent for his sins and begging for absolution Riedel was not. “Riedel saw nothing but a great story and a great time,” and for many years after, he would continue to hark back to the matter in self-referential (almost reverential) and flippant ways.

In 2008 as Patti LuPone won her Tony for her turn as Rose in the subsequent revival, Riedel couldn’t help but jibe, “Not to rip open an old wound, but I'd love to know if Bernadette Peters was watching”. (He neglects also to mention that “Mendes’s Gypsy was seen by 100,000 more people than saw Laurents’s and grossed $6 million more”.)

More jibes are to be found in 2012 as he reported on the auction after Arthur Laurents’ funeral, or even as recently in 2019, as he asked, “Remember the outcry that greeted Sam Mendes’ Brechtian “Gypsy,” with Bernadette Peters, in 2003?”

As with in 2004 where he points to the “pack of jackals who have been snarling” about Bernadette’s failures, this brings up the canny knack Riedel has of offloading his views to bigger and detached third party sources – thus absolving himself of personal centrality, and thus culpability.

If there was an outcry, HE was its loudest contributor. If there were snarling jackals, HE was their leader.

Maybe Riedel’s third person detached approach to referencing matters was intended to be a humorous stylistic quirk for those in the know. Or maybe it was his way of expressing some inner turmoil over the event.

In some rare display of morality and emotional authenticity, Riedel would at one point admit “I find it kind of sad and pathetic that the high point of my life supposedly has been about beating up on Bernadette Peters”.

Fortunately for him then, a degree of absolution was eventually achieved in 2018, where Riedel visited Bernadette at her opening night in Hello Dolly in 2018, with the intention of ending their “15-year feud”. He “got down on one knee at Sardi’s and extended his hand,” with Bernadette reportedly yelling “Take a picture!” while he held his deferential and obsequious position on the floor.

So if eventually this “feud” has some kind of circular resolution and Riedel was glad it was over, why on earth did it begin in the first place?

One notion is that it was simply another day on the job. Riedel is a man who sees Broadway as “a game for rich people”. Positioned as an “an industry that brought in $720.9 million in the 2002-2003 season”, it is “not a fragile business”, he remarked. As such, he “[could not] fathom the point of donning kid gloves” in covering it, and reasoned the business as a whole was robust enough to weather a few hard knocks. “Thus, Riedel can coolly view Bernadette Peters as fair game, as opposed to, say, a national treasure”.

More to the point, he was a man in search of words. During the season in question, Riedel was “one of just three New York newspaper columnists covering the stage” – a “throwback to a bygone era when…Broadway gossipmeisters…such as Walter Winchell and Dorothy Kilgallen ruled”. Now at the time, as the “last of a great tabloid tradition”, Riedel presided over not just one but two columns a week at The Post. As a result, he was in need of content. “One of the reasons I've become more opinionated is I just have more space to fill,” he admitted. Robert Simonson hypothesises in his book ‘On Broadway Men, Still Wear Hats’ that Riedel may have consequently picked “the thrashing of Bernadette” as his main target simply because “it was a slow news cycle”. Options for ‘titillating’ and durable content were scarce elsewhere that season.

And after all, if Riedel would later cite Bernadette in an article concerning the Top 10 Powerhouses of Broadway in 2004, saying even despite a few knocks or bad shows, “she’ll bounce back” – surely there was no real damage done.

If her career wouldn’t be toppled by his continual public defamation and haranguing, what was the harm?

Feelings? Who cares about feelings or Bernadette’s extremely complex and personal history with the show stretching back to when she was a teenager.

It was just part of the territory, there was nothing personal in it.

Or was there?

Maybe there was something personal in Riedel’s campaign after all.

He makes a curious comment while discussing ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ in 2004. The then incoming star of the show, rapper P. Diddy, had invited Riedel to dinner, and he makes judgement that this was “a smart p.r. move”. Then he ponders, “you do have to wonder: If Bernadette Peters had broken bread with me this time last year, would her chorus boys have to be out there now working the TKTS line to keep "Gypsy" afloat?”

Might he be going as far to suggest that if Bernadette had indulged him in a meal, her show might not have suffered so, by way of him being more inclined to cover it with greater lenience?

It may seem that way, at least in considering how Riedel reviewed P. Diddy’s performance thus after their dinner: “Riedel pronounced himself impressed. ‘He could have forgotten his lines or had to be carried offstage. He didn’t do anything terrible, he didn’t do anything astonishing.’”

Seemingly all the rapper had to do was remember some words and remain physically onstage, and he sails through scot-free. That’s a rather different outcome, one could say, to being absolutely eviscerated for what became a Tony nominated effort at one of the appreciably hardest and most demanding musical theatre roles in existence.

Though perhaps it’s hard to tell if that was really his insinuation from just one isolated comment pertaining to lunch.

This argument might be fine, if it WAS the only isolated comment pertaining to wanting Bernadette to have lunch with him. But it isn’t. Riedel continues to make a further two references over protracted periods of time to the fact Bernadette hasn’t dined with him.

One begins to get the sense of him feeling desiring of or somewhat entitled to such a private lunch with the lady he’s verbally decimated for years, and a sense of bitter rejection that he hasn’t been granted one.

“If Tonya Pinkins doesn't win the Tony Award this year, I'll buy Bernadette Peters lunch,” he simpered, and later, “I invite Bernadette to be my guest for lunch at a restaurant of her choosing. She can reach me at The Post anytime she's hungry”.

The embittered columnist in this light takes on now the marred tinge of a small boy in the playground who doesn’t get to hold the hand of the girl he wants in front of his friends, so spends the next three years pushing her over in the sandpit in revenge.

Moreover, the last statement makes undeniable comment on Bernadette’s troubled relationship with food, body image and public eating.

So now not only so far has he insulted and mocked her physical appearance and played into all the usual trite shots calling her a “kewpie doll”; suggested Arthur Laurents violently hit her in order to elicit a better performance; continually publicly harassed her regarding a show that strikes close to the nerve with deep personal and psychological resonances due to her mother and childhood; but now he’s going for the low-blows of ridiculing her over her eating habits.

Flawless behaviour.

Maybe it’s far-fetched to suggest a man would have such a fragile ego to run a multi-year public defamation campaign after so little as not getting his hypothesised fantasy of a personal lunch date. But then again, this was the man who “left Johns Hopkins University after his first year because of a broken heart.” (“I was in love with her; she wasn't in love with me,” he said.)

And also the man described as “an insomniac who pops the occasional Ambien,” living in a “small one-bedroom” that is “single-guy sloppy”, who has “been living alone since a four-year romance ended in 1996”.

The man whose own best friend called “cruel” and with a “lack of empathy”.

The man whose own sister answered that “well, yes,” he’s always been mean; and after being picked on as a kid for “being the small guy and the intellectual”, he grew dependent on using “his verbal ability to beat someone” and put himself in positions of defensive impenetrability.

See, writing Riedel-esque, vindictive and provocative conjecture is no especially challenging or cerebral task.

Riedel may well see his approach to ‘journalism’ or reporting as “all fun and games”.

But I for one am not laughing.

One final aspect to address when considering Riedel’s reasoning for the depth of his coverage on Bernadette demands attention of how he gets his information. His own personal opinions and motivations aside, crucially he depends on insider providers for insider details. Perhaps somewhat alarmingly then, “leading Broadway producers themselves are among his sources”.

“Half of Broadway hates him. The other half leaks to him”, John Heilpern titled his 2012 Vanity Fair profile on Riedel.

As such, in frequently taking his lead from “theater folk, usually with an ax to grind”, Riedel acts as the mouthpiece to bring secretive backstage reports out front. High-up, influential characters are thus able to funnel their agendas into public view, while keeping their identities hidden.

Notably, it was raised in the above article that Riedel’s “merciless running story” regarding Bernadette in Gypsy “was fed by none other than its renowned librettist, Arthur Laurents—or, more precisely, by Laurents's lover”.

Contrary to the smiley picture below between members of the show’s creative team and it’s beloved star, it was no secret that Laurents did not like Mendes’ 2003 revival. Laurents told Riedel that “Sam did a terrible disservice to Bernadette and the play, and I wanted a Gypsy seen in New York that was good… You have to have musical theater in your bones, and Sam doesn't”. In fact, Laurents admitted the only reason his 2009 book ‘Mainly on Directing’ came into existence was because of how much he had to criticise about the show – it grew out of the extensive set of notes he gave Mendes.

Additionally, it was no secret that Laurents’ lover, Tom Hatcher, demonstrated both a desire and capacity to influence Arthur’s productions. As well as being the driving force for the 2009 Spanish-speaking reworking of West Side Story, Hatcher had intense investment in Gypsy specifically. Patti LuPone writes in her memoir, “From his deathbed, Tom had told Arthur, ‘You have to do Gypsy, and you have to do it with Patti’. It was one of his dying wishes”. Laurents himself, in corroboration of this, explained Tom’s reasoning – “he didn't want the Sam Mendes production to be New York's last memory of Gypsy”.

The allegation in Heilpern’s profile might be hard to prove from an outsider perspective. But given that neither were happy with Mendes’ production and both actively took steps to ensuring it would be superseded in memory, it is not completely implausible.

Overarchingly, as much as Riedel’s writing may benefit FROM insider sources, it is said he does not write in benefit OF them. For instance, although friends with Scott Rudin in 2004, an animated (nay threatening) warning from Mr Rudin asking Riedel to “back off” from “slamming” his show, Caroline or Change, seemingly “had no impact”.

That’s not to cite total impartiality or exemption from personal connections and higher up influences colouring his reports of shows. Theatre publicist John Barlow would describe that sometimes “if you ask Michael to kill [one of his pieces], he will, if it’s someone with whom he does business”.

But it would be remiss not to mention that his influences and sources stretch beyond just the big wigs. Amongst his other informants too are the more lowly, overlooked folk like “the stagehands, the ushers, chorus kids, house managers, and press agents… the guys who build sets in the Bronx”. Basically, for anyone who’ll talk, Riedel will listen.

“Michael Riedel doesn't work for the producers or the publicists; he works for the reader,” one publicist said. “Sometimes we're glad of that, sometimes we're not-but at the end of the day, that's the reality.”

Sometimes he’s nice, sometimes he’s not – but the world goes round.

Through all that’s been explored, it should be stated how painful and injurious it must be for individual performers or shows to fall upon the unmitigated, maiming force of being on the wrong side of Riedel’s favour. The way he approached coverage on Bernadette is deplorable from an emotional and personal standpoint. Some would argue that it was too far and crossed a line and was most definitely unfair. Others would say it was justified. It’s hard not to sound petulant as the former, or heartless as the latter.

While his actions may indeed be abrasively wounding in isolated (often plentiful) cases, it’s unreasonable to say Riedel’s intentions would be to cripple the Broadway industry as a whole. There are those who purport that Riedel in fact “keeps Broadway alive with his controversies”. His words may not always be ‘nice’ but it’s difficult to argue they're not engaging.

Many are quick to criticize or react impassionedly to him and his columns; but few are quick to stop reading them. And Riedel “knows that the most important thing is being well read”.

Hence it is understandable why Riedel is appraised as “the columnist Broadway loves to hate”. Through his enthralling and stimulating bag of linguistic and dramatic tricks, Riedel knows how to keep the readers coming back. “He’s lively, and he makes the theater seem like an interesting place,” one producer did reason.

“There are times when no one's going to care about Broadway if you don't have a gossip angle that focuses on the backstage drama,” opined George Rush, the Daily News gossip columnist who was once Riedel's boss.

Perhaps it is logically and principally then, if somewhat cynically, a matter of believing “it's just business” and knowing how to “play the game”.

As Riedel himself would rationalise, “It’s all an act. You gotta have a gimmick, as they say in Gypsy.”

It may not be pleasant, but in a world increasingly dependent on sensationalistic and clickbait-driven engagement, it’s probably not going to change any time soon.

Well then, if he can live with the toll of the position of moral tumult his column puts him in, so be it.

That he described his mind as being “constantly on the next deadline”, saying “I always think about the column”, and likening writing it to “standing under a windmill”, where “you dodge one blade, but there's always another one coming right behind it”, may be some indication that he can't. At least not wholly easily.

I’ll leave that to him to figure out. Off the record.

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captainsimagines · 4 years ago

Text

“I Could Fall in Love”

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I hope you enjoy this little drabble as much as I enjoyed writing it. Cutting it close to midnight on Valentine’s Day but hey, it still counts. xx Moni

BUCKY BARNES X READER DRABBLE

Warnings: none, simply fluff!

Word Count: 3000+

Song Fanfic: Listen and enjoy!

It wasn’t that you hated Valentine’s Day, you just didn’t see it as purely romantic. In your opinion, it was supposed to represent so much more than just romantic love. Friendships, beginnings and endings, the actual historical event, elementary school card giving, baked goods, and a nice dinner for either yourself or in the presence of others. So, no - you didn’t hate it. In fact, you actually quite enjoyed the giddy feeling of seeing other couples go all out for a single day, the sweets that were always available, and the awesome discounts.

“Come with us!” Natasha whined, filling up her glass with some oat milk and passing Steve some utensils at the same time. She wasn’t whining excessively, as that wasn’t in her nature, but she did raise her voice as her tone shifted from playful to annoyance. You rolled your eyes and chewed on your bagel, shaking your head dramatically. You plastered on your best grin, but it was overpowered by the massive chunk of bagel in your mouth. So you sat there, stupid bagel-filled grin covering your face, and tiny giggles threatening to escape as Natasha’s face also dropped into a silly one.

The rest of the crew was planning on attending a private Valentine’s Day party hosted by a close business partner of Tony’s. It sounded like a lot of fun and a perfect excuse to dress-up, but you had a tiny mission to go on before it. It was not a ‘mission-mission’ so to say- more like a ‘get in, get out, this will literally take two seconds and I could do this any other day’ type of mission. Natasha had given you such a disapproving look when you told her what your actual plans were for tonight, but she expected nothing less. You always had something else up your sleeve.

And that you did.

Since your mission was a quickie, you would be able to return to the compound before everyone else and bake your special pink cupcakes they all knew and loved. A sweet mixture of vanilla and strawberry, no flavor overpowering the other. You had recently perfected the recipe, only having Natasha and Bucky taste the final product, and because of their genuine surprise and praise, you were ready to bake dozens for everyone proudly.

She finished her glass and went to wash it. “Still, I think you’re missing out! I hear the food is gonna be great!”

You shrugged, “Eh, we have food here.”

You heard Natasha release a tiny scoff, “Please tell me your actual reason before I laugh too loudly and wake everyone up.”

“I swear, I’ve been putting off this mission for so long that tonight just seemed like the perfect time. Everyone’s occupied- I don’t know. I mean, criminals gotta get laid too, right?”

Natasha snorted, “That’s very true.” She eyed you suspiciously while drying her glass.

“You know, you and Barnes are the only one’s not attending. Obviously, his excuse is that he’s literally on a mission right now but you see my point.”

“No, I don’t see your point.”

Natasha smiled, as if secretly knowing your other very valid reason for not attending the party. “We all have dates. You know that if he were here you would be going with him, even as friends. But since you would literally be the only one of us without a date, it seems reasonable you wouldn’t want to attend.”

Okay, she hit that spot-on.

You groaned and lay your arms across the counter dramatically, “Stop, it’s scary how right you are all the time.”

Natasha laughed and rounded the counter, going over to pat your shoulders. “I’m not making you go. Don’t worry. Just give yourself some self-care and I’ll see you tonight to let you know I got home safe.”

You nodded and waved goodbye to her, ready to finish the everything bagel you had abandoned.

Bucky wasn’t one to dress-up for a night out anymore. He just didn’t have the motivation to do anything unless it involved stake-outs, knitting, painting, and binge-watching some stupid series you were watching. It always happened the same way, too. You would be casually chilling in the main common room of the compound, barely starting the first episode of a new series with stacks of junk food ready for your eager taste buds, when Bucky would randomly come in and ask what you were watching. And the next thing Bucky knew, you two were discussing the hidden elements of The Crown and debating whether a scene actually happened the way it was portrayed. By God, how much Bucky absolutely detested Prince Charles.

And you were so determined to knit that sweater for Natasha by her birthday that you came to Bucky’s room five times a day now rather than your usual three. But Bucky was extremely patient, helping you hook the remaining yarn that kept falling off your needles. Each time you pouted over the ‘horrible knot you made’ or when the yarn would tangle, Bucky would grin and tease you about, his stomach twisting pleasurably.

And each time he would reach over to help you fix it, your heart fluttered ever so slightly.

Bucky had actually planned on taking you to that Valentine’s Day party but his mission carried on longer than it was supposed to. Rather than returning a day before the party, he would now be returning towards the middle of it. He wondered if you were still going to go, but he highly doubted it. Not because you had told him explicitly, but because you had joked that if he wasn’t able to go, then ‘why would you bother?’.

To see you in that red dress you had jokingly placed over your already clothed body and modeled for him - Yeah, he absolutely hated he was missing this party tonight.

His mission had just ended and he was currently on the flight home, resting in his tactical gear but with the headphones you let him borrow in each ear. He chuckled lowly, realizing that most things he had in his possession, whether that be the headphones, hair bands, lotion, and Spotify account, all belonged to you. It brought him some comfort as he fixed himself in his seat, settling on your ‘Love me please?’ playlist to match the special holiday.

Lovebug by the Jonas Brothers. Tonight by FM Static. Oh, dozens by Taylor Swift. You’ll Be In My Heart by Phil Collins. And a whole lot of Selena songs.

There was one song that caught his attention, as if the title spoke to him. It just made sense. He clicked it, surprised by the upbeat beginning and rhythm of the drums, finally closing his eyes as he heard the melody from the acoustic guitar.

He lost count of how many times he replayed that one song as his plane touched land. He quickly woke himself up and gathered his things, ready to jump into a warm shower and watch an episode of The Crown behind your back. The drive to the compound was short and he entered the living quarters somewhat alert. There were no sounds his super soldier ears could hear besides the clicks of keyboards by overtime workers and computers humming. Kind of sad and joyful at once, Bucky realized he was alone for the first time in a long time. Maybe he would try that face mask you had urged him to buy tonight. And those very comfortable pajamas.

Ever the procrastinator, you never did go on that mission.

You were humming along to your Valentine’s playlist as you cracked the eggs into your bowl. You stirred quickly, bowl in your arms and a strike of flour along your unknowing cheek. You had your earphones in, enjoying the solace of such a peaceful night. The mix was coming together nicely and as you waited for the oven to preheat, you took out all of your cupcake supplies to set on the kitchen counter.

You could have sworn you heard some noises a few doors down so you took one earphone out to listen closely. At first you heard nothing, but you could have sworn you heard the likes of a toothbrush tapping against a bathroom counter. But as you stood there comically, bowl in your arms and whisk held up like a weapon, you settled on no disturbance.

You set the bowl down quietly and ran over to the door, looking down the hallway. Once you saw it was completely empty, you couldn’t contain the grin that spread across your face. You raced back to the kitchen and called for Friday.

“Friday? Could you please connect my phone to the living room speakers, please?”

“Done.”

You scrolled through your playlist and settled on a song that would for sure damage your vocal cords but delight you nonetheless.

“I could lose my heart tonight

If you don’t turn and walk away

You swayed around the kitchen as you traveled to grab each new ingredient, singing at the appropriate level the song called for.

Because the way I feel I might

Lose control and let you stay

Bucky had just finished brushing his teeth and putting a warm pair of socks on when he heard Friday play the exact song he had been listening to for the past two hours. At first he wondered if Friday had mistakenly connected his phone to the speakers but realized his phone didn’t even have the Spotify app open. He quickly walked down the cold floors of the hallway, his warm socks somewhat doing their job. He stopped at the living room entrance and leaned his shoulder on the doorway, beaming with a huge grin.

Because I could, take you in my arms

And never let go

You twirled around and used the whisk as a microphone, and to both your and Bucky’s surprise, hit every note perfectly. Bucky knew you were a great singer and although he would never admit it, he had heard you singing in the shower quite a few times. It was impossible not to at the level of volume you sang, but each time he would come into your room to grab something random or to ask you a question, he would sit outside the shower door and listen to your angelic voice as it sailed through the steamy air and into Bucky’s ears. But here you were, belting out the exact song Bucky had just learned all the lyrics for on his way home.

I could fall, in love, with you

It was in that moment that Bucky realized he was in his ‘comfortable pajamas’, which consisted of a loose long sleeve and bottoms set, with a nice dark blue color and white stitching along the pockets and buttons. But the sleeves, incredibly so, were far too long for his arms so he would crunch them up in his palms. And his socks had stripes on them. But he remained still on the door frame, watching you sway to the music and enjoying the scent of your first batch of cupcakes already in the oven.

I could only wonder how touching you

Would make me feel

You halted immediately when you saw his tall form resting on the door frame, a giant grin plastered on his newly shaven face. You yelped in surprise, putting down the whisk and patting your hands on your little green apron.

“Bucky, oh my god! Say something if you’re going to enter a room!”

Bucky just shrugged, walking over to the kitchen counter, eyes never leaving yours. He leaned over and placed his chin in both his palms, smiling as the music continued playing in the background. “I like this song.”

You squinted at him, “You know this song?”

Bucky nodded, holding his hand out now for you to take. “Like I said, I like this song.”

But if I take that chance right now

Tomorrow will you want me still?

You reached over hesitantly and let Bucky lead you over to the carpet. He wrapped one arm around your waist and rested the other higher up on your back. You wrapped your arms around his neck, allowing for his large frame to sway you both to the rhythm of the song.

“Nice pajamas.”

“Shut up.”

The room was dimly lit, cupcake aroma circling you two, and his snuggly pajamas seemed to also provide you the warmth you were previously getting from the oven. You smiled up at him, low giggles emitting from your lips. He did the same, enjoying the feel of your body pressed up against his.

So I should, keep this to myself

And never let you know

“When did you get back?” you asked, reaching up to touch his shaven cheek. You were undoubtedly curious about the feeling.

Bucky let you roam your hand all over, “About an hour ago. I didn’t think anyone was here.”

You chuckled, “I am! I told you I wasn’t going to bother going to that party if my plus one wasn’t coming!”

Bucky lifted his arm and twirled you slowly, happy that you followed his lead. “So, I’m your plus one now?”

You rolled your eyes, “Always.”

I could fall, in love, with you

“How did you even hear about this song?” you asked, hands now resting comfortably on Bucky’s chest. He had his arms wrapped around you, hugging you to his chest as you two swayed.

“We share a Spotify account, doll.”

“Yeah, but it’s a love playlist. Were you just in the mood for some ballads and stumbled across this one?”

“Exactly. It’s quite the tearjerker.”

And I know it’s not right

And I guess I should try

To do what I should do

He looked so relaxed at this moment, fresh and calm, enjoying the dance he pulled you into. He was resting his chin on the top of your head so you felt his little puffs of air escape his nostrils. And as he breathed in, you could feel his chest rise and lower below your palms. You were tempted to reach up and grab his face, pull him into yourself and share a sweet kiss, but you decided against it. For some reason you knew that this was different. You had snuggled before during naps or binge watching, but they never had a romantic undertone. And if you acted upon your desires, you were frightened it just might ruin your friendship. It took you two years to build up such a rapport with this man, and dare you say you were extremely proud to harbor some of his deepest secrets, and him yours. But his breathing calmed you immensely, as if the gentle rhythm was enough to put you to sleep, and you wondered if he was thinking about the same thing.

But I fall in love, with you

So I should, keep this to myself

And never let you know

Bucky seemed to hug you tighter as the lyrics encircled the room. Over the last few weeks he had felt a shift in your relationship, where sharing food was no longer as innocent as it seemed, barging into each other’s room was not seen as drastic, and partaking in each other’s hobbies was never a bore. Steve had commented on it before, asking Bucky if there was something between you two. And Bucky confided in both Steve and Sam, hands pulling at his hair as he paced in a safe room and his friends sitting patiently on the lone couch. They let him act out his worries in peace, and once Bucky tired himself out they both explained how he should ask you out or how to bring up the topic with you. Bucky listened intently and pushed down the tiny voice in his head that joked about Steve being the one to give him romantic advice. But if he ended up with you on his arm after this little pep talk, it would all be worth it.

But now the song was coming closer to its end, and he knew that if he didn’t act now then he probably wouldn’t have the courage to bring it up ever again. He leaned down to your left ear, and whispered the lyrics to you. In Spanish.

Siempre estoy soñando en ti

Besando mis labios, acariciando mi piel

Abrazándome con ansias locas

Imaginando que me amas

Como yo podía amar a ti

[I am always dreaming of you

Kissing my lips and touching my skin

Anxiously hugging me

Imagining that you love me

Like how I love you]

You knew Bucky knew several languages. You knew. But it made you incredibly excited and hot that he specifically knew Spanish. He spoke in such a gentle manner, breath hitting your skin and voice practically drowning your mind. It was all foggy for a moment, but you quickly refocused your attention on his face.

“Oh, wow.”

Bucky smiled, “What?”

You scoffed and swatted his chest lightly, “Don’t ‘what’ me! You just confessed you like me!”

Bucky pushed you away for another twirl under his arm, but kept you at arms length once you turned around. “No, I confessed I love you.”

You stumbled slightly, staring at him with wide eyes. You thought about how absurd that confession was, but as quickly as that thought entered your mind, it left - because let’s face it, you did know each other for over two years and were best friends. This was right. This felt right.

“You love me?”

Bucky breathed in deeply but your reaction didn’t change his mind. It was now or never. “Yeah, I do. Seemed like the moment to tell you.”

You grinned, pushing your body forward to be engulfed by his strong arms once more. “And to think you could have just told me at this damn party when I was looking all hot without freaking flour on my face.”

Bucky let out a loud laugh that originated from the pit of his stomach and reached his hands up to your face. He pulled you in and kissed you sweetly, the taste of your lip gloss driving him wild. He tasted like toothpaste and chapstick, a perfect combination for your superhero.

“I love you, too.” Bucky let his eyes close in complete bliss.

You could have stayed like that forever, but as you left his lips and looked up at him, you suddenly remembered you never set a timer.

You pushed Bucky away, your sudden strength sending him backwards onto the couch. “My cupcakes!”

And as you rushed to pull the burnt tops from the oven, you could hear Bucky slide off the couch and hit the floor, his laugh louder than the speakers.

I could fall, in love

With you.”

Happy Valentine’s Day. All the love. xxMoni

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ironwoman359 · 4 years ago

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Completely agree on nagas being underutilized and having a ton of potential. Both as the whumpee and the whumper….

So now I have to know. Which do you prefer…(and maybe why…talk whumpy to me lol)

Naga whumper? Or naga whumpee…

cw: whump, captivity, dehumanization, possessiveness, abuse, torture, angst with little to no comfort

Oh, I am delighted you asked, friend...it's not like I just did a bunch of research on snake health for a bad things happen bingo fic* with a naga whumpee....it's not like doing so gave me MANY more ideas than I was able to fit into that one story...and its not like I have many thoughts on how nagas could fit into the traditional creature whump tropes (that I also was reading and rereading for 'research' while writing We Blankly Stare). This is going under a cut, because, like all my fics, it got longer than I meant it to. (also, to my regular followers who aren't into heavy whump, don't mind me as I go off on a tangent into a totally different fic community; you can skip this one if you need to; at the very least mind the content warnings <3)

SO, nagas. Beautiful creatures. Like centaurs, 'human' on the top and snake on the bottom. SO much lovely whump potential, either as whumpers or whumpees, but lets focus on the whumpee side for now. In no particular order...

Pet Whump:

Decorative collars set with jewels that compliment the pattern of their highly polished scales and delicate gold chains weaving their way along their body, equal parts jewelry and restraint. They are highly prized, beautiful things, and what is the point of owning one if not to show it off?

Inviting a crowd to come and watch them feed, demonstrating their dislocating jaws and sharp fangs as they toss rodents to them whole. Bonus angst points if raw meat actually makes your naga whumpee sick, or they can eat raw meat but cooked is better. Just because they look like a snake doesn't mean they eat like one

Is your naga whumpee poisonous? Have their owner remove their fangs or poison glands, leaving them utterly dependent on them for food (and utterly helpless if they do ever manage to escape)

Nagas bred in captivity, so the only life they've ever known is one of imprisonment. Do they even consider freedom as something attainable? Or do their owners have them convinced that they're better off like this?

Lab Whump:

Nagas that are actually human/snake hybrids created in laboratory experiments just to see if it was possible.

Nagas who are kept in order to produce venom, what the venom is for could be anything!

Nagas 'enhanced' with mind and/or body altering drugs or magic to serve in the military as the perfect warrior

Nags used for experiments and drug tests because they are seen as less than human

Torture Whump:

As is the case with most torture whump, the 'why' the whumpee is being tortured isn't really important here. Maybe they have information the whumper wants, maybe the whumper is trying to get revenge or hurt whumpee's team, maybe they're just cruel. This isn't really about the 'why' so much as it is the specific 'hows' that having a whumpee who is part snake provides.

Pulling/cutting off scales, pulling out or filing down fangs, clipping or tearing off claws (a creature whump classic)

Naga specific (this is more of a lizard thing than a snake thing, but nagas aren’t real, we make the rules here!) body part removal: cutting off the tail! It doesn’t matter that it grows back, it still hurts every time. (or maybe the tail doesn’t grow back, and the naga is left unable to ‘walk’ properly)

Rough iron collars around their neck attached to a ball and chain, bonus points if the length of the chain prevents them from rising to their usual 'standing' height.

Hang them from the ceiling with cuffs and chains by their tails; upside down, right-side up, however you choose!

My those snake bodies are long...I wonder how long they can stretch?

I have one word for you: thermoregulation. Reptiles cannot regulate their own body heat, they are dependent on their environment. This gives us a whole HOST of reptile-specific torture techniques:

temperature shock: dump them in freezing water or spray them with a high-pressure hose. Unpleasant for any kind of whumpee, for the naga whumpee this has the added bonus of being fatal very quickly if they aren't warmed up.

It's not good for a snake to be too HOT either, they need to cool their bodies off just as often as they need to warm them up (don't quote me precisely on that, snake tumblr). A whumper who keeps their naga under bright, hot lights nearly constantly so they're dehydrated, covered in blisters, and/or always feverish (can a naga get a fever? idk, up to you. snakes don't, but snakes don't have human torsos. we can be wishy washy with health issues)

So extreme heat and extreme cold are bad, but did you know that (while it's breed specific) most snakes lose its ability to thermoregulate at around 70 degrees Fahrenheit? When their body temperature drops below this (but not so low that we're in hypothermia territory), their movements are sluggish, they cannot/will not eat, and it is very easy for them to develop infections, scale rot, all sorts of problems. Does the whumper keep them in low temperatures to make them weak and pliable in their hands, easy to control? Does the whumper use these conditions as a punishment for bad behavior? Or give reprieve from them as a reward for good behavior? There’s just SO much that can be done with temperature alone! It’s one of the things that sets nagas apart from other creatures and THAT is one of the most criminally underused aspects, in my oh so humble opinion!

Other Fun Concepts:

Nagas with their tails trapped under rubble, unable to pull themselves free.

Nagas kept in a cage that's far too small for them, their body wrapped up so tightly they can barely move.

Did you know that when a snake's body temperature is too low, it can't digest its food? And that if it does eat something and then doesn't have the energy to digest it properly, it will either instinctually regurgitate that food back up or run the risk of the food literally rotting in its stomach? Take this knowledge into literally any of the pet or torture scenarios and you have some A+ snake specific whump

Tiny nagas! Like the western hognose snake or the ringneck snake, these little guys can fit in the palm of your hand! Apply literally any previously listed scenario to your tiny naga for instant fantasy g/t whump! also vore...that's not my scene but it was one of like, two things i found while looking for naga whump on tumblr earlier, so I feel obligated to mention it.

Giant nagas, YOU can fit in THEIR hands. Does that make them the whumper, or still the whumpee? You decide!

Water nagas! combine mer whump with naga whump and you’ve got a water snake to hurt!

Nagas with scale rot, respiratory infections, kinks in their spine, or other snake health issues, either from mistreatment from a whumper or natural causes.

As you can tell, I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, lol. I hope you enjoyed, and if anyone writes anything based off these, I’d love to see it! Also, HAVE I been considering making a whump sideblog for awhile? yes. Did writing this post convince me to finally do it? Also yes. So I'll be over at @ironwhumper359 if you'd like to talk more whump with me, I’d be delighted to have you :)

*if you would like to read said bad things happen bingo fic, know that while it is labelled Sanders Sides, because that’s the fandom I mainly write it, the first chapter only has one character from the series in it and is honestly much more of an original whump piece than it is a fanfic. The second and third chapters are more fandom specific (though you’re of course still welcome to read them even if you’re not a sanders sides fan), but that first one can be read as stand-alone whump!

#whump #naga whump #naga whumpee #pet whump #dehumanization #creature whump #whump prompts #lab whump #torture tw #angst #asks and answers #simplygrimly

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ellasadventuresinfandoms · 3 years ago

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Okay, back in May @isolatedphenomenon asked me if I had an les mis fic recs and I went "oh boy do I !" and then promptly fucked off and disappeared from tumblr for like 6 months...

Anyway on the off chance people are interested, here is my vastly too long list of my favourite les mis fanfic (that I'm almost 100% sure I'll have accidentally missed some of my favourites off of...)

The vast majority of these are main pairing Enjolras/Grantaire, so I've put those first, divided into multi-chaptered and then one-shots. Below that will be other pairings!

Multi-chaptered

• Witch Boy Series : magic AU, starting with Grantaire solving Enjolras' curse - this is just Incredible world building which gets better as it goes on - my favourite is the Babet interlude

• World Ain't Ready : you know how fandoms tend to have a fic that is just associated with it ? in my experience, for les mis this is it - and well deserved ! High school, fake dating AU with some of the most engaging writing

• BE : Enjolras is dragged back into theatre production, helping Eponine put on a production of Hamlet - really love the characterisation in this, and this is really one of those modern AUs that actually feels like real life - really good writing

• After the End : the definitive apocalypse AU in my eyes - les amis are an underground resistance to the dystopian government - really wonderful characterisation of Grantaire and the amis

• You never have to wonder; you never have to ask. : I tend to find fic by scrolling through bookmarks of a pairing, which means I often see repeats; this is a fic that if I see I just re-read cause I know I'll enjoy it - the amis sparked a failed rebellion, and now 18 months later Grantaire ends up staying at Enjolras' after returning to Paris for Marius and Cosette's wedding

• Your Heart on Your Skin : Soulmate AU with flower tattoos marking important emotions and events - wonderful concept and world building

• Impatient to Be Free : Daughters of Bilitis AU - if that doesn't make you excited I don't know what else to say to convince you (aside from saying the author is a simply wonderful writer)

• You Dance Dreams : Okay. Not to be over dramatic, but this fic did genuinely qualitatively change my life, in that it was the first thing that got me looking up contemporary ballet and now that's like one of my favourite things and big hobby So. Also its really great writing; music/creative arts school les amis with Grantaire choreohraphing the ballet for Combeferre's opera, with a heavy emphasis on Grantaire realising he really never actually got over Enjolras

• philia : this one is an absolute classic to me, but not given nearly enough recognition - one of the more realistic college AUs ever written, and the writing of Grantaire is so good because it hits the perfect balance of sympathy and annoyance about his behaviour (that's a genuine compliment)

• Coffee Hooligans : fucking tragedy this never got properly finished, Enjolras leads the amis as social justice vigilantes and tries to hide the criminal bits of his life from R

• Fighting the Hurricane : Pacific Rim AU that's less an AU and more just placing the les mis characters in the Pacific Rim universe. Really good and riveting read, also super interesting depiction of Grantaire

• Weaving Olden Dances : Fairy AU - Grantaire "claims" Enjolras to prevent his execution - really good writing, love Grantaires characterisation

• Paris Burning : canon era (sort of) where cities have a physical being - Grantaire is Paris and becomes entangled in Enjolras' revolution - oh the world building is truly *chefs kiss*

• Euphoria is You For Me : Enjolras and Grantaire keep meet cuting in a wonderfully written Brooklyn - feels like a love letter to Brooklyn at times, and I really like the characterisation of Grantaire

• so please just fall in love with me this christmas : Enjolras works for the environmental company Grantaire volunteers at, and keeps getting secret gifts at Christmas - I sound a little like a broken record but the Grantaire characterisation is very good

• You Are the Moon : Wild West esque Space AU - Grantaire has to call on the amis to help rescue Valjean and Cosette, despite Grantaire leaving the amis 6 months before. On re-reading the Enjolras characterisation feels a little rushed, but overall fantastic story telling and the Grantaire arc is a Delight

• Pandemos : Enjolras is aphrodite, and seeks peace from all his suitors in R/Hephestus' cave

• Pining for You : Hallmark christmas romance - Grantaire returns home to work on his father's tree farm, and Enjolras is the lawyer helping prevent the farm being sold - cute as shit imo

• Once We're Kings : Fantasy AU - a country hosts a ball to marry Prince Enjolras and the rival country sends Grantaire as a fuck you - one of the best ways of doing Enjolras as a prince in a fantasy and just really nicely written

• Never Bitter and All Delicious : Fairy Godmother AU - yes really, yes its genuinely a very good read

• On One Condition : Fantasy AU - Enjolras is a bored knight who finally goes to check out the local dragon, which turns out to be Grantaire - I really like how they capture Enjolras' stubborn nature and it's such a well written soft growth of love between them

• That's How Easy Love Can Be : Les Amis work at a primary school; and its secret santa time! very fun portrayal of Enjolras

• The Lark and Her Lieutenants : re write of canon where Cosette is the leader of the revolution - just *chefs kiss*

• If You Tickle Us, Do We Not Laugh : Grantaire is Enjolras' secret android - really good at writing a relationship that's incredibly loving but just keeps being antagonistic and coming off wrong

One Shots

• True Colours : AU where you leave colours on the people important to you - Enjolras and Grantaire falling for each other is so soft and gently written its lovely, this is genuinely one of my favourites

• Keep It Kind, Keep It Good, Keep It Right : this one is so good to me, because it builds off my pet hatred of everyone assuming Enjolras doesn't care about (or at least actively show he cares about) his friends

• blooming : very soft post-dystopian utopia that has just a really wonderful sense of hope and light to me

• and the wall leaned away (or: The Pros and Cons of Tilling) : perfectly realised characterizations of the amis, Grantaire needs a date to her final year art exhibition - deals with anxiety over protest in a way that actually hits for me

• not just one of the crowd : R helps run a leftist bakery and bike repair shop - very cute characterisation, and I think more les mis fanfic should link to anarchist essays

• Lovesickness : Enjolras is an idiot and thinks he's sick rather than having a crush - the writing of Joly and Combeferre in this is some of my favourite depictions of these two

• If there's a rocket, tie me to it : absolutely heartbreaking sci-fi AU about the amis as doomed mecha pilots

• Where I Fall is Where I Land : Enjolras is a Roman commander as Rome's power is leaving England, and then meets the pict Grantaire (+ fun soulmark stuff !)

• You Started Foreign to Me : Enjolras moves to america and R is the overnight grocery clerk who helps her learn Spanish - cute fluffy lesbians with a wonderfully written driven Enjolras

• Love Is Touching Souls : very cute soulmate AU - and one I really love for really truly considering the implications of soul marks and creating historical lore around it

• Ten Years : R is a musician, and it non-linearly charts his relationship to Enj from high school to 10 years later

• put up with me then I'll make you see : Grantaire lives above Enjolras, and its christmas - I find it to have a very fun interpretation of pining Enjolras

• A Cat Called Trash Can : this was one of the first les mis fics I ever read (yes I know it says it was published in 2020, but I think it has to be a re-upload or something?) and it does still have a special place in my heart - Grantaire rescues a cat, but Enjolras is the only one with an apartment free to look after it

• Still I'm Begging to Be Free : inception AU where les amis have to rescue a sleeping R from his own brain

•I'm in it for You : cw: illness, cancer - R has cancer and is being a martyr about telling his friends so Enjolras drives him back from chemo

• walls come tumbling down : sky high au - a very good high school AU with the perfect level of campy superhero powers

• This brave new world's not like yesterday : Enjolras needs a job, so ends up working in a bowling alley with Grantaire and bonding

Enjolras/Grantaire/Combeferre

• In Defiance of All Geometry : les amis are a student co-op house, Enjolras and Combeferre are pining friends and Grantaire is the newbie

• Still the Same : this is very good writing and very compelling - if you can get over the (imo) plot hole of Enjolras working for the FBI. R was an art thief Enj put away and is briefly helping the FBI out, and Combeferre is Enjolras' husband

• To Kingdom Come : cw: war and PTSD from that, Enjolras and Combeferre are part of a group of refugees that have crossed into a more fantasy land, and Grantaire is a lone traveller from that land that attempts to help - that was a shit summary of this very emotional, wonderfully written fic about war and love in all forms

• Gonna need (a spark to ignite) : I always love a twist on a classic trope, and this is a very fun take on the soulmate AU - Enjolras loses feeling in his soul mark as a child, falls in love with Grantaire and then his soulmate, Combeferre, turns up

Eponine/Cosette

• Pretty Girls Don't Know the Things That I Know : simply stunning writing - perfect example of soft writing about a harsh world

• she knows her way around : Eponine and Cosette bond, ostensibly so Eponine can find out about her for Marius, and their interactions are so playful and realistic, its wonderful

• always find me floating on oceans : Cosette stows away on Eponine's pirate ship - I do always have a soft spot for eposette fics (not just cause I ship it) because they truly characterise Cosette in a really considered and interesting way

• There's No Making Love : I'm putting this under eposette even though there is some significant enjolras/grantaire content, because the Cosette characterisation is so fun and cute

• round and round again : this fic really beautifully translates Cosette's bad childhood and then isolated teenage years, and the impact that would have on her as an adult into a modern AU

• Underwater Thunderheards : this is based off the book The Scorpio Races, and is just a really nice short fic about longing

• How To Change The World Without Taking Power : Marius has a crush on Cosette and she's tried being polite and subtle in turning him down, so just ends up fake dating Eponine instead

• blood red fruit and poison's kiss : Snow White AU - Cosette as Snow White

• The Winters Cannot Fade Her : Snow White Au 2.0 - Eponine as Snow White - this was written as a pair to the one above which is just so cute to me

• marriage à la mode : Cosette and Eponine run a bridal shop together and it's very cute !

• Temporary Hold : I personally find this a really fun and very unique take on Cosette - with exams coming up she decides she needs to get laid on the reg and so hits up Eponine to act as if they're already long term girlfriends

Combeferre/Courfeyrac

• better than you had it : fake dating but kick it up an emotional notch - Courf and Ferre pretend to still be together after breaking up for a family event

• take flight, come near : nice and cute low fantasy, where Combeferre runs a dragon sanctuary and Courf finds an injured dragon

Rare Pairs

• The Future's Owned by You and Me : cute Enjolras/Feuilly with actual radical politics and real life organising difficulties and wins

• First Dates and Other Dangers : Combeferre and Grantaire agree to go on a blind date and it's awkward until it isn't - just cute !

• after midnight : Combeferre has insomnia and meets Grantaire in various all night fast food chains

• as you are : Bahorel and Jehan getting ready together

• Almost Romantic : Jehan works at a museum, and takes Combeferre on a little tour

• Understudy : Jehan/Combeferre, with Combeferre's insecurities regarding being seen as second best to Enjolras

• Here There Be Dragons : Courf/Enj/Ferre - Courf and Enj are superheroes and Ferre is the doctor that patches them up

• To Let it Occur (Laisser Faire la Nature) : Feuilly has a stupidly long stopover in Paris and meets Enjolras

• rule of three : Courf/Enj/Ferre as spies and loving boyfriends

• Good Rhetoric : snapshots of cute cuddly courf/enj/ferre

• subluxate, dislocate, replace : found family and chronic illness with Joly/Bossuet/Musichetta

• Strike stone, strike home (like lightning) : so this fic took one minor piece of lore about Tolkien's dwarves and made a beautiful j/b/m fic from it

• Almost Inevitable : Bahorel/Feuilly friends-with-benefits

• god only knows (what I'd be without you) : Bahorel/Feuilly with a closeted Feuilly and a beautiful Feuilly and Eponine friendship

#les miserables #fanfic rec #les mis #les miserables fanfic #les miserables fanfic rec

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