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gossipsnake · 4 months

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TIMING: April 19, 2024, immediately before this LOCATION: Airport / Airplane PARTIES: Anita (@gossipsnake), Metzli (@muertarte), & Xóchitl (@vanishingreyes) SUMMARY: Anita, Metzli and Xóchitl make their way to Ireland!

Despite having very little context for why this impromptu trip was occurring, Anita was quite excited to head off to Ireland - not just because of the vague promise of seeing Siobhan naked. Life had been so hectic over the past few months and she had begun to question the choices she made that had led her to this town, and all of the complications that came with living in Wicked’s Rest. A trip, a chance of scenery and pace, felt like exactly what she needed to refresh. So while it seemed odd when Siobhan had invited her to go visit her hometown but the inherent curiosity to learn more about her strange and beautiful co-worker was really all she needed to say yes. The fact that Xóchitl and Metzli had also been invited was really just icing on the cake.

The semester was nearing its end and Anita had been able to cash in a few favors from the other professors in her program to cover her classes while she’d be away. She had packed nearly twice as many bags as Metzli, not wanting to be in a situation where she didn’t have the perfect outfit for whatever activities they might be partaking in. It took a bit of rearranging, but there had still been plenty of room in the car to accommodate Xó’s bags. After all, it made more sense to carpool to the airport.

Knowing that Metzli was feeling a bit uneasy about the idea of going on an airplane, Anita had set the radio to their favorite station for the drive to the airport - turned off. “Have either of you looked up the area where we’re going to much? Seems like more country than city living. Pretty sure the whole state of Maine is bigger than the whole country, though, so I’m sure we’ll have time to see a bit of everything if we want.”

“There are going to be too many people.” Metzli rocked idly in the back, grumbling half to themself and half to their companions in the front. Normally they’d have taken the passenger seat, but given they were leaving during the day, the best protection from the sun that they had would be in the back, where the windows had been tinted perfectly for them. They were grateful for that, finding so much relief in the way Anita had been so accommodating. She even went as far as to keep the noise to a minimum, further adding to the comfort they were experiencing.

It felt important and necessary. Not just because Metzli needed it, but because Xóchitl still didn’t know their true nature. There were enough variables to keep the vampire from relaxing, but because Anita knew them so well, they were rolling their wrists contentedly and sipping on a bag of blood as if it were a capri-sun. Another of Anita’s accommodations. She insisted on the sunglasses too, and Metzli agreed so they could hide their eyes. Though, something told them it gave her some sort of amusement. Probably the snort and a laugh she released. That had to be a clue.

“How much longer?” They grumbled again, taking a sippy break. “I have been too anxious about flying in this metal bird to do Googling on Ireland. It is not natural to be in the sky in metal.” A shiver raked up their spine and they groaned into a sulk, continuing to sip to alleviate their irritation.

She knew that she could use some spontaneity in her life. Not that Xóchitl had been non-spontaneous recently, but still. Going on a trip to Ireland was something she hadn’t done before. Anita and Metzli were coming too, which only added to the fun. She’d immediately agreed when Anita had suggested carpooling, because that just meant less unnecessary complexity. Emilio had agreed to watch over Esperanza, so there was that taken care of, even though Xóchitl would’ve liked to take her, and even though that would’ve helped quell any sort of anxiety she had, Esperanza was better off with Emilio and Teddy and Perro.

“We’re here for you, Metzli. Just concentrate on that.” She offered them a small smile from the front seat. “You can wear headphones on the plane, and you’ll be safe.” Xóchitl knew that she couldn’t technically guarantee that, but even just mentioning it had to be some sort of helpful. Hopefully.

“Yeah,” she nodded at Anita. “I looked it up a tiny bit because I like research, what can I say? But it’s more country-like, but we should go to a city sometime if we get the chance. I just want to see an authentic Irish sheep. Which sounds silly, perhaps, but you’ve got to appreciate the little things. Plus I want to try Bailey’s Irish Creme and also whatever other classic alcohols are there.” Another turn back to Metzli, “it’s wild and not natural, yeah, but it’s also a miracle, according to some. I know it’s how Mama and Manman went to México and also Haiti, and it was more efficient than driving or taking a boat. Besides, I brought snacks.” She tapped her bag.

“We’re close. Not much further to the parking area,” Anita reassured Metzli. There were a lot of things that she wanted to say to Metzli, both to poke a bit of fun at them and to try and calm them further. After all, people always said normalcy helped calm people when they were anxious about a new experience, and normalcy for them was Anita poking fun. But she’d have to be careful, not just in the car but for the duration of the trip, with what she said around Xóchitl. Especially since Xó would still be able to understand her if she switched to speaking in Spanish. By this point, having known her for some time, Anita was fairly certain she was as human as humans came. A shame, really, but the reality of the situation. Not only was she exceptionally human but she was unaware of the fact that she was sitting in a car with two fanged beings.

“It’s not natural to be in a metal carriage driving around but you do that. You’ll see, the plane isn’t anything to be scared about.” Anita did not want to be dismissive about their concerns but she also wanted to show them that this was a normal thing to be doing. “I definitely want to check out some of the city life,” she agreed, turning her attention to Xó, “not sure they’re well known for tequila but I suppose the trip would warrant a departure from my drink of choice to test out these whiskeys they are supposed to be famous for.”

As they passed a sign noting that the airport was only a few more miles away, Anita relayed the information to Metzli in the back seat. “I’m also excited about exploring the countryside too, though. I don’t think they have a particularly diverse ecosystem but I’m interested to see what kind of insects might be around where we’ll be staying. Wouldn’t that be fun, Met? Going on some nature hikes. We could go at night, too, to get a sense of what kind of nocturnal creepy crawlies they’ve got.”

“Yes, but the metal carriage is closer to the ground and is not in the sky!” Metzli softly exclaimed, not really going into a true yell. They knew better than to raise their voice at their friends, especially when they’d done nothing wrong. It was just the anxiety and overall change in routine that put their mood on edge. They sulked, their head sinking in embarrassment. “I am sorry. I will not yell again. New things is hard.” With that clarity and awareness, Metzli clung to it and began to rock themself in their seat, counting up to eight before repeating themself. It was their safe number, and each one leading up to it would get them through the new experience.

Two of which were sitting up in front, while a few remained at home and a few others resided in Ireland. For now.

“I appreciate both of you. Almost forget about my phonies.” With another deep breath and a pat to their bag, the bristling at the back of Metzli’s neck began to settle, and taking a final gulp from their pouch relaxed them completely. “Crawlies are good. Will you help me take pictures on my phone? I want to have memories to show Leila.” They paused, thinking of all the things their partner had recommended they do on their first trip outside of home. “She say I should also take photos of myself. Maybe we can do this with the whiskey.” Their head tilted curiously as they searched through their memories with their roommate. “Have I had this, Anita?” If they had, Metzli couldn’t recall it. Then again, they rarely asked questions when Anita put a drink in their hand.

“Are we there yet?”

“You don’t have to say sorry, and that wasn’t yelling, promise.” She still felt a need to reassure Metzli at every turn, to make sure, perhaps, that they didn’t retreat into themself again, like they had when they’d first met. But right now wasn't the time to focus on things like that – on things that could be seen as a bad omen, or anything else. Not that Xóchitl was going to voice that particular train of thought right now (or ever, but right now seemed especially necessary).

“New things are very hard, and sometimes a lot of shit. But we’re here, and so it’ll be good.” Xóchitl would’ve winced at how falsely optimistic she sounded, because it wasn’t who she was (not really, though she supposed she was more of a cheerful person than she ever would’ve admitted, which, ick. Maybe.)

Still, she wanted to be there for Anita and Metzli even if she didn’t understand exactly why she was going to Ireland, but a trip wouldn’t be bad, right? It was even something that she’d wanted to do, and since Emilio hadn’t taken her up on her offer to go traveling.

“We’ll take lots of pictures, happy to help you, and to take some of you and for you too. My… boyfriend probably wants photos too.” Xóchitl rolled her shoulders back. “We’re not there yet, but we’ll make it work. Okay? That’s a promise.”

It wasn’t long after that Anita pulled her car into the long-term parking lot at the airport. They were a bit earlier than she would have been arriving for a flight by herself, but she didn’t want there to be any unexpected stresses that came up. “Okay, Aer Lingus is flying out of Terminal C. I already pre-paid for checked bags, so we just need to drop our stuff off at the main counter before going through security.” She took the keys out of the car after she parked, then looked back at Metzli, “People are going to be very dumb and annoying, okay? Just stand in between me and Xó so dumb people don’t bother you.”

The airport was expectedly crowded, full of dumb people all pushing forward to get to their gate only to sit around for an hour before their flight even boarded. Anita had been through many airports before, but she knew that the experience was going to be a lot for Metzli, no matter how much she tried to prepare them. As they were loading their items up on the security belt, the woman behind Anita kept trying to push forward and shove her in the middle of their group. “What time is your flight?” She asked, somewhat innocuously to the woman after her second attempt to squeeze in. “It’s at 3,” the woman huffed back in response.

Anita smirked, intentionally taking a long time to take off her shoes so Metzli and Xó could go through security ahead of her. “That’s fantastic. Sounds like you have plenty of time to calm your ass down, stop being a maldito pendejo, and still get to your flight with time to spare.” The group managed to get to their gate without incident, however, their journey was just getting started.

Anita was perfect to have around when there were crowds involved. She had an intimidating energy that parted people to the side without her needing to speak. Although, she always did take the opportunity to impart a little vicious wisdom on some people. It made Metzli feel seen and taken care of, like they finally knew what family meant. What it felt like.

They hardly minded the way the cool lights overhead buzzed and thrummed when they were required to take off the phonies for security. It felt pretty easy, for the most part. Their fake passport worked and Metzli had mentally prepared to manipulate the crew to let them through, but they were fortunate enough to not need that ability. Sometimes using it was inevitable, they knew that. It just felt better to not have the need to control people. They knew what it felt like to have everything taken. All too well, in fact.

“Thank you.” Quickly, Metzli took their bag and placed the phonies back on their head. Everything muffled instantly and a sense of calm surrounded them with warmth. “One…two…three…four…” Metzli counted quietly to themself, absentmindedly reaching for Anita’s hand once she stood next to them. Their thumb massaged the back of her hand, a pattern that kept in time with their counting. It kept them peaceful, from biting anything. Well, besides the inside of their cheek.

Anita had a good point about people being very dumb and annoying – there certainly seemed to be a higher concentration of that in airports. If she could help Metzli not have to deal with that as much, then that alone would be a win itself. Finding the gate wasn’t too bad either – and not that Xóchitl believed in good luck signs, not really (so much of her life would be different if those were real), but the three of them moving smoothly through the airport and finding their gate was seemingly seamless, and she’d take that win.

“Do either of you want drinks or snacks? I brought some, but figured we could always get more if we want. It’s overpriced but sometimes chips from airports taste even better than ones from the store.” Xóchitl shrugged. Thankfully, they’d be called in one of the first groups, if not the first group, which would undoubtedly make all of this easier. The sooner she could get a glass of wine, the better.

Without missing a beat after Metzli grabbed her hand, Anita reached over and linked her free arm in with Xóchitl’s as the group made their way to the gate. After finding the most secluded seating area possible near their gate, which was still not all that secluded, she pulled out her phone to see when their boarding time was. “Have you ever known me to say no to a drink?” She teased with a grin, “That’s one of the best parts about airports, if you ask me, there is almost always an open bar somewhere.”

“They should be calling our group to board in less than thirty minutes.” Anita almost noted that was the expected time provided there were no unforeseen delays, given how often those seemed to happen during air travel. But it seemed like an unnecessary possibility to speak out into the universe. “If you two want to hold down the fort here, I’ll go get us all a round of mezcal?” It was a question mainly to Metzli, as Anita wasn’t sure if they would want a drink or not. She had packed a few travel sized bottles of blood for them since it wasn’t exactly a short flight, and was thrilled that they didn’t raise any suspicions going through security. Then she turned to Xó, with a warm smile, “And whatever flavor of deliciously overpriced chips your heart desires.”

After getting everyone’s orders in, Anita went off to the nearest bar. Which was within spitting distance, practically. It didn’t take long for her to return with several overpriced libations, a few salty treats, and a few sweet ones. That was what humans did, wasn’t it? Bought way too many snacks for a trip that was undoubtedly going to provide them with some more snacks?

There was no rejection Metzli’s part. In fact, when Anita let go and went on her search, they went on their own. A single round of mezcal wasn’t going to be enough for them and their dead body. They needed far more than most to feel any of alcohol’s influence, and so they found themself at the same bar Anita found. Only, they were across the way where she couldn’t see them.

“Five tequilas in those little glasses.” They tapped the bar, “Please.” In a matter of seconds, they were placed in front of them, and they drank them in rapid succession. “And four more, please.” The bartender gave Metzli a look, and they stiffened. “They are for my friends.” A nod. “Here.” With four bills on the table, the bartender shrugged and gave Metzli what they requested on a platter. “Keep change. Goodbye.” They looked more than happy at the money, and without saying another word, the vampire rejoined their friends.

“These are for me.” The platter was placed on the table with a light clack, and they realized three shots between two people was uneven. With a grumble, they sacrificed one of theirs so Anita and Xóchitl could each have two. “Better.” Metzli smiled awkwardly and downed their drinks. “And more better.” There was hardly a burn on the last swallow, but it was enough to make them shift in their seat.

“Metzli Bernal, to the front desk.”

Metzli stiffened and lit up, realizing they were about to board first after the arrangements Anita made for their peculiar needs. “I get to sit at the window.” They chuckled, disappearing with their things.

Anita and Metzli both seemed immediately agreeable to the suggestion of alcohol, which, win. Not that Xóchitl had had any sort of real doubt about whether or not they’d agree, but it was still good. Maybe a drink (or a few) would get her brain back to actually working, rather than whatever nonsense was going on now. Lack of general eloquence, lack of understanding about just what on earth was going on. But she liked doing things without thinking about consequences, and doing things with friends was even more fun. It brought her back to college, and grad school, even. Not always in the best of ways (but that wasn’t the point right now, was it?), but now it could be in the best of ways.

Or in the goodest of ways. Which wasn’t a word, but again, not the point.

While Anita and Metzli went off on their ways, Xóchitl took a swig of a cap of alcohol she’d somehow managed to get through TSA. Not that things like that were hard, not for her, though she figured some of that had to do with projecting an air of confidence. That much she was quite expert at. It wasn’t self-centered if it was true, right?

Soon enough, both of her friends returned, and both with a few drinks. “I’m buying us a round or three of something when we get there.” She grabbed one of the drinks and the bag of chips from Anita, offering the both of them a small shrug. Metzli was called to the front desk, and Xóchitl felt her stomach clench for a moment, wondering if they were going to get in some sort of trouble (though she was ready to tell off anybody who tried to fuck with Metzli), but it turned out that they’d gotten a window seat. “You’ll love that. You can see how the world looks from way up high.” She offered them a kind smile. “Also you can cozy against the side of the plane, which makes relaxing easier. At least that’s my personal feeling on it.”

Anita was always quite amused when Metzli managed to surprise her. And surprised she was to see them coming back with a small tray full of tequila shots at the same time that she was returning from her own supply run. It was like they had read her mind. “Here’s to Siobhan, for bringing us all together for this strange adventure.” Anita saluted in Spanish before taking her first shot of tequila. It wasn’t Casa Dragones, but it wasn’t half bad. “And here is to all of the great Irish liquor I’m sure we will discover.” She said as she raised up the second shot, finishing it off just as the attendants called for Metzli.

If they were being called off to board that meant that the first class call wasn’t far behind. Sure enough, shortly after finishing up the rest of the drinks and reorganizing her bag a bit, the announcement rang out “We now welcome our passengers traveling in first class to board.” Anita grinned over at Xóchitl, “Vamos, mamacita.”

First class on a transcontinental flight was truly a luxurious experience. Separated from the main cabin by a hallway not just a flimsy little shower curtain. Not that it was the status that Anita really cared about, though. Sure, that was nice, but it was the comforts and small luxuries that made the expense worthwhile. “Miss me?” She teased once they ruined with Metzli in the cabin. After stowing her bags, she slid into the aisle seat and let out a soft sigh of contentment before reaching over and pointing at the screen in front of Metzli’s seat. “This can show you an overview of our flight path, can play music or movies, or you can just turn it off.” Then she turned across the aisle where Xó’s seat was. “This whole thing was so last minute I forgot to even ask, how do you and Siobhan know each other?”

It didn’t take long for the rest of the first class passengers to fill in and the attendant came around to offer everyone a complimentary glass of champagne, which Anita finished rather quickly. After all, she was on vacation.

Being the first person on a flight was interesting, especially when you had only seen pictures of what the inside of a plane looked like. It was only slightly overwhelming, and Metzli was surprised to find that even at their height, their area was spacious. “Oh…” They sat down and looked through the tiny window, anxious to see how the wings would fly in the sky. There was so much to touch and see. Maybe a bit too much for their liking. But Metzli thought it better to wait until Anita arrived, which felt like forever. Though, that was likely the anxiety altering their perception.

“Not really.” They replied, legs bouncing anxiously. “Will they make me sit all the way back? I…I do not like how it feels.” Metzli’s posture was stiffer than usual as they strained to avoid the seat. They could feel themself blinking more than necessary as they battled with how the lights seemed to grow brighter and the amount of people shuffling in produced more noise. With a swallow, the ringing in their ears reached a head, and they took a breath to just barely catch what Anita was saying about the small screen in front of them.

“Okay.” They nodded, swallowing once more as the flight attendant’s appearance startled them into focus. “Thank you.” Tentatively, Metzli took the plastic flute and held it firmly for a moment to gather their bearings before downing the champagne. Oh. It was the pointy liquid they didn’t like very much. They tried not to frown, to hide their discomfort and their cough, but with their leg advertising how they truly felt, it was almost impossible to get a word to not shake from their mouth. “I told you h-how we meet already. We-we had sex.”

She couldn’t help but throw a wink at Anita. It was all in good fun, and it was how the two of them worked after all, wasn’t it? She wanted to check on Metzli, anyhow, to make sure they’d done alright boarding and that nobody else who’d gotten on the plane already was giving them trouble. Which, thankfully, nobody seemed to be. Not that she’d expected anybody to be giving them a hard time, but it was another box ticked in the ‘things are going smoothly’ column. A column that Xóchitl realized she was likely relying on way too much. That didn’t mean she was going to stop. She relied on tequila too much sometimes, but she certainly hadn’t given that up (nor did she intend to).

“You can sit however you wish. The only rules planes have is about wearing your seatbelt, but everything else? You can take at your own pace.” She hoped that was comforting. She didn’t know if it was. Xóchitl didn’t consider herself a comforting person, but she also knew that there were quite a few people (maybe a handful, maybe less, maybe more) who might’ve disagreed with her on that.

Anita was now asking her how she and Siobhan knew each other, and Metzli had jumped in with an answer and so Xóchitl figured why not? “I also slept with her. Well, technically my neighbor tried to get us to hang out so she’d annoy me, but that didn’t happen. You and her work together, right?”

“I wasn’t asking you,” Anita clarified with only a slight twinge of annoyance, refusing to let her face show how that was amplified by Xóchitl’s response. Apparently Anita was the only one whom Sibohan thought she was too good to sleep with. Maybe this trip would change that. “Yes, we’re both professors. We also committed arson together once.” The comment slipped out, more of a jab to try and make herself feel a bit better since she doubted either of them had burned down a nightclub with Siobhan before. But then she remembered that Xóchitl was a human and that humans frowned on arson. “Kidding,” she added in with a bright grin and a laugh.

Once all of the passengers were boarded, the attendants began their safety demonstrations. The bright lights, the loud crackling overhead announcements, and the annoying dinging bells that preceded them, it was all very apparent that it was overwhelming for Metzli. Sometimes Anita didn’t know where the line was between being helpful and being overbearing and never wanted to inadvertently make things worse.

Anita reached down into the bag that was tucked underneath the seat in front of her and pulled out a small pouch that had a black-out eye mask, ear plugs, and some suspicious looking clearly homemade red “candies.” Whatever Metzli wanted to do with the materials was up to them. Not long after the safety demonstration ended, the plane started to taxi away from the gate and down the runway. The stiff air was mixed with sweat and people trying to mask that sweat with too much perfume. Anita adjusted herself more comfortably into the seat as the captain announced that they were about to begin their take-off.

Within an instant the noise in the cabin nearly doubled as the jet engines prepared themselves to carry the aircraft up into the sky. Anita thought about offering her hand for Metzli to hold onto but immediately thought better of it, intentionally or not they could break every tiny bone with just one squeeze. The wheels began to turn and the plane took off down the runway, the rumble shaking and jostling everyone on board slightly. After a few moments of that, the plane lifted off the ground and there was that strange pressurized sensation that was only felt when one was in an active fight against the laws of gravity. She looked over at Metzli, knowing there wasn’t anything more than what she had already done to help them through these moments of discomfort.

The plane rumbled and whirred, sending Metzli’s reflexes into attack mode. Even Anita’s attempts at being a good friend went missed as the sounds made their body tense. Muscle to muscle, from the shoulders and to their feet, everything flexed. With a swallow, a pitiful sound escaped Metzli’s throat and an even louder sound scraped on their right.

Trembling, they rose their fist to find that the armrest had been twisted and bent away from its place. “Oh…oh no.” The plane jumped forward, jostling the armrest from Metzli’s grasp and sending it to the floor. They looked to Anita and then to the floor, and back to her again. Well, that was a problem for later, they thought, feeling the metal carriage ascending into the sky.

“Well, so long as you were both safe,” Xóchitl shrugged. Not that she especially approved of arson, but she also wasn’t about to fight Anita about it. It had already been done, and the cops sucked and so who exactly was she even going to report it to?

Besides, Metzli seemed to be more in trouble and the armrest of their chair disconnected from the rest of the chair, all of a sudden, and that was both confusing and not something Xóchitl could bring herself to focus on too much right then and there. “We’re here for you, okay?” She whispered across the aisle to Metzli, giving a nod to Anita. “We’ll be there before you know it.”

#adventure awaits #para #metzli #Xóchitl #p:metzli #p:Xóchitl #snakes in ireland

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welldwller · 1 year

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Hello AAAA I saw your ruikasa tma au and if you don't mind can you share a little bit about them?? Are they connected to The Stranger and The Corruption? :0 I Need To Know More (only if you don't mind ofc),,, I love when silly little guys turn into unimaginable horrors and feed on fears or something

OMG!!! I am so happy someone asked this because it has been in my brain for months now! Okay so yeah, as one does I was trying to sort project sekai characters into the fears when it occurred to me that out of all of them, it would make the most sense if tsukasa was corruption(fear of bugs, need to be loved by all, being subjected to lots of sickness as a child even if it wasn't him who was sick, I'm sure that still left a pretty great impression on him) and then a second thing hit me which was: I'd feel so guilty making him corruption lol. So this led me to another train of thought, How can I make the corruption a little less upsetting? And then I remembered that I think about my interests 24/7 and I had already drafted a drawing of a butterfly corruption avatar so I figured I might as well use that idea there. I figured his descent would be sort of similar to jane prentice where he sort of hears the song coming except it's coming from his window and I also think the butterfly thing works here since they're a lot more palatable than other bugs. They promise give him love forever and make his dreams come true and slowly overtime he gives in. I haven't worked out all the details but I know the climax of his transformation would be at the end of a performance, he goes to bow and then sort of turns into a massive cloud of butterflies that fly away and everyone watching is really impressed by the "special effects" but the rest of wxs is horrified.

Okay so next my brain went to rui because my brain always goes to Rui. For Rui, I imagine that he already had been compelled by the stranger before. In tma, why exactly people get taken by the stranger is very vague but I do know the stranger is about otherness, something a little bit off from human. I don't really have confirmation of this in canon but considering how he was treated by his peers most of his life, specifically being excluded and called things like weird and creepy, I'd imagine that would make him feel like an other and the big thing is his machines which he literally makes to take the roll of humans at points are also very stranger. He kind of reminds me of the first account of the unknowing too. I imagine witnessing the whole incident with tsukasa might make him remember a previous account with the stranger and reignite that fear as well as tsukasa, the person who pretty much directly pulled him out of his whole "loner with only machines to support him" thing, suddenly disappearing (because I wouldn't want to kill him off :( ) would probably also contribute. I also haven't thought out all of the details for him but his design is sort of based on old wind up robot toys.

Some other vague things about the au are:

- Ena is the archivist and mizuki sort of takes the roll of martin

- Mafuyu and Kanade both are affiliated with the web

- Nene and Emu aren't associated with fears despite being very involved in my in brain idea of this au

- I think Shizuku would take the roll of the distortion but mainly because I think its funny

Ok I'm sure theres a lot more but this is definitely way to long already so ty sm for giving me the chance to ramble about this!!!!! And sorry this was a lot

#project sekai #project sekai au #rui kamishiro #tsukasa tenma

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mikaharuka · 2 years

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🍑

Heyo Alex! Thanks for the ask :)

[🍑 - Share a scene where two (or more!) characters work together]

Ooh, so I shared this scene from Sapphire where Beau and Mike are working together to investigate stuff out at the bookstore when @oceangirl24 asked me, so let's go for another scene this time :)

[From Mocha Hypothesis, Apricity Ch 9]

“How should we go about this?” Beau asked, after turning on his laptop.

“There are two ways we could do it. The first would be using the list we wrote up as keywords for general searches, then following whatever path that leads us down. The second actually refers to what you said earlier about the outdoors and witches and nature-magic. You explicitly mentioned that idea to Edward yesterday and he didn’t reject the notion at all,” Mike said.

“It’s kind of weird, but I have this gut feeling that this path might get me somewhere. How about I try that and you can use that list.”

“Sounds good. Let me know if anything comes up.”

Once Mike turned his attention to the notebook, Beau turned to his own laptop. First, he looked through various books and encyclopedia entries on magic, to see if he could get any additional leads. Overwhelmed by the sheer diversity and volume of information he found - most of which didn't match his impressions of the magic he was suspecting, he returned to his computer and decided to search the Internet instead. Starting simple, he searched ‘magic’ with ‘super-strength’, certain that Edward crushed that van. Unfortunately, the hits led him to fandom wikis, and suspicious sites selling strange protein powders. None of it resembled the sort of occult thing he was expecting.

With that in mind, he searched for occult shops and other stores that interacted with witches and other magic users. A lot of the links led to clearly unrelated corporate stuff, but some of the niche boutique websites seemed promising. He clicked on a shop link.

Herbs, crystals, tarot cards, incense… the sort of things he expected.

The sun catchers and wind chimes confirmed his earlier hunch that the weather was likely related to magic and, by extension, the Cullens’ absence. There was also a wide array of materials related to all sorts of spells, sorted by intent. Spells for money, good health, love, luck, and so on. The sort of thing that didn’t seem to relate to actual magic. Nothing stood out until he scrolled down and another major category caught his eye.

Moon Magick.

He knew it! That sort of magic stuff really was tied to the moon, rather than the sun. Even if most of these shops catered to average people not involved with magic, surely the presence of moon-stuff across all these platforms had to mean something. All of these various bath items and moonstones and full moon accessories pointed to that.

Wait… full moon?

Wasn’t that associated with…

“Hey Mike - I have a weird question for you.”

“Everything is weird now, but fire away.”

“What are the chances, we’re dealing with more than just magic?”

“More than just magic?”

“Non-humans altogether. Creatures. Monsters. Things that go bump in the night. You know… all of them are ‘magical’ in a way too. I ask because a lot of this witch/magic stuff is tied to the moon. Specifically, the full moon, which in turn is often tied to…”

“Werewolves, huh? I’d like to say ‘totally impossible’... but considering where we are now, I can’t. It’s not impossible, but we only have the instant movement and the crushed van. The rest still fits with humans using magic - even that Mandala. Hold on a sec.”

Mike closed the book beside him, returned to his laptop, and started typing rapidly.

“The Library of Congress page has more than twenty-five categories listed under ‘supernatural entities’, and there are a lot of introductory texts in this library itself that cover who knows how many types of non-human supernatural entities. A lot of those sources have contradictory information, or talk in vague generalities,” Mike said.

He stopped typing and looked up at Beau before continuing. “Honestly, it was hard enough to wrap my head around humans using magic to begin with. But this?”

“That’s what I thought. Magic alone is already kind of…”

Mike picked up the notebook and looked between it, another book, and his screen.

“It is true, though, that some of these line items are associated with non-humans. The super strength and super speed are common to several categories, of course, but some other stuff fits surprisingly well. For example, incubi and succubi deal in dreams, visions, and intense eroticism like what you described. Many humanoid supernaturals like elves, merfolk, and fairies are known for being extremely attractive - and the Cullens certainly fit that. Then there’s the woodsy nature theme that fits witches and werewolves like you said earlier, and of course, with sun avoidance comes vampires.”

“...”

“...hey, weren’t they absent during the blood lab?” Mike asked.

“...weren’t you the one who said to not jump to conclusions?” Beau whispered.

“I did… it’s just that the concept of non-humans in general might not be as ridiculous or impossible as I first thought.”

#my ask games #mizuka answers #my excerpts #ask game #wip ask game #mizuka's ask games #winter light excerpts #my writing

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absolutelyfizzing · 3 years

Text

Sifu Hotman

zuko x water tribe sibling!reader

request - I want to request a Zuko x fem reader being Sokka and Katara's sister. She can be the older sister or sokka's twin sister. Also when they start dating Sokka and Katara can like threaten him by saying don't hurt my sister or else.

A/N - This is taking place after the war, I'm vaguely uncomfy writing for underage people (or like younger than 17) so I just went ahead and aged them up. I'm sorry if that's not what you were wanting! I'm also sort of ignoring the plot of the comics and stuff and we are ignoring Mai's existence. I don't feel like this was my best writing by any means but i tried and i thought it was a cute idea. There will probably be more zuko x reader coming soon

word count - 2000

MASTERLIST

You took a deep breath in, the warm air refreshing after having just spent the last month in the southern water tribe with your family besides Katara who was off saving lives with Aang. Your twin brother stood beside you, his hair grown out and tied into a ponytail. Your sister would be here in the fire nation in a week with Aang. It had been three years since the war, you had just been kids at the time. You and Sokka were 15 during the last battle and you had felt so old then. Now, looking back, you had been immature and childish but you had grown up. After the war ended you remained in the fire nation for a few months. You had wanted to get a little bit of quiet before you started going on more adventures with your brother.

You had been very close with Zuko while he was traveling with you and the gang. You didn't know why but you trusted him, maybe it was because you trusted Toph's judgement but either way you had accepted him quicker than the others. You remembered how cold the rest of the group had been to him and it almost was funny to you now considering that Katara had just told you a story in a recent letter about Toph, Aang, and Zuko getting into a bickering match about fire flakes that ended in Toph trapping both of the boys into a earth tent. It was also hard to comprehend that Zuko was the new Firelord and he ruled over a whole nation.

It had been 2 years since you saw Zuko in person. It wasn't on purpose but you kept getting pulled in different directions, none of them leading you into the fire nation. You were excited but also scared to see him, butterflies filling your stomach at the thought of seeing him. You'd had a bit of a crush on the new Firelord when you last saw him but you refused to tell either of your siblings, knowing that they would threaten him to high heaven before he even knew about it.

Your brother walking beside you calmed you a bit, his presence being comforting to you. He was much taller than you now and he was more confident than the kid he had been during the war. You knew that the same was true for Aang, though he never grew up in personality. As you approached the gates of the palace you wondered if Zuko had changed.

You realized that he had as the gates opened and he was stood on the steps up to the palace waiting for both of you. His hair was long and it was pulled into a messy bun. His scar was no longer shrouded in his bangs and he seemed more confident in his stance. His robes were long and elegant and you wondered if he wore them by choice of if they were required because of his position. Your brother jogged slightly to get to Zuko faster, having grown to hold a strong bond with the man. You walked calmly but there was a smile on your face as your brother and Zuko embraced. Once the released each other Zuko turned to you. You noticed him gulp a bit and a blush threatened to cover your cheeks. Your grin became wider the closer you got to him and soon you were wrapped in his embrace.

You noticed that his frame was larger. You leaned your head back from the hug to look at his face and he looked well. Like he was happy and maybe even getting enough sleep.

"Hey there, Sifu Hotman." You smiled and Zuko rolled his eyes as he released you from the hug.

"I see we haven't matured in 2 years?" He grunts but you can see the smile trying to creep onto his face. "Toph still calls me that too." He grumbled lowly and you started laughing.

"Where is the little demon?"

"She's away dealing with some prisoners for me. She should be back in a week or so." Zuko smiled. "She's taken up a pretty important role here. She's like my personal lie detector. She likes to sit in on council meetings and scare everyone."

"I think that's actually her dream job." You smiled and Zuko hummed in agreement. There was a bit of a silence as you and Zuko just gazed at each other. He seemed so sure now. You had missed him dearly.

"Okay! Let's get this show on the road, people!" Sokka yelled and you internally groaned that he had to ruin the moment. Before you all turned toward the palace, Zuko sent you a wink and you felt a blush cover your face. As you headed up the steps of the palace you felt a comforting hand on your lower back as the Fire Lord gently followed behind you, Sokka running ahead of you, likely to find the food in the kitchens that he was accostomed to spending all of his time in.

"Can I speak to you in private when we get a moment?" Zuko asks and again your heart rate picks up. You turn your head to look at him.

"Of course" You smiled and he smiles back at you, making your head spin a bit. You spent the next few hours meeting new advisors, getting a tour through new parts of the palace, and catching up with Zuko who seemed to be acting more clingy than you had ever remembered him to be.

"Y/N, would you mind coming with me?" Zuko asked and you turned to face him with a smile.

"Of course!" You chirped as he led you to a secluded hallway away from your brother who was discussing war strategy with an advisor of Zuko's.

When you reached a place where you were out of earshot of others Zuko gently took your hands.

"I have something to confess." He stated and you felt fire on your cheeks, you nodded for him to continue, "I'm in love with you. I have been for years and I've never acted on it because there was always something going on and I was so unsure but now-" he gazed into your eyes with sincerity, "I couldn't be more sure. I want to be with you. If you'd have me, that is." Instead of answering you jumped forward, pressing your lips onto Zuko's in a searing kiss. He groaned and pushed back, trapping you against a wall. He pulled away to press his forehead into yours and you closed your eyes for a moment before opening them again and gazing at the man in front of you.

"Katara is gonna kill you." You mumbled and Zuko smiled.

"You aren't worried about Sokka?"

"I just know that Sokka can't win in a fight against you. Katara on the other hand..." you trailed off and Zuko looked offended.

"That's pretty rude to say to the man who just confessed his love for you."

"I'm just being honest. Toph might have some words too."

Zuko shuddered at the thought of what they could do to him. Sokka would be upset but he could probably handle it. Aang would be happy for both of them he was sure, always the peacemaker and moderator. Aang would probably be the only reason that Katara wouldn't attack Zuko immediately.

Over the next week you snuck around with Zuko, taking alone time any chance that you got. Sokka rarely let you get any peace as he stayed with you nearly constantly. He was always a little on the defence with you and he would likely settle in and ease up over the coming weeks as he got used to the new environment. You were never a huge fighter, though you could hold your own. You also couldn't bend. You were the one of the group who took care of everyone, you were the smartest in strategy by far, and you were the only one who could reason with Toph. Because of this, Sokka had gotten used to just being near you in case anything happened, though it was rare that anything did. You appreciated it normally but now you wanted time alone so that you could spend it with Zuko as you got used to being in a relationship that was more than platonic. But today was the day that the rest of the gang was arriving, even Suki would be joining you so you hoped that would take some of the clingy-ness of Sokka away. You all stood at the front of the palace, much like Zuko had stood for you a week earlier, and watched as Appa approached in the distance. He flew gently in front of you and as soon as he landed in front of you he licked you with his giant tongue and you were covered in slobber. Despite this you couldn't be happier to see the giant animal and you embraced him. You were suddenly pulled away and brought into the arms of your little sister.

"I missed you, Y/N." She mumbled into your neck and you smiled into hers, it had been so long since you had seen her and you felt tears come to your eyes at the relief of having her near.

You spent the next hours catching up with Katara and Aang, who had grown to be taller than you since you last saw him. Toph and Suki arrived that night and you were all glad to be together again at last, old memories coming back and filling you all with joy. You and Zuko looked at each other and you took a deep breath. You had discussed that you would be revealing your relationship to the rest of the group when you were all together but you were nervous for their reactions.

"So... I have something I would like to tell you guys." You stated and all of the conversation died down, all eyes suddenly on you. "Me and Zuko are together." You rushed out and you only got blank stares for a moment before there was groaning from Toph and Sokka.

"You couldn't have waited another year? I didn't think you would have figured it out by now." Toph grumbled and pulled some coins out of her pocket, Sokka doing the same. Suki and Katara held out their hands and money got dropped into them, both with smug looks on their faces. Zuko looked over at you and had the same look of shock that you likely did.

"What?" You mumbled.

"We all knew you were going to get together of course, you've been pining after each other for years, but me and Suki said you would be getting together this month and Toph said in a year. Sokka actually said in 3 months so he was closer than Toph was." Katara stated simply and you still just stared at her, mouth agape. "We also talked about the fact that if he hurts you," Her gaze shifted to a nervous looking Zuko, "we would all be committing some crimes."

"I feel like I should clarify that those crimes include maiming and murder." Sokka glared at Zuko and he gulped.

"But I'm so happy for you two!" Katara exclaimed, her attitude shifting completely. You and Zuko stared at each other in shock and then you smiled at him. You were so happy to finally be together and to have your friends around you.

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shihalyfie · 3 years

Text

Regarding Konaka’s influence on Tamers (or how much he actually didn’t have)

(Rest assured that if you’ve had a conversation with me recently about this issue, I’m not vaguing you; this conversation has come up a lot in the last few weeks, especially in my private chats, so this is just me deciding that I should write something about this for once since it’s been weighing on my head lately.)

I think, right now, with what happened regarding the DigiFes debacle, a lot of people are having complicated feelings about how to feel about Tamers, and this is completely understandable. I think there are also some things that may be inevitably unavoidable, such as starting to second-guess certain nuances in the series and what they might lead to. All of that is perfectly reasonable, and in the end, it’s going to be up to everyone to decide how they feel.

In light of this, a lot of people have been bringing up the fact that, while Konaka was the head writer, he was by no means the only person working on it. This is very much true, but I’d like to add something else to the equation: this is an issue that goes much deeper than the usual claiming death of the author for the sake of sanity. The full picture is that Konaka has always had much less influence on the series than the fanbase tends to attribute to him. Official statements have been very clear as to not attribute the entire series to him, and, among all the other controversial statements he’s made, Konaka himself has at least been very active about crediting the other staff members as far as their influence on the series! The idea that he was the only person who ever did anything substantial for Tamers is something I’ve been warning against since long before any of this happened (if you want proof, I have a post from April with this sentiment in it), and right now we just happen to be seeing what’s basically the worst possible outcome of the fanbase constantly worshipping him like the only real creative heart behind the series to borderline cult-like levels...when that’s never been true, and has resulted in unfairly taking credit away from people who deserved it.

I’ll go into detail below, and I hope this can help people understand the situation better and sort out how they feel about it.

Note that I make references to his infamous blog in this post, which I’m deliberately refraining from directly linking for obvious reasons, but all of the information is still there, so it should be verifiable if you decide to look for it yourself.

Personally, I’ve always found it really bizarre how there’s been this obsession with portraying Konaka as some kind of auteur whom the entirety of Tamers depended on. I’m not saying this out of spite towards him, because, again, even he himself was very insistent on disclaiming credit for things he wasn’t actually responsible for (he was quite humble in this respect, actually). Not to mention that I think it’s a mistake in general to constantly pin a single person in a multi-person production as the sole heart behind it, and the Digimon fanbase has historically had this strange double standard behind it when it comes to uplifting him as the only heart behind Tamers when nobody says that about any of the head writers for...anything else. (How many times has Nishizono’s name ever popped up when talking about Adventure? People are usually more obsessed with talking about Kakudou or Seki.) Konaka’s work is certainly distinctive, but Tamers had a lot more going on besides just that.

In fact, based on his own statements on the matter and all of the other official information we’ve gotten about Tamers production, while you can’t really quantify such things, it’s generally been estimated that Konaka was responsible for something like only a fourth of the series. Which is an incredibly low amount compared to what the fanbase would have told you before all of this happened, because of this fixation that he must be the genius mastermind behind the whole series. Not only that, this “brilliant auteur” image of him was so inflated that people were attributing way more of 02 to him than he deserved; 02 episode 13 was the only thing he contributed to the series and he was specifically brought on as a “guest writer”, and the overall plot of the episode was determined by the rest of the production staff and not him -- but ask the fanbase and they’ll tell you stories about how he invented some grand planned arc for 02 that got cancelled, or even that Tamers exists because of a “writer revolt” from him and other writers not being allowed to do what they wanted. (You know, as much as I understand 02′s a controversial series, it would be really nice if people didn’t make up completely baseless stories like this just to scapegoat it...)

I honestly cannot emphasize enough how much of the problem we’re in right now has been horribly enabled by the weird pedestal the fanbase has been putting him on. This is to the point where there’s even been a double standard where some of the more unpopular/criticized elements of Tamers must not have been the fault of a brilliant writer like him, and in fact was forced on him by the executives (this excuse had always been brought up anytime someone doesn’t like something about Tamers, just to make sure the image of him as a perfect writer was maintained). Turns out, as per his own admission on the infamous blog, while he wasn’t the one who initially had the idea of putting Ryou in, the part that rubbed the fanbase the wrong way -- that he came in as an accomplished senior who was better than everyone and played up by everyone in the cast -- was unabashedly his idea (he apparently was enamored with the idea of having someone like Tuttle from the movie Brazil). Again, this is a weird scenario where even Konaka himself has been more humble about this issue than the fanbase’s perception of him; he fully admitted whenever he had trouble writing certain parts. For instance, he doesn’t actually like writing about alternate worlds, felt they were out of his comfort zone, and only wrote in the Digital World because the franchise needs one; he’d stated that if he’d had his way, the Digital World arc wouldn’t have come in as early as it did, which might be a pretty shocking statement for a Digimon fan to hear.

If you want even more specifics, here are some extremely major parts of the series that Konaka was not actually the one behind:

The character backgrounds. Konaka stated on his blog that he wasn’t interested in going too much into character backstories because he felt it was too plot-limiting to say that a character is the way they are thanks to something in their past or background (basically, he cares more about plot than character for the most part), and that he’s also not into worldbuilding. Certain things like Ruki going to a girls’ school were supplied by Seki, who infamously loves worldbuilding, family backgrounds, and character settings.

Certain nuances of Ruki’s character, especially the part where she’s pigeonholed into uncomfortable places due to being a girl, were informed by Yoshimura Genki, writer from Adventure and one of the head writers of 02 (who eventually would go on to create an entire career out of feminist cinema).

According to the posts on his blog, Impmon’s character arc didn’t have much input from Konaka himself and was largely written in by Maekawa Atsushi (also a writer from Adventure and one of the head writers of 02).

The whole concept of Yamaki being redeemable in the first place was something Konaka didn’t originally plan for; he’d initially intended to make him a straightforward antagonist, but, of all things, his Christmas song, combined with the input of the other writers (especially Maekawa) humanizing him, led to the development where Yamaki eventually changed sides and became sympathetic. (This makes Konaka’s recent stunt revolving around Yamaki a bit painfully ironic.)

The director, Kaizawa Yukio, was deliberately picked because he didn’t have experience on the prior series, for the sake of changing things up, and he spent Tamers as a period of studying what Digimon should be like. Based on what he’s hinted, it seems Konaka's writing style and choices were able to have as much influence as they did because Kaizawa approved of them -- that is to say, Konaka’s detailed imagery and descriptions were extensive enough that Kaizawa could go “sure, let’s go with that.” But in the end, nothing Konaka did would have gone through unless Kaizawa and Seki (among many others) didn’t also approve of it or provide input. Moreover, Kakudou Hiroyuki (director of Adventure and 02) has also been stated many times to have been a valuable consultant on invoking Digimon so that the new staff could understand what to aim for and how to get the right feel (and also assisted with providing stuff for the mythos, such as the Devas). Nevertheless, Kaizawa also seems to have had his own strong opinions and input on the story; he especially seems to get passionate when it comes to the topic of making the story something the kids watching it could relate to and imagine. (He would eventually go on to direct Frontier and Hunters, along with several episodes of the Adventure: reboot.)

So in other words, looking at this, a lot of these things that people emotionally connected to and loved about Tamers are things that literally were not his personal creation, and were largely contributed by the other writers! Of course, Konaka’s “creator thumbprint” is very obvious -- he was the head writer, after all -- and all of this had to go through his own vetting to make sure he personally liked it as well -- but nevertheless, you can see that this very much was a collaborative effort from head to toe, with him being very open about this fact himself. Insisting on making sure that this fact is well-known isn’t just a coping mechanism to try and remove his presence in the series, but rather a desire to get people to seriously stop giving him credit that really should be going to others (especially since, again, even he himself was very diligent about assigning that credit).

In the end, I’ll leave you with another thing to keep in mind: Konaka doesn’t get paid anymore for Tamers work (unless they make something new like the DigiFes thing), so continuing to buy Tamers merch and supporting the series through fanart and such will probably end up going more towards the Digimon IP as a whole. Basically, if we’re just talking about Tamers specifically, what degree this is going to matter is only really relevant to the content in the original series, which is now twenty years old and remains unchanged. By Konaka’s own admission, he wasn’t into all of these conspiracy theories until 2010 at the earliest, so while it’s understandable to be a bit wary about the themes in Tamers having traces of the base sentiment, the original series itself does not seem to be an outlet for alt-right propaganda, and it’s probably forcing it a bit much to read into it that way. Konaka’s also repeatedly insisted that all of his attempts at a Tamers sequel have been rejected and that he’s been doing increasingly strange swerves to get around members of the original cast not entirely being available, and the Japanese audience has turned out to not be very fond of the contents of the 2018 drama CD and the stage reading for reasons entirely separate from the politics, so it’s also unlikely we’ll be getting a Tamers sequel from him or something in the near future.

So -- at least for the time being -- what’s done with him is done, and the remaining question is how all of us feel about Tamers. I think everyone will have differing feelings on it, and that’s perfectly understandable. Personally, given everything I just said above, I’m going to continue treating it as a series very important to me, and one that many people (including, as it seems, a very different Konaka from twenty years ago) worked on with a lot of effort and love, although you may see me getting a bit more willing to be critical about the series and its themes thanks to my concerns about some of the sentiments in it and what they imply. I also completely understand that there are probably people whose associations are going to be much more hurt and who will have a much harder time seeing the series the same way ever again, and I think that’s reasonable as well. But at the very least, going forward, I hope all of us can understand the depth of this situation, give credit where it’s due, and not force credit where it’s not due.

#digimon #digimon tamers

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sassyhobbits · 3 years

Note

Yes, another part please!😊

Would That I, part 2

ok, so i have given this HOF AU a title and have a vague idea of where its going. anyway, enjoy this part! its a bit longer than the first one!!

pt 1

~~~

Celaena wasn't sure how long she sat there, curled in a ball against the wall, clutching her chest, and trying to ground herself in a world that had suddenly been swept out from under her feet.

Mate.

It was all that was swirling around in her head. Just that. Celaena Sardothien, half-breed, had found her mate even though she wanted nothing to do with the sort. She had banished all parts of her Fae heritage after the king of Adarlan had butchered them across the continent. It had been so easy to forget that part of herself as she grew but now…

How could it be him? Her mate hadn’t been Sam or Dorian or Chaol but Rowan rutting Whitethorn. Celaena knew enough about the Fae to recognize a mating bond didn’t mean love but… this level of hate? It had to be a mistake.

Mate. He was her mate. Mate, mate, matematemate-

“Are you alright?”

Celaena’s wide eyes slowly lifted from the floor towards the figure standing before her, finding a tall woman hovering with a concerned look on her face. Female, Celaena had to remind herself upon seeing those delicately pointed ears. Not a woman.

When she didn’t respond, the female took a step closer, the torch light spilling onto her face and allowing Celaena a better look at her. Dark, angular eyes and silky black hair left tumbling down her back. She wore the same drab, functional clothes as the rest of the residents of Mistward. Her full lips pressed together tightly as she studied Celaena.

“Are you hurt?” the female asked, crouching down so that she was at the assassin’s eyelevel.

Celaena couldn’t will any words to her lips, not even something mean to score her some privacy. She didn’t deserve this female’s kindness, the concern in her kind eyes.

The stranger swallowed hard, seeming to understand that Celaena was in no position to be answering questions. She placed a hand over her chest before saying softly, “My name is Arya. I’ll take you somewhere you can rest.” Her lips tightened again, giving Celaena a once-over. “It looks like you could use something to eat too.”

Celaena didn’t have the fire within her to argue as Arya began to help her up from the stone ground, wrapping a surprisingly strong arm around her shoulders and guiding her slowly through the halls. She should have been more worried about where this stranger was taking her, but Celaena couldn’t find it within herself to really care.

She was vaguely aware of a few twists and turns down the halls, of curious eyes following her. Celaena got the impression that Mistward didn’t often see new faces.

Arya eventually opened a door and herded Celaena into a small, cozy room. There were a few other females scattered around, lounging on worn couches or sitting in little chairs by the fire. All of them looked towards her as Arya shut the door.

The demi-Fae female didn’t pay the others any mind, leading Celaena to a small seat and urging her to sit. “Leila, could you run down to the kitchens and ask Emrys for some tea?”

Celaena heard soft footfalls and the door opening and closing again, meaning whoever Leila was had followed Arya’s request.

Celaena glanced around the room, observing the other females in there with her. There were two others, both looking towards her with curiosity.

A towering female with dark brown skin took a step closer, nostrils flaring as she scented the air. Her eyes narrowed. “This is the one that just arrived with General Whitethorn.”

Celaena’s heart twisted in her chest at that damned name.

Arya blinked at the new information, about as much surprise as she would show. “What’s your name, girl?”

Celaena hesitated a moment before rasping, “Elentiya.” These strangers didn’t need to know who she was, Celaena or Aelin. It wasn’t any of their business.

Another female with pale skin and a mass of curly red hair came forward, green eyes running over her from head to toe before lingering on her face. “You’re hurt.”

Celaena reached up, running the tips of her fingers over her swollen bottom lip, feeling dried blood flake away. Right. She had forgotten about that. “It’s nothing.”

“Did Whitethorn do that?”

Celaena tensed, fingers curling into fists and looking down. “It doesn’t matter. I deserved it.”

There was pity on Arya’s face. A few weeks ago, Celaena likely would have clawed it out. But now…

The door swung open, a muscular female striding back in with a mug of steaming tea which she unceremoniously shoved into Celaena’s hands.

She held the mug tightly, glancing around at the four females surrounding her, waiting for one of them to say something.

Arya went first. “Well, Elentiya,” she said softly. “These are some of the female barracks. I’m Arya, this is Leila.” She inclined her head towards the female who had brought her tea who was stronger than many males Celaena had ever seen. Her dark hair shifted as she nodded her greeting. Then, Arya motioned towards the tall, dark-skinned female. “This is Sahala, and this-” a nod towards the red-head. “Is Eryn.”

Celaena said nothing, only wishing they would all stop looking at her. She took a sip of her tea to avoid the awkwardness.

“Do you know where you’re staying, Elentiya?” Eryn asked, those bright blue eyes wide and glimmering in the firelight.

Celaena blinked. No, Rowan hadn’t had the opportunity to show her where she would be staying before…

No, she didn’t want to think about that now.

Her silence said enough. Arya nodded slowly. “Well, we have an extra cot in here for you to rest your head for the night. Do you have a change of clothes?”

A shake of the head.

“I have some that should fit you,” Eryn offered. She raised a brow. “I’ll take you to the baths too.”

Celaena didn’t remember the rest of the night, drawing deep within herself. She barely remembered eating, taking a long soak, and changing. The females who offered her a place to stay seemed to understand that she wasn’t in the mood to speak, so they gave her some space.

Celaena was just thankful she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the thin pillow.

It meant she didn’t have to think about Rowan Whitethorn for a moment longer.

…

It wasn’t right.

None of this was right.

Rowan was furious. Beyond furious. That whiny brat, the would-be queen, couldn’t be who he thought she was. That feeling in his chest had to be a trick, a ruse of some sort.

But deep down he knew it wasn’t.

Aelin Galathynius, the princess-turned-assassin, was his mate.

It shouldn’t be possible, not after he had loved and lost Lyria. He had never heard of someone having two mates in a lifetime but… he knew someone who might know more than him.

People practically jumped out of his way as Rowan stalked through the halls. He couldn’t imagine he looked particularly pleasant at the moment, and he already had a shitty reputation here. He figured no one wished to be within a hundred feet of him.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Rowan knew he had left Aelin alone in a place she had never been, but he had other things to worry about first. Besides, he didn’t want anything to do with her at this moment.

Rowan’s feet led him down towards the kitchen. It seemed of freshly baking bread, and he could hear Emrys singing softly. He entered the warm kitchen, eyes immediately locking on the older male.

“You! Story-keeper!”

Emrys jumped, clearly not hearing Rowan’s approach. He placed down his knife and turned, wiping his hands on his dirty apron.

“What can I help you with, Prince?” Emrys asked, voice soft.

“Have you heard tales of someone finding more than one mate in a lifetime?”

Emrys blinked, surprised by the question. He placed his speckled hands flat on the old table before him, a furrow between his bushy brows. Rowan knew the question would raise suspicion, but Emrys knew better than to go blabbing about the compound.

“I have yet to hear stories of that sort,” the old male said before pausing. “Though I haven’t heard any stories negating the possibility either.”

“So you believe it is possible?”

Emrys shrugged. “Who am I to say, prince? I have found my mate, and I cannot imagine another person out there who I could love more but… the gods work in mysterious ways. Who’s to say that there isn’t more than one person out there in the world someone could be matched with?”

Rowan ground his jaw, frustrated that he wasn’t able to get more of a solid answer. Finding a mate at all was rare… finding two shouldn’t be possible.

And yet, here he was.

Gods, had it felt this intense when he had recognized Lyria as his mate? The feeling in his chest was near-overwhelming, but perhaps time and sorrow had muddied his memories of the female he had lost.

The compound felt much too small. He knew that Aelin was somewhere within these halls, somewhere far too close. He couldn't stay here any longer.

Without another word to the cook, Rowan strode from the kitchen out the back door. The moment he was in open air, he shifted and tore into the sky. He had a destination in mind, and place that would hopefully give him the time and space he needed to sort through the anger and confliction swirling inside of him.

He would worry about Aelin Galathynius later.

…

The next day, Celaena slept.

Rowan didn’t come to retrieve her, hadn’t said what would be expected of her during her stay at Mistward. She was in an unfamiliar land with unfamiliar people.

Deeply and terribly alone.

The females who let Celaena stay with them kept out of her way. Eryn had brought a plate of food to her which Celaena didn’t have to stomach to even look at. She was too busy trying to learn how to breathe, to think, to be, with that strange bond strangling her heart.

Sleeping was the easiest way to avoid it.

She heard the females whispering to one another, saying that Rowan Whitethorn had left the compound in a hurry yesterday without news of where he was heading. Celaena didn’t care. He had probably already given up on her. She would take a few days to rest before she left. She would find the information she needed some other way.

She was vaguely aware of the day turning to night, the females she was staying with all retiring to bed. They all said goodnight to one another. They didn’t say a thing to Celaena.

Her sleep was deep and dreamless. She had been fully intending to sleep the day away once more, but it seemed someone else had other plans.

The sensation of someone watching her awoke Celaena early that next morning. Her eyes slowly cracked open, vision beginning to clear only to find a male kneeled down beside her, far too close for comfort.

Celaena gasped, sitting up straight and scrambling rather ungracefully to the edge of her tiny cot. The male released a bark of laughter at her reaction.

“Come, now. Surely I’m not that hideous am I?” he chuckled. “In fact, I know I’m not.”

He was right, Celaena supposed. The male before her was unfairly beautiful with luminous, dark brown skin, tight, golden curls pulled back messily, and eyes that held laughter in him. His pointed ears and sharp canines showed his Fae heritage clearly, as did the insufferable swagger that seemed to ooze out of his pores.

“What the hell were you doing?!” Celaena snapped, wishing she had a weapon or something. But Rowan had taken those.

“I was studying you. I thought you’d be more frightening.”

“What?”

The male shrugged. “Well, I figured if you were able to scare off Whitethorn so easily you would have fangs or horns or scales or something. But no. You’re just about as pretty as I am.”

Celaena dug the heels of her palms into her eye, banishing the lingering fatigued. “Who are you?”

“You may call me Fenrys,” the male said, standing to his full height. “I’m one of Maeve’s bloodsworn. Like Rowan.”

“And what the rutting hell are you doing here?”

“Since Whitethorn had some sort of important, secret business to attend to, he asked me to come here for the time being.” Fenrys smiled widely. “I’m here to train you.”

#rowaelin #my writing #would that i #hof au

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writeforfandoms · 3 years

Text

Merry Go Round of Life 9

Find my masterlist

Part 9! I’m only a day late, it’s fine. We’re meeting another character in this chapter, and I hope y’all like who we meet. I’m super excited to see how you guys like this chapter.

This will be Din Djarin x f!reader eventually. Don’t hold your breath folks, this one’s a slow burn. Sort of.

Word count: 2k

Warnings: People being Dramatic and Irritatingly Vague.

Chapter nine: In which there are more wizards

You and Djarin stayed quiet around each other for the next few days. He hadn’t returned from his outing until the next day, as far as you saw. By that time, the child was awake and normal again, devouring practically his weight in breakfast. Peli, for once, didn’t offer an opinion and stayed low in her logs.

Just as you thought you were going to break down and actually apologize to the wizard (if only to break the tense silence), he surprised you by speaking first.

“I need to go see my mentor tomorrow. You two are coming with me.”

You coughed as your tea tried to go down the wrong pipe. “Beg pardon?”

Djarin sighed. “Please come with me,” he said, completely monotone.

“Not what I meant, but I appreciate being asked,” you told him primly, setting your cup down. “Where is your mentor?”

Djarin hesitated for a moment before he sighed. “Mandalore.”

“Right,” you drawled, watching him. “Why are we going with you? I’m not disagreeing. I just want to know.”

Djarin sighed again, louder this time. He also tapped his fingers against the table briefly. “I need her opinion on something,” he spoke slowly, looking over at Peli instead of you. “And I’d like you two with me.”

“Alright,” you acquiesced easily. “Tomorrow morning?”

“Yes.” Djarin’s shoulders relaxed slowly when he realized you weren’t going to put up a fight about it. “I’d like to leave early, before the markets start.”

“You’ll have to wake me, then,” you told him. “I’m not normally up that early.”

Djarin huffed something that might have been a laugh and inclined his head to you. He stood, presumably to leave, and you spoke up again.

“Your mentor. Do they wear a helmet too?”

Djarin nodded. “This is the way,” he agreed. The words sounded like more than just words, though. Like something he’d said thousands of times. You felt a little ripple down your spine at the words.

“Okay. Do I need to… do anything?” You waved vaguely at yourself. You’d cleaned up, of course, since the creature so you were no longer covered in mud and sand. But you didn’t exactly have anything better to wear.

“No,” Djarin assured you. “She won’t care.” He picked up the kid and headed back upstairs.

“Do you know who his mentor is?” you asked Peli, starting to feel a little anxious.

“How would I know?” Peli grumbled. “It’s not like I can leave here.”

“That’s not what I meant,” you said, frowning at her. “Maybe she’s been here before? Or he’s talked about her?” You paused for a moment. “Well. Maybe not the second option, actually.”

Peli spluttered a laugh, sparks flaring bright as they drifted up and away from you. “Nope. No other helmets have entered the castle. Trust me, I’d know. Bad enough dealing with one, I’d have to quit if there were two.”

You sank back into your chair, murmuring enough encouragement to keep Peli ranting while you tuned her out. Well, you weren’t exactly surprised that Djarin’s mentor wore a helmet too, but you were surprised he was taking you to meet her. You had no idea why he would.

But you’d already agreed to go, so there was nothing more to be done about it now. Honestly, you were curious. This was the first time the wizard was going to show you anything more of himself and where he came from. Maybe, if you were lucky, you’d even get to know him a little better.

Maybe.

True to his word, Djarin woke you early the next morning, and made tea while you hobbled about getting ready to go. The child was still half-asleep, cuddled into Djarin’s shoulder watching the two of you with sleepy eyes. You had to grin at the sight. Djarin was an excellent father figure, clearly.

The two of you left, emerging onto the streets of Mandalore. It was early enough still that there wasn’t much foot traffic around the two of you. A few people here and there, really, but no more than that. You struggled a little to keep up with Djarin’s longer strides, and were quickly completely turned around in the city.

“Almost there,” Djarin told you after several minutes of walking. The kid peered over Djarin’s shoulder at you and cooed. You pretended it was encouragement, and not outright amusement.

“Wizard,” you huffed. You’d remembered to bring your walking stick along this time, and it thumped gently on the cobblestones as you walked. “I could clobber him,” you muttered to the stick. “If he’d slow down a little.”

Djarin finally stopped in an alleyway, turning to look at you. You puffed up next to him, leaning a little more heavily on your walking stick. “This way,” he said, waving two fingers at the end of the alley. The brick shimmered and vanished, leaving an opening. Your jaw dropped. Djarin might possibly have chuckled before he stepped into the opening, heading down the narrow staircase revealed there. You followed him a little more slowly, your eyes taking time to adjust.

You heard her before you saw her. The rhythmic clang of metal on metal echoed down the flat corridor you emerged onto, and Djarin pulled you up level with him as he walked down the corridor. You had no idea how far underground you were, but it was chilly. At least, it started out chilly. The temperature slowly rose as you approached a doorway. Djarin stepped through first, holding the curtain for you to enter after him.

The room was circular and mostly open, but largely dominated by a forge in the center. Tending the forge was a woman with a golden-bronze helmet, her back to the two of you. You sat where Djarin ushered you, and he sat next to you to wait, the child now perched in his lap, bright eyes surveying everything.

“You brought them?” the woman asked. She set down the hammer and plunged the piece of metal she’d been working on into a bucket of water, which hissed and steamed.

“Yes.” Djarin didn’t say anything else or move.

The woman set the piece of metal aside and finally turned, looking at your little group. Her helmet was different from Djarin’s, and not just in color. The visor was different. And there were little… horns? Maybe? On her helmet. She took a couple steps closer to Djarin, looking at him. Or possibly the child. It was a little difficult to tell through the helmet.

Then the helmet turned to you and you froze, feeling abruptly like prey. You went very still, hardly breathing, eyes wide as you stared into the visor. This lasted for long enough that your heart started to pound against your ribs.

And then whatever it was passed, and the helmet turned back to Djarin. You swallowed hard, hiding your shaking hands against your legs.

“You were correct,” the woman told him simply. “You were wise to bring them here.”

Them? Wait, what? You had a feeling you were missing something.

“I brought the rest, as well.” Djarin nudged a bag you’d failed to notice earlier, and the bag clinked when the woman picked it up, looking through it. She pulled out a reddish crystal, holding it to the light and examining it for several moments. The child cooed, and for a moment you could have sworn the crystal started to glow. Then the woman put it back in the bag.

“Well done,” she said. “These will be greatly beneficial.” She set the bag down by the back of the room before turning to look at the three of you again. “You know the king has been asking after you.”

“I know.” Djarin sounded like he was grimacing, voice a little tighter than normal.

“Nothing from Viszla?”

“No.”

The woman nodded slowly, seeming to consider something. Her helmet tipped towards you again, and you swiftly looked away. Just in case. You weren’t keen on feeling that again. She was silent for several long moments before she nodded, seemingly to herself. “You are to find Viszla.”

“And the king?” Djarin rasped.

“You will have some time before he becomes a problem.”

Djarin nodded. “Anything else?”

“You are lacking your heart, not your brain.” The woman stepped over and rapped her knuckles on Djarin’s breastplate. Djarin flinched but made no retort. “You have everything you need, Djarin.” She stepped away again, over to the forge, and started working.

Apparently that was all the signal that Djarin needed, because he stood, still holding the kid, and assisted you to your feet as well. He stayed quiet as he led the way back out of the room, down the corridor, up the stairs, and back into the alleyway.

Enough time had passed that you could hear the markets opening, the calls of the vendors and the tapping of shoes on the stones. It was odd to think - you were in Mandalore, near one of the big markets. But the entrance to the castle wasn’t far, and back in the castle you would be roaming the area around Kalevala. And if you really wanted to, you could pop out to Kamino for an afternoon stroll.

You tried to stifle your laughter. You really did. But a squeak escaped you.

“What?” Djarin turned to look at you, giving you an obvious look over.

“Nothing, nothing,” you tried to tell him, waving him off and biting your lower lip.

“Tell me.” He wasn’t afraid of using his height to his advantage, looming over you. But far from feeling intimidated, you felt protected.

“I just… never thought this would be my life.” You shook your head, incredulous. “A greater adventure than I could have dreamed, and all I had to do--” The words caught in your throat. Right. You weren’t allowed to talk about the curse. You shook your head again, this time to dislodge the magical blockage. “Well, all I had to do was get old, I suppose.”

“Hm.” Djarin looked at you before he huffed a laugh of his own and shook his head. “We’re making a detour on the way back.”

“We are?” You scrambled to keep up with him, thumping your walking stick along.

“Only a brief one.” Djarin didn’t turn to look at you again, instead leading the way straight into the market.

The market was incredible, unlike anything you’d seen in Kalevala. The vendors were varied, clearly from all over. There were vibrant colors everywhere, from clothing to awnings to fruits to spices. The whole place was a mess of scents that you tried to decipher - spices here, fish there, fresh bread off that direction. It was very nearly sensory overload, and there weren’t even that many people about yet.

The only reason you didn’t get overwhelmed and stop at every other stall to try something was Djarin. He carved a determined path through the market, simply trusting you to keep up with him. And you did, although it pained you to go past a few of the stalls without even a look. There was one that you very nearly abandoned him for, full to the brim with colorful cloth and trims, ready to be shaped and created into something wonderful.

Finally, Djarin stopped at a fruit vendor on what had to be the far end of the market. He passed over a few coins, and took a bag in return. With a nod to the vendor, he turned to you and held out the bag.

“Try one,” he offered, shaking the bag a little to help entice you.

You peered inside. The fruits were unlike anything you’d seen before - small and red and plump. You picked one carefully, examining it.

Djarin huffed at you again. “There’s a pit in the middle,” he told you. “Careful of that.”

“Thank you.” You bit into it cautiously, and your eyes went wide at the flavor. Sweet and a little tart, juicy, delicious. You very nearly made an indecent sound, covering your mouth with your free hand as you chewed on your unexpected treat.

“Come on,” Djarin told you again, ushering you along with him. This time, he stuck next to you, keeping close even as the market got busier and busier. “I have an idea where to look for Viszla.”

“That’s good,” you said, smiling. “I’m sure that will be helpful. Where are you going to start?”

Djarin was quiet for a moment, leading you now through side streets and back towards the entrance to the moving castle. “Kalevala.”

Taglist: @tibbietibbs @zinzinina @fandom-blackhole @pedrocentric @shoopidly @beskarprincessjenny @sarahjkl82-blog @cannedsoupsucks @liviiii98 @adriiibell @seasonschange-butpeopledont @princessxkenobi @thirddeadlysin @pbeatriz @oonajaeadira @kiizhikehn-cedar @withakindheartx @linkpk88 @pedro4ever @evyiione @janebby @anditsmywholeheart @ohheyitsokay @miraclesabound @amneris21 @recklessworry @the-feckless-wonder @kotemorons @anaaaispunk

#merry go round of life #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din is a drama queen #howl's moving castle au

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luminnara · 4 years

Text

The Dismemberment Song PART 2 | BOP Victor Zsasz x Reader | 18+

Fandom: Birds of Prey

Words:

Summary: Zsasz takes a liking to one of the burlesque dancers at Roman’s club. It turns out the two have a little history together...and they both want to do something about their unresolved tension.

PART ONE | PART TWO

Thanks so much for reading!! I really really hope you like this, because BOP Zsasz needs more love and attention, and I, for one, am determined to give it to him!

Words: 3,666

Warnings: Alcohol, blood, violence, mutilation, that good good smutty smut (oral, penetration), kinda dom!Zsasz

Requests are open!!

You had never been in Roman Sionis’s penthouse. It was strictly off limits to anyone he didn’t personally invite, and you didn’t even think that his favorite little bird, Dinah Lance, had been up there. Now, though, here you were, stepping out of the elevator with Zsasz on your heels as you marveled at the converted loft.

“Holy shit,” you breathed, looking around.

Roman’s place was filled with weird art, all sorts of exotic masks sitting on pedestals or hanging on the walls. There was a long, dark dinner table with a decorative fruit platter sitting in the center, and an open floor plan allowed to see the spacious living room surrounded by huge walls of windows that overlooked the East End. It was the perfect blend of luxurious and industrial for someone like Roman, and you sighed as you imagined yourself living somewhere so nice.

“‘Sthat all about?” Zsasz asked in that rough, low, almost drawling voice.

“Just admiring the view,” you said as you left him to go stand before the windows.

“Yeah,” Zsasz agreed. “It’s nice.”

But his eyes were on you, not the Gotham skyline.

“Do you stay here with him?” You asked, turning to look at Roman’s henchman with a bright, exuberant smile on your face, as if you hadn’t just murdered a man onstage in the club.

“I do.” Zsasz approached you, hands in his pockets as he moved in that watchful, predatory way you always saw him slinking around with. “I’ve gotta protect the boss. He needs me.”

“You must do a pretty good job of it.” You mused. Now that you were confident that Roman wasn’t going to have Zsasz peel your face off, you were allowing yourself to relax again.

“It’s my job.” He said simply, coming to stand behind you. He was so close that you could smell his cologne, his breath hot on your neck as he leaned in.

You froze.

His chest was brushing your back and you were almost certain he could hear the way your heart was hammering away in your chest. You held perfectly still, not daring to move a muscle as Zsasz brought a hand up to brush your bloodstained curls away from your shoulder.

His fingers were rough, calloused, and warm, just like the rest of him, his hands big and strong enough that you were confident he could kill you unarmed in the blink of an eye. The weird, sadistic side of you would welcome it; though you had never admitted it to anybody before, you were pretty sure that Victor Zsasz was the only man you would ever allow to kill you.

You could remember the first time you met him, years ago, when he and Roman came to your old gig to convince you to start up at the Black Mask. He had less scars back then, but still the same bleached hair and that fucking handsome stubble on his jaw. You had been entranced as you watched him follow your eventual employer around, the club owner giving them their own corner booth and all the bottle service that Roman Sionis could possibly want.

You could remember how your legs had turned to jelly when the shift manager sent you over to them, but you must have managed to hide it well, because you spent the rest of the night drinking and partying with Roman fucking Sionis. Then, obviously, one thing led to another, and you had gone to work for him.

The part you had never told anyone about, though, the part you never spoke of, was the part where Zsasz had taken you into a vip room.

You didn’t remember all the details about everything that night, but you could still recall every moment you spent on his lap. Every appreciative squeeze he gave your ass and thighs, every low moan he let out as you rocked your hips with his. You still dreamt about it once in a while, even though you were sure that it had all been something about Roman making his lackey inspect the goods before hiring you.

But still...you had loved it.

He always wore his shirts unbuttoned a fair ways down to show off the scars on his upper chest, but that night, you had gotten to see more. You could remember how you had run your fingers over them, and the way that Zsasz had watched you almost reverently. You didn’t know exactly why he etched them into himself, if it was to intimidate everyone or for some personal reason, but you didn’t find them odd or ugly. You loved the raised scar tissue and the way it felt, so smooth to the touch despite looking so gnarled, and it was one of the many reasons you had always harbored a secret liking for Victor Zsasz.

Now, as he stood so close behind you, you felt that same jelly in your legs.

“You should get cleaned up, kitten.” He said in that low voice. “The boss wouldn’t want you making a mess.”

You tilted your head slightly, watching him out of the corner of your eye. “Why don’t you show me to the shower then, Zsasz?”

It came out more sultry than you had intended, but when he responded by pressing his hips into your ass, you were glad. He caught the way your breath hitched in your throat, his eyes trained on yours as he did nothing but stare at you for a few agonizingly long moments.

“Right this way, Princess.” He finally broke away.

You brushed off your mild disappointment, mentally chastising yourself for hoping that would have gone further, and followed him down a hallway, passing a few closed doors before reaching one that stood open. When Victor stepped in and flipped the light switch, you stood and gawked at what awaited you.

Of course Roman Sionis would have the nicest guest bathroom in Gotham.

It was huge, a claw foot tub sitting against the wall across from the sink while a shower was situation at the far end. Everything was off-white and antique gold, simple and elegant and clearly very expensive.

“Holy shit,” you said under your breath, for the second time that night. “Roman doesn’t skimp out, does he?”

“The boss has expensive taste.” Zsasz said, following you in. “Get in the shower.”

You turned and looked at him. “Little privacy might be nice.”

He only stared back.

“Zsasz...?” You gave a little nod towards the door.

“Oh,” he chuckled, laughing to himself as if something had slipped his mind. “Course. Privacy.”

He turned and shut the door, still in the room with you.

You sighed.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“Can’t leave you alone in here unattended.” He said, stepping towards you. “You might slip and fall.”

His voice was slightly menacing, in a way that had you almost wondering if he wasn’t going to find a way to kill you and stage your death as an accident. But you were confident in yourself. If he made any funny moves, you could get him before he got you.

Maybe.

“Fine.” You jutted your chin out defiantly. “Then why don’t you make yourself useful and go warm up the water for me while I get out of this robe?”

You expected him to roll his eyes and sneer, but he didn’t. He didn’t even refuse. He just walked right over, slid the glass shower door to the side, and turned the water on. Just like that. Obediently, as if he actually wanted to. You were so dumbfounded by it that by the time he glanced back towards you, you were still standing there, completely dressed.

He looked a bit disappointed.

“Well?” He asked.

“What? Oh.” You untied your fancy little robe and let it fall onto the tiles, still looking straight at him.

You could see his eyes trailing down your body, those dark circles under them giving him a hungry, starved look. When you hooked your thumbs in the sides of your thong and pulled it down, you saw his chest rising and falling as his breaths quickened slightly.

You smirked. Yeah, like Roman had said, Zsasz was harmless. If he had wanted to kill you, he would have by now. He’d already had a dozen chances on the way up to the penthouse.

As you walked toward the shower, he stepped to the side, seeming for a moment as if he was content to let you go in and enjoy the hot water in peace. Of course he wasn’t, though;

This was Victor Zsasz.

“Wait.” He caught your wrist just before you could step in and you were vaguely aware of the blade he flicked open with his other hand. “You need a mark.”

“What?” You stepped back, allowing him to pull you up to him.

“A mark.” He tapped one of the scars on the side of his face with the knife. “For your kill. Where do you want it?”

You weren’t sure what to say. You had never kept track of the lives you took, but...it really wasn’t that bad an idea. Plus, it seemed like Zsasz wasn’t giving you the option to refuse.

Double plus, it was kind of sexy to imagine him carving you up.

“Here.” you finally said, pointing to the center of your chest.

Zsasz grinned, showing off those gold teeth that you loved so much. He kept his grip on your wrist but lowered your arm to your side, his knife pressing against the thin skin above your sternum. His touch was feather light, no doubt thanks to years and years of butchering people, both for Roman and for his own pleasure. He new exactly how hard to press in which areas, an expert in the art of slicing through flesh. The steel of his blade was cool and freshly sharpened, gliding along and drawing an angry, but beautiful, red line as blood oozed up and began running down your torso.

As he dragged the knife down, you let out a hiss of discomfort, pitching forward slightly in pain. He leaned in, his forehead pressing against yours as his blade cut deeper, deeper, nearly down to the bone, and by the time he was finished, you had a four inch long gash ending at the top of your cleavage that was sure to scar marvelously.

You looked down at it in wonder. Zsasz had done it so...beautifully. He made it so important, this new tally mark. And as you gazed at it, you realized you loved it because he made it. Victor Zsasz, one of Gotham City’s most fucked up criminals, had given you a scar. For somebody just as fucked up as him...well, it practically brought tears to your eyes.

Victor didn’t give you a chance to get weepy. He dropped the bloody knife into the spotless white sink, the blade clattering loudly above the sound of the shower. Zsasz moved his thumb to your new cut, pressing it against the wound and then bringing it up to his mouth to lick your blood off.

“Zsasz,” you whispered.

“Victor.” his voice rumbled as he let go of your wrist. “Call me Victor.”

Then his hands were on you, one squeezing your tit while the other grabbed your ass. You gasped in surprise, but his mouth silenced you almost immediately. The kiss was rough, his lips nicked with a few scars, but he was good and you immediately melted against him. He was devouring you, as if he been starved of any attention for years, and maybe he had been. He was hungry for you, insistent, determined, practically begging for more as a low moan rose in his throat.

Your knees were weak, and you had to break the kiss to catch your breath before you collapsed. You wanted more, though, needed to feel more of him, your hands ripping open his nice designer button down. He wasn’t even mad that you had just sent half the buttons flying around the bathroom, because your fingers were already trailing over the scars that covered his chest, then dipping down to run across his hips.

His skin was smooth, wherever it was free of tally marks, and incredibly hot to the touch. While you explored, your lips latched onto his neck, kissing and biting and sucking in a way that he hadn’t anticipated. Zsasz was used to being the demanding one, but he wasn’t about to complain that you were so determined to leave some marks of your own.

Your hands ghosted up over his pecs and then down his abs, and you hummed in appreciation as you felt the neatly groomed hair on his chest. When your hands dipped lower and lower and finally found his belt, he suddenly growled and grabbed your wrists, and your head snapped up to look at him.

“Shower. Now.” he ordered, eyes dark.

You obeyed, slipping away from him and stepping into the shower. You could hear him undressing, and as you sighed happily at the feeling of the warm water on your skin, he came to join you.

The shower was more than big enough for the two of you, but he didn’t want to give you any space. He backed you up against the wall, his lips immediately crashing down on yours as he pushed himself up against you. You could feel his hard on pressing into your thigh and whimpered in anticipation, a shiver going straight down to your pussy.

Fuck.

You wanted him so fucking much.

“V-Victor,” you whispered as he leaned back from the kiss. You couldn’t help rubbing your thighs together, trying to alleviate the ache that was quickly building up.

“I wanna hear you purr for me, kitten.” He rasped, his big, warm hand drifting down to your cunt. He found your clit immediately, teasing it, reveling in every gasp and cry you let out for him.

He wanted nothing more than to get down on his knees and worship you with his mouth, but he could be patient.

“You know, when I saw you there, on the stage...” he said as he drew lazy circles around your clit, “...I couldn’t look away...”

“R-really?” You gasped, arching your back as you sucked in a breath.

“Mhm.” He pressed a finger into you. “So fuckin’ beautiful, the way you carved him up...”

You squealed at his touch, the sound like music to his ears. He liked it even more than the sound of his victims screaming...though he was confident you’d be doing plenty of that, too.

“Never knew such a pretty little birdie like you could do somethin’ like that...” he said, slowly pulling his finger out and then pushing it back in again. “All that blood...”

“I-I’ve killed plenty of times,” you gasped, nails digging into his arms as you clung to him.

“I could tell...you made it look like art...” he suddenly added a second finger, shoving them both in until the rest of his knuckles were pressing against your labia and he had nowhere else to go.

You let out a loud whine, wanting more, needing more. Before you could demand anything of him, though, he was kneeling in front of you, practically reading your mind as he leaned in to replace his fingers with his mouth.

You hadn’t expected him to be so skilled, but then again, you hadn’t really expected any of this to be happening tonight.

He was eating you out as if you were his last meal, as if he hadn’t had food in weeks, as if he was starving. Zsasz was desperate, lapping up all the wetness from your pussy as if it was the only thing keeping him alive, his moans vibrating against your skin. His hair was too short to tangle your fingers in, but you still tried, nails scratching his scalp in a tantalizing way while he gripped your thighs hard enough to leave little red marks behind.

“F-fuck,” you moaned, leaning your head back against the wall and tensing as he sucked on your clit. Little jolts were running through you, sparks that almost felt electric. Your limbs were tingling as your orgasm built, and as it finally spilled over, you found yourself whining and gasping and chanting his name over and over, holding onto him tightly as he licked at you greedily.

Zsasz loved it. He wanted you to need him, and he loved the sounds he could pull from you. He could keep going all night, burying his face between your thighs and worshipping you, but now, he wanted more.

“Turn around.” he said as he stood, licking his lips.

You nodded, still in a daze as you turned and braced yourself against the wall. He grabbed your hip in one hand and his cock in the other, rubbing the head against your swollen, wet pussy. Next time, he would have you suck him off. Maybe he would ask you to wake him up with a blowjob in the morning. But now, tonight, he was hungry to feel you around him, and as he slowly slid into you, he savored every moment of it.

“Fuck,” he groaned, tossing his head back as he buried himself in your heat. “You’re fuckin perfect, kitten...”

You moaned back, the feeling of his thick cock stretching your pussy around it causing you to momentarily forget your words. As he drew out and then snapped his hips forward, you grunted, biting down on your lip as you closed your eyes. He felt incredible, rubbing past all the right spots inside of you as he found a rhythm he liked and began fucking you mercilessly. His hands were grabbing you wherever they could, be it your hips or tits or hair, and as he fell further and further into his desire for you, you could feel his chest brushing over your back as he leaned down.

“You’re such a good girl,” he growled, nipping at your ear. “Who do you belong to?”

“Y-you,” you choked out, trying to turn and look at him. “I-I belong to you, Victor...”

“Good girl.” he snarled, squeezing the side of your ass cheek as hard as he could.

The moan you let out was absolutely filthy, and as your pussy squeezed around him, you felt yourself beginning to come undone once more. He pounded into you and your moans and cries grew louder and louder, a symphony of pleasure as you climaxed, and Zsasz followed soon after, moaning your name in your ear as he filled you up. Your pussy milked him, squeezing every last drop out of his cock, and as he caught his breath, you could feel him pressing lazy kisses against the back of your neck.

“Fuck,” he panted.

You straightened up and he wrapped his arms around you, hugging you against his chest as he refused to let you go. It was quiet for a moment as you both came down from your highs, the sound of the shower the only thing breaking the silence. Finally, he allowed you to turn around, and as you faced him, you saw a surprisingly serene expression on his face.

“Stay with me.” he said. It was less of a request and more of a demand.

“What about Roman?” you asked, legs still quivering.

“The boss’ll understand.”

And that was that.

Zsasz washed the blood off of your skin, insisting that you let him do all the work, and afterwards, he gave you a plush bathrobe to wear. You spent the night in Victor’s bed, and you did wake him up with a surprise blowjob, even without him asking you to. After a round of morning sex, you walked out into the penthouse in your bathrobe to see Roman Sionis already sitting at the table, and for a moment, you froze. You had almost forgotten where you were, and there was your boss, Gotham’s newest and nastiest godfather, spreading some cream cheese on a gourmet bagel.

“Ah,” he said, glancing up as he heard you. “You’re still here.”

“I...uh...”

“Mornin’, boss.” Victor said, walking out behind you. He was fully dressed, looking and acting as if he hadn’t taken home a girl the night before.

“The car is waiting for you.” Roman grunted, far more interested in his breakfast than he was in the conversation. “Be quick about it.”

Zsasz bowed his head and turned to you, holding his hand out expectantly. When you only stared at him, he almost rolled his eyes. “Your house keys, princess.”

“My...what?” you asked. “For what?”

“So I can get your things.”

“What things?”

“You’re moving in.” Roman said dismissively, as if it were obvious.

“...What?”

“You’ve been promoted. Or did you forget?” he asked, giving you a look that suggested he was already tired of your questions. “You’ll be staying here, until you either die, or I fire you, or both. Now, be a dear and give Mr. Zsasz your keys, so that he can get your necessities. I’ll have some new clothes ordered for you this afternoon.”

You stared at him for a moment and then looked at Victor. “They’re in my bag down in the dressing room. But--”

Before you had a chance to finish and tell him that this really wasn’t necessary, he was already gone, calling the elevator so that he could obediently go down to the club and rummage through your purse. You had no doubt that he could get into your locker on his own, and as much as you really didn’t want or need him to go to the effort, you weren’t entirely mad about it. Living with Victor--and Roman--didn’t seem like that bad a deal, and if it meant that you’d get to have more fun with Zsasz, you were all in.

“Well, glad that’s settled.” Roman said, sitting back and wiping the edge of his mouth with a fancy little cloth napkin. “Welcome to the Sionis penthouse, Princess.”

#victor zsasz x reader #victor zsasz #zsasz x reader #birds of prey zsasz #bop zsasz #birds of prey x reader #birds of prey #birds of prey imagine #dc imagines #dc x reader

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vasiktomis · 3 years

Text

Pomegranate, Chapter 18: Quiet Earth, Part II.

John Seed x Female Deputy

Rating: Explicit.

Read it on Ao3 here! Notes: Co-angels @honeysides, @shallow-gravy, and @lilwritingraven all provided immense support while I toiled over this chapter, which I am forever immensely thankful for. Never would've been able to give people second-hand embarrassment like this without y'all enabling me. As always, thank you for reading!

WARNINGS: Canon-typical violence. Sexually-explicit content. An angry cult leader with performance anxiety. You know the drill.

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The comparative tranquillity of Seed Ranch had a way of making Cora feel like time was moving slower than it should have. In all seriousness, the chain-reaction of their escape from Fall's End was still firing, but without the gunshots and the shouting, approaching the property felt more like being in stasis. It was too still. Too unassuming.

The Project members awaiting John on the steps of the property were vigilant about a thorough, yet strangely distant reception of the man, as if they’d been hard-wired to anticipate his moods; warmly welcoming him home, but giving the man such a wide berth that one might have assumed he was carrying a live grenade.

Cora supposed he was at least consistent in his inconsistency; just as volatile toward his allies as he was his enemies. She wondered if the serenity of the ranch was a natural element of John's sect; whether they simply cared enough about the man to know his boundaries to the inch - or whether such a light-hearted environment was manufactured deliberately and specifically around his temper.

The Deputy’s presence did well to break the façade, however. It brought with it a range of cautious exchanges from the followers that ushered them into the home; some in fear of re-living the bedlam of her bunker escape, and others casting stern looks between her bare midriff and their leader’s refusal to leave her side.

She noticed it, too - how he stuck to her like Velcro.

It was only after she was administered pain medication and had her wound dressed (they’d been gracious enough to re-dress the haphazard bandaging on her hand, too) that John abruptly took his leave, excusing himself to apparently more pressing matters. Cora was simply confined to the foyer, drifting in and out of snoozing consciousness on one of the couches in front of the fireplace.

All in all, the mental and physical exhaustion of conceding defeat to the Project proved in all honestly a little boring. The blonde had expected she might break down once she was left alone. It seemed about the right time for it, and yet, all she felt was tired. Was it the cult who had done this to her? Run her so ragged that only anger remained?

Ideas of escape waxed and waned with cultists moving in and out of the space periodically to check in on her, lessening in their hostility with each passing visit until their warnings not to cross them turned into beratements over her refusal to sit still, for the love of Joseph.

In her restlessness, she sorted through thoughts and memories, deciding on the conclusion that while yes, today had been devastating, she’d long since thrown away her capacity to recognise it. It had been so long since she’d spared herself any emotion beyond rage that everything else felt only vaguely different. She might’ve broken down, had she not forgotten how to do such a thing. Trying only gave her a stomach ache, and so she resigned herself to waiting it out, growing more and more impatient with how undramatic this aftermath had turned out to be. How her captor had left her so unceremoniously after being declared victor.

Maybe he was similarly nonchalant about all this.

...No. That was impossible. He'd probably just excused himself to go dance a celebratory little jig. Perhaps he'd stepped through a hornet's nest in doing so, or been ambushed by coyotes. Something beyond mere choice that warranted the excuse to disappear like that.

The skylights in the ceiling changed hues over the course of what felt like hours, however, and John did not return.

It felt weird, being in his home without him present. It felt weird being fussed over by house staff who muttered for her to stop picking at her bandages while she lay across his furniture, warmed by his fire. It felt weird that her exposure to Sharky and Jess had finally led her to identify that the strange smell she’d always detected in the Baptist’s home was unmistakably raw cannabis.

Eventually, the clatter of plates and bubbling conversation drew the Deputy away from the couch and around to the other end of the foyer. The gigantic table she’d only ever seen stacked high with bibles in the past now carried an assortment of food, picked at by passing cultists like a barbeque line while they chattered away.

Watching them almost felt like watching her family back in Brooklyn. Waiting out the messy crossed streams of conversation in hiding until the coast was clear and the kids could swarm the reward of food without the labour of having to hang out with the adults. It was strange, how they mimicked a family, when the only similarity Cora could gauge between them were the logos printed on their clothes.

The spying didn't last. One pair of eyes flickering to her quickly became ten, and Cora's heart rate skyrocketed. Instinct kicked in. Eyes combing over each Peggie around the table for weapons. Hands reaching for her own absent holster and emptied pockets.

The group did not respond in-kind. Apparently, they were too preoccupied with loading up their plates to deal with a leader of the Peggie-killing movement in their space.

Cora didn’t buy it. Not straight away. Not until her gaze darted around the rest of the room, weighing up which of the Baptist’s gaudy home decorations might be most effective at bone-crushing and-

“Look who’s got her colour back.”

…

What?

The same cultist who spoke up - a woman - one of the group who’d been at the church earlier, gestured at the table. “Hungry?”

What?

One Peggie with a particularly heavy beard slid a plate over the table toward Cora. Two younger girls over his shoulder giggled to each other.

“Do you think we should offer her a shirt?”

“I’m not that brave. Leave it to John.”

“Anything fresh is all from the garden.” The bearded Peggie spoke, pulling Cora’s scowl away from them with a smile.

She inspected the table. Undersized apples and strawberries. Home-grown, by their imperfections. Multi-coloured silver beet and slightly burned sweetcorn. Homemade bread piled an end of its own, surrounded by a selection of preserves in blank jars. All of it, against her will, served as a reminder that she’d only ingested coffee today. This was bizarre, but she was hungry. Not to mention the Resistance diet consisted mostly of canned spaghetti.

Gingerly, the Deputy picked at one of everything, and while the group of cultists continued chatting, she stood awkwardly by on the side-line, trying to figure out the most efficient means of eating corn while still maintaining a hostile air about her and lot letting slip that it was fucking delicious.

Apparently tearing into the thing wasn't adequately frightening. The same talkative man split from the party to approach her, ignoring the roll of her eyes. A spot of shine glided over his bald head while he moved around the table, and as he neared, he gave her a moment to squint at him.

There was something familiar about that overbearing air.

“We’ve... -”

“Met.” He confirmed. “Briefly.”

“When?”

“Months ago now. I, uh, almost baptised you.”

Cora chewed the inside of her cheek, considering that. Somewhere in the back of her mind the memory of wet rocks beneath her feet swelled with the lapping of shallow waters. Just tap my arm if you need to come up for air.

He shrugged at her silence. “You were pretty Blissed-”

“No, I remember you.” The Deputy mumbled, turning her attention back to her food, intent on keeping it there. It didn’t last long. A hand stretched out before her, and with a laboured, full-mouthed sigh, she shook it.

“Andrew. Glad to see you again.” He offered.

“Okay.”

The silence was as painful as she’d hoped to make it, but tragically, he was resilient.

"Andy works, too-"

"Andrew's syllabically identical and perfectly sufficient. Where's your boss?"

“Upstairs, working.”

“And he’s asked not to be disturbed.” One woman interjected. “So don’t get any ideas.”

Cora blinked at that. Then, plate still in-hand, she spun on her heel and made for the staircase.

Behind her, the group exchanged a collective look of panic.

"Ma'am?"

"Sister?"

"Hey!"

“We’re not allowed up there!”

“Perfect." Cora grumbled back, already ascending the steps. "Then you don’t have to worry about following me.”

The second storey of Seed ranch was dead still in comparison to downstairs. A hallway presented a quiet stretch of closed doors and branching hallways that led out to balconies, part way between residential space and tactical efficiency.

Back in the day, she’d assumed the Baptist just had a thing for doors. Looking around at the space now, it was clear that John was well-aware of how many enemies he’d generated thanks to his work.

The crackle of a radio up ahead drew the Deputy’s attention, and as she drew closer, a hushed curse.

“Pick up. Come on, pick up.” John murmured. Then, in a brand new tone: “Joseph. Brother. I need you to call me back. Please, it’s been - just...whenever you can. I’ll be here.”

She found him beyond a cracked doorway, hunched over a desk. His fingers smoothed through damp hair hair, tugging, jaw clenched and brow furrowed.

The door creaked as Cora pressed against it, and in the time it took for her to cringe at the noise, John had sat up straight, shifting out of whatever private mood she’d spied him in. He blinked up at her, inhaling deeply, reeking of uncertainty.

She felt it too. Of all the scenarios to catch him alone in, the blonde hadn’t expected that she’d be brandishing sourdough.

A moment passed. Both of them trying to feel out this new territory.

“Hey.” Cora eventually muttered.

John exhaled. “Hi.”

“Brought food.”

He looked away. “Deputy, pleased as I am that you’re making yourself at home, I asked for privacy.”

“Since when did you value privacy?” Cora asked, pushing into the room and seating herself on the desk. The tired irritation on John’s face when she set the plate in front of him was worth the day of boredom already. He glanced up at her, and she responded with a wolfish smile.

“You have corn in your teeth.” He mumbled, relenting, posture slackening. “And you’re getting blood flakes on my desk.”

The Deputy tried not to look so hurried about picking. “Isn’t that a garnish in Japan?”

“That’s fish. You’re thinking bonito.”

“I know what I’m thinking.”

Another pause.

“Is that what you thought you were filleting in the church? Bonito?”

Annoyed silence.

“It was Nick.”

Finally, John scoffed, glaring at her, offering a reluctant nod when she flashed her teeth to confirm she’d gotten rid of the food in her teeth. “You are so funny.”

“Thank you. Eat something.”

Cora watched the man regard the plate in front of him.

“How generous of you to take a bite out of everything first." His gaze landed on the shredded corn cob. "Except for that. That, you demolished."

"Yeah, well." Cora plucked up the same piece of bread he'd been reaching for. "Why're you hiding up here? Thought maybe you would've starting laying on the torment by now. Not...brooding."

"Brooding."

"Yes."

"Pardon me for needing to adjust to having a murderer in my home."

Cora hummed at that, casting a look around the room. "Took you about 2 seconds to adjust to a murderer's tongue in your mouth-"

"Deputy." John spat, pushing the plate away from him in a final display of denial. "Please, leave. I'm busy."

“No, you’re not.” Cora bit back. “I want to know what your plan is. Now you’ve got me, what’s next? What’s the point in me sitting around on your couch all afternoon? You don’t leave me alone, ever, and now that I’m here you want me to make myself scarce?”

The Baptist's jaw rolled in annoyance, and when Cora shifted her legs to face him easier, he jerked away from her, avoiding contact. “You’ve grown too accustomed to being in the spotlight." He grumbled.

“Stop avoiding the question.”

“What question?”

“What’s your deal? What's the plan? What happens now?”

“The plan is to get back to work. My apologies if your assumption was that you were the main goal of this valley, but there are dozens of things that require my attention-“

“Like sitting by the phone for your brother for hours?”

John paused at that. Something old and familiar flashed over his expression, and he stood from his seat. “You’re jealous.” He accused.

Cora’s lip curled, ears running hot. “You’re wasting time, and I want to know why.”

“Is that why you're nosing through my business? If I gave you details - what I'm working on - what the next step is - is that a strategic win for you?" His palms slid against the desk, planted on either side of her legs. "Or is my lack of undivided attention so awful to you that anything to help rationalise it would do?"

Something in her celebrated that look on his face. The renewed confidence in his attitude. It enraged her, but it was scores better than his absence.

She scowled, but she didn’t pull away when John leaned down into her space. It didn’t work the way it used to. Now it didn’t feel close enough. Now she wanted to part her legs and pull his hips against her.

It was a discomfort she’d never known before, and now, even with her wounds dulled, it almost felt painful. She wanted to know what the plan was. She wanted to plan an escape. She wanted to have just this one little victory if this was the end of the line. If he was going to convert her, then she could at least undermine him by ruining his faithfulness. It might destabilise him enough that she could find some advantage to getting back to Fall’s End. That would make it okay, if it were all driven by strategy or revenge. Her curiosity would be sated.

But then, as if he could hear her thoughts from the sheer volume of their demands, John drew away from her.

“You should shower.” He muttered quickly, snatching the radio from the desk. “Across the hall, on the right.”

He didn’t look at her as he left the room. He didn’t look back when he disappeared down the hall and made for the stairs.

Cora glared ahead at the space he'd left emptied.

What a fucking coward.

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Despite her soured mood, Cora had done as she was ordered. She spent all of two minutes rinsing the old blood from her skin, and another ten reflecting in quiet judgement over the bottle of 3-in-1 sitting in the shower caddy with her. Maybe she should've allowed herself the opportunity to warrant having to bathe here earlier. Maybe she'd have developed more of a sense of disgust for the man if she had.

The clothes she’d arrived in were still stained, but it was an improvement. Less of a sensory distraction while she sorted through her thoughts, at least.

While the Deputy dried off and re-dressed, the haze of pain relief began to lighten, and she was able to focus on cobbling together some kind of a plan to get herself out of Seed Ranch. She might have conceded defeat, but the hideous tattoo marking her sternum didn't mean she was suddenly going to behave. Especially if her captor was refusing to even the playing field and let her know what the hell they were supposed to do now.

Whatever John was keeping from her, it was urgent enough that his entire demeanour had changed. What did he need from Joseph so desperately? If it had anything to do with the Resistance, or if had anything to do with Joseph coming here, the Deputy intended to put a stop to it.

If John Seed’s intention was to avoid her, he should’ve thought twice before locking her in his home. Ensuring that he’d keep his distance, however, was the easy part.

The real goal would be getting him away from that radio.

Descending the stairs, Cora found John in solitary silence in the foyer. There was no sign of the Peggies serving up supper anymore, and the dining table had been cleared.

John was alone, sitting on the couch by the fireplace with his head in his hands, no less agitated than when she’d first found him. The hand-held sat close by on his left. In front of him on the coffee table was a landline phone that hadn’t been there previously.

He didn’t notice her at first. To his credit, she didn’t announce herself until a creak of the stairs did it for her. Then, the snap of his gaze toward her was instant. Hyper-vigilant.

Cora reached the first floor. “Where’d everyone go?”

“Minding the perimeter.” John answered, making space for her to take a seat but keeping himself faced away. “You’ll be pleased to know that your troop is still yet to be captured. Little doubt they’re aware that you’ve been brought here. Even less that they’re on the hunt for you, given the state Fall’s End was in when we left. Boshaw seemed happy enough to blow up half the town to get to you. Shorty."

There was no mistaking his bitterness at the nickname.

When she approached, Cora found a folded Project sweater sitting where she intended to. John’s jaw rolled when she slowed to glare at the thing.

Still, he refused to look at her.

“Put it on. You’ll freeze.”

“I’d rather not look like one of you when the Resistance comes to rescue me.”

“You are one of us, now. Almost. Once you’ve pledged yourself to the Project, they needn’t consider it a rescue effort any longer.”

Cora huffed in response, pulling the sweater over her head and slumping into the couch. “You sound a lot less happy about that than I’d expect.”

“I’m fine.”

Stonewalling. Now she was beginning to understand how annoying it was when she did it.

“I’ve made enough of a career out of it to know what you look like when you’re not fine.” The Deputy remarked.

“I think I preferred it when I was asking all the questions.”

“I think you preferred me when I was tied up in a basement.”

That comment caught a glance. Amusement, unnoticed on her part.

“So, what - you’ve been sitting beside a radio all day and somehow weren’t inclined to terrorise me? Or were you just that busy arranging flowers for my Atonement?”

“Are you feeling stood up?” John asked. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were projecting, Deputy.”

Her ears flushed hot. Immediate rage flooded pitted in her stomach, but as much as the blonde would have liked to get up and stomp elsewhere, she had little other option without any better ideas.

Right now, this was all she had.

Channelling her inner Adelaide.

Cora inhaled, swallowing back a cursory retort. “Both work.”

In her periphery, John ceased all movement, staring straight ahead.

All she had to do was pressure him enough to move away. Then it was over. She’d been rejected by him before - anticipating it happening again shouldn’t have needed to feel as gross as it did.

“Maybe I think you got scared, not having me under your control.” She went on, finding the words already prepared on her tongue as she turned toward him. “You seemed like you were enjoying it when it was you-”

“-and then you punched me in the face.” John cut in stiffly.

“Didn’t deter you.”

“We shouldn’t be talking about this.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because it’s against the rules.” The clip in his tone signalled a warning. Then, an impatient sigh escaped his nostrils. “And you said it yourself: it was a mistake.”

He wasn’t going to look at her. There was no pulling at his attention while he could hide her in his periphery.

“Is that why you’re upset?” She made a quiet move to touch her fingers to his forearm, but he pulled away with a scoff.

“If you’re trying to buy time -”

“Are you frustrated?” Cora pressed on. His shifting had given her enough leeway to get herself between him and the phone, and she took her opportunity, sliding down to kneel between the couch and the coffee table. Directly in front of him. “Knowing what people say about you?”

John finally inclined his head to sneer down at her, but if he had anything he was intending to say, it was silence by the bob of his Adam's apple. A gulp. His breathing was the only audible sound in the room, barring herself; shallow and staggered.

Almost there.

Cora kept her eyes on his. She wouldn’t lie - despite sitting at his feet like this, she could still gauge the power that she held. That while, yes, there was a spark of disappointment that came with watching him ignore her advances, there was also some odd thrill in watching the man who’d made multiple attempts on her life struggle so much. Knowing that, even with her unarmed and kneeling - even with all his connections and soldiers, and everything he'd done to her - he was powerless.

He’d taken her freedom, but she could get that back. She’d compromised his loyalty to dogma. Nearly made the tallied notches on his arm into a lie. He'd have to start again from the ground-up. He'd be middle-aged before he found the same progress.

“Now that I’m atoned. Now that no one’s watching.” She sat up, drawing closer to his thigh, inwardly cursing at his refusal to move away this time. “All that work you put into catching me, and now what? Nothing?”

“Deputy.” John growled, low and dangerous.

“You want this.” Cora concluded, watching the flush of red bloom from beneath his collar and the flex of his jaw while he grit his teeth.

“There are bigger things at stake right now-”

“And even now that you have me, you’re too scared to do anything about it.”

John inhaled a swift breath, averting his gaze. “That’s beside the point.”

“You want this."

“Would you quit it? You’re wrong.”

Finally, the Baptist shoved himself out of the couch, back-stepping several paces until he was half-way across the room. Once he’d gotten himself to a safe distance, he regarded the Deputy once more, gaze cold and angry while she cycled through unknown victory and equally unknown disappointment.

He wasn’t going to be made to give in.

“You haven’t been atoned. Not yet.” John breathed, turning on his heel and marching into the kitchen.

Cora stared at the doorway he'd escaped through. Now was her chance.

One...two...three...

Okay. He wasn't coming back in a hurry. She'd successfully scared him off.

There was no time to waste.

While the faucet ran in the next room, Cora twisted around, snatching the phone upside down and hastily unclipping the cable from the device. The dial-tone cut to silence. Communication blocked, but cord hooked up to the damn thing was already conspicuous without evidence of tampering. She couldn't just discard the cable.

There was no way John wouldn’t notice its absence when he returned, and so the Deputy did what any effective home invader would do.

She bit down on the cord, close as she could to the adapter, chewing hard until grinding wire snapped between her teeth. When she plugged the cable back in and set the phone straight again, the machine remained dead, but intact.

Good. That'd buy some time.

The radio was next. Rather than switch the device off, Cora tuned it a few notches, finding a dead station and placing it back right where John had left it.

Done.

Sabotage successful. If Joseph had any intention of making a call-back soon, he’d be going unheard. There was no telling how long it would last, but unless the Baptist was stocked on landlines, half of his communications were disabled entirely.

Cora exhaled, inviting in the momentary relief. Being kept here was one thing. Having to be in the same room as Joseph Seed was another dimension entirely.

“That doesn’t answer my question.” She called, rising to a stand and following the Baptist’s trail.

No response.

When Cora entered the kitchen, John was dabbing his neck with wet hands. The moment he sensed her, he grumbled a sharp curse, bracing his hands against the counter to keep from facing her.

“Is this the plan? We just sit and wait?”

His shoulders seized. “...Yes.”

Cora stalked past him, finding a counter of her own to lean against, finding her own patience dwindling. Coiling irritation at the very notion of Joseph having so much sway over the Baptist that he could seemingly halt time.

“So what’s the point in taking me? In bringing me here?” She spat.

“Disregarding our personal rapport, it’s no small matter, having you here.” John ground out. “My family will want to know-”

“Have you tried calling Jacob?”

Something twitched in John's expression. A button, pushed. Dispelled rage.

“The Father will-”

There was no holding back the snarl that brewed in her throat. Hitting its boiling point. He did have that much sway over the man. They were sitting here in stasis, all because of him.

“Are you that fucking sad? We’re stuck here just because you need to hear Joseph tell you how well you did? A whole fucking resistance effort just blew up half of Fall’s End. You caught me. Dozens of people are dying, and all you can do is sit by the phone?” Cora demanded, scowling while his muscles trembled. “Are you serious?!”

“WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE ME DO, CORA?!” John bellowed, head snapping around to fix her in place, eyes blazing. The sheer volume of him froze her to the spot. "Did you assume that you were somehow different from anyone else the Project takes in? That your place here; that you're even alive had anything other to do than Joseph requesting it? Did you think that you'd somehow slipped through every possible crack in the system for any reason beyond this path being carved specifically by the Father? Because, frankly speaking, YOU HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!"

The Deputy didn't reply. She couldn't.

Not that it would've mattered.

John, it seemed, was far from finished.

“You're so selfish. One moment you insist on making your own salvation impossible. The next, you assume you can simply start calling shots." He bit, voice already hoarse from yelling, but with no less poison. "You think I enjoy waiting around for whatever order comes next? That I enjoy you waltzing around my home, eating my food, whining that I'm not doing enough for you? After all the wrath you’ve wrought - after all the death and the destruction - you’re still so fucking entitled to assume that I’d throw aside my loyalty to the Father. All just because you’re here, and not even by fucking choice.”

Cora swallowed, calming the nerves that egged her on to snap back at him. "I didn't - I don't - "

After a moment, the hostility thinned. John's shoulders sagged.

"I know it's not optimal. It might not seem like it, but we're lucky. Things could be a lot worse for both of us, but on Joseph's order, they're not. It's his wisdom that made you being here even possible. So yes; the plan right now is that we sit and wait."

John turned toward her, then. He looked positively miserable.

“What happened last night…can’t happen again.” He explained. “It doesn’t matter that you’re here now. I’m the Baptist. Joseph is my brother. There’s nothing he doesn’t know, and there’s nothing he won’t find out. We need to do everything we can to stay on his good side.”

He did have a point. As much as she wanted John to be the last of her enemies, he was only one of three, and likely the lowest ranked of the Project's leaders. Pushing John to defy a higher power was unwise.

Her job was done, anyway. There was no more need to pursue him. Curiosity didn't matter. Want didn't matter. No meant no.

“Okay.” The Deputy croaked finally, nodding.

John raised his eyebrows, unconvinced. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” She attempted a smile. "Water under the bridge."

He returned the expression. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Great.”

“Cool.”

They both stood still, watching each other for a long moment.

Then Cora’s heart sank, and she felt herself detach from the counter. John did the same, marching toward her while she advanced on him with equal urgency.

Her fingers found the front of his shirt just as his found her face, and his mouth was on hers in a heartbeat. For all her rationalisations, the blonde reciprocated immediately, clutching him closer, humming into his kiss with a pitch she’d normally find mortifying.

“I’m sorry.” John breathed, hardly breaking away long enough to put the words together before he was kissing her again. “I’m sorry. I didn't mean that."

Cora nodded, barely able to formulate a response against him. Every word she reached for melted on her tongue, completely enraptured by the heat of his mouth and his desperate hands not knowing whether they wanted to grip at her hips or keep cradling her jaw.

She didn’t even know she’d been walked backward until she felt the cold countertop hit the small of her back, and then - much more pleasantly - the warmth of John’s body pressing against her front. She gasped, winding a hand into his damp hair and slipping beneath his shirt with the other, pawing at whatever skin she could access and drawing another one of those pitiful sounds she’d pulled from him last night.

“Wasn’t - ah, fuck,” the Deputy choked, not anticipating the Baptist’s impatience when he dipped his head to kiss her neck, arms coiling tight around her waist, “Wasn’t a mistake.”

"Fuck no." John moaned against her throat, tongue barely darting out to taste her skin. “Won’t hit me this time?”

“Not this time.”

He pulled back then, leaving a half inch of aching dead space between them. Swallowing back a pant and looking at her directly. Like he was weighing up every possible pro and con about this scenario. Cora stilled, trading hesitation with the man, sobering for all but a few fearful seconds.

“If you don’t-”

“Don’t.” John breathed. “Just let me commit this to memory.”

“I mean it.”

“Deputy, you have no idea - how many times I’ve -...how much damage this could do."

Cora shifted under his gaze, searching impatiently to find which direction his resolve would fall. "I can keep a secret."

Amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth, breaking through apprehension.

“You want this.” She murmured.

“God, yes.”

He kissed her deeply, holding her steady through the shiver sent through her as his tongue slid across her bottom lip. Then, as soon as it felt like they were picking back up where they’d left off, he pulled back again. The grin he flashed at her frustration pulled a little noise of protest out of the blonde, and when she chased his mouth, he held her still.

“For the sake of being on the same page,” He began, “you do, too, right?.”

What a ridiculous assertion. What kind of answer was he hoping to gain from that? He already had her consent; did he really need the pride of knowing how badly she wanted this too? It wasn’t even something she’d actively considered, anyway. She’d have to think about-

“Yeah.” Cora breathed, ragged. “Yes.”

John settled into a more comfortable smile, and while the eye contact wasn’t something she could uphold for long, Cora mirrored the expression.

Then, a sigh rolled out of the Baptist. “Thank fucking Christ.”

She didn’t have time to chuckle at that.

His mouth was back on her in a instant.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“What’d I tell you?” Jess hissed, looking Sharky up and down while she waded toward him through torn up asphalt and cement debris. “What’d I tell you about making a fucking idiot of yourself?”

Sharky traded a look with Hurk at that. The man was nearly unrecognizable from all the dust clinging to him.

“I thought we did pretty good.” The arsonist defended.

“The town’s half blown-up, dipshit.”

“We did real good.” Hurk weighed in.

He wasn’t wrong. They didn’t even kill nobody they weren’t supposed to. There’d been bumps in the road, sure, but all in all, things hadn’t been a total disaster. Once you translated that into the kind of situation they were in, total disaster was actually kind of...well, awesome. Especially once the Cougars had arrived.

Sharky hadn’t heard word from over East since they’d left, but things must’ve been mighty fucking boring up there at the County Jail for a whole fucking convoy to come charging through town.

He’d never seen so many baseball jerseys in one place, let alone jerseys toting assault rifles.

There wasn’t any chasing leftover Peggies out of town once they’d shown up. It was a purge so quick and so direct that the blonde understood a little better why Shorty had been so pissed about not getting the extra help earlier.

Everyone had found their way back to each other pretty quick once the chaos had died down. As luck would have it, Kim had been walking Boomer when Eden’s Gate had arrived. She’d managed to get a couple of the general store clerks to safety and found a cattle shed to wait out the fight about a mile up the road.

It might’ve been the adrenaline getting him going, but Sharky could’ve sworn her tits were even bigger than yesterday.

Grace and Mary May reunited quick, but disappointingly did not start making out. Instead, they helped Kim cart Nick and Pastor Jerome off to Dr. Lindsey.

After they’d rounded up any remaining hostages, the team made their way back to Sharky as the stand-in replacement for the Deputy. That part didn’t surprise him. He was best mate, after all...after the dog, at least. The part that did surprise him was that the Cougars seemed to do that same.

Tracey surveyed the wreckage on her way toward the group with Sheriff Whitehorse and that tight-lipped Marshal in-tow.

“Jerome says Stammos got carted out with John’s people.” The woman announced. “They took the road down to the airport.”

“Then unless they’re plannin’ on looping back around, they’re probably headed to the ranch.” Adelaide replied.

“Probably a smart move after last time.” Hurk added.

The Sheriff inclined his head, incredulous. “Last time?”

“Long story.”

Sharky watched the disappointment pass over Whitehorse’s face. Must’ve felt shitty; losing all of his employees to the cult.

“I tried chasin’ ‘em down, Sheriff.” He said.

“And given how you’re dressed, Boshaw, it’s no surprise they were so quick to leave.”

“Okay. Ouch.”

“So what’s the plan?” Jess asked.

Tracey was already turning back around, headed for the truck she’d arrived in. “We keep liberating.” She answered. “Stammos called us to take back the valley, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

“John’s ranch is almost the Southernmost point before the border.” Whitehorse elaborated. “If we do everything right, he won’t have many friends left to help him cross it once he gets word of us coming.”

“Sounds like the same plan as last time.” Adelaide commented.

“No stone unturned.” He affirmed. “Same as last time. Take care of John the same way we took care of Faith and bring our girls home.”

The Marshal, however, didn’t look as happy about that option. Dude always hated taking the long way around. “And what if John’s taken care of your Deputy before we get there?”

Sharky exchanged a look with the others.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

John’s fingers tangled in Cora's hair, hurriedly tugging out the damp tie and wincing when a caught snag caused the Deputy to hiss. “Sorry. Sorry.” He muttered, breathless.

“You’re - you’re certain this is okay.” She huffed against him. If there was any acknowledgement of the apology on her part, it was only in how she clawed at his vest, dragging his mouth back to hers.

“Not at all.”

“What about your -” A gasp briefly did the trick of silencing her, but then: “What about your brothers-”

“Please don’t mention my brothers right now.” John whined.

Cora eyed him. “Door’s locked?”

John stifled a chuckle at that. “No, why would it be?”

Cora eyed him dangerously.

“I’m kidding." He defended. "What, you think I let people walk in and out of here unannounced?"

“Fucking prick.”

“Obviously, I’m kidding. You’re a-aaah…” His retort dwindled when the blonde’s hands slid down his front, stopping short of the hem of his vest and creeping back up to his collar again. He pulled back to glare. “A captive.”

“And you’re sensitive.” She replied, simply.

“7 years is a long time.” John’s own hands fell from her hair, slipping down her sides until she couldn’t feel them anymore. “Not sure how much I can...handle.” That last phrase came cautiously. Awkwardly.

The blonde’s fingers traced back down while she listened, more quizzical than apprehensive at the warning.

To her, that sounded more like a challenge.

"What." John grunted at the smirk that played on her lips.

"Just the audacity of you asking for mercy."

A shiver worked its way out of him when she went lower, ghosting over his hips and then back up again. Deliberately avoiding the ever-insistent graze of an erection against her stomach, sporadically tensing against denim confinement whenever her hands got close. Every reminder of it sending a fresh wave of heat through her.

“Seriously-”

“Mr. Seed, either we carry on like this, or you fuck me. Right now.” The Deputy spoke low, watching the Baptist’s pupils dilate more with each word. “Either way, we’ll find out how much you can handle, but 3 years is also a long time. I’d hate for only one of us to break a streak.”

John stared, dumbfounded.

Then, his hands reappeared, tugging around her waist, wrenching her up and onto the countertop. Her wasted no time pushing her knees apart, drawing near enough between her legs that she could reach for his belt, but not close enough that she could find the friction she was looking for. His fingers pawed her thighs, then gripped hard when her fingertips ghosted over the bulge that impatiently jutted between them.

“Ah. Shit.” He shuddered, folding down to balance his forehead in the crook of her neck, holding onto her like she was the only thing keeping him standing. Cora found that she liked the idea of that. Ten times the amount of experience she had, and yet here he was, barely functional.

She pressed her palm against him, content with the hitch in his breath and the little jerk of his hips. A responding, dulled twitch pressed back. Through the obstruction of clothing, it was impossible to get a sense of him, but biology didn’t discriminate. She wanted him in her.

“Doing good.” Cora murmured against John’s temple, running her fingers through his hair in reassurance while his dug into her thighs in a vice grip.

“So good.” He choked when she slowly began to move back and forth. “So - so good. Feels - ah, fuck - let me -“

Maybe a little too quickly, Cora pulled herself closer to the edge of the counter, tugging John’s unbandaged hand further up her thigh and hoping he’d get the message while she busied herself with his belt.

She knew his smirk too well to mistake it for anything else when she felt him hum against her throat.

John straightened, pulling Cora’s attention back up to him. Lo and behold, he was looking as arrogant as ever; as if he hadn’t just been whining at her mercy. “Deputy, have a little patience.”

“After all that ranting about giving, you sure are selfish.”

“Oh, so you were listening.” He grinned, tracing a thumb back and forth over the junction of her hip. “Tell me, what happened to my little ranger who loved to play by the rules?”

“Hypocrite.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Hurry up.”

John flinched when Cora’s hand shoved beneath his still-fastened pants, palming him through his underwear. He managed to hold strong, though, even if his voice near-cracked. “Or what?”

“Or John Seed’s gonna come in his pants.”

Again, he twitched in her grasp, but his movement remained torturously slow.

Realisation hit the Deputy at his resistance.

He was getting a kick out of this.

He was testing her.

“How crazy does it drive you, not having total, complete control?" He asked. His thumb reached the seam of her pants, almost too light to feel. She still throbbed all the same.

"You're an asshole." Cora growled.

“You know, I always suspected you got off on that.”

“Evidence suggests it might be the other way around.”

“Answer me, Deputy.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’ll do just that if you don’t cooperate.” John tutted at her frustrated ineptitude at deciphering his belt buckle. “Are you really in a position to be calling the shots?”

Cora stopped to consider that, locking to his gaze with a scowl. Why did every interaction with him have to feel like a chess game?

Fine.

Not breaking eye contact, Cora simply pulled her sweater over her head in response.

John’s gaze broke immediately. He tried to recover, but the damage was done. There was no picking his composure back up after the attitude slid from his face and left him with nothing but prying eyes and a slackened jaw.

“Well,” He croaked, “when you put it that way…”

“Help me with this.” Cora urged, still tugging at his belt. He acquiesced immediately, although with the two of them hastily fumbling with the same mechanism, the extra help wasn’t much better. John swore under his breath, pulling out of Cora’s reach while she clicked her tongue. “Does that thing double as a chastity belt?”

“It’s not my fault we have a single functional hand between us.”

“You stabbed me first.”

“For God’s sake - fuck - got it.” John sighed, finally unbuckling the monstrosity, rushing back to the blonde’s reach. She dealt with her own belt while he hurried with his jeans, tattooed fingers shaking. The moment he’d succeeded, his hands flew to her waist, revering bare skin and savouring her impatience for him to touch her where she wanted to be touched.

She would have cussed him out, had his teeth not grazed her lip, refreshing the taste of him with his tongue slipping into her mouth - right as his left hand wriggled it way into her pants and pressed.

Cora saw white for a second. Untouched nerves awakening in a frenzy that had her gasping into that bastard’s mouth. Jesus, she could feel the grin on his face.

“Hm. Hypocrite.” Came the reminder, followed by a strangled noise when her fingers enclosed around his cock; separated still by underwear, but gripping him all the same. His body shoved against her, crushing their arms between them in the attempt to find his way closer - to find more. “Ah - shit. Careful-”

A knock from beyond the kitchen sent a collective jolt through both of them, and John’s head whipped around in a panic.

“W-...what is it?!” He called, voice cracking.

“John, have you got a minute?” A deeper voice Cora didn’t recognise responded from outside.

“Doubt I’ve got more than ten seconds.” The Baptist hissed to himself. “I recall saying emergencies only! Ask yourself - is this something I need to find John for, or can I find my own way?”

Christ. He spoke to his followers the same way she spoke to hers.

“O-okay. Sorry.”

John didn’t reply. He simply turned his attention straight back to Cora, stroking up and down along the material of her underwear. His cock twitched impatiently in her hand, at odds with his leisurely pace. “You’re soaked through.” He taunted, but the tremor in his voice delivered it as a revelation.

Cora’s brow furrowed. She stroked once, sweeping her thumb over the head of him. “Speak for yourself, Baptist.”

A grunt sounded from the man. His hands moved quickly, yanking her to the edge of the counter and gripping at her pants. Tugging the material down and off her legs while he dropped to his knees on the floorboards. The Deputy’s initial instinct to draw herself together and hide from scrutiny was jarred by the way the Baptist gaped between her legs. Like closing them would be some cruel disservice to him. So, she let him stare. Held still while he drew close, dotting a kiss to her knee and shivering when his beard skimmed her inner thigh.

“Thank you for wearing white.” John murmured, stroking a careful thumb over the cotton, leaving only aching want in his wake.

“That a religious thing?” She tried not to croak, raising an eyebrow.

“Not in this circumstance. Just...thought about it.”

“Oh. You just - casually speculated on the colour of my underwear.”

“Something like that.” He continued the action. Back and forth. Up and down. Trying to find the same spot as earlier. For all his enthusiasm, however, he was still out of practice and just as impatient as she was. He’d draw close, but any hitch in her breath pulled his gaze up to her face, searching for praise and losing his place in the process.

When his mouth suddenly descended upon her, though, fingers giving up their place to yank the material to the side and grant him direct access, the Deputy found herself uncomfortably on the complete other end of the spectrum. From not enough, to way, way too much. A squeak shot out of Cora, and her legs clamped shut on John’s skull just as her fingers gripped his hair in an attempt to pry him away from her. Both actions earned a separate “Ow,” from the man.

John pouted up at her. “What?”

“Stand up.” “I like where I am right now.” He protested. “You’re not shy, are you? I want to-”

Cora tugged at him anyway. “I don’t want you to practice on me. I want you to fuck me.”

John blinked. “Okay - not shy.” He pulled himself back to a stand, averting his gaze while she guided his hips back between her legs. “I’m - er - it’s just…-”

He bit back a resigned curse when her fingers circled his erection once again, passing over the noticeable slick of precum on strained cotton.

“Just what?”

“I'd like you to - enjoy it." The admission came. "And I’m not going to last.”

“Good. I'll enjoy that just fine.” Cora replied, earning a questioning look. “Won’t look so smug anymore when you’re coming in record time.”

John's expression darkened at the challenge, but his hands shook as they swatted her away, struggling to manoeuvre the fly of his underwear into just the right position.

Anger was still the quickest way to get through to him.

“Just you wait." He warned. "I’ll-“

She cut him off with a kiss, pulling his hips against her, and his threats evaporated. They were pressed too close for her to see, but his cock grazed the hem of her underwear, finally pulled free. Then, John’s fingers hooked around the material, pulling it to one side.

The Baptist held her gaze, brow upturned like he was worried.

Was he nervous?

“Ready?” He asked.

He looked...kind of pretty like this. Pupils blown. Lips a little swollen. Hair all messed up. Eye-contact wasn't so uncomfortable when he looked this wrecked.

She nodded. "Yeah." The pitch of his gasp matched hers when the head of him slid with dangerous ease along the wetness of her cunt. All she could focus on was the heat of him. The blunt press, drawing closer and closer to her entrance until he was finally lined up. The ache of resisting muscles and relieved nerve-endings when he pushed forward, torturously slow, concentration and bliss fighting for equal real estate on his face, and okay, he was exceptionally pretty like this.

A tiny little 'fuck' crept out of John when Cora sighed at the feeling, insistently encouraging, tugging. She needed more. It wasn't fair. Didn't fucking matter how long for; she just needed to feel him. All of him.

Then, when he was barely two inches in, another knock at the door pulled her out of her stupor.

“John? I spoke to Andy. He says it’s an emergency.”

John froze. Then, his eyes scrunched shut in a long-suffering grimace, and once again, his forehead dropped to Cora’s shoulder. Frustration radiated from him, infecting her within moments.

"Has he been out there the whole time?" She grunted.

"Christ." The Baptist sounded almost amused at that. He pulled back to offer a half-smile.

He had to investigate.

Cora, meanwhile, had no patience for his imminent departure. Her legs locked against his hips, but he was gently prying himself away already, muttering repeated, gasped apologies at her protests.

“I’ll be right there!” He called back, already resetting his belt. “Give me a minute.”

“Are you kidding?” Cora hissed, sliding down from the counter.

“I’ll be 30 seconds. I swear. Then we can - we can go upstairs, and we can stay there. Emergency or not.” John assured her, punctuating his words with kisses wherever he could land them while she struggled to multitask between receiving and yanking her pants back on. Then, he pulled away completely, stumbling out of the kitchen on visibly shaky legs.

Cora took a moment to silently lament before heading back out into the foyer, buckling her belt while she surveyed the space in an attempt to distract herself from impotent fucking rage.

John murmured away with someone outside, half-visible through the gap he’d left in the door. His arms had crossed, but with his back to her, she couldn’t discern his mood any further.

Nonetheless, her concern grew, and when the man said his goodbyes with a nod and entered the building once more, the Deputy found it had good reason to.

John passed through the room, not sparing her a glance. He snatched the radio he’d abandoned on the coffee table, but to her fleeting relief, simply clipped it onto his belt and moved on.

He’d turned pale.

“Hey.” Cora frowned, following him to the trophy cabinet where he began rifling through memorabilia. “What’s going on?”

“We have to leave.” He muttered, unboxing a small case. It rattled as he shook the content into his hand. 38 Specials, most making it to his back pocket, some clinking to the floor, forgotten when he moved on to withdraw his revolver and tucked it into the back of his pants. “Now.”

John continued hurrying about with Cora hot on his heels, unable to really do anything but watch him build a collection of valuables on the dining table. His coat. His keys. A particularly raggedy old bible. He made some effort to conceal the zip-lock bag he pulled from behind the décor on the mantle; definitely the source of the odour that permeated the foyer.

They traded a look - critical on Cora’s part, and John rolled his jaw while he shoved it out of sight, irritated. Perhaps embarrassed.

“Did you know?” He huffed.

“Mr. Seed, I studied in Colorado. I know what a half-bag looks like.”

“Did you know about the Cougars?” John’s voice hardened. “According to the Chosen, there’s one hell of a convoy inbound from the North. Did you know?”

Oh.

Fuck.

“Oh. Fuck.” Cora noted, still too dazed to even bother lying. “I called them in.”

They actually came?

“Wonderful.” John had stopped to run a hand through his hair. “Truly. Thank you.”

“Well sure, but I don’t see what good they’re gonna do you. They’re probably here to-”

“Sarcasm, Cora.”

“That makes more sense."

John started to pace, then, relenting. Dispersing his temper. He tugged the radio from his belt, holding it to his chin. “Joseph, for God’s sake, come in.”

Half a minute passed by. The little curses under John’s breath became more punctuated until his patience thinned. He angled the dial, and then stopped. Examining the station he’d been using, incredulous.

His gaze flickered to her for a split-second, eyes narrowing, and Cora’s stomach coiled.

Shit.

He knew.

She winced while the Baptist strode past her, anticipating his approach to the phone, investigating an absent dial tone and her now-obvious tampering. He turned the machine over, holding up the ruined cord for her to see.

"Your handiwork, Deputy?" The smile that spread over his face was sharp as ever. The mask was back on.

Perhaps this hadn't been her best plan.

She should've let him go down on her when she had the chance.

#dont read these tags until after you've read the chapter ok PROMISE!!#have you finished the chapter yet-#have i filled enough space yet #PSYCH yall thought either of them deserved to get laid yet?#come back for quiet earth part 3: john's day gets exponentially worse aka the asswhoopin #john seed #john seed x female deputy #far cry 5 #far cry 5 fanfic #cora stammos

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worryinglyinnocent · 3 years

Text

Fic: Safe and Sound

Summary: After discovering the horrific truth of Tucker’s experiments, Mustang faces a race against time to get Nina to safety and away from a life in a government lab. Out of ideas, he calls in the Elric brothers, independent alchemists of the people whom he knows to have an interest in human transmutation, and more specifically, reversing it.

Determined to do what they can for her, Ed, Al and their mother provide a safe home for Nina, and over time, they work out how to help her back to her normal state.

Rated: T

Safe and Sound

“It’s a mess, sir.”

Roy looked out of the window at the rain teeming down outside the Tucker home. Hawkeye’s blunt summation of the situation hardly did it justice, but he couldn’t think of a more apt term to use. He turned to Tucker, who still seemed unable to see what he had done wrong in the name of scientific advancement, and he felt the anger begin to burn through his veins once more, even hotter than when he had first entered the place and realised with sickening horror what Tucker had done, and what he must have done two years prior as well.

He strode across the room, grabbing the front of Tucker’s shirt and lifting him bodily out of the chair he had been sitting in whilst Fuery had recorded his statement and confession.

“Colonel.” Hawkeye’s voice was sharp, and Roy glanced over at her. She was kneeling in the corner, next to the chimera (Nina, her name was Nina, she gave him a flower crown the last time he was here), who was watching the scene with wide eyes.

“Don’t hurt Daddy,” Nina pleaded in that low, uncanny, unreal voice, slow and pained but every bit in earnest. The anger in Roy’s blood roiled afresh, and his grip on Tucker’s shirt tightened.

“Lieutenant, get her out of here. Take her out the back way and get Havoc to sneak her into HQ.”

“Daddy…”

“Come on, Nina,” Hawkeye coaxed. “We need to go now. We need to get you somewhere safe.”

“Daddy…”

“Colonel Mustang needs to talk to your daddy, Nina. Come with me. Are you hungry?”

Hawkeye guided Nina out of the room. Once the door was closed and he could no longer hear the lieutenant’s soft cajoling, Roy sank his fist into Tucker’s face. It did not make him feel any better. He hadn’t expected it to.

He let Tucker back down into his chair, leaving the room as Fuery completed the final bits of paperwork.

He needed to work out what to do about Nina. If anyone got word of her, she’d be locked up in a lab and experimented on as an alchemical freak of nature for the rest of her life. He needed to keep her safe, and if there was the slightest chance of getting her and Alexander back to normal, then he had to pursue it.

Roy was not in his area of expertise here. Human experimentation, bio-alchemy, the many varied and illegal and impossible forms of human transmutation - none of that had ever been in his remit and he had never had any desire for it to be. He ran a hand through his hair, desperately trying to think of a solution. Smuggling her into HQ was only a temporary measure and not a perfect one at that; there was still so much that could go disastrously wrong. He needed to get Nina out of sight and out of mind as soon as possible, hiding her away where the military would leave her alone.

A thought struck him and he moved through the house towards the telephone, dialling Falman at headquarters.

“Falman, can you find out if the Elrics are still in town?”

“Yes, sir. On it.”

Roy had first come across Edward and Alphonse Elric four years ago, when news of a couple of young but extremely talented alchemists researching human transmutation and Philosopher’s Stones had come to him through the state alchemist grapevine. With the military always interested in those with an interest in the alchemic taboo, Roy had been despatched to take a look at the lay of the land as regarded the Elrics, and potentially recruit them.

He hadn’t reckoned on their being quite so young, just eleven and ten years old, and he absolutely had not reckoned on their mother. Trisha Elric was a tiny, frail-looking woman with perpetually pale blue-tinged lips and a constant cough from the Frontline Flu that had almost killed her in ‘04, and she was a force of nature who had told Roy in no uncertain terms that her sons’ interest in Philosopher’s Stones was highly personal and that there was no way in hell they were becoming state alchemists despite the research opportunities it would afford them.

Roy had reported back that the Elric brothers were a dead end, and had left them in peace to follow their own research, whilst still keeping an eye on them every time they came to Eastern City to the large library there.

With their secretive nature, their no-nonsense mother and their persistent interest in human alchemy, Roy held out the tiniest hope of Nina’s best chance being with the Elrics.

Hell, anything was worth a shot at this stage.

“Sir?”

“I’m listening, Falman.”

“The Elrics are still in town, sir. They’re in a guesthouse by the station.”

“Thank God. Get someone to try and persuade them to come to HQ.”

“Will do, sir. And, erm, Ms Elric?”

“She’s here too?”

“Yes, sir.”

Roy sighed. “Probably best if she comes too.”

“Yes, sir.”

He hung up, winging up a prayer that this hunch would pay off.

“So…” Ed stretched out his legs, uncaring for who in Eastern Command might trip over them as they waited for Mustang to make an appearance and tell them why they were there. “What do you think the Bastard Colonel wants us for this time?”

“Edward.” The sigh that his mother gave was a long-suffering one rather than showing any real disapproval, and he could see that she was trying very hard not to smile.

“What? You call him the Bastard too!”

“Not in his place of work, I don’t.”

“Officer Falman was really quite apologetic when he picked us up,” Al mused. “Maybe something’s gone terribly wrong and they need us to fix it. You know. Someone outside the military.”

Mom raised an eyebrow. “If that’s the case, they’d be better off picking anyone other than you two. You’d hold it over them as blackmail material for the rest of their lives. Honestly, I don’t know where you got your devious streak from. It wasn’t your dad, which leaves me with the uncomfortable conclusion that it must be from me.”

“Where do you think Dad is right now?” Al asked. “It would be just our luck if he chooses this weekend to come home and we’re not there. I can imagine him going over to Granny’s: ‘Pinako, I swear I had a wife and two children when I left but I appear to have misplaced them.’”

Mom laughed, but Ed didn’t respond. Although he now knew the full story of why Dad had left, the fact he’d left in the first place still rankled even now, and he knew that he would continue to view his father with mixed emotions until the man himself was back in the flesh and could answer for his own actions. Still, that hadn’t stopped him and Al from setting out on the current quest that had occupied them for the last four years, namely finding a way to get Dad back to normal so that when he did return, he and Mom could live a vaguely ordinary life together.

“I’m really sorry about all this.” Falman appeared in the corridor again. “It’s just that we’ve got a bit of a… situation.”

Ed raised an eyebrow as they got up to follow him, deciding to reserve judgement. Falman led them into Mustang’s office, where the rest of the team was clustered around the colonel’s desk with nervous expressions.

“Ok… Anyone want to tell us what’s going on?”

Mustang came over. “We have a situation that requires some discretion.”

Mom snorted. “You picked the wrong two for that.”

“I think when you see what we’ve got, you’ll agree with me.”

Intrigued, Ed approached the desk and peered under it.

It looked like a dog, on the face of it, although it appeared to have some kind of mane of long dark hair, and there was something about the eyes and mouth that didn’t look quite right.

“Chimera?”

Mustang nodded.

“I’m guessing the majority is from a dog, but what’s it fused with?”

Mustang didn’t get the chance to respond before the chimera spoke, a soft, desperate whimper.

“I want Daddy.”

Ed’s blood ran cold. “Someone chimerised a human child?”

“Yes.” Mustang’s voice was deadly serious. “This is Nina Tucker. Her father decided to create a chimera capable of human speech. He’s in jail now.” He gave a heavy sigh. “If anyone gets wind of this, she’ll be shut up in a military lab for the rest of her life. We’re giving out that Tucker’s chimera didn’t survive the transmutation to try and buy us some time. This is the reason why I wanted you to see her. I know that you two are probably the leading state-independent researchers of human transmutation right now. If anyone can help her, you can.”

Ed looked at Al, who was staring at Nina with sad horror, and then at his mom, who was having a coughing fit. Falman brought her some water.

“Mom? You ok?”

She nodded, before slowly, deliberately, getting down on her knees and shuffling under the desk.

“Hey Nina,” she said gently. “My name’s Trisha. How old are you, honey?”

“Six.”

“You’re scared, huh?”

Nina nodded. “Want Daddy.”

“Your daddy can’t come, honey. He did something very, very bad, so he has to go away for a while.”

“A very long while,” Ed muttered.

“Don’t be scared, though,” Mom continued. “We’ll look after you, me and Ed and Al.” She reached out, carefully brushing Nina’s hair out of her eyes. “It’ll be all right, I promise.”

She was just being Mom. In her eyes, Nina was just a scared little kid. Mom didn’t see the alchemy or the implications. She just saw someone who needed a family to keep her safe.

Ed crouched down beside her. “Hi Nina. I’m Ed, and this is Al. We’ll get you sorted out, don’t worry.” He had no idea where he would even begin, but he had to do something to help her out.

Nina looked at Trisha.

“You… Ed Mommy?”

“Yeah, I’m Ed’s Mommy. Why don’t you come with us now, and we’ll take you home, somewhere nice and safe and quiet.”

Nina nodded slowly, and Mom looked up at Mustang.

“I’ll look after her,” she said. “She’ll be safe and off the grid in Resembool. I can’t say we can help her, that’s up to the boys to decide what they’re prepared to try and what they’re capable of doing. But I’ll look after her, and in return, you make sure that the monster who did this never sees the light of day again.”

Ed was beginning to see why Mustang was scared of Mom.

The frenetic logistics of getting Nina home with them without being discovered by the military at large took a while to sort out, and Trisha couldn’t rest easy until she was safely behind her own front door. Winry and Pinako had been brought in on their secret, it would have been near impossible to keep it from them.

Actually looking after her proved to be just the same as taking care of any other child - she was just a little larger and more unco-ordinated. From the moment that she had seen Nina and decided that no matter what, she was going to take care of her, Trisha had not really given any thought to the difficulties that might be involved in caring for a chimera. At the end of the day, Nina was a little girl and Trisha intended to treat her like one, even if she didn’t exactly look like a little girl.

She required a little more concentration than the boys had done, because whilst she could speak, full sentences were difficult simply because of the shape of her mouth, so articulating her needs wasn’t as simple as it could have been. But she would eat at the kitchen table with them if one of them spoon-fed her, and she loved to watch the boys practice their alchemy and listen to the bedtime stories they would weave her.

Occasionally the odd trait that was definitely dog rather than human would forcibly remind Trisha that Nina was two beings in one now - most notably she preferred to sleep curled up behind the couch in the living room rather than in a bed - but generally, Nina was the daughter she’d never had.

“Dad could fix her,” Al said one evening whilst they were sitting around after dinner. Nina was dozing, her head in Trisha’s lap. They’d taken to braiding her mane to keep it out of her eyes, and she’d decided on blue ribbons today. Trisha stroked the silky ends through her fingers. “I mean, he’s a Philosopher’s Stone, he should be able to do anything, right?”

“He probably could,” Ed agreed. “The difficulty would be finding him and explaining the situation. We haven’t known where he is for ten years, tracking him down now to break off from his quest and come home to un-chimerise a chimera wouldn’t exactly be the easiest solution.”

“Yeah.” Al sighed. “I guess it’s back to the drawing board and Dad’s books. I don’t really recall any of them talking about chimeras, but then, we weren’t really looking for any information about them.”

Trisha coughed, startling Nina out of her doze, and she looked around for a while.

“Big brother Ed?”

Ed grinned. Trisha was surprised at how quickly Nina had decided on Ed as a surrogate big brother, but he was definitely the person that she seemed to have latched onto as her link into the family. Ed was Big Brother. Al was usually just Al. Trisha was Ed-Mommy. (Occasionally, when she woke up crying from nightmares, she was just Mommy, and Trisha would hold her as close as she possibly could.)

“Hey Nina.”

“Where’s Daddy?”

The grin dropped as quickly as it had appeared on his face.

“Your daddy had to go away, Nina.”

“No… Ed-Daddy.” Trisha followed her sight-line over to the opposite wall; she was looking at her and Van’s wedding photo on the mantel.

“Oh. He had to go away too.”

“He did bad?”

Ed snorted, and Trisha laughed.

“I think that depends on who you ask, honey. No, Ed and Al’s daddy didn’t do anything bad. He’s travelling around the country at the moment. Ed’s daddy is a very powerful alchemist and there are some things he has to do to make sure everyone is safe. It’s sad that we don’t see him, but he’s the only one who can protect us. All of us.”

“Oh.”

They fell into silence again, until Al spoke up from the floor where he was sitting in the middle of a sea of books.

“Maybe if we knew how Tucker did it in the first place we could reverse engineer it.”

“I guess.” Ed sighed. “I’d be afraid of making it worse, though. Sometimes I’ve thought about asking her if she can remember what happened, but I don’t want her to relive what was probably a very traumatic experience.”

“Exactly,” Trisha said. Nina’s head was resting in her lap and drowsing again. “It doesn’t matter if you can’t help her, boys. No one is expecting you to. You’re already giving her the care and love and safety that she needs, and that’s all that matters. If we do get a little girl and a large dog out of this, then that would be wonderful, but right now, Nina’s wellbeing takes priority.”

She thought about the picture that Mustang had sent her, along with a packet of documents from the Tucker household that might be useful - birth certificate, medical records and the like. A sweet little girl and a huge, goofy-looking dog. She stroked one of Nina’s front paws sadly. Although she was mostly aware of her changed shape and size, there were the odd little moments where she forgot she didn’t have hands, and it always distressed her. Trisha wanted nothing more than for the chimerisation to be reversed and for Nina - and Alexander - to live normal lives, but if that wasn’t to be, then Trisha would just take care of the chimera for as long as she needed it.

They’d settled into the routine of having Nina with them remarkably quickly, and Al was pleased by just how easily she’d become part of the family. It was very clear that Ed was her favourite, but he didn’t seem to mind that at all. It was strange, Al had never really thought of Ed as being particularly good with kids, but then again, they had never really come across all that many over the course of their research. He completely doted on Nina though, and whenever she and Mom had been making flower crowns, he would always wear the one Nina picked out as his without any complaint.

Although he was used to Nina being around, it was still a surprise to see her bounding out of the house towards them as he and Ed made their way up the hill having been to see Winry in town.

“Ed! Big Brother Ed! Ed! Daddy’s here!”

Al looked at Ed, Ed looked back at Al, and they both started to sprint up the hill. Nina’s father was still in jail in Eastern City, there was no way he should be in Resembool, it had been given out that Nina was dead, who had spilled that she was here…

Al barrelled into the kitchen with Ed hot on his heels, and both of them stopped dead.

“Oh.”

It wasn’t Tucker. The man standing in the kitchen hugging Mom tightly was their own dad.

There was the click-click-click of Nina’s nails on the floor tiles behind them.

“Ed-Daddy,” she said proudly.

So that was what she meant.

Eventually, Mom let go of Dad and he turned to them. It must have been just as much of a shock for him to see them now, considering how small they had been when he had left.

“I’ve been gone so long,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise how long I would be. I’ve missed so much. I’m sorry.”

“I…” Ed seemed to be having trouble taking it all in, and he shook his head. “It’s so weird. I’ve rehearsed this moment for years and now it’s here and I have no idea what to say.”

Al stumbled as Nina butted his legs and peered around him.

Dad looked at her, curious.

“I see our family has grown whilst I’ve been away. Hello there.”

“This is Nina.” Ed moved closer to her protectively. “She’s our little sister.”

“Big Brother Ed!”

Dad looked from Nina to Ed to Mom and back again.

“I’ll explain later,” Mom said.

“It’s ok. I think I know what’s happened.” Dad came over, crouching in front of Nina and offering her his hand. She tentatively placed her paw in it, and he shook it gently. “It’s nice to meet you, Nina.” He smiled. “You’re like me, aren’t you? Made into something different by alchemy you had no say in.”

Al knew at that moment that he didn’t have to worry about his father not accepting Nina or not being prepared to help her.

Much later, once Nina was asleep on her cushion behind the couch, and once Dad had explained everything that had happened over the last ten years - and before that - in his own words, and once Ed had stopped yelling at him, and once Nina’s situation had been explained, Al voiced the thought that had been at the forefront of their minds ever since Nina had come to live with them.

“Dad, can you help her?”

Dad didn’t reply for a long time, his brow furrowed in thought, but Al’s heart leapt to his mouth as he eventually nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “I think I should be able to, but it’s the kind of thing that I’d only get one shot at. It would have to be perfect first time, because if I get it wrong, it’ll just make it worse.”

Al looked at Ed, and then at Mom, who nodded.

“I think it’s worth the risk,” she said. “She’s the sweetest darling just as she is, but I can’t imagine what kind of internal distress she’s in, and I think she’d be happier if she was back to her old self.”

“In that case, I will do what I can.”

It took a couple of days for Dad to work out exactly what he would need to do, during which time Al was incredibly conscious of the fact that although he had come home now, he had not come home for good and there was still a lot of work that he had to do around the country in order to be prepared for the Promised Day coming and everything that would happen then. He still couldn’t quite get his head around the scope of it all, but it was a reasonably valid excuse for leaving them for so long. If something went wrong and it ended up backfiring on Dad, then what would happen to them all then? It would all be for nothing if they were doomed into a massive transmutation circle in a couple of months anyway.

Eventually, Dad announced that he was ready, and Al ventured into the study. All the furniture had been pushed back against the walls, and the most complex transmutation circle that Al had ever seen was drawn on the floor. Dad was kneeling in the middle of it, tracing out all the lines to make sure that there were no breaks.

“This should separate her out into two separate entities again,” he said. “The souls should be able to provide the power needed for it.”

Mom brought Nina into the room, and she shied away from the circle, hiding behind Mom’s legs.

“Scared,” she said. Al couldn’t really blame her. The last time she’d seen a circle this large and complex drawn out on the floor was probably the time she was chimerised in the first place.

“It’s ok, honey. I’m right here. This will make you feel a lot better, I promise.” She stepped into the circle. “Come on, Nina. I’ll be right here with you.”

“Mom, are you really sure that’s a good idea?” Ed asked. “Considering everything that could go wrong?”

Mom looked at Dad, who would have to be inside the circle as well in order for it to work.

“I trust you,” she said simply, and she sat down, holding out her arms for Nina.

“Scared,” Nina whimpered, but she padded across the floor and curled up in Mom’s lap.

Dad looked up.

“Step out and close the door,” he said. “This could get disturbing to watch.”

“But…”

“Edward.” Dad’s tone was non-negotiable, and Al dragged Ed out of the study, shutting the door behind them. Ed continued to grumble for a while, but then bent down to watch through the keyhole.

There was a deafening crack of alchemy, and bright red light flared out below the door.

The light was blinding, and Ed couldn’t really see much after Dad plunged his hands into Nina’s chest. The alchemy was roaring in his ears and he couldn’t hear anything useful, so he was forced to step back from the door and just hope that everything would be all right.

It seemed to take forever. It was the kind of thing where once it was started, it couldn’t be stopped until it was done. It wasn’t a job that could be left half-finished whilst Dad took a break to get his breath back. He imagined what it must be like, having to separate out two souls and two bodies into two completely separate entities and not leave anything mixed up.

He was glad it was Dad doing it and not him. He glanced across at Al.

“Do you think they’re all ok?”

Al shrugged, but his expression was just as worried as Ed knew his own was.

“I guess all we can do is wait and see and trust Dad.”

“Hmm.” Ed didn’t trust his father with a lot of things, but when it came to alchemy, he couldn’t think of anyone he could trust more than Dad with something like this.

The alchemy roared louder, and Ed could see sparks under the door.

“That’s it. I’m doing something.”

“Ed, don’t be stupid, what on earth can you do?”

“I can do something!”

“Ed!”

Suddenly, everything was dark and silent. For better or worse, it was all over. Ed looked at Al, and after a moment, Al nodded.

Ed flung the door open...

“WOOF!”

...and was immediately bowled over by a very large, very shaggy dog. He could hear Al laughing above him, and he took that as a good sign. Finally managing to dislodge the mutt long enough to sit up, he peered into the room.

Dad was flat on his back, drenched in sweat (or possibly dog saliva), and breathing like he’d just run the Central City marathon, but Mom was still sitting in the circle, and in her arms, clinging on for dear life, was…

“Nina, honey,” Mom said softly. “You can open your eyes, it’s all over now.”

Nina opened her eyes and looked around the room.

“Al. Big Brother Ed. Alexander!”

She rushed over on slightly wobbly legs, throwing her arms around each of them in turn with the longest and most exuberant hug being reserved for the dog. Ed supposed he could understand that, he’d been her closest and longest friend, after all.

Mom got to her feet and held out a hand to pull Dad up, slipping her arms around him and going in for a long kiss.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

“Thank you, Ed-Daddy!” Nina did not let go of Alexander, who seemed content to be hugged for as long as necessary, but she was beaming at Dad. “You’re right, I feel much better now.”

Dad smiled. “You’re welcome, Nina.”

“Come on, Nina.” Al was trying to shepherd her out of the room, and considering how gooey and love-eyed Mom was looking, Ed was happy to leave his parents to smooch in peace for a while.

“Let’s get some cookies for you and Alexander. It’s a good job we keep dog biscuits here for Den when Winry brings her over.”

They left the study, Ed closing the door behind them, and the four of them made their way into the kitchen.

Nina had always seemed to be remarkably content considering what had happened to her, but seeing the sheer joy in her face as she was able to hold a cookie and feed herself again was wonderful.

“What do you think happens now?” Al asked as he poured milk for him and Nina. “The colonel asked us to take care of Nina and help her if we could, and we’ve done that now.”

“I guess everything just stays the same as it was before.” Ed snaffled another cookie. “Nina doesn’t really have anywhere else to go, so we might as well just keep looking after her. What do you say, Nina? Do you want to stay here with us?”

Nina nodded. “Yes. I like it here with you.”

“I don’t think Mom and Dad would have a problem with it. I think Mom feels outnumbered by us sometimes and she’s enjoyed having another girl in the house.”

Nina just giggled, and then gave a theatrical sigh as Alexander found his way into the box of dog biscuits and got his large nose stuck in it, running around the kitchen with it over his face like a muzzle.

“Alexander!”

Ed laughed. “Well, I think that the latest new arrival might take a bit of getting used to, but I’m sure Mom won’t mind him either.”

(They were all so absorbed in chasing the dog around the kitchen that none of them noticed the flash of red alchemic light under Dad’s study door again.)

To say that everything surrounding the Promised Day had been one big frantic mess of alchemy, planning a highly organised and highly secret coup, and learning the most extraordinary things about what had been going on in the world for the last few centuries would be an understatement, but at the end of it all, Roy was simply glad to have made it out of the other side unharmed. There was an awful lot of work still to do, but with the immediate threat gone, they could take their time a little more and not have to worry about the entire country potentially being made into a giant Philosopher’s Stone at a moment’s notice.

Speaking of Philosopher’s Stones, though… Roy thought of Hohenheim. It was a small world, after all. He had been surprised to find out that their independent benefactor who had been working behind the scenes to stop Father and the homunculi for over a decade was the Elrics’ father, and moreover that he was the reason for their intense interest in human alchemy and Philosopher’s Stone research, but having met him, everything made a lot more sense.

Everything was also a lot more confusing, but Roy got the impression that someone like Hohenheim just created confusion wherever he went, without necessarily knowing why or indeed intending to.

All of that explained why he was now on a train to Resembool to go and see the Elric family for himself, because after the dust had settled and Father had been defeated and Hohenheim had vanished off as suddenly as he had appeared, going back to his family for good now, a single thought had pushed itself into Roy’s brain and refused to leave.

Nina.

She had gone with the Elrics months ago and they had promised to do what they could for her with their knowledge of Philosopher’s Stones. Now that they sort of had one to hand, surely something could be done? Or would it be impossible to undo Tucker’s work?

Roy made his way up the hill towards the Elric home, repeating the journey he’d first made five years ago when they had first come into his sphere of knowledge. He hoped that Trisha wouldn’t chase him down the road with a shoe as she had threatened to do on that first occasion.

“Hello, Colonel.” He was pleasantly surprised to find her out working in the garden but still rather wary of the fork she was holding. “What brings you here?”

“I… I was actually wondering how Nina was getting on.”

Trisha smiled. “She’s doing well, Colonel. She’s settled in nicely. It’s as if we’ve always had her. Van and I would be happy to adopt her if you’re willing to sort out the paperwork for us.”

There was something different about Trisha, Roy thought. She seemed stronger, more vibrant, and her lips were a normal pink colour rather than the blue tinge he’d grown used to seeing on her. Something or someone had healed her lungs.

“Colonel? You’re staring, sir.”

“Oh. Yes. Right. Yes. I mean, of course. I’ll get the paperwork as soon as I get back.”

“Excellent. Everyone will be so pleased.” She stood up, brushing down her apron. “Do you want to step in for a while, get your breath back after tackling the hill?”

“Erm, all right.” He stepped through the gate and followed Trisha up the path towards the house. The door opened before they got there.

“Mr Mustang!”

A large white shape bowled him over and started licking him voraciously, and he heard a familiar little giggle from the doorway.

“Hello, Alexander,” he finally managed.

Nina was standing in the doorway with Ed, who was smirking in the way only Edward Elric could smirk, and Roy knew that he’d lost all dignity in Ed’s eyes - if he’d even had any to start with.

“You did it,” he said, looking from Nina to Alexander and back again.

“Well, Dad did most of the work,” Ed said. “But she’s safe and happy here.”

Nina nodded. “I have big brothers now! I never had them before. I’m kind of hoping for a little sister too. Maybe now that Ed’s Daddy is back and Ed’s Mommy is well again I’ll get one.”

“Oh no.” Ed threw his hands up. “We are not thinking about that at all.” He sighed. “Thanks, Nina. Now I need brain bleach.”

“Ed, Nina, are you going to let the colonel in through the door?” Trisha’s voice called out from inside the house.

“I don’t know.” Ed looked down at Nina. “What do you think? Shall we let him in?”

“Yeah. We might need to get him a towel for Alexander’s drool though.”

Roy rolled his eyes as he got to his feet, following Alexander into the house. It was good to see Nina happy and thriving with a new family, who she seemed to have accepted readily as her own. It was good to see Trisha no longer suffering the after effects of her illness, and it was good to see the Elric family all together once more.

He hung back in the kitchen doorway, watching them all for a moment, very much feeling like the outsider that he was until Trisha pulled him in to join them.

Considering that the state alchemist programme had been little more than a device in which to form potential human sacrifices for Father’s plans, Roy had no idea if it would be continuing into the future, but the thought still remained in his head even as Ed was showing him back to the front door an hour or so later.

“Edward?”

“Yes, Colonel?”

“You and Al, and your parents... don’t ever stop doing what you’re doing. Using alchemy to help people, and taking care of those who’ve been wronged by it.”

Ed grinned. “Oh, we don’t intend to, Colonel. You’ve got my word on that.”

Roy felt a sense of peace as he made his way back to the station. As long as there were people like the Elrics in the world, he could hope that everything would be all right in the end.

#FMA: Brotherhood #FMA Fanfiction #Edward Elric #Alphonse Elric #Roy Mustang #Nina Tucker #Nina lives!#Trisha lives!#Everyone lives!#Nina and Alexander get back to normal!#AU #canon divergence #Fic: Safe and Sound

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yandere-wishes · 4 years

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🖤💔Yandere!Demon Slayers As Demons💔🖤

Dear readers for the first time in two weeks I offer you something that isn't a random post or a rant. This is an AU that I’ve been working on for a while, and seeing how this turns out I might continue it in terms of one shots and a mini series. Please enjoy!!

👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺👺

Demon Tanjiro is much more complex than his human counterpart. His mood fluctuates too much, alternating between a loving docile young demon desperate for his lover's warm embrace, to a rabid beast who's willing to tear your stomach open with his claws and feast on your entrails while you're still breathing. He's just too unpredictable, what makes him praise you and litter your body with toothy kisses, might just get your arm dislocated the next day. There's just no telling, he just isn't Tanjiro anymore, he's some wild, savage, murderous monster wearing Tanjiro's face.

He's always watching...

His mere gaze isn't enough to turn you into a motionless rag doll. Slumped in the corner like a forgotten toy. No, but his silence is. The way his eyes are locked on you as if your some sort of little bunny that waltzed into his territory, the way his mouth is sewn shut by some invisible thread, the way his head is tilted to the side like he was trying to calculate your next move...it's all too tranquil, too clam, just like the eye of a hurricane.

Languidly Tanjiro begins to crouch down, his moves are rapid and glitchy as if he isn't in control of his own body. Somewhere you hear something cracking, it's a dreadful noise like hammers pounding at your skull. It's only when you lift your eyes to the Oni in front of you, do you realize the noise is coming from him. It's like he's deforming in some way, dying and regenerating all in a single breath...and yet he still looks so...so beautiful.

Even while he's stalking towards you on hands and knees, you can't deny how stunning he looks. Mouth molded into a small smile, long rust-colored locks pooling on the ground around him and his eyes... they're red one second and brown the next, changing ever so quickly just like his moods.

He's much more passive like this, you note as if you've made some sort of groundbreaking discovery. So docile and calm...almost like a storm before it strikes. No, Tanjiro is not a storm you remind your self. He's a lion stalking its prey, relishing in the taunting silence it radiates by its mere presence.

Tanjiro's eyes have lost all hope, all passion. They're nothing more than empty spheres resting in his sockets.

You vaguely remember -or at least you think you do- a time when every action coming from the rust haired boy was entangled in a blanket of passion, every move had a clear purpose, every word was laced with an unyielding fire that had been beaten into his spirit. But now....well you didn't know what he was now, what Mozen and his sadistic "creations" had turned him into. What had they stolen from him? Was it his soul, his hope, or maybe something far worst.

Your amazement only shatters when you notice just how close he's gotten. His icy cold breath tickling the side of your neck. You squirm, pressing your palms flat against his chest. Tangiro doesn't flinch, his head cocks back to the side, his broken stare, vaguely reminds you of a discarded doll. Maybe that's what he is, not a slayer or a demon, just some broken doll that keeps you locked up in his room so that he can get a sense of being needed.

A wave of empathy crashed over you. Wearily you dropped your arms to your side, in a flash Tangiro wraps his long gauntly arms around you, squashing your bones as he pulled you ever so closer to him, nuzzling his visage in the crock of your neck.

Tanjiro Kamado may have once been a remarkable demon slayer on his way to becoming the next water piller of the demon slayer corps...but now he was nothing more than a pitiful broken demon, seeking the feeling of humanity inside a breaking, mortified girl.

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Zenitsu is a lot bolder, a lot pushier with his affection now that he's been turned into a demon. He wants you to love him the way he loves you, only this time he isn't afraid to break a leg or two, so you'll have no choice but to stay with him.

His child-like tendencies are still there, albeit demented, yet ever-present. The tantrums and endless crying are as frequent as ever...except now, well now he breaks a bone for every tear YOU make him spill and leaves a scar for every time YOU couldn't satisfy him. Just remember that none of this is poor Zenitsu's fault, oh no, how could it be his fault? He's given you everything you could ever dream of! Even though you're nothing more than a pathetic useless human, Zenitsu still took you as his beloved wife! You should be grateful to him, dedicate your every living second to him, play the role of the loving, caring wife! Not some ungrateful brat, who is always trying to run away!

And yet, you've become oddly accustomed to it. No longer do you mind the screams and beatings. They've grown to be a part of you, a sick and twisted thing that resides within you, infecting your every thought. Much like how Zenitsu's become a heartsick, defective shell of his former self.

"STOP IT"

something shattered against the wall, breaking into a million flying shards. The noise echoed through the light less room. Weary, your eyes flashed from the broken remains of what may have been an antique vase, to the crying monster in front of you. The tips of his long curved horns were turning a stark blood red, an indication that his blood was starting to boil. Although you didn't need the mood indicating head tusks to know just how upset the blond crybaby had gotten, they were still a nice little warning to remind you of just how far you could push him.

"Stop trying to escape!"

Had his voice amplified since your last "screaming contest"?

Did Muzen really think that Zenitsu's voice needed to get any louder, anymore irritating?

"I wasn't" you deadpanned, your arms crossed in front of your chest. "How can I, did you forget what you did to my leg this morning?" the bones inside your left leg had been deformed, causing your entire leg to point sideways. It was a detestable sight, yet it seemed to fill your rotting heart with a sense akin to a school girl's crush.

'Zenitsu-chan still loves me! See, see, he went out of his way to touch me!'

'No you idiot, he went out of his way to hurt you.'

Your mind had seemingly been slashed in half since your arrival at the former demon slayer's hideout. One tiny voice acted like a deranged lovesick little girl. Whist the other pertained some form of logic and common sense. This typically led to many interior arguments, all bordering on the exact same premise.

HE LOVES ME

HE'S HURTING ME

HE LOVES ME

HE'S HURTING ME

HE LOVES ME

HE'S HURTING ME

HE LOVES ME

HE'S HURTING ME

HE LOVES ME

HE'S HURTING ME

HE LOVES ME

HE'S HURTING ME

"Quit your whining!" the voice that escaped your lips, was flat and commanding, for a second it vaguely reminded you of Giyu Tomioka before the memory of your former lover shattered. Zenitsu's crying continued but his angry shouts slowly died down, his golden eyes shifted to stare directly at you. wearily you lifted your hands towards him, like an infant begging to be picked up.

"I'm hungry Zenitsu! Take me into the kitchen, after all, it's your fault I'm like this!"

Sure Zenitsu was much more powerful than you, sure he could snap your neck, ending your pitiful life at any moment. But his desperate need for approval -something else that had transcended from his human life to his current one- gave you the upper hand in this muddle of a relationship.

As a demon Inosuke is more...feral, for lack of a better word. He is all so keen on seeing just how far he can push his darlings limits, both mentally or physically.

He's always hovering around you, trailing his clawed fingers over patches of exposed skin. Smirking all so curly as you shiver and shrink back. His knife-like fangs seen to be permanently impaling your neck. Draining you of your life force. He's just so damn heartless!

🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️ 🗡️

Although he may be a ruthless monster, a creature of the night that fed on the innocent, there was no denying that Inosuke was resourceful, resourceful, and strong. He knew just where to hide you, so you would neither be found nor have a chance to escape. There was also the way he routinely cracked your fibula and tibia as a “preprecaution”.

Your arm wasn't meant to bend that way, neither was your leg when you thought about it. Yet despite the odd angle there had yet to be any cracking or popping to indicate the limp had been, once again, broken. The only real evidence to suggest that the limps were in fact being abused was the white scorching pain coursing through them. A feeling that you had almost grown entirely familiar with.

Inosuke's green eyes shifted lazily between your scrunched up face and the twisting limps. One of his "normal" arms was occupied mangling your left arm, the other two appendages that sprouted from his back were pulling your leg upwards at the knee joint. Inosuke's head leaned over his remaining arm, he looked bored, like your pain was so mundane that it couldn't even grant him a mere chuckle.

"I like it better when you scream" his voice was laced with a demanding malice, something bitter and rotting. "It's boring when you try to act all strong and mighty".

You weren't acting, acting required skills, and an audience who wanted to believe in the performer. No, your lack of response wasn't a show of strength or iron will, it was merely because your vocal cords had been shrieked raw, preventing them from making a single peep.

Your tear-filled eyes shot up to stare into his depraved orbs. Had there ever been a time when his eyes didn't strike fear into those who peered into them? You highly doubted it, heck the idea of Inosuke ever being anything less than terrifying was a laughable thought.

An eerie familiar noise filled the room, the cracking noise happened in three instances, like three swipes of a blade. First, it was your talus followed by your patella, and then to finish the spin chilling symphony was the crescendo of your breaking humerus for the hundredth time.

Tears began to flow rapidly from your eyes, staining your thin layer of clothes. You could feel Inosuke's presence shifting about, leaning ever so closer to nuzzle into the side of your neck. His teeth grazing the already punctured skin.

Inosuke use to be a demon slayer right? A passionate young man who wanted nothing more than to destroy the very same monsters that he himself became? What a laughable story, a fictional tale if ever you'd heard one!

This man was and would always be nothing more than a cruel demon!

#demon slayer #demon slayer x reader #demon slayer x you #yandere demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #kimetsu no yaiba x reader #kimetsu no yaiba x you #yandere kimetsu no yaiba #kimetsu no yaiba tanjiro kamado #kimetsu no yaiba tanjiro kamado x reader #kimetsu no yaiba tanjiro kamado x you #tanjiro kamado x reader #tanjiro kamado x you #yandere tanjiro kamado #yandere tanjiro kamado x reader #yandere tanjiro kamado x you #demon slayer tanjiro kamado #demon slayer tanjiro kamado x reader #demon slayer tanjiro kamado x you #demon slayer zenitsu agatsuma #demon slayer zenitsu agatsuma x reader #demon slayer zenitsu agatsuma x you #zenitsu agatsuma #zenitsu agatsuma x reader #zenitsu agatsuma x you #yandere zenitsu agatsuma #yandere zenitsu agatsuma x reader #yandere zenitsu agatsuma x you #demon slayer inosuke hashibira #demon slayer inosuke hashibira x reader

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wishingtobeinadifferentuniverse · 4 years

Text

Clear Waters (Fili x Fem!Reader)

Warnings: none

Word Count: 2069

A/N ok so I do not like this one as much and also it is veryyy long for me so that's also why. For this one, it is kind of open-ended and I still have not decided who it's for lol, It could be Thorin, Fili, Kili, or Bilbo. Who knows, even Dwalin or bombur. I lovvve being indecisive. so have a surprise and let me know if you have any requests. Enjoy xx

The water swept over me, my muscles taut with strain, but I felt freer than ever. The water was icy, but it soothed me. Muscle memory taught me to savor the moment from when I jumped in the water to when I clambered back on the boat. A few stray waves hit me, rolling me over a bit. I let them roll me, facing upwards towards the sky. I sighed. Bard would be back soon, and he would want me to help him with whatever he had today. Of course, I was more than willing to help. After all, he is the one that brings me out in these waters and lets me have time to myself. I began to swim to our meeting place, one that we both had memorized. I let my body relax, the tendrils of kelp trying to keep me from going back. I willed myself forward, but to what? More scoffing at my ideas, more remarking on how I am not married yet. But I had to.

The waves began to swell, and I smiled. Bard was here to pick me up. Of course, he did the old trick of pretending to almost run me over. I laughed at his antics, he rarely was ever humorous anymore. I hoisted myself up the side of the boat, sopping wet when I realized that he had company. I looked at Bard, who shrugged.

"Lass, you could have drowned! What are ye doing?" A crowd of what looked like 14 dwarves stood before me. They were all staring incredulously, obviously, they did not expect someone to be swimming in these waters.

"I'm just going for my daily swim of course. Did you actually think Bard was going to hit me? You have so little faith in your ferry it seems." I wrung out my hair over the side of the boat. My explanation did not seem to suit them, but they dropped the subject fairly quickly.

"Now might I ask, who are you?" a voice said quietly. I looked up and faced a dwarf, no, a hobbit who looked very out of place.

"I am y/n, from Laketown. And who are you? It looks like you are a halfling unless my eyes deceive me," I responded.

He fidgeted a bit. He was obviously very uncomfortable. "Yes yes, that's me. Bilbo Baggins." He scooted back to the other side of the boat. An odd character he seems, out of place. Why was he here? I turned back around, tired from all the swimming. I met the eyes of some of the other dwarves. Two of them had a very mischievous look in them. Some were more somber. But one of them caught my eyes. He looked like he was the leader of all of them, even if he did not say anything. He had that air of authority to his figure. I caught his eye, trying to figure out what these dwarves were doing here, but his face did not give anything I way. I leaned my head back against the boat. Breath in, breath out. Slowly my eyes closed, letting slumber take over my willing body.

--------time change hehe--------

Bard shook me awake, motioning to the barrels that were now filled with fish. How long was I asleep for? I shook the last tendrils of sleep off me, and clumsily grabbed one of the barrels. I poured it onto the deck where Bard was pouring one, and a redheaded dwarf rolled out unceremoniously. I gave Bard a questioning look, but he motioned to stay quiet. Well, a time for everything I suppose.

Once we had poured out all the fish, dwarves included, I was free to go. But, after all, I am a nosy person, so I decided to go with Bard. For some reason we had to sneak the dwarves into his house, were they fugitives of some sort? Well, no matter who they were, they were picky, with everything. The weapons Bard offered were "not good enough". Everything seemed to pass by in a blurry haze. Clearly, I needed more sleep. I noticed one of the dwarves seemed to be in pain, clearly trying to hide it. I ventured a bit closer, but Bard called for me to help him with something.

The night approached quickly, and these dwarves were very somber. I walked up to one of them, the oldest one. "Might I ask what is going on here? Everything that I have ever heard about dwarves is that they are jovial, and I have rarely ever seen anyone this quiet," I spoke quietly, not wanting to draw attention to my confusion.

"Well lass, we are not here to stay, and we are a bit behind schedule. Everyone is just a bit tense, as this is very important for everyone," the dwarf said vaguely. "You're y/n aren't ye."

"Yes, that's me. And who are you?"

"Balin son of Fundin. It is a pleasure to meet you. Now I see you are a bit fiercer than the rest and I would like to know if there is an armory here where we can get weapons from. If you do not wish to help, that is fine. However, I can tell you want adventure. Make up your mind soon." He walked away to get some food, leaving me with my mouth wide open. How could he know? How does he know that I hate this place, that I want to leave on journeys? I would drill him about that later, but for now, I must help them.

I murmured some of the plans to Bilbo, who told Balin. Everyone else came to know, and the minute Bard would leave we would be off. Bard would not be happy with me, but I don't care. It's about high time I had something to do other than sitting around or swimming. I needed an escape. As we were all eating, talking amongst ourselves, I noticed Bard hurriedly whisper something to his son and slip out the door, unnoticed by everyone.

I yawned, "Well I think I will be heading off to bed. It was lovely meeting you all." I met all of their eyes, lingering on some for longer. I still noticed the younger dwarf hiding his pain, but I could do nothing at the moment. I left the house and down the stairs, waiting. After about five minutes I heard grumbling from the rest of the dwarves. I motioned for them to stay quiet and quickly led the way. I showed them the window that they could enter once we reached the armory.

"This is the only way in without alerting guards. Be quiet. If anyone of you makes a noise, it is over. I will leave once you get in unless there is anything else I can help you with," I said hopefully. I still wished to leave this dreadful town.

Thorin, the dwarf in charge, muttered some orders to the rest of them and then turned wearily back to me. "We are in your debt. Thank you for helping us," he said grudgingly, in a deep gravelly voice.

I nodded my head and left them, turning around a corner. I stopped though, for I heard them saying something.

"She would have been of use to us. Clearly, she knows a way out of here and we don't." I heard one of the dwarves arguing. I could not tell which one.

"No, she would only hinder us. She is soft, she has never left this village, she would only be a burden." I heard Thorin say gruffly. He wasn't necessarily wrong, but they underestimated me. I could handle a sword, and I would not hesitate in killing orcs. But if I showed myself, they would all not trust me. So I stayed hidden.

"Uncle you don't know that. Besides, think of what use a human might be. They perceive things in different ways sometimes. There's something about her. She would help us, I know she would." The other dwarf spoke.

Hmmm, which ones were his nephews. I thought the injured one was his only relative, but clearly, I was wrong. The injured one's voice was not as resonant as the one that was speaking. I accidentally shuffled a bit, and their voices grew quieter. I could no longer hear them, but it was nice to know that someone wanted me there. All of a sudden there was a huge crashing of metal and a couple of thumps. I fled the scene, knowing that I could not get caught with them. Everyone already was wary of me, I would hate to make things worse for myself.

I heard the shouting of guards as I ran, far enough away that I knew I wouldn't be caught. The town center, that was where they would be brought. I took some shortcuts, so hopefully, I could see them alright. Everything passed by in my anxiety-induced haze. If they mentioned me at all, I was well, screwed. I vaguely heard Thorin shout something, and everyone cheering, but I was mostly looking at the dwarves' faces and made sure they were alright.

Balin looked a bit concerned, and the youngest one was still trying to hide his pain, but everyone else looked joyous. I smiled looking at them. It was the first time I had seen them in a good mood. One of them looked right at me, he was blonde, and he looked younger. I think he might have been the one talking about me. I waved and he dipped his head in acknowledgment.

Everyone was busy celebrating that they were going to the lonely mountain, but I mostly wanted to check on the hurt dwarf. Kili I think his name is. But before I could reach them, the crowd pressed in. Drinks were brought out and I could barely move without bumping into someone. It got harder to breathe. I began taking quicker breathes, trying to push my way out of the pandemonium. My ears were ringing because it was so loud. Finally, I managed to get out, and I sat against one of the stalls, leaning my head back against it. Footsteps approached me, slowly, and I turned my head.

"They are going to bring doom to us all," Bard said hoarsely. "But all anyone wants is gold. Greedy things we are. It makes me almost sick to watch this. Do you want me to walk you back to your house or are you fine on your own?"

"I think I'll be alright for tonight Bard, thank you though. Goodnight." I replied back.

I closed my eyes for a second, listening to the laughter, beer slopping down the sides of mugs, something I have not heard in a long time. It is odd to miss things like this, especially when you don't realize you miss them. Some more footsteps approached me, but quicker, with a skip to them.

"My Lady," the dwarf said, bowing his head.

I smiled in return. "I am certainly no lady. And remind me, which one are you?"

"Ah, but you look like a lady to me. I am Fili, nephew of Thorin. Why are you sitting down when there are festivities to be had?"

"A gentleman does not ask a lady such questions." I retorted.

He gave a sly chuckle, "I thought you aren't a lady."

I laughed, not expecting this from him. But it was funny nonetheless. "Well, you have me there. Now tell me everything about this quest. I am keen to be on one myself and I would love to hear it all."

So Fili told me everything. Where he was born, why he wanted to go, everything. Obviously, some of the ale he drank was at work, seeming to make him more flamboyant than he usually might be. But it was amusing and laughter ensued.

When the music died down and people began to head home, Fili wrapped up his exaggerated tale.

"It was lovely to meet you Fili. I wish you the best of luck on your quest." I said softly. "Please try not to wake the dragon."

He chucked. "It was lovely to meet you as well y/n."

I waved him farewell and walked back to my house. It was always good to meet new people, especially these dwarves. They seemed like they could be so happy if they tried. Well, it is time to settle in for the night.

#lotr #lotr fanfic #fanfic #thorin x y/n #thorin x reader #fili #fili x you #fili x reader #kili #kili x you #kili x reader #thorin #bilbo

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