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hoe4sports · 5 months ago

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“Love me to my bones”

Alexia Putellas x reader

A/N: Part two of the stargazing series. It’s based off of the song Stargazing by Myles Smith. P3 can be found here. Triggers includes swearing.

05.37. There was thunder outside causing you to be held awake. The heavy drumming on your windows definitely didn’t help on your anxiety. You were staring at the clock on your nightstand while your roommates soft snores were lingering in the room. 05.38. More thunder. Four rounds of thunder within one minute. 3 seconds away from you. For a hot second; you thought you had lost all common sense as you tossed yourself back in your bed and covered your head with a pillow. You didn’t just hate thunder, you despised it. It made all the anxiety you had piled up from football shoved underneath the carpet come alive. You weren’t particularly traumatised, but you had been tough on yourself as a kid. It was hard being compared to Alexia all the time, and it ended up with you having to work twice as hard as her. She was a natural, a magician with the ball. You however, were a not so much natural. But hey, you know what they all say; hard work over talent.

The scrutinising buzzing of Claudia’s alarm woke you up at 6. You were two ringings away from chucking your phone at Claudia to wake her up. It was weird staying with anyone else during away-games, but Alexia had requested her own room for the first time since you started playing together as kids. The wish had come up after she’d talk to Olga about her spacing out, only for Olga to blame it on Alexia for being so busy with football and her teammates. You were surprised by how much it hurt to be wrecked for your usual partner, but you accepted it. What hurt was that Alexia hadn’t reached out to you. She didn’t answer your texts, your calls and she hadn’t given you an explanation. Your explanation was made of giving her the benefit of the doubt. That’s why you had been paired with Claudia. Claudia wasn’t the worst person to camp up with, but by the judgment of her alarm; she wasn’t the best either. “Ah, rise and shine! Ready for another day of football?” Claudia sang after she’d turned off the alarm. The look on your face made her jump a little. “Oh my, Y/N, what happened to you?!” Claudia exclaimed dramatically while hopping up from her bed to touch your face and study the tiredness up close. “I couldn’t sleep, the thunder was horrendous” you mumbled as Claudia moved your face around while she fiddled with the visible bags under your eyes. “Ai, I think you’ll need something better than coffee and face cream” she said blatantly causing you to whack her playfully in her thigh. Truth was that Alexia also hates thunder, so you knew that she was awake as well. You would normally sit together during thunderstorms in the nurturing company of each other. You had been each other’s safe space for years on end, sharing all your secrets and worst fears. That time seemed to had come to an end now that Alexia had Olga. 20 years chucked out of the window. The only comfort you had was that you knew Alexia first.

Claudia dragged you along downstairs for breakfast with the rest of the girls. You felt like you had been run over twice and it felt like your brain was about to pound out of your skull. A few of the girls were already downstairs; Ingrid, Mapi, Caroline, Marta, Patri and Irene. You flashed a half assed smile before you grabbed a plate and placed fruit on your plate. The lack of appetite wasn’t because of poor selection in the breakfast buffet; you could never eat properly after having nightmares or not having any sleep. The chair next to Ingrid was empty so you flopped down next to the Norwegian before taking a bite of the watermelon you had picked up. Ingrid was someone you could trust, whom you could rely on. She would never tell anyone and she would never judge. It was surprising to you when she told you that she wasn’t the captain of the Norwegian national team.

«Y/N? You look like someone forced you to do algebra all night!" Mapi exclaimed causing Ingrid to shot her a look. "Uhm, yea. There was thunder so i couldnt sleep" you shrugged while munching on the bright red strawberries you had collected from the buffet. The juiciness was refreshing for your dehydrated body. "Ai, How did Alexia sleep through that!” Mapi said as she popped a piece of bread into her mouth. “Where exactly is Alexia? Didn’t she come down with you?” Irene stated. The whole lot of girls looked at you as they quieted down. It felt like someone had put a spotlight on your head and you felt your cheeks burn. Everyone knew you and Alexia were two peas in a pod, so everyone also knew that something was wrong. You decided to tell the truth and play it off cool. “She wanted to have her own room, I’m sharing with Pina” you explained as you looked to the wall next to the girls so you could avoid eye contact. The group went dead quiet. The whole room felt like it was closing in on you. The air felt hot. The ringing in your ears were gradually taking a turn for the worse. You could feel the tears pressing.

“I’m gonna go get ready for practice” you practically commanded as you shoved your chair out and stomped up the stairs to the your room in the 11th floor. You quickly opted for the shower, ripping the clothes off your body as fast as you could. The water was turned to a cold setting and the icy water made you feel more awake than ever. It sharpened your body and your mind to the point where you had forgotten about Alexia. Eventually, you got out and pulled on your shorts, t-shirt and your wind jacket. Claudia was laying on her bed watching TikTok as you came out of the bathroom. “That took forever!” Claudia sighted as she looked up at you. “Yea, I forgot the time” you muttered back as you slipped on your trainers. “Ready for practice?”

The practice hadn’t really been on your side. You had taken a tumble mid sprint and busted your head open. The medics had forced you to get a huge bandaid in the middle of your forehead. It looked awful, and gruelling. Later that same practice, you had managed to step on the ball during a drill and once again face planted into the grass. The last little slip up was when you got split into two team and Alexia had knocked your right out on your back causing you to black out for a hot second. This really wasnt your lucky day. You got into the wardrobe after practice and stayed behind to shower alone. The girls could get quite loud so you sometimes liked to stay behind. The hotel was in a walking distance to the arena, so it wouldn’t be an issue. After you came out of the shower, you bumped into Alexia.

“Oh, sorry” you said as you kept your head down low as you passed her. “What’s up with you today?” She asked with an attitude as she turned around to look at you. You stood towards the locker as you shrugged. “Nothing”. Alexia sighted as she crossed her arms. “I can tell that there is something going on. I know you Y/N better than anyone on the team.” Alexia said as you tried to get your clothes on as you felt your blood boil. You ignored her chucking your cleats into your bag with your dirty clothes. “Y/N, I know you can hear me! What’s going on with you today?” Alexia’s voice seemed to be a mix of annoyance and worry. You could hear her footsteps coming closer to you. It flipped for you when she touched your shoulder.

“Y/N. Come on, talk to me. You are my bestfriend. I love you and I won’t judge you.” she tried again. The emotions you were bearing felt like a kettle about to boil over. Like the moment when your acl snaps and the whole world goes quiet. Like before you take a penalty. Your heart was pounding in your chest. Your had gripped your bag so hard that it started to hurt your hands. Your breathing was becoming more and more heavy. You turned around to face Alexia.

“Y/N-“

“Really Alexia? Are you fucking dumb? You leave me hanging landing me with Claudia without giving me a heads up! You are an ASS at practice. You stop texting me, you stop partnering up with me, you stop being my best friend. You don’t give me any reason, any explanation. You throw 20 years in the trash within a heartbeat! And you tell me that you know me? That you love me? You clearly don’t fucking know or love me at all!”

“Y/N.. I-“

“Oh my god, Alexia. You really don’t know when to stop?! I’m such an idiot for loving you! I’m such an idiot for loving you more than I love myself, more than football, more than anything! You threw me away like I was nothing. And for what? For a fucking girl, Alexia! You don’t do that, people don’t do that to someone that has supported them for 20 years!”

Alexia’s eyes had tears in them. Her confusion was fogging her brain. She was longing for your touch, but she couldn’t tell you. She couldn’t tell you how Olga had picked a fight with her about you. How jealous Olga was. How she felt like she had to protect you from her own girlfriend. You couldn’t tell her how you were craving her touch. How you loved her first. How you had fallen in love with her before Olga was there. How you had liked her since you were teens. Maybe that was your way out of this situation, of this mess that had been made by you, Alexia and Olga.

“God Alexia, I love you. I love you so fucking much it hurts. I have loved you for decades. I loved you before Olga did. I was in love with you, Alexia. For years! So please, leave me the fuck alone.”

You bolted towards the door of the wardrobe leaving Alexia stunned. You felt embarrassed, but you were hurt. As you stormed out of the room, you smacked the door shut while you paced out as fast as your legs could. You needed to get away from Alexia. And you didn’t care what you had to sacrifice for that to happen.

Things between Olga and Alexia weren’t how you had assumed they were. It wasn’t really “Olga and Alexia” anymore. But Alexia hadn’t told you yet. How they had broken up the day you left for the away game. She wanted to tell you in person, somewhere private. Where nobody could hear her other than you. Where she could pour out her real feelings to you. She wanted to tell you that nobody was worth risking your friendship. That you were her bestfriend. That no girl was ever gonna get to ruin your friendship. That you were her ride or die. But she couldn’t tell you, because you were long gone. Alexia didn’t know what to do or how to make things right; but she knew that she needed to make amends.

#woso imagine #woso x reader #alexia putellas x reader #barca femini x reader #barca femeni #claudia pina

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youraverageaemondsimp · 1 year ago

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“Meant for him” // Stalker!Aemond Targaryen x Niece!Reader [ONE SHOT]

THIS IS A DARK FIC SO PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS BEFORE INDULGING // based on this request.

WARNINGS: MDNI! heavy noncon to dubcon, canon typical incest, creepy behavior, jealousy, dark!aemond, possessiveness, p in v sex, breeding kink, knife kink, pain kink, dacryphilia(?), violence, + not proofread!

block the tag #MAE:DARK!CONTENT to avoid seeing dark content from me.

You wished you hadn't ventured out alone at this ungodly hour, the keep was deadly silent except your footsteps, you got lost, having not been here for a while and now you were just walking around trying to remember the pathways until you felt someone grab you from behind, slapping a hand over your mouth so you don't scream and dragging you to a more secluded area.

You struggled in the man's tight grip, writhing and kicking, but he remained firm and kept dragging you until he shoved you roughly against the wall, your head making hard contact with the brick wall, causing pain to shoot up your skull, making you close your eyes and wince.

You finally opened them to see the familiar head of platinum-blonde and a violet eye, you frowned, it was your uncle, Aemond.

“Fucking cunt, playing hard to get.” he sneers at you, you felt panic rise in your veins.

Aemond has been after you for many years, from the moment you were born to now, he was ever the dutiful son in everyone's eyes, but to you, he was a force not to be reckoned with.

What started off as curiosity to see his niece at a young age, manifested into pure obsession and twisted love for you, As a child, he had asked his mother to betroth you to him, your age gap wasn't that big, only being two years younger.

Alicent was reluctant at first, because she knew you were a bastard but saw this as an opportunity to make amends, but rhaenyra refused, saying that you were too young, being only seven, and Aemond just nine.

Aemond was frustrated, you were his birthright, you'll be betrothed to him in the future anyway so why not just do it now? He liked you very much, he followed you in secret, when he wasn't studying or training with his brother, he would be stalking you.

He would collect things you left behind to keep as some kind of twisted souvenirs.

And then came the driftmark incident, you weren't involved in any of it, sleeping soundly but you were woken up, being a child, you were terrified when you entered the chamber to find Aemond's face all bloodied up, his face being stitched by the maester, and then you turned your head to the side to find your brothers bloody too, not as much as Aemond, but you rushed over to them.

After they had explained what happened, you felt angry, he insulted your brothers? You also felt bad for him because he lost his eye but it angered you more to see your brothers hurt, you shared the same womb after all.

In that time, Aemond proposed for you to be betrothed to him once again, saying how Lucerys has a debt to pay, but he's willing to move on if your hand is promised to him, and Viserys also thought it was a good idea, but you blatantly refused, in front of everyone.

And then Alicent went crazy, coming towards Lucerys with a knife but your mother had stopped her in time, the situation terrified you, and she slashed your mothers arm when pulling away, and reading the room, Aemond stepped in bitterly, saying it was a fair exchange to de-escalate the situation. Even though he knew deep down that it was never fair.

And that's when his liking for you took a turn, you dared reject him in front of everyone, he never forget about it.

Over the years Alicent has sent few ravens, proposing the same thing over and over again, but you refused when your mother had bought them up, saying you won't be marrying someone that dared to insult your family's honour.

Aemond knew you would say no, but he still asked his mother regardless, Alicent knew her son was going mad and was about to tip over the edge, and she wouldn't know how to deal with that.

Just then, Vaemond bought a petition to question Lucerys' succession to driftmark, and your family returned to the keep, Aemond's mind was racing with your thoughts, he wondered how you looked now, he knew you would've grown into a beautiful woman.

And so when he spotted you with your brothers through his periphery, he was excited and it made him defeat cole in the training, earning applause, before he addressed your brothers, “Nephews, have you come to train?” he asked before focused his attention on them, they were speechless.

“Niece,” he began and you looked at him with a frown, he took in your appearance before a smile grew on his face, “You've grown.” he stated and you never wanted to punch him so bad, that was until you were interrupted by the entrance of Vaemond.

The court had ended with Lucerys being reaffirmed as the heir to driftmark and with Vaemond's head on the floor, cut cleanly by your step father, daemon. You admired him a lot.

Alicent once again proposed your betrothal in private to your mother, as much as your mother loved the idea, she was planning on betrothing you to Cregan stark, and so alicent nodded sadly.

And the dinner? It was a mess.

Everything was fine until Viserys left the room, and the pig arrived, Luke let out mocking laughs looking at Aemond, and so he slammed his fist on the table before picking up the wine glass and toasting to your brothers, he was already pissed off from the news his mother delivered to him before dinner begun and now this ticked him off even further.

'Strong boys.' he had called them, which pissed both Jace and Luke off, and so it ended in such mess, being sent to your chambers by your mother.

You went out for a walk when everyone was asleep, not being able to stand the suffocation in your chambers, you didn't realise then that it would be such a big mistake.

“U-uncle please-” you begged in his grip, his hand shot out to grab your neck, cutting off your air supply which had you choking, clawing at his hands to make him let go of you, kicking your feet.

He pushed you further against the wall before pressing his forehead against yours, “How many years will you have me toiling after you? I fucking wanted you. Yet you refused me. Each and every fucking time.” he grip on your throat tightened, making you see stars and you struggled in his grip.

“You are to be betrothed to Cregan Stark? Do you think he'll marry you if I ruined you?” those words made your eyes widen, surely he isn't suggesting that.

“N-no-” you croak, his hand leaves your throat and you gasp for air, breathing heavily, and then he presses his dagger to your throat, not cutting you but enough to have to stop moving.

He undoes his breeches, pulling out his semi hard cock and giving it a few pumps, you dared not to move because if you did, the dagger would pierce through your skin and you would bleed out.

He began to hike your skirt up gathering them in one place before he pressed himself against you, you sobbed when you felt his cock rubbing against your cunt, he slammed his lips against you in a rough kiss, you didn't kiss him back, just cried. He licked your tears away before pulling back with a smirk. You looked at him with teary eyes.

His free hand cupped your cunt before he rubbed small circles on your clit, you gasp as he presses meanly against the flesh.

Unsatisfied with the position, Aemond throws you onto the ground, you make sure to land on your back and avoid getting your head hurt again, but your back burns with pain at the impact, causing you to wince. Aemond straddles you, skirt gathered in your lap as you cry out, he slaps your face before shutting you up with a hand over your mouth.

“Do you know how much I wanted you? How much I pined after you? You rejected me. I still haven't forgotten.” he spits on your face.

He moves himself down and spreads your legs wide, you try to push him away with your free hands but you fail, he lines up his cock against your entrance before prodding at the opening with it, “A-aemond— uncle, please stop” you say weakly.

He kisses trails kisses up for your neck, before finding your sensitive spot and sucking in the skin there, causing you to whine, he pulls away before grabbing his dagger once again and ripping the bodice of your dress, causing your breasts so spill out of their confines. You gasp when you feel the dagger poke at the flesh, he presses hard for it just sting but not pierce the skin.

He lets go of the dagger before grabbing both your tits and squeezing them roughly before his mouth descends to take one in his mouth, he licks the nipple before sucking on it, your hand flies up to his hair, gripping it tightly, not knowing whether you want to push him away or hold him tight against you.

He leaves your breast with a pop, hearing you gasp, he sat back, admiring how your cunt looks, all wet and dripping, “You're dripping way too much for someone showing such resistance.” he comments before he pokes at your hole his tip, causing you to clench around nothing.

He knows you wouldn't be able to take him, and that he should prepare you first, but he couldn't hold himself back, and without a warning, he shoves himself entirely inside of you, causing you to scream before it gets cut off by him slamming his lips against yours.

The pain was unbearable, he was too big, and you were a maiden too, it was burning and aching so much, but for some reason you liked the burn, the stretch, you thought you were going insane.

He had the basic courtesy of letting you adjust to him, albeit for a moment before he pulled back and started thrusting wildly into your cunt, causing your body to jolt up against the stone floor.

He spread your legs wider, holding them apart from beneath your knees, and you held on to his shoulder for support and threw your head back, feeling pleasure creeping up your spine.

“U-uncle p-please.” you begged, you had no idea what you were begging for anyone, you didn't want to lose yourself and so you tried pushing him away but he didn't budge, and so your hands fell limply to your side as you let him have his way with you.

His good eye was wild, pupil almost engulfing the violet of his eyes, he watched as your breasts bounced up and down as he continued to thrust into your core, before he grabbed them meanly and pinched both your nipples, twisting them causing you gasp in pain.

One hand left your breast to grab the dagger on the floor next to you before he bought it up to your face, tracing it on the side of your cheek, you flinched when you felt the sharp material press against your face, it trailed down to your neck and he light put pressure there, causing the blood to come up to the surface of the skin but not entirely piercing it.

You felt your arousal dripping onto the stones below at that, you felt embarassed, that your body was liking it, he sat back on his haunches and rammed his cock in and out, watching the blood of your maidenhead coat his cock, causing him to let out a small gasp.

He bought your hips onto his lap, the new angle hitting the rough patch inside of you, causing you to mewl, you gripped his arms which held you up by the waist, nails biting into the leather material. “F-fuck, look at your cunt. Gripping me tightly.” he said between heavy breathes, groaning as he felt each and every ridge of your wet heat, making you clench around him.

“Oh gods, you were meant for me.” he breathes

His hand gripped your cheek tightly, parting your lip before he leant down and kissed you, tears flowing freely from your eyes as he licked them and kissed them away. “Shhh, take it like the good girl you are.” he coos in your ears and you just close your eyes.

And then felt the band in your stomach begin to tighten, you knew what this meant, and aemond was able to tell too, by the way your cunt was clenching tightly around him, his hand moved to your bud and rubbed small but fast circles, and you shook your head, “N-no!” you moaned, refusing to let yourself peak but it is violently ripped through when he pressed meanly down onto your clit, cause the band to snap, mouth parted in a silent moan, eyes clenched close.

Your cunt pulsed around him, making him groan at the sensation, he kissed you once again, lips moving against yours in a passionate manner, tongue swiping against your bottom for entrance to which you grant him, too lost in the high.

You were breathing heavily when you felt his thrusts become sloppy, and the way he was groaning, “I'm gonna cum inside of you alright? breed you, watch you swell with my heirs.” he babbles, and you gulp, “beg for it.” he suddenly says and you look at him wide eyed, another orgasm rapidly approaching you.

“P-please aemond—” you groan, feeling his hit the rough patch again, “Please what?” he asks, trying to contain himself from spilling already, “P-please cum inside me- need you.” you beg humiliated and just then your second orgasm hits you hard, causing you to moan loudly.

“F-fuck, I'm gonna make you a mother, you would love that right? and finally I'd be able to marry you, watch your carry my children, you're going to give me so many understand?” he rambles on before he reaches his peak, coming inside you with a satisfied moan, he rides his orgasm out before he pulls out, watching his spend leak out of you.

You thought with a heavy heart on how he ruined you, no man would want you now.

The next morning, your betrothal plan to cregan was called off on your wish, you asked your mother to get you married to Aemond, he has officially ruined you and damned you to himself, and you were only afraid that if he didn't get what he wanted this time, he would go further and kill your any man you get betrothed to.

And so you quickly accepted your fate.

———

#aemond targaryen #x reader #aemond #aemond x reader #reader insert #aemond smut #aemond x fem!reader #dark!aemond x reader #dark!aemond targaryen x reader #dark!aemond targaryen #dark!fic #tw: noncon #MAE:DARK!CONTENT #hotd #house of the dragon #aemond one eye #dark!hotd #tw: dubcon #tw: violence

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stealingyourbones · 1 year ago

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Submitted Prompts #144

*shakes a bag of bird skulls I found in the woodsI and places it on your desk like it's a bag of gold*

I had an idea:

What if the Fenton parents are, in fact very competent Hunters, but they love their children more than their work?

Say the first shot Maddie ever fired at Phanton actually lands, and the scream he makes sounds too much like Danny's voice, to a point even with any ghostly distortion, his own still recognizes the voice.

I can see her pulling Jack to the side, making a ruckus about how the "darn ghost got away just as her blaster ran out of juice". Mostly as a way to get Danny her darling son to leave and go somewhere safe, while his parents have a whole breakdown in the GAV about their dead son.

And so begins the stealthy studies on how Phantom's "human disguise" works, the Revelation of Horrible Truth, keeping tabs on Danny's growth and revising their whole attitude on Ghosts to account for the fact that Danny himself is, at least in some part, a Ghost himself, but all he's done is live his life (and be the little hero Mom always said he'd grow up to be).

Jazz stumbles across his secret and is immediately pulled aside to join the secret "Protect the Baby Ghost" family group chat.

"And what about all the times they shot at him in canon" I hear you ask?

They're damn good shots, but while Maddie can train herself to aim just so that the shot misses just enough it looks like Phantom dodged it, Jack has the Fenton Bazooka outfitted with a tracking HUD that purposely fails to hit everyone's favorite Ghost Boy.

Danny picks up on that, but not on the fact that They Know.

And so begins the single most convoluted training arc ever.

Next time Skulker's in town, Phantom has become untouchable. Not a single shot or electrified net reaches it's target.

(The electrified weapons in particular send the Fentons into a rage when Sam and Tucker finally can't keep hiding it, and come clean about what happened, since the Fentons have proven themselves to be trustworthy)

When Red Huntress comes about, and Valerie Grey becomes barely a distant acquaintance after having only just now started becoming more than a friend, and with the GIW sniffing about, Maddie and Jack pull Danny to sit between them and finally tell him they know, and they want to prove that they'll love him just as much as before, whether Human or Ghost.

Danny breaks down in the safety of his family's love, and takes some time off as Phantom to help his parents establish a proper line of communication with the Ancients, considering they've kinda adopted themselves into the roles of Aunts and Uncles towards their little Ghostling.

Which is a good thing, because in Phantom's absence the GIW make a giant spectacle of destroying several houses while chasing some blob ghosts. They're chased out of town by brick, stone and metal bat.

Next time Red Huntress actually manages to hurt Danny, the Fentons pack up and leave. The Portal can be transported somewhere else. It can be rebuilt.

Their baby boy can't be rebuilt, no matter how much he likes to be a little shit and ignore Reality to quote Shakespeare at his own head (thank you Mr Lancer, for not giving up on him) or "give them a hand".

As Fenton takes the last tour of Amity, Phantom disappears. The Protal has been left seemingly unguarded.

The Ghosts decide to have one last hurrah in Anity Park before Danny closes the Portal, as per their deal. They won't hurt anyone, just cause chaos, but in return Phantom won't stop them. It's not like poor Red has the energy to chase them down, now that she's been "upgraded" into Amity's sole defender (the one time Lancer compares her new lack of sleep to Danny's, horrifying pieces start lining up too well in her mind)

The Fentons move out. Into a quiet farm neighbouring the land that belongs to the delightful couple that are the Kents, and their darling son, little Clark, who stares at Danny mildly horrified whenever he comes by to babysit, or help out with fixing the stubborn tractor. One day under Danny's clever hands, and Jonathan Kent's eagle-eyed gaze, and that damned tractor has never worked so well before. The boy's alright in the old man's eyes, and he makes sure they kid knows it.

After quiet rooftop admissions of one small boy's growing powers (I know Adult Clark is a brick house of a man, but what if he was a little twig while young) and the reveal of Something More Than Human from his honorary older brother, the course of Time sets into it's best version, and an Old Clock smiles, as Superman rises, only to be scolded by Spectre for recklessness.

(Dunno how well it came across, but I'm envisioning Valerie's feelings towards Danny to go from bitter resignation because she " had to" push him away, to horrified despair when the truth starts falling into place. He's her "the one that got away". And it's not like she gave him much of a reason to trust her with his secrets.

Maybe older and wiser Red Huntress gets invited to the Justice League, and has to deal with not just Fenton, but also Phantom flirting with her, after a good long conversation on how dumb they both were as kids, and a mutual vow of "I think I can do better now, and I want to prove it to you")

#dpxdc #bones submissions #I started thinking 'what if the fentons were good parents'#and then the 'what if their skirmishes in canon were just playfighting and training' met 'Fenton-Bad-Aim'#and then when I thought where one might put a Ghost Portal where it won't be a bother #the thought 'put it in a fam shed' struck me #and so i had to bring Baby Clark and Ma and Pa Kent into it #Clark jumps off one roof and Danny thinks he knows a little better what he put Jazz through when it was his turn #later whenever Superman mentions his older brother and eveyone expects a Kryptonian #early-days Batman absolutely expects another spandex and cape hero #maybe some superman ripoff #until the Zeta activates for a Guest and in walks a man in black armor #and starlight cape #with a fur collar #and everyone thinks 'ooooh Supes is this one's ripoff'#and then the regal image is shattered because Danny coos at the heroes #many of them are babies when compared to his own experiences as as Hero and how long he's been at it #the Green Lanterns feel him pass by in the way a diver feels a whale swim by singing at them

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metalhoops · 2 years ago

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Steve was going to die crouched behind a picnic table in an unfamiliar town. That’s how he saw it, anyway.

He’d been looking for Robin. That’s where it all went wrong. She hadn’t shown up for work at the video store that Saturday morning. It wasn’t like her. The two had just started at their new job and it was a goddamn Saturday. Steve had been run off his feet all day.

At the end of his shift, he couldn’t help but look for her. Since the incident with the Russians, both he and Robin had their days where they would disappear, but they’d always let the other know they were safe.

Steve never used to be a worst-case-scenario kind of guy until everything with The Upside Down. All day he’d felt panic rising in his stomach. What if she’d been taken by demogorgons or kidnapped by secret government operatives?

He drove the BMW past all of Robin’s familiar haunts. She wasn’t at home or at Steve’s place. The school was closed, so she couldn’t be at band and she’d have asked him to drive her to the movies.

That’s when he started to check the places he didn’t want to find her. The Junkyard, Lover’s Lake, and the remains of the Hawkins lab. She wasn’t there. It was then he recalled a conversation they’d had last Sunday.

“All right, I’ve got some more evidence,” Robin had exclaimed days before, and Steve had known exactly what she was talking about.

“Well don’t hold out on me, Rob,” Steve pushed, pulling out a notebook he should’ve been using to keep track of people’s late rental returns.

Instead, it harboured two columns and a series of tallies, an ode to their Scoops Days Steve was secretly proud of thinking up. ‘Vicky likes boobies’, proclaimed one column while the other argued, ‘Vicky doesn’t like boobies’. He’d never said he was mature. Plus Steve got a kick out of watching Robin squirm. They’d been trying to work out if Vicky was a viable crush. Steve thought she was but so far the columns were an even split.

“Last night I saw her car parked outside the fairgrounds in the next town over. Any other day of the week and I wouldn’t think it was weird, but Saturday night, it’s a spot, you know?” Steve didn’t know.

“A spot?” He echoed.

“Yeah, you know? Like how skull rock is ‘a spot’ but it’s only for certain kinds of people.” Steve’s brow pinched together and he nodded.

He could imagine what Robin was implying. He’d added another tally to his favourite side and thought nothing more of it until he’d run out of places to look for Robin in Hawkins. It was a Saturday night. It was a long shot, but he’d take it.

Steve drove to the next town over and was surprised to see a smattering of cars at the fairground. There were a handful of boys in their twenties sitting on picnic benches around a boombox playing music Steve was vaguely familiar with. Then there were a couple of girls sipping beer and passing the bottle around.

If you didn’t know, it’d seem like any other half-assed party but if you knew what to look for, you’d know you were in the right place. Steve didn’t know when he’d become the kind of person who knew what to look for.

One of the guys had his hand tucked into the back pocket of another’s jeans. Then, of course, he saw his fair share of coloured hankies, carabineers and key rings. Sometimes, Steve actually listened when Robin talked to him about that kind of stuff. He figured it must get lonely, not having anyone to talk to about those things. He wanted to be a good friend even if he couldn’t relate to Robin. Steve liked girls. That was the beginning and end of it.

He studied each of the partygoers' faces and felt his throat begin to constrict. Robin wasn’t there. Where the hell was she? This had been the last stone left unturned. Now what?

Steve’s heartbeat was a kick drum, threatening to crack his ribs in two as it burst from his chest cavity. His vision began to tunnel and a ringing in his ears swelled to a crescendo as he crouched behind an abandoned picnic table.

What if something happened to her? How the hell was he meant to find her?

Steve felt a hand on his shoulder.

He looked up with a start, almost leaping out of his skin when he saw one of the boy’s faces inches from his. The space was dark, illuminated only by the moon and the intermittent flickering of car headlights.

“Hey. You’re okay. Just breathe with me for a second, alright?” The boy instructed.

His voice was vaguely familiar, but Steve couldn’t string together a coherent set of thoughts. His body was focused on not keeling over. He tried to copy the overdramatised rise and fall of the boy’s chest.

“There you go,” the boy soothed as Steve’s breathing evened out.

“Guessing, it’s your first time here. Don’t worry too much about it. The first time I went to a gay bar in Indy I had a panic attack in the bathroom.” Munson. The voice belonged to Eddie Munson, Steve’s brain supplied at last.

They’d gone to high school together. Though Steve wasn’t sure if the guy had graduated. He vaguely recalled Eddie hating all jocks on principal and Steve had tried to give the boy a wide berth because of it. Turned out he was the type to hang out at gay bars. Okay.

There was no way Eddie recognised Steve. He was being way too nice to him. Maybe Munson was a good guy. Steve hadn’t taken the time to find out back then. Steve hadn’t really been a good person. He was trying hard to be better.

“No one’s tried to push you into anything, right? Because that’s not what this place is about. I might not be able to kick anyone’s ass, but I know a guy who could,” Eddie commented, confirming Steve’s suspicions. He was a good guy.

“No. I’m good... I’m looking for someone,” Steve breathed, hoping maybe Munson would’ve seen Robin.

Then again, if Eddie hadn’t seen her, he’d be outing Robin, which Steve knew was a shitty thing to do. Eddie spoke before Steve had the chance to decide what he was going to say.

“You see him around?” Eddie asked, moving to sit beside Steve on the grass, scanning the crowd.

Oh. Eddie assumed Steve was... That was fair. He was at ‘a spot’. He guessed he could work with that.

“I think he stood me up,” Steve covered, looking for an excuse to get out of there.

“His loss,” Eddie mused, placing a hand on Steve’s knee. Oh, no. Flirting.

“I should get out of here,” Steve stuttered, jerking upwards.

“Right, shit. Sorry. Too strong,” Eddie spoke half to Steve, half to himself as he stood up and dusted grass from his jeans.

“Don’t let me spook you. Seriously. You look like you need a night out. I can sit all the way over there and we can pretend this never happened,” Eddie proposed.

Steve was dreading the ride back to Hawkins, knowing if he went home now, he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Steve surprised himself by shaking his head.

“No, I don’t want you to... just... don’t go. This isn’t something I do. I could use the company.” Steve was surprised at the words as they left his mouth. In what world did Steve Harrington want to hang out with Eddie Munson?

“Alright, no funny business, I promise. I’ve got some beer in a cooler. We could keep things all PG-13,” Eddie proposed, leading Steve to where the aforementioned cooler was stashed on a free picnic bench.

“I’ve got to drive back home, but I could stay for a bit,” Steve remarked, sitting down beside Eddie’s cooler on the tabletop.

He tried to focus on the distant music and the sound of passing cars. His thoughts kept returning to Robin. He dug his thumbnail into the table, scratching at the splintering wood as he tried to stop his mind from reeling.

“Is your place far from here?” Eddie questioned, sitting beside Steve and lounging back on his elbows, glancing up at the night sky.

“That wasn’t a preposition, by the way,” Eddie clarified quickly.

“I was just trying to make conversation. Christ, man. I’m shit at this.”

“Shit at what?” Steve questioned absentmindedly, glad to have a distraction.

Eddie grabbed a strand of hair and coyly hid a smile behind it.

“You know. Talking to pretty guys.’

It wasn’t like no one had called Steve ‘pretty’ before. They had. But they’d always done it as an insult. He’d heard the word, ‘pretty boy’, spat through gritted teeth a handful of times, but no one had ever made it sound like a good thing, like something Steve wanted to be.

It was strange. Steve hadn’t been lying when he said this wasn’t something he usually did. He wasn’t gay. He didn’t hang out with men in a way that walked the tightrope between platonic and flirtatious, but he’d gone on a lot of dates with girls, some that’d been far worse than the way his night was panning out. Steve was surprised at just how comfortable and familiar the setting felt.

“I’m from Hawkins,” Steve admitted, feeling Eddie’s keen eyes on his profile.

“Small world. Me too.” Everyone knew everyone in Hawkin’s. It’d only be a matter of time before Eddie placed him. Then what? He couldn’t imagine Eddie would want to hang out with him for long after that.

“I came here with a buddy but I’m pretty sure he’s screwed off by now, you mind giving me a lift? Think we could both use the company.”

Steve was always driving the kids around, that’s what he was good at, and it’d be a distraction. Steve nodded before he could think any better of it.

“I can do that. You say the word,” Steve muttered and followed Eddie’s eyes to the stars.

“Soon, give me a few minutes to enjoy the view”.

That was the one good thing about small towns in the dead of night. The stars could really shine, painting their way across the sky, all milk and moonbeams. For once, Steve wasn’t thinking of the things lurking in the shadows.

He could hardly make out the features of Eddie’s face, but he couldn’t help but think, if this was like the dates he’d been on with girls, this was the point where he’d kiss them. It’d be romantic. At heart, Steve had always been a romantic.

A car pulled up close to the two boys, bathing them in yellowed light. Eddie’s face turned to look at Steve. His eyes swelled wide with recognition. He’d expected Eddie to be shocked, this was the last place Steve would expect to find himself on an ordinary day. What he didn’t anticipate was Eddie jerking back as though Steve had physically hit him, his body tumbling backwards off the bench and onto the grassy lot.

“Holy Hell, Harrington,” Eddie choked out, as he tried to pull himself back to his feet, staggering. Right. Steve should’ve known this wasn’t going to end well. He should just leave now.

“I thought your voice sounded familiar. Christ. Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington. Here? Holy shit.”

Steve stood, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, trying to eyeball the best path to the Beamer, suddenly wanting to be anywhere but there.

“I’m going to go...” Steve began but was cut off by a wild flailing of limbs and Eddie’s hand encircling his wrist.

“Sorry. Shit. Sorry. Steve, Stevie. Wait. You surprised me.” Eddie placated, his eyes swollen wide as he looked at his fingers around Steve’s limb. It was as though his body had grabbed Steve of its own volition.

Steve couldn’t help but notice the muffled conversations from the surrounding tables had quietened.

“I get it if you don’t want to take me home, but I won’t tell anyone... you know. Cross my heart, dude.”

Steve hadn’t been worried about that until now. His heart rate sped up again. He wasn’t queer but if rumour got around. His dad would kill him. Steve wasn’t sure that the statement was hyperbolic. Eddie must have seen something in Steve’s face, because his grip on his wrist tightened.

“Promise I won’t. Look, somehow I’ve managed to collect your little flock of ducklings into my D&D club at school. They think you’re a good dude. That’s good enough for me.”

Steve trusted Eddie. He shouldn’t. He told himself he was dumb for doing so, but his instincts won out.

“Well, come on then, if you still want a ride,” Steve grumbled, pulling Eddie along with him to the BMW.

The two talked on the ride back to Hawkins, but all of it was inconsequential. It was just what Steve needed. Eddie rambled about the kids, something he and Steve had in common. It was the only thing Steve knew they had in common besides the fact Eddie thought they were gay, or at least that they both liked men.

It should’ve been awkward talking to Eddie, knowing the guy would’ve slept with him if given the chance, but surprisingly it wasn’t. Maybe that’s how Robin had felt about him at the beginning of their friendship. No. Don’t think about Robin. She was safe. She had to be. Steve would know if she wasn’t.

“What happened to you, Steve?” He heard Eddie ask out of the blue and realised his fingers had been gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles had turned bone white.

Steve didn’t know how to answer the question in a way that wouldn’t spur on deeper probing, so he said, “Nothing”. The reply seemed to tell Eddie everything he needed to know.

“I guess I grew up,” Steve supplied lamely.

“I wasn’t talking about how you don’t hang out with the same dicks from school. You stopped doing that before you graduated. Don’t ask me how I know that. Don’t make me say it. You’ve always been pretty, is all I’ll say. This is different. You never used to look so... haunted.”

What was Steve supposed to say to that? He didn’t say anything, just turned the radio up and wondered how Eddie Munson, of all people, saw right through him.

When they pulled up out front of the Munson’s trailer, Eddie paused, looking Steve over.

“Hey, Harrington? You still all on your lonesome in that big old mansion of yours?” Steve rolled his eyes but nodded.

“Well, would you look at that? Me too. I mean, minus the mansion. Want to not be alone, together?”

“I’ve got work in the morning,” Steve deflected as he found himself switching off the car and following Eddie up to the front door.

“Won’t bother me. I sleep like the dead.”

Steve was a horrible sleeper, not that it would matter. He knew he wouldn’t be sleeping that night. Maybe in the morning if he couldn’t find Robin he should call Nancy. She knew everything about missing friends, about knowing something was wrong and yet feeling like you had no one to turn to. He wished he’d been that person for Nancy years before but he hadn’t and there was nothing he could do about that now.

Steve found himself tucked into the corner of Eddie’s bed. The two boys had stripped off their jeans but kept their shirts on. He kept comparing the night to dates he’d had in the past. He kept thinking how easy it felt to do the same with a man. Steve liked women, he knew that, but he was beginning to entertain the idea he might be able to like men. Couple that crisis with his worries that Robin was somewhere alone and hurting and you had one messy knot of emotions Steve didn’t know how to unpick.

“Night, Stevie,” Eddie muttered, as his hand made its way to rest on his inner thigh. His breath smelled of alcohol.

“This okay?” He clarified. Yes, Eddie was a good guy and Steve wished he’d known that sooner.

“Yeah,” Steve admitted because it was okay, much to his surprise.

When Eddie did eventually fall asleep, he rolled over, keeping one hand on Steve’s thigh and slinging the other over Steve’s chest, somehow ending face down in the crook of Steve’s neck. He smelled of beer and smoke. It was the longest night of Steve’s life.

True to his word, Eddie remained sound asleep as Steve extracted himself from under him come morning. He paused to jot his number down on a notebook beside Eddie’s bed, surprising himself once again. He hadn’t gotten or wanted a second date with anyone in months. He wasn’t sure this was classified as a first date, but it had him wanting more of whatever it was.

Steve parked outside Robin’s place, surprised to find her waiting for him in the driveway, unharmed and applying her makeup with the help of a compact mirror as though it were any other day.

“You look like crap,” Robin noted as she slid into the passenger seat.

Steve could cry. Steve would’ve cried if it hadn’t been for years worth of emotional repression.

“You weren’t at work yesterday,” Steve said by way of explanation.

“Yeah. I went to Indianapolis for my aunt’s birthday. I told you I was going last week.”

Oh. Steve had forgotten. He nodded, then sniffed pathetically, pretty sure he was about to cry. Robin was fine. She’d never been in danger. She placed her hand over his and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“Dingus, were you worried about me?” She teased, trying to lighten the mood. He shook his head, a blatant lie.

“So worried you didn’t go on one of your crappy Saturday night dates or do you have another story to tell me about how you stuck out with a smoking hot babe... again.” That brought Steve to his second crisis.

“Kind of.” Robin raised a brow.

“Kind of? Steve Harrington, since when are you coy about the people you date? Dude, when it comes to me you have no boundaries.” She was right.

“I think I went on a date with a guy,” Steve admitted, not meeting Robin’s eye as she let out an inhuman squeak.

“I was gone for one goddamn day and that’s the day you decide to date a guy?” She gasped, smacking his arm.

In retrospect, it was pretty funny. Steve’s urge to cry was suddenly stifled as his body rocked with laughter.

“I think I owe you one, actually,” Steve admitted, knowing he wasn’t going to hear the end of it.

Read Part 2 Here

#steddie #steddie Drabble #drabble #ficlet #steddie ficlet #first meeting #pre season 4 #au #steve harrington #eddie munson #platonic stobin #robin buckley #bi steve harrington #fluff and angst #steve x eddie #Metalhoops writes

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sunlightmurdock · 20 days ago

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Afraid of the Dark | Jake x Apollo (18+)

spookweek masterlist | operation apollo masterlist

prompt: throwing a Halloween party | Apollo throws a Halloween party, and Jake’s a little grumpy about the whole thing.

warnings: set in the universe of the fic above. bodyguard!jake x president’s daughter!reader. no use of y/n. fears of home invasion / physical attack mentioned but nothing happens or goes too into detail. oral sex (m receiving). wc: 1.1k

“I think that this might literally be my worst nightmare.”

Jake scrubs a hand over the stubble on his jaw and shakes his head as he scans over the packed living room. Sweaty bodies covered in paint or glitter, or who knows what else. Stupid costumes obstructing half of their faces, all the damn lights in the house off and replaced with string lights in the form of skulls or spotlights that shine red and purple.

“Loosen up. You’re not supposed to be working!” Manny prompts him, jabbing at Jake’s ribs with his elbow. The catch is, though, that they both survey the living room as he says this.

Jake shakes his head. “Where is she anyway? — She’s missing her own party.”

Manny knows that this is just an excuse for Jake to set off in search of you, probably hoping to catch you alone. But, Jake’s energy has been stressing him out for twenty minutes now, so he watches him go with a smile.

Music blares, bass thudding through the house as he pushes through crowds of people he didn’t even know that you knew. Balloons filled with helium litter the ceiling and there’s a Rihanna song playing through the speakers in the next room.

Jake twists his neck, glancing through the crowd, feeling his pulse start to thud. He doesn’t even know where you are, or where you’ve been, or who saw you last.

He swallows, his throat thick. Warmth prickles at his skin, an uncomfortable kind of hot. With every body that he brushes past, he finds another face that isn’t yours.

This was a bad idea, and he never should have agreed. Not with everything that has happened. The break-ins and your bad dreams, and on a whim he agrees to let you fill this entire place with strangers—

And there you are.

Standing on the patio, a giant grin on your face and a group of enthralled friends around you as you eagerly tell a story that Jake has gotten to hear in private.

In the middle of the sentence, your eyes catch on him. Arms folded over his chest and one shoulder propped against the patio door, his eyes already on you. Your lips twitch and your smile grows as his gaze drops to take note of your costume.

Immediately, he thinks back to one morning last week, when the two of your had been laying in bed together. Tracing your fingers across his chest, huffing exasperatedly as you had tried to get your answer from him. “Come on, you didn’t have any fictional crushes growing up? — None?”

“I dunno… Lara Croft maybe?”

He had spent so long worrying about this stupid party, he hadn’t once thought to ask you what your costume might be.

Your eyes glint with mischief, watching him study the holsters secured to your thighs and the shorts that sit a couple inches above them. His tongue dips out to wet his lips, his eyes catching on yours once more.

It’s like everything goes quiet.

“Sorry, just excuse me for one second.” You’re still grinning as you excuse yourself, black combat boots soft on the ground as you head right for him. Your hand comes to rest on his stomach, a touch that’s a little too personal for a girl and her bodyguard. “Did you need me for something?”

Jake’s lips almost twitch, he isn’t quite as media trained as you are, and he likes feeling the way your fingers curl slightly into his fitted black tee.

Rather than smiling, there’s an almost sternness to the way a muscle in his jaw ticks. His gaze flickers down, and then back up. Those fucking holsters.

“Yeah, I think we had better go talk.” He agrees, that look in his eye that ignites flames in your stomach.

Now it’s your turn to try not to smile. It feels like you’re parading through the house with a neon sign above you about what you’re about to get up to, but Jake’s about as inconspicuous as a man can get while he leads you away.

It’s once he’s gotten you inside that he’s able to stop pretending.

The door clicks shut, totally inaudible under the racket of the rest of the house, leaving the two of you inside the bedroom that you have been sharing for months now. His green eyes look vibrant as the lights from outside catch onto his wandering gaze.

“Lara Croft, huh?”

His voice is low and dry sounding. He’s totally unashamed, practically licking his lips.

You reach for him, planting your palms on his chest, grinning as his back hits the closed bedroom door.

“I knew you were feeling a little nervous about this party,” One finger in front of the other, you walk your index and middle along the taught plain of his stomach. His eyes trail your journey toward his belt. “And I wanted to make sure you’d enjoy it as much as I will.”

He huffs out, his chuckle breathy as you unthread the leather through his belt loop.

“Is that right?” There’s just something about watching you sink to your knees in your new costume that has him straining against his jeans. “And it’s got nothing to do with the fact that you just love to push my buttons?”

Opening wide your tongue skims his navel while your hand shoves his t-shirt up his stomach. He swallows, his mouth dry. The smile that creeps across your mouth has his heartbeat thudding in his chest. The tip of your tongue flicks across the gold button on his jeans.

“These buttons?”

This earns a grin. His eyes roll shut and his head rolls back against the door as you push forwards on your knees. Now, this is exactly why he’ll always find it so hard to say no to you.

Not just because of the way your mouth makes his stomach tighten and his breathing grow fast, either. It’s that look in your eye, watching him through your lashes, that really gets him. He just can’t say no to that look.

Lips parted, his broad shoulders rising and falling heavily. He nudges at your knee with his foot, “Spread your legs. Let me see.”

Your mouth stretched around him, eyes glassy as you strain to take more of him, you spread your knees apart. He can see right down that fitted tank from this angle. The way your chest heaves when you swallow around him. The way your thighs flex around those fucking holsters.

His hand curls around the nape of your neck, his voice hoarse as he pants out, “Honey, you’re keeping this fucking costume.”

#Jake x Apollo #Operation Apollo #Jake Seresin #jake hangman seresin #Jake Seresin smut #Jake Seresin x reader #Jake Seresin x you #spookweek

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xmalereader · 1 year ago

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Simon Riley x Medic! Male Reader

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|| Masterlist ||

—

Authors Note: I’m finally updating again 😫, I’ve been busy with my studies and advancing in my Japanese before I leave next year, gotta be prepared and working extra hours for the money 🤪, but either way. I was able to get a few requests completed and will make sure to update as much as I can!

Request: Remember the quest where graves seize all Los Vaqurous (Dunno the spelling sorry- ;-;) and have to kill both ghost and soap? What if Reader who is medic from Ghost Team and Graves saw the potential and decide to have Medic Reader for himself so he seize Reader too. Follow the plot of the game, they got Reader last after saving Alejandro and his team. Happy ending where Reader said "You found me... " and Ghost reply with "I always found you" :D

Warnings: Language, background, reader is a medic, soft ghost, slight angst, mentions of past trauma, Graves is a creep, Spanish language, Price likes reader.

Word Count: 1.9K

Tag: @keera9534

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Y/n was the teams best medic, being picked by Price himself due to knowing how good he was at patching up the team and providing the proper medicine. He first joined the team when Price was in need to medical help after taking a bullet to the abdomen. When they brought him in, the nurses and doctors were far too frantic and full of worry as they ran around the medical wing checking on other wounded soldiers and trying to attend to them, leaving Price with no medical attention. The captain had tried to patch himself up since it wasn’t the first time that he’s gotten injured and had stitched himself up.

But the situation was far worse and the bullet had been lodged inside which made it difficult for Price to get it done himself. It wasn’t until one of the rookies quickly stepped up, attending Price and making sure that he’s given the proper attention. The captain was too drowsy to fight off the rookie due to blood lose that Y/n acted quickly, ignoring Prices cursing and pained groans while he worked on his wound, using the proper tools to remove the bullet and get him stitched up.

Price noticed how fast the rookie worked and how quick he is to stitch and patch him up. The captain was left in surprise and impressed by his work only for the rookie to get in trouble by doing something he wasn’t stationed to do. That same day Price took interest in the rookie and asked Laswell about him, getting his records and reading into his life and finding out that the young man had gone to the best medical schools and ended up here.

The kid was reckless, but knew what he was doing and Price liked that.

Y/n was the first to be recruited by Price, getting trained in combat and how to handle a gun in order to keep himself alive while out on the field with the others. After a few months Price later brings in Ghost into the team, scaring the poor rookie when they first met. The doctor found him intimidating due to his silence and the skull mask he wore, rarely talking to Y/n whenever the two were in the same room or whenever he was patching him up.

The two only spoke whenever they were on missions, but never in private.

The doctor figured that he wouldn’t be getting along with Ghost for really long time since they rarely spoke, only for that to change when one of the soldiers that he was helping started hitting on him. Flirting with him and finding excuses to see him whenever he was injured and the doctor grew irritated by it. It all happened when the Solider grew upset with Y/n ignoring his snarky flirting, cornering him and growing desperate only for Ghost to randomly appear behind man and pull him away from the doctor.

Ghost had given the man a deadly look that frightened the man easily and was quick to scurry away. Y/n appreciated Ghosts help and offered to buy him a drink as a thank you which Ghost easily accepts, giving the two a chance to finally talk with each other out of base and non work related. That night was all it took in order for their feelings to grow, sometimes tip towing around each other, but it was clear as day that the two liked each other deeply.

Their relationship deepened as the years went by to the point where they ended up dating for a two years, working together in the field along with Gaz, Soap, and Price. The three knew how inseparable both Ghost and Y/n were that it wasn’t a surprise when they were assigned to work under the Shadow Company, getting the know Graves who they followed orders from.

His time working with the Shadow company was strange. Y/n sensed that something wasn’t right when he was grounded by Graves and to stay in base and work as a doctor from there, which he did not like. Their were times where he tried to get in communication with Ghost and to tell him about the strange feeling he was getting only for his requests to speak with the lieutenant to be rejected which only made the feeling worse.

It wasn’t until the night that Graves decided to go against them that all hell broke loose.

The alarms of the base were going off and the sounds of shouting and protests were being heard.

Y/n was rushing out of the medical room, looking around with confusion and worry as a few soldiers were running around the place. “Que esta pasando?” He asks one of the soldiers running down the hallways as they quickly tell him that they are being rounded up in the main lobby. It doesn’t really reassure him about the alarms going off and heads towards the lobby.

“Round them up!”

“Get them in the cells!”

He stands over the lobby to see Graves shadows rounding up Alejandros men, pointing their guns at them and forcing them into cells. The image alone lets him be aware of what is going on, noticing one of the Shadows spotting him and calling out. “We have one on the balcony!”

“Shit!” Y/n is quick to duck down when they shoot their guns at him, making him run out of sight and trying to find a way out of base without getting killed.

He’s able to make it down the first floor without being detected only to turn the corner and come face to face with Graves. “Easy, doc.” He says while grabbing him by the arms, stopping his struggles when he noticed three shadows behind Graves and armed. “I ain’t gonna hurt you doc, your far too special.” Said Graves as Y/n glared at him, gritting his teeth in anger as he pulls his arm away from his hold. “I knew something was bad about you.” He points out while his eyes remain on Graves, keeping a close eye on him as the man chuckled. “Yeah, well, it’s already too late. Your friends are probably dead by now since my shadows are hunting them down as we speak.”

Y/n scoffs. “I guess your leaving me for last to kill?”

Graves grins. “Oh. Oh no, you—“ He takes a slow step forward while Y/n takes one back. “You I will keep, your a good doctor and I will be needing you for sure, but for now I need to make sure you don’t escape.” Graves signals the three shadows towards Y/n, “Lock him up, separated from the others while I clean up this mess.”

Y/n takes a step back from the shadows and tries to fight back, kicking and punching them only for them to grab him by the arms and wrists and pining him against the wall, grunting and glaring before he’s dragged away from Graves who only watched with a sinister smirk on his face. He’s taken to his own cell, tossed inside without a care while they locket the door on him.

“Son of a bitch!” He shouts, slamming his firsts against the metal door and pulling on the handle, knowing that it wouldn’t work already. “I swear to god when I get out of here I am going to kill you!” He goes on, throwing out his own threats to anyone who can hear him. He doesn’t forget Graves’ words and how he was hunting down his team for all he knows both Soap and Ghost could be dead, but refuses to believe it. Soap was a great shot and Ghost.

Well, he was something else.

A simple shadow couldn’t kill him.

Simon had been through far worse condition. When they were a few months into their relationship and the trust between the two was growing, Simon had gained the courage to finally talk to Y/n about his past. When Simon told him about his time as a kid and the way his father treated him made the doctor realize how bad his life really was and the reason why he joined the British military. Y/n didn’t judge Simon nor did he ever bring up his traumas whenever they were alone, only thinking about it in silence.

Their conversation deepened their bond and the two grew closer than ever.

While Y/n paced around the room he tries to figure out a way out of this cell, checking every crook and cranny as his fingers skim over the barred windows only to curser under his breath when he doesn’t find anything. “Dammit, Alejandro this place is sealed.” He mumbled out to himself.

He checks under the bed, hoping to find anything that could help him and crawls underneath. “This could work.” He finds the metal bed frame to be rusty, crawling out and using his strength to kick a piece off, groaning with each kick until the metal piece falls off, taking it in his hand and working quickly to scrape it against the concrete floor, sharpening it enough to use as a weapon.

Before he could finish up the sound of gun shots is heard from outside his cell, causing him to freeze as the alarms of the base are going off again. He doesn’t stop to think and quickly continues to sharpen the metal and quickly finished up. He holds it in his hand tight while standing close to the doorway, preparing for anyone who comes in.

The sound of gun shots grows louder, hearing muffled shouts in the background as he keeps his eyes on the metal door. The sound of tumbling bodies gets him alerted while holding up the sharpened metal piece, moving closer to the door as chains rattle on the other end, he pressed himself against the corner as the door is prided open.

The doctor doesn’t think and is quick to react, swinging his arm down at the shadow entering his cell, but his hit us quickly blocked. He kicks his leg and brings him down on his knee, using his other arm to wrap around his neck and hold the sharpened blade against his neck.

“Y/n!”

The sound of a familiar voice gets his attention, looking up to see Simon standing on the other side of the door along with Rudy and Alejandro who stared with wide eyes by how fast he is to defend himself. “Ghost?” He breaths out, looking down to see who he has in a headlock only to see Soap. “Shit, Soap—“ He quickly lets go of him and lowered down his own weapon.

“No worries, mate. Understandable reaction.” Said Soap with a nervous laugh while slowly getting up from where he kneeled.

“I thought…” Y/n starts, eyes focused on Ghost who approached him slowly, taking the blade from his hand and tossing it aside while the doctor stares at Ghost. “I didn’t think you’d come for me.” He whispers and Ghost gives off a soft chuckle. “I’ll always come for you.” He responds back, reminding the doctor that he would never leave him behind.

“Come on, lets get out of here and get somewhere safe.” Alejandro is quick to speak up while they leave the cell and help out Alejandro’s man out of their own cells. “Here.” Ghost reached for one of his pistols and hands it to Y/n who takes it into his own hands and cocks the gun. “Why do I get the small one?” He pouts out, getting a reaction from the other man who rolled his eyes. “You’ll get a bigger one once we are out of here.” Y/n chuckled softly at his response. “That’s a promise.” He whispers loud enough for Ghost to hear before following the others out, getting them to safety.

#simon riley x reader #Simon Riley x male reader #ghost x male reader #male reader #mw2 ghost #Simon Riley #medic male reader #medic reader #mw2

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halcyone-of-the-sea · 1 year ago

Text

FLOWERS FOR THE SICK AND GONE (II)

NAVIGATION || RAVISHING ALLURE MASTERLIST || NEXT: CHAPTER III

PAIRING: Nikto x F!Reader (Soulmate AU)

WORDCOUNT: 6.3k

WARNINGS: Angst, mentions of stalking, talks of death, weapons, explosives, violence, gore, strained mother-daughter relationship, suggestive thoughts, mentions of sex, toxic modeling standards, etc. (Series 18+)

A/N: I started this before Nikto was confirmed for MWII multi., but I'll be using the 'Powercell' skin as his main attire now because it's literally so attractive.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

You look at your hands as they rest in your lap, right foot jumping up and down in a display of internal anxiety under the table in your Mom’s office. It was cold, and the AC was turned all the way up; the floors barely helped—tile covered by thin rugs and windows open to the chilly morning. Like the opposite of Hellfire.

Two days had passed since the explosion and you’d only just gotten the ability to leave the hospital. The doctors had wanted to keep you longer, but you had turned in a favor from your matriarch to have them ease off with their prodding and poking.

The fact that they had been more interested in your permanent colorblindness had tipped you off that all the help you were going to be given had already been passed out. As a whole, that had been in the form of pain medication and surgical glue to the minuscule cut on your temple.

The head bleeds a lot, you know, even if the injury is minor. You weren’t overly surprised the gash had been tiny; you know what a violent wound to that part of the skull looks like.

Feels like.

Your lips thin at the thought of the nurses and their curious and narrowed eyes—the doctor wanting to do more in-depth tests as if you hadn’t gone through a slew of them before.

There was a reason you hated hospitals.

Shivering, you take a deep breath to calm down right as the door behind you opens with the sound of heeled feet and a hurried sigh. The door automatically shuts with a slam and a click of metal hinges.

“Thank God nothing happened to your face!” A hand sets itself on your shoulder and you restrain a flinch, looking to the side to the familiar face of your mom as her head tilts to look you up and down in your seat. “Stand up, let me see you.”

You open your mouth to speak but you’re quickly cut off by her serious expression.

Standing, you steady yourself by placing a hand on the side of the seat, knuckles tight as your casual sneakers take your weight. “It’s just a scratch Mom, promise. I got lucky.” When you can stand without the fear of falling over, you release it and study your mother’s fancy attire.

Dress pants, blouse, and pounds of extravagant jewelry around her neck and wrists like shackles. She looks just the same as you’d always seen her. Cold.

In some ways, she was more suited to this city than you were.

“I’ll say—you could have damaged your skin.” She motions to your body, shaking her head and sighing before moving behind her desk to sit down. A large window is behind her—shining in chilled light. “We’ll have to hope and pray that the cut heals before the next photoshoot you have scheduled. Have they told you when you’ll be back in the Agency?”

“...three people are dead, and you’re worried about me?” you say quietly, gut-twisting. “What about them?”

She pauses, her hand half holding a piece of paper from her pile. She glances up at you and thinks for a moment. Your eyes dig into hers, dejected. But she doesn’t think much of this, judging by the confused emotion that swirls behind her gray pigment.

“I’m sorry, Beauty,” no, she’s not. Your face pulls at the nickname, but you say nothing until she’s done talking. “But their job was to keep you safe. They succeeded, it’s unfortunate, I know, but if they had to…pass,” she strains through the word, not wanting to say the other. For your benefit or hers, you know not. “To keep you alive, then I say it was an even trade.”

It’s nearly like a slap to your face as your body goes tight, sitting back down into the seat with a puff of air. Like you’d just been slipped poison, your throat starts to fizzle with bile.

Yefim’s dead body slashes in the back of your mind; the lower half gone and the rest spilling out. Confused eyes and burned skin that smells like something out of a kitchen no matter how morbid the thought was.

She wasn’t there, you tell yourself. She doesn’t know how bad it was.

Screaming mixed in with crying and Alyona’s insistent barks of orders. Her hands pulled you up and shielded you from the disintegrated ash of Petya and Aleksandr. One splayed out the broken window and the other lay in an unrecognizable heap a foot from the bakery.

The only people to survive were the Baker’s boy and the two of you, but then again that was half.

“I don’t think that’s right—”

“If you were a mother, then you’d be agreeing with me,” the Consul explains, shaking her head. “But that’s not why I wanted to bring you here.” With your mom, sometimes it was better just to let things go and have them disappear into the past; you’d gotten good at brushing past comments just to satisfy her. It was just easier.

“Okay,” you whisper, looking down at your lap before closing your eyes. Looking back up, the woman is signing papers and doesn’t glance at you before speaking.

“There was a break-in at the bakery an hour before you went there,” your body stills, a strange feeling in your gut as it tightens. “Nothing was stolen but Mr. Morozov,” the owner, “says the locks were broken off; he never told authorities until now because it was minor. I think that leaves us with the answer about how that explosive got under the floorboards.” The scribble of a pen before it’s placed down and your mom’s eyes settle back on you with a frown on her lips. Her makeup makes her look like a stone statue you’d see in a museum; blank with an undertone of something else.

You stutter in broken intervals, repeatedly tapping your finger on your wrist, “How do you know about this?”

“I’m paid to know,” your mother mutters but offers more. “One of the employees is American. He’s here and planning to extend his visa for four years to care for his dying father.” Her voice drops. “Thank God that he wasn’t working.”

Being one of the two American Consulate Generals in Russia, your mother’s job was to, officially, “...Preserve and protect the relationship, and be a point of contact, between the United States of America and Russia.”

It also meant that any American citizens in Yekaterinburg were under her watchful eyes. This Consulate building provides a multitude of services—issuing visas, and renewing passports were the big ones, while registering births and deaths was also added to that chart. You’d never looked much into it, but knew it was intensive work. Everything ‘American’ going on in this city, your mom knows about.

“I’ve got a landfill of paperwork, so I’ll have to cut this off at the base,” she continues and you rub at the base of your cut with a flinching hand. You carefully tense as if a bombshell is going to be dropped on you, thighs shifting on the seat and feet unconsciously putting themselves farther under the chair.

The woman blinks at you and folds her hands on the table, knuckles tight.

“The Russian government is eager to keep lines of communication open with the USA, which means me.” You don’t like where this is going—certainly not with that folder that your mother was grabbing from out of her top drawer; having to unlock it with the name tag around her neck. A small beep echoes over the large room. “I don’t think I need to explain how much this puts me in a hole now that a stalker is after a Consul’s daughter and everyone knows about it.” You feel guilty but you don’t know why. This wasn’t your fault….right?

“I have meetings planned into next week from the second the sun rises until it peaks its stupid ass back up on the other end.” She speaks low, running a hand over her head but still keeping you in her sight. She slaps a bulging manila folder onto the desk and leans back with a sigh.

Your eyes meet in a locking of wills and you restrain yourself from apologizing. In your lap your hands clench.

“Any weapon,” she speaks slowly so you take in every word—as if you were a toddler. You hate when she gets like this. “Any goes through so many hoops to be owned it’s practically not worth it, and the same goes for possible parts used to make them. Whoever did this either has connections or a pile of money to use for bribes; I don’t know which I’d prefer, but based on his presents I have a good guess.”

“But why would someone do that?” You have to speak—to ask. How could someone be so cruel and malicious? Kill someone—multiple someones? To you, it was just unthinkable. Even just being a part of it had wreaked your sleep schedule, left you writhing in bed from an inability to sleep out of fear of seeing Yefim’s face again—gray blood; colorless gore. It was a chore to get up in the morning and eat what little you could.

Being unable to see color had never left you more terrified than when that pretty boy’s eyes had stared into yours until everything was snuffed out like a matchstick.

“Because this person,” the Consul states, answering you firmly. “He doesn’t care about you as an individual. To him, Beauty…you’re just an object that he wants to own. Your picture is all he thinks about and everyone else needs to be out of the background, do you understand?”

You go lightheaded, face quickly tilting down and contorting into itself.

Your mother sits straighter and reaches a hand across the table, lightly saying your name with the voice she would use to read stories in your youth. Skin burning, you look at it, but after a moment you weakly place your own into hers, heart hammering and brain laced with a primal fear. Though the woman’s grip tightens and squeezes lightly, you get no warmth from the gesture. Yet still, it’s better than nothing.

Alyona was away with her relatives and fiance since she’d been released from the hospital earlier; you’d spoken there briefly, but it wasn’t the same as it would have been if you’d had her here.

“We’re going to get this figured out, okay?” You nod, trying to smile as she studies your face—lingering on your temple before she frowns deeply and pulls back. Loudly, she states, “I’ll order some scar cream to your penthouse when we’re done.”

“Alright,” your lips mumble, ribs like iron cages for too-large lungs.

“But now into the important part. I need you to pick one.” She pushes the folder closer to you, and your hand snaps out to grab it. It instead punches the desk and you hiss, bringing it back to your chest. Your mother minutely blinks in shock, eyes confused. “Still with that Spatial Awareness? I thought you said it was getting better?”

“I’m…still working through it,” you grumble. You wanted to tell her there wasn’t any ‘getting better’ from this. It was just another problem you’d have to deal with your entire life. But, again, it’s easier.

She huffs as you correctly locate the folder and pick it up, placing it gently into your lap and flipping it open. Inside you find file after file, taking the first one into your fingers and propping it up before blinking in confusion at the black ink and tiny picture of a man.

You briefly look at the name, processing, before gazing back up at the woman with a furrow in your brows.

“Mom?”

She smiles.

“I have three men of Russian descent who are candidates to be your next around-the-clock guard.” Your matriarch is oblivious to your apparent hesitation to take on another person into your life, your shoulders hunching in. “All part of a PMC group called KorTac. I’d ask for a broader scale, but being born here and previously serving in the military would give them far more privileges than any others.”

You’re already shaking your head, “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. I still have to send my apologies to all the others’ families. I–I,” your voice cuts before you can let the tears weigh your sentence down with emotion.

Your mother didn’t do that kind of thing.

“Sweetheart,” the woman draws out, shaking her head, “they don’t want to hear from you, you know that.” Her voice hardens. “You’re my responsibility. Now, look at the options.”

Gritting your teeth, you want to stand and stalk out, say to hell with her PMCs and her bland eyes. The way she talks with care but hides it behind a wall of knives like some protective barrier; like she needs to do that.

But you stay your voice and look back down, brushing past pages to have all of the pictures lined up right next to each other.

Blinking, you ask, numbly, “What kind of privileges?”

Your mother smiles though a thankful breath. “Weapons, body armor; they’ll be allowed to enter and go about business as they see fit without normal blockades. People here trust their own.”

Fire races through your mind, all-consuming black smoke and the bland ash of a burning building. Trust their own? One of their own had just killed three people and injured three more just to get your attention. How was that trust?

Your eyes gloss over words, or what little of them you could read beyond inked-out sections. Names smudge and achievements blurr; medals with no hold on you and a list of missions accomplished with what you assumed to be perfect records.

“These men have killed people,” you say, shifting to the last file as you don’t look at it right away, instead leveling the Consul with a pleading twist to your lips. “A lot of people.”

As an individual, you wouldn’t say you were very confrontational or quick to jump to violence—you did damage control and appeased more than antagonized. There was less stress when everyone could get a portion of what they wanted.

You just didn’t like senseless brutality.

“Then there’s no one better for the job.” Sometimes you wonder if your mother even raised you at all.

Forehead creased, you shift back to the papers, staring at the last man of the three in a moment of flickering orbs. His intimidating appearance makes your eyes go slightly wider with shock as you focus in.

Nikto is all that was given for the man’s name—Russian: Никто—and the individual was shrouded in so much black you wondered if he might create a void of energy around him; some kind of gruff and grueling cloud. Even from the picture, the pale, contrasted, eyes dug into you, even brighter than Petya’s had once been. Though, these eyes were inlaid into some strange mask, the top of the covering a type of Kevlar and the bottom covered in rough canvas that pulls back and completely covers the rest of the head. There are straps that extend to hold his chin and on the sides of his nose…

Your face pulls with mild disgust. Are those two screws? What the hell…?

This Russian was, plainly put, the face of death. Perhaps even something worse.

The theme of black continued, as it was the only color besides white you could identify. Strapped vest of armor plates, arms and hands that rest behind his back covered by long sleeves. Ammo was clipped at the sides of his upper chest and a large collar of armor stamped with the letters and number of ‘MP-0’. Your eyes slide to what you can read about him, morbidly intrigued as you frown at his belt full of grenades and knives. An assault rifle hangs from his chest by a long strap, limp as a dead limb.

But as you look, there was even less information available about this beast than there was visible skin behind the face-paint smeared into his sockets. Not even an age.

“Nikto,” you murmur. You wondered why you liked how it slipped off the tongue.

But you’ll also wonder in the future why you choose him at all.

Maybe it was the way for the first time in two days you’d felt something other than fear and regret; something that spread like water into the lines of your face to make them smooth. Maybe it was because out of the others, he would be the type to do his job and then leave entirely without a trace.

A blink and then…gone.

You can't have anyone else die on you—and Nikto seems the only one able to take death by the throat and throttle him with the handle of his own scythe.

Maybe.

Your head tilted, and you blinked.

“This one,” you toss the file to your mother’s desk and watch it hit off-center. the woman’s face twitches at the monster-esc profile. It’s like she ages ten years.

“...Lovely.”

—

One day later you meet Nikto, but before you do, you make a quick visit to the hospital with a bundle of fresh flowers. You’d brokenly asked for blue and white, but you can’t verify if that was really what you were holding.

At the front desk, you ask for room three and are simply pointed down the hallway without a word. A small smile is handed over, but no one answers as you slink away, guiding your legs along the lines of the tile on the ground. Standing outside you knock softly and grasp the handle, pushing it open after a deep breath.

The Baker’s Boy lays in a bed and his dark eyes snap to yours immediately, widening. His curls are crisped and shorter now, singed at the ends. Arms taped with bandages and gauze, his wounds are not wide-spread but severe enough to keep him for longer than you and Alyona.

“Sergei?” You ask, standing in the doorway and plastering a soft smile on your face. You’d gotten his name through a text with Aly, where she asked you to give him a kind word as you dropped off your gift.

Sergi blinks quickly at you, and something like fear slashes his face. You raise your hands rapidly, flowers in the crook of your elbow.

“N-no, I’m sorry. I know you’ve probably heard a lot about me, the news has been…uh…” Your words trail to a fake chuff of laughter, looking to the side wall for a moment. “Well, it’s not right of me to take no blame.” The man only stares and stays silent, sitting up straighter in bed and thinning his lips. His body is tense.

“I’m sorry, I just wanted to drop these off. I-I’ll leave.” Walking quickly to the side table, you place down the flowers and clear your throat, sending him a very guilty glance. “The woman I was with gives her well-wishes for your recovery. I’m sorry,” you say again, nodding your head and locking your hands in front of your abdomen.

Turning on your feet like an elite track star, you dart quickly back to the door.

“Girl.” You halt in the doorway, one arm quivering just as it had before the explosion. Your head swivels, surprised.

Sergi gazes at you, his dark eyes large and serious, tinged with unease. His English is barely understandable, and he struggles through the words with an accent so deep it’s a series of throaty grunts.

“Do not come back.”

Your lungs tighten as if someone squeezes them in a ruthless fist. Nodding shakily, you dash out and don’t stop until you’re back outside, breathing in gasps and putting a hand to your mouth to stifle your ragged breaths. People who come and go look at you as you lean heavily into the wall, some concernedly furrowing their brows but ultimately walking past.

You suppose they didn’t recognize you in all of the normal clothes—a thick turtleneck under a jacket and sweatpants. No makeup with a ball cap atop your head. Clearing your dry throat, you get a hold of yourself and keep your face down-cast, slithering off with a zig-zag pattern of feet.

It’s okay. It’s okay. He has a right to feel like that. It’s going to be okay.

But it doesn’t stop the pit in your heart from growing until it threatens to swallow you whole.

It’s only when you’re five minutes late to the Consulate building that your mother levels you with an unimpressed look, standing at the entrance with her arms crossed. You walk quickly to hide the rings around your eyes from her, not wanting to start an argument about what went wrong.

“He’s been here for half an hour, Seraph,” you cringe, waving to the woman at the front desk who nods and gives a pitying tilt of her head.

Half an hour? Talk about a time freak.

“I know, I’m sorry, I just lost track of time.” Hands take you by the side of your arms and swivel you back around as you hang up your jacket, making you flinch but go along with the action.

Your mother levels you with a stare that the long it goes on, eases. It mingles on the border of comfort and concern before she awkwardly squeezes and lets go of you, eyelids blinking to study the trash can near the door.

“Stop…apologizing, Beauty.” The curtain re-falls and your mom stands straighter, brushing down her fitted blouse and clearing her throat. “It’s unbecoming. Now, remember to smile—everyone loves your smile.”

You hide your yearning and plaster on a fake grin, feeling nervousness infecting your blood.

In your career, meeting new people was a requirement. Photographers, other models, business associates who reach out for brand deals; the list was long. Beyond a desirable body and the mask of provocative expressions, physical image was only a part of it—being good at playing sales broker added to appeal. At the parties AMA shipped you off to, especially.

Alyona often called the two of you exceptionally well-paid and up-standing sex workers, but withholding the intimacy of sheets and panting breath. You sold the idea of sex just by being there, which, oftentimes, is far better than the sin of flesh itself. Your agency knows it well.

Your face was an asset; just like your body and expressions—a tool.

But somehow you knew that whatever face you put on, model or the woman who’d just seen immense horror, it wouldn’t matter in the slightest. Just on a picture alone, Nikto had ingrained himself in your mind as an idol of seriousness and blunt orders. Not like Yefim, but somehow that made you feel better about this situation. It was even the reason you had chosen him in the first place.

No getting close to this one, you reason as your mother guides you down a hallway, hand firm on your back.

“Is there anything I can know besides his name?” Watching room after room passes you, you’re brought to the far back of the Consulate building. You study the large wooden door.

It’s a moment before your mom responds, rubbing lightly along your spine. “I’ve heard he’s a former FSB Agent. Spetsnaz as well. He has an extensive record, but no...concerns to worry about. You’re in exceptionally good hands.”

“Concerns?” A huff. “Like if he’ll kill me before the creep has the chance,” you’re leveled with a stiff look.

“No one is going to die, Seraph.” People already have.

With a frown, you grasp the handle and shrug off your mother’s touch, entering the room and letting the door shut behind you with a thump as you pad through. It’s only a millisecond, but you plaster back on a content expression and loosen your muscles; the internal warfare of constant tension makes everything ache.

You lock eyes with a standing absence of light.

In person, he was even more dark…and you didn’t just mean the outfit. Staring, bright eyes dig into your soul with no emotions—so departed from normal expression it’s like looking into a corpse.

Nikto’s standing with his hands behind his back, his shoulders loose but pulled with soldier-like authority. He’s tall, and the large bulk of his chest and thighs make you swallow down saliva as you stand still and blink quickly. His stomach bulges with muscle from under his armor—the same you’d seen in his profile.

The Russian was all the same except for the lack of weapons, though, the duffel bag at his side certainly held them in its inky depths.

He’s built like a damn brick wall, your mind blanks, not lying with the feelings of slight unease. Nikto was just…still. Not blinking. Watching you with a gleam of something strange. The Russian man’s eyes narrow with…disgust? Maybe you were reading too much into that, but one thing was certain.

He was studying you... aggressively. Prodding.

A second passes like this.

Oh, your face remains a plastered calm but your heart skips a beat, he’s waiting for me to introduce myself. You quickly clear your throat and walk forward, not seeing the way he tenses and sets his feet harder into the ground.

“Umh,” scolding yourself for your hesitation, you shakily put out a hand for him to shake, keeping a respectable distance away.

Finally, a slight movement; a dart of his eyes down to your limb.

“I’m Seraph, nice to meet you. You go by Nikto, right? Just Nikto…? I’m sorry, that was all I was able to read on your file.” You’re blinked at slowly, left gazing up into this beast's covered face and his terrifying mask of fabric and rigid material.

How tall can a man be before it becomes insulting to be standing next to him?

As the silence continues, your hand stutters before you let it fall, awkwardly stuffing it into your pocket.

Alright.

“There was…” You lick your lips, glancing off to a gray picture on the far wall. “A lot of black ink, to be honest. Quite the record, huh?”

A strained chuckle bounces off the small space.

Nikto doesn’t respond and you blink quickly through confusion and growing embarrassment. Your face burns like a heat gun was set on it. A highly uncomfortable silence falls, but you very much doubt that the man in front of you even feels it like you do—a slow deterioration of your confidence.

And why in the hell was he still looking at you like that?! All you’d done is walk through the damn door and lock eyes with him!

But then he speaks as you’re just about to turn away and walk out of the room with your tail between your legs, mentally exhausted and needing to put ice on your forehead.

“Seraph, like angel?” Broken English, but better than Sergi’s. What caught you was the depth of it—the rough scrape of vocal cords and raspy grit. Sandpaper, nearly. You restrain yourself from cringing. Nikto scoffs and he looks away from you, stance immobile. “You do not look like angel.”

Your mind takes a moment to latch onto the words, jaw slackening in shock and lashes fluttering for a second. “E…excuse me?”

Nikto grunts and glares at the door.

It’s your turn to stare, mouth opening and closing with small smacks of lips with a sudden blankness to your brain. Your ability to speak seems to leave you in a small instant between the stab of insult and brief anger. While you felt yourself above the base instinct of vexation, Nikto’s words had soaked you in their substance of prodding bluntness.

Your beauty was all you had, certainly, he hadn’t meant that. Surely it was just a translation error. Your lips darken with a frown, eyes flashing.

But something else pierces you in the chest, too.

Without another exchange, you turn around and begin walking to the exit, hands in your pockets clenched into your palms. There’s a silent padding of feet right behind you and the shuffle of a duffel bag. Your body freezes and you slowly look over your shoulder.

The Void follows, bag in hand and dead eyes peeling back your psyche as if this was normal; you find him a few steps forward from where he was, like your own personal shadow.

He freezes as you do, but this is more… purposeful. Both of you lock gazes, nothingness and veiled discourse flaring.

But you were better than that.

You had to be better.

So you soften your expression and, under your breath, sigh heavily. “I’ll write you up my schedule,” Nikto blinks, brows barely pulling in. “Get you a copy from AMA or something.”

“Already acquired.” His hulking figure seems to always be tense and ready to strike. For a second you’re reminded of Petya with a sharp slap to your face. But Nikto’s bark is far sterner if that was even possible. Almost like a single sound.

You bring a hand to itch at your temple, stopping before you can peel at the soft skin covered in scar cream.

“...Right,” at a slight loss of what to do, you shuffle your feet and open the door—leaving the room and holding the thing partially open behind you for the Russian. “Of course.” Your grumble only meets your ears, put off.

Nikto moves out of the doorway, having to slightly tilt his shoulders to fit through the opening without slamming into the frame. He does so fluidly and almost robotically.

“Has anyone ever told you that you walk like a scary dog?” You let go of the door and pull ahead, smiling somewhat more real as the light eyes snap down at you. There’s a brief grunt of breath from behind his mask.

Nikto is silent for a long while, growling out, “Hет.” Formal. Brisk.

No.

You get the feeling that you’re annoying him, but you can’t help but slightly enjoy it. Finally, some semblance of normality you could cling to. “Well, they should,” you admit, studying the loping walk—a slightly tilted pace that would suit a wolf or a bear, even. Making sure your own hand slides against the wall to keep you in a straight line, you continue, cheekily. “Because you do.”

Nikto stares straight ahead and stays silent, something akin to irritation in his visible portions; free hand twitching. You tilt your head.

“Y’know, this would be better if you could hold a conversation.”

“Да.” You smile wider.

“So you’ll have a conversation with me?”

“Hет.” Nikto glares from a side-eye, the words hissed through clenched teeth. If he was this easy to rile up, this would be more fun than you thought.

Your eyes linger on his form, the biceps, and the forearms that strain behind padded pieces of thick material. Combat boots and loose black cargo pants shoved into them.

This might be a good distraction, at the very least. Let the authorities work in the background and keep this cut of the crop. No feelings, of course. Not like Yefim, you remind yourself again. Never again like Yefim.

The dead man’s face slips behind your eyelids and you blink your face forward.

“Are you only going to say ‘yes’ or ‘no?’” Nikto’s bulk enshrouds you heavily as you take a right back to the lobby where your mother waits. He hums in his throat, before muttering something under his breath in harsh Russian. You have no idea what that means or if you even want to decipher it, you shrug and shut up.

It was probably a curse anyway. Or a plea for reassignment.

Your mother’s face pulls tight as Nikto shows himself beside you, his sights locking onto the Consul as you grab your jacket, missing the hook once before you grasp it firmly and slip it on.

“If everything is in order…?” She trails, before frowning at the man and coming over to you.

“We can always find a way to bring you back to the States,” you blink, her face serious as it slashes through you. “Get your passport up to date and find a different modeling agency.”

What’s with the change in attitude? You ask yourself, brows pulling in and studying your mom’s expression. She’s older, but maybe you’re only realizing it now that you care to look. Wrinkles and a certain film to her gaze that parents seem to grow when they’re trying to convince you of something.

Nikto watches and listens closely a few feet from the door, duffel bag still in hand.

“You know that’s not an option. Allurement is exclusive—I won’t get a better deal than the one I have.” Your words come out confused. “Weren’t you the one that told me this was the best option, that they would be the only ones to take me?” You pause. “Especially with the way I am?”

Her face twists, shaking her head instantly with a scrunched nose and flashing orbs. Even mentioning what happened made her act like water near the brim of a glass; one shake and the liquid would seep over and pool to the counter. “I don’t remember saying that.”

You close your mouth before changing the subject, offering an easy, yet strained, smile.

“I’m going to be okay, Mom. Besides, the guy’ll get caught before we know it. All of them do. Petya, Aleksandr, and Yefim,” your voice tightens, “will get to rest easy.”

Your matriarch gives a small twitch of her lips back, kisses your forehead, and says, “Alright, Beauty,” you hide your cringe, “I’m one call away.”

She walks off with a click of her heels.

“Girl,” you look up from zipping your jacket. Nikto glares at you. “быстро. Hurry up.”

“Hurry up?” Your voice bounces as you make your way to the exit, sending a thinly hidden face of amusement. “I’m just going home, there’s no rush to things.”

“We need to secure the premises.”

We? You nearly ask, wondering what he meant. Obviously, he didn’t mean you and him, based on general attitude right now. Maybe that was just a strange quirk of his.

“Around my penthouse?” Nikto’s shoulder presses on the barrier and he’s outside before you can finish your sentence. You narrowly catch the door and slip past like a horrible snake, elbow slapping the frame—you hold back a hiss and enter the street. “I…I don’t think it’s overly necessary, the police move through that area a lot—”

“Not the penthouse, Whelp,” you struggle along, feet rapid to stay at his side and multitask by staying in a line. He walks in long strides, parting people away from him with only a sharp glance and a scoff. “Inside.”

Your body halts before you blink back to your senses and make a noise in the back of your throat.

“I-inside, Nikto? I’m sorry, I’m not following.” You huff under your breath and stick beside him, using his presence as a sort of barrier. He walks near the road. “I never agreed to that. And Whelp? What the hell, man?”

“I do not care.”

“You’re just a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” You grumble, sighing.

I guess I’m having guests.

Has your mother given permission for that? A stranger with weapons thumping inside of your penthouse like he was your live-in boy toy? Eating in your kitchen and putting his feet up on the coffee table? God, the public would have a field day with it when they saw him walking down with you in the morning to go to work.

He couldn’t have been put in the building across the street? But you suppose there are worse things that can happen—you have the space for it. With a dejected expression, you sigh; you seem to be doing that a lot recently.

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Nikto stares down at you as your feet stutter along, seeming to raise a brow in annoyed question as to why you were struggling to keep up.

You wondered how much he had been told beyond some rich Consul's daughter needed a new bodyguard. Did he know any of it?

“What?” Your lips twist, smile flicking out. “See something you like?”

“No. You’re slow.” You hide your groan and face forward, brows falling into a line.

But you’re not oblivious to the way his piercing eyes survey the crowd, and while the mask is drawing attention, random people peeping break off like sticks as he’s clocked by you, darting to make room. How his large shoulders span and block the road from you, pace pulling back to fit right behind you with a low grunt as your arms brush.

A grunter too—he really is a scary dog.

“Why do you walk like this,” Nikto growls. “Are you unable to feel your feet? It is pathetic.”

“Are you going to stop insulting me?” You glare ahead and cross your arms. “Or are you going to keep playing the jerk until this is over?”

His eyes burn into yours for a moment, before he places such a heavy hand on your shoulder that you almost squeak at the pressure. It nearly slants you forward before your back tightens.

“Keep quiet. Walk.”

“Well, now I don’t think I’m going to,” his eyes flash, those colorless films going into themselves with tiny flecks of surprise. You suppose no one’s ever had banter like this with him before, being in a PMC…or really just being him as a whole. He doesn’t seem the joking type over a back-handed sarcastic comment.

“So, how has your day been, Nikto?” Your voice is smug and your smile large, perfect and bright, and ravishing. “Today I woke up at five AM and ate an apple with yogurt. Then I—”

Nikto growls deeply and forces you on through a gawking crowd.

The rest of the walk is filled with a one-sided conversation coming from a grinning face, pale, boiling eyes, and the shadow across the street who watches through the thin glass of a bookstore. The perfect view.

A hat on his head.

A slight distance to his addled expression.

A medium slip-joint knife in his pocket.

TAGS:

@anna-banana27, @random-thot-generator, @midwesternwitchery, @pumpkinwitchcrusade, @halfmoth-halfman, @alpineswinter, @blingblong55, @cryingnotcrying, @lxne20, @not-eclipse, @theecoffeebean, @phoenixhalliwell, @h3ll-guttz, @tiinkerbell, @genjilvr, @azush4rp, @escapefromrealitysm, @neelehksttr, @aeneanc, @finnigansxz, @cowboybaby2, @delaynew, @doggydale, @zapphir, @littlemisstrouble, @xxtmoe, @grizzersmamma, @andreas-river, @blogdddxx, @jade-jax, @emthegrace, @lovebugmsyd, @makariaspresence, @noisyprofessorhoundsalad-blog, @scythebot, @blueoorchid, @kra-rino4ka, @caramlizedtomatos, @strawberymilk,@frazie99, @homicidal-slvt, @develised, @crispyhusband, @cathnoneofyourbusiness, @ghostslittlegf, @generalcloudtraveler-blog, @azsteris, @rvjaa, @creminemisinthehizzyforshizzboy, @comsyki

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ot3 · 4 months ago

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Hey! The link to your FAQ wasn't working for me so I don't know if this question has been asked before. I really appreciate your perspectives on AI art. Do you happen to have any resources that you read/listened to on intellectual property rights and the issues with it? I just don't really know where to start with it.

[heres where i cut out a big paragraph of me, once again, bitching about how blog pages don't work on the tumblr app and i think that's fucking stupid]

anyway i dont have any generalized sources on the subject but the tl;dr of it is: intellectual property rights exclusively benefit people who have the resources to pursue sustained litigation. 99% of the time, what IP law is being used for is to reinforce corporate ownership of work that was done by their employees.

the whole disco elysium debacle is a great case study.

The shareholders of ZA/UM accused the trio of, among other things, intending to steal intellectual property (IP) from the company — a curious accusation, considering that the world of the game is based off of a novel written by Kurvitz himself. The case of Disco Elysium illustrates the shortcomings of IP rights as protection for artists. Consequently, it contains a lot of lessons for the labor movement when it comes to the arts, and serves as a reminder that creative workers are, at the end of the day, workers. But this is not just an academic exercise. It’s a human story about the intimate consequences of capitalist exploitation. “I got my soul ripped out of me,” Kurvitz told me over Zoom in April of 2023. “I got my skull cracked open and my brain lifted out of it by a fifty-five-year-old financial criminal.”

another example: alex norris of webcomic name, which you will probably recognize when you see it, has been raising hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past several years to try and keep up with the protracted legal battle over maintaining ownership of his own work.

I have been fighting this case since 2019. It arose out of an agreement to make a boardgame based on my webcomic in 2017 but the publishing company has used this as an opportunity to take all of my intellectual property, and has even claimed ownership of Webcomic Name as a whole. I can't go into more detail here, but the details of the case are publicly available to read online.

Then, in a 2024 update:

I have essentially won the main case based on the decisions made last summer. The Judge has clearly stated that I own my comics, and that the other party has infringed on my copyright. It is not over yet, as there are still a few things that need to happen. Hopefully things will all be wrapped up this year. After 6 years of legal battling, I can’t wait to be free of all of this. Hopefully, this second case will backfire, and they will be sanctioned for filing it. But to get to that point requires a frustratingly large amount of work, time and money.

An interesting thing about both of these two specific instances is that they involve creators who had entire bodies of work produced around the specific IPs that were stolen from them before they even began partnering with corporate entities to produce works. which is insane! you can spend years writing novels, drawing comics, and if a company comes in with enough lawyers they can own those ideas.

this is pretty distinctly different to me than instances of work you do while being employed by a corporate entity being owned by that corporate entity, because at least you know what you're getting into there to some degree, but i still think that's bad too. consider stuff like the owl house and gravity falls, two disney shows made by people who very very clearly did not like working for disney. disney owns their ideas, their characters, their worlds, because that's the price you pay for having an animated show produced.

essentially it's very very clear upon even the slightest examination that intellectual property in no way exists to codify who the creator responsible for specific creative concepts or works is. it exists to turn nebulous things like 'ideas' into market commodities, and to funnel the profits made by the labor of individual artists and writers into corporate bank accounts.

the only person who has ever really benefited from IP law as an individual trying to lay claim to their own work is ken penders, who notoriously won his suit to have ownership of characters and storylines he created. heartbreaking: Worst Person You Know Gets An Unequivocally Deserved Legal W.

The comics continued under Flynn’s direction as if nothing happened, but things started looking grim in late 2012, when Archie suddenly fired its entire legal team. The company had been unable to produce Penders’ work-for-hire contract, which would have given control of his creations to Sega. Penders claimed the contract had never existed. A heavily circulated Tumblr post outlining the case (which has been corroborated as a reliable source by Penders) explains that while Archie did provide a photocopy of a contract allegedly signed by Penders in 1996, Penders claimed that the document was a forgery. That it was neither an original copy nor a contract from the beginning of the writer’s tenure at Archie meant that its validity was questionable. Making things worse, Archie couldn’t produce an original copy of any previous contributor’s contract, meaning that any writer or artist who had worked on the Archie Sonic line could potentially follow in Penders’s footsteps and reclaim their work. “So are you saying prior counsel blew it?” the presiding judge asked Archie counsel Joshua Paul in a May 2013 court session. His reply was unequivocal: “Absolutely, your Honor.”

So yeah. Owning the work you do as an artist is only something that happens when the people trying to profit off of it show unprecedented and staggering level of incompetence in their legal teams.

Then, alongside not owning the concepts and ideas you produce while working with corporate entities, there's the issue of NDA regarding specific pieces you've produced. This causes a LOT of trouble for freelance illustrators/character designers/concept artists, etc. Looking for work is very hard when the past three years of pieces you've drawn can't be added to your portfolio. Some people have password protected pages on their portfolios that they use for NDA work, but I believe the right to do this varies depending on your contract. I'm not 100% sure. In cases where the project you worked on eventually comes out, that's one thing, but there will be instances where the entire project gets canned after all the work is done, but is still under NDA so essentially all of your work has been taken from you, crumpled up into a ball by a studio executive, thrown in the trash can, and legally you are not allowed to go pick it out of the bin and try and flatten it out again.

This has all been pretty art-focused because that's the kind of circles I run in and where a lot of my interests lie but the truth is none of this is even remotely close to as evil IP law gets. I've saved the most egregious for last: The Lakota Language Consortium

The Lakota Language Consortium had promised to preserve the tribe’s native language and had spent years gathering recordings of elders, including Taken Alive’s grandmother, to create a new, standardized Lakota dictionary and textbooks. But when Taken Alive, 35, asked for copies, he was shocked to learn that the consortium, run by a white man, had copyrighted the language materials, which were based on generations of Lakota tradition. The traditional knowledge gathered from the tribe was now being sold back to it in the form of textbooks.

When you're in defense of IP law, this is what you're siding with. This is the rational endpoint of IP and it is neither a fluke nor an example of the concept being twisted against its original design. Art, culture, language, it belongs to whoever is most capable of turning it into a product. The economic incentives of producing and distributing arts and culture demand this is how things be.

Meya says his work is a vital tool in preserving the Lakota language, which did not previously have a standardized written form. He estimated that there are fewer than 1,500 fluent Lakota speakers left and that over the last decade and a half, the organization has helped add 50 to 100 more. “Just because money is involved in it does not inherently make it an evil thing,” Meya said in a recent interview with NBC News. Most of the products his organizations make are free, he said, but the cost of printing textbooks has to come from somewhere. “That tends to be sometimes part of the rhetoric, ‘Oh, there’s money involved. It must be, you know, part of the overall colonization effort.’ Well, you know, that’s just not realistic.”

Artists looking to force their way into the class of people who gets protected by these laws are not looking out for their community. They are not protecting anything but their own perceived financial interests. Intellectual property will never, ever benefit the most marginalized members of creative communities and anyone who tries to convince you otherwise is huffing some serious copium.

Frankly, I don't believe anyone can or should 'own' things like Ideas or Specific Aesthetic Flairs. But even if you do believe in that, IP law isn't the framework for handling it.

#long post #i guess i should tag this so i can find it again if i ever get asked something else like this #ip law #intellectual property

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cloudcountry · 2 years ago

Text

you octopi my thoughts.

Genre/Tropes: Mutual Pining!! Also we have a little kabedon moment at the beginning so we're starting off strong!! C:<

Summary: I have another brain wave/request! Would you mind doing a flirty/a MC who’s not afraid to make bold advances?

Author's Comments: PLEASE I'd be such a menace. Azul would hate me because I'd flirt with him all the time.

~~~~~

“Oh Azuuul!”

The student in question braced himself for your presence, letting out a deep sigh as his cheeks flushed. Your incessant flirting had only gotten worse over the past week, and it had gotten to the point where just hearing your voice could turn his cheeks red. It was an endless source of amusement for Jade and Floyd, and he resented you for it.

“What is it, Prefect?” he adjusted his glasses, giving you the coolest gaze he could manage.

The facade he tried to put up immediately shattered when your hand slammed into the wall behind him, your eyes bright with mischief. A strangled yelp tore from his throat at your close proximity, your face only getting closer to his as you smirked.

“It’s my afternoon, Azul.” you hummed, eyes darting from his eyes to his lips, “It’s so dreadfully empty. I have nothing to do!”

“Hm. Maybe you should study for the upcoming history exam.” Azul couldn’t stop himself from wetting his lips anxiously, ignoring the furious pounding of his heart in favor of holding your gaze.

“What if I want to study marine biology instead?” you shot back, leaning even closer—there was practically no space in between you two anymore.

“You can consult-” he stopped himself from suggesting that you see Jade or Floyd, a flare of jealousy making him reconsider, “...Nevermind.”

“Who? Who can I consult for this lesson? I’d like to know about octopi…their camouflage, their hunting habits, the way they show interest in potential mates…” you lowered your voice to a whisper, a light giggle ending your trailing sentence.

“Well…I…” Azul cursed his stuttering heart, the sound of blood rushing in his ears doing nothing to quiet the thundering noise of his heart.

“But oh well.” you pulled away suddenly, eyes dropping to his tie as you pinched it in between your fingers, “I suppose if your afternoon isn’t free, then I’ll have to find something else to do. Something boring and lonely.”

“If it’s a study session…I suppose I can make time. Show up at the Mostro Lounge after your classes and I’ll see what we can do.” he blurted, flushing a brilliant shade of red as you twisted his tie around in your fingers.

“Lovely! Now maybe you’ll stop octopi-ing my thoughts!” you laughed loudly, releasing his tie and smoothing down the front of his uniform in one fluid motion, “It’s a date, then. See ya, Azul! Thank you!”

You practically jumped away from him, bouncing down the hallway without looking back at him. Azul adjusted his tie nervously, staring after you until you turned down a corner. What was he going to do with you? This couldn’t keep happening-

“Having fun, boss?” Floyd giggled, popping up from behind him.

“It seems like he is.” Jade hummed, showing up from his other side.

“It’s nothing like that.” Azul insisted, beginning his walk to class with the eels hot on his tail, “Don’t mention this to anyone. It’s not important.”

“I dunno…I think it’s octopi-ing your thoughts!” Floyd mimicked your voice, batting his eyelashes flirtatiously.

Jade chuckled as Azul’s face burst into another blush, his eyes narrowing as he focused on the nearby classroom door.

“Go to class you two!” he shrieked, shooing the brothers away.

Azul had never walked faster into a classroom in his life, the cackles of the brothers and your voice ringing in his skull. Great Sea Witch, he’d never get you out of his head, would he?

#auburn's fics <3 #azul ashengrotto deserves so many hugs #i love him #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #azul ashengrotto x reader #azul x reader #fluff #they're in love your honor #flustered azul >>>>

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daechwitatamic · 10 months ago

Text

Of Ruin: Chapter 8 || KTH

(banner by @itaeewon)

Of Ruin (Masterpost)

Rating: NSFW - minors dni Genre: vampire!au magic!au royalty!au, s2l, slow burn, eventual smut, angst and fluff

Summary: Taehyung of House Rune, Prince of Infracticus has been cursed. You’re the human world’s leading curse-breaker. It should be simple. But unraveling the curse becomes the least of your problems in the face of a world on the brink of civil war… and the love you start to feel for the prince.

A/N: Thank you endlessly to @sailoryooons for betaing!!! 💕

Section Warnings: injury and blood, angst wc: 4.8k

When you’d studied casting - in the framework of counter-curses, never much else - you’d learned like a human. You’d learned the methodology of pulling magic from the air around you, like one might pull water from a cloud. You never knew there was magic inside you, rising up to meet the rest. You never knew that you might possess something of your own, stronger and more readily available than what the world around you could offer.

Now, as you stand in your tiny bedroom in the palace practicing the same deflective spell over and over again, you wonder how you could possibly have been so oblivious. The magic that races through your system nearly makes you high.

You know that you should stop and sleep; you know that you need to rest, to recover. But every time you consider putting the book away, turning off the lamp, and laying in the dark, your heart begins to race again.

And then, instead of doing any of those things, you run the spell again. You imagine the Infracti who’d attacked you, and you push back with all your might.

You run the spell so many times that it becomes muscle memory - your tongue repeating mindless syllables, your hands pushing and pulling magic like you’re conducting the ocean tide. You’re barely thinking about what you’re doing. Your mind goes blank, a low buzzing like static settling at the base of your skull.

Say the words, do the motion. Knock down anything that comes close. Say the words, push the magic. Say the words, push the magic. Get them away, keep them away, get them away away away -

Your wardrobe explodes noisily, wooden splinters flying through the room followed by your shirts and slacks. You scream and drop to the floor, covering your head, just as one of your shoes crosses the room and takes out your lamp, leaving you in the darkness you’d been avoiding. You shake on the floor, still covering your head even though the danger has passed.

You hear Namjoon shout your name before he throws your door open, flooding your room with light from the corridor.

“What happened?” he asks, trying and failing to turn the light on with the switch on the wall. The lamp lies on the ground, shattered. You can see it because you’re still at eye-level with the floor.

Namjoon must spot you, cowering, and makes his way towards you.

“Careful,” you warn him, finally uncovering your head and trying to sit up. Your arms both sting, and you bet you have chunks of wardrobe in them, like giant splinters. Lovely. You don’t even want to look. “There’s pieces everywhere.” You’re not sure if you mean the wooden splinters or the shattered lamp. You feel delirious.

Namjoon freezes midstep, one foot raised in the air.

Satuel appears behind him and seems to understand what happened. She waves her hand and you watch as the wooden pieces of the wardrobe and the ceramic pieces of the lamp slide along the floor to a common spot, making a nice, neat little pile of debris.

“Come,” she says. “Out here where I can see you.”

Out in the common room, she looks you over, tutting when she looks at your arms. Your heart begins to slam in your chest as she examines you; you’re very aware, suddenly, that you must be bleeding.

Namjoon and Satuel look at each other, having a silent conversation that you are very much not a part of.

“Go back to bed,” she tells Namjoon, who is hovering a few feet away, unsure how to help. “I’ll take care of her.”

He does as he’s told, a bit robotically, and you’re sure he was half-asleep for the whole encounter. He might wake up in the morning and think he dreamed it.

Satuel procures a pair of tweezers - from where, you aren’t sure - and guides you to sit at the small table where you eat. She gingerly takes one of your arms and bends it so she can see better as she starts to work.

“Care to tell me what happened?” she asks evenly, her focused gaze only on what her hands are doing.

“Was practicing a defense spell,” you mutter. Your eyes suddenly feel heavy. “Must have messed up. My wardrobe exploded. It broke the lamp.”

“You should have been sleeping,” she remarks, putting down the arm she was working on and motioning for you to hand her the other.

You don’t answer this. You don’t want to admit that you were too scared. You don’t want to look weak and frightened. You don’t want to offend her by admitting you’re afraid of her kind. You don’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing her kind can frighten you. These feelings contradict each other, yet somehow both manage to be true.

She seems to know anyway. She finishes working on your second arm and places it on the table, sitting back and looking at you with wet, black eyes. Your stomach turns, and the hairs on your arms raise.

You hide them under the table.

“Prince Taehyung can heal those when he… wakes,” she says. It occurs to you, as she stumbles over this wording, that at this moment Prince Taehyung is simply a monster. If you needed him, now, he would be no help at all. In fact, in his current state - wherever they have him tucked away - he’s the most dangerous one here.

Everyone else would need to use discretion if they fucked with you. Under the curse, Prince Taehyung would have no such qualms.

“Okay,” you say quietly. “Thank you.”

She continues to watch you, then cocks her head slightly. “There is a tea I could bring,” she says. “It would calm your nerves. It would likely help you sleep. I’ll bring some.”

You want to object; you don’t know what it’s made of, what the effect will be. You want to stay clear-headed. You want to stay awake. You never want to close your eyes again.

But this is the first kindness Satuel has shown you. This is the most she has spoken to you at length. You don’t want to reject her, lest she never try again.

“Thank you,” you nod. “I’ll try it.”

Still, when she brings you a steaming mug, you sit on the couch in the main room and hold it between your hands. You inhale the steam deeply, noting what you can recognize: chamomile, definitely. Perhaps lavender. Something else that you can’t name.

You look up at her, nervous. “Will I be able to wake when Prince Taehyung is ready for the ritual?” you ask. “Or will I be -?”

Drugged, is what you want to say. You don’t.

She smiles, and it almost looks warm. “You’ll feel normal,” she assures you. “It won’t make you groggy.”

You nod in thanks and sip at it. When you’ve finished, you set the mug on the low table, and you bring the heaviest blanket from your bed back to the couch. You curl up in a ball, the blanket over your head, and breathe slowly, waiting for sleep.

You leave every light in the room on.

—

It is not Satuel who wakes you, but Namjoon, gently shaking your shoulder and pulling the blanket just enough that your eyes peek out. You squint up at him, the light almost painful in the wake of your dark little blanket cave.

“Sorry,” he says, grimacing. “I wanted to let you sleep more, but the prince has asked for us.”

You groan, closing your eyes again. You feel awful - your body aches, your head is pounding, and your arms throb in the places where Satuel had removed wooden splinters sometime early this morning.

Still, after a moment of wallowing, you push yourself to rise. “Do I have time to shower?” you ask, the blanket over your shoulders like a thick, winter cape.

Namjoon glances at the clock. “Maybe, like… a fast one?”

You do your best to hurry, though the water stings the open cuts you sport, which makes it tricky as you hop in and out of the water, hissing and wincing. When you’re ready, both Dansoo and Satuel lead you and Namjoon through the palace, up the steps to Prince Taehyung’s wing.

You’re greeted in the front room not by the beautiful, dark haired Infracti, but by a breakfast spread.

“Prince Taehyung will be with you in a moment,” one of his staff tells you. “Please help yourselves to breakfast.”

“God, coffee,” you manage, making a beeline for the table. Namjoon follows, and when Prince Taehyung comes through the door he finds the two of you sitting on opposite ends of the couch, each clutching a mug of dark liquid like they tether you to life.

He nods in greeting as he passes Namjoon, but slows his stride to pause by you. You look at him guiltily, already knowing where this is going.

“I heard there was an incident,” he says, voice low.

You shake your head as Namjoon nods. Traitor.

“Hardly,” you say. “I was practicing magic. I made a mistake. There was… uh, a problem.”

“An incident,” he repeats. Then, he sighs like he just doesn’t know what to do with you. “Can I heal you?”

You lower your gaze and hold up your arms.

He sighs again as he surveys the damage. Then, gently, he takes one arm and begins to run his spare hand over the cuts, and you feel the tingling sensation that lets you know the healing is working.

You swallow down how nice it feels to have his hands on you. It’s not productive, you remind yourself. Not only unprofessional, but unrealistic, too. Doubly foolish.

He’s dangerous, too. He’s one of them, too.

Triply foolish.

“I’d like you to stay out of trouble for maybe a day,” he scolds under his breath, barely audible.

“I’m finding that harder here than I ever did in the real - I mean, back home,” you joke.

The real world, you’d almost said. Like this one isn’t real, but truly just a dream you can’t seem to wake from.

It does feel that way.

If Prince Taehyung notices, he has the grace to ignore it.

He hovers as you work uneasily on your coffee, and then asks, “So, are we trying the ritual today?”

“That’s the plan,” you answer, and Namjoon shoots you a look like you aren’t being polite enough. But you feel like you and the prince have gotten, maybe, a little friendly on your visits to the stable, enough to give you the leeway to speak casually.

At any rate, he doesn’t object to your tone, instead leaning his arms on the back of the couch and asking, “Do you need anything for it?”

“Actually, yes,” you say, sitting up straighter. Now that the caffeine’s hit your system, you’re feeling more human - but definitely still sore from top to bottom. “Could you get us a metronome?”

“A metronome?” he parrots, brows furrowing.

“You know,” you say, flapping a hand. “The thing for music that keeps the beat for you? I saw your piano room, I’m sure you have one here somewhere.”

A smile grows on his face. “You saw my piano room?”

You don’t answer this, feeling your face flush; you’d found the piano room on the night you’d gone wandering, when Prince Taehyung had literally saved your life the first time.

Namjoon watches this exchange with raised brows, but says nothing. You try to ignore the look on his face.

Prince Taehyung’s smile grows, and he shakes his head a little. He looks like he wants to say something but thinks better of it. He controls himself, mouth twitching back into something more neutral, and then he says, “Yes, I’ll send for it. Anything else?”

You consider this. “Somewhere quiet to work? We need a bit of space, and your staff can’t come too close or their energy will mix into the reading.”

He nods absently, already moving to ask one of his staff to fetch the metronome. “Don’t worry about that,” he says over his shoulder. “I’ve already thought of the perfect place. Come on, I’ll show you.”

—

Taehyung picked his greenhouse for the ritual. It’s spacious, far from his main quarters, quiet… and soothing, with several water features that bubble quietly. He thinks, though it’s just projecture, that this will be good for rituals or magic.

It’s calm and safe, and Taehyung thinks that’s important.

The other curse-breaker, the man, stays by the door, making sure none of Taehyung’s staff accidentally enter, and keeping a safe distance himself.

You sit cross-legged on the ground, facing each other. Taehyung watches you carefully, listens - from his place opposite you - to your pulse beat through your body, quickened with nerves and excitement. He feels your magical signature like a caress, and it astounds him that you can’t feel it, can’t feel the magic brimming at your fingertips, ready to be directed.

“This is supposed to be different than before,” you remind him. “I’m only going in with the intention to look.”

He nods. He hears what you’re telling him - it shouldn’t hurt this time, shouldn’t drain him, shouldn’t feel like his insides are being funneled backwards through his body.

Before the curse had tried to kick you out - before the pain had started - having your magic toy around with his… well, it hadn’t been unpleasant at all. It had felt good, if he was being honest. Like something was clicking into place, as it was meant to.

“You’re going to feel me poking around, just like before,” you repeat his earlier words. “You’ll also likely feel things that… belong to me.”

He feels his brow furrow. “What does that mean?”

You twist your mouth and eye the ceiling. Taehyung waits, lets you decide how to explain it.

“It’s like…” you say slowly, still thinking as you talk, “we both open up and let our magic through. So the same as I can steer my magic to take a look at the curse, you could steer yours to investigate mine. It’s… available.

“If that happens,” you continue explaining, clearly intending to do a better job looping him into the whole process this time, “you might, without meaning to, interact with it. You might feel emotions that belong to me - that’s most likely.”

“You’ve done this before?” Taehyung asks, though he knows the answer.

“Once,” you nod. “A long time ago, though.”

“What happened that time?” He leans back on flattened palms, putting a little more space between you.

“It went well,” you say, something energized coming over you. Like you perk up when you talk about your work, your successes. “I was breaking the curse for this woman - she was like, so old -”

“Older than me?” Taehyung asks, failing to hold back a teasing smile.

You laugh. Taehyung likes the sound of it. “Old for a human, okay? Anyway, we did the ritual and I was looking around at her curse and I could feel her magic kind of… pressing back? Not in a bad way, though, just… presence. And when we finished and ended it, she told me something…” You break off the story, letting out a laugh that’s maybe a bit bitter - Taehyung can’t tell. “She told me some things about myself, about what I was feeling, things I had gone through recently at that time - like while she was in there she just got a little film of my life, or something.”

“That sounds invasive,” Taehyung murmurs.

You shrug. “I knew what I was agreeing to. It was sweet, and kind of funny. And I cracked her curse.” The pride in your voice is evident.

“So,” Taehyung asks, back to playful, “what film am I scheduled to see today?”

You laugh again, and his smile widens. “Books, probably,” you tell him. “Hours and hours and hours of books.”

Taehyung waits patiently as you get ready. He places his hands palm-up on his knees, and you place yours palm-up on top of his, resting lightly. They’re small, he notices for the first time, fitting neatly inside his own.

You lift one hand and reach to set the metronome at a slow pace. It’s so slow, in fact, that Taehyung thinks for a moment that it must be broken.

“This is to pace our breathing,” you tell him. “Inhale and exhale between the beats. We’re going to do that first - just breathe in time, together.”

“I don’t need to do anything else?” he clarifies. He wants this to go well, he wants this to work.

He wants it to be done and over so you can look at him and tell him, I know exactly what’s missing, we’ll have the curse ended before midnight tonight. He wants you to tell him, it’s over - the curse is gone.

“I’ll tell you,” you assure him, your voice becoming almost melodic as you step into your role as a magic-wielder. “For now, breathe. We’re inhaling - ready?”

He does as he’s told - inhales until he hears the device’s click, then begins a slow exhale. Click. Inhale - click. Exhale - your own breath mingling with the gurgling body of water behind you is the only other sound in the room. Click. Inhale.

“Good,” you say on the exhale. “You keep that rhythm - that’s your most important job.”

He nods, concentrating on the rhythm, the clicks, his breath in and out.

“Next job,” you murmur. “Keep your eyes on my eyes. Don’t look away.”

He lifts his gaze to meet yours, and you hold him there, steady, as you breathe together in time. Your eyes dance as they take his in, and he thinks he can feel you already - your magic starting to touch its fingers to his, tentative. He’s not sure he’s ready for when your magic opens for him, when he’ll be able to press against it and feel what you’re feeling, not just see it reflected in your eyes.

“Good,” you say finally, lips barely moving. “Don’t do anything but what you’re doing right now. I’m going to start the incantations.”

You do, quietly, your voice calm and even. The chanting is musical, almost like you’re singing to him. Taehyung can feel everything as it happens - so strongly that it almost startles him out of his breathing, almost makes him lose focus and tear his gaze away from your eyes.

As if you can sense him faltering, you press the backs of your hands more firmly into his palms, silently reminding him of his only tasks.

He focuses, but he can still feel it - your magic rising up, strengthening, beginning to expand. He can feel it when it touches his, cautiously, like letting a dog sniff your hand before you stroke its head. It’s somewhere between a tingle and a warmth, your magic, and it slips seamlessly into his, filling up every empty space. Like water, like air, like every element he needs to keep existing.

It feels good - just as it had last time your magics had mingled, and this on its own is distracting.

Focus. Inhale. Click. Exhale. Click.

Your magic begins to explore - he can feel that, too. He can feel it as it lifts and examines, feel it as it prods and dives within him. He could lose himself in this - in the way the controlled breathing lulls him into calm, into the warm and pleasant sensation of having his magic matched and complemented, into the cool press of your hands into his.

He could - but he doesn’t want to. You’d said that he could - “without meaning to” - explore your side. You were forgetting: he may not have done this ritual before, but he is Taehyung of Rune. No one has better magical control than his family. It’s in his blood, just like yours, and he can steer his magic just as well.

He presses in, watching your face for any indication that you recognize the feeling. There’s none; your eyes are unfocused, muscles slack except for your mouth, which repeats the incantation hollowly, over and over. Emboldened, he presses further.

The memories come without context in quick-moving bursts; they’re hard to follow. Some are still images, some play like a video clip on fast-forward, others are just dark but sound rings through Taehyung’s head, foreign and jolting. Each comes with a feeling - or more than one - that Taehyung feels so deeply they must be his own.

The faces of humans who might be your family, and the feelings of both love and disappointment.

Books, as promised, and feelings of comfort, of pride.

Cities, waterways, more faces, more books, an old man, books again, another city, another pile of books -

Loneliness. Loneliness stitched into all of them.

Images begin to ping in Taehyung’s mind as familiar -

Namjoon’s sharp eyes, and the feeling of gratitude.

The throne room of the palace, his parents, the image of Infracti eyes - fear, fear so engulfing that Taehyung’s fingers flex against yours instinctively, and he fights to keep exhaling until he hears the click somewhere in the back of his mind.

His own face, his own form approaching from the end of a hallway. Taehyung is swept with surprise to feel excitement attached to his image, something tinged with affection, and danger, and thrill, and something that Taehyung can’t - or won’t - put a name to.

Guilty, he pulls back, letting his magic simply simmer along with yours instead of steering it into your consciousness.

He listens to the clicks, focuses on his breathing. Feels a stupid little smile sneak across his face, feels relief that your eyes are too unfocused to clock it. Feels a swell of affection for you, the human - no, witch - sent here to fix him. Feels a twin swell of protectiveness as his mind replays your fear.

He’ll do better, he promises himself. He’ll do better at staying with you, at keeping everyone else away.

He becomes aware that he no longer hears you chanting and watches your eyes carefully for the moment you come out of the trance.

You come back to yourself with a gasp, and Taehyung is startled to find you gaping at him, wide-eyed, struggling to get a word out.

“What?” he asks, stomach sinking. “What?”

You look around frantically like you’re trying to place yourself. “Maiesti,” you finally whisper, horrified, wild eyes coming back to find his. “I think someone tried to kill you.”

—

Prince Taehyung leads you - at a fast clip - to a small room that reminds you of a meeting room that an office building might have.

As you walk, you fill in Namjoon, talking almost faster than you can think.

“One of the threads,” you say breathlessly, “was definitely, absolutely intended for ending life.”

Namjoon stops walking; Prince Taehyung does not, carrying forward, causing you and Namjoon to scurry to catch him.

“You’re sure?” Namjoon asks.

You look at him evenly. “Entirely.”

“So, I was right,” he says quietly. “Remember? When I said I thought death magic might be involved?”

“I remember.”

He shakes his head. “I think my grandfather knew, or at least suspected.”

You look at him quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“That’s why he called me. I’ve been wondering. He had to suspect there would be an element of death magic - that’s my area of study. He knew you’d need me for that.”

You huff. “If he thought this was a murder attempt, that would have been nice to know ahead of time.”

Prince Taehyung acts like he hears none of this, simply leads you into the meeting room and asks a guard to fetch his parents.

The three of you wait in tense silence. You don’t know about the men, but your mind is racing with possibilities - the who, the why.

The Queen looks alarmed when she enters, and while the King doesn’t look as frantic, there’s definitely an air of concern.

“Thank you for coming,” you say, greeting them respectfully. “We wanted to speak to you right away. The Prince and I completed a ritual this morning -”

“You what?” The Queen asks sharply, but she seems to be directing this at her son, who ignores her with the polish of someone who has ignored their mother for over five hundred years. He motions for you to continue.

You continue again, a little shakily. “We completed a ritual whose purpose was to feel out more of the curse, identify some threads of intention that we missed before.”

“Was it successful?” the King asks.

“It was,” you say carefully, “but I felt you should know about a major thread that I uncovered.”

Everyone looks at you, waiting - those who already know what you found, and those who are about to hear for the first time.

You take a breath and lay your palms flat on the table. “I found a thread whose intention was death.”

“How sure are you?” the Queen demands, standing up straighter, her brows furrowed.

“There’s no doubt,” you say calmly. “That’s what it was. Whoever cast this curse… they included the intention to kill Prince Taehyung.”

The King shouts someone’s name and an Infracti hurries into the room, leaning down to listen to the King’s request. He leaves again, and the King addresses the table.

“My cabinet members are being summoned,” he says. “We’ll address this at once.”

“Why would they bother with all the other threads,” the Queen asks, her eyes on you, “if they just wanted to kill him?”

“I’m not sure,” you admit. “It doesn’t make sense to me, either - but the intention was there.”

“I can speak to that,” Namjoon says calmly. The Queen snaps her attention to him. “Death magic is my specialty. A curse like that - just to end a life - it can’t be done. Magic… as I’m sure you know, magic is life. Magic wants life. It will not end a life unless it is twisted just right. It’s likely that whoever cast this curse had to… add padding to sneak this piece in. Perhaps they hoped that if they failed - which clearly, they did - then at least the prince would suffer.”

“Which he is,” you add, unhelpfully.

“The Scores must be behind this,” the Queen says.

“There’s nothing that particularly indicates them,” the King points out.

“Except seven thousand years of war,” she shoots back. “Who else? Who else would benefit from killing our son?”

The King rubs at his temples. “I want to know where their little venefici was the night the curse began,” he muses. At that word, you feel blood rush to your face. You expect Namjoon to pat your arm, but it’s the prince who meets your gaze across the table, his face open and apologetic.

“Father,” he murmurs reproachfully, the first time he’s spoken since you all gathered.

You wonder what he thinks about all this.

You wonder if he’s frightened.

The King follows his gaze and frowns. “No disrespect intended,” he says, though his tone indicates that he’s displeased at being corrected. “We appreciate your skill here. But I need to find who cast on my son, and bring them to justice.”

“And cure him,” you say. This time, Namjoon does knock into your arm, trying to shut you up.

The King narrows his eyes at you but doesn’t address your insolence.

“And what about you?” The Queen asks, directing her attention at you and Namjoon. You try not to squirm. “What does this discovery mean for the counter-curse?”

You exchange a look with Namjoon, and you give him a nod. Death magic is his forte, not yours.

“I’m afraid it’s a bit of a good-news-bad-news situation,” he says, inclining his head respectfully. “The good news is we identified that element of the curse so we are able to begin finding how to counter it. The bad news… well… the thread of intention called for loss of life. In countering that… only life can pay for life.”

Prince Taehyung’s head snaps up. “Will someone have to die?” he asks, horrified, eye wide.

“Not necessarily,” you hurry to soothe him. “It may take Namjoon and I some time, but I’m confident we can find a way that isn’t so… drastic.”

“You’re dismissed, then,” the Queen says, her voice still even and cold. “I don’t want you wasting a single minute until you have something worth trying.”

You nod in understanding and move to leave. Satuel and Dansoo are waiting in the corridor, ready to walk you and Namjoon back to your quarters. You glance over your shoulder as you go, trying to get one last look at Prince Taehyung.

To your surprise, you find him standing still, watching you walk away. From this distance, he looks more like you expected him to look the first time you’d met him - somehow both haunting and haunted.

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thank you for reading! chapter 9 coming next friday!

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cressidagrey · 4 months ago

Text

Glorious Sunrise - Chapter 1

Summary:

So what happens after the mating bond snaps?

Well-meaning interfering family members, deep conversations and nights spent brooding on the roof like some kind of gargoyle…this one has it all.

Warnings:

Az the gargoyle, horrible self image

(thanks to @cafekitsune for the super pretty dividers!)

“You know, you could come inside…and not sit outside my window like a brooding gargoyle.”

It spoke of centuries of experience that Azriel didn’t fall off the fucking roof.

He twisted around, staring at Galena who had opened the window to her bedroom. She looked right back at him, her arms crossed.

Azriel wasn’t even sure what had brought him here that day. No, that was a lie.

He did know what had brought him here. To say that his brothers had turned into mother hens was a fucking understatement.

They wanted to talk. And talk they did. Constantly.

Azriel had been made to talk about his own feelings more in the last few days than he ever had in his whole life before.

So he came to sit on Galena’s roof, so he could pretend he was keeping her safe…could try to talk himself out of knocking at her door…could get some peace and quiet and…

And clearly, Galena had known that he was there…

“You have been doing this the last three days. You know we have a front door,” she told him pointedly.

Correction. She had known that he was there since he had first done it.

Azriel didn’t know what to say to that.

We told Master that! The shadows preened at that moment, rushing at Galena, enveloping her hands, caressing her cheek…doing everything that he wanted to do.

Being so sweet and doting to her.

Shut up, he huffed at them, but they happily ignored him.

Which left him to try and say…something.

“I know,” he finally admitted weakly. He knew that. But ever since…ever since she had finally left the House of Wind, and settled back into the apothecary, since he had been healed enough that his brothers had decided that he was due a talking to… He hadn’t seen her since then.

And so for three days he had let them do the talking and had come to perch on Galena’s windowsill before finally retiring to the House of Wind again.

Because he couldn’t manage to ring the doorbell like a normal person and risk being turned away.

“Come inside, Azriel,” Galena told him drily, her voice brokering no argument as she stepped back from her window.

Go inside master! She told you to go inside!

So he slipped inside that window.

He found himself in the attic of the building that housed Madja’s apothecary. The ceilings were sloped and it made it difficult for him to stand, his wings tucked in tight to his body…but of course, for Galena, small, slight Galena…this wasn’t a problem.

He stared at the one big room with the one partition being what probably was her bathroom…with the bed tucked into one corner so that she could stare out of the window if she laid on it… the desk that was tucked under another window…the paintings and sketches that decorated the walls, a wild collection that covered everything from the beaches of Adriata to anatomical sketches of a fae body to botanical studies, pressed flowers in another frame…maybe the most startling thing: a collection of animal skulls laid on velvet and also mounted in a frame on her wall.

A tiny kitchen was tucked in another corner… it consisted out of a sink and a stove and a kitchen table for no more than two people…a horrible mustard yellow couch, with books stacked on the coffee table…

He blinked at the amount of books in the bookcases lining the few free walls she had.

Maybe it shouldn’t surprise him. if Galena wasn’t working, that probably was what she did in her free time. Researched and read and let the books tell her the story…

But still…the whole room…the whole room somehow was Galena. Filled with knowledge and trinkets that she surrounded herself with, because this was where she spent all her time. So very tidy, because he had noticed how she absentmindedly started to tidy up around herself regardless of where she was, always so pristine and perfect…

Her in a nutshell.

“What’s going on?” She asked him, meeting his gaze with both of her eyes, one brown, one milky white…she stood before him barefooted, wearing pyjamas, long trousers that covered her legs and a short-sleeved shirt that did nothing to hide the scars that covered her arms…they lessened the higher they went…around her biceps there where even small free flicks that weren’t covered in scar tissue at all.

He was searching for the right words, shadows still swarming.

“What’s wrong?” There was an edge to her voice now.

“Nothing,” he blurted out and she stared at him as he took a step towards her. “I…I don’t deserve you,” he tried to explain and she snorted before she started laughing.

“And that’s why you brood outside my window?” she asked him, chortling. “In what world does that make sense, Azriel?”

“I…I wanted to keep you safe,” he mumbled. He hadn’t quite thought this through. Mating instincts had been at war with…everything else of him, that constant thrumming of not being good enough, never feeling like he was good enough…unsure how to show her affection that wasn’t going to be turned down and…

“You are ridiculous, you know,” she told him drily, before closing the gap between them and enveloping him in a warm embrace. She just so hit the middle of his chest if she hugged him like that.

Ice and peppermint enveloped him and his shoulders softened as he allowed himself to put his arms around her. Somehow she made everything better.

“I missed you,” Galena whispered softly, and it nearly broke his fucking heart…that he had done something to put that expression on her face and that tone into her voice…because he had been too foolish to simply knock at her door.

“I missed you too,” he replied softly. He had.

He had wanted to crawl inside her and never leave, regardless of how impossible that was. Still, it was what Azriel had wanted.

“No more brooding on my windowsill. Come inside,” she told him pointedly, as she stepped back. So easy. She made it sound so easy. She made everything so easy for him.

“Does the fire bother you?” She asked him, and only then he realised the crackling fire in the fireplace, keeping the place toasty warm.

“No,” he promised her. “Do you want me to put another log in there?” He asked, not wanting her to have to move across the room with her bad leg. “Does it bother you?” He asked her suddenly. She had scars like him…did it bother her? It had taken close to a century until he had felt safe around fire again.

“Oh no,” Galena assured him with a small smile. “These aren’t the result of fire. They are acidic burns.

Acidic?

“I’ll explain it to you, just not tonight,” she promised him. And then she held out her hand for him. “Come to bed.”

His brain came to a screeching halt.

Bed?

She must have realised where his brain had jumped to because her cheeks blushed bright red.

“To sleep. Come to bed to sleep,” she clarified, her voice a squeak.

Oh.

Right.

He took the offered hand, let let her tug him towards her bed…made with perfect precision…white sheets and a couple of embroidered throw pillows on it.

She was limping more than usual, but he chalked that up to the fact that it was the end of the day and that she wasn’t leaning onto her usual cane…but only his hand.

She crawled into the far side, nearer to the window, staring out over the Sidra and he hesitated, not wanting to dirty her bed with his fighting leathers…

But then his shadows already dumped his pyjamas on the bed, nearly pointedly, and Galena laughed, the sound like a tinkling bell.

“Seems like they agree,” she told Azriel with a grin, pulling the covers over her figure and then turning onto her side, away from him, giving him privacy.

He stripped out of his leathers and only then realised that the shadows hadn’t even bothered with giving him a shirt. He was nearly certain that that had been on purpose, as they were happily hiding underneath the bed now, with one or two tendrils curling themselves in Galena’s hair.

Azriel curled up behind her, until she rolled over to face him…without even saying a word, she started pulling her blanket over him as well. She didn’t even think twice about, about that caring gesture as she tucked him in…and then caught his hand with her equally scarred one, curling up with him.

The fae lights blinked out, leaving them in darkness… strangely intimate even when they had shared a bed before….

Still, he couldn’t help himself as he stretched out his wing and brought it over himself to envelope her as well, making her giggle and move closer to him, tucking herself against his chest. The touch seemingly made every nerve ending in his body come alive.

“I take it your brothers have done their best to talk to you?” She asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“And I also take it that they didn’t succeed in making you believe that you deserve to be loved and included in things,” Galena continued, not a question. He tucked her head underneath his, resting his chin on her dark hair.

“Why are you so smart?” Azriel asked her in a whisper, not even bothering to answer. Galena snorted.

“I am really not. You are just easy to read,” she gave back, warm amusement in her voice. Her breath was warm and soft, puffing against his naked chest and he just so managed not to shiver.

“I am the spymaster of this court,” he responded drily.

“Easy to read for me at least,” Galena amended easily. “You know…it’s not a question about who deserves what . I can make my own decisions. And I would expect my mate to respect that.” She said that with the same exact, calculated way she did seemingly everything in her life. How the cut she had made in his chest was perfectly perpendicular to his ribs, the stitches perfectly even, an equal distance apart.

It would quite possibly be the most beautiful scar he had on his body.

“I will. I do,” he assured her. Azriel very much respected her and the decision she made. She was his mate. Of course, he did.

“Then your reasoning is very much not sound,” she pointed out drily. “I told you I wanted to see you. And you…what, decided I lied to you?” She asked him and he couldn’t quite find the word to what exactly he had thought. He had been too much of a coward to knock at her door and be turned away.

“I…I was…scared.”

Not an admission easily made by him. Not when fear had been burned out of him through training, through centuries of near death and danger. He wasn’t scared of many things. But he was of what she could do to him.

“Not of you but…of you turning me away.”

“I will never turn you away.” Her voice was fierce, one hand worming itself around him as she hugged him to herself. “You’re my mate.” Such fierce, ferocious words from his little mate. “Mine.”

Hers. Always hers.

He would gladly put himself at her mercy if she tucked him into her bed and held him… a kiss was pressed right over his heart. Soft lips make him shudder.

“Sleep, Azriel.”

And sleep, he did.

Galena was better than any sleeping potion.

He slept until dawn broke the next morning and even then only woke up because Galena moved out of his arms.

He watched silently as she sat up, and then stretched her arms over her head…movements were choppy, a soft noise escaping her as she bent at the waist, folding herself in half.

He knew how his own hands sometimes felt, bones and joints needing at least an hour to loosen if he hadn’t moved them in too long.

“Good morning,” he finally said quietly as she sat up again and she twisted her head to see him.

“Good morning,” she responded, moving her legs now, the movement of her right choppier than of her left…the right one was the one where she limped, where she used the cane to balance herself. “Slept well?” she asked him curiously and he nodded.

“What are you doing?” he asked her, wondering if there was another reason for that regime, of her twisting herself into half a pretzel before the day even started…now sitting straight backed the soles of her feet touching each other as she pushed down on her knees.

“If I don't stretch ... I will regret it the whole day,” she answered him honestly. “I have problems in my leg and hip from childhood injuries. Which makes my spine act up because I can’t walk without the cane… which also hurts my shoulder. The whole body is connected,” Galena sighed. “I preach that to every patient and I am still annoyed at the same applying to myself.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at the pout on her face at these words.

There was a sharp knock at her door and he snapped around, but Galena didn’t even hesitate.

“Come in, Aunt Madja.”

Oh great. Here he was, sitting in Galena’s rumpled bed without even wearing a shirt…and there was Madja opening the door and blinking twice at his appearance.

“Shadowsinger,” her voice was just as bone dry as her niece could be on occasion.

“Good Morning, Madja.” He did not squeak. He was 500 years old. He was not going to squeak. Or hold the bedding in a death grip on his chest.

“Did you winnow in? The wards are supposed to stop that,” she asked him. He opened his mouth to respond, but Galena beat him to it.

“No, he came in through the window.” Somehow she just made it even worse. Though her voice was calm. Even.

“We have a front door,” Madja said pointedly.

Why did he feel like a child again, being admonished by Rhys’ mother?

“I told him the same thing,” Galena said brightly. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Breakfast is nearly done. You’ll eat with us,” Madja responded, not even bothering to wait for a response.

Still, Azriel stared after her form. He had known her for centuries, had seen her pull faes and faeries alike from the brink of death, had seen her amputate limbs and stitch wounds closed…but he had never seen her, like she was with Galena…that nearly maternal glint in her eyes.

“Seems like we got our marching orders,” Galena quipped.

And that was that.

She needed longer in the bathroom, some kind of salve that she needed to rub all over her body so that the scars wouldn’t bother her for the whole day, he walked downstairs, into Madja’s private quarters.

Lined with just as many books as Galena’s rooms, it was clear from where she had inherited her literary love.

Madja was already seated at a bigger table, set for three, clearly where Galena and she had breakfast every day and took their meals…where Galena had been raised.

She had been raised here for all her youth nearly, from Madja.

He didn’t know what exactly had happened…or when…she hadn’t told him that yet…and he didn’t know if he wanted to know what had happened to Galena to result in the scars that covered nearly all her body.

Madja looked up, dark eyes, the same that Galena had also inherited, mustering him.

“Shadowsinger,” she said drily. She didn’t normally call him that but clearly, centuries of knowing him were forgotten in the light of him being her niece’s mate.

She had something to say to him…he knew that.

“Shadowsinger is just as…title. My family calls me Azriel,” he responded carefully and she mustered him.

“And I am your family now?” There was something akin to amusement in her voice at that.

“Galena is my family,” he gave back. “She’s my mate. You are her family.” Madja was important to Galena. The one bit of blood family she was close to. So it shouldn’t…He was always going to try and get along with her because he didn’t want to put Galena into a situation, where she had the feeling that she needed to make a choice between him and Madja.

“ I…apologise if I…” he started and then trailed off, blushing furiously, as he searched for the right words.

“If you?” Madja asked him drily, letting him open his mouth and then close it again twice before she finally took pity on him. “We have a front door. There is no need to hide your relationship like that,” she finally said calmly. “Actually I would prefer it if you didn’t.”

He blinked.

“Galena hides her whole self away. At least here, in her home , she shouldn’t need to hide a single thing,” Madja explained herself, her voice rough. “You are her mate. As long as you treat her well and do nothing that she doesn’t want, we will not have a single problem,” she promised him. “She wants you. That’s all that matters to me.” She was telling the truth. He could hear that, crystal clear in every syllable.

“But... If you don’t…I have a full knowledge of Illyrian anatomy and I know what poison can kill you and make it look natural.”

He inclined his head. He didn’t doubt that for one moment.

“Be gentle with her heart. She likes to pretend that she doesn’t feel…and I have fallen for that on occasion…but I think Galena feels deeper than most others.”

#indelible #glorious sunrise #acotar fanfiction #azriel x oc #azriel x reader #azriel fanfiction #azriel fanfic #my writing

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everydayyoulovemeless · 1 year ago

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how would the companions deal with Sole getting "surprised adopted" (kidnapped) by a very territorial mother deathclaw who fully believes Sole is her baby? Who'd just go in guns blazing to deal with it? Would anyone go for the sneaky approach or even trying to get the deathclaw to not attack them as well?

Fo4 Companions Reactions To Sole Getting "Suprise Adopted" By A Territorial Deathclaw

➼ Word Count » 1.0k ➼ Warnings » None ➼ Genre » Platonic/Romantic

He absolutely refuses to take anything bigger than him head-on, and this instance is no different. MacCready will run stressed hands down his face as he sits behind a rock, waiting for the perfect moment for him to finally take aim and shoot. He's so confused and would almost be terrified to ask about what went wrong for you to be taken by a whole deathclaw, but will mainly focus on trying to get the both of you out of the nest as fast as you possibly can.

Nick almost has to let out an exasperated chuckle when Ellie gets the report. He's aware that a deathclaw isn't the kind of thing he's well equipped for fighting and, therefore, will try his best to make it a simple in-and-out mission. His plan is to show up, get you out, and leave without any conflict, but he knows it's just wishful thinking. The plan fails horribly, and a few shots were fired on his part, but he got you out, didn't he? Isn't that what really matters?

Cait will roll her eyes when she hears the news, sighing loudly as she goes to get her shotgun. It'll take her a minute — especially if she's off the drugs — but she'll eventually find herself an opening to lodge a bullet in the skull of the beast. She's more amused than annoyed at the situation and will throw her blood-drenched arm around your shoulder as she tells you that the two of you are headed to the bar so you can tell her all about what happened.

The second he learns about the situation, Danse rushes to grab both Haylen and Rhys to go out on a rescue mission. They'll make light work of the deathclaw, shooting it down quick before Haylen and him run over to you with an abundance of medical supplies (Rhys doesn't think you should be coddled since you were the one who got yourself into this mess), and a long lecture on Danse's part on how to avoid being kidnapped.

Preston panics when he learns about your little incident and is quick to rally a hoard of settlers to follow behind him to steal you back. Deathclaws are notorious for causing problems for the Minutemen, and Preston ends up putting all of that past resentment into saving you. He goes in frightened, angry, and prepared, blazing down anything that tries to prevent him from getting to you. The group makes quick work of the mother, and Preston just can't find it in himself to shatter the eggs at the end.

Codsworth decides his best action is to just waltz in and politely ask for your return. If he treats the deathclaw like he would your mother, then he doesn't think he'll have any issues. His plan goes horribly when he goes to shake her hand and introduce himself, only for him to get smacked by her giant claw. He'll then start to panic a bit and you'll probably have to step in and help him take the creature down.

Piper finds its behavior strange and will focus on that aspect more than she will on your rescue. She'll sit and document the incident, curious about the reason behind it all. She never comes to a sound conclusion, but she does manage to sneak you out eventually. There's no way she's going in there with only her pistol, so she'll just throw a few grenades to distract the deathclaw, while you run from out of the nest. No harm no foul.

Curie's not entirely sure how worried she should be, that being said, she'll use this as a learning opportunity for an up-close deathclaw study. Her calm demeanor matched with her unthreatening aura has the creature unbothered and she'll be able to simply walk you out the same way you came in.

Strong isn't phased. You got yourself in that position, so you can get yourself out. There will be absolutely no rescue coming from him.

Hancock thinks you're an absolute riot. Who gets kidnapped by a deathclaw anyway? He doesn't even bring a gun when he finally decides to stop laughing and come and get you. He just waltzes on in with no plan in mind. He doesn't need it — just throws the mom a pound of mirelurk meat and grabs you. Deathclaws are a lot less likely to attack ghouls than humans, so he doesn't have many issues going in — the trick is distracting it long enough to get you out.

Way to be incognito... Deacon certainly isn't thrilled to hear you got yourself taken — hell, not even he's pulled something like that off. His approach is to stalk the nest you're being held in, before taking one clean shot right between the creature's eyes. He doesn't stall any longer than he needs to, just one pull of the trigger before coming to your side. He tries to make himself appear nonchalant but fails miserably as he can't help but look you over for cuts. He's honestly so worried and won't leave you alone for a good week after.

X6-88 thinks you're stupid for getting caught up in something like that, but he doesn't waste any time in teleporting you out of the nest and safely into the Institute. He'll send for a squadron of synths to take out the deathclaw as the medics look you over for injuries and diseases.

Dogmeat was there when you got kidnapped and most likely got taken with you.

Old Longfellow's getting too old to deal with things like this... can't you get yourself free on your own? He's reluctant to go, but will eventually go to check in and see if you're still alright. He has no problem taking down the beast, but don't think you're not going through a whole training regime afterward to ensure that this'll never happen again.

Gage is amazed at your ability to get yourself in the worst possible situations. If it were anyone else he would've just forgotten about them and moved on, but since you're the boss, he goes to put together a group of raiders to put her down. It'll be a relatively quick rescue, but he never lets you live it down.

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ancha-aus · 5 months ago

Text

RealAgeAU Drabble - Third time the charm?

I am back! @spotaus

Look I got the week off and I am sick. there is very little else I am going to do except game, write and watch vods. So here I am again!

Back to filling up the, in my mind, holes in the story so far before we continue on!

First Drabble Prev Drabble Next Drabble

*------------------*

Dust looks at the many books before him as he tries to think of what to get for Nightmare. Nightmare meanwhile is being a good babybones and stays by Horror eating ice cream.

Dust continues to stare at the books. Trying to think back. What did six year olds have to learn at this point anyway? And how far ahead of that is Nightmare?

Dust knows that Nightmare is smarter than the average six year old. That is a given. Dust knows his vocabular and reading skills are also far above average.

Dust just isn't sure how far certain skills and knowledge got reversed for him.

"Still no luck?"

Dust blinks out of his staring and looks up at Horror "What?"

Horror nods to the books, Nightmare easily held in one arm against his shoulder. Nightmare looks even tinier in Horror's hold and Dust already thinks Nightmare is smaller for his age than he should be.

Smarter but smaller.

Dust shrugs and turns back to the shelf he had been searching "Not sure on his skills."

Horror hums and looks at the books himself. Dust turns back to the options and thinks. They are still moving and universe hopping a lot making it impractical to take too many. One or two at most. That way they can at least start with some classes.

Horror turns to him and Dust looks up to show he has his attention. Horror nods towards the shelf "test level?"

Dust shakes his skull "I could but to specific." if he happens to pick a subject Nightmare still knows about it would set Nightmare up for more difficult classes, even while Nightmare may not be ready for all of those.

Horror hums in understanding as he searches the shelf.

Dust turns back again and thinks. They should at least get a math book. Math is after all to train your brain and problem solving skills. Which would be helpful. Probably basic add and substractions. He searches the shelf and picks out the book that looks promising.

Horror looks at the book before nodding and turning back "What else?"

And that is the problem isn't it? Because most subjects are still too complex for Dust's taste to get. history and geography while both would probably interest Nightmare both are very universe depended and just teaching him stuff about a world they may not even stay in would just be a waste of time.

Horror nudges his shoulder and once Dust looks at him he nods towards the english section "He likes poetry."

Dust blinks and nods. Maybe that is fine? He is already for ahead with english anyway. Maybe giving him something to work and read which is familiar and liked by him while they struggle through math together will be good for his motivation? Dust nods to Horror and walks over there.

Dust frowns at all the titles. He knows very little about this kind of stuff. He searches the story and finds a store clerk and walks over to them "Hello."

The person jumps and turns quickly "oh! Hi! I am sorry i didn't notice you... euh... what can i help with?"

Dust nods to the poetry books "Want a book."

The person blinks and nods "okay.... are you looking for a theme? Or a certain writer? A specific age or focus?" they walk towards the right shelf and look back at Dust.

Dust frowns and glances over at Nightmare nad Horror. Nightmare shrugs and hides his face while Horror looks unsure himself. Dust thinks for a moment "Need a book for the babybones. He already has one." Dust can't remember the name or writer of the book.

The clerk smiles and takes out a thin book with easy rhyming "This should be fine!"

Dust takes it and studies it and it doesn't feel the same. he shakes his skull and hands it back "There was a line in the book... of a poem he reads a lot..." and Dust has read a lot to him. "It went something like 'The dark goes deep but it is no end. Because in the night broken things mend. A time to rest and time to heal, it is the moment when we have a meal.'" Dust frowns as he tries to continue "something something... then later 'The night holds and the night protects. hidden away with all its gems. Holding the stars and letting those shine. until...' and that is what i remember from that..." and he waits.

The clerk frowns "That kinda seems like a few writers from the great depression..." they search the shelf and pull out an older looking book. They hand it over and frown "It seems a bit complex for a tiny child though..." and they shoot a smile in Nghtmare's direction. Not that nightmare is looking at any of them.

Dust looks through the book and nods "I think this will work..." it seems more on par of the book that Nightmare has been reading.

They go to the counter and Dust pays for the two books.

Dust and Horror leave the store together. The person says something but Dust isn't paying any attention to them as he checks the math book. the poetry book already in his bag.

Horror looks a bit embarrased and Dust frowns "What is wrong?"

Horror shrugs and rubs his cheek sheepish "Just... the what that person said."

Dust frowns as he glares back at the shop "Something bad?" he can go back and make them pay easily enough-

Horror holds up his one free hand "no no! Nothing like that... just..." and he shrugs as he keeps a tight hold on Nightmare. Seems like Nightmare is getting fussy. meaning either he is tired or hungry and he goes to acting grumpy because that is easier to hide behind than admitting he needs something.

Dust blinks back and nods at Horror "If you are sure-"

"Horror! Dust! Wait up!"

Dust freezes and glares "Oh are you fucking with me." That are the fucking stars. shit. He looks at Horror and sees that Horror made the same conclusion and that Nightmare is frozen in his hold.

They share a look. Dust is holding unto too many things to do the same as he did before and he doubt he can use the same tactic twice to get them out.

They have both been spotted.

Horror looks at Nightmare and clearly gets an idea as he pulls Nightmare back a bit "Stay still and don't move."

Some confusion brekas through the panicked look but Nightmare nods and that is all Horror needed as he lifts his shirt and just puts Ngihtmare under it nad IN his ribcage.

Moments later horror has the shirt on normally again and Nightmare isn't in view at all.

Right. Nightmare is small enough to be hidden like that-

running steps and Blue and Dream stop by them. Blue pants "FInally! Am I happy to see you!"

Dust and Horror share a confused look and Dust frowns "Since when?"

Blue looks a bit sheepish and looks at Dream. Dream looks very uncomfortable as he rubs his hands "I... euh... I was wondering... euh..." he looks around and spots the books Dust is holding "oh! Getting things for your little one?" and he smiles.

Dust nods and only after agreeing he remembers what Cross said last time they came across the Stars.

Dream nods once he realises that Dust isn't going to speak "Right! Yes. That is amazing! I... I see everything is well? How is the little one?"

Blue nods "We realised you never told us the little guy's name..."

Dust knows he is glaring as he speaks slowly "He is doing fine." and he stops there. shooting them a challenging look.

Blue coughs in his hand before looking at Horror "sup!"

Horror however looks many times more annoyed then Dust feels. Probably because Horror right now feels the nervous and anxious magic of Ngihtmare a lot more directly than they feel when they are just holding him. Putting him more on edge.

Blue gives a slow nod and looks away "Right..."

Dust raises a brow "Did you want anything specif or just wanted to waste our time?"

Dream flinches before smiling "I... I did have a request... I was... I was wondering... If you guys could ask Nightmare to meet with me?"

Dust freezes for a moment before his glare gets worse "Why the fuck would we do that? Just so you can lure him into a trap? Hunt him down some more?"

Dream shakes his skull quickly "I just want to talk..." he rubs his arm. "It is... personal."

Horror crosses his arms "I remember this happening once before." Dust nods and glares himself. it had been a whole thing where Dream tried to stage an intervention about Nightmare needing to be better and see that there are other ways to continue on instead of this path of hate he had set on.

The fact Dream had gone it to an adult Nightmare was bad. The fact that they now knew that their tiny babybones boss was in there the whole time just makes it worse.

Drema looks pale and shakes his skull "It isn't liek that! and... I know i shouldnt have done that back then either! I... I didn't have all the facts and information but I need to talk with nightmare about it-"

Killer appears and has his knife right by Dream's chin "Don't bother. You try to go near Boss ever again and we will end you." Killer's voice is low and dangerous. "We haven't been doing shit to your precious multiverse. leave us alone."

Dust watches the standoff when Cross joins his side and looks him and Horror both over worried and anxious. A small whine starts to leave his throat when Dust signs that Horror has Nightmare hidden. making sure to use their personal coded signs for it. Cross relaxes and leans against him as the tension disappears.

Dust looks back at the standoff to see that Dream has backed up, still looking pale and now heartbroken as well. Blue seems to be trying to reason with Killer but you have more luck reasoning with a pig in the mud than trying to get Killer to stop doing what he wants.

Dust raises his voice a tiny bit "We are leaving." the other three nod and Dsut looks at the two Stars "Stop bothering us." this was already the third time they happened to be in the same universe and Dust did not want to make it a fourth.

They quickly leave and once out of sight make a portal somewhere else. They hide away and quickly check on Nightmare. dust watches as Killer coos and nuzzles Nightmare and feels a bit calmer.

It is fine. They will not let anyone get their babybones.

*----------------*

And the third time the Stars came across the gang and Nightmare! (one of which they didn't fully notice but it still counts!)

First Drabble Prev Drabble Next Drabble

#utmv #realageau #nightmare sans #deaged nightmare #bad sanses #Cross Sans #Dust sans #horror sans #Killer sans #team as family #Blue sans and Dream sans make an appearance :D #The store clerk shouting after them “You three are a cute family!" which left Horror flustered and Dust just didn't register because he #just does not listen unless he deems it important. so horror suffered that flustering alone. nightmare was getting sleepy and so not #paying attention either. and then the stars happened!#Dream just really wants to talk with nightmare about the dreamtale book. but he doesn't know how much the gang knows #and the gang is VERY protective of their tiny grumpy nugget. that is their babybones now. no take backs! >:(#also me having to freestyle some poetry without any real skills in it “am i winning?”#but I think that should be the last 'hole' in the story tiemline i had until now!#which means i can write things later in the timeline now! :3 Poll incoming because i have IDEAS

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