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chuckaf · 4 years ago

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Chuck Fic Rec List: Updated

So my fic rec post was in my notifs again the other day, and I noticed a while back that the formatting on the post has gotten all messed up and it’s also had like three reblog additions to it anyway meaning there are three versions out there lol. so, I wanted to do another list of chuck fic recs! I’ll keep the other one up still, so I’m not gonna repeat every fic here, just some I really recommend. I’m also adding the fic summaries, which I didn’t on the old post, and some more of my own opinions so, buckle up for a long post!

Chuck Versus the Steampunk Chronicles | Steampunk.Chuckster

1896. A world powered by steam, where humans and machines coexist, and airships are the fashionable mode of transport. The US Empire's deepest and darkest secrets arrive at Chuck Bartowski's doorstep. Have they fallen into the wrong hands? Or will the inventor prove his mettle, even while he's forced to hide from the very people he's protecting? AU, ongoing chronicle, Charah.

A genuinely incredible AU story, with an entire crafted world and universe, so detailed it frequently blows my mind. There is heart and family and infuriatingly brilliant slow-burn, plus a buttload of danger and super fun historical/steampunk action. Oh how I LOVE it.

Chuck vs the Charade | somedeepmystery

When computer nerd Chuck Bartowski returns home to an empty apartment and a dead girlfriend he finds himself embroiled in a deadly game of espionage and deceit. Everyone around him is playing a part to get what they want and when he starts falling for the new woman in his life, he can't help but wonder if he can trust her or if she's the one he should fear the most.

An action and twist-filled AU based on the movie Charade, which is just such a brilliant fic concept I absolutely adored it from the start.

Two Sides of the Same Coin | dettiot

When you're a spy, there's all kinds of occupational hazards when you work with another spy. For Sarah Walker, though, one mission becomes a life-changing experience. Because working with Charles Carmichael leads to protecting Chuck Bartowski.

The first time I read this fic my mind was just blown to its genius. Such a brilliant interpretation of what the Intersect and its concepts set up in the show could be, and ooooof the Chuck/Sarah interactions, my HEART. Related to it, its companion piece:

A Flip of the Coin | dettiot

What made Charles Carmichael agree to become Chuck Bartowski? Well, to start, it wasn't as much of a change as you'd think. A companion to the early chapters of Two Sides of the Same Coin from Carmichael's perspective.

Chuck vs The Butterfly Effect | n7agentbartowski

Chuck Bartowski is a normal guy who just hit rock bottom. No girlfriend, no career and no super computer stuck inside his head. It isn't until Chuck meets a gorgeous stranger on the beach that he begins to think his life is about to change for the better. An AU Chuck fic without the Intersect. "Change one thing and it changes everything."

I said it on the OG post, but this story has one of my top 5 Chuck/Sarah fic meetings. So funny, so... very Chuck. The story is a little angsty overall, but a great read.

Chuck vs the Rogue Spy | Crumby

When a rogue spy from Chuck Bartowski's past shows up to help him during his first solo mission, Chuck hopes that he'll finally find out what happened to Sarah Walker. Post-S2 AU.

There’s a lot of Season 3 fix-it fics out there, which I don’t usually read bc I actually love season 3 lol, but this one’s a good one! A twisty deviation from canon, but still feels really true to character.

Chuck Versus the Nerds Rewrite | Steampunk.Chuckster and David Carner

What happens when two nerds talk endless hours about their favorite TV show? A new take on the show you know, but with the flair, twists, and turns you've come to expect from Steampunk . Chuckster and david . carner. Somewhat canon. Charah.

As the summary says, a different take on the show, which honestly makes a couple changes I would too, but also adds a bunch of fun twists and plots that make it totally new and fresh. Seeing Chuck and Sarah’s thoughts in the more canon sections is just delicious, too.

The Trapped Assassin | SarahsSupplyCloset

After a mission goes awry, the CIA's most lethal assassin is ordered to take vacation while her superiors figure out what to do with her. But when she meets a disarming tourist, their immediate connection only adds to her disillusionment with the agency and her career. Will he be enough for her to finally take the plunge and leave the only life she's ever known? Charah AU

A warning for the very justified M rating if you don’t like that sort of thing, but this is definitely a plot-heavy fic, too. A really neat Sarah-heavy AU, with a whole lotta Chuck/Sarah fancy French vacationy goodness.

Chuck vs the Second Chance | malamoo

AU from mid-season 2 and onwards. Chuck and Sarah part ways only to be reunited years later. COMPLETE.

Literal, crying-at-my-screen angst. Not even a super happy ending. But a brilliantly written, part-reflective/flashback fic, exploring what would’ve happened if Chuck and Sarah’s relationship really was an assignment all along-- and the aftermath. It’s heartbreaking. But if you want a little heartbreak, this is your fic.

Ready at Your Hand | dettiot

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a Catholic plot against the queen comes to the attention of spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham. To protect Elizabeth, he develops an unusual plan: hide the passing of intelligence between two agents by a false romance. When Lady Sarah Walker and Chuck Carmichael meet, though, their pretend flirtation becomes much more.

I love Chuck fic for the very reason that it’s inspired such adventurous and totally unique AUs. Here’s some Elizabethan fake-dating Chuck and Sarah! They have to be so Proper, it’s like that hand moment from Pride and Prejudice but Elizabethan and times a billion. The pining!!

Sarah Versus Getting Married | Steampunk.Chuckster

Sarah Walker is getting married. Canon. Charah.

I’d recommend all of SC’s fics if I had the room, and I’m already recommending a ton sksks but most of my fic recs are AUs, and this one isn’t! It’s canon, and covers some of in the gap in 4x24, with Sarah just before the wedding itself. Super sweet, heart-tugging, brilliant.

A Chuckmas Carol | Mikki13

A new twist to Dickens' beloved "A Christmas Carol". When Sarah begins to shut out the world around her, three spirits come to show her the error of her ways. Season 3 AU.

Another Season 3 AU, this one written pre-series so it definitely doesn’t fit to canon, but it’s still wonderfully rich in character depth and angst and it also made me cry. Plus, festive!

Chuck Versus Thin Ice | Steampunk.Chuckster

On the doorstep of the Olympics, top American curler Sarah Walker has lost her mixed doubles partner and her boyfriend in one fell swoop. Her coaches throw newbie Team U.S.A. curler Chuck Bartowski onto her team and thrust them into the Olympics, hanging America's curling hopes on two people who only have a short amount of time to learn to trust one another. Charah AU.

Do you like curling? Or the Winter Olympics? It doesn’t really matter because somehow this fic made me extremely invested in both of those things, as well as Chuck and Sarah and them being INSUFFERABLE. Catch me now knowing a ton about curling thanks to this fic.

Walker’s Eleven | Moonlight Pilot

Not the same plot as the movie. Sarah Walker never got out of the con game or became a spy, and now she's on her final con. What happens when true love and betrayal get added to the mix? Twists, turns, and Jeffster!

Con!Sarah always interests me, and this fic is full of her. Lotta con plot, lotta Chuck and Sarah.

The Detective and the Tech Guy | thecharleses

Sarah Walker is a Pinkerton detective. Chuck Bartowski is an electronics genius. They wouldn't have met except for a case of mistaken identity and murder. Will the detective and the tech guy solve the mystery, distracted by the riddle in their own hearts? An homage to The Thin Man film series. Formerly co-written by Steampunk . Chuckster and dettiot, now ONLY Steampunk . Chuckster.

Everyone in this fic is so damn cool. There are so many martinis. But also great heart and family and like, standing up for who you love, and later also Chuck with Baby Clara content which frankly the show robbed us of. Also, PI!Sarah!!!

Gravity | Poetic4U

AU. Sarah makes a decision that altered her life forever.

This is just a one-shot, which many of these stories are not, so a good one if you don’t fancy a big read! Just because it’s short, though, doesn’t mean it’s lacking; a really awesome what-if AU, and heavy on the Chuck and Sarah.

A Yuletie Tale | Steampunk.Chuckster

Sarah Walker was dumped the day before Christmas Eve, and her Plus One at her work’s annual Christmas Eve Soiree is now officially a Plus Zero. Her best friend Ellie Bartowski has a solution to her problem, and Sarah finds she isn’t quite as sure about it as Ellie is. AU Christmas Charah.

I’m particularly in love with this fic because, instead of beginning with a meet-cute, it involves Chuck and Sarah already two years into a friendship-- Sarah is Ellie’s best friend. And she’s been crushing harrrd on Ellie’s brother. Also Chuck is in a tux. It’s pretty.

Set, Spike, Dive! | Frea O’Scanlin

Chuck never expected to even make it to the Olympics. Everything is working against him: he's too tall for a diver, too inexperienced for a medal, too much of a wildcard to really make his mark. But an unexpected meeting at the airport, some intriguing new friends, and a whirlwind romance on the sand just might set up London 2012 as the time of Chuck Bartowski's life.

A London 2012 AU, because why not. This is just a fun Olympic-y ride!

OTP (One True Pairing) Prompts | David Carner

A series of Prompts I found online about different times and places in Chuck and Sarah's life. Mostly AU, mostly one-shots. I assume mostly fluff, but I might get deep. I doubt it, it's me. Charah...ALWAYS (It says complete, but if an idea strikes me...)

If you’re not so into long stories, this fic is perfect. Individual set-ups and stories, all Chuck and Sarah, and all super cute. You could dip in and out and just pick a scenario you enjoy.

Chuck vs The Frontier | ninjaVanish

AU: Chuck was enjoying a simple life as a 19th century watchmaker until an encounter with a beautiful Secret Service agent thrust him into a world of intrigue and adventure he never wanted. But then, with Agent Walker around, it can't be all bad, can it?

This fic gets props for being historically-set but still including the Intersect. Again, a historical AU, so the pining!! the need to be Proper!!! But besides all that, there’s a lot of action fun as well.

Chuck Versus The Crosswalk: Remastered | WvonB

Will a last minute mission help our two favorite characters finally get together? This is the remastered version of my first story.

The original version of this fic is on my first list; this is the updated version! It’s not a complete AU, instead a story that diverges from canon, so if you’re more into canon characters and setting than a new AU scenario, this is a great fic for that.

Little Girls, Paper Wreaths, and Choc Chip Cookies | DanaPAH

Very AU: Sarah Walker is a single mother whose Christmas spirit needs a boost after a tough divorce. She isn't quite ready to go looking for romance, but her little daughter's affection for their new neighbor may lure it right to her doorstep, anyway.

An incredibly sweet AU one-shot where Chuck and Sarah are new neighbours, and Sarah has a super cute little girl. So much sweetness and love and hope. I love this fic so much it literally led me to write my own neighbour-kid-AU, so, not to toot my own horn but I’ll link it here anyway.

May Your Walls Know Joy | halfachance

Looking for a fresh start after some tough times, Sarah and her three-year-old daughter move to LA. When they meet a sweet curly-haired nerd who lives next door, though, Sarah realizes they might just find more happiness than they'd ever imagined, if only her past doesn't catch up to her first. AU.

It’s what the summary says; if you wanna read, feel free!

Chuck vs the Sound of Music | quistie64

AU. Chuck, nerd extraordinaire, is a man with seven children and Sarah must protect them all from Fulcrum's evil designs. Warning: there will be singing.

I mean. Not much mystery as to the concept with that title and summary lol, but this is a super fun, soft ride with a lotta sweetness, and yes, singing.

Just Two People | David Carner

Meet Sarah Walker PhD, Psychologist, specializing in personality traits. Meet Chuck Bartowski, man who has left THE electronic company of 2020. When Burton Consultants tries to figure out what is wrong with the morale of Orion Industries, what happens when a guy named Chuck meets a woman named Sarah. I'll give you a hint, it's me writing.

David’s done something pretty special with this fic. It’s Chuck and Sarah centric, but very much an ensemble piece, too, with a lot of Team Bartowski and other familiar faces throughout.

Chuck Versus the Con Game | Steampunk.Chuckster

AU. Chuck and Sarah are partners in the con game. It's an existence wrought with danger and violence. Every day could be their last. Every mission could be the end of the line.

This is where I freak out SC and declare this fic the reason I ever got hooked on Chuck fic and then wrote Chuck fic, and the reason I still love it today but. that is true lol. Just so. so good. It’s also written with the chapters out of chronological order, which is super fun from a reading perspective. But con!Sarah AND con!Chuck?? Best. The kind of fic you will be thinking about for days (if not, y’know, years).

As you can tell by the repeats, I highly recommend just about anything by Steampunk.Chuckster, dettiot, or David Carner, but there are a TON of amazing Chuck fics and authors out there. I’ve never known a writing community so wildly creative-- there are so many unique AUs and canon explorations and story concepts that this show has manifested, and it’s all so much fun.

Most of the Chuck fic community is still over on FFN rather than AO3, so if any of these whet your appetite, feel free to have a browse there for more stories. I’m sure you’ll find something great. Personally, all the incredible writing there has also led me to write a buttload; I’m at halfachance on FFN, so if you see any of my stuff or wanna chat fic, feel free to message me there or here.

Happy reading, folks!

#chuck #fic rec #chuck fic #nbcchuck #praying if i edit this to add to it or i reblog it to add to it all the links stay and the line breaks don't disappear sksks #the old one still looks okay on desktop but it's messed up on the app and on mobile and it's just all generally messy #so i've been wanting to make this for aaages lol yay to finally doing something! woo!

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kitkatopinions · 3 years ago

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The only way I can see RWBY recovering in quality is if the island arc in volume 9 ends with seemingly days passing in the island world and a time skip in Remnant. The world of Remnant and their friends have moved on from the loss of RWBYJ in Atlas and have been dealing with Salem for 3 years or so. Gives the world time to heal from the damage RWBY+ caused in Atlas and with the broadcast and realize how much they fucked up following Ruby Rose blindly. Solves the age gap debates of Rosegarden if that's the ship they want to go with for Ruby and Oscar. Let's Sun move on from Blake organically and allows Blake to come to terms with any romantic feelings she had for him and how that chance is long gone. An opportunity for Salem to take control in a way that might not have been possible were it not for RWBY+'s actions in Atlas. Shows that the protagonists can fuck up and suffer consequences.

Ahhh, see, I specifically don't want a time skip because I think it likely will be a way to remove the affects of a bunch of the stuff that I want pay off for. You say that having the world have time to heal from RWBY + actions would be a good way to show the consequences, but I disagree with that. I think that'd actually be the quickest way to make Ruby's actions not matter and not seem important. Having her forced to see the full effects of her actions as the suffering is unfolding in front of her would be a way to get her to actually see for herself that maybe she's made some massive mistakes.

Can I paint a picture for you?

Ruby, Yang, Blake, Weiss, and Jaune get back from the island quickly, only a day having gone by for the people in Remnant. The refugees have just arrived in Vacuo, they lost tons of people trying to get through the desert, everyone is staggering with exhaustion as they move through the Vacuo streets, parents carrying their sobbing children, there are people throwing rocks at Winter and people trying to beg her to save them because they saw her fly through the gates and guessed that she was magic, there's sirens over a comm system in the city, trying to alert everyone to remain calm that's been going on for the hours it's taken to try and get everyone in and calm-ish in the first place. On top of that, the gates are flooded with guards working around the clock to keep Grimm out of the city, some of the exhausted Atlas hunters have gone there as well, Ren and Fiona and Team SSSN are desperately defending the last few hundred stragglers as they arrive. Ruby, Yang, Weiss, Blake, and Jaune are shocked, dismayed, they manage to get to the Academy where Nora is there with Oscar and Theodore, Theodore trying to get in contact with the Vacuo council in clear distress. Oscar tells them that everything has gone wrong, that everyone is panicking, that Vacuo was already struggling with keeping the Grimm away from the city when Ruby's message came, and with the addition of the refugees, the Grimm are coming in by the hundreds - by the thousands - almost more than the Vacuo authorities can fight back. Ruby is so confused, she'd been trying to reunite the world! But she just brought panic instead, and she now has to contend with that while seeing the immediate aftermath. She knows Qrow is missing, she tries calling him on her scroll, hoping she just missed him among the refugees. She and Yang are going crazy with worry, they think he might've been stuck in Atlas, he might be hurt, he might be dead, he might get captured by Salem, and they both have to face that. Being assigned by Theodore to help get refugees to the homes they've been temporarily assigned to squeeze into, Ruby is confronted by grieving families who lost everything, parents who tell her their daughter was one of the Atlas soldiers who died fighting on the front lines at Atlas, a couple with four kids spit at her and refuse her help because to them, her broadcast felt like a death sentence for Atlas while she called for hope for the rest of the world like they didn't matter. As she's traveling, Ruby runs into Neon and Flynt. They're angry and bitter too, coldly telling her that Ivori and Kobalt died in the fight against Salem. Ruby leaves that encounter wiping away tears. She wants to break down, but then gets assigned her next family to move and has to push it down and get back to work trying to do her job. Meanwhile Weiss has to deal with a brother who still clearly needs someone to help and take care of him when their relationship is somewhat rocky. Nora and Ren have to have distance and sort through what they want in their relationship and we see that and the immediate affects of their breakup. Salem has two Relics and Ruby has to explain that to Ozpin and maybe admit some mistakes and apologize while it's still relevant enough to matter to him. Emerald sees the affects of a lot of what she's done and has to contend with the fact that Mercury will be in Vacuo and she has to choose whether to try and help him or fight him instead. Mercury and Tyrian have to react in real time to the fact that the Atlas plans went completely sideways and now there's tons of people from Atlas here ruining whatever plans they have for Vacuo. Team RWBY work with Team SSSN while his and Blake's relationship is still clearly going to matter to him and he wants to continue where they left things and she has to explain her shift in feelings. Oscar is still contending with the fact that he and Oz are going to merge someday, asking questions about that. Salem must regroup now with so few people, and Cinder is going to have to try and keep up her lies in real time. Neo (if she survived the

island) is going to actually have to either get scrapped as a character or grow beyond her motivation of just wanting revenge. Winter is dealing with powers that are still new (remember, Maidens being 'new' is supposed to mean something) and having her whole world crash around her, while also maybe finally interacting with the family members outside of Weiss who have just had their entire way of life gone and now must adjust to sudden poverty. Qrow, Robyn, and the Ace Ops might have a storyline where they deal with what just happened themselves, maybe launching rescue for some of the people who didn't make it through the portals (like Pietro and Maria.)

These are all really important things that we should be expecting pay off for that should get focus and development. Ren and Nora's relationship problems, Oscar dealing with merging with Oz, how Cinder is going to regroup now, what will happen with Mercury, what the Schnees will do now they've suddenly lost everything, how Emerald is going to go on from her 'side switching,' how Qrow and Robyn reacted and where they'll go from here, whether or not Vacuo can even take in refugees, what the people think of RWBY and what consequences they've had to go through, and especially RWBY seeing the aftermath of the things instead of being allowed to just move on to the next thing and write it off as a victory like they did with Haven... All of that is something that we're likely to miss if we have a big time skip.

What I really don't want is for everyone to get back to the world after three to five years have passed only to see that it's doing pretty okay right now. Vacuo thriving with the Grimm population under control, and everything a little crowded, but most of the Atlas population settled in their new homes at this point, many of the important relationships of the side cast have been solved off screen and Maria, Pietro, and Qrow are already in Vacuo and have already adjusted to their various losses (both real for Pietro and believed for Qrow,) while (like you suggested,) Sun has just moved on from his dead former love interest he never got closure with that he promised to see again, because it has been years, and BlackSun fans like me see him in some relationship with someone he's never had any growth at all with (or maybe Neptune, which is... the preferable option over someone Sun's never actually talked to before.) Now Ruby doesn't see that her choices have caused major problems, instead she sees a city doing fine and if anyone is angry at her for causing them problems three to five years ago, they're mean. She's been supposedly dead for years and that person is just fine now! How can they yell at her? Now she doesn't see people suffering and Grimm flooding, she sees that her plan worked out in the long run, everyone just needed to hold on and have faith. She doesn't see a giant economic crash and families uprooted and soldiers dead and Pietro's reaction to the death of his daughter and people panicking over Salem... Ruby sees people talking about Salem as common knowledge, amassing troops to go after her now that the 'hard times' have started to pass, and she's validated. She knew it would turn out, she knew if she just believed, things would start working out!

I don't think the writers could save this show with a time skip, I think they'd just use it as a way to jump past the immediate affects of Ruby and her group's actions and avoid organic growth and problem solving while 'not being unrealistic' about it. If they brought RWBYJ back to Remnant within days, weeks, or even months, people expect real repercussions for the things that happened in the previous couple of seasons. They won't be able to just pretend none of it happened - or they might, but then most people will (hopefully) realize that's stupid.

So their choices are 1. just waving everything away and pretending there aren't any consequences to actions, 2. bring RWBYJ back in days, weeks, or months and address and deal with problems in a way that feels natural, 3. have a time skip so they can bypass the affects and consequences and avoid giving pay off for much of the things that fans have been expecting and waiting around for.

#rwde #anti rwby #rwby bashing #rwby hate #anti crwby #anti ruby rose #rwby criticism #rwby critical #I know this is all just speculation btw #but I have no faith and that's not my fault lol

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funkzpiel · 5 years ago

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Another consideration (sorry) is if Jaskier did lose his voice permanently from the Jinn and Geralt feels guilty and doesnt stop trying to find a cure even though he knows there isnt one (or lies to Jaskier that he's trying to find one til Jaskier finds out)

He doesn’t sing again. That prickly part of Geralt that’s been traveling alone for most of his life gruffly thought he’d enjoy that result. After all, he did his level best to have the issue resolved. It wasn’t his fault that the bard got involved. He hadn’t invited him along – he had just wanted to fucking sleep for fucking once in his life, damn it. It had been his wish though, however unintentional, that brought the bard into this new life, this silent existence. A world without Jaskier’s singing.

It is like biting into a pie only to find it has no filling.

Those words haunt him in the lingering silence of Jaskier’s presence. They hang between him and the bard as heavily as any wraith might – leeching him just as much as actual conversations exhausted him. Jaskier, like the birds of the woods, was born to sing and talk and fill the world with the litany of his voice and his perspective and his life; and Geralt had taken part in shattering him.

Yennefer had, in her way, tried to heal him. They had released the Djinn – much to the mage’s dismay – and that should have been the end of it. Jaskier’s swelling went down, his bleeding stopped.

But when he opened his mouth to greet Geralt when finally he woke, nothing more than a wheeze passed his lips. In that moment, the witcher watched a part of Jaskier die. He saw it in the bard’s eyes – a small bit of the light that constantly filled him fading away like a cloud passing over the sun.

Jaskier stayed with him. Geralt doesn’t understand why. It was his fault, his words, his hasty and ill thought out wish that had crushed the bard’s vocal cords to dust. Jaskier should hate him, and yet he stayed. Geralt thought pragmatically that it was because alone, Jaskier would struggle. He was a man who had independently crafted a life and a career for himself off his voice, and now that was gone. He had his fingers, his lute, of course – but drunken pub-goers relished the bard’s songs, his lyrics, and with nothing to sing along to, it left Jaskier’s lute playing, while lovely, pale and hollow by comparison to what patrons expected to hear when they recognized who he was.

Geralt did that to him. So it was the least he could do to keep Jaskier by his side. To provide a safe place for the bard to sleep, coin for him to eat. And that must be why he stayed, he reasoned. Why else?

As they passed through villages, he asked for healers, for mages – anyone who might have insight into the bard’s situation. He even began to direct their travels in the direction of famous herbalists or sorcerers (or sometimes even creatures), all without ever making it plain, just in case they might stumble upon someone who might have a cure.

‘Sorry’ hung heavy on his heart, weighing it down between his ribs, pressing in on his lungs, strangling him. He spent his nights, already so prone to sleeplessness, on his back and staring up at the sky as though the stars might suddenly align and spell out the answers he sought. His eyes drifted to Jaskier, curled by the fire. Small and quiet. So fucking quiet.

Geralt was really beginning to fucking detest the quiet.

It made him admire Jaskier’s penchant for conjuring a conversation seemingly out of nowhere; particularly when he began to try and solve this problem of too much fucking quiet by doing what Jaskier could not: talking.

“Pleasant day,” he growled one morning, eyes on the meal he stoked above the fire as Jaskier silently worked on lacing up his clothing. Blue eyes sought him out over the fire. He could feel the weight of them, the surprise. But what else was there to say? His words had been efficient. The day was pleasant. What should he say next? Describe the color of the sky? Foolish.

He grit his teeth, hating himself for his blatant inability to provide even so much comfort as this. But he keeps trying. He practices. Only because when he does, Jaskier’s gaze falls to him – keen in a way those blue eyes had not been in some time since the silence started – and for a moment he feels as though his bard has returned again.

Jaskier, for his part, does not simply melt back into the stone of a garden wall like a shrinking violet. His voice was not what made him so lively, so vibrant; it was a side effect of all the life and sunlight and existence that the gods had seen fight to cram into a body as lithe as Jaskier. He learned how to speak with his hands and Geralt, a man who had only spoken through body language for so long, found it easy to listen. It was an act of communication that drew no end of curious looks when they went to villages. How could two men speak so silently? Some even began to suspect Jaskier was a familiar of Geralt’s – which made the bard wheeze silently, laughing.

Geralt couldn’t even be annoyed by that. It was good to see the bard laugh.

Jaskier’s hands grew more and more fluent as they travelled until he learned how to fill the silence in an entirely new way. And if Geralt’s attention were distracted, his eyes not on the bard, Jaskier found ways to grab his attention. A pebble to the shoulder, if annoyed. A hand to his side, to the small of his back, to his bicep if not.

But still, Geralt looked for a cure. He did not ask for forgiveness. He didn’t deserve it – not while Jaskier was still unable to say the words to pardon him for his wish. Wishes. How Geralt hated them, hated the word. His wish had driven Yennefer away. His wish had bound Jaskier to a life in which he could not do what he loved. Geralt didn’t deserve forgiveness. So he did not ask.

And then came the contract about the witches of the bog.

Ancient hags. Magical ladies. So old that Geralt wasn’t even sure if the word ‘witch’ truly befitted them anymore. He didn’t even know what to call them, what to research in his bestiary. Three witches of the bog. Complicated and powerful, hand in hand. Some of the village worshipped them. They kept the forest rich with game. They protected birthing mothers. They warded off those from foreign lands that might colonize their home, change it, urbanize it. It left the area like a capsule from another time; perfectly preserved.

Others hated them. Virgins tended to disappear now and then. Children too. Livestock would die, men would suddenly fall dead. Believers called it penance, divine and unknowable justice for deeds the public might never see or fathom. Nonbelievers called it terrorism at the hands of monsters. Geralt found himself stuck in the middle.

He insisted Jaskier stay in the village. This was beyond even his expertise. Even with normal monsters there was always the chance that he might fail, not protect Jaskier, however slim. Now? He would not tell Jaskier that he had a healthy fear for what laid ahead, but he made it known that for no reason should the bard follow him this time.

He approached the bog with his swords on his back but his hands nowhere near their hilts. Women as old as these, there was a chance he might be able to reason with them. Negotiate.

There was just as big as chance that he might offend them by trying.

His heart thumped in his chest as he kneeled in a dry spot in the bog. He set out the offerings the believers told him would attract the witches to him. He rested his hands on his thighs. Closed his eyes.

“Bog women,” he said, calling to them in a hushed, croaking voice, “Ladies of the North, Winter Women… I have no request but to parlay with you. I humble myself, I kneel, knowing I don’t deserve an audience. Would you speak with me?”

At first there was nothing. He wondered if the believers had lied, if the nonbelievers were far more stable by comparison. He was just about to stand, to leave, when a wind brushed the faint hairs not held back by his hair tie to wisp about his face. The willows around him swirled and sang a sorrowful tune. The fine hairs on the back of his neck and on his arms rose.

“What is a boy’s name?” A witch sung to him. A boy. Despite his years, he felt very much like a boy kneeling at the feet of those women.

He nearly responded. Nearly. But there was power in a name for folk such as them.

“You may call me witcher,” he said instead, careful in his wording. Another witch laughed, delighted.

“Clever witcher-boy,” the laughing witch chirped, stepping out of the fog. She was lovely. Her red hair hung down to her bottom. Her face was round like a peach, her cheeks pink like one too. She wore a gown unlike one he had ever seen before. She looked kind, her smile pleasant, but her eyes – if he looked too long, he could see the predatory glint in those eyes. Her glamor blurred around the edges and if he peered too closely, he could almost see—

His pupils dilated, huge and blown out as he tried to make sense of what he saw. Limbs, so many limbs. A body distorted with tumors; or what he thought might be tumors, but perhaps just did not know the right word for them. Too many mouths, eyes, faces. The punishing visage of those warped by black magic or simply the form of a god not meant to be seen or understood by mortal men? He didn’t know, but he did register something wet beneath his nose. Hot and dripping. His heart thundered. He wondered if it might burst when finally another woman came up behind him, bent over him, and gently rested a hand over his eyes.

“A strong boy with keen eyes,” the woman behind him hummed, “Few have seen past our glamor. Fewer still remained sane enough to tell the tale.”

The first witch cackled, having appeared from the fog as well, and sneered, “You steal our fun,” then said a name that made Geralt’s lashes flutter sickly. The name sounded more like the mad tumble of rocks down a mountain side that any human word. His stomach lurched. He was so fucked. “I wished to see how far a witcher-boy’s mind might bend.”

“A boy came to us in good faith,” the witch whose name sounded like falling rocks said. Her voice sounded like the voice of many women, but also, one woman. His mother. He wondered if that was part of the glamor as well. If that magic was seeping into his mind, collecting fragments and details that might sooth him, lure him into a false sense of security.

Too bad it was the voice of the woman who had abandoned him. It only served to wake him up.

He decided to call that woman Earth Mother. The name pinged something familiar in the far recesses of his mind.

“Laws of matronhood,” said the second to the first, naming her as well. He gritted his teeth against the sound of it – glass shattering, wolves howling. It made his muscles tense, ready to flee the jaws of a wolf. When the feeling passed, a human name appeared in his mind seemingly from nowhere: Beast Mother.

“Aye, I know the laws,” said the Beast Mother, then a final name. Geralt’s stomach dropped sickly like missing a step on a staircase. This name sounded like the wind – both tame as the first warmth of spring thaws the fields, and wild like the storm that punishes a village. Sky Mother, his mind supplied.

Geralt bowed his head as those final, hind-brain instincts washed over him and eventually dulled. He felt suddenly exhausted. Word thin by the mere presence of these women.

“What does a witcher-boy call to women such as we for?” Asked the Sky Mother.

“Does a witcher-boy come to kill us?” Laughed the Beast Mother cruelly, and even with the third woman’s hand over his eyes – cool and soothing and dark – Geralt knew the Beast Mother was grinning with too many predatory teeth. More teeth than any human mouth should have. Teeth and teeth and teeth—

“The village placed a contract on you,” Geralt forced himself to say. “But I’m quickly realizing this is no monster hunt.”

He was in the presence of gods, or at least as close to gods as reality might ever get. Every story, every religion, stemmed from something after all. These land spirits, these witches, these women – they were so much more than a contract to be hunted. They owned the land, the wood, the swamp, and all inside it. Fuck.

“If you know this, then why come?” The Earth Mother asked gently.

“Some of the villagers are suffering,” Geralt explained, “I’m here to help. To parlay.”

“Life is to suffer,” laughed the Beast Mother cruelly.

The Sky Mother said instead, “And what can a witcher-boy offer us? How can a witcher-boy help?”

The Earth Mother was against his back, matronly and kind. He felt like a boy hiding behind a mother’s skirts – or more accurately Vesemir’s legs. It felt both nostalgic and sickening at the same time, his mind peeled apart like an onion so easily in their presence.

“I am nothing and no one to you Mothers,” Geralt acknowledged, “But I cannot turn my back on suffering. If I do so here, I have no right to my namesake.”

“A witcher-boy wanted to be a hero,” cackled the Beast Mother, fangs gleaming in his mind’s eyes, pearly and wet with hungry spittle.

“A witcher-boy is kind,” whispered the Mother blinding him with her mercy, her hand.

“A witcher-boy is doomed,” offered the Sky Mother clinically, but not dispassionately.

“What did the village ask?” The Beast Mother spat, “Did they whine about their lost babes? Their disappeared virgins? Their dead men? Their cows?”

“The milk had spoiled in their udders, so we killed them,” the Sky Mother said simply.

“The men had raped and stolen and marred the virtue of our lands, so we removed them from the grace of our hospitality,” the Beast Mother growled.

“The virgins sought escape from abusive homes, sought freedom and peace, so we guided them to happier places,” the Earth Mother hummed.

“And the babes would have died a painful death from winter, from illness, from genetic deficiencies – so we lured them to that better place in peace instead,” the Sky Mother finished.

“Life is cruel,” the Beast Mother growled like the sound of hooves on earth, pounding in chase after the fox, “But we are not. A witcher-boy cannot fathom our motives, so we pardon him once, but question our intentions again and a witcher-boy will understand punishment for himself.”

Geralt bowed his head intentionally this time, hands in tight, humbled fists on his knees.

“Apologies, Mothers, I knew not what to expect.”

“As we said, a witcher-boy is pardoned,” the Sky Mother said simply.

“We know a witcher-boy,” the Earth Mother sang behind him, her voice the laughter of a babe’s first smile, the song of a mother kneading dough in the morning. “A witcher-boy withholds his name, but we know him.”

“White. Wolf.” The Beast Mother is grinning with too many hungry teeth again. Geralt shivered.

“You helped a Godling not far from here,” says one.

“Spared a group of trolls in the eastern mountains,” says another.

“Helped a succubus escape the fires of the cities and the purge of daft men who put their faith in nonsense,” says the last.

“The list is long,” the Earth Mother says, her other hand stroking through his hair now. She’s untied it, let it fall loose around his ears. She tsks and says, “At least a witcher-boy tried to bathe for us. You need fine oils for hair such as this.”

He feels disoriented, exposed. Unsure of his footing.

“I will explain to the village—” he begins, but clicks his jaw shut audibly when the Beast Mother howls, “We were not done, witcher-boy!”

He swallows dryly. His very bones shiver. The Earth Mother shushes his fears and continues to pet him like a dumb, beloved dog warming her feet. It feels… nice. He has to shake his mind awake not to fall for that glamor, that lulling sense of safety. There is no safety. Safe is an illusion.

“Clever witcher-boy,” the Earth Mother says proudly, fondly.

“You’ve helped people and creature alike on our land,” the Sky Mother said.

“But you’ve also taken justice into your hands, as if we were not suitable to maintain it,” snarled the Beast Mother.

“What are three Mothers to do with their witcher-boy, their kind hearted wolf, their man of stone?”

They might kill him. They were not wrong, he had taken their affairs into his own hands unknowingly when fulfilling contracts in these lands. If their territory extended as far as he thought it did, he had only done so twice perhaps. Maybe thrice. A werewolf that had gone mad, slaughter their family. A cockatrice that had been spoiling the hunt for another township, killing the best of their providers. A wraith left behind by a widow spurned.

“We would have gotten to them in our own time,” the Beast Mother said, answering his unspoken question of why, if they protected these lands, had they not handled it?

“Or perhaps we did handle it in our own right,” the Earth Mother offered with a chuckle. Working through him, he realized. A pawn in their ways just as he was a pawn to fate. He shuddered helplessly, a little flame of offense rising in his gut as it always did at the concept of ‘fate’. She brushed his hair back in apology, stroked his cheek. “You need a shave.”

Disoriented didn’t begin to cover it.

“Spoil sport,” the Beast Mother snorted. So that had been it, then. He had acted as unwitting representative for them and their will.

“You are a trustworthy wolf,” the Sky Mother said, “Good in intention, civil in mercy.”

“You will go to the village,” the Earth Mother continued. “You will explain the way of things. Those who cannot abide by those ways can flee freely or be dealt with accordingly… They will not pay you, witcher-boy. Their hearts are selfish and easy to see reason why they should keep their coin despite your bravery, despite how you put yourself between we women and their cowardly souls.”

“For this, for the works you’ve already done unintentionally in our name and for the works you will later do intentionally in our name, we women shall pay you instead.”

He stiffened. Every bone locked in his body like rusted hinges on a door, painful and tight. That was a dangerous offer. He could not deny it and live. But one wrong word would spell a world of pain unending. He swallowed.

“You are too kind to someone as undeserving as me,” he managed to croak.

The Beast Mother laughed cruel and amused, high like a harpy’s screech and low like a bear’s roar. He shuddered visibly. The Earth Mother smoothed down the hackles that rose on the back of his neck like a master calming a spooked dog.

“Correct, we are too kind. Wise of you to notice,” the Beast Mother said.

“What does a witcher-boy want?” The Sky Mother asked.

Geralt clenched his jaw, feeling more like a mouse caught between a cat’s paws than a witcher. It was an uncomfortable, greasy feeling, and he hated it.

“I require nothing –”

“—Ha! A man says he requires nothing from gods!” The Beast Mother howled like a pack of wolves.

“You would spit in our eye and refuse our gift?” The Sky Mother asked diplomatically.

“Do not let them frighten you, witcher-boy,” the Earth Mother hummed, stroking his hair again. “We Mothers are unused to debt.”

He could ask for a token from them; small enough so as not to ask too much, but enough to appease their debt. He could ask for some tidbit of knowledge; the location of a cache in their lands, perhaps. He could ask for hospitality in their woods; safety and peace whenever he visited. But as their champion, which he was quickly coming to find that he was unknowingly, he inherently knew he need not ask for any of this. They had always provided for him, had always shown him the way. He never went hungry or thirsty in these woods. The birds called when anything deigned attack him, warning him. He slept here. To ask for what they already provided would be turning a blind eye onto their gifts – a dangerous thing.

He should find something else – something small, something humble. And yet…

“My friend… what would it cost for you to heal him?” Geralt finally asked.

“Aaah,” the Beast Mother crooned, “A witcher-boy does not love silence after all.”

“A witcher-boy did not know what he had until it was gone,” the Earth Mother said, her voice if possible even more fond.

“Witcher-boys tend to be clever, and yet dumb as rock trolls,” the Sky Mother said blandly.

“Please,” Geralt said, leaning into the cradle of the Earth Mother’s hand which blinded him, protected him. She hummed soothingly behind him.

“We women are powerful and old. We saw the mountains form and the rivers fill. We were there for the first storm, the first wind that graced the ground, the first sprig of grass, the birth of the first land beast,” said the Sky Mother.

“But alas, this boon you ask for is not as simple as you think,” the Earth Mother said sadly.

He nearly asked ‘so you can’t help’ before he caught his tongue. What a stupid way to die, offending gods. The Beast Mother cackled. She knew what he had almost asked.

“It is not that we are not capable. You ask for something more than what we owe,” the Beast Mother said, fangs glinting, her words the framework of a hungry maw in his mind’s eye, waiting for an excuse to eat him. A merry chase, a dangerous game. It thrilled her to chase him like a rabbit through their laws and customs and loopholes, waiting for him to trip and yet hoping he might not so the game would continue. “And you cannot afford a cure outright.”

“What is the cost of an outright cure?” He asked. He had to know. Maybe he could—

“Souls. Innocent souls. Blood. Flesh. Creation and death. You request to overwrite a Djinn’s will, witcher-boy. That sort of magic by human means, by the means in which you could pay us, would change you fundamentally. You’d no longer be worthy as champion of our will. We have no intention of warping a witcher-boy and losing a pawn such as yourself. Too dull, too boring. Too simple. A witcher-boy offends.”

He hung his head again. His debt to his friend was more expensive than his morality, the makeup of his being, than his use to the world and to these witches, these gods. His stomach became a stone inside him. There was no outright cure…

His head rose a little.

“What cost for his voice?” He asked. Not a cure. A voice. The Earth Mother stroked him approvingly. The Beast Mother smiled with impressed fangs. The Sky Mother considered him.

“A steep price,” the Sky Mother said, like spring rain.

“A generous price,” snorted the Beast Mother, like boars stomping in the brush.

“A fair price,” hummed the Earth Mother, like the sound of a gentle hands guiding a plant into fresh soil.

“Name it,” Geralt said, something unidentifiable to his knowledge of himself in the edges of the words, though he recognized it in others. Pleading.

They named it.

He agreed.

“But first,” said the women with too many voices, “What is a witcher-boy’s name?”

They already knew it. Geralt knew that they did. But he hadn’t given it to them. There was power in giving a name.

Geralt paid.

–

He returned to town feeling exhausted, hollowed out and reed-thin, and yet he held the light of dawn in his chest, weightless and hopeful. He carried it with him over the hall and down the path that led to the village, leaving behind him his Ladies and the offerings he had placed on their humble altar.

He followed their instructions precisely.

He went first to the village alderman – a believer – and the man who had posted the notice – a nonbeliever. He explained that this village was not in fact their home, but the home of the women, and it was by their mercy that their crops flourished and their lives went by in relative peace. When the nonbeliever questioned him, cheeks red with rage that Geralt had not done as he was tasked, Geralt merely offered precisely what the women had told him to say.

“If you do not like living in the lands of the Ladies, you are free to relocate somewhere with no matronage. But if you stay and presume to keep calling the lands your own, and living outside the laws of matron and guest, there’s nothing I can do to spare you from them. This was their land first. They’ve upheld every law, provided every mercy. Live by their terms, live somewhere else, or find out for yourself why men have disappeared from among you by becoming another face on a flier.”

They had bid him not over explain. There was no faith to be had otherwise, no trust, and the Ladies asked for little more than that from their guests. To explain would be to condemn these villages to eviction. So he left the nonbelievers’ fate to themselves. Heed, flee or perish.

They didn’t pay him, just as the women had warned. The nonbelievers accused him of solving nothing. They called him a charlatan and a cheat. The believers claimed that they had not asked for help in the first place – and honestly, that was fair.

He didn’t need their payment anyways, not now. He would not go hungry or thirsty while in their wood. They’d tide him over until he left their lands in pursuit of his next contract. That was more than enough.

He brushed off their accusations, their thanklessness, like kicking dirt from his shoes. He wondered if that was what endeared him to the Ladies, or at least part of it – for both he and the god women understood thanklessness despite service.

He went to the inn, carried himself up to the room he had left Jaskier in. He could hear his lute from halfway up the stairs. It was a pleasing sound, something cheerful to wake to – it’d have to be, not to received complaints from other patrons also guesting at the inn.

The moment he walked in, he found Jaskier seated on the window sill, face to the early morning sun like a plant soaking in daylight as he played with mindlessly fluent fingers. Geralt leaned against the doorframe and enjoyed watching the dance of those fingers over the strings, plucking, always searching for the next note. He let himself bask in that moment, in the portrait of his bard in peaceful domesticity. Then, knowing the Ladies would not wait forever, rapped two knuckles against the doorframe, drawing Jaskier’s attention.

The bard let his song lull to a stop, his face lighting up at the sight of him returned unharmed. There was relief there, plain and naked as Jaskier was in most ways; unabashed and quick to feel, to express. He set his lute aside with the same sort of care that Geralt might give one of his swords and immediately his hands went into action, his whole body speaking to Geralt as easily as he once did with words.

Well, what happened, don’t keep me waiting? Were they in fact witches or something more nefarious? Well? Come on, Geralt, these stories don’t write themselves!

He smiled. There was a weight in his chest he hadn’t realized he had been carrying until now as it slowly lifted, so close to resolution as he was. He stepped forward without a word, amber eyes locked on his bard, his traveling companion, his friend, his partner. It drew Jaskier’s hand to a stuttering motion not unlike ‘um’ or ‘uh’ or ‘what’s going on?’.

“Months ago, I stole your voice from you,” Geralt finally said, standing in front of the bard, close enough to touch him – but not yet. A puzzled look spread across Jaskier’s face.

I don’t understand.

“I wished for peace not knowing I already had something better. Already had peace in my hands. I was just to blind to comfort, to kindness, to know that I had it.”

Jaskier gave him a baffled look that both said ‘well aren’t you chatty today?’ and ‘who are you and what did you do with my witcher?’

Geralt did not know this language, this new tongue he was trying to learn: intimacy, apology, love. He reached to cup Jaskier’s jaw and paused nearly there feeling foolish, blushing, because words and intimate touches had never been a language of his. It felt foreign. Like a crude imitation, rusty and weak for what he was trying to convey. But Jaskier just watched him patiently, brows drawn into a curious frown as he met him halfway and nestled his jaw into his calloused hand.

‘Geralt?’

He brushed a thumb over Jaskier’s smooth jaw, freshly shaven and smelling of sweet oil. Memorized the lines of Jaskier’s face, the soundless paragraphs of his expression, and tucked it away in his mind for later.

“I am sorry knowing me left you silent,” he finally said, croaked, hushed, admitted.

Jaskier’s brows drew tight, his mouth a strange line. He shook his head.

“I understand if you cannot forgive me,” Geralt looked away. “I should have apologized the morning you first could not speak, but it felt wrong to ask when you could not answer. But now… Do you trust me, Jaskier?”

There was still that expression – anger, grief, confusion, all deserved. He’d leave him after this, no doubt. Geralt had pushed too far, presumed too much. But he pressed on. He had to see this through. Then he’d let Jaskier return to his normal life. Let him make his choice. Set him free.

He thought he heard a womanly sigh.

Jaskier’s hand came up to cradle Geralt’s on his jaw. In his touch and in his face, Geralt heard him: Of course I trust you, you daft excuse for a witcher.

Do or die.

He leaned down. Watched as Jaskier’s eyes widened. Watched until he was too close to see anymore. Got closer until their lips brushed – his so chapped against the bard’s meticulously cared for lips, soft and pleasant. The bard felt like a canary in his hands, all fluttering energy; fragile with hollow bones, more melody than flesh. He pressed, then swiped a tongue across trembling lips to ask permission.

Jaskier let him in. He sealed their lips together. Let his hand move from the man’s jaw to cup the back of his neck, crush him close without actually crushing him. Then he felt it. It began in his throat, behind his Adam’s Apple, and slowly crawled up – warm, not unpleasant but certainly not normal. It rose. When it met his tongue it tasted of night and bestiaries; earthy and deep. His voice. It passed by his teeth, slipped through their lips, then felt Jaskier jump in his hands. He leapt as though stung, or perhaps shocked like walking with socked feet and touching a door knob – surprising, sharp and fleeting. Then settled in his hands.

Geralt pulled away to mumble three words against Jaskier’s slack mouth, his own stomach twisting when no words actually bloomed despite his tongue and mouth doing what needed to be done to make words. He was mute. It had worked. The price had been paid.

He should have said it before he lost the chance to, and yet, there was a pathetic sort of comfort in murmuring the words soundlessly against Jaskier’s lips instead – like hiding behind a mask, bold because he could do so secretly.

Jaskier pulled away, speaking on instinct out of shock, “Geralt, what’s wrong with you—” then he stilled, eyes owlish. His hands shot to his throat. Patted and fluttered and searched for something that might give away what was going on.

Geralt smiled. His throat vibrated as it would if he had chuckled, but no sound followed.

“My voice,” Jaskier croaked, pale from shock and relief and all manner of emotions he wore as plainly on his face as he did his clothes. “How?”

Geralt felt relief bloom in his own belly: that weight lifting fully now that he had made amends, had fixed his wrongs. Relief that Jaskier’s voice was his own and not Geralt’s because that was a level of weird even the witcher couldn’t handle. He tapped his own throat with his fingers and looked at Jaskier pointedly.

Color leeched from the bard’s skin.

“You gave me yours?”

Geralt nodded, then blinked – confused – when Jaskier suddenly sprung to his feet, all pent-up nervous energy, and slapped faintly at Geralt’s chest with a sharp, “Take it back!”

Geralt’s brows drew tight, his lips pursed, utterly baffled.

“You lummox! Don’t you give me that look! You can’t—I can’t—this is too much!”

Geralt shook his head.

‘I had to make it right’ he said, using his hands, with his face, with his body; a pale imitation of Jaskier’s fluency.

“It wasn’t yours to make right! The Djinn did it, not you!”

‘My wish—’

“Was an accident! You thought the Djinn was under my control anyhow, it hadn’t been intentional. I honestly don’t recall if you even wished for it or said ‘I just want some damn peace!’ – you had warned me it was dangerous! If I had just listened—”

Wait. Wait.

Geralt shook his head. How had this spun away from him so quickly?

‘This wasn’t your fault.’

“It was no more yours than mine or mine than yours!” Jaskier pointed out, as if that had been his intention all along. He threw his hands out to his sides, pacing quietly – quiet, he hadn’t expected that, as if it had become a habit. He watched as the bard fluttered nimble fingers against his lips, eyes darting to Geralt distractedly, and mumbled, “Lovely kiss, by the way,” and when Geralt smirked he continued haughtily, “Which we will further discuss later, you oaf!”

Geralt chuckled without chuckling.

“You are,” Jaskier said slowly, finally stopping his pacing, “Insufferable. Your hero complex will see you into the ground one day, I swear, and no one will even know now because you can’t talk.”

Geralt gave him an obvious, deadpanned look. This? This felt right. Natural. Things had always been this way. Jaskier just hadn’t realized that yet.

‘You have always been my words.’

Jaskier stilled. In the lines of his body Geralt saw the quiet sway of wind through a garden well cared for; buzzing with bees, home to all manner of flowers, beautiful and soothing to its guests. So alive, so open. Jaskier was a garden. Geralt had merely returned the birds that had lost their way.

He waited. Waited for the inevitable. He had taken Jaskier’s voice, then made parlay for it without his permission. Surely the bard would leave him. He no longer needed the witcher, after all, and in his silent days had seen more than enough journeys to sing about for the rest of his life. Geralt waited.

“You bloody imbecile,” Jaskier breathed, his face going slack with subdued outrage and realization. “You daft man, you uncommunicative bastard!”

Geralt looked away. He didn’t need his voice. It was better suited in the bard. He didn’t need Jaskier. He had been on the road alone for years before him, and he could do it again.

But there was something in his chest – heavy, prickly and unfamiliar. Want.

He swallowed. He didn’t approach him, but also did not shy away when Jaskier stomped forward and reached for his face. He waited for the slap, for the slam of a door.

Jaskier guided his gaze back down to him.

“Don’t belittle my affections by presuming I stayed because you were convenient. I do not need my voice to live a comfortable or enjoyable life. I need you.”

He felt like shattered glass in a repair man’s palms, all his broken edges grinding together in wrong ways.

“What’s done is done,” Jaskier finally said, his hand reaching back to cup the back of Geralt’s neck as he had done to him not long ago. “And… you’re right. We’ve never needed words to speak and they have never been a tool you enjoyed using. I shall be your words. I’ve been with you long enough to know how to explain your creatures to townsfolk and gods above know I am a better haggler than you – you let that bastard swindle you into this contract for 250 crowns, for gods sake, Geralt! I was dying – ahh,” he shook his head, refocusing, “Nevermind. Point is, we’ve always made it work. We’ll make this work too. But for the record, I wasn’t broken, Geralt. Not with you.”

He pressed a chaste kiss to the witcher’s mouth, smiling and soft at the sight of Geralt’s baffled look, his inability to collect himself to react in the face of such an unexpected confession. Jaskier was the one to whisper into his lips this time between kisses, “Not that I don’t appreciate your sacrifice. The songs I’ll sing about the gift you’ve given me, Geralt – gods above, I’ve missed singing.”

‘I’ve missed it too,’ Geralt thought, perhaps said with his touch and the way he leaned into every peck Jaskier gave him, every breath against his lips.

“Fucking knew it,” Jaskier said, grinning against his mouth, “Filling-less pie, you emotionally constipated dog. And don’t think for one moment I didn’t hear you. We’ve been talking without talking for too long for me to have missed it, you know.”

Geralt felt heat rush to his cheeks and crawl up his neck, making a home in the tips of his ears. He turned away to hide it as Jaskier pulled back, but it was too late. The bard chuckled fondly and when Geralt finally chanced looking back at him, he grumbled embarrassedly – silently.

“It’s not the first time you’ve said you love me, Geralt,” Jaskier said, smiling with all his teeth, skin aglow like dawn breaking the night. “You’ve been saying it for ages.”

Jaskier drew his face back to him when Geralt tried once more to look away, bristly and unsure of himself and self-conscious that all this time he hadn’t been half as secretive – or aware himself – as he thought.

Jaskier took his time looking him over. Memorizing his face, Geralt realized, as he had memorized the bard’s when he found him on the windowsill. He felt exposed as he had at the Mothers’ feet. Known.

He leaned into Jaskier’s hand. Enjoyed the brush of a thumb over a sore scar on his cheekbone.

“I don’t need words,” Jaskier said gently, “But I am grateful to have them. Thank you, Geralt. I’ll use your voice wisely.”

The witcher leaned in, loose like a puppet with his strings cut now that it was finally done, and pressed his forehead to the bard’s. Power thrummed between them, the magic of being known and kept.

Silently, love spoke for them

#the witcher #geralt of rivia #jaskier #gaskier #prompt #wtf do I even tag this #i don't think I've ever written so much back to back fluff as I have for this fandom #who am I?#witcher writing

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lovelyirony · 5 years ago

Note

76 for winteriron or 94 for rhodeytony?? ily and your work ma’am your vibes are immaculate -ambivalentmarvel

thank you! and reminder: please send in the full prompt!

76.) “If you lay a finger on him, I’ll kill everyone in this room.”

Tony Stark was not supposed to be a detective. He was not supposed to be a lot of things. But when his father had told him at age seven that all he’d ever be was a disappointment, he decided he might as well do whatever the hell he wanted with his life.

So. A detective. That had gone over well with his college advisor.

“Aren’t you...aren’t you Howard’s son?” He had said nervously, readjusting his glasses for about the eighth time in seven minutes.

“Yes, but I also have a mother. And my mother is very keen on my having some skills of my own. Between you and I, we all know my father is going to hand it over to his business partner.”

(This all is a very direct lie. His mother could not honestly care less what he does with his life as long as he never looks her in the eye and tells her that boxed wine is good. He’s not going to look her in the eye for quite some time.)

Being a detective isn’t all film noir and extravagant lifestyle. Sure he gets paid the big bucks. He blends into high society well but is just unknowable enough to put on an old pair of jeans and slink into a coffee shop under the guise of being another guy on his laptop. That’s a skill few possess.

There’s also the tiny, teensy little detail that he’s one of the only detectives to risk secret-agency-detection because in all honesty the security systems were built by Stark Industries and Howard wasn’t exactly what anyone would call “stellar” at security measures.

Tony, however, was.

(Did some side work for SI, you know the drill. Sure his father wasn’t exactly thrilled, but it’s not like there was the PR nightmare of Stark Sr. not being as smart in his old age as people always expected.)

So when he gets an offer for finding and capturing the Winter Soldier from someone named Natalie?

Well, he asks if he gets to use his frequent flier miles and packs a bag for DC.

The Winter Soldier is regarded as a conspiracy theory. A man who is all machine, does the dirty work for an undercover organization, and has a shiny arm that can do a lot of things that Tony dreams about at night.

He likes conspiracy theories. Enjoys the hell out of solving them. (Roswell was a particularly fun one to crack.)

So he starts with research.

There is one thing to be said about the Winter Soldier:

He’s notoriously bad at hiding his tracks beyond the usual security measures. Restricting camera access, destroying tapes, passing off a flimsy excuse as to why a politician, peacemaker, or civilian that was causing a little too much trouble was suddenly found dead, the coronary reports restricted on a need-to-know basis.

Don’t make him laugh.

People talk. They always do, doesn’t matter if it’s been a year or thirty.

The coroners, the police, the people that surrounded the target. They all nervously whisper about suspecting someone else.

He gets closer to the location. He can tell by the thrum he holds in himself now, the way sleep doesn’t come as easily. (Although he still gets it. You don’t buy 400 thread count for nothing.)

Hydra is still in business. Of course it is.

He pays SHIELD a little visit.

That organization is about the worst-kept secret in the world. He dresses up in a smart suit, ridiculous glasses, and pastes a cheesy grin on his face.

He’s in an interview for tech. Gets lost on his way there. The person conducting the interviews has them booked back to back. When a “Mr. Edward Jarvis” does not show up for the interview, the next candidate will come in.

Of course, he looks like any other employee scurrying around with stacks in his arms. Face is obscured by cameras. He’s bypassed Stark Industries’ security features, and he gets to the file room.

Holy shit. It’s bad.

After spending at least two minutes thinking he would die from coughing from all the dust.

They don’t organize anything. All of the paper files, it seems, have been abandoned as soon as the digitized platform came out. (Which makes sense.)

He finds the file box on Winter Soldier. Everything, suspiciously, is blacked out. But he finds one name: Alexander Pierce.

For a man who is about to overtake SHIELD and ruin the entire world, you think he’d have a less consistent schedule. Or that his house would be harder to get into.

Moral of the story: you can break into the window in an attic.

Tony is making coffee.

Pierce stops in his tracks.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Why do you have Folgers? You live in a nice neighborhood. You live like this?” Tony asks. He takes a swig of coffee, winces. “God I haven’t had stuff this bad since I was in college. Ew.”

“If you’re here to kill me, you’ve got yourself in a bigger mess than you know.”

“No, I don’t think I am,” Tony answers. “Because you? You’re stuck here. With me. You can try to run but to be completely frank, your joint medication by the paper towels speak to your ability to outrun me. There’s also the little fact that I’m not here for the typical reason.”

“So what, you’re not an enemy of SHIELD?” Pierce asks.

“Of course I’m not,” Tony says, smiling. “Even like a couple of their agents. But you’re not exactly SHIELD, are you? Some PR talked about one head cut off, two more grow back. I’m not exactly sure if you know how human anatomy works, but...”

Pierce grins.

“Oh, then you know about our little project.”

“Of course I do,” Tony says. “Not so little, though. Didn’t get him operational until 1954? What was that, your birth year? Can’t imagine he’s perfect.”

His smile thins.

“It’s taken trial and test runs. But he’s perfect now.”

“Ah, there’s the problem,” Tony says. “Because he probably broke a lot of people, didn’t he Pierce? Probably threw at least one person. I saw the specs for the arm. A lot of power behind that.”

“And how would you know about the arm?” Pierce asked. “We don’t keep blueprints.”

“You don’t,” Tony says slowly. “But the creator does. And you should’ve looked a lot carefully at who was behind your little experimental arm, Pierce. You shouldn’t trust a Stark to stay in a lane.”

His eyes widen.

Tony loves theatrics. He also likes that he was the one who technically found out about the little quirk.

“So here’s what you didn’t know,” Tony continues. “Our hypothetical technological inventions have a tracking component on them, just in case we cannot find them in our inventory or database. And even though your scientists did an excellent job at hiding the box and filling it with a truly terrible amount of cookbooks, they did not know about that little feature.”

Tony pulls out his phone.

“Your Soldier is in...wow, you’re keeping him local? Pierce, I expected more from you.”

“What do you want.”

“I want him,” Tony says. “And I’ll leave you alone.”

“Absolutely not,” Pierce seethes. “Why would we give you the star of the show?”

“Because,” Tony says. “Your show sucks, if I’m being completely honest. One branch of Hydra is completely dedicated to the idea of Inhumans and is batshit insane. Another branch is literally only focused on weapons, and another is about this. It’s a shit-show. If there was a show about this I would not give it anything past three seasons.”

Alexander Pierce looks like he’s going to burst a vein.

Tony moves on.

“Along with that if I cannot get him from you, I will be getting him. And if you touch a hair on his head, I will kill you.”

Alexander Pierce looks mad. Which of course he does. Tony tends to have that effect on people, Rhodey says so.

“Do you think you can even get out of my house? You think I won’t know your face, know that Tony Stark threatened me? Will anyone even believe you?”

“Aw Andy, you say the sweetest things,” Tony says smiling. “I told you I was a Stark for two reasons. I’ve already told you the first one, let’s see when you wake up if you can guess the second.”

“What--”

And...man down.

And Pepper told him a taser-pen was “hopefully frivolous” and “why the fuck would you ever make that for a pen you barely you know which coffee cup is yours and you just drink from both.”

Pierce is left tied up in his kitchen on the floor, Tony admires the window seat for a brief moment, and leaves the files incriminating Pierce along with about sixty to a hundred other people.

He has a taxi to catch.

“You know he will probably kill you,” Rhodey says on the phone. “And then I get to give my eulogy and I’m going to tell everyone you secretly liked cheese pizza only.”

“I will literally commit a war crime against you,” Tony says. “Not even joking. I’ll face Congress if I have to.”

Rhodey rolls his eyes.

“You can’t, they’d kick you out.”

“Oh, just for wearing a ripped up crop top and jean shorts? What, would I be a menace to society?”

“You’re always a menace,” Rhodey mutters. “Listen, I gotta go. Pepper’s freaking out about your advertisements in the newspaper and the correct grammar.”

“Bye!” Tony says.

DC is definitely not Tony’s style. At least, for now. He can’t even enjoy coffee, he has to foil an assassination plot.

Winter Soldier is not subtle, as he’s said. Neither are the Hydra agents who are just painfully obvious.

At least this might be done by dinner.

He also faces the Winter Soldier. That’s fun. It’s too early to really be anything but fun.

He walks right up to him.

“Do you know someone named Natalie?” Tony asks.

“What?” Winter Soldier asks. “No. Move or I’ll move you.”

“Very robotic, ugh,” Tony says, smiling. “No, I have a job to do. You’re not moving me.”

Winter Soldier lunges.

Tony sidesteps and throws him off his balance with a cafe chair.

Their fight takes them to a bridge.

“You’ve compromised the mission,” Winter Soldier hisses. “Why?”

“Because I got hired to bring you back,” Tony says.

“To Hydra?”

“No,” Tony says. “God no, they’re terrible. No, someone named Natalie wants you rescued.”

“Natalia,” Winter Soldier murmurs. “How do you know her?”

“I don’t,” Tony says. “At least, far as I know. I was asked to find you and bring you to her and whoever else is there. So, are you in?”

He pauses, looks out at the city.

“How are you gonna get me out of here?”

“You underestimate the power of tourism,” Tony says. “Let’s go.”

One “I Visited the Washington” sweatshirt and long hair wrapped into a bun later, Tony is walking out with who appears to be Bucky Barnes.

“Of course you are,” Tony mutters. “Okay, let’s get to the meeting point.”

“Are you staying?” Barnes asks.

Tony cocks his head. “What do you want me for?”

“You just helped me escape from Hydra. You’re most likely near-suicidal. I think you need to stay close.”

Tony rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

“I’m not near-suicidal. Of course I’m not. I stick around for a really nice pizza joint. But Natalie--or Natalia, you called her that right?”

“Natalie’s a fake name.”

“Of course it is, who names their kid Natalie anymore?” Tony quips. “But besides the point. She probably can do you more good than I can. After all, I don’t ever drink out of the right coffee cup. I am very, insanely doubtful that I am of any help whatsoever.”

“Fine then,” Barnes says. “I’ll keep an eye on you.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Tony doubts this.

But he drives him to where whoever the hell hired him lives. It’s a nice, upscale apartment. Probably costs about as much as his whole apartment building’s rent in total.

Of course, the woman who greets them looks gorgeous. Barnes knows her easily enough.

“Thank you, Stark,” the woman says.

“What do I actually call you?” Tony asks. “You know my name, I know two of yours.”

“Call me Natasha,” she says. “And anything else isn’t your business.”

“Of course not, I would expect a check in the mail otherwise,’ Tony remarks. “So. Barnes is delivered back to you. Expect payment tonight or tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow at twelve,” she answers. “Afternoon.”

“See you around,” Tony says, waving. “Barnes, try not to kill anyone right now. Seriously gonna ruin the springtime mood, you know?”

Bucky Barnes stares after him.

Natasha smiles.

“Welcome back, James.”

He nods. Goes and sits in a chair.

“You gonna turn my brain back to mush or let me stay?”

“Stay,” Natasha answers. “I escaped Red Room. I knew I needed to get you.”

“And why not do it yourself? It’s not like you can’t,” he answers.

“Because I was confident that Tony could leave more of a...dramatic element to it,” Natasha answers. “And he did. SHIELD is currently reforming all of its employees. One of the ladies who always let me eat strawberry yogurt from the fridge worked for them. He also helped dismantle any chance at regrouping to get you.”

“Smart,” James answers. “Who is he? Stark?”

“He’s an asshole, but a skilled detective,” Natasha adds. “Son of Howard Stark. You remember him?”

“He was supposed to be my next mission,” James says, feeling a bit of the Winter Soldier seep back in. “Guess I won’t have a perfect record.”

“You don’t have a perfect record, trust me,” Natasha adds. “And I didn’t get you for anything other than a rescue mission. You’re free.”

Being free, James finds, is terrifying.

Natasha has set him up with his own apartment. He has therapy appointments every Wednesday and Saturday. Grocery shopping is...interesting.

And he keeps using his past skills to check in on Tony, who is doing well in life, if not a bit...wary.

He’s assuming you don’t expose the underbelly of at least two secret organizations without gaining some traction.

He’s gotten takeout four times this week. It’s Thursday. This is sad.

His therapist also recommends that he gets “friends.” James is not exactly sure how to do that.

So instead he breaks into Tony’s office.

“We’re friends now,” he announces as Tony yelps and drops his plate.

“Oh my god you could’ve just not snuck in!” Tony screeches. “I dropped my rolls!”

They do become friends after that. Tony decides that James needs to try every single coffee shop that’s ever open.

(He’s a sucker for iced caramel lattes. They’re good.)

They both learn how to cook different foods, and try to make noodles.

“Oh my god we’re both disasters,” Tony says, laughing. He takes a picture of James poking at the disastrous attempt.

“Take me to pizza?” he asks.

“Like you have to ask,” Tony says. “Come on.” He smiles at him, amazed by how much he’s changed. He grabs his jacket.

It is Rhodey who clocks it first.

“You like him,” he crows. “You like him. You like the assassin!”

“Ex-assassin,” Tony corrects. “And no. Of course I don’t.”

“You call him ‘babe’, Tony.”

“And I call you all sorts of pet names,” Tony argues.

“Calling me literally the weirdest pet names like ‘honeybear sweetums’ or ‘platypus’ does not count,” Rhodey says. “You do don’t call me babe. Besides, you like hugging him all the time and I guarantee that you like him. Even if he is an ex-assassin and still thinks completing a thousand piece puzzle gives you the same rush of serotonin as jumping out of a car.”

“He’s fun like that!” Tony protests. “Besides, he doesn’t have a lot of people in his life.”

“That’s a lie,” Rhodey says. “He regrettably met Steve. Again. And he has Sam. Which I think they are friends. Natasha makes him do things.”

“Wow your description of friends are so amazing,” Tony deadpans. “It’s like you have some of your one. You sound like a robot.”

“I’m still right, it’s not like I’m not,” Rhodey says. “You know this. Pepper probably also knows that you like James.”

He consults Pepper. Clearly she will have some sense.

“I demand a raise,” she says. “Because I can detect this shit better than you can.”

“You’re getting a raise but not because of this.”

“Good,” Pepper says. “Now go organize a nice dinner out or something. Get out of here. I’m rearranging your office desk.”

Tony groans. He hates it when she does that.

He supposes they are both right.

So he also supposes that he might have to take James to a coffee shop and tell him.

What Tony doesn’t know is that James is gearing up to tell him that he likes him.

It was brought to his attention by Sam and Natasha.

“You like him,” Sam says.

“We’re friends!”

“Friends don’t write their wedding vows on a napkin,” Natasha remarks. “Go organize a coffee date and tell him. I swear if you don’t tell him I’m going to make you confess at three a.m.”

“If you get me up at three a.m. I’m violating so many rules,” James says. “Like at least four.”

“Do five!” Steve yells from the couch. “And tell Rhodey hi for me!”

“No, he hates you,” James says.

“Exactly!”

He sighs, texting Tony.

hey can u meet me @ clocktower, 7?

sounds gr8 :)

Tony doesn’t know why James wants coffee. But he’s happy and definitely only that, ignore his shaking fingers. It’s the caffeine clearly.

(The caffeine isn’t helping. He knows that.)

“Hi,” James says. “Thank you for coming to the coffee shop. Tonight.”

“You’re awkward,” Tony blurts out. “Why are you speaking in fragmentary sentences?”

“That was at most only one fragmentary sentence.”

“Oh.”

They sit for a moment, James goes to get coffee.

Tony steels himself.

“You remember how I told you that you probably weren’t going to see a lot of me?” Tony asks.

“Are you leaving?” James asks, eyes wide. “I’m going with you. Obviously.”

“No you dumbass, I’m not leaving,” Tony says, taking another sip. “But do you remember?”

“Clearly,” James says with a snort.

“Well I was wrong. And we’re friends. And...well. Fuck it. I love you, and not in a like a friendship way. I really, really have been wondering what it’s like to kiss you. And if you don’t feel the same way then just tell me and we’ll be cool just give me like a month.”

James grins.

“You mean to tell me we can finally actually go on a date at that fancy seafood restaurant you’ve been dying to go to?”

“We could’ve always done that, but yes it will be nice to look at you across,” Tony says.

James takes his hand, smiling.

“Can I take you out on Friday then?”

“I’ll wear my best suit,” Tony says, grinning.

When they’re asked about how they meet, it’s not exactly like you can say “oh I got assigned to find and capture the love of my life and we also managed to wreck a secret organization” for the origin story.

So they usually keep telling people they met while on a business call.

Technically true.

#lovelyirony writes #tony stark #winteriron #i rlly like this prompt :)#i adjusted it a tiny bit #bucky barnes #natasha romanoff #pepper potts #rhodey #i think tony's just a Disaster but a Smart Disaster

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elderbwrry · 4 years ago

Text

Even if he doesn’t say so - Chapter 3/?

Kylo/Hux/Poe Witcher AU

Chapter summary: mini-waterfight, short scene continuation of these three wombling across the continent, (word count 1343)

Chapter 1, 2, and also on ao3

Kylo trudged back into camp and sat down heavily by the fire. He was angry, and he was sure his two companions could tell, judging by the way they had fallen to silently looking at him instead of chatting as they had been before. Eventually, Kylo couldn't take the staring. “What?” he demanded.

“You've... got a little something there,” Poe offered, pointing at him, first his hair and then his whole body.

“The fucking thing exploded!” he informed them loudly, and several birds took flight from the trees with a slap of wings that irritated Kylo all the more.

Sure, Kylo was glad to have the coin from the shepherds, and their sheep-snatching issue was solved, but did it have to spew foul smelling viscera all over him?

Hux was grimacing now. “It smells awful,” he complained, his tone allowing no argument, “go wash it off. There's a stream not too far west.”

Kylo groaned, leaned over to the side and lay down. He did want it off, but it seemed like such effort right at that moment – besides, he'd mostly gotten used to the smell, and he was tired. “I'll do it later.”

Kylo heard Hux stand up, and practically heard the vein in his forehead bulge as he ordered, “You'll do it now!” Crunching leaves as he approached, saying, “I don't want you stinking up camp.” The heel of a boot dug into Kylo's side, turning him over a bit and then retreating when he tried to grab it's owner.

“Go and hide in your fancy posh tent, then!”

“I imagine the stench would reach even there.”

“Prick.”

“Oaf.”

“Kylo,” Poe's mediating voice made Kylo bite back the unsavoury comment he was about to make about mages. “Go wash off. You'll feel better for it. And Hux? Stop being a shit.” And somehow, that stopped the argument.

The healthy distance Hux and Poe were keeping in order to avoid the smell meant that by the time the two of them had caught up to his pissed-off march to the river, Kylo had already stripped off and dunked himself underwater. There was still stuff caught in his hair, which he was trying to drag his fingers through.

“Hey, that looks painful,” Poe said, sounding genuinely concerned, and coming forward to sit at a rocky section at the side of the stream. “Come here, I'll sort it out for you.”

Kylo hesitated. For one thing, he was fully naked. Of course Poe had seen flashes of him naked before, but what with he and Hux fully clothed – the mage wandering around looking at the various plants around the banks and occasionally casting glances in their direction – it wasn't exactly a familiar situation.

In fact, thinking about the situation made Kylo hesitate, though he was unsure why; something told him that this ought to feel different, but the more he thought about it, it didn't feel different. They both knew him, and it felt... natural. So he went over and turned so Poe could easily reach.

Poe's fingers working over Kylo's scalp felt... heavenly. Kylo relaxed into it further and further. He tried not to think about how gentle Poe was being, but it was all that was in his mind. Poe, unlike so many others in Kylo's life, Hux included, never tried to hurt him, never treated him like everyone else where Poe came from. It had to mean something. He wanted to turn around and put his head on Poe's chest, sink into that gentle warmth and burrow into the delightful burr of his voice.

Poe lifted some water and worked it into Kylo's hair. It trickled down his back, and Poe's fingers gathered his hair by brushing it back over his ear. Kylo shivered. “You okay there?” Poe asked.

“Yeah,” Kylo cleared his throat, “it's just cold.”

Hux looked up from the stone he was turning over with his foot, meeting Kylo's eyes as if to call him out on the lie. Kylo wished he could know what Hux was thinking behind his calculating eyes and schooled expression, seeing the two of them like that, but Hux was often inscrutable to Kylo when it came to physical demonstrations of any kind of emotion, something which had caused plenty of trouble in the past. Although... provocation often worked.

“Gods, yeah, it's freezing,” Poe was saying, “you're almost done,” but Kylo wasn't listening, too busy gathering the strength to flick water at Hux. His arm shot out of the water, casting a splash that just missed the mage, who withdrew quickly, scandalised.

“How dareyou!” he snapped, approaching severely, but remaining on guard for further attacks as he looked down at Kylo, beginning a lecture on exactly how he would curse him if he did it again. Hux was so busy doing that, he didn't focus on Poe standing or walking round behind him - unfortunately, he couldn't fail to notice when the bard stuck out a hip and pushed him into the water.

The mage fell like a collection of overly fine fabric and swearing, splashing around in a fantastic approximation of a surprised cat. It wasn't that the stream was too deep for him to stand, he was just caught off guard, and Kylo took advantage of that by wading in and lifting him up, an arm around his back and under his knees. Bedraggled and annoyed, this was no doubt the most fearsome Hux could get without unleashing his magic on the subject of his discontent.

“You!” he exclaimed at Poe, trying to get his legs out from Kylo's hold, “I'll murder you, I'll-”

With that, Kylo dropped him. There was a moment more of spluttering, followed by a faint glow from under the water, and then Kylo found himself inundated again with a magical wave which the gentle flow of the stream never could have generated on its own. When Hux got his feet under him and saw Kylo still blinking water out of his eyes, he gave a snorting laugh.

There were two thuds from the bank of shed boots, and a warning shout from Poe as he jumped into the stream just behind Kylo, causing him to be inundated again. The whole thing degenerated into a splash fight, cold but happy.

When they finally trudged back to camp – Hux complaining perfunctorily the whole way about how his robes were “ruined” and would have to be fixed magically, Poe's hair slowly re-curling as it dried – it was the best Kylo had felt in a long time.

Kylo was building up the fire and finding a place to spread out his wet shirt when he noticed Poe looking through the slightly open flap of the tent, inside of which Hux was changing. It was only a moment, in which Poe had paused, run his hand through his hair once, and then seemed to decide he shouldn't be looking, heading off to find something in his pack.

As inconspicuously as possible, Kylo took up the place Poe had abandoned, making to hang up his clothes but glancing back inside the tent as he did. The light inside was a soft, dusky orange, courtesy of the canvas sides and the lantern Hux had lit. The mage was framed perfectly in the entrance, wearing a loose pair of pants and nothing else, his slim chest exposed. He looked soft, enticing, all smooth muscles accented by sharp shoulder bones, freckles smattering his shoulders. Kylo remembered poring over them in the winter evenings, when the two of them could take it slow. It cast a strange kind of nostalgia into his heart.

Hux turned and noticed Kylo before he could look away. He tilted his head and raised his eyebrow, to which Kylo shrugged. The reason they parted wasn't because of lack of attraction, after all, and it had been Hux who had engineered their reunion. Hux still understood Kylo better than possibly anyone else in the world.

A flick of Hux's wrist, and the tent flap lolled closed.

#darkgingerpilot #armitage hux #kylo ren #poe dameron #kylo/hux/poe #kylux #darkpilot #gingerpilot #my writing #fanfiction #witcher au #fantasy medieval au #star wars #even if he doesn't say so #late update! sorry but thanks for still reading if you are still reading #im aware this is Niche

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name-me-regret · 3 years ago

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If The World Was Ending 14/?

If The World Was Ending Chapter Fourteen: A Lethal Side

Read on AO3.

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

“Some things I just cannot change Are you waiting for me to show you the way out? This love has a lethal side I would take the bullet, ah

You feel just like you're wasting a lifetime on me Just give into the feeling we got something real, yeah 'Cause every love song needs somebody to sing

So let me show you I'm what you need before you run away...

Can't hear what those people say Telling you that you're crazy believing in me now And if we march on the front line I would take the bullet...”

~ Runaway - James Carter

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

‘Because you’re exhausting!’

The words had been playing on repeat in his mind for the past hour, and it didn’t look like it would stop any time soon. Buck felt, not for the first time, that he had made a mistake for filing that lawsuit. That was especially true since it had solved nothing. His friends, his family, had pulled away further. That was none more true than Eddie, who had started to pull away from him even before the lawsuit. Now, he was sure he had completely lost him.

Buck cleared his throat, wiping hastily at his eyes. He decided that he needed to clear his mind, and that it was time to fall back on his usual coping method. So, he stopped briefly at his loft to get changed into his hiking gear. He’d added to the collection in the last two years that he had been with the 118, especially since he was trained in rescue and knew what was needed in case of an emergency.

He’d been part of a lot of hikes, so he knew that things that might seem like overkill, were essential. That meant his headlamp since it was almost sunset, and made sure he checked the batteries on it and brought extra ones just in case. He also made sure he had his LifeStraw Water Filter that he’d recently purchased, since he’d taken to hiking a lot during his recent shifts as the Fire Marshal.

The man sent a text to Maddie telling her he was going for a hike at Griffith Park, which would be open until 9pm, so he had plenty of time for a few hours to go on the hiking trail. When he arrived at the park almost 40 minutes later the sun was almost completely setting, he grabbed his backpack with his supplies but first slipped on his hydration backpack, which was small enough to fit on his front, against his chest. He had enough water for at least a two to three hour hike.

He was twenty minutes into his hike, not having seen anyone on the dark trail this whole time, when his playlist cut off as his phone started to beep furiously. “JARVIS?” Buck asked as he detached his phone from the strap of his backpack.

‘Sir will be with you shortly, Mr. Buckley,’ JARVIS told him. Buck knew that J was an AI, but he had always been pretty expressive. However, he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard him sound as strained as he did now.

“What? Why? What’s going on, J?”

The AI was silent before he started to speak again. ‘Sir was attacked two hours ago by an assailant that I’ve been able to identify as the Winter Soldier.’

This alarmed Buck and he lifted his head, looking for the armor but the dark sky was empty thus far. “Is Tony hurt? Why are you bringing him here?”

‘Sir didn’t have a combat ready armor with him at the time and though he managed to evade capture, he suffered a head injury that’s rendered him unconscious.’

“Why didn’t you take him to the hospital?” Buck demanded. “He could have a concussion!”

‘My protocols are to bring him to the closest person he trusts, and since his healthcare proxy is currently in D.C., you were the closest person to his location.’

Buck ran a hand through his hair, his cap getting knocked off in the process, but not that he noticed in that moment. “Alright… alright,” he muttered. He turned back and started to run back the way he had come, and was glad he hadn’t gone too far down the trail. He reached his Jeep in less than ten minutes, glad that he had kept to his training regiment after he’d started his light duty. After all, lying around doing nothing was more detrimental to his health.

He heard the repulsors then and he lifted his head to see the armor coming in from the west. That meant he had been in Malibu when he’d been attacked. The armor touched down more gently than he would have thought, but then again, JARVIS was the one flying it. It also appeared to be an incomplete armor, so that’s likely why he’d been mostly unprotected from the attack.

“Alright, open her up J,” he told the AI. When he did, Buck was ready to catch Tony as the unconscious man tumbled out. He’d opened his passenger side door ahead of time and easily lifted him and put him inside. “Tony, hey,” he said as he rubbed his sternum and patted his cheek to get him to wake up.

Tony moaned weakly and his eyelashes fluttered but didn’t open. The was blood caked on the side of his head from where he’d been hit and Buck didn’t have time to wonder what exactly it had been. Tony whimpered when he shifted him up further in the seat, making Buck wince.

“Sorry, sorry, but I need you to wake up.” Finally, his eyes opened and Buck couldn’t help grin at him. “There you are.”

“Ev?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” He took his headlamp off as an idea occurred to him, and used that to shine in his eyes. He flinched at the light and that wasn’t a good sign, especially since his pupils were dilated. When the man suddenly leaned out the open door and threw up, narrowly missing Buck’s hiking boots, he knew that he had a concussion, and needed to get him to the hospital to make sure it wasn’t anything worse.

That’s when he noticed the blood at his side and when he lifted his shirt, Buck saw that he’d torn his stitches. “Shit,” he hissed. He reached under his seat for his first aid kit, being thankful for his sister’s paranoia after the truck bombing. He quickly patched the wound, since he didn’t have the supplies to restitch it there and then he buckled him in and ran around to the driver’s side. Buck was relieved when he pulled up his maps amp and saw that there was a medical center less than ten minutes away. As he drove, he had JARVIS call the hospital.

“Tony? Are you awake?” The man groaned. “Do you know where you are?”

“M’in y’r Je’p?” Tony slurred. That didn’t sound good.

“Can you remember what happened?” Buck pressed, needing to see how bad the concussion was.

“Dunno… g’t hit?”

“Do you remember what hit you?”

Tony was silent for too long that Buck reached over and shook him, and sighed in relief when the man flinched. “No… no,” he said, shaking his head but moaned in pain at the movement. “Hurts.”

“I know, but I got you, Tony,” he reassured him. He looked behind him when he saw the blue lights and a cop car, which then pulled along side and then he motioned for Buck to follow him. It seemed JARVIS had also contacted the police department for an escort. Buck gave a thumbs up and followed the black and white cruiser.

As soon as they pulled into the ER, a few nurses and a doctor rushed out with a gurney. Buck told them about the head injury and the torn stitches as they loaded Tony onto the gurney. The cop told him that he’d be guarding Tony as per the instructions of someone named JARVIS. Then he was left alone, not knowing what to do except look at the hospital doors for a few moments before the siren of an arriving ambulance snapped him out of it. He closed the passenger side door of his Jeep and then got back in to find a parking space.

He was lucky to find one, even if it was further away than he would have liked. However, before he could leave the Jeep, JARVIS spoke up again. ‘Mr. Buckley, sir is being tracked.’

“What? By who?”

‘The Winter Soldier.’

“Who is that?” Buck asked a bit hysterically. He didn’t know what was going on. All he knew was that someone had hurt Tony and now they were likely coming to finish the job.

’He is an assassin that’s been sent by HYDRA.’

“Hydra? What is Hydra?”

‘HYDRA is an authoritarian paramilitary subversive terrorist organization bent on world domination. It was very active during World War 2 but with the efforts of Captain America and the Howling Commandos, they were able to destroy it.’

“I’m sensing a but,” Buck groaned where he’d laid his head against the steering wheel. This was spiraling into very dangerous territory, and Buck felt that he was barely keeping his head above water.

‘It seems to have survived and infiltrated SHIELD. Sir discovered this several days ago, as well as a plan to use an algorithm created by a HYDRA scientist to identify people that posed a threat to them and thus be able to eliminate them.’

“He stopped them and then they came after him?” Buck hazarded a guess. He took in several shaky breaths, trying not to have a panic attack right that moment. He was a first responder, a fire fighter that was used to running into a burning building, but this was more Athena’s area. Only, he couldn’t call her, couldn’t call anyone for help.

It was in that moment that Buck truly felt alone. He was alone in this.

‘Yes, that is correct.’

Buck contemplated on what he should do now, wondering if he should go inside, or call the police to warn them. It was just, would they believe him at all? Buck seriously doubted it. He was worried, because right now Tony was unprotected. “What do I do, J? I’m just a firefighter... or rather, I was.” He sighed and ran a hand through his blonde hair. “I can’t help him.”

‘There is a way, Mr. Buckley.’

The man’s head lifted in surprise. “What? How? What do I have to do?” He’d already lost his family at the 118 and didn’t want to also lose Tony. If there was something that he could do, then he would.

‘The Rescue Protocol.’

Buck frowned. “What’s that?”

‘Sir designed armor to your measurements and called it the Rescue armor.’

“What?!”

Before he could ask more, he heard the sound of repulsors once again and rolled down his window as he stuck his head out of it. He saw the suit coming from the east, which he found was weird. “Where is it coming from, J?”

‘Sir designed it and had it built at his lab in New York, because that lab had the equipment for it. He activated the protocol almost three hours ago, but since it was on the other side of the country, it is only now arriving.’

Buck stumbled out of the Jeep and saw not one armor, but two of them. “Wait, that’s two armors.”

‘It is War Machine, Mr. Buckley.’

“Holy shit,” Buck gasped, not believing that he was about to see Rhodes after all these years.

The two armors touched down and the face plate lifted on the War Machine armor. “Evan Buckley, is that you?” the man asked incredulously. The War Machine armor gave Rhodes about four inches, so they were about the same height.

“Rhodes, hey man,” Buck greeted him weakly. As he turned to what JARVIS had dubbed the Rescue armor, he saw that it would likely give him four inches as well. That explained why the Rescue armor looked taller. It was also colored the same blue as his LAFD uniform.

Rhodes pointed at the other armor. “Is it safe to assume this is for you to use?”

Buck ran a hand down his face as he nodded. “I don’t- I don’t know the first thing about how to use it. I kinda just found out literally a minute before you got here.”

“Lucky for you, FRIDAY informed me about the situation going on with Tony, so you might not have to use it.”

“Who’s-?”

‘Colonel Rhodes, incoming from the west,’ JARVIS interrupts them suddenly, voice urgent.

The Rescue armor is opening and Buck yelps as it lunges at him and incases him. He staggers back as the HUD turns on, breathing heavily and an alarm is suddenly beeping. Buck is stunned as his Jeep suddenly explodes in a ball of fire as it is flung to the side and into another car. The instincts he learned from his time in the SEALs kick in as he jumps away, rolling with the momentum, and is shocked at how easy the armor moves around him.

“Evan!” Buck hears Rhodes panicked voice and his vision is suddenly filled with a man with long hair wielding a grenade launcher, which is aimed right at him. He jerks to the side to avoid the grenade, which sails dangerously close to his face and it hits another vehicle that also explodes.

‘Mr. Buckley, may I suggest leaving the area before the hospital takes damage,’ JARVIS tells him.

“How do I do that?!” He yelps as the repulsors at his feet suddenly turn on and he waves his arms around wildly as he starts to lift off the ground, which makes the take off shaky and almost flies into another car.

‘Keep your hands at your side, Mr. Buckley,’ the AI instructs.

Buck quickly does that and the armor shoots into the sky, and it’s only because he’s jumped from a helo into the ocean during the BUD/S training that he doesn’t scream. Of course, he hadn’t made it much longer after passing Hell Week, because he hadn’t been able to turn off his emotions. So, he was very terrified in that moment. Especially when he saw a motorcycle following them with the long haired man on it, and did he have a fucking metal arm?!

“Evan, this way,” he hears Rhodes call. He follows JARVIS’s instructions as he angles his body to follow the man and almost whoops when he’s able to do it without veering too much off course. “We need to get away from the city before we engage.” They’re heading toward the Hollywood Hills, more than likely where there are very little houses.

Buck is totally onboard with that, since the last thing he wants is for someone to get hurt. He tries not to think too closely about what engage actually means, and that he was going to actively attack someone. And shit, he’s thinking about it now.

Then an alarm starts to blare through the speakers and with J’s warning, Buck twists in midair to avoid being hit as their pursuer shoots at them, which sends him into a sudden barrel roll that has him giving a choked off scream. He some how manages to regain control of the —his?— armor and gasps when he sees that the grenade had missed him, but managed to hit a building. Buck becomes alarmed when he sees that it was a house on the edge of where the hills start.

“Shit!” Buck exclaims as he turns, forgetting his fear and even that he’s way out of his element. There are people in danger and he can’t just do nothing. “JARVIS, is there some kind of fire suppressant system in the suit?” He sees as the AI selects the systems but curses when he sees its aimed for it to be used in case the suit is on fire or sparks. “I need something to stop the fire!”

‘There is a water gun on the shoulder,’ JARVIS tells him. Of course he had seen it, which resembled the one that Rhodes had on the War Machine armor, but he had assumed it was a weapon. ‘If you land in the pool beside the house, there are compartments that will open to suck into the suit and that will be directed to the water gun.’

Buck grinned despite himself, because he hadn’t been expecting that. “Wow, I thought it was a gun!”

‘That’s why Sir called it the Rescue armor. He designed it especially for you.’

And Buck could see that now. He hadn’t designed it like a weapon the way he had for Rhodes’s War Machine armor, but like a tool used to rescue people for Buck. Because that is what Buck did, he was a firefighter and he rescued people, and now the name Rescue for the armor made sense. “Alright then, J. Let’s see what this thing can do.” He had the AI connect him to Rhodes and told him that he needed to keep the assassin off his back while he went to put out the fire and see if there had been anyone inside the house.

“Roger,” Rhodes tells him. The War Machine turns and heads toward where the motorcycles is still following them. It also appears as if there are two police cars and one police motorcycle following the man. Whether they were alerted because he was breaking laws to catch up to them or because someone saw him shooting the grenade launcher is unclear, but that doesn’t matter at the moment.

“J, is there like some kind of autopilot on this thing? I don’t think I can land softly enough not to damage the pool.” Buck asked as they fly toward the house. He grins when the AI takes control of the suit and they land. JARVIS relinquishes control almost immediately after and he grins when he sees that the water can also come out of the hands by three individual tubes that can open up at the palms. It’s a good thing the pool is fairly large, and the gallons in it are likely enough to extinguish the flames. If not, there is another pool next door he can use.

“Aright, let her rip, J,” he tells the AI. He braces for the pressure to hit, use to doing it when he handles the hose as a firefighter, but it seems that he doesn’t need to as the suit is immovable. The water leaves the gun and the palms of the armor, and he aims at the worse of the flames. He cuts off the flow when the flames frizzle out, but makes sure there is enough left inside the suit in case there is more fire inside. There is a hole on one side of the house, and he rushes in like he usually does. “LAFD! Is anyone in here?” Buck shouts, forgetting that he isn’t a firefighter with the department anymore.

There is smoke and ash from the destroyed wall in the air and he kicks a few chucks away as he goes further inside. “Hello! Is someone in here?” His voice sounds mechanical and almost resembles what Tony’s does whenever he speaks while in the suit.

That’s when the suit’s HUD displays a scan of the house and it detects three heat signatures. Even then, he keeps calling and soon he hears a voice calling for help. The first person is a man in his early fifties which is the owner, judging by the information that JARVIS is displaying, and that he lives there with his younger wife and fifteen-year-old son. He brings the man out even as he protests. “I’m going to get them out,” he tells him with certainty.

He finds the wife next in a bathroom, a woman in her early forties who is unconscious from a hit to the head. Buck needs to secure her neck and substitutes a towel gently but tightly around her neck, making sure its not enough to strangle her. He then sees a bathrobe and uses the tie of it to secure the towel in place. Now that the neck is secure in case she has a spinal or neck injury, he carries her out.

“Evan, are you clear?” Rhodes calls over the coms, hearing the strain in his voice.

“Almost, Rhodes. I got one more victim inside the house. Give me ten minutes.”

“You got five,” he gasped. Buck jerks his head up as he hears an explosion, but sighs in relief when he sees War Machine still in the air.

“Copy!” Buck yells as he runs back into the house. JARVIS had pulled up the information, so he knows the name of the young man. “Jake! Jake, are you there?” He hears the house groan and knows the explosion caused the whole structure to be unstable, but he doesn’t want to leave until he has the teenager. Buck heads to where the heat signature is coming from, glad there isn’t any more fire, but there are sparks and if the gas line was damaged it could get really dangerous really fast. So he hurries. “Jake!”

He comes upon a room for a teenage girl and decides that he obviously isn’t there. Then he sees movement and turns. “Jake?” he calls as he rushes in. He finds a teenage girl huddled in the corner, confused by her presence there and wondering if he’ll have enough time to find Jake, but knows he can’t leave her there.

“It’s Jenny,” she whimpers as the house shudders.

Buck is confused. “What?”

“That... that’s not my name. It’s Jenny.” She cries out as the house shakes again. “J-Ja... that’s not my name!”

He realizes what she means almost immediately and nods as he kneels. “Alright, Jenny,” he soothes. He holds out his armored hand. “Take my hand, sweetheart. I’ll get you out, alright?”

Her eyes, bluer than even his own, dart up to his face. Then she nods and takes it. Buck lifts her up and carries her out. He deposits her into her father’s waiting’s arms who sobs a thanks for getting his daughter out, and Buck takes a moment to smile.

“Evan!”

“Shit!” he curses when he sees another grenade coming their way and instinctively lifts his hands and lets the water go with all the pressure the suit has, from the water gun as well. It must be more like a water cannon, because it knocks the grenade out of its course, and it hits the house. Buck turns and shields the family from the debris as it seems to hit another support beam and the whole structure comes down.

When he makes sure the family of three is okay, he goes a few steps away and his second take off is more smooth than the first one. He sees the lights of the emergency crews as he goes, and now that he knows the family is safe, he decides to concentrate on the fight that’s coming. Buck had never been a violent person, had never seen combat during his SEAL training, but he also knows that he can’t stand by while this assassin wrecks havoc and harms more people.

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Athena had gotten a call from one the police officers in East Hollywood. While she wasn’t able to put any kind of official alert on her family or the 118’s vehicles or homes, they each knew the names of the people closest to them. When one of them was involved is an accident or any kind of incident. Mostly it was her kids, Michael and Bobby. Oh, and Buck, of course. It was because that kid was always getting into trouble, and because despite what Bobby said, Buck was his son. He was his son even while he was suing Bobby and the man was mad at him.

So, when the East Hollywood police were contacted by Iron Man’s associate to be an escort and given the license plate of Buck’s Jeep (which he’d just gotten back from the body shop), Athena had found out about it twenty minutes later. Naturally, she told Bobby, who was off shift and both of them raced over toward Kaiser Permanente regardless that they couldn’t contact Buck due to the lawsuit.

They were horrified when they found that area around the hospital parking lot cordoned off by police. Athena got off to try to find out something, telling Bobby to circle around and she’d call him when she knew something. She was able to pass through the police line easily enough, and even if she wanted to go immediately to the hospital and find out about Buck, something drew her to the scene.

There were several vehicles that had been on fire, which meant the another fire station, mainly station 6, were on the scene. There was a lot of destruction, like a bomb had gone off, and as she walked closer to the scene to try and see what was happening, she stepped on something.

The woman frowned and bent down to pick it up, seeing it was a California license plate, covered in soot and half burned. She wiped at the numbers, the curiosity getting the better of her. The moment she did, the sob felt like it was punched out of her.

It was Buck’s license plate.-

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

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background-noise-headache · 4 years ago

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Hurt the Bard, but like, Emotionally/Non-lethally

Um, terribly painful Jaskier-whump idea. (This has some Geraskier elements in it, but in a pre-relationship, developing friendship way, featuring a lot of Geralt openly caring for Jaskier because that’s my head canon, Geralt speaks with actions and his eyes, not his words.

I know the fandom likes to play with the idea of Jaskier’s parents being distant or abusive or neglectful. Which I do enjoy, but I vibe more with the idea that Jaskier had very supportive parents and that’s why he’s so confident and open and affectionate.

So, this: The court mage’s apprentice is bitter and angry seeing all this love that annoying brat (only a few years younger than him) gets. The jealousy is eating at him. Jaskier goes to Oxenfurt then sets out on his own to become a bard with the encouragement of his parents even if it’s not what’s expected of a viscount.

Somewhere between when Jaskier meets Geralt to the djinn incident (I imagine after Cintra) Jaskier is home for a while, telling his family about his adventures and being showered in love and sharing that love back with them, he’s missed them so much.

The apprentice is now the court mage and that anger has never gone away, just been buried and smothered because dude does not have the best coping mechanisms, no one ever taught him any. Asshole decides to cast a curse on Jaskier:

“Every kind word will cause you pain and make you rot on the inside, but no one will see the pain they cause you. It won’t kill you physically, but you’ll swear you’re dying. Every kind word, every compliment, will make you rot until the only relief and joy you get is when someone insults you. You’ll beg for them to hate you, beg for them to spit in your face.”

By the next day it’s clear how effective the curse is.

(Okay, trigger warning for body horror, skin issues, medical wounds. This is honestly me coping with a terrible nightmare I had a few years back that I never completely got over and sometimes I need to talk about it. So, bear with me, or skip to my line of astrisks)

(You know what, additional trigger warnings for toxic relationships and emotional abuse between Jaskier an characters only mentioned in the show but never seen. You know the ones)

By rot, I mean that when Jaskier looks at his skin it looks like it’s bruising, and then cracking, bleeding, pealing away. It’s molting and pussy and awful (that is specifically what it looked like in my dream, the skin on my left arm was molting.) But nobody fricken sees it! Jaskier can point to the wounds, groan in pain, nobody sees the cause. It’s not actually there, it’s technically in his head because that’s what the curse does, it won’t kill him, just rot him.

So immediately Jaskier realizes he has to leave home because every time he sees his parents and his siblings and his neices and nephews they’re excited and happy and loving. They’re quick to realize something’s wrong, but Jaskier knows they can’t see the way his skin is turning. He leaves without saying goodbye because he can’t explain.

He travels, avoids his friends and familiar places where he’s known. But when he performs his audience will tell him how wonderful his songs were and patrons will flirt and it’s all pain. It’s less painful to avoid performing, but harder to survive without it. But he can’t always bear the pain, it’s just too much sometimes.

He runs into an old classmate. He and Valdo were never close, several years apart in age. They chat, they flirt, they go to bed together. Valdo is sparing with his compliments, and very observant. Because Jaskier gets irritable with pain and too many nice words makes him lash out, but insults stir a fire in his eyes that Valdo enjoys. He thinks he knows what Jaskier really wants. He’s not sure how he feels about it, but Valdo can’t remember the last time he had a fling so interesting and contradictory.

They travel for a while. Jaskier becomes a backup for Valdo’s performances, getting a share of the coin to get by and minimal attention. It’s better this way, he tells himself.

One drunken night he tells Valdo about the curse. To Valdo it makes too much sense and it’s so tragic and the tragedy makes it more romantic. The relationship is downhill from there as Jaskier realizes the kind of situation he’s gotten himself into and how he’s becoming dependent on Valdo’s cruelty, and how much crueler it feels if Valdo says something nice.

He leaves.

He meets the Countess. She flirts with insults and thrives making people feel lower than her. She pays him a lot of money to play for her and takes him to bed and rarely has a kind word and if he avoids drinking too much he’ll never fall into the same trap he did with Valdo.

And then a song begins circulating about a poor bard cursed to long for pain and cruelty, who will never know love again. Which fucking hurts worse than any of this shit before, the message that he’ll never be loved again burns.

The Countess grows bored and kicks him out. He travels for a few weeks, to tired and burnt out to perform and goes through his money fast. He also had jack-all in the way of travel supplies, not even a bedroll, so it’s a rough few weeks after he can no longer afford a bed under a roof.

And then he meets Geralt on the bank of the Pontar. Gods it’s nice to focus on someone else’s problems for a moment. And then the fillingless pie comment, and it’s the first time in a Gods-know-how-long time that he finds no relief in the insult, only annoyance. And that old habit of bickering with Geralt kicks in because even if it’s been a few years they’re still friends.

(Yes, they’re friends. I head canon that Geralt says they’re not friends 1. because he has obvious abandonment issues and self loathing problems, as the fandom well knows, and 2. every time he says he and Jaskier aren’t friends, Jaskier insists they are with more and more evidence to prove it and it makes Geralt feel warm and fuzzy. Eventually they had that conversation and Jaskier knows what Geralt actually means/wants to hear when he says they’re not friends)

(also Geralt has been plagued with insomnia for weeks or months on end, and I’m telling you, you would be cranky too. Not getting enough sleep gives me migraines, worsens my snow vision, makes my ADHD worse, and makes me irritable. That’s why Geralt is so grumpy on the river bank)

So for a few minutes he forgets about the curse and the festering rot on his skin. And then the djinn, and he’d really like to get back at the two people that have hurt him the most recently, and then break this stupid fucking curse already.

No such luck.

And after all the djinn nonsense, Yen makes the offhanded comment, “Where’s your cursed bard run off to.”

“He shouldn’t be cursed any more.”

“Oh no, he was cursed long before the djinn.”

“Why didn’t you tell me!”

“I didn’t see it until you left.”

“And you didn’t break it?”

“It wasn’t killing him. The djinn was. One problem at a time. The djinn needed to be solved before this curse.”

So, yeah, Yennefer and Geralt find Jaskier outside and they have a long talk about it. Yen needs a day to prepare for breaking the curse because she’s already used a lot of chaos today and she needs rest. (And those two idiots need to talk, she can see it and it’s giving her a migraine she needs to sleep off)

Jaskier tells Geralt about the last year or so of his life. It’s fucking shit.

The curse is broken. There’s no sign of rot on Jaskier’s skin, no pain when anyone says something kind, like “we are friends” and “I missed you” which is a relief.

But the emotional changes won’t go away overnight. Jaskier responds to kindness with hostility and takes insults in silence. And Geralt isn’t doing well watching someone he cares about act... act like Geralt. Self-hating and believing they need cruelty to be normal. And there’s no traveling therapist either. So they’re doing the best they can. But it’s a rough few years as Jaskier unlearns all that shit.

It kind of convinces Geralt to get his head a little more out of his ass and stop hating himself so much, realizing how painful it must be for Jaskier and his brothers and Vesemir and Yennefer to watch.

The mountain is just a really awful few days. Jaskier takes Geralt’s lashing with minimal resistance. A comment that it’s not fair is a vast improvement from 5-6 years ago, but nothing like his younger self would have responded, all puffed up dramatics until Geralt realized how ridiculous he was being.

Geralt and Jaskier have an awkward, stunted few days hiking down the mountain, during which Jaskier decides he needs to go to the coast and sort himself out. He’ll see Geralt next spring.

He goes home and spends that autumn with his family. It’s the most healing three months he’s ever had. The mage has long since left, and Jaskier’s not sure he’ll ever get that closure, but he’ll take what healing he can get now. He’s more like his old self than he’s ever been since the curse broke.

And then Geralt shows up on the edge of winter, limping with an exhausted child surprise and a wounded sorceress by his side. Jaskier gives them shelter for a few nights but they can’t stay, they’ll in danger as long as they’re stuck down south.

The night before they leave, Geralt and Jaskier talk, clear the air. Geralt asks if Jaskier is happy. He is. So Geralt decides not to ask Jaskier to join him. Yennefer is the one to ask, because fuck that idiotic bullshit and Ciri already knows him from a few winters spent at Cintra and adores him, and he’s already great with kids, a skill Yennefer and Geralt can’t claim yet.

Jaskier’s family supports him, of course they do. He promises to return home soon.

* * *

So like, I was going to pose this as a writing prompt and offer it to anyone who wants to write it. I didn’t intend to develop it so much, but getting it out of my system helped a lot. I needed to get all those ideas out.

If it speaks to you, feel free to run with it, but please include a link to this original post or mentioned me. My ao3 is Shadowmightwrite17

(yeah, tbh, that nightmare still haunts me. I told my parents about it immediately, but I didn’t open up about it to anyone until last summer when I told my best friend about it. I was like, “did I ever tell you about that one nightmare I had where my skin was molting off my arm?” and he was like, “no. no you did not. wtf” But there was also a thing last week when I read a vaguely body-horror sentence in a Witcher fanfic about something moving under your skin and I remembered again, so like, I needed to talk about it somehow)

#jaskier #dandelion #geraskier #the witcher #geraskier fanfiction #fanfiction #my fanfic #it's past midnight I should be sleeping #i'm too tired to edit this so sorry for that

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vintagedaydreams · 5 years ago

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Knives Out Imagine Part Two

Detective Blanc x Female Reader

Warnings: Spoilers!!, mention of death/suicide/murder throughout, language

Enjoy!!

((I have no posting schedule, but Part Three will be up and running soon, hopefully. Muse willing.))

@joalsglasses

You slowly walked towards the guard house, eyes never straying from the yard beneath your feet as you went.

Though Benoit had assured you last night that you hadn’t messed up any potential clues, you were now officially paranoid of every spot in the grass.

You didn’t want to be the thing that got in the way of the Detective solving this case.

You finally made it to your destination just in time to hear Benoit whistle and signal Marta’s car to pull in.

“Ah, (Y/N)!” came his way-too-cheerful-for-eight-in-the-morning voice.

“Good morning, Benoit,” you smiled, before a large yawn took over. You focused back on the detective to see bright blue eyes looking you over carefully.

“Excuse me,” you murmured with a blush. Benoit looked like he was about to say something, but Marta stepping up to the guard house effectively took his attention.

Phew. You were a horrible liar, (though not as bad as Marta), and you would’ve hated to explain exactly why you hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. Especially since this time, it wasn’t because of Harlan.

You followed Marta and Benoit into the building, feeling guilty as soon as you saw Marta’s face. She looked awful. Pale, bags under her eyes, almost like she was trembling. Poor girl.

Chancing a look at Benoit, he seemed to also be taking stock in Marta’s appearance and you made a mental note to speak with her when you were done here.

You hung back by the door as everyone crowded around the small surveillance camera. Between the two detectives, the trooper, Mara and Mr. Proffroc, well, there really wasn’t any more room. Besides, Benoit had wanted an extra set of eyes outside on the grounds, not on the cameras.

You turned to look out the window, not really wanting to be extra creepy by staring at everyone on the other side of the small room.

Mentally, you were going over all ways that someone to get onto the grounds without being seen by the camera, and there were quite a few. You did do some yard work in the woods surrounding the house, just enough to keep the ground clear of a lot of brush and to take note of any trees that looked dangerously close to tipping over for future reference. But other than that, you stuck to the inside of the grounds for your groundskeeping. You racked your brain, for the thirtieth time since last night, to see if you remembered anything that looked suspicious. Out of place. Odd.

But nothing came to mind. Granted, you were sometimes finishing up work when it was dark or near to it, especially in the winter months. But surely, if there was something, you would have seen it, like Benoit said?

A hand on your elbow made you jump and you jerked your head around to see Benoit looking at you with a furrowed brow.

“Y/N?” he asked quietly, as the others approached behind him, “Are you alright?”

You nodded. “Yes, yes, I’m fine. You just startled me is all.”

Benoit, hand still on your elbow, gently steered you outside. “You seemed deep in thought,” the detective continued as you both began walking from the guard house towards the woods across the driveway. The rest of the group followed a little way behind you.

You nodded again. “Yes, I was just thinking of all the ways someone could get onto the grounds and—”

You were interrupted by Benoit giving a loud groan. “You were trying to think of any ways you messed up any clues again, weren’t you?”

You blushed, not able to meet his eyes as you gave an embarrassed nod.

“Y/N,” he said firmly, stopping you both and turning you face him, “you did not mess anything up. I said it last night, and I’ll keep saying it until it registers in that pretty head of yours – if anyone came onto the grounds and did Harlan Thrombey in, they would have been careful. There would be no clues, no footprints, no anything for us to find. But it looks good on paper to check again. Especially with the person in charge of everything outdoors with us. Okay?”

You weren’t even able to open your mouth before Benoit continued, “Actually, no. I want you to say that you understand, alright? Say, ‘Benoit, I understand that I did not mess anything up and I will stop worrying about it.’”

You gaped at him. “What? ...Seriously?”

The man in front of you nodded, though his blues eyes were playful. “Yes. Come on: ‘Benoit, I understand that I did not mess anything up and I will stop worrying about it.’”

You blew out a breath, but a small smile played on your lips. “Benoit,” you began dutifully, “I understand that I did not mess anything up and I will stop worrying about it. …You insufferable bastard.”

Benoit barked a startled laugh and you felt a surge of pride that you could make that happen.

“Even better when you say it,” he grinned, finally letting go of your elbow and taking a step away as Detective Elliot approached.

The wink Benoit threw your way made your cheeks heat again. You looked over and saw Marta staring at you and you blushed even harder. Fabulous.

Steeling yourself, you walked over to her, a sympathetic smile on your lips.

“Marta. I’m so sorry I haven’t been checking in with you. How… I mean, are you holding up okay?”

Marta gave a short, brisk nod, clutching what looked with a video tape in her hands. “Yes, I’m fine. A little…shook up, but okay.”

You walked forward a few steps and wrapped her in a hug.

“I’m sorry about Harlan,” you murmured quietly, feeling her tremble in your arms. “If you ever need anything, you let me know, okay? Anything at all.”

As you stepped away from the hug, Marta opened her mouth, but soon shut it when Trooper Wagner yelled out to catch up.

“Yes, I—thank you. I will, (Y/N).”

With a small smile to you, not meeting your eyes, she hurried off after the three men and you slowly followed after her, watching as she fiddled with something in her hand.

You knew she was shook up – you all were. But she was still being a bit…odd. Huh.

Trekking through the woods with Benoit’s entourage was…an experience. Trooper Wagner, you found out, was a crazy fan of Harlan’s. Like…read every book and can throw book quotes out at the most random times, crazy fan. He even knew which book the statues scattered throughout the woods came from. You made the mistake of mentioning who made one of the statues and how you helped to get it into the woods and now, the man would not leave you alone. You hadn’t been quizzed this much even by the cops about Harlan’s death!

The smirks Benoit kept throwing in your direction were not helping either. You actually managed to slip and almost fall flat on your face if Trooper Wagner hadn’t caught you. You! These woods were like…your second home and you were acting like a first timer in them!

Grumbling under your breath, you slowly picked your way around another fallen log, mentally taking note of where it was. You’d have to call Sam’s Tree Service as soon as this was all solved to get it removed. You were pretty sure you still had Sam’s number taped to your fridge. Or maybe it was on Harlan’s fridge?

You grunted as you ran into someone and a warm hand steadied you from falling backwards. Benoit turned to look over his shoulder and gave another grin. “Trying to get out of walking with Trooper Wagner?” he asked lightly and you narrowed your eyes at him, though you started to smile.

“Can you pretend to question me or something, Benoit?” you asked, throwing a look over at where Wagner was currently talking to Detective Elliot. Who did not look enthused about it at all. Well, better him than you!

Benoit’s low chuckle actually reverberated into you from where you were still mostly pressed up against him and you hastily stepped away. Wasn’t that something that only happened in the movies? Or in those trashy romance novels you may or may not have stashed around your cottage?

Once you were a few steps away, Benoit turned fully to look at you. “I suppose I could.” He gestured for you to go ahead and you both resumed trekking after Marta who was actually quite far ahead, Elliot and Wagner not too far behind her.

“So, Y/N, in the spirit of pretending to question you, I couldn’t help but notice that you seem a little…preoccupied today. I didn’t keep you up too late last night, did I?”

Your eyes widened and you stumbled a bit. Oh for the love of… bring back Trooper Wagner and his questions!

“Um, no, it was fine, Benoit. And I’m good. Really. Just…this is all a bit much.”

Benoit hummed, blue eyes looking more at you than the ground, though of course, he managed not to trip or stumble just fine.

It was silent for a few minutes and you lost yourself, again, in your thoughts about the grounds and what you had seen, or not seen.

“You’re doing it again,” came the low voice from the detective beside you. You looked over at him quizzically.

“Doing what?”

“Overthinking. I see now I shouldn’t have said anything about wanting to find additional clues. I should have just said I wanted you along for your scintillating company.”

“Don’t you think I would’ve caught on if you’d just said that?”

“I don’t know – would you have?”

Well, no. You probably wouldn’t have. Benoit had been seeking out your company to ask questions he already knew the answers to, or to think through the case out loud. So, asking you along for just your company probably wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows with you.

But, you didn’t have to tell him that. So instead, you stuck your tongue out at him.

Benoit’s chuckle followed you as you both met up with Detective Elliot and Trooper Wagner. Talking about mud.

Benoit was suddenly on alert, asking everyone to stay back. All except Marta who was already at the little gate that entered the grounds from the surrounding woods. And apparently, she didn’t hear him and came traipsing back, followed in short order by Major and Hudson.

You immediately crouched down to greet the dogs as they both ran straight for you.

“Hey, boys. What are you doing out here?” you cooed, getting dog kisses in return. You looked up as Benoit approached you.

“Sorry, Benoit,” you apologized. “Someone must have let them out. The door was locked when I left.”

Your apology was waved away. “That’s fine. We were near to done out here anyway.”

“Benny,” Detective Elliot said suddenly from his side, “the will reading will be soon. Will you be attending that as well?”

You tuned out Benoit’s answer, already clucking to the dogs to have them follow you back up to the house.

You hadn’t been invited to the funeral, or to the will reading. It seems those were ‘family only’ events. And you’d be damned if you set foot in that house while the vultures resided in it. Your cottage was completely self sufficient and that’s where you’d stay until they all cleared out.

And speaking of…you had been present for Harlan’s Will when he made it. The house would go to his daughter, Linda. She would not hesitate to kick you out on your arse as soon as it was ‘officially’ hers and the police were done with everything.

Well. At least you could start to gather things while Harlan’s legacy was being divided between his greedy heirs.

“(Y/N)!” came Benoit’s shout from back by the gate. You paused where you were, halfway across the yard and waited for him to catch up.

“Are you not going to the will reading?” he asked once he was again beside you.

“Afraid not, Benoit. It’s only for the family.”

He turned to look back at Marta and you gave a small smile. “Marta has always been closer to the family than either myself or Fran. And that’s perfectly okay with me. Marta is an absolute sweetheart. Harlan was lucky to have her.”

Blue eyes looked you over carefully once more before he gave a slow nod. “Would you mind if I stopped by to talk things through with you? For some reason, I have a feeling that this is going to get only more interesting from here.”

You smiled, “You know where to find me.”

Benoit gave you his own smile, and no-your heart did not just skip three beats, before he headed off to join the rest of his entourage in heading up to the house.

With a whistle to the dogs, you headed back for the cottage.

You were looking forward to Benoit’s visit much more than you probably should.

#Knives Out Imagine #Benoit Blanc #Reader Insert #Benoit Blanc x Reader

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aro-of-artemis · 4 years ago

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i've had no love like your love (from nobody)

number three! ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28855644 Three times Julie borrows the phantoms' clothes + one time they borrow hers.

(1)

Okay. So Julie loves the studio. She does! Being in there makes her feel close to her mom. And it's where the boys hang out the most (although they'd been spending an increasing amount of time in the house now that Ray and Carlos are in the know).

But it gets so. Fucking. Cold. Especially on long winter nights. Sometimes she forgets that the studio is a glorified garage. Insulation? Never heard of her.

So it is on one such night that she finds herself there, shivering, but too stubborn and too distracted to make the journey inside to find a jumper. She's so close to finishing the lyrics to this song - she just needs to make some adjustments and then it'll be perfect. She wants to get it done before Luke and the others get home so she can show him. Them. But it's just not quite right yet.

Her concentration is rocked when a violent shiver rattles through body. With a deep, heartfelt sigh, she pushes away from her lyric book where it sits on top of the piano. Glancing around the room for any options - perhaps a blanket she can wrap around her shoulders, a stray sock, a particularly large leaf, she'll take anything - her eyes land on a puddle of pink fabric that had fallen off the side of the couch. With a quick smile, she strides over to it, pulling it on.

Alex, of course, is much taller and broader than her so it hangs down low, brushing her thighs, sleeves well and truly past her hands. She doesn't mind being so completely swallowed by the fabric though, because it's warm and it's been softened by age and wear. And it smells like Alex. Like laundry detergent and the beach and just a little bit of sweat. So she pulls the hood up around her face, containing her fraying braids.

She breathes in and out, revelling in the comfort it brings. The muscles of her shoulders, which had been tensed in concentration, relax. After a couple more breaths she sticks the tips of her fingers out of the sleeves - just enough to be functional.

She returns to the piano to continue her work. As she looks over at what she'd written, suddenly words fall into place. She begins scribbling furiously, new fire in her bones.

When the boys return, they are greeted by what appears to be a shapeless pink blob sitting on the piano bench and slumped against the lid. The only discernible feature is a mass of frizzy hair peeking out of the hood. Luke and Reggie snicker a little at the sight but Alex feels his heart swell to press at his ribs.

Moving towards her, he looks over his shoulder and jerks his head towards the couch. But the boys already know. They're folding it out into a bed. None of them want to disturb Julie if she's sleeping peacefully so it had become an unspoken agreement that she could just stay the night in the studio with them if that was where she happened to fall asleep.

Alex approaches Julie. Gently, he gathers her into his arms, manoeuvring her into a bridal carry, settling her head against his chest. She snuffles a bit but doesn't wake.

Slowly, he lowers her down onto the pull-out where Luke and Reggie have already laid themselves out. Julie stirs and rolls over to wrap her arms over Reggie's torso and rest her head on his stomach. Luke watches with a fond smile as Alex wiggles himself in place between Julie's other side and Luke. Alex places an easy hand on Julie's head (because he knows she finds it comforting) while Luke snakes his arm over Alex's waist to best use a space that was intended to only accommodate two but now is asked to fit four.

None of them mind being squished together. Julie sleeps peacefully until morning.

(2)

Julie is sad. A deep, aching sadness that made a home in her a long time ago. There are days that are better, where it doesn't hurt so much, the ache dulled, just barely pushing it's cold past the edges of her bones into the sinew and muscle. But some days it feels all-consuming. World-shattering. Some days she is struck anew with this paralysing grief. The feeling that nothing will ever be okay again.

Some days happen less often in recent times. Her phantoms, her boys, her family - they help. They can't rid her of the hurt and she wouldn't want them to. She never wants to not keenly feel the empty space where her mom used to be. She doesn't want to forget her. But the boys. They help that constant awareness to be filled by sweet remembering rather than bitter longing. But the bitter longing will always be there.

So sad doesn't quite encompass what she's feeling but it's a linguistic shortcut to express all of these things that she can't verbalise.

On this particular some day, Julie is sitting on the couch (Luke's couch) in her mama's studio, knees under chin. Her face feels numb. It's wet with absentminded tears - grief made manifest.

The cool stillness is broken by a ray of sunshine who calls out, "Julie?"

Reggie. Reggie is here, making the studio a bit brighter, a bit warmer. He turns around a little until he spots Julie, huddled as she is. "Julie! Are you all right?"

He rushes over to her, stopping short of actually touching her. Julie follows him with her eyes, unable to move any other part of her body.

"You're shivering." His voice is gentle.

"Am I?" Julie whispers.

"Yes," Reggie's eyebrows furrow together. "Are you cold?"

Julie shrugs. She's truly not sure.

"I - hang on." Quickly, he pulls his arms out of the sleeves of his leather jacket before draping it over her shoulders, bringing it around to her chin.

As the warmth of the jacket - Reggie's body heat - settles around her, she realises how chilled she had felt. She draws in a long, deep breath, feeling the comfort of his smell and his big-brotherly presence settle around her, anchoring the jacket to her shoulders.

"Thank you, Reggie." Her voice is earnest and she finally turns her head to look at him.

He smiles just a little, creasing his ruddy cheeks. "Of course, Julie."

Julie moves closer to him, leaning her head against his collarbone. His arms come up automatically now that he'd been given permission. He pulls her in tight to his chest, rocking her slightly, humming a low, soothing tune.

Julie isn't okay. But she will be. In the meantime, her bones feel a bit warmer. And if she wears Reggie's jacket for the rest of the day, no one mentions it.

(3)

Just her fucking luck. Here she is, stuck in the school bathroom scrubbing lasagne out of her white shirt cause some kid wasn't watching where they were going. And Flynn isn't even here to help her 'cause she went and caught a cold.

She lets out a long, noisy sigh that is abruptly cut off when Luke poofs in beside her.

"Luke!" Her voice comes out as an undignified squeak and she quickly reigns it in as she darts her eyes around to check that all the stalls are unoccupied. Satisfied that they're alone, she returns her attention to the intruding ghost.

"You can't be here! This is the girls' bathroom."

"I - sorry I didn't mean t-- Julie, what happened to your shirt?" His eyebrows tugged together, giving him a puppy-like expression that Julie finds far too charming.

She looked down at her shirt, still covered in oil and tomato stains that are setting by the minute. Another long sigh leaves her mouth, leeching out some of her anxious frustration, leaving her feeling deflated. "This kid tripped over their own feet and spilt their lunch all over me."

"Are you okay?" His voice is gentle, concerned.

She shrugs back. "Yeah. Nothing's bruised except my ego. And maybe that kid's face where they hit the deck."

Luke's face relaxes a bit, eyes now dancing with mirth.

"Don't laugh! I don't have anything else to wear!"

"I'm not laughing!" he defends. "But, c'mon. You have to admit it's kinda funny."

Julie softens a bit. "Fine," she relents, "It's kinda funny. But that doesn't solve my problem!"

Luke nods very seriously, a thoughtful expression coming over his face. And then his expression clears, a small excited smile curling the corners of his lips. The kind of smile he gets when he solves a problem and he's proud of himself: toothy and bright. It's endearing.

"Here," he says, tugging his flannel off, leaving him in just his sleeveless tee. "You can wear this."

Julie looks at the proffered shirt for a moment. She feels some small but insistent something poking against the walls of her chest. "Th-thanks, Luke. You don't have to-"

"I want to," he interrupts. "I can't let you walk around covered in lunch. Besides, if you change into my shirt I can take yours home with me to soak the stain."

"I-," she's not quite sure what to say. So she settles on, "Thanks." A tender smile graces her lips. "Turn around then," she adds. "I'm not gonna get changed with you watching."

As soon as the words leave her mouth her cheeks begin to blaze with the unintended implications of her statement. Luke coughs awkwardly, cheeks a bit more rosy than usual, and quickly spins around.

As she quickly swaps shirts, buttoning up Luke's baggy flannel, she watches as his head tilts back and forth, studying the bathroom tiles on the wall with rapt attention and drumming his fingers against his legs.

"Okay. You can turn around now."

Luke turns to face her and smiles giddily at the way the sleeves fall past her fingertips and the hem settles just above her knees.

"It's a little big on you."

Julie scowls back at him good-naturedly. "I know. Just give me a sec."

He watches in fascination as Julie gathers up and knots the front corners of the shirt so it sits neatly at the top of her jeans. Then she starts trying to roll up the sleeves. Trying being the operative word. But it's a challenge because they're just so damn long.

"Here, let me," he interrupts, stepping into her space. She sucks in a breath.

"Oh. Um, sure." She holds out her arms to him and he begins rolling them up to a decent length, taking the time to make sure they're matching. She feels overwhelmed at the gentle brush of his fingers as they travel up her forearms. The contact sends shivering jolts of electricity along her skin as if a circuit had been completed, allowing energy to move freely between the undefinable start and the infinite end. She feels like she's about to vibrate out of her own skin.

"Good?" he checks once he's finished. His voice is low and soft.

Julie nods mutely.

He takes a step back to size her up and nods appreciatively. "Not too shabby, Jules."

"Um. Thanks!" she squeaks (again) - God, get it together, Molina - and looks at herself in the mirror.

Something about wearing Luke's flannel - skin-warmed and worn in, smelling like him - makes her feel safe and protected and cared for. Like he himself is draped across her shoulders and wrapping around her torso. Also, she looks good in it. Like it was made for her.

"It suits you." Luke interrupts her thoughts as he comes up behind her. They lock eyes through the mirror and Luke's curling smile returns, his eyes auroral.

"Yeah," she says. "It does."

The end-of-lunch bell trills harshly in her ear. Luke steps back, clearing his throat. "Cool. I'll - um -," he picks up the stained shirt, "I'll get this one home to soak."

"Thank you, Luke. I really appreciate it." Her chest feels pumped with helium.

He nods a little, smiling and looking up at her through his lashes. And poofs away.

(+1)

Julie hums contentedly as she toes off her shoes and drops her school bag on her bed. It had been a long, sweaty day at school to top off a long, sweaty week, the California heat having shown up with a vengeance.

She makes her way down to the studio, feeling lighter with the knowledge that she has the whole weekend ahead of her.

The heavy doors to the studio open at her urging. She breathes in deeply the green smell of plants and the metallic tang of guitar strings. And then stops. Blinks slowly and squints her eyes, trying to make sense of what's in front of her.

"Oh, hey, Julie!" Reggie greets her from his spot on the couch. He's leaning forward over a cross-legged Alex, who is seated on the ground, carefully twisting the long hair at the top of his head into braids. And Luke is sitting next to them, guitar across his lap, strumming it quietly. But none of this is what stops her in her tracks.

Alex is wearing what appears to be a mesh tie-dye top, Reggie's top proclaims that It was all a dream, and Luke's blue t-shirt is covered in familiar swirls of white. Those are her shirts. Her crop tops. Her eyes quickly skate across Alex and Reggie's stomachs but are quickly pulled away when Luke stands up, placing his guitar to the side.

"Julie! You're home!" Luke exclaims, a puppy dog smile across his face.

"You-You're." She can't quite get words out. The sight of his bared stomach has set her heart to stuttering in 6/8 time, a drumbeat that echoes through her skull.

She realises that her mouth has been hanging open. She snaps it shut.

"You're wearing my clothes." She's addressing all three of them but she's looking at Luke. Her eyes keep flicking down and then back up to his face. She can't help it. She would stop if she could. Luke definitely notices because his smile turns mischievous.

Alex speaks up, a concerned look on his face. "Yeah. I hope that's alright. It's just that it was really warm and we didn't really have anything to wear and-"

"Alex," Julie interrupts, finally coming to her senses and looking away from Luke, "It's fine. I was just surprised. Besides it's not like I haven't borrowed your clothes before."

"Exactly what I said!" Reggie exclaimed. His voice turns a bit milder now though, "And we all really missed you 'cause you've been so busy with school this week so…"

Julie feels tears spring to her eyes and she quickly scrubs them away. "I've missed you guys, too, Reg."

She looks across each of them, making sure not to dwell too long on Luke who's still standing, fiddling with the hem of his (her) shirt. An idea hits her and her eyebrows wiggle teasingly at them.

"Well, in the name of sharing and caring…" She walks across the room to where the boys keep their clothes. She picks up one of Luke's sleeveless t-shirts. Turning her back to them, she quickly exchanges her shirt for his, breathing a sigh of relief as the cool fabric settles around her.

When she turns back around she finds that Luke's mouth is hanging open slightly as if he simply forgot to close it. Alex and Reggie are grinning at him. If not for the way they are positioned it's clear that they would be exchanging knowing looks.

"What?" she shrugs, playing innocent but feeling vindicated.

Luke shakes his head jerkily. "N-nothing. I- nothing." He averts his eyes to the ground but his whole face is red and Julie is delighted to notice that it extends down his neck, under his shirt to his stomach. She presses her lips together to keep a hysterical laugh from bubbling out of her throat unbidden. Her eyes are stuck on Luke again.

Luke looks up at her and his eyes catch on hers. And oh, his eyes. If you asked her, she wouldn't quite be able to tell you the colour of them, despite the amount of time she'd spent looking into them over a microphone or a lyric book. Sometimes green, sometimes blue. Right now, wearing her shirt, they're a dazzling, drowning blue.

Reggie breaks the silence. "All done!" He ties off the end of Alex's second braid and pats the top of his head gently.

"Thanks, Reg," Alex says lightly, drawing Julie's attention. She's impressed with how well Reggie's done.

"Wow, Reg. Where did you learn to braid like that?"

He shrugs a little half-heartedly but his mouth is pulled into a bittersweet curve. "I used to braid my little sister's hair."

Julie nods, giving him a sympathetic look. A beat. "Can you do mine next?"

Reggie's smile broadens into something entirely sweet, the bitterness done away with. "Of course!"

And so Alex shuffles over so that she can take his spot cross-legged and leaning against Reggie's knees. Alex settles himself so that his back is against the cool concrete floor and his head is in Julie's lap. She starts scratching her nails through the short pieces of hair that didn’t make it into the braid.

Luke is still standing where he'd greeted Julie (although this is perhaps a generous term because anyone who knows Luke knows that staying still is not a skill of his and what he does when upright should not be classified as merely standing. Perhaps a better term would be wobbling. Or jittering.)

"C'm'ere," she says, patting the ground to the other side of her. Luke practically trips over himself to do as he's told. He sits next to her, stretching his legs out long, pressing his thigh against Julie's.

She places the hand that isn't occupied with Alex's hair atop her thigh, palm up, wiggling her fingers a little. She doesn't look at him but she's trying not to make life harder for Reggie whose tugging on her hair is ginger and slow.

But Luke seems to get the message. He links their hands together pulling them into his lap. Julie feels him trace a fingertip over each of her nails, brushing across the back of her hand, tugging on the ends of her bracelets. He holds her hand as if it contains the entire universe.

Here, connected to each of her boys, she feels safe. Each point of contact feels like a lifeline she hadn't known she needed.

"I love you guys."

And she does. She really, really does.

#jatp #julie and the phantoms #fic #fanfiction #my fic #jatp fic #boys in crop tops

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buckyshenley16 · 4 years ago

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The Tales Of The Winter Soldeir and Winter Witch

Book1, Chapter 1

3 Years before Bucky was drafted

February 5th, 1940

Ramona’s POV

Putting my stacks of paperwork on my desk ready for tomorrow as my work day comes to an end, I find myself sighing in relief after a long day of again getting nowhere with the ‘Jeweler Case.’ It seems to be a never-ending case as this is our second week trying to solve the jewelry store robbery and who did what and when, why, and so on.

“Lover boy is on the phone Ramona.” Peggy gloats with a smug grin on her face purposely making sure the speaker was not covered.

“Like I’ve told you almost a hundred times Carter, he is not my lover boy.” I exclaim emphasizing the word ‘not’ with an eye roll and taking the phone off her. “Why hello Buck, what would you be calling to ask the 3rd time today?” I ask with a slight chuckle whilst throwing a rubber at Peggy who is winking at me.

“Just checking before I leave to walk you home doll, did you bring a jacket today? It’s freezing outside and I can see your jacket still hung up, would hate for ya to catch a cold especially when you live with someone with an immune system like Steve.” Bucky says, his Brooklyn drawl being clearer than ever.

“You know, I do have more than one coat Buck?” I ask. “Just checking Mona, I didn’t walk you today so I didn’t see what you left in. Just seen what you woke up in or should I say what you didn’t wake up in.” Bucky asks with a hint of flirting and a hint of cockiness in his voice.

“Yes, and if you carry on with your Mr, big ego act that’ll be the last time you see that, Barnes.” I retort.

“Okay we both know that’s not the truth. Anyway, I’m bouta leave doll, will be there in half an hour, will wait in the usual spot.”

“Not true but okay, see you soon Buck” I say trying not to drop the phone from between my ear and shoulder whilst locking my cabinets. “See you soon, darlin'.” Bucky finishes before putting the phone down.

Bucky and I had known each other since being 6 and 9 being introduced by our friend Steve. Steve had been like a big brother growing up, Sarah being nothing but welcoming to my family when we fled to Brooklyn from Russia. Sarah and my mother would both take turns between childcare; me, my three younger sisters and brother being at the Rogers’ every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and half the day Sunday whilst mother would go to work at the laundry where Sarah also worked.

And obviously Steve would be at our house every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Every Sunday we would have dinner at the Rogers’ with our mother. Our father stayed in Russia with mother wanting to flee a situation I wasn’t told about until I was old enough to understand. Father was abusive and an alcoholic and had a job mother didn’t agree with, but we were never told what that job entailed and whilst I found myself wondering every so often, curiosity never killed the cat and I was enormously proud of that.

Bucky, Steve, and I were best friends growing up with Bucky and Steve being stupidly overprotective of me even when I became a fully trained agent and officially full time at SSR. My mother never 100% agreed with my job and whilst Bucky and Steve questioned it at first for my safety, but once they realised I could handle myself (after witnessing me defend myself against a couple of not so nice men who got a bit too close for my comfort) they were 100% supportive of my job, especially Bucky with one less person to save from the allies and one more person to help when Steve found himself on the not so nice ends of the alleys face first into the trash cans.

It was around 18 years old I'd started developing feelings for Bucky, not that I’d never admit it to him, I was far too proud and full of denial for that because he would never go for a girl like myself; at least that’s what I thought until I found myself intertwined in his sheets with his body wrapped around mine after one passionate, unexpected night a year later.

This went from happening every few weeks, to every two weeks, to maybe once a week to every few nights and I’m still in denial that he would ever want to make things official.

I question whether I want to become his girl, especially with my line of work and seeing my parent’s relationship be the bane of their lives when I was younger. All I’ve ever seen is relationships fail and that is why I refuse to put myself through the pain of one. I care about Bucky, he’s the one person who no matter how rotten the day be I’m guaranteed to have a smile on my face when I see him.

When Sarah died both mine and Bucky's families became close ensuring two big family units to support Steve and even a year and a half after she passed; me, Bucky and Steve got a shared apartment together. Sure, it was no five stars, but it was home and as long as the three of us had each other that was all that mattered. Steve was aware of mine and Bucky's “situation” but chose not to get involved.

Stuck in my own little world I'd not realised half an hour had passed and Bucky would be waiting for me so after grabbing my coat and bag I made sure to say bye to Peggy and arrange coffee and breakfast before work tomorrow morning where we could discuss some of the cases privately, seen as though we knew we were massively undermined at SSR we got a lot of thinking and solving done mostly when we were alone together where no male could underestimate or interrupt us.

Walking down out of the doors I spotted Bucky with a glowing grin on his face, it took everything to keep my footing steady. “Hello, beautiful. How would you feel about hot chocolate and dinner on me at our spot?” Bucky asked holding his arm out to me which I gladly took.

“Gee buck, almost sounds like you’re asking me on a date!” I tease earning a nudge to my side causing a fit of laughter.

“One day doll, I’ve already asked several times but one day I will get a yes out of ya.” Bucky retorted.

“I’ll hold you to that Buck, how was your day?” I asked clinging to his arm.

“The usual, woke up to a fine dame next to me, crappy coffee, got to work. Left work, pulled Steve out of an ally, nagged Steve how he’s not ten men and should think before he acts, walked the little punk back to the apartment, read the paper and now I'm here to pick up you. How bout you doll?” Bucky explains with a hint of sarcasm.

“Same old, really strugglin’ with this case I just can’t seem to understand how a whole jewelry store could be robbed without even a fingerprint left behind nor how someone could even get a hold of that damn gas. How many men was it today? Did you or Steve get hurt?” you ask with a sigh giving Bucky's arm a reassuring squeeze.

“Hey Mona, don’t worry too much about it, we both know you’ll get to the bottom of it like always and I’m sure whoever’s guilty will regret it when they have to face the bottom of your shoe. Two guys, managed to reason with them after giving one a right hook.” he winked.

“Oh, I know I will, thanks Buck I can always rely on you for some good old confidence boosting. I give up telling the jackass he’s gotta stop this, I may as well be talking to a brick wall!” I finish with a chuckle. As we walk into the bright, retro diner Bucky holds the door open for me before guiding us both to a booth. As we take our coats off a waitress comes to us.

“Well would ya look who it is, only our two favorites! Where’s Rogers tonight?” Our waitress Nancy asks.

“Probably at home bathing his black eye, sulking about his fight whilst planning his next one.” I exclaim earning a laugh from both Bucky and Nancy.

“I don’t even gotta ask, usual for you two?” Nancy asks pointing between us both with her pen.

“Of course!” Bucky says with a grin

“That’s two hot chocolates and a portion of fries coming up!” Nancy exclaims.

“Thanks, Nance!” we both call.

Me, Bucky and Steve have been coming to this diner since we were in school. Their hot chocolates were practically the glue to our friendships. As I looked up from my hands, I spotted Bucky looking at me with a smile on his face. “What’s got you all smiley?” I ask with a grin.

“Just you!” Bucky exclaims grin turning wider.

“Are you purposely trying to make me blush?” I ask with a chuckle feeling warmth go to my face praying my blusher somewhat cancels the blushing.

“Always doll, I just like to make ya blush and to know I’ve still got it.” Bucky explains with a cocky smirk. Damn you and your godly smile Barnes!

“Glad my embarrassment gives you an even bigger ego boost Buck!” I laugh before our food and drinks get set down and we start tucking in.

*An hour later, on the way home from diner*

“Thank you for that Buck, it was fun. Was nice to be sat anywhere but that office.” I explain.

“S’alright doll, anything to put a smile on your face. I wanted to actually talk to you. This, us been goin' on a little while too long now.” Bucky stopped walking and turned me to face him taking both my hands in his.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” I ask feeling my heart rip into two.

“Yeah, doll.” he grins.

“Oh okay, no I totally get it Buck we’re kinda not going anywhere and I’m really not ready to put myself into a relationship right now and you wanna move on or you’ve already found a girl. I get it, no hard feelings.” I say holding back the tears.

“Woah doll, no no! You’re completely taking it the wrong way. Mona, I like you, scratch that I’m crazy bout you. I understand you don’t wanna take this further just yet, but I can wait,” he says cupping my face in his hands looking into my eyes.

“Buck, I appreciate that so much but there’s so many better girls throwing themselves at you and you’re going to waste them just to wait for me? I could make you wait years and I wouldn’t want that.” I explain placing my hands over his.

“I don’t want them other girls, I want you. You’re the most beautiful, loyal, caring, and bad ass girl I’ve ever met. I will wait as long as you want me to if it means I can have you. Just please tell me you feel the same.” he begs his eyes searching my face for any sign of feeling the same.

“I do Buck, I have for a while.” I admit a small smile making its way to my lips. Bucky gently strokes his thumb across my bottom lip before pulling me in for a sweet, loving kiss. It was suddenly like it was just the pair of us that existed, nobody mattering in that moment but us two. Bucky pulled away keeping his hands on my face, placing his forehead against mine. “I got you, doll” he says before pulling me into his chest resting his chin on my head, wrapping his arms around my shoulders tightly; sighing contently.

“I got you too, Buck.” I reply wrapping my arms around his waist and smiling contently to myself.

“Let’s get home to the punk before he can’t help but lead himself to another alley huh.” Bucky says whilst linking our arms together and directing us both out of the park.

“We should probably check the alleys on our way back Buck.” I suggest

“Glad we're on the same page doll.” Bucky chuckles.

So, It’s the first of many chapters🤩 I’m so so excited!! Just wanted to give a shout out to @i-write-bucky and @jbarness for proof reading this for me!! Angels🤩❤️

#james buchanan bucky barnes #sebastianstan #the winter solider fanfiction #beefy bucky #bucky barnes #bucky x baby #buckybarnes x reader #seb stan imagine #avengers #bucky barnes smut #catfa #peggy carter #agent carter #buckybarnesfluff #fanfic #winter solider fanfiction

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tonystarkbingo · 4 years ago

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3 Prompt Summaries

Ransom Note, Royalty and Lending a Hand - suggested by @polizwrites

@rebelmeg - what do you get when you combine elite royalty, a mob boss with a reputation for being ruthless, and a ransom note that tells them both that their child is being held hostage? well... nothing good, that's for sure, because this team-up is going to be the stuff of legends.

@deehellcat - Prince Tony is promised in marriage to King Obadiah of a neighboring realm so their lands can be merged, but marrying that creepy old man is the last thing he wants to do. he confides in his best friend and bodyguard Sir James Rhodes who pledges to lend him a hand, Rhodey pens a fake ransom note that the prince has been kidnapped then helps him sneak out of the castle in disguise.

@somesortofitalianroast - Prince Steven of Brooklyn should have known it was a bad idea when he decided to tour Philadelphia by himself. At night. By the Schuylkill. Yeah, it wasn’t his best idea. He also should have known that the Family that still [still!] ran Philadelphia would send a ransom note to his family. And he should have known that the Duchy of Brooklyn had an inside man who was happy to lend a hand.

@27dragons - Barnes doesn't generally work kidnappings -- he's a homicide detective, so if they're calling him in on a kidnapping, it's because something went terribly wrong. But when Prince Tony is kidnapped off the street in broad daylight by a crew leaving no clues whatsoever other than an encoded ransom note, Chief Fury told him to get over there and lend a hand. The problem is, the note seems to suggest that the kidnapper... is Barnes himself.

@celtic7irish - We have your prince. Four words on a ransom note with no ransom demands. James sighed. The royalty around here caused him no end of grief. He turned to his best friend and Captain of the Guard. “It’s him again. Want to lend me a hand on this one?” Steve grinned, fierce and proud. “When do we start?”

@polizwrites - When Tony disappears leaving only a couple of face cards from his favorite deck laid out on his desk, Jim thinks it’s a joke - that is until Mr. Stark gets a ransom note. And as much as he despises Tony’s dad - Jim knows he has to help.

@Magicadraconia16 - When he complained to his Captain of the Guard that he really needed a break from his princely duties - and Howard - he wasn't expecting to end up staring at a random note . . . for himself.

@rise-up-ting-ting-like-glitter - Ransom Note, Royalty, Lending a hand In sickness and in health. That was the promise. Tony hadn't meant to break it. He certainly hadn't meant to wish Bucky away. Now he's got a ransom note sent by some 'Goblin King' and ragtag troupe of labyrynth dwellers willing to lend their hands...and sometimes paws.

@jacarandabanyan - Royalty AU, Prince Anthony Stark is kidnapped! His parents are searching the realm for him, and offering high prizes to anyone who can return him to them safely. The only clue they have is a ransom note written in Tony's own handwriting, and a claim from a servant that the Prince was seen approaching a rough dubious-looking man with one arm with a request that the man 'lend him a hand' getting out of a marriage contract…

Keep reading for more!

Sunflowers, Starlight and Lollipops - suggested by @magicadraconia16

@polizwrites - Morgan was never quite sure whether her father had made up that lullaby, or if it was something that someone had sung to him as a child, but it was a tune she still hummed to herself whenever she was feeling sad or lonely.

@celtic7irish - Tony had no idea where he was, trapped on an alien planet and lost in some sort of flower field, but with no flowers he’d ever seen before. He was pretty sure those were sunflowers, but they were sparkling in the starlight, making the whole field light up like it was coated in fireflies. Checking around in his pockets, Tony sighed as he pulled out one of Morgan’s lollipops and popped it into his mouth. “Great. Let’s go find the fairies and see if they can get me back home,” he muttered, striding off across the field.

@rebelmeg - art summary - stark family lying out under the stars in a field, sunflowers bobbing over their heads, and probably holding big colorful carnival lollipops because i've got no better idea + @newnewyorker93 - that, but daytime and they're looking at clouds, one of them is definitively lollipop-shaped

@somesortofitalianroast - It was the weirdest offering Tony had ever seen on his desk. A bouquet of sunflowers, a copy of Muse’s Starlight, and a bag of Dum Dum lollipops. There wasn’t even a card to explain who it was from, or who it was too. Huh. Maybe Pepper had put the items there and forgotten about them…

@27dragons - It's late by the time Tony gets home from work -- so late it's early -- and he's exhausted beyond belief. He navigates the house by the starlight coming through the windows and hopes desperately he won't wake anyone. He just wants to sneak into bed and curl up against his spouse for whatever few hours remain of the night. But he has to stop when he gets to the living room, where a lamp has been left on, shining on a carefully-arranged bouquet of sunflowers, Tony's favorite. Stuck in between the flowers are a handful of lollipops, proving that more than one person had a hand in this. The note says, "Cleared it with Pepper, you have tomorrow off. Come to bed." Tony's family is the best. [There, managed to write it so it can be whatever ship you want.]

@jacarandabanyan - One of Tony's less-publicized hobbies is funding off-the-wall science proposals made in jest at scientific conferences. The more outrageous the project, the more willing he is to pitch in money, supplies, networking help, etc. This time, he's even agreed to do the research himself. Which is how he found himself up on the moon of an unfamiliar planet in an unfamiliar galaxy, studying botany papers and trying to find what happens when you grow sunflowers by the light of a different star than Earth's sun. As ways to avoid the press and the Board go, it's original at least. Two months into his experiment, two little girls claiming to be "daughters of Thanos" pay him a rather menacing visit. He offers them a lollipop.

@rise-up-ting-ting-like-glitter - Once a decade, under the light of the full moon, and across the three dark nights of the winter solstice, the Starlight games are hosted. Sunflower has won the last four games running, but that was before Lollipop had Bucky fighting for them. This round they're out for nectar and Bucky intends to be MVP. Of course, the prize this year was extra sweet: a kiss from Starlight prince Tony-and a chance to win his hand.

@deehellcat - the last thing Morgan remembers is her mommy screaming as the car careened off the road and crashed. she sits up and looks around but she isn't in the city anymore, instead in a grassy field. a man comes toward her, a man she recognizes, and she runs into his arms yelling DADDY. they go for a walk thru a field of tall sunflowers (he says they're his favorite) and up a hill, they lie in the grass sucking on lollipops and looking at the stars. then he kisses her & tells her to give her mommy his love, before the world around her fades and she finds herself waking up in a hospital with Pepper hovering over her.

@summerpipedream - "What's this?" The book was frayed at the edges, but had a beautiful sunflower on the cover, a lolipop sticker on the edge. "Ana's cookbook," said Jarvis. "With all your favourite recipes as a child. " Now that omega Tony is expecting, and forced into bedrest by the doctor and his worried mate Steve, Tony vows to learn how to cook, one recipe at a time.

Hallmark, magic, and brunch - @somesortofitalianroast

@somesortofitalianroast - It’s not like Tony was expecting his Sunday brunch to be something out of a Hallmark movie, but he could have done without his fairy godmother showing up and telling him that he was the sole heir to a magical kingdom and it was time for him to claim his throne.

@polizwrites - Tony knows how to conjure up exquisite dishes with the wave of a wand; but to prove he truly loves his partners, he makes them a meal from scratch. It’s not his fault he really, really likes cinnamon…

@summerpipedream - "Nat, how the hell are pancakes supposed to solve anything?" Natasha rolled her eyes and tapped on the sign behind the counter. "Pancakes solve everything." Bucky glared. "You literally just put that up." Natasha waved her wand with a flourish. "And if I did? Eat up Barnes. Your destiny is about to walk through that door." Bucky was about to complain, but then the bell to the diner rang. Tony Stark walked through the door.

@27dragons - This isn't some sappy Hallmark movie. Bucky knows that. He's not expecting some magical force to make Tony fall in love with him, really. But he's going to try, anyway. Starting with brunch.

@rebelmeg - "tony... these are the most flawless eggs i've ever seen. how did you do that?" he grinned to himself as he slid the two perfect sunny-side-up eggs onto the waiting plate. "just magic." rhodey was watching from the table, a smirk on his face. "yeah, that or the hallmark movie you watched last week that made you cry." rhodey kind figured he deserved the piece of toast that tony threw at him.

@newnewyorker93 - Unfortunately for Stephen Strange there isn't a Hallmark card that quite covers apologizing for ruining brunch with Tony when a chaotic interdimensional beastie follows him through his portal (next time he'll take the subway)

@celtic7irish - Stephen glared at the man standing next to him. “What makes you think I can just I this away?” he demanded sarcastically. Tony shrugged, trying to hide a shiver. He wasn't dressed for this weather. “I don’t know. I mean, we were just supposed to be having brunch, and now we’re in some sort of freaking Hallmark Christmas thing, and I’m pretty sure that magic caused it. Because it definitely isn’t science.” He grimaced; Tony hated admitting that things like magic even existed, but when one had the Sorcerer Supreme for a boyfriend, one learned to accept that magic was probably real. Stephen sighed, summoning a portal to the Mirror Dimension. “Well, at least our first anniversary date isn’t boring.” Tony glared.

candlelight, window, vampire - suggested by @rebelmeg

@celtic7irish - The slender figure standing in the window, his profile lit only by the flickering candlelight, turned to look at him, and James shivered. So this was Anthony, rumored vampire and lord of the castle. And James' new patron.

@somesortofitalianroast - They’d all heard the rumors: an honest-to-god Vampire had set up in a moldering castle in Transylvania and was passing himself off as Dracula. After several sets of negotiations, Steve was chosen to go and check out the rumors. He was expecting… Well, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but he certainly wasn’t expecting to see the most beautiful man he’d ever seen through the window, shaving by candlelight.

@27dragons - Bucky was starting to get a handle on this whole vampire gig. He'd figured out the best ways to hide from the sun, how to hide the death-pallor of his skin with candlelight, how to mask the scent of blood on his breath with wine. What he hadn't figured out was what to do about the stunningly beautiful man who was currently climbing through his window.

@rebelmeg - it had practically been a challenge, and Tony never backed down from a challenge. The whole world at large had managed to make vampires unsexy for pepper, but danged if he wouldn’t manage it before the night was through. The candles by the window had been placed strategically, putting a soft golden glow over the two of them as they looked at their reflections in the glass.

“Okay, tip your head back on my shoulder. A little more. Just like that. Now look.” tony saw it on her face when she saw them, framed in the window, his hand resting delicately on her jaw as he lowered his mouth to her throat.

“You win,” she said around a bit of a gasp, her pupils dilating as her heartbeat skyrocketed. “You as a vampire would definitely be sexy.”

With a pleased hum, tony gave her a playful nip. Just a little one.

@summerpipedream - You have 3 new messages. Press one to playback.

"Hey Tony, it's Steve. I'm sorry to interrupt your honeymoon with Bucky, but uh- do you remember Count Dracula lookalike last month? The guy who tried to take over the city? Well he's sent some sort of wedding gift to the tower. It's uh- hanging out the window. Hold on-"

"Hey Tony. It's Steve again. Uh any chance you know where the spare candles are? That's stupid why would the tower have candles- never mind."

"NEVER MIND. IT'S BAD. WE"RE RUNNING. DON'T COME BACK TO THE TOWER-"

End of new messages

@gavilansblog - Tony stared at the candle on the windowsill. Or rather, squinted. "What were you thinking?" He demanded, slurring around his fake vampire teeth. "How is this supposed to look like a haunted house when the lights are making it bright as day in here?" Bucky winced. "How was I supposed to know they even made 1000 watt candle shaped bulbs?" (Brought to you by the conversation I was having just now with a friend whose brother made this mistake)

@Magicadraconia16 - "Leave a candle in the window," they said. A load of superstitious old nonsense, if you asked Tony. As if he's really going to leave an old-fashioned burning candle in the window where Dum-E could knock it over (although, that would give him an opportunity to use his brand new fire extinguisher...) It was just a shame that nobody mentioned that the candles weren't to scare the vampire off - they were to feed the light-vampire, and without it... well, the next nearest source in Tony's house just so happens to be his arc reactor.

@polizwrites - As a creature of the night the warm glow of the candle on the windowsill was a bittersweet reminder of the world he’d never see again. “I’m sorry, my love.” James reached out as if to snuff the flame, but Anthony stayed his hand. “No need to apologize, dear one.”

Cats, Sandwich, Chaos - suggested by @celtic7irish

@somesortofitalianroast - Very little had changed since Steve had brought Bucky in from the cold. Except the lunch meat disappeared from the fridge at a rate that not even JARVIS could explain. And that Bucky brought a cat with him. It was a small, white thing that loved Tony’s workshop and loved the bots. It caused more chaos than something that only weight five pounds should have been able to cause, and it loved his sandwiches.

@celtic7irish - Tony stared at the chaos in his living room; overturned tables, toppled lamps, and were those claw marks on his drapes? “What the-?” Tony trailed off, his voice faint, sandwich halfway to his mouth. “Daddy!” Morgan squealed, her eyes wide and face innocent as she held a squirming, wriggling bundle in her arms. A moment later, a small kitten stuck its head out of the blanket, meowing pitifully. “Can we keep her?”

@27dragons - Tony likes to think he takes a lot of weird things in stride, as an Avenger. Magic? Sure. Random visitations from a god of chaos? Old hat, these days. Insane robots and/or aliens trying to take over the city? No problem. But he had to admit, even he was having trouble maintaining his calm in the face of a trio of superheroes sitting at the kitchen table, eating sandwiches and sporting cat ears. Real ones. Oh, and tails. Yeah, he's... going back to bed.

@rebelmeg - “BUCKY!”

“What?”

“Your cat stole my sandwich again!”

Bucky watched as alpine skidded around the corner and dove under the couch, tony’s beloved 3-bacon sandwich clamped tight in his jaws.

“Yup. he sure did. Why do you keep leaving it out?”

“IT WAS IN MY HAND!”

Just another tuesday...

#tonystarkbingomarkiv #tsbmiv #tsb discord party #3 prompt summaries game

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doritopaw101 · 4 years ago

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Arc1, book 2: Chapter 5

It had been a whole half-moon since that day. Things had been eventful to say the least.

Riverclan as expected called out Splashsong's murder and Bluestar defended Graypaw saying it was an accident, leaving out why Thunderclan cats were there in the first place of course.

Brokenstar had been quiet throughout Bluestar's hissing match with Leopardclaw. The golden molly demanded blood but Willowpelt nearly tore her throat for demanded her son's death. "The only thing you'll get from Thunderclan is fox dung" Willowpelt had snarled "This death is your fault not Graypaw's"

He had to corner Whiteclaw to tell him what happened to Silverpaw and Silverstream. Silverpaw has recovering, his eye will heal, not the best but he'll be able to use it.

When Windclan showed up, Brokenstar looked like he was going to rip Duskstar's throat out. When Brokenstar asked what they were doing back here Bluestar cut in and said.

"Starclan sent an omen and said Windclan would return right?"

Duskstar and Stormstar agreed with her words, it was a wise choice. Brokenstar was furious but Palecloud said that he had the omen but didn't say anything. Brokenstar basically called the gathering over and left in a huff.

He heard from Weaselwhisker that Shadowclan tried scaring off Windclan again but Duskstar wasn't going be driven out again and they won the fight. Luna wasn't fully convinced with clan life but she said she would stay til her kits, Marblekit and Thornkit become warriors, she held the name Moonclaw for the time being.

Piling on with Riverclan and Shadowclan biting at Thunderclan's heels, winter had arrived already and there was a greencough outbreak in the camp. Adderkit and Leapkit currently had it as did Birchstep.

Swiftpaw and Lynxpaw had been apprenticed a few days after Cinderpaw, Smokepaw, Lichenpaw, and Brackenpaw were. Swiftpaw to Fogtail and Lynxpaw to Willowpelt respectively.

Brindleface's litter was certainly interesting. The rest of the clan thought they only had three kits when they had four. Brindleface had snuck out of camp the night of the birth,the clan lead them but Bluestar asked Icebelly and Embereyes to watch them, they agreed. Blackfoot was the sire of the kits and took the only kit that would give them away, Elderkit. Icebelly couldn't have been to sure whether Brindleface saw him but it felt confirmed when the pale gray cat made sure to stay out of his way at all times.

Though with the filling nursery came with the decrease in food for the warriors and apprentices.

The nursery in general was packed with: Frostbite expecting kits sired by Tiger-roar for her and Mossthorn, Yellowkit was growing big for her age, Willowpelt's litter was also growing well, Miststrike's kits: Yewkit was getting bigger by the day but Leapkit was still so small and wouldn't be ready, Doekit, Adderkit, and Volekit were close to apprenticeship. Robinwing's litter was growing well and should make lovely apprentices. Bluestar had also given birth to her litter: Maplekit, Snowkit, Mistlekit, and Aspenkit, one had been born still and Bluestar named the kit Starkit. Icebelly had been all over the four kits from the get go.

His own apprentice, Cinderpaw was definitely a pawful but he was determined to train them well like Tiger-roar trained him. He was glad he got to have Tiger-roar and Nightshade to lean on for advice as well as Miststrike and Leopardstorm. Cinderpaw worked well in a group setting rather by themself so being around Sleetpaw and Smokypaw helped alot.

Ravenpaw decided he wanted to be a Silverblood. His help certainly lighten Thymeroot and Yellowfang's workload. The tom seemed more at peace in the medicine den than he did in the apprentice's den.

Though things could've been better:

-Flashback-

His belly had been aching all day, he just thought he ate something bad but apparently not. He definitely didn't let Cinderpaw fight him with the chance to kick his belly.

Chestnutclaw looked ready to claw his ears off "Go be weak in the herb den with herb cats" he hissed "I don't want Smokepaw's training falling"

He had went to see them, feeling like he was being kicked all over. Thymeroot examined him and her tail curled up in surprise "Well, you're not sick Icebelly?"

"Then.." Icebelly trailed off, knowing the answer.

"Congrats" the seer purred, her green eyes shining "I know you've wanted to have kits for a while"

'Not with his kits' he hadn't mated with Chestnutclaw as planned, he had been busy training Cinderpaw and had pushed the plans til Cinderpaw had finished her training. He wanted to forget what had happened to him but Brokenstar seemed determined to make sure he never forgot like the scar on the side of his throat.

"If I may be so bold to ask, who's the sire?"

Icebelly looked away "I...he's..."

"Not of Thunderclan?"

Icebelly couldn't bring himself to really answer with words but Thymeroot took his silence.

Thymeroot licked his ear "It's alright, you'll be fine"

"I hope so"

-Flashback ends-

"I never realized how it must suck having short fur during leaf-bare, how do Sandstorm and Ravenpaw deal with it" Cherrycloud mewed, nudging into his chest breaking his thoughts

Icebelly hummed "Find a fluffy cat to huddle and snuggle with"

"Oh is that what I am" she rubbed her head along his neck "A cat to snuggle with"

"Or course not, I'm fluffy as well if not more than you though we've been doing a lot more than 'snuggling' lately" He smirked 'It take my mind off the fact I'm carrying Brokenstar's kits, please let some of them be Chestnutclaw's' he shouted in his mind

Cherrycloud purred with amusement

"Icebelly Cherrycloud" Redtail's voice sounded rough and tired. Icebelly could see the deputy looked exhausted he couldn't blame him. Him and Bluestar must have a hard time dealing with their clanmates concerns about the Shadowclan attacks, Riverclan's new hostility and now the greencough outbreak.

"Can you two take your apprentices out?"

"Sure" Cherrycloud mewed getting up

"Any place in particular?" Icebelly asked shaking his fur

"We need prey try going near twolegplace or the owl tree"

Thymeroot popped her head from the medicine den, some feverfew and tansy were stuck on her pelt. "If you find catmint get as much as you can"

"Gotcha sir deputy sir" Cherrycloud purred "And you miss medicine"

A smile appeared on Redtail's face and a chuckle escaped from his throat. "You are a blessing in this time Cherrycloud"

They woke Cinderpaw and Brackenpaw up and headed for twolegplace. The experience could do them good.

Cinderpaw pounced on a squirrel, a swift bite to its neck. "Got it!" they called

Brackenpaw looked down, while Cinderpaw had managed to catch four kills now all he caught was a "lousy shrew" in his own words.

Cherrycloud noticed and bumped against her apprentice "Hey cheer up, everyone has off days, I'm sure Mossthorn or Frostbite will love it"

"Maybe you're a better fighter than Cinderpaw, you got Lionheart's large build while Cinderpaw got Mossthorn's lean one" Icebelly added, though he wondered if that was true. When he first took Cinderpaw out he taught her some basic fighting moves and increased the harshness since. Cinderpaw complained of sore pads the first day but was ready for it the next day. The eagerness of this young cat made it worth while.

"We'll try to battle train soon though" Cherrycloud mewed "For now let's make make Redtail proud that we all caught at least something"

That seemed to cheer Brackenpaw up. The all had caught some good and worthy kills. Cinderpaw found catmint and couldn't wait to see the look on Yellowfang's face when she brought it.

"Look!" Cinderpaw pointed with her nose at a molly padding along across the forest floor. It was a fluffy white molly with blue eyes. 'Princess!' Icebelly thought with shock. Her belly was swollen, heavy with unborn kits. "Kittypet!" Cinderpaw sneered, their fur fluffed out "Let's chase her out"

"No" he mewed pulling the gray apprentice back by their tail "She's a kittypet afterall she's no threat, stay here"

Princess may have a collar but it had many teeth and fangs it it to protect her throat and he knew his sister was far from helpless, Bone taught her well.

He padded slowly over to her "Princess!" he called

Princess's back fur spiked up and she bared her teeth but she got a closer look at him. "Splinter?"

He nodded and nuzzled her.

"What on earth are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing, far from the city"

"I got picked up, Snake found me" Princess mewed

"We''ll talk tomorrow" he mewed "Stay around here, my other clanmates would shred you trust me on that"

"I'd kill them when they stood if they tried" Princess drawled "But I have kits to think about, be around here tomorrow by dawn, I have to get back to Bloodclan soon" She heaved herself over one of the fences.

"Problem solved" he said heading back "Let's get back to camp shall we?"

Icebelly woke at dawn with the image of his sister still clear in his mind. He pushed his way out of the den, hoping to get out of camp as soon as he could. It was another cold, frosty morning. Though his fur seemed to get fluffier where it was more tolerable. Leopardstorm and Fogtail were waiting near the camp entrance, preparing to leave on patrol. Mousefur padded past on her way to join them and greeted Icebelly with a cherry mew. Fogtail called for Swiftpaw, who came racing out of the camp.

He padded across the clearing, wondering if Cinderpaw was awake yet. Brindleface was just squeezing out of the narrow nursery entrance. Ashkit followed her, Tulipkit close to his dam, then Fernkit followed tumbling out and falling onto the ground. Brindleface picked Fernkit up by her scruff and placed her gently back on her paws.

"Are they well?" he asked

"So far yes" Brindleface replied, green eyes avoiding his "We've had no other cases in the nursery so far and we hope to keep it that way"

"How's Embereyes?"

Brindleface sighed "She's keeping it together for Volekit and Doekit but she's worried for Adderkit, Nettlemist has been helping her relax"

Icebelly nodded as he heard Cherrycloud's pawsteps behind him. He turned to greet his friend, stretching his head to touch Cherrycloud's nose, and asked, "Could you take Cinderpaw for the day?"

Cherrycloud looked curiously at Icebelly "Why?"

"Oh, nothing important" Icebelly replied "Just wanted to check something and plus they'll need the battle training I can't really do in my state"

"Alright" Cherrycloud mewed, whiskers twitching with amusement, he knew she didn't believe anything he said but was going along with it.

"Thanks, Cherrycloud!" Icebelly bounded away toward the camp entrance.

As the houses came into view through the trees, Icebelly dropped into a crouch. He opened his mouth and breathed in the cold morning air. No sign of a Thunderclan patrol, and no human scents either. He relaxed a little.

Slowly he approached the fence where he had seen the molly disappear. He hesitated at the bottom and looked around, sniffing the air once more. Then he leaped, landing on a fence post in one easy jump. No huamns to be seen-just an empty garden with its strongly scented plants. Icebelly felt exposed on the post but he didn't have to climb when he heard the cheery voice of his sister.

"Splinter!"

Icebelly jumped from the fence landing flat on his paws right infront of his littermate. "It's Icebelly now, how are you doing?"

"As well as you could expect with me expecting" Princess mewed, her collar had more teeth than the last time he saw her

"Who'd you kill?" he asked

"I forget as time goes by" Princess replied, she sat down firmly resting her budging belly "Seven now, got three claws from that one"

"Is this your first litter?" He eyed her belly

"Yes, finally decided I wanted to help Bloodclan's legacy with my kits"

"Smudge?"

"Yep, I'm due very soon"

Icebelly sighed, rubbing his face with his paw "At least I'm not alone in parenthood"

Princess looked confused and cocked her head to the side "What?"

"Luna's had kits and joined Duskstar and Jake in Windclan for the time being, I'm also...expecting"

Princess's eyes widen "Seriously? You having kits?"

"Yeah"

"Well we know we'll do better than our birth giver" Princess stated

"Also Filou is part of Riverclan she's named Flamepaw, Nutmeg's in Shadowclan under the name of Dewflare with our new siblings. Also we have an older brother, Gingerblaze"

"What?"

"Yeah. Nutmeg was a clan cat, she lived in Thunderclan before she had us"

"I'd like to meet him"

"I'll work something out"

Princess moved closer to him, pressing her fur against his flank. This is what he missed, the feeling of someone who related to him.

"You've mentioned these clans"

Icebelly nodded

"I've heard things from dad already before but what's it like? Is it different than Bloodclan or the other groups round here?"

"In the clans, we take care of each other, Younger cats hunt for elders; warriors protect the hunting grounds from the other clans. I trained all spring and summer to become a warrior from training under Tiger-roar. I have an apprentice of my own now Cinderpaw"

"Was that the pointed dark gray cat I saw yesterday?"

Icebelly nodded "They're great, full of energy but knows the skill well so far" he looked around "where've you been staying?"

"This house doesn't have humans you know, I relax here and go inside if needed which I'm doing right now"

Icebelly looked back at the forest "I have to get back to my clan and you'll have your paws full soon enough as will I. I'll come back to see you in two days, I'll see if Gingerblaze will come"

"Great" Princess called over her shoulder. She was already trotting back to the house "See ya Icebelly?"

"See you soon" Icebelly called. His sister disappeared from view, and he heard the swinging flap slap shut behind her.

Once the garden was silent, Icebelly crept through the bushes to the fence. He jumped over it and ran into the forest.

When he finally returned to camp, he carried a vole and a wood pigeon in his mouth. He missed a few pigeons along the way when his vision started to blurry. The sun was setting, thank Starclan, and the clan were gathering for their evening meal. Graypaw sat alone beside the nettle clump, a fat chaffinch at her paws. She looked like she wasn't sleeping he was about to go over when Nettlemist laid his tail on his back "I got this" he whispered and Icebelly nodded to him as he padded across the clearing to the pile of fresh-kill that had already been collected.

Tiger-roar, Lionheart, and Leopardstorm was sitting near by, the dual colored tabby's amber and blue eyes narrowed. "I noticed that Cinderpaw spent the day with Cherrycloud" he mewed as Icebelly dropped his catch onto the pile. "Where were you?"

Icebelly returned Tiger-roar's gaze, he was good at not flinching at the gaze after being around Tiger-roar for so long. "It seemed like a good day for hunting-too good to waste" he replied

"Considering your vision's acting up and that you were alone" Icebelly could tell that Tiger-roar's voice contained a great amount of amount of concern which which didn't surprise him. Tiger-roar had been his mentor so he knew when he had any of his problems. "I'm guessing you missed a few catches on your way back"

"Why did Bluestar let him be a mentor" Lionheart muttered to which Leopardstorm nudged him in the shoulder harshly

Icebelly forced his fur flat and tried not to curse the golden tom "Bluestar trusts my abilities, have a problem take it up with her" Icebelly tried but couldn't resist " Or maybe you're a little bitter that Frostbit seems to have dumped you for Mossthorn, or that she's pregnant with Tiger-roar's kits rather than yours"

Lionheart's eyes narrowed at him

"But hey you're not mateless, you have Leopardstorm and Tiger-roar it seems. The great two-colored tom he is allows you to worship his great di-"

"Icebelly" Tiger-roar warned

He regretted nothing and he knew Tiger-roar knew that as well. "The clan needs all the fresh-kill it can get at the moment, I may have missed but I got something at least" Icebelly replied calmly

Tiger-roar nodded, suspicion darkening his eyes "Yes, but we also need warriors if we're going to put Shadowclan back in their place and send Riverclan back into their rivers. Cinderpaw's training is your responsibility not Cherrycloud's, she already has Brackenpaw to worry about. Redtail wants apprentices in as top shape as possible"

Icebelly nodded "I understand, Tiger-roar" he dipped his head respectfully "I'll take them out tomorrow near the Riverclan border"

"Good" Tiger-roar said seeming satisfied

"Make sure they doesn't get into any trouble with Riverclan, we already have enough of it as is already" Leopardstorm added

"Of course Leopardstorm"

Three of Morningflower's claws snapped off when she met rock and clay. She didn't even flinch she was used to her claws snapping off when tunneling, it still felt good to be back down here after moons in a rotten twoleg tunnel. She still swiped the dirt with her left paw, standing firmly on her hind legs.

"Morningflower, take a break I got this" Deadfoot called, his twisted paw covered in mud

"You should go see Barkface for that paw" Mudclaw added "We don't need infections right now"

'Like I'll leave our kits without their mother' Morningflower dropped down to all fours, shaking her fluffy coat. "I'm fine, just a broken claw"

"Now's not a time to be stubborn, rest, go the nursery with your kits" Deadfoot stated

"Yes deputy sir" Morningflower mewed rolling her eyes. She padded past the tom, head held high as she made her way up the tunnel.

Things in Windclan haven't been the best since they've been back. Prey was scarce as it is in leaf-bare and Shadowclan thought that was the best time to attack them. Duskstar was firm and saying Windclan won't be driven off again. Let's hope they'll survive to newleaf.

Morningflower padded out of the tunnel, eyes shut from the blinding sunlight. As a tunneler, her eyes were more sensitive to sun than a moor-runners.

She quickly headed to the nursery where Barkface was waiting. Ashfoot and Rabbit-tail were asleep in the corner of the den while Moonclaw was in a nest close to her with Marblekit and Thornkit. Whitetail was quiet and at peace, her new born kits suckling gently.

She laid down in her nest, her kits latching on as she did. She let Barkface treat her bleeding paw as she watched her kits nurse. They were growing well thank goodness, Briarkit gave her a scare but she hung on.

She didn't expect Runningpaw to start mushing her belly. She was about ask but Runningbrook beat her too it.

"It's to stimulate milk" the gray tabby mewed "Frogleap told me he tired it with Fallowtail and it worked well"

Morningflower sighed just letting them do their work, it wasn't too bad. It felt nice to be honest

"Have you thought of names yet?" Thrushwing padded into the den, her plump belly showing brightly as she sat close to Whitetail, placing more wool in the nest "It's been a moon" Morningflower wasn't surprised to see her sister already back into the ways of the clan. She wore the jewels a high ranking moor-runner as well as a star-keeper in training.

'Important to the clan' Morningflower thought 'That's what mother wanted for us, for you most of all Thrushwing' she was aware their mother wasn't pleased when she became a tunneler, even more so when Stoneclaw became one was well. She wanted them all to be proud moor-runnners like her and their late father Grasstail.

"Icekit" Whitetail replied, softly licking her son's head "For the cat that helped me when I needed it and the cat who helped bring back Windclan when he didn't have to"

Morningflower could see her sister's annoyance at their nephew being named after a Thunder cat rather than his late father but thankfully her sister seemed to know she wouldn't win.

"Lovely" she said, Morningflower could tell it was forced "And the other tom? He reminds me of the sun with his golden fur"

"More like a Lion" Runningpaw commented "Fluffy like one too."

"Fluffy isn't a term used for Windclanners" Thrushwing retorted.

Morningflower wondered if her sister would talk about Runningbrook being half-clan. The clan already had a time when they found about Ryestalk's code breaking with Marshcloud, she fought hard to make sure Runningpaw didn't face anything.

Runningpaw cocked their head to the side "Is thick-furred better?"

Before Thrushwing could reply Whitetail interrupted "Lionkit it is" she purred "My little lion"

"Maybe he'll have the strength of Lionclan" Runningpaw mewed

Thrushwing narrowed her eyes at the gray tabby "Lionclan is Thunderclan's circle we have Leopardclan as ours Runningpaw"

"That you have to share with Riverclan" Moonclaw sneered "Shadowclan gets Tigerclan all to themselves"

"Don't mention them here" Thrushwing shushed "It could bring bad fortune for the kits, Tawnykit's future as a seer could go bad"

"What?" Tawnykit whimpered "I can't be Barkface's apprentice?"

"Wait no no you'll still be my apprentice" Barkface quickly soothed the kitten "You'll be a great seer Tawnykit"

"That she will" Rabbit-tail purred.

Rushkit, Ryekit, and Robinkit looked out of place the attention was once again returned to their sister/cousin.

It was peaceful for a few moments, but of course it couldn't last forever because nice things can't happen.

"Shadowclan is coming up near the east badger den" she heard Sorrelflight cry "I see Dewflare leading them"

"Oh it's on, a score needs to be settled" Moonclaw rushed out before anyone could stop her.

"Why can't they leave us alone, it's leaf-bare" Runningpaw whined

"That's their goal" Whitetail answered

"Moonclaw!" Thrushwing called

"Don't" Rabbit-tail hissed "I'll watch Moonclaw's kits" she drawled "Who else will I be watching?"

"Mine" Ashfoot mewed "Eaglekit's easy to watch"

"Mine too" Morningflower replied "I need to stretch my legs"

"I'll get my marigold" Barkface signed as they rushed out.

Morningflower and Ashfoot were on their paws and racing out of camp leaving Rabbit-tail in charge of their kits. "Send them back in their marshes" Deadfoot yowled leading them on.

Morningflower smirked at the command.

Windclan won't be chased from their home a second time.

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papipopsicle · 5 years ago

Text

DOUBLE DARE

Pairing: Billy Hargrove X Harrington!Reader

Genre: angst, fluff

Summary: In which Billy isn't 'King Billy fucking Hargrove' after the events at the Byers house, he's remorseful and in so much more pain than anyone ever seems to notice.

Song: Dizzy by Waterparks

Warnings: swearing, symptoms of PTSD

Words: 2.8K

feedback is always appreciated

Hawkins wasn't the kind of place a teen could take angsty strolls, look up at the sky for a while and all their life problems would be solved. Winter lasted until February, and summer started at the end of July, the months between left void of the joy of sun or snow. It was within this time that Y/N and Billy found solace in each other's chaotic existences.

They'd met a couple times before their relationship had a label, once not knowing each other, and the next, knowing too much.

The first was in the bitter winds of a November night. Y/N Harrington was forced to transfer to Hawkins High after fighting with another girl at Lakewood Academy over something nobody knew. She wasn't happy about it, after working her arse off for the last seventeen years of her life, only for the dream to be someone special and someone her parents would be proud of, to be ripped away from her.

Steve never made it any better, it was fine when he'd bring home random girls while their parents were away (which was more often than not), at least then her record player was loud enough to shut out the moans.

But Nancy had to come along and fuck everything up. Y/N was sickened at the idea of her brother dating her childhood best friend. That wasn't even the worst part though, the sick fucker had to go break his heart too.

Having Steve wallow in self pity for a few days was one thing, but hearing him cry himself to sleep days on end was entirely another.

She took her eye off the ball to make sure it was a sound that never met her ears again. And people at Lakewood began to talk, next thing she knew, Y/N was thrown out when Bethany Wyatt somehow fell unconscious and woke up with a black eye and busted lip.

Her older brother was surprisingly comforting, but the house felt all too suffocating, even without their never-to-be-seen parents around. It took six days for her to finally snap- being cooped up in the same four walls, sappy romcoms playing in the background whilst Steve tried to shrink her after getting an 'A' on his latest psychology paper.

"Leave me the fuck alone, for Christ's sake I'm not one of those kids you babysit! Go piss in Declan's cereal." Y/N roared, cartoon steam clouds escaping her ears.

She and Steve weren't close like some siblings, they didn't do hugs or say 'I love you'. They clashed and fought; the older boy thinking he's always right and that he knows everything, only setting off Y/N's explosive anger.

Steve groaned and stormed up the stairs, following his sister to her room, "His name's Dustin- fuck! You're so immature, you know that? Maybe I do need to babysit you, maybe then you'll learn to accept that you're sad about being kicked out of Lakewood, instead of biting my head off like a little bitch."

Y/N looked up at him incredulously, as if he'd just killed six puppies. She got up from her bed and stood right in front of him, pressing her index finger against his chest accusatory, "I'm not sad, dickwad, I'm furious because I defended myself against a bully and I'm the one who gets punished. It's not my fault she learnt to fight with her words and I fight with my fists. It's not my fault I'm like this, Steve!"

He stared at her for a few moments, watching his little sister's entire body move as her breathing became laboured and heavy.

She pushed past her brother and ran downstairs, "If I'm not back before you wake up, the demogorgon attacked me!"

"That's not-." Steve shouted, only to hear the front door slam shut halfway through his sentence, "funny."

It had been three months since Eleven had returned and saved Hawkins for the second time, Y/N knew they were no longer out there. She also knew it would strike a nerve in her brothers damaged soul and in that moment it was exactly what she wanted. The Harrington girl would probably regret it when she arrived back home in the early hours, knock on Steve's door and he'd tell her he was the one out of line and that it was okay. After all, he was the reason behind why she got expelled.

Y/N found herself running towards the school. In her short pleated skirt, fishnets and combat boots, the girl sprinted all the way through the woods until she found a clearing, and began walking on the side of the road. She should've been terrified to be out in the darkness all alone after the sights that had scarred her eyes, but it calmed her disturbed mind. Her problems faded to insignificance at the idea of being attacked by an inter-dimensional monster.

Her anger had dissipated after an hour or two of strolling back up and down, and she finally began to feel at ease in the cool midnight winds. That's when the sound of a turbocharged engine collapsed her serenity. She turned on her heel, letting the asphalt crunch under her foot as she squinted into the oncoming headlights.

Numbness had spread far enough over her body not to care whether the driver was Steve, a total stranger, or maybe even a creature from the upside down ready to kill her. Y/N shrugged it off and continued wandering, moving into the forest clearing so the muscle car didn't hit her if the driver wasn't paying enough attention.

Her steps became hurried as she heard the engine quieten, gaze kept forwards until the car picked up enough speed to pass her then completely stop. The air in her lungs felt trapped, feet planted to the broken up edge of the road.

"Hey!" A young yet deep male voice called, a mop of gentle dirty blonde curls appearing over the roof as the sound of the metal door opening and shutting cut away at the silence Y/N found herself stuck in. She didn't dare to move, eyes wide in a hazy mix of fear and intrigue.

He began moving around the car, closer to her frozen figure and stopping at what he deemed a safe distance. Billy looked her up and down, not in his usual 'I wanna fuck you' way towards the opposite sex; he checked over every inch of her exposed skin to make sure there were no signs of injury. When he finally met her eyes, he was stunned. They were the colour of milk chocolate edged with a deep forest-green. The two colors seemed to swirl together like moss creeping over rich soil.

Beautiful, he thought, not noticing the deep violet bags which sat beneath them. Y/N hated her eyes for them, yet they hadn't crossed his mind.

"Are you okay, Bambi?" Billy asked cautiously, taking a small step closer to her. His voice felt soft like a warm hug, yet she knew how it could easily be laced with venom. She'd seen his type before, knew how they could act so smooth then at the flick a switch be encased by rage if the word 'no' was introduced to them. She'd dated that type, been manipulated by their silver tongue and soft touch.

"I'm fine." Y/N's voice found the courage to speak, her body pushing past his and continuing its disassociated roam down the empty road ahead. She didn't feel like speaking to anyone, didn't feel like doing anything. Her mind was a wormhole of desolation and all she wanted was some peace away from home life and school life.

"If you want me to get in my car and carry on, I can. But, chances are you're feeling alone and don't-" Billy tried his best to do what he thought was right, he didn't have to stop when he saw her shivering figure at the side of the empty road. Hell, he probably shouldn't have.

"What you do doesn't really affect me, kid." Y/N snarled with no enthusiasm, her words falling hollow and getting lost in the wind.

The girl noticed he didn't speak after that, yet she hadn't heard the distinct sound of a car door opening and shutting either. She turned her head a fraction, not wanting to give him the attention he seemingly so desperately wanted from her but interested to know if she was about to get killed. Y/N rolled her eyes irritably as his taller figure appeared beside her own.

A few minutes passed as they ambled along the never ending barren road side by side without a word exchanged. Y/N felt oddly comfortable, more so than she did in that stupid private school or at home with Steve in constant seldom silence or rage filled bickering.

This silence was pleasant and held no secrets. Mostly due to the fact they were perfect strangers, no lingering expectations to be great or even good. Y/N stole another glance at him through the dark moonlight, his thick shoulder length hair appearing soft in its naturally curly state, and his flawlessly chiselled face hidden by plump cheeks and long eyelashes.

He could've committed some kind of atrocity for all she knew, but is company felt comforting and she wasn't one to judge.

"D'you just plan on following me around all night, then?" Y/N's voice sounded much more mellowed and velvety, her heartbeat no longer erratic in her ears allowing her mind some peace.

Billy sighed and rubbed a hand across his face before stuffing both into the pockets of his denim jacket to find some kind of warmth, "Haven't exactly planned that far ahead, gotta be honest with you. I don't know, I just needed to clear my head, and it seemed like you were doing the same."

"You could say that." Y/N scoffed, her numb mind somehow still managing to make her legs move forwards without stumbling. The biting cold air pricked at her paled skin, but she enjoyed the feeling. It was better than feeling nothing at all. "Fucked up shit happens a lot considering nothing happens around here."

"Did someone hurt you?" The words filled with unease tumbled from his mouth before he had the chance to catch them. Billy couldn't tell himself why he cared, why he was still walking along side this stranger in the dead of night on a Tuesday. Wednesday, now. But after the events at Mrs Byers' house, he had realised he'd become the monster he feared most- his father. If there was anything he could do to stop that, it was all he had done for the past three months.

Y/N smiled at her own stupid actions coming back to the forefront of her memories. She shook her head, still smiling, "That's too complicated to answer right now. Unfortunately, I managed to fuck things up pretty bad all on my own this time."

"I'm listening." Billy's eyes wandered across the unending tree border as he let the girl gather her thoughts and decide whether to indulge him or not.

She did.

"A couple weeks ago I overheard some skanks from my school trash talking my family; you see my brother slept with this girl named Rosie once ages ago so she put herself on a pedestal and thinks her words are gospel now. She was joking with her friends about how we're basically orphans. And then, this is the real kicker, she made up a rumour saying I'd got crabs from sleeping with the gym teacher. Which is hilarious because I'm a virgin still. So, I confronted her, she denied it, and I may or may not have blacked out and beat the living daylights out of her. Last week the dean decided to kick me out, so as of next Monday I'll be back at the shit show they call Hawkins High."

It felt easy to spill her thoughts to this oddly handsome person she'd never met before. Y/N felt like adding, 'oh and there's supernatural demons running around trying to take you to another dimension and kill you, but don't worry, our telekinetic friend saved us. Twice.' But she liked him enough in that moment not to want to scare him away.

"I would've hit her, too." Billy chuckled dryly, realising this girl was stronger than she seemed. His voice picked up after a beat of silence, "Billy, by the way."

"Y/N." She smiled her first warm, genuine smile for a rather long time, and it felt strange and satisfying all at once. Silence fell upon them once again after that, not feeling unpleasant in the slightest. They walked side by side with no destination in mind, Y/N's body bumping against his every now and again. The fist time was an accident, after that she kept on doing it to see the small smile pull at the corners of his lips from the contact.

Her combat boots halted on the torn up asphalt, kicking up small stones a few feet across the road. Without indication to her newfound friend, she switched direction and began walking back towards the other end of the endless road back towards Hawkins away from Lakewood.

"Alright then." Billy quirked an eyebrow at her odd behaviour as he followed and fell back into aimless step with her.

"Billy," she enjoyed the way his name rolled off her tongue, "could you drive me home?" She looked up at him with hope in her eyes, half feigned half real. Y/N was a shell of a person, broken and cold after what her eyes had witnessed, but she really liked the way her mind felt at ease around this boy with fluffy hair and muscular arms.

"Sure."

They made their way up to the car in silence, time running by much quicker with Y/N's spirits lifted. Billy unlocked his Camaro and the two settled into their seats, the heater almost instantly turned up to the highest setting.

"Where are you from, Billy?" Y/N couldn't help herself but ask, she had a knack for wanted to know everything and managing to know everything one way or another. She enjoyed the ever so slight accent in his voice, certainly not from these parts. His olive skin, probably once a lot more tanned and bright, gave it away too. Nobody here got enough vitamin D to look that pretty.

She told him to take the next turning, filling the space his answer was about to fall into. Y/N noticed the sounds of AC/DC playing quietly, one of her all time favourite songs. Steve would buy their albums and she'd buy Madonna when they visited the mall together, then swap when they got back to his car.

"California, my dad remarried and they both wanted a new start, so we ended up here." Billy answered calmly, voice tinged with anguish. The girl gave him another direction and told him to pull up two houses down from her own.

"If my brother saw someone giving me a lift home I think he'd murder you then me, so for everyone's safety it's best not to let him in on our little secret." Y/N grinned halfheartedly up at Billy, realising Steve wouldn't have gone to sleep yet and it was her fault. He was a real dick sometimes, but she wondered if he was the only person in the world to actually give a shit about her.

"Sounds like a real buzzkill." Billy joked with an unknown lightness to his tone, turning the ignition off and settling his gaze on her devastatingly brilliant eyes again.

Y/N nodded and leant over the centre console, wrapping her arms around Billy's much larger torso, he didn't react for a moment, not entirely sure what was happening, but he eventually returned the hug.

"Thanks for stopping earlier, tonight would've been a lot more lonely if you hadn't." Y/N unclasped her seatbelt and unlocked the door, sending the boy a truly heartfelt smile before they said goodbye to one another. He watched her walk down the road and disappear into her driveway, making sure she was safe before he left.

The Harrington girl quietly entered her house, taking off her rather muddy boots and making her way up to her brother's bedroom. She knocked quietly on his door out of politeness but didn't wait for an answer before opening it.

"Steve-" her voice was remorseful, this is how it always went.

He groaned a little from his work desk, eyes failing to stay open consistently, "I know, I'm sorry." Steve sent her a weak smile, knowing how hurt his little sister was at heart.

"Yeah," she sighed, "me too."

Y/N climbed into bed that night with the scent of Billy's strong cologne still clinging to her too, and it made her feel at ease. She slept well for the first time in a very long time, mind for once not plagued by creatures from another world.

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withoutawar · 4 years ago

Note

[ slow-burn ] (REMEMBER THAT BLANKET FORT? BC I REMEMBER) (muninn)

@sevenswcrds prompt !

Steve’s lived through a lot. He has a lot to grieve, but also a lot to be thankful for. One of the things he’s most thankful for is seated on a kitchen stool, picking chilli out of his breakfast burrito. When he’d first found Bucky, Steve had looked into Bucky’s eyes and seen an almost stranger. He’d seen glimpses of the life they’d both shared, glimpses of light, dare he say happiness . . . but the darkness was overwhelming. He’d see Bucky smile sometimes and it was so unlike the smile he’d seen growing up, the kind of smile that could brighten even the gloomiest of winter days, the kind that warmed Steve up from the inside out when even his rattling radiator failed him.

Everything that Bucky could never be again haunted him like a ghost, only visible for Steve to see. And at night when the memories became so vivid they played before Steve’s eyes like a film reel, it felt like that ghost was sticking its hands right into Steve’s chest and wringing dry his heart. You’ll never have him back.

It was nothing that he ever made known to Bucky. How could he? The past was in the past . . . even Steve was no longer the man he’d used to be, the man that Bucky had known. It was all just . . . difficult. And Steve loved him --- all the parts of him. He was just . . . simultaneously grieving the parts that were long gone, and it would take him a while to get over it. And Bucky was getting better, day by day. The silences became less weighty, the smiles a little more frequent, and more genuine. Steve got a little choked up every time he saw it. One time Bucky had looked at him funny and Steve had to pretend he’d gotten a peanut stuck in his throat.

And then one day, it was like a veil had been lifted --- either from over Bucky, or from over Steve’s eyes. He couldn’t be entirely sure. It hadn’t happened overnight, but it certainly felt that way to Steve. A lightness to his step, an eased set of his shoulders. A brightness in his eye and a tinkle to his laugh that transported Steve back decades and decades until he was sixteen and the world seemed conquerable with his best friend at his side. Steve had been confused but he’d accepted it. God, he’d grasped it with both hands and hoped that nothing would take it away --- he still wasn’t quite the same Bucky as he’d once been but he was cracking out of a shell that was a Bucky he didn’t want to be. Steve didn’t know why or how --- until he met her.

A head of flames, tongue of silver, she slipped in by Bucky’s side like she’d always been there. The two of them together were the stuff of poetry books --- nothing that Steve was worthy enough to witness or able to even comprehend. One thing he did understand, though, was how they’d come together. Two chords entwined, strung tight and intricate, a tug and a pull that kept each other within reach even if it were to come loose. Steve found himself drawn --- unable to quite keep his eyes averted even when it was clear the world had disappeared around them. He had disappeared around them. Spending time with Bucky meant spending time with Muninn --- and he gets it, why Bucky had become so swept up in her thunderstorm. How she’d collected the crumbling pieces of him and held him together in ways that Steve had never quite managed to do alone --- made him whole not by offering anything more but by bringing out what was still inside him. It’s everything that he’s ever wanted for Bucky and with that piece finally sliding into place, it leaves him open to what he wants for himself . . .

Steve tried to give them their space, as traitorous thoughts crept into his mind. Wishes and desires and emotions he hadn’t quite thought he was capable of feeling. Not about his best friend. Certainly not about the woman his best friend was in love with. The harder he tried to ignore it, the deeper those feelings hooked their claws into his chest, twisting into muscle and bone every time he heard the tinkle of Bucky’s laughter, every time Muninn happened to catch his eye with the remnants of mirth in her gaze. Sometimes he catches it turning soft . . . like she knows. But she couldn’t know. Steve couldn’t let her know. Bucky has never looked happier --- maybe not all the way but it was more than anything Steve had thought was possible. He wasn’t going to ruin that for him.

With a sigh, he drags himself out of his head, a place he so often finds himself these days. He still has the living room to clear up after spending the night watching action movies, the three of them packed onto Steve’s three seater. Most of the pillows and covers from his bed had been brought over, someone --- must have been Muninn --- tucking them in when they’d eventually fallen asleep. A lot of his problems would probably be solved if he simply asked them not to spend so much time at his apartment, right in front of his face, rubbing in what he can’t have . . . but he’d miss it too much if it was gone. The compromise was suffering, which, hey, he’s great at.

‘ Stare a little harder, kriger. ’

Steve’s gaze snaps away, the voice startling him so much that there’s a pop and one of his cushions explode in his hands, the stuffing exploding out. He glances back at Bucky who has now turned his attention away from his breakfast and is looking back at Steve curiously. Sure, he’d been oblivious to the last ten minutes of Steve’s staring, but now he has to look back. ‘ I wasn’t --- ’ Steve tops as immediately as he starts, fixed by Muninn’s gaze which tells him that he need not even try to lie to her. It’s all the confirmation he needs to know that she knows. That all the excuses and reasoning he’d made up in his head for why she couldn’t possibly know were a load of garbage, and he never should’ve been so naïve. He never should’ve been here, in the first place, really . . . He’s getting in the way . . .

‘ I’m really, sorry. Bucky, I --- ’ He turns to Bucky because this apology was for the both of them. Steve had spent most of his life believing that there would be one person for him in his life, and that he would find them eventually. He had not thought he’d ever find two --- and that neither would be for him.

Cool fingers on his jaw direct him back to Muninn. He’s embarrassed to have been found out this way, and wonders if instead of being distracted that morning by Bucky tackling a burrito of all things and continued his simple clean up of the living room, whether he could’ve gotten away without Muninn, and now Bucky knowing everything. There’s nothing he can do to redeem himself, especially when, even when he is already hating himself and his heart for getting himself into this situation, his body still reacts to the touch on his jaw, the proximity of Muninn’s face as she leans in, eyes observant and --- Steve only has a moment to register that she isn’t angry, before her lips press onto his and his breath vanishes from his lungs. The kiss is soft, and sweet, and she’s pulling away from him far too soon but that’s mostly his fault because his brain hadn’t caught up with him quickly enough to actually kiss her back. ‘ Wait . . . ’ Then it’s his hand cupping her jaw, fingers sliding into red curls, a mouth pressed firmly against hers and he kisses her. Actually kisses her.

‘ Oh my God. I can’t believe it’s finally happening and I’ve got egg on my chin. Hang on ! ’ Steve hears from the kitchen and he is so, so confused. But he’s also very happy.

#sevenswcrds #sevenswcrds / muninn.#sevenswcrds / muninn & bucky.#steve rogers / ic.#THIS WAS UNNECESSARILY LONG I'M SORRY #a rewrite of the first one if u will

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