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kjack89 · 3 years ago

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An Agreement Between Gentlemen (Chapter 4/?)

Continuation of the E/R Bridgerton AU, regency-era fake-marriage shenanigan-fest. This time, with duel-shenanigans as well! (Chapter 1 tumblr | AO3, chapter 2 tumblr | AO3, chapter 3 tumblr | AO3)

Dearest Readers,

This Author recommends that young women prone to swoon do not read this most peculiar of updates without someone there to catch them, as the most shocking of scandals has broken, and not, as one might expect, from the city but rather from the country.

If you have guessed that it involves our two unlikely friends out for a country jaunt, you would be correct, but we doubt even the most voracious of readers would guess the nature of the scandal. It turns out Mr. Grantaire is not an only child, as many have supposed, but instead has a sister of the marrying age. Why she was not presented to society is anyone’s guess, but we expect she’ll be along soon enough, given what has occurred.

Details are still forthcoming, but suffice it to say, the Marquess of Enjolras, perhaps least likely amongst his cohort to find himself in this situation, appears to have been found in a compromising position with Mr. Grantaire’s sister. A quick, quiet wedding is the fastest way to deal with a scandal of this nature, but the salacious nature of this situation doesn’t end here:

The Marquess has allegedly refused to marry Mr. Grantaire’s sister, so Mr. Grantaire publicly challenged the Marquess to a duel for his sister’s honor, and the Marquess accepted.

Tales of Mr. Grantaire’s prowess in physical contests are well-known, so this Author hopes for the Marquess’s sake that his aim with a gun is less impressive. Fear not, dear Reader. This Author suspects that both the Marquess of Enjolras and Mr. Grantaire will emerge from the duel with all limbs intact, but we also suspect that Grantaire will emerge with a soon-to-be brother-in-law – and the Marquess with a fiancée. LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 4 May 1831

It was, charitably speaking, ungodly early when Enjolras was roused from his bed by the ever dour-faced Le Cabuc. There was not even a hint of sunlight when he glanced out the window before getting dressed, and when he and Grantaire set off a half hour later, there was still just the beginning rays of sunlight creeping over the horizon.

Usually, Enjolras did not mind waking at an early hour, though he was more inclined to work late into the night and have a bit of a lie-in the next morning whenever possible, but he had slept poorly the previous night. Undoubtedly, he thought sourly as he followed Grantaire away from the house, because of what they were setting out to do.

Not that he had much real cause for concern – after all, if Grantaire was going to shoot him, surely he would have done it long ago.

That said, he would also have felt slightly more comfortable if he was carrying one of the guns, rather than Grantaire carrying both as he currently was.

But he suspected his tossing and turning was more related to the grand scheme they were attempting to pull off, and his very real concern that they were not going to be able to. Thus far, certainly, all pieces of the plan had fallen in place, but that as much as anything was setting him on edge. After all, it would take but one thing going awry from the whole arrangement to unravel, and Enjolras was not thoroughly convinced that—

Grantaire heaved a sigh and glanced over his shoulder at Enjolras. “Could you please be quiet?” he asked, sounding as tired as Enjolras felt.

Enjolras scowled at him. “I haven’t said anything!” he protested.

“No, but I can hear your mind going a mile a minute,” Grantaire groused, waving a dismissive hand. “It is positively spoiling what should otherwise be a magnificent morning.”

It was a lovely morning, Enjolras supposed, especially as the sun inched further up in the sky. “There is only so much I can do about the relative volume of my mind,” he told Grantaire, half-smiling as he did.

Grantaire pursed his lips slightly before shaking his head. “No, I suppose not,” he said, pausing in his stride to allow Enjolras to fall into step besides him. “Which means that I shall have to distract you instead.”

“And how do you intend on doing that?” Enjolras asked, more amused than curious.

“Well, I could regale you with what little I know about the vegetation in this area,” Grantaire offered, and when Enjolras wrinkled his nose, he laughed. “Very well. Then what conversation topic would you prefer?”

Enjolras considered it for a second. “I suppose you could start by telling me where, exactly, you’re taking me.”

“So banal,” Grantaire said, half under his breath, and he laughed and dodged when Enjolras tried to elbow him in the ribs. “Fine, fine. There’s a field not far outside of town that’s up on a small bluff. Isolated so that no one will see, but the elevation and lack of foliage between the field and town will allow the sound to carry, which is what I am banking on.”

“Not a lot of shooting out this way?” Enjolras asked, mostly jokingly, though Grantaire seemed to consider it for a moment before shaking his head.

“No. A fox hunt every now and then or something or the sort, but usually advertised well in advance and taking place further afield.”

The terrain sloped upward at that point, and both Enjolras and Grantaire fell silent as they trekked along. Finally, the slope evened out, and as Grantaire had promised, they were standing on the edge of a fairly flat field overlooking the town below. “Well,” Grantaire said, rather unnecessarily. “Here we are.”

He handed one of the pistols to Enjolras, who took it, feeling unusually out of sorts, even though this was hardly his first time wielding a weapon. “Ten paces?” he asked, mostly for lack of anything better to say.

“I suppose so,” Grantaire said, before winking at him. “Of course, in keeping with our attempt at verisimilitude, I could shoot you, if you wish. Just a flesh wound, in the shoulder maybe – just a little something to demonstrate how coerced you were into this whole affair.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “While I am certain that you would have no compunction shooting anyone, I really don’t think that’s necessary.”

Instead, he squared his shoulders and dutifully marched ten paces away before turning to face Grantaire again. “Here?” he asked, but Grantaire was frowning, his gun held loosely at his side.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked.

Enjolras blinked. “I mean, is this the correct distance?”

“No, by my not having any compunction about shooting anyone.”

There was something unfamiliar in Grantaire’s tone and Enjolras frowned, trying to figure out what exactly he had said to put Grantaire out. “I meant no offense,” he offered.

Grantaire shook his head. “I do not necessarily take offense,” he said. “But I would still wish to know what precisely you meant.”

Enjolras considered him for a moment. “I know that you are an accomplished boxer,” he said after a moment. “And I have it on good authority that you know also how to wield a blade, so it can only stand to reason that you know how to use a gun. That s all that I meant.”

“Know how, yes,” Grantaire said, “but I’ve never shot anyone, and I’m not certain that I could bring myself to, were it to come to that.”

Now it was Enjolras’s turn to frown and ask, “What do you mean?”

Grantaire shrugged, glancing down at the gun in his hand. “I mean, with boxing, with fencing, hell, even with street brawling as Bahorel and I are wont to do—”

“Wont is certainly one word for it,” Enjolras said sourly, too aware of how many times those two had gotten themselves into scraps.

“—with all of those,” Grantaire continued, ignoring him, “the goal is surrender. You wound or injure to get the offending party to back down. But with a gun?” Again he looked down at the gun in his hand, hefting it as if testing its weight. “With a gun, the outcome is too often death, no matter the intent. And I am not certain that I could bring myself to shoot a man, knowing the likely outcome is his death.”

It had not been at all the answer Enjolras was expecting. “Oh,” he said, a little stupidly. “I suppose I did not think of it that way.”

“What of you?” Grantaire asked, with a wry half-smile, as if aware of the absurdity of this conversation when the two men were facing each other with pistols in hands so as to duel. “Have you ever shot a man?”

Enjolras shook his head. “No,” he said, “but I don’t think I would have the same hesitation you would. Death is a tool, and there are times when, in order to bring about the best future possible, killing someone is the only option.” Grantaire shifted as if he was about to interrupt, but Enjolras did not let him. “But the law of progress is that this will no longer be the case some day, and that is the moment for which I would fight, and kill if necessary, so that none after me would face that choice.”

Grantaire was silent for a few moments after, and he was too far away for Enjolras to be able to read every line in his face like he normally would be able to. “I understand,” Grantaire pronounced finally, the two words spoken almost like a vow.

Enjolras felt strangely tongue-tied at that, and looked away. “Shall we?” he asked, his voice strangely thick, and Grantaire nodded.

Both men faced each other once more, lifting their pistols to aim in the rough direction of the other, ready to get this over with. Later, Enjolras would never know what possessed him in that moment, but as he stared down the barrel of the gun at Grantaire, he could not help but blurt, “I could have sworn that you were going to kill that soldier.”

Grantaire lowered his pistol, his brow furrowing. “What soldier?”

Enjolras lowered his weapon as well. “Do you remember the demonstration we hosted outside of parliament last spring?”

“I am fairly certain the authorities deemed that less a demonstration and more a riot,” Grantaire said, a small smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

“Even so,” Enjolras said, refusing to allow himself to get distracted. “Soldiers were called in to ‘enforce the peace’, though I am certain they were more violent than any of us—”

“They certainly were,” Grantaire murmured.

“—and there was this one soldier in particular who seemed quite determined to…”

Enjolras trailed off, and Grantaire cleared his throat. “To beat you to death in the street?” he supplied, a false, sharp cheerfulness to his words.

Shaking his head slightly, more at the memory than in disagreement to Grantaire’s words, Enjolras swallowed before continuing, “That’s one way of putting it.” He met Grantaire’s eyes. “But you stopped him.”

“Yes.”

“Quite violently, as memory serves.”

Grantaire’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. “Yes.”

“But you did not wish to kill him?”

“Oh, I wanted very much to kill him,” Grantaire said, an ugly look crossing his face. “But I did not.”

Enjolras had the sense that continuing too far down that path was not going to end well, so he changed tacks slightly. “So then you too agree that death is a sometimes necessary tool.”

Grantaire jerked a shrug. “I suppose, yes,” he allowed. “If the circumstances were right.”

“And the circumstances were not right that day?” Enjolras asked, because he couldn’t resist prying, just a little.

Grantaire shook his head. “No.”

He did not seem inclined to elaborate any further, and Enjolras frowned. “Because you feared that you could have been arrested?” he asked, though he doubted that was the case, as Grantaire had been arrested as many times as any of their number.

Indeed, Grantaire snorted derisively. “As if the threat of incarceration has ever once stopped me,” he scoffed, before arching an eyebrow at Enjolras. “Or you, for that matter.”

“It helps knowing that you or I would only be incarcerated until the police realized who we were and released us,” Enjolras said dryly. “The perks of nobility – or gentility, I suppose, in your case.”

“Gentility,” Grantaire repeated, smirking again. “I dare you to use that the next time you’re arrested, just to see what the officer placing you in irons has to say in response.”

Enjolras just rolled his eyes and ignored him, steering the conversation back on track. “What did stop you, then?” he asked, and when Grantaire looked confused, he elaborated, “From killing the soldier, if not the possibility of incarceration.”

Grantaire’s expression was unreadable as he locked eyes with Enjolras. “You were no longer in danger,” he said simply.

The stark words left Enjolras feeling as if his chest was suddenly a size too small, and it took him a moment to compose himself. To know Grantaire had reacted that way when the man was not convinced he could take a life, and all because Enjolras had been in danger...it was too much. Finally, he met Grantaire’s eyes once again, and hoped the two words he could muster conveyed everything that he wished they did. “Thank you.”

Grantaire seemed suddenly flushed, and he cleared his throat and looked away. “In any case,” he said loudly, “can we kindly get back to the business of shooting each other?”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “Shooting at each other,” he corrected.

Grantaire smirked at him, all traces of the previous conversation disappearing. “Is that not what I said?” he asked innocently.

Again Enjolras rolled his eyes before once again raising his gun and aiming it in Grantaire’s general direction. Grantaire followed suit, a half a beat later. “Are you ready?” Enjolras asked.

“As ready as I will ever be,” Grantaire said. “On your count?”

Enjolras jerked a nod. “On my count,” he affirmed, taking a deep breath before counting, “One...two...shoot.”

Both guns went off with a flash of powder and smoke, the gunshots echoing loudly in the still morning air, loud enough to make Enjolras wince – though that may also have been from the recoil, which left Enjolras’s arm feeling weak. “Do you yield?” Grantaire called, and it took that question for Enjolras to remember the absurd reason for which they were there in the first place.

“Yes, I yield,” Enjolras told him, the first and only times those words had ever come out of his mouth.

Grantaire smirked at him. “And do you agree to marry my sister?”

Enjolras gave him a look. “There is no one here to hear my answer, you realize.” Grantaire returned his look with one of his own, and Enjolras sighed. “Yes, I will marry your sister.”

“Then I have my satisfaction,” Grantaire said, sounding just a little smug.

But as Enjolras handed his pistol back to Grantaire, as lingering pieces from their conversation played over in his mind, he could not help but feel that they had both gotten satisfaction that day.

#exr #enjolras x grantaire #enjoltaire #enjolras #grantaire #les miserables #fanfiction #chaptered #part 4 #bridgerton au #regency era #canon era #no those two eras don't overlap but don't @ me #fake marriage #duels #guns cw

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umbraastaff · 4 years ago

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Till Death, Don’t Let’s Start

Chapter 1

“This is kind of a bad time.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Barry,” says the possessed collection of boulders that’s about to punch him. “Were you hoping I’d come back when it’s more convenient for you?”

The incoming stone ‘fist’ collides with a skeletal hand. It’s larger than the lich itself, and yet it stops in place, with a shower of red sparks where they make contact. “A lich can dream.”

“You’ll have plenty of time for that in the Astral Plane,” Kravitz says, trying again to slam down. This time, he meets an invisible shield and keeps pushing. He can feel the magic that’s blocking him, and it is unyielding.

“Right. Yeah. There’s big magic here,” Barry continues, as though Kravitz is an idea soundboard and not a deadly enemy. His free hand--the one that isn’t blocking Kravitz--keeps waving in complicated patterns, some of which the reaper can recognize. Divinations, spells not unlike Detect Magic. “Thought it was the--a--a grand relic, but it doesn’t feel right.”

“And yet you’re sticking around.”

“Well, I--Wouldn’t you want to know what it is?” Barry stares intently at the ground. “I know I’ve felt something like this before, but--but not here. I just can’t place it...”

A flurry of gigantic stones comes raining down on the lich. An outward blast of force repels them all. He huffs like it’s an inconvenience.

“Look, can’t you just...” his idly casting hand completes another divination. “...Wait. Do that again.”

“I--” That’s enough to bewilder Kravitz out of the next strike. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s--I think it’s reacting to our--look, I know you don’t give a shit. Just do your normal thing, easy! Throw more rocks, or something.”

Kravitz considers this. Chances are a hundred to one that Barry’s just doing some ineffable scientific bullshit, and it isn’t going to affect Kravitz at all. But he’s also a very smart lich, and it could just as easily be a trap. “...No.”

“What--okay--don’t hit me, then?”

“Are you really going for reverse psychology, after that?”

“No offense, my man, but you’ve fallen for worse.” Barry sighs, and he raises a hand into the air. Red lightning starts to gather at his palm, blindlingly lit and erratically sparking.

Kravitz steps back, cautious. “Excuse me? Give me one example.”

“That’d be telling,” Barry says coyly. “Anyway, no worries. I’ll do it myself.”

He slams his fist into the ground. The sheer volume of necrotic energy that sweeps through Kravitz makes him want to retch. He sees plantlife ripple miles away, shuddering from its power.

“WHAT in the HELL, Barry Bluejeans!”

“Shush!” Barry says quickly, casting another divination. “Ha! Yes!”

“Are you quite done,” Kravitz snaps, and doesn’t wait for an answer before hurtling another magicked rock.

It shatters as it hits the robe. Barry, still deep in concentration, doesn’t even flinch. “...Oh. No.”

“No?”

“No!” Barry repeats, flying up towards Kravitz’s construct ‘head.’ “We--We gotta go, bud, we--”

The ground begins to shake beneath Kravitz, rumbling and shifting in ways that feel unnatural for an earthquake. Flat earth starts arching into a hill, cracking chunks of dirt and felling trees as it does.

Kravitz starts to get the distinct feeling that he forgot something about this place, something from a terribly long time ago.

“--We gotta MOVE! KRAVITZ! Get outta those fuckin’ rocks and GO!”

“You think you can scare me with some Thaumaturgy-level, hokey?” Kravitz taunts, but it isn’t with all the confidence it should have. Then Barry reaches through him.

Kravitz feels his soul, his very essence, dragged forcibly into a vulnerable state. Outside of the protection of his body, held firm by someone who could destroy him from here. Instead, though, Barry flings Kravitz into the sky.

Disoriented, Kravitz follows his instincts, and cover manifests around the ball of light. His skeleton forms, and then the rest of his projected form. Below, the rocks he was possessing all fall apart, crashing down into the grass and rolling away as the earth keeps moving.

From below them both, there’s a deep rumbling. The volume is overwhelming, destructive, and it takes a few seconds to pinpoint what it is: a roar.

“BARRY FUCKING BLUEJEANS, IS THAT A--”

“Dragon! It’s a dragon, I-I fucked up, I woke it up!” Barry says quickly, panicked. “It’s gonna be mad at me, but if you get outta here, it might not pick up on your goddamn--scent or whatever it picks up on, I don’t care--”

“Sounds like we’re on the same side, then,” Kravitz says, still midway through his effort to regain his composure.

“I--what--you’re actually gonna help me?”

Kravitz summons his scythe. “No.”

“Oh, I see. You meant the--the, uh. You meant you’re allying with the dragon,” Barry says, flying further away. “Which is stupid, by the way! You’re fuckin’ insufferable!”

“Then quit! I can get us both away from the dragon, you know,” Kravitz offers.

Scales start showing between the breaking chunks of earth. They shine bright red in the sunlight.

“IT’S FUCKING CHROMATIC, KRAVITZ!”

Kravitz isn’t stupid. He knows how dangerous a dragon can be. But he also knows that he himself has a foolproof means of escape. And if Barry’s dealing with an entire dragon in the meantime, it could throw him off just enough to give Kravitz an opening. All he’s ever needed was one successful swipe.

The dragon rears its furious head, finally breaks free of the earth it slept under for centuries, maybe millennia. The lich that woke it immediately has its attention, and the attention of a dragon is something one never wants.

Barry dives and weaves between blasts of fire and gnashes of giant teeth. Kravitz keeps out of the dragon’s direct line of sight, but when he sees an opening, he flies in.

It’s the fastest and most serious way he’s ever seen Barry deflect him. His scythe goes flying out of his own hands, and a large chest manifests in the air just long enough to snap shut over the weapon. Then it’s gone.

“Nice try,” Kravitz says, summoning the scythe again. It doesn’t come.

Barry must have some powerful wards on that extradimensional box, if a reaper can’t summon a soulbound weapon from it.

“Well, that was my exit,” Kravitz says bitterly, now considerably more on edge. He stays further back from Barry and the dragon, trying to formulate a plan to deal with this without his scythe.

“I will make you a portal myself if you’ll fucking go through it!”

“What’s your goal here?” Kravitz retorts. Admittedly, it’s a little mesmerizing, watching Barry fly around in an almost practiced routine. Like he’s done this before, even though no dragons have threatened Faerun for far longer than he has existed. Still, even a lich like him won’t ever take down a dragon. “How are you going to stop this thing on your own?”

“Oh, like you’d suddenly up and make yourself valuable help?” Fire nicks him. “Shit!”

“Well, I wasn’t just going to leave a fucking dragon loose on the world after I caught you, and I’m still not going to do it now!”

“I-I can’t trust you,” Barry says, and he has the nerve to sound sad. “Stop.”

Kravitz suddenly finds that his body doesn’t much want to move. He feels, actually, that he’d be quite better off if he stopped, and didn’t move a single muscle, even though every other thought in his mind is screaming that he needs to move. He has the feeling that, if he had a need for air right now, his lungs wouldn’t even expand.

The dragon is no fool, but Barry can at least keep it going in circles. He throws strings of magic off himself, luring the dragon upwards, and striking at its neck and underbelly. Then it’ll face him again, and he’ll shoot into its mouth. Repeat.

Kravitz, forced to watch, sees the pattern complete a few times, though Barry’s smart enough to change up how he executes it each time.

When they come towards the reaper once more, he sees the dragon break pattern. Its head levels with Barry early, while he’s still facing away from it.

“Careful!” Kravitz shouts instinctively, drawing Barry’s attention.

And the dragon’s.

The dragon faces Kravitz, and now he can see the fire it was building up in its jaws to attack Barry. He can see its eyes, too: it is far too furious to care about attacking someone other than its target. But his terror won’t allow him to move.

Barry flies in front of Kravitz. Kravitz sees his skeletal face, hollow and shaded. And then all he sees is fire.

It goes right through Barry, but it doesn’t hit Kravitz nearly as hard as it should. It is searing, yes, painful beyond imagining, but it does not decimate him the way dragon fire should.

The same cannot quite be said for Barry. His form flickers and glows something horrible. The flaming energy boils from within, threatening to destroy him, and he... spins around.

The energy flies back out of himself, now in enormous tethers of red lightning that coil around the beast. The dragon’s flight gets closer to the ground, until it crashes into the ground, sleepy or subdued or both.

But Barry looks worse than Kravitz has ever seen him. He’s always so composed for a lich, and now he’s only barely holding himself together. But it still isn’t like what he’s seen from other liches. He’s focused: his mind is present.

He’s just... discombobulating. Falling apart from that blast, and desperately trying to keep it together.

Kravitz can see the dragon on the ground, thrashing and struggling against its bindings, soon to be free once more.

“Krav--Kravitz,” Barry says urgently, his voice splitting and shaking and fighting so hard to stay comprehensible. “I--I know we’re not--it’s--please,” he tries, like he’s aiming to speak a whole hour’s worth of words when he has mere moments.

He’s coming undone. He grabs Kravitz’s hand, and it’s now that Kravitz realizes he’s allowed to move again. He lets Barry take it anyway, even though it would be so easy to brush off that feeble, shaking grasp.

He feels something cool pressed over his index finger, and when he looks down to see it, something hits his chest. He’s shoved back, and he sees the rim of a portal, and realizes he’s being pushed through one of Barry’s making.

“Barry--” the sky is the same. They’re still on the Material Plane, just a different part of it. A place where the dragon isn’t. (Yet.)

Barry takes his hand again, claps both skeletal hands around it. “Please don’t fuck me over on this one, Krav,” he says, and then his form completely dissipates. Barry is gone.

Kravitz stares at where Barry was for a few moments. And then he looks around. He’s on the outskirts of some city, now on the ground. Not making a spectacle by popping out of a portal in the sky, at least.

He tries for his scythe. It still won’t come.

And on his oustretched hand, on the index finger, there’s a ring. Pale tracings of a tiny, complex sigil encircle the rim. And in the center, there’s a small, red gemstone.

[Part 2]

#the adventure zone #taz balance #taz kravitz #barry bluejeans #mine #writes #my writing #tbc?#till death dont lets start

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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Okay so, you're overall sensible about your arguments & I'm worried you'll 100% convince me and ruin the only time I appreciated Cinder but let's go lol. I don't hate what they did with her in the last ep ? I carried that feeling of "she finally learned smth" into the final and didn't let go of it... Idk but Cinder so quickly learning to care about her allies when she's a raging egocentric would have felt... off. My take off instead is that she's finally learned to compromise to reach her ends.

LOL oh no I’ll try not to ruin anything! 😄

So when I first watched the finale I had two main reactions to Cinder’s choices. The first was disappointment that her long term growth ended up being a lie. Because yeah, even if it would have happened really fast for someone as arrogant and egotistical as her, Cinder as a character is rather flat. Real teamwork and friendship would have added dimension to someone who, currently, exists solely to be evil for power and she wants power because she was previously powerless. That’s both bland and overdone. A villain with a comparable relationship to the hero and their team though? The villain also capitalizing on The Power of Friendship? That’s way more interesting. To say nothing of the depth it might have brought to Emerald’s (so far incredibly rushed) redemption. What does it mean for her to spend years offering Cinder friendship and compassion and Cinder only returns it to someone else the moment Emerald defects? What a blow. So that felt like a missed opportunity.

But, the flipside to all this is that Cinder remaining a backstabbing asshole does frame her as competent again. She tricked Watts, she tricked Neo, and she pulled one over on Salem. I still believe what I originally said in my recap, that Cinder’s manipulation feels like it’s built far more on the others’ gullibility than her own skill, even if, as you say, we did see her toning things down to achieve that. Her manipulative actions weren’t nonexistent... but they weren’t a lot to justify the amount of trust her allies put in her either. I mean, Neo just stole the Lamp back after Cinder refused to complete her side of the bargain and Cinder just dangled Watts over a building. That’s a lot. Yet outside of her apology, Cinder doesn’t really do anything to convince the others she’s truly their ally this time. It’s not like we watched an arc wherein she sacrifices a great deal to prove her reliability, only to then turn around and reveal it was all just a long-con. Really, this entire scenario is based primarily on Neo making bad decisions. She gives Cinder the Lamp again after the betrayal she just went through? Why? Well, because the plot needed her to. But regardless, we do end up in the same place. Even if Cinder’s manipulation wasn’t super well executed, it was still a manipulation and she still came out on top. That’s the important bit. After getting taken out by Ruby’s silver eyes, spending a volume recovering, immediately falling to Raven, crawling back to Salem, and failing to take the Maiden powers from Penny twice over... Cinder really needed a win of some kind. And she got it! The kingdom of Atlas has fallen, the bad guys have two Relics, she thinks she killed two others, and if RT has played their cards right, Cinder has some plan of her own in the works while she plays servant to Salem.

I still believe both of the above points, but it wasn’t until a couple days after the finale aired that I saw others pointing out a rather glaring issue that I myself missed. Basically, the entire idea of Cinder learning that working with others helps her win (whether she means it or is just faking) is ridiculous because Cinder knew this from the start. She hunted down Emerald and Mercury, worked with Roman, pulled Adam into their plans, is obviously a part of Salem’s circle and has relied heavily on the others for all of her plans. That includes everything from Mercury and Emerald securing Amber so she could steal some of her power, to working with Neo to steal the Lamp. So it’s beyond weird to give her a revelatory moment when she knew this lesson already. Ideally, we might have gotten a more nuanced version of that revelation where Cinder acknowledges that trying to do things alone, like she only has recently, has turned out badly. When Cinder worked with her evil team in Volumes 1-3, she succeeded. When she worked with Neo and Watts in Volume 8, she succeeded. When she went off alone against Pyrrha, she briefly succeeded... but then was blindsided by Ruby. Then she starts a pattern of trying to do it all alone, attacking Raven (and losing) or attacking Penny (and losing), with Emerald only there because she begged to come. And, shockingly enough, Emerald’s presence is what saves her... and Cinder is pissed about it. This might have been a moment where, instead of Cinder realizing that allies are good — because she already knew that when she was introduced — she realizes that she has unintentionally let her ego push those allies away and has been the worse for it. I’d normally say that RT might have been aiming for that and just executed it badly... but if that were the case, Cinder wouldn’t have kicked Neo off the edge, or killed Watts. She obviously hasn’t realized that allies are how she wins, otherwise she’d keep those allies around until she has what she actually wants: the Maiden powers. You don’t kill Neo until after you’ve snatched all the power from Penny; you don’t kill Watts until after he’s helped you get the other two powers. That would be the smart, manipulative move. So she successfully manipulated them in the short term, yes, but now it feels like Cinder has set herself up for failure again. What’s going to happen the next time she’s in a fight without those allies? She’ll lose, most likely. Just like she was succeeding when Neo was there to take out Yang, but then failed once Neo was in the void. If Cinder had kept her around, Neo might have been able to keep Jaune busy while Penny was dying. Who knows, but the point is she’s clearly better off with them at her side. Now that they’re gone, Hazel is dead, and Emerald has turned, Cinder has no backup except for Salem herself. No one to assister her and no one to manipulate/betray. I fear that Cinder will be back to her old, lame self.

All of which could theoretically work. Cinder never realizing that allies are actually useful in the long run could be a fatal flaw of hers, but if that was meant to be a piece of her characterization we should understand why she’s so threatened by keeping them around. Above all, Cinder wants the Maiden powers and no one else is after them, so she’s not in competition with those allies for her ultimate goal. Salem (for whatever reason) considers her a favorite so again, Cinder isn’t trying to maintain some station that others are fighting her for. And as established, allies have only helped her over the course of this series. So why the egotism? Why doesn’t she want people to help her, or at the very least manipulate them until she’s achieved her true goal — all the Maiden powers — and then drop them into voids? I feel like the nugget of an answer might exist in her backstory. Something something Cinder is incapable of trusting anyone after Rhodes, no matter how much that trust would benefit her... but we don’t see evidence of that in the flashback itself (post-Rhodes Cinder exists for two seconds to stare at the moon) and she didn’t seem to possess this mistrust in the earlier volumes. This rejection of allies is now a pretty firm part of her characterization, but we don’t understand why and that lack of understanding rankles when a) it didn’t exist before and b) it’s clearly hurting Cinder’s chances to get what she wants in the long run. It’s like watching a character whose deepest desire is to bake a cake, we’ve established that having a recipe increases the chances of achieving that goal by a LOT, the character acknowledges this... but then it turns out that’s a lie because she’s tossed the recipe in the trash. And we don’t know why she did that. Why are you doing the things that are less likely to result in your cake??

Cake nonsense aside (lol) I have a lot of mixed feelings. Yeah, I too am happy that Cinder seems more competent than she’s been lately, but I also feel like that’s a really low bar right now. As you say, she was basically throwing “temper tantrums” before and now... she manipulates because she’s surrounded by the gullible and rejects long-turn help for unestablished reasons? It’s better than what we’ve gotten from her before, but I’m not sure I’d say it’s good — and it may look worse the longer the series goes on. Like looking back at her Volume 1-3 characterization, RWBY doesn’t possess the consistency for these possibilities to amount to much. In truth, I don’t think Cinder has some cool, brilliant plan she’s pulling over on Salem. I don’t think Salem has some cool, brilliant purpose for Cinder. I don’t think that Neo’s (potential) return will lead to any growth for her or Cinder. Simply because RT doesn’t appear to be planning their story for the long term and, as Neo’s Lamp stunts show, characters do things for the plot, not because it suits their characterization. Cinder’s moment in the finale indeed works for me in some respects, but I think that’s only the case because I’ve expected so little from her character for so long. And Cinder’s moment in the final indeed has some potential attached to it, but based on past experience, I don’t think RT will capitalize on that.

#rwby #mymetas #nexyra

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whattodowithace · 4 years ago

Text

My Diamond in Red: Catch me if you can

Title: My Diamond in Red: Catch me if you can

Pairing: Reader x Donghun (ACE)

Genre: Action, fluff, slight angst, thieves AU

Word count: 4989

Writer: Kpopmadness (Ju)

I roll over in bed with a sleepy sigh, stretching my limbs out slowly as morning rays of sunlight stream through my window. A glimpse of the snowy mountains coming through my white curtains.

“Changmin, give me back the spatula!” I hear Ara yell from the kitchen. Making me smile as I throw the blankets off my body and head downstairs.

Ara chases Changmin around the table as he holds the spatula out of her reach. Eggs on the stove turning a dark shade of brown as their playful banter continues. This was a normal morning in our house.

“Not unless you apologize for what you said!” He yells back, stopping at one end of the table with the spatula above his head so she couldn’t reach it.

I walk up behind him and grab it out of his hand, making him jump and then whine as I hand it back to a gleeful Ara.

“It’s too early in the morning for you two to be bickering.” I tease him as I make my way to the coffee machine.

I tap Daejung’s leg as I pass. He sat with his legs on the table as he held a metal object he was fiddling with. No doubt a new invention he had decided to try.

“Feet off the table.” I tell him, making him grunt in annoyance but still shift his feet off the wooden surface in obedience. P

Changmin leaves the room and plops down in the living room, turning on the news. Which was a morning ritual of ours since buying this large house tucked away in the snowy mountains. Miles from people. And more importantly, authorities.

I just take a sip of my coffee when Changmin sucks in a breath.

“Guys, come look at this.” He says as he turns the volume up on the flat screen TV. The increased volume making us all turn our attention to the display on the screen.

I nearly drop my coffee mug and have to set it down on the table before walking closer to the television. My eyes wide with shock and my heart in my throat.

‘This is a rerun of last nights epic events of one of the top thieves in the world being taken into custody around midnight last night.’ The newscaster reported, the screen switching to a dark haired man with slanted eyes. ‘Kim Byeongkwan is one of the members of a well known group called A.C.E. A group of thieves the authorities have run themselves ragged trying to track down for the past six years. The group stole many artifacts from this Art Museum last night but not before Byeongkwan was caught in a head to head chase with an NYPD police officer. The rest of his members are said to have gotten away.’

I sit down on the lush couch behind me as they show Byeongkwan running from the police officer before the officer fires his taser, making Byeongkwan fall to the ground stiffly.

“So...is that the end of A.C.E?” Ara asks, the question burning in all of our minds.

A.C.E was our rival group, making every heist harder than it needed to be. But we hadn’t seen them in two years. Not since the Red Diamond heist.

“They always did go for more than they should have.” I mumble under my breath. A twinge stinging my heart at the thought of their leader.

“And that’s why we retired last year.” Changmin says matter of factly as he stands and goes to the kitchen to eat as if nothing happened. “We don’t want to spend our lives in jail like Byeongkwan no doubt will.”

I stare at the TV for a long time. Even though we were rivals, and even though we as the K4 had retired, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them.

A.C.E was considered the #1 richest group of thieves in the world. Us being the second richest. But the problem with being the #1 richest is it left you with a lot further to fall when you messed up.

But I couldn’t say I was surprised when one week later, the remaining members of A.C.E walked into our front door. Like a puppies with their tails between their legs.

~~~~

“No, no, absolutely not.” Ara snarled. “We are not helping you to get back your teammate.”

“And how do we know you won’t just turn us in once he’s free?” Changmin added, his arms crossed over his chest stiffly.

We all stood around a large black table with a blueprint of the prison Byeongkwan was being held in. All of us had our guard up. It’s not exactly relaxing when your rivals show up on your doorstep and ask for help. At the opposite end of the table stood Donghun. His dark dragon shaped eyes occasionally flicking to me. Which i tried my best to ignore by looking over the blueprints carefully.

“This isn’t exactly what we wanted to do.” Seyoon says briskly from his place by Jun. “But we don’t exactly have a choice.”

“Why can’t you break in by yourselves?” I ask, this time looking at Donghun. The question was aimed at him.

Donghun sighs and sits back in his chair, his fingers picking at the edge of the smooth table as he thought over his response.

“Because we can’t do this by ourselves.” He says, meeting my eyes. “We’re good. But we aren’t good enough to break into this prison. We need all the help we can get.”

“Well, excuse me for being blunt,” Daejung growls from the corner of the room where he observes us talking. “We haven’t exactly seen you guys around the neighborhood. It’s been two years.”

“And for those two years where were you?” Donghun shoots back irritably. He said it in response to Daejung but his eyes were locked on me. “We haven’t seen or heard about you guys since the red diamond heist.”

“They quit like cowards. That’s what happened.” Chan mumbles.

“Retired.” I correct, giving him an icy glare. “How did you even find us?” I ask. Hoping to change the tense subject for a moment.

Jun lets out a chuckle from his seat. “We have our ways. You guys aren’t exactly clever hiders.”

“Oh, so you can find us but you cant break into a prison?” Ara snaps. “That’s cute.”

“We’ll pay you.” Donghun says, stopping Jun from giving a snarky comeback. “Name your price.”

Me and my teammates let out a scoff. Changmin stands beside me and clinches and unclenches his fists.

“We don’t want your money.” He snarls.

“He’s right.” I say, giving him a pat on the arm, a gesture telling him to relax. “We aren’t interested in the pay. What we need is protecting. If we help you with this we want nothing to do with anything else you get yourselves into. We worked hard to get what we have, and we worked hard to get ourselves out so we could live our life without owing anyone anything.

“The K4 is done.” Daejung adds. “We want a normal life now.”

Seyoon scoffs, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “Are you joking? What normal life? You’re all thieves! Society won’t excuse that if you are ever caught. You have no family, no friends. What normal life could you possibly be referring to?”

“One where we can just live for ourselves.” I tell him, my voice calm but cold. “We built this house away from people and authorities so we could do that. And we are a family. That’s why we’re all in the same house.”

I sigh and stand up from my seat, making the members of ACE tense as i stand. “We’ll help you get Byeongkwan out. But consider it our way of paying our deeds. We owe you nothing after this. So play by our rules and this should all work smoothly.”

I leave the room with my teammates following me. Leaving the members of ACE to come to terms with our proposal. Not that they had much of a choice. We were their only chance of pulling this last heist off.

````

Over the next several weeks we begin our plan to get in. The member of ACE stayed in extra bedrooms we had in our large house. Making everyone feel uneasy. But I felt it unlikely they would do anything to ruin their deal with us. We were the only ones helping them. In those weeks Donghun and i hardly spoke, unless it was about getting Byeongkwan out. The tension between us growing more and more as the days passed. But I wasn’t exactly interested in addressing it right then. So i left him alone.

Donghuns ideal time frame for breaking Byeongkwan out was a few weeks. I stayed by two months.

“Their security system is more complex then it looks.” I explain as i stand at the table looking over the blueprints for the hundredth time. “Getting in will take us two months. Maybe three.”

“We don't have that kind of time.” Donghun sighs from across the table.

“Well make time.” I snap. “The authorities are probably just waiting for you to make your next move. They know you’ll come for your teammate. If you want to do this the smart way, you’ll wait. Plus, it will take Ara that long to break into their security system.”

“The firewalls they’ve put up are intense.” She mumbles from her spot by her computer. Several screens lining the large desk she sat at. Illuminating her face with blue light. “They aren’t fooling around.”

“You can get in though, right?” Donghun asks. Hs brow drawing together in concern.

Ara sighs and looked away from her screens. She looked at me and then at Donghun. “If you don’t rush me then yes. I can get in.”

I smile and go to make my way to Daejung, who was working on a way to get Byeongkwan out with Seyoon. I wanted to make sure Daejung hadn’t poisoned Seyoon’s drinking water. The two didn't exactly get along.

I had almost cleared the hallway when i feel a hand close around my wrist and pull me into one of the guests bedrooms. This bedroom in particular i knew was Donghun’s. I let out a sigh, knowing all too well we had put off this talk a little longer than we should have. So i decided not to argue as i turn around and faced Donghun, who was leaning his back against the closed door behind him.

“We weren’t your only chance of getting Byeongkwan out.” I say bluntly. Tired of the silence that filled the room. “You could have gone to someone else. People more qualified than us and yet you came here.”

Donghun keeps his eyes trained on the floor. As if he would find answers in the way the wood floor shined in the afternoon sun. “This wasn’t just about Byeongkwan.” He says quietly.

I stay quiet, waiting for him to continue. I don't have to wait long.

“Where were you?” He asks, meeting my eyes. “I didn’t know the red Diamond heist was your last job.”

“It wasn’t planned that way” I tell him. “A few days after that we talked about quitting as a group. Talked about building a house in hiding that we’ve always dreamed of having.”

“But I didn’t know it would be the last time I would see you.” He says quietly. Hurt lacing his words making my heart ache.

“Donghun,” I say calmly. “I already told you this two years ago. We can’t be together like that.”

“That’s not an answer, princess.” Donghun says, his dark eyes narrowing.

I scoff and go to stand next to the window in the small room. I let out a shaky breath before continuing.

“I didn’t know the red diamonds would be our last encounter. But you and I chasing each other like cat and mouse on heists, just isn’t smart, Donghun.” I turn to see Donghun staring at me. His eyes sad.

“You kept chasing after prizes and toys, Donghun. The bigger the prize, the harder the fall eventually. And we didn’t want to end up in prison.”

“And what does that have to do with us?” Donghun asks as he takes several steps towards me.

“I’m a prize to you, Donghun. Not someone you love.” I respond bluntly. Hurt bleeds into Donghun’s eyes and makes his shoulders tight.

I feel my own composer breaking. After two years of being away from him I wanted to say I had control over my emotions for him. But I also hadn’t thought I would see him again. I cross the room and go back to the door to continue to find Daejung. Needing to get away from the room before I lost my strong composure. I leave Donghun staring out the window of the small room, hoping he would understand why we were a mistake waiting to happen.

~~~

Over the next two months, we work tirelessly on getting Byeongkwan out. The news calmed down about arresting him and things slowly normalized in the media. But getting him out wasn’t the problem. It was getting in. Ara had worked long hours with Jun trying to get in the building. Every time they thought they were in another firewall would come up, denying them access.

I couldn’t help but notice the way the members of ACE seemed to be slowly making themselves at home. Each member seemed to be getting along with the others better and better the more time passed. Sometimes I even caught Daejung, Seyoon, Ara and Chan all sitting at the kitchen table playing cards. Even though they swore they were actually working.

As the plan came together and the day drew closer and closer for us to rescue Byeongkwan, my relationship with Donghun didn’t improve. Our relationship staying icy and distant.

Two years of not hearing anything from each other took a heavy hit. Plus our conversation after their arrival only added to things. We kept to ourselves and didn’t converse more than needed. But I still caught Donghun giving me passing glances, which I wished he would stop so the wounds between us could heal.

Then one night I sat at the kitchen table with Daejung going over medicines we were going to be using to get Byeongkwan out of prison when Ara came running into the space, her eyes bright and a broad smile lighting up her face.

“We got in!” She says. Squealing in excitement as she runs back to the computer.

I pass a glance to Donghun, who was sitting on the couch watching the news. I beat him up and make it into the room first where Ara and Jun talk excitedly amongst themselves.

“You’re in?” I repeat, leaning over Area’s chair to look at her screen. Donghun comes in the room a moment later.

“Yep.” She says proudly. “We have complete access to all their cameras, security, inmate records. We have it all.”

“So we can safely go through with the plan now?” Donghun asks from beside me.

“We can go through with the plan anytime now.” Jun says. “Byeongkwan can be out before the end of the week.”

“And Daejung has what we need to get him out.” Ara cuts in, excitement filling her eyes. “And Seyoon has everything arranged after we get him out.”

I feel a rush of excitement light my chest as I look over at Donghun, who had a wide grin on his face.

“We leave in two days.” I announce. Making Ara jump up and race down the hall to tell the others. Excitement filling the house that night.

~~~~

The night before leaving, I wonder upstairs after dinner to go to the roof. We have designed the house with spaces for get aways. Places for when you needed alone time.

I zipped my jacket up closer around my neck as i stand on the flat roof staring up at the stars. The only lights illuminating the night coming from our house. But everything else was dark. Making the moon and stars shine even brighter.

I take in a lung full of air and let it go slowly. Enjoying the way the air made my head feel clearer and sharper. I don’t know how long I had been there when I hear the roofs latch open, making me turn away from my star gazing.

“I didn’t know you liked looking at the stars.” Donghun says as he steps onto the roof.

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me.” I reply as I go back to looking at the night sky.

Donghun slowly approaches until he’s standing beside me looking up at the sky with me. It quiet between us for some time. The only thing filling the silence being the occasional sound of an owl or wolf in the distance.

“We’re really doing this tomorrow?” Donghun asks. His question sounded more to himself than at me but I still nod my head.

“He’ll be out and then you guys can plan for your next big heist. Things will go back to normal.”

Donghun chuckles weakly before looking down at his feet, seeming to go deep in thought.

“I’m sorry about everything.” He says quietly. Making me look at him. “You have every right to want a normal life. And I judged you for that.”

I feel my lips turn upwards into a small smile at his change in perception. “You had every right to be angry with me.” I answer. “Not seeing us around to beat you guys probably left you feeling empty.” I tease, making him smile.

“It wasn’t the same without you there that’s for sure.” Donghun admits truthfully.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you.” I apologize, our eyes locking in that moment. I stuff my hands in my jacket pockets, suddenly afraid I would reach out and take his hands in mine.

“It’s okay.” He responds, our gaze holding longer than it needed to.

Donghun clears his throat. “What will you do when we leave?” He asks. I look back up at the sky. I hadn’t thought about when ACE left. My heart throbbing at the thought.

“I’ll think of something.” I tell him quietly. “What about you?” I ask, changing the subject.

Donghun shrugs, kicking at a shingle with his foot. “There’s always a new Diamond or painting to go after.”

“You guys are welcome to stay longer if you want.” I blurt out. Feeling my face go hot after the words had left my mouth.

Donghun’s lips quirk up in a sideways smirk. But his eyes show the sadness he was trying to hide behind that smirk.

“Thanks, Princess.” He answers. Making my face feel warm again.

I think the both of us had the same burning question in our minds but were afraid to ask it. What about us?

But with the mission just ahead of us, neither one of us was about to bring that up now.

I take in another lung full of air before saying, “I’m going to bed. We have a big day ahead of us.”

“Goodnight.” Donghun calls from behind me. His voice soft and sad.

I feel tears sting my eyes once I’m safe in my room but force myself to push them aside. To stick with my word of us not working. I force myself to leave the roof, my heart feeling heavy for it. But I force myself to realize that he would never stay for me and give up being a thieve. No matter how much my heart screamed for it.

~~~

I watch the cameras inside the large van Daejung and Changmin had spent all night remodeling to look like an ambulance on the outside. I had to give it to them, it looked good.

We sat parked a few blocks away from the prison Byeongkwan was being held at. Out of sight of the guards that circled the high fence around the building.

I watch as Donghun walks into the building without a hitch. Scans his fake ID, keeps his head down and makes it to the prisons kitchen, where prisoners were being filed in for lunch.

“If I could, I would apologize for how everyone in that building is about to feel.” Daejung says, his face held in a wince.

I chuckle but keep my eyes on the camera as Donghun joins the kitchen staff.

“Ara, turn the cameras off.” I tell her from over my shoulder. She gives me a grin and hits a button on her keyboard, switching the cameras from the kitchen to a large hallway just outside the cafeteria. Jun sits beside her, biting his nails nervously.

Donghun was the one poisoning the food. Not the kind of poison to kill anyone. Just enough to make everyone that ate at the cafeteria very sick and need an ambulance. And when you have more than 80 prisoners eating in one cafeteria, plus guards, you’re going to need a lot of ambulances.

“Start the clock.” Donghun whispers into the mic on my ear. Making me hit a timer on the dash.

The timer started it’s countdown; 10:59, 10:20, 10:00

It did no good to watch the seconds pass on it but I couldn’t help it. In ten minutes the prison was about to be the sickest it had ever been at one time. And we would be there to catch them. But among the sick people would be Byeongkwan.

I door to the van opens, Donghun quickly steps inside the back and takes his cap off. Ara watches the cameras as prisoners settle down to eat. Byeongkwan sits at a round table by himself as he stares down at his tray of food for a moment before eating.

“How much longer?” Donghun asks, tapping his foot immediately.

“Eight minutes.” Daejung answers. His hands pressed against the steering wheel.

Behind us, a cop car pulls up. Making my heart stop momentarily before I recognize the driver to be Changmin. Beside him is Seyoon.

We wait anxiously, the minutes passing agonizingly slow when I hear Ara say behind me. “One down.”

I turn in my seat in time to see a prisoner clutch his stomach and fall to the cafeteria floor in pain. Moments later others join him. Including guards. Not even five minutes later our radio goes off. Asking for ambulances.

I smile excitedly at Donghun as i slide into my seat and buckle up while Daejung turns on the ambulance lights and speeds off in the direction of the prison. Changmin behind us with his cop siren blaring.

Donghun and I pull on our caps and pull them down over our eyes once we’ve cleared the fence. Donghun opens the back to bring out a stretcher, once it’s out I quickly close the door to keep anyone from seeing Jun and Ara next to computer screens in the back.

We make our way into the building with Seyoon following us. Who was dressed as a guard who looked to be escorting us to our patient. We fall into step with each other as we keep our heads down and make our way to the cafeteria.

Moments after us several more ambulances pull into the prison parking lot. Paramedics rush past us to evaluate the sick in the cafeteria. Some lay with their heads on the table, some lay on the floor in agony.

I silently thank Daejung for being such an evil genius with these types of things. We find Byeongkwan in the corner of the room on the floor. His face white and his hair stuck to his face in sweat. His breathing rapid and irregular.

Donghun and I kneel down beside him while Seyoon kept watch. I pull out an IV from my bag and start working the needle into Byeongkwans hand. The other great thing about Daejung is he always made a cure for his potions. Byeongkwan would feel better in five minutes once the IV drip started.

Donghun takes Byeongkwan’s face in his hands, making him meet his eyes.

“Donghun?” Byeongkwan slurs quietly. Donghun presses his finger to his lips before motioning for me to help him get Byeongkwan on the stretcher.

We get Byeongkwan down carefully. Donghun and Seyoon pick him up while I walk beside him holding the IV bag. Nurses and doctors run around us, all of them puzzled as to what to do for their many patients. The effects would wear off in two hours tops. They would be left with nothing more than a headache. But it left us with enough time to get out.

I held my breath until we were outside the building. Byeongkwan groaned on the stretcher when the afternoon sun hit his eyes. A few guards standing outside eyed us carefully, their K-9 units alert beside them.

“Get in first.” Donghun whispers to me once we reach the van.

I pull the door open just enough to get inside. Seyoon and Donghun slide Byeongkwan in with me. Donghun climbs in and Seyoon quickly heads for the police car Changmin was in while no one was looking.

Changmin turns on his siren and pulls ahead of us, leading the way down the highway toward the hospital we were never going to reach.

I let out a breath as we get further and further away

away from the prison. My racing heart slowly coming down. Donghun smiles at me, making me smile back at him.

“You guys suck.” Byeongkwan whispers, rubbing his head with his hand.

“You’re welcome.” Ara snorts. Making all of us chuckle.

Our final heist as the K4, complete.

~~~

After making sure Byeongkwan could stand and ditching the van and police car we get into a new van that we had kept in our garage. The same one we used for all our heists for years as the K4.

All of us are tired and quiet on the drive home. Byeongkwan’s face is no longer white as a sheet and returns back to a normal shade the further we drive.

Donghun and I exchange lingering looks to each other as the drive continues. Both of us knowing this was our last time together in a heist.

We reach the house soon after, everyone remaining quiet as they go inside. Ace loads up their equipment and clothes and leaves the spare rooms they had once occupied bare.

I stand in the doorway as Donghun helps load equipment into their van. My heart throbs in my chest but I keep ignoring it as I watch him.

Once the last of the things is packed Donghun slowly walks over to me.

“You’re leaving so soon.” I say. Trying to keep the let down out of my voice. They didn’t need to stay longer, I knew that. Byeongkwan was fine.

“Yeah. We belong on the road.” Donghun says, keeping his eyes locked on mine.

“Thank you.” Donghun says, smiling at me. “For helping us. For everything.”

I smile back at him, even though it was a forced smile. “Just remember we don’t owe you anything now.”

Donghun’s smile wavers. We stare at each other a little longer before Donghun quickly steps forward and places a kiss on my cheek.

“Bye, princess.” He whispers in my ear. His lips resting on my cheek a moment longer before pulling away.

I don’t have time to respond before he turns and heads back to the van. Me and my team watch them pull away from our house. A feeling of loss lingering as we go back inside.

I go upstairs to my room, forcing tears down as I go to the window. Their van out of sight now. I collapse on my bed and stare at the ceiling, telling myself to get over it. That this was for the best.

I don’t know how long I lay there before I hear commotion outside my window, making me sit up. A second later I see my bedroom door open. Donghun stepping inside, a smirk tugging at his lips.

“You came back.” Is all I can manage to get out. Shock making my body freeze up.

“Seyoon is a bad driver.” He jokes. Making me let out a teary chuckle.

Donghun steps closer to me before taking my face in his hands and pressing his mouth to mine. I wrap my arms around his waist as our lips stay locked.

He pulls away only slightly to whisper against my mouth, “You’ve never been just a prize to me. You’re more than that. You’re the thing that gave me a reason to go for the red diamonds. Every heist has always been to get to you. Not the riches and glory.”

I let out a sob making Donghun hold me tighter as one arm went to my waist and the other wiped tears away from my cheeks.

“You were right.” He whispers against my forehead. “We can’t be together as thieves. But as retired thieves, maybe.”

Donghun presses a long kiss to my mouth before kissing along my jaw, making me weave my fingers through his hair.

“You stole my heart the day I met you. And I want you to keep it.” He whispers deeply against my neck, making me let out a laugh.

I take his face in my hands and kiss his nose gently, his brown eyes holding strong emotions behind them. Emotions I felt back.

“Do you think we can all live together without killing each other?” I ask him as I wipe tears from my eyes.

“If not we’ll just kick Byeongkwan out. He’s usually the trouble maker.” Donghun teases, winking slyly at me.

I laugh as I wrap my arms around his neck and bring his lips down to mine again. Retirement just got better.

#a.c.e #a.c.e x reader #ace donghun x reader #ace donghun #a.c.e donghun x reader #a.c.e donghun #ace imagines #a.c.e imagine #ace fanfiction #fanfiction #kpop fanfiction #kpop x reader #kpop #ace #kpop imagines #kpopmadness writings

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pahrak-the-sinnoh-slizer · 4 years ago

Text

Right of Law, Section XXVI

(The kolhii tournament is about to begin in Civitas Magna, and the arrival of a certain team sparks some controversy. Meanwhile, in Ga-Koro, Kojol receives a visit from one of the last people she ever expected.)

“After a series of heart-stopping qualifier matches, the 8585th District’s Kofo-Jaga have earned the privilege of representing Civitas Magna in this week’s kolhii tournament! The dynamic duo of Bour and Keahi won over hearts from all across the city, stunning us all when…” Tarduk looked up. “Gaaki? You still there?”

The Ga-Matoran snapped to attention. “O-Oh, yeah, sounds good!”

Tarduk set down the paper he was reading from and leaned forward. “C’mon, Gaaki, we’ve got a deadline to meet.”

“Sorry...it’s just hard to focus.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I mean, is this really what should be on the front page? There are much more important things going on.”

“You mean the things we were explicitly told not to write about?”

“Not just those, no. What about that art that’s been circulating? We’re allowed to cover that as long as we don’t make it sound like we sympathize.”

“Perditus is already doing an article on that.”

“He is?”

“Yeah. Page 10.”

Gaaki ran a hand over her mask. “No one reads to page 10…”

“Exactly. Haven’t you figured Ahkmou out yet? He wants to discourage people from buying and selling any suspected Nynrahn art, sure, but he knows that if he puts too much effort into it, people will get curious. A short afterthought of an editorial, though? A casual dismissal like that will plant the idea to avoid it much more effectively.”

Gaaki’s eyes traced a crack in the ceiling.

“Look...I’m not happy about it, but this is the situation we find ourselves in, Gaaki.”

“So we should just play along? Ignore our responsibility to inform the people? Is that right?”

Tarduk sighed. “...It sure doesn’t feel right. But what would we accomplish if we made a push right now? We’d disappear, and the Chronicle would carry on as is--the people would be no better off.”

A long silence passed.

“We may be in a position to do some good...but if so, we’re only likely to get one good shot. Aim carefully, Gaaki.”

The Ga-Matoran veered to one side. Her attempts at forming a response were abandoned when the door swung open, letting in a frantic-looking De-Matoran wearing a Hau. He rushed across the room, stopping only when Gaaki rose from her seat to say, “Woah, slow down there! What’ve you got, Krakua?”

“I was at the wall,” the other Matoran panted, “interviewing teams as they arrived...the Mahri-Nui Hydruka showed up…”

Tarduk leaned back in his chair. “Oh, that does sound like a scoop. From what I hear they almost weren’t approved to participate.”

Krakua waved his hands. “It’s even bigger than that! Hahli and Dekar are here, as expected, but Dekar’s the substitute! They’ve got Hewkii on the team now!”

Everyone looked up from their desks. Gaaki gaped a moment before asking, “From the Atero Scarabax? That Hewkii?”

“Exactly! I’ve got to run this interview by the editor right away!”

Krakua took off once again. Tarduk glanced at Gaaki, who remained perfectly still, eyes practically bulging out of her mask. Time seemed to freeze in the newsroom as everyone collectively held their breath, until the silence was shattered by footsteps coming through the open door. Gaaki was first to see who it was, and immediately returned to her seat, the shock on her face now mixed with copious dread.

“Slow news day,” Ekimu said, tools jangling in his apron pockets as he strode across the floor.

“I am certain they are merely stunned by your arrival, Lord Ekimu,” Yarion said, the scuffs on their armor still faintly visible despite its recent polish. “We are all humbled by your presence.”

At the back of the room, another door opened; Krakua quietly slinked out, and behind him stormed Ahkmou. The Turaga froze mid-step when he noticed the Great Being.

“Ah, Lord Ekimu,” he said, quickly smoothing out his disposition. “It is an honor to meet you in person at last.”

“Something’s wrong,” Ekimu said. It was not a question.

“Ah...not to trouble you, my lord, but I did just receive some concerning news. It seems that someone with ties to Xia has arrived as part of the Mahri-Nui kolhii team. I was just on my way to deal with the issue.”

Ekimu inclined his head. Turning towards Krakua, he said, “You saw this?”

“Y-Yes, my lord,” Krakua answered. “Hewkii from the Scarabax--”

“I’ll have him detained at once, Lord Ekimu,” Ahkmou said. “Please, there’s no need to worry yourself over the matter.”

Ekimu’s head swiveled back to regard Ahkmou. “I don’t worry.”

“O-Oh, of course.”

“Leave him be.”

Ahkmou raised an eyebrow. “...Ah...not to question you, but are you sure, my lord? I have it on good authority that Hewkii assisted in defending the rebel-held Xia against Atero, and we already had some suspicions toward Mahri-Nui. This is probably a rebel ploy.”

“I don’t care.” Ekimu walked forward. “I came to watch a tournament. Make a mask for the winner. Cause a stir now, and it may as well be cancelled. And what’s the worst he can do? Talk? Who’s gonna listen when I’m here?”

Ahkmou bowed. “Excellent point, Lord Ekimu. Please forgive my rudeness.”

Ekimu passed the Turaga, saying, “Have Vamprah keep an eye on him. Find out what he knows. After the tournament, I’ll take him back to the Maze.”

“Of course, my lord.” Ahkmou nodded to Yarion, who walked back outside. Running after Ekimu, he said, “Now then, on to other matters!”

They disappeared into Ahkmou’s office. Tarduk looked again to Gaaki, who was staring hard at the paper in front of her. Quietly, he repeated, “Aim carefully.”

Gaaki locked eyes with him. “I will.”

***

Dekar carefully peeked through the blinds. Nothing stood out as suspicious, but it was hard to pick out faces in the large crowd gathered outside the hotel.

“Please stop checking every few minutes,” Hahli said. “You’re driving me crazy.”

“Sorry,” he said as he stepped away from the window. “Just a little on-edge.”

“I understand. But if someone was coming for us, I’m sure we’d know.”

Hewkii lay on one of the beds, casually tossing a kolhii ball up and down. “Be at ease, friends. If we’ve made it this far, I doubt we have anything to fear.”

“Is everyone from Atero so laid-back?” Dekar asked, tone flat as the pavement outside.

“Dekar,” Hahli mumbled.

Hewkii sat up. “Oh...sorry, maybe it looks like I’m not taking this seriously.”

“No, no, we know you are. But...how are you able to stay so calm?”

“I guess I’m just a little more prepared for being surrounded by enemies. Not that Atero’s forces see that much battle, but I imagine it’s more than Mahri-Nui’s used to.”

Dekar crossed his arms. “You’d be surprised. If this is how you approach battle, I’m amazed you’ve survived this long.”

“Hm? You’re a warrior?”

“A hunter, at least. I also spend a lot of time surrounded by things that want me dead.”

Hewkii hopped to his feet, gently tossing the kolhii ball to Dekar. “I see! That must be exciting work!”

Dekar caught the ball in one hand, instantly stopping all its momentum. “It’s necessary work. I wouldn’t call it ‘exciting’.”

Hewkii frowned. Turning to Hahli, he said, “So, what is it you do when you’re not playing kolhii?”

“Oh, a little of everything,” Hahli said. “Errands, deliveries, even hunting with Dekar every now and then.”

“Not really sure what it is you want to do?”

“Well…I’ve always been curious about reporting, but, there isn’t much need for that on an island as small as Mahri-Nui.”

“Is that so? Need or not, you could always give it a try.”

Dekar shot the ball straight back at Hewkii, the other Toa bouncing it off his chest, rolling it down his arm, and then spinning it atop one finger. Unimpressed, Dekar said, “If you know something isn’t necessary, then doing it anyway is a waste of time. Time you could spend doing something else.”

Hewkii tilted his head. “...You have quite the work ethic, Dekar. I’m a bit jealous!”

“Is playing kolhii ‘necessary’, Dekar?” Hahli asked. “You need to have fun every once in a while.”

Dekar’s arms crossed once again. “I need something to occupy myself. Kolhii at least keeps me in good physical shape. It’s practical.”

Hahli rolled her eyes. “Oh, alright.”

Hewkii began juggling the ball with his foot. “Dekar my friend, I think it would benefit you to relax a bit. Once this is over, I’d be happy to lend you a hand.”

“There’s no guarantee any of us will be alive when this is over,” Dekar said. “Have you forgotten? Did you even understand that risk when you agreed?”

Hewkii balanced the ball on his toe. “I understand, and I haven’t forgotten. But what’s the harm in a little optimism? Plans falling through is better than seeing a day you never planned for, I think.”

“I’ll stay focused on the present.”

Finally, Hewkii set the ball down, resting his foot atop it. “...You don’t like being a part of this operation, do you Dekar?”

Dekar paused. “Honestly? I think it’s a bad idea. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have agreed to come.”

“It was up to you. You were given a choice in whether you wanted to come or not.”

“Hm...I guess I should say ‘if it were just about me’. But it isn’t. Mahri-Nui has allied with Zaekura, so we all have a responsibility to do what we can to make her vision a reality.” His voice dropped a bit. “It’s a good vision.” Returning to normal volume, he finished, “I’m prepared to do my part, whether I think it’s the best move or not.”

Hewkii grinned. “I understand now. You’re a good Toa, Dekar.”

Dekar grumbled something, going to throw himself onto a bed. Hahli said, “Well, I like the plan. Not everyday you get to save the world with kolhii, right?”

Hewkii laughed.

“I’m prepared for whatever might happen. Hearing about what you saw in Xia made me ready to fight.”

A knock on the door interrupted the conversation. Hewkii approached, asking, “Who is it?”

“Garan.”

Hewkii’s face lit up. Opening the door, he said, “Garan! I’m so glad to--”

He was greeted by a punch directly to the mask. Stepping inside, Garan asked, “What do you think you’re doing here?”

Dekar and Hahli leapt forward, each grabbing one of Garan’s shoulders. “We should ask you that,” Dekar said.

“Ow…” Hewkii rubbed his jaw. “I see you haven’t gone soft at your new desk job!”

“Why did they let you in?” Garan asked. “Your treachery isn’t a secret, Hewkii. It’s only a matter of time until you get shipped straight to the Maze.”

“Well, if this is going to be my last game of kolhii, you’d better make it a good one.”

Garan glared at him in silence for a few seconds.

“Please, Garan--”

“Why? Why did you have to betray us?”

Hewkii shook his head. “I didn’t choose to fight against you, Garan. I chose to fight for the people.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Don’t you know?”

Garan huffed. He took a step back, shaking himself free of Hewkii’s teammates’ grips. “The people will only be safe once Zaekura’s defeated. So I’m going make that happen as quickly as possible.”

Hewkii gave a single, slow nod. “So that’s what you think.”

“What else can I think? That it’s possible to defy the Great Beings? That a system that’s controlled this planet for a hundred thousand years can just come toppling down, and that no one will suffer in the process? You’re all just causing pointless chaos--can’t you see that?!”

He waited a long time for an answer. Finally, Hewkii said, “I doubt there’s anything I can say that you haven’t already heard, Garan. Let’s get some rest for tomorrow, alright? Play well.”

Garan left without another word.

***

Using her powers of Magnetism, Kojol gently raised a new Peace banner, the old, weathered one now in a pile in the corner. As she set it in place, she heard someone enter the cathedral. She paid them no mind as she made sure the decoration was aligned properly.

“Kojol.”

She blinked. Turning, she confirmed what she thought she had heard. “Hmph...seems there truly is a first time for everything.”

Gorast growled, taking a seat in one of the pews. “That how you treat your visitors?”

“You’re a special exception. Isn’t that how you prefer it?”

“Pfeh. You’re one to talk.”

“Much as I enjoy catching up, Gorast, why don’t you simply tell me why you’re here?”

Gorast eyed the Suva at the center of the room. “...I don’t really know. I was just passing by.”

“Then, if you’ll excuse me.” Kojol continued replacing the banners.

After a very long pause, Gorast said, “I never liked you.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Kojol said, not slowing in her work.

“You always ignored what the Great Beings wanted and did things your own way. I could never understand that. We exist to serve them.”

“Perhaps. The way I look at things, I have a more specific role--not that it need clash with the will of the Great Beings.”

“But you’re harboring rebels. That idiot reporter interviewed Zaekura right here, didn’t he?”

“I am merely carrying out my role as I understand it. Aren’t you doing the same?”

Gorast dug her claws into the pew in front of her. “Don’t give me that! The will of the Great Beings is absolute, not something you can twist however you want!”

Casting a glance over her shoulder, Kojol said, “Such narrow thinking. Are you wholly dependent on the Great Beings, unable to make any decision for yourself?”

“I don’t need to decide for myself!” She slowly rose to her feet. “You may think you know better than the Great Beings, but I’m not that stupid!”

Kojol beat her staff against the floor. “Calm yourself at once! This is a place of peace, and I shall see it remains so!”

“Hah! You really think you could stop me?”

“You may be a peerless warrior, Gorast, but even you could not face down the whole of Ga-Koro single-handedly.”

Gorast clicked her claws together. “You sound awfully sure of that.”

“Are you prepared to learn why?”

They held each other’s gaze for a minute. Then, Gorast snarled and turned aside. “You all sicken me. I’m the only one who deserves the title of Makuta.”

“You are certainly the only one who views it the way you do. You’re like a child, proudly ignorant of the outside world, clinging to your parent’s leg so you cannot miss a single of their acts to perfect your mimicry. At least the child does not know anything else.”

Gorast whirled. “What did you say?!”

“I’ve no intention to repeat myself.” Kojol returned to work. “Will you be staying long?”

“...I need to escort Lord Ekimu back to the Maze in a few days. Maybe I should just stay here until then.”

“Very well. I hope you enjoy your stay.”

Gorast paused. “You’d really let me stay?”

“Of course. Ga-Koro welcomes all.”

She wished she had an answer, but she couldn’t even process what she was being told. With a low grumble, Gorast sat back down, angrily watching Kojol work as she waited for some kind of retort to come. As she waited, many came and went, offering prayers at the Suva or briefly conversing with Kojol about something--they all seemed wary of Gorast, but none were deterred by her presence. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that. Eventually, she got up and left the cathedral; she was only just down its steps when she bumped into a Guurahk wearing a beret.

“Oh...Makuta Gorast,” he said. “W-What a surprise…”

Gorast sneered. “It talks...one of Bitil’s, I take it?”

“Ah...yes. My name is Ulwin.”

“I don’t care.”

Ulwin nodded and turned to leave.

“...Wait.”

Ulwin stopped, half-turning to face her. “Yes?”

“Is Bitil here?”

“No, he isn’t.”

“...And you’re willing to tell me that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Gorast clenched her fists. “One of your enemies is right here. Doesn’t that worry you?”

Ulwin glanced up the steps for a second. “...It does, yes. But I know that I’m safe here.”

Some unfamiliar emotion pulled at Gorast. Ignoring it, she said, “You really think Kojol cares enough to protect you? Bitil’s the only one who can stand you mutant slugs. I’m surprised you’d go anywhere without him.”

Ulwin’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I admit...it has been difficult. And we knew it would be--that’s certainly part of why we were always so reluctant to leave father’s side. But, slowly, people are coming to understand us, to accept us. Makuta Kojol has welcomed us just as she would any other, and I have complete faith that she would protect us as any other. We’ve come to realize we don’t have to be dependent on father forever.”

For reasons she couldn’t quite explain, Gorast felt a sickly flame rising within her.

“I quite look forward to venturing to other cities, getting to know more people. I look forward to the safer world Zaekura is fighting for.”

“Zaekura,” Gorast spat. “She won’t win.”

Ulwin shrugged. “I suppose we shall see. Good day, Makuta.”

He made his way into the cathedral, leaving Gorast to stew. Just as she was about to take her anger out on whatever was within reach, Kojol emerged, eyes immediately locking onto her. Gorast hesitated. And that made her disgusted in herself.

No...I won’t be swayed, she thought, turning and walking off. I’m only holding back because the Great Beings told me too.

Her thoughts shifted to Ulwin.

Stupid slug. Rahkshi aren’t meant to talk back. Everyone...just keeps stepping out of line.

The crowds parted as Gorast made her way down the street, not a single soul eager for the misfortune of getting in her way. She barely noticed.

But I won’t. I’ll stay loyal, even if I am the only real Makuta left. Questions and doubts are for the weak. I won’t give into that weakness.

#Bionicle #fanfiction #Melding Universe #Right of Law

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agreatperhaps12 · 4 years ago

Text

revisiting some old writing this break and incredibly fond of the 2017!me that started writing OccHaz. hopefully 2021!me can finish what you started, pal.

Remus Lupin usually prides himself on being the exact opposite of a werewolf stereotype: a clean, well-read, mild-mannered boy. But if Remus Lupin is bedridden one more day in a row, there’s a solid chance he will murder one of his roommates in cold blood.

Even before opening his eyes, Remus can tell that it’s been raining, because the bunk is thick with the punishing smell of wet dog. Remus rolls over and smashes his nose into his pillow. It does not help. Superhuman sense of smell is useful for a great many things, but comfortably sharing a room with six werewolves is not one of them.

Remus drags his quilt over his head, blocking out some of the overhead lighting and none of the chatter from Malcolm’s radio. He doesn’t really have any intention of falling back asleep. For once, Remus has somewhere to be today. But it’s the principle of the thing.

Principles, however, go out the window when the radio host on Malcolm’s wireless fills the airwaves with some awful, angry music, and Malcolm obeys Lucas’s command to turn it up, mate.

Resigned, Remus plants his hands on either side of his chest and arches his back. The motion punches a pathetic, wheezing noise out of his mouth, and Remus collapses face-first back onto his bed. “I hate you,” Remus grumbles at Moony. It’s been five days.

Moony—a latent, lazy presence in the back of Remus’s mind—doesn’t respond. Typical. The wolf is always quieter in the immediate aftermath of a Full Moon, conveniently leaving Remus all alone to deal with whatever their body gets up to in Greenland.

Remus rubs the sore spot on his abdomen and heaves himself into a sitting position at the edge of his bed, careful to avoid the arm of a somehow-still-sleeping Ronan dangling from the top bunk. For today’s purposes, Remus’s injured abdomen doesn’t matter nearly as much as whether his left ankle can comfortably hold his weight. So when Remus stands up to stretch without his knee buckling, he feels a little flutter of triumph, despite the sharp twinge in his side.

It’s usually not this bad. As far as he can tell, Moony and the other wolves know to give each other a wide berth under the Full Moon to avoid injury, most of the time. But that’s the thing about werewolves, isn’t it. Remus’s hand automatically comes up to rub the ridge of scar tissue that cuts across his nose. Horribly unpredictable creatures.

And yet, in other ways, entirely too predictable. Across the room, Dante is hunched against the wall with one foot propped on a bent knee to clip his toenails without taking any pains to collect them. The soggy boots discarded at the foot of his bed mark the end of a muddy trail of footprints out the door. The source of the smell, Remus presumes.

What would Remus’s mum say.

Probably that Remus ought to pick up his own dirty clothing—since that now includes literally every piece of clothing Remus owns. Remus gingerly bends over to gather up his heap of laundry from the general mess on the floor just in time to avoid being nicked in the eye by a rogue nail clipping. He cranes his neck around his armful of laundry to tiptoe around Dante’s muddy tracks on his way out of the room.

“Oi, Loopy, you doing laundry?” Lucas says over the music.

“Yeah, mine,” Remus calls back, and hooks his foot around the door to pull it shut behind him before Lucas can hurl an expletive—or possibly something more bruising—at Remus’s back.

In the utility room, Remus dumps his soiled clothing on the floor beside the washtub, and the pair of rubber gloves draped over the lip jerks into midair. One glove twists the tap over the basin and sticks a finger under the water. The other pinches one of Remus’s shirts between forefinger and thumb, then promptly drops it and lurches back in disgust.

“What till you see Dante’s,” Remus says grimly.

In the kitchen, Remus opens each cabinet to take stock of what remains from his grocery run before the July Full. The inventory amounts to a sleeve of crackers, the heels of a bread loaf, canned green beans, unopened jam, and a jar of peanut butter that Remus saw Monty double-dip his finger into yesterday.

Remus glances at the queue of Portkey bottles on the windowsill, where all but the 08:00, 09:00 and 10:00 bottles are accounted for. Remus checks his watch. Almost 11:00. The 08:00 bottle should be back soon. Remus hopes that Lucas has taken it to get groceries in… wherever that Portkey is assigned this month.

In the meantime, Remus settles for a jam sandwich. He’s never very hungry on waning gibbous days, anyway. He’s just twisting the cap off the jam jar when a sharp crack shatters the quiet from inside Greyback’s room. Remus flinches so violently that the jar nearly slips from his grip. Moony is on high alert, now. The thumping music from the bunk room immediately dials down. Remus holds his breath.

But there’s only silence from the other side of Greyback’s door. Disapparation, then. Remus exhales. Malcolm’s music blooms back to full volume. Moony settles.

One of the few, far-between blessings of Remus Lupin’s life is that Fenrir Greyback spends almost no time around the tent. But today especially, a casual run-in with Greyback would be… not ideal. Not that Remus is going to break any rules. Technically. Yet.

But if Greyback knew what Remus was up to, he’d definitely be suspicious enough to keep a closer eye on him. Which would be incredibly inconvenient for all the other times that Remus is actually breaking rules.

Remus packs his sandwich into his satchel and slips on his shoes. Outside, the morning air is heavy with humidity and the ground soft with rain. With a cursory glance around the clearing, Remus pulls his compass out of his pocket and points himself south—along the crooked line of a creek just downhill from the tent.

It’s immediately apparent that Remus’s tender ankle is going to slow him down. At the new moon, Remus could take two miles ten minutes flat. He could postpone this day trip until then. But ever since the pack set up camp here, just before the July Full, Remus has been keen to visit the magical boundary that Greyback has apparently cast around their new home.

They’ve never had a territorial boundary before. And Remus has always had an insatiable, if slightly masochistic, fascination with spellwork. He’s itching to see what an enchanted border wall looks like.

Of course, it’s not just the border. It’s the beyond. Remus doesn’t expect being able to see anything significant—even if he scaled a pine to peer out over whatever barrier Greyback has cast. Greyback would have established their territory at a safe distance.

But Remus will know, and that’s what counts. He’ll know that somewhere beyond those trees lies Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Sirius has just melted the front tire off his bike for the third time in as many minutes when James strolls down the drive.

“Not a word,” Sirius warns, punctuating the point with a cough. He waves his wand to clear the latest cloud of dark smoke billowing up around the bike.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” James says, tucking his hands into his pockets and rocking back on his heels. He surveys Sirius’s work with politely suppressed amusement.

“Uh-huh.” Sirius mutters a Reparo at the puddle of rubber on the Potters’ pavement to reform it into his front tire.

“What are you trying to do, anyway?”

“Reinforce the tires to withstand the impact of landing,” Sirius says. He sticks his wand behind his ear and steps back, crossing his arms.

“Ah,” James says, nodding sagely—and undoubtedly recalling the incident in June that left Sirius with two busted tires, two broken arms, and two weeks during which Mia flat-out refused to let Sirius back on his bike. She only relented when Sirius promised to add some safety features to his list of planned magical amenities. “Have you tried—”

“Yes,” Sirius says flatly. “Whatever you’re about to say, yes.”

“Hmm.” James dips into a crouch to get a better look at Sirius’s front wheel, as though he knows anything about Muggle motorbikes or the magical enhancement thereof. “Fortification spells must get more volatile when you use them on something that’s been Engorgio-ed. And whatever else you’ve done to this thing.”

“What I’ve done for it,” Sirius says, nonetheless mentally scanning the list of souping-up spells he’s cast over the last few weeks. Maybe the reinforcement magic is mixing poorly with the sound-stifling charm—another request of Mia’s—or the speed-boosting spell.

“Sure,” James says, grinning up at Sirius indulgently.

“Did you need something?” Sirius takes his wand from behind his ear and twirls it absently between his fingers as he circles the bike.

James rises from his crouch. “Not really. Mum sent me out to see what was going on. Smells like burnt rubber all the way up in the kitchen.”

“Oh, shit.” Fleamont and Euphemia Potter are two of Sirius’s favorite people in the world, and not just because they’re currently letting him use their front drive as a mechanic-shop-slash-landing-strip. Sirius tries not to bother them, if he can help it. “Sorry.”

James’s shrug is utterly devoid of concern. “I don’t think she minds. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t on fire. You’ve been out here all afternoon.”

“Yeah, well,” Sirius says, glaring at his uncooperative bike.

“You’re in a mood,” James observes, which does nothing to improve Sirius’s mood. “Is this still a Regulus-related mood?”

Sirius gives a vague grunt.

“Thought so.”

Sirius aims a kick at James’s shin.

“Let’s go fly,” James suggests, dancing easily away from Sirius’s foot.

“I’m working,” Sirius says, because now that he’s been caught in a bad temper, he’s feeling committed to it.

“Work is productive,” James says. “This—” He waves his hand disdainfully at Sirius’s whole situation. “—is not. Why not channel all that destructive energy into beating around Bludgers?”

Tempting. It must show on Sirius’s face, because James says, “Take a break. The bike will thank you.”

“Sputnik,” Sirius corrects.

“Come again?”

“The bike. Her name is Sputnik,” Sirius says, smiling despite himself. Picking the name is about the only productive thing he’s done all day.

“What kind of name is Sputnik?” James says. “Sounds like some kind of black mold you’d find on a Flobberworm.”

Sirius scowls. “No, you idiot. Sputnik, like the world’s first satellite. Get it? Because, flying?”

James blinks. “Right,” he says slowly, with the trademark bemused expression he reserves for when Sirius starts talking Muggle stuff. “So, flying?”

“Sure,” Sirius says, because today is probably not the day he convinces James to take the slightest interest in Muggle science. “Let’s go.”

Remus makes slow progress on his sore ankle for nearly half an hour, stopping every few minutes to rest and jot notes in his journal. He makes a detailed map of the territory whenever the pack moves somewhere new. The others might be content to spend most of their time Portkeyed away in distant Muggle towns, but Remus can suffer a crowd about once a week at most.

How Ronan or Monty or anyone else can frequent Muggle pubs without constant terror of giving themselves away, Remus will never know. Give him an open sky and several square yards of personal space over a social interaction, any day.

Perks of being raised in the countryside and isolated from nearly everyone but his parents since the tender age of eleven: Remus is damn good at keeping himself company.

The forest around Remus is almost silent, except for the burble of the creek and occasional bird overhead. Remus doesn’t cross paths with so much as a squirrel. No surprises there. He’s used to dogs flattening their ears as he passes on the street, and even crowd-comfortable pigeons scattering at his approach. Remus has the sneaking suspicion that animals can tell there’s something wrong with him. Perhaps they’re put off by his smell, or some other ‘Dangerous, Do Not Approach’ signal he subconsciously broadcasts, even in human form.

In the unnatural quiet of the wood, Remus hears the border before he sees it.

He doesn’t realize what it is, at first—the strange, faint buzz that fills his ears some thirty minutes after he’s left camp. Remus halts and cocks his head to the side. There’s something distinctly artificial about the tenor of the sound. It’s more metallic than insect buzz. Closer to the drone of low-grade fluorescent lighting than anything Remus has ever heard in the wild. It’s quietly menacing in a way that Remus can’t quite put his finger on, but makes Moony emit a low, warning rumble.

“I know,” Remus mutters, and takes several steps forward to listen again. The muted hum gets slightly louder.

This is something to do with Greyback’s magic. It has to be.

Remus turns back toward camp and peers up through the leaves in search of the beacon projected into the sky over the tent. When he finally spots it: the faint beam of ultraviolet light invisible to all but the lycanthrope eye, Remus holds up his thumb and closes one eye to measure the width of the column against the sky. By rough estimation, nearly two miles away. Remus drops his arm and looks around. He should be coming up on the perimeter of Greyback’s territory, but Remus doesn’t see a barrier of any kind.

Remus cracks his knuckles uncertainly. Maybe the border is invisible. That would be disappointing. Not to mention dangerous. What if Remus accidentally steps through it, and Greyback—

Remus throws a paranoid glance over his shoulder, but of course finds himself alone. He wraps his arms around his torso and tells Moony to shh, please, so he can think.

Remus should turn around and go home. That’s the logical thing to do. The safe thing to do. But he can’t. Not when he’s so close. Not when he’s come all this way on a barely mended ankle, and it’s—and it’s Hogwarts. Remus has to see as far as he can see.

Giving himself a bracing squeeze, Remus drops his arms to his sides. He steps forward again.

With a few more steps, the buzz gets exponentially louder. Unmistakable as a hornet’s nest at close range, but tinnier. Electric. Remus not only hears the magic now, but feels it in his chest, as though he’s humming, even though Remus is holding his breath. He forges ahead, step by cautious step, heart rate escalating with the noise until—Oh.

A few arm’s lengths ahead, the air has a strangely lustrous quality, as though Remus is staring through an enormous soap bubble. The whirling sheen of open space is so faint that Remus can’t imagine he would have seen it if he hadn’t been looking. He wonders whether someone without freakishly good hearing would have picked up on the wall’s warning buzz.

Upon closer inspection, Remus sees the magical surface has a purplish, blue hue, just like the bubbles that Remus remembers blowing in the garden with his mum when he was little. Remus tilts his head back. The glossy dome extends as far up as Remus can see.

It’s hypnotic. Remus never would have thought he’d call any part of Greyback’s magic beautiful, but it is.

Greyback warned the rest of the pack about the border wall on their first day in this forest. Remus knew something was up as soon as Greyback called them all into the kitchen. He typically left the pack to their own devices as soon as they’d set up camp.

Like most of his interactions with the pack, Greyback kept it brief. “I’ve cast a territorial border with a two-mile radius around the tent,” he said, leaning back against the sink with crossed arms and glaring around at them all. “You will not cross it.”

The silence following this announcement was just long enough to be awkward, while the rest of the pack played a silent game of chicken over who was going to ask.

Fortunately, Greyback preempted the question. “The border is to protect us from our new neighbors to the south.” He grinned sourly. “The residents of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts.”

Greyback ignored their sharp intakes of breath.

“If you are discovered on Hogwarts grounds or in Hogsmeade, the Ministry of Magic will kill you for your lack of registration,” Greyback continued, as if they didn’t know. “If I catch you out of bounds, I will kill you myself.” As if they didn’t know. “Understood?”

Remus looked around at the others. Lucas had gone white, and even Ronan was chewing his cuticles. None of them, with the exception of Remus, had any firsthand experience with witches or wizards since the age of four or five. But if there was one thing Greyback’s pack had been taught to fear more than Greyback himself, it was wizardkind.

“Understood?” Greyback said.

Silent nodding.

“Good.” Greyback pushed off the counter and walked toward his bedroom.

The “Why?” that Malcolm blurted after Greyback’s retreating figure made Remus’s heart jump into his throat.

Greyback turned on his heel. He fixed narrowed eyes on Malcolm while the rest of the pack held their collective breath. “What?”

Malcolm swallowed. “Why did we come here?” he said, voice just shy of steady. “Isn’t it.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Isn’t it dangerous?”

A reasonable question—if something as idiotic as asking Greyback to explain himself could ever be called reasonable. The pack had never set up camp anywhere near a magical community before, let alone mere miles from the only all-wizarding village in Britain and Hogwarts, for Merlin’s sake.

Greyback considered Malcolm for a long moment before, to Remus’s even greater shock, he answered.

“Do you know what lives in the Forbidden Forest north of Hogwarts?” he asked Malcolm.

Malcolm hesitated, then shook his head.

“No one really does,” Greyback said, “but there are rumors. Chimeras. Strangling vines. Trolls.” He paused for effect. “Werewolves.” Greyback grinned. “Students aren’t allowed in. Staff and villagers won’t go near the forest. But the concentration of magic in the air is high enough to completely mask dozens of unregistered Portkeys and other household magic. Convenient, eh?”

Remus instinctually recoiled as Greyback drew his wand. Dante took a full step back. But Greyback merely rolled the wand between his fingers. “The woods north of the Forbidden Forest may be the safest hideout for a pack of unregistered werewolves in all of Britain. Assuming,” Greyback looked significantly at each of them in turn, “the border remains unbroken.”

The night after Greyback’s border announcement found Remus lying awake, staring at the underside of Ronan’s bunk. His heartbeat thudded heavily in his ears, keeping time with Moony’s pacing around his brain. Remus rubbed his cheek against the rough fabric of his quilt and willed his heart to keep something like normal rhythm. It had been hours, but still Remus was—he just couldn’t believe they were here. Just miles away from the castle.

Greyback was probably right that the pack would be safe in the Forbidden Forest. After reading so many his father’s magizoology books, Remus had a lot more than rumors to go on, when it came to imagining the forest’s dangerous inhabitants.

But Remus would bet a thousand Galleons that Greyback hadn’t disclosed the whole truth about why they’d come here. The pack had bounced from one remote outpost to another with all the magical trappings inside their tent for years. Greyback must be working on some heavy-duty, high-grade magic to require such extra concealment—though Remus couldn’t begin to imagine what that might be.

Six years in the pack, and Remus had never quite worked out what Greyback did for his mysterious employer. The wards on Greyback’s door are very good at keeping his business private from the rest of the pack.

Whatever Greyback’s reasons, Remus was selfishly, secretly giddy about the move. He’d stopped hoping nearly a decade ago that he would ever get to see more of Hogwarts than illustrations in Hogwarts, A History. Now, Remus was less than a day’s walk away. Even if he couldn’t actually see the castle, the prospect of glimpsing the perimeter of those hallowed grounds made Remus hide a stupidly wide smile behind his blanket in the dark.

Now, though—actually staring through Greyback’s translucent wall, Remus isn’t smiling. A burning sensation builds behind Remus’s eyes and in his throat. He grits his teeth, surprised at himself, because this was supposed to be exciting. A rare opportunity to look forward to something. A wonderful treat on a grey day.

Remus wants to let himself have this. Find simple, uncomplicated joy in a good thing, for once.

It’s just—it’s Hogwarts. Right there. Paces away. And absolutely, painfully untouchable as ever.

Flying against James in a game of one-on-one is hardly fair anymore. Back in first year, he and Sirius were fairly evenly matched. But ever since James made captain third year—and especially since a Tutshill Tornados scout approached him last fall—James has gone a bit mad about practice.

It’s a good thing Sirius is on the team, if only because he’s the only one who will tell James to eat hippogriff dung when he refuses to cancel practice in below-zero windchill.

Also, compared to people who are not aspiring professional Quidditch players, Sirius is a damn good flyer. Even better with a bat. Sirius feels pretty confident in saying he’s the best Beater at Hogwarts—which is something he used to say because he was a cocky little shit, and now says because it’s true. The possible exception being Macnair; Sirius has deadly aim, but Macnair shoots to kill.

Sirius tries not to think about Macnair has he dives toward the Potters’ lawn with the Quaffle tucked against his chest. Thinking about Macnair makes Sirius think about Slytherin, which makes Sirius think about Regulus, and the whole point of this was not thinking about Reg. Sirius has been trying not to think about Reg for three days, now—since the Potter’s owl Athena returned with Sirius’s birthday gift to Regulus unopened.

“Bet your hag of a mum turned Athena around before Reg even knew something arrived for him,” was James’s consolation.

It’s possible. Sirius wouldn’t put it past Walburga. The problem is, he doesn’t know if he’d put it past Regulus to turn Athena around, either.

Sirius has no idea where he and his brother stand these days. They haven’t spoken since Sirius left home last summer. Granted, Regulus never spoke much to Sirius at Hogwarts. He’s much too close to Cissy and Bella for that. But during holidays…

Well, Sirius can’t remember Reg ever defending him in an argument against their mum. But Regulus would at least order Kreacher to sneak him food when Sirius was locked in his room. That was something, and now—

Sirius doesn’t notice James rocketing up from below until he’s already knocked the Quaffle from Sirius’s hands. James catches the ball with irritating ease—Seekers, honestly—and makes a hairpin turn toward the opposite end of the lawn. Sirius steers into a U-turn and follows, but not quickly enough to stop James hurling the Quaffle through Sirius’s post and pulling a celebratory corkscrew.

“That’s fifty-nil!” James calls. “Go fetch!”

“Yeah, yeah, I can count,” Sirius says, Accio-ing the Quaffle from a shrub by the guest house. “Ready?”

“Are you?” James smirks.

Sirius tears away without response, aiming for some low-hanging clouds. The wind seems to streak right through him, momently stripping away Sirius’s Regulus-related anxieties, whittling him down to a weightless point. It’s wonderful.

Quidditch is always the best distraction. Even better than working on Sputnik or reading the teetering pile of Muggle novels that Tufty lent him for the summer, since they won’t get to any American authors during their literature module this year.

(Sirius has had his nose in The Bell Jar all week—to James’s deep concern, given Sirius’s dour mood. Sirius says it’s a fair sight better than The Crucible, which was so disturbing Sirius had to put it down halfway through. Sirius may finally get why American wizards were long forbidden from marrying Muggles.)

When Sirius dips back down into the clear air, he glances over his shoulder and curses at the sight of James’s wicked grin less than ten feet away. But James’s goalpost is straight ahead now. Sirius flattens himself against his broom. Almost there, almost—

“Ha!” Sirius pumps both fists in the air as the Quaffle soars cleanly through the hoop. He whips around, triumphant grin in place, but the smile quickly slips. James isn’t behind him anymore. He’s suspended about twenty feet away, watching a small black dot in the distance. Sirius’s stomach flutters, half in hope, half in dread, that the owl might be from Regulus.

But the unfamiliar owl comes flapping down onto James’s shoulder. James unties a postcard from the bird’s leg and winces as its talons dig through the fabric of his shirt to take off again. Sirius would ask who’s sent the card, but he can already read the answer on James’s face. He wonders where Evans is on holiday.

Sirius dully summons their discarded Quaffle, knowing full well the match is over. James responds to every one of Evans’s messages as soon as they come. Sirius can’t hold it against him, really. James and Evans only got on good terms last spring, and Sirius is all for preserving whatever fragile friendship they seem to be cultivating.

Sirius can’t say he’s ever quite understood James’s fixation with Evans, for many more reasons than the fact that Evans is a girl. But his best friend’s obsession does seem slightly healthier, now that his interest is not so intensely one-sided.

“Lily’s visiting a pen pal in America,” James says as they drift down toward the house, eyes still fixed on Evans’s handwriting. “A witch who goes to Ilvermorny.”

“Cool,” Sirius says, touching down and dismounting. “I wonder whether they’ve [TK].” Sirius doesn’t know much about magic in America, but he does know a little about the No-Majes from Muggle Studies.

“Dunno,” James says distractedly, pocketing his postcard.

Inside, James promptly buggers off to write Evans a response. Sirius wanders into the kitchen, where he finds Mia at the table with a cup of tea and a book. She’s wrapped in a green pashmina, wearing her boxy reading glasses, and holding one of the Potters’ many cats on her lap.

Sirius has not bothered to learn all of the Potter cats’ names. Most are strays that Mia convinced Flea to let inside “for just one night” and never left. Sirius isn’t sure Mia even has names for all of them. The family’s tireless team of house-elves, Dot and Minnie, are the only thing preventing a fine layer of cat hair perpetually coating every surface in the manor.

Mia greets Sirius with a smile as he sits down opposite her at the table. She pushes her glasses up onto her forehead. “I had Minnie bring in your bike, since we’re expecting rain.”

“Thanks,” Sirius says. “Sorry ‘bout the smell.”

Mia bats away his apology. “What’s experimentation without a few accidents?”

From the moment Sirius met James’s parents on Platform 9¾ at the end of first year, Sirius knew he was jealous. But he didn’t know just how jealous he should have been until he moved in last summer. The Potters are so incomprehensibly warm, Sirius found it off-putting at first. All the easy laughs and casual hugs and insistent reminders that Sirius call them Flea and Mia. Sirius has called his own parents since their Christian names since he was about thirteen, but only out of spite.

Sirius wouldn’t say he’s exactly gotten used to Flea and Mia’s hospitality, but their affection does something warm and wonderful to his stomach, rather than putting him on his guard.

“What are you reading?” Sirius says.

“One of yours,” Mia says, holding up The Great Gatsby.

“Good one,” Sirius says. “Have you gotten to—”

“Hush,” Mia says, eyes wide. “Don’t give anything away.”

Sirius makes a zipping motion across his lips. “But you have to tell me when you’ve finished.”

“I’m hoping to finish before dinner, which—” Mia glances at the clock “—I ought to have Dot get a start on. How does beef stew sound?”

“Excellent.” Even though he’s lived with the Potters every holiday for over a year, Mia still has a habit of treating Sirius like a guest. Sirius doesn’t know how to convince her that they could eat dry toast for every meal and he’d still rather be here than Grimmauld Place.

Sirius stands, figuring a shower is probably in order before dinner. There’s a not-insignificant chance that he still stinks of burnt Rubber and Mia is simply too polite to mention it.

As Sirius gathers freshly laundered towels from his room, he catches sight of the still-wrapped mirror that’s lain on his desk since Athena returned it. Sirius runs a hand through his hair. Despite being completely alone, he’s suddenly overcome with a wave of embarrassment that he can’t just get over it.

Having the thing in plain sight certainly isn’t helping. Sirius sticks the mirror in the bottom of his trunk along with its twin, then waits to see whether the sweet relief of closure sweeps over him.

It does not, but the silence of the house is abruptly broken by an emphatic “Oh, dear” from downstairs, which surprises a bark of laughter out of Sirius. He supposes this means there’s not much left of Gatsby to spoil over dinner.

#occhaz #moonstar #fic things #writing projects for this year #first draft inspo #remus lupin #sirius black

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peterquillss · 5 years ago

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The Misadventures of Star-Lord & the Earth Girl #1

Summary: When Malia Reyes wakes in the dead of night, she finds an alien ship crashed atop her apartment building! And the "alien,' abroad is no other then Star-Lord, retired Guardian fallen back on his more criminal lifestyle. Now with fate having thrown a man from the stars and a girl from earth together, they'll have to survive whatever the black void of space and the marvel universe has to throw at them.

Warnings: None

Pairings: Peter Quill x Original Character

Continuity: Movies/Comics

1 HOUR BEFORE

Peter gripped the controls of the ship with every bit of strength he had, trying to keep his free fall under some semblance of control. The night sky outside the windscreen jerked about with each violent motion the ship made. Peter struggled to spot something to lock his focus on outside. He wasn't even sure where he was exactly. Earth, yeah, but where on the big blue ball he couldn't say. He'd hoped to get in quiet like and not draw any attention - which was against hi nature, but when ship systems start spazzing out there's not much you can do.

Peter's heart sank as the lights of a city came into view. Whelp, there'd be no sneaky entrances tonight. He desperately scanned the cityscape for, at the very least, a flat surface. Peter threw flicked on the stabilizing thrusters, the ensuing whiplash nearly snapping his neck as the ship slowed a bit. Empty bottles slammed into the front of the ship with a deafening rattle as the violent spinning calmed ever so slightly. Peter shook his head, trying to banish any dizziness so he could find a place to set the ship down.

His eyes caught sight of a roof that was possibly just long enough to set down on. Sure, a few satellite dishes and an AC unit would have to go, but Peter didn't really care at the moment. He pushed the stabilizing thrusters to their limit as they fought against the falling dead weight if the ship. The roof kept getting bigger as Peter's life ran through his head. Great, now he could die while feeling down. He struggled to keep the ship at a proper angle so as to actually hit the roof he was aiming at.

Peter yelled as the ship set down on the roof, scraping across the roof. He covered his face with his arms as satellites started to slam into the windscreen of the ship. The edge was fast approaching, the thrusters only doing so much to slow the ship down. Peter lurched forward as the ship slammed into the AC unit, rolling into its side. Peter yelled again, the ground mere inches from his face with only glass separating the two. The ship began to slow, finally lurching to a groaning stop, hanging a bit over the edge. Peter looked out the windscreen to find he was looking directly at the street below. He sighed, and then chuckled. "Like a glove."

══════════════════

Curiosity killed the cat — and probably her too.

Here she was following strange alien lights to her building roof in her pajamas, barbecue fork in hand with some determined look on her face. Looking back, now a step away from the door, she probably should’ve taken those shots of NyQuil before bed, never having woken up to see anything or better yet, wander into the kitchen in the first place. Damn her 3am thirst for water!

What was she even doing up here?

Malia froze as the thought crossed her frazzled mind, and lowered the fork in her hand, seeing the mysterious glowing lights flicker through the bottom panel of the door. She really was going to surprise attack whatever creature landed on the roof with a barbecue fork...losing probably her life in the process? She looked back over her shoulder and smacked the palm of her hand into her forehead.

But. . .

Placing her hand around the door knob, Malia turned the cold handle, and slowly pushed forward the metal frame a crack— the flashing lights dancing across her face. What if...she could prevent something bad from happening? That was her motivation. Scared or not, she could. Right? One hesitant step, followed by two then three, she thrust herself into the middle of the rooftop with her eyes closed. Oh! And her trusty barbecue fork ready for battle.

Then, nothing.

Malia opened one eye after what seemed like an hour. There was no one one in front of her. Just a ship. No weird looking aliens ready to probe her and god knows what else. Just a rather tired looking space ship parked on the roof of her building, flashing whimsical lights. She let her hands fall to her sides, feeling disappointed. There went her night. "Seriously...?" She sighed, looking up at the ship. Was someone even in there?

Questions that needed many answers ran through her mind as she walked beneath the contraption. "Hello?" Malia barely let out in a whisper. She touched the cool metal with one hand and poked it with the other, hearing the clank of the fork hitting against the ship. There had to be a button somewhere. And so she searched for it, until unexpectedly the carrier door lowered itself open. She held her breath and waited, popping her head from behind the platform. Again...

Nobody.

"I must've hit something," Malia said to herself, hesitantly putting one foot forward. Here she was, again, letting her curiosity get the better of her. It wasn't everyday some Alien ship landed on someone's roof. She could be the first to report on the matter, making all those X-Files Cultist extremely happy. She gripped onto the handle of her barbecue fork and proceeded to count.

1, 2, 3...

In a rush of quick adrenaline, she hustled into the back of the carrier, throwing herself behind whatever object was big enough to hide her. She suppressed a giggle or two. This definitely confirmed her friends statements; she was insane. Now, all she needed was proof. Catching her breath, Malia peeked around, every odd noise sending her back into hiding. Was this ship really empty?

══════════════════

Peter gave the ship's mainframe another kick for good measure before replacing the panel covering. That was the extent of his computer repairing ability, so if that didn't work he was out of luck. The system had been freaking out the whole time he'd been working on it. Turning lights on and off, opening and closing doors, it was a mess. Peter turned the system off for a few seconds before starting it back up. Everything seemed to be working smoothly at the moment, so his expert repair tactic must've worked. "Rocket, eat your heart out."

Peter carefully righted the ship using the thrusters and turned on the engine. The ship started to vibrate as they hummed to life, lifting the vessel so that it hovered above the roof. It was time to shove off before somebody from S.H.I.E.L.D, S.W.O.R.D or some other acronym came looking for him. Peter set the navigation computer to take him out into open space before sitting back in his seat. He watched the city start to grow smaller as the ship ascended into the night.

Peter's nose picked up an aroma he wouldn't call pleasant. It smelled like engine fluid and grease mixed with Drax sweat. He looked around the room, searching for the source of the smell before a thought occurred to him. Peter lifted his arm slightly, taking a cautious sniff. He winced as the source of the smell had been discovered. There were two options. Get a drink and feel disgusted with himself for getting so ripe, or shower. Peter sighed as he stood up and peeled off his shirt and started towards the shower.

Peter stopped at his tape deck before heading off. He scanned his small collection of cassettes. It wasn't much, but he liked to think the quality made up for that. He picked up one of his mix-tapes, happy to see that side B was ready to go. Peter popped the tape in, turning the volume all the way up before pressing play. 'Carry on Wayward Son' started to blast through the speakers, drowning out even the ship engine. He'd rigged up a stereo system that stretched throughout the entire ship and could blare his music as much as he wanted. That was one of the only benefits of traveling alone. Peter walked off towards the shower, singing along with the song as he went.

══════════════════

In the short period of wandering very cautiously, ducking around every corner, Malia came to a conclusion that the ship she was in, didn't belong to Aliens. Coming across small modern-like knick knacks, she started to become more curious instead of scared. The pilot was human. But, that still didn't explain the strange roof landing. She paused in her tracks, hearing a faint sound of music from somewhere above. There was someone onboard! Question was, did she want to meet them? Malia walked toward the ascending ladder and looked up. Maybe she should turn around and pretend none of this ever happened. It was all some weird dream she could spin for a story at a party one day. She sighed and stood in place — no longer hearing the faint sound of music, but footsteps instead.

“Fuck!” She panicked, scanning the room for a place to hide. Her heart was going to pop out of her chest. She could here the footsteps getting closer, meaning they were coming! Malia rushed up the stairs, thanking her herself for wearing slippers and dipped into a nearby room. The doors automatically slid open, she lunging to the middle to stand still. She could’ve sworn she saw a silhouette turning the corner.

“Please don’t come in here…” She whispered, pressing the barbecue fork against her chest as the footsteps grew louder. She closed her eyes and repeated, ‘please,’ to herself, each step getting louder and louder. Upon noticing they continued down the hall, Malia let out a deep breath. “Thank God.” She slowly walked to the automatic door and peeked her head out, before scurrying in the opposite direction.

She didn’t want to leave empty handed. Walking into every room she came across, Malia poked around, finding armor, gun parts and just odd items she wasn’t familiar with. “Definitely, not from this planet called Earth,” She said, putting down a strange sphere object with pointed edges. It was too big to put in her pockets. Also hazardous. The point on that thing could probably stab her. “The hell…” Her eyes caught a glimpse of a shining object. Whatever ship room she had stumbled in had to be for trinkets because there was dozens of things in there.

She raised her hand to grab for the sparkly item and suddenly yelped at the unexpected movement of the ship, sending her over. She hoped no one heard her, but panicked regardless as the roar of the ship itself told her nothing good was coming from it. The ship was moving and she was still in it! Tripping out of the room, Malia ran toward the direction the footsteps had previously gone and pulled herself back, behind the entry, at the sight of pilot.

”Oh god,” She kept her eyes on the driver. It was a man. Dressed in some red leather? She couldn’t quite tell. Catching her breath with the rumblings of the spaceship rattling at her bones, Malia prepared herself for whatever was to come for the dumb decision she was about to make. Slowly approaching the strange man whom flicked switches on the dashboard, she lifted her barbecue fork and poked him from behind — hard enough to hurt.

“Stop whatever you're doing, and let me off this thing!”

Here is where she died.

#peter quill #starlord #peter quill fanfiction #gotg #guardians of the galaxy #marvel #star lord #peter quill x oc #marvel comics #misadventures #starmal #the misadventures of starlord and the earth girl

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determinationisnotcrash · 5 years ago

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Red to the Rescue! Value of True Companions

Another @gbpack-discord oneshot! An action one where Sabre, Impact, and Red team up to fight a mechanical dragon.

Impact, the Blaster raptor GB Papyrus belongs to me!

Sabre the part time seiyuu the mysterious Blaster from an unknown timeline belongs to @paddie-ut

Red the GB Fell Sans belongs to @goosygander

Everything was going perfectly – almost too perfectly. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and everyone around town seemed to be in a great mood. …Perhaps at that time, that should have been cause for concern. After all, when an amazing stroke of good luck came, what usually followed was…

***

Interlink City

Impact applauded his friend, lightly clapping his mechanical floating hands as they departed from the recording studio. “Splendid work on your performance, Sabre! You did a wonderful job. It was like I was seeing Heero Yuy in the flesh!”

That comment drew a slight chuckle out of the small quadrupedal bone beast. “Heh, funny you say that. I don’t have any flesh. And your performance wasn’t half-bad, either. Very accurate at portraying the larger-than-life villain type.”

The blind man was unable to see it, but the raptor nevertheless took a small bow. “I appreciate the compliment! I’m glad to know that I at least remain successful in that field. After all…” Impact cleared his throat, putting on his best impression of the Mad Dummy’s voice. “My destiny is already smeared with blood. I won’t be talked out of any transgressions! I’ll live right to the bitter end – the hard life of a warrior!”

“Yes… Well then, what do you want to do now? Find another of those great places to eat? I’ll treat you to a meal this time. Mind, you’ll need to lead the way.”

The Papyrus beamed in response to the Sans’ generosity. “I would love to! Let’s go!” Head held high with pride of a job well-done, he started to head in the direction of the most economical restaurant he could think of… only to realise the small Blaster wasn’t following. “Sabre…?”

Impact turned back to see the dogman sniffing around on a ground like a… well… dog, muttering to himself. “This scent… it’s faint, but…” Sensing the presence of his friend nearby, likely watching him, he felt his face heat up. “Ah, Impact… I just detected something strange. I think… we’re being followed. By something from your world.”

The scent… where was the scent…? He kept sniffing in all directions, like a game of Hot and Cold, until he found the direction it was the strongest in. His nose led his sightless gaze upwards, causing him to carefully rise up onto his hind legs. “Impact… can you look in the direction my muzzle is pointing?”

“Doing it now.” His functional (in contrast to Sabre’s) eyes followed his friend’s… right up to one of the tall buildings next to them. Peering right over the edge were two strange, ball-like contraptions. They both had a metallic silver sheen, smooth all over, except with one camera for an eye. They almost looked like creepier cyclops versions of mascot characters from a popular mecha show Impact’s brother loved to watch.

Before he could take in more of their appearance, they abruptly jolted and flashed, as if startled. Their cameras blinked rapidly, before they ‘jumped’ off the building’s roof, landing on the pavement and starting to roll away.

Combat data collection drones…!? But all the two skeletons were doing was a part time job! Unless… oh, no… Were they analysing their physical properties!? Impact didn’t know everything about Sabre’s past yet, but he did know what the small blind man could become, and what that thing could do. If that information got into the hands of literally anyone… it would spell certain disaster.

“GET BACK HERE---!”

Impact immediately gave chase to the balls, Sabre following close behind so as not to lose him in the crowd of the city. They were sprinting with all their might, at far greater speeds than an ordinary human could go. Yet the strange metal spheres stayed just out of their reach. They were clearly engineered for speed.

Unbeknownst to both of them, one of their allies also happened to be in the city at the time, raising funds for the party in his own way by selling hotdogs. They both brushed against him in a rush, not even noticing his presence in their focus. The wind stirred up by Impact was almost enough to bowl him over, sending sausages and condiments alike flying.

Naturally, this was enough for him to notice the two skeletons and wonder just what the hell they were doing. Wiping the mess off his black leather jacket with a grumble, he joined in on the chase. He wasn’t as fast a runner as the other two, but with dedication, he would eventually be able to catch up.

***

“SLOW DOWN, ALREADY…!” Impact accidentally roared, slamming his mechanical hands over his muzzle when the realisation hit him. By now, they had done a full lap of the city, before the two spheres retreated into a nearby lake.

What kind of energy did the things run on!? Wouldn’t such small things have run down to nothing by now? Impact was still fine, but Sabre was starting to tire… Just where (and who) were these things headed to!?

The moment Impact wondered that, his question was answered. Of course, it wasn’t anything good. The twin spheres jumped into the water with a plop… and immediately after, two metallic dragon heads attached to long, cable-like necks ripped out of the lake’s surface! A terrible shriek vibrated the air, sending civilians running for their lives in terror!

“T-that’s no data gathering unit!” Impact realised, horror welling up inside him. “It’s an extermination unit! The enemy must have sent it here to clear the land of ‘pests’!”

As if confirming the statement, one of the heads lunged at him, a vicious deadly snake about to bite!

“OH SHI…!” Impact scrambled to respond. Neither he nor Sabre had a Mechanical Guardian on them, so they didn’t have much in the way of firepower. Fortunately, they weren’t so foolish as to walk around an unfamiliar location completely unarmed! Just like a movie cowboy, he reached within his coat, whipped out a gunblade, and fired several pinpoint shots! All within the span of under a second!

However, quick reflexes didn’t save him! The Blaster raptor yelped in as pain seared through his chest! “W-what the…!? What just… How did…” When he looked down at himself, he couldn’t believe his eyes: the projectiles the metal dragon sent at him… were his own bullets!? A reflection ability!?

He didn’t have more time to process this before the head barrelled straight into him!

“Blurgh…!” Harsh, serrated jaws clamped tight around his ribcage, causing the Papyrus to cough up blood for the… he lost count of how many times that happened in his life. He was actually surprised he hadn’t received any permanent damages from such injuries.

“Impact…!” The scent of blood and the man’s cry were enough to motivate Sabre to action, drawing his own emergency weapon! To accommodate his disability, he decided to modify the futuristic laser blade Impact left with him into a lance! “Haaaaaa…!” With a battlecry, he charged at where he perceived the enemy was – aiming just next to the spot where he smelled Impact and his blood.

With that satisfying buzz of beam weaponry against metal, the attack hit home! Letting out another screech – this time of pain, rather than anger, the dragon’s jaws released! Impact fell to the ground, landing on all fours before rising to his hunched bipedal stance. “Amazing work, Sabre! It seems that melee attacks are effect-AAAAAAAAAAH!”

A sound not unlike gatling gun fire exploded through the air around the two, as they were pushed back by a comparable force! Massive chunks of earth pelted their bodies, knocking them off their feet and sending them rolling along the ground like crash test dummies after a particularly violent experiment.

Heads still spinning from the tumble, Impact and Sabre forced themselves to get up and charge again! But unfortunately, the result was still the same: they couldn’t take even a few steps before another storm of earth hit them, feeling like they ran straight into the path of a speeding truck!

The sighted monster of the two noticed something strange: several oddly-shaped craters that certainly weren’t there before now dotted the land around the lake. “Craters around the lake…? Is the land itself being reshaped to attack us…?”

A cold feeling passed through Sabre’s body as his mind started to piece together what this dragon’s ability was… “This… this isn’t good. If that ability is what I think it is…” He could smell and hear a large amount of water around the area, too. Putting two and two together…

Confirming Sabre’s fear, one of the dragon heads stuck its head beneath the lake’s water, draining the massive reserve, while the other’s neck started to swiftly expand like a balloon inflating. This was enough to have Impact realise what was going on. “One head takes things in, and one head ejects them!?” The ability was a lot simpler than some enemies that he faced in the past… but it was still powerful enough to spell the two Blasters’ doom! After all, a weapon for killing didn’t need to be fancy, it just had to do the job.

Like an aquatic volcano eruption, a high pressure, high volume waterspout erupted from the dragon! The seconds following were almost tormentingly slow: the lake water blotted out the entire sky around them, hanging stationary in the air… then slowly… started to fall, coming down on them like judgement from heaven.

That volume of water, with that force behind it, would surely be enough to squash the two skeletons flat. Impact abruptly leaped on top of Sabre. The attempt to shield him using his body was likely futile, but better a small chance of one of them surviving than neither. Papyrus squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the end… but it didn’t come.

Rather than a crushing flood, and the crushing defeat that came with it, the two friends heard the pounding of paws on earth, a familiar sound of shifting bones, and the pulse of magical energy from a powerful blast. A wave of heat rushed through the area, causing Impact to look up in confusion.

The entirety of the water had been evaporated into steam! Standing heroically against that backdrop was the towering form of a massive skeletal dragon. Impact at first couldn’t even recognise it – this was a form he rarely saw the man in – but closer inspection was enough to make his face light up. Similarly, a huge grin formed on Sabre’s face at the familiar scent. “Red!”

A small smirk appeared on the dragon’s face, the corner of its muzzle tilting upward, before turning to the metal dragon. Its jaws parted again, letting loose with a second blast, this time towards the dragon!

But the hope that came with the Fell skeleton’s appearance was swiftly cut short. Moving so fast, the naked eye almost couldn’t follow, one of the heads rushed towards the laser and snapped it up. Impact and Red could see the movement of the laser’s glow through its body, almost like liquid through a plastic silly straw, before it emerged from the other end, right back at them!

“I’ll take this one! Red, Impact, get behind me!” To the skeletal dragon’s surprise, Sabre was already in front of him. Had the blind man already planned that far ahead and considered that possibility…? And how was he going to counter the laser?

With a smooth flick of the wrist, Sabre’s laser spear returned to a laser sword. Next, he held it in front of himself and started spinning it like a rotor fan! When the searing heat and force of the returned blast hit, Sabre grunted… almost growled with exertion. He dug his hind paws into the ground, raking up soil as he was slowly pushed back.

The beam sabre rotation trick did indeed shield him from the attack… but it only shielded a portion of Impact’s and Red’s bodies! And on top of that, his arm started to scream from the exertion of keeping the sword rotating at a constant rate! Longer… just had to keep it going for a little longer…! It felt like the blast was assaulting the trio for hours at this point! Did the metal dragon add to its energy somehow, or it simply his perception!?

For one instant… just a single instant, Sabre’s arm cramped, and the enemy’s attack penetrated his defence. “No…!” It was like a giant, flaming meteor collided with him, blowing Sabre and his two friends back. Most of the blast had been blocked, but the remainder of the force was enough to bring the heroes to their knees.

The two-headed metal dragon let out a metallic cackle as it loomed over the despairing, crouching heroes.

Impact, being fearful of all things draconic, felt like he was the one the most intimidated by this display. “Even a Blaster’s laser didn’t work against this thing…!? Is this the last enemy we’ll ever face…?” Panic ran through him, despair starting to wrap its icy grip around his heart. Would this all end here…?

However… Next to him, Sabre was even worse. Fear and panic were prime triggers for his transformation. A surge of energy ran through his bones, coursing through his whole body like electricity.

His clothes started to tighten at a slow yet steady rate, the buttons on his shirt popping off one-by-one. “Urgh… Ghh…” The dragon’s voice steadily began to deepen, taking on a guttural, animalistic rumble.

Despite pushing back against it with all his might, the pressure of the situation was warping his form into something monstrous – in the figurative sense, rather than literal.

Not satisfied with simply making him grow, Sabre’s magic started to warp his features. His fangs jutted out further, extending with a painful creak. Vicious spikes mercilessly ripped through the clothes Impact oh-so-carefully picked for him, completely ruining them as his body expanded. The hellish beast that was his feral side started to seep into his mind, venom dripping from his mouth as a demon began to enter the world through his body. Then…

<SNAP OUTTA IT!> THWACK!

A surprisingly high-pitched yelp escaped Sabre’s muzzle upon a bony object softly, yet firmly hitting his face. He had to pause, rapidly blinking before he could process what just happened. “Did you just… halt my transformation by hitting me? With your tail?”

The blind man could hear the proud grin in Red’s tone. <‘Course! It’s like those old computers and televisions – nothin’ a good whack can’t fix!>

“…I-”

BLAM BLAM BLAM!

“DODGE!” The other two complied with his command, evading the makeshift earth cannonballs alongside Sabre before the near-Blaster could continue. “I may not be experienced in that field, but… that… sounds wrong.”

Red simply chuckled.

Impact tilted his head, raising a brow. “Do you have a way in mind to defeat it?”

<O’ course! There’re three of us now! With our powers combined, we can make it through! You, of all people, should know this!>

The dinosaur-like Blaster blushed, embarrassed that he missed something so vital. “U-understood. What is your suggestion?”

Red’s expression became serious, as he beckoned for the two to get closer in an awkward (due to differing sizes and anatomies) group huddle. <Alrighty, ain’t much time to explain. We’ll……… Got it?>

“Got it!!”

<Good! LEEEEET’S DO IT!>

With that rousing cry, the Blaster trio charged! Unlike Impact’s and Sabre’s previous attempt, they split up and rushed the metallic dragon from different directions! It couldn’t hit them all at once!

Sabre galloped to where he felt one of the heads were. The distance is right…! Here goes! The voice acting stint earlier put him in the mood to announce his attack. “Target, Metal Dragon… Commencing with elimination!”

Leaping into the air, the hellish dragon fired a blast of his own – a bright green burst! It wasn’t as strong or flashy as the others, but it was far more economical on energy use. That, coupled with his current form, just barely gave him enough energy to use a continuous surge. Full output…! GOOOOOO!

The beam came right back out through the other head – to the place where Impact was, but he was prepared for it! Sabre had already demonstrated how to deal with this! “ROTATION BLAAAAADE!” Imitating Sabre’s technique, he spun his gunblade like a helicopter rotor!

With a normal sword, it would have just killed him. But because of the Blasters in his timeline, both his and Sabre’s weapons were designed as specific anti-Blaster measures! Impact’s gunblade wasn’t powerful enough to deflect it, but it was strong enough to block it!

Both of the metal heads were occupied, leaving the enemy dragon immobilised in terms of both offence and defence! With the lake drained from its previous attack, the main body – a big fat lump of rugged metal with the two spheres lodged inside – was open to attack!

Red dived at it, claws glinting in the sun as he prepared to deal the finishing blow. Hot blood coursing through his bones, he called out the name of this technique: <TRINITYYYY… FINISH!>

The metal beast was easily reduced to ribbons of scrap metal, the heads deactivating as the two central processing units were crushed. Just to make sure it was dead, Red unleashed the biggest blast he ever made on it, reducing it to ash. The deed done; the beast let loose with a howl of triumph. Not because he had lost to his base instincts, but for the cool factor.

Once he ensured it was safe to approach the dragon, Impact rushed up to him, tail wagging and eyes sparkling. “That was amazing…! You performed excellently!”

<We performed excellently. Don’t sell yourself or Sabre short.> The dragon turned his gaze from Impact to his fellow beast, a cheeky expression on his face. <Now… how ‘bout that nice lunch you wanted to treat Impact to?>

Sabre went green – the colour of his blush being due to his magic, a wildly unfitting appearance on his now frightening visage. “O-oh… as a voice actor, I don’t get paid much, but… I’ll see what I can do for three people.”

With a series of uncomfortable-sounding cracks akin to a crackling fireplace, he reverted to his normal half-Blaster shape. As he shrank down to his usual size, he couldn’t help but shiver against the cool breeze on his naked bones. “A-after the cost of new clothes, as well… Impact, can you get my wallet?”

“Of course!” After a few seconds of searching, Impact found Sabre’s wallet amongst his clothing tatters. The raptor briefly considered throwing it to him, before remembering a blind man wouldn’t quite appreciate the gesture. Instead, he passed it into his hand, and additionally wrapped his coat around the skeleton as an interim measure.

“Thank you. Now, where to eat…”

***

McDaniel’s

Sabre rubbed the back of his neck anxiously, sweating slightly. “…As I said earlier, I did tell you that I didn’t get paid much…”

Impact quickly dispelled any doubts, as he dug into the burger from his Joy Meal™ with warmth in his tone. “No, this is fine! This is more than enough!”

The now humanoid Red nodded his head in agreement. “Just bein’ able t’ spend time together here is fun.” Chuckling slightly, he lifted up a small figurine. “Plus, I’ve been lookin’ for this one for ages!”

Neither of them felt even the slightest urge to complain – after all, it wasn’t about the food itself. Sharing a meal and company with true companions, who would always be there to support each other… that made it taste better than even an emperor’s feast.

#undertale #gasterblaster au #gasterblaster papyrus #gasterblaster sans #underfell #papyrus #sans #my writing

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eddieeatsass · 5 years ago

Text

bloody mary - yram ydoolb

Summary: Richie thinks knives can be fun, and Eddie is willing to play along, that is until things get a little more intense than he'd been expecting. Pairing: Reddie Rating: E Warnings: Smut, explicit language, graphic violence

Read on AO3

(A few important notes: PLEASE heed the warnings. If you are triggered by topics relating to self harm or violence, or very mild dub-con, this may not be the fic for you.

Secondly, do not take this fic as an example of healthy BDSM. The key rules of BDSM are to keep it Safe, Sane, and Consensual. This fic does not adhere to those rules because this takes place in a dark verse.

The practices conducted here are not to be reproduced in real life.If you’re interested in bondage, knife play, blood play, or any other type of edge play, PLEASE do your own research. Do not engage in these kinks (or any) until both you and your partner are thoroughly versed on how to stay safe, and the necessary aftercare involved.)

“Dinner is on me tonight!” Richie burst through the door, projecting into his apartment to a very startled Eddie.

A small ‘fuck!’ could be heard from the kitchen, where Richie travelled after kicking off his boots, carrying two heavy bags of Chinese food.

He found Eddie huddled over their sink, abandoned vegetables to the right of him alongside a bloody knife.

“You made me cut myself, you dickhead!” Eddie shouted over his shoulder, brandishing his bleeding hand before putting it back under the cold water. He tried to get the blood to clear long enough to see how deep the cut was, but it was pooling up at a rate too quick for the water to wash away. With another mumbled curse he opened a drawer, pulling out a roll of gauze (of which they kept many in every room of the house) and began wrapping it around his hand.

“Don’t blame me for your shoddy knifesmanship.” Richie shrugged, placing his bags on the counter and beginning to unpack them.

“I thought tonight was my night for dinner. Did you really make me go through all of this for nothing?” Eddie asked exasperatedly.

“It was, but on the subway home I was sitting next to a man who was carrying the most delicious smelling food, which he so generously agreed to give me after some convincing.” Richie reached behind himself, pulling a gun out from his pants and letting it clatter to the counter as evidence.

“Richieee.” Eddie groaned, stomping towards the counter and snatching the gun up. “I told you not to take my gun anymore. You’ve got shitty aim.”

“I do not; I mean to miss when I’m shooting at you.”

“Mhm.” Eddie agrees sarcastically, unconvinced. He looks down at his injured hand, the gauze having already turned red in the short time since he applied it.

“I’m gonna have to re-wrap this before we eat.” Eddie complained.

“Let me do it.” Richie offered, to which Eddie eyed him suspiciously.

“…Why?” Eddie asked carefully, narrowing his eyes.

“Can’t a guy just want to help his boyfriend?” Richie batted his lashes innocently.

“A guy, yeah. You? No.”

“But you squirm so deliciously when I use the disinfectant.” Richie admitted, going from innocent to sultry in a moment flat.

Eddie glared at him before relenting, turning around without another word and starting down the hallway.

“Well? Come on then.” He shouted over his shoulder, hearing the excited footsteps pattering behind him.

After Richie had had his fun, and Eddie was re-bandaged, the two made their way back out to the kitchen and grabbed their food, flopping in front of the TV before laying things out on the coffee table.

“Gross, there’s shrimp in this.” Eddie complained, as he opened one of the mystery containers.

“I’m sorry Eds, I’ll be sure to ask the guy what he ordered next time before I rob him.” Richie drawled sarcastically.

Eddie chucked a piece of shrimp at him before continuing to open the rest of the containers.

They both took turns dumping contents on to their plates, choosing what appealed most to them and occasionally forcing each other to try the things the other didn’t want to try. By the end of it, Richie had loaded Eddie’s plate with shrimp, and Eddie had shoved enough tofu on to Richie’s to blanket the rest of his meal.

They ate in silence while they watched the news, chuckling at the criminals who’d been caught and discussing how they’d have pulled off the crime without ending up on national television. At one point, however, someone they recognized popped up on the screen, causing Eddie to choke on a noodle.

Richie leaned forward in his seat as Eddie coughed beside him.

“Well fuck, Denbrough…” Richie murmured, staring at the mugshot of their best friend.

“When did this happen?” Eddie asked through a hoarse throat once he’d recovered.

“If you’d shut up, I could find out.” Richie grabbed the remote control, turning up the volume until it drowned out all else.

“Earlier today police arrested long term suspect related to a series of murders, Bill Denbrough. Denbrough can be traced back to a murder as early as 2013 but had managed to stay off police suspects lists until earlier this year when he was linked to the murder of Tom Rogan. Detectives were able to connect him to six other un-solved murders after that. His suspected motivation for the crimes is his presumably unrequited love for one Beverly Marsh, as the victims having all been connected to her in one way or another. The most recent victim was Ms. Marsh’s ex-husband who had several charges himself: domestic violence, assault and battery, aggravated assault, and probation violation. Bill Denbrough has been put into custody and is awaiting a trial date.”

“Tomorrow we’ll start brainstorm how to break him out. I’ll text the rest of the losers and let them know.” Richie stated, muting the TV and setting the remote down.

“Fucking Bill, always getting us into this shit; he makes a mess and we’ve gotta clean it up.”

“Well it’s better than letting him rot in prison with Henry Bowers as a guard, right?”

Eddie winced at the mention of their lifelong enemy; a corrupt cop who stayed above the law because he worked for it. He could get away with anything, and had on several occasions.

“Fine, but I’m not holding back from laying into him once we’ve got him back.” Eddie grumbled.

“As if you ever hold back.” Richie snorted, sending off a quick text to their group chat and re-pocketing his phone. He looked over to Eddie who was just finishing up his meal, only to notice a trickle of blood dancing down the skin of his forearm.

Richie reached forward, collecting the blood on his index finger and smearing it. Eddie glanced down at Richie’s hand, a frustrated curse following the sight of his (once again) sullied bandage.

“God damn it, Richie get the suture kit.” Eddie ground out through clenched teeth, anger bubbling up at the knowledge that he’d have to sew himself up with his non-dominant hand. That would certainly make for an interesting scar.

“Get it yourself, I’m not your maid.” Richie said snarkily as he stood from the couch and began carrying his plate to the kitchen.

“Ugh fine, then can we at least get drunk first?” Eddie called out, eyeing the messy coffee table and choosing to leave cleaning up until later.

Richie reappeared at the end of the couch, looking down at Eddie with a wicked grin and his hands behind his back.

“I’m really hoping you’ve got a bottle of whiskey behind your back.” Eddie wished hopefully, knowing too well that probably wasn’t the case.

“I have a better idea.” Richie announced confidently, pulling his hands out from behind his back and brandishing a glistening knife. “More cutting.”

“And how does that solve my problem?” Eddie deadpanned.

“It doesn’t, but it solves mine.” Richie pointed to the tent in his jeans that Eddie hadn’t noticed until now. He should have expected this; Richie always got excited when Eddie bled.

Eddie sighed, pushing himself up from the couch and walking up to Richie until they were merely a breath away.

“If we’re doing this, you better make it worth my while.” Eddie punctuated his threat by running his index finger across the blade, pulling it back to inspect the bead of blood. Content with the sharpness of the knife, Eddie brought his finger up to Richie’s lips, smearing the blood across them like a lipstick.

Eddie sauntered towards their bedroom, leaving Richie to trail after him excitedly.

It took a few minutes for Richie to set Eddie up how he wanted him, but in the end, it left Eddie handcuffed to a chain hanging from their ceiling, kneeling above their bed with his knees barely reaching the mattress.

Eddie’s arms tensed with the strain of practically hanging by his wrists, and they looked so delicious Richie couldn’t help but get ahead of himself, leaving a little slice along Eddie’s bicep before they had even begun.

Richie unclothed himself, taking a few steps around the bed and assessing Eddie like an animal stalking its prey. When he was behind Eddie and fully out of sight he hopped up on the mattress, the sudden movement causing Eddie to startle. Richie chuckled darkly, tracing the knife along the back of Eddie’s neck.

“Are you going to get on with it or am I just going to hang here until the circulation in my wrists gets cut off?” Eddie asked tiredly.

“If you start to lose circulation, I’ll cut you down.” Richie said.

“You can’t cut through chains, idiot.”

“That’s not what I meant. But don’t worry, you’d still look pretty without hands.” Richie whispered into Eddie’s ear, grinning as he shivered in response.

In one quick succession, Richie slipped the blade around to the front of Eddie’s neck and under the collar of his shirt, flicking it away and pulling down as it cut through the fabric with terrifying ease. Eddie’s tan skin was flushed pink, the colors intermingling under his flesh and shining out like a light. It was an unblemished canvas for Richie to paint on, his knife a brush and Eddie’s blood his paint.

Before he could create his masterpiece though, he needed to rid Eddie of the rest of his clothes. It only took Richie a few flicks of his wrist to expertly cut away all of Eddie’s garments, leaving them in a pile of scraps surrounding them. Richie rounded Eddie, kneeling in front of him and gazing down the length of his body appreciatingly.

Eddie’s cock was already straining, curving slightly to the left as if seeking out Richie’s attention. Richie used the flat edge of his knife to hold it up, smirking as a pearl of pre-cum bubbled to the surface and on to the polished metal.

Richie made eye contact with Eddie as he brought the knife up to his face and made a show of licking the cum off it.

“Richie-” Eddie whined, tugging on his chains impatiently. He’d never been one to wait for good things, always wanting them done fast so he could reap the benefits sooner. Richie acceded, bringing the knife to Eddie’s chest, just under his peck, and leaving a thin red line it its wake.

Eddie hissed, more out of pleasure than pain. The knife was sharp enough that it didn’t really hurt, just stung slightly in the aftermath. Eddie let his head hang, examining Richie’s work, and was disappointed to see only a few droplets of blood had come to the surface.

He couldn’t help but compare it to his hand, which had been unbandaged and left to bleed freely down his arm, exacerbated by the pressure from the handcuffs. He wanted more like that; more intensity, more depth, more blood.

“Why the long face? Not good enough for my little slut?” Richie asked condescendingly, tipping Eddie’s chin up with the knife so he was forced to look him in the eyes.

“Not enough…” Eddie echoed bashfully.

“What was that?” Richie goaded, pressing against Eddie’s chin a little harder, the edge of the knife threatening to break skin.

“I said it’s not enough.” Eddie ground out, fighting the blush on his cheeks.

“Oh, well, why didn’t you just say so?” Richie responded cheerfully, a flicker of madness fliting across his eyes before he skilfully swiped his arm out, grazing Eddie’s flesh with the knife and leaving a slash across his stomach.

The shock made Eddie’s jaw drop. When he peered down at his skin he saw rivulets streaming down his abs towards his groin, which twitched with excitement at the view.

After that Richie didn’t hold back. He marred up Eddie’s torso, front and back, with varying sizes and depths of cuts. Eddie’s entire body stung, vibrating with the pulse he could feel in every vein that had been sliced open. His skin was puffed up and irritated, a mixture of smeared and fresh blood coating warm beige skin.

Richie had just finished a clean cut along Eddie’s hip bone when the man in question shuttered above him. Richie looked up, a nasty, knowing smirk on his face.

“You getting close, you little whore? Just from this?” Richie mocked.

Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head back and forth but not trusting his voice to cooperate.

Richie laughed, turning his attention to Eddie’s cock, which was coated in blood and pre-cum. It was a beautiful sight, but not quite worthy of attention yet.

“One last finishing touch before I take care of you. Think you can hold out?” Richie sneered.

Eddie glared through his lashes, wanting nothing more than to spit in Richie’s condescending face. But he knew that wouldn’t bode well for him when he was chained up like this. So instead, he gritted his teeth and nodded minutely.

Richie leaned forward, bringing his knife to the top of Eddie’s peck, which he’d kept untouched with this exact intention in mind. With more grace than one should ever have with a knife, he carved out five little lines, pulling back to admire his work as it wept red.

“Now you’ll never forget who you belong to.” Richie stated, wiping a finger over the fresh cuts to smear the blood out of the way. Left behind were the letters “R” and “T”, only hesitating long enough to let Richie read them aloud before they were overflowing once again.

Eddie’s cock responded to the possessiveness, twitching out another thread of pre-cum. As much as Eddie would fight it, argue against it, would rather die before admitting it, at the end of the day he took comfort in the fact that he was Richie’s.

Satisfied with his work, Richie shuffled off the bed and towards their walk-in closet.

They had refurbished the walk-in to act as a vault of sorts, holding all their most important possessions. It’s where they kept their money, their weapons, and some of their more intricate or high-end sex toys.

Richie disappeared for a moment before returning with a cocky grin and a pair of silver gloves on his hands. He slapped his palms together, a muffled metallic sound ringing through the room.

They’d only made use of those gloves on one other occasion. They were cut-resistant gloves made from stainless-steel mesh, designed so the wearer couldn’t injure themselves when using sharp blades.

Eddie’s brain tried to connect the dots, figure out what Richie’s plan was, but his head was swimming from arousal and blood loss.

“Richie, what are you…” Eddie trailed off when Richie recollected the knife from where he’d left it on the bed, this time grasping it by its blade. He seemed to be inspecting the handle, devious thoughts flitting across his eyes that Eddie couldn’t discern.

It all clicked once Richie leaned over their bedside table, grabbing their bottle of lube and uncapping it.

“Richie, no.” Eddie tried to sound stern, his heartbeat suddenly hammering in his chest. He tried to wiggle around, a frivolous attempt at getting free. He knew it wouldn’t work, he was the one who rigged up the chains after all, and he did a damn good job at making sure whoever was hooked up wouldn’t be able to get down.

Richie ignored his objections completely, moving closer to Eddie on the bed and staring him down.

“I swear to fucking god, I will slit your throat where you sleep if you go anywhere near my ass with that.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?” Richie purred lowly.

Once they were only a breath away, Richie poured some lube out over the handle of the knife, holding it in front of Eddie’s face so he was forced to watch.

Eddie’s eyes kept darting between the knife and Richie’s face, struggling to decide whether swallowing his pride and pleading was worth it. On the one hand, he wasn’t a little bitch. But on the other… he didn’t need one slip of the hand connecting his asshole to his urethra.

As Richie’s hand disappeared behind Eddie’s back, the decision was made for him.

“Richie no- don’t you dare- I’ll fucking-” He was promptly cut off as the blunt curve was pressed up against his hole. The lube made it cold and uninviting, and Eddie clenched unintentionally in response.

“The more you fight it the more it’s going to hurt.” Richie tutted.

Eddie eyed the distance between himself and Richie, trying to calculate if he could make the lunge for Richie’s throat without his restraints pulling him back. It was too late though; any sudden movement now could result in a deep slice where he didn’t want one.

“Fine.” Eddie growled. “Just get on with it then.”

Richie didn’t hesitate to follow Eddie’s words, pressing the handle up within him with little warning.

It wasn’t particularly large, probably about the size of some of their smaller dildos, but with zero prep it still stung.

“Agh fuck!” Eddie hissed, arching his back away from the sensation. The sudden jerk made his limbs burn, bringing movement to his body which had been straining in a stationary position for 20 minutes. It sent new waves of agony to the slices in his skin, and bile threatened to rise at the combination of so much pain so suddenly.

Eddie forced himself to close his eyes, focusing on his breathing. Steady inhale, hold… 2… 3… 4… exhale. The key to getting through these situations was keeping his cool. The second he began to panic, or focused too much on the pain, his senses became overwhelmed and tried to shut down.

As Eddie focused on calming down and re-centering himself, he could feel Richie’s breath against his neck. He was mumbling things into Eddie’s skin that he didn’t pay much attention to, but the steady sound of Richie’s voice helped to calm his nerves.

The stimulation in his ass was starting to feel good. The handle of the knife was long enough to reach his prostate whenever Richie hit the right angle, causing a slow build of pleasure that was beginning to overshadow the pain. Without meaning to, Eddie let a little moan slip.

"Is someone finally beginning to enjoy themselves?” Richie teased. “Look how much precum you're leaking now that your slut hole finally has something to clench around.”

Eddie looked down to see that Richie was right, his cock was dripping wet and red at its head, twitching in excitement every time Eddie felt a new sting of pain. His brain and his body were in a warn for dominance over his pain tolerance.

Richie repositioned himself so he was lower, his face level with Eddie’s chest. Through hooded lids, Richie looked up at Eddie, locking on to eye contact before leaning in and taking a nipple into his mouth.

Eddie moaned immediately; the sensation too good to hold it in. His nipples had always been one of his most sensitive erogenous zones, and Richie so often forgot to pay attention to them, too wrapped up in his own pleasure. But in that moment, Richie was making up for every single time he’d neglected them.

He pinched the pink nub between his teeth, pulling back until Eddie’s skin was stretched as far as it’d go. It was so intense it felt like Eddie was hooked up to nipple clamps, but he had the added bonus of Richie’s warm, soft tongue teasing his peak. Richie let go, watching as Eddie’s skin snapped back against itself, mottled and wet.

He moved on to Eddie’s other nipple as he increased the pace of the knife, thrusting it deeper into Eddie’s hole. Eddie’s breath was becoming shaky, along with his legs.

Richie began lapping along the slices he’d made, biting at the flesh and teasing out more blood from the cuts that had dried up. He caught the dribbles on his tongue, savoring the bitter taste of iron. When he lifted his head back up to regard Eddie with a smirk, he had blood smeared around his mouth.

Eddie wanted to snort, absently thinking it looked like a badly done last minute Halloween makeup job, but his lungs couldn’t manage a laugh, his breath already shallow and weak.

He knew he was going to cum soon. Richie had been consistently hitting his prostate for a few minutes, the pressure and tempo solid and steady enough to make Eddie’s toes curl.

“Richie, I- I’m-” Eddie tried to stutter out a warning, his throat dry and a haze beginning to surround his vision.

“What, are you gonna cum? Already?” Richie patronized.

Eddie’s anger mixed with his desperation, watering it down enough to let him sacrifice his ego.

“Yes, yes please- I need to- please Richie-”

“So pathetic.” Richie scoffed. But despite his words, he still relented, bringing his free hand to Eddie’s cock and stroking a few times.

Eddie came with a shrill cry, the sound cracking and fizzling out at the end. He felt the pulse in his cock and the throb in his ass, and then everything went black.

Eddie’s not sure how long he was out, but when he awoke, he was resting against his pillow. He looked down at the sheets, still stained red with his blood and wet to the touch, so he couldn’t have black out for long. The next thing he registered was Richie laying beside him, his finger lazily tracing along Eddie’s stomach, where there was a small pool of blood tinted semen.

“Ew, Richie!”

Richie seemed to have been unaware of Eddie’s regained consciousness until then, startling momentarily as he looked up at him like a kid who’d been caught doing something wrong.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.” Richie crooned, removing his hand from the mess on Eddie’s belly and wiping it on the sheets.

“How long was I out for?” Eddie asked, noticing his voice was coarse and attempting to clear it.

“About two minutes, give or take.”

“And you thought instead of trying to wake me up, you’d finish on me instead?” Eddie cocked an eyebrow, pointing at the cum that covered his stomach.

“Well, I took you down first.” Richie rolled his eyes, as if Eddie was missing the bigger picture.

“Thanks for not letting me hang lifelessly from our ceiling, I guess?” Eddie responded sarcastically.

“You are so welcome.” Richie sent Eddie an annoyingly charming wink before bouncing off the bed, disappearing into their hallway.

Eddie closed his eyes, noticing the way his head was pounding and his body ached. He wiggled his wrists experimentally, wincing immediately at the feeling. He peeked one eye open, hesitantly bringing an arm into view and gasping when he saw the bruising that was leftover from the handcuffs. It was atrocious, but also… mesmerizing. Eddie was tracing the galaxies under his skin when Richie walked back into the room.

“Drink this.” Richie gave little warning before he chucked a water bottle at Eddie, which he surprisingly caught with little effort.

Eddie blinked at it like he’d never seen water in his life. Really, what he’d never seen in his life was Richie taking care of him. It’s true that things didn’t usually get as intense as they had that day, but Eddie was used to always doing the aftercare himself.

“What, are you allergic to water suddenly?” Richie asked as he climbed back into bed.

“Is it drugged?” Eddie asked skeptically.

“Oh my god, you fucking baby.” Richie grabbed the water bottle from Eddie, cracking open the sealed cap and taking a swig before offering it back to him.

“Now drink. I don’t need you passing out on me again.”

Eddie eyed Richie, his chest feeling uncomfortably aflutter; a sensation he was only used to associating with a new kill or a shiny weapon.

He took the bottle wordlessly and chugged it, ignoring the tiny streams of water that escaped out the corners of his mouth and trickled down his chin. He pulled away from the lip of the bottle with a gratified sigh, not having realized how much he’d needed that.

“Thanks.” Eddie mumbled.

“Don’t go soft on me, Eddie boy.” Richie warned, a lilt of tenderness in his voice.

They held eye contact for a moment before Richie cleared his throat, rolling on to his back and propping his arms up behind his head.

“So, who’s turn is it to do laundry?” He asked, nodding towards the bedsheets.

“Well, technically yours since it was my night for dinner.” Eddie drawled.

“But since I brought home food…” Richie let the end of his sentence trail off, the insinuation evident.

“Fuck off, asshole. Look at the state you left me in.” Eddie gestured to his body, his weakened arm protesting the movement.

“I can’t. If I look at you any longer, I’ll have to jump you for round two.”

“Richie, no-”

“How do you feel about spoons?”

“We’re not doing this-”

“Forks? Or maybe a ladle is more your style? A spatula-”

“I fucking hate you.”

“So it’s a decided, spork it is!”

#reddie #reddie fanfic #reddie lemon #reddie smut #reddie fanfiction #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #dark verse #mirror verse #blood play #bloodplay #knife play #knifeplay #edge play #edgeplay #my posts #my writing

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shih-coulda-had-it · 5 years ago

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pacers (1/?)

Summary: Remember to run in a straight line, and run as long as possible.

Author’s notes: I have 28 pages (and counting) of one particular Gran Torino & Shimura Nana backstory, and while I’m in the process of rewriting/editing/adding, I’m just gonna post the bits I’m proudest of. Sorahiko’s surname Falco, Nana’s Quirk: Fade Out, in addition to her pro hero name Flicker Vision are inspired by @thelennystorm‘s body of work.

1 - 2 - ?

“Who’s the kid,” says Sorahiko, glowering down at the wild mop of sunflower yellow hair poking out from behind Nana’s back. Kid is clearly hiding behind her, and Nana is clearly shielding him, because her next smile looks a little more toothy than it should be.

“Be nice,” she chides. “This is Yagi-kun! I’ve told you about him before, remember?”

“No.”

She doesn’t even miss a beat. “Well, your memory extends to your work schedule and all the places you can buy cheap taiyaki.” Nana snaps her fingers at Sorahiko. “Anyway, Yagi-kun is planning to apply to U.A., and he wants to join the hero course. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to give him a demonstration of what to expect!”

This explains why they’re meeting in a park in their hero gear. It’s Sunday morning. Sorahiko could still be asleep right now, but he’d gotten a late night text from Nana asking to meet in their hero-gear, and because he’d just come off-shift, his delirious brain had agreed.

“You want to spar? Here?” he demands. The park is the worst environment he can operate in, especially since there aren’t any convenient children’s equipment to climb into and kick off of. Nana’s put him on the spot in flat land. He’s going to yell at her so much later.

“You’ve got your boots, don’t you?” she shoots back. She ushers Yagi out from behind her. He’s a tall weed of a boy, hands and feet still too large for the rest of him, and a face that’s a little too gaunt. Sorahiko presumes Nana will be feeding him until the hollows of his eyes fill back out, so the intense blue of his irises aren’t so… intense. “Yagi-kun, sit on the bench. Time us for three minutes, okay?”

“A-ah, okay, oshishou…”

Oshishou? Sorahiko narrows his eyes at Nana, who startles at the incredibly respectful, incredibly suspicious term. Nana’s not a certified master of any craft, much less a teacher. She laughs after a second.

“Yagi-kun, maybe hold off on that, huh?”

The kid mutters his acquiescence, and Nana is bounding to where Sorahiko is, a good distance opposite of him. She clunks her two fists together like this is a boxing match. It probably is. Sorahiko’s going to have to launch himself at her, and then do some rapid footwork to avoid getting slammed in the stomach or head. And since she expects them to be done by three minutes, she’ll probably break out her Quirk like three times… and use One for All to finish.

He says goodbye to a painless Sunday.

“I would’ve liked the warning,” he tells her. He raises his fists, loosely curled, and tenses.

“What villain warns of an attack?”

Nana shifts her weight. Instinctively, Sorahiko mirrors her, and the familiar adrenaline rush surges through him and his ears, but he hears her shout “Let’s go!” just fine. Fine enough to immediately jet to the side from Nana’s charge forward, slinging profanity as he dodges her grab.

He takes another breath, gambles the oxygen away in an effort to return and land one kick. His heel smashes down; he’s aiming for her spine and expecting her to twist around it. And of course, now she chooses to tap into One for All, because she lets him hit her, like she’s proving a point. Nana’s point being: she’s completely unharmed.

Oh, she’s crouched in a crater now, but otherwise? Completely unharmed.

“Fuck,” he manages, seeing Nana lift her head and catch him with a gimlet eye. It’s the split second that grounds him—the panic of did she use it, did I just paralyze my best friend—and that’s when Shimura fucking Nana spins in her half-crouch, seizes his boot by the knee, and yanks. “Fuck!”

“Watch your fucking language!” she laughs as Sorahiko is flung over her head.

Just for that, he spitefully aims his next output of pressurized air in her face. Nana splutters.

At the end of three minutes, Sorahiko’s face gets mashed into the dirt, one arm twisted up behind him. At least she’s put him at an angle so he can say, rebelliously, “You suck.” Straddled across his back, her other hand scrunched in his hair, Nana laughs again. He can hear the kid yelling time, and the increasing volume of shoes thudding against the grass.

“Yield?”

“Yeah, I yield.”

She lets go of him and rolls off, eventually sitting up and tucking her legs under her. Too exhausted to follow, or even gripe about the kid anymore, Sorahiko stays face down on the ground. His victory is scuffing her clothes and swiping her hair-tie. She plucks the latter off his wrist and fixes her half-updo.

“Yagi-kun!” she cheers. “Come sit, come sit.” She pats the patch of grass in front of her; the kid awkwardly rearranges himself so he too is cross-legged. “So this is, ah... “

“Gran Torino,” he grunts, reluctantly turning his head to peer warily at the kid. Nana might be fine showing off her face and probably telling her name to some random adolescent, but Sorahiko likes his anonymity.

“Nice to meet you,” Yagi mumbles. He edges a little closer, and then a veritable torrent of words come spilling out of him. “Oshishou, that was amazing, the way you reacted so fast to that last axe-kick! Is it because you’re friends with Gran Torino? Is that how you became familiar to his pattern of movement? Or did you see it too?”

“What pattern,” Sorahiko demands.

Nana knuckles him in the ribs. “We’re good friends,” she says to Yagi. “The downside of me knowing Gran Torino is that he knows me too, so he can adjust on the fly.”

“Ah…” Yagi tents his fingers. “So you did let him hit you that first round?”

“Yep! You’re an astute young man, Yagi-kun.” Nana gently taps her fist against his shoulder. Sorahiko is confused and quite possibly concussed. Maybe that’s why she scheduled the spar; so he wouldn’t be too vocally opposed to this entire meeting. “I was born with the Quirk: Fade Out, but the Quirk that gives me this strength and durability—”

“Hey,” he interrupts, to no avail.

“That Quirk was given to me.”

“Given?” breathes Yagi.

“Flicker Vision,” says Sorahiko, aghast at her lack of subtlety. This is a civilian. This is a civilian brat. Has she lost her mind? How did this kid manage to latch onto Nana and land here, without being politely shaken off?

“Hush, you,” she tells him. She won’t even meet his eyes. “Yagi-kun, Gran Torino’s a great trainer for all his grumpiness. He helped me control this Quirk, One for All, within a week.”

Control. Yeah, that’s a great word for it. Nana has had One for All for two years, and she is still leery of its potency. From what she’s told him, she uses the bare minimum to boost her speed, strength, and durability. She keeps the embers banked, and doesn’t dare to fan them into flames.

“So cool,” the kid marvels.

“He is,” Nana agrees, setting off all kinds of mushy feelings fluttering around Sorahiko’s stomach. Her next words petrify those feelings stone cold. “He’s going to help me train you!”

“I am not.” He shoves himself up, stifling a groan at the familiar aches, and sits next to her. “I’m busy.”

“With what?”

“With… with…” Sorahiko struggles to come up with a decent excuse. It doesn’t help that they have an audience of one, tracking their banter like it’s a tennis match. Lesson one: there is no denying Shimura nee Chiratsuki Nana. There are only attempts at deflecting. “With adult stuff. I have a life outside hero work, you know.”

She frowns. “Since when?”

./cont?

#bnha #gran torino #shimura nana #shih.txt #pacers!fic #they are platonic soulmates in this one #but in the vast majority of my other 140+ pages #;)#torino sorahiko

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hisgirlwonder · 6 years ago

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Atonement - Part Three

Length: 2.3K words Warning: A lot of this is power play with intrusive thoughts but there’s also the addition of smut in the form of sex toys/anal stuff, humiliation, some degrading pet play, sadism of sorts, voyeurism, that sort of thing~ Synopsis: With his trust broken, Michael is doing all he can to make you regret ever crossing him. Notes: Here’s the third part in the continuation of my favourite fic series I’ve written to date (I think my niche might be humiliation which probably speaks volumes about me lmao) and you can find part one and two here on my master list. Hope you enjoy!!! I should also probably point this out but I always write Y/N as consensual because we all know she secretly loves Michael and can’t resist him (even if she might come across as loathing him)

Michael’s actions towards you had caused quite a commotion in the Outpost. Since that show in front of the others, they were all scared stiffness and didn’t want to be the next in line and abided by his rules. Nobody realised that Michael wasn’t interested in punishing them even if they acted out because you were his target, his prey, his toy. He would have just snapped their necks and let that be that. But with you? No, you were different. You were his.

“What the fuck, where are they?”

Desperate hands of yours rummage through bags of clean laundry trying to find your own. You specifically remember last night putting them on a wash cycle and one of the other girls said she’d take care of the rest which by your calculations means they should be there. But they’re not and you’re stressing out. You didn’t need more punishment on top of what you were already being given.

Certain you’ve got another outfit hanging up in your wardrobe, you run back to your room as fast as you can. The adrenaline pumping through your veins turned you into a fumbling mess and made trying to unlock the door difficult, albeit not impossible, and you get there eventually. Once inside you rush over to your closet and fling open its doors.

Michael surely had better things to do than take my clothes, didn’t he?

Apparently, you might have been wrong. The cupboard in front of you is bare, stripped of your belongings. You mutter a fuck under bated breath, heart pounding. Knowing you don’t have much time, you quickly move onto your drawers and yank them open whilst praying you’re still in possession of something, anything, to wear to his office – your search falls flat. You haven’t even got a pair of socks.

There’s a knock at the door. It was if your thoughts were so loud that the Devil himself answered you because you open the door and who was it? Michael.

“Good morning, little grey. Did you get my message? I hope you enjoyed it.”

His tone was all too self-righteous and cocky for this early in the morning.

You’re staring at him in confusion, saying nothing.

I didn’t get a…

It clicks. He took all of your clothes to send you a message.

He continues, “I just love that look upon your face right now. It’s like you’re becoming aware what I can do to make you feel your own shame. There are a few things planned so don’t take too long to get ready. Make sure you shower first,” Michael says, rubbing it in with a wink. You wanted to slap the smug off his own.

A concerned Ms. Mead clears her throat, breaking the silence in the room.

“Michael, don’t you think you’re being just a little harsh on that poor girl.”

You look up from your screen to see Mead staring down at you, sadness in her eyes. She hated seeing you like this – she missed the old Michael, the one that had become buried deep under a cloud of jealousy. Mead could read you like a book and knew from the way you were reacting and the things she’d observed that you really did care for Y/N but you didn’t know how to show it.

“Thank you for the concern. I really do appreciate it but after she went behind my back and metaphorically shat all over me then she’s going to get every last bit of my harshness. How dare she let him-” you pause, smacking your clenched fist down in exasperation.

Miriam leans in on the edge of the desk, sight focused on you and trying to read your expression since you had a guard up. You’re refusing to look at her and instead your vision veers off to the side with flared nostrils and a mouth scrunched up in disapproval, matching the current mood.

“Michael, please, look at me.” Mead begs, moving around to be in your line of sight but you move your head again, still refusing to look at her, “It doesn’t have to be like this, you know? You don’t need to let your feelings get the better of you. You’re not a monster, Michael.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this, Michael. You’re not a monster, Michael.” You mimic, deflecting the obvious truth she was speaking. You did feel something for her but the news of betrayal hurled you back into the past when you were abandoned by your own flesh and blood.

“Wow, okay. I see I’m getting nowhere with you. I’m going to go and attend to other things but you know where I am if you decide you actually want to act your age and not like a defiant, spoilt child.” Mead sighs heavily then walks out of the room. You notice she’s left the door ajar as you hear her speaking in a surprised tone, saying, “Oh, hello, Y/N. Michael’s in there.”

“Uh, sir, hello,” your words were sheepish, uncertain. He doesn’t acknowledge your greeting nor does he do anything besides type away on his laptop. You’re about to say something else when he bluntly tells you to come to him. You comply with the instructions and tiptoe over to him, standing to the right of his desk.

The tapping of fingers on the keyboard ceases once he feels your presence near. He closes his laptop, pushes himself off the seat, and walks around you in circles with eyes fixated on your exposed skin.

Those icy blues are taking in the sight of the damage inflicted on your body. A single finger lightly skims over the parts that were tinged in shades of blue and violet from where he’d dug in too hard. With cold yet curious tone, he asks, “Do these hurt?”

The answer to that question is simple – of course they hurt. You were in agony trying to fall asleep last night because of that. If he had asked you, however, if anything had hurt more then that was an entirely different story. You’d say yes because it didn’t just hurt, it tormented you to be around him and to almost suffocate on the anguish filling the room that he was experiencing, all because of you. You can’t recall him ever using the word “hate” but you wouldn’t be surprised if that was how he felt about you nowadays.

You pull together a sentence but your words are spoken too timidly for him to hear. He wraps his hand around the bruised skin, gripping where the marks were present, and squeezes as he’s demanding for you to speak up. Tears pool in your eyes and you’re wincing in pain, yelling out that they do. Gasping under the pressure he’s putting on your contusions.

Michael begins to laugh to himself for some reason and drops the clasp he has around your bruised limb. Your eyes, slightly narrowed, on him and you’re rubbing at the soreness. He sits back down on his chair and as he’s pulling in his chair, he mocks you, “I already know what you’re going to do before you do, little grey. You think you get the privileges of a normal human being? Don’t be silly. We both know where you belong.” His head tilts in the direction of the floor, “Down you go, on your hands and knees.”

You’re amazed at how well Michael pulls off the cold, clinical act but you fail to realise that this is what he’s taught himself throughout his life – through the hurt, the abandonment, the pain, the loss, the best and only thing he can do is to build the fortress inside him higher, and stronger; even if this means losing himself even deeper each time he rebuilds it. He’s done it so many times you could almost call him a master in carpentry.

With you following his commands, you’re resting on your bent knees and flat palms. Michael squats down for a minute, eyes perusing over your positioning. You part lips to speak but Michael snatches your face up in one hand and he snaps, “Does the little bitch wish to speak? Too bad she can only bark.”

His emphases on the word bark showed how serious he was, he throws you from his hand and stands up, hovering above like a figure of authority. “You want to speak? So do it, and you get points if you make it extra convincing.”

You put two and two together and come back with something that makes a whole lot of sense. He didn’t want you to speak, he wanted you to bark like a dog because his aim was to make you feel less than human. So, naturally, you don’t want to rock the boat and you show him how convincing you can be.

“Very good. I think you’ve earned the right to speak for a little bit.”

“Thank you, sir. What’s the point in all of this?”

“To teach you obedience, silly. You clearly lack it and all dogs need training sometimes. Oh, and before I forget, I have something for you... a gift, if you please.” Michaels words were mostly calm but there was a touch of condescension thrown in there for good measure. “Before you feel the need to waste any extra oxygen in this room by asking another trivial question, just know it’s something I’m sure you will love, like the slut you are.”

You’re trying to swallow down your nerves but it’s as if you’re a cat with a furball caught in its throat, wanting to cough them back up.

Michael can’t do anything worse to you than he already has.

You’ve been staring at the floor and psyching yourself up to bundle your nerves and shove them deep down inside you that you didn’t notice Michael had disappeared until he came back. You look up and there he is, holding up a red bag. “Little grey, get up off the floor and come and get this,” he swings the bag in front of you by the handles, like an owner waving a toy in front of their pet.

Dying to speak, you bite your tongue for fear of backlash. Michael already senses it in you and pipes up with, “I know, I know. This must be confusing, right? I’m punishing you and then I’m giving you gifts,” Michael grabs his chin in his free hand, pursing his lips before he continues, “I guess you’ll just have to sit on the edge of your seat to see what I have planned next, huh?”

You stick out your hand to grab the bag from him, looking at him in the eyes but you can’t work out what’s going through his mind. Part of you wonders if this is some kind of joke and then the other part wonders if he’s trying to win you over just to gain more control.

Your teeth chew at your bottom lip and you pluck up the courage to dive in, feeling what seems to be a bottle and something fluffy. You pull both out and place them on the table; a butt plug with a tail and a bottle of lube. “I don’t understand. Why these?”

“I just thought I’d get you something to help with your canine transformation since apparently you do quite like being a bitch.” His hands grab for the bottle, shaking it around before holding it out to you, “See? I’m not entirely cruel.”

He places the bottle back down on his desk, continuing to explain his plan, “You’re going to wear this, if not for me then for your own self, because I can promise you things will be worse if you don’t.”

Your eyes hit the plug – it wasn’t like you hadn’t had anything up there before and it wasn’t overly huge so you figured you could do it.

“Do I make myself clear?”

You nod your head.

“Good. Now show me just how clear I’ve made myself.”

Michael points at the toy, “I want you to put a foot up on the chair so I can watch you stick that,” then he points at your ass, “In there. I also want you to look at me so I can feel every second of it. Got it?” He tongues his front teeth in some kind of sick enjoyment.

You bite back the nerves and nod your head again to show your understanding. Despite your submissive streak, you were being crushed slowly and painfully because this wasn’t how you wanted anything sexual with him to go.

With one foot propped up on the chair, you pick both the bottle and toy up, hands trembling slightly, and squirt fake slick on to the plug before rubbing it in and bringing it to your ass. The flesh of your behind hitting Michael’s gaze.

“No. Turn your face around and look at me when you do it. I want to see you.”

Was this just a punishment or his own fetish?

You turn, facing Michael, trying your best to be brave but you knew he’d be able to see the pain. It was pain because over and over again thoughts like you’ve done this to him, he’s hurting because of you, you worthless piece of shit, Michael is right to teach you like this ran through your mind.

For the first time in who knows how long his eyes light up as he’s staring at you pressing the tip of the foreign object into your hole, gasping slightly as it easily slides in. He’s tried to remain calm and composed this whole time but even he can’t hide his own enjoyment, whether it be from the power or from him fill your ass with something, and it’s showing. He’s biting down on his fingers at his own titillation over your docility.

“Wow, you didn’t even cry out in pain, almost as if it’s not your first time filling that ass of yours with something.”

His eyes are stuck on you, particularly on your ass, as his feet lead him to be behind you. His hands pull at your hair back his direction, you too were growing aroused but trying to hide it, “You really are a slut. Shall we see how much you can take?”

Taglist: @avesatanormalpeoplescareme @sensitivethot @sammythankyou @sevenwondr @langdonsdemon @creamy-pasta-boi

Also wanted to add in you darlings since you loved the first two parts!! @icylangdon @langdonsrapture @cocosfern

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justheretobreakthings · 6 years ago

Note

Can I request some Kidge friendship for the hc card? Either Pidge for "trapped" where she's pinned under a collapsed structure, Keith notices she's not checking in and comes to find her. Or Keith for "excluded", after Shiro disappears the others have been (not deliberately, just oblivious) leaving him out because none of them know him as well as Shiro did, and Pidge is the one to finally notice how exhausted and lonely he is? Either (or both) of those ideas would be awesome to see written 😊

These are both excellent and I’ve got my creative juices flowing for both of them! I’ve got the first prompt finished now, so I’ll go ahead and post the “Trapped” fill here, and get another post up for the other prompt later once I’ve got it written. Hope you enjoy!

PinnedCentral Characters: Pidge, KeithGenres: Friendship, WhumpWord Count: 2,938Written for the “Trapped” space for the @voltronbingo Hurt/Comfort cardRead on AO3

“Pidge? Pidge, do you read?”

The voice was quiet, distant, as it rang tinny and sharpthrough the helmet’s speakers, and even in the relative silence around her itwas difficult to hear. Pidge wondered why that was. She hadn’t adjusted thevolume setting, had she? At least, she couldn’t remember having done so.

Although, if she had done it in the last few minutes… shewas having trouble remembering those as well. She had to take a moment toconcentrate, pull at her memory. They had been on a mission, that was it. AGalra outpost on a planet Voltron was working to liberate. And they’d split upto go after different targets.

Pidge had been breaking into a supply reserve, sheremembered, when… yes, she’d been spotted. Then been able to hack into theoutpost’s internal network and get the sentry bots off their backs, but thatdidn’t take care of the sentient guards. Luckily even after the guard hastilydemanded backup before attacking, she still hadn’t had to fight off manyguards. The others at the outpost must have been preoccupied, what with Lanceand Hunk raiding the central hangar, Keith going after the armory, and Shirosabotaging the comms hub. The team splitting up had really spread the outpostthin.

Of course, it still hadn’t been an easy fight, especially onher own, and with the guards’ oversized weaponry and the supply reserve beingas structurally unsound as it had been…

Ah. That probably explained where she was now.

With a colossal effort she pried her eyes open and squintedat the world around her. She could see the starry sky peeking in throughremains of the walls and ceiling in the corner of the reserve at the edge ofher vision, the steel ceiling beams that had been holding the structure inplace now blasted apart and wrenched at angles, while railings and a steelstairway that had previously graced the wall now lay crashed to the floor.

She didn’t see or hear any movement, nothing from any of theguards she’d been fighting before. They must have been taken down as well whentheir weaponry had brought this section of the building crashing down aroundthem. Fucking idiots.

Deciding that she should probably get up and rejoin thefight, Pidge started to pull her elbow in to hoist herself up and get back tostanding, only to immediately find herself stymied by two factors. One was thewave of dizziness that crashed over her when she tried to lift herself up. Shehadn’t noticed the throbbing in her skull before now, but suddenly it was thereand powerful and trying very hard to be the only thing on her mind.

The second was the fact that she realized she couldn’t, physically,lift herself up. As she tried to pull her right arm underneath her to leverherself, she discovered there was no space for it. Something was pinning herdown to the floor, and she was stuck on her side, her right arm awkwardlysplayed out beside her, the rest of her pressed to the ground by whatever itwas on top of her. One of her legs seemed to have a little wiggle room, but theother she couldn’t quiet feel, and a sharp pulse of pain came shooting all theway up to her hip when she tried moving it.

She sighed and shut her eyes as she waited for the ache toabate. Great. Just fan-fucking-tastic. She was stuck here – she couldn’t getwhatever was on top of her to budge in the slightest – and it looked probablethat her leg was broken. The least she could say on the bright side was thatshe hadn’t been crushed completely; she probably would have been if she hadn’tbeen wearing her armor. She would have shuddered at the thought if she had beenable to move.

Speaking of her armor, she still wasn’t sure what was goingon with her helmet. The voices from her speakers were still barely audible asshe heard them talking over each other. “Hunk, cover me, I’m gonna – ”“Pidge?” “They’re firing from your eight o’clock, watch it – ” “Pidge, do youcopy?”

“Yeah,” Pidge grunted. “I copy. I think I’m – ”

“Pidge, come in.”

She was pretty sure the voice was Keith’s. Leave it to himnot to listen, she thought as she let out a frustrated breath through her nose.“I said, I copy. But I think I’m down for the count so – ”

“Shiro, Pidge isn’t responding.”

“I know, I know, we’ll have to – ”

“Lance, on your right!”

What the –

With a tight frown, Pidge opened her eyes again, and noticedfor the first time that, although her vision was blurred on the edges, it wasotherwise completely unobstructed. No readouts, no crosshairs, no helmetinterior on the border of her sights.

She tilted her head back, fighting off the dizziness themovement brought, to see her helmet sitting a couple of feet away from her onthe ground. Oh. Well, that explained why the voices from the speakers were soquiet. And why the mic wasn’t picking up her voice.

And why her head felt like someone like someone had droppeda car on it.

Pidge groaned and let her head lay flat again, since it wasswimming too much for her to do anything else for longer than she absolutelyhad to. The voices from the helmet kept up, but she was losing focus, and ithad been a strain to hear them in the first place. So she let the sound of aback-and-forth between Shiro and Keith become a buzz in the background as shefelt herself drifting off.

That is, she drifted until a new noise made its way into themix. Her eyes shot open at the muffled, rhythmic thumps. They were echoing inthe remains of the building, so it was hard to tell where they were comingfrom, or how close they were. But she could at least identify what they were: footsteps.

She held her breath, mentally cursing her luck. She hadtaken care of the other guards at the reserve, and with the building wrecked asit was, she had figured her job was over for the time being. The other paladinsshould have been keeping the rest of the outpost too busy to want to comesnooping around in the wreckage. But apparently someone else was on their way,and Pidge was certainly in no shape to fight.

She could only hope that whoever had arrived didn’t noticeher presence, but that hope was dashed when she realized that the other paladins’voices were still coming out through her helmet. They were quiet, yes, but ifsomeone was searching thoroughly for intruders, they might still be able tonotice the sound. And Pidge recalled it being mentioned before that Galra havekeener senses than humans, including their hearing ability, so that was anotherpoint against her.

Desperately she stretched her arm out as far as it couldreach. If she could just get to her helmet so she could turn off the volume ofthe comm… but she discovered to her dismay that the helmet was just out ofreach of her fingertips. And the footsteps were getting louder.

Her heartbeat fluttered as the steps approached, and shebrought her arm back in to reach for her bayard. The weapon was pressed to theground by her hip where it was holstered, but when she hovered her hand nearbyand concentrated hard, the bayard found its way into her hand of its ownaccord.

Just in time, too, as the moment she felt the weight of thebayard in her hand, a shadow fell over her. Pidge blinked upward to see thelooming figure of a Galra soldier, in one of the outpost’s guard uniforms, agun held two-handed across his chest. The moment his yellow eyes locked ontohers, the Galra grinned.

“Thought I’d find some– ” he began, but was interrupted whenhe took a hunk of metal to the face as Pidge’s bayard shot out at him. Normallyshe tried to aim for limbs, but with where the guard was standing and wherePidge was pinned, it was awfully difficult to aim for anything besides theface. Fortunately, this seemed to work out, since she could hear somethingshatter and the guard let out a howl of pain.

She retracted the bayard, then shot it out again. The Galraducked away this time, but that gave the bayard the opportunity to boomerangback wrap around his arm. Pidge gritted her teeth and pulled at the bayard evenas she let a bolt of electricity out, sizzling as it traveled up the bayard’swire and into the guard. He cried out as he seized up with the force of theelectricity, crashing to the ground.

The shock died out, and the wire started to unravel for herto retract the bayard once more, but she was surprised when it was suddenlyhalted. The guard panting on the ground had grabbed hold of the wire, and wastugging it back with all his might. Pidge growled and sent another shockwavethrough, but, despite the obvious pain that washed over the guard’s face, heheld fast and yanked again. One tug, two – on the third tug he put all theweight he possessed behind it, and to her horror Pidge found the grip of herbayard ripped out of her grasp.

The guard clambered slowly to his feet, and Pidge could feelher pulse racing. She was unarmed now, she was pinned, and the guard wasreaching down to pick up the firearm that had fallen to the ground momentsbefore.

God, she was fucked.

The guard heaved out panting breaths as he took up hisweapon, turning back to Pidge with fury written all over his face. He liftedthe gun, and Pidge’s eyes flew shut as she anticipated the inevitable blast.

The inevitable blast that didn’t come.

Instead, the guard yelled out again amidst a sudden crash,and Pidge chanced a peek. Where the guard had been standing there was now aflurry of red and white, and as she watched, Keith brought his sword down onthe guard over and over, fast as she had ever seen him do it.

Keith didn’t slow until the guard was completely down forthe count. Pidge was pretty sure the guard wasn’t dead, just unconscious. Shewould have been perfectly cool with either.

Keith panted as he got his bearings, sheathing his bayardand turning to Pidge, meeting her gaze where she lay pinned on the ground. “You– you weren’t answering on the comms,” he said simply through his huffingbreaths.

“Yeah,” Pidge replied. “Yeah, I wasn’t. Did, uh, did Shirosend you to check on me, or…?”

Keith shook his head. “No, I just – I was, um, I thought youwere – you – you weren’t answering… on the comms…”

Pidge stared up at him. “Wait, you – you were worried?”

“Well, um – ”

“What about the armory? Did you finish up there?”

Keith shrugged. “I wasn’t sure there’d be time.”

“Oh.” There was silence between the two of them, save forKeith’s breaths that were gradually returning to their normal volume and pace.Keith had been worried. Worried enough to have abandoned his part of themission to check up on her. That didn’t quite seem like Keith. Hunk, he wouldbe the type to fret over a teammate that much. Shiro was protective over all ofthe paladins. Lance was caring and, as a bonus, really loved being a hero.Keith, though, the one who would shoot off on missions on his own, lone wolfKeith?

Although, the more she thought about it… Keith separatingfrom the group was never to leave the others, any one of them, behind or indanger. When he went Leeroy Jenkinsing into a fight, the danger was all on him.Pidge had always put it down to stubborn single-mindedness, and she was prettycertain the others saw it the same way. But she had never considered the factthat when he did this, he was leaving his teammates safer than himself.

Maybe him leaving his part of the mission to check on hershouldn’t be so surprising after all.

“Hey, Keith?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. For taking down that guy. And for, you know –worrying.”

“Oh. Um, right. You’re welcome.”

Keith stance stiffened and he didn’t meet her gaze, andPidge started to roll her eyes, only to abandon the effort when doing sobrought that goddamn dizziness back. “Hey,” she said. “Could you, uh – would youmind helping out with one more thing?”

“What?”

Pidge lifted her arm to gesture toward the collapsedstructure on top of her. “Could you see if you can move this? I’m kinda stuck.”

“Oh. Sure.” Keith hurried over and looked at the rubble. “It’s– it’s mainly one beam that’s got you stuck,” he said after a once-over. “I’ll,uh, I’ll see if I can…”

He left Pidge’s line of sight as he positioned himself totry and move the beam out of the way. For a moment nothing seemed to happen,then, there was the very slightest movement in the beam. Pidge wouldn’t have noticedit at all if it hadn’t budged her leg, jostling it ever so slightly, but justenough that it sent pain pulsing up and down the limb. Her breath caught andshe let out a groan of pain.

Immediately Keith was back at her side, staring down at herwith wide, concerned eyes. “Sorry!” he said. “Did that – did that hurt?”

“No, Keith,” Pidge grunted. “That was obviously a moan ofpleasure.” Keith’s eyes widened further and his face started to redden. “Oh mygod, Keith, that was a joke,” Pidge said hastily. “Yes, it fucking hurt, Ithink my leg’s busted.”

“Oh.”

“But keep going.”

“But – ”

“Yeah, it’s gonna hurt, but I gotta get unstuck, right? Sogo ahead, keep lifting. I’ll power through.”

Keith bit his lip and glanced toward Pidge’s leg, then ranhis eyes along the length of the beam. Pidge could practically see gears in hishead turning, although to what end she didn’t know. “I – I think I can get itoff quick. It’ll hurt but – ”

“Hey, if it gets me off the ground, I’m game. Go ahead andrip off the band-aid.”

“Okay,” Keith said with a nod. He ducked away and pried thegun from the incapacitated guard’s hands, then turned back toward Pidge.

“Uh, Keith?” she said cautiously. “I don’t think you cankill the beam.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Keith said, lifting the gun,turning and angling it upward.

“Keith, what are you – ?”

Her ears rang as the gun blasted, and another crashresounded. Pidge’s vision went white as agony suddenly surged through her leg,but it started to fade as quickly as it had begun in the first place. Shepanted as she focused her eyes again, and noticed a lightness over her bodythat hadn’t been there before. The beam, as she could see once her visionreturned, was about a foot above her now, no longer pinning her to the ground.

She felt hands under her arms, dragging her away from thewreckage. She grunted in pain at the movement to her leg, and Keith mutteredapologies into her ear as he brought her away.

“You’re, uh, you’re probably not up for walking, huh?” heasked.

“Not really.”

“All right.” He let out a breath and squatted down next toher. “Guess we’re piggy-backing it then?”

Pidge blinked up at him. “Wait, you sure? You’re okay withthat?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“… No reason,” Pidge replied. “Yeah, let’s piggy-back.”

She hooked her arms over Keith’s shoulders and let him get herinto position before he slowly stood, bringing his hands up to grip her arms.Pidge had to bite her lip at first as her leg knocked against Keith, but Keithseemed to have noticed, and stepped carefully as possible to keep the leg frombumping around.

“So,” she said as they started walking. “What did you do toget that beam out of the way?”

“Well, um,” Keith started slowly. “Well, the beam was long,and some of that walkway and staircase stuff was still up, pretty much rightabove you, and, uh, it looked heavy, and – and you see that crate there underthe beam that’s up at an angle? It looked like a, uh… what do you call themiddle part of a teeter-totter?”

“The fulcrum?”

“Yeah, that. So, um, so I thought, if I blasted some of thatrailway down and it landed over on the other end of the beam, then maybe itcould – ”

“Keith,” Pidge interrupted. “Did you just save me… using physics?”

“Um, I guess?” Keith said. “I mean, I know some stuff. Andit’s not like I can’t hear it when you and Hunk talk physics.”

“Sure, but, do you actually, like, listen?”

“Yeah? Why?”

Pidge squeezed her arms tighter around Keith. “Nothing, noreason. And, um, thanks again. For your help.”

“It’s no problem.”

“I mean, you didn’t get to finished up at the armory, didyou?”

“Nah, but, well – ” Pidge could hear the shrug in his voiceeven if he didn’t actually lift his shoulder, what with Pidge currentlydangling from them. “This was more important.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it really was.”

#keith #pidge #voltronbingo #vldgen #platonic kidge #Anonymous #my writing #fic: pinned

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mylordshesacactus · 7 years ago

Text

The Cycle Of Abuse In Costume Design

This feels weird, not gonna lie; @alexkablob is usually the one writing up RWBY meta! But since it’s not fair to expect her to write up ALL of our skype discussions, here I am, trying to put together a coherent image essay for y’all.

The repeating of abusive patterns down generations--and the breaking of those patterns--is a major theme in RWBY. We see it in the Schnees (Weiss breaks free of the cycle of her father’s abuse by finding a group of supportive friends who model healthy relationships, help her process what she’s been through, and provide a safe environment for her to flourish and a safe place to escape to when she’s ready to leave; Winter leaves her abusive father but does not have the support system and emotional safety that Weiss does and ends up unconsciously replicating abusive patterns; Whitley intentionally patterns off his abuser in order to become the favorite and no longer a target; Willow turns to alcohol and withdraws from the world.)

We see it in Blake who, like Weiss, leaves her abuser but doesn’t fully begin healing and moving on with her life until she has time and space to process her experiences with a support group. We see it to a degree in Yang, who was never abused but who very much has emotional scars from Raven’s abandonment that she is still struggling, with the help of friends, to heal from.

And we also see it, in a very interesting, organic, and heartbreaking way, in a three-generation form--patterns of emotional, psychological, and physical abuse that passes from Salem, to Cinder, and finally to Emerald. (I hope very much that Emerald is going to be the one to break that cycle, but as of the end of v5 that’s still up in the air.) And what’s fascinating here is the subtle way in which this is represented down to the design of their clothes.

LONG post under the cut:

All right. [cracks knuckles] Here we go.

Let’s start with Salem, who, as with many many things, started all this bullshit.

I don’t really need to say much about Salem’s #aesthetic, you all know what she’s like. We don’t know much about Cinder’s backstory; I imagine it’ll come up eventually, but with RWBY’s deliciously slow-burn approach to storytelling, that could be like three volumes from now. What we do know is that she was young when she was recruited by Salem, and that she was taken in with the promise of power.

We also have a damn good idea what life is like as one of Salem’s inner circle. When you do well, win victories as Cinder did at the end of s3, Salem is free with praise and indulgences. But when you make a mistake...

Salem’s people are afraid of her. Cinder is afraid of her. But they also, to a certain degree, respect or revere her. Tyrian is on the far end of this scale, of course; the others don’t worship her as a goddess or have that fawning, broken devotion--devotion you’ll notice does not move her to spare him cold disapproval when he fails in a mission. Watts...is hard to read but seems to treat her mostly as a patron; she gives him resources and directs his “research” and in return he does the projects she requests and speaks respectfully to her, as one does with the person who signs your paycheck. Hazel we don’t get much of a read on but he’s just in this to destroy Ozpin and seems fine with letting her direct that battle. Cinder...

Cinder was promised power, and Salem is very much Cinder’s concept of power. I talked about that a little in this post. When Cinder’s out in the field, that low, smooth voice she affects that’s like half an octave below and twice as husky as her actual voice? The confident queenlike posture, the deliberate movements, the ever-so-slightly indulgent tone that makes it clear that she’s giving you a gift with her magnanimity? She got that from somewhere. It is very, very deliberate.

However, the stylistic differences in their design are much more subtle, and it’s equal parts brilliant and horrifying here because I’m reasonably certain this is subconscious on Cinder’s part. Let’s start with the most obvious:

Hey there, Flashback Cinder. I’m going to draw your attention to some aspects of this design:

Dark nail polish

Diamond-shaped hole over the collarbone, formed by the X-shaped halter straps there

Delicate filigree embroidery down gloves that extend just past her elbows, drawing stark contrast with her bare shoulders

Also on the back of the dress, forming a sharp V in the cutout.

Those weird little half-glove things there’s probably a technical term for

The drop in the back of the dress, making it lower than in front

I think that’s enough to start with. Let’s see. This seems familiar. Where have I...

Oh. Right.

A diamond-shaped hole over the collarbone, formed by the material that forms the collar parting and then reconnecting to cover her throat. Edged in thin embroidery. Salem’s arms, of course, are bare until just past her elbows...drawing your attention to the thin, delicate dark veins standing out against them. And the subtle ornamentation of a ring with thin beadwork jewelry highlighting it. And her dark nails.

Not to forget, of course, the dramatic V design on the back of her flowing robes, extended in the back with a long cape.

Of course, that’s not the only outfit Cinder wears, so maybe it’s a fluke, I’m sure her other outfits don’t have--

Sharp, open, angular designs over the collarbone and thin, veinlike embroidery down the arms. Cinder apparently still doesn’t like having her throat bare, either. And while this isn’t a great image to show it, her dress has gotten longer as well.

And she still has that signature anklet of jagged black glass, which is so clearly modelled off Salem’s sharp obsidian bangles that no further exploration is required in my opinion.

Seriously, the more time goes on, Cinder’s personal style becomes more and more obviously an attempt to mirror Salem. This one is frankly more mature; she’s got Salem’s more muted colors, the loose sleeve, the high collar, the floor-length dress. It’s still got the Cinder touches, the glove, the slit skirt with that feathered jewel she’s so fond of, etc; but this look is more “femme fatale” and less “show some leg and distract the guards”.

But she’s still got that glove aesthetic and the thin embroidery; also, unlike before where she generally wore small hoop earrings or modest dangles, she’s got the obsidian diamond look going on here. She’s cut her hair again as well, reverting back to the general look she had when she was a lot younger and less experienced. That’s not related to the rest, I just think it’s interesting.

And then there’s Emerald.

Emerald was taken in by Cinder...not entirely unlike the way Cinder was taken in by Salem. Em is young, angry, jaded, talented and clever enough to be interesting--and wants something desperately. When she was offered a place to belong, she was all in. Much like Salem, who says that Cinder is valuable to her while making it clear that without her, Cinder would be nothing, Cinder has made it very clear that her approval and protection are a gift to Emerald--that Emerald owes her everything.

Like with Cinder, Emerald’s character design reflects her emotional dependence and desire to be like her abuser. Unlike with Cinder, I...don’t think for a moment that it’s subconscious. Cinder, I think, is convinced that she’s totally independent and invaluable and is unaware of how strongly she bases her personal style on Salem’s influence. Emerald knows exactly what she’s doing, and desperately wants Cinder to notice.

As a baseline, this is Emerald before she met Cinder. Interestingly you’ll note she’s already got those weird Reverse Gloves or whatever they are. That’s interesting because they’re one of the clear visual parallels between her design and Cinder’s; from a Doylist perspective I’m pretty sure this was a mix of foreshadowing and also limited ability to make new character models. It’s an obvious similarity, so I’m saying it’s relevant.

And this is current-day Emerald. You can’t see it in that picture, but, to start us out on the ways her costume changed after meeting Cinder

She’s wearing heels now.

There is no reason Emerald Sustrai would logically want to wear heels. She’s a fight-and-kill badass who made her living before this as a sneak thief; those are not small heels, she would not be accustomed to wearing heels at all, and they’d get in the way of doing her job. Logically, she’d stick with the sensible flats she was used to.

But, well. Cinder wears heels, doesn’t she.

Interestingly, look at the bangles on her left hand. That’s actually another visual parallel, but it’s not to Cinder, at least not directly. That’s a direct callback to Salem, who’s got the same thing going on her other wrist and whose aesthetic is a degree removed from anywhere Emerald should be calling from. But Salem is part of this cycle, and her influence is visible in Emerald here.

And who else do we know who wears her personal sigil in stylized black between her shoulderblades?

There’s also that armband she’s picked up, which she didn’t have before they went undercover at Beacon. But it’s probably just a bit of asymmetrical character model flavor, nothing relevant or--

Ah.

Interestingly, Cinder’s undercover getup is actually highly reminiscent of Emerald. Olive drab pants, the utility pouches on her belt, the bare midriff and linen strips in lieu of a shirt. Was that intentional, a bone being thrown to Emerald to make her feel noticed? Did Cinder put Emerald in charge of coming up with a disguise for her? Or was Emerald just Cinder’s subconscious image of what she was aiming for--forgettable, unimportant, just another street brawler gone legit?

(And of course, let’s not ignore that even here, Cinder’s outfit features a high collar that creates the illusion of a plunging neckline, framing a triangle over her collarbone.)

Of course, that’s not the most obvious change. The most obvious change is that Emerald’s gone from a very sensible halter-top sports bra to

Well, this. Aside commentary on the likelihood of Cinder being impressed by the boob window aside, that X collar seems familiar...

A LOT of attention and care has gone into the character designs on this show. This is just one example of the way character design alone can help tell a story.

#rwby #cinder fall #salem rwby #emerald sustrai #uncaptioned though the descriptions make it pretty clear what the images contain

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didanawisgi · 7 years ago

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For Heller, thank the scholarship of Joyce Lee Malcolm

Arlington, Va.– In the hours after February’s school massacre in Parkland, Fla., Joyce Lee Malcolm watched the response with growing annoyance:

“Everybody seemed to leap upon it, looking for a political benefit, rather than allowing for a cooling-off period.” As a historian, Malcolm prefers to take the long view. As a leading scholar of the Second Amendment, however, she is also expected to have snap opinions on gun rights, and in fact she often has engaged in the news-driven debates about violence and firearms. “Something deep inside of me says that people never should be victims,” she says. “And they never should be put in the position of being disarmed by their government.”

Malcolm looks nothing like a hardened veteran of the gun-control wars. Small, slender, and bookish, she’s a wisp of a woman who enjoys plunging into archives and sitting through panel discussions at academic conferences. Her favorite topic is 17th- and 18th-century Anglo-American history, from the causes of the English Civil War to the meaning of the American Revolution. Her latest book, due in May, is The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold, a biography of the infamous general. She doesn’t belong to the National Rifle Association, nor does she hunt. She admits to owning an old shotgun, but she’s unsure about the make or model. “I’ve taken it out a couple of times, but the clay targets fall safely to earth,” she says in an interview at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School in Virginia, where she’s a professor who teaches courses on constitutional history as well as on war and law.

She is also the lady who saved the Second Amendment — a scholar whose work helped make possible the Supreme Court’s landmark Heller decision, which in 2008 recognized an individual right to possess a firearm. “People used to ask, ‘How did a nice girl like you get into a subject like this?’” she says. “I’m not asked that anymore.” She smiles, a little mischievously. “Maybe they don’t think I’m a nice girl anymore.”

Back when Malcolm was a girl, she lived in Utica, N.Y. A state scholarship sent her to Barnard, the women’s college tied to Columbia University, where she majored in history. “It was a process of elimination,” she says. “I took calculus and chemistry, but history seemed the least narrow. You could study the history of math or the history of science. It had the widest scope.” She got married as an undergraduate — “people did that in those days” — and by the time she was 23, she was both a college graduate and a mom.

Malcolm wanted to continue her education. Living outside Boston, she applied to graduate school at Brandeis University, thinking that she might attend part-time. Administrators, however, talked her into the normal, full-time option. So she launched into a Ph.D. program, focusing on England in the early modern era. “I really liked the period,” she says. “It was wonderfully complex, with divisions between the rights of the state and the rights of individuals.” For her dissertation, she moved to Oxford and Cambridge, with children in tow. Now separated from her husband, she was a single mother. “It took some balancing. I’m not sure I was the best parent I could have been, but my kids grew up seeing what you can do when you put your mind to working.” (One of them is Mark Johnson, a Pulitzer Prize–winning health and science journalist at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.) In Britain, she met a Scotsman who became her second husband. She brought him back to the United States and took his surname.

Malcolm’s doctoral dissertation focused on King Charles I and the problem of loyalty in the 1640s, and much of her scholarship has flowed from this initial work. The Royal Historical Society published her first book, and she edited a pair of volumes for the Liberty Fund, totaling more than 1,000 pages, on political tracts in 17th-century England. As she researched and wrote on the period, she noticed something peculiar. “During the English Civil War, the king would summon the local militia to turn out with their best weapons,” she says. “Then he would relieve them of their best weapons. He confiscated them. Obviously, he didn’t trust his subjects.”

At a time when armies were marching around England, ordinary people became anxious about surrendering guns. Then, in 1689, the English Bill of Rights responded by granting Protestants the right to “have Arms for their Defence.” Malcolm wasn’t the first person to notice this, of course, but as an American who had studied political loyalty in England, she approached the topic from a fresh angle. “The English felt a need to put this in writing because the king had been disarming his political opponents,” she says. “This is the origin of our Second Amendment. It’s an individual right.”

As she researched, Malcolm taught at several schools and worked for the National Park Service. In 1988, she took a post near Boston, at Bentley College, a school best known for business education (and now called Bentley University). Fellowships allowed her to pursue her interest in how the right to bear arms migrated across the ocean and took root in colonial America. “The subject hadn’t been done from the English side because it’s an American question, and American constitutional scholars didn’t know the English material very well,” she says. Some Americans even resisted looking to English sources because they wanted to stress their country’s uniqueness. Moreover, law-school textbooks and courses skimmed over the Second Amendment. “The subject was poorly covered.”

Her research led to a groundbreaking book on the history of gun rights, To Keep and Bear Arms. Before it went to print, however, she faced something she had not expected: political resistance. “I had a hard time finding a publisher,” she says. After several years in limbo, To Keep and Bear Armscame out in 1994, from Harvard University Press — an excellent result for any scholar in the peer-reviewed world of publish-or-perish professionalism. “The problem was that I had come up with an answer that a lot of people didn’t like.”

The Second Amendment, she insisted, recognizes an individual right to gun ownership as an essential feature of limited government. In her book’s preface, she called this the “least understood of those liberties secured by Englishmen and bequeathed to their American colonists.” Confusion reigned: “The language of the Second Amendment, considered perfectly clear by the framers and their contemporaries, is no longer clear.” The right to keep and bear arms, Malcolm warned, “is a right in decline.”

She aimed to revive it at a time when governments at all levels imposed more restrictions on gun ownership than they do today. Many legal scholars claimed that the Second Amendment granted a collective right for states to have militias but not the individual right of citizens to own firearms. With To Keep and Bear Arms, which received favorable reviews and went through several printings, Malcolm joined a small but increasingly influential group of academics with different ideas. Her allies included Robert J. Cottrol, of George Washington University, and Glenn Reynolds, of the University of Tennessee (and best known for his Instapundit website). “I was so naïve,” she says. “I thought the idea of research was that you find information and people say, ‘Good! Now we know the answer!’”

She learned the truth in 1995, when House Republicans invited her to testify before a subcommittee on crime. The subcommittee’s ranking member was Representative Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York (and today’s Senate minority leader). In his opening remarks, Schumer scoffed at Malcolm and other witnesses. “The intellectual content of this hearing is so far off the edge that we ought to declare this an official meeting of the Flat Earth Society,” he said. “Because the pro-gun arguments we will hear today are as flaky as the arguments of the tiny few who still insist that the Earth is flat.”

Malcolm still bristles at those words. “I was a Democrat at the time,” she says. “I was raised a Democrat. I was just there to tell them what I had found out. It wasn’t a political issue for me. But the Democrats were nasty. Schumer was nasty.” After the hearing, Malcolm came to a realization: “For some people, opposition to individual gun rights is an article of faith, and they don’t care about the historical evidence.” Ever since, she has received regular reminders of this fact. In 1997, for example, Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia praised Malcolm’s “excellent study” but also erroneously called her “an Englishwoman.”

The unfortunately named legal scholar Carl T. Bogus jumped at the blunder: “Malcolm’s name may sound British, and Bentley College, where Malcolm teaches history, may sound like a college at Oxford, but in fact Malcolm was born and raised in Utica, New York, and Bentley is a business college in Massachusetts.” This irritates Malcolm. “They’re always trying to write me off because of Bentley, this ‘business college,’” she says. “It reminds me of the saying that if you don’t have the law, argue the facts; if you don’t have the facts, argue the law; and if you don’t have either, attack your opponent. The attacks have helped me grow a really thick skin.”

Along the way, the popular historian Stephen Ambrose provided Malcolm with inspiration. “He spent most of his career at the University of New Orleans,” she says, noting that it’s not considered a top-flight school. “He said he wanted to write himself to the top of his profession. It doesn’t matter where you teach. So I tried to write and write and write. You can lift yourself.”

Even so, some people continue trying to keep Malcolm down. The latest slight occurred at a symposium sponsored by the Campbell University School of Law in February, when the legal scholar Paul Finkelman equated the Supreme Court’s Heller decision with its notorious 1857 ruling in Dred Scott, which denied citizenship to blacks. Right after this provocative claim, Finkelman raised the old canard about Bentley in a bid to damage Malcolm’s credibility moments before she addressed their audience.

It didn’t matter to Finkelman that Malcolm had written her way up in the academic world’s pecking order: In 2006, she left Bentley and became a professor at George Mason’s law school, now named for Scalia. By this time, not only had Scalia praised her work, but so had other judges, including Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, who cited To Keep and Bear Arms in an opinion.

Then, in 2008, came Heller, arguably the most important gun-rights case in U.S. history. A 5–4 decision written by Scalia and citing Malcolm three times, it swept away the claims of gun-control theorists and declared that Americans enjoy an individual right to gun ownership. “If we had lost Heller, it would have been a big blow,” says Malcolm. “Instead, it gave us this substantial right.” She remembers a thought from the day the Court ruled: “If I have done nothing else my whole life, I have accomplished something important.”

A simple idea has motivated her work: “For me, trust in the common man is such a basic principle. Few governments actually allow it. They want to keep their people vulnerable and disarmed. I find it awful that people wouldn’t be allowed to protect themselves.” She also calls attention to a cultural aspect: “City people who grew up without guns think it’s just a bunch of rednecks.” She recalls an incident at Bentley, years before Heller: “I was in my office one day and a groundskeeper came up. ‘I just want to shake your hand and thank you,’ he said. What else could I have been writing about that anyone would want to thank me for?” She pauses. “There’s just so much vilification of the people who want to ‘cling’ to their guns,” she says, echoing the words of Barack Obama, who as a presidential candidate in 2008 said of rural and working-class whites — future Trump Republicans — that “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”

Malcolm is now a Republican herself. When she hears gun-control advocates say they don’t want to ban all guns — “just the ones that look scary,” as she puts it, with a tone of contempt — her thoughts turn back to Britain. In 2002, she published Guns and Violence: The English Experience. It showed, among other things, that crime rates were low in the 19th century, a period with few gun restrictions. Things are different today: Crime has worsened in the United Kingdom, while gun ownership is rare. “Britain has gone down the road of taking away guns,” she says. “And look where it got them.”

She points to a website of the U.K.’s Police National Legal Database, which includes an online forum called “Ask the Police.” One question inquires about self-defense products. Are any legal? The answer: Only one, a “rape alarm” that looks like a car remote. Its panic button emits a screeching sound. The website also warns against using nontoxic sprays against assailants. If “sprayed in someone’s eyes,” such a chemical “would become an offensive weapon.” In other words, potential rape victims can push panic buttons but must not dare to injure attackers — not with sprays, let alone knives or guns. “Can you believe it?” asks Malcolm. “They don’t let people protect themselves.”

Americans probably won’t face such a predicament, even in the aftermath of the Parkland killings and whatever reforms are enacted as a result. State legislatures have taken strong steps over the last generation to protect gun rights, and the Supreme Court has clarified the language of the Second Amendment. Even so, Malcolm is worried. “Some judges are ignoring Heller, and unless the Supreme Court agrees to hear these cases and overturn them, we’ll see an erosion,” she says. Liberals in the media and at law schools cheer on the renegades. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has called for the overturning of Heller itself, and if a single seat now held by a conservative were to flip to a liberal, she could get her way.

In the meantime, however, the right to bear arms will not be infringed — thanks in part to the pioneering scholarship of Joyce Lee Malcolm.

#Joyce Lee Malcolm #second amendment #constitution #bill of rights #gun control #Guns #philosophy #sociology #social commentary #controversy #supreme court

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