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zmediaoutlet · 3 years

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in support of Texas relief, @padaleckimeon donated $100 and requested Dean Jr. meeting Sam and Dean in heaven. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post. (no longer taking prompts)

(read on AO3)

When Dad dies, Dean takes a week off. It wasn’t sudden, or a surprise. Dad had been sick for a while, his body starting to fail him. At first Dean had been scared, and then he’d been angry. He was only twenty-four when Dad got the diagnosis and it wasn’t—fair, in some stupid but essential way. He’d barely graduated from college and, yeah, Dad was kind of old, older than a lot of his friends’ parents, but—he thought, somehow, that him dying just wasn't… applicable. Dad was just—there, always. Solid, supportive, kind of boring maybe but also stronger than anyone Dean had ever known, or would ever know, and it wasn’t right that he could just be sitting in his apartment midway through a novel and get a call and kind of sigh, because he was in a good part in the book, and then to sit up straight with his hair standing on end to hear Dad say, quiet, I'm sorry, buddy. We need to talk about something. That’s what he said, first. That he was sorry.

There were treatments, but not many. Dean had flown out and gone to a few of the appointments with the oncologist and Dad had been quiet, listening to the options. He’d researched a lot of this on his own, because Dean had done the same thing, and they’d both been nodding along during the options. Injections, radiation. Chemo. Dad had asked, polite, what the life expectancy was for each option, and Dean had watched the side of his face and not the doctor, and when the answer was given Dad had closed his eyes briefly, and then looked away from both Dean and the doctor, out the window at the snowy day, and Dean had known, then.

Dad made it past Dean’s twenty-fifth birthday. He had a party with his friends, at his girlfriend’s apartment, and they tried to keep his spirits up but it was a pretty shitty party, all told. The next day, his actual birthday, he flew back out to Dad’s house and he was in good spirits—had a mini-cake, even, with a single candle that he made Dean blow out—but he was thin, and his hair was growing back in snow-white and tender-soft, and when Dad fell asleep in front of the crappy old cowboy movie that Dean had picked just because he knew Dad for some reason liked it, Dean went out onto the porch into the nearly-springtime air and he cried, pissed at himself. Pissed at everything. Then just—unbearably sad, because he liked his current girlfriend but he didn’t think he was going to marry her, and that meant that whatever girl he did marry would be one his dad would never meet—if he had kids, they’d never know how his dad concentrated like a motherfucker on crossword puzzles and obsessed over documentaries and knew every single piece of the inside of that behemoth car in the garage and was just the smartest kindest most stubborn person. Just—the best person. They’d listen to Dean’s stories maybe but they wouldn’t know, because Dad would never meet them, and that was just—unbearable, that night. In the morning, Dad made oatmeal and Dean added a bunch of sugar because Dad’s oatmeal was inedible otherwise, and Dad smiled kind of rueful like he always did when Dean did that, and then Dad said, I’m sorry, again, kind of quiet, and Dean reached out and held his hand—thin, and the bones feeling frail—and he said don’t be sorry, Dad, and four months later, Dad was dead.

Dad was always pretty up-front with him about most everything, especially after he and Mom split up. When he was twelve, Dad explained the supernatural very carefully, telling him that he was safe but that other people might not be, and why. When he was thirteen, Dad told Dean that Hell and Heaven were both real and that there was, definitely, confirmed, a God, and maybe it wasn’t the same God that other people knew but that Dad said he was kind, in his own way. The person in charge of Hell, Dad said, was maybe less so, but she wouldn’t hurt Dean, ever. Dad said he knew that for fact, and he said it so certainly, looking Dean in the eye, that Dean believed him. When Dean turned eighteen, a few months from graduating high school, Dad took him to a tattoo parlor and said for maybe the first time in Dean’s life that something was non-negotiable, and Dean hadn’t cared because what other kid in the senior year was going to walk at graduation with a kickass demonic tattoo?

There were other things, though, that they didn’t talk about. Dad said one day a lot when Dean was little but then, when he was older and it was clear that one day would be never, he just said—I can’t, buddy. I wish I could.

After the week off, rattling around the old house, and the cremation with no service that Dad had insisted on, Dean drives out to the lawyer in Sioux Falls. She’s nice. Respectful but not cloying. The Samuel Winchester Estate that Dean is the sole beneficiary of is—a lot of money. A lot more money than he knew Dad had, or that he could have ever earned. Dad has assigned some of the money to go to charities, and to some people Dean doesn’t know—the lawyer doesn’t say who in the specific, but says they’re kids of some of Dad’s old friends. Dean didn’t know Dad had many friends, much less ones who’d get trust funds in inheritance. Aside from the stock options and the accounts and all the money left over, Dean inherits a list of assets. The house, of course. The Chevy in the garage, with the stipulation that he can never sell it. A safety deposit box, from which the lawyer has already retrieved the contents.

She leaves him alone, to go through the box. Neatly organized, like everything else in Dad’s life. File-folders of pictures, printed out all old-fashioned. Some of Dean when he was a baby. Some of when Dad and Mom were still together, leaning against each other, Dean hugged between them. Some—much older, creased and faded, stored in little plastic sleeves so they can't degrade. He recognizes a few from the framed copies Dad always had in the house. Some he hasn't seen. Most of them—almost all of them—are of his Uncle Dean, who died before he was born, and he looks especially at one that just—hits him in the gut, in this awful way where he has to sit there looking at the soothing taupe paint of the conference room wall before he can look at it again. Uncle Dean's facing the camera, sort of, although he's laughing about something and not really looking into the lens, and there's Dad, laughing too. He looks… young. Younger than Dean is now. He flips the picture over. Dad's handwriting, careful: 2006, Bobby's house. Almost fifty years ago. An entire life he didn't know. He thinks again of his imaginary future kids. These lives they have, grandfather to father to son, that overlap like a venn diagram but—not enough. Not close to enough.

What's a life? How to summarize, from beginning to faded end, in a way that would make sense to anyone but who it happened to?

Dad left letters, explaining, but he's gone and the context is missing. There are so many questions Dean wants to ask but he can't, of course, anymore. The first letter is attached to the key to the bunker, where he would never take Dean when he was alive, and on winter break from med school Dean flies from Boston to Kansas and rents a car and drives alone through the snowfields.

Dark, inside. He throws the big switch and the lights crackle, hum on, almost reluctant. He has no idea how it's getting power. Dust, but not as much as there could be. A library, a kitchen. Archives upon archives. Dad had explained, but what little he'd said both in life and in the letters didn't come close. It was home, he wrote, for over a decade. The only one we had with four walls, for our whole lives, although we didn't think of it that way. I didn't, at least. Dean doesn't know what that means but he looks into the bedrooms and sees… emptiness, plain bunks and old desks and funny lamps. I just picked a random room, Dad said, and as Dean's looking he really can't tell which was Dad's. Figures. Their house when Dean was growing up didn't change a bit, no matter how terrible that wallpaper was. It's only when Dean pushes open the door to room 11 that there's any personality, and he flicks the light and stands there blinking, surprised. Guns and knives on the wall. Books, piled up. Empty beer bottles crowded on the little table. Dust, but—not as much as there could be. He walks in, cautious, this feeling in his gut like he's in someone's home and they've just walked out, and could return any moment. A food bowl on the floor. A shirt flung over the chair. On the desk: more books and magazines and a folded actually-on-paper newspaper from 2024, and a job application, half filled out. Dean Winchester, it says at the top, in mostly-neat capitals, and Dean rests a hand on the back of the chair and feels… strange. He tries to picture it—the man from the pictures, Dad's brother, filling up this space. Drinking beer and reading pulp westerns and checking out—oh, weird, magazine porn. Dean shakes his head. Impossible.

In the letters, Dad said: Hunting was all we knew how to do. With everything we knew, it was our duty to use the knowledge the best way we could. I went back and forth on it. Your uncle never did, even if I know there were times he wished he—that we both—could be something else. I don't want that for you. I want you to live exactly the life you want for yourself. No expectations, okay? Not from me or anyone else.

There are printed files that go back a hundred years. More than. Paper files, but old SSDs too, with connectors Dean has to find adapters for. Dad: If you want to know what we did, it's digitized. I know I always said I'd tell you one day, but I never knew how to say it. I'm sorry for that. I always thought I'd be one hundred percent honest, if I ever got a kid, because of how we were raised. I didn't know how hard that could be. Stuff that you'd want to say, but when it came time to just open your mouth and say it there weren't any words.

Dad wrote up all the old hunts, it turned out. Simple notes about where/when/how, the kind of monster it was, the number of people who died and the people who were saved. The people they had to explain things to, who knew now about the supernatural underbelly to the universe. He noted, too, if there were injuries, and Dean reads with his hand over his mouth a long, long litany of Dean W. shot, right arm; Sam W. broken bone in hand; Dean W. concussion; Sam W. strangled. On and on. No wonder Dad didn't make a big fuss when Dean broke his leg in the fourth grade.

He sleeps in the bunker overnight, in one of the spare bedrooms that's not room 11. There's a fan on the ceiling, dusty office supplies on the desk. By lamplight he reads the letters, on his back on the stiff terrible mattress, his eyes stinging and past-midnight tired. Our lives weren't the kind of thing anyone would want, Dad wrote. I spent so long trying to get away from it because I thought 'it shouldn't be this way' – and I was right, you know? It shouldn't have been how it was. But it was that way, anyway, and in the end that was something I was okay with. We were making what difference we could. We were happy. A lot of people have it worse.

'We'. Dad hardly writes Uncle Dean's name but he's in every letter. We, we, we. Dad told Dean stories, of course, the dumb stuff they got up to when they were teenagers, or the (sanitized, Dean's sure) adventures they had as adults, but despite the pictures on the wall at home and the pictures in the deposit box and the whole life that's here, Dean can't—see it. Beer bottles on the table in the bedroom, one on either side of the tiny table. The shirt slung over the chair. We were happy, he says, but—how? Dean can't imagine it.

In the last letter Dad wrote, I think I'm writing this when I've got a month or two left. Dr. Hendricks isn't sure. I wish I had more time, to explain how it was. Who we were. I never told you the most embarrassing thing in the world, but I'm old and I'm not going to be around and not much will be able to embarrass me anymore, so screw it. (Fifty years ago I would have gotten really mad at myself for that kind of comment; more things age can fix.) There are books about us. There's a hard drive, in the bunker. It's labelled BURN THIS. (That's your uncle's handwriting.) They're true, more or less. Written by a really crappy, amateur writer, but he was a kind of prophet, and he knew everything there was to know about us, and he wrote books for about five years, based on our life and the real things we did. Some of it is exaggerated and melodramatic. A lot of it is just how it happened. You'll have to decide which is which. I don't come off too well in some of them but I hope you'll understand that the world… I don't know how to describe it. Somehow the world felt different, then. It was just us, trying our best. I hope it gives you some idea of the life we had. No matter what happened, I'm glad that life led me to you.

What's a life?

Dean marries. Not the girl from college but a woman, later. Red hair, blue eyes. Absolutely no sense of humor beyond puns. Hates cooking and has strong opinions on movies from the 1980s. They have three kids, a girl and then a boy and then a girl again. All dark-haired, smart. Dean gives the boy the middle name Samuel and his wife holds his hand, says it sounds great.

He's a doctor. He meets hunters. He sets bones for free and prescribes medication when needed and when it will be needed. A woman, last name Novak, calls him and says you know, your dad was one of the greats?, and he meets people—older than him by twenty, thirty years, with scars and dangerous lives and guns hidden in every corner, and he hears stories. Sam Winchester, who saved the world. Dean knows—he's read the books—but there are more years that the books didn't cover, more people who didn't die because of his dad's intervention. "They were the best," one man says, shrugging, and gets no argument, nods and shrugs from every hunter in the room, and Dean goes home that night and kisses his littlest girl where she's already tucked up in bed, and he thinks: what will she know, about who her grandfather was? Who their family is? What could she possibly know?

Dean's wife dies in her eighties. An accident. A broken hip, an infection following. Still happens, even in this new century. The kids are grown, have kids of their own, and the funeral is big, and there are people at his elbow who say to him we're so sorry and who share anecdotes of her life and who support him to his chair, even though at ninety he's perfectly capable of getting to his chair himself. He's a cranky old man, he realizes. She would've laughed at him. He thinks, inevitably, of his own father's death. Silent and unmourned, except by one. What's a life.

He writes letters, for his children. The estate is handled. He calls the oldest girl and explains to her that she's going to be the executor, and that there are things she has to keep. A key. A car. Pictures, so that her boys will know where they came from. "Of course, Dad," she says, placating a little because he's old and clearly starting to lose his grip, but she'll do it. She's a good kid. Dean learned how to raise a kid from the best.

When he dies, he's expecting it. The trip to the hospital. The monitors. He knows the pain meds even if he's retired and his doctor looks like an infant but she gives him the good stuff. It's—easy. A slipping away. He closes his eyes to sleep and there is a moment where he thinks with surprisingly clarity, this is okay, isn't it, and has the feeling of someone's hand laid on his, and then he sleeps, and doesn't wake up again.

He opens his eyes in an armchair, in a house that he doesn't recognize but that feels instantly familiar. Music playing, somewhere, and a gold-tinged afternoon spilling through the window, and tone-deaf singing from the kitchen. His mind feels clearer than it has in… Tears come to his eyes but it doesn't hurt. He puts his fingers to his mouth and smiles, breathing in slow, and thinks—well, this is it. Heaven.

Time is no longer time. Space is—immaterial. There's a house, not their house, but it's roomy and it has what he needs and the bed he crawls into with his wife at the end of a day is comfortable, and that's what matters, as he lays his hand on her hip where he used to lay it always, and she sighs against the pillow and squirms and tucks herself into a fetal pretzel, like she always used to. The spill of her hair red against the pillow. Her warmth, plush against his bones. She smells not of honeysuckle or vanilla but just like warm, human skin, the faint bite of salt-sweat at the nape of her neck, the must in the morning in thin bluish light when she turns over and finds him awake, and smiles. Incredible. The weight of her is real, and the spot between her breasts when he kisses her there is real, and he'd always believed in some distant way that what his dad had told him was true—that there was a heaven, that there would be some kind of justice after death—but it was distant, and academic, because of course there was a life to live and patients to care for and children to raise and a wife to bury and a death to get through. What a thing, to come to. This place, with her hair on the pillow, and her smell. He hadn't forgotten it, in the end, after all.

The house sits in some place that feels like South Dakota. Home, or close to it. A lake among trees. A distance between things. He reads, and plays games he barely remembers from being a kid, and he watches the Ghostbusters movies again because his wife insists and they are, he has to admit, still funny, but he makes fun of the weird museum guy anyway, and she kicks him where her feet are tucked in his lap, and he tickles her in retaliation, and then—well, the movie will be there, later, when they're done.

She rides her bike every day. One day she comes back and says she was just visiting her mother, and Dean sits up and says, "What?" But—of course. What's time? What's a space, between this shared slow heaven and another? She shrugs—his mother-in-law says hi—and he sits there on the couch with his game paused, watching her go into the kitchen and shake her sweaty hair back from her face, redoing it into the practical twist at her neck like she always does, and he thinks—okay. Okay, maybe now.

The bookshelf has every book he could want, and seems to know what he needs to read before he does. Raining outside, spattering gentle on the eaves, and his wife made a huge pot of tea and took it to bed upstairs and left him just a cup, and so he sits at the kitchen table with his cup of tea and opens the book—Home, by Carver Edlund—and reads it, lingering, even if he's read it three times before online, his thumb brushing over the cheap too-thin pages of this physical copy. There's a poltergeist, preposterous. The psychic, odd and familiar. The brothers, united, and he reads the next-to-last chapter very slowly, lingering, as they find the box of pictures, as they get into the car together. Drive off, to meet some new dawning day.

He finishes his cup of tea. Puts on a clean shirt, combs his hair. "I'll be back," he says, to his wife, and she blinks at him from her nest of blankets with her own book and then only nods, and Dean goes downstairs and gets into his car and finds the road, beyond the garden gate, and drives.

He doesn't know where he's going but that doesn't matter. He turns on the car radio and it's playing—oldies, but really oldies, the stuff that was old when he was little. What childhood sounded like. Farms appear, melt away. Trees rising, through hills. He sings along, under his breath, remembering: a roadtrip to his grandma's house, Mom sleeping in the passenger seat and Dad driving through the night, and Dad singing very, very badly, as quiet as he could, and Dean thinking even as a kid that this was some private thing, to see, and he had to be silent and not show that he was awake or it would disappear. That feeling, it crept up on him at the oddest times, when he was an adult, and later. That sensation of the armored tank of the car moving through the dark, and the silence around them, and the quiet music inside, and Dad, in a world of his own, entirely separate from the world he shared with Dean.

Another hill. Climbing a mostly-paved road. Not raining anymore but the sun coming in slanted gold through the trees. Distance, and a curve, and then: a house. Old-looking. Older maybe than the one Dean and his wife share. In front of it, a car. The car.

Dean parks. He gets out, and the air smells washed-fresh, a little fecund. Like summer. He puts his hand on the hood of the Impala and it's sun-warm and he tears up, completely unexpected, and has to sit on the hood and hold his hands over his face, his heart—full, in a way he's felt since dying, but not in this particular way, this way of feeling that he thought had mellowed, a lifetime ago.

So much for putting on a good face. He wipes over his mouth and dashes his eyes clear. A porch, with new-carved railings. A door, painted blue. He knocks, his body feeling empty and clean and young, terribly young, and before he's quite ready the door opens, and it's—his uncle, in a purple plaid shirt and paint-spattered jeans and grey socks, frowning at him, saying, "Uh, hi?"

He looks—almost exactly like he looked in the pictures. Maybe forty, lines beside his eyes and heavy stubble on his jaw. The age he was when he died. Dean opens his mouth, can hardly dredge up what to say, and then he hears a voice say, "Dean?" and Dean and his uncle both turn their heads to see—Dad, young too, completely shocked, standing on the far side of the porch in running gear with sweat slicking his hair back from his head, and Dean drags in air and says, "Dad," and Dad grins at him, that big creased dorky-looking dad-smile that Dean only got once in a blue moon, and he steps forward and they're hugging, then, and it's—heaven. That's all he can think. Heaven, Dad's arms tight around him, his shoulders slotting in under Dad's because—Dad was so tall, and this is where Dean fit and never would fit again once Dad was gone. Here, under Dad's arm. Like being a kid again.

Dad's hand on the back of his head. A startled, shaky, deep breath in, and then hands gripping his shoulders, and being shoved reluctantly back to have Dad look down at his face, serious and worried. "How long has it been?" he says. "Are you—you didn't—?"

"I was ninety-seven," he says, and Dad's eyebrows go high and he smiles, big and glad and real, relieved. He touches Dean's face and Dean smiles back, tears rising again for no reason and for so many reasons. "I look good, don't I?"

Dad huffs a laugh. "You look great," he says, and then his eyes lift over Dean's head, and Dean has to turn around because—

What to call him? Uncle Dean. Standing there with his shoulder against the doorframe, his mouth tucked in on one side. Like from right out of one of the pictures, returning Dad's look. His eyes drop after a second to meet Dean's and Dean feels this odd jolt, in his chest. Bizarre, to see. He's real. All Dad's stories, the wall of memories, the books, and here he is, in grey socks, looking all over Dean's face like he's seeing it for the first time. "Guess you got your looks from your mom's side of the family," Uncle Dean says, finally, and Dad says, behind him, "Nice, dude," and Uncle Dean shrugs, unrepentant, but with an unexpected dimple quirking into his cheek, and holds out his hand to shake, and Dean takes it and has another shock at it, warm, callused, firm, real—while Uncle Dean says, wry, "Well, I guess some introductions are in order, huh?"

Uncle Dean and Dad share the house. It's nice, inside. Old fashioned in a way that feels comfortable, as Dean's come to expect. (He wonders, in a few hundred years—will new arrivals to heaven expect old-fashioned arcologies?) Uncle Dean brings beers from the kitchen and Dad takes his without even looking, drinking in Dean's face when Dean's doing the exact same to him. He looks so young. Younger, maybe, than he was even in the few pictures Dean has of him being a baby, held tiny in the crook of Dad's massive arm—some past time, some time Dean doesn't belong to, but Uncle Dean clearly does. Dad shakes his head after a few seconds, huffs again, rueful. "I don't even know where to start," he says.

Uncle Dean rolls his eyes, behind him, and says, "How about you ask the kid how he's doing, genius." Mean, but he squeezes Dad's shoulder too, and Dad bites his lip, looks at Dean, his head tipping. Asking.

It's awkward, but only in the way Dean would expect. To see his dad after so long—and both of them dead—and to explain… what? A life. Being a doctor, meeting a wife. Children. Grandchildren. "Great-grandpa Sammy," Uncle Dean fake-whispers, "told you you were old." Nudging Dad, half-sitting on the arm of his chair. Looking proud enough he could burst, although Dean doesn't know exactly why.

"Are you going to make dinner or are you just here to heckle?" Dad says, looking up, exasperated, and Uncle Dean raises his hands, says, "Oh, I'm here to heckle," but he gets up, too, says, "You get tired of the inquisition, kid, we've got more drinks in the kitchen," and cuffs Dad around the back of the head before he disappears down the blue-painted hall—and music comes on, after a moment. The kind of music that was on Dean's radio as he drove. Comfort sounds that go deep into some space beyond his bones.

"He's a lot, sorry," Dad says, after a second.

"I know, I read about it," Dean says, and Dad blinks at him, mouth half-open, before he remembers.

They have dinner. Uncle Dean makes burgers, fries, a spinach salad that Dean and Dad both groan at, and he looks at them across the table with his burger in his hands and shakes his head. No salad on his plate, Dean notices. They talk but about—nothing. Uncle Dean asks if the Broncos ever won the Superbowl again and Dean tries to dredge up an answer. Dad asks what his wife did for a living. Dean wants to ask things and doesn't know how. There's time, he knows, but for now all he can do is—watch. Dad leaning back in his chair with a beer, smiling at him while Uncle Dean tells some probably well-worn story about trying to fix the Impala in a rainstorm, and Dad was pissed for some reason and so kept handing him the wrong tools. "It was too dark to actually read the grip numbers," Dad says, patient like it's the hundredth time, and Uncle Dean says back, immediately, "Who needs the numbers? You can feel the weight in your hand!" Old arguments, well-worn, in the well-worn house. The way they move around each other, washing dishes, putting plates away. The way Dad's eyes will jump across the table, half a second before Uncle Dean's even opening his mouth, a smile already waiting to be pushed back down.

When it's night he says he should get back to his wife. "I'd like to meet her," Dad says, "some day."

"Gotta see who's willing to put up with a Winchester," Uncle Dean says, eyebrows waggling.

Dad sighs but nods, too. Dean gets folded into a hug, there under the tuck of his arm, and then he hugs Uncle Dean, too, impulsive and just—wanting to, feeling like a kid. Uncle Dean startles but hugs him back right away. "You're good, kid," he says, quiet against the side of Dean's head, and Dean nods and says, "Thanks," for more than he can say other than that, right then on this particular day, and then he gets into his car and pulls away from the house and looks back to see Uncle Dean gripping Dad's shoulder again while they watch him move away—and when he's home, after a blurring drive that's long enough for him to settle himself, he comes up the stairs to where his wife's warm in bed and slides in beside her and she says, sleepy, "How was it," and he says against her hair, "Perfect," because—it was. It was perfect.

Dean comes alone to their house twice more, on days when he needs it and doesn't see a reason not to. He brings his wife, the third time, and Dad's extremely polite and Uncle Dean asks her about engineering and Dean enjoys it, from the couch, while she gets the same interrogation he did, and they're driving home with her at the wheel, his eyes on the passing trees, before she says, "They're an interesting couple," and it doesn't strike him, for what may be a mile of blurring distance, why that sentence wasn't quite right.

It should be a shock. It isn't. That it isn't should, itself, be a shock, but he sits with it for a few days, the easy rhythm of heaven sliding around them.

He goes to see his mother, finally. She's in a place on a lakeshore. Her first husband, kind but remote, giving them space. She presses his hands between her own and he goes through the list of answers to all her questions, smiling, feeling déjà vu, and then says, cautious, that he's been to see Dad. "Oh!" she says, and doesn't seem upset. "How is he?"

"Good," he says. They never married, his parents—Dad had told him, much later, that it just didn't occur to him to ask—and he knew they didn't resent each other, but there wasn't much closeness there. He didn't realize how little until he was married himself. Still, he's cautious as he says: "He and my uncle have a place. Uncle Dean, you know?"

Mom sits back in her chair. "Well, then," she says, soft. She's youngish, too. Fifty maybe, her hair shot with grey. "That sounds about right."

He doesn't know how to ask but there's no way to do it other than just—to ask. "What do you know about him?"

Mom smiles, slow, and looks out at the lake. "Honey, your dad's a good man, but I think you know as well as I do that he doesn't give a lot away." Dean follows her look. A boat, far out on the water. Not close enough to hail. "He didn't talk about his brother, much. That said more than I think he knew it did. All those pictures. Well, you remember." She shakes her head, looking down at her lap. "I resented him for a while. A dead man. Silly of me. But then I suppose your dad could have resented Luke, if he'd—cared more. Sorry. That sounds like I'm angry, but I'm not. There just wasn't much left in Sam, that's all. He loved you and he loved someone that wasn't here anymore and there just wasn't room for me, or at least not room for what I needed. I wished I could've known him. Dean, I mean. I would've understood your dad a lot more, I think, but then—I don't think I would've ever met him, if Dean were around."

When he gets home he pulls a book off the shelf. Frail, the spine cracked badly. Supernatural, the first book in the whole series. When Dad was at college and the whole thing started. He sits on the floor by the bookshelf and lets the cup of tea his wife brings go cold on the rug, and reads again and again the scene—coming down the stairwell, finding the car in the garage, going through the details of the voice on the tape, on where their dad (Dean's grandfather) could possibly be, and Dad says there's this interview he can't skip. His whole future, on a plate. In the story, it's Dad's point of view, and he looks at Uncle Dean and Uncle Dean smirks, and Dad thinks, This is exactly what I was getting away from. Dean drags his thumb over the page, looks at the shelf. All those books. All the years in them, and the horrors in those. Hell, and apocalypse, and none of it euphemisms or easy metaphor. All the things Dad wanted to get away from—and then all the years, after, where he stayed exactly where he was. And then—a lifetime later—to come back home to a house, with a blue door, and his eyes not bothering to follow his brother as he leaves a room, because he knows without doubt that he'll be back.

In bed, he asks his wife, "When do you think the kids will get here?" and she turns over and stares at him, and says, "Hopefully not for years?"

He shakes his head, folds his arm under his head. "Duh," he says, and gets her to punch his chest lightly. "Ow. I meant… I don't know. What do you think their lives will be? Like… who will they be? I can't even imagine."

She stops trying to lightly beat him and goes thoughtful. Her thumb finds the little scar on her chin and rubs it, as is her habit, and her eyes slip over his shoulder to the distance. "They'll be—them." He raises his eyebrows, and she shrugs, rolling closer. "I mean, what do you want from me? I knew Abbie for fifty-one years and I still think that girl's a mystery. When she's… probably a grandmother herself, now, I guess. Is she still at Notre Dame? Are she and Andre happy? Are the boys healthy and do they like each other, and did she ever get Jacob to stop drawing cartoon dicks on the walls?" Dean laughs—god, he'd forgotten that—and she smiles at him, props her head on one fist. Says, softer, "Did she live the life she wanted to have? I don't know. I guess when she gets here we can ask her, but we'll never…"

No, they'll never. Dean touches the scar on her chin and she focuses on him, instead of some other world they're no longer privy to. "It's a venn diagram," he says, after a moment. "All of us. Abbie, overlapping with you and me, and then us overlapping with our parents, and on and on, all the way back. I guess we don't get to know what's outside the center parts."

"Even if there's a hundred and four crappily-written books about the other parts," she says, raising her eyebrows, and Dean shrugs, caught. She grins, shaking her head at him, and then squirms in close, tucking in under his chin. Kisses his throat, sighs. "Why not stop at a hundred? Seems random."

"I don't know, maybe the publisher wanted him to stretch it out," Dean says, and she hums, and puts her nose on his collarbone to settle in. He smooths her hair back, away from her shoulder. His favorite book is Swan Song, probably. The final one, as far as most people knew. His dad, the hero, saving humanity and the world, but that wasn't the best part. The best part was the army man, stuck in the door. His dad, looking at that, and meeting his brother's eye, and that being—enough. Just that, and all the life it represented. Enough.

"Venn diagrams," he says, aloud, quietly.

"Yes, you're very brilliant, Dr. Winchester," his wife says, mumbling. "Now go to sleep."

He kisses her hair, and does.

#ffcc #wincest #dean jr #my writing #this is again just sort of a collection of paragraphs #and it's--mostly what you asked for i think?#but mainly it's me musing about the unknowability of parents and children #so uh #that's what i was able to manage #hopefully i'll remember how to construct a story soon lol

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icollectyoursins · 4 years

Text

Kishibe Rohan x Reader SFW + NSFW

Anon said: “Consider Rohan sfw and nsfw hcs? And in nsfw Rohan could be a top,,? Prrtty pleade hhh, since there is only one work of Rohan ;;”

I hope these are good, not too familiar with Rohan, so I hope you like it!

Wanna know what I’m willing to write? Rules here!

Have a character, but no idea? Prompt list here!

Looking for more? Master post here!

WARNINGS: Making out, stands used in inappropriate ways, fingering, voyeurism, dildos, fucking machines, spanking, hand jobs, blow jobs, oral, face fucking, cock warming, nipple play, nude modelling.

Word Counts: 2201

SFW

Rohan is a jackass who cares. In the beginning, he’s very private and stand-offish, but he does warm up to you eventually, though he’s still nicer in private than he is in public. He claims this is because he’s a “celebrity” and can’t have his fans see you too close together yada, yada. It’s bullshit and you know it, but you have the feeling it’s because he’s not used to people being close to him.

Yes, he does have a binder dedicated to paintings, drawings, sketches, etc. all for you. Some are a little on the artistically lewd side, but most of them are of your hands holding something or your smile, your face and shoulders. Some of them he asked you to model for, others he quickly sketched down while you weren’t paying attention and then finished later.

When he’s not holed up inside, he enjoys walking down to either parts of Morioh where he can people watch or down to the park where he can study wildlife (and maybe draw you playing with ducks).

You are literally never bored in his house. He has every book under the earth and so many loose painting supplies that he painfully lets you use to fool around. (Though let’s be honest, He likes that you take an interest in his job and would be more than happy to give you tips.)

You know what? Rohan is a backseat artist. He watches every stroke you make over your shoulder and tells you maybe you should move the hand this way to make it more natural or add some light shading here to make it dynamic. It may come off as a little pretentious at first, but if you keep with it, he’ll notice the improvement and (occasionally) tell you how good you’re doing while being a total blushing mess.

You sat in the window seat, knees up with your back against the wall. Resting on your thighs was a sketchbook. Currently, you were just idly drawing lines of shading onto a face. Rohan himself was also busy colouring in his most recent page, though every now and then he would catch himself looking up at your silhouette, lit up by the light in some kind of halo effect.

Finally, he caved in to his curiosity. Setting down his pencils, he strode over to you. You didn’t notice until his face manifested itself over your shoulder. Startled, you jumped, causing your pencil to make a long line on your artwork.

“Jesus, warn me next time.” You said, grabbing your eraser.

“Have you been struggling with the nose?” He completely ignores you, still staring at your drawing. The paper was clearly marked up by the eraser with deeper marks from where the pencil was.

“Yeah, actually. It’s either too big or too small. Kind of just gave up.” You carefully tried to erase the long line but wound up taking away parts that you were actually happy with.

“Be more gentle with the pencil, it’ll make it easier to erase.” He suggested with a monotone.

“I tried-”

“And then you got frustrated and pushed harder. I admire your persistence, however, if something isn’t to your liking, walk away and come back. Remember to look at the picture as a whole, not just the nose.” You rolled your eyes, gently tossing your pencil onto the window seat. As much as you wanted to appreciate the advice, you had heard it all before. You were getting sick of it, frankly.

Rohan took note of your agitation, studying your face carefully. “You’ve improved, though!” You looked up, a little shocked. What? “The eyes are well done and your shading is very even. Good job.”

What? Your cheeks grew hot. That was the first bit of praise you had heard from him. About your drawing, at least. He looked down into your eyes, then felt his own face getting hot. He turned away. “Go take a break. I’ll help you when you get back in an hour. I’ll be timing you, don’t be late.”

Like I have said, he’s not overly fond of affection in public (in the beginning), but he can’t deny that holding your hand or feeling you on his arm makes him feel pretty good. The first few times, he’s internally a mess, though he won’t show anything other than a light tint of blush on his cheeks. But when he’s relaxing at home, he enjoys having you under his arm, leaning against him or with one of your heads in the other’s lap. He’s not used to people and even less so used to affection, but can be worked up to being more comfortable with stuff like kissing in front of the Morioh gang and the like.

When he’s comfortable, he is so cocky. Like, boarder line makes out with you in front of literally anyone just to prove you’re his S/O. This always makes you blush so much (unless you’re into that.) More often than not, he’ll have an arm around your shoulders, hand in pocket, looking so smug and proud and cool.

Pet names? He can either go one of two ways, depending on his mood. Either it’s just your name or babe OR it is every teasing name under the sun. Oh, darling can you do this for me? Oh, baby, oh, honey, oh, my love, oh, my flower. It’s usually used to get something from you or to get you to do something a little out of the box.

I can see Rohan as being the kind of person who is very strict about his bath time and hates when people interrupt him. On the rare occasion, he’ll let you in with him with the promise of either massaging him or something else *wink, wink*

NSFW (Dominant specifically)

Rohan literally does not shut up during sex. Praise, degradation, mocking, you name it! As a writer and an artist, he knows how to stitch words together in a masterful way that never fails to make you hot in the face.

Uh, yeah. He’s used Heaven’s Door on you before. Did he do it to learn your kinks? Maybe to put some kind of loose control over you in certain situations? Looking for people you find attractive for potential erm... art inspiration (voyeurism)? The world will never know.

Staying-on brand with HD, he absolutely uses it to learn everything that you enjoy in the bedroom. He knows how to make you squirm, where to push to make you scream, how to make you beg. He knows everything.

Particularly enjoys using this “power” to finger you, pressing into every sweet spot (that he made more sensitive with HD), licking over the edges of your hole in a way that just makes you dumb (either hole, not picky!)

A delicate finger was trailed up your twitching hole, making you shiver. Rohan had already stretched you open enough for it to easily slip in again. You were so sensitive from being teased over and over again, but with no relief that you cried out, tears threatening to burst forward.

He curled his finger up into a particularly sensitive bundle of nerves, slowly pushing into it more. You groaned and whined, blabbering out his name along with various ways to beg. He shushed you carelessly, sounding annoyed by your desperation. God, you wish you could move! You would give anything to be impaled by him right now. Or anything for that matter.

He removed the digit quickly, then promptly smacked your ass with a flat hand.

“Quiet.” You had no choice but to listen to him, involuntarily shutting your mouth and stifling your whimpers. “If you want something, be polite about it. Do you know how to be polite?”

You nodded your head, a single tear trailed down your cheek. Your hole was teased again, repeating the same process as before. Rohan was such an asshole, but god if you didn’t love it.

If you have established a relationship where he has complete control over everything you say or do, he will abuse it so much. Just, tells you to sit still, turns on a wand or vibrator and just tortures you to the point of tears. You can talk, he didn’t take that away (mostly because he wants to hear you beg), but the position he put you in on top of the order. It’s too much for you.

He’ll do the same with a dildo, a fucking machine, his own dick, does not matter! Once you give him that power, RIP to your organs.

Alright, now. Voyeurism. This man is a freak and does not try to hide it when it’s under the guise of “art.” Again, if established, he will hire random people to do whatever he wants to you. If you’re okay with it, he’ll record it for later research.

Rohan is a weird jealous type, so he checks out every person you meet and makes sure they’re perfect (ie. not competition and someone you’ll enjoy). Very rarely does he let you pick out the people. Like I said, he’s a weird jealous type. Likes to see you with other people, but not with other people, you know?

There is only one person who he considers competition that he wants you to fuck at least once and it’s Jotaro. Are we surprised? No. Dude is built like a god and has the goods to match. Even Rohan can’t deny it. He would probably want to join in as well, but Jotaro would never do anything like that.

Mmmm, punishments for being bratty? Ooooh, yes. Smack my ass like a drum! Makes you count, absolutely. If he’s in a bitchy, lazy mood he’ll use a paddle or something like that, other than that, he uses his hands.

As you’ve probably surmised, he likes having control over you in the bedroom, so it’s no surprise he also enjoys tying you up and has a particular fondness for swings where he’ll hang you up and tease you until you can barely walk.

I mentioned baths in the SFW section, now let me elaborate. Doesn’t like sex in the bath, he hates when the water gets everywhere, but loves when you worship him while scrubbing him down and will allow you to work him up with a light hand job. This usually leads to a blowjob of some kind whether it’s gentle or rough.

Speaking of! His favourite part of sex is probably oral. From sucking bruises into each other’s necks, rough kissing, right down to holding you against the wall and choking you with his dick. Or a dildo, if he wants something a little more adventurous like mirror sex with him taking you from behind and making you watch yourself choke over and over again.

Cock warming is only ever used as punishment for being too needy, but he will keep you in his lap until you’re in tears. He is absurdly patient when it comes to sex.

You whined, grinding yourself onto Rohan’s dick. He chuckled before letting out a theatrical sigh. Your grip on his shoulders got harder and you buried your face into his neck more.

“What’s wrong, (Y/N)?” He trailed a soft, teasing hand up your thigh. “You wanted attention, yes? Then, why are you complaining? Now, up, I need another look at my reference.”

You sighed, tired and riled up at the same time. With new vigour, you sat up, leaning back to show your artist his latest obsession. He hummed in appreciation, taking a minute to admire his muse before licking a warm stripe up your sternum making you gasp. He stopped, giving you a look of warning.

“Don’t move.” You gave him a curt nod, trying your best to follow your command while he returned his tongue to your chest, exploring your skin’s taste. He flicked over your nipple with the tip, testing your resolve before wrapping his lips around it, sucking harshly. A moan fought its way through your throat as he became more feverous with his suckling.

Rohan hummed with you, theatrically mulling over the saltiness, then switching to the next one. Satisfied with the redness around your nipples, he pulls back, looking you over once again. A lightbulb seems to go off in his head and he reaches for his sketchbook which only made his cock shift inside you, rubbing against your walls in a delightfully painful way.

“Rohan-sensei,” you moaned out. Admittedly, you didn’t like calling him that, but he insisted you call him sensei during times like this.

“Stop moving, you’re ruining the picture,” he chided. “Go back to the way you were, darling.” He leaned back, rolling his hips into you to punctuate his words as well as tease you.

Model nude for him. Whether you like it or not, he will ask you to do it and, if he’s in a sexy mood, you will be asked to do uncomfortable positions that will definitely leave you sore the next day. “It highlights how the muscles work for a new character I’m drawing” or so he says. Other than that, he’ll just let you pick somewhere comfortable and sexy to lie down.

#kishibe rohan not sfw #kishibe rohan n/s/f/w #rohan kishibe n/sfw #rohan n/sfw #rohan not sfw #rohan n/s/f/w #kishibe rohan x reader #kishibe rohan x reader n/sfw #kishibe rohan x reader not sfw #kishibe rohan x reader n/s/f/w #rohan prompts #not sfw #sfw

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imagine-loki · 4 years

Text

Ruin

TITLE: Ruin

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT:

AUTHOR: fanfictrashdump

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine that halfway through a makeout session, Loki stops abruptly. He stares for a long moment before he says anything. “I can’t ruin you like this.” He anxiously stands to put space between you. “I have to leave.”

RATING: T

NOTES/WARNINGS: My to-do list is a mile long , but I saw this and my mind wrote it on its own. Did I never intend them to be romantically involved? Yes. Did I really think of Lily as an oblivious ace for a long time? Also yes. Do I enjoy the current chaotic bi vibes she’s putting out? H e l l y e s. Language. Kissing. Idiots. Speed run, so errors may be plentiful.

SUMMARY: Loki has been feeling feels that he can no longer shove into box and ignore. Lily didn’t know she could possibly have access to that box and would very much like the opportunity to do so. Loki is dramatic AF and is pleasantly surprised he’s been lied to.

His lips trailed an invisible line over her neck, gliding over the expanse of skin until it reached a point where her pulse thrummed steadily. A second later his tongue darted over the heated flesh, tasting the electricity of her skin and what tasted like fresh morning dew. His teeth followed, pinching skin together so he could suck a half-dollar size bruise into it before returning to the honeyed lips he had already kissed swollen. The half-gasped whimper that followed as response would have usually spurred Loki on in his actions. This time, it was the noise that broke him from his reverie.

He pulled back, blinking drunkenly at the flushed face staring back in wide-eyed, pouting surprise. For a second the perfectly sky blue marbles beckoned him back like a siren call, but the Prince caught himself before he managed to drag her back onto his mouth. Fine, silver strands slipped through his fingers, the ends curling delicately around his digits and tickled his palms. He tried not to focus on the fact that the fact that they felt like each follicle was woven of spider’s silk.

A kiss brushed onto the inside of his wrist, startling him out of the silent exploration of her hair. There was a silent question in Lily’s stare, a curiosity as to why he had pulled away when they both had been perfectly content to try to devour each other a moment prior.

All Loki saw was an innocent curiosity reflected back at him and a genuine desire to share affection. It was all very overwhelming. Loki’s hands retreated abruptly, just as the dark cloud settled over his features. “I can’t ruin you like this,” he murmured, his face screwed into a frown that looked more distraught than Lily had ever seen it. He was on his feet a second later, almost as if shocked by lightning. “I have to go.”

“Wha–Loki!” Lily called at the already slamming door, leaving Lily behind, in his quarters, she might add, earnestly confused as to what had just happened. How all of it had happened.

Lily couldn’t remember who had started their short-lived tryst. It just sort of… happened.

The pair had been play-fighting, an increasingly common occurrence that would come about from Lily feeling a little too sure of herself and would decide to test her reflexes and element of surprise. Loki could always see her attacks coming a mile away, if he were honest. The little plant witch had only managed to startle him once, and it was very quickly rectified. He had not let his guard down ever again.

The familiar sensation of being watched crept up his spine and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. There was no ominous feeling, but rather a knowledge that he was not alone. The smirk that crept up on his face was unintentional, but it also unsuppressed. Loki continued sorting through materials as if there were nothing amiss. The slightest breeze fluttered his hair and the smell of ozone and magic filled his nose as he easily grabbed the arm that had intended to wind around his neck and he flipped the person over his shoulder.

Lily landed, flat on her back in bed with a choked gasp, scrambling quickly out of the vulnerable position, but Loki was far faster than she ever hoped to be. Not to mention that he was so much stronger, his hands bigger, able to pin her down neatly with little effort. Her veins glowed green in tandem with the vines that intended to squeeze Loki still.

He gave a surprised chuckle in response–they never had resorted to magic when they grappled like this. His response to shapeshift was second nature. The giant serpent that slithered eerily in her screeching direction dealt with the vines with little issue. She swallowed her protests to pin him down before the shape of a porcupine had her shuffling off again. More vines, more pliant and dense than the first, bound the creature down before a fox took its place. The ebony of its fur contrasted with the bright green of the vines was surprisingly endearing. Loki noisily gnawed at the vines as he rolled onto his back, hind legs kicking up a storm.

“Aww, I didn’t think you could shift into cute things!” She cooed, scratching him under his chin, prompting him to let out a startled yelp.

While Loki was no stranger to Lily suddenly thrusting affection in his direction in the form of hugs and genuine compliments, they were usually after he was in dire need of it, or vice versa. They never seemed to share this affection when they were both perfectly fine, but rather as comfort. And while the gentle stroking of her fingers up the bridge of his snout was soothing in a quasi hypnotic manner, there was still a bubble of emotion that he was sort of uncomfortable with gurgling at the pit of his stomach.

In the tumult of his emotions, he had shifted back, vines disappearing into the ether, and yet her fingers still trailed that lazy route from his forehead, down the bridge of his nose and back. He couldn’t exactly pinpoint when his head had shifted into her lap or when he decided it was a good idea for his teeth to playfully nip at her fingers. All he knew was that after a moment he her face was down by his and their mouths pressed together. Everything after that had been a blur.

And now she was sitting alone in his room, trying to piece together the last hour and why in every god’s name he had decided to bail on her.

Lily marched out of the dark bedroom and out into the hallways. She was sure Loki would be hiding quite proficiently–there wasn’t a creature alive that could find Loki if he did not want to be found, but she could certainly try. Lily peeked into the lab where Tony and Bruce tinkered away at their science projects.

“Tony, have you seen Loki?” She knew Bruce would rather stay far away from the demigod, so it wasn’t worth asking.

“Have I seen Scary Spice? No, I have not and I count myself lucky.”

“That’s not nice.”

Tony didn’t miss a beat. “Neither is he. What do you need him for?”

“He wasn’t feeling well,” she fibbed, easily. “I wanted to check in on him.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Bruce quipped, flashing an awkward smile and going back to adjust an array of tiny screws. Lily raised an eyebrow and Bruce did a double-take in her direction. “What?”

Lily ignored the question, dropping unceremoniously into one of the stools by Tony’s bench. “Honestly, I think we should kick Loki out,” she said after a long moment.

Tony’s face crumpled into an odd frown. “Not that I don’t fantasize about that every single day, but, why?”

“He’s a bad influence I think.”

“On who? The assassins, the 1940’s super soldiers, the recovering alcoholic with anxiety or the rage monster over there? Or do you mean you? Because I think we both know you’re your own bad influence. We’re all our own worst enemies, here, kiddo.”

“He’s going to ruin me.”

The loud bark of laughter spewing from Tony’s mouth startled Lily. “You lied to me for five years about who you really were and then you failed to mention that you would go all Poison Ivy if you were out on missions for too long. The only being brave enough to go into that room and keep your borderline non-murderous was that dumb, goth, wannabe-boyfriend of yours.” Tony peered down his nose at her. “Loki is a lot of things, mutant ruiner is not one of them.”

“He made out with me.”

“Good. If he’s busy sucking your face off, he can’t keep messing up the paint job on my suit.” He smirked when Lily pouted. “It’s not my fault if you make terrible choices. You have to deal with them yourself. Welcome to adulthood” He sobered slightly, cracking his neck in a nervous fidget. “So, you, er, like him or something?”

Lily turned a brilliant shade of red, suddenly becoming interested in a loose thread on her jumper. “I don’t know. I’m usually kind of oblivious and assume everyone just wants to be my friend, so I never… I didn’t think…”

“Oh, god, you do. Disgusting,” Tony quipped, making retching noises to tease her.

“Shut up, Tony.”

“But, you do! You’re totally–”

“Shut up, Tony!”

Tony frowned, the expression turning to curiosity when Lily’s eyes trailed to stare out of her peripherals towards Bruce’s benchtop. Realization lit up his face as his mouth formed a wide ‘O’ before he chuckled. “You better put everything back the way you found it or Bruce is going to Hulk-smash you into porridge.” Something clattered noisily onto the ground before the sound of footsteps shuffling overcame them. “He’s heading for the balcony,” he whispered just as the steps retreated. “Don’t make sudden moves, he looks terrified.”

“Thanks. Pleasure wreaking havoc with you, Tony,” she announced, hopping to her feet.

Cool air rushed her face as the automatic doors hissed open. The weather was already biting in the late autumn, and Lily was in no way prepared to be outside for any length of time in just her jumper and jeans.

Loki stood at the railing, staring off into the city when she pressed her forehead to his back. His body stiffened, taking several heartbeats before his muscles stopped seizing up. By that time, however, the bone-wracking shivers had prompted some protective instinct within him to turn, shedding the charcoal zip jumper off his shoulders and over hers.

“You’ll catch your death.”

“Do you mean you or the weather? Because you’re rather elusive today”

Loki scoffed. “Lilian–”

“Not my name.”

He drew in a deep breath whose chill rattled noisily in his chest. “How’d you even know?”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Bruce pretends you don’t exist. He wouldn’t express his sympathy for your illness. Rookie mistake. I know how to read people rather well.”

There was a long stretch of silence between them, eyes jousting before he couldn’t bear to hold her gaze any longer. “I’m not what you want.”

Lily chuckled to herself, burying herself deeper into Loki’s coat. “Forgive me, but you have no clue what I want. Mostly because I don’t know what I want. Frankly, I didn’t think making out with a Norse god was one of the options.” She shrugged, leaning into his side and smiling to herself when he instinctually pressed in closer. “I mean, if you don’t want it, that’s a different matter, altogether.”

Loki cut his eyes to the side to stare at her. “You’re ridiculous. You can’t tell me you don’t see–don’t you?”

“See what?”

“Fucking oblivious.”

“It’s not like I actively seek anyone. I can’t exactly be myself with anyone else.” She smirked, nudging him with her hip. “I don’t want to be–” A yelp cut her short, swallowed into Loki’s throat before it ever got the chance to break through the air. His long digits bunched up either side of his coat to pull her closer. She sighed, molding herself into the curve of his body. Just as she was tilted her head to deepen their kiss, he pulled back.

“No. I–I have to go.”

Once more alone, wrapped in Loki’s coat, she remained confused. Lily let out a groan, letting the cold autumn air cool her down before marching back inside. She hoped he shifted into someone easily recognizable. And that this sudden attack of guilty conscience was short-lived.

It wasn’t.

A month-long game of cat and mouse, of watching him disguise himself as every single occupant of that godforsaken tower to escape temptation and they still had not managed to sit down for a conversation. Lily decided that if that was the game he wanted to play, that she was entirely fine with it. She prepared breakfast for the team, as usual, setting a bouquet of fresh flowers in the center with a smile. Eventually, everyone began to stream in for the morning meal and Lily sat at her usual spot at the far end of the table to watch everyone come in, half-asleep and ravenous.

Blue eyes trailed Loki shuffling in behind Natasha, who sat to her right while he sat to Lily’s left. Not missing a beat, Lily smiled at the assassin before tugging at Natasha by the strings of her hoodie. Their mouths met easily, the Widow’s lips quirking at the corners and prompting the sound of clattering utensils across the table.

Nat pecked Lily gently before allowing her to move back and grinned. She licked her lips almost lewdly and followed it with a sip of coffee. “Good morning to you, too, hon.” Impish energy glittered in her eyes. “You know what? I don’t think I got enough of you. Come here–”

A thud echoed in the room and the table clattered. Loki was half out of his seat and had buried his dagger into the mahogany surface of the dining table. Tony protested quietly, almost half-heartedly.

“If you so much as breathe on her, again, I will skin you alive, Agent Romanoff. I swear it,” Loki hissed. “When I said I didn’t want to ruin you, I wasn’t suggesting you go off and find someone who would!” Loki snapped back at Lily, his expression halfway between annoyed and hurt.

“What else am I supposed to do?” She declared loudly, grumbling unintelligibly for a long moment. “I have been driving myself dizzy chasing these stupid circles you’ve led me on. Do you want me or not?”

“In what Universe do I not want you? It cannot be more obvious that I love you and you make me feel special, you impossible woman! Even fucking Stark noticed! But I don’t deal well with emotions if you haven’t caught on, yet, and I don’t want to lead you on when I’m not sure how to feel anything!”

“I don’t know how to feel, either, you ass. Which is why I’d rather we figure it out together than have to play Guess Who?: Shapeshifter Edition with everyone in the Tower!”

Loki growled, scrubbing a hand down his face in frustration. “I’ve just told you I love you and you said you didn’t know how you felt!”

Lily stabbed a sausage rather aggressively onto her fork, bending two of the tines in the process. “Of course I love you, you moron. Who in their goddamn right mind would voluntarily put up with your moody bullshit, otherwise?”

He scoffed. “Fine, I guess we’re in love, then!”

“Whoop-de-fucking-do!”

Loki opened his mouth to snap another witty retort back, when the conversation caught up to him. His eyebrows rose to meet his hairline as wide, green eyes cut instantly at Lily. “We’re in love,” he mumbled. “We’re in love?” Surprise melted into hopeful softness.

“Wait, were you two not together?” A chorus of Clint and Barton followed the interruption, but it was enough to cut through the magic of the moment.

Loki fidgeted on his feet as he paced in front of the bed. Lily looked bemused as her eyes moved like the swing of a pendulum to follow him back and forth.

“I’m not good enough for you.”

“Not for you to decide,” she countered, easily.

“I’ve killed.”

“So have I. You’ve been there.”

He stopped to face her. “I tried to take over the planet.”

“Mind control.”

“I’m a monster.”

“I’m legitimately an eldritch horror hybrid.”

Loki kneeled, resting his forehead on her lap with a sigh. “But we–you–I don’t think I could bare losing you after a paltry few decades,” he reluctantly mumbled.

Lily giggled, which Loki thought odd, but weirder things had happened between them. “I mean, fair. I’m not sure how long I’ll live, but I am also a hundred and six.”

His head snapped up so quickly he felt the muscles contract painfully. “What?”

“The hair is not a fashion statement,” she whispered, feeling the weight of his stare and the million questions it contained with it. “There’s a reason I haven’t really dated. I’ve never met anyone I can ostensibly spend my whole life with.” She laughed nervously, rustling her hair. “Say something.”

“You lied to me?” He seemed impressed rather than angry.

“No. You’ve always just assumed. And, I let you,” she admitted, her cheeks coloring faintly. His hands had curled around hers, dwarfing them in his comfortable warmth. “If you had let me explain a month ago, I would have told you that I’m really not some innocent maiden you can ruin.”

The little anxious notch that she was so familiar with formed between his brows. “By the Norns, we have a lot to talk about then, flower.” Lily sighed good-naturedly at the statement. Before she had managed to protest, Loki craned his neck enough to slot lips to hers. “Later, of course.”

#Loki #Lover #Others #Submitted one shot #submission #fanfictrashdump #ruin

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pixie-cocaine · 5 years

Text

ATEEZ reaction to: their S.O. being a former Playboy model

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: I really did hella research on this because Playboy's rules and shit are a lot more strict and confusing than you'd think. BUT, good news is that you can model for Playboy without having to be a Playboy playmate (which is a lifetime job I think). Anyways, it's kinda long because I like to make each scenario different in terms of style and what you wear, but I hope you enjoy :)

Songs Listened To: Sweet Insomnia - Gallant, mentiras - Alaina Castillo

(Also, mature/explicit so read at your own risk!)

Hongjoong ♡:

• you'd ask him to go get you a shirt from your drawers while you were in the shower

• he'd be going through the wrong one, your underwear drawer, when his finger brushed against the plastic cover of what felt like a magazine

• his curiosity would get the best of him, also the fact that he thought it was porn and he'd be able to tease you about it

• and he'd pull it out

• he definitely wasn't expecting to see you on the front cover, body adorned with silk lingerie that held accents of cherry red ribbon and deftly tied loops. Everything about you was carefully laid on; the flawless red matte lipstick, your hair which fell over your eyes in gorgeous tendrils, even the neatly-placed bunny ears and cotton tail.

• the thing that got him most was how you sat on your knees, a sickly sweet smiling playing on your lips as your hand slipped beneath the thin fabric of your panties

• he almost thought he was dreaming when he saw the title 'Playboy', plastered across the heading in big bold letters

• he wouldn't think twice about throwing the magazine on the bed and waiting for you to come out of the shower to go see why he hadn't given you a shirt like you asked

• when you finally stood in the doorway, robe covering your nudity and an eyebrow raised, Hongjoong would hold up the magazine with a smirk

• "You never told me you were a Playboy bunny"

• "You never asked, and why would I tell your nosy ass anyways?"

• he'd chuckle and you'd finish getting dressed, but he wouldn't stop thinking about it

• you'd end up fishing out your old Playboy outfits to wear for him

Seonghwa ♡:

• you and Hwa would be getting ready for the sexy-themed costume party San had the bright idea of throwing for Wooyoung's birthday party

• since Hwa didn't have any costumes, he'd go with the simple but classic loose black button-up and pants before sitting on the bed, waiting for you to come out of the bathroom

• the sound of your heels clicking on the polished floor had him looking up from his phone, and to say his eyes damn-near popped out of his skull was an understatement

• literally, this man would probably be drooling like a saint Bernard

• you looked like an enchantress; gorgeous royal purple forplay bodysuit, complete with jeweled fishnets, dual cuffs and a cuff collar, the iconic large bunny ears, cotton tail, and redbottoms all had him in a daze

• he literally could've pounced on you right there if he had no sense of self-control

• your smile, god your smile was what set it off. Especially with the way your lips curled delicately and accentuated the bloody red lip tint, a few stray strands of hair kissing at your forehead

• "Do you like it? I used to wear it back when I was a bunny and modeled every once in a while," you'd say, feigning obliviousness to how Hwa drank in your form

• to be honest, Seonghwa couldn't give less of a fuck whether you modeled and strut around in skin-tight clothing for hundreds of hungry eyes

• all he cared about was whether he'd be able to finish fucking you before you were late sifbjeuzysha

• in a nutshell, he absolutely loved the fact that you still had your Playboy bunny outfit, but didn't mind your past contract with them

Yunho ♡:

• you were always the secretive one in the relationship so it was no surprise that one day when Yunho dropped his phone under the bed and sat on his knees to look for it that he found it sitting by a big black box

• just because you were secretive didn't mean he couldn't find a way to get past the point of you hiding it in the first place

• you were in the kitchen at the time, cooking your famous homemade jajamyeon, but Yunho knew you'd come to check on him, so he had to make it quick

• after he finally popped open the stubborn lid, he'd looked in to see something he wasn't expecting to see at all

• magazines, all of them with you in various positions on the covers, sat in stacks to the right of the box. Beside it sat a headband with large familiar bunny ears and.. was that a half see-through bodysuit?

• well, he didn't even have time to identify the rest of it, because the sound of your amused voice filled his ears

• "Yunho, what are you doing?"

• "N-nothing!"

• he'd scrambled to close the box and push it back under the bed, but he would get his fingers jammed in the top, letting out a yelp as it caught on the tender flesh of his digits

• "tsk, tsk, tsk. Clumsy boy.."

• but still, you'd giggle and crouch down to his eye level before removing his hands from the box and rubbing the tips of his fingers

• "I didn't know you were a Playboy bunny"

• was the first thing he asked lmao

• you'd giggle and answer questions about your past contract with Playboy before treating him to your jajamyeon and a band-aid

• it was only when you were cuddled up on the couch did he bring it up again

• "um, babe?"

• "yeah?"

• "would you be fine with it if I asked for you to pose in your Playboy uniform?"

• I swear, this bitch-

Yeosang ♡:

• to be honest, nobody knows how he found out

• this bitch sneaky

• all you know is that he came into the living room where you sat, holding up your folded Playboy uniform and a glass of wine

• "Do me a favor and go put this on, gorgeous. I wanna see how you look in it."

• and that's how you wound up standing in front of Yeosang, occasionally tugging at the bowtie hugging your neck or pulling at the back of your bodysuit

• but Yeosang paid no mind to your fidgeting. He was completely entranced

• he couldn't comprehend your beauty. The black Velvet of your bodysuit wasn't anything special, but the way it framed your curves and stuck to all the right places was enough to make anybody gasp in jealousy. The dual cuffs linked to your wrist added to the whole 'sexy waitress' look, and the bunny ears and cotton tail made you look adorable, all Yeosang wanted was to worship your body and all of your flaws

• which is what he did

• he sat before you, his forehead resting on your stomach as you stood there, a hand on his shoulder for balance that might be needed, and sighed as you savored the feeling of his hands roaming every inch of your body. He started at the stockings; pinching the thin fabric between his forefinger and thumb, before moving up to slide his hands around your waist and finger at the textures of your clothes.

• the rest of the night, he made work of your body

• literally, he was so soft and tender

• he wished he would've seen the photoshoots you'd been in, but overall, he didn't really care

• it was something you liked, and he respected that

• literally, I know this man has a huge body worship kink nsjdkwksj

• you didn't hear it from me

San ♡:

• you both would be watching movies together when you stood up

• "I'm gonna go pee real quick, you can keep it playing if you want."

• and you were outy 😔🤙🏼

• just when he was about to go back to the movie, your phone began to buzz, the screen lighting up along with the vibrations that rattled it's being

• now, San's nosy ass wouldn't wanna be too rude by touching your phone without permission, but he couldn't help checking the caller ID

• his jaw dropped when he saw just who was calling

• 'Playboy 👯'

• was the caller ID

• he kinda would just freeze up and make excuses in his head

• "Nah, that's probably just one of her friends."

• he'd ask you when you came back out, but still tried to make sure you understood that he in fact did not snoop through your shit

• "I'm just curious, that's all. If it's something that you liked to do, then do what you want."

• really supportive, even if you told him that you left that job and they were only calling back to see if you'd pick up a last-minute gig for extra money

• "Baby, I wouldn't care if you decided to go back."

• actually likes the idea a lot

• he'd be searching up your name in Playboy while you were asleep lmao 😂

Mingi ♡:

• you wanted to do something fun towards the end of his birthday party

• so what better way than to blindfold him, sit him in a chair in the middle of the bedroom, and go put on your old Playboy uniform?

• he'd be kinda nervous, but also excited

• the telltale signs of his clammy hands and constant leg jumping gave it away

• maaan you were abouta blow this man's moinnndd

• his head would perk up at the sound of your heels hitting the floor, getting closer with each shaky breath rattling Mingi's chest, his heart threatening to jump out of his ribcage

• one moment his vision was obscured, the next, you were standing in front of him with a hand on your hips, looking like a wet dream personafied

• he literally felt like he might nut in his pants at the mere sight wonfjwjwjw

• hair, messy and tucked behind your ears. Lips, curled in amusement at his shocked expression, painted over with a subtle brown lipstick which glistened in the soft orange glow of the lamplight to your left.

• his eyes traveled lower, almost helplessly

• the black latex bodysuit enveloped your figure, fitted like a second skin, and cupped your hips as you shifted your weight to your left foot. Bunny ears sat atop your head and swayed with your small movements, a tied bow clipped to your throat, and your legs slipped into glossy-looking sheer tights

• Mingi felt like a starved animal, staring at you as if you held the key to his ecstacy

• which, let's be honest, you did

• y'all began to fuck straight after HAJAJAJABDBDJS

• (he definitely liked the idea of your being a Playboy bunny, but was pretty left-leaning to the fact that a bunch of other men probably looked oggled at you back when you did occasionally waitressing)

Wooyoung ♡:

• sooo, Wooyoung is a pretty flexible person (??)

• i mean, he has to when he has the sex appeal of an expensive stripper that always wears a custom-made silver crown when she gets on-stage to show that she's a bad bitch

• so when you and him decided to skip work in favor of booze and some Disney

• he'd be kinda excited when, as you both were talking about stupid shit you did in the past, you brung up the fact that you'd used to model for Playboy

• he'd be a little thrown off at first tho

• "Woah, woah, woah. Like, signature bunny ears and cotton tail Playboy?"

• "Yeah, I did a couple photoshoots for them in my time. Why, do you suddenly have the desire to hurl up your breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the sight of me?"

• "No, no, not at all. That's kinda hot, if I'm being honest"

• not even ashamed that he immediately pulled up your photoshoots and looked through them with you

• "Yeah, see that one? They had me lay in a tub of melted chocolate for it, I'm not even gonna sugar-coat it when I say that it got all up in my hoo-hah"

• "Lucky! I wanna pose in a pool of chocolate like a sexy french girl, too!"

• it'd become an inside joke for you two

• like when you'd complain about it being cold, he'd say some stupid shit like:

• "Playboy bunnies never get cold, you can deal with it"

• it'd be really cute 🥺

Jongho ♡:

• ugh the sweetest baby to ever exist

• for lack of a better scenario, you both would be laying in bed, half-awake, and talking about life in general

• you'd been the one to bring up the topic, considering your usual bouncy, sweet Jongho had been stressed lately

• you wanted to calm him down, relieve him of any exhaustion

• so that's how you ended up in bed with him, limbs tangled together, and your head resting on his chest as he recounted his childish ways of the past

• you'd look up at him with full heart eyes bro

• and I really don't blame you

• and ease him into your own actions

• you'd hesitantly bring up being a Playboy bunny, and bb would immediately sit up and be like

• "Uhhh, pardon?"

• you'd think he was against the idea, but after you sputtered out excuse after excuse, he'd start giggling

• OH MY GOD LET ME KISS YOU JONGHO

• and then once he stopped laughing

• he'd reassure you that it was fine with him

• if you liked doing something, who was he to stop you. Yeah, the idea might be a little iffy to him because he wasn't so keen on sharing you with anybody, but he didn't wanna stop you from being happy and getting ya money

• why? Because uhhhh he's a baby?

• Why would you even ask? That man can do no wrong HE GOES TO FUCKING ELDERLY WOMEN SINGING MEETUPS

• he'd ask you to tell him some funny stories about being a model, and he'd eventually fall asleep due to you running your fingers through his hair

• ugh I'm in my feelings

(oh yah, and sorry for posting this a couple days late lol)

#ateez fluff #ateez yeosang #ateez reactions #ateez #ateez mingi #Ateez hongjoong #ateez jongho #ateez yunho #kpop related #jongho #hongjoong smut #hongjoong #ateez seonghwa #Seonghwa #yunho #i love these babies

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artificialqueens · 3 years

Text

Devoted: Stream (Katlaska) - Kamylove

Sixth in my collection of unrelated one-shot ficlets. This time with Covid!

Young, untreated, self-medicating Katya was an introvert whose greatest fear was embarrassing herself.

Sober, almost-38-year-old Katya is an extroverted introvert who embarrasses herself daily and whose love language (and she only knows this thanks to Trixie the romantic, honest) is touch, and whose attention span is shorter than a ferret's.

Self-quarantine is killing her.

She was in Europe when shit started going to hell. She got out just in time, flew home to have her temperature taken at LAX, and was told to lock herself up for two weeks before she could see another human being.

It sucks.

Other queens (including Alaska, damn her) are doing Instagram lives, dragging up for shows on Twitch, collecting tips on Venmo and Paypal. Katya's ADD ass can't get herself together to unpack, let alone do her job virtually, but she still craves the attention.

Worst of all, Alaska is quarantining somewhere else. Somewhere Katya can't go. Somewhere that is not their house.

Alaska was home in LA when it happened, the lucky bitch. Alaska is a hypochondriac who would lose her mind if she had to shelter in place all alone, and Katya didn’t want to risk infecting her or the staff of a hotel. So Alaska, after much convincing, had decamped to the house she used to share with her best friend.

She's facetiming Katya every day, several many times a day, and dropping off care packages on the front steps. But Alaska needs drag to stay sane, so she's up in everyone's Insta, writing new damn songs for digital drag shows, agreeing to another and another and another show every hour. Or that's what it feels like to Katya.

Trixie's up on Insta, too, and Twitch. Trixie's doing live performances from her condo. PEG was even smart enough to invite Fena to do a digital show, which is fierce and fabulous because Fena is fierce and fabulous and Katya loves her like a brother.

But Katya's still got all those emails and voicemails sitting untouched on her phone. You'd think she'd be dying for any variety of human contact, and she is, but the thought of being productive right now is just too much.

Oh, look, there's Alaska on her friend's live again. There's Alaska laughing and being adorable and sharing space with--actually sitting next to--a human.

Katya loses all self-control and comments, "Bitch I am losing my self-quarantined mind STFU and call me."

And she does it from her public account, like an idiot.

The host of the live squints at the screen. "Oh, honey, your favorite Russian spy is stir crazy. We love you, Katya."

"Aww, Katya," Alaska's former-slash-temporary housemate says. "We miss you, gurl."

"Katya's here?" Alaska says. Katya can see her scrolling up on her iPad screen, because she'd obviously missed Katya's comment. And it should not bother Katya that Alaska missed her comment, because she knows what comments on lives are like. She used to livestream her entire damn life.

"Oh, no," Alaska says, looking straight at the camera. “Poor Russian spy. I'll call you in a bit, okay?"

Other commenters have now caught on, unfortunately, because Katya is an idiot, and there's a swarm of comments about her. I love you Katya, hearts to Katya, and suddenly she's taken over the live and she feels awful about it. Like she needs to feel more awful.

She exits and texts Alaska, "I hate you all and please apologize for me for barging in. CALL ME."

She doesn't know what happens in the live after that, because she leaves her phone in the bedroom and goes to the kitchen to cheer up with some Skittles. Skittles make everything better, and she's almost out of them. Thank God for Postmates. And Alaska's care packages.

Alaska facetimes her just a couple minutes later. Katya rushes back to her phone.

"Don't fucking apologize," is the first thing Alaska says. She's retreated to her old bedroom, a space Katya is very familiar with, and is sitting under a window Katya recognizes. It's unreasonably annoying.

"I didn't want to make myself the center of attention," Katya says through a big mouthful of candy. “Sorry."

"You always want to be the center of attention," Alaska teases lightly.

"A drag queen with a pathological need to be on stage," Katya says. "Shocking."

"They all worried about you after you left. They miss you."

"Now I feel worse, so thanks for that."

"They love you. They love you even when they can't see you. Even my fans love you."

"Hahaha aren't you funny."

"But none of them love you as much as I love you."

Katya scowled. "Fuck off, making me feel better. I'm enjoying my miserly misery."

"I would like to remind you that I wanted to risk my life and stay home and bring you breakfast in bed every day, and you said no."

"Why the hell did you listen to me?"

"Hey," Alaska says with a gentler smile. "It's only six days before we can social distance together."

"Six days is forever."

"I've got to warn you, though, that when I get home, you are getting your wig on and getting on camera. I’ll paint you myself if I have to."

Katya doesn't have a rude answer to that, and she doesn't want to give a polite one. She pouts instead.

Alaska can read her pouts, though. This one doesn't mean, That's an awful idea, don't make me do it. It means,

Alaska laughs at the pout and says, "Let me set up something digital for you? I'll do all the legwork and you'll just have to show up. I know you miss the fans as much as they miss you."

"Point one," Katya says. "I, unlike you, do not enjoy getting all dragged up with no place to go."

"Point one,” Alaska counters. “Yes, you do. Point two, you would have a place to go!"

"Sitting on the couch with an iPhone camera does not count as a place to go. But point two, if I start Instagramming live I'll never stop, and we both know where that would lead."

"Embarrassing personal revelations and masturbating on camera?"

"Precisely."

"Oh!" Alaska brightens with an idea. “You know what the world really needs?"

"A vaccine and a new president?"

"An episode of UNHhhh with the two of you in your pajamas and full face! And I'm going to make it happen!”

It's another good idea Katya doesn't want to admit is good. "Don't make promises you can't keep, bitch," she says.

"I'll keep it. I'm drafting an email to World of Wonder right this second."

"You're not. I can see you."

"In my head. I'm drafting it in my head." Alaska produces a pen from somewhere and writes in the air. "Dear WOW, Katya's lost her mind and I know this is hard to believe, considering, but I think more UNHhhh will help her find it. Also, if you don't make her do something," which she underlines in the air with a flourish, "with all that talent, I'm never doing Bro'laska again. So there."

"Please. You’re never doing Bro'laska again anyway."

"I’ll never sign on to Werq the World?"

"As if a major recording star like yourself would sink that low in the year of our lord 2020. Face it, you have no leverage here. Maybe if you said you’d never make another appearance on Drag Race...”

"Oooh," Alaska says. "Buuuuurn."

Katya tells her to fuck off.

After she stops laughing, Alaska says, "Let's have dinner tonight."

“On Facetime? Like always?” It's something they often do when their schedules put them in different time zones.

"No, for real.”

“Still not looking to pass on my potential plague,” Katya says.

“I’m sure you’re not sick," which is what Alaska says every time the topic comes up. "But no, listen. I’ll bring takeout. Whatever you want. You sit inside the back door, and I'll sit out on the patio."

"Hmm," Katya says.

"At least I could see your gorgeous face without a camera or a window."

"At a socially safe distance of at least 10 feet. In case I drool. Which I might."

"Are we on, then?" Alaska asks.

"Anything I want? Would that include watching me jerk off?"

"I would absolutely love to watch you jerk off."

"Then it’s a date," Katya says. "As long as I still have enough Lysol to coat the entire patio."

#rpdr fanfiction #alaska thunderfuck #katya zamolodchikova #katlaska #fluff #canon compliant #ficlet #devoted #kamylove #tw covid

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leverage-ot3 · 4 years

Text

notable moments from The Zanzibar Marketplace Job

leverage 2.12

Hardison: Two weeks in Tokyo. We'd have a great time.

Parker: What are we stealing?

Hardison: We don't steal anything. We'd be tourists.

Parker: Not following you

hardison: BE DOMESTIC WITH ME PLS

- - - - -

Waitress (puts down beer): There you go.

Eliot: Ahh. Thank you, sweetheart.

Waitress: Anytime.

(Nate kicks Eliot under the table)

Eliot: What? Really? What, I can't have a friend?

Nate: Join a softball team

me whenever eliot flirts with someone other than parker or hardison

- - - - -

Tara: You know he's drinking again.

Eliot: I'm not an idiot, Tara.

Tara: I was told this was a problem.

Eliot: The drinking is not a problem. It's a symptom

this!!!

also eliot’s hair braids are adorable

- - - - -

(Sterling walks into the bar behind Eliot, approaches table)

Nate: Eliot, I'm gonna ask you not to do anything violent.

Eliot: What? What are you talking about? I only use violence As a - as a - as an appropriate response.

Sterling: Hello, Nate.

(Eliot’s face turns murderous and he turns to punch Sterling in the face, then proceeds to throw him down on a table and continue punching him. The bartender moves to call the police, but Hardison stops him by passing him money, Parker watches enthusiastically)

Tara: And this is?

Nate: James sterling. We used to work together. Insurance.

Tara: He seems to rub Eliot the wrong way.

Nate: You think?

(Nate walks over to where Eliot is still beating Sterling, and now has him by the throat)

parker and hardison literally have heart eyes for eliot in this scene ??? ot3 ???

hardison bribing the bartender not to call the police? parker watching like she’s being turned on or something? eliot’s face right before he hears sterling’s voice? sterling hitting eliot with a stick? CHAOTIC

- - - - -

Tara: Okay. Is there any chance she took the egg?

Parker: No. Maggie's the most honest person we know. But besides that, she's okay.

parker adores maggie

- - - - -

Sterling: You live and work here?

Nate: Yeah.

Sterling: I like the old place better.

Hardison: Do not mention the old offices.

people that have no rights: sterling

- - - - -

they had a legit P I L E of passports ready ??? SO MANY

- - - - -

Tara: Okay, you cannot out-bureaucrat a former Soviet Union bureaucrat. These guys gamed the most corrupt system on earth for 50 years. Paperwork's not gonna cut it. They're used to trading favors, not forms.

- - - - -

Nate: I just need some proof.

Parker: It was an inside job. Average keypad hack time is 1 minute, 9.3 seconds. Inner door access card takes at least 30 seconds for anybody but Hardison, and then the vault was an old Mark II Remington. In and out average - 7 minutes, 40 seconds. But these thieves, they did it in 5 minutes, 12 seconds. Maggie had the best access, so the real thieves only had to get her codes and badge. Yeah, only way they could pull it off that fast.

Sterling: How long has she been sitting..

sterling being utterly BAFFLED by parker is my aesthetic

+ she’s wearing a leather jacket AND a cute red flannel,,, the bi energy is strong

- - - - -

Parker: It's your first time being a fugitive, so I made you a bag..

Maggie: Thank you, Parker. It's not that I don't appreciate getting out of jail, I just can't live my life a fugitive.

Nate: But you're not a fugitive.

Parker: Passports, money, lock picks.

Nate: You were released, not broken out.

Parker: Toothpaste, explosives. Do not mix these up.

Maggie: Thank you, Parker.

Parker: This looks like gum. Not gum. Diamond-edged file blade.

Nate: Yeah, yeah. That's great.

Parker: She needs this stuff.

maggie is such a Mom™ rolling with parker’s antics and we love her for that

also PARKER IS TRYING SO HARD TO BE NICE BECAUSE SHE LIKES AND CARES ABOUT MAGGIE AND WE LOVE TO SEE IT

- - - - -

Parker: So, I took your advice and did the whole touristy thing. Went to the museum, and it was amazing.

Hardison: You see?

Parker: Yeah. They have a guardian T-840 security system. I've only seen those things in books. And the motion detectors - ooh, gorgeous! Six digital receptors. Six!

Hardison: What about the paintings?

Parker: What about the paintings?

she reads about security systems in books? omg I love it

- - - - -

Parker: We meet on internet.

hi I’m sorry but the way she said it was hilarious

- - - - -

Hardison: Alexander's got a travel visa to the United Arab Emirates. He's also setting up accounts in the Caymans, Macau, and Switzerland.

Nate: Yes, countries with no extradition treaty, tax havens

- - - - -

Tara: I got this one.

Eliot: Really? What are you gonna say to him? 'cause we got no cover story. We got no background on this cat.

Tara: Okay. That's it, then. I won't say anything. Really. Not one word. Just when he turns around and looks at you, do that thing with your eyes that scares people.

Eliot: I don't... know what you're talking about.

Tara: Oh, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Eliot: Pffff.

(Tara sits down next to Chernov and grabs his lunch, taking a bite)

Chernov: What the... Who the hell are you? Do I know you? Did Samuels send you?

(Tara moves a little, still chewing Chernov’s lunch)

Chernov: I paid them off. I took care of it.

(Tara looks over her shoulder at Eliot, who is scowling)

Chernov: Oh, god. Please. Is this about the item?

(Tara throws up her hands)

Chernov: I didn't know. No one told me.

(Tara checks her watch and stands up)

Chernov: Wait! Here. This is all I have. (hands her envelope) I'll back out. I'm sorry.

(Tara gives Chernov back his lunch)

Chernov: Sorry! (walks away)

Tara (rejoins Eliot and gives him the envelope): What we imagine is always so much better than the reality.

Eliot: Like love?

this whole scene was iconic

- - - - -

Sophie: Well, the prospective buyers are invited by their black-market contacts. They show up, they verify the merchandise, and they make a sealed bid. Hey, um, shine an ultraviolet light on that card.

(Hardison pulls a light from a bag and shines in on the card)

Eliot: Seriously? You have one just laying around?

he had one on his keychain in The Ice Man Job and boy do I love continuity

- - - - -

Tara: Parker, double reverse on three.

(Tara places envelope on tray, Parker takes envelope and passes it to Eliot)

we LIVE for smooth hand-offs

+ eliot did the flip thing with the envelope

- - - - -

Sterling: You're welcome. I don't know how you people ever manage – (flinches at feedback on com)

[Interior Van]

Hardison: Oh, I'm sorry, man. That just happens sometimes with the ear buds - You know, feedback.

[Embassy Hallway]

Sterling: As I was saying, the method - (flinches at feedback on com)

[Interior Van]

Hardison: Sorry.

[Embassy Hallway]

Sterling: This isn't gonna stop until I - (flinches at feedback on com)

[Interior Van]

Hardison: Stop talking. Shh. Please

PARKER’S SMILE AT HARDISON FUCKING WITH STERLING? AMAZING

- - - - -

parker is wearing a flannel now :)

+ the leather jacket she wears over it a little later

- - - - -

(Sterling pulls phone from his pocket)

Eliot: What are you doing?

Sterling (dialing): Calling the police. They don't get to dictate to -

Eliot (grabs phone): We're not calling the cops. Two hostages means they can kill one to make a point. (throws phone down on table) All right, listen. There's three types of calls we can get next. One - amateur. Cash and a dump site. Number two - professional. That's wire transfers and multiple-location drop-offs. (glances at Sterling) And three - targeted.

Hardison: Targeted toward us?

Eliot: No. Towards a specific ransom demand - Not cash. (looks at Faberge Egg case)

Sterling: You're not risking a $9 million artifact...

Eliot: It might be the only chance.

Sterling: ...on a hunch! Let me run this. We track the calls, find out whoever it is, have the police surround -

Eliot (walks around table to stand with team): Sterling, I'm the retrieval specialist. That's my job.

Sterling: Your friends' lives hang in the balance, and you're gonna take your cues off a punch-up artist instead of me? (closes case and takes phone from table) Call me when you need me. 'cause you will need me. (leaves with case)

eliot being the focused, determined retrieval specialist that’s hell bent on getting everyone back safe? we love to see it

+ parker, hardison, and tara having 100% faith in him standing beside him

- - - - -

Eliot: He's angry. We took his payday. (phone rings) All right, all right. (pulls phone toward him and hits button for intercom) Go.

Distorted Voice: If you follow our instructions, your friends will be returned unharmed.

Eliot: We agree. Tell us what you want.

Distorted Voice: You owe me

(Hardison uses computer to remove distortion)

Alex: $9 million.

Hardison: It's Alex. It's Alexander.

[Embassy Hallway]

Alex: I still have a buyer for the egg. Return it, and I return your friends.

[I.Y.S. Insurance Offices]

Eliot: I want proof of life now.

Alex: Agreed

it’s cool to see how Retrieval Specialist™ eliot spencer actually works

- - - - -

Nate: Yeah. Yeah, I was lying to you for your own good.

Maggie: Quick little hint for your next marriage - that excuse does not fly with any woman on earth.

Nate: Oh, go- next marriage? That's really nice to say.

Maggie (hitting Nate with spray can): You know what? I've heard that one before.

Nate: Heard what before? What are you talking about?

Sam: Are you actually having this argument now?!

Nate: She started it.

Maggie: He started it

chaotic ex spouses

- - - - -

Eliot: Listen, listen - we know who's behind this, all right? We know what they want. We have the upper hand here. We do.

COMPETENCY!!! HE KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT HES TALKING ABOUT AND WE LOVE TO SEE IT

- - - - -

they made a taser out of two ends of a live wire and a flamethrower with a match and an aerosol I love it

- - - - -

Sam: Give me that. The thing everyone screws up when they fake their own death - no body. Well, that can work, but it leaves no suspect for the police to chase.

Alex: You won't get away with this.

Sam: No, you will. Of course, I've left an evidence trail a mile wide, Visa applications, accounts in offshore banks.

Alex: You were my friend!

Sam: I was your employee. And thanks to your screw-ups, I was an employee with no pension, no savings, no nothing. That was really, really unacceptable to me.

Nate: Well, it's a good plan. What? I- I - listen, I spent 20 years chasing, you know, guys that faked their own death. I mean, this one - it's pretty well thought-out.

Sam: Exactly. Alexander Lundy, desperate for cash, turns to violence. And his poor assistant, Sam, loyal to the last, caught in the cross fire at a ransom drop gone bad.

that’s actually really smart

- - - - -

eliot’s sly grin right before the flashback revealing how they got away with it

- - - - -

(Alex vomiting into a barrel)

Parker (handing him a cloth): It's okay. First bomb's always the hardest (cringes)

- - - - -

Eliot: Was it because they wanted us to hear Sam's performance? It's 101, man. After that, (looks hardison up and down) you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out.

Maggie: You know, people underestimate you, Eliot.

Nate: That's kind of the point

HE CONSIDERES HARDISON TO BE AKIN TO A ROCKET SCIENTIST

- - - - -

Reporter (on television): And that's not all. Today, based on his work recovering the priceless artifact, James Sterling was invited to join Interpol. He's a real-life Sherlock Holmes.

Parker: Interpol? Seriously?

Hardison: Sterling's career gets another boost off of our hard work.

Tara: We didn't even get paid.

Hardison: Nope.

Tara: I hate this guy.

Eliot (taps his beer bottle on Tara's): Now you're part of the team. (walks away)

THAT is what it takes lmfao

also eliot was wearing a flannel in that scene

#leverage 2.12 #leverage 2x12 #the zanzibar marketplace job #leverage #leverage season 2 #season 2 #notable moments #mine

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theredherb · 4 years

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The Red Herb’s Top 10 Games of 2020

Hey, fuck 2020. You might notice that many of the “Best Of” lists you read this year and last can’t help but mention how terrible 2020 was. That’s because every day was like hitting a new, splinter riddled branch on our 365 day plummet off a shit-coated tree. The year brought with it a viral pandemic that served as a pressure cooker for the societal and systemic issues boiling beneath the surface of our every day life. And we’re not out of it.

At least one positive holds true of 2020: the games were pretty darn good. One has to wonder, though, if 2020 was the last year of what can be called “normalcy” for the video game industry. Now that the remainder of titles brewed in pre-Covid times are out in the wild, what will the future of gaming look like as studios shift to work-from-home and distribution models migrate to digital as the primary bread winner? What will games look like going forward?

I have no fucking clue. We’ll get there when we get there. But looking back, I’m glad to have had such solid distractions from the stress and strife. If 2020 is any indicator for the industry going forward, then my takeaway is that games will continue to grow in prominence because of their ability to help us cope and, more importantly, stay connected.

Anyway, here’s video games:

10. MARVEL’S AVENGERS

Oh, Marvel’s Avengers. I know you expected to be on more prestigious Top 10 lists than mine. Truthfully, I debated whether or not you should be here. But I had to search my soul (stone) on this one. Really assemble my feelings. Tony Stark my thoughts (?). Here’s the short of it: Marvel’s Avengers has a great story campaign with a surprising amount of emotional weight thanks largely to Kamala Khan’s quest to reassemble the heroes of her youth. Once the final cutscene ends, though, players were expected to take their play box of Marvel heroes, jump online, and duke it out against hordes of villains for the privilege of precious loot and level gains. It would be impossible to get bored because Crystal Dynamics was going to continually Bifrost in new quests, cosmetics, and heroes -- for free!

Except, after fans blasted through the campaign (took me a solid weekend), they found a multiplayer mode filled with repetitive fights against non-descript A.I.M Bots, a handful of dull, un-Marvelous environments (the PNW?! In a video game?! Wowwee!), and a grind for gear that became useless minutes after it was equipped. Oh, and bugs. Tons of bugs. It must be hard for A.I.M. to take earth’s mightiest heroes seriously when they’re falling through the fucking earth every other mission.

So why the Kevin Accolade™? Of all the mistakes and underbaked ideas, Crystal Dynamics got the most important thing right: they made me feel like I was a part of the Avengers. Cutting through the sky as Iron Man; dive bombing, fists-first as the Hulk; firing gadgets at cronies as Black Widow; cracking a row of skulls with Cap’s shield… Avengers is a brawler on super soldier serum.

The combat is crunchy and addictive, and surprisingly deep once you unlock your character’s full suite of skills and buffs. The gear matters little. But choosing a loadout that works for you -- like ensuring enemy takedowns grant you a health orb every time or turning area clearing attacks to focused beams of hurt -- does matter. When it comes to games with disastrous launches, Avengers is the most deserving of a triumphant comeback story because, if you clear the wreckage, I think there’s a solid game here. If I was able to spend hours playing it in its roughshod state, I can see myself digging in for the long-term once it’s polished up and given a healthy dose of content. You know...if Square Enix doesn’t outright abandon it.

9. STREETS OF RAGE 4

Here’s a fact about me: I love beat ‘em ups. From Final Fight to X-Men to The Simpsons, I prioritized my quarters for the beat ‘em up machines (and House of the Dead simply because House of the Dead fuckin’ owns). Unfortunately, Streets of Rage wasn’t in arcades, and I didn’t own a Genesis growing up, so I didn’t get around to the series until Sega re-released as part of a collection. Though my history with the 29 year old brawler is shorter than some, the basics stand out out right away: it’s an awesome side-scrolling brawler filled with zany character designs and high octane boss fights.

SoR4 nails that simple spirit while adding an electric soundtrack, buttery smooth animations, and an art style that looks like a comic book in motion. You can button-mash your way through the game or master your timing to combo stun the shit out of bad guys. Same screen co-op is a requisite for the beat ‘em up genre but I have to call it out nonetheless given that it's next to obsolete these days. The story campaign is, of course, finite but a stream of unlockables and a Boss Rush Mode pad out the package nicely.

I really don’t have to go on and on. I’m on board with any game that captures the arcadey high of classic beat ‘em ups, and Streets of Rage 4 does it with flare.

8. RESIDENT EVIL 3 REMAKE

Resident Evil 2’s remake was my game of the year in 2019. It’s a pitch perfect revision that captures the pulse-pounding fear of the original while beautifully updating its graphics and gameplay for modern audiences. The most striking aspect of RE2’s remake is how it expands and reconfigures the classic game’s environments and set pieces. Capcom managed to recontextualize, and even improve on, the original’s design while staying faithful to its tone and atmosphere.

Resident Evil 3’s remake is less successful in modifying and improving on its source material. If the game feels like it was handled by a different team than RE2R, your gamer hands have good eyes (roll with it). It was developed by a separate internal team (three different teams, in fact), but that’s actually one of many choices mirroring its 1999 forebear. Just like the original, RE3R is a tighter (i.e. shorter) experience that launched less than a year after its predecessor. And just like the original, the game skirts away from survival horror in favor of action horror.

Unlike last year’s remake, however, RE3R paints in broad strokes with the original material much in the same way that 2004’s Dawn of the Dead remake shared a vague resemblance with Romero’s ‘79 classic. Capcom at least nails down what matters: you play as Jill Valentine, beaten and discredited after the Arklay Mountains incident, during her last escape from the zombie besieged Raccoon City. Her exit is complicated by Nemesis, a humanoid missile that relentlessly pursues her from minute two of the game. Her only chance of making it out alive is by teaming up with a gaggle of Umbrella dispatched mercenaries, including an overly handsome fellow named Carlos Oliveras that you control for a spell. But fans struggled to get over what Capcom didn’t remake. Several enemies, boss fights, and a “divergent path” mechanic that had you choose how best to escape the Nemesis in a pinch were omitted from the remake. Even an entire section set in a clock tower was cut. But, let’s be honest, the biggest omission is a secret ending where Barry Burton saves the day using only his beard. For real, YouTube that shit.

If you look at what the remake does instead of what it doesn’t, you’ll find a lightning paced action game highlighted by tense, one-on-one fights against the constantly mutating Nemesis. The tyrant’s grotesque transformations evoke the mind-rending, gut turning creature designs found in John Carpenter's The Thing. It’s sad that Nemesis doesn’t pursue you through the levels as diligently as he did in the original, or as Mr. X had in last year’s remake, but these “arena fights” end up being harrowing and fun, culminating in a memorable final encounter. The remake also treats us to the best incarnation of Jill to date. She’s a cynical badass, exasperated at how Umbrella upended her life, and can take a plunge off of a building yet still muster enough energy to call Nemesis a bitch. RE3R also shines thanks to its snappy combat, including a contextual dodge that feels rewarding to pull off, less bullet-sponge enemies than RE2, and an assortment of weapons to get you through Jill’s Very Bad Night(s). It makes for a necessary, though shorter, companion to last year’s stellar remake.

7. HADES

I’m experiencing a new type of shame including a title that I haven’t beaten on my Top 10 list, but I can assure you that I’ve dumped hours into its addictive death loop. It’s probably because of my resistance to looking up any tips, but given the skill-check nature of the difficult boss fights, I’m almost afraid the top shelf advice will amount to “die less, idiot.”

My failings aside, Hades is brilliant. It’s the perfect merger of gameplay and storytelling. You play as Zagreus, son of Hades, and your entire goal is to escape your father’s underworld domain. You pick from a selection of weapons, like a huge broadsword or spear, and attempt your “run,” seeing how far you can make it before an undead denizen cuts you down. It’s familiar roguelike territory, but where Supergiant separates their game from the pack is in the unique feeling of constant progression, even as you fail. With each run, not only is Zagreus earning a currency (gems or keys) that unlock new skills that make the next go a little easier, you’re also consistently treated to new lore. The fallen gods and heroes that line your father’s hall greet you after each death and provide a new insight into their world. The writing is bouncy and hilarious, the voice acting ethereal and alluring, and the character designs could make a lake thirsty.

Supergiant’s stylistic leanings are at their peak here. They’ve managed the impossible feat of making failure feel like advancement. Sure, it totally fucks up other roguelikes for me, but that’s okay. None of those games have Meg.

6. DEMON’S SOULS

Whereas Capcom takes liberties with their remakes, Bluepoint took the Gus Van Sant approach and made a 1:1 recreation of the 2009 title that launched the “Soulslike” genre. The dividing difference is a 2020 facelift brought to us by way of the PlayStation 5’s next-gen horsepower. There’s been online arguments (surprise) regarding the loss of Fromsoftware’s visual aesthetic in translating the PS3 original in order to achieve a newfound photorealism. It’s true, some beasties lose their surreal weirdness -- a consequence of revisiting designs without the worry of graphical or time constraints -- but the game’s world is still engrossing, morbid, and bleakly gorgeous.

That’s not to say all Bluepoint did was overhaul the graphics and shove this remake out the door. No, their improvements are nuanced, under-the-hood changes that gently push the genre into the next-generation. For one, the loading times are incredible. You could hop between all five archstones in under a minute if you wanted. And this game is a best DualSense controller showcase outside of Astro’s Playroom. You can feel a demonstrable difference between hitting your sword against a wall compared to connecting it with an attacking creature. Likewise, the controller rumbles menacingly as to let you know enemies are stomping across a catwalk above you. “Better rumbles” was not on my wish list of next-gen features, but the tactile feedback goes great lengths to make you feel like you’re there.

Granted, sticking so closely to the original means its pratfalls are also carried over to the next-gen. The trek between bonfire checkpoints is an eternity compared to the game’s successors, and Fromsoftware hadn’t quite mastered the sword ballet of boss fights prevalent in Dark Souls. Instead, a handful of bosses feel more like set pieces where you’re searching for the “trick” to end it versus having to learn attack patterns and counters. Still, it’s easy to see the design blueprint that bore a whole new genre. From having to memorize enemy placements to hunting down the world’s arcane secrets in the hopes of finding a new item that pushes the odds in your favor. Bluepoint’s quality of life improvements only make it kinder (not easier) to plunge into the game, obsess over its idiosyncrasies, and begin to master every inch of it. That is until you roll into New Game+ and the game shoves a Moonlight Greatsword up your ass.

5. YAKUZA: LIKE A DRAGON

Here’s a fact about me I’m sure you don’t know: I love beat ‘em ups. Streets of Rage 4 had an easy time making it on this list because it can be classified as both a “beat ‘em up” and “good.” Here’s another fact about me: I’m not the biggest fan of JRPGs. I’m told this is not because of any personal preferences I harbor, but rather due to a distinct lack of culture. I’ve made peace with that. At least my uncultured ways are distinctive.

But my disinterest in JRPGs is notable here because it illustrates how very good Like A Dragon is. Transitioning the Yakuza series from a reactive brawler (entrenched in an open-world SIM) to a full-blown turned-based RPG was risky -- especially 8 entries into the mainline series -- but it pays off explosively for Like A Dragon. Not only does the goofiness, melodrama, and kinetic energy translate to an RPG -- it’s improved by it. Beyond a new protagonist -- the instantly likable and infinitely affable Ichiban Kasuga -- we’re finally treated to an ensemble cast that travels with you, interacts with you, and grows with you. Their independent stories weave into Ichi’s wonderfully and end up mattering just as much as his.

The combat doesn’t lose any of its punch now that you’re taking turns. In fact, it feels wilder than ever and still demands situational awareness as your enemies shift around the environment, forcing you to quickly pick which move will do the most damage and turn the fight in your favor. RGG purposefully made Ichi obsessed with Dragon Quest (yes, specifically Dragon Quest) as an excuse to go ham and morph enemies into outlandish fiends that would populate Ichi’s favorite series. It’s a fun meta that never loses its charm.

This is the best first step into a new genre I’ve ever seen an established franchise make and I hope like hell they keep with it for future outings -- and that Ichi returns to keep playing hero. There’s plenty of callbacks and treats for longtime fans, but RGG did a masterful job rolling out the virtual carpet for a whole new generation of Yakuza fanatics.

4. GHOST OF TSUSHIMA

Sucker Punch’s dive into 13th century Japan doesn’t redefine the open-world genre. But like Horizon: Zero Dawn before it, Ghost of Tsushima takes familiar components of the genre and uses them exceptionally well, creating an airtight experience that can’t help but stand out. I can tell Sucker Punch mused on games like Assassin’s Creed and Breath of the Wild, tried to figure out what makes those games tick, and then brought their own spin to those concepts. You can feel it in their obsession to make traversal through the environment as unobtrusive as possible, letting the wind literally guide you to your destinations instead of forcing the player to glue their eyes to a mini-map. You can feel it in how seamless it is to scale a rooftop before silently dropping on a patrol, blade first. You can feel it in the smoothness behind the combat as your sword clashes against the enemy’s. Every discrete part is fine-tuned yet perfectly complements the whole. The game is silk in your hands.

The mainline story can be humdrum, though. It mirrors the beats of a superhero origin story, which isn’t surprising when you account for the three Infamous titles and satellite spinoffs under Sucker Punch’s belt. But Jin Sakai’s personal journey outshines the cookie-cutter plot. His gradual turn from the strict samurai code to a morally ambiguous vigilante lifestyle (to becoming, eventually, a myth) is a fascinating exploration in shifting worldviews. This is bolstered by the well-written side-missions dotting your quest, some of which play out in chains. It’s these diversions about melancholy warriors and villagers adjusting to life under invasion that end up being the essential storytelling within the game. Whatever you do, don’t skip a single one.

Before GoT can overstay its welcome with collectible hunting and stat-tree building, the ride is over. If you find exhaustive open-world titles, well, exhausting, Sucker Punch coded enough of a campaign to sticking the landing and not more. But if you were looking for more, the game’s co-op Legends mode is the surprise encore of the year. It strikes its own tone, with vibrant, trippy designs, and a progression system that embarrasses other AAA titles in the space (I mean Avengers. I’m talking about Avengers).

3. THE LAST OF US PART II

The Last of Us is widely regarded as a masterpiece. It’s a melancholic trek through a realistic post-apocalypse, driven by the budding bond between a world-weary survivor and a would-be teenage savior. The fungal zombies and violent shootouts with scavengers were scary and exciting, but ultimately just window-dressing compared to the level of complicated, and honest, human emotion on display throughout the tale. While a segment of detractors helpfully pointed out that The Last of Us’ story isn’t unique when compared to years of post-apocalyptic books, comics, and movies, that argument seems to forget that a narrative more concerned with the human protagonists’ connections to one another instead of saving the world or feeding into a hero complex is pretty unique for games -- especially a high profile, AAA budgeted game.

Still, fans made heroes out of Joel and Ellie because of their own connection to their journey. And that connection is almost instantly challenged in the opening hours of The Last of Us Part II to heartbreaking effect. But I’m here to tell you that any other sequel would have been dishonest to the legacy of the original game. To be given a hero’s quest as a continuation, an imagined sequel where Joel and Ellie do battle against the viral infection that’s swept the earth, would have been a despicable cash-in. It would have been a mistake to follow-up the original’s careful examination of human nature just to placate an audience that seems to have missed the point Naughty Dog made. The Last of Us Part II hurts. But it has to or else it wouldn’t have been worth making. It’s a slow-burn meditation on the harmful ripples revenge creates, how suffering begets suffering, and how, if we don’t break the cycles of violence we commit to, suffering will come for us.

To drive this point, we’re given two distinct perspectives during the meaty (and somewhat overlong) campaign, split between Ellie Williams, the wronged party seeking revenge, and Abby Anderson, an ex-Firefly whose actions set the sequel into motion. The greatest trick Naughty Dog pulls off isn’t forcing us to play as a character we hate, it’s giving us reasons to emphasize with them. It was gradual, and despite some heavy-handed moments meant to squeeze sympathy out of the player (how many times do I have to see that fuckin’ aquarium?!), I eventually came to love Abby’s side of the story. The obvious irony being that she unwittingly walks the same path Joel did in the original.

My love for the narrative shouldn’t distract from how well designed the world is. Being a King County local, the vision of a ruined Seattle strikes an uncomfortable note -- it was eerie seeing recognizable buildings overgrown with vegetation but otherwise devoid of life. Maybe the heart-wrenching story also distracts from the fact this game is, by definition, survival horror. Exploring toppled buildings in the dark, hearing the animalistic chittering of the infected, defending yourself with limited resources… It manages to be a scarier entry into the genre in 2020 than even RE3R. There’s a particular fight in a fungus covered hospital basement that easily goes down as my Boss Fight of the Year. Human enemies make for clench-worthy encounters, too, with incredibly adept AI that forces you to keep moving around the environment and set traps to avoid getting overwhelmed.

Admittedly, the subject matter -- or more to the point, the grim tone -- was tough to stomach during an actual pandemic which has happily treated us to the worst of human nature. Still, The Last of Us Part II is absolutely worth playing for its balance of mature themes and expertly crafted world, and the way it juxtaposes beauty and awfulness in the same breath.

2. SPIDER-MAN: MILES MORALES

The most impressive thing about Miles Morales is that, despite being a truncated midquel rather than a full-blown sequel, it’s a better game than 2018’s Spider-Man. It’s not because of the instantaneous loading times or the fancy ray-tracing techniques used on the PS5 version of the game. Rather, it’s how it takes the joyride of the original game and hones it into a laser focused experience filled to the brim exclusively with highs. Like Batman: Arkham Asylum going into Arkham City, Miles starts the game off with his mentor’s best abilities and tools. From there, he discovers his own powers, his bioelectric venom strike, which ends up feeling like the missing ingredient from the first game’s combat.

Your open-world playground -- a locale in the Marvel universe called “New York City” -- is exactly the same size as the previous installment, which helps avoid making the game feel “lesser.” But Insomniac wisely consolidated the random crimes Peter faced into a phone app that Miles can check and choose which activity to help out with. Choices like this really trim the fat from the main game and help alleviate “the open-world problem” where the story’s pacing suffers because players are spending hours on end collecting feathers. This is great because Miles’ story is also great. The narrative kicks Peter out pretty early on, focusing on how Miles assumes the role of city protector, primarily focused on his new home in Harlem. Insomniac avoids retreading the same path paved by Into the Spider-Verse by telling a relatable tale where Miles defines his identity as Spider-Man. With a strong cast led by Nadji Jeter as Miles, the game lands an impactful story that weaves its own new additions to Miles’ mythos (light spoiler: I loved their take on The Prowler).

Miles Morales was pure virtualized joy from start to finish. A requirement of the platinum trophy is to replay the entirety of the game on New Game+. I didn’t hesitate to restart my adventure the minute the credits were over. Everything I loved about 2018’s Spider-Man is here: the swinging, the fighting, the gadgets, the bevy of costumes. But it gave me a new element I adore and can’t see Insomniac’s franchise proceeding without: being Miles Morales.

1. FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE

I love subversive media, I do. And Square Enix’s “remake” of one the most beloved video games ever made subverts expectations by openly acknowledging that, yes, the original story you love exists and is consistently referenced in this game. But this is not that story. This is something..else. Because the truth is, SE could never have recreated FFVII and delivered a title that matched the Sacred Game fans created in their heads. That impossible standard is like an imagined deity, given power by feeding on raw nostalgia reinforced by years of word-of-mouth and appearances on Top 100 lists. I’m not saying FFVII is a bad game or that fans give it too much credit. Not at all. There’s a reason it’s so influential -- it’s good! But memory works in a funny way over time. We have a tendency to codify our perception of a thing over the reality of it. The connection we make to certain media, especially when introduced at a young age as FFVII had been to a whole generation of fans so long ago, creates a legend in our heads. Unfortunately, it’s a legend no developer could achieve when tasked with remaking it.

So Square...didn’t. Final Fantasy VII Remake has the same characters, setting, and plot beats as the first third of the original game but it’s not the same game, nor is it a remake of it in the traditional sense. It’s something new. And I fucking love that about it.

Everything is reconfigured, including the combat. After years of trying to merge RPG mechanics with more approachable (and marketable) real-time action (see FFXV and the Kingdom Hearts games for examples), Square Enix finally landed on the perfect balance. You fully control Cloud on the battlefield, from swinging your impossibly huge buster sword to dodging attacks. The ATB gauge (no one knows what the acronym stands for -- that information has been lost to time) gradually fills up, letting unleash powerful moves. But best of all, you fight in a party, and you can switch who to control on the fly.

That may not sound revolutionary, let alone for a Final Fantasy, but each character has a completely unique feel and suite of moves. At times, it feels like playing a Devil May Cry game where you can switch between Dante, Vergil, and Nero on the fly (that’s a free idea, Capcom. Hire me, you cowards). You can soften up an enemy with Cloud’s buster to increase their stagger meter, switch to Barret for a quick gatling barrage, and finally switch to Tifa to crush them with her Omnistrike. You can accomplish this in real-time or slow down the action to plan this out. It’s a great mix of tactics and action that prevents the game from feeling like a mindless hack n’ slash.

What really, really works here is the character work. Each lead walks in tropes first, but the longer you spend with the members of your party, the more their motivations and fears are laid out. You end up having touching interactions with just about the whole main cast. There’s a small segment, after Cloud saves Aerith from invading Shinra guards, that the two make an escape via rooftop.They make light conversation -- small talk really -- but it’s exchanges like this that feel genuine, perfectly framing their characters (stoic versus heartfelt), and grounding an otherwise larger-than-life adventure.

Many bemoaned the fact that FFVIIR only revisits a small portion of the original game, but I think it was a brilliant choice -- to massively expand on areas we only got to see a little of in the original. I honestly didn’t want to leave Midgar. It’s a world rife with conflict and corporate oppression, sure, but Midgar is beautifully realized, from the slums below the plates, populated with normal people trying to make the best of life, to the crime controlled Wall Market, adorned with gaudy lights and echoing honky tonk tunes. It very well may be years before FFVII’s remake saga comes to a close, but if each entry is paved with as much love and consideration and, yes, storytelling subversion as this introductory chapter… It’ll be worth the wait.

#gaming

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swordmaid · 4 years

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Tagged by the lovely @samirant <3

rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 favourite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world. tag as many writers/artists/etc as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

a.k.a in which i try to write stuff that i haven’t already ranted about in the tags of the original post

1.it’s always summer in the songs ☀️ | AH YES. this one. the one that i will always bring up whenever i get asked these sort of things. i think i’ve talked about it in the tags but i like this piece even more because all the characters here (brienne, jaime, honor) were actually drawn in detail--as in--i drew everyone separately then joined them altogether--AS IN--the parts that are covered up by another character is actually drawn with its own detailing and all that jazz. this is specifically towards honor who a.) i’ve never drawn before and i had never been confident to draw animals so i actually had to draw a FULL HORSE this time which was daunting and had to size him appropriately b.) the outfit he wears, straps for the saddle, his belts, etc. they all have their own detailing! jaime’s sitting on it, but there’s actually a sash that loops around his back with the symbols of the seven pointed star. i was going to continue over on the front with the same symbols but it got cut out because of the crop. the little tree on the side/foreground originally had more branches and leaves but i just pushed it to the side else wise it would’ve looked awkward. i also designed j/b’s armor while i was working on this, and jaime’s detailing took me a lil while to figure out because i was referencing loosely off like, 5 images lol. brienne’s face angle was hard to get right and it looked awkward in my sketches but i got lucky with it in the end aaand this was also the first time i drew oathkeeper in detail. overall, i put a LOT of details in this one but it just took me a good three days to finish it. i loved it even more because i never felt like i was slogging through it when i was working on it, which is the most important thing haha.

2. might i have this dance, my lady? | this one is particularly special for me since this is when i finalized their overall design i think. i used to always bring up this drawing as a reference when i draw my j/b (but now i use another one hehe.) anyway, this one was actually the starting point for the one i drew above because of the detailing on jaime’s armor--which i just drew freely and doesn’t have any symbolic meaning behind it whatsoever. this was the start of me adding more and more details into my art because i realized that they weren’t too hard to add and i do enjoye drawing them. i also like this one because i drew brienne’s body in detail and i spent the time drawing up silhouettes over it to find the most flattering dress i can fit her in, and i’m happy i struck with this one! oh and it’s subtle but i tried to make their outfits match with the gold detailing on jaime’s armor/the light yellow accents on brienne’s blue dress hehe.

3. i’ve known the warmth of your doorways | my quiet isle riighhhtsssss. i screeched while i was thinking up of the concept of this tbh it hit me good. i particularly LOVE oathkeeper in this one because he looks like an expensive sword here and not like one of those pens with an animal topper. anyway, i love post adwd / post lsh fics so i tried to do a rendition of my own uvu i also love hand kisses---and honessstlyyyyy-- this one is just a mashup of my favorite tropes tbh LOL

4. ICHOR | oh my god a non jb art. i did this one a couple of years ago, and it��s a digital painting of my oc amara !!! i like this one because of how I rendered the hair. some of it reminds me of marble and i love it even to this day--which is particularly rare because i always end up hating my shit a couple on months after. this was the art style i had before, but i just changed it when i started to draw jb because this one was complicated to do + it took too much time, and i wanted to draw a LOT of jb lol (and i don’t think the style fits them as well to be honest)

5. that gym scene in modern aus | back to jb arts!! and AH yes from brienne’s physique, jaime’s slutty crop top, the man bun, mesh leggings, and their dumb rainbow guard and kingsguard designs, this one was incredibly self indulgent and i love everything it implies and represents. fun fact i had to go through so many thirst traps in ig just to draw jaime’s body properly LOL i do my research ok

tagging: @ayofandomthings / @fawnilu / @darcydash 🥰🥰

#long post.#thank you so much for the tag <3 this was fun #and also very sorry for the length LOL i talk too much #i would've added my jb renaissance art series majig but i think ya'll know i already like that one #i just realized i've been drawing AUs these days. do ya'll prefer if i draw canon based jb art or my dumb aus???#or like scenes from the book sort of things #but anyway WHEW someone doesn't ship jb. clearly !!

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fvlminare · 4 years

Text

✗✗✗ you see [ camille rivas ] around lately? yeah i heard that the [ cis female ] is up to no good. [ she / her ] has been here for [ three years ] now but they’re still pretty [ calculating ] which is fine because they’re also [ ardent ] so it balances out. the [ twenty-six ] year old [ dancer at mayhem ] actually looks like a lot like [ sofia carson ], don’t you think? it’s best to watch out, though, because it’s been said that they’re really into [ the rush of cocaine in her veins & a vice grip on her throat ].

henlo it me again! i hope u guys aren’t sick of me yet bc here’s my other bb! say hello to my boss-ass bish gal camile! she’s sassy, classy and a lil badassy. she’s a rather feisty, fiery, ball of rage and anger who cba with ur bullshit tbh n she’ll tell u this too if u piss her off enough! she’s lowkey cutthroat and always out for number one, aka: herself. but, i mean, she does have some redeeming qualities and her hair is bomb af so that makes up for it all really, doesn’t it? basically that meme: ‘ she’s beauty, she’s grace, she’ll punch you in the face. ’ anywho, you know the drill, slap a lil luv on this n i’ll come pester u for all the good stuff : - )

fundamentals.

CAMILLE ALARA RIVAS — twenty-six, dancer at mayhem, + an honest-to-god vixen / hellcat / lil demoness !

aesthetics ➤ dresses of black lace and red velvet, the scent of chanel perfume lingering in the air as she floats past, blood-red fingertips coiled around the pistol grip of a gun, red-bottomed heels clicking against marble floors, rose gold highlighter shimmering along the height of prominent cheekbones, satin dresses draped over a svelte frame that is shrouded in an air of mystery and intrigue, baby pink roses in a vase on the window sill, deft fingers stained with charcoal and oil paint, the melodic chime of piano keys, delicate digits adorned with moonstone gem rings, a coy smile spread across full crimson lips, long raven locks blowing in the cool breeze of a summer’s evening, battered books with dog-eared pages, a sense of freedom and carelessness when dancing for fun, & a sense of allurement and captivation when dancing for work.

nicknames. cam, cami, mil, millie, spawn of satan >:~)

date of birth. april tenth.

gender. cis female.

pronouns. she + her.

birthplace. manhattan, new york.

orientation. pansexual + demiromantic.

education. bachelor of dance degree obtained from nyu tisch school of the arts.

spoken languages. can speak fluent english, spanish, & latin.

negative traits. capricious, ornery, impulsive, guileful, caustic, brusque, obstinate, destructive, deceptive, & promiscuous.

positive traits. ardent, whimsical, intrepid, graceful, poised, elegant, headstrong, observant, independent, & confident.

strengths. optimistic, energetic, creative, practical, spontaneous, rational, knows how to prioritise, great in a crisis, & relaxed.

weaknesses. stubborn, insensitive, private, reserved, easily bored, dislikes commitment, & has a rather risky behaviour.

talents. ballet, knife throwing, hand-to-hand combat, horse riding, figure skating, piano, violin, painting, singing, & dancing.

physiology. hazel eyes. dark brown hair. five feet, four inches tall. of a petite, slender stature with subtle curves and long hair. has a long silvery scar on her back. her skin is clean of any tattoos. has both earlobes pierced. requires glasses but wears contacts most days. is right-handed.

psychology. aries zodiac. fire element. ravenclaw house. istp-a. true neutral. type seven enneagram. choleric temperament. intra-personal intelligence type. addicted to alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis. suffers from addiction and abandonment issues. her vices are lust, greed and wrath. her virtues are ... ( again ) honestly, probably just diligence tbh.

background.

possible triggers : child abandonment, abandonment issues, foster homes, alcohol, drugs, violence, gore, blood, murder, & death.

a synopsis. ok so for this gal, let’s all give a big, warm welcome to sadness ( no, i was in no way at all inspired by salem from sabrina for that line ) bc boy oh boy, her life has been constant grief and pain, tbh. strap in for the bumpy ride, i’ll give u cookies for compensation. OK SO, camille was abandoned as a baby, never did—and still doesn't—know her biological parents and she doesn’t want to either, tbh. she bounced around from foster home to foster home, never sticking in one place for too long. given her turbulent upbringing, she was somewhat of a difficult child. too boisterous, too unruly, too stubborn, too inquisitive. too much of everything but never enough of anything. never enough for anybody to want her. it didn’t take the girl too long to figure out that it was just her alone, against the big bad world. from the age that she was old enough to realise it, camille knew that she had to fend for herself—that she could never truly rely on a single soul but herself. the hollowness inside her chest never quite satiated, leaving her empty and only too well aware of the lack of her real parental figures. as a young adolescent, this started to crawl under her skin and mess with her mind. it rendered her void of affection and unable to form genuine bonds with others—filling her with deep-rooted resentment that festered beneath the surface of the indifferent demeanour she plastered over herself every day. she always felt starved of love: as if some integral part of her heart was missing, leaving a gaping void that nobody could ever fill. anywho, she fell in with the wrong crowd which did little to aid her foster families hostility toward her. truthfully, most of her experiences in various homes were ... not pleasant. she’d encountered abusive ‘parents,’ horrible ‘siblings,’ and even worse schooling days. pressing the self-destruct button is this gal’s speciality thus she found herself gravitating towards her vices: things and people she knew were no good for her. drink, drugs, people, you name it. quickly, she realised that these things were no longer any good at keeping her dark side at bay: she needed something more, something deeper. thus, she began going down the road of petty crimes—stealing cars, smashing windows, theft, setting fires both metaphorically and literally. due to this lifestyle, she wound up entangled with some real shady folk who did … even shadier things. most specifically, she started dating a real jackass who was violent and truthfully, a horrible person, really. stupidly, she decided to run off into the metaphorical sunset with him * insert eye roll emoji here. * so, fast forward a year or so and things took a swift nosedive when her lowlife boyfriend’s hands were round her throat and not in the kinky way. while she’d clawed at him and tried to fight him off, she struggled against his weight and strength until, eventually, she lifted the first makeshift weapon she felt: a rusted pair of scissors. [ TRIGGER FOR VIOLENCE, GORE, BLOOD, MURDER, DEATH ] and, in a blind state of panic, she jammed them right into his jugular vein, his blood squirting out and decorating her face in crimson splatters. he’d stumbled backwards, clutched onto his neck, blood spurting from the webs between his fingers. naturally, camille was shook about this but somehow managed to flee the scene with less guilt rattling her soul than she’d imagined. [ TRIGGER OVER ] in her mind, it was an act of self defence. it wasn’t too long after the incident that she found herself in a rather perilous situation that resulted in her sudden realisation that she needed to get her damn life on track. therefore, she done the responsible adult thing and got herself a decent education. somehow, she managed to get into university where her life started to shape into a positive one—the kind she’d always dreamed of. once she graduated, camille decided that she wanted to see the world. following a couple of years travelling, she wound up in santa ysabel where she quickly fell into the employment of mayhem. admittedly, this was a far cry from the future she’d envisioned when she was just a sweet, innocent lil child. still, all in all, she kind of digs who she is and what she is: after everything she’s been through, she loves herself. it’s been a long and winding road but camille finally believes that she’s settled in her life now. tho she still refuses to let people in, her abandonment issues terrifying her to the degree that she feels that anybody she’d ever let into her life would eventually leave her in the end. * insert sad face emoji here. *

random extras.

her tell? playing with her hair: when she’s lying, nervous, flirting—you name it!

can drink any man under the table.

she loves art in every form: paintings, sculptures, music, dance, people, etc. she loves the freedom that expressing herself through these mediums gives her.

she’s ... experimental. she’s experimented with just about everything: hairstyles, clothing, drink, drugs, people ...

can be hella calculating and vindictive so do not cross her.

quite power-hungry tbh.

she does have a shot at redemption but she doesn’t want it lmao. she’s already been to hell so why bother trying to right her wrongs?

and boy, are her wrongs a century-long list shkjsh.

high key is not above killing people who don’t do things her way.

doesn’t believe she’s capable of loving anyone.

she’s lowkey a perfectionist to the point of being ruthless, also cutthroat and egotistical.

if ya ain’t of use to her, then what the heck is ur purpose???

she’s v ambitious, v morally ambiguous, v self-serving and v self-involved.

she can be ... aggressive sometimes and most definitely has anger issues.

dry sense of humour one million per cent.

her signature look is her blood-red lips.

extremely skilled with knives and blades. and always carries one on her person at all times.

her most prized possession is her brushed chrome zippo lighter. it has her initials engraved into it and where she got it from, or who is something she’ll never tell.

always says she needs to quit smoking but never does and probably never will either.

did someone say ... resting bitch face???

tho when she smiles it’s like sunshine uwu

high key will sleep with anyone.

first place is the ONLY acceptable place, ok???

one of those people who just excels at everything she tries her hand at.

absolutely adores animals. much prefers them to humans.

she’s quite adventurous and loves to feel the adrenaline in her blood.

doesn’t take herself or her life too seriously.

always up for a good time and is usually the life of the party.

outspoken and quick-witted with a sharp tongue.

much too sassy and sarcastic for her own good.

really, she does what she wants to, when she wants to, without seeking the approval of others.

truthfully? she’s a bit of a spitfire if you really irk her. so, watch out.

you can find a pinterest board for her by clicking anywhere here.

#* dj khaled vc * anotha one !!!#slap a lil heart on this n i'll hit ya up for le plots !!!#indulgence.intro

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parkeraul · 5 years

Note

pls a cute fluffy boyfriend shawn for my sad ass.

category is: blurb night

things i love

“I love your hair,” Shawn says lowly, playing with your hair while you’re resting your head on his lap. “Have I said this before?” You shift a little, rolling to the other side so now your face is milimiters away from his stomach. Your body is laid across the bed in a horizontal position while Shawn stays in vertical, the blankets all messy to cover both your and his frame as the snow falls outside, painting the window white. “My hair?” You ask, lifting an eyebrow as he keeps himself distracted, twisting the strands of your hair gently between his calloused fingers and his other hand comes to give you a head rub meanwhile. “M-hm,” He mumbles, his hazel eyes attentive on every little thing on your hair: the colour, the texture, the scent coming up to his nostrils and the way it’s so soft against his touch. “It’s the best hair in the world.” No need to say his words have no sense right now, but you didn’t dare to blame him — knowing he’s very tired and he just wants to enjoy the time he’s got with you, seizing the opportunity to confess all of his thoughts because maybe they could build up a song sooner or later. Instead, you only let out a small laugh, looking up at him as his smile starts to show up in his rosy face, little scar lifting up with his cheeks and he’s the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen. “I love your ear too,” He notices it when he tucks a thick strand behind it, the skin of your ear getting colder now exposed to the temperature of the room. “A piercing like mine wouldn’t look bad, though.” “Then it’s not that pretty,” You say, making him grimace playfully and poke out his tongue towards you, still not looking directly at you. He wants to give every inch the attention they deserve in the specific time he’s reserving to all of them. His tongue then moistens his lips as he caresses the thin skin. “Obviously it is!” Shawn says, slightly offended. “Just sayin’ you should give it a try, it would look even prettier. That’s what I meant.” You chuckle at his drama, closing your eyes as you feel the tenderness of his touch coming to your eyelid. It’s kinda weird, but you don’t frown. You just let him enjoy and trace it delicately. “You also have the most beautiful eyes,” He vents, sighing to ease the pace his heart picked, beating faster and fluttering in his chest. “God, your eyes…” “They’re closed, dork,” You mutter, laughing thinly. “How do you know they’re beautiful?” “Shhh, necessary things are being said,” He intensifies the head rub as if he’s trying to calm a crying baby. “Dork.” “Okay, Mr. Know-It-All,” You give in, leaning against his graze. “I’m all ears.” “That’s one of the things I think about the most when you’re away,” He gulps before moving on, knowing that soon you’ll see each other less often. “I… I think I’ve memorized the way they look. Like when you see your favourite dessert or a puppy down the streets. Your pupils just go… Whoa!” “What does that even mean?” “I don’t know,” The coherent arguments seem to fly away from him. “They grow so big and your eyes start brightening like crazy.” “And that’s cute because…?” “Because,” He takes a deep breath, looking down at you and releasing your eyelid so your eyes can open again, immediately finding his greenish eyes. “Because that’s what they do when you see me.” Your lips part a little, face contorting to hold back a tear or whatever this thing burning inside your chest is. Between screaming, mewling and holding him for dear life, you limit yourself to stay still and process the information again and again. A part of you thinks that you’re the luckiest girl in the world and the other part suffers in advance, denying the luck because the tour is going to be back in a week and he’s going to be far away again. “That’s creep of me to say but when you come running to me at the airport… Like…” Shawn struggles to find a decent way to finish his sentence, immersed in the way you’re staring at him with curious eyes. “This is why I always hold your face before hugging you. ‘S too damn cute.” His grin is too damn cute. His perfect smile is warming your whole body even though his mouth is standing up in there, distant while he moves his tattooed hand to your nose. “This little thing in here,” Shawn travels a finger up and down, feeling the curve of your nose all the way from the top to the tip and, before letting go, he pinches the tip weakly, making you scrunch your nose and smile too. “It just suits you so well, and it looks so… So perfect. ” “Shawn…” “M-mm, babe,” He nods in denial. “That’s not up for discussion. It is perfect.” Totally vulnerable, you let him go on. He spends a few extra seconds on your nose before cupping the side of your face so he can rub his thumb along your warm cheek, contrasting with the icy digit going back and forth calmly. “Hey,” Shawn says, rising his tone a little bit to his recent discovery. “Your face fits so good on my palm,” He points out, changing the position of his hand lazily so he can prove his theory to himself in all possible ways as he watches you leaning in everytime he moves differently. “Never noticed this before.” “Never?” “Never. Have you?” “Not really, to be honest.” Shawn tries some squeezes, swelling your cheek up enough to nearly hide your eye and then he lets go, massaging it and intensifying his graze still lovingly. And he keeps on fondling the expansion of your cheek, studying the little details on the surface and enjoying the smoothness by drawing random patterns with more than just his thumb now, eventually pulling your hair back — from the very edge of your hairline to where his fingers disappear into the strands; from your forehead to the back of your head — and coming back to your face. He has no idea of how many times he did it, but he knows it’s been a long while since he’s been doing this action when he sees your eyes blinking slower, threatening to shut down in a peaceful sleep. “I love these lips,” He whispers more to himself, afraid to disturb you. His thumb follows the outline of your mouth and sweetly slides to the middle where they part faintly, so plump and so silky against his calloused finger. “I love how heavenly they feel pressed to mine. Since the very first time we kissed, they never ever failed to get me compelled,” You can listen him, but you pretend that you don’t so he can continue shamelessly. “If I could I’d kiss them endlessly, babe. If you only knew how much I miss them.” Gentle as ever, he tries to pull you closer to him. Instantly, you help him out by lifting up your body to nuzzle against his broad chest as he tilts your head up by the chin, pecking your lips a couple of times lazily. He doesn’t mean to be seductive or dirty, he just wants to feel your lips touching unhurriedly. You feel that stubborn curl of his falling down between your foreheads, tickling you two — but it doesn’t stop you from deepening the kiss. His large hand closes all the space between you (if that’s even possible), placed on the nape of your neck as the other one works with his arm to hold you tight. It’s not really the most comfortable way to kiss, but it’s not that bad as long as he’s holding you and kissing you with all he’s got. His tongue licks the inner part bottom lip and you promptly allow him to let it entwine with yours, humming at the moment your lips lock again, letting out a smack sound. “Mmm, I love your moans…” He murmurs against you, making you shiver and shriek. “What?” “Mendes! You just ruined all the moment.” “But I don’t mean sexually,” Shawn explains himself, eyes still closed and his expressions start to show, eyebrows widening at first before he keeps on justifying. “Like, of course sexually but more than that,” He lifts his index finger up, hand still taking care of your body so he won’t let it fall back. “They sound so good?! I could literally record them and replay all over again for the rest of my life.” “And then what? Put them in a song?” You get up, his embrace still rounding your frame while you manage to straddle his lap, sitting comfortably on his massive thighs. As you wait for his response, you cross your arms in front of your chest. “I’d be lying if I said they’re not melodic,” He answers, holding your waist more fiercely. “You once hit a very nice note.” “You asshole!” You shout, palms spreading all over the muscles on his chest. “I can’t believe you think about music when we’re having sex!” “I don’t! I don’t, I swear,” He laughs, grabbing your wrists and tugging them behind his neck, you two standing now chest-to-chest. “And I would never put them in a song. I like that they’re for me only,” Shawn’s boyish grin gets your knees failing and you would surely be falling down right now if the bed wasn’t below you. “They are, right?” You move forwards, pressing your forehead against his shoulder as your laugh comes out muffled by his skin. “Of course they are,” You say, returning to look him deep in the eyes. “Dork.”

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes imagines #shawn mendes blurb #shawn mendes blurbs #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes fanfics #shawn mendes masterlist #ficsofmine #mine #the blurb saga**

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thegreenfairy13 · 4 years

Text

Chaos and Control

A Sex Pollen Gobblepot fic with a NC warning. Jeremiah offers a drugged Jim to Oswald.

Read chapter one on Ao3 or here:

Jeremiah’s breath is hot on Oswald’s nape. The mobster shudders as a hand claps possessively over his shoulder but he does nothing to fight the touch or to bring some distance between himself and the Joker.

“Pengyyyyy,” he sing-songs, drawing the pet name out abysmally long and Oswald finally flinches. Nothing about this encounter is pleasant. The Clown’s breath is acidic, as if he hadn’t eaten for days, he reeks of hunger, cigarettes, and something decidedly chemical, something repulsive.

He hauls the Penguin closer, digs his digits into the soft flesh of Oswald’s stomach, wishing him scream for his guards, for someone, anyone who’d finally take the Clown down for good.

But it’s Gotham. He needs him. They need each other.

So he stays silent.

“I have a present for you,” he whispers then, eyes wide and unfocused. “Such a beautiful, beautiful present,” he repeats, dropping his voice a few octaves and Oswald snorts, or tries to. The noise he makes is supposed to sound cocky but is probably solely desperate. To be honest, he simply wants this transaction to be done.

The Clown studies him then with big, translucent eyes. Eyes that have been drained of any color, lost in a sea of battered flesh. The man’s entire visage, his entire being, has been shattered and glued back together by someone not knowing what a human face is supposed to look like. If he could, Oswald would hide under the table and wait for his mother to come and rescue him.

But being the King of Gotham, he has to suffer through the entire ordeal.

“I will sweeten our deal,” Jeremiah carries on as his tongue darts out to lick a long, disgusting stripe from the column of his throat up to his cheek. The gangster takes a mental note to burn the cravat he’s currently wearing.

“That’s not necessary,” he croaks out in response, voice horse and unsteady. God, he just wishes Jeremiah would finally leave.

The Clown positively beams at him, takes a step back, and shakes his head. “No, no, no,” he crows. “That’s so impolite ,” he preens, “to look a gift-horse in the mouth.”

He cackles then, unfettered and unhinged, and Oswald starts wondering why he agreed to this in the first place, why he couldn’t simply strike a deal with the GCPD, Jim’s righteousness and sanctimony aside.

At least the Captain never makes his skin crawl or gives him the feeling of death still being his most favorable option.

But then it’s not that, isn’t it? It never is, in fact. He’d gladly deal with Jim and his high morals every day if they wouldn’t make his skin crawl in an entirely different way. If he wouldn’t still admire the Captain, Gotham’s imperturbable Knight, who would occasionally strike a deal with the devil solely to save his beloved city just to bounce back into the light the second his blood had dried on the contract. And then he’d burn the paper and turn his back on all the demons and carry on with being who he always was, always will be.

“What if I gave you,” Jeremiah whispers huskily, effectively cutting through the Penguin’s musings, “everything you ever wanted?” “If I made your greatest desire come true, hm?” he asks, eyes flashing red as he smiles benevolently down at the mobster.

This time, Oswald snorts for real.

The Clown’s smile merely widens in response. “What if I brought you our dear, old Jim?” he presses. “Debased,” he adds. “Brought down to our level, begging and sobbing for your touch?”

Jeremiah’s grin is something else as he speaks, unsettling, and unreal.

Oswald sucks in a breath through his teeth, struggles for breath as he gapes at the other, unsure how to respond.

The Clown cackles again. It’s a metallic sound, callous and cruel. He raises a finger into the air, halting any protests the Penguin might have.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he tells him with mock sympathy. “I got eyes, too,” he adds, pointing at those two balls of flesh that allow him to see. “He’s sooooo pretty,” he croons. “All that blonde hair, those fine abs, those perfectly defined cheekbones.”

His already abysmal face contorts into a demonic grimace as he grins again. “I’d be dead myself not to notice,” he cackles. “And those cheekbones,” he adds. “I think I’d cut myself slapping them, don’t you?” he asks nonchalantly.

Oswald gulps, rolls his shoulders, and finally settles on glaring at the Clown.

“I have seen the way you’re looking at him,” he continues, almost suffocating from laughter. “We all have. I have to say, I quite like it,” he tells Oswald, slowly regaining control over his voice again.

Pulling a purple glove from his hand, the Clown reveals more marred skin. “This repressed lust. This unprecedented hate. For you must hate him, don’t you?” Jeremiah urges, pressing all the Penguin’s buttons. “After all his betrayals,” he concludes once more pressing his body up against Oswald’s, “you must hate him as much as you love him.”

The Clown tilts his head curiously, wets his lips, and stares intently at his counterpart. “Don’t we all?”

Oswald struggles in his grasp, he tries to yank his arm free, but Jeremiah’s hold on him is too strong. “It’s endearing really,” he laughs. “How you’re not even trying to deny it. How you’re always standing too close to him, practically sharing his breath. How you’re always a tad bit too lenient with him. If any of us dared to do the things Jim does to you, they’d be drifting in Gotham river,” he finishes, staring expectantly at the Penguin, and finally loosening his grip.

If Oswald could, he would fight Jeremiah. Would deny everything he just said. Instead, the words I have a present for you are ringing in his ears. He shouldn’t ask, shouldn’t push

Instead, he finds himself intrigued. Wanting. Finds himself asking and Jeremiah pushing him up against the wall.

Oswald’s head hit the bricks with a muffled thud. “I have never raped anyone,” he breathes out, hands clawing at the other’s shirt and his breath must be ragged for the Clown shows yellow, rotten teeth again.

“You’ve done far worse,” he replies easily as he starts toying with the tie around Oswald’s neck. And he did, he has to admit that if nothing else. Had tortured and maimed and gladly so.

“What would you say?” he asks the Penguin, clicking his tongue against his teeth, “if I gave you Gordon? Writhing and whining, bent over the closest surface, needy like a bitch in heat and ripe for you for the taking?” He arches an expectant eyebrow at Oswald and the Clown’s breath seems that much hotter all of a sudden.

The gangster’s throat runs dry. He can picture it with crystal clarity, this image Jeremiah is painting. Jim bent over his desk, pants tangled around his ankles, restraining his movements. A fat cock leaking against a pristine surface, already making a mess of things. His ass up in the air, waiting for him to ruin it, to take what had ever been his.

He swallows heavily, hardly dares to look up.

Jeremiah places a digit against his lip. “Don’t you wanna do bad things to him?” he asks and Oswald can only nod. Because yes, there is lust. But there is also something more, something darker.

His fingers clench around his cane as he tries keeping his expression blank, unfathomable, even though he knows he’s failing.

“If I told you,” Jeremiah tilts his chin up once he knows he’s won, “Ivy gave me a little something and I made a little something , would you be interested?”

And Oswald simply stares, lost in thought and want. “But why would you do that?” he finally breathes out, brain almost clouded with possibilities.

Jeremiah simply smiles. “Because,” he drawls, stepping closer to the Penguin, engulfing him in heat and scent, “I love myself a little chaos and you love yourself a little control.”

#gobblepot #jim gordon x oswald cobblepot #Oswald Cobblepot x Jeremiah Valeska (one-sided)#nc #fanfiction

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shesawriter39049 · 5 years

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|OUR GIRL |M|PT 6 |

(BTW I JUST ADORE THIS GIF..BUT PHYSICALLY THE BOYS LOOKS HOW THEY DO NOW..LONG SHAGGY HAIR..TAN SKIN..A WHOLE ASS THIRST TRAP)

VHOPE X OC (Taehyung x OC/ HOSEOK X OC)

***YOUR BOYS FINALLY PUT THAT SPARE KEY TO USE AND SURPRISE YOU WHILE THERE ON BREAK***

AN ESTABLISHED FWB SITUATION…..

IDOL BTS X FAN-ISH OC

PURE SMUT NO PLOT...your boys are both whipped AF

Hoseok’s a whole daddy....(The kink itself is light but the traits are strong AF)

Tae’s your baby boy...more so because he’s the youngest of the threesum

Switch Tae...typically the OC is also a switch but she’s kinda being a sub tonight..she’s feelin a little needy!

2.5K

Also Tae’s a little snitch lol ...

WARNINGS: Dirty talk, light spit play, light cum play, teasing, a slight pain/choking kink,oral (F receiving) light daddy kink, soft dom Hoseok, mentions of bondage, drawn out foreplay if you will….

Very light MxM they kiss towards the end...but I mean it’s clear this FWB situation goes in both directions!

“Babyyy” Cooed past his lips, brushing against the side of your neck, you could literally feel the need in his voice. Faint airy kisses being painted along your skin had your eyes fluttering open, vision still hazy amongst the darkness. To be fair you felt the bed shift..you also felt hands roaming down your body, but you knew who it was..you knew his touch!

Yet you didn't wake up right away...to be honest you thought you were dreaming, considering it’s been damn near 3 months since you've seen your boys. Your dreams had become very ...Vivid will say.. Sucking on the sweetpost at the base of your neck, grinding his hips against your own, the only barrier between the two of you was the rough fabric of his jeans. The warmth from his skin flush against your own “Taee…” his name fell you your lips in nothing more than a moan, you were already panting and he barely touched you, nuzzling your nose into his hair, needing to take in his natural scent!

Nothing but the humm of the fan buzzing through your ears,kissing his way down your body, until he was buried between your thighs. Placing soft languid kisses against your clit before sucking it between his lips . Every flick of the tongue damn near had you running up the bed you were so sensitive, it’s been way too long since someone besides yourself has made you come.

“Hi baby….”No matter how dark it was you could see the smirk on his face clear as day, lips moving over to nuzzle against your thigh. Leaving open mouth kisses against your flesh, sucking the sensitive skin between his teeth. Letting his tongue take a lap around your bikini line until you were practically throbbing for him to come back to your core. You could feel yourself starting to clench around NOTHING just because you needed some sort of stimulation...

Laying a couple kitten licks against the hood of your clit, body jolting at every end , Instinctively your hands roamed down your stomach and nestled into his hair,letting them get lost in the long wavy mane that’s formed along his scalp. “Tae, babyyy” This time when the words fell from your lips it was desperate,frantic, needy. There was just something about feeling his hair tickle your thighs as he unraveled you nerve by nerve that made this seem...real! Suddenly you needed so much, nothing felt like enough, you needed to feel his man every damn were because it’s felt like years since you’ve had him! Your entire body was tingling as your heart thumped rapidly in your chest.

Caressing his cheek in your hand, stroking it fondly, loving how soft, and warm he felt! “Missed you” vibrated against your folds as he dove back in, not wasting any time giving you everything you needed and then some! Tongue taking its time to explore every niche within your folds as if it was his first time tasting you. Allowing himself to get reacquainted with your body all over again, deep breathy moans zipped through every nerve in your body as he tasted you. “Hmm, your soo good baby, you taste so fuckin good…”

“Tae-fuck…” Your were already so gone , mind in a haze, as your nails alternated between his back and his scalp, stroking every inch of skin you could reach . Almost as if you thought if you let go you’d wake up and realize this was all just a dream!

No matter how immersed you were it didn't take you long to snap out of it upon realizing someone was missing. Propping yourself up on your elbows, stroking his hair out of his face “T-Tae, wheres-” Neck rolling back on your shoulders as your muscles tightened, thighs shaking, as he sucked your clit between his lips, at a relentless pace. Grazing the budd between his teeth, eliciting just the right amount of pain! Clearly he had no intentions of letting up until you came all over his face. “Go easy on me baby-fuckkk-...” The last syllable hanging off your tongue for longer than you intended. The grip you held on his hair only got tighter as your body jerked and seized under his hold. Completely ignoring your cries and pleads, only making him dig his nails even deeper into your thighs so you couldn’t wiggle away!You could feel him smiling against your heat, as you panted out desperately just needed a moment….shit!

“I’m right here...be a good girl for Tae baby….”Fuck, there he was, you could feel the control in his voice,in true Jung Hosoek fashion, it was never a question..always a statment. Frame resting against the door, strolling in your direction far to slow for your liking. “Let baby boy have his fun...all he could talk about was how bad he needed to taste you..let Tae make you come baby…..let him give you what you need” The emphines on the word “Need” set every nerve on your body ablaze in combination with the pure lust the rolled off his tongue, as he oh so calmly told you what to do.

“Your looking at me like you wanna fuck the shit outta me…” Hoseok breathed out with an airy chuckle discarding his shirt in the process, pulling it over his head in one clean sweep. You couldn't take your eyes off of him if you wanted too, thankful they’d adjusted to the pure darkness that surrounded the three of you.

“Fuck, I do, I just wanna touch you..c’mere…” lacking all patience as you tugged on his pants, earning an arrogant chuckle that you couldn't even be mad about because you needed him.

Hands soothing up the youngers back slowly, letting his fingers met yours as they got tangled in his hair. “Did you miss it baby?Miss how good daddy’s cock fills you up? ” The implied question was more than rhetorical as he cupped the outline of his length, stroking himself until the imprint of his dick was engraved into his sweats! Grabbing your hand, replacing it with his as you worked him, his length was hard enough for you to fully be able to grip him even though the gabric. Thumb pressed firm against his tip, the slight wetness let your know he was already dripping.

His eyes were burning into your own as he started grinding his hips into our palm, soft grunts, and moans lipped past his lips as he laid his hand over yours. Guiding your movements slightly, head lulling on his shoulder as you added pressure to the base..almsot enough to make it hurt..but Hoseok liked pain...at least when it cam to sex. “Fuck yes...just like that...harder baby...you know what I need…...” Not hesitating to give him what he wanted, it was so easy to become addicted to the sounds that slipped past Hoseok's lips.

He hasn't touched you yet and you craved it..you were aching for it actually arching up into nothing hoping he’d take the hint “Hoseokkkk” Whined from your lips and the smile that tugged on his cheeks let you know this little shit already knew what you wanted…

“Hmm?” Cocking his head to the side slightly, tongue grazing along his bottom lip “ What do you need baby?”

Gripping his hand, bring it over to take a firm grip on your breast, squeezing yours over his own as you held his hand in place so there was NO room for debate. “Fucking touch me!”

“Wanna try that again?” Still not a question..a command…you were pouting but he could give less than a damn

“Please...daddy please...I need you to touch meee” You were already falling apart considering what was going on between your thighs. All of these taunting, painfully teasing strokes of the tongue that Taehyun kept swiping along your heat! Far needier than usual but you were too far gone to care! Slowly sliding his hand up your chest, taking a firm grip around your neck, pulling a sharp breath from your lungs as you arched up slightly. Giving him more access...leaning down so his lips could hover over yours tugging your bottom lip between his teeth, sucking it between his own. Mouth gaping open at a particularly deep stroke of the tongue from Taehyung, eyes fluttering to the back of your head. “Tae-fuckkkk”

“God your so fucking sexy….you gonna come? Hmm is baby boy gonna make you come?”

Excepting a breathy whine as a response before llicking his way into your mouth, only tightening the hold he had around your neck in the process, bringing his opposite hand down your stomach. Damn near growling at the way your muscles tensed beneath him, loving how easily he got to you now, an amused smirk tugged on his lips as he pulled back bringing his fingers over to your mouth. Not hesitating to lap your tongue around the digits, sucking them back with a moan. Making sure to take him knuckle deep, eyes locked with his as his fingers disappeared between your lips. The feeling of Hosoek’s dick twitching in his pants at every flick of your tongue, had you moaning even louder. Teeth sinking into his bottom lip, as his eyes fluttered down at you “Our girls such a little cock tease…Tae” Massaging the youngers neck as he rolled it against your core. You could hear a hint of frustration laced within the moan that crept past his throat, he needed to be inside you so damn bad!

Freeing himself from your hold bringing his fingers down to twist and flick at your nipples...making sure they were nice and wet thanks to your tongue. Leaning down to blow against the already overly sensitive buds making your entire body shudder around them. “ Your not the only one who can tease baby…” Hoseok looked like...a whole damn problem,wearing nothing but a pair of sweats that were sitting unnecessarily low,no underwear in site! A couple thin chains dangling from his neck, while his gold AP dusted his wrist, hair still long and wavy, falling in his face slightly….

“Hyunggg” Whined from Taehyung’s lips and vibrated against your clit and you already knew you were in trouble. He’s slapped your thigh at least 5 times as you kept trying to lock them around his head.

A hum leaving his lips as he observed the two of you, positioning himself behind you so your back was resting against his chest. Stroking his hand up and down the youngers spine gently, bringing it up to cradle the hair at the nape of his neck “I thought daddy told you to be a good girl for Tae….” Teeth sinking into the base of your neck until you damn near screamed. Hands coming down to spread your legs apart, placing them on either side of his thighs, thumbs digging into your flesh they’d without a doubt leave bruises. “Is that betterTae?” You could already hear the smirk in his voice as his eyes fluttered down in Taehyung’s direction who only offered a low moan in response.

Nudging your cheek with his nose until you looked at him, ghosting his lips over yours until you were chasing after them, it’s been too long since you've tasted him! Mouth gaping open from how consumed you were from Taehyung, with this new angel he had full exposure to everything! Ficking at the roof of your mouth with his tongue..easing his way past your lips. Reclining your neck on his shoulder so he could deepen the kiss, sucking your tongue against his own, swallowing every moan that escaped your lips while his fingers kneaded at your inner thighs! Yours moving up to get tangled in his hair….

“Fuck you don’t know how long ive been waiting to do this...how many times I thought about this while I got myself off….I missed you so.damn.much” Everything pourded out in a slurr of moans, hearing Hoseok sound this...needy had you almost pliant on top of him! Between that, and what’s going on between your thighs you felt like you could pass out already!

Neck reclining against Hoseok’s shoulder as you broke away from the kiss, feeling almost as though you couldn't breathe your chest was getting so tight. Taehyung sucked harder and harder, pulling back slightly, the lack of stimulation had your eyes fluttering down to meet his. Teasingly letting his tongue roll from his jaw, leaving long, slow drags against your pussy, licking from top to bottom. Flicking at your entrance with the wet muscle before pursing his lips to blow over every surface he just thoroughly licked. The sensation had you trying to run away no matter how restaried you were, earning a smack against your clit from the younger.

“You move one more time and I’m tying you to this damn bed!Try me!” Hissed into your ear as he nipped at the side of your jaw. A whine leaving your lips in response, as you felt one of his hands leave your thigh..disappearing between them instead… In attempts to Join Taehyung. Once the younger felt Hoseok’s fingers tease down your folds he pulled back, flicking the tips of his fingers with his tongue. “Taehyung” Slipped past his lips in a combination of a growl and a moan as the younger teased Hoseok’s fingers between his pouty lips before retreating back to your clit.Going three strong, in one motion,filling you knuckle deep. “Goddammit Y/N” He almost sounds winded, as if he could already feel you around his length just from how tight you are around his fingers!

“Fuckk- fuck-fuck-” all it took was a Hoseok joing Tae for your body to compeltely collapse on itself, you almsot screamed from the amount of pressure pooling at the pit of your stomach. Your release came crashing into your body at hyper speed and everything went dark! Pumping his fingers in and out at a relentless pace the sound of your juices sloshing in and out as he worked you open. Nails dug into Taehyung's back, you probably broke skin at some point. Hoseok’s free had coming up to grip your hair, yanking your head back on his shoulders, Forcing you to gaze up at him with heavy lids, as your entire body started shaking, thighs instinctively attempting to close around Taehyung’s head.You felt his nails dig into your thighs as he pried them apart, taking back full control.

“Yes...fuck yes…” Moaned from his lips as he dropped his foreaded to yours, sucking your tongue back into his mouth as you came..hard. A silent cry ripped from your throat while your walls almost violently contracted around his fingers, milking them for everything he had. “That’s it, come baby, fuck..your pussys soo fucking wet” slowing his fingers immensely as your body jerked on his lap nails clawing at his scalp as whimpered against his tongue. “God, you look so damn good when you come” His fingers took deep slow strokes, as the maneuvered in and out, you could feel how rock hard he was against your back, mouth already watering no matter how exhausted you already were! Sliding his fingers up your lips spreading them slightly Tae continued his attack on your clit, purposely licking Hoseok's fingers in the process.

Hoseok eased up first flicking his tongue around his fingers sucking them clean, the sight of that alone had you ready to come all over again! “Oh god please, please I can’t...Tae baby...fuck it’s too much…” Voice horse, chest raising and crashing against itself! You found yourself pulling at Taehyung’s head thankful neither of the two seemed to try and stop you.

Chin glistening, while the smuggest smirk imaginable spread across his face, trickling his fingers up your folds. “Taste yourself princess…” an exasperated chuckle left your lips before sucking his fingers between your lips, pulling back to grip his jaw between your palms.

“Did I taste good?”

“Always...” Brushed against his lips as snaked your way into his mouth, finally getting to kiss him... deep, somewhat sloppy actually but you both loved the feeling of your tongues getting tangled together. There was always a tight for control, tonight he let you have it, moaning at the taste of yourself along his tongue. Sucking his bottom lip into your mouth “Take these fucking pants off and fuck me ….now…” A whiney tigne hit Taehyung throat as he pulled back. Eyes flickering up to his hyung, who grabbed his face, efforeslly parting the seams of Taehyung’s lips with his tounge,needing to taste you again “Fuck her good Tae, you already know how our baby likes it...give her what she wants…”

You could see the two of them smirking into the kiss which let you know you were in for a long fucking night “MmmHmm...slow, deep, so fucking deep until she can’t take it anymore…” Brushed past Taehyung tongue and onto Hoseok’s,the grip he held on the youngers jaw got tighter, more possessive if you will as he deepened the kiss.

“Fuck yes,until her thighs are shaking…. and she’s trying to squirm away-” Breaking away from the kiss to let his eyes flutter over in your direction. “You think you can be a good girl for Tae this time baby or should I just tie you to the bed before we even get started?”

Completely thrown off by the question to be honest your mind was still hazy from watching the little show the two of them just put on. Clearly the lack of response was a response in Hoseok’s eyes “Hmm..go get my bag for me baby…” Eyes flickering in the youngers direction who just offered a smirk before crawling of the bed…

Yup...you were fucked literally and figuratively..luckily for you..you had a long weekend……

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE! YEAH IDK WHERE THIS CAME FROM! LOL BUT I HADN'T WRITTEN IN A COUPLE DAYS AND THIS JUST POURED OUT!

IF YOU LIKED IT “LIKE IT” COME LEMME KNOW...AND I will continue doing these whenever I feel inspired to do sooo…

P.S...I think if I do another one..I’ll actually finally add some backstory so you guys know how this all came about…

Everytime I do these I mention that they only see each other once every 2-3 months...so I feel like this “situation” is going on close to a year now....

Love you as always,

Rocki

#taehyung #taehyung smut #taehyung x yn #hoseok #hoseok smut #hoseok x yn #taehyung x hoseok #vhope wallpaper #bts #bts smut #kim taehyung #jung hoseok #kpop smut #kpop #jhope smut #jhope #kim taehyung smut #hoseok one shot #taehyung one shot

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danganronpa-21 · 5 years

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Naegiri Week Day 1: Ill

Here we are, Naegiri Week Day 1: Ill. I hope everyone’s ready for a little Post-Hope’s Peak escape fic, in which Makoto is fighting off a case of scurvy, and so Kyoko decides to make the journey to a Future Foundation Safe Haven in hopes of finding food to save him. For this one, I’d definitely issue a warning of some heavier topics of violence and in-depth descriptions of gross stuff, as there’s dealing with illness and dead bodies and all that.

It’s also way longer than I originally intended to make it. Oops. My other prompts will... probably be shorter, I think. This one was just an idea I got really enthused about! So, I hope you enjoy it!

Also, little tip to the rest of my fellow writers/digital artists participating in Naegiri Week: remember to rest your eyes! I gave myself a migraine yesterday from too many days of bright screens in a row. Be gentle with yourselves! You’ve all done wonderful things so far, and best of luck with the rest of your prompts!

____________

Four days ago, Makoto collapsed.

Kyoko hadn’t seen it happen at first. Her lavender eyes were far too focused on the path that lay ahead of them. She hadn’t even thought to look back when she heard his body hitting the pavement. Every moment she knew she had to be alert for danger; she had no time to waste on listening for tiny sounds like that. She’d expected it to be nothing. She had to focus on leading the charge. Though throes of illness and hunger threatened to overtake her, she knew she had to press on. She encouraged the same in the others, too, but completely fell apart when Makoto’s quiet gasps brought her attention to him.

Hearing Byakuya shout, she spun around without thinking. Her eyes fell immediately upon the pitiful boy. He was the strongest boy she’d ever known, yet when she laid eyes on him, he was sobbing on the road like a pathetic child. His teeth grinding together in pain. His eyes squeezed shut. Desperately trying to keep himself together.

“What happened?!” Byakuya stepped closer to Makoto, eyes narrowed. He crouched down to his level. “Get up off the ground. Now’s not the time to get all weepy-eyed!”

Makoto didn’t answer. He didn’t dare lift his face from the asphalt; his brows furrowed in emotion. Sadness, Kyoko wondered? Or maybe he was in pain. Some invisible pain, that the rest of them couldn’t see. She supposed he’d been complaining of sore legs as of late, but that was normal. Everyone had sore legs. Running and hiding during the apocalypse did that to you. They’d been walking in search of help for days; of course their legs felt like they were going to fall off. Even Aoi, who’s leg wound had adopted an infection, refused to complain. For the most part, Makoto had kept quiet, too.

Yet there he lay, his face so close to the dirty street, crying like a little boy. Something more had to be wrong. He never was much of a crier; she doubted the soreness of his own legs would be enough to send him crashing to the ground.

“We don’t have time for this!” Byakuya huffed, prying at the smaller boy’s body. He grabbed hold of his arm and tugged. Within an instant Makoto screeched out pain, desperately trying to yank his arm out of Byakuya’s grasp.

He continued to sob. “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”

Byakuya failed to respond to his pleas. He kept tugging like a toddler; one who didn’t know that it hurt the puppy when he pulled its tail. Makoto continued to howl and sob. “Would you be quiet?! You’ll attract cannibals or something! Now isn’t the time for this!”

Kyoko barked out an order without thinking. “Togami, leave him alone.” She walked towards the two of them, each step careful until she crouched down next to Byakuya. “Something is clearly wrong beyond whatever you think it is.”

“He’s fine,” Byakuya protested, “He’s not in any sort of real pain.”

Wrong, Kyoko thought. One look into Makoto’s watery green eyes, and one could see that it wasn’t anything normal. Sure, he’d had the same complaints as the others — fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, and loss of appetite… but no one else had been experiencing pain quite like this. If something had become enough to make him cry, she knew they should take it seriously.

“Naegi-kun, what’s the matter?”

His face had painted itself with shame, likely at his tears. He spoke with shaky breaths, almost daring to avoid meeting her eyes. “Everything… my shoulders, and my forearms… my knees… god, everything hurts so bad… It’s like all my joints are killing me.”

She placed a gentle hand on his head, hoping to be supportive. She had never been all that good at the whole comforting thing, but she still intended to try.

“I tried to hold up, for awhile, I really did…” He sniffled, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. “But I… I’m sorry, I… I tried so hard to… to… hold up, but I just… This really… really… fucking hurts...”

The curse caught them by surprise. If Byakuya had needed any more proof that he was in legitimate pain, that word was it. His scowl, however still strong, seemed to soften a bit after he heard the word. His grip on Makoto’s arm lost its firmness as well.

“Shhhhhh…” She patted his head softly, “You’re okay. I know it hurts.”

He sniffled again, seeming grateful for her comfort. In a way, it brought her solace, knowing that she gave him some peace of mind. Her presence seemed to stabilize his breaths a little. “I’ll… I’ll get up in a few minutes, I s-swear I’ll keep going I just… this really hurts…”

Wrong again, she thought. Everyone seemed to have a knack for being wrong here. There was no way in hell Makoto would be walking on his own again. He collapsed; it was a telltale sign that his joints had all given up for the day. He should have known that.

“Nonsense, Naegi-kun.” She shook her head, “Hagakure-kun will carry you.”

His brow creased in worry, and he shot a nervous glance towards Yasuhiro. Ah, she thought, he’s worried about what will be done with Aoi.

“B-But what about Asahina-san? Her leg’s so much worse than mine. She needs someone to lean on.” He stuck his arms out to try and push himself to his feet, only to go tumbling back down against the road. Kyoko prayed he hadn’t scraped his chin. “I-I can get up, if you’ll just give me a…”

He once again went crashing to the ground, letting out a rather pathetic sob.

“I c-c-can do it, I-I swear…”

Kyoko shook her head. “Asahina-san can lean on me instead. I just want you to get of here in one piece.”

____________

Patient Name: Naegi Makoto, Ex-member of Class 78-A of Hope’s Peak Academy

Reported Symptoms: Fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, loss of appetite, fever, and painful joints and muscles.

Diagnosis: Early stage scurvy. Keep an eye out for pinpoint bleeding around hair follicles and skin as time goes on. Immediate consumption of fruit and vegetables will be necessary.

Kyoko could do little more than sigh as she slammed her notebook shut, her pen unceremoniously tossed to the side. Thinking about all of this stressed her out too much, yet there was little else that dwelled in her mind. Most days she would be thinking about the next opportunity to move, to get food or water, but now… now all of her thoughts were of Makoto, and what she could do to ease his pain.

If she chose to be honest with herself, there wasn’t much she could do to soothe him. She wasn’t a nurse, nor a nurturing person. She knew little of caring for people with bubbling stomachs and crushing fevers, and she certainly did not know a thing about helping someone with aching joints. Her care methods were standard: feed them, wash them, give them something to drink, make sure they were comfortable. That was all she could do to make his suffering easier. Nothing short of searching for an antidote could ease his sorrows, and she knew there was almost no way she would be able to get by doing that. Not with the others around, at least. They’d throw a fit once they discovered her absence. Not to mention that they might try to track her down; an act that could only further the sense of disaster. If she wanted to do this, she’d have to do it on her own. She’d just… have to find some way to slip out during the night. Maybe leave a note warning them not to come after her, or they will face her wrath when she returns. Yeah, that was a good statement… she knew at least Aoi and Yasuhiro would buy into that one.

Setting her notebook aside, she sighed. Inky blackness would soon consume the ruby red sky, and she’d get a chance to relax. Well, as much as one could amongst a pile of ailing teenagers. Nights were revered among their group for their solace from pain, but getting to sleep was always the real struggle. Between Yasuhiro’s pneumonia-induced hacking, Toko’s hourly bathroom trips, Aoi’s whimpering, Makoto’s sweat-soaked fever dreams, and the whale calls made by Byakuya’s empty stomach… Sleeping was a challenge. Even if she could manage to block out the sounds of her sick and hungry friends, their environment was hardly comfortable enough to sleep in anyways. Most nights they bounced from place to place, and most of those places were not built for comfort. Some nights they were lucky and got to share a motel room or two; most of the time though, they found themselves curled up on the floors of former retail stores and restaurants. This time around, they found themselves in an abandoned library… another place that, surprisingly, had few places to sleep.

Of course, that didn’t stop some of her friends. When she looked up from her notebook, almost all of her friends had drifted off already. Toko had nuzzled her face into Byakuya’s shoulder and fallen asleep there, and he’d let her. She assumed he must have been too exhausted himself to push her off. Aoi curled herself up in a corner, trying desperately to maintain warmth against the cold breeze. As for Yasuhiro, well, he’d been dead asleep for hours. Once he could stop coughing, his favourite hobby became sleeping. He was always the most well-rested of the group, unlike Kyoko. And much unlike Makoto lately.

No surprise there that Makoto was still wide awake.

“How are you feeling?” The words were reflex. She’d asked him the very same question so many times; really any time she’d realized that he was staring off into space again.

He gave the same answer each and every time, wincing as he shifted. “I’m fine.”

She never believed it. Habitually, he held his tongue for the sake of the others. That was why he’d gone on for so long before collapsing. He sucked it up until he couldn’t anymore.

“I know that’s not true.”

He let out a small grunt, pulling one of his legs closer to his chest. He exhaled sharply through his nose, slowly turning to look at her. “Of course it’s not true.”

She tried to look sympathetic, but she didn’t know what that looked like facially. Lowered brows in concern, maybe? Jeez, she would have to reprimand her grandfather for making her struggle to express herself. That is, assuming she might ever see him again. “What’s bothering you today?”

His eyes squeezed shut tightly. There was a jarring lack of hesitation in his words, as he turned to her and said, “Kirigiri-san. I’m going to die, aren’t I?”

The question struck fear into her heart like lightning. His words vibrated through her eardrums for only a few seconds, but already she felt ready to shout at him. He was supposed to be the optimist, damn it! How could he scare her with this talk of dying? No way. No, no, no. No way.

“No, you are not.”

Her voice came out firmer than she intended, like a parent telling their child that their word was final. She imagined her face must have followed suit, an uncontrollable scowl carving its way into her lips. If her predictions were correct, this was also probably one of those times that her eyes had become scarily intense.

“Really? You think there’s something we can do?”

The lack of hope in his tone almost made Kyoko want to slap some sense into him. But hitting your friends is a mean thing to do, and hitting the boy you kind of sort of think you might have a crush on is… well, it’s a lot worse.

Nodding was a better choice in this scenario. “Yes, I do.”

To her surprise, Makoto let out a soft chuckle. As his eyes fluttered open, she could start to see the inklings of sadness that hid behind them. Like he had already begun to accept that he faced the beginning of the end.

“It’s okay,” He said softly, “You don’t have to lie to me to make me feel better.”

“I’m not lying.” Her hands curled into fists. Where had all of his positivity gone? Had this condition replaced it with nothing more than swallowing melancholy? Once upon a time it would have been unthinkable for Makoto to even speak like this, but suddenly now she was taunted by the idea that it could become the norm. “I fully intend to make sure you do not die.”

“Kirigiri-” He started, but she didn’t let him finish. She cut him off not even a word’s worth in to the sentence; furious at the way he spoke.

“It’s not up for discussion, Makoto! Whether you think you will or not, I intend to make it so that you survive.”

She gulped. Neither of them had expected her to snap like that. Usually she could be calm and reserved, even in the face of adversity. But something about the suggestion of Makoto’s death hit her differently. Like a knife being jabbed into a wound she didn’t know she had. Without her consent, her eyes had become glassy, and she realized that she felt the push of tears in her throat. Stupid, she thought. It had been so long since she’d last felt the need to cry. It was so easy to choke it down.

The words hung a long pause in the air between the two of them; both of them afraid to break it for what felt like hours. Kyoko could do nothing but swallow repeatedly and blink rapidly, hoping desperately that he didn’t notice that she wanted to cry. Thankfully, he didn’t, opting instead to pick at the dirt under his fingernails. He lacked the proper works to say… just as she did.

The act that ended up the vow of silence between them was a soft sigh from Makoto’s end of things. He bit into his lip, shutting his eyes tightly. The face he made when he was reluctantly about to go along with one of her wild schemes to save the day.

“What do you propose we do?”

_______________________

If a spring breeze even existed anymore, it carried only a bizarre chill and the stench of death.

In the air it carried came the taste of distant smoke; the charred bodies of the dead and the burning brought through the air to these wandering children. Amongst the smell of death and the taste of airy smoke, lived nothing more than darkness and dim patches of light. The only sound being the distant screams of the tortured as they begged for mercy, and the gentle footsteps of the allied moving in synch. Pray for them, these wandering children. They are lost in a world determined to eliminate them.

A horror novel could not have painted a superior picture to the one that unfolded before Kyoko. All around her threatened destruction and desolation, should she take one wrong step. Just as if she were a character in a book, Kyoko would have to think through every detail of her present situation carefully. There could be no room for error, especially not when she had brought along such fragile cargo.

The decision to bring Makoto with her was a bad one. Sure, she knew there was little she could have done to stop him from joining her, but that didn’t keep her from regretting it. The poor thing stumbled about with all of the grace of a baby deer still learning how to use its legs, and had the endurance of one, too. He could only move in quick spurts, only fast enough to make a little bit of headway before needing to rest. They were nowhere near being close enough to their destination as they should have been thanks to that.

She didn’t have it in her heart to blame the poor boy, though. He did his best to not be a liability. He was skilled at ignoring his upset stomach and its repeated false alarms for vomiting, and was sweating out his fever like a pro. There were few people she had ever seen manage illness this well, and it impressed her, knowing that he could. She might have even felt proud of him, if she didn’t feel so overwhelmingly awful about having to drag him out into the dirty, disgusting world.

“H-How much longer until… until we’re… t-there…?” He panted so quietly that it might as well have been a whisper. She could see beads of sweat dripping down his forehead, desperately trying to cool him off. They weren’t managing so well, she noted, for his face flushed rouge. Maybe he would be due for another break soon, she decided. He didn’t look so good.

She tried not to look too pitying as she glanced back at him. She’d quickly learned that pity only made him feel worse. “Just a little while longer,” She purred in the sweetest voice she could muster, hoping to sound comforting, “We can take a break soon, if you like.”

He shook his head vigorously until pain overtook it. Another product of his fever. “I think I can manage for a little longer.” He promised; she knew it had to be empty. Too much sweat had stained the collar of his t-shirt for him to be okay to keep moving. He would need a break. And water.

“I disagree.” She took his hand in her own. “Here, let’s duck behind this building. We can stop here for a bit.”

The boy opened his mouth to protest, but Kyoko’s movements were enough to shut him up. At that point, his focus drew towards his aching joints, and how to keep himself from crying out at the movement. Luckily, resting at the library for a few days had given them a new lease on life, and he could move just a tad easier than he could have before. He wasn’t collapsing, nor wailing from indescribable pain. At the very least, that made both of them feel a little bit better about the whole thing.

Still, even his increased comfort didn’t mean that he didn’t have to focus on keeping his complaints at bay. Every bend of his knee or curve of his forearm warranted a low grunt of pain; one that he silenced in order to keep himself and Kyoko safe. Night was the most dangerous time for them to be travelling, and they both knew how every little sound drew the attention of the nightcrawlers.

So he kept himself silenced, right up until they reached the building Kyoko proposed they hide behind. Then, with all of the grace of someone who had been nearly drowned, he let his desperate gasps spill out of him. Kyoko stood guard next to him; she seemed adamant that she be able to monitor his breathing. There hadn’t been a break that had gone by that she hadn’t listened to his shallow breaths, waiting for them to progressively become deeper.

“Do you want some water?”

Her voice came as a gentle coo, like the way a mother would speak to her ailing child. She didn’t bother to listen to his response; she reached into her bag to grab hold of the bottle anyway. They both knew he’d be taking a drink no matter what he said.

She handed the bottle to him carefully, taking note of the water level. Enough for him to have a mouthful, but not for her. That was fine. If where they were going was as perfect as it was rumoured to be, she would have no problem getting more. Perhaps she could even snag some bottles to take back with her, to hydrate the others. God knows how long it had been since they had some real, fresh water.

Makoto accepted the bottle gratefully. His hands shook as he unscrewed the lid, but Kyoko tried not to notice. It was probably just hunger tremors, she thought to herself. She knew she had them too. She couldn’t help but fantasize about putting an end to those soon, too, just as she did with the water. All she could think about, apart from getting there alive, was providing what she knew everyone needed.

What Makoto needed most of all. Of course she thought of the others, but Makoto’s need was potentially the most pressing. Realistically, Toko would survive as long as she stayed hydrated, and the same went for Aoi so long as she washed the wound. Given that he was neither a small child or elderly, she fully expected Yasuhiro to make a full recovery. And once again, assuming that Byakuya would eat and drink, he’d be fine too. Makoto was really the only one of her friends who could die on the spot from something dramatic like a heart attack. So getting the right kind of food into him sat at the top of her priority list.

“Do you want some, Kirigiri-san?”

Leave it to Makoto to snap her back into her thoughts by offering her water. There had barely been enough in there for him to have a mouthful, yet he’d still halved it to make sure she could drink. Stupidly selfless Makoto; she wanted to scold him for that. She knew that he knew that he needed the water more, and the idiot had still halved it. She shook her head frustratedly.

“Are you sure?” He prodded, raising an eyebrow at her. He waved the water bottle at her temptingly, but she raised a hand in refusal. He knew better than to keep bothering after that, so he let it go and took one last swig for himself.

“Just drink it,” She sighed, “If I’m to believe the rumours about where we’re going, then I should be able to get more.”

The luckster blinked it surprise, and pulled the water bottle back close to his body. The expression of excitement on his face over having more water was cute enough to make her laugh, albeit rather lightly. The fact that he now seemed almost territorial over his water only made it harder to avoid giggling more loudly.

“You think this place will have water and fresh produce?” His eyes were wide, glimmering with the hope she worried he had lost to his illness. She could have cried at the sight of faith finally returning to his gaze. It had only been four days since he fell apart, but already she was grateful to have it back. It had been too long. Just seeing that brought a smile to her face.

“It’s supposed to. Apparently, there is an anti-apocalypse group spreading resources to survivors. I believe they call themselves Future Foundation, or something cheesy like that.”

It became his turn to smile. “It’s nice to know that there’s still some people out there trying to do good.”

She nodded in agreement, unable to fight herself on looking pleased. Really, she was with him on that. Knowing that someone else was out there, fighting for the future… it brought her great happiness. She could only hope that she would live long enough to put it to good use.

Makoto screwed the lid back onto the water bottle and handed it back to her. She took it gratefully, proceeding to offer him her hand. He became a little more stable when he had the help. A sigh of relief expelled itself from her mouth when he accepted her hand, and pulled him up from the spot where he sunk originally. Now that he was so close to her face again, the drops of sweat and the flushing of his face became even more apparent. She chose not to weigh her options about what to do; she simply pried her glove off her hand and placed it on his forehead to feel his temperature. Warmer, she noted, but not as bad as it could get. If guessing was involved, he probably hadn’t hit one-hundred degrees yet. In the seventies or eighties, should she be tasked with giving an exact number.

Still, this wasn’t something Makoto could possibly know. Concern for his own well-being gleamed in his tired eyes, and only showed further in the way his brows lowered over them. Perhaps it was over what she could report, or maybe the fact that she stood so close, but his lip took some abuse as well. It had become like the victims of the Tragedy: cannibalized. He was biting the skin off it again and again in agonizing anticipation. Like he thought Kyoko could just decree that he had two minutes left to live.

She sighed. “Well, you certainly have not got any better,” She withdrew her hand from his forehead and slipped it back into its glove, “But you also haven’t gotten any worse. Which, I would say, is a rather good thing.”

Like a wave crashing to the shore, all of the concern in Makoto’s expression washed away. As a small smile snuck across his face, she heard him laugh. “Yeah,” He paused, turning his head to look at the path that lay ahead, “Should we be going again, then?”

“If you’re ready.”

From that point forward, they would take a few more breaks. Understandable, considering that Makoto hadn’t done such a good job holding out for long periods of time. So far they had managed to narrowly dodge the nightcrawlers, ducking through alleyways and silencing themselves every time they heard the familiar footsteps of the hungry. When they came near, neither of them dared to make a sound. They only waited; they barely found the strength to breathe. Only once the loud, stomping feet trailed off, did the two teenagers continue on, feeling a little more like they were going to throw up the dinner that wasn’t in their stomachs. But it was fine, for they were almost there.

That’s what Kyoko told herself, anyway. It distracted her from the fact that they seemed to be stopping more and more often because of them. It seemed as if her finger would fly to her lips every two minutes. She’d be desperately silencing the whispers, footsteps, and breaths she dared to take — otherwise, she couldn’t guarantee their survival. Then, once the shouting of the cannibals had passed, they’d keep stumbling along. In the back of her mind, though, the thoughts of them would linger. How hungry did they have to be to eat other human beings? And how certain could she be of this Future Foundation safe haven if the nightcrawlers still rallied for flesh?

She gulped at the thought. For a second, she considered asking Makoto, but dismissed the idea just as fast. The poor thing already fought off nausea as he walked; striking up a conversation about some good ol’ cannibalism wouldn’t help that case. She had a memory of him vomiting the first time he’d seen one of the bodies they’d eaten. How could human beings ever stoop so low? Could they really stoop so low?

Kyoko shuddered at the life she’d lead if she were more desperate. Though hunger ached in her belly and sent dizziness spiraling through her head, she couldn’t fathom killing and eating another person. And she knew Makoto and the others couldn’t either. And while this did put them on the moral high ground, it also put them into the position of victim. If they weren’t careful, they could be next.

It was better not to think about it. The consumption of others, the chance that the promise of food and water was empty, and her stomach’s endless growling. It was better to focus on her partner. What he felt, what he thought, what he needed in the moment. It was strange; in spite of not being a nurturing person, she sort of took to caring for him. It took her mind off of the other things she decided to avoid thinking about. Interesting. She couldn’t keep herself from wondering if maybe, just maybe, he worried about her in the same way.

“How much further now?” He whispered over her shoulder; his voice wrought with exhaustion. Though she told him to stop many times, he had taken to refusing the closer they got. She could hear his breathlessness as they stumbled through the night, but it was never enough to slow him.

Their eyes didn’t meet as she guided him forward; she simply mumbled her response to him. “Soon,” She told him, “We’ll be there.”

He let out a low hum, pulling himself back from her side ever so slightly. There was weight on his feet when he walked; she could hear it, but he said nothing. He simply kept pushing along, one foot in front of the other, beads of sweat still dripping down his forehead mercilessly.

At least with them having not heard the footsteps of the nightcrawlers recently, Kyoko could take the opportunity to chat. “How’s your stomach?”

As if to answer her, a loud grumble sounded from presumably, within his stomach. She hid her smile behind her hand, and he blushed.

“A little rumbly, but… okay, I guess.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “I am sorry to hear that… but we will fix it soon. I promise you that.”

He laughed softly. “I’m not worried,” He placed a hand on her shoulder, “I know I’ll be fine, so long as you’re with me.”

One might have thought Kyoko would answer, but the words caught in her throat. Her mind raced so quickly that she could barely think of a thing to say. Stupid Makoto, she thought to herself, stupid Makoto and his cute face and his sweet sentences. This boy will make a joke out of me one day, I swear. Only the flustering of her face could show how that made her feel, her gaze darting away from him. He probably wouldn’t look at her deeply, yet she didn’t want him to see how much those words meant. It would only make the blow worse if the rumours turned out to be wrong.

Her lips sealed themselves after that. The two of them still kept a close eye on each other, but there was almost nothing else that needed to be said. The closest they got was Makoto slipping his hand into hers; it felt as if it was his way of begging to be close. Taking one look at the war-torn, exhausted boy who trudged beside her, she couldn’t help but accept it. An old friend’s words echoed in her mind.

Have you ever held hands with a boy?

It was hard to know whether she wanted to scowl or laugh. She had held his hands before; it wasn’t the first time. But at the very least, this time felt a little different. Perhaps it was because as they took each careful step towards the unknown, it felt like it was the two of them against the world.

They made good progress after their last conversation, for there were no more interruptions. Creepy, Kyoko thought, that enemies could just seem to disappear as they drew closer. A little too suspicious, if you asked her. Not that she should really be asked; she was a detective after all. As far as she was concerned, anything could be suspicious. Still, she attempted to shrug it off… for Makoto’s sake. The last thing he needed while in his condition was the paranoid ramblings of a girl without evidence.

Besides, his presence became a good distraction from her paranoia. All she had to worry about was pushing him forward, towards the proclaimed Future Foundation safe haven building. The structure had finally spread itself out in front of them; the whole thing appearing suspiciously normal amongst the chaos. If the expectation for Kyoko was honesty, she would have confessed that she presumed that everything would look… rougher. Maybe some scorch marks along the bricks from fires long since put out, or perhaps some blood stains turned brown from age. Certainly, if these Future Foundation people were bright at all, they should consider that their weirdly clean-looking building stood out like a sore thumb. Just an old warehouse building, complete with dusted red brick and white moldings around the doors and windows. Not even the window glass shattered or shared any cracks with the outside world. The window was simply tinted with natural colour, and dust that had been kicked up from storms. In the old world, this could have been any old abandoned warehouse. Only now, it was the hiding spot of secret resources.

The appearance of it was so obvious that Makoto’s face lit up upon sight. Just seeing his expression was like watching a human Christmas tree. His exhausted eyes lit up with glee, and he clung tightly to her arm. Delight dripped through his voice as he spoke to her, and he gestured towards the building with a bouncy, shaking hand. “Is that it, Kyoko?” He asked, “Is that the building?”

She nodded, fighting off the grin that threatened to make its appearance. “Yes,” Closing one of her eyes, she pointed forward, “That’s the one.”

Those olive green eyes of his sparkled back at her, and he pressed his face into her arm. A sigh sounded as he nuzzled her, and for a minute, she might’ve imagined them some place else. But the old warehouse was no sunset-lit beach, nor star-clad night. It was just an old warehouse, full of little more than promise. Promise was promise, though. If it meant his survival, Kyoko might consider it the most beautiful thing of all.

With that idea resting in her mind, she pressed him to move forward. One step after the other, the same rhythm as always. Every once in awhile she stopped to flick her head around corners; a necessary evil to ensure that no nightcrawlers could spring a trap on them. Makoto followed along behind her carefully; a willful puppy trailing after his caretaker. As they drew closer and closer to the clearing that housed the warehouse, Kyoko knew making a break for it was necessary. When she glanced at her walking partner, it took her all of three seconds to know he saw it too.

She took a deep breath, and squeezed his hand tightly. Counting back from ten in her head, she braced herself. One, two, three. Even with her gloves on, she could feel the sweat on Makoto’s pams. Four, five, six. The warehouse beckoned them in an inaudible voice. Seven, eight, nine. Stacks of fresh produce and water. They had to be in there.

Ten.

Kyoko stole a breath and ran.

The world went by her in a rush; the sounds of their thundering footsteps as they ran consuming everything else around her. Amongst the chaos of their feet, the only other thing she could hear was the shallow panting of Makoto, who was clearly overexerting himself to arrive safely. She’d be sure to praise him for his perseverance later; most likely after she rewarded him with some well-deserved water and food. For now, though, she zeroed in on the front door. It stood there waiting; a wooden beacon in the distance. It drew closer and closer as their feet hit the pavement, the smell of death and the taste of the smoky air drowned out by what lay behind it.

Almost there. The thought echoed in her mind as she grabbed hold of the door’s handle. Behind her, Makoto attempted to skid to a stop, clearly just as lost as she was in the motions of the run. In the distance she heard the voices of the hungry, and she prayed that the famine of her and her friends hadn’t put them in the nightcrawlers’ sights. She yanked the door back with fervour, shoving Makoto inside before promptly slamming the door behind her.

She slumped against the door the moment she arrived, and her lungs screamed for air. The world seemed to sway under her feet as she stared down at them, trying desperately to steady herself. She had exerted the energy she lacked when she ran, and she knew her partner must have too. The mere idea of moving only made her head spiral further, but she knew she had to check on him. She ignored her brain’s desperation for the world to slow. Instead, she turned her head towards Makoto.

Just one look at him, and her heart dropped into her stomach.

He was… horrified. His hands had flown to his mouth to cover it, for otherwise it’d be hanging agape. His sleepy eyes were now wide with shock, and his brows so harshly furrowed together that she’d have thought he witnessed the product of a nightmare come to life. She could even see tremors start to consume his body once again.

“Naegi-kun?” She squeaked, her voice small and insignificant against the echoing terror of the warehouse. “What’s wrong?”

The boy refused her gaze. He only extended a hand, and trembling, he pointed forward.

His horror struck her just the same when her eyes fell upon it.

Bodies littered the building. Bodies of Future Foundation members, bodies of the despairs, the nightcrawlers, and the desperate. Everywhere was the sight of bodies, bloody and beaten beyond recognition. Shelves knocked over; the contents spilling over into pools of blood, excrement, and urine. Those that didn’t fall from the shelves onto the fluid-soaked floor had been otherwise tampered with. Some had been ripped open and left to spoil, so that no one might have what lay inside them. Others were completely destroyed, or used for horrible things Kyoko couldn’t bring herself to process. Her head spun even faster, and she was half-sure she’d have toppled over, if it weren’t for Makoto who grabbed her arm.

Thank god for his willingness to support her weight.

“I…” She sputtered, shutting her eyes. A harsh, sudden headache pounded at her temples, and when she tried to breathe, the air scorched her throat. “I don’t understand.”

Her feet swayed beneath her even further, threatening to bring her down. It was only Makoto who kept her steady; his voice hushed as he whispered in her ear.

“Stay with me, Kirigiri-san.” He begged. Through the booming of her heart in her ears, the shaking of his voice made itself audible. “Everything is fine.”

She tried to swallow, but it felt like a rock lodged itself in her throat. Her senses threatened her with tears, but she willed herself not to cry. Crying doesn’t solve anything. Her grandfather’s words. Words she wished to resist. “No,” She murmured, “Everything is not fine.”

“I know,” he whispered back, “It’s horrible, I know.”

She nodded. “This place was supposed to… help people. I… I cannot understand why anyone would… would…”

The detective’s voice trailed off. Her whimpers were the only thing ringing through the silence of the old warehouse. This only seemed to torture her further; Makoto couldn’t help but remark on how she trembled in his arms. The act was so uncharacteristic of her. It sent a jolt of worry to his core.

“Naegi-kun, what are we going to do?” She turned her head to look at him; the first time Makoto had actually seen the fear in her violet eyes. “The water… Aoi, and Byakuya, and the others… and you! You needed this place! You needed it so badly, and I was certain… I was certain that I…”

He pulled her face towards his chest, shushing as gently as he could. He found himself stroking her hair without thinking to do so; he supposed he thought the action would be soothing. Fortunately for him, she failed to oppose it. Rather, she actually buried her face deeper into his chest to hide.

“It’s okay, Kirigiri-san.”

“B-But, I…”

The girl’s hands curled into fists, and he could feel the clench of her jaw. Was she about to cry, or was she about to punch him? The lack of answer made him uneasy. Kyoko looked like the kind of girl who could punch hard, should she want to punch you.

“... I was supposed to help you. We were supposed to get out of this together. I… I don’t understand why I cannot help you. I don’t understand what I’ve done poorly.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s nothing you could have done, and no way you could have known. We just… need to go somewhere else now.”

She pressed her face further into his chest, and suddenly, he could feel it. The tiny, wet spots of her tears on his shirt. She wouldn’t show it, but he could feel it. For her sake, he decided not to mention it. Chances are she was already embarrassed enough to be crying, given her stoicism. He decided perhaps it was best if he just let the waterworks slide this time around.

“No.” She answered with a shaking breath. Though he could hear her sniffling, she dismissed any semblance of a sob. “No, I’m not leaving here until we find something to help you.”

“Kirigiri-san-”

“No!” She growled with all of the stubbornness of a toddler. It might have even been punctuated with a stomp of her foot. “No, I am not leaving her until we fix things!”

“Kyoko, we can’t…”

Suddenly, she shoved him away, staring at him with a frown. The tears were still glistening on her face, yet she scorned them. It dawned on him now that he probably led her to want to punch him, shortly after she started to cry. Two for two, he supposed.

“It’s final, Makoto.” A firm, resolute voice took place of the shaky girl’s. She swiped at her eyes, and strengthened the painted-on scowl she wore. “I intend to help you. Whether you try to help yourself or not.”

The words struck him dumb. He tried to reach his hand out to her, to say something that would be of value, but the detective was having none of it. Within seconds, she had whipped away from him, strutting down the rows of shelves like it was nothing. A chill shot down his spine at the sight of it. How could she be so firm in her resolve, he wondered. Even he, who had been widely praised by others for being so hopeful, was breaking down at each and every site where things fell apart. He had long since given up on himself, yet Kyoko dismissed all ideas of ever letting go. Somewhere within himself, Makoto knew he had to find that same resolve to keep going. To search for anything with her, so that they may both survive.

Because she said she wanted them to leave this situation together.

“Kyoko, wait.” He called out to her, stumbling forward as she walked. “I’ll help you.”

Within an instant, the discontentment melted off the girl’s face, and she turned to glance back at him. She sniffled once more, folding her arms across his chest. There were no words shared between them, but Kyoko flicked her head forward. With her, that was as good a signal as any to follow. So he did, stepping over any ominous looking puddles he found along the way. If there was any hope to be found for him, it would be with her.

“I’m thinking we should head towards the back of the building,” He suggested, taking hold of her hand again, “Some of the stuff back there might be spared. They could even have a produce fridge. You know, like where they mist the vegetables at the grocery store.”

Kyoko did little more than nod, walking towards the back of the store like she didn’t have a care in the world. With the way her chest was so proudly puffed up, you wouldn’t have expected her to have been crying a minute before. He figured it was safe to assume that was why she was doing it — she always held distaste for crying in front of others. It was sort of understandable, he reasoned. But he didn’t mind comforting her, if she needed to cry. Heaven knew that by then, she’d comforted him enough times.

The two made their way to the back of the building in relative silence, save for the sound of their footsteps on the tiled floor of the warehouse. As they walked, both of them thought it best to avoid making contact with the corpses as they walked. Seeing the beaten faces, some of them frozen in screams of agony or despair, it made the hairs on the backs of their necks stand on end. Could they meet the same fate, if they weren’t careful? Could it just as easily have been them? Would whoever did this come back?

They both shook those nightmarish fantasies from their heads; both too afraid to know the answers to those questions. Instead, they put their focus onto the produce shelf, and what they might find on it.

“For you, there are a few things that we could use.” Kyoko told him, her voice hushed. Whether she spoke so quietly because she feared the return of the killers or showing how emotional she’d been, he didn’t know. “Acerola cherries, for example, make an excellent source. Kiwis, bell peppers, strawberries, broccoli, kale, and oranges are also acceptable sources.”

Makoto tried to keep those in mind as they travelled through the warehouse. The further back they went, the more he scanned for them. On occasion they would think they’d hit the jackpot, finding a lone strawberry or rogue kiwi on the floor. However, once they picked it up, they would discover the flaws. The most common was mold, but other regrettable occurrences did include a kiwi that had several bites taken out of it already; and a bell pepper coated in blood on one side. At that point, there was no other choice but to toss it aside and keep looking. Thinking optimistically, at least that provided them with just a smidge of hope. It did help significantly, seeing how the ideal fruits and vegetables did manage to trail to the back. Kyoko took that as a good sign.

Well, as good as a sign it could be, in an abandoned warehouse full of death. Sure, the stench of it all failed to recede as they ventured further, and the air still burned her throat, and Makoto was still sweating like a pig because of his fever… But in some weird way, she still held out hope that everything would be okay. Some way, somehow, it would be okay. It had to be.

And it seemed like it might, as they came up on the end of the island they had been walking through.

“Oh my god,” Makoto exclaimed, pointing forward. “Kirigiri-san, look!”

Her focus darted around, trying to figure out what he was referring to. Had a nightcrawler made its way in? Was there a resource they could benefit from? She scoured the shelves and the floors, taking in as much information as she could, until finally… she saw it. A round ball of fiery orange, sitting plainly on the ground. Away from any corpses, with skin untorn and full of natural colour.

A healthy, safe orange.

She’s certain that the two of them must have lunged for it; they attacked the fruit like children eager to open a Christmas present. Within mere seconds, Kyoko had ripped the glove off her hand and created an incision in the skin with her nails, tearing it off the fruit with a strange sort of glee.

Makoto sat across from her on his knees; eyeing the fruit like it were a piece of gold. She supposed she couldn’t blame him, for she basically held the remedy to all of his struggle. If she were in his shoes, she felt certain she would have acted the same way too. In her hands, she held the key to fixing everything — no more fever, no more upset stomach, no more fatigue, no more aching joints. She wouldn’t have to hear him cry so horribly ever again, ever see him such deep pain. She supposed she yearned just as hard for the relief of it as he. So when she finally managed to tear the skin off, she shoved the fruit into his hands.

“Go on, Naegi-kun.” She urged, “Eat it.”

For a second, he did nothing but stare at it. Surely he wasn’t having second thoughts about wanting to live or something, was he? Kyoko might have smacked him right then and there if he was, no matter how mean she knew it was to do… but, fortunately, that didn’t appear to be the case. Instead, when he came to his senses a little more, he tore the fruit in half and placed the other piece in Kyoko’s hands.

Her stomach growled in delight at the sight. “What are you doing?”

No, no, no, no. This was not her fruit. She couldn’t eat this. Not when he needed the nutrients more. Nearly as soon as it was in her hands, she rushed to return it to him — but Makoto dismissed it. Before she could even get within a few inches of him, he pushed her hand back to her.

“Please.” A slight smile crossed his face as he pushed her hand back. “I know you’re hungry, too.”

She bore down on her lip absent-mindedly. How did he expect her to accept this? “Naegi-kun, I can’t…”

“Yes, you can.” His grin brightened, and his hand secured itself around her own. “You’ve tried so hard to keep up my hope. Let’s try to keep up yours, too.”

Don’t accept it, she shouted at herself. He needs this more than you do. You know that.

She did know that. She did know that, yet when she looked at him, there was little she could do to resist his begging. That soft smile, those affectionate green eyes, damn you, Makoto Naegi. She fixed her eyes on him carefully, and raised the orange to her mouth.

“That’s it,” He said, raising his piece to his own, “On the count of three, alright?”

She nodded, eyeing the fruit in front of her. God, she hadn’t realized how much she missed oranges until this very moment. The scent of the citrusy fruit almost made her feel like she might start to drool.

“One… two… three.”

Bite.

A rush of flavour flooded her mouth, staining her tongue with its sweetness. She groaned in delight, having long since forgotten how wonderful oranges were. Across from her, she could gather Makoto was having the same experience… although the juices from the fruit were dripping down his lips and chin. She chuckled slightly, liking the mildly embarrassed expression on his face.

“This is… really good.” He remarked, wiping his chin with the back of his wrist.

She giggled at the act. “It truly is…”

“Mmm… Kirigiri-san?”

Taking another quick bite of her orange, she glanced back over at him expectantly.

“Yes?”

He licked his orange-juice coated lips, and flashed her another smile. A real one, with teeth and that signature cheerfulness she had grown to miss amongst his illness. Her chest warmed at the sight, and increased its warmth when he finally spoke.

“Thank you.”

#naegiri2019 #naegiri #kyoko kirigiri #makoto naegi #kyouko kirigiri #kirigiri kyoko #naegi makoto #thh #danganronpa #DR1 #danganronpa trigger happy havoc #Future Foundation

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headcans-oneshots-and-stuff · 5 years

Text

Those Comics | Chapter three

Marvel/Dc crossover x reader Warnings: None, I think I’m safe for this one Word count: 2342 Summary: Now that the seriousness of the situation is clear, you’ll have to face some rather inconvenient truths Series: Chapter One | Chapter Two | You’re here |

The mood in the Watchtower-meeting-room was pretty down. The universe-native heroes were standing around a holographic-table (the bat-boys who you liked much more than the big heroes stayed in Gotham after they told Bruce to take you with them to the Watchtower) looking at some scientific-graphs and occasionally looked over to you. You had serious flashbacks to the time you first became an Avenger. At the start, before you earned their trusted, they also excluded you and looked at you like you could jump up and scream "Hail, Hydra" at any given moment. The only difference was, that you didn't really care back then as much as you do now, since, y'know, YOU WERE STILL IN YOUR OWN UNIVERSE. A long Sigh escaped you and you slid down the wall of the room, where you were standing at. And so, sitting on the floor with your knees under your shin, the reality of the situation dawned on you. You were trapped in a different Universe, with people who don't trust you as far as they could throw you, which could seemingly soon collapse into nothingness, with no idea how to go back or how to at least say good-bye to your family. You felt the tears dwell up, but fought them to the best of your Abilities. You were the one who held the others when they cried or needed stability. You were the stable part, you couldn't break down. Not now, not ever. A deep breath later, you shook your head and jumped up again. "Sooo? You wanna include the scientist from another Universe who may or may not know more than you about the situation?" you asked cheekily, winking at Batman. "No," he grunted and turned the Holographic-desk off. A huff left you, you rolled your eyes and glitched over to the window, enjoying the great sight of Earth in front of you. "I understand that you don't trust me," you said, your voice deeper and not as happy as usual. "To be honest, I wouldn't trust me too. Hell," you chuckled, "I worked with Loki oft enough to have doubts on everyone." You looked at your own reflection, tracing your features and wondering just how much you've changed since you started this superhero-life. "I understand that your priority lies on your earth and your people, but you have to understand that I have my priorities too," now you looked behind over your shoulder, "And if we can't find a way to fulfill both of them, I'll have to work alone." "We can't let you stroll around on our earth, you do not belong here," Diana said, her voice was like honey and you enjoyed hearing it more than you would have expected, but you couldn't help but notice the undertone, slightly threatening. You nodded slowly and hummed. "You're right. I don't belong here. That's why I want to get back to my Earth." "We understand that, believe us, and we assure you that we'll help you to get back to your Universe, but before, we'll have to take care of ours, okay?" Superman said and, even though you didn't really believe him completely, you were still a hero and decided that you'd gladly help them to fix their universe. "Fine," you sighed and nodded to the Holo-desk. "Can I have a look?" Batman was already trying to say no, but Green Arrow ignored him and activated it. It took you a few seconds to understand how that desk worked, since Tony's were almost completely automatic, but when you did, you were quick to look through all the pieces of information given (which were not many). After five minutes, you noticed something. "Here," you said pointing to the data of the energy that was all too familiar for you, it was the same energy measured back when Loki tried to take over New York. "This Data is basically the manifestation of a type of Gamma-radiation-energy that is pretty similar to one I already know. Back in my universe, it was first seen through two of the infinity stones, some of the most powerful items we know off when said stones were used to create a portal through space to start an Alien Invasion." You looked around to check if everyone was on track, but since no one looked too confused you just continued: "Well, to make a long story short, I think that's basically what's happening, just with this universe something from out of this universe..." you trailed off when you realized what that meant. "What?" Flash asked and you groaned. "Something from out of this universe opened a portal into this one. And with something...I mean me. I did that." Bruce pointed his finger at you angrily, "Does that mean you're destroying the shell?" "NO NO NO NO NO!" you exclaimed and glitched backwards. "Well, I'm afraid I'm the cause, but I'm not really the one doing it." "I'm not really getting it. I feel like I'm only hearing half a conversation," Green Lantern sight and leant back onto the wall. "Okay, okay, okay...gimme a Second," you said, teleported away and through the whole watchtower, searching for a Window that would not destroy the whole tower when it was gone. When you finally found it you teleported it out of its frame and both of you back into the meeting room. You placed the pane onto the table and held your hand out to Batman. "What?" he gruffed. "I need something sharp and pointy and what would be better for that then a Batarang?" "No," he said, but one look from wonder woman had him rolling his eyes under his cowl and give you one. "So," you said, gesturing to the pane, "imagine this is your universe and this," you gestured to the other side, "Is mine. The glass is the barrier." "Okay, I think I can follow until now," Flash nodded, giving you enough reason to continue. "Good. Well, I am the Batarang, and when I accidentally teleported here, that happened." You took the Batarang and rammed it cautiously into the glass, enough to make it crack but not enough to make it shatter. "So the outer shell is already broken?" Diana asked concerned. "Yes," you sighed, "but I can't tell you what will happen. Maybe it stays like that, but that would mean..." you directed your gaze back to the sight of the planet that looked so much like yours, "that I can't go back. Every nudge onto the shell would immediately destroy it." Batman sighed but did something that surprised you. He asked: "What would happen if you went back none the less? What would happen to our universe?" You bit you under-lip before, nudging the glass, causing it to break into pieces. "This. The barrier would be gone. Best case, The universes convergence and we'll have two versions of every planet that exists in both of our universes, but in the worst case, they merge and...uhm...it won't be pretty. The survival rate would be in the single digits." "That means we're safe as long as you don't go back to your universe?" Superman asked with pity in his voice. "Oh...no, sorry. You just have more time. I'm not the only one who can teleport through universes as far as I know and even if no one can or would, I can't tell how stable the shell is." "That means we have to find a way to fix it, right?" Green Arrow asked. You nodded, even though you had no idea how exactly you were going to find this way.

(A bit later, in the manor)

After an hour of searching for ways to fix the shell, Bruce exclaimed that it wouldn't help to exhaust all off you and decided that you would stay in the manor with him and the bat-kids, who all decided to stay for a while in order to help with the problem. Alfred (the saint) showed you the room you'd stay in and you realized just how tired you were, 'causing you to fall into bed and immediately fall asleep.

When you opened your eyes again, you noticed that you weren't in your room, nor in the room, Bruce gave you in the manor. In fact, when you looked around you, you found yourself flowing in a space that reminded you of a van Gogh painting. Surrounding you were different shades of blue yellow and black that merged into each other and made you feel dizzy. The next thing you noticed was, that you weren't wearing your clothes anymore. Now you were wearing a long green dress, it's fabric flowing down your body like a silent river, with golden ornaments on it. The realization of what this meant was hitting you like the pleasant warmth of cocoa on a cold winter day. A small smile formed on your lips and you turned around, searching your surrounding area for the man who you'd usually curse out for intruding your dream, even though you currently just wanted to hug him. "I see you missed me," his smooth, honey-like voice reached your ears and turned around yet again to see him smirking at you. "I wouldn't say it's missing you specifically," you said sarcastically but smiled widely nonetheless, "but that doesn't mean I'm less happy to see you Loki." Said god float nearer and took one of your hands in his, swirling you around him as if you were dancing. You knew not to fall for his gentle behaviour and his attempt to seduce you into trusting him. It wasn't the first time he did something like that, but you knew that fighting against it would only make him even more mischief-y than before, so you played along to get what you wanted. "Tell me, how exactly did you manage to hide your location from even my magic? No one has managed to find you yet. Are you going rough, darling?" You jerked back slightly, still getting swirled around by Loki's arm around the small of your back and his other hand in yours, your second arm resting around his neck, or rather shoulder since you tried to keep at least some modest rate of distance. "What? Of course not," you huffed, slightly worried that Loki could even consider that you could betray your family like that, but a few seconds later your face changed into one of confusion, "does that mean that you have no idea where I am right now?" It looked like it was causing him physical pain to admit that he had, indeed, no idea, but Loki still nodded slightly, before he even went so far to say it out loud, something you wouldn't have expected. "No one does. Your little hero friends and my brother are all throwing a fit because of you, they even went so far to invite me to their home, a horrible decision really, with the hope I could find you. This is my last attempted and if I don't wake up with some results, Captain I-don't-need-anyone is going to throw me right back to Jotunheim." Realizing just how worried Carol and the others would have to be, you leant your head against Lokis chest, missing the smirk that filled his expression. "I hoped they knew..That would've made this so much easier," you mumbled, staring in the distance lost. Now it was the mischiefs turn to bring some space between the both of you, by backing away enough to look down at you with raised eyebrows. "What would've made that easier, (Y/N)?" he asked with a tone that reminded you slightly of worry. "I'm not in this universe anymore," you said, looking down at the hem of your dress. "I know I'm great, but even I can't communicate with the dead through a normal dream spell," he huffed, clearly thinking you tried to make a foul out of him. "That's...That's not what I meant," you sighed, rolling your eyes at him, "I mean I'm quite literally not in your universe anymore, I'm in a different one and..." you freed yourself from Loki's grip and let your eyes wander through your dream-landscape, "I can't come back anymore."

(Somewhere else, around the same time)

It was dark outside and the only light source illuminating the spacious, modern office was the monitor of the top-of-the-line computer, the only sound was the clicking if the keyboard and the only smell the strong coffee standing on the desk. If you'd be standing outside of the office, looking in through the glass walls and door, you'd be able to make out the wide-build shoulders peer out behind the back of the chair, since the man they belonged to was so well-built. His muscular body and visible wealth would make most women (and not few men) swoon for him, but his aura and something in his eyes made you fear him and his simple presence. He was truly the personification of intimidating. The sound of heels hitting the shiny-flawless-floor announced the arrival of another person and the man didn't need to see her, to recognize his trusted assistant simply by the sound of her shoes. The keypad at the door beeped when the woman entered her passcode and the door automatically opened for her, so smooth that no sound was made. "We've located the source," the woman's voice broke the silence and her words, even though he expected them, filled the man with satisfaction, only for his smirk to be wiped from his face by her next ones. "The Justice league has arrived there before we were able to find out anything else and when our employees arrived, there was only a crater left and they couldn't further investigate since the property it landed on belongs to Bruce Wayne." The only sign that showed that the man was angered was his clenched fist, which almost immediately relaxed again. "Find a way to get more information on it. It's priority number one. All other projects that do not need any constant surveillance will be paused until I say so."

Taglist: @panda-duuu @empirialwolf @reallysparklychaos@scarecrowsragdoll @zofty15 @jason-todd-deserved-better@vanessafabricius @probsjosh @silentwhispofhope@rockyrocket15 @uguid @sirkekselord

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