#was meant to be a gif animation but the file was too big and I’m too stupid to figure out how to compress the size rip me oh well

[heli0s-writes]

Sharks in the Water*

Summary: He’s some kind of expert, all right. Marksman, combatant, tactician. Liar, lover, loaded gun.

A/n: Billy Russo/Reader 2.1k words of comparing Billy to dangerous animals lol. Explicit smut, suspense(?), questionable morals. Dirty talk. Soft!dark. Virginity kink? But no real virgins were involved in the making of this filth. 18+ only please.

With Russo, there’s no room for slip ups.

He’s a viper in a jewelry box and if you’re distracted for even a second, he’ll drop you where you stand.

He’s your mission.

Fury doesn’t trust Anvil. Doesn’t trust their methods, doesn’t trust the abrupt crop of their success, doesn’t trust Russo as far as he can throw him.

When you thumb through the file, studying the lines of his boyish face beset with the eyes of a man who’s seen too much war, a small warning light flickers awake. Just a quick brush to the edge of your better judgement.

Combat vets own one of two expressions: a vacant, haunted stare, or a steely, hardened one. Like death touched them and couldn’t take them. Like nothing short of their own gun could.

Russo’s eyes are black. And bright. And the warning light in the back of your brain stays on.

-

It’s a full-blown evac alarm soon enough.

Maybe it’s how killers recognize each other. Preternaturally sensing your own kind before any proper introduction.

He steps behind you in line for coffee and the air around him shifts. He buys your cup, speaking over your head to the young boy at the counter, and suddenly the lure you’re casting out feels like it could come back with your own meat on the hook.

“You didn’t have to do that.” You duck your head, playing timid. Roll over. Belly up.

“I didn’t have to,” he smiles before leaning in, his slender frame bowing your way, your drink just slightly out of reach. “But if I see you tomorrow, I might do it again.”

It’s a come-on like a threat, and you realize with Russo, anything could be a threat.

-

He gets his hands on you by the second date.

He touches up your thigh, preening when you shiver. He’s got these outrageously long fingers. Slim and painterly, yet powerful. Every part apex predator with the disturbingly serene face of a stained-glass angel.

He’s a showoff, too. Knows exactly what he looks like at your side with a smirk, daring the bartender to check you out. Knows what you look like when he sits by a table full of women one tequila shot away from throwing themselves at him.

He’d feed your ego all night if it meant that by the time you’d fall into his bed, you’d be full of confidence—maybe indebted to him for getting you there.

He’s gorgeous, after all. You’d be so lucky.

You think he’s less interested in the chase before sex than the one that follows it. Russo’s the kind of unbalanced that toys with emotions and psyches. Finds all the ways he could break a person to small pieces. He wants to make someone addled by him, dependent on him, addicted to him.

Either way, the chase is full tilt now.

-

The fourth date happens and he’s cutting a piece of bleeding, rare steak when he says, “So, you’re a virgin.”

You spit up your drink a little and if it weren’t just you and him at the table, you’d believe he was addressing someone else. He’s unaffected as anything, forking the meat and placing it carefully into his mouth.

“I’m not,” you protest.

A quiet laugh passes between his teeth, “You’re a bad liar, but it’s okay.” He looks up at you with big, compassionate eyes. “Everyone’s different. And hey, now that we’ve got it out of the way.” He shrugs, dismissive. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

You stab your salad, “It’s just— it just hasn’t happened yet—I was a late bloomer, alright?”

Russo dabs at his chin thoughtfully. “Mmm,” he hums, “I wish I had that problem.”

He returns to his plate and tucks into it, washing down the meal with red wine, an empty second glass dusting his pale cheeks with color. He’s smiling at you past the rim, watching how you squirm in your seat.

Wet lips quirk. “Asking for a friend, if it were to happen...”

“I’m not waiting for marriage or anything.”

“Then,” each word is slow and methodical, “what are you waiting for?”

You meet his challenge with a defiant glare, and his left brow jumps in surprise and excitement.

“Just for dinner to be over.”

There’s blood on his steak knife when he puts it down, raising a finger toward the waiter, and calls for the check.

-

It’s outrageous how handsome he is. How he’s learned to work the skin of his face into hiding all those serrated teeth.

He backs you into the wall, crowding you until you’re craning your neck up at him. His hands are at your sides, thumbing circles over your hipbones. One knee makes a suggestion between your legs, and you gradually open up, breath hitching, taking in the scent of his expensive cologne, his silky pomade, his increasing arousal.

“I’ll make it good,” he promises. “I know what it’s like when it’s not good. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

He dotes at the side of your neck, your shoulder, gentle like pressing careful kisses to a newborn baby. You feel the urge to say something, maybe profess what you’ve done before with others. The term virgin is fast and loose these days, but it’s not like Russo really gives a shit. He’s just working it, working you, taking what you say and making it fit best for him.

When he undresses, you’re not surprised to find that he’s pretty everywhere.

A whole host of old scars run through the sleek ripple of his pale muscles but he wears them proudly like embellishments. You drag your fingers up his forearm, then stomach, then chest. You touch a barely-there web high on his shoulder.

You joke, “Got a few of these myself. Fell off my bike a lot as a kid.”

His eyes go dark, lids dropping to half-mast. The corner of his mouth jerks into a vicious expression that pries his face apart. It’s chilling and almost grotesque. He ricochets from Renaissance cherub to absurdist nightmare— then, just like that, it’s gone.

“Yeah,” he grins, good as new. “Me too.”

Then, the lies blur a little, your world spinning on its head in lazy pleasure.

He’s some kind of expert, all right. Marksman, combatant, tactician. Liar, lover, loaded gun.

Even how he rolls on a condom is a masterful performance. Long fingers dance gracefully along his erection, stretching rubber over the swollen tip of his cockhead, straining around his throbbing shaft.

He tugs off your clothes, lays you down in bed, licking into your mouth soft and sweet and agonizing.

He’s attentive and generous, coaxing shudders out of every single nerve you own, lighting you up like a bonfire celebration. He leaves spit-shiny marks across your chest and thighs, kneads your arms and legs and loosens you up until you beg.

“Billy.” You scrabble pathetically at his back. “Billy, please don’t tease me.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely.” He watches you with hungry, wet lips, with his tongue flicking out and tasting the air. You’re exposed and vulnerable, he looks ready to strike.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t try to soothe or comfort or even lie. He simply presses a finger inside of you, feels you drip down to his knuckles, and then presses in another. His forehead touches yours for a second, the tip of his cock flirtatious on your slit, and then he’s driving his way in, swallowing up the wounded noises you make.

“There,” is all he says as you tremble and tremble. “I’ve got you.”

His hips roll on, dragging the hard line of his cock at a new angle, the pressure inside you growing wild with each thrust. You reply with awkward effort, rhythmless, hysterical motions, unsure what to do with your hands, embarrassed at how slick it is between your thighs.

Russo doesn’t seem to mind, finding it charming, even, as he kisses along your collarbones and jaw and cheek. He purrs, “You like that? Waited forever for it and now look at how wet you are.”

Then, he moves, puts you on your knees, your face into the pillow because it’s always about control and you can’t forget that.

He commands, “Stay.”

One hand slips around your neck, holding your throat like a manacle, not squeezing, just resting. Just enough weight to make its presence known and you feel him staring a hole into the back of your head.

This is it—sell it or sink. It’s easy enough because Russo fits inside you like he’s always belonged there, like he could be there forever. You’re fluttering around him, squeezing his cock, your body asking for more and more and more.

“Oh, hell yes,” he groans, “Yes, that’s it baby, fuck, you want it bad. Need it real fucking bad.”

You bite your lip, tense up each limb, release, and cry out.

His pace increasingly approaches erratic, his endlessly calm breathing punched out. His elbows touch down, folding himself over you, pulling you into his chest in a closing snare.

“Could have been doing this the whole time if you just said so. All you needed was someone to teach you how to take it. And now look at you…” His teeth scrape your ear, breath hot and menacing. He bites at your shoulders and the tops of your arms. “You’re fucking high on it, taking cock exactly how you were made to.”

You hide your face, “That’s not…”

“Can’t lie to me, baby. Can’t lie to me when you’re slobbering like that. Not when you’re dripping down my fucking cock. Shit, after this, I’ll make you want it all the goddamn time.”

His thrusts are getting meaner and meaner, bottoming out, his balls slapping against you with every hit. Everything is numb and far away, slipping out of your reach. The only thing left is his weight all around you, the blood in your ears ringing like an alarm going off.

This is it—you fist the sheets until you hear them scream— sobbing his name.

He murmurs again, husky and low and close to heartfelt. “I’ve got you.”

And you think— coming apart at the seams, sharp white peeling back the edges of your vision, clawing down his shoulders and arms and leaving your marks on him in retaliation— no, Billy, I’ve got you.

-

“Wow,” you gasp at the ceiling.

“Was it a passable first time? Don’t know what I’d do if I ruined sex for you.” He’s grinning from ear to ear, smug in every fine crease of his face still vibrant with afterglow.

You sigh, pulling the sheet up, burrowing into the mattress and taking stock of your aching body.

“It was… wow. Passable is… really selling yourself short. I’ve heard some weird first-time shit. Really awkward stuff. Something involving olive oil and a sandwich bag?”

He scoffs out a disgusted noise, moving closer to taste the sweat on your neck, nipping at your swollen lips until you moan again. The room turns dusky when he rises up off his elbows, blocking out the warm lamplight until it’s cold blue all around.

“You mean it?” He’s almost petulant now, tugging more hungry, childlike cruelties over your new bruises.

But it all depends, Billy, on which part is the lie. It was a good first time—with him. He made you want him, made you need him, made you come so hard you almost forgot for a second that you’re just as fucked up as he is.

That there’s something wrong with you the same way there’s something wrong with him because that’s how killers are.

They’re either made by nature or by shitty circumstance. Something fucked the human out of you same way something fucked the human out of him. Turned you into a living war zone long before you set foot on any concrete battlefield—and now here you both are: predators and soldiers to your core on one mission or another. Just two dead-eyed sharks circling, waiting for the other to breach.

If you break before he does, even Fury might have trouble angling you out.

Russo’s trigger finger on your waist is loose and relaxed. Entire body easy, but he noses along the slope of your jaw, inhaling, lips brushing dangerously over the rhythm of your pulse like scenting a trail of fresh blood.

“You wouldn’t lie to me about something like that, would you?”

He’ll have to keep chasing; you won’t let him catch up.

You laugh, reaching for him, letting your heart rate even out. You nuzzle into his hand, into his knuckles, into all the horror they’ve inflicted on some other prey.

“Billy,” you say, taking his trigger finger into your mouth, letting it point toward the base of your skull in a show of surrender. Roll over. Belly up. Don’t slip. “You know I’m a bad liar.”

[heliads]

What We Are

You’ve hated Draco Malfoy from the moment you met him at the Sorting Ceremony all those years ago. However, you have the strangest feeling that things are changing between the two of you- like just maybe, you like him more than you thought.

masterlist

You are eleven years old, small and swallowed up by the dark cloth of your school robes. You’re filling through the main aisle of the Great Hall, surrounded by a cluster of other anxious first years. Four long tables stretch down the room, two on each side of the hall and each filled with chattering students. Four banners hang at the end of the hall- ruby, emerald, gold, sapphire. One for each house. You’ve been briefed on the houses and their qualities by a newly formed friend, one Hermione Granger, but you’re still nervous. You don’t entirely know which one you belong to, although you have an inkling as to which one should be avoided.

Professor McGonagall begins listing off the names one at a time, and the subsequent first-years file up to her, place the worn Sorting Hat on their head, and receive their assigned House. After a while, your name is eventually called, and you make your way to the front. The Sorting Hat considers for a time, then a smile crawls across its weathered fabric features. “SLYTHERIN!” The word is shouted across the hall, and you feel a sinking pit yawn open in your stomach. Slytherin? That was the one house you were supposed to avoid.

You make brief eye contact with your new friend Hermione, who looks about as stricken as you feel, before settling into a place at the Slytherin table. The emerald-clad students around you clap you on the back, issuing congratulations, but you still feel uneasy. Wouldn’t it have been better to go to Ravenclaw, where all the smartest students belonged? Or brave Gryffindor, or dedicated Hufflepuff? Anywhere would be better than ambitious, cunning, snakelike Slytherin.

A boy seated one space down looks at you, taking in your glum expression. He has striking platinum blond hair, and appears to be a first year just like yourself. “Don’t look so upset. You got into the best house there is, you know. All of the students who go to Slytherin end up being the greatest lot here.” For some reason, the condescendingly arrogant tone of the boy gets to you, and you shoot back a haughty reply. “If all Slytherin students are like you, I don’t fancy staying here at all.” The boy’s expression changes into a glare, and he glowers at you for the rest of the dinner.

That boy would turn out to be Draco Malfoy, Slytherin House’s most famous elitist. The two of you would hate each other ever since that night, and that feeling of utter loathing would continue for years. You’re now far older than you had been as a wee little first year, and so is Draco, but your attitude towards him hasn’t changed a bit. He’s just so conceited, so full of himself- and you’re no better, you know that, but at least you try to hide it.

However, you were lucky enough to score yourself a bunch of friends who knew exactly why you hated Draco, and happened to feel the exact same way. Hermione had been your best friend ever since that first day on the Hogwarts Express, and you had introduced yourself to Harry and Ron around the same time she did. Now the four of you were a regular fixture on the grounds, and you wouldn’t change it for anything, even a few of the haughtier Slytherins (read: Draco Malfoy) made sure to mention that one of their house shouldn’t be mixing with the Gryffindors.

However, you didn’t really care what they thought. Yes, you were a Slytherin, and that meant a good many things: pride, ambition, and a thick skin in terms of others doubting you. So you became even better friends with Harry, Ron, and Hermione just to spite them. You often found yourself with them at the Quidditch games, walking across the grounds, sneaking out of your dormitory late at night for a couple of misadventures, or now, with you and Hermione studying together at a table out in a corner of a stone hall. 

One of the problems of being a Slytherin friend of three Gryffindors is that they could never go back to your common room to study with you, and you certainly weren’t allowed into their common room. Fred and George had offered to sneak you in loads of times, and you technically had been there before under Harry’s invisibility cloak, but for right now, you and Hermione were content to stay away from the roaring fires and plush red armchairs of the Gryffindor common room to work on a particularly gruesome Potions essay. You both wanted to finish it early, Hermione especially so she could then go teach it to Harry and Ron, so you stayed out of the lion’s dorm until you were adequately prepared.

Hermione sighs at the paper in front of her, wrinkling her brow in consternation. “Honestly, what does all of this even mean? I swear, Professor Snape’s directions get worse and worse with every assignment.” You nod fervently. “This prompt makes no sense, and I’ve been staring at it for the last fifteen minutes.” You drum your fingers on the table, thinking, then stand up. “I’m going to get that Potions primer from the library. You know, the one we were reading earlier? I thought I saw some similar wording in one of the chapters, and at any rate, I need an excuse to go stretch my legs. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Hermione waves goodbye as you head off down the stone corridors. The walk towards the library takes you across the courtyard, and you’re glad for the refreshing bite of the wind, even if it leaves your cheeks raw from the chill. You traipse inside the halls once more, twisting around corners until you reach the library, and gratefully slip through the doors to reach the towering bookcases crowding the room.

You stride purposefully through the shelves until you come to the row you’re looking for at last. Your eyes scan the titles in front of you, and you think you’re almost at the book until a familiar figure steps into the space right next to you. You don’t even have to look up to recognize him. You’ve seen his unwanted presence too many times for a case of mistaken identity.

Draco speaks first. “I’m surprised to see you, L/N. I didn’t think reading was one of your strong suits.” You raise an eyebrow, still perusing the books on the shelf. “Those are strong words coming from somebody who hit his peak academic performance as a weasel in the fourth year.” Draco rolls his eyes. “Ferret, not a weasel.” You look over at him at last, but can’t help a small grin. “Does it really matter? It was still a small animal, and it was still you.”

Draco heaves some dramatic and egotistical sigh, but folds his arms over his chest and stays put. He’s not looking for books, just standing there. In fact, his eyes keep flickering over to the corner of the library, near the door. You straighten up, following his gaze in confusion. “What are you doing?” You ask him, still trying to figure out what he’s looking at with such unease. “You don’t usually go out of your way to enjoy my company and you also keep staring at the door.”

Draco starts to mutter something about how not all of the library belongs to you, but you cut him off with a gasp of delight. “You’re hiding from Pansy Parkinson! She’s over there looking for you, and you’re trying to make sure she can’t see you by hiding behind all the bookshelves!” You laugh, and then start to raise your voice, as if you’re about to call her over. Instantly, Draco leans over you, pushing you against the bookcase and holding his wand against your throat.

“Don’t say a word.” His voice is cool and low. A teasing grin flickers across your lips, and you push his wand away with one finger. “What, you going to hex me, Malfoy? In the middle of the library? I think that would draw your favorite girl over here more than anything.” Draco just stares daggers at you, breath coming harshly in his chest. He stares there, unmoving, until you jerk your chin towards the doors. “Pansy’s gone. Now can you please let go of me?”

Draco waits a moment just to spite you, and then releases his grip on your wrist. You snatch your hand away from him with an air of disgust, and grab your potions book off of the shelf. “Never do that again.” You hiss at him, and stalk away. Who does he think he is, that lout? You’re still storming over the incident the whole way back to the table, and barely notice that Harry and Ron have joined you until you throw yourself back into your seat.

Hermione looks up at your abrupt arrival. “What’s wrong, Y/N?” You heave a sigh of irritation. “Draco Malfoy, that’s what’s wrong. I ran into that lowlife in the library. I just can’t stand him.” Harry nods knowingly, but Ron, who appears to be in an even worse mood than you, rolls his eyes. “Oh, stop complaining. You’re a Slytherin, he isn’t as bad to you.” This is entirely the wrong thing to say, and you know you should just ignore him but you’re still fired up from the confrontation in the library.

“Are you saying that Malfoy’s not as mean to me because I’m from his house?” Ron nods, ignoring Hermione pointedly shaking her head at him in an attempt to get him to stay quiet. “Yeah, I am. You keep pretending like he’s such a jerk to you, but you don’t have it half as bad as the rest of us. Honestly, you need to stop making such a big deal out of nothing.” You know you’re overreacting, but you can’t take Ron’s griping, not today. You stand up, slamming your books shut and sweeping your parchment and quills into your bag. 

“In that case, I suppose you don’t need my nothing when it comes to your potions essay. Good luck figuring that out.” You glance over at Hermione. “I’m sorry to leave in a rush, but I should be on my way. Swing by later if you need help.” Hermione says her chagrined goodbyes, and as you stalk away from the table, you can hear her laying into Ron already. The sound brings a smile to your face.

You’re still fuming over Draco and Ron and the god-awful Potions essay the next day, and your irritation must show because Pansy takes advantage of the opportunity to cross paths with you as you’re walking through the halls. She’s chattering with a group of her friends in the courtyard, and as you hurry past, you hear her call something out to you. “Oh look, there’s Y/N. You know, she looks surprisingly proud for someone who’s father is a mudblood-lover. Maybe she’s alright with it.”

Your footsteps slow, and you turn back to face Pansy. You know that this is just what she wants, but you’ve got a burning feeling in the back of your head that tells you that if you let one more person walk all over you you’ll never be able to deal with yourself again. You eye Pansy coolly. “What was that, Parkinson?” Pansy smirks, victorious. “I heard a rumor that your father was getting a little too close to some Muggles. That would certainly tarnish your reputation, wouldn’t it? And here I was, thinking that the L/Ns were an upstanding wizarding family, but I guess not. It looks like-”

You feel like you’re a couple of seconds away from punching Pansy right in her arrogantly prissy face, but before you can try to argue yourself out of violence another boy steps up beside you. You groan inwardly when you realize it’s Draco. Great, another person to make fun of you, because this day wasn’t going badly enough already. However, he doesn’t join in the laughter. In fact, he shoots a glare at Pansy. “Amazing, Parkinson. Did you finally realize that your own family was so low that you had to make up rumors to get anywhere? Although, you might want to stay away from the Muggle story. I think it might be a little too true on your end.”

Pansy’s face blanches, and she starts stammering something about how that couldn’t possibly be true and she has no idea what Draco’s talking about. You stare at Draco in amazement, and he turns back to you. “Let’s go. I don’t feel like wasting any more of our time.” With that, the two of you strut away across the courtyard, leaving Pansy behind to make up excuses to her group of friends.

Only when you’re out of hearing distance from Pansy do you finally let yourself relax. You look over at Draco, unable to stop yourself from laughing. “What was that about? Is it really true about Pansy’s family?” Draco, surprisingly, is grinning as well. “I don’t know, but she didn’t seem like she could deny it.” The two of you carry on in hilarity for a while, but then you turn to him, grin slipping away from your face. “Why did you do that?” Draco frowns. “Do what?” You gesture idly behind you with your hand. “Defend me against Parkinson. I would have thought you’d join in instead of having my back.”

Draco shrugs, looking down the hallway. “We’re supposed to be enemies, aren’t we? I don’t feel like having my rival limited by false rumors. It would lower me too.” You look at him askance. “You publicly insulted Pansy Parkinson just because you think that me being called names hurts you as well?” Draco shrugs. “Why did you think I did it?” You sigh, furrowing your brow. “I don’t know.”

Even after you and Draco turn down separate hallways, you find yourself still thinking about him. Why would he defend you? It makes no sense. You even think back to that moment in the library, and realize that he wasn’t really as cruel as you had thought. All he had done then was exchange the usual retorts, although those had the same joking tinge as always. And wasn’t it strange that of all the places to hide, he had chosen your aisle? It could have just been a coincidence, or maybe he was seeking you out intentionally.

You’re not sure how you feel about this. You’ve grown so used to thinking of Draco as an enemy, someone to be hated, that you don’t quite know what to do when he is nice to you. You find your eyes flickering his way in the common room, or your gaze constantly catching on his silhouette as he walks past you in the halls. You usually never spend this much time thinking about him, but now, he seems to be everywhere.

One night, you can’t focus on your homework. Between the smoky atmosphere of the Slytherin common room or the mind-twisting Transfiguration tasks McGonagall’s set for you, you just can’t seem to get your thoughts in order. Eventually, you close up your books and decide to head to the Astronomy Tower. The cool night air will clear your head, and you’ll still technically be doing homework because you’ll be studying the stars.

You’re grateful for the still emptiness of the tower. You prop your arms up against the stone edge of the balcony, letting your shoulders slump as you consider the dizzying drop to the grounds below. You tilt your head up slightly, letting the wind trace patterns against your skin. You’re just beginning to feel peaceful once again when you hear the door to the Astronomy Tower open and a figure joins you on the turret. You sigh inwardly when you recognize the familiar shock of white-blond hair. Of course- Draco always goes to the Astronomy Tower as a place to unwind. Then you’re surprised as to why that fact popped so readily into your head, and how you even knew that in the first place.

Draco’s steps falter for a second when he realizes he’s not alone. You start to move away from the balcony. “Here, I’ll go. You can have the tower to yourself.” You turn around to find yourself caught in Draco’s gaze, those storm grey eyes pinning you in place. Draco shakes his head just slightly, and his voice echoes across the stone room. “No, don’t go. It’s alright.” You hesitate for a moment, then turn back to the view before you. Your eyes follow the line of trees dotting the grounds, the twisting snakes of rivers that feed into the Black Lake.

After a moment, Draco joins you at the balcony. He leans up against the stone, just a few inches away from you. You both stand there in silence, unable to say a word. At last, Draco turns to you. “What are we?” You return his gaze, slightly confused. “What?” Draco looks away for just a second, and then his eyes return to you. “When we first met, we hated each other. We’ve been rivals for years, and now-” He breaks off. “I don’t think we dislike each other anymore. I don’t think we have for a while.” You stay silent for a second, taking in his words. Then you nod.

“There’s something else, isn’t there? It isn’t just me?” For a moment, you think you’ve gone too far, spoken too rashly. Draco stares at you, then he leans forward and kisses you. When he breaks away, panic and regret flash through his eyes when you don’t say anything. He starts to move away, but you step towards him and kiss him again. This time, he doesn’t break away, not immediately. His hand slides up to the small of your back, the stone of the balcony cool against your legs.

You can still feel his hand on your waist when he breaks away. You look away, sure you’ve made some mistake that you’ll regret in the morning, but then his fingers are lightly pressed against your cheek, guiding you back to look at him again. He looks less sure of anything than you’ve ever seen him, but all of a sudden that doubt is replaced by a calm determination. “This is right. This is what we were supposed to be.” You nod quietly, letting your hesitation break free with a smile. He’s right, isn’t he? No matter how it felt to win all the arguments or competitions with him, this moment right now feels far better than anything before it. This is what you always wanted, and what he wants as well.

[marshmallow-phd]

Healing Touch

Part of The Untamed - EXO Wolf Universe

Genre: Wolf!AU

Pairing: Yixing x Reader

Summary: Medical school abroad was the last line on your to-do list before starting the rest of your life. Everything was going according to plan. Everything, that is, until tragedy strikes your campus. In the wake of a professor’s untimely death, you’re partnered with the cute boy with a breathtaking smile in the newly combined labs. You find yourself unable to resist the dimples and shy glances, but his life is here with no plans of leaving. Will you continue on as planned or will you accept the hand that Fate had dealt you?

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I Final

**

Yixing sat at the kitchen table as the others finished up their breakfast. Minseok took the now empty plate that had belonged to Ji Yeon and rinsed it off in the sink, scrubbing away at the bits that had caked onto the white porcelain. Yixing continued to stare at the newspaper article. He’d read it so many times in the last fifteen minutes that surely he had it memorized by now. Worry pounded in his ears and not simply because of the rise in wolf-related deaths in the area. It had been his professor that was killed this time.

The same splitting headache that had been plaguing him for weeks now came back in full force. Dropping the paper, Yixing rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger. It didn’t do any good.

“You okay?”

Yixing looked up at Baekhyun, who stood on the other side of the table. He smiled. “Of course. Given the circumstances. I’m just hoping I can catch up in this new class.”

“It sucks that it had to be one of your pre-med classes,” Baekhyun said, shaking his head.

“It’s terrible that it had to happen at all.”

“You know what I meant. We’re already worried enough about these attacks, but now you’re connected to one of the deaths. We’ll have to be extra careful.”

“I’m always careful.”

“Yixing isn’t the one we have to worry about.” Junmyeon said pointedly. Baekhyun feigned a wounded look. Snickers echoed around the room, except from Minseok’s mate, Ji Yeon. Her eyebrows were pinched tight with concern. And she had every right to be. Perhaps she should even be more worried than she already was.

The headache still throbbed behind Yixing’s eyes. Relief didn’t seem to be coming soon. He stood up from the table, excusing himself quietly as he left the kitchen for his bedroom to be alone.

“Yixing?”

He stopped a few steps up.

Ji Yeon stood just inside the short hallway, arms folded in front of her with the fingers tucked underneath. Yixing thought of her as a strong person, someone who stood as a good foundation for Minseok. He didn’t know her that well yet, but he already say her as the strong type, the sturdy kind.

“Yes?”

“You guys will catch this omega, right?” She glanced off to side, probably to check that Minseok hadn’t overheard her question. The eldest wolf was more than aware, Yixing was sure of it. The connection between a mate and their wolf was strong, indescribably so from the stories he’d heard. If he was honest, he was a bit jealous that Minseok was the first to be mated. The hope he had, however, was that she would not be the last. Once a pack started finding their other halves, it was a domino effect. His time would come, sooner or later.

Yixing mustered up a smile that he hoped came off as reassuring. “There’s nine of us and one of him. Eventually, we’ll find him.” Accepting that answer for the time being, Ji Yeon nodded and walked back into the kitchen. As soon as she was out of sight, Yixing dropped the smile and swallowed thickly. He headed up the rest of the way to bedroom and shut the door.

Tense energy tingled through his feet as he sat on the edge of his bed. They were aching to move, to pace in hopes to work out the nerves, but he didn’t want to concern his brothers who would certainly hear it from the floor below. A run was out as well. As soon as any of the others got a whiff of someone shifting to wander through the woods, they jumped in to join. Only Minseok had the talent to get away clean.

Honestly, that was the least of his worries if he were to go running.

He wasn’t a killer. He wanted to help people. That was why he was studying medicine, why he wanted to be a doctor. But lately… These headaches were never ending, plaguing him over the last several weeks. And then there were the blackouts. Moments of time where he couldn’t remember what had happened. No one saw him during those times. Though he didn’t have to ask when he saw the pack after an episode. He was usually questioned where he had been himself. And he never had an answer. Not a truthful one.

No. This couldn’t have been him. There was another explanation for what was happening, both with the killings and with himself. It would just take time to figure it out.

**

Your fingers clenched tightly to the textbook against your chest. All morning you had been spending time at the library, reviewing last week’s vocabulary in an effort to distract yourself. Unfortunately, in a place like this with a wild animal running around killing people, escaping the whispers and rumors was not an option. It seemed that everyone was discussing the latest tragedy. And it made sense with how close it hit to the university.

“I hear her body was found in pieces.”

“I’m surprised they even found a body with all the animals that live in the woods.”

“Some of the hunters are talking about going out to kill the animal before it kills someone else.”

“No way. Did you see the pictures someone took of the paw prints in the dirt? That thing has to be huge. Like a bear.”

“There’s no way its as big as a bear.”

“I didn’t even know there were wolves in the forest.”

“What? Did you think it was all bunnies and squirrels?”

Unable to take it anymore, you’d slammed the textbook shut (gaining annoyed glares from those around you as if they weren’t the cause of your inability to utilize the library in the way it was meant to be used) and headed out. It was mystifying to you, the way others would talk about what was happening, like it was sports game or a thriller on TV.

Professor Xui was strict and stern, but she was also admired by the students. The “tough love” type. Though you personally had never been in any of her classes, you did know who she was, and you’d cried when you’d heard the news. Naturally, the university was on top of how to move forward. You’d groaned audibly when you’d read the email that the classes would be combining. Your human physiology class was already close to capacity. They had moved your session into one of the larger science rooms where freshman chemistry classes typically took place. Goodbye uncomfortable wooden desks, hello overly tall lab tables and bar stools with no back support.

You were one of the first to arrive at the lab, giving you the pick of the lot. One of the front tables was free so you settled there. You continued to clutch to the textbook that should have been opened to the page written on the white board in front of you. It was hard to let go. This thick, overpriced book wasn’t going to protect you from anything. And besides, you had no reason to be afraid. You didn’t go into the woods. You weren’t the kind to hike or camp or go near the trees for any reason. The flannel shirt you wore was simply because it was comfortable. You were absolutely fine.

Rolling your eyes at yourself and the silliness that was the track of your mind, you let go of the book and flipped to page thirty-four. Other students filed in as the seconds ticked closer to the allotted time. Professor Jiang, a short, salt and pepper-haired man with wired-framed glasses and a dad-level sense of humor, walked into the room with his old school briefcase, corners wearing thin and the metal on the push latches showing the brass base until the silver coating. The duet of the latches still made you jump even after fully expecting it.

“Good morning, everyone.” Professor Jiang adjusted his glasses. A nervous twitch he completed at the beginning of every class. All it took was five minutes into his lecture and he developed the steel nerves of an alligator wrestler. Pulling a pencil out from your bag, you barely paid attention to the rest of Jiang’s announcement. “I know it's difficult to process, but we’ll all get through this together. For the new students, I will be available for anyone who needs help adjusting to the new teaching style. And I- Oh. Hello.”

You looked up to see what the interruption was.

A late comer had entered the classroom, the door slowly closing behind him. Slim yet athletic, the newest student wasn’t overbearing or imposing, but he still captivated your attention, holding on to it as if his life depended on it. And he was staring right back at you with an intensity that matched your own. Mouth hanging open by the slightest of centimeters, he didn’t move or pay any attention to the professor or the other students staring at him. The muscles in his hand strongly gripped the strap of his backpack that hung off one shoulder. He was going to misalign his back if he kept doing that.

Professor Jiang cleared his throat pointedly, ending the staring contest. “New student?”

The new student blinked rapidly as he turned to the teacher. “Yes. Sorry. I got lost with the new room assignment.”

“One of Xui’s students?”

He nodded.

“That’s alright. We all need an adjustment period. Please, take a seat.”

You stiffened as Professor Jiang held his hand out in the direction of the empty seat right next to you. And that’s exactly where the new student sat. You forced yourself to keep your eyes straight ahead, concentrating a little too hard as Professor Jiang started his lecture of the circulatory system. But his words were drowned out by the shuffling beside you as the new student took out his textbook and other necessities for notes. You leaned forward, holding your neck up by your palm as you mentally repeated the highlights of the pulmonary circuit in order to be productive. The scratch of the pen against your notebook seemed louder today. Your heart seemed to be working in overtime as well. Was everything louder today? Or were you being overly sensitive to noise due to the current circumstances?

“Alright. Please, take a few minutes to go over the review questions located at the end of the section,” Professor Jiang said. It was almost a relief for his short lecture to be over. “Feel free to check with your partner at the table. To make things easier for all of us, the seats you chose today with be permanent for the rest of the semester and who you are seated with will be your constant collaborator.”

Oh, joy.

You were not the best at getting to know new people. It wasn’t your fault, you didn’t think. The other person always wanted to start off with the weather or their job or some other subject that you found difficult to bounce off of to continue the conversation. It was like your mind wasn’t built for small talk. Somehow, you’d missed the installation of pre-programmed responses that everyone else carried around. You had a tendency to go a little too deep a little too quickly. Those were the conversations you wanted to have. Those were the kind that you found easy responses for. But people tended to find your passion about Rosalind Franklin and her forgotten contribution to science a little much.

“Hi.”

The cool voice that broke through your scrambled thoughts made you jump. You hit your knee against the lab table. Careful to hide it from view, you rubbed the sore spot to make the throbbing go away. Your new lab partner must have heard it given the shy smile that pushed up left corner of his mouth, revealing a deep dimple in his cheek. As much as you wished it wasn’t, your heart beating rapidly against your ribs.

For several seconds, you said nothing. No greeting back, no “I’m trying to focus on my work”, not anything. You were silent, staring back at him like he was walking around with a windmill on his head.

“I’m Yixing,” he continued in an effort to get you to speak.

Right. Conversations were two-way streets. “(y/n).”

His smile spread even wider. “It’s nice to meet you, (y/n).”

Words had apparently abandoned you today. All you could do was nod. He didn’t take it offensively. A small chuckle pushed passed the silence.  

“Do you want to do the questions together?” he asked. “Or maybe when we’re both finished, we could compare what we got?” he suggested when you still didn’t answer.

“Compare,” you finally spat out. “I think it would be better if we compared. Afterwards, that is.” Not that you were usually the most articulate person, but this was becoming painful.

Yixing nodded. “Okay.” And with that he turned to his book, numbered the lines down on his paper and read over the questions. Taking a deep breath, you turned to your own station to do the same. Big mistake.

His natural scent hit you like a gust of wind on a previously calm day. You weren’t expecting the soft pine smell that he radiated. It wasn’t an overly musty, too-much-cologne type smell. It was subtle; the reason you didn’t catch on to it until this moment. Glancing over at you, Yixing frowned.

“You smell nice.” Oh, gosh, someone kidnap you now. Get you out of here in a fashion that would give reason as to why you didn’t come back. Did those words actually just leave your lips? Turning away from him, you reprimanded yourself for the slip up. Yixing laughed softly, making you turn to face him again.

“Thank you,” he said sweetly. “I appreciate the compliment. Especially since this building has a tendency to smell bad between the chemicals and dissections. I’m always worried that I’ll leave with some of it on me.”

You smiled at his joke. And that was where your thought train stopped. Instinct told you that an additional response was appropriate, but none came to you. You tried to rifle through the possibilities. Before you could find one, though, Yixing had turned his back down to his work.

With the awkward exchange over, you were able to make it through the five questions, writing down the answers with confidence.

“Do you want to compare?” Yixing asked as soon as you wrote the last word.

“Sure.” You slid your paper closer to the middle and shifted your body so you were partially facing him. One by one, you went over what each of you had gotten. Physiology of the human body was a strong suit of yours, more so than of your other science classes. That little bit of pride you had was perking up. It was ready to show off its penchant for knowledge. Unfortunately, this was not going to be one of those times for showing off. For the most part, you were evenly matched. Your answers were close, nearly identical in some parts.

“Professor Jiang might think we cheated,” Yixing teased.

“Well, he did say to collaborate with each other.” Good response. Appropriate response. You nearly patted yourself on the shoulder with that one. You even gave it the kind of tone that said you were merely teasing back.

“Yes, that’s true.”

“That concludes today’s class,” Professor Jiang announced. “As you leave, please stack your answer papers on the corner of the desk up here.” He patted the black top for emphasis. “Have a good day, everyone.”

Standing up, the sounds of stool legs scraping against the scuffed tile echoed through the large room behind you. Once your textbook was zipped up safely in your bag, you reached for the paper. Yixing swiped it up first.

“I’ll take it up there for you.”

“Oh, no, that’s okay. You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

You might not have been the only one blurting out thoughts before you stop them. A slight pink hue bloomed on Yixing’s cheeks. You were left there speechless as he hurried to the front, dropped off the papers, and left the classroom.

Dazed was an understatement. You didn’t know what to make of what had just happened. So, you ignored it. It was probably nothing anyway. Checking your watch, you calculated the amount of time you had until your afternoon sessions. There was a long break in between. The smart decision would be to hang out somewhere on campus to ensure that you actually went to your afternoon classes. But you needed quiet. Somewhere with no whispers about the woods or comments about the college’s new schedules. The only place you were guaranteed to find that was in your apartment. The building was a couple blocks away, a short walk no more than five minutes. You would have plenty of time to head there and back.

The front door was unlocked when you arrived. A bad habit from your roommate. She didn’t see the need to lock it if she was home and awake. You, on the other hand, clicked it tight and double checked it before stepping in deeper to the apartment.

Ran was sitting at the table, eating noodles and scrolling through a site on her laptop while her phone played a soft melody led by a pipa. It was a dreamy song, soft and comforting, like what your parents used to play for you after a nightmare.

Sighing to yourself, you sat down across from Ran and let your bag fall off your shoulder and to the floor. You hadn’t taken your computer with you, so the loud clump wasn’t one to panic over.

“How was class this morning with the new students?” Ran asked over the music.

The two of you weren’t extremely close. Friends, but not blood sisters. Ran had been your roommate freshman year and when you started talking about moving off campus, you’d offered her the other room to cut down on cost. She’d taken it rather than risk getting a new roommate that she didn’t like. You were similar some ways and vastly different in others. It balanced out, though, and you got along to the point where neither of you kicked up a fuss about cleaning the rooms or washing the dishes. You simply cleaned up after yourself. It was a co-habitation of convenience.

You shrugged. “It was fine. We’re all partnered up now, which is a little awkward, but I’ll survive, I guess.”

“Are they cute, at least?” Ran said with a smirk.

Yes. “I don’t know. I wasn’t paying that much attention.”

“You’re a terrible liar.” Reaching over to the stack of envelopes, Ran plucked the one off the top and handed it to you. “I picked up the mail this morning. Thought you might want to see what came for you.”

Your stomach whirled like it was in a tumble dryer. The envelope had a familiar red emblem of a brick clocktower stamped in the top left corner. With a shaky hand, you took the envelope and ripped open the top. The nicely folded letter slipped out easily. Your eyes scanned the black letters. When they finally sunk in, you slumped back in your chair with a sigh.

“Oh, no.” Ran frowned. “They didn’t reject you, did they?”

You shook your head. “No, not out right. They want to see how well I do this semester before giving a final decision.”

“Well, that’s not too bad. It’s not a no.”

“It’s not a guaranteed yes either.”

Closing her laptop, Ran crossed her arms. Her lips were pursed, eyes down on the table. “You could just stay here. I mean, they have a pretty good medical program and you said that this was where your parents had met-”

“I don’t want to stay here,” you stated firmly. “There’s no reason to.”

“Your aunt is close by.”

“She wants me to do what I want. If that means going to medical school far away, then so be it. I’ll stay in touch with her. Visit when I can.”

“Well, I hope you get in.” Ran stood up and stretched. “On a brighter note, Hae In and I are going out tonight if you want to join us.”

You shook your head. “I’m good. Thanks for the invite, though. I appreciate it.” Whenever Ran and Hae In went out, things tended to get a little crazy. You were sure they had fun and they always came home safe. You just didn’t think that it would your kind of scene. She left a few minutes later and you were finally granted that peace and quite you had been searching for. Well, the quiet, at least.

Peace was nowhere to be found. Stress was rearing its ugly head as you stared at the letter. Ran was right, it was wasn’t a flat rejection. They were, at minimum, interested in giving you a chance. As one of the most prestigious medical universities in the country, you were eager to walk their halls.

The fact that it was far away from any reminders of your life was the bigger incentive. Releasing all the air your lungs were holding on to, you folded the letter back up and tucked it away in the front pocket of your bag. All you had to do was make it through this semester with no hiccups and you would be fine.

Shouldn’t be too hard. There was no reason for any of your plans to be derailed or for you to change your mind.

As long as you survived the next few months, that is.

[gege]

#showyourprocess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours

I was tagged by @wendashanren and @inessencedevided thank you for tagging me for this set! You can find @lan-xichens' post that started it all here :)

What I used:

Vapoursynth, Photoshop 2021 and using 4kvideodownloader to download this starry sky video for the overlay.

1. Planning

I don’t tend to physically plan anything when making a set. The idea exists mentally and I don’t write things down or sketch them out (I may start though I keep forgetting!). Originally my idea started withj LWJ for his birthday set, I just wanted to make something ethereal and I had images of stars/galaxies/fireflies/motes just anything that would be sparkly. I finally found a free to use video that was perfect for the overlay. I exported 50 540px x 540px frames using vapoursynth and have them saved so I can use them again.

For this set, I just needed to find a suitable scene. Shoulders up always works the best for these.

2. Creating

I imported the clips to vapoursynth, and exported 50 540x540px frames for each gif in the set. I’ve got a few notepad files saved with different settings for vapoursynth that I use the most (fullscreen, big square etc), so I can just copy and paste and tweak to make things quicker. These are the settings for the big 540x540 gifs.

In Photoshop, I loaded files into stack for both the gif and the overlay. Then made a frame animation using the layers, and rotated the image for the stars so they’re not in exactly the same place each time.

After setting the frame delay on both tabs, I copied all the frames of the character and paste over the stars (using paste over selection) and made 2 layer groups to keep it tidy.

I created a mask for the top group of layers, and brushed away the areas where I wanted the sparkles. I usually use a 100px brush at 80% density with 20px feathering and 85% opacity. It makes it nice and smooth.

Usually I start with a curves adjustment layer to set the white and black points. When I recreated this I did it afterwards for some reason. I set each group with there own selective colour adjustment layers and removes the green from the background so it would clash with the red. I tried adjusting the blacks in the starry overlay to a different colour, but it didn’t merge well, so I changed to neutrals and removed all cyan to give the stars a red tinge.

I added another selective colour adjustment layer to warm up the image, and duplicated the colour adjustment for the stars to make the reds more vivid.

At this point I like to check the filesize, if there are too many colours etc so I go to save for web to check. If I’m happy and don’t have to delete frames, use less colours then I convert to timeline and create a smart filter.

As these have been through sharpening first on vapoursynth, they didn’t need much. I set to remove gaussain blur, amount to 500%, move radius and reduce noise to 0 and gradually increase one at a time to see how far I can push it before those horrible white halos appear in the preview. This worked at 0.1px and 2%.

I save for web for real this time, I use adaptive and diffusion and bicubic smoother.

3. Posting

I’m so disorganised and do everything last minute so when I’m done, I save to drafts to check colouring on my phone, and post as soon as I’m happy it looks ok!

Tagging: I have another one of these to make so I’ll tag people when I post that one!

[sopxhiea]

Constellation

Summary: Alfie pays a visit to the new head of the company and finds something he didn’t quite expect.

Alfie Solomons X Reader

One

“Miss, you have a visitor-”

“Who is it?”

He’s got flour on his shoes again, smelling of rum and vanilla. You know the smell all too well, you know it’s him. He drags his feet, boots thudding against the surface as you look at the surface of the table, watching the smoke coming from the mug.

“Joe-”

“’ello, luv.”

He’s charismatic, he walks inside with a charming smile that doesn’t quite faze you. Your assistants lets him in, too scared to blow him off like you did a couple days back when he showed up with some baked goods.

You’re mentally not prepared to talk to him.

There’s a big business chain waiting for you to rule it, there are people looking at you and watching your every move. Even though the pressure is staggering, your head is still held up high, eyes scanning the baker while you let the assistant go. 

Your uncle had a deal with the infamous gangster, you intend to continue the deal.

The room is quiet as he walks in, makes himself comfortable. His hand is absent from the cane today, he feels better since the storm. He feels young when he sees you, watching the way you watch him like an eagle waiting on its prey to make a move.

Your face is straight out of a painting, he thinks.

He looks at the pile of files, paper and work surrounding you. There’s a sharp smell of coffee that has taken over your natural smell, you don’t look tired.

“Quite busy, eh?”

“What do you need, Mr. Solomons?” he sits down at last, his bear like figure occupying the space on the chair in front of your desk.

You look at him through your glasses.

“Yeah..” he nods, it’s genuine. “You, right, weren’t ‘ere the other day..”

“I was out on business.” you cut him off, he likes to take his time while getting to the point, you have no time as you scan the paper in front of you.

It had been a month since you’d taken on the business, four weeks of absolute madness. You’d seen too many immature man with thick heads who threatened to drop a deal your uncle had. They didn’t know who they were dealing with.

“You’re quite the hard worker, eh?” he spoke, eyeing your figure as your eyes didn’t waver. “I ‘eard things, yeah, I did.” his hand meets his beard.

There was word going around about you, how you were the smartest woman this town had seen and how you had learned everything so quickly. You had to, the empire wouldn’t run by itself.

“I still do not know why you’re here..” you spoke, uninterested in the man before you as you looked through a pile of papers for a certain document.

He can see the elegance in you, in the way you present yourself and the sophistication you carry within yourself. It comes from education, he thinks.

It’s been carved into who you are.

“Your uncle and I worked together..” he spoke, waving his hand through the air as you eye his rings.

“I’m aware of that...”

“Yeah yeah...” he dismisses you, filling your eyes with fire again. “I ‘eard you’ve been ‘round, making business with the rest of the town...” he spoke, and you had been doing exactly that.

Your eyes finally met his, not an ounce of fear or hesitation as you looked directly into his eyes.

“I have.” you speak, not occupied anymore now that you feel a threat coming your way.

“I’m here to ask, right, why the fuck you ‘aven’t visited me bakery yet...” he speaks with a harsh tone and you watch him in his natural stance.

He looks better with his beard trimmed.

“I was busy.” you look at him with stern eyes as he watches your every move, there’s no fear oozing from you like the other people he works with. “.. but now that you’re here, let’s talk about it.” you offer, he’s angry.

He’s worked hard to be where he is, he knows you understand him in this regard so he can’t pinpoint why you’re being so impossible. He knew you had a reason for not coming to his place, you had visited every other associate your uncle had, sometimes more than once. He needs for you to tell him why, but also knows you won’t.

“’s not how you do this fuc-” he raises his voice, angry but he doesn’t know just how much of a threat you can be, you cut him off.

“I know about you, Solomons. I know plenty to know how you do this fucking business. Do not come in here in my dead uncle’s office without a reason and insult the way I do this.” you sit up, fire in your eyes while he watches you light up, he’s never seen a better sight. 

You know how to do business around here, you learned from the fucking best.

“Your uncle said t’ protect his jewel, yeah, ‘m startin’ to think ‘e meant the fuckin’ business, not you.” 

You got up, frustration evident in your face as he watched you, you looked lovely today. The papers were long forgotten, unlike what you had thought, Alfie was just as thick as the other men around.

“’m not fucking insultin’ you, pet, yeah. ‘m just sayin’, a deal ‘s a deal.”

He walks closer to you, you’re much shorter than he is and he looks taller than he did at the funeral. You smell him first, he’s way too close. You don’t blink, holding a breath that’s to be released soon.

“I think y’ kno’ how to do this, yeah, y’ know it fuckin’ well.” he speaks, you feel his breath on your face. You blink up to see him staring down at you.

“A deal ‘s a fuckin’ deal.”

(a week later)

The echo of your heels against the surface is all the men hear, it’s not everyday a woman comes in to their workplace. You don’t glance around but follow your assistant, the one you hired after you had to take over a fucking empire.

You’ve learned that sleep isn’t so necessary anymore, nor is food. Coffee runs through your veins while you remember where you are, there are whispers around.

Two big doors, wooden and steel, open up to his office. The room is placed far from the entrance, the smell reeks of rum and sweat. Ollie lets you in, his boss skimming through papers he’d long forgotten.

There’s no flour on his sleeves this time.

He’s dressed in a white button shirt, it’s cotton from what you can tell. His glasses rest at the bridge of his nose, he’s uninterested in who just walked in until he smells the perfume. It’s french.

“‘ello, doll.”

There’s a new nickname every time he sees you, you’re used to it at this point. Your eyes meet his, he looks less threatening in his office, less like an eagle preying on a wounded animal. He looks warm.

“Is this a bad time?” you ask, nice enough to keep manners in hand.

There’s two guns resting on top of his desk, both loaded and you’re once reminded of the wicked things your uncle used to do. He was a nice man but not a good guy, the reason why you’re knees deep in this mess of a place.

“Oh.” he exhales, nodding his head while getting rid of the papers in front of him. “No, ‘s good.

Ollie leaves along with your assistant, leaving the two of you alone to get to business. There are things even the closest person to you can’t know and business with Alfie Solomons is one of them.

“To what do I owe ‘is pleasure, eh?” he speaks, the accent is thick but you somehow come to enjoy it. 

He watches you take your gloves off, the fabric is transparent, he can see the rings on your fingers as they shine with every move you make.

“The deal.” you speak, ice cold.

You’re quite new to the business but you know just how daft and thick these man can be, they’re vague and shallow most of the time. You’ve grown up with one of them until he was put in a casket in front of you just a couple of months back.

There’s no sign of tolerance in your eyes, you want to get things done and leave. He wants something a little more different.

You get your papers out, he watches you move almost out of habit. He likes to observe you, the way you move is somehow captivating to him.

It’s different-changed from the little girl he once knew when you came around your uncle’s place. There’s no smile on your face anymore, it’s rare that your cheeks form into the shape. The cruelty of the world is shaping you into a tougher soul right in front of him but it’s the fire in your eyes that he’s fascinated with.

“Right.”

He takes the papers while stealing a glance, he’s amused. He reads them once while you take a look around the place, it’s been lived in as far as you can tell. It reminds you of him.

“You’ve changed it, yeah?” he asks, throwing the papers on his desk while he leans back on the chair.

“I did.”

“You’re a clever little thing, ya’ know ‘hat?” he says, you can see the sparks in his eyes.

It’s no surprise to him that you’re brilliant, he knows of your education and similar sense of business to your uncle, that’s why he had left you the business after all. It’s the wicked sense you seem to have that captivates him, he has seen no one like you in this line of business before and you pull it off exceptionally well.

“That’s nice of you, Mr. Solomons.” you speak up, a hint of smile on your lips and he dies to see it, he wonders when you’ll finally give him that angelic smile of yours but you’re not amused.

“Alfie, luv, yeah, just call me Alfie.”

Your hair isn’t in its usual place anymore, it’s pulled up, he can see your face. He thinks, and maybe it’s the light, you glisten. Maybe you are the jewel your uncle had told Alfie about.

You eye the pen, waiting for him to sign the damn papers so you can just leave, it has been a long day after all.

“Look, luv..” he speaks, dropping his glasses while you watch him like a kid watches a magician, amazed but scared. “’s a good deal, yeah, fucking brilliant if y’ ask me..”

He’s unpredictable you think. With every grumpy man you’ve worked with in the last two months, he’s the first one to not sign it or the one to have a reasonable reaction.

“But why are you really here, eh?” he asks, the inevitable question.

He knows you could’ve sent your assistant or just a worker for him to have a look over the papers but there you are, in all your glory sitting on the chair in front of him and his question finally brings a smile to your lips, he’s amazed at how innocent you look with a lovely smile on your face.

But it’s just as wicked.

You don’t chuckle but almost roll your eyes.

“After that visit, I got to see how you conducted your end of the business..” you speak, shaking one leg as if to say you weren’t so threatened by him. He nods.

“I’ve gathered the information I needed and your visit just proved me that you needed my uncle’s enterprise to move to the next stage..” you breathe out, you knew he was trying to expand things for himself but your business was vital for him due to its size and prestige.

“..my enterprise..” you correct yourself as there’s a wavering of shock in his eyes, you are way smarter than he’d thought, even more sly.

“Cheeky minx..” he speaks, it’s more like a low whisper but you hear it, loud and clear.

“If I were you, I would watch my words, Alfie..”

He watches you intently, you have the upper hand now, he always has the upper hand. He doesn’t chuckle, he’s calculating something but you’re running out of time.

You get up, leaving the papers along with your gloves, you know he’ll return to your place soon. He won’t miss the opportunity.

He watches as you get up, you are free of any emotion but pride as you feel the man put the missing pieces of the puzzle together.

This had always been your uncle’s plan, now Alfie’s business was dependent on yours, in the hands of a young lady trained to do what was necessary.

You give him a generous smile once again, knowing you’ll see him very soon.

“Remember to bring me some of your famous pastries when you pay me your next visit.” you breathe out, you’re even more wicked than he thought.

And just like that, you’re gone.

[daddysfangirls-marvel]

If I can’t have you no one can

Request 

warning: language, angst, fluff, mentioned attempted murder 

Summary: I request Bucky Barnes x winter soldier daughter reader, where the avengers find out someone is trying to Assassinate bucky and when they finally capture them they find out who this girl is and why she wants to kill bucky. Extra info- y/n was abandoned by hydra but would still be looked after by the soldier. Y/n blames the avengers for getting ride of her father and making him into bucky and hates her father for forgetting her. Y/n hates bucky and loves the soldier.

“What are you still doing up?” he asked as he walked in. She smiled sheepishly having been caught. He took a seat next to her on the window seal.

“I’m watching the sky. I've never seen the night sky like this before. It’s so pretty” She said as she continued to admire the sky at 6 years old there was a lot she hasn’t seen. He didn’t stop her joining her instead. “ look that one kind of looks like a cup”

“That is the big dipper and next to it there is the little dipper. Do you see it?”

“Yes. Who named them dipper?”

“I don’t know but I’m sure we’ll find out ...someday. It doesn’t matter right now you need to go to bed. Come on.” He picked her up and carried her to bed tucking her in. 

“Soldier?” he looked back as he was about to close the door “Can we stay here? It’s nice and far away from everybody and everything. Can we please stay?”

He sighed walking back he leaned over her bed. They could stay here it was in the middle of the woods far away from everyone and everything there was a small town nearby for all their necessity if they really wanted to they could. But then again they couldn’t. They could never. He kissed her forehead and whispered, “ I wish”.

(Y/n) moaned as the first thing she felt when waking up was her raging headache. She reached up for her forehead but was stopped by something restraining her wrist opening her eyes through her fuzzy vision she sees that her wrist it cuffed to the railing of the bed she picks up her other wrist and finds that her other wrist is also chained to the bed. Looking up she found very angry eyes on her.

Sighing she mentally said fuck it and laid back down and closed her eyes getting comfortable and going back to sleep. Before she could really get back to sleep someone began to roughly and rapidly poke her shoulder. She opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder to find Clint Barton aka Hawkeye poking her shoulder.

“Good Morning,” he said cheerfully teasing her. Rolling her eyes she sat up and glared at everyone in the room. She shorted when the little spider boy jumped caught under her gaze.

“So, you got a name?” Natasha asked she nods

“Can we hear it? I think it would be polite and all as you did try to kill one of us.” Tony said matter of factly she just shrugged messing with her cuffed hands.

“Why are you trying to kill Bucky? I thought Hydra wanted him back” Steve said stepping forward putting on a more serious act than Tony. Steve Rogers was a very big man and would have been intimating to the average person but she was not average and he did not scare her. Looking at him she shrugged and went back to making noise with her cuff. Natasha reached forward and grabbed her wrist stopping the noise.

“That was a very Public way to go about it. Nearly got yourself in the process. Why go through all that ?” Tony asked she just shrugs not paying attention to all that was going on around her. They continued to ask questions but she just ignored all of them opting to just look around the room and playing with her cuffs after about thirty minutes everyone gave up and filed out of the room leaving her to herself. or so she thought.

“You’re not part of Hydra. I can tell” Her eyes snapped up to see him standing in the corner of the room. “Your finger twitched when he mentioned them. You’re not a fan of Hydra.” she shook her head as she glared at him.

“Is that why you don’t like me because I was part of Hydra?” she sighed heavily shaking her head “ Then why kill me?”

“Because you and your friends killed my father. The only man to ever love and take care of me. You took him and left me alone I was 9 years old and I had no one I was left on the streets with nothing. Four years with no one but pain. And that’s your fault.” She lunged forward the cuffs holding her back as she tried to get at him “If I can’t have my father they can’t have you.”

She trailed behind him as they walked through the snow and between the trees. The base wasn’t that far behind them and at least half a dozen heavily armed soldiers were behind them. They all walked in silences through the snow.

“Where are we going?” she whispered asked afraid to disturb the silence but curious.

“Hunting” was all he said. 

He stops she hits his back and falls back into the snow turning around he picks her up by the back of her jacket and puts her on a stomach in front of a log he kneels down beside her. She lays on her stomach cheek in the snow as watches him pull out a sniper. He sets it up against the long checking the scope and making sure it’s right. He taps the scope motioning for her to look through it.

“Do you see it?”

“No sir” she sees nothing but pure white snow.

“Focus. See what’s hidden” and then she did. She saw the white hare bouncing by, the white fox laying low, and the owl sleeping peacefully in the tree.

“I see now” She pulls away from the scope and looks at everything clearly. They both take a moment to just watch the creature in the snow. Suddenly color interrupts the pure white canvas. A deer slowly strolling through.“ It’s beautiful”

But beautiful was only temporary. He pulled her closer to the sniper putting her finger on the trigger and taking the safety off. She looked up at him but he roughly turned her away forcing her to look through the scope.

“Deep breath.” he whispered, “ let it go” She gasps as she pulled the trigger “good”. He quickly stands he pulls her along the walk up to the deer. It was dead and its blood was slowly soaking into the snow she whimpered. He stopped and looked down at her. He offered his hand she quickly took it but was hesitant to take a step forward.

“It’s dead” she whined stepping closer practically hiding in him.

“Yes. Everything died,” he said looking at the dead animals his face and voice expressionless.

“soldier ...” she looked up at him her eyes full of desperation and tear cheek rosy red from the cold “Will I die, too?” 

“Not for a very long time. I won’t allow it” he reached forward touching her cheek with his left hand she flinched at the coldness but didn’t pull away “ You are mine as I am yours”

“Her father. Apparently, I killed him when she was 9. She’s been alone on the street ever since... I don’t know about you guys but that’s a pretty good reason to put a bullet in my head.” Bucky said taking a seat around the conference table putting his head in his hands.

Steve, as usual, quickly went to his friend's defense “ Bucky that wasn’t you”

“ it was”

“no, it wasn’t you that was Hydra and-”

“ I escaped Hydra Six years ago She says I killed her father Four years ago. I wasn’t with Hydra I can’t blame them for this. This was me all me.” Steve didn’t really know what to say he instead went on patting him on the back.

“Did she say who her father was? Do you remember?” Tony asked he was starting to sympathize with the kid.

“no she didn’t say and I don’t remember. Four years ago that’s around the time I was flushing the Winter Soldier out I don’t remember a lot I have a lot of blank spots a lot of memory missing. I couldn’t tell you what I did four years ago.”

“That at least explains why she wanted to put a bullet between your eyes,” Clint says

 “But it brings new questions such as who was her father and why did you kill him?”

-

Weeks had gone by (y/n) was moved to a cell and hadn’t spoken to any of the Avengers a few of them had come by to talk to her and try to get something out of her but she was sealed tight like a ziplock bag. Although Bucky was an expectation as she likes to give him a few sarcastic and snippy comments.

Tony had spent most of his time looking for (Y/n)’ s father or mother. She had no origin, no birth certificate, social security number, no digital or DNA print. No nothing. Her DNA was not in any system and made no connection to anyone in the system. And they couldn’t even stick to just America as she spoke several languages and didn't even know where she was originally born or what her original language was.

“Welcome Back” Tony shouted over his shoulder as Friday told him of Wanda and Vision’s return. They had gone off for a few weeks just to themselves to spend time together but now they were back and Tony was about to put them to work.

“Wanda, My darling little Scarlet Witch, Wanda”

“Tony, what do you want?” The female Maximoff said tiredly she had just gotten back and she was already done with Tony.

“We’ve got someone downstairs not talking and we’ve got nothing so far. I was thinking you could take a peek in her head and help us out? Now you don’t have to dive in the dep in We just want one thing.”

“And what is that?”

“Her Father. Who is he.”

Wanda sighed she never really liked going into people's heads it was an invasion of privacy and she often saw things she didn’t want to or was very disturbing. But it also meant she could help.

“Alright,” Tony did a little cheer. Wanda left Vision in the lab with Bruce as she followed downstairs to the cells. “Where did you find this person?”

“Oh, she was trying to kill Bucky. Apparently, he killed her father too but she hasn’t told us much else.” Wanda did a double-take so fast she almost got whiplash. No one told her or Vision about Bucky’s near-death experience they would have come home earlier. 

“Why didn’t anyone call us we would have come home earlier and helped you handle...a kid?” in the cozy cell was a teenager girl picking at her nails. She turned to look at Tony.

“Don’t be fooled she’s very aggressive and she’s got a tongue like a sword” Wanda rolls her eyes not even bothering to step into the room with the girl Wanda uses her abilities to enter her mind.

Shifting through her mind Wanda gets a quick rundown of her life story. She was a failed Hydra experiment that was supposed to be killed off but was saved by her father. Her father raised and trained her by himself in Hydra. They escaped and were on the run together for several years until he abandoned her. SHe didn’t know why one day he was just gone. He was...

“I know who her father is”

“It’s wet” (Y/n) complained as she dangled the blade between her fingertips. The sharp end was wet with some clear gooey liquid. 

“It’s poison” he explained pulling out his own blade it too was coated in poison. “ Poison can be a very helpful tool. One cut with the right poison can end a fight very quickly. It’s the cleanest way to end things or have mercy depending on what kind of poison”

“What type of poison is this?”

“Nothing serious. temporary paralysis... Don’t get cut.”

“What...?”

Suddenly he lunged at her out of instinct she jumped back bringing the knife up to block him. At first, she was scared began backing up dodging every swing that came her way until her back was against the wall. She rolled out from under him and ran across the room. He turned around and looked at her his frustration was clear on his face this was not how she should be reacting in a real scenario she would have been dead and she needed to realize that.

And she did. Getting in her own fighting stance.

The room is in complete silence this newfound information shocking e and confusing everybody. How could this possibly happen? 

“Are you sure?”

“Biologically, no. But he raised and saved her while they were there together and the escaped together. She sees him as her father. She loves him.”

“Then Why the hell did she try to kill him” Steve exasperated as he threw his hands up. This was all very confusing. “ If she loves Bucky then why is she so dead set on trying to kill him.”

“She doesn’t love Bucky she doesn’t want anything to do with him and she very much wants him dead.”

“But you just said-”

“Don’t interrupt me.” Wanda glared at Clint “ (Y/n), that’s her name, loves The Winter Soldier. He saved and raised her. They escaped Hydra together. He was good to her she took care of her. He was all she had all she knows. When we took Bucky away from her we basically stolen him and erased The Winter Soldier from his mind we killed him... In her head if she can’t have Winter we can’t have Bucky. She rather have you dead than not have you at all.”

They lead in bed together the single light hanging over head lighting the room poorly. She was laying curled up into his side his flesh arm wrapped around her. He watched carefully as her tiny fingers slowly and carefully traced the metal plates in his arms. So gentle, so soft. He liked it. He didn’t want her to stop he enjoyed her touch he relaxed under her touch the tenseness off his body slowly fading away. His eyes slowly fall shut but sleep did not come he stayed awake listening to her gentle breathing. 

“Soldier?” his fingers twitched. “ what’s outside?”

“I don't know”

And that was an honest answer he had no clue what was outside. He knew nothing of the outside world despite knowing he had grown in it at some point and what he had seen during missions. The world outside was a mystery to the both of them. He had forgotten what the outside was and she had never known it.

Leaning in closer to ear so only she could hear and no one else not even those pesky doctors or guards or scientist listening in. No one else could hear his promise.

“I’m going to show you the real world and all the pretty things in it, I promise.” Her finger stop tracing his plates and wrapped her arms around his waist “We’ll escape. We’ll run away. Far, far away where they’ll never find us. Just me and you.”

Of course when he was wiped he forgot these promises but that did not mean he didn’t full fill them.

Bucky carefully and cautiously steps into her cell room (Y/n) doesn’t even look up or acknowledge his present continuing to lay on her back staring out the ceiling. He gives the one way mirror a side glance before he slowly sits down on the floor leaning against the wall opposite of her. He spent a few minutes in silence just sitting there fidgeting with his fingers.

“What happened?” he suddenly asked breaking the silence he didn’t really mean to. His voice spoken in a whisper. She turned her head looking at him confused. “ When...why did I leave? Did I just abandon you?”

“...yes?...no? … You said you’d be right back, you said to wait, I waited and waited and waited but you never came back. I ran out of food and water and had to go off on my own eventually. We lived in a cabin far in the mountains deep in the woods. Far away from everyone and everything. It took me a while to get help.”

“ I don’t know what happened to you? I figured it had something to do with Hydra I went to all our meeting spots in hope of finding you but you weren’t there. But Hydra was looking for you and since I escaped with you they thought I knew where you were They chased me down I had to go into hiding. When I finally had the courage to come back I see you on TV. You aren’t Winter anymore You’re James Barnes and you’re an Avenger.”

“And some how seeing that made you come to the conclusion that you needed to kill me.” Bucky looked at her not believing knowing there was more to the story.

“No” she scoffed sitting up “ At first I was going to kill your friend, Steve Rogers, because he was the one who stole you from me. If you weren’t so obsessed with him and finding out who he was we would have been better off. If he had left us alone we would have been okay “

“Do you actually believe that?

“Yes...maybe? I don’t know “ she said throwing her arms up in defeat “ He wanted you and I wanted you but both of us couldn’t have you. And that’s mean killing him just because he wanted him best friend back.”

“So your solution, if you couldn’t have me couldn’t either. Just kill me”

“Yep. Seemed logical” (Y/n) said looking away.

“What did you love about him?” she looked at him blankly. Bucky realized what he asked might have been over the line and she wasn’t really ready to or didn’t want to talk about anything. “ You loved The Winter Soldier I mean Wanda Said you loved the Winter Soldier-”

“The chick that was in my head. Yeah I felt her poking around couldn’t really stop her... Bitch”

“Yeah Wanda, she’s good people.” They fell into a silence again.

“He saved me. I was a born in a tube I was a failed experiment suppose to be a soldier at birth but that didn’t work out they knew I was defected at birth. They were going to kill me but The Winter came back from his mission early I was in the infirmary he usually came in the doctors were suppose to have killed me already but none of them could do it the guards were tired of it and since he was there they ordered him to do it. He saw me he said ‘no’ they got mad and he killed them. He killed everyone who tied to take me away. They let him keep me he train and raised me. 

“He was good to me. He was took care of me. I had no one else but him. He taught me everything. We escaped together and we got to the cabin and everything was perfect it was suppose to be perfect. “ She brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself  she began to cry softly “He’s all I had and he’s gone … I have no one now. I’m all alone.”

Bucky got up and moved over sitting on the edge of her bed. He wanted to comfort her but didn’t really know how. He placed a hand on her leg.

“That’s not true”

“Who’s going to want me? I was raised in a cage like a test subject. I’ve killed people. I’ve seen more bodies then a morgue and I’m not even fifteen yet. I’m fucked in the head... no one’s going to want me ever. And it’s not like your friends are going to let me out of this cell anyways. Murdering an Avenger is a Capital offence if you didn’t know.” 

Bucky hesitantly reached forward and wiped away her tears she glared at him but he continued to do so moving closer to her.

“So you loved him because he was good to you and took care of you?” Her glared didn’t let up he did his best to look unaffected “I... I could be good to you I could take care of you... If you want?” Now she was looking at him very confused as if he was crazy or grown two heads.

“I remember you sort of, kind of- I have these dreams where I wake up in a bed and everything is bright and beautiful and I hear this giggling and little feet in the floor boards. And I... I can never get out of bed but I look around the room and I find things bows, crayons, adorable drawings, little cute pinks shows, and flowery blankets. All signs of a little girl

“And in the dream I feel the bed and sheets move but I can’t turn my head and I can’t see who it is but I know it’s a child. I feel their breath against my cheek and I would see...you, younger you.... you’d whisper ‘wake up’ and the dream would end. I would wake up. My therapist said it was just a dream of something I was yearning but now I realize it was a memory of something I was missing.”

The Cabin when she was younger (y/n) remembered doing that every day. Waking him up with whispers and on the day she didn’t wake up on time he would wake her up with whispered. Back in perfect times.

“I’m not him but I could be as good as him. If you let me I’d like to take care of you, please?”

“...If this isn’t work out I will kill you”

“fair enough”

Request tags

permanent tags

@lovely-lollipops-blog @totallyweirdsam @sexysamsungl @lilylovelyxo @iamwarrenspeace @geeksareunique @that-random-emu @supreme-leader-jazlo-ren @stone2576 @lil-dino-trash @metal-armed-dino @dylanobrienmoviekid @theshortegg @dontevenblink-badwolf-tardis @mandylove1000  @isnotashtonstan @broitsmydick @onceaballeralwaysaballer1213 @mypage-myfandoms @jordynhartley2001 @midnightdream83 @cookies186 @i-am-marvel-trash-forever @marvels-queen-bee @aebeessun @gabriels-gumdrop @the-best-alchemist @smile-my-bean @valeriae2903 @cassiopeia-barrow @uberduber-loulou @spideyboiiiiiii @lookinsidemyhead @actors-hot @lokilvrr

[essiefreds]

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18,  Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22

Word Count: 2855

Tagged: @hotemotionalmess, @hufflepeople. @justtolkienabout

Of course, Fury thought your idea was preposterous. 

“Why would we let him visit with her?” he demanded, first, as soon as you brought it up. 

“Because, sir, he needs something that he can connect to his past life,” you said. “The fact that Agent Carter is still alive… honestly, this is basically a fucking gift from God.”

“Allowing him to speak to her would only set him back,” Fury said, sternly. 

“With all due respect sir,” you said, managing to stay calm, “you asked me to be the one to help him integrate into the 21st century. I think seeing Agent Carter as an old woman will be both a relief, and just enough of a shock to his system to really make him realize that he needs to move on.”

The director merely stared at you, his good eye narrowed. “After the shit you pulled this week -”

“- I need to reprove myself,” you finished for him. He sat back in his desk chair, and you took that as permission to continue speaking. “Let me ask him, at least, if he’d like to see her. I think he’s stable enough at this point to make a well judged decision on his own.”

Fury frowned, slightly, and then his eye closed, briefly. “Y/LN, Agent Carter is suffering from a serious case of Alzheimer’s,” he told you, his voice lowered. “She has good days, and she has bad days. I don’t… I’m not just worried about Rogers, if he were to visit her, I’m worried about Peggy herself.”

You were silent for a moment as you processed this. “Give him her file,” you suggested at last. “Just so he can read about what she did, and how she is, currently. I think, once he has all the information he needs, he’ll be able to choose for himself.” You paused. “And… give him the files on Howard Stark and James Buchanan Barnes, too. And maybe the rest of the Howling Commandos.”

“What?” Fury asked, sounding both annoyed and defensive at the same time. “How much information on close allies of Steve Rogers do you think we have, Y/LN?" 

"Enough,” you responded, and then you tapped the top of his desk. “Do it, please. Trust me, sir.”

He stared at you for a minute longer, and then he turned his good eye towards the ceiling, before turning to his computer to send the order. You smiled to yourself. He would never have disagreed with you, though. After all, it was his idea to let you figure out what it was Steve needed to adjust, and he had no reason not to do what you told him to, aside from the fiasco earlier on in the week. Since Steve had apparently forgiven you, however, it meant that you still had the authority on his adjustment. 

Whatever you suggested would be done, unless it proved to be detrimental. 

And that was an awesome feeling. 

“He’ll have them within an hour,” Fury said after a moment, grumbling, and you nodded to him. 

“Thank you, sir." 

You turned, prepared to leave his office, but he called you to a halt. You looked over your shoulder at him. "I hope you aren’t wrong about this,” he said. 

“I’m not,” you assured, and were surprised to find that you meant it, completely.

You decided to give Steve time to go through the files alone. The previous day, you’d set up a direct line of contact for him with your desk phone, so that if he wanted and/or needed you, all he had to do was press a button on a simple device in his apartment. You’d demonstrated it for him, twice, and he’d seemed to understand it enough to perform the task on his own. 

You were surprised when your phone rang only about an hour after the files had been delivered to his apartment. You reached over to answer the phone, holding it to your ear. “Steve?" 

There was silence on the other end for a second. You could hear him breathing, however. You leaned back in your desk chair. "Steve? Did you get the files?”

“I did,” he replied. His voice was quiet. You couldn’t tell if it was because he was standing too far away from the mic on his device, or because of something else. 

“And?”

“… I - come up. Please?" 

"Of course. I’m on my way,” you assured, and then you hung up your phone, and pushed yourself into a standing position. You grabbed the candy bar that you’d purchased for this specific reason off of the corner of your desk as you exited your office, and headed for the elevators. 

On the way, you passed Phil Coulson, who had his eyes fixed on a folder that he was carrying in both hands. You almost ran into him, and barely swerved out of the way in time to avoid a collision. He looked up, startled. 

“Oh, Y/N, I’m sorry,” he apologized, seeing you. “I wasn’t - reading, you know?" 

"Yes,” you replied. “We’ll talk later, all right? I have to talk to the Cap-sicle.”

“Nice,” he said, smiling, and he continued walking. 

You made it up to Steve’s floor after what felt like an extremely long elevator ride. The door to his apartment was unlocked, so you let yourself in, announcing your arrival as you did so. 

Steve sat on the couch, the three files that had been delivered to him spread out on the floor in front of him, Peggy Carter’s dead center. Her’s seemed to be the thickest, with Howard Stark’s following closely behind. James Barnes’s was very thin in comparison to the others, no doubt because of his death being in the 1940’s. 

“Steve?” you asked, gently, setting the candy bar down on the counter in the kitchen and standing just to the right of the back of the couch. You did not want to startle him by getting too close. No doubt he’d absorbed all the information he could about these three people in rapid succession, almost like a starved animal, and was still reeling from it all. 

“She’s alive,” was the first thing he said. 

“Yes,” you answered. “I had a feeling, and I asked Director Fury about it. I had to convince him to let you know, because I thought you had a right.”

“She’s in a retirement home, not too far from here,” Steve said. “There’s a map in here.” He nudged Peggy’s file with the toe of one of his shoes. 

“I told Director Fury it was only fair that we give you all the information we have on her, so that you can decide for yourself whether you want to visit her or not,” you explained. 

“You think I’m… ready, for a decision like that?” he asked. He looked at you, now, and you weren’t surprised to see the remnants of tear tracks on his cheeks. 

“I think that, you can make this decision, yes,” you told him. “You know that she has Alzheimer’s." 

"I’m not entirely sure what that is,” Steve admitted. 

“Right,” you said, feeling stupid. “It’s, uh… well, it’s a serious illness, that causes memory loss. It gets worse overtime; I don’t know how bad it is, currently; she only recently retired from SHIELD, which I’m sure you read." 

"Yes,” Steve said. He was silent for a moment. “Memory loss. Does that imply that she might not remember me?" 

You smiled, softly. "I’m sure she remembers you, Steve,” you told him. “You left too big of an impression on her life for her to forget.”

Steve did not respond to this immediately. His gaze had returned to Peggy’s file. You stood patiently behind the couch, waiting for him to gather his thoughts enough to say something more. 

“What do you think I should do?” he finally asked. 

You’d been expecting him to ask for your opinion. After all, it was your job to help him, and although this sort of thing was not really something you could decide for him, you could give a suggestion that you thought would help. 

“I think… you should go see her now, before she gets worse,” you admitted. “If you’re not ready, however, I don’t want you to force yourself to go. I just… I’d hate for you to miss out on the chance to speak with her while she’s still lucid enough to understand and process what you’re saying. If you wait, you might only find a Peggy who… who will only upset you, and you her.” You paused, focusing on him to see how he was handling this advice. “Does that make sense?" 

"Yes,” he said. His voice was still low, as though he was afraid of raising it, less scare away the files he had spread in front of him. “And… maybe you’re right. But… it could be better for her, if I did wait until she was… less responsive, because maybe it wouldn’t startle her as bad to see me like this.”

“I don’t think that it would affect her that badly,” you said, “but again, the decision is completely up to you. You can choose to go alone, or I can go with you, or we can bring Director Fury; I’m sure he wouldn’t mind visiting her. Anyway you want to do this, if you want to do it, we will.”

After that, more silence fell between the two of you. You let it lie, knowing that Steve had plenty to think about. While he did so, you made yourself useful by cleaning off the counter in the kitchen, even though it was already spotless. You waited, patiently, for Steve to make a decision. 

Truthfully, you had no idea what it was he’d decide. You supposed you didn’t know him well enough, yet. You had no place to say what the better choice was, of course, but you’d said your piece, and hopefully he was taking it into consideration. You honestly believed that Steve would learn to live easier in the 21st century if he had more time to spend with Agent Carter while she was still, for the most part, responsive and able to speak with him without losing track of the conversation. 

Still, it was up to him, just as you’d told Director Fury. And whatever he decided, you’d support him, because that was what friends did. 

Am I his friend? Am I claiming that title already, despite having spent so little time with him?

Before you could meditate on this further, Steve spoke your name. You turned away from the stove, which you’d been scrubbing for the last five minutes, and faced him. He’d stood up, and had turned around to look at you, holding Peggy’s file in his hands. 

“I… I want to go see her,” he said, and you were pleased to hear that his voice was clear, and even. He’d made up his mind, and he was sure about the final decision. “I want you to come with me, but… I’d like to be able to talk to her on my own." 

"No problem,” you assured him. “I’ll make the arrangements with Director Fury." 

He nodded in agreement, and you started towards the apartment door, ready to head to Fury’s office. "Y/N." 

You paused, and looked back at him. "Yes?" 

He glanced down at the ground, and you got the sensation that he was feeling extremely awkward. "Thank you,” he said at last, “for… for having the faith in me to let my decide something like this. It means a lot, knowing that at least one person believes I can think for myself.”

You smiled at him. “Of course you can think for yourself,” you said. “You’re a wizened old man.”

He grinned back, and then said, “Will you come back up? After you’re done talking to Fury, I mean.”

“If you want me too,” you responded, and he nodded. “All right. We do have more Disney movies to watch.” You gestured to the stacks that sat on the floor beneath his upgraded television. “I’ll be back shortly.”

You were annoyed when Director Fury at first responded with indignation to the idea of you being the only one to go with Steve to the retirement home where Agent Carter currently resided. After explaining to him that it was what Steve wanted, he’d huffed a little, and then begrudgingly agreed, as long as you made a full report of the visit when you returned. 

You assured him that you would, although you left out the part where you’d told Steve he’d be able to talk to Peggy on his own. You thought that if you mentioned that to Fury, the vein on his temple would explode.

After a brief phone call with the proprietor of the nursing home, and Peggy’s doctor, a meeting was set up for the following Wednesday, which was four days away. 

“That gives us enough time to plan how we’re going to do this,” Fury said once the call had ended, and you looked at him, confused. 

“What do you mean?" 

"I mean that we can’t just send the 6'2” super solider out into the open like it’s no big deal,“ Fury answered. "He’ll need to be disguised, and transported there as secretly as possible. "People will recognize him, Y/LN; just because you didn’t read his comics does not mean that no one else did." 

"I know that,” you replied, but you managed not to roll your eyes. “Fine. Disguise, secrecy, whatever. As long as he gets in and is able to see her, I’m sure he’ll be fine with it.” Fury nodded his agreement, and then he eyed you. You caught the expression on his face, and you exhaled, slowly. “Yes?" 

"You’re getting attached,” he said, simply. 

“No.”

“Yes,” he said, not even giving you the chance to argue a point. “You would not have advocated so harshly for him to know about Agent Carter’s current status if you weren’t.” He leaned across his desk towards you. “We’ve discussed this.”

“I know we have,” you said, keeping your voice level. You would not explode into a fight with the Director of SHIELD over this, not right now. You’d said you’d get back to the apartment as soon as you were done making the arrangements. “I have not grown attached in anyway other than a person who wants to help someone else." 

Fury gazed at you for a long moment, as though studying your face to see if you were telling the truth. You did your best to keep a passive expression. It was a fib, of course; you thought of Steve as a friend, which was something Fury had told you not to do, and you did not need him realizing that. 

Still, the implications were pretty terrible, especially with the knowledge that Steve wanted only you to accompany him on his visit to the retirement home. For now, however, you knew that Fury would not pick a fight over it. There was still too much work to be done, in the case of Steve Rogers, and since it seemed you were making progress, he was not going to disrupt it. 

"We’ll talk about this further after the visit,” he finally said, leaning back again. 

“Sir,” you said, by way of acknowledgement, and then you exited his office without looking back. 

You returned to Steve’s floor, noting once more the white walls. You’d focus more strongly on using them after the meeting with Agent Carter, you supposed.

For now, Steve had too much to think about already. 

However, when you’d reentered the apartment, Steve announced that he didn’t want to watch movies, after thanking you for the candy bar. 

“You’re welcome,” you said, and then you tilted your head. “What do you want to do?”

“Tell me about New York,” he said, gesturing for you to sit down next to him on the couch. “I want to know what’s changed about it, so I don’t… I don’t know, panic when I go outside for the first time.”

Well, this was something you could do. You’d grown up in New York. You lived and breathed New York. If Steve wanted to know about New York, you had plenty to tell him. 

As you spoke, your love for your home state and city was evident in your voice. You praised the advancements that had been taken on, but you also made sure to tell him what kind of damage it was all doing on the environment. He understood the concept of progress sometimes equaling both good and bad results, however, which you were pleased to note. 

And he seemed pleased to see how passionate you were about New York. His eyes never left you the entire time you spoke, and you found yourself blushing more than once from the attention. Usually, it was you listening to someone else tell a story. It was strange having it be the other way around, but you did not have minding Steve as your audience. 

You just hoped he did not notice just how much you didn’t mind, because that would have been incredibly embarrassing.

[tumblunni]

Ah, here’s the pillowsnake! It’s called Rashab, I totally forgot!

beware, like 40 paragraphs of long rambling about the game below:

I never realized how the naming schemes actually work. All the different variants of a particular genus share a name ending- Nushab is the weird 8 shaped long neck snake, Rashab is the super rectangular chubby one, and Mukshab is the sticklike one that just looks like a real snake but with the trademark weird head that this monster has. And then the sub-breeds of each sub-breed have a totally different naming scheme! Only the main Rashab is Rashab, the other three elementals are all something-moaj instead. And Nushabs are something-oots, and Mukshabs are something-mines. Its an interesting way to do it, though it’s pretty hard to actually figure any of it out ingame when all the pure sub-breed forms only appear as enemies and you’re gonna be fusing your own variations for your party. I think pretty much anything fuses well with the snakes, they look awesome with any texture! And when they fuse with bugs they can actually gain lil wings and look like Dunsparce!

OH OH OH and ALSO I love how monsters in this game actually grow up! Like, they dont evolve, they just grow up like actual animals! They have very very subtle model changes in size for the first 20 or 30 levels, to symbolise reaching maturity. Its hard to even notice it happening unless you compare save files! And often you’ll be fusing monsters rather than keeping them in your party for a long time anyway. So I’m glad that the Shabs have some of the more noticeable changes! Their baby selves start off looking a lot more similar, and they only gain their giant variation in body shapes when they’ve matured. (Though you can still tell what one its gonna become)

OH AND ALSO ALSO The shabs look even cuter in the concept art, yo!!! Ingame it maybe loses a bit of the appeal cos of the low resolution and how everything is textures rather than model detail. (A necessity considering how the fusion system works, yknow?) On the concept art their faces look less like an eyeless snake with dot patterns, and more like a snake with eight buglike eyes. ITS REALLY CUTE!! Thats why I said they look like leeches! Cos they have the super light coloured undersides and the three-pronged jaw and the bug eyes! They’re scaly big leeches! they’re leechly small snakes! THEYRE THE BEST OF MY TWO FAVOURITE LONG ANIMALS!!!!

OH AND its good worldbuilding but I’M SAD The shabs The shabs get the honor of being in the worldbuilding in A SAD WAY The basic MP restoration item is called a Shab Liquer :( Yeah, its nice to know that they thought about how these magical monsters might be a part of everyday life even outside of a battle setting. But its sad to think about how they’re killed and used in medicine! And you have to use hundreds of this medicine, there’s no way to survive without MP restores! I DONT WANNA MAKE MY SNAKE FRIEND A CANNIBAL Tho I do appreciate how the name Shab Liquer just implies a lot of worldbuilding on its own. Like, you don’t just know that they make a medicine from the snakes, its implied its quite literally a snake oil. Like, does that mean snake oil is an idiom for a totally reliable and true thing in this universe? And Liquer is just a rather archaic and fancy way to phrase it, it fits very well with the setting! But seriously WHY DO I HAVE TO FEED MY SNAKE BABY DEAD SNAKE BABIES TO KEEP THEM ALIVE

OH OH OH AND that reminds me of another Fucked Up aspect of the worldbuilding! Your most reliable way of gaining money in this game is selling the monsters you catch. Which is dumb and impractical anyway cos I mean YOU WANNA FUSE THEM ALL!! And you get more money from selling your ones that you actually already fused and levelled up, like NO WAY am I doing that! I love them!! Even if I’m not using them, I’m just gonna keep them at home with Mahbu! NO MAKE ME SELL MY SNEKS But the REALLY FUCKED UP PART is that its explicitely said that by selling them you are killing the monsters.

...Okay so.. this kinda needs some explanation of more of the worldbuilding first...

The way you catch monsters in this game is by using magical cocoons, hence the name of the story. Monsters are meant to be like spiritual creatures, they’re called Minions cos they’re literally the minions of this setting’s deity, Elrihm. The religion of this culture states that humanity (or ‘The Beasts Of Knowledge’) committed a great sin in the past. We were god’s attempt to grant free will and intelligence to animals, but we used it to do evil and he decided the whole species was beyond saving because of the actions of a few. So he created these monsters/demons/avenging angels in snake form, and their mission in life is to destroy all of humanity so that the world can be reset. Which is why minions attack humans on sight, yet coexist perfectly peacefully with animals and plants in the forest. So like... humanity obviously Did Not Want to all die for the sins of one or two dumb kings, yknow? We stubbornly persist! We hold out our vanguard and keep our little towns amidst the Doom Forests, living life as normal with just the Doom Forests being a thing in the background, yeah. Defending against occasional attacks of minions banding together into swarms and chewing on the walls a little, but yeah, no biggie. And sometimes one of them manages to get in and eat some of our garbage or something. People live normally in these fortified wall villages, and the religion still worships Elrihm, and revolves around begging his forgiveness and trying to prove that humanity deserves to live. And never advancing too far with industrialism. lest we be punished again! And I mean, maybe that actually IS how everything happened, or maybe its just a story and Minions have always existed as a natural part of the ecosystem and they’re not evil things destined to destroy us or whatever. Its ambiguous! Even when you get to see Elrihm’s avatar at the end of the game, it’s just a big magical tree that the monsters come from, you never get any idea if it’s sentient and you’re not able to ask it if our legends have the right idea about it’s role as god. (Or if its gender is actually male, or if it even has one XD)

Anyway, that’s the legend of where the monsters come from, and it kinda explains why people might be a bit callous towards them, if they can be tamed as cute friends but also the wild ones are such a big threat to civilization. And if mythology says their threat to civilization is the natural order of existance, that they exist to kill us under orders of a god who abandoned us centuries ago... But yeah! Anyway! There’s a bloodline of magical people called the Nagi who have the power to purify the anger out of minions and make them friends. And the game has a cool way of keeping the usual mons show aspect of ‘catch a monster inside a certain item that has a limited amount of uses’, while making it fit with this ancient times mythological setting! Instead of the pokeball equivelant being some sort of manmade machine, it’s... cocoons! Since Minions are spiritual creatures, they can be like.. de-manifested and have their souls stored, to be re-summoned later. And for whatever reason, the way the magic works is that their souls have to be contained in cocoons. It’s... actually never fully explained? Where do the cocoons come from? Is it like you take any cocoon from a regular bug, and you seal the monster soul inside? But how would you even get an EMPTY cocoon? Is there a special bug in this universe that makes cocoons not for metamorphosis? or do you like.. fuse the soul with the bug inside the cocoon, and thats why all the monsters in this game are inspired by bugs? But they have the same bug-inspired designs even when you find them in the wild before catching them. So is it like the Nagi magic can create magical cocoons and you use those? or is it like you dont actually carry the empty cocoons, you carry something or other that turns into cocoons when a monster is sealed inside it? the catching animation is very vague, the protagonist is only holding his magic flute and a nebulous white glow in his hand. Then the cocoon forms around the monster and its sucked into his hand... ANYWAY I’M GOING OFFTOPIC SORRY! The point is that Nagi people can purify minions into friends, fuse minions into new powerful forms and (probably?) create the magic cocoons that can catch them in the first place. But it doesn’t mean that Nagi people are actually equipped to fight and catch the monsters themselves! the usual setup is a married couple where the Nagi can stay at home and focus entirely on their magic, and the regular human partner learns warrior arts and catches the monsters for them. Also catching monsters requires magic music, so you need to be a damn good bard too! I liked that they even showed that different Cocoon Masters (official name for peeps like the protag) can use whatever instruments fit best with their soul. The protagonist has an ocarina and [important endgame character] has a fancy lute guitar thing? I wish the game had told me what those are called... I think a name for an ancient japanese string instrument is a shamisen but i have NO IDEA if the one shown ingame is actually that or there are more different ones..? I mean its only shown in cutscnes so there’s no good ref image for it- I’M GOING OFFTOPIC AGAIN Anywaaaaaayyyy, its also in the worldbuilding that (for some reason) Nagi men are unable to use magic, and thats why the mages are always the wives and the warriors are always the husbands. Its interesting how this mythology is kinda presented as an opposite of adam and eve, too! Men who try and use magic are sinful and will be punished for stepping out of their assigned roles by becoming demons. Its the sad story of the protagonist’s parents, alas! His mother was the previous Nagi priestess of the village, but her husband committed the ultimate sin and then all we know is that his corrupted self fled into the forest and was never seen again. And everyone marks you as a failure for what your father did, so becoming the new cocoon master is quite hard at first. And its SUPER DUPER SAD cos your dad did it because performing minion purification is painful for the Nagi, and he couldn’t bear to see his wife hurting herself for his sake. So even though he knew the risks, one day he just tried to purify his minions himself so she could get some rest. And.. like.. ultitmately it did work. Cos she could never bear to remarry, and thus the village didnt have another cocoon master until their son grew old enough to marry. At least he succeeded in letting his wife never have to do magic again, even if it was because she stopped doing it out of grief for him.. :(

ANYWAY Now i’ve explained that worldbuilding and why it is cool and awesome and sad, I can explain the worldbuilding of a random gameplay element and why it is also cool and sad! So yeah, like I said before LONG TANGEANTS... The only really reliable way to make money in the game is to sell your monsters. And it makes me feel SO BAD! Cos the game very much outright tells you that selling them is killing them. And I guess it makes sense cos I mean, only Nagi wife-husband pairs can actually summon the monsters, there’d be no point trying to sell living ones to anyone else. So, since minions are sealed inside cocoons, in order to sell them you spin their cocoons into silk thread. This village’s primary export is weaving, so you can sell these silk spools to the big ol building of spinning wheel people and make money to keep going on your journey. Apparantly silk infused with monster souls is higher quality and can grant various effects and stuff, hence its value. Its a shame they didnt make a crafting system with this! Instead its just a standard ‘more powerful weapons and armours appear at the shop as the plot advances, for no real reason’. I mean, wouldnt it have been cool if you could add your monsters’s particular resistances to your main character’s armour? i would feel less sad about betraying them so utterly if they could protect me from beyond the grave. BECAUSE SERIOUSLY THIS IS SO FUCKED UP Seriously! These monsters faithfully served you! You purified them of their anger against humans, and instead of taking that opportunity to love them and show them the good sides of humanity, you just kill them! You kill them after they gained free will! You specifically HAVE to give them free will in order to kill them! Poor babies... I mean seriously I know that animals have to die to provide humans with food and materials and stuff, this is just how society works. But there’s something so much more viscerally terrifying about imagining taking an animal and literally weaving its SOUL into thread, then wearing it! There’s so many metaphysical questions that need to be answered before you can even figure out how much pain they would experience! And like.. god.. even the way they do the gameplay is so.. even more sad. Like, you can’t just hand the monster to someone else and its implied that they kill them. You have to hit an actual button to turn it into a sellable item. You have to cull it yourself. The death blow is on your hands, even if someone else weaves its dead soul into a nice scarf... So yeah, I pretty much always deliberately play ‘hard mode’ on this game, and refuse to make any damn money. Well, I mean, you can still find items in forests and sell them, but its infinately harder that way. You really are supposed to be selling your monsters to progress. I SAY NO! Big ol giant interface option sitting there on the menu unused forever. I love my sneks. You will not take them!!!

Oh but MAN I do really like the moral ambiguity of this worldbuilding, aaaaa!! The whole setting is so.. like.. realistic. There’s the dark realities of life in an ancient times setting. They take care to establish how the society functions and what their main trading export is, and what role monsters play in a non-battley setting! And seriously even the lil Shab Liquer thing! The casual implication that other villages might have different industries with their captured monsters, and someone somewhere out there found a way to make this medicine out of snakes. it manages to imply a wider world even as you’re confined to this one single village and the long forest that divides it away from every other human settlement. Plus.. like.. I really like the ambiguity it gives to HUMANITY. That seems like the MOST realistic of anything! Seriously, the game starts off establishing that in mythology humans are said to be evil, that the creation myth says we’re living in a post-fall society as the corrupted form of what true humanity should actually be, that god has abandoned us and we follow religion because we have to prove ourselves good enough to regain our former status. Like.. seriously, its refreshing compared to how boring and samey a lot of fictional religions are! They’re often just copies of existing religions, or of the general most popular religion template of There Was One Or Two Creator Gods And They Made Humans And Humans Are Destined Important And Animals Were Made To Serve Us. Instead in this game humanity’s mistreatment of animals and the environment is our absolute sin, and the definition of holiness is to be more similar to animals. And big scary demon monsters are GOD’S HOLY CREATIONS, SENT TO PUNISH US! No stereotypes here! No corner-cutting bullshit stolen from real life religions! And then like.. its nice how ambiguous it makes humanity nowadays, even beyond the ambiguity of the mythology and history. Humanity is trying to redeem itself, humanity is following this religion worshipping the god that cast them down for being corrupted. But still, it shows that some people believe in this doctrine, and some people believe that the things that are ‘corrupt’ about us are actually good. Cos it shows how some people believe that like.. ALL progress is sinful, any sort of machine is sinful, any attempt to improve society or change on what’s traditional. And it shows how some people who believe this are the bad guys, and some people believe this in a way that actually makes sense. And similarly, some people who follow the traditional ways are good- like Mahbu and her grandma. But then there’s the village chief who just follows religion blindly and doesnt seem to actually understand what’s morally correct at all, he’s just like ‘if I do what I’m told, I’ll be freed!’ instead of getting the goddamn lesson. And he tries to pretend to be a reasonable authority figure at first but then he gets more and more corrupt as the game goes on. He’s the representation of how forcing our two heroes into an arranged marriage is a morally ambiguous thing, even though they actually were in love and would have got hitched anyway. They’re still way too young to get this destiny of being the only ones who can save the village, AND keep the economy alive by spinning poor lil monsters into silk! And then he keeps giving you more and more orders, and they go from the actual duties of a cocoon master into just fullfilling the chief’s own greed and paranoia. And its interesting that him and the vizier lady who represents ‘lets abandon the rules and do everything for the benefit of humanity’ actually end up teaming up in the end and becoming even more goddamn corrupt together. Excessive progress and excessive stagnancy are both evil, and honestly they both have very similar selfish motives! Tho I do think the only problem is that they put a bit too much emphasis on this whole ‘these two looked like reasonable authority figures but were really evil’ thing, and don’t have enough good people in the town representing the other side. So its harder to care about saving this place when its literally just your wife and your mom who represent the goodness of the human race. And like.. technically I dont want the asshole lil kid to die, cos even though he’s a jerk he’s too young to be 100% responsible for his own actions. Even if I dont like him as a person, I’d still rather wanna take him away from this trash town and hope he can get raised by better people...

But seriously goddamn THOSE FUCKIN ASSHOLE CHIEFTAIN AND VIZIER PEOPLE!! Even after me and mahbu just saved the city from a deadly disease, after like 12 hours of gameplay and three forests worth of fighting for my life against monsters, where I’m expected to have sacrificed like 30 monsters to feed their stupid fuckin silk industry, even after ALL THAT they show no gratitude! The opposite of gratitude! The chief is still paranoid of the Nagi people for being foreigners, even though they dedicate their whole damn life to leaving their families and going on journeys to settle down in different cities and give their power to protect un-magic humans. And they’ve been doing this for all of history despite persecution, and like.. they lost their home and now the only ones who exist are the nomads and various half-nagi children who’ve never seen anyone of their own race before and are losing all the culture. Mahbu is an orphan who was just found by her ‘grandma’ and raised here, the only other Nagi in the village are the protagonist’s mum and technically the protagonist is half Nagi. (Tho like I said, the worldbuilding is that men cant use the magic, so protagonist is classified as a regular human and would just pass it on if he had a daughter.) So seriously Mahbu is a GODDAMN ORPHAN who was raised here all alone and hated by the village even as a kid! And the protagonist was her only childhood friend cos he could understand the feeling of being hated for having this blood, so no wonder they ended up falling in love. And then their love is at risk cos they were forced into this political marriage when they’re really young, and now have to risk dying everyday to protect this town that still hates them. And they work so hard to prove they don’t deserve to be hated, they don’t even think ‘the town is assholes’, they think ‘this is my home and i love it and it must be my fault everyone hates me so i have to work harder’. And the game doesn’t give you any option to do otherwise!

And it progresses even worse than just not getting gratitude! After you save the village from the disease, the evil chief and vizier wreck the day that you just saved, by pulling their goddamn bullshit evil plan! The chief decides to cut down the god-tree because of his paranoia, the vizier decides to cut down the god-tree because of her greed. And like... GAHHHH but its SO GOOD cos its all moral ambiguity still! The evil duo are definately evil, but they get to be evil for different reasons. They represent the two darkest sides of humanity, and no matter how much you represent the light of the world you cannot change them just by passively obeying them and hoping they’ll react like goddamn rational people! But you can understand why the masses might be tricked into following them, yknow? Humanity has been living in this tough life for as long as human memory, and mythology says that we’re being punished for the sins of our ancestors and we’re just BORN EVIL even though we weren’t the ones who did that shit. So you have good reasons to be angry against god, even if the evil duo DONT have good reasons, and they’re not doing something that will actually help.

Anyway so yeah thusly they trick mahbu and the protagonist into helping them trap the god-tree so they can cut it down. Again its a lil annoying that the game doesn’t give you a choice, though! And they dont even bother writing it a bit more ambiguous so the player could be fooled too, its pretty damn obvious you’re being tricked yet the only way to progress the game is to keep going. So you accidentally end up casting the evil magic on the god-tree and its like HOLY SHIT NO! And as you run back to the town you cant get back in time to stop anything, and you just get to see cutscenes of what’s happening while you’re gone. The evil duo cross the line EVEN FURTHER by MURDERING MAHBU’S GRANDMA! Mahbu’s grandma is the BEST CHARACTER, you fucking fuckface! She was such a nice helpful mentor and one of the only people who genuinely treated you two like human beings even though she wasn’t related to you. And she tries to stop the evil duo from doing their evil plan, she tries to reason with them, and she even gets desperate enough to try and reason with them within their own logic. Even if they’re sacriligious and selfish enough to not care that they’re trying to kill god for personal gain, they should at least understand that their plan WON’T FUCKIN WORK, and they’re just gonna bring god’s wrath and ruin humanity’s only chance at redemption! You’re gonna lose all your goddamn money and power if you get bitchslapped by the heavens, dumbass! AND you;ll kill the rest of us too, who never did anything to deserve it! And they ignore all her attempts to be reasonable, and ritually sacrifice her to try and save their own asses once their stupid attempt to kill god backfires. FUCK YOU TWO, SERIOUSLY!

And then something I really like is the revelation of grandma’s backstory! Cos seriously, who exactly was this mysterious woman who found this orphan and rescued her from the forest? She wasn’t a citizen of this town, she just stayed here to raise Mahbu once the town residents acted like assholes and tried to kick the poor kid back out. It turns out that grandma is actually the mortal incarnation of one of the minor deities! She’s basically this world’s psychopomp. The evil duo were actually RIGHT when they said she was a demon in disguise, but NOT when they thought that she was the evil one and they were good. The psychopomp figure of this mythology is hated, but it seems to be that she gained that reputation because she disobeys Elrihm and tries to help humans. She saved this Nagi girl from dying like the rest of her people, and even bound herself in human form in order to try and redeem this town of jackasses. And even though she was part of their village for so long and did nothing but try and protect them, they still ultimately betrayed her... And it was a very vague plot element that was only casually mentioned here cos its Endgame Time and we have to move very fast now. But it was implied that the chief and vizier are the reincarnations of the original evil king and evil sorcerer who did the same sinful nonsense all those centuries ago to get humanity kicked out of god’s domain in the first place. I dunno if its just meant to be that they’re naturally stuck in a cycle of reincarnation as punishment for their sins? But I always liked to interpret it that psychopomp grandma chose to never take their souls, because no matter what they do to her she still believes that one day they might be able to be redeemed in their next life. I feel like maybe she’s gambling with god, she’s keeping humanity alive by holding this one last wager to prove that they’re worth saving...

And then spoily endgame stuff happens and ultimately the protagonist fullfills some ancient prophecy and calms god and etc and MAKES UP FOR THE BULLSHIT ADULTS RUINING ALL THE SHIT, SERIOUSLY And seriously i haaaate how abrupt and rushed the ending is, and how that in this abrupt rushed ending they had time to show that the trash town comes back to life but not show that Mahbu does! You’re told beforehand that she will, but like.. with how many times you get lied to in this game, it would have been nice to get some damn confirmation in the end. Plus seriously, I cant even be happy seeing the town come back! Thats not a very climactic ending! Seeing protagonist smooch his poor long-suffering girlfriend would be way better! Seriously SERIOUSLY everyone else fuckin died cos of their own fuckin fault cos they MURDERED A GRANDMA my nice sweet ETERNAL GRANDMA, the ANCIENT DEITY OF ALL GRANDMAS, the fuckin DEATH GOD SATAN FIGURE WHO SACRIFICED HERSELF TO BECOME A GRANDMA AND PROTECT US AND THEN THEY KILLED HER, AAAAA they fuckin deserved to all die and be frozen in stone unable to even find peace But Mahbu’s life was instead in danger because she used too much magic purifying monsters IN ORDER TO SAVE THE DAMN TRASH TOWN And after all that they had the goddamn gall to be ungrateful and just cause a second disaster and ask us to fix it again! THAT is why mahbu was gonna die! Because she was a good person who listened to your bullshit and tried to save you, and loved me, and just SERIOUSLY SO MANY EMOTIONS you repayed her by KILLING HER GRANDMA

And i mean seriously her form of death was quite literally death from being TOO HOLY AND MORAL. She wasn’t strictly ‘dying’, it was more like a death of personality, I guess? Becoming something holy and leaving this world, when she didnt want to leave you. Everyone called the painful Nagi markings ‘cursed’ and shamed her for it and made her cover them up so their poor goddamn eyes wouldnt be offended by having to look at them. And poor mahbu was worried her goddamn love of her life would be disgusted with her if he saw! So it was like.. simultaneously cathartic and sad to learn that tradition was wrong in this respect. That it was still a BAD THING, but it was holy markings instead of a curse. Nagi priests who succum to the ‘curse’ are just shedding their humanity as a reward for their service, because from Elrihm’s perspective this is a good thing. So Mahbu becomes a tiny fairy angel type Minion, and then its just sad and intense because soon she’ll lose the ability to speak and forget about you and grandma :( So you have to seal her inside a cocoon in order to halt the spread of the holy markings, and can only let her out to talk to her for very short amounts of time in case it starts up again. And then you have to face the gauntlet of the penultimate dungeon alone without the ability to fuse monsters, until you get through it and find the original Nagi hometown whose demise was greatly exaggerated. And then nobody there has any time for character development cos its endgame time, but seriously it was thematically really damn cathartic to walk through that door and see the place! And meet this actual good guy chieftain who actually finally answers some goddamn questions and helps you! Even if its super sad to have to do fusion with these new stranger shopkeeper twins, instead of the wife you’ve grown to love. And also SERIOUSLY just imagine how fuckin atmospheric that whole penultimate dungeon would have been if the player character got to have a voice! It was all atmospheric to me cos I got really into it and imagined it, but I wish it coulda been canon, yknow? I’m just imagining the poor protagonist dude fighting through this horrifying gauntlet all alone with his final team of monsters, struggling to keep up without any of the magical reinforcement they usually get, unable to restock the last few items he has left in his bag. Fuckin DESPERATE HORROR, fuckin having to sleep overnight in the forest for the first time, fuckin terrified. Fuckin.. clinging to the soul of his wife sealed in a cocoon, keeping it safe against all costs, fuckin wakes up in the middle of the night and just how terrified he’d be that he can’t find her, until he remembers what happens T_T And then like.. imagine him summoning her and only getting a few minutes to hold her tiny fragile fairy self in the palm of his hands, and strain to hear her quiet voice as it gets fainter and fainter, and she struggles to remember herself. Thats somehow EVEN SADDER than if you could actually use monster-Mahbu in your party to fight alongside you! (tho that would have been AWESOME) I felt so bad that after all the horror these two had to go through, we never get to see the happy ending they earned, and instead the game wastes time showing the trash town coming back and just... GAHHH

oh and also that is THE ONLY THING about the sequel that i agree is bad! I liked the sequel a lot! And.. I mean.. in theory its a very interesting concept to have the protagonist of the last game be this sadman morally ambiguous broken mentor man. But seriously fuckin hell give the man a break! They literally say that he got blessed/cursed with immortality cos he fullfilled the prophecy in the first game, so Mahbu died long ago and he desperately wants to die too. Thats such a fuckin sick thing to do to your protagonist! And I mean, he doesnt even look like the same person anymore, and so much about the gameplay and the setting and etc are wildly different so it doesnt seem like the same world in th future, why even bother trying to claim its the same world in the future... I mean even.. monsters come from eggs instead of cocoons now, and you cant catch them or merge them, only buy them in stores! Shoulda just made it a separate game and let it stand on its own merits, it would have actually succeeded. I love all the characters in JC2, there’s no problem of ‘man i dont wanna save these guys’, the only character I dont like is fuckin... SADMAN FORMER PROTAGONIST WHO WANTS TO DIE At least in the ending after spoily stuff he gets to pass away. But lets just say the spoily stuff spits on the poor man’s legacy even more, sheesh...

ANYWAY I FEEL A LOT OF EMOTIONS FOR PROTAGONIST AND MAHBU And this game has great worldbuilding and i love it even if the ending is rushed and you’re forced to fall for stupid villain assholes’s stupid tricks ok end of bunni’s rambling

[chezniewalters]

Oh my god honestly I am so pleased with this. I did have a small hiccup along the way but that’s ok.

So after a big designing process and practice keys, I finally animated my dude Gibbles and I love it. There’s obviously flaws like the fact his ears are a stiff as a metal ruler from the graphics department but aside from that. I had a bit of a moment after I rendered the video, exported it as an image sequence, imported it into Premiere Pro, exported it as an MP4 and converted it to a QT file, and realised that the legs made literally no sense.

This is the original:

I don’t know if can really tell that much, but basically, I got muddled up with what leg was meant to be in front and what leg wasn't so if I remember correctly, pass 2 and a few surrounding frames is where it happens, but somehow I managed to switch it back to the correct leg for the rest of the animation?? It didn't actually take me too long to fix the issue, and I’m so glad I did, it was just a bit of a hinderance honestly. 

I animated this in Photoshop and put it all together in Premiere pro.

03/11/17