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ajaviary · 3 years ago

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Hollow’s eve

Summary: It’s Halloween night and Eri is having a crisis and it's one only you can fix. It wouldn’t be so bad if you and her father still had feelings for each other.

Characters: Shota Aizawa x Reader | Eri

Warnings: None except the angst!

Word Count: 3801

Reblogs, comments and likes appreciated! This was for Halloween but I’m a little late, sorry! Enjoy!

(Hollow’s Eve Pt 2) | (Hollow’s Eve Pt3 NSFW) | (Hollow’s Eve P3 Fluff)

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You replayed the scene in your head a hundred times over the last few days. You had a horrible day, that only seemed to get worse and you took it out on him and he responded in kind, that was how you guys fought, how all your fights worked, you both got a rise out of each other only to aim for destructive blows. When you clashed against each other, neither gave an inch.

The rumors circulating the agency you worked for, all because of Aizawa’s desire to keep your relationship a secret, and usually you understood. Usually it wasn't an issue...but it had turned into that. Turned into one after the continued advances from those you worked with. Like you were some sort of conquest, some trophy or score to put down.

You turned them down gently, but jealousy, envy, and desire turned into something darker. Not everyone was so easy to believe men and women could be just friends. You were an up and coming star in the hero world and it brought adoration, admirers who supported you and others who were quick to say something uglier in how you got to where you were. It wasn't just about your skill, your Intelligence. No others were quick to shade you behind your back. It was how you had learned so quickly that you couldn't trust anyone, not your friends or your colleagues.

It was something that said a lot to your relationship with Aizawa. He wasn't out to get anything from you. You weren't a conquest. At least that had been how you’d thought of it, but after what you had overheard from your fellow heroes, was there a reason he didn't want to tell anyone you were together? Was it not just because he felt it was safer for you? Was there something wrong with you? Was he just trying to control you?

It brought up all your doubts, your darker demons had awakened and you weren’t sure who you could trust to stand beside you. It was that irrational need to shove everyone away before they could hurt you and it was what drove you to fight with him, to break up with him.

The fight that had resulted in an exchange of angry words, hurtful insults and low blows as you both let your insecurities push the fight in a direction neither of you wanted, but you both were too prideful to let it go, to take back what was said. Instead, the harmful words were what separated you both like a field full of landmines.

Your anger is too easy to push you both forward, as you two swallow down the pain inside and hide from the world in your hard shell. Ensuring no one could get close to you again. No one could hurt you if you didn't let them in.

Not anymore. You had made a mistake. One you wouldn't concede to.

That fight didn't stop you from looking down at the name that flashed across the screen of your smartphone. You let it ring and go to voicemail, assuming it was a mistake as you stuffed the phone back in the pocket of your jacket before you moved through the aisles of candy. Last minute candy shopping for the kids at your apartment. You wouldn’t be answering the door, that hadn't been your plan, actually you had been supposed to be tricker treating with Shota and Eri tonight, but after your breakup, you planned to stay in, or maybe you would go to the Halloween party Hizashi and Nemuri planned every year -- yeah right that was not your scene.

You also didn't want to drink your sorrows away either. You knew what you would do to numb the pain that settled so profoundly in your chest; patrolling and hurting the bad guys was the only thing that made it a little better, a little more bearable.

When your phone rang again with his name once more on the screen, you answered it. The phone to your ear, you couldn't even get a word in edgewise, as his rough, low tone filled your ears.

“Did you tell Eri you would do her hair for the party tonight?” He sounded angry, exhausted even. It was directed at you, it was always directed at you.

Your fingers tighten on your phone and you narrow your eyes to the ground. Least you mean mug someone in the store and it ends up circling the internet with some embellished story tomorrow.

“I did, but that was before -”

“Before you broke up with me.”

“Funny you’re so upset about it, but you wouldn't define our - nevermind, it's whatever.” You keep your voice steady and hard, unyielding in the cold intensity you gave him toward the end of your statement. You can’t help but rub at the ache in your chest. The tight ball lodged there, but you push past it, ignoring it just like you always do.

“What does Eri need?” You ask before he can say anything else; his intake of breath before you had cut him off had been stiff and fast. A sign he’d been loading some harsh words for you too.

“For you to do her hair like you promised,” he told you brusquely. As though you were a stranger and not the young woman who had wormed your way into his little family. You’d hadn't hurt just him, no...Eri was devastated by your sudden departure.

“I’ll be there in fifteen,” your words come out easy, too easy as you take a breath and hang up before he can say anything, before he can add anything. You don’t want nor need to hear it. You pocket your phone and stare at the assorted bag of large candy in your hand before you head for the register. At least this way once you did Eri’s hair in the style of Kora from Avatar, you’d go back to your dismal apartment to hide from the world for the rest of the night.

It was a great plan and yet it was the coward's plan, not that he would care what you got up to tonight, but in the back of your mind didn’t want him to know you were upset over the choice you made. It may have been a knee jerk reaction, a regret, a horrible way of coping with past trauma was to take it out on those in your present life. You hated the way you handled it, but for too very emotionally damaged people, this was how things usually went. You also weren’t about to be the one to apologize and take it back...he hadn’t even been able to give you a good reason for not wanting to be more than what you were. He couldn’t give you validation to why he was keeping your relationship a secret.

With a forced smile you make small talk with the lady at the register before you can get to the safety of your car for a few blissful moments of alone time as you make your way to the other part of town.

Awkward didn't even begin to cover it. This was the last place you wanted to be after your fight two weeks ago, but you refused to drop your mask, you wouldn’t be weak in front of him, you wouldn’t crawl back to him...you wouldn’t admit you were wrong. That you had made a mistake, that you were sorry. You drive your fingers back through your hair and settle your features as you raise your hand to knock on the door and rap your knuckles against it.

You didn’t have to wait long for the door to open and your breath caught as you saw Aizawa in a puffy wide sleeved shirt that had the sleeves stopping at his elbows and the shirt was open to expose his chest and black tight pants hugged his hips. You caught his heavy scowl as you gave his outfit a scrutinizing glance, hiding the fact that you thought the outfit looked really good on him. You reached out on impulse really to tip the pirates hat up, he was dressed as the Famous Jack Sparrow and you stepped into his personal space, but he didn’t yield to you, he held his ground.

“Eri’s still cuter than you,” you told him as you watched his hands tighten at his side as though he wanted to shove you out the door or drag you closer. Maybe all that had been between you two was just sex, but why did that spark in his eye make dread settle in the pit of your stomach. “Always,” came his quick and easy answer as though it would never be a contest that she would forever outshine him. That sort of devotion shouldn’t have made you almost smile, but it did.

“Not going to Hizashi’s party?” He asked his smirk, almost daring as he took in the simple pair of civilian clothes you wore, a pair of light blue jeans that hugged your waist and off the shoulder hoodie sweater in hunter green, that he personally always loved because it brought out the color of your eyes. He didn’t mean it as maliciously as it sounded, but he’d wanted to know if he needed to try and convince you to go or not.

Hizashi was someone you knew, but he’d been his friend first, so while during the six months you two had been dating secretly, you’d become close with Hizashi and his girlfriend Nemuri. This was just another backwards way of him claiming his friends, at least in your eyes. “No, I had other plans,” you told him tartly, but the tension in your shoulders and the way your gaze had strayed told him the truth and he called you out on it.

“Don’t lie,” he growled as he stepped back letting you further into his home, not at all affected by your close proximity. That hurt, and yet it was exactly what you wanted, what you should want. “Fuck you!” The whispered curse was venomous as you swung your hand wide and jabbed your nail into his chest. “You know I’m not welcome there! So don’t act like me going is a good idea. It’ll be crawling with your friends,” you can’t help but snarl, and where his fingers had grabbed your wrist, it burned. His skin was as hot to the touch as you remember, in all the ways you hate.

He didn’t say anything and really what could he say?

You don’t need the reminders that you’ve got no one to hang out with. Without him, without his friends you’re alone. Something that never used to bother you when you kept your attention on your work and your very independent life. It was only after you started dating and hanging out with his friends that you seemed to realize how lonely you were, how depressed in some ways.

“Where is Eri?” You demand loudly instead as you break his hold and turn toward the stairway before the question had left your lips. You changed the subject, the last thing you wanted was for him to prove your statement right, even if it was true.

“Upstairs,” he told you in that same condescending tone he used when he felt you were being just a little too inept. He always hated when you asked obvious questions to get a rise out of him. He didn't like it because he knew how smart you were, that you didn’t need to put on a show for him. You didn’t have to dumb yourself down for him to fit in, like you had too in the male dominated agency you worked for.

Climbing the stairs you don’t respond and with no quip to toss toward him, no catty remark. It makes the distance between you too seem like so much more than just three steps. He ran his hand down his face and released a quiet breath as though that would release the pent up emotion that was still raging inside. It had been trapped inside him for weeks. There was so much he wanted to say to you, but you had been ignoring his calls and the few angry texts that he’d sent over the last few days. You also thank god had ignored the drunken texts, those were of a far softer nature, windows into how he really felt, that he didn’t want to share least of all now. Now that you had walked out of not just his life, but his daughter's life. He couldn’t forgive you for the hurt you caused her.

He’d been about to make up an excuse that you had been busy, but when the first tears had started, he’d swallowed them down and called you. Had you refused to come over, he’d have resorted to some drastic measures to ensure you showed up. You may hate him, but you didn’t get to take it out on Eri.

“I would have done her hair, without the call, but I wasn’t sure you’d let me in the door.”

Those words as you linger at the top step, your fingers tightening on the railing. It seems to chip away at the tough exterior he’s been trying to keep up around you now that you were back on his life like you were for this short time. He’s been attempting to wipe you out of existence, but no matter how hard he tries, he just can’t seem to do that. You bring up so many memories for him and you haunt his dreams. His heavy sigh causes you to tense, but as his words come out lacking the edge he’d been using all night, it softens the tension in your shoulders. The need for battle slowly leaves at least for now, as the seconds pass.

“I wouldn't keep you from her,” his admission makes your eyes sting and you take as silent a breath in as you can. You step forward on the landing and swallow around the lump forming. Eri is another casualty to your fight and one of your biggest regrets.

You shouldn’t have gotten close to either of them, you knew that and yet it had happened anyway. Eri had that way of being such a light in the bleakness of your life, her love for life, her acceptance of you and her desire to be around you had been one of the ways she’d become one of your biggest joys. It was also why you weren’t sure you could continue this after today. It was too painful to be here, to be around either of them.

Aizawa had become your one constant, the biggest supporter in your life. You had never been

“It doesn’t matter,” your words come up at that level of detachment you were so good at. It was your disregard for your own wants that drove him up a wall with you. It was true, after tonight none of it would matter. It was the unspoken agreement that this would be your last time here and all you had to do was get through the next thirty minutes and then it could be a clean break.

|~|

You had only just finished braiding the front two strands of Eri’s hair and were adding the blue clips to complete her look, you gave her costume another once over as she sat on the bathroom counter. Usually braiding her hair didn’t take that long, but it had to be perfect and you had felt his eyes on you the entire time.

The judgment from him was heavy. It hadn't always been like this; he used to trust you to be alone with her. It hurt more to know he didn't trust you.

“What do you think?” You ask her with a small smile. As her tiny fingers touched the corner of your mouth, you tried to keep your smile on your face, but it faltered just a bit as you gave your handy work another glance, scrutinizing everything about it. “I love it!” she boasted brightly with a wide smile as she wiggled off the counter and skipped over to Aizawa. She bashfully dragged the toe of her boot against the carpet as she looked up at him. “How do I look?” she asked him looking for his approval and you found yourself hanging on them too as you began to put the various beads you had considered into the box.

He carefully fingered the end of one of the strands, his gaze drifting to you for only a moment before his dark eyes were looking into her own. “It looks great on you,” he told her softly, his finger brushing her upper arm carefully testing the waters, allowing her to make the first move. As she stepped closer and curled her arms around him, only then did he pull her into an embrace. His praise had your shoulders losing the tension in them, you watched the scene through the mirror, feeling hot and cold at the display.

At least I can do something right.

You had just clicked the box shut when Eri’s excited chatter had gotten louder, and you tuned back into what was being said, unable to give them privacy. “Daddy you should have (Y/N) do your hair too!” she exclaimed as she bounced up and down. Her fingers curled along his hand. How long had it taken for her to take his hand without flinching? You knew it had been months. It had been something he’d confided in you when you had gotten comfortable with each other after the first few meet ups for drinks as your schedules allowed, the first time had been thanks to right place and right time thanks to Yu and Nemuri, which had resulted in Hizashi and Shota arriving too.

You two were just friends, friends who were comfortable around each other, who had their own demons and horrible tendencies of hurting each other when things got tough. It was what many would consider a toxic relationship, but it wasn't always like that. You fought the way you both did to protect yourselves. There wasn’t anyone who could handle that hidden ugly side of you so easily. You fought with words and action in some cases, but neither raised a hand to each other, unless it was simply in the bedroom but that was a different sort of stress relief. Very different indeed.

Maybe it was just sex, yet why would you too have dinner and movie nights together, text and talk to each other about your day. It was the definition of what a couple did and yet he didn't want to define your relationship. Didn't want to say to the world that you were dating, that you were together.

“Then we can match! Please, please?!” She asked as her red eyes turned to you. For a moment you dragged your gaze from her to look into the dark eyes that had used to look at you with such an understanding, such love and now, now it was something far worse, that brought a horrible emotion to settle in your chest. You brought up a hand and rubbed at it as you looked away from him forcing the bright smile you gave all your fans, all the interviews, the smile that hid the depths of your pain from the world. It didn’t matter that he would see right through it, that he would know, all that mattered was that Eri didn’t.

“If he wants,” you manage to get the words out with a steadiness that surprises you and at the same time it doesn’t. You can lock down your emotions and shut them off at such a rapid pace it leaves people spinning, struggling to catch up with the drastic shift, for the few who catch it. Not many do, he was one of the few.

The knock at the door gives you a reprieve for a moment, as Shota looks at his phone checking to see who is at the door, before he nodded toward her. “It’s Kota and Miss. Sosaki,” he told her, watching as she rushed for the stairs and toward the front door. The chatter from the two new guests filling the room.

Jealousy slithered inside, as you thought of the older woman downstairs, she was the perfect mother figure, the whole package, her role in the hero world already established she was known as Mandalay a member of the Wild Wild Pussycats. She was literally everything you weren’t. It was no wonder Shota would prefer her over you. You didn’t know that, but this seemed to certainly be the case, it would explain so much.

The silence between you stretched before you heard his heavy sigh, and could hear the exhaustion behind it. “I didn’t expect it to take this long,” he frowned, not realizing exactly how that sounded, how you would take it. It was just another of many misconceptions the two of you had made about each other.

You don’t belong here, not anymore. You probably never had in the first place. Of course it was you who had grown too attached, you were so stupid, so naive.

You left the box on the bathroom counter intending to leave it for Eri. “It’s no problem, consider this a gift for Eri. I’ll see you around Eraser,” his name falls from your lips in another attempt to keep up a professional relationship. To put some distance between you both.

You move past him; his fingers curl along your wrist. For a single stupid moment, you hope for something else, for him to tell you he loves you, that it hasn't changed...that he still loves you. That he wants to fix this.

“I’m sorry.”

Those two words ripped a hole through your chest; so many emotions collide inside. You hold them back, his slackened fingers let you go with the slightest pull. He could have held on; he could have held on tighter. If he really wanted to.

He didn't.

He didn't want you. Not anymore.

“Me too.”

It’s all you can get out and they aren’t a lie. Neither of you have looked at each other, there is no need, there is nothing left to say and you walk down the steps, giving small talk for only a few moments before you can escape to the door. False promises falling from your lips.

He let you walk out that door and out of his life.

#mha fluff #mha reader insert #mha #bnha #aizawa x y/n #aizawa x reader #bnha fluff #mha smut #ajaviary fics #writers on tumblr #mha eri #bnha eri #mha kota

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pascalpanic · 4 years ago

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Sunscreen (Frankie Morales x f!Reader)

Summary: You take a trip with Frankie and his three idiotic best friends. They find an interesting purchase in the gift shop.

W/C: 2.9k

Warnings: language, implied sexual content, lots of innuendo and flirting

A/N: HI!!! this is the first fic of the Beyond The Sea series Rach and I are writing! I can’t wait for everyone to read these! I also love @mandoalorian for doing this with me and putting up with my shit!

and happy birthday to the man behind it all!! lots of love for Pedro on this day <3

The moment Frankie steps off the plane and into the hot weather, he feels instantly at peace. He’d never even heard of St. Kitts before Santiago brought it up a few months ago, but as he looks around, he’s already thinking this might have to be the place he brings you on your honeymoon someday, once he gets the courage to propose.

Your bright laughter rings out behind him, a few steps higher as you walk down the stairs for deplaning. “It’s gorgeous,” you grin, wrapping your arms around Frankie’s neck from behind and pressing a loud kiss to his cheek.

“Shut the fuck up and keep it moving,” a loud voice calls from further behind Frankie- it’s Santiago, grumpy from the somewhat-long flight. The energetic man hates sitting still for too long. “You two can make out at the hotel. There’s a whole plane behind us.”

Sighing, you walked along until both you and Frankie had your feet on solid ground. Frankie pulls you into his side with a strong arm, kissing the top of your head and grinning at the way he can already feel a little sweat forming on his brow. God, it’s fucking hot. He loves it. It’s not the grueling heat that plagued the men when they were at boot camp all those years ago; it’s not the sticky humidity that makes Frankie’s curls turn to tufts of frizz beneath his ball cap. It’s just right, he thinks, as a cool breeze rushes through and moves the still heat of the tarmac. “Welcome to paradise, baby,” Frankie grins as he slides his hand down your arm until your fingers lace together.

The resort is beautiful. The lobby is open-aired and gorgeous, with high ceilings and marbled floors. You bounce excitedly alongside Frankie as the two of you walk in, the other three men trailing behind. Benny makes comments to Will about how the two of you are about to be insufferable, and Frankie turns and shoots him a glare.

After you check in, you drag your luggage up to the highest floor. The other three men go to their respective hotel room next door, and Frankie opens the door to your room for you.

As soon as you walk inside, your breath is taken away by the large window, showing you the expanse of the Caribbean Sea, glimmering turquoise. A hand reaches up to cover your mouth, eyes watering as you look up at Frankie. “Oh my god,” you murmur and drop your bags, rushing over.

Frankie had planned this moment. He knew you’d never seen the ocean before just moments ago, but knew you’d love it. You’ve always loved water, loved swimming in pools and creeks and any body of water you could find. The two of you had kept your little window shut during the flight, preventing you from any sneak peeks. “You like it?” he asks as he walks after you, where your face and hands are pressed to the glass.

With eyes sparkling from tears, you turn to him with a grin. “It’s gorgeous.”

“You know there’s a balcony right there,” he teases, putting a hand on your waist and pointing to the side where there’s a sliding glass door. “I’m an idiot,” you laugh and rush over to open it. You step out into the warm air once again, and the smell of sea salt fills your lungs. You can hear the rushing of the ocean, the way it crashes against the shore.

Frankie steps out after you, removing the flannel over his t-shirt. He wraps his arms around you from behind, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “I think you’re an ocean kind of girl,” he tells you quietly, resting his chin on your shoulder.

“I think you’re right,” you agree and grin, kissing the side of his face.

The peaceful moment is interrupted, as always, by a loud whoop from Benny. The sliding door on the balcony over flies open and out rush the Miller brothers and Santiago. “It’s fuckin’ amazing!” Benny laughs as he grips the railing tight, leaning out over it.

“Calm down, Ben,” Will laughs but steps out as well, resting his forearms on the railing. “Look at that. The lovebirds beat us to it.”

“Ah, damn, so they can’t fuck out here now,” Santi teases, causing you to make a face of annoyance.

You lean back against Frankie and roll your eyes. “I was just telling Fish I’ve never seen the ocean,” you admit, placing your hands on his forearms and tracing the strong skin with the pads of your thumbs.

“Really?” All three men ask in sync, surprised.

You nod and shrug. “Parents never took me as a kid or anything, and I’ve never really left the Midwest before I met you fuckers,” you chuckle as you watch the white-capped waves rolling along out in the water.

“Well, you’re welcome,” Santiago grins over at you. It was his whole idea to come, and you’re sure you’ll never hear the end of it. “Could’ve mentioned it sooner though.”

“Didn’t think it mattered,” you shrug, smiling at the way you can feel Frankie’s chest bounce with a laugh. “Come on, let’s go to the beach,” you turn in Frankie’s arms and ask him with a grin, eyes wide with excitement.

“Sure thing, babe,” he nods and steals one more kiss before the two of you walk back into the hotel room.

There’s a voice from the other balcony before Frankie slides the door shut. “We’re going to the bar,” Santi yells. “Meet us there after!”

“What the fuck is this?” Will Miller’s gruff voice conveys across the gift shop, to where you’re admiring a shibori-dyed garment.

Looking up, you hear Benny’s loud laugh. “No way. Why would they even make this shit?” You wander over to where the four men have congregated, all staring at something in Will’s hands.

Santiago does the work for the three of you who have yet to see it and reads the label on the bottle aloud. “Seduction: pheromone sunscreen.” He laughs, absolutely in disbelief. “Awaken her passion with this pheromone-infused tanning lotion. Contains a masculine fragrance and the male pheromone, to attract a female. Damn. Does it work?” He asks the woman behind the counter, who shrugs in response.

Frankie picks up the bottle, and Will grabs another, reading the fine print. “Why in the hell did someone think this was necessary?”

You shrug and lean against him to read it too. “I don’t know. Probably for guys like Will who are desperate,” you tease, earning a playful shove that pushes you into Frankie and makes you lose your balance for a moment. “Fucker,” you mutter and steady yourself on your boyfriend’s arm.

“I’m buying it,” Santiago announces and puts it on the check-out counter. “Fish, I’m going to steal your girl with this,” he declares and pulls you into his side. “The power of the pheromone sunscreen.”

Laughing, you allow it to happen. “Maybe it’ll be irresistible, I don’t know.”

“Hey, don’t awaken my girl’s passion, man,” Frankie whines teasingly and pulls you back, wrapping both arms around you protectively. “If you’re using it, Santi, I’m using it too. It’s only fair.”

“It’s only fair if you don’t,” he shoots back. “She already loves you. It’s not like it’s gonna make her think you’re hotter. It’s only fair if I do it alone, and you’re the control.”

“Hi, I’m not a lab rat,” you speak up and push Santiago’s chest teasingly. “Try it on yourself and see if you can make other girls around here fall in love with you. Better yet, like I said, put it on Will. That’s a real test.”

The quietest of the men is your favorite to tease, mainly because of how he takes it. “You’ve never been in the ocean. I will personally make sure you never get to,” he threatens, lunging after you and making you squeal and dodge it.

“Is it working?” Santiago asks, giving you a full body twirl. You have to admit, the man is good-looking: you’ve always known it, and his glistening abs definitely emphasize it. Sadly for him, nothing about the pheromone sunscreen is making him unbearably attractive in your eyes. Your eyes are hidden behind mirrored sunglasses as you look at him, but you pull them down to roll your eyes at the ridiculous man.

“No,” you say with a sweet smile, taking Frankie’s hand from where it rests on his chest. He’s lying next to you in the two-seat cabana, wearing his swim trunks and ever-present ball cap. “I like this one still,” you grin as you run your eyes up and down his body.

Frankie grins back at you. “Maybe I’ll have to try that shit out,” he laughs, adjusting his hat. “If it’s so seductive, I wouldn’t mind having you all over me.”

Santiago makes a gagging noise and wanders down the beach, to where the Miller boys are playing sand volleyball a hundred yards or so away. “You know that you don’t need that for me to be all over you, baby,” you grin and lean over to give him a kiss. “Can we go swim?” You ask, sitting up and putting your sunglasses on your head.

Frankie sighs softly. This cabana was just getting comfortable. “I was thinking we could tan first,” he says, cracking his neck. “But if you want to, let’s go.”

You squeal and hop up, taking off the sunglasses before tugging on your bikini top and adjusting the bra. Frankie ogles your chest in the swimsuit and you smack his arm. “Francisco Morales, cut that out or I’m going to sit you back down and suck your dick right now.”

Frankie gulps. “Is that an offer, or-”

“Come on, Fishie,” you laugh. Grabbing his arm, you take off running through the sand, leaving him to follow. You both grin as the sand flies around you, the warm wind brushing against your skin. When you reach the edge of the water, you stand at the edge for a second and let the water rush over your feet and ankles. You look up at Frankie with big and confused eyes. “The water is so warm,” you laugh, slightly confused as you wade a little deeper.

“It’s the Caribbean Sea, babe,” Frankie chuckles, walking backwards and holding your hands, leading you deeper into the water.

“I guess,” you chuckle as the warm water surrounds more and more of your legs. “I suppose I just- Frankie!”

Note to self: never turn your back on the ocean, you mentally conclude as a wave hits Frankie from behind and knocks him over, into the salty and sandy water. You laugh a little as he falls over with a large splash, squealing as the water sprays you. He comes up a moment later, shaking his head to get the water out of your eyes. “Come on in, it’s really warm,” he tells you with a laugh, spitting the salty sea water out of his mouth. It’s only about thigh deep now, and you look down at him and wade a little deeper. He swims out and you follow, grinning.

“Hey, Frankie,” you ask, when the water reaches your navel.

“Yeah, babe?” he asks, confused when you drop your hands.

“Catch me!” You squeal as you jump onto him, wrapping your arms around his neck. His arms catch you, but he purposely falls backwards until the both of you are under the crystal-clear water.

When you surface, you wipe your face. “That wasn’t what I meant by catch me,” you laugh, swimming over to your boyfriend, who’s surfaced in a shoulder-deep area.

“Doesn’t matter. Now you went all the way under,” he grins at you. “Now you’ve really swam in the ocean- swam? Swum?”

“Have been in,” you offer, laughing and wading over to him. You wrap your arms around his neck, then your legs, and his arms encircle your middle. “It doesn’t matter. I love you so fucking much, Frankie,” you tell him with a wide grin, looking over his shoulder at the waves further out.

“I love you too, baby,” he mumbles and kisses you. His lips taste like the salt water the two of you have been submerged in. His hands grip your hips as he wanders through the water, you hanging off of him like a koala.

You rest your face in his neck, admiring the scent of seawater and sunscreen and Frankie’s skin. Frankie starts singing a terrible version of the Piña Colada Song, making you laugh and press a loving kiss to the side of his face. “Is this your way of telling me you want to hit the bar?” You tease and squeeze him a little tighter.

“Maybe. You know I hate the flying part of getting here.” It’s ironic, you’ve always thought, but you suppose it makes sense that Frankie doesn’t really like airplanes. Helicopters are and always have been his forte, and it’s a feeling you understand: when he isn’t the one flying, he gets antsy. Things are out of his control, and he doesn’t like that. “I just need a strong drink and some lovin’ from you and I think I can finally relax.”

You grin and pull back, kissing him happily for a moment before pulling back and grinning. “Well, one part of that accomplished,” you grin. A realization hits you and you gasp. “Oh my god. You’re Fishie, and you’re in the ocean,” you laugh. “How did you ever get that name?” You ask, suddenly curious.

Frankie shakes his head, his hair starting to curl as it dries. The salty water makes it even wavier. “Doesn’t matter.”

You shrug and rest your head in his neck. You sigh and enjoy the feeling of Frankie’s arms and the warm water, the way a breeze rushes past and makes the back of your neck chilly from the drops of water resting there. Frankie mindlessly watches the other three men playing volleyball, wandering around the water with you. “Frankie?” You murmur into his skin.

“Yeah baby?”

“This has already been the best vacation ever, and it’s the first full day,” you tell him and remove yourself from his body, standing next to him in the water.

He grins and kisses you softly, wrapping an arm around your side to keep you close. “I fully agree.”

The two of you wander up to the shore a while later, plopping back down in your cabana. Will has gone to the bar and comes back with tropical drinks for each of you, which you hold in one hand and sip, your boyfriend’s hand in your other one.

A while later, Santi and Benny run back, covered in sweat from the heat and the game. “How about now, huh?” He asks you, flexing his arms, grinning.

You play into it, gasping and sitting up straight. “Oh, Santi,” you coo seductively, pouting. The face drops immediately. “Nope. Not working.” “Ah, should’ve figured. Anyone attracted to Fish would have weird preferences,” he shakes his head.

Frankie takes the alcohol-saturated lime from the rim of his drink and throws it at him, which makes a smack noise as it makes contact with Santiago’s chest. “Fuck off.”

“I will do no such thing,” Santi grins at him and plops down in the chair next to him. “My sole job here is to pester you two lovebirds and ruin your wonderful vacation.”

Benny, ever the prankster, sneaks up behind Santiago and pours a glass of ice water from the bar over his head. Santiago practically squeals at the sensation and Benny launches off into a run. Santiago follows. “You little shit! Just because you’re a fighter doesn’t mean I’ll kick your ass, Benjamin!”

The two of them occupied and Will up at the bathroom, you sigh as you roll over onto your stomach. “Frankie baby, will you sunscreen my back?” you ask him, propping yourself up on your arms.

“Sure thing,” he nods, sitting up and grabbing the bottle from your beach bag. He gets up and squirts some in his palms before working it into your lower legs, then your upper thighs. When he reaches your ass, he takes a few liberties in squeezing it. “That’s not how you put on sunscreen, flyboy,” you tease and giggle at the motions.

“Just got carried away,” he chuckles and works at your lower back, then your shoulders and arms. “There. All good.”

“Thanks, baby,” you coo and kiss him softly when he sits back down. “You want some too?” He nods, flopping onto his back. You repeat what he did, standing and working on his legs.

The further you get up his thighs, you can hear his breath hitch slightly, the wet swim trunks sticking tight to a hardening crotch. “Frankie,” you coo, working your hands up beneath the fabric.

“Sorry,” he winces, willing himself to force the growing erection down. Naturally, it doesn’t work.

You giggle softly, working some sunscreen into his stomach. “Don’t be. Pull up that shade, baby,” you tell him, referring to the shade that can completely cover the cabana when pulled up.

“Yes ma’am,” he chuckles as you pull his swim trunks down just enough. “Guess I didn’t need that stupid pheromone sunscreen,” he murmurs hurriedly as the shade covers the both of you.

Beyond The Sea Masterlist

taglist:

@remmysbounty @mishasminion360 @blo0dangel @binarydanvvers @sleep-tight1 @apascalrascal @randomness501 @spideysimpossiblegirl @notabotiswear @pedro-pastel @sanchosammy @lv7867 @greeneyedblondie44 @hunnambabe @astoryisaloveaffair @emesispo @pedritobalmando @magikfanatic

#frankie catfish morales x reader #frankie catfish morales #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales #catfish morales x reader #catfish morales #pedro pascal #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal x reader #triple frontier fanfiction #triple frontier #benny miller #santiago pope garcia #william ironhead miller #william miller #will miller #will ironhead miller #santiago garcia

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kareofbears · 3 years ago

Text

plainly in truth, chapter 5/5

"Without you around, it's sorta like stuff is just kinda...bleh."

Or: hiding, confiding, and misguiding.

read the final chapter below or the entire work on ao3

—

“Help us, Saras—” a stream of coughing rings out, eating up the rest of the words.

“What the hell happened!?”

“I don’t know! One minute he was kicking ass, and the next—”

“He’s down! Oracle, scan him for signs of life.”

Their voices sound far and muffled, like he was under a foot of ice.

“He’s alive, I know he is. Kikur…” More coughing, wet and almost retching. “Dammit!”

“Skull hasn’t moved in ages and we pumped him with more Diaharan than we know what to do with!”

“Then why isn’t he moving?”

He feels like he got hit with back-to-back garbage trucks, all fully loaded with an entire city’s trash and was going eighty down the freeway.

“I...I don’t know…!”

“Why not? Why the hell not?”

“Joker!”

“Unicorn—” Actual retching comes this time, sporadically. “Why isn’t—!”

“Please stop! You’re only going to get yourself hurt!”

“Akira. Quit it, or I’ll cast a Dormin so strong you’ll wake up next year.”

A groan escapes his lips, and all arguing stops.

“Oh thank god,” Makoto’s voice sighs in relief. “Skull? Can you hear us?”

“Skull?” A leather-clad hand touches his cheek. “Are you with me?”

Ryuji suddenly bolts upright. “Konoe!” The whole world lurching sideways but he ignores the nausea. “Where is he?”

“Gone,” Yusuke replies. He’s looking slightly better than when he last saw him, able to stand on his feet again. “Disappeared, just like the rest of them. In no small part thanks to you.”

“It was more than that,” Haru disagrees. “It was nearly completely thanks to him. Your last battle with him was quite a spectacle.”

“It really was,” Sophia agrees. “You got hit near the end, though.”

“Oh,” he forces a laugh. “My bad. Must’ve worried you guys. Thanks for the heal.”

“‘Thanks for the heal’?”

Any levity that was present gets sucked away as Akira pulls his hand away from him, expression unreadable. “It wasn’t just a heal, Ryuji. It was a Recarm.”

He winces, eyes darting away. “That must’ve been scary for you,” he mutters. “Sorry.”

“I’m not interested in an apology. I’m looking for an explanation.”

“What am I supposed to explain? He caught me off guard, it happens. I might be good, but I’m not getting out of a fight with the creator of the Metaverse Part Two without a scratch.”

“It was a scratch. I’ve seen you take bullets better than that,” Akira says flatly. “The strangest thing about all this is that I think you knew about this. I think you knew what would happen if you got hit, no matter how light it was.”

Do not panic. Do not panic. “Spit it out. What are you trying to say?”

“I think something’s up and you’re hiding something from me.”

“Guys,” Futaba whispers. “Don’t fight.”

Akira turns on her, taking in her expression for a long moment before his eyes widen. “You know about it,” he realizes.

“What?!”

“You knew that he changed, and you didn’t tell me.” His eyes flashed. “Futaba, he could’ve died, and you didn’t say anything.”

“Stop it.” Ann’s voice was low and hard. “Don’t take out what you’re feeling on her.”

Looking away from Futaba, Akira scans each and everyone of their faces, and it dawns on him. “You knew.” Hurt takes up every syllable, heavy but small at the same time. “You all knew, and nobody told me. I can’t believe this.”

“Don’t get mad at them,” Ryuji snaps. There’s no way he’s letting his friends take the fall for his own actions. “You’re getting worried over nothing. I took a hit—that’s it. Bad guy defeated, let’s move on.”

“I’m not moving on if people on my team, people that I thought I could trust are hiding things from me,” he insists. “Especially you. Dammit, Ryuji, I thought I could trust you!”

His stomach doesn’t twist. Instead, a gigantic pair of scissors made up of Akira’s words goes ahead and snips off his stomach from his intestines, and he’s free falling with nowhere to crash land.

“What the fuck else do you want from me?” Everyone but Akira flinches at his words. “I beat Konoe, didn’t I? You were worried about that, you wanted to retreat because you thought I wouldn’t be able to do it, but I did it!”

“What I want from you is to be safe. That’s it.”

“But that shouldn’t be the only thing you want! Don’t you want us to win? Don’t you want us to be able to finish what we started?”

Akira shakes his head, frustrated, and starts rummaging through his pockets.

“What are you doing?”

“We aren’t fighting here.” A Goho-M flashes in his palm, and before anyone can say anything, they blink and suddenly they’re at the entrance of the Jail again. “Everyone, get out.”

Ryuji glares at him as the rest scurries to the entrance as quickly as possible without making it look like they’re making a run for it. Akira stares back.

“...Fine.”

The familiar but unpleasant swirl between the transition of the Jail and the real world takes over them, feeling their cells tear apart from each other before instantly clicking back into place, and then they were at the foot of the Tenboto tower.

Akira’s eyes don’t leave his. “Everyone who isn’t Ryuji, go find something else to do. We need some time to talk.”

Nobody questions it except for Futaba. “Um, do you want me to take—”

He shoves his hand in his pocket and throws his phone at her. Usually, the rose gold shade always makes him crack a smile, but he doesn’t even look at it this time. “Here.”

When she still doesn’t leave, Akira spares her a glance. “What is it?”

“Don’t...don’t be too harsh on him.”

“Don’t push it. I’m still upset that you didn’t say anything about this.”

Futaba’s head falls downwards as she walks away, Sophia in tow.

“So?” Ryuji crosses his arms. “Are we good?”

“No, we are not good, Ryuji. You argued with me over something stupid, spat in my face and deliberately went against with what I knew would be better for all of us, and worse than all of that, you knew that your defense is down by an insane amount.”

“Who cares if it’s down! Get the fuck over it, we already won.”

Akira's jaw goes slack. “Who are you? Why are you acting like this? What’s gotten into your head that you’re trying to pretend that I don’t care about your health and your safety?”

“Because you shouldn’t,” he insists. “You’re slowing the rest of us down by doing this whole hero schtick—if you just focus on what we need to do rather than something like my god damn endurance then things would go so much faster!”

“I don’t give a shit about efficiency, and do you have any idea what it even means for you to have a drastic change in your Persona? Or are you just looking for another stupid thing to argue about?”

He draws back, shame instinctively bubbling at the implication. “No, but it can’t be that damn important for us to be fighting like this.”

“Personas are the strength of the heart,” Akira roughly prods at his chest. “Whatever you’re feeling, whatever you believe in, your Persona would reflect that.”

“Okay? So what?”

A shift overcomes his expression, and Akira closes his eyes. When he speaks, it’s like he’s an ethereal being rather than a boy his age. “You seek power, correct? Since your name has been disgraced already, why not hoist the flag and wreak havoc?”

“The ‘other you’ who exists within desires it thus,” Ryuji finishes, frowning. “Why do you have that memorized?”

“Because I’ve memorized everyone’s awakenings, and because I think that’s the reason why you can’t take a hit anymore but you can throw a punch the way you can,” Akira shoots back. “You awakened your Persona to ‘wreak havoc’ on the people who piss you off, right?”

“Yeah.” His patience is waning thin. “What’s your point?”

“What if that feeling—rage against corrupt adults, your need to wreak havoc on them—what if that gets flipped around and you direct that on yourself?”

“What?” Ryuji shakes his head. “Is that even possible?”

“I can almost guarantee it, because your stats are shuffling like crazy. Your endurance is down, yeah, but do you know what skyrocketed in its place? What nearly tripled?”

“My strength?”

“Exactly. Look, I don’t know what happened, but something has shifted in your heart enough to make you believe that it’s more important to be strong than to keep yourself alive.”

Akira shoves his glasses higher on his nose, and Ryuji swallows when he sees his hand shake. “Tell me. Please. I won’t get mad, or disappointed, or whatever you think I’ll feel if you tell me. I just want you to be honest with me. I want us to work this out.”

It’s the way he says it, like it’s really that simple. Like the two of them can take on any problem together, no matter how big it is, because it’s them. They’re two pieces of a puzzle—they can only ever see the bigger picture when they both click into place. It would be easy, because Akira makes it easy.

A droplet of rain lands hard on his shoulder. He opens his mouth.

“Just because I’m not telling you something, doesn’t it mean gives you the right to hound the fuck out of me until I cave.”

Akira recoils like he’s been slapped in the face. “I just want to understand.”

“And I just want you to leave me alone, okay?” He wipes away the rain from his face only for it to be replaced almost immediately. “You don’t—you just don’t fucking get it, Kurusu. You have no idea what it’s like being a piece of shit, you have no idea what it’s like being a moron, with everyone hating you—”

What? He doesn’t mean that. Of course Akira gets it. That’s how they got to know each other in the first place.

“You don’t know what it’s like to hear so much shit about you wherever you go—”

That’s not true, either. Why is he saying this?

“To have no one even take a look at you, to be a ghost, to not even exist anymore—”

Are you kidding? That’s all Akira lives through in his hometown.

Ryuji levels a gaze at him, chest burning. “You don’t know what it’s like being nothing,” he finishes.

Akira stands there, staring at him, refusing to wipe the rain away from his face. His mouth opens, before closing again, and shakes his head. His movements are jerky and stilted.

When Akira looks up, his eyes are empty. “You don’t know a single thing about me.”

He turns around and walks away without another word, leaving Ryuji to stand alone, drenched in the rain and feeling like gasoline is eating through his chest, and all he can do is burn.

Osaka has bright lights and has the scent of mouth-watering in its every nook and cranny, but the only thing Ryuji can process right now is the squelch of his socks with every step he takes.

He’s only vaguely aware that he’s moving, traversing through Dotonbori in a hazed state. It’s like his consciousness left his body, trapped and distant, the burning in his chest turned into something smoldering, filling his entire being with suffocating smoke.

Ryuji’s spent who knows how long staggering through the streets, unfamiliar sights with unfamiliar people, and none of it has the same excitement that normally comes with them visiting a new place. The rain hasn’t let up, and his t-shirt has long since been soaked through. His body is still crazy sore, with his ankles begging for rest, but the idea of stopping makes him nauseous.

A large body hits his shoulder, and it nearly knocks him sideways. “Watch where you’re going, dumbass.”

“S-sorry,” he manages, but the stranger is already gone by the time he finishes.

Ryuji scrubs his eyes and looks up, surprised that he isn’t horrifically lost. He’s at one of the dual bridges in Dotonbori, a place that he recognizes because he and Ann stuffed their faces with so much takoyaki they could barely breathe afterwards.

His body sags against the bridge’s concrete railing, exhaustion making itself known, forearms pressed in an odd angle that he knows is going to leave weird patterns etched into his skin. In his pocket, his phone buzzes angrily, but he ignores it.

He scrubs his eyes again, harder. He hasn’t cried, which sucks. In fact, he hasn’t even felt the familiar panic build up in him, and he didn’t even know it was possible to miss that feeling. The feeling of something other than the gaping hole inside of him, only getting bigger.

For the first time in his life, he wishes he was angry, just so he can stop feeling this never-ending plane of nothing.

That’s a lie, actually—there’s some anger, too. A lot of it. At himself.

His phone buzzes again, and Ryuji can’t even muster a meager response. I’m fine, don’t worry, is what he’s supposed to say.

Bullshit. All he can ever do is say bullshit, over and over again.

Pressing his forehead against the edge of the concrete, he grits his teeth, staring down at his hands, miserable and desperate for something to take away this gnawing feeling inside of him, eating its way through his gut like an insatiable parasite. He tries focusing on the waves lapping against the stone below him, on the pitter-patter of the rain that’s coating his skin, on the chatter from the people behind him, but he can’t because all he can see behind his eyelids is the hurt in Akira’s face and the crack in his voice when he spoke and it’s Ryuji’s fault because he fucking sucks and he’s incapable of keeping anything good in his life and he’s trying to cry but it’s not coming, why isn’t he crying, please let him get some fucking relief, why can’t he cry—

A shadow casts over him, and he’s about to move out of the way when shoes enter his periphery. Standard sneakers except for colorful beads tied into the shoelaces.

“Yo,” Futaba greets, holding an umbrella over him.

Ryuj tries for a laugh, but it comes out hollow and pathetic. “You track my phone?”

“No.” There’s a pause. “Akira mentioned that you have a thing for bridges.”

His heart goes utterly still, before beating into overdrive. “Leave me alone,” he finds himself saying. “Just fucking get out of here, Futaba.”

“No.”

“No?” It’s sick how fiercely glad he is to be able to grasp onto anger like a lifeline. “I don’t want to be around anyone, don’t you get it? Leave me alone, Jesus, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one in the group.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“And why not?”

“Because you didn’t leave me, even when I really, really wanted you to.” The gaze behind her eyes is unreadable. “You dragged me out of my tomb, screaming and kicking, but you didn’t let go.”

His lungs tightened up. “I don’t want to be around anyone right now,” he says weakly.

“Then I’m not here.” Futaba readjusts her grip on the umbrella, careful that he was still covered. She trains her eyes on a random point in the distance, away from him. “No one’s here. I’m just another stranger, and you’re just some guy who’s talking to the rain.”

They stand there for a while, unspeaking. Each passing second lets the aggravation seep out of him, bit by bit.

“Can…” he tries eventually. Maybe he can let it out, just a little bit. Enough to stop the boiling froth from spilling over the pot, maybe the water would stop rising. “Can I ask you a question?”

When she doesn’t answer, he looks down into the black water.

“What’s it like hating yourself?” he asks. “Like, really, really hating yourself. All you want to do is hide, in your room or away from everyone else. You don’t want to die, you don’t want to disappear, either. You just want to...stop. To the point where you don’t even know what you want anymore—do you want to just keep hiding? Do you want to tell everyone, to finally let someone know? To let the one person who fucking matters know what’s happening to you?”

A boat passes underneath them, and he can see a couple drinking together, laughing. “Isn’t it so embarrassing? You failed so fucking much, and you’re only making it worse by hiding it from everyone. You hid it so much, you were so unwilling to let them know, that you actually ran the damn risk of them leaving.”

The last of Ryuji’s resolve, weak as it was already, crumbles. Something inside Ryuji cracks, and his eyes are wide, so wide they might roll out of their sockets. “I couldn’t tell him, Futaba,” he rasps out. “I couldn’t—what if he leaves me? What if I lose the only damn thing that made my life something worth getting out of my room for? What’s going to happen when he realizes I’m nothing more than the kid with the fucked up leg who failed high school?”

Futaba continues to listen in silence, unable to hold back the streams of hot tears running down her cheeks.

“He loves me,” he says this with an unshakeable force, an unforeseen barrier unwilling to be broken down by anything. “I know that for a fact. But—” he sucks in a breath, and before he can stop himself, he leans his body over the bridge.

“I’m so fucking selfish!” he yells. “I can’t! I can’t tell him! I can’t face another failure, I can’t do it, it’s going to kill me, I swear to god. I failed myself, I failed all of you,” he wildly gestures at her. “I failed my mom, but I can’t fail him. Not him, anyone but him.”

“Sir Sakamoto Ryuji.”

He turns his head to her with a crumpled expression, and she wipes her face with her sleeve before grabbing his hand, pulling him away from the bridge. Ryuji is too surprised to resist. ”W-what?”

She doesn’t turn back, and despite her hoarse voice, her words don’t shake. “I will not let you continue your great sin of wrath unto yourself. You cannot,” she tugs harder, and he stumbles forward. “You cannot keep yourself in this, this darkness of hatred and anger, and thus I, Sakura Futaba, a member of the Phantom Thieves, have decided to intervene.”

“Was—” It took a lot of effort, but he composed himself enough to keep up with her short legs. “Was that a calling card?”

“You’re damn right it is, with or without the fancy paper.” Futaba glances back, and her eyes are shining and determined. “I wasn’t ready at all when you guys showed up in my room to take my heart, but good thing you did, because that was exactly what I needed. So here I am dragging you out, kicking and all. You’re going to tell Akira—”

“I can’t,” he pleads, weakly crossing the street when she keeps pulling. “Dude, I just told you why I absolutely cannot.”

“You’re going to, and that’s final.”

“No!”

And to his absolute shock, she stops in the middle of the road, expression defiant. Cars honk and flip them off, but it does nothing to deter her.

“Get out of the way!” he screams, roughly pulling at her, but Futaba doesn’t budge. “Get off the road!”

“Welcome to my ultimatum: I’m not moving until you go to him!” she points directly at him, ignoring the way headlights flash over her and puddles splash on her shorts. “You say he loves you? Cool, now prove to him that you love him.”

Ryuji rolls up his sleeves. “I’m going to carry you off of the street, you gremlin.”

“Try me, because I’m going to scream so loud,” she says seriously, and he knows she is.

“You’re insane!” he yells back, because she is.

“And you’re a moron, and it’s not because you couldn’t do academic whatnot!” Her glare is hot steel and he’s nothing more than a warm stick of butter. “He’s known you since day one, has seen you at bedrock level, and he’s still following you around like you’re some kind of queen bee and he’s the hive. You’re going to talk to him, or I swear on my mom’s grave that I’m going to jump in front of a big truck and you’re gonna have to be the one to explain to everyone why I died.”

Screw it. He rushes forward, picks her up and, because she’s never been one to back down in anything, she screams from the top of her lungs until he eventually sets her down on the other side of the road.

“Hey!” she stomps her foot. “That’s cheating!”

“Are you out of your damn mind?”

“No more than you, you clown!” she yells. “Why don’t you want to tell him?!”

“I already told you why!”

“Then what if he felt the same? What if this happened to him, and he kept it from you this entire time?”

The thought is enough to make him feel uneasy. “He doesn’t feel the same.”

“But what if he did?” Futaba insists.

“Then of course I’d want to know,” he answers before he can stop himself, and quickly adds, “But he doesn’t.”

“If he was, though, then you—” she prods his chest. “Are hurting him. You’re hurting him, and I thought you loved him, and I thought you didn’t want to disappoint him. You’re a gigantic hypocrite, and screw being a bad boyfriend,” she spits the word as if eager to rid it off her tongue. “You’re being a really freaking bad best friend.”

They stare each other down, with Futaba breathing hard and him, completely unseeing.

“You’re right.”

“I’m always right,” she says immediately. “But elaborate.”

“I’m being a really, really bad best friend.” His fingers make their way to the root of his hair and starts pulling. “I made this entire thing about me, and my problems.”

“To be fair, they were pretty big problems.”

“Yeah but...holy shit, I completely—I completely forgot that this trip is about Akira and to make sure that he’s smiling, and happy, and stress-free and—I fucked all of that to hell.”

“You did,” she agrees, relentless. “Totally screwed the pooch, but hey, you know what? There’s a big plus sign to all of this:” Futaba throws up jazz hands weakly. “You can still fix this!”

“I can still fix this…” he repeats, in a daze, and he slaps his face with both hands. “I can still fix this, dammit! This isn’t going to be another failure; I’m going to take this,” he wildy gesticulates around himself. “And shred it down so Akira doesn’t have to worry anymore. I’ll talk to him, he’ll understand, and we’re going to have a fan-fucking-tastic rest of the summer vacation, even if my life is horrible and falling apart.”

She nods enthusiastically. “But we can all fix it together once we get back home. One step at a time. First,” she levels him with a look. “You’re going to talk to Akira.”

“I have to. He’s had my back since day one, and I promise I’d do anything for him.” Even if it means showing himself, every ugly part of himself, to the most amazing person that’s ever walked on planet earth. The panic twitches inside of him, coming alive again, but he doesn’t push it away. He lets that feeling wash over him, that adrenaline, and he starts jumping on his feet. “I’m going to talk to Akira,” he announces, looking around to see any place that Akira’s eye might catch. “I need to find him, ASAP.”

“Say no more.” She pulls up her phone. “This won’t take more than two minutes.”

Glancing around wildly, something catches his attention, and he grins. “No need. I know exactly where he is.”

“You do?” A hard slap lands on his back, pushing him forward with a yelp. “Then go! Run to him! Get out of your tomb, Ryuji! I’ll see you on the other side!”

He takes a few steps forward, before turning around and quickly taking Futaba in a hug. “Love you, shorty,” he says seriously.

“I love you too.” She hugs him back tightly before letting go. “Get out of here before you find a new insecurity to change your mind.”

Ryuji opts to ignore that last bit and sets off, sneakers slapping the wet concrete as he runs, Tenboto Tower already in his sights.

“Akira!”

Everyone jumps as he slams the glass entrance open, loud and unyielding as he runs past tourists, wildly taking in each of their faces and pausing at none of them. He sucks at everything—at school, at being a good friend, at basic communication. But this? Facing public humiliation in front of strangers?

“Akira!”

He can do this any day of the week.

Nervous employees start to approach him and Ryuji books it before they can get close. Not on the ground floor, but he knew that before he even came in here. Elevator, he thinks, skidding to a halt to see that it’s already six floors up. It would take too long.

Letting out a sharp breath, he lets his feet take him to the stairwell, apathetic to the fact that he’s about to sprint up eighty-eight meters.

He’s an idiot. A moron. World’s biggest buffoon. That doesn’t surprise anyone, least of all him.

The soles of his sneakers squeak as it slaps against concrete stairs, using the railing to propel him up faster.

And he hates it. He fucking hates being the dumb one so much that it hurts.

A couple that was making out screams when he barely dodges them, and he doesn’t even have it in him to be embarrassed.

He wants nothing more than to bury that part of him. Shamefully, completely. Like a corpse, or some ancient artifact. Gone for the rest of time.

Sweat streams down his back and it’s gross and he doesn’t care, not one damn bit.

But if burying it means destroying what he built with Akira? If scrambling to hide actually makes things worse when the only thing he wanted was to preserve what the two of them have?

His throat is drying up and he can feel his thighs about to split in half, but he keeps going, keeps running.

Then screw it—the whole world is about to know what a big failure he is.

Ryuji bursts through the door to the top deck, gasping for breath and dozens of heads turn to him. Gulping down as much air as his lungs can take in, “Akira!?” he booms, and he knows he’s being an asshole but he doesn’t care right now.

Nothing happens. He grits his teeth and starts running again, soaked shoes ruining plush carpet as he looks for a familiar patch of messy hair. Ryuji evades tourists left and right, around gift shop stalls and hundred yen telescopes, ignoring the picturesque view from the huge glass windows. Just like he thought—from up here, it looks eerily like you were overlooking the entire city of Tokyo if you were desperate for any sense of familiarity.

And that’s exactly what Akira had needed at the time.

Come on, come on. He’s about to hit a full circle around the observation deck and he still hasn’t spotted him. I know you’re here. There’s no way that you’d be anywhere else in the city.

Ryuji takes in another breath, ready to yell out his name for the upteenth time, when he sees an open balcony, nearly empty except for a boy leaned over the parapet, eerily still and barely underneath the glass covering above him.

Despite his earlier fervor, Ryuji slows down to a walking pace, chest heaving and feeling like his heart is going to burst.

It’ll be okay. It’s him.

He takes his place beside him, mimicking his pose, leaning over the cool metal railings. Akira doesn’t even look up, which is what he deserves, really. The wind is light, and the city sparkles below them.

No games. No bullshit. Just him and his best friend.

“I failed second-year,” he says. “And also I think I’m at a real, real low point in my life.”

Akira’s face flits in mild surprise, but Ryuji doesn’t stop, doesn’t want to give himself an out.

He starts from the very beginning—from getting called into his homeroom, to Ushimaru giving him a look that said he expected this because that’s ‘just the type of student he is’, to hiding it from his mom, from Ann, from him. He tells him how being alone is tiring, but being with people is exhausting.

And the tears. The minute he started talking, the tears came and kept coming no matter how many times he wiped it away. At first he thought it was from humiliation, at the guilt from keeping it from Akira. But after a while, he realizes that keeping this huge, weighty, life-altering secret from Akira was hurting him, too. It’s like the entire sky got lifted off of him, and he can finally breathe again. For the first time, he feels relieved.

Akira stands there, silent the entire time, not looking at him but he knows he’s soaking in every word that he’s saying.

Ryuji stands up straight and faces him. His voice is barely above a whisper, used up and crackled like dried out stone. “Akira, I’m so, so sorry. I said horrible shit and I kept you in the dark for so long, and-and I forced everyone not to say anything because of my own issues, and I could’ve—” he flinches when he remembers feeling his life deplete out of him from a single hit. “I could’ve died, dude. And I kept it from you over something so petty like being bad at algebra. I know I shouldn’t have kept it from you. I know that now, and hindsight is a bit of a bastard.” He looks down, sees people from below, small as ants. “There’s no good excuse, I get that. It’s just...I was fucking terrified, dude. Of whatever you see in me fading away once you see me for what I actually am.”

Ruffling his own hair, he lets out a long breath. “Alright. I’m done. It’s your turn, if you want it.”

“Is that really how you feel?” Akira asks, emotionless.

“With my entire body.”

His feelings are twisted together between shock that he actually did it, and earth-shattering fear that something bad might happen. No, Akira would never in a million years openly mock him, but he can easily imagine a small, faint smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. An it’s okay. I get it. A shallow hug and a kiss on the cheek. An obligatory comfort that Akira feels he has to give but Ryuji never wanted.

But what he didn’t expect was for Akira to suddenly start laughing.

Ryuji stares in shock as his shoulders, always straight back, hunches in on itself, shaking uncontrollably, hands instinctively flitting to his mouth but unable to hold in the snort that escapes through his lips.

“Uh,” he asks, confused. “What?”

“I—” Akira tries, but doubles over, gripping the metal railing. “Give me a second, sorry—”

They stand there for a few long minutes, Ryuji bewildered and Akira laughing harder than he’s ever seen him. Whenever he looks like he’s about to finish, Akira gives him a look, and starts laughing uncontrollably again.

Eventually, he sobers up enough to resume his earlier position. “Ryuji,” the smile is still stuck on his lips. “I love you.”

“...Okay?” he replies, still lost.

“And I’ve been in therapy since April.”

The entire world halts to a grinding, screeching halt.

“You’re—” Ryuji fumbles. “You’ve been in what?”

“Therapy.”

“Why?!” When Akira raises an eyebrow at him, he backtracks a little. “Okay, I didn’t mean to say it like that. It’s just...surprising.”

He can’t even imagine what kind of metaphor he’d have to use to begin explaining the complexities of a Persona and Palaces. “Is it tough trying to explain all of this?”

“It’s not about the Metaverse or anything,” he says, and, with the slight mirth still stuck on his features, “It’s because I’ve been depressed for a few months now.”

About a trillion questions want to fly out of his mouth right now, but he settles on one for now. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Akira looks up, staring at the few specks of stars that still poke out despite the light pollution of any big city in Japan. “I just think,” he starts. “That I’m really, really lonely.”

Before Ryuji can say anything, he cuts him off with a look. “Please don’t blame yourself.”

“I won’t.”

“Good,” he says, relaxing. “Because it’s not your fault, or anyone else’s. I’ve just…It’s been hard, going back to that life after living such a good one in Tokyo. When I finally came back home, it’s like I was stuck in a time loop. Every day that I stay there,” he stares down at his hands. “Is another day that everyone’s moving on without me.”

Ryuji nearly bites his tongue off in an effort to hold himself back. Move on? Without Akira? Not a snowflake’s chance in hell.

“It didn’t help that no one would even look me in the eye there,” he continues. “It got to the point where the days just blended together, the same cycle of nothing, the same day of being alone, over and over again. Worrying about being forgotten, being trapped and stuck.” Akira’s pale cheeks turn red. “Eventually, my grades started dropping,” he admits. “My parents noticed, because of course they did, and…”

Akira curls his fingers around the bar. “They threatened that they wouldn’t let me go if it stayed down.”

“Son of a bitch,” he hisses, unable to help himself. “What the hell, man?”

“I know,” he agrees. “Bad move on their part, considering that it got even worse after they said that. It’s...it’s actually why I’m getting tutoring now. Not necessarily for Tokyo U, but I really do plan on going to a Tokyo-based university. Because if I don’t…” he trails off.

“I am the only person in the world who isn’t allowed to say this, but,” Ryuji shakes his head. “Why didn’t you say anything, Akira? I could’ve visited you more, or had more phone calls, or, I don’t know. Something to help.” To help you the way you helped me.

“Good question,” he muses, slightly amused. “Alright. Imagine this. You’re a new kid in town with a criminal record. Everyone hates you, more than they usually do, and you were starting to accept that your life is just going to be like this. But suddenly, a guy comes barreling into your life.” Akira’s expression softens. “He’s loud, tough, and extremely cute, and next thing you know, he became your best friend. You don’t know what he sees in you, you don’t know what you did to make him approach you in the first place, but the only thing you know for sure—”

“Is that you’re never letting him go,” Ryuji finishes for him. “Even if it means hiding yourself away, yeah?”

Ryuji’s gazing down at the city beneath them, unseeing. He can’t react the way he wants to, but what the fuck.

Akira is the best person he’s ever met and he’s pretty sure at least twenty other people scattered around the streets of Tokyo would agree with him on that. Yet he hid such a massive secret from Ryuji because he thought that Ryuji would leave him? That’s beyond ridiculous. That’s messed up, that’s—

Ryuji looks up to see that Akira’s already looking back at him, a knowing look in his eyes.

“Yup,” Akira tries to pull it off like he was scratching his cheek, but the shine of the tear makes it obvious. “You got me.”

Finally, Ryuji cracks.

“I’m—” he chokes, wracked with grief. “I’m so fucking sorry. I am so, so sorry, you were going through so much and I didn’t even—”

Akira takes a step back, shocked. “Why are you the one apologizing? I’m the one who was too busy wallowing to notice that you had changed enough that your Persona—”

“Because you’re depressed, and I should’ve been there to help you!”

“And I said that it was never your fault!”

“That doesn’t matter, I should’ve helped you go through that, wait outside the clinic with you, I don’t know!”

“And I made you think that I would have left you if you failed high school, which is insane—!”

“Kurusu, I lied to you. I lied to your face, I said so much shit, I jeopardized the entire team all because I didn’t want to lose you—”

“Don’t,” he pleads. “I know why you did it, but me? I don’t have an excuse. I’m your leader—”

“I’m your partner—”

“I’m your best friend—”

“And I didn’t notice!” they both finish in unison, distraught and breaths heaving, hearts pounding in time with each other, always together.

And then they both laugh; it’s teary, wet, and they probably look insane to any tourist ten feet from them, but they’re cracking up because it’s hilarious. It’s absolutely hysterical that either of them ever believed that they would leave the other over something so stupid as their own perception of themselves.

Ryuji sobers up first, grin so wide that it’s hurting his cheeks. “Can I apologize one last time?”

“No,” he says, voice tender. “I’ve heard enough sorrys to last a lifetime.”

“Come on! Just one more!”

“Just one more,” he relents.

He throws his arm around Akira, squeezing him tight against his side. “I’m sorry that I’m apparently the most good-looking guy you’ve ever seen that you instantly fell in love with me.”

“Dammit,” Akira tries shoving him off weakly. “I knew you were gonna use that against me.”

“Damn right.” He kisses his forehead, gentle despite the rough grip.

“Can I apologize too?”

“Copycat. You can apologize once.”

“Okay.” Hugging Ryuji’s torso, they’re close enough that neither can feel the chill of the wind. “I’m sorry this happened to us,” he says seriously.

Pulling back, Ryuji frowns. “Dude!”

“I know, I know, what a downer. But it’s true.”

“It’s true,” he agrees. “But we can work on this. Together, this time. Like a couple of smart, capable people.”

“That sounds fantastic,” Akira murmurs before leaning forward and catching his lips. He tastes like rainwater and heat. He can feel his own lips twitch into a smile, and the vibration of Akira’s chuckle against his throat. It’s familiar, memorized, but he still makes sure to relearn it every time.

They kiss so deep that the hole inside Ryuji’s chest is full enough to burst.

“Kaboom!” Futaba had said.

The booming sound of a firework rings from up top, illuminating their faces in bright colors in the night. It reflects shades of red, yellow, blue and pink all over the surface of the water like paint buckets that got toppled over in a kindergarten classroom.

Ryuji’s chin is tilted up, watching them explode and take over his entire view of the sky. It’s almost blinding, but he can’t peel his eyes away from them even when he can feel them drying up.

It’s the last day of summer—his worst nightmare.

A purple one sparkles, the sound of the explosion delayed by half a second. He leans his head against Akira’s shoulder, lip quirking up when he feels weight pressing against the crown of his skull.

It’s the last day of summer, but he can’t feel anything but the warmth at his side, fingers intertwined with his, the ringing in his ears. Everything feels more real than they had in the last few months, the haze shifting away, the fog thinning out.

His heart beats strong in his chest. A hand squeezes his tightly.

Kaboom.

The sweat on the back of Ryuji’s neck is thick as he climbs the stairs into the attic of Leblanc, the heat just as intense as it was this time last year.

Stray beams of light poured in from the open window of what has turned into a study cave for any of the thieves to use—cram books of trigonometry to art theory lined the shelves, the walls lined with study good luck charms that they had hoarded from any shrines that they had visited, and day-old tea cups and coffee mugs littered the desks.

Amidst all of that sat Akira, elbows propped up on the table, expression serious. “Happy last day of school,” he says, voice monotone, staring at the thick, impressive envelope in front of him.

“‘Happy’ my ass,” Ryuji flops down on the seat next to him, wood creaking under the sudden weight, nodding at the parchment. “Is that it?”

“If it isn’t, it’s going to be one insane train ride back home to get it.”

“I don’t know how you did it, man. I would’ve torn that thing open the minute I got it.”

Akira gives him an alarmed look. “You didn’t—”

He puts his hands up in surrender, holding a much thinner, yet somehow just as weighty sealed envelope between his fingers before throwing it down with the other. “I didn’t.”

“Good.” Akira doesn’t quite relax, but he lets out a breath. “So.”

“So,” he repeats, a little wobbly. “Moment of truth, huh? Either you got into school…”

“And you passed second-year.”

“Or we don’t.”

The silence that follows is heavy, contemplative, coating the air with something thick and hard to swallow.

Ryuji slams his hand on the table, gut twisting and knotting tightly. “Let’s fucking do this.”

They both reach forward to their corresponding envelopes, hands shaking but neither comment on it. Akira opens his first, and Ryuji very nearly bites it open just to get it over with. He’s suddenly glad that he’s sitting for this. His knees would’ve given out for sure.

Eventually, he finally gets it out of the envelope. His vision blurs as he starts scanning through the letter, eyes flitting all over the page looking for a few choice words, and his breathing stops cold.

He raises his head in time with Akira, and their eyes are wide. A wind chime clinks somewhere behind them.

“I got in,” Akira whispers.

“I passed,” Ryuji whispers back.

They stare at each other for a moment, before they explode.

Immediately, Ryuji jumps out of his chair and lifts Akira clean off his seat. “You got in!” he cries, and he’s not even embarrassed at the horrendous crack in his voice. “You bastard, I knew you could do it!”

“You passed,” Akira throws his arms around his neck and clings, so tight he can barely breathe. “I knew it, I could feel it, I knew you had it!”

Ryuji grasps the back of his hair, still spinning. “I’m so happy for you, I’m so happy for you,” he chants, his entire body feeling weak with relief and unencumbered joy but he knows he’d never drop him. “You fucking did it.”

“And you fucking did it!” He starts planting kisses on his head, his cheek, his shoulder, wherever he can reach. “You worked so hard, and you—” another kiss, this time right on his eyelid. “You did it, and I am so, so, so proud of you.”

With whatever last strength Ryuji has, he spins double-time, yelling at the top of his lungs: “Tokyo University, baby!”

“Third-year!” Akira tries, voice barely above his normal volume. “Third-year!”

He sets him down, and the grin on his face is wider than it’s ever been. Ryuji feels like he can eat the entirety of Yongen in one try. “You are—” he holds Akira’s face between both of his hands, face inches from his. “The smartest person on the entire fucking planet.”

“And you—” his eyes are bright, so bright. “Need to call your mom.”

“Shoot!” Ryuji slaps his forehead. “Totally slipped by me. Uh, I’ll—”

“Bathroom works, and Soijro locked up the cafe for us.”

“Boss is the best. I’ll be back,” he turns, headed for the stairs.

“Wait.”

Ryuji looks back only for a hand to hold his nape, pulling him forward. Akira kisses him, still smiling. When they pull away, he says, in a crystal clear voice, “I love you, I love you, and I’m proud of you.”

He could barely reply past the lump in his throat, wanting nothing more than to bury himself in that sentence. “I love you,” he manages. “Don’t go anywhere, okay? I want to keep talking to you.”

“Of course,” Akira says, and Ryuji slips out of his grasp before he can do something stupid, like cry. Again.

Cracking the door open to the tiny powder room of Leblanc, he leans against the wall and catches his expression in the mirror—grinning and flushed with pleasure. It’s a good look.

He hits the speed dial on his phone, and his mom picks up almost immediately. “Did you get the letter?” she rushes out. “Whatever happens, you’re still the best son I could ever ask for, you hear me?”

“Ma,” the reflection’s grin grows impossibly wider. “I passed.”

The screaming from the receiver is loud enough that he had to pull it away from himself, wincing but laughing at her reaction. “I knew it!” her voice sounds years younger. “I knew you could do it!”

The wall is cool behind him, and he shoves his hand in his pocket, embarrassed. “Thanks, ma.”

“Of course, Ryu! Are you happy?”

“Am I happy?” he blinks. “Well, yeah, of course.”

“That’s all I ever wanted,” a noise that sounds suspiciously like a sniffle sounds through. “You could’ve stopped going to school entirely and as long as it made you happy, I’d go along with it.”

Air catches in his throat, awe-struck. He knew how she felt, but having her tell him at face value is something else entirely.

Ryuji’s about to answer when a cascade of voices and footsteps suddenly flow into the cafe, just outside the powder room.

“Akira,” Makoto says gently, audible through thin walls. “Did…?”

He doesn’t catch a reply, but screams and cheers fill up the cafe, dust falling from the ceiling as people start jumping up and down.

“I can hear your friends celebrating from here,” his mom chuckles. “I’ll let you go. Let’s get dinner when you get home, okay?”

“That sounds great,” he says, coughing, brushing the flecks of dried wood off his shoulder. “I’ll see you when I get home.”

He hangs up, sighing happily. After mentally preparing himself, he throws the door open, doorknob slamming against the wall that he prays didn’t leave a dent.

“Is that him?” Haru’s voice flows from above.

“That’s him,” Akira confirms.

Ryuji takes the steps two at a time, welcomed by the sight of everyone clinging to Akira with overjoyed expressions, and they quiet down when they see him.

Ann takes a step forward, gently letting go of Akira’s shoulder. “So?”

He takes a deep breath, makes a big show of kicking the floor boards, before looking up.

“Yeah, I did it.”

An eruption of pure noise goes straight into his eardrums as he’s tackled by arms and bodies, knocking him to the ground. Everyone’s yelling, some are crying, and he can understand exactly zero of what they’re saying but he hugs back as best he can. Through the cracks of shoulders and hair and necks, he can see Akira watching them all in amusement.

With no small amount of struggling, Ryuji wriggles a hand free and extends it to him. Akira doesn’t hesitate to take it, but yelps as he proceeds to get tugged right into the middle of the pile, crashing into three other people and loving every second of it.

Delusion is a real funny thing in hindsight. How could he have ever thought that he had nothing to be proud of? That his list of accomplishments added up to exactly nothing?

Yusuke is reciting victory speeches from wars won long ago while Makoto is listing off scholarships he can apply for in his third-year. Futaba is repeatedly hitting his shoulder, shrieking in his ear while Haru is quietly telling him how proud she is of him. Ann’s already pulling Shiho on speakerphone, and Akira has a look in his eye, a fondness that tells Ryuji that there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.

The room is full, and the sun is still streaming through, warm and inviting. He wishes that Ryuji from a year ago could see this, see his friends that are still by his side, that will always be by his side, and rest easy.

#p5 #p5s #ryuji sakamoto #akira kurusu #plainly in truth #fic tag #mine #persona 5 #persona 5 strikers #akiryu #pegoryu #chapter five huh? we actually did it.#shes completed babey

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melloian · 4 years ago

Text

Character Bio 4

Gabriel Agreste

Age:46

Gender: M

Race: French

Species: Human

Alignment: Bad

Status: Alive

Relatives: Amelie (sister-in-law), Felix (son), Adrien (son), Ambre (niece), Oscar (nephew), unnamed mother-in-law

Occupation: Mahow lee Agency {MLA} (formerly), Fashion designer, Supervillain, Chairman of Daroness (villain tower)

Love interest: Emilie (married)

Friends: Tomoe, Nathalie(formerly), Lila, the mime (formerly), Villains who work at Daroness

Enemies: Miraculous heroes, Felix, The Guardians

True Personality: Narcissistic, cold-hearted, determined, Enigmatic, Experimental, deceptive, opinionated, formal, forceful, control-freak, strict, Irritable

Fake Personality: Nice, calm, sympathetic, Magnanimous, Stoic, honest

Bio: Gabriel is a fashion designer who usually do contests or take people designs just to promote them. He pretty much owns his own fashion studio. He’s also rich and owns 2 sons. He likes his 2nd son, Adrien, more then His 1st son. Most of the time, he don’t really spend time with his children or at home because he always “busy” with his work. Behind doors, he known as a villain, name Hawk Moth.

As a Villain: He usually corrupts people with his akuma to reach to his goal. He also give a villain a task to help him with his goal. His goal is to get a miraculous who rewrites time or a time travelling miraculous to fix all his mistakes(he also wants to take the miraculouses from the heroes so he can achieve his goal). But he also want to use it for to control how things operate.

He’s the one who created corrupted kwamis.

Gabriel also rans Daroness, a far away tower for villains. He starts meetings and give villains orders.

He usually can get angry really fast which scares some villains.

Backstory:

Agency & Emilie

Gabriel was 30 when he joined the MLA. He was usually tasked to steal, hack, get data, act, and slaughter. He was also tasked to disguise in a certain way. He usually go by those orders, even if he doesn’t like it. He worked there for 5 years, until he met a women name Emilie. He met her in a cafe. He soon fall in love with Emilie when he got to know her more. Because he started to fall in love with her, he started to do less and less of his job and more trying to get with her. He also painted this fake imagery and personality to get with her. Eventually he quitted his job completely just to get a fashion career instead. Soon, Emilie loved Gabriel and they started dating. Eventually they have gotten married.

Downfall of Family

10 years later

When his sons where born, he cared for both his 2 sons. He dearly loved his wife as well. He also hired an assistant name Nathalie. He usually tells her to take care his family and other things. He tried to be a good father and satisfy everyone.

However, one day, Emilie was searching for something. She went to Gabriel's room to search for what she wanted. She came across a safe he had. She decided to opened it, and found data of victims he killed and some other data. Emilie was terrified, and then Gabriel came in the room. Emilie was terrified of him, so he was worrying why she was scared of him. Until he saw the safe was opened. He tried to explain to her but she didn’t want to hear it, and run out of the room. He have gotten upset about and even thinking about why he never burned those papers. So later he planned something. When Emilie was in the kitchen drinking her tea, she left the kitchen to go to the bathroom. Gabriel put a U-89 (a substance that causes people to go in coma) inside her tea. He thought that if she get into a coma, she would think this all as a dream. She drink her tea and later that night she started coughing. She soon fall unconscious, which Nathalie saw. Nathalie tried to see if Emilie was ok, but she didn't wake up whatever she still was breathing. Nathalie wanted to call the hospital, however Gabriel came in the room and grabbed her roughly. He told her to call no one and if she did he will kill her. Gabriel didn’t notice Felix was watching him the whole time and screamed. Gabriel realized he messed up but at the time he didn’t even care. He later yelled at Nathalie to smelt the safe so that no one will know what happened.

Cousins Death

5 years later

Gabriel was in house at the time talking to Amelie. He agreed to his nephew and niece to come. He soon stopped talking to her and heard something upstairs. He went upstairs and take a peek in Felix’s room. He was hearing the conversation about how Ambre knew about uncle’s murder. He also heard she knew it by her aunt, Emilie, when she was talking to Amelie before she went into a coma. Felix asked where she was at and she answered, which made Gabriel close the door slowly. He soon drive where she and her brother was at. Ambre was questioning what he was doing here, but instead he asked to come to this alley he pointed too. She and her brother followed. However as soon they both came over, He shoved Oscar against the wall. He started choking him, in result of Ambre screaming and dropping her phone, which cracked her phone. Ambre started to run and call for help, but instead Gabriel threw a knife, which result of killing her. He quickly grab the knife and run off from the scene, which caused the police to not know who killed them both. In result, Ambre’s last footage on her phone was her brother choking, leaving Felix traumatized.

Amelie hospitalized

1 week later

Amelie was looking for her children. She put missing signs everywhere and asked people do they know where they at. She called Gabriel if he knew where they was at. He lied about it and Amelie just took his words. Amelie soon visited his house just so she can have some company. She spends crying about it and Gabriel tried to make her relax about it. Felix walked into the living room seeing Amelie crying. Felix asked if he can talk to Amelie privately and Gabriel let him. As Felix and Amelie was having a conversation, He standing right near the wall to listen to their conversation. Amelie burst out crying because of what Felix said to what he did to her kids. Amelie didn’t know if she wanted to trust Gabriel anymore. Later in the afternoon (awhile its raining), she was upstairs and was about to leave. However, Gabriel rushed upstairs and pushed her to other room. She was yelling at him for why he did that, but he soon pulled out a baseball bat. He started beating her awhile she was screaming. Felix heard the screaming which scared him and he ran to the room they was at. When Amelie was almost dying, Gabriel soon called Nathalie to call the hospital now, which Nathalie found odd that he wants to doctors to come. Felix was about the call the police, but Gabriel shoved him against the wall and threaten to kill him if he called the police. Which terrified Felix and ran back to his room crying. Gabriel then ran to the basement (with his baseball bat) so that he wouldn’t get caught. He smelted the baseball bat. Soon the ambulance came and went to the house. Nathalie instructed where the person at and they took Amelie to the hospital. Until then, Amelie is still hospitalized.

This resulted Gabriel wanted to fix his past mistakes, to involve all this murdering and discovering from happening. Because of this entire incident, he switched back to his true personality.

As Hawk Moth

Altered personality: none since the user is full control of the kwami personality.

Abilities:

Med durability

Flexibility

Slightly slow

Shadow wings - creates butterfly like shadow wings and gives him flight

Butterflicks - summons butterflies

Darkness awakens - summons a dark mist that comes across the entire area

ButterLeech - turn akumazatied butterflies into butterfly like leeches

Dizo - Causes the person become dizzy. can also cause the person to hallucinate.

Beaming Ray - shoots purple ring rays

Since this is a corrupted form, he have no type of purifiy of any other substance (not like his akumanzation.)

Empathy - can sense anyone emotions

Body transmission - the user can control the body of an akumanzatied being.

Main ability

Akumanzation - can control a person by using a butterfly to control the people in negative emotion. The person that the user picked will serve them for ever long the user want them to serve. This will transform them into a supervillain if agreed.

The user can also cancel akumanzatied if it affects the wrong person.

Weapon: cane

As Plumule

Altered personality: none since the user is full control of the kwami personality.

Abilities:

med durability

Flexibility

Fast

Plucker - summon feathers

Eyes of the feather - changes the user eyes and brainwash the person into doing something

StepBeat - causes the user to dance and fight (dancing awhile fighting makes the user stronger and make the user more effcient in fighting)

Empathy - can sense anyone emotions

Body transmission - the user can control the body of an akumanzatied being.

Doesn’t have much powers due to being corrupted.

Since this is a corrupted form, he have no type of purifiy of any other substance (not like his akumanzation.).

Main ability

Amokization - can control a person by using a feather to control the people in negative emotion. The person that the user picked will serve them for ever long the user want them to serve. If the user agrees, they will create sentimonster which the user in trapped inside to control. It can also create a separate entity from the person emotions that controls differently without a person controlling it.

The user can also cancel amokizatied if it affects the wrong person.

Weapon: Fan and shoes..

Writer (self-akumantizaed form)

altered personality: its the same since its self-akumantization

Cause of akumanzation: because he can

Goal: Write ladybug and chat noir out of existence

akumantized object: book

Abilities:

Flight (most likely just levitatian)

Fast

He can draw a picture and it comes to life.

He can also write a scenario and it will happen in reality, however he must do it under 50 seconds.

(its collector but different powers)

Destroyer (self-amokization)

Sentimonster personality: It have none, Gabriel made it soulless as possible.

cause of amokzation: he was getting sick of the heroes ruining his plans

Goal: kill ladybug and chat noir

amokized object: book (again)

Abilities:

Destroys anything on its path form non living to living things.

Can burn anything into crisp

Also tough to defeat

It huge appearance makes it able to crush anyone

Relationships (main ones)

Gabriel & Adrien

Gabriel deeply cares for Adrien, since he’s the only one in the family who doesn’t know the truth. He tries to protect from bad influences and outside world. He pretty much strict about everything towards his son. He also force him to do certain activities because he claims it will belief him.

Chat Noir

Gabriel pretty much dislikes chat noir. He thinks he’s irritating to deal with.

However, Gabriel sometimes thinks about if chat noir and Adrien is the same person.

Gabriel & Nathalie

Gabriel trusts Nathalie as his assistant. He tasks her to do things for him and make sure she take care of his children. He also trusts her being a helper with amokzations. He sometimes worries about her in certain solutions, causing him to get angry if she risks herself. Even though he does this, he don’t really have sympathy for her.

Betrayal Arc

However, the entire time she was plotting against him. Gabriel was very shocked that she wanted him dead. She tries the explain what he done to her and everyone else. He completely snapped when she pull out a ray gun. He decided to charge at her and punch her hard. She become unconscious after that and he left the room awhile taking her ray gun.

Gabriel & Felix

Gabriel just hates Felix with a burning passion. He blames him for every mistake he has done and blames him for attacking everyone like this. He treats Felix like an dog and don’t really have any respect for his son. He gets completely angry if Felix snitches on him. He’s also pretty jealous of Felix because of his abilities. He wishes to completely drain his power so he can use it to time travel. He would kill Felix however, he doesn’t want to make Adrien upset and figure out who did it. He just happy that Adrien isn’t going to listen to Felix.

Gabriel & The Mime

Gabriel had met mime when he wasn’t a criminal at the time. He pretty much lure him into his tower and manipulated him to become a villain with him which succeeded. He usually tasks mime sometimes to commit a certain crime for him. But if mime refuses, he gets angry about it. He appreciates mime’s effort on crimes and fighting. However, he doesn’t care about mime. He pretty much toy with his emotions in order for him to anything properly. He also sees Mime nothing but a slave. He could do this since he learn what emotion he’s in by expressions(since he can’t speak).

However, mime later realized this by ladybug which caused him to betray him.

(mime post to be holding a gun btw)

Gabriel & Lila

Gabriel met Lila at a park. Every since he met her, they became allies. He give her the most tasks since she able to akumantize people with her manipulation. He pretty much trust lila with the help. However, he really don’t know lila as a whole.

Gabriel & Emilie

(young picture of them)

Gabriel loved his wife dearly. He didn’t want anyone to hurt her or anything. He tried to satisfy her. But every since she found out what he used to be, he was very upset. He thought he had no choice but to put her in a coma so she can forget what he have done. He wants to travel back in time just to be with her again.

Gabriel & Nooroo

Gabriel doesn’t care about nooroo at all. He pretty much controls his body and mindset in order to have freewill of using the kwami. Everytime nooroo tries to escape it, Gabriel attempts to make the corruption stronger.

Full Body

As an young adult (in agency)

Other Information

It was hard for him to enter and quit his job as agent

He sometimes cries awhile alone

He sometimes suicidal thoughts.

He can actually speak in his hawk moth form, it just stretches his face. The more he does it, the more it will hurt.

Even though he’s aware of his mistakes, he just wanna pit it on some one else.

His glasses are not actually prescription glasses, their fake glasses. Its so he can give off an innocent look.

His hair ended up messy due too stress and doesn’t bother to fix it up anymore.

His hair turned gray faster then Emilie due to stress.

He stole the butterfly miraculous

Lol edginess funni

idk am trying

16 notes · View notes

thenightgazer · 4 years ago

Text

Spark of Stardust

Chapter 1 : An Interstellar Quest It's not a date. Vergil insists upon it, even when he doubts himself as he asks Lyra to accompany him to search for a perfect birthday gift for Kyrie. But just like the dying star that sparks its undying stardust; the "date" is just a start for him to get to know more about Lyra, as the librarian reveals her "little, deepest and darkest secrets"

Warning : implied psychological and drug abuse

Part 6 of Tales of Apotelesma

You can also read this fic on AO3

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

~~~

It starts with a soft hand that brushes his face. The fuzzy sensation wakes him up. The lamp on the ceiling is the first thing he sees when he slowly opens his eyes wide awake. His eyes linger to his surroundings— and that shocks him because he’s no longer in his bedroom at Devil May Cry. He’s awakened in someone else’s bedroom. The wall is painted with warm colours and there is a large bookshelf besides the bed. When he turns his head to his left, he spots toys and trinkets which supposedly belong to a little girl, and there sits a young woman who smiles at him.

Where am I?

“How was your sleep?” she asks him. Her soft hand ruffles his hair gently. “You look so peaceful.”

He’s speechless. Not because he doesn’t want to answer, but his mouth won’t cooperate with his head. His survival instincts scream at him to get away from this situation, but all he could feel is numbness.

“I brought you dinner,” the beautiful woman continues. He observes her cautiously; she is approximately in her thirties, with long brunette hair and brown eyes. She looks like the kind of woman who looks absolutely harmless. The way her body moves is delicate. Her voice sounds appealing as she tells him the menu and hopes he will like it. She gives him the same warm impression as his own mother, but this woman seems shady. Her eyes remind him of someone... but he couldn’t remember the person. The same cold, void eyes...

“The nurse said you haven’t eaten since last night. You refused to take your medicines. Why? Don’t you want to get better?” Her voice turns colder. “When I heard that you refused to eat, I couldn’t concentrate on my work. I’m afraid you won’t get better. Now you will eat and take your medicine for me, okay?”

He can’t follow everything she has said just now. Who is this woman? What medicines? What nurse? But his head nods automatically as if his body is controlled by someone else, and that little gesture makes this woman’s warm smile appear on her pretty face again.

“Good. Let’s eat! After that, I’ll read you something exciting. How’s that sound?”

He nods obediently, opening his mouth to eat the porridge. He can’t feel the taste, nor can he sense the texture of the food. But the woman looks at him as if she would blast if he didn’t eat. The sound of friction between the spoon and the bowl drives him crazy. She’s making sure that he swallows the food as she cleans up his mouth. After the bowl is empty, she proceeds to pour something from a bottle—medicine— on a small spoon and look up at him, opening her mouth as a command for him to mimic her gesture. She seems delighted when he swallows the medicine.

“Atta girl.”

What is this nonsense? What is that thing she put inside me?

But he knows he won’t get the answer.

It’s all just a dream, right?

The woman walks to the bookshelf. Her fingers run through the book until she finds the one she desires. She sits back besides him again and opens the book, her fingers scan through the pages.

“You don’t like Cinderella, so I picked up this one,” she shows him the cover of the book. “I guarantee you’ll like it! It’s called The Hobbit, an adventure story. Your favourite, right?”

I do like adventure stories. But it isn’t my favourite. It’s Dante’s…

She starts her storytelling in a clear voice. “In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit...”

There’s something in her face when she reads. She seems more relaxed and softer than before, as if she got lost in the story. His suspicion is surprisingly gone while he listens to her and the familiarity strikes him again. She reminds him of his own mother when he was a child, reading him bedtime stories. Cambions in their early childhood needed a lot of sleep just like human children, but Dante and he always refused to sleep early and asked for more stories. There’s something peaceful about this familiarity. It calms him, then he decides to close his eyes again whilst the woman’s voice slowly fades away.

---

The dream shatters as Vergil’s cell phone rings loudly.

The hybrid lays still on his bed. He was sleeping for two hours just because he had no other options left to do aside from sleeping. Yet, even though his body doesn’t particularly need to sleep, he hates it when his slumber is interrupted. His hand reaches to find his phone and immediately pick it when he finds it on the desk beside his bed without seeing who’s calling him because he doesn’t bother to open his sleepy eyes.

“Dad?”

That familiar voice forces Vergil to open his eyes.

“Nero?”

“Yeah. You busy?”

“No,” Vergil throws a blanket from his naked chest as he moves his body to sit and brushes his hair. “What’s wrong, Nero?”

Nero doesn’t reply immediately. Vergil can hear a heavy sigh from his son and that makes him a bit anxious.

“Nothing wrong. Just...” The young devil hunter lets out another sigh. “Today is Kyrie’s birthday. She invites you and the crews for dinner at six. Uh… six as in Fortuna time, which is an hour later from Red Grave time. Just in case you got lost in time again.”

“Of course. We will be attending the dinner. Thank you for the invitation.”

“It’s Kyrie who invites you, not me.”

“...”

“... but having you around here is not so bad. The kids were always whining whenever you and Dante left the house.” Nero’s response is almost excited and eager, much to Vergil’s relief.

The picture of Julio, Carlo and Kyle somehow makes Vergil grins. “You did very well taking care of those little rascals.”

“Thanks,” there’s a pause before Nero continues. “Anyway, I should get going. Nico needs my help to do some crazy shit.”

“I hope all is well for you.”

“You too, I guess...” the young man clears his throat. “And... thank you. For accepting the invitation.”

“It’s the least I could do,” The blue devil smiles, his anxiety is gone as their interaction goes smoothly. “Carry on, son.”

“Y-yeah— bye, then.”

Warmth fills Vergil’s heart as he cleans up his bed and folds the blanket neatly. Never in his life would he have thought that he’d become a father. Even though it was unplanned, having a son does change his life. He has no parental figures to ask advice from and those parenting books are not helping at all, but he learns at his own pace. Two years of effort of atonement is nothing compared to his sins, yet he wants the very best for Nero and is very protective to him.

Then the word stings him.

Birthday, huh?

Ever since he was a little boy, Vergil has never understood the concept of celebrating birthdays. For him, birthday is just another day to pass. If anything, it seems like people love to celebrate the day when their life spans decrease. People are getting old, so what? Why do we celebrate that irony? Is that because of the presents and cake? Little Vergil never found the answer, but he did feel happy whenever he received presents and ate his birthday cake, even if that means he had to share it with his twin, Dante (he had given up the dream of having his own cake, since being twins means sharing almost everything). He didn’t even think about birthdays until Nero reminded him.

I wonder if he knows his birthday...

Vergil walks to the bathroom and washes his face. He looks at the mirror and the man guy in the mirror stares back at him. His reflection somehow reminds him of the strange dream. What was that dream about? It seems visceral, like it was my own memory. His heartbeat gets faster when he has a dreadful negative thought that it could be Mundus’ mind manipulation. If that was Mundus, it’s too pointless. He’d use my own memories to torture me, not with some kind of irrelevant vision.

“Mornin’,” Dante shoves himself besides Vergil and yawns. “I’m hungry.”

“Pleased to meet you, Hungry.”

Dante bursts into laughter. “Since when are you into dad jokes?”

“I’ll take the shower first.” Ignoring Dante’s question, Vergil picks up a dry towel and gets inside the shower cubicle.

Dante takes off his shirt and stretches his muscles. He washes his face and begins to shave his beard. “You said you fought Angelo demons at last week’s gig, right? Heard from Lady the same Angelo demons got sighted at another city. We still don’t have any information on who created and summoned them.”

Vergil wipes the droplets of water from his face. “It seems like those Angelo demons were none like all the artificial demons we have ever seen before. Their form, their abilities, their durability. They looked rather... futuristic, I'd say. I got an impression that the new Angelo was created mostly by advanced science rather than magic.”

“Another thing happened these past weeks. There are three outbursts at restricted medical facilities in different cities.”

“What medical facility?”

“Trish said that the three of them were research laboratories owned by Ravenhill Corporation.”

“Isn’t that the same corporation that won a peace award or something like that?”

“Yeah. The Ravenhills are an influential aristocrat with power over the health and security industry. Most of the health facilities in this world are sponsored and if not, owned by Ravenhill Corporation. They have a branch company here in this city too.”

“And do you think those incidents have a connection with the appearance of Angelo demons?”

“Just a gut feeling, but that’s worth investigating, better safe than sorry, aight?” Dante brushes his hair and flips it back like Vergil. “Hey, I look just like you with this hairstyle! Perhaps I should go with this style from now on.”

“If you’re done talking, get out of the bathroom.”

“This is MY bathroom!”

“And I’m the one who cleans up the mess you’ve created in this house, Dante.”

“Fine~!” Dante chuckles as he cleans up the remaining shaving foam from his jaw. “Have you bought something for Kyrie’s birthday? Got missed calls and a text about the dinner party from Nero.”

“Not yet.”

“I’ve been thinking of giving her a fancy revolver. Heard from Nero that she’s quite good at using guns.”

“... do you really think that women fancy weapons as a gift?”

“Trish and Lady do. But hey! You can go ask our clever librarian!” Dante's face lightens up in exhilaration.

Vergil turns off the shower and wraps a towel around his waist as he opens the cubicle. “What do you mean by ’our’?!”

“Yours, then. She’s a normal civilian woman. Perhaps she can recommend you a perfect gift for Kyrie.”

No, if only you know that she’s not normal! “... you’re probably right.”

A teasing whistle comes from Dante as he takes off his pants and walks inside the cubicle. “As Yoda said, Verge, ‘ do or do not. There is no try ’. Call her and ask her out for a date.”

“I’m not taking any advice from a man who has rotten luck with women. And who is Yoda?”

“Call it what you want it. If you’re not asking her out, I’ll go ask her by myself.”

“Not before I step over your dead body.”

“Ha! Someone’s jealous for realsies~”

Vergil walks away from the bathroom before his inner turmoil tempts him to try to kill Dante… again. His insolent brother might have been teasing him too much, but in a way he’s right. He needs to find someone trusted enough to help him buy the perfect gift for Kyrie.

But she’s on duty today is her work day. I won’t make it right on time to the party if I have to wait for her shift to end.

He’s still thinking about it when he enters his room on the second floor and grabs his phone. Lyra’s contact name is showing up, but he hesitates. It’s still 9 o’clock. The library must have just opened.

After having a quite long internal battle with himself, he decides to call her anyway.

It takes a little bit long for Lyra to finally pick up her phone. Vergil catches the sound of her voice and a man’s laugh who Vergil assumes is Nate. “Bugger off for a minute, will you? — Clayton here.”

“Lyra.”

“Oh, hello Vergil!”

“Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all! Is there anything I can help you with?”

“... yes.”

“Are you okay? You sound like you want to cry.”

“I am certainly not,” Vergil groans at Lyra’s giggle. “Yet, I do believe I need your help.”

“Name it!”

“... it’s about a birthday present.” Vergil clears his throat. “Do you remember Kyrie, my son’s fiancée? She will be celebrating her birthday this evening. She invited Dante and I to her house for dinner.”

“I see.”

“Kyrie has always been there for Nero,” he continues. “She helped guide him to become the person he is now. She took care of him while I wasn’t there for him. She’s an important person to my son. That’s why... at least I have to show her some respect.”

“By giving her a decent birthday present.”

“Yes.”

“I think she will appreciate everything you give to her.”

“She will, certainly. She’s too polite to reject a present, but I don’t want her to think that I’m a careless father-in-law by giving her a gratuitous gift.”

“You’re right. I’d be delighted to accompany you to buy the present, but…I’m on duty right now. I’m afraid I couldn't help you any further.”

“That I know. That’s why I call for your advice.”

“I suggest something small, but meaningful. You told me she love to sing, right? Maybe a vinyl of classical music would — what in the bloody—! Nate! Give me back my phone at once!”

Vergil hears them grumbling and arguing at something. He considers to just hang up the phone given to his hunch that Lyra and Nate are probably having a fight right now, but suddenly he hears Nate’s voice as the young librarian speaks to him.

“Mr. Vergil? It’s Nate!”

This scoundrel's audacity...! “I recognize your voice, Nathaniel. What are you doing with Lyra’s phone?”

“Err... sorry for the interruption, but Lyra forced me to tell you this myself, or else you won’t believe her! I told her that I don’t mind if she wants to go on a date with you! My father won’t be checking on the library today!” Nate lets out a dry chuckle to break the ice, but since Vergil says nothing, Nate continues to speak. “She insisted on at least working today, so I told her to finish the duty earlier so she could spend her time with you. That’s all! Oh yeah, a little advice here; Lyra has a terrible sense of direction, means that you should hold her close— ouch!”

A sound of a book slapped on Nate’s head comes to Vergil’s ear. The next is Lyra’s nervous voice talking to him. “Vergil? You heard Nate. So... we meet at three. How’s that sound?”

“I’ll pick you up at the library.”

“Okay!”

“Then... I’ll see you around.”

“Cheerio!”

Vergil hangs up the phone, unexpectedly feeling the queasiness after he recalls the word ‘date’ as Dante and Nate said earlier. Foolish. We are not dating. We are just going to buy a birthday present. That’s all. Stop this unnecessary disquietude. It’s just Lyra—

“Tell me you’re not gonna go on a date with your boring clothes!”

Vergil hardly glances to his side and sees Patty’s figure standing by his door. The twenty years old girl is wearing an apron and holding a broom in her hand. “At least wear something stylish! You and Dante are all hopeless! No wonder the two of you haven’t gotten married yet!”

“I believe that’s none of your concern, Miss Lowell. And although I lack what humans would consider common sense, the last time I know about human norms and etiquette, that it is rude to trespass on someone's private space and eavesdrop on other people’s conversation.”

“I’m not eavesdropping! I just happened to pass this room while cleaning this house because lately you are not present in this house and Dante is being a lazy bastard as usual! Show some gratitude!”

“Thank you for your help. But as you can see now, I am here and that means I will do the household job while you can go disturb Dante’s peace now.”

“Hey! I heard that!” Dante shouts from the first floor.

“Anyways, let me help you to choose better clothes for you!” Patty insists. “I don’t know who this girl is because Dante won’t tell me, but she seems special to you. You need to dress at your best! Impressing a girl on their first date is a must!”

“I’ll forgive your impudent attitude this time if you kindly close the door, Miss Lowell. I need to put some clothes on.”

Realizing that Vergil wears nothing but a towel wrapped on his waist, Patty flusters as she looks away and grabs the door knob violently. “Fine!”

The blue devil chuckles softly when he hears Patty goes downstairs and screams at Dante for whatever antics that he does right now. He searches through his wardrobe, pondering if Patty was right. And maybe she is. He’s about to blend into society, that means he needs to look less suspicious. He should wear something casual and humane.

Humans and their fashion. Even demons are much simpler.

He picks some clothes with a hope that he won’t look too ridiculous.

---

“Do you think he’s the type of person who brings flowers for a date?” Nate throws paper planes at Lyra’s direction, which she blocks it all with a book.

“Why do you insist that this is a date? We are friends. Friends go hang out sometimes.” Lyra says.

“Dammit, Lyre! You are older than me but I can’t believe you’re so clueless about this. Even idiots could tell that he likes you!”

Lyra groans desperately. “That’s it. That’s the problem of modern society. People nowadays confuse politeness with flirting!”

“Sometimes both work simultaneously! And that’s the case of Mr. Vergil. Sure, he’s polite to everyone even though he always looks like he wanted to kill someone. But he’s different with you; he’s not just polite, but kind. That’s two different things!”

Lyra half-heartedly listens to Nate’s babble; despite she already knows what is inside Nate’s mind. She knows what he means about Vergil being kind only to her, and Nate’s mind interprets how soft Vergil is whenever he’s around her. The thought of those forms of romanticism confuses her. Being a telepath, she has seen and listened into people’s minds for almost her entire life. She’s no stranger to the concept of love according to universal belief, yet she still doubts its existence.

Sometimes, what people think about something isn’t always synchronized with how they feel about it.

And speaking of which, I haven’t heard Nate’s thoughts since fifteen seconds ago...

“He’s here!” Nate declares as he looks up at the window near the front door. “Wait, uh... is it really him?”

“What?”

“He looks... different.” Nate mumbles. “And he didn’t bring flowers. Guess he’s not the flower type of guy.”

“On the contrary, he is.” Lyra takes a brief look at her appearance in the mirror and puts on eyeglasses before giving a wink at Nate. “See you tomorrow!”

“Now who’s excited about the date!?”

She giggles throughout her journey to the front door, only to be surprised when she opens the door and finds Vergil standing in front of her and about to open the door too. But today he looks stunningly different; he is wearing as black shirt beneath a navy-blue casual coat. His dark trousers make him look taller than usual. He changes his footwear into a pair of black chukka boots. Even with his usual warrior clothes, Vergil Sparda is already breathtakingly handsome. His casual look just enhances his majestic stature.

Lyra has never really given any attention to fashion, but now she can’t take her eyes off of him. “What’s with the sudden change in your sense of fashion?”

“You don’t like it?”

“I like it!” she blurts. “You look… so… normal”

“Is it just me or does it sound like an insult?”

“It’s a compliment!”

“... thank you, I suppose,” Vergil reluctantly scratches his nape. “Shall we go now?”

“Let’s!”

Lyra glares at Nate who’s giving her double thumbs up and loudly wishing her good luck before she closes the door.

“So,” the librarian walks side by side with Vergil. “Do you remember I mentioned that I purchased my devil arm at an antique shop?”

“Yes. What’s with that?”

“I think it’s a good place to start our quest. The shop sells antique weapons, jewelries, old books and trinkets. Perfect collection for Kyrie.”

“Very well. Where’s this shop located?”

“Nova Town.”

“It’s too far from here.”

“Lucky for us, you have Yamato.”

“I’m beginning to think that you see me as a mere means tool of transportation.”

“Maybe,” she winks playfully. “But you are too decent to be a mere tool, my dearest friend.”

The hybrid rolls his eyes, “Let’s find an empty alley first.”

---

“That was the first time I saw Lyra smiling like that,” Nate mutters at himself as he taps something on his cell phone. “Good for her! Ever since I saw their chemistry on the murder in the library weeks ago, I know they’re going to form a relationship soon!”

The twenty four years old librarian giggles at his own fantasy while drowning himself further into a mobile game he always plays whenever he has free time. He almost startled himself when the bell rings and a customer comes in. Nate abruptly pauses the game and greets the guest. “Welcome to The Literarium!”

The guest — a tall and ginger-haired man — returns Nate’s greeting with a nod. A suspicion arises in Nate’s head as he observes the man’s eyes that are covered with sunglasses. Why the hell does he wear sunglasses indoors? He continues to follow the man’s movement, which is also suspicious. The man seems detached from reality as he stares at one of the shelves quite long without really doing anything, not even touching the books. He walks slowly to another section, again without any interest in the books. The man seems eager to look for something as he repeatedly tilts his head to look outside the window, but Nate is certain that he’s not here for books. Then why bother coming here if he’s not interested in books? Nate clicks his pen anxiously. Paranoia begins to consume him. What if he wants to rob this place?!

The ginger-haired man approaches the sale section and finally picks a book. He looks at the cover briefly before heading to the counter. Nate fakes a polite smile when he scans the book— Lord of the Flies by William Golding— and forces himself to make a small talk. “Fine day, isn’t it?”

The man nods while giving Nate his money. “I agree.”

“You like allegorical one, huh?”

The man furrows his brow. “Sorry?”

Nate lifts the copy of Lord of the Flies . “You don’t know that Golding wrote one of the best allegorical novels all the time?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know. I only recognized it as one of the bestseller books,” the man chuckles. His laughter surprisingly sounds very friendly. “I picked it because the synopsis reminds me of the past.”

“Jesus, what a chaotic past you must have back then.” Nate gives him the book and his change.

“Quiet so,” the man flips the page, but Nate can sense he’s focusing on another thing. “By the way, the woman who wears eyeglasses… She came out from this place with a man about five minutes ago. Does she work here?”

Shit, another Lyra’s admirer. That explains my suspicion! “Yeah. You know her?”

“She looks like a person I used to know. Quite different, but I spot some similarities.”

“Maybe they are the same person?”

“The same person?” the man chuckles again as he closes the book. “That’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“She died years ago.”

“Oh, man… I’m so sorry...”

“It’s fine. She wasn’t related to me, just a person I knew. At first glance, your friend looks eerily similar to her,” the man’s face abruptly turns into doubt and anxious. Nate swears he can see his hands tremble. “I was terribly surprised when I saw your friend out there. I thought the woman I knew was alive again. What is the name? Your lady friend, I mean.”

“Louisa.” Nate lightly says his lie as soon as he’s aware of the man’s intention. I’m not doing anything wrong. Lyra told me to fake a name in case some flirty bastards ask me her name.

“Louisa, then. Pretty name,” the man seems pleased at Nate’s answer. “Thank you. Lovely library, anyway. Good day for you.”

“Thank you. Happy reading and have a good day!”

He’s different from any of Lyra’s secret admirers, Nate feels uneasy about the man’s strange attitude even though the man has already taken his leave. He makes a mental note to contact Lyra soon after he closes the library. “That guy looks like he’s about to plan something fishy. But I can’t disturb Lyra and Mr. Vergil right now.”

Nate grabs his cell phone and restarts the game with a hope that nothing bad would happen.

---

She’s strangely quiet today.

Ever since they arrived at Nova Town, Vergil catches something unusual from Lyra. She guides the way to the antique shop without talking to him but carefully watches her surroundings. But at the same time, she seems to lose her focus and sometimes stares blankly at something. They have been walking for almost 30 minutes and they haven’t arrived at the antique shop yet. Also, that’s not the only thing from her that is unusual... “You wear eyeglasses.”

“Huh?” Lyra automatically touches her eyeglasses. “Why? You don’t like a girl with eyeglasses?”

“I don’t dislike it.”

“You have a funny way to compliment others, don’t you?”

“I have never seen you wearing eyeglasses before. I thought I was looking at a completely different person when you opened the door earlier.”

“I always wear eyeglasses whenever I’m out to shop, just for aesthetic purposes. I’ll take it off if that makes you uncomfortable—”

“Please don’t. You look lovely with that.”

“Thanks!”

“You’re welcome. Are we getting closer to the shop?”

“… I think so?”

Vergil stops abruptly, “Tell me we are not lost.”

“W-we’re not!” she stutters in panic. “I’m just having a little confusion here, because this town looks different from the last time I came here. It has only been two years and the town is already changing...”

“Are you even certain that we are in the right town?”

“One hundred percent certain!”

“Then tell me,” Vergil curves a devilish grin. “Is Nathaniel right? That you have a terrible sense of direction?”

A light blush blooms on Lyra’s face. “Uh... yeah— but we are in the right town! For real! Just because I have a terrible sense of direction, doesn’t mean I’m an idiot!”

“Yet we are lost, aren’t we?”

“We are not! See that monument over there? It’s the town’s icon. We just have to turn left to that road and the antique shop should be on the right corner.”

Vergil watches the monument that Lyra mentioned before he glances at her again with doubtful looks. “Alright, then. But why don’t you use… what is it again... GPS?”

“Later. I’m practicing my sense of direction by practicing my telepathic ability.”

“Does your telepathic ability have something to do with your sense of direction?”

“Since the murder in the library, I’m practicing to read people’s mind whenever you’re around me because your magical defense blocks my telepathic ability. Normally, all I need to do is just focus on their minds and find out if some of them have knowledge of the place I’m about to go.”

“Why bother? You still can read minds by touching their body parts.”

“That’s impractical! Not everyone wants to be touched. Just imagine if I need to touch a person with haphephobia.”

“I thought you like it when you don’t have to read minds anymore.”

“Just in case of an emergency. Who knows if we would find any strange cases again, or if I’m stuck with Dante and there’s an urgent situation where I’m required to smuggle into someone’s head.”

“Hold on. Your telepathy doesn’t work on Dante too?”

“I guess the power of Sparda includes protection from telepaths.”

“I see. Now I understand,” Vergil scoffs. “The reason why you were awfully quiet since we stepped in this town is that you tried to practice your telepathic ability to find out the antique shop’s direction, so you won’t embarrass yourself in front of me because you have poor sense of direction and you think having to use GPS would make you look unreliable as a guide.”

Lyra hides her hands behind her back and stares at the ground, which to Vergil indicates that everything he said is true and that she’s embarrassed to admit it. To be very honest, he doesn’t think that Lyra does something wrong. He just wants to clarify things behind her unusual behavior, but it unconsciously sounds like he’s scolding her for her little secret.

“Just use the GPS if you need it. You have nothing to be ashamed of. That won’t make me think less of you.”

Lyra seems to hesitate at first, but eventually shrugs and takes her phone out from her bag. Vergil quietly smirks at her surrender.

“Fortunately, we’re on the right track!” She shows Vergil the map. “Thank you for your encouragement, Vergil. That’s the longest advice you ever said to me.”

He shrugs it off. “I guess that’s what friends are for.”

“Still, that means a lot to me.”

“Just forget it. Then how’s your practice going?”

“Still doing my best. The first time I tried to read someone’s mind without touching them whenever you were around me, it was all nothing. But now I can see blurry images and hear buzzing sound!” She smiles at him, her eyes beam as she points at the rustic shop at the corner of the street. “Look! We've arrived!”

When Vergil enters the antique shop, he expects the shopkeeper to greet them with unstoppable pestering offers like all the shopkeepers normally do. That’s why he hates shopping. Thankfully the shopkeeper is sleeping on the counter, like she doesn’t care if someone steals one of the items. The shop itself is quiet and the goods are all unique. The problem is, Vergil doesn’t know where to start searching. There are many items that Vergil puts a certain degree of interest in—necklaces, bracelets, clocks, paintings—but he doesn’t think that it would be useful or meaningful to Kyrie. He starts to think about Dante’s suggestion to give her a weapon for self-protection. It seems easier than this endless searching.

“Do you know the biggest dilemma when it comes to shopping? You expect to find a certain thing, but when you’re in the shop, suddenly you’re not sure what to buy anymore.” Lyra chuckles at Vergil’s confused expression.

“Evidently,” Vergil picks an antique revolver. “I think I want to give her a weapon.”

“Is Kyrie an excellent combatant?”

“She can take care of herself, though she still needs a lot of practice, but she won’t survive a second if she had to fight multiple opponents.”

“Mmmm... okay but... how about something for protection from the demons?”

“That will do. It’s way more practical and useful.”

“Alright. Let’s ask the shopkeeper.”

Vergil points his chin at the counter. “She’s sleeping.”

“I’ll wake her up.” Lyra fixates her focus on the shopkeeper until she slowly raises her head from the counter table and rubs her eyes.

Vergil almost couldn’t hide his amusement. She can wake someone up from slumber? How advanced is her ability actually?

The shopkeeper yawns loudly. “Welcome. How can I help y’all?”

“We’re looking for an item for protection from demons. Do you have anything suitable for that?” Lyra asks.

The shopkeeper looks straight to Lyra’s eyes, then to Vergil’s. She sighs as she walks to the weapon cabinet. “I don’t have much of that, but I have this one. Take a look.” she mumbles, handing Lyra a red music box. The music box looks captivating with a rose pattern carved on the box. When Lyra opens the music box, Vergil recognizes the box is playing Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier.

“Lovely, but I don’t see what’s so special about the music box,” Vergil mutters his doubt.

“Easy, dude. Push the button near the mirror to open the secret room behind it.”

Lyra does the exact instruction until the secret room is opened and reveals a golden bracelet inside.

“What’s that for?” Lyra asks.

“It will glow red whenever there's demons nearby,” the shopkeeper lights her cigarette and walks back to the counter. “When the bracelet glows, you press it and close your eyes, because it will cast a very blinding light. It’ll blind and burn demons and that’s the best time for you to run away.”

Lyra glances at Vergil, who’s examining the music box and the bracelet. She holds her giggle when she notices that the bracelet glows in red when Vergil holds it and abruptly puts it back to the secret room behind the mirror before the shopkeeper notices it.

“I guess the bracelet couldn’t distinguish demons and cambions,” she whispers to him.

“This should be fine,” Vergil forms a satisfied grin. “It has both protection advantage and aesthetical function. Perfect.”

“You take that?!” the shopkeeper shouts eagerly.

“Yes,” Vergil replies. “Is there a money-back guarantee in case the item doesn’t properly work?”

“This is an antique shop, dude. Some items might not working at all—”

“I believe I don’t have to repeat myself.” Vergil insists.

The shopkeeper gulps at Vergil’s unspeakable death threat within his icy eyes, knowing that there’s no use to argue with a man like Vergil. “Dammit, fine! Now can I get my money?”

Lyra howls with laughter, “Blimey, you are a terrifying customer.”

Vergil grins in pride as he heads to the counter.

---

The birthday party will begin in an hour, but Vergil chooses to spend the rest of the time with Lyra at the Sparda Manor. During the day time, they only meet in the library. That makes their little adventure today seem rare... and fun. Lyra buys them ice creams at the end of their journey in Nova Town. She can’t hold her laughter when she catches Vergil’s eyes sparking in childish interest as he holds his ice cream once the magic portal opens its way to the Manor.

“The shopkeeper was different from the one whom I met two years ago. He was nice and helpful,” Lyra murmurs, licking her bubblegum ice cream. “Guess he didn’t work there anymore. We get a sleepyhead instead.”

Vergil says nothing as he examines his blueberry ice cream cone. His memory of V eating cheeseburger hits him. “Why do humans think that creating something messy is a good idea?”

“It’s called innovation, Vergil.”

“Messy innovation.”

“As long as people like it, it is considered as a great innovation.”

He finally gives up and chomps his ice cream. “This is not bad.”

“Tell me this is not your first time eating ice cream.”

“I might be inexperienced in human lifestyle, but that doesn’t mean I never tasted ice cream.”

It’s strange, Vergil recalls the moment when they used to be strangers before Almagest helped them to get closer. Now they stand side by side and talk about stuff like old friends to the point where he could never get enough of her companionship. He lets her wander around his childhood house, even if he barely calls it a house now. He lets out a silent chuckle when she lifts a pile of rocks up to the air just to see what hides behind it, only to find another ruins and she’s slightly disappointed.

“For a second I thought your father was Johann Sebastian Bach.” Lyra looks up at Sparda’s family painting.

“You are not the first person who said that.”

She laughs. “Oh look at you… stoic since you were born. And I already got a picture on Dante being impatient while the painter kept asking him to stand still.”

“Pretty much correct. He complained how itchy his feet were at the end of the session.”

“Your mother was gorgeous,” Lyra admires Eva’s angelic stature. “No wonder Sparda fell for her.”

Vergil forms a wistful smile. “She was.”

“This painting reminds me of The Picture of Dorian Gray .”

“Pray tell, why?”

“Dorian sold his soul to the devil for eternal youth, and it decayed his self-portrait painting every time he did a sin. Of course your family portrait is a different case, but you see, your mother’s face is the only one that didn’t get burned by fire. It’s like a sign that she was the only human in the family…”

“And the rest of the family members were cursed by the evil blood that ran in their veins. That’s why the faces of the three of us were burned. That’s a picturesque perspective.”

“I didn’t say that demon is always evil—”

“I know. Still, it’s a good metaphor. Haven’t thought of it myself.”

“Why don’t you take the painting with you? People keep their family portrait in their house.”

“Dante and I agreed to leave it here as a sign that this mansion once belonged to our family. Besides, I can’t imagine such a painting to be hanged on the shop’s soiled wall. It would be a disgrace for the painting itself.”

“Now that you mentioned it, I think you are right.”

Lyra continues to lift some rocks and put it back carefully once she finds nothing interesting.. “Have you been in there again after you escaped the Underworld with Dante?”

“To collect mementos, yes. Though, as you can see, nothing much was left since Urizen destroyed the whole city. Not to mention almost all parts of the house were destroyed or blocked by pillars and huge stones. We tried to remove them, but it’d cause a domino effect throughout the manor and demolish it completely.” 

“How did it feel to visit your childhood home again?”

Vergil swallows his ice cream at once. He puts a handkerchief out from his coat and wipes his lips. “It felt mostly heartbreaking.”

“I see,” Lyra nods and gives Vergil a light pat on his shoulder. “Not everyone could even come back to the place where their trauma began. Not that it’s necessary. I just found it encouraging.”

“Speaking of memento, what was the most valuable present you had ever received?” Vergil curiously asks.

“Oh, we start to have a small talk now?”

“I thought we agreed to trust each other, don’t we? Then we should start from mundane things.”

“Alright. Make sense. Let me recall it… mmmm… oh right! A lyre!”

“You play lyre? Amazing.”

“I thought you were about to say ironic.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“You know, a lyre plays a lyre.”

Vergil smirks, recalling her remark on their previous little adventure, “You’re right. It’s ironically amazing.”

The librarian rolls her eyes as she bites the ice cream cone. “My mum bought me one for my fifth birthday. It only lasted for two months before I asked her to give me a harp for the next birthday.”

“Did she finally buy you a harp?”

“She didn’t.”

“Why?”

“She died before my next birthday.”

Vergil immediately stared at Lyra’s sullen eyes. “I’m terribly sorry to hear that.”

“It’s okay,” she smiles at him, chewing the last part of her cone. “It was a long time ago.”

Lyra has so many things she hides behind her amicable demeanor, and Vergil should’ve feel relieved because after all these months, Lyra finally opens up a little bit about her family, yet he doesn’t feel it at all.

“Were you close with your mother?” Vergil’s tone is full of consideration.

Lyra taps her fingers on her chin. “I guess so. We only had each other.”

“… How did she… die?”

The librarian smirks at him. “If I told you she fell from the tree, would you believe me?”

“Only if that’s the truth.”

She goes silent for a while, seeming unwilling to continue her story. She opens an empty drawer, looking at nothingness for a while. “You might’ve heard about her.”

“Your mother?”

“Uh-uh,” Lyra nods calmly, but Vergil senses a slight hesitation. “Her name was Asteria Crescent.”

Impossible! “The award-winning astronomer?”

“Astrobiologist, yes.”

“I see. That explains your fondness of astronomy.”

The first time Vergil heard about Asteria Crescent was when he was eleven years old, still homeless and constantly moved out from place to place in search of power. Asteria’s groundbreaking research of modern astrobiology broke the news. Her discovery led the scientists to rethink human’s position in this world and question the exact location of the Underworld in the known universe, considering demons as an extraterrestrial creature with its own origin and evolution. Demons and magic are inseparable, but Asteria Crescent was brave to make a further step to explain demonology in a scientific approach. Science and magic are two sides of a coin , Vergil recalls her statements. Science just has yet to understand magic.

“Asteria was a Titan goddess of falling stars and nighttime divinations. That suited her very well,” Lyra chuckles bitterly, swinging her hand to lift a pile of ruins back to its place. “I once wondered why she didn’t name me Hecate, daughter of Asteria and goddess of witchcraft. Maybe at that time, she didn’t have a thought that someday I’ll develop this… psychic ability.”

“The media never reported anything regarding her cause of death. It happened all so sudden, they said.”

“They always spoke highly of her. But when she died, they turned the story into rumors and gossip.”

“So did she fall from the tree?”

“She did fall.”

“But not from the tree.”

Vergil’s demonic eyes catch Lyra’s body slightly flinching, but she maintains her calmness and fakes a smile. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you further about your private life.”

“You entrusted me your biggest secret. I intend to do so. I’m just… not ready to open up, but I know that I want to.”

“When I said that we should try to trust each other, I didn't mean that you should abruptly open yourself to me.”

“Too late. Now you know I’m the daughter of a dead astrobiologist.”

“Why did you change your surname then?”

Lyra stops and gazes at Vergil. She seems anxious while glancing at her surroundings carefully, as if she’s afraid that someone else would hear them. Vergil slightly bows his body when Lyra whispers in his ear.

“I’m being hunted.”

The furrow on Vergil’s brow is going deeper. “By whom?”

“Someone who wants to abuse my power. That’s why I need to change my surname and hang out around wearing eyeglasses, so people won’t find out about my identity.”

For a moment, they stand still there, staring at each other’s eyes to find some clues. It’s logical that Lyra’s unique ability would attract power-seekers, be it humans or demons. Vergil knows it too well; the danger of possessing a greater power. A part of him wants to believe her words…

If only he failed to spot a subtle grin on the corner of her lips.

I would be absolutely fooled by her deception, Vergil grunts discontentedly. "You are lying, aren’t you?”

Lyra’s laughter echoes throughout the lake.

Vergil snarls at her unstoppable giggle. "Quite a jester, I see.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

Vergil doesn’t bother to reply, because he knows it would lead to another bickering. He doesn’t try to hide his amused smile too, even though Lyra teases him about the ‘sly devil smile’. To be honest, he couldn’t care less. He just wants to see her smile, her true smile.

Like the way she’s smiling right now.

“Do you want to have a look at the lake?” Vergil offers, trying to lift the mood. “There’s nothing left to see here.”

“Sure!”

They sit on the cobblestone pier in the lake while admiring the twilight sky. It’s Vergil’s favorite place, ever since he was a child. This place has changed; there are no more Qliphoth roots left and there are several trees and wildflowers growing on the land. The lake no longer contains human blood. It’s mesmerizing how fast time flies and changes the entire city.

“I used to spend my days here, reading and playing with Dante,” Vergil says. “We loved being here more than staying indoors.”

“I can see the reason. It’s bloody beautiful here.” Lyra mutters her admiration. She taps her fingers on the cobblestone playfully, causing a small rift in the lake.

“Dante once pushed me to the lake because we fought over a chocolate bar,” Vergil recalls one of his precious memories. “I pretended to be drowned. He pulled me out of the water and cried, pleaded to me for not leaving him alone and that he’s sorry. Promised me that he won’t disturb me again. Right when he shook my body to wake me up, I pushed him to the lake but he managed to drag me with him.”

Lyra can’t hold her howls of laughter. She chortles until her stomach hurts and her throat gets sore. Vergil swears he never saw her laughing like this. “I’m sorry— I— HAHAHAHAHA!”

“Lower your voice,” Vergil grunts. He starts to regret his decision for rambling about his childhood antics just to get rid of Lyra’s gloomy face. “You might end up choking yourself to death.”

“ Pfffftttt!”

“Will you shut up?!”

“Sorry!” Lyra bites her thumb to hold her cackle but fails. “I just… bwahahaha! It seems that ‘never hold a grudge to the people who wronged you’ is true!”

Vergil pulls her thumb away from her teeth, caressing her reddened thumb. “A little deeper, you would bleed your thumb.”

The careful touch from Vergil distracts Lyra for a while. It’s the first time he holds her without gloves on, and it surprises her how soft his palm is despite the fact that he is a warrior who wields various weapons. Her thumb slips lightly from his palm. “Even if I bleed, I got your Lucy Pevensie’s cordial to heal me.”

Vergil sighs heavily as he removes some strands of Lyra’s hair from her forehead. “I gave it to you for an emergency case only. The cordial was made mostly from demon’s blood, mixed with rare herbs and some complicated spells to make it suitable for human’s bodies. Even the bottle was made from demon’s materials to prevent physical damage. Trish produced only a few bottles of cordial, so use it wisely.”

“I will,” Lyra picks out the cordial bottle from her bag and shows it to Vergil. “See? I haven’t used it since Capulet.”

“Put it back into your bag before it slipped from your hand and fell into the lake.”

“Alright alright! Why do you sound a lot like my mother?” Lyra puts the bottle back into her bag.

“You are clumsy and easily distracted. I have to keep my eyes on you every time. It’s rather distressing.”

“I can take care of myself!” Lyra lays a punch on Vergil’s chest. “Remember, I weakened Phantom last week, so you devil twins could kill that spider easily!”

The cambion smirks disdainfully to her weak strike. He puts something off from the back of his coat and hands it to Lyra. It’s an old book with a black leatherbound with the title engraved in a beautiful golden emboss. “Your payment for escorting me today.”

Lyra observes the front cover with beaming eyes. “The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe...”

“It’s one of the mementos I brought from the Manor. I reckon you would love Poe, given to your fondness of horror and mystery.”

“Then I have to refuse! It’s yours!”

“I believe I made myself clear when I said the book is for you.”

Lyra was about to refuse again, but quickly zip her mouth when Vergil glared at her with his terrifying and undeniable gaze. He won’t take any ‘no’ from her. She flips the pages, and something almost falls from the book before Lyra catches it quickly; an antique necklace with an obsidian pendant. She takes a closer look at the pendant and recognizes the familiar white, shiny dots pattern on it— the Lyra constellation.

“… did you pick this one too from the manor?” Lyra asks carefully.

“… it was from the antique shop.”

“I didn’t see you strolling around the jewelry section.”

“It was displayed on the counter. Nothing special. Just normal jewelry. The pattern just reminded me of you—”

Vergil can’t finish his sentence because Lyra wraps her arms between his waist, locking him in a tight embrace. He can feel the strange, but comfortable warmth fills his body as he returns to hug her without hesitation. Her body is so small and shorter compared to his height that he needs to bow slightly in order to balance the embrace. He loves her scent— a strange mixture of peach, black tea and old roses— and quietly inhales the intoxicating fragrance from her hair. He feels like he could do this all day.

“Thank you,” Lyra’s murmur vibrates his chest. “I’ll cherish this forever.”

“It's just a book and a necklace.”

“These are the best presents since the lyre from my mum!” she chuckles. “I’m sorry. I don’t usually hug people around.”

“Neither do I.”

“So let us hug a bit longer, shall we?”

“It looks like I have no choices but to comply.”

For a moment, they banish their distrusts about each other, breaking the adamant barrier and wishing the time to stop ticking.

---

Yesterday, Lyra dreamt of a boy who wanders around a big house.

She thought it was just a meaningless dream, at least until she realized that she was the boy himself. She looked at her— his — reflection in the mirror; the little boy was handsome with swept back silver hair and a black pajama. His serious and grumpy expression reminded of someone she couldn’t remember yet. She— the boy —wandered off around a big and dark house. It wasn’t her own intention; like her movement was controlled by someone else. She opened a chamber and let herself in. There was a woman who lay unconscious on the bed. Lyra could see traces of tears on the woman’s sullen face. Her body forced her to lift the quilt to cover the woman’s body and tip-toed herself out from the room.

When she was about to go back to her room, she heard a wheezing cry and followed the voice to the main hall. It didn’t take her too long to find out the source of the voice as her hand reached to open a white drawer, where another little boy with the same silver hair cried inside it.

“Vergil…” that little boy stared at her with a turbulent sob coming out from his mouth. “Father… you… you d-d-don’t believe that he died… r-right?”

I am…Vergil?

Does that mean that this crying boy… Dante?

The next thing Lyra remembered was she woke up with tears stream down her face like a waterfall, soaking her pillow. She was sure the sadness she felt in the entire dream wasn’t hers, but Vergil and Dante’s. She was going to tell Vergil about her strange dream when she saw the exact same white drawer in her dream at Sparda Manor, but she thought she was biased. Vergil had told her about how devastated his family was when they heard that Sparda was deceased, and her dream must be just her brain playing a trick to her.

But then she thought, Vergil never told me that he found Dante hiding and crying in that draw…

Tonight, Lyra falls into another strange dream. Even weirder and scarier. A titanic, god-like demon tortured her in the most unimaginably painful way. Her entire body was chained and spiked. The demon was merciless. His face was full of disgust and hatred as he spat her insults and penetrated her head with dreadful illusions she couldn’t even envision. He kept calling her “disgraceful offspring of the traitor Sparda”. It was only then she realized that she wasn’t herself, but Vergil.

Lyra fights herself to wake up, and is barely successful. The dream is too visceral that she almost still can feel the pain all over the body as she opens her eyes. Her back is wet from her own sweat.

Why do I keep dreaming of him? Moreover, I never experienced this kind of pain…

Does it have something to do with our accidental mind link on that day? Strange things have happened since then...

Her wave of thoughts are interrupted by the sudden thirst in her throat. She snaps her fingers and the light from the lamp brightens the bedroom. The door cracks slowly to open its way for Lyra. The librarian walks with leaden steps as she rubs her sleepy eyes. She almost stumbled upon a chair when she entered the kitchen.

“A cuppa sounds delightful to cure nightmares,” Lyra mumbles at herself, swinging her hand to summon a cup from the drawer. The cup flies and lands right in front of her, but she makes no further movement but staring blankly at the cup. Her body is still shivering by the imaginary pain from her nightmare.

“From all the people in the world, why does it have to be Vergil? This mind link is vexing me...”

The harsh cry of a raven causes Lyra to glance over the kitchen’s window. She curves a light smile while opening the window and lets a little raven enter her house. The raven lands on her shoulder for a while before flying around the house and lands on the kitchen counter.

“Where have you been, Corvus? Haven’t seen you for days!” Lyra greets the raven.

The little bird tilts its head and squawks. Lyra giggles as she pats the raven’s head. “Hey look. My friend gave his poem book to me and one of the titles is The Raven. I like it, by the way. And I’ve been thinking about him lately, even dreaming about him. To be honest, it’s disturbing. Do you think I should invite him here and tell him the truth?”

The raven gives her a nod.

“You are right. A cuppa is best served with a friend, don’t you think?”

Corvus flaps its wings eagerly. The black bird flies around Lyra’s head before making its way outside the house.

“Leaving already? You haven’t eaten yet!” Lyra shouts at the raven. “Alright then, send my regard to your girlfriend!”

Corvus squawks something like a curse, causing Lyra to barks in laughter. She heads back to the counter as she turns on the radio to entertain her confusing state of mind, picking the channel telepathically until she finds her favourite channel. She listens to the song while summoning her phone from the bedroom, tapping the screen until Vergil’s contact name pops on the screen.

Down in the willow garden

Where me and my love did meet

As we sat a-courtin'

My love fell off to sleep

I had a bottle of burgundy wine

My love, she did not know

So I poisoned that dear little girl

On the banks below

I drew a saber through her

It was a bloody knife

I threw her in the river

Which was a dreadful sign

“By Jove, that song is sinister,” Lyra chuckles darkly. Her solemn face is turning pale. “As for the poisoned little girl… well…”

She clicks Vergil’s name, waiting for the devil to answer with fingers tangled between the black pendant on her neck, hoping half-heartedly that he wouldn’t pick her call.

~~~

A/N : the song mentioned at the end of the chapter is “Down In The Willow Garden” by The Everly Brothers.

Tagging : @drusoona @harlot-of-oblivion @queenmuzz @shiranyaaww @andieperrie18 @rubixa-seraph @blooddrop-palace (I honestly forgot who to tag, so if you want to be tagged just send you reply or DM me! XD)

Masterlist | AO3

#devil may cry fanfiction #vergil x reader #vergil x oc #vergil x lyra #vergil #dante #nero #lyra #vergil x original character #original character #developing relationship #mystery #tales of apotelesma #spark of stardust #night writes

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thefatedthoughtofyou · 4 years ago

Text

Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap) - Part 16

Summary: Sam inherits Steve Roger's crime empire after a handful of his men betray and kill him. The rest of the crime world, sensing an opening, go after Sam and the territories he's inherited from Steve. Thankfully, Steve left him a number, someone to call if he ever needs help. Someone, Steve claimed, he can trust. But can Sam really trust a mercenary with that much blood on his name? And that many knives in his pockets.

WARNINGS: (there will eventually be all of these things) blood, violence, murder, shooting, stabbing, sex, blood play , food related things: malnutrition, feeding, blow jobs, bathing/washing, chronic pain. Limb loss and regrowth. Bullet wounds. Gore.

18+ Content: Make Good Choices Kids <3

Ao3

He wakes to the sun warming his face, and burning his eyes, as it shines through the heavy curtains over the window that isn't his. His sits up quickly, breathing heavy, before he remembers he's at Sam's. He rubs at his eyes as his heart calms, the pounding in his ears fading as he swings his feet out of bed. He rests his elbows on his knees and then rests his head in his hands. A knock at the door comes, he doesn't move.

"Mr. Barn- sorry, Bucky?" Comes Torres's voice through the door.

"Yeah?" Bucky asks, still not moving.

"Sam's in his office. Whenever you're ready." The kid says, Bucky nods and then realizes Torres can't see him.

"I'll be down presently." He says, as sarcastically as he can through his freshly awakened haze. He hears Torres snort on the other side of the door.

"I'll let him know." There's a pause, the sound of Torres taking a few steps and then turning around.

"There's some fresh cut fruit in the kitchen if you're hungry." His voice says, quietly, Bucky can practically see him blushing on the other side of the door.

"Thanks kid." He says, finally moving, lifting his head and watching as Torres' shadow disappears from the space beneath the door.

He sighs and looks at the ceiling, poping his neck before looking back down. There are blood stains on the carpet from the day before. He can see Helen's footprints in some of them. He'd have to thank her again. She was always saving him when he was being an idiot. He grabs at his boots near the foot of the bed. Pulling on the pair of socks that had been shoved into them. He tucks the baggy sweats he'd been given into his boots and laces them tightly, grimacing at the feel of left over blood around his foot.

He makes his way downstairs, passing the kitchen without a glance, stopping outside of Sam's office. He takes a deep breath and then knocks, three raps of his knuckles in rapid succession.

"Come in." Sam's voice says. He sounds tired. Bucky turns the knob and walks into the dark office, closing the door behind him. He turns to see Sam watching him.

"Feeling better?" He asks, and Bucky can't tell if he's genuinely asking or just being an ass. Bucky smiles at him and drops himself into one of the chairs in front of Sam's desk.

"All good. Shouldn't you be... not here?" Bucky asks, pointing around the room, glaring at Sam.

"I've been in here for ten mintues. And I wasn't having this conversation in that fucking panic room." Sam says, laying his hands flat on the desk and glaring back. Bucky looks at him, he still looks tired, and annoyed. Bucky fights a smirk, knowing he's annoyed because of him. He thinks back, remembers the one time he'd spent time in that room with Steve, and decides to let it go.

"Fair enough." He says, nodding. He watches Sam's eyes widen, clearly shocked, for just the fraction of a second before he schooled his features again.

"So. Who are these people?" Sam asks, leaning back, relaxing a bit in his chair. Bucky takes a deep breath.

"They are... assassins. Old friends of mine, actually. Well, friends is probably a strong word. Let's go with acquaintances. We've worked together a few times." Bucky explained, badly.

"Acquaintances." Sam says, his voice flat as he stares at Bucky. Bucky nods.

"You're acquaintances, are trying to kill me." Sam says, voice still emotionless.

"Past acquaintances." Bucky says with a tilt of his head. Sam closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, Bucky presses his lips together, trying not to smile.

"So someone hired them? To kill me?" Sam asks, his eyes opening slowly.

"I would assume so, yeah. That's usually how it works unless-" Bucky froze, his fingers curling around the arms of the chair so hard the wood creaked.

"Unless?" Sam asked, his eyebrows rising, impatience in his voice.

"Gimme your phone." He said, holding his hand out. Sam stared at him, not moving, Bucky shook his hand and Sam moved to dig it out of his pocket. He held it out, pulling it back a little as Bucky reached for it, his eyes widening again.

"I'm not gonna do anything bad." Bucky said, he was leaning foward now, his butt on the edge of his seat as his out stretched hand chased after Sam's. Sam moved forward again, dropping the phone in his hand.

Bucky tapped at the screen for a few moments, checking all the usual places, the number that popped onto the screen when he entered his passcode had his stomach turning. He grimaced at the phone and sighed, shaking his head.

"What? What is it?" Sam asked, his voice hard now, like he was reaching the end of his patience.

"They put a bounty on you." Bucky said, erasing the history in Sam's phone and tossing it back. He watched Sam check the screen and then put the phone away again. Watched him swallow roughly before looking back up at Bucky.

"How much?"

"A lot." Bucky said, licking his lips and shoving the baggy sleeves of Sam's shirt up his arms.

"How much Barnes?" Sam almost growled at him. Bucky took a deep breath and leaned forward.

"75 million."

Sam's eyes widened again, he stared at Bucky.

"Seventy five..." Sam trailed off, his eyes going a bit glassy.

"Million. Yeah." Bucky finished, furrowing his brow as he looked at Sam.

"They really want you dead man." Bucky said, grimacing slightly as soon as the words left his mouth.

"Yeah no shit." Sam said.

"Sorry." Bucky shrugged, leaned back in his chair again.

"What the fuck am I supposed to do now? I'm not fucking living in that goddamn panic room. I'll go insane." Sam said, pushing himself to his feet, his chair rolling backwards with the force of it.

"I don't know yet." Bucky said.

"You don't know? That's fuckin helpful!" Sam shouted, throwing his hands up at his sides.

"Hey, I'm working on it. These people? Everyone, that's gonna be coming after you? They're trained. Like me and Wade. They're not just a room full of mobsters trying to play highnoon at the O.K. Corral." Bucky tried to keep his voice level. Sam turned on him fast.

"Oh and that went so well didn't it? You got shot. Twice. And Wade lost a fucking arm. And a foot. Somehow!" Sam growled, stalking closer to Bucky. He stayed in his seat, not rising to the argument Sam was trying to start.

"What can I say? Shit happens. And the foot was... later." Bucky said, avoiding Sam's eyes at the memory of cutting off Wade's foot.

"Listen," he started, before Sam could shout at him again.

"I understand you're stressed. This shit, is stressful. But if you go into this half cocked, people are gonna die. Your people. And I know you don't want that. And I know that you're smart. You know it's not a good idea to rush this." Bucky stood finally, putting himself eye level with Sam.

"I know you're wound tight right now. But you gotta calm down. Just, take a breath. And we can brain storm. And then we can kill these fuckers, and get your shit back under control." Bucky reached out, aiming for Sam's shoulder and hitting nothing but air as Sam pulled away from him. He made a fist in the air and dropped his hand. Watching Sam stare at him, his chest rising and falling quickly. He took a deep breath, his hands moving toward himself, motioning for Sam to do the same. He held in the smile threatening at his lips as Sam did as he was directed. Bucky let the breath out, nodding as Sam did the same.

He watched Sam lean against the desk, his hand holding him up as he took another slow breath.

"Better?" Bucky asked, tilting his head to get into Sam's eyeline.

"Yes." Sam sounded annoyed. He moved his hand over his face and stood up straight again.

"We need a plan then." Sam said, his eyes going steely as he looked at Bucky. Bucky could see the gears turning, Sam's thoughts racing behind his eyes.

"That we do. A good one too. Like the ones Steve used to tell me stories about." Bucky said, smirking when Sam's eyes snapped to him, looking shocked again and forgetting to hide it.

"He was proud of you Sam." Bucky took a step forward.

"He wouldn't have left this to you, if he didn't think you could handle it." Bucky wanted to reach out again, give Sam's shoulder a squeeze, but he didn't, he bit his lip and nodded instead. His eyes locked on Sam's, waiting for him to respond. Sam nodded back, slowly, and opened his mouth to say something. The house shaking around them and the explosion that filled the air cut him off, making Bucky's ears ring as they both dropped to the floor, crouching next to Sam's desk, Bucky putting himself between Sam and the only entrance to his office.

Bucky looked to the door, Torres burst in, and he could see a cloud of dust in the hall behind him.

"What do we do?" Torres shouted, there was blood dripping out of his ears, he kept wiping at it. Bucky grabbed his wrists, stopping him.

"You all have to get out if here. Take Maria and Helen and go. I'll take Sam." He shouted, raising his brows at Torres until he nodded. Bucky looked at Sam, he was crouched next to him, his side pressed to Bucky's as he watched them, his eyes moving to the door over and over.

"Everyone else needs to scatter. I don't care where. There's safe houses all over the city. Get to one. And stay there." He looked at Torres again, waiting for him to process what he'd told him.

"Okay! Be careful!" He shouted back, each of his hands going to Bucky and Sam's shoulders, they nodded at him. Bucky watched him disappear again, coughing as he ran into the hall, shouting for Helen and Maria. Bucky turned back to Sam, the ringing in his ears quieting.

"I'm gonna get you outta here. Stay close to me." He grabbed Sam's hand, stood up, and placed Sam's hand on his shoulder.

"Do not let go until I say you can." He told Sam, staring at him.

"I won't." Sam said, shouting a little, his ears no doubt ringing as well. Bucky nodded, felt Sam's hand fist in his shirt, and ran out into the hall.

He stayed low, Sam right behind him, as he made his way through the dusty hall, he didn't see much damage. The explosion must have been at the other end of the house, or at least around the corner. Bucky couldn't tell, it had been loud, but that didn't mean it had been close. They ran into a few gaurds on their way, Sam echoing Bucky's orders to scatter at them and sending them on their way. Bucky pushed the kitchen door open slowly, looking into the empty room before dragging Sam through the door. He stood up then, moving to the pantry, he moved into it and shut the door behind him.

"You can let go." He told Sam, and felt his tight grip disappear. He moved his hand over the shelf along the right wall, looking for what he knew was there.

"Why are we in the pantry?" Sam whispered, still staying close to Bucky's side.

"Because, somewhere around here, there's a..." Bucky trailed off, his hands moving under the shelf now, fingers searching.

"Aha! There's a switch." He told Sam, smiling at him as he pressed it, the wall sliding to the side, opening to show a small dark room.

"Come on." Bucky said, motioning for Sam to go before him. He stepped in after him and slid the wall back into place.

"What is this?" Sam asked, looking around in the extremely dimly lit room. Bucky looked at him for a moment, and then grabbed the rifle hanging on the wall. He swung the strap over his head, so the gun was resting agaisnt his back.

"It's a-" Bucky turned to Sam in the low light.

"It's a secret get away tunnel." He said, smiling an awkward smile. He bent down and grabbed the duffle bag that was waiting on the floor, hanging that around his neck as well.

"A secret..." Sam's voice trailed off.

"Get away tunnel, yeah. I know it sounds made up, but I promise it's not. Excuse me." Bucky gently nudged Sam out of the way, pressing him back agaisnt one wall before kneeling down. He pressed his hands to the ground, hard, and then lifted them, watching as the previously invisible square of concrete lifted from the floor. Bucky lifted the hatch to reveal a ladder and looked up Sam.

"After you." He said, smiling. Sam glared down at him before kneeling at his side.

"Where does this go? How long has this been here?" He asked, not moving. Bucky looked at him and sighed.

"It's been here forever. Since before the house was here. And it goes somewhere safe. Now can we please." He motioned to the dark hole in the floor. Sam looked at him skeptically for another short moment and then moved, setting one foot on the ladder and then climbing in.

"There we go. Okay." Bucky waited for Sam to disappear into the dark before lowering himself onto the ladder and following. Once he was far enough in, he reached up and pulled the hatch shut above him, sending them into complete darkness.

"Hey!" Sam's shakey voice called from below him.

"Sorry bout that. But we can't leave it open." Bucky heard Sam sigh in relief beneath him as his foot hit the floor. Bucky went down a few more steps before jumping down. He tensed when he felt Sam's hand on his shoulder.

"Hang on a sec i haaaave..." Bucky drug out the last word as he rummaged in the duffle bag. His hands found what they were looking for quickly and he brought it out, snapping the large glow stick and shaking it in front of him as light bloomed before them. He watched Sam's body droop as the orange light pushed the darkness back a bit.

"Afraid of the dark are we?" Bucky teased, handing Sam the glow stick and grabbing another for himself. He popped it and laughed at the look Sam was giving him.

"Not the dark. Dark, strange tunnels, underneath my house? Maybe." Sam said, rolling his eyes as he held the light up, looking at their surroundings.

Behind the ladder was a solid concrete wall, and opposite that, the tunnel stretched on in a pitch black square. Bucky took a deep breath, looking into the dark.

"We gotta go." He told Sam, taking a few steps, Sam didn't move.

"Where does this go?" He asked again, his eyes locked on the darkness ahead of them. Bucky rolled his eyes, moving back a step, he grabbed Sam's hand, snapping him out of the shock he was in.

"Come on. We have to go." Sam shook his head, as if to clear it, and Bucky tugged on his hand, pulling Sam into the dark without further explanation.

They walked for miles. Bucky never letting go of Sam's hand. He ignored the way Sam never once tried to pull out of his grasp. They passed one or two off shooting tunnles on the way, but nothing else. Not even rats. Which was Bucky was glad for, he fuckin hated seeing rats down here. Sam stayed quiet, keeping pace mostly, and staying close. Their dim lights eventually illuminated another ladder and Bucky finally released Sam's hand, ignoring the sweat on his palm, wiping it on his pants.

Bucky climbed up the ladder, pressed his thumb to the print reader there, and waited for the click. He shoved the hatch open with a grunt, squinting as light shown into his eyes, not bright light, but after being in the dark for so long, he may as well have been looking into the sun. He climbed a few more steps and noticed he didn't hear Sam climing after him. He sighed, and climbed out if the hole, turning and looking back down. He could see Sam, his hand on the ladder in the circle of light, looking up at him.

"What's up there Bucky?" He asked again, tucking his glowstick into the waist of his pants, resting both hands on the ladder now.

Bucky sighed, his neck feeling hot as he looked at Sam. He fell back onto his heels and rubbed at his neck, his fingers dragging through his hair as he rolled his eyes at himself, his stomach twisting. He cleared his throat and leaned back over the hole in the floor, looking down at Sam looking up at him. He took a deep breath.

"My place." He sighed.

"It's my place."

Sam stared at him for a moment, hands clenching and unclenching on the ladder. Bucky heard him take a deep breath before lifting his foot onto the ladder as well. Bucky's stomach swam nervously as he watched Sam climb toward the light, moving closer and closer to him.

Closer to his, abandoned, dilapidated, mess of a building. Closer to his emtpy frigde. Closer to his sparce furniture and sheetless beds. Bucky watched Sam climb closer and closer, his heart beating faster and faster. His hands itching to slam the hatch shut with each rung Sam moved past. Why the fuck had he brought Sam here. Sam's hand hit the top rung and then reached out, startling Bucky out of his thoughts. Sam looked up at Bucky, his eyes squinting from the light.

Bucky grabbed his hand, a strained smile on his lips, his heart pounding in his ears, his stomach fluttering as his thoughts raced.

Bucky held onto his hand tightly, and pulled Sam out of the dark.

#sambucky #winter falcon #sambucky fic #winter falcon fic #dirty deeds #dirty deeds part 16 #dd(ddc)#sambucky mob au #mob boss sam wilson #mercenary bucky #my writing

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tessiete · 4 years ago

Text

Yeah, yeah, yeah another prompt fill that came from DMs. And also was my fault. @treescape asked for prompts and I um, offered this, and immediately took it back, and didn’t even do a very good jobby on it so. *shrug*

Anyway! A vague continuation of The Punishment of Silence, post Order 66

THE HOPE OF ORPHANS, AND UNFATHERED FRUIT

He wakes to silence. There is nothing except the sound of his own breath being scraped from his lungs like wax under fingernails, the beating of his heart against his ribs, and the creak of his bones. There is nothing else. Even his cry of terror has died upon his lips, unfledged and unrealised in this void. He is all alone.

“We’ll be coming out of hyperspace soon.”

He hardly recognises the voice, hardly hears the words as he reaches for the only source of warmth and light in space. Beside him, tucked securely between his chest and the wall, is a heavy bundle of coarse wool, and worn linen. Within it, the weakly struggling flesh of new life.

“Hush, Luke,” he whispers, and even his voice is absent.

But Luke...Luke is here. With him. Luke is golden. Luke is the sun, and he shines so brightly that for a moment, the absence of stars is obscured by the break of dawn, and he turns his face to meet it. Luke cries, his voice wet with the sorrow of Obi-Wan’s soul, and he weeps where Obi-Wan cannot.

“Master Kenobi?” The voice calls again. It is young, too, and threaded with uncertainty as it seeks a mooring in this black new world. “Master Kenobi, I need your help.”

He must answer it.

But he is wrung dry, having wasted it all in the desert of affection.

“They’re asking for a landing code,” the boy says. “They want to search the ship.”

“Let them,” he replies. “We’ve nothing for them to find.”

He adjusts the swaddling around the babe, pulling the folds up higher until the little face is barely visible, and drawing up his hood until his own face is shadowed and obscured.

The pilot fumbles for the comm, but hesitates before he makes the call.

“Master, we haven’t got the clearance,” he says. “I tried Republic codes but they’re all invalid, and I daren’t use a - a Jedi -”

“No.”

“Master, they’re waiting.”

Outside the viewport, Tatooine looms larger, and larger, round and golden, like the husk of a burnt out star. Just endless swathes of sand and stone. A barren rock. The twin suns watch, and Obi-Wan feels his hackles rise, as though he were prey under the baleful gaze of a predator in the night.

“Tell them whatever you must,” he sighs. His shoulders slump, and his eyes close. He is weary.

He cannot see the way his pilot stares at him, hopeful, and waiting. He doesn’t want to. The weight of his need is punishment enough. Luke is light in his arms, and he rocks him gently.

“This is the pilot of The Slip, Corellian class YT-1300 AUX requesting permission to land.”

“Airbase to Slip , have you got those docking permits yet?”

A single, shimmering breath, and the pilot answers, “No. But we - I can pay you.”

Obi-Wan does not object.

“What sort of payment we talking?”

“What do you care, so long as you get your money?”

“I don’t know,” replies the man. “You bargain like a pirate, but you sound like a kid. I ain’t convinced you got anything I want.”

He can feel his eyes upon him, but he cannot tear his own away from the babe. He is preoccupied with this one last precious thing. The pilot grits his teeth, and replies with all the arrogance of his past life. “Well, how about this - if you don’t like it, you can shoot me when I get there?”

There is silence on the other end, then the comm crackles back to life. The deck officer’s voice rasps with laughter. “Alright, kid,” he says. “You got a deal. Hope you ain’t got family to miss you. We’ll see you at Dock 3, on the south side.”

“Dock 3,” says pilot. “Copy that.”

“And kid? Don’t try anything stupid.”

He takes the ship in with a steady hand, but as they get closer and closer Korkie feels his breath quicken in anticipation. They haven’t got anything to pay with. They have no credits, no valuables, nothing personal which might tie them back to the Core, or worse, to the Temple. He doesn’t worry so much for himself, having no particular training in the Force, nor any distinctly Jedi affectations. His borrowed robes he discarded on Polis Massa, but his father…

Obi-Wan is unmistakably a Jedi in his sand coloured tunics, and thick, wool cloak meant for all terrains but a blazing desert. However, there is one appurtenance which may work in their favour -

Everyone knows that Jedi have no children, and he will not relinquish Luke.

“Slip to base: Docking clamps locked, and pressure restored to atmo baseline. Please advise.”

There is sweat beading upon his upper lip. Obi-Wan rocks Luke as he fusses, awakened by the sounds of noise outside. People are waiting for them.

“This is Squaddy Redsun. Lower your ramp, and prepare for immediate boarding.”

He looks to the Jedi, and gathers himself. There is nothing on the ship, and so there is nothing to pack or take as they leave, but still, he casts one last look at the cockpit. Then, he ushers his father forward, through the main hold, and to the head of the ramp. He presses the pair to the side, leaving them just out of plain sight, and so wrapped up in the folds of Obi-Wan’s cloak and each other as to be indistinguishable from shadow. He steps back. He strikes the button to lower the ramp with an open palm. Sunlight floods the hold, and he is left blinking and blind as a rough voice calls to him.

“You the captain, then, kid?”

“Yes, sir,” he replies, a hand up to shield his eyes from the glare. He can see a man clad in worn leathers, and decorated in the gleaming white bone of some fearsome beast. Beside him, two others with wrist guards, and pikes. He makes no attempt to resist as the guards approach, and does not fight as he is grabbed by the elbow and shoved down the ramp by the first.

But the second has discovered Obi-Wan, and grabs at him with the same barbarity. The Jedi flinches away, and curls around himself. One pale hand reaches back, and Korkie can feel the air turn electric.

“No!” he cries, startling both the guard and Obi-Wan, the warning clear in the fraught timbre of his voice. “He has a child,” he says. “He’s harmless. But there’s a child. Please. I am the pilot. This is my ship.”

“And who is he then?” Redsun demands.

“No one,” says Korkie. “A refugee of - of Mandalore.”

“He don’t look like no hunter.”

Korkie shrugs, watching closely as Obi-Wan descends untouched, the guard at his elbow. “I don’t know that he has enough left to look like anything.”

“Ha,” chortles Redsun. His men laugh, too. “Then I suppose it’s you what has my payment. Docking codes don’t come cheap.”

“No, sir,” says Korkie. “I - I haven’t any credits.”

“That Republican dross is no good out here, any way,” Redsun spits. “Now, where’s my pay?”

The guards edge closer, and Luke chokes on a feeble cry.

“Hush, dear heart,” murmurs Obi-Wan. “Hush, sweet thing. And sleep.”

“The ship!” says Korkie. “You can take the ship. It’s in fine working order, and the hyperdrive is good for your smaller jumps. I -”

His neck snaps, his teeth snap together, and he can taste blood as a fist connects with his cheek. It leaves him staggering, and spitting into the sand. Luke begins to wail. The sound rings out around him, but he struggles to place its source. Nearby, he knows. They must still be beside him. He reaches out and catches the edge of heavy wool in his grip.

“None of that banthashit, boy!” shouts Redsun, and he is near as well. He can smell the man as he comes closer, still. “That ship ain’t worth half the trouble you’ve caused. What else you got?”

“Nothing,” he pleads, struggling upright again. The guard at his side restrains him. “Nothing. But take the ship, and I can - I can work for you. You can garnish my wages -”

“Garnish your wages? What kind of -” A blaster primes. He hears the pitch rise with the charge until it disappears. “Now, we had a deal,” says Redsun. “You pay me now, or I take it out of your hide. Right? You pay me, or I shoot you.”

“Yes, sir,” whispers Korkie.

The barrel presses against his forehead.

“So you decide,” says Redsun. “Give me my money, or I kill you where you stand. You, and that screeching brat.”

Korkie tries to swallow, but all his tastes is the sour, metal tang of blood. It roils in his stomach. He feels faint. Luke screams, and screams but Obi-Wan only tries harder to sooth him, singing some sad lullaby. A Mandalorian lullaby.

Korkie recognises it. His...his mother used to sing it to him. He clenches his hand into a fist, tracing his thumb over the ring he wears, as a reminder. And he remembers -

“My ring,” he says, slipping the jewelry from his hand. It is a simple band, but thick and completely unblemished by age or use. “I can give you this,” he insists, holding it so that the suns set it ablaze, glittering like fire in his hand.

“And what’s that?”

“Pure beskar,” he says.

Redsun lowers the blaster. Korkie can see his interest pique, and greed replace fury in his cold, black eyes.

“Beskar,” he says. “And how’d you be coming by that?”

He nods at one of the guards, who swaps his pike for a techscanner. The ring is plucked from Korkie’s fingers, and the green light of the machine washes over it.

“Like I said,” says Korkie. “Mandalorian refugees.

The guard looks up. “It’s as he says, Squaddy. Beskar.”

Redsun regards him for a moment. He shifts his jaw, and rolls his tongue over his teeth. Korkie holds his gaze, even as blood drips from his chin. At last, Redsun gives the sign, and his man lets Korkie go.

“I’ll be taking the ring,” he declares. “And your kriffing ship, for all the good I’ll make of it. And you get off with a warning.”

“Yes, sir,” says Korkie. “Thank you, sir.”

Korkie gathers Master Kenobi in his arms, and pushes him towards the exit. Through the wide, rusted blast doors, he can see where the dockyards end, and the streets beyond begin. Their escape is at hand, but Obi-Wan is slow to move, fearful of jostling Luke who has settled tentatively once more. The guards make no move to assist, but Korkie is determined. He keeps between Redsun and the Jedi, he keeps him moving forward, and they are hardly ten steps from freedom when blaster fire rings out across the docking bay.

There is a blaze of fire along his side, and Korkie falls in a heap of fine, yellow dust. Breathing hard, he presses a hand to the source of heat, and cries out as agony is awakened by his touch. His fingers come away bloody, but he sits up, then stands, then stumbles on towards the exit, leaning on Obi-Wan, urging him to go, to move, to keep pushing forward. Step by step. He can hear the guards and Redsun laughing behind them.

“Don’t you try playing games like that round these parts, son,” shouts the man. “Not everyone’s as kind as Squaddy Redsun.”

The crowds are easy enough to get lost in, and soon Squaddy Redsun and the Mos Eisley docks are far behind them, but Korkie feels their ruin is closer than ever. His side aches, and bleeds sluggishly where the bolt hadn’t instantly cauterised the wound. He is hot. He is thirsty. But worst of all, he cannot speak or read a single word of Huttese.

“Please,” he asks of a woman hustling by with an armful of black fruits. “Please, can you tell me where to find shelter? An inn?”

She cuts him a glare, and hurries on.

“Sir, if you could - I need to find a place to stay.”

The man flicks his lekku, and shakes Korkie off.

He cannot tell if they’ve tried this street already, or not, all the architecture looks so similar to his unfamiliar eyes, and all the people are one massive murmuration of a society he is not part of. Then suddenly, a child stands before him. A little boy, with hair the colour of the sandstone walls of the city, and eyes like the sky reaches out a grubby hand.

“We need food,” says Korkie. “And a place to sleep. Please.”

The child nods, and Korkie takes his hand, fisting his other in the folds of Obi-Wan’s robe to be sure he doesn’t lose him in the crowds. They follow the child through innumerable streets, and darkened alleys before they are abandoned in front of a low building on the outskirts of town.

“Can we stay here?” Korkie asks. The child nods. The door slides open at his touch, and he is swallowed up in warm yellow light while Korkie hesitates on the threshold.

But it is getting dark, and he can think of no other alternatives. So he knocks.

“We’re all full up.” He hears the voice first, but it is soon matched by the scowling countenance of a woman worn old by the suns. The little boy clings to her skirts, now shy and retiring after his brazen rescue. She looks at Korkie and his charges from the doorway, and nearly turns away.

“Wait, wait, gedet'ye, jatne vod, vi linibar taap at nuhoy.” He’s slipping, and he only notices when her brow crinkles in confusion. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m just - please, we need a place to stay. Just for the night.”

“We don’t have any more rooms,” she says.

“We have a baby.”

He clutches at Obi-Wan’s arm, until he steps forward, and the light falls across Luke’s sleeping face. The woman sighs.

“It’s five wuipui,” she says.

“I haven’t any money,” he says.

“Then I haven’t any beds,” she replies. He catches the door before it can slide shut.

“Please,” he says. “Please.”

And at that moment, Luke wakes and begins to weep. The woman stills, and Korkie thanks the stars for timing.

“One bed,” she says. “I won’t have a babe die on my doorstep. Bad business. Bad bly is what it is. But I can only afford to take the one of you with it.”

“Him,” says Korkie, shoving Obi-Wan forward. “He’s his father.”

“And where’s the mother?”

“Dead,” says Korkie. “It’s only - they only have each other.”

The woman nods, and reaches out to pull Obi-Wan into the shelter of her home. The wool slips from his fingers, leaving them clammy and sticky in the rapidly cooling night air.

“Thank you,” he says, and they disappear behind the door.

At once, the strange euphoria of a desperate flight deserts him, and he collapses in the sand against the wall. His side aches, though the bleeding has mostly stopped. He supposes that is the result of dehydration as much as anything. His lips are cracked. His tongue feels thick. His own blood sits uneasily in his stomach. The streets empty, the second sun slips below the horizon as he watches, and soon he begins to shiver. It’s difficult to stay awake, but after so many hours of preternatural vigilance it feels impossible that he should sleep. There is always some danger, now. They will always be hunted. He blinks, and sees three moons. Perhaps he is concussed, but then Coruscant had four moons, and Mandalore had two, so that is no measure of his injury.

He’d travelled once to Concordia, when he was a child. It was a beautiful place, and it felt, at the time, as though he’d been transported to some ancient world. There were trees. And grassland. There was water you could swim in, and could drink, and it ran freely over rock, and silt in unpredictable patterns, like the veins on the back of his hand. Though he’d been born in Sundari, there was something about Concordia that felt viscerally his. He recognized himself in the wildness of it all, as though it were a sort of mirror, as though if one were to pull up all the grasses and the plants they might pull up all his roots as well. The moons of Tatooine are white. They shine like stars, but there is no warmth to them. He doesn’t think he’ll ever see Concordia again.

Warm light illuminates the dark, turning the sand golden again.

“Alright, none of that. Can’t have Core soft boys dying on my stoop, either.”

“‘M not from the Core,” Korkie mumbles.

“That posh accent of your father’s could’ve fooled me,” she says. He feels her prop him up against the wall, and wonders when he’d laid down. She taps his face with her hand on the cheek that isn’t hurt. Water touches his lips, and he opens his eyes. “Drink up,” she says. “Heat’ll kill you faster than a blastoh will out here, lapti wermo.”

He drinks as quickly as she lets him, and until the vessel is empty. The clay cup is cool against his skin, and he presses his swollen eye against it, grateful for the relief.

“Now,” she says, taking it from his hand, and standing it upright in the sand. “Let’s see about that blaster wound.”

“It’s not bad,” he insists. She ignores him, and tugs his jacket down one shoulder, and slides his arm free. He hisses in pain, and she cuts him a look that says she has absolutely no confidence in his ability to self-diagnose.

Blood stains his close-fitting sark, and she draws back.

“I’m going to get some vibroshears,” she says. “I’ll need to cut this off.”

“No,” he protests. “Just lift it. I haven’t got anything else.”

“You haven’t got this , you stupa,” she grumbles. Korkie makes no reply, but leans forward and begins to tug at the hem of his shirt. In response, she leans forward to help him, and launches into a vehement stream of Huttese that makes no sense to Korkie. He comprehends the spirit of the words just the same. “Bolla rass tata, u beggybeggy brite lapti wermo.”

“On my world, we’d say ‘slanar nek gar shabuir’,” he says, grimacing as the shirt comes off. “Or something like.”

“Shabuir?” she says, letting the word bubble on her lips. “I like that one. I’ll keep it.”

“It’s yours.”

The fabric lifts away, heavy with dirt and grime. She is careful not to tear it further as she lays it flat to dry in the sand, and Korkie does appreciate that. Such a small measure of care, and yet already so coveted in this drought.

“I’ve a poultice,” she offers, withdrawing from the darkness a little bowl of sludge. “It isn’t bacta, but it’s better than nowt.”

Her fingers are cold against his side, or the wound is hot, but either way, he finds her ministrations soothing, and it’s not long before he finds his eyes slipping closed again. He fights it, and thinks he wins, but when wakes to her carefully tucking the ends of his bandages, the moons are much higher than they were before.

“There now,” she says, brushing back his hair, and giving his cheek a kind caress. “Let’s get you inside. Give you some food. Put you to bed.”

“I thought you said you had none,” he mumbles.

She smiles, and throws his arm across her shoulders. “That was before I saw how pretty you were. Now, come on.”

He grins, though it hurts, and rises to his feet when she pulls him. He staggers to the door, his feet made clumsier with exhaustion more than injury this time, and doesn’t fight when she leads him to a room, and drops him on a bed, and urges him to rest his head upon a thin pillow of sand and dry grass. The light goes out, and the door slides shut behind her. In the dark, he cannot tell if his eyes are closed, or not. But he is not alone. There is a voice.

Someone is singing a lullaby nearby. A Mandalorian lullaby. It is an old call and response. He used to sing the answers with his mother when he was very young. He hasn’t heard it in years. But when the singer gets to the end of the verse, he joins in.

“A ner kar'ta cuyir gotal ciryc, bal ni kar'tayl gar darasuum nayc or'atu...O meg, o meg, kelir ni vaabir?”

The voice answers back on a sigh, though the words are different than they ever were before.

“O, ner Kiorkicek,” it sings. “Ni kelir ratiin yaimpar bal cuyir saanyc be gar.”

A baby sniffles in the dark. There is another bed. And he recognises the voice.

“Buir Kenobi,” he says, his voice hardly more than a thought. “Cuyir gar pirusti? Cuyir gar morut'yc.”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan replies. “We are well. You have saved us. Now, sleep. We shall all begin again in the morning.”

There is a warm hand upon his brow, and the irresistible temptation of sleep, and Korkie drops off into dreams.

#my fic #prompt fill #star wars #obi-wan kenobi #luke skywalker #korkie kryze #korkie is a kenobi #gffa #tatooine #post-order 66 #idk #whatever friends

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sunshinejihyun · 4 years ago

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Enamored || Lucien

Author’s Note: So! This is my first time writing for Lucien, and I’m only on chapter 11 of the game so I apologize if he seems out of character for him later in the game, this is just how I find him right now.

Summary: Lucien finds love in a place he never expected: the orphanage he volunteered at

Warnings: Brief mentions of familial death, mutual pining, kinda a slow burn?

Word Count: 2568

Masterlist

On your 15th birthday, your present from the world was your parents passing in a terrible accident, leaving you to live on your own. Not too long after your family left you, you got taken in by an orphanage with a kind man as an owner who raised you as he would his own child. Now, at age 22, you were doing all you could to give back to the man who helped raise you, that included continuing to live at the orphanage and donating all your extra time to giving love and attention to all the wonderful children living there now.

As you groaned from being awoken by a soft kick to your stomach, you shoved your head into the thin mattress you were sharing with a child who had taken a particular liking to you. Peony was a sweet little girl with a kind smile, but she was a restless sleeper and you always ended with various bruises from her knocking into you during the night. Taking a deep breath, you rolled out of the bed, going over to the window that overlooked the large gate that kept all of the intruders who wanted to exploit the children out. As long as you remembered, you were completely intrigued with the volunteers who showed up early in the morning on weekends and spent their time reading, teaching, or just talking to the children. Every morning that there were volunteers there, you would wake up early as well and watch as the first group of early rising children ran out to greet the people they’d grown fond of, an endearing grin adorning your face.

This morning was different though; there was a new man in line. His clothes were cleanly pressed and his calculating eyes had a smile within them that you could see from far away. You watched as he bent down in front of a little boy and said something, a soft smile on his face, before the boy jumped up and shouted before throwing his chubby arms around the tall man in a tight hug.

Anxiety bubbled in your chest as the door to the sleeping area slammed open causing you to startle and you turned away from the window, grabbing a book and trying to make yourself look busy. “Is it possible you can start waking up the rest of the kids? They’re going to be sad if they miss visiting hours today..” One of the workers grabbed a broom from the corner of the room and smiled at you as you nodded your head. “Thanks, we’ve set aside some breakfast for you in the kitchen.”

When the worker left the room, you hurriedly went around and tried to wake them up so you could catch another glimpse of the new volunteer who looked so out of place in this environment. And when you did peek out of the window, you swore that the man was looking back at you.

The glances went on for days. Every weekend he would show up bright and early, and you would watch out the window as he greeted the kids before following them inside a room. By then, you also knew that it wasn’t just your imagination. The dark haired man was looking for you - at you - and watching, and that brought a flutter to your heart. You knew nothing about this person; you only knew his name from the children who came back chattering excitedly about the newest science experiment he taught them.

When the weather’s a little nicer, everyone would welcome opening a window or two and maybe then you could catch some of the soft words he spoke, but only if he was close enough to a window for the wind to pick up the sound and carry it to you. Until then, you just had to watch and wonder.

The owner of the orphanage silently watched as you curiously snuck around the orphanage, trying to catch a glimpse of the man who intrigued you so and he couldn’t help but smile as he whispered in that man’s ear that there was someone inside that day, looking for someone to help make lunch to feed the children.

You also watched the owner in horror as he whispered in Lucien’s ear before he made eye contact with you through the window, nodded, and started making his way towards the entrance near where you were currently located.

“The owner said you needed some help with lunch today?” His voice came out softer than you’d heard before and your heartbeat sped up. Lucien, noting your flushed cheeks, raised his eyebrows at you before gesturing in the general way to the kitchen.

As you chopped the apples for the children, Lucien started making the sandwiches and you both made idle conversation. You learned that he was a scientist who gave lectures and was researching a top secret project. You told him about how you got taken in here at the orphanage when you had no one and now you wanted to stay and help, to pay back the owner for the years he helped raise you. The conversation never died, it was never awkward with Lucien. One thing you’d say would lead him into talking about something else and vice versa. It was easy with him.

Before you knew it, you'd both worked your way through all the meals for the children and had no reason to continue chatting in the kitchen, so Lucien left to go back to his lab, but not before leaving without your phone number, so he can receive updates on the kids while he’s away, of course.

Late one night a few weeks later, you were awoken by your phone ringing, and you quickly grabbed it to silence it before it could wake the sleeping children. Peony only had just fallen asleep and you’d curse the person on the other end if they were the reason for her awakening.

“Hello?” Your voice came out in a soft whisper and the person on the other end laughed. You knew that laugh anywhere.

“I’m in a bit of a debacle and was wondering if you would be willing to help me out?” Lucien, the always cool and composed Lucien, sounded a bit panicked on the other end.

“Anything,” you responded before facepalming. You always seemed to make a fool of yourself when it came to Lucien and you only wished he didn’t think of you as someone who was silly and immature. “How can I help?”

“I’m actually outside the gates. Any way you can let me in and we can talk face to face?” Without responding, you threw back the covers on your legs and slipped your shoes on before quietly making your way out to where Lucien was waiting.

Sure enough, there he was, looking as dark and handsome as ever and you were thankful it was dark enough outside so he wouldn’t be able to see the flush across your cheeks and neck when you approached. “Are you okay?”

Lucien sighed and as you studied his face closer in the moonlight, you noticed the dark purples under his eyes, only barely concealed by the dark rimmed glasses he was wearing. “I’ve suddenly ran into trouble and can no longer stay at my apartment.” Glancing down at you, his mouth quirked into a small smile. “Do you think you guys have room for one more orphan for a few days? Just until I get back on my feet?”

“I’m sure we can make that work.” You replied before quietly leading the professor inside.

Lucien didn’t sleep at night and you woke up earlier than the rest of the kids in the orphanage, that much you two had figured out quickly. Once Lucien arrived, you had managed to swap beds with a few kids to get two beds next to each other so you both could stay up talking into the early morning. Peony was still right next to you, of course. Between hushed whispers in the early morning, you managed to learn a lot about him and vise versa.

Lucien told you about his hopes and dreams, to become a world renowned scientist and how all he wanted to do was research to make the world a better place. Lucien told you that he had plans to make his way around the world eventually and start a new life in a new place where he could research their lifestyle and help people in need.

What he didn’t tell you was that Lucien noticed every time you would sneak a glance out the window and your face would fall. He knew you didn’t want to stay in the orphanage forever, but felt obligated to the owner. He didn’t bring it up for the first few days but after he felt more comfortable with you, his curiosity got the best of him.

“If you could do anything with your life, what would it be?” Lucien asked, his voice coming out slurred and his arm extended towards you and goosebumps rose up your arm as his long fingers brushed against your shoulder. He had closed his eyes for a few minutes after he asked you, soft snores pouring out, and when he awoke again, you weren’t next to him; you were perched on the low window, looking out longingly. You opened your mouth to protest his questioning glance and he quieted you with a look that could command an entire room. “Don’t try to tell me you’re not looking for something, I’ve seen that wistful look across your face everytime you look out that window.”

You sighed, looking out the window once more before hopping down and crawling in the covers next to Peony before turning to face Lucien. “There’s just something about the outside. From the day I saw you, I was intrigued. Just a glance at you could send my mind racing and think of the possible life I could have led. And sometimes, it feels like that life is looking for me too.”

“What do you mean?” Lucien’s eyebrows were furrowed and you grabbed his hand and held it as close to you as you could..

“I don’t know how to explain,” you replied and you shut your eyes, moving closer to Peony for warmth. Lucien had so many questions, that much was obvious. But he knew you didn’t sleep much, so he dropped them for now, before turning over and hugging himself, his eyes closing as well.

A few weeks after your conversation with Lucien, you decided it was time to go off on your own, ready to live the life you longed for. The one that laid dormant until you met someone who made you want to live.

“Where are you going to go?”

You smiled softly, adjusting Lucien’s jacket so you didn’t have to make eye contact with him. “I’ll be around. Maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”

Lucien gently grabbed your hands, forcing you to look back up at him. “I’m thinking about trying to find a new place to go, a place where I can do the type of research I want without being watched all the time. It’s not a life of luxury but....” He trailed off and you could almost hear him finish his sentence. It’s not much, but it’s better than being by yourself. Lucien twisted his mouth into a teasing smile. “I know my life is better with you around.”

And with that sentence, you found yourself agreeing before you could even think to stop yourself. You wanted to go with Lucien, continue to help people as much as possible and just be free enough to live the life you’ve only read about in books. You’d miss the children and the owner of the orphanage, of course, but you could always visit. Come back to tell stories of your adventures with Mr. Lucien. So with one last goodbye to the place you called home, you grasped Lucien’s hand and began on your new adventure together.

Three months after you left the orphanage, you couldn’t be happier. You made quick friends with the new children in the place that you and Lucien ended up in and ended up taunting them much like an older sibling would. Lucien would watch as he worked with a fond smile and every time you felt his eyes on you, you gazed back before you shared an intimate smile with the other.

Everyone who knew you also knew about your crush on the dark haired man. All the women whose children you watched as they worked liked to sit you down and beg you to ‘just tell him, MC.’ But things were going good the way they were, you and Lucien were friends and you were happy with your new lifestyle, you didn’t want to ruin that by saying something he might find stupid.

There was a quiet air about your professor one day after you two finished work for the day, walking silently back to your shared apartment. “Lucien, are you okay?”

Lucien nodded his head and you sent him a disbelieving look. “I think so. I just, uh. Some of the ladies pulled me aside today.”

Your heartbeat picked up and your mouth went dry. “Really,”

Lucien grabbed your hand, intertwining your fingers. After months of knowing him, that soft touch could still turn your knees to jelly. “They told me something,” you looked at him, encouraging him to continue. “It was about you. They told me you have, y’know, a crush on me.”

You dropped your hand from his. Taking a deep breath, you looked him in his violet eyes and felt a slight bit calmer. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want you to find out. It’s just like I watched you for a while and was intrigued and then when we became friends it just grew into more of a crush and-”

Lucien cut you off by putting a hand over your mouth. “Can you let me finish please?” When you nodded, he dropped his arm and grabbed your hands again. “I’m glad they told me. Do you know why?” You shook your head no and Lucien smiled at you. “Ask me why.”

You sighed, just wanting to get this over with so that you could go home and hide in your bedroom forever. “Why are you glad they told you?”

Without responding, Lucien leaned in and before pressing a chaste kiss to your lips, he looked at you for visual confirmation that it was okay. Once you nodded, his slightly chapped lips met yours and before you could even relish in the taste of him, he pulled away. “It’s because I like you too.”

You felt a smile tug on your lips and Lucien’s mouth was almost mirroring yours. “Well that’s an interesting development.”

“I know a good word for how I felt the first time I saw you from the window.” Lucien said and then leaned in to kiss you once more. “Ask me what it is.”

“What was the word, Lucien?” You two probably looked like fools, standing in the middle of the street, both your hands joined with wide smiles that neither of you could wipe off your faces.

“Enamored,” Lucien responded, bringing your right hand up to his lips and kissing the top of it. “Being filled with complete love for something.”

#mlqc lucien #mr love queen's choice lucien #lucien x mc #mlqc lucien x mc #mlqc fanfic #lucien mlqc fanfic #my writing

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astraskylark · 4 years ago

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It's the most confusing, wonderful, and annoying feeling she has ever felt. And that is what meeting Weiss Schnee is like.

The first time Ruby sees her, she knows.

Her forehead is slick with sweat and the stickiness of salt scented winds from the sea, her white shirt stained with grease and one strap of her suspender hanging loosely off her shoulder. She curses herself for looking like the street rat she is today of all days, the day where the prettiest person she had ever and ever will see decided to step into the shipyard.

Ruby knows. That this person will haunt her thoughts for the rest of her life. That she’ll visit her in daydreams and nightmares, a wanting visitor distracting her-- blinding and binding her to crystal blue eyes that remind her of glacial ice, fractal remnants from books read long before, of places she has understood and felt but will never see.

And she hates it. Hates-- that this one second on a mundane Wednesday afternoon has dictated what her mind will think of every moment after. And she loves. Loves that her every thought she will have will be painted in blue and frost. She likens it to a feeling she had had reading a book years ago. A single sentence in a story that transforms every page after. That one moment of awakening where you feel the words latch on to your skin like an anchor. The words that ground you and take you to every place you will ever wish to see. Words that shackle you to freedom and let you fly while falling. And once those letters leave the page you will never see them again. They’ll follow you wherever you go though, quiet whispers in the day and loud as a foghorn in the night, like the voice at the back of your head except it’s in front you, beside you and everywhere you look. It’s suffocating but it’s also the gasp of air you breathe in after reaching the surface of the ocean after a swim, it’s like drowning but also the moment you gulp down cool water on a summer day, like jumping in a puddle of mud but also having it washed off—watching the dirt brown fall away from your skin like the waves receding into the ocean.

It's the most confusing, wonderful, and annoying feeling she has ever felt. And that is what meeting Weiss Schnee is like.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. Ruby’s a scrappy kid hanging around the shipyard trying to be bigger and better to anyone that says otherwise –-and Weiss is the daughter of Jacques Schnee. A man with more money than the hairs on her head, willing to sponsor the building of a fleet of carracks, enough to form a flotilla—for what or why no one knows. He pays everyone at the yard which includes her dad, uncle and hopefully one day-- her sister and her as well.

He’s a horrible person, an aura of pomp shimmering around him like hot air in a heat wave. Unpleasant would be one word for it, Uncle Qrow would have many more. But he pays them and Ruby has never had the misfortune of talking to him so she isn’t too bothered by him. Until today at least.

She’s seated on the tree trunk that’s going to be the mast, about thirty meters away from them but she can still see the way he stands in front of his daughter, interrupting her and silencing her—a permanent sneer always directed towards her. She can see the arrogance in his eyes and harshness of his words and Ruby wants nothing more than to walk up to him and give him a piece of her mind. But Weiss is there, facing her father and his rebukes head on, a verbal battle of sorts where Weiss seems to winning—if the silent smirks and muffled laughs her father and Oz are trying to hide from Mr Schnee are any indication, so she watches her.

They’re oceans apart, like the difference between the blues of the waves and the blues of the deep sea. So why she finds herself staring at her from across the floor without shying away as she would have usually done is lost on her. Well no, she thinks Weiss is the prettiest and the most interesting person to ever walk the floors of the Beacon (old man Oz had a funny sense with naming the shipyard) so naturally she’s looking at her. Naturally.

But why oh why was Weiss Schnee looking at her as well? For a split second their eyes meet and Ruby can feel every nerve in her body malfunction.

The sun is high and the air humid—the sound of metal-on-metal rings through the hollow space where Oz is speaking to Mr. Schnee, the distant screech of the birds and the crashing of waves would usually make it unbearably noisy but Ruby can’t hear a thing. She wonders if this what they call a vacuum. She had read about it in a book that was too big for her to understand and a bit too high on the shelf for her to reach.

She wonders if people were supposed to be able to breath after having all the air around them sucked away because she hasn’t passed out yet and she is for sure not breathing so maybe she’s just really special or really stupid. She’s been called both before. Ruby wants to look away—act like their eyes accidently met and avert them and never look at her again. But she can’t and she thinks this is what a compass needle feels like, always facing looking toward the poles, unable to turn away.

Weiss looks away and the moment ends but Ruby still can’t breathe yet she feels so alive because when Weiss had looked at her, she had smiled. Well maybe not smiled but it was different from the scowl she had been wearing a second before and it wasn’t a frown so that counted for something and Weiss is looking at her again now and she is smiling and Ruby feels like someone’s punched her and she’s pretty sure her face is on fire and she’s sitting on wood so now she’s a fire hazard and she needs to get up and do something before everything burns but she’s stuck and she can feel her breton hat slipping off her head and she needs to run now or she’s sure she’ll do something stupid and now Weiss is excusing herself so she must be leaving but no-- she’s walking towards her??

Ruby isn’t sure what exactly transpired in the last thirty seconds but Weiss is standing in front her now and she’s saying something but she cannot for the life of her hear it because her brain is fried. And Weiss is handing something over to her and Ruby can feel a folded piece of paper in her hand and the sensation of folded parchment helps temporarily ground her just a little bit. Enough for her to move her head and look.

It's a crude charcoal drawn doodle of a ship that she recognizes as her own. She remembers sketching it out in the early hours of the day and shoving it in her pocket, the charcoal stencil staining her fingertips. Ruby stares at it, wondering how it managed to escape her pocket and she must have been staring for too long because she hears Weiss clear her throat.

“It’s a good design” she says looking at the piece of paper and then at Ruby herself. And Ruby has so many questions. The first one being what? The second one being WHAT??

So naturally Ruby just stares at Weiss because she’s sure if she blinks Weiss will disappear and she’ll find herself back in the tiny room Yang and her shared on the modified crow’s nest of the grounded sail boat her family lived in.

Weiss tilts her head questioningly and the action is so adorable Ruby finds herself with the urge to sketch it. “This fell from your pocket. Is it not yours?”. She’s bemused and a little confused and Ruby wants nothing more than to see her smile again and that’s completely normal right? To want a person you just met to be the happiest they can be? She’ll have to ask Yang about that later.

“Oh no it’s fine” she replies a little too loudly, pushing the paper back into Weiss’s hands and Ruby mentally pats herself on the back because she just replied to a question which means that she has successfully conversed and that’s one social point for Ruby. Until she notices the confusion on Weiss’s face. Her mind backtracks and she’s making no sense and really wants to but Weiss is making it so hard for her to think.

“So it is yours” Weiss says and it feels like a question but she says it like a fact and Ruby feels like an idiot but what else is new.

“This is impressive” she continues and Ruby has the urge to tell her that no—it was not impressive and that Weiss is probably too Weiss to be seen talking to her and she needs to stop but it would be rude to interrupt and she’s never met a person outside her family that’s actually understood her designs and the fact Weiss tells her its good and the fact that she isn’t being yelled at for wasting her time and the fact the sky is blue, the air is salty and she’s alive overwhelm her just a little bit.

“My name is Weiss” she says extending her hand towards her and Ruby knows her name, heck everyone in yard knew it but hearing it from Weiss herself makes it much more tangible. Much more real. Like a present given to her on a birthday. Weiss is a person. Ruby is also a person and she thinks about all the moments that have transpired for this to happen and she knows she’s overthinking it but it feels like fate, it feels like it’s the start of something exciting—the feeling she gets when she starts a new book, ready to meet new characters and places and go on journeys with them but no, the voice in the back of her head is whispering, chiding her for naivety, that this is a random coincidence and nothing more—a universal misstep and she’ll probably never see Weiss again.

The thought sobers her up.

“My name is Ruby Rose” she manages to say, wiping her hands on her pant leg before reaching out to shake Weiss’s other non-paper holding hand and if there are any charcoal stains remaining Weiss does a remarkable job of schooling her face to reveal nothing.

Weiss firmly shakes her hand before letting go and Ruby can see a smidge of black at the edges of her palms and she wants to scream into a pillow and never show her face in public again.

“Well it was a pleasure to meet you Miss Rose.” And she says it with sincerity but Ruby can’t tell which part of this entire debacle gave any semblance of positivity so she just nods and hopes a giant sea-gull will swoop down and whisk her away. And now Weiss is taking a step back and Ruby can feel a giant clock ticking all around her and she knows once the invisible gong rings she’ll have missed her chance at something—she doesn’t even know what that something is but she can feel it’s very important and for once she’d like be on time.

“Which part did you think was good” she shouts breathless and nervous and scared and surprised.

She wonders if time has stopped because everything freezes but Weiss is smiling again and nothing can freeze in the presence of something that warm. It’s different this time. It’s a look Ruby has seen in the eyes of different people for different reasons. Her sister’s when she talks about the places she’s going to visit on a ship of her own one day, her uncle’s when he talks about all his past adventures and mishaps (though his usually carry a weight that Ruby hasn’t had the courage to ask about) and she thinks this might be the look Yang says she gets sometimes, when she sketches a design that feels just right or when she feels the wind blow past the sails and drag her further and further away from the shore.

It’s pure excitement and joy. The spark in Weiss’s blue eyes is almost childlike, a look she’s seen on kids outside the dockyard staring at the tiny wooden carvings that move, or at the festival where the town gathers for the firework display. Ruby has so much to say and is simultaneously speechless so she’s glad when Weiss speaks.

“I’ve actually—” she starts but is interrupted by a voice calling her name. Weiss stiffens and the light is gone and Ruby wants nothing more than to kick whoever it is.

It’s Mr. Schnee. He’s standing at the same place as before, his posture radiating displeasure and irritation and Weiss seems to notice it as well.

“It’s time to go Weiss, enough dilly dallying” he harrumphs adjusting the cuffs to his expensive white tailored suit that looks so out of place from their surroundings Ruby has to squint to make sure she doesn't get a headache. Weiss takes a deep breath and nods and takes a step towards him before pausing--quickly turning around.

“We’ll talk again soon” she says and Ruby can tell that Weiss wants her words to be true as much as she does. She’s still looking at her—expression questioning and apprehensive and maybe a little hopeful and Ruby belatedly realizes that she’s looking for some reassurance from her side as well so she nods back and holds her pinky out for good measure.

“I pinky swear” she says with as much conviction one would have while making a blood oath of some sort. Pinky swears were important to her and Yang had told her to only use them under life changing circumstances and what was more life changing than making a maybe friend? Weiss is startled, looking at Ruby and her pinky before rolling her eyes, her lips twitching upwards ever so slightly.

“It’s promise”. And she says it so silently Ruby wonders if she actually meant to say it but the wind carries her voice and she hears it and their charcoal smudged pinkies lock and she shakes it up and down for good measure. She takes the piece of paper that once meant nothing but now means much more and shoves into her pocket completely forgetting about the hole it fell though in the first place.

Weiss walks away, a skip to her step. And suddenly the air isn’t salty and the sky isn’t grey and she doesn’t feel out of breath chasing the world anymore. Ruby doesn’t know it yet but according to Yang she stood there for thirty minutes after with a grin so bright, nobody had the heart to call out to her.

#rwby #rwby fanfic #writing #fanfiction #ruby rose #weiss schnee #whiterose #iceflower #wow look words #who wouldv'e thought

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itsreigns · 5 years ago

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Blurred Lines - Part 2

Henry Cavill x Reader

Henry especifically told (Y/N) that he didn’t do relationships. But lines get blurred. And crossed.

PART 1

Warnings: Slight AU. Angst. Mentions of sex.

Words: 1,579

I hate to admit it, but I’ve thought about that morning countless times. I’ve examined every single detail of the previous night, and the following day. It didn’t make sense. All those times, I came to the conclusion that something had to get him that worked up. Something was on his mind. He had to have a reason to do that. I just didn’t know what.

I recalled that conversation at the hill, when he told me he had found that spot driving around after something happened. Maybe this had something to do with it. Whatever it was, it was bugging me. No matter how much I deny it, it bugs me.

But I always ended up shoving those thoughts to the back of my mind. It didn’t concern me. I had nothing to do with it. And I definitely shouldn’t sit here and try to come up with excuses for what he did.

He humiliated me, treated me like absolute shit. He fucking threw me out of his house. I didn’t deserve it, and I was not at fault in this. How dare he show up in my house after what he did? He thinks it’s ok to show up here, shooting me his best puppy dog eyes? It’s not going to work, mate.

I don’t bother replying to him. I try to close the door as I roll my eyes at him, but he blocks it with his arm. Fuck, why does he have to be so strong all the time? I just want to close my goddamn door in peace.

“I am so sorry, (Y/N).” He says lowly, avoiding my gaze in shame as he gets the door fully open again. “I really am.”

I let out a sarcastic chuckle before replying. “No, you’re not.”

Well, that seemed to switch something on him. He looks offended, hurt… maybe even disappointed. I almost felt sorry for him, but I quickly shake those feelings off. He brought this on himself.

“Yes, I am.” He shoots back, and now I know I’m right… he really got offended. “I didn’t mean to lash out on you or hurt you... I care about you.”

“Look, you said it yourself. The only thing you’re good at is fucking. Guess what, you’re right. You fucked me as many times as you wanted. So, congratulations.” I tell him, sarcasm and anger lacing my tone as I try to maintain my composure. “Now, it’s over, so please, leave my house.”

Once my words sink in, his whole expression changed. His face and his shoulders fall down instantly. He looks defeated… dejected. As if I had just slapped his face and twisted a knife in his chest.

“I… Yeah.” He trails off, rubbing his forehead for a second as he plasters a fake smile on his face. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have come.”

That’s it. He turns on his heel and leaves.

The look on his face, the way he’s carrying himself… it’s breaking my heart. I want to run after him, hug him tight and tell him it will be ok. But I can’t. I won’t.

It’s been an hour since he left. And here I am moping around again. My mood for cleaning up vanished. Well, any will to do anything to be honest. I feel like shit. I should have listened to what he came here to say. But now it’s too late for regrets. The wound is open again. And it’s still bleeding…

Why does life need to be so hard? I just want a goddamn break.

It’s dinner time and I’m not even hungry. My stomach is twisted in knots, anxiety taking control over my nervous system. I settle for a hot tea and a cookie, if I could eat it, for dinner. Hopefully the tea would help me get cozy enough to fall asleep fast. At least, that’s what I am praying for.

Zapping through my TV, I couldn’t find anything that interested me. Of course I couldn’t. My main interest, the image pinned in every corner of my mind, is clearly this beautiful, flawed blue-eyed man, who had so many wounds he refused to share, who loved my body so much but still broke my heart… and that I couldn’t find on TV.

I settled for a crappy movie, but I wasn’t paying it any attention. I’m trying to avoid thinking about him, but I fail every time. Cozy in my couch, I sip my tea slowly, savoring it. I somehow manage to eat two cookies as I drink the tea, and thankfully it didn’t make me sick.

Once I finish it, I turn the TV off. Propping my elbows on my knees, I hide my face in my hands, sighing heavily. How did I get so deep in this mess? How did I get so entranced by this man? I was always so careful. I’ve been hurt in the past, and I never gave myself so easily. But with him… it was easy. He made it easy. It was easy to be with him. To talk to him. To hang out with him. And sex… sex was never awkward or uncomfortable with him. It was mind blowing and intense. Fulfilling. It’s as if we were the missing piece to each other’s puzzle. But we couldn’t be. It wasn’t meant to happen. It was obvious.

I finally gather up the strength to get up. So I head to the bathroom so I can brush my teeth before going to bed. I’m dying to go to bed. Being exhausted is an understatement.

When I lie down on the bed, I sigh in content of how cozy and comfortable it feels. I need desperately to have a good night of sleep, with no dreams, no nightmares, no insomnia. Just sleep. Thankfully the tea served its purpose, in less than fifteen minutes I was fast asleep.

I’m sleeping profoundly when I’m awakened by the bell ringing. I sit up in my bed, holding onto my chest because my heart is bursting in my chest. Jesus, I was sleeping so well when I heard it, it almost gave me a heart attack. I’m trying to calm myself down when it rings again, this time for a few seconds longer.

I reach out and grab my phone from my nightstand so I can check the time. 04:13 AM.

What the fuck?

Who the hell is ringing my bell at 4 fucking AM? I swear if this is some of neighbors’ kids pranking me, I’ll lose my shit. I grumpily get off bed, walking barefoot towards the main door of my apartment. Peeking through the peephole, I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing.

Henry.

Taking a deep breath, I try to gather up the courage to open the door. He keeps ringing the bell, and I need him to stop or else I’ll be in trouble with my neighbors. So I give in and open it.

“(Y/N).” He whispers, looking down at me as if I’m a mirage.

He’s drunk off his ass. I can smell the scent of alcohol mixed with his own unique scent, that wonderful scent I’ve always loved and felt like home, from where I stand. He can barely hold himself up. Currently it’s my door that’s supporting him as he leans against it.

He pulls away from the door as he takes a step forward so he can go inside, but obviously, he starts tumbling down.

“Jesus, Henry.” I mumble, jumping in to hold him. Jesus, he is so heavy.

We struggle a bit until he’s finally straightened up, then I put his arm around my shoulders, helping him get to my couch and sit down. He leans his head back into the back cushions, sighing heavily as he closes his eyes.

“Why did you drink so much?” I ask rather quietly, hoping that he was at least capable of answering. “This is not you.”

“I wanted to forget.” That’s all he says, his expression still the same.

“What did you want to forget?” I press a little harder. Hell, I desperately need to figure him out. I need him to make sense.

“Lots of things. Hurting you, mostly.” He slurs, letting out a small sad chuckle right after. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought I was over it. I thought it would be different this time. I wanted it to be different.”

“What do you mean this time?” I ask, praying he could still reply to this one and enlighten me. But he looked like he had fell asleep. I’m so confused, what the hell did he mean? “Different from what?”

But he never replies. He’s fast asleep in my couch. I put his legs up on the couch and tuck him in, putting my fluffy blanket over him. I hesitate a bit, but I end up pressing a kiss to his forehead and whispering goodnight to him.

I head to my bed again. Letting myself fall backwards on the mattress, I sigh heavily. Great. Now I have drunk Henry sleeping in my couch. Just great. Drunk Henry making no sense just like sober Henry. Also great.

Now I couldn’t fall asleep again. Not only am I super worried about him, afraid he needs to throw up or feels sick, and also, what has him worked up like this, but I’m also dreading our inevitable encounter in the morning.

That will be interesting.

Give me feedback???

Part 3???

#henry cavill #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill imagine #henry cavill fic #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill oneshot #henry cavill one shot #henry cavill fanfiction

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meetthetank · 4 years ago

Text

Starved

Rating: General AudiencesArchive Warning: No Archive Warnings ApplyCategory: F/M Fandom: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse) Relationships: Steve Burnside/Claire Redfield, Steve Burnside & Alexia Ashford (kind of) Characters: Steve Burnside, Claire Redfield, Alexia Ashford (kind of), Jill Valentine Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Touch-Starved, Post RE Rev2, Therapy Group - Freeform, Read A/N for more context, Steve is a sad sad man who missed out on A Lot, Angst, Subtle love languages Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29232369 Summary: Months after being rescued from his second island prison, Steve Burnside tries to adjust to a normal life while dealing with the scars left both physically and mentally. Luckily, he has some help. Notes: Sooooooooo here's the thing. There were worms in my brain. Real bad. So this is like... a manifestation of a longfic that I want to write later down the road. Some things to know before going in. 1) Steve revived on an island meant to store "failed" B.O.W. experiments that was left abandoned. He was there for a year and some change. 2) Allie is a child clone of Alexia who was in the same facility and befriended him. They live together and Steve is her legal guardian. 3) Jill runs a victims of B.O.W. experimentation which includes Steve, Manuela, Sherry, herself, and some others. I think that's everything but if yall have anymore questions feel free to ask. This is incredibly self indulgent to write but I hope you guys enjoy it too.

“Please stop pacing,” Allie sighs, “You look like a caged beast.”

Steve glares at the child, a clone of the insane woman who killed him, as she sips her tea at the other side of their flat. She glares back, her hazel eyes sharp as ever. She’s waiting for him to retort so she can shoot him down with a smart ass remark like a shark circling a drowning bird. When all she gets is an indignant huff she sips her tea and rolls her eyes.

“You do this every time she comes over. If she didn’t run away at the first sight of your ghastly visage she’s not going to run now.”

Steve sighs, “Yeah, but-“

“What absurd thing are you putting in your own head this time?” Allie snaps, setting her dainty pink teacup next to her stuffed dragon, “You’re going to stink up the room if you think too hard.”

He tunes out the insults with a scowl, but Steve knows the kid is right. He’s thinking way too much about this. Claire didn’t run away screaming the first time they met since he came back, she’s not going to do it for the seventh.

Even still, as Steve passes by the mirror in the front room he jumps at his own reflection. The person inside doesn’t look like him, it doesn’t feel like him. Their ginger hair isn’t wild and tangled, it’s washed, brushed and tied up in a small ponytail. Their shocking green eyes aren’t sunken into their sockets, and there’s a splash of red sunburn on their skin. He can even see a smattering of freckles across their nose and cheeks. They look like a stranger, but the deep, ragged scars across his face remind him of his past. The biggest and ugliest of the marks starts well above his hairline, drops down over his right eye and curls over his lips. A few smaller ones run across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, but they aren’t nearly as deep.

He always thought scars were sexy when he was a kid. Manly. The marks of some action hero or badass. Now they just… Make him look tired and scared.

A small hand grabs onto one of his. “Did you take your medicine today?” Allie asks without a trace of her previous vitriol.

Steve shakes his head. “I’m out of the anxiety pills. Ms. Valentine said she’s going to bring them over when she comes to pick you up.”

“Okay.” Allie says with a curt nod.

“You got everything for your field trip?” Steve meanders over to the kitchen again, eager to change the subject.

“Can I have some spending money?”

He raises an eyebrow, “How much and what for?”

“Fifty for museum books.” Allie puts her hands on her hips and glares up at her guardian with defiance sparkling in her eyes.

Steve crosses his arms over his chest, “Twenty.”

Allie lifts her chin, “Forty-five.”

“Thirty.”

“Forty-five and I buy you a cool rock from the Natural History Museum.”

“Deal.”

With negotiations done (and Steve down forty-five bucks) the only thing left to do is wait. He switches the tv on to drown out his own thoughts. Some hockey game. It’s not his team so he doesn’t care too much, but it’s a comforting familiarity. At least sports didn’t change too much since ‘98.

Steve let’s himself zone out as much as he can to the game. At one point he thinks about getting a beer but decides against it. He’d probably have one or two with Claire at dinner. That, and his meds don’t mix well with alcohol if he hasn’t eaten. So instead he bounces his leg, bites his nails, and busies his hands with whatever he can reach.

Did he used to be like this? It’s hard for him to remember past his awakening and even harder to think past Rockfort. He was a neurotic mess out of necessity on the Storage Facility Island, a place where any sound could be death, and Rockfort was a similar story with the addition of his teenage bravado, but before he was taken? He barely remembers what his parents looked like, let alone what social masks he had to put on. Steve lets out a long, quiet sigh. It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s like this now, and that’s all he needs to know. At least now he has a support system.

Just as Steve starts to calm down, the doorbell rings.

He jumps out of his chair and bolts to the front door, heart in his throat and stomach upside down. His hands begin to shake as he reaches for the knob-

“Hi, Steve.”

��Oh,” Steve sighs, a bit too loudly judging by the way the visitor raises an eyebrow, “Hey, Jill.”

She gives him a warm, knowing smile as she fumbles with her shoulder bag. “Claire coming over today?”

“Yeah.” Steve scratches the back of his neck, “That easy to tell?”

Jill laughs, “Careful now, Redfields can smell fear.” She hands him a paper bag from the local drugstore, “Here. I know you said you were out of the anxiety meds, but I got everything refilled for you.”

“Oh! Uh, thanks!” He tosses the bag across the room to the chair he had just left. “So what museums are you hitting today?”

“All depends on our little cruise director.” Jill says with a small laugh, “Speaking of-”

Allie brushes past Steve, the charms on her backpack jingling with each step. “Air and Space and Botanical Gardens! Oh, and Natural History too. I promised I’d buy Steve a cool rock.”

“Easily bribed, I see.” Jill smirks at him quickly, then turns her attention back to Allie, “Sounds like a deal, kiddo.”

Eager to get on her way, Allie all but jumps out of the door and runs to where two more members of their little therapy group, Manuela and Sherry, wait. Both women greet her with smiles and hugs, and she wastes no time in launching into sharing things she had learned since the last time they had spoken.

“I’d stick around,” Jill says as she backtracks to the group, “But I feel like if I wait any longer there’s going to be a mutiny.”

The rumbling of a motorcycle echoes down the street, and Jill turns back to Steve with a quick smirk.

“Besides, you have company.”

Jill darts over to the group, casting a wave back to Steve and over to the biker before motioning to the ladies to begin their trek. Steve watches with wide eyes and a thundering heart as the biker dismounts and pulls off their helmet, revealing short auburn hair and stunning blue eyes. She gathers up a few plastic bags from her bike before jogging over to him, while he stands there like a deer in headlights.

“Hey, Steve!” She says with a bright, radiant smile and shoves some of her bags in his hands.

“W- Hey, Claire.” He fumbles with the grocery bags, “What’s all this?”

“Dinner. Figured making our own burgers would be better than ordering out.” Claire explains and shuffles inside the door as Steve moves aside for her. “And more fun.”

Though Steve can’t deny her claim, he also can’t fight the apprehension that coils in his stomach. He can cook, sure, he had to or die on the island, but he has no idea how to use any of the kitchen gadgets Jill’s group and Terra-Save set him up with. None of it is as simple as a slapdash firepit and some scraps of metal. Maybe if he’s lucky Claire will know what to do and he can just chop vegetables or something. The last thing he wants to do is make more of a fool of himself.

“Uh, sure!” He blinks his thoughts away, shuts the door and retrieves his bag of medicine from the chair.

By the time Steve turns back towards his kitchen, Claire is already busy setting up groceries and making herself at home. He watches her take off her heavy bomber jacket, revealing a thinner red and black flannel, and set it on the back of a chair at the kitchen table. She drops her plastic bags on the counter and grabs a beer out of his fridge; she looks like she’s been coming here for months. Something about the image before him makes Steve’s chest tighten. He’s not sure if it’s a bad feeling or not.

“-Steve?”

“Huh?” He snaps out of his stupor with a jolt.

Claire wiggles the opened bottle in her hand, “Did you want one?”

“Oh, uh, sure.” He stammers and rubs the back of his neck but walks across the room to take the beer. Maybe he did need something to settle his nerves after all.

Claire smiles at him like she’s known him all his life, like she knows what’s going on in his head and she understands why he’s so awkward and nervous around her. What was it that Jill said before? Redfields can smell fear? He knows it’s a joke but the way Claire seems to understand his fidgeting and hesitation leaves him wondering if there’s some kind of truth to it. A few gulps of beer (technically a hard cider, his first beer made him vomit) gives him enough bravado to at least go into the small kitchen with her.

Thankfully, she doesn’t ask him to work any of the gadgets. Claire’s hands glide over buttons and knobs, setting temperatures on his stove and placing pans. She directs Steve to break the ingredients out of the bags. Ground beef, cheese, brioche buns, vegetables, and a myriad of spices.

“This is a lot for just burgers, isn’t it?” He asks, mouth full of stolen tomato.

“Come on now, you know I wouldn’t do just burgers.” Claire laughs a bit, a sound that makes Steve’s heart stop. “This is an ancient Redfield family recipe.”

“Should I be worried?” Steve can’t help but smile back. She has this way about her that makes him feel lighter, like everything takes a backseat to just… being around her. He can joke, come out of his shell a little. She won’t hurt him.

Claire giggles at him, “It’s the way our dad used to make them. Chris held onto the secret ingredient till he was… Thirty something I think. I basically had to interrogate him for it.”

He raises an eyebrow and grins devilishly, “So...what’s the secret?”

“Oh, just a blend of spices.” She shrugs, “Nothing that inventive. But it’s special to Chris, so don’t go telling him I told you.”

Claire winks at him then turns back to mashing the ground beef into patties, leaving Steve to gawk at her. She’s delightfully impish when she wants to be, he can see himself getting into all sorts of flirtatious teasing matches with her… if he weren’t so weird. She directs him to chop up the tomatoes and onions after she catches him staring, again with a playful smirk and slug to his shoulder.

Something he had to become good at while on that remote island, alone aside from Allie and the wild B.O.Ws, was how to observe. The more he watches Claire out of his peripheral, the more she reveals to him. He watches the way her face falls as she focuses on the burger patties, as if she gets lost in her own thoughts and forgets where she is for a split second. It isn’t hard for him to see the sadness she hides from the world, it’s the same kind as one he carries. The reason Steve still roots for his hockey team, or even still watches the sport is because it reminds him of his dad. It’s the last connection he still has to his late father, and of a time mostly lost to him. He feels more special than he should that Claire would choose to share something like that with him.

Suddenly a sharp pain shoots up Steve’s arm. He drops the knife, now streaked with red and pulls his hand close to his chest with a hiss. His heart races and his eyes dart around, searching for other dangers in the area. Anything might be lurking in the shadows waiting to take advantage of his weakness. He scans back and forth for threats, eyes wide and alert. Nothing catches his attention except-

“Steve?! What happened?”

Claire drops her own knife and rushes over to him overcome with worry, but stops in her tracks when Steve backs away from her. He looks like a frightened animal, eyes wild and darting to anything that moves even the slightest bit.

“Did you cut your hand open?”

Her voice is soft and gentle as she approaches, hands low and outstretched to him. She doesn’t step closer, she waits for him to bridge the gap. Steve can see the caution in her face. Like she’s trying to coax a stray kitten out of hiding.

It works.

“Y-yeah,” Steve says, dropping the tension in his body a little. “I uh, wasn’t paying attention and… I guess it slipped.”

He opens his hand enough for Claire to see the small streaks of red that pool beneath his thumb. It’s superficial, barely deep enough to scar. The virus would already be hard at work stitching the burst blood vessels together, but he should still clean and bandage it. He has a bad habit of picking at the scaly scabs that form over wounds.

“Are you okay?” Claire asks, taking a small step forward. The gap between them is barely a foot wide. “That looks like it’s bleeding a lot.”

As Steve starts to relax further, Claire’s fingertips brush against his hand for a split second. The shock is enough to send him reeling back, his heart leaping into his throat. His instincts tell him to run and hide or fight his way to a safe place. Somehow he finds the self control to speak.

“No!” He yelps, loud enough to startle Claire. He lowers his voice but takes another step back. “No, I got it. It’s fine.”

He doesn’t stick around long. He can’t bear the worried, somewhat hurt, look on Claire’s face. Steve hurries into the bathroom around the corner and shuts the door before the fear and guilt tear him to pieces from the inside out. With trembling hands he turns on the sink faucet and lets icy water run over his open wound. It stings a little, but nothing he can’t endure. The excess blood trickles down the drain and vanishes in seconds. Just as he thought, the cut isn’t deep at all. That eases his anxieties somewhat, but not enough to stop the oncoming panic attack. Before it overtakes him, he wraps a washcloth around his hand to contain the blood as best he can.

Steve sinks to the floor and puts his head between his knees. It’s a struggle but he forces himself to take deep even breaths, just like Jill had taught the group. Though his head still spins, it helps to calm his heartbeat enough that it doesn’t feel like he’s about to have a heart attack. The trembling stops once he lets his consciousness fade to survival mode; he only thinks about his breathing and that he is safe.

Claire isn’t going to hurt him. No one is. He’s safe here. He’s safe with her.

Claire isn’t going to hurt him.

The world slows down, finally. Steve isn’t sure how long he’s been here but it can’t have been too long. Claire hasn’t come knocking on the door looking for him yet, and the savory scents of meat and spices being seared drifts in from the kitchen. His stomach tightens at the smell, helping to distract him further. Though his whole body feels heavy and drained of energy, Steve finds the strength to push himself to his feet once again. He cleans the now dried blood off of his hand, sloppily wraps his hand with a bandage, and dumps the rag he was holding into the wastebin before leaving the sanctuary of the bathroom.

When Steve returns to the kitchen, he expects Claire to rush at him and assault him with questions, but the only question is in her eyes. Wide, blue, and deeply worried about him. She doesn’t say anything or move to approach him, she only watches and waits for him to be ready. The way her brow creases and turns upwards at the ends make her look guilty, and that sends a pain through his gut he can’t identify right away.

“All good.” He announces, showing off his slapdash bandages. “It’s not deep. Just wanna keep it from getting dirty. And keep myself from picking at a scab.”

Claire looks at him with such intensity that Steve almost shrinks back from her gaze. It’s like she’s staring right through him.

“You sure?” she asks, keeping her voice low and gentle.

The genuine worry throws Steve for a loop. “Yeah.” He flashes her a wry, lopsided smile full of false confidence; as if he didn’t just have a panic attack. “I’ve had a lot worse.”

Claire studies him for a moment, then scoffs and shakes her head. A small grin finally appears on her face and it takes his breath away. “Yeah, I was there for some of those.”

She turns back to finishing up dinner. A shadow crosses her face as she grills the burger buns as a final touch, but it’s gone in a flash. Steve busies himself with getting drinks and plates, and thinking of something to say that might distract Claire from whatever sadness is eating away at her.

“You’ve had a lot worse than that.” He says with a grin, and immediately regrets it. Why did he think it’d be a good idea to bring back those kinds of memories?!

But Claire turns around and smiles broadly at him. “Oh you have no idea.” She drops a plate of burgers and a plate of toppings on the table, then as if to give Steve another heart attack, she props her leg up on the chair and rolls up one of her pant legs. A long, wide scar follows the length of her toned calf. Tan with age and wear, it stands out against her pale skin.

“This was from the Tyrant in Raccoon City.” She smirks, almost proud of her scar. “I was lucky it didn’t hit bone with how deep it was.”

There’s an edge to her voice, testing him. Teasing him. Steve grins. If Claire wants to have a scar battle, then he’s more than happy to show off.

He points to the largest scar on his face, “I got this from-...” Shit, he can’t tell her it was from falling down a mountain. That’s not cool. “...I got it from this big… Turtle thing.”

Claire raises an eyebrow at him, “Turtle thing?”

The lie spins out of control in his head, faster than he can stop. “Yeah! It was like...a big armored reptile B.O.W. Had these nasty claws for diggin’ in the ground. I got too close to it and it swatted at me. I’m lucky I didn’t lose this eye.”

He puts his hands on his hips and puffs out his chest a bit. He can’t pinpoint why showing off his trauma like this makes him happy. Maybe he’s just happy to share it at all. It doesn’t matter to him now. Claire is smiling. He’s smiling.

They go back and forth, showing each other their scars and places where bones were broken while eating homemade burgers and fries. Claire shocks Steve with just how many scars and injuries she suffered over her years of fighting bioterrorism, and he astounds her with his stories of his misadventures on the B.O.W. storage island and his encounters with all manner of beasts. Watching her listen to him with such fervor and interest almost makes him forget how horrific it all was. It helps in a weird way.

But that changes in an instant.

When it’s his turn to point out a scar and tell a story, he stops thinking. He lifts up his shirt, exposing the most gruesome scar on his body with an excited grin. A scar that stretches from his collarbone and disappears beneath the waistband of his pants, with dots alongside it on either side. Instead of a jagged outline like the scars left by accidents and B.O.W’s, this one is straight, clean. Surgical.

“This one was from when they autopsied me.” He explains, far too excited about the grim display he presents Claire. “It still itches like hell where the staples were-”

Steve snaps to reality once he looks up to see Claire’s awestruck face. Instead of excitement, it’s horror. Her hands cover her mouth and her eyes, brimming with barely restrained tears, lock onto his stomach and a wound so old he had almost forgotten about it. Beneath the autopsy scar, beneath the scars from man-made beasts, there’s a circular mark a similar color to the scar on Claire’s leg. It’s old, faded, but still aches from how deep the tissue reaches inside him. The gravity of the old wound may be lost on him, buried under the countless others that mar his body, but it’s fresh and raw to Claire.

He hastily pulls his shirt down, “Shit- I’m sorry, I didn’t-... I forgot that…” There’s nothing he can say that will ease her mind. He reaches out to her with one hand, stopping just by her arm before pulling back and sinking back into his chair. Another muttered apology falls from his lips as he hangs his head in shame.

He doesn’t notice Claire get up and cross the gap to him. Not until she takes a knee in front of him and brushes his unruly hair out of his eyes.

Claire’s touch is feather light and tender, but even that sends shocks through his skin. It jolts him out of his shamed stupor, and Claire pulls her hand back a few inches. Her expression is something he can’t make out. Somewhere between pity, sadness, and guilt. Before Steve can properly figure out what she’s thinking (something he’s never been good at) Claire runs her thumb across the large scar on his face, slowly and gently. He doesn’t flinch away from her this time. Then, something mundane yet earth shattering to this broken man out of time happens. Claire cups his scarred, stubble covered cheek in her hand.

Something breaks within him. A dam he didn’t know existed anymore that kept everything back, every trauma, every broken piece of him; some of which he didn’t even know were broken. Claire’s hand, her warm hand marred by callouses but still soft despite it all, molds to the contours of his face. There’s such tenderness, unrestrained kindness in her eyes and her touch and he can’t fathom how it can be directed to him. He doesn’t notice the tears in his eyes until they spill over.

Steve tries to calm himself with deep breaths but they come out stuttered and shaking. His shoulders heave, a lump in his throat chokes him. He screws his eyes shut, trying to shut out the vision of someone caring about him that deeply, but she’s still there. He can still see those piercing blue eyes boring into his soul and reading him like an open book. The moment Steve opens his eyes he sees the blurred outline of Claire Redfield wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

He wants to yell at her to leave, to tell her that he’s a lost cause and there’s no helping him. He’s too damaged, too broken. He’ll never have a normal life. He’ll never be able to pretend he isn’t a monster. He will never be able to have meaningful relationships. But all that comes out of his mouth is a broken, choked sob. Someone is touching him, someone cares about him. And he can’t understand it.

Despite himself, Steve pulls Claire into a tight embrace and sobs into her shoulder. Her fingers run through his hair, while her other hand rubs his quaking back. Steve can’t stem the tears, that’s a feat that even a mighty Redfield can’t achieve, but he can’t deny that simply being in Claire’s arms replaces despair with a strange warmth. For the first time he can remember, he feels...safe.

Eventually, the tears stop, and Steve is able to breath easily again. Claire doesn’t let him go for a minute and for that he silently thanks her. It isn’t until he begins to pull away that she too lets her arms down and pulls back from him.

“I’m sorry…” he mutters, wiping the stray tears from his eyes, “I don’t-”

“Shut up.” Claire commands and takes Steve’s hands from his face. “You have nothing to apologize for.” Darkness crosses her face for a moment. “I should be the one apologizing… I know you-... It’s hard after a while, not being… Not having human contact like that for a while. It’s not something they tell you about in therapy.”

Steve shakes his head, “I needed it. I really… Really did.” He sighs, “I...I didn’t know how much I...everything… still hurts.”

With that same kind smile, Claire leans forward and kisses his forehead. “It takes a lot of strength to admit you’re hurting that much. Give yourself some credit.”

“Maybe…” he says with a sad smile. “... Thank you, Claire. For everything.”

She takes his hand in hers, tracing the callouses and scars with her thumb. “Thank you for coming back.”

#Steve Burnside #Claire Redfield #resident evil #resident evil fanfic #tank fics #Holy shit yall i had the brainworms bad

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sunnygaybitch · 5 years ago

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In the no Pennywise au, Patty starts a game of Spin the Bottle in college that reveals that Stanley and Richie were each other's first kiss, which in turn reveals that Stan had a month long crush on Richie after the kiss. Richie's response is basically, "we could've dated!" This is the aftermath:

"You're telling me we could've been dating for a month?"

"What?!" was the collective response, save for Patty's.

She gleefully said, "You're all my new best friends."

Stanley ignored this, deciding instead to put all his focus into not rolling his eyes as hard as he wanted to. "We were in Derry, Richie; no way could we have-"

He cut himself off as the full implications of Richie's words hit him. "Wait, what? No! For us to date you would have had to - had to..."

"Had to have liked you back?" Richie asked with a smirk. "Yeah."

"Oh my God." Next to him, Patty giggled, but he couldn't even appreciate it like he usually did because his entire worldview was being rearranged.

Around him, the rest of his friends were demanding to know details. He tuned them out in favor of goggling at Richie, who just kept smirking at him like this was the ace up his sleeve he had been waiting to reveal his whole life. After several moments of trying to speak but failing, he finally let out a strangled yell, which thankfully, seemed to be the key to being able to use words.

“I - what?!” Though maybe he wasn’t using them well. Whatever, he’d get there.

Richie simply nodded placidly. “You heard me.”

“What - why the fuck didn’t you ever say anything?! I was so fucking obvious!”

Richie snorted, and the others booed at him. Ok. Maybe not as obvious as he thought. It was kind of a relief, really. At the time, it had felt like his confusion and heartache were written all over his face; he had been convinced that there was no way someone could hide feelings so strong. Richie hadn’t been able to hide his own feelings for Eddie, in any case - not from his best friend.

He was brought back to the present by Richie loudly asking, “Why didn’t you say anything, you fucking hypocrite?”

Stan didn’t dart his eyes to Eddie, but it was a close thing. “You know perfectly well why, Trashmouth; don’t make me say it in front of everyone.”

This prompted a round of Oooooooh’s from the group - like they were thirteen years old again, Jesus fucking Christ - and a blush across Richie’s cheeks, which Stan tried not to find too satisfying.

“Alright, alright, I get it,” Richie said, waving a hand at both him and the others, as if that could ward off their demands to know more. “But I think we could have made a killer couple, even if it was only for that month.”

Stan felt his smile turn soft and indulgent. “Yeah, Rich, we would have.”

Richie smiled back at him, only his smile was more wicked than anything, and oh no, Stan was not going to like what came out of his mouth next -

“Well come here, Stanny my boy, let me show you some of that sugar you’ve been missing all these years.”

Stan wrinkled his nose. “Gross, don’t say it like that.”

“Yeah, asshole, Stan doesn’t want whatever shit you’re carrying around in your big mouth.”

Oh fuck oh no, Stan thought. Once Richie and Eddie got started, it was near impossible to get them to stop. Predictably, Richie swiveled his head towards Eddie at the speed of light, his eyes twinkling mischievously.

“Been thinking about my mouth a lot, have you, Eds?”

Everyone else giggled into their drinks. Stan thought, Noooooo.

“Only because you never fucking know how to shut up! And don’t call me Eds!”

“I can think of a few ways you can shut me up, baby.”

“YOU-”

“Enough!” Stan shouted, and blessedly, Richie and Eddie, those obnoxious fuckers, actually listened. He took a calming breath. “Either you can get over here and kiss me, Rich, or we can all go to bed.”

Bill tentatively raised a hand. “If he kisses you, does the game continue?”

“No.” Luckily, there were no protests. They must have all been more tired than they let on, putting on game faces in an effort to keep fucking around like they were kids with no responsibilities. Stan adored them. But the games ended here, at least for tonight.

Richie, for once, didn’t offer up any commentary, even though he clearly had a million suggestive somethings zinging through his head. But he kept quiet, crawled across the circle to Stan, and put a hand on his cheek and leaned in.

It was a good kiss.

When they broke apart, Stan said, with a completely straight face, “You’ve gotten significantly better at that.”

Laughter filled the room, and Richie shoved him lightly even as he joined in.

“How much better, Stanthony?” he asked with a flutter of his eyelashes.

“Wasn’t good enough to make your nicknames enjoyable,” he responded, though it was the worst-kept secret in their group that they all kind of adored Richie’s nicknames.

Which must have been why all Richie did was ask, “Buuuut...?”

Stan rolled his eyes. “If Patty wasn’t the literal love of my life” - he paused to let teasing Awwwww’s ring out, because he knew what his friends were like - “I guess I’d date you for the kisses and only the kisses.”

“You wound m-”

“You can date him.”

The room went completely quiet as they all turned to look at Patty in shock. For her part, she placidly took a sip of her wine and continued: “I mean, I’d be dating him, too, if he wants. He’s clearly good with his mouth.” She winked, and the room descended into chaos once again.

“H-holy shit -!”

“What the fuck -!”

“Get it, Patty!”

“No seriously, what the fuck!”

Mike and Ben were laughing too hard to talk, though Mike was giving them a very enthusiastic thumbs-up. Richie and Stan continued to stare at Patty. Richie was able to come out of his daze first.

“Uh - Pats, not that I’m not flattered, but um...I mean, you and Stanley over here are both very hot and very nice, don’t get me wrong. I just...” He threw a beseeching look at Stan, who made an effort to shake himself out of his own stupor. Stan cleared his throat.

“Babylove” - and for once, there were were no kissy faces and fake gags at the nickname - “I - what? Catch me up here. Is this...is this something you’ve been thinking of doing for some time?”

She shrugged. “Not really. But you know - he’s cute.” She gave Richie a charming grin, and he blushed. The other Losers watched with wide eyes. “And...I don’t know. I had a girlfriend, when I was in high school. A secret girlfriend, but still. A girlfriend who I liked and who liked me back and we were both aware of that. I think it’d be nice if you got to have that, too.”

“Patty, that’s really sweet, it is, but - Richie and I don’t have those feelings for each other anymore.” He narrowed his eyes at Richie. “Right?”

“Are you threatening me or asking me?” Richie asked with a snort. At Stan’s flat look, he stuck out his tongue and then said, “Sorry for trying to lighten the mood. But the answer is no. Those feelings were born and died somewhere in the summer of ‘91.”

Patty blew a raspberry at them. “I’m not saying you do, and I’m not saying you have to date. I just think it’d be nice for you two to get a taste of what it could have been like. ‘Killer couple,’ didn’t you say?”

Stan eyed her wine critically. “Does alcohol make you nostalgic about your bi awakening?”

“Not just my bi awakening.”

Stan snorted, half because he found everything Patty did endearing, and half because her idea was starting to sound better and better. Or, at the very least, not something that would have any bad effects.

He sighed heavily. “I’m too drunk for this,” he decided. “You guys can crash here, but only if you promise to try to sleep and not goof around. And we” - he gestured at Richie, Patty, and himself - “can talk about this...throuple thing in the morning, when we’re sober.”

Amid Patty’s delighted squeal, the Losers’ whooping, and Eddie’s indignant, “WHAT,” Stan heard Richie asking, “Wait - Stan? Staniel? What do you mean? Are you for real? Am I in some alternate universe? Stanley Uris, stop walking away from me!”

Stan simply waved one hand in the air, the other placed firmly on Patty’s waist as they went to bed.

“Good night, Losers!”

#fic ref #slow burn fic ref #lecg.txt

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catboysimulator · 4 years ago

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Story Two - Daily Grind

In the early morning of the desert, the weather feels warm yet fresh against one’s skin. In the wee hours of dawn is when the Seekers of the Sankres begin to awaken, eager to begin their day while the Keepers continue to rest after having turned in only an hour or two prior. Fortunately, the Keepers are quite used to the Seekers’ morning routine of sound-offs, some hooting and others chirping, while the rest bellow and lazily roar.

Coming out of their adobe homes after getting ready for the day, they are all prepared and eager to finish their workload. The inner machinations of the tribe work like the simplest, yet most efficient, well-oiled machine. Not one person works alone, every Sankre is integral to the pride for things to operate smoothly. Whether it is tending to the farm, taking care of the little ones, feeding the Gryphons, repairing, cleaning, cooking… The list goes on, and on.

After his arrival, Azhi’li had no idea just where his place was. Everyone worked so easily, as though it was complete second nature. Azhi’li was itching to work, to do something, yet he was worried about trying to offer his help, afraid of making a mess of things.

Of course, that was only after the first month or so of his arrival. He still feels a bit out of place, but he has gotten much more comfortable.

“Good morning, Zizi!” a crowd of little voices chime eagerly, screaming and laughing ringing throughout the caverns as a pile of young miqo’te crowd and climb onto Azhi’li. The red Seeker laughs in amusement as the children cling onto him, lolling their heads back as they tug at their cousin.

“Good mornin’, little ones! C’mon, y’all, get back down! Y’know very well I ain’t a tree!” he chastises them, yet his tone is purely amused. Still, the children listen, getting off Azhi’li and lining up, theatrically puffing up their chests and saluting the older Seeker by pounding their chests with their little fists. The older Seeker couldn’t help but bark out in laughter, rolling his eyes with a giant toothy grin while the young ones also laughed and lightly shoved at each other.

“Alright, come on. Let’s all head on over to the trainin’ grounds, yeah?”

Leading them along, the little miqo’te followed their cousin like little ducklings in a row, chattering amongst themselves.

“What are we going to learn today?”

“I don’t know! Maybe he’ll show us how to split rocks with our BARE HANDS!”

“Or maybe show us how to split the EARTH!”

“Oh, oh! What about if he--?!”

“Hey, hey! Come on, guys, cut me some slack! That’s all a bit too much ta be learnin’ right now, don’t ya think?” Azhi’li quipped in return while the children whined and asked, “So what are you going to show us today?”

“Mm… Well, before we start, how ‘bout we do some stretches, yeah? Come on! Early mornin’ stretches! Th’more relaxed ya are, th’better you’ll learn!”

As soon as that was said, the young ones were quick to quit their questions and move on to do as told. Once their 10 minutes of stretching regiments were completed, Azhi'li let out a "whew!" before grinning towards the kids and pumping his fists. "Alright, li'l pugilists! Let's get started t'day, aye?"

"Aye!" they repeated before laughing excitedly.

It has been this way for a few sennights now, where Azhi'li would show the children what he knows, ever since his uncle G'sena told him of their history.

"We were built on the backs of monks, you know," Sena informed him with a gentle smile. "Our ancestors were refugees of Ala Mhigo during the time of King Theodric, when he razed the Temple of the Fist. What few miqo'te that had been under Rhalgr's teachings escaped to Thanalan, and made our home the way it is today. They carved the sides of the mountains with their hands to make our home, and gave us the Sun." He gestured up towards Azeyma's watch.

"Yet, the people here have long since forgotten our monkhood, and we have instead taken upon blades and shields, bows and axes, staves and chakrams. No one here has encountered a monk ever since your father, and even then he was not taught the way you were. We have soulstones, but no one uses them, nor has used them for many summers," he explained further, holding a box within his hands. "No one can open the box without the blessing of our matron. Yet... I believe with you here, Dhezi, you might manage to rekindle that fire within our people and the matron. And the best place to start with that, if you are interested, is with the younger generation."

"I could see that you are feeling a bit out of place still, so this might be a great opportunity for you to get in touch with your cousins... What do you think, Dhezi?"

Ever since that conversation with uncle Sena, Azhi'li had volunteered to take care of the little ones who were interested in pugilism. He wanted to take them through the steps he had first learned back in Ul'dah with the pugilist's guild, and fortunately they all seemed to be taking in the lessons quite well.

For the ones who didn't understand or seemed to struggle a bit more than the rest, Azhi'li was sure to be patient with and take his time teaching them. He knows he has plenty of time here, plenty of time to learn more of his family and to teach them what he knows, as well as learn about what they know.

This is his home.

---------------------------

After training, he takes the little ones to have lunch. Moving into the kitchens, he cooks them up some aldgoat stew, the same way Mama Azhi used to make it for him. He wears a bittersweet smile on his lips the entire time he cooks, soft hums escaping him as his tail sways slowly behind him.

The children wait outside at the tables for their food, while Azhi'li is joined by some older miqo'te. Sunkissed, sunworn; the crinkles on their face creasing as they smile towards Azhi'li. "Dhezi, dear, that smells wonderful. Is there any way we can help?"

"Ah! No, y'don't have ta--," he stammers out, before one of them chuckles and places a gentle hand upon his arm. "We would like to."

That makes the red Seeker pause before smiling a bit sweeter, nodding. "Alright. Let's make enough fer everyone, yeah?"

And so they cooked together, making steaming pots of aldgoat stew. The smell wafted out from the kitchens out into the caverns, bringing in many Sankres from each corner. A feast was not really planned out, but, here they are, passing out bowls to everyone so they can all eat together.

Sharing a warm, hearty meal like this, surrounded by so many people who are considered his family... It feels so strange, honestly, with how many there are-- yet, it is not an unwelcome feeling. These strangers are warm, kind, considerate, and caring to someone who they were meant to know all their lives, yet only just met. It helps Azhi'li relax, helps him realize that these people are indeed meant to be his family.

The caverns are full of laughing, smiling faces. Warmed by Azeyma's rays, as well as embraced by Menphina's light. This is not the type of tribe people have always warned him about back in Ul'dah, ever since he was a kid. Truly, what farfetched lies and stereotypes he was fed.

---------------------------

"What're ya making, Zizi?"

Approached by a young miqo'te, G’luna, Azhi'li looks up from his craft before offering a gentle grin. "Wanna see?"

"Yeah!" The little one's too-large-for-their-head's ears perk up and his giant, round eyes widen considerably as he steps closer and peers down at what Azhi'li was doing.

Weaving beads together, Azhi'li held onto the string carefully before lifting it to show the curious one.

"Oh! You're making a necklace?"

"Well, makin' that 'nd more. There's a lot of tagua that tio Sena told me about, 'nd the abuelitos showed me how to make jewelry out of them, so..."

"Why are you making so many, though? Do you like to wear them?"

"I do! But these are not for me. They are for m'friends 'nd family."

"... But we are right here? And we already have enough?"

Azhi'li couldn't help but to laugh lightly, nodding. "Ya are, 'nd ya do! But, I'm talkin' 'bout m'other friends 'nd family outside of the Sankres. I have more brothers 'nd mamas that aren't here, y'know!"

"More brothers? Why aren't they here, then?"

"Mm, b'cause they have their own family."

"... I don't get it."

"Haha, that's okay. So, y'know how y'have yer friends, right?" Azhi'li inquires while smiling, continuing to polish some more tagua before weaving them with string. Luna nods.

"Well, I have many friends. People who are not related to me, yet that I know and that I enjoy th'company of. Some a'those people I consider very close, closer than anyone else that I know... so they're like family to me, too. Yer family doesn't only have ta consist of th'people y'were born with, but they can be yer friends, too."

"-- Oh. Okay, I think I understand, now. So, my best friend can be family, too?"

"Well, why not?"

"I dunno."

"So then what would stop ya from callin' 'em such?"

"... Nothing?"

Azhi'li would give them a toothy grin at that, nodding. The young one released a small 'ooh' of revelation, before shifting to sit beside the older Seeker. "... Can I help you make these? How many are you making?"

"Aw, hey, a'course y'can. I'm makin' lots! I gotta make some fer Toadie, Miss Rei, K'ilhi, Mama Azhi, Zi'a, Zi'to... Miss Nana, Ryska, Si'ra, Livia, Latika'a, Yato... ... Poki," he murmurs towards the end, his voice growing smaller the more names he listed. The names he missed more and more as the days went by.

The little one canted their head to the side, looking up at Azhi'li with brows pinched upwards. "Zizi?"

He hadn't realized it, but globs of tears were pouring down his face. He takes in a sharp breath, lifting a paw to wipe at his eyes while muttering, "Sorry, 'm sorry."

Wordlessly, G'luna shifted onto their knees, shuffling closer to Azhi'li and embracing him warmly. "Papa always told me to never apologize for tears, he says they are blessings of one's love."

With a nod, the red Seeker shifted to return the embrace, taking a few moments of deep breaths before pulling away and stroking Luna's head. "Thank you, prime. ... Well, let's make the prettiest collares y pulseras for everyone, hm?"

"Yeah!"

#zizi's arc #story time #azhi

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mcchipisfried · 5 years ago

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DEArtfest Day 4 - Proposal

Oh boy was this one hard (There were a lot of things I wanted to do but I could only do so much). I put in some Easter eggs for anyone who reads this just like how I’m planning to hide little things in my drawings.(If you want to find out these Easter eggs, check out Detroit Awakening on YouTube and maybe read up on some of your favorite lines from Detroit Evolution. I’ll have the Easter eggs listed at the end of the prompt!)

Gavin began pacing the inside of his living room the moment he had made it home. Nines had to stay and help Tina with some paperwork of sorts since she had recently become a detective and was still “adjusting” to everything she needed to do. This was of course a lie, but Nines had promised to not scan people unless they were in immediate danger so the chances of him catching on to the fact that Tina was lying were very slim, but never zero.

He had left the precinct as soon as he was finished with his work, which had been much earlier than usual, and had made it home in record time, although he wasn’t gonna ponder the fact that he had maybe run some red lights on the way. Maybe. But all his law breaking had a very good excuse, or at least that’s what he told himself.

It was an unofficial anniversary that Gavin kept to himself, where he would treat Nines just a little bit nicer, even going as far as to be more affectionate with him in public. Not that he was ashamed of being with Nines but it was embarrassing to get knowing looks around the precinct whenever he walked around with a blush that always seemed to reach his ears. But why, you may ask, was this day so special? It wasn’t the day they began their relationship, or any of their birthdays, so why was this day anything to celebrate? Well, it was actually the day Gavin and Nines had been assigned to be partners. March 27. How could Gavin forget the way he practically stormed out of Fowler’s office, shoving past Nines - then the RK900 - and failing to even budge him an inch. He had been angry, to be partnered up with a machine whose only purpose was to kill other androids, but that just wasn’t the case anymore, and truthfully it never was. It took three months for Gavin to even begin to see him as anything more than an android, much less a friend. But now, they were so much more. And Gavin thought that after everything they had gone through, they were finally ready for the next step.

Gavin had a ring, a very simple one. A small gold band that would look perfect with anything that Nines decide to wear any day of the week, if he said yes. Gavin had known that Nines was the one for him for a while now. He dealt with his “tantrums” and outbursts of energy whenever they came. He never bothered Gavin, about his very specific fixations and always helped him with his nightmares, now transformed. Sometimes he was a kid, sitting in the cold, waiting to die. Those weren’t so bad anymore. Other times he was in the alley, holding Nines in his arms, his LED off, and no one to hear his cries. Those were the worst. The worst of him, but Nines stayed. He would wake Gavin and just hold him until all he could see was Nines. But what mattered most was that he stayed and wasn’t that all he ever really needed?

Gavin had been planning the whole day weeks in advance. Nines couldn’t really eat so he had saved himself from having to prepare him a fancy dinner, but he could still do other things, like clean the apartment. Which he had done that morning. He had planned to take Nines out but they both knew that Gavin, even if he left work two hours earlier, would be exhausted and would immediately start complaining about having to leave the comforts of their home so that idea was quickly thrown out the window. He was still pacing the apartment before he finally sat down and put his head in his hands. What was he supposed to do? Everything he thought of seemed wrong or insignificant. He wanted this to be perfect but he couldn’t think of a way to make it perfect or even enough. He wasn’t enough.

Gavin gently took the ring out of his pocket and looked at it. It really was a simple ring, no lavish gems to adorn the outside of it, no meaningful engravings, it was just a simple band, and yet it was perfect. In his mind he could picture Nines, handing him his morning coffee and the ring shining against the light from his computer. Nines holding his hand as they walked around the park, the ring pressing firmly into his fingers. Nines holding his face as they gently kissed, the ring cold against his cheek. Nines. Nines. Nines.

After everything they had been through Nines stayed with him. With Gavin. Simple Gavin. Who didn’t have a lavish job or apartment. No pretty words to win people over with. Just simple Gavin who was messy, rude, lazy, and who right now, was wearing his heart out on his sleeve.

He turned to look at the table as his phone began to ring. Tina. Oh no. He picked up the phone.

“Tina, what’s up-” he began to say before Tina interrupted him.

“Gavin we’ve got a problem. Nines finished helping me out with all the paperwork and he’s on his way to you now”

“Wait wait wait” Gavin began to pace again

“What do you mean now? Those papers should have taken at least an hour and I thought you were supposed to distract him with some other bullshit before I gave you the cue?”

“I know but he slipped away! The papers were finished pretty quickly and I had to go send them to Fowler but by the time I had made it back he was gone! Gav I’m so sorry” Tina said, definitely sounding very apologetic.

Gavin sighed. He wouldn’t have time to do anything before Nine’s made it back home.

“It’s fine, T. I'll see what I can do”

“Are you sure? I can try calling him and say I need help moving my desk?”

“No, he’s probably almost here. I’ll call you later and tell you what happened.”

“Okay...and Gavin?”

“Yeah?”

“He’s gonna say yes. Call me!”

Tina hung up before Gavin could say anything else. He looked at his phone and thought of Tina’s words. “He’s gonna say yes” And god he hoped that was true. He turned to face the door when he thought he heard the sound of even steps approaching. Shit. He was out of time. There was nothing he could do except…

Gavin rushed to the door and did the only thing he could think of before he heard the door being unlocked from the other side.

...

Nines had finally finished helping the newly Detective Chen, who he had to remind himself to call Tina, with her rather easy paperwork. Although there was a lot of it, the overall difficulty was hardly anything that he couldn’t do within the hour. He glanced at the clock on the wall and noticed it was still rather early. He had finished his work at around the same time as Gavin but had been left behind in the wake of Tina’s cries for help. It seemed the detective wouldn’t need any more help and if she did she could always talk to another officer. He walked out of the precinct and quickly called down a cab. He still hadn’t learned how to drive and had honestly never seen the need to since Gavin was usually his ride home. As he got into the cab and told the driver the address of the apartment he began to think back on the day's events. Funnily enough, the day had been rather uneventful, with barely any cases and little paperwork, the most interesting thing that had happened that day was interacting with Gavin, but to Nines that was always the most interesting and best part of his day.

Gavin had been rather nice that day, if a bit too nice. He joked around with Tina but barely teased or messed with Nines, simply talking to him and smiling whenever he caught him staring. Gavin had even been brave enough to lightly kiss him on the cheek when he had handed Gavin his afternoon coffee, which he was very pleased by.

The only strange thing he noticed was when he had gone into the break room to have his usual five minute gossip break with Tina. Not that he was one for talking about his co-workers but Tina was always ready to share what she had overheard throughout the day. When he entered the break room he saw Gavin and Tina, who were quietly whispering to each other until he had entered, at which point Gavin had gotten up, patted Nines on the shoulder and left. Before Gavin had turned the corner Nines had quickly scanned him and saw that his stress levels were higher than usual but before he could ask Gavin if he was alright, Tina had begun to talk his ear off. And by the time he had made it to his desk, Gavin was already packing up for the day and Tina was quickly bringing in her tablet to begin the work she had needed help with.

Before he had even realized, he was already stepping outside of the cab and heading towards the apartment. As he approached the door, he heard quiet footsteps inside reach the door just as he began to unlock it. He heard a soft thud just on the other side of the door, and as he began to open it, he looked down not really imagining what he would find in front him. He let out a soft gasp, completely unnecessary because of his android body but expected of his human heart as it squeezed inside his chest.

There on his knee, was Gavin, and in his hand was a ring. The most beautiful and perfect thing he could ever picture. His eyes widened in surprise, his programming not quite catching up to what he thought, no, what had to be going before Gavin began to speak.

“Nines...you are...no um wait...Nines...I don't know where my life is headed, but I know that I need you in it, to make sure I don’t do something really stupid” Gavin chuckled, but chocked back a bit. His eyes were watering a bit and he was looking at Nines like he was everything he would ever need. Like he was enough.

Nines could feel himself beginning to fall apart, he didn’t know if he could cry, he had never done it before but it felt like he was about to burst with tears. He laughed a little at Gavin’s joke but didn’t try to interrupt him.

“Okay...okay Tin Can…” Gavin smiled, happy to see Nines laugh. “I need you. I need you to come back home. Everyday of my fucking life. And I know that’s kinda hard to believe because I was the absolute goddamn worst to you. Did you know that today is the same day we first became partners?” Gavin had begun to look down but looked up when he said this. Nines brought his shaking hands up to his mouth but Gavin continued before he could answer.

“I remember...Chris and Tina took bets on how long it would take us to kill each other.” He smiled at the thought as tears began to run down his face. “But…you stuck through it. Gave me as much shit as I gave you and eventually I stopped doing it to piss you off and did it...did it ‘cause it’s just what we do. You are my partner. You are my best friend. And you are…” he chuckled more, as he remembered saying this once before.

“...this force in my life that I can’t live without. I don’t want to look back. I will never be able to see a future without you. No matter what’s happened, you have never given up on me. Stay with me, Nines. Forever?” Gavin lifted up the ring, closer to Nines. He couldn’t be bothered to wipe the tears from his face as he smiled. Silently pleading, that he was enough, that this was enough.

“...yes.” Nines whispered. He crumpled to the ground and with shaking hands, let Gavin slowly slide the ring onto his finger. It shined from the light coming from inside the apartment, and before Gavin could even begin to process what this meant for them, Nines took him into his arms, and there on the entrance to their home, they held each other. Nines couldn’t stop whispering the same answer over and over against Gavin's shirt and Gavin couldn’t stop shaking from what had just happened. Nines said yes. He was still saying yes and all he could do was keep crying because after everything that happened this was enough. That stupid ring was enough. He was enough.

Nines gently pulled away from Gavin and held his face against his hands, the ring warm against his cheek.

“I love you” Nines whispered, before he gently leaned in to give Gavin a firm kiss on his lips. Gavin sobbed against it and held on to Nines tighter, like he was the only thing keeping him from flying away. Nines gently pulled away, just barely grazing his lips against Gavin’s.

“I did know.” Nines said, looking at Gavin as he opened his eyes and gave him a confused stare.

“About the date. March 27. The day we became partners. You cussed me out before storming out of Fowler’s office.” They both laughed at this. “I remembered the date but I never realized you were the romantic type Detective Reed”. Gavin blushed as they slowly began to get up and make their way inside.

If you were to stand on the other side of the hallway, you’d be able to hear Gavin tell Nines to shut up just as the door fully closed. You’d be able to hear their muffled laughter as they made their way into the living room. And if you stayed long enough, you’d be able to hear the sound of Tina and Chris’ laughter and words of encouragement of the future to come.

Hey! Did you know that Detroit Awakening came out on March 27, 2019?

Hey! Did you know some of my favorite lines from Detroit Evolution are from when Gavin is talking to Nines while he is recovering from Ada’s attack?

#fanfic #detroit evolution #reed900 #gavin reed #rk900 nines #deartfest #proposal

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