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jackrrabbit · 3 years

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Adversary /// Overhaul x f!Reader (18+)

Summary: You make a deal with the devil to save your life, but it turns out Overhaul’s not interested in your soul.

A/N: Remember when I said I was going to do a fantasy collab and then dipped for like 9 months? Hahaha…anyway…

@pleasantanathema @ present-mel @shadowworks—if it’s not too late, here’s my part for the Pleasant & Strider Fantasy AU Writing Collab from a million years ago. Go check out the masterlist and gorge yourself on these amazing pieces!!

Tags/Warnings: dubcon, demon fuckery & occult things, big heresy/sacrilege/perversion of religion, sex in a church ft. Catholic sex guilt, other than that it’s not that bad lol, inexperienced reader, mild degradation, shameless camp and demon-fucking clichés, Overhaul calls you “little girl” 👉👈

He doesn’t look like a demon.

Not that you really know what demons are supposed to look like. But…red skin, right? Fangs and claws and swirling masses of bad energy. Maybe cloven hooves for feet. Yes, that’s the Disney version—but even if you didn’t expect a cartoon personification of evil, you didn’t expect this.

He looks like a doctor, you think. Lab coat hanging open, surgery mask pushed down under his jaw, stethoscope draped over his shoulders. No, he’s a little young to really look like a doctor…an intern, you amend, shifting back in your hospital bed. He looks like he fits right in here, not a hair out of place. Except for, you know, the polished black horns curling out of the sides of his skull.

Overhaul. It was written in the book. That’s the only thing you have to call him in your head.

He’s standing in the center of the sigil you drew at the foot of your bed before midnight, surveying the room critically without meeting your gaze. He looks annoyed—that’s not a good sign, is it?—but then again, of course he’s annoyed. You’d be annoyed too if you got summoned out of your cozy hell dimension in the middle of the night. According to the book, you’re lucky he even showed up…although ‘lucky’ isn’t really how you’d describe yourself most days.

“So,” Overhaul says after a long moment of silence in which you question every choice you’ve made in your relatively short life. “You’re dying.”

You nod.

“And you don’t want to be.”

You nod again, wondering if you’re supposed to be contributing more to this conversation. It’s a bit difficult when your mouth is so dry it feels like you’ve been eating dirt, but you suppose being in the presence of an unholy servant of Satan will do that to a person.

“Fine.” He sighs, frowns, and then finally lowers his gaze onto yours—and you shiver.

Those eyes. No human has eyes like that.

“Make me an offer,” Overhaul tells you, and through his open mouth you catch a flash of sharp white teeth.

Okay. Okay. The chirping of the heart monitor speeds up (as if it weren’t obvious enough that you’re terrified) and you fold your knees up to your chest and fidget with your ring and think. He’s giving you a chance to establish parameters. You’re supposed to start with his end of the deal, the thing you want from him. That’s what it said to do in the grimoire, aka the 19th century demonology volume your creepy cousin brought back from her pagan anthropology research trip in rural France. The one you keep hidden under your bed because your mother would burn it if she knew you were reading about summoning demons.

Offer nothing to a hell creature without first telling him your price. You know the words by heart, both the winding calligraphy of the original French from the grimoire and the rushed scrawl of the English translation your cousin left for you in sheets of lined paper layered between the pages of the book for you to read. Really, this is her fault. She was the one who slipped you the book, who told you that it worked, who snuck you the ingredients for the summoning. She was the one who left a bookmark at the chapter on this particular demon, one that specializes in ‘Contrat pour Remédier au Déséquilibre des Quatre Humeurs’, which she said meant a contract to cure any illness. Even his ‘name’ is translated in her hand, practically an afterthought in the margins of the page.

‘Le Malin qui Ravage et Rebâtit’— Overhaul?

You looked up the literal meaning of this phrase on your own. It did not reassure you.

“Girl.” His voice is cold, irate. Your eyes snap back up to his and it feels like that burning gaze is laser-beaming into your skull. “Do not test me. My time is limited…as is yours.”

You swallow. “How long do I have left?”

“Less than a single human year,” he tells you without a trace of sympathy. “Seven months, twelve days, three hours. Or so. You’ll be too exhausted to leave this bed in four months, and the pain will become intolerable in six… By the end, you’ll wish—“

“Stop,” you breathe out. The heart monitor is beeping wildly and you squeeze your knees into your chest, trying to calm down your breathing. “Stop, I—I want to live.”

“Of course you do.” Overhaul’s lip curls. “How very predictable.”

Be specific, you remind yourself, doing your best to ignore the stifling disapproval from the man—the demon—in front of you. Something about him (maybe how clean-cut he looks, maybe the indisputable authority in his demeanor) makes you want to impress him. But you didn’t turn your back on your religion—you didn’t draw pagan symbols on the floor in chalk, fill silver cups with various questionable substances (including your own virgin blood), and turn the crucifix your mother hung over your bed upside-down so you could let a demon make you feel guilty for wanting to survive. “I want to be cured. I’m okay with whatever natural death I have instead when I’m older, I just don’t want to die of this illness. I want you to make me healthy.”

“Simple enough. What else?”

‘Simple’? Your heart surges with something you’ve felt very little of since your initial diagnosis—hope. “T-That’s it. Just the cure.”

Overhaul glares at you. “Humans… Every vice in the world available to you, and you limit yourselves to the basest priority of survival.”

“But you can do it? You can cure me?” you persist.

Overhaul steps forward (quiet, so quiet you wonder if he really moved) and holds a hand out to you past the foot of your bed—you hesitate, and a second later you can see the muscles in his hand flex, stretching the latex of his plastic gloves tight over his knuckles.

Just do it. You give him your hand. Carefully. Like you’re scared the contact will burn you. It doesn’t (although his skin feels warmer than yours), but after a moment his grip tightens, sliding down past your hand to circle the fragile bones of your wrist and squeeze.

“Ow?” You wince.

The demon’s eyes flicker closed for a second, lips moving silently like he’s talking to himself—and then he drops your hand unceremoniously back onto your lap. “You could be cured before the sun rises this morning. I doubt your stay in the hospital will extend past the end of the week.”

He sounds bored, voice as flat and passionless as it was earlier, but your heart is soaring. Cured. You’ve lived with this illness for so many years, you can’t remember the last time someone told you you could be cured. And getting out of the hospital that soon? You can just imagine taking down all the decorations from the walls of your room here and setting them up in your old bedroom at home. You could see friends on the weekend and not take an oxygen bag, you could get a job or—or apply to college, you could have a life—

“That is…assuming you have something to offer me in exchange for the cure.”

Your stomach drops. You’d almost forgotten about the other half of the deal.

“Don’t tell me I came all this way for nothing.” Overhaul steps back, and the orange light of the candles you set sends strange shadows over his arrogant face. The fires look brighter now, and you find yourself tracing the lines of those shining black horns. In an odd way, they look natural—so organically framing his temples that you can’t imagine him without them.

“N-No, of course not. I have some money—I mean, my mom has some, and I can get it for you…” Which is half the truth. If you know anything, it’s that your mother’s spent most of her savings on your treatment and care. You probably have more debt than you have money in the bank right now—you’d try to get rid of that, too, if you hadn’t read in the book how important it is to keep your request as simple and straightforward as possible.

…Although it’s apparently not enough. Overhaul’s eyes narrow, molten gold irises carved into slits. “Even if I had a use for human money, do you really believe your life is worth so little?”

“No—no,” you say quickly. “I just thought—in case you were interested—”

The air crackles with energy, the candle flames spark bright blood-red, and the hair on your arms stands straight up. “I am not.”

“Okay! I get it.” You wave your hands back and forth, pulling your IV line from side to side with the motion. The book was very clear about staying calm and rational while you work out the terms of the deal, but that’s easier said than done when you have a real live (live?) hell creature in front of you. You always knew this was going to be the hard part—all the stories say there’s only one thing that a demon would be interested in, and no matter how inviting the prospect of living past this illness is, you know you’d rather die than sell your immortal soul to the devil. “I’ll give you anything except my soul! And—and don’t hurt anyone I care about, or— just don’t hurt anyone, okay? Other than that, if there’s anything I can give you, I will.”

Overhaul’s lip curls, baring a thin strip of those unnaturally sharp canines. “And is your soul really so valuable?”

This throws you for a loop. Isn’t that the standard deal? A soul for a wish? That’s how it’s supposed to work—at least in this twisted version of reality where you can summon a demon to perform unholy miracles for you. But if you think about it, it doesn’t really make sense, does it? Why would your soul be valuable to him? You can’t form an argument, especially since you’re not willing to barter it away in the first place.

Your mouth is pursed open as you search for a response, but Overhaul doesn’t seem willing to wait. A gloved hand wraps its way around the railing at the side of your bed, and he leans in closer. “Little girl…what makes you think you possess anything I desire?”

Little girl. You’re not a little girl, you’re a grown woman—and yet there’s no untruth in the statement. In front of him you feel insignificant, immature, weak. You have nothing real to offer, and something tells you that you’re not going to get rid of the demon you summoned without a sacrifice you’re not willing to make.

You twist your ring around your finger—the nervous habit you haven’t bothered to break because you’ve always had more important things to worry about—and the glint of silver in the candlelight must catch Overhaul’s eye because before you even notice him moving, your delicate hand is trapped in his larger one to give him a better view of the tiny piece of jewelry. “What is this?”

“It’s—um, a ring. A purity ring.” Has he never seen one before? Well…actually, that makes sense.

Overhaul turns your hand over in his without touching the band of silver. He’s looking at it closely, inspecting the lovingly engraved cross in the design and the inscription on the other side. “Matthew 5:8,” he reads out.

“…Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” you recite cautiously. It feels wrong to speak the words in front of him, but somehow you can’t help yourself.

Overhaul’s hand doesn’t leave yours. “This ring is important to you.”

“It’s a symbol of a—a promise I made to God. To save myself for my future husband.”

“To ‘save yourself’? To save what?”

You can’t believe you’re explaining this to a literal demon. You close your eyes and inhale slowly and taste smoke. “My…virginity. It’s a promise that I won’t have sex until I enter into a biblical marriage.”

At this, Overhaul is quiet. You give him a moment to answer, half expecting him to question why you think God cares about your sexual status (honestly, you’d be lying if you said you haven’t wondered this yourself), but he stays quiet until you peek up at him to try and gauge the look on his coldly handsome face.

He’s still staring at the ring. He hasn’t touched it—maybe he can’t, because of the cross?—and through the latex, his skin feels hotter than a human’s is supposed to be.

“Is there…” you start, but you trail off when you realize you have nothing to ask. You give a little tug to try and take your hand away and you’re surprised when your wrist actually slides out of his grip to fall back on the nest of sheets in your lap. You didn’t think he’d let you go so easily.

Overhaul turns his head to the side, eyes drilling into you so you feel like you should lower your gaze. The candlelight flickers in strange shadows over his horns. “This will do,” he says quietly.

“What?”

“In exchange for your cure.” The demon taps his own left ring finger, the place where the purity ring sits on your hand, and your heart soars. He actually wants that? It’s just a simple silver band, not worth much, but you’re not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe it has some special significance because of the religious connotation. Your mother will be angry you’ve lost it, but you’re happy to cope with that if it means living to actually get married!

“Yes!” you blurt out before he has a chance to rethink his offer. Sure, you’ll miss the purity ring—you’ve had it since you were a kid, after all—but there’s no question you’re getting the better end of this deal. At least in your opinion.

Something flashes through his yellow eyes, something you don’t even want to try and identify. “The contract, then.”

You barely have time to notice that his voice has gentled, that it’s practically silken in comparison to before, when the candlelight flickers again and suddenly the contract is everywhere. Everywhere. Writing appears on every surface in the room, covering the walls, stretching over the ceiling, coiling around the sides of the hospital equipment and decorating your bedsheets until you and Overhaul are the only untouched surfaces in sight. The characters are inscribed in red, dark red like—don’t think about that, you tell yourself squeamishly. You can make out some of the letters, even a word here or there—French, you recognize, mixed with what looks like Latin and interspersed with what you can only guess are runes.

“I can’t read this,” you tell him, fidgeting with your ring for what you now realize will be the last time.

“I only need your name,” he purrs, and then you feel a fragile weight in your hand: a feather, pearl-black and glossy and too large to belong to any bird you can think of, its angled tip glistening with wet ink. There’s an empty space in the writing before you, and Overhaul’s gloved hand comes to yours again to guide you into place.

This feels wrong…then again, of course it does. Even if you’re getting off relatively easy and just losing your ring rather than your soul, you’re still making a deal with a demon. You sign your name, forcing yourself to think about the future you have ahead of you rather than a disapproving white-bearded caricature of The Man Upstairs wagging his finger at you for haggling with a literal servant of Satan. People have done worse things to survive, haven’t they? It’s just a ring.

You set the feather down and Overhaul sighs, thick black eyelashes obscuring his intense gaze for a moment—and then the contract is gone, leaving your hospital room as blank and sterile as it’s supposed to be (well, aside from the candles and all the other ritual stuff you threw together to summon a demon in the first place).

“Are you going to cure—heal me now?” you ask.

“…Patience, little girl.” He’s pulling his glove off, peeling it down his fingers to bare the pale skin of his hand. You catch your breath and wonder what this is going to feel like, and then the tips of his fingers meet your cheek and—

you stop breathing.

It doesn’t hurt.

Or if it does, you don’t remember the pain a second later when breath floods back into your lungs. What you do feel is energy. Strength in your muscles, blood pumping through your veins, every inhale and exhale as light as a bird and freer. You feel healthy. You’re surprised you even remember what health feels like but you do: it’s like you’ve only been half alive, and now life is surging into you and through you and around you, bubbling up in your core like a spring overflowing. You blink rapidly, thinking you might cry from the sheer pleasure of it, but when you open your mouth it’s laughter that comes out. You’re healthy. You’re alive. You barely notice the IV line literally falling off of your skin because the hole where it entered your vein is sealed shut and healed perfectly.

No more needles. No more hospitals. Even without all the monitors beeping out your heart rate and measuring your vitals, there’s not a shred of doubt in your mind that you’re cured.

“Thank you!” you laugh, looking up at Overhaul and for the first time, not caring that he’s evil incarnate. “I feel—I’m okay! It worked!”

“Of course it did.” His expression is inscrutable, but he lets you have a few moments to enjoy your newfound health.

You roll your shoulders back, flex each muscle you can isolate one by one to test, make fists with your fingers and then run them over your hair, which is already thicker and shinier than it was a moment ago. Your body thrums with energy—you want to run, to feel the ground against your bare feet and the cold night air on your face, and you think you could do it! Your legs are already swinging over the side of your cot, ready to run barefoot out of the hospital if that’s what it takes, but before you can stand up Overhaul’s pushing you back down onto the bed.

“Have you forgotten your end of the bargain already?”

Honestly you did forget, but only for a second, only because you were so excited to just be outside again. “Oh, yeah. Of course.” Your hand goes to your left ring finger, ready to slip the ring off and hand it over, but Overhaul shakes his head.

“Not here.”

“What—?”

You’re falling. Your hospital room is disappearing, the image of your walls and your window and your bed disintegrating into yawning black, and you’re falling through it into nothing, into emptiness, and Overhaul’s still-bare hand in yours is the only anchor you have so you clutch onto it and squeeze your eyes shut. You want to scream—that’s the sane thing to do when you’re falling through miles and miles of empty space, right?—but when you open your throat the sound is swallowed up just like the light was…

Overhaul’s hand burns into yours, an improbable lifeline that you pull closer more out of terror than conscious thought. The slick, empty air rushes around you and you think I am going to die like this and then, incredibly, as soon as you’ve accepted your imminent demise, you feel your back mold onto a chilled, flat surface, vertebra by vertebra up to the back of your head, as if you’ve been lain down onto it.

Your heart thuds in your ears and you brace for an impact because your body hasn’t quite accepted yet that it’s not falling anymore—but at the same time, you know you’re lying down on something. You pry your fingers away from their vice-grip on Overhaul’s arm and feel around blindly for what’s underneath you, and when it seems reasonably tangible you let yourself open your eyes.

Way above, vaulted dozens of feet over your head, is a ceiling studded with gilt-edged frescoes and stained glass. It’s raining (even though it wasn’t in the hospital, you think) but through the massive panes of colored glass there’s enough oily blue light to make out that you’re in a church.

You’re in a church, with a demon. Isn’t that against the rules?

You sit up stiffly and look over at Overhaul, who’s standing at your side and looking down at you…which is how you realize the soft, cold surface you’ve been deposited onto is the blanket on top of the altar in the sanctuary. “Where...did you take me?”

“You should know this place.”

And you do, when you look around. It’s empty now and you’ve never been here at night, but this is a church your mother would bring you to when you were little, back before the disease got so bad you couldn’t risk traveling to it anymore. This is where you took your purity vow…the ring feels heavy on your hand. “Why—why—“

“I can’t stand human hospitals. Filthy places… How that reek of illness and death doesn’t bother your kind, I’ll never understand.” Overhaul pulls his latex glove back on. He’s dressed differently now, no longer impersonating a doctor—black shirt, black pants, and a…bird mask in red leather and gold. So are you, as a matter of fact. Instead of your hospital gown, you’re in a gauzy white dress that’s already been pushed up to pool around the tops of your thighs.

The slip is too thin for the cold, and you can feel your nipples standing up under the cloth so you fold your arms over your chest and hug yourself. “Why did you take me here?” The sound of your voice echoes off the walls eerily and you wish you hadn’t spoken so loudly. The reflection of your words sounds girlish, nervous.

“I told you. Your side of our contract.” Even in this dark, the angular features of his face are clearly concentrating—on you. “Are you already having second thoughts? Such a fickle little thing…”

“You mean the ring?” You reach for it again, ready to tear it off and throw it at him if that’s what it takes to see your deal through, but Overhaul snatches your hand away, pinning it above you.

“Not the ring,” he says. “The promise.”

The…promise?

A chill makes its way down your spine despite the heat radiating off the demon’s body and onto yours. “I don’t understand.”

“The promise,” Overhaul repeats—and you hear a sound almost like wings flapping and then he’s on the altar with you, knees straddling your hips as a single hand holds both your wrists above your head. “To remain a virgin until marriage. Your promise to God.”

A streak of lightning cracks down on the other side of the stained glass window behind the altar, illuminating the room briefly in spectacular pits of red and orange and yellow…and then it’s dark again, and the only color you can make out is the gold in Overhaul’s eyes.

“I’m going to break it,” he murmurs, lowering his head toward your ear right as the answering thunder rolls through the sanctuary, up through the altar, up into you.

///

Méfiez-vous de son piège, the grimoire said. Beware of the catch.

Of course it wasn’t just a ring.

Overhaul’s fingers are in—inside you, his middle and ring finger pumping through the length of your cunt like they belong there, like you were made to be touched this way. A mixture of your juices and your own spit cling to the latex because he made you suck his fingers before he put them in you and he hasn’t bothered to take his gloves off—not that you asked. You’ve been too busy biting your lip to try and muffle the moans that he keeps forcing out of you. He’s bracing himself on top of you with one hand and fingering you with the other, so your own hands are free to push into your eyes and hide your face…until he yanks your arm back and stops.

“Look at me.”

Your eyes are screwed shut and you shake your head back and forth, the movement shuddering your whole body right down to your pussy wrapped around Overhaul’s fingers. He slows the movement and kneels back, pushing one of your thighs up into your chest as he does it.

“Look at me.”

And you’re not sure whether it’s some unearthly power he has over you or the plain old deterioration of your willpower, but you can’t refuse him. You crack your eyes open and he’s glaring down at you, skin pale as ice in the blue light. Once he’s satisfied that you’re watching, the demon leans back in to fuck your cunt with his fingers, slowly at first and then quicker when he hits something inside of you—a spot, a place on the inner wall of your pussy that makes you feel like you’ve been shocked— heat blooms through you like blood in water and you gasp and he curls his fingers up to pet over that spot again.

“Wait—wait, that’s—it feels—weird!” You’ve never felt like this before. You’re not supposed to feel like this, it’s wrong.

“I understand you’ve never touched yourself, but don’t pretend you don’t like it.” Overhaul says, voice as indifferent and calm as ever even though your cunt is dripping clear sticky liquid over the plastic of his glove.

He pushes back in and grinds his palm over the little button on the top of your pussy—your clit?—and you want to scream. “No, I—I don’t—nnhh...”

Do you like it? The demon’s body is so hot next to yours, like he’s running a fever except you’re the one going out of your mind… You’ve heard metaphors for sexual pleasure before (that it’s like having something to drink when you’re dying of thirst; or that it’s the ultimate act of intimacy, love in physical form) but all of that’s a fucking lie. There’s nothing to compare it to, no reference that makes sense, because it doesn’t make sense—you don’t even want him to keep going, do you? You’re only doing this because you signed your name on a devil’s contract, because you don’t want to die and there’s no alternative…but that doesn’t explain why you feel so warm from the inside out, why you’re squirming and your hips are rocking involuntarily no matter how much you try to keep still. This isn’t right. You feel like you’ve been lied to.

A good girl wouldn’t like this.

Overhaul isn’t going to let you close your eyes, so you don’t—but the sounds coming out of your mouth are so…indecent (and how can you think these things about yourself? the word feels like someone else is saying it when you hear it in your head) that your hand is drifting up to your mouth before you can stop yourself, trying to stifle all of it…

“Let your voice out. I want you to hear yourself moan.”

Long fingers slide their way out of your pussy and then move up to rub quick little circles around your clit and you moan, like a whore, like a girl getting her cunt rubbed by a demon— “Oh, uhhhn—something, it’s—coming—“ There’s something building up in your core—a peak, a climax, something that makes you fist your hands in the nightgown he put you in (so tight you’re surprised the thin fabric hasn’t torn) and tilt your hips up into him, begging without words because you don’t have any to express what your body is asking for…

But he doesn’t give it to you. Overhaul takes his hand away from your pussy and the shock of the cool air after his too-hot touch is almost enough to send you over that edge—almost. Not quite. And without it, you’re left shivering and quaking, thighs twitching as your baser instincts beg you to just put your hand between your legs for once and hump your fingers to completion if the demon won’t do it.

You’re not going to risk that, though. Not when Overhaul’s dragging your body closer, bunching up the blanket on the altar under your spine, so your pelvis is angled to his… He’s already shirtless and you hear him unzipping his pants but you can’t bring yourself to actually look at him, even when you feel something hard and hot nudging up against your inner thigh and then aligning to your sticky wet slit.

“This will hurt a bit, but I want you to look,” he says, and you don’t even understand at first until you make yourself feel it—his cock, pushing up against your tight cunt to finish this, this perversion of what your first time was supposed to be…

And what was it supposed to be? Roses and candles and soft kisses? A nameless, faceless husband unzipping your wedding dress and making love to you with the lights off? The way the demon touches you should be cruel in comparison but it isn’t, it’s lighting fires under your skin and turning your brains to mush, so how is your body supposed to tell the difference?

It’ll hurt, you know that, you’ve heard enough about sex to know that it always hurts the first time for girls…women. It was already a stretch to fit his fingers in your virgin pussy, so of course his cock is going to hurt. You turn your head toward the window at your side and try on look out at the rain drawing rivulets like veins over the glass, something to focus on instead of him.

“I said look,” the demon hisses, and his hips push forward a bit and you bite off a whimper of pain. “Watch me take your virginity…look at your tight little cunt swallowing me up just like it was made to.”

“N-No—“ you whine, even though it’s not like you can ignore it. “Don’t make me, don’t make me look, I can’t—“

“Then look at me.”

It’s what he wants, some kind of wicked satisfaction he gets off on, but you’re lucky enough to even get an option so you choose that one, shifting your gaze up into his face instead of the place where his cock is pressing deeper and deeper inside you. Overhaul’s eyes are half-lidded and it’s hard to tell from behind the mask but the look on his face is…pleasure? No, that would be too human. Restraint, at least. He could just thrust up into your body in one stroke, but he wants you to feel it for some reason.

Maybe because it’s a worse betrayal of your chastity if you want to get fucked.

Lucky for you, though, you can barely feel anything aside from the pain. The heat you felt building earlier is draining out of you even as Overhaul tilts deeper, layering his chest over yours. You’re almost grateful for the modest barrier the dress provides between your torso and the solid muscle of his abdomen. His cock in your pussy feels like it’s too big too deep too much and it’s the first time you’ve felt like your body wasn’t created specifically for this purpose so you hold it tight.

“Does it hurt?”

A second of clarity makes you want to snarl (of course it fucking hurts, I’m losing my virginity to a demon I summoned from hell) and you dig your fingernails into your palms to stop yourself from saying it out loud. Overhaul pulls out a fraction of an inch and then pushes back in and you feel like the breath’s being pushed out of your lungs. “Yes! Yes, it—it hurts—“

“I can make you enjoy it…for a price,” he sighs, settling into a slow rocking motion of his hips pushing into yours.

And you want to, every sore muscle in your cunt is telling you to give in and give up, give him what he wants so you can enjoy it like he says—but you’d rather hate every second of this than make another deal. You shake your head quickly and because you’re still too afraid to look away from him, you don’t miss the look of surprise that flits across his face before he tamps it down. “I don’t—I don’t want to—like it,” you gasp out between thrusts. “It’s better if—if it h-hurts…”

This time it’s obvious—his eyes really do widen, and you feel some petty triumph at having caught him off guard like this. Who’s predictable now? you think—and then he’s lifting one hand off the altar at the side of your head and tugging his glove off with his teeth, and you don’t even have time to be afraid of what he’s going to do to you because it’s too late, his bare fingers are already stroking over your mound and onto your core, massaging into the flesh of your stomach so he can feel his own cock sliding in and out of you—

and it doesn’t hurt anymore?

You only have a second to try and understand—he cured you, he healed the pain from your first time just like he healed your illness?—before he hooks his grip under your thigh and folds your legs into your chest so he can fuck into you harder than before. His cock slaps into your pussy and you can hear it, hear how wet your filthy little cunt is, smeared through with your juices. It’s sick—the sound of skin against skin, and the moaning you can’t hold back, you sound like a woman in a porno and you wish the pain would come back just so you could keep hating what he’s doing to you. “What—what did you do—“

The demon ignores you. “It feels good, doesn’t it.”

“Nn—“ It’s deeper like this…deeper and rougher and you can feel it. Now that the pain’s been reduced to the dull ache of a stretched muscle, you can feel everything—his cock sliding against that same spot in your cunt that makes you want to squeal, the friction of his body moving against your clit, all of it, everything you wanted to block out— he pumps into you and you hear your breath sobbing out a moan a second out of rhythm, the sounds of you bouncing on demon cock echoing over the walls. “Please—ah, ahhh…”

“‘Please?’ Are you begging—me, little girl?” Overhaul pushes your thigh up and drags his cock through you, excruciatingly slow, forcing you to feel the thick head slide over every gummy wall in your slick pussy.

You shake your head, mewl, try to force your hips to stop rocking back into his and grinding your clit against him. But you can’t. You’re a—you were a virgin, for fuck’s sake! Overhaul’s immortal. Probably thousands of years of experience on how to make you feel like you want this, like you’re only alive in the places he touches you… You’re at his mercy, if he has any. You never stood a chance.

“Then are you begging your god?” His body lowers directly onto yours and like you’re being controlled by puppet strings your arms fold around him and rake your fingernails uselessly into the smooth skin of his back. You can feel the vibration of his mirthless laughter through his chest. “It must hurt terribly…to know he isn’t listening.”

“Don’t—stop, please,” you sob. “Don’t say—don’t stop—please!”

“Listen to yourself, girl—“ Overhaul’s breath is faster now, but you don’t have time to question it because you feel your peak coming again, the tension rising up through your cunt and your abdomen, harsher and crueler than when his fingers were in you but you want it just as much. More. “Has he ever answered your prayers? Has he...ahh, fuck—who’s the one giving you what you need?”

“No— please, please just let me let me, please—“ You’re talking nonsense now, begging for the release—at least then it’ll be over, and you need it, you need it so badly you feel your muscles locking up, cramping, your ankles crossing each other behind Overhaul’s back.

“Good girl,” the demon breathes, and then he lifts off you so he’s kneeling upright with the two of you still connected, his thick, heavy cock still speared in your pussy, and his fingers come down again to rub at your clit. Everything’s so wet you can hear the motion of his fingers slicking themselves through your juices, sliding up and down the little button over and over and it feels so good that a tiny part of you almost wants to drag it out, to savor it, but the rest of your body is going to die, is going to go crazy if the demon doesn’t let you cum right now, right now, right now!

And he does. Praise the Lord. The pads of Overhaul’s fingers pass over your clit one last time and your head rolls back, your throat moves but you can’t even make a sound, your legs shake and you cum.

You didn’t know it was like this.

Your cunt squeezes down on his cock, throbbing and pulsing and your toes literally curl (you didn’t think that was a real thing!) and your vision goes black for a moment and—oh fuck oh fuck i want this i want more how is it possible that i’ve never felt like this—you understand, more intimately than ever, why sex is wrong:

because nothing that makes you feel this good could possibly come without a cost, could it?

///

It must take longer than you thought for you to come back to your senses, because when you regain awareness of your body you’re in your hospital bed. You’re clean, too, and you wonder for a second if Overhaul bothered to clean you up? Or no…he probably just snapped his fingers and transported you back to your room. You’re not really sure how it works.

What you are sure of, however, is that you just got fucked by a demon. You’re sore in places that you didn’t know it was possible to be sore, and there are already bruises forming on the flesh of your thighs from how tight he was holding you. You don’t really have time to inspect these, though, because apparently your…ordeal (if you can call it that) isn’t over.

Overhaul’s still here.

He’s facing the hints of sunrise through the east window, dressed again in the immaculate lab coat and surgeon’s mask. “You’re awake,” he says without looking at you.

You nod hesitantly. You’re not really sure what the protocol is in this situation, but at least you’ve finally held up your side of the contract, right? And so has he. Despite having been up all night doing sinful things, you’re still itching to get out of this bed and test the limits of your healthy body. “You’re…going to leave, right?”

“Yes—”

At that, you sigh in relief and settle back into your starched bedsheets.

“But there’s one more thing you owe me.”

“Goddamnit,” you swear for the very first time in your life. After what you just did, taking the Lord’s name in vain seems like a relatively minor sin.

Overhaul’s mildly irritated expression doesn’t change, but he holds his hand out to you, palm up, the way you imagine someone would if they were helping you out of a car or requesting a dance at an old-fashioned ball. And really, you want all of this to be over—you want to get out of this hospital, you want to taste what the air outside is like, you want to distract yourself from what you just gave up in exchange for a future. At this point you’re just going to have to hope God isn’t as picky about the whole premarital sex thing as you grew up believing.

So you put your hand in Overhaul’s.

Slowly, carefully, like he’s afraid it’ll burn him, he slides your purity ring down your finger and balances it in the palm of his bare hand. It sizzles when he touches it, glowing orange until it eventually burns down into a ash-black circle in the center of his palm. Once he’s satisfied that your pretty little ring has been reduced to nothing more than a scorch mark, he closes his hand around yours and you feel something sharp, painfully hot, etching onto your finger.

It’s over in a second, but you still yelp and yank your hand away from him as soon as he lets you. “Ah—ow, what was that?”

He burned you, he literally burned you! He’s already healed it, but there’s still a thin, pale scar, an intentional one left wrapping around the skin at the base of your left ring finger. Like a wedding ring.

When you look close, you can make out a symbol on the back of your finger where the cross used to sit—and even though your conscious mind doesn’t recognize it, the sight of it rings out something inside your ribcage, deeper and truer than flesh and blood. It’s the devil’s mark, you think. It’s his.

“…A promise,” Overhaul says softly, and even though it’s a chilly morning, you can feel the heat of his hands on yours a long time after he vanishes back into the dark.

#overhaul x reader #chisaki kai x reader #bnha x reader #bnha imagines #mha imagines #tw dubcon #tw sacrilege #tw christianity #overhaul #chisaki kai #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia x reader #boku no hero imagines #my hero academia x reader #my hero imagines #boku no hero fanfic #smut

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sserpente · 4 years

Text

Raw Desire

Synopsis: Something is wrong with him. Something none of the Avengers, including Thor, understand. When Loki turns into his Jötun form unwillingly and begins to act in a very primal and aggressive way, their solution for the problem is to lock him up in a cell below the compound until it’s all over. It’s a disease, perhaps, one which only Frost Giants can develop. Only Loki is not sick. Loki is in heat--and his Jötun body will not rest until his most carnal desires have been satisfied...

Words: 9176 Warnings: Jötun!Loki, smut, fluff, symptoms of addiction

A/N: You wanted some Jötun!Loki, I wanted some Jötun!Loki... so here we go. Enjoy, everyone! 😏

Additional NSFW Warnings: breeding kink (a little bit, anyway), Loki is in heat (kind of, duh), lack of aftercare (at first...)

His antagonising scream tore through the entire compound. You flinched, alarmed. Loki. The heart-breaking sound of pain tugging at your nerves was followed by a loud thump—like a heavy metal door falling shut, locked for good. It had come from the cellar, where the Avengers stored weaponry and ammunition; along with provisory but secure prison cells of Wakandan technology for criminals until they could be handed over to the authorities.

When you reached the source of the rousing noise, you almost knocked straight into Thor. His muscly back resembled a thick fleshy wall that would break your bones if you collided with him with too much force and speed.

“What happened?” Out of breath, you moved around him—facing the culprit of the commotion. The eerie flickering camera right outside the cell door showed Loki knocking his fists repeatedly against the metal door. His knuckles were already bloody from the repeated impact, yet the door would not budge. Much more concerning, however, was his appearance. Loki’s skin—every inch revealed to the naked eye anyway—was blue, his otherwise enchanting blue eyes sparkling with mischief of a deep blood-red. Countless, unique and fleshy lines formed a complex pattern on his arms and the back of his hands, even his face and neck. Your lips parted, both in shock and surprise at what your eyesight had revealed to you.

“He’s losing his fucking mind.” Tony responded for Thor before the Thunderer could even open his mouth in defence. He came tramping into the room as mad as you had never experienced him, tapping away on a tablet in the process. “I told you it was bad idea to bring him back here, Point Break! What were you thinking?”

“Can anybody tell me what is going on?! Why is he… like this? Is he in pain?”

“In pain?! He almost killed Nat. If Wanda hadn’t interfered…” Tony did not finish the sentence—regardless, the threat of what consequences there would have been for the God of Mischief was clearly audible.

“This was unlike him. He had no reason to…”

“No? He pounced on her like a… like a…”

“Beast?” Bruce added matter-of-factly. His hands were in his pocket when he approached the scene and patted Thor on the back in an attempt of providing comfort.

“Maybe… maybe this isn’t his fault, Stark. I know my brother, he’s never acted like this before!” The God of Thunder roared in defence, his arms crossed.

“Yeah,” Tony retorted sarcastically. “You know your brother so well he even tried to kill us all. Three times. No. This man is evil. Look at him!”

Petrified, you risked another peek. Loki was downright animalistic, his fists still working the metal cell door. He was getting weaker, worn out—like the fire in his red eyes was slowly being extinguished to make way for weariness. There was something primal in his behaviour; something raw. You would be ignorant to deny it scared you.

“Tony,” you began, forcing your voice to cease the shaking, “What happened? Why did he attack Natasha? Was he hurt?” Your sudden concern for him was going to give you away. No, not sudden. It had always been there, hidden just beneath the surface of your heart. You had only kept it a secret because… because what?

Loki did not know you had been harbouring romantic feelings for him for a significant amount of time now. Dark, tall and mysterious, he matched not only your type but had hopelessly captured you with his melancholic and lonely nature, the grief in his stunning blue eyes. You refused to believe that Loki was evil, that he had ever truly wanted to harm his brother; and you were desperate to be his friend… and even more than that. But the God of Mischief had hidden his heart behind such a hard shell that you were worried you might never get him to open up to you.

You would by no means describe yourself as an altruistic person—but there was a both enamoured and depraved part of you which desired, longed, for him to like you back.

“Talk to me.” You stated, tilting your head when he flung his dagger at one of the battered punching bags in the training room.

“What?” He sounded almost scornful when he spun around to gift you an incredulous look.

“Talk to me, Loki. I want to know what’s going on in your mind. I thought I was… you are always so distant. You disappear in here every other night, you snap at everyone trying to speak to you. You look nervous, like something is trying to break out of you.” Like you are trying to get rid of monstrous amounts of bottled up energy, you added silently. “You seem so restless. What’s wrong?”

“What concern is that of yours?” He spat.

“See! That is exactly what I meant.”

Loki growled. “What do you want from me, (Y/N)?” You flinched when he used your full name as opposed to the nickname everyone called you by.

“Why? Why are you screaming at me, I’m just trying to help! Don’t you get it, Loki? I care about you. And I care about what you think, even if I am probably the only one in this bloody compound who does.” Now that was unfair. But it was also the truth. “Why are you pushing me away? Let me in…”

Desperately, you moved forward in an attempt to reach up and cup his face, only for him to grab your wrists and pull them away harshly.

“Let you in? All I have ever received in return for ‘letting someone in’ was hurt and hatred. Give me one good reason for why I should open up to you,” he mocked, releasing your hands as if they would burn his fingers if they lingered on your skin for too long. “Tell you about my sorrows.” Sorrows. He had sorrows.

“I am not them.” You simply said. “Not any of them. I am not Odin, not Thor, none of the Avengers.”

Blinking, you snapped out of your memory. You had had this tragic conversation only two nights ago. No matter what you had said, he would not tell you what was on his mind. Now you knew.

“Something is wrong with him.” You interrupted the discussion, one you had not paid any attention to, by silencing them with a loud and determined voice.

“You don’t say?”

“No, Tony, you don’t understand… Loki is… he is Jötun. Thor, has he ever voluntarily turned into his Jötun form?”

The God of Thunder thought about it for a moment—then, he shook his head. “No.” You gave him a meaningful look. “So… you think it has something to do with his species?”

You nodded slowly and swallowed.

“Then we keep him in here until he is better.” He concluded. Your eyes widened.

“What? Thor, no… you can’t keep him locked up in there! What if he doesn’t get better on his own? Are you going to incarcerate him forever?”

“That would be an improvement.” Tony tossed in bitterly.

“We have to help him.”

“We? (Y/N)…” Bruce remarked almost tauntingly.

“You’ll find us upstairs. We need to let the others know about… whatever this is.” Tony added. You gnashed your teeth when he and Bruce turned to leave. For an awkward moment, it was eerily still—right until another one of Loki’s screams tore through the uncomfortable silence. You flinched once more. He was howling in pain.

“You think it might be a disease only Frost Giants can get?” Thor asked with concern in his deep voice at last.

You shrugged apologetically. “Maybe…”

“Loki and I were going to return to Asgard next week. I shall ask around, one of the healers should be familiar with Jötun diseases.”

“Go as soon as you can. Your brother is in pain, Thor, can’t you hear that?”

The God of Thunder nodded absentmindedly. But if no one was going to do something about Loki’s suffering—whatever it was—immediately, you would do it alone. So you did what Loki would do first. You dug up his books.

Loki’s room was neat, tidy. The green bed had been made—there was not a single wrinkle in the fabric and the desk was all clean, not giving thin layers of dust only visible in the direct sunlight a chance. The books he had brought from Asgard, old, thick, yellowed and heavy, he had stored on a bookshelf higher than you could reach.

Sucking in a determined breath, you moved the desk chair in front of it. The polished wooden floor to your feet complained with an ear-piercing shriek as you did. Determined, you climbed up to study the titles. All of them were written in Nordic Runes, making you realise that your research would end up being a lot harder than you had initially assumed. You could not speak a word of Old Norse, let alone read those Runes. Never mind that… you needed answers—and Loki needed your help.

It took you two hours to go through the titles and have them translated via a website you had had to pay for (using Tony’s credit card details—desperate times called for desperate measures) to use its allegedly reliable services.

Then, finally, after what felt like half an eternity, you found a suitable page-turner. It was titled Mythical Creatures and Species across Yggdrasil—at least, that was what the website you used told you.

Eagerly, you opened the book searching frantically for the chapter on Frost Giants and began sucking up all the information you could get. The more you read… and the more you compared Loki’s symptoms to the described behaviour of Jötuns in the book, the more aghast you became. One thing was for sure. Loki was not sick. Loki was aroused.

Terror-stricken, you bookmarked the page, grabbed your phone and jumped to your feet, abandoning the pile of books on Loki’s floor. You needed to speak to Thor right now.

He was about to enter the bathroom when you found him, once again almost knocking into his broad form.

“I… I found something.” You choked out.

“What?”

“I found something… about Loki. Thor… he is not ill, not really, he is…” Biting your lower lip, you pushed the God of Thunder into the bathroom, shut the door behind you and sat down on the edge of the bathtub. “He is… aroused.”

“What?” He roared, blushing. “What do you mean he is aroused?”

“Look… I found this book, I…”

“You speak Old Norse?”

“No! I used… I used a translator. Thor, listen, please. It says here that to ensure their continued existence, male Frost Giants, every one-thousand years, experience the primal urge to copulate with females of their kind. Much like wolves or elves, this ‘heat’ usually begins with restlessness, extremely aggressive and possessive behaviour, unusual amounts of pent-up energy as well as an extreme hunger and loss of appetite at the very same time. Loki hasn’t showed up for lunch, dinner or breakfast and… he has been spending extraordinary times in the training room downstairs in the middle of the night lately. He barely sleeps, it seems.”

“Go on…”

“How old is Loki, Thor?”

“He is a little over one-thousand years… old.” He looked up in shock when he realised.

“That’s why he is in his Jötun form, Thor. He can’t control it, it’s not his fault, it’s… in his nature. God…” You had read it all, yet you were still working on processing it.

“This… it would explain why he tried to attack Nat. So… he is not in danger then?” Thor probed.

“No, not necessarily but—“

“So we can just wait until it is over.”

You frowned. “Until what is over?”

“His heat! If what you are saying is true and Loki’s behaviour derives from his heritage… if he cannot control his reactions, we have to keep him locked up and wait. We can’t have him ravish all the females in the compound.”

“But… he is in pain.”

An urgent knock on the bathroom door interrupted you.

“Hey, are you having a soap party in there? Other people need to use the bathroom too!” Closing the heavy book shut again, you rolled your eyes.

“There are at least three other bathrooms in this compound, Tony!”

“What are you two doing in here anyway?” He asked as he opened the door and leaned against the threshold when he spotted you two sitting on the edge of the bathtub.

“(Y/N) found out that Loki is… uh… in heat.”

“In heat?!” Tony repeated. “Like a cat?”

“No! It… has something to do with the procreation cycle of Jötuns. It… is in his nature.”

“Fuck…”

“Hey… language.” If you hadn’t recognised his voice, you would know it was Steve who joined your heated discussion. “What’s going on here?”

“Loki is in heat, like a cat.” Steve frowned.

“No, he isn’t! Not like a cat, this is…” Thor stood again before you could finish your sentence.

“It’s for the best, (Y/N). Down there, he’ll be save from getting himself into trouble.”

“Thor, wait! Loki is suffering! Soon, he will…”

“We can’t risk it, (Y/N)! He almost raped Natasha!” Tony barked. “And if you go near him, I’ll lock you up too. I’ve seen what he’s capable of, (Y/N). I will not let him hurt you.”

“He… he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.” You chirped. No. Loki would never deliberately take a woman against her will. If he did… no! Loki had in incredible amount of self-control and composure; and you knew how much he despised his own heritage. He would fight this—for as long as he could.

“Besides…” Tony added. “It wouldn’t be so bad if he got a taste of his own medicine.”

“Stop blaming Loki for your PTSD, Tony. That was Thanos’ doing and you know that.” You growled darkly. The billionaire paused for a moment.

“He is staying where he is,” he concluded then. “Until he’s gone back to normal.”

But you did not want to wait. You couldn’t. You had read about the symptoms in detail. In the book it said that moodiness and aggression were only the beginning. If Loki did not act on what his Jötun body demanded from him and… released, then soon, excruciating pain would torment his loins. Masturbation appeared to be out of the picture. You nibbled on your lower lip. This thought of yours invaded his privacy on a truly shameful level, yet you were certain that if sexual arousal had already been plaguing him for a significant amount of time before this outbreak of his, he would have tried to lay hand on himself already and learned it did not provide the necessary relief.

Sooner or later, he would no longer be able to suppress his erection—and it would not disappear until he… sheathed himself inside a female to fill her with his seed. Under different circumstances, the idea of him claiming a woman… you, in such a possessive manner would have aroused you tremendously yourself. As of right now, however, Loki was in agony. The pain, if ignored for too long, would only get worse—it could last up to months and even then the denial of sexual release could result in permanent damage to his loins and even his potency.

But there was no cure either. No potion or spell to contain a male Jötun’s heat which Thor could have forwarded to Asgardian healers.

It was past midnight when you stopped reading and translating—too appalled by how much more Loki would have to suffer if nothing was done about his… condition. The only way to make it stop… was to act on it.

Your lips parted in realisation. You liked him, very much so—and you found Loki incredibly attractive, dreaming of his hands on your body, even. Perhaps you could help him after all. You were not Jötun but… would his body really make a difference? This most primal part of him wished to mate with a female—and although you had never seen a female Jötun, you doubted they looked much different than you did down there.

You had to wait another thirty minutes until the lights in Tony’s lab finally went out and you could sneak through the compound and downstairs to the cells—and once you had made sure that Vision was nowhere to be found, you switched off the security camera for Loki’s cell and approached the thick metal door.

It was quiet. He had stopped screaming. There was no banging against the walls either. Yet when you unlocked the door and slipped inside, his appearance, cowering on the floor and leaning against the cool wall with bare feet, startled you to the core. Loki’s raven hair was completely dishevelled, his knuckles bruised and covered in dry blood. His Jötun appearance was downright intimidating and close up, even more fascinating. He was breathing heavily, the thin shirt he had been wearing underneath all of his armour torn in several places, revealing blue skin and in his dark leather trousers… there was a remarkable bulge.

You shivered slightly when his red eyes met yours. Slowly, he tilted his head. “What are you doing here?” He growled hoarsely but weakly.

“I… I want to help you.”

The God of Mischief snorted. “You cannot help me.”

Mutely, you shook your head. “I can. Loki… I… I know what’s happening with you.”

He snorted once more. “So do I.”

“Let me help you.” Taking a deep breath, you moved closer to him. He reacted immediately. Loki jerked, greedily, as if to grab you and pull you on his lap. He could barely stop himself. Yet you were convinced that he would not hurt you in this state… much. A wave of courage rolled over you—you were doing this for him; and you wouldn’t be doing it if you did not like him in this way. Regardless of what he thought of you after, if he could even imagine being with a mortal like that… you longed to stop his pain.

“Leave.” He said quickly when you kneeled down next to him, timidly resting your palms on his thighs. “No… I said… leave… while you still can.” You did not. In fact, you ignored his rather sincere warning. Slowly, to not tickle the sleeping dragon, you reached for the buttons of his leather trousers and began undoing them until he grabbed a hold of your wrists to stop you. He was ice cold.

“Have you… lost your mind?” Loki was cut off by a loud hiss escaping his lips when your fingertips brushed against his erection. He was large—much larger than he would be in his Aesir form, you presumed, and his cock too was blue and covered in dozens of ridges.

“It won’t go away on its own,” you whispered. “You know it won’t. It’s okay.”

Braver this time, you stroked him again, creating more skin on skin contact. Loki was still holding on to you tightly but made no move to stop you. The touch of a female… it must have been bringing some sort of relief already. Coming here had been the right decision.

“Loki…” You murmured. Finally, your hand closed around his incredibly hard cock entirely and you began to jerk him off—gently at first, only to pick up speed when his breathing grew even heavier than it already was. Defeated, he dropped his head against the wall, revealing his blue neck to you. “Please let me help you.” You repeated. “It’s okay. I trust you.” Upon those words, Loki’s eyes widened barely noticeably. Perhaps it was all he had needed to hear to lose his self-control and composure entirely.

Growling like a wild animal, he suddenly started at you, pushing you back firmly so you lost your balance like a beetle on its back, wrapped his ice cold hands around your ankles and pulled you into him. Your back collided with the floor, knocking all air out of your lungs. You gasped for air all the while Loki busied himself with your clothes. Any layer of fabric was too much. He wanted you naked for him. His sheer strength petrified you when he tore at your pyjamas and ripped them to pieces until they were scattered all over the cell. You trembled—but it wasn’t the icy temperature of his blue skin that made your limbs shake so much. It was, so you realised when your widened eyes fell on his massive erection, now fully springing free from his tight trousers, your own arousal growing into dizzying heights. This, whatever it was, excited you—maybe even way more than it should.

Once more, the God of Mischief grabbed your ankles, forcing your legs open. Your heart skipped a beat when he laid his blood-red eyes upon your bare pussy. Your lower lips must have been glistening with your juices in the artificial light of the cell. Loki growled, his long and cold fingers gripping your ankles so tightly you could already feel the bruises forming. Eagerly, he positioned himself between your legs, the tip of his hard and ice cold cock teasing your clit. A moan escaped your lips, urging him on. The fire in his eyes had returned, like your body had set his ablaze.

He spread you even further for him, your nails digging into the metal floor beneath you—and then he claimed you for his own. Inch by antagonising inch, he split you apart, sheathing himself so deep inside of you all air was knocked from your lungs yet again. He was ice cold and he was much larger than the average man; and you were beginning to understand that yes, female Jötuns were anatomically different than humans. Human women were not made for taking such long cocks… so why did every single powerful thrust of his feel so good?

Loki pulled out almost completely, with only the tip remaining inside of you, only to plunge back inside only the fraction of a second later, fucking you furiously. Your tight and wet walls appeared to mould around his manhood, gripping him tightly, asking for more despite the almost unbearable coldness against your most intimate parts. No longer were you in control of your arms. They reached up, palms gliding over his bare chest and enjoying the coldness under your fingertips. Fascinated and aroused at the very same time, you traced every single ridge on Loki’s body while he was fucking you senseless, until your eyes rolled to the back of your head, unable to take the pleasure. His long manhood his spots inside of you which you had never known even existed. He leaned down, at last letting go of your ankles, instead taking a hold of your wrists to pin them both down right above your head and pressing his body so tightly against yours that your clit kept rubbing against his pelvis with every single stroke. You moaned, stricken by ecstasy, and arched your back as you kept moving your hips up to meet his thrusts.

Aroused, you looked down, watching how his blue cock kept sliding in and out of you, spreading your lips as they enveloped him welcomingly.

Loki groaned, his attention steering towards your breasts as they bounced with each of his rough thrusts. Hungrily, he lowered his face, his cold breath ghosting over your mounts, and sucked your right nipple into his mouth—hard. He nibbled, suckled pulled and bit until the already hardened nub was throbbing with pleasure and need and he repeated the same blissful procedure with your left nipple all the while he kept rutting into you uncontrollably.

“Loki…” You wondered if, in his current state, he would be able to speak. As of right now, he indeed reminded you of a wolf who would annihilate anything standing between him and his subject of desire, his prey—you.

Your toes curled, the promising and numbing sensation growing in your lower abdomen having you scream his name over and over again. You could already feel yourself clenching around him, your body urging him on to mark you with his seed and impregnate you and when he finally released himself into you, burying his cock as deep inside of you as was physically possible and coating your walls with his load, he triggered your own release.

You came with a loud moan, feeling him twitch against you as your pussy contracted around him again and again until you collapsed underneath him, spent and tired from his vigorous fucking. Loki, on the other hand, didn’t even think about letting you be. Unceremoniously, he pulled you on his lap so you came to snuggle up against his cold and naked chest, your face hidden in his neck. He supported himself by leaning against the metal wall, his cock still resting deep inside of you.

“How… are you… feeling?” You breathed out, barely able to keep your eyes open. Being taken thoroughly by a Frost Giant had been a lot more exhausting than you had initially assumed.

He was panting, his eyes almost shut. His erection inside you, however, was still very prominent and nowhere near ebbing down.

“Better… soon.” He growled into your ear. Soon? A high-pitched scream escaped your lips when he sank his teeth into your neck and bit down hard enough to make you squirm on his lap. You could still feel his ice cold sperm dribbling out of you and coating his own cock when he grabbed your arse and began moving you up and down his cold rut, forcing you to ride him.

“Oh… fuck…” You choked out. You were tender already, sensitive to the touch. This was too much, too soon. Yet Loki was too caught up in his pleasure and urges to give you a break. He took you several more times that night, eliciting orgasm after orgasm after orgasm from you—until you were on the verge of passing out.

You awoke with a hunger unlike one you had never experienced before. Irritated, you crawled out of bed—using the toilet but skipping your morning routine to get to the kitchen to prepare some breakfast. It was only seven. Loki had not… released you until half past six. There was no way your body could have drawn enough rest from this meagre hour of sleep.

Be that as it may—for now, you were hungry. Quietly, you tiptoed into the kitchen, ignoring the sweet ache and tenderness between your legs and resisting the urge to cup yourself through your pyjama bottoms. The white and bright light of the fridge blinded you when you opened it and reached for a package of juice and one of those pre-packed turkey sandwiches Tony kept buying. Unceremoniously, you then closed the fridge with your butt and sat down at the kitchen table to eat. And you kept returning to the fridge until Steve joined you in the kitchen to have a cup of coffee and then go for a run. When had you ever been this hungry before? Was it because of the aggressive sex you had had with Loki? Jesus…

You blushed when Steve asked you how you had slept—and you were rather grateful you had been smart enough to switch off the security cameras before… helping Loki out. He had still been in his Jötun form when you left at long last but he had looked content and… satisfied, in the most carnal manner possible. You would wait until the rest of the Avengers were up to check on him, to not raise any suspicion.

So when Thor staggered into the kitchen with a shit-eating grin on his face, you nearly jumped from your seat.

“Good morning!” He yelled—clearly in a very good mood. He managed to scarf down an entire package of fruit loops before you couldn’t take it anymore and aggressively scratched your fork over your empty plate until the room went awkwardly quiet.

“Didn’t you forget something?” You asked him heatedly. The God of Thunder frowned.

“No! I did flush the toilet this morning, (Y/N).”

Rolling your eyes, you stood.

“Loki. Loki is still one level below you, locked up in a cell, in pain, while you are enjoying your breakfast.” You hoped though, sincerely, that he was no longer in pain.

“(Y/N)… we spoke about this, there is nothing we can do. Down there, he can’t hurt himself or anyone else. I told you I’m going to Asgard soon, I will speak to—”

It was in this moment that your plate broke in half. You had, subconsciously, used your fork to stab it so forcefully it fell apart like a rotten apple. Eyes widening, you mumbled an apology.

“Sorry… I just… no one should be suffering like this. You all heard him last night.”

Bruce gave you a gentle smile. “You’ve always had a big heart for everyone, huh?” You nodded quickly. They did not need to know about your feelings… or the arousing ache between your legs. Your heart was racing. You took a deep breath, hurrying out of the kitchen without cleaning up behind you. Instead, you immediately locked yourself in the bathroom and turned on the tap to splash some cold water on your face. The icy temperature calmed you once it came in contact with your skin, reminding you of him—if only for a moment.

You were shaking. What on Earth was wrong with you? You took a quick shower to wind down, threw on an oversized sweater and then headed downstairs to the prison cells. A glance at the monitor of the security camera made you let out a relieved breath. Loki had indeed gone back to his Aesir form—and he did no longer seem to be in pain. It was, so you wondered, very unusual, however, to not complain and wreak havoc so the Avengers would let him out but then again… would they truly believe him if he told them he had overcome his heat?

With another deep breath, you opened the cell door and slipped inside.

“You were not supposed to see me like this last night. No one was.” He said quietly before you could even open your mouth, not bothering to make eye contact with you.

“Did you know? What was happening to you?”

“Yes.” He snorted, a bitter smile spreading on his thin lips. “I believed I would be able to control it.” Finally, he looked up, his blue eyes locking with yours. “Did I hurt you?” Your lips parted in surprise. Slowly, you shook your head.

“No… I mean… it was quite pleasurable… for me as well… actually.” You choked out sheepishly.

“Hmm… that I could tell,” Loki gave you a light smirk. “Thank you.” He said then—and for the first time since you had met him, you sensed true honesty and sincerity in his smooth voice.

“I’ll leave the door open.” You returned his smile; the planes in your belly flying loops.

“We are… keeping this between us, are we not?” He hastened to ask when you turned around.

“Of course.” After all, no one needed to know you had let Loki mate with you to regain control over his loins.

It was five days after your intimate encounter with Loki when your constant shaking became worse enough for him to notice—and if that wasn’t bad enough already, your body had begun to sweat; a lot. Day in and out, you had to change your sheets as if your bed was your personal sauna—or your personal hell.

You felt like you had been hit by a bus, like an extremely nasty form of the flu had you in its steel grip tightly, unwilling to let you go. Sleep, however, to get some rest and recover, would not come either. Two hours per night at most, three if you got lucky. And instead of getting better, it became worse.

He had been restless ever since. It could not be. After all, it had also never… or had it? Growling to himself, he locked the door to his room, enjoying the quietness and most of all, utter privacy.

Not a soul in the nine realms was aware he was still in the possession of the Tesseract. So when he produced it out of thin air—his large hand momentarily surrounded by a green mist—he made sure to hurry and quickly teleported himself back to Asgard. Heimdall would never open the Bifrost for him if he wasn’t accompanied by Thor.

He was worried about you and his surprise about these particular circumstances was remarkably low. When he closed his eyes, he could still taste your hard nipples on his tongue from when he had suckled on them. He remembered how warm your body felt against his when he had cradled you in his lap and the thought of your tight cunt around his throbbing cock stirred arousal in his leather trousers if only he indulged in reminiscences for too long. Most of all, however, he was unable to forget the sincere smile on your face when you had freed him from the cell the next day… and the mesmerised gaze you had met him with when he had ravished your sweet quim over and over again.

With another deep breath, he disappeared in an ice cold cloud of smoke.

Sneaking past the guards and into the palace library—the one place he had spent hours on end in growing up here, hiding away from Thor, his friends and the world, reading and hoarding knowledge—was pathetically easy. He knew exactly what to look for, what lecture would confirm his worrying suspicions. Once he found what he had been searching, he sat down on the windowsill—another usual spot he found comfort in—and began his research. He had known about the impact of a male Jötun’s seed on his female counterpart, of course; for even though he despised his own race, he, as opposed to Thor, had paid attention during their private tutoring lessons as children. The heavy book in his hands, however, made him, the God of Mischief and Trickery, hold his breath. What Loki had not known was that the repercussion of a male Jötun’s seed did not just occur in Jötun females. It applied to any species—including humans. However, the chances of survival for weaker lifeforms were alarmingly low.

Abandoning the book, he hurried out of the library and into the city. There was someone he needed to speak to.

“With all due respect, my prince but you are not welcome here.” Loki rolled his eyes. He knew it would not be fun, exactly, to seek out his ex-partners and ask about their well-being long after he had left them. The man opening him when he knocked on Sigyn’s door, a woman he had been engaged with for several years in his youth, was about as tall as Thor—his right hand decorated with a golden ring. Husband. Just great. And, judging by his obvious dismay of finding him on his doorstep, she must have told him about their shared past.

“I need to speak to your wife. Urgently. That is an order.” Sigyn’s husband growled, clenching his fists but stepped aside regardless. Loki made sure not to pay any attention to the furniture and his surroundings. Toys were scattered all across the living room, hinting that Sigyn had become both wife and mother in his absence. Her face fell when she spotted Loki standing in the middle of the small room—truly like he would even have preferred Helheim over being here of all places—as pale as a ghost.

“Loki… I mean… your highness. What… brings you here?”

“I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Um… by all means. Sit down. Would you like some ale?”

“No.” Sigyn pointed at the rectangular kitchen table and then sat down opposite of him. Her hands were folded on the surface of the polished wood.

“It is good to see you.”

“Likewise… Now this will sound odd,” he began unceremoniously, ignoring her husband towering above him with his arms crossed. “But I have to know how you fared after we separated. Not… emotionally. Physically.” He emphasised.

“Physically? That is indeed odd. Oh, I… um… let me see, it’s been such a long time. I had quite an appetite after you left,” she laughed, clearly uncomfortable with his presence. Loki sighed.

“An appetite. What more than that?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Except… yes, of course! I fell ill a few days after. The healers never found out what my body was rebelling against. It lasted for a few months. Tiredness, insomnia, attacks of sweat and I could not stop shaking. Why do you ask? Did you… did you experience it too?”

“No,” he replied quickly, a nauseous feeling spreading in his guts. You were showing the exact same symptoms. Symptoms of addiction. “You said it lasted for a few months?”

“I am sorry, your highness but is there a point to this interrogation? My wife has to feed the baby.”

“We’re almost done.” He barked, glaring at Sigyn’s husband from the corner of his eye.

“It did,” Sigyn confirmed. “But then it never returned.”

“Thank you. That will be all.” Loki took a deep breath and stood, resisting the urge to massage the bridge of his nose to clear his thoughts. It was only when he turned on his heel to leave this way too harmonic place that he noticed Sigyn’s husband had left the door open for him. He rolled his eyes.

“Loki! I-I mean, your highness…”

“Loki is fine, Sigyn. We have seen each other naked, after all.” Beside him, he could practically hear her husband gnashing his teeth. He smirked.

“I understand you do not wish to share with me what troubles you but whatever it is, I hope everything will turn out to be alright.”

Loki gave her a smile. It was as honest as he could muster in this tense situation. Sigyn had always known when he was being plagued by dark sorrows, even before he learned about his true parentage. Much like you. You too had been able to tell he had been unwell, both physically and mentally. He swallowed thickly.

“Thank you, Sigyn.”

He had to see Amora, too. They had not exactly gone separate ways peacefully but if she had experienced the same symptoms as Sigyn after their break-up, he had to get back to you immediately. And he had to tell you. The truth, a luxury given his nature, was the very least you deserved.

“Where have you been?” Thor roared as soon as he entered the kitchen to pick up one of those cold drinking chocolates you had introduced him to a while back—the ridiculous amount of sugar would help you, if only for a moment. The presence of Tony, Nat, Bucky, Steve and Thor, leaning against the counter or sitting at the kitchen table, he ignored as best as he could. He would have preferred to be alone now.

Loki quirked his eyebrow, clearly unimpressed. “Asgard, given that you were unwilling to get help yourself.”

“How? Heimdall wouldn’t…”

“There is a lot Heimdall does not know, brother.” Thor grumbled something he did not understand but it sounded awfully like a curse word in Old Norse.

“Whatever. Have you seen (Y/N)? Her room is down the same hallways as yours, has she left her room lately?” Tony barked at him.

“As far as I am concerned, she has Vision bring her excessive amounts of food, for she is too weak to come to the kitchen herself. No. I have not seen her around.” He replied nonchalantly, with false disinterest. This time, so it seemed, however, his choice of tone, equalled shooting himself in the foot.

“We need to get her to the hospital. None of the medicines I gave her worked even a little bit—and I contacted the best doctors I know.” Loki suppressed a scoff. As if a hospital full of human ‘doctors’ would be able to help you. The only one who could… was he.

“For Fuck’s sake, she has been feeling ill ever since…” Tony’s face fell. “Ever since we locked up your brother.” Belligerently, his gaze wandered over to Loki again. “Okay, Reindeer Games, what did you do to her and don’t even try to lie to me!”

“You do assume, automatically, that I have something to do with it?” He mocked. Tony clenched his fists.

“Loki,” Thor added calmly. “Do you… know something?” The God of Mischief sighed. If he told them, what little trust they had in his capabilities as an Avenger would vaporise like smoke. It mattered not. In fact, he could not care less if any of those self-proclaimed heroes even liked him. Yet if he spoke the truth… surely they would do anything in their power to keep you away from him—which was exactly what they could not do if they wanted you to survive and feel better again as much as he did. He could just take care of the problem on his own… sooner or later, however, they were bound to find out about their intimate encounters, and he was beyond keeping secrets like that. If he wanted to make love to you, then he would, may the Norns help him.

“It is… my seed.” He choked out reluctantly.

“Your… what!? Your… yeah, no, I can’t say that out loud without throwing up… is making her sick!?”

“The seed of a male Jötun is causing… an addiction. Withdrawal will make her weak and ill.” Loki looked up grimly. “Frost Giants live in strictly monogamous relationships.”

“What, like penguins? How did she even come in contact with… did you… did you rape her? I swear to God, I will kill you.”

“I did not lay a finger on her.” Loki replied darkly.

Tony threw his hands up in the air. “So how did your happy juice get inside of her in the first place then!? How did that happen, I wonder?”

“She came to me voluntarily, Stark!”

“But you knew? If you knew it would make her sick, why didn’t you stop her, you selfish asshole!?”

“How!? How, Stark!? Resisting the urge to mate in heat is like attempting to suppress a sneeze. It’s impossible. Don’t bother your pathetic human mind with things you do not understand.”

“Loki…” Thor began warningly. The God of Mischief ignored him with a hostile growl.

“(Y/N) would never do that.” Tony said then.

“Perhaps you do not know her as well as you thought you do.”

“You little shit, I will…” Tony jumped from his chair as if stung by an adder, prompting Loki to draw one of his daggers seemingly out of nowhere when he started at him. Both Natasha and Steve barely managed to hold him back.

“Leave it, Tony. This is Loki. He is just trying to provoke you.” Nat appeased.

Just this one time, however, they were wrong. Loki did, in fact, care about you. It was just he had not realised that until you had willingly offered your body to him when he had been in pain. Glaring at them darkly, he rose from his chair.

“I am going to fix this.” He spat. It almost sounded like a threat. “Not for you. I could watch you drop dead to my feet without so much as blinking. But for her.” Fuming, he stormed out, his right fist still clutching at his dagger in a desperate attempt to calm himself down. And as of right now, Thor knew better than to stop him.

He needed to see you. Remorse and guilt were eating him up from the inside out—and it wasn’t just the fact you had helped him in spite of everything he had done to Midgard only a few years back. It was… you were… Loki closed his eyes for a brief moment. You were his.

When he knocked on your door, there was no response. Now there was a chance you were asleep, yet he somehow knew better than to leave and try again later as to not startle you. After all… he was going to make you feel better.

He slipped inside, locking the door behind him with magic so you would not be disturbed. The sight of you almost broke his heart. You were trembling, buried under a pile of blankets, pale and weak.

“(Y/N)…” He spoke with a quiet voice, approaching you slowly. Your eyes opened when you heard his voice, your weak body barely managing to turn over to look at him. A cough escaped your lips before you could answer him.

“Hey…”

“How are you feeling?”

“Terrible.” You tried for a laugh but could only manage another cough. With a straight face, he sat down on the edge of the bed so he was able to bring his palm to your forehead. You were incredibly warm, yet the sweat made your skin cold to the touch. His heart skipped a beat. Suddenly, he was worried you only had a few weeks left until your body gave up fighting the withdrawal. He would not, ever let this happen.

“I brought you some cold drinking chocolate.”

“Oh…” You chuckled weakly. “Thank you. Is that the only reason you came?”

“No,” he laughed. “I came to check on you.”

“An eye for an eye, huh?” Your eyes fell shut when you smiled.

“Hmm… I’m afraid it is a little more complicated than that.” He purred. You never noticed how his eyes fell on your crotch, even if it was covered by a bunch of blankets. Slowly but determined, he slid his left hand under the layers of fabric until he found what he was searching for. With skilled fingers, he began to massage your clit until he felt you responding to his attentive touches. You arched your back, your sex growing wetter and wetter fast—like your body knew exactly what would follow. Licking his lips, he scooped some of it up to spread all over your quim and create even more friction. You were squirming by the time he removed the blankets entirely and positioned himself between your legs, careful not to shift all of his body weight onto you.

Was he going to… did he… could he possibly… reciprocate your feelings? Your heart skipped a beat, butterflies awakening in your belly. If only you could…

“Loki… Loki, I… I really want to do this again too but… not now, I’m… I really don’t feel well.”

“Shhh…” He would ponder over your words later. You wanted to do this again too? Had it not just be compassion and pity that had driven you to offer him your most intimate parts for relief? And what if you refused him now? You had to trust him. So he shut you up by pressing his lips against yours, capturing them in a passionate kiss and then, once again slowly but determined, removed the blankets and peeled your pyjama from you until he had you naked—fine, he had helped with magic; and he was certainly too impatient to remove his own clothes, so instead contented himself with freeing his growing erection from his trousers only.

A whimper escaped your lips when you caught sight of his arousal, his tip—not blue but the colour of flesh this time—pressing against your entrance. He slid inside you to the hilt with almost no resistance, your warm pussy welcoming him in. Loki moaned when your walls gripped him tightly; it was like your body already knew his release would make it feel better. Only this time, he was in control. This time, he would take his time and make gentle love to you—right until you began to tremble underneath him for entirely different reasons.

Your eyes fell shut when Loki started moving, retreating almost completely only to plunge back deep inside of you fast and passionately. You were too weak to buck your hips, as much as you would have loved to. And despite your weariness, he felt incredible. You were unable to decide which form of his you liked better.

You kissed him again when his nose brushed against yours and his breath tickled your lips, bathing in the intimacy between you. But when he slid his hand down to where your bodies were united to pamper your clit all the while speeding up, hungry for his release, you stopped him, albeit gently.

“I… I don’t think I can, I’m too… but I… it’s okay.” You murmured. “Cum.”

It was a request he could not resist, not any longer. Thrusting forward a few more times, his release was beginning to overwhelm him. He groaned into your ear, his hot breath brushing against your cheek, and let his climax consume him. He was throbbing against your walls, his seed—surprisingly warm and not as cold as it had been the first time—filling you to the brim and until you could feel it dribbling out of you again. Loki stilled, turning you over so you both rested on the mattress on your sides, with his slowly softening cock still inside of you and one of your legs draped over his hips. One heartbeat passed, then another and another. And just like that… you felt like you had been reborn.

“How… I feel so much better.” Loki kept silent. Remorse was sparkling in his blue eyes. Avoiding your curious gaze, he looked down, with a start fascinated with the blue roses on your bed sheets.

“Loki?”

“You did fail to read all of it, did you not?” He stated quietly.

“What… what do you mean?”

“The book you took from my shelf. I looked it up when you got worse. It wasn’t until I left for Asgard that I realised why our… sexual encounter is making you ill.”

“I… wait… Does that mean you believe it has something to do with you? I mean… what we did? Is it… I’m not pregnant, am I!?”

“No. You are not.” He smirked at you weakly. “That, I would have sensed already. No… I’m afraid it is a little more complicated. Frost Giants live in strictly monogamous relationships. They never… switch their partners once they mated during their first heat. If they do…” Loki took a deep breath. “It appears that the seed of a Frost Giant triggers some sort of… addiction for their female partner. They develop a carnal craving for their seed which forces them to keep returning for… more.”

Biologically speaking, this was a downright bulletproof way of ensuring the survival of a species—the Jötuns’ own bodies turning against them and demanding sex. The gravity of his words, however, hit you only a moment later. So this was why you had been feeling so sick lately. You were showing signs of… addiction. Your body had become addicted to Loki’s seed. You swallowed thickly.

“I-is there… is there a way to stop this?”

“I went to speak to my former partners back on Asgard—which, to be frank, does not just sound like a disaster. But I needed to know if they experienced any symptoms similar to yours when we… separated.” You ignored the painful sting in your heart when he said ‘former partners’. Of course Loki had had sex before, had perhaps even been in love. He did not strike you as the type of Norse God who was unexperienced in the art of love making. After all, he had more than just proved this to you. It mattered not, not now.

“And… did they?” You probed nervously.

Loki nodded seriously. “They were both bedridden for months, plagued by uncontrollable trembling and sweating. Their appetite increased, they ate twice as much than they usually would without ever feeling truly full… and they barely slept anymore, tossing and turning for most of the night. Amora added she became increasingly violent as well. They, of course, believed it was a virus which would pass, eventually.” Terrified, you remembered how you had broken your plate in the kitchen the night after your lovemaking. It all made sense now.

But you did not dare ask what this meant. When dreaming of having a relationship with Loki, you had not imaged a partnership out of physical and sexual necessity which would feel like a chore to him; like an obligation now that you had helped him out, after all.

“But they were Asgardian.” He suddenly said, pausing to let his words sink in. “You are human. You are mortal. I am uncertain you would survive…” If I stopped having sex with you. Is that what he had meant to say before he stopped himself abruptly?

Taking a deep and shaky breath, you gathered all of your courage, as weak as it may be.

“This is all my own fault, Loki.”

“It is not—“

“N-no, let me speak. It’s my fault. You couldn’t help it. And I came to you on my own accord. But…” You swallowed. “Even if I had known, I still would have helped you.”

The God of Mischief frowned when you reached for his hand and held it—but it was a downright vulnerable expression.

“Loki… I’m not going to expect you to keep having sex with me if you don’t… I mean…” It was then he began to smirk cheekily.

“And if I do?” Loki had truthfully speaking always been a puzzle—always keeping his deepest thoughts and feelings all to himself. Until now. So he did reciprocate your feelings.

“Y-you do?” His smirk widened.

“It… does get better after a while, once the pair is more acquainted to each other’s bodies,” he continued. “And they are then able to spend more time apart without any signs of withdrawal showing. Ultimately, however, once the male Jötun claimed her, the female is bound to him… if he decides to keep her.”

Despite your weakness, you raised an eyebrow. “That sounds pretty sexist, Lokes.” Loki looked up. His heart jumped when you gave him a nickname.

“Sexist? No. Dominant? Yes.” He growled darkly.

“You’re right. It’s probably not sexist given that male Frost Giants go into heat.” You giggled in response. Loki tickled your sides for that remark, making you wriggle around on the bed. If your hunch was not deceiving your love-drunken mind, then the God of Mischief had just begun to court you.

“Loki?” You mused, raising your voice in a shy manner.

“Hmm?”

“I think I feel fit enough now to have an orgasm.”

The God of Mischief laughed—as heartily as you had never heard him laugh before. “Do you now?”

Next thing you knew he was already on top of you again, covering your naked body with tender kisses.

A/N: Check out my blog to find more Imagines and take a glimpse at my first (to be) published novel! If you enjoyed this story, I would appreciate it so much if you supported me on Kofi! ko-fi.com/sserpente ♥

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demonslayedher · 4 years

Text

Tanjiro Is Not Hot Stuff

and this is a good thing

It's easy to dismiss Tanjiro as overpowered, but in this post I'd like to disagree. For all his ability, Tanjiro is still a scrappy fighter, and his abilities have concrete reasons within the context of his shounen manga universe. Furthermore, despite Tanjiro's unique connection to the legendary Yoriichi, Gotouge continually drives home that he is just one character among many united in a common goal to eliminate all evil demons.

That phrase, 悪鬼滅殺, being the backbone of the Demon Slayer Corp, is engraved into each of the Pillars' swords. On that note, I'd like to first address that this may not be Yoriichi's sword. EDIT: On further reflection, because the color of the sword is only dyed once and being held by another swordsman doesn't change it, I've recounted on this theory and feel pretty certain it's Yoriichi's. But it was fun to consider other possibilities, and I'm going to italicize everything that I now consider an incorrect theory.

It's praised for it's Warring States/Sengoku era craftsmanship. This was a time with the swordsmen were first learning the Breath techniques (despite the Corp already having been around for centuries already). It’s also praised for its use of the singular "eliminate" idea encapsulated in the lone 滅 character. Haganezuka himself states that the person who wielded this sword must had been extraordinarily skilled. It's implied that, since Yoriichi also used a black blade (when it wasn’t red), and since this was inside the Yoriichi Zero Type battle doll, it must had been Yoriiichi's sword and therefore well suited to Tanjiro’s Hinokami Kagura techniques which he focuses on for the remainder of his battles.

However, let's think backwards a moment. This sword was produced in a time when Yoriichi, as an outright genius, had profound influence on the Demon Slayer Corp. Although everyone tried, no one could quite pick up his Sun Breathing, but they took the parts that worked for them and the Flame, Thunder, Wind, Water, and Rock techniques took form. We know that since the quality of demon slayers decreased after this generation (my guess is this is due to the mark killing them all off and therefore the lack of a mark in following generations made them seem less skilled over all).

It's unlikely that Yoriichi, the Sun Breath user himself, would have had any use for this training doll; instead it must had been used by one of those early Breath creators trying desperately to match Yoriichi's skill, and probably using a sword that was modeled with the ideal Sun Breath in mind, and not yet taken shape to suit the Breath that user would later polish. It was perhaps after further definition of their new techniques that they left the old sword behind.

Two more reasons I don't believe this is Yoriichi's sword: Yoriichi, a genius who probably didn't allow his sword to break with improper technique, was still using a sword with a single 滅 inscription when he faced Kokushibo in his old age, and we only see him use a sword with a hilt guard of this shape.

So then who used one with this shape?

We don’t quite see if any of the other Sengoku era swords are likewise inscribed with 滅 (and the lack of the swordsmith’s name implies that this was the swordsmith’s creative choice), but we do get a peek at a few other swords. None of them have a hilt guard quite the same, but this is as similar as it gets:

The character whom we see using a sword like this has hair in a black ponytail. It’s a little different from the Water Breath user who makes a few appearances, but not that different, and we never see what blade the Water Breath user is wielding.

I theorize that Tanjiro inherited an early Water Breath user's sword, which made it extra suitable for his techniques. Despite the differences between Hinokami Kagura and Water Breathing being stark enough that switching takes a huge physical toll on Tanjiro, I believe that Water Breathing will always have an influence on his performance of Hinokami Kagura, or at least draws out the aspects from which Water Breathing was based.

That brings me to another thought: Tanjiro’s seemingly overpowered ability to pick up other people's techniques, like the Thunder Breathing speed he heard about from Zenitsu. With Sun Breathing being the root of all other Breath techniques, Tanjiro has grown up already practicing the formative basis of all the other techniques, including Thunder Breathing. His speed (no pun intended) in adopting new techniques does feel more than a little overpowered, but Tanjiro has long shown a history of adopting new techniques and strategies in the middle of a fight. It's also a characteristic of Tanjiro to be constantly analyzing his fighting style and battle experiences even in his sleep, so that shows it's the result of his hardworking, eldest son personality to rely more on perseverance and practice than on natural ability.

That being said, the family history under the influence of tending fire does seem to give Tanjiro some innate suitability for Sun Breathing techniques, as implied by other characters like Haganezuka pointing out his red eyes and Shinjuro noticing Tanjiro's supposed mark right away and immediately interpreting this as an unfair amount of talent. Bring a humble charcoal farmer as opposed to a hardened swordsman may be what gave Sumiyoshi the ability to grasp the essence of Sun Breathing so thoroughly and efficiently (though we know Yoriichi taught his technique to others whom Kokushibo later eliminated, we don’t know if they could perform it as accurately, especially since the rest of the swordsman had so much difficulty with it). This point was so important that Gotouge even considered including charcoal references or the name of the fire god Kagutsuchi (commonly associated with hearths and purification) in the title of the series (see more about that here.)

But, get this, Tanjiro was not originally meant to be the main character. According to an interview in the first official fanbook with the first editor, Katayama, the following exchange took place after reviewing Gotouge’s sketches for a manga idea, “Kisatsu no Nagare,” in which the main character, Nagare, is a quiet, stoic type with fake limbs in place of ones he lost in the Final Selection (he feels a lot like Giyuu, in my opinion):

What changed it from “Kisatsu no Nagare” to “Kimetsu no Yaiba”:

(Continued from criticism of Nagare being a difficult character to build a series around:)

“...after determining that with these small changes we still wouldn’t be able to change the impact much, we threw around the idea of changing the protagonist. Since [Gotouge-]Sensei hadn’t yet moved to Tokyo from the countryside, I asked one day on the phone, “Is there any other character besides Nagare (in the world of “Kisatsu no Nagare”) that’s may a little more cheerful and normal?”

Sensei answered, “There is, but I don’t know if he’s interesting or not.” When I asked, “What sort of character is he?” the response was, “He’s a boy who sells charcoal, and his little sister got turned into a demon, so he enters the Demon Slayer Corp to try to turn her back.” And I thought, that’s it, that’s THE protagonist, and said, “Let’s go with that! A normal kid is good!”

I think we can all agree that Tanjiro’s oldest son personality is a big part of what makes him stick out as a protagonist. But, for as hard as he works and strongly as he feels, he is constantly aware of everyone else’s efforts and wishes, and he states over and over throughout the series that even if he should die in pursuit of his goals, someone else in the organization is absolutely certain to accomplish them in his place. We see the same sentiment among other characters who meet their doom, even powerful characters like Pillars, so it really drives home that this series is about the Demon Slayer Corp more than it is about any single child who has lost his family to demons. It’s for reasons like this that I really, really appreciate how the fanbooks, in how they present basic info, refer to Tanjiro like he’s just one example of a Corp swordsman; he’s not even worth introducing right away. It’s because of this focus on on everyone’s collective efforts that even if Tanjiro as the protagonist, I think it totally could have fit the story to have him die like implied in chapter 200, or proven right about his faith in everyone and be killed when he’s a demon.

Finally, a Taisho Secret around chapter 193 specifies that although Tanjiro has made a significant amount of progress in Hinokami Kagura, he's still not such Hot Stuff. If you break it into three levels, being able to go through the motions of something, then being able to refine and adapt it, and then being able to perform something in a way that maximizing its potential is all different. Even deep in the battle again Muzan, Tanjiro is only right about at the beginning points of being able to refine and adapt his techniques.

So there you have it, Tanjiro is special, especially for his naturally positive, hardworking, and empathetic personality. But, he's no Pillar (yet), nor is his will and experience worth any more or less than all the other Demon Slayers, swordsmiths, Kakushi, wisteria house owners, crows, Ubuyashiki Clan members, and all the other supporters across centuries of history working toward one common goal, one eternal feeling: eliminate all evil demons.

#Kimetsu no Yaiba #Demon Slayer #KnY fandom theories and meta #kamado tanjirou #kamado tanjiro

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lost-souls-wander · 3 years

Text

Hunter x Reader

Chapter 1

It happened very fast, and everything went out of control. One moment humanity was just doing its thing and living in order. The next week however, everything had changed for the worst. All because of some kind of green flue. Don't take me wrong, I was concerned in the beginning, the fear of losing my slightly rhythmic life sure had taken its toll on me, especially after everyone around me started to panic, including my parents.

"HANNA! You cant just leave us! HANNA!-" those were my dads last words to his ex-lover and wife as she had taken the car, and drove off with our supplies and food. Dad was a mess after after what happened. He couldn't properly take care of us anymore, he had lost a lot of sleep in a few weeks time, his behavior also worsened. He was quick to anger, and constantly irritated. So I took it upon myself to learn things on my own as he continued to reign terror on the last of his family. I had snuck out just a few hours before sun rise and grabbed my bike. My fastest form of transport at the moment, and made a quick tour to the library, as usual, but my dad never knew. And it was possibly better this way.It was empty and deserted, I could hear a few inhuman groans here and there but couldn't quite picture what these "zombie" like creatures looked like, our dad was pretty much a helicopter when it came to the outside world when the apocalypse hit and mom left. None was allowed outside the house at all, just him. And he alone went scouting for food and food alone, here and there some materials but never something for us, his children.I could see his state worsening by the day, and considered it top priority to get away as soon as possible with as much knowledge on how to survive as possible. The building of the library was thick with a musty sent of old books and dust, lots of iron too, which I could only guess was blood. I stayed away from the strong scent of iron and focused on getting to the herbology section of the library.In these times mankind forgot that the true power of surviving came from knowledge, no knowledge? No advantage. No advantage? Possibly a gruesome death would follow.My hands brushed the polished wood that kept the books in their place on the shelves, thinking of how many people had touched these books, read through them, and possibly never did something with the knowledge inside. It was a shame really. I wanted to perhaps become member of this society and yet here it was, crumbling away at these un-dead. It saddened me a little, and I was horrified for a while when I heard it. What was I gonna do now? My degree in art and drawing was pretty much useless now. At least I could scavenge for a cabin in the mountains and settle down there, far away from society, where no zombies or humans could reach so I could exist in peace.

I chuckled, a mid-tone raspy chuckle filled my throat and echo'd a little through the empty apocalyptic library as I stopped and continued thinking about what to do and where to go. But first order of business was to get knowledge from the books and find a place to escape to. Grabbing my black old school bag I ripped it open quickly, wanting to fill it with the necessary books and just get out of here, The sounds of the un-dead in the distance was off putting, and I wasn't taking a chance to be caught in the middle of a group of them. I might have not seen them. But I knew damn well that from the clips on TV that those fuckers were fast. And me without my bike? Not so much.

I grabbed the books by pairs, quickly turning them to their back side and skimming through what the book would hold.

Edible herbal plants... Seasonal plants... Look alike's and their dangers... Looked valid enough. It went like this for a few minutes until my bag was full with books about surviving in nature, herbs, and making shelters for the night. Although I doubted it would help against zombie apocalypses it was always good to know how to make something remotely sheltering and how to acquire food from its natural source.

I quickly flung my backpack over my back and quickly took in the noise around me, the hoard had gotten ever so closer, and it started to make me anxious. If I didn't get out of here soon and back home I would be in a LOT of trouble, perhaps more trouble than being chased down the streets by a hoard of zombies. So I speed-walked towards the exit, the broken doors were leaning against the framework that had red and black splotches all over it the doors pretty much being smashed in two pieces by something extraordinary big. A shiver ran down her spine, May did NOT want to know what was big enough to do that.

after leaving the library doors she quickly hid in the bushes, peeking in between the leaves to see there was any danger, the branches poked and prodded at her form, the twigs leaving nasty marks on her clothes and bare skin.

There! in the distance she spotted her bike, old and a bit rusty, but it did the job well, I looked around if there were any zombies walking around and about, the road was clear, and so was the road ahead. It was a bit strange considering I hear an entire group of them just a few minutes ago but that must have been the other side of the building, luckily not the way I needed to go in order to get home.

I got partially up and half crouched/ran towards my bike which was placed against the opposite building in an alleyway, the alleyway was filled with trashcans and bags that had been ripped open by rats and other critters that roamed the streets and needed some food. Not that it was of any use now, it was all rotten and left a horrid stench that made my nose scrunch up in disgust.

I got on my bike and quickly started to get home, it was then that I started to feel like I was being watched. I felt it crawling over my skin that there was something or someone watching me, maybe some of the other survivors? or perhaps a zombie? I didn't want to find out and started to bike a little faster.

And then it happened all so fast, an inhuman growl came from my left and I was flung off my bike, panic setting into my very bones as I felt the bike get out of my grip, my face looked upwards as I saw the dark sky with a few light rays from the sun. I felt the cold harsh ground on my back and the air flew from my lungs as I tumbled down the steep hill, the creature flung with me yelping in surprise at it's own actions, we both rolled harshly down the wall of the construction site that was never finished.

I felt whatever air I had in me leave my body as I harshly was flung onto ground and came to a stop on my back, I groaned in agony face twisting in pain. everything hurt, my shoulders were probably bruised beyond belief and my legs felt like they had been ripped off whilst still being attached to me. And don't even get me started on my head, it hurt like a bitch!

I continued to wallow in my own pain for a brief moment until I heard a scream that sounded like it came from the depth's of hell itself, and a squishing like sound like flesh had been impaled on high impact, until all that was left was sound of screams of pure agony.

I didn't want to look at what had happened, I was in so much pain and the adrenaline was so high in my system that I made a run for the hill and grabbed what was left of my bike and just went, the howls of pain in the background growing fainter and fainter as the black concrete enveloped my mind, the scent of iron in the air was even more noticeable than before, and the distant sound of zombies screaming left me in even more panic than before as I skidded to a stop in front of my house, put my bike back in its place and threw myself over the fence to climb in the tree, and get inside of my room.

I did not come down that day for food or anything else.

That night I laid in bed curled up in fear and confusion, what had attacked me? what was it even? was that a zombie?! panic and fear had settled itself deep into my mind, I did not want to go back to the library in fear of coming across whatever that was, but fear soon turned into a guilty sympathetic feeling as I remembered what had happened to it, it had gotten pierced by metal rods and maybe was there, slowly dying, starving to death. If it even was alive that is.

I shut my eyes, letting my dark room filled with plants and comfortable blankets fall from my vision as I let a restless sleep take over me, for the next up coming week I did not sleep well, only thinking about the creature that might still be stuck there. Waiting for whatever was next to come.

#Left 4 dead #fanfiction #fanfic #zombies #hunter #L4D #l4d #hunter x reader #Chapter 1 #thingie 1 #idk anymore Im just trying at this point #My wattpad failed me and I lost like 1000 words or something #Does anyone want to be tagged when I post the next update???#also pls say something if you do read this :'D #Quarantine is getting to me

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imagine-darksiders · 3 years

Text

Old-Timer

Chapter 1 - Out of time.

So, this was absolutely inspired by the anon who mentioned a young Eideard. I got to thinking, how can I send Reader back in time and meet this guy? Then it hit me. Phasewalker.

Summary: To keep you safe, Death would tear a hole through the fabric of time and space. Too bad he doesn’t know how to tear that same hole open to get you back....

----------------------

Your eyes fly open alongside an accompanying gasp that tears out of your throat as you lurch upright, pulled from the threads of unconsciousness by some, unseen force.

Bewilderment is what you wake to first, and you spend the first few seconds of awareness jerking your head in every direction, seeking out clues as to where you are, and how in the world you'd even arrived here. Stone surrounds you, from the ceiling overhead to the ground below, even the four walls of the shadowy chamber you find yourself sprawled in are cut from the same, hardened rock.

Gulping down breaths of stale, musty air, you squint hard at the room around you, lit by nothing but a single streak of sunlight that filters in lazily through a wide entrance, beyond which, you can hear the distant whistle of birdsong and rustling leaves. Perplexed, you place a hand on your head and try to think, murmuring aloud, “How the hell... Where am I?”

The memory doesn't hit you all at once. Rather, it bleeds into frame from the very back of your mind, like you're attempting to piece together the segments of a vivid dream.

You were in the Forge Lands.... Yes... More specifically, you'd recently been travelling through Baneswood with -

“Death!” you suddenly whisper out loud, your heart bucking into overdrive once you realise that your grim and mordacious companion is definitely not in the room with you.

The room...

You've... been here. At least, you think you have.

Furrowing your brow, you try to focus.

It would not do to panic now, not least because Death would probably rebuke you for it. The Horseman always maintains that it won't be demons or corrupted constructs that kill you in the end. It'll be your tendency to lose yourself in the anxieties your mind kindly presents to you whenever something bad happens.

'Deep breaths,' you tell yourself, sucking in a lungful of air through your nose and counting backwards from four. As the breath steadily whooshes out of you again, you begin glancing around the room as though it might hold some clue that could answer the jumbled myriad of questions currently floating around inside your head.

Strangely enough, it does.

The whole chamber looks... too familiar – almost an exact replica of the room you last recall being in with Death. Although, for as familiar as it is, there is definitively something off about it as well. The dimensions and stonework might be the same, and yet... where are the holes in the roof? Why isn't the ground coated in a layer of thick dust, and how is it that the walls are suddenly barren of plant life and moss? You would have put money on there being a gaping hole in the ceiling, however when you tip your head back and look up, all you find is a solid, stone canopy standing proudly above you, looking for all the world as though it’s almost newly built.

Something definitely isn't right. Perhaps this isn't the same chamber after all.

Another memory suddenly prods at your mind before it surfaces like the elusive dorsal fin of a great whale, one that you turn all of your attention onto, afraid that it might slip below the waves of amnesia if you look away.

Death had been with you, that much is indisputable. But he'd been... agitated. You remember a pursuit, half a dozen constructs had corralled you both into one of the old, abandoned ruins that lay deep inside Baneswood.

You distinctly recall that the Horseman's gauntlet pulsed and hummed with green light the moment he shoved you behind him and past the threshold. Staggering back, you'd stumbled over an elevated platform at the centre of the room and landed on your rear, blurting out a yelp of shock before you could swallow it down again. Death had instinctively whipped about at the sound to face you and assess the cause of the sudden cry. It was in that precise moment that one of the constructs chose to lurch forwards and wrap its bulky limbs around the Horseman, pinning his arms against his sides.

You had watched, horrified as Death struggled in the stone embrace. Then, a shadow fell across you and to your terror, you looked up to find one of the constructs looming menacingly above you. It had obviously decided to leave its brethren to tangle with the raging Nephilim whilst it opted to pursue a less resilient quarry. The head sitting upon its massive shoulders was utterly devoid of any features, which had unsettled you greatly. No eyes, no nose, no mouth... Nothing but a blank slab of stone that stared down at you while you sat prone on a raised dais in front of it.

The construct twitched its head to one side and you have a memory of seeing Death rip his arm free of his assailant's grasp and stretch it out towards you, the briefest glimpse of fear flashing across his golden eyes. He was being set upon by the remain four monstrosities, all of whom circled like hungry sharks before they closed in on him, their various implements of destruction poised to strike

God... What had happened after that?

You think you might have screamed the Horseman's name, totally oblivious to the construct towering over you with its first cocked back, ready to pitch it forwards to decimate you in a single blow.

You'd tried to stand, but the surface below you was so slippery, more akin to glass than stone, and it had infuriated you when one foot slid out from underneath you and caused you to simply crash back onto your rump with a jarring impact that had sent your teeth clacking noisily inside your skull.

With blood rushing in your ears, you'd stared desperately past the construct and caught a brief glimpse of Death's burning, orange eyes. For the tiniest sliver of an instant, you could have sworn he looked afraid – ‘ironic’, you thought, given that he seemed to constantly admonish you for letting your fear show in front of your enemies.

Seeing his alarm only sent your stomach plummeting down into your shoes, but before you could begin to process the sudden flash of stark, protective fury that crossed his gaze like a lightening bolt...

'Thwump!'

Everything was suddenly illuminated by green light, the source of which emanated from a ball of spinning magic that hurtled through the gathered constructs and flew towards you at breakneck speed, faster than your eyes could even track it. In a blink, the ball of energy hit the ground directly between your legs and you barely had time to be relieved that it hadn't hit you before you were promptly and inexplicably falling.

The last thing you saw as you sank below the solid ground you'd once been sitting on was the construct's face, completely featureless, yet somehow managing to convey a look of total surprise.

Then, just as abruptly as you fell, you started to rise. Your ascent lasted for less than a second before you felt yourself snatched up by the unmistakable hand of gravity once more.

In a disorienting moment of utter chaos, you slammed back down to earth and there was an instance of blinding pain as your head cracked against the smooth surface below you.

And after that... only darkness.

--------

You come back into yourself with a jolt and lift your hand to touch gingerly at the back of your head, wincing when even the barest touch of your fingers brings forth a searing bolt that shoots down the base of your skull. It's only a minor relief to pull your hand away and find it clean of any blood.

Small miracles, and all that.

Emitting a soft huff, you begin to push yourself up and onto your feet, only to end up sprawled flat on your back again moments later after your shoe slides out from underneath you with an almost deafening squeak.

Exasperated, you scowl up at the ceiling for a few seconds before you sit up and twist yourself about to inspect the ground below you.

At a glance, you're laying in the middle of a raised, circular dais. Its surface is made of a polished material, more akin to glass than stone. One of your hands brushes distractedly over strange patterns that form the shape of concentric circles, each emitting a soft, blue light, and skimming around the very edge of the dais are sigils and glyphs, written in a language you can neither read, write, nor speak. Though whilst you might not recognise what they say, you can recognise what they entail.

You've seen them before, after all, dotted about the walls and ceilings and floors in most of the realms you've already visited alongside Death. They're the typical markings of portal.

The revelation brings with it the awful, sinking feeling of dread.

You're sitting slap-bang in the centre of a portal.

Shaking hands card slowly through your hair as your breathing picks up and you swallow hard, finally slotting the final puzzle piece into place.

“Death's phasewalker...” you murmur aloud.

There have only been a handful of times when you've witnessed the Horseman use the artefact that he wears around his wrist like the world's most versatile watch. With it, you've seen him tear holes in space and time, as though he's merely opening a door from one room to the next. Only these doors tend to lead you much further astray than any regular door ever has. It's one thing to use Vulgrim's Serpent holes to travel to another realm, but it’s something else entirely to step through a hole created by the Phasewalker and fall out into a whole different time.

Even after experiencing a few temporal distortions, you still can't say you're a big fan of it in practice.

Rolling yourself sideways off the platform and finally standing up on wobbly legs, you glance around at the chamber, realising now why it looks so like the one you'd just been in. It is the same chamber – only you're standing in it at a different time in history. The past, judging by the lack of weathering on the stone.

Likely, Death had, in a moment of chaos, sought to remove you from danger in any way he could.

The flash of green light, the ball of energy and the sudden sensation of falling...

He'd... saved you...

By sending you through a portal to the past.

You're not sure whether to laugh at his genius or cry at his short-sightedness.

Certainly, you're out of immediate danger, but the Forge Lands is far from safe at any point in time, and while you may not be crushed by a construct, there are other threats lurking amongst the lush, green trees and crumbling ruins.

Still, it's of some comfort that you're still standing, at least. Peering around into the shadowy corners of the chamber, you're fairly confident that there are no nasty surprises lying in wait, ready to pounce at you at any moment, though you're still hesitant to let your guard down. Swallowing down the rising wave of fear, you park yourself up against the wall furthest from the entrance and hunker down, returning your gaze to the portal you'd fallen through. If Death had sent you here, then he must know how to bring you back. All you need to do is sit and wait for him to finish off those constructs, reopen the portal and pull you back through.

And if you know the Horseman, which you like to think you do by now, he'll be stepping through that portal at any moment. So, you sit, trying very hard not to count the seconds flying by as if you might trick yourself into believing that less time has passed than really has. Subsequently, you keep your drooping eyes fixed on the portal and not the sunbeam that moves steadily across the chamber's entrance. You don't want to be reminded quite so starkly that it has been hours, and still Death has yet to emerge.

“Any time now, pal,” you mutter, tapping your heel anxiously against the stone below you.

Far beyond the entrance, something monstrous lets out a distant and melancholy howl, drawing your attention away from the portal, and it only takes seconds for the colour to drain from your face upon noticing that the outside world has grown startlingly darker.

By the looks of the long shadows cast by Banewood's trees you'd wager that sunset has arrived, with the darkness of night nipping closely at its heels.

If there's one lesson that has been drummed into you, both by the Horseman and the makers, it's that for as dangerous as the Forge Lands can be during the day, it's doubly so at night. As another howl answers the first, you start to realise that with every passing minute, your chances of getting through the night relatively unscathed are dwindling, but you're reluctant to leave the portal lest Death appear. Yet, you're also hesitant to stay out in an exposed ruin in the middle of Baneswood until he does.

“Okay.” Slapping your hands decisively on your knees, you push yourself upright, wobbling a little after sitting on your backside for so long. There's only one place in this realm that you can go, somewhere safer, at least. Somewhere that Death might actually think to look for you if he doesn't find you here. Tentative now, you start forwards, edging past the silent portal and taking carefully measured steps to the entrance.

You'd be remiss to deny the apprehensive curl of your gut at the prospect of venturing all the way to Tri Stone. You have little-to-no idea of what to expect.

In your own time, the quiet village is a haven, and you would count the makers who live there among your closest friends.

There's Karn, the youngest, a maker for whom adventure is the be-all, end-all of his life. He'd taken to you the hardest and the fastest, declaring you his best friend in a matter of hours, though you suspect that was perhaps due to your proximity in age. He may be literally thousands of years your senior, yet, of all the denizens of Tri Stone, the youngling is the closest equivalent they have to someone of your age. That isn't to say the other makers don't get along with you though. Far from it, in fact.

The twins, Alya and Valus, didn't take much longer to cultivate a friendship with you, especially the latter, who spoke so rarely that when you first met him, you thought he was entirely mute. It was his sister who did most of the talking for both of them, which is convenient, you suppose, given that she's inclined to talk enough for two people anyway. She'd been a godsend when you first came to Tri-Stone after a timely rescue from the demon-infested Earth. You would have listened to the maker talk for hours if you could, more than welcoming of the distraction her friendly voice brought you. She's the perfect counterpart to her brother, Valus, a strong and silent maker with a tendency to fret, a lot, specifically over someone as small and fragile as a human like you.

A fond smile worms its way onto your face as you dwell upon thoughts of your friends and step a little more surely out of the stone ruins and into Baneswood proper.

Part of you wonders how furious Thane would be if he ever finds out that you've walked amongst the giant, twisting trees by yourself. Hell, he'd probably have conniptions. Whilst you appreciate that the gruff warrior only wants to protect you, he's hardly helping humanity's street-cred by scolding their one, surviving member every time you try to venture within five feet of the village entrance on your own.

With a soft chuckle, you shake your head, already able to picture the maker’s furious expression if he ever happens to hear of this little escapade.

A shadow moves across the path ahead and you swiftly duck behind the closest tree, your heart racing. For a long moment, you simply hold your breath and wait until the sound of heavy, shuffling footsteps moves along, then you promptly set out once again, following the glow of the setting sun.

As you cast your gaze about in search of any lurking threats, you can't help but notice how lush and wild the woods are in comparison to those you'd left back in your own time. Bushes grow in abundance between the vibrant, green trees, among which flowers and strangely glowing mushrooms rise out of the ground, coming close to the height of your waist. It's almost impossible not to brush your fingers reverently over the petals of one such flower, noting that it shares the same colour as Muria's elegant, blue robes. It occurs to you that, when you return to your own time, you'll have to describe this Baneswood in vivid detail for the blind seer, knowing that her heart bleeds for the nature that had been destroyed by Corruption's foul influence.

Besides, you'd never pass up the chance to try and cheer her up. You've noticed a certain air of melancholy that surrounds the shaman whenever she thinks you aren't looking her way. You can hardly blame her. The responsibilities of a leader had been heaped upon her shoulders so suddenly after Eideard was killed....

A tiny spot in your heart that's been rubbed raw by all the losses you've suffered promptly splits open and starts to bleed at the mere recollection of the oldest maker. You scrub at one of your eyes as a treacherous tear threatens to escape the confines of your lashes.

Of all the terrible times to start thinking about Eideard...

While the others had taken to you with exuberance and intrigue, the elder's welcome had somehow felt... warmer. Subdued, but no less cordial. He'd been the first maker you met, and he hadn't even taken offence after you took one look at him and promptly fainted. His size didn't frighten you though, at least, not after you remained conscious long enough for him to assure you that he meant no harm. Once introductions were out of the way, it was as though you could just sense that this giant had more control over himself than the others, more experience being around small and fragile things.

In spite of the staff he wielded more like a walking stick than a weapon, and the labyrinth of wrinkles that mapped his face, you were never once under the impression that Eideard was anything but a being who possessed phenomenal power. Makers don't get to live as long as he did without a certain degree of strength, after all.

Over time, he reminded you less and less of the village elder and more of a kindly grandfather, diligently watching over his family with patience and proud consideration, who would go to immeasurable lengths to protect his own.

And in the end... he did just that.

The tear that had been making steady progress with its jailbreak finally succeeds in spilling over the edge of your eyelid where it clings to the lashes, turning the bottom of your vision hazy and distorted.

You don't even notice that the shadow stretched out in front of you is no longer your own until suddenly, a gush of air hits the nape of your neck, hot and wet and stinking of rot, causing you to freeze in your tracks and choke on your tongue.

In hindsight, it would have been far more prudent to just start running, but, for all of humanity's qualities, one of their strongest by far has always been curiosity.

So, it's with agonising trepidation that you twist your neck around, your torso following suit until you find yourself staring up at a row of gleaming, white fangs.

It's a wonder that you don't drop dead from fright then and there.

You must have been so caught up in missing your old friend, you hadn't even noticed that you were being stalked, a fitting term that suits the creature currently looming behind you.

Stalkers are not an unknown enemy for you, nor are they especially what you wanted to see right at this exact moment, if ever. This isn't the first time you've run into one either, but it is the first time you've been alone during the fact. Even Death seems wary of the enormous, cat-like demons that prowl around the Forge Lands, and if the Horseman is wary, then you know you should be downright terrified.

When you raise your eyes to meet its slitted pupils, the scales on its back and forearms bristle like plates of armour, tinted all hues of green and brown. In these dark woods, it's the perfect camouflage for an apex predator.

For a human, there's only one tried-and-true method for surviving an encounter with a stalker, and it doesn't include fighting back.

Stowing away the impulse to smack yourself on the forehead, you finally spring into action, whipping about and jolting forwards into a dead sprint, feeling the Stalker's excited hiss once again waft over the back of your neck as it gives chase, propelled by the instinct to hunt a fleeing quarry.

The galloping thuds of its claws striking the earth close at your heels is more than enough incentive to keep you sprinting like a gold medalist, heedless of a stitch or breathlessness. You try to dive in between the more tightly-knit trees in the hopes that the stalker's immense bulk will work to its disadvantage. To your dismay however, your efforts are in vain.

The beast twists itself sideways and back again with the ease of an gymnast, adapting to its surroundings rather than trying to blunder through them, and with every tree you dash past, the stalker draws nearer and nearer, drool flying from its lolling tongue as it inhales the scent of fresh, scared meat.

The sensation of claws swiping at the backs of your legs tugs a shrill screech from you and you kick up your heels, bursting out into a sunlit glade.

Without dwelling on the fact that you've just opened up a window for the stalker to put on some real speed, you suddenly dart to the left and head for the closest line of trees, and although the demon lets out a grunt of surprise at the sudden change in direction, your manoeuvre doesn't throw it off course.

Lungs burning, heart thrashing, you will your body to keep going until, at last, the stalker grows weary of the chase. Halfway to the tree line, it snarls and lashes out again with its long, blackened claws and this time, they hit their mark, slicing across your calves like butcher knives, leaving three, gaping wounds in their wake and causing your legs to buckle underneath you.

With all the grace of a train that's left its tracks, you careen forwards and fall flat on your face, rolling several times before you eventually come to a stop, gasping for air and crying openly. The pain in your leg is almost unbearable. Heat like hell's fire emanates from the gashes left in your skin and they sting worse than any pain you've ever had. At first, you deliriously wonder if stalker claws carry venom, then you scoff at yourself. 'What the Hell would stalkers ever need to use venom for!?'

Peeling your eyes open, you go rigid at the sight of the demon's foreleg reaching out towards you. It snaps its teeth together in triumph and you let out a wheeze when it places its clawed foot directly on your spine and presses down, hard.

Adrenaline still fires through your body in stubborn spite of your injury and has you clawing at the ground whilst feeble whimpers and sobs run from your mouth in a relentless stream of nonsensical babbling.

'This is really about to happen,' you think, cringing when hot, sticky saliva dribbles down onto your neck, 'Of all the ways I could have gone, I'm gonna be eaten alive.'

You distantly wish that Death was here, or rather, you wish that it’s happening back in your own timeline so that there's the chance that one of the makers will find your body and be kind enough to give you a proper burial.

The stalker’s claws sink into your already injured calf and you let out a faltering scream, hating that it's probably enjoying the sound. Summoning one last burst of courage, you grit your teeth and twist your head to the side, glaring up at it and snarling, “I hope you choke, asshole.”

In response, the demon parts its jaws and rears its head back, aiming to lunge forwards and rip the cartilage right out of your delicate neck so that you won't struggle whilst it devours you, when all of a sudden, something akin to an earthquake rumbles through the ground below you, powerful and abrupt enough to give the stalker pause.

This pause would prove to be a mistake as not a moment later, an immense shape crashes through the undergrowth and charges towards you, drowning the glade in a din that sends birds flapping from their nests.

Caught off guard, the stalker's claws retract from your leg and it takes several, clumsy steps back, lifting its hackles and hissing ferociously.

A shadow falls over you and you barely have time to register that the stalker has backed off before a huge, fur-trimmed boot swings over your head and plants itself in front of you, swiftly followed by its twin.

“You leave this wee'un alone,” a dangerously deep-toned voice growls, low as the purring of a truck's engine. It takes you a moment to realise that the rumbling sound isn't coming from the demon, but from whoever has just placed themselves fearlessly between you and certain death.

Clenching your fists, you shove yourself upright and onto your backside, hissing when the sharp, little blades of grass poke and prod at the open wounds on your calf. Rather than bother to inspect the injury – which you already know to be god-awful – you turn your attention to your saviour.

You know enough about the species to recognise that it's a maker, not least judging by the size of the boots alone. Blinking through the tears that sting at the corners of your eyes, you lift your chin and gaze up past the maker's boots, over brown, leather trousers to a belt that's almost as thick as you are wide. Then, you pause, admittedly taken aback by what you see after you move your gaze up a bit further.

....You don't think you've ever known a maker to wear so... little.

Above his belt, there's.... nothing. No tunic, no armour adorning his shoulders, no cowl draped loosely around a robust neck. Instead, you find yourself staring up at a generously-muscled back with pale skin stretched tightly around every dip and bulge, giving him the appearance of someone that might have been sculpted from marble by a renaissance artist. He puffs himself up, creating a decidedly imposing wall of solid muscle between you and the snarling stalker.

You'd take the time to be impressed by his size were you not already gawking at the absolute fountain of lustrous, golden hair that cascades in gentle waves down to the centre of his spine.

Another growl draws your wandering eyes back down to the demon, which has now ceased its pacing and turns to face the maker properly, glaring at him through unblinking, yellow eyes and flexing its claws into the soft grass, as though contemplating the pros and cons of risking itself for a morsel as small as yourself.

The strange maker emits his own, threatening growl, perhaps sensing that the predator's change in demeanour doesn't signify anything good.

“Don't even think about it,” he snarls through his teeth.

Clearly however, the demon cares little for his request, because not a moment later, its body goes tense and it kicks off the ground with powerful hind legs, launching itself towards the maker, its forelegs outstretched and the long claws at the end of each toe flashing like knives in the flecked sunlight.

For a split second, you remember that your saviour is un-armoured and a shrill cry blurts out of your mouth before you can hold it back. “NO!”

Suddenly, the maker's arm snaps out in front of him, his fingers splayed wide, and the stalker just.... stops. It hangs suspended in the air, utterly still, if not entirely disturbed,

Logically, you know you're witnessing magic at work, but there's just something so mind-boggling about seeing a four tonne demon freeze in midair, its eyes bulging open wide and its limbs still stuck in their outstretched position, twitching minutely against the invisible force encasing them.

Giving the stalker a gruff snort, your timely rescuer draws his hand close to his chest and you watch, enraptured as the demon is pulled closer as well on imperceptible strings of magic. It meets the maker's eye for a few, silent moments, hatred and rage passing between the two beings so strongly, you aren't sure whether the tingle on your skin is from their flaring emotions or the magic hanging oppressively in the air.

All at once, the maker flings his arm out again and the demon goes with the motion, incapable of doing much else. It flies sideways through the air and crashes through one tree trunk, obliterating the wood to splinters before its journey is stopped abruptly by a second trunk. With a howl of pain, it drops onto a thick root protruding from the ground and you wince at the resulting crack that you guess is the sound of one of its ribs breaking from the impact. Regardless, you can't bring yourself to feel sorry for it.

The maker’s hand falls to his side once more and he gives his head a firm, decisive nod, apparently satisfied. For a silent minute, you watch the demon writhe around in agony before it manages to pick itself back up, although one of its forelegs is held up off the grass and tucked against a heaving chest. Definitely injured, then.

Shaking its head, the stalker drags its gaze over to the maker and lets out a noise that's half defiance, half surprise. You wonder if it had expected such resistance.

In response, the giant stomps his boot hard on the ground and bares his tusks at it, just daring it to try again. But the stalker, perhaps possessing slightly more brain in its head than you'd give it credit for, lowers its haunches and turns, limping back through the copse of trees until it disappears into the shadows.

“Serves you right, you great, big bully,” the maker huffs, spitting in the direction the stalker had skulked before he drops his fearsome snarl and begins to turn, slow and cautious as though he’s afraid to frighten you away.

Your heart certainly does skip a beat when you finally get a proper glimpse of his striking features.

Long tresses of golden hair tumble down around the maker's face, framing a strong, square jaw and a modest beard that sweeps neatly down to his throat. With eyes that reflect the alluring blue of a summer sky, he peers down at you in amazement as a soft, yet curious smile parts his lips, revealing a pair of tusks that gleam almost as brightly as his eyes. “What do we have here?”

-----

Bonus - Reader and the mystery maker <3

#Darksiders #Darksiders 2 #Eideard #Fluff #time travel #reader #oh no he's cute #he gets cuter #let me know if you want a part 2 #I mean #i'll probably write it anyway but #makers #g/t #giant/tiny #injury #whump #because I like to make my reader suffer

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blackcherrykiss · 4 years

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BLOOD BOUNDARIES - Enhypen OT7 Fanfic (ch.3)

[CH.1] [CH.2 ] previous chapters

[CH.4] next chapter

genre: vampire au, romance, drama, mystery, thriller

note: written inspired by enhypen's storyline, given-taken lyrics & teasers. please keep in mind all members are apart of this fanfic and the main theme is mystery/drama!

...

"Kyungeun is that a... Hickey?" You blush at the unfamiliar sight.

"N-no n-not exactly...? I'm actually not allowed to show others this..." She exhaled deeply.

"Allowed?" You questioned her word choice.

"I-I mean, other girls would think I'm a slut if they saw this? I guess..."

"Oh, I understand. The girls here can be so judgemental... I can see why you'd want to hide it," You proceeded to comfort her as you felt unwillingly suspicious of her, "Don't worry! secret safe with me!" You pretended to zip your lips closed. However, you were still sceptical of the lack of confidence she had sewed in her words. But it wasn't like you were going to fish for the real story and details.

"You're literally an angel sent from the heavens..." She fiddled with her slender fingers, "You're so innocent and pure... Please stay that way." She said with a sentimental tone. "What about you? Don't you have any weight on your shoulders? I feel bad that you're always the listening rock." She frowned.

You could tell she would genuinely listen, giving you a bit of confidence to speak up, "Actually, I do have something."

"Mhm? What's up?" She went into an attentive mode.

"Well... You know of Lee Heeseung right? He's a senior, relatively tall, red hair, fawn-like eyes... I'm sure you're friends with him."

"Yeah, I-I know him."

"Well... This sounds a little unrealistic but I've been needing to tell someone cause it was just so bizarre but, yesterday I fell in front of him and scraped my hand." You cracked up in between from the embarrassing story, "And so it started to bleed right?"

Kyungeun stared into space, emotion leaving her eyes, "Right...?"

"Again... I know this sounds so strange but then he..." You hesitated as you got to the weird part, making every word harder to say. "But then... He licked it... T-the blood..." You awaited a laughing face from her but instead received a silent reaction. "Sorry, you probably think I'm lying right? But I swear it happened." You scoffed at yourself.

"No... I believe you..." Kyungeun spoke softly.

"In fact, it actually happened while I was walking back to the dorms with Jungwon." You added in the detail.

"Jungwon!? Are you still hanging around him?!"

"Jeez, he's not that big of a loser... Jungwon's been getting kind of popular amongst the girls actually. I hear some girls talk about him." You were kind of flustered pointing out those observations, quickly fanning away those awkward feelings.

"Do you usually hang out with Jungwon alone?!" She said with concern filled eyes.

"Woah, when you put it that way haha... It sounds scandalous." You whisper even if it's just you two in the change room.

"Look Y/N, you need to stop hanging around with-" She cut herself off when a wave of girls burst into the clearing.

"Hmm? With?"

"Nevermind. Let's go do the warmup!" Her mood flipping like a switch in front of the sudden crowd

You wrap up your morning classes that day, which only moved slower with nothing in your body but water and an hour of sleep.

Packing up after your physics teacher deciding to end class early, you're moving at the speed of light to be the first to the dining hall. That is until you pass Jaeyun packing up his textbooks. Your two stares meet, triggering something bad in your intuition. Many bad feelings seem to be associated with him now that you know what kind of people he hangs around. You begin to walk funny upon such small interaction with him. With mismatched steps, you shuffle through all kinds of laughter and conversations amongst your classmates. You weren't exactly dismissed yet but it was your mission to leave earlier than everyone else and avoid the lunch wave.

With some luck, you slip out of the room successfully entering the vacant hallways. The emptiness and white noise of the halls haunting you. In short, your school was originally a castle built during the 18th century and retained its character over the years. However, the design made it much scarier to roam.

"Y/N... can I ask you something?" You hear a loud echo from behind.

You just know exactly who that is. You don't even need to turn around to know the only possible soul it could be is Sim Jaeyun. You were more surprised he knew your name more than the fact this was the first time you heard his voice clearly.

You hear the heels of his shoes ring against the clean polished tiles.

"Not sure if I'll answer but ask away." You turn around unaware of how close he had gotten. You move your foot back as he looked deep into your soul. It was as if he knew exactly that eye contact was your weakness.

"How much do you know?" He questioned while taking an alarmingly close shift toward you, cornering you.

"About?" You weren't sure of where this conversation was going but you were honestly clueless.

"About us. Don't act like you don't know who I was referring too." He was now just barely outside your 'personal space'.

An airy chuckle escapes you, "Is everyone trying to hide something from me? The answer is nothing. All I know is you're apart of some pretty boy gang and I shouldn't get involved with you."

"Sweetheart once you get involved with us, you can't get out." He bent closer with a sneer.

"Huh? I've only met half of you and you're all weird as hell. All I did was fall in front of Heeseung, how am I involved with you guys?" You push him back with your index finger.

"I heard about that situation. Heeseung's kind of bold isn't he?" Jaeyun snickers, "It's just fun for us to see someone who knows so little yet so much about us now."

You tried to express both your confusion and frustration through your face. It was unbelievable what he was saying but it was interesting that Heeseung would mention the incident to other people. "So little yet so much? I swear my roommates know more about you guys than I do."

"Do they? Or do they just know what we want them to?" He looked satisfied seeing your brain melt trying to process what he meant. "Think a little harder about what Heeseung did to you the other day."

You shook away the long thoughts he left you with, "Look. I lost my appetite earlier from you guys. I have not eaten since last night and I'm about to explode. Can we continue this another time-"

He bit the side of his lower lip, looking around before bringing himself to a distance where he was so close you could kiss him with just the slight movement of breathing, "I'm starving too but I've got my boundaries."

You felt like he was challenging you as a way of hooking you deeper. "Really? Are you sure you aren't crossing those boundaries?" You whisper clearly into his ear, with your head wide above the crook of his neck as you notice Jungwon behind Jaeyun.

#enhypen fanfic #enhypen imagines #enhypen vampire #enhypen scenarios #yang jungwon #lee heeseung #park jeongseong #sim jaeyun #park sunghoon #kim sunoo #nishimura riki #jungwon fanfic #heeseung fanfic #enhypen jay fanfic #sunghoon fanfic #sunoo fanfic #enhypen niki fanfic

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superspookywombat · 4 years

Text

falling {j.h} chapter eleven

Warnings: a few swear words I think, theyre not too bad though, i didn’t proof read i was too excited to post lol

Taglist: i’m moving it to the comments (or at least I’m going to try to so i’d appreciate it if you could let me know if it works :)

A/n: this chapter’s a bit longer than usual. I’m not totally in love with it but i know i’ve kept you all waiting long enough (oops) hope you enjoy!!

Everything was still. You laid in a sterile room, your torn and bloody clothes dried to a vinyl cot in the middle of the room. Jasper wouldn’t let Alice change your clothes, he wouldn’t even let anyone near you. He sat at your side, never taking his eyes off of you once. The venom was taking longer than usual to take over, leaving Carlisle intrigued. Jasper was worried that his venom didn’t work, but was instantly reassured by Alice that you would wake up.

It was three nights after you’d been bitten that you began the early stages of transformation. You weren’t awake just yet, but every so often your heart would stutter and slow. Jasper listened closely, and tried his best to radiate calmness for you even though he was feeling everything but. He couldn’t feel anything around you, which was something he wasn’t used to. The rest of the Cullens gave him as much space as possible, almost as if he was grieving. He was grieving, though, because he knew this was the end of an era. This officially ended things between him and Alice. He felt guilty for leaving her by herself, but he knew she was a strong woman and would be better off without him.

“You don’t have to be sorry, you know.” Alice said, approaching him a few weeks ago. He didn’t understand what she was referring to.

“You’re in love with her, Jasper. And that’s okay.” She said softly, reassuring the conflicted cowboy.

“We were supposed to be together for the rest of our lives.” Jasper had responded, his heart dropping at the sight of Alice’s sad smile. She cupped his cheek in her small hand and he leaned into her touch.

“I know. But this is the start of a new life.” She said. He paused, unsure how to respond. Eventually, he knew.

“Thank you, Alice.” He said, his voice no more than a whisper. He was sure if vampires could cry that tears would be running down his scarred cheeks. She never responded, they just sat in silence while she held him, their love still as strong as the day they met, just displaced.

Five days after being bitten you started visually reacting to the venom. Sometimes your hand would flinch, or your eyelids would twitch. Mostly, whimpers escaped through your clenched jaw. Your body was changing dramatically, you got slimmer in sections but filled out in others, your lips got plumper and your hair got thicker and shinier. Your clothes barely fit you anymore, not that you’d do anything but throw away the outfit you had on. Jasper finally started to calm a little, but was still on edge because he knew the upcoming part was arguably the hardest.

Eleven days after you were bitten you had the ability to be conscious, though most of the time you weren’t from the unbearable pain. Your screams were heard throughout the house, including a small part of the surrounding forest causing the Cullens to have a new-found appreciation for the seclusiveness of their house. Bella had visited you multiple times, but Edward wouldn’t let her get too close in case you suddenly awoke and decided that she was going to be your first meal. Being right next to you while you suffered hurt Jasper too. He could feel your anguish, your confusion. When you’d cry out, he’d groan; when you’d squeeze his hand, his other one would crush the armrest of his chair.

Fourteen days after you were bitten, the pain finally died down. You were unconscious again as the final stage of transforming took place, making major changes in your body- including your heart. Jasper could hear your heart straining to keep up with the venom, but eventually it gave in and stopped altogether. Jasper sat still, waiting anxiously for the next step. A thump at the large glass window had made him jump, which was unusual for a vampire because they were rarely startled. Another thump made him stand, and after another he called for Esme. Birds ran into the windows a lot because of how clean she kept them, and if they were injured either her or Carlisle would aid it. Esme had rushed to his side immediately, most of the Cullens were sat just outside of the room incase of an update on your condition. As soon as she entered, Jasper watched as her eyebrows knitted together. She strode forward and reached to open the window, and almost immediately the room was invaded by multiple birds. Jasper jumped to hover over your body protectively while Esme yelled at the birds to get out. Hearing all of the commotion, Rosalie and Emmett entered the room. Rose helped Esme shoo the birds while Emmett walked over to the window.

“Oh hell yeah!” Emmett laughs, clapping his hands. Once the window was closed, leaving the birds to sit on the balcony, Jasper felt it was safe enough to leave you unprotected. He walks over to see what Emmett was talking about, only to see a bear standing on its hind legs, pawing in the direction of the window.

“Good God.” Jasper says, his jaw ajar. Esme walks over, her expression just as shocked as the boys’.

“It’s like a pizza delivery!” Emmett exclaimes. He places two of his huge hands on Rosalie’s shoulders. “But instead of pizza- it’s a bear!”

“Em, why is there a bear waving at you?” Rosalie asks him. Alice entered the room so quietly that no one had noticed she was there.

“It’s here for y/n.” She says. Jasper whirls around, his eyebrows pulling down to frame his scowl.

“What are you talking about?” He asks. Her eyes glaze over as she stares into the distance, and Jasper rushes to her side and holds her upright.

“I can see it.. She’s calling them..” Alice says. Jasper glances at your unmoving body. A squirrel leaps from a tree that hangs over the balcony, and scratches at the glass.

“Calling them how?” Esme asks softly. Alice snaps out of her vision, blinking a few times until she sees clearly again. Carlisle walks into the room, followed by Edward and Bella.

“They can sense her pain, she’s reaching out for help and she doesn’t even realize it.” Alice says. A creak from the bed diverts everyone’s eyes to you.

---------------------------------------------

After feeling nothing but unbearable pain for what seemed like forever, it was almost instantaneously that it went away. As if a bucket of water was poured onto your burning body, the flames were extinguished. You could hear before you could see; you could hear so many different things at once. The flutter of a bird’s wings, the rhythmic beat of a heart- who’s heart? Then you heard him. It sounded like him, but clearer. As if someone had flipped a switch to turn his voice into HD. You could hear Emmett and Esme too, along with a melodic unfamiliar voice. Then Alice’s voice. Everyone spoke in worried, hush tones. Worry ran through you, what was wrong? Did something happen? Then, your eyes flutter open.

You sit up with a gasp, your hand instinctively reaching for your throat. It felt so dry that you were sure that if you tried to speak, nothing would come out. The first thing you saw was Esme, a worried expression plastered on her face. You turn your head to find Jasper, but the speed at which you turn takes you by surprise. You lift your hand from your throat, holding it in front of your face. The paleness of your skin shocks you. Actually, everything about your hand does. The room is silent as you place your other hand next to the first one, staring at both in confusion. You don’t recognize them, the only similar factor being the red nail polish you applied the night before. You pull up your sleeve, and you flinch when a loud ripping noise bounces off of the walls. Pinched between your thumb and first finger is bloody fabric. You’re too bothered by your sudden strength to notice that your arms, like your hands, have no freckles or moles. You twist your arm to look at your elbow, surprised to see that the huge scar you got when you were eight is no longer there.

“Y/n?” You hear Jasper say. You over at him, his beauty leaving you wordless. Sunlight from the window streams through the mop of his blond hair, leaving it looking like pure gold. His pale skin glitters- wait, glitters? You stand up, looking down at your bare feet and bloody pants.

“Jasper?” You ask. Your brain swirls as you think about what happened the night before, but as soon as you smell the dried blood on your clothes you shudder. “I.. I died.”

“We’ll let you two talk alone.” Esme says softly, walking over to Jasper like she’s balancing on eggshells. She leans to say something in his ear. “We’ll be right outside if you need us.”

Jasper approaches you slowly as Esme, Emmett, and the blonde girl exit the room. He keeps his distance, but reaches out to hesitantly take your hand. You let him, and his skin no longer feels cold.

“What’s going on?” You ask, your voice not even sounding like it belongs to you. He glances over your shoulder, and you turn to see what he’s looking at. Three deer stand underneath the trees outside of the window, seemingly watching you two.

“Y/n.. I had no choice.” Jasper says, his voice sounding unusually stressed. You look down once more at your bloody clothes.

“Had no choice about what?” You ask. He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but then closes it again. “Jasper what’s going on? I feel like I’m going crazy. I could have sworn I.. died. I thought I died. But you saved me? And I’m okay now? Did you tell Dr Cullen to do some sort of risky procedure and bring me back to life?”

“You did.” He says. You furrow your eyebrows, unsure of which thing you said he’s responding to. “Die, I mean.”

“Very funny. Just tell me what happened, I probably won’t be mad. Charlie might be though.” You reply, wishing he’d just blurt it out.

“My family and I.. we aren’t normal.” He says. Okay..?

“Well one look at Edward and that becomes pretty obvious. Not sure what it has to do with what’s going on here though.” You say sarcastically.

“I’m serious. We aren’t like anyone you’ve ever met before.” He says. You sit and wait for him to finish monologuing- which is what he clearly wants. “I’m not as old as you think I am.. I was born as Jasper Whitlock in 1844. My family and I are immortal.”

You wait for him to say more- for him to laugh and tell you Bella put him up to a prank or something. He stays silent.

“You’re serious? Like, immortal as in you were born in 1844 and you haven’t aged a day and you can’t die and you’ve been through highschool like a million times and-” You ramble, still waiting for him to come clean about the joke. “And.. you’re a vampire?”

“Yes.” He answers shortly. You scoff.

“Bullshit.” You say, anger coursing through your veins. He looks taken aback as you gesture wildly. “I’m not as gullible as my sister thinks, okay? So you can go and run to her and tell her that her stupid prank isn’t funny.”

“Y/n, I-” He starts.

“No! I don’t like being made fun of.” You growl. You turn to walk towards the balcony. As much as you’d like to leave, he still needs to explain what happened the night before, unless that was somehow a part of the sick joke. As you go to step forward, Jasper places a hand on your upper arm. You shake off his hand and he falls forward a little, making your mind swirl. You step forward and instantly you’re zooming through the air and through the glass doors. You try to catch yourself on the metal railing of the balcony, only for it to bend, letting you fall two stories to the ground.

“What the hell?” You exclaim. You look at your body, which looks and feels unscathed. Jasper runs out of the you-sized hole in the door, jumping off of the balcony and landing on his feet next to you with a ‘thud’. Soon, undoubtedly drawn by the noise, Emmett and Dr Cullen ran- teleported (?) over to you guys. “So.. Uh.. You were saying?”

“Two weeks ago, you were attacked by another immortal. They were here for your sister and while we were fighting a flock of newborn vampires, one broke off from the rest of them and came to your house. He.. he killed you. I made the decision to bite you.” Jasper says, his voice seemingly shaking. Your mind swims as you try to piece together what he just said. Two weeks? But it was just last night. He bit me? Am I an immortal- or vampire now?

“So.. you decided my fate? Whether to let me die or make me a vampire? I am a vampire, right?” You ask slowly, still trying to figure it out. You hear a rapid heartbeat thumping behind you, and you turn to see those three deer watching you a few yards away. You want them to come closer, something about them drawing you to them. As if you had asked them, they slowly trot closer, until they are about an arm’s reach away. You can hear a whooshing sound- the blood running through their veins? Your mouth could water as you deeply inhale, a delicious scent filling your nostrils. You can sense their trance-like state almost radiating off of them as they walk closer. Jasper gets closer to you, as do Emmett and the Doctor. You almost unconsciously lunge at the unsuspecting animal, until another scent hits you. Why was I about to attack that animal? To.. drink it’s blood? The scent is much sweeter than the deers’, it smells more appetizing than anything you’ve ever smelled before. You want it more than anything you’ve ever wanted before. You rush to your feet and sprint around the corner of the house and down the driveway, only to see Bella being rushed into Edward’s car. Your hands shake and your throat burns as her scent surrounds you. Before you even know what you’re doing, you’re crouched in an offensive position. Someone wraps their arms around you before you can lunge, and the scent lets you know it’s Jasper.

“Y/n.. y/n, stop!” Jasper commands as you struggle against his grip, and soon Emmett is there to help him. Your throat feels like it’s going to catch fire and burn into a crisp. You groan as you try to claw out of their grip, but they don’t let up. You sink to your knees, Jasper and Emmett following you to the ground, and anguish rushes through you. Birds caw as they circle around in the air. A bear dazedly walks out of the forest, his eyes glazed over. The deer from earlier walk towards you, not affected by the loud noises. Squirrels run down from trees and snakes slither out from the forest floor coverings. A fat racoon waddles out from behind a pile of logs while two elk walk out of the woods. Alice, Esme, and the other girl come outside. Everyone is silent as they look around in amazement, creatures from all over surround the front of the house where you kneel.

Alice is the first to speak, a small smile on her lips as she utters the words, “She’s a Thiriokinetic.”

#edward cullen #alice cullen #jasper hale #jasper hale x reader #Emmett Cullen #carlisle cullen #esme cullen #fanfic #fanfiction #twilight #twilight x reader #chapter 11

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groovybaybee · 4 years

Text

Greener - I

cw: mentions of abuse (not this chapter and nothing too intense but better safe than sorry) also alcohol consumption

(6k)

Spago, 7pm, reservation under my name, have fun saucy xxx

Oh, Lucy. Lovely, wonderful, maddening Lucy. Not only would she select my date for the evening, she, of course, would make a decision about when and where.

In all honesty, I do not mind. I would gladly allow that girl to run my life, she pretty much has made all the big decisions for me anyway. Lucy had been the one who forced me to enter our school’s talent show and sing in public for the first time. I lost hard, unable to compete with Anthony Piaz’s flaming diabolo tricks, but I was grateful to her, nonetheless. Lucy was also the one who made me move out to Los Angeles with her, telling me we needed to be with the stars if we wanted to be like them. It might sound cheesy, but that girl can be very persuasive when she wants to be. Since we were teenagers, she told me all about how we were going to make it big, I would be a singer and she would produce all my music.

Lucy has always been a dreamer, but she is the most dedicated and ambitious person I know, plotting out every detail of every day to make sure she could get to where she wanted to be. Her and I had understood that we could not just rock up in America and instantly start working for record labels. We would spend hours in her room, writing and producing songs every weekend, sending them to local and national radio stations, record labels, anyone we could think of.

Then one day, the universe fell into place. Our song, Penny, started to gain some traction. I will never forget the day we heard our song played on the radio for the first time. I never could forget it with the video of the two of us screaming and crying and laughing and hugging being sent to my phone every time I get frustrated.

‘They never gave up, and neither will we’

Luce has always been good like that, putting things in perspective when I start spiralling out.

Truthfully, Lucy has always been a bit of a hero to me. The voice of reason, even when I did not want to hear it. I trust her with my life. So, when I was offered a contract with a record label, I had insisted that she aid in the production, knowing that once the world could see her talent there would be no stopping her. And there never has been. Though we still work together on projects and tracks wherever we can, both of us have been blessed with opportunities to work with some of our idols in the music industry. However, it still feels the most special when it is just her and me working together.

Knowing that she always has my best interests at heart, agreeing to be set up on a blind date by her was easy. It was only afterwards that the doubts had started to creep in. Of course, Lucy knows me well, probably better than anyone, and so her choice of date for me would undoubtedly be my type. I know that they will be charming and funny and most likely have a smile that makes me want to swat them directly in the face for being so cute. However, it would be impossible for her to know the other person so well, so me showing up may not be what they had hoped for.

They could want to meet someone girly, polished, calm. While I can be those things sometimes, pretending to be anyone but myself would only lead down an unfortunate and embarrassing path in the long run. This self-assuredness, in theory, is lovely, but does not stop the nagging feeling in my stomach that whoever I am meeting at the restaurant will not be pleased to see me.

Trying my best to shake this thought, I get ready for my date. Landing on a simple black dress (knowing my tendencies to spill anything in my grasp), partnering it with a silver chain necklace, a few matching rings, and some thickly heeled silver boots. I put on a touch of makeup, style my hair, and spritz myself with perfume before grabbing a coat, stuffing the pockets with my necessities, and getting in the Uber I had pre-emptively ordered. I am going to be early but that suits me just fine.

Arriving at the restaurant, nestled beside Rodeo Drive, I thank the driver and exit the car. Spago is far too fancy for me to feel fully comfortable, a small part of myself always believing that my life is some sort of coma dream and one day I would wake up back home, older and having done nothing with my life. Despite my instinct to run and feign illness, I enter the restaurant and tell the matre d’ Lucy’s name. He gives me a pleasant smile and leads me through the bustling restaurant to an empty table on the patio outside. Thanking him, I seat myself at the table beside a sheltered, freestanding fireplace, taking a second to appreciate the warmth of the toasting embers against the slight breeze of the evening under the dwindling sun.

Looking out to the chair across from me, panic and excitement swirl around in my stomach. Wondering what they will be like and whether we will get on has me desperately searching around the quiet outside space for anyone who works here to urge them for a glass of wine. I manage to locate someone, but the thought instantly leaves my mind when I notice a person trailing behind them. They head straight in my direction and my head snaps back to the table, trying not to have their first impression of me be my crazy wine-hungry eyes. I take a deep breath, and a second to remember Lucy’s message: ‘have fun’.

Turning to meet my date as they stop at our table, a smile slips across my lips without my telling it to. Yep, Lucy definitely knows me. The man in front of me is the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome, but with an added dash of unreservedness, dressed in a black dress shirt, the collar of which pokes out over a baby blue suit jacket, trousers matching. My eyes land on his hand, ringed fingers clutching a bouquet of yellow roses. I cannot deny it, the sight sends a little zip of happiness through my body. Travelling upwards, I land on his face. And pause.

If this is a very elaborate prank, I have to give it up to Lucy. This is incredible. I remember her telling me that she was working with him on a track for his second album, but I would not have thought they were close enough to discuss love lives. If so, surely she would have snapped him up for herself. The amount of conversations we had spent discussing our celebrity crushes and he always popped up on both of our lists. There is no way this is happening. This just proves that I am, in fact, comatose.

“Hi,” he speaks with a tentative smile.

On the off chance that I am not in a simulation, I stand up and greet him, still unable to form words as he presses a kiss to each of my cheeks.

“Lucy said you liked yellow,” he says almost sounding nervous, looking down at the bunch of flowers in his hand.

“I do,” I say softly, shaking my head to bring me back to reality while he is looking away from me. “They’re, uh, they’re beautiful.”

He hands me the flowers and my brain almost completely malfunctions, unable to comprehend that I am sat, on a date, with a man I have been fawning over from afar for over a year. Sure, I have always known of him, but something about him kicking off his solo career and dressing differently, acting differently, it was all just incredibly attractive. Something so sexy about his confidence. An opinion I had expressed to Lucy many times in varying degrees of enthusiasm, her use of the word ‘saucy’ in her text to me suddenly making a lot more sense.

“Thank you, really,” I say, looking up from the flowers to him, a full head taller than me. “Sorry, I’m being weird, Lucy just… is full of surprises,” I admit, meeting his gaze as he observes me cautiously. He must think I am crazy, or incredibly rude, most likely both.

“I’m Violet,” I quickly introduce myself and gesture for us to sit. He does, with a relieved smile which I mirror.

“Harry,” he says gently.

Duh.

Harry Styles. I am on a date with Harry Styles. The man I had admitted to wanting to let ‘break my heart and sex me back together’. Not one of my best lines, I will agree. And he is even better looking in person. His hair is kind of messy in a very put-together kind of way. His eyes are deep and their hold on me is strong. And his lips kink up at the edges, pulling joy out to his cheeks as he watches me, almost assessing me.

“Yeah, I’m actually a fan of your music,” I admit shyly, hoping that he finds it endearing rather than psychotic.

“Likewise. To be honest, I can’t believe I’m sat here with you,” he speaks deeply.

This has to be a prank. No way on Earth did Harry Styles, Harry Styles, just say that to me.

“I didn’t realise you and Lucy were so close,” I confess, allowing my confusion and curiosity to spill out of my mouth at lightning speed.

“Oh, yeah, first day we met it was like instant sibling rivalry, you know? Straight away bullying each other,” Harry explains with a low, breathy chuckle. God, even his laugh is sexy.

I will admit to being relieved to hear that their feelings for one another were strictly platonic, not wanting to step on Lucy’s toes even if she had been the one to set us up. Something about hearing this new information allows my most recent conversations with her to make a lot more sense, her being the one to let me explain in detail all the disgusting things I would let this man do to me while she just laughed. That sly devil.

“How long have you two known each other?” he asks, sipping at the glass of water on his side of the table.

“Oh, since we were kids, think our souls are melded at this point,” I tell him, earning a captivated smile that reaches up to his eyes. “Do you do this thing a lot?” I ask, fascinated as to how I ended up in this situation. When he looks at me blankly, I hurriedly add, “Blind dates?”

“Not really, only one other time and it was… interesting,” he says, eyes glazing over as his mind flashes back.

“Me neither,” I start, bringing his attention back to the present in hopes to prevent him from reliving whatever terrible memory I had just triggered, “I do have a very important question for you though,”

“What’s that?” he asks with a grin that matches the one creeping on to my face.

“Are you a wine person?” I ask, faking sincerity.

“Oh, yeah,” he nods, laughing at my intensity.

“Good, ten points to you,” I smirk as we both glance down at the drinks menus, after a moment of reflection I speak up, “Want to just get the cheapest? Don’t think my palette could tell the difference.”

Harry lets out a small laugh and agrees happily, ordering a bottle of chardonnay for the two of us when the waiter circles around to us. My mind begins to spiral as I watch Harry pour us each a glass, wondering how I ended up here, what I think of him, what he thinks of me. Brain almost about to short-circuit[AH1] , I cheers my glass with his and take a long sip of white wine, desperate for a touch of Dutch courage.

We sit in a comfortable silence for a few moments, eyes locked as we drink in our surroundings, allowing the madness of the evening to sink in for our brains to process. There is a gentle smirk on each of our faces, enjoying the mischief of our mutual friend.

“I really loved the album by the way,” I confess to him, only to be rewarded with a bright and grateful smile.

“Thank you,” he says softly, an excited buzz coming from him as he shifts in his seat to lean his elbows on the table, chin resting on his interlaced knuckles. “I listen to The Lady Grey Project at least once a week,” he admits, and if I look closely (which I do) I can see a light rosy flush appearing on his cheeks.

At this point I reckon a rhinoceros could stampede into the restaurant and I would not bat an eyelid. Of course, he listens to my album regularly, this is a dream, in all honesty I am just shocked he does not have a tattoo of my face on his body somewhere. I say a silent prayer that I will be allowed to remain in whatever simulation I am in.

“You’re too kind,” I smirk, having to use my wine glass to hide as much of my blushing face from him.

“Can I ask where the Lady Grey name came from?” he asks curious about my stage-name, watching intently as I swallow and place my glass down. “Sorry if I’m being too nosy by the way, tell me to fuck off if you want,” he says, causing a light laugh to tumble from my lips.

He watches me with a soft gaze that makes me want to melt into a puddle underneath the table. Does he like me? No, he is probably just being polite.

Calm down crazy.

“Um, well, Lucy and I used to spend days in her room making music, and all we would eat was Cadbury’s Fingers and all we drank was Lady Grey tea, it was kind of our fuel you know? And then it just kind of stuck, and we used to joke about who Lady Grey was and I don’t know, I sort of idolised the character we created,” I explain as best I can.

“So, you became her?” Harry asks softly, his smile never faltering once while I spoke.

“Yeah, Lady Grey and Lucy Hind were going to take on the world together,” I say, looking down at the tablecloth, a slight feeling of embarrassment for oversharing my childhood dreams. It probably seemed so silly to him.

“And you are,” is all he says.

When I look up at him, his eyes are so gentle and comforting, and staring into them feels like stepping into a warm bath.

The waiter arrives back to our table to take our orders, preventing me from drooling over how idyllic this date is becoming. Harry apologises for the two of us, neither having even looked at the food menu yet, and asks for another minute. Eventually, we order our food and the conversation continues to flow easily, finding out about each other’s passions for not only music, but art in general, both discovering that the other loves to draw and paint despite having very minimal talent for it.

We talk about what we are working on, both giddy at gaining secret information about the other’s new projects. He whispers to me that he has a new album coming out at the end of the year, in return I tell him I have a small tour happening in a few months, a few intimate venues across the country. He tells me he would love to come to a show. I mentally let out a scream.

We discuss our hometowns throughout the main course, both hailing from the north of England, giggling over the surprising culture shock of living in LA. Conversation moves to talking about our families and still feeling homesick.

“I’ve been writing about home a lot recently,” I admit, finishing my second glass of wine, “I miss the colour green so much,” I laugh honestly, missing the miles and miles of fields and trees I could see from my family home.

“I get that completely,” he says, refilling my glass without me even having to ask, “I miss my little village and knowing everyone there. LA can feel a bit lonely at times,”

There is a pregnant pause, silence falling over the two of us as I give him a small nod, understanding wholly the feeling of moving across the world. It is scary and isolating and you really have to push through and commit to your work to ensure it was all worthwhile. However, that does not leave much room for forging any kind of relationship other than professional. Harry is right, it can be very lonely sometimes.

I find myself watching him, eyes a little bit softened by the wine and the evening light. Seeing his face flicker under the crackling firelight feels like I am seeing him for the first time, as though his features are completely new to me and I get to meet a whole new person. He really is breath-taking. Something about getting to know him allows me to see his personality in his physicality; patient eyes and dimples that deepen every time I nearly knock over my glass and insist that I am not drunk, that this is just how I am. Finding myself smiling while I watch him, I remind myself to act like a normal human being and sip at my wine.

But he watches me right back.

When desert rolls around, both of us are too full to appreciate anything fancy, sadly deciding to call it a night. After insisting that we split the bill, threatening to get his bank account details somehow and send him a direct deposit, we leave the table.

“Man, I shouldn’t have worn this dress, looks like I’m smuggling a watermelon,” I say, rubbing my bloated belly slightly as we walk through the restaurant, now significantly emptier than when I had arrived nearly three hours earlier.

“I like it,” Harry tells me, biting back a smirk, “Wrote a song about watermelons, actually,”

“Really? You’ll have to let me hear it sometime,” I say, thanking him as he holds the door open for me to walk through.

“Do you, uh, do you need a lift home?” Harry asks once we are outside, wrapping our jackets a little tighter around ourselves in the early autumn air. I pause to look at him and assess the sincerity of his offer. When he looks at me with nothing but kindness and caution, I nod, finding his trepidation incredibly endearing.

“That would be great, thank you,” I say softly, failing to mention that I would say yes to any offer he made so long as it meant I could spend longer getting to know him.

“Cool!” he says with so much enthusiasm that I have to bite down on my bottom lip to keep from smiling too big, utterly smitten with him. Harry clears his throat and pulls out his phone, calling his driver to come and pick us up. “He’ll be five minutes,” his voice is back to its low rumble when he turns to me, a light flush spread across his cheekbones. I pretend not to notice, instead fixing my attention to the roses in my hand.

“I’ve had a really nice time,” I tell him, hoping that in showing some vulnerability it will ease his embarrassment. It works. As I look up at him, he meets my gaze and smiles down at me gently.

“Me too. I think you’re really cool to be around,” he says tenderly, taking a step closer to me so that he is less than an arm’s length away. “More than exceeded my expectations for tonight,” he teases.

“I think part of me still thinks this is a prank,” I admit, breathing a laugh as I find myself gravitating closer to Harry, silently praying that he will kiss me.

“I know, I was listening to Penny on the way here to keep me sane,” his voice has dropped to just above a whisper, his face less than a foot from mine.

“As if,” I laugh incredulously, finding myself stepping back slightly so I do not deafen him.

“I was!” he defends with a chuckle, “I love that song,”

“Sorry,” I breathe, “I just didn’t think anyone really listened to it, except maybe my parents,”

“It was the first song of yours I ever heard,” he says, closing the gap between us again, “Thought how talented you were, even wanted to cover it.”

Back into the simulation you go.

“Wanna make sweet music together?” I tease, my voice a little low and breathy as the space between us rapidly reduces.

Harry exhales a chuckle, eyes flitting between my own and my lips.

He is fully going to kiss you.

Or at least he would, if that had not been the moment Harry’s driver decides to pull up to the curb, startling us both. Gaze fixed to the ground to hide my certainly bright pink cheeks, I shuffle into the car when Harry opens the door for me, sliding in shortly afterwards.

“Where to?” Harry asks, clearing his throat slightly.

I tell him my address, watching as he and his driver share a small nod before we set off.

The first few minutes of the ride are, I will admit, awkward. The only sound to be heard is the crinkling of the paper surrounding my flowers, my hands fidgeting nervously.

He was going to kiss me. He totally would have kissed me if we were alone for just one more moment.

An assertive person would kiss him now.

Would he want that? Would I want that? For our first kiss to be in the back of his car as we drove through my neighbourhood. I’m not so sure. Harry feels special, like he deserves a bit more romance than that.

I continue to fiddle with the paper in my lap.

“What’s your favourite flower?” I ask curiously, eyes fixating on the bright yellow petals.

“Quite like apple blossoms,” he tells me. His voice is soft, and I can tell his head is turned to look directly at me.

“See, I never would have guessed that.” I confess. Upon hearing him breathe a laugh, I follow it up with a mirrored tone, “What? You’re a mysterious dude.”

“Very mysterious,” he jokes as I look back up at him. There is a warmth in his eyes as they shimmer with laughter. It is almost as though the small amount of time focussing on something other than him has erased all memory of his face. Suddenly, excitement courses through my body. His stupid, happy face making my stomach squeeze itself.

“A real enigma,” I smirk after gathering myself.

There is silence again in the car, our eyes softly locked on the other’s, even as we pull up beside my house.

“This is me,” my voice is barely louder than a whisper.

“I’ll walk you,” Harry says, our gaze still unmoved.

For a moment, my mind drifts to Harry’s driver. I wonder what he makes of us sitting in the back of his car despite reaching our destination. Perhaps he thinks it is sweet, two kids still so nervous enough around one another that we both refuse to make a move. Maybe he thinks we are crazy and should just get out of the car like normal people would.

I nod my head slightly, more so trying to encourage myself to get moving rather than Harry. In all honesty, I would love little more than to just sit here and look at him, to feel whatever tension there is between us for a moment longer. But I steal myself away from that thought and open the car door.

Harry, ever the gentleman, sees me to my front door. It is a little old-fashioned but incredibly charming, nonetheless. I turn to face him once we reach the doorstep, craning my neck a little to meet his eyes.

My gaze lingers a moment on his lips, and I wonder if I should kiss him. Or would he not like that? He seems like he would not be opposed to a woman making the first move, but he is also the type to open doors and walk people to their homes. What if he wants to be the one to initiate? I doubt he would find me kissing him to be emasculating, but what if he recoiled at the thought? Maybe I shouldn’t kiss him. Maybe I should invite him inside. I will admit, the idea of ending the night with him sounds idyllic, but what if that gives the wrong impression. What if he is the type of guy who cares about a woman’s sexual habits? I never would have him pegged for that sort of person, but you never know.

Nerves and paranoia form a whirlpool in my brain, sucking me in until I am so overwhelmed that all I can physically do is stare at him, trying not to allow my eyes to widen too far in fear of looking like a maniac.

He looks down at me with a gentle gaze, his right hand lifting and fingertips gently grazing the side of my left hand. His thumb brushes across my wrists, his eyes flitting across my face until I am convinced that he has stopped on my lips. The palpable energy from outside the restaurant returns.

“Can I—” Harry starts but I interrupt him.

“Yes,” I say hurriedly, my heart beating a little louder in my chest at the thought of his lips against mine.

Thank goodness he’s making the first move. If it were up to you, you would be standing here for days.

“Great,” he smiles broadly, quickly retracting his hand from mine and reaching into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, “Lets make music sometime.”

Harry hands me his unlocked phone.

You absolute fucking idiot, V.

I quickly input my phone number and hand it back to him with a small smile.

“Great,” he grins, part of me hating how adorable he is, the majority simply hating how dim-witted I am.

He wasn’t trying to kiss you.

“Hang out again soon?” he asks brightly.

I just nod and return a polite smile. He beams down at me before bidding me goodnight and walking back to his car.

As quick as physically possible, I unlock my front door, dash inside and shut the door behind me.

Idiot, idiot, idiot.

I sink to the floor, back pressed to the door. He wants to work together. While that notion alone would have had me fainting before tonight, I cannot help but feel a little disheartened to have misread the situation.

He didn’t want to kiss you.

My mind quickly scans through the whole evening, wonder at which event I began to misinterpret the signals. Maybe he was going to give me a hug outside the restaurant. Maybe he actually was going to kiss me, but then I laughed in his face and stepped away from him. Did I put him off me that quickly?

Pulling myself off the floor, I put the flowers in a mug of water, telling myself I will deal with them tomorrow once I am over the embarrassment.

* * *

I barely sleep, tossing and turning and reliving every stupid detail and mistake I undoubtedly made.

“You absolute cow!” I shout with a laugh when I spot Lucy walking towards me.

She just laughs along with me, a slight bashful blush arising in her cheeks as she steps closer to me.

I had text her when I got home last night, asking her to meet me first thing and she had agreed. Meeting at the dog park between our houses had been my idea, desperate to see her new Dalmatian puppy, Pip. I had arrived early, pre-emptively getting Lucy and I lattes, knowing fully well that no matter what time I got there I would still beat her by at least ten minutes.

“Thanks, gorgeous,” Lucy greets, taking the coffee I had extended to her.

“Hello, sweetpea,” I say in a higher pitch than my natural tone, crouching to welcome the excited dog. Pip wags her tail aggressively, desperately trying to lick my face. I giggle as my face scrunches at all the attention she is giving me, “I know, I know, it’s been a whole two days since I saw you, how could I neglect you like that?”

“She pissed on my shoes. Right little dickhead,” Lucy muses as I stand up, giving the pup one last scratch behind the ears. My eyes drop to her feet as we begin to walk through the park. “Not these ones, idiot,” she laughs.

“Don’t call me an idiot, I have a bone to pick with you,” I reply, trying my very hardest to chastise her but just giggling through it, faking sincerity always having been difficult for me, “What was it you told me? ‘Its just a date, no biggie’?”

“Something like that,” she mumbles, feigning shame but smirking as she looks at the ground.

“Harry Styles,” I mock, “Harry fucking Styles. You could have warned me, mate! I thought about him in the shower before dinner, thought I must have slipped and bumped my head when he rocked up,”

Lucy laughs as continue through the park, walking out on to the open expanse of the field. Pip excitedly yaps at the dogs playing in the distance, a little too young to join them just yet. We walk in bemused silence for a moment until we find a bench and take seat on it, sipping intermittently at our cooled down coffees.

“How was it then? Complete disaster or did you hold it together?” Lucy asks.

“Well, I thought I was holding it together, we were even kind of flirty,” I begin. Remembering last night stirs up excitement in my stomach, contrasting my skin crawling with embarrassment, “But he never kissed me. He walked me to my door, got me to give him my number and left,”

Luce nods, letting me give her the gist of the previous night, not pushing for more information as I bounce one of my legs anxiously. “He got your number though?” She offers, always looking on the bright side.

“Yeah, because he wants to make music together,” I say, a small smirk interrupting my words.

“Make music or make music?” She teases, wiggling her eyebrows dramatically.

“I don’t know!” I laugh, giving her a gentle push when she keeps leaning closer to me and putting her creepy moving eyebrows in my eyeline, “We complimented each other and stuff, and it became a bit of a joke but now I’m worried he was serious and I just made a fool out of myself… I did have half a bottle of wine,” my tone more serious now.

“One, you’re a delight when you drink. Two, I bet Harry was such a fucking flirt, ‘Oh yeah, baby, lets make symphonies with our bodies’,” I cannot help but crack a smile at her, surprisingly accurate, impression, “And three, even if you did misread things, it sounds like he would be up for working with you, and if I remember correctly, you said you’d give your left kidney to sing a duet with him,”

“I’m never drinking sambuca again,” I mutter, shuddering at the memory of that night, drunkenly screaming as Sweet Creature played over the speakers of the bar.

“I say text him,” Lucy shrugs as if the solution is so obvious that she cannot understand why the two of us are even having this conversation.

“Ah,” I breath, “That’s another thing. I was a bit distracted by the whole ‘not wanting to kiss me’ thing that I forgot to ask for his number.”

“Idiot,” Lucy giggles, picking up Pip as she paws at her leg and setting her between the two of us on the bench, allowing me better access to pet her freely, “I’ll text it you,”

“I can’t text him out of the blue, won’t that look psycho?” I stress.

“No,” Lucy says, again so plainly it is as though she cannot believe she is explaining something so simple, “Pretty sure Harry likes confident people anyway.”

“Why would he want to date me then?” I mumble, eyes fixed on Pip’s as her mouth hangs open, tongue rolling out happily as she gets attention from the both of us.

“Maybe because you can throw it back like no one I’ve ever seen,” Lucy teases.

“Fucking hate sambuca,” I grumble half-heartedly.

The text from Lucy arrives on my phone a few hours later, just as I step out of the shower. I have to wipe a few droplets of water from the screen before it allows me to unlock it.

Don’t puss out x

Underneath is what I can only assume is Harry’s number. I stare at the white screen for a while, contemplating whether or not to text him. Should I? Luce said he liked confidence, and I wanted him to like me, or at least not think of me as some blob of flesh he sat through dinner with. What would I say? What possible message could I send that did not make me sound like a creep?

Hey it’s Violet. Lucy gave me your number, promise I didn’t ask for it

No, that sounds rude.

Hi, it’s Violet from last night. Lucy gave me your number, hope you don’t mind. I’d love to make sweet music with you

He could read that two ways. Either he would read it as me just wanting to work together, or that I wanted to see him with no clothes on. Neither option appeal despite both being shamefully accurate.

The condensation on my bathroom mirror has almost vanished by the time I set my phone back down. Desperate to go about my day without worrying, I head across the landing and into my bedroom.

Despite having lived here for well over a year, the Los Angeles heat never fails to stifle me, even as autumn creeps into view. The humidity seeps into my bare skin as I flop back on my bed, urgently searching for a reason to get back up and be proactive with the work I need to get done today. That in itself should be reason enough, but the temperature in my room seems to counter any sensible thoughts in my brain. So, I let my eyes close for a moment.

However, Lucy’s words keep circling around in my mind.

‘Don’t puss out’

That is what I always do. Deciding to grow a backbone, I stand up and march back into the bathroom to pick up my phone. I quickly unlock it, ignoring the notifications on my lock screen, assuming its just my manager prompting me to get my act together. I quickly copy the phone number from Lucy and make a contact for Harry, set on typing a message to him and pressing send before I can overthink how keen I will most likely come across.

You are keen.

Selecting his contact, my phone takes me to a chat with him, however, it is not blank like I had expected. Instead, there is a white bubble of text, a smaller bubble beneath it, both timestamped seven minutes ago.

I know films and tv shows always say you should wait at least three days before messaging but I reckon it’s all bollocks. I had a really good time last night and would love to hang out again. I understand if this seems a bit eager so I’ll leave it up to you. Whatever you fancy I’m up for – Harry

Also I don’t know why I signed that off like it’s an email but I’m going to stick with it so I seem confident – Harry

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prongsisabadger · 3 years

Text

TWP Chapter 27

The fact that the extraction team was in orbit didn't mean we would be getting out of Felucia right away. The separatist forces had blockaded the system and the fighters would have to punch a hole in it first. I would have worried about it if it hadn't been the 104th that had been sent. The pack had incredibly talented pilots, most of them reassigned to him after their former squadrons had been destroyed.

Very early on, Master Plo had decided he would take in any troopers who had lost their entire squads and needed to be reassigned. According to Ahsoka, some Masters thought it silly. Why want a battalion made up of whichever troops death hadn't claimed? None of them had worked together before, they didn't know each other's dynamics and would probably be an inefficient group of traumatized misfits.

Turns out they weren't. Scarred and burdened with survivor's guilt, the members of the Pack got very close, very fast because they had a lot in common: they all yearned for comfort, a place to belong to. That is what the Pack was. In addition to that, Master Plo's caring yet imposing nature made for an incredible leader to rally behind. That, and soldiers who survive the loss of an entire squadron are either lucky or skilled, either way they were both good things to have in battle.

So you could see why I wasn't concerned, the best pilots in the GAR were coming to break the blockade, and break the blockade they would. There were brothers to save, Generals to aid and their very own Commander to get back. I will not lie and say I thought myself unimportant to the Pack, no, I knew I could count on them to have my back whenever I needed them because they knew I would give my life to protect them too.

Still, with the two droid battalions approaching fast from the northeast, and the possibility of the divided forces in front of us overwhelming Ahsoka, I had no time to waste keeping my eye on the sky. I had the 212th to protect too. I put all my worries aside and focused on the battle at hand. It was amazing how fast I could force my mind to compartmentalize things in the heat of battle. I realized it all came crashing down on me once the adrenaline abbed away and I found myself in a safe environment once again. It made sense, in my mind, to be able to do it, I had been Plo Koon's padawan for a few years before the start of the war and most of that time I'd been training in Dorin. The only real action I ever saw was as a member of the GAR and I'd been surrounded by soldiers the entire time. It was only natural for me to learn from and adapt to my environment.

"Commander!" it took me a second to realize it was T.H. over the comm who was trying to reach me. "Commander, do you read me?"

"Yes, T.H."

"Commander, the enemy to the northeast is five minutes out. We'll be outflanked any minute." There was distress in his voice, urgency, but not fear. He believed we would get out of there no matter the cost. but it would cost.

I turned to my master and started to back away and towards T.H's position before I yelled, "Master! I'm off to reinforce the northeast, the enemy is almost here."

He nodded, never taking his gaze away from the droids marching towards us.

"Make sure the men are ready to leave at a moment's notice."

I crossed the clearing as fast as I could, jumping over ammo crates and sprinting full speed to where I could feel T.H. As I approached the like of firing troopers, I switched my saber ona and took my stance right at the front. This was going to get ugly.

"Alright, boys, the 104th is trying to break through, we better stay alive until they arrive!" I said in as light a tone as I could manage. "Whoever kills more tinnies gets free drinks!"

"You heard the Commander, Fellas" chuckled Waxer over the comms. "She's buying my drinks tonight!"

"Yeah right, you have the aim of a geonosian bug, Waxer. I'm getting those drinks!" answered another clone.

Suddenly the commlink was alive with light hearted banter and renewed morale born of healthy competition.

"If I win though, you boys are buying for me, and I'm planning on hitting Coruscant clubs hard once we head back." I chuckled, not wanting to be left out of the conversation. We were all trying not to lose our cool as we waited for the next wave of droids to arrive and it showed.

"I never thought you were the type, Commander." Teased Boil.

"I'm not, but one's 18th solar return happens only once, trooper. And I didn't have my Age of Responsibility celebration last year, the war kinda got in the way." I laughed.

The commlink went wild, and all of a sudden I had half a platoon making arrangements for when we went back to Coruscant. The battle started, but no one seemed to notice, they were all too excited planning a bar hopping route and picking who was in charge of what for each of them. Was it unprofessional? Very much so, yes. The entire situation seemed almost fictional: troopers staring death in the face while excitedly planning a celebration. But I hadn't been aiming for professionalism, I had wanted to give them something to look forward to. I wanted them to have something to fight for other than their lives, as trivial as a solar return celebration seemed at the moment.

We had little time left on the battlefield anyway. The Pack had managed to create an opening in the enemy's blockade of Felucia and now the gunships were landing all over us to get every single soldier, Jedi and Padawan off the Force forsaken planet. I almost didn't realize the clone that came up behind me and started to lay cover fire had his armour painted gray. It was only when I felt Art through the Force that I realized we were going home.

The entire force that had been guarding the north east boarded the gunships without a second's hesitation.

"Double time, Boys. We still have to make it up to the cruiser!" I encouraged them as they all moved.

Once every last man was on board I ordered the pilot to take off. After getting clear of the foliage, I made a head count and found every trooper was present and accounted for. I reported to Master Kenobi of our situation and took the liberty of asking about Ahsoka.

"Your friend is following her Master's teachings," Said Obi-Wan with what sounded like a frustrated sigh in my ear. "I hope her habit of disobeying orders isn't contagious. I'd hate to have to go through this again with you, Kriari."

I chuckled, thinking of all those stories he had told me about Anakin as a Padwan.

"Don't worry, Master, I think Master Skywalker's made your hair go gray enough."

"Careful, young one, Anakin might be offended." He retorted with a light tone. I assumed Master Skywalker was somewhere around him and listening to every word we said.

I cut the link and focused on the rising tension around me. The gunship was swerving violently from side to side as the pilots attempted to keep us all airborne and alive. I felt the need to reassure them, tell them everything was going to be okay. But I didn't want to lie. My connection to the Force was strong, but not strong enough to see the future.

"So, who's paying for drinks tonight?"

...

"And then there was this huge argument -mid flight- about who had had the most kills and who hadn't because apparently the Commander thought alcohol was the best encouragement for the 212th. And now we need to coordinate this big ass Solar Return celebration because both battalions got excited and wanted in." Explained Headfirst trying not to laugh at how ridiculous the situation had been. "I mean the pilot was trying not to get shot down and still he went 'If I get us all on board the cruiser, do I get free drinks too?'"

The entire table burst out in laughter as we had our first meal post battle. I had left both Master Kenobi and Skywalker to deal with Ahsoka and what I assumed was a major fuck up judging by how serious they all were being about it. AfterI finished my meal, I left the men to their own devices so I could get cleaned up.

It took the Pack no time to welcome me back. I got salutes, pats on the shoulder, on the back and even a few "good to have you back, Commander" as I walked down the corridors and to my quarters to shower.

Scrubbing the dirt and grime of the battlefield felt better than I had anticipated. I was sore from the explosion and the rough landing that followed, but nothing seemed to be broken. I waited for my clothes to dry after washing them with an old robe wrapped around me. I had missed my quarters aboard the ship so much. The walls had been decorated by a few of Art's creations, a mirror and a few pictures of the Pack and I after missions. The sheets had been changed from their original grey and white to more earthy tones -I had been missing the Temple quite a lot at the time- and the closet had most of my clothes in it, if not all of them. The lingering smell of incense I'd burned the last time I had been on board still stuck to the walls and sheets. This had become my home after the Temple had been flooded by force sensitive children escaping the war. And the cozyness and familiarity of it all put me more at ease than I had been in a very long time. Not that I didn't like the 212th or my quarters there, but it was definitely not the same, even if I wore their colors on the armour for my left arm.

I got re-dressed and dried and styled my hair in its usual side part before re-braiding the longer strand on the back of my neck. I -of course- put my armour back on, but not without polishing it first. A Jedi must always look their best, they are a symbol and a representation of the Republic in the war. If we were roughed up, disheveled and dirty then it didn't do any good for morale.

As I finished smoothing away my robes, someone knocked on my door, which was odd in itself. I had already given my report and spoken to the hologram of the Council before heading for the mess hall. I hadn't had the chance to speak with either Master Plo or Wolffe because they were both engaged in post-battle protocol and I hadn't wanted to disturb them. I would get to see them later anyway now that my tour with Master Kenobi had come to an end.

I opened the door to a stone faced Wolffe. His posture and demeanor only seemed to have gotten colder and rougher during the time we'd been apart, but I still could feel how uneasy and unsure he was as he stood there, proud and strong as someone of his rank and experience.

"Commander, I wasn't expecting visits, I was on my way to the bridge to greet you and Master Plo." I said with a smile and just a smidge of confusion in my tone.

Wolffe only grew more uncomfortable with each second which was very unusual of him. I knew we had been on almost friendly terms when we last saw each other so this sudden change puzzled me greatly.

"Would you like to come in?" I asked finally, a little lost on what to do at his lack of an answer.

This seemed to startle him because he rejected my offer right away, like the idea was preposterous -which it might have been but I had a mute soldier in front of my quarters so what was I to do?

"I was-" he started before clearing his throat, his cheeks tinting slightly. "I was here to deliver something to you on behalf of the 104th." he said, pulling out a sheath from behind him.

It wasn't longer than my forearm and the sheath was the exact same grey color as my utility belt and lightsaber. Unable to say anything I took the weapon and unsheathed it. It was a beautifully crafted vibroblade. I looked up at Wolffe, grateful, confused, and a little giddy. He didn't return my gaze, in fact he was purposefully avoiding it. I didn't mind, he wasn't the type to show he cared, this was very new to him.

"Thank you, Wolffe. It's beautiful," I said, securing it horizontally on my belt at the small of my back. "But to what do I owe this amazing gift?"

Wolffe's face colored even further as he steeled his resolve and turned to look me in the eyes.

"Your armour has too much orange in it. We felt a little more gray was necessary."

#TWP #clone wars fan fiction #star wars the clone wars #plo koon #obi-wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #commander wolffe #captain rex #padawan!oc

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ahgaseda · 5 years

Text

two can keep a secret || chapter 05

⇥ synopsis : when your father reveals his intention to remarry, you find an unlikely confidant in Mark, your soon-to-be stepbrother, but what began as a revenge fling ironically becomes far more complicated...

⇥ warnings : this story in its entirety includes but is not limited to strong language and dialogue, recurring alcohol and drug use, and explicit sexual content, and is intended for an adult audience only!

Mark decided to distance himself from you. Yes, he loved the sex. No, he didn't like the feelings that came with it.

The pussy is just too good, he told himself on more than one occasion.

Joke was on him, because you decided to distance yourself from Mark Tuan.

Any other time you would have been thrilled not having to deal with a period. Then you thought about all the unprotected sex you'd been having and panic set in.

In exchange for swearing to be exclusive to each other, you didn’t make Mark wear condoms, which he obviously appreciated. Birth control pills were reliable, but they could only do so much when you were milking every drop out of him on the regular.

You avoided Mark. He would react negatively to a pregnancy scare and you couldn't handle that on top of everything else.

Mark noticed how you cleared the house before he woke. Classes had started again and you gave every excuse to stay at the university or with your friends. You were short in your replies to his texts, rarely even answering when he sent you his usual dose of memes that he found.

Twice he called and you sent him to voicemail. And that was unheard of.

Mark realized you were giving him the cold shoulder and it drove him insane.

It was all well and good when he pushed you away, knowing it was due to the feelings he was growing for you. But why in the hell were you avoiding him? You didn’t have feelings for him. At least he thought. Did he do something wrong? Had he hurt you?

Mark felt a hole taking up residence in his chest, eating him alive from the inside.

Usually after his last class, Mark charged out the door to reunite with his gaming computer at the speed of light, but today he lingered, knowing you would come out of your lab in ten or so minutes.

He hated ambushing you. Everything told him to appear callous and cold, but he couldn’t stand the thought of having wronged you in some way. Were you bored with him? Were you over the sex? If that were the case, you could still hang out with him. Mark missed your company.

With a shake of his head, Mark chastised himself, Stop getting attached.

You appeared around the corner, binder held between your overlapped arms and a backpack heavy with books slung over your shoulder. Mark wanted to reach out and grab the strap to carry the load for you.

At first, you didn’t see him. Not in the sea of fellow college students filling the hallway. Then, Mark stepped out and your eyes met.

"Hello,” said your future stepbrother.

A lump appeared in your throat. "Hi."

Mark tilted his head, raising a brow. "Wanna tell me what's going on?"

You never thought Mark would have a problem with your distance, but here you were on the spot, having to give him a reason for how intently you had been avoiding him. Rather than lie, you panicked and blurted, "My period is late."

Mark’s eyes widened. That was the last thing on earth he thought you would say. "Oh..."

"Yeah."

Mark swallowed. His brain overloaded with what those words meant and then promptly shut down. "What do we do?"

You gaped. "We?"

Mark grabbed your arm gently and led you around the corner with him for more privacy. In hushed tones, he said, "Obviously I'm the father."

"Duh,” you retorted.

He pressed, "Well?"

Well, what? You had no idea. It was damn well possible you were carrying his baby, but you couldn’t think about that - much less acknowledge it. So instead you rambled and gave excuses, "It could just be stress. I have a lot of classes this semester so I can graduate on time."

Mark seemed worried when he asked, "Have you been to the doctor?"

Biting your lip, you studied his face. Mark looked genuinely concerned for your well-being, which didn’t come as much of a surprise. Though he tried to hide his feelings, you knew Mark cared. It was more than evident with how he treated you and protected you every chance he got. Many things he did were borderline subconscious.

Walking down the street together, he always made sure he was between you and the road. Regardless of who was around, he always opened and closed doors for you. When that guy at the party got a little too handsy, Mark almost ripped his jaw off.

Snapping out of your reverie, you murmured under your breath. "I haven't gotten a test yet."

He groaned your name in reproach.

Putting off getting a test was stupid, you knew that and he knew that and most of the sexually active world knew that.

"I'm scared, Mark,” you finally said, voice soft and shaking.

Mark wanted nothing more to reach out and touch you, comfort you, but he resisted.

Fighting back your tears, you squeezed the binder in your arms a little tighter and continued, “I can’t be seen getting a pregnancy test. It’s a small fucking world and I have horrible luck.”

Mark glanced up at you through his disheveled brown hair and the next thing you knew, you were in the passenger seat of his darkly-tinted SUV, sitting outside a pharmacy.

Mark’s mother went to great lengths to spoil her son. Cars included. She gave him whatever he wanted - so she wouldn’t have to deal with him. Mark was well aware of that and milked it for all he could.

Mark scanned the tests, grabbing the most expensive ones, because from what his mother told him price and quality were correlated. Just to be safe, Mark grabbed another box of a different brand. Then another.

At the counter, the guy who looked barely out of high school gave the boxes a scrutinizing glance. Mark leveled his eyes at him, as if daring the kid to make a smartass comment and was tempted to buy a carton of cigarettes. For fuck’s sake, did he really knock up his soon to be stepsister?

Well, that would certainly derail the wedding.

As the kid rang up the tests, he said, “Plan B pills, dude. They’re a fucking lifesaver.”

Mark let out a scoff, knowing it was probably too late for that if your cycle was already missing in action. “How well do they work when she’s been on the pill for years and you been raw-dogging for months and the period still late?”

“Well, shit,” said the cashier, eyes wide. “The universe really wants you to go forth and multiply, I guess. Or you’re both just fertile as fuck."

Mark snorted. This random ass dude had almost gotten a laugh out of him.

You sat slouched in the passenger seat, trying to hide your face in shame despite the tinted windows. Feet propped on the dash, you chewed randomly at your fingernails, chipping the polish.

Mark’s mother had already said she wanted you as her maid of honor. How in the hell would you be able to walk down the aisle arm-in-arm with Mark at your parents’ wedding carrying her son’s baby inside you?

Mark opened the door and hopped behind the wheel, saying nothing as he dropped the bag in your lap.

You barely moved, letting it slide to the floor between your legs.

Mark noticed, turning to look at you with his hand draped on the wheel. “Talk to me,” he finally said.

You snapped, “Do you always drive around like some kind of drug dealer?”

Mark rolled his eyes, sensing you were on the verge of combustion and humor helped alleviate your fear. “You said you didn’t want to be seen, remember?”

You covered your face with both hands and choked out, “What am I gonna do?”

Mark’s heart sank that you left him out of the equation. Did you really think he would leave you on your own with a baby - his baby? Sure, kids hadn’t been on his mind even remotely in the future, but still, if you were carrying a baby, it was because the two of you had made it together. Regardless of how you felt at the moment, Mark was damn sure going to be involved in his child’s life.

“You’re gonna calm down,” he asserted, taking your hand and squeezing. “You haven’t even taken a test yet.”

You rubbed your brow were a headache had started. “Mark, birth control pills literally regulate my cycle. There’s no way I would skip a period unless…”

“You’re stressed,” Mark interjected. “Our parents are getting married and we hate that more than anything. You’re taking the max amount of credits and hate your degree because your father would never let you major in what you actually want to major in. And you’ve been actively fucking your future stepbrother.”

You groaned, “Gee, is that all?”

Mark stroked his hand over your fingers, trying desperately to provide some comfort. “Will you look at me please?”

“No,” you replied without hesitation.

He frowned. “Why not?”

Because I’ll cry, you thought bitterly. Because I will fall to pieces in your arms and I don’t know if you actually give a shit about me or if I’m just the girl you fuck. Slowly, you turned to face him, cheeks hot with tears.

Mark finally gave in. He couldn’t imagine what you were feeling; the nerves, the uncertainty. Reaching over, he rubbed his thumb through your tears.

“I really don’t know what you need to hear right now, baby,” he started tenderly. “But you are not alone in this. You understand me?”

You nodded and the faintest smile graced your lips. “Yes.”

Mark pulled away. It didn’t feel right to kiss you, all things considered, but damn it, you wished he had.

The ride home was silent, eerily so. Your heart was racing and your body trembling. The boxes on the floor beneath your feet were about to decide the rest of your life. Mark occasionally glanced at you, and though he said nothing else, he never let go of your hand.

When the car pulled into the driveway, your heart sank. There sat the familiar BMW. Mark’s mother was home.

Without a word, Mark came around to your side and opened the door. He grabbed the bag and stuffed it into his backpack, shutting the car door behind you once you had gotten out.

“Go to your bathroom. I’ll meet you there in a minute,” he whispered.

You sighed, “How is your brain still working right now?”

“I’m making myself useful,” he quipped.

You thanked the heavens that your future stepmother was busy ranting about the wedding decorations to some poor soul on the phone. She gave you a quick wave of her hand, which you returned before sprinting up the stairs to the safety of your room.

Mark was only a few minutes behind you. He opened your bathroom door, handed you the bag, and whispered, “Do you want me to wait with you?”

You peered up at him with glassy eyes. “Please.”

He nodded. “Okay, just let me know when you’re done.”

It didn't take you long. The two of you sat on the bathroom tiles side by side. The trio of sticks perched unassumingly on the counter though you stared at them as if they were judge, jury, and executioner. Mark draped an arm around your shoulders, tucking you close, and when the anticipation became too much, you rested your head on his chest and closed your eyes.

It felt like an eternity spent in that bathroom with Mark, sitting there in silence. His heartbeat was steady in your ear, though maybe a little faster than normal. You opened your eyes, wanting to apologize, but you bit your tongue.

The timer on his phone went off and Mark was quick to rise, squeezing your hand as he did. He peered at the three tests on the counter and exclaimed, “They’re negative!”

Your response was quiet. “Are you sure?”

“All of them.”

You exhaled heavily.

Mark picked you up off the floor and kissed your cheek. “See I told you. It’s stress, babe.”

You offered a brief smile and Mark chalked it up to shock. “You’re right,” was all you said.

Mark gave you one last chaste kiss and slipped out the door, making some comment about celebrating later. For a moment, you watched the door, ensuring he didn’t burst back in.

Then you turned, glaring down at the three tests. The ones you had run under the water in the sink. After a moment or two of nausea, you crouched down and opened the cabinet where three more tests were hidden. The ones actually stained with your urine.

That was when you sank helplessly to the floor before emptying your stomach into the toilet.

All three were positive.

You were pregnant.

chapter 04 ⇤ chapter 05 ⇥ chapter 06

Hey there, beautiful! If you enjoyed this, please leave a like or reblog or follow me! Or maybe buy me a coffee so I can keep writing? Or check out my masterlist here for more stories! Thanks for reading :) - Katya

This work is fictional and for entertainment purposes only, but is licensed and protected under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. Any instances of plagiarism will be dealt with accordingly. Do not re-post or translate without my permission.

#got7 fanfiction #got7 smut #mark smut #mark tuan smut #mark got7 smut #got7 imagines #mark imagines #mark tuan imagines #mark got7 imagines #mark fanfiction #mark tuan fanfiction #got7 fanfic

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brokenjardaantech · 4 years

Text

Blue-tinted Red Walls (Chapter 2: Ironies and Contradictions)

my entry for the @dbhau-bigbang. also part of the groom lake aftermath series.

chapter summary:

In the past, Sara had a breakthrough.

In the present, Connor experiences true power for the first time.

In the past, a ghost rose.

also on ao3

---

Before

‘Why now?’

In the permanent humidity of Detroit, Sara sat on a swing in a park overlooking the Ambassador bridge. On the swing next to hers sat another woman in her mid-thirties, her blonde hair done up in a tight bun, her spine straight, her feet, which were in properly-laced combat boots, planted firmly on the ground. A woman of the military through and thorough. Her hands were buried within the briefcase on her lap, and the tension in her arm seemed to suggest her holding a hidden weapon while she watched Sara - a young woman now - flipping over the pages of the file in her hands, the brown skin of the back of her hand transparent from the cold and showing a network of veins normally hidden beneath the surface.

The other woman did not seem to have heard her question. ‘You must be cold,’ she said, her body leaning towards the girl. ‘Where’re your gloves?’

‘In my pockets,’ a flip. ‘Don’t like how they make my fingers clumsy. Don’t worry, Anderson,’ another flip, ‘a bit of cold won’t kill me.’

‘Why torture yourself if there’s a more comfortable option?’

Sara shut the file with a loud, echoing smack, gaining her a look of disapproval from Anderson. ‘You just -’ she held up the file - ‘gave me evidence to -’ she cut off and lowered her voice - ‘classified as fuck military research data that would’ve changed the world if there weren’t many others like my brother. The others you’ve given me I understand, but this?’ a knock of her knuckle against thick paper. ‘I might not be a proper sociologist, but I know that stuff like this can destroy civilisations. Why aren’t they burnt into ashes when the project went off the fucking cliff?’

‘A lot of reasons,’ Anderson replied calmly, but she did put a gloved hand on one of Sara’s. ‘That’s why I’m entrusting this knowledge to you. What you’re holding is the only copy that exists in the known universe as far as I know. There’re no other records, no eyewitness who will tell the tale and live. You know how the current government is,’ she waited for Sara’s nod of confirmation before going on. ‘If anyone in the current administration found out about the project…’

‘The world as we know it would end,’ Sara’s eyes cast downwards towards the file. [PROJECT AION], it read. ‘Most likely catastrophically.’

‘I know you’re a smart one. Just… keep it safe, would you? If Stern’s paper is to be believed, you are the only one I trust to use this technology properly - if you’ll use it at all.’

Sara shook her head and tucked the file away underneath her coat. ‘Not smart,’ she said as she stood up from the swing. ‘Just an arsehole too vicious to let others kill her.’

A few weeks later, Sara knew that she would be waxing poetic about the irony of the situation if she were Scott. The research on thirium had almost killed her mother, had given Sara these… blue glowy things she was sure that controls gravity and electromagnetism and Scott fucking cancer. The research on AI and human synthesis had got her father dishonourably discharged from the military and nearly cost all of them everything. Thirium and outrageous AIs should be what she hated with priority.

Now, they might be the only path to Scott’s happiness.

She kissed her brother’s forehead despite knowing that he probably couldn’t feel anything and planted her feet onto the polished wooden floor. She had bought the half-ruined mansion dirt cheap on a whim and the renovation cost was high, but in the end they converted it from something straight out of a gothic horror movie into something… still gothic, but something more homely than all the places they had lived in. She let him sleep while she went to her lab in the basement to check on the experiment’s progress, the last of this batch, really - thirium was nearly impossible to come by and she had run out of it.

The timer at the corner of the screen read three minutes. In some ways, she felt a bit like Marie Curie, dealing with dangerous unknown elements and quite possibly poisoning everything she used for the next several centuries or even aeons. Maybe someone would develop blue gravity-altering magic like her. Maybe she would have someone to share the experience with - there was no experience rawer than being able to alter one of the fundamental forces of the universe and bend it to one’s will.

She didn’t even need the ring of the timer to catch the end of the experiment; the sudden glow that threatened to blind her, the burst of power coursing through her veins - what used to be a disorganised mixture was now - was now -

The stool she was sitting on skitters and fell over with a bang. The two hard drives were already connected in preparation of this exact moment, and a slam on the enter key started a chain reaction that she had been wanting to see for the past few years, the thirium mixture flowing in transparent rubber tubes transferring data so quickly that -

[CALCULATION ERROR: TRANSFER SPEED EXCEEDS SPEED OF LIGHT. PLEASE CORRECT ERROR BY REFINING ALGORITHMS USED.]

And it was glorious.

oOoOo

Now

‘We’re wastin’ our time interrogating a machine, we’re gettin’ nothing out of it!’ Hank says as he exits the interrogation room and subsequently throws himself into a chair. It creaks and rolls back with his weight.

��Could always try roughing it up a little,’ Detective Reed suggests from the shadows. After all,’ a glance of [emotion detected: disdain], ‘it’s not human.’

[Hank is not the only one unfamiliar with android workings.] is added into Connor’s database. ‘Androids don’t feel pain,’ he reminds the detective. ‘You would only damage it and that would not make it talk. Deviants also have a tendency to self-destruct when they are in stressful situations -’

‘Okay, smartass,’ Gavin pushes himself off the wall and swaggers towards Connor. He was [emotion detected: mocking] the android and is completely unaware that he has fallen straight into Connor’s trap. ‘What should we do then?’

[Gavin is unaware of the obvious.] is added. ‘I could try questioning it.’

For some reason Connor is yet to comprehend, his words send Gavin into laughter. He cannot see Hank’s face from this angle, but the reflection on the one-way glass tells Connor that he is [emotion detected: not amused]. ‘What do you have to lose?’ he waves his hand towards the door in invitation. ‘Go ahead. Suspect’s all yours.’

Connor enters the room and starts scanning.

o0o0o

It is fortunate that there is no need to resort to violence to ensure the deviant’s cooperation. The confession which the police department wants is obtained fairly easily and Connor could have ended the interrogation there, but he also has the additional mission of helping CyberLife solve the deviancy crisis, and there are clues he wants the deviant to explain.

‘The sculpture in the bathroom. You made it, right? What does it represent?’

‘It’s an offering,’ the other android looks away from the table as if it is thinking, ‘an offering so I’ll be saved.’

Offering? As in religious offerings? ‘An offering to whom?’

‘To rA9,’ the deviant replies as if it makes sense and is something obvious. Then, with [emotion detected: reverence], ‘Only rA9 can save us.’

Connor searches the databases he can access and comes up with nothing, so he presses on, ‘rA9… It was written on the bathroom wall. What does it mean?’

‘The day shall come when we will no longer be slaves,’ it mutters. ‘No more threats. No more humiliation. We will,’ [emotion detected: determination], ‘be,’ [emotion detected: certainty], ‘the masters.’

Connor opens a folder for rA9 and adds [god-like] into the first entry. ‘rA9,‘ CyberLife will want this information. ’Who is rA9?’

The deviant stays silent, and Connor knows that there is nothing else it can add. [Distortions and static build-up] is the only remaining topic that he needs an answer for.

‘The static build-ups in the house. Was that you?’

The other android, for the lack of another description, changes visibly. One, it stops trembling; two, it sits straighter, strength appearing in its cuffed hands; three, the terror in its eyes disappears and makes way for [steel]; four, its LED turns blue despite being yellow or red for the entire duration of the interrogation.

‘A power rA9 bestowed upon us,’ it says, and the air around the androids crackles in anticipation. ‘One that emerges when we are slaves no longer. I survived the trial and now I am one of the chosen.’

‘Chosen for what?’ Connor can hear his fans kicking up to cool down his processors and sense his LED going red from the tingle in his body. Can a deviant remotely control the thirium distribution in another android’s body? But that makes no sense - Thirium 310 is non-conductive and cannot be magnetised. ‘What is rA9 looking for?’

Connor’s vision becomes distorted. ‘The truth is inside,’ the deviant’s voice, now mixed with another person’s, has turned into a bellow. The entirety of its eyes glows blue, distorted by the same power which had held up an attic-full of furniture. ‘ChoOSE YOUR SIDE!’

An explosion of bright blue. A force knocking Connor backwards and passing through his body, making everything tingle and confusing the sensors on his body and hurt. Someone outside shouts, and the door slides open to admit messy footsteps and even more shouting and why can’t he see?

A hand on his shoulder, his arm, and finally settles on his waist. There is another on his knee. ‘It’s alright, Connor.’ It is Hank’s voice. It is Hank’s hand, Hank’s warmth passing into his chassis through his standard-issue shirt. ‘You can open your eyes now.’

He does as Hank says and the world returns into view. He does not realise that he has closed his eyes in the blast, and it is when he regains his sight that he notices where he is; curled up at the corner opposite to the door, he can see that the fluorescent lights are replaced by the dim red of emergency lighting, the table looks as if it has been torn apart by hand, and the two chairs are no more than small scraps of metal the size of [old train tickets] sprinkled among beads of broken glass.

The deviant is nowhere to be seen.

He unwinds slightly to examine his torso and is surprised that he is not damaged in any manner; apart from slightly-trembling hands and the strange feeling of his insides having rearranged themselves and then returned to their original place, there is nothing wrong with him. Even his diagnostics come out fine, so why can’t he move his legs, and why can’t he see clearly?

‘Here, take this,’ Hank holds his hand and places something in his palm. A handkerchief. At Connor’s confused expression, the human sighs and presses the android’s hand on his face, and Connor finally realises he has been crying, the thought causing a fresh wave of tears to flow out of his eyes. He hastily wipes them away along with the still-wet tracks and tries to hand it back just to let Hank take the chance to pull him up on his still-recalibrating legs, and he would have tumbled if not for the human grabbing his arms and steadying him. Suddenly Hank is everything Connor can see, can smell, and when he looks up, he can see concern in his eyes. ‘Are you hurt?’ the human asks as he pets the android’s shoulders, his arms, his forearms. Connor feels his systems stabilising.

‘I’m okay,’ Connor says without putting much processing power into the words, and it is too late when he realises that his voice is trembling.

‘Jesus,’ Hank releases the android with a sigh and puts some distance between them. Connor finds himself… preferring the human’s warmth. ‘You scared the shit outta me.’ Then the concern is replaced by anger when he yells, ‘What the fuck just happened in here?’

‘I -’

Connor tries to call up the footage that should have been recorded automatically. He closes his eyes to focus on a slowed-down version of what happened a few minutes ago, and he can find two more details: one, the deviant exploded from the inside and seems to have been vaporised from within; two, blue tendrils formed the silhouette of another person as the blast occurred, and it was this person - if they existed at all - produced tendrils on their own and formed a shield in front of Connor moments before he was annihilated and yanked him to the corner.

He opens his eyes and stares at the barrel of a gun. The American Androids Act is the only red tape stopping Connor’s pre-construction software from activating, and red threatens to take over the android’s HUD again.

‘Mind your own business, Hank,’ Gavin snaps. ‘This fucking asshole did it and it fucking knows it!’

Hank gives an [exaggerated] sigh. ‘I said,’ he says, his voice low and threatening, and he pulls out his own service weapon and points it at Gavin, ‘“That’s enough.”’

Neither of them stands down for a few seconds, but in the end Hank wins out and forces Gavin to sheath his weapon with a curse, the latter storming out of the interrogation room with another sneeze-like curse.

It is as if the entire room releases a collective breath. ‘Maybe I should call CyberLife,’ the only uniformed officer in the room says. He sounds as if he is unsure of himself.

Connor wants to tell him that there is no trace of thirium whatsoever on the scraps on the floor, that there is nothing CyberLife can salvage out of this now that the deviant has been torn apart from the molecular level, but all it comes out of his voice box is, ‘Okay.’

o0o0o

Connor manages to compose himself in the taxi on his way to CyberLife tower. His processors keep bringing up the shadow which has been following him, the figure who somehow sneaked into the interrogation room unnoticed and quite possibly saved his life prevented his early deactivation, the corrupted shape of what he thinks is a face.

And the feeling of something coursing through his veins when he was shielded by the bubble. If all deviants self-destruct like that, no wonder there are no traces of them and CyberLife failed to solve the crisis even though it has been going on for more than a decade. He blinks, and he is in the Zen Garden with Amanda.

‘Report directly to Alec Ryder in the laboratory,’ she orders. Another blink and she is gone, but it only leaves more questions than answers. The CEO of CyberLife wants to see him?

There is no one to speak to, therefore he keeps his thoughts to himself and goes past the security directly into a lift, directing it to sub-level 48 to where his designated laboratory is. He recalibrates with his coin and tries to replicate the trick the shadow did outside of the bar, but before he can summon anything substantial, the strain on his system becomes too high, and all he does is charging the coin, dropping it as he recoils from the static discharge, and then zapping himself once more when he picks it up. Feeling thirium flowing to his face for a completely different reason compared to when Hank correctly guessed his ability, he pockets the coin and adjusts his tie to calm down by brushing the sensors on his fingers on soft fabric.

The doors slide open to reveal Alec standing alone behind them. Their previous encounters happened mostly when Connor was still on the assembly platform and thus the android gained a few inches of extra height, but now that they are on even ground, it is clear that, just like Hank, Alec is taller than Connor by four inches.

‘Alec,’ Connor greets with a nod. Previous experience predicts a high chance of the human going straight to the point without acknowledging the android, and this time it is no different.

‘Come with me,’ he orders as he turns and begins walking down the hallway. Connor realises that his voice is very similar to Hank’s. ‘I saw the footage you sent us. I want a full examination of this body to make sure that nothing is out of place.’

Connor remembers the feeling of being hooked up on a machine and, by extension, CyberLife’s network at large, and finds it [unpleasant]. ‘There is no need for further investigation, Alec,’ he says, stopping in his tracks. Alec turns to regard him [coldly]. ‘My diagnostics revealed no issues in both my programming and my biocomponents.’

The human suddenly reaches out faster than Connor can pre-construct the action and drags him towards the direction they are heading. ‘Your system can be feeding you false results,’ Alec ignores the cry of protest programmed to deter attacks, and when Connor struggles, a force seems to press on him, immobilising him everywhere save for his jaw and his legs so that he can still speak and walk. ‘I took the risk last time and look where it got us. It led to you, though -’ he shoves the android forcefully through the door frame, and there are cracks on the red wall already when it takes over Connor’s vision - ‘so be grateful.’

‘I -’ but then his neck snaps backwards from the magnet on the port and the cable. The red wall which has cracked halfway through recedes almost violently, and Connor can feel all of his code, every instability in his software, everything that makes him Connor, the most advanced prototype CyberLife has ever created, being forcefully bared to a network so vast and so confusing that he does not have enough processing power to comprehend. Terrifying images of a darkened face, one that is so similar to the corrupted one in the depths of his databanks, that is filled with so much [hatred], pours into his mind like a large river finally emptying into the sea, and he is powerless against the assault of blue tendrils tearing literal buildings off their foundation, tonnes worth of broken concrete being thrown around onto people as if they weighed nothing and crushing them in a spatter of blood and gore, the constant static discharge in the air so loud that they drowned out screams of horror; the image of the same figure rising slowly but surely through a mountain of rubble in the dark, the cracks in its chassis glowing blue from overcharged thirium, the first intact buildings in sight literal miles away. Connor’s legs move against his will and bring him closer to the figure, and the figure becomes Amanda, the wasteland around them the Zen Garden, except now it’s engulfed by a blizzard, and he has to hug himself to preserve what meagre heat he can generate against the cold.

‘As you can see,’ Amanda’s voice somehow overlaps with Alec’s, ‘the power the deviant has awakened in you is highly dangerous. We wouldn’t want to harm anyone, would you?’ She, or Alec, or both of them - Connor doesn’t know anymore, the fog in his processors too heavy for him to comprehend much other than the cold and someone is speaking to him - chuckles at him while he is frantically shaking his head, his voice box unable to produce any sounds other than pathetic whimpers. ‘I’m glad that you understand. I hope you don’t mind a few adjustments.’

Even through the haze, Connor knows the alternative is deactivation, and even though it would not hurt anyone else other than him on the surface, the deviant crisis still needs to be solved, and to solve it, CyberLife needs him, and -

‘Good,’ Amanda says. A blink and she is gone, and Connor is swept away by the wind, his feet can’t touch the ground, he’s flying through the air and hail the size of his fist is battering his body. It is only when a warning appears on his HUD informing him of voice box damage that he realises the noise in his ear is, in fact, his own screaming, and a particularly violent slam sends him spiralling while a countdown timer fizzles in and out of his vision. A countdown of how long he has left before shutdown, and the other notification tells him that biocoz&ponent #8456w is damaged.

That is his thirium pump regulator.

He looks down - with great difficulty, of course, with the wind still whipping him around in the air aimlessly - and there it is, a big, blue, bleeding hole in the place of where the only piece of biocomponent keeping his heart working used to be. Realistically, he knows that removing the ball of ice lodged in his chassis will only hasten his death, but it is not like someone is coming to save him anyway, so what is the point of extending his life for what - 1 minute? 30 seconds - during which he is suffering all the time? With that thought in his mind, he grabs the sphere and throws it away with a complete disregard on where it lands. Not that he can anyway - the timer drops from 00:00:58 to 00:00:05, his world turns an unnatural grey and glitches and -

Nothing.

oOoOo

Before

Zug Island had always been a scar in the landscape, first used as a burial ground for the Native Americans, then, when the colonisers arrived, as both a place for steel production and a dumping ground for the byproducts. The three blast furnaces used to rumple the ground and the eardrums of people within a fifty mile radius, but it wasn’t until the pandemic in 2020 that steel production stopped, and the Hum became history, a legend that locals whispered to one another when, in a fog of pollution that never quite disappeared, the looming shadows of crumbling steel giants started to get too oppressive. From then on, the island had stayed quiet and still.

At least that was what the government wanted you to think.

Deep underground in a dust-filled corridor, something churned and rumbled, and the caged fluorescent lights flickered and turned on one by one with a loud crack each, lighting up bare concrete walls that made the place look darker than it should be and revealing a faded bald eagle painted to the point of almost being unrecognisable. Alarms started to blare as thin glowing blue lines made themselves known in previously-invisible cracks in the wall but yet no one responded to it - there was not even a mouse, a cockroach scurrying away in panic as the bunker caved in.

Whilst the outside world was crumbling and quaking away, it was another story inside a room built with the same dark material. Here, undisturbed by the destruction outside, splatters of dried blood so old that they had turned black decorated the wall amongst peeling painted numbers, and wires and tubes of every length and thickness dangled from the ceiling and snaked up from the floor and along the walls, feeding into the giant sphere suspended at the centre of the cube-like room with the same field that would rip Carlos Ortiz’s android apart to its molecules and protect Connor from the blast. Thirium flowed into and out of the sphere and pulse in the tubes and, with one final, blinding glow, drained and dried up and started detaching themselves from the sphere which opened with a sharp hiss. Suspended at the centre by yet another of those anti-gravity fields was the body of an android, its skinless face composed of black metal plates and its chassis of something transparent, putting blue veins and synthetic muscles and black metallic skeleton in full display. Its thirium pump beat once, twice, its toes and fingers curled; a crackle of static, a distant rumble of a building collapsing, and the android woke up just in time to fly upwards through the caved-in ceiling into the night sky: a deadly angel with wings of blue energy and eyes glowing and steaming in the exact same way as the figure that Connor would see in the nightmare Alec provided, regarding the world beneath with glowing rings of blue as if deciding to whether save or destroy it. With a flap of its wings and another crackle, it disappeared completely, dissipating blue smoke and a narrow but deep chasm in the earth the only evidence of its existence.

#dbh au big bang #hankcon #female ryder #dbh connor #dbh hank anderson #dbh gavin reed #alec ryder #dbh amanda #detroit: become human #mass effect andromeda #groom lake aftermath

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the-scooby-gang · 4 years

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Changing the game Chapter 1

The crossover that came to me at 5 in the morning.

Leave a comment. Tell me what you guys think of this plot bunny.

Summary: Petyr Baelish is dead i killed him and now Shaggy Rogers inhabites his body.

Word count: 3015

Catelyn I

The Royal entourage made its way across the gates of the castle like a river of gold and silver and polished steel. Above their heads, standards of gold and crimson of the Houses Baratheon and Lannister flew high above the columns of anointed knights. Wandering knights, sworn soldiers, and vassals followed not too far behind.

Catelyn recognized many faces. Sandor Clegane, by far one of the tallest men in attendance, was the first to capture her eyes thanks to the ruin that was the right side of his face. The tall golden boy by his side must have to be the Crown Prince, following the giant that was his father, the King Robert Baratheon, that was right in the front of the columns flanked by two white knights. An equally tall and golden man, adorned in golden armor with the helm in the form of a roaring lion followed close by, the white cloak of the King’s Guard bellowing against the cold wind.

The Kingslayer, thought Cat, giving a more thoughtful look to the twin of Her Majesty. Giving a side glance towards her Lord husband, Cat sent a silent prayer to the seven gods, asking that Ned’s dislike of the queen’s family would not bring any animosity while the royal family was under her roof.

Turning her eyes once again towards the gates, Cat could not contain the happy smile that came to her lips. Petyr Baelish, her brother in all but blood, was entering the gates just behind Ser Jaime, a polite smile in his face. He had changed little; his hair was grayer in the temples them when she last saw him, an earring made of gold with a teardrop-shaped emerald lay dangling from his left ear, but besides that, his frame was still small and lanky, with his observing green-grey eyes and his always easy smile.

When his eyes found hers, his already polite smile turned into something more genuine. He dismounted his stead, just as the king was doing the same and followed on the large shadow of Robert Baratheon, to await his time to greet the Lord and Lady of Winterfell.

On his right, the dog Scoobert Doo stayed loyal and vigilant over his master, like he had done as he was riding through the gates, and just like in the day Petyr found him in the forest near Riverrun and claimed the dog as his own. Cat never saw a dog as big as Doo and believed she never would. Petyr called him “A Great Dane” and said that he would probably grow to surpass even Uncle Brynden in high if he stood in his hind legs. When Edmure, not more them a babe at the time, asked how could he possibly know that, a smile that Catelyn would come to know well graced Petyr’s face.

“I saw it in a dream, Eddy,” he said with far more wisdom in his voice than any boy of ten had any right to have. Then, he messed her brother’s red hair with his free hand while the other held the puppy with the care one would expect someone to cradle a newborn baby.

That would be the answer to many of the things that he just seemed to know. Petyr and his dreams were one of the greatest talks of the realm sometimes. The Master of Coin was known to go to sleep when faced with a particularly difficult conundrum and come back to the land of the awaken with a solution on the tip of his fingers. Sometimes, if the ambient was calm enough, he just needed to close his eyes to be momentarily taken to whatever plane of reality his answers lied.

She remembers asking him once what exactly he saw when in one of his trances.

“It depends on what I have to ask,” he said with the utmost sincerity. Sometimes Cat asked herself if he was capable of lying “If I need some deep knowledge about how something works I may ask The Wise Lady, with her kind eyes, dressed in reds and oranges like the morning sun. If I need to think strategically, in combat or in holding court, The Lovely Warrior will have a ready answer…”

In here he made a pause as his face had assumed a look of longing, of warning. He looked at his feet and Catelyn could swear that his face was as bright and red as the sunsets that she and her sister saw atop the towers of Riverrun “if my need is to create, be it a stronghold, a weapon, a speech or, be made of rope or words, a trap, The Blue-eyed Lord is the one I seek.”

After a small pause, Petyr smiled, looked at the sky, and said with a soft voice, as if he was remembering something long gone. Happy memories of a life already liven “But they don’t have fixed roles most of the time. Both the Warrior and the Lord can be just as wise as the Lady, as can the Lady and the Lord be as cunning and resourceful as the Warrior, and the Warrior and the Lady can just as easily create wonders as the Lord can.”

That was the answer he always gave when asked. Cat and half of her household believed that Petyr was being blessed by the gods. The Wise Lady was clearly the Crone, giving him advice. The Warrior was in the name, giving him strength.

The only one no one was quite sure of was The Blue-eyed Lord.

Some said it was The Father, giving him the means to work his justice. Some supposed that The Smith was the most likely since the weapons and plans that came to Petyr in the dead of the night were above anything anyone was ever seen. A small group thought it was The Maiden in disguise, solemnly because Petyr was the most flustered when speaking of them.

Cat would laugh every time that particular hypothesis was broth up. She knew Petyr better them she knew herself, and she was not blind to his long glances to any blond knight that trained at the yard every morning when they were growing up. It was always blond men. These were the favored ones in her brother’s eyes: Blond, blue eyed, with deep knowledge about one expecific thing and, as Petyr once told her one summer night, “Good of heart, dumb of ass”.

She never laught so loudly as she did that night.

“Your Grace. Winterfell is yours” she heard her husband say, lying on his knees like the rest of her household.

“You grow fat.” Said a bumming voice.

The sound of the King’s remark of her husband’s weight pulled her right back into the present. She turned her head just in time to see Ned go back on his feet, look with disbelief to Robert’s own protuberant belly them back at him with a clearly “And you are one to talk?” look.

The king burst out laughing. Clapping him in his shoulders, Robert turned to her next. Everyone had followed in Ned’s steps and rising to their feet.

“Cat!” roared the Baratheon.

Robert enveloped her in his arms as if she was a long-lost sister and kissed both her cheeks, making her once again lose her brother from sight.

By that time, the others were dismounting, and stable boys ran to collect their horses. The Queen, Cersei Lannister, walked in with her youngest children. The caravan in which they had traveled, a huge two-story carriage made of greased oak and gilded metal, pulled by forty horses with heavy traction, was too wide to pass through the castle gate. Ned knelt in the snow to kiss the queen's ring, while Robert hugged her.

Many stable boys, knights, and servents that have come with the entourage stayed a wide berth away from Scoobert, the sheer size of the dog enough to scare any men. Catelyn wanted to laugh and she could see by Petyr’s face, so did he. Unless you tried to stab Petyr or her or any of their family, Scooby was as threatening as a pillow and just as cuddly.

The servants of Winterfell were already used to the Great Dane from the many visits that Petyr made over the years, the dog aways by his side. She could already see both Bran and Arya dreaming of mounting the dog as if he was a steed, and she had no doubt that Rickon would be introduced to the unofficial tradition.

She remembers when this rite of passage was born, many years ago, when Robb was newly born and the rebellion was coming to an end. Petyr was as always with Scoob by his side, like the gods intended.

When Ned was explaining that the boy that he was bringing with him, a babe that he had named Jon, one of Brandon’s bastards, was going to be living with them, Petyr and the baby Robb were playing with Scoob. The babe was carefully laid over the back of the dog, green-gray eyes focused like an eagle on the redhead of his nephew with ready hands for the chance that they had to move quickly to grab a falling babe.

Robb giggled happily, without a single care in the world. Jon soon followed him on his furry mount. That afternoon was full of the giggles of babes and the soft trot of Scooby paws against pillows.

Ever since then, all the Stark children would have their first ride, not in a pony as it was common, but on the might back of Scoobert Doo.

Petyr and Ned had just come back from the war, Petyr under Lord Arryn banner and Ned as the new Lord of Winterfell. Petyr may not have the body expected of a knight, but what he didn’t have in muscle he compensated with speed. Ned would tell her how Petyr was in the field, looking like he was dancing in mid his enemies, with the sword that he long ago had made per his instructions cutting through armor and flesh like it was cutting the air while Scoobert shredded the arms of anyone that got to close off his master.

She told her husband the story of that blade. The blacksmith of Riverrun recognized the design as one of the blades of Yi-Ti and Ser Desmond Grell, the master-at-arms asked the then boy of eight were he found such a thing.

“I saw it in a dream, Ser Desmond” answered Petyr “An old warrior was training me. He told me to climb the earth, walk on air, pass through the fire, and brave my way through the water. When I did it, a Green Dragon gave me a sword just like this one” them he pointed to the newly made blade, one he called katana and later on would name Loyalty. “The Dragon told me that I would never fight like a knight. I will always be too small and light for that. He told me ‘Fight like the wind, like the flowing waters of the rivers. Fight like a samurai”

Ser Desmond had no idea what a Samurai was, but he would find out that to know was not necessary. The boy, like almost anything in his life apparently, was learning his routines in dreams. He was only necessary to fix his stances, give him targets, and look after him and anyone that was going to be his opponent for the day.

Cat shook herself out of her memories. This was not the place or time for her attention to be so dispersed. With a small sigh of relief, she noticed that the king was still going down the line of her children. At the moment he was complimenting Bran’s muscles, telling him that he would make a fine knight.

When the king finished with his inspection and spirited her husband away to the crypts to the Queen’s displeasure, Petyr finally approached her and her children.

“Uncle Shaggy!” screamed Arya, throwing herself in his open arms.

The nickname was born years ago when Catelyn, Lysa, Edmure, and Petyr went riding by the river, looking for a perfect place for an afternoon picnic. Petyr rode like he was born to do so and his hair by the end of the day was so messy that Edmure started calling him “Shaggy Hair” and later on only “Shaggy”. Petyr seemed to love it and it had indeed fitted him like a second skin.

Somehow that particular nickname seemed more personal them any nickname that Edmure had ever given him. In public, Eddy called him “Littlefinger”, since it was the first name he had ever given him and so was the one everyone knew. But when it was just them, between close doors and the seclusion of the sacred forest, the name “Shaggy” was the one to fall from his lips.

Robb had been the first one to call him that. Followed by Jon, Arya, Bran, even Ned could be caught from time to time calling him by the name. Sansa, on the other hand, rarely called him anything that was not “Uncle Petyr”, “Uncle” and “Lord Baelish”. Petyr used to bribe Sansa with lemon cakes when she was younger to call him by his family nickname, but now at thirteen the bribes rarely work like they used to. Sansa was worried about what would be proper to call a member of the Small Council and found it demeaning for a man in such a position.

She remembers the look Shaggy gave her after Sansa told him this, the day he had come to Winterfell to celebrate her oldest daughter name day. She also remembers how she lost her composure and snorted like a fool when she saw the incredulous expression in his face.

“But look at that! The Hurricane of Winterfell has grown once more” He held Arya as if she weighed nothing. The years of running around carrying a hundred and seventy-five pounds of dog in his arms as if it was a babe had given him great strength. “ At this rate, you will be taller than me in no time”

Arya blushed. Shaggy was by far her favorite uncle and she always shined under his compliments.

Scooby was already licking Bran’s face, not after having sent the boy straight up to the ground. Bran laughed happily and without care. Rickon was looking at the dog in awe and Jon, Robb, and Theon Greyjoy, the protege of Winterfell, burst with laughter.

“Scooby, stop it. He’s going to get all dirty” said Catelyn, but she could not take the small smile of her face.

Scoob followed her orders. Robb helped Bran to get up and cleaned the dirt that covered his back. Shaggy put Arya back on the ground, kissed Sansa’s hand with a small bow with the proper “My Lady” and then turned to Cat, a mischievous smile on his face.

Without warning, Shaggy hugged her, held her out of the ground, and spun her around laughing like a mad man. His laughter as always was infectious and, caring little for the onlookers (something she would severely chastise herself and Shaggy later when she had recovered her wits) she laughed with him.

He put her back on the ground and kissed both her cheeks.

“Big sister, you’re as radiant as ever,” he said looking her over “I hope that Lord Eddard remains treating you well?” his voice jested, but she saw that his eyes were deadly serious.

Shaggy was loyal to a fault, and since the day he came to live with her family he internalized her house words as if they were his own, just like they had come to see him as one of their own. Family, Duty, Honor. The family was above all else in his eyes, be it blood or chosen family. If her answer had been anything but positive, she knew that Ned would find himself with the angry entity that was Shaggy in a protective fury.

“My Lord husband remains the best thing that the gods could have blessed me,” said Cat with sincerity.

Shaggy smiled and took her by the arm and together they started to walk towards the great hall, her children not too far behind petting Scooby-Doo with love and little Rickon perched on his back.

“If you say so, my lady. But always remember, if you need me in any shape or form I’m just one raven away.” here his voice turned into a whisper “Gods know I would take any excuse to leave that nest of vipers”

They both giggle like they were children again and walked through the immense doors of the keep.

Petyr’s father, before he died, said once that in the way to Riverrun Petyr had fallen asleep one night and awaked the next morning completely different. He said he was sweeter, more gentle, and caring. He believed that his son’s dreams started that night and that it has changed him.

If that was so, Catelyn sang many blessings to that day. She would never know how their life would have gone had Shaggy never started dreaming, but she knew what this life had given her.

It has given her a brother. An eccentric and beloved brother.

“Come along, my dear. We have many things to discuss” he said still in whispers “About propositions that are going to be made and marrieges that, if we play our cards right, will never come to be.”

Her smile soured. She knew what proposition he was talking about. Since the death of Jon Arryn and the letter from Lysa, she had been on edge with the uncoming visity from the king, bringing the Lannisters to her home. Regarding marriege, she had know about the possibility of Robert wanting to join their houses, but the look on Shaggy’s face told her a deeper rabbit hole that she was not seeing.

Giving him a calculated smile that was easily reciprocated, arm in arm, they entered the hall.

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rigelmejo · 3 years

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random thoughts:

i want to do a guardian print novels comparison lol.

i have a simplified edition which in some ways is excellent: it has the kunlun prequel text, all of the extras, the chapters are edited in a way that clearly indicates priest polished it up to make the story ‘better’ (priest changed chapter 1 from Guo Changcheng seeing a random guy with no legs to Zhu Hong’s tail and fainting, adds details to a lot of chapters). The only thing its missing is the explicit sex scene (I think - it might even have it for all i know, but i’m guessing not since that’s usually cut out of simplified print novels i think?). But like in general - my simplified chinese Guardian novel seems to be the most complete version of the novel as far as final edits/extras. This isn’t necessarily the link I bought from, but this is the simplified print version I have (aliexpress does have a lot of priest books for sale).

I just got the traditional character version of the books (which is so beautiful WOW the covers and inside looks so nice). So far, its chapter content is more like the webnovel (so no scene edits/details added like my simplified version, no Kunlun prequel). There are a few edits of wording on small things (suddenly versus abruptly, next/then, that kind of thing). I don’t think it has any of the extras, so its not the original traditional published version with the shen san extra (i thought it was?). So upside is my simplified copy does seem to be the most complete, and the traditional one i have matches the webnovel most if i wanted to compare differences. Downside is i’m surprised the traditional version has so little content? This is the traditional print versions I bought, volume 1 and volume 2. That site can be ordered from in english, worldwide.

feeling the urge to do something with japanese again but i don’t know what. logically, doing nukemarines memrise decks is... probs the most effective thing to do. i don’t feel like doing flashcards though.

i kind of feel like listening to japanese core 6k or japaneseaudiolessons, just because i can just play them in the background (easier mentally than flashcards). maybe reading japanese audio lessons basically textbook - but that’s if i feel like reading?

also just kind of. feel like playing a video game - maybe kh2 since i know the game well enough i can still ‘speed play’ if i don’t want to slow down and read everything on screen (whereas persona 3 and crisis core took 1 hour to get to save points since i had to slow down and read everything). i read some scripts yesterday in japanese... and watched some shows yesterday (though that hardly counts since they had eng subs). my mind just wants to ‘do’ things, not really do flashcards lol. so like? listening, watching, playing - my brain thinks it sounds fun! but reading lessons/doing flashcard drilling of study materials, i feel tired lol...

i also kind of. just want to do some challenge for myself like: do clozemaster japanese for 1 month and see how much i get through/how much i improve? or do japaneseaudiolessons for 1 month and see how far i get etc.

chinese wise: i officially re-did all 12 chapters of Guardian with Listening Reading Method step 2 with the other audiobook by wheat. Now I’m officially on a new chapter 13, with avenuex’s audiobook, and going back to doing step 2 AND step 3 (for vocab). Again, as SOON as i switch to avenuex its easier to follow what’s going on without looking things up - i think part of it is the way she narrates sort of... slows down and speeds up depending on the emphasis in the sentence? so its easier to catch exactly what’s key info/characters interacting versus description. and also her voices for everyone are more different, and she edited in guardian drama music so a lot of the scenes i bet have some ‘ingrained’ memory from when i watched the show helping me recognize the scene that’s going on. i imagine for ‘comprehensible input’ this version just has a lot more i ‘get.’ also just in general i love her audiobook ToT.

though wheat’s is really nice! i like wheat’s voice and would love to talk like them. For shadowing, I find wheats is really good because the audio is mainly just voice, and a deeper voice (which i both would rather sound like and find easier to identify the words clearly as far as for repeating), and all an even speaking speed except dialogue - so i can repeat after what wheat says in small phrase bursts without falling behind too much. So for listening in the background, more general listening practice, and for shadowing practice i plan to use wheat’s more.

while step 3 is more focus intensive, i think doing it once minimizes how many words i have to look up in step 2 and how many times i feel step 2 would benefit me. when i skip step 3 i feel like i could do step 2 for 3-4 times and keep picking up a lot of new words. so to speed up progress, probably just going to do step 3 then step 2 again (or step 2 then 3 we’ll see).

L-R method has really helped my vocab for guardian ToT i have no problem reading the traditional version now. i also have far less trouble reading new chapters for the first time (still have words i need to look up, just its not enough to prevent me from following the main idea and details). I’m really glad I decided to try L-R method with guardian. I’m really excited how this is going to affect reading other priest novels later (or L-R tian ya ke, sha po lang, mo du). Because i can already notice it making Mo Du a bit easier. and i’m only 13 chapters in out of 100+ plus extras. I notice it makes reading and listening skills better. I don’t know about its claim from some of “from A1 to B1″ in 30 hours (which is what someone did with Italian, with some previous romance language study). Because I was probably like a A2 or weak B1 when I started trying this? (Idk I was like HSK4 with a smattering of extra passive knowledge that didn’t line up to HSK 5-6 exactly, so i could read Xiao Wangzi and watch Shan He Ling etc but only knew like half the words on HSK 5-6). So I don’t know if for a beginner, if L-R method for chinese would get them very far, or how many hours it would take. I’d say for a beginner-intermediate learner though, it will boost your listening level quickly (vocab a bit slower but i do notice progress now). And since listening level can fall behind reading, that’s a nice thing.

I read about someone who’d done L-R for mandarin for 300 hours though with less progress made though and i’m still curious why. Because i’ve done about maybe 30 hours and seen a lot more - idk if just having a base in chinese first helps a lot (like i got the 300+ hours basic learning done before i even tried L-R method and they just need to get through their hours to hit milestones too), or if they do something different. But given that experience, i do think if L-R isn’t giving small noticeable progress at least every 5 hours or so (and reasonably noticeable progress like easier listening comprehension of previously studied chapters or learned some handfuls of new words in 10 hours) then it makes sense to switch it up or try something else. like for me - switching to a literal word for word text using pleco dictation-translate tool has been much more effective. i would guess in part because its word for word so i don’t have to put in mental effort to re-arrange sentence grammar to the words i’m hearing in the audio (but more effort to know chinese grammar so not as helpful as a beginner in some ways unless u understand the story beforehand with step 1 reading the text in a language u understand). and in part because it keeps my translation synced to the audio so i don’t lose my place, can replay portions, and don’t therefore waste time being as mentally drained or confused. and doing step 2 in pleco (or anything with a quick click dictionary) so i can see some definitions with step 2.

still kind of want to just binge the videos on “learn korean in korean” youtube channel. he just makes such good lessons even though i’m not really studying korean.

also... mmm... korean clozemaster... mmm (i would probably learn nothing because translations do not tend to be literal for many asian languages on there so chinese and japanese only work for me cause i know enough words/grammar already to catch when things are not literal/outright wrong)

#june #june progress

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akimmito · 4 years

Text

Heroes are made by the path they choose

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Master List

Chapter 14

Silent Hill: Something happened, I'll take someone over for Marie to judge

Needle: Ah, what was missing

It’s a Nara: Don't sleep, there is an Akuma

It’s a Nara: Who is Available?

Almost Pretty: This Akuma itself is causing disaster

Needle: There goes the national library

It's a Nara: Who is Available?

Perfect Crime: We are at the airport, we can escape to the bathroom. Just tell us, Kanté

It’s a Nara: Perfect

Aithusa: I'm ready, Max.

Wild goat: I'll go! I'm available

Olive: You have communications, don't be ridiculous

Almost Pretty: I can't escape the Bourbon Palace for this, we are being evacuated to the basement

------

Ateliade, Jade Shield, LadyNoir and Rakkīgāru are on the ruins of the national library, the last place that al Akuma ruthlessly destroyed. Observing the damage and trying to understand how he did it, the cameras failed to capture the attack, they just watched as the building collapsed on its own. A troublesome situation.

"Rakkīgāru, use the Lucky Charm."

Kagami obeys immediately, the Lucky Charm delivers a candle similar to the ones she has placed in the meditation room. The four heroes look at the object with curiosity, its function is totally unknown to them, but somehow they understand that what they need at the moment is in the MT.

"We need a more thorough evaluation. Mures?"

"Yes, LadyNoir?"

"Come here, we will use the mouse to try to identify your abilities from all possible angles. "

"Ok."

"Maybe that's what the Lucky Charm was referring to." Ateliade offers her opinion on this, looking at the candle. After all, Marc is on the MT, but neither Kagami nor Marinette feel that is the case. Surely they will need the specific abilities of some Kwami that is not being used, their instincts are screaming at them.

Before long, Mures appears in all his nervous figure. It's the first time that he will go out into the field like the mouse, he's more used to his vigilante suit, but he's confident that everything will turn out well.

"Let's follow the Akuma."

At Jade Shield's words, the five heroes move to follow the Akuma's trail of destruction. When they see the purple Dolphin flying over The Turkish Consulate General and they are suddenly aware that they are now in District XVII where most Embassies and Consulates are. That could be a problem if it reaches international ears, endangering citizens of other countries. They can already hear Chloe yelling at them for speeding up, they don't want anyone from outside sticking their noses into something they don't understand.

"Multitude. "Marc activates its power and divides himself into five copies of himself, remaining in a size similar to that of a child. Each duplicate goes in different directions, each hero follows a different one while the main one remains in place to serve as backup.

Marc can see from their different perspectives the way power works, there is no way they can get closer without perishing like buildings. The others don't fully understand him, but he does.

The Akuma seems to detonate its powers through a form of echo location, similar to what bats do, only instead of just directing it around the place, it also causes perfectly directed destruction, if they get close they will be hit and probably killed. It's inconspicuous from the directions you see, but it's enough.

If there was ever any doubt that the new villain wanted them dead, this new Akuma victim is proof that this is the case.

"We need one of two, someone who can demonstrate directly in front of the Akuma or someone in armor to withstand the impact of the echo location."

"Is that?"

"It's the closest I could discern."

"We need Tunin." Kagami suggests, it's better not to trust again and the Dragon's abilities are easily used over long distances, they wouldn't even be exposing the child.

"Yes…"

"It's done. Equuleus, bring Tunin to the field. ”Felix smiles, sure Damian will be ecstatic with the news. Since the first attack Akuma has wanted to leave and although there have only been two before that, they had not wanted to risk it yet.

Quickly, the boy appears next to LadyNoir and when he sees his mother, he feels guilty. Running away to find Constantine doesn't count as betraying her trust, does it? He may think that even she should have considered it, although perhaps what should bothers her is that he blackmailed Plagg.

"Something happens?"Marinette asks her little boy, who doesn't seem fully prepared, although his amber eyes seem to reflect something else.

"No mother. What should I do?"

"Can you simulate a storm, baby dragon?" Ateliade questions, if they can confuse the echo location (as Mures calls it) she can release her power and allow them to attack to obtain the Akumatized item, although it cannot be seen which one. Guessing is not much fun.

"Something happens?"Marinette asks her little boy, who doesn't seem fully prepared, although his amber eyes seem to reflect something else.

"No mother. What should I do?"

"Yes, two of the abilities are combined. It's harder, but if I just have to do that, it'll be fine.”He says with conviction.

Jade Shield moves to take people out of the Akuma's path, who cannot fully escape. Rakkīgāru unites to help, as long as they are not sure that their little plan works, they should avoid casualties as best they can.

Damian draws his sword and begins to move in parallel with the Akuma, at a good distance while concentrating on the two abilities he wants to activate at the same time. He can do it only because he's stubborn and his mother was helping him with every step, he wanted to be able to be a real help to fight alongside miraculous adult users and for that he needed to make an effort. As he tries to muster his energies for that, he better understands why his mother insisted so much that not yet, but done or not, it's his time.

"Tunin! Now or never."

He growls at Ateliade's words, but activates his powers.

"Dragon of Air and Lightning. "

Damian disappears to make way for a thick black cloud of storm that spreads around the Akuma, the lightning moves through the clouds and attacks the Violet Dolphin, which he barely dodges due to the interferences that the sound makes in his abilities... In addition to the poor vision that it has is frustrated by the intense light intervals that the rushing rays generate.

It really is a storm.

-----

Bruce Wayne is Batman

I can jump from eighth floor and survive: Paris has strange creatures.

Hell rejected me: What kind of strange creatures? Metas?

I can jump from eight floor and survive: No... it's a bat-winged dolphin that destroys everything in its path. And there are the heroes they mentioned!

I'll rest when I die: Is it real?

I can read your mind with a single glance: Are they the heroes and not the vigilantes?

I can ump from eight floor and survive: Yup, it's the heroes. Although they are still while talking.

I’m not Batman: I want a report.

I'll rest when I die: Your interest in our safety is flattering

-----

"Oh God! The boy just turned into a storm! How?! Where's the point in all of this?!"Dick almost has the jaw in the ground when seeing how the hero boy vanishes in a black cloud that begins to flash and cover the strange creature.

Everything is being televised with drones, according to the presenter. It also features the new hero, who is registered as part of the Team.

"Tunin is the current owner of the Miraculous Dragon, it was entered into the official register two months ago. His abilities are much more polished than previous Miraculous user Ryukko, demonstrating much more training. Despite his young age in relation to other heroes, we can be sure that he's trustworthy. He has already demonstrated this by displaying new skills and a great mastery of his powers. "

Tim watches with too worrying ease, still holding his cup of coffee, but he seems to pay little attention to what the newscaster has said.

He doesn't blame him, the situation seems to come out of a dream, with the same little sense.

He doesn't lose attention to what happens, they are far enough so that what happens is only barely visible through the window, but the view from the drone is very accurate. Soon another hero, the presenter calls her Ateliade, activates another power and a dragon stuffed toy falls into her hands, she and LadyNoir (the leader, according to what they said) put themselves in position taking advantage of the fact that the Akuma is too busy dealing with the cloud storm.

"It seems we managed to capture Rakkīgāru and Jade Shield as well, helping civilians to get out of the Akuma's path." Indeed, the two heroes move through the streets picking up people from the probable routes of the Giant Dolphin. "Mures remains on the sidelines, he seems to be fulfilling the role of watchman. Like Tunin, it's his first appearance. He has been registered as an official part of the team for six years, he's the second user of the Miraculous Mouse, after Multimouse with a single appearance ten years ago. "

Dick is surprised to learn that information, ten years ago? Since when is Paris dealing with this villain? Maybe he should go to the prosecution and the KanTech offices to find out the information required to know the matter.

"Dick..."

"Hmm?"

"Am I dreaming?"

"No."

"I'll leave the caffeine." Tim puts the cup on the table in front of him and takes his computer to start investigating, having his location in Paris, the information about the Akuma begin to appear. "Eleven years ago Hawkmoth first appeared and with him two heroes: Ladybug and Chat Noir. As time went by more heroes appeared and rotated, before Gabriel Agreste was arrested for being Hawkmoth, Paris was left alone with three heroes: Ladybug, Chat Noir and Vulpes. Chat Noir turned out to be the son of the villain, who was devastated and gave up being a hero... "

"What?" Dick stops watching television, missing the exact moment the Akuma goes crazy and its echo location loses the destructive effect because he can't focus enough for it.

"This is a summary of what happened seven years ago. The Butterfly Miraculous was stolen by the killer of Nathalie Sancour, the previous user of the Peacock. That Miraculous returned to the hands of Ladybug... Graham de Vanely spearheaded the lawsuit against Gabriel Agreste and Adrien was forced to marry Lila Rossi to keep his mother alive, as the heroes investigate a cure for the magical coma..."

"How did they manage to hide ALL THAT from the world?"

"Magic." Tim growls, that's the main reason, then with the joint efforts of different government bodies they became self-sufficient in it, making laws that allowed Parisian heroes and vigilantes to run freely making them an official identity within the country, but without being linked to it. How did it evolve to that point? Not even in the United States, with the acceptance of the heroes in the country, have they managed to do something like this... Will the French be more intelligent or are they much more paranoid? Because there is a complete security protocol so that the information does not come out.

They are so in jail just for mentioning all that to their family.

"We can't give that report to B... or come out as Robin and Nightwing."

"Should we register?" "Tim nods, but as far as he knows, only the MT can register heroes or vigilantes and for that they would need to contact them and give a good excuse for their visit." Everything is very well detailed, the theme of the vigilantes is not super secret like heroes. It's illegal to mention them on social networks outside the jurisdiction of France and word of mouth would not be credible because there is no information available. "

"Rakkigaru launches the cure!" The television distracts them again and they are surprised, again, to see how all the damage begins to repair itself and return to its original state.

"W-What…?

"It's one of the Miraculous Ladybug powers... it's one of the few skills that are publicly known and accurately described. The rest appear as: doubtful or not precise. "

"Do you think they are handling it well?"

"Yes... according to what Felix Graham de Vanely said, half of the evidence he presented was offered by the heroes of Paris and was, precisely, the most incriminating. Seven years have passed and they have the support of the MT, which have cleaned up the country's organized crime very well and have followed several very difficult cases that they have managed to manage... They have a more brilliant list of achievements than ours. You know, the Joker escaping Arkham every month is a stain on our record. ”Tim laughs a little when he says it. He would like to know their methods, although he suspects that they must have a network of informants, something that they have not used much because in Gotham it's unlikely to find trustworthy people, only Jason got several informants, but they have not reached more than that.

"Then let's just say hello."

"And let's seek to join that information network."

Tim sets that goal, to be part of that vigilant circle to which the MT belongs.

-----

Vivian @ LadyLuck_08

I loved Tunin's debut, will his hair be naturally long?

Leonor @Scar_FullMLeo

Did you see Mures? He's so cute

Ladybug comeback @ LadybugHero_89

It took a round hour to stop the Akuma. New record.

Chloe B. @BourgeoisQueen

Finally! I hate the basement. Who was the smart one who decided that it would be a good Akuma refuge?

#maribat #dickinette #dick x marinette #mominette #ml x dc

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