#why is it lightning? are my notices charging? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tasteracha · 1 year ago

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the storm.

a/n: happy (early) birthday to my shining star xian @forlix i love you so much i ache with it. i love this universe you've created and i love your characters and your beautiful, beautiful mc that i'm so happy you've let me play with.

warnings: unprotected sex, fingering, teasing, pretty tame for me tbh! many big emotions. wc 2.7k. hurt/comfort sex between two people who love each other.

pairing: hwang hyunjin x afab!reader, she/her!reader, based off of xian's lovely crying lightning (you can read this as a stand alone but why would you? xian's fic is phenomenal. please read it.)

as beautiful and wonderful and kind and patient hyunjin is, it’s hard to forget sometimes that his general presence is still exceptionally infuriating sometimes. the days of your loneliness, before the two of you had finally come together into one woven cord instead of two strings dancing alongside one another, were all but a distant memory. overriding that was the smell of his skin in the morning, the glint in his eye when he catches yours across the cameras and fans, the warm weight of his hand steady on the small of your back, protective and possessive. all you knew now was the cracking of lightning across a stormy sky, raindrops hitting your face in a welcome intrusion to your mundane day to day.

the all expanse of the storm did its job well of making you forget that sometimes the raindrops were irritating, too.

they came in the form of him opening one eye slowly as you tried to swipe shadow across his lid, upsetting your plan and making you double back once you’ve scolded him; the air moving around you as he walks away from you after teasing you one too many times; the sound of his laugh when he’s behind the camera of someone, making eyes at the lens that should have been reserved for you only. each one was a piercing cold drop of water to your face, piercing as they fall and sliding down to form a puddle at your feet.

it didn’t escape your notice that you weren’t upset at him, really; it wasn’t his fault that you were spiteful. even thinking the word makes you shiver in disgust - this isn’t you. you had never been one to let your feelings affect your actions, you selfishly prided yourself in your ability to compartmentalize, but he had this hold on you that made you experience things you never thought were possible.

he, of course, finds the entire show encompassingly amusing. you could see the mirth in his eyes from across the room when he meets yours, recognize your own expression in them like a mirror and it made your scowl deepen in it’s permanence. you almost wish for the time when he didn’t know of your affection for him; the surety in his step when he makes you frown is maddening, overshadowed by the smugness he holds in knowing he could make you smile with greater ease. let it be known that you didn’t lack in confidence - your spine is stood high, head held with authority and feet planted firmly on the floor. envy wasn’t something that ever crawled up your legs like ivy over an ancient grecian statue. jealousy, even, seemed too harsh a sentence for your current charge. to put it simply, you were annoyed.

he knows this, of course. he knows you, inside and out, and on your best days it’s a rare gift that you treasure, hidden away in the deepest corners of the closet that is your heart. on your worst days it’s utterly terrifying, the feeling of being laid out to shrivel in the sun with no chance of respite. and wasn’t it ironic that the one thing that made you feel this way was the one that cured you too?

it’s with an embarrassing amount of pleasure that you remind yourself that you are the one he goes home with, at the end of the day. you’re cleaning up your station and you hear his laugh in the background, not directed at you but ringing like sweet bells nonetheless. every brush that returns home into your kit, every lip product that gets swiped into a bag, every charcoal pencil is the ticking of time that needs to pass before he is yours again. simply yours, not belonging to the cameras or the managers or the staff whose stare linger on him for longer than they should be allowed to.

you knew where your talents were - in your art, your ability to read people, your creativity and your drive for perfection. these uncharted waters were not in your skillset, but as hyunjin stalks across the room to reunite with you after what seemed like hours, you took a moment to be grateful that it seemed to be in his. putting yourself in someone else’s hands, feeling the level of trust that you had for him, sent a tingle up your spine, but if anyone was going to take care of you it was him; the thought soothes you like a balm, not enough to be permanent but enough to get you by for now.

“missed me that much?” he crowds into your space to press a light kiss to your hairline, expertly moving his body so that no one could see. “i’ve only been shooting for an hour.”

“keep talking and you’ll get shot,” you mutter, ignoring the heat that rises up to your cheeks as you turn from him to gather your things, aching to be home and in his arms and away from prying stares. his heat is still pressed up against your back, standing as close as he could while still letting you move freely. as much as you want to drag him into some secluded hallway and refamiliarise yourself with the taste of his skin, you had to pull out your endless supply of restraint. getting caught with your hand down his pants in a building that you frequented often was not an outcome that you wished to experience, at least not today.

his hand is warm on the small of your back as he walks you out a series of doors and stairs to the parking garage, the sound of your shoes bouncing off of the walls a bit jarring.

“you looked nice today,” you tell him, honest, as he slides into the passenger seat of your car. the worn seats smell like his cologne and his old bracelet hangs from the rearview mirror - god, even your car was reminding you of how much of your life he encompassed - not that you were complaining about that.

“that was all you,” pride drips from his voice and you catch his soft gaze when you turn to look behind you so you could back out of your parking spot.

“i may have helped, but it’s still your face,” you counter, hand busy on the gear shift, as eager as your heart was to finally get home.

“if i didn’t know you, i would have thought you were obsessed with me,” he says, the biting tease dripping off his tongue like citrus. “with the way you were staring at me, back there.”

“i’ll make you walk home,” you tighten your grip on the steering wheel despite the threat being empty. he knows which threads to tug on without unraveling you, playing you with his words like it was muscle memory.

“you’d make me walk?” he gasps theatrically, pressing his palm to his chest and fluttering his eyes at you. “what if i get kidnapped, or mugged? how would you live with yourself?”

“you’re an idiot,” you deadpan, cursing the betraying fondness that rises up in you.

“your idiot,” he grins stupidly, settling his hand on your thigh as he watches the streetlights shine across your face as you drive. his touch is scalding, long fingers pressing into your very nerves and leaving them flayed out.

“yeah, remember that,” you retort, and you hope he thinks you mean the idiot part.

the remainder of the short drive home was spent in comfortable silence, hyunjin tapping away on his phone with his free hand as you speeded down the freeway. when you park you let out a sigh and your keys jangle in melancholy along with you when you take them out of the ignition. hyunjin presses his fingers into your thigh in a final squeeze before he exits the car, long legs carrying him over to your door before you could blink to open it for you.

walking up the stairs to your third story apartment never felt more relaxing, the breath they stole from you a necessary tax to pay to enter the comfort of your own walls.

you pull him to the bedroom as soon as you walk through the front door, dropping your things in the foyer with as much care as you could muster.

it takes you a couple of seconds to push him to sit up against the headboard, a couple more for him to complain about it, and less than that for you to climb into his lap and press a searing kiss to his lips.

he opens himself to you, open mouth curved into a smile as you lick into it. you taste the coffee you had made for him this morning, the croissant he had eaten during a break, the gloss that you had carefully dabbed across his plush lips.

you want him, no one else could have him. how could you feel this much possessiveness over someone you already hold as yours?

his hands circle your waist and his thumbs press into your skin, holding you against him even as you pull away from him. his lips are left glistening red and he looks up at you with a kind of reverence that you don’t think you’ll ever get used to.

“slow, angel,” he moves his thumbs in slow circles. “i’m not going anywhere.”

“hyune,” you gasp, going lax against him. you’re far too drained to pretend that your entire body didn’t ache for him. “need you.”

“i know,” he shushes you, trailing his fingers up and down your spine. he loves to tease but he’d never do so at your expense; he must sense that your emotional turmoil is bubbling into the direction of a vortex. “you have me. take what you need, baby.”

the reminder that he was yours, though wholly unneeded, sounds so sweet to your ears. your fingers slide up his chest, twisting into the button at his collar and popping it open with practiced ease. you peel the panels of material off of him to expose his sun-kissed skin, abdominal muscles tensing with how he’s holding back from jerking up into your lap.

“what does my baby want, hmm?” he says, voice catching when your hands slide over his chest and brush over his nipples. he groans when you roll one between your fingers and the sound of it makes your heart soar.

“i want you to shut up and take your pants off,” you back off of him to rid yourself of your own clothes, folding them into a neat little pile at the foot of the bed. he shows no such care for his own, kicking off his pants and boxers throwing them along with his shirt across the room. his hungry eyes stay on you the whole time, shining with excitement as if it was the first time he was witnessing you undress.

you climb back over him as fast as humanly possible, the feeling of his bare skin against yours like an eternal gift. you grind down against him, his rapidly hardening cock sliding between your folds and his head catching against your clit. you’re wet, of course you are; you have been since his hand was on your thigh on the car ride home you moan and duck your head, a little embarrassed by how affected you are by such a simple motion.

he braces himself on his elbow as other hand moves to your hairline, brushing a few strands back behind your ear on it’s path towards cupping the back of your neck. he moves closer, lips so close to yours that you can almost taste them again, but before they meet you’re feeling the earth’s weight shift and your own balance break.

“i want to take care of you,” he explains when you look up at him in a daze, dizzy from how quickly he had flipped you underneath him. “let me?”

“i thought i told you to shut up,” you were breathless but the permission still rang true under your words. you’d let him do whatever he wanted, how could you deny such a sweet request?

he grins something wicked as one of his hands slides down your chest towards your lower belly. his fingers part your folds easily and you feel so exposed even though he wasn’t looking. he decidedly keeps his mouth shut even as whines begin to spill from your lips, your eyes fluttering closed as a familiar burning sensation starts to take over your body.

he alternates between rubbing gentle circles into your clit and teasing his fingers at your entrance, so close to dipping inside but not quite. he ducks his head to mouth at your neck, sucking a constellation of marks into your skin until you’re panting into his hair and shaking apart in your orgasm.

he gives you a moment to recover, waiting patiently until you open your eyes to see his fond smile aimed at you.

“what’s that look for?” the snark is completely absent in your voice post-orgasm, and it almost comes out dreamy.

“i can’t even look at you now?” he breaks his unspoken vow of silence to ask. “i can’t help myself. i have the most gorgeous person walking this earth underneath me, looking at you is the tamest thing i can do to you.”

the blood returns to your cheeks as you take in his words. you don’t respond because you didn’t know how; what could you even say to that? he doesn’t seem to mind as he moves impossibly closer to you, leaning a bit of his weight against you. it’s not too much, just enough that you could feel his chest moving with his breaths. he lines his cock up to your entrance, his hips flush against yours as he slowly pushes in.

you let out a breath you didn’t realize you had been holding when he enters you fully, every inch settling your frustration as it flows out of you along with the air in your lungs. this feeling was worth all of it, the early mornings and the onlookers and the sharing of him when all you wanted to do was lock him away for you and you alone.

he loves you. he was so in love with you that it poured out of his very being, in his gentle touch and the slide of his lips against yours and the slide of his cock against your walls. each drag of his hips sends burning pleasure up your spine, licking flames against your vertebrae until you can’t move.

you’re so drunk on him that you lose track of time, all of your senses falling away until hyunjin is the only thing you can feel, see, touch. you lose your words, unintelligible syllables trying to shape his name falling from your lips, pressed against the skin of his neck and floating to his ears in a sweet symphony.

it isn’t long before you’re falling apart underneath him, electricity crackling between you as fucks you through your orgasm. he gathers you in his arms as he tumbles over the edge after you, folding himself over you so he can kiss you, and you don’t realize that you were crying until his cheeks come back glistening with salty water.

“god, i love you,” and to this day it still feels like a heavy declaration, the words never diminishing their weight despite the number of times they’ve fallen off of his tongue. “you are everything to me.”

“hyunjin,” is all you can say, but you know he reads between the curved letters of his name. i love you too, you mean the world to me, what would i be without you.

he cares for you like the cracked piece of porcelain that you are, light fingertips tracing along the tear tracks on your cheeks that move to turn you on your side so you could smush yourself into his chest. your hand rests right above his heart, and if you looked close enough you could see the static sparks of electricity that connect the two of you together.

#stray kids smut #skz smut #hyunjin smut #hyunjin imagines #straykidsland #stray kids imagines #hyunjin x y/n #hyunjin x you

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couchlovers · 3 months ago

Note

Hii! I was wondering if you could do Clarisse la rue x reader. Like readers the daughter of Zeus and he gifted her the power that her emotions control the weather?

sorry if this doesn’t make any sense lol. Changing it up however you’d like

Storm’s embrace

masterlist pjo masterlist my rules

YN -> your name YLN -> your last name

6,9k words! hope that you’ll like it!

Camp Half-Blood buzzed with tension after the news broke: Zeus’s master bolt had been stolen. The gods were furious, and the campers whispered of war brewing on Olympus. Y/N YLN, daughter of Zeus, felt every pair of eyes on her. The unspoken suspicion was heavy, lingering in every corner of camp. As the only child of Zeus currently at Camp Half-Blood, she was an obvious suspect.

Clarisse LaRue made no effort to hide her opinion. “You know, it’d be convenient if the thief were the one who can summon lightning at will,” she said, crossing her arms during a heated conversation in the training arena.

Y/N glared at her, thunder rumbling faintly in the distance. “You think I’d steal my own father’s bolt? Get a grip, Clarisse. I don’t need his powers to deal with you.”

The campers around them murmured, sensing a confrontation brewing. Clarisse stepped closer, her tone sharp. “Maybe you’re just tired of living in his shadow. Or maybe you don’t have as much control as you pretend to.”

The sky darkened, and Y/N’s hands clenched into fists. “Say that again, LaRue. I dare you.”

Before the situation could escalate further, Chiron’s voice boomed from across the field. “Enough!” The centaur strode toward them, his expression stern. “Both of you, my office. Now.”

In Chiron’s office, the atmosphere was tense. Y/N stood by the window, arms crossed, while Clarisse leaned against the wall, still fuming.

“You two are among the strongest demigods at camp,” Chiron began, his voice calm but firm. “Which is why I’m assigning you to the quest to retrieve Zeus’s bolt. The Oracle has spoken, and it’s clear you’ll need to work together.”

“What?!” both girls exclaimed in unison.

“This isn’t negotiable,” Chiron said, his gaze steady. “The fate of Olympus depends on this quest. You’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

Y/N groaned, rubbing her temples. “Great. Babysitting Ares’s favorite brute while trying to save the world. Can’t wait.”

Clarisse shot her a glare. “As if I want to be stuck with a walking thunderstorm. Try not to fry me when you lose your temper, princess.”

Chiron sighed, clearly unamused. “If you two don’t learn to work together, this quest will fail. And if that happens, war between the gods is inevitable.”

That sobered them both. Y/N glanced at Clarisse, her jaw tightening. “Fine. I’ll do it—for Olympus. Not for her.”

Clarisse smirked. “Likewise.”

The next morning, the quest began. Alongside Grover and Annabeth, Y/N and Clarisse set off into the mortal world, tensions high and patience low. Their first stop was a seemingly harmless roadside diner, where their bickering resumed almost immediately.

“You can’t just charge into every situation swinging your spear,” Y/N said, her tone exasperated.

“And you can’t just summon a storm every time you get moody,” Clarisse shot back, leaning over the table.

Annabeth sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Can you two save this for later? We’re supposed to be tracking down leads, not arguing over breakfast.”

Grover nodded, nervously glancing at the sky. “Yeah, uh, maybe keep the thunderclouds to a minimum? People are starting to notice.”

Y/N glared at Clarisse but relented, taking a deep breath to calm herself. The sky lightened slightly, and the air felt less charged.

For the rest of the day, they managed to keep their bickering to a minimum, but the tension between them remained. Every glance, every word, felt like a challenge waiting to be met.

That night, as they set up camp by the side of a quiet road, Y/N found herself staring at the stars, lost in thought. She hadn’t asked for this quest, or for the pressure of being Zeus’s daughter. She just wanted to prove she was more than the god she came from.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Clarisse’s voice broke through her reverie.

Y/N glanced at her, surprised. “Didn’t think you cared.”

Clarisse shrugged, sitting down beside her. “I don’t. But if we’re going to survive this, we can’t spend the whole time at each other’s throats.”

Y/N hesitated before nodding. “Fair enough.” She glanced at Clarisse. “You’re not as terrible as I thought.”

Clarisse smirked. “Don’t get used to it, princess.”

For the first time, they shared a small, tentative smile. It wasn’t peace, but it was a start.

______________________________________________________________________

The morning after their reluctant truce, the group prepared to leave their makeshift campsite. Percy Jackson, who had joined their team at Chiron’s insistence, was already up and pacing. The son of Poseidon had his own reasons for being on this quest: proving himself, protecting his friends, and figuring out his connection to the stolen bolt.

“Ready to save the world, or are you two gonna keep bickering the whole way?” Percy teased as he adjusted Riptide at his side, glancing between Y/N and Clarisse.

“Save it, Seaweed Brain,” Y/N shot back, rolling her eyes. “Unlike you, some of us actually know how to work under pressure.”

“Right,” Percy quipped with a grin. “Because yelling at each other is totally productive.”

Clarisse snorted, shouldering her spear. “At least I don’t need a magical pen to fight.”

Annabeth groaned, pulling her Yankees cap lower over her eyes. “Can we all focus? We’ve got a long way to go and not a lot of time.”

The group’s next stop was an abandoned warehouse where, according to Grover’s tracking, a minor god associated with Hermes might have information on the bolt. The warehouse was quiet—too quiet.

Inside, the air was thick with tension as they searched for clues. Y/N’s nerves hummed, her emotions sparking faint static electricity in the air.

“I don’t like this,” she muttered, her hand hovering near the dagger she carried at her hip.

“Relax, Princess,” Clarisse said, scanning the room. “Not every empty building is a death trap.”

“I wouldn’t speak so soon,” Percy muttered, drawing Riptide as shadows moved in the corners.

The attack was sudden. A group of empousai—vampire-like creatures—emerged from the darkness, their glowing eyes fixed on the demigods.

“Great,” Y/N grumbled, summoning a small bolt of lightning into her hand. “Just what we needed.”

The group fought hard, their teamwork shaky but effective. Y/N and Clarisse found themselves back-to-back at one point, their weapons slicing through the air in perfect sync.

“Not bad,” Clarisse admitted begrudgingly as she slammed the butt of her spear into an empousa’s chest, sending it flying.

“Right back at you,” Y/N replied, the faintest smile on her lips as she hurled a bolt of lightning into another creature.

Percy, not far away, raised an eyebrow at the exchange. “Are you two… getting along? Should I be concerned?”

“Shut up, Jackson,” they said in unison, making Grover laugh despite the chaos.

Once the fight ended, the group regrouped outside the warehouse. Everyone was exhausted, but the tension between Y/N and Clarisse seemed to have eased—if only slightly.

“You’re a decent fighter,” Y/N said to Clarisse as they walked side by side toward the road.

Clarisse smirked, twirling her spear. “Don’t sound so surprised. Maybe you’re finally realizing I’m not as bad as you thought.”

“Don’t push it,” Y/N shot back, though her tone lacked its usual bite.

Percy watched the exchange with a knowing look, leaning toward Annabeth. “Is it just me, or are those two actually flirting now?”

Annabeth sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Percy, not everything is about romance. Focus.”

As night fell, the group set up camp again, this time in a quiet forest clearing. The stars were bright, and the crackling of the campfire filled the silence.

Y/N sat slightly apart from the group, staring up at the sky. Her emotions had been running high all day, and she needed a moment to clear her mind.

Clarisse, after some hesitation, walked over and plopped down beside her. “You good?”

Y/N blinked, surprised by the question. “Yeah. Why?”

Clarisse shrugged, poking the fire with a stick. “You’ve been quiet. It’s weird. Usually, you’re all lightning and sass.”

Y/N smirked. “Lightning and sass? That’s a new one.”

Clarisse rolled her eyes but smiled faintly. “Whatever. Just… don’t lose your head, okay? We need you to keep it together.”

There was an unexpected softness in her voice that caught Y/N off guard. For a moment, she saw past the tough exterior to the person underneath.

“I’ll try,” Y/N said quietly. “Thanks, Clarisse.”

Clarisse glanced at her, her smirk returning. “Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

Y/N laughed, and the sound was warm and genuine, making Clarisse’s chest tighten just a little.

From across the fire, Percy and Annabeth exchanged looks. Percy leaned closer to Grover, whispering, “I’m calling it now. Those two are totally into each other.”

Grover nodded sagely. “Oh, 100%. The tension is electric.”

Annabeth groaned again. “Focus, boys. We’ve got bigger problems.”

______________________________________________________________________

The group’s journey led them into the heart of the desert, chasing the latest lead on Zeus’s stolen bolt. The Oracle’s prophecy was vague, but Annabeth’s sharp mind and Grover’s tracking skills had pointed them toward a small, seemingly abandoned roadside gas station.

The heat was unbearable, the sun blazing overhead, and tensions ran high as the group bickered over their next move.

“I’m telling you, this place screams trap,” Percy said, squinting at the gas station.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. “Everything screams trap to you.”

“That’s because it usually is!” Percy shot back.

While the two argued, Y/N stood to the side, her gaze fixed on the horizon. The oppressive heat made her emotions sluggish, but she could feel a storm brewing in the back of her mind. Something about this place felt off.

Clarisse walked over, breaking the silence. “You zoning out again, Thunder Girl? We don’t have time for you to daydream.”

Y/N sighed, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “I’m not zoning out. I’m trying to figure out why this place feels so… wrong.”

Clarisse raised an eyebrow, her grip tightening on her spear. “Your gut telling you something?”

“Something like that,” Y/N admitted, glancing at her. “You trust me on this?”

Clarisse hesitated, then gave a small nod. “Yeah. You’ve been right so far.”

The unexpected admission caught Y/N off guard, and for a moment, she forgot the heat, the quest, and the danger.

“Thanks,” she said softly.

Clarisse shrugged, looking away. “Don’t get used to it.”

The group cautiously entered the gas station, weapons at the ready. Inside, the air was stale, and the fluorescent lights flickered ominously. It didn’t take long for the trap to spring—two monstrous automatons emerged from hidden panels, their glowing eyes locking onto the demigods.

“Of course,” Percy muttered, drawing Riptide.

The battle was chaotic. Annabeth and Grover worked to disable the machines’ weak points while Percy engaged one head-on. Y/N and Clarisse, naturally, ended up back-to-back again, their movements almost instinctively in sync.

“Left!” Clarisse shouted as one of the automatons lunged. Y/N reacted instantly, sending a bolt of lightning crackling through its metal body.

“Nice call,” Y/N said, a grin tugging at her lips as the machine collapsed in a smoking heap.

“Keep your head in the game, YLN,” Clarisse replied, though her tone lacked its usual sharpness.

The second automaton charged at them, forcing Clarisse to parry with her spear while Y/N summoned a gust of wind to throw it off balance. Together, they overwhelmed it, Clarisse delivering the final blow with a triumphant yell.

When the dust settled, Percy clapped his hands together. “Well, that was fun. Can we not do that again?”

Annabeth ignored him, crouching to examine the remains of the automatons. “These were definitely sent by someone. They weren’t random.”

“Great,” Clarisse muttered, wiping sweat from her brow. “More people trying to kill us. Just what we needed.”

“Welcome to the club,” Y/N said with a smirk.

Clarisse glanced at her, and for a moment, the tension between them softened.

Later that evening, the group set up camp in a nearby canyon. The desert sky was breathtaking, stars scattered like diamonds across a velvet backdrop. Y/N sat by the campfire, absently tracing patterns in the dirt while the others talked quietly nearby.

Clarisse approached, dropping down beside her without a word.

“You keep sneaking up on me,” Y/N said, glancing at her with a small smile.

Clarisse smirked, leaning her spear against her shoulder. “Not my fault you’re easy to sneak up on.”

Y/N rolled her eyes but didn’t argue. For a moment, they sat in companionable silence, the crackling fire filling the space between them.

“You were good back there,” Clarisse said suddenly, her tone uncharacteristically soft.

Y/N blinked, surprised. “What?”

Clarisse looked away, fidgeting with the edge of her armor. “I said you were good. Don’t make me repeat it.”

Y/N’s lips curved into a grin. “Is this your way of being nice?”

“Don’t push it,” Clarisse muttered, though her cheeks reddened faintly.

Y/N chuckled, her heart lighter than it had been in days. “Thanks, Clarisse. You weren’t too bad yourself.”

Clarisse smirked, her confidence returning. “Of course not. I’m always amazing.”

Their laughter drew curious glances from the others, but neither of them seemed to care. For the first time, the storm between them felt less like a battle and more like the calm before something new.

______________________________________________________________________

The group continued their journey, now following a lead from Annabeth that pointed them toward a forest on the outskirts of a small town. The air was thick with tension as they trudged through the dense underbrush. Despite their shared victories, the group’s patience was wearing thin after days of close quarters and constant danger.

For Y/N and Clarisse, the fragile truce they had formed was starting to feel less like a reluctant necessity and more like a natural rhythm. But neither of them dared to voice it—especially not with Percy’s constant teasing.

“Let me guess,” Percy quipped as they stopped for a break. “Y/N and Clarisse were totally in sync during the last fight again? Should we just start calling you the Storm and Spear Duo?”

Y/N groaned, tossing a small pebble at him. “Don’t you have better things to do, Percy?”

Clarisse snorted, crossing her arms. “Ignore him. He’s just jealous we’re better fighters.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Percy replied, feigning offense.

Annabeth stepped between them, exasperated. “Can we focus? There’s something weird about this forest.”

As if on cue, a deep growl echoed through the trees, sending a chill down Y/N’s spine. The group immediately drew their weapons, forming a defensive circle.

“What now?” Grover whimpered, clutching his reed pipes.

Out of the shadows emerged a massive drakon, its scales shimmering ominously in the dappled light. The creature roared, its golden eyes locking onto the demigods.

“Okay, this one’s mine,” Clarisse said, stepping forward with her spear raised.

“Not alone, it’s not,” Y/N replied, summoning a crackling orb of lightning in her hand.

“Great,” Percy muttered. “More teamwork.”

The battle was intense, the drakon’s sheer size and strength making it a formidable opponent. Clarisse fought fearlessly, her spear striking true, while Y/N’s lightning crackled through the air, disorienting the creature.

At one point, the drakon lunged toward Clarisse, its jaws snapping dangerously close. Without thinking, Y/N threw herself in front of her, summoning a massive bolt of lightning that sent the creature reeling.

Clarisse stared at her, wide-eyed. “What the Hades was that?”

“Saving your life, obviously” Y/N shot back, though her voice was breathless from exertion.

Clarisse smirked, regaining her composure. “Don’t get used to being my hero, Thunder Girl.”

“Noted,” Y/N replied with a grin, their gazes locking for a split second longer than necessary.

With Percy and Annabeth’s help, they managed to bring the drakon down. As it dissolved into golden dust, the group slumped against nearby trees, exhausted but triumphant.

That evening, as the group rested in a small clearing, the atmosphere was lighter than it had been in days. Percy and Grover played a clumsy game of hacky sack with a pinecone, while Annabeth sketched battle strategies in the dirt.

Y/N sat apart from the others, her back against a tree, gazing up at the stars. The adrenaline from the fight still buzzed faintly in her veins, but her thoughts kept drifting back to Clarisse.

“Deep in thought again?” Clarisse’s voice broke through the quiet.

Y/N turned to see her approaching, spear resting casually against her shoulder.

“Starting to think you’re stalking me,” Y/N teased, earning a smirk from the daughter of Ares.

“Not my style,” Clarisse replied, sitting down beside her. “But you’ve got a habit of wandering off into your own head.”

“Just thinking,” Y/N said, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “About the fight. About… everything.”

Clarisse tilted her head, studying her. “You’re not bad in a fight. For a daughter of Zeus, I mean.”

Y/N snorted. “Thanks, I think.”

There was a beat of silence before Clarisse added, almost hesitantly, “And… thanks for earlier. For stepping in like that.”

Y/N smiled softly. “You’d do the same for me.”

Clarisse hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. I would.”

For a moment, the air between them felt charged, not with tension but with something deeper. Before either of them could say anything more, Percy’s voice cut through the quiet.

“Hey, lovebirds!” he called, grinning. “Are you gonna help with dinner, or should we assume you’re too busy having a moment?”

Y/N groaned, burying her face in her hands. “I’m going to kill him.”

Clarisse laughed, standing up and offering her hand. “Come on, Thunder Girl. Let’s get back before he decides to make it worse.”

Y/N took her hand, and as their fingers briefly touched, a small spark passed between them—whether from her powers or something else, neither of them could say.

______________________________________________________________________

The journey grew more perilous as the group approached their next destination—an ancient temple hidden deep in a swamp. According to Annabeth, it housed an artifact that could point them closer to the lightning bolt’s location. The air was thick with humidity, and the murky waters seemed to ripple with unseen dangers.

“Great,” Percy muttered, poking at the swampy ground with his sword. “Another creepy location. Why can’t quests ever take us to, like, a beach or something?”

“Stop whining, Jackson,” Clarisse snapped, adjusting her armor. “You’re not the one carrying a spear through a swamp.”

“Yeah, because carrying a magical pen is so much harder,” Y/N quipped, earning a chuckle from Clarisse.

“Nice one, Thunder Girl,” Clarisse said with a smirk, making Percy roll his eyes.

Grover’s ears twitched as he scanned the area nervously. “Uh, guys? Can we not taunt the swamp? I’m pretty sure something’s watching us.”

The group immediately tensed, weapons ready, as ripples spread across the water. A massive swamp serpent emerged, its scales glistening like oil and its fangs bared.

“Because, of course, there’s a monster,” Annabeth muttered, readying her knife.

The fight was brutal. The serpent was fast, its body coiling and striking with terrifying precision. Percy’s water abilities gave him an edge, but the creature was relentless.

Y/N and Clarisse once again found themselves working as a team. Y/N summoned gusts of wind and bolts of lightning, forcing the serpent to rear back, while Clarisse struck at its exposed underbelly with her spear.

“Keep it distracted!” Clarisse shouted, narrowly dodging a strike from the serpent’s tail.

“I’m trying!” Y/N replied, hurling another bolt of lightning. The creature roared, the electricity momentarily stunning it.

Clarisse took the opportunity to lunge forward, driving her spear into the serpent’s throat. It let out a final, ear-splitting screech before collapsing into the swamp, its body dissolving into mist.

Panting, Y/N and Clarisse stood side by side, their weapons lowered.

“Not bad,” Clarisse said, giving Y/N a once-over. “You’re getting better at this.”

“Thanks,” Y/N replied, a small smile tugging at her lips. “You weren’t too shabby yourself.”

Percy, pulling himself out of the water, groaned. “Can we all agree that swamps are the worst?”

“Agreed” Annabeth said, wringing out her damp clothes.

That evening, the group set up camp on drier ground. The swamp was eerily quiet now, and the only sounds were the crackling fire and the distant chirping of insects.

Y/N sat near the fire, tending to a few scratches she’d gotten during the fight. Clarisse approached, carrying a small pouch of ambrosia.

“Here,” she said, tossing it to Y/N. “You look like you need it.”

“Thanks,” Y/N said, catching it and unwrapping a small piece of the godly food. “I’m surprised you’re being so nice.”

“Don’t get used to it” Clarisse replied with a smirk, sitting down beside her.

Y/N chuckled, the tension of the day easing slightly. “You know, we make a pretty good team.”

Clarisse raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? Does that mean you’re finally admitting I’m not the worst?”

“Don’t push it” Y/N said, grinning.

Clarisse laughed, her usual tough exterior softening for a moment. “You’re not so bad yourself, Thunder Girl.”

Their eyes met, and for a brief moment, the rest of the world faded away. The crackling fire reflected in Clarisse’s dark eyes, and Y/N felt her heart skip a beat.

Before either of them could say anything, Percy’s voice broke the silence.

“You two getting all cozy again?” he called, his tone teasing.

Clarisse groaned, throwing a small rock in his direction. “Shut up, Jackson!”

Annabeth sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Can we focus for five minutes without someone starting something?”

As the night deepened, the group took turns keeping watch. During her shift, Y/N found herself staring up at the stars, her mind racing with everything that had happened.

She didn’t hear Clarisse approach until the other girl sat down beside her, her presence grounding Y/N’s scattered thoughts.

“Can’t sleep?” Clarisse asked, her voice unusually soft.

“Something like that,” Y/N replied, glancing at her. “What about you?”

“Couldn’t either,” Clarisse admitted, her gaze fixed on the horizon. “Too much going on in my head.”

Y/N hesitated before speaking. “You ever feel like… this whole quest is testing us more than it’s supposed to?”

Clarisse snorted. “Every damn day. But that’s what we do, right? Prove we’re tougher than whatever the gods throw at us.”

Y/N nodded, a faint smile on her lips. “I guess so.”

They sat in silence for a while, the night air cool against their skin. Y/N felt a strange sense of peace, even amidst the chaos of their journey.

“Thanks for having my back today” Clarisse said suddenly, her tone serious.

Y/N looked at her, surprised. “You don’t have to thank me for that. We’re a team.”

Clarisse’s lips quirked into a small smile. “Yeah. We are.”

For a moment, it felt like Clarisse might say more, but the words hung unspoken between them. Instead, she reached out and gave Y/N’s shoulder a quick squeeze before standing up.

“Get some rest,” she said, her usual edge creeping back into her voice. “We’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

Y/N watched her walk away, her heart a mix of emotions she wasn’t ready to untangle.

______________________________________________________________________

The final leg of their journey was in sight. After days of battling monsters, navigating treacherous lands, and dealing with their own personal struggles, the group had finally arrived at the Underworld’s entrance.

But something was off. Y/N could feel it—the tension in the air, the sense of impending doom that seemed to press against her chest like an invisible weight. Clarisse, too, had grown more quiet over the past few days, her sharp eyes constantly scanning their surroundings, as if waiting for something—or someone—to strike.

As the group made their way deeper into the dark, ominous caves, Annabeth’s voice cut through the silence. “It doesn’t make sense,” she muttered, glancing at Y/N. “If Hades didn’t take the bolt, who would? And why would they want it?”

Y/N’s heart skipped a beat. She knew the answer to that question, though she didn’t want to believe it.

“I don’t know,” Y/N replied, voice tight. “But we’re getting closer.”

Suddenly, a figure stepped out from the shadows. Y/N’s breath caught as she recognized him immediately—Luke.

“You,” Percy said, his voice low, laced with fury. “You’re the one who took it.”

Luke smirked, his eyes cold. “I didn’t take anything. I’m just… helping the gods fulfill their prophecy. Don’t you see? You’re all just pawns in their game. I’m doing what they couldn’t.”

The tension was palpable, a storm of anger and betrayal swirling in the air. Clarisse stepped forward, her expression dark with suspicion. “Why are you really here, Luke? You were supposed to be one of us. You promised to fight for the gods, not against them.”

Luke’s eyes flickered with something almost like regret, but it was quickly masked by a cynical grin. “I realized the truth a long time ago. The gods don’t care about us. They use us until we’re no longer useful.”

Y/N’s heart sank, but she stood tall, her emotions churning. “So you’re willing to risk everything—everyone—just to make a point?”

Luke’s eyes met hers, and in that moment, the storm that raged inside of Y/N erupted. She summoned the power of the skies, a crackling bolt of lightning striking from her fingertips.

But Luke was faster. With a quick, almost mocking motion, he deflected the bolt with a wave of his hand, sending it spiraling off into the cavern.

“You think you can beat me?” Luke sneered. “You’re nothing but a weak little demigod.”

Before Y/N could react, Luke lunged at her, his hands crackling with dark energy. He struck out, slamming her into the cave wall with a force that sent a shockwave through her body. She gasped as pain shot through her chest, her ribs screaming in protest.

Clarisse’s voice rang out, sharp and furious. “Get away from her!”

But Luke wasn’t done. He sent a blast of energy toward Clarisse, knocking her back. Y/N’s vision blurred as she struggled to stand, but the pain in her ribs and arm was unbearable. Her arm hung limply at her side, and she could feel the bone grinding against itself.

Luke turned back to Y/N, a cruel smirk on his face. “What’s the matter, Thunder Girl? Can’t handle the heat?”

With a force that surprised even her, Y/N summoned the last of her strength, calling on a surge of lightning that cracked the air around her. The bolt shot toward Luke, but before it could hit him, he deflected it with a dark shield of energy.

“Is that the best you can do?” Luke mocked. “You’re pathetic.”

But before he could make another move, a sudden, enraged shout cut through the chaos.

“No!” Clarisse cried, charging at Luke with all the fury of a storm. Her spear gleamed in the dim light as she swung it at Luke, narrowly missing his chest. But Luke dodged, and with a swift motion, he sent a blast of dark energy straight at Clarisse.

Y/N’s heart dropped. She wasn’t about to let that happen.

With every ounce of strength she had left, Y/N reached out, using the power of the storm to summon a massive bolt of lightning that struck Luke square in the chest. The force of it sent him flying back, his body crashing against the cavern walls with a sickening thud.

Y/N collapsed to the ground, the world spinning around her. Her arm was broken, and she could feel the sharp, agonizing pain of her ribs. Blood dripped down her face from a deep gash on her forehead. She was barely conscious, her vision fading in and out.

Clarisse rushed to her side, her face pale with panic. “Y/N? Y/N, stay with me. Come on, talk to me!”

Y/N’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I’m… fine.”

Clarisse’s hands shook as she examined her wounds, her expression torn with fear and helplessness. “You’re not fine. You’re hurt… so badly.”

Y/N managed a weak smile, her breath ragged. “It’s just a scratch.”

Clarisse’s eyes filled with emotion. “Don’t joke, Y/N. You could’ve… could’ve died!”

“I’m… still here,” Y/N whispered, reaching out with her good arm to grip Clarisse’s hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

But Clarisse wasn’t listening. Her jaw clenched, her hands shaking with barely controlled rage. “I’m going to make him pay. I swear to the gods, Luke will regret this.”

Y/N barely had the energy to protest, her body shutting down as the pain began to overwhelm her. “Clarisse… I just… need to rest… please…”

Clarisse’s expression softened for a moment, her hand gently brushing Y/N’s hair away from her face. “Don’t you dare give up on me, Y/N. We’re in this together.”

Despite her best efforts, Y/N couldn’t hold on any longer. As the darkness crept in, she could feel Clarisse’s hand still tightly gripping hers, a lifeline that kept her tethered to the world.

When Y/N awoke, the first thing she saw was Clarisse, sitting by her side, her face a mix of exhaustion and relief.

“Hey,” Clarisse whispered, her voice hoarse. “You scared the hell out of me.”

Y/N smiled weakly. “I’m… sorry.”

Clarisse shook her head, brushing a stray lock of hair from Y/N’s face. “No. Don’t apologize. I’m just glad you’re still here.”

The group had managed to escape the Underworld with the lightning bolt, and Luke was gone—vanished for now. But the cost had been high, and Y/N’s wounds were far from healed.

Clarisse stayed by her side as the group made their way back, and the storm that had once raged inside them both seemed to have calmed, replaced by a quiet understanding—a bond that had been forged in the fires of battle.

They weren’t just surviving anymore. They were stronger, together.

______________________________________________________________________

The journey back to Camp Half-Blood had been tense. Y/N was still recovering from her injuries—her broken arm in a sling, ribs wrapped tightly, and a few stitches from the gash across her forehead. Yet, the mission wasn’t over. She had one final task to complete: to return the stolen lightning bolt to her father, Zeus.

The moment they arrived at the camp, Clarisse was by her side, her fierce protectiveness evident in her every movement. Even though the rest of the group was exhausted and covered in dirt and blood from their encounter with Luke, Clarisse’s gaze never wavered from Y/N.

“Y/N, you’re not going to the gods like this,” Clarisse said, her voice low but firm. She was standing beside Y/N as they prepared for the trip to Olympus. “You’re still hurt.”

Y/N, who had been sitting quietly by the campfire, glanced up at her with a tired but determined expression. “Clarisse, I have to do this. I can handle it.”

“You’re injured!” Clarisse’s voice rose slightly, her frustration clear. “What if something happens to you? You can barely stand up without wincing, and you want to go face your father—alone?”

Y/N stood up, wincing from the pain in her ribs but not letting it show. “I’m not some fragile little thing that needs constant babysitting, Clarisse.” Her voice was sharp, though there was no malice behind it. “I’m a big girl, okay? I’ll be fine.”

Clarisse’s eyes flashed with hurt, and for a moment, she said nothing. Y/N turned away, her heart pounding in her chest. She understood why Clarisse was so worried. After all, Clarisse had been by her side through every battle, every near-death experience. But this? This was something she had to do on her own.

“I don’t care how strong you are, Y/N,” Clarisse finally said, her voice quieter but no less intense. “I can’t just sit here and let you go alone. I… I care about you. More than you probably even realize.”

Y/N’s breath caught in her throat at the admission. She turned back to face Clarisse, her eyes searching her face for any sign of insincerity, but there was none.

“Clarisse…”

Before she could say anything else, Clarisse closed the distance between them, her movements swift and sure. In one fluid motion, she cupped Y/N’s face in her hands and kissed her—soft, urgent, and all-consuming.

Y/N’s world tilted as the kiss deepened, her body pressing instinctively closer to Clarisse’s. It was everything Y/N hadn’t realized she wanted—a surge of heat and tenderness all at once. It was more than just a kiss. It was a promise.

When they pulled away, both of them were breathing heavily, their faces flushed. Clarisse rested her forehead against Y/N’s, their noses almost touching.

“You think you can do this alone?” Clarisse whispered, her voice hushed, but full of an emotion Y/N couldn’t ignore. “You think I can just stand by and watch you risk your life?”

Y/N smiled softly, her heart fluttering. “Clarisse, I don’t need saving. I’m strong. But I don’t mind if you want to be by my side.”

Clarisse chuckled, the tension easing between them. “I’ll be by your side,” she said quietly. “But you’re not doing this alone, Y/N. I care about you too much.”

Y/N reached up, brushing a strand of hair from Clarisse’s face, her heart swelling with affection. “I care about you, too. But I’m going. Whether you like it or not.”

Clarisse sighed, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “Fine. But I’m going with you. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Y/N shook her head in mock exasperation, though the warmth in her chest was undeniable. “You’re impossible.”

“Only when I’m fighting for what’s mine,” Clarisse retorted, a glint of mischief in her eyes.

As they made their way to the entrance of Camp Half-Blood, preparing to head to Olympus, Y/N couldn’t help but feel a surge of gratitude. Despite everything that had happened—despite the dangers, the pain, and the uncertainty—she wasn’t facing it alone. Clarisse was with her, and in that moment, it felt like nothing could tear them apart.

The journey to Olympus was a blur, the sounds of the mortal world fading as they ascended to the realm of the gods. Y/N stood before the throne of Zeus, Clarisse at her side, and she could feel the weight of her father’s gaze upon her.

“Daughter,” Zeus said, his voice booming, “you have done well to retrieve my bolt.”

Y/N stood tall, despite her injuries, and offered her father the stolen bolt. “It was a team effort,” she said, glancing at Clarisse with a small, knowing smile.

Zeus nodded, though his gaze flickered briefly to Clarisse. “It seems you have gained not just the power of the storm, but the strength of loyalty and trust.” He paused, a faint smirk crossing his face. “And perhaps a little more.”

Y/N’s cheeks flushed, but she didn’t look away from her father’s piercing eyes. “I’ll always stand by my friends and my family. No matter what.”

Clarisse stepped forward, her posture proud. “And I’ll always be here, no matter what happens next.”

Zeus’s expression softened, though he didn’t offer much more than a knowing nod. “Very well. You’ve proven yourself worthy. You may go.”

As they turned to leave, Y/N glanced at Clarisse, her heart swelling with affection. She didn’t need Zeus’s approval to know what she had found in Clarisse was real.

They walked side by side as they descended from Olympus, Y/N’s arm around Clarisse’s shoulders as they made their way back to the mortal world. There was still much to do, many dangers yet to face. But for now, with the storm of their emotions finally settled, they walked together—strong, and ready for whatever came next.

______________________________________________________________________

The days that followed their return from Olympus were filled with a quiet sense of relief and rest. Y/N was still healing from her injuries, her broken arm in a cast and her ribs slowly mending with the help of the camp’s healer, but there was something more significant happening as well—her relationship with Clarisse was growing, shifting from quiet moments of tension to an open, loving bond.

Clarisse, ever the fierce warrior, had softened in ways that Y/N had never expected. She stayed by Y/N’s side constantly, her presence a comforting constant. Whether they were in the infirmary or walking around the camp, Clarisse was always there, her hand always finding its way to Y/N’s—protective, possessive, and gentle all at once.

One afternoon, after another long session with the healer, Y/N was sitting by the fire, the warmth of the flames kissing her skin as she leaned against the stone wall. Clarisse sat beside her, watching over her like a hawk, always making sure Y/N was comfortable, always offering a hand to help when needed.

“You know,” Y/N said softly, her gaze fixed on the fire, “I never thought I’d end up like this—injured, resting, relying on others to help me.”

Clarisse nudged her gently with her shoulder, her lips curving into a teasing smile. “You’ve always been a bit too independent for your own good. Maybe this is a lesson in letting others take care of you for once.”

Y/N grinned, glancing at her. “I suppose I can get used to it, as long as you’re the one taking care of me.”

Clarisse’s eyes softened, and she leaned in, brushing a stray lock of hair behind Y/N’s ear. “Of course. I’ll always be here, Y/N. Always.”

The words were simple, but they carried a depth that made Y/N’s heart swell. She reached up, gently pulling Clarisse into a kiss, slow and tender, savoring the closeness between them. It wasn’t a kiss filled with urgency or desire—it was the kind of kiss that spoke volumes without needing words. It was about the trust they had built, the understanding that they were in this together, no matter what came next.

As they pulled away, Y/N rested her forehead against Clarisse’s, both of them breathing softly in the quiet of the night. “You really don’t have to stay with me all the time, you know.”

Clarisse chuckled, her thumb brushing across Y/N’s knuckles. “I’m not going anywhere. If anything, you’ll have to chase me away.”

Y/N smiled, her heart fluttering in her chest. “I think I’m okay with that.”

Clarisse’s grin grew wider, a playful glint in her eyes. “You better be. Because I’m not leaving your side.”

Days turned into weeks, and Y/N’s healing progressed. She was no longer confined to bedrest, though she still moved cautiously, her body not quite back to its usual strength. But each step she took, Clarisse was there—offering her a hand when needed, walking beside her through the camp as they shared quiet moments, stolen kisses, and laughter.

One afternoon, after Y/N had finished a light training session with Percy and Annabeth, she found herself sitting in a secluded part of the camp, watching the sunset. Clarisse joined her soon after, sitting beside her and wrapping an arm around her waist.

“I can’t believe we made it through all of that,” Y/N said, her voice soft but full of gratitude. “We actually survived.”

Clarisse kissed the top of her head, her lips lingering there. “We did more than survive, Y/N. We made it through together. That’s what matters.”

Y/N leaned into her, resting her head on Clarisse’s shoulder as they watched the sky turn shades of orange and pink. It was peaceful here—far away from the chaos of the quest, the battles, and the dangers they had faced.

“I don’t know what I would’ve done without you,” Y/N murmured, her fingers tracing the outline of Clarisse’s hand.

Clarisse chuckled softly. “You’d have probably gotten yourself into even more trouble.”

Y/N looked up at her, meeting her eyes. “You’re probably right. But I think I’d always want you by my side, no matter what.”

Clarisse’s expression softened, and she leaned in to kiss Y/N again—this time a little more passionately. As they pulled apart, Clarisse’s eyes held a quiet intensity. “You’ve always had me, Y/N. No matter what happens next, I’m here. For good.”

Y/N smiled, her heart swelling in her chest. “Then let’s face everything together, Clarisse.”

They sat there for a long time, watching the sunset, wrapped in each other’s arms. The journey had been difficult—there had been pain, loss, and betrayal. But now, with Clarisse by her side, Y/N knew that no matter what the future held, they would face it together.

Their love, like the storm within Y/N, had been tested—but now it was calm, steady, and unwavering. And for the first time in a long while, Y/N felt truly at peace.

#percy jackson and the olympians #percy jackson #disney+#percy jackson and the Olympians x reader #clarisse la rue x reader #clarisse la rue

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apolloscastellan · 9 months ago

Text

You roll like thunder when you come crashing in | Luke Castellan

Pairing: Luke Castellan x female zeus!reader.

Summary: Luke gets injured during capture the flag and you go crazy, it forces you to confront your feelings (Angst+fluff).

Word count: 2.7k

Warnings: injury, loss of blood, use of y/n, female pronouns used to describe reader, ig this is ooc Luke, pre-tlt. Not beta'd we die like men, english isn't my first language, etc.

A/N: This is my first ever time publishing anything I've written so pease tell me what you think!

Luke feels like he’s been struck by lightning the first time he sees you. He is sitting down beside Thalia’s tree, talking to her absentmindedly, when he hears the most gut-wrenching scream he has ever heard. He sees you stumbling up the hill, covered in blood and dirt. You are holding up the body of your satyr protector, who struggles to walk. Catching up to you alarmingly quickly is one of the most terrifying monsters Luke has seen in a long time. You seem determined to keep running, even as your protector attempts desperately to get you to leave her behind. Luke knows he shouldn’t, but as he watches you give up trying to run away and prepare to fight, he wants to step outside of camp limits and help you. It seems like you don’t need his help, though, as you pull out a dagger from the back of your cargo pants and charge against the monster. Luke unfreezes then, calling out for the campers who can hear him to go “find Chiron!” When he looks back at you, you’re finishing the monster off. He forgets every protocol and safety rule when he sees you stumbling, sprinting towards you and catching you just in time before you pass out on his arms.

The first thing you notice when you wake up is that you are not in your room, or anywhere you recognize. You’re also not outside, the view of the sky that had become usual to you covered by a wooden ceiling. You sit up and look around, no one seems to be there, and when you look out the window you realize that it is probably because it is already dark outside. This must be the camp your protector was talking about, you realize. They are not very good at welcoming newcomers, it seems. Once you find a mirror to check that you don’t look crazy you decide to go outside to try to find someone who can confirm where you are, and hopefully help you settle in. When the wind hits your skin for the first time, you feel a chill run down your spine, you wonder how long you were unconscious for. You follow the voices you can hear singing to a plain terrain. A huge campfire lights up the place, teenagers and kids of all ages congregate around it singing, talking, laughing and eating s’mores. They are all wearing matching orange t-shirts. They look like a cult, you think, and the thought makes you giggle. That seems to pull somebody’s attention, and before you can realize what’s happening, there is a quiet murmur going around and everyone is looking at you. You freeze, suddenly feeling like you are crashing a party you were not invited to. You’re about to turn around and run when a boy with dark brown curly hair and a mischievous smile runs up to you. He couldn’t be older than sixteen, but something about him makes him look as if he is in charge.

“You’re finally awake” He whispers with a sigh.

“Sorry, I really don’t mean to be rude but do I know you? Also, where am I? And Why is everyone staring at me? It’s a little creepy”

He laughs openly, turning around to stare the rest of the kids down.

“Everyone, go back to your own conversations, there is nothing to see here” It’s a little crazy that he thinks it’s gonna work, but it’s even more crazy that it works, and everyone turns around within seconds. He extends his right hand towards you “I’m Luke Castellan, welcome to Camp Half-Blood.”

“y/n” you say, still shocked by his obvious power and shaking his hand. “So, this is the place Leela was talking about.”

You look around, Luke’s eyes fixated on you. Leela was your satyr protector, you met her only a couple weeks before arriving at camp. He is still looking at you when your eyes finally find him again.

“It is. The safe haven for demigods. How much do you know about Greek mythology?”

“A fair bit, the same about Camp Half-Blood, is that how you called it? I’m curious and there’s a lot of awkward silences when you’re traveling across the country” she jokes. “I know about the idea of camp, and about the cabins, the godly parent… When will I get claimed? Leela never told me that.”

The smile immediately drops off his face, an awkward grimace taking its place. He looks around, as if trying to find an excuse to run away. He comes back to the conversation empty handed.

It has been a year since you had arrived at Camp Half-Blood. You had found your place, in more ways than one. You were surprisingly good at sword-fighting, archery and Greek, and you had made many wonderful friends. But still, something was missing. You hadn’t been claimed. And because you had never met either of your parents, you couldn’t even rule out half of the options. You had tried everything, from becoming the best at every activity, to giving the most generous offers, but nothing seemed to work. Luke, who had become your best friend, was pulling his hair out in frustration. In your behalf, because how dare the gods ignore someone as wonderful and kind as you, but also in his because no matter how much he knew he loved you and wanted to be with you, he could not make a move without the fear that Hermes might claim you someday. His dad was not the most reliable of fathers. So he went about his life pretending he wasn’t dying inside to be able to kiss the sadness away from your face. The same sadness that was overwhelmingly present as you got yourselves and your team ready for capture the flag.

“Okay” he said as he clapped his hands to get the attention of the rest of the kids, knowing expanding your winning streak would be the easiest way to make you feel at least a little bit better. “Everyone knows what they’re doing? Good, if you don’t, go see Annabeth right now. Blue team, this victory is ours!”

The kids scatter as he walks back up to you. You’re fiddling with your armor, visibly frustrated. He lets you continue to try on your own until you groan in desperation. He takes the strap from you and buckles it himself.

“What’s wrong?” he asks next, his voice soft.

“Today’s the anniversary of when I first got to camp” you whisper. “And I know, I know that people wait for longer, that some never get to know who it is but I can’t help feeling this way. I’ve tried everything, it’s not fair.”

Luke’s heart breaks hearing you talk about your godly parent, the one person who is supposed to take care of you. But that is how the Gods work, they only care about themselves. He promises then, that he’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to you. For now, he pulls you close to him, wrapping his arms around your body and placing his chin on your head. You pull apart as the bell that signals the start of the game rings through the forest.

“I’ll see you after our win?”

“Definitely.” The smile on his face stays as he picks up his shield, running away from you.

He turns around right before you lose sight of him, giving you a military salute with his sword, pulling a giggle out of your mouth. You have been tasked with watch-out duty. You are a decoy, pretending to guard the flag so the kids in the other team come after you. You’re a good enough sword fighter to keep them entertained for a while on your own. You are bored for a while, until a group of three young Ares kids surrounds you. They are inexperienced and eager to prove themselves which makes them reckless. You could fight them off easily, and get them on their way, but you know that part of your mission is to stall them so you do your best to not give them your best moves. You’ve been sparring for a little bit when something throws you off. Someone is screaming your name. Through the forest you can see a little girl running towards you. Annabeth looks like she’s crying, which is enough to worry you, Annabeth never cries. The Ares kids try to use the distraction to attack, but you dodge their hits, quickly disarming them before running towards the girl screaming your name.

“Y/n! Come quickly! It’s Luke!”

He is the first thing your eyes lay on when you get to the clear Annabeth has led you to. He is on the floor, unconscious, his face covered in blood. You fall to your knees next to his body. Your hands are shaking, aching to do something, anything. There is not much you can do. You haven’t prayed in a while, having given up, but now, as you tear apart your t-shirt to cover the wound and stop the bleeding, and yell at the younger kids to “go find Chiron!” you beg any God that will listen to not let you lose your best friend. Someone touches your shoulder, whispering that you should move away. You’ve never felt this much rage. How dare someone tell you to walk away, to leave Luke’s side in this moment.

“Get off me!” You don't recognize your own voice as the scream leaves your mouth.

You realize slightly too late that the voice telling you to move was Chiron, but as you turn to apologize you are left speechless. The floor where Chiron had been standing just seconds before was completely burnt. When you look up, you realize why. There, shining above your head, was a lightning bolt.

“Zeus” Chiron said, his voice solemn, as the campers who had gathered to see what had happened, kneeled. “Energymaker, King of Gods, Father of Men. Hail, Y/n Y/l/n, Daughter of the Sky God.

You sit outside the back door of the infirmary for three days, unwilling to talk to anyone. For almost all campers, you’ve disappeared. They won’t let you see Luke, the Apollo kids take turns trying to convince you to go to your Cabin and get some sleep. You refuse. That's a new development, you have a Cabin now. A place where you belong, forever, not a temporary solution, or a rest stop, a place of your own. But the thought of walking into an empty, eerily silent mock of a home has you wanting to crawl out of your skin. You’ve become so used to sleeping through the noise of the Hermes Cabin’s campers you doubt you’ll be able to sleep on your own. And what are you going to do without being able to walk two steps and lay in Luke’s bed? Luke, who is currently unconscious inside the infirmary. Luke, who for some stupid reason you are not allowed to see. Luke, who is the reason why you haven’t even processed that you have been claimed. You have been claimed by Zeus no less. The king of the Gods, one of the Big Three. You can’t think of the implications, not when your best friend is battling between life and death so close to you, yet out of reach. You play with the food Annabeth had brought you, trying to forget the worry in her face as she tried to get you to say something. You know that Luke would have wanted you to move, take care of her and all the other campers, but you can't. He can’t be disappointed when he is unconscious. Still, you try your best, nodding at her words so she knows you’re listening. The door opens as you give up eating for the night. Mark, the Head Counselor of the Apollo Cabin looks down at you. He motions you to follow him with his head and you do so wordlessly. You don’t know what to think, and then you see him. He is sitting down, his back propped up with a pillow. He has bandages covering his reopened scar, and he gives you a sad smile when he finally spots you. You freeze for a second, unable to believe your eyes, before running and launching yourself towards him.

“I’m going to kill you” you say through the tears streaming down your face, hiding in the crook of his neck. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

You try to pull away but his arms stop you. You feel him shake his head.

“Don’t you dare, I’m fine.”

“I thought you were dead. I thought…”

“I’m ok… I’m ok now.”

“I got claimed.” You spit out suddenly, which makes Luke pull back, looking at you with wide eyes, a silent question in his face. “Zeus”

You can see his expression turn mournful as he remembers his old best friend. You’ve heard about Thalia, the quiet resentment you held for the girl who had undoubtedly held Luke’s heart had once made you feel terribly guilty. Now, you feel a sort of kin with her you had never felt before. You wish she was still here. You can see in Luke’s eyes he feels the same way.

“Daughter of the king of the Gods” he says finally, trying to be upbeat. “What a power trip. Hope it doesn’t get to your head. How’s the empty cabin? Much easier to sleep I hope?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been there yet” you breathe in and out. “I couldn’t leave you. The thought of anything happening to you…”

“Y/n…”

“No, let me finish. I need to get this off my chest.”

Alone with yourself for the past three days, you had had a lot of time to think. That is all you had done. Think about yourself, and your dad and your friends and the danger all of you were under just for being born. But mostly, you thought about Luke. And how he was the only person you felt truly comfortable with. And how you had this weird, guilt-inducing dislike of Thalia, not because she wasn’t good, you had never met her, but because she had Luke before you ever did, and you couldn’t stand it.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these past few days,” you finally breathe out. “And I have come to a couple realizations. Luke, I'm in love with you.”

It comes out of your mouth like a shot, unplanned and unbridled. You don’t know how you had planned to say it, but it was not like this.

“You’re what?” too embarrassed to look him in the eye, you shift your gaze to your lap.

“I’m in love with you. I don’t know how it happened, and I honestly don't know why I’m telling you. I guess watching you almost die made me realize life’s too short to keep secrets. You don’t have to say anything at all, but I love you.”

He’s already looking at you when you finally look up, his eyes wide, his mouth open. Nobody says anything for a couple of seconds. You search your brain for a joke, something to say to dispel the tension. You shouldn’t have said anything. You should’ve just kept it to yourself. Before you can continue further down your spiral he finally breaks his trance, pulling you towards him from the front of your ripped t-shirt and kissing you. Your lips move against his almost instinctively, and you can’t think of anything that’s not the taste of his tongue when it finally makes its way to your mouth, or the weight of his hands that have now shifted to your waist. You pull away when both of you need to breathe, but he doesn’t let you get very far.

“I love you too. I’ve loved you from the first day I met you. I’ve always known, you are it for me. I love you.”

At a loss for what to say, you kiss him again. Your hands cradle his face before moving to his curls. You kiss each other as if trying to convey the magnitude, the finality, of your feelings for each other. Luke is right. This is it, for both of you, You have finally found your person. Everything else is background noise from that point forward. You don’t care that the Gods are unfair and neglectful, or that you were born to a world destined to kill you. As long as you have Luke, you know it’ll be alright.

#Annie writes #Annie writes Luke #luke castellan x reader #luke castellan #percy jackson #luke pjo #luke castellan x you #luke castellan x y/n #percy jackson fanfiction #pjo series #pjo fanfic #luke x reader #luke castellan fanfic

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lesbianbarbaragordon · 7 months ago

Text

Still thinking about last night

”No, no, but seriously,” you start, adjusting on your seat, “it wasn’t that bad. At least not by the end. I felt like we had-“ a connection, that you managed to see him as he was for at least the brittlest of moments. But the sentence dies at the tip of your tongue. You prefer to keep that to yourself. pairing: tim drake x reader tags: stalking, average tim behavior, college student reader word count: 1.7k part 2 of Unraveling the World read part 1 here

“Do you look up all your girlfriends?”

Tim doesn’t like the insinuation, but he shoulders on because Barbara’s network is far more extensive than his, far more even than the Batcave’s, and this is a favour, after all.

Your face is on full display, a shot from your ID, taking up the main screen on Oracle’s setup. You don’t look very happy.

Your hair is longer than when he met you the other night, and he sees the fading of some sort of dye on the tips of your hair. 20 years old, born and raised in Gotham, there is nothing outstanding about you.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he replies as an afterthought, his eyes on the screens. You enrolled in GU last year, took up journalism as a major. Why would a college student live in a warehouse?

Because it has to be a warehouse, why else would it have been called like that in the files?

The incident that led him to your apartment is still something that embarrasses him. A mistake on his part, something that shouldn’t have happened.

He keeps going over the details, trying to understand; it was just the criminal of the week, a robbery gone wrong at a jewelry shop, hostages that shouldn’t have been there. He had been sneaky, gotten inside before anyone noticed, and released the hostages in record time (which was good, because when they started shooting, Tim was the only one inside). But one of the rogues got on the defensive when they saw he was one of the bats, had gotten a hit on Tim’s ear, and broken his comms. Then a shot in the darkness and a sharp pain took over his senses.

Which one was the lesser evil, running away to seek shelter while he was still lucid? Or detaining the rogues but risking further injury?

The final matter came down to “what would Bruce do?”

So Tim had pushed through, managed to knock them out, cuffed them somewhere the police would find them, and left before anyone else could see him.

The sky was raging, as expected of Gotham, when he stepped foot on the rooftops outside. His breathing was ragged, the pain was excruciating and he had left the Red Bird at the cave.

It only crashed down on Tim as the thunder and lightning erupted around him, shivering and in pain. Once the adrenaline left, it hit all at once-

He was alone.

It only took a second for the gears to kick in. He couldn’t access the Batcomputer, or call anyone who could help. He could take care of it without them, but where would he go? Leslie’s clinic was on the other side of the city, and after retiring it had fallen under new management, would whoever was i charge still treat vigilantes? There were no warehouses around the area either, not ones he remembered anyway, and the longer he thought, the more he started to fear bleeding out in the streets.

What other things did he have access to offline? His suit had prior saves of data, backup files from years prior. Tim accessed them with shaky hands.

As he thought, not many places to go to in the area, but there was somewhere marked as a safe place. Somewhere that wasn’t Bruce’s but that was listed as Bat equipped. He headed there with desperation clawing at his throat, pain drilling at the back of his eyelids.

But he didn’t find what he was expecting. Instead, there was you and a mundane house. Somewhere that looked lived in, rather than a closet stuffed with expensive tech and medical equipment.

He realized too late, that the information was outdated, that he was going to die from a mistake.

Except he didn’t. Except you were there.

And he wants to figure it out, what kind of sane person could possibly do what you had done? He wants to figure you out.

“She isn’t shady,” Barbara supplies unhelpfully. She starts looking over your school records, your extracurriculars, you studied at the same school he did, nothing out of the ordinary; A book club, perfectly good grades, no problems with teachers or classmates. There’s an internship registered under your name at one of Gotham’s local newspapers, and there, a few articles on topics like battok trends or the latest celebrity scandal. The few lines he skims read uninspired.

The only thing Tim finds unusual is paperwork from the year before, for a cat you had adopted.

“I didn’t see any pets.” At least not when he was there. His allergies would have started making him sneeze like a madman otherwise. But what could he possibly get from that?

You’re perfectly ordinary, so ordinary Tim can’t possibly figure out why you’d be living full-time in a Batman safehouse.

And it’s driving him crazy.

Barbara hums, saying your name, and then, she says your second surname, your mother’s maiden name, “Thompkins?”

“Thought it was common,” Tim shrugs because he hadn’t taken notice of the detail during his first research. Barbara sends him a pointed look.

“Who was the safehouse registered under?” It’s a simple question, Tim realizes his slip-up on the next beat.

“Is she related to Leslie Thompkins?”

“Grandniece looks more like,” Barbara supplies, pulling up your mother’s birth certificate. She digs up an old picture, a younger Leslie posing next to a smiling blonde woman, who holding up a med school diploma. Seems like your mother followed in her footsteps.

“The warehouse is registered under her name,” Barbara supplies, pulling up a scan of the apartment’s deed. Leslie Thompkins is clearly written as the owner. It must have been a safehouse for her, and subsequently for Batman, a long time ago. All before you took over. “You satisfied now?”

Tim says nothing at that, gnawing at his lip.

From the screen, your picture stares back.

…

“It was freaking scary.” You complain over your instant noodles. But they’re too hot and they scald, making you hiss. Your friend stares at you from across the table.

”Right.”

None of your high school peers stuck with you after graduation, so your list of friends remains painfully empty. And it would be a name shorter, had Claudia not appeared into your life.

You met during your internship, where she was interning too, at the literature department of the magazine. You’re both close in age and enjoy reading classics, so you spend lunch breaks together and bond over trash-talking your coworkers. She’s one of the few people you talk to in an otherwise silent existence. And she’s quite funny, too.

”It feels like one of those trashy romance novels, right?” She gestures openly, a sandwich in her hand. You’ve been telling her about your encounter with Red Robin for a lack of anything else. It’s the only interesting thing that’s happened to you in a while. “‘The superhero crashed at my place! And oh no, he’s naked!’.”

You snort, slapping her arm, “he was not naked! And it wasn’t romantic at all! I was so scared I’d throw up all over him from the stress!”

She chokes on a piece of ham, then starts to laugh. You start laughing too.

It’s a relief having Claudia to make it all sound less scary.

Her laughing stops when her phone beeps and she pulls it out. Meanwhile, you choose to entertain yourself with your food.

”Is it that twitter account?” You ask half curiously. She hums in response, not looking up from the screen.

”Seems like bird boy hasn’t been seen in a while,” Claudia scrolls down her feed as she talks, quickly liking posts or replying to comments. She runs a popular fan account in her spare time that revolves around Gotham vigilantes, which is not a niche topic. Most of the accounts themed around the bats, much like Claudia herself, are not native to Gotham. Rather, they’re from Metropolis or San Francisco, where the public regularly sees Superman or the Titans. Gothamites don’t have that kind of relationship with their heroes. “Red Robin’s been out of the streets since last Friday.”

”I guess that means you’re not lying,” she says teasing, which makes you blow a raspberry, “how did you do it, though? I would have messed up so bad.”

”Eh,” you start halfheartedly, “I took pre-med classes all through high school. I’ve forgotten most of it, though, but what little I knew came in handy,” you shrug, leaning back against your chair, “he had some pretty useful stuff, too. Super fancy equipment. That definitely helped.”

“Anyone else would have tried seeing under his mask, and you’re telling me what stuck out to you was his equipment?” Claudia laughs. “Maybe your next article will be about the bats’ tools. Does Batman carry around bat-bandaids? What about bat-snacks?”

You choke on your food, pushing down a laugh. It would be better than the stuff you’ve been writing about for these past few months, anyway. There are only so many influencers you can interview without going crazy.

“He was your favorite, you said, no?” Claudia catches on and continues, “I’d be just like you if Nightwing crashed into my apartment too.”

You’re about to retaliate, because-

Because what happened was not without meaning. You had realized he was more than an ephemeral figure or a distant idol, something as tangible as you, and that had made you stop fearing, for better or for worse.

But your boss peeks his head around the corner and takes sight of you both. “Your break is over,” he says and stands in the doorway as he watches you tidy up and throw empty containers and coffee cups into the bin.

Just as you’re leaving you catch something by the corner of your eye. On the TV is a fuzzy image of something humanoid, vaguely red and black.

Wherever you go, the shadow of Red Robin follows.

#tim drake x reader #tim drake #batman #red robin x reader #tim drake imagine #red robin imagine #dc comics imagine #batfam x reader #batfam imagine #batfam x you #tim drake x you #red robin x you #tim drake x y/n #red robin x y/n #dc comics x reader #dc comics x you #batfam x y/n #tim drake one shot

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urween · 2 months ago

Text

Skittish | Bucky Barnes x ftm!reader | english version

summary: After a long battle and especially hard research, the Avengers finally found the Winter Soldier. To keep everyone safe, they keep him locked in their HQ. In semi-freedom but especially in a trance, Bucky Barnes attracts the attention of the young boy in charge of taking care of him during his stay here.

notes: I prefer to specify it, the temporality is not exactly respected. Let's say that all this takes place just after Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

⚠︎ warnings: mentions of heavy trauma related to the war and the Hydra projects, a form of depressed!Bucky, violence, weapons, incomprehension of transidentity without transphobia, mentions of suicidal thoughts.

English isn't my first language, sorry for the mistakes <3

- 2nd person description

- 5 371 words

french version here

You were the little protégé of the group, he had quickly noticed. Even if Natasha didn't have superpowers or a robotic suit either, she was part of the team. She and Clint were kind of the superhumans of the group, with superhuman abilities but nothing that surpassed Thor's lightning or Hulk's muscles. Then, there was you, a fairly normal little human with no particular specificities. High intelligence, extreme kindness and an adorable smile. But no mastery of martial arts. You knew the basics of fighting, Nat had taught you the main thing. You had ended up understanding Bruce's extravagant chemical formulas, and you understood the most important things Tony said in his intense nerd phases. But once again, you were nothing special, and that made Bucky wonder. Why was a basic human here? What were you doing in the middle of the Avengers? Even though he had missed a few decisive years from a social point of view, he didn't understand.

As he stared from his cell, he saw scenes he didn't know how to interpret. You assisting Tony Stark and Jarvis, you laughing with Bruce Banner, you helping Natasha Romanoff train, you carrying Steve Rogers' shield to him, you sorting Clint Barton's arrows, you redoing Thor's braids.

What were you doing there?

You had cheerfully introduced yourself to him. With a friendly smile on your lips, you had stated your name, first name and pronouns – he hadn't really understood this last point –. You had surely been informed of his situation. Don't be offended, he'll need a little time, someone must have whispered to you. He hadn't answered you, and you hadn't seemed offended. You had then left, and he had remained perplexed. If you already knew everything about him, why come and introduce yourself? You must have read his files, you must have all read his files. Steve had to slip away to get some air, Natasha inspected everything in detail, Bruce muttered "it’s awful". You had to read his files. See his life laid out on a large table, foreign hands going over the medical reports. You had to read with anguish the endless list of victims he had killed during his missions, observe the modifications that had been made to him, the treatments inflicted, the pains endured. You had seen all that. Then, why come see him?

"Let's just say I don't really like you hanging around this guy," Tony's voice had been saying for several minutes, "Jarvis copy this plan for me and make a 3D reconstruction with train stations, airports and all the stuff."

The holograms moved before your eyes, but you hadn't paid attention to them. Back then, the first time you saw this virtual world being modeled in Tony's office, you were like a kid. Stars in your eyes, you asked a thousand questions per second, making the creator of this program smile. But now you knew yourself how most of the "Jarvis" system worked, and you weren't so impressed anymore, or at least you weren't with every move Stark made.

"I don't see what's bothering you," you replied, innocently swinging your legs in the air.

Tony turned around with his ever-so-dramatic gestures, making a vague movement with his hand he tried to make you understand things without having to speak. Unfortunately for him telekinesis was not part of your abilities.

"Okay," he admitted to himself, defeated, "to start with his sophisticated robotic arm that could crush you before you could scream," he mimed disinterestedly, “did you look at him? Unstable and completely high."

A non-hidden smile drew a curve across your lips.

"We're still talking about Bucky Barnes?” you had fun, “because I rather have the impression that you're looking at yourself in a mirror"

You glanced at Jarvis, who was finishing your friend's request. Then, your attention went back to the billionaire who was visibly desperate to have this discussion with you – you were getting used to it, a demonstration of love coming from Tony –.

"I prefer to cut you off right now," your voice continued, "I forbid you to give me the traditional excuses like he's dangerous or armed or he's a murderer”. You got down from the table where you were sitting and gestured around the room, “look around Tony, only weapons or future weapons,” you got closer to him and pointed at his forehead, “you have the greatest weapon that humanity has ever known in this skull. Natasha and Clint are professional killers, Steve is a traumatized soldier who makes a denial, Thor is an alien with supernatural powers and Bruce is a scientist haunted by a destructive alter-ego”. You pause to admire the still indecipherable facial expression of the man in front of you, “you are all murderers and dangers to Mankind, the only difference between you and Barnes is that you chose to devote your talents to a cause, and he had no choice".

Tony remained motionless for a few long seconds, a whirlwind surely vibrating his neurons. Then, he shrugged his shoulders and quickly bowed his head in defeat.

"You're right," he declared, "I’ve no more arguments and yours are solid”, he turned and went back to Jarvis, “well done kid"

A year ago you would have been perplexed by this reaction, but time had taught you that you had to take Tony Stark with a grain of salt and observe him as you would with a foreign mushroom. All you could remember from this interaction was that you were tired, that you had won against the great megalomaniac Iron Man and above all that you had to talk to Barnes again.

No one had really agreed with Steve on the idea of bringing a Hydra mercenary back to Avengers HQ. It's the equivalent of serving him our secrets on a silver platter, Clint had rightly said. You had been surprised to see Nat defend Barnes, alongside you and Steve – of course –. There was Bruce who couldn't deliver a distinct judgment, then Tony and Clint who were against. Thor having left, you didn't know where in space, the votes had therefore been closed with a majority of for.

You had helped Captain set up a room that was at least habitable in a protective cell, a bit like the one that had sheltered Loki. While the tall blond carried the fold-out bed, you had taken care of a bag of clothes – approximately Barnes' size – and another with water and sweets, this idea had come from you. You found it unfair to call this man a simple murderer, he had been manipulated and controlled. As you put the cereal bars on a small iron table, you tried not to think about the chaos that must be going on in the Winter Soldier's head at the same time. He must have been just as traumatized as his victims, maybe even more so. And finding himself in such a particular environment overnight must have been disturbing. So a chocolate bar and a soda couldn't hurt him.

Thank you, Steve had murmured, for understanding. You had given him a touching smile, holding back the urge to ask him how he felt. He had just found his best friend, who was supposed to have disappeared for several decades, and on top of that, this friend had suffered inhumane treatment for most of his life now. It was obvious that he didn't feel well, that he was helpless in the face of this situation. Bruce had advised you to give him time, and that if he needed it, he would end up talking to one of you. You had listened to his advice, and focused more on Barnes instead.

You had introduced yourself first, starting with a simple acquaintance. You had then made sure to take care of his needs, slipping in a new bottle of fresh water when the previous one was empty, opening his prison only when night fell so that he could go shower without running into a contemptuous Tony or a depressed Steve.

On this subject, rules had been established to guarantee everyone's safety. If Bucky left his cell it was always in the company of one of you – you were the only ones with the passes –, if he asked for something – which he never did – the object had to pass through several control portals before being given to him, and finally no matter where he went, toilets or showers, someone had to watch over him within the limits of privacy. Bruce had offered to take turns, but judging by the faces of the others you had volunteered to ensure most of his outings. Natasha was supposed to replace you when you weren't available, then Tony if neither of you were present. This way you had avoided conflicts but also and above all Steve wouldn't have to go there.

You didn't know him, Bucky, having only seen the videos in his file, and yet every time you went to visit him your stomach knotted. There was no question of fear, since his robotic arm had been censored to the maximum thanks to a Stark gadget, leaving him only the freedom to use it as a normal limb, without super-strength or integrated weapons. He remains a super soldier, Bruce had warned, his physical faculties are superior to Nat's and he has a serum similar to Steve's in his veins. But you weren't afraid. Unfortunately a goat would have made you shiver more than Barnes when you went to see him. He was always on pause. Never spoke, barely moving his gaze from the ground. You had been reassured to see that he ate the bare minimum, and he had even tasted a chocolate bar one day. But aside from these details, it was as if you were seeing the same robot in the same position, day after day. Your stomach knotted for these reasons, because when you brought him clean sheets he had nothing of the man you had seen on video. The rage that haunted his eyes had disappeared, there was only a nameless emptiness left, and you had never seen anything so sad. You didn't feel like you had a hundred-year-old Hydra soldier in front of you, but a broken orphan.

You spent a lot of time rereading his file, his reports, his exams. You tried to understand him through these papers. Steve was lost, he no longer saw Buck in those eyes, and you were trying to understand what he had become, Buck. According to his personal file, he had been found at the age of twenty-six before undergoing Hydra’s experiments. A photo of him, in 1943, was stuck to the paper. A shy smile on his lips, his infantry hat slightly tilted on his head and his uniform without a crease sitting proudly on his chest. A tear had seriously rolled down your cheek, ending its path in a Russian handwriting: Зимний Солдат, in other words Winter Soldier. Bruce had carried out a complete tradition of all the documents, later corrected by Natasha. Maybe rereading these texts was not good for you, but you needed it. You were the only one here who was interested in Barnes. Steve felt so guilty that he was in a kind of denial, Nat was only coldly studying the soldier’s file and let’s not even talk about the others. Bucky needed time, understanding and gentleness to at least not make his after-effects worse. You most certainly had to make mistakes, not being a psychologist by profession, but you were already doing better than your comrades and than Hydra.

"Nice evening, huh?" Your voice echoed in a leaden silence.

The sun had set for over three hours, most of the Avengers were in their rooms or gone outside, which meant that it was the perfect time for Barnes to take a shower. You had gathered your strength and went to the soldier's cell. When you had passed by, about two hours ago, he had not wanted to eat his meal so you had taken it back and heated it up again for later. With the hot dish in one hand, you carefully closed the armored glass door behind you. As you expected, Barnes had hardly moved since your last visit. Still sitting cross-legged in his bed, he seemed vaguely to notice your presence.

"I know you didn't want to eat earlier," you began, putting the meal down next to him, "but I thought that maybe your appetite had returned in the meantime."

Sometimes you were entitled to a small, hoarse "hum" from the back of his throat as a response, but you wondered if it was intentional since his gestures didn't match this slight sign of life. Unfortunately, tonight wasn't part of that "sometimes." No noise, barely a breath. But you didn't get discouraged.

The first few times you came to talk to him, his complete lack of reaction had made you wonder about his possible understanding of your language. Yet you had read that he read and spoke at least two languages, including yours. You might not understand what I'm telling you, you had mumbled while picking up his used clothes. Your biggest interaction with him had been when he had looked you straight in the eye and said in a pleasantly deep voice: I understand.

“Other than that you can-”

You were surprised to see him stand up on his own, studiously heading towards the exit door while waiting for you to open it. You were usually the one who went first to the exit, waiting two or three seconds for him to get up and join you. But this was a nice surprise, maybe it meant that his condition was improving.

Your electromagnetic pass stuck to the dashboard, a small beep sounded before you pushed the heavy door and let Barnes go first. These security questions were mandatory for you to approach the Winter Soldier. Always making him walk in front of you, making your pass inaccessible – hidden in your sleeve most of the time as Bruce had advised you –, a bladed weapon concealed against your ankle in case of trouble, and you weren't supposed to talk to him about yourself or the team. Clint had wanted to add an additional rule: not to speak to him unless necessary, to prevent any risk of manipulation. Did you look at him carefully? Had you imposed yourself in the discussion, he didn't utter any opposition during the whole process to bring him back here, and then remember his mission reports, he wasn't a spy but a mass murderer, he was programmed to speak as little as possible to his victims. Tony had agreed with you on the subject, recalling the case of Loki – once again – who was very different from Barnes.

Stupid rules, you thought as you watched the silhouette of the man in front of you advance in the long corridor. If the others saw him for more than five minutes, they would realize that he was nothing more than a victim in this cell. They all found you a little naive and they appreciated you for that, a ray of hope in the midst of chaos. Yet you were by far the one with the best perception of the others. Each villain had arguments, good or bad, you listened to them all. You reasoned with the team, making them come out of their superhero bubble to show them the possibility of a little levity.

You did not doubt the abilities of Barnes, you wanted to find yourself face to face with him even less than with Nat – and that was already a lot –. You sometimes looked again at the surveillance videos taken the day Natasha and Steve fought him for the first time. He was hypnotizing, in the way all his movements seemed to come together with such fluidity and speed, the way his body thought for him and acted accordingly. You were dizzy from a roll in comparison, so seeing it all was astounding. Of course, there were horrible explanations behind these gifts, just like most people who could reproduce all this, but you still couldn't help but analyze these videos. And then, there in that hallway, you looked at Barnes' back, his arm gleaming, the red star enthroned there, and you wondered what was going on in his mind. What he could do was inhuman, and seeing it in image reinforced that feeling.Then you had to realize that he was a human being, who had once been like you. His way of functioning had to have been completely disrupted, distorted and destroyed. We had to reduce to crumbs what had been to build what was now, that was how it worked. To adapt to a new environment we were always advised to forget everything we thought we knew, all the movies said it. In the same way that flat-earthers were convinced that the Earth was flat, Barnes no longer saw the world the way you did.

As the rules said, you discreetly put your pass in a pants pocket as you reached the bathroom. Simple locks served as security, and it was more than enough. No one except you had ever mentioned the possibility that Bucky was trying to end his life. If he did, the bathroom was the best place, which is why a simple lock would do the trick so that you or someone else could break down the door if necessary. But you avoided thinking too much about this exit, because through the few interactions you had had with him and the thoughts you had about him, you had become truly attached to him.

You opened the shower curtain, under Barnes' intrigued gaze. Each Avengers had a bathroom with the bare minimum in their room, but there were also three larger bathrooms on the second floor. These were the rooms to clean yourself in an emergency when you came back covered in blood, or Bruce went there in the event of a green alert for example. They were more accessible than the bedrooms, which explained this function. But what made Bucky curious was not that. You always gave him room number two, with a basic shower, a sink and a toilet. But there you were in number one, with a bathtub. He quickly detailed the room, slightly larger and apart from the bathtub there was nothing that differentiated it from number 2. As always, you had previously removed all objects that could be used as weapons. The pile of two clean towels overhung by harsh soap and shampoo – to avoid the risk of swallowing or too aggressive eye attacks – and the washcloth, were still carefully placed on the edge of the sink. So why a bathtub?

As if you were reading his mind, you turned around in a fluid movement. You took the time to appreciate Barnes' expressive gaze – it was so rare – before answering his questions.

"I assumed it must have been years since you had a real bath, you tried to avoid the Hydra subject, so I thought it could be a good idea?”

A good number of emotions passed through the blue of his eyes, only accentuating your apprehension about his reaction. No one had been even friendly to him for a long time, which meant that he was going to take a while before properly reacting. But as you had imagined, his gaze scanned the bathtub behind you at breakneck speed in search of a trap. I'm not like them, you thought with a pang of heart.

"I know what you must be telling yourself, but there is no trap Bucky,” his name resonated more than you would have imagined, “it's going to be long but believe me I'm not trying to kill you or hurt you"

A heavy doubt seemed to weigh, and you could only understand. This kind of sentence, he must have heard far too many before ending up electrocuted or worse. To help his process, you moved away and let him fully observe the place. His eyes locked on the shower head longer than expected, and once again, you felt nauseous as you imagined the traumas that must be replaying in his head. In that moment, you thought back to the first time you had led him into a bathroom. He had refused to get into the shower, his jaw clenched to the point that his teeth must have hurt, he had stared at you with a cocktail of indecipherable emotions in his eyes. You had ended up remembering the treatment reserved for Jews in the showers during the Second World War, and you had immediately apologized. Sorry, I should have thought of that, you had said guiltily, if you want you can just wash yourself with the washcloth and the faucet water, no need for the shower head today if you don't trust it. And the situation seemed to be happening again tonight, he was afraid that you would want to get rid of him during his shower, or bath in this case. Unfortunately, techniques have evolved since 39-45, especially since he was in the HQ of the greatest engineer in the United States, which meant that you could have found many methods to kill him while he was washing.

But you had to find a way to reassure him, because you had no intention of executing him quietly, and you wanted to be sincerely nice.

"Maybe if it reassures you I can-,” you hesitated before telling yourself that it was for a good cause, “I can stay with you? There's a curtain anyway"

Faced with his expression that swayed from surprise to doubt, you felt obliged to justify.

"If there's gas or an explosion, I'll die with you, which wouldn't be very appreciated by the team”, you paused slightly to gauge his reaction, “and if there's anything else threatening you can kill me yourself since I'll be right next to you”. You then brandish the door’s key between your two fingers, “on top of that I lock us in and leave the key on the edge of the bathtub, so I don't run away and lock you behind me"

You had the strong impression that in another time, Barnes would have smiled, maybe even laughed. Then, to your surprise, you saw a semblance of amusement in his eyes. An almost invisible veil that lasted only a second, just long enough for a distant version of him to take over the Winter Soldier. You couldn't help your smile, waiting despite everything for a more concrete reaction before reacting in return.

Bucky tried to get a dominant emotion out of the hubbub that was playing in his mind. You were definitely different, and he was beginning to understand why you had your place in the middle of a band of superhumans. And even if someone who spoke like you had the perfect profile to manipulate people at a high level, he risked taking his chance.

"Can I have twenty seconds alone to undress"

The shiver that electrocuted your entire body surely did not go unnoticed. His voice, his tone, gave a more directive than questioning turn to his question, and you only nodded slightly. In turn, you became as silent as him, too disturbed by the outburst of reactions on his part in such a short time. You left the bathroom, pushed the door behind you without closing it, because despite your shock, your unconscious valued your safety.

While you waited for some signal authorizing you to enter the room, you wandered on new thoughts. Barnes had not spoken to anyone from what you had been told. The cameras had recorded that during the fight to neutralize him he had spoken, a few Hydra men were with him so you had assumed that he was giving them orders in Russian. Natasha had been too busy trying not to die to pay attention to what he had said, but in hindsight, you wanted to know what had come out of his mouth that day. Tony liked to say that Russian was one of the least welcoming languages in the world, but strangely hearing it from Bucky made you want to. Maybe it was his growling voice, maybe because Russian had been his “native” language for years. Besides Russian, he spoke other languages according to reports, but then again he hadn’t shown off his skills to anyone but you. Besides, I’m pretty much the only one he’s seen since he arrived, you thought. But he had still had the opportunity when Bruce had come with you to visit him to check a wiring on the dashboard. He could have done it from his cell too, since it was completely transparent and he could see the hallway where many people passed, he could have talked. But he hadn’t, and without knowing why you had the feeling that he only wanted to talk to you.

The sound of water almost made you jump. You muttered a curse – hoping Bucky hadn’t heard – before slowly turning towards the door.

“Can I?” You rather ask to avoid a drama.

By the time he answered, you let your mind wander again. What if he was just naked in the middle of the room? Hydra had conditioned him to lose all sense of ownership, to make even his body no longer belong to him, which he meant was that nudity was no longer taboo and that on the contrary – given to the horrors these people had done – they could very well have forced him to stay naked to humiliate him further.

"Yes," his voice echoed vaguely.

Preparing yourself for the worst, you took a deep breath and kept your eyes high to avoid any eye contact in the wrong place. But as you opened the door you were relieved to see the curtain halfway drawn and Bucky already in the water. A feeling, which at the time you compared to a parent proud of their child, warmed your heart. It may not have been much in the eyes of the world, but you imagined the man's feelings when he plunged a body that had become almost unknown into warm water prepared for him, and him alone. Comfort, surprise, relief. A lot must have been going on in the Winter Soldier's head.

You closed the door behind you, locking the exit as planned. But as you moved closer to place the key next to him, a second wave of heat passed through your body as you realized something. He had only drawn the curtain halfway, thus hiding the lower part of his body but leaving you all the pleasure of seeing from his torso. Once again, in other measures you would not have found the situation moving, but rather comical. Except that this is the Winter Soldier, and all his communication was done without voice. He had left his arms and face visible so that you too could see that he wasn't a threat. In the same way that you had found a solution to his anxiety, he was taking a step towards you, showing you that you had no reason to fear him at the moment.

"Thank you," you murmured.

As if you were afraid of breaking the moment, you settled down without a sound. There was no chair here, but the floor suited you. You crossed your legs while resting your back against the small extension of the wall attached to the bathtub. This way, you stayed close enough to him while respecting a necessary distance to avoid seeing the rest of his naked body.

You forgot to check the time, no longer counting the minutes of observation that the man in front of you gave you before asking questions.

Bucky stayed in the water for a whole hour before it started to cool down. You spent all your time detailing his relaxed face, his eyes closed as if he was going to fall asleep from one second to the next. Then when he opened his eyelids again, he looked at you in turn for a few seconds, before asking you if he could get out of the bath. In his sentence, reality hit you again.

You had a mad desire to tell him that he was free, that he no longer had to take orders. You wanted to show him the world, to make him taste vanilla ice cream, to make him smell incense in churches, the greasy of triple burgers. You had the need to see him buy with his own money, help him get up from his first falls. When he looked at you with his big blue eyes, waiting for your permission to get out of a bath, you wanted to ask him for forgiveness, in the name of humanity. To promise him that no one would come and hit him, to promise this little boy that nothing would happen to him, that he could live a peaceful and happy life with his friends and family. But looking at the raw skin on his left shoulder, looking at the weapon that was implanted in his body, you felt your stomach turn. No one had been there to protect this child from Brooklyn, none of the people who had done this to him had even felt sorry for this man. And today he was sleeping in a cell capable of resisting the strength of the Hulk.

"You can get out of the bath," your voice broke.

He obeyed, rolling the superhuman muscles of his body to straighten up. You barely moved, being too far away in your thoughts to even think of looking away from him. A new blow was dealt to your heart as you realized that yes, he no longer had any notion of possession over his body. Two drops of water fell against your calf as he grabbed the largest towel and wiped his skin without emotion. The rough sound of the fabric made you shiver, and then you slowly stood up. He was taller than you, but neither that nor his robotic arm stopped you from grabbing his wet towel. His body failed to react when you passed the white fabric against his arm, his face was frozen in an expression of total incomprehension, faced with the softness with which the towel came into contact with his skin.

You finished your task, as if he were just a tiny puppy to wipe. Then, you took three steps back and fixed your eyes on his. You handed him some clean clothes, before taking the key back and heading towards the door.

“I really need some hot chocolate,” your voice still broken with tears declared, “and I’d love to share it with you, Bucky.”

Your slightly trembling hand wiped the moisture from your cheeks, then gradually turned back to the soldier after unlocking the exit. He had already dressed, the black jogging bottoms falling low on his hips. Bucky examined your face, and his eyebrows met in a half-confused, half-sad expression. He got close enough to you for you to feel the warmth he gave off.

“No cinnamon,” he said, “I don’t think I like it.”

You let out a nervous chuckle, telling yourself that only you could find yourself in these situations.

“No cinnamon.”

There was a first time for everything, and when you saw – later that night – whipped cream on the Winter Soldier’s lips, you thought that after all, the child could not be saved but that you could bring the man back to life.

pictures : Pinterest

dividers : @/strangergraphics, @/pommecita et @/thecutestgrotto

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water-to-drink · 9 months ago

Text

Be a Gladiolus in a Field of Belladonnas pt10

Tree Hugger

(Summary): After narrowly escaping detection from the Natlan army it seems that the one from before has caught up with you and company

Part 1 Last Part Next Part

✧ Masterlist ✧

(Characters): Traveler!Lumine, Paimon, Abyss Prince!Aether, Childe, and ???

(Tags/Warnings): gn!reader, potentially bad fight scene, potentially ooc, potential inaccurate descriptions of Natlan, (lmk if I missed anything)

(Word Count): 2.1k

You ran until the layer of snow became thinner and the crunch beneath your shoes resonated less and less. of a heatwave. You ran until the sun that was once rising now sets and paints the sky with a beautiful mixture of red, orange, and purple. You ran despite your feet hurting beyond belief, but the adrenaline kept you pushing forward. You ran despite your lungs burning hotter and a summer day in the midst

Your feet become heavy and your movements became almost sluggish, it seems that Lumine has noticed this

Lumine looks over her shoulder towards you but you see her looking over you and her eyes widen in horror. You look in the same direction and your heart dropped. Just far into the distance you spotted the same jaguar like mask you saw back in Snezhnaya coming at you full speed

“Guys, someone’s found us!” Lumine yelled as she quickly pushed you behind her and summoned her sword

Your assailant summons their weapon, a long wooden claymore lined with pieces of sharp obsidian blades. They swung it at the traveler who expertly dodged the attacks. When Lumine swings her sword the masked individual blocks it with a shield decorated with colorful feathers. They lift up their club to strike Lumine but Aether comes in and stops the attack

The two fall into a familiar rhythm of fighting the attacker and covering the other, Lumine making swings with her right hand whilst Aether does the same with his left hand

The assailant takes out a cord with 3 balls tied to the ends of it and they swing it above their head before throwing it. The string entangles itself around Lumine’s ankles making her fall to the ground. Aether looks at Lumine to ensure she’s okay

“Aether watch out!” Lumine warns

The prince turns around to see their attacker about to deal a blow, but they put up their shield to block the hydro infused arrows, however some water splashes onto them

Seeing the opportunity Aether throws a few lightning strikes towards the assailant to stun them

Childe uses his hydro vision to make a pair of blades and charges at them. Still in a daze the attacker couldn’t react in time to block the slices dealt by the ginger

Lumine finally was able to untangle herself from the bolas

“Childe get down!” Lumine warned and she blasted a large cryo attack at the assailant, freezing them in place

Finally getting their bearings the masked individual puts their hands up in defeat. “I admit defeat, I expected nothing less from the three of you.” They finally spoke

“Who are you?” Aether said while pointing his sword at their neck

Their hands slowly make their way behind their head to remove the mask from their face. You spot two rounded ears covered in a rosette pattern, yellow eyes with slits in the pupils, and short reddish hair

“Oh my god!” You shouted out in surprise. “Wait, who are you?”

“I’m the high priestess in Natlan, Chimalma, I aid the mighty warriors in various thing, but that’s a topic for some other time.” Chimalma introduced herself

“Why should we trust you, for all we know you could have alerted your forces about us.” Aether asked still untrusting of the supposed high priestess

“I know what happened between you and the Raiden Shogun, her seeing your golden blood.” They stated matter of factly. “I also know that the Fatui has been searching for these ‘primogems’, but you haven’t had any luck finding more.”

“How do you know that?!” Lumine asked as she and Childe got in front of you ready to protect you in a moment’s notice

“I don’t mean to bring harm to their Grace, we only wish to help you on your journey.”

“Wait, ‘we?’ Who else is with you?” You asked

“Chimalma wouldn’t have known about your situation if a little birdie hadn’t told her.” A voice replied, you turned your head to see the iconic long pink hair with pink ears drooping because of heavy gold earrings with purple gems, one earring holding an electro vision

“Yae?!” You, Lumine, and Paimon shouted in unison

“Why hello your Grace.” The Guji greeted

“Wh-why are you here?! And how did you know that I’m not the imposter?!”

“Well the Shogun puppet came to the shrine one day and told me about the incident, she even told me about despite Ei seeing your blood but she was forced to raise her blade against you.” You saw Yae’s usual playful expression uncharacteristically turn into one of pain. “I apologize for our little priestess’ brash behavior earlier, I will deal with them later.”

“Wait, I understand where she learned the incident with Ei but how did she learn about the Fatui?!”

“It’s simple,” Chimalma said as she raised her hand out and a blue hummingbird flew over and perched itself her hand. “I had spies watching.”

“Birds talk here?!” You gasped in shock

“They do but only a chosen few can understand them. Soon you’ll understand them.”

“We need to head out soon, it’s getting late and do something about your clothes.” Yae looks over her shoulder and made a little gesture with her hand, a decent sided wooden carriage pulled by animals you don’t recognize and two men dressed in what you assumed to be Natlan clothing come out of the carriage. The twin instantly get in front of you at the sight of the men, sensing your nervousness they give Yae the box and kneel down before you

“Just as Lady Chimalma said, we don’t mean to bring you any harm.” One stated

“We would rather see that our end is met by your hands if you see us as untrustworthy .” The other continued

“No, you’re good. I’m not killing anyone except my doppelganger.” You reassured them

“Natlan warriors are an intense bunch.” Yae said as she walks towards you with the wooden box. “I know it’s not much but it’s all that we could find in such a short period.” Yae opens the box to reveal 7 Primogems

You take the gems and they disappear into a glittery blue dust very reminiscent of a nebula in space. You felt a tiny bit of power course through your arm and up to your chest causing an involuntary shiver racks through your body

“Whoa, I actually felt something this time.” You chuckled

“That’s good to hear, but I know a more effective method to getting your old powers back.”

“Really? What is it?” Paimon asked

“We need to go to Natlan for that.” Chimalma said as she melted the ice trapping her feet in place

“Don’t worry, little one. I will ensure your safety.” Yae said putting her hand on your shoulder in a gesture of reassurance. “However, before we enter Natlan’s boarder’s you all need to change into something less eye catching.” Yae said gesturing to your clothes

The Guji snapped her fingers and the two men go back into the carriage and bring out various clothing items, they present them to you and company

“You have to change out of your clothes to avoid suspicion.” Yae advised

You and the others quickly put on the disguises which consisted of a thick cloth shirt, leggings with a rosette pattern similar to the one that Chimalma has on her ears, and a wooden helmet carved in the shape of a bird, but you were told that could be put on later when in Natlan. Now you resembled the two men clothing wise, you all were ushered into the carriage and settled in. There was only enough room for you and Miko to sit on one side while the others sat right in front of you. The carriage began to make the long journey from Snezhnaya to Natlan, maybe the fact that you were finally stationary in hours because you found yourself dozing off and you almost rested your head on Yae’s shoulder

“You look tired, my dear. Why don’t you rest a little for now.” Yae smiled as she patted her thighs inviting you to lay your head on them

“Oh! A-are you sure, don’t want to impose…” You stuttered out as heat rushes to your face

“Nonsense, you need all the rest you can get, remember you have a long journey ahead of you.”

“If you say so.” You said and laid your head down in her lap. Yae’s lap felt like heaven, you don’t know if it’s due to the fact that you’ve slept in a cave and spent the whole day running but her thighs were spiritually healing. You were so preoccupied with the comfort you were experiencing you completely missed the death glares thrown at Yae, who in turn smirked triumphantly

The next thing you feel is Yae gently shaking you awake, you sat up and in your groggy state you looked around and remembered where you are.

“We’re here.” Chimalma said as you all got out of the carriage and looked at the beautiful landscape. “Welcome to the nation of pyro, Natlan.”

“How did we get here that fast?” You asked in amazement

“It’s a secret~” Yae said holding her finger in front of her smirking lips

You look around to see reddish orange mountains with various paintings on them. A tap on your shoulder brings your attention towards Yae

“It isn’t safe to be out there for too long without your mask.”

You put on the wooden helmet and followed Yae and Chimalma who lead you and company to a tree with parts of its bark a glowing shade of blue

You see the two hybrids looking at you and the tree expectantly

“Ohh! Uhh, how do I ‘resonate’ with the tree?” You asked

“The same way our dear traveler resonates with the statues of the seven, by touching them.” Yae answered

You hesitantly extends your hands and rest your finger tips on the tree. After a while your tense shoulders slowly relax and you press your palms on the bark. The moment you spot the blue parts of the tree start glowing brighter than before you instantly withdrew your hands. The soft giggles from Yae drew your attention towards the Guji, she takes your hands and leads them back to the tree

“Relax, just concentrate on connecting with the tree.”

You took a deep breath and closed your eyes, focusing on the tree you feel power and warmth course through you. You take your hands off the tree and open your eyes to see the blue parts glowing brightly

“So how do you feel?” Lumine asked

“That was intense, but other than that I feel the same.” You replied

“Summon some fire!” Chimalma urged

You hesitantly held out your dominant hand and imagined a flame coming out from your hand and once the image comes into your mind a decently sized fire envelopes your hand. Surprisingly the flame doesn’t hurt you and after a while the flame dies down into nothing

“Whoa, so the way for their Grace to regain their powers is to touch these trees, kinda like Lumine with the statues of the seven?” Paimon asked as she rubbed her chin

“Very intuitive little one, as to why it works for the Ley Lines instead of the statues I do not know.” Yae explains

You spot Aether wanting to say something but stopping himself from doing so, you stopped yourself from prying so to not make the situation awkward

“Now that we’re done here, let’s go time is of the essence.” Yae begins to walk away from the tree

“Wait before you go,” Chimalma said as she knelt down before you. “take this sword with you.” You took the sword and take it out of its sheath to examine it, a brown hilt leading to a blade with similar blue stripes as the tree you just resonated with

“Why are you giving their Grace a sword?! They have us to protect them!” Aether stated also offended at the implication that he and Lumine aren’t enough to protect you

“You never know and besides it’ll help jog up some memories.”

“I think you’re mistaken, I’ve never held a sword like this before.” You said

“Maybe in this life, but in your old life definitely. Everything that the old pyro archon knew, you taught it to them.”

You held the sword and felt something stir inside you and put it back in its sheath

“I’ll hold you to that statement.” You said

“I promise it’ll come in handy.”

You waved Chimalma goodbye and walk back to the carriage. Mentally preparing yourself for your next destination

The land of electro, Inazuma

Taglist:

@chuuya-brainrot @creation-magician @tartarsaucechi1de @vvyeislazzy @kokomisimpppp @aludicpoet @undecidingfate @annoying-mary @randomnatics @ventixthexanemoxarchon @bore2808 @lizzhearthz @ bidisasterforevermore @dxprived4-starboys @angstylittleb1tch @esthelily @yurivision @angelamelamela @d4y-dr3am3r @blackcoffex @not-the-shroom @raffaelo4ka @rebeccawinters @lhaol @artwitchh @imyme20 @nymphsdomain @sun7flowxr @itz-luna @flowerypesky @ghost-mint @mmmhyperfixation @legendaryexperthideout @lapinaenmicoche @sinsdumbdrabble @land-of-eternity @deathcvltcivilofficial

#genshin x reader #genshin fanfic #genshin impact x reader #genshin x female reader #genshin x gn reader #genshin x male reader #genshin x gender neutral reader #genshin sagau #sagau #genshin imposter au #genshin cult au #self aware genshin impact #self aware au #self aware genshin #cult au #sagau Lumine #sagau aether #sagau yae miko #sagau childe

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rottenpumpkin13 · 1 year ago

Note

Can we hear about the day Lazard snapped from the firsts shenanigans?

The Day Lazard Finally Snapped

• It all starts when Angeal and Sephiroth are passing through the Skyview Hall when they spot Reeve with a baby in a holder strapped to his chest.

Angeal: Hey Reeve! I didn't know you had a child.

Reeve: I don't. This is my assistant's baby. I allow her to bring him in on occasion since childcare is hard to find. She asked me to watch him while she's in a meeting, but⏤

Sephiroth: What kind of mother abandons her child?

Reeve: ⏤but I have to meet with the editor of Architecture Weekly in ten minutes.

Sephiroth: What kind of mother abandons her child with a strange man who works for Shinra?

Angeal: I'm sorry to hear that, director.

Reeve: Wait, could you two watch him? It'll only be for an hour.

Angeal: I don't think⏤

*Reeve hands the child to Angeal, who is now sweating bullets*

Reeve: Great, thanks! By the way, I'm supposed to be locating some materia that went missing from the inventory this morning. Do you mind finding them for me? Here's the list.

*Reeve hands Angeal the list, Angeal hands the baby to Sephiroth, who holds it like a bomb with his arms outstretched*

Angeal: Reeve, I really don't think we⏤

Reeve: Great! See 'ya!

• Reeve literally sprints away. Angeal looks back at Sephiroth, who has now strapped the baby to the carrier on his chest. Angeal looks down at the list.

Angeal: Three Ifrit summons, sixteen fire materia, nine ice materia, thirty chocobo lures, four petrify materia, and seventeen lightning materia.

Sephiroth: The baby is crying because it wants its mother. I feel a strange kinship with this child.

Angeal: Why would someone need thirty chocobo lures??

Sephiroth: There, there. Don't cry because your mother abandoned you, rejoice because your father isn't Professor Hojo.

*Angeal grows exasperated and turns to Sephiroth*

Angeal: Seph, it's hungry. We need to feed it.

Sephiroth: Where will we find someone with functioning mammary glands on such short notice?

Angeal: FORMULA. GET THE FORMULA IN THE BABY BAG.

*The baby cries more, Sephiroth holds it closer to him*

Sephiroth: You're upsetting our child.

Angeal: IT'S NOT OUR⏤*Angeal takes a deep breath*⏤It's not our child, give it the baby formula, and let's go. We still need to find the culprit behind the stolen materia.

Sephiroth: Do you mind if we stop by Professor Hojo's lab first? I want to show him what competent fathership looks like.

Angeal: No. And you're acting insane. Here, give me the baby.

Sephiroth: I have only had this child for three minutes, but if anyone tries to hurt it or take it away I will kill everyone here.

Angeal: When this is all over, I'm signing you up for art therapy and getting you a cat.

• Lazard is away on a business trip and has left Genesis in charge. He's supposed to be getting work done, but instead he's sitting in Lazard's office with his feet up, reading a romance novel.

Genesis: I don't understand why Lazard complains all the time. This is the easiest position in this company.

•There's a violent crash right outside the office, followed by Zack's voice going "Wow! I didn't know the ceiling was that easy to break."

*Genesis gets up at the speed of light. He runs out and sees Zack and Cloud with tennis rackets*

Genesis: What are you doing? I thought I sent you far away on a mission to Cosmo Canyon.

Zack: We got back early! And since Angeal's busy there's no point in training. Plus, my mission report can wait until Lazard's back.

Genesis: And what's Strife doing here? Last I recall this is the SOLDIER floor, not the Infantrymen Who Look Like Baby Chocobos floor.

Cloud: Could've fooled me. I saw you and thought this was the Sephiroth Is Better Than Me So I Take It Out On Bad Poetry floor.

Genesis: Listen here⏤

*Zack jumps between them*

Zack: We were just playing some tennis! Where's the harm in that?

Genesis:

Genesis: Zack where's the ceiling

*They look up and six ceiling panels are missing*

Zack: We're playing pro tennis.

Genesis: Goddess.

Cloud: But we lost all of our balls and now we can't play anymore.

Genesis: Hm. Have you tried substituting them with something else?

Cloud: Like what?

Genesis: Materia are round and large enough to work.

Zack: Good idea, but we don't have any to spare.

Genesis: I have some.

*Genesis pulls a key out of his pocket, walks across the hall, and unlocks a supply closet where he pulls out a crate full of materia*

Zack: Woah! How many do you have in there?

Genesis: Three Ifrit summons, sixteen fire materia, nine ice materia, thirty chocobo lures, four petrify materia, and seventeen lightning materia.

Cloud: Why does the box say Property Of Shinra Electric Power Company? Wait, did you steal this??

Genesis: There is no such thing as stealing if your victim stole it from the planet.

Zack: Why thirty chocobo lures??

Genesis: Do not presume to question my actions.

• Sephiroth and Angeal have no leads on the missing materia, so they decide to go ask the turks for any information they have. They walk into a conference room where Tseng and Rufus are talking.

Tseng: WHY do you have a baby??

Sephiroth: Two men cannot raise a child without being criticized.

Angeal: We're babysitting.

Rufus: How may we help you?

Angeal: A crate of materia went missing from the inventory. Reeve asked us to locate it. Any chance you have an idea where it went?

Rufus: We were just going over the security footage, actually. A stunning, beautiful woman was seen entering and leaving with the stolen materia.

Tseng: Come take a look.

*They walk over and watch the security footage*

Sephiroth:

Angeal:

Angeal: That's GENESIS.

Tseng: Impossible. I had no idea Rhapsodos was a master of disguise.

Sephiroth: He's not even in disguise. He wore that dress to a Loveless performance yesterday. *said while he rocks the baby to sleep*

Rufus: Sephiroth, would you mind accompanying me to meet my father? I'd like to show him what adequate fathership looks like.

Sephiroth: Gladly.

Angeal: *exasperated* We'll get the materia back from Genesis, don't worry. There's no need to get involved, and we'll make him promise not to do it again.

Tseng: Actually, the issue is much more annoying. You see, the crate he stole contained faulty materia. We're not sure they even work, but if they do there might be some...explosive consequences.

Angeal: Don't worry, knowing Genesis, he's hording the materia somewhere until the search dies down and hasn't actually used it yet.

*The baby hasn't fallen asleep and is wide awake*

Sephiroth: Of course, how could I be so foolish? The baby needs to be tired out through playtime and proper enrichment first.

*Rufus takes a box of ammunition from his coat pocket and uses it as a rattle. The baby laughs*

Tseng: Sir, I don't think that's an appropriate toy for a baby.

Sephiroth: Nonsense. I had that toy when I was younger and I turned out fine.

Angeal: No the fuck you did not.

• Zack and Cloud's tennis match with materia is going smoothly. Genesis has made himself the umpire and is officiating the match. They're in Lazard's office so no one catches them slacking off.

*Cloud hurles a fire materia toward Zack at top speed. Zack shrieks and ducks*

Genesis: Five love.

Zack: No fair! He's just aiming it right at me!

Cloud: Because you're my opponent. That's how tennis works.

*Cloud sends another chocobo lure Zack's way that hits him right in the face*

Genesis: Six love.

Zack: WE GET IT, YOU'RE OBSESSED WITH LOVELESS. SHUT UP.

Genesis: ......

Cloud: I really need to get back and start getting ready for patrol tonight.

Zack: Nooo, come on! Just one more try! I'll beat you, you just watch.

• Cloud sighs and readies himself. Zack grabs a lightning materia and serves. Cloud hits the materia when it reaches him. Except this time it fuses with the tennis racket and starts hissing and billowing smoke. Cloud panics and lets the tennis racket drop. It starts glowing and vibrating.

• All of the littered materia on the office floor start emitting the same low whistle and vibrating, all at once.

• Genesis senses the incoming explosion. He grabs Zack and Cloud and dives under the desk.

• Lazard comes back from his business trip early. He's in the elevator thinking about the decision to leave Genesis in charge. He had initially meant to bequeath Sephiroth the responsibility, but felt for Genesis. They're always placing him second next to Sephiroth, constantly berating and expecting the worst from him.

• He thinks it's unfair. Genesis is one of the most competent SOLDIERs in the program. He's hardworking, responsible and authoritive. There's no doubt in Lazard's mind that everything is running smoothly in his absence.

*Lazard opens his office door*

• The three Ifrit summons went off and are raging, smashing the walls and ceilin. The fire materia also went off and now everything is on fire. It's shooting fire balls and one of them burned the office door clean off, shattering the glass. The ice materia has caused a raging blizzard inside the office and everything that isn't on fire is freezing over. The lightning materia is causing firework-like explosions to go off.

• Lazard stands there for a good five minutes, petrified (literally) (the petrify materia hit him)

• Once the last blast of lightning goes off and things seem to have quieted down, Genesis, Zack and Cloud poke their heads up from under the desk.

Zack: Hey, director! We didn't expect you back so early!

Cloud: How was the business trip? Have fun?

Genesis: My, my, director, that suit makes you look dashing. Have you done something to your hair?

• It's a poor choice of words because half of Lazard's hair is on fire.

*Angeal runs in*

Angeal: Genesis, you crook. Did you use Lazard's access card to steal all that materia?? Do you know how mad he's going to be when he finds out? He's already in trouble with upper management because he left you in charge.

*Zack points to Lazard in the corner, Angeal turns around*

Angeal: Oh. Oh no.

• And then the chocobo lures go off. Thirty grown chocobos come speeding into the office, two of them knocking Lazard to the ground.

• And then, as if things couldn't possibly get any worse, Sephiroth runs in with the baby.

Sephiroth: Angeal, how dare you abandon me and our child??

Angeal: Oh my god.

• The Firsts and Zack are sitting in the briefing room when Tseng walks in.

Tseng: Good morning. As you all know, Lazard has taken a medical leave. I'll be taking his place while he's away.

Genesis: How is he? I tried to visit him in the hospital yesterday, but apparently the mere mention of my name sent him into another cardiac arrest.

Tseng: He's sedated and fine. Don't feel discouraged. Two Seconds went in to visit him this morning, but all it took was one look at a SOLDIER uniform and he started screaming.

Angeal: If he quits, it's on Zack, Gen and Strife. Sephiroth and I were busy hunting materia and babysitting.

Sephiroth: No. You were looking for the materia. I was taking adequate care of the baby and giving it the attention its mother denied it.

Tseng:

Tseng: Sephiroth

Tseng: Sephiroth why do you still have the baby?

*They look over and sure enough, Sephiroth has the baby in a carrier strapped to his chest*

Sephiroth:

Sephiroth: I'm the most competent adult in its life.

#ff7 #ffvii #final fantasy 7 #sephiroth #ffvii crisis core #final fantasy vii #genesis rhapsodos #ff7 crisis core #angeal hewley #crisis core #zack fair #cloud strife #tseng ff7 #rufus shinra #storytime

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eleadore · 6 months ago

Note

top five scenes/lines/moments from drarry fic

rookie moves by peu_a_peu - not gonna lie, every single scene. but you put a gun to my head and make me pick just one, i'll pick two -

“You should’ve died, Draco,” Nott snarled. “If you had a shred of honor you’d have died.” “Well guess what, Theodore?” Malfoy said, with a horrible, mocking smile. “I don’t, and I lived.” Nott stared daggers into Malfoy. His hands went behind the armchair. Harry knew instantly: he was about to do something stupid. There was no time to do anything but give Malfoy a hard shove just as Nott cried, “Avada Kedavra!” A jet of green lightning cracked through the spot where Malfoy had just been standing, charging the air, hitting the wall with a terrible explosion. “What are you doing, Theodore?!” Malfoy wailed as he ducked for cover behind the couch. “We’re throwing AKs at ten in the morning?!”

jesus i've read it 800 times and i am as we speak gasping for air

McGonagall turned, and absorbed the other half of we. “Mr. Malfoy,” she said, quelling unsuccessfully what sounded like considerable shock. “Auror Malfoy,” Malfoy corrected her. “Professor.” “Well.” She blinked a number of times before speaking diplomatically. “I can’t say it’s the career I’d have predicted for you. But one’s former students do turn up in surprising fields.” Malfoy smiled the shit-eating smile of someone who couldn’t be given detention. Who was, in fact, medically calm. “It’s a calling.”

running on air by eleventy7 - you already know

Do you remember when we were eleven? Let's go back to that. I'll throw Remembralls into the sky and you can try to catch them. Sometimes I think you can just keep my wand. I think of all the Dark spells I performed, all the Unforgiveables I tried to cast with it. But then I remember when I was eleven years old, learning Lumos and casting mending charms, and it's hard to let go of that. So give me my wand, or give me a timeturner.

trouble, my old friend by tepre - the one with the fucking buttons

He says, “Tell me,” and Harry – running low on sleep, confused and aroused and altogether unfamiliar to this new world of desire – can’t quite keep himself in check. He wants, for a moment, simply wants, knows not what to do with it, where to direct it, and the feeling bubbles like wild magic. He realises a fraction too late that no, not like, but magic – staring at the spot where Malfoy’s scar disappears below the high collar of his shirt. The stiff hem of the doublet, buttoned shut over his Adam’s apple. With a small sound, the top button of the doublet pops open. Then the second, the third. Malfoy sucks in a breath.

ain't no friend of mine by lettered - when harry's being a little bitch and dog!draco simply will not stand for it

Potter slammed open the door. For a moment he just stared down at Draco with that annoying face of his, with the insane hair, and the disfigured scar. Then he yanked the slobbery scarf out of Draco's mouth, and said, low and tight, "Leave me the fuck alone, why don't you; don't you see I don't bloody care; I don't want anyone near me; I DON'T WANT YOU; I NEVER WANTED YOU; GO AWAY!" And Draco all the sudden remembered why he'd joined the Inquisition Squad. Potter in fifth year had been exactly like this and it was really annoying.

draco malfoy's substitute murder service by oknowkiss - the one where draco hands harry his business card

Harry reads the card again. Flips it over. Looks at Draco, watches him sip his tea. Notices one of his bra straps is showing. Reads the card a third time. Fails to make sense of anything at all. “Have you lost your goddamn fucking mind?” Harry snaps, throwing the card back at Draco. “What in the absolute shit is this?” “Did you read the card?” Draco asks. He tucks it back into his bra. “I feel like you’re asking questions that have all been answered by the card.”

bonus 1: if an injury is to be inflicted by shealwaysreads - when draco meets ron and hermione The Morning After

Draco’s smile threatened to bloom into genuine delight at the look on her face. He had dressed deliberately casually, forgoing his usual high-collared robes for a pair of charcoal grey trousers and a pale grey shirt; open at the collar to expose the mess Potter made of his neck and collarbones. She opened and shut her mouth twice, before Weasley broke the silence and stepped towards Draco, towing Granger along with him.

bonus 2: owl was well by fencer_x - when draco flies to the burrow bc he's "bored" and gets beat up by crookshanks

“Er,” Potter said, giving Draco a comfortable berth of several steps. “That was Crookshanks. Hermione’s cat. We’re gonna watch him while she and her folks are in Germany for the holiday to visit family in Dusseldorf.” He frowned to himself, brows knitting in confusion. “I thought he could see through Animagus transformations, though. I’m not sure why he’d attack—oh. Guess he recognised you.” Oh, indeed. Draco ran his fingers through his hair—he probably looked a fright now. “I suppose it’s going to hold a grudge against me for all nine of its lives, then.”

ask me top 5/10 anything

#i couldve done 800 of these but it is 9am on a monday #eleasnore #top five

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brattyfics · 5 months ago

Text

Swampbound V

The rest of the day passed like a slow, heavy fog. Adla kept herself busy with chores, but her thoughts were spinning, caught up in the newly-discovered truths that had turned her world upside down overnight.

Terry had shifted from a wolf to a man right before her eyes, and despite his wildness, he hadn’t struck her as a monster until he squared off against Jesse. Jesse, who she wasn’t sure she could trust anymore. She didn’t know how long he’d been hiding the truth or how many secrets he held, but the sharp edge of his lies cut deep. And then there was that dark mask that had slipped over his face—twice.

It all made sense now: his fussing about her walking the woods alone. They’d grown up tearing through the thick brush and vines in her backyard, never fearing what lurked out there. The worst they encountered was the occasional snake, and that was enough to send them flying back to her daddy’s arms. Gators and wild hogs were around, but they kept their distance unless you gave ‘em reason.

"Live and let live," she'd always believed in—until now. Now, she was being pulled into a world she’d only heard about in old stories—shapeshifters and whatever Jesse truly was.

What else was hiding just beyond her sight? Had she been blind to the world around her all this time? She thought about the folks in town—faces she’d known all her life. Could any of them turn into monsters under the right moon? The idea that the world she knew was just a shadow of something far darker and deeper gnawed at her insides.

Adla ran a bath, sprinkling sea salt and lavender into the water, hoping it might settle her nerves. But no matter how long she soaked, the unease wouldn’t let go. Every few minutes, her eyes drifted toward the window, scanning the shadows outside. She didn’t even know why—whether it was instinct finally waking up, making her notice things she used to miss, or if, deep down, she was hoping to catch a glimpse of Terry.

Her mind churned with questions, pieces of old legends surfacing from the depths of her mind. Was he born like that or had it come upon him somehow? What brought him and his cousin to her little corner of the world? And Chief Burne—how had they gotten tangled up with him? But the question that weighed most heavily on her heart was personal—did Terry feel that same pull she did? Did he sense the charge in the air whenever they were close?

Was he out there right now, stalking Burne in the dark?

She couldn’t know for sure.

As the bathwater cooled around her, the image of Jesse’s limp body flashed through her mind like lightning. She could still see herself standing over Jesse, Terry’s lips brushing against her neck, grounding her in the chaos.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for bringin’ all this trouble to your door.”

She looked up at him then, really looked at him, memorizing every sharp feature, the way the sunlight filtered through the window and highlighted his face. She knew he’d find his cousin, finish whatever it was that needed finishing, and then he’d be gone—like a phantom fading back into the night.

The thought twisted something deep inside her.

“I need you to do something for me before you head out,” Her voice was soft, but there was a weight to it, something that carried more than simple words. Whatever she was about to ask would tether him here, one way or another, and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever find the will to leave.

She didn’t know what was driving her, what compelled her to say the words, but she stared up into his eyes, searching for assurance. Her earlier ire had dissipated just like that, and all she could focus on was Terry. "Promise me you'll be careful. Get your cousin, but keep yourself outta harm's way."

"I’ll watch my back. You just take care of yourself." Terry said, his tone firm yet reassuring as he placed a comforting hand on the small of her back.

Just then, Jesse’s finger twitched—once, then again—an involuntary movement that sent a jolt of panic through her. Adla’s heart raced, and she could almost hear the ticking clock in the back of her mind, each second tightening the noose of dread.

Adla knew she should be angry with Terry, using all her energy to push him out the front door and out of her life. But in that moment, her judgment blurred. All that mattered was keeping Terry and Jesse apart.

"We need to move him outside. Make it look like he fell and hit his head! Just hurry—he can’t wake up in here, not like this!” Her voice trembled with urgency, a tight knot of anxiety coiling in her stomach. The fear of Jesse waking up to see Terry loomed over her like a dark cloud, thick and suffocating.

Something whispered in her mind that crafting a story was the only way to hold back the coming storm.

Pulled by something she couldn’t explain, Adla snatched a mop and broom from the closet and dashed outside. Terry’s voice trailed after her, but she couldn’t make sense of his words; all she could think about was getting the place cleaned up. That one word—hurry!��echoed in her mind, pushing her hands to move faster, scrubbing away at whatever traces she could, as if she could sweep the whole mess out of memory.

As she scrubbed the porch with frantic strokes, her mind spiraled through the chaos of the morning—Terry, Burne, Jesse. The blood had dried, resisting her efforts, and she knew no amount of cleaning could erase what had happened. Still, it was the only thing she could control. Jesse would wake up and remember—he had to. Her hands moved in a desperate rhythm as dread gnawed at her.

What would she say when he came to? And what would Jesse do?

“Adla, what are you—?” Terry’s voice cut through her frantic thoughts, but she couldn’t focus on him right now. She heard him moving Jesse’s unconscious body, his strong hands lifting the other man with ease, as if he were a child. A strange mix of gratitude and anxiety washed over her. If they could just get Jesse outside, away from the traces of his fight with Terry, maybe she could finally breathe again.

Her gaze darted to the small gash at the back of Jesse’s head as Terry set his body down, and something in her stirred—a fierce need to erase what had happened. As she dabbed at the blood seeping from the wound, she whispered, “Please don’t remember... please don’t remember...” The words slipped from her lips like a prayer, soft yet insistent.

With every touch, she felt a strange sensation spark between them, her intentions weaving through the air like mist, settling in the fragile space between her and Jesse.

Now, as she reflected on that moment, doubt crept in. Jesse’s confusion struck her as odd. She’d staged a clumsy scene, but his memory should’ve helped him see through it.

He’d gotten riled up, insisting something was off, yet he hadn’t called her out on it. Was he pretending not to remember?

A chill ran down her spine. Had her whispered words done something? Maybe it had something to do with Terry’s supernatural abilities?

A flicker of realization tugged at her—a hint of something strange brewing beneath the surface. She didn’t understand it yet, but the fact that Jesse really seemed to have forgotten left her feeling unsettled.

With a heavy sigh, she slipped out of the bathtub, telling herself to stop chasing answers that weren’t coming. She prayed sleep would ease the steady stream of thoughts swirling in her head, but it didn’t come easily. Her eyes grew heavy as the drone of cicadas seeped through the window, growing louder until it overpowered her thoughts.

Moonlight crept in through the cracks in the curtains, casting soft, silver-blue ribbons across the room. The ceiling fan spun lazily overhead, stirring cool air over her skin. Adla turned onto her side, drifting somewhere between sleep and waking—until something sent a jolt through her senses.

"I’m gon’ need your help again."

Adla’s eyes flew open.

Terry sat on the edge of her bed, his presence too large, and too close for comfort.

Her face mirrored silent disbelief—mouth agape, hands pressed against her cheeks, as if she were trapped in a nightmare. It had been one thing to offer her help earlier. This? This was something else entirely.

What had she done by letting him in?

Instinct kicked in, and a rush of adrenaline surged through her veins. She moved fast, reaching for the nightstand, but then froze, her heart pounding as moonlight caught the glint of metal. Her pistol lay casually in his lap, as if it belonged there, held loosely—suggesting no immediate threat unless he decided differently.

Don’t freeze up now!

Her fingers twitched, searching under the pillow for her knife, only to find nothing but cool, empty sheets. Terry’s eyes followed her movements, a sly smile creeping across his face. “What you lookin’ for now, baby?” he murmured, his voice a smooth drawl that made her breath hitch, a mix of fear and something unnameable stirring in her gut.

He has some nerve callin’ me baby. I ain’t helpless, and I sure as hell ain’t no baby!

That thought sparked something deep in her chest. She moved fast, aiming to shove him off balance, but he was quicker. In an instant, his weight was on her, wrists pinned to the bed, his breath hot on her skin.

The ceiling fan hummed lazily above them, oblivious to the heavy tension that now filled the room. She could barely breathe beneath him. His scent wrapped around her—earthy, masculine, and something a little wild beneath it all. Anger surged through her. She was furious at him for barging in like he owned the place, but even more at herself for letting him get this close.

How had he slipped in without her hearing a thing?

“What do you want?” she snapped, struggling against his hold.

“You,” he answered, his voice soft and steady like restraining her was nothing, “and that sharp mind of yours.”

Adla’s brow furrowed.

Does he mean…in the literal sense? But before her thoughts could spin too far, he shifted, one hand gathering both of her wrists above her head, while the other reached over to flick on the bedside lamp. The soft glow cast shadows against their faces in the dark, making the moment feel far too intimate.

“Not literally,” he murmured, voice smooth as molasses. He lingered, closer than he should have, inhaling that sweet lavender on her skin. “Our deal still stands. Just curious about what you know 'bout the police chief and his boys.”

He’d promised not to bite unless she asked, but a small part of her wished he would. Let him sink his teeth in, drain her dry, and end it all. At least she'd see her father again and free from the troubles that had surfaced. The thought flickered in her mind, and she cursed herself for even considering it.

"Enough," she rasped, struggling to regain control—of her mind, her body, her will. “They’ve been shaking folks down for years. Make ‘em pay to live ‘round here. Starts small—maybe a busted window or slashed tire if you don’t pay up. But then it gets worse. Fires. People go missing. You pay, you’re safe. But not everybody’s got the money.”

"But you don’t pay, do you? Why’s that?"

Her pulse quickened.

So he had been snooping, listening with those sharp ears of his. Cold sweat gathered at the back of her neck. What else could he pick up on without her knowing? Could he sense her quickened pulse was more than fear? Could he smell the heat pooling between her thighs?

It was a bizarre sensation to feel while caught in her predicament, but there was no denying it was real.

“How do you know that?” she shot back, the tremor in her voice betraying her.

Terry’s eyes gleamed, a predator’s look—calm, controlled, but intense. His gaze swept over her like he could read every flicker of emotion, every tiny movement, as though she were a mystery he intended to unravel piece by piece. He echoed her words from earlier, voice smooth but firm, "I asked you a question.”

Anger flared hotter in her chest.

Adla swallowed hard, her jaw tightening. “My daddy and Burne had an understanding. He honors it with me. I stay outta his way, he stays outta mine. That’s how it’s always been.”

Terry’s expression shifted, contemplating her words.

“What do you know about that understanding?”

“Not much,” she replied, frustration tightening her throat. “I was just a kid back then. Burne came around a few times, and every time, Daddy sent me out back like he didn’t want me to see whatever ugly business they were discussing. Burne never lingered, though.”

Terry’s jaw clenched tightly, his voice low and intense. “Think harder. There’s got to be something more.”

Her nostrils flared as she wriggled in his grip, her body tense against his, struggling to break free. "I’d remember better if I wasn’t being held hostage by a man who broke into my house." His grip remained firm, but she caught a flicker of hesitation in his eyes, frustration crossing his face.

“What are you mixed up in, Terry Richmond?” she demanded, searching for a crack in his armor.

Finally, he released her.

She rubbed her wrists, sitting up with her eyes fixed on him, challenging him to explain himself.

“Did I hurt you?” Terry asked, his tone almost tender. He took her hands, fingers brushing over them slow and gentle, then pressed a quick kiss to each one, whispering sincere apologies against her perfumed skin.

She didn’t pull her wrists back, didn’t jerk away. Just held still, watching, waiting to see what he’d do next. One minute, he was charm personified; the next, red hot and demanding.

“I’m fine,” she lied, but the heat between her thighs refused to fade, steady and pulsing, intensifying with every passing moment. She couldn’t shake it off for anything and couldn’t help but wonder what kind of root he was working on her.

“Don’t you worry ’bout my troubles,” he said, the weight of pulling her into his mess heavy on his shoulders. The fate of his cousin loomed over him, driving him to the brink. His shoulders sagged, but he held her gaze. “I’m sorry for barging in on you like this. It won’t happen again. I promise you that.”

He stood to leave, moonlight casting faint shadows across his caramel skin. She had a wild notion to ask him to stay—the house felt too lonely some nights—but that’s when her gaze caught the ink on his arm once more.

A jolt of memory struck her.

“Hold up a minute! That necklace! Chief Burne took a necklace with some kinda strange mark on it—the same one you’ve got inked on your arm!”

Terry froze in the doorway, his whole body going rigid. “You sure 'bout that?”

“Yeah! I remember it clear as day. It was real strange.” Memories of the past rolled out before her like an old film, every moment flickering back to life. “I found it once—Daddy had it tucked away in that old dresser.” She nodded toward the corner of the room.

“When I found it, he fussed at me somethin’ fierce, told me to stay outta his things. Daddy never got mad like that, not with me. The next day, it was gone. Didn’t see it again ’til Chief Burne came by and Daddy handed it over. I can’t believe I forgot!” She could still picture it—the way she’d perched on a rickety milk crate, peeking through the window to catch a glimpse of their exchange. It hadn’t held her long, but she saw enough to remember that moment.

Adla had thought her daddy’s business—and everything tied to it—had been buried with him. But now, it felt like a ghost from his past was rising to the surface.

“What’s up with that necklace?”

Terry’s gaze shifted, a whirlwind of emotions churning just beneath the surface—hard to read but impossible to ignore. “Let’s just say it’s a piece of my family history.”

“What kinda history we talkin’ ‘bout?” Adla crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes as the shadows seemed to thicken around them. Having a man in her bedroom felt surreal. Jesse always avoided this room during his visits, claimin’ it was too strange to be her daddy's old space. It felt like she and Terry were sharing something sacred and intimate, bound together in a way she couldn’t quite grasp yet.

“You think you can handle the truth? Knowin’ ain’t always what you think it is.” Terry asked, his voice roughening as he took long, deliberate strides back toward her bed.

“I figure I’ve earned the right, considerin’ you keep breakin’ into my house.”

“You invited me in,” he said with a sly glint in his eyes. “I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t.” There it was again— that same strange fixation on the idea of being invited, like it mattered more than it should. “It’s gonna change everything you think you know. You ready for that?”

She hadn’t anticipated any of the turmoil since he’d shown up, but there was no turning back now. “Just tell me,” she urged, her fingers tracing the patterns on the comforter. When he settled onto her bed this time, it felt like an invitation rather than an intrusion.

“You know I’m a shifter…” She remembered their earlier conversation and the massive black wolf that had shown up on her porch. “...but you don’t know how it all started. You believe in magic?”

She swallowed hard, nodding. "How could I not, especially with everything that happened today?"

“It all started with a pact that changed everything for us.”

Terry’s expression shifted, turning grave. “My grandfather was a maroon—one of them ‘unruly’ slaves who had the guts to run off from his plantation and into these swamps. He was one of the first to break free. Word got around, and more folks joined him; their strength grew by the night. They’d sneak back in the dark, helpin’ anyone brave enough to follow ’em to freedom.” His voice dropped to a steady murmur, thick with resolve. “Among those he led were healers, rootworkers, and conjurers—men and women who were deep-rooted in their traditions, carryin’ the power to shape reality, but always payin’ a hefty price for it.”

An image of Jesse's grandmother flickered through her mind.

“I don’t know everything about the witches—how they do what they do,” he continued, locking eyes with her. “But they can work wonders—things that’ll stop you dead in your tracks.”

She recalled the bright light shooting from Jesse’s hands earlier, and the hairs on her arms stood on end.

“The maroons carved out their own path, livin’ side by side with the native folks in these swamps. But as the number of enslaved people started to drop in this area, the enslavers took notice. They couldn’t afford to lose any more ‘property,’” he growled, anger bubbling just beneath the surface. “So they began sendin’ out hunting parties.”

“At first, they didn’t know the lay of the land, so the maroons slipped right through their fingers. But when that didn’t work, they turned to our own people. They dangled promises of freedom, tryin’ to lure ’em outta the swamp with visions of homes with walls and their own land. It was a lie, but it had a way of workin' on folks. People had families to think about, I reckon.”

It was easy to judge when you didn’t know the daily struggles they faced—sneakin’ into town for scraps, navigatin’ a world rigged against ’em, riskin’ everything just to make it through the day. Freedom came with a heavy price.

“They twisted the law, huntin’ us down like we was nothin’ but animals. Meanwhile, white folks kept gettin’ rich off our backs.”

A thick silence hung between them, both lost in thoughts of their ancestors and the unspeakable horrors they’d endured.

Terry shook his head, tryin’ to shake off the weight of the past. “Needless to say, their tactics worked. By the end, nearly everyone was dead. A few ordinary but tough souls, like my grandfather and just a couple of the witches, managed to survive. Out in these very woods, they came up with a plan for payback. Those witches could give ’em the power to rise against their oppressors, but it came at a steep cost—tradin’ their humanity for the ability to transform.”

She could piece together the unspoken parts: The maroons were worn thin, workin’ twice as hard just to get by, while white men wielded their privilege—armed with better weapons, sheltered in comfort, and backed by all who supported the chains of slavery. They had no choice.

She reached out, her fingers skimming over his forearm, a soft touch she knew she probably shouldn’t be makin’. As if pulled by some unseen force, Terry’s hand glided down to rest on her leg, his warmth grounding them both in that delicate moment of connection.

“So they made a pact. Each full moon, the men would be trapped in the shape of a big ol’ wolf, their humanity swallowed by the beast inside. But for the rest of the month, they could shift at will—keepin’ themselves safe and protectin’ whatever was left of their kin.”

“That must’ve been downright terrifying, bein’ trapped outside their own skin,” Adla said, her mind wanderin’ to what she’d do if she had to make a choice like that.

“They weren’t about to go back to no chains or meet death without swingin’ back. That’s how I—how we came to be,” Terry said, layin’ bare the truth of his origin.

“And what about that necklace?” Adla asked, sensing the intricate puzzle was missing some key pieces. Terry’s touch and those piercing eyes were pulling her in, but her instincts remained razor-sharp. Everything he shared had begun to connect in her mind, but there was still more to uncover.

A look crossed his face, like he was digging up a memory of his own.

“That’s a whole other story. But if your daddy had it, he probably stashed away a book with a ledger too. You know where that might be?”

Chapter 6.

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jungkoode · 1 month ago

Text

THE 25TH HOUR | O1

“𝟎𝟏:𝟓𝟗 𝐀𝐌”

"Time doesn't just stop at 1:59 AM. It fractures, it bleeds, and it brings a stranger who feels achingly familiar. And maybe the biggest mystery isn't the frozen city—it's why he looks at you like he's already lost you a thousand times."

next | index

— chapter details

word count: 2,4k

content: waking up in the 25th hour for the first time, time stopping, meeting the enigmatic min yoongi, and the creeping suspicion that this has all happened before

— author’s note

Well. Welcome to the Yoongi fanfic that will absolutely boggle your brain. Or at least, it’s boggling mine, but maybe that’s because I, unlike 25H!Y/N, am not built for analytical thought. Like, this girl is out here calculating temporal density shifts while I’m struggling to calculate how much sleep I need to survive (spoiler: more than I’m getting).

Honestly, this? I really said fuck the Matrix, let’s make it worse. You think you know where this is going? You don’t. You’re not ready, I promise you that much. This is angsty. Heavily. And not in the Fuck Me Up way, no—there’s no knife to the gut here. This is the slow, creeping existential dread of realizing time is a lie and also, you might be in love with someone who’s doomed. Or, worse, someone who’s doomed you. :) fun!

There’s a star-crossed lovers tag for a reason, okay??? But I’m also a horny hoe, so you will get smut. And not just smut. SMUT. The kind that makes you need to take a walk and question your life choices. I can’t say more or I’ll spoil it, so someone please sew my mouth shut before I start screaming about what’s coming. But just. Trust me. It’s worth it.

I know this might be a lot at first—temporal mechanics, erased timelines, ominous government agencies, Yoongi in a black turtleneck (the most dangerous thing of all)—but I promise it’ll make sense eventually. If not, I’ll make docs and diagrams for you like the absolute nerd that I am. Literally bombard my inbox with questions, I’m ready.

This is my love letter to The Matrix, The Umbrella Academy, and specifically Five Hargreeves (no, I don’t acknowledge Season 4, it doesn’t exist, don’t talk to me). And, of course, it’s also a love letter to Yoongi as the time-traveling, exhausted, morally gray bastard of your dreams.

So, yeah. Strap in. It’s gonna be one hell of a ride.

— read on

AO3

WATTPAD

Your Chrono-Sync Watch reads 01:59:00 AM when time stops.

The initial indicator isn't the digital display—it's the complete absence of the watch's usual microscopic vibrations against your wrist. Standard-issue Chrono-Sync Watches pulse at precisely 60 beats per minute, synchronized with the Master Clock. You've worn one since receiving your Temporal Monitoring certification three months ago. The constant rhythm becomes white noise, unnoticeable until it stops.

Now, at 01:59:00 AM, there is no pulse.

Temperature reading: 22°C. Three degrees below normal.

Your first thought is device malfunction. Protocol dictates immediate reporting of any Chrono-Sync irregularities. You reach for your phone to log the incident, but your hand freezes mid-motion.

The numbers on your digital clock aren't changing.

01:59:00 AM stays fixed, each pixel unnaturally sharp in the darkness of your bedroom. The air feels wrong—charged, like the moment before lightning strikes. The usual ambient sounds of your apartment building have ceased: no hum of electricity, no distant footsteps, no whisper of the heating system.

That's when you notice him.

He stands at the foot of your bed, a figure cut from darker shadows. Male, approximately 175cm, black clothing, pale skin. His posture suggests military training—weight evenly distributed, hands relaxed at his sides but ready to move. He's watching you with an expression you can't quite process: recognition layered with something that looks disturbingly like resignation.

Your body's reaction makes no logical sense.

Instead of fear or shock, you feel an inexplicable pull of familiarity. Your muscles relax rather than tense. Your right hand twitches, as if reaching for something—or someone—it expects to find.

"You weren't supposed to wake up." His voice carries no surprise, only weary confirmation. The words resonate at a frequency that makes your temples throb.

You know this voice.

You've never heard it before.

"Temporal anomaly detected at 01:59:00 AM," you find yourself saying, the words automatic yet foreign on your tongue. "Subject appears to be—"

"Agent Min Yoongi, Temporal Investigations." He cuts you off, his tone clipped. Professional. Wrong. "And you're about to have a very long hour, Monitor A-735."

The employee ID strikes something in your mind—a discordant note in an otherwise perfect sequence. You've never told him your designation. You haven't even started your new position at the Monitoring Center yet; orientation begins tomorrow.

"That's impossible," you say, falling back on data analysis. "The Chrono-Sync Network ensures perfect temporal alignment across all sectors. Temporal stasis of this magnitude would require—"

"Energy equivalent to powering the entire Eastern Seaboard for a year?" His lips twist into something that's not quite a smile. "The calculations are in your desk drawer. Third one down, behind the spare calibration tools you haven't bought yet."

You don't own a desk. You don't own calibration tools.

You know exactly which drawer he means.

The air crackles with increased static charge. Your skin prickles with electricity, and colors seem to sharpen beyond normal parameters. The taste of ozone grows stronger, mixing with something metallic—like memory, if memory had a flavor.

"What is this?" You check your watch again: 01:59:00 AM. No change. "How are you—"

"Get dressed," he interrupts, turning his back to you with practiced efficiency. "You have questions. I have approximately 58 minutes to answer some of them before they notice you're awake."

"They?"

"The Erasure Bureau." He says it like he's reading from a script he's memorized too many times. "They'll be here soon. Standard response for newly awakened Outliers in your sector."

Your hands are already moving to your dresser, selecting clothes with mechanical precision. The motion feels rehearsed, like muscle memory you shouldn't have. "I don't—"

"You're right-handed but you'll reach for the left drawer first," he says, still facing away. "You'll pick the black shirt because it's practical for temporal work. You'll grab the jacket even though it's warm because the temperature drops three degrees during the 25th hour. You'll put your hair up because you hate how it staticizes when time stops."

You freeze, left hand extended toward the drawer he indicated, right hand already moving to gather your hair.

"How do you—"

"We have 56 minutes left." His voice catches on the number. "And you'll need at least 10 of those to process the existence of the 25th hour without trying to rationalize it as a quantum irregularity or temporal feedback loop."

You're already forming hypotheses about quantum irregularities and temporal feedback loops.

"Stop thinking like an analyst," he says, and for a moment, his professional tone cracks. "Just... get dressed, Noma."

The nickname hits you like temporal whiplash. Your heart stutters, a arrhythmia that has nothing to do with the stopped time.

"What did you call me?"

"54 minutes." He checks a watch he isn't wearing. "And they're already tracking the temporal disturbance. We need to move."

You get dressed because it's logical, because it's protocol, because your body seems to know what to do even if your mind is still calculating impossibilities. The fabric raises static electricity when you pull it on, tiny sparks in the frozen air.

"Where are we going?" You check your watch again: 01:59:00 AM. The endless minute stretches out before you, an hour that shouldn't exist.

"To show you what happens when you wake up in the 25th hour." He finally turns back, and something flickers in his eyes—a flash of gold in the frozen time.

The word 'again' echoes in your mind like feedback from a temporal loop. You follow him because it's illogical, because it breaks protocol, because your body seems to remember steps it's never taken.

You have 53 minutes until time resumes.

You don’t have many more until the Erasure Bureau arrives.

You have no idea how many times you've done this before.

The frozen streets of Boston stretch out before you like a temporal photograph.

Your analytical mind automatically begins cataloging the anomalies: a taxi suspended mid-turn, its wheels hovering millimeters above the asphalt. Steam from a manhole caught in crystalline suspension. A woman frozen mid-stride, her scarf defying gravity in an arc that shouldn't maintain its shape.

"47 minutes," Agent Min announces without checking any visible timepiece. The hair hair on your arms rise despite the winter cold. His movements are too precise as he leads you through the frozen city—steps calculated, like he's walked this exact path countless times before.

You follow, mentally mapping your route. Third Street. Left on Harrison. Your usual path to—

"The coffee shop?" You stop at the familiar storefront. The neon sign flickers oddly in the frozen time, casting strange shadows that shouldn't exist when time isn't moving. "Why are we—"

"Look inside." His voice is carefully neutral, but there's something beneath it. Something like resignation. "Tell me what you see."

The window should be dark at 1:59 AM. Instead, warm light spills onto the frozen street. Through the glass, you can see the interior exactly as it always is during business hours—except completely still, caught between moments.

Except...

"That's my laptop." The words come out wrong, too quiet. "But I didn't—I was at home when time stopped. I haven't been here since—"

You press closer to the window. The laptop sits open at your usual table, surrounded by papers covered in equations you don't remember writing. A half-finished iced americano sits beside it, condensation frozen mid-drip.

"You ordered that drink six hours ago," Agent Min says. "In a timeline that no longer exists."

Your nose starts bleeding.

He hands you a black handkerchief before you even register the metallic taste. The fabric is worn soft, like it's been used for this exact purpose many times before. Your fingers fold it automatically into a familiar shape you shouldn't know.

"Look at the napkin under your coffee," he continues, his voice steady despite the way his hands clench at his sides. Like he's stopping himself from reaching toward you. "Read what you wrote."

You squint through the window.

There, in your handwriting:

1:59 am — Temporal overlap detected in sector 7

Time displacement: 3.7 seconds

Cause: unknown

Note to self: Ask Min about the golden traces

"I didn't write that," you say, even as your head pounds with the ghost of a memory. "I've never even been here at night. The shop closes at—"

"Ten PM. Except during the 25th hour." Agent Min's reflection in the window looks tired. Ancient. "You've written that same note seventeen times. In seventeen different timelines."

The static in the air intensifies. Your Chrono-Sync Watch remains frozen at 01:59:00, but you swear you can feel time trying to move around you, like waves breaking against a stone.

"What golden traces?" Your voice sounds distant to your own ears.

Instead of answering, Agent Min reaches toward the window. Where his fingers touch the glass, faint golden lines appear—like time itself is bending around his touch.

"44 minutes," he says softly. "That's how long we have before time resumes and they come looking for you. Again."

"Who?"

"I told you." He pulls his hand back, but the golden traces linger. "They detected your temporal signature the moment you woke up. The Erasure Bureau will be at your apartment by 2:03 AM."

You should argue. Should point out that temporal signatures are theoretical, that the Erasure Bureau is just an urban legend whispered about in the break room.

Instead, you find yourself asking:

"How many times have they found me?"

His not-quite-smile holds centuries of grief.

“Too many to count. But this time—" He stops himself, jaw clenching. "This time we're going to do things differently."

"Different how?"

He checks the time you can't see. "41 minutes. Long enough to show you how to hide from them, if you're willing to trust me."

You look back at the window—at the evidence of a life you don't remember living, at equations that make your head spin with almost-recognition. At the golden traces slowly fading from the glass.

"Do I have a choice?"

"You always have a choice." He sounds like he's quoting someone. Maybe you. "That's why they keep trying to erase you."

Through the window, you can see other details now. A jacket you lost months ago hanging on your chair. A phone charging that you could swear is in your pocket. A notebook open to a page where you've written a single sentence over and over:

Don't trust CHRONOS. Trust Min. He remembers.

He remembers.

Your head pounds at the words. Your watch stays frozen. And somehow, you know with absolute certainty that you've lived this moment before.

"40 minutes," Agent Min says quietly. "What's it going to be?"

You nod, the motion sending another drop of blood onto the handkerchief. The equation written there blurs—or maybe that's just your vision swimming.

Agent Min exhales sharply, the sound carrying years of frustration. His hand rakes through his hair—a gesture that seems both foreign and achingly familiar.

“Always with the—" He cuts himself off, jaw tightening. "39 minutes. We're behind schedule. Again."

His fingers wrap around your wrist with almost clinical precision, careful to grip over your sleeve rather than skin. The minimal contact sends a jolt through your system—not just static electricity, but something deeper.

Your pulse jumps 7 beats per minute. His skin runs exactly 2.3 degrees warmer than human standard.

"Agent Min, the physical contact protocol clearly states—"

"Your temporal signature is spiking," he interrupts, voice a tad strained, already pulling you away from the coffee shop window. "The contact stabilizes the frequency. Unless you want them detecting you from three sectors away?"

You want to argue, to cite regulation 47.3 about unauthorized temporal stabilization.

Instead, you find yourself analyzing the precise way his fingers align with your radius and ulna—perfect placement for optimal temporal resonance.

Like he's done this exact thing countless times before.

"38 minutes," he says, pace increasing. "Your cognitive processing is about to spike. Try not to fight it this time."

"This ti—" The word fragments as another wave of vertigo hits. The frozen street blurs, overlapping with other versions of itself. You see phantom footprints in the snow that hasn't fallen yet, traces of paths you haven't walked.

Your analytical mind tries to catalogue the impossibilities:

Temperature dropping 3.1 degrees.

Static charge increasing exponentially.

Colors shifting 0.7 nanometers toward ultraviolet.

Agent Min's grip adjusting exactly 0.4 seconds before you stumble.

"The temporal density is—" You start, clinging to mathematics as reality fractures around you.

"—increasing exponentially with proximity to the source," he finishes, that not-quite-smile returning. "You always say that. Right before you—"

Your knees buckle. His free hand is already there, still avoiding skin contact but steadying you nevertheless. The contact doubles the intensity of the memory bleed:

«A different night. The same grip on your wrist. Numbers burning behind your eyes as you realize what CHRONOS really is. His voice, urgent: "A-735, we need to move. They're coming.»

"Stop fighting the cognitive loop," Agent Min says, his current voice overlapping with the echo. "Your temporal resistance is too high. It's going to—"

Your nose starts bleeding again. Figures.

He mutters something that sounds like "stubborn" in a tone that carries too much history. His thumb shifts against your wrist over the fabric, pressing into a point that makes the vertigo recede slightly.

"36 minutes," he says, voice clipped. "We need to get you underground before the next memory hits. Your calculations were right, by the way."

"What calculations?"

"The ones you're about to remember." He changes direction, leading you down a narrow alley you've never seen before. Yet your feet know exactly where to step. "The ones that got you erased last time."

The static in the air thickens. Your Chrono-Sync Watch remains frozen at 01:59:00, but you swear you can feel time trying to writhe around you, like a living thing in pain.

"Agent Min," you say, focusing on protocol to keep your mind from fracturing further. "Where exactly are we—"

"Noma, please."

The words slip out, too soft, too familiar.

Imperceptibly, he stiffens.

Then he corrects himself. "A-735. We're going to the one place CHRONOS can't monitor properly. Try not to pass out this time."

This time. Always this time.

Your head pounds with equations you haven't written yet, theories you haven't proven, memories you can't possibly have.

The only constant is his grip on your wrist, warm and certain, like an anchor in a temporal storm.

35 minutes left.

The numbers feel like a countdown.

You're not sure to what.

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