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munson-blurbs · 5 months

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Single Dad!Eddie x Fem!ReaderSeries

Day 12 of TUI-Mas

Warnings: pregnancy, allusion to smut, contractions, water breaking, labor and delivery, and Eddie wasn't there, epidural, medical emergency, lots of fluff

WC: 4.3k

A/N: I could not have written this piece without @the-unforgivenn 💚 everything accurate in this fic is because of her, and everything inaccurate is because of me. I love you, Annie. Thank you for asking my random birth-related questions at all hours.

Divider credit to @saradika

November 4, 1999

At nine months pregnant, everything hurts.

Perhaps that’s why when you wake up for work with an extra pinch in your back, you cast off any worries. Or maybe it’s because you still have over a week until you’re due, and first babies tend to take their time arriving, so there’s no possible way that today is the day.

You shrug on a sweater and your most comfortable pair of maternity jeans, your body heavy with pregnancy and fatigue. Your movements are sluggish, even more so than usual, and Eddie notices as he stands out the counter, shoveling a spoonful of Honey Nut Cheerios into his mouth.

“You okay, Sweetheart?” he asks, tongue darting out to swipe a drip of milk from his lower lip.

Nodding, you massage just above your tailbone in a meager attempt to ease the pain. “Mhm,” you lie, grabbing two granola bars from the pantry. You unwrap one and take a big bite, letting the chocolate chips melt in your mouth. “Just ready to have this baby.” Another lie, or possibly a half truth; while you’re eager to have your body to yourself again, the prospect of labor and delivery terrifies you.

Eddie presses a kiss to your forehead, his palms gently rubbing your bump. “Eleven more days and then we’ll be a family of four.”

“Baby Brother is taking forever to get here,” Harris laments from his seat at the table, spearing a banana slice with his fork. He glances at your stomach with impatient eyes. “Can’t you do something to hurry him up?”

You cough as your husband’s cheeks flush pink; he rakes a ringed hand through his curls. No doubt he’s remembering last night when he’d innocently lifted your belly to relieve some of the pressure, only to find himself hard as a rock as his fingers lightly dug into your skin. I’ll go slow so I don’t send you into early labor, he’d remarked with a teasing wink.

“Gotta be patient,” Eddie says now, seemingly having recovered from the brief flashback. He slurps the remaining milk from the bowl and stifles a belch, reaching for his jacket and keys. “Have a great day at work,” he kisses you, smiling against your lips, “and school.” He ruffles Harris’s hair, and just like that, he’s out the door.

Harris finishes his breakfast, placing his empty plate in the sink and scampering to the door to put on his sneakers. You watch enviously as he ties them with ease; you’ve been relegated to slip-on shoes until your feet are no longer swollen.

“Come on, Mommy,” he says, slinging his backpack over his shoulders. “I don’t wanna miss the bus.”

You silently pray that the short walk to the bus stop will ease your muscle tension, taking careful steps as you trail behind the far-too-energetic-for-8 AM little boy.

Eleven more days. Only eleven more days, you tell yourself. The reminder has tears prickling along your lash line in a double-edged sword. You don’t think you can handle eleven more days of this discomfort, but will you truly be ready to have a newborn baby in less than two weeks? Once you give birth, you can no longer shield your baby from the world’s dangers and cruelties. Will your love be enough? Will you be enough? And how can you possibly figure it all out in just eleven days?

Your mantra of eleven more days turns out to be just six hours. Since Will became a teacher two years ago, the two of you have made it a habit to spend time together after the students’ dismissal. You’re preparing art materials for tomorrow’s class when you feel it—a trickle of liquid sliding down your leg.

Your eyes widen, heat crawling up your neck and into your face. I peed myself at work. It had happened once last month, but it was preceded by a sneeze, and you were already in the parking lot about to go home. When you’d told Eddie that evening, the two of you laughed so hard that you’d wet yourself again.

But this feels…different.

“Oh, no.” There’s another small stream, but it isn’t accompanied by any relief on your bladder. Your worried murmur gets Will’s attention, and he looks at you with concern. “I think my water broke, but I don’t know…it might just be pee…” Your voice trails off before you can speak in circles.

Will leaps to his feet. “Okay, what do you need me to do?” The pair of scissors he’s been using to cut out paper stars clatter to the table as he rushes to your side.

“Call Eddie,” you mumble, gripping your bump as a cramp—most likely a contraction, you realize—squeezes at your pelvis. “Tell him to—shit—to get my bag from the apartment and bring it to the hospital.” You bite your lip to stifle a groan. “I’ll call Wayne and ask him to get Harris from the bus.”

He nods, dialing from the classroom phone as you rattle off the record store’s number. You pull your own Nokia cell phone—a purchase Eddie had insisted upon after you got pregnant, wanting to make sure you and Baby Munson stayed safe.

“So, um,” Will hesitates after you’ve hung up with Wayne, ending the conversation with a promise to let him know as soon as the baby is born, “Eddie was in the middle of a guitar lesson, so I left a message with one of his employees—”

Please don’t say Ev, you wordlessly plead. Anyone but the stoner who can barely remember to show up to work on time.

“Ev, I think?”

Shit.

Will hooks his arm with yours, providing you with the stability to stand up. “Let’s get you to the hospital, all right? Maybe it’s a false alarm or something.”

You nod, but deep down, you know that this baby is on his way. Call it mother’s intuition, you muse wryly.

After a quick stop in Principal Sinclair’s office to explain the situation, Will helps you into his Chevy Impala, grimacing along with you when another contraction hits. “Should we be timing those?”

You grit your teeth. “Shit, y-yeah. I completely forgot.” All those birthing books you’d read cover to cover to prepare for this moment, and you hadn’t even remembered to time your own damn contractions. “We need to track how long they last and the amount of time between them.”

Will remains unfazed. “We’ll just start now,” he says simply, flicking his wrist to check his watch. “It’s 2:32. Let me know when you get another one.” He turns the key in the ignition, taking your hand before putting the gear shift into drive. “It’ll be okay. Eddie’s gonna get the message, and he’ll be here soon.”

It’s as though he can read your mind, and you exhale a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding. He’s right; if you are in labor, it’s still early enough that Eddie won’t miss the birth.

You hope.

Your contractions are one minute long and twelve minutes apart by the time you reach Hawkins General Hospital, growing slightly stronger with each wave. Will relays the information to the receptionist, his voice wavering with nerves and excitement despite his best efforts to remain calm.

Before you know it, you’re being wheeled into a room, a laminated bracelet with your personal details dangling from your wrist. The clock on the wall indicates that it’s just past 3 PM, which means that Eddie should be here in a few minutes.

As if on cue, the cell phone in your purse chirps its familiar ringtone. Harris had insisted that you change it from the standard option, choosing one that sounds like birds chirping. It normally reminds you of springtime mornings; right now, you’re ready to throw it through the window.

Will passes it to you, and you punch the answer button with an impatient, “hello?”

“Hey, Sweetheart,” Eddie’s carefree demeanor wafts through the speaker, “just wanted to check in and see if you’re feeling any better. Did you want me to pick up something from the store on my way—?”

Dammit, Ev. “Eddie, my water broke at work. Will called earlier and left a message,” you manage, maneuvering around the heart rate monitor to brace for another contraction. “I’m—ughhh, shit—I’m at the hospital.”

“What?!” You can hear his sudden shift to panic; the phone drops from his grasp and clatters on the counter before he retrieves it, uttering a slew of swear words. “Okay, I’ll be right there. Your bag’s at home, right? Oh, and Harris! Shit, let me—”

“Wayne’s on it,” you tell him, hopefully putting an end to his mile-a-minute thoughts. “I just need my bag and my husband.”

There’s a relieved sigh on the other end of the line. “I can provide both.” His humor peeks through his fear in subtle reassurance. “Be there ay-sap. I love you so fucking much.”

“Love you, too.” A soft click tells you that he’s on his way, probably simultaneously scrambling for his keys and shouting at his employee.

Nearly an hour later, there’s still no sign of Eddie. Will blots the perspiration on your forehead with a cloth; out of the corner of your eye, you can see that he’s watching the clock as well. “He’ll be here,” he says as though reading your mind. Or maybe he’s scared that he’ll have to stand in for Eddie throughout the entire process. “In the meantime, I’ll flag down a nurse so we can get you that epidural.” His words are even, but his smile is uneasy, both of you well-aware that he is out of his element. Though he’ll deny it vehemently, you know you owe him. Big-time.

“Why don’t you grab yourself some food from the cafeteria?” You’d heard his stomach growling just before, and he can certainly use a break.

Will nods, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Do you want anything?” he asks out of habit, cheeks tinged pink as you shake your dismal cup of ice chips. “Oh, right. Sorry.” He ducks out of the room as a nurse walks in.

“Are we considering an epidural, Mrs. Munson?” she asks. Her bright smile is one you’ll be unable to return until after the pain medication takes effect.

“Y-Yeah, please.” You shift uncomfortably while she examines you and announces that your cervix is four centimeters dilated. Part of you is relieved that labor is progressing at a pace where Eddie should arrive in time for the delivery; another part just wants this baby out of you, now.

The nurse makes a note on your chart. “I’ll let the anesthesiologist know.” Another unreciprocated grin and she’s gone, off to poke and prod the next patient.

Alone for a moment, you relish the quiet, save for the soft beeps of the machines you’re connected to. With great care, you caress the swell of your stomach where your son has developed from a microscopic speck to a full-term baby.

“Your daddy will get here soon,” you murmur to your sensor-covered belly, “hopefully before you do.” You laugh for a second until another contraction squeezes you from the inside, shifting your expression from amused to pained.

The anesthesiologist and Will arrive at the same time, the former pausing to let your impromptu birth partner enter first. He walks with more enthusiasm now that he’s eaten, though his meal threatens to reappear when he sees the doctor pull out the comically oversized needle.

“Just lean forward,” she says to you, “you’ll feel some pressure, but once the medication kicks in, it’ll be worth it.” She offers you a kind smile before turning to Will and explaining, “you may need to help her.”

“Mhm. Sure.” Will mumbles, avoiding looking at the needle. You clasp your hand in his so you can sit up. The cool air raises goosebumps on the sliver of flesh no longer covered by the gown, but the chill is quickly replaced by a stinging sensation that has you gripping Will’s palm. You don’t realize the strength of your grasp until you hear him mutter, “ow,” but you don’t let go until the burning ceases.

“Sorry,” you say sheepishly, watching him shake out his hand. “About all of this. I’m sure this isn’t how you wanted to spend your afternoon.”

He shakes his head and guides you back against the pillow. “Maybe not, but I’m glad I can be here for you.” Now that the threat of broken fingers has passed, he truly means it.

5:46 PM.

You’ve been in the hospital for nearly three hours, and there’s still no sign of Eddie. Will’s casually flipping through a copy of People magazine that’s so outdated, Nick Nolte was just crowned the Sexiest Man Alive. He’s visibly more relaxed now that the medication has eased your pain, chattering teeth a welcome replacement for your anguished moans.

Your concern that Eddie will miss the baby’s birth has hardened into pure fear that something has happened to him. What if he lost focus while driving and got into an accident? The weather was overcast when you’d arrived at Hawkins General; it could have started raining since then and created slippery roads, perfect for hydroplaning. The thought of him hurt while you’re unable to help him has your insides churning, and for the first time, you’re grateful for an empty stomach.

Maybe you should call Wayne and find out if he had heard from his nephew. But if he hadn’t, then both of you would be stuck worrying and answerless; even worse, if he had and didn’t want to relay bad news while you’re in such a vulnerable state–

“I’m here!”

Relief surges through your veins, Eddie’s panting voice music to your ears. You roll from your side onto your back to see your husband standing by your bedside. Sweat drips down his temples and pools under his arms with the pungency of someone who’d just completed a marathon. His chest heaves as he catches his breath, a jacket haphazardly tossed over his shoulder and your bag clutched in his hand.

He swoops down and places his lips on yours in a series of frantic kisses, his free palm cupping your cheek as though ensuring that the moment is real. He only pulls back when you do, getting a glimpse of your face.

“Where were you?” Not an accusation, but a question threaded with genuine care.

His nose nudges yours as he sneaks in another peck. “Did you know that Chief Hopper retired?” Your brows furrow in confusion at his non-answer to your question. “Well, he did, and the sheriff’s department decided to throw him a parade. Today. Closed off a bunch of the side streets and backed up traffic on the main ones.” He coughs out a terse laugh. “Glad I quit smoking, or my lungs would’ve given up before I hit a half-mile.”

You mull over his response for a moment before it finally clicks. “Wait…did you run here?”

He tugs at his shirt fabric in an attempt to create a breeze that will cool him down. “It was more like a walk-run combo, but…yeah.” He shrugs, no big deal. “Parked my car in a random lot and just…booked it.” His shoulder gently sag as the adrenaline from his adventure wears away. “I gotta sit.”

It’s then that he notices Will, rising from the chair and placing the gossip rag on the table beside him. “Byers, holy shit,” Eddie looks at him incredulously, “have you been here with her the whole time?”

“He has,” you answer for him, managing a grateful smile in your friend’s direction. “And I can’t thank him enough.” Will returns the gesture and pulls Eddie in for a hug, wishing you both luck before slipping out the door.

Eddie brings his full attention back to you, lacing his fingers with yours. His thumb brushes the side of your hand, bringing small but strong comfort with each gentle touch. “Sweetheart, I am so, so sorry–”

“Eds,” you interrupt before he can continue his apology, “you’re here now.”

“Yeah.” Soft, distracted, overthinking. You can practically see the gears in head spinning, His second child and the second time he’d nearly missed the birth. He clears his throat and shakes away the thought with a toss of his hair, swiping his tongue over his lower lip. “How are you feeling?” He takes in the sight of you, his wife, the most beautiful being his cynical eyes have ever seen. “You look pretty damn good for someone about to have a baby.”

You laugh. “That epidural is a miracle from above.” You’ll gladly take the chattering teeth and the itchiness over the sensation of your pelvis imploding. Eddie doesn’t share in your amusement, still focused on his own shortcomings. “Hey,” you say quietly, pulling him out of his mind with just one word. “Don’t think about the missed message or the traffic. We’re having our baby today.” You bring his hand to the apex of your stomach in the final few hours that it houses the life you two created together.

“I love you.”

His eyes shine with emotion. He’s here, not only in this moment, but throughout the entire pregnancy. He didn’t bury himself in music or booze or other arbitrary distractions. He’d read What to Expect When You’re Expecting cover to cover, had gone to all of the doctor’s appointments, made sure to keep the kitchen stocked with your cravings and free of your aversions. He’d picked up the household chores (and delegated some to Harris) to ease your workload and wiped your tears when you’d cried while watching two squirrels play in a tree.

You never asked him to do any of it; you never needed to.

“I love you, too.”

It all happened so quickly.

One minute, Eddie’s watching the monitor spike with a contraction, utterly bewildered by the power of pain medication.

“You really can’t feel that?”

“Just some pressure, but nothing like earlier. I told you; it’s a godsend.”

After hours of strategic breathing, a plethora of ice chips, and a steady outpouring of love between you two, you’re about to tell him that you feel the urge to push.

And then a nurse rushes in.

“Mr. and Mrs. Munson,” he begins, urgency evident even through his calm exterior, “your baby is experiencing late heart rate deceleration. We need to begin delivery immediately.” He glances at Eddie, then at you. “I’m going to check your dilation to see if we’ll try a vaginal delivery or prepare for a cesarean birth.”

The blood drains from Eddie’s face as he processes the information, the lighthearted energy completely zapped from the room. “Is…is she…are they…”

The nurse finishes the examination, removing his rubber glove. “Ten centimeters,” he announces. “I’ll page the doctor.”

It’s a whirlwind, with almost no time for panic to set in. The doctor and the other nurses arrive immediately, and when Eddie takes your hand, you can feel him trembling.

He takes a deep breath, willing himself to be strong for you. Your face says it all: you’re terrified, and you need him to be your rock.

“You’ve got this, Sweetheart,” he whispers fiercely, pushing past the lump in his throat. “You’re the strongest fucking person I know, and I’m so lucky that you’re having my baby.” He kisses your forehead; out of the corner of his eye, he sees the medical staff preparing for delivery. His heart skips a beat, and the realization hits that he’s about to be a father of two.

You’re exhausted, a salty mixture of sweat and tears decorating your face. Gritting your teeth, you push while Eddie coaches you, reminding you to breathe and allowing you to swear at him without even batting an eyelash. It’s mostly a blur, with all of your energy concentrated on getting this baby out, but you vaguely recall telling him that he’s not allowed to even think about touching you again.

“Almost there,” he cheers, flashing an awestruck smile so wide that his cheeks ache. “C’mon, you can do it! Oh, my god, you’re a goddamn superhero.”

Three giant pushes later, you hear the telltale newborn wail as a nurse coos, “Happy birthday, little man! Here’s your mama!” She gently places your tiny baby on your chest, quickly wiping off the vernix covering his body.

“He’s here!” you manage through simultaneous laughter and cries. You carefully hold him against you, kissing the wisps of curls on his scalp. “Hi, baby boy!” Turning to Eddie, you blink away the mist coating your eyes. “We have another son,” you choke out.

He just nods, relishing in the wonder of becoming a father again. His pointer finger grazes the baby’s little half-closed fist, only looking away when the nurse asks him if he’d like to cut the umbilical cord. “Y-Yeah. Please,” he awkwardly adds, doing exactly as he’s instructed.

As the baby is lifted from your torso to be assessed and measured, Eddie kisses you with a passion you’ve never felt before, even from him. You can see that he’s crying, too, and he wipes his cheeks haphazardly.

“I’m so proud of you,” he says, punctuating the statement with another kiss. “I couldn’t have asked for a better mother for my kids.” His nose rubs yours tenderly.

You smile at him. “Do you want to call Wayne? I won’t be up for visitors until the morning,” you add, “but I just want to let him know that the baby’s here, happy and healthy.”

“In a bit,” he murmurs, watching the nurse carefully swaddle his newborn son in a hospital blanket. “I just wanna hold him first.”

Eddie takes your baby from the nurse, shifting to support his head. “Hey, buddy. I’m your dad.” His body slowly sways as he rocks back and forth. “You gave us quite the scare just now. I see you’re following in your big brother’s mischievous footsteps.” He swears his heart melts when the infant opens his mouth to yawn. “Yeah, you’ve had a busy day. Same here. But it was worth it, huh?”

He wears fatherhood so naturally, so perfectly. You wish you could capture this feeling in a jar and save it forever. For now, you settle for watching him fawn over his newest son, your eyelids heavy with exhaustion. The last thing you hear before you fall asleep is Eddie murmuring, “and let me tell you: you have the best mommy a kid could ever ask for.”

Morning arrives after a restless sleep. You know the nurses are just following protocol when they examine you every hour, but that doesn’t mean you have to be happy about it.

But the next knock on the door is one that you welcome willingly. Harris and Wayne stand there, waiting for permission to enter. You smile when you notice Harris shuffling his feet and shaking his hands in an attempt to expel some excess energy.

“Come on in,” Eddie whispers, beaming, “there’s someone very special we’d like to introduce you to.”

Harris rushes to your bedside, peering at the bundle in your arms. “My baby brother!” he squeals, jumping up and down.

Eddie puts a finger to his lips. “He’s sleeping, so we have to be quiet, okay?” He ruffles Harris’s hair as the boy nods. “Do you wanna hold him?”

“Yeah! I mean, yeah,” Harris lowers his voice, sitting down on the bed. You scoot over, careful not to move too quickly, and he melds into your side. He’s always been small to you, but compared to his baby brother, he seems so grown up.

“Okay, hold out your arms like this,” Eddie instructs, demonstrating the correct position, “and you’re gonna make sure to keep his head nice and safe, because he can’t hold it up on his own yet.”

Harris sports a look of concentration as you and Eddie work in tandem to place the baby in his arms. “He’s got the teeniest nose I’ve ever seen.”

Wayne laughs at this, watching his older grandson snuggle his youngest. “Does this little fella have a name yet?”

“Oh, right.” Eddie chuckles. “Gentlemen, this is Hendrix William Munson. ‘Hendrix’ after one of the most talented guitarists to grace this planet, and ‘William’ after an amazing friend and substitute birth partner.”

“Hendrix,” Harris repeats incredulously, never taking his eyes off of his brother. “I’m Harris. I talked to you when you were in Mommy’s tummy, remember?” Hendrix lets out a long exhale, like he’s acknowledging the question. “I know you’re still too little right now, but when you get big, we’re gonna play together all the time. Except when I’m at school.” He looks over at you expectantly. “Can I bring him to school with me? Like for show and tell?”

“Maybe when he’s older,” you say, lacking the bandwidth to point out the logistics of his request.

Harris wrinkles his nose, but his expression quickly softens. “Yeah, you’re right. He can’t even do any tricks yet.”

It’s quiet for a moment, everyone focused on the two Munson boys. Surprisingly, Wayne is the one who breaks the silence.

“You two have one beautiful family,” he muses, an arthritic finger grazing Hendrix’s blanket. “Y’should be proud of yourselves.”

Eddie gives his uncle’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Couldn’t have done it without ya, Old Man.”

Wayne knows this, accepting the compliment with a bashful grin but saying nothing further.

Peacefulness surrounds the five of you, soft conversation seamlessly weaving its way into the calm. You can’t kid yourself; most days will be pure chaos, balancing spit-up and school plays, field trips and feeding schedules. And once Hendrix starts walking—and running—you’ll need all cylinders firing.

But today, right now, you soak in the serenity. Just you and your boys. Your family.

#eddie munson #eddie stranger things #eddie x reader #eddie x you #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x f!reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson smut #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfic #fanfic #eddie munson stranger things #stranger things #tui

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emmebearpaw · 6 days

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hi. I got maybe 5 hours of sleep last night, have been up too long, spent two hours outside at a gardening event and 2 hours sewing tiny decorations for the boots (I’ll show that tomorrow it isn’t done yet) + was busy with video gaming today but I can’t get into the bathroom to brush, so it’s time for peak gay hours.

fictional women in tightly tailored coats are the best. Military style coats are my top tier, Furina’s Ouji coat is another top pick. Can’t go wrong with a (White/black) button up, with either pants or a skirt, but the key to a skirt is the shirt then should be plain, too frilly and it looses it and tips into blouse, hit the balance right though and it’s yummy. The most hot women look at “men’s fashion” and yoink it. Peak fashion, I want to be them and I want them.

my top choices for this exact idea in no particular order:

furina. My girl prince. Talulah. Legally only like her you ger design counts but that dress she wears has enough of the energy . She counts

arlecchino: I love her design so much, think it could have used a little bit more black. No she doesn’t need it in context of game and motion but in still I think she could use it. Thank you for giving her oants

morag ladair: Ok so I’m starting to think having a hat is a bonus to peak design. Please if you don’t know her look her up. She weilds dual fire whip swords. Her formal attire outfit is actually probably even better than her default. She’s also got some gay tension with the woman who is her fire whip swords (xenoblade 2 was weird).

Ange prinvess principal: peak design, not hot, might be because I recognize she is so gay for charlotte I can’t get in there. Her Wesley Fosbery Automatic revolver is the only gun I have ever wanted to own and unfortunately it’s so rare.

Lena from 86: objectively not the point of the series and I didn’t finish the anime (made the mistake of trying to watch it weekly and failing and just stopped watching)

every revue starlight revue outfit.

Mashiro Kurata Bandori: she had too much cute energy for me to ever have a crush on her but like actually all of Morfonica’s original outfit slay (except their stupid gloves. You are playing STRING INSTRUMENTS). I was so right to cosplay her (plus making hats is so fun and she taught me that.)

honorable mentions:

Kafka had doesn’t count because her shirt has no buttons but she ticks off so many of my other boxes (she’s like. The only character to tick off one of them.) she gets an honorable mention

me. I look good in button ups. Can do pants and suspenders to go lesbian or get a gender moment by suspenders plus skirt. Like my favorite button up (and my binder and shorts under) is my key to wearing to wearing my skirt/dress that makes me happy without feeling yucky from the gender and/or the weirdness of not having enough fabric between my legs.

this has been nonsensical gay rambliny

#my post

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thedo0zyslider · 11 months

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Explosions Across Lifetimes - Chapter Eleven: See You Feels Scary (And Losing You Is Worse) - 7k words

(There was so much i wanted to put in this chapter, but some of t had to be moved to twelve bc it was so long lol)

Jimmy acts on his gut feeling, and finds exactly what he's looking for

A03 Link

Playlist

The feeling Jimmy had about his friends' disappearances never went away. In fact, it had increased with every passing second since Fwhip had notified them.

It had been a day of tireless searching, and they’d found absolutely nothing so far. They’d started looking at Rivendell and the Crystal Cliffs, then when nothing was there as they expected, they moved onto the surrounding kingdoms. Now Jimmy was searching the wilderness around his own empire, because even after searching ten whole empires they hadn't found anything.

It felt pointless to Jimmy, searching the swamp, when his head was still screaming at him to go to Mythland, or the Lost Empire instead. He was fairly sure their friends were in one of those two empires, because who else would've kidnapped them really? Who else could've kidnapped two people so seamlessly, without any clues, other than two possessed friends? Who else gained anything from kidnapping Scott other than Xornorth itself?

But the group had agreed to search those two empires tomorrow. The excuses were that it was getting late, or that they didn't have an idea of where Sausage or Joey were at any given moment. Which shouldn't be hard information to get really, in the cod's opinion. That mission was obviously going to be some sort of group effort, and Jimmy still being injured was somehow used as an excuse as well. He wasn’t even that hurt anymore! The Codfather had a slight limp in his injured leg at worst , maybe he was a little clumsy with a sword because Sausage just had to stab his dominant hand. But he could fight just fine, especially if he was with a group.

He’d found that suggestion a little insulting actually, because they'd all seem him fight with worse injuries than a hurting leg before. Jimmy could understand why they would want to be wary though, in case Sausage did try to finish what he stated.

The blonde sighed, calling to his people. He was stopping the search earlier than he was supposed to. It was clear that nothing was in the swamp, and the biome could get quite dangerous at night. Honestly the Codfather didn’t want to go to Mythland and get hurt again, and he also didn't want to risk finding Scott and Gem dead. But that last possibility was growing by the minute, which was a thought Jimmy didn’t like one bit.

Now it was really too late to do anything, and he had to reluctantly call it a night. He did want to just keep going, but he had a strong feeling that Gem would whack him over the head, if he made his sleep schedule even worse for her sake.

Another day passed with nothing, and Jimmy became more sure of his hunch. You couldn't even call it a hunch anymore, because he was dead set on that idea. Gem and Scott had been missing for three days at this point, which was making him even more sure.

By this point every empire had been searched. All of them had been scoured top to bottom, all but Mythland and the Lost Empire of course. Jimmy knew why, they were scared. All eight of them were scared to go and enter the danger zone.

Realistically, they needed to go in there. Because where else would Scott and Gem be? Well, they could be in the nether, but that was supposed to be searched today. They were even going to the End. They were so scared of what might be in front of them they were going the the bloody fucking End , a dimension no one had been in since the demon released, when two whole empires had yet to be searched.

Under normal circumstances, Jimmy supposed the End and Nether were reasonable places to look for two missing rulers. But this wasn't normal circumstances. There was a demon, with two people under their possession. Two people who've shown they're prepared to hurt people.

He'd suggested going to visit Joey first, just so Pearl and Fwhip could put off seeing Sausage for a little longer. He knew Shrub had been dying to try and talk sense into her neighbor as well, and the little gnome had jumped to agree with his idea. But no, the majority vote had said otherwise. They’d risk going there after, because Scott and Gem not being there was a real possibility as well, and they'd be putting themselves in danger for nothing.

Jimmy could tell a few others wanted to agree with him, but they were holding themselves back. Pix and Katherine especially. But those two only excelled at leading when it came to boring stuff, like meetings and diplomacy. They weren’t good at convincing Pearl and Fwhip, too very stubborn people, that maybe Sausage kidnapped his sister and maybe he'd done something worse than that. Jimmy didn’t want to believe it either, but he also had a new scar, hidden right under his Codfather’s head, that proved that option was a very real and likely possibility.

They were stalling, that's what they were doing. They were waiting again, and Jimmy was getting bloody sick of waiting. Because they always waited, all twelve emperors did. That was their whole thing, waiting too long to do anything. That was gonna be the thing that ruined them all one day, that one little flaw, he was sure of it.

They'd hesitated to do much about the demon, because most of them had never seen anything like it before; it was unknown and scary and none of them knew how to tackle it. They'd waited and let Xornorth grow in power until he could free himself. Scott had waited too long to be truthful, which had just dug their collective grave deeper. They hadn’t done anything when Sausage and Joey vanished, hadn’t tried to help them, just waited for them to come back demon possessed. Jimmy’s earliest memory was waiting, waiting for Lizzie to return to the sea. He and Fwhip had waited, waited for the worst possible time ever to try and be something more; to get over that stupid rivalry and admit it was getting harder and harder to hate each other. There were probably a handful of other examples he couldn’t remember at the moment or was even aware of. So yeah , Jimmy was more than a little tired of waiting.

By the time he thought this it was already past midday, and sadly the world didn't stop turning when bad things happened. He was busy, he had things to do. So he'd wait until tomorrow morning, when he knew he was free, and then he'd do something. He'd do what no one else was doing and run into the danger zone.

He could handle waiting just a few more hours. Probably.

After the past two days of nothing, Gem and Scott had been kidnapped for four whole days so far. Any longer and it would be a week before they knew it. Jimmy didn’t know what the hell his two friends were going through right now, but any guesses he had weren't good ones. Those guesses made him more anxious, more antsy, more convinced he should do something sooner rather than later; by himself if he had to.

Day two of nothing was also the day after he'd said he'd do something the next morning. And well, it was morning now. He wasn’t busy today. Jimmy suddenly had a decent guess of how his day would go, and it was probably going to be horrible .

The Codfather would tell only one person where exactly he was going, just in case he didn't come back. It took a few minutes of searching, minutes he shouldn't have time to waste, before he found his favorite member of the Cod Council.

He waved Caleb down quickly, and the other was soon walking alongside him. The two men walked towards the more swampy, uninhabited parts of the empire with less buildings, looking as if they were going to try one more fruitless search. Hopefully looking entirely unsuspicious, mainly because Jimmy wasn’t trusting his body language not to betray him. He wasn’t sneaky, or a liar, or very good at hiding his true intentions ever, so he was expecting someone to figure out just what he was planning on doing sooner or later.

They chatted as they walked, engaging in normal, friendly conversation. Though Jimmy did let himself fall more silent the further they got anyway from the main part of the empire. If his friend noticed, or that anything was up, he didn't comment on it. Knowing Caleb, he probably was just giving Jimmy space and letting him set the pace of their conversation, clearly aware of how hard the past few weeks had been on him.

"I'm going to Mythland." Jimmy announced it after a particularly long stretch of comfortable silence. Caleb stopped in his tracks, and openly gaped at the blonde once the words processed in his head.

"Codfa-- Jimmy ," He stated, dropping all the formalities for the first time since he'd been made a Council Member; even despite Jimmy’s insistence that they weren't needed. "That is a horrible idea! What the bloody hell are you thinking?" Caleb hissed, irritated clicks escaping him. The younger cod even grabbed his shoulders, nails digging in slightly and shaking him a little. That made Jimmy blink in momentary surprise. The two were genuine friends, but Caleb was a man of duty and had never quite got over the formal origins of their relationship.

"I know what I'm doing, okay?" Jimmy reassured him, resting a gentle hand on Caleb's arm letting the smaller hold him as much as he needed. "If Sausage finds me, he won't kill me."

"How do you know that?" Caleb's voice became gradually smaller, eyes glazed with poorly disguised worry.

Jimmy just gave a grim smile in return. "Because I'm more useful alive than dead." He said it so casually, and that was a sentence no one should ever have to say ever, let alone like it was normal .

The younger cod was silent for a few painstaking moments, eyes searching Jimmy’s face. He seemed to figure out that no one was talking the Codfather out of this, and would have to suggest some other options instead. “At least let me come with you!” He hissed, gaze hardening as he let go of the blonde’s shoulder. “I know you can still fight, but Sausage will take advantage of your wounds!” Ah, there was that fearless side of him coming out. Caleb’s hands fell to his side, fists tightening as Jimmy firmly shook his head no .

“If I’m being this stupid, I’m not putting anyone else in danger!” He said firmly, trying to keep his face as steady as possible. One part of him, the scared part of him, the one that knew this was stupid and could get him killed , desperately wanted to have some sort of backup. But the rest of him knew he would never stop blaming himself if someone got hurt because of him. Caleb had a good point, a possessed Sausage would absolutely take advantage of those old wounds he’d caused, but this was assuming Sausage was even home . No one could really confirm that, and that man never stayed in one place for long anyways. Jimmy had like, a fifty-fifty chance of running into the guy, which wasn’t good ; but he could work with it.

“If anyone asks, just tell them I’m at Fwhip’s, or looking in the swamps or something.” Jimmy said, giving the younger a pat on his shoulder. Before any more protests could be made he was taking off with his elytra, and flying off towards the dark forest on his border. Despite being several feet up in the air, he could practically hear Caleb’s exasperated sigh from all the way there.

Jimmy had decided to go check Mythland first, mainly because he doubted Joey was a spooky dungeon type of guy. And because trips to Mythland didn’t take long in general, so it wasn’t long before he saw his destination below him. Honestly he was surprised this was going so smoothly thus far, and that he hadn’t been spotted while literally flying . You’d think it would be harder to break into an enemy kingdom. Jimmy landed near the wall Sausage had made, a physical result of all those older feuds of theirs, and hid against it. Quietly as possible, he pulled out his communicator and started to type. He was about to tip off to all his friends that he was being an idiot, but what could they really do? Stop him?

SolidarityGaming: Anyone have a hunch on where Sausage and Joey are right now?

Pixlriffs: Jimmy, why are you asking?

Oh-ho-ho capitalization , Pix was being serious. The Pixandrian was trying to tell him not to do whatever he was going to do, in his own way, and he should know by now that Jimmy was stubborn as hell and that wasn't going to work.

SmallishBeans: jim don't be stupid

SolidarityGaming: that is so rich coming from you mate

SolidarityGaming: im gonna be careful i swear!!! just need to to know

Shubble: no idea about joey but you could probably take him in a fight

Pearlescentmoon: sausage messages me and comes over sometimes still, which are normal other than the evil demon thing

Pearlescentmoon: he said he needed to go get materials for something, so he'll be away for a while.

SolidarityGaming: thanks!

fWhip: if you get hurt again i think im actually going to strangle you

He read the last message a few times, being able to feel Fwhip’s worry through the screen. The blonde typed a few words, hoping to be reassuring. Something stupid like that he'd be fine, he could handle himself. Jimmy just deletes it after a minute, deciding it wouldn't do anything to stop his partner's worrying. He shoved his communicator back into his pocket and managed his way over the wall.

He kept to the outskirts of Mythland, not wanting to risk being caught. But he did beeline for one building in particular, one that had an ominous air surrounding it. The people, from what he could observe from the side, also generally seemed to be avoiding the building, and it gave Jimmy a sinking feeling in his gut. The thing was also built to kinda look like a dungeon, which seemed like a Sausage thing to do. If he was gonna have a cell of some kind he'd make it as, like…dungeony as possible.

He slowly made his way to the large wooden door, finding that his hands shook a little when he reached out to clasp the door knob. Jimmy took a deep breath, hand lingering on the doorknob still. He mentally prepared himself a little, then quietly turned the knob and opened the door.

The Codfather walked in slightly, and found himself in a dungeon just as he'd expected. It felt damp, there was a light scent of blood in the air, and it was extremely clear the room had been used fairly recently. Jimmy was pretty sure by now that he'd just hit the jackpot, and that his strange intuition had been right all along. Though that thought just made him more mad they’d held off for two days, but he could focus on that later. For now he took a few more into the room, shutting the door softly behind him. From here he could see metal bears, and what looked like a figure in it.

“ Gem? Scott? ” Jimmy hissed as quietly as he could, while still ensuring the two could hear him. The cod was also assuming those were the only people the demon had kidnapped, which he was sure of, and didn;t want to think of random citizens being in these horrible ol’ cells. He moved further into the room after a hesitant second as he did, hearing shuffling noises as he did, and the blonde found basically what he was expecting. It was still disturbing though, like really disturbing.

“Jimmy!” Gem exclaimed as loud as she dared, and Scott startled in the cell next to her. It hurt, seeing them like this, and seeing the sense of pure relief in Gem’s eyes when her gaze landed on him; probably the first friendly face she’d seen during these four long days.

“How hurt are you two?” He asked, having rushed forward to grip one of the cold metal bars. The two looked, ….relatively okay, but also not at the same time. He could tell they were injured a little, yes, and they were probably dehydrated and starving, but other than some basic and obvious observations, he wasn’t very good at telling anything else.

"He's hurt worse than me." Gem said, casting a glance over her shoulder at Scott. The elf stayed in his little cell, sat on the floor giving Jimmy a weak smile. The cod just nodded in response, forcing his mind to not think of that and focus on doing something productive.

“Is there a key anywhere?” He asked, taking a quick survey of the room. There were a few barrels and chests, and knowing their owner, they were probably filled with random junk.

“In the barrel over there,” Gem pointed to said barrel, and of course Gem knew where things were in Sausage’s empire. Of course he’d told her at one point, before the demon before everything, and now she’d been forced to live within inches of freedom for four fucking days .

The Codfather nodded again, quickly moving away and starting to rummage through the barrel that had been pointed out. It took a few seconds to find it, and Jimmy’s shaking hands certainly weren't helping, but he did eventually get a grip on the key. He thought his brain was trying to detach itself from the situation a little, because just how fucked up this all was wasn’t really sinking in yet. This also wasn't a good situation to detach from, he kinda needed to be present to keep all three of them safe.

He unlocked the cells, hands still trembling, and Gem was suddenly shoving past him to get to Scott. The elf had to lean on the wall to stand, with Gem having to half carry him out into the rest of the room.

Scott muttered something about a leg injury when the two reached Jimmy, the blonde now carrying him instead. He didn’t want an already injured Gem having to support basically all of Scott’s weight, even if Jimmy himself was still a little hurt.

Well this is just dandy. He thought a little sarcastically, watching as Gem, who seemed to be on autopilot really, ran off to another barrel and began to look through it. Three injured people against a demon possessed one.

That barrel seemed to be where the two prisoners' stuff had been stored, the wizard now taking various tools and weapons out. Scott tried to stagger forward, but Jimmy kept a tight hold on him, fairly sure he would faceplant if the elf tried to walk on his own. He also noticed how Scott flinched when anything touched his left side, and the cod kept his arm well away from there. His eyes searched over the elf again, and this time he could make out a handful of bruises of the elf; a few healing cuts as well. The injuries littered every exposed inch of skin the other had, including his face. If Jimmy looked over to Gem he could see similar wounds, just in lesser amounts.

So from what he’d gathered, both of them were just generally beat up, and probably needed a hot meal, a bath and some water as soon as possible. Scott also seemed to have something in his leg broken, as well as either very bruised sides of broken ribs; maybe even some internal bleeding. Gem probably also had some bad injuries, but knowing her she was most likely pushing through the pain for their sakes. Her left arm seemed a little stiff, and she appeared to wince when it bent a certain way.

Speaking of Gem, she’d turned back to them, magic staff in hand and wizard’s hat now atop her head once more. The Codfather hadn’t even noticed she was missing her hat before now, which he felt like he should’ve, because Gem never went anywhere without it. As he was pondering that the wizard silently handed Scott any weapons and tools he’d had when they’d been taken, and the elf looked very relieved to have the familiar weight of his bow in his hands again. His other items were shuffled away, but he kept a firm hand on said bow.

“He got the worst of it,” The wizard muttered, noticing the concerned looks Jimmy threw at Scott every few seconds. It was a little off putting, to see the other man so…so fragile. Scott had always appeared strong for as long as the cod knew him, even during the lowest points, so seeing him broken like this was upsetting to say the least. At best it made him incredibly worried, and made the blonde wonder what the hell these two had been put through, and how bad it must’ve been, to break Scott so terribly. Gem’s voice trembled as she continued, distracting Jimmy from his worries. “He started, t-to take some of it for me-”

“I’m fine Gem, really.” Scott said, wincing in pain as he did so. Jimmy didn’t know if the wince was from speaking, since that was the first time he’d talked since he’d been found, or if it was from another injury. They’d very obviously been tortured to some degree, so Jimmy’s brain naturally wondered if he’d hurt his throat from screaming; which wasn’t a fun thing to wonder about, by the way.

"It's not fine, Scott!" Gem almost snapped at him, and her eyes started to prick with the beginnings of tears. She tightened her grip on her staff, gaze shining with pain.

"She's right, it's not fine!" Jimmy hissed, wanting to break up the small squabble. Scott just glared at him, and the Codfather glared back. Normally, they would’ve had some sort of silent argument, would’ve stared each other down until one of them looked away. But Scott didn’t have the mental energy for that it seemed, and just tried to rest his head against Jimmy’s chest. The cod pursed his lips, and held Scott tighter.

“We should go!” Gem said after a second, and led them towards the door, shakily holding it open for her companions.

"We can't fly, can we?" Jimmy asked, frowning deeply. The three had managed to limp a few feet away from the dungeon now, doing so almost painfully slowly. Knowing Sausage was gone was a good thing, but he was material gathering. And that either took five minutes or five hours. Getting out quickly was Jimmy’s top priority at the moment, mainly because Sausage could be home any minute. They could get out easily without flying, his empire was just around the corner, it would just be nerve wracking is all.

“Nope. Not flying, sorry.” Scott spoke up, and Gem nodded in agreement. It was then Jimmy took a glance at Scott’s wings, and found that they no longer shone brightly as they used to. The once silky soft, white and gold feathers were now messy, muddled, and covered in drying, flaking blood. There were even a few patches where no feathers remained at all, and he held off a shudder at the thought of how painful it must’ve been. The cod looked at the elves’ antlers as well, and saw that the left had been broken in a few places, and the right one wasn’t in much better shape. The blonde’s heart ached at the sight, knowing how personal both of those things were to the elf.

“I would usually try some sort of cloaking spell, maybe teleportation, but I don't know if I have the energy for it.” She said it dejectedly, and Jimmy felt a wave of sympathy for the wizard. He knew Gme relied on her powers a lot, so presumably not being able to use them must’ve been hard on her.

“Alright,” He said, trying desperately to keep a sigh out of his tone. “Walking it is then.”

Walking, as the blonde had predicted, took longer than any of them were comfortable with. Scott was on edge the entire time, flinching at any random rustle or noise in the distance. Gem had her staff pointed out in front of her, and Jimmy was sure she would shoot anything that dared to get too close; no matter who or what it was. It only took thirty minutes, maybe forty with a slower pace, to walk from the Codlands to Mythland, (which was mainly because Sausage built so many damn things,) and a walk that length had never felt so agonizingly long before.

When they did get into safer territory Gem reluctantly put her staff down, her gaze no longer darting around like she was being hunted. Caleb, the absolute madman , the MVP, found them quickly; and it looked like he’d been patrolling every border of the empire since Jimmy had set off about two hours earlier. Every day Jimmy was more convinced the young cod was just the best person to ever exist ever .

The next thirty minutes or so was a blur, of Caleb running into the main village area to get help, of the three of them moving faster; Jimmy and Gem determined as hell to get Scott to a healer. The elf really looked like he was about to pass out from exhaustion at any minute. The wizard didn’t look any better herself, but the Codfather got the sense he couldn;t convince her to do anything but fuss over Scott at the moment. At some point a light drizzle had also begun, which reflected the mood surprisingly well.

Two healers, Hemlock and Cove, rushed over once they saw the three. Jimmy, who’s still injured arm was starting to ache by now, gave the pair a grateful glance when they took Scott from him. The elf let himself be carried off without protest, blinking as rain started to fall a bit harder.

Jimmy hummed worriedly, clicking words of codlish to the two healers. Codfolk didn’t mind the rain, they enjoyed it even, but he had a feeling rain wasn’t gonna be good for Gem and Scott. He was pretty sure one of them was almost feverish, and Scott was like, permanently cold instead of warm. The blonde wasn’t entirely sure how that affected his body temperature, but he wasn’t taking any risks! He didn’t want the elf out in the weather for too long, and had told his two citizens to adjust the pace.

Cove clicked back to him, and her and Hemlock adjusted the pace best they could. Before he knew it they were in the healers shack, and the building suddenly felt far too small. Jimmy watched Scott be whisked off, and made a mental note to expand this.

A third healer ran over to help, and Jimmy could not remember their name for the life of him right now. It started with an A , or maybe a B . Something like that. All he could remember about the person was that they were in his and Caleb’s age group, and were the youngest healer the empire had.

They nodded at Jimmy, before taking Gem’s hand and starting to drag her off to another part of the building.

She seemed to have forgotten that Scott already had two experienced people tending to him, and shook her head in protest. "Heal him instead!" The wizard insisted, motioning towards where Scott had been taken too, and Jimmy quickly shut her down.

“Heal her, Cove and Hemlock have everything else covered.” He ordered the healer, before turning to Gem. “If they didn’t do it I’d heal you myself.” He hissed non-threateningly, glaring lightly at her.

The wizard just glared back, but she did begrudgingly let the young cod drag her off to another room on the small building. Jimmy had to wonder yet again exactly what they’d been subjected to, for Gem to be so focused on keeping Scott alive and nothing else. How much he’d taken for her.

After that he knew his Council had found him, and the Codfather was swarmed as soon as he’d left the shack. He didn’t know exactly why he’d left, other than wanting to give his trusted healers space and that the rain felt nice against his scales. He happily let the group of cod descend on him, and for once didn’t really care that they were chewing him out, because he so deserved it. Their worried and angry words fell on deaf ears, as his brain started to fully process just what he’d seen over the past few hours of his life. Eventually though the group had left, probably sensing this was a conversion for later, and Jimmy ended up sticking his head back into the door.

“I’m calling Fwhip,” He called into the building. The cod only turned away to do so when he heard Gem’s yell of “Okay, cool!” from the other room.

Jimmy pulled out his communicator, quickly typing a message to Fwhip. The Count was the first person that came to mind, even though Katherine would've been a better pick for healing reasons. His sister was also here as well, so maybe that was why. He should probably call more people than Fwhip, but he also doesn't need six people crowding around two injured ones and interrupting his healer's work. So immediate family only would have to do it for now.

SolidarityGaming: Found Gem and Scott in Mythland’s dungeon. They were tortured

SolidarityGaming: We’re at the Cod Empire, healers shack.

SolidarityGaming: Hurry please? Scott's injured bad and im freaking out a little.

He got his answer within seconds.

fWhip: holy shit i’ll be there in five minutes tops

True to his word, Fwhip was landing nearby in five minutes, goggles over his eyes to keep the rain out. He probably shouldn’t have flown in the middle of a storm, but neither of them were in the right mindset to really care. He just took the Count’s hand as soon as he was in reach, squeezing tight as he silently led the half dragon inside and to his sister.

The third healer had already left, presumably going to help their co workers. Gem stood, fiddling with her staff absent mindedly. She looked better than she had just a few minutes before, and had been given a fresh set of clothes. He assumed that it would take a few rounds of healing potions to get both of them back to full health. There was also a plate of untouched food on the table, and he presumed Scott had been given the same treatment in the next room over.

Fwhip let go of Jimmy’s hand quickly, and practically ran over to his sister. Gem blinked in surprise, but it quickly turned into a joyful kind of relief. Fwhip held Gem’s face in his hands as tightly as he dared, moving her hair away as he checked for injuries. “Are you okay?”

"Yeah, I'll be fine.." Gem muttered. Fwhip, who looked to be on the verge of tears, drew his sister in for a hug. She hugged him back tightly, and Jimmy slipped out of the room, sensing this moment wasn't for him to witness.

He walked over and into the other room, seeing Scott now sitting up in the bed. He’d been changed into some basic Cod empire clothes at some point, ones that were far too big for him. He was being absolutely swallowed by the shirt, sleeves hanging off his arms. It was clear holes had needed to be cut for his wings, and the collar was a little stretched; probably having been caught on the elves' antlers. Scott wasn’t one for baggy clothes normally, but seemed to be tolerating it while his normal outfit was cleaned and sewed up. Cod empire clothes could also be quite cozy, in Jimmy’s humble opinion, so he hoped that was a nice bonus for the other man.

"Hey." The elf muttered after the door was shut, looking just as tired as he had when Jimmy had found him. He sat on the bed, his lower half buried in a mess of covers and blankets. The healers had clearly tried to make the ruler as comfortable as possible, and it looked like their efforts hadn’t gone to waste. Scott seemed to be melting into the fabric a bit.

"Hi." The cod smiled back softly, hesitantly sitting down next to Scott on the bed. The other said nothing, just gave his own shaky smile in return.

Jimmy didn’t really know what to say, so he just asked the most obvious question he could think of. "You okay?" The blonde muttered, idly swinging his legs from where they hung off the edge of the bed.

Scott made a sort of amused huff. "As okay as I can be after…..after that ." He responded, fiddling with one of his rings. Jimmy blinked a bit, having forgotten that Scott often wore jewelry, and a lot of it. He didn’t know how that fact had slipped his mind, he'd never seen the elf without at least one pair of earrings on before.

"What was….. that anyways? If you wanna talk about it, that is." The Codfather asked the question hesitantly. Scott could say no if he wanted, Jimmy was pretty sure he was the last person the elf wanted to talk about his trauma with, especially because of…recent events.

Scott stayed silent for a few minutes, long enough that Jimmy figured he wouldn't say anything at all. But that man was always full of surprises, good or bad, and did eventually speak. “It was like…kinda mix of more traditional torture methods and magic.” Scott’s voice shook each more with each word, and Jimmy instinctively reached for his hand. The elf held onto it tightly as he continued speaking, like it was a lifeline.

“It was mostly magic though, which is better than being like, whipped or something.” Scott shuffled closer to him unconsciously. “I don’t think Sausage has had many… opportunities to try out his powers yet.”

“Did Xornorth not give Joey any magic?” Jimmy asked, a little curious.

Scott let out a hum in response, a noise that seemed to be comforting to himself. “He did, but I don’t think it was very much. Joey has like, this weird ugly crown thing and whatever power he did have seemed a little weak. Sausage is the one with an actual staff.” He explained.

“Was wondering why he wasn’t going around attacking people, if I’m being honest.” Jimmy responded, feeling how Scott gently thumbed his palm. He didn’t think the elf was doing it consciously, and figured it was probably done in an attempt to stay put together. As if anyone would blame him for having a breakdown after the past few days.

“I think he’s just a pawn.” Scott continued, his gaze a little far off. “He seemed a little out of the loop if I’m being honest, and never showed up without Sausage there.”

“He’s clearly smitten for my bro-- Xornorth .” Scott’s face scrunched up at the thought, and Jimmy gave a smile at that. The way the elf referred to his sibling, like he was hesitant to acknowledge that they were related, didn’t escape the cod, but he elected not to say anything about it. “I think Joey’s just being used because of that, and that Sausage is more of a protege.”

“Makes me feel bad for the guy, even if he is a massive pain in the arse all the time.” Jimmy mumbled, and Scott let out an amused snort at the last part. “He’s gonna be so heartbroken if we manage to fix all this…” The elf ran a hand through his hair, seemingly dreading that little possibility.

“Not ‘if’,” The Codfather said, giving the other a light tap on his shoulder. “ ‘When’ ” He just got a quiet, unintelligible murmur in response. It sounded skeptically, maybe even a little sarcastic, and Jimmy had half the mind to scold Scott for being so hopeless. They kinda had to have hope that they’d beat the demon, because if they didn’t what else would they have?

“Was Fwhip right? Was that actually Sausage?” He ventured, remembering that one message his partner had sent after his own encounter with the man. He didn’t think that had been Sausage personally, but Fwhip knew him better, so what could Jimmy tell. He’d only seen the man for like, five minutes anyways, and had just ended up doubting his own view on the matter as time passed.

“He acted the same, spoke the same, but it wasn’t him.” Scott said it with certainty. “I think Fwhip’s in denial, or something, because that’s clearly not him.” The elf gaze stopped being distant, and moved to Jimmy for the first time since he entered the room. “I know you two don’t get along, but he wouldn’t try to kill you, even if you really pissed him off.”

Jimmy made a click of agreement in his throat. “If he wanted to hit me over the head with an axe, I figured he woulda done it years ago.” The statement was meant to be a little humorous, the cod having forgotten that only Fwhip really knew how bad his injuries had been.

“ That’s what he did!?” Scott exclaimed, voice finally rising above something more than a soft, shaken up tone. “Jesus, no wonder Fwhip was worried about you dying ! He gave you head trauma!”

“Got a scar from it too,” Jimmy huffed, tapping a certain part of the Codfather’s head. “Right under there.” Scott made another unintelligible mutter, and they fell in a short yet comfortable, maybe even slightly settled, bout of silence.

“How often was Joey there?” He asked, remembering how earlier Scott had said that he hadn’t shown up much.

“Like once a day, maybe two maximum.” The other responded. “I think a part of Sausage couldn’t hurt Gem, so Joey did most of that. Until-” “Until you started taking most of it for her?” Jimmy butted in, allowing his voice to be a little sharp. Scott simply nodded in response.

“Why’d you do that anyways?” The Codfather asked, making his tone soften. He had a few guesses as to why, and he didn’t like any of them. Said guesses basically all involved Scott thinking he deserved it more than Gem, or some stupid train of thought like that. It was probably true to some degree, even if Jimmy was desperately hoping it wasn’t. He was fully prepared to beat those thoughts out of Scott’s head with a metaphorical broom if he had to.

“….Cause everything’s my fault.” Scott whispered. “If I had said something about the demon none of this would’ve happened-”

“It’s not your fault Sausage is stupid and power hungry.” Jimmy cut him off a little too fiercely. Scott just huffed indignantly, shuffling further away from the cod. It was clear this was a conversion the elf did not want to have right now, and Jimmy just shut his mouth. That man always had to be stubborn when it came to things like this, didn’t he? Another silence lapsed between them, this time more stiff and unfriendly. Their fingers were still laced together, so he could tell Scott wasn’t too peeved at him.

“I preferred Joey though, just a little bit.” Scott slowly went back to their earlier topic, his grip on the blonde’s hand tightened. “Sausage like to be… affectionate? I don’t know how to describe it. He just did things like hold my face, coo at me, generally act really gentle before hitting me with a spell.” At hearing that, Jimmy finally reached over and pulled the elf into a hug. He didn’t know why he hadn’t done so sooner, really, after being so scared of losing him. Of losing both of them.

He felt Scott tense a little, Jimmy taking care to avoid the now bandaged wings. Eventually, Scott’s arms wrapped around him in return, and he let the other melt into him; head carefully buried against the cod’s chest. Jimmy didn’t even bat an eye when his shirt began to grow damp, perfectly content to sit like that for however long Scott needed.

“He didn’t do anything else , if you’re worried.” Scott muttered into his chest. “Just….was really physically affectionate.”

“Still wasn’t okay.” Jimmy muttered, clutching the other a little tighter than he had before.

“I know…” Scott responded, and began to slowly pull back a bit. He was awkward about it, like he wasn’t sure if it was okay for him to hug the Codfather. Even though he clearly needed a hug, or something like that.

There was a soft, distinctive knock on the door when Scott had first started to move away. Jimmy wasn’t very surprised when Fwhip was opening the door a moment later, his gaze almost immediately zeroing in on the tears still lining Scott’s face.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything.” The Count said lightly, closing the door gently behind him.

“Nah, your good man.” Jimmy responded. Scott just offered a small wave of greeting, the other hand going to wipe his eyes. Fwhip’s tail just flicked in response, before he walked over to stand in front of Jimmy.

He grabbed the cod’s face, probably a little rough than intended, and held his partners cheeks in clawed hands. “Don’t you ever do something that stupid again !” He growled, though the noise came from a place of concern rather than irritation.

“Sorry…” Jimmy muttered, leaning into the touch a little. He felt Scott’s gaze move away from them a little awkwardly, probably going to stare at the wall again or something. Fwhip closed his eyes, lightly resting their foreheads together and his tail winding around the Codfather’s legs. “Seriously…stop making me think I’m gonna lose you buddy” The Count muttered quietly.

In response Jimmy frowned, and maneuvered to press a small kiss to Fwhip’s gloved hand. The half dragon said nothing, clearly thinking it would be better to continue that discussion later. Instead he let go of the cod’s face, and fixed his gaze on the blue haired elf sitting mere inches away.

“And you,” Fwhip’s words startled Scott out of his own head, the elf jumping in surprise. “C’mere!” Fwhip moved away from Jimmy until he could give Scott a hug of his own, leaning uncomfortably over the side of the bed. The elf seemed a little puzzled, but hugged the Count back as well when it became clear he wasn’t letting go anytime soon,

“Didn’t think you still cared that much.’ Scott murmured, punctuating it with a dry and humorless laugh. Fwhip pulled away at that, gripping the elf’s shoulder. His gaze switched back to serious in an instant, and Scott seemed to shrink under the look he was given.

“I wanted to punch you , I didn’t want you dead, Scott!” He hissed, and the elf just moved his gaze to the bedsheets. They were gonna have to do a lot of work with Scott’s self worth issues, weren’t they?

“Where’s Gem?” The blonde asked after a moment, having thought Fwhip would stay close to her.

“Said she was gonna help fix up her and Scott’s clothes. Probably with magic or something.” Fwhip grunted. He was clearly still annoyed at the elf in front of him, indicating by how his tail moved against the floor, but both he and Jimmy had decided to leave it be for now. Now wasn’t the best time to try and convince Scott he wasn’t the worst person ever, when his brain had just been given plenty of fresh experiences to back it up.

As if one cue Gem walked into the room, forgetting to knock and just throwing open the door. She was in her regular outfit again, somewhat used codlands clothing draped over her arm. The wizard had Scott’s normal attire as well, and even from here Jimmy could tell the fabric had been fixed magically. It was a distinct lack of stitches, the cloth looking as if it had just mended itself back together, like bones did.

Gem threw the items in her hand down on the bed, before basically throwing herself at Scott. The elf blinked in surprise again, clearly not expecting to be getting so much love today. “I’m just getting all the hugs, huh?” He muttered, smiling as he returned the wizard's embrace.

“Because you're stupid !” Gem half laughed, half choked out. She went to grip the elf’s shoulder, mirroring her twin, and gently throttled him about for a minute. “You are the stupidest person in the room right now! And Jimmy is literally right there!”

“Hey!” The cod giggled, giving her a lighthearted glare. Gem just smiled cheekily at him. Fwhip just huffed and patted his partner's arm in playful sympathy.

Scott laughed at that, it was a good laugh too. It was the most joyful sound he’d made all day, and Jimmy was glad he could still be so happy after everything he’d just endured over the past four days.

A few hours after that they left Scott to sleep and hopefully eat a little, because he was clearly still exhausted. He’d offered a room for Gem and Fwhip to stay in, not feeling comfortable with the former being discharged so quickly. Usually Gem would be antsy to return home, but the cod was pretty sure her concern for Scott was overriding that. Fwhip didn’t even have to force her to accept the offer, and the two disappeared into their own room soon after.

Jimmy didn’t want to call it a night, he really didn’t. But he was tired, and the sun was starting to set. He had more things he wanted to talk about with the elf, some personal, some the whole group of them needed to hear, but he supposed that he could wait to do that.

For the second day in a row, Jimmy promised to do something in the morning.

#i shat out most of this today dfgh #ron.fic #ron.writing #explosions acorss lifetimes #jimmy solidarity #empiresblr #fwhimmy #fwhip #empiresshipping #count fwhip #the codfather #empires jimmy #empires fwhip #i think its funny that no one ever talked abt the kidnappings in canon after they happened. like excuse me lmao #literally speed posted this dfgh

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longroadstonowhere · 1 year

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i was gonna make a little more of a shitpost about something in zelda, but hey i’m enjoying doing these little debriefs into the void, let’s talk about what i did today

i’m gonna say lategame totk spoilers below

so like, this morning i woke up and was like ‘okay, it’s final boss time, let’s do this thing’ because, like, i got the mission to go into hyrule castle! it’s time to track down the fake zelda and figure out what’s really going on there! and, well, i did figure that out, but uh, it wasn’t the final boss

so after getting over being flabbergasted at the rug being pulled out from under me (which, to be clear, i absolutely loved that i didn’t see this coming), i ran around doing some chasm exploration (hehehe), did some random side questy things like updating the purah pad (which, i like how they put the dlc stuff from botw into the regular part of this game - makes me wonder if there’s any dlc planned for totk down the line), and then finally remembered the ring ruins in kakariko existed so was able to continue the main quest

had some difficulties getting to the thunderhead isles (thought i would be cool and land in the pond on the first island, instead i smashed my head against a pillar), but adventuring through those was fun, and now i’m in the depths with mineru trying to put her body together - got the left leg to her on the first attempt, but the right leg took me like four or five tries to get over to her, so i started wondering if she really needs both legs that badly, hahaha (this was what the shitpost was gonna be about by the by)

that’s where i’ve stopped for the night, because redoing something several times only to fail at the end is frustrating, and since i need to sleep anyway that was a good point to stop

i’m glad the fake zelda didn’t end up being mineru, and that she’s got her own temple (either this factory or another whole dungeon beyond it), and that we get to hang out! because you know she’s my fave new npc based on nothing but pure imagination, can’t wait to see what she’s actually like to decide if she’s actually going to be my fave, hahaha

i also really loved the whole riddle getting the ancient thunder outfit put together, and exploring the whole dracozu lake area, because i know i wandered around there in botw, and it’s really cool how the environment can completely change when you have a slightly new context

so tomorrow i’ve got a dentist thing, which means i probably won’t start playing until the afternoon, but i’ve got high hopes for finishing the main story by friday, since, like... there can’t be that much more, right? like we’re approaching skyward sword levels of ‘oh i didn’t realize you could put this much in a zelda game’, which is extremely awesome! but at some point i gotta take down ganondorf, and maybe bring zelda back from being a dragon??? like.... some part of me still can’t believe they’ll leave her like that, i’m really hoping mineru can pull some spirit shenanigans

oh! also because i was curious, i looked up where the ancient shirt is (or archaic shirt or whatever it’s called), and it’s in a cave, so like obviously i wasn’t gonna find it because like hell i was doing anything on tutorial island that wasn’t the main quest stuff with how few hearts i had

oh, and also i like how they had another vitality check during the thunderhead isles stuff, but they had a shrine and a goddess statue right there, so you could easily warp back if you needed to run off and do some shrine hunting (but uh, it only needed ten hearts and i’m at seventeen now, so, you know, we good - although it’s hard for me to tell because the hearts aren’t going onto a second line, so i have to walk up to my tv and count carefully to figure out how many i have)

i find it interesting that, if you do all the main story stuff, they expect you to have at least ten hearts and two rings of stamina, it’s an interesting benchmark and i kinda wonder if there was any purpose to it or if it was just a random choice

i also wonder if there’ll be any more vitality checks along the way - i will probably be fine, but it’ll be interesting to find out

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bloodycassian · 3 years

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Reader x Cassian - Hellish Prompt: Reader is an assassin/spy that was caught and azriel has spent months torturing her for information and can’t get anything out of her and cassian eventually goes to see who this assassin/spy is and the mating bond snaps and cassian beats the $hitt out of az bc of the mating bond instincts and rhys has to intervene and break up the fight (i was thinking this could switch between azriel’s POV at the start and then switch to cassian's POV)

AN- this was SO fun to make. Please more requests like this!! I love the idea of unexpected mates!

TW -blood/ blades.

Drip, drip, drip. Copper smell filled the small room. Blood leaked down the drain in the floor. You wheezed a laugh bitterly and spat on the ground at his feet. Azriel's rage simmered calmly under his dark shadows. They coiled, ready to strike. Wanting to strike. The sound of your feeble laughs was practically the only sound Azriel had gotten from you for the first week of torture. The second week was worse, even for him. Truth teller revealed nothing when he gouged into your skin from the bottom up. Truthfully, he was impressed beyond measure. But that didnt mean that he could stop the job at hand. He had to know, and wished he didnt have to do this kind of thing to get the information from you. "Listen..." He sighed, cleaning his blade. He was always nervous whenever he had a back turned to an enemy, no matter how well they were restrained. But he trusted his shadows enough to tell him if something was wrong. "If you just.. Cooperate and tell me where the Queens are, we can let you go. No trouble, just releasing you back to Rask." He tried to keep his tone neutral, but he was nearing an exhaustion point. Torture every day for two weeks had its toll not only on the victim, but the dealer as well. His shadows seemed to be growing restless too, waiting for a chance to strike. He watched your reaction from the corner of his eye. Noted the way your head hanging loosely seemed to gain a bit more strength before you spoke. "Losing your touch, Spymaster?" You revealed a row of bloody teeth to him, and grunted when the chains at your wrists stung the magic that weakly attempted to help you. Azriel could have sighed. He could have laughed and bled you dry. Have a healer come and patch you up enough to keep you alive. The idea was tempting, but he didn't like having anyone besides his brothers see him in this mode of darkness. He could have brought Rhys down to attempt to break into your mind again. After the first attempt and Rhys' reaction to being blocked, he wasn't eager for that again. So he sighed, and brought out the potions laced with Faebane. + He was convinced you weren't a normal Fae. After months of his best torture methods he was a wreck. "She just-" He tried to hide his frustration, but his brothers knew him best. Cassian smirked by the fire, warming his wings. Rhys seemed a bit more concerned, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. Azriel had never been one to spend a long time on torture. Rhys saw the frustration flowing from him after every session with the stubborn Fae in the dungeon cell. "I dont know what to do anymore. She's the only one to have never broken." He ran a hand though his hair. His shadows seemed weak, exhausted like him. Rhys considered for a moment, looking between his two brothers. Cassian seemed to be enjoying Azriel's frustration. Maybe a bit too much. Rhys sipped his wine then, with a look of innocence, "Maybe we will have Cassian end it. Perhaps seeing the Lord of Death in front of her will knock something loose." Cassian's stare whipped to him, a silent plea on his face. "We should leave it to our expert Rhys-" Azriel laughed, cold and bitter. "The expert hasn't got a damn thing out of her. We either kill her or send her back to Rask with all the information she's collected about us. With nothing in return." Shame lined his features. The sense of failure to his high lord was a heavy weight to bear. "Cas...I expect you down there tomorrow afternoon. It will be her last chance." Rhys' no nonsense tone shut down Cassian's retort. His jaw locked with distaste. He hated the cramped cells below the house of wind. Hated the way going underground made his wings feel like they needed to stretch. The worst was when that stale air was laced with the rotting smell of dead mice or old blood. It made his skin crawl just thinking about it. "Come on Cas, dont you want to see the only one that's outlasted me?" Az asked with a mock grin. He couldn't give the same smile back. Turmoil spilled inside him at the thought of going so far below the mountain. + Cassian took a long time to go to bed that night. His restlessness about the next day made him wake up over and over, never having more than an hour of peace before being waken up. Azriel held up a mug of tea to him the next morning. "You look like shit." He handed his brother the mug with a small smile. Cassian glared at him, but took it anyway. He went to the balcony, his heavy wings needing to feel the fresh air. It was like taking a bath after being covered in grime. He sighed in relief, letting the late morning sun graze his body. The cold wind from Illyria was beginning to come in for the winter, and the familiar smell ignited something in him. He felt a draw, but shoved it to the back of his mind. He knew what he had to be this day. "Why the hell do we have to keep them so far down again?" Cassian complained. Around and around and around. Down deeper and deeper into the pit of the mountain that the house above was carved out of. Cassian felt like his lungs were collapsing the further they went. He tried not to let his nerves show, but he knew Az's shadows would pick up on it anyway. "Remember when you broke your arm chasing down that Attor?" Azriel could have laughed at that memory, but the story surrounding it made the experience soured. More shame on top of the guilt already there. Cassian hummed in approval, welcoming the distraction the memory brought. He tried not to focus on how each turn of the staircase got darker and darker. How the air seemed to compress around him. He locked his eyes on the scar on one of Az's wings. "And we spent a week fixing the top story of that apothecary?" He asked, keeping his voice steady. "Yes. Dont you remember how the Attor got out?" Cassian shook his head, and Azriel huffed a laugh. "I left the door open for just a second to get a new knife and..." He shook his head, part in anger and regret, part in shame. "It had escaped before I turned around. I dont know how it happened, to this day." Cassian stared at the back of the shadowmaster's head. The dark ripples around him seemed to spike. "It happens Az, you can't be perfect." "It's not perfection, its basic thought. After that we moved all enemies to the lower dungeons. No matter the threat. Rhys even put wards on the arches." He ran a hand over the walls, his fingers catching a few of the grooves that linked each spelled archway to the other. Cassian left the conversation at that. At least his brother wasn't brooding as much as before. The dim lights began to come into view, and his heart began hammering. Adrenaline singing through his veins. His polished siphons glowed, reflecting red off the dark stone ceiling. He had polished all his black armor the night before, when he couldn't sleep. Something poked, prodded at him all night. Keeping him awake. He figured he may as well make use out of it. "She's not going to talk to you unless you show..weakness first." Azriel said in a low voice. Cassian nodded, reaching the end of the stairwell with him. Cassian couldn't see the dark figure in the cell, but he felt the presence nonetheless. The dark draw that you demanded. He wondered how Azriel had dealt with that pull this whole time. The tantalizing draw to you. He shook his head, pushed the hair out of his face and nodded to Azriel. He opened the door, then began his ritual. At the start of every session he would toss a bucket of water over your body, then a bucket of salt. It made the wounds that handn't healed fully scream in pain. You jolted at the suddenness of it this time. "Good morning, shadowsinger." You ground out, voice rough with strain. Cassian watched in awe at his brother. Cassian was never one for torture. There was a reason Azriel was appointed to this position. Watching the calm cruelness of him was jarring, but Cassian kept his face straight. He stood behind you, watching the flimsy attempts to pull at the shackles holding your arms up. Lacerations dotted each arm, some light pink scars. Some were still scabbing over. A chill ran down his spine. "You have a guest today, would you like to see him?" Azriel's voice was cool, calm. Like he was speaking orders to a group of soldiers. He began slicing new lines into your arms, moving up to your neck. He had left your ears in tact, as a last resort if you refused to speak to Cassian. The pull Cassian felt was overwhelming. He walked a bit too quickly around you, plastered on a wicked smile for show, then crouched down. The smile faded when he finally saw your face. Your dripping hair was a horror on its own. Plastered to the skeletal cheekbones, and pale eyes. Those eyes were brighter than anything he'd ever seen. A field of flowers down the slope of Illyrian mountains. His world shifted, drawing the breath from him. "Mine." His mind seemed to roar with that alone, but in a thousand different variations. "Lover, friend, partner, mine mine mine. Mate. My mate." His lips quivered with the realization. With the way his heart soared, and the way he moved without realizing it. He choked a gasp, and fell forward on his knees before you. He saw the same astonishment in your reaction. Azriel dropped his sword, confusion and concern alert on his features. "Cas wh-" Before he could finish, before his shadows could detect that Cassian had even moved, his brother was on top of him. Cassian's knuckles stung with every punch. A new kind of rage flared inside him. It made his muscles yearn for violence. Made his teeth crave the flesh of those that so much as looked at you wrong. There was no mercy for Azriel, it was as if he was an enemy on the battlefield. Cassian held nothing back. You hung limply from the chains that bound you. Crunch after crunch sounded from Azriel. He eventually managed to push Cassian off of him. Then they locked together in battle again. Clashes of armor against armor were deafening. The snarls they ripped at each other were loud enough to make you cringe. Your heart squeezed at the sounds of Cassian's breath. At the scent of blood spilling. You pulled feebly at the chains, your mind roaring to protect him. Your mate. You tried to watch the battle, but the weakness in your body refused to let you turn more than a few inches. They were panting, Cassian fighting with a ferocity Azriel had never seen. His eyes flared with rage, like he was possessed. "Cas-" Azriel grunted, shoving his brother backwards. His back hit yours, pushing you down and digging those stone cuffs into your wrists. You hissed in pain. Cassian roared and lunged at his brother again, and again. The darkness that boomed outside the cell was jarring. The stone ceiling shuddered, small rocks and dirt falling from it. Cassian did not stop. He didn't hesitate, coming at Azriel with punch after punch. His fist crushed the wall behind where Az's head had been.

"Enough." The high lord's cool command was enough to make you still your weak attempts at looking at the two. Cassian's chest heaved as he tried lifting his arm to punch Az again. Pure fury in his heart was enough to make him disobey Rhysand's order.

Then Rhys' talons gripped him. Freezing his mind, stilling him. Rhys' face shifted to surprise at what he glimpsed at there. "Oh.." He breathed. Azriel panted, backing away from his brother, out of the cell. He locked the cell and wiped the blood from himself, his wings hanging limply behind him. "What- the hell." He panted, nursing his arm. Cassian's eyes locked to your small frame. How your muscles quivered, how your arms shook with the effort of holding yourself up. He felt Rhys' claws recede slowly from his mind, releasing each part of him one by one. He rushed to you. He picked up Azriel's sword and with a clean, masterful swipe, broke the enchanted stone that bound you. The weak sigh that came from you was heartbreaking. His eyes pricked with tears, and he caught you before you could fall to the floor into the puddle of dried blood. He didnt notice, or care that it was there. He sat there with you, cradled you and shook with you.

"Cassian... She's.. Cassian's mate." Rhys said slowly, astonished. He didn't take his eyes from his brother in the cell. Azriel froze in place. For a moment, the dungeon was completely still. Totally silent, as if the world waited for what was to come next.

Azriel turned on a heel and left, trudging up the stairs. Rhys dared not touch his mind. "Cassian...." He spoke, trying to get his brother's attention. He did not glance at Rhys, just curled around your body more. Protecting, nesting almost. Rhys knew the feeling too well from the weeks after he and Feyre's bond snapped into place. "We will check in tomorrow. Be safe, brother." Rhys spoke to Cassian's mind. It was nothing but an ocean of rushing thoughts. Cassian could have bared his teeth, could have tried to fight his brother through the bars of the cell. Hell, he could have probably broken through those bars with the primal strength flowing through him with the rush from the bond.

But he didn't. He stayed, his warm body pressed against yours. Those siphons glowing against your skin like a fire. He stroked your hair soothingly, his tears like rainfall on your body, through your bloodstained clothes. He didn't remember falling asleep there, but it was the most restful, peaceful night he'd ever had in his existence.

#acotar #acotar fic #reader x cassian #cassian fic #cassian #azriel mention rhys mention #cassian x reader

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helliontherapscallion · 3 years

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(Y/n) and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week: Thursday (Part 2)

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday (Part 1) Friday Saturday Sunday

Spotify Playlist (collaborative)

Warnings: panic attacks, swearing, puking, concussions, mentions of injuries/bullying, homophobia

Word count: 5,138

After school, you were sitting on the couch as you furiously typed on your keyboard at an extremely fast pace. You were on a roll with these essays, they were probably going to be finished by the time you had to go back to the school to get on the bus with the team. You figured that you could even finish Annie’s essay and get started on Sammy’s US history presentation on the sociopolitical climate of the United States in the mid twentieth century to today. However, instead of covering a variety of topics like the rubric requested you to do, you were only going to talk about the significant events that happened to the LGBT+ community starting with Stonewall and going to Obergefell v. Hodges. You were also going to go in depth about how even if there are more opportunities available and more laws set in place to protect for LGBT+ people in the present then there were in past, members of the LGBT+ community still suffer heavy discrimination in the workplace and in the public. With receipts of course, the assignment required a minimum of three pictures per slide, and the group chat was a perfect source.

After that was done, you would email Sammy’s teacher (you had her last year for US history and you knew that she had a son in the grade below you currently transitioning from female to male) that you were the one that did her project and send screenshots of Sammy calling you slurs. Luckily for you, you had receipts of her being transphobic in the past that you could also send. Everything was effortlessly falling into place for you today.

As you were typing, the front door swung open and two overly excited fifth graders ran into the house and up the stairs. A tired Schlatt followed them. “I will never know how the hell Phil keeps up with them.”

“I dunno, maybe because he’s already raised three kids before.”

You watched as your uncle jumped and whipped his head over towards you, his hand clutching his chest. He lightly glared at you, “christ kid don’t do that, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

You smirked at him before turning back to your laptop to continue typing the essay. You were almost done with the conclusion paragraph on Annie’s essay and you wanted to get to Sammy’s presentation as fast as possible. As you were typing, you felt a warm air fan across your neck and your uncle’s voice right next to your ear, “whatcha typin?”

You lept off the couch and almost fell into the coffee table before steadying yourself and deadpanning at Schlatt. “I was typing an essay before you interrupted me.”

He snorted, “it looked like you were on a roll, just thought I’d see what my beloved niece was writing. Can I read it?”

Your eyes lit up as an excited grin split your cheeks, “yeah, but lemme catch you up real quick. Adrian, Sammy, and Annie got mad at me a few days ago and wanted me to do some homework for them as a sort of payment. But after they pulled that little stunt in the lunchroom yesterday, they decided to be little bitches to me and call me slurs. So naturally, I decided to change the essay prompt into an in depth analysis about discrimination LGBT people face from their peers on the daily. My english teacher’s really against homophobia and the project’s worth twenty five percent of our overall grade, so it’s perfect.”

While you were rambling on and on about your detailed plot for revenge, Schlatt couldn’t help but be proud of the person you’d become. A major part of him was impressed that you came up with a detailed plan so quickly, that meant that his cunning nature was rubbing off on you and that made him ecstatic. Sure you mentioning not being straight was new to him, but he was prepared to accept you for whatever you identified as. He didn’t care how people identified, he just cared if they were good people. And his niece was one of the best kids he knew. He’d let your slip up slide for now until you felt comfortable enough to properly come out to him.

“That an amazing plan, fuckin brilliant. Though, you could do more.”

That piqued your interest, “I’m listening.”

“Do you have any blackmail?”

Your eyes glinted with sudden understanding, “why yes I do, uncle dearest. I just so happen to have thousands of texts from them talking shit about each other and basically the entire school. And them being incredibly racist. They would be destroyed if that came out.”

“Two things. One, never call me that again. Two, perfect. Keep it as leverage if they try to do something. You don’t pull out all the good cards in the first round, you wait for the right moment to strike so you can win. You need to constantly defend yourself against other players and anticipate their every move. If you leak everything right now, you won’t have anything to use against them if they have something up their sleeve you didn’t know about. Patience is key in things like this.”

You absorbed every single word that came out of his mouth like it was the holy gospel. Although he was your uncle and you loved him with all your heart, but he was a sly bastard when he wanted to be. He knew his way around fighting and manipulating people just right, so you were incredibly happy that you were on his good side and he absolutely adored you. Though questionable and morally gray, he was giving you advice because he cared about you and you’d be an idiot to not heed his advice.

“That’s genius, Uncle Schlatt. What would I do without you?”

“You’d get along just fine without me, you would’ve gotten there eventually. You’re smart. I’m just givin you a little push in the right direction.”

“I honestly would’ve never thought about waiting, I was so dead set on getting revenge that I would’ve just leaked everything all at once. I want them to feel how I felt when they were around me. I-” you paused. Would this make you the same as them? You’d be screwing up all their grades, Adrian’s job, and Sammy’s athletic career. You came to the chilling realization that you’d be the same as them. You’d be as manipulative as they were. “...Uncle Schlatt, would that make me the same as them?”

“Fuck no! You’re always gonna be better than them no matter what. When they’re at their best, you’re always gonna be a whole lot better than them. They deserve what’s happening to them, it sounds like they put you through so much shit the past few years. I actually think you could do a whole lot worse to them if you’re willing to put more work in, but it’s your plan and if you think that what you’re doing is too much,” he darkly chuckled, “you wouldn’t like my idea.”

“You’re right, they deserve everything I have planned for them. God, I don’t know what I was thinking, ‘would that make me the same as them,’” you mocked what you said earlier, “what a load of shit. Anyways, thanks Uncle Schlatt. I’m gonna get back to writing this. They’re due tomorrow and I wanna finish as much as I can before I have to go.”

“Alright, whaddya want for dinner? Phil’s gonna be like thirty minutes late from work so I’m cookin tonight.”

Oh no. No, no, no, no. That man can barley cook boxed mac n cheese, let alone anything else. He’d burn down the house if you left him alone in the kitchen with the stove. “On second thought, why don’t I help you with dinner? We can make some chicken alfredo.”

“Awe, you’d rather hang out with me than finish your homework? Ya really do love me. C’mon let’s start.”

The process of making dinner was… interesting. Multiple times, Schlatt almost spilled boiling water on himself and he even managed to burn the pasta while it was in the water. How he even managed to do that you’d never find out, you had your back turned cutting up vegetables and herbs at the time. That was when you subtly started to take over in the kitchen, giving him smaller tasks while you handled everything else. You felt bad for Tubbo, his father can’t cook for shit.

By time you finished, about an hour passed and Philza had come home and changed out of his work clothes. The two adults sat at the table discussing something that you didn’t pay attention to while your brothers and cousin were in the living room waiting for you to finish dinner. Finally, you set the table and it was time to eat.

Because you couldn’t have many fatty foods before any matches or practices, you had made a separate plate for yourself that only had plain pasta, chicken, and broccoli. You were surprised with how well it turned out, you were following an iffy recipe you found on the first link Google brought up.

After dinner, you went upstairs to put your uniform on and pack a little bag full of things you might need: a small blanket, some snacks, a water bottle, and a portable charger. Oh, and fuzzy socks and a pair of crocs. You could never go wrong with fuzzy socks and crocs. Feeling a vibration in your pocket, you pulled out your phone.

Hales : )

(Y/n), I’m omw to your house

Gonna give you a ride to the school

(Y/n)

Hales you don’t have to give me a ride, I can drive

Hales : )

Don’t care

Omw, be there in like 7 mins

You swiped out of yours and her conversation and opened up the family group chat

(Y/n)

I don’t need a ride to the school, Haley’s giving me one

She’s gonna give me a ride home too

Dadza

Alright, thank her for me

Tell her I said good luck too!

Uncle Schlatty Patty

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do

Dadza

(Y/n), do everything he wouldn’t do

Uncle Schlatty Patty

Fuck you I’m a good influence

Dadza

You’re really not

Wilby

^^^^

Technology Sword

Uncle Schlatty Patty

Fuck all of you

You heard Haley’s car pull into the driveway and dashed out of your room with your bag. Just as you put your hand on the doorknob, a hand stopped you.

“Coat.”

You grumbled as you reached past Philza to grab your coat. After you slipped it on, you were pulled into a hug. “You’re gonna do great out there. I know you’re gonna win this, we’ll be watching in the stands.”

“Damn right she’s gonna do good, she’s my niece after all.”

Schlatt pulled you away from your father’s hug and tried to ruffle your hair before you swatted away his hand, “don’t. You have no idea how long it took me to get a perfect ponytail. I have an ungodly amount of hairspray and bobby pins in my hair right now.”

“Fine. You’re gonna kick their asses tonight.”

Tommy and Tubbo pushed past Schlatt and both tackled you into a hug making you stumble slightly back.

“Kick their asses good (y/n)!” Tommy cheered, making you crack up before one stern glance from Philza completely stopped you. “Tommy, don’t say that. (Y/n), not funny.”

“Alright, Haley’s waiting for me. I gotta go, love you guys!” As you turned to walk through the door, you could hear your family following you and shouting “good luck”. You felt heat creep up on your cheeks as Haley rolled down her window and wove at your family with the biggest grin on her face.

“Thank you! We’re gonna take home the gold for sure!”

You hopped in her car as she rolled up the window and chuckled. “I love your family, they’re always so full of energy. It’s refreshing to see compared to how boring my family is.”

You glanced at your entire family gathered on the front porch. Tommy and Tubbo were practically vibrating with excitement, Wilbur and Techno calmly smiled and wove at you, Philza was grinning widely at you as you saw his mouth forming words that you couldn’t hear or read, and Schlatt was grinning cheekily at you. You raised your hand to wave at them as they vanished from view when Haley pulled out of your driveway. You smiled softly, “I love em too.”

The car ride was relatively quick with the same soft indie pop music floating from the speakers and an easy going conversation with Haley about the match tonight. You both thought that you could beat the other team if everyone focused 100% and played exactly like you guys did in practices. If everyone did that, you would be unstoppable.

Luckily for you and Haley, you were the first ones in line to board the bus so you two got the back seat with Zara and Jazzy sitting across from you guys. The hour long bus ride passed quickly and lively with you four passing around your phone and playing some mad libs, you were sure that by the end of the last game you four were laughing and crying. Sometime in the middle of the trip, you noticed that Haley would start to lean on your shoulder and continuously glance at you as she laughed. You desperately wanted to believe that it was because she liked you, but she was straight and she was your best friend. She was probably trying to make sure you were having a good time.

When the team had gotten to the opposing school and left the locker room to stretch in the gym, you could hear your family start to scream your and Haley’s names from the front row next to you, Tommy and Tubbo being the loudest amongst them with Philza trying to get them to quiet down so you could focus. You felt your cheeks heat up as you smiled at them and Haley wove enthusiastically back at them. Zara was laughing at you two. Stretching went by in a flash and before you knew it, you were on the court facing the opposing team.

The first match was won by the opposing team by five points. The second match stretched on and on until it was won by your team narrowly by two points. The team was going to have to shape up in the third match if you guys wanted a chance at winning, the opposing team was good. Before the third match started, Coach Williams called for a time out so you guys could talk about strategy. Before Haley could go back onto the court, you pulled her aside.

“Hales, we need to do what we practiced. The other team won’t be expecting it at all, I’ve been setting you up this entire game. They’re never going to expect you setting me up for a spike.”

“When are we going to do it though? We need a better plan.”

“I’m sure the opportunity will come and both of us will recognize it. We just can’t do it too early in the game though, that’ll ruin their surprise.”

“(Y/n), I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“When do I not Hales? We gotta get gold this year.”

The third round went by with both teams constantly swapping places until you both were tied fifteen to fifteen. You saw the ball flying towards Haley, giving her the perfect opportunity to set you up for a spike. “HALEY NOW!”

You watched as her face hardened in determination as she pretended like she was going to spike it by jumping high in the air and stretching her arms back, making the opposing front row players all gather in front of her. Much to their surprise, she launched it towards you as you leaped up and went for the kill. The stinging of the ball hit by your wrist and the smack sound the ball made when it slammed onto the open gym floor was something you’d never forget as the crowd around you went wild over the unexpected play. You could hear the high pitched screaming of Tommy and Tubbo over everybody else. Glancing at them over your shoulder, you saw them jumping up and down on the gym floor and looking at you with awe filled eyes and gaping mouths. The rest of your family looked at you with similar expressions, their cheers echoing in your mind. Winking at them, you turned back to your team and went straight to Haley. Clapping a hand on her shoulder, you pulled her into a quick hug, yelling over the raving of the crowd. “HALEY WE NAILED THAT!”

“HOLY SHIT I DID NOT THINK THAT WAS ACTUALLY GONNA WORK!”

“You have such little faith in your setter! You wound me Hales.”

“Well, I would have more faith in you if you weren’t chaotic on the court, sweetheart.”

You felt yourself surge in happiness at the nickname, but you couldn’t afford to focus too much on it. Your team only needed one more point to win best in the state and go to nationals. It would be the first time in your team’s history if you reached national level, and you’d be damned if you were the one to screw it up for them.

The last rotation went on for a while, each team fighting tooth and nail for the state championship title with clashing determination. You tried your best to block every hit and try to set Haley up for a spike, and you were successful for the most part, only missing a few blocks. You saw the setter adjacent to you set the spiker up for a spike and jumped up in time to try to block it, your arms stretched upwards and your palms out. Only, the ball didn’t hit your hands. It collided painfully with your nose, ricocheted off your face with a thwack and sailed over to the other side of the court. Your head whipped back as your body followed suit and flew backwards onto the floor. Without giving you any time to react, your head bounced back and cracked against the polished hardwood floor of the gym. Everything went black.

“...(y……”

“..(y/n)......”

“(Y/n).”

You faintly heard someone calling someone’s name over the continuous ringing noise. Was it your name? It felt right, so it had to be your name. You peeled your eyes open to see a blurry figure hovering over you. It was swirled with tans, browns, and backs. After a while of the figure repeating your name, it slowly became more recognizable, albeit appearing twice in your vision. It took you a while to figure out who this was before your muddled brain recognized Haley.

“Hales! There’s two o’ya. Twice as beautiful babe…” You slurred out as you attempted to smile at her.

“Oh thank god, PLEASE WE NEED A DOCTOR SHE HIT HER HEAD!” Her usually angelic voice gritted against your brain like sandpaper making you cringe as pain exploded in your head.

“God babe you’re so loud, why’s so bright? I-wha's goin on?” You blearily tried to move your head to look around only to be stopped by a pair of large hands on each side of your head gently holding it in place. You moved your laggy eyes around to look at the figure. He was a blonde man with blue eyes and a hint of stubble on his chin. His eyebrows were knitted together and he looked… he looked… your brain worked to figure out why he looked how he looked. Who was he?

“Please don’t move hun.” His muffled voice was baritone. You squinted at him trying to figure out who this man was.

“Who th f-fuck… why?”

“I’m your dad hun. Do-do you not recognize me?” You made a noise in the back of your throat as your stuffy brain finally put a name to the face.

“Dad- wha’s goin on? I’on feel so good…”

“Shh, I know, I know. Just stop moving and talking. Everything’s fine. I’m here. You’re okay.”

“Mmk… Dad, where are we? I’ont know- you’re so quiet.”

“Stop moving so much. You’re on the floor in a gym. You just won your team the state championship. Now stop talking please.”

Huh. So that’s why everybody seemed to appear from above you. You strained your eyes to look around you, but you could only see your dad’s face hovering above you. “Shit I- who’s aroun’ me? Where’s Hales?”

“I’m right here sweetheart. I got the doctor, Mr. Minecraft.”

Your dad’s face moved away from your vision so fast that it made your head spin and your stomach twist. Another face appeared above you that you once again didn’t recognize.

“I’m Doctor Martin, can you tell me your first and last name?”

“Uh, (y/n) Minecraft?”

“Good, what month are we in right now?”

“Nov-November?”

“Close, it’s late October. Can you tell me who this,” he pointed to your dad, “is?”

“S’my dad Phillip.”

“That’s your dad Philza.”

The questioning stopped as he suddenly shined a blinding light into your sensitive eyes. You hissed as you tried to move your head away from the offending light only to be held in place by your dad’s hands. Your head spun as you moved too quickly and a wave of nausea hit you, making you groan and move your arm to cover your eyes. Your hand was stopped by something warm and soft wrapping around it and holding it tightly. Everything was so overwhelmingly and painfully bright and loud. You wanted to make it stop.

“Mr. Minecraft, your daughter appears to have a concussion. I don’t have the tools on hand to determine the severity of it, but it’s worrying that her pupils are asymmetrical, she’s delirious, and has slight memory loss. I understand you live about an hour away from here, and it’s alright for you to take her to a hospital closer to your house. Make sure you keep her alert.”

Your delirious mind only registered about half of what came out of the doctor’s mouth. You mumbled gibberish as you once again opened your eyes to look around. You were only briefly able to crane your neck to the left. Several figures large and small were standing behind your dad. Your family, your mind supplemented. Slowly, your mind was starting to recognize your surroundings even if there was currently double of everything and everything was blurry.

“I’m going to help you stand up. Do ya think you can do that?”

“Yeah Dad.” You lifted your upper body off from the ground with a gentle hand on your back helping you sit up. Fighting the wave of nausea that slapped you in the face, you reached up to rub at your eyes. A hand once again stopped you. You peeked your eyelids open and lightly glared at whomever stopped you. “Hales you’re lucky you’re so cute I woulda slapped you. I like holdin but you’re bein annoying. Stop.” You attempted to make your voice sound firm, but the words that came out of your mouth were slightly slurred.

She was silent as she helped her dad haul you to your feet. Once on your feet, you saw the room spin and felt yourself start to sway slightly. An arm wrapped itself around your shoulders and pulled you close to them so that your weight was supported. They were a little taller than you were making it easy to lean on them.

“...Can you walk?” A deep, monotone voice rumbled the chest of the person you were leaning against.

“Mhm. ‘M not weak.” Though your limbs felt like they were made of molasses, you placed one foot in front of the other slowly. The person moved alongside you, “you’re doing so good, keep going.” That sparked familiarity in you as you stopped in your tracks and tried to look up at the person you were leaning against making the person tighten their arm around your shoulders when you almost fell over.

“Tech?”

“Yeah, it’s Technoblade. Just focus on walking. You’re almost out of the gym.”

When you realized that you were out of the gym, you sighed in relief. It was so much quieter and darker. Though it was still relatively bright, it was better than the gym.

“S’better.”

“When we get her to the car we can give her some sunglasses or something if it’s still too bright for her.”

“Wilbs-”

“Focus on walking.”

You huffed in irritation, “don’ tell me what to do bitch.”

You felt Techno’s body jolt slightly as he chuckled, making your head throb at the sudden movement. “Just walk.”

When you walked outside, you shivered as you felt the cool air nip at your exposed skin. Right, you were in your volleyball uniform. “I’ll go pull the car around, you guys stay with her.”

You saw a tall brunet start to walk away from you. Uncle Splat? Uncle Schmat? Whatever his name was, you were sure he was your uncle. You tried to snuggle closer to Techno, craving warmth but never being satisfied. Where was your uncle?

After a while, you saw a car moving towards you and blinding light pointed right at you making you cringe away and groan. Techno started to slowly walk towards the car. “C’mon (y/n), you’re almost there. When you’re in the car you can relax.”

“Tommy, Tubbo, and Techno, you’re in the back row. Schlatt can drive and Wil, you’re taking the passenger seat. I’ll stay with her in the middle row so she can have some room to lay down.” Tommy and Tubbo were with you? Why weren’t they talking, they usually were very vocal.

“Tom, Tubbs didja like the game?”

They didn’t say anything as they climbed into the car. Did they not hear you?

“They’re just… tired (y/n).” Your dad’s voice reassured you as he took Techno’s place holding you up.

“I wanna nap. ‘M so tired.”

“You can’t sleep yet. We gotta get you to a doctor first.”

“Mm. Makes sense.”

“Let’s get you in the car hun.”

As he helped you climb into the car, you felt an overwhelming wave of nausea wash over you making you lose your balance and almost faceplant into the cloth seats. You felt yourself being gently, yet urgently taken out of the car and led to grass as you felt your esophagus shorten. Something burning made its way up your throat and spewed into the grass. You felt someone rubbing your back as you puked up your dinner.

When you were done, you reached up with a shaking hand to wipe your mouth. “You feelin better? Think you can get back into the car or do you need to sit down for a bit?”

“Car.”

After some difficulty, you were successfully in the middle row of the car laying down with your head on Philza’s lap. Soon enough, your shoes were taken off and a blanket was draped over you.

“(Y/n), what do you remember?”

You scrunched up your face as you squinted at Philza’s face. “I remember playing volleyball with Hales. She’s so pretty, she’s straight though. I remember the other team hitting the ball, me jumping, then nothin. Wha’ happened?”

You watched as Philza winced, “well, you got everything right so far. You got hit in the face with the ball so you fell and hit your head on the floor. You were passed out for a minute before you woke up. It was a pretty nasty fall, we’re going to the hospital now. How’re ya feelin?”

“Head hurts, ‘m seein two of everything, an I can’t think.”

“Do you know what a concussion is?” You nodded in his lap slightly, “you probably have one.”

After a while of talking, you were slowly starting to come to your senses and your speech was clearing up, but your head was still too stuffy to think about what you were saying before you said it. You didn’t have a filter.

“Do you wanna tell us about your week so far? Do you remember most of it?”

“Mhm, it was shit. On Monday I had a panic attack and Adrian, Sammy, and Annie were being bitches to me all day. They fucked up my back. On Tuesday, they got mad at me for ditching them and they had me do their homework, had another panic attack, and Haley told me that someone took pictures of our boobs ‘n stuff and they were gonna leak it to the school if Haley didn’t stop hanging out with me. Haley and I almost kissed, but she’s straight. Pulled an all nighter and Wednesday I accidentally came out to Tech and Wil and had another panic attack. Annie, Adrian, and Sammy took more pictures of me through my window, Annie outed me to the entire school and slapped me. Another panic attack, skipped the last two classes and felt like shit the entire practice. Today Adrian and Sammy told me to kill myself and I had another panic attack. ’S about it.”

As you were going through your week, the hand that was previously gently stroking your hair had frozen as the car was enveloped in a tense silence. Luckily, Tommy and Tubbo were passed out in the back seat so they didn’t hear how bad your week was. Everyone awake knew that you had a few bad days this week, but they didn’t know the full extent of it. You watched as Philza’s expression had turned downright murderous, but you didn’t really care. You were busy talking about your week.

For the rest of the car ride, Philza asked you simple questions like what your favorite color was, your favorite animal, basically your favorite everything. Eventually, the car pulled into the hospital parking lot and Philza helped you get out of the car. “Schlatt, can you take the boys home so they can get some rest? I’ll stay with her.”

“Yeah, I’m on it. Don’t cause too much trouble (y/n), we all know you can raise hell.” He watched you for a reaction, but when you didn’t react, he coughed. “Well, I’ll see ya later kid. Good luck.”

The car drove off leaving you and Philza at the front of the emergency room building. “It’s gonna be a long night (y/n).”

“I gotta finish Annie’s essay and Sammy’s presentation though.”

“No you don’t, I’ll email your teachers.”

You two checked in with the front desk before moving to sit on the uncomfortable chairs. It was going to be a long night. You were so tired.

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strawberry-jammers · 3 years

Text

One Year

a dreamsmp x reader where a young (y/n) wants to rebuild an old old kingdom before they hace to be crowned to rule over their parents kingdom. with the help of their friends and a couple of servents, they hope to rebuild it all withought their parent knowing about it.

part 2

part 1/?

masterlist

The lovely @acidicvolt edited this!

the pronouns are he/him till age 17 where they're they/them

word count:4,400

----------

Age 9:

(y/n) ran around the castle with his friend Tommy, holding a bunch of flowers in our hands.

“Where's he at!?” Tommy yelled, looking into every room. “Calm down! We’ll find him!!” he says, still running ahead of him. “Come on slowpoke!!” Tommy looked at (y/n), running quickly after seeing him far ahead of himself.

“COME BACK HERE!!” (y/n) laughed, running further ahead.

(y/n) ran into the garden, coming across Techno and Wilbur. They were practicing with swords today, as to where they would normally practice hand to hand combat.

He ran up to Techno, who wasn't doing much as they were just starting another round. (Y/n) ran into Techno’s hip, making him wobble slightly.

“Heh? What are you doing kid? Aren't you supposed to be with your parent?” he shook his head, grabbing some of the flowers that he dropped.

“Nope! Mama Eret said I was allowed to hang out with Tommy today!” (y/n) says, smiling up at the tall man.

“(y/nnnnn)!! You left me behind!!” he pouts, dropping some of the flowers (y/n) forced him to carry.

“Tommy, you're dropping them!!” he says, running over to pick them up.

“Well so where are you!!”

The two friends bicker, picking up and dropping flowers as they talk. Wilbur walks over to pick up the fallen ones they can't seem to hold.

“Both of you are dropping flowers. Why do you need them anyway?'' Wilbur asks, looking at the two 10 year olds. (y/n) smiled, running up to Techno again.

“Techy we wanna braid your hair!!” he says, smiling up at him. Tommy runs over and smacks the other upside the head.

“YOU wanted to braid his hair! Don't drag me into this!”

(y/n) holds his head, nearly crying.

“Tommy, don't hit your friends!!” Wilbur says, picking up the small child.

“Put me down Wilby!!” Tommy says, thrashing his arms and legs.

“Did you just call me Wilby!?”

“Maybe I did!!”

Techno looked at (y/n) as the two brothers argued. He looked up at him as well. “This is why we don't have siblings.” (y/n) nods, dropping a flower or two.

“So, you wanted to braid my hair?” the young boy smiles.

“Wait can i!?''

Techno sighs, nodding. He smiles, walking over to the marble bench they had. The boy sat on the bench, ushering for Techno to sit in front of him. “Ugh, kids.”

(y/n) laughed as Techno walked over to him, sitting in front of the bench. Techno took his hair out of the loose bun it was originally in, handing him the string that was holding it together. The younger smiled, taking it and sectioning his hair to start the braid.

Tommy and Wilbur looked over to see them. (y/n) was peacefully humming a small tune that went nowhere, while Techno had his eyes closed humming a small beat. Tommy thrashed some more, escaping Wilbur’s grasp. He ran over to the two of them, standing next to his friend as he braided Techno’s hair. Tommy leaned over and whispered to (y/n), “can i put the flowers in?” the other chuckled, nodding his head at his friend. Tommy smiled, grabbing the flowers he had once discarded, putting them in the braid as he saw fit.

(y/n) braided the rest of Techno’s hair while Tommy put flowers in the already braided parts. Wilbur walked over to the three and watched as they worked. The two young boys put flowers in the braid as Techno talked about his week.

“Yknow, I’ve only kicked one orphan this week. Which is very impressive for me.” Techno says, nodding to himself slightly. (y/n) laughed, thinking what he said was absurd. “Techno don't tell the children that!” Wilbur says playfully.

“Wilbur you're literally 17, you too are a child.” Philza says, entering the garden that they were all sat at. Tommy smiled, running over to his father. “Dadza!! Look what me and (y/n) did!” he says, pulling the old man over to Techno. (y/n) was finishing up the last of the flowers, making sure the braid was tied nice and tight. He grabbed one last flower and went over to face Techno, putting it behind his ear. “Perfect!!” he says, looking at his masterpiece.

“Look, look!” Tommy says, showing Philza Techno’s hair. “Before you say anything, I was forced into it.” Techno says, standing up from his spot on the ground. Philza laughs at his friend, Wilbur, doing the same. “He's lying dad, I saw him humming with (y/n) as she braided it.” Techno lets out a “heh” as Philza starts laughing. “Betrayal! I didnt think my own student would do me like this!” Techno says dramatically. Tommy and (y/n) start to collect the leftover flowers as the other three argue and laugh amongst themselves.

(y/n) sat on the ground, making flower crowns with the leftover flowers. Tommy sat next to him, watching the boy work at the crown. “How do you know how to make that?” he asked, slightly amazed at his friend's creation. He didn't look up, still working on the crown. “Papa Eret showed me! They can make lots of things! Like clothes and such.” Tommy nods, watching his friend work, trying to memorize how to do it himself. Philza saw this, coming over to see (y/n) work on the flowers.

“What are you doing kiddo?” he asked, crouching down to (y/n)s level. He smiled, gesturing to the flowers. “I'm making a flower crown!! It's for you!” Philza smiled, chuckling. “Really? Thanks kiddo.” he nodded, finishing up the crown. Once he did, he stood up, taking a Philza’s hat and replacing it with the crown. (y/n) smiled at their creation, putting the bucket hat on to his own head. Philza smiled, thanking the young boy.

Time went on like this till it was sundown, messing with each other and using the many flowers they had for random projects.

“Come on (y/n) we gotta go!” Eret said, coming by the castle to retrieve the young child. (y/n) ran up to Eret, hugging him. “ zaza!!” (y/n) says, standing back slightly. Eret looked at his young kid, smiling. “Hello sweetheart! Ready to go?” (y/n) nodded, grabbing his flower crown. “Yep! Lemme say bye to Tommy first!!” the boy says, running over to his friend. (y/n) hugged the boy, who looked very agitated from the hug. “Are you coming over to my place tomorrow?” he asked Tommy, who nodded his head. “Yeah, I can bring Tubbo as well!! He should be in the village tomorrow!!'' Tommy says, adjusting his own, not as neat, flower crown. (y/n) smiled, hugging Tommy again. “Okay, see you then tommy!”

“That kid is so sweet” “Phil, you have poor taste in children.” “says the man who kills orphans.”

Age 11:

(Y/n) sat in the forest, humming to himself as he watched the bees and animals go around the forest. It was a bit past mid day, and the young prince had been out of there sense dawn, taking in the beauty of the forest.

He was in the village close to their kingdom, wanting to spend time outside of the castle. He loved natur, especially flowers, plants and such. He also loved animales. (y/n) loved everything about the outdoors, enjoying the peace he had that day.

Tubbo was a village boy, moving from town to town, never really having a set home. He did love traveling and being with his guardian was amazing, he just wished he had friends and a set place to stay.

Tubbo walked along the forest, following the bees that would fly around him, wondering if he was a flower or not. He followed them distractingly, reaching a clearing in the forest. He looked around to see where he was, soon realizing he was lost. He had gone too far from a recognizable area, and now didn't know how to get home. He knew Puffy would be mad at him for getting lost, but he couldn't do anything about it. He had already committed the lame chrome.

Tubbo looked around to see some sheep run away from him, along with the bees buzzing around him. He also spotted a young boy, (y/n), sitting against a tree taking in the beauty of it all. Tubbo went over to the young boy, trying to be as kind as possible, like Puffy said.

“Hello!! I'm Tubbo! Mind if I join you?” Tubbo asks the older boy. (y/n) nodded, moving slightly to show Tubbo he could sit down next to him. Tubbo smiled, following such. “Hi, im (y/n). I haven't seen you in the village before, you new around here?” he asks, picking at the grass around him. “Yeah! Me and aunty Puffy travel a lot, so I never really stay in the same place. Have you lived here a long time?” Tubbo asks, making the young prince chuckle. “No, I live in a kingdom nearby.” Tubbos eyes glisten, he gasps. “Wait, are you the prince!??!” Tubbo asks excitedly. (y/n) nodded, not minding the question.

“Yeah, I lived there my whole life! What's it like traveling? I rarely leave the castle so I've never explored outside this village and the kingdom.” (y/n) says, looking at the young boy. Tubbo smiles. “Well traveling could be fun, yet very lonely. I haven't had a friend in years, having had traveled so much since then. I do love seeing all the cool sights and how different villages work though!” (y/n) nodded, enjoying the interaction he was having.

The two of them talked till it reached dawn, the sun slowly disappearing.

“Dang, we better get going! Do you know your way back?” (y/n) asked, standing up and dusting himself off. Tubbo stood up as well. “No, I kinda got lost…” Tubbo says. (y/n) nodded, grabbing the other boy's hand, guiding him through the forest. “Well, I know the way back! I'll take ya there!”

Tubbo nodded, letting the prince guid him back to the village. They continued to talk as they went through the forest. Tubbo talked all about bees, one of the few constants in his life.

(y/n) and Tubbo finally reached the village, it officially being dark out. Thankfully, there were lights all around, so they were still able to see and get around easily. “Damn, it's too dark to get back...dads gonna kill me.” (y/n) says, looking around. Tubbo gaps, grabbing the prince. “You can stay with me tonight!!! Sleepover!!” he says, grabbing the prince and dragging him back to the house Tubbo was staying at. “You don't have to let me stay, I can find my way back!” Tubbo shook his head, stopping. “No, we’re friends now and you're staying with me and aunty Puffy!”

(y/n) sighed, letting the young boy take them to his home.

It didn't take them long to reach the boys home, for it wasn't too far from where they exited from the forest. Tubbo let go of (y/n)’s hand, knocking on the door before opening it and walking inside. “AUNTY IM BACK!!'' Tubbo says, making sure Puffy knew it was him coming home.

Puffy walked out of one of the rooms, walking up to the young boy. “Oh Tubbo! You made me worried there kiddo!” Puffy says, hugging the small boy. She looked over to see the young prince, noticing him standing awkwardly in the doorway. “Oh! Tubbo, did you make a friend?” she asked, letting go of the small boy. Tubbo nodded, going over to the young boy. “This is (y/n)! Is it alright if he stays here tonight since it's too dark to go back to the castle??” Tubbo asked, latching onto his friend. Puffy gasped, looking at the two of them. “The castle???” she asked. (y/n) nodded, smiling slightly. “Yep! So..can I stay here tonight?” he asked the older lady.

Puffy of course agreed, letting the boy stay for the night. She even offered to take him back to the castle in the morning. He declined, not wanting to burden the lady more than he already has.

Tubbo took (y/n) back to his room, showing him all the cool things he had gotten from their travels. Apparently, Puffy was a pirate captain and would travel the seas and such. She would stop at different villages to get supplies and give their nephew breaks from being at sea all the time. It was a coincidence that they had stopped at the village closest to his mothers kingdom.

“Oh oh, this ones from a neighboring kingdom!” Tubbo says. Showing the prince something from the kingdom his friend Tommy lives in. “That's the minecrafts kingdom!! I'm close friends with one of the princes! Did you like it there?” Tubbo gasps, both of them getting overly excited. “Wait, are you friends with tommy!? I met him when I was there last month!!” Tubbo says, putting down the trinket. “You know tommy!? We should all hangout sometime!!”

Puffy heard their conversation, happy Tubbo was finally making some friends. However, they would be leaving soon and wouldn't be able to stay longer than they already are. Puffy sighed, sad that this is how things had to be.

The next day, (y/n) left back to the castle, hoping to keep in touch with Puffy and Tubbo. Tubbo was sad his friend had to go back, but still happy he had made a friend. Puffy was just sad she had to tell Tubbo they would be moving again. She couldn't stay in the same place in fear his father would catch up to them and take the boy away.

Of course, the three boys were able to meet up. It took them several months, but once Tubbo made his way back to the village he and (y/n) met up at, they were able to make a plan to see each other.

The three of them hit it off, immediately becoming close friends with a strong bond.

At one point, Puffy let Tubbo stay with Tommy in his castle for a summer, allowing the three boys to see eachother once more.

Of course, this came to an end when Tubbo had to eventually leave with his aunt, leaving the two boys, who hadn't been able to hang out after tommys schedule had gotten more and more packed.

The three of them hadn't seen each other for years, hoping one day it would go back to old, where they were just kids and were able to hang out at least once.

Age 17, present day:

“You're gonna have to rule the kingdom soon (y/n)” Eret says, sitting down in the said childs room. (y/n) turned to him, no longer focusing on the crafts they were working on. “But I don't wanna rule the kingdom. It's just not my thing…” they say, turning to their parents. “I know I know, but there's no one else that can take over.” (y/n) nodded, turning to the flower crown they were previously working on. “I get that...i just wanna go back to a time where i could just hang out with my friends..ruling the kingdom means that time is completely over..” Eret nodes, walking over to his kid. “I know, I thought the same thing when I was younger. Though Tommy is busy with a war and Tubbo has been travelling non-stop for years, they've already changed.” they sigh. “It's been so long, they don't even know who i am anymore! The last time I saw them I was still a guy. It's just frustrating…” They get up from their seats, hugging their mother. “I just wanna see them...”

The next day was spent learning more about their kingdom, knowing when they turn 18 it would be theirs. They sighed, reading over some of the history books their ren (another term for mother or father) had kept for all these years. They opened a new book, wanting to read the contents inside.

They opened it to see a piece of paper fall to the ground. "Didn't think the pages were that old…" They crouched down, picking up the fallen paper. They stood up, puzzled by the page.

"It's not from this book," they looked closer at the piece of paper, "what's lmanburg..?" They sat down, reading over it.

Apparently, lmanburg was an old kingdom, long since destroyed. It fought for peace, and independence. Unfortunately, a small group of people went and destroyed the kingdom, leaving nothing but a pile of rubble and long forgotten ideals.

(Y/n) looked over it once more, seeing the kingdom's location on the bottom of the page. They shot up, running to their room.

They flung open the door, running to their desk. They throw off the unwanted items from their desk, placing the paper in its place. They sit down, opening a drawer and grabbing some paper and a pen.

They look over the page on lmanburg one more time, then proceeding to write a letter to their old friends.

"Dear Tommy, It's been a long time since we've talked hasn't it? There's many things we need to catch up on, but that should be saved for a later date.

As you know, I will rule my mothers kingdom soon. I will be crowned their majesty in 1 years time, and I wanted to do something fun before then.

I found a story on an old, destroyed kingdom called lmanburg. I wanna go visit it and maybe even bring it back to its former glory. I know it's a lot to want to accomplish in only a year, but that's all the time I have.

I would be grateful if you could join me in this adventure I'm pursuing. Here is where we'll meet and when. I'll be asking our old pal Tubbo as well.

I hope to see you then

-your old friend

(Y/n)"

They did the same for Tubbo, telling him of their plan along with where/when to meet them if he agrees to come on their journey. They sighed, knowing they might have to go on this alone. Nevertheless they wrapped both letters in separate envelopes, ready to be shipped to their recipients.

(Y/n) walked out of their room, looking around the castle for one of their few servants.

"Are they on break right now? I can't find any of them.." They say, going down different halls to find someone who could mail the letters.

"Oh, (y/n)! What are you looking for?" Karl asks, one of the few servants in their castle. (Y/n) sighes, happy that they finally found someone. "Karl, I need you to send these letters. You know where to find Tommy, but Tubbo will be harder to catch. Can you send them please?" They ask, handing Karl the letters. "Of course! I'll send them as soon as I'm free!"

(Y/n) thanks Karl, going back to their room. Plopping on their bed they sigh, hoping their friends would accept their invitation.

The next day they started packing for the trip. It wasn't for another week or so, but they just wanted to be prepared. They were also kinda excited as well.

They hadn't told Eret yet, fearing what they might say. (y/n) knows she loves them, but they had been under alot of stress as of late and didnt wanna make it worse.

“I do need to tell them…”

“Tell who what?” (y/n) jumped a bit, seeing Eret in the doorway. He walked in, standing by the desk. “Oh, hey..” (y/n) says, standing awkwardly by their bed. Eret looked down at the bag they were packing. He had a puzzled expression on his face. “Why are you packing? You're not running away are you!? I mean, if so, you're doing a bad job…” (y/n) sighed, closing the bag. “I'm not running away...kinda.” they say, sitting on their bed. “I was planning on going on an adventure, actually. I'm gonna rule the kingdom in a year and I wanted to do something fun before I did so..”

Eret nodes, smiling. He goes over and sits next to their kid. “What are you planning to do on your adventure? You seem very excited for it, seeing as you've actually packed for something.`` They both laugh slightly. “Well,” (y/n) gets up, going over to their desk, grabbing the paper they had found in Eret’s old history books. They walked back over and showed Eret the paper, “there's an old old kingdom called lmanburg. Apparently it was a thriving kingdom, but one day it fell to the ground. Fascinating isn't it?” Eret reads it over, frowning slightly. “(y/n) i don't want you going to this place.” (y/n) was baffled. They didn't understand why they weren't allowed to go to this place. It was super old, it's not like anyone would still be there. It was forgotten about.

“What do you mean? It's long forgotten and I would be bringing my friends! It's not like I'd be alone and ill prepared.” Eret sighed, standing up. “(y/n), lmanburg is a breeding ground of monsters and such, i don't want you getting hurt.” they in response stood up, coming up short to the tall person in front of them. “I know that! I've been training for years, I can handle monsters! Also, again, I won't be alone! I'd have Tommy and Tubbo with me and their great fighters!” Eret looked at them quickly.

“Tommy and Tubbo are going??” (y/n) nodded, stepping back slightly.

“I need to contact Philza and Puffy, you're not going on this adventure and that's final!” Eret walked out of the room, dropping the lmanburg paper on the ground.

“Wait what!? Mom you can't!!” they say, walking behind their father.

“Because, I don't want you going to that place! You're not changing my mind on this.” (y/n) slows down, completely baffled by this. They knew there was a chance they wouldn't be able to go, but they didn't think he’d act like this.

“R-ren please! I need this, I haven't seen them in so long please!!” Eret turned to them briskly. “Sweetheart, this is final. I don't want you going to that place! Stop pushing it.” Eret continues his way down the castle as (y/n) stopps in their tracks. They were shocked, really looking forward to this trip as a last resort of still being young and free from ruling.

They looked around, running back to their room. They slipped at the door, running too fast and nearly falling. They fumbled to the desk, once again grabbing paper and a pen from the desks drawers. They sit in the desk chair, fumbling with the paper and closing the drawer quickly. They quickly write a letter to Tommy and Tubbo.

They write that there would be a change of plans. Their mother wouldn't let them go to the wrecked kingdom, so they wouldn't be able to tell their parents and would have to sneak to the old kingdom.

They added more to the plan, sealing up the letters in envelopes and booking it out of their room, grabbing their bag and paper on lmanburg. They ran down the hall, making sure not to run into Eret while looking for Karl. They looked around, still not finding the man they needed.

They looked in the smaller dining hall, spotting the brunette walking towards the entrance. “Karl, Karl! Have you sent the letters yet?” they asked, walking up towards the male. “No I haven't, I actually was about to send them out now! What did you need?'' I smiled, sighing. “Oh thank god...i need those letters back, My ren won’t let me go to the old kingdom of lmanburg, and i don't want him finding out im still going…” Karl’s eyes widened. “Your lying to the king? I know their your parent but thats the KING!” (y/n) shushed Karl, taking him all the way back to their room.

Once they arrived, (y/n) closed the door, looking at Karl. “You cannot tell my mom! I'm trusting you with this, okay? I'm going on this trip, and i need those letters back so i can deliver them myself.'' Karl steps back. “Whoa whoa whoa, you're delivering these letters alone? No no, you're going with someone on this. Maybe you could bring Niki! I know she isn't busy since there are a few other bakers in the castle!” Karl suggests, handing the old teen the letters. (y/n) considered this, knowing they should probably bring someone along.

(y/n) nodded, agreeing to bring someone with them. “Okay, I could bring Niki if she would agree to go. Promise you won't tell him I'm sneaking out?” Karl nodded. “I promise! We’ve known each other long enough for us to keep secrets for one another! Want me to go tell Niki?'' Karl asked, heading towards the door.

“Yes, tell her to meet me here at midnight. I don't want ren knowing about this at all.'' Karl nodded, smiling at the prince and heading off to go see the pink haired baker.

The teen waited, taking a nap so they were able to sneak out at night. They knew it was probably too soon to start the expedition, and that their father probably knew where to find them. They just couldn't wait any longer.

The sun was slowly falling from the horizon, getting darker and darker by the second. (Y/n) had taken their place at the window, looking at the sky getting darker and darker, the stars showing more prominently as time went on. They sighed, looking over at their door.

It wasn't time for the two servants to show up, but they did wish they were able to just go out and seek out lmanburg freely. It wasn't like that however, they knew they couldn't do everything they wanted, they just hoped their mother would support them in this.

They looked back outside, letting the time pass for when they would meet up with Niki and leave the castle for a whole year.

So there they waited. Hopefully everything went according to the new plan.

#mcyt x reader #dreamsmp x reader #niki nihachu x reader #eret x reader #karl jacobs x reader #tommyinnit x reader #tubbo x reader #sbi x reader #sbi au #technoblade x reader #captain puffy x reader #x reader #wilbur soot x reader #philza minecraft x reader #Dsmp Royal Au #One Year Fic

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ray-ray-writings · 3 years

Text

Seeing Red-Technoblade

This is a Techno x gn!reader in the dreamsmp! I hope you enjoy!

Check out my masterlist here!

This is extremely different from what happens in cannon lol.

TW: Fighting and descriptions of blood and gore. Techno literally slices up four people. There is nothing too NSFW but Techno and Y/N do take a shower together, but nothing really sexual happens, it’s just a shower shared by two peeps that love each other.

When Y/N gets kidnapped by the Butcher Army to lure their boyfriend to L’Manberg, Technoblade sees red and is willing to do anything to get them back… Anything.

Techno’s POV

It was quiet around the house… Too quiet. Normally, I would always be able to hear Y/N moving around or singing randomly, but there was nothing. “Y/N?” I called out, hoping to get some form of response from them. Silence. “Love?” I tried once more, moving around hoping to find them. Nothing.

A pounding on my front door startled me out of my focus. Maybe that was them! Why would they be knocking though, they live here… I swung the door open and was greeted with the sight of my father, who seemed to be out of breath, on my front step. “Dadza?” I questioned in confusion, “What are you doing here?” “They have them,” He breathed. I felt my blood run cold and my heart stop at his words. “What?” “They have them… The Butcher Army has Y/N,” He rushed out, taking a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. “They gave me this note to give to you.” I snatched the piece of paper from my fathers hands and quickly scanned the words scrawled on the parchment.

“Technoblade, something of yours seems to have fallen into our possession. If you want them back safely, we suggest you come to L’Manberg and turn yourself into us. If you follow our orders, no harm will come to Y/N. But if you refuse, there will be hell to pay and your partner will take the full front of it. Signed, The Butcher Army.”

I felt my blood boil at the words written on the piece of paper. How dare they? How dare they threaten my Y/N? Coming after me is one thing. But going for my innocent partner, that’s crossing a line. “Stay here,” I barked at my father before storming out of the house. Luckily, I had all of my OP armor and weapons on me considering I was in the nether doing… things… Doesn’t matter. Point is, I quickly saddled up my trusty horse Carl and immediately began galloping off to L’Manberg.

Carl seemed to sense my urgancing because the trip took half the amount of time that it normally does. Once I was in the vicinity, I hopped off of Carl and tied him up just far enough away so that no one would be able to see him. I rushed up the Prime Path to the center of L’Manberg and was sick to my stomach at what I found. Y/N, my Y/N was trapped in a small cage with a tall tower built next to it, an anvil looming over the cage. Rage filled every inch of my body as their bloodshot eyes met mine.

“Techno!” I heard them whisper in relief. “Technoblade!” I heard another voice call. I turned slowly and found Tubbo, Ranboo, Fundy, and Quackity standing in the ‘area’ as well dressed in bloody aprons, sick smiles on their faces. “I knew you would make the right choice” Tubbo claimed, everyone taking a few steps forward. “I’m here. Let Y/N go.” I hissed, my teeth clenched tightly. “Oh we will. But only after you comply, get in the cage.” Quackity demanded, motioning to the second cage next to Y/N. “That wasn’t the deal. That wasn’t what was in your note.” “Well we’ve changed our minds.”

All of the rage that had built up in my body finally overpowered me. I quickly reeled my fist back and punched the nearest person near me, which just so happened to be Fundy. He reeled back due to the force of the punch. For a moment, the other three froze but then immediately snapped into action. I pulled out my shield and my axe as they charged forward at me. I easily blocked their attacks while dealing out my own damage. I moved with ease, taking very little damage as my axe and sword seemed to slice through the four boys with ease, their dark red blood coating my weapons.

One by one they all fell at my hand, each of the death notifications popped up on my right arm. I stood there, taking deep breaths as I calmed myself down from what had just happened. “Techno!” my partner’s voice called out from behind me. My head snapped over to the cage and I sprinted over to it. Taking one swing with my pickaxe, the iron bars broke and Y/N was released from their prison. I hesitated before hugging them, not sure if they were willing to hug me while I was covered in blood. Y/N had no hesitations, immediately after the bars broke their arms were wrapped around me and they were crying in my chest. My arms wrapped around them, hugging them tightly to my chest and pressing a kiss to the top of their head.

“Let’s go home,” I murmured into their hair. I felt them nod under my head. I pulled away from them and grabbed their hand and led them to where I left Carl. I helped them get on the horse before I hopped on behind them. I wrapped my arms around them and grabbed the reins. Y/N leaned back into my chest and I moved so that my head rested on their shoulder. I gave Carl a soft kick before he began to trot back towards our home.

Carl knew where to go once our house came into view. Once in the stable, I pulled myself from Y/N to get off my beloved horse before helping Y/N off as well. I quickly desaddled Carl before giving him a few pats and a golden carrot. I grabbed Y/N’s hand and led them into the house.

“Oh god! I’m so glad you’re alright! What happened to you guys?” My father questioned as soon as we walked in the house. I let out a small growl in frustration. I love my father but right now I just wanted to spend time with my partner. “I’ll explain later Dadza. Can you just leave us alone right now?” I tried to ask politely, but it probably came out a little more rude than I meant it to. Phil seemed to understand though because he only gave me a soft smile before nodding. He quickly made his way to our front door, “I’ll be over tomorrow then?” He questioned. “Sounds good dad. I’ll see you then.” I responded shortly. “Bye Philza” Y/N murmured with a small wave. Philza gave them another soft smile, waving back, “Bye Y/N. I’ll see you two tomorrow.” And he was gone.

“Let’s go get cleaned up, yeah?” I offered to Y/N softly. They simply nodded with a small smile. I led them to the bathroom and turned on the shower. I helped them undress before unrobing myself as well. Together, the two of us got in the warm water. The deep crimson began running off of our bodies and down the drain. I helped Y/N wash their hair and in return they helped me wash mine. We helped each other wash our bodies as well, making sure to get all of the dried blood off of our red stained skin. As I washed, I wrapped my arms around their middle and just held them tightly to my chest. Their arms snaked up and wrapped around my neck, one of their hands resting gently in my pink hair and they began to play with it softly.

We stood there together for quite a while, just enjoying the warm water as it washed over our bodies. As the dirt and grime fell from our bodies, the rage and the tension fell from my body inside. Y/N seemed to always have this effect on me. Whenever I could feel myself growing angry and the voices in my head scream for blood, Y/N simply has to look at me and the voices fall silent. They’re my eye of the hurricane.

A chill ran up my back as I noticed the water had finally gone cold. Pulling away from Y/N, I quickly turned off the water and got out of the shower, offering my hand to my partner and helping them out as well. I pulled a couple towels out of our cabinet before slowly and gently dragging the towel over Y/N’s body, drying them off. I finished drying their body and quickly dried mine as well.

We moved to our bedroom to get clothes. Y/N moved to go to their dresser, but my hand found their wrist causing them to stop. “No. Here.” I uttered walking to my own dresser and pulling out some of my more comfortable clothes. Y/N had no objections. They took the clothes and quickly dressed. After getting dressed myself, I turned and was awestruck at the sight. Obviously I’m bigger than Y/N and so my clothes are a lot bigger as well. The sight of my partner draped in my clothes caused my heart to hammer in my chest.

“You are the most beautiful sight anyone could ever lay their eyes upon,” I murmured, staring deeply at Y/N. They turned and met my eyes, their cheeks blushed a bright red at my compliments. “You’re too sweet,” they squeaked, trying to turn away and hide their face. I took a few steps forward before reaching forward and cupping their cheek, turning their head to face me. “No need to hide from me darling. I know you better than anyone has known you. I love you so much,” I hummed, staring in their eyes. Their cheeks seemed to burn brighter but they nuzzled their cheek into my palm, “I love you too… Can we go to sleep now?” I let out a small chuckle, “Of course we can love.”

Together we crawled into bed. I opened my arms and Y/N immediately crawled into my arms, snuggling their face into my chest. I pulled them as close to my body as I could. I heard Y/N let out a content sigh as we laid there. “I’m so sorry that happened today, love.” I spoke, breaking the silence. I felt their shoulders rise and fall as they shrugged, “It happens. I wasn’t too worried. I know you’ll always be there to save me.” Y/N mumbled sleepily in my chest. I tilted my head down and pressed a sweet kiss to the top of their head. “That I will, love. That I will.”

I never know how to end things lol. I hope you enjoyed! If you did please be sure to leave a like!

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genshin-obsessed · 3 years

Text

See You Tomorrow | Xingqiu x Reader

Hello! Sorry for being inactive, I was a little busy! However, I did manage to get this fic out! I was really excited for it, which is why I partially edited it. Enjoy~

Word count: 1.1k

Side note: 😬 be wary <3

“Hyah!” Xingqiu cried out as his blade sliced through the last of the slimes. A smile formed on his lips as he took deep breaths when he heard clapping behind him.

“That was amazing Xingqiu!” You cheered, waving at him from your spot on the nearby rock. He returned the gesture as he approached you, his sword disappearing and reappearing behind him.

“Thank you, thank you. I’m available all week folks.” He joked, allowing him to hear his favorite sound in the world: your laughter. You hopped up and ran to meet him halfway.

“You’re so talented, Xingqiu! I’m jealous!”

“What for? You're stronger than me,” he commented as you hugged his arm, both of you walking towards Liyue, “you certainly don’t need my protection.”

“Hmm true,” you admitted, “but you’re such a good boyfriend! Finishing up my commissions.”

“Ah, I know. You’ve got me completely wrapped around your finger.” Xingqiu feigned exasperation as he spoke. “Probably this little one.” He said taking your hand and grabbing your pinky.

“Well, whatever shall I do with such a perfect boyfriend?” Xingqiu stopped and gazed into your eyes, signaling an incoming kiss. Both of you leaned it, however he pulled away before your lips could touch.

“Maybe you could appreciate me more.” He teased, making you scoff and smack his arm.

“I do!! I appreciate you more than anyone in this whole world!” His laughter melded with yours so well. Your sounds of happiness echoed in the nearby forest and they were enough to make anyone jealous. You two were so young and in love.

After a few moments of random conversation, Xingqiu looked at you excitedly.

“Are you ready for our date? I hope you haven’t forgotten!”

“How can I? You’ve been talking about it for the last week. It’s my special day and you’re the one who’s so energetic.” You huffed with a little pout.

“Well that’s why I’m so energetic. It’s… your day.” He commented, his golden eyes meeting yours. You smiled softly before leaning in to kiss his cheek. Xingqiu was so thoughtful and caring, you always wondered how you managed to get so lucky. Little did you know, Xingqiu thought and felt the exact same.

***

“Hey, Xingqiu! Heading out already?” Chongyun asked, as he came across his friend. Xingqiu was headed towards your meeting location with two things in his hands. He had a basket of food and drinks in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other. Chongyun recognized them as your favorites.

“Yep, don’t want it to get too late. Or keep (y/n) waiting.” Chongyun nodded with a smile, patting his shoulder. Your love really did make everyone jealous. You two were just so perfect for each other.

“Of course! Enjoy yourselves. And don’t stay out too late again.” Xingqiu nodded and quickly went on his way, while Chongyun waved at him. The exorcist watched his friend disappear before ultimately turning around and heading further into the city.

***

“Finally! All done!” Xingqiu exclaimed with a bright smile as he looked down at his work. Right at the edge of the cliff, where you could sit and watch the sunset, he was able to lay down his picnic. He’d set the food up nicely, along with two bottles of your favorite drink. Everything looked perfect and while he was inspecting his handy work, he failed to hear you calling to him.

Xingqiu did eventually catch your fingers in the corner of his eyes, making him gasp. He quickly picked up the bouquet and hid it behind him.

Cheerful as ever, you skipped over to him before hopping up and sitting on a piece of stone. Xingqiu quickly walked up to you, trying his best to contain his excitement- and nerves.

“My sweet, (y/n), I have a present for you! Guess what it is!” You pretended to think before meeting his eyes, as if you’d just figured it out.

“Flowers?”

“Wow! Right on the nose! What kind of flowers?”

“Hmm… they must be (fav flower)! Right?” He nodded again, with a laugh.

“You’re on a roll!” Something crossed Xingqiu’s eyes as he slowly got down on one knee.

Your bright smile melted into a soft one, as you met his gaze. Xingqiu took a deep breath before speaking. His voice wavered as his eyes pooled with tears.

“You know… we’ve been together for a long time. And I never thought this day would come. Honestly, I never thought I would fall in love. Life just seemed to take me somewhere far away from it, yet you found me there anyway. You’re amazing, (y/n). You make the difficult days easy to get through, you make the painful memories easier to handle, and you make the happy days the best I’ve ever experienced. Every time I look into your eyes, I fall in love all over again. It’s the best feeling and I wouldn’t give it up for anything. So… (y/f/n)… will you marry me?” A soft laugh escaped your lips as the words settled in his mind. You took a deep breath to ease your own emotions, not wanting to become a mess in front of him- especially at this very moment.

“Of course I will. I couldn’t imagine my life with anyone but you.” Xingqiu chuckled and sniffled as the tears spilled down his cheeks.

“Too slow.” He commented with a wink as he moved the bouquet towards you. However, instead of handing it to you, he placed it on the stone you sat on.

Here lies (y/f/n), beloved child and partner. One of the best adventures to ever walk Teyvat.

Xingqiu’s shaky hands touched the cold headstone, his fingers brushing against the letters. Why? Why did you have to leave him? How long could he continue like this?

“Don’t cry, Xingqiu.” You mumbled as he shook his head.

“Sometimes I wonder…”

“What?”

“If this is what you looked like.” Your eyes met once more and you could only offer a sympathetic smile.

That’s right, today was the anniversary of your death. Six years ago, you’d left this world. Although Xingqiu had picked up a nasty habit of imagining you, none of his friends had the heart to force him to break it.

After all, this image of you that he had created kept him going. It made it easier to wake up and face the day, it kept him from breaking down every few minutes, and it gave his life purpose. So they went along with it.

Maybe one day, Xingqiu could finally let go of you. But that wasn’t today nor would it be tomorrow.

“See you tomorrow, (n/n).”

“See you tomorrow, Xingqiu.” You smiled and waved as he walked away. He’d left the food and drinks that he’d laid out untouched, just like he did every year prior.

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin xingqiu #xingqiu x y/n #xingqiu x reader #xingqiu #genshin impact imagines

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bugsyfics · 3 years

Text

Could’ve Just Asked

Yami Sukehiro x Reader

Fandom: BC

Summary: After touching one of Captain Yami’s most prized possessions, Y/N finds herself on thin ice.

Warnings: Smut/notsfw, spanking, masturbation, very slight praise and domination

Word Count: 1.3k

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Captain Yami was out with the other members of the Black Bulls upon request of the Wizard King. Today you weren’t needed, because you visited him a couple days prior about the new mission. While you could’ve gone anyway, this was a good time to catch up on some well needed cleaning. You dusted, moved someone’s random pair of shorts, and threw away an oddly immense amount of trash. You got to the split corridor and took a little detour down the men’s living quarters. You’ve only been down there a couple times, but curiosity was getting the best of you.

There was no denying that you enjoyed looking at your captain and often wondered how he would feel on top of you, but because of the dynamic you two shared it made it almost impossible to express how you felt. Since you’d joined the Black Bulls, it’s always felt deeply inappropriate how hot this man made you with only a couple words or a pat on the back. It was even worse when you two would train alone, away from the others. Maybe your little flirts weren’t enough for him to catch on or possibly he was simply ignoring your advances.

As you passed Yami’s bedroom it took everything in you not to look at his door. You walked a little further, but quickly turned on your heel to walk back towards his room.

“Hm, I don’t know if I… no…” You contemplated intruding while your hand remained on the doorknob.

“Fine.” You opened the door.

It was… normal? A small pile of clothes and an unmade bed but nothing out of the ordinary. You did notice though, a shimmer from across the room. After quickly shutting the door, you made your way to the glimmering object to find a brand new katana placed against his nightstand. You knew it was a bad idea, but you really wanted to see the beauty of this finely crafted sword. You pulled it out slightly admiring the polished finish — possibly too long to not notice Yami entering his room.

“Get out or I’ll kill you!”

“Ahh! I’m so sorry! I’ll leave, j-just let me explain!” You sputtered hoping he wouldn’t kick your ass.

“I was cleaning a-and I wandered down the hallway a-and I saw your room. Then I-I saw—”

“Shut the hell up!”

“I’m sorry capitan,” you apologized.

Why did you have to keep doing stupid shit like this? No only did you invade his privacy but you also touched his brand new katana— Yami’s katana. Shit, you put your position in the squad in jeopardy and ruined the chances of him ever being interested in you. What would the other squad members thi—

“Hello? I asked you to hand it over,” Yami pointed to the sword with his eyebrow raised.

“You’re being creepy…” he continued and eyed you.

Yami grabbed your arm and released the katana from your grip. He laid the sword flat on his palms and pulled it out completely, inspecting it.

“Well, I guess you didn’t mess it up too bad. You know, acting like a dumbass and all,” Yami spoke and shook his head.

You opened your mouth to protest but remained quiet instead.

“You came in here just to look at a sword? Gonna steal it or somethin’?”

“No, I was just snooping. It was rude of me,” you muttered.

“Stop apologizing. Don’t care, just don’t do it again,” Yami grumbled.

He closed the katana back down into its scabbard and sighed.

“Ok, get out,” he spoke suddenly and walked you to the door.

After you walked out, Yami leaned against the doorframe.

“You know Y/N, you don’t have to sneak around. If you wanted to visit and talk you could’ve just asked,” Yami laughed and closed the door.

Did he say visit? What did that even mean? Well, you were just glad you made it out alive. Your palms were sweaty and after that encounter you needed a cold shower.

The next day...

After breakfast, all the squad members sat in the main room chatting. You assumed no one knew about what happened the day before, but you sat by yourself just in case. Well, not entirely by yourself since Zora was across from you snoozing, as always.

“Be quiet and sit down,” Yami clapped his hands together, “I’m sending a couple of you on a mission.”

“Julius needs to speak to Asta, Finral, and Charmy again. So, go do that or whatever,” Yami announced nonchalantly and sat back down to read the paper.

Everyone else traveled to the Noble Realm to shop or went outside to train. You quietly sat and drank your coffee hoping no one would notice that you were missing.

You heard a gruff voice from above you, “Y/N, come here.”

Yami?! What does he want? He stood over you and motioned you to follow.

“Yes, captain.”

You both ended up outside his room.

“What are we—”

“We have free-time. I thought you wanted to talk,” Yami shrugged.

“Sur— I mean, yeah we can,” you smiled awkwardly.

Yami sat down on his bed and stared at you, blowing out a puff of smoke from his cigarette. You stood against his desk, in the corner of the room, assuming it wouldn’t be appropriate to sit on his bed with him. The uncomfortable silence made you flustered and you slightly pinched your leg to right yourself.

“Are we gonna stare at each other all day?” Yami surmised.

“I don’t really have anything to talk about necessarily,” you spoke.

“Mhm, ok well we can leave—”

“Wait! I-I mean um… hold on. Tell me about your katana, please captain,” you blurted.

“You wanna hear about my katana? Nothing else you want to talk about?” Yami asked.

“Yeah… Well, no. I’m just interested in learning about it. It looks like it’s made with good craftsmanship.”

Yami stood suddenly, pulling his katana from the holster on his waist and motioned you over. He sat back down on his bed and waited for you to join. You awkwardly sat beside him and you couldn’t help your cheeks from turning bright red from the closeness.

“Put your hands out,” Yami instructed, “The blade is sharp so don’t do anything stupid.”

The sword laid balanced across both of your palms.

“The handle is called tsuka,” Yami began and stroked the top, “...and the blade is called sori.”

He took two fingers and slowly ran them across the surface of the blade.

“The only authentic ones are from back home, but since I haven’t gone back, I get them imported.”

“Wow, it’s a really beautiful sword,” you admired softly.

“Mhm, it’s quite… personal to me,” Yami cleared his throat and grabbed the katana from your hands.

He glanced over at your face with an unreadable expression and shifted away.

“I think that’s enough talking for today. I’m gonna take a nap,” Yami rushed and stood from the bed.

“Can I come back tomorrow?” You asked quietly and walked to the door.

Yami pulled his cigarette from his lips and crushed the butt into the cigarette tray on top of his nightstand.

“Eh, I don’t know… I think today was enough,” he responded curtly.

“Did I do something wrong?” you began to pry.

Yami stood silent staring at you for a moment. He finally made his way over, and towered over your small frame.

“I hate it when you act innocent,” Yami growled lowly and tilted your chin upwards slowly, “You know exactly what you’re doing, princess.”

“Captain… What are you talking about?” you questioned, puzzled by his sudden change in mood.

“I haven’t caught on for a while, but I’m not stupid. You like when I tower over you like this… or when I command you to do what I want,” Yami taunted and rested his hands above your head.

“You snooped in my room because you couldn’t get enough of me, huh?” Yami chuckled and stared deeper into your nervous gaze.

“C-captain I-I,” you stuttered and clenched your thighs together to suppress the tingling from your core.

“There’s no need to confess, Y/N. I already know how you feel,” Yami said. “I guess I was a little oblivious. I thought you had a childish crush, but it seems like there’s something more.”

Yami scratched the back of his head and his eyes traveled down your body to your clenched thighs. With one hand still above you, the other traced down your side and gripped your thigh gently. He began to rub small circles on your skin with his thumb.

You bit your lip and glanced up at Yami’s dark gaze from under your lashes.

“D’ya like that princess?” he teased as his hand traveled further underneath your skirt.

“Yes captain,” you sighed.

You were soaking through your panties and you were nervous about what Yami would think. His low voice and his digits pressed on you made your skin burn.

Yami’s eyes grew a little when he reached your panties. He took his middle finger and ran it over your heat feeling how your wetness pooled under you.

“You want me to touch you some more?” Yami spoke into your neck.

You nodded eagerly, opening your legs wider for his massive hand.

“Mm…”

Yami rubbed faster over your clothed pussy. He pulled his hand away and leaned down to your ear.

“Get on the bed. Head down and ass up, now.” Yami ordered you.

He could tell you liked being dominated, but you also like being praised and he stepped into that role nicely.

You scurried over to his bed and did what you were told. A little part of you wanted to push him further.

You reached under your skirt and played with yourself, bucking into your hand. You pushed your ass out and turned your head to watch him.

Yami cooly walked to his nightstand, grabbed a cigarette and lit it while he watched you. That was definitely not the reaction you expected.

Smoke billowed out from his lips as he spoke, “That’s a nice show you’re putting on. Maybe you can get yourself off instead.”

“Wha- no, I was just—”

“Touch yourself,” Yami demanded.

He watched as you hesitated and moved your hand away. Yami roughly pulled your hand back under you, placing it on your core.

“Do it.”

You had no choice other than to play with yourself in front of him, but it was technically your fault. You gently rubbed over the fabric and grazed across your aching pussy. The constant friction of the panties across your clit made it difficult to stay steady on your knees. You moaned incoherently into the bedspread and began slowing your movements.

Yami grabbed a handful of your ass and smacked it harshly, “Faster. Keep going like a good girl.”

“Yam-Yami please. I c-can’t…” you panted.

“Do I have to tell you again, princess?” Yami threatened while pinching your ass.

“No, sir… but I just need you,” you pleaded and grinded into the air.

With a grunt, Yami pulled you to the edge of the bed with your ass propped. He tore your panties off of you and spread your pussy open to rub harsh circles on your swollen bud, making your toes curl.

“Mm fuck. That feels so, so good, captain!”

“Something tells me this is your favorite place to be touched,” Yami chuckled, quickening his movements.

You bucked harder, fucking yourself down onto Yami’s hand.

“Shit, it looks like your gonna come, princess.”

He pulled you back into his chest and continued his movements while you came undone. You felt yourself on the brink of tears as you slumped down into Yami’s arms. You heard him breathing hard behind you as his erection poked into your lower back.

“Damn princess, that was only the first round! Hah! I knew you weren’t that innocent,” Yami teased and wrapped his arms around your waist.

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A/N: I hoped you like this Yami smut! Thanks for reading 💕

— bugs

#not sfw #black clover imagine #black clover yami #black clover smut #yami sukehiro x reader #black clover scenarios #black clover x reader #yami sukehiro #requests open #black clover fanfiction #yami sukehiro imagine

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teddy06writes · 3 years

Note

sum angst for sapnap x quackity x karl x reader if requests are open, i dont remember if they are, and if u feel up to it

sapnap x karl x quackity x reader + sleepy bois x sibling!reader

trigger warnings: yelling, swearing, character death

this is an in game au so be aware of that

premise: you’ve been on the inside, spying on Shlatt for pogtopia, you thought you had had him convinced that the spy was Tubbo (Who knew just about nothing about pogtopia) but during the festival Shlatt asks you to make a speech... after the festival, things begin to fall apart

(y/n/n)- your nickname

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“And you’re sure about this? You’re positive that it’s him and not Quackity?” Shlatt asked.

The festival was in two days, Wilbur’s plan to blow Manburg was in place, and suddenly huge evidence of things you had berried was piling up. Your entire position as Pogopia’s spy was at risk.

“I’m positive Mr. President. I caught Tuboo poking around in some tunnels, trying to talk to TommyInnt just yesterday,” You lied straight through your teeth, “The log I found behind the files proves it.”

You held up the book, truly a work of your own notes, signed in you co workers hand.

Shlatt took it, quickly skimming through the pages, “Hmmm, this is significant evidence to condemn the kid. We’ll have to do something about.”

“Maybe we should exile him, like Wilbur and Tommy.” You suggested carefully.

He considered it for a moment, a wide jagged grin spreading across his face, “Or... we could execute him,” He seemed to take pleasure in your shock, “Publicly. We have been needing a slam finish for that festival.”

“Shlatt Tubbo is just a child!”

Shlatt glared down at you, “Sorry, what was that? It almost sounded like you were trying to go against the word of the president.”

The threat chilled you to the core, and you strained to stay calm, “With all due respect Mr. President, Tubbo is only 16, and there are other ways to deal with insurgents.”

“Insurgents? As in there's multiple now?” Alex strode into the room, wrapping an arm around your shoulders as you breathed a slight sigh of relief.

“Yes, your partner here has just informed me that our dear Tubbo is a traitor,” Shlatt slammed the journal onto the desk, ignoring the glare Alex gave him when you jumped, “He’s been spying on Manburg for Pogtopia.”

Alex reached for the book, flipping to the last page and reading allowed, “If there is ever a time to strike, it would be during the Manburg festival, though it is worth noting Wilbur’s plan of destroying L’Manburg should be put off as long as possible.”

“When I caught them in the tunnels under the city, they were talking about tnt,” You said, the shake in your voice all too real, as forced tears began to prick in your eyes, “Wilbur’s going to blow it up.”

Shlatt looked at you clearly searching for something, but giving up once you fully began to cry, turning to burry your face in your boyfriends shoulder.

The president sighed, annoyed, “Get them outta here Quackity, I can’t work when there's fucking crying in my office.”

“It’s probably just the stress, sir. I’ll get them home.” Alex carefully led you out of the white house, and you were grateful, unknowing how much of the emotion was real or not.

“Oh god! Is (y/n) okay?” Karl asked as soon as Alex had gotten you to where he was decorating party island.

“Yeah, they’ll uh- they’ll be alright. Shlatt, Manburg, stress, you know?” He eased you down to sit on one of the benches, and quickly Karl moved to sit and wrap his arms around you.

“Hey, I’ve gotta get back to work. I’ll see you guys tonight.” Alex quickly pecked at your cheek, and then Karl’s lips before heading back in the direction of the white house.

“What happened?” Karl asked softly once he had gone.

You sniffled, leaning into his embrace, “Work’s stuff. The festival’s getting stressful.”

“Yeah, well I’m helping Tubbo with the last of the decorating tomorrow,” He paused, “You’re missing Wilbur and Tommy aren’t you?”

You nodded, “I miss them and Techno and Phil. I miss home.”

Your duties as a spy didn’t entail much seeing your brothers, just taking down notes of what was going on in Manburg and leaving them in a remote chest for Wilbur to collect later.

“We all miss home. But think about it this way, if you hadn’t come here, you wouldn’t’ve found me, or Alex, or Nick,” Karl said, looking out at the rest of Manburg, “We wouldn’t have this place without you or your brothers, and even Shlatt can’t change that.”

You smiled a bit at that, “Thanks Karl.”

“And! You don’t have to worry about decorations for the festival cause I’m helping Tubbo with it tomorrow!”

Though it was meant to cheer you up you felt your heart sink lower, he and Nick still didn’t know, and wouldn’t about what would be planned for the festival, but hopefully Alex would understand the burden.

“So why is there a festival?”

Nick had just arrived back in Manburg from a while’s stay in the SMP, and was very confused by the posters lining the streets.

“Shlatt wants to celebrate democracy, so he’s had Tubbo and I organize a festival.” You explained.

He cocked an eyebrow, “And what does Wilbur think of this?”

Nick was still the only one who’d found out about your allegiances to Pogtopia, only by mistake, when he’d caught you making the journey back from the cavern.

“Wilbur thinks it’s an opportunity,” You sighed, quickly scribbling down a new messege to the boys, “Techno think’s it’s a waste of time and energy, the anarchist energy’s been shining through more and more lately.”

“So who do you agree with?” He asked carefully.

“Neither, Wilbur’s gone manic, Techno is- well he’s Technoblade, and Tommy just goes along with what Wil says.” You tucked each note into an envelope, folding them between the pages of the newest set of notes.

You looked up to meet Nick’s eyes, “I’m worried about what Friday will bring. I’ve tried to throw Shlatt off my trail and it seems like it’s working I just-”

You broke off as Nick wrapped his arms around you, “Hey, it’ll be okay. And if he tries anything, I’ll be there to protect you,” He chuckled, “Hell, maybe it’ll be the only time your brothers and I agree.”

“Maybe.” You mumbled.

“Woah! Are you guys cuddling without us?” Karl feigned shock as he came into the living room with Alex.

“I would never!” You forced a laugh.

“(y/n), come on, we’ve gotta go get ready to meet Shlatt.” Alex nudged you.

You sighed, starting to snuggle back into Nick’s grip, wishing the small amount of morning calm would last, “Do we have too?”

“Yeah, you know he won’t be happy if we’re late.”

You looked at Karl and Nick, still mostly asleep, and then back at him, quietly admitting, “I’m scared today could change everything.”

He sighed, immediately shifting back down into be, “I suppose we could stay a bit longer.”

Slowly, the other boys woke up, but the room remained in silence, as if everyone could feel the coming tension, as if even moving would shatter the peace of the day.

Carefully, Karl broke the silence, “We’re gonna be okay guys. The festival is gonna be awesome. Wilbur wouldn’t do anything to ruin it for (y/n).”

“If what they found out is true, you guys could all be at risk.” Alex murmured.

Nick sighed, “I don’t care who’s bad side I get on, it’s gonna be anything to keep you all safe.”

Each of you heard a different meaning behind his words, but still none of you spoke.

“Whatever happens today, we’ll make it through, the country, may not.” You said, voice wavering, but still with a note of finality.

By midday the festival was in full swing, and surprising your older brother had actually shown up for the festivities.

“Strange seeing you here,” You laughed, nudging him, “A celebration of a government.”

“It’d be rude to turn down an invitation ta one a these,” He sighed, glancing around, “Where’s your boyfriends hanging around at, I haven’t threatened them yet today.”

You chuckled, “Q’s helping Shlatt with the last of the prep for the speeches. Sapnap’s supposedly trying to figure a way to cheat Fundy’s dunk tank and Karl’s over there.” You gestured to where he, Tubbo, Sam and Bad were running around at Party Island.

“mmm, hey, uh, your note the other day, you weren’t serious about framing the kid right?”

You sucked in a breath, tightening the grip on the sword at your side, “It was him or Al- Quackity, I couldn’t do that to him. Whatever they’re planning I’m going to stop them.”

Techno look back at the stage warily, “I’ll back you up if I can.”

Soon everyone was being called to take there seats in the audience as you, Tubbo, Alex, and Shlatt took to the stage.

“Well everyone!” Shlatt addressed the crowd, “Thank you for coming to this wonderful celebration of democracy! Things sure have gotten bet around here, I’m gonna give the mic to Tubbo, the main organizer of this event, for his speech.”

Tubbo grinned, shuffling his notecards as he took Shlatt’s spot in front of the microphone, “Hello everyone! I’m honestly so excited to be here right now!”

As Tubbo rambled on about Wilbur and Tommy’s banishment, you stood back, wishing you could’ve stood on the same side of the stage as Alex.

Looking out over the crowd gathered you tried not to let your gaze wander to Tommy and Wilbur, who you knew were perched on the top of a near by building.

“And uh yeah! To democracy!” Tubbo concluded.

You could almost here Alex chuckle as he started to turn to the chest on the side of the stage, ready to grab the materials to box the boy in.

“That was nice, hey, uh, (y/n), dear (y/n), my secretary of state, I uh, I hate to put you on the spot here, but uh, why don’t you come up and make a speech?” You blood ran cold at Shlatts words.

On the other side of the stage Alex froze as well, out in the crowd no one suspect anything, so you clasped your hands behind your back to hide the tremors and moved in front of the microphone.

“Well, uh hi guys! I honestly didn’t except to be up here making a speech today, so I’m not quite sure if this will even turn out coherent,” You laughed, out of the corner of your eye you noticed Tommy tensing, “I remember, soon after I followed my brothers to this land, we fought in a war. L’manburg’s war for independence was long and hard, and I often thought we would never see a better time, but standing here, it is very clear to me that this country has changed since the election.

“This country, since gaining it’s independence has changed my life, and it weighs on my heart that My L’manburg has a ruler such as Mr. JShlatt. We fought for this land, my brothers and I, and here we are today, with so much progress made! So, my friends, my colleges, here's to Our L’manburg!”

Everyone began to cheer, only to be cut off my Shlatt’s harsh laugh, “Oh, (y/n), it’s Manburg now remember? or did you forget while you were off conspiring with your brothers in Pogtopia?”

Tubbo pushed a still frozen Alex out of the way to grab the materials, beginning to box you in.

“S- shlatt?” You quickly turned on the emotion, turning frantically as they caged you in, “Shlatt what are you talking about?”

“Shlatt what the hell are you doing?” Alex asked.

“Oh, you didn't know? Your partners a traitor!” Shlatt laughed again.

Alex turned to you, now trapped between the throne and the mic stand, looking betrayed.

“I didn’t do anything! Shlatt! Please!” Though a few days before most of the emotion had been real, but now you were thankful for your acting skills, blubbering, “Alex! Alex look at me it wasn’t me! I didn’t do anything!”

Down in the stands Nick was halfway to standing, pushing Karl back down into his own seat.

“Or really? So that book wasn’t forged? That chest you used to pass messages? You tried to turn them against me!” Tubbo exclaimed.

“I didn’t- I- I would never betray my country!” You sobbed, forcing tears to leak from your eyes.

“Oh shut up,” Shlatt turned to the crowd, “Technoblade, front and center, get up here.”

Shakily Techno stood, quietly moving up to stand on the stage as Alex backed off the stage, looking between you and Shlatt with mixes of betrayal and shock.

“What uh, what you need me up here for Shlatt?”

“I want you to take care of them, make a public example.”

Techno coughed awkwardly, “You- you want me ta kill m’ sibling?”

“No!” You exclaimed, “Techno please...”

Shlatt glared at you, “Cut the crap (y/n)! We all know you aren’t actually this god damn emotional!”

Sapnap was fully in the isle now, sword drawn, and up on the roof You saw Wilbur clamping a hand over Tommy’s mouth to keep him to keep him from giving them away.

Sighing you wiped away the fake tears, “You have to admit, Shlatt, you believed me, you trusted me!”

Shlatt just rolled his eyes, “Techno get on it, snap too! I’ve got places to be.”

Techno slung his crossbow off his shoulder uncertainly, “(y/n)?”

All the fear from the morning came flooding back, but you shoved it down, leaning forward, to make eye contact with Shlatt, “You kill me now and nothing will change! This place will still go down hill and my brothers will still plot against you! All my secrets go down with me!”

“Shut your mouth and die already!”

Your nails dug into your palms, “Don’t make them watch Shlatt, have some mercy, if you want to kill me kill me, but don’t make my boys watch, don’t make Techno do it.”

“Get it over with!”

You leaned forward, gritting your teeth, “You heard the man, kill me.”

“(y/n), I can’t- you- yo- I-”

“Do it.” You hissed.

Time slowed, and Techno slowly raised the crossbow.

You looked out, past him, over the rolling fields of L’manburg, your home.

Niki out in the crowd wore a look of horror, hiding her face in Eret’s shoulder, who wore a simillar look for fear. Fundy wore a steely expression clearly close to breaking, Sam looked down right terrified, as Bad hid his eyes in his hands.

To your left Tubbo looked scared even though he’d put you in the cage, you were glad it was you and not him.

Shlatt wore his usual evil grin, pupil’s dilated.

Up on the roof, Tommy, your little brother looked horrified, Wilbur still holding him back with a neutral expression, Techno, now directly in front of you, was nearly in tears, your big brother, who swore to protect you, now being your end, it seemed almost poetic.

Behind him Nick was running up the isle, sword drawn, though you knew he’d be to late, Karl, lip quivering sat frozen, and Alex, his face still was filled with betrayal.

You looked up, took a deep breath and then time resumed, Techno pulled the trigger and everything went black.

{(y/n) went off with a bang}

It was cold.

Dark.

You didn’t now where you were as you drifted through a world you barley recognized.

Where was this?

How did you get there?

Vaguely you remembered a festival, your brothers, plus your boyfriends, oh how you loved them.

Your friends had been there too.

You looked back down to see L’manburg, ‘home!’ you thought happily.

You drifted towards your house, a voice in the back of your brain wondering, ‘why am I not walking?’

“What the fuck was that?” A loud voice cut through the air.

‘Nicky!’ you thought happily, following the sound.

“What the hell do you mean?”

‘Alex!’

You entered the room, finding them standing on opposite side, Karl, huddled in the corner.

“You are so fucking stupid! You know that? You let them die! They’re fucking dead because of you!”

“They were a fucking traitor! They got what was coming to them!”

“They loved you!” Nick screamed back, “They loved you and me and Karl, and their brothers! And now there gone! Because of You and Fucking Shlatt!”

What were they talking about?

“They fucking betrayed us! They betrayed Manburg! You saw the fucking acting they did! How do you know they ever loved us!”

From the corner Karl sobbed, and instinctively you moved to comfort him, but instead you passed right through.

‘what the hell?’

You had no time to dwell however because Nick shouted, “Etheir way you let them die! They’d be here if you’d interfered!”

“But I didn’t wooupdy do! They were a traitor!”

“They were trying to save their home!”

“WELL MAYBE THEY SHOULD’VE CONSIDERED THAT I WAS TRYING TO BUILD IT UP!”

“You and Shlatt never did anything but tare this place to the ground.” It was only a whisper, but Nick’s words sent Alex spinning on his heel and heading out the door.

“Fuck you! Fuck you! I am aware that my best isn’t good enough! So fuck you!”

The door slammed, and Nick only blinked a moment before Karl quietly asked, “Why did you do that?”

“What?”

“Now he’s gone too!”

Karl’s voice made your heart shatter.

“You think that’s my fault?! Clearly he didn’t give a shit about us, or them, other wise he would’ve stopped Shlatt.”

“They said we’d be okay! But we’re not!” Karl sobbed.

“I can fucking see that! God damn Karl! What did you except?”

“I-”

Before he could finish the door was slamming again.

Karl leaned back against the wall, staring straight through you whispering, “Why did you have to go (y/n/n)? You only just brought us together! We only just figured it out.”

#mcyt x reader #mcyt imagines #sapnap x reader #karl jacobs x reader #quackity x reader #sapnap x karl x quackity x reader #teddy06 writes

531 notes · View notes

twentytarot · 3 years

Photo

wow, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? sorry that i kinda dropped off the map there, but you know how it is. life calls when it does. anyway, today we’re doing a reading on your next five years. for this reading in particular, if you’re drawn to more than one group then i’d suggest you read them both, because 5 years is a long time and it’s definitely possible for bits and pieces of your prediction to be scattered around this reading. devise a strategy that works for you even, for example, if i’m drawn to pile 1 first and then 4, maybe the beginning of pile 1 is more relevant to me but the end of pile 4 will resonate more. enough of my rambling, on to the reading!

*year 1 means from now till year from now, year 2 1-2 years from now, and etc.

PILE ONE: GLASS PANELS

overall, the next five years has you waiting for the right moment to begin living. currently you are stuck in a place where you’ve been hurt and betrayed— yet you cannot leave yet. you’re probably trying to plan a way out, but perhaps, surrounded by the unbreakable glass panels in your life, you’ve come to the same conclusion as me: it’s not going to be any time soon. for the next two years, you will have no way out. however, you will become much more resilient so that 3 years from now, you have the power and strength to break out of your current situation and build your dream life. it seems that there will be a lot of movement leading up to this event; perhaps you will be moving house and leaving most of the people around you now behind. whatever the case, in year 3, you will be building a new foundation for yourself. if there are responsibilities and duties you cannot fully leave behind from your past, you will learn to balance them in year 4. in year 5, you’re building up your finances, having found your footing at home and at work. finally, five years from now, you will finally feel like you are in a place where you can feel stable and secure financially and emotionally.

in other words, the main message for you is “one step at a time”. you will have the life you want, but it will take a while. for now, you will have to heal your inner wounds and learn to brave the coldest of storms on your own. then, the next step will be to gain the courage to forge ahead and create a foundation that will allow you to build your life the way you want, away from the toxic people that you have had to rely on. once you have found your own independent footing, then the next step will be to go after you want, especially in career and life purpose. don’t be afraid if things start coming down, almost no one goes through their 20s and 30s without having to destroy something fundamental. finally, once you have learned to juggle all of this alone, the final piece will fall into place, and that is the rest of the world. friends, a new family, and days that make you so excited you want to sleep early so that the sun rises faster tomorrow. this is a long journey, but i’m confident it’s worth it. you got this! :)

PILE TWO: APPLE PASTRIES

for the next five years, you will ride a wave that brings you to the top of the world, and then you’ll prepare for the next chapter in life. we start off in year 1 with you being a little unsure of what it is you want to do long-term— perhaps you’re aware that it’s about time you start settling on a path with how responsibilities are piling up, but you’re also rather reluctant to let go of all your ideas and inspiration. that’s alright, you don’t have to decide just yet. in year 2, things get a little more exciting in the personal department: you might meet your future spouse, get engaged, get married, or even have a kid, depending on where you are in personal life right now. i’m leaning towards you being pretty young and just beginning to entertain the idea of marrying your special someone. whether it’s navigating a new relationship or wedding planning, you’ll be pretty caught up in it in year 2, and your work life will naturally fall into the background. not for long, though, because someone enters your life in year 3 and they don’t have your best interests in mind. they’re not out to get you, but they also don’t care if they had to step on you to get higher. this person brings you a whole lot of clarity on your life purpose and career, though, and so you transform your life quite rapidly, especially in view of the fact that you’re getting older and it can’t be helped, you’re going to have to start making some commitments. the transition is very successful and in year 4 you reap all the benefits. you are like water, you balance the push and pull effortlessly like the waves, you bring energy wherever you go, you complete the cycle and finish what you start. you’re in a position to give advice now, and people begin to look up to you. life’s... well, it’s actually pretty good.

year 5 is whole new chapter, likely on patience. the bliss of making it through one chapter in life never lasts long enough, and it is time for your life to move on. take care of yourself and always be open to growth. take the people that will betray you as lessons on how to better watch out for and protect yourself. wield the sword of clarity with conviction. before you know it, everything else will follow.

PILE THREE: FLAT WHITE

your next five years is about breaking free. you are often harshly judged by the people around you, and it’s like you can never catch a break. you wished for a peaceful getaway, and your wish is only partially granted. let me stop for a second and explain. for example, if you’re harshly judged at work, you might be able to get out of working with the particular team that makes your life difficult, but you won’t be able to leave the company entirely. something like that. you’ll have to do more than what you’re doing right now to truly get out of this situation. thankfully, towards the end of year 2, your heart hardens. enough is enough, you decide, and with your sharpened sword, you go after what you want.

the battle in year 3 is ugly. you say things you wish you didn’t have to, you do things in ways that keep you up at night. sometimes we don’t have a choice, though, because it was the only way you would be able to take what is yours and run. just in time, too, because in year 4, you will realise the stability you thought you were being offered was as strong as a house of cards. by defying expectations and going out on your own, you have nudged this house and cause it to topple. you get to watch from somewhere a little further away, but it’s still hard to deal with the questioning, the anxiety, the wondering whether you shouldn’t have left in the first place. no, darling, of course you should have left. year 5 is a year filled with so much more stability and happiness, it’s like you can’t recognise the person you used to be, the world you used to live in. if you thought that you will never truly make it out of there, my cards are here to tell you that there is a day where you will stop wanting to cry before you go to sleep, there is a day where the demons will shut up for good. so don’t give up! you’ll make it out of there if it’s the last thing you do, because that’s you: strong, persistent, and forever optimistic in your heart. and this personality of yours is what makes you lucky. when you want something with all of your heart, the universe can’t help but want to give it to you.

PILE FOUR: NIGHT

pile four, your reading is all about finding love! things are about to slow down for you now, and it looks like it will continue to be slow for awhile. and honestly, for you i don’t think that’s a bad thing at all, seeing as you are just coming out of having had to make difficult choices and work hard for what you want. for the next year or so, you’ll simply be continuing what you’ve started and letting the payoff roll in. in year 2, however, you’ll begin to look around at your life again and find out what is it you want next. at that point, perhaps you will come to the conclusion that it is love you’re looking for. or maybe it’s just excitement, since you’re pretty collected yourself. you’re the kind to meditate and sleep on things before you decide, and the person you meet in year 3 is decisively... not that kind of person. they’re hardworking, smart, funny and honest, but they’re also rather blunt and impatient. they’ll jump from one thing to the next without thought; they’ll argue with you through the walls of your room is it means they’ll win. you may wonder if this person is going to force you become their parent. well, no. this person has entered your life to show you that the world has so much more to offer if your just take the leap and jump. this person is here to show you that sometimes, you don’t sleep on decisions. you just go for it. once you begin to see the charm of this person, they will light up your life as a friend, a listening ear, then a worthy partner, then a worthy opponent, and then finally, in year 4... a worthy soulmate. and you will realise that taking risks is actually not as scary as it seemed, because this person is right next to you, and will be there to help you pick up the pieces should you fall. this might be a new feeling for you, because you come from a background of having to watch your own back all the time. being able to take calculated risks is what pushes one up from being a prince to a king. it pushes you and your life purpose to its full potential, and even if the ride of taking risks and forging ahead is rocky with this person in year 5, you will come out hardships closer than ever, stronger than ever.

#pick a card #pick a card reading #pick a pile #pick a pile reading #tarot reading #free tarot reading

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rosiehunterwolf · 3 years

Text

Never Put Off Until Tomorrow

Prompts: Chores and Video Games

Word Count: 4,850

Characters: The squad + Pixal

Timeline: between seasons 11 and 12

Trigger Warnings: None

Summary: …what can be done today, yada, yada, yada, we all know the saying. So do the ninja- when Master Wu is drilling it into their heads every minute of every day, it’s kind of hard to forget.

Naturally, it only takes them a week (and the biggest new video game in Ninjago) to do so.

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“Get that gun out of his hand! Without it, he’ll be defenseless and we can take him down easily!” “I’m trying, Jay!” Lloyd said through gritted teeth. “One wrong move and he’ll get me with that thing!”

“Use your powers!” Jay raised his sword and dove at the enemy, forcing him to turn and face him. As their swords clashed with a loud clang of metal, Jay quickly pulled back as Lloyd shot a blast of power at the attacker, who promptly collapsed to the ground.

“Alright! Way to go, green ma- look out!”

Lloyd shrieked as someone suddenly jumped on him from behind, skewering a sword through his skull. The green ninja fell to the ground and vanished in a puff of smoke.

The ninja blinked at the scene before them, speechless.

Jay suddenly let out a whoop, leaning over to high-five Kai. “Way to go, bro! You’re so good at this game!” “He came out of nowhere,” Lloyd huffed, tossing his control to the ground. “He didn’t even give me a chance to fight back.”

Kai reclined, putting his hands behind his head. “Work smarter, not harder, green machine.”

Lloyd scowled, and Nya shot him a sympathetic glance. “Hey, Lloyd, you lasted a whole ten minutes longer than last time! You’ve drastically improved.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Kai winked. “Even Jay couldn’t beat me, I wouldn’t expect you to.”

Cole shook his head. “Dude, you’re unchecked! We’ve only had this game for a week and already, you’re insane. Let’s just say I’m very glad you’re on our team.”

“I’ll say,” Zane agreed. “The Critical Conquest Gaming Tournament is going to have some of the best gamers in Ninjago. You’re good, Kai- we all are- but we all need to be at the top of our game if we want a chance at winning.”

“We got this, guys,” Nya assured. “We’ve fought off serpentine, ghosts, the Overlord, Oni- winning a city-wide video game tournament should be a piece of cake.”

“Speaking of cake-”

“No cake,” Jay snapped at Cole. “Not until we’ve won this thing. I need you to practice.”

“Dude, chill, I’ve been practicing!”

“Then can you show me your double twist dash-melee maneuver?”

Cole blinked at him. “My what?”

“That’s what I thought. Here, let me show you. We’ll try until you’ve got it down.”

“Who put you in charge?”

“You did. Literally. You guys chose me to be the team captain for the competition.”

“Whatever.”

“Lloyd, come here, so he has someone to practice on.”

“Why me?” “Because you need to work on your stealth. Kai got that jump on you surprisingly easily. You’re a good fighter, Lloyd, but fighting doesn’t matter if your enemy kills you before you have the chance. Practice your stealth and dodging on Cole.”

“Ready to get your butt kicked, bud?” Cole reached his hands out, cracking his knuckles before picking up the controller.

“Ha! You wish. The only one who will be getting their butt kicked is-”

The sharp rapping of something against the floor interrupted him, and they turned to see Master Wu standing behind them, his gaze disapproving as he clutched his staff firmly in hand.

“Students, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Uhh, practicing for the Critical Conquest tournament?” Nya said. “I thought that was pretty obvious!”

Wu glared at her. “I know what you’re doing. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut all this short. The six of you have many chores to do.”

“Chores?” they cried in unison.

“The past week since you bought that game, you have done nothing but sit around on that couch and play it. In all that time, your chores have piled up. Now, I’m cutting you off. They need to be done, now.”

“But Master!” Jay pleaded. “The tournament starts in only a few hours!”

Master Wu smirked. “Well, I guess you better be fast, then.”

---

The ninja stared down at the alarmingly long list Master Wu had given them, no one speaking a word for nearly a solid minute.

“Why,” Kai groaned, “did we ever put all of these off?”

“Why didn’t Master Wu just let us wait one more day to do the chores?” Jay complained. “The tournament would be all over then!”

“Well, he didn’t,” Cole said. “So there’s no use in complaining. We might as well get started.”

“Alright, guys, if we’re going to get through all of this before the tournament starts, we’re gonna have to divide and conquer,” Nya said. “Let’s see. Zane, Lloyd, you guys take the kitchen. Jay, Cole, you can check the vehicles to make sure they’re operating properly- wait, scratch that, Cole doesn’t know shit about mechanics. Besides, putting you two alone together is never a good idea.”

“Hey!”

“Zane, you go with Jay on the machines. Cole, you’re with Lloyd. Kai and I will work outside on raking and fixing the training course.”

“Hey, no fair, you just gave yourself the easiest job!” Cole grumbled.

“I’ll inform you that raking leaves is very mundane!”

“Yeah!” Kai snapped. “Especially when it’s cold out like this. I’m gonna freeze my fingers off!”

“You’re the fire ninja, you’ll figure something out,” Nya snapped. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“Hey, Cole? You think this is so easy? We can trade places! You wanna trade places?��

“Actually, I’ve decided to be nice and let you take this one.”

Kai glared at him. “You’re only saying that because you know I hate it!” Cole leaned back against the table, smirking. “Maybe.”

“Come on, Kai, we’re going.” Nya grabbed his hand and yanked him out the door.

“I guess we better get working,” Cole sighed. “Jay, Zane, you guys need a copy of your tasks?” Zane shook his head. “I’ve got the list committed to memory. And there’s a lot to do, so we better go.”

As they left the room, Cole turned to Lloyd. “Put a check mark or something by the things the others are doing, so we can see what’s left for us.”

Lloyd made little marks next to the tasks, his pencil slowing as it reached the end. His frown deepened. “I swear, this list is getting longer. Some of these are just ridiculous! Polish the counters? Clean out the oven? Dust the tops of the cabinets? Who does these things?”

“Normal people, Lloyd. It’s not my fault that we’re so busy saving the city that you’ve never done anything more than the most basic chores in your life.”

“I’ve done chores!” “Darkley’s doesn’t count, bud. I bet the only thing you did there was clean spiders out of your bed.”

“They were fire ants,” Lloyd grumbled.

Cole turned on him with wide eyes. “What?”

Lloyd stiffened, suddenly seeming to realize what he had just said. “Uh… I mean… don’t tell Kai, okay?”

Cole stared at him for a moment, before sighing. “I’ll let it go, this once. But only because you’ve had a lot worse things than fire ants since then. Those kids are jerks, though.”

“I know.”

“... They really did that?”

“Yes, Cole! Do I need to show the scars to prove it?”

“No! I was just- you know what, forget I even said anything. Let’s get to work. First up, doing the dishes.” They turned towards the sink, where dozens of dirty plates and cups had accumulated.

“Seriously? Doesn’t anyone ever clean off their dishes after eating?”

Cole shot him a look. “Name one time you did that.”

“Okay, so never, but we’re ninja, not dishwashers! What do you expect?”

“Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today, Lloyd.”

Lloyd groaned. “I can’t believe I’m missing Critical Conquest for this.”

---

“Jay! You’re supposed to be repairing the sentry cannons on the Land Bounty!” “Chill out, Zane, I’ll get to it in a minute-”

Zane suddenly snatched the remote control out of his hand. “Jay! We’re never going to finish in time for the tournament if you don’t focus! Stop playing with toys!” “It’s not a toy!” He gestured towards the small remote-controlled robot. “This thing is going to be a major distraction! It could make it or break it for us in battle!”

Zane eyed the robot skeptically. “This. Distract our enemies?”

“Well, I was going to make it into a smoke bomb, but someone kept pestering me!” “Look, Jay, this isn’t the time to work on your inventions. You can do that later. Right now, you need to fix the sentries.”

“I already looked at the sentries,” he whined. “They were completely fried in our last adventure. I have to rewire the whole thing.”

Zane blinked at him. “Isn’t… that kind of your job?”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard work! I don’t want to do it! I’ll take any other chore on your list.”

“Well, someone needs to do it, and you’re the only one who knows how.”

“Not true! Why don’t you ask Pixal?”

He gestured towards the nindriod, who was tinkering with what appeared to be a small metal box.

“Pixal,” he called, walking over to her, “do you know how to rewire the sentries?” “Yes, but I know for a fact that Jay does, too. I’m not doing it for you.”

“Aww, come on, Pix,” Jay groaned. “Why don’t you have to do anything while the rest of us are all working our butts off?”

She glanced wryly at Jay’s little robot, who was waving cheerfully at her. “I wouldn’t exactly call it that. But I’m not helping because I already did all my chores while the rest of you were playing video games.”

Jay went pink in the face, and even Zane felt himself avoiding Pixal’s gaze.

“Critical Conquest is very important,” Jay muttered.

“More important than making sure all our weapons are operational? Or restocking the medbay?”

“We can do those things any time! The competition is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”

“Actually, there is another one next month-”

“Shut up, Zane. With our luck, we’ll probably be fighting evil nindroids or will be locked inside a different realm by that point, anyway.”

“I’m not helping you,” Pixal sniffed. “So I don’t know why you’re still here.”

Not taking Pixal’s… not-so-subtle hints, Jay leaned in towards her. “Whatcha workin’ on?”

Pixal eyed him warily. “... It’s a jetpack. I wanted to make something more compact in case I was in a situation where I couldn’t use the Samurai X suit.”

“That’s cool! Although, it might work better if you recalibrated the engines to-”

“Jay,” Pixal said sharply. “I know what I’m doing. Please go work on your chores.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. “No one ever lets me have any fun.”

Zane shook his head, wandering over to the Earth Driller where he was working on replacing the paneling that had been damaged in the Oni incident.

He couldn’t have been doing so for more than fifteen minutes when the sound of a small explosion interrupted him.

Zane jerked to his feet, dashing over to where the sound had come from.

Jay had jumped back from Pixal’s jetpack, which was now black and smoking.

Of course it was.

“What happened?”

Jay scratched his head nervously. “Well, you see… I really didn’t want to work on those sentries, so when I noticed Pixal stepping out of the room for a moment…”

Zane sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Are you alright?”

Jay grinned. “Right as rain. Not even a scar like last time!”

“Okay, that’s good, now I feel less bad for saying this- what were you thinking?”

“I couldn’t help myself, Zane! She calibrated it all wrong!”

“Well, evidently, you were the one who did it wrong, seeing as it exploded within five minutes of you getting your hands on it.”

Jay jumped nearly a foot in the air. “Pixal! You’re back! Ah… um, I’m really sorry about your jetpack, I was only trying to…”

Pixal marched forward, snatching it off the floor. “It doesn’t matter, it’s done now.”

“I can fix it-”

“You’ve done quite enough,” Pixal snapped. “Why don’t you just go finish your chores now?”

“But-”

Pixal held up the burnt jetpack, shaking it lightly. “You owe me.”

“Fine,” Jay groaned. “I’ll rewire the stupid sentries.”

---

“If I have to rake one more pile of leaves, something is going to end up on fire.”

“Well, luckily for you, that was the last of them.” Nya set down her rake, rubbing her hands together. “Now we just have to dispose of the leaf bags.”

She and Kai glanced over towards the towering pile of leaf bags, and Kai groaned.

“It’s going to take forever to throw these all away!”

“Kai, the dumpster is just on the other side of the Monastery wall!”

“Yeah, but we can only carry a few bags at a time, and we’re going to have to make so many trips!”

“Well, unless you’ve got a better idea, we don’t have a choice.”

Kai paused, his eyes lighting up. “Wait-”

“No, Kai, we are not burning the leaves.”

“I wasn’t going to say that! Although… it’s not a half-bad idea…”

“Kai!” “Okay, okay, no burning! What I was going to say was, why don’t we just toss the bags over the wall and into the dumpster?”

Nya frowned. “We’d miss half of them and then have to go over there anyway and pick them all up.”

“No, we could do it like in Critical Conquest! Remember? The ground-bash move? This is just like that!”

“Kai, that’s just a video game. This is real life!” “Yeah, but wouldn’t it still work?”

Nya frowned, stepping forward and eyeing up the roof of the Monastery. “I suppose if we got the right angle… we’d have to make sure an ample amount of newtons were applied with each hit to reach the correct velocity… and of course we’d have to take into consideration factors like density and wind acceleration per second and its tendency to carry-”

“Okay, okay, enough with your science-y nerd stuff!”

“It’s just basic physics, Kai. I mean, there are a lot of external factors to consider that wouldn’t be present in a lab setting, although I still think it would be quite simple-”

“Would it work or not?” Kai interrupted. “Yes or no, I want a one-word answer.”

“Yes. We just need to get the proper positioning-”

“Can I be the one bashing the bags?”

Nya sighed. “Only if you do exactly as I tell you-”

“Whoooooo!” Kai cried, running off to grab the rake as he swung it around fiercely. “Who’s ready to bash some leaf bags?”

“Kai! I said to do exactly as I say-”

---

Despite Nya’s initial trepidations, the process did not end up being a total disaster, and they actually ended up getting the chore done decently quickly. Now all they had left to do was to test and recalibrate the training course.

Nya glanced down at her watch. Only an hour and a half until the tournament started. Her chances of getting extra practice on those tricky combos were looking slimmer by the second. Hopefully, Kai’s mastery of the game, Jay’s high skill levels, and Cole’s advanced items and power-ups would be enough to help them beat-

“Nya!” Kai shrieked. “I said, turn it off!”

Nya snapped out of her thoughts, glancing up at her brother, who had been knocked to the ground by a whirring training dummy. “Oh, shit!” She spun towards the controls and shut them down, jogging over to Kai. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think so, I just-” Kai reached for her extended hand, pulling back with a sharp cry as they made contact.

“What?” “My hand,” he grimaced. “It hurts like hell.”

---

“You can’t throw out the Eggo Waffles!” Lloyd insisted, grabbing at the box in Cole’s hands

“Lloyd, they expired three days ago.”

“So what, they’re still edible.”

“They’re going.” Cole gave the box a strong tug, jerking it out of Lloyd’s hands and dropping it in the garbage. Lloyd huffed, crossing his arms.

“Kai would’ve let me keep them.”

“No, he wouldn’t have, because he doesn’t want you to get food poisoning.”

Lloyd paused for a moment, before amending, “Jay would’ve let me keep them.”

Cole sighed. “Yeah, and then you guys would’ve eaten them, and we would’ve ended up with two sick ninja.”

“I wouldn’t get sick! I have these super cool powers that protect me-”

“We don’t have any proof of that. We still don’t know exactly what your powers do.”

“Which means we can’t rule that out yet!”

Cole rubbed his head. “Out of all the people I could’ve gotten stuck cleaning out the freezer with… it had to be you. The one who gets emotionally attached to frozen waffles.”

“I am not emotionally attached-”

“Are you kidding me? He can’t play with this on! This thing is stiff, it seriously restricts his movement!” “It’s not a question, Jay, he needs to keep it on!”

“Is it actually that bad, though? Couldn’t he skip it for one game?”

“Not unless you want it to get worse!” Cole and Lloyd exchanged a glance and stepped out into the hallway, where the other four ninja were gathered.

“What’s going on?”

Zane opened his mouth to speak. “There was-”

“Kai!” Lloyd interrupted suddenly, darting over to him. “What happened to your hand?”

Cole blinked, realizing for the first time that Kai had a swathe of bandages wrapped around his hand.

Kai yelped in pain as Lloyd touched it, and the green ninja recoiled, his eyes widening in guilt. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry!”

Nya rolled her eyes. “Don’t apologize, Lloyd, he’s fine. He’s just being a big baby about all of this.”

“Am not. It hurts!”

Zane stifled a sigh. “Kai, it is only a bad pulled muscle. Apart from being painful and needing plenty of rest, it’s nothing serious.”

“Well, you don’t know what it feels like,” Kai snapped. “It’s a lot worse than ‘nothing serious.’”

“I scanned you. I am quite certain my diagnosis is correct.”

Nya snickered, and Kai shot her a look. “Shut up, you. You’re the one who did this to me.”

“You’re the one who wasn’t paying attention!” “Yeah, well, you’re the one who was supposed to be-”

“Guys!” Jay cried. “Can’t you see we have more pressing matters at hand? Severe injury or not, Kai can’t play Critical Conquest like this. And he’s our best player!”

“Alright,” Lloyd said. “So we don’t have our best player anymore. That’s bad. But Jay’s still a beast! And Cole, and Nya, and everyone except me, basically-”

“He could be the worst player in all of existence and it still wouldn’t matter,” Cole pointed out. “We need six players to compete or they will disqualify us.”

“But if Kai can’t play, we have no one else! There are no backups!” Nya huffed, turning on Jay. “You’re our team captain! Why didn’t you prepare any backups?”

“Because we know no one else! We live in an isolated monastery at the top of the tallest mountain for miles, what did you expect? Besides, I wasn’t anticipating this to happen!” Zane frowned. “Well, if Kai can’t play, and we have no backup, then our only choice is to drop out-”

“Wait!” Jay cried suddenly. “I think I might have an idea of someone.”

---

“Please please please please-”

Pixal raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you really think begging is going to change my mind?”

“Please, Pixal, we need a sixth player, and you’re the only person I can think of!”

“Why would I help you after you blew up my jetpack?” Kai gaped at him. “You what?”

Jay fought back the heat spreading across his face. “That’s not important right now! Pixal, I promise I’ll fix it, just please compete with us!”

Pixal frowned at him, which wasn’t the most reassuring answer.

“C’mon Pix- I’ll do anything.”

“I don’t know, Jay-”

“We’ll do all your chores for the next month.”

“What?” “We will?”

“Jay, what the heck! We never agreed to that!”

Pixal smiled at him. “I would’ve accepted it if you offered a week, but that’s very generous of you.”

The others shot him smoldering glares, and Jay groaned. “It doesn’t matter, we don’t have time for this.” Glancing down at his phone, he sucked in his breath. “We’ve only got an hour until the tournament! Zane, can you teach Pixal how to play?”

Zane blinked at him. “In an hour?”

“Just cover the basics. We don’t have time for perfection. Just teach her as much as you can before the tournament starts.”

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do.”

As soon as they were out of the room, Jay wheeled around, moaning. “We are so hooped! She doesn’t know how to play! Kai, how could you be careless enough to injure yourself?”

“Oh, sure, blame the victim!” Kai snapped. “Would it kill you to show a little sympathy to your injured teammate?”

“You pulled a muscle, you baby!” Nya groaned. “Pixal’s a fast learner, hopefully, she’ll get the hang of it.”

“Fast learner or not, nothing can beat hours of experience,” Lloyd said. “Let’s just hope the other contestants aren’t as good.”

---

“These dudes are insane!”

Jay continued to scroll through the queued-up players, examining their stats, his jaw dropping. “How much have these people been grinding?”

“So much for an easy win,” Lloyd grumbled.

Zane and Pixal walked into the room, holding their controllers. “I think I’ve done everything I can with Pixal. The competition starts in five minutes, I suggest we get ready.”

“Alright.” Jay turned towards Pixal as Zane worked on setting up the game. “We’re going to need your help, but since you don’t have experience, I think the best move is to have you stay behind us and play defense.”

Pixal smirked. “I’ll do my best.”

“Guys, we have to queue up!” “Are the headsets working?”

“They’re ready, what about the controllers? All charged?”

“We really shouldn’t be checking these kinds of things literally three minutes before the tournament, but yes, they are.”

“Hurry, guys! It’s about to start!”

Zane blinked at the screen. “Jay… you named our team the Fast Chickens?”

“It’s a good name!” The others groaned, and Jay glared at them. “We’ll see who’s complaining when we win this thing!”

Jay fidgeted through most of the opening speeches from the hosts of the competition as they went over rules and procedures. And, after what simultaneously felt like both a million years later and only the blink of an eye, the game was finally starting. They got lucky with their spawn point, and after a few minutes, were able to collect some good resources and get a good start. Cole, Zane, and Nya were able to take down some of the weaker groups before they collected supplies while Jay and the others continued collecting and building up defenses.

Checking the score count, he could see there were already twenty teams down in various parts of the map, and he knew his team had been responsible for felling three of them. Jay couldn’t stop himself from smiling. It seemed like nothing could be going better.

That is, until they suffered a major blow on the southwestern flank of their territory against a high-level team- the CrownViolets, they called themselves. (Which was nowhere near as cool sounding as the Fast Chickens, Jay totally wasn’t insecure about that at all.) After a fierce fight that ended up costing them several lives- and robbing Zane of his last, taking him out of the game- they realized they couldn’t win this fight and backed down, sacrificing a sizeable chunk of their turf.

While still monitoring that boundary, they decided to primarily focus on expanding in the other direction. Their tactic seemed to be working well, and although the CrownViolets kept on encroaching on them from the boundary, the other teams weren’t backing down, and although none managed to defeat the rival team, they were certainly taking their tolls on them. Jay hoped that the other teams would eventually take the Violets out for them, although he had to admit that would be extremely lucky.

They were getting down to the last few teams in the tournament. When the top ten were remaining, special, more deadly weapons were hidden around, and with them, teams began to fight back harder. The Fast Chickens held their own, but by the time they were down to two teams remaining- them and the CrownViolets- both Jay and Lloyd had been killed and eliminated. Only Cole, Nya, and Pixal remained. The CrownViolets still had four players left, but they were weak. If the ninja were strategic enough, they could still win this.

But Pixal was a major hindrance. She had been plenty good at holding back and defending them, but now, with so few left, she was going to have to start playing a more active role. If only Kai had still been there.

“Alright, they’re somewhere around here.” Nya’s character pulled up her radar. “There seems to be two of them right up ahead-”

“Alright, Pixal.” Jay leaned over her shoulder, coaching her. “You’re going to have to start getting offensive. Nya says there’s only two, so there shouldn’t be a problem, but there could be an ambush, or these two could have higher health. We don’t want to take any chances. While Nya and Cole rush them, you should stay back and shoot at them with your launchers. Your character has good accuracy scores.”

There was a flash of purple, and muffled shouting, and Nya froze. “There they are! Let’s get them, guys!”

The three plunged into the fight, and although it was a tough battle, their opponents were relatively low on health, and they ended up eliminating the two CrownViolets- unfortunately, with the loss of Nya before doing so.

“It’s just the two of us left, Pixal,” Cole said, “but there’s also only two of them, as well. We can do this. Just stick close to me. They’re around here somewhere.”

“And that somewhere is here!” Pixal shrieked suddenly, whirling around.

Cole’s eyes widened. “One of their teammates must’ve sent out a distress signal before they died!” He grappled for his weapon, but in his haste, his grip was sloppy.

Pixal, however, barely hesitated, diving at their opponent and attacking in a flurry of blows. Jay’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head as she performed a complex combo it had taken him a full day to learn.

Zane smiled at all their gaping mouths. “I told you to have faith in her.”

Cole was evidently shocked too, and within a few moments, he was dead- although not before delivering a nearly fatal blow to his opponent. Pixal quickly finished him off before turning to face the last remaining player.

“Be careful, Pix,” Jay warned. “She still has pretty high health. Don’t get cocky, or take dumb risks.”

“Dumb risks are your thing,” Pixal corrected, not even batting an eye as she darted past her opponent, slashing her with her sword.

The CrownViolet wasn’t giving up, though. She pushed back, throwing down a smoke bomb and suddenly pushing Pixal down from behind. Pixal rolled out of the way, missing her sword by inches, and sprung up, taking the moment of surprise to her advantage to knock her opponent down. As the rival started crawling away, Pixal’s character took a potion, powering up a special move. The opponent knocked her down as she was waiting to power up, but before she could get a good attack in, Pixal was ready and was blasting her a beam of light.

The girl’s avatar fell to the ground, dead.

There was a beat of silence, then their living room erupted in cheers.

“Pixal! You did it! You won the game for us!”

“I can’t believe it! We actually won! Without Kai!”

“Hey,” Kai yelped. “That didn’t sound like it was meant to be a compliment.”

“What do you mean,” Lloyd said. “That was totally a super nice thing I just said about you.”

Kai narrowed his eyes. “A bit backhanded, don’t you think?”

“Guys, none of that is important!” Cole cried. “We won! Out of all the gamers in the city! We actually won!”

“But I have to know,” Jay insisted. “How did you get so good at the game?”

Pixal shrugged. “I guess you pick up a thing or two watching your team play a game obsessively for the past week.”

Jay blinked. “You’ve been watching us?”

She scowled. “I’ve been doing the chores in here, lightning brain! Repairs, laundry, picking up after you- you’ve just been too obsessed by your game to even notice me!”

“Oh, really? Uh, that’s my bad…”

“Speaking of which, you promised to do my chores, and I’m looking forward to a nice, relaxing evening off.”

“Did I?” Jay laughed nervously. “Hey, did I ever mention that the tournament winners get a cash prize-”

Pixal handed him a mop. “Nice try. Although I still expect my fair share of the earnings by the end of the week. Good luck.” The ninja just gazed at her in horror, and she laughed.

“You’re going to need it.”

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ikeromantic · 3 years

Text

Friends and Frenemies

A Mitsuhide Akechi fanfic - approx. 2800 words. This scene takes place after the events of the romantic epilogue. Mostly fluff, slightly spicy.

First: Mitsuhide and the Maiden

Previous: Kitsune's Day Out

Mitsuhide sat on the floor with his little mouse in his lap. His fingers stroked the nape of her neck as he listened intently to Sarutobi.

Sasuke and Miyake sat across from them on the edge of the bed. Miyake’s expression was somewhere between awe and exhaustion. He wasn’t saying much, just staring into empty space with a confused grin.

The ninja looked mildly pleased as he talked. “My professor took a little convincing. We had to call in the history department chair to talk to Miyake.”

“What did he want to know?” The chatelaine’s eyes were heavy with sleep. They’d spent the day walking around Kyoto, looking at historical sites - things Mitsuhide should recognize.

Of course, everything was so changed from his time that the places they visited may as well have been new. Even if they were the same structures, what lay around them had changed so much as to render the buildings and monuments unrecognizable.

Sasuke shrugged. “Details. It was like watching a verbal exam in a master class. And then he made Miyake pick out his own sword from a room of Sengoku period weapons. It was impressive watching him look each one over.”

At this, the warrior chuckled. “I almost didn’t. It was strange to see Kichihiroe looking so old and worn.”

Mitsuhide smiled. “But you did. So all is well.” He turned his attention back to Sasuke. “What is the benefit of bringing these men in on our secret?”

“Well, first off, this.” He handed Miyake and Mitsuhide campus ID cards. “You are both now officially visiting professors, with a stipend and everything. There was a small . . . additional favor they requested from you.”

“Which is?” Mitsuhide raised one eyebrow.

Miyake answered. “They want you to come in and answer questions. A lot of questions.” He wiped his brow. “They started in on me today and there is just no end!”

Sarutobi nodded a confirmation.

“So . . . they want to pay you to answer questions about the Sengoku era? And that’s it? That doesn’t sound so bad.” The chatelaine grinned.

Mitsuhide shook his head. “I am not sure it’s so simple. This interaction - couldn’t it cause -” he thought for a moment, trying to find the words. “A complication? If I let slip something they don’t know, or they tell me something that will happen?”

“A paradox.” Sasuke’s mouth curled up in the slightest smile. “I considered that. But we are already living in a parallel timeline. One in which you and Nobunaga live, as well as some other changes.”

“So the things they tell us, those aren’t things that will happen?” Miyake sounded a little tense as he asked the question.

“Right,” Sarutobi replied. “Or, mostly right. We can’t be sure how far apart our timeline is from the original, so I encourage you to forget anything you may hear.”

Mitsuhide snorted. “Once a truth is heard, it cannot be so easily forgotten.”

“True enough. Can’t unring the bell, as they say. But are you willing to take that chance and talk with the history professor anyway?”

“I will.” Mitsuhide stroked his little one’s neck with gentle fingertips. “It will be interesting, regardless. And you have gone to a lot of trouble to arrange things. It’s the least I can do to play along.”

“I appreciate that.” Sasuke gave a little bow. “So what did you two do today?”

Miyake elbowed him and gave the two lovers a knowing wink.

Mitsuhide’s little one blushed and covered her face. “No! Nothing like that! Miyake! We just went shopping. Oh - and there were these men -”

“Who kindly helped me pick up our bags when I dropped them. We were very appreciative.” Mitsuhide interrupted her before she could give away any more information about their run in with the modern day bandits. Not that he didn’t trust Sasuke and Miyake. He did - as much as he trusted anyone. But it was always wise to keep information to yourself until there was a reason to share.

Sasuke blinked. “Ok. Well. Tomorrow, I’d like to take you up to the university, Mitsuhide. If that’s alright. You can both come if you want to.”

“Oh! But I needed to run by the office for my job tomorrow! I wanted to give them my apologies for disappearing so suddenly, just when they offered me a position.” She bit her lip. “I guess it can wait though.”

“I can go with her to do that, if you want me to,” Miyake put in.

Mitsuhide nodded. “Yes, I think that’s a good idea. You two can run errands tomorrow while I satisfy the curiosity of some modern scholars.”

“Are you sure?” The chatelaine looked uneasy.

“I am.” Mitsuhide kissed her cheek. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, does it not?”

After they made arrangements for the coming day, Mitsuhide and his little mouse trekked back to her flat, leaving Miyake and Sasuke to themselves. It wasn’t that he minded the company, but he wanted to have her to himself tonight.

They stopped at a ‘small’ grocery on the way home to pick up something for breakfast. While Mitsuhide had noticed the number of foodstalls, he had not considered an entire store with shelves full of food. He wanted to ask if this was normal, but one look at his little one’s face gave him the answer.

She was not surprised at all. With barely a glance at the stacks of fresh vegetables and fruits, she led him further into the store.

There were at least five types of vinegar, he noted. An assemblage of noodles that defied sense. Several types of rice. Beans. And a variety of things with names he couldn’t identify as food, all wrapped in bright packages. “Masamune would love this place,” Mitsuhide murmured.

“You think? Maybe we should bring him something back.” She smiled. “I’m surprised you thought of him just now.”

“He’s a -” Mitsuhide paused at the realization he was about to say friend. Not ally. Not colleague. Friend. He bit back the word and finished with, “man who loves his food.”

His little mouse didn’t appear to pick up on the omission. “He really is. And he wants everyone around him to enjoy it too.” She picked up a package of rice, then added, “I wish I was such a good cook.”

“I think you’re amazing.” Mitsuhide settled his palm lightly on her low back, reassuring.

She smiled wryly. “Says the man who doesn’t taste his food.”

“Kyubei thinks so too. And his taste buds work fine.”

“Mhmm. Kyubei would eat a pile of rocks and tell me it was delicious if he thought he was supposed to. But I appreciate the compliment.” She leaned against Mitsuhide and sighed. “I wonder how he’s doing right now.”

Mitsuhide considered. There were a number of things he wished he’d had time to tell Kyubei. And of course, he hadn’t counted on Azuchi being attacked but, “I’m sure he is well. Kyubei is resourceful, talented, and I’ve left him the tools he will need. You should worry less about him, and more about yourself.”

“What should I be worried about?”

He grinned and leaned down to place a kiss on her cheek. With his lips almost touching her ear, he murmured, “You should worry about what I will do if I don’t get you alone soon.”

His little one inhaled sharply, cheeks heating. Her eyes were bright and full of desire as she replied. “Then we’d better hurry.”

They got back to her flat soon after, and unpacked the groceries. With the last items put away, she sat in a kitchen chair and looked up at Mitsuhide shyly.

It never failed to amuse him how innocent she could be in moments like these. As if she couldn’t admit what she wanted no matter how badly she wanted it. Of course, he’d take full advantage.

“How should I use your bath, little mouse? Can you show me how it works?” Mitsuhide already had an idea, but what fun was that?

“Oh! Yes. Sure. It would be good to clean up.” She led him to her small bathing room. “This handle is hot. This one cold. And if you press this, it will activate the shower. Just be careful where you point the nozzle.”

Mitsuhide leaned over her, pressing close. “So this one is hot?” He turned the handle.

“Umm . . . yes but, I should probably . . . get out of the way . . . the bathroom isn’t big enough-”

“And this one is cold?” He turned the other handle.

She nodded. “Yes. So. Ah, first rinse off with . . . with the shower. And . . . and th-then fill . . .”

Her distraction was deeply amusing. Possibly caused by his breath on the back of her neck and the way her hips met his. Not that he was unaffected. The press of her hips against him was maddening. The slight friction of cloth, the denial of skin to skin touch he ached for. But this was his game, and he knew what came next. Delay only made victory all the sweeter. Mitsuhide pressed the shower, and water fell like warm rain over them.

“Mitsuhide!” She gave a little shriek as he pulled her to standing under the flow. Her clothes clung to her skin, revealing as much as they hid. He could not wait to peel them off her.

“Oh dear. What have I done? Now you’re all wet!” He smiled widely and slid his hand under her shirt, popping the buttons open one after another.

She playfully swatted his other hand as he reached for her skirt. “You totally did that on purpose! I know you did!”

He shrugged. “Perhaps.” Mitsuhide slid her shirt off and enjoyed the sight of water pearling over the rise of her breast. Her soaked bra looked a deeper blue than it had when dry. A good color for her. His hands slipped around behind her, reaching for the clasp.

“You know, if you wanted to bathe together, you could have just said so.”

“Mmm, but this was more fun.” His fingers fumbled with the odd hook-and-eye catches, finally releasing them. Her bra fell away. Mitsuhide relished the sight. “You should probably help me get the rest of these clothes off. I’m fairly certain you don’t bathe wearing them in this age.”

She laughed softly and reached up to cup his cheek. “My wicked kitsune. No. We don’t.” And then she kissed him.

***

Kyubei frowned at the short, dark-haired man in front of him. “You can cut the act, Ranmaru. I’d recognize you anywhere. Besides, your work on that scar is atrocious. Who taught you disguises? Were they blind?”

The page - spy and ninja as well - sighed and set down the basket he was carrying. “I thought the scar was pretty good. It really changes my face. What gave it away?”

“Your fingers are still stained with beetjuice, for one. And you didn’t blend the edges well enough. I can see bits of raw paste at your hairline.”

“Well damn. Alright. You caught me. Are you here to kill me?” Ranmaru’s tone was light, joking, but there was nothing funny about the way his fingers curled around the hilt of the short blade he wore at his hip.

Kyubei rolled his eyes. “If I was going to kill you, you’d already be dead. I came to find out what you know - and how you know it. Are you willing to have a conversation with me?” He left out the alternative, which was knocking the page senseless, dragging him back to Azuchi, and putting him in the dungeon. He wanted to avoid that outcome. It wouldn’t do anyone any good.

Ranmaru shrugged. “Alright. Fine. But you’re buying us something to eat. I’m starving!”

“I can do that.” He led the page out of the alley they were in - a spot chosen in case things got ugly - and back into a market street. Kyoto was full of people selling things. He had his pick of at least a dozen stalls and shops for food, but made a beeline for one in particular. The proprietor was one of Mitsuhide’s informants, someone Kyubei could trust if this chat went sideways.

The two men sat down at a back table and ordered sake and food. Ranamru’s preference for sweet things had not changed in his absence. They were getting stewed peaches, peaches with rice, and peach-jelly stuffed mochi. Not to Kyubei’s taste at all, but then, he hadn’t come here for the food.

“What do you know about the attack on Azuchi?” Kyubei wasted no time getting to the point.

Ranmaru shrugged. “Would you believe I didn’t know it was going to happen?”

“No.”

The page giggled. It was a high, false sound with no real mirth. “Well, I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t believe me either. But I really didn’t know that was coming. I knew something was . . . my - my Master was working with some people. And they were coming to Azuchi so I knew they had something in mind. I thought . . .”

Ranmaru’s throat bobbed, stuck on the words. He looked away and wiped at his face.

Kyubei sighed. “So you weren’t sure what was planned. What did you think might happen? Is that what made you run?”

“Yes.” His voice was strained and he hadn’t looked up. “I thought . . . maybe they would try to kill him. Nobunaga. A direct attack. Or, poison? I - I didn’t want . . . but I was . . .”

“You were afraid they might ask for your help. Or participation.” Kyubei’s voice was pitched low, for Ranmaru’s ears only. This was not a subject to be discussed lightly.

The page nodded.

“So you ran.”

He nodded again.

Kyubei rubbed the short growth of hair on the top of his head. It was coming in, full and dark, but it itched some days. Especially after spending time on the road, with no rest. Touching it had become a habit for him when he was anxious or unhappy. This conversation was not making him happy.

“I didn’t want to be the one to - you know. Nobunaga has - he’s always been good to- to me. I thought, let them do their own dirty work. I would g-go back to Kennyo. Offer to be, to do a-anything else.” Ranmaru finally looked up. His expression was one of abject misery.

“I don’t blame you. It can be hard to serve two masters. Even when their goals usually align . . . often the methods do not.”

Ranmaru smiled bleakly. “I guess you understand a little.”

The tea and sweets came, and for a brief few minutes, the two men ate and drank in silence.

Finally, Kyubei asked, “So why aren’t you with Kennyo now?”

“I can’t find him. I know he’s working with . . .” Ranmaru’s jaw clenched. “I can’t say. But, I don’t know where they went. Or what they are planning next.”

“I need you to tell me the names, Ranmaru. Assume that I already know them, and from you, I only need confirmation.”

“Fine. Then you say them. I’ll nod if you’re right.”

Kyubei smiled. “Kicho.”

Nod.

“Motonari.”

Nod.

“The ‘shogun’ in exile.”

Nod.

“I was hoping the last one was a no. We worked so hard to set that boy up, but I suppose Yoshiaki’s allies got to him.” Kyubei took a deep breath. “And you really have no idea what they will do next?” He watched Ranmaru for tell-tale signs of a lie.

“I wish I did. I’d find Kennyo and get him away from those stray dogs.” The page almost spat.

“So what will you do now?”

Ranmaru tugged at his darkened locks, twisting them around his finger. “I don’t know. I am afraid to return to Nobunaga’s side. Afraid they will ask me to betray him. But that makes me a traitor to my Master. I am damned either way.” His voice was flat, empty of self-pity or any other emotion.

“You could work for me.”

The page raised an eyebrow. “You know I turned on both my masters. That I am a coward. What would you trust me with?”

“Well, not disguises, clearly.” Kyubei caught the curl of a slight smile on Ranmaru’s lips. “I’d want you to gather information from the daimyo loyal to the shogun. Nothing to do with either of your masters directly. No need to dig yourself a deeper grave.”

“I’d report everything to the Ikko Ikki too.”

Kyubei shrugged. “I’m fine with that? If Kenny’s monks act on the information, I doubt it will be to prop Ashikaga up further.”

Ranmaru chewed at his lip, thoughtful. Finally, he nodded. “I guess I can do that. Just until I find where Kennyo has gone and what he needs of me.”

“Then we have a deal. But I do have one more question before I leave you.”

“What?” The page eyed him, suspicious again.

Kyubei tapped his finger on the table, almost afraid of his own question. Asking it would be giving information away, but he needed to know. “Have you seen or heard from Akechi since the night of the attack on Azuchi?”

Next: Uncomfortable Questions

#ikemen sengoku #ikesen #ikesen mitsuhide #mitsuhide akechi #ikesen kyubei #otome boys #otome #fanfiction #fanfic #fluff #hc

67 notes · View notes

jinmukangwrites · 3 years

Text

succumb (1/?)

Note: "?" because I don't know if I'm actually going to continue this. All I know is that I saw this post from Liccy and couldn't stop thinking about it (hopefully you don't mind me leeching a little off of your fantastic hc). I just had to write something or else I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it. Unless I decide to make more of this, I'll keep this just in Tumblr for now.

Summary: While collecting firewood after a harsh day of traveling, Wild and Hyrule find themselves ambushed and alone, facing a mysterious enemy that wants Hyrule for something Wild doesn't understand... or more specifically: they want Hyrule's blood.

Tws and warnings in tags

-o-o-o-o-

It’s a night filled with the chill of air fresh after rain. The damp grass and twigs lining the ground below the still dripping trees squish below Wild’s boots as he walks, his eyes sharp for anything that could be useful.

Today’s been a rather taxing day on his energy, and he can tell it’s been the same with the others. The constant rain has caused the paths to become slick with mud and the rivers too dangerous to cross. To top it all off, they don’t even know who’s world they are in; making it so that as they journey they don’t even know where they are going.

Wild hates the rain.

But luckily, he’s not assigned with the behemoth task of finding dry firewood alone. Hyrule walks beside him, his pants and tunic blotched with dark colors thanks to the puddle he had fallen into a few minutes before.

The quite literal stumbles here and there put aside… they’ve actually done a decent job at gathering firewood so far. A few hours into their search they both have arms cradling rather hefty loads of dry twigs and branches found in miracle spots hiding under rocks and undergrowth, untouched from the rain.

A cold win stirs, causing Wild to suppress a shiver as he straightens out of picking up another stick to add to his impressive collection. He probably should have worn a warmer tunic while heading out, but Wind was looking miserable in the cold and didn’t look used to this kind of chill, so he had lent his snowquill tunic and didn’t have the heart to take it back as the poor kid sat sniffling in the driest part of camp.

Wild mentally begins to make a list of things he has that could go in a warming soup once they have a fire going. If none of them have colds tomorrow morning, he will eat Legend’s hat.

“We should head back,” Wild calls towards his companion. Behind him, Hyrule straightens up from where he was quite hilariously resembling an old man squatting down to pick up a book they have dropped. His arms are overloaded with wood, and Wild’s sure if he bends any lower he would be struggling to pick up the sticks he will undoubtedly start dropping.

“You think we have enough?” Hyrule asks.

Wild hums and looks at the two armfuls they have gathered. They need enough to last them for dinner and through the night, and a little extra if the fire happens to go out from unpredictable rain storms through the night. It’s not like Wild’s scars would be able to help him tell the oncoming storms; they’ve been none-stop aching since they found themselves in this unfamiliar forest.

After a moment of sizing up their bundles, Wild nods. “Yeah, if we’re smart with it we shouldn’t have to worry.”

Hyrule snorts. “Smart with it? Tell that to the blacksmith. He’s the one that tried to light Vet’s hair on fire.”

“In his defense, Vet kinda deserved it.”

“He accidentally caught Wolfie’s tail on fire.”

Wild snorts. “To be fair, he kinda deserved it too.”

Hyrule gives an unimpressed look to which Wild responds with a grin and as much of a shrug he can manage without dropping anything. The wind brushes past them and through the leaves in the trees, reminding them both that the night is approaching and banter can perhaps wait until they’re warm at a fire.

“C’mon,” Wild says, “we should get going.”

Hyrule’s face splits into a grin and rushes to catch up with Wild as he begins to walk back towards the direction of camp. The sound of mud squelching beneath their boots accompanies his thoughts as they go. He hopes they’ve set up the pots and pans he needs to make dinner like he asked them to. He’d like to get something warm in his belly as soon as possible and it would be so much quicker if the others realized they could maybe help make dinner sometimes.

He’s in the middle of planning out his next moves once they’re back with the others when it happens. It’s achingly familiar too—the way the air seems to turn foul and the shadows of the trees grow within the blink of an eye. Through his travels alone… before he fought and defeated Calamity Ganon… things were hardly ever perfectly okay. Safety was always rare, and things could go sour quicker than what you would expect. Wild quickly trained himself to always be aware of the dangers around him, even if everything seemed happy and safe. It saved his back more times than what he could admit, even if the pressure of anxiety pressing down on his ribs was more constant than a place for him to spend the night.

He could sense everything about to go wrong a moment before it does. He’s not sure what’s made him aware of the change—whether it’s the quieting of crows or the darkening sky—but one thing is for sure, this time he’s not quick enough to stop it.

He sees Hyrule twitch besides him and drop all of the firewood in his arms right into the mud. His hands fly to his neck as Wild drops his load and pulls out his sword. He hears a zip and catches the flash of light just in time to jump out of the way of a flying arrow.

Immediately, Wild is in battle mode. With practiced movements that he doesn’t even think about anymore, his shield is off of his back and on his non-dominant hand just-in-the-nick-of-time to block two more arrows with an equal number of thunks. With rising adrenaline, Wild looks over at Hyrule and what he sees makes his stomach twist. There, just a few strides out of arm's reach, Hyrule stumbles and tugs his hands away from his neck; grasped in his fingers is a small, thin twig with a feather on one end and a metal glint on the other. It isn’t hard to guess what’s exactly going on as Hyrule stumbles again with fluttering eyelids.

This isn’t any old attack from monsters in the forest, Wild concludes as he begins to rush towards his poisoned friend.

This is an ambush.

Just before Wild can reach Hyrule, a form jumps down from the trees between them. Wild has a split-second to recognize the glint of misshapen armor bent to fit a large reptile's body before the Lizalfols is swinging a sharp boomerang right for his throat. Wild steps back and raises his shield before he could be hit, however he has to work hard to suppress a frustrated snarl as he’s forced to widen the distance between himself and the barely standing Hyrule. He can see the other hero struggling to pull out his sword as more figures emerge from the surrounding trees.

“Alright, ugly,” Wild hisses under his breath as he shoves his shield out with calculated power. He needs to finish this quickly before Hyrule gets himself more hurt so he can figure out what poison was used and if the others are okay.

The Lizalfos screeches and stumbles back, waving its weapon wildly. Wild takes its struggle to regain balance as an opportunity to rush forward and swing his sword right for the weak spots of its armor. The monster screams impossibly high with unhuman chords before falling limp on his sword, however Wild doesn’t have time to celebrate before claws dig into his shoulders. Stifling a cry of pain, Wild is forced to let go of his lodged sword to catch his fall on his hands and knees. The well-known shriek of a bokoblin reaches his ears as he throws his weight to the side to dislodge the thing. Luckily, he’s successful, ending up on his back with the perfect position to swing his shield at the exact right moment to hit the bokoblin right in the snout as it tries to jump at him again.

“Champ!” calls a shaky voice. Hyrule.

He doesn’t sound too good.

And judging how there are several more monsters here than what he remembered before ending up on the ground… neither of them will be too good soon if he doesn’t act.

He scrambles to his feet, barely noticing how soaked in rain and mud he is now, and grabs a stick on his way up that he had previously dropped. He swings it like a bat at the next closest bokoblin—mourning his sword and mentally kicking himself for getting it stuck in the corpse of a fucking lizard—but he only manages to slightly stun it for a moment before its running after him with pig-like gurgles quicker than what he can properly lift his shield. However, before the creature can hit him, there's the flash of a friendly blade, cutting the beast down mid-air. Before him stands Hyrule, looking very pale with beads of sweat trailing down from his hairline. Wild’s about to nod his thanks, but two things happen at once that makes everything go completely downhill.

Wild sees Hyrule’s eyes roll up to his skull right before the air is knocked out of him via a viscous swing of a tail to his ankles, resulting in him landing heavily on his back.

Monsters all around him squeal with glee as Wild attempts to catch his breath and struggle to his feet. However, before he can do so, the heavy body of the lizalfos responsible for taking him down lands on his back, expelling any of the air Wild had left in his lungs. For a horrifying second, Wild’s almost afraid his head is about to be removed from his body with the flash of a sharp boomerang.

Shockingly enough, that doesn’t happen. While he feels the blade slide right against his jaw, his skin does not break. With the tug of a clawed hand in his hair, he quickly finds this isn’t a kind of ambush that he’s used to. Most surprise monster attacks stay exactly as it appears to be: an all-out attack with no more intentions than to stab things and scream loudly.

This one however is proving itself to be a little different. They want something, something that they’d keep Wild pinned on the ground with a blade to his throat alive.

Thanks to the hand holding his head up by his hair—sending a rather vicious kink into his neck as he’s still stuck on his stomach—Wild can see Hyrule completely collapsed on the ground with a few monsters hovering over him with excited snorts and grunt.

He can’t believe the two of them have been bested by monsters as low in skill as these.

Something more has to be going on.

And, just as that thought crosses his mind, there’s the sound of booted feet approaching on the soggy ground. The new presence comes behind from where Wild is pinned, so he cannot see them. However, based on the even steps and the whoosh of cloth, he can at least infer that they’re not a monster… or at least something a bit more humanoid.

His suspicions are confirmed once the figure steps into view. They look the build of a Hylian; though below the cloak that covers their face and exposes nothing but the shadow of a pointed chin… they must be a rather tall Hylian.

Which definitely isn’t good. Monsters are one thing—creatures born out of hatred and greed—but a Hylian who’s born as pure as any other human and animal in the world choosing to work with monsters? Deal with wickedness? They’re always the bigger threat. If the Yiga clan alone isn’t proof enough that Hylia’s creations can inhibit more darkness than the lowest of beasts, then Wild would ask what shrine you've been sleeping in.

Not like he could ask that now, not as the cloaked figure steps right past Wild without sparing a single glance. Wild cannot help but feel his stomach twist in fear as the person kneels down by the unmoving and unarmed Hyrule. They place a pale hand on Hyrule’s forehead, making Wild’s skin crawl.

“Get away from him!” Wild snarls, digging his fingers into the mud and attempting to push the heavy lizalfos off from him, but all that does is cause the creature to hiss and tighten the blade.

The cloaked intruder doesn’t respond nor quit in their endeavors of getting too close to Hyrule for Wild’s comfort. In fact, Wild almost thinks they didn’t even hear him.

He’s about to shout out once again—angry with being ignored—but the breath leaving his lungs fall silent as the figure brushes back Hyrule’s hair with a verbal sigh. Then, to Wild’s horror, the figure pulls back to their cloak to bring out a small vial filled with a deep purple liquid.

“What is that?” Wild demands as the lid of the vial is popped off and lowered towards Hyrule’s pale lips. “Don’t you fucking dare-” suddenly the air is squeezed from his body, forcing his protests to cease, as the lizalfos leans more of it’s weight onto his back to press his face down into the mud.

He doesn’t see what happens next, but he can put two and two together when a few silent moments pass before those human footsteps begin to finally head Wild’s way. The clawed hand in his hair loosens ever so slightly as slim fingers slip under his chin. Next thing Wild knows, he’s blinking through dripping eyelashes at the shadowed face of the cloaked figure.

Wild, of course, takes the opportunity to spit a wad of mud at the face of his enemy thanks to his little face-meets-dirt session.

He’s pretty sure he hits his mark, because in a blink of an eye Wild is no longer pinned on the ground, but lifted into the air by his neck. His feet scramble for purchase when there is none as his hands fly to his throat. The pressure on his neck is so intense that he doesn’t think to try and look at the face of his attacker. He can only gulp for trapped air like a fish out of water. Then, just like that, the pressure on his throat is released as he finds himself thrown back into the waiting arms of various monsters. Before Wild can attempt to find his bearings, his wrists are twisted violently behind his back; the motion almost yanks his limbs from their sockets. After a few gasps, it's all Wild can do to stand there with their physical restraints of clawed hands and send a cold glare at the cloaked figure.

The cloaked figure radiates irritation from where they stand, but Wild spares only a moment to bare his teeth at them before glancing back to where he'd last seen Hyrule.

He can’t see Hyrule’s face, but he’s no longer laying prone on the floor. He’s currently sat up with his chin limply touching his chest as a pair of monsters work together to bind his wrists behind his back.

Knowing that villains don’t usually restrain corpses, Wild concludes that Hyrule is still alive and returns his anger at the cloaked figure.

Wild takes a deep breath and speaks through hissing teeth, “who are you?”

“I would watch your tongue, hero,” the figure says, their voice not distinct enough to be dubbed male or female. However, Wild can practically feel the annoyance in their tone traveling down his spine. “We don’t need both of you, and your small friend is not the expendable one.”

The words settle in Wild’s gut like moss covered stones. This really isn’t any normal attack or ambush… this was a targeted mission.

Hyrule is the target.

“What do you want with him?”

The figure chuckles, their shoulders bounce in such an undeniably human way that it makes Wild feel sick to his core. “It never fails to amuse me that none of you seem to truly understand just how much more powerful and important this one is compared to the rest of you.” The cloaked figure walks towards Wild with arms spread wide. “His blood alone is more powerful than any form of magic known to any sorcerer.”

“What are you talking about?” Wild spits, forcing his face to remain cold and angry despite the pool of confusion and fear that’s beginning to swell around those moss stones in his gut.

The figure hums and tilts their covered head. After another moment, they speak with an amused tone, walking slowly towards Wild. “That slate on your belt... you’re the hero from the far future, oh how convenient. Tell me, have you ever wondered why the monsters come back to life?”

Wild doesn’t get a chance to answer before the figure stops right in front of him. He hates that even though he cannot see their face, he can practically taste the smug victory radiating off from them.

“Don’t you wonder why the moon shines red with blood?”

Wild swallows. “What does that have to do with anything?” He looks over where Hyrule is placed. “What does that have to do with him?”

The figure chuckles and leans forward close enough that Wild can almost see an outline of a pointed nose. “Everything.”

Then, with a flick of their hand, something hard smacks against the back of Wild’s skull. The world spins and pain shoots through his head and into every speck of his body. He blinks, and suddenly he’s leaning bonelessly into the grasps of the monsters behind him, the corners of his vision going black.

The last thing he sees is the figure turning back towards Hyrule with a flick of their cloak.

Then, his eyes fall shut and he knows no more.

#linked universe #hero of the wild #hero of hyrule #blood tw #violence tw #kidnapping tw #poisoning tw #fanfiction #jin writes #let me know if i missed any tags <3

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