#Get it? Because they’re floating heads? And the band is talking heads? and they’re killers? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mylordshesacactus · 4 years

Text

A Writer’s Guide To Hurricanes, I Guess

I realized with a bit of chagrin that, while I’ve spent years bitching about how it drives me up the wall that nobody (in fandom or, in fact, mainstream media) has a goddamn clue how hurricanes work and yet insists on portraying them anyway...I’ve never actually tried to help by explaining what they’re actually like.

So, here’s a genuine, non-sarcastic, good-faith attempt by a Floridian to help you guys who might want to write this stuff at some point understand it, just a little.

So here we go, chronologically in terms of the storm’s progress.

The storm itself is the least of it.

This is the thing non-hurricane places don’t....get.

You can see a hurricane coming. You can watch it. You have, in fact, no choice. I need to reiterate this.

You have no choice but to sit there and watch a hurricane coming.

I’ve actually talked a lot in another post about what that feels like, and why hurricane parties are a thing. But try to imagine what that feels. Just...try. You have to sit there, for about a week, watching the wrath of God bear down on you.

You watch it come and you hope the path changes. You hope it veers off back into the Atlantic, of course, but you also--you hope it hits somewhere else. You know wherever it goes people will die and you hope it goes somewhere else. And you feel kinda bad about it; but you also don't because these are just facts, this is a fact of hurricanes, they will go somewhere and people will die in that place and all of us hope it goes Somewhere Else and if it does, we know that the people Somewhere Else are praying frantically that it gets back on course and hits us instead and we understand.

(And when it does change course, when it doesn’t hit you, you almost feel....cheated? Because you spent so much time and energy preparing and fearing and coming to terms and accepting and bracing and then it--doesn’t happen.

And the guilt of praying it would go Somewhere Else is nothing compared to being disgusted with yourself for actually feeling disappointed that you were spared the apocalypse this time.)

The wind is different.

If you listen to weather reports on hurricanes you’ve absolutely heard the phrasing “sustained winds of X miles per hour with gusts up to Y” without really thinking about what that means.

Now, of course everyone’s been in windy conditions. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly how the hurricane is....different, so I’m just going to describe what it’s like.

The wind always comes from one direction. There’s no being “knocked this way and that” or whatever; the wind comes from the direction the wind is coming from. Always.

(If you’re near where the center of the storm passes, this direction will slowly change as your position relative to the eye changes. But it changes over a matter of hours--like the angle of the sun.)

The wind is a constant, unrelenting force. There’s no....there’s no dips in the wind. It never lessens, it only spikes and then returns to baseline. In a normal windstorm, no, it’s not that the wind ever stops blowing, but...there’s an ebb and a flow. A hurricane is a wind tunnel in which every so often someone revs the engine and there’s a few seconds of higher wind, but it never drops below where it’s set.

(The wind will snake under plywood and storm shutters; it will rip them clean off, if you haven’t screwed them in properly. Screws, not nails. The wind makes deadly projectiles of anything not fastened down. Plywood and storm shutters can be broken, by anything travelling fast enough. It is standard procedure, if you have lawn furniture or anything else not secured that doesn’t float, to carefully lower that furniture into a pool--if you have one. It will stay untouched, and won’t be flung through your neighbors’ plywood.)

This is why hurricanes take down so many trees, why they do so much structural damage. Buildings in hurricane zones are built to withstand high wind, and most trees in these areas can survive high wind too or they wouldn’t have survived so long. But there’s only so much that nature and engineering can do about sustained high winds, without a moment’s rest, for hours, unending, no respite...

In landfall footage--ie, the stuff you see on the news--you likely see this effect in the palm trees-watch how instead of tossing, they’re just bent. It never lets up. In the instances where a bent tree violent bounces back before bending again, trust me--that’s not a letup in the wind speed. That’s the tree having been bent too far, and springing back from the sheer pressure on its internal structure. That’s the tree being stronger than the wind--for now

It’s mostly not like the TV reports.

There’s a reason I referred to “landfall footage” above. News broadcasts, for a lot of reasons, focus on the storm at its worst. The highest storm surge, the highest winds, the most brutal damage, occurs where the eye wall first crosses from being over water to being over land.

(Remember--by the time a storm “makes landfall,” everything for miles around has been experiencing the storm for hours already. “Landfall” is when the EYE of the storm first hits land, not when the storm “arrives”.)

But hurricanes are...vast. Look up satellite footage of hurricanes. Really look at it. Look at how much sheer area they cover.

Most places do not experience landfall-level disaster. That’s why, when people evacuate--well, when residents evacuate, the tourists and recent transplants tend to panic harder--you’re basically always evacuating to someplace that will still have vanished under that mass of swirling clouds. Evacuation sites are still inside the hurricane, but wind speed, storm surge, etc--everything drops dramatically even a few miles from the eye.

On a related note, the eye itself rapidly starts shedding power the moment it’s no longer over open water. Generally, the simple act of making landfall instantly drops a hurricane at least one category in severity. Hurricanes are eldritch gods; they rise from the sea and from the sea they take their power. Cut off from it, they starve.

Do not think for a moment that just because you’re “only” experiencing Cat 1 winds that this storm can’t kill your ass dead. Do not underestimate what the death throes of a dying god can do.

Storm surge isn’t high waves, and it isn’t rain.

Storm surge is the actual sea level rising. The entire ocean being dragged onto land by the power of the storm.

Particularly wet and slow hurricanes might--rarely--drop enough rain to cause flooding. However, that’s unusual; most places here can handle heavy rain. The rain isn’t the problem.

(Slow hurricanes are killers on another level. It’s everything I’ve already said about the unrelenting brutality of the wind, coupled with the fact that--as, again, the vast majority of the storm has been raging for hours by the time it “makes landfall”, and hurricanes draw power from the Eye being over the water--it now has hours upon hours of fully-fuelled destruction before it begins to weaken by being cut off from warm water. It doesn’t weaken, it just....keeps going. And the storm surge is present that entire time.)

I’m just gonna direct you to this NOAA diagram on how storm surge works.

The northeast quadrant is the strongest.

This isn’t a proper subheading it’s just something I rarely see people not from Florida acknowledge.

No matter where the storm is coming from or what angle it hits at--the northeast quadrant is the killer. You do everything in your power to avoid being caught northeast of the storm.

In hurricane-prone areas, the threat is felt year-round.

All the major intersections? Our stoplights aren’t hung on wires from wooden poles--those blow down too easily. They’re bolted to thick metal pipes, “hurricane-proof”. Major roadways that are above floodlines are labelled as evacuation routes.

Things like that.

Hurricanes make their presence known long before the disaster begins.

You start to get “hurricane weather” days--days--before it hits. The sun is out, the weather is fine except for a...

Well, a constant, low-level breeze, with much less variation in angle and direction than usual, fewer gusts, but still primarily a natural breeze. And then you go outside and you look up at that cheerful blue sky and it’s already there.

They’re called cloud bands. You look up and the entire sky is just fluffy white clouds, racing at speed in one direction...

(The breeze, in those early few days, is light. Present, but light. The clouds are always, always racing as if before a gale. There’s a pervasive, eerie wrongness about this, looking up--the clouds moving much, much faster than the wind that should be driving them.)

A hurricane is not a thunderstorm.

This is the cardinal sin and the clearest, most common misconception. Hurricanes are not thunderstorms. In fact it’s actually very rare to have lightning or hear any thunder at all during a hurricane, compared to an average summer storm in hurricane-prone areas.

People often portray hurricanes as basically....the worst storm they can remember, but bigger, and badder, and worse. Hurricanes aren’t just big and intense, they’re....different. They’re something different.

Hurricanes are...quiet.

Except that they’re not.

You know when people talk about the wind howling? Think of the most intense storm you’ve ever sat through. Think about the sound of the wind.The way it whistles through leaves. Hold that experience in your head.

Now forget it. This is different.

Hurricanes don’t sound like that. Hurricanes are....

The sound a hurricane makes is a howl, yes. It makes palm fronds and grass steps and leaves whistle like a rapier scraped against a sheathe, yes. But you barely notice those shallow details, because the sound a hurricane makes is below that, stronger, more powerful.

Hurricanes moan.

Hurricanes are the entire world around you slowly and steadily fraying at the seams, and it moans, low and deep, agonized and hungry, and it never stops. Never. Not until it’s over.

Hurricanes are a world ending.

The storm passes, and the hurricane has only begun.

Do you think people stock up as heavily as they do, with generators and nonperishables and such, for--what, for a few hours of wind and rain, however alive?

No.

Because once the tempest is past, now you have to...exist.

You will not have power. If you were in a very, very lightly-affected area, you might have cell service. Most of your neighbors have evacuated. Many roads can’t be used because they’re washed out, or there are trees or power lines down across them.

It’s very common to lose water pressure. Common practice in hurricane-prone areas is to fill your bathtub with water before the storm--so that, when you lose water pressure, you can use a bucket to flush your toilet. Because those conditions, assuming you’re in an area that can be repaired and not rebuilt, can take weeks.

Weeks without running water, a flushable toilet. That gets grim fast. You brace for the storm. You prepare for what follows.

A hurricane is an eldritch abomination.

Hurricanes are alive.

Hurricanes are Old Gods.

Sitting through a hurricane is not like sitting through a bad storm or like sitting through a tornado, which is fast and unstoppable but then it’s over like it never existed save for the destruction left behind.

In order to get a clearer understanding of just how much the universe is vast, how much it does not, cannot, even notice you enough to want you dead because you are so small it would not comprehend you as possessing an existence if it tried--you would have to go to space.

And while the world moans around you and something out there, alive, growls at a frequency you can’t hear but you feel--you don’t cuddle for warmth during a hurricane. You just don’t.

You keep the generator running outside in the lee of the house where it won’t kill you all with gas fumes, connected via wires that snake around through a cracked door somewhere it won’t get blown open. You make sure it doesn’t run out of fuel, that it doesn’t get water blown into anything important. You use it to power a TV first--to keep the weather report on. You power lights second, if it’s a decent one. You can’t afford one powerful enough to run your refrigerator; you ate the ice cream before this started.

You play games. We’re human; it’s what we do. We play games in the face of our own helplessness. But while you play, you listen. You can’t not.

It’s always there. The world creaks on its hinges. You feel the edges threatening to dissolve. If you sit for a moment and are quiet, that ever-present moan is there, something ancient and powerful on a scale outside your comprehension. There is no cozy comfort of being bunkered down safe against the storm, not here.

There is no “safe” against this. You sit still and quiet and bear witness.

And when the sun rises in the aftermath, you’re surprised to find the world--even a wrecked and altered world--still exists. It shouldn’t. You were there when it ended.

And--and I cannot emphasize this enough--there’s no fucking thunder.

#hurricanes #uh #writing reference #I GUESS

1K notes · View notes

mouse-fantoms · 3 years

Text

How I’d love the first episode of a season 2 to start:

((I’m just manifesting and my brain did this))

They gotta open it with them doing a gig (parallel to the opening of the first ever episode bc,,, that’s how this all started, we saw Now or Never and haven’t been the same since and it’d just be beautiful if they open it like that)

Julie coming off stage and then getting a hug from her dad right away bc he proud 🥺 and we just see Flynn and Carlos come in the frame too being so supportive (the boys are obviously apart of this too)

Maybe you see Julie looks out into the crowd bc she thinks she saw someone while the band was performing but it looks like they’re gone now (start of Carrie redemption)

The boys being just pure them and smiling seeing how supportive Julie’s family is (they’re trying to not talk bc they know it would probably give her headache trying to listen to her own conversation meanwhile she would also be hearing them talk too)

Ray goes off (maybe to take some pictures of the venue or something to help promote his daughter bc again he proud) then it’s just Carlos and Flynn with Julie

Carlos is wanting the guys to do something (cause a bit of mischief bc he thinks is so cool whenever he just sees a thing float in the air knowing that it’s a ghost doing it. The boys always go along with it bc it warms their hearts seeing how enthusiastic he is about it). Flynn’s like “No they can’t do that” and Julie is dealing with hearing the guys behind her. Luke being down for it, Alex is trying to talk him out of it and then Reggie being in the middle. Julie replies to Carlos emphasizing that they can’t bc they’re out in public

Then Flynn is like “Well they better not doing anything bc look who’s coming this way.” Julie sees how she has an expression that’s telling her to look and before she can say anything Flynn grabs Carlos and the two leave Julie and then she hears Luke go “Oh here comes lover boy.”

Nick comes up to her, “Nick!” surprised to see him, “Awesome Molina! Like always!” bc he’s a supportive boy, “Stand Tall just got out of my head and now I’ll have a new one in it!” “Oh! You were there for that?” “Of course, everyone was. You were busy killing it up there.” Luke can just see the star’s his eyes and Alex is like “hey you two to have have a lot in common” to Luke about Nick bc he’s busy complimenting Julie like how Luke always does whenever he gets a chance. He rolls his eyes as a response.

Nick is going on about how good it was, saying his favorite parts. “It’s insane how you couldn’t play in class but now you’re doing that.” “It’s kinda weird for me too.” “Pfff yeah right.” “What?” “Well you don’t show it because you’re too busy being awesome.” “My band helps make me be awesome.” Reggie excitedly is like “Aww thanks!” And Nick is like “Yeah! Your drummer is killer.” Alex is like “oh... uhh” Nick goes on “And your guitarist-" Luke is suddenly VERY INTERESTED in what Nick is going to say “-those riffs like what the heck! And you’re bassist is on fire too.”

Scene change to the Molina household and we see Julie come downstairs and the boys are chilling. “Pff ‘those riffs’.” She hears Luke scoff. “What does he even know?” “He does play guitar.” She informs him. “Oh... does he now?” “Oh, you shouldn’t have told him that.” Alex goes. “Yeah starting to regret it now.”

Then the door bell rings. “Oh gee I wonder who that is.” Julie just crosses her arms at Luke and Reggie is like “oh gee?” “I don’t know,” he adimits, “is that what’s being said now?” She just rolled her eyes as a little smile does appear on her face as he asks her that.

She opens the door greeting, “Hi! Nick!” Then accepts the flowers in his hand. “Thanks.”

,,,then cue whatever happens after that

Can you just imagine being so excited for a second season that you’re just so into it bc it hasn’t sunk in yet that it’s actually a thing and then once the doorbell rings you’re like “AHH WAIT!!!” And then you realize why Julie’s outfit looked familiar and you’re just like “AHHH NO AHHH!” as you realize what is about to happen bc we’ve already seen this scene (we get it from another angle as like ‘Julie’s prescriptive’ since the angle would be from inside the house)

65 notes · View notes

megalony · 4 years

Text

When she’s better

This is my first Harry Styles imagine that I hope everyone is going to like, any feedback is always lovely.

Taglist: @lunaticspoem @butlegendsneverdie @langdonzvoid @jennyggggrrr @rogmeddows @radiob-l-a-hblah @rogertaylorsbitontheside @chlobo6 @rogertaylors-lipgloss @sj-thefan @omgitsearly @luckytrashgooprebel @scarsout @deaky-with-a-c @killer-queen-ofrhye @bluutac @vousmemanqueez @jonesyaddiction @ambi-and-sunflowers @milanosaurus @httpfandxms @saint-hardy @7-seas-of-fat-bottomed-girls @mrsalwayswritex @rogerina-owns-me @peterquillzsblog @im-an-adult-ish @crazylittlethingg @allauraleigh

Masterlist

Summary: Harry and (Y/n) recall what happened during labour when their daughter was born and how it affected them and their daughter’s future and life.

Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"It isn't about the money, I have more money than they could offer, we're not here for a settlement. I don't want this to be swept this under the carpet, I want them to admit liability for what they've done to our daughter."

Harry never spoke like this.

It wasn't in the singer's nature to be abrasive or even to be straight to the point with people. When interviewers asked him questions that were rude or interfering or just plain rude he weaved around the question or gave a polite answer, Harry didn't know how to be mean or rude or cruel or subjective. He gave people the benefit of the doubt, he treated people with kindness and expected others to do the same.

But this was someone Harry couldn't be calm with and it was a subject that simply couldn't be talked about kindly. He felt cheated, he felt broken and hurt and fearful for his daughter's future and he didn't know how else to go about this when it was foreign territory to him.

"I understand that Mr Styles-"

"Then why offer us a settlement that discloses we can't go to court if we sign it?" Harry took law in college even if it wasn't something he had pursued or taken to university, he knew the basics. He read the contract that was pushed in front of him and waved in front of his face like a flag, it was there urging them to sign to make this all go away when that wasn't the point of them being here.

If Harry and (Y/n) signed the settlement in front of them all that would happen was a sum of money would be placed into their bank account for Lilah's future and that would be it. There would be no one taking responsibility for what they had done to her, no one would say sorry or be held accountable and if (Y/n) and Harry ever changed their minds, they couldn't go to court or take this any further because the settlement meant that was it. It was a contract to make everything go away for the hospital, not for them.

Harry would be blunt of that was what their solicitor in front of them wanted. Harry would tell her that the money the hospital were offering wouldn't make a dent on what he himself had made by the time he was nineteen with the band and it was nothing compared to what he had gotten over the years afterwards. He didn't want money, Harry had far too much of it for his own good, he didn't need any more money he was set for three lifetimes over.

He and (Y/n) hadn't come here today to try and get money for themselves or for Lilah because they could provide for her. They were here because their daughter deserved some kind of justice for the mistakes that had happened and Harry wasn't leaving without it.

"Because going to court can take months, even years and there is no guarantee that you will win the case, and that's if it gets to court. A settlement is easier for both parts and it is the first point of call. The medical board has already examined your case and is willing for a settlement because court is unlikely."

"We've got the rest of Lilah's life to take them to court for what they've done to her. Money can't change how they've ruined her life." (Y/n) felt Harry taking her hand in his when she spoke up for the first time since they entered the office. She wasn't in the mood to argue but it seemed to be the only way they were going to get through to the solicitor who was supposed to be on their side. They had hired her so she could help them get the hospital to admit liability for Lilah.

Lilah's birth two years ago hadn't been a smooth ride, it had been anything but and because of the midwife and doctor's negligence during her birth, Lilah hadn't been breathing for fourteen seconds. She suffered with her breathing when she finally managed to breathe and was stuck in ICU for two months and two months ago at Lilah's checkup, they found out she had cerebral palsy caused by the lack of breathing during her birth. It wasn't something that could be treated or cured, Lilah could only be helped and her life made easier but her condition was lifelong.

Harry and (Y/n) had more than enough money to care for Lilah and any medical expenses or treatment she would need, they weren't trying to sue the medical board for compensation. They wanted them to take responsibility for how they had ruined Lilah's life. Walking was going to be a struggle for her, if she could ever walk, she might have speech problems and development issues growing up. Her life was never going to be normal or easy but if her birth had been smoother her life would be normal.

"Mrs Styles, I can see why you're wanting to do this, but you must see that there is a very limited number of people who take these kind of cases to court when they're not after compensation for their child. The court would deem it pointless."

"It's pointless to want justice for your child? Lilah's whole life is ruined and money can't fix it, I want them to admit what they did and be reprimanded for it." (Y/n) knew this. She knew most parents didn't have the kind of money she or Harry did so when they went to court they wanted both justice and compensation which meant they would be able to look after their child and have their child cared for for life. But just because they had money didn't mean they had justice.

"I'm sorry but the court won't see admitting liability as a reason for taking things that far if you don't want compensation. I'm not saying it won't ever happen but the chances aren't great when you aren't asking for money, that's how the court and the hospital will see this."

"Fine, tell the medical board we'll take them to court for liability and for compensation that can be donated to a charity of our choice because of what they did. They can put a large chunk of money towards a charity helping kids with cerebral palsy because they caused it for Lilah. They ruined her life, all we're asking is for responsibility and we're getting it. Tell them anything, that we want that doctor fired for this, just... please, our daughter isn't a case they can throw money at to get her to go away. Her health can't be fixed with money, they should know that."

The way Harry spoke was almost admirable if it wasn't for the pained expression on his lips or the way that his rings punctured into his fingers and his palms when his hands clenched into tight fists. His legs were crossed causing his knee to push into the desk in front of him as his head was leaning on his right hand, pushing his ring into his jaw.

If they would only go to court for compensation reasons then he and (Y/n) would do that. They would take a large amount of the hospital's money and donate it to a charity to pay for what they did to Lilah, as long as it got the hospital to admit what they did and get some kind of repercussion for the doctor who let Lilah suffer in the way she did.

Her life was ruined just as it began, no money could fix the doctor's mistakes and no amount of money could make her better, if it could Harry would have paid it already. He wanted to be able to tell Lilah when she was older that this wouldn't happen to anyone else and they got justice for the life she had to live.

"Okay, I'll see what I can do."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lilah-Rose Styles.

The name floated around in (Y/n)'s head like a mantra she couldn't stop thinking about until she could see the letters dancing in front of her when she opened her eyes. But what really made her head swim and her heart beat faster was when she heard the name from Harry's lips. The way he spoke so slowly and drawled out the name made it sound like it was the most precious thing in the world. Anything sounded better when Harry said it but that name sounded so unique when his accent and slow speech put a spin on it.

For this last month of the pregnancy (Y/n) had heard that name from his lips almost every day and it was heaven, it was as if she was already born and right here with them when he said it. The name made this so much more real, even more real than being in labour right now.

They practised saying the name and seeing how it rolled off the tongue, how it looked in writing and they imagined how she would look and if the name would suit her. But now they had their hearts set on the name, (Y/n) was worried she wouldn't look like a Lilah-Rose when she was born.

"I'm gonna get it tattooed somewhere, with a little rose in the corner and the letters spelled out in vines and petals." The way Harry whispered those words in her ear made (Y/n) smile sweetly despite the agony she felt and the sweat glistening on her skin or her hair that was matted in its bobble and hanging limply wherever it so pleased.

She could tell that Harry already had the design ready in his head as always, with an intricate tattoos he could picture the exact size it would be, where he wanted it, if it should be in colour or just dark navy blue ink. He could picture every little detail and describe it as if it was already inked onto his skin.

"W-where? You don't have much space left." (Y/n) mumbled quietly through gritted teeth, not wanting to speak much louder in case her voice broke but there was no annoyance or malice in her tone. The only free space Harry had left was his back, his neck and his legs. Having their daughter's name on his legs wouldn't seem right, having her name on his back meant Harry couldn't see it which was why he had no tattoos on his back and on his neck didn't seem right somehow.

"Just above the butterfly, gotta have it near my heart, right?"

(Y/n) could only nod her head in response before she tucked her chin into her chest giving Harry the exposure he needed to kiss the back of her neck which reminded her of butterfly wings delicately fluttering against her skin.

Both Harry's hands were curled around (Y/n)'s to the point her hands were engulfed and no longer visible but that was how she liked it. The only difference was that he didn't have his rings on, only his wedding ring was left and it was weird for both of them when he only took a few of them off when he went to sleep. But Harry didn't want all the rings on right now because he wanted to hold (Y/n)'s hands and the rings would only puncture into her skin and cause her more pain.

(Y/n) found herself staring at Harry's nails for a few seconds when it felt like her head was buzzing with static. She focused on the very light shades of pale pink and lime green coating his nails and she almost got lost in the simple colours until the pain came rushing back to her.

The water they were sat in was very calming and soothing to her torn and aching muscles but it wasn't medicine, it didn't mask the pain. But it did stop (Y/n)'s muscles from seizing up and stopped her from being stiff sitting on the bed like she had been for the past six hours.

"Okay, a big push for me and her head should be almost crowning."

That was music to (Y/n)'s ears, they were getting so close now that it was becoming scary, but it was almost over. Lilah was so close she was almost within their reach, they could have her in their arms soon, they could see what she looked like and how big she was and how delicate she looked and hear her cry for the first time and take her first breath.

(Y/n) felt the water lapping at her skin when she leaned back against Harry's chest and sunk down just a little bit more into the water, letting it envelope around her in a smothering hug.

It felt relaxing to have Harry's hands in hers and his arms pulling around her waist like he didn't want her to suddenly drift away in the water. But (Y/n)'s eyes soon opened and her head leaned back on his shoulder to look up at him when he shifted back in the water rather suddenly like something had spooked him or dawned on him. She didn't have the energy to speak so she just looked up at him quizzically.

"I- is that normal?" Harry looked over at the midwife who was across from them in the small pool they were sat in but his eyes showed only anxiety and confusion. He knew what to expect, he'd been to the birthing classes and to all the doctor's appointments with (Y/n) and they'd gone through the birthing plan they wanted. But when he looked down and saw that the water was turning a bright shade of red, it didn't look normal to him. Blood was normal in this case but the way the water looked like he was becoming dyed with food colouring made Harry nervous.

(Y/n) tightened her hands around Harry's when Jane reached forward to examine her stomach before pulling back.

"It's a small haemorrhage because baby seems to be breach. She seems a bit distressed so I'll call doctor but the best thing might be to get you out of the pool and onto the bed." The midwife they knew as Jane didn't look worried which settled one of the many nerves raging in Harry's stomach but he still didn't like this.

He could feel (Y/n) tightening her hands around his and he saw the pained expression on her face. The water had calmed her from the moment she sat down in the pool and it was making her more at ease and relaxed, getting back on the bed wasn't what she wanted, she wanted to have Lilah here in the pool.

"Harry I- I can't move." (Y/n) tucked her face into Harry's neck as she felt like crying in anger and annoyance. Her legs were immobile right now and her lower half was numb despite her not having any pain relief, standing up wasn't going to be a good option, let alone trying to walk over to the bed. (Y/n) wanted to stay here, she wanted to sit in the water and have Lilah here and have her properly as opposed to having her breach like this.

It dawned on Harry as odd that Jane didn't know sooner that Lilah was going to be breach but he suspected Lilah must have just wriggled around at the last minute and decided to change her position to keep them on their toes.

"S'alright love, we'll get you up and on the bed, you'll be fine."

They both turned their heads in the direction of the door when it opened and a doctor walked in. He looked to be middle forties with slightly grey hair and grey stubble but he wore a smile which was kind of calming. He spoke quietly with Jane for a few seconds before he examined (Y/n)'s stomach presumably to check Lilah was actually breach.

"Alright Mrs Styles, let's get you on the bed and check you both over, I don't think we'll be needing this pool any longer."

Harry could hear the small whimper that left (Y/n)'s lips at the news but they couldn't really do anything else. He got out first so he could help (Y/n) without the risk of slipping or falling himself but he could see the way she trembled and how her legs were buckling the moment she stood up. She was too numb and weak to be moving far at all. Her arms locked around Harry's neck and his hands were firm on her hips, slowly guiding (Y/n) out of the pool with Jane holding her arms for added precaution.

"Shh, shh it's okay, I've got you." Harry's voice was so quiet yet calming it sounded like he was singing in (Y/n)'s ear when a pained moan escaped her lips and her nails suddenly punctured into his upper back. Her head pushed into his chest and her back arched along with her knees but Harry managed to keep her upright, not wanting her to go down on her knees in case she hurt herself.

He made sure to be careful when they walked over to the bed since all three of them were dripping water from the pool but Harry couldn't help but wince when (Y/n) screamed the moment they tried to ease her onto the bed. She seemed to want to squat down or kneel on the floor but that wasn't really a choice right now.

Harry kneeled on the edge of the bed with (Y/n) sat in the middle, her legs hanging off the other side of the bed and her back leaning up against Harry, his arms cocooned around her waist to calm her down and secure her against him. He could almost feel the pain (Y/n) didn't seem to notice when the doctor injected her in her thigh with something to help clot her blood to make sure the bleeding would stop.

Jane placed a few monitoring stickers on (Y/n)'s stomach but the sudden noise the monitor made made both Harry and (Y/n) jump, it sounded like Lilah's heartbeat was slow but the monitor was panicking and getting louder to voice its panic.

"Baby is distressed and she's haemorrhaging... should I call for an emergency C-section?" Jane tried to be quiet when talking to the doctor but both parents heard and Harry felt (Y/n) shaking in his arms. That was a last resort, (Y/n) wanted to do this naturally but she didn't count on anything going wrong, she hoped for the best and didn't try and think about the worst.

"Is something wrong, that sounds bad." Harry had both his mother and his sister talk him through this so he would be ready and neither of them had had anything happen during their pregnancies. Everything had gone smoothly and Harry was only prepared for this to go smoothly too, he didn't know what to do if something went wrong or out of plan, he liked things scheduled and perfect. Things going wrong or out of time didn't settle well with him because he liked to have control of the situation so everything was okay.

"Don't worry we won't need a C-section, baby is just unsettled. I'm sure (Y/n) can start pushing again and the sooner we have baby here the better things will be. We don't have any reason to panic just yet."

The doctor seemed very certain and he was still smiling like he had control but it didn't feel right. (Y/n) wondered if a C-section might be easier because it would be swift, Lilah could be born quickly and helped instantly. But then again, if she was almost crowning now, it might be too late for a C-section if she was almost here.

"Let's start pushing." The way he spoke was almost forceful even though he was calm and still partly smiling. It was like he was in a hurry or had somewhere else he needed to be.

(Y/n) looked up at Harry who looked just as uncertain as she did because they both knew (Y/n) had been coached to push on contractions rather than as and when she was told by a professional. But as soon as the next contraction hit (Y/n) pushed like she was told, even though this time it felt like her lower half was beginning to burn.

Harry punctured his teeth into his lower lip to stop himself from screaming when (Y/n)'s shriek tore through to his soul as if she had been stabbed but it didn't phase the doctor at all.

"Just unhooking baby's legs (Y/n), keep pushing everything is fine."

She couldn't keep pushing, it was hurting more than it should and (Y/n) didn't like how this doctor was acting or speaking. He could have warned her that Lilah's legs were caught and he was going to pull them down to free them rather than hurt her and then tell her what he was doing. He could be more considerate and understanding that she was pushing a baby out and it wasn't going according to plan.

"I can't... H- Harry s-she isn't okay..." (Y/n)'s chest was vibrating and shuddering up and down as she was barely breathing, all of her air was bumping out through her lips but only small amounts of air were being inhaled to the point she wasn't really breathing at all. (Y/n) could see the monitor was becoming more frantic and Lilah wasn't even moving anymore, aside from (Y/n) forcing her out into the world. Something wasn't right, she didn't want to do this anymore she wanted to be at home safe and sound with Lilah and Harry, not here in pain and in danger of something going wrong.

"I know, I know but she's almost here now love. Just keep going at your pace, you're doing so well." Harry couldn't do anything or say anything to make it better. He could only hold (Y/n) and encourage her to carry on because Lilah was nearly born, they couldn't very well have a C-section now when she was half born, the only way to help her was to get labour over and done with, as bad as it may seem.

Harry's eyes darted around the room though he wasn't sure what he was searching for. He watched Jane getting towels and clamps and scissors ready to cut the cord and she set up the scales and got tubes in case Lilah couldn't breathe, she seemed to have given u and let the doctor take over fully. But he wasn't much help and when Harry leaned over he could see the steady flow of blood dripping onto the sheet on the bed and the one placed on the floor. The blood was trickling down Lilah's legs and smeared onto (Y/n)'s legs and it made him want to be sick.

"Baby's arms are stuck, I need you to push long and hard for me so we can free them."

Harry could feel the exact moment the doctor tried to free Lilah's arms because it sent waves of shock and pain through (Y/n) who vibrated in his arms. Her scream was ungodly and Harry could only imagine how the pain must have felt but as he hugged (Y/n) tighter and tried to calm her down by humming in her ear, he leaned forward to look down over her shoulder.

The blood was getting substantial but what scared the flesh from his bones was looking at Lilah. Only her head wasn't born yet but her chest was moving like she was convulsing and her arms were shaking and it made Harry wonder if she was trying to breathe. He'd heard of it, babies trying to breathe when born breach because it would be confusing to them but if she was doing that she could suffocate.

"I- it hurts... please..." (Y/n) didn't know what she was pleading for but whatever it was, she needed it to happen now. She was feeling like she was about to pass out from the pain that the doctor was only making worse and she could feel Harry's lips pressing to her cheek and the tears falling from his eyes because he was scared for both his girls.

She just wanted it to stop.

"Just the head now (Y/n), we need baby born now so she doesn't start breathing with her head suffocated like this." His words did nothing to calm the couple down because Harry knew. He could feel it in his gut that his girl was already suffocating but if he told the doctor or (Y/n) that it would only further hurt and panic his wife. Harry couldn't tell (Y/n) in case she hurt herself trying to get Lilah into the world.

"S-stop! Stop it!" (Y/n) wanted to kick her feet out and knock the doctor away from her until he was on his hands and knees and didn't dare come back near her but she couldn't move her legs an inch with how numb and broken they felt. The air was taken from her lungs when it felt like the doctor was butchering her.

(Y/n) had been prepared when they came to the hospital, she knew that when having Lilah the head would be the worst to give birth to but she thought that would be first and then it would be much easier to push. But having her come the wrong way round meant the worst bit was at the end and (Y/n) was out of energy to push any more but it was almost as if the doctor was pulling Lilah or moving her to try and get her head free and (Y/n) didn't like it one bit.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" Harry looked over at the doctor with malice in his eyes, he was causing (Y/n) so much pain with such an air of confidence about him that he shouldn't have. He should be kind, sympathetic and be helping (Y/n) rather than trying to get this whole ordeal over with.

"Baby is born now." His words were overpowered by the mix of a scream and a wail that echoed around the walls and reverted back to Harry's ears that made him cringe.

Harry felt (Y/n) slump down against him like she had suddenly passed out or even died but when he looked at her he could see her half-lidded eyes were still conscious. His arms tightened around her despite not wanting to cause her pain, he wanted to comfort her as well as himself and holding her closer was the only way he could calm himself down right now.

He leaned over (Y/n)'s shoulder again, pressing his lips to the top of her head but his eyes focused on the doctor who had their girl resting on his knees. She wasn't moving anymore, not even a spasm of her arm or a little wriggle, her chest wasn't quaking and her lips were a pale shade of blue with her skin being pale grey instead of peach or bright pink.

She wasn't okay.

"Harry..."

He looked down at (Y/n), trying to hide the pain in his eyes so she wouldn't get scared but she was already afraid. She hadn't heard their girl cry, she hadn't managed to look down and see Lilah and the doctor wasn't saying anything either. She knew something had been wrong and she knew Lilah wasn't okay by the way Harry wasn't smiling or crying with joy or marvelling at their daughter.

"Shh... it's okay." He knew it wasn't but he didn't know what else to say.

Harry watched Jane mess around cutting the cord and delivering the placenta as the doctor stood up and moved a few feet away, not looking panicked as he tried to get Lilah to breathe. Harry couldn't help but count the seconds he watched the doctor try and force Lilah to take a proper breath and he got to roughly thirteen seconds before his eyes widened in their sockets. He heard (Y/n) moaning in absolute agony when they both watched Lilah take a breath but blood and a murky substance left her lips at the same time.

Jane rushed over to the doctor with a small tube which they placed down Lilah's throat to clear her lungs as she continued to cough and breathe very shallow, small breaths.

Neither couple knew who had called for another doctor who came rushing into the room but they were thankful for her. When Harry felt the way (Y/n) started to shake against him when the previous doctor who was no longer holding Lilah came over to them, he felt like screaming.

This man had hurt (Y/n) when there was no need, he hadn't treated her with any respect or kindness or like she was a mother in pain and he'd not cared or fussed over Lilah when she was in peril.

"Get out. Get out I want him out!" The words were repeated again and again with more rage until finally the new doctor came over to the couple.

"I'm Dr Hane, I'll take over your aftercare now. Dr Cole, can you leave the room please?" She clearly didn't understand the tension in the room but she was at least obliging to the couple's wishes and putting them first. She took a few seconds to check over Lilah who was in Jane's arms before she moved to kneel in front of (Y/n). "Jane, please take the little one down to ICU immediately, (Y/n), is it? We need you laying properly on the bed, let's sort you out honey."

"Baby... I w-want my baby..." (Y/n) reached a shaking hand out to Jane who was just about to rush out of the room with Lilah in her arms. But (Y/n) hadn't even gotten one glimpse of her yet, she wanted to see her and touch her and make sure she was alive before she was swept away anywhere else.

"You can't hold her just now but you can touch her and look at her for a few moments... she's inhaled fluids and some blood when trying to breathe in the womb so her lungs need to be cleared out."

Dr Hane nodded and Jane who moved and stood beside the couple, not really willing for them to hold her since Lilah was clearly unwell and needed special care right now but they could see her. Harry's hand enveloped over (Y/n)'s and reached out for Lilah, their fingers brushing over her cheek and pale chest. They were relieved that the blood wasn't due to a problem in Lilah's lungs but at the same time, inhaling fluids was still a very bad thing, she could get infections or pneumonia from that.

Harry kissed (Y/n)'s temple repeatedly when her breaths started to tremble before a round of sobs escaped her lips when Jane left with Lilah. (Y/n) felt like it was the last time they were going to see her, like they were stealing her away or she was dead and they couldn't even hold her.

"S'okay baby, shh, we'll hold her when she's better." Harry hoped to God that his words were true.

#harry styles #harry styles x reader #harry styles imagine #dad! harry styles #imagine #one direction

287 notes · View notes

headoverhiddles · 4 years

Text

Wrapped In Plastic - Marilyn Manson x Reader [Smut]

Synopsis: The new kid at school intrigues you. He’s infatuated too, but beneath that scary exterior, you’ve got no idea what’s in store.

Notes: Era: Spooky Kids! Requested by anon: “High school Brian having a crush on you.”

There he is, sitting in front of the principal again. Brian Warner. You're surprised he hasn't been expelled yet, frankly, even though he just moved here to South Florida recently.

You watch from afar, sitting with your friends. He's making that face. That expression... or lack of expression. He doesn't give a fuck what he got in trouble for, and you, he and the principal know it.

"Hey. (y/n)," your best friend says, "What the hell? Are you listening?"

"Yeah," you mutter, glancing back into the office. God, he would probably fuck like an animal, taking you in some old haunted forest somewhere while spanking you and telling you you're his dirty little slut...

Your friend scoffs when she sees where you're looking.

"That guy is dangerous, quit fantasizing. That isn’t your picture perfect bad boy-- that’s like dating the next Son of Sam killer.”

Your other friend chimes in. “My sister told me she saw him and his pack of weirdos out lighting an abandoned house on fire. My sister’s friend said she hears him jerking off in the washroom every lunch hour. The whole school knows about it. Also apparently in creative writing, he turned in this story about this guy fucking his sister's corpse or something. Seriously weird, probably evil. He's gonna end up in jail, mark my words." You ignore your friend, but turn back into the conversation.

Eventually, the principal gives up, dismissing him. You see Brian join his friends outside the office door, who have been waiting-- Jeordie and Stephen, you think you've heard them called in class. The one with the brown comb-over is called Pogo outside of class, because of his fascination with serial killers. You think it's funny. Those guys just do whatever they want.

Your breath hitches. Brian tucks his long black hair behind his ear, looking up and grinning at his friends. He's describing what he did, and he looks like a gleeful child who just got away with murder as the other two bust out laughing and dig for details. How could anyone think he's evil?

Cold chills run through your body as he meets your eyes. Oh, fuck. He smirks a little bit your way, but you quickly look away. His features harden, and he turns back to his friends. You turn back to yours.

You can't help watching after him as he walks down the hall to fourth period, though... his head nearly reaches the ceiling, and that metal Planet Of The Apes lunchbox makes you smile. You've heard him make a threat or two to beat someone's ass with it, and you believe he'd do it. For every bully who promised him he'd be nothing, there's something about him that promised so much more.

The bell goes, and Brian sits down at the desk.

"She was looking at you."

"Yeah, she was talking to her friends about me," Brian mutters back.

"She looked like she was wetting her panties over you," Jeordie grins, "She looks like she wanted to suck your dick right there in front of Mr. Ogilvie!"

"That'd be the day," Brian sighs.

"Yeah, you'd have beat off material forever," Pogo laughs.

"But she wasn't," he said, "You guys are just fucking blind."

"I don't know, I got some blow job vibes from her,” Pogo says.

“You get blow job vibes from everyone.”

“I’ll blow you for lunch money,” Jeordie mentions. Pogo shrugs.

“I might take you up on that.” His obnoxious laughter rings out as you walk by the door. You recognize it immediately, and look back. Brian’s sitting there, knees tucked under the desk like his legs won’t fit. Shit. In your experience, being this preoccupied with someone meant you were into them... or at least, wanted to see more of them.

Brian looks up again, and sees you staring at him. This time, he frowns. You’re drawn away by your friend, who pulls you toward your next class. As you're walking, someone calls your name.

“Hey! (y/n), right?”

You turn as your friend keeps walking ahead. You scoff slightly as he approaches. “Like you don’t know my name.” You pause, backtrack. “I- sorry. That was mean."

“That’s okay. I’ve been known to be a little mean too,” he smirks, and he flips his hair out if his face. “I guess when you hang around a bunch of catty bitches all the time, it rubs off on you.” His voice is so deep and calm. It throws you off whenever he speaks, but does other things to you as well.

"Hanging out with a pair of delinquents can do the same." Your eyes dart inside the classroom to his friends, who are carving something into a desk. He gives a small smile.

"Touché."

“Speaking of rubbing off,” you raise an eyebrow, “Did you want to talk to me?”

He blushes, then forces his embarrassment away. “That rumor’s not true.”

“No?”

“Nah. I did light that abandoned house on fire though.” He grins, and you do as well, hugging your books closer to your chest.

“So. You’re a rebel, huh?”

“If not putting up with everybody’s bullshit counts as rebelling, then yeah. I guess so.”

“I can respect that,” you nod. “I feel the same way... but I’m not as fearless as you.”

“Are you saying you might commit arson with me, (y/n)?”

“Maybe. How did the conversation progress to lighting things on fire with you?”

He laughs, ducks his head nervously. “Well. Um, I saw you staring like a creep, and... I was wondering if you wanted to be creeps together. Y’know... hang out sometime? Come see my band, or...?”

“Are you asking me out?”

“Yeah, I am.”

You smile, poking his black shirt that read Christianity is Unnatural, Abnormal, and Perverse. “You’ve got balls, Brian.” You look at the clock, and back to his class. “What do you say we fuck off for the rest of the day?”

His eyebrows shoot up. “You wanna skip class today?”

“Sorry,” you walk your fingers up his chest. “I know I’m not quite at your level of rebellion yet, but it’s a start.”

He laughs as he follows you to your locker.

---

“So. Do you have a car?”

“No.” He scratches his head. “We can walk back to my house, though. My parents aren’t home.”

Following that plan, you make it back to his house. For someone hailed as the Antichrist of the school, he's got a relatively normal looking home, white picket fence and everything. All that changes once you get to his room.

"Wow," you say, looking up at everything. He's got serial killer-like writing scrawled on the wall by his bed, lyrics that seem like they're straight out of a porno or a horror film, or both. There are pentagrams drawn on his bed posts, and posters of bands like Nine Inch Nails, Ozzy Osbourne, KISS on his walls.

"I know it's stupid, but I'd give anything to meet those guys," he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck.

"It's not stupid," you say, examining the edges of the posters, freyed from the move no doubt. "I actually think it's awesome. I love Ozzy."

"One day I'm gonna beat his record for most drugs consumed over a lifetime."

"Have you started practicing?" you tease.

"I... well, I haven't had the chance."

"Right. Let me know when you do." You smile, going over to sit on his bed. He looks down at you, seems to have a mini panic attack, then acts cool with it, playing with his lip ring and sitting beside you. You look around the messy floor. He's got a strange mix of stuff that oddly seems to perfectly fit his personality: leaking boxes of black hair dye, various lipsticks and nail polishes, a bag of weed, books on the rise of fascism and Carl Jung's red book, an antique-looking switchblade, a Willy Wonka hat, condoms with little angry faces drawn on them, an old deflated football with "FIGHT" written on it, and... "What's that?" you ask, leaning down. Brian coughs.

"Oh. Yearbook from last year."

You pick it up, looking at all the little drawings of candy, needles, Charles Manson and other doodles he's defaced the book with. "But you didn't go to this school last year."

"I traded my mom's diet pills for it."

"Huh. Hustling already. Must have been some good stuff." You hesitate. The page was open to the photos of you as the lead in the play last year. You smirk, pretending to squint. "Is that a cum stain I see on my face?"

"You wish," he huffs, but he's blushing, hair curtaining around his face. You give him a look, turning fully toward him.

"Why'd you really invite me over?"

"To tell you I hate you, knock you out, and bury you in my backyard." You laugh.

"I mean, if you think about it..."

"It's the perfect plan. Invite the girl you've got a crush on over, assume she's gonna make fun of you, lure her in, then get your revenge." You smile, laying back on his bed.

"You just admitted to having a crush on me."

"Wasn't it obvious?" he asks. "I only ever threaten to kill the people I really wanna fuck."

"And do you really wanna fuck me, Bri?" you ask coyly, crawling dangerously close to him. He swallows, Adam's apple bobbing in his long, graceful throat. "You wanna fuck me right here, right now, while your parents aren't home, make me scream your name while you blare your favorite metal record and act like things'll never change?"

"That sounds good," he groans. His hands wander up your thigh, and you smile, bouncing on his leg. "...I also wanna share my music with you. Read a book over your shoulder. Maybe pop a few pills, key someone's car, grab a milkshake and look at the stars on Special K so we feel like we're floating, you know. Before I bang the shit out of you. Date stuff."

"Is this not our first date?" you ask. His tongue flicks up over his lip ring again.

"I guess you could say it is."

"Good. Cause I never fuck on a first date," you say, "Or so I tell people." He clenches his jaw, and braces a skinny arm beside your head, leaning down to capture your lips. His lips taste sweet, like mint and those sugary rocket candies. He takes his shirt off, and you rub your hands down, feeling a few scars. He lets out a whimpered noise at your touch, shuddering a little.

You make out and grind against one another for a few minutes, your hands pulling his hips closer by his black belt loops and his fingers tangling your hair. Your breath gets faster as he grinds harder, more desperately, and you reach a hand down to help him out, give him something to rut against.

"You feel so big," you moan, and he runs a hand through his hair, lips falling open.

"I'm gonna..." He makes another desperate noise, and you feel it right where you need him. But since all his condoms in here seem to be used or have faces drawn on them in scented marker, you opt for over the clothes stuff only.

"Use your fingers?" you breathe. He looks like he's about to cum, and you know it'll tip you over as well, what with all the times you had thought of him like this.

He reaches into your jeans, unzipping them, and messily finds your clit. For a teenage guy, he's not bad. He starts to rub, then reaches three fingers down to thrust them into you.

"Fuck, Bri! Three?!" you breathe. He looks into your eyes, not stopping.

"I thought girls were whores for that kind of thing!"

"It's..." you moan, "That's... oh... y-yeah... Jesus...” He really start to work them in, watching your reactions while rutting his clothed erection against your leg. "Fuck, Brian, grab my tits... yeah... this is just how I imagined it when I..."

He freezes for a second, and his whole body convulses. He gasps, and you see him reach down to cover his crotch, face going beet red. He doesn't stop, though. He keeps fingering you, and now that he's not worried about grinding, he can explore you in other ways. He attaches his lips to your neck, and sucks a hickie right below your ear.

“Brian... Bri, make me c--”

"Cum for me, you filthy little slut," he snarls, and you arch your back up, grinding down into his fingers as your orgasm hits. You rock through it, and he kisses you again, sloppy and hot. When he pulls away, he gives you your fingers to lick clean, which you do through a heated stare.

Things calm down into you laying back against his pillows with his stringy body tucked in a cramped position beside you. "I didn't know you were that..." you search for words. "Experienced?"

"What, you thought I was a virgin?”

You giggle. “I didn’t know what to think about you, to be honest. Kinky, inexperienced, I had no idea. Of course, I hoped that you were kinky.”

“I’ve been known to use restraints when asked,” he smirks.

“I’ve got that to look forward to. I thought you were cute too, though. I don’t care if you’re some devil worshipper who parents and teachers everywhere shiver at the thought of." He's quiet for a second.

"I thought you were scared of me."

"That too, a little bit. But what scares me turns me on." He rolls over to face you, a vulnerable position for him, you can tell.

"The way I dress is what I perceive to be beautiful. Looking like this, doing what I want to, it keeps the assholes who like to give my face their own version of plastic surgery away if they think I'm a Satanist who's gonna... cut off their mom's head or something if they fuck with me. Makes the hypocrites who call themselves teachers question their morals too, ‘teaching’ someone like me to be a good little boy and follow society’s rules. It’s all brainwashing, everything they feed us with their sugar and shit, and I’m the bad guy for standing up to it."

You stroke hair out of his face, and he looks up at you, lips pursed. "There’s always gotta be a scapegoat. I guess you fit that role.” You look beyond him. “You think it would ruin your image if those bullies found your poetry books?” He smiles.

“Nah. One day, I’m gonna grow up to be a big rock and roll star. I’ll use my own poetry and turn it into music, and I’ll look ten times more extreme than I do now. Then they can all say they knew me, and I’ll tell them to go to hell.”

You snuggle into him. "Mmm. Speaking of extreme... we should pull a Sandy and Danny. I'll come to school dressed all goth and shit Monday. Throw my friends for a loop."

"Does that mean I have to dress like a cheerleader?" he asks.

"You've got the ass for it."

He grins. "Stop it, you're making it very hard for me not to wanna fuck you for real right now."

"Here's the deal," you say, "I'll show you where I live this weekend. You tell me what your favorite fruit is, because that's a soul searching question. At that point we'll know each other better... and I'll be fair game."

He bites his lip. "I feel like I've known you forever."

"Yeah. Me too."

Just then, there's a knock at the bedroom door. Startled, you sit up quickly, and who you can only assume to be Brian's mom pops her head in. "When the fuck did you two get home?!" Brian blurts.

"About five minutes ago, honey. Don't worry, we didn't hear anything. Jeordie called, said he 'left the smoke bomb under the urinals.' I hope you aren't getting up to trouble like the last school, your father had a heck of a time getting you into this one.”

“Mom.”

“He had to switch jobs too, and with his back, you know how difficult long drives can be. Oh, how rude of me-- hello sweetie, you can call me Barb."

"Mom--"

"Brian, is this the sweet thing you had that dream about the other night?"

"MOM!"

“Hugh, Brian’s got a girlfriend over, we should turn the TV up to give them a little privacy.”

“GIRLFRIEND?!” a voice calls up, “GOOD ON YA, SON. THAT’S MY BOY!”

“Jesus fucking Christ...” Brian groans, burying his face in a pillow. You laugh so hard into his chest you nearly tumble off his bed. Most dangerous guy in school, your ass.

457 notes · View notes

foreverdavidbyrne · 3 years

Text

David Byrne’s interview in NME magazine

In 1979, David Byrne predicted Netflix. “It’ll be as easy to hook your computer up to a central television bank as it is to get the week’s groceries,” he told NME’s Max Bell, sitting in a Paris hotel considering the implications of Talking Heads’ dystopian single ‘Life During Wartime’.

He predicted the Apple Watch in that interview too: “[People will] be surrounded by computers the size of wrist watches.” And he foresaw surveillance culture and data harvesting: “Government surveillance becomes inevitable because there’s this dilemma when you have an increase in information storage. A lot of it is for your convenience, but as more information gets on file, it’s bound to be misused.”

In fact, over 40 years ago, he predicted the entire modern-day experience, as if he instinctively knew what was coming. “We’ll be cushioned by amazing technological development,” he said, “but sitting on Salvation Army furniture.”

The 68-year-old Byrne says today, “You can’t say that you know,” chuckling down a Zoom link from his home in New York and belying his reputation for awkwardness by seeming giddily relieved to be talking to someone. “It’s crazy to set yourself up as some sort of prophet. But there’s plenty of people who have done well with books where they claim to predict what’s going on. I suppose sometimes it’s possible to let yourself imagine, ‘Okay – what if?’ This can evolve into something that exists, can evolve into something more substantial, cheaper – these kinds of things.”

It’s been a lifelong gift. Byrne turned up at CBGBs in 1975 with his art school band Talking Heads touting ‘Psycho Killer’, as if predicting the punk scene’s angular melodic evolution, new wave, before punk was even called punk. In 1980, Talking Heads assimilated African beats and textures into their seminal ‘Remain In Light’ album, foreshadowing ‘world music’ and modern music’s globalist melting pot, then used it to warn America of the dangers of consumerism, selfishness and the collapse of civilisation. Pioneering or propheteering, Byrne has been on the front-line of musical evolution for 45 years, collaborating with fellow visionaries from Brian Eno to St Vincent’s Annie Clark, constantly imagining, ‘What if?’

The live music lockdown has been a frustrating freeze frame, but Byrne was already leading the way into music’s new normal. Launched in 2018, the tour to support his 10th solo album, ‘American Utopia’, has now turned into a cinematic marvel courtesy of Spike Lee – the concert film was released in the UK this week. The original tour was acclaimed as a live music revolution. Using remote technology, Byrne was able to remove all of the traditional equipment clutter from the stage and allow his musicians and dancers, in uniform grey suits and barefoot, to roam around a stage lined with curtains of metal chains with their instruments strapped to them. A Marshally distanced gig, if you will.

“As the show was conceptually coming together, I realised that once we had a completely empty stage the rulebook has now been thrown out,” Byrne says. “Now we can go anywhere and do anything. This is completely liberating. It means that people like drummers, for example, who are usually relegated to the back shadows, can now come to the front – all those kinds of things – which changes the whole dynamic.”

With six performers making up an entire drum kit and Byrne meandering through the choreography trying to navigate a nonsensical world, the show was his most striking and original since he jerked and jived around a constructed-mid-gig band set-up in Jonathan Demme’s legendary 1984 Talking Heads live film Stop Making Sense.

The American Utopia show embarked on a Broadway run last year, where Byrne super-fan Spike Lee saw it twice and leapt at the chance of turning the spectacle into Byrne’s second revolutionary live film, dotted with his musings on the human condition to illuminate the crux of the songs: institutional racism, our lack of modern connection, the erosion of democracy and, on opener ‘Here’, a lecture-like tour of the human brain, Byrne holding aloft a scale model, trying to fathom, ‘How do I work this?’

“I didn’t know how much of a fan Spike was!” Byrne laughs today. “He’d even go, ‘Why don’t you do this song? Why don’t you add this song in’. We knew one another casually so I could text him and say, ‘I want you to come and see our show; I think that you might be interested in making a film of it’.”

Are the days of the traditional stage set-up numbered? “Yes, I think so,” he replies. “At least in theatres and concert halls the size that I would normally play, yes. The fact that we can get the music digitally [means] a performance has to be really of value. It has to be really something special, because that’s where the performers are getting their money and that’s what the audience is paying for. They’re not paying very much for streaming music, but they are paying quite a bit to go and see a performance, so the performance has to give them value for money… It has to be really something to see.”

How does David Byrne envisage the future possibilities of live performance?

“I’ve seen a lot of things that hip-hop artists have done – like the Kanye West show where he emerges on a platform that floats above the stage,” he says. “I’d seen one with Kendrick Lamar where it was pretty much just him on stage, an empty stage with just him on stage and a DJ, somebody with a laptop – that was it. I thought, ‘Wow’. Then he started doing things with huge projections behind. There are lots of ways to do this. I love the idea of working with a band, with live musicians. ‘How can I innovate in this kind of way?’ It’s maybe easier for a hip-hop musician who doesn’t have a band to figure out. The pressure is on to come up with new ways of doing this.”

In liberating his musicians from fixed, immovable positions, American Utopia also acts as a metaphor for freeing our minds from our own ingrained ways of thinking. As Byrne intersperses Talking Heads classics such as ‘Once In A Lifetime’, ‘I Zimbra’ and ‘Road To Nowhere’ with choice solo cuts and tracks from ‘American Utopia’, he also dots the show with musings on an array of post-millennial questions: the health of democracy; the rise of xenophobia and fascism; our increasing reliance on materialism and online communication; the climate change threat; the existential nightmare of the dating app; and, crucially, the distances all of these things put between us.

“The ‘likes’ and friends and connections and everything that the internet enables,” he argues, “even Zoom calls like this, they’re no substitute for really being with other people. Calling social networks ‘social’ is a bit of an exaggeration.”

Byrne closes the show with the suggestion that, rather than isolate behind our LCD barriers, we should try to reconnect with each other. In an age when social media has descended into all-out thought war and anyone can find concocted ‘facts’ to support anything they want to believe, is that realistic?

“I have a little bit of hope,” he says. “Not every day, but some days. I have hope that people will abandon a lot of social media, that they’ll realise how intentionally addictive it is, and they’re actually being used, and that they might enjoy actually being with other people rather than just constantly scrolling through their phone. So, I’m a little bit optimistic that people will, in some ways, use this technology a little bit less than they have.”

A key moment in American Utopia comes with Byrne’s cover of Janelle Monae’s ‘Hell You Talmbout’, a confrontational track shouting the names of African-Americans who have been killed by police or in racially motivated attacks – Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd and far, far too many more. Does Byrne think the civil unrest in the wake of Floyd’s death and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement make a serious impact?

“We’ll see how long this continues,” he says, “but in projects that I’m working on – there’s a theatre project I’m working on in Denver, there’s the idea of bringing this show back to Broadway, there’s other projects – those issues came to the fore. Issues of diversity and inclusion and things like that, which were always there. Now they’re being taken more seriously. The producers and theatre owners realise that they can’t push those things aside, that they have to be included in the whole structure of how a show gets put together.”

“At least for now, that seems to be a big change. I see it in TV shows and other areas too. There’s a lot of tokenism, but there’s a lot of real opportunity and changed thinking as well.”

Elsewhere, he encourages his audience to register to vote, and had registration booths at the shows. He must have been pleased about the record turnout in the recent US election? “Yeah, the turnout was great. Now you just got to keep doing that. Gotta keep doing it at all the local elections, too. It was important for me not to endorse a political party or anything in the show but to say, ‘Listen, we can’t have a democracy if you don’t vote. You have to get out there and let your voice be heard and there’s lots of people trying to block it.’ We have to at least try.”

Will Trump’s loss help bring people together after four years with such a divisive influence in charge?

“Yes. I think for me Trump was not so much a shock; we knew who he is. He was around New York before that, in the reality show [The Apprentice], we knew what kind of character he was. What shocked me was how quickly the Republican party all fell into line behind him, behind this guy who’s obviously a racist, misogynist liar and everything else. But it’s kind of encouraging – although it’s taken four years and with some it’s only with the prospect of him being gone – that quite a few have been breaking ranks. There are some possibilities of bridge building being held out.”

But, he says, “It’s too early to celebrate,” concerned that Senate Majority Leader and fairweather Trump loyalist Mitch McConnell will use any Republican control of the Senate to block many of Biden’s policies from coming into effect. “[This] is what happened with Obama… I want to see real change happen. [Climate change] absolutely needs to be a priority. The clock had turned back over the last four years, so there’s a lot to be done. Whether there’s the willpower to do everything that needs to be done, it remains to be seen, but at least now it’s pointing in the right direction.”

How will he look back on the last four years? Byrne ponders. “I’m hoping that I look back at it as a near-miss.”

American Utopia is as much a personal journey as a dissection of modern ills. Ahead of ‘Everybody’s Coming To My House’, Byrne admits to being a rather socially awkward type. He claims that a choir of Detroit teenagers, when singing the song for the accompanying video, had imbued the song with a far more welcoming message than his own rendition, which found him wracked with the fear that his visitors might never leave. How does someone like that deal with celebrity?

“In a certain way it’s a blessing,” Byrne grins, “because I don’t have to go up to people to talk to them – they sometimes come up to me. In other ways it’s a little bit awkward. Celebrity itself seems very superficial and I have to constantly remind myself that your character, your behaviour and the work that you do is what’s important – not how well known you are, not this thing of celebrity. I learned early on it’s pretty easy to get carried away. But it does have its advantages. I had Spike Lee’s phone number, so I could text him.”

Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz’s recent book Remain In Love suggests that the more successful Byrne got early on, the more distant he became.

Byrne nods. “I haven’t read the book, but I know that as we became more successful I definitely used some of that to be able to work on other projects. I worked on a dance score with [American choreographer] Twyla Tharp and I worked on a theatre piece with [director] Robert Wilson – other kinds of things – [and] I started working on directing some of the band’s music videos. So I guess I spent less time just hanging out. As often happens with bands, you start off being all best friends and doing everything together and after a while that gets to be a bit much. Everybody develops their own friends and it’s like, ‘I have my own friends too’. Everybody starts to have their own lives.”

The future is far too enticing for David Byrne to consider revisiting the past. “I do live alone so sometimes it would get lonely”, he says of lockdown, but he’s been using his Covid downtime to cycle around undiscovered areas of New York and remain philosophical about the aftermath.

“We’ll see how long before the vaccine is in, before we return to being able to socialise,” he says, “but I’m also wondering, ‘How am I going to look at this year? Am I going to look at it as, “Oh yes, that’s the year that was to some extent taken away from our lives; our lives were put on pause?”’ We kept growing; we kept ageing; we keep eating, but it was almost like this barrier had been put up. It has been a period where, in a good way, it’s led us to question a lot of what we do. You get up in the morning and go, ‘Why am I doing this? What am I doing this for? What’s this about?’ Everything is questioned.”

Post-vaccine, he hopes to “travel a little bit” before looking into plans to bring the ‘American Utopia’ show back to Broadway, and possibly even to London if the financial aspects can be worked out. “Often when a show like that travels, the lead actors might travel,” Byrne explains, “but in this case it’s the entire cast that has to travel. So you’ve got a lot of hotel bills and all that kind of stuff. We wanted to do it. There might be a way, if we can figure that out.”

Once we all get our jab, will everyone come to recognise that, as Byrne sings on ‘American Utopia’s most inspiring track, ‘Every Day Is A Miracle’? “Optimistically, maybe,” he says. “There will be a lot of people who will just go, ‘Let’s get back to normal – get out to the bars, the clubs and discos’. That’s already been happening in New York; there’s been these underground parties where people just can’t help themselves. But after all this it’d be nice to think that people might reassess things a little bit.”

And with the algorithm as the new gatekeeper and technology beginning to subsume the sounds and consumption of music, what does the new wave Nostradamus foresee for rock in the coming decades? Will AIs soon be writing songs for other AIs to consume to inflate the numbers, cutting humanity out of the equation altogether?

“It seems like there’ll be a kind of factory,” Byrne predicts, “an AI factory of things like that, and of newspaper articles and all of this kind of stuff, and it will just exaggerate and duplicate human biases and weaknesses and stupidity. On the other hand, I was part of a panel a while back, and a guy told a story about how his listening habits were Afrofuturism and ambient music – those were his two favourite ways to go. The algorithm tried to find commonalities between the two so it could recommend things to him and he said it was hopeless. Everything it recommended was just horrible because it tried to find commonalities between these two very separate things. This just shows that we’re a little more eclectic than these machines would like to think.”

And in the distant future? Best prepare to welcome your new gloop overlords. Byrne isn’t concerned about The Singularity – the point at which machine intelligence supersedes ours and AI becomes God – but instead believes that future technologies will emulate microbial forms.

“I watched a documentary on slime moulds [a simple slimy organism] the other day,” he says, warming to his sticky theme. “Slime moulds are actually extremely intelligent for being a single-celled organism. They can build networks and bunches of them can communicate. They can learn, they have memories, they can do all these kinds of things that you wouldn’t expect a single-celled organism to be able to do.”

“I started thinking, ‘Well, is there a lesson there for AI and machine learning, of how all these emerging properties could be done with something as simple as a single cell?’ It’s all in there… when things interact, they become greater than the sum of their parts. I thought, okay, maybe the future of AI is not in imitating human brains, but imitating these other kinds of networks, these other kinds of intelligences. Forget about imitating human intelligence – there’s other kinds of intelligence out there, and that might be more fruitful. But I don’t know where that leads.”

His grin says he does know, that he has a vision of our icky soup-world future, but maybe the rest of the species isn’t yet advanced enough to handle it. But if we’re evolving towards disaster rather than utopia, we can trust David Byrne to give us plenty of warning.

December 18, 2020

#david byrne #talking heads #music #new wave #post-punk #art pop #avant funk #worldbeat #interview #nme magazine #2020

47 notes · View notes

mimik-u · 3 years

Text

Fragments III, 1-100

300 drabbles about Steven Universe/Future, 100 words each! These are the first 100 prompts and writer’s choices that have been fulfilled.

Asterisks are placed next to my personal favorites that I’ve written.

Baggage* — Steven meets his new therapist!

Eternity —How about a Bellow interaction you've always wanted to see in canon but didn't get to?

Foe —Jasper is simultaneously satisfied and yet left deeply empty inside by her self-isolation on Earth, and doesn't understand how to even begin to process this dichotomy. (So she doesn’t.)

Letter — Young Greg's POV when he wrote those letters to his parents Steven found on Mr. Universe episode.

Sword —Connie interacting with someone she doesn't usually talk to by herself (ex Jasper, Bismuth, Lapis, etc.).

Reconciliation — Idk about you but I wanna see more Mega Pearl. The others have not met Mega Pearl.

Marks —How about... Spinel, and the tiny, everyday baby steps towards healing?

Tangled — Peridot finds out/is told about PD/RQ? (And is confirmed in her guess that Pearl is fancy...?)

Challenge* — How is Steven’s TubeTube channel doing?

Bruises — Priyanka tends to Connie's wounds after training sessions with Pearl. [Writer’s Choice]

Rest* — Yellow Diamond gets to relax. (She's the one who most expresses regret and real understanding. Let her take a nap! She deserves it!)

Barbecue* — Post-movie, during cleanup, Steven and Lars talk and plan the BBQ we got a glimpse at during the final song.

Ghost — Yellowtail and Greg talk about fatherhood and how it can be ruined (mentioning Marty and Greg's father subtly).

UNO* — Date between Pearls (platonic or otherwise).

Height — The pebbles!!! They're so small???? Where are they? *Sobs, points at the Heaven and Earth Beetles.*

Embrace — Steven gets a well-deserved cuddle pile from family and friends.

Constructs — Bismuth and Peridot have a lot more in common than they think.

Horns — Amethyst makes an unexpected new friend at Little Homeschool. (Whichever other character you feel would fit best!)

Garden — Pre-show scene. While having a funny chat, Greg mentions something that reminds Rose about her abandoning Spinel, which makes her regret more of her choices.

Advice — Garnet can tell when Stevonnie has a lot on their mind. [Writer’s Choice.]

Hum — Yellow and her relationship with music.

Love* — Pearl considering her romantic feelings towards someone and thinking about how she's finally moving on from Rose. (Doesn't mean she'll ever forget her.)

Kid — A glimpse into “Sadie Killer.” Maybe when they played their first show, while Steven was still in the band. Celebrating afterward or a discussion on why Steven didn't stay IN the band?

Troubleshooting* — Integration of gem communication networks and Earth Internet and phone lines and the resulting inevitable disaster.

Fairytale — Connie gets a tour of Little Homeworld.

Hope — Jasper finally starting to let her guard down and realize her self worth.

Song* — As for prompts... Steg? Like, him in general, just being himself. It's a bummer we only got to see him in the movie.

Mistakes* — Steven talking to someone (not a therapist, just another character) about his trauma?

Forgiveness — The Topaz fusion reconnects with the Crystal Gems at Little Homeschool and apologizes for her role in the kidnapping all those years ago.

Visions — Sapphire and Ruby reflect on the events of "Together Forever." [Writer’s Choice]

Reunited — Maybe a scene where Yellow comes home from a long escapade and is reunited with a worried Spinel?

Beginnings — After CYM, Lapis and Peridot discuss where to live since the barn is destroyed.

Pet* — White Diamond happily announces one day that she has decided to take in a small creature (of your choosing) as a pet.

Together — What were Doc, Army, Navy, and Leggy doing during Future?

Desert — Steven meeting Lion from Lion's perspective. I dunno, I think it could be neat.

Freedom — For a post-CYM/SU:F prompt, what do you think about the exact moment it hit either Blue or Yellow Pearl that they were completely free to follow their whims?

Apologies — Greg apologizes to Steven due to the incident in “Mr. Universe” and both have the talk they should've had in that episode.

Change — Blue and Yellow Zircon's relationship has improved even if they are now rivals in the new democratic Homeworld. This last tiny bit is related to the “Homeworld Bound” episode.

Hug — Bellow cuddling. Yellow has no idea what to do, but Blue is loving it.

Valentine* — Steven gives Peridot a Valentine's Day gift. [Writer’s Choice]

Spite — Aquamarine and Eyeball are distraught at knowing they won't be rewarded for their actions because their worst enemy, Steven Universe, has been labeled a hero and royalty by the Diamonds.

Reevaluation — How about more Peedee and Steven friendship? Like, Peedee noticing Steven’s change in demeanor the farther along the show we get?

Camp — Connie kicking ass at space camp.

Family — The night after the events of the movie, Steven gets some quality family time.

Homestretch — Peridot, Lapis, and Bismuth spend time together while preparing Little Homeworld.

Enough — We know what Jenny, Sour Cream, and Buck are gonna do for their futures, but what's Kiki been up to? Is she gonna take over the pizzeria?

Spillage — Vidalia and Amethyst catch up after Steven's monster episode.

Reformation — White Diamond has learned how to be so extremely empathetic to the point that she literally becomes another person, but has she really begun to understand others?

Comment* — Sardonyx makes some Internet videos.

Unicorn — While traveling through California, Steven encounters two fishermen arguing about unicorns. [SU/GF crossover.] [Writer’s Choice]

Worry — Andy and Greg stay in touch.

Homerun* — I hopal for Opal—perhaps she will attempt some baseball.

Skydancer — Post-CYM, Pearl getting to “truly” take Steven out for a joy ride through the cosmos in a properly operational ship of her design.

Mercy* — The shattering-is-wrong discussion between Rose and Bismuth that led to Bis being bubbled.

Happy — Smoky Quartz hasn't made a self deprecating joke in a while—is it Steven's therapy?

Electric* — Yellow’s gloves—I feel like they’re covering something up, maybe.

Cake — Fusion Cuisine 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Belonging — The Rose Quartz sisters visit again.

Transcendence — Fluorite offers someone wise caterpillar grandma advice.

March — Connie and Steven reflect on changes in life after the pandemic. Not canon compliant. [Writer’s Choice.]

Understanding — Onion be doing Onion things.

Ocean* — Andy and Steven post-”I Am My Monster”? I love their relationship, lol.

Ignorance* — Does Lapis even realize Bismuth was probably the one who poofed her?

Reflection — Did I already say more Mega Pearl? ‘Cause there can never be enough Mega Pearl.

Possibility* — Yellow deciding she should try putting shattered gems back together. (She probably broke the most.)

Storyboard — Peridot’s budding career as a storyboarder.

Fall — Lapis and Steven talk about trauma and recovery. Pre-The Future.

Limbo — How the dismantled gempire has affected the lives of noble gems like Emerald, Holly Blue Agate, and others.

Now — Garnet reminds herself to live in the present.

Grief* — Alexandrite forms for the first time. [Writer’s Choice]

Inauguration — Wait, did Connie's parents ever meet Stevonnie?

Please — Did Kevin ever learn anything? Naaaaaah....unless...

Friend — General prompt? A sequel/prequel to this, please [White D’s panther].

Treatment — Greg starting to learn more about gem stuff to be more involved in Steven's life if something ugly happens.

Numbers — Pearl, please do something with all those phone numbers in your head.

Generations — Rose continues to discover the wonders of Earth, even after all this time. (No angst allowed in this one, just pure wonder.)

Survival — The Off-Colors used to have more members in the past.

Acting — How did Rainbow 2.0 even get invited to babysit Onion?

Kindness* — Former Mayor Dewey coming to terms with his new position in town.

Play — The Gems and Greg try to capture Steven's first moments on a bike. [Writer’s Choice]

Documentary — Ronaldo makes a real actually informative documentary about Little Homeworld.

Rain — Blue Diamond still cries sometimes.

Zoophobia — Also, I saw Z and my immediate thought was "Zoophobia.”

Echo* — Why does the tiny floating whale have Rose's voice before Steven ever heard it in the tape?

Sketch — Steven and Connie discover an anime character/mythological figure who bears an awfully similar resemblance to Obsidian.

Unironically — Why does Buck wanna be a doctor?

Club — How did Bismuth, Lapis, and Peri become such tight friends?

Nostalgia — Greg considers a comeback tour.

Pressure* — The creation of the Diamonds, maybe?

Coping — Amethyst and Pearl grapple with Rose's pregnancy. [Writer’s Choice]

Theatre — Sugilite, meet Rainbow 2.0.

Dadhood* — Whatever happened to Mrs. Fryman? IS there a Mrs. Fryman, or was it only a passing on-and-off thing that resulted in kids?

Lingering — Jasper finally lets Malachite go.

Human — Steven talks to his therapist about his mom, the feelings of before and the now. (It was left open-ended—his relationship with his mother.)

Words — Kofi is proud of his daughters.

Quest — [Letter prompt] Quest.

Picture — Sour Cream and Steven talking about absent parents and bad parenting. Post-The Future.

Bittersweet* — Shep finally gets to meet the notorious Lars.

Gemini — Spinel discovers memes and we're all doomed.

Weird — When he's younger, Steven doesn't quite know how to label the Gems.

#mimiku #steven universe #100 fragments!!!!!#fragments iii

15 notes · View notes

crash-cinematic-universe · 4 years

Text

Peter Maximoff is completely, utterly, and undoubtedly in love

pairing: Peter Maximoff/fem!bassist!reader

Summary: Peter had no idea a simple mission would change his life forever, He also had no idea how much he liked the bass guitar.

notes: fuck it. a series because I’m in love with peter maximoff

warnings: language, peter is a cute little bitch

________________________________________________________________

Peter knew the song even before he stepped inside the crowded bar, the bassline immediately ringing a bell in his mind. He smirked before pushing the doors open.

“That song,” he said, catching the attention of Hank who was standing close beside him. “It’s one of my favorites; Money by Pink Floyd.” Peter’s attention is turned to the bassist of the band on stage. His mouth goes dry, his eyes widening once the spotlight hits her. She looks ethereal in the stage lights, her eyes closed as her hands pluck the strings of her bass. She’s gorgeous, the look of concentration on her face going straight to Peter’s heart. He’s awestruck, and Hank notices.

“Peter,” he calls, trying to catch the young man’s eyes. He fails. “Peter,” he calls again, snapping his associate out of his trance. “We’re here to find the mutant and bring them to Charles, we shouldn’t get” he pauses to glance at the bassist, “distracted.”

“I’m not distracted, Hank, I’m super professional and always have my eyes on the prize.” he says, the smug sarcasm dripping from his voice. The band switched from Money to Barracuda. He fought the urge to look at the bassist again. Hank sees his restraint and smirks.

“Peter, if we find the mutant fast enough you might have a chance to meet her.” Hank turns away from the stage to order a drink. “Ya know, Charles said the mutant would be inconspicuous and well-hidden, so keep your eyes peeled.”

“Uh, Hank,” Peter said, his voice uncertain. “I think I found the mutant.” Hank whips around and sees the bassist floating a foot above ground, her eyes shut in concentration. Her eyes snap open, and the irises are glowing a shimmering silver, someone in the crowd shouts, ‘mutant scum!’ and she lands on the ground. The young woman shares a look with her band mates as the bartender calls the police. The bassist nods, and the guitarist gives a loud strum of her instrument. The bassist’s eyes glow again and she seems to convert the sound to energy, pushing away the few audience members that tried to charge the stage. The band makes a break for the back door, the guitarist turning continuously producing sound that the bassist uses to create a barrier between the now wild crowd.

Peter quickly grabs Hank and runs out back, watching as the group jumps into an old van. They’re laughing, like this was a fun endeavor for them. Peter speeds into the back silently, trying desperately to duck behind the seats. Their instruments provide good cover-- at least good enough for now.

“Holy shit, Y/n, that was insane!” the guitarist laughs. The bassist smiles.

“I didn’t even realize I was doing it, but hey, that's a helluva way to end our last performance.” the bassist speaks. Her name is Y/n. A pretty name for a pretty girl. The van is quiet for a minute before someone speaks up.

“So, Y/n, a couple cute faces in the crowd, huh?” the drummer teases.

“Oh, shut it, Danny, just because you can read minds doesn’t mean you know anything about me.” Y/n snaps playfully, a bashful blush on her face. It’s cute.

“I might not know much, but you were thinkin’ pretty loud back there. Hey, I’m not judging, he was pretty cute. His hair was weird, but he was cute.” Danny smirks.

“Looks like you got some competition, Y/n” the guitarist retorts jokingly.

“I’d never make a move, Cassie,” Danny says cooly, “He’s not my type, and Y/n called mental dibs on the silver cutie. Plus, he was totally into you too, his jaw practically dropped when he saw you.”

“He was probably looking at Cassie,” Y/n defends, the blush lingering on her face.

“I hope not,” Cassie sighs, “I’m tired of explaining my sexuality to people; asexual and aromantic, it’s not hard to understand.”

“His thoughts were deafening, he was definitely checking out Y/n, but don’t worry. He wasn’t being creepy like the other guys usually are.” Danny smiles. “The guy with the weird hair was completely smitten, I think.”

‘Are they talking about me?’ Peter thinks. ‘My hair isn’t weird.’

“It is,” Danny says suddenly. “It’s also weird that you’ve been hiding this whole time. C’mon out man, we won’t bite.” Peter slowly sits up, his head peeking out from behind the seats. No one seems shocked, besides the singer, who’s driving.

“You’re like us, right?” Cassie asks. “A mutant?”

“Yeah,” Peter says hesitantly. “I, uh, came with a friend. We were looking for her,” he points at Y/n, “we didn’t know you were all mutants.”

“Charlie isn’t,” Y/n says, gesturing to the driver. “They’re just a killer vocalist.” Her voice is like music to Peter’s ears, her movements fluid and graceful and wonderful and Peter realizes that Danny was right. He was completely smitten with a beautiful stranger. Peter glances up and realizes that Danny was smirking at him before looking at Y/n once again.

“Where’s your hot friend?” Danny asks, and Peter realizes he left Hank at the bar. Alone.

“Oh god,” Peter laughs slightly, “I left him at the bar. He’s… not very conspicuous.”

“You’re telling me,” Danny guffaws, “I almost lost control of my sticks once I saw him.”

“That’s not the only stick you lost control of,” Y/n mumbles and the van bursts out in thunderous laughter; including Peter. Y/n is oddly proud; she thinks his laugh is cute. Once the laughter died down, the bassist spoke again. “Why were you looking for me? I didn’t break any laws, did I?” Danny scoffs. “I didn’t break any more laws, did I?”

“No,” Peter says. He can’t believe he’s actually talking to her. And she’s talking back to him. And he feels like he’s going to pass out. “There’s a school in New York full of mutants. The headmaster got some info on you; he thought you’d be a valuable student to have. We came to ask if you’d be interested, but since all of you are mutants, all of you can come.”

Y/n glances at Danny.

“He’s telling the truth,” the drummer says.

“I’m in.” Y/n agrees without so much as a question. The band looks shocked. “Oh come on, where else would I go? We can’t live in this shithole forever, and just knowing that there’s a place where we’d be safe and accepted is enough for me.” Peter’s heart basically fucking explodes in his chest and he silently thanks the cosmic forces that she agreed. Danny hesitates before speaking.

“I’m in too. Y/n and I have been best friends since 4th grade, I’m not ditching you now. Plus, I have a bet to win” Danny smirks at Y/n before turning to Cassie.

“I don’t know…” she trails off, and Y/n silently begs her. Her eyes plead silently and Peter has a moment to study her features closely. She has a nose piercing and a plethora of ear piercings, her hair had streaks of wild colors in it and her eyeliner was smudged. One thought ran through his head constantly: she’s amazing. “Alright, let's do it!” Cassie agrees. Before anyone has a chance to ask Charlie, they speak up.

“I can’t.” The van is silent. “You all know it. I just… won’t belong. Even if I wanted to go, I wouldn’t be able to.” Danny nods knowingly.

“You have a family to tend to, it wouldn’t be fair to steal you away--” Y/n shoots him a look. “-- again” The group laughs again, and the mood lightens. Suddenly, Y/n speaks up.

“Hey Silver, what’s the school’s policy on small animals?” Danny and Cassie’s faces flash with realization, and the three of them shout in unison, “SEYMOUR THE SECOND!”

“Who?” Peter asks, completely confused.

“The light of my life, my pride and joy, my soulmate, my one true love...” Y/n rambles, and Peter’s heart drops with every word. She’s not single. “... my pet ferret.” oh.

“I’m sure Charles would make an exception for… Seymour.” Peter says hesitantly. “If not, I can always hide him for you”

“Really? You’re the best, silver!” Y/n playfully punches him on the shoulder and Peter practically dies on the spot.

“Uh, what’s your name?” Cassie asks suddenly, and the gang realizes they’d been addressing him as ‘silver’ the entire time. “I’m assuming your name isn’t your hair color.”

Peter chuckles, “No, my name is Peter, Peter Maximoff. My friend back at the bar is named Hank. Hank McCoy.”

“Hank McCoy, hot damn, isn’t that a name.” Danny jokes. Y/n giggles at his antics, and the sound alone makes his heart skip.

“So, you’re a telepath, you can manipulate sound, what about you?” Peter inquires, looking towards Cassie.

“I can see the future.” Cassie says nonchalantly.

“And you, Silver? What can you do?” Y/n asks, scooting a little closer to him.

“Uh, I’m, uh, fast.” Peter smiles at the young woman's face lights up.

“Oh god, here we go,” Danny groans despite the smile on his face.

“You have super speed?” Y/n exclaims, her eyes scanning him up and down. “Do you have heat resistance? You probably also have some form of super strength, right? Depending on what you can do you could also have the ability to manipulate gravity and inertia, oh my god you’re so cool!”

At this point, everyone noticed the way Peter’s face flushed and the way his pupils dilated and the way his cheeky grin only grew when Y/n would gush over his mutation. Danny couldn’t help but smile at Y/n’s thoughts, her mind buzzing with admiration for the silver boy who snuck onto their van.

The vehicle rolls to a stop and Charlie barely has enough time to unlock the van before Hank bursts in, grabbing Peter by the collar and pulling him out. Hank was blue again, and completely enraged.

“Are you insane!?” Hank shouts at the boy, now on the ground. “She could have killed you! Charles said the mutant was unpredictable and dangerous, you can’t just--” Peter cuts him off.

“She’s not dangerous. She’s strong, sure, but not dangerous. If she wanted to kill me she would have, and so would Danny and Cassie and, hell, even Charlie.” Y/n climbed out the van and walked over to Hank, sticking out her hand.

“Y/n L/n,” she grins, “that’s Danny Rodriguez and Cassie Mann, behind them is Charlie S’venstob.” Hank hesitates before shaking her hand, glancing over at the van full of young adults. Danny winks at him.

“I’m not gonna kill Silver, or you, or anyone else, I can assure you that. He was telling us about a school, a place where mutants are welcome and accepted and embraced. We want in.” Hank turns to Peter, who is once again gazing at Y/n with a love struck film over his eyes.

“Well, uh, we were only looking for one mutant, but I’m sure Charles can accommodate three more.” Hank says, his voice unsure.

“Two more,” Charlie says. “I’m not a mutant, and even if I was, I got a wife and a kid.”

“Well, then, two more. We should go now, we’re already incredibly off schedule.” Hank says, flustered and confused and tired. The group returns to Charlie, wishing them a teary goodbye. Hank walks over to Peter as they all say farewell.

“Peter, you just met her, you can’t go too deep too fast.” Hank warns. Peter just smiles a far away smile, his eyes trained on the mutant as she hugs Charlie.

“Too late.”

#peter maximoff #xmen fanfiction #xmen #quicksilver #evan peters #days of future past #xavier's school for gifted youngsters #fanfic #peter maximoff x reader

69 notes · View notes

bonesthebeloved · 4 years

Text

I'll write you bloody murder- intrulogical

Trigger/squick warning: mention of murder, blood, bullet wounds, surgeries (sort of).

Pairing: Romantic Intrulogical (they're married Y'all. Hell yeah)

Based on one of this prompt @chronophobica: 'Logan and Remus doing the serial killer and writer married couple trope.'

Hope you like it bud.

The little black bar on his screen flickered in and out of existence as Remus stared at the half-done page typed out on his laptop.

He was about halfway through the rough draft of his most recent horror novel and was just starting on the description of a rather graphic scene when he suddenly got stuck mid-sentence describing where the poor victim got slashed with a hunters knife.

He shuffled around in his chair, the thing a dark green colour clashing dramatically with the neon pink sleeping shirt he was currently wearing.

The apartment they lived in was small but cosy. Plants and soft chairs filled the livingroom. The large, jet-black couch and oak slab they used as a coffee table the centrepieces of the comfortable living space. The oak currently holding various notebooks, pens and cans of red bull on it, his coffee mug balancing dangerously on one of the armrests.

"Logibear?" he shouted into the quiet space, taking his eyes off his laptop too instead focus on the black ring around his finger. Twisting it around and feeling the words edged into the metal under his fingertips.

A few moments of silence and Logan's cool voice came floating back towards him.

"Yes, my love?"

Remus grinned at the pet name. He'd never get used to that. Logan, who as always so cool and collected and would be described as cold by an outsider having a pet name for him made him all mushy inside as if it was the first time he'd heard it.

He shook himself. Focusing on why he'd called out for his husband.

"What's the most painful place to get stabbed that wouldn't leave any lasting damage?"

"The lateral lower quadrants of the abdomen I believe. Both left and right upper quadrants have vital organs or veins that could be harmed if the victim got stabbed in that general area," Logan answered quickly. Casually. As if they were talking about the weather instead of where to best stab a person.

But then again. Remus didn't mind. Even more so he was happy that his husband knew all of these strange facts because it made it a lot easier to write out gory scenes.

He'd never wondered why his husband knew so much about murdering and torturing people. Or why he knew exactly how many organs a human could lose before their body gave up completely.

He was a medical professional after all. He was supposed to know these things.

Even if his loves fascination with killing rather than saving lives was a bit worrying at times, Remus didn't blame him. Would be hypocritical to do so even.

He was a writer after all.

Logan working in the medic field also explained why he sometimes came home late smelling like fresh blood while his eyes twinkled with something close to insanity.

It explained why the car was always spotless when he'd come back from long days or weeks even where he had to be present at the hospital.

What it didn't explain, was why Remus had found blood splatters on his regular clothing when he'd put them in the washer.

But he hadn't cared as much back then. Simply shrugged and thrown them in the washer. Having convinced himself that he must've imagined it by the time he'd gotten into bed and wrapped his arms around his love, nuzzling his face into the back of Logan's neck and breathing in the scent of home. Of wood and chlorine and the newly added blood smell. Of safe and slightly worried.

And when months flew by and Remus published his new book, itching all over when he had to put on a suit and tie and sign books and be nice to people, Logan had sat beside him, button-up as pristine as ever and his hand with the pure black band around his ring finger laced loosely with Remus his own.

And when a man who had been standing in line to get an autograph had cussed him out when he saw him next to his husband, Logan had excused himself. Saying he needed to go to the bathroom and walking away. Making Remus watch as he walked right past the bathrooms and followed the man further into the bookstore.

And when Remus heard about another murder on the news and saw the man's face pop up he'd ignored it. Shrugging off that particular feeling he couldn't quite place that had been growing ever since he'd noticed the first bloodstains on his husband's shoe and going about his day.

Shrugging off the cold shiver that ran down his spine when he found a little sticky note with the dead man's name and address on it under the couch. The thing probably having fallen out of Logan's calendar the day before when he'd come back late from work with that strange look in his eyes and a red smear across his cheek that he swore was jam before he'd gone to the bathroom to wash it off.

They laid in bed that night like always:

Remus in his briefs plastered against his husbands sleep-shirt covered back and face nuzzled into the back of his neck. Logan was completely lax with his hand covering Remus' own that were resting on his abdomen. Their rings clicking together when one of them shifted.

And deep in the night, when Remus wasn't even quite sure if he was awake anymore or simply dreaming, he looked at the back of his husband's neck and dared to ask.

"Did you kill him, Lo?"

And Remus would convince himself that he had been dreaming it. Starting on a new book and buying him and Logan a puppy for their anniversary. The setting of the fire alarm with his attempts at cooking and throwing clothes with the tiniest of blood splatters in the washing machine while acting like he hadn't seen the red splash.

Like his husband coming back from work a bit too late and a bit too happy while smelling of fresh blood as he kissed him hello was something normal. Like knowing exactly which veins to hit and how long it would take for the victim to bleed out was part of the job.

"I killed all of them." Logan had whispered back. And Remus had only hummed in response and wrapped his arms around his partner a little tighter. Intertwining their hands as their wedding bands clicked together and deciding right then and there that this had not actually happened.

And when the police were called on him because his novels were a bit too graphic and descriptive to be totally innocent he had sighed and let them look around his apartment. Dutifully telling them that his roommate had moved out a few months ago and giving Logan a strained smile and a kiss when he came back a few weeks later, blood on his shoes and a few scratches from where one of his victims had struggled on his left arm.

And he hadn't said anything when the new announced that bits of skin and tissue had been found under a victims nails and that they were scanning for DNA results.

And he'd stood in the middle of their apartment as they barged through the door. Logan whispering an I love you before three shots rang out and Remus realised that two of them had hit his love, one nestling itself right between his eyes.

The third had hurried through Remus his own body and shot out on the other side. Getting stuck in the plaster wall dividing their living room and bedroom.

He was vaguely aware of crawling towards his love lying still on the floor. The look of shock from when the first bullet had pierced his leg clear on his face. The bullet hole between his eyes seeming laughably small compared to the exit wound.

Remus was vaguely aware of making a joke he'd had one of his characters make when they had been shot as the special unit surrounded the two men on the floor and pointed their guns at them.

He was vaguely aware of the hilarity of it all. Laughing to show his amusement and getting another bullet through the leg as a reaction. But he laughed. The shock already having dulled the pain as he sat next to his husband. Hands intertwined and their rings clicking together as Remus thoughts about how they ought to have missed the lateral lower quadrants of the abdomen and hit something else that could be fatal right before he lost his balance and his body came falling down onto the floor.

An inch before his head hit the floor he was gone.

And the news report that morning went as followed: serial killer Logan Sanders and novelist Remus Sanders shot and killed when the authorities had come to collect them. The later was believed to have helped with the brutal murder of the 37 victims his partner had tortured and killed.

Though this claim would never be proven, the people had accepted it as a fact and millions of the author's books were thrown away or burned that day. Some people keeping theirs, looking at them with new eyes and telling a guest that came over about how 'these are the books of a murderer.'

Remus Sanders his last published book wasn't written by him but rather by a woman who had done excessive research on his case. Documenting his life and the way he'd fallen in love with a serial killer. How they came to be partners in the most horrid of crimes and the bitter end of this tragic love story. The victims of his husband and how the two behaved so elegantly at family dinners.

The book starts with the following sentence:

'The little black bar on his screen flickered in and out of existence as Remus stared at the half-done page typed out on his laptop'.

Taglist: @purp-man @crazycookie13o @deceitifullies101 @sapphire-knight @ragingdumpsterfiremess @chronophobica @lance-alt @mylifeisadeceit

19 notes · View notes

ckret2 · 5 years

Note

Prompt, eh? Hmm, perhaps try a monologue from a character's perspective as they come to the horrible realization that are falling deeper and deeper in love. Bonus points if it starts over something as simple as thinking the individual has a cute sneeze.

So my first thought was “oh Ghidorah” but then I was like “but I’ve basically already done that with Ghidorah in the form of arguing with themselves about Rodan, what other character that we both know could I do that with” and then I was like “oh Gigan?”

And then I was like “well obviously he’s gotta have somebody to be monologuing to” and then it uh turned into a whole fic with a plot arc and a cliffhanger instead of a simple monologue, and also took me like seven hours to write instead of thirty minutes.

I haven’t proofed it because it’s 5 a.m.! Enjoy!!!

###

The Fissures Between Flesh and Metal

###

“The first time I saw them,” Gigan said, turned to take in both the bartender and the robot on the stool next to him, “they’d just stolen a million credit job out from under me.”

The bartender rapped the sharp tip of one tentacle against the bar disapprovingly, and the robot let out a low whistle.

“Yeah,” Gigan said. “I was ready to kill them on the spot. The apocalyptic mercenary market’s already crowded enough—there’s practically more people running around who can destroy planets than there are people who actually want a planet destroyed, you know? I’ll put up with professional rivalry, fine, but I’m not gonna take this from some edgy new guys in town who don’t have enough respect for their fellow professionals not to horn in on someone else’s job. Gimme another hit?”

The robot obligingly picked up the battery that it and Gigan had been sharing and quickly pressed the terminals to the side of Gigan’s metal beak. Electricity jolted straight into his brain. He tipped his head back, letting the rush wash through his circuits, his thoughts popping and static flashing in his optical band.

As the power boost sizzled out and he came back down, for a moment he saw a blurry golden shape with three heads and enormous wings. Then his vision cleared and it was gone.

Gigan shook his head. “But as I’m standing in a freshly-leveled village on this planet that shoulda been my job, watching these jerks who undercut me walk strut around and trying to decide the best angle to attack them from, one of them bends over and licks up this smear made out of one of the locals. The other two screw up their faces in disgust, the one that licked it is scraping his tongue off on a rock, the middle one’s biting his horn in revenge—and then the head on the other side takes a taste too, and they do it all over again.” He threw back his head, squawking in laughter. The bartender rattled a couple of tentacles in amusement. The robot just shook its head.

“Anyway,” Gigan went on, “I figured then either they were too damn stupid to realize they’d stolen someone’s job—heck, maybe they were just wild animals that had been dropped off to make a mess—or, they were the most fun guys I’d ever seen. So I let ‘em live.”

“Did you talk to them?” the robot asked. It wasn’t looking at Gigan anymore; its optic was off. A dozen different open tabs in glowing squares and rectangles floated in front of the bot, projected from the computer plugged into its wrist. The robot groped around blindly for the battery and took another hit; the floating screens sizzled and wavered.

Gigan waited for the static to die down before he replied. “Nah, not then. Had no idea what language to start with. I figured if they really were mercs and not someone’s pet planet squashers, I’d eventually run into them again somewhere like this.”

“This” being the bar around them: an illicit pop-up stop clinging precariously to the surface of an asteroid under a makeshift canopy tent, with a smattering of round tables and stools screwed directly into the asteroid’s surface and a bar made out of a row of coolers. Places like this were a dime a dozen in this arm of the galaxy, appearing in a matter of hours and disappearing just as fast, lasting anywhere from a week to five years. All you needed to make one was a force field to keep out nearby asteroids and to keep in enough air to prevent customers’ heads from popping—but providing gravity and breathable air was the customers’ responsibility. The bartender wore goggles and an air filter that snaked around her head to an air tank strapped between three larger tentacles; Gigan had enough internal air storage and a good enough filter in his throat that he’d be fine for hours as long as he didn’t get in a fight. He kept his tail and one leg curled beneath his seat to keep himself from floating off it.

Bars like this were the best place to find odd jobs and the odd guys to do them: hired killers, hackers, thugs, dealers in contraband of all kind. Gigan couldn’t count how many bars like this he and the triple threat had hung out in—either because they’d run into each other there between jobs, or because they’d come together.

“We crossed paths a lotta times over the next, uh…” he waved a scythe vaguely, “dunno. Few centuries, I guess? It’s hard to keep track of standard galactic time when you spend all your time bouncing between different planets with different year lengths. Sometimes we got hired by two different employers to hit the same world—I usually, y'know, got hired as muscle to extort a ransom, but the only jobs they ever did were full mass extinctions. I got to see them in action—wow. They’re a moving force of nature. On the right planets—wet ones, mainly—they create storms hundreds of miles across just by flying.” To the bartender, he said, “You’re from an aquatic world, right? You look like it.”

Rapping on the makeshift bar top with the tips of half a dozen tentacles, the bartender said, “My ancestral world? Mostly aquatic. About four fifths of the planet, I’m told.”

“Yeah, they’d tear your planet to shreds.“ He didn’t have enough appendages to speak the bartender’s percussive language properly—like the robot, he was speaking it by synthesizing the right raps and taps through his speaker—but he added a scrape with one scythe on the bar top to underscore the sentiment.

She shrugged.

"Fought them a few times, too,” Gigan said. “They’re vicious in close combat. It's kill or be killed, no in between. I’d usually have to cut and run, heh, just take the financial hit, cuz there’s no beating them without getting damaged so bad the victory isn’t worth it. They’re probably the best warriors I’ve ever met, but the worst mercenaries to share a market with.”

He thought his tone was admiring, but the robot said, “I thought you got along with each other?”

“We did,” Gigan insisted, and immediately corrected himself, “We do. It just took a while to get properly introduced to each other, you know? Every time I met them, they were in the middle of a job—and they had that whole... intense, mysterious, aloof loner schtick going on. For the longest time, I didn’t even know whether they could talk.” He hooked one of his wrist spurs through the handle of his drink, took a sip through the straw—hated straws, but a lid with a straw was the cheapest way to keep a drink from floating out of a mug and bars like this were nothing if not cheap—and grimaced. Either his drink had gone off in the past five minutes or that battery was messing with his taste buds. Probably the latter. "When we finally met each other properly, it was in—you know that cruddy little strip of solar systems that ended up under no one’s jurisdiction after the 'Rog turf war? Buncha little lawless hellholes?“

The bartender said, "My ancestral home world was in that strip.”

“Sucks,” Gigan said. “Hope it wasn’t one of the ones the 'Rogs asked me to clear out. Anyway, I crossed paths with them in one of the space port cities near the edge of the contested territory. They’d gotten in a bar fight. And lost.”

They’d been thrown across the bar onto their back, legs kicking uselessly in the air, hissing and spitting in the worst Suneri that Gigan had ever heard. Someone had been mad at them because they’d finished the job they’d been hired for even after they'd been told the world had paid the ransom their employer had demanded; they were mad that they’d been ordered to stop when they’d said from the start that wasn’t how they worked. They were twice the height of anyone else in the bar besides Gigan; but they were fighting completely naked—weaponless and defenseless—and consequently got their tails handed to them.

He’d learned a little bit more about them by then. Over past few centuries, he’d asked around about a three-headed, golden, scaled, winged warrior that spat lightning. He'd eventually stumbled on some sparse info about the prize weapons of a conquering empire in some far-flung corner of the galaxy, a race rather like the local Garogas. Their three-headed warriors were some sort of genetically engineered killing machines.

So was Gigan.

The warriors he’d seen were very, very far from their home.

So was Gigan.

Over time, he'd found enough info on the empire to download its dominant species’ language, so when he’d crossed paths with the warriors again and confirmed that they could, in fact, speak—

“I offered to buy them drinks.” In their home world’s language. “And they kicked me in the chest.” He laughed.

It was his fault. He should’ve known that anyone who’d flown that far to get away from their masters wouldn’t wanna hear a stranger speaking their masters’ language. Would Gigan have?

“And this is when you started making friends?” the bartender asked dubiously.

“Sure! It was the first time they didn’t try to kill me,” Gigan said. “And they did let me buy them that drink. They were flat broke. Get this—this is why I kept running into them everywhere—they were snapping up half the jobs on the market because they were doing them for free.”

The robot made a painful-sounding buzz low in its abdomen that Gigan took for a laugh.

“Yeah! Yeah. Remember what I said about that edgy loner schtick of theirs?” He drummed emphatically on the bar top. “They just wanted to watch worlds burn. No money. No rewards. They didn’t turn down anyone stupid enough to hire them, but they don’t take any orders, either. Get what you pay for, huh?”

“What is their name?” the robot asked.

Gigan’s good cheer immediately disappeared. “They don’t have one,” he said sharply.

“Of course they do.”

“No, they said they don’t. They weren’t given one. They wanna be nameless, I’ll respect that.”

“I am in the Xiliens’ military personnel database.”

Gigan leaned over, trying to see the screens from the robot’s angle. “Yeah? You’ve got a connection to their empire from here?”

“A really slow one,” the robot shot back, “patched into the network via a Xilien spy two star systems away who is connected to the home world with the worst ansible I have ever had the displeasure of interfacing with, so I would like to spend as little time doing unnecessary searches as possible. It looks like they have got hundreds of files on three-headed monsters like your buddies. Once I have cracked the security encryption on them, I do not want to open them one by one.”

For a moment, Gigan was silent. Then he said, “They said their home world didn’t name them—it numbered them.”

“Sympathies,” the robot said. “I have still got a bar code on my ass with my factory serial number. Do you know theirs?”

“He said they’re Zero.” He felt like a traitor. They'd only trusted him with that information because they'd believed him when he swore that he'd never call them by their homeworld's label—and certainly that he'd never tell anyone else.

The robot froze momentarily, processing that. “Easy to remember.” One of the screens changed as the robot started searching.

“Just one 'he’ now?” the bartender asked. “You were talking about all three together earlier.”

“Yeah, uh, he as in—as in the one on the left,” Gigan said. He didn't think of the information as coming from them, but from him—the one who'd persuaded the other two to share it, the one who'd leaned in to whisper it to him in the dark while the other two watched for eavesdroppers. “You’ve got lefty, righty, and front-and-center. Totally different people. Lefty’s… probably my favorite. I like them all about the same, but he—makes himself easiest to like, you know? Great sense of humor—the murderous kind—the kind of guy that can find anything entertaining. From explosions to head wounds. That’s rare.”

Although sometimes Gigan had gotten the impression that, on some level, lefty was forcing himself to feel entertained. The more Gigan got to know him, to see under the aloof façade they all put on, the more he got the sense that lefty had this... desperate fragility about him, like he was crumbling apart and looking for something to latch onto—a weird taste or a unique view or a good fight—something to hold him together.

All three of them gave off that impression, truth be told, just in different ways. Righty looked for stability in his other two heads, ever turned inward, to the point he was all but oblivious to life outside of them. Front-and-center held himself together through sheer force of will, and held back anything from getting close enough to touch him and break him apart.

They were all three so very brittle. They had fissures deep in their body and minds, fissures traced along the paths of the invisible scars where they’d been stitched together into a three-headed monster. And whenever Gigan glimpsed that brittleness—whenever they withdrew into themselves at a question about their past, whenever they tried to pretend they weren’t nervous around employers who paraded about mind-controlled thralls, whenever they hesitated in front of a door that said “No Pets” like they didn’t think they qualified as people instead of animals—he felt the fissures between his flesh and his metal, too.

He didn’t like to talk about his fissures. But they liked to talk about theirs even less, so it all worked out neatly—except that, sometimes, he wished he could talk to them about how he kept his from cracking open, in hopes that it could help them too. He hated their brittleness. He hated how it hurt them.

“But they’re all fun,” he said. “Fighting them especially, once you get them to a place where they’re trying to beat you instead of kill you. They don’t mind losing a few body parts, even—they just regrow them. I even saw them regrow front-and-center’s whole head, once. I didn’t take him off, just saw it happen. Fighting alongside them, though—sometimes we'd get hired for jobs together—watching the way they can work a hurricane, wow…” To think that they didn’t think they were people. Had they never heard themselves sing before? Had they never seen the way they danced through clouds and lightning? Had they never noticed how they effortlessly conducted both rain and minds alike like they were symphonies? Didn’t they know that they were maestros in the sky? Their sheer visionary genius, their unsurpassed grace, the beauty of golden scales gyrating through the cloudless eye of a storm…

“Hit me again,” he asked the robot, and he wasn’t sure whether it was in hopes of pushing the images out of his RAM or in hopes of summoning up another hallucinatory vision of them. The robot flicked on its optic long enough to pick up the battery and lean over.

When Gigan came back down, the robot said, “I am not finding any monsters named Zero. Have you got another name?”

“No—what do you mean 'named’? They don’t have names besides numbers, do they?”

“They do. The Xiliens gave them all code names. They are things like 'Death’ and 'Hyper’ and 'Kaiser.’”

Gigan shouldn’t have been surprised that they’d lied about their name, after everything else. But he was. And it hurt. “Well—keep looking. You’ve got the picture I sent you, right?”

“I will have to look through every file individually to find a visual match.”

“I’m paying you for your time, aren’t I? Come on.”

The robot made an irritated buzzing noise, but snapped, “Fine.”

“Why do you have to track them down anyway?” the bartender asked. “If you’re so close.”

Gigan shrugged. “They went and disappeared on me ages ago. I’m just trying to figure out where they went. I figured their home world might be looking for their lost planet-flatteners, so…” Although they’d never said so, he’d always got the sense that they were terrified of their home world—and terrified that they were being followed. Not the vague paranoia that any escaped weapon felt, but like they knew.

“So why’d they take off? You have a fight?”

“No. We didn’t. In fact, the last time we spoke was—was the opposite of a fight.”

The last time they spoke, Gigan had asked them to come with him. For good. He thought they should market themselves as a package apocalyptic deal, let Gigan handle finessing the employers and victims while the triple threat handled the razing. Give the three of them the opportunity to experience the cushy things you can only get when you’re getting paid for your jobs—fine dining, luxury hotels, resort planets—because they deserved those things all the time, not just when they happened to cross paths with Gigan between jobs. Take them to symphonies and operas—he heard them singing, constantly, any time things were still and they thought no one was listening, in languages he’d never learned. Travel the galaxy together. Get as far away from their pasts as they could.

They said they’d think about it.

He’d never seen them again.

He snatched up his drink and irritably stirred the straw, trying to suck up the last drops floating around inside. He slammed the mug back down. "Just trying to see if they tripped and fell in a black hole or something,“ he muttered. "Get me another. Less blood this time, it tastes funky.” The bartender took back the empty mug and opened one of the coolers.

The robot turned on its optic. “I think we have a match,” it said. Gigan immediately leaned over, squinting at the screens. Something in him sparked and simmered when he saw the photo. That was them—far younger, with a near-feral bloodthirst in their eyes that he’d only ever seen when they were fighting for their lives.

“The Xiliens have a database of AWOL monsters where they document their efforts to track them down. It was a lot faster to go through than all the files,” the robot said. “You were right—they are numbered, and they were assigned zero. I believe your friends were the prototype for the others.” It pointed at small text at the top of their file, Monster #0, and then dragged its finger down to the far larger text underneath: KING. “That is their name.”

Gigan wondered why they would rather claim they’d been named “Zero” than “King.” They deserved to be called King. “Well? What’s it say? Do they know where they are?”

The robot pulled up a map of the galaxy. It showed a cone stretching away from their general neighborhood—like the maps that came from trying to predict the path of a hurricane crossing an ocean. It curved counterclockwise in an arc, a little more than half the galaxy’s radius out from the supermassive black hole. The path was thousands of lightyears long and, at its widest point, hundreds across.

“They found faint psychic traces of King’s interstellar path almost a hundred thousand years ago heading roughly along that arc, assuming they continued on the same trajectory,” the robot said. “But that is the most recent data the Xiliens have.”

“It’ll do,” Gigan said. At least it was a starting point. Even if they’d long moved on, Gigan might be able to pick up the trail again if he knew where they’d been. “What are these 'psychic traces’ the Xiliens are tracking? Any way I can track that too?”

“I can look it up, but it will cost you more.”

“Yeah yeah yeah. That’s fine.”

“Hold on,” the bartender said, setting down Gigan’s new drink. “A hundred thousand years ago? You’re looking for someone who disappeared a hundred thousand years ago?”

Gigan winced. “Technically, no. It was—longer than that, actually.”

“How long ago?”

Gigan opened his mouth. And stuck the straw in it so he wouldn’t have to answer.

The bartender tapped out disapproval on the bar top. “They could be anywhere in the galaxy by now.”

“Yeah, if they had any idea how to hitch rides,” Gigan said. “They fly everywhere. With their own wings. They spend long flights inside these things.” He stamped a hooked foot on the asteroid. “And I don’t mean a ship disguised to look like an asteroid, they travel in rocks!”

“This is gross,” the robot said. “Organic brains are gross. But here. I got the unique psychic frequency that the Xiliens are using to track King and blueprints to a machine to do it with. I do not know if they are good blueprints. I refuse to think about brains any more than that.”

“It’ll do. Beam it over.”

The robot mentally transferred over its exorbitant invoice. The instant Gigan transferred payment, it followed up with the files. “Pleasure,” it said, unplugging from its computer and beginning to pack up. It pointed at the battery. “Do you want more?”

“Keep the rest. Consider it a tip.”

“Nice.” It carefully wrapped the battery in a napkin and stowed it with the computer.

Gigan sucked down the rest of his drink, pulled some physical cash out of a compartment in his calf, and slapped it down on the bar.

The bartender put a tentacle over the money and carefully slid it to the edge of the bar so it wouldn't float away. Several taps dragging out into wry scrapes, she said, "Must be a more impressive lay than they look like.“

If Gigan hadn’t already finished his drink, he would have choked. "We never—! I mean—we're—colleagues. Colleague-friend-…mercenaries.” He shifted the leg he had anchored around the bar stool uncomfortably. “Does it... seem like something else?”

Several tentacles rippled in a shrug. “I don’t know anything about your species,” she said. “But in most, no one spends that kind of money, obsesses that amount of time, and crosses that amount of space unless it's for an offspring, a hive mind hub, a nearly-extinct food source, or a mate of some kind.”

Gigan turned that over. In his head, he called up the photo in the file that the robot had sent him. They were so young, so furious, so bestial—so much more broken than they had been even when Gigan knew them. It was a damn pity that the Xiliens kept visual instead of audial files. He wondered if they had sang back then, too.

“Honestly?” he said. “I don’t know much about my species, either.”

His flesh felt icy and his metal felt numb during the few seconds after exiting the bar’s force field as he crossed the asteroid to where he’d parked his junk heap of a ship. He was warm again by the time he’d powered it up and gotten off the rock. He turned toward the nearest proper spaceport that accommodated people of his size and profession. He had a very long search ahead of him, and he had no idea when he was next going to cross paths with a proper spacefaring planet. He had to stock up on supplies.

He needed to buy a ship that wasn’t falling apart, too. Something built for deep space exploration.

Careful not to cut it, he peeled the one picture he had of the triple threat off of his windshield and stowed it in his calf compartment, to transfer to his new ship later.

###

If you wanna read my other KOTM fics, link’s in the source below. It’s mostly Rodorah, but this fic is canon to that verse.

#gigan #king ghidorah #ghidorah #godzilla #kotm #my writing #fanfic #('hey puff what do you like about kotm?' 'worldbuilding alien societies')#('but there's no alien societies in kotm—' 'WORLDBUILDING ALIEN SOCIETIES')#(gig and ghid need a ship name)#perishablehomosexual #ask

71 notes · View notes

pomegranateanarchist · 5 years

Text

things about the lightning thief musical

#the lightning thief #the lightning thief musical #percy jackson #annabeth chase #grover underwood #luke castellan #clarisse la rue #chris mccarrell #kristin stokes #james hayden rodriguez #jorrel javier #ryan knowles #sarah beth pfeifer #jalynn steele #original

136 notes · View notes

how-to-survive-a-factory-tour · 5 years

Text

How To Survive A Factory Tour - Chapter 11

A Sanders Sides / Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Fanfiction

----------

I wipe as much ice cream and icing from my hoodie as I can as we head to the beach. By the time we arrive, I haven’t made much difference. Hopefully Mom’ll have some free time to clean it when I get home…

Wonka’s voice pulls me from my thoughts. He’s stood just down the beach, gesturing and calling for us to all come closer. We all head down to meet him, Patton practically running thanks to his sugar high. Where Wonka’s stood is raised up, and when we arrive, we find ourselves overlooking the ocean on the edge of a cliff. “You all came just in time! They should be coming around here any moment…”

“Who?” Roman asks.

“You’ll see.”

We all watch the lemonade, waiting for whatever he’s talking about. While we wait, I can’t help but notice, out of the corner of my eye, Logan slip his hand into Patton’s. The other turns to Logan, smiling at the gesture. I nudge Roman’s side, drawing his attention to the two of them. He smirks, before whispering to me.

“Took their time.”

“Took their time? They met yesterday, Roman. If anything, they’re rushing into it. I’d at least want to know the guy for a bit longer.”

“I guess I understand… I mean, as they say in Frozen, ‘You can’t marry a man you just met’. I guess the same could apply to dating… But still. They’re just holding hands, Virge. Wouldn’t exactly say that’s a high level relationship. Heck, it’s not even a relationship! I’d be willing to bet all my theatre awards that is just Logan’s confession, and they aren’t even a proper thing yet.”

“What? Who would ever confess by simply holding the other person’s hand? Isn’t that kinda weird?”

“Apparently Logan, and it’s worked for him.”

Which I can’t deny. Patton’s looking at Logan with hearts in his eyes, and Logan has obviously noticed, blushing harshly as he awkwardly avoids eye contact. They’re so gay, they’re practically oozing rainbows. It’s sickening how cute they are. The pastel colours of the desserts in the room are not helping the atmosphere. I feel like I need to just curl up in a dark corner, scroll through Tumblr and listen to MCR for an hour just to recover to my dark and edgy self.

SPLASH!

My head snaps back to look at the ocean. There are two dark shadows darting around in the lemonade. I’m about to ask Wonka what they are, when one jumps out of the water.

“Is that an orca?!” Roman gasps.

“Yup!” Wonka smiles. “Two of our resident killer whales. They’re free to swim between here and their enclosures. We pride ourselves on taking good care of them.”

“Why on earth do you have orcas in the factory?” Logan inquires, a confused eyebrow raised.

“Well, you see, these are no ordinary whales. They are in fact made of marshmallow and liquorice. Well, except their teeth, those are made from very strong rock candy. If their teeth had been made out of marshmallow, they wouldn’t be able to properly chew their food after all.”

“That’s so cool!” Patton steps forward, a little closer to the edge, his hand slipping from Logan’s as he goes to get a closer look.

Logan doesn’t even notice Patton’s hand leaving his, looking too shocked. “Hold on… you created sentient life… out of sweets… and you haven’t told anyone?! This… This is revolutionary! Creating life… You’ve done something man has only ever dreamed of doing. Something the whole world has wondered about since Mary Shelley first published the first editions of Frankenstein! I… How? How did you do it?”

“Well, it was quite simply actually, all I had to do was-”

CRACK!

He’s interrupted by a loud noise. There’s a moment of confusion, all of us trying to figure out where it came from. But then there’s two more sounds: another crack, and a scream. The edge of the cliff where Patton had been stood has disappeared, and he goes soon after, plummeting down and falling from our view.

“PATTON!” Logan runs up to the edge, looking over, terror plastered on his face. The rest of us quickly join him, just in time to see Patton hit the lemonade with a loud splash.

“And here I was thinking there weren’t going to be any incidents…” I hear Wonka mutter, voice a mix worry and disappointment.

Patton’s head breaks back to the surface, and he takes a deep breath as he treads water. He giggles a little. "Whoopsie..."

“Patton, are you okay?!” Logan calls down.

“Yeah, I’m good! I landed feet first and kept my legs straight, so I didn’t belly flop and get hurt or anything. I’ll just swim over to the sandy part of the beach and get out there. Not sure I’ll be able to climb up the cliff.”

Logan lets out a sigh of relief, and we walk along, following Patton as he swims around the island. However, my eye catches a dark shadow in the lemonade. I pause for a moment, watching it swim around playfully. But then it slows down, near stopping. It pauses, before speeding up again, turning around.

It’s darting right towards Patton.

“PAT, LOOK OUT!”

Patton pauses, looking up at me. I don’t even have time to yell at him to run - or I guess swim - away, before the shadow reaches him, and he suddenly disappears under the surface.

“PATTON!” Logan cries again.

“One of the whales got him!” Roman realises. It’s confirmed when Patton’s pulled back up to the surface, his ankle in the teeth of one of the orcas. It keeps dragging him up and down in the lemonade, almost like it’s playing with him. Patton’s its toy. The constant dragging only gives Patton small windows of time to breathe, and he gasps whenever he gets the chance.

Every time he’s brought up, he starts to call out to us for help. When we catch sight of his ankle, I notice it’s bloody from the whale’s rock candy teeth being dug into it, and as he struggles to escape, the wounds get bigger and deeper, more blood seeping out and dyeing the lemonade around him orange as the yellow and red mix.

The longer it goes on, the more Patton’s voice wavers as he yells, sobs breaking through. If I wasn’t so much of an anxious mess, I’d want to dive in and help him. Thank god I am, though, because I’d undoubtedly be ripped into shreds.

Too bad Roman isn’t, and I quickly catch his arm the second I see him inch forward. “Don’t you fucking dare, you’re not dying on me.”

My voice seems to snap Logan back to the present, and turns to Wonka. “Do something! You have to help him!”

“Give me a moment, I need to think…”

“I don’t think Patton has a moment,” I hiss, getting frustrated at his lack of action. Like, seriously?! Is he seeing what we are seeing?! Patton is screeching, desperate for help, Wonka can’t just stand around!

“Yeah, I’ve seen the documentary Blackfish, and this is a lot like the incidents that have happened at SeaWorld,” Roman adds. “Incidents that usually led to staff dying, or at least getting very seriously injured!”

Logan’s trembling at this point. “I never even got to tell him how I feel… All I did was hold his hand! That’s, like, the pussiest thing I could have done! Is pussiest a word? I don’t even usually use that kind of language! Oh god, I think I’m having a breakdown...”

I take his hand and put it on my chest, talking him through breathing exercises I use during my own panic attacks. He seems to start to calm down, as do I as I count with him. Ethan, however, just rolls his eyes. “Look, you can’t all rush Mr Wonka into doing something. If he acts without thinking, the situation could get even worse.”

“If Patton isn’t saved soon, the situation could get worse!” I growl before resuming the counting.

Before Ethan can retort, Wonka’s head snaps up. “I got it! The Oompa Loompas have a bell they ring signalling the whales’ feeding time. If I get them to ring it, the whales should let go of Patton and head back into their enclosure, believing it’s feeding time. We’ll then close the door between there and this room so Patton won’t be grabbed again as he swims back to the shore. Bingo! He’ll be safe and sound, and we can continue.”

“Do it!” Logan, Roman and myself all command in synchronisation. Wonka reaches into his pocket, pulling out a walkie-talkie, and repeats the orders into it.

A couple seconds go by after, before there’s a loud ringing. The orcas pause where they are for a moment, Patton taking the chance to finally start to get his breath back, before the whales quickly swim off through a hatch in the wall. The hatch closes behind them, cutting them off from coming back in.

The problem is, they pulled Patton with them instead of letting go,

“Oh god, he’s dead…” Logan mumbles, eyes not leaving the hatch.

“No he’s not, he’ll be okay,” I reassure, even if I’m not too sure myself.

Wonka turns back to his walkie-talkie. “The boy was pulled in with them unfortunately. You think you can save him?” There’s a pause before a high-pitched voice speaks back through.

“Can do! We’ll lure the orcas away with food, we’ll get him out the lemonade, patch up his wounds, and he’ll be A-Okay!"

“Excellent!” Wonka turns back to us. “See? He’ll be perfectly fine!”

“Told you we just needed to wait,” Ethan smiles.

“You’re sure?” Logan asks, still sounding very uncertain.

“Positive. The Oompa Loompas are very dedicated to their work, they won’t stop until he’s safe.”

“Okay…” Logan takes a deep breath. “Um, sorry for panicking so much… I, um, I usually can keep my cool during tense situations…”

“Don’t worry about it, Microsoft Nerd,” Roman replies. A small smile tugs at my lips at the nickname, even if it is pretty harsh to call him names given the situation. “People do weird things when in love. Especially when their loved one is on the brink of death… Not that Patton is!”

I roll my eyes. “Good save…”

“Oh, shut up, Brad Pitiful!”

"What's that noise?" Ethan suddenly asks. That's when I notice it: a drum beat. It starts getting louder and louder, and other instruments come in. A float appears gliding across the ocean, a band of Oompa Loompas on it, some with instruments, others without. As the instrumental builds to a crescendo, they burst into song.

"Oompa Loompa doop-a-dee-doo I've got a perfect puzzle for you Oompa Loompa doop-a-da-dee If you are wise, you'll listen to me!"

We all turn to look at Wonka, confused as to what is going on. He explains, "They're always making up songs and singing. Very creative they are, and song is their favourite means of communication."

"What do you get when emotions run high? And you trust everyone who you ever come by? Put others first, never care for yourself? Bottle up all your bad feelings? I don't like the look of it."

Whoa, they are really digging deep to insult Patton and bring up his flaws... They could not be more insensitive. I'm glad he isn't here to hear it.

"Oompa Loompa doop-a-dee-da If you aren't naïve, you will go far You will live in happiness too Like the Oompa Loompa doop-a-dee-doo!"

As the song closes and the Oompa Loompas float away, Wonka applauds. Roman does the same, and I raise an eyebrow at him.

"What? Improvising an entire song on the spot is the most difficult thing I can ever imagining have to do! They deserve to be praised for it, no matter how... mean spirited it was."

“I assume we’re going to move on with the tour?” Ethan asks Wonka. “Or are we going to wait for Patton to be rescued and then carry on with him?”

“I think it’s best we continue on,” Wonka responds. “Once he’s rescued, Patton will likely be spending the rest of the tour in the hospital wing of the factory. His leg wasn’t in the best condition, but I’m sure the Oompa Loompas will be able to fix that right up. We have trained doctors on the staff, of course. Now, come along you four! Logan, you wanted to see the Inventing Room, correct? We’ll head there next!”

He skips off, leading us all the way back to the south beach, where the row boat that we came in rests. We walk behind Wonka, Roman attempting to raise the mood, but my anxiety is playing up now, and Logan is in a sort of catatonic state, preventing us from really playing along with the happy mood he’s trying to set.

We reach the boat, and retake our seats. Wonka starts to row us back across the lemonade ocean. I can’t help but look over the edge of the boat. I keep expecting to see the red of Patton’s blood from his wound dispersing out amongst the lemonade, and blending with it.

Safe to say Wonka won’t be able to sell any of this now.

As we drift back to the door of the room, I see Logan’s eyes never waver from the empty seat beside him.

It seems Patton’s the Augustus of our tour. I pray the rest of us don’t become the Violet, Veruca and Mike.

----------

Patton is no longer available for asks

Taglist: @clone-number-1, @pumpkinminette, @i-have-n0-idea-what-im-d0ing, @jessicakennedy957, @why-should-i-tell-youu2

13 notes · View notes

besidemethewholedamntime · 5 years

Text

c’mon darlin’ (please take my hand)

Happy Most Wanted Fic Exchange Day @secret-thirteen ! Your prompt was so great and I really enjoyed writing it! I hope you like it!

Summary:

“You fancy getting married again?” It’s so unbelievable. He picks this moment, where the full enormity of their situation is just settling on their shoulders, to ask her to shackle herself to him once more? She might love the man, sometimes more than she can believe, but his sense of timing has always been impeccably awful.' On the run and out of luck, yet Lance Hunter thinks it's the best time to ask to marry her again. A 5+1 in marriage proposals.

{Read on Ao3}

or read below!

He asks her day one of being on the run.

They’re in a pretty shady motel, off some pretty shady dirt track. Lance flips through the meagre selection of TV channels and declares them ‘bloody rubbish’ before flopping backwards onto the bed in a starfish.

Bobbi sorts through all of their possessions that they’ve brought with them, which fit into two backpacks. There’s some basic survival stuff that she hopes they won’t have to use. Two weapons. Fake passports. Some money in multiple currencies. An unhealthy number of jellybeans.

“Hey, Bob?” He asks her, and she’s so absorbed in the task of wondering how they’re going to survive off this that she doesn’t hear him until he calls her name a second time.

“What?!”

“You fancy getting married again?”

It’s so unbelievable. He picks this moment, where the full enormity of their situation is just settling on their shoulders, to ask her to shackle herself to him once more? She might love the man, sometimes more than she can believe, but his sense of timing has always been impeccably awful.

“I really can’t believe you’re asking me that,” she mutters, shoving stuff back into backpacks, gathering up the cheap shower gel and shampoo they bought, along with the paper-thin towel the motel provides.

“Wait, that a no, then?”

“I’m going for a shower,” she announces. “And before you ask: no, you cannot join.”

-x-

He asks her on a riverbank in Hungary.

Talking about the past, the life they’ve left behind, the fact that they’ve become the ghosts she knows nobody will mention makes her feel more than a little lost. Set adrift. Bobbi feels like if she were to step into the river the tide would just carry her away to lands unknown, and she’d just let it.

“We’ll be alright,” Lance tells her, reaching out to hold her hand.

“Sometimes it’s just like what’s even the point, you know? SHIELD was my purpose, and I’m just floating around, trying not to get caught by people I don’t even know.”

“I know the feeling.” His eyes are dark and she holds his hand, letting him know it’s okay to say more. “After I left the SAS. It was my whole life. Band of brothers, we were. Then I left and I had nothing. No purpose.”

It reminds her of why she was drawn to Lance in the first place. They’re so similar. It’s what drove them apart, too. With this whole ‘on the run’ thing, maybe they can find the place to start again. Properly this time.

“I guess we just have to find a new purpose.”

“Guess we do, love.”

His smile wavers, but it’s so genuine that is banishes the shadows from his eyes.

“How about we get married? That would be a good purpose?”

She laughs and shoves him gently. He makes himself fall over for dramatic effect and she thinks about pushing him in the river. But his eyes still hold the question, and she knows that he’s being genuine. She pretends she can’t see it.

“I’ve never imagined getting married in Hungary,” she says. “It’s not exactly Hawaii.”

“Got to be adventurous, love,” he tells her.

Bobbi just laughs and tells him the place that they’re going to drive to next.

-x-

The next time is in a hotel room in Paris.

They’re in bed. His arms make her feel safe. These days not a lot does. But he always can. For better or worse he always can.

“I know it’s cheesy, but I love you,” he murmurs into the skin of her shoulder. She likes how his stubble tickles against her skin. It stops her from going numb.

“I love you, too,” she whispers. It’s easier to stop her voice cracking.

“I loved you even when I hated you.”

The words make her stop for a moment, though it’s not a surprise. Bobbi knows that he hated her. He hated the way she couldn’t let go of her job for him, the way she kept all those secrets when he needed honesty from her.

And she couldn’t stand him, either. To her it was just so unsupportive. Lance had married her knowing exactly where she stood, for she had never hidden it. He had vowed to love her forever because of it, in spite of it. For him to then start fighting with her had hurt her more than she could say.

But now, reflecting back, she understands. After the life he’d had, he needed some honesty with the person he was going to share his life with. Too many secrets and too many half-truths to obscure accountability had left him frustrated and betrayed. He wanted someone who could love completely him. And she just couldn’t. And she doesn’t think he could love completely her either.

It’s always been their problem. Too similar. Too stubborn.

“Yeah,” she agrees, gently. “Me too.”

They fall asleep, holding each other lightly. In the middle of the night Lance begins to toss and turn with a nightmare. Bobbi’s eyes flutter open when she first hears is irregular breathing, and she’s awake fully the instant she feels arm brush hers.

The ferocity of his nightmares from things he’s seen and done, the way they have a hold on him completely, has always frightened her a little bit. Always she has wished to take it away from him, even when he called her a demonic hell beast and even when she threw him out. No matter what, Bobbi is sure he doesn’t deserve this.

When she wakes him up, gently cajoling and flicking on the light to show their shabby Paris hotel room, he takes a deep couple of breaths and flashes her a tired smile.

“Lifesaver,” her breathes, clapping her on the arm. “Marriage material.”

It’s not technically asking her, but when he says the word her chest gets awfully tight. Though not as much as it once did.

“You’re an idiot,” she says softly, cupping her hand around his face. “And you definitely wouldn’t know marriage material if it hit you in the face.”

“I don’t know. Think I did pretty well the first time.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, snuggling back down beside him. “I think you did.”

-x-

Only Lance Hunter would ask it in the middle of a firefight.

They didn’t exactly mean to pick a fight with the drug cartel, and especially not with the boss. It was a bit of a misunderstanding. It’s not as if they truck looked like it belonged to anyone, and it definitely did not look like it was filled with rather a lot of heroin.

“We should’ve taken some!” Lance shouts over to where Bobbi’s ducked behind some crates that will splinter in a second. “Could’ve made a fortune with that stuff!”

“Yeah, ‘cause they already loved us for taking the truck in the first place, never mind if we’d actually stolen some of their stuff!”

Lance ducks as a bullet whizzes far too close to his head. He looks at her incredulously. “This is officially the worst bloody holiday I’ve ever been on.”

“Wasn’t exactly meant to be a holiday,” she grumbles, knowing he won’t listen to her. She moves position and fires off two shots, looking to maim and not kill.

“’Oh, Mexico will be great!’,” he says, in a voice that she assumes is meant to mimic hers. “Great idea, love. Turned out brilliantly!”

A man appears behind Lance, then, and before he can even realise, before Bobbi can even breathe, she’s got him down and sorted out another one.

Lance looks behind him, down at the two men who were seconds away from ending his life, then back at her. He whistles. “Damn, woman. Killer reflexes.” He grins at her. “I should marry you for that.”

“You can’t marry me every time I save your ass.” Bobbi peeks out at the remaining cartel members, who are checking their ammunition and shaking their heads. God, she loves stupid criminals sometimes.

“I really could.”

She huffs and smiles at him, getting to her feet then helping him up. “No,” she says. “You couldn’t.”

-x-

“For the love of God, Bobbi, please, just marry me!”

“Well when you say it like that… no!”

Fighting. Again. It seems there’s only so long one can be on the run with Lance Hunter before he makes you want to pull out each individual strand of hair from frustration.

“I’m a catch, you know! A real catch. If I was to put myself on the market then someone would just snap me right up.”

“Then go right ahead! I’m really not stopping you.”

It’s been like this for a week now. Arguing about them getting married again. This time it was for an undercover operation they were going to do – because being disavowed means they can dole out their own justice. But it also means it’s just the two of them, nobody to mediate their arguments and pull the higher strings.

“You’re so bloody infuriating, you know that! It would make so much sense to just pop in, sign the thing, pop out. It makes it a whole lot easier to get into that place and you know it!”

“When we get married again I’m not doing it in a registry office in London with the cleaning lady as a witness! I don’t want it to be for some dumb mission!”

He stops, then looks at her. A slow grin crosses his face. Dammit, Bobbi.

“So, we’re getting married again? For real?”

“Maybe,” she huffs, in disbelief that she gave him this. “Now come on. Let’s think of another plan.”

He’s surprisingly easy-going during the rest of their planning, and she hears him singing horribly to himself in the shower. All she can do is roll her eyes, and maybe smile a little secretly to herself. Though when he starts crooning cheesy wedding songs, she wishes they’d go back to fighting.

It goes quiet for a bit.

In order to preserve their sanity, they part ways for a couple of months, but under strict instructions to contact each other if things go wrong. They send messages in other ways, and it’s the only way they’re both able to sleep at night.

The first thing Lance does after they meet up again is pull her into a big hug. She doesn’t deny that it’s enjoyable, but the uncharacteristic tightness with which he holds her has her worried.

“Hey, you okay?” She asks softly.

“Yeah,” he says, voice deeper and accent stronger than it was. “Just was a rough thing there.”

(Later she’ll find out that he was with Fitz, and when she was what he did he’ll say, ‘We saved the world, Bob. We saved the bloody world.’)

“I’m glad you’re alright,” he says, holding her tightly before pulling back.

“Yeah. I’m glad you’re alright, too.”

He does a nervous shuffle of his feet, twists his fingers around. “Marry me, Bob?”

His voice is so quiet, so sincere, that she says, “What?” because she simply thinks she’s misunderstood.

“Please.” He takes her hand within his. His hands, rough but warm and so familiar. “Marry me.”

Her heart stutters but not from fear or apprehension. She feels the corners of her mouth move upwards, feels her cheeks grow warm. “Of course.”

He kisses her then, as passionately as the man always does everything in his life. God, she loves him so much, but she can’t resist poking fun at him just one last time.

“You only had to ask, you know.”

#aosficnet2 #most wanted fic exchange #huntingbird #aos #huntingbird fic #aos fics #fanfic by moi #this was so cool to write!#a bit challenging but so fun!#enjoy!!

27 notes · View notes

bubble-tea-bunny · 6 years

Text

heart for hire

[han solo x reader]

author’s note: i’ve been trying to write little bits of things this past month of absence (which honestly didn’t even feel like a month... real life just got in the way) but never really finished anything. until now! yay. i had fun writing this and i hope you have fun reading it(:

word count: 4,558

You’re not sure what this drink is called, but damn if it doesn’t give you the killer buzz you’d been looking for.

You’d asked the bartender for suggestions. Normally you have the drinks you like, and a way you like to have them, but spend enough time in the plethora of pubs scattered across the galaxies, and it gets old fast. You’ve started opening up to new things. That’s a good thing, or so you’ve heard. Trying new things. Admittedly it’s not something you do often. You’re a creature of habit, but routines equate to safety, and safety makes life easier.

The burn is so intense that you have to squeeze your eyes shut for a moment, waiting for the searing in your throat to pass. When it dissipates, your stomach feels warm, and sure, your head’s swimming a little too, but you can hold your own even with the harder drinks your non-human companions think might be too much for your kind. You wonder if the novelty will be lost on you one day, if nothing out there will ever be “too much.” But you figure if that time ever comes that you’ll be dead from alcohol poisoning or some such equivalent.

“Been a while since I last saw you.” Jet inserts himself into the empty spot to your left and leans forward, arms resting on the bar top. He’s smiling and it’s a little hard to tell because of his mandibles, but you’ve been friends long enough that you can pick up on it easily.

“Just hadn’t ever come across a pilot on their way to Tatooine.” You shrug and grin, then momentarily avert your gaze when the bartender comes back this way. You hold up your cup and request another, voice raised to be heard over the bustle of the cantina, and the bartender nods. Then you turn your attention back to your friend. “How have you been?”

Jet is one of your closest friends. His actual name is something complicated in his native language, which you can’t pronounce at all (don’t have the right tongue or vocal chords for it), so he goes by Jet, to make it easy. As a pilot, he’d been the first to ever accept you as a “for hire” crew member. That was your gig. If a ship found itself short on hands, particularly when it came to manning the guns, you were there to help. For the right price anyway—you do have to eat, and that’s what you tell them all, before they agree to your fee with a grumble and wave of the hand (or tentacle, or claw, or whatever).

Normally for the sums you’re asking as a mere hired hand, it’d be easy to turn you away, but you’ve made a name for yourself. No matter the type of starship, you could work the weapons. Learning on the fly was simple enough, and you never missed. This is how you’ve traversed through space and explored numerous planets. When the ship has reached its destination, you remain there until another pilot has need for the likes of you, and you go with them, and the cycle continues.

“Well, this is the fifth time the band is playing that song, at the behest of a gentleman over there”—Jet leans his head to the left and you can’t see who he’s referring to due to the crowd, but it doesn’t matter—“so… I could be better.”

You laugh and go to pat him on the shoulder, but that buzz of yours causes you to miss the mark a little and you instead pat his carapace, which, while not only solid, is also made of metal, so it stings your palms slightly when you pat him with a bit more force than intended (but Jet doesn’t mind; he hardly feels it). “But your day is brighter now that I’m here, right?” you tease.

Jet glances down at you and he can’t quite figure out if the glint in your eyes is mischief, the lights reflecting off of them, or the number of drinks you’ve had up until this point catching up to you. He smiles amicably. “Considerably.” The bartender comes back with your drink, and Jet waits momentarily as you tell him thanks, then continues. “You searching around here for a new job?”

You glance down into the cup to evaluate the liquid, since you hadn’t actually given it a good look before. It’s dark and you swear there are little shadowy tendrils floating from it like steam. But it might just be a hallucination. “Seeing if one might fall into my lap. Why? Do you have something for me?”

“Not at the moment, no.” Jet shakes his head regretfully. “My ship is grounded for maintenance, and I’m sure you’ll be hired long before it’s cleared for flight.”

Clutching the cup tightly, you bring it up to your mouth and throw your head back as you down the drink in one go, and then you slam it back down on the bar top. Fuck. This shit burns. And things are starting to look a little hazy. Maybe you should cut it off here. It seems Jet’s thinking the same thing.

“I think you’ve had enough,” he remarks gently, prying the cup from your fingers to hand it back to the bartender as he passes by. He sets a hand on your back and assesses the expression on your face to make sure you’re okay (and that you’re not about to vomit), but then his eyes slide up to the entrance when someone saunters in. “Well I’ll be damned…”

Your brows furrow when you hear Jet say this, and you follow his line of sight. Han Solo stands in the doorframe, and it looks as though he will remain there, surveying the crowd, but then his companion, a Wookiee (Chewbacca, you think his name is), comes in behind him, and they both proceed to an empty table in the corner. You’ve heard of them before, like many others. They popped up on the radar not long ago. A ship called the Millennium Falcon. It was fast, from what you hear. And given it’s done the Kessel run in twelve parsecs, you don’t doubt it one bit. There had been familiarity in Jet’s tone, and you turn back to inquire about it.

“Do you know him?”

“We’re acquaintances.” Jet nods. “We got to talking while you were away. And I wasn’t so sure they’d come back from their last job unscathed. It was high risk. Something I passed on to him, in fact. Was preoccupied with another assignment at the time. But it seems they’re perfectly fine.”

You chuckle as you find Han and Chewbacca again, at their table. They’re talking to each other in hushed voices. “Why doubt the one with the best Kessel run this side of the universe?”

Jet sighs. “You’re right. I really should have trusted Solo, given how much he reminds me of that.”

Your chuckle turns into a laugh, and then when you settle down, a small smile remains on your lips. ”What about them? Think they might have a new job I could tag along on?”

“Actually, I did get offered another job, and my ship is grounded…” There’s a knowing look in your friend’s eyes, and he nudges his head away from the bar. “Come on, let’s go speak with them.”

You trail close behind Jet, which isn’t a problem since the crowds part to allow him through as he walks. He’s tall, and his shoulders are broad, and his imposing figure demands space lest he actually knock down anyone else here. It wouldn’t be difficult to do even accidentally.

“Back in one piece, I see,” he begins, and though you can’t see his face, you know he’s smiling.

You can, however, see Han’s own grin, which finds its way onto his face when he turns to both of you. He sits back in his chair with arms outstretched. “And never feeling better.” Chewbacca speaks up too and it sounds much like an agreement.

“I’m glad to hear it went well.” Jet takes a seat across from them, and you follow suit, settling down on the chair next to him. “This is a friend of mine: [Name].”

You smile when Han and Chewbacca turn to you. “Nice to meet you.”

Han’s still wearing that same easy smile of his as he nods. “You too, [Name]. I’m Han Solo. This”—he motions to his companion—”is Chewbacca.” You’re tempted to say I know, because honestly, who doesn’t, but you hold your tongue. It’d probably be a little awkward.

“I have something you might be interested in.” Jet gets straight to business, crossing his arms. That’s what he always does when things are about to be serious. You wonder if he notices.

“Another job? Jet, you spoil us,” Han teases.

Jet chuckles. “I have a client who needs cargo transported back here.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“Well, it would be, if it weren’t stolen from right under the Empire’s nose. They’re on high alert.”

You raise a brow. Stealing from the Empire is no joke. You’re curious what the cargo should be, for the Empire to care so much. So you ask. Quantum crystal, Jet responds. A lot of it.

Han lets out a low whistle. “Yeah, I can see the Imperials being a little annoyed about that.” Quantum crystal is strong, versatile, and valuable. The Empire heavily regulates the mining and refinement of the stuff. They have their claws dug deeply into the system.

“You interested?”

Han and Chewbacca glance at each other, and they don’t say anything, but you can tell they’re deliberating. You suppose they wouldn’t be such good partners if they didn’t understand each other so well. Chewbacca makes a comment, and Han turns back to Jet to translate. “How much is this client paying?”

“30,000.”

“Holy shit,” you mutter. The job is high risk, sure, but you didn’t think it would be worth that much.

“We’ll take it,” Han resolves. “When can we start?”

“I just need to let the client know so he can secure payment for when you return. You can be off at first light tomorrow if that’s okay with you.”

“That’s perfect.”

“And as I understand it, there’s only the two of you on this mission, but it would be better to have an extra pair of hands on board for this one. To man the turrets, perhaps.”Jet glances at you, then back at Han.

It’s silent for a moment as Han considers this. Most times he and Chewy are enough. Often there’s no need for the turrets. But the payout wouldn’t be as high as it is if it didn’t have a similarly high risk. This client is expecting trouble to come with transporting the cargo, and Chewy is plenty capable of working the guns. The one thing stopping him from turning down the suggestion is that Jet wouldn’t have mentioned it if he didn’t think you were perfectly suited. He pretends to though, just to see what you’ll say. Jet can’t speak for you entirely.

“I don’t know…” he trails off. “I think it’d be fine with just the two of us.”

“Well, from where I’m sitting, I can see a pilot and a co-pilot.” You look at each of them as you mention their respective titles. “And unless you have an invisible friend hanging around somewhere, I don’t see a gunner.”

“Maybe we don’t need one. Chewy can handle it well enough.”

“‘Well enough’ doesn’t always equal good. No offense.” Chewbacca makes a little noise as if to say none taken. “Besides, he’s not me.”

Han raises a brow. It’s big talk, certainly. But you wouldn’t be saying it if you didn’t have the skills to back it up. “And what do you mean by that, sweetheart?” He can’t help grinning and it’s not to tease you. He sees the determination in your eyes, and it’s admirable, and he wants to hear what you have to say.

“I don’t miss.” There’s no need to continue past this, for the confidence in your voice is all it takes to convince them, but you continue anyway. "And we both know that we’ll be in for a hell of a time with the Empire on our tails. The faster we get rid of whatever they send after us, the faster we can jump to light speed and get back to Tatooine.” Because you’d consider it to be a better idea not to waste time with a bunch of quantum crystal on board. If the Empire isn’t a threat, it’s marauders who might hear of the cargo you hold.

It’s all well spoken. And true (well, the second part anyway; Han has yet to see you in action). His grin widens and he nods. “All right then, [Name]. Welcome to the team.”

You smile as Jet speaks up again. “Pleasure doing business with you. I’ll send you the details.” The four of you all stand, but you do so a little too quickly, which is bad considering you’d already been feeling a little woozy before. You stumble, bracing your hands on the table to steady yourself. Jet and Han both start move to support you, but Jet reaches you first since he’s next to you. “You okay?”

“Yeah… I think all those drinks are starting to catch up to me.”

“Well it’s a good thing you don’t leave until tomorrow then.” Jet chuckles.

———

The mission brings you to Batuu. It’s an old trading port, out in basically the middle of nowhere. What’s important is that it’s under the radar. The perfect place to hide quantum crystal. A connection of the client is holding on to the cargo until the three of you arrive to pick it up.

Han finds you playing dejarik with yourself, eyes downcast on the holographic creatures which wait patiently for your next move. “It won’t be long till we get there,” he tells you quietly, not wanting to startle you.

You glance up and smile. “Okay.”

He takes the seat across from you, briefly studying the board, and then his eyes slide up to you. You feel him looking, and meet his gaze. Suddenly dejarik doesn’t seem all that interesting.

“So you’ve worked for a lot of pilots, huh?” Han begins.

You nod. “A fair few.”

“Ever have any really close calls?”

“Once.” You sigh as you think back to the event. “A pilot had some stuff stolen from him by marauders, so he stole it back. But the marauders had friends, and we got chased through an asteroid field. Dogfights in tight spaces like that usually make me wary, but the pilot was confident he could maneuver through it. He did. Barely. Other than that, everyone else I’ve worked for has played it safe.”

Han grins. “I hope you know you’ve landed a gig with a pilot much like the one you just mentioned. I’m a risk taker.”

“Yes, but the difference is I know you have the skill. You did do the Kessel run in twelve parsecs, after all.”

Han’s eyes light up when you mention this. He brings it up to people so often, but now it’s being told back to him. Word is spreading, and he feels his chest swell with pride. He’s trying to squash down a toothy smile but he’s not entirely successful, and it makes you chuckle. It’s pride well-deserved, certainly.

He tries to think of another question, and finally settles upon one: “Ever had a pilot as handsome as me?” His eyes sparkle with impishness.

You roll your eyes but the smile lets him know you’re not annoyed. “I’m scared your head might explode if I say no.”

“So you haven’t?”

You sit there staring at each other for a few silent moments, seeing who might crack first, until Chewbacca calls from where he is in the cockpit, and Han proceeds to stand. “We’re here.” The two of you join Chewbacca, Han taking the seat next to him, and you taking the seat behind him. You strap yourself in as they set a trajectory for the outpost. Your (or technically the client’s) connection is already waiting for you, standing next to a stack of crates which you know contains the quantum crystal. It wouldn’t take long to get them all on the ship, and then you’d be turning around. But you know it won’t be that easy.

There are many towers here, and they look old. The concrete is worn, and plants have started to wrap around some of them. It’s not a port that rests in a portion of cleared jungle. Rather, it coexists with it, trees emerging from various points of the town, vines looping around manmade structures. The docking area is quiet, though there are a few starships parked as well. The atmosphere is vastly different from that of Mos Eisley, and you think that some other time, you would like to stay here a while. Some peace and quiet sounds nice.

One crate is left on the landing dock when Han starts loading them into the hidden cargo holds, and you go out to grab it.

“Be careful,” the connection tells you.

You smile reassuringly. “Don’t worry. It’s all stored securely. It’ll arrive in tact.”

“Not quite what I was referring to…”

Your eyes narrow in confusion, but then there’s a deep rumble, and you quickly look up at the sky for the source of the noise. They’re only specks of light at this distance, but you know what they are. “Shit.” You don’t spare a glance at the man as you take the last crate and run back on board.

“Han!” you yell. Your boots echo along the floors as you rush to him and Chewbacca. “They’re already here! That guy must’ve told them we were coming to get the quantum crystal and they waited for us. We need to leave now.”

Han’s head peeks out from the cargo hold as you approach. “You and Chewy get to the cockpit and get us out of here. I’ll store the last few crates then get to the turret.”

When the Millennium Falcon lifts off from the ground and begins its launch toward space, the crates not yet stored start to slide, and you quickly reach out to grab them before they get too far and hit something. You hear Han yelling that he needs you on the guns soon, because some of the TIE fighters have decided not to wait until you exit Batuu’s atmosphere. As soon as you slide the cover back over the hold, you stand back up and sprint to the gun bay. It’s time to see just how good you claim to be! Han shouts. He sounds excited, and you wonder if it’s from adrenaline or from the fact he’s about to see what you’re made of. Maybe it’s both. It manages to pull a small smile from you, despite the danger of what you’re going up against right now.

Han’s doing evasive maneuvers until you bring firepower into the fight, and the ship rocks you back and forth as you settle into the chair and put the headset on. You brace your hands on the yoke and your boots on each pedal, and you start to press one foot down, then switch and press down the other, changing the direction of the turret as you scope out your targets. There’s one TIE fighter directly behind you, and you take it out easily. The rest are out of the motion range of the turret, but Han angles the Falcon appropriately until they’re in it.

The bright explosions of destroyed TIE fighters are like little suns, and you see some stars in the edge of your vision. Since you’d dispatched them while still in Batuu’s atmosphere, you can hear the roar as the machines break and the debris tumbles to the ground. Everything goes silent when the Falcon reaches space, and more TIE fighters are there to meet you. There are no obstacles here to try to wind through to throw them off; at best, all that can be done is flying in a path that’s not straight.

A few blaster shots from the fighters collide with the hull and shake the ship, but as soon as it’s steady again, you’re taking aim. You can’t jump to light speed until you get rid of them all because they can follow you. They’re almost gone now, but the last one is being particularly tricky, not staying still enough for you to hit it. You can’t even lead the shot because it never moves in one direction long before switching. There’s no pattern.

You tell Han via your headset that you don’t have a clear shot, as you follow the TIE fighter’s movement with just your eyes, trying to find a pattern that’s not there. It’s quiet for a moment, and then he tells you hold on, he’ll get you that shot. Rotate back to the front, he instructs, and you do. You don’t have long to wonder what he has planned.

The Falcon’s brakes kick in almost immediately after, and it’s only the harness around your chest that keeps you from falling forward and slamming into the yoke from all the force. It caught you off guard, and apparently, it catches the TIE fighter off guard as well. It still has all its momentum from following so closely, and so it zooms past you. This time it’s not weaving around, flying straight as the pilot tries to correct it and loop back around. It’s less than a few seconds, but that’s more than enough for you. Several well placed shots straight ahead destroys it, and you watch it explode in silence. It’s almost beautiful.

Your fingers feel a little sore as you curl and uncurl them when you’re back on the deck. You had them tensed that whole time as they gripped the yoke. It happens rarely, but you do suppose gunning down Imperial starships is a rarity for you too.

“Not one misplaced shot,” Han announces as you walk into the cockpit. You’re in light speed now, well on your way back to Tatooine. He turns around in his seat to smile at you. “Wonderful job.”

Chewbacca nods in agreement and the sound that leaves him doesn’t need to be translated. You can tell he’s saying much the same thing. You grin. “Thanks.”

As you take the seat behind Chewbacca, said Wookiee speaks again, and Han laughs as he glances at you. “He says you’re right,” he explains. “He’s definitely not you. Not when you have accuracy like that.”

You laugh too and reach forward to pat Chewbacca’s shoulder. “Well you’re a better co-pilot than I could ever be. We all have our specialty, don’t we?”

———

After the three of you unload the quantum crystal from the ship, you split up. Chewbacca goes into the cantina, Han speaks with the client about what happened during the job and the connection that had outed you, and you sit on some crates nearby to watch the sunsets. You know as soon as they disappear behind the horizon, it will get very cold very quickly, and you’ll have to head inside. You wonder if Jet’s in the cantina, maybe already talking with Chewbacca about how everything went.

Han walks over, footsteps quieted due to the sand. He hands you a card and you take it gently between index and thumb. “There’s your share. 10,000 credits.”

You look at the card as you process that number. 10,000. Equal share. You glance up at him. “Not that I’m asking for it, but I was expecting you to negotiate a lower share for me, since I’m a hired hand and all…”

Han chuckles. “You know, I did think about it for a bit, but I decided to keep it equal because…” He goes quiet a moment, and you’re pretty certain you know what’s coming. You’re proven to be right when he continues. “Because I think you’d be an exceptional addition to the Millennium Falcon’s crew, if you wanted to be. We can always use someone with your skills.”

You don’t say anything right away, pondering over the offer. It’s not your style to be tied down to one crew or one ship. You’ve never known a life like that. The continual change kept the novelty fresh. Even if the jobs were boring, it was the fact it was something new that made it exciting. And more eagerness bubbled in you still, to know that you’d soon be on another planet, exploring and being with its locals until another pilot popped up looking for a gunner for hire.

“But it’s also because we consider you a friend, [Name],” Han states further. “I consider you a friend. And I’d like you to stay with us just a little longer.”

You smile fondly as you hear him say these things. Friends. You could traverse this universe with friends. And you know when it comes to those two, they will find themselves on adventures you’ll want to be a part of. You can see it in Han’s eyes, and you saw it in Chewy’s. A thirst for excitement. You don’t know the future but you’re sure the Millennium Falcon will go on missions of a higher caliber for that reason alone, will go to incredible places. And that’s a sort of change you think you’d like to experience.

“Okay.” You nod. “I’ll stay.”

Han smiles widely. “Great.” You’re left staring at each other in silence again, as you had on the ship while en route to Batuu. This time it’s a gust of wind that breaks it as he suggests that you both head inside now that it’s getting cold.

The two of you walk towards the cantina, the lights inside like a beacon. The sound of the band playing music is muffled, and a small smile sits on your lips as you take it all in. The vast amount of credits you’ve just been paid, the homey feel of coming back to the cantina, the fact you’re part of a permanent crew now…

“The answer was no, by the way.” At your seemingly random comment, Han glances down at you in confusion. You look up at him, and you’re not far from the cantina now, so the lights delicately illuminate your face. Enough to see the playfulness in your eyes. “I haven’t ever had a pilot as handsome as you.”

Han looks quite proud of himself when you state that, and you chuckle quietly. “I haven’t ever had one as sweet either.” You smile softly before resuming your walk to the cantina. Han doesn’t follow right away, staying in his spot as he watches you. You pull open the doors, and for a few seconds, the music from the band is clear as day. And when they close again, it becomes muffled.

All he’s thinking is that if you thought he was sweet, you should’ve been on the receiving end of the smile you just gave him. Despite the chill, he feels warm as he walks those last several feet to the cantina entrance. Yes, he’s very glad you decided to stay.

#han solo x reader #han solo imagine #star wars #star wars imagine #bubble-tea-bunny

652 notes · View notes

thecowardlycreative · 6 years

Link

Title: Getting Time and Regretting It

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Pairing: Klance

Summary: Stagnant in a new city, Keith’s band isn’t going anywhere. He’s given up the chance to do the normal thing; go to college, get a steady 9-5 job at a desk. Thrown it all in for his dreams of music and it’s not going anywhere. He’s pretty sure he’s going to be struggling through life with two customer service jobs and three hours sleep a night until the end of time – and then he meets Lance; bottled sunshine in human form. And suddenly the world doesn’t seem to be filtered in grey-scale anymore. (Feel free to read the series out of order. It’s not chronological anyway.)

Words: Total: 14,264 (liable to slight change) This part: 2,623

Notes: The follow up to Cocoon. Here’s the first chapter for you right here. You’ll have to follow the link for the rest. Updates are every two days.

There’s a phrase that keeps floating through Keith’s head. Just: ‘What am I doing?’ It’s on a loop, around and around and around.

WhatamIdoingwhatamIdoingwhatamIdoingwhatamIdoing?

When he’s at work, serving customers with a smile carved into his face or trying to sign them up for a membership they’ll never use and that will slowly bleed them dry, when he’s walking home, when he’s at practice, making dinner, in the shower, trying to sleep, again and again it’s ‘what am I doing?’.

There’s an anxiety to it, a feeling of missing out, like taking a sick day that happened to be someone’s birthday and they brought cupcakes. On one hand, there’s nothing inherently wrong with spending a day cocooned in bed, eating soup and laughing at Netflix so loudly your neighbours bang on the wall, especially if you are actually sick. On the other hand, cupcakes. And you missed someone’s birthday so you’re automatically a jerk. It’s that tight chested feeling of ‘Aw… Janet made cupcakes?’ only it doesn’t go away. Not after a few minutes, not after days. It’s been eight weeks since Keith dropped out of college and move to Los Angeles with his band and they’ve been eight solid weeks of no cupcakes and ‘what am I doing?’

It rolls through his head again as he strolls into band practice fifteen minutes late because he missed his bus but it’s happening with such regularity now that he ignores it.

They can’t practice in the flat they share – they’ve already had too many noise complaints – but they can’t afford a studio. So they practice in a garage. It belongs to some guy called Derek who seems to hate them but love their money and lives just outside the city.

“Sorry I’m late,” he mumbles but he knows Matt won’t be here yet anyway.

“It’s fine, actually,” says Allura so pleasantly that Keith looks up from where he’s unclipping his bass case.

He frowns. “What’s got you so chipper?”

“We’ve got a gig,” Shiro supplies, ducking under the roller door into the garage. He’s probably been talking to Derek again. No one’s ever envied him the job.

Keith’s frown deepens. “Good?” he says. The last time Shiro brought them a gig it’d been for some tween’s birthday party.

He can apparently read Keith’s mind because he points at him sternly and says, “Hey, any recognition is good recognition.”

“So where is this so-called gig?” Keith asks.

“A bar. Downtown. We’re opening for one of their more regular performers.”

Keith tries not to grimace. Chances are they’ll be playing to an empty bar again then, too early for anyone to be in.

“Well, it’s a step up from birthday parties,” says Allura, plopping onto her stool and picking up her sticks.

Any recognition is good recognition, Keith repeats to himself as his brain continues to loop ‘What am I doing?’ quietly in the background.

“How’s the youtube account coming?” he asks Allura to change the topic.

She lowers her drumsticks with a sigh. “We’re still sitting around the 600 subscribers mark, which… isn’t bad but…”

“No one’s quitting their day jobs, though,” he finishes for her.

Stagnant.

The word floats through his head with all the other mess. But it’s quickly interrupted by a cacophony of swearing and falling things, followed by a loud ‘thwunk’ as Matt finally trips into the garage, smacking his head on the door as he goes.

“Fuck. Shit. Ow. God. Hey!” he says, hoisting the strap of his guitar case back onto his shoulder. “Sorry! Yeah, I’m late again. Work and then trains and then busses and traffic!” He throws his hands in the air. “You know, the usual. Let’s just get started, yeah?”

“Shiro got us a gig,” Allura interrupts.

Matt winces. “Look, Shiro, I know at this point we gotta be grateful for anything we can get but I’d really like to not be hit on by a twelve year old again anytime soon.”

Shiro looks affronted but Keith just snorts a laugh into his fist and goes back to setting up his bass.

***

The gig goes about as well as expected. And there’s such a frustration about it because, dammit, they worked hard for this. So many afternoons leading up to it crammed into Derek’s garage talking with bright eyes (‘We should play something mainstream, like really mainstream. Something everyone knows the words to, that makes them want to sing along, get involved, have a good time.’ ‘Clever, Matt. Then we can sneakily slip in a couple of originals and they’ll be hooked!’), sure this’ll be their first decent break, and practicing and practicing and going into work the next day on three hours of sleep, Allura still beating out drumlines with her fingers as she carries customers their essential morning pastries. But there are a grand total of five people, including employees, in the bar when Shiro opens his mouth and says, ‘Good evening, we are Castle of Lions,’ and there are still only five when he says goodnight.

The band packs up with blank faces. Shiro keeps closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. Lord only knows what he’s thinking that necessitates such extreme calming measures.

“I’m gonna stay,” says Keith when they’re all packed up. “Grab a drink, listen to the main act.”

Allura just pats him on the shoulder as they all file out past him with nothing more than nods of recognition.

Keith doesn’t actually turn twenty-one for almost a full year but the bartender doesn’t even question it when he slides onto the stool and asks for a whisky, just offers a reassuring smile.

“For what it’s worth,” she says, “I thought you guys were really good. Better than this lot, at any rate.” She nods her head in the direction of the main act setting up on stage.

“Thanks,” he replies but it tastes strange in his mouth. Something he’s expected to say, just sounds without meaning because they’ve been said so many times – ash, the burnt leftovers of something once useful. Because who gives a fuck if they’re good if no one’s ever going to hear them?

“Hey guys,” a smoker’s voice says over the microphone and Keith glances over his shoulder long enough to glimpse a white guy with dreads before he’s back to staring into his drink. “We’re Killer Callous and how y’all doing tonight?”

The bar has been slowly filling over the last half an hour and it feels like a kick in the guts that a band called ‘Killer Callous’ could possibly have more pull than they did.

The frontman, seemingly satisfied with the mediocre whoops he got in reply, launches into their first song. An atrocity where poor vocals are hidden by heavy drums and guitar, poor instrumental skill is hidden by sheer volume. Keith winces and tries to stop feeling like he’s going to cry.

No, he’s not bitter at all.

It’s a flip of the coin, he knows. There’s as much luck as there is skill involved to make it in music. No, it’s not a flip of the coin, it’s not even a dice-roll, it’s a roulette wheel with thousands of options. Chances are there are hundreds of better bass players out there who aren’t even where Keith is. He’s got to grit his teeth and bear it because he’s never going to win the jackpot if he’s not even on the wheel.

He drains his drink, ditches his jacket over the back of the stool, and asks for another. The bartender just nods at him.

Maybe it’s one drink or maybe it’s three drinks later – all Keith knows is that Killer Callous have played seven songs and the bar is packed now – when some guy slides into the empty stool beside him.

“Heya beautiful,” says this stranger except, when Keith turns to glare at him, he follows it up with, “Fuck. You’re gorgeous,” in the same tone he might have used had Keith turned around and been his cousin.

“What?” says Keith, too tired and too stuck and too buzzed for this right now.

The guy’s just staring at him wide eyed and mouth slightly open and, damn it all, he’s pretty cute.

Keith sighs and rolls his eyes. “Has that line ever worked?”

“What?” says the guy and he sounds so genuinely confused that Keith frowns a little harder. “No, I… Shit, I didn’t realise or I wouldn’t have… I’m just gonna–” he gestures vaguely over his shoulder, “– because you are – wow – way outa my league.”

And he turns to walk away.

“What?” says Keith again. “Alright, I guess…”

The guy stops to stare at him again. “You really… You really have no idea, do you? I mean, putting aside the mullet-ish hair you’re rocking – and, shit, you’re somehow still making it work, what the hell – you’re pretty much the physical embodiment of perfection, you know that, right? Like, shit man, have you somehow never seen your eyes? They’re like… like storm clouds or something – at night!”

“So… they’re dark? You really are working this bit, aren’t you?” And Keith is more amused than irritated now because can you even see storm clouds at night?

“You don’t believe me,” says the guy incredulously and then he turns to shout over his shoulder, “Hey! Naomi! Get over here and tell this guy he has eyes like the cosmos because he won’t listen to me!”

Eyes like the cosmos.

Alright, Keith feels his guts twist a little at that one but it’s only because this stranger has a turn of phrase that has the songwriter inside him envious. He kind of wants to take out his phone and write it down so he doesn’t forget.

Except somehow he’s being lead over to this guy’s friends and being introduced (“The name’s Lance, by the way.”) and settling down with a fresh drink. The friendly bartender from earlier grabs his bass from under his old stool and motions to him that she’s going to put it in the back.

And fuck it all because Lance is… he’s so alive. Especially to Keith, whose insides feel like a desert, he shines so fucking bright as he laughs and gestures wildly with his hands and drags Keith into the conversation, making sure he’s not left out, leans his forearms on the table… the way his own mysteriously coloured eyes crinkle up when he smiles. Keith doesn’t think he’s ever fallen so quickly for anybody in his life.

Let me take you home, he thinks. He just wants to bottle this little bit of warmth and life and take it with him wherever he goes. Lance is like the sun, all bronzed skin and chestnut hair and flashing smile and those eyes that look almost black in the low-lit smog of the bar.

– And he’s gone. Whoa. Where’d he go?

It’s fine, he’s just at the bar getting more drinks with that Naomi girl. Keith might be a bit more than buzzed now.

“So, what’s your deal, Keith?” says one of the guys left at their booth. Keith’s pretty sure his name is Kyle. “I mean, you’re obviously a nice guy. You’ve gotta be pretty nice to let Lance go all lovesick puppy on you.”

“Gotta be pretty nice to let any dude go lovesick puppy on you,” interrupts the other guy who will, henceforth, be known only as Dick in Keith’s mind.

“Yeah, he’s not making you uncomfortable or anything, right, man? ‘Cause we can tell him to stop if he is. I don’t think he’s quite grasped the whole ‘a time and a place’ thing.” Keith makes a mental note to change Kyle’s name to Dick-Kyle.

“Nah, he’s fine,” says Keith and the guys look at him skeptically. “Fuck, he sure is pretty, though, right?” he adds just to piss them off and a small part of him sings when they both instantly lean a little further away from him.

“I mean… yeah, sure, if you’re into that kind of thing,” says Dick and Keith tries not to smirk.

How did Lance end up here with people like this?

How did Keith end up here with people like this?

What am I doing?

Lance suddenly pops back into existence beside the table with Naomi at his elbow. He’s holding a tray of shots but swaying like he maybe took a couple on the walk over here.

“What are we talking about? My beautiful face?” he says with a grin that’s starting to grow a little sloppy at the edges.

“Something like that,” says Keith with a smile.

And the night just descends into some sort of beautiful hell from then on. Lance is a handsy drunk, his arm creeping around Keith’s waist and over his neck and into his hair, fingers carding through, and Keith keeps catching him just staring at him with this lax, content smile on his face – fucking hell, give him strength because this is a very beautiful but very drunk man and all Keith wants is to take him home and into his bed. But he also wants to wake up in the morning with him warm in his arms, to get him a glass of water and some advil and listen to him bitch about his hangover, and the combination of feelings is so new, so young and sudden, that Keith is half sure his heart’s about to try climb up his throat and escape.

So when Lance leans far into Keith’s space to whisper, “D’you wanna get out of here?” his lips brushing against the shell of his ear, all Keith can do is nod his head quickly and gather up his jacket, running to the back room for his bass.

They’re blue. Lance’s eyes are blue. Keith can see them shining in the streetlight, deep and bright, as they walk along. Lance is still talking, curling into Keith where he has his arm strung around his shoulder; anecdotes about family and siblings and friends and classes. And he’s so animated even when he’s angry or sad, even as he deflates while talking about feeling so alone and pressured that he’d run off on a trip to LA, that Keith finds himself hanging on his every word. Everything about Lance is big. His voice. His emotions. His expressions and gestures. He’s a black hole, drawing everything else in.

He shivers, despite the hot Californian summer night, and Keith practically rips his jacket off to give it to him. It’s his mum’s jacket. He’s never let anyone else wear it. Not even Shiro. He only just met this guy. What is he doing?

WhatamIdoingwhata–

The thoughts are cut off when Lance tangles his fingers through Keith’s and pulls his arm around his shoulder again. Fuck, this is nice.

“Keith,” Lance whispers later when Keith is trying to untangle his arms around his neck and tuck him into bed, working against Lance and his own desires, “Keith,” he wraps one deliciously long leg around the back of Keith’s thigh to try and pull him closer, “Keith, don’t tell the bartender… But I’m only nineteen.” He giggles, hands slipping under Keith’s shirt to explore the planes of his stomach, and Keith sighs. And then, suddenly, he’s asleep, limbs going loose like cooked noodles, and Keith can finally pull away.

He leaves a glass of water and a bottle of advil beside his bed and turns to leave. But Keith can’t quite resist pushing up Lance’s bangs to place a kiss on his forehead before he goes to sleep on the couch. He can only hope that this gangly mess of sunshine will still want anything to do with him when he wakes up with a clear head and clear vision tomorrow.

#klance #keith kogane #laith #voltron #voltron: ld #voltron: legendary defender #voltron:ld #writing #fiction #fanfiction #fanfic #fic: Getting Time #series: Honey That's Alright #help this series has taken over my life #i've been listening to alt brit rock for three days straight #save me from myself

16 notes · View notes

dw-writes · 7 years

Note

could you do a scenario w/s76, reaper, mccree, genji, hanzo and lucio (separately) where they think their s/o is dead but they arent and when they meet up they despirerately make out with them it can be nsfw if you want

So, nonnie, I didn’t make them NSFW?? Only because, as I was writing each little scenario, I realized that I was doing them in a way that didn’t really prompt NSFW ouo;;; Um. Yeah. If you want, I can do some NSFW requests for you if you’d like!! Especially now that the ask box is back open! :D

Just a note, I kinda wrote all of these with the idea in mind that they each take place during a mission of kinds. Genji’s and Lucio’s are the only ones that are Pre-Recall? The rest take place sometime Post-Recall. So. Yeah.

Reaper, McCree, Genji, Hanzo, and Lucio under the cut after Solider: 76 because the totality of this work is kinda long ahahaha.

Soldier: 76: He didn’t want to answer the Recall. He knew youwouldn’t be there, knew you wouldn’t be waiting for him, holding your breath ashe walked through the doors of Watchtower: Gibraltar. He knew you wouldn’t beorganizing the missions with Winston as you all struggled to pull Overwatchfrom the ashes of what it used to be.

But he did. Because he knew you would have answered the call. He knewyou would have wanted him to, too.

He watched the doors of the Watchtower slid open with a wave of refrigeratedair. It hit his overheated skin and drew a shiver from him. He didn’t want todo this. He really didn’t want to. He stepped through the door and winced as itslid shut behind him. His head tilted up and he froze. There used to be apicture of you there, a memorial to you, to the sacrifice you had made duringthe mission that was thought to have taken Ana. But the picture was gone. Sowas the plaque.

“Thought it was tacky.” His eyes darted further up the wall to the overhangabove. You were there, leaning against the rail, a smile on your face andwrinkles framing your eyes. The breath fled from Jack’s lungs just like it hadthe first time he saw you. You shrugged and his heart fluttered. “You know,since I’m not dead and all.”

He was twenty-five again, young and energetic and staring at yourgrinning face at the top of the rock wall as you shouted, “Gotta move quickerthan that Strike Commander!”

He had laughed and shouted back, “That’s husband to you, soldier.” Yourlaughter spurred him to move faster.

All that energy came back. The pulse rifle fell to the ground as helaunched forward and up the wall, gripping the rails to propel himself up untilhe was sitting on the one you leaned on. You arched a graying eyebrow at him. “Showoff,” you murmured. His hand ghosted over the back of your neck, tugging youclose until his forehead pressed against yours. You were warm. You were there.

You mimicked the motion and he felt the cold metal of your wedding bandon your finger and he released the breath he was holding.

Reaper: Your last words still rung in Gabe’s ears, imprintedthere like a burn: “Do you remember why we joined Talon? To work together to dothe things Overwatch couldn’t. That includes leaving someone behind.” You hadripped free of his grip, his claws biting into your skin and drawing blood, andyou bolted into the building. He stared after you.

The building exploded then, a counter strike from a government afterTalon. Your name tore from Gabe’s throat then, your real name, your code name,every name he had ever called you. Shadows exploded from every dark crevice inthe area. Akande dragged him away before the wreckage could reach them.

“Let me go!” Gabriel snarled. Akande silently refused, staring at therubble. He knew Gabe could get free if he really wanted, could phase through orshoot him point blanket. But he didn’t Gabe’s shoulders sagged as the dustsettled.

A voice piped up behind them, “Why the long faces?” Gabriel’s headsnapped around, the cold stare of his mask landing on a blank space. The groundrippled purple as Sombra appeared. Her arms were slung around your shoulders asshe grinned. The two of you were dusty, but unharmed. Mostly. “Broke my ankle,”Sombra said with a shrug.

Gabe’s chest heaved as his eyes scoured your face. You looked up at himwith a small and tired smile.

Amelie’s voice crackled through the comms in your ears. “Enough of thelooks. The police are on their way.” Her shadow darted over the road you allstood in.

Gabriel’s cold gauntlet gripped your elbow, his claws digging into theunderside of Sombra’s knee. “Don’t do that again,” he growled. You could seehis eyes clearly with how close he stood. They were wet and red.

You started to nod. Instead, Sombra stretched her hand out and splayedher purple gloved fingers across the owl mask. “Aye, get your hands off my savior,pendejo,” she drawled. You rolledyour eyes. Gabe released your elbow.

McCree: McCree was one of those people who couldn’t keep hishands off you.

You were stretched out on a bed in the hospital, staring at the dull,off white tiles above you. Angela was talking, but you weren’t payingattention. You just wanted her to give you the medicine she promised. You heardher stutter and looked over at her. She was staring at your face, mouth screwedup in bunch to the side.

“You didn’t hear anything I just said, did you?” she asked.

You shook your head. “My leg is shattered. Not to be rude, but, I’mgonna rude. Give me my meds, Angela.”

She walked around the side of your bed and pulled a capped syringe fromher coat pocket. “I told your nurse I’d give it to you personally,” shemuttered as she flicked the cap off. It hit your nose. You scowled at her. Shesmiled as she ensured there were no air bubbles in the syringe. She looked upat the fluids hanging on the IV pole next to your head.

There was a thunderous sound in the hall that caught your attention.Someone poked their head into the room, a person who had come in when you hadwoken up to introduce themselves. They were red and flustered. “Sorry, Dr.Zeigler, but there’s someone here who wants to see your patient right now.”

Angela sighed. She pushed the pain killer into your line and steppedaway. You sighed. The coolness in your arm warmed for a beat and your bodycompletely relaxed. You dropped your head back against the pillows. Angela’svoice floated away. It was replaced by the sound of metal on tile.

“You wear those regularly.”Angela’s voice was incredulous.

“They’re comfortable!” The protesting voice drew your attention. A coldhand covered yours while a warm one brushed against your forehead.

McCree.

He leaned down, cowboy hat falling off his head and onto your pillow,and pressed a relieved kiss on against your mouth. “Don’t go scarin’ me again,”he murmured as he pulled away.

Genji: Genji looked around the battlefield as the smokecleared, twisting his katana around to pop his wrist and rid the ache there.The mechanics of his body hissed and released steam as they cooled. There wereOmnics lying everywhere in front of him, ones that had gone rogue, had tried tokill people, had almost succeeded in wiping out a large city in Europe. Panicstarted to settle in the longer he looked around.

Where were you?

He called your name as he stepped over a fallen Omnic tank, an OR14, andsheathed his katana. He heard the electric snap of frayed and broken wires, theattempts of limbs of Omnics trying to move, the faint cries as they started topower down for good, but not your response. He weaved through the fallenenemies, eyes growing wider, welling with tears, heart pounding. He screamedyour name as he stumbled over another fallen Omnic.

“Genji?” The reply was small, almost nonexistent, and very broken. Genjiturned on a dime, feet sliding across the dirt and sending him sprawling. Hescrambled up and bolted towards the sound. “Genji!” you called, louder thistime. Your voice cracked with a cough.

He ran past you, past the OR14 that had fallen over you. You reached outand grabbed his ankle. He shouted, surprised, and turned. You quickly pulledyour hand back as shuriken sank into the ground. You slowly reached out again. “Genji,I’m here,” you wheezed. He disappeared for a moment but you could hear himswearing. The OR14 rolled off you, pinching your leg painfully but you heldback a scream.

Genji dropped next to you as soon as the Omnic flopped to the ground. Hebrushed his hands over your face. “You’re alive,” he wheezed.

You grinned up at him, nodding, coughing as you took in greedy gulpsof fresh air. “Yeah,” you agreed, “I’m alive.

He bent at the waist to press his forehead against yours, eyes squeezedshut as he hugged your body to his.

Hanzo: He was still as a statue as he watched you fall,bow taut, arrow aimed for the man that had struck you down, but he couldn’t move.He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t hear anything. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from youas you collapsed to the ground. You head bounced against the concrete and thespell was broken. Hanzo released his arrow and dropped from his perch, notwatching to make sure that the man was dead. He knew he was. His arrows alwaysfound home in his victims.

Hanzo looped his bow over his shoulder and jogged over the terrain of LijiangTower to you. You were sprawled out on the ground in front of an empty foodvendor. Blood pooled under your shoulder.

You weren’t moving.

Hanzo knelt and reached a shaky hand out to your neck. He felt the warmth radiating from your skin. As his fingers brushed your pulse point, you gasped,struck out, and buried a knife deep in his clothed shoulder. You couldn’t tellif the look that shot across his face was annoyance or pain. Maybe both.Probably both. You gasped again, this time in horror, and struggled to sit up.

“At least this means that you’re alive,” Hanzo groaned. He reachedaround to grope at the handle of your knife, eyes fluttering as it moved insidehim. He couldn’t remember what kind of knife you had. Would it hurt him more ifhe pulled it out?

“I thought he would have come to check if I was dead,” you whispered. Yousat up carefully, favoring your left arm, and reached for his shoulder. Youtugged Hanzo towards you as you checked to see just how much damage you caused.His head pressed into your chest, his ear flush to the blood soaked part ofyour shirt. He would have moved but…your heart beat a steady, strong rhythmagainst him. He looped his uninjured arm around your waist and squeezed.

“You scared me,” he murmured. You looked down at him, good hand restingon the tender skin of his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” you replied. He moved away, wiped the warm blood from his cheekand ear, and looked up at you. The color was returning to his cheeks. Yousmiled at him. “We need to take you to Dr. Zeigler, I think. Only doc I knowthat won’t turn either of us in for vigilantism.”

His relief at your wellbeing was dashed away at the thought of dealingwith Overwatch. He grunted in annoyance, which made you giggle. Hearing thatsound after the brief moment of thinking he never would again made him smile.

Lucio: Your name was shouted over the cheers of people as the last of theVishkar Corporation was torn down. He couldn’t find you. Lucio was starting topanic when your face hadn’t appeared in front of him.

He skated through the crowd, gently nudging people aside with a soft ‘excuseme’ as he did so. You’d been close to the building, hadn’t you?

Someone screamed near the front. The crowd surged forward. Lucio pushedhis way through, almost losing his balance as he forced his way between people.When he finally reached the front, he saw your shoe sticking out from the rubble.Someone was nearby, hands on a large piece of the building, screaming into asmall opening.

They were screaming your name.

Lucio shot over, dropped to his knees, and peered through the hole. Yourleg wasn’t connected to the shoe. There was nothing there. He patted hispockets for his phone and lit the screen up, using it to illuminate thedarkness underneath.

You looked up from a cavern the rubble had created, your back pressedagainst sturdy iron beam. There was a small child cradled in your arms, theirdust covered face streaked with tears. You held his amplifier a few inchesabove your head. He patted his belt, finding it gone and stared at you. Youmust have used it to keep the rubble from falling on you and the child. You pattedthe kid on the back and pushed him towards the light, whispering that he shouldget out now. You moved after him carefully, slowly, until you were in reach ofLucio.

The man grabbed you and hauled you out of the rubble, pulling you tightto his chest. You wheezed and coughed. “Hey, gimmie a chance to catch mybreath, yeah?” you asked.

He chuckled and squeezed you tighter. “Don’t scare me like again,” hemumbled. You leaned back and pressed the amplifier against his chest.

“Yeah, sure I won’t,” you teased. You pushed one of his dreadlocks overhis shoulder. “Hero.”

699 notes · View notes