#I thought tumblr collapsed them automatically I didn’t know I had to do it myself what the balls | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

paper-n-ashes · 3 years

Text

sparks and embers - chapter 1

Characters: Poe Dameron x Original Female Character, Kylo Ren x Original Female Character

Story Tags: Explicit (18+), Canon Compliant/Divergent (Set after TLJ), First Person POV, Love Triangle, Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Porn with Plot, Hurt/Comfort, Kylo Ren hates Poe Dameron

Summary: Alexys is a doctor living a life of exclusivity on Raxus, hoping to survive through a peaceful existence, concealing herself from those she believes would use her, or kill her. When fate intervenes and instigates a perilous journey she'd been desperately trying to avoid, Alex finds herself caught in the middle of two sides in both war and love.

Preface: Let me say, I am immensely nervous about this. After months of back and forth inside my mind, I’ve decided to go for it and begin the long process of moving my long running series to Tumblr, along with changing the name (something I’ve wanted to do for a long time). I hit a big emotional road block after over a year of writing and posting, so I’m hoping this move will eventually get me back into the swing. But for now, I’m looking forward to revisiting the beginning of this space love triangle.

If you’ve already read the saga, absolutely NO pressure to read again. Each chapter will be edited a little, but no major plot points will change. To any newcomers who find themselves interested, the story is already posted on AO3 if you are desperate to continue. Otherwise if you prefer reading on Tumblr, or simply like the forced breaks between chapters, I’ll be posting a new chapter every couple of days. I know it’s not written as reader insert, but I just couldn’t make the story work out in any other fashion. I poured a lot of love and heart into Alexys so I hope you’ll give her a chance.

Chapter 1 - Crash Landing

Words: 3.4k

Chapter Tags/Warnings: descriptions of severe injury including blood and bone, medical procedures

Read on AO3

I felt it before I heard it.

A booming crash of metal and glass, sending a shattering vibration through the walls and furniture around me. After the years of mostly silence I’d become accustomed to, the noise that came pummelling into my ears almost made me shriek in surprise. It was short lived, coming and going in a flicker so quick I had to wonder if it was real at all.

Lights began to flash, blinking rapidly in uneven time. The mixture of harsh beeps indicated something was faulting my electricity circuits, plunging me into the darkness of night over and over.

I could only question myself again at the plausibility of this being a dream, but the slow, increasing creak emanating from beyond the walls of this building brought me to a certainty.

Something had crashed outside.

Fear radiated through my limbs, leaving me stuck where I was standing for a few moments, before an uncontrollable urge of selflessness and honestly, curiosity, forced me to move and exit the safety of my clinic.

There wasn’t really a way to prepare for what I saw not metres away from my front entrance. A ship, an X-wing of some variety, was wrecked into itself, varying metals twisted and curled over each other, flames beginning to billow out from the creases. I could feel the heat of them rise as I cautiously stepped forward, taking in the scene with wide eyes. Only seconds had passed when I saw it – the movement of something – no, a person, demanding my attention. The pilot of this battered machine had been thrown just beyond the edge of its hull, broken transparisteel smattering the ground around them.

Hm, the Resistance should probably investigate their flight safety measures.

That thought quickly flittered away when the pilot moved again, this time with a painful moan echoing into the atmosphere. The switch inside quickly flipped, and an all too familiar feeling of conviction flooded through.

This is your cue Alexys.

I raced quickly to the pilot and knelt on the ground before them, fingers carefully removing the black and red helmet with both urgency and restraint as to not cause any more possible damage to their head or neck. The moan I'd heard just moments before let me know this person had some kind of airway, but it was pertinent I assess further. With the helmet gone I noticed the short, lightly waved black hair of a man, his eyes pulled closed, a few bruises and smudges of grey soot smattered over his face. His chest was moving, laboured breathing with the occasional heave on inhale.

At least he’s breathing.

“It’s alright,” I insisted. “I’m here to help you.”

There wasn’t any discernible response from the pilot other than a groan that withered away slowly, and that in itself was worrying. Kneeling over his body, I placed two fingers under the line of his jaw, halfway down, trying to feel for a pulse. I could sense the thump of blood under my fingertips, but it was too slow, too faint, too uneven.

Not great, but it was enough for now.

I began to scan over his body, knowing it was time to assess what was giving him reason to cry out in pain. There were severe burns on his left arm which had caused some of his flight suit to stick to the skin, with more scalds reaching down to his torso and abdomen. His right arm was almost definitely broken with the limb morphed into an irregular angle almost halfway along.

Without being able to look at them directly to ascertain whether I was going to be able to move him, I pressed on his hips gently, silently praying he hadn’t broken his pelvis. He muffled softly, but anyone who had actually shattered the bone would have screamed. As my eyes continued to scan down, it became obvious all too suddenly the shattered edge of his right femur bone poking out of the orange flight suit.

Kriff, this is not ideal.

I wanted to kick myself for not noticing it before, but there was no time, not with the very real possibility of him bleeding out in front of my eyes. My feet moved under me, racing back to the clinic room, knowing where the bandage and splint lay waiting, along with the anaesthetic injections I had stocked in the pharmacy cupboard.

He was certainly going to need them.

Within minutes I was back to the ground with the pilot, clicking together the injector handle and vial, piercing the needle straight into his thigh above the fracture site. I wouldn’t be able to wait for it to dull most of the pain, so internally, I braced myself for the scream I was about to elicit from this poor human's chest. The second I started to wrap the bandage around the splint, a piercing wail echoed through the air, almost causing me to hesitate. Still, my hands continued to haphazardly wrap the white material around his leg, pushing through the guilt it ignited.

Suddenly, the noise stopped.

My eyes darted to his face as his head slumped over on its side. “Hey!” I shouted into his face as I scrambled back to the top end of his limp body. “Hey can you hear me? Open your eyes if you can hear me!”

There was no response.

I pinched at the muscle on his shoulder, harder and harder to elicit any kind of reaction. Nothing. My hand pulled into a closed fist and grinded against his sternum. “Come on, open those eyes if you can feel this!”

Still nothing.

Again I took check of his breathing, chest still rising and falling, yet shallow and with little power. His heartbeat had begun to race, but through my fingertips I could feel the strain in the muscle. Something was seriously wrong, even more so than his other injuries. Something internally. If I didn’t get him into the clinic, he was going to die.

In a snap decision, I chose to forgo an attempt to run back and locate the hover-stretcher. It would take too much time to set up and power on, time this man didn’t have. I would have to move him myself.

How the hell am I going to do this?

With my arms hooked and locked under his armpits I began to drag the pilots hefty body backwards towards the clinic behind me, thankfully only a few meters away, barely making it past the entryway when a roar of flames overtook the X-wing. I looked up to see the blaze almost completely engulfing the ship, a ferocious heat searing into my eyes and face. With even more urgency I heaved the body into the large clinic room, getting up and slamming the door just in time. Just before a house rattling explosion sent shockwaves into the atmosphere.

Lucky didn’t seem to be an appropriate feeling considering the situation I was in, but at least no one had died. Yet. With my last bit of brute strength, I hoisted the pilots limp body onto the closest hospital bed, noticing then the trail of red liquid I’d brought along with me.

Oh no no no.

With him still lifeless, I tugged at his body and limbs to lie flat on the bed, scurrying to my medical trolley and hauling it back to where the pilot laid, ragged breaths still thankfully escaping into the air. Snatching the heavy shears from the top drawer, I began to tear through the thick fabric of the flight suit, unclipping and removing as much of the life support vest and belt as I could. I had to be careful not to rip away the fabric that melted into the burns scattered all over his body, the number of them increasing as I peeled away the suit, starting from his legs, up to his abdomen and chest over to his upper arms. His torso was in full view now, a smattering of dark hair over his pectorals, underneath which showed the bruises of his crash’s impact.

Oh he’s definitely got some broken ribs.

As my gaze scanned over his skin, I could finally isolate where all that blood had escaped from. A deep penetrating wound just below the last rib on his left flank. As I registered his quick shallow breaths and the uneven rise in his chest, it became obvious.

Collapsed lung.

Whatever had pierced through his chest had poked an extremely damaging hole in his lung, the pleural space now filling with air, leaving no room for his lung to expand. My following movements were swift and calculated, almost automatic. A pointed scalpel was soon in my hand, poised to cut. But I couldn’t help but hesitate. It had been so long since I’d had to do this. And yet, somehow, concern for this stranger’s life was quick to weave it’s way through, dissolving my fear into pure resolve.

I made my incision in between the 4th and 5th ribs, using a clamp to push into the underlying tissue and past the pleural cavity, a gloved hand then entering to check I’d made it through. With an instinctive confidence, I guided the chest tube between the layers of tissue, undoing the ratchet of the clamp to an immediate rush of air. The pilot’s chest heaved in relief, along with my own.

One crisis averted.

But there was more to do. Connecting a drain to the tube, I haphazardly sutured it in place, before flying to the pharmacy cupboard. My stock of bacta was limited, returning with an already prepared vial into the pressurised injector, reminding myself I would need to use it sparingly if this stranger was going to make it through the full extend of his injuries. I had cursed at myself only a few times in the years past at being so far removed from a higher level medical centre that would be overflowing with bacta and medical droids that could help in exactly this kind of situation, but the thought had never burned me so badly. There was no way to know if I could keep this man alive with the resources that yesterday I had been more than comfortable with. I would just have to try.

I injected some of the bacta solution throughout the surrounding area of the wound and covered it with heavy dressing, knowing the bleeding would quickly be curbed. Unfortunately, the wound itself would take a few days to fully close, only ever being able to afford lower quality bacta. Before moving on to the burns, I placed some basic monitoring, lines extending from electrical dots over his chest, wrist and neck to the data monitor above the bed. As the numbers lit up on the holo screen, I felt myself breathe a small sigh of relief, having prepared for a much worse result. His heart rate was better, oxygen levels returning to normal, blood pressure not optimal by any means but high enough to sustain his life, for now.

After securing an oxygen filter over his battered face, I continued to inspect and clean as many of the small and more sizeable burns dotting his body. Even with the many I had uncovered, the one extending from his shoulder past his elbow was the one of most concern. Third degree and extremely unhappy looking. If I wasn’t quick to treat this, it could leak even more fluid from his already compromised circulatory system. I was thankful he still remained unconscious when I began to slowly shed the charred material melted into the skin layer. I couldn’t help but shudder as I remembered the initial scream this man had let out, knowing I would be hearing it now if not for his comatose state.

Covering the immense scald in as much salve as I could spare, I began to wrap it in protective antibacterial bandage, soon moving on to protect his many blisters and deeper burns with dressings. Glancing at the monitor screen, he was still stable, and swallowed hard. Now it was time to attempt possibly the most daunting part of this patient’s treatment.

His femur was still sticking through the tissue of his thigh, slightly dried dark red blood creating lightning strike looking lines extending from the wound.

I need to get some blood into him before moving this.

I quickly got to work on an IV cannula, his poor blood pressure making it significantly more difficult than it should have been. Two bags of O- blood were all I had, and a wave of dread coursed through me with the thought of that not being enough if this all went wrong. My fist squeezed the fast flow pump of the IV line, pushing fresh blood urgently into his system, making his blood pressure rise only slightly. With the last of the red liquid trickling through the line I wheeled over the portable X-Ray. It was so old the mechanical arm screeched at me as I positioned it into place over the pilot’s leg. The bone had to be at least somewhat in place before getting the bacta to work its magic or this guy might walk with two uneven legs for the rest of his life.

If he actually made it through the rest of his injuries, that is.

Shaking my arms out at my side, I sucked in a few deep breaths to build my stamina. Unfortunately, this stranger was stuck with a small framed female to attempt reducing his severe fracture. With one last inhale, I drew the courage to pull as hard as I could horizontally at the knee joint, digging my fingers into a vice grip around the limb and yanking it towards me. To my relief, the fractured edge of the femur to slipped back into the hole it was peeking out from, settling back under the skin.

Thank all the stars in the galaxy he’s not awake for this.

I quickly pressed the image button on the X-ray to assess the progress I’d made. The faint white lines of bone edges were stark enough on the grey background of the image. The fracture wasn’t reduced even nearly enough. I prepared myself again, with another deep breath I pulled hard. This time my efforts were forced into angling the lower portion of bone to try and lock it back into place. The grinding of bone edges could be felt through my fingers, pushing myself to pull even harder, creating more space between the fracture in the hope of giving a fighting chance of lining up the splintered edges. My muscles were whining, begging for this to be over, tears of exhaustion soon stinging at the edges of my eyes.

With one final twisting motion there was a sudden click.

Finally.

My relief was short lived.

It was slow at first, before racing faster. A stream of dark red blood pooling at the wound the broken bone had made.

Oh maker no.

Within moments the pace of the blood quickened. I shot my hands to the open flesh site, pressing down hard in an attempt to disturb the flow. The liquid quickly covered my gloved hands, already sure I’d sliced into the femoral artery. The pressure of my hands into the area made the blood spurt out onto my arms, my clothes, my face, everywhere. The monitor was screaming, blood pressure falling quickly. Wiping some of the hot coppery fluid away from my left eye, I slid my fingers back into the gash, moving desperately to stop the overflow before the man lying in front of me bled out, knowing it would all be my fault.

You have to do it Alexys. He will die if you don’t.

The voice nagged at me, pleading to do what it wanted.

He’s with the Resistance! If he survives, if he contacts them, they’ll find me. And they’ll know.

It is time to decide. His life. Or yours.

Seconds ticked by fleetingly, numbers flashing on the monitor trickling down, the speed of blood flow from the pilot’s leg stubbornly keeping it’s intensity.

Everything I’d done to get here, to isolate myself so no one could find me. It would all amount to nothing. My easy, albeit lonely life, would be gone. All because of this stranger.

But I couldn’t let him die. Not like this.

In one flash, I removed my hands from inside the wound, ripping off my gloves and placing two palms at either side of the leg. With closed eyes, I willed the energy out of the depths of its slumber. From the darkened corner of my mind I pulled it back into existence, opening the gate I’d locked it inside for so long, letting it finally burst through and fill up my brain. From there it down through my neck, through my chest and down my arms, right to the end of my fingertips. Its warming glow was almost comforting, friendly. I would have basked in it for a while if not for the life that hung in the balance before me.

Through the pads of my fingerprints I pushed the stream outwards, connecting past the skin of this innocent human being, and felt the overwhelming heat of pain and dimming of energy.

Hurry, he’s dying.

I began to map out the tissue of his leg, frustratingly slowly, starting at the smallest of capillaries, weaving and winding through the flesh, connecting them through the maze of fat and muscle. I could feel the sweat forming on my forehead, my breathing forced and harsh. The vessels grew bigger as I pushed the energy through, skipping past broken points of other smaller injuries. I could fix them later.

Finally, I felt a molten warmth radiating close to where the maze had guided me. Racing to it, I sensed something pushing me back, the pressure of escaping fluid holding my efforts. I’d found the cut, but now I had to somehow knit it back together.

You’re taking too long.

The alarms of the monitor started to echo with a hollow ring inside my ear, fading until I could hear almost nothing. The world around me was blurry, only the image of vessel tissue and all-consuming redness visible in my minds eye. The energy I was expending began to burn me - I wouldn’t be able to keep this up for much longer. I reached out with it, what felt like many hands grasping desperately at the severed edge of the vessel, frantic yet delicate, pulling whatever tissue I could hold back into place.

Several fringes connected, the pressure pushing forcefully against me, making it harder to hold. I couldn’t help but begin to shake at the strain, the sound of my own heart pounding over the slowing heartbeat of the pilot. My grip was already beginning to fade before I started to sew the pieces of artery back together, an ache growing behind my eyes as I pierced an invisible needle through the tissue, over and over, still clawing at the unsewn edges as I made my way around the tube.

I was so close, the tension of the fluid still being driven out of the broken seal almost overcoming me. The unseen thread had almost made its way full circle. I was almost there.

My entire body rattled with exhaustion and pain. One final thread wove itself around the artery, its abrupt closure alleviating the strain on invisible fingers that had been clutching it all together.

You did it.

The energy dissipated quickly in a rolling wave, letting it retreat back into my mind, scampering to the secluded area of my brain, hidden once more. I felt light suddenly, dizzy, the world coming back into focus, screaming alarms growing louder. It was too much, all at once.

A sharp pang of fatigue enveloped every part of my senses and I faltered back, knees giving way, slumping to the floor.

Then, there was only darkness.

Next Chapter

Tag list: @tlcwrites @roanniom @foxilayde @blackberries45 @hopeamarsu @caillea @princessxkenobi @direnightshade @mariesackler @leatherboundbirate @blowthatpieceofjunk @mylifeisactuallyamess @poedameronloverx @millenialcatlady @jynz-andtonic @lightsinthedistancee @star-killer-md @morby @modernpaw @cornmousequeen @paterson-blue

Just let me know if you would like to be removed or added, no judgement!

#poe dameron #poe dameron x original female character #kylo ren #kylo ren x original female character #star wars #star wars fanfiction #adcu #adcu fanfiction

88 notes · View notes

kjack89 · 3 years

Text

An Agreement Between Gentlemen (Chapter 13/14)

When this Author picked up the mantle left behind by the previous Lady Whistledown, it was with the intention of bringing a little levity to the otherwise long and sometimes dull proceedings that encompass the season, and to provide some color commentary that pokes fun at those otherwise generally unwilling to make light of themselves.

To that end, this Author has remarked upon and highlighted the general scandals that accompany this season as every season, the kind that serve to provide some drama to otherwise dull lives, but risk very little in terms of lasting damage.

This Author has never intended for this to cause actual harm, and as such, owes an apology to the Marquess of Enjolras and Mr. Grantaire. This Author does not dabble in morals, or legality; the sole concern of this column has been amusement, and the ruin of two gentlemen otherwise described by most who have met them as good men is something this Author cannot and will not be a part of any longer. While this Author cannot overstate that there was no prior knowledge of the truth behind the Marquess’s marriage, nonetheless the extra attention shone on it by and through this paper has brought harm, and for that, this Author is truly sorry.

While no promises can be made in regards to accidentally reporting similar in the future, this Author will certainly make every attempt to better vet sources before publishing rumor and innuendo. And the promise this Author does make is that the only additional mention of the Marquess of Enjolras or Mr. Grantaire in this paper will be for happy tidings, with best hopes for whatever they may face in the future. LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 6 JUNE 1831

The summons did not arrive with the usual fanfare, so much so that Enjolras almost missed them entirely.

No gilded envelope hand stamped with the King’s own seal, no scarlet-clad guard from the palace delivering it. Just a small, plain parchment envelope instructing Enjolras to attend to His Majesty the King the following day.

In truth, he very nearly almost missed it entirely, since Porter, who normally would have brought him such things, was confined to bed for the immediate future as he recovered – and the surgeon had been quite strict in his instructions. But Grantaire, far less used to having the number of servants Enjolras did, had seen it sitting on the table in the foyer and brought it into the dining room with him when he came in for breakfast.

“This is good news,” he told Grantaire after scanning through the note, though Grantaire didn’t look convinced.

“To be summoned in front of those with the power to strip you of your titles and lands and throw you in the Tower for the rest of your days, unless they decide to chop off your head instead?”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “Better a meeting with the King and Queen than the constable,” he pointed out. “Besides, there’s a limit to what they can do, and if they’re intervening now, it will serve to prevent the worst from happening.” He stood to leave the breakfast table before pausing and bending to kiss the top of Grantaire’s head. “In any case, the usual death in this situation would be by hanging, not beheading.”

“Because that’s so comforting a thought,” Grantaire said sourly.

“It should be.”

Grantaire stared at him. “The thought of you being hanged instead of beheaded?”

Enjolras gave him a look. “No, that the King wants to meet with me. I’m not fool enough to think my death by anything other than old age would bring you any comfort.”

Grantaire pretended to consider it. “Going out in a blaze of glory as you attempt to bring the whole damned system to its knees might.”

“Only if you are by my side as proof that I have won you over in the end.”

Grantaire’s expression softened for a moment. “I would die by your side in an instant, but I don’t think that’s proof of anything.” He kissed Enjolras before returning to the subject at hand. “In any case, why should the King wanting to meet with you bring me any comfort whatsoever?”

“Because it means the Crown wants this handled quickly and quietly,” Enjolras said. “Meaning very likely no public trial, and almost certainly no public execution.”

“That would be more comforting without the qualifiers ‘very likely’ and ‘almost certainly’.”

Enjolras sighed. “There is very little in life that is absolutely certain besides death and taxes.”

Grantaire smirked. “And as I have heard you rail about numerous times, the certainty of taxes is not always applied evenly.”

“Do you know, that may be the most romantic thing you have ever said to me,” Enjolras said, grinning at him.

“Oh, hush,” Grantaire said, but he was laughing, and seemed, for the moment at least, to forget his concerns about Enjolras’s impending appointment with the Crown.

They resurfaced in full force the following day as Enjolras adjusted his cravat while waiting for the carriage to pull around. “How do I look?” he asked, and Grantaire cast a baleful eye at him.

“Dressed well enough for a meeting with the King and Queen, and not at all like you’re headed to imprisonment or worse.”

Enjolras managed not to roll his eyes, mostly because he did not think it would help the situation. “Luckily for both us, I highly doubt the latter options will come to pass.”

But Grantaire didn’t smile, just reaching out to take Enjolras’s hand. “Just come back to me,” he whispered.

“I have every intention of doing so,” Enjolras told him, his voice low.

Grantaire sighed. “You know I’m going to be a nervous wreck until you do,” he said. “Just like I am every time you’re in danger, even if normally you’re the idiot who’s put yourself there.”

Enjolras half-smiled. “Arguably I’ve put myself in this danger as well.”

Grantaire gave him a look. “We’ve had this argument before,” he said evenly.

“Yes, and I still refuse to cast any blame on you.”

Grantaire just shook his head. “An argument we’ll have to continue another time, it seems.”

Now Enjolras managed a real smile. “Yes, and all the more reason for me to return. You know I hate to leave a fight unfinished.”

“No, you hate to leave a fight unwon,” Grantaire said pointedly, but for the first time all morning, he looked a little less miserable, and Enjolras took that as a small win in and of itself.

“Are they not one and the same?” he asked innocently, leaning in to kiss Grantaire, who stopped him, his face falling again.

“Enjolras—” he started, and Enjolras frowned.

“What?”

Grantaire searched his expression for a moment before blurting, “I have never once wished you to be less than who you are, and I do not wish it now. The man I love does not back down from a challenge, and his tongue is sharper than any sword.” He paused as if choosing his next words carefully. “But I beg of you, tread lightly. I will not love you less for holding back if it means you survive to fight another day.”

Enjolras did kiss him then, a slow, heated kiss that said hopefully everything he couldn’t bring himself. “I cannot promise my mouth will not get me in trouble. But I do promise I will not deliberately seek it out.” Grantaire made a face and Enjolras gave him a pointed look. “It’s as good a promise as you will get from me.”

“I know.”

“And yet you don’t seem satisfied.”

Grantaire sighed. “I will be satisfied when you are home with me again.”

“And with luck, that will be before you know it,” Enjolras told him bracingly, so convincingly that he almost believed it himself, enough to get him out the door and into the carriage before finally allowing himself to feel the nerves he’d been trying to swallow all morning.

What he had told Grantaire was the truth: this meeting almost certainly meant no real punishment was in store for him.

But he had very little idea of what was in store for him. And that worried him most of all.

----------

Enjolras slowly closed the door behind him, unsurprised when Grantaire immediately appeared from the drawing room, a glass of whiskey in hand, which, judging by the glassiness of his eyes, wasn’t the first he’d had. “Are you ruined?” he asked.

“Define ruined,” Enjolras said, a little grimly.

Grantaire scowled. “Perhaps now is not the time to be glib.”

Enjolras just shook his head as he crossed to him, dropping a kiss on his lips and grabbing the glass of whiskey from his hand, downing it in one gulp. “I wasn’t,” he rasped, handing the glass back to Grantaire and making his way into the drawing room. “The fact is that there is a limit to the punishment I can receive, barring criminal conviction and without an Act of Parliament.” He collapsed onto the couch, reaching up automatically to loosen his cravat. “The Crown has taken what actions it can, which is to say, I am no longer the Viscount of Digne.”

He delivered the words solemnly, but Grantaire just blinked in response. “I did not realize that you were.”

“It is a customary title bestowed upon the current Marquess of Enjolras, with some associated lands,” Enjolras said with a shrug. “Both will be given to more deserving peers, I’m sure.” He hesitated before adding, “Also, none of our issue will be eligible to inherit my title or any lands, save for that which I own outright.”

Grantaire stared blankly at him. “Any of our issue?” he repeated. “As in children?”

Enjolras made a face. “Well, technically my issue. I don’t think the Crown cares so much about yours.” He cleared his throat. “But if I were to remarry and sire children, none of those children would inherit.”

Grantaire raised both eyebrows. “And what are the chances of that?”

“Absolutely none,” Enjolras said, barking a dry laugh. “The King has also told me that my services to his Court will no longer be necessary, meaning my various ceremonial duties will doled out to others and my power at Court, so to speak, is diminished. Beyond that, I retain my title of Marquess and associated lands and riches, which means I will lead a very comfortable life.” He reached out for Grantaire’s hand, lacing their fingers together before raising his hand to his lips to kiss his knuckles. “With you at my side, and without having to hide. So to answer your question, no, I don’t consider that ruin. I consider that a gift.”

Grantaire looked relieved, but he still hesitated. “Even though I will be almost certainly landless and penniless?” he asked, and when Enjolras just frowned at him, he sighed and elaborated, “I doubt highly my father will continue to grant me my allowance and use of the houses when he receives Le Cabuc’s letter.”

Enjolras squeezed his hand. “The Enjolras purse has sustained this family for generations. There’s more than enough left to take care of the man I love.”

Grantaire searched his expression for a moment. “Yet you don’t seem completely satisfied. What else did the King say?”

“Well—”

Before Enjolras could elaborate further, someone cleared her throat from the doorway, and they both turned to look at Enjolras’s mother, who looked unusually somber. “Am I interrupting?”

On instinct alone, Enjolras started to pull his hand away from Grantaire’s, but Grantaire held tight, squaring his shoulders as he met Enjolras’s mother’s expression coolly. “As a matter of fact, you are. Your son and I are having a private conversation.”

He turned back to Enjolras, who tried not to laugh at the look on his mother’s face. But to his surprise, his mother did not immediately snap some dismissive rebuttal, instead inclining her head slightly. “And you have my apologies for intruding, especially at this trying time. But I need to speak to my son, alone, especially in light of his recent visit to the palace.”

Enjolras wasn’t surprised that she had somehow heard about his summons. “Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of me,” Grantaire said firmly. “Your son and I are sharing our lives, and that includes dealing with whatever family affairs you’ve brought with you.” He again turned to look at her. “And need I remind you, your part in our deception has not yet been revealed, but I will be more than happy to tell anyone and everyone who will listen what drove your son to the desperation of a fake marriage in the first place. I doubt highly your friends among the nobility will be impressed by what they learn.”

Enjolras’s mother’s lips pursed, but again, Enjolras was completely thrown by her response. “Thank you,” she said simply, and Grantaire’s cold expression slipped as he glanced over at Enjolras, who just shrugged. “I can see that you are protective of my son, and while I may not appreciate your tone, I do appreciate knowing that my son has found someone who loves him as...vigorously as you clearly do.”

Grantaire’s eyes narrowed, but Enjolras cleared his throat. “It’s fine,” he told Grantaire, squeezing his hand once more. “I trust her enough to have a conversation with her, and I can fight my own battles as needed.”

“Are you certain?” Grantaire asked in an undertone, eyeing Enjolras’s mother warily. “I believe you can fight your own battles, but it’s her I don’t trust…”

Enjolras rolled his eyes affectionately. “I have managed this long,” he assured him.

“Fine.” Grantaire stood, but before leaving, he bent and kissed Enjolras, a long, slow kiss that Enjolras was fairly certain was for his mother’s benefit more than his own.

Not that he minded, since getting to kiss Grantaire and enrage his mother in the same blow was as close to perfection as Enjolras was likely to see in his lifetime.

Then Grantaire straightened again and winked at Enjolras before finally leaving, sidling past his mother with little more than a second glance. For her part, his mother looked mostly impassive at the display she had just witnessed, and she finally fully entered the room, perching imperiously on the armchair. “I suppose it’s too much to hope for tea,” she said with a sniff.

Enjolras barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. “You might have heard that my butler was attacked,” he said sourly. “I’m sorry if him being laid up recovering from being shot is inconvenient to you.”

“I did hear about Porter, yes, but that’s not to what I was referring,” she said. “Have the servants started fleeing en masse?”

“None have yet offered their resignations, if that’s what you mean,” Enjolras said.

“Of course it’s what I mean,” she snapped. “This is a tainted household now – I doubt most will want to stay. Especially as they’ve no way to ingratiate themselves with whomever the next Marquess will be.” Her lips pursed again. “Do you even know which distant relative is your heir, now that you will almost certainly never sire children of your own?”

Enjolras shrugged unconcernedly. “A third cousin, isn’t it? Lives somewhere out in the west, if memory serves.”

Her eyebrows knit together. “I’m surprised you know that.”

“You once told me all about him when I threatened to abdicate after Father died,” Enjolras said mildly. “You seemed to think it would convince me to think otherwise.”

“Clearly it did.”

Enjolras laughed dryly. “I hate to tell you, Mother, but that actually played a very small part in my decision.”

She scowled. “Perhaps you should have abdicated back then. It may have made for an easier transition for all involved.”

“Perhaps so,” Enjolras said honestly, as it wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed his mind. “But we are well past that point now.”

“In more ways than one.” She paused, giving him a searching look. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in trying to convince you to reconsider.”

Enjolras shook his head. “None.”

His mother nodded, her expression unreadable. “Then that’s the end of it.”

Enjolras hesitated, before saying, as casually as he could manage, “You seem…decidedly less surprised by this whole situation than I would expect.”

“What precisely is there to be surprised about?” she asked.

There were any number of things that Enjolras had expected her to be either shocked or scandalized by, let alone surprised, but the look on her face stopped him. “You mean…you knew?”

“That you were…otherwise inclined?” she provided delicately. “Of course I knew. A mother always knows.” Her expression twisted. “Though I rather hoped you would grow out of it, or at least do the sensible thing and marry a woman while seeking your amusement elsewhere.”

Enjolras shook his head slowly. “I’m not certain I see that as the sensible thing.”

She considered it for a moment before shrugging. “Perhaps not,” she said. “But more sensible than being stripped of your lands and titles.”

“Not all my lands, or all my titles,” Enjolras told her. “The Viscount of Digne is the only major one.”

She made a face. “No real loss there, the bishop in that area rules it with an iron fist and will probably be glad to see the backside of our family.”

Enjolras trusted her to know more about it than he did or frankly cared to. “And there’s a few minor lands that will be redistributed but for the most part, Grantaire and I have made it out unscathed.”

Again his mother made a face. “I don’t know that I would go that far—”

“I imagine you wouldn’t,” Enjolras muttered.

“—But all things considered, it could have been much worse.”

On that, at least, she was correct. “And I’m certain you’ll be glad to know that your own holdings will not be affected, nor your allowance,” he told her. “And Grantaire is letting you keep the dowry.”

That seemed to surprise her. “That is...generous of him,” she allowed, before frowning at her son. “But you speak as if all you think I care about is money.”

Enjolras just arched an eyebrow. “You have given me little evidence to suggest otherwise.”

“Caring about the well-being of my only son isn’t evidence enough?”

He managed not to roll his eyes, but just barely. “Faux sincerity isn’t your strong suit, Mother,” he informed her. “If you wish to convince me, you’ll have to try a different tack.”

To his surprise, she laughed lightly. “Maybe I will, when all the dust has settled,” she said, standing and brushing invisible dust from her skirt before telling him, “I will be leaving the city for the near future, and possibly even the country for a bit. I need my friends and allies at court to think that I was not party to this.”

“You weren’t,” Enjolras said, his brow furrowed. “And you are certainly at liberty to tell anyone you need to as such.”

“I have, and I will,” she said. “But I will also not outwardly condemn you the way they would wish, and that to some is enough to make them think otherwise.”

For the first time in what Enjolras was certain was his entire life, he was speechless. He had frankly expected her to do exactly that in order to maintain her social standing. “You could,” he blurted, ignoring the raised eyebrow she gave him. “Condemn us, I mean. I would not hold it against you if you did.”

“You and I both know that you absolutely would,” she said dryly. “But more than that, you are my son. For all your faults and all our disagreements, public and otherwise, that has never changed. And it will not change now.”

Enjolras was again taken aback by what she said. “Thank you,” he managed, before adding, a little wryly, “I think.”

A small smile crossed her face. “You’re welcome, I think. And now I should leave you to the start of your new life.”

She turned to head to the door, clearly deeming her role in this complete for the time being, but Enjolras stopped her, his curiosity getting the better of him. “What do you think of Grantaire?” he asked. “Now that you know what he is to me.”

She looked back at him, surprised. “You have never sought my approval before.”

“And I’m not seeking it now,” Enjolras said. “Just curious what you think.”

She nodded slowly. “He is not who I would have chosen for you,” she said after a long moment. “But then again, this life is not what I would have chosen for you.”

It was no more than what Enjolras had expected, but before he could say anything, she continued, “I know what you think of me, that you think me cold, and vain, and cruel. And there is certainly more than a little truth to that.” He looked up at her sharply, surprised by this most of all. “I know I shall always play the role of villain in your story. But despite what you may think, I have only ever wanted you to be happy.” She hesitated. “And it makes me terribly sad to know you have chosen a path where the world very well may never let you be happy.”

Enjolras just shook his head slowly. “The difference between you and I, Mother, is that I have never needed the approval of the world to be happy.” He gave her a sharp smile. “Hang what anyone else thinks. So long as I have Grantaire, we will make our own happiness.”

She returned his smile. “I do not doubt that you will. As I said before, you two make quite the pair, and whatever else you may think, I am glad that you two found each other.”

With that, she left, and Enjolras sat where he was for a long moment, digesting everything that had transpired. This had been a day of surprises, from his meeting with the King and Queen to now his conversation with his mother, and he shook his head slowly before standing to go find Grantaire.

He found him in the library, sitting sideways in an oversized armchair, his legs draped over the arm of the chair as he skimmed through a book with seemingly little interest. He brightened when he saw Enjolras come in, tipping his head up automatically for a kiss. “Is she gone?” he asked as Enjolras settled onto the sofa across from him.

“For now, yes.”

Grantaire’s eyes narrowed. “But not forever?”

Enjolras shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not even this scandal was enough to be rid of her forever. But I am...strangely not as bothered by that thought as I once would have been.”

Grantaire blinked. “Did she hit you on the head while she was in there with you?”

“Something like that, anyway,” Enjolras said with a laugh. “But enough about my mother. Where were we?”

He eyed Grantaire appreciatively, mentally trying to determine the mechanics of what they could do with him in that position, and Grantaire scowled. “Certainly not doing that,” he informed him, sitting upright. “You were finishing telling me about your audience with the King and Queen.”

“Oh. Right.” Enjolras shrugged and looked away. “Well, the Archbishop is apparently pushing for us to be excommunicated.”

Grantaire snorted. “Does that mean I no longer have to go to church?” he asked idly.

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “Well, among other things. But there’s an issue.”

“What’s that?”

“We could be imprisoned if we’re excommunicated, for a start.”

Grantaire just arched an eyebrow. “Just as we could be imprisoned for sodomy?”

Enjolras made a face. “The Crown has no intention of pursuing those charges,” he said. “But getting excommunicated could lend credence to future attempts at levying those charges, at likely the least opportune time.”

Grantaire considered it for a moment. “Well. We’ve faced worse prospects.”

Enjolras frowned. “You seem remarkably blasé about the prospect of excommunication, considering how concerned you’ve been about the possibility of imprisonment or worse for the other charges.”

“Mostly because you don’t seem particularly worried about it, and I imagine if this were an actual threat, you’d be somewhat less calm,” Grantaire said evenly. “Besides, I had several glasses of whiskey while you were out so it will take quite a bit for me to get riled at this point.”

“You didn’t seem to have any difficulty getting riled at my mother,” Enjolras pointed out.

Grantaire smiled grimly. “That was a more immediate danger.”

Enjolras shook his head. “Well, you’re not wrong about this not being an actual threat, I suppose. The Monarchy has little desire to create a public spectacle via excommunication and as the Head of the Church, I imagine that’s the end of the matter.”

Grantaire nodded slowly. “Does that mean you’re actually going to tell me what’s wrong?”

“Excommunication isn’t enough?” Enjolras asked, mostly rhetorically, and when Grantaire just gave him a look, he sighed. “Fine… I need to get word to Combeferre and Courfeyrac. We have much to discuss ahead of our next meeting.”

“Are you purposefully avoiding the question, or…?”

“I promise I am not,” Enjolras said, his voice low. “But they need to know, because this concerns all of us.” He paused, trying to figure out how to word what he needed to tell both Grantaire and his closest lieutenants. “I was...as surprised as any that the King did not wish to pursue any additional punitive matters. As a whole, the punishment dealt to me is mild, to say the least. And what troubles me is the reason he gave for why.”

Grantaire frowned. “He gave you a reason?”

Enjolras barked a dry, humorless laugh. “Oh, he gave me many. Most were mere platitudes, that out of respect for the service of my father, he would take no additional measures, etcetera, but he also alluded to his hope that our...situation would not inconvenience my political work.” He cleared his throat before adding sardonically, “That he hoped our allies would not abandon us with my public declaration of depravity.”

“And you suspect he actually hopes the opposite,” Grantaire said slowly.

Enjolras nodded. “I’m not going to pretend that my political sympathies are or have ever been well-received at court, and I think most were content to look the other way and pretend that the protests and political actions were the fun side project of an otherwise bored noble. Something I would grow out of in time. But now…”

He trailed off, and Grantaire’s expression turned grim. “Now they might not be so content to look the other way.”

“No,” Enjolras agreed. “And if I or any of our number were to get arrested—”

“Arrested again, you mean,” Grantaire said with the hint of a smile that Enjolras did not return.

“—My position is no longer enough to stave off any significant consequences.”

Grantaire went very still. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning I may not be ruined. We may not be ruined. But Les Amis may be.”

----------

In lieu of coming over to Enjolras’s to discuss the situation, Combeferre suggested via return message that they call a special meeting of Les Amis. “That seems unusual,” Grantaire murmured, his brow furrowed as he read over the brief message. “Why would they not just come here?”

Enjolras shrugged. “Perhaps they don’t want to be seen entering a den of sin,” he said, more blithely than he remotely felt.

“Jest all you wish, but you cannot pretend the thought hasn’t entered your mind,” Grantaire said. “Not that I believe any of our friends will turn on us entirely, but they are all trying to make marriages of their own, and to be tainted by association…”

He trailed off, and Enjolras just shook his head. “That is their prerogative, and I will not hold it against any man to abide by his conscience.”

“Or by the prospect of increasing his purse?” Grantaire asked sourly.

Enjolras shrugged again. “If that is truly their reasoning, I doubt highly we would be associates for much longer in any case.”

Still, it was with an unusual amount of trepidation that they approached the Musain, and Enjolras hesitated before instructing his driver to drop them off at the back of the building by the worker’s entrance. “I do not doubt they would still receive us at the front entrance,” he told Grantaire. “I am, after all, still a marquess and a certain amount of respect must be paid. But I would rather not put them in that position all the same.”

Grantaire managed a wan smile. “You need not explain yourself to me,” he said. “I understand as well as any that the situation is complicated.”

Enjolras glanced at him. “Speaking of,” he said carefully, “have you heard yet from your father?”

“No.” Grantaire’s tone was clipped as he avoided meeting Enjolras’s eyes, looking out the carriage window instead. “I have not heard from him one way or another, so I have no indication if he has yet received Le Cabuc’s letter.”

“Could Le Cabuc have been bluffing?”

Grantaire shrugged. “Anything’s possible, but I doubt it,” he said. “He always did prefer my father to me.” He hesitated before adding, “I thought I might make a preemptive trip back to the house and gather some belongings. Just some personal effects, and things from my mother and sister that I would rather not lose to my father’s whims.”

Enjolras nodded slowly. “That is probably not a terrible idea.” He hesitated before asking, “Do you wish for me to accompany you?”

“I suspect that would cause more problems than it’s worth,” Grantaire said. “If I go by myself, I can hopefully slip in and out mostly unnoticed.”

Enjolras had expected that answer, but he couldn’t pretend that it didn’t sting, just a little. “Of course.”

Something of what he was feeling must’ve shown on his face, but Grantaire’s expression softened as he added, “Which doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t love for you to return with me, or that I won’t miss you dreadfully while I’m gone.”

“But this is the reality of the life we’ve chosen,” Enjolras said heavily. “Going in the servants’ entrance to avoid being seen. Travelling incognito to not cause a scene. Less visitors or invitations to visit because people won’t wish to be associated with us.”

Grantaire eyed him warily. “I feel as though you are trying to make a point.”

Enjolras shrugged. “Just that I do not care about any of those things. But I would understand if you did, and if the reality of our life together does not align with what you may otherwise have expected.”

To his surprise, Grantaire laughed. “How many times must you and I have this conversation?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I wish that you had chosen a better life for yourself than one stuck with me, who was always titleless and is about to be in short order landless and penniless to boot, just as you wish I had chosen a better life for myself,” Grantaire said, a little impatiently. “But you and I both know that the best choice, the only choice, is each other and whatever accompanies that.”

Enjolras laughed as well, feeling a little relieved that they were on the same page in terms of what mattered. “You’re right.”

“I usually am,” Grantaire said smugly before reaching for Enjolras’s hand and lacing their fingers together. Une vie et un amour, remember?”

“Fidelitas usque ad mortem,” Enjolras said, his voice low, and Grantaire smiled.

“And I still aim to be.”

Together, they stepped down from the carriage and made their way into the Musain through the backdoor. The workers they passed barely gave them second glances, though Enjolras assumed that was likely because they recognized them as frequent patrons, and knew better than to stop or question them.

But despite arriving almost a half hour before the meeting Combeferre had called was set to begin, when they reached the backroom, they could hear the buzz of voices through the closed door. Grantaire gave him a startled look. “Has the meeting already begun?”

“It certainly appears that way,” Enjolras said, feeling inexplicably nervous as he stared at the closed door, straining to hear what was being said beyond it.

“Did Combeferre not say that it would start at 9?”

Enjolras nodded. “He did, but…” He trailed off, not willing to vocalize his doubts. Instead, he squared his shoulders and opened the door, walking in with Grantaire at his side. Combeferre and Courfeyrac stood at the front of the room, the rest of their number assembled, all looking unusually somber, and all conversation stalled as soon as they looked back at Enjolras. “Forgive the interruption,” Enjolras said coolly, closing the door behind him. “I did not realize the hour of our meeting had changed.”

“It didn’t,” Combeferre said, his expression impassive. “But there was certain business we felt we should attend to before your arrival.”

“What sort of business?” Grantaire asked with a frown.

Combeferre did not seem deterred by his tone. “The business of determining if your continued membership amongst our association is beneficial or a detriment, mostly.”

“I see,” Enjolras said, his heart sinking in his chest. “Well, don’t let us impede your discussion.”

“We have nothing left to discuss,” Courfeyrac interjected. “All that remains is to vote.”

Grantaire reached out and took Enjolras’s hand, lacing their fingers together firmly. Combeferre cleared his throat. “All those in favor of expelling Enjolras and Grantaire from our number due to their sexual deviance and the threat that it poses to Les Amis and our efforts?”

Not a single hand rose in the air, and Grantaire squeezed Enjolras’s hand.

“And all those opposed?”

As one, all of their friends raised their hands before standing and applauding. Joly and Bossuet were positively beaming, Courfeyrac wolf-whistled, and Combeferre stepped forward to embrace Enjolras. “There was never any doubt which way the vote would go,” he told Enjolras, “but I knew you would not be satisfied if there was no vote at all.”

“Besides, if we start exiling people for buggery, there are more than a few of us who would be in trouble,” Courfeyrac said cheerfully as he embraced Enjolras as well.

“Hear, hear,” Bahorel chortled.

Joly took Bossuet’s hand and squeezed it. “Grantaire helped us avoid a scandal of our own, and we owe him our loyalty,” he said. “Besides which, I swore to go through fire for you, and I would not forsake that oath lightly.”

“Thank you, my friends,” Enjolras said quietly, his chest tight with emotion.

Grantaire squeezed his hand once more before leaning in and whispering in his ear, “It appears I am not the only one who understands the meaning of loyalty until death.” Enjolras wordlessly squeezed his hand in return and Grantaire smiled at him before asking Courfeyrac, “But one of our number is missing, is he not? Where is your erstwhile roommate this evening?”

“Oh, he has found the girl he was looking for,” Courfeyrac said airily. “It turns out your little announcement was good for more than one thing – she was the one who swooned in his arms!”

Much laughter greeted that announcement and Enjolras shook his head. “Leave it to Marius…” he started before trailing off, glancing around the room at the smiling faces of each of his friends, all those whom he loved most in this world. “Thank you all,” he said softly. “I know this will not be easy, but I appreciate your continued faith and love.”

“Our goal has always been to fight against oppressive powers in whatever form,” Combeferre told him. “And condemning men based on consensual acts in their bed chamber would be playing into that oppression.”

“Just promise us one thing,” Bossuet interjected.

Enjolras raised both eyebrows. “What’s what?”

“No funny business,” Bossuet said, mock-sternly. “No suddenly agreeing with everything the other says just because it’s your lover saying it.”

Again everyone laughed and Enjolras shook his head good-naturedly. “I don’t think we’re in much danger of that.”

“After all,” Grantaire added slyly, “what I love far more than him agreeing with me is that delightful shade of red he gets when he so vehemently disagrees with me. Who am I to give that up now?”

“In truth,” Enjolras said when the laughter again died down, “we aim to keep things as much the same as we can.”

“And we’ll be relying on you lot to keep it that way,” Grantaire said.

“There’s one other promise we would ask,” Feuilly said, glancing around. “Or at least, that I would ask.”

Enjolras’s smile faded, just slightly, at Feuilly’s far more serious tone. “If it is in our power to grant it, we will.”

“No more lies.” There were a few murmurs of agreement that Feuilly waited to die down before continuing, “There is not a man among us who does not understand the reason for your deception, but we in this room are brothers, and we deserve the truth no matter what consequence it may bring.”

Grantaire took Enjolras’s hand once more and squeezed it before affirming, “No more lies. We owe not just you the truth from here on out, but each other as well. And it’s the very least that we can give in return for your generosity and personal sacrifices.”

“In that case, let us open the wine and get the celebration started,” Jehan called, standing up on his chair to be seen. “To Enjolras and Grantaire!”

“To Enjolras and Grantaire!” everyone repeated, whatever glasses they had in hand, and Enjolras rolled his eyes with obvious affection before leaning in and kissing Grantaire as everyone cheered.

Grantaire was grinning as he pulled away, and that sight alone was enough to make everything they had endured and everything that they had left to endure absolutely worth it in Enjolras’s opinion. But before he could say anything to that effect to Grantaire, Joly and Bossuet grabbed Grantaire by both arms, tugging him away. “You owe us more than mere truth,” Joly said, with an almost evil grin. “You owe us details.”

“Exactly,” Bossuet said, wearing a matching smile. “And we want to hear all about your first time bedding Enjolras.”

“We promised the truth, not all the gory details,” Grantaire protested, making a pleading face at Enjolras, who just laughed.

Before he could rescue him, Combeferre pulled him aside. “I wanted a moment, if it is not too much of an imposition.”

Enjolras clapped him on the shoulder. “For you, my friend, never. Especially as I believe I owe you especially an apology for our deceit.”

Combeferre shook his head. “I understand it more now,” he said. “And honestly, I’m surprised I did not put the pieces together earlier.”

“Grantaire said he was always a little obvious, even if I never noticed either,” Enjolras said good-naturedly.

But Combeferre just shook his head. “Grantaire may have been, but it’s you I should have noticed.”

“Me?”

Combeferre shrugged. “Looking back on it, all the clues were there, least of all how you allowed Grantaire to stay, not just for meetings, but well into the night when you were ostensibly working, a privilege bestowed on no one else. And I cannot help but think that if I had noticed sooner, we would have had more time to plan, to minimize the fallout.”

Enjolras just shook his head. “My friend, you could have told me until you were blue in the face that I was completely and obviously in love with Grantaire, and I would never have believed you,” he said. “It was something I needed to figure out with him.” He made a face. “Though you are right that I should have told you sooner, before we made our announcement, so that plans could have been made in advance, and for that, I do owe you an apology.”

“One that I readily accept,” Combeferre told him. “And the only recompense I ask from you is the answer to this: are you happy?”

“Yes,” Enjolras said, without even needing to consider it. “More so than I thought was possible, or at least probable.”

Combeferre gave him a wide, genuine smile. “Then the rest we will deal with when or if the time comes.”

Again, Enjolras’s chest felt tight with emotion, with the weight of how much his friends cared for him and Grantaire. “I truly do not know how to thank you, how to thank everyone, for what you have given Grantaire and myself.”

“There is no need to thank us,” Combeferre said. “Especially since you have given us something equally precious.”

“What do you mean?”

“You are free,” Combeferre said simply. “And that gives the rest of us hope.”

----------

Enjolras let out a sigh of relief mingled with happiness as he sat down in the waiting carriage. Grantaire clambered in after him, and sat down on the bench next to him instead of sitting across from him. “That went well.”

“That went far better than well,” Enjolras said.

Grantaire glanced sideways at him. “Surely you did not expect Combeferre or Courfeyrac to abandon you, or honestly any of our friends.”

Enjolras just shrugged. “In truth, I did not know what to expect.” He nudged Grantaire gently. “Thank you, by the way.”

“Whatever for?”

“For making my life complete,” Enjolras said honestly. “And so completely happy.”

Grantaire smiled at him, his eyes shining even in the dim light of the carriage, but he promptly ruined the moment by asking, “How much wine did you drink?”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “I had half a glass at best,” he protested. “Not nearly enough to undermine my sincerity. Nor my conviction that somehow, against all odds and, frankly, against our own efforts to the contrary, everything for us is turning out better than I ever could have imagined, let alone hoped.”

Grantaire rested his head against Enjolras’s shoulder. “We have been extraordinarily lucky,” he murmured.

“We have been,” Enjolras agreed, squeezing Grantaire’s hand. “We have our friends, and we have each other. Whatever else comes our way, so long as we still have that, we will be fine.”

“More than fine,” Grantaire corrected, raising Enjolras’s hand to his lips to kiss his knuckles. “Our future will be happy. Of that, I am as certain as anything.”

“Being in love really has changed you if you suddenly start espousing convictions,” Enjolras teased.

But Grantaire just smiled at him. “It’s changed us both.”

“For the better?” Enjolras asked.

Grantaire kissed him, a gentle, sweet kiss that was a promise of more to come. “For the best.”

#enjolras #grantaire #exr #enjolras x grantaire #enjoltaire #les amis #bridgerton au #canon era #regency au #chaptered #part 13 #fake marriage

27 notes · View notes

zeldanoel · 3 years

Text

Why Should I Change? A Mergana fic

Just posting chapter 1 on tumblr. Read the rest on ao3 here.

Fandom: BBC Merlin 2008-2012

Rating: T for angst (can’t think of any particular tws)

Characters/Relationships: Merlin/Mergana, Aithusa

Summary: Merlin, disguised as an old man, saves Morgana and Aithusa from the Pit. Takes place after season 4. There will be... REDEMPTION and enemies to friend to maybe something more

Chapter 1: Escape

The Pit is dark, and cold, but the cold bothers Morgana more than it bothers me. What’s starting to bother me is the smallness of the pit. If I stand on my hind legs I am only as tall as Morgana, but I can no longer stretch out my wings. This worries her, when she has strength to be worried. She has no color left in her eyes, her face. All is black and gray, and she whispers to me distant memories of forests and castles. We are in a castle, I think.

But there is no escaping this castle, this dungeon, this Pit. It is becoming my whole world. Sometimes men jeer at us, yelling terrible words that Morgana repeats under her breath back at them, her lips drawn back in a snarl. They throw down rotten food, and we weep together for hunger. We cannot seem to die. And I will not let us die, because I remember the skies. It was not for this that I saved her life, I repeat to myself. We will find a way out. Morgana will dream us a way out. And I will keep her alive.

Time is roughly measured by how frequently we are shouted at, but even that is not consistent, so I do not know what day or night it is when Emrys finally comes. It is during one of Morgana’s fitful sleep cycles.

“Aithusa,” I hear. It is a name that only Morgana has said to me. Curled around her, I look upwards. A man’s face peers through the grate. He has a white beard. I hesitate. I do not want to wake Morgana.

“I’m going to get you out,” he whispers, and I realize then that he is not speaking in a human tongue, exactly. It’s a language that I understand deep in my heart. I stir, and Morgana begins to wake.

“Thuse?” she mutters as I disentangle myself from her. She follows my gaze and clambers to her feet.

“Emrys?” she says quietly, incredulous.

“Morgana,” he replies. He’s fiddling with something above, and with a quiet scrape of metal against metal, he unlocks a padlock and opens the grate. It creaks, and he glances away from us, but seems satisfied, and he sets it down gently.

Leave the Pit. We’re going to leave the Pit. Excitement sends a shiver of energy up my spine, and I stand on my hind legs, scrabbling to find purchase on the stone.

“Stay quiet,” Emrys whispers, “I’ll help you float out.”

I hold my breath as my feet and tail leave the floor. Emrys is guiding me up into the air, his eyes glowing. I land next to him and peer down, anxious for Morgana to get out.

Emrys hesitates. He’s wearing an expression of worry, maybe fear. Morgana is making the same face back at him. But then he stretches out his hand, his eyes glow, and Morgana floats out, too. They lock hands for a brief moment as Morgana lands unsteadily on her feet.

She snatches her hand out of his. “I thought we were enemies,” she whispers harshly. Her eyes race around the room.

I look around, too. We’re in something like a cold stone amphitheater, no windows. The only light is from the occasional torch placed in sconces around the perimeter. There’s a stairway leading upward, and a few guards dead or asleep at the base of it.

“I don’t want us to be enemies,” Emrys replies. “We’re both on the side of magic.” He looks at me. “I couldn’t stand by, knowing the two of you were locked away.” He hands her a thick hide coat.

Morgana’s jaw clenches, her gaze lowers to the ground. She takes the coat and shrugs it on.

Emrys smiles and jerks his head. “Come on. Sneaking back out won’t be easy.”

We creep through the castle nearly silently, pausing often to catch our breaths. Morgana and I are weak, and Emrys seems to be as well. His back is hunched, which brings his eye level down to Morgana’s, and he has a slight swaying, hobbling gait. But he seems to have a sense for our path, and for whoever roams the halls in the dead of night. Morgana gathers me close to her when we rest, her frame trembling from either fright or cold.

Finally, we come through a long dark corridor to a padlocked, rusted door. Emrys whispers an incantation, and the chains break and the door blows open. The wind howls through, bring freezing snow with it.

Emrys turns back to us. “The storm is still going,” he says.

“Aithusa and I won’t make it,” Morgana cries, “we’re too weak.”

He grabs her shoulder. “You will make it,” he says, “If I have to carry you both myself.”

He turns and strides out into the storm. I stick close to Morgana’s side as we follow, and Emrys gestures to the door--it closes with a bang behind us.

He nearly disappears in the swirling snow, but cuts a path for us that we follow. Morgana stumbles against the wind, her black hair whipping around.

Finally, we reach a line of trees, and the wind drops but doesn’t die. Now we can hear the clamor of bells in the air.

“They know we’ve escaped,” Morgana says under her breath.

“S-stay here,” Emrys says, and walks back a few paces. He holds out his hands and says something I can’t quite recognize, stands there for a few moments, and comes back to us. “Keep moving,” he says gruffly, and we let the forest swallow us.

The air around us begins to lighten before Emrys finally calls for a stop. Morgana leans heavily against a tree, and he ignores her and grumbles to himself, squinting through the trees.

“Are we... lost?” Morgana gasps out.

“No, no--here we are.” He wades through the snow, plunges his hand into the base of a hill, and lifts up. Snow shifts off of what seems to be a sort of canvas, and Emrys waves at us. “Come on, get in!”

Morgana collapses, and I hesitate. My legs tremble from exhaustion.

“I’ll get her,” Emrys snaps, “Get inside.”

I slither in. In the center of the small space sits a gently glowing orange stone, which gives off heat. The room is warm, and the floor is padded with pine boughs. We seem to be bivouacked against a hill. It’s barely big enough for the three of us, especially with the bundles of cloth in the corner. I press myself against the cloth wall as Emrys re-emerges, dragging Morgana. He practically tosses her into the room.

“I need to cover our tracks,” he says, “I’ll be back.” And with a gust of cold air, he’s gone.

Unsteadily, I do my best to use some of the cloths to get Morgana more comfortable, and move her closer to the warming stone.

Emrys crawls back in, panting. “Ah. Well done, Aithusa. We need to make sure she doesn’t have frostbite. Can you get her shoes off?”

Her shoes are partially frozen. I can’t get them off. He hurries over and presses the warming stone against them until they can come off. Her feet don’t look quite right--purple, in some places black.

He hisses. “Damn. Let’s see, what was that spell…?” He hands me the warming stone. “Hold that against her hands, I need to try a few things.”

I am then able to rest a bit as he holds Morgana’s feet, and I hold her hands. He whispers strings of incantations. Morgana’s breathing steadies as she’s slowly warmed up, and color begins to return to her cheeks, though she’s still so pale in the dim light of the glow of the warming stone. Additional pale daylight ekes in sideways through a hole in the side of the tent, providing air to us.

“Ah. There we go.” Emrys finally sets her feet down, hands visibly shaking. “She’s out of danger.” He crawls over to the mussed up stack of cloths, and pulls out a canteen and a hunk of whitish food. “Eat this, drink some water, and leave the canteen by her head in case she wakes up soon. I need… Sarrum’s men won’t find us, we’re very well hidden. I need to rest, and then we can think about real food.” He waits a beat, looking at me. “You should rest, too,” he says pointedly, and I obediently curl up beside Morgana. The food is cheese, but noticeably fresher than cheese I’ve had in the past, and it’s soft enough that it doesn’t hurt to chew.

Sarrum’s men won’t find us. That has to mean we won’t be back to the Pit. And Morgana’s out of danger. We’re not going to die. We’re going to live. I repeat these things to myself as sleep takes me.

I wake up to the sound of unfamiliar snoring. Morgana is sitting up, her back turned to me. She is watching Emrys, or the warming stone. Emrys lies on his back, puffs of breath stir his white moustache. I nudge Morgana’s arm.

She turns and looks at me. Her eyes are a little glazed over, and I gingerly pick up the canteen in my mouth and put it in her hands. She drinks automatically, coughs, and strokes my head.

“You alright, love?” she says softly.

I nod, and then jerk my chin at her.

“Me too. Just a bit sore.” she draws her knees up to her chest, and her healed bare feet poke out of the bottom of her dress.

We gaze into each other’s eyes, and I can see she’s afraid as usual, but there’s a glimmer of hope there. Perhaps a fear of the unknown.

“I’m going to protect you,” she says. She used to say this often, but it’s a phrase that I haven’t heard for a while.

I hand her some cheese.

She smiles.

Emrys wakes up a short time later, and barely glances at us before he starts rummaging through his rucksack.

“Food,” he mutters, and hands Morgana bread and cheese, cheese for me, bread and cheese for him.

“Aithusa will eat anything,” Morgana says cautiously.

“Gonna boil some jerky for him so he can chew it easily,” Emrys says, and gets out a small cauldron, throws a few brown bits in it, and mutters an incantation over it. The room is instantly filled with the smell of cooked and seasoned meat, plus a blast of warmth.

He scoops the meat into a shallow bowl for me and puts it in front of me. It’s delicious, and soft enough for my aching teeth to get a hold of.

“I assume you two didn’t eat much? You look to be skin and bones.” He’s finally looking at Morgana, but his expression is guarded.

“That’s right,” she says, looking at him evenly.

“We need to get some meat on your bones, but can’t do it all at once, otherwise you’ll both be sick.”

“Why are you doing this, Emrys?”

“Honestly?” he leans forward a bit. “I’m hoping to make an ally of you, Morgana. Maybe a friend’s too much to hope for, after all we’ve been through. But that would be nice, as well, wouldn’t it?” he smiles.

She doesn’t smile back. “So, you want to use us. For what?”

“Camelot.”

Her eyebrows raise, and I see an interested gleam in her eyes. The meat is gone, and my stomach is uncomfortably full.

“That is,” he continues, “I want to spread the peace of Camelot throughout the known world. But we’ll never be able to achieve peace if King Arthur continues to fight against magic. He needs magical allies, powerful ones. He needs us.” He gestures at me as well, and I raise my head and exchange a look with Morgana.

Morgana reaches out and runs a hand down my neck. “You’ve done us… an incredible favor. I owe you a debt,” she says. “And I appreciate your candor. But,” her lips curl back, “I hate Arthur. You know this. I cannot change how I feel, and I will not help you, or him, spread the persecution of Camelot.”

“Camelot’s changing,” Emrys says, heat coming into his voice, “We can help that change. I know we can.”

“Arthur would kill us on sight,” Morgana spits. “He’s like his father in that way. You can’t undo all the wrongs that have been done against him. He’ll never trust us.”

“Or, you’ll never trust him?”

Morgana goes still, gazing over my head. “No. I won’t.”

Emrys sighs, and is silent for a long moment. “Very well. I… may yet be forced to kill you, Morgana, in order to defend my King. But,” he holds up a hand as Morgana starts to speak, “That is a future that I hope with all my heart does not come to pass. And to start to undo some of the wrongs that have been made against you, I want to help you. Will you let me, at least, let’s say, for a year?”

She frowns at him. “A year? How?”

“There’s a small hut beneath the shadow of a mountain. Aithusa might be able to take up residence in the caves there, once he’s grown a bit. But I want to help raise him--that’s what I get out of it, you see. I’m the last Dragonlord. Only one other person in the world knows where it is, and he won’t bother us. It’s safe. It’s away from people.”

“And after a year, you’ll leave us there alone, to live in peace?”

He’s silent, watching her. “If you are no longer a threat, then yes.”

“I don’t understand you, Emrys,” she says, “but I accept.”

He smiles with a bit of relief on his face, and she leans forward.

“But at the end of that year,” she says, “I might be the one who kills you.”

His smile doesn’t crack. “That would be about what I deserve.”

I look between the two of them. I’ve gotten better at reading human emotions, and neither of them look wholly afraid. More like, there’s a challenge in front of them, and they’re ready to rise and meet it.

I give a little trill, and hope that they understand that I’m here to help them meet whatever challenge this is.

We travel for many nights in a row, walking quietly as Emrys pauses periodically to cover our tracks. Sometimes the snow is melted enough that he doesn’t need to. Emrys and Morgana carry our food in rucksacks, but they don’t make me carry anything. I get to play in the snow alongside them as they walk, or rather, trudge along. Morgana has me start stretching out my wings whenever we take breaks, but that hurts.

“They’ll get better,” she insists, rubbing at the joints as I grumble, “we just need to keep working at it.”

Emrys and Morgana talk little to each other; there’s a sort of tension between them. So I start reaching out to Emrys, nudging him in a friendly way or chirping at him, just so Morgana knows I like him.

And what’s not to like about Emrys? He saved our lives. And he’s kind, if a little gruff about it. I can’t forget the worried way he looked at Morgana that first night when he was healing her feet. I wish I could tell Morgana about that.

I wish I could speak.

On the fifth or sixth night, we push on longer than usual, and I can feel my strength beginning to flag.

“Emrys, it’s nearly dawn,” Morgana says. Light is beginning to fill the air around us, reflecting off the snow so I can see better than I ever have before. Ice coats the branches of trees--it’s beautiful.

He turns back to us with an excited smile. “We’re nearly there.” He pauses and raises a hand, and the tracks behind us fill in. He gives a little wheezing laugh, tottering ahead. “Not much farther. There! See?”

We’ve broken through the line of trees. In the rising sun, there’s a valley with a frozen lake far below, and huge mountains.

“Pull,” I mutter experimentally. It was meant to come out as ‘it’s beautiful’, but Morgana seems to understand. She rests a hand on my head. Her eyes are shining with some expression caught between wonder and gratitude, but when she sees Emrys grinning at her, she steels her expression.

“It’s nice,” she admits, “but what about the hut you mentioned?”

“Ah, yes. This way.” He steps into snow that sinks him up to the hip, and Morgana gives a little sound of surprise and grabs him before he falls in face-first.

#mergana #merlin/morgana #aithusa #bbc merlin #fanfic #my writing #yeah I know this fandom's old #but like #I'm STILL mad about it

23 notes · View notes

mirkwoodshewolf · 4 years

Text

You love him more than me; Tony Stark x teen reader

*Author’s note*

Wow it has been a long while since I posted anything Marvel related on here hasn’t it? But this request came to me literally last year on Wattpad so I figured now that I’ve finally gotten around to writing it, as well as having it be on Wattpad, I thought I’d let you guys here on tumblr read it too.

Warnings: BULLYING IS HEAVILY MENTIONED (don’t be an asshole and bully people, whether physical, verbal or cyber, it’s a total DICK move), angst, father-daughter fights, but some fluff in the end?

Anyways my lovelies until the next update :)

Taglist:

@psychosupernatural

@plethora-of-things

@waddles03

@ixchel-9275

@platawnic

_______________________________________________________________

I just don’t see it. Why would he go pick someone else? Ever since the fight with uncle Steve, my dad’s always been on the fence when it comes to either him or the accords. But when the fight in Germany happened, he went ahead and picked some random kid off the streets of Queens to fight alongside him and the rest of ‘Team Ironman’.

Now he barely acknowledges me anymore. Hell it’s like I’m invisible girl now or something. Either way I hate it, all of it. And I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate Peter Parker for ruining my life. It’s like he’s trying to take my dad away just when I need him the most.

Like today for example when I was targeted by the most obnoxious asshole in all of Midtown School (yeah I go to the same school that Parker goes to all thanks to my dad) Flash Thompson. God he was such an asshole and a jerk I don’t even know why he’s the popular guy, just because his daddy’s got some money doesn’t mean he can act like an asshole.

Hell my dad’s three times richer than his pops is, and he’d have to work for another 50 years just to get to where my dad’s wealth is.

So anyways today Flash thought it was a good idea to announce to the whole entire school during gym that while Parker had claimed a ‘Stark Internship’ with my dad, that meant that I was getting kicked out of the family and being replaced.

The entire school mocked me for it started calling me ‘the bastard child’ as a Jon Snow reference (even though I am a Stark by blood) and I tried to compose myself and not cry in front of the whole school for the entire day.

When the hellish day finally ended, I was quiet in the car as Happy drove me back towards the newly remodeled Avenger’s facility where my dad had us living from now on since he sold Stark Towers.

“You okay back there (y/n)?” asked Happy.

“I’m fine Happy just drive. No more questions either.” I didn’t mean to snap at him, really I didn’t but I was just so angry right now that I just wanted today to be over with. Maybe I can blow off some steam in the gym. Training always seems to calm my anger down.

When we finally arrived at the newly remodeled Avengers facility, the second Happy stopped the car, I jumped right out and raced straight towards the gym. I threw my backpack to the wall of the gym and got on my boxing gloves and went up to the closest punching bag.

Immediately I began to take off all my anger out on the bag, all the while hearing the taunts of my peers. Flash’s voice making the announcement, the laughing, the teasing and the Jon Snow comparisons. Each punch was harder than the last as I now began to picture Parker’s ugly face in the punching bag. God he infuriated me so much I just wanna……it was then I had actually punch the punching bag so hard that it ended up being blasted away.

I took off my glove and saw that my emergency Iron angel glove had materialized and shot out the automatic repulsor blast. With sweat dripping down my forehead and my heavy breathing I deactivated the glove when a voice said.

“The only other person to destroy a punching bag was Steve, should I be worried?”

“No Uncle Rhodey, there’s no need to call an emergency lockdown.”

“Good. Everything okay?” he asked me. I turned towards him to see him walking towards me.

“Everything’s fine.”

“Uh-huh because that punching bag ends up like that on a good day with you.” he answered sarcastically.

“Gee anymore smartass comments you got left?”

“Hey you better watch your mouth little missy less you want you dad to get involved in this.” I scoffed.

“Go ahead, tell him. He doesn’t care about me anymore anyways.”

“What was that?”

“Oh you didn’t hear? Apparently dad’s replacing me with a male version of me.”

“Now wait hold on a second (y/n),” uncle Rhodey started off as he placed a comforting hand to my shoulder. “Your dad loves you beyond anything else.”

“Yeah, used to love me. Now ever since Germany he’s always around Parker. He hardly notices me anymore. And do you know the hell I’ve had to endure because of that?”

“Bullies?” I turned away from him and shut my eyes as tight as I could to hold back the tears. “Who all has bullied you at the school?”

“What can you do about it?”

“I’ll call the school and tell them to get the kids responsible for this to be punished.”

“Like that ever really works. They’re just gonna get warnings and tell us to work it out.”

“Not if they hear it from me.”

“You know what forget I said anything. I appreciate the help uncle Rhodey but there’s nothing that not even you can do. I’ve got homework that needs to be done.” I tossed my other boxing glove away and grabbed my backpack and left the gym and locked myself up in my bedroom for the rest of the day.

The next day it was my lunch period. I was currently eating the ham and cheese sandwich I had picked out when I heard Flash’s obnoxious voice exclaimed.

“And lookie what we got here! The female Jon Snow. How’s it hanging out in the house of Stark?”

“I’m not in the mood Flash.”

“Oh c’mon Snow. Can��t take the newbie Penis Parker moving on in and kicking you to the curb?”

“Flash I’m serious stop it.”

“Nah I don’t think I will. It’s sad that Penis Parker found your dad, seems like the great Tony Stark wanted a son more than a daughter.” Okay that’s where I drew the line. Something snapped inside me as my glove materialized around my right hand and I fired a shot right at Flash’s chest sending him flying across the cafeteria.

All the kids who had the same lunch period I did were all in shock at what I had just done. After realizing what I had just done, I immediately knew that I was screwed.

I was sitting outside of the principal’s office and I could hear the principal talking with my dad about my punishment and how the school doesn’t accept this type of bullying (he’s the one to talk, Flash started it). I didn’t hear a word out of my dad other than some yeah’s or uh-huh, before finally ending with a ‘okay she’ll be dealt with.’ The door opened and I just looked up at him through my lashes.

“Care to explain?” I remained silent. “You know what, I don’t even have time for this. Get in the car.”

“So you’re really not gonna even try to hear me out?”

“Not here, just go to the car.” He demanded as he forced me onto my feet and shoved me towards the exit. We got into the car and it was just dead silent. Happy tried to relieve the tension by asking us random things like the weather or just what the principal wanted to talk about.

Of course my dad told him to drop it and just keep driving. Finally after what felt like hours we arrived at the facility and just like the other day, I stormed into the facility.

“Hold it right there young lady we’re not done talking about this!”

“Well I am!”

“Friday initiate protocol Birdcage.”

‘Yes boss.’ It was then the living room was now sealed up and I couldn’t enter anywhere else. I was now trapped like a bird in a cage.

“Friday deactivate protocol Birdcage.” I demanded. But nothing happened. “Friday I said deactivate dad’s protocol.”

“No can do kiddo, see I had Friday deny any further action unless given from me when it comes to protocol Birdcage.” I groaned and sat down on the couch. “Now you are gonna explain to me just why you used your Iron angel glove against an innocent civilian?”

“I would hardly call Flash innocent.”

“No this is where you zip it! Okay the adult is talking? What if he had died from that blast? Okay cause that falls on you. And if you get accused for—heroine misdeeds on a civilian. The accords will be affected and—I already lost half of my family. I can’t afford to lose my flesh and blood.”

“That’s the first time you’ve even acknowledged me in the past three months.”

“What?”

“Oh c’mon! You’re Tony freakin Stark! Genius, playboy, philanthropist, billionaire you of all people can’t be that stupid. You’ve never been there for me!”

“What are you—”

“No! Not this time! This time you’re gonna listen to me! Ever since Peter came into the picture it seems like I didn’t matter! I didn’t matter to you anymore!” All the rage, the sorrow, the pain that I have been feeling for months were finally being released.

Tears pricked the corner of my eyes but I refused to let them fall.

“And with Peter blabbing on about the superhero business but disguising it to your little secret ‘internship’. The other kids at my school call me the female Jon Snow cause now I’m the bastard’s child. Flash has made me a fucking living meme and I hate it! It’s your fault. It’s both your faults. I should’ve sided with Steve when I had the chance.”

Silence rang out from the room as I collapsed onto the leather seat beside me and turned my back on my dad. Shoulder’s shaking and heel tapping aggressively with anxiety on the floor. I felt a hand gently take my mine and I looked up to see my father, his eyes showing for the first time since the Avenger’s breakup, sorrow and regret.

“(Y/n).” he started off. “Baby girl I—I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t. You love Parker more than me.”

“Now that is not true.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” I snarked sarcastically.

“(N/n). I—things haven’t been easy since…..the Avengers splitting. And pushing you away was—the last thing I wanted to do.” I gave him my best glare. “I’m not doing so great right now am I?”

“Not even close.”

“I know. I’ve never been so good at these types of talks. But I need you to know something sweetheart. Just because the kid is looking at to be the next Avenger, that doesn’t mean he’s replacing you. Because he’s gonna need someone who knows the game inside and out and that’s you. My Iron Angel. One day I’m not gonna be here, and I need to make sure I can count on you to be the leader the next Avengers need, should the time come.” My glare softened and I looked down at my feet.

“Then why did you have to make it seem that Parker was your long lost son that you never had?”

“I should never have let that on. And that boy uhh—Flash is it? I’m gonna deal with that shitshow as well as anyone else that has bullied you.”

“With what? Bribes? A chance to work at Stark Industries? Blackmail? No offense dad but they don’t care. All they care about is making hell for me. So don’t even bother cause nothing will work. Not even the faculty is good enough to see someone being bullied and harassed and they don’t do a damn thing about it!” I breathed sharply before finally finishing out in a choked tone, “Now tell Friday to cancel Birdcage protocol. I’m done with this.”

“Friday, do as she says.”

‘Yes boss.’ Soon the living room opened and I immediately ran up the stairs for my room and slammed my door shut before locking it. Immediately I went into my bed and just buried myself under the covers and allowed the tears to fall down my face, until I had cried myself to sleep.

A weeks passed after that whole Flash incident and I was finally relieved of my suspension. But unlike any other day, the entire school was called in for an assembly. Which was weird cause we only have assemblies when it comes to new students coming in, graduations, or special guests coming in to do a seminar.

I was sitting on my own but for some reason Parker and his friend were sitting just several seats away from me. It was then the principal came up and he said into the microphone on the stand.

“Good morning students. I know this assembly was short notice but this will be worth it. Now I would like to bring to the stage our honorary guest who would like to say a few words in regard to something very important. Please give a warm Midtown High welcome to Mr. Tony Stark.” What the f—the students soon went crazy as my dad soon came up onto the stage.

“I LOVE YOU TONY STARK!!” I heard Flash proclaim out just a few rows in front of me.

“Thank you Midtown High. Now I’m assuming you all are thinking I’ve come here to shine a light on a new opportunity for an internship or chance to let Stark Industry do a funding on your latest project. Sadly, you’d be wrong.” At that moment the students were all murmured amongst each other. “Instead I wanna bring up a serious matter. And that’s bullying. When I was a kid—I was picked on as a child. People always compared me to my dad and—it hurt me. As I got older and threw my life away through parties and drugs. Word of the wise don’t ever do them, this was back in the 70’s when they were new and fresh, we were stupid back then our fault.”

“Oh god dad why?” I muttered to myself as I rubbed my hand against my face in annoyance.

“Anyways back on track. Bullying is not cool. Now I know nowadays that physical bullying isn’t all the rage like it was, now it’s through the internet. Or Verbally calling someone out, spreading rumors about them. See I’ve fought against people I’ve trusted, psychotic gods with daddy issues, mad aliens, and sociopathic robots, but the one true villain is right in front of you when you look into a mirror. Any one of you that has taken part even just for a fraction of a second of spreading a rumor, if you know your friend’s in on the bullying that makes you an accomplice because you didn’t speak up. And bullies—they’re just about the worst super villain anyone could ever face. Thank you.” the auditorium was dead silent.

So quiet in fact I think I could hear water leaking from the faucet outside.

“Well, thank you Mr. Stark for raising such an awareness to an issue that we here at Midtown High take very seriously.” Yeah right. As I watched my dad go backstage, I got out of my seat and slipped out the nearest exit and ran down the hall to catch him leaving for the backdoors.

“So that was it?” he stopped and turned towards me.

“Well I figured that I’d pull a little guilt trip on them. It worked all the time with you when you were little and make them feel bad about what they had done without naming any names. If you’d like I could’ve just full out embarrassed you, had you come up on stage and tell them all how much I love and adore you and—”

“Alright, alright I get it! Thank god you didn’t.” I lightly scoffed. “I still can’t believe you willingly did that.”

“You know I would do anything for you. You’re my little girl (n/n). And I am always, always, always gonna love you. No matter what. And just to prove it to you, next time I go out of line like that, you have my full permission to blast me with that glove of yours.” He said as he came up to me and placed his hands on my shoulders, gently rubbing them.

“Can’t I just do it now and cash it in?”

“Nice try.”

“Worth a shot.” He softly chuckled and brought me into a tight bear hug.

“I love you (y/n). I hope you know that.”

“I do now, thanks dad.”

396 notes · View notes

lilolilyr · 3 years

Text

Fics I Wanted To Write This Year But Didn't, Part 2: Star Trek AU

For @spookyvoidangelskeleton for this ask

Now I suppose these would have been several fics, but in a series or a collection as they're all about the same main storyline: The collapsing of a (or several) universe(s).

If you've known me for a while, you know that I am very into Multiverse Theory, both real life and fictional, and Star Trek with the Mirror Universe is of course one of the first fandoms that comes to mind for me to write my batshit ideas in xD

Basically, in my personal little (fictional, bc I know and understand 0 about real life physics or whatever would be relevant for this) multiverse theory, there are an infinite number of universes, evenly spread around the multiverse, and a new universe comes into existence when a timeline/universe (same thing) can go into 2 seperate ways naturally, or when there is timetravel involved to manually change a timeline: The original timeline won't be affected, you can't change what's already there, but a new changed timeline will be created.

Now, in some cases that works out well, with the timetraveller ending up in the new timeline and never knowing that their original universe is still out there- in other ways of time travelling, not so much. If the person trying to make a change manages to do just that but never notices, because they or a version of them is stuck in the orginal timeline, what do they do?

Try again, with the same result, many many times.

And that's where it gets problematic, because the multiverse gets unbalanced, and whether you see it as a sentient entity connected to the Qs in Star Trek or just as something that Works That Way automatically: the multiverse doesn't want to be out of balance, so the new universes start to collapse in on each other, creating a Splitter-verse and leaving its inhabitants to a fate arguably worse than death (in this fictional world): they completely stop to exist. This doesn't just affect the new universes but the surroundings ones, which would have split earlier and are already more different from each other, too, to make sure the one that was the cause for it all falls, too.

Now (of course, because I can't help myself) this would be part of @thelucyverse , with there being Central people trained in spotting such time anomalies before it is too late, but with there also being time-bombs (yeah hahah) created in inter-universal wars to create smaller, controlled splitter-verses (I say small and controlled here but like. We're still talking about entire universes), and with Central having back-up plans to get people out of the 'verses, in order as follows: anyone visibly IDing as Central (the organisation is still largely volunteer-based, shit's got to have some perks), then everyone whose energy indicates recent travel in-between universes, as these are also most likely to a) be Central and b) be okay in a new 'verse, after that, if there is still time and anyone willing to go back into the falling universe, children as they are also more likely to adapt in a new world. If there is enough warning, they also get out whoever people Central members want to have saved, but usually it just turns into whoever stands close enough to grab and get the hell out of there.

Whether taking people out of a universe against their will is a good thing or nah is ...debatable and still being debated amongst those who do it and those who think that taking someone away from the possibility of dying death in their own universe is vile (as amongst most religions, it is thought that you can only reach the same afterlife as those who died in the same umiverse- but again most also think that there probably won't even Be an afterlife in a splitter-verse).

Sometimes, people are also pushed out of the universe by the explosion itself, but they then tend to die upon impact as they seldomly end up exactly at the coordinates where they left, which leaves them either suffocating in hard matter or in space.

If you want to use these ideas for your own fanfic feel free, just give me credit and link this post as inspired by/ link to my ao3 or @ my tumblr!

Anyhow! To Star Trek... and I suppose this is now SPOILERS not rly for any Star Trek canon but for these fanfics, if I do end up writing them!

I tend to forget which characters are canon and which are complete OCs because I spend Way more hours on tumblr and ao3 + thinking about my own headcanons than I spend consuming the original media, but I am fairly certain a canon Joana McCoy, daughter of Leonard 'Bones' McCoy exists? If no and I stole the idea from sb else's fanfic I am sincerely sorry. Gotta look that up.

In one universe close to what would be the centre of the splitterverse, Joana- as a young child nicknamed 'Jojo', but now as a young teen trying to get rid of the childish nickname- has a younger part-vulcan girl as a friend, and this girl, nicknamed Aka, has, through having sticky fingers and connections to Central, a device that allows you to jump between universes. She's used it before and gotten into a lot of trouble for it, but to her it had always been great fun- until reality is starting to collapse around them while she is visiting Joana, and Joana is the only person she can reach in time and take with her to the next universe.

Distraught, the children are left in a new world, debating what to do, waiting for Central to contact them, hoping that they saved their families- but of course, Central has quite some different problems right now and won't contact them any time soon, and even if they did it wouldn't be with news of their parents: the adult families of non-Central members who only happened to have jumped between universes before themselves are really not the top priority, and the universe is collapsing too quickly to even get down the prio list to 'children',

Aka wants to leave the universe again and look for Central elsewhere, hoping that her moving around will attract their attention. Joana has enough from universe jumps for a lifetime. Thus, they part ways.

While Aka at some point does run into a group of Central troubeshooters who more or less adopt her as one of their own and teach her how to work their equipment and use magic and weapons and starships (not what a child her age should be learning. But then, none of the adults there ever signed up to be a parent, so who's to blame them), Joana goes looking for her family in this world.

Now I could write entire novels about Akas adventures and how it may or may not be healthy to not have a home at all and decide to not rely on anybody instead of either finding new versions of her original parents or letting someone new into her life properly (spoileralert: it isn't healthy at all), and how meeting a girl from one of the original splitter-verses (the not bombed ones) telling her not to make the same mistakes she made finally makes her think about her choices and and and, but this post is already going to be Long so I won't. That would all be a seperate fanfic anyways.

Joana finds a girl her age who looks just like her and acts almost exactly like her, too- the only difference seems to be that there's no Aka around, which made this version of her less used to adventure but also less wary of it.

The version of Joana from this universe- she decides to call herself Joan when they are alone, while the Joana we already know goes with 'Jojo'- her once loathed childhood nickname now a connection to her past- is thrilled to meet her and begs her to stay, I mean what is cooler than suddenly having a twin, and won't it be fun there is so much they can do! As their parents are seperated, they manage to spend their time mostly at one of their homes, either together when the parent is too busy to notice that there are two kids around, or one at each place, guessing correctly that if the parents were to talk about it, they wouldn't even think of the possibility of there being two children and instead just get mad at each other.

This goes on for a few months during the summer, with Jojo feeling vaguely guilty both to her original dead parents and these new ones who think that she is their real daughter, and the girls are just deciding about what to do when school starts again when-

Reality breaks apart around them.

Jojo clings to Joan in fear, and- as Jojo is now on the list of people who have travelled between universes in the past, she is saved by Central, and Joan with her. They are placed into a universe further away this time, a safe distance to the only slowly contained Splitters.

Meanwhile, in the same universe, two people were currently out on a space-walk: Michael Burnham and Philippa Georgiou.

They are thrown out of the universe in the explosion, and as they are wearing their suits, they survive as they end up somewhere in space again, but- they don't end up in the same universe. Michael ends up about 20-30 years earlier in a universe further away, and she doesn't even end up in what would've been federation space in her old 'verse. Philippa is only thrown one universe to the left and picked up by Central. As Central likes to name their acquaintances in some way that makes it easier to identify just which version of a person you are talking to without having to add the long universe number (even harder when the universe was destroyed and there isn't a known number), they ask Philippa to pick a new name. She is way too rattled and desperate to go looking for Michael as quickly as possible to care about what name she is supposed to have, so she goes with the first option given to those who don't have their own nickname ideas: lastname for firstname, making her Georgiana, short Gia.

Through Central, she finds out that the universal explosion left her and Michael connected- but it won't be much help in the search, basically just a way to say 'alright this verse is closer to it than that one', it's still trial and error... (I could also involve some body switching here, idk I already wrote a long fanfic with that trope in the Andromaquynh fandom, but I happen to Like that trope so yeah maybe I'll recycle some parts of In Your Stead if I ever do manage to write this Milippa story. Which, btw, if not already obvious, would again be a seperate fic from the Joana universal-sister story. On the other hand, Aka runs into Georgiana a lot, even calling her 'auntie Gia').

Meanwhile, Michael doesn't have to jump through universes but make her way through just the one universe to get to federarion space. Except what she find's isn't the federation at all... you guessed it, the 'verse she ended up in is more similar to a mirrorverse than to Prime. However, the Georgiou of this world isn't the emperor yet, she's young and Michael is able to influence her enough over the years so that she turns her back to the Empire.

Yes, it takes years for Michael and Gia to find their way back to each other, maybe decades... they also wouldn't have spent exactly the same amount of time apart as they aren't in the same 'verse. In fact, Cleo of Central carefully tells Gia that Michael might have died by now, but of course Georgiana doesn't want to hear this.

Michael and that universe's Georgiou also get quite close, though Michael doesn't want to cheat on her Philippa... of course, after years of this, she might think that she will never see Philippa again... (We are approaching ot3 territory here lol, and I don't even want to think about the potential of ot7 with the two canon mirror and prime versions adsfghjkl because if I finish this story here, I would 100% write a lil fix it where Central! Gia Mikay and Phil go fish Mirror! Michael and Georgiou out of a splitter-verse into the next prime verse in which Michael already knows that Georgiou... and ad they're already at it they also get half dead! Prime Philippa away from the Klingons... heheh sounds like the kind of poly chaos I would enjoy writing, but sadly I have to make it through all the Plot first)

Anyway! Back to Jojo and Joan: they decide that while they maybe should have told Joan's family about Jojo's existence soon if they had stayed in that 'verse, the initial idea of staying with one's universals wasn't so bad, so they go looking for this universe's Joana McCoy. The girl- (nicknamed Anna, which makes Joan decide to change hers from Joan to June because she doesn't want to be half Jojo and half Anna), is happy enough to meet them, but often feels left out from the other two as they act as if they've known each other forever even though of course it's only been a few months... In turn, Jojo and June aren't sure whether Anna really wants them around, whether she might think they're trying to steal her life and family from her...

Lots of potential for conflict! Yay! XD would of course come to a happy ending, with at least Bones accepting his three daughters, dunno yet whether they'd tell the mom... also Aka ends up in the same universe at some point, together with a version of her vulcan birthmother who she had never known the original version of but now gets along with alright... oh and if I do write aforementioned Milippa ot7 bullshitery, this would also be the Prime!verse for that, so all stories in the series or collection interconnect again!

this got... long... and I could obviously go on but I need to go back to writing my Bachelor thesis :(

@whoever read through all of this, do let me know whether you like these ideas and which you would like to read proper fanfic for! Might influence future writing decisions.

11 notes · View notes

afewmarvelousthoughts · 5 years

Text

Stay Ch. 3

(This is a repost because of tumblr’s stupid thing about links being in posts. I want to be sure the people who wanted tags see this.)

Master List: @afewmarvelousthoughtsadmin

Pairing: Natasha X Reader (Female)

Summary: You have a gift, the ability to see other people’s innermost secrets. For years you used it to gather intel for the highest bidder when you take on The Widow. After she becomes more than a mark the two of you spend years stealing moments. Post snap you wait in your designated meeting place, look back on the sordid past you share with the woman you love and hope against everything that she’s still alive.

Warnings: References to murder I guess?

A/N: Ah, my poor OC/Reader. So infatuated. So stressed. So about to be in over her head.

(Also, to my knowledge we don’t know exactly when MCU Natasha graduated from The Red Room so I picked an age that worked for my story.)

Tags are open!

@mywinterwolf @disagreetoagree @breezy1415 @peachthatdrinkslemonade @5aftermidnight @jeromethepsycho @germansarechill

Natasha didn’t seem to notice the clear signals she projected nor that your unique brain absorbed each and every one. Or if she did she hid it. She sits back on the bed crossing her legs and gathering the rest of the little vodka bottles to her.

“So,” she asks opening another, “just what kind of freak are you?” Your brows raise in a silent question. “Born freak or made freak.”

“Never met a made freak…” Something to dig into, “Though in all fairness never met a born one either. Never met anyone like me.”

“Born, then?”

“Yeah.”

“Alabama?”

You’re genuinely surprised, “Damn, spot on there.”

“I’m a made freak,” she downs the bottle.

“Oh?” You steel yourself, “What exactly…”

“I’m a weapon.” She forms a gun with her fingers and aims it at you, “A damn good one.”

The tension in you releases, you thought she was going to reveal some power, an ability like your own. “Is that so bad?” She just shrugs.

Silence hangs thick for a few minutes. “Alright,” your voice feels like a gunshot, “let’s get to work.” She just stares at you, “I’m good but like any hunting dog I need to be pointed in a direction. You’ve got to have some ideas about who’s put this bounty on you.”

“That’s a long list.”

“I don’t sleep much,” you shrug and flash her a smile. “Come on,” you pull the notepad by the phone to you and the hotel pen, “start listing potentials.”

Over an hour later your head is spinning. “How fucking long have you been at this?” You were both born in ’84… only 20… but you’d lived so many lifetimes by then and there was no question she had too.

“Graduated at 14,” she says nonchalantly.

“Graduated?”

“From The Red Room. Been working since.”

You ran a hand over your face, letting out a long sigh. “So in six years-“

“That’s from the last two.”

“Fuck me,” you groan, she laughs and you can’t help but smile. “Ok, you’re obviously not done, so keep going.”

Natasha takes a deep breath before listing more names of people and syndicates. It becomes like static as your brain searches for pertinent information, “The Yugo Brotherhood, then there’s-“

“Stop,” you hold up your hand to pause. Eidetic memory, was the best word for it, though it didn’t quite cover it. Anything you absorb you can, for better or worse, recall with pinpoint accuracy. Great for your job. Terrible for being a functional human. “You took out the fucking Cobra didn’t you?!” Just a shrug.

“Need another drink?” Natasha asks, a small smile playing on her lips.

You hold out your glass, “Make it a double.” Your fingers brush over her’s as she hands the glass back to you and a shiver climbs up your spine, “Thank you.” After a sip you take a deep breath and close your eyes, pulling up everything you have on the Yugoslavian Brotherhood.

Names and dates begin pouring out, your hand racing across the pages in your short form, scrawling out the information. Tearing off the page and going on to the next, you’re like a machine. Then your hand starts sketching the outline of a face, a man, automatic. You stop yourself as it’s not necessary.

Natasha was hovering over watching, fascinated. You hadn’t noticed her. Three pages in her hands.

“Sorry, I kinda zone out once this,” you tap your forehead, “get’s going.”

“You just… remembered all of this?” She looks at the pages, trying to decipher them.

“Mhm, part of the package.” You reach for the pages, “You won’t be able to decode those.”

She flashes you a side glance, “This is short for, underworld,” she points to the mix of symbols letters. “Don’t assume,” she hands them to you and sits on the opposite side of the table.

“Impressive.”

“Well made,” she says dryly.

- Post Snap -

You stare at the dark screen of your phone. Willing it to light up. Any number, any country, you’d answer. Because maybe…

The sun was setting. A few stragglers had wandered into the hotel, all looking dazed, lost. Did you look like that? Did it matter?

You let your mind wander back.

It didn’t take you long to narrow in on what mercs would have picked up the Brotherhood’s hit the fastest…

- Nov. 2004 -

“That doesn’t sound like a suicide mission at all,” your stare is incredulous.

“I can handle myself.”

“Yeah, no one is disputing that. But you don’t have-“

“Enough,” she pushes past you and it takes every ounce of self-control for you to not grab her.

It turned out that the hit on Natasha had indeed been put on her by the Brotherhood. The day before you had pulled corroborating information from two different men that Europe’s top two mercs had picked up that the Widow was in Vienna. Rather than risk going after her solo they were apparently teaming up, willing to split the sizable bounty for the glory of taking her out. She didn’t want to wait, was instead determined to crash their makeshift HQ.

You had spent the better part of the last three hours pointing out to her the obvious issues. They would have home-field advantage, there were at least two of them, they were both skilled killers. She of course scoffed, she was better than them and would be sending their head’s to the Brotherhood as a clear message.

Leaning against the door you watch her gear up, teeth grinding, brain whirring trying to find any way to get her to stop. Natasha was unquestionably exceptional at what she did, but in this instance, she was being arrogant.

Done covering her body in a small arsenal she stares you down. You don’t move. “Please,” she sighs, “don’t make me move you, Y/N.”

“If you die that’s on me,” she won’t meet your eyes.

“If you feel guilt over the consequences of a job well done you need to find a new line of work.” When she finally looks back it’s as though she’s donned a mask, “Now, get out of my fucking way.” You do, even though you feel like you’re moving through wet concrete.

Natasha opens the door with more force than necessary and steps out before pausing. She looks back at you, “Thank you… for the information. I won’t forget what I owe you.” Then she’s gone.

You collapse into a chair, head in your hands. For three days you had worked to dig up as much information as you possibly could to find just what kind of trouble she had gotten herself into. Unsurprisingly, it was all a tangled mess. But you had also spent much of that time with her.

At first, you thought she would be vapid, boring, just a gun in a pretty dress. Now you weren’t sure if you were happy or livid that she was anything but.

In lulls between research and tracking down sources you both hardly slept, instead, you just ate junk, guzzled caffeine, and talked about your favorite books, artists, music. Turned out she had a soft spot for classic rock and Anais Nin, both of which utterly surprised you.

One of the definite upsides to your ability was being able to tell if someone was lying to you, or fronting, she had done neither. Your exchange was candid, and you felt somehow honored that she chose to be real with you. In return you had been open with her, laying out what your original plan had been, telling her what information you needed to satisfy your S.H.I.E.L.D contact. Rather than having to pluck it from her she willingly gave you the intel.

It turned your stomach. The way The Red Room broke these girls to make them into weapons. Your own childhood hadn’t been a cake walk. Sold off to the highest bidder the moment your dad realized what useful skills you had and that plenty of underworld lowlives would be happy to have a handy little psychic on their side. But none of the brutality you had witnessed was calculated, none of it specifically formulated to break you, which somehow made it all less sinister in your mind.

All that she had been through and yet… deep under it all, there was something there, some spark, of humanity they couldn’t strip away. You felt it there every time she spoke about her own likes, every time you caught her glancing at you, every time you brushed against her (accidentally on purpose if you were being real).

You wanted to know her, really know her, you wanted- fuck. You get up and pace around the room. Anxiety growing with every circuit you make. Maybe an hour since she had left… enough time to get to their hideout… enough time for her to be…

“Goddammit!” You yell to nothing as you begin to gear up. Every sensible part of your brain is screaming at you. Lining up the reasons not to go after her, blasting them at full volume. But your brain wasn’t in control right now. Neither was your heart. This was your gut telling you something was going to go wrong, something you couldn’t live with.

8 notes · View notes

fanficwriter013 · 6 years

Text

The Tower - Chapter 19

The Tower: An Avengers Fanfic

Chapter 19

Chapters: one / two / three / four / five / six / seven / eight / nine / ten / eleven / twelve / thirteen / fourteen / fifteen / sixteen / seventeen / eighteen / nineteen / twenty / twenty-one / twenty-two / twenty-three / twenty-four / twenty-five / twenty-six / twenty-seven / twenty-eight

Word Count: 1903

Warnings: Dark Humor, Smut (MFF, oral sex (male receiving), fingering, vaginal sex, edging, voyeurism)

Synopsis: Elly struggles to come to terms with normal. But Bucky and Nat lend a shoulder.

Author’s Note: Written with my Tumblr bestie, and the only reason why I’m still writing, @emilyevanston

Chapter 19 - The Assassins

The ‘I love yous’ slowly started to trickle in after Wanda’s declaration. After saying it to her I felt I needed to tell the others considering I felt it for them too. I still knew that for a lot of them I may never hear those particular words in that particular order. That didn’t matter to me. It just mattered to me that they knew.

Sam said it back almost automatically. Like he’d been waiting to say it but was a little bit scared to go first. He didn’t like to make a big deal of it though, and if I went overboard at all he’d tell me to stop getting mushy.

Natasha was the next one to return it. It took a little longer and when she did say it, she made a big deal about it. It wasn’t just an ‘I love you too’. She pulled me aside and told me how much I meant to her. How she had trouble expressing herself. How happy she was that I’d put myself out there to make this work. Then she had told me she loved me. We kissed and she left the room as quickly as she could. I didn’t see her again until the next day.

Clint wouldn’t say the words out loud. I did find though if I signed them to him, he’d sign them back. He wouldn’t do it if Natasha was looking. It was like it was a secret just between the two of us.

Steve told me the day he had to take Clint on a mission for a few days. He pulled me aside just before he got on the Quinjet, dressed in his uniform and ready to go. He’d said, ‘I love you, El. Take care of yourself.’ He then kissed my forehead and got on the plane. It made me anxious. I worried that he’d just said some final goodbye to me.

“He’s a punk. Don’t worry about it.” Bucky said as I sat on the recliner opposite both him and Natasha, hugging my knees.

“Why’d he have to tell me then? It was super final.” I whined.

“He probably did tell you just in case he didn’t come back. He’s had people in the past he didn’t do that with. But he’s coming back.” Bucky said firmly.

“Didn’t come back that one time he crashed a plane in the ice,” I muttered.

“Woah, doll. Come on now.” Bucky said leaning forward and rubbing my knees.

“He’s coming back, Mishka. You don’t need to worry. But this is the job we have. It has risks. If something did happen, he wanted you to know he feels the same way for you. That’s all.” Natasha explained. “That is something you need to come to terms with.”

“But I don’t want to come to terms with it,” I whined.

Bucky looked at the others. “What’s the sleeping arrangement tonight?”

“Well, I’m with you,” Nat said.

“Tony and Bruce are caught up in the lab, they’ll probably stay together. I was going with Sam.” Wanda added.

“You want to join me and Tasha, Elly?” Bucky asked, his thumbs drawing circles on my bare thighs.

“But you don’t like it when I sleep in with you. In case…” I trailed off. He knew why he didn’t like me actually sleeping over. He was worried about waking up trying to kill me. He only ever agreed if he, Steve and I were in his apartment and he felt too guilty to ask me to leave. If he came to my apartment they always left and if it was just him, the guilt wasn’t enough. I didn’t think that Natasha would be strong enough to hold him down if something did happen. I would have thought that would be worse.

His hands slid a little further up my legs, his fingers continuing to draw small circles. “Maybe you can think of a way that might make all three of us sleep much better?”

My thighs twitched and I squirmed in my seat. “But normally Steve…”

“I’m feeling alright, doll. I promise. I wouldn’t ask if I was worried.” He said. “Tasha is much stronger than she looks.” Bucky soothed. “So how ‘bout it?”

“I’d love to,” I answered. “If you’re sure.”

Bucky stood and offered me his hand. “I’m very sure.”

“Right now?” I asked, looking up at Bucky. Natasha stood beside him and gave me that devilish half smile of hers.

“No time like the present,” Bucky said.

I took his hand and he pulled me to my feet. “Well goodnight, you two,” I said, kissing Sam and Wanda goodnight.

We took the stairs to Natasha and Clint’s floor and followed her into her apartment and down to her bedroom. As soon as we stepped in the room Natasha and I started to kiss. Bucky leaned against the doorframe and watched us. As we started shedding clothes he approached us and engulfed us in his arms. His hands roamed our bodies, touching every piece of exposed skin he could reach. The cool metal of his fingers made my nipples harden to the point they were slightly painful.

I broke our kiss with Natasha and both turned on him together. Natasha pulled his shirt off over his head as I worked open his fly and pushed his pants down. He kicked his shoes off and stepped out of them as Natasha and I kissed a trail down his body.

When we were on our knees in front of him we kissed again. It was all tongues, almost like we were putting on a show for Bucky as much as we were doing it for just us. His hands went to our hair bunching it in his fists as he watched us. I took his cock in my hand and slowly pumped it and Natasha and I leaned towards him. Our mouths moved to either side of Bucky’s cock and we kissed over it. Our tongues swirled together over his shaft and Bucky let out a deep moan.

I started sucking the head of Bucky’s cock while Natasha ran her tongue down over his shaft and balls. I ran one hand up Bucky’s abs, and the other explored Natasha’s skin. I pinched and teased at her nipples and she started rolling a finger over my clit. I hummed and my eyelids fluttered closed as a pleasant tingle spread out through my cunt. Bucky started to roll his hips, adding some friction to the wet suction I was applying to his cock.

Natasha pushed two fingers inside of me and started fucking me with them. I released Bucky’s cock with a gasp and she took over, taking him deep into the back of her throat. We started taking turns when she released him I took over. Bucky’s cock leaked precome onto our tongues and his abs started to tighten.

Natasha pulled away from both of us and stood. Bucky took her wrist and pulled her into a deep kiss. I watched them from my spot on my knees, my mouth still wrapped around Bucky’s cock. Natasha whispered something in Bucky’s ear and as she spoke Bucky lifted the hand she’d been using to finger me and sucked her fingers, his eyes trained on me as I bobbed up and down on his cock.

“That sounds good to me, Natalia.” Bucky hummed.

She ran her fingers through his hair and then offered her hand to me. I released Bucky’s cock and got to my feet. “Come with me, Mishka.” She said with a purr to her voice.

I followed her as she guided me onto the bed, she lay back on her pillows, spreading her legs and guiding me between them. I kissed my way up her stomach. When I reached her breasts I swirl my tongue over one nipple and then the other before moving up. My lips met hers and she used her foot to pull me tightly against her. I started to grind my pussy against hers. We kissed slowly, letting the buzz build between us. Our tongues swirled together, and our hands roamed. Soon we were both teasing each other's clits with our fingertips.

Bucky came up behind us and started rubbing the head of his cock up and down my folds. His hand ran up my spine and tangled in my hair and he thrust inside of me. “Fuck.” I groaned, breaking my kiss with Natasha.

Bucky snapped his hips against me, one hand on the middle of my back the other in my hair. He leaned over me, licking up my spine and biting down on my shoulder. Natasha’s finger worked my clit as I rubbed hers in tight circles with my thumb. I sucked at her breasts, pressing my teeth on her nipples and she squeezed my breast and sucked at my throat hard enough to mark.

Both Bucky and Natasha run hot. Their heat passed through me as I was pressed between them moving as one. A film of sweat formed on my skin, and I could feel my orgasm rapidly approaching and just as I was sure it was about to happen Bucky pulled out, grabbed Natasha’s hips and sunk into her. He and Natasha started to kiss over my shoulder as he fucked her. Nat’s fingers kept working over my clit, continuing to keep the buzz running through me. I could feel the ways she was responding under me and Bucky. The way her core clenched and released. The rise and fall of her chest. How her pulse sped up under my lips. As she came close to the edge Bucky pulled out again and sunk into me.

This happened again and again. He’d fuck us right to the point we were about to come before pulling out and switching to the other. I became a trembling wreck between them. Barely able to hold myself up. By the time Bucky finally let me come sweat ran from my brow and my legs shook. My orgasm was intense. My core spasmed and I cried out burying my neck into Natasha’s neck. Bucky pulled out and moved to Natasha, this time fucking her harder and faster than before. I kept rolling my thumb over her clit but every snap of Bucky’s hips shoved me upwards. Natasha came with a loud moan and her fingers dug into my back. Her orgasm brought Bucky over too and he emptied inside of her.

We collapsed down into a panting heap. Limbs completely tangled together. I lay panting on the bed feeling slightly high. Bucky ran his hands through my hair. “How are you doing there?” He said, softly.

“Spent. I can’t, you’re all going to kill me.” I sighed.

He and Natasha chuckled. “How about the three of us go take a nice hot bath?”

I nodded my head. “Someone will have to carry me though. I’m broken.”

“Don’t worry, dork. I’ve got you.” Bucky said, untangling himself and getting up. It was then, I realized, that maybe for some of them the word dork might be the way they said they loved me. Bucky lifted me into his arms and I rested my head on his shoulder. “I love you, Buck,” I whispered.

He nodded his head and kissed my temple as he followed after Natasha and even though he didn’t say the words, that was enough.

790 notes · View notes

captaindamnron · 6 years

Text

Accidental Matchmake

So Tumblr has decided to delete my blog and here I'm reposting this. As I said this is my first time writing after a long time, so I really do appreciate your review and feedback :)

Accidental Matchmake

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/M

Relationships: Poe Dameron/Rey

“Come on, Chewie! Time to come inside!”

Poe rolled over, groaning when he opened his eyes and saw the time. It was early, way too early for someone who had just gotten to bed a couple of hours ago.

“Come on, buddy. I have to get to work.”

The voice pierced through his sleepy fog and Poe found himself smiling despite the fatigue. The voice belonged to his neighbor. He usually worked at night and she was gone all day.

Because of his strange routine, he never really met his neighbor, but he felt like he knew her from listening to her talk to her dog, Chewie. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but her voice tended to carry through his always open windows.

He would hear her telling the dog about work, her mother, her friends, and her dates. Poe didn’t particularly care for those conversations.

“Chewie, buddy?”

Poe sat up at her voice again. She sounded worried. He knew that she didn’t usually have to call for the dog so many times. He could hear her moving around in her yard, probably trying to find her dog. He wondered if he should go out and offer to help.

Throwing back the cover on his bed, he stood and looked around for the jeans he’d discarded before collapsing into his bed a few hours ago. Finding them crumpled in a corner he stepped into them. He was just about to throw on a shirt when he heard a scratching noise. Pausing with the shirt in his hands, he stopped and listened. There it was again.

Pulling the t-shirt over his head, Poe made his way to the back door. He opened it and promptly stepped back in surprise. Just like his owner, Poe had never seen Chewie before. He was not expecting something so... furry.

“Chewie?” Poe asked. Maybe this was a different dog?

Nope, he decided when the little guy bounced up at the sound of his name, running over to Poe and raised up on his hind legs. Automatically he bent down and scooped the tiny animal into his arms. Chewie started licking Poe’s chin, obviously delighted to have made a new friend. Poe laughed and scratched Chewie behind his ears.

“Come on, pal,” Poe told him. “Let’s go find your mom.”

Walking carefully in his bare feet, Poe made his way over to the fence that separated the yards. It was still tightly closed.

“How did you get over here?” Poe asked, looking down at the little dog in his arms. Chewie just stared up at him, tongue hanging out of his mouth so it looked like he was smiling. Poe huffed out a laugh at the dog’s goofy face and unlatched the gate.

Stepping into his neighbor’s yard, Poe got his second surprise of the morning. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d been expecting, but a brunette crouching at the corner of her yard wasn’t it. Her back was to him, presumably searching for her tiny dog, and Poe couldn’t stop staring at her ass. It was by far one of the best asses he’d ever seen. The tight material of her trouser hugged it just right and he suddenly found himself grateful he’d put on jeans instead of sweats.

“Um, hi,” he called out, his voice cracking slightly. Smooth, he thought to himself.

The brunette straightened up, whipped around and Poe felt like he’d been sucker punched in the stomach. Holy hell she was gorgeous. He knew he was staring, but he couldn’t help himself. Her big brown eyes were wide with surprise and a little panic, her mouth open just little. Poe realized she was staring at him too.

He barely stopped himself from preening a little under her gaze. “I think I found your dog,” he told her finally, lifting Chewie in his arms just a little.

“Oh, thank God,” she exclaimed, rushing over and scooping the little fur ball out of his arms. The dog seemed happy to see her, peppering her face with swipes of his tiny pink tongue.

“Where did you go, buddy?” she asked Chewie, kissing his furry little face. The dog gave a little yip as if he was trying to answer her.

“He was in my backyard,” Poe interpreted for the dog.

“Your backyard?” she asked, confused.

That’s right, he thought, they didn’t actually know each other.

“Hi, I’m Poe. Your next door neighbor,” he told her, sticking out his hand.

“Hi. I’m Rey and this is Chewie,” she said, putting her hand in his and she shifted the dog to her left hand.

Warmth spread through his hand from her touch. It made him want to pull her into his arms and hold her there forever. It took him a moment to realize she’d asked him a question and he was still holding her hand.

“I know.”

Her face lit up in a huge smile and Poe knew he was done for. He knew, with absolute certainty, he wanted to see her smile at him like that for the rest of his life.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” he asked, reluctantly letting go of her hand.

“I asked how Chewie got into your yard,” she repeated with a small smile.

“I have no idea. I woke up when we you were looking for him and then I heard him scratching at my back door.”

“I woke you up with my yelling?” she asked, her eyes wide with humiliation. It made him want to kiss and cuddle her.

“Don’t worry about it,” he reassured her with a soft smile. “I work from home so I have a weird sleep schedule. I’m just glad the little guy wasn’t lost.” He reached over to scratch under Chewie’s chin and was rewarded with a lick to his hand and cheerful bark. Poe looked stunned.

“He likes you,” she stated incredulously.

“I’m a pretty nice person,” Poe said, shrugging. The dog had begun to squirm in her arms so he reached over and took him from her. Chewie seemed happy with the situation and settled into his arms as he’d been there hundreds of times before.

“No, I mean, I’m sure you are a nice guy. I like you so far, but that’s not what I mean,” Poe stammered out staring at her little dog in the arms of a strange man. “Chewie doesn’t go along with strangers.”

“What do you mean?” Poe asked, confused and trying to ignore her statement about liking him. Man, he was so far gone already.

“My uncle Han gave me Chewie when I moved here, my family did not want me to be all by myself, even if we live in the same city. Long story short, Chewie gets along with my family, but whenever I took him to a public places he would either start barking or be very scared and even shake.”

“Really?” Poe said looking at the puffy goofy ball infront of him.

“I better take him in,” she said, reluctantly. “I have to get him in his kennel so I can go to work.” Poe frowned.

“He’s in a kennel all day while you’re at work?”

“I know,” she replied. “I hate it, but I can’t leave him out or he gets into trouble and I can’t find a doggie daycare that can tame him long enough.” She seemed so upset by the situation.

“He could stay with me,” Poe heard himself saying. Wait, what? Did he just offer to baby-sit a miniature dog for his beautiful neighbor?

“What?” Poe asked him, her tone full of doubt.

He should take it back, but somehow he didn’t want to do that. Chewie liked him and Poe didn’t like the idea of the little guy stuck in a kennel all day. It had nothing to do with the fact that he’d get to see Rey at the of the day.

“Why not?” he asked her. “I’m home most of the time anyway. We could just hang out.”

“What if you need to leave?” Rey asked, still not sure about this.

“Bring his kennel over. I can put him in it if I need to go out,” he told her, finding he liked the idea more and more.

“What is it that you do?”

“I’m a song writer,” he answered, somewhat reluctantly. “and when I feel like it, singer.” People tended to have mixed reactions when he told them what he did.

“Oh no. No, no, no!” she said, shaking her head emphatically.

That was not one of the reactions he was used to, however.

“Excuse me?” Poe’s brows furrowed. What did she have against composers?

“No way. You cannot keep Chewie if you’re a composer,” she told him. “You’ll never get anything done! He may look sweet and innocent, but he can be terror when he wants to be.”

Poe looked down at the tiny ball of fur sleeping in his arms and then looked back at the worried face of his gorgeous neighbor.

“I think I can handle him.” She still looked unsure. “Come on, Rey,” he coaxed. “Let me help you, both of you. We’ll just try it today and see how it goes.”

Rey was silent for a long moment, he could practically see her brain working. Processing all the things that could go wrong. Poe widened his eyes and tilted his head in what his sister called his best “puppy dog face.” He heard her sigh and knew it had worked.

“Ok,” she said. “Just for today.”

Poe grinned, happy in the knowledge that he would get to see her again that evening.

“Why don’t I just take him over to my place now?” he asked, not wanting her to change her mind.

Rey bit her bottom lip and Poe barely managed to repress a groan at the sight. He could see that she was still uncertain about the situation. He stayed silent though, letting her work through it.

“That’ll work,” she finally agreed with a smile. “I’ll go get his stuff together and bring it over, is that ok?”

Poe nodded, trying not to appear too excited. Rey turned and headed into her house. He watched her go before realizing he was staring at her ass again. He shook his head and turned toward his own house.

By the time he entered his back door, Chewie was awake again and squirming to be let down. Poe bent down and gently set the dog on the floor. Chewie took off exploring and instantly Poe realized a problem. The dog was so little he was going to get lost. Poe tried to follow him, but Chewie was crawling around at sniffing in places that were definitely not made for a man his size.

“Hello?”

Poe’s head shot up at the sound of Rey’s voice and cracked against the end table he was currently wedged under.

“Shit!” he swore before he could stop himself.

“Poe?” she called, her voice filled with concern.

“Yeah,” he called back, trying to sound like he wasn’t stuck between his couch and the wall. “I’ll be right there.”

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

Her voice sounded closer that time. He had to get out of there before she saw him. He reached for Chewie, but the little troublemaker had a different idea. He darted past Poe’s outstretched hand, jumped onto his head and crawled across his back.

Chewie gave a little bark when he saw Rey and ran straight for her. Poe closed his eyes in defeat before wiggling his way backwards. There was just no way to look cool doing that, he thought.

Once he was clear of the end table, Poe stood up slowly, brushing his pants off as he went. Looking up he saw Rey holding Chewie, the little traitor, and biting her lips together. Her eyes were twinkling with laughter and she looked so adorable it took everything in him not to reach over and pull her to him.

“I told you he was trouble,” she said laughingly.

“I didn’t realize just how small he was until I got him in here. I was afraid I was going to lose him.” Poe admitted.

Rey nodded holding up the canvas tote bag she had brought with her.

“I brought you a few of his things, they’ll help,” she told him, setting the bag on the coffee table and handing the dog to him. Poe cradled Chewie in one arm and watched Rey pull out more stuff than one tiny dog should have.

“This is probably the most important thing you’ll need,” she told him, holding up what looked to be a tiny clip with a bell attached.

Poe watched as Rey attached the bell to Chewie’s collar. “You can put him down now,” she told him.

Poe obediently set the dog down who immediately began to run around the couch again, the bell jingling as he went.

“Now, you’ll know where he is all the time,” Rey told him as they both watched Chewie. “The rest is his water dish, a few treats and a couple of his toys.” A bit of apprehension was visible in her eyes.

“Hey,” he said, reaching out before he could stop himself and placing a hand lightly on her shoulder. “I’ll take good care of him, I promise.”

Their eyes met and Poe tried to convey reassurance to her in his gaze. He must have succeed because she smiled back.

“I’d better get going. I called my boss to tell him I’d be late, but I have a meeting this morning I can’t miss,” she told him reluctantly.

“We’ll be fine,” he reassured her again.

“Call or text me with any questions or problems. I left his kennel by your back door, just put him in there if you need to leave,” she was firing off instructions and reminders as he walked her toward the back door.

“Poe,” he interrupted. “We’ll be fine. Go to work. We’ll see you later tonight.” She took a deep breath before turning back to him.

“I should be home around 6,” she informed him, reaching behind her for the door knob. “Thank you for doing this.”

“Don’t mention it. Now go to work!” he nudged her gently out the door. He could hear her laughing as she left.

Closing the door behind him, Poe leaned back against it for a moment. The jingling coming from another room in his house reminded him that he wasn’t alone. Smiling, Poe pushed himself back from the door and went in search of the little ball of fluff that was responsible for one of the best mornings he could remember.

#damerey #damereyedit #jedipilot #jedipilotedit #rey x poe #poe x rey #mine #fanfic

23 notes · View notes

thescholarlystrumpet · 7 years

Text

The Reunion Rated Explicit

Prompt: Mr. Gold wakes up in his motel room with a naked women next to him in his bed who he recognizes as his ex-student Belle French. Both are there to attend the High School Reunion Weekend.

Prompt-based Verse!

On Tumblr: PART ONE PART TWO PART THREE PART FOUR PART FIVE PART SIX PART SEVEN PART EIGHT PART NINE

Anon prompt 1: The Reunion prompt: Gold & Belle run into Ruby in the hotel. Ruby of course gives them a hard time ;)

Anon prompt 2: Reunion!Belle: Have you told your former teacher about your schoolgirl fantasies? Gold: Have you planned on fulfilling any of those fantasies? ;)

A/N: I know these prompts are like two years old but... Surprise!

On AO3 HERE

***

Once breakfast had been consumed and clothing reassembled, Belle turned to Murtagh, feeling oddly shy. “So….”

His throat worked silently. “So.”

She shifted on her bare feet. Last night’s dress had dried enough to throw back on for the trip back to her own room, but the heels would just have to be carried. Her feet still ached from their artfully exaggerated arch. They'd been worth it though - if only for the way Murtaugh had looked at her legs.

Gold licked his lips. “I, uh, have some time to kill today so I thought I might… spend some time in town. Check out a few old haunts.”

“Oh. Yeah, that, uh, that sounds like a good plan. Any old friends to drop in on?” Belle wanted to sink into the ground. All she had to do was ask him if he wanted company, but the words were stuck on her tongue. Without pumping music or stalker melodrama, her bravado seemed to fade away.

Gold frowned. “Not really. Maybe Mal. We weren't exactly friends but… there was a mutual respect there, as colleagues.”

“She's vice principal, you know. They offered her principal when Cole retired but she said that was too much responsibility.”

Gold grinned, picturing the tall blonde dismissing the offer with a careless wave of the hand. “Yeah, that sounds like Mal. I should stop by the school and surprise her.”

“Well you can't do that today.”

He cocked his head. “Why not?”

Belle chuckled, crossing her arms and leaning one hip against the nearest wall. “Because it's Sunday, for starters.”

Gold gave a snort of laughter, running one hand down his face. “Fuck me, so it is.”

“I mean, if you miss the school that much, I could still let you go visit… I have a master key to the building.” Belle added, teasingly.

Gold’s brows rose. “Oh? How… oddly trusting of the administration.”

Belle’s mouth twisted in a rueful half-smile. “The whole town trusts me, Murtaugh. I’ve alway been the ‘good girl’ around here.”

He stepped closer, closing the distance between them and sliding one hand around her waist. “Is that so?”

That spark of desire relit with nearly frightening immediacy. She swallowed hard, discretely pressing her thighs together. “Oh yes, I’ve worked pretty hard for the reputation.”

Gold nodded, a smile playing over his mouth. “I do seem to recall you being very well behaved…” As though to belie the recollection, his hand slipped down to grasp her arse.

“Mm, well in your case, I may have had an ulterior motive,” she admitted airily, leaning into him. “Besides, if you could have seen inside my head, you definitely wouldn’t have used the the word ‘good’ to describe me.”

Gold’s eyebrow quirked upward. “Why, Miss French! I had no idea….”

“Back then? Or do you mean now? Because maybe I haven’t made myself clear enough,” she murmured, pushing up on her toes to catch his lips with hers.

“Mm I didn’t quite catch that,” he breathed as they pulled apart. “Tell me again?”

Belle kissed him harder, her hands snaking into his hair, nails scraping against his scalp. He made a low sound at the back of his throat, his tongue sliding against hers and his free hand holding her fast against him, splayed at her lower back.

Emboldened by the heady rush of desire, Belle kissed her way across his jaw to whisper in one ear. “I used to imagine us just like this... I’d stay after class to ask you a question and we’d brush hands while looking at my work or turning the pages of a book. We’d lock eyes and the heat between us would be searing. Unbearable. You’d tell me I was irresistible.”

Murtaugh’s mouth moved to her neck, planting open mouthed kisses down its length. His breath was hot on her sensitive skin as he murmured “You are…”

Belle nearly purred with satisfaction, a pleasant shiver running down her spine. “You’d kiss me tenderly at first, then harder as our passion grew.” She heard his cane fall away as he began to hitch up her skirt. “We’d know it was wrong but we wouldn’t be able to stop… Oh!” She gasped as she felt him skim the apex of her legs through her sodden underwear. Her legs parted automatically to allow him access.

“Go on,” Murtaugh prompted, his voice rough and breathless. Two questing fingers insinuated themselves into her panties, gently stroking her gathering wetness.

“You’d back me up against the desk and… and touch me… just like this,” Belle panted as his skilled digits circled her clit. She reached for his cock but he shook his head.

“This is just for you, Belle. I just want to feel you come.” The tip of one finger teased at her entrance, finding her more than ready, and slid home.

Belle groaned, her knees turning to jelly as she kissed him again. He fucked her mouth slowly and deeply with his tongue as his fingers echoed the action between her legs. Belle clung to him like a life raft in a storm as her pleasure spiraled up, up, up. His thumb flicked over her little nub once, twice, and she was over the edge, heat radiating from her core, down her shaking legs and curling her still-sore toes. With a throaty cry, she nearly collapsed against him.

One of Murtaugh’s hands shot out toward the wall to steady them both. The other he withdrew from her with obvious reluctance.

“Sorry…” Belle blurted, working hard to find her balance with her tingling limbs.

Murtaugh chuckled. “Oh sweetheart, never apologize for that.” He brought his fingers, shiny with her juices, to his mouth and gave them a very deliberate suck. His eyes fell closed as he inhaled deeply, removing his fingers from his mouth. “You are so exquisite.” His eyes reopened.

Belle’s mouth went dry, her body still quaking from the unexpected orgasm. This man was fantasy incarnate and damned if she wasn’t going to enjoy every last second they had left together. She swallowed around the particularly naughty thought that occurred to her. Could they? Would he? It was downright audacious and if she got caught… well, she’d deal with that if it happened.

She cleared her throat, smoothing her skirt back down her thighs. “You know… I, uh, I really do have access to the school. Keys and security code. Even… your old classroom.”

Murtaugh’s brows raised, his face otherwise unreadable, but he said nothing

Belle bit her lower lip. “Is that, um, going too far?”

He seemed to consider this, mouth pursing and gaze shifting away from her face to go slightly unfocused. “Will it make you happy?”

No need for pretense; she’d already admitted one dirty fantasy today and he’d been perfectly amenable to that. She nodded. “Very. You?”

He met her eyes again with a crooked smile. “It… wouldn’t make me unhappy.”

***

They agreed to meet in the lobby after Belle changed clothes and checked out of her own room. She was friendly with the hotel staff but that only bought her so much leeway before they had to follow policy.

Gold was there when she arrived, deep in conversation on his cell phone.

He covered the speaker to greet her with a lingering kiss. “So sorry, sweetheart. Editing issues. I’m trying to be rid of them as fast as possible.”

Belle waved her hands in front of her. “No, no it’s fine. I’ll be here.”

The corners of his mouth curled upward, his gaze warm and lingering as it swept over her face and down her torso. “You look so beautiful.”

Belle felt her cheeks heat and she smoothed both hands down the front of her pleated skirt. She’d thrown on the only other outfit in her room, the one she’d worn to work before checking into the hotel. “It’s no cocktail dress covered in appletini but I hoped this would do.”

“It’s perfect.” His smile widened and he winked as he returned the phone to his ear. “Aye, I’m listening. Of course I am. No, tell them I won’t cut that part. Because if I do, it ruins the entire timeline. Or hadn’t they noticed? Bloody amateurs.” With an apologetic look, he strode away toward a more secluded hallway.

Belle was just pulling out her phone to start a new puzzle game when she heard a throat clear behind her. She turned.

“Do my eyes deceive me or was that Mr. “I don’t bang students” Gold kissing you good morning just now?” Ruby planted both hands firmly on her hips. She was unabashedly dressed in her attire from the night before, face scrubbed clean of makeup save her signature red lipstick, her slightly damp hair pulled back in a ponytail.

Belle tilted her head. She didn’t remember Ruby getting particularly friendly with anyone last night but she’d clearly also spent the night at the hotel. Billy lived in town and couldn’t have afforded a room. Besides, they were back to just friends again, last Belle had heard. “You didn’t pass out at the table last night, did you? Granny will have a fit…” she teased.

“Ha ha ha. I assume you’re just a little cranky after getting not single wink of sleep…” The tip of Ruby’s tongue protruded from between her teeth as she grinned lasciviously.

Belle’s mouth twisted to hide her answering grin. She pointed to Ruby “Pot” then to herself “Kettle.”

Ruby shrugged dismissively. “I call it a Walk of Triumph.” She tipped her head up, proudly.

Belle giggled."That good?”

“I’m a changed woman, Bells.”

“Wow. Can I ask who?”

Ruby’s cheeks flushed. “I’ll uh, catch you up later. I gotta head back into town and change before You Know Who notices I didn’t come home.”

“Hey, would you mind just taking my overnight bag with you for now? I’m going to be out with Murtaugh and I already checked out of my room. I promise I’ll come pick it up asap.” Belle held out the handle of her small rolling suitcase. She’d bought it in hopes of planning a sumptuous European vacation but so far, this was the most use it had seen.

“Oooh like a real date?”

Belle’s face was hot, her stomach flipping. “Something like that. Or at least, I think so.”

“Oh. Em. Gee. Okay, we’re definitely gonna talk later. I’ll drop the suitcase in my room and you can swing by when Lover Boy is busy or something. He does sleep, right?”

Belle rolled her eyes in reply and raised on tiptoes to kiss Ruby’s cheek as the taller girl took the suitcase handle. “You’re the best. And I look forward to hearing about your Mystery Date.”

Ruby flushed again, giving a little shimmy as she turned away, heading toward the exit with a quick wave over one shoulder. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“Doesn’t rule much out,” Belle called after her.

Ruby’s laughter echoed through the lobby. A few minutes later, Gold had returned to Belle’s side, phone tucked away from sight.

He crooked his free elbow toward her. “Shall we?”

Belle took it with a flourish and they head out into the sunny day.

#rumbelle fic #rumbellefic #rumbelle smut #rumbelle au #teacher/student #reunion verse #my fic #mr. gold x belle #anon prompts

32 notes · View notes

yoi-secret-valentines2017 · 7 years

Text

Be Mine

For: @moni-neechan (I anon-asked you three times but I think Tumblr ate them all…)

From: @araminthe-ispwitch (I accidentally made this hard for myself but at least I didn’t ruin Viktor…? I fell asleep editing so I’m sorry, mod-san. OTL)

To anyone interested, don’t hesitate to try your hand at this prompt for Viktuuri, too—I’ll admit this could use some more work so I don’t mind seeing other, more detailed versions. Enjoy and Happy Valentines! ^u^

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: Yuri on Ice

Rating: T

Pairing/s: Viktor Nikiforov/Yuuri Katsuki

Summary: A Viktuuri fic for the prompt “you were drunk and proposed to me but i’m not sure how to bring it up now you’re sober bc i totally would have said yes au"—or rather, an AU in which coaching him wasn’t the only thing a drunken Yuuri had unknowingly asked of Viktor Nikiforov.

♪~۵~❋~♪~۵~❋~ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ~❋~۵~♪~❋~۵~♪

Viktor Nikiforov was a simple man.

(Lies, his coach Yakov Feltsman would say, and his fellow skaters would unanimously agree upon, but Viktor was just far too busy to acknowledge their sentiments about his high-maintenance lifestyle to even dismiss them.)

It didn’t take a lot to please him. Good food, nice living arrangements, a flawless PCS, the best dog chow for his poodle, maybe a nice vintage car thrown in, and Viktor would be all yours. Honestly, it was a total mystery as to why none of the people he’s dated for the past several years had stuck around to pop the big ol’ question to him.

(“Because they all realized he’s an ass,” Coach Yakov and the fellow skaters would seriously answer.)

But as Viktor fought to stand upright against the eager advances of one drunk Yuuri Katsuki, he’s come to realize with inner embarrassment that maybe his standards of proposing were just a little too uncanny for most.

Marry me, Viktor, he had said.

Be my coach, Viktor, he had said, as well—about several moments ago back at the banquet hall, with a large audience to witness his admittedly-sexy dance number.

Marry me, Viktor, he had said just now, sleepily grinning at him like it was the best idea he’s ever had. Viktor couldn’t blame him. Marrying the world’s greatest skater of the century was the greatest idea a fan could ever have.

MARRY ME, VIKTOR, HE HAD SAID—

“Whaddya think, Viktor?” slurred Katsuki, stumbling a bit but holding on to Viktor as if he doesn’t have any plans of letting him go anytime soon. “It’d be great, right?”

Oh, yes, it’d be great, thought the hopelessly-romantic Russian skater breathlessly. It’d be fucking great, indeed. He wouldn’t mind getting married to that sweet as—

No, no, he was getting ahead of himself.

While, admittedly, Yuuri Katsuki was an interesting man with interesting… proposals… Viktor should face them and him with a clear head. He had already let his fanciful mind run free with Yuuri’s plea to be his student—he couldn’t start fantasizing about marrying him, too. He had to be the professional one between them since the other was currently drunk out of his mind.

(He would admit that he had been thinking about going on a date with the Japanese skater after their dance, though. He just hadn’t been expecting things to escalate quickly to marriage. Damn, how many surprises does this man have up his sleeve?)

Viktor quietly groaned, holding Katsuki up steady as the man started grinding him against the wall and nuzzling his neck. Why did he decide to walk the guy back to his suite again?

Ah, yes. He wanted to see if there were more “surprises” in store for him.

After a few more champagne glasses and impromptu dances, Viktor was suddenly hit with the brilliant idea of doing the escorting himself and quickly persuaded Katsuki before his flustered coach Celestino could take him off his hands. Yakov and Yuri both knew what was really up, though, and so Viktor hadn’t bothered giving them an excuse.

“Hey, I’ll just bring our friend here back to his room. I think he’s had enough to drink.”

“Keep telling yourself that, old man…”

“Don’t wait up for me~!”

But now, faced with the (admittedly) very demanding marriage proposal and a bleary-eyed man looking up at him with pure adoration, Viktor found himself unable to touch him any further than this polite support of his arms. It felt… wrong.

Too sacred.

Too innocent and pure for his less-than-innocent-and-pure intentions.

(Which was ironic considering what happened back at the party…)

He had always imagined a proposal to him in the most romantic set-up ever, and it was obvious that Yuuri Katsuki was too far gone to pull off something like that, but for some reason, his reverent utterance of the words to Viktor shook him to the core.

Just like when he asked him to be his coach.

“Oh, I know!”

Startled, Viktor watched with cerulean eyes as the Japanese man stumbled away from him and approached the door just across them. The silver-haired man sighed in relief; he has been afraid that he’d have to manhandle Katsuki into his room somehow. It was just in front of them yet the other had managed to pin him to the wall before he could open it.

He was starting to regret doing of all this, especially when it was obvious that Katsuki wasn’t thinking straight. At first, Viktor had just been curious about the timid man who had walked away from him and had avoided interacting with anybody at the party. That part wasn’t surprising, considering he placed last in the competition. But just after a few hours of alcohol, Viktor had already found his life suddenly spinning out of its axis. He couldn’t help gravitating towards the black-haired man, wanting to know more about him. Though now…

Katsuki fumbled with his keycard, quietly hiccupping every now and then. Viktor moved to assist him, smiling uneasily when the other let out a childish whoop and bounded almost gracefully into the dark open room. Maybe he should just leave.

It was one thing to contemplate about the coaching offer—it was entirely another thing to take the other proposal seriously. This was too personal, even for him.

(Viktor tried not to think about both offers actually being a joke from the drunken man.)

“Here, Viktor!”

The Russian man blinked up in surprise, Katsuki already back to his side. He was holding up a large blue paperclip.

“Oh… that’s nice?” suggested Viktor with a confused but amused smile.

“No, no!” Despite already looking tired and about to collapse, Katsuki charged on, straightening out the clip with an adorably-cute concentrating expression. Viktor wasn’t sure what this was about anymore, but he figured he could humor him just a little bit longer before getting him to rest and politely leaving the suite.

“There!” And now Katsuki was holding up a thin blue circle of wire. He grinned at Viktor once again. “Marry me?”

Viktor swore he felt his heart stop.

He barely realized that Katsuki was already grabbing his hand, slipping the makeshift ring onto his finger, and babbling about how he doesn’t have anything appropriate at the moment but he’ll make sure to buy his new fiancé a proper ring next time. The world shifted and blurred and Viktor was pretty sure that he really was drunk now. This was probably a nice dream. It had to be.

There was no way Yuuri Katsuki was this extraordinarily amazing within just an hour of meeting him—or was this ridiculous.

“Yuuri!”

Both men turned dazedly to a worried-looking Celestino power-walking towards them. “I’m sorry, Viktor, I should have—”

“I-It’s fine,” cut off Viktor, waving away his concerns and trying to act normal once again—the slight press of the thin wire between his fingers greatly distracting him. “It wasn’t a big deal…”

Katsuki laughed airily and hiccupped again, leaning clumsily on the doorframe. “Let’s celebrate, Celestino!”

“Now, now, that’s enough of that. You’re already yawning,” reasoned the coach, and he proceeded to usher his student further inside the room before he could try to start anything outlandish again.

“Anyways, thanks for your help, Viktor.”

Viktor blinked and automatically, a charming smile forming on his lips—though he could tell they hardly twitched into the proper shape. “No problem…”

The door gently shut close in front of him—he heard Katsuki whine loudly before the noise had been cut off from the outside world—and he took a step back.

And he forced himself to take another and another until he was no longer standing idle and looking like an idiot.

He halted and raised his right hand, where the fake ring was still stuck. How did he know to put it there…? he thought as he plucked it off and studied it with unfocused eyes. It was just a piece of plastic and wire, crudely formed into a circle that was far too big for his slim finger to fit snugly into.

And yet it was an engagement ring.

Viktor pressed his lips thinly. It was not.

Be real, Viktor.

He resumed walking, ready to just throw himself underneath the covers of his bed and hide away from all the problems he needed to face as an aging skater. At the thought, he squeezed the item gently in his palm. Katsuki was drunk and was probably joking, anyway. And honestly, Viktor shouldn’t even be fantasizing about anything—he had only interacted with him today and a marriage proposal was utterly ridiculous at this point in their acquaintanceship. Everybody knew that.

And yet… Viktor kept thinking about how it would feel like to say yes.

He was an idiot.

♪~۵~❋~♪~۵~❋~ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ~❋~۵~♪~❋~۵~♪

He was an idiot.

Katsuki had left so early the next day—without even a word about what happened at the banquet—and had disappeared throughout the rest of the season that Viktor soon understood their situation, though not soon enough. It had been so obvious. The marriage proposal was, of course, just a joke—and Viktor kept shaking his head for even taking it seriously since he had been a bit tipsy himself that night—but what really hurt was knowing that the coaching proposal wasn’t going to happen.

Viktor had been hoping that it would. That was why he had kept his eyes on Yuuri Katsuki the entire night.

Katsuki was fairly silent on social media—to the point that Viktor began wondering if perhaps he had already retired somehow without the world knowing about it—and this didn’t help Viktor in trying to find out what to do about him.

Well… there was nothing to it. He just had to continue skating.

But that all came crashing down when he saw the video.

As cerulean eyes reverently tracked every movement on the screen, every fiber of his being was screaming at him to do something to the Japanese man. Months of silence had formed the questions in his mind—Where were you? Why didn’t you contact me? Were you just playing with me? How could you?—but the sight of Yuuri dancing his program so beautifully washed them all away almost effortlessly.

After a time, his eyes fell on the deformed paperclip that the man had so proudly presented as his ring for Viktor. It was stupid, but Viktor had found himself unable to throw it away.

He picked it up from the shelf and proceeded to form it properly to fit his finger, his mind already swimming with plans.

The marriage proposal was a joke…

Viktor’s eyes softened.

… but the coaching offer might not be.

He didn’t dare slip the thin wire on, but his heart couldn’t help skipping a beat.

(It was at this moment that Viktor decided he should start wearing necklaces.)

♪~۵~❋~♪~۵~❋~ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ~❋~۵~♪~❋~۵~♪

“Makkachin, I don’t understand…”

The fluffy poodle had already sadly whined for the both of them, but Viktor still keenly whined on his own as he hugged his dog for comfort. He had come to Japan despite Yakov’s threats and had gladly taken Yuuri’s offer with a seductive (naked) flourish back there at the hot spring, but for some reason, Yuuri just looked constipated at the sight of him.

It had quickly become apparent to Viktor then that Yuuri felt awkward about that night and wasn’t sure how to relax around the silver-haired man.

Viktor wiped his budding tears away with a sniff, and reached out towards his charging phone on the sleeping mat, where his little treasure was carefully set aside. Fortunately for Viktor, Georgi knew a lot about accessories, especially necklaces—caring for them and even crafting them with simple materials. After finally forming the paperclip into the ring design he wanted, Georgi helped him pair a nice chain for it and added a few more simple baubles to complete the whole look. Now the “engagement” ring was a cheap-looking but lovingly-crafted piece of accessory. There was now a brilliant light-blue bead inserted on it as its gemstone of sorts, and Viktor couldn’t help loving it more.

The Russian man thumbed the design, letting Makkachin snuggle further into his chest. He didn’t really know how this simple piece of blue plastic and wire managed to become so precious to him—he had already scolded himself several times for even thinking about what happened after the banquet—but in a way, Viktor guessed that it was because he had already attributed it to himself. He came across it the moment Yuuri Katsuki pushed him forward with a great and ground-breaking idea for his career and somehow, the ring now symbolized Viktor’s new beginnings.

Yuuri may not even find it important, but Viktor was going to keep it with him as a reminder of his decisions.

(The ring wasn’t the first of many trivial items Viktor Nikiforov got attached to over the years, but it would be the first of Viktor’s collection of Yuuri memorabilia.)

Viktor sighed deeply, hugging Makkachin tighter. The problem now, though, was Yuuri. He was different from the one he met at the party, that much was obvious, but this excessive shyness wasn’t helping his case at all. Hopefully, the ice would serve as their means of communication and make Yuuri lower his guard around Viktor. He really did want to get to know Yuuri better, after all.

Tomorrow’s another day! Keep going, Vitya!

He came all the way here to coach the man, and by god, Viktor was going to fucking coach him!

♪~۵~❋~♪~۵~❋~ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ~❋~۵~♪~❋~۵~♪

(C: you mean you’re going to fuck him

V: what no

V: I mean

V: not NOW)

♪~۵~❋~♪~۵~❋~ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ~❋~۵~♪~❋~۵~♪

Fortunately, as the months passed by, Viktor found their relationship deepening with every day Yuuri made an effort to approach him. They never talked about the banquet, but it seems they didn’t actually need to for Yuuri to open himself up more. Viktor was glad; as Yuuri promised him to make up for everything with his skating, he smiled and relaxed as the sea breeze came over him. His patience and understanding were starting to pay off.

Life with Yuuri was really good right now.

♪~۵~❋~♪~۵~❋~ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ~❋~۵~♪~❋~۵~♪

“You must really like that necklace,” commented Yuuri the morning before the Cup of China short program competition. Viktor blinked in surprise, and blinked some more when he realized that Yuuri had finally remarked on his constant accessory. Throughout the months of training, he wore it proudly like a banner only he understood. (Chris, too, to an extent, when a drunken Viktor whined about his woes to him one time.) No one had really ventured past a compliment when it came to his preciously-worn ring (Yurio had mostly glared at him and kept insulting him and Yuuri during the time he was with them), and so this was also the first time that his preference for it was pointed out.

Viktor opened his mouth, about ready to regale the story of that one beautiful night… and paused.

What was he doing? He was here to coach.

“Yeah,” he said instead. “I half-made it myself.” His throat felt a little dry.

“Oh, really?” Yuuri smiled, curious, but Viktor couldn’t really push himself to entertain the subject any longer, so he smoothly changed the topic after a few more remarks about his necklace.

It didn’t mean anything else to him other than a symbol of his turning point. What would Yuuri benefit from hearing about how he had proudly (drunkenly) presented that ring to Viktor, anyway? They were here to win and the silver-haired man wasn’t about to distract his student with trivial matters. He had never talked about the ring with anyone else other than Chris (accidentally), and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

You wanted to say yes, you flighty coward.

No.

You did. Just one night and you were so easily swayed.

If Viktor was quiet for the rest of the journey to the arena, Yuuri didn’t comment on it.

♪~۵~❋~♪~۵~❋~ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ~❋~۵~♪~❋~۵~♪

Maybe in his forgotten dreams, Viktor had envisioned something like this, but after everything they had been through, he just couldn’t believe that it would all culminate into him kissing the hell out of Yuuri Katsuki on live television.

He hadn’t realized it, but he had spent the rest of the night thumbing his ring pendant gently.

♪~۵~❋~♪~۵~❋~ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ~❋~۵~♪~❋~۵~♪

The thumbing was such an ingrained habit by now that, for the whole time Viktor was separated from Yuuri by miles of ocean, he hadn’t let go of his necklace once. When he realized it, he only felt a little bit embarrassed before the worry came back in full-force once again. Apparently, caressing it really helped.

It got him through the final grueling hours of waiting for Yuuri’s plane, and honestly, the people in the airport should be thankful it had prevented him from going crazy.

♪~۵~❋~♪~۵~❋~ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ~❋~۵~♪~❋~۵~♪

Viktor honestly didn’t know where to start.

The thick gold band on his right hand’s ring finger was such a huge presence in his mind right now that Viktor barely heard what Yuuri was telling him. Flashbacks of that night kept repeating before his eyes, and the usually-light pendant on his necklace felt heavy for a moment underneath his scarf.

“T-Tell me something for good luck…?”

Cerulean eyes snapped back to soft, hesitant brown ones.

I, uh, dunn really have *hic* anythin’ appo-propriate at the moment but… I’ll make suuuure to buy my new fiancé—fiancé! He he—a *hic* proper ring next time, o-kay~? Maybe a nice goooold one? He he…

A warm smile spread almost unconsciously on Viktor’s lips and he determinedly took Yuuri’s hand, already knowing what to say. When they hit the streets once again to hunt for a good restaurant, he could almost feel his necklace jingling and bouncing softly against his coat.

♪~۵~❋~♪~۵~❋~ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ~❋~۵~♪~❋~۵~♪

“I couldn’t even talk to Viktor.”

There was no time stop his spit-take—out of the corner of his eye, Yuuri was smiling so innocently that Viktor’s shock made his beer fly even further.

(“VIKTOR YOU’RE FUCKING DISGUSTING UGH”)

Viktor hurriedly slammed his mug down and turned to his fiancé with a worried expression. “Y-Yuuri, you don’t remember?”

At the Japanese man’s confusion, it was Chris who explained. “Yuuri, you got drunk on champagne and started dancing. Everyone saw it.”

“Huh?!”

“That was disgusting as hell,” piped in Yurio. “I was dragged into a dance-off and got humiliated, too!”

“A dance-off?! With Yurio?!”

“I did mine with a pole dance—half-naked.”

As the black-haired and bespectacled man beside him let out a horrified screech, Viktor sat silently, staring at his mug with unseeing eyes.

Yuuri didn’t remember.

Yuuri… didn’t… remember…?

Suddenly, everything that happened between them for the past eight months—from the moment he announced his intentions buck-naked to the moment Yuuri slipped that thick gold band on his finger—made so much more sense now. He glanced at the man, seeing him muttering to himself with embarrassment clear in his eyes, and his pendant suddenly felt heavier.

You asked me to coach you.

No wonder he was so confused that first day. Viktor had been trying to seduce him, after all—plus, he had come in the wake of Yuuri’s viral video.

You asked me to marry you.

Heh.

Yuuri really had been drunk out of his mind that time.

… No.

Cerulean eyes warmed with affection as he visually caressed the distraught features of his fiancé. Yuuri may have forgotten, but all of those eight months had been real. It had led them to where they were now, and Yuuri wanted him now—whether he remembered that proposal or not.

That, more than anything, took his breath away.

He smiled impishly at the man, holding his phone up. “I still have videos of what happened.”

This is an engagement ring.

♪~۵~❋~♪~۵~❋~ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ~❋~۵~♪~❋~۵~♪

Later that night, lying on their beds with the lights dimmed, Viktor told everything that Yuuri apparently forgot about in his drunken stupor. He was immensely enjoying Yuuri’s tomato-red complexion at the moment, the satisfaction filling him in knowing that his previous failed attempts of seduction and pining for so long were now being avenged at the sight of his flustered fiancé.

His beautifully-flustered fiancé.

“I can’t believe I actually did all of that…” mumbled Yuuri with a whine behind his hands.

“I can’t believe you forgot that you already proposed to me,” retorted Viktor offhandedly.

But that got Yuuri’s attention.

“H-How did that happen…?”

Viktor grinned. He told him.

Now Yuuri buried himself under the covers and the pillow.

“Oh, lighten up, Yuuri. It’s fine! I actually thought you were cute—although I was getting frustrated since you kept stirring my hard-o—”

“It’s not fine! I demanded you to marry me, Viktor! How could I have even done that?!”

“And then you slipped a ring on me,” continued Viktor. Yuuri slowly got out of his makeshift fort and stared at him. Surprisingly, his doe-like eyes slowly traveled down Viktor’s chest.

“… Is that the ring?”

Viktor’s eyes widened—and he huffed a laugh as he picked up his pendant. “Yeah.” The brilliant light-blue bead was as brilliant was ever.

“You wore it all this time.”

“I did.”

Yuuri’s eyes cast downward as he lied on his side. “… Why?”

When he looked up again, Viktor had already moved to lie on his side as well, facing him and propping an arm to cradle his head. The silver-haired man smiled. “I guess because I was waiting for you to ask me again—properly this time.”

Their hands clasped in the dimness of the room, but the entwined fingers and the rings on them faintly sparkled as if they were silently speaking for their owners’ feelings for each other.

“I mean, you were pretty drunk and proposed to me, yeah, but I wasn’t really too sure on how to bring it up back then while you were sober because I totally would have said yes to that ass, you kn—”

“V-V-VIKTOR!”

♪~۵~❋~♪~۵~❋~ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ~❋~۵~♪~❋~۵~♪

When Yuuri joined him and Yurio in St. Petersburg for training, Viktor was overjoyed to note that he was now wearing his own necklace.

Viktor was nothing if not a romantic at heart, and even Yuuri couldn’t deny that the idea of matching the first “engagement” ring sounded nice. Phichit, on vacation in Japan, and the triplets and their mother were only too happy to help in creating the accessory. With video calls from Georgi and online tutorials at their side, Yuuri’s own necklace was soon completed.

It was only made of a red paperclip fashioned into a ring with a brilliant pink bead, but nothing was ever going to compare to it—except maybe their gold rings and their future wedding ones.

(Viktor’s fiancé notes with irony how the necklaces, while simple-looking, are actually not. Coach Yakov and the rest of the rink reply that that’s because Viktor was anything but simple.)

#yoi secret valentines #yuuri katsuki #viktor nikiforov #writing #submission

8 notes · View notes

not-tryin-2-have-a-debate · 7 years

Text

part 2 poetic waxing

i keep getting really mad at my ex the second i realize i was thinking something thats not real

because to the best of my knowledge she read this blog and heard me talk about my expiriences for so long and then she,,,,completely misunderstood them and tried to replicate them in a way that doesnt. make sense. and isnt what this is. and im still hoenstly really offended by that because wow. and i just wanna say like. especially since this blog is pretty much entirely Unseen now

im still terrified to recognize myself as psychotic

i dont want to be psychotic

im afraid to talk about it with my doctor or even touch on the symptoms and eps of it and im terrified to get put on pills for it and its a shit show

i think with the people im closest to i try to normalize the idea of being that way with myself

and i pretend the idea of being psychotic doesnt terrify me and say it freely because its not going away and im scared and i need to learn to not be so scared if im going to deal with it in any capacity i need to be able to recognize it

it was a long process.

i didnt start being that way overnight and i didnt recognize it until way after it started

and its not just 1 thing

to me the embodiment of it and the whole problem is that youre just constantly trying to figure out whats real and whats going on like your being hit on all sides

id describe my perception of and ability to perceive reality as a wall thats always being eroded down but can also have parts break off or have holes blown in it at any second...and im constantly trying to build the wall back up and reinforce it and repair it. but i usually dont have a fully formed wall and even if i got there id only be able to maintain it for so long until half of it got blown up again. etc etc wall metaphor if i leave it itll just fuckin collapse entirely

but yeah yknow like.

a delusion isnt just ‘when you think something that isn’t real.’

and like not to dip a bit too much into tumblr vocab and context or whatever but like,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,the way Neurotypicals take symptom descriptions at total face value is...tiring. idk how else to describe it. theres so much context missing.

these symptoms for me started up when i was a kid and got worse.

it was because i have so much family history with this shit that i finally noticed it and compared and recognized the beginning to get worse problem

because ive seen it in my brother and my uncle and my grandma and my family for years and i know it up close and personally

i dont just have some kind of kooky thoughts that i recognize arent real while im having them. my ability to do that at all came with practice and time and repitition.

i dont know when im not dreaming.i see and feel things that arent there.

i think thoughts that i cant recognize as mine and are usually a bunch of nonsense word salad shit.

i have real prolonged trouble recognizing myself as a human being thats physical and has human limits.

i have toruble percieving the present. i have trouble remembering the past.

i constantly really for real feel like ive seen this before.

every time i have deja vu i like have a whoel fuckign Moment lmao

i assume people think the worst of me and want to hurt me.

i assume the end of the world is happening out of nowhere and i really think its happening.

i think God is trying to punish me.

I think spirits are coming after me.

I really believe it.

I spend my day crying and panicking and hiding from shit that isnt real.

i convince myself my whole life is some kind of divine punishment.

its on top of that and

its after years of that

and years of seeing family members older than me and farther into it than me degrading at the same time

that i think some dumb shit and immediately catch myself

or that i think im getting psychic messages and can immediately be like ‘ok calm down’

its because im trying to convince myself im NOT like a psychic prophet and ive been able to recognize it before that i can see a message for what it is and recognize what im doing

its bc ive corroborated the expirience with my brother after doing it for years and years already

i didnt wake up one day and start thinking i was a prophet but also recognizing thats crazy yknow

i thought i was a prophet and then as i grew up i started realizing that it was crazy because i found resources and saw what my family was going through and got so sick of the worst parts and thought something had to be wrong with that picture

and even then the messages arent a delusion

having dejavu and being suspicious of it isnt a delusion

wishing something was true isnt a delusion

believing in gods and spirits and weird reincarnation stuff isnt a delusion

they’re parts of a whole and thats only a few of the parts

like an example of levels

really liking a celebrity isnt psychotic

wishing you were married isnt psychoticdaydreaming about being married to them isnt psychotic

imagining they’re talking to you or they’re addressing something in an interview to you isn’t psychotic, in and of itself (imagining the message but also kind of beliving it also isn’t )

actually beliving they’re addressing you in an interview or something isn’t a delusion, and though its like Psychotically-associated isnt An Automatic Sticker Of Psychosis slapped on your forehead

forgetting you aren’t acutally married sometimes isn’t a delusion.actually beliving you’re married to them is a delusion.

you won’t be able to recognize it as that until later.

the other behaviors, for you, since youre having a delusion, will come off of that.

someone non-delusional who really loved to dream about it might convince themselves into some magical thinking about the celebrity.

for you though, its because you’re married. you’re literally actually married so of course they’re leaving little hints for you! you never get to see each other!

you rationalize it.

because you believe it and having someone put a crack in things you believe in is scary for anyone.

i mean especially wow if someone told you were werent actually married to your spouse and didn’t even know them? they didn’t even know youre name or that you existed? that would be horrifying. of course youd come up with rationalizations.

and that delusion probably started because you really liked them and because you were lonely. but also because youve been having some issues and either are psychotic, were developing psychotic symptoms, or like Had The Propensity To Be Psychotic in general yknow like. the seeds were there or you were already living life as a psychotic tree and this was just a new branch.

after a while they might start to get it.

they might start poking holes in there own reasoning and being brave enough to follow that path.

and hopefully from there theyll get to the still-beleving-it-but-also-recognizing-its-’fake’ stage.

there are a lot of reasons i dont want to be psychotic.

no one should want to be.

anyone who says they want to be is either someone who’s a disgusting creep thinking other peoples crisises are some hot edgy mysterious shit OR theyre a psychotic person trying to humor themselves and be okay with themselves.

and you should be ok with yourself but that shouldnt replace wanting to improve and manage that really scary world-ending parts of shit.thats a whole other topic though

i dont want to be psychotic because im terrified of slowly loosing my mind. thats a freaky prospect that no one should really want. i only want that when im suicidal and wish i just didnt have a mind to think with at all kind of shit.

i dont want to be psychotic because i dont want to keep having these episodes and seeing this shit and thinking this shit. a lot of it is absolutely terrifying. other things are less active but like...i wish i could trust anyone ever. i wish i could trust my own judgement. i wish i didn’t get obsessive and weird about contamination and not be able to eat food or need to contain myself from freaking out if certain people touch me. that shit isnt cowering from God under a desk but its annoying and i don’t want to be doing it. i wish i could stop doing it.

i don’t want to be psychotic because once youve had it confirmed that you believe things that arent real that makes it just that much harder to trust literally anything you think.i have to check everything with people because what if im wrong or assuming or jsut being crazy or i thought something up that isnt true.and we all seem to have an amazing knack for like doign that whenever we were actually with reality, and forgetting to do it when we do actually have something a little confused lol. maybe thats subconscious.

i dont wanna be psychotic because i want some things to be true!! you know!! and learnign they arent is, again, confusing and really scary. no matter what it is. but if its something that you like or that brings you some kinda positive shit then thats even worse to have taken away and have be a lie. and even worse a Crazy Lie.

i don’t know how much of my religious views to trust and thinking that anything i believe in or think is up for questioning brings up a whole lot of good things that i dont want to be up for questioning.part of the reason im scared to go on meds is because im really worried some good things will turn out fake and go away.

im worried about what all could just like...dissappear. what if the whole world changed. what if im wrong about more than i thought or something that id never even considered.

like.....im out of steam now but.

yeah. idk

0 notes