#It’s still loyalty and also. hard to draw the line between where the emotions stop sometimes because he can stop giving a fuck about—
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Ok ok ok I'm not Tryna start discourse but bluestars prophecy was my first ever warriors book and bluestar will always be my favourite so I'm gonna make some counterpoints to you about her being a Smajor character
bluestar has always been led by an intense loyalty and dedication to those she loves and cares for - this includes her mum, her sister, her clan, eventually Firepaw when he joins the clan, and she has a VERY strong moral compass when it comes to doing the right thing - when she sees thistleclaw teaching tigerpaw to hurt a then baby scourge she very much discourages it and is against it
Afaik scott is Not like that, he doesn't have an emotional or love-driven moral code, he does things because they're smart decisions in the long term or because he wants to. Granted I havent seen a ton of his stuff but I have seen his limited life and 3rd life perspectives and he is very much a singular team player there, there to look after himself and well if people align with him that's great he's got allies (jimmy and Martyn) but he won't go out of his way to care for them
Bluestars defiance of starclan in the first series is BECAUSE she gave herself to them and what the warrior code demanded so much - yes she broke clan rules by having kids with crookedstar but she did everything in her power to make sure they'd have a happy life and felt terrible that thrushpelt was willing to say they were his to save her reputation. She didn't do it out of a selfish want, she only ever wanted to help her clan and those she loved, and her becoming clan leader is emblematic of that want. When she rejects starclan so wholeheartedly in the first series it's because THINGS KEEP GOING WRONG WHEN SHES TRIED SO HARD TO STOP THEM FROM DOING THAT - starclan has never cared about the sacrifices she made to keep her loved ones and clan safe, she lost her mother, her sister, her kits, her mate, literally everything, and things STILL KEEP GETTING WORSE. it's not a demand that she deserves to have everything good, it's a cry for help that shouldn't something go right after she's tried so hard???
C!Scott isn't like that. He puts himself above others and inherently believes he will get the best if he just plays his cards right, and he is good at it, he's very competent at lasting a long time in life series and getting what he wants - the ruthlessness of gem driven by desperation kills him in secret life, Martyn's complete fucking about face kills him in limited life, and I'm pretty sure it's etho who gets him out in 3rd life by luck. He doesn't plan to look after the ones he cares about, because he cares about himself first and foremost. Yeah you can argue when he doesn't get what he wants he gets annoyed, but his is less of a 'why don't I get this don't I deserve it' and more of a 'oh fuck this didn't work. Ok new plan double down on getting what I want by appeasing to people cos they're easy to read and therefore account for'
I don't doubt Scott would make a bluestar adjacent character if he made a warrior cats oc BUT his character would honestly be closer to darktail or ashfur than bluestar and that's that on that.
(sorry you activated 13 year old me's unskippable cutscene sjdjsjsjja this isnt meant to be a serious argument I just love bluestar a lot and love talking about her)
OKAY 1. this is fucking awesome thank you 2. i am going to do something new and exciting (advocate for scott instead of beating him to death with sticks) because unfortunately this bluestar info has only made me believe she is a smajor character even more.
As a general note when I talk about smajor characters as a collective here I’m referring to characters more in the realm of esmp/traffic/rats/pirates/etc, less vampire scott or necromancer scott who are intended to be villainous.
Scott characters tend to operate under a “If I am not a Good Person I may as well die” rule, and consequently abide by a strict moral code to keep themselves feeling clean. For instance: traffic Scott will never go back on his word, he will avoid dishonesty, and he won’t take from others unless he is sure that he can repay them. He will never betray his seasonal primary ally (even when they betray him first), and will often give people things just because they asked him nicely. He stakes a lot of his own identity on this, because it is through being a “good person” that he justifies his superiority (and, by extension, his own existence); in his mind he deserves the best and *is* the best because he is such a good person. When things don’t go his way, he thinks he doesn’t deserve it because he has been nothing but good, so he tries to place a reason. He often assumes that somebody must “have a vendetta” against him, even if this somebody is the world (see: him asking if limlife episode 1 boogeyman is some kind of joke played on him for not giving in to the boogey curse in Last Life.) which is very Bluestar to me, convinced that her misfortunes are a divine punishment.
This is all to say that Scott does have a strict moral code and deep sense of loyalty. Being a “good person” and devoted partner in the ways he understands it are so ingrained into what he is that I think he definitely has the capacity to be a Bluestar if he were raised being taught clan values, even if his internal systems are often built around never letting gross emotions be fully felt rather than what those emotions compel him to do.
#ive always wanted to partake in pointless character debate on tumblr#considered maintagging this but didnt want people looking at your ask weird. sorry yall we serve fucked up scott here#“But bree” you might ask “what about pearl? He wasnt a very devoted partner then!”#and to that I say: pearl isnt a person to him. and neither is jimmy. Scott fucked up with both of them and unfortunately if he is not good-#and justified 100% of the time he loses his entire identity so convincing himself that they are incompetent or crazy so that he#doesnt have to self reflect is how he gets by. he would literally rather kill himself than earnestly admit fault for anything#… huh. about the above tags I dont remember the lore but is there any parallel there with the whole bright heart thing#genuine question bc I do not remember why blue star did that and I dont trust the wiki#(Trying to space out names so they dont tag)#I really hope this makes sense btw bc I feel like I usually list a lot more examples… but im tired#I can elaborate on any point here if need be ig. I dont talk about this aspect of him often because the literal entire fandom does already#Every scott analysis post out there is about his damn loyalty… anyways yeah scotts loyalty is transactional more often than emotional but#It’s still loyalty and also. hard to draw the line between where the emotions stop sometimes because he can stop giving a fuck about—#most things on a whim. How much scott genuinely cares about something is a forever undefinable concept#asks#he is genuinely a very good ally to have usually. like jimmy was very much the exception there#he does like helping people out he does. he’s just also emotionally detached so he tallies his favors and good deeds to bring up later if—#someone he’s helped decides to go against him. If that makes sense#sorry man I just keep talking. I love this blue animal…….#thanks for the ask genuinely I love when paragraphs about characters#anyways im gonna pass out and. Shakes myself STOP ADDING MORE TAGSSS i think im so tired man
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Under the Cover of War: FO!Poe Dameron x Resistance!Reader
Pairing: FO!Poe Dameron x Resistance!Reader
Word Count: 2.4k
Summary: “‘Let’s go,’ he murmurs. ‘Let’s run.’ His gaze is fixed on you, begging for this. He needs you—he needs you to be there for him so that he has a place in the galaxy, a place he would never have otherwise. ‘Please.’”
Following the destruction of the Hosnian System, a promise and a dire decision are made by you and Poe.
Warnings: Language
“Why?”
The single word is clipped, volatile, dangerously soft in nature. It’s a question, a plead, an accusation, all at once. It seems to scream in the silence, to imply a million other queries that Poe doesn’t want to answer.
He simply remains quiet as he stares at your back turned to him. You sit on the edge of the bed, breath shaking, refusing to even look at him.
He inhales, blinking rapidly. “Sweetheart—“
“Why?” This time, it’s a scream. The sound is ragged, painful, your voice cracking. It makes him flinch, makes him draw into himself.
The loud cry echoes, disintegrates as the seconds pass.
He wishes he could transport himself back to five minutes ago, before either of your holos had rung. Before the First Order had reported a victory to him, before the Resistance had reported a devastating, unfathomable loss to you.
He wants to return to when he’d laid beside you, running his fingers down your sides, when the memory of pressing you into the sheets was still fresh in his mind.
But somehow he knows that whatever the two of you have will never return in any way.
“How could you?” you whisper, the shock of five of the galaxy’s most populous planets being obliterated in mere minutes still in the process of shattering you to pieces.
Poe wants to shrink into the air, disappear in moments. He knows you’re crying, that you can’t handle it. He’d be lying if he said he himself was handling it at all.
“I…I don’t know what happened.” He stares at the sheets, tears running down his own face. He can’t imagine it. The deaths of tens of trillions. Their screams, the pain they must have felt in the blinding light of imminent death.
Your hands tighten into fists as you shake. Your form is locked in tension, perhaps about to abruptly turn around and strike him, perhaps about to break and collapse into a distraught pile of bone and flesh. “You’re a liar.”
The words are akin to a strike itself. He near hisses, unstable in his new knowledge. “Why the fuck would they tell me? I’m not even a colonel.” His volume rises, swirling in the atmosphere, ready to completely burst free. “I didn’t have a damn thing to do with it—“
“But you certainly have something to do with those who ordered it!” You finally turn to him. You’re livid. Eyes red with tears, lips in a tight line, a glare that threatens to break him.
And your statement is not something he can deny. He deflates, silent. He can feel your eyes on him expectantly, but nothing comes.
When enough time passes, you stand from the bed, grabbing your things from the bedside table. As your fingers delicately wrap around the blaster you regularly carry around, he briefly thinks that perhaps you’re about to turn around and shoot him.
But you don’t, and something new finds home beside your anger: a heartbreaking sense of disappointment.
It’s on instinct when his hand shoots out, grasping your arm. “No, wait…please. Don’t go,” he says quietly.
You’re all he has. There’s nothing more to say other than that. Life in the Order is a cold one, always has been. While he may not agree with the side you’ve chosen, you’re the sole warmth in his life, the sole radiant light.
You jerk in his grip, but he tightens it, eyes unashamedly pleading with you, begging you to not leave him.
Even in the place you always meet him, buried beneath layers of rock, surrounded by passages of clandestine activity necessary in your illicitness, his meetings with you never fail to be the only times he’s truly happy.
“Please…,” he pleads once more, thumb running over your knuckles.
A debate takes place on your features, and he can read you better than he can anyone else. He’s the person you’d let into your heart, the person you’d revealed every personal secret to. He’s the one who’d whispered ‘I love you’ one fateful night, the one to whom you’d whispered it back. He’s the one that had challenged your blind loyalty to any ideology, the one to whom you’d done the same.
He can see all those things viciously, ruthlessly grappling with the horrifying events that had just transpired: bodies being ripped to shreds, building being reduced to dust, life being annihilated in fire.
And in an act of emotional obscurity, the two opponents are shockingly close.
It’s evident which wins out when you limply fall back to the bed, body slumping to lie down, eyes tiredly closed.
“Then tell me why,” you whisper, barely audible.
“Why what?”
“I want to know why you joined the people who did…this.”
And at that simple request, he feels his walls rise. Even if they’d fallen long ago when he was around you, they’d never truly disappeared.
“I thought we don’t talk about stuff like that,” says Poe quietly.
“Well, I changed my fucking mind.”
He gazes around the room, reminded of the sole thing that prevents full, unconditional commitment to the other. The space they are in is a brutal reminder of the fact, for it presents itself in sets of two, an embodiment of duality.
Two blasters on top of the bedside table. One polished and new, the other dull and thoroughly used.
Two sets of boots clumsily scattered by the door. One shiny, lacking a single scuff mark, one that’s appearance suggests it’s been passed through several owners.
Two jackets. One with the hexagonal, sixteen-rayed symbol of the First Order, one with the starbird of the Resistance.
It’s a glaringly horrid representation of the two of you, never destined to be the same.
“Did your tongue also vanish along with the five planets?”
He slowly comes back to the present with your words, forcing away his disconnect.
It’s not something he can afford right now. Maintaining his privacy, hiding the events of his past, concealing the cause of his motives—he can’t afford any of that if he wants you.
And somehow, all he does want is you. You, you, you—to the point that he wonders if it’s unhealthy, if it’s even real and true, but that’s something he refuses to consider in the moment.
Even though you’d seen some of the darkness through him, he is certain that your loyalty to light is stronger, if only marginally, and that means he has to tell. He has to reveal.
“My mother,” he simply says, gaze unfocused. “She was a rebel pilot. She died.”
The slight stirring of your body freezes. He’d never talked of his family’s loyalties; he’d always given the impression that they’d passively existed in the deluge of light and dark that had overtaken the galaxy.
“She’s why I joined.” He flinches at the memory, grimacing at the pain he’d felt as a boy. “She died because of rebellion recklessness. Because of belief in blind hope.”
The anger—it’s simmering once more, bubbling higher, inching further and further to the edge of his chest.
And he can tell yours is too. Your fingers grip at the sheets as your eyes narrow. “Reckless…blind…hope?” He’s questioning your belief, accusing it of something dangerously irrational, and you yearn to lash back on instinct, to defend the beliefs you’d lived your life by—even as your own doubts of it conceal themselves in the background.
He laughs bitterly, his voice rising again. “Don’t kid yourself. That’s what the New Republic lived off of, and it was a fucking mess.”
You tense up, practically shrieking your next words, wholly, viciously attacking him back. “Who are you to say that—“
“There were people revolting in the streets!” he yells, his voice perhaps even louder than yours had been. “There were people in the Outer Rim starving! It was chaos—“
“And the First Order is what? Orderly?”
“They’re better than you and your—“
And he falls silent all of a sudden. He stops himself.
He knows where this is going. It’d happened and been resolved before, but he has a sneaking suspicion that that won’t be the case if the two of you continue down this road.
“Fuck,” he groans under his breath, his back slumped as he rubs his face with his hands.
“Me and my what?” you ask quietly.
He just shakes his head.
You fall back to your laying down position, head burying in the sheets, trying to block everything out. He’s right. He’s entirely right. The flaw in the Light, the flaw in the Republic, but you can’t bring yourself to denounce the loyalty you’d inherited.
He sniffles, hiding his tears behind his hands, and his figure—he knows it’s one of pure pain. As good as he’d gotten at hiding his emotions, they always seem to show themselves in your presence, no matter how hard he tries to defeat them, and it’s undeniable that you feel them to the fullest.
“You say ‘mama’ in your sleep sometimes,” you whisper all of a sudden.
At the revelation, he goes still. It’s an unsettling thought…that perhaps you’d known of his weakness long before he’d willingly showed you, long before he thought you deserved to know.
That maybe you’d heard the words of him crying out for his mother before you’d even known the slightest deeply-personal thing about him, when you’d only known the feeling of him inside you and the feeling of his lips on yours and the weight of his body as he slept beside yours.
His reluctance to look at you only increases tenfold when the shame floods in. The shame of a lifetime at this point—of weakness regarding his family, of putting blaster bolts in people who didn’t deserve them, of not being able to let go of his past, something he’d been striving for his whole life.
It all externally devolves into a mere fit of subtle trembles.
“Poe?” Your tone is soft now, gentle. You’re on your knees, sitting up, a single hand on the side of his face joining the space between the two of you. A certain mixture of concern and inquisitiveness finds home in your eyes, and for a second, he thinks your expression reflects one of a person staring at a beaten-down, once-aggressive animal.
“I regret it—joining the Order,” he simply says, voice cracking. The gas, plasma, fire, flesh, and bone of the destroyed system fill his imagination. “Is that what you want to hear?”
“Only if you mean it.” There’s still no sympathy to your voice, but there’s a softer edge to it, the kind that’s always existed but disappears in every fight.
“I do.” He leans back into the pillows, forearm over his eyes. It feels as if this has been going on for far too long, for he’s exhausted.
Your hand finds its way into his curls, tracing from his hairline to the base of his neck. It’s hauntingly reminiscent of what he’d felt so passionately and tenderly before the conflict had even begun.
“All darkness dies in the light,” you whisper.
It’s an ambiguous statement to many, but he automatically knows what you’re asking of him—you want his darkness to die in your light.
And while part of him begs and yearns to submit to your wish, something about your words perturbs him—the words unsaid. His darkness…the one he’d held for so long, you don’t want it to disappear, you don’t want it to transform, no, you want it to die. You want him to kill it.
“I can’t,” he says softly, fingers fumbling with the sheets, almost hoping to blindly find you.
“The Light Side’ll—“
“I’m done with the fucking sides,” he interjects, his words lined with a sharp edge. A puff of air leaves his lips as he desperately wishes for calm, one with at least some semblance of permanence. He finally looks at you, eyes now completely devoid of any anger or menace they’d held before, just the sadness of someone who’d made one too many wrong choices. “It’s just pain either way, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” you admit, a brief expression of hesitance crossing your face. “But you have to choose.” The hesitance turns to anguish, a revelation in its most subtle form. “There’s more pain if you don’t, and perhaps…perhaps that’s why I chose my side.”
He props himself up on his forearms at the mere implication—the implication that your unwavering loyalty to the light is not so unwavering, that you’d gone head in like he had with his loyalty and was now beginning to doubt things.
“Some don’t choose—“
“And they suffer for it,” you interrupt, finishing his statement with your own thoughts. It’s something you’ve seen your whole life: those who don’t choose being made to do so—often in violence.
He laces his fingers with yours, delicately wrapping each of your digits around his palm.“We’ve suffered our entire lives, darling,” he muses. “Born into a galaxy at war, a brief respite, and then yet another one…just suffering, suffering, suffering…within us, around us…what’s a little more?”
The whole room seems to freeze as you peer at him, part curiosity, part doubt, part disbelief. “What are you suggesting?”
“I think you know,” he says softly. The warmth staring back at you is undeniably something you would die for.
“Say it.” Your whisper is said with the deepest conviction, awaiting the words that would cement your decision, perhaps a decision you won’t know until you hear the offer leave his lips.
“Let’s go,” he murmurs. “Let’s run.” His gaze is fixed on you, begging for this. He needs you—he needs you to be there for him so that he has a place in the galaxy, a place he would never have otherwise. “Please.”
Your breath shakes, just barely, contemplating, debating. There’s an inevitable weight to war, the kind that crushes people to pieces, and the temptation to run from such a force—it feels right. It feels right to be free, to live safer, to be with whom you want. “There’ll be sacrifices to make.”
“There’ll be sacrifices either way,” he insists, and you’re certain he’s right. “Darling….” His words fade off, and he surges forward, gently locking his lips with yours. It’s tender and pleading, the ultimate question asked once again through touch.
“Poe….” The way you say his name is filled with something decisive, something deliberate. The seconds pass. He waits. “Let’s go.”
..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..
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#poe dameron#poe dameron x reader#star wars#star wars fanfiction#poe dameron fanfiction#first order poe dameron#my moodboard
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Hello! In the Ogata and Koito ask you pointed out that Tsurumi put on a show for Usami’s last moments but didn’t even bother to say a word for an injured Koito. I was wondering if you’ve done an analysis on the parallels and differences between Tsurumi & Koito relationship and Tsurumi & Usami.
Hum...
no, I don’t seem to remember making a deep comparative analysis between those two and their relationship with Tsurumi but it’s surely something interesting to dig in.
So... on a first, superficial gaze they might seem really similar.
They seem both young, obsessed with Tsurumi, and do weird things due to him (Koito just can’t speak normally but reverts to fast Satsuma dialect when around him, Usami just tattooes on himself the draws Tsurumi made).
They get flustered beyond belief at the idea Tsurumi might be disappointed and are fiercely loyal to him to the point they loathe who isn’t.
So... what really is different among them? Or are they just the same?
At first the only difference seems to be in their ranking and their social status, Koito is a Second Lieutenant son of a rear admiral therefore high in ranking and in social status, Usami is just a Superior Private, which also means he never managed to go to a military school and therefore is likely low in social status, probably a commoner, something which gets confirmed later on.
But in truth there’s much more than draw a marked line between them and this much more can be found in their respective backstories.
Koito is someone Tsurumi meets when the boy is 14.
The volume version doesn’t tell us if the meeting was planned or casual, but it shows us Tsurumi first putting Koito to his place in various ways, first by pinching his nose and forcing him to stop after Koito slammed against him, then by telling him not to toss around his father’s name but to show his own worth, then by beating his jigen-ryu and slapping him for the first time as one would do with a child and ultimately helping him to get up.
He then gets Koito to bring him to the cemetery and became his confidant, giving him food and pushing him to talk, even of very private matters. It’s very likely NOT for Koito’s benefit, he’s trying to study him as he’s the son of Koito Heiji, the man who’s about to be put in charge of the Ominato Torpedo Division in Hakodate.
Tsurumi knows that Koito Heiji can become a very useful pawn in his plans and, in fact, 2 years after, when Koito is 16, he sets his plan into motion and have Koito kidnapped only so he could help freeing him so as to put Koito Heiji in his debt.
It’s in that circumstance Koito gets a crush or an hero worship thing on him and begins to latch to him, switching from the navy to the army... and all this benefits Tsurumi because it leads Koito Heiji to get even closer to him.
But young Koito himself at the time wasn’t that much of a use to him. Faithful to him, true, but too brash, unable to report something because he switched to Satsuma dialect as soon as he had to talk with Tsurumi, prone to get distracted and not really aware of the goals he has to pursue.
Tsurumi still manage to use him, because Koito has also abilities like his amazing stamina that allows him to keep up with the lighting bandit, but he also has to keep him under Tsukishima’s protection and even Tsukishima can’t really hold Koito’s reins.
Overall though, Tsurumi’s relationship with Koito is the one of a master who got a new pawn, a pawn that is more of use for his connection to Koito Heiji than for himself, a pawn to whom Tsurumi didn’t devote much time and a pawn who is a living reminder of how Tsurumi, despite all his ability, will never be allowed to reach the rank Koito will reach merely because he’s the son of his father.
Tsurumi’s family has fallen, probably in the same time Koito’s family has rose.
Long story short, it’s entirely possible Tsurumi’s relation with Koito is built upon lies he fed to the boy to keep on using him... or better his father.
If Koito were to die though, as long as Tsurumi can mantain a good relationship with his father, it would be of no consequence to Tsurumi.
At the same time, since Koito seemed so devoted to him, Tsurumi didn’t feel the need to reaffirm his care for him should the boy risk to die. He believes Koito would remain faithful even if he were to survive (and he would have hadn’t Ogata forced to acknowledge Tsurumi tricked him and his father) and devoting time to him in that moment means nothing in terms of group morale.
His soldiers aren’t there to see him care for the fallen Koito except for Tsukishima whom Tsurumi believes to be blindly loyal anyway. There’s no point in putting up an act for him as there’s just no need for it and Tsurumi has more urgent business like pursuing Asirpa.
Tsurumi’s relationship with Usami instead started on a completely different level and involved Tsurumi a lot more.
Tsurumi was teaching Usami self defence when the boy was 12, possibly even earlier, they spend a lot of time together, both as a teacher and as a student but also just as ‘friends’ of some sort, we see Usami having Tsurumi use the foot powered water wheel or them walking together, Tsurumi talking about Usami’s future and encouraging him and also mentioning how he’ll have to leave.
Usami, beyond being very strong in fight, is a nobody. He’s clearly a commoner, possibly his family also fell in disgrace after the Meiji restoration as it’s implied his father too was good at fighting, which might be taken as a hint previously his father was a fighter or meant to be one.
They still managed to retain something, the fields in which they work so they aren’t completely broken and can even send Usami to what was called “High Elementary School”, which required paying a tuition... but it’s made clear they wouldn’t be able to let him continue his studies any further.
So, although Tsurumi’s family got off a little better since he managed to do the school needed for him to become a First Lieutenant, he probably feels closer to Usami’s situation than Koito’s.
Usami also has little he can give to Tsurumi.
While Usami is a strong fighter and it’s possible/likely Tsurumi manipulated Usami and Tomoharu into a fight to see how far Usami would go, the result was clearly unexpected and I’ve hard time thinking Tsurumi just devoted all those years and time solely to raise him as a killer.
In short part of the relationship Tsurumi had with Usami might have been a genuine mere student/teacher relation with a bit of friendship in the mix not just pure manipulation merely aimed to use him.
Things changed when Tsurumi reaped more than he sow after Usami killed Tomoharu. Usami basically killed for him and Tsurumi covered up for him and, although Tomoharu’s father was angry, everything actually went at Tsurumi’s advantage.
He got a loyal pet who would do everything for him and who was really good at fighting, he believed he found a key to push men to kill for him and he was entrusted into a position that benefitted him.
I’m not sure Tsurumi might have planned all this but it sure was good for him.
Usami continues to remain loyal to him and, while he also remains an oddball who needs to be watched over because his attacks of jealousy are unpredictable and lead him to murder people, he’s more valuable for himself than Koito will ever be because he’s more competent and his loyalty are solely for Tsurumi, while Koito’s are slightly split as he’s also loyal to his father and to his honour.
Lastly, when Usami dies he does so bringing Tsurumi valuable information (where Koito had accomplished nothing when he got wounded beyond letting Sugimoto and Asirpa escape and stall Tsukishima who assisted him) and he does so in front of Tsurumi’s soldiers, while Tsurumi isn’t in a rush.
Tsurumi at first doesn’t know Asirpa is there, just that a tattooed criminal is there. Usami might have told him Hijikata’s group, Sugimoto’s group and Ogata are also there but this is up to speculation. Long story short, Tsurumi isn’t in a rush and, what’s more, he has an audience.
By assisting Usami and honouring his accomplishments and wishes he shows to his men he’s a good commander who values them.
The fact he ate Usami’s finger contrast with how he kept his wife and child’s fingers so i don’t think of it as a big loving gesture, but there could have been still affection for Usami, whom he had know BEFORE Usami became a pawn in his game and that he had helped raising.
Long story short, it’s possible Usami, in addition to a pratical value for the soldier he was, also had some emotional value for Tsurumi.
So, while both Koito and Usami remain pawns in Tsurumi’s game, Koito has value more for his connection with his father than as a person, where Usami has value as himself, as a soldier (or assassin if you prefer), as someone Tsurumi might have felt some emotional attachment and as a symbol of what a good and loving commander Tsurumi is with his underlings.
Of course I might be missing something but, among Tsurumi’s pawns, Usami might qualify as Tsurumi’s favourite pet, which is clearly a step above Koito, who, sadly, to Tsurumi is more valuable for his connections than for himself... which is not really fair toward Koito as he’s growing to become awesome... but well, Tsurumi hasn’t witnessed his grown yet and when he will... well, I fear it’ll be too late.
Thanks for your ask!
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﹅ 000 ✩ 一 THE SILHOUETTE !
“See the horizon. See the sun that’s coming awake there, or perhaps it’s retiring for the moon now; see the golds and pinks and the promise of a sunny day’s blue, or perhaps the indigos and violets stark behind stars. See the one that approaches, their gait and their pace and the clothes that hang off their figure. Most details are lost to the distance, but if you look and listen hard enough, you might be able to discern their identity…”
⠀
TW: Death.
— Describe your muse as best as possible in a single sentence.
“She’s standing on a line between giving up and seeing how much more she can take.”
— Describe your muse as horribly as possible in a single sentence.
“I just gotta kiss myself sometimes, I’m so f*cking pretty.”
— Describe your muse’s voice.
Honey drips at the seams every time her lips dictate any form of noise. It’s sweet, delicate, gentle - perhaps, formal. She has been trained since a young age to maintain posture and reduce aggressiveness or excessive negative language due to her growth of rank. The classes have always been about creating a purr as opposed to a stuttering, unconfident statement. As, for a woman, in such an industry, one must be taken seriously by the way they stride or maintain themselves. Maybe if you leaned a little closer, listened a little more, there could be something seething in her undertones of dishonesty and toxic intentions.
— Describe your muse’s fashion sense.
Fashion to her is more than cute clothings, but rather an expression of personality, uniqueness, and showcasing her own self-confidence. From pleated skirts, thigh highs, short dresses, and high heels - she’s maintained the typical ‘rich girl’ aesthetic by the amount of high end brands endorsing her look. However, she enjoys a twist, her own sense of self in her clothings by either: cutting, restyling, recoloring, or repurposing.. which makes all of her closet options simply distinctive to only her. Nothing about her fashion sense would be found on anyone else, but her. It is what she has taken the most pride in over the course of several years as her style continuously evolves into something of a more formal business woman. No, you won’t ever catch her looking basic, even if she’s dead.
— Give a quote of something your muse has said before.
“How many funerals can someone attend before they’re twenty?” Black adorned her frame a little too perfectly for the event, at least, if you ignored any dark circles coated underneath her eyes that were negligent to constant appraisal; yet the mirror mounted in-front of her paid no mind to highlighting all of those small details to her. She knew she looked like a mess and didn’t need the untrustworthy reminder. “Miss. Jeon, that’s inappropriate.” Komi’s eyes rolled at such a statement since she nearly forgot someone else accompanied her in the tight space. “But, it’s true.”
— What fable, mythic, or fairy tale character would your muse best play the role of?
Sleeping beauty; her favorite princess.
“Princess Aurora (also known as Briar Rose) is the protagonist of Disney's 1959 animated feature film, Sleeping Beauty. She is the daughter of King Stefan and Queen Leah. On the day of her christening, Aurora was cursed to die by the evil fairy Maleficent. Due to the efforts of three good fairies, the curse was altered to instead draw Aurora into a deep sleep that could only be broken by true love's kiss.”
— Which archetype best describes your muse?
The Lover.
“The lover archetype represents play and sensual pleasure. They like to live in the moment and are appreciative of the physical environment. They try to be more attractive physically, and emotionally. They crave intimacy and enjoy being in a relationship with people. The lover archetype is also known as a friend, spouse, team builder, partner, and sensualist. The lover archetype is probably the most passionate, but they have a tendency to lack discipline. They want to stay young, innocent, and pure. They remain one of the most likable of archetypes.”
— Which temperament does your muse have?
Sanguine 21, Phlegmatic 12, Melancholic 6, Choleric 8.
“Your temperament is Sanguine. The Sanguine temperament is fundamentally spontaneous and pleasure-seeking; Sanguine people are sociable and charismatic. They tend to enjoy social gatherings, making new friends and tend to be boisterous. They are usually quite creative and often daydream. However, some alone time is crucial for those of this temperament. Sanguine can also mean sensitive, compassionate and thoughtful. Sanguine personalities generally struggle with following tasks all the way through, are chronically late, and tend to be forgetful and sometimes a little sarcastic. Often, when they pursue a new hobby, they lose interest as soon as it ceases to be engaging or fun. They are very much a people persons. They are talkative and not shy. Sanguines generally have an almost shameless nature, certain that what they are doing is right. They have no lack of confidence.”
— Describe your muse’s favorite memory.
Four years old, a memory at its earliest stage, yet so delicate and precious. The young girl trotted after her father in a near skip, smiles echoed on both of their features. This was the first time she found herself glued to the man’s side in endearment rather than fear; something of a new emotion for her to experience. But, It was only given that her attention faltered onto the beautifully decorated frames of different generations alongside the wall by her. Curiosity at its finest, one that her father indulged in while they toured the vacant manor. “One day it’ll be your’s, darling. Your own castle that you can protect.” At the time, of course, she didn’t fully understand the definition behind his words, yet the idea alone gave nothing but a euphoric feeling as her fingers laced together with his. “You can do that for me, right?”
— Name something your muse will always believe in.
Destiny & soulmates.
— Name a song that would play during the opening of a movie about your muse’s life.
Worst Behavior by Ariana Grande
— Going out or staying in?
Going out.
— Read the book or watch the movie?
Read the book.
— Talk during a movie or absolutely not?
No. What do you think this is?
— Sing to a song, hum along, or people should just stay quiet and enjoy listening to the song?
She wouldn’t be able to decide herself.
— Windows up while you’re driving or roll them down?
Wait, she’s allowed to drive?
— A wizard casts a spell on your muse that reveals their true colors. No, literally. The wisp of an aura is beginning to form around your muse. What color is it?
Crimson twirled around her in a deep fog. It felt suffocating as if air was forced out of her lungs within mere seconds, being replaced by nothing but the encasements of red. She knew very well that she deprives herself into two different personalities. She just didn’t expect the full showcase to cause such an intense pressure down against her chest. Red..? The color of love, creativity, passion, adventure, energy, and so many more beautiful things. Although, all she could think about were the color’s relativity to danger and aggression. There’s no way to tell which is the true or honest tell of her character.
— A wizard casts a spell on your muse that reveals their true nature. Smoke curls around your muse, accompanied by distant sounds of wildlife. When the smoke clears, what animal is standing in your muse’s place?
The previously suffocating smoke finally cascades from her senses. Opposed to the expected, a small fox appears in her wake, sounds of birds and leaves in the wind peeking from the distance. Many appeal to the fox as an ideal spirit animal by the way they follow signs of loyalty, independence, adaptability, beauty, and positive signs of luck. This is something she felt she could agree with as well as understand despite the strange circumstances. It’s what she didn’t know is the entire reason behind her revealed spirit; that the foxes are the royalties of mischievousness and tricks.
— A wizard (is this still the same wizard?) casts a spell on your muse that allows them to see what they most desire right here, right now, right in front of them. What do they see?
It seems these strange events never stop. This realization dawned on her the moment a figure shaped in-front of her, a figure so familiar yet unknown. The figure reached out to her with worry printed on their ghostly features. She didn’t know how to react at first, it was only natural that her hand reached out to his, an unforced smile tugging at the edges of her lips. When their fingers touched, all shades of color and light became possible. It became easy. It felt like fireworks plus all previous negative emotions or pressures ceasing to exist in his wake. She believed that this was her fate, the one she’s destined to be with. At least, until the figure lifted her small frame off the floor in a more maternal stance. Her eyes grew wide while everything around her froze. “Fa-..”
— A wizard (why haven’t they given up yet?) casts a spell on your muse that forces them to see what they are most afraid of. What do they see?
Within an instant, everything vanishes from her line-sight. Nothing but pure darkness surrounds her, not even indications of time or location. Her heart begins to pound inside her chest as panic shivers its way down every nerve and fiber of her being. Where is she? Where did everyone go? The girl paces back and forth before eventually running anywhere she could go without truly feeling like she’s moving at all. In the end, her body falls down to her knees as weakness or hopelessness settles into her bones; a broken sob stuck in the back of her throat. Being alone is the most tragic feeling anyone could experience.
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~ Uploading this WIP here too! ~
{You can see both on my deviantArt too [same username], but with some of the original ideas and thoughts.}
So uh, I did what I do best and shoved two things I love and have been hyperfocusing on for the last month together: Sanders Sides and RWBY.
I’ve been binging @thatsthat24 ‘s Sanders Sides videos and fan comics for the last month or so and by god, it’s really lifted my mood. I’m gonna work to get them all lined and coloured soon, but since I’ll be travelling in the next week, I’ll likely have paper sketches and such to upload if I’m lucky.
As for this AU, say hello to Team RNBO [Rainbow]! This is what I have so far in terms of character information; [putting it under a readmore, please do have a look!]
Roman De La Rosa:
- Semblance: "Picture This" - the ability to conjure an item proportional to the positive emotions he alone is feeling. So the happier and more creative he feels, the better.
- Weapons: “Armas Y Rosas“, a gauntlet-gun [armas] and a rosen rapier sword [rosas]. It’s literally just a Guns N Roses joke.
Virgil Nightshade:
- Black Cat Faunus. I didn’t realise til too late how similar to Blake he is but honestly, idc, I love him.
- Semblance: "Panic Room" - the ability to conjure a small isolated, soundproof space to trap someone in. Including himself in times of distress.
- Weapons: “Atropa” and “Solanum”, two knives with dust vials that attach to the end to infuse the metal. He usually uses Gravity Dust because 1) aesthetic and 2) if you have gravity defying Dust? Thats a cool escape my guy.
Logan Blu-Berrie:
- Semblance: “Blu-Screen of Death” - the ability to perform computer-esque functions via summons, i.e. attacking someone with a text box he just conjured, or browsing data and memories on a summoned screen for accuracy.
- Weapon: “Crofter”, a staff-spear that uses projection similar to Velvet’s weapon to form blades when needed. I.E. turning the staff into an axe or hammer or even forming a fishing line. [Looking at this whole thing, Logan wound up giving me big Scottish vibes in this AU and I’m SO for it.]
Patton Opal:
- Labrador Faunus, best boy 1000/10, didn’t have to re-work his design at all, what a madlad
- Semblance: "New Trick" - the ability to mark a person and be able to find them via a boosted scent marker. So far Roman smells like strawberries and creme, Virgil smells like smokey wood, and Logan smells like jam. And yes, Patton has tried tracking himself. He smells of vanilla cookies.
Weapon: “Storge”, a shield - axe combo. Mostly used in the shield position unless he’s forced to be active in a fight. Tried to give this weapon BIG Rose Quartz Shield Vibes.
Remus Pepinillo:
- for those wondering, he threw out the De La Rosa name when he left the family to go eat deoderants without judgement. And to go cause havoc.
- Semblance: “Can’t Be Unseen” - Similar to Roman’s semblance, Remus can conjure items but instead based upon other people’s negative emotions directed at him. So things like disgust and fear directed at him make him stronger.
- Weapon: “Asqueroso”, a mace that can be wielded in pole form or as a chain flail. The name literally is just the spanish for “Disgusting”.
“Deceit“:
- Python faunus. Pretty obvious there. As for a name, I’ll work with whatever becomes canon, tbh. His hat snake isn’t real, it’s just a design, but he has named his hat “Monty”.
- Semblance: “Trust in Me” - Deceit can mimic someone else’s voice to the point of being hypnotic in some cases.
- Weapon: “Kaa”, a microphone that can amplify sounds to use as ammo, or can be combined with dust vials for other effects, such as fire breathing or ice breath. This is absolutely where Virgil got the idea for his knives.
~~ Little Things In Their Designs Collectively~~
- So mostly Roman and Virgil had a revamp and got added or changed details. I’m personally loving the rose decals for Roman, and the fact that Virgil has to keep sewing his hoodie pocket sides back up because he keeps knee-jerk whipping out his knives and catching them on the sides. Also freckles. I cannot stress enough how much I needed to give one of these cute lil guys freckles.
- Logan and Patton really didn’t change much; Patton came out perfect the first time, and Logan just needed some proportion adjustments. Later I went and added friendship bracelets to each design because I do not believe for a second that Patton wouldn’t make them team bracelets. The card suit beads was just an addition that I added because I am the artist and none of you can stop me from adding the tiniest of references to Homestuck Quadrants.
- For Roman and Remus, I wanted them to have similar poses but good god, it was still hard to draw Remus’s hands. They look so good in the end though so I’m good with ‘em. I also might give him a little top hat or something at some point and see how it looks, I dunno.
- As for Deceit, I had a bit of trouble trying to pin down his design at first, but once I rolled with the allusions to Kaa from Jungle Book, it went far easier. I quite like that I added the poisonous needles in the bottom of his boots as a “sting in the tail” kind of thing.
- Talking about inspirations and such, Roman, Virgil, and Patton are pretty much just colour based; Roman being red roses [his name literally being Roman of the Rose] as a symbol of romance of course, with Virgil’s whole motif being Edgey and thus going with nightshade purple as his colour, and finally with Patton, his name took me the longest to work out, but Opal seemed to fit really well, and considering it represents Love and Loyalty? Come on, I had to.
- As for Logan, Deceit, and Remus, they all got more story links worked in somehow without me really realising. Logan was really unexpected, but between the Crofters’ Jam link and the blue colours, he gave me sort of Little Boy Blue vibes, and also via the name Logan being Scottish in origin and yknow, everythign else I mentioned? Yeah. I will definitely be adding celtic flair to his design when its coloured. Deceit is more obvious; Kaa was a good choice in influence that I noticed halfway through and just buckled down on. For Remus, he bounced around a bit between Maleficent and Dr Facilier, but in the end, I figured the Shadow Man was a better fit. Also his surname is literally just the Spanish for “Pickle” or “Gherkin”.
- Final info, if people are wondering, they’d all be centred on Huntsman training at Beacon, but in terms of where they’re from;
Roman and Remus would be from Atlas, obviously. That place spits out rich kids with issues like it’s quickfire Uno.
Virgil would be from Mantle; it’s pretty obviously one of the more run down and hard to live in areas, plus that’d set up the in this universe initial animosity between Roman and Virgil.
Logan is from Vale, so he’s a Beacon native. I considered him being from Atlas because of their tech. However, Vale won me over with Logan’s european influences and such.
Patton would be from Vacuo. I know its a weird choice, but hey, it’s full of faunus and it just fit a bit better than Menagerie or Mistral.
Speaking of, Deceit is 100% Menagerie born, but Mistral bred. He often tells people different conflicting origin stories, and won’t even tell his name to ex-buddy Virgil or ‘best buddy’ Remus.
I think that’s everything so far!!
I dunno if everyone else is as hype to see what comes of all this as I am, but either way I’m going to have fun doing it. <3
_______
PLEASE DO NOT:
- repost my art at all
- you are not permitted to line or colour this art
- you are not permitted to use this art as an icon or profile pic
- do not steal these designs, I put a lot of work into them ;;
_______
Sanders Sides (c) @thatsthat24
RWBY (c) Monty Oum & Rooster Teeth
The sketches belong to me.
#sanders sides#rwby#my art#rwby au#crossover#deceit sanders#remus sanders#virgil sanders#roman sanders#logan sanders#patton sanders#fanart#ocs#anxiety#logic#morality#creativity#remus#deceit#teamRNBO
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Absolutely love the gifts the bird of paradise awarded to the Xiaolin monks. It follows the concept that your greatest strength is your greatest weakness, and it’s all connected to the yin-yang theory of maintaining balance.
When the Xiaolin monks start rejecting their finest qualities, the opposite effects them and those consequences can harm themselves and everyone around them.
Kimiko: courage/cowardice.
Kimiko will always be the first to charge into battle and although Clay is seen as the brawn of the group he’s rather reserved in comparison, choosing defence over offence. Kimiko on the other hand is quick to strike an enemy in combat and has no problem giving opponents a verbal lashing too.
Kimiko’s cowardice doesn’t necessarily mean being afraid and running away from danger, not physically for her anyway. Kimiko’s problem is established at the very beginning as an internal struggle. She stays on the offence in social interactions like she does in combat, covering her fear and insecurity with anger to keep up appearances. Her cowardice is the inability to be emotionally open with others and communicate her vulnerabilities. Kimiko would rather struggle on her own instead of asking for support, she considers emotional honesty as something negative, thus refusing to admit when things go wrong until it’s too late. The moments where Kimiko can’t deny that things have escalated her fears take over. Kimiko is scared of the results of her own actions the most, from hacking and accidentally giving information away to Hannibal and the incident with Sibini. Kimiko hides the evidence of breaking a Shen gong wu in Clay’s room instead of confronting what she had done. This causes Clay to be possessed and she finally manages to communicate with the group, knowing it will put Clay in danger if she doesn’t. Showing that Kimiko is able to overcome her inner fears if she uses her courage for protecting others.
Omi: loyalty/disloyalty.
Loyalty is a quality that Omi admires and aspires to have, viewing it as a noble trait. Being the youngest of the Xiaolin he ends up naive about people’s intentions, and often falls into trickery since he wants to believe everyone is capable of good and loyalty. There’s a limit to this in the moments where he cannot deny deception. Omi will become hostile towards anyone that displays treachery and he finds it hard to forgive with his black and white view on the world.
Its Omi’s high standards that cause him to turn on his friends easily and he starts to view people as inferior to him in order to avoid betrayal. He was the last to believe that Raimundo went to the Heylin side and also the last to believe Raimundo is truly Xiaolin again. He still does not forgive Raimundo afterwards, casting doubt that the other Xiaolin monks agree with, Omi convinced everyone to go as far as trusting Jack over Raimundo and falling into a trap in “pandatown.” Omi continues to mock Raimundo for being the last to reach apprentice. He attacks Jermaine out of jealousy, and starts to believe Kimiko is less for being a girl, he lastly feels betrayed by Jack Spicer. Omi tries to rationalise his own disloyalty by believing the other person must not have been worth his loyalty in some way. When Omi returns to Xiaolin side he becomes aware his of actions, less aggressive about perceived betrayals and improves on seeing that everyone has value and for that reason the bird of paradise says his gift is loyalty.
Clay: strength/weakness.
The greatest strength for Clay is being able to face an adversity head on and also by how he can think outside the box to take down an enemy or get out of conflict when necessary. Clay unlike the other monks can see an easier way of rescuing the toy dog in training, figured out le mime’s weakness is replicating the others actions and creating a way out of the canyon trap by Chase Young. Strength for Clay is defined as both physical and mental because the bird of paradise saw his strength by avoiding unnecessary conflict.
Clay’s weakness is how he’ll behave around others, he has a weak will and can be manipulated by people if they want something out of him. Clay doesn’t know how to act on his inner strength when it comes down to his family who pushes him around and unintentionally the friends he tries to protect. Out of all the monks he’s the most likely to put himself last and prefers to remain quiet and simply follow orders, he is nervous when he gets any of the spotlight put on him. The element Earth represents the steady rock of the group and the monks will expect more from Clay because of his dependability. Sibini possessed Clay without any issue which is different from every other encounter that happens to the rest of the Xiaolin monks when someone attempts to take control of their lives, showing internally he’s weak to spiritual manipulation. The gift of strength is Clay nurturing the ability to trust himself and his own inner resolve to forge new paths.
Raimundo: kindness/cruelty.
Raimundo has a lot of compassion and is the empathic one of the group, ranging from saving a village from an active volcano, worrying for Omi when he went missing in the city and rescuing the drowning old woman who was the bird of paradise. Raimundo has good reason to avoid his good trait, his compassion for others often gets him into trouble. Raimundo went against Master Fung’s orders and tried to save the Xiaolin temple from Wuya. Instead of staying hidden with the other monks and he accidentally reveals the hidden location of the SGW. The other time is when Raimundo rescued the village and the Shen gong take control of his body as a result. Raimundo likes to do what he perceives to be the right thing without thinking of the consequences of his actions first.
Without kindness though, Raimundo is at his worst, acting selfish and serving his own interests. Raimundo at the beginning was eager to bully the other monks, from making fun of Omi, laughing at Kimiko’s struggles, and picking at Clay’s mannerisms. On the Heylin side, the ways he mocked the monks had gained a malicious intent in hopes of pressuring them to join him. It is only after Raimundo rejoins the Xiaolin that he tries to be better behaved by being reserved around the team, and stops himself from lashing out when Omi is demeaning him and learns to take criticism. Raimundo still has rough edges as he continues to attack the Heylin side with too much bravado in order to look good rather than thinking about the longterm outcome that unnecessary violence creates. In spite of this Raimundo definitely makes vast improvements on knowing the limit and understanding the needs of others.
Jack: honesty/deception.
Given from what happens to the Xiaolin monks when they reject their best attributes and how the opposite of their inner strength will inevitably turn against themselves, it’s possible that Jack’s gift would have been along the lines of reliability and honesty. “The bird of paradise” episode makes it clear that Jack got more things right when he would attempt to be truthful. The mystical leaf gives directions when he admits he needs help, and again the monks rescued him when he told them he was captured. Afterwards he quickly reverted back to trickery in order to mask his own feelings.
Jack convinces himself that ‘sneakiness’ is the best way to go about things and will ultimately lose in showdowns by using deception as a go to tactic. He does this because he doesn’t believe in achieving victory the moral way, and to disguise his vulnerabilities. Though he’s certainly not ashamed to pretend to be defenceless to get his own way. The Xiaolin monks typically protect Jack and listen to him if he’s honest with them about a situation from the start. Or at least begrudgingly come to Jack’s aid if he confesses about a situation when it’s convenient to save himself from danger. In comparison Good Jack is overall more accomplished and better at problem solving unlike regular Jack, the only noticeable difference between the two of them is honesty. His counterpart Good Jack is ridiculously honest about what he wants and his own feelings, from being happy that Omi came back and commenting on how he will miss being good. Good Jack can figure out a challenge quickly and not draw out the situation by lying to himself and being upfront to those around him.
#xiaolin showdown#Kimiko Tohomiko#omi#Clay Bailey#Raimundo Pedrosa#jack spicer#hope this was a fun read#xs says hey lets throw in the ying-yang dynamics#because obviously it's too easy otherwise#long post#headcanon for jacks gift#cowboy misses that element today
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Blood In Our Throat
Written for @klaroline-events bingo and the “Blood sharing” box. Idea courtesy of @ofthedirewolves
Can also be read at AO3.
---
One. Our Town
It was cold.
Caroline couldn't remember the last time she had felt so cold. It was probably at some point before she had been turned, back when things such as the change in temperature really affected her. But still she couldn't remember ever feeling so cold, even back then.
"How are you feeling?"
The world seemed cloudy at the edges, as though Caroline were looking at it through some sort of cloud. She didn't answer her mother's question immediately, as Liz walked across the room. She seemed to come more in focus as she got closer, and by the time she sat on the edge of her bed, Caroline finally understood what it was that had been asked.
"I'm okay," she said, trying to smile. But the way Liz's brow furrowed told her she was probably failing at convincing her mother that she was doing anything other than dying. Which she was. So instead of trying to soothe any further, she reached out to squeeze Liz's hand. Her grip was weak, but she managed. "You shouldn't be in here."
"I'm not going to let you die alone," Liz replied, her voice breaking when she said the word die. Caroline felt her throat tighten, because this wasn't how any of this was supposed to happen. Liz shouldn't be outliving her; that shouldn't have happened in general, but particularly not once Caroline became a vampire. Caroline didn't realize she'd begun to squeeze Liz's hand harder until her mom winced, and Caroline recoiled.
"You shouldn't be here," she said again, cradling her hand against her chest, her gaze focused on Liz's hand, her fingers already beginning to bruise. "I'm going to hallucinate. And..."
I don't want to kill you is what she should say, but Caroline can't quite bring herself to say the words. So she rolls onto her side, her back to Liz, and squeezes her eyes shut. She barely keeps from putting her hands over her ears, as if by blocking her sight and her hearing, somehow the whole situation will disappear. She won't have possibly broken her mother's fingers. She won't be dying.
She won't be dying because of her boyfriend.
But she doesn't put her hands over her ears. She can't see, but she does hear Liz leave the room. And she hears when the doorbell rings. Hears the accent and the deal with the devil her mother makes, and when he enters the room, she's manged to roll onto her back once more.
"Are you going to kill me?" she asked him, hating that her voice sounded small. But she felt small. Small and scared, and she was dying.
"On your birthday? You really think that low of me?"
He didn't seem like the devil, standing there. In another life, she would have thought he was attractive, even. But in that moment, he was just the guy that was behind her death, and for a brief second, she forget her fear, long enough to answer with a strength that would leave her immediately after.
"Yes."
She knew that they continued to talk, that there was something in there about how old he was. But the world was beginning to fuzz at the edges, and at times, Caroline thought she might already be dead. But then he leaned in towards her, and the intensity in his eyes... suddenly, everything was crystal clear.
"And I could let you. Die. If that's what you want. If you really believe your existence has no meaning. I've thought about it myself, once or twice over the centuries, truth be told. But I'll let you in on a little secret." He leaned in, just a little bit closer, and when Caroline's breath caught, it wasn't entirely because of the bite burning on her neck. He might be the Devil, but there was something magnetic about him. "There's a whole world out there waiting for you. Great cities and art, and music. Genuine beauty. And you can have all of it. You can have a thousand more birthdays. All you have to do is ask."
She should snap at him. She should spit in the face of his offer. But something about the moment, about the way he looked at her, made it impossible for her to lie. So, for the first time since Tyler had bit her, and she'd been trying to stay positive... she said the words she'd been swallowing back.
"I don't want to die."
When his blood hit her tongue, it tasted sweeter than anything she'd ever had before. And when he stroked her hair... she felt comfort that she shouldn't. That she would never admit to feeling if anyone asked.
But in that moment, she felt comforted.
Two. Into the Wild
She felt betrayed.
Not because Tyler had left her there, with the man that had bit her. The man that had killed her. Maybe she should have felt betrayed by that, that she was being left to save herself... but they weren't idiots. She was her own best chance.
But she wasn't sure she could get out of her own way long enough to take that chance.
Because she felt betrayed.
Klaus was... he was evil. Hadn't everyone said that over and over? So maybe that made Caroline the idiot. The idiot for snapping at him, for egging him on, but part of her had trusted him. Had believed in him enough to think - to hope - that while he might destroy everyone else, he would always draw the line at her.
And now, she was dying. Because her trust had been misplaced.
"If you don't feed me your blood, I'll die." There. That was easy enough to say. It was just blunt truth. Maybe that was all it would take, and she wouldn't have to think about him anymore.
He glared at her from the doorway, arms crossed, his expression tight. It could have been caused by petulance. She liked to believe it might be regret, but she'd already believed in him once.
And he'd chosen to kill her.
"Then you'll die, and Tyler will have learned his lesson the hard way." He spoke, but he didn't look at her, staring instead across the room from him. She stared at him, silently willing him to turn his head. If she was going to die because of him, he could at least give her the dignity of acknowledging what he had done.
He could at least watch the results of his action.
"How could you do this to him? To his mom? To me?" And it was the last one that she meant the most. If she were truthful, the fact that he'd hurt Tyler? Even that he'd killed Carol? Not all that surprising in the long run. Klaus took betrayal poorly, and he viewed what Tyler had done as betrayal because he had such a crappy, messed up version of what loyalty was, and who deserved it. But... maybe she did, too.
After all, she'd been dumb enough to think he cared, hadn't she?
"I'm a thousand years old. Call it boredom." And still he refused to look at her, though somehow his jaw seemed to, impossibly tighten even more. Not petulance. Caroline felt she understood his character well enough to know this.
It was regret.
"I don't believe you." Her voice was soft, and it was said as a challenge. She meant it as a challenge.
"Fine. Then maybe it's because I'm pure evil and I can't help myself," he replied, still in that voice that seemed somewhat disengaged, even as he continued to refuse to look at her, as if he couldn't bear the sight.
And was she still stupid, that she hoped that meant he couldn't stand to see what he had done, because he regretted hurting her? And oh God, was she really going to be that kind of idiot?
She needed to just get him to save her. Savehersavehersaveher. Maybe if she repeated it like a mantra, she could convince herself that's all this was. Manipulating him into her helping her. That the only reason she felt pain was because of the bite, and not because he had been the one that bit her.
"No. It's because you're hurt. Which means there is a part of you that is human."
Saying that made her think of the Miss Mystic pageant, and his story about the hummingbird. She'd looked at him and seen to the heart of who he was. She was sure of it. That man that had teased her with her Miss Mystic application and the man that still couldn't look at her... they were still the same man, and that man was more than just a monster.
Savehersavehersaveher... that was it. She didn't need to think flowery thoughts of redemption. She just needed to be saved, and then she needed to be out.
"How could you possibly think that?" Finally, he looked at her. Took steps towards her. He wasn't all the way there, but their eyes finally met, and she could see the emotion in his, and she knew she'd been right. That was regret.
Well, they both regretted a lot then, didn't they?
"Because I've seen it. Because I've caught myself wishing that I could forget all the horrible things that you've done." She hadn't meant to say it, that last part - she'd meant to leave it at having seen it. But Klaus seemed to wrench the truth from her in ways no one else could, and the world was blurring and turning dark at the edges. So the words came out before she could stop them, and hung in the air.
"But you can't, can you?"
Distance again, but Caroline had already started to put the truth out there, right? So she might as well throw all her cards on the table and see where they would lie, and then deal with the aftermath.
Or not deal with it, if she was dead.
God, she might still end up dead.
"I know that you're in love with me. And anybody capable of love, is capable of being saved."
Silence fell heavy between them, and Caroline felt her eyes begin to drift shut. Was that her dad in the corner? It sort of looked like him. Maybe he was here to take her, wherever they went after death. Except he hadn't chosen to become a vampire, had he?
She wouldn't get to see her parents again. That wasn't something she'd thought about before, but it hit her now. Vampires didn't go to the same place humans did. She'd never get to say anything to him again.
"You're hallucinating." She managed to open her eyes and look at Klaus for a moment. Had she forgotten he was there? That seemed like an odd thing to forget. But she could barely keep her eyes open anymore, and her dad... she thought he'd moved a bit closer. But still, she needed to look at Klaus for just this one last moment. She was sad and pathetic, but she wanted to remember his expression.
Maybe it would give her comfort, once she was dead. To know that he was suffering too.
"I guess I'll never know..."
She didn't know what she'd never know, but that's what came out, and then she just... drifted.
She felt as if she were floating. Was this the afterworld? Just floating in nothingness, something sweet and familiar coating her tongue and throat. It could be okay. Even the pain was going away now.
And somewhere through the fog, she heard him say her voice, and yeah... maybe this would be okay.
3. Graduation
Klaus had just turned his phone back on when it began to beep incessantly. He raised a brow, seeing the various missed calls and texts from Caroline. As much as he would like to believe she'd been reaching out to say she'd missed him, he wasn't quite so caught up in his own charms as to be that foolish. She still needed time, preferably away from this small town and her foolish friends, before she would make a decision in his favor.
Luckily for them both, he had nothing but time to give to her. Until she made that final step towards him, he would amuse himself in New Orleans with Marcellus and let her lead her life.
He hoped she would appreciate the graduation gift he was prepared to give her, even though it made him want to seethe with jealousy. But part of living her life meant growing out of her relationship with Lockwood. It had already begun to happen, but without time with the boy she would turn him into a martyr in her mind.
He lifted the phone to his ear, to listen to the message she had left him, and felt himself grin, even as he sighed.
Of course Damon Salvatore would get himself bit by a werewolf and need his assistance.
Well, Caroline could consider it another gift.
But if the veil really had opened between their world and the next, he wasn't going to spend his time playing errand boy. He had plenty of enemies that might view Caroline as a weakness - and they would rue the day they failed to realize that having such a weakness made him infinitely more dangerous - so he would find her first, and Damon could be saved later.
He had never thought himself the knight in shining armor type, but he did have to admit... the look on her face when he appeared to save them all from some very angry witches who should be dead - it was almost enough to make him contemplate taking up do-gooder status.
Sadly, that didn't last all that long.
"We need-"
"My blood," Klaus cut her off before he could finish, already looking around for something to use as a container. For Caroline, he would give a donation. But not even for her would he allow Damon Salvatore's mouth anywhere near his body. It was the Doppelganger, who held out a water bottle, and the Quarterback of all people, that offered him a knife. "Well, look at that. I'm sure this makes you very prepared for your inevitably horrifying and bloody death."
"Klaus," Caroline hissed, smile replaced by a narrow-eyed glare. But Klaus just smirked at her, because he knew her well enough now, to know when she was truly angry. And in this case, the anger was all for show.
"For you," he said, offering her the bottle once he'd poured some of his blood into her. For a second, she hesitated. He wondered if she was thinking about the other times he had given her his blood. If she recalled that this was the first time it came without pain to her. Perhaps he might be capable of feeling just the slightest inklings of guilt. But only for her.
The bottle had barely passed from his hand to hers, before Stefan had it away from her and had taken off, Elena at his heels.
"Thank-you," Caroline said, and it might have been a moment, if not for the fact that she was called away to take care of something. Because of course Caroline was the one in charge of the entire day.
So they didn't get that moment, not until later, when he found her cleaning up, and the ghosts had been returned to his other side. Including Kol, though Klaus had plans to reverse that in the near future. He wouldn't tell Caroline of them yet, however.
Instead, he offered her Tyler Lockwood's freedom and kissed her cheek with a promise of eternity. And never in his thousand years of life had he ever found anything so hard as walking away from her, with no return promise that she wanted to spend her eternity with him.
+ One. Where We Say Fuck Canon
New Orleans was both exactly and nothing at all like Caroline had expected.
It had the energy she thought it would, the atmosphere. She swore she could feel eyes watching her from empty windows, and wondered if the buildings she passed really were haunted, or if it was just her imagination running away with her. During her college years, when she'd found herself regretting some of her choices and wondering about the world outside her little group of friends she could never bear to leave... she'd read about the city and it's ghosts and she had imagined she would feel just like this.
It was nothing like she'd expected, because in all her imaginations, she'd never been here alone. Even after she'd made him promise to never return to her, she'd always imagined that, someday, she might return to him instead. Show up in this city and play his voicemail and demand a tour.
In all those dreams she'd had of this place, she had never been alone.
It was odd, to stand on Bourbon Street and have no one at her side. Even when she'd been a teenager thinking that no one loved her, she had never been alone in this way. Most of the ones she'd left behind in Mystic Falls had no idea where she was. Only Bonnie and Enzo, who had both offered to accompany her... but this was something Caroline needed to do herself.
It was the first step towards her eternity, and she would never embrace it fully if she was still dragging her past right behind her.
So now, here she was, apparently five years later than she should be - but she'd just gotten a text from Rebekah of all people a week ago, so she hadn't realized there was an issue going back five years.
Nik's been trapped under New Orleans half a decade. Do something about it, won't you?
For the first time ever, Caroline had been able to respond with "new phone, who 'dis?" only for Rebekah to call her and rant at her for almost an hour, asking how she dare forget about her. Caroline hadn't, of course, but she had forgotten Rebekah's number as soon as she'd been able too. After all, she hadn't been the one with the poison healing blood and promises of forever. Caroline hadn't really expected to ever need the other woman's phone number again, like, ever.
But after the lecture, she'd managed to get the entire story out of Rebekah. The story of how her brother had sacrificed his own life - which, what? - so that his siblings could get away from Rebekah's ex, who also happened to be Klaus' adopted son, who was now even more powerful than the Original Hybrid himself thanks to some witchy woo-woo.
Yeah, it was a whole thing. And apparently the Mikaelson family's relationships with each other were even more messed up than Caroline had ever realized.
So, Caroline had decided to ride into New Orleans and play the role of super heroine, while leaving Elena and her Salvatore brothers in the dark. It's not like they were expecting to hear from her after all, since that whole awkward her and Stefan almost being a thing, thing. It had been a time in her life when she made multiple poor decisions. She regretted basically all of them and would like to forget about everyone they involved except Enzo and Bonnie, thank-you very much.
And it was stupid, really, that even here, in a city she had never been before, the past constantly hounded her steps.
She didn't want the past anymore. She wanted the future. She wanted the future Klaus Mikaelson had promised her under the stars on the night of her graduation, sealed with a kiss on her cheek that she'd never been able to forget. Even more than their one afternoon in the woods outside her hometown, it was that kiss that she remembered.
The sex had been a good-bye.
But that kiss... that kiss, placed so softly against her cheek. That kiss that still burned her skin, left her able to feel his lips as clearly as if it had happened just yesterday - that kiss had been an oath that they would someday have forever together.
And she still wasn't sure if she was entirely ready to cash in on that oath, but it would never happen if he remained buried in the basement of some dusty old building because he hadn't been able to get out of his own way long enough to make peace with a boy he had, apparently, raised.
That had been a surprise. And, okay, Rebekah hadn't exactly said the whole thing was Klaus' fault. She'd actually painted him out to be rather heroic, all things considered. But she'd left him there for five years, and Caroline felt she was familiar enough with Klaus' worst habits that she could safely assume it was, somehow, all his fault. That he had actually taken one for Team Mikaelson so his family could get away?
That showed some growth. And after a thousand years, growth was actually kind of impressive.
Caroline shook her head, because being distracted right now wasn't a thing she should be. The amulet around her neck that made her invisible to the supernatural had a time limit, and she had activated it once she'd figured out exactly what address she needed to get to. One hour. That's how long she had, according to Bonnie. Rebekah had warned her that Klaus' enemies included some witches that were pretty powerful in their own right, but a follow up call from Kol, remarkably alive, had assured her that those witches had nothing on a Bennett Witch.
Hopefully he wasn't being bitter and spiteful, because if it turned out that Bonnie's spell wasn't good enough... well, dead wasn't a look that would suit Caroline, so she just wouldn't consider the possibility.
It was weird, to walk right by vampires and have them look right through her. It would have been the worst nightmare of seventeen year old Caroline, who had felt invisible without it being literal. Now she was just kind of glad. There were a lot of vampires, and while Caroline had taken on some stupid odds in her life, she'd always done it under duress and never alone.
She had to wait a little longer than she wanted, for someone to let her into the house, and she got slightly turned around at one point before finding the entrance. The dungeon below the Abattoir.
It was dark and gross and very much looked like it belonged in a scene from Nosferatu. But no one seemed to notice that she had entered. The whole place was eerily silent until Caroline finally found Klaus, shackled to the wall and looking completely terrible.
"Well, you've seen better days."
Klaus' head shot up, and he looked around with wild eyes, his fangs bared.
"Caroline?" he asked the air. "Come to haunt me again? I thought I told you to sod off."
Caroline found herself blinking in surprise, and she quirked her head. Her fingers hovered over the ring she wore on her pinky, the one that Bonnie had spelled. She knew she had limited time; only about twenty minutes before the spell faded. But she had to take the moment, to just look at him.
Wild, she thought again. That really was the best way to describe him. His hair, his eyes, his expression. Everything about him was wild, and for a moment fear clutched her throat, and she thought about turning around. Just walking out, not endangering everyone. Because he was dangerous. He was more than dangerous. Klaus was dangerous when he was sane; without the sanity? Caroline wasn't sure he would leave anyone alive, including her.
"I lied," he murmured, before she made any decisions, clutching his head. "Speak to me again, Love."
She pulled off the ring and let it drop to the ground. When Klaus' head snapped up again, those wild eyes landing on her, she didn't feel endangered anymore. Klaus wasn't looking at her like he wanted her dead.
He was looking at her like a parched man seeing water.
"You know, I kind of always hoped you might do something decent," she said, kneeling at his side. When he just continued to stare at her, she lifted her hand. After another moment of hesitation, she stroked his cheek, and then ran her fingers up to his hair, pushing the strands out of his hair. "Of course, sacrificing your freedom for an indefinite period of time wasn't what I really was thinking of. Maybe just letting your sister date someone without trying to kill them would have been a good step."
"Caroline?" he whispered, raising his hand to grasp at her wrist. It came up just short, however, the chain not quite letting him reach her. "You... you can't be here. You're a hallucination. You love to haunt me."
"Really?" she asked, hand cradling his jaw. "I come all this way and you accuse me of being a hallucination. Rude."
He stared at her, and slowly the beast faded from his eyes, until they were blue and normal and staring at her with shock.
"You can't be here, Love. He'll kill you, and I can't save you."
"By him do you mean your adopted son? Because really, Klaus, your family? Makes mine look normal, and my father literally tried to torture the vampire out of me." She moved away from him a bit to test the chains that held him. They were spelled not to break against supernatural strength, of course. Normal chains would never hold Klaus Mikaelson in place.
But Caroline had learned a thing or two over the years, and she pulled a bobbie pin out of her hair, carefully bending it in the exact ways she and Enzo had learned, when she had sat down with him and googled directions for picking locks, so that he'd have a way to escape a cage besides brute strength.
The chains might be protected against being broken... but they were still susceptible to good old fashioned lock picking. Enzo had picked it up easier, but Caroline's competitive nature meant she hadn't been able to give up until she was damn good at it herself, and in just a few minutes, the chains fell from him.
"Can you stand?" she asked him, as he shook his limbs, staring at the way he was suddenly free.
"You can't be here," he said again. "Leave. I'll tear my way out if I must."
Caroline checked her watch. Ten minutes left, and the ring wouldn't protect them both. She let out a slow breath and contemplated the area. There wasn't anything that screamed "I'll help you escape!"
"Well, we're doing this," she muttered, and before she could think twice, she bit into her wrist, in the way Klaus had so many years ago, and then cradled his back, pressing the bloody cut to his lips.
She thought he might refuse at first, but for once she was stronger than him, and way more stubborn. So in just a few seconds, he was pulling blood from the wound, making Caroline wince. But she still stroked his hair, the same way she remembered him doing. Not that she remembered much about the second time... but she could make some assumptions.
"Why are you here?" he asked, after letting her wrist go and pulling back from her. His color was already better, and Caroline cleaned her already healing wrist on her jeans, wrinkling her nose at the fact that the whole thing wasn't sanitary at all.
"Really? Not a thank-you, or a hello? Or a solid plan for getting out of here, because I honestly don't really have one, and being killed by the Uber You is not a thing I want."
Caroline was already moving away, looking for an escape, when Klaus grabbed her hand and spun her around. She found herself pulled into a sudden hug that had her freezing for a moment, before slowly wrapping her arms around him. He... was a surprisingly good hugger. And was already warm again, even though he'd been cold and clammy before she'd fed him her blood.
"Thank-you, Caroline," he murmured, his voice and breath warm against her ear.
"I... your welcome."
"And there's another way out this way."
Still holding her hand, he turned and led her in the opposite direction she had been going. Their fingers twined together, and the whole thing felt right, made her feel almost giddy.
"You're okay with this?" she asked him. "Just leaving?"
"I can return to murder Marcel and everyone he ever cared about." She should probably be disturbed by that, but instead it just soothed the worry she hadn't even realized she'd been feeling. Klaus was still in there. Her Klaus. And that felt right, too. "But I promised you the world once. I'd like to begin to keep that promise, before you remember I'm the devil and run away."
"I might do that anyway," Caroline admitted, although it felt less likely than it had before, now that he was holding her hand in his. "I'm not the best bet, Klaus. I might have some issues."
"Don't we all?" he replied carelessly, before he stopped, turning to look at her once again. "You're hardly a worse bet than I, Caroline. Yet here you are."
"Yeah," she agreed, softly. "Here I am."
"And here I am as well."
And then he was kissing her. It wasn't the chaste kiss on the cheek at her graduation, or the wild passion in the forest. It was...
It was sweet, but promising. The type of promising that made her believe that maybe they weren't such bad bets after all.
"Let's get out here," he said, pulling back, and Caroline felt her lips slowly curve into a smile, remembering the last time he'd said those words.
"Before twelve angry hybrids decide to pick a fight?"
"Or several dozen very angry vampires."
And still clutching her hand, he took off. And it didn't feel like running away from several very angry vampires, even though that's very much what they were doing.
Instead, it felt like running towards forever. Finally.
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— the sun goes down; he takes the day, but I’m grown
pairing: sam wilson x f!reader x bucky barnes
summary: you meet him once at your favorite place and assume that you won’t meet him again, regardless of how good the conversation was, but alas, fate always seems to have other plans.
wc: 6.8k+ (no self-control and I actually planned this series out)
genre: slightly angsty, flirting, good banter, medium burn
Blue Shade: series — masterlist | 01
The room buzzes with the clanking of machines, snippets of conversation, and the quiet energy of caffeine tapping into the bloodstream, feet tapping against floors, legs bouncing uncontrollably. It would be lying if you claimed that you didn’t appreciate the white noise of it all. You could be standing in line, absentmindedly admiring the mahogany walls with original artwork in monotone shades and not worrying about seeming aloof or cold.
This whole establishment was a piece of artwork, something to be admired by anyone who endeavored to traverse the outrageous traffic and lack of parking in New York. It gave you a sense of home and comfort among the noise, the energy vibrating through the air calming any rising anxieties.
You ordered your usual and stood, your computer bag slung over your shoulder and a light jacket hanging around your frame. It only took a few seconds to get your drink ready as they slid it across the metal counter, your name written in jagged script. “Started working as soon as I saw you walk in.” Mark, one of the baristas, smiles at you and you flash him a thankful grin back. “Where would I be without you?”
He only smirks, returning to the espresso machine and preparing the next drink. Your first sip is heavenly, flavors traveling across your tongue at a lightning fast pace and blending into a richness and warmth that can only be attributed to the feeling of this place. Safe and comforting, inviting and welcoming.
You pick your usual seat, right up against the wall, resting against the wood that acts as a divider between the line and the seating area. The tables are all carved from trees with a cherry veneer whipped across before a sealing, clear coat. You run your fingers against the surface, searching for any lingering crumbs, but also to take in the feel, the smooth gloss against your hands, the sturdiness against your fingertips.
Somehow you wish you could take the emotions that rise as you come into this place with you as you go home, but you can’t. The only thing you can do is savor it all as you do the same thing every time you come in.
You zip open your computer bag and pluck your laptop from its case, setting it on the table and waiting for it to boot to life. It whirls and displays a start up screen as you take another couple of sips of your drink, trying to make the cup last for the next hour or so you’ll spend here, glancing out the window at passing traffic.
It’s a pain to find parking—you had to park a good way down the block just to make it here—but it’s all worth it. Just for this. Just for the feeling of sitting here and admiring the light outside as it splashes against the buildings, swathing them in wonderfully rich whites and browns and blues. The sunlight reflects against cars and shining sequins, its rays spreading every which way with its brilliance.
It’s wonderful.
Then your computer finally finishes its load up sequence as you dig around for your earbuds, fishing them out to plug into your phone, opening up a calming playlist as you click the web browser on your computer.
Today’s topic will be about how light plays an integral role in the consumer’s experience between the home and their enjoyment they get from it. You’re not a realtor per-say, but you have a deep respect for architecture and how it connects with people.
Just like this coffee shop is comforting to you, you wonder what are the elements that make buildings enjoyable for other people. Is it the light? Is it the noise level? Is it the people and culture that a building attracts? The location?
So in order to explain these questions, you’ve kept lists of them, stored on the hard drive of your phone in a note keeping app. Then, you come here, the place outside of your home that you enjoy coming to and focus an hour of your time on researching these things, discovering answers to problems and questions that need solutions.
It’s relaxing, lets you get away from some of the problems that you might be having in daily life, like work or in your relationship. It gives you time to delve into something that doesn’t relate to you personally, gives you another subject to focus on while you strive to find those answers about personal issues that you can’t quite come up with yet.
Your music is calming, the various voices speaking around you fading away as you open ebook after ebook, article after article, searching for responses and research that points to a connection between light allowed in the house and customer satisfaction. Surveys come up, testimonials offered, research specialists all weigh in on the topic and you ravage through it all.
The explanation of the connection between sunlight and serotonin can’t be denied and even without the research, you’d be able to tell people that, yes, you’re much happier when out in daylight and fresh air. You feel better. The science is there to back it up, but what happens when architecture is applied?
What about the location of the home? The size of their windows? Where on earth they live?
What if they explored this furt-
“Hello.” The voice sounds foggy and far away and you draw an earbud out of your ear, gazing out of your article to find someone actually standing in front of you. “Sorry to distract you, but is this seat taken?” He gestures at the seat in front of you.
You spare a glance around the restaurant for half a second and observe the empty tables lingering all around you, wondering why he would want to sit right in front of you when there’s all that space lingering around.
You nod, slowly, with apprehension, and scoot back to allow for more shared leg room. “Thanks.” He sits down as you write a few more notes onto a notebook you slipped out of your bag a few minutes ago, trying to keep your place and appear busy to him.
If he were to try to strike up a conversation, at least you’d remember where you were and what you still needed to look up, but if he saw you writing furiously with that pen like your life depended on it, maybe he would leave you to your work.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
“Do you always sit here?” He sips on his drink encased in a white mug, sunglasses still resting over his eyes. His voice is kind, but holds weight to it, like he’s trying to pull you out of what you’re working on. You’re not rude, so you appease him.
“Yeah, it’s kind of my spot.” You smile and close your laptop, taking away the temptation to keep searching and just ignore him. You sip your drink in your paper cup and lean back, placing your pen back on the notebook, about ready to put your stuff away.
“Interesting.” He sits forward, pushing the sunglasses out of his eyes, the deep chocolate of them apparent to you now, not that you were looking that hard in the first place. You tell yourself that you definitely weren’t looking that hard. Or that you noticed the slight abrasions on his leather jacket. “You’re not the first to claim this table.”
“Oh?” Your eyebrows shoot up and you take a sip to hide your shock. “This is your spot too?”
“Clever girl.” He leans back and observes you and you laugh at his nonchalant approach to the situation. “Though, I do accept company every now again. Good to allow the table some exposure.”
“How gracious of you.” You muttered over the lid of the coffee cup while the stranger just smiles at you, appreciating your joke and humor in the situation. “I bet Rachel loves being introduced to new people.”
“How do you know her name?” He fakes surprise, setting down his mug. You nearly burst out laughing at his expression, all twisted with his mouth and eyes wide open. “That was supposed to be our little secret.”
“Well I happen to know Rachel pretty well, thank you very much.”
“I can see.” He narrows his eyes and leans back, looking down at the table as he shakes his head. “No loyalty.” He sips his drink, foam sticking to his lip. “Where’s the trust?”
You giggle and hand him one of your napkins, pointing to your upper lip. He gives his thanks as he wipes away the evidence.
You check your watch and jump at the time it reads. You were supposed to leave five minutes ago, planning to meet up with Bucky just down the block. Hastily, you grab your notebook, pen, and earbuds and stuff them into the right pockets.
“Blowing this joint, huh?” He acts cool but you see the curiosity lingering behind his eyes and you stop for a second.
“Um...yeah. I’m late to meet someone.”
“Do you need help with anything?”
You slide your laptop back into the bag. “No, but thank you. I appreciate it.” You grab your jacket from the booth beside you and slide it over your shoulders, the material scratching against your skin. “Take care of Rachel for me.”
You slide your bag over your shoulders and begin to walk out when he stops you. “Hey, Coffee Girl.”
You turn and smile at him. “Yes, table parent?”
“When do you think we can discuss more options about custody over the table?” His smile is warm and there’s something else underneath. Something you don’t recognize, something that sounds like intrigue. You haven’t seen someone look at you with that in, well, a while. It nearly scares you right out of your skin.
“I’m..” Your voice begins to falter and you hang onto your coffee cup just a little tighter. Not out of a general fear of him, he seems really sweet and kind, but for yourself. No one, no one, ever looks at you like that. “I’ll probably be here, next week.” You manage to get out. “Same time.”
“Hmm.” He watches your demeanor change and his smile becomes less beaming, more soft and subtle. “May I ask for a number.” Your face erupts with astonishment, eyebrows shooting up. “Just to confirm, of course.” He adds, trying to placate your sharp change in expression.
“Um…” You look around to see people watching you and notice how awkward the situation is becoming. Closing your eyes for a brief second, you open them to see his smile now gone and replaced with confusion. “I’ll meet you here again and then I’ll swap digits.”
“Okay.” He nods, seeming still confused. “Have a good one.”
You want to punch yourself in the gut.
“Yeah. You too.” You turn away and nearly run out of the coffee place, the bell ringing like a gong of judgement as you swing the door open just a bit too hard.
There was going to be nothing wrong with giving that man your number, nothing at all. There was just...just this feeling of overwhelming disbelief and a deep piercing sorrow at the fact that he wanted your number at all.
You didn’t see the conversation swerving in that direction. You liked him, thought he was great to talk to and seem genuinely interested and intrigued by what you were saying, but the thought of him having a deeper interest terrified you.
Because he didn’t know what he was getting himself into.
He didn’t know what a bore you were, let alone how uninteresting you could be.
He wouldn’t be happy with someone like that. How could he be? He was the sun and you would only swallow him in shadow, drowning out his humor and smile and inescapable light.
He would die with you by his side.
He doesn’t want you, not really, because he doesn’t know you. Because he would be horrified by you.
….
“Hey, doll!” His eyes light up as he sees you, crinkling in the corners as he opens his arms wide to trap you within his embrace.
You loved when the bright blue of his eyes did that. Their shape turns into splits and his happiness seems to vibrate from his gaze into you, warming you up, making you feel alive. His arms are sturdy and warm, safe and bracing. You don’t feel like you could ever fall with him by your side.
But he smelt foreign to you, like jasmine and lavender. He always smelled like fresh pine and the forest. It was the thing you always loved about him.
He was corrupted, but he was still beautiful. Still the Bucky you knew.
“How are you?” He kept his hands resting on your arms, drinking you in, smiling down at your grinning figure.
“Good. Are you ready to go?” He nods, slipping his hand in yours. “Where’d you go today?” You stare at your linked hands and grin, not noticing the way his mouth turns into a fine line before a small, pretend smile takes its place.
“Oh, just to the gallery down the street.” Your eyes snap to his and for just a split second, hurt crosses your features before you smooth it over. It all comes back to the gallery. Every single thing.
But if you ignore it, maybe he’ll still be happy with you, happy with the way things are. If you try to fuss about it, he’ll run away or get angry, and you don’t want that. You don’t want to see him upset. He’s not very reasonable when upset.
He seems to see how your face changes and silence takes hold as you walk down the street filled with warmth and sunlight. Although you feel his heat bleed into your hand, you feel as if you’re next to an iceberg, a stranger, someone you want to put distance between, not someone you feel you love.
Bucky shifts, reaching for something to soothe your hurt. “Come on, doll. Don’t be like that.” He laughs, and you try hard to believe him, to fill the air with your warm giggles, but you can’t. You're physically unable to. “She’s just a friend.”
Liar.
She’s not just a friend, no matter how much he tries to convince you. You don’t have any evidence to support your theory, not any true evidence that he can’t refute, but you know a bold faced lie when you hear one.
That’s why you try to be good, be interesting, because maybe being interesting will bring him back to you, back to your side.
He’s here now, but he’s never really here. He’s not as devoted to you as you are to him, but that’s your fault. You’re just not good enough for him, but you could be better. You can be better. You just have to show him.
You just have to hold on. Just give him a chance. Show him how exciting you can be.
Taking in a healthy breath of air, you sigh. “Right.” You shake your head as if you’re trying to clear these treacherous thoughts from your mind. “You’re right, I’m sorry.” You smile at him, as much attempting to convince him as you are trying to make it all right in your head. This is the correct way to handle things. This is how you pull him back. Just forgive and move on.
He relaxes at your acceptance, deflating at your calmed hostility. “You know you’re the only one for me.”
“I know, Bucky.” You rub his arm and his happiness is not as apparent as his serenity over solving the previous conflict. He presses a sickeningly sweet kiss to your head, leaving an impression there that makes your skin crawl, but these feelings will dissipate as time goes on.
Time will heal everything.
“You still remember that party tonight?” He drawls, as if proud that he’s secured an invitation. The party is for his friend at the art gallery, a celebration of her achievements. It’s supposed to be a small gathering, but with how many people were there at her opening, you would be shocked if the numbers were really that low.
You nod, leaning away from how Bucky’s face hovers so close to you. “Yep. I remember. I’ll be there.”
“Good.” He pulls you closer and you would be lying if you didn’t feel your stomach warm, butterflies recklessly taking flight without fear of slamming into the lining around your gut.
Your chuckle isn’t quite a lie and Bucky catches on to your honesty, seeming to grow taller and believing himself completely absolved from all original misdeeds.
Then you hit him with your next topic. “A man tried to get my number today. At the coffee shop.”
He stops walking completely, his arm falling from around your shoulders. “He did what?” His voice is tightly coiled, ready to spring at any moment.
You keep walking, not waiting to see what his face would look like. You know his brows are well furrowed and eyes are dark, devoid of any lighthearted fun. They’re not the blue of a gentle stream but a churning and violent ocean.
“Oh, come on, Bucky. I said tried. I didn’t give it to him.” You roll your eyes in front of him, turning to hold an arm, beckoning him forward and into your arms. He doesn’t move. You stop and cross your arms over your chest.
“Don’t tell me that you did this to make me jealous.” His words carry bite, but they fall harmlessly from your frame made of metal and steel. Impenetrable. After what you’ve seen and know, nothing he could say or do to you could truly harm you.
“That’s rich, considering he asked me.”
He sees that his tone has no affect on you and stalks closer, ignoring your arm that now begins to fall back into its place by your side. “But you won’t go back there, right?” He grins, malice and hope curling together, like he wants to lure you into a complete false sense of security, urging you to agree. “You know how I don’t want anyone else stealing you away from me.”
He drips with imitation honey and you’re too smart to believe the gold of it is real. “Bucky, you know that’s my spot.”
“And I’m telling you, (name), that you can’t go back there.” His teeth make each syllable sharper and harsher, but it doesn’t scare you.
But maybe if you back off, get him to stop fighting, he’ll just let this one go. You only told him just to make him aware, not to cause a real argument. This isn’t worth turning into a complete debacle. You’re not going to allow his anger to grow any larger.
“You can’t stop me from going there, but I won’t go back at the same time or on the same days. I probably won’t even bump into him again. It was the first time I’ve ever seen him there anyway.” You turn, holding out a hand to him that he takes and squeezes so hard your hand aches when he relaxes his grip.
“But,” He drills holes in the side of your head. “If you see him again, tell me.”
“Sure thing, oh great shining knight.” You nod fervently, like you’re completely devout to him. And in a way you are. There’s something about him that keeps you just hanging on, refusing to let him go completely.
He laughs with acid behind it. “You know I’m just trying to keep you safe.” He looks wounded as you spare a glance at him. “He might try to take advantage of you.”
“Well good thing you’re here then.” Your face adapts to pure happiness, his concern for you starting to trump all of these horrible things you’re beginning to feel. It always makes you feel important and wanted when his protectiveness jumps out, his vulnerability unlocking something in you.
He grins just as strongly back at you, gently running circles over your hand. “What did he look like?”
“Bucky!”
“What?” He holds up his other hand, looking like he can’t understand what he’s done wrong. “I need to be ready in case you call.”
“Well I’m not the damn police. I wasn���t really looking that hard.”
“Oh cut that out. I know you got a good look at him.”
You sigh, thinking of a way to get out of having to actually answer his questions without him becoming angry again. You can’t, so you give him crumbs. “He had brown eyes, darker skin. Sunglasses.”
“Doll, I know you can do better than that.” He smirks but it’s strained.
He doesn’t believe you.
“Not really.” And that’s kind of the truth. You weren’t really paying attention to his attire, besides the rip in his jacket. “I wasn’t really paying that much attention to him. Research remember?”
“Hm.” He consents. “I’ll give you that.”
You breath out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.
“But just remember to call me, alright?”
“Sure.”
“Doll.” He stops, turning to gaze deep into your eyes.
“Okay.” You hold up your hands and cross your fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
He searches your gaze for just the inkling of a false statement and doesn’t find it. “Alright. I trust you, doll. Don’t make me regret it.”
You nod, your stomach feeling just a little sicker as your hands rejoin and the sun begins to set, the buildings turning a deep shade of crimson.
…
The party is more like a college frat palooza than a respectable meeting for supporters of a budding artist. Red solo cups line the room and the kitchen is stocked with all sorts of wine, tequila, whiskey, and bourbon.
Drinks for respectable people, of course.
Bucky already has a buzz going from taking two shots of whiskey before you even came to pick him up. You insisted on driving so he could enjoy the full effects of the alcohol before you even made it to the party. Somehow that BS worked and he was getting a little loopy and handsy before you made the door.
His hand now rested at a respectable place on your hip, but you had to keep his hand from drooping lower and lower. Now, his arms spread wide as he saw his red-haired friend, wrapping her into a hug and placing a bottle of rose into her hands. He spun out his congratulations in a slur of wonderfully crafted and charming phrases to which she blushed deeply at, at least until she saw you.
“Willow, this is (name).” He gestured back towards you and you stepped forward, shaking her hand with a polite smile on your face. Even her name was beautiful. Figures he would choose her.
Her smile was nice enough, but her eyes still dragged back to him, lingering on his beautiful face and warm eyes. Of course, any one would be drawn to him, you would be a fool if you ignored that, but there was just something a little too warm and knowing behind her stare. Like she was blushing at meeting her long-lost childhood love again.
It made you slightly sick but you ignored it and tried to send her your best in the only way you knew how. Words that weren’t quite a lie but still sounded nice. For the most part. “Congrats on your art display. Your work is very colorful and has a really cool avant-garde aspect to it. You really could be on to something, Willow.” You winked at the end and she laughed, seeming to take your compliment well.
“Thank you. I know it’s not super conventional, but I hope it opens a new interpretation into art.”
“I’m sure it will.” Yeah, if you’re a lunatic or a complete believer in work that makes absolutely no sense.
She grins and the room erupts in starlight. Her smile is like starting at jewels under direct light, beautiful and dazzling. No wonder everyone seems to gravitate to her. You start to fold inward while Bucky dismisses you, telling you to “make yourself comfortable” and “introduce yourself to people.”
You nod and immediately make a B-line to the corner, standing away from all of the people in overly priced clothing and drinking strongly proofed wine. It’s not that you didn’t enjoy a good bottle of wine or even something stronger from time to time, but if you had ever learned anything from being in college, it’s that if you’re unsure of drinking something while you’re there, don’t drink it.
You briefly wonder if there’s a regular can of pop to be seen in this place.
Then you look at your surroundings, admiring the wood of the walls, the accent tapestries adorning them and then start to think that this girl might have good taste. The current tapestry you observe has burgundy and gold blended together in a beautiful amalgamation and you play with the strands between your fingers. It’s soft and strong, wonderfully crafted.
The wood behind it is hard and sturdy, easy to run your fingers along and feel the stronger edges behind every cut. It’s beautiful. A good selection.
But there’s almost no windows. No light. No opportunity for incorporating the day with the dark atmosphere her home carries.
“(Name)! Come over here.” You sigh, peeved by your disturbance from being silent in your corner. You follow his voice till you’re beside him, letting him put an arm around your shoulders. “I want you to meet, Chris Tallow. He designed this place.”
Chris was probably one of the most famous architects in the whole state. Standing in front of him made your knees wobble. “Hello, nice to meet you.” You timidly were able to get out and he smiled warmly at you, reaching out to shake your hand.
“James tells me that you’re quite the architectural connoisseur.” He grins and you nod, enthusiastically.
“I love your work! It’s ingenious and visionary. It’s amazing how you’re able to work with multiple mediums and incorporate them seamlessly.” The words pour out of your mouth before you’re able to stop them, now embarrassed at your unrestrained confession.
“Girl knows her stuff.” He seems impressed and appraises you accordingly.
“She’s quite the fan-girl.” Bucky laughs, pulling you a little closer. “She’s obsessed with buildings, sometimes in neglect of other things.”
You almost glare at him, but then you remember where you are and who you’re in front of, so you let out a reserved snicker and unwrap yourself from around him, Bucky a little uneasy on his feet. “Nice to meet you. Bucky you want anything to drink?” You look at him expectantly, but he just leans in and presses a kiss on your cheek, waving his cup.
You dismiss yourself again, frustrated with how he brushed your passion off like that.
You travel back to the kitchen, right about to pop the lid open again when you see the man from the cafe, staring you down. You duck under the table and try to catch your breath after the lightning bolt that went firing through your veins. What in the world is he doing at the flighty girl’s party? How does he even know her?
“Nothing you’re gonna want is in there.” He states plainly, but not in a rude way, just in a I-don’t-think-you’re-the-beer-type kind of way.
He would be right. “Oh,” You stand up, wiping the condensation on the fabric of your jeans, “Right.”
He watches you with such an unabashed directness that you can hardly breathe. He’s dressed in a tan leather jacket that sets off his deep red sweater and dark jeans nicely, pulling against his strong physique. He’s still as bright as you remember him to be and you’re lost as to what to say to him to continue the conversation.
The mystery man seems just as distracted until he sets down his coke to reach into the fridge to pull out another one for you, handing it to you politely, fingers sparking as you hands graze. “Here.”
“Thanks.” You mutter as you crack the can open and take a long sip, needing a distraction from the man in front of you and your growing unsteadiness around him. At least you have something in your hands that you can cling onto. “I didn’t think that opening a cold one with the boys would be the smartest thing I could do.”
He chuckles, warmth pouring out of him. “Me neither.” He leans against the counter as you drink, surveying the party and drawing his eyes away from you for a moment. It’s a relief as you still don’t think you’re going to be able to think straight. “Not one for parties?”
“What gave it away?” You speak, your voice warbling after your drink and you try to steady it, cringing heavily at its harsh quality.
If he notices, he doesn’t say anything. “In the corner. Where I usually take up my post.”
“Oh, don’t tell me the sunglasses aren’t a hit?” You lean next to him and his eyes graze yours with a twinkle. You smile back as his teeth shine against the hazy lighting the string of lights behind you provide.
“Well,” He leans a little closer, bumping his shoulder with yours. “I’ll give you a hint. It might not be the sun glasses.”
You gasp.
“I know. I know.” He chuckles taking another sip, still grinning at your reaction. You feel a warmth start to spread and fight down the urge to lean closer, to prompt him with far more personal questions. “It’s hard to believe that all this could be such a mood-killer.”
“You know, full disclosure, I do find that a bit startling.” You watch as he looks to you with perplexity and something deeper. You ignore the warmth again as you explain yourself. “I mean, come on, you’re hilarious.”
“Okay, Coffee Girl, what’s your excuse?” It’s your turn to be bamboozled. “You’re funny and intelligent and witty. Why aren’t you out there killing the game? These people would be on the floor if they heard you.”
You look down at your drink, taking effort to pull your eyes away from his deep orbs, keeping you from falling in. You take a deep gulp before you think about answering. He sobers up at your actions and watches gently, waiting for response.
He’s not so demanding as Bucky, watching you with soft interest not with blatant scrutiny. You actually feel like you can talk with him and not be judged by your responses. You decide to take the leap. “I have a deflector for that.” You tip your coke towards your “plus one” that’s so absorbed in what strawberry is saying that he doesn’t even notice you talking with the man whose name you still don’t know.
“Ah.” He sighs, swirling his drink around, his energy collapsing. “Your boyfriend.”
You turn to him and watch him pointedly avoiding your eye, searching around the room without settling on an object.
His words sting for whatever reason and you feel that you need to correct him, stop him from getting the wrong impression. That you need to make him understand. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean, not exactly?” He scoffs, taking another swig.
“I mean that we’re not together, together. Yes, I came with him. Yes, I’ll probably leave at some point with him to stop him from passing out on the street dead drunk, but we’re not boyfriend and girlfriend or anything like that.” You don’t look at his face as he turns to you, knowing he’s trying to find any evidence of deceit.
“Was that who you were meeting after leaving the shop?” He’s open, asking for honesty.
“Yes.” You look at him then, taken aback at the unabashed staring he’s doing, not even looking away as he observes you with such a gentle intensity, like you’re the most beautiful thing he’s seen. He’s wrong, but the way he’s looking would convince you otherwise.
“Okay.” He drinks again, placing the empty cup down on the table. “So, this boyfriend of yours doesn’t let you speak to any guy in any sort of flirting fashion?”
“More or less.” You wash more cold liquid down your throat as he looks away and scoffs. “What?” You prompt, genuinely interested.
“He’s one of those types.”
You purse your lips but say nothing.
“As he should be. You’re so unaware of yourself.”
You almost choke, but he doesn’t give you a chance to respond as he grabs another coke from the fridge and pops it open. You look around the party and find Bucky and Willow conveniently absent. What a host. Doesn’t even make sure she sticks around to receive guests.
A pang settles against your chest as he comes to lean beside you on the counter, a little closer than normal. He must read your expression as he looks around for them as well and his face settles into disdain when he can’t spot them either, looking back at you. “You know, you never told me your name.”
You chuckle and take another drink, finishing it and placing it next to his original empty one. “You first.”
“Okay,” He turns and offers you his hand. “Sam. Friends call me Falcon.”
“Quite the nickname you have there, Sam.” You take his hand and shake it, feeling the buzz shoot through your arm at the contact and try to ignore how your skin heats up.
He doesn’t respond for a minute, just looking at you. “Your turn,” He manages after a while, a miniature smirk taking his face, much different from his usual open grins.
“(Name),” You breathe back, trying to act confident. “But people call me Coffee Girl, sometimes.”
“Oh?” He grins fully this time, unconsciously holding your hand still. “Your good friends?”
“Maybe.” You coyly offer and his eyes light up with challenge.
He laughs to himself as he finally lets your hand go, searching through the crowd again. “I saw you admiring that woven work on the wall over there.” He nods his head in the direction of the tapestry.
“Yeah.” You sigh. “It’s got great hand work. One of the finest I’ve seen.”
“Are you a collector?”
“Not really. Just a fan, I guess.” Your tone drops at the end. Sam looks at your dismal expression, eyes wondering. He searches a second more and then drops the topic. You stand close to each other, the heat wafting from your thin shirt meeting the warmth coming from the collar of his jacket and you take it all in.
The noise of the party seeming far away from the space that you and Sam have created. It’s peaceful and comforting. It feels like the coffee shop.
Guilt rises at the way you left, at the plans to avoid him completely. Because of Bucky. Because of a man that is overly jealous over the slightest things.
You clear your throat. “Um, Sam. I want to apologize to you.”
“Why, (name)?” Warmth crackles down your midsection at the use of your name and wonder if your usage affected him similarly.
“When I left at the cafe, I wasn’t the kindest and know I made you feel terrible for approaching me.” You watch as he grins and lose your nerve and silence yourself.
“If I felt terrible, do you think I would have come over? Even when you hid from me?” You cringe and he laughs harder.
“I’m sorry.” You peak out of the corner of your eye and watch him laugh even harder. Your laughs mix for a couple of a seconds, a beautiful symphony, comfortable and happy. “I just…” You hold onto the counter, propping yourself up a little. “I’m just not used to that kind of attention.”
“Your boyfriend doesn’t look at you with pure adoration in his eyes?” He takes a sip and then frowns when you stay silent. “(Name)?” You can’t look at him as you play with your fingers. “Oh.”
“Yeah...” You weave your left fingers around your right pinky, trying to calm your heart down after your confession and the feeling of intense shame about ready to spill over.
“I’m sorry, if I made you feel uncomfortable.” He carries his words with a look of sincerity and you feel awful for making him feel as though he needs to apologize.
“No, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just out of practice, that’s all.” You look down. “I’m not good with that sort of thing, you know?” You glance over to see his eyes are already on you, electricity threatening to shoot between you.
“Yeah. Yeah, I know what you mean.” But he doesn’t look away, just moves a little closer. “If you’re comfortable with it, would you reconsider that number thing? I don’t want you to feel pressured or anything, I’m just showing my interest.”
You can tell.
And something in you tells you that he’s definitely trustworthy, someone worth giving your number to. He just has this draw and for a moment, you forget about Bucky completely as you watch Sam. You nod, slipping out your phone and placing it in his palm, turning the back of his hand over.
His skin burns.
He smiles softly and enters his number in your contacts. He then slips his phone out of his pocket, furiously typing on it. Your phone lights up in your hand a second later, a text flashing across the screen: This is Falcon, paging Coffee Girl.
You laugh at the nickname. His name reads Falcon in your contacts, his real name hidden to your message app as it rests in the nickname section, which is turned off on your display.
You text him back.
Coffee Girl on stand-by.
He laughs at your response and you loosely smile as you're distracted by his light, by the beauty in his smile. He doesn’t notice and you duck your head to keep it that way.
Your stomach drops as you look up to see Bucky paving a stumbling path through the party to you, eyes ablaze and slightly unfocused. Sam stands to his full height, putting some distance between the two of you. “(Name). Where have you been, doll.” Alcohol slides over your cheek as he presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth, glaring past you and into Sam.
“Here.” You draw his attention back to you as you take in his swollen lips and disheveled hair. Your shadows start to creep back into your skin, originally chased away by Sam, his light burning them away. Bucky’s eyes, despite how intense they look, are unfocused. He’s not in his right mind.
He pulls you closer as he looks down at you. “Who’s this?” He smiles at you but frowns as he spares a glance back at Sam.
“A friend.”
He looks Sam up and down a couple of times before he looks back to you, a goofy smile coating his face. “Okay.”
You turn around and at Sam’s face distorted in anger, all traces of his original kindness obliterated. It startles you, but when he glances over at you, his face softens. “I’m going to take him home.”
“Nice seeing you.” He bids you goodbye with such subtle hints at his awareness of the situation. You get the feeling that he’s not mad at you or the situation, just at Bucky. You silently thank him for his understanding.
He imperceptibly nods his head at you and you turn back to Bucky, slipping his arm over your shoulder.
You feel a buzzing in your pocket but ignore it as you drag a half-functional Bucky out of the house and into your car.
…
After hours of dragging him around his apartment and laying him down for bed, you leave him with one glass of water and a few pills for the massive headache he’s going to have tomorrow.
He mumbles for you to stay, but you push his arms off of you as if they’re disgusting chains, attempting to keep you sedated in one place.
When you break free from his place and safely make it back to yours, you collapse on your bed, crawling under the covers, not caring that makeup still lingers on your face. The fact of your phone buzzing dawns on you and you pull your phone out of your pocket, clicking the screen to life to see Falcon appearing on your screen.
See you around, Coffee Girl.
Your heart warms and you send a quick text back before turning out the light, plugging your phone in, and placing it on silent as you drift off.
Goodnight, Falcon.
#blue shade#sam wilson#sam wilson fanfic#sam x reader#sam wilson fanfiction#sam wilson x reader#sam wilson x you#sam wilson x y/n#bucky x reader#bucky fic#bucky fanfic#sam angst#sam wilson is a gift#sam wilson is a sweetheart#sam is very interested in you#series: blue shade#sam:blue shade#sam: blue shade#bucky: blue shade#blue shade: series#medium burn#sam wilson medium burn#we're simmering here#not boiling#not starting to get warm#simmering
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Of Numbers and Strange Friendships
TITLE: Of Numbers and Strange Friendships
CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 60/?
AUTHOR: nekoamamori
ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki being friends with Peter Parker
RATING: T
NOTES/WARNINGS: None so far. Also on AO3 here
“We best get this out of the way,” Loki eventually said, stepping back from Thor and Frigga. He had to be strong to face Odin, especially when he knew he was going to be punished for his actions. He had broken a lot of laws after all. He knew he wasn’t getting out of this unscathed. Even though Frigga had given him the golden apple to give to Peter, even though she had Seen this particular future. It was still going to be Loki’s fault in Odin’s eyes.
Loki would take the blame, would accept any consequence as the price for saving Peter’s life. He would have made the same decisions a thousand times over. He knew he had changed from who he had been when he had first met the teen. And he knew that change was for the better.
Despite what Odin might believe.
Odin would never see the best in Loki.
Loki finally understood that and finally understood what family really was. He had that family with Thor, Frigga, Sigyn, and most of all, with the teen who had forced his way into Loki’s shattered heart to repair it.
So Loki would take whatever punishment came his way for saving Peter’s life.
He offered Frigga his arm to escort her to the throne room. He would always be the first to offer to escort his mother as he doted on her more than anyone else. She placed her hand on his arm automatically and the three of them made their way to the throne room together. As they went, Loki donned his court mask. He wouldn’t let Odin see his fear. He had learned that lesson a long, long time ago.
All too soon, the guards were opening the double doors to the throne room and the three were striding up toward the throne. Loki kept his back straight, kept his formal court mask in place as he made his way across the room, empty save Odin seated on his throne. Frigga dropped Loki’s arm when they reached the bottom of the stairs and made her way up them to stand at Odin’s side. Thor stayed beside Loki and both of the princes bowed to their father. The only one who never had to bow to Odin was his wife.
“Rise,” Odin ordered his sons. He sounded like he was barely holding back his rage. Loki and Thor rose as one and wisely remained silent, waiting for Odin to continue. It was a lesson they had learned in their youth when they’d misbehaved. Odin had stared them down for confessions, which had led to Thor babbling to Odin about mischief their father hadn’t even known about yet. Which got them in even more trouble. Even Thor had learned to keep his mouth shut so they only had to confess to things Odin already knew of.
So they waited.
And waited.
Until Odin finally lost his patience. He glared down at Loki. “You have broken the laws of this realm. What have you to say for yourself?” He demanded, trying to goad his son into losing his patience. He’d chosen the wrong son for that tactic.
“Which laws do you say I have broken, father?” Loki asked calmly, his words careful as ever. Odin was judge, jury, and executioner, as was his right as king. Loki wasn’t going to give him any more ammunition than necessary. He was also reminding Odin of the family relationship between them, even if it was by kidnapping. If there was any hope of mercy, it would be through that familiar bond.
Odin’s glare turned icy. Loki’s expression remained passive and calm, a perfect court mask. He didn’t let Odin see his emotions, though he felt Thor stiffen next to him. Thor’s emotions were always clear to read on his face and Thor was shifting quickly toward anger at Odin and fear for his brother.
“You gave one of the golden apples to a mortal. Not only that, but the mortal in question was not of age to consent. Nor was he asked. You acted without permission and have spoken for Asgard out of turn,” Odin recited, glowering at Loki.
Loki remained unfazed. “I did give one of the golden apples to Peter. That apple had been set aside for him with Mother’s consent, as is her right as Allmother.” They were equally allowed to divvy out Idun’s apples.
Frigga inclined her head. “Yes, I did give consent and gave the apple to Loki to give to Peter. I foresaw these events and knew this to be the correct course of action,” she told Odin.
“The law was still broken,” Odin insisted.
Loki had known beforehand and knew more at those words that Odin had already made up his mind. His mind had been made up about his son since he’d found out Peter had become Asgardian. Loki inclined his head, accepting his fate. There was no reason to draw this out. He was cornered and Odin wanted to see him punished, wanted him cowed. He refused to see that Loki was so much better with Peter in his life.
Frigga started to protest, but Odin overruled her. They may be equal in certain things, but Odin’s word was still ultimately the law, despite his wife’s wishes. And Odin wanted to teach Loki a lesson, teach him not to act out of turn, teach him to obey for once.
Loki knew it. And didn’t give a single solitary fuck. The field where the fucks grew for what Odin wanted was not only barren, but the ground had been razed and salted.
He would have broken every law of every realm and burned them all to the ground to save Peter’s life. They all knew it. And that was really what Odin was trying to punish out of Loki. He didn’t like that Loki’s loyalties lay with people instead of the throne and kingdom. Loki was loyal to a fault, but only to those who had earned that loyalty. The list was very few: Frigga, Thor, Sigyn, Peter, and Wanda.
“The usual punishment, then. And I pray this time the lesson sticks,” Odin glared at Loki. Frigga protested again and Odin had her escorted out by the guards. She only had so much authority in the throne room, even as queen. Odin was within his rights to have her removed. That wasn’t going to be the last of that conversation, but that conversation would continue behind closed doors and end with Odin being ripped a new asshole by his wife. And not having sex again for a century.
That wouldn’t save Loki from the usual punishment.
Loki had expected it, but fear still knit his heart and his stomach plummeted.
“Father, please! This is not Loki’s fault!” Thor protested, trying to save his brother from the pain Odin had in store.
Odin turned his gaze to his other son. “You are no less guilty. You knew the laws were being broken and did not stop Loki-“
“Peter would have died!” Thor protested.
“The life of one mortal is not worth the safety of us all!” Odin roared at him. “If word of Idun’s apples gets out the mortals will be demanding one for all of them.”
Thor glared up at Odin. “That is where we are different, father. I have learned that the mortal lives have just as much value as ours,”
Loki touched Thor’s arm, a silent reminder not to make things worse.
Unfortunately, Thor had already made things worse.
“You have a lesson to learn here as well,” Odin told Thor coldly. “You will be the one to perform Loki’s punishment. Immediately,”
Both of the princes paled at that order. It was horrifying to both of them. Odin was trying to wedge the brothers apart again, pit them against each other. He didn’t realize he was only driving them together, giving them a common enemy.
“And if I refuse?” Thor demanded.
“Then Loki will return to his previous sentence,” Odin replied easily. He had the brothers by the balls now, and they both knew it. Loki paled further at the threat. Life in the dungeons. Four thousand more years of solitary confinement. He couldn’t go through that. Not without going completely out of his mind.
He touched Thor’s arm again and gave him a look. This wasn’t the time to fight, not with Loki’s freedom on the line. He would take the punishment to not lose the life he was building. He had friends, a family, he wouldn’t have those ripped from him because of Odin.
Thor growled, hating being cornered, but nodded gruffly. “Very well,” he glared at Odin and they could all see that Odin had lost Thor’s respect with this move. Some of the gauze had been pulled from Thor’s eyes and he was seeing how unfairly Odin treated Loki.
He was no happier with Odin than Frigga was. He didn’t have the power to do anything about it, but Frigga did. Her sons would have to hope that she would get retribution for this outrage. But for now, none of them had any options.
Odin had them all cornered.
“If we are dismissed, then, Allfather?” Thor demanded. It was a slap in the face to Odin to use his title and they all knew it. Thor was livid and Loki loved him for it, even if there wasn’t anything Thor could do to save him.
Odin nodded and the princes bowed again before they left as quickly as was seemly. Thor turned to Loki when they were safely out of the throne room. “I am so, so sorry, brother,” he said heartbroken.
Loki nodded and placed a hand on Thor’s shoulder. “I know. This isn’t your fault. Let’s just get this over with and get back to Midgard before Peter worries and gets the whole team in a conniption over it.” Loki was trying to make it sound lighter than it was, trying to ease Thor’s mind and conscience. This wasn’t Thor’s fault after all.
Thor nodded and the pair made their way to the room that was already prepared. Odin really had been planning this all along. Loki realized it when he saw that everything was there and ready and a guard was standing in the room to make sure the task was carried out. Thor paled when he came to the same realization, but didn’t comment on it.
Loki stripped off his shirt as he moved to the center of the room where the hard, uncomfortable chair was waiting for him. As he did, he summoned, and quickly drank, a bottle of numbing potion so he wouldn’t feel as much of the pain. It would still hurt, but not as badly. He managed to down the potion without the guard seeing. Thor did, but didn’t question it, knowing that Loki had been through this multiple times before.
Loki took a seat in the uncomfortable chair and Thor looked at the instruments laid out on the table. Thor was starting to look green at the idea. “Thor,” Loki said gently to get Thor’s attention.
Thor looked over at him, horror and pain in his eyes. Thor was supposed to protect his little brother, not hurt him. Thor’s horror grew when Loki dropped a layer of illusions that he hadn’t even known Loki wore. He knew Loki had an illusion to keep his Asgardian form. He didn’t know about this.
He knew Loki had been punished before.
But…
Nothing prepared him for seeing that those punishments had left scars. He thought Loki had healed.
Instead, there were scars in Loki’s lips from the times before this when Odin had deemed silencing the silvertongued god sufficient punishment for crimes real or imagined.
“Just follow the scars and everything will be alright,” Loki reassured Thor gently. He knew this would break Thor’s heart. They were brothers, and though they’d grown apart, they’d finally been healing, and Thor would always be Loki’s older brother. He was supposed to protect Loki. Now Odin was making him hurt his little brother for his own sick, twisted ‘lessons’.
“I’m sorry,” Thor repeated, horrified.
“It’s not your fault. Tell Peter it’s not his either,” Loki reassured him.
The guard cleared his throat. They’d already stalled too long.
Thor picked up the already-threaded needle before he lost his nerve. Loki leaned his head back against the back of the chair so he’d remained as still as possible. “I love you, brother. I am truly sorry,” Thor told him.
Loki looked up into Thor’s eyes and saw his pain there. “I love you too.” It had been years since Loki could admit that, years since they’d been forced apart. Loki saw the resolve in Thor’s eyes, not resolve for the task at hand, but resolve that he would never let anything like this happen again, that he would protect his little brother, and he would never let his own quest for power and glory drive him away from what mattered most to him again.
Thor bit back tears as Loki gripped the arms of the chair to keep from moving. He brought the needle to the first scar in Loki’s lips. It slid through easier than expected, both needle and thread were spelled, though not against pain, not against blood. Loki kept his mouth closed, letting Thor work in peace. He didn’t dare make a sound as the needle pierced his lips, as the thick thread tugged through.
Pain shot through him with each pass of the needle, though it was numbed slightly by the potion.
Loki’s blood filled his mouth, dripped down his chin. A small noise escaped him at the pain, as all thoughts but the pain fled his mind. He didn’t want to make this harder on Thor, though, and tried to still himself, to still his mind.
Thor’s hands were steady as he worked, careful not to cause more pain than absolutely necessary. He kept muttering “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over again, trying to reassure them both.
The pain continued. Each pierce of his lips, each reopening of old wounds, each time his blood spilled, each time the thread pulled through his lips, tugging the stitches tight.
He couldn’t help the tears of pain that spilled from his eyes. He couldn’t help the shame and humiliation of having this done to him again. Of being muted so openly, punished so obviously.
And still, he would choose this every time to losing Peter in his life.
Finally, the tugging stopped, the thread tied off and cut. It wouldn’t come out until Odin had decided he was punished enough and the thread disintegrated when the spell ended. It was magically sealed with gungnir, embedded in the thread, so there was no way Loki could break the spells himself. He’d tried before.
Thor pulled Loki into his arms, despite Loki usually hating hugs. He felt his brother’s tears land on him as he held him tightly. “I’m so sorry, brother. I swear to you, I will never let this happen again. I swear,” Thor pleaded with him to understand.
For once, instead of stabbing Thor for hugging him, Loki wrapped his arms around Thor’s waist and held him tightly, taking strength from his brother.
He would need that strength to face the people.
He would need that strength to face the horror that would come from Peter. Peter would blame himself, though it wasn’t his fault at all. Loki would need all of his wits and skills to reassure the teen that he was ok. Though he wouldn’t be able to face it if Peter finally had enough of him and gave up on him.
Though Loki finally felt in his heart that that wouldn’t happen. Peter hadn’t given up on him yet. He wouldn’t just because Odin was an ass to his son.
“I’m here for you,” Thor reminded him. “We’ll get through this together and never allow anything like this to happen again.” There was a resolve in Thor’s voice. He wouldn’t hurt Loki like this again. He would find a way to see to it that Odin couldn’t do anything like this again, couldn’t abuse the power he had to hurt those he was supposed to protect, especially not his own son.
Thor’s relationship with his father had broken in this and, despite Odin’s efforts, his relationship with Loki had strengthened. They would get through this together, fight this battle together, just as they had so many battles across the centuries. For one thing had always been true: while the princes may have their differences, they were stronger together, and would fight side by side against any adversary, especially one that threatened their brother.
This injustice wouldn’t go unanswered.
Thor just had to get Loki out of Odin’s reach before he returned to see his brother avenged.
#Loki#God of Mischief#Submitted fic#submission#of numbers and strange friendships#chapter 60#nekoamamori
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Prince’s Gambit - Chapter 19 *waggles eyebrows* Summary
@failes-xtra-bits
Quotes in bold. My comments, thoughts and dumb jokes in italics.
As we all know, this is the chapter where they do the sex. It was very hard not to include everything, but I have summarised and picked out some bits that I’d like to talk more about. Sorry lads, this is a long one, but I have many thoughts!
Before I start, I’d like to mention how interesting it is that the events of chapter 18 lead straight into this chapter.
Things might have turned out very differently if Jord had never interrupted the Lamen kiss on the battlements. In chapter 17, Laurent is calm and in a good mood after their victory. He accepts that he wants Damen and is willing to let himself have him, even just for one night. In chapter 17, every time Damen and Laurent speak, it’s as if they are in their own intimate bubble, everything around them is just a hazy blur, like time is on pause. The next morning they would have to face reality but just for one night they can forget it all and have each other.
Instead things take a big turn in chapter 18 and we now have Laurent in a foul mood. Old wounds have been reopened. While he is left alone, he has time to think. He is reminded of the abuse from his uncle and his brother’s death. The person he has come to trust and love is his brother’s killer. With all of that comes a mix of feelings. In his current situation, any wrong move could cost Laurent everything. The Regent plots against him, always seeming one step ahead. The pressure is on. He is no longer distracted by their earlier victory. Things feel very real again. When Damen and Laurent finally do sleep together, it’s not with the mood of chapter 17, it’s after a harsh reminder of pain and everything else that is at stake.
So with that in mind, here is the chapter 18 summary:
Damen is angry. He orders the section clear (again).
‘Are there orders for what should be done with the prisoners?
Throw Aimeric off the battlements. (XD) ‘Keep him confined in his rooms.’
‘Yes Captain.’
‘I want this whole section kept clear. And Guymar?’
‘Yes, Captain?’
‘This time, I want it actually kept clear. (I Love Damen’s Sass! XD) I don’t care who is about to get molested. No one is to come here. Is that understood?’...
He wanted to make a barrier that protected Laurent from anyone who would intrude on him. He’d keep that perimeter clear, if it meant stalking these battlements and patrolling it himself.
He knew this about Laurent. That once he gave himself time alone to think, the control returned, reason won out.
On Damen’s way out, he asks one of the guards to ‘Watch over the Prince,’ saying ‘Anything he needs, make certain he has it. Take care of him.’ and ‘He deserves your loyalty.’
Damen finally goes to ‘his’ room. He drains a cup of wine, unpins his Captain's badge, looks out the window and thinks.
...
Laurent enters the room. Damen realises who’s room he is standing in. Laurent steps forward.
...
Laurent said, ‘I know you’re planning to leave tomorrow. You’re going to cross the border, and you’re not going to come back. Say it.’
‘I-’
‘Say it.’
‘I’m going to leave tomorrow,’ said Damen, as steadily as he could. ‘I’m not going to come back.’ He drew in a breath that hurt his chest. ‘Laurent-’
‘No, I don’t care. Tomorrow you leave. But you’re mine now. You’re still my slave tonight.’ (Laurent probably thinks, if he can just have this for one night and have it over with, hopefully the feelings will go away and he can return to ‘normal’ afterwards.)
Laurent pushes Damen onto the bed.
‘I-don’t-’
‘I think you do,’ said Laurent
Laurent starts to undress Damen.
‘What are you doing?’ Damen’s breath was shaky.
‘What am I doing? You are not very observant.’
‘You’re not yourself,’ said Damen. ‘And even if you were, you don’t do anything without a dozen motives.’
Laurent went very still, the soft words half bitter. ‘Don’t I? I must want something.’ (I wonder if Laurent gets sick of people making assumptions about his character. Probably. He was clearly irritated by something Damen said. Perhaps because this is the one time he has no motivation. He is with Damen purely because he wants to be. In fact I’m sure he’d rather he didn't want Damen at all but he couldn’t help himself.)
‘Laurent, he said.
‘You take liberties,’ said Laurent. ‘I never gave you permission to call me by my name.’
‘Your Highness,’ said Damen, and the words twisted, wrong in his mouth. (I’d just like to mention that Pacat once said she likes the idea of Damen calling Laurent ,‘Your Highness’, in bed XD) He needed to say, Don’t do this. But he couldn’t think past Laurent, improbably close. (I think Damen is in disbelief but also torn. He wants this so badly but wonders if this is what Laurent really wants, and if he’s in the right mood to be making this decision) ...
‘I don’t think you want me. I think you just want me to feel this.’
‘Then, feel it,’ said Laurent.
Laurent continues to undress Damen, unlacing his trousers.
‘I see you are everywhere in proportion.’ XD
Laurent proceeds to give Damen a hand job.
The grip felt more like ownership than a caress...
The rise and fall of Laurent’s hand was like the slide of Laurent’s words, like every frustrating argument that they’d ever had, stymied, tangled up in Laurent’s voice. He could feel the tension in Laurent, sharp like the feel of his own heartbeats. Laurent held his former mood within him, constrained, and converted into something else.
...
Laurent said, ‘Adequate.’ XD
One of my favourite things about this chapter, is how it didn't quite go the way I thought it would. We all knew Damen and Laurent would eventually sleep together, but I didn’t think it would be like this. The start isn’t so much of a surprise. Laurent’s mood from chapter 18 carries on into this one. I expected angst, and we got some.
But this is when it changes. It’s slow and tender and full of emotion. We see Laurent’s vulnerabilities and hesitation. This is why I love it so much. It’s not just sex for the sake of sex. Fine, yes, we get all the juicy details (and I’m certainly not complaining about that 😏) you would expect to find in a smut chapter, BUT, it’s so much more than than that. There is actual character and relationship development. It is the most open and honest the two have been with each other so far. It was the moment we were all waiting for and it did not disappoint.
Damen said, ‘Kiss me.’...
He had pushed himself up, so that his body made a curve, the planes of his abdomen shifting. Laurent’s gaze splayed out instinctively over him (Laurent be checking him out like 👀), then lifted to his own...
He could feel the desperate urge for retreat. He could feel something else too, Laurent keeping himself apart, as though, this act being finished, he had no template for what to do.
With Laurent finished (or rather, Damen finished XD), it releases some of the tension from earlier and Laurent’s bad mood seems to have disappeared. He is no longer acting on impulse driven by mixed emotions. He can’t hide behind anger any longer. He is forced to experience it all and confront his own feelings with his guard lowered.
‘Kiss me,’ he said again.
They kiss. Then Damen draws back and kisses Laurent on the neck.
It was not what Laurent had expected. He felt the slight shock of Laurent’s surprise, and the way Laurent held himself, as though confused as to why Damen wished to do this (poor boy is affection starved 😭)
They kiss again deeply.
Damen starts to undress Laurent.
He thought of the servant he had seen attending Laurent earlier, how much he had disliked it. (Jealous boi 😛)
Damen removes Laurent’s jacket and shirt. He sees that Laurent is aroused.
Laurent said, ‘Did you think I was made of stone?’
He couldn’t stop the rush of pleasure he felt at that, said, ‘Nothing you don’t want.’
‘You think I don’t want it?’
...
Laurent pushes Damen back with his boot, and Damen removes it.
They kiss again and Damen starts unlacing Laurent’s trousers, removing them.
Damen gives Laurent head.
For all his seeming experience, Laurent reacted like an innocent to this pleasure. He let out a soft shocked sound...
.... Laurent’s slight, helpless shifts and pushes, the quality of his surprise, and the hard act of repression that followed, as Laurent tried to even out his breathing...
Damen could feel Laurent’s cycle of reaction and repression beneath him, as impetus gathered, building in the lines of Laurent’s body.
And felt it stymied. As rhythm built, Laurent’s body locked down, his responses repressed... Laurent, out on the shattered edge of pleasure, was holding himself back from climax by sheer force of his impossible will...
After a long moment Laurent said, with painful honesty, ‘I... find it difficult to let go of control.’
‘No kidding,’ said Damen XD
...
The words fell into a stillness between them. Laurent’s breathing was shallow, and his cheeks were flushed as he closed his eyes, as though he wanted to block out the world. (He desperately wants to forget all his conflicting thoughts so he can just feel and experience this moment.)
‘I want,’ said Laurent, ‘I want it to be simple.’
‘Turn over,’ said Damen...
Laurent closed his eyes again, as if in decision. Then he acted.
Laurent turns over onto his front. (Damen is not prepared and dies slightly from shock.)
He felt nervous suddenly, green, as he hadn’t felt since he was thirteen - uncertain of what lay on the other side of this moment, and wanting to be worthy of it.
Damen mentions how tense Laurent seems. He turns Laurent over again to face him.
‘... a desperate irritation that overlay something else... For all his bizarre nervy tension, Laurent was indisputably eager, physically...
‘Contrary, aren’t you,’ said Damen softly, thumbing over Laurent’s cheek.
‘Fuck me,’ said Laurent.
‘I want to,’ said Damen. ‘Can you let me?’...
The idea of being fucked very clearly had Laurent out of his mind, as desire competed with some sort of convoluted mental objection that really needed, Damen thought, to be dispensed with...
DAMEN!!! How do you not know?!!! How have you not picked up on what could be wrong?! gaaahhh! ... *sigh* BUT I will put my frustrations for oblivious Damen aside. Pacat does mention she felt it had to be that way, that Damen shouldn’t know.
‘I am letting you,’ said Laurent, the terse words pushing out. ‘Will you get on with it?’...
In Laurent’s eyes, impatience and tension overlay something unexpectedly young and vulnerable. Damen’s heart felt exposed, outside of his chest.
...
A wild vial appears.
He could look nowhere but at Laurent, both of them here with nothing between them, and Laurent allowing it...
It was intensely private...
The reality of it was different; Laurent was different. Damen had never thought it could be like this, soft and quiet and acutely personal.
...
Let the sex commence!
...
You’re mine, he wanted to say, and couldn’t. Laurent didn’t belong to him; this was something he could have only once. (*sniff* cri! 😢) ...
To get what you want, you have to know exactly how much you are willing to give up. (*sobbing* 😭)
Never had he wanted something this badly, and held it in his hands knowing that tomorrow it would be gone, traded for the high cliffs of Ios, and the uncertain future across the border, the chance to stand before his brother, to ask him for all the answers that no longer seemed so important. A kingdom, or this. (*ugly crying* 😩 *balling eyes out* 😭😭)
...
Climax. End.
#I have many thoughts!!!#captive prince#capri#prince's gambit#laurent of vere#damen of akielos#laurent#damen#spoilers#capri spoilers#captive prince spoilers#prince's gambit spoilers
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Unforeseen Chasm (Part 53)
Prompt: Two sisters fall for men that are absolute enemies. The love they have could tear all of them apart, or it could bring them together.
Word Count:4751
Warnings: Language, angry Loki, hurt reader,
Note: This is by far the longest thing I’ve ever written (including my novels). It’s a collaboration with the amazing @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo. It started as a funny “What if…?” and it evolved and got huge. This took two years to write. We are both proud and happy and we hope you enjoy it. It follows from Thor 1 to Endgame in the MCU. Some of the timelines may be off in order to fit certain people, and some characters may show up earlier or in different ways than they have in the movie. But for the most part, it follows the MCU. It also has a bit of crossover with some other Marvel characters throughout the story.
Masterlist for Unforeseen Chasm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After you finally arrived in Asgard, you made a beeline for Loki’s old bedroom, praying he’d be there. Once you stormed into his bedroom, he was standing there, getting ready in formal wear.
“Loki,” you breathed, relief washing over you. “Why are you here? Why aren’t you on Earth?” you asked as you stepped towards him.
“Stark enlightened me that perhaps you would be better off without me . Besides, I miss Asgard and this is our home. You draw your powers from here. You are Asgardian, my love. This is where you were born. We belong here, not on Earth.”
You shook your head, pressing your lips into a line. “Loki. I love Asgard. It’s a wonderful place and I’d like to stay here for a bit but… Earth is what I know. I can’t say for sure where I belong. Asgard feels like home just as Earth does. We have a life together though, on Earth. You have a job. I have a career--”
“Precisely. I have a job. You have a career. I am meant to rule Asgard. Not be that wizard’s assistant my whole life.”
Shaking your head, you lifted your hands in exasperation. “Okay then we’ll get you a job in politics--”
He shook his head, his eyes filled with sorrow. “You’re missing the point. I saw you dancing with that man. A man you share powers with, and a past. I know I didn’t visit you but I thought you would want to rest. And then I come there to see you, and I find you’re perfectly healthy. It seemed a rather obvious choice to come back here.”
“Loki… Remy is a dear friend and an old friend, and we will always have a bond. I won’t deny that or make it seem like less than it is, but I came here to find you. I love you. I’m supposed to be resting, but I got out of bed, risking my health for you. We live together, we have a life together there--”
“Well it isn’t my life. I’m living in a shadow while you put back the pieces of a life before we knew each other. Asgard is my home, not Earth.”
“Love, I know you miss home. Maybe we can come back and visit, as often as you like. But I can assure you that nothing can come between us or change how much I love you,” you stressed. “Keeping us here on Asgard away from Earth isn’t the solution.”
“You truly believe so?” he asked, a twinkle returning to his eye.
“Of course,” you assured reaching towards his cheek. “I didn't endure Thanos and prison just for fun. I did it because I love you and you’re worth anything I endure.”
“I feel the same,” he commented.
As much as this reconciliation felt good, you had to be honest with Loki, he deserved that. Your number one rule with him was always honesty and trust.
Taking a deep breath, you said, “But I should tell you that… Remy kissed me.”
His face suddenly shifted from warm to cold in an instant.
To try to recover the situation, you added quickly, “I am only telling you because I trust you and I want honesty between us. No secrets. As soon as he did it I pushed him away and punched him.”
“Leave,” he ordered in a quiet tone, his eyes hard on yours.
“Loki,” you said, your tone filled with begging and exasperation.
“I said leave!” he screamed, his voice filling the room, echoing loudly. He resembled the broken man you’d seen on the bridge before the fall. “Now. Before I have the guards escort you out,” he said as he turned away from you.
Those words cut you worse than any physical pain and you left the room as fast as you could. The tears were already on your cheeks as you ran to your old room where Shannon was waiting for you.
“Y/N/N?” she greeted, worry in her tone.
“He… I told him about Gambit and he screamed at me to leave. I think…. I think we just broke up. Shannon--” was all you got out before the sobbing took over. She gathered you in her arms and consoled you. The crying went on for a few minutes before suddenly you heard something.
“Is that son of mine causing trouble again?” the soft, ominous voice asked.
You instantly sat up, wiping your eyes, looking towards the center of the room where Frigga stood, a gold light around her. “Queen Frigga?” you breathed.
She smiled before sitting down beside you, Shannon on the other side of you.
“Is this real?” Shannon asked, completely surprised.
“It is very real, my dear. Us witches have our ways. “ With her signature smirk, her attention turned back to you. “I hear you have captured two men’s hearts.”
All you could do was nod, so happy to see her again, but still heartbroken.
“And you only love one of them,” she continued.
“And he can’t seem to believe that,” you finally choked out.
“Queen Frigga, Y/N has done everything to prove to Loki her love and loyalty and he still distrusts her. We are out of options.”
Frigga nodded, smiling down at her hands sadly. “I tried my best to show him he was loved but unfortunately Thor, Odin, and the warriors made him believe he was inferior so that’s what he believed all his life. So when you, my darling girl, fell in love, he most likely couldn’t believe it. And now his worst fears are coming true.”
“But Queen Frigga, all she's done is prove time and time again she’s always going to pick him above anything else. No matter how much she tries, he always finds a way to make things go wrong.”
A gentle grin touched her lips. “That’s what people do who don’t believe they deserve love. They self sabotage, dear.”
“Something Shannon is all too familiar with,” you remarked, looking at Shannon.
She bobbed her head with sad acknowledgement.
“So what do I do? I can’t help how Remy feels. Yes, in a different life Remy would be who I’m in love with. But this is this life. I love Loki. I truly believe we found each other for a reason. I just… can never make him see that, no matter how hard I try.”
“It’s hard for me to see her like this. I’m not sure how many different ways we can talk to him to make him see that she’s always going to choose him,” Shannon stated desperately.
“Let me try to talk to him. Shannon, be a dear and assist me. I feel this may require help outside of the lovers.”
“Of course, Queen Frigga. I would love to help you.”
The two of them left you in your old chambers to find Loki. Both women walked to Loki’s room.
“It’s an honor to finally meet you, Queen Frigga.” Shannon bowed her head. “Y/N has told me so much about you.”
“Is that so? I hope it was all good things,” she commented with a slight smirk.
“All wonderful things.” She smiled but then got serious. “Queen Frigga, how are we going to get Loki to understand that he shouldn’t push Y/N away like that?”
“We will convince him he deserves love, and I’ve never seen anyone love anyone as much as she and him.”
“I'm not sure it will be possible. Between Y/N, my husband and myself, I'm not sure how many more times we can tell him that." She moved her hair behind her ear. “He’s so stuck on the idea that he’ll get betrayed that nothing she does seems to matter.”
“Perhaps that's where you can come in. I can recognize his past, and that he has been hurt. Perhaps you can recognize how Y/N has been different with him, you know her better than anyone else.”
“Well that is true but I feel like just telling him will not be enough, it would be I want to say more effective if we could show him." They turned a corner and entered a long hallway.
“Something tells me you possess that ability.” Smiling, she looked at Shannon.
Shannon was quiet for a bit thinking. “Well I do have a power I haven’t used since coming into possession with it.” She searched within herself for that unused power. “It’s supposed to let me project memories that I have, it could help.”
“That does sound very useful. It won't make you weak, will it?” She asked, hoping not to make her health worse than it might get.
They were beginning to near his chambers from what Shannon could see he had chosen to be in the room farthest from everyone else. Completely isolating himself from his family. They stopped to sit at a bench and chat before entering his room.
“All I would need is to have Loki simply grasp my hand or arm to be able to feel the emotion, I don’t think that it would harm me. It's more of gentle power seeing as it's been so dormant.”
“Then perhaps it is our only hope.”
“He’ll have to listen to you first, seeing as he needs a scolding for hurting her like so. He had no right to treat her like that.”
“To be fair, he has had a repeated history in his past. It isn’t entirely surprising that he expected the love of his life to betray him as well. But I will be stern with him, he is being entirely childish and obtuse."
“Childish yes, but in my opinion she didn’t do anything wrong. I understand where he’s coming from in terms of jealousy but he shouldn’t have reacted in that manner.”
“Absolutely not, he is running from his problems as he always does.”
“If I could I would have smacked him upside the head. But I won’t, seeing as it wouldn’t change much aside from him not liking me anymore than he does.”
They got up and headed over to the door.
“After you Queen Frigga.” She opened the door and gestured for her to pass.
When he saw the soul of his mother, it took him quite a bit to sort his feelings, but the heartbreak was just as fresh on his heart as it was on yours and even the return of his mother couldn’t ease that.
He gazed at his mother. “Mother?” His eyes widened, but noticed someone else enter. Seeing it was Shannon his eyes narrowed. “Is this some kind of ill placed trick?”
“Nice to see you too, Loki.” She closed the door. “And no it’s not. I’m just as surprised to be here and meet your mother.” She turned to her. “I’ll give you two a moment to speak.”
Loki scowled. “Do I look to be in the mood for jokes?” he asked as Shannon headed to the balcony.
Frigga made a face of loving frustration. “My son, not everyone is out to get you, certainly not Shannon.”
“You have known her for five seconds,” he retorted angrily. “She stabbed me, you know? Pretended to be Y/N and tricked me, and she stabbed me. I was your son and yet my reputation was constantly questioned here.”
“Then why did you return?” Frigga asked calmly, curious.
“You’ve always known why I do everything, I think the same applies here.”
She sighed, staring at him for a moment, hoping to give him time to cool off. “My son, what are you doing?” she demanded in that motherly soft way.
“She doesn’t love me, mother. I was just a novelty. She has moved on with another man.”
“Is that why she tracked you down? Is that why she is sacrificing her health, yet again, to chase your happiness?”
“I never asked her to do that,” he retorted coolly.
“Love never asks, but it always answers,” she noted. “Why are you treating her this way? The one person outside this family who has given you unconditional love.”
“Is that what you call what she did with another man?”
“Dancing, with a lifelong friend, is no crime.”
“Perhaps it should be. And what about the kiss?” he pressed, venom in his voice.
She sighed and stepped closer to her son. “I know you have been hurt, but don’t take that out on her or assume she is like everyone else… Shannon would like to show you something.” She looked to the balcony and called Shannon over.
Once she reached them, Shannon began, “Alright, so here’s how this is going to go. Loki, you keep thinking Y/N doesn’t love you and that she’s betrayed you. Well I’m about to show you the Y/N I’ve known for years and show you her now. But the emotions are both hers and mine. I’m going to focus on hers, however for you to feel them you can simply hold my shoulder or my arm if you prefer.” She turned to Frigga. “Would you like to see for yourself as well?”
She stood between the two gods and extended her hand to the queen. Frigga looked to Loki and nodded her head, taking Shannon’s hand in hers.
“Whenever you’re ready, Loki,” Shannon offered.
Loki looked on her incredulously, and to be honest, a bit nervously, before taking her hand.
The first memory to hit them is Shannon meeting you for the first time. Shannon had noticed just how timid the other girl had been but could tell she was smarter than anyone else in the room.
“Hi, I’m Shannon, I’m new here. Any chance you can show me around?”
“Sure thing, I’m Y/N.”
Memories blurred past until they land on them living together in college. The emotions hit Shannon and it made her tear up, reliving the sweet past. Y/N always had a love for mythology and here they could feel it so strongly as she read a book after book on it. Shannon’s mind skipped ahead to the two of them living in New York City with their little apartment with their dog. The only emotion here was happiness and love for her friend and their dog.
“Shannon, come look at him! He’s so adorable!” Y/N called from the living room.
“Aww, and see, you said you didn’t even want a pet!” Shannon laughed, knowing she would treasure this memory forever.
The next few memories were of the past few years and the time you returned to Earth.
“Y/N, what’s gotten into you? This isn’t who you are!” She deflected an attack.
“I’m doing it to protect him! And myself! You don’t know what we’ve been through.”
You and Loki were now in the shared cell, where Shannon always visited.
“So you really love him, don’t you?”
“He’s been the only person who can truly understand me, Shannon. I would do anything for him.”
There was a blazing heat wave coming off of you that was the strongest emotion of love and complete adoration for the man on the other side of the cell. Upon being freed, Shannon had glimpses of what she saw between the two. There was no one else who could make you bat an eye if it wasn’t Loki. The feeling of your emotions for him were so strong you could grasp it.
Memories flashed through everyone's mind of Shannon helping you find the perfect gift for Loki. The worry and anxiety rolled off of you in waves, as well as excitement as you look for the perfect item, every birthday and Christmas. They watched in the memories how Shannon poured over the letters that you sent her when you first got to the cell, explaining every motive and action, all of it pointed to protecting Loki. A collage of memories came where Shannon was with you, but because Loki couldn’t be there (due to not being let out on parole) you were still reserved, always thinking of him. How you lit up when you talked about him. How you stopped to get him something on your way home all the time, just seeing something and thinking of him.
The final scene Shannon showed him was the night of the wedding. There was only complete and utter devotion and love for the god here, and nothing else.
Shannon let go of the two and took a moment to lean on the table she was close by. She was winded, she hadn’t thought it would take energy out of her to go back to the memories of the past.
After a moment, Loki finally spoke, all of the anger gone from his voice. “I… never…. I always thought she was settling… Or that I was a novelty more than anything else.”
“Loki, a blind person would be able to tell you just how much she loves you. You’ve just been so stuck with the idea she's going to do you wrong like others have. She’s only ever been with you and I know she will always choose you over any other man. No matter the history. Yes, Remy might have feelings for her but she doesn't feel the same way for him. They will always be close because of their friendship and their powers but nothing more. She’s kept her heart guarded from being hurt until she met you. She let her guard down because she loves you and wants you so give her the same love back.”
It didn’t take long for him to be convinced he had made a mistake.
“Don’t make the biggest mistake of your life because you’re afraid you’ll get hurt. Pain is an inevitable, unbearable, beautiful part of life. Without pain, my dear boy, we wouldn’t appreciate the joy and love we experience,” Frigga stated with a kind smile.
Loki clenched his fist, his jaw setting. “If only she’ll take me back… I can’t believe I was this blind.
“She came all this way to find you! Because she loves you this much and it broke her heart knowing you left without telling her anything. I know she will take you back, she could never stay mad at you. You and I are the only people closest to her that she could never afford to lose.”
Loki merely glanced up, his breathing unsteady as he answered, “Thank you.”
He kissed his mother on the cheek, “It’s so good to see you,” he breathed softly as he gazed at her with familial love.
“It’s good to see you, my son. I love you,” she said sweetly before shimmering away.
Loki gave Shannon an earnest look of gratitude, and then left his chambers.
————————----
Loki slowly approached you, he had entered your old chambers silently, taking you by surprise.
“I owe you an apology. Honestly, I owe you much more than that but I’d like to start with that.”
You saw him in your vanity mirror. You turned and stood quickly, almost rushing to him.
“Loki, you need not apologize. I love you and I know why you reacted the way you did.”
“That doesn’t excuse the behavior,” he noted with a sad smile.
You mulled over something for a moment before speaking. “When Frigga told me years ago that you and I grew up together for a bit, she restored my memories of you. Those memories gave me back a part of myself, a part of me that remembered just how much I adored you back then. And, now, when I look into your face, I feel like I’m home. I truly believe we were meant to find each other all these years later to help each other be whole again. The universe has put us in each other’s paths time and time again.”
“I feel the same, my love. I know you love me. You’ve done nothing but prove to me that you love me, but due to my own shortcomings I couldn’t accept that someone like you could love someone like me but… thanks to Shannon and my mother, I will never feel that way again. So if you’ll still have me, I’d love to be yours again.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” you said before throwing your arms around his neck and he hugged you tightly.
After you two forgave each other, you took a walk down memory lane. Not quite literally, but you did walk all over Asgard, hand in hand, pointing to things.
“Remember the palace pool?” you asked with a child-like wonder in your voice.
“How could I forget? My gods I was so nervous to ask you to join me that day,” he recalled.
“What ever for? Back then I was the simple Midgardian with a crush on you.”
“My love, you were never a simple Midgardian. You got me to stop a war. That was something not even my own mother could do and we’d just met.”
You blushed at his words.
“When you arrived back with Thor, I was certain you were his companion, if not his romantic venture. I knew he was interested in Jane, but he didn’t bring Jane back to here, he brought you. At first, I just chocked it up to Thor always getting the prize, the thing he wants, whoever he wants. But when you continued to try to save me, to try and talk to me, I felt…” He stopped, trying to find the right word. “Seen. You weren’t Thor’s new playmate afterall. You wanted me to teach you magic and swordsmanship. You wanted me to show you the library.”
“I hope I wasn’t a nuisance,” you breathed, a little nervously, wondering if perhaps back then you’d pushed yourself on Loki and never given him a chance to choose you. Did he feel trapped or pressured into being with you? Was this his way of saying that?
“Never,” he breathed, stopping to put his hands on either side of your face. “You never have been, and you never will be. Your company is always, the light of my very existence.” He leaned down to kiss you swiftly. “No, truth be told, I was quite taken with you. You stunned me at that crater site on Earth, and again, you amazed me when you got me to stop killing the Jotuns, but when you sought after me, it was enduring. Quite literally a woman after my own heart. You were fascinated by all the things I love.”
You smiled, happy to know that Loki was excited to spend that time with you, not forced to do it. “Do you remember how Frigga insisted we danced together? I don't think my heart ever pounded so fast in my life.”
He laughed as you two continued walking the palace grounds. “I can’t imagine you nervous. You certainly didn’t display any concern while you were begging me to stop that war. Or when you dropped a note at my bedroom door.”
“Being brave to stand up for what’s right, for being there for someone is far easier than being told you have to dance a complicated, beautiful dance with the most gorgeous man, let alone a prince is the most intimidating thing I’ve ever done,” you informed matter-of-factly.
“Most gorgeous man, hmm? Well, now, I never knew you felt that way. I should’ve exploited that, back then. It could’ve made our training sessions much more fun.” He gave you a coy grin and you shook your head and rolled your eyes.
“Our training sessions were beyond fun. You taught me how to be who I am. You taught me everything I know about Asgard, you and Frigga. Sure, Thor laid the groundwork, but it was you and Frigga prepping me for taking my rightful place among the Asgard elite. I’ll always be so grateful for the time and patience you had with me back then.”
He smiled down at you lovingly. “A task easier than breathing. You picked up on everything so quickly. In all honesty, I began making up things to teach you, just to ensure you wouldn’t have an excuse for leaving.”
You sighed happily.
“Tell me something,” he prompted as you two walked.
“Hmm?”
“You found out about your parentage before our falling off the bridge.”
“Yes…?”
“That must’ve meant you had a choice to make, about staying here or going home. What would you have chosen? If I hadn’t have lost my mind?” He gave you a bit of a teasing smile but the question itself was serious.
You hung your head in thought. “I’m not sure. I never thought about it really because it wasn’t on my mind for very long. I sent Shannon my letter, telling her I’d have to choose soon, and then, we fell.”
“What do you think you would’ve chosen?” he urged gently.
“If you’re trying to see if I’d be here with you, if I’d choose you and Asgard over Earth and Shannon, that’s not an easy question or answer,” you responded, a bit of mischief in your tone. He didn’t say anything but he did peer at you, clearly not satisfied with your answer. You let out a bit of a sigh. “In all honesty, I probably would’ve chosen Asgard as my main home and visted Earth once in while.”
He seemed to drift off into thought. You didn’t see this particular look on him often. He was very good about vocalizing his emotions to you, only to you. He was a steel cage to everyone else.
“If that's the case, then why do you insist we remain on Earth?” The question wasn’t accusatory or aggressive in any way. It sounded inquisitive, curious.
“Things have changed, Loki. Asgard is different. Frigga is no longer here. You and Odin are even more strained than before. Shannon and I have nearly restored our friendship to its former glory. You have your job, that may turn into a career. I’m not saying never come back. I love it here. It is my home, it is our home, but you also must remember that this is a heritage home for me. The place I actually grew up, lived, know like no other, is Earth. Thor isn’t even here most of the time. Am I out of line to say that you have more friends on Earth even now than you ever had here?” you implored.
Begrudgingly, he agreed. Shannon was his friend, and despite his original protests, Stephen was actually nice company, they had a lot in common in fact.
“If you’re truly unhappy on Earth, we can move here,” you assured, putting your hands on his chest.
He put his arms around your waist. “No,” he breathed, “that’s not what I want.”
“I’m sorry if it’s felt like I’m moving on and having some kind of life and you aren’t. That’s never what I wanted. I hoped our apartment and your job would feel like we were really becoming a true domestic couple,” you apologized sadly, never realizing that Loki didn’t have his own footing. Sure, you were friends with most of the Avengers and a few other people outside of them, but in reality, what did Loki have? It was selfish to think he’d be happy being your shadow as you went out and had a social life. You were repeating the past.
He shook his head. “No, darling, you’ve been amazing. You’re doing what you should be doing, repairing old relationships and making new ones. I’m not a child, I can do that too. I suppose my insecurities just had me feeling like you were leaving me behind while you did so, that’s all, but that is not a reflection of you and your efforts, that’s purely on my part.”
“Are you sure? Say the word and we’ll come here if you want.”
“I don’t want that. I’d like to visit, yes. But we can make a life on Earth.” He shook his head, correcting himself, “We have made a life on Earth.”
You smiled up at him before kissing him earnestly.
------------------------------------------
The rest of the time was spent showing Shannon and Bruce some of the sights, while you and Loki reconnected and bonded over the moments you had fallen in love. They gave you two some space sometimes, but other times they got a guided tour by you and Loki and had fantastic meals at the King’s table.
What started as a disaster filled trip ended in almost a vacation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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#unforeseen chasm#loki x reader#loki fic#Loki Laufeyson#tony stark#tony stark fic#tony stark x ofc#bruce banner#queen frigga#mentions of thor#mentions of odin
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as the weekend winds down, we hope you’re having a great sunday so far ! it’s so, so exciting to see everyone’s amazing dev posts in the tag - we can’t wait to see your characters in action. and now, without further ado, here’s pt. 2 of our species reveal, with demons, cambions, and sirens !
demons.
overview the physical representation of sin, insidious creatures of darkness. they are known by many names and in many forms, but perhaps the most well known is the abrahamic name: demons. a name that inspires feelings of fear and disgust, a name that invokes images of the most vile creatures one could imagine, a name they have taken for themselves out of mere convenience. although many mythologies express the belief of a hierarchy or all powerful greater leader, the truth is that they have no such thing. darkness incarnate cannot and will not be governed or controlled, and neither will they.
the underworld most demons were created in the vast emptiness of the underworld. this realm is not made up of fire and brimstone like most legends suggest and is instead an opposite mirror to our reality - imagine if we lived under a veil of darkness, imagine no color. this is where the corrupt souls of those affected by violence or trauma come to reside; this is where you’re sent if you sell your soul to a demon, where exposure to the underworld’s atmosphere is what creates demons as we know them. it is very rare that a soul existing within the underworld stays a human soul for very long. the underworld is a realm completely engulfed in thunderstorms and void. because of the unpleasant atmosphere most of its residents are literally dying to escape, but only the strong can pull through the riptide that the winds of the underworld create between other realms.
physiology they’re souls that have been marked by darkness, torn apart by the winds of the underworld and made completely undistinguishable from the humans they once were. this does not mean that they no longer carry any humanity – but for most, emotions such as love, loyalty and sympathy are disfigured and their morals skewed. when not in their corporeal form demons appear as a black cloud of smoke, making it incredibly easy for them to travel or inhabit a human body. they cannot take up residence in a human body for long without complications – even binding spells are only temporary. demonic possession is as it has always been portrayed – grotesque, dangerous and normally deadly. in fact, demons don’t need a human body to inhabit or even to walk on earth, as they’re both corporeal and incorporeal their solid form is the appearance they held at any age before their death. however, thanks to magic they’re able to make minor changes to their form. what is most notable about demons, are their pitch black eyes which appear when provoked or sensing danger.
abilities a demon’s power is limitless due to infernal magic. they pull all of their energy from the underworld, making them able to do nearly anything as long as it is derived from dark magic. possession, in reality, is mostly smoke and mirrors. it is rare for demons enter the vessel of a human as it is dangerous for both souls involved. most demons cast a sort of maddening illusion over humans – entering their brain through telepathy and causing them to hallucinate. those with weakened inhibitions are easy for demons to target and will them into sin. with enough power a demon can make just about any mortal or weaker non mortal their victim. wishes are granted by demons, but this most often ends with indentured servitude toward the demon. no one is sure what makes a demon able to cut into the fabric of fate it is but their most terrifying quality. forget the curses and the dark magic, a demon can make just about anything happen just so long as they have a soul to use.
weaknesses exorcisms are not to only rid a human of whatever demonic presence has control over them. with the right exorcism it can send a demon straight back to the underworld. of course, they’re always capable of crawling back out and exacting revenge so this may not be your best line of defense. holy water will deter a demon and burn their skin upon contact but will not kill or maim them. other ways to banish a demon or protect against them are enchanted sigils and spells that can only be completed by experienced witches and fairies. they’re the same species who are able to completely destroy a demon and tear them from eternal life. when a demon is completely extinguished the place of their death is also destroyed leaving behind a dark energy that invites death and chaos.
cambions.
overview cambions can only be conceived through a male demon and a female human. some say that the cambions are beautiful – but there’s one thing we know – they're most certainly sinful. their lineage alone is a mixture of great power, known to strike fear in the hearts of many other creatures. due to their human appearance and mortal status, cambions have been able to glide through life without the need to “blend in”. a hidden secret resides in the history of the cambion race, having constructed nefarious societies and tyrannical governments from the julian claudian dynasty to, as rumors have it – even a few u.s presidents. most who know what they are absolutely hate to hide who or what they are and in the end, it’s just easier to hide in plain sight.
physiology a cambion’s birth in the first hour is a still birth, and afterwards the creature begins to draw energy from the mother; this part is necessary in order for the creature to obtain vitality. If not abandoned entirely, cambions completely exhaust their mother’s lifeforce no more than a few years after their birth. because of this, cambions are often lost in adoption or foster systems without any knowledge of what they are. due to their lack of knowledge, instead of siphoning energy for survival, they often end up sick and dying before the age of 6. If they do survive, it is during their early teenage years that a cambion begins to experience their demonic nature in the form of depression, mood swings, and often a strong attraction to violence. cambion children often act out, especially for those who still lack the knowledge of what they are. once they’ve reached maturity, there is no hiding their above average temperature (normally about 101), or their eyes that darken to a blood red when in the presence of celestial magic, when in danger, or when provoked.
abilities energy is extremely important to a cambion, it’s what keeps them alive, it’s what feeds them. so they have to pull energies from humans around them; which can result in death. they must learn to control their siphoning, or else they’re out of luck as far as human lovers and friends go. they can siphon magic, but only the infernal kind, and the same goes for what they can perform. a cambion particularly excels at fire magic, which is more dangerous when using infernal incantations or energies. they’re stronger and more powerful than a humans as well as slightly empathic, with an ability to sense certain emotions, such as apprehension, rage and sadness by touching a human. combined with their demonic urges, these abilities make cambions very dangerous creatures.
weaknesses cambions are easily captured and weakened, especially when placed into a vulnerable state by making them emotional. by inciting powerful emotions, you can force a cambion to expend their energy completely until trapping them is entirely painless. they get their fill of energies around them, so the less you give them the less powerful they are. energies from different creatures can affect a cambion in various ways. for instance, celestial magic can completely stop a cambion from using their abilities. killing a cambion also isn’t hard as they can die from a lack of vitality or starve; showing signs that they’re sick or becoming weak before eventually withering away. a cambion also isn’t impervious to death. just like their human half, they can die by serious wounds and diseases. essentially, a cambion is not immortal.
after death upon death, a cambion instantly becomes a demon. they no longer have to siphon energy to live, but they’re also no stronger than other demons. thankfully, they’re spared a visit to the underworld, as their souls have already been torn apart enough by the demonic energy of their birth.
sirens.
overview the danger of a true siren cannot be captured by just a story, nor a rumor - they are in every sense of the word, predators. it is said they were once nymphs cursed by demeter, a story that can neither be confirmed or denied. sirens have been hunted since the middle ages, most notably in the 1700’s, a time when sailors and pirates perished at the hands of a siren's song. not only is their song deadly, they’re beautiful and alluring in every sense of the word, making it easy to get caught in a siren’s grasp. a siren’s love is all consuming, and most often a siren has no choice but to entertain their predatory nature and kill their partner. as you can imagine, relationships are extremely difficult for sirens, so many are left to resort to feeding only off of those they can sing into loving them for a night.
physiology rivaling the allure of fairies, sirens are arguably the most beautiful of all supernatural creatures. their natural beauty makes each siren incredibly attractive, but direct eye contact ensures that their prey stands no chance in getting away. their teeth are razor sharp, easily tearing through flesh and muscle with just one bite, yet their teeth are indistinguishable from human ones. a siren also has a notably colder body temperature than humans, along with strength that matches that of a vampire. it doesn’t quite matter if a siren is born or turned; they all obtain their powers the same - by taking their first bite of human flesh. by doing so, their immortality takes hold, and their abilities are amplified. a siren must then continue to eat flesh for as long as they live; those who consume more flesh are stronger, but in turn, lack emotional empathy.
abilities to control their hunger is a power in itself. they're often plagued by an intense desire to consume human flesh that cannot be satisfied by animals alone. through their touch, they are able to imbue a human with oxytocin, making the victim so enamored with a siren, they’ll do or say anything for them. a siren’s song, is also the most dangerous weapon. most of their voices are naturally beautiful – your favorite popstar, for example. might be a siren - but if the particular tone of a siren's song actually heard by human ears, it’ll render the listener completely paralyzed, which often leads to death. a siren, when strong enough can also control weather in their area - when their emotions are heightened, they can induce rainfall or thunderstorms,
becoming a siren many sirens are born, but creating a siren is also possible. this occurs when a siren bites a human, poisoning them with enough venom to render them unconscious. once nearly incapacitated, the same siren must then eat their heart, and submerge them fully in either fresh water or the sea. upon the next rising of the moon, a new siren will emerge from the water - this new siren must take their first bite of human flesh within that very same day, or they risk death.
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Novel Prep Tag: Viva La Revenge of the Deceased
(The title is still a work in progress)
Tagged by @keen2meecha. Thank you so much, human!
First Look
1. Describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch).
Conchobhar Raelyn expected many things from life, most of them unusual, but one of the few things that she hadn’t, one that she considered out of the realm of possibility, impossible, and therefore never happening, was stumbling upon the ghost of her estranged, childhood friend, Thomas Dionisio, in the middle of her living room at five a.m. She also hadn’t expected that, in the face of his untimely death, she would be the number one person on his list of earth-bound mortals to help him enact his revenge, either, but here she was.
2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Novella, single book, book series, etc.)
It’s going to be more than a single book. I’m not sure if it’ll be a duology or trilogy, but there’s probably not going to be more than three.
3. What’s your novel’s aesthetic?
Large forests filled with towering trees, and encampments hidden deep within. The scent of smoke in the air, and inexplicably cold winds. A city street filled with unmemorable people, a stream of faces that fade away and dissipate in the wind. Warmth, and exasperation, but also the feeling of feet dangling high above roiling seas, and the growing steel of determination.
4. What other stories inspired your novel?
I’m not sure, but. There’s one person on here. They have a burning man in one of their wips? I’ve forgotten who, but my brain might’ve run away with that, a bit. Someone burned up, charred and mangled, and trapped in a ghostly form. And there’s a few touches of BNHA characters in there, too. And a tumblr post about aromantics marrying for tax benefits and convenience.
5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for the novel
Main Characters
6. Who is your protagonist?
Conchobhar Raelyn is the main protagonist. Thomas Dionisio is the secondary one. He’s as important as she is, no doubt, but most of it’s told through her view.
7. Who is their closest ally?
Declan and Jezebel. Both of them are Conchobhar’s sort-of partners. It’s a little bit more complicated, and it’s honestly more platonic than anything, but. That’s where the post comes in, and what they call each other. There’s an agreement between all of them that it’d literally take Hell tearing apart the Earth before any of them refused to stand by the others. For better or worse.
Thomas doesn’t... really have anybody but Conchobhar, so. He’ll have to make do with them, too.
8. Who is their enemy?
Probably the people that killed Thomas! And then a bunch of others, as both of them delve deeper into the circumstances of his death, and his life before that, and learn a little bit more about why everything happened. And the people that want to stop them from knowing that.
9. What do they want more than anything?
Thomas wants revenge, at first. And then he simply wants it to all end. And then he wants to pull Conchobhar out of it, because that’s when stuff gets bad. Really bad.
Conchobhar wants to help him move on. Or at least feel a little bit of satisfaction that he couldn’t have when he was alive. And then she wants to raze a bunch of stuff to the ground, while simultaneously finding out if you can trap a ghost in a bottle.
10. Why can’t they have it?
Because the truth is always a lot more complicated than it initially seems, and they’ve barely scratched the surface. And for them to have their revenge, they need the truth. To know. Without it, it’s only wild guessing, and inevitably hurting someone that they didn’t intend to.
11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?
Thomas believes that he’ll never be able to move on without any of it happening, (maybe, but turning into a poltergeist is always a thing, and it’s not like he won’t have superiority over them in hell, anyway) and Conchobhar believes that there isn’t much choice, because she owes him this much, at least, after inadvertently abandoning him to this fate.
12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)
So, fun fact. Two of them, actually. I can’t draw people, and I don’t use face claims. And I have prosopagnosia, so I don’t usually pay much attention to that, anyway? Not unless the characters become aliens, or a made up creature, or something. You’ll have to fly in as blind as I am, when it comes to how they look.
Plot Points
13. What is the internal conflict?
Conchobhar has absolutely no idea how to do any of this, and she’s floundering, out of her comfort zone, and lost. But she refuses to call for help from anyone that she knows, in fear that something might happen to them, too.
Thomas really doesn’t want to involve her in this, despite what it looks like, but she was literally the only living person he could latch onto. You need some sort of emotional attachment, and like hell will he do that with his tormentors. But he isn’t sure if he could spend the rest of eternity understanding what’s happened, and knowing that he could’ve retaliated, and then didn’t.
14. What is the external conflict?
To find the person that killed Thomas, they need to follow a trail. One that twists and bends, and curves in all the wrong places. That’s never in a straight forward line, and leaves behind more questions than answers. And the more they look at it, the more confused, the more wary, both of them feel, because it’s all quickly turning into something more than either of them can handle. Together or alone.
15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?
Thomas already kind of experienced it. He was torn apart, and then died in the flames that were meant to destroy his body. But another thing that could hit him hard is if something happened to his brother, wherever the heck he is, or if he causes Conchobhar to become seriously hurt. Or even dead.
Conchobhar would just. Loose it if something happened to the people that she loves. That’s the worst thing. But it could be made even worse if it was directly because of her, and what’s she’s doing now.
16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?
“I’m sorry, they’re doing what?” For the overall series, but for this specific book, it would be “What the fuck did he do? What did you do?”
17. Do you know how it ends?
Sort of? I have some impressions that are guiding me towards it. One direction. And a possible ending. But I’m not actually sure what that ending is. Just - what it might become, if that makes sense.
18. What is the theme?
There’s some pretty significant themes of loyalty and retribution. Retribution of someone that had literally been discarded, forgotten, and buried in the past. A person that shouldn’t be a problem, but then is, and the people in their life that are determined to make sure there is retribution for what happened, even if it means bringing heaven and hell down onto their knees to do so.
19. What is a recurring symbol?
Probably what’s mentioned above, but if that doesn’t count, then I’m not sure. It’s only nineteen days old, and there’s a lot of stuff to be worked on.
20. Where is the story set? (Share a description)
There’s not one specific setting, the story’s kind of set all over the place. For the sake of their own safety, and to accomplish what they need to, Conchobhar and Thomas need to move around a lot. I’m also not really sure where they are, at this point.
21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?
Oh, definitely! It’s mostly some impressions and pictures, right now. A few hints of emotion to shape it, and a vague understanding about the direction that some scenes need to go in.
22. What excited you about this story?
Thomas’ death! The circumstances leading to it, to be specific, and how those circumstances and the people involved will shape the story.
23. Tell us about your usual writing method!
It’s pretty messy. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and it’s usually from the character interactions in bigger franchises, or because my brother’s said a thing, and it had me scrambling for the keyboard. I also need music. But not just any music. It has to be the right music. And none of it’s chronological.
~
Legitimately did not expect to be able to say as much as I did. Honestly, this wip is still a baby. I shouldn’t know what I’m doing with this. But, hey. Can’t deny that this was helpful. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to do this, human!
Tagging: @feralsong, @rhiannonleewriting, @rehnwriter, @aelenko, @elemntum, @hellnar, @birdquils, @mariahwritesstuff, @sarahmariaria, @erinisawriter, @quillswithink, @ivonoris, @hazeywrites, @coralblast, @mayvinwrites, @sxnrising, @delphwrites, @whorizcn, @nmcwriting, @typewrxter, @rebelwritingwild, @greenwood-writes, @paracomas
It’s a pretty big thing to ask, so don’t worry if you don’t want to / can’t do it. That’s fine, okay? I’d recommend keeping the list around for reference, though. It’s very helpful.
#writing#tag game#novel prep tag#wip: viva la revenge of the deceased#sorry about the coherency#I suspect that there isn't much#I did my best to fix it#but ultimately when my brain checks out there's not much that can be done#and I'm just super tired right now#but hey!#i still got it done#and I don't know if it makes sense#but I've got some more direction for it to go in!#so that's good!#probably#I think it's good anyway
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Run
Warnings: A very healthy dose of Angst in the beginning, Smut, Explicit, 18+
Bucky X Reader
The heat - implacable and sweltering - like only mid-days in Havana could be.
The streets that led to our meeting's location, loaded with street vendors, dilapidated cars, and colorfully cheerful natives.
Sweat pooled down my back - sticking to my shirt - as I followed our commanding officer through the crowded, sunny streets.
Our team was comprised of four. We didn't truly know each other too well. None of us had exchanged more than a wave here and there; a furtive glance in some hallway, perhaps. We all served under my fiance. Our shared unyielding loyalty toward him being pretty much the only thing we had in common when we were chosen.
Patrick was his name, and he would've been here if he weren't keeping us safe from a distance. His face too known amongst the opposite faction to join us in the field.
"We should be close now." Leandra, our curly-haired, beautifully dark-skinned leader announced. The smirk on her face so camouflaged, anyone would've guessed she was talking about any other matter; her garden, favorite pet...anything, except the high-stake operation to infiltrate the dictatorship we were currently on.
But any of us could pass for just a pack of clueless tourists, really. Well...almost any of us.
They called him Bucky and he stayed a couple of steps behind. His years as a soldier were too blatantly established in the unflinching expression he kept on his face. In his persona overall.
Even when he was out of his uniform and wearing a pair of your everyday worn jeans and a simple red T-shirt, his background prevailed so unmistakably, even the locals - who made eye contact with the rest of us often as we trekked down the broken sidewalk - avoided looking at him for too long.
Intimidating or not, a part of me felt safe with him trailing behind. All stoic and mysterious. Dark hair damped with sweat. Strong, yet gentle upon approach, and the more time I spent around him the more I understood the reasons why my fiance trusted him with his life. With all our lives too.
There was something in the way he kept watch - like a disciplined, dependable defender who would stop at nothing to keep his pack secure.
I. felt. Protected. Around. Bucky.
Or at least that's how my mind translated the relieved, yet agitated warmth inside my chest in regards to him.
Here at last.
My body welcomed the shade provided by the rundown loaf, located on the third floor of an even more rundown building. After drinking a gallon of water, we all scattered around, exchanging hellos with the troop that was housed there. The ones we were there to eventually replace.
Their commanding officer - a blonde, muscular, all-American strategist - stood by the old pool table that sat right across from the two equally worn leather couches in the living room. We hadn't been there an hour and he was already readying himself to put us all up to speed.
Everyone plummeted onto the nearby couches. Leandra joined her fellow leader by the empty pool table - smile still in place. This smile, however, wasn’t the kind she used in front of the locals. This smile held a guarded, adept connotation to it. Moments ago she had been the carefree tourist, roaming the streets of Havana, but now she was all business even if the same hints of friendliness were still very much present.
I grasped my still damp, long, blonde hair, and cast it over the back of the couch. The coolness of the leather relieved my scorching, sun-burned back.
My feet were also throbbing from the walk. My skin felt sticky; glistening as a result of dried-out sweat - a characteristic all of us had in common.
As I became more relaxed, my body began to sink in the soft leather surface while I waited for them to start. The little shift next to me alerted me about the presence of Bucky, who sat stealthily next to me.
Having anyone else so close would've been uncomfortable under such circumstances. There's was a lot of feelings of self-consciousness that came with being this stickily damp and oily.
But strangely, I didn't mind his proximity, at the very contrary. The strange urge to socialize with Bucky - show him some kindness even - was stronger than any insecurity I could harbor about my flushed appearance.
Attempting to greet him with a smile he seemed to have ignored I gave up hope and sunk my eyes to my fidgety fingers.
But when they finally started going over the assignment, I found myself discretely gazing back toward Bucky's profile. His chin was unshaven and his hair was shaggy - well past his ears. His eyes were blue and so focused I wondered if those eyes were capable of any tenderness. If they kept secret emotions in recondite corners. Was that mouth capable of softening for a kiss besides its usual hard-line state?
Inundated with so many questions. Lost in him like I was, my hand - guided merely by instinct - reached out to return a stray lock of black hair that has escaped from its place, behind his ear; the contact startling him in the process.
As soon as his bewildered eyes met mine, I got smacked with the answers to all my questions at once.
There was an inextinguishable flame in those irises. It was dark and raging, yet it was well hidden. Overlapped by something that evoked a sense of sincerity and kindness. With one glimpse he had me shuddering and stirring and even though I was fully conscious I had to push my attention elsewhere, I was utterly frozen. My will power buried under the shocking sensations his proximity was awakening in me.
Why did his eyes dip furtively to my lips?
Was he feeling all this too?
There was something so intimate, so lewd in the way we were just gawking at each other that tasted as wicked as if he were inside me at that very moment.... and in a way he was.
His eyes had taken me in a way I had never been taken before.
What was happening?
Was this case of 'curiosity got killed the cat,' and in my search for Bucky’s essence I had found more than I had bargained for?
It took the smack of our leaders' fist against wood for me to be able to untangle myself from Bucky's alluring gaze.
Something had gone wrong. By the look of their faces, our commanding officers seemed to have received an encoded message on the laptop that laid on the pool table behind them.
We found out later the orders consisted of us staying longer than anticipated, so we were ordered to stay put until further instructions.
For the time being, it was decided for us to work on sleeping arrangements for the upcoming weeks.
There were only three bedrooms in the old hideaway house. About ten of us in total. So we split into groups of three for each bedroom. One of us was to always take the night shift in case of a last-minute, major transmission during those hours. So we started a rotation system.
Leandra, Bucky and I were assigned to one of the bedrooms, while the rest split up and settled in the remaining ones.
There was only one bed in each bedroom, so Leandra and I decided to share it after Bucky volunteered to sleep on the floor, next to Leandra.
The following days I did the best I could to keep my distance from Bucky, an impossible feat in such a tight space.
I wouldn't allow myself to look at him in the eye again. Not after the couch incident. I was not available. I belonged to another man, and as much as my heart fluttered at night when everyone else was sleeping and I would hear Bucky's breathing I had to force myself to sober up.
I wasn't there to hook up, I was there because it was my job and because the man whose ring shone on my finger that entrusted me with it and keeping that in mind blocked everything else out during most of our stay, so I grew more and more confident on my willpower's endurance.
That was until the next time I came in actual contact with Bucky.
It was during one of our daily meetings, exactly four days after our arrival. He had sat in his usual spot - next to me on the couch. And I didn't move when he sat down because by then I was certain about my impending success.
I was leaning forward - body almost completely sticking out of the coach, except for my behind. Elbows secured on top of my knees. Chin propped on the heel of my hand while I held a pencil in the other.
I was confident, yes, but not dumb enough to risk reclining myself back there, in the intimacy of it all, where he was.
He kept his broad back sunken in the back of the couch. Legs stretched out in front of him and he must've found the very tiny sliver of skin between my jeans and my tank top, because his finger swept alongside it, making me break out in goosebumps unexpectedly.
I couldn't bring myself to move from it, nor turn my head back to look at him. The texture of his finger felt rough, yet its back-and-forward motions were delicate. With each stroke, the air became more and more difficult for my hyperventilating lungs to catch.
I scanned the room, paranoia taking the best of me, but everyone seemed enthralled in the dissertation. Too distracted to notice Bucky's finger gliding on the inch of bare skin.
Swallowing thickly, I finally dared look at him. His eyes were fixed where index met skin. My frail protests dying as soon as I discovered the sensual way his bottom lip was caught between his pearly white teeth. I envied them. I wished it were my teeth biting into those rosy, fleshy lips.
So when the gathering was over, I shot up from that couch so fast, I ended up drawing all eyes on me - on the abrupt manner I stood up and darted toward the bedroom, where I stayed until the embarrassment had almost worn off and I knew it was safe.
And on the fifth night, when it was my turn to stay up and keep watch I realized I was finally no longer jittery from Bucky's touch - I headed toward the deserted living room.
Wrapping my hair up in a lazy bun; jeans on - in case we were found out and forced to go on the run in the middle of the night. - and black tank top.
I made myself a cup of Cuban coffee and plumped myself on one of the leather couches - not the sinful, furthest one, where I had tucked Bucky's hair behind his ear and he had caressed the edge of my hip - but the 'safe' one. The one that was going to keep my mind focused and my thoughts chaste.
I checked for messages on the laptop, placing the cup of steaming liquid on the vintage coffee table carefully next to it. There was only one light on, the dining room light to my left. It offered all the brightness needed without disturbing the others.
On my right, the hallway that led to the three bedrooms remained pitch black. It was there in the shadows, where he stood.
I knew it was him because of the gravity of his steel-blue eyes. The aura of masculinity I had come to recognize whenever he entered a room.
If he knew how fragile my state of mind was when he was this close he wouldn't be here
...or would he?
"Can't sleep?" I busied my mouth with yet another sip of coffee and kept my eyes glued to the laptop screen upon his approach.
"Not at all," he answered. Simplistic as they were, his words concealed within them a secret chamber to very different interpretations.
Interpretations such as 'I knew you would be here and I wanted you' or 'I couldn't take this anymore and had to find you.'
Perhaps these were words I myself was projecting unto him. My own deepest, most reproachable urges. My aching yearning to descend into the abyss of his eyes again.
Had it all been in my head?
Maybe he was here for a glass of water?
Some companionship, perhaps?
After all, Bucky was a man of a few words, it was his eyes the ones that spoke volumes; so when he sat next to me and I felt brave enough to dive into them, the shadow of what would happen made itself known.....still I didn't flee.
I stayed.
"Have you heard from your fiance?" he asked. Testing the waters, perhaps?
I shook my head - my body coming alive the way it did when his fingers had graced my skin.
"We can't do this, Y/N. You know we can't," he continued without looking at me.
Was my face so easy to read?
"I know," I mumbled for lack of more eloquent things to say, but as he tried to stand up from the couch, our faces had come a little too close from one another.
Things could be manageable at a distance, but his mouth had been at a dangerous range, and my lips had launched towards his lips.
My hands clasped the sides of this scruffy jaw to keep him in place and there was such savagery to the kiss it wasn't even a kiss, but the merciless collision of two mouths against each other. There was no tenderness, no slowing down - only the need for his tongue inside my mouth and the urgency to swallow his flavor; to drink it viciously as if my own life depended on it.
There was no concern for being caught, no regard toward our fellow officers who laid, oblivious, in the adjacent bedrooms. There was just the overwhelming need for fulfillment, and nothing could get in the way of that.
Lowering my jeans with one rough, swift yank he exposed my creamy legs. A pause. Avid eyes followed the contours of them. I propelled my torso forward - fingernails scratching his hips as I slip his dark sporty pants down. He lowered himself to me allowing me to take a peek over his shoulder. My eyes followed the curve of his tan back, all the way down to the top half of his ass - an area that the fabric of his pants hadn't gotten to conceal.
He lifted one of my legs, then the other and after they were both secured on his shoulders, he plunged into my dripping passage.
I clung to his neck, taking him in. Pain and delight - the most potent cocktail I had ever ingested - one I knew after that day I wouldn’t be able to get enough of.
The raw angst that had been pushing us day by day into utter madness. Madness for each other's flesh, for each other's mouths. That same madness that had morphed into the force propelling his every movement - making their deliverance almost too impatient.
My hips matched his pace - just as eager - bucking unbridledly to engage him fully. The dense expanses of him sinking in the velvety depths of me, again and again... faster and faster.
And when his mouth came down on mine again, that's when I lost all footing with anything else around me except for him.
A rush from within worked its way down, tearing through all my senses and shaking me to the core; dampening him and the coach. I bit hard on his lip in an unconscious attempt to drag him toward the blissful wave. The same wave that had led me to the highest peak, and with his deepest thrust yet, he too came undone.
A few minutes had passed when he slipped out of me. His damp forehead rested on my chest and I found within me no guilt. No remorse.
The achiness between my legs the most delightful reminder of a moment my only ambition was to memorize.
Permeating my nose, his scent. The silkiness of his inky, plentiful hair slid between my fingertips as they glided slowly through it.
Perking his head up, he raised an inquisitive hand toward my stomach and lifted my tank top until my nipple was uncovered; his lips closed in on it, making my skin burn and stir. His cock hardened against my thigh - every nerve ending recharged by newfound flames as a response. My tongue wet my lips in preparation for yet another blissful fix. But the ecstasy was short lived.
The motions of his lips came to a halt when the incoming message's beeping sound emerged noisily on the laptop.
That damn laptop.
Its insistence forced us back to reality. He sat back up and throwing a concerned glance toward me, he transferred the device from the table to his lap.
"It's from Patrick," revealed Bucky as he clicked on the unread message. I joined him. My arm snaking around his waist, my mouth trailing his shoulder.
And upon the descend of my eyes toward the screen....I saw.
The message was composed of but a single word.
One that held enough power to send us both into the utmost panic.
Three little letters that would've meant nothing to other people. Three little letters that combined read:
"Run."
@dani11708 @kyber-hearts-and-stardust-souls @crazyxwritings @candlestudy @crazychaotic @solei28 @calwitch @yndaree @scuzmunkie @ryleejones0612 @lost-in-memories-and-space @agirlonline @littlestarkgone @sebbbystaaan @panicfob @lwtficrecs @imjustlaurafromholland
#bucky x you#bucky angst#bucky barns imagine#bucky barnes#bucky#bucky smut#sebastian stan#sebastian stan imagine#smut#explict
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This Girl Ain’t Going Anywhere: 2/3
Um, yeah, so . . . this is three chapters now. I know exactly how this will end, and there just wasn’t space and time to get there in this chapter. Plus, I can never resist a cliffhanger! This is part of my birthday fic for @katie-dub and if you missed chapter one, you can read it here.
Also on Ao3 as part of my Fandom Birthday Playlist.
Summary: The Brothers Jones have built a reputation as the most feared pirates in all the realms. When they hear of the bounty on the heads of two princesses – The Princess of Fire and The Princess of Ice – they don’t hesitate to set sail on the Jolly Roger to hunt them down. But have the Brothers Jones finally met their match?
Rating: T
Trigger warnings: This chapter reveals the circumstances of Henry’s birth, and Baelfire is not a good guy. It wasn’t rape (this is rated T), but it’s still in the dubious consent category. If you want more spoilery details, you can message me.
Words: 5,300 and some change in this chapter
Tagging: @snowbellewells @kmomof4 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @winterbaby89 @jennjenn615 @teamhook @bethacaciakay @thislassishooked @kday426 @snidgetsafan @tiganasummertree @delirious-latenight-laughs @distant-rose @optomisticgirl @let-it-raines @welllpthisishappening @wellhellotragic
Chapter Two
I've run for miles and lost sight of where you are, but you have seen me all along. Maybe I'm the last to know when I've gone too far, and yet I'm always by your side. This girl ain't going anywhere. I can promise you this, now I know for sure. This girl ain't going anywhere.
It’s so early in the morning, the sun isn’t yet up. He’s just left for the docks, and I simply have to get my feelings down on paper. Yes, he just left my chambers. I don’t dare write his name, even here. If he were punished for what we’ve shared, I couldn’t bear it. I don’t know if I can bear our separation either, but it can’t be helped.
I blush thinking of last night. I told him I was inexperienced, and he was so tender. I felt so loved, so special . . . so safe. I know that sounds strange to say about a night of passion, but it’s true. And there was definitely passion -
Liam lowered Elsa’s journal, his hands shaking. If he could go back to that night, would he make different choices? It had been Elsa’s idea to sneak him into her chambers, she had been the one to tug him shyly towards her bed, and when he had asked if she was sure, she had assured him – rather enthusiastically, actually – that she was. Yet that didn’t change the fact that she was the crown princess. It didn’t change the fact that he left her in the morning. It didn’t change the fact that he never returned. It hadn’t been his intention, but he had acted as the worst type of cad.
He swallowed hard before lifting the journal once again. Anna had asked him to read it, even marking certain pages, but knowing he was just hours or less away from seeing Elsa again face to face, he couldn’t shake the feeling he was violating her privacy. Anna had said it would help him understand; whatever that meant.
The letters have stopped altogether. I tried to tell myself he just couldn’t get any to me. Especially with King George constantly threatening war. He keeps his navy on their toes. But now . . . it’s been so long . . .
I can’t believe what I’ve heard. The Jewel of the Realm is now a pirate ship? Apparently, the entire crew has mutinied against their king, loyal to their captain more than the crown. King George has put a bounty on the heads of every sailor on board. He’s even given writs to violent pirates, declaring them privateers to get his ship back. I swing back and forth between terrifying worry and red-hot anger. If only I knew the reasons. If only a letter would come!
Liam stopped reading, putting his head in his hands with a groan. He had thought at the time that a letter would have been unwelcome. What a fool he had been! He could have at least explained; hadn’t he owed her at least that much? He lifted his head and kept reading, like a seaman who can’t look away from a shipwreck.
I don’t know what’s happening to me. It was so gradual, I didn’t even notice at first. A room turning chilly when I entered. Beverages staying ice cold in my hand. Then, one day, I was crying over a letter I never sent – could never send – to . . . him. The tear drops were ice as they fell, then the feather pen froze in my fingers, snapping in two. The inkwell was a solid block of ice. It’s tied to my emotions, that I can tell, but the more I try to control it, the worse it gets. I’ve confided only in Anna. She believes it’s a gift. But what if I hurt someone? I’ve taken to wearing gloves all the time, but fear it’s only a temporary solution . . .
Liam shut the journal, unable to read more. Not only had he broken Elsa’s heart, but he hadn’t been there to help her during a difficult time. And the timing of it all . . . did losing him have something to do with her ice powers? Liam chuckled wryly at himself as he ran a hand through his hair. You think awfully highly of yourself, don’t you, Captain Jones? As if he were capable of rattling a strong, confident woman like Elsa. And yet . . . he hadn’t expected the type of heartbreak she had written of in her journal. Hadn’t expected her to await his letters with such expectation. He had never felt worthy of her, and it seems that belief became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
***********************************************************
Killian had imagined seeing Emma Swan again a million times in his dreams, but in none of them did she slap him across the face. His cheek tingled with the impact, and as he rubbed the redness away, he wondered if the lingering heat was a little taste of her powers.
“You always were a feisty lass,” Killian sassed, swiping his tongue across his lower lip.
Henry glared at him, giving him a slight jab in the ribs. “You’re not helping,” he hissed, “be a gentleman.”
Children are notoriously loud at whispering, so it wasn’t as if Emma hadn’t heard her son. Killian winked at her as he took her hand and lifted it to his lips.
“I’m always a gentleman,” he told her before pressing a lingering kiss there.
Emma snatched her hand away. “It’s not you,” she told him quickly, “I . . . uh . . . don’t want to hurt you.”
Killian arched a brow. “Your slap in greeting said otherwise.”
Emma rolled her eyes in that endearing way he remembered so fondly. “You deserved it, but a slap is one thing. Burning you is another.”
Killian looked at Emma’s clenched fists, which were glowing a reddish orange. Elsa snatched one of them, and Emma let out a shudder.
“It’s fading even more quickly,” Emma said with alarm.
“You need to make haste to Dread Mountain.”
Killian whirled around, drawing his cutlass in one smooth motion, his other arm reaching out instinctively for Henry and the princesses. There before the entrance to the cabin was a man who didn’t look any older than Killian, with a handsome face and a strong, slender build.
“It’s alright,” Emma said, putting a gentle hand to Killian’s bicep, “it’s Merlin, the sorcerer.”
Killian reluctantly lowered his weapon, hating the feeling of jealousy that rose up within him. It was one thing for the girls to be staying in this hovel with a wizened man with a long white beard, it was quite another for them to be here alone with . . . him.
“Dread Mountain is not a destination for the faint of heart,” Killian said tentatively, still suspicious of the man.
“I agree,” Merlin said pleasantly with a serene expression, “but the Quapah of Dread Mountain are the only ones who know the art of mixing elements.”
“The Quapah!?” Killian exclaimed. “Are you insane? They may kill us on sight! They’ve dabbled in magical arts to the point they’re no more than wraiths.”
“If Emma and Elsa do not seek instruction on how to mix fire and ice, they will each be consumed,” Merlin said, his eyes flashing with intensity.
“Consumed!” Henry cried out, throwing his arms around Emma.
Jade eyes bore into Killian’s, and his heart sank. It seemed like a suicide mission, but if they did nothing, Emma would surely die.
“The Brothers Jones offer the crown princesses their ship, their loyalty, and their protection for the remainder of this dangerous quest,” Killian vowed.
“Even your brother?” Elsa asked, an edge to her voice.
Killian’s eyes widened at the miniature blizzard that ghosted around Elsa’s frame. He swallowed nervously. “I speak for him as well. We trust one another explicitly.”
At least, he hoped so.
*************************************************
“How long were you going to try and ignore me?”
Liam spun around at the sound of that soft, calm voice that had haunted his dreams. And there Elsa stood, in the doorway of his own quarters. She had changed much since he’d seen her last. Her hair was a lighter shade of blonde, with white streaks. Her freckles had faded, her complexion a bit paler, like alabaster. He wondered if these slight changes were because of her magic. Her hands were clasped in front of her, her shoulders still thrown back in that confident regal manner. She looked more sensual too than he remembered, clad in a thin blue gown studded with rhinestones, a gossamer cape about her shoulders. The scooped neckline showed off enough cleavage to cause a physical reaction that he struggled to tamp down. Her long, elegant neck was tantalizing too, and he imagined that her skin was still as soft as rose petals.
She arched one elegant brow. “Are you just going to stand there staring at me?”
He swiped at his lower lip nervously. “You - you used to be so soft-spoken.” He winced. It sounded as if he were insulting her. You really thought that was a good line to open with?
“Heartbreak makes a person bolder I suppose,” she told him dryly.
He swallowed, and ran a shaky hand across his sweaty brow. “I’m . . . I’m an idiot, Elsa, that’s all I can say.”
“At least we agree on that.”
He sensed no humor whatsoever in her words. She moved with poise into his chambers, almost as if she were floating. She definitely had the whole “intimidating ice queen” thing down. Liam resisted the urge to take a step back.
“I thought you and your sister would be most comfortable here in the captain’s quarters,” Liam said, attempting a business-like air with a tilt of his chin.
She ignored him, reaching around to his desk. Her breasts brushed against his upper arm, and he couldn’t stop the shudder that ran through him. When Elsa pulled back, she had a slim leather volume in her hand.
“Who gave you this?” she snapped, her light blue eyes sparking with anger.
“Your sister,” Liam told her simply, “she wanted me to understand -”
“Understand what? My heartbreak?”
“Yes,” he said softly, “and I’m glad I read it. Elsa, I’m so sorry. I owed you an explanation.”
“Then why didn’t you give me one?”
Liam ran both hands through his hair, making the curls stand up crazily. “You and I . . . it was a crazy dream from the beginning. But when I mutinied? I killed it completely. I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t -”
“Think I would understand?” Elsa finished for him, her voice going soft.
His eyes searched hers, and he realized his love for her had never gone away. She hadn’t backed up after taking her journal from his desk, and if he just leaned forward an inch, his lips would brush hers.
“No, I suppose I didn’t,” he admitted, “especially since I could scarcely understand it myself.”
“King George planned on using Dreamshade as a weapon of genocide. How could I not understand?”
Liam blinked, unable to hope that he had heard her correctly. She lowered her gaze, a blush staining her cheeks.
“Unless . . . it was really about getting what you wanted from me. Never really loving me.”
Her words were like a dagger to his heart. “God no, Elsa!” he cried. “I loved you, body and soul, I – I still . . . “
“You still what?” she whispered.
She was closer still. So close, and her lips so pink and inviting . . .
Liam lowered his head, his nose brushing hers, and Elsa’s breath hitched. Their lips hovered close, their breaths mingling into frost. Wait . . . why was their frost? Why was he suddenly so cold?
Elsa gasped and stumbled away. He groaned at the loss of her nearness, so disoriented he didn’t understand her retreat.
Until he saw the icicles hanging from the ceiling of his quarters.
*****************************************************
Killian nervously swiped a few items from the crate in the corner of his quarters, stuffing them into a canvas sack that hung from his shoulder. Emma stood just behind him, her presence filling up the space so he could scarcely breathe.
“Want to sweep the room for all evidence of your conquests?” she snapped.
Killian swung towards her, eyes ablaze. “That’s rather ironic, coming from you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard things around the docks.”
Killian marched angrily into her personal space. “A man has to keep up appearances, I’m a pirate!” He snarled at her, curling his lip and almost relishing in the slight look of hurt in her eyes. He deflated quickly, however, her hurt not something he truly desired. “But really, there have only been a small few to try and numb the pain. The pain you caused. But I can’t let the world know how Princess Emma broke my heart because she refused to write back when I was just a boy.”
By the end of his short speech, he had averted his eyes, scanning the room for any belongings he might have missed.
“It's not what you think!” Emma cried out, and when he turned back to face her, both her fists were clenched. He was relieved to see no hint of red fire.
“You mean you didn’t go and have a child with someone else only a year after I left?”
Emma’s face crumpled, and Killian felt as if a dagger had been thrust into his chest. Feeling remorseful, he reached out a hand, but Emma backed up with a shake of her head.
“Just let me speak,” she pleaded, and he acquiesced with a nod of his head. “The Dark One – his son saw me one day when I was at the market. He fancied himself in love with me.”
Killian’s brow creased. ”Rumplestiltskin has a son?”
Emma nodded. “He kept him very sheltered, killed anyone who wouldn’t give the boy what he wanted, threatened those who didn’t swear his existence to secrecy. Until he met me.”
She twisted her hands nervously as she told her tale. “Baelfire - that was his name – was sick with supposed love for me, couldn’t let go of the idea of having me. So the Dark One came to my parents with his demand – I would wed his son, or Misthaven would be reduced to ash.”
Killian felt white hot anger rise up within him. Every fiber within him wanted to rail, throw something, or at least wrap his arms around this strong woman who had obviously been through so much. Instead, his shaky limbs unable to hold him, he collapsed onto the edge of the room’s only cot.
Emma continued, ignoring his reaction. “How could I risk the Dark One’s wrath upon my kingdom? You'd barely set sail. My mother talked to me, knew I loved you, asked if we’d written. You likely know my parents’ story. They always wanted true love for me. My mother begged me to let them try to find another way. But what could I do?”
Emma sank to the bed next to him, yet still far enough away that they didn’t touch. “The engagement was quick, so was the wedding, and there was no announcement, no official declaration that I had wed at all. Yet . . . the Dark One demanded an heir right away. So . . . I did what was required of me.”
Killian’s heart felt like it had stopped beating for a moment, as he looked at her profile. She had turned her head away, as if too ashamed to meet his gaze.
“Did he hurt you?” Killian’s voice was hoarse.
Emma’s eyes closed tightly. “No, it . . . wasn’t what I’d always dreamed of, but he didn’t hurt me. Bae was selfish and shallow, but not cruel.”
Killian’s jaw clenched, and he fought back the tears behind his eyes. He knew he had to stay calm while she told her tale, but he raged inside. This absolute angel beside him deserved to be worshipped, deserved to have a person who would love her enough to put her needs before his own. She didn’t deserve to be used in such a base and vile way.
“Emma,” he finally asked, voice soft and gentle, “what happened to him?”
Emma looked at her hands, face coloring with shame. “When I first found out I was with child, he was thrilled, even more so when my grandmother's old pendant showed it was a boy. But as the time of my confinement neared, he began to withdraw. After a time, it became clear. My changing body disgusted him.”
Killian’s jaw clenched, though he held his tongue. This man was the lowest scum, in his opinion. How could he have held his bride in such contempt for bearing his son? It was unfathomable. Even worse was the look of shame and embarrassment on Emma’s face right now. He longed to gather her close, to assure her that if he had the infinite blessing to create life with her, he would see it as nothing short of miraculous and overwhelmingly beautiful.
“When Henry was born, Baelfire showed no interest in him. Didn't want to hold him or even look at him. He was never around, really. He started coming home later and later in the evenings. He said that if he was my dirty little secret, nothing was stopping him from passing his time in the taverns.”
Emma took a long shuddering breath, and finally Killian could stand it no longer. He took her nearest hand in his. She gave him a trembling smile as he rubbed his thumb over her knuckles.
“Then, when Henry was about four months old, I heard a noise in Baelfire’s private chamber, and I . . . I caught him in the act with one of my chamber maids. The woman, she ran off in shame, but Bae and I argued. My magic had been flaring on and off. I kept brushing it off, thinking I was imagining things. But – I was so angry, I lost control.”
Emma crumpled in on herself, and Killian wrapped his arms around her.
“The- the fire, it engulfed the room,” Emma gasped out as tears wet Killian’s shirt sleeve, “and I fled with the baby. Everyone assumed it was an accident, and I didn’t correct them. The accident and Henry’s existence where the only things that kept the Dark One from turning on the kingdom in his grief. Anyway, my magic didn’t flare again until a few months ago.”
“With Henry?”
“Yes. A skittish horse broke free from the stable hands. It was coming right for him, so I grabbed Henry and yanked him out of the way. There were burn marks in the shape of my hands.”
Emma’s silent tears turned to sobs, and she turned in Killian’s embrace. HIs heart broke over her weeping, but the feel of her in his arms was heaven. He whispered words of comfort against her hair and rubbed her back. A warmth spread across his chest. At first he thought it was simply his body’s physical reaction to her nearness after so many years, but then the warmth grew hotter, and he realized it was coming from where Emma’s palms rested. She gasped and jerked away. Her eyes wide and frantic, she scrambled from the bed, and backed out of the room, almost falling as she stumbled.
“I’m so sorry!”
“Emma -”
“No! Stay back!” she cried, then she fled from him, calling out for Elsa.
Killian sagged back down onto his bed, rattled from the flare of Emma’s magic, but more from the story she had told. The tragedy of it, the difficulties she had been through, overwhelmed him, and his head collapsed into his hands. He knew now why she had stopped writing him, and the person that it had hurt the most was Emma herself.
*****************************************************
Killian was supposed to be plotting their course, but he kept fumbling the sextant in his hands. If his gaze kept being pulled to Emma, he would end up dropping it completely. She was a vision, standing at the rail, her hair blowing in the ocean breeze. He sighed, and lowered his gaze back to the maps in front of him. She had avoided him since the moment they had shared in his quarters, spending the majority of her time with the other ladies and her son. When Henry wasn’t busy as the ship’s junior seaman, that is. She would sometimes smile fondly at him over Henry’s enthusiasm, and those brief moments were like a balm to Killian’s heart.
On the upper deck, Liam was speaking with Elsa, his smile bright as his hands gestured out to sea. The blonde laughed delicately, slender fingers pressed to her lips. Her reaction made his brother beam, his chest puffing up. Killian was equal parts jealous and happy for his brother. Elsa was still hesitant, even flinching away anytime Liam tried to touch her, but it was clear she was simply afraid of hurting him. Emotionally, the pair of them seemed to be picking up where they left off.
If only Emma would give him the same chance. She was no longer the open, exuberant princess she had been in their youth. She was still feisty and obviously willing to fight for her kingdom and her son. As for herself, however, she was guarded and distant. Killian longed to tear down her walls, but he knew he would have to do it slowly, brick by brick.
As Killian lowered his head back to his task, he didn’t see Emma turn her eyes away from the sea and land upon him. A wistful smile filled her face as she watched Killian work, the fingers of his left hand worrying at his chin, his thumb running across his lower lip. She remembered well what his kisses felt like, how they made her feel out of control and completely safe simultaneously. But as a boy of seventeen, he had been clean shaven. She wondered what that scruff he now sported would feel like against her chin, her cheeks, and . . . other places. She felt a blush stain her cheeks, and she quickly looked away. She took long, slow breaths to calm her suddenly racing heart. The heat sparking between her fingertips slowly drained away as her blood cooled. She saw Killian’s hurt, wondering why Emma ignored him while Elsa and Liam enjoyed one another’s platonic company. He had no idea the affect he still had on her, and with her magic, she was a danger to everyone on board more so than Elsa. Fire wasn’t exactly a friend to a wooden pirate ship.
Suddenly, there was a cloud of red smoke, and when it cleared, Emma had to bite back a scream. Standing on the deck of the Jolly Roger was the Dark One himself. As shouts went up from the crew, Emma looked around frantically for her son, and when she found him sitting on a barrel mending a sail, she yanked him up and pulled him close, shielding him from his grandfather.
“Rumplestiltskin,” Killian bit out as he drew his cutlass, “we meet at last, snake.” He sneered, looking the reptilian man up and down. “Or should I call you crocodile?”
Emma’s heart pounded in her chest as she whispered Killian’s name in warning, pulling Henry along as she shuffled close to her former flame. She understood his anger, but he had no idea what the imp was capable of.
The Dark One gave the pirate a dismissive glance before pointing one of his claws at Emma. She surreptitiously pushed Henry behind her.
“You, princess, did not fulfill our deal.”
“Your son wanted me, and he had me. I even bore him a son. I’d say I fulfilled it just fine.”
Rumple’s eyes flashed bright red. “By treating my son like the royal family’s dirty secret? And don’t think I haven’t put two and two together about the supposed accident that killed him. Not since the truth about you came out.”
“You never specified what kind of marriage.” Despite her fear, Emma arched a brow. “Perhaps you should have read the fine print.”
Killian was equal parts aroused and nervous by his Emma’s bold sass.
“No, my dear,” the Dark One hissed, practically skipping across the deck. Liam moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with his brother. Elsa eased closer to Emma, extending her hand as subtly as possible towards Emma’s in case she needed it. “I think it’s you who failed to read the fine print. The boy, in the event of my son’s demise, is mine!”
Before anyone had time to react to Rumple’s words, he had transported Henry to his side. Everyone cried out. Emma choked on sudden tears at the look of terror on her son’s face.
“No, please!” she begged. “You haven’t cared a thing about him for eight years. Why would you want him now?”
Killian’s fingers itched around the hilt of his cutlass. He could feel the tension radiating from his brother beside him. Looking around, he saw the entire crew had encircled their unwanted visitor with swords and pistols drawn. Liam’s raised hand stayed them. They couldn’t risk Henry. But what if the Dark One suddenly disappeared, taking the boy with him?
“Well,” Rumple cackled, “for one, these talents of yours intrigue me, and I like to have a bargaining chip. For another, he’s at a more manageable age, and it’s high time I had another boy to groom.”
With that, as they all cried out in horror, the Dark One plunged his hand inside Henry’s chest. The boy’s mouth opened wide in a silent scream. Rumple tugged, yanking Henry’s heart from his chest.
“Please!” Emma sobbed, and she could feel the fire lighting up her veins. Part of her wanted to give in to it, but she was too afraid of hurting her son. “Don’t hurt him!”
“Hurt him? Now, why would I want to do that when I can control him?” The reptilian man cackled again, bringing Henry’s heart up to his lips. “Bow and pledge your loyalty to me, young prince.”
“I pledge my loyalty,” Henry repeated in a monotone, lowering his knees before the Dark One.
The grimace of restrained anger on Henry’s face made Killian’s blood boil. His mind was transported to days of whips and fists forcing him to his own knees. With Henry’s lowered position, Killian saw an opening and with a shout he lunged forward, bringing the hilt of his sword down on the Dark One’s wrist, sending Henry’s heart falling from his grasp. In one fluid motion, Killian scooped it up in his left hand.
“Give it back, pirate!” Rumplestiltskin screamed in rage.
Killian clicked his tongue, shaking his head in mockery. “Uh, uh, uh, I’m disinclined to acquiesce to your request, crocodile.”
“Then I’ll just take it,” he hissed.
Before Killian could register anything, his cutlass had been transported to Rumple’s scaly hand. The blade came down on the wrist that held Henry’s heart, and both the red glowing organ and Killian’s left hand hit the deck. For a heartbeat, Killian couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing. Then the pain hit him in an overwhelming, blinding wave as his blood spilled upon the deck. Several voices were screaming his name, but all Killian could do was crumple to his knees as he cradled his arm to his chest. Over his head, waves of ice and fire collided together, hitting the Dark One in the chest. Liam rushed to snatch Henry’s heart as the Dark One rose back to his feet.
“No one’s magic is a match for mine!”
“Leave them alone!” another voice rent the air.
Emma, panting from exertion and fear, lifted her head to see Anna there, Kristoff at her side. They were both slightly disheveled, and Kristoff’s shirt was buttoned wrong, and under any other circumstances, it would have been funny to realize where they had disappeared to. Anna held a dagger in her shaking hands, pointing it at Rumplestiltskin. Emma was surprised when the imp’s eyes widened in fear. Anna wasn’t exactly intimidating, and wherever she had found that dagger, it couldn’t possibly be a match for his dark magic.
“Where did you get that?”
“It’s yours,” Anna taunted, a trembling half smile lifting the corner of her mouth, “fell out of your coat when my sister blasted you.”
Rumple’s eyes narrowed, and he cackled. “You are nothing, little girl.” He reached for Henry.
“Don’t touch him!” Anna screamed, and to everyone’s shock, Rumple snatched his hand back. “Step back!”
Once again, the Dark One did what Anna commanded. The red head tilted her head, her forehead creased in thought.
“Wait a second. You’re staying away from him just because I told you to?’
It was the barest of glances, but Emma noticed Rumplestiltskin’s eyes flick to the dagger in Anna’s hands. She wondered if Anna had noticed it as well. The smile that lifted the girl’s face said that she did.
“I get it,” she smirked, waving the dagger around, “as long as I’m holding this wavy knife, you have to do whatever I say. Is that why your name’s on it?”
The Dark One scowled and then stomped his foot like a petulant child. “Yes.”
Killian collapsed onto his side, curling in on himself with cries of pain. Emma fell to her knees beside him, her still red-hot hands hovering over him as tears streamed down her face. Anna’s gaze flickered to the two of them.
“Then heal him,” she commanded.
Rumplestiltskin’s smile made Emma’s skin crawl. “No can do, little princess. Magic has rules, and one of them is that magic can’t restore what magic has taken. I took his hand, it’s gone.”
He did a merry little, slightly demented dance as he clapped his hands. It made Emma want to set him on fire.
“Then at least save his life!” Emma screamed.
She cursed herself inwardly. All she wanted to do was gather Killian close, comfort him, but the emotions surging through her had her hands glowing like hot coals. Elsa seemed to sense her distress, and sank to her knees next to her, taking both of her hands in hers.
“You heard her!” Anna screamed. “Save him!”
The Dark One gave an exaggerated eye roll. “Fine.”
Then he pointed a lazy finger at Killian, who still writhed in pain. A dark smoke of magic enveloped him, and when it cleared, the wound had closed and the bleeding had stopped. His body slumped in Emma’s arms, and she wiped at his sweaty brow with her fingertips. If there hadn’t been an audience, she would have pressed a kiss there in relief.
“Now,” Anna said, her voice shaking as much as her hands, “leave this ship and never come back – oh! And you have to stay away from Arendelle and Misthaven for the rest of eternity. That’s all, now go.”
The Dark One raged, his eyes almost flashing fire. “Don’t think this is over! I’ve gotten that dagger away from forces stronger than you! I will again! I -’
He was cut off as the pull of the dagger’s command became too much, and he disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Anna’s trembling arms fell to her sides, the dagger clattering to the deck. She sagged in Kristoff’s arms.
“You were amazing, babe!” he gushed, peppering her face with kisses. She turned and put her arms around his neck, melting into his embrace as the adrenaline wore off.
Emma pulled Killian’s head into her lap, running her fingers through his hair. Tears still streamed down her face. He was still unconscious, and his pulse was weak.
“Will he be okay?” Henry whispered.
Liam’s face was grim, his voice choked with emotion when he answered. “The Dark One may have healed his wound, but his body’s still in shock.” Captain Jones’s gaze landed on the pools of his brother’s blood. When he saw the severed hand, he shuddered and looked away.
#cs ff#cs enchanted forest au#fandom birthday playlist#for katie-dub#this girl ain't going anywhere#brothers jones
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Full Moon Life
an Akusai/Leaisa playlist from Isa’s POV
***Click Read More for associated fic***
We Are Golden - Mika
“Teenage dreams in a teenage circus
Running around like a clown on purpose
Who gives a damn about the family you come from?
No giving up when you’re young and you want some.”
Isa and Lea were two of many kids in Radiant Garden, spending their days together lazing around the town square. Their minds full of questions, their hearts full of potential. When Isa was morose, Lea was always there to cheer him up. When Lea struggled with school work, Isa would help him through. They were close... Isa hoped they’d be closer than friends someday. They kissed once, and it was good. Anything could happen.
“Now I'm sitting alone,I'm finally looking around
Left here on my own, I'm gonna hurt myself
Maybe losing my mind,I'm still wondering why
Had to let the world let it bleed me dry”
A Forest - The Cure
“Come closer and see, See into the trees
Find the girl if you can.
Come closer and see, See into the dark
Just follow your eyes, Just follow your eyes.”
The house on the edge of town was a strange place. Nobody knew what happened there, but everyone kept away. One day, just for fun, Isa and Lea climbed the crumbling walls and broke into the house. In a room full of strange machines, the two of them made friends with a girl. She seemed to be stuck there, she wanted to leave. The boys were caught and tossed out, but they made plans and broke into the house again. This time, she was gone... and they were caught too. Isa never forgot her. Yet, he never saw her again.
“The girl was never there
It's always the same
I'm running towards nothing
Again and again and again and again”
Home - Mae
“But now I'm fighting in the thick of it,
And feeling so alone
I take a chance, just one more chance
To get me anywhere”
They were settling down into a routine as apprentices to Ansem the Wise when suddenly, everything changed. One evening, they arrived at the old house after school and Ansem the Wise was gone. His successor, a young man with golden eyes and a dangerous smile, gave a short, confusing explanation about what would happen to them all going forward. Isa was as smart as any of the adults in the room, but... Death? He didn’t understand. He glanced out the window at the full moon and knew he needed to go. He grabbed Lea’s hand and tried to run, but Lea tripped over a chair and fell. “Get out, Isa!” Lea had screamed, but Isa didn’t let go of him for a second. Isa’s fingers desperately grabbed the door handle. He had one second to realise the door was locked before Xehanort bore down upon him. Everyone in the house died... And rose again as Nobodies.
“And now I'm running, I'm moving too fast
So here we go (ohh)
And where I'm headed to, it's nobody's guess
So here we go (ohh)”
Give Me It - The Cure
“Get away from me
Get your fingers out of my face
This room's so hot, This room's so hot
I break the walls”
Saix. Isa’s new name. Xemnas had renamed him along with the others the previous day, when they had all risen again. Anyway, Saix stood in the strange, impossible-feeling space at the top of the sterile white building where they had all been taken. Xemnas stood before him, a displeased expression on his face; he had asked for Lea to come, calling him by his new name, Axel. Yet, here was Saix, the smarter of the two. “Saix. Where is Axel?” he asked.
A picture of Lea’s face, red from crying, filled Isa’s mind. Lea’s voice had whispered, “He’s gonna get rid of me, like that girl.” His hands on Isa’s shoulders shook like leaves, yet his fingers had pressed in so hard they hurt. Isa knew then what he had to do to keep Lea safe... and perhaps to find their hearts. Maybe even their lost friend.
“I’d make a better test subject than him,” said Isa - no, Saix. “I’m smarter. I’d be able to help you more. You don’t want a meathead for a vessel. He doesn’t understand. He can be useful in other ways.”
Xemnas nodded. “I’m surprised you understand what a vessel is. Very well, if you volunteer...” He walked up to the boy, pulling a knife from his robes. “Close your eyes.”
Saix stood, resolute. Though he has been assured he could no longer feel, he was sure he was doing the right thing.
Then, the pain hit and his mind twisted, and he suddenly, horribly, knew what being a vessel meant. Turns out, he hadn’t truly understood at all.
“Give me it give me it give me it
Make me blind
One step back and one step down
And slip the needles in my side.”
Lay Down - Caravan Palace
“I get sick and I can't get to heaven
Oh, my soul is bound, can't be
And I get sick and I can't get to heaven
Oh, my soul is bound for hell”
Saix woke up, and he knew who he was. He also knew what was in him. “You’re awake!” shouted a familiar voice. Lea? No. Axel’s hand was in his. Saix turned his face to look at Axel and saw the tear drops he had drawn on his face before going to see Xemnas were still easily visible. “What happened?” Axel asked. “He cut your face, Isa. What did he do to you?”
Isa sat up carefully. His face was on fire, but the worst pain was a more abstract one. Before, he had felt an absence inside. They had all seemingly lost something when they died - Their hearts, Xemnas had said. But now, Saix could feel that void was partially full. Full of what? Full of -
He doubled over in pain, clutching his chest. Axel leapt to his feet shouting, but Saix could not hear him over the pain. What had been done to him? What was inside him? He needed to be alone. “I’ll be fine,” he hissed between gritted teeth. “Go get Xemnas, Axel.”
Despite the use of his new name, Axel reacted instantly and ran from the room, shouting “Don’t die before I get back!” over his shoulder.
In the past, Isa would have called “Already dead!” after Lea. But Saix was in too much pain and needed to think. Xemnas owed him an explanation. What would he ask?
“Can't be nobody for to lay down
Fall on my knees and begin
Can't be nobody for to turn me out”
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
“When routine bites hard, And ambitions are low
And resentment rides high, But emotions won't grow
And we're changing our ways, Taking different roads
Love, love will tear us apart again”
Over the years, as puberty continued and finished, Saix learned at Xemnas’s right hand. He saw Axel less and less as the flame-haired boy trained in other areas, becoming a truly formidable fighter. It would have hurt Isa to not spend time with Lea, but not having true feelings made things easier for Saix. As Xemnas relied on him more, he felt stronger. He knew he’d be able to eventually find out where to find that girl... He could barely remember her face, but she had become a project to him, and Saix ALWAYS completed his projects.
For a few years, every night he made sure to draw the inverted triangles under Axel’s eyes for him. One night, Axel sat up at the end of it all and mumbled something about “never crying again” before kissing Saix. Saix knew he couldn’t really feel, but what was left of Isa in him was desperate to kiss more.
The triangles were fresh on Axel’s face, but Saix kissed them off that night even though part of his mind told him he shouldn’t, that it wouldn’t end well, that things had changed too much for this to be a good idea now. Given the chance to kiss Lea, Isa would choose it every time. Just hearing Axel moan “Isa” gave Saix a physical thrill like nothing else could.
“Love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again”
Cut - The Cure
“If only you'd never speak to me the way that you do
If only you'd never speak like that, it's like listening to
A breaking heart, A falling sky
Fire go out and friendship die.
I wish you felt the way that I still do.”
Their first time was desperate, inevitable, and awkward. Around a week later, they had gotten better at it. They had a few good years of hard work every day in their separate spheres and nights together before things changed.
Saix thought that Axel, with his incredible prowess and perceived loyalty, would be the perfect guardian to Roxas, the newest member of Organization 13. For the same reason, he sent Axel to Castle Oblivion to take care of an internal dispute among the Organization’s members. Axel wouldn’t question, Axel wouldn’t question - Until he did.
Castle Oblivion was a disaster. Over a few weeks, Saix found their situation changed. Axel stopped seeking him out and began to complain in a serious way about Saix entering his room. Saix tried to give him space, but that only seemed to make things worse. Soon, they were exchanging curt words in hallways and only visiting each other when physically desperate.
And all that time he wasn’t spending with Saix any more? Axel spent it with Roxas and that replica keyblade wielder Vexen made and named Xion. Saix would hear their laughter down hallways and from the common areas. He grew colder still, throwing himself into his work for Xemnas. It didn’t matter. He had things to do. Did Axel look hurt when Saix snapped at him or told him off? Good. Familiarity could only lead to more pain now. There would be time to fix things later. Now, with the keyblade wielders around, there was nothing but work to do.
“If only you'd never look at me,The way that you do
If only you'd never look like that when I look at you
I see face like stone, Eyes of ice
Mouth so sweetly telling lies,
I wish you felt the way that I still do.”
Throat Full of Glass - Combichrist
“Like a disease, I'm always in the wrong
And now the numbness wearing off
Can't stand the pain.
I get in line, I always do”
He’d never had such a lapse of judgement. If he’d had feelings, he’d be kicking himself. Wait - why would he be guilty of anything? Had he pushed Xion to run away to Castle Oblivion? No. Had he pushed Roxas to leave? No. Had he chased Axel away? Of course not.
The three of them were gone, but had any of this ruined Xemnas’s plans? Not even! If anything, things were going better now the real keyblade wielder was back in action. That kid was easier to control than Roxas ever was. Thank goodness Roxas was gone. Saix knew he was doing a good job. Xemnas was happy. Kingdom Hearts was growing. Soon, it would be complete. And when it was complete... Nothing would matter any more, and Saix would be ready with Lunatic to put that keyblade wielder away for good. Roxas or Sora, it didn’t matter. That kid was trouble, and soon all troubles would be over.
“Nothing left to break my rivals
In a thousand pieces, million reasons
Why should I keep myself away?”
Pictures of You - The Cure
“Remembering you fallen into my arms,
Crying for the death of your heart
You were stone white, so delicate, lost in the cold
You were always so lost in the dark”
Saix never thought a keyblade would feel the way it did. It cut into his very essence, into his being, but pain? Where was the pain?
Isa would be screaming, but Isa was long gone. Soon, Saix would be gone too. As he tried desperately to hold his fading body up, all there was was numbness. Dying like this? He’d rather die like the first time, running with Lea’s hand in his own.
Lea? Where was Lea? Kingdom Hearts shone brightly overhead. The words tumbled from his lips. “Where is my heart?” His hand was empty as he crumpled to the ground and faded into nothing.
“There was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more
Than to feel you deep in my heart.
There was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more
Than to never feel the breaking apart
All my pictures of you”
Night/Day - Mae
“There are things about me I just can't ignore
I know I want to change when I see that door
On the other side, daylight decides there will be war with sleeping in
Oh, I know there'll be no more sleeping in, yeah”
Isa gained consciousness. He quickly opened his eyes and looked around himself. He was back in the house on the edge of Radiant Garden. The room was a mess of overturned furniture. The bodies of many people lay around him; it was the other people who had worked here, who had been part of Organization 13. And if they were here...
Lea! Lea’s body lay prone nearby. Isa dragged himself to Lea, resting his head on his chest. He breathed a sigh of relief; he could hear Lea’s heart beating. Good, he was alive. Perhaps he could drag the taller man out to safety. Surely he could be happy to see... Wait. No. In horror, Isa recoiled from Lea, a wave of disgust hitting him. What had he done? Isa was painfully aware of what Saix - no, he himself, had done. How would Lea forgive him for all that?
Then, footsteps. Braig. Isa was pulled to his feet. “You’re coming with me,” said the taller, stronger man. “Sorry, but Xemnas needs his vessels.”
For a moment, Isa felt desperation and the will to fight rise in him.Then, a cold anger descended. It was a comfortable feeling; Isa recognized it as how Saix had felt for a very long time. Saix had felt? Well, he must have. Anyway, this feeling was familiar. He almost felt himself smile. He could feel a plan beginning to stir in his mind. If he played his cards right, he could perhaps swing this messy situation to his advantage. Saix... Isa... Perhaps there wasn’t that much difference after all. And if there wasn’t, what was losing his heart once more going to mean as long as he could make things right? “Unhand me,” he said to Braig, his voice calm and icy as usual. “I understand, I’ll go with you. Let’s go before these useless ones wake up.”
Inside, he began to think hard.
“I've been putting off this purification
A rebirth and regeneration inside of me
And I've been saying no for far too long
Even though something brand new is coming out of me.”
Everything + Where there is Light - VNV Nation
“Don't tell me it's the end of everything
It always seems the darkest before the light
So fragile and breaking apart
Finding solace in the knowledge of what's right
All that's holy, sacred and divine
Guarding over all within its sight”
Guardian... That was what Lea apparently wanted to be now. Saix, or Isa, whatever, was amused. Of course Lea would want to be a keyblade wielder. Isa felt Lea would probably be quite good at it.
While Lea was busy out there, Isa was hard at work in the shadows. He and Vexen, whom he had re-recruited, brought the puppet Xion back to life together. Then, Vexen began to work on a replica body for Roxas while Isa trained the puppet - kindly, at that. This time, Lea wasn’t an obstacle between them, since both he and the puppet were working for the same end. In getting to know her, he came to think of her of a person in her own right.
They worked very hard together, since Isa knew Lea was working hard too and the two of them would have to be better fighters than Lea to succeed. Finally, Isa found himself around the corner of the clock tower, where he knew Lea was. Xion had encouraged him to see Lea once before the final outcome of all their work was decided; what would he say? A long speech he was composing in his head was interrupted when Lea sighed deeply and mumbled to himself, causing Isa to notice the extra ice creams in his hand. It had been a long time since Isa had had ice cream.
“Can you see the light
As far as the eyes can see
From this point above the world
Where mortals dare their destiny
As it radiates
May I witness open-eyed
Let me remain where there is light”
Gilgamesh - Gypsy and the Cat
“I feel the light, it cuts my face,
I'm staring at the wall
It won't be long til' we embrace,
I'm knocking on your wall”
Isa welcomed the feeling of the keyblade plunging into his body. It cut into him and he fell with a grunt. The feeling of this existence fading was as unpleasant as it had been the first time, but when he looked up at Lea’s face, he felt calm. He didn’t know that Xion had started to tear up and that Roxas only half-understood what had happened, all he could do was look up at Lea and feel glad that this time, he’d not die alone or scared with Lea’s hand in his. This time Lea’s arms were both wrapped around him. His head leaned against Lea’s chest. He could smell Lea’s sweat, feel the warmth of his body, hear his heart pounding in his chest. Perhaps everything wasn’t forgiven yet, but it would be soon. Time to let go.
“See you, Isa.”
“See you, Lea.”
“If I die, please don't cry
I'll be there, by your side
If I die, please don't cry
I'll be there, inside your arms”
The Sun and Moon - Mae
“Wasted time...
I cannot say that I was ready for this, but
When worlds collide,
And all that I have is all that I want,
The words seem to flow and the thoughts, they keep running,
And all that I have is yours;
All that I am is yours.”
Isa looked out over the sea. “Well, we’re going to need a new frisbee,” he said.
Lea ruffled Ventus’s hair. “You have a throwing arm and a half on you, buddy,” he said, laughing. “Better than mine, haha. Hey, why don’t you go catch up with the others and see how the barbecue is going?”
As Ventus ran off to where Xion and Roxas were trying to light a barbecue, Lea wandered over to Isa and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Are you ok?” he asked.
“Never been better,” replied Isa. He pulled the frisbee out of his coat and tossed it aside. “But I wanted a moment with you.”
Lea grinned at him, stepping to face him. “Hey! That was pretty sneaky,” he scolded gently.
Isa smiled back. “You know what they say. Once a villain...”
He didn’t finish his sentence before Lea’s mouth found his. Isa’s eyes closed and the words slipped away. This was all he had ever wanted. He was finally at peace.
“Painted skies...
I've seen so many that cannot compare to
Your ocean eyes.
The pictures you took that cover your room,
And it was just like the sun, but more like the moon --
A light that can reach it all --
So now I'm branded for taking the fall.
So when you say, "forever, "
Can't you see?...You've already captured me.”
#akusai#leaisa#kh3 spoilers#kingdom hearts#kh saix#kh axel#I have bad musical taste and haven't really made playlists before#but here we are#I'm interested to see what other playlists people make for these guys#mine#pls no bulli
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