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brighterdaysarebeforeus · 10 months

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[insert Gordon Ramsey meme] Finally, some original fucking content. (>.<) as stated before, future “Canon Divergence” tag in the making! Enjoy!

Tag list:

@hobiesgender @hadesdaughter2002 @lirulua

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

The resulting shock was more powerful than Miles had maybe intended. The punching bag exploded, yes, which was what he wanted. He dropped to the floor, grabbing onto it just in time to prevent himself from flying too far from the point of explosion. Prowler!Miles and Uncle Aaron weren’t as lucky; they both flew backwards, in opposite directions, and Miles didn’t give them a chance to recover.

Turning invisible, he jumped up through the top window, the one he remembered opening before, and crawled out. He went down, instead of up, and used the fire escape to cover himself from any potential prying eyes; he’d never worn the Prowler mask, himself, and this version of it was a little different from his uncle’s, but Miles didn’t want to run the risk of getting caught too soon by heat-seeking goggles or something built in. Granted, the fire escape wasn’t likely to do any protecting regarding that instance, but Miles felt better having some sort of cover between him and his Prowler self.

He took off running once he hit the ground, not entirely sure where he was going but knowing he had to get away. The city was silent, eerily so for Miles, who was used to some kind of commotion at all times; he stuck to the shadows for the most part, turning invisible when he needed to but mostly being grateful he decided to stick with a black suit instead of the (apparently traditional) red and blue. Made it easier to not be invisible but still hidden in the night.

It wasn’t until he came to a stop in front of a mostly abandon building that he’d even realized where he was going; in front of him was Visions Academy, abandoned now with broken windows and scrawled graffiti everywhere. Miles hesitated for a moment before crawling inside, finding his normal dorm room with ease and huddling in the closet of it. He felt sort of like a little kid, hiding in the closet, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it now.

A spasm tore through him, and Miles curled into himself even more. Peter B and the others hadn’t been kidding when they’d said the glitching was painful, and he suddenly wanted to go home. He wanted to go back to a year-and-a-half ago, when he’d first met everyone else, and all he had to do was keep the collider from turning on again, he just needed to get his friends home, he just needed a “leap of faith” and some training for his powers —

That inexplicably reminded him that Gwen and Peter B, at least, though that he shouldn’t exist as Spider-Man and then suddenly he didn’t want to be Spider-Man anymore, he didn’t want to travel dimensions, he didn’t even want to be an alpha anymore. Miles suddenly, fiercely, wanted to be seven again; with no expectations, no stress, his mother’s soothing omega scent surrounding him whenever he’d gotten upset. He understood, suddenly, why his parents had been acting the way they had been recently. He’d yelled at them, he remembered now, tried to act all big and adult when he was barely half the size of his dad, and Miles —

Miles just wanted his mom.

There was the sound of footsteps in his room. Miles felt his head shoot up even as he slid quietly backwards, pressing his palms to the wall and lifting himself up silently. Adrenaline was still racing through him, had not stopped since he booked it out of Miguel’s office in the Spider Society, and Miles could feel himself shaking from the overload of it. Still, he couldn’t get caught unawares; if Prowler!Miles and Uncle Aaron found him, he needed to fight. He climbed up the wall until he was on the ceiling, his eyes laser focused on the door and wishing he had his mask still. It was probably on the floor of Uncle Aaron’s loft, but it wasn’t really like Miles could go back and get it from him.

“Miles?” It came from the room, quiet and hissed, and Miles nearly dropped to the floor without a care in relief. He attached a web to the ceiling instead, dropping his feet first and sliding slowly to the ground. Once he was firmly planted, he threw the door open and nearly slammed right into Hobie, who’d had his own hand outstretched like he was planning on opening the door as well.

He grunted but wrapped his arms around him immediately, nuzzling into the top of Miles’s head soothingly and emitting a soothing scent that calmed Miles’s nerves almost instantly.

“Hey, now, hey.” Hobie said softly, “it’s all good, right, mate?”

“How did you find me?” Miles asked him, pushing himself away from Hobie before he started getting too comfortable; he didn’t go too far though, keeping himself within arm’s reach so that Hobie’s hands were on his shoulders now. Hobie tilted his head back, taking Miles in from head to toe and back up again. Miles felt heat rush to his face when Hobie’s eyes lingered a bit on the already fading bruises from Miguel, and tried to put more focus on the issue at hand. “I wasn’t sure anyone knew where I went.”

“Margo did.” Hobie said. He gestured with his head to the side, where the door was. “She said she’d noticed that it was sending you to Earth 42 instead of 1610, but by the time she’d noticed…” Miles blinked at him for a moment before it occurred to him; she’d noticed it when Miguel was on the platform, tearing into the barrier that was covering him. He pushed away fully now, staring at Hobie with narrowed eyes.

“Are you…are you here with them?” He asked, feeling more betrayed than he’d thought possible. Gwen, Peter B, and Peni’s betrayals had been a conglomeration of a lot of things at once, a lot of little things that built up over a short period of time, but this felt…somehow different. More impactful.

“Nah, mate, we’re here on our own terms.” Hobie lifted his head slightly, lifting his hand as he did so. Miles blinked at him, then looked down at what he was showing him, then blinked down at the watch he was being shown. It looked weird, not sleek and thin like Gwen’s was before. Miles grabbed at it thoughtlessly, twisting it over to see the other side. “Got one for you too, if you want it.”

“Will it stop the glitching?” Miles asked, and Hobie nodded; he’d barely had the chance to before Miles was shoving his arm out, eyes wide and pleading. “Please?”

Hobie laughed, reaching into a side pocket and pulling out a watch. It looked different from the one on his wrist, a different sort of chaotic, and Miles loved it nearly instantly. Hobie settled it on his wrist, fingers gentle as he turned it over and clicked it into place. Something in Miles clicked into place as well, staring up at Hobie while Hobie looked down at him. His heart began racing slightly, and heat crept into his face.

Hobie cleared his throat, stepping back a bit and gesturing with his head towards the door. His wicks swayed with the motion, Miles’s eyes following the movement briefly before meeting his eyes again.

“The others’re worried too.” He said. “Should probably meet with them.”

“Others?”

“Yeah, you know.” Hobie gestured with his head again. “Your friends. Gwendy. Peter from 616. Peni. The tall detective one.”

Miles turned slightly, seeing Gwen and Margo leaned into the doorway. Margo grinned brightly and waved at him, Gwen did the same but with a more nervous air than she did, and Miles waved back automatically. Then the rest of Hobie’s words sunk in and he turned to him quickly.

“How many of you came on this rescue mission??” Hobie laughed and threw his arm around Miles, turning them both towards the door. The motion turned him that faded pastel pink, and Miles was so relieved he almost missed the dark shadow darting by the window. He paused just long enough to turn back, wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him, when something slammed through the already broken window and into the room, rolling to a stop in the middle of it and standing tall.

It was the Prowler.

#punkflower #miles morales #hobie brown #towards the very end we get mentioned #gwen stacy #margo kess #miles g morales #miles 42 #a/b/o au #a/b/o dynamics #part 6

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caffeinatedcursedcutie · 10 months

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Fangs That Bite The Hand Part 1

Damien lifted up the trusty red cooler from the back passenger seat of his car, shutting the door behind him. He took a moment to take in the scene of the forest, interrupted by private officers and workers in protective gear, quite a few of them standing around as if waiting for something. With a wave to the crew that had followed him in the specialized blackout van, built to block out all sunlight and keep an undead safe on the way back to a hospital. The change of scenery from dull concrete and shining buildings was nice, greens and the scent of woodsy soil setting him into a decent mood. The cooler banged against below his knee in time with his steps, the bag hanging on his shoulders beating a similar beat, and he hummed under his breath. The wide concrete building was half overtaken by vegetation and moss, the giant hanger doors had been opened and a large team of people milled about like worker ants. One such ant, in an official looking uniform caught his attention, and quickly made his way to him. The portly man with a dark mustache lifted a hand flat to him, gesturing to him to stop.

“You, you’re…”

“Damien Mathews, SPN official officer.” His hand went to his belt and he flipped a badge open, showing the government seal. “I was expecting a Men In Black thing. Sunglasses, snappy suits, mysterious stranger thing going on…”

“Suits and uniforms can scare creatures in cases like this. Easier to keep it casual just in case.” He gestured down to his ragged old hoodie and jeans, not caring to also admit that the agency didn’t have a dress code and his laundry was currently a wrinkled pile on a chair in his apartment. “Right, well, let me catch you up to date.” With that, the portly man turned and started to walk with Damien towards the concrete and metal building. “Apparently you guys have been trying to track the people who ran this place for years, after huge advancements in scientific studies in injuries relating to vamps-” “Undead beings" is the official term. Vamp can be…derogatory.” He cut in shortly, running his free hand through his hair. “Uh…huh. Undead beings, medical advancements with serious, verifiable studies but with a source that was hidden. Someone started looking into it, coming to the conclusion that the scientists and doctors writing the studies were doing unethical experimentations. They start an investigation back in the day, and get close enough to get a hold of a doctor that was directly involved in it, but they scare the people running it, so they abandon the entire thing with one final piece missing. Where the actual lab is. Well, 14 years later, here we are.” He gestured up to the building, now towering above them and blotting out sunlight from where they stood. “We were sent in to collect evidence, trying to file a massive lawsuit against every single doctor, scientist, and administrator that was involved in this mess. Well…evidence we found, but not without it grabbing hold of my guy and putting him in the hospital.” “Hm. Well, that’s what I’m here for. We’ll get the being out so you guys can continue the investigation.” As he walked into the vast, empty opening of the building, the scent of musk and mold made it feel like rotted cotton was stuffed up his nose, their footsteps echoing across the dimly lit room.

14 years?!? Poor thing has got to be borderline out of it at this point. Hopefully I can get a name so I can stop calling it the being. A feeding and some help out of here, and we should be able to get them into the truck.

The crew wasn’t kidding when they called it…a vault, the entrance that he had been led to could only be described as a bank vault, made with iron and kept shut with a huge rotating lock. The officer grabbed ahold of one of the spokes, and Damien was quick to shake off his surprise and lend a hand, grabbing another and rotating the heavy door with some force. The horrid smell of rot and decay grabbed ahold of his senses and the heavy door finally started to crack open. His nose wrinkled in response, it wasn’t exactly an unfamiliar scent, but this was potent. They opened the door just a sliver, and then waited with bated breath for…something to happen. When nothing but deathly silence stayed in place, Damien moved to the sliver of an entrance. “You sure you’ve got this? That thing nearly got someone down already.” “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done this. They just need some food and some care. I know 14 years seems like a while, but time passes a little differently for an undead.” He said firmly, setting down the cooler and pushing the handle aside to open it. He paused, listening for a very faint scuttling. "Went on a trip to the old country for the rescue of one that had gotten sealed up in a well a few years back. Forty seven years, poor guy came out flying and crashed into a local house. A good meal, a shower, and sleeping for three weeks had him right as rain." He picked up a thin slice of raw, bloody venison. At this point, his breathing steadies, his heart starts to thump in his chest. This was always the most exciting part of his day, getting to make first contact and assess the problems with the being. He turned his body sideways to fit through the gap of the heavy door and the latch.

Unsurprisingly, it was very dark in this chamber. He rapidly blinked, trying to get his eyes to focus on the shapes in this grey void, the suffocating smell of stale air and rot sat heavily in his chest.

"Hi there." He said softly, taking a step. His own footsteps echoed, almost deafening against the still silence. "I'm not sure how lucid you are, but I've got this…" Damien lifted up the cold, slimy piece of meat to get the scent to linger. "And plenty more where it came from. I'm sure that's a lot better than being in here, right?"

For a moment, doubt lingered in his mind. Had they let the being out accidentally? He took another step into the darkness, pressing against his eyes so deeply it was almost tangible. "Hello?"

A shattering scream tore through the silence, a body slamming into another and throwing it across the chamber.

#Whump #Series #original content #Original #Writing #Vampire #Supernatural #creative writing #writeblr

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oumaheroes · 2 years

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Coffee & Cobblestones

Some engbel that no one asked for but which fulfils my self indulgent wishes. For @maelerie ❤

Summary: England and Belgium enjoy a chilly walk about town.

.....

'How long do we have have left out here?'

England sighed through his nose and discreetly glanced down to his watch, arm immediately moving behind his back once more, 'An hour and a half till we go in for lunch.'

'Ugh.'

'Come now, Marie. You're not that old, what's a little walking compared to what we've had to do before.'

'You're not in heels.'

'I have been before.'

'Not stilettos.'

'God no.'

'And you're not now.'

England sighed, 'Alright, fine. Although, you didn't have to wear them today either.'

'How else will I be able to see anything? That one security giant your PM like blocks my view whenever we stand for photos otherwise.'

England snorted and covered the sound by clearing his throat. Ahead with Belgium's President, his Prime Minister looked backwards with a curious raised eyebrow. The speaker they were currently listening to continued their droning speech about the Roman wall they were supposed to be admiring and she returned her attention to them, letting her nation be.

'Besides,' Belgium continued in a whisper, 'I entirely forgot we were going down these roads for so long; the cobbles.'

'Not your greatest idea, admittedly.'

A few very long minutes later, wherein Belgium continuously shifted her weight from foot to foot to ease the pinching, the speaker finished and then it was time to move on. England offered her his elbow which Belgium gratefully took and the group set off, this time bound towards the centre of town.

Belgium pulled down England's sleeve to cover him better and he tutted as she brushed against his skin, taking her hand to rub it quickly between his gloved own, 'Your hands are freezing.'

'I didn't think it would turn this cold.'

'It's November. What on earth were you hoping for?'

'Optimism, apparently.'

England dropped her hand to take off his gloves, gesturing for her to take them, 'I need these ones back this time. They're Rhys'.'

Belgium smiled and slipped them on, 'Does he know that you have them?'

'He won't need to if you give them back.'

She flexed her hand, the very tips of the large gloves empty on her fingers, and took hold of his arm once again, 'Stolen goods, hmm? How like you.'

'Found,' England emphasised, 'haphazardly abandoned on my sofa, in fact. And are well looked after until their happy return.'

'Which will be?'

'Currently undecided.'

Belgium laughed.

The group continued onwards along the old wall, roads cleared and security checked for their progress. Belgium glanced up at the crumbling brick and England followed her gaze upwards.

'Rome hated that wall,' she said, 'Or, maybe not hated. But he didn't like it. "Too blocky", he'd said when he saw it finished.'

England nodded consideringly, 'I can see him saying that. That original Mediterranean flair.'

'It's funny isn't it. Something built on a whim, or with little consideration to asthetic, and now it's held up as a marvel in memory of a history just because it's survived. Pieces of our culture that maybe held no real part in it now looked upon with romanticised wonder, or picked apart for meaning.'

England made a noise that Belgium couldn't decide whether was agreement, or just to show he'd heard her.

'He'd have hated that. All of his great buildings that he left with me and people are just as interested in this terrible old wall.'

'It is a decent wall.'

'It is nothing more than old brick.' England said nothing and Belgium gave his arm a gentle tug to keep him moving, 'Do you remember much of him?'

'Rome?' A small crease appeared in between his eyebrows, 'Sometimes too much. But the older I get and the more I think of it, the more I feel like I never really knew him at all.'

'I don't think we were meant to.'

England gave a dry laugh, a small exhalation that sounded slightly bitter, 'It depends on who you were. Or, what he thought you could be.'

Belgium stayed silent. Her own feelings and memories of Rome were strange and subject to change. Oftentimes that part of her life was vague and hard to recall, although memories would occasionally hit her with a brilliant vibrancy that knocked her right back. The smells of his homes, woody incense and fish oil. The taste of certain figs if she bought them from a particular shop in Italy. The catch of light on a broach in candle light, the glint of metal in the sun. She would dream about being swung to sit on Rome's shoulders, then her body pressed against doors and tense with fear as he raged and crashed on the other side.

She wanted to ask more of what England remembered of that time. Whether he too knew Rome as two different men with one name. But their childhoods were long ago, distant things, a life that was intimate and raw before nationhood truly took them. They were all large eyes and souls of wet clay then, nothing more than potential and the bitter deathtoll to those who came before.

The hurts of a lonely youth imprinted upon them all, and Arthur never liked to share those particular ghosts.

Belgium took hold of his hand and entwined them together, smoothing her gloved thumb over his bare skin.

'Speaking of who we think we should be, do you think yourself a scoundrel?'

England looked confused, 'What?'

'Let's escape,' she said, giving his hand a squeeze, 'a nice coffee somewhere sounds a lot more fun than sticking about here looking at old stones.'

England blinked and then a slow smile grew across his face, crooked with the hint of teeth, 'Only if you promise not to try and seduce me with talk of Roman architecture.'

'Ah! How on earth did you know?'

'Familiarity with your methods.'

'I wouldn't dream of it, darling. How about the role of cobbles in influencing modern footwear instead?'

England bent and kissed her cheek, 'That will have to do.'

....

AN:

England has worn heels before. They were men's fashion before women and were once all the fashionable rage.

Is this my way of paying homage to the great fic 'love amongst the ruins' in a teeny tiny way?

Yes.

#aph england #aph belgium #hws england #hws belgium #engbel #aph engbel #hetalia #aph #hws #heroes writes

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architectuul · 5 months

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The Nuclear City

The market, though small, was as lively as any I saw in Cuba. We walked from stall to stall, past vendors selling tropical fruit and sacks of rice. Behind one table a woman sat on the curb, a sack between her thighs, tapping a sieve like an old-timey pan-handler as she separated insects from grains of rice. I bought a portion of fresh, sticky mango slices… realising too late that there was nowhere to wash my hands clean after.

Ciudad Nuclear, Cuba as seen from the 14th floor rooftop of an unfinished apartment block.

The sun was beating down hard so the four of us ducked into the welcome shelter of a bar. We were the only customers; it was dark inside, cool, with flies buzzing lazily around the slow-moving ceiling fan. We ordered a round of beers – Cuban Bucaneros – and I held the cold can up to my baked skull, my temples, then rolled it between my hands allowing the frosty condensation to de-gunk my fruit-sticky fingers. I looked out at the market: an island of humanity, while all around it rose the empty shells of unfinished residential blocks. This handful of stalls was now the social heart of a city once built for thousands, and these people the last stubborn lives to remain amongst the ruins of Ciudad Nuclear.

Thousands of apartments built for construction workers and Soviet nuclear engineers now sit abandoned.

Back in 2014 I shared an article about my visit to an unfinished nuclear power plant in Cuba. It was no more than a concrete shell by the time I saw it, with a dome that made it look almost like a temple, left abandoned on the Caribbean coast.

The site had been built with Soviet money and know-how, and was to be accompanied by a brand new city for power plant workers. The Chernobyl reactors in Ukraine had the workers’ city at Pripyat; the Lithuanian reactor at Visaginas, likewise, had a model socialist city raised up almost overnight in its shadow; and here at Juragua in Cuba, the Soviets helped build ‘Ciudad Nuclear’: in English, simply, ‘Nuclear City.’

The USSR began working on the Cuban nuclear power plant in 1976, and Ciudad Nuclear was opened on 13th October 1982, to house the influx of Soviet scientists and engineers. Located six miles from the plant it was to feature 4,200 homes but the Cuban plant was never finished. Construction ground to a halt in 1989, as the funding dried up and the Soviet Union teetered on the brink of collapse. The intended workers’ city was left in limbo as a result: half finished, only part inhabited, an unsustainable cluster of concrete dwellings on a remote stretch of the Cuban shoreline.

Ciudad Nuclear, Cuba: view from the balcony of a spacious residential complex that never got finished.

A handful of residents still live in Ciudad Nuclear surrounded on all sides by empty blocks, and with the unfinished power plant just visible on the horizon.

I made the journey down to Juragua with friends. We hired a car in Havana, and drove for several hours to reach the site on the south side of the island. We slept in a casa nearby, a sweet little place down by the water’s edge, but on the day of our intended visit to the plant we found the place crawling with security guards. Later we’d come back, and we’d find another way inside the unfinished Juragua NPP – but first we spent an afternoon in Ciudad Nuclear.

A Cuban turkey vulture circles over the quiet streets of Ciudad Nuclear.

Ciudad Nuclear is a peculiar place. I want to call it a ‘ghost town,’ but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. The handful of citizens who remain here are, for the most part, commuters. Some drive 20 miles to work in Cienfuegos, a larger town with a busy port and industrial sector. Not a lot of Cubans have their own transport though, which means that Ciudad Nuclear – an unfinished, out-of-the-way conurbation with little going on in terms of entertainment or employment – is doomed to a slow depopulation.

Leaving the market, we turned a corner and quickly found ourselves alone. Down the length of Ciudad Nuclear’s main street, only two parked cars and a couple of distant pedestrians were visible. Rounding a corner to the next street we met a small family and a donkey, but the rows of apartment blocks behind them looked desolate and bare.

Empty spaces inside a tower block planned for luxury apartments.

Poetry by José Martí appears on a wall in what might have been intended as a cafeteria.

Save for the occasional sheet flapping in the wind on some third-floor washing line, most of the buildings here seemed to be uninhabited; many looked like they had never been finished, their faded pastel exteriors wrapped around empty cement boxes. Inside one large ground floor space (a shop or a café?) I found a wall decorated with a verse by José Martí, Cuba’s most beloved revolutionary poet:

Cuba no anda de pedigueña Por el mundo, anda de hermana Al salvarse, salva América No le fallará, porque ella No le falla a América.

Poetry always loses a little in translation, but in English it means something like this:

Cuba does not go around the world as a beggar but as a sister By saving herself, she saves the Americas She will not fail, because she will not fail the Americas.

Looking east from Ciudad Nuclear, where a narrow strait connects the Caribbean to the inland Bay of Cienfuegos.

Some of the buildings around Ciudad Nuclear stood near to collapse. I looked inside a few, though there wasn’t much to see. The risk-reward ratio didn’t seem weighted in my favour, so for the most part when I saw ‘Derrumbe’ – ‘Collapse’ – written across a building, I kept away.

Heading back towards the centre we passed a naked tower block, the tallest we’d seen so far. Across its side were painted the words, ‘¡¡Socialismo o Muerte!!’ though it felt like an oddly subversive slogan, given the context. Socialism or Death. This place seemed to have a little bit of both.

Socialism or Death in Ciudad Nuclear.

Gazing up at that graffitied ruin, I decided I wanted to climb it – to see how Ciudad Nuclear looked from the top. The stairs inside were intact, but there was little else to see inside the 14-floor skeleton; nothing but concrete all the way up. Reaching the top, I walked out of the stairwell onto an open-plan level that fell abruptly away at the edge; no windows, no handrail, just a sudden drop to the street.

Something flapped noisily nearby and I turned, in time to see a large dark bird take flight from its concrete perch on the fourteenth floor balcony. Later I’d be told it was a vulture.

Above the top end of the stairwell, a square hole opened to the rooftop and the sky. It took a bit of a scramble to get up there – balancing on a concrete bannister, catching hold of the ledge above and pulling myself up to the building’s summit – but it was worth the work.

Nature is already reclaiming the rooftops of Ciudad Nuclear, Cuba.

Looking out across the Bay of Cienfuegos from a Ciudad Nuclear rooftop.

Stood up there in the sweltering sun, I traced the shoreline curving into the distance: the beach a ribbon of gold between the water and the forest. Below me the empty streets and unfinished buildings of Ciudad Nuclear fanned out in grid formation, a model city that never quite made it off the drafting table. Meanwhile along the coast, an abandoned 16-floor reactor building rose from the forest like some ancient temple ruin: a concrete mausoleum for the Cuban-Soviet nuclear programme.

Designed to provide 4,200 homes, this is how the city looks today.

The building that started it all: six miles from the city sits the concrete shell of the Juragua Nuclear Power Plant.

Text and photo by Darmon Richter [adapted with permission from an article at [EX UTOPIA]

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rainydaydream-gal18 · 3 years

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(The Bad Batch) Camping: Crosshair’s Ending

Intro

“I guess I’ll follow Crosshair,” you said. The sharpshooter hadn’t heard your statement. He was already on his way toward the edge of the clearing, crossing over into the woods.

Omega nudged you with her elbow. “You’d better hurry, or you’ll miss him!”

You hesitated. “I don’t know. He didn’t wait around for anyone to go with. Maybe he wants to be alone.”

“No,” she insisted with a shake of her head, blonde locks waving. “Trust me, he won’t mind you going. He likes your company.”

You had to admit that he wasn’t as abrasive with you as he once had been. Over time, the sudden snaps and sarcastic comments had died down. He even showed subtle signs that he cared for you as a member of the team and family in his own little way. Your feelings for him had grown beyond what you could have imagined in that time. You didn’t expect for them to be returned, but at the very least, Crosshair didn’t seem to mind you.

“Hurry!” Omega urged again, giving you another nudge. Crosshair had already disappeared into the forest, but he most likely hadn’t gotten far. You shrugged at Omega before taking off for the edge of the clearing.

“Here goes nothing,” you muttered to yourself. A twig snapped beneath your shoe as you stepped out of the bright open clearing and into the shady, cool woods. It was beautiful. The trees above created a sort of canopy, only allowing for smaller patches of sunlight to shine through. Everything was so green, and the air smelled so sweet. The brush was thick and difficult to get through even though you were following Crosshair’s trail.

You looked straight ahead to see him standing there several feet away, twisted around to peer at you over his shoulder. You offered a smile and waved despite the fact that your leg was caught in a bush. If he was surprised to see you, he didn’t show it. His gaze swept over you for a moment before he approached.

“Hey,” you greeted.

Crosshair’s eyes met yours briefly. “Hey.” He extended his hand and pulled you forward so that you could remove your leg from the brush. It was done swiftly and with ease. Once you were free, you dusted yourself off and looked up at him.

“Thanks. Do you mind if I walk with you?”

Crosshair turned his body in the direction he’d been walking in before, peering at you over his shoulder once more. “Do what you want.” It was well known that he wasn’t the most wordy or expressive. That phrase was his way of an open invitation.

You were watching where you walked, but your gaze was also drawn to the one who led the way through the dense woods. You studied him as if somehow it would give you insight to what was going on in that mind of his. He didn’t speak for some time. Your eyes rested on the back of his head of silver hair, traveling down his form and pausing at his arms. They were left exposed by his sleeveless blue shirt that faded into darker blue further down the torso. He definitely wasn’t built like Wrecker, but his arms weren’t noodles either. His lean form held an impressive strength. You’d witnessed it on the battlefield many times, and even more recently, he demonstrated it when he had snapped the tent pieces back into place in front of you and handed them back. It had been done swiftly and with ease, whereas it had taken you and Omega both to do it the first time.

“What?”

You snapped out of your train of thought at his question. “Uh, what?”

“You were staring.”

Of course, those keen eyes of his didn’t miss a thing. It was handy when it came to taking out droids, but at that moment, it was unfortunate.

“Sorry. I was just thinking.”

He stepped over a bush and paused, turning to hold out an open hand towards you. You hesitantly took it, and he helped you over the plant. “About what?” he asked. It wasn’t meant to be nosy or demanding. It seemed he was trying to start a conversation, which was a rare but not entirely unheard of occurrence for him. At least, not with you these days.

Your heart was thumping erratically at that point, racking your brain for something to say other than “I was thinking about you.” Although, you didn’t want to lie either. “I was just thinking how nice the sights are here.” It was true. Crosshair just happened to be one of the sights that you admired.

“It is nice,” he agreed, pausing to cast an admiring glance at the canopy of trees above. The leaves created lovely patterned shadows on his face. You followed his gaze and sighed at how your chest swelled with happiness. The air was warm, but not quite as blistering hot as it was in the sunny clearing. The shade held a different kind of quiet intensity, a tension that was still so beautiful to you.

Your eyes fell back to Crosshair. The corner of his mouth was turned up in a half-smile at the view. He noticed then that you were watching him, and he turned his head to look back at you fully.

“Have you and the squad done this before?” you asked. “Gone camping?”

“We’ve camped out for missions,” he replied. “Never did it for fun.”

“Technically, Hunter originally told us that this was for team-building.”

“Funny, he’s the one who let everyone wander off in separate directions.”

You chuckled at the realization. “That’s true. Well, maybe this is part of team-building in the end. We negotiated an effective way for everyone to do what they want. I’d say that was a good problem-solving exercise.”

Crosshair shook his head. “Good one.”

The two of you continued through the forest, talking a little along the way. It wasn’t exactly a chatter-filled walk, but it was probably the most you and Crosshair had opened up to each other. He told you a few stories about the squad’s past experiences camping out. There was one in particular about how Wrecker heaved a rock and accidentally knocked over a hive of bees that Crosshair even smirked at. Fortunately, Wrecker had escaped without getting stung, but he had run off yelling and swatting his hands around.

You weren’t sure how long you and Crosshair had been out, but it was definitely past lunchtime. You hardly noticed. You were having such a nice time with him that the time flew.

“We should turn around,” you spoke up. “The others are probably having lunch now.” Crosshair paused and nodded before turning straight around and heading back the way you came.

Even as late as it was, It still seemed a little too early for the sky behind the trees to be darkening as much as it did. The air had grown humid, and the bird chirping had ceased. The woods had gone from delightfully shady to nearly sunless and dreary. You walked closer to the sharpshooter, though not so close that you’d step on his heels by accident.

Then, you heard the pitter-patter of rain beginning to fall on the greenery around you. It started off as a trickle before gradually morphing into a downpour. It was so heavy that even the trees didn’t shield you from the drops that soaked your clothes.

You felt a hand take yours, and you squinted through the rain to see Crosshair urging you to follow. You let him lead you toward a large tree that had been uprooted. It leaned against another tree, creating a spot beneath it untouched by the rainfall.

You rested your back against the upright trunk, panting from the sudden dash. Crosshair ran a hand through his damp hair and shook some drops from his face.

“When it lets up, we’ll keep going,” he said. Both of you stared out into the rainy haze in silence. You wondered how long it would be before it would subside. You were glad to have a shelter of sorts, but you were starting to shiver in your soaked clothes. Crosshair’s eyes locked on you. He gazed at you, and despite your chill, your face grew warm under his quiet scrutiny. Finally, he walked over to stand right in front of you.

“Cold?” he drawled.

Your words abandoned you at the proximity, so you merely gave a short nod. Crosshair was just as soaked as you were, but the arm that slipped around you still provided some comfort. You automatically leaned into him, pressing your face against his bare shoulder which was already warming back up. His other arm wrapped around your form, and you breathed a sigh as you sank into the contact even more.

You lost yourself in the rise and fall of his chest as well as the steady thrum of his heart. It was a melody that you were sure would play itself over and over in your mind after the encounter. You didn’t even want to think about the after. You didn’t want this to end. Your arms had slipped around his waist, and his breath hitched. You lifted your head to meet his gaze, concerned that perhaps you’d overstepped, but then his eyes locked on yours.

It was like the bug caught in a spider’s web that caught your eye earlier as you passed through the forest. You were trapped by those piercing eyes as his face grew closer, though you didn’t feel like the prey you’d seen before. You weren’t struggling to escape. You were drawn in.

And suddenly, his warm lips were pressed to your own. His grip on you tightened, and you felt like you’d melt into a puddle if it weren’t for his arms holding you. All at once, something exploded in your chest, and your lips pulled away only to unite again in a more heated dance. Your back hit the tree trunk behind you, and Crosshair grunted an apology. His lips met yours again before he pulled away altogether, eyes glinting.

“Rain stopped,” he said, running a thumb along your jaw. You didn’t tear your eyes from his to confirm, only noted that the sound had subsided.

“We’d better head back then,” you replied.

Neither of you moved for several seconds. Eventually, both of you were able to pull away, though his hand didn’t let go of yours, and continued your trek back to the campsite. The walk back was quiet, though you found yourself meeting Crosshair’s gaze many times. There wasn’t room for embarrassment because he was almost always staring at you first. Even though there was a bit of a hurry to get back to the campsite before it rained again, you enjoyed every second.

#bad batch #bad batch crosshair x reader #crosshair x reader #crosshair x y/n #crosshair reader insert #bad batch reader insert #bad batch crosshair reader insert #bad batch crosshair #crosshair imagine #crosshair x you #bad batch x reader #bad batch fanfiction #the bad batch #star wars the bad batch reader insert #crosshair

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im-juggling-fandoms · 3 years

Text

She never learns, does she?

A Resident Evil fanfic of reader who is a former lover of Albert Wesker but is now on the run from him when she discovered his involvement in the Raccoon City incident. She is terrified of him and what he’s capable of and at the same time angry with herself for not being capable to suppress her feelings towards the man. She’s also determined that he is obsessed with her, it doesn’t matter where she hides, he always finds her and he just won’t stop. So far, reader has been lucky to get away just in time before his arrival. This time, she’s taken by surprise.

Rated mature. 18+ for language, deaths and sexual content.

Long time no see, dear heart..

It has been three years, four months and seven days since the last time Y/N felt herself at home. Now, the closest thing she got to feel like home was the people she surrendered herself with. The people who gave up their own lives to make sure of your safety. What would you have done without their sacrifices? You didn’t need much time to think over the possibilities. You knew you would’ve been dead.

You were a loose end that knew too damn much and Albert wouldn’t stop until he silenced you for good.

After all these years, it still hurt you. The two of you once shared everything together. Or so, you thought. One day you had stumbled upon his underground laboratory that had been hidden from your view for two years behind a massive mahogany bookcase. You found his research, you found an entire life he had been living in a city called Raccoon City not far from where you had built up your life. You found everything. It terrified you how gullible you had been about everything. You believed him when he said he was working at the bank downtown, why wouldn’t you?

It was all a lie. He had been creating horrific viruses and killing people to the left and right before he came home to your bed and ravished your body with his.

It made you sick.

But it made you hurt even more.

You kind of liked the little bed and breakfast you had been calling home for three days now who had an incredible view of the Swiss mountains from your room. It was peaceful and the landscape alone made you hope for a brighter future. Maybe you could finally settle down? It surely would help your mental state to have some peace and quiet. Well, it had been quiet for you and your friends for several weeks now and they told you over and over again not to let your guard down but you just couldn’t help yourself as you peeked over to your sleeping friends before you turned back to the window you where standing in front of. The sun made its way up over the mountains and it cast such a mesmerizing view over the little village. You knew you should be careful but you really wanted to go outside by yourself, if only for a few minutes.

You put your coat over your red nightgown and the silk was so smooth to your skin it almost felt like you were naked underneath.

Before you exited, you made sure to at least pack a gun into your hip holster. You hurried out, careful not to make any sound when closing the door behind you. There was a small hallway with a few rooms and a long stairwell leading down to the lobby. You walked with your hands in your pockets as you exited the B&B and felt the cool spring wind kiss your face. This, this was exactly what you had been needing, some peace and quiet.

You took a stroll around the village that began to wake up. You took in every smell, every sound.. it almost felt as you were vibrating.

Wait

You put your hand in your pocket and retrieved your phone who was buzzing like crazy.

Jeez.. you thought, you hadn’t been out more than maybe a little over ten minutes and Jessica was already buzzing up your phone.

Where the hell are you? Come back right now! You know we don’t go anywhere alone! She wrote.

Jesus Christ, Y/N! What are you thinking?! Jared wrote you.

You couldn’t help but feel ashamed and guilty. What where you thinking? These people had offered everything to go underground with you and yet, you jeopardize everything by taking a goddamned stroll..

You sighed loudly and turned your little stroll back to the B&B. As you walked hurriedly, you went over in your head the best way to explain to your friends why you went out but every outcome was the same. It made you sound stuck up and ungrateful. You decided it was for the best to just apologize and own your mistake. You told yourself that you would promise them to never do anything like this ever again and you meant it.

The lady at the front desk was sitting with her back towards you as you entered the lobby. You wondered if you should bid her good morning but she seemed devoured in that book of hers so you decided to just leave her be. You walked past her but something in the corner of your eye made you stop in your tracks immediately.

You turned your head slowly in her direction and what you feared the most, became reality.

She wasn’t devoured in a book as it first had seemed. She was lying with her face into the open book. The pages that once must’ve been white was colored red and she was as still as a statue.

You grabbed your gun from your holster and called out for your friends to come downstairs as you walked towards the dead woman.

It was as quiet as a graveyard.

Nothing.

A not in your stomach began to build and you abandoned the dead woman and bolted up the stairs as fast as you possibly could and kicked the door to your room open, only to reveal it abandoned.

You began to panic. Where the hell where your friends? It couldn’t have been more than five minutes ago they blew up your phone.

Maybe they got so worried that they decided to go out and look for you? Maybe they had found the woman at the front desk and was at the police station? You had to find them.

You walked down the stairs once again, this time the peace you earlier felt was long gone. When you rounded the crook of the stairwell you completely froze. This time, you literally could feel the ice slithering up your spine.

Albert sat down in one of the armchairs that faced the stairwell, his face were stoic and calm and he had one of his legs over the other which made him look like he was waiting for someone.

He’s waiting for you.

You knew that your gun couldn’t do him any harm. Jared had fired multiple shots at him three years ago during our time in Japan but Albert had dodged every single bullet like he was some kind of a super human. You where lucky you got out of there alive. That was the last time he got this close as he was now.

Your insides were in raging, burning agony. You were so terrified that you trembled but at the same time, your heart hurt with the memories of your love years ago.

“Long time, no see, dear heart.” He spoke and you had forgotten about what a velvety voice that man possessed. Every word rolled of his tongue with absolute expertise. You wouldn’t let him fog up your brain anymore so you stood tall, the gun in your hand pointed directly at his beautiful face even though you knew it was useless, you wouldn’t let him think you would give up so easily.

“Where are my friends, Albert?” You asked. Your hand which held the gun were shaking and you tried to steady it the best you could but to no avail. You were so scared and it was displayed openly for him to see.

Before you could even register that it had happened, Albert had got up from the armchair and made his way over to you. You have no idea how he did it but he had managed to do it in shorter than a second. Now, he stood towering before you, mere inches between the two of you. He was so close that you could inhale his scent. The scent that you had forgot made its way up your nostrils and an raging battle began taking form inside of you. A part of you wanted to run, as far away as you could from this monster of a man or whatever the hell he was and the other part wanted to forget everything that has happened over the years and pull him in for one of those kisses that made your mind all foggy.

You looked up at him hesitantly, his sunglasses was covering his eyes, covering those magical light greys you so well remembered. The eyes you spend so many nights gazing into while you were making sweet love to each other. You didn’t need to see them to have all of those memories pool into your mind immediately, his presence did it all.

He grabbed your wrist of the hand that held the gun and you tried to make him let go of you but he was so strong that it barely even phased him. Without any trouble on his behalf, he took the gun out of your trembling hand and tossed it carelessly to the side.

“Where are my friends?” You tried again, this time your voice broke mid-sentence and you could feel the tears burning behind your eyes, threatening to break free and make you look even smaller than you already did.

“Three years, Y/N.” He began without any hint of emotions in his velvety voice, “You had me turning upside down on half the world for three years.” He finally stated.

“Just let them go, Albert, it’s me you want, isn’t it? They-“ you began sobbing, “They don’t know anything, I swear!” You exclaimed.

He pushed you up against the wall of the stairwell with his hands firmly on yours above your head. He leaned in closer to your tear filled face, so close that you felt his breath ghost over your skin ever so lightly.

“Don’t lie to me, Y/N.”

“I’m not lying, they don’t know anything about-“ you began hysterically but was cut off as he pushed you deeper into the wall and it made your backside ache profusely.

“Don’t. Lie. To. Me.” He pronounced every word with spitting venom. Now, you could feel how angry he was with you. The stoicism from before was a good act, you thought.

“Please, don’t hurt them.” You begged. “Do whatever you want with me but please, just let them go. They won’t tell anyone anything, I am sure of it. I can make them promise to not say anything to anyone! Please!” You were desperate. Every passing minute could mean that your friends lives were closer to an end and you had to do everything you could to help them. Just as they had helped you.

He chuckled.

You looked up at him in confusion under your wet eyelashes, the tears blurring your vision ever so slightly.

“I am not interested in making conversation about your little friends.” He spoke up sternly before he lightened the hold he had on you. You were still pushed up against the wall but it hurt less than it did before.

“I just need to know they’re okay.” Your voice were merely above an whisper.

“They are, for now.” Albert confirmed. Jesus Christ, he was too damn close to you. You could see every little pore in his skin, his scent filled you up like a balloon that was going to pop any second. You knew that he was going to kill you and you felt nowhere near being ready to die but his mere presence awoke something inside of you. The thing that you had been trying to bury deep, deep within. The undeniably eternal love you felt for him with the strength of a thousand elephants. It was blind and it was more forgiving than it was wise. It was so intense it made your skin burn and your insides too, you felt like a hot burning mess. It almost felt unnatural. Mainly because of what it did to you. You had never felt this with anyone else, not ever. It felt like you belonged together. You still knew better, though. Hence why you left and had been on the run for years.

You felt weak and tired. All of this, all of these years had made you so tired. You just wanted it to stop. You were done. There was no use to try and fight him, he was way too strong now. It’ll only make you end up dying in more pain than necessary and you felt obligated to save yourself from that.

“Just get it over with. For old time’s sake, make it quick.” You said, your voice was on the verge of a new wave of tears but you managed to keep them at bay.

His hands let go off yours and you felt his body leave yours, the warmth disappearing by the second. You closed your eyes, ready for the fatal strike.

It never came.

You held your eyes closed for what felt like minutes but nothing happened.

You battle with yourself if you would dare to open them and see what was going on and after a while, you decided that you had to.

He was just standing there, a feet or so from you, with his back against you. His gloved hands were clasped neatly behind his straight back and it appeared as if he was in deep thought. You could tell that, even with his back to you. It was your bond that told you.

Should you try to run?

No.

You wouldn’t get far and you were so tired of this cat and mouse bullshit.

You just wanted it to end.

“Albert, please..” you softly spoke, almost begging him to put you out of your misery.

“You never learn, do you?” He said as he turned to you.

Your confused expression spoke for you and he smirked hastily.

“If I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be standing here after all this time.”

You felt weak, confused and at the same time irritated. It felt as if you were back at square one. You had been running for your life only because you sincerely thought that he wanted to end it. All of the ruckus he had been making hadn’t exactly told you otherwise but it was true now when you actually thought about it, you had never once been harmed under these 3 years. All of your friends had been but never you.

“What do you want, Albert?”

“Isn’t it perfectly clear what I want, Y/N?”

You gave him a sour look. It really wasn’t. With all the information you now had on him, you had come to learn that he wasn’t that quiet but passionate lover you once thought you were dealing with. You’ve come to know that he was a sociopath and was capable to do about anything to preserve his goal which seemed to be collecting viruses from around the globe. You didn’t want to know what he was planning to do with them.

“Dear heart,” he began, that smirk upon his face for a few seconds before he continued, “I want what’s mine. I want you.”

If you thought you were confused before, it was nothing compared to what was going on inside your head right now.

“But you, you almost-You sent fucking mercenaries after us! You bombed one of the houses we were inside of, we just barely got out in time!” You fumed, your hand gesturing angrily with every word.

“You left without a word, Y/N, it made me very angry.”

“Oh, it made you angry?” You spat at him, every fear and tremble as blown away. “It made me angry when I found out you were a fucking liar! And not to mention a full blown psychopath!”

He briskly walked over to you and grabbed you by the shoulders roughly.

“You watch that tongue with me, Y/N, before I change my mind.”

“I’m done with these games, Albert! I’m done! Just get it over with, I can’t bear another second with this.” You said, refusing to face him. His face made you want to jump him right here right now. Your hormones were going crazy and you were equally angry as you were a hot, horny mess. The last time you orgasmed by another hand than yours was with Albert. You still remember it as if it was yesterday..

You had been slow cooking some fancy meat on the stove and had some baked potatoes filled with cheese and paprika in the oven. You were working on a side salad when he entered the kitchen freshly showered in nothing but a towel around his waist. He began kissing your neck and one thing led to another and before you knew it, you were sprawled out on one of the counters with his head between your legs, his tongue skillfully massaging your little bundle of nerves while two of his fingers were massaging the inside of your pussy and it didn’t take long before you clenched down on his fingers with a loud moan.

You needed to get your head straight. You couldn’t be thinking about things like that right now. You could literally feel the wetness pouring out of you.

“Hmm...” he hummed with a smirk. You couldn’t see his eyes but you felt how intense they were ravaging you right now.

“I can smell you.” He said, that damn smirk still plastered on his beautiful features. “You are aching for me Y/N, aren’t you?”

“No,” you said hastily, “Absolutely not.”

“Oh, yes you are.” Albert took one of his gloved hands to his face and removed the glove with his pearly white teeth. His naked hand snaked between your exposed legs and traveled up to your clothed pussy. You should slap him right across the face for taking such freedom to touch you like this and yet, you couldn’t do anything. You just stood there, looking up into his face, as if to get some reassuring that this wasn’t as wrong as it actually was.

He didn’t waste any time, he ripped the cloth from your skin with a growl. It probably would’ve stung your sensitive skin if it wasn’t for your arousal. You were dripping and you were desperately longing for the man that you deep down knew was the love of your life.

You grabbed his face with your soft hands and you tried to pull him into a kiss but he wouldn’t succumb to your wishes. He simply undid his belt, opened his trousers and pulled them down to his knees to reveal that he was already hard. You mouth watered and your pussy ached painfully at the sight of his cock. The same exact cock that you had been fantasizing about every time you pleased yourself nowadays.

Albert pushed you once again against the wall of the stairwell but this time he lifted you up as well with his hands at your hips. He didn’t leave you any time to comprehend a single thing, he buried himself to the hilt into your tight, wet cave with a deep, deep groan. It sounded as he had been holding that inside of him for a very long time. You, on the other hand moaned out loudly for everyone to hear as the two of you finally were connected as one.

You had almost forgotten about how good he actually was in bed but all of that came right back to you as he demonstrated his skills by pounding into you evenly, he squeezed your soft hips with every movement.

You clawed desperately at the fabric on his chest as he pounded roughly into you. You didn’t mind him being a little rough, it were a long time since you last made love and if he was anywhere close to as desperate and aroused as you were, he probably couldn’t contain himself.

“Oh, Albert..” you moaned as a wave of pure pleasure washed over you, “I’ve missed you so much.” You confessed openly.

He didn’t answer.

Sure, he was a man of few words but he would always praise you and shower you with affection while making love, now he was all quiet except a grunt here and there.

It was extremely hard for you to get anything from his eyes since those sunglasses covered them and left you to look at your own reflection instead. You had no idea what he felt right now and it made you wary.

You reached for his glasses and removed them as best as you could while he was pounding into you tirelessly. What met you behind those glasses was nothing you were prepared for.

His light grey eyes were a distant memory and now replaced with the eyes of a demon. Red swam around tight slits and you almost didn’t believe what you were seeing. This wasn’t the Albert you remembered.

He was angry. So, so angry. You could feel it vibrating from his furious eyes.

You should be frightened, you should’ve ran away from him but something inside of you made you remain in place with nothing but shame for what you had done to the man you loved.

You had hurt him. You had most likely broken his heart by leaving him without so much as a letter. You had done this to him, you thought.

“I’m so sorry, baby.” You said, tears forming in your eyes as you leaned your forehead against his.

“You are mine.” He growled back,

“Yes.” You nodded in agreement.

“You will never betray me ever again.” Behind his anger you could detect the pain, the pain that you were responsible for.

“Never, baby, never. I’ve been so foolish.”

He slowed down his ministrations and captured your lips with his, the kiss became desperate very quickly, both of your tongues massaging each other in your mouths. You tugged at the locks at the back of his neck as you moaned into the kiss, giving yourself over to him completely.

You were still kissing passionately as he fucked you, and you knew that if he kept moving his hips like that together with his hot, wet mouth, you weren’t going to last very long.

You knew that he also knew.

Your legs began to shake from the intense, burning pleasure between your legs, your nails found his neck where you scratched helplessly as moan after moan escaped your lips.

Albert kissed your face and then went over to your neck affectionely, humming while doing so. Never breaking the rhythm in his thrusts.

“I’m-, I’m so close..” your voice were raspy and low, “Oh god, Albert..”

“That’s it, my sweet” he huskily whispered in your ear before he kissed the curve of your ear, “Come for me..”

You did so, your legs shaking with the same intensity as your screams that left your lips as you rode out the exquisite orgasm eagerly. Every fiber of your body felt as if it was on fire and you couldn’t do anything besides moaning and holding him tightly to you, afraid that he might disappear if you didn’t.

The orgasm left you weak to the bones but Albert didn’t let you rest. He withdrew himself from inside you and lead you upstairs, into the first room that was in sight.

Albert undressed the rest of your clothing and laid you down on the bed softly and positioned himself between your legs, this time with his face.

The first contact with his lips and tongue to your pussy made you moan out with eyes closed, your fingers finding their way down your stomach and onto his blonde locks.

This was one of the best things you know and you’ve been longing for it for three years, it didn’t matter that you had just had an orgasm minutes ago, because when he began using his fingers on you and sucking your clit between his delicate lips, you came undone for the second time today.

He kissed your thighs feathery light and traveled up your now naked body. He kissed and licked every inch of skin on your torso, your breasts he sucked and licked softly, which earned him a moan from you.

He crawled on top of you and spread your legs a little wider for the comfort of both of you. You wasn’t satisfied just yet, though.

“Please, remove your clothes.” You said, looking deeply into his red swirls. “I want to feel you on my skin. I’ve longed so for you, my love.”

He hesitated for a moment but complied to your request and removed his clothes in a blur, it didn’t take more than a few seconds before he was in between your legs again, now in his full naked glory.

You trailed your hands down his hard chest and down his hard washboard abs. You sighed deeply in fulfillment when he entered you once again.

He held you possessively by the neck as he was thrusting into you, his face mere inches from yours as your eyes were locked in each other’s gazes. You had your arms around his back, because you wanted to get as close to him as you possibly could.

You shared a few kisses as the love making grew hotter and closer to the edge for the both of you. It gave you such immense pleasure to see his own pleasure in those eyes of his. You wanted him to feel good, to unwrap himself completely inside of you.

The connection the two of you shared only made the sex even better, more intense than any sex you’ve ever had with anyone else. You didn’t only shared each other’s bodies but each other’s minds and souls as well. He didn’t need to tell you that he loved you, you could feel it with every kiss, every thrust, every single touch he laid upon you. It was magical and brought you straight over the edge for the third time, you were a moaning mess and you chanted over and over again how much you loved him. It didn’t take long after your release for him to find his own. With a deep grunt he filled you up right to the hilt but he remained inside of you just for a little longer.

You shared each other’s lips, and you caressed each other’s faces softly, lovingly.

“If you ever do something like this again, I’m going to have to kill you, Y/N.” He spoke softly but gravely.

“I know.” You responded as you kissed him on his forehead.

You knew that he wouldn’t forgive you a second time. You still had some questions you wanted answers to but you had already decided to stop fighting him. You loved each other, deeply and eternally. That’s all that matters to you. At least for now.

#resident evil #albertwesker #albert wesker #resident evil fanfic #smut #wesker x reader #resident evil smut

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five-rivers · 3 years

Text

Home

The building that housed Fentonworks had never been normal, no matter what neighbors and real estate agents might profess.

Things had happened there. Deaths. Wild twists of fate and shocking coincidences. People who lived there heard noises, saw things, felt things. Experienced sicknesses with no cause. Were cured of sicknesses without cause. Survived things that should have killed them.

It was a thin spot between worlds. Reality was a rippling membrane, frayed enough for things to shine through.

The construction of the neighborhood itself had been… strange. It happened much faster than it should have, as if there was a whole extra shift of workers on the project.

The townhouse that would one day become Fentonworks had stood out even in that mystery. Extra rooms, a basement deep enough to cause a nasty fight with regulators, features not approved by the architect.

It was a wonder they hadn’t hit any of the water lines or the sewage systems. A wonder- and an impossibility. So, the matter was ignored and dropped.

Then the next owners expanded that impossible basement, building another, secret basement and putting things in the walls- They were criminals, of course. It was expected for them to do illegal things. (Although exactly what they had done was… oddly uncertain.)

(Drugs, perhaps.)

Then, the lunatics. Then, the tiny cult that collapsed in on itself. Then the empty years, dozens of transient ghosts trying and failing to pass through, and the ghost hunters. So many ghost hunters, none of them particularly successful.

Then, the Fentons.

Then, little Jazz.

Then, little Danny.

Danny with wide eyes that saw too much.

And all the horrors that the Fentons could dream up, from living hotdogs to weapons that burned like stars and doors to places that should not be visited.

And this was Danny Fenton’s home.

The Manson estate was an odd case, even for Amity Park. Save for the basement, the entire building they lived in had been transplanted, brick and beam, from Germany.

Rich people were bizarre.

Even the Mansons couldn’t explain it. The man who had done it hadn’t been a Manson. The Mansons, who were relatively new money, all things considered, had purchased it from one of the man’s children. Anything to boost their prestige.

It was fancy, and it was old, a gothic and statuesque mansion worthy of its name. Still, it wasn’t quite fancy or old enough to merit the kind of expenditure moving it had to take.

Hence the rumors, squelched by the Mansons, that the place was haunted.

It wasn’t.

The rumors, however, were enough to get one Samantha Manson interested in the occult. Especially given how hard she saw her parents working to hide the rumors from her.

No. The mansion wasn’t haunted. For all it’s oddities and quirks – which only multiplied as the Mansons added more and more features to it – the building itself was mundane.

(The land it was built on might have been another story.)

And this was Sam Manson’s home.

The Foleys didn’t want to know what Tucker got up to in the attic, but liked to think that, with that one exception, their home was a nice one. It was on a nice street, in a nice neighborhood, just far enough away from Fentonworks to keep both sightings of the Ghost Assault Vehicle and resultant property damage and property taxes to a minimum. Within walking distance of the high school, a supermarket, and a park.

They kept the fridge and pantry stocked. Their food might not have always been healthy – red meat was an element of almost every meal – but it was always available and filling. They made an effort for the dietary restrictions of Tucker’s friends of course.

All the rooms were kept clean and neat. Even Tucker’s, by way of bribes. Everything was organized, everything had its place. Except, perhaps, for the stray shoe or piece of schoolwork.

But that attic.

It really hadn’t been anything, before Tucker asked if he could move his computer stuff up there. Just a storage space, one too difficult for either Angela or Maurice to climb up there often. They didn’t consider themselves old, but they couldn’t call themselves young either. Not with a son Tucker’s age.

Once Tucker had realized the attic was there, he had been fascinated. And, well, once he was old enough for them to not worry about him falling off the ladder, they let him go up.

Some days, it seemed, he didn’t come down.

Better than his faintly disturbing Ancient Egypt phase, where he kept bringing pictures of mummified corpses to the table. Or, worse, the werewolf phase.

And this was Tucker Foley’s home.

Amity Park had claimed the distinction of ‘most haunted town in America’ long before the Fentons opened their portal. In fact, that was the reason the Fentons had set up shop there, in the first place.

No haunted town was complete without at least one haunted house. Amity Park had several. Not to mention a haunted hospital, a selection of haunted schools, a haunted museum, a haunted pool, a haunted crosswalk, a haunted mall, a haunted football field… The list went on, essentially ad nauseum.

Of course, that list mostly consisted of places that became haunted after the Fentons built their portal. But even before then, some places offered their dubious charms to tourists.

Mostly gullible ones. More than half of the claims of hauntings before the portal opened were fraudulent in their entirety. These places quickly went broke and got abandoned when real ghosts started showing up.

One of these was the ominously named Raven House, which stood in the hills on the west edge of town.

The story the tourists of years gone by had been told was that a widower had lived out here, all by himself and that one day, he stopped coming to town, or paying his bills, or even getting his mail. When the mailbox at the end of the long driveway was full, the mailman decided to go check on the widower. What he found was a flock of ravens and a skeleton, entirely picked clean of flesh.

No such death had occurred there, nor in any part of Amity. No such person had ever lived in the house, either. The last owners, before the company that decided to market the house as haunted, were a couple with two children.

It wasn’t until months after the portal started up that it became haunted in truth.

“This place isn’t haunted,” said Danny, panning his flashlight over cobwebbed corners on the ceiling. “I don’t think it ever was.”

“That’s what, strike five?” asked Sam.

Danny shrugged. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Four, actually,” said Tucker. “We counted the hospital as inconclusive, since we don’t know if anyone was there before Spectra.”

Danny nodded. “It’s weird, though, isn’t it? That no one lives here, I mean. It looks like a perfectly nice house.”

“Décor’s a bit… eh. Trying to hard to be haunted,” said Tucker, poking a raven decal on the wallpaper.

“I like it,” said Sam. “Needs cleaning, though.”

“Hey,” said Tucker, “you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you? Because I’m pretty sure that’d be illegal.”

“It isn’t as if anyone else is using the place,” argued Sam. “It could be a great backup hideout, if we ever had to… you know.” She glanced at Danny. “Plus, we’d be doing them a favor, really, keeping things clean and lived in.”

“I think it’s an okay idea,” said Danny.

“Yeah, but you think lots of dumb things are good ideas. Like showing up at a party hosted by people who publicly humiliate you on a regular basis.”

Danny grumbled something about trauma responses that sounded like a direct quote from Jazz and something else about that incident being ages (aka weeks) ago. Then, he brightened.

“We could get one of the little ectoplasm generators to power everything,” he said. “Remember all that stuff we lifted from Skulker and Technus? We could actually use it. Study and test things without worrying about whether our parents will walk in. I mean, your attic is great, but still.”

“Plus, we can have actual lab safety protocols. No offense, Danny.”

“I am the one that half-died in a lab accident, so… None taken.”

Tucker rubbed his chin. “Alright. I suppose I can see the appeal… But if we have stuff that can trace back to us, we could get in serious trouble."

“We’ll be careful, then,” said Sam.

“Anything I take from Mom and Dad has plausible deniability. They’ll assume ghosts stole it.”

“We also need to clean if we’re being serious about this. And get a fridge. And figure out the pluming situation.”

“Fridge is on the list. We have to be careful about the outside, too. If this place is suddenly well maintained, people will notice.”

“Sure, but that isn’t something they’d call the cops over,” said Danny. “They’ll just assume new people are moving in. If anyone sees it at all. We’re pretty far away from anything. But pluming won’t be too hard. We just need to bring our own water. Like, toilets flush using physics. If you dump more water in, they’ll go, no electricity required.”

“How do you know that?”

“I can’t even tell you how many time Mom and Dad blew out all our breakers with stuff in the lab,” said Danny. “You pick up a few things.”

“Well,” said Tucker, swinging his flashlight over to examine a discolored spot on the ceiling. “Then… Home sweet home, I suppose.”

There was a house in the hills in the west hills of Amity Park.

And this was the home of two and a half humans and half a ghost.

#danny phantom #dannymay2021 #dannymay 2021 #dannymay #dannymay day 2: home

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kashimos-hajime · 3 years

Text

reunion pt. 1 (5/8) | r.b.

summary: His back rises and falls against your chest as Bertholdt stands, and your voice reeks with your own loathing and despair. You just want to know— “Bertholdt, please. What did I ever do to you to deserve to die?” Or, the return to Shiganshina is even worse than you imagined.

WARNINGS: aNGST ANGST ANGST, self loathing, swearing, mentions of heavy injuries and violence pairing: reiner braun x fem!reader word count: 6.4k

a/n: here we go!!! pain express. : )

masterlist

crossposted on ao3 x

Launching yourself to the top of the Wall, you find Armin’s gaze as he steps up to you, and you shake your head.

“All I found was three cups,” you inform quickly, “and the pot.” Meeting Commander Erwin’s stare, your knees seem to lock as he turns to Armin who seems to digest the information as well. Turning away to look out on Shiganshina, your eyes sweep the torn buildings, the abandoned silence making your insides cold.

You’re here, aren’t you? Reiner… Bertholdt… did you think of me half as much as I’ve thought about you? I still want answers. Would you even give them to me? Or was Eren telling the truth when he told me what you said about us, Reiner? You surrounded yourself with incompetent fools.

Especially me.

Someone calls your name and you jerk out of your slow reverie, blinking as Armin grabs your elbow and you turn, tugging your green cloak tighter around yourself as your grasp on your ODM grips tightens. With the orders given, you split off from him and jump off the wall, iron wires shooting into the stone. Swinging down to the ground, you split off from the group to explore one of the homes built flush against the wall. Entering, your heart is rapid, pounding against your windpipe.

You try to think like them—where they’d hide, what they’d look like, trying to blend in, but as you ascend the steps of the home and fall to your knees, looking under the bed and the tables, you find nothing. You get to your feet and walk over to the window, pushing it open and shouting, “Clear!”

In response, a couple other Scouts shout their own results, all the same sa yours, and you hop out the window. Landing back on the ground, you’re about to migrate over to the next house when an acoustic shell goes off and you grit your teeth, wrenching your head up. Something inside you snaps.

Someone found them. They actually found them—

Clicking the triggers, you shoot up the wall, the wind nipping at your nose and you land easily, running over to Armin, his signal gun still in hand.

“Did you find them?” you breathe but he shakes his head as Scouts fall all around them, encircling him. Stepping closer, you feel an unheeded wave of relief wash over you followed by a flood of guilt and you clench your jaw, looking down at the stone beneath your boots.

Why? Why should I be grateful they haven’t been found? All they ever did was lie to me. All he ever did was make promises to my face and plotted to kill me behind my back—

Commander Erwin’s voice cuts through your hurricane thoughts, and you look up, receiving the new orders and splitting off from the group once again.

No. No, just stop thinking.

Wiping at your face with the back of your hand, your breath burns through your chest as your grappling hooks sink into the stone and you lower yourself down the wall beside Armin. Tapping your blades against stone, you hear the clink-clink of all the other Scouts doing the same as your eyes scan for cracks, wedges, anything.

They were never on your side.

“Shit,” you whisper to yourself, descending. A strange, futile twist of your gut has you aching, exhausted despite the campaign barely beginning, and your legs feel numb as you jump lower and lower, your swords scraping against the Wall. Looking over at Armin, you catch his forced smile, and you nod to yourself, returning your gaze to the surface in front of you, reaching left and right to make sure all spots are checked.

And every time, you pray that the sound is full.

Frowning when you land in front of a cracked part of the wall, your eyes trace the spider webbed fissure before you lift your hand and tap where the cracks seem to stem from. Heart staggering in your chest, your blood chills when you hear it’s hollow.

For a moment, you stare at the rock, knowing full well the eyes you’ll see behind it, and the world slows down into agonizing milliseconds. On instinct, your hand drops the sword and reaches for your belt before you shoot an acoustic shell towards the sky.

“Hey!” you scream, voice hoarse. “This spot is hollow!”

You turn to look at Armin just as a movement catches in the corner of your eye, and your head snaps back as the portion of the Wall is removed and dull silver shoots out of the darkness. Mouth dropping open, you wrench your stare up, pinning Reiner in the face, and you see the moment he recognizes you.

His eyes widen, arm freezing mid-thrust, the tip of the blade just barely digging into your chest. Not deep enough to bleed, but enough to prick.

You forget everything you need to say. Your voice catches in your throat, and a soft, shuddering breath escapes your lips. You understand why the world seems so slow now.

For what feels like years, you look into Reiner’s eyes before they narrow into a deadly glare, and your heart falls into the abyss. A chilling poison fills his entire face as he drops his blade, hand shooting out to grab your shoulder, and throwing you in. Plunged into darkness, you collide with stone as Reiner jumps out.

Shoulder and cheek blooming with a dull ache that comes and goes in tidal waves, you whirl around, retracting your iron wires with a quick press of your grips just as a blur of green flies past the hole. Eyes widening, you scramble forward.

Captain Levi yanks his blade out of Reiner’s neck and you watch as the captain shoots himself back up the Wall.

You hear the thud Reiner’s body makes, an empty sound that echoes in your head as you push yourself further over the edge of the hole. Yellow light bursts from his chest and you cover your face, squinting and gritting your teeth against the burning glare as Levi runs to you, pulling you out. The wind tears at your clothes, stinging your fingers as the fist at your collar tightens.

“Keep your distance and stick by him,” he growls into your ear before throwing you up. Activating your ODM gear, you burst up the wall, the captain beside you. “Reiner would’ve killed any other soldier if it weren’t you. Let’s hope that nepotism lasts.”

You eyes flit to Levi who only stares up, pale eyes narrowed against the bleak sky. You wish you could tell him that he’s wrong—he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

But your chest is hardening as the seconds pass, a coldness stemming from where the tip of Reiner’s sword had dug into you.

Throwing the final Thunder Spear you have at Reiner’s nape, you reroute yourself onto a nearby roof as the explosion goes off, rattling your entire skeleton. Slapping your hands over your ears, you squint at the blast before it disappears as quick as it came. As it dies down, you blink, trying to make out the shape of the Armoured Titan but dots still speckle your vision, blurring everything. Your ears ringing, a swelling feeling blocks up your chest.

What do you want to see? Do you want to see him again? On his feet, prepared to kill us. Prepared to kill you? Or will seeing him on his knees, steam rising from his body bring you more relief?

You’re not sure. Your body is thrumming with adrenaline, every thought of fatigue chased from your mind, and as you sink to one knee, you wait.

When the smoke finally clears, you finally see him. The Armoured Titan on his knees, keeling over, and at the nape of his neck, a pillar of steam rising from his body, sits Reiner. Lips parting, you surge to your feet and wait again, wait for him to begin to move.

Reiner… get up. What are you doing? Get up!

Boots shifting against the tiled rooftop, your grip on your swords tightens when you can’t even see the slightest rise and fall of his shoulders, the sway of his body. No, he’s statuesque in his position, and your heart drops as cheers rise all around you.

“The Armoured Titan just bit the dust!”

The words pass through one ear and out the other. Rooted to your spot, a burning begins to fester in your eyeballs as something warm slips over your cheeks, into your open mouth, and it tastes salty on your tongue. Breath shuddering in your chest, your vision begins to blur again and you blink, a fresh wave of tears streaming down your face.

No, no, stop it! Stop crying for him! He’s dead! You should be glad for that! Your voice is ragged in your head as you slam the heel of your hand into your temple. Stop it! Stop it! Reiner, move! Please, don’t be dead. Shit! Teeth clenched tight, you fall to your knees as Section Commander Hange just across the street from you with Mikasa and Armin, orders for another round of Thunder Spears. Your fingers dig into your scalp as Scouts begin to move, the steam rising from Reiner’s body hot enough even from here to scorch you.

A Scout lands beside you, giving you two near Spears, and you look at them blankly, knowing you should be eager to grab them, but you just can’t move.

‘Thank you,” you murmur to him and he only nods before moving on, just as you hear metal clink and your gaze wrenches up. The Armoured Titan throws his head back, jaw unhinging, and a piercing scream shatters the air. Eyes wide, your palms slap over your ears again as the air trembles and your heart halts in your chest, the air paralyzingly still.

The tiles beneath your knees seem to shake under the force of the wail before Reiner tilts forward, steaming corpse freezing even deeper in prostrate.

Crawling forward, your eyes fix on Reiner’s shoulders. Is he… he’s…

“Everyone, move away from the Armoured Titan!” The order barely distracts you as the other Scouts flee. Chancing a glance at your comrades, you realize they’re already barrelling away from you, and you steel your nerves, squaring your hips.

And then you launch yourself off the roof.

The tile breaks as you fly through the air, landing on the Titan’s shoulder, and you grunt, planting a palm flat against the surface. With a hard swallow, you push yourself to your feet and wipe the stubborn tears drying on your cheeks with a grimace.

We can still save him, you think to yourself resolutely. If he’s still alive, we can still save him

Submerging yourself in the white steam, you ignore the smouldering at your palms as you traverse up to the nape, stepping over the shattered remains of armour.

I already lost the farm.

Waving away the hot fog, you reach Reiner’s shoulder and fall to your knees beside him. It’s all coming from his head and you look down at his arms, still submerged in Titan flesh. Eyebrows knotting together, you reach out for the patch of skin you can still see, and electricity shoots up your bones when you realize he’s still warm.

I lost Annie.

“Shit!” Your hand flies to his back and his chest, feeling for a heartbeat and you try to listen for breaths as your palms slide against green fabric.

I’m not about to lose you, too.

You crane your neck to catch a glimpse of his face but it’s still nothing more than smoke and black and blood, dripping everywhere. Grimacing, you move your palms left just as a faint pulse renders you frozen.

Then, it’s another pulse, and another, soft and weak, but still there.

The sound of ODM gear makes your head snap up and your ribs ache when you realize who it is.

“Bertholdt.” His name is ripped out of your throat as he lands on the other side of Reiner, and for a moment, you see the best friend you once knew before he’s swallowed up by whoever he is now, eyes glinting with a calm you can’t recognize. “Bertholdt, help me.“

“Reiner. Is he—“

“No, he’s still alive,” you reply back quickly. He falls to his knees, moving your hands out of the way to feel for himself, and Bertholdt’s face goes lax when he feels what you did. “Help me get him out of here, please.”

“What the—he must’ve transferred his consciousness throughout his entire nervous system. We talked about it,” he mutters, almost to himself, “but only as a last resort. To think that he would actually need to.” Your eyes trail to his arms again, and you lift your sword. You could cut him out. If you have enough gas, you can probably pull the both of them back to the Wall—

“Bertholdt!” His gaze snaps to you and your fingers wrap around the hilt tighter. “Help me cut him out. I think we can save him if we just—“

“What are you doing?” he asks flatly. Stunned, you can only look at him and he turns his gaze away bitterly. “Why are you helping him? Trying to help me?”

“You’re my family, Bertholdt.” His shoulders go rigid, as if he’s holding back a flinch, and you lower the blade to the tendons along Reiner’s arm. “I have to save who I have left. I’m not going to leave you guys like I left Annie. We can still fix this. Please, please, please help me cut him out before the Scouts finish him off.”

“You’re more desperate than I thought.” It’s not cold, but it makes you freeze all the same. “You know how this is going to go. You always knew. You’re going to die,” he tells you firmly. You reel back, stung, but Bertholdt pays you no mind. “It doesn’t matter whether I help you or not.”

“Bertholdt—“

“Reiner,” he addresses his friend again and your eyes begin to burn again as your gaze finds where the flesh of the Titan meets Reiner’s arm, the glint of your blade so bright compared to the redness of the beast. Your entire body weighs a thousand pounds, and you squeeze your eyes tight, tears slipping down your nose. “Reiner, I need you to do something for me. You’re going to have to move, just a little bit. Lie down with your Titan body facing upwards.”

All you need to do is just swing off his arm. It should be so simple.

“And if you can’t, then I’m sorry. Prepare for the worst.”

Your face lifts up to find your old friend’s, but he refuses to look at you as you grab Reiner’s shoulders, pull yourself to his side. His back rises and falls against your chest as Bertholdt stands, and your voice reeks with your own loathing and despair. You just want to know— “Bertholdt, please. What did I ever do to you to deserve to die?”

His hands roll into fists before he reaches up to pull out his hand grips, long fingers wrapping around the triggers.

“Nothing. You’ll always be one of my dearest comrades. One of my truest friends.” His shoulders fall into his back as he tilts his head to look at you out of the corner of his eye. Your blood chills when you find nothing inside his own stare except cold, hard determination. “I’m just ending a war that we were unlucky enough to be born in. It’s nothing personal.”

Without another word, he jumps off Reiner’s shoulder and you snap your jaws shut, determined not to focus any more time on him. Turning back to Reiner, you run over in your head what Bertholdt had said.

Truest friend.

You feel stiff everywhere. Even when you try to shove his voice of your head, you can’t. One word leads to another and to another, until every memory is playing back, from the times he helped you muck the stables, to the years spent training side by side—you had known about his crush on Annie. Who else had known? You’d been the only one, you’re sure of it—

“I need you to do something for me.”

Shaking your head, your eyes fix on the back of Reiner’s head.

“If your consciousness is through your entire body, then cutting you out won’t do any permanent damage, will it?” you whisper near his ear, but he gives no sign of answer and you jerk back onto your knees. But what if it does? After all, permanent nerve damage is a thing that plagues a bunch of soldiers. I’ve seen it—what if that happens to him, too? Hands trembling, your guts get up into knots and you roll your fingers into fists but even still, it doesn’t help the shaking that travels up your arms. Permanent damage and alive is better than dead.

But what if it’s like cutting off a head? This is the host after all. None of this makes any sense!

“Reiner, if you can hear me”—you lunge forward again, fingers digging into his shoulders—“I need you to tell me if it’s okay. I can’t kill you. I can’t!” The ground trembles and you let out a gasp as the muscles of his back flex against your arm. Jerking back, you feel the same movement in the Armoured Titan’s shoulders and you let out a shout as a hand clasps sloppily over you.

Plunged into darkness, your ODM gear crashes against something hard and your body is jostled like a pebble about to be skipped over water. Blades flying freely, you try to get a good grasp on the hilt before you’re stabbed and you feel the air sifting between the cracks of plated fingers as you fall backwards.

Trying to get up, you manage to stumble to your feet just as the fist you’re trapped in jerks back and sends you flying backwards. Your head crashing into a plate, white stars explode in your vision and your body goes limp as you let out a soft groan. Eyes struggling to stay open, you barely make out the shape of the Armoured Titan’s fingers wrapped all around you before a wave of exhaustion crashes on your skull, and your neck gives out.

Head dropping back against the plate, a ringing silence fills the air, and your eyes slip shut. The pulsing ache in your temple stops moments later as something warm trails down the side of your face.

You don’t recall the last time you’ve laughed so hard your cheeks ache. You never would’ve guessed it would’ve been laughing at one of Connie’s jokes six months into cadet training as they walk back to the dorms.

“Fun times today. Who knew you could be such a joker?” Connie laughs, elbowing you. You rub the back of your neck, embarrassed. “Just needed a little time to warm up to us, huh?”

“Yeah,” Jean snorts. “Who could connect Little Miss Shy over here with the same girl who danced to the busker’s music just because Connie said to?”

“Oh, shut up, guys. Take a look in the mirror. Besides, I had to make sure I wouldn’t die of insanity the instant I hung out with you, Connie. I’m never playing Truth or Dare with you again,” you say pointedly. “Get to your bunks.” The boy mock salutes you to the amusement of Bertholdt and Reiner who stand with them, and you roll your eyes before shooting Jean and Connie a smile. “Goodnight, guys.”

“Goodnight.”

“And, er, goodnight, Reiner.”

He simply dips his head to you, and you try not to let your smile falter. Reiner breaks off from their group first, with Connie, then Jean, and Bertholdt lingers behind for a moment longer. Curious, you stop in front of the door to the dorm, arching an eyebrow.

“What’s up?”

“We had a good time today in Trost,” he says. “I’m glad you came with us.”

“Thanks for inviting me. I’m really sorry I couldn’t convince Annie to,” you add and he shakes his head. “I think she would’ve had a great time.”

“It’s okay.” Your eyes narrow a bit when you see he looks away. His hand runs through his hair nervously and an inkling of an idea sprouts in your head. Oh, no way. “Maybe next time?”

“Yeah, for sure.” Stepping away, you send him a final, tired smile. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

You step through the door and spot the lone figure still inside easily enough. The other girls must be washing up or sneaking something to eat from the kitchens, but you’re too exhausted to even think about doing so. You just remind yourself to wake up extra early tomorrow if you can so you can sneak into the showers before muster. Meandering over to your bed, you make yourself known to the blonde girl.

“Hey, Annie,” you say, stretching one of your arms high above your head. The blonde in question looks up and you offer a smile as you push yourself up onto her bunk uninvited. She begrudgingly moves aside, and you lay down on your stomach, removing something from your pocket as she leans against the wall of their dorm, book in her lap.

“Did you have any fun?” she asks dryly and you nod. “Well, what do you want?”

“I brought you something. I think you’ll like it.” Setting the package down in front of her, you watch her expression carefully, glee shooting through you when you notice her lips parting, a hint of a smile twitching her cheeks. It’s taken a lot of persistent work, but being able to read Annie’s micro-expressions is a joy all in itself as you roll onto your back against her legs. “You didn’t come to our first visit to Trost today. You missed out on a lot of fun.”

She doesn’t answer and you sigh, unfolding the paper bag quietly. Flashing the opening to her, you tilt your head.

“I bought you this. I thought you might like it,” you repeat, pointing at the cream bun within, and Annie’s eyes flash to the bag, widening just a bit. She sets down her book, and leans over, legs crossing, and you pull yourself up to mirror her position. Reaching forward, the blonde pulls out the first bit of the dessert carefully, and you try to hold back your huge grin. “I know you liked sweets, and I really missed you today. You should come next time.”

“You bought this for me?” she asks, confused, tearing the dough apart and you nod when blue eyes search your face. She pops a bite into her mouth, and you wait for reaction. Eyebrows shooting up, she almost looks impressed before she rips off another piece, and offers it to you.

You take it graciously, the sweetness in the bread melting into your blood and soothing your fatigued body from the inside out. “We’re friends, aren’t we? Of course I thought of you when I saw that bakery.”

“We’re comrades,” she corrects, but even so, there’s something warmer in her tone. You wonder if she even notices. “But still, that’s… nice of you.”

“It’s nothing. Just come with me next time, and you could have them fresh. They’re even better and have all these different flavours and custards.” Annie’s eyes narrow for a moment, before she shoves the bun back into the paper bag with a sigh.

“Fine.” You turn to climb off her bunk and duck into your own just underneath hers but she calls your name quietly. Poking your head above the railing, you quirk an eyebrow. “You forgot this.” She shoves the paper bag back towards you and you frown.

“It’s for you. You can have the rest of it,” you say and her arm falters, eyebrows shooting up and lips parting in incredulity. You flash her a smile. “Goodnight, Annie.” Jumping back to the floor, you hear the soft crinkling of the paper bag and a warmth burns through your chest as you pull the covers back and shrug off your jacket. Changing into plainclothes, you slip into bed with a soft sigh, your muscles yawning in relief.

“Goodnight,” a tired voice breaks the silence, and you roll onto your side, the corner of your mouth curving up as you bury your face into your pillow. Minutes pass, and your eyes begin to grow heavy as a sort of draw tugs at you. Pulling the sheets tight against your chest, your eyelids slide shut.

Then, quieter, that same voice cracking in your newfound darkness, you hear: “Thank you.”

The world fades black for only for a moment before you jolt awake, mind scrambling. You’re no longer in your bed at the cadet corps, and you let out a sharp breath when everything around you smells like dust rather than warm candle wax.

Your entire body is on fire. Groaning, you push yourself onto all fours and rub at your cheek as the body beneath your shifts. Something wet soaks into your sleeves and you reach blindly for your swords as the hand above you falls away. Disoriented, you cradle your head.

Why… why was I thinking about Annie? you wonder to yourself as you land on the palm of Reiner’s hand and the fingers begin to uncurl. I haven’t thought about that night since Stohess.

Sunlight sears your irises and you squint against the grey sky as you look up, and a tight invisible fist grabs your windpipe, strangling out any air you might’ve used to scream when glowing yellow eyes pin you down.

Maybe because she always made me believe that there shouldn’t be too much to fear in this world. Struggling to your feet, your fists clench tighter. Maybe because she fooled me into thinking that she’d be there for me.

Maybe I miss her.

That’s always been more likely.

You turn to look at your surroundings, your eyes straining against the light still, but as you keep blinking, you realize that it’s all on fire. Face screwing up, you look down at your hands. They’re stained with red. You swallow, a nausea tiding over you when you realize what you had wiped off your face hadn’t been tears, but your own blood.

Your head jerks up as a crashing rumbles the air, and you spot a giant red figure sweeping a hand through the rows of houses, molten stone. Fire flies everywhere. Smoke stains everything you can see.

Hell has come to us, you realize. We never had to die to become devils, did we?

“Bertholdt…” At your voice, the palm beneath you shifts and you can’t breathe as you look down, trying to keep yourself upright. Whirling around, you look up to see those Titan eyes peering down at you curiously, and you brandish your swords.

“Reiner!” Your vocal cords tear and you could’ve choked on your own blood as you swallow a clot down. “Reiner, I won’t kill you, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do everything I can to stop you!” His fingers curl. You feel one nudge into your back, forcing your weak knees to give in, and you bow over, fists slamming against the heel of his hand. “Fuck.”

Your world beveled, you sway on your hands and knees as you lift your head up to look at him. Seeing twins of everything, your eyes strain as you try to make sense of what’s up and what’s down as your skin, sticky with blood, tears against the wedge of his armour.

“Fuck,” you choke out rawly, eyes squeezing shut. “Fuck!”

Fingers pinch the back of your shirt delicately, and you’re hoisted into the air with a strangled gasp. Limbs flailing, you watch the ground get smaller as you’re lifted up. You’re like a limp doll in his fingers as Reiner twists to set you aside on a nearby roof.

When your knees meet tile, you let out a soft breath, your lips parted in the shape of his name.

“…Reiner?”

He does not answer. Instead, he turns your world upside down.

His hand drags through the structure beneath you. The stone gives in, cracks like egg shells, wood snaps, glass shatters into a million shards, and the ground beneath you crumbles, shakes, gives in even as you reach for him.

Suspended in mid-air for just a moment, you swear you can see him in the Titan’s face for just a moment, his eyes wide with regret, and then you’re plummeting through the debris, landing hard on your back. It punches the air out of you and your lungs spasm as you stare up at the sky caving above you. Entire body filled with a tingling numbness, shadows fall all over your face.

Crossing your arms over your head and locking them tight as you can, you turn your face away and squeeze your eyes tight as dust and stone rains down on your head, arms, body.

Ear to the ground, you go deaf from the entire world trembling with the sound of the Armoured Titan’s footsteps and it’s the only thing you can feel, even after the sun is eclipsed by wood and stone.

Connie stands over you.

His skin red with burns, he looms over you like a shadow, face pale, eyes wide as you stare right through him. Throat like ash and dry enough to scratch, your fingers twitch from where it’s trapped underneath a cinderblock and he breathes your name, shuddering and cold. Blood crumbles along your broken fingers as he shakes his head, his tears glimmering in the searing grey light. Crouching, he shifts something off your legs, lifts another block off your stomach, and your stomach flutters as you inhale raggedly.

Everything is destroyed inside you.

“C-onnie… Co-onnie…”

He works his way up your body, removing the parts of you that crush you still, and with every piece that he gets rid off, you realize that part of your body is still attached. Closing your eyes, your lips press together weakly and you swallow as he finally makes his way up to your face.

“Connie…” you whisper one last time as something warm puffs against your neck, and everything stills.

Then, hands grab your face. “Say that again!” he demands, and you let out a soft moan, brow wrinkling.

“C-Connie?”

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit!”

The hands are ripped off your face as if you had burned him, and your eyes crack open as he fumbles at his belt for his signal gun and shoots green smoke up at the sky, through a roof no longer above you anymore. The shot pierces your eardrums and your entire head begins to ring as you cough, blood spilling over your lips. Your arms feel shattered, aching so deeply, muscles so twisted that you can’t even lift them as Connie crouches back over you again, holding onto your face.

“H-how?”

“Reiner told us where you were. We thought you were dead! I’m going to get you out of here, though.” Grabbing one of your arms, he tugs and you let out a shout as the debris shifts around you. Your back screams, bones clicking awkwardly and he apologizes under his breath, as he hoists you up and forward. As you’re dragged back onto the street, your legs trail unevenly over the debris, every slide and knock of your boots against stone jolting through your fractured bones.

The cold wind that sweeps over your face as soon as you break through of the ash cloud is heaven sent.

“How badly does it hurt?” asks Connie.

“Like a—a building got dropped on me,” you breathe, and he lets out a shaky laugh, setting you down and procuring a waterskin. Carefully wrapping your pulsing fingers around it for you, he helps you tilt the water down your throat and you swallow greedily, stomach convulsing after sucking down lungfuls of grated stone and smoking ashes. Pitching forward, water dribbles down your chin and he takes the waterskin back. “The others. What’s going on with the others?”

“Sasha’s out, but she’s okay,” he reports. Your knees bend and your head hangs off your neck, staring at the road as you look at your own body. Your uniform’s been torn and dirtied to hell. “Bertholdt got taken down by Eren and Armin, and we got Reiner. Hange’s interrogating him now.”

“They’re… alive?” you rasp, harsh electricity scalding your chest. Your ribs shift with every unsteady breath, knives puncturing your side and your entire world is upside down still, fresh blood coating your face. You don’t know where your skin has broken, but you’re sure the warm sensation crawling down your neck isn’t sweat.

“For now. Hold on, let me check your gear.” Your fingers get that strange dull stretching sensation that comes with poor circulation, and you flex your hands and tighten them into fists, frowning to yourself as he leans in beside you. Twisting, something inside you tears apart and your lungs seize painfully as you stretch broken fingers for the grey metal canister. Connie pulls back. “Can you stand?”

“My—my gear. It’s dented,” you mumble, reaching down to the hand grips from where they still trail on the ground behind you. Wrapping your fingers around the triggers, you try to lift your head but a sharp pain stabs into your neck and your expression screws up tight. “Shit!” Connie’s hands find your shoulders but you wave him away, your breaths coming harsh, knocking against the sides of your body like a stick against a washing board. “I can stand.”

“You’re bleeding pretty badly,” he murmurs as you push yourself up, biting on the inside of your cheek to prevent yourself from screaming. Blood bursts on your tongue as your entire right leg flares up, melting like forged metal from the inside out.

When you look down, you realize everything below your right knee looks curved and uneven, and as you place even more pressure on your right foot, hot, racing agony spirals up all the way into your hip.

“I think I broke my leg,” you finally say after a moment and Connie’s eyes fall to knee as you limp forward on your own. He reaches his arms out to scoop you up but you bat his hands away, shaking your head. “It’s fine. I can still walk. Come on.”

“I can’t believe this,” he mutters to himself, and you only give him an uneasy look before looking up at the buildings, trying to aim your gear. Head blooming, a heat swathes your body as you click and iron wire shoots out of your crushed gear. It lands awkwardly, not quite straight, but you tell yourself it has to be enough before you’re launching yourself into the air. “Follow me!”

Connie leads you through the destruction of Shiganshina, and your heart, pounding painfully against your breastbone, only quickens when you spot the pillar of steam that has to be Reiner’s body. Gas boosting you through the air, you swing towards it, your head spinning as Connie begins to lower himself down to the roof above where you see a green cape crouched by the wall.

Landing in the streets, you crash to the ground ungracefully, your right leg buckling and your left only barely managing to break your fall as you pitch forward, rolling onto your side with a restrained groan. Your ODM gear crashes jankily all around you. Your eyes burning with the pure fire lighting through you, you grit your teeth and push yourself up, gaze swinging to fix on the green cape standing beside a body,

“Hange,” you choke out and their eyes tear away from whatever they’re looking at as a new figure falls to his knees beside you.

“You’re okay.” Wincing at Jean’s rough voice in your ear, you turn your head to catch sight of a face similarly red to Connie’s. A bandaged is wrapped around his chest and arm, but he looks relatively okay as he helps you up. Your legs splayed out beside you, you push yourself onto your knees and grab onto his arms as he hauls you to your feet. “Shit, you look banged up.”

“I know. I’ll be okay.” Eyes fixing on the body still steaming, you catch sight of shadowed blond hair and, without thinking, your body sags when you realize who it is. “Reiner.” His head lifts just a bit at your voice, and you flinch back at his inflamed face, the smooth skin trying to stitch itself back together.

In one, forced breath, he barely whispers your name, and your feet move, as if he’s summoned. You nearly reach for him, your eyes fixed solely on where his eyes should be.

“Hey, stay back! We’re waiting for Mikasa’s signal,” Jean murmurs, wrapping his uninjured arm around you and your boots dig into the dirt as he grunts in your ear at your resistance. “Don’t do something stupid.”

“Jean—“

The sound of a shell firing off cuts off your words and you lift your blurry vision to the sky, making out the red smoke parting the grey just as the world begins to tremble for what feels like the fifth time today. Jean tears his arm off of you, and you whirl around as a four-legged Titan barrels towards them. He flings himself at their Section Commander, knocking both of them out of the way just as you send yourself flying up onto a roof and you twist back to make sure they’re okay.

Landing on the tile, you lean forward.

Paralyzed, you can only watch as the beast takes Reiner into his mouth and begins to run away. Rooted to your spot, your entire body locks up. Ice drips through your veins, warping your insides until you’re shivering, lips parted as you let out shuddering breaths ripe with your own blood.

Hands trembling, you watch the Titan disappear from view, and your fingers go lax, dropping your hand grips and letting them dangle off the roof like puppets whose strings have long since been abandoned.

The world seems to stop and you cannot hear anything except his quiet, raspy breath of your name.

It does not start again until Hange orders you to regroup with the others where Captain Levi is.

186 notes · View notes

meteor752 · 3 years

Text

Dsmp Hogwarts AU, except it’s all the characters and I go into why they are what they are, please reblog this took a long ass time

Man, what a title Huh? Anyways, this will obviously go over the characters and not the content creators, because in some cases those are vastly different

Also, before we start, I will go over an important thing that I will mention probably a few times, and that is the difference between Hufflepuff Loyalty and Slytherin Loyalty.

Both of these houses value loyalty, but in very different ways. Take for example that you’re a spy who has their best friend as their partner, and you’re out on some super important mission. Let’s also say that your partner got shot and is close to death, and the only way to save them would be to abandon the mission entirely.

A Hufflepuff would try to complete the mission because it would be the best for all, while the Slytherin would abandon the mission despite the fact that it could result in countless deaths, just to save their friend.

See it as Selfish Loyalty vs Selfless loyalty. Both are great things to have, but are still different.

Anyways, on with the show

Tomathy Danger Kraken Careful Innit

I have seen people try to argue that this boy is a Hufflepuff because of his loyalty and such, but gosh darnit everyone this child is a god damn Gryffindor. I mean, one of his main character traits is that he’s brash and too brave for his own good. The reason he got fucking exiled is because he burned down George’s house without thinking of the consequences, and then just screamed at Dream without thinking of the consequences. The same goes for Ghostbur’s “death”, it was because he had no real plan except Stab Dream with an axe. So yeah, Gryffindor

Wilbur Soot

Slytherin, 100%. This man has created one and a half nation, one entirely out of spite, he was both a general and a president, he’s a smart lil fella, and he managed to hold his own against the god of the server. I don’t even thing you guys wanna argue with me here

Tuberculosis Underscore

This one is tricky, because it’s really between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw for me. Like, he does possess the Hufflepuff loyalty™ plus he is very kind, but he’s also one of the more logical and observant characters we have in this server (The bar is very low let me tell ya). But I think I will have to go with Ravenclaw, just because like, the boy invented nukes. He built fucking nukes. So yeah, a very chaotic Ravenclaw that will spout bee facts at you, be prepared

Technoblade

My man is a Ravenclaw, no doubt about it. I mean, he started talking about an old greek myth in the middle of a war? Just Ravenclaw things amiright?

Philza Minecraft

I will have to go with Slytherin on this one, simply because of the large amount of Slytherin Loyalty, but also because of his cunningness and resourcefulness, but for real this was very tricky, simply because I don’t like to think about c!Phil too much because as some of you may know, I kinda hate him (Not the cc though, obvs, he’s awesome)

Ranboo My Beloved

Hufflepuff. This boy’s ideology is literally “Choose people, not sides”, he’s an honest and compassionate boy who works hard, and has a very open mind. He’s literally the by the book Hufflepuff

Eret

Honestly, Slytherin. I mean, they are ambitious as fuck, both shown by them betraying L’Manburg for the throne, but also by working hard towards their redemption arc. They are also a good leader of the smp, and in general a great role model to have

Nikki Nihachu

This one is actually difficult, simply because Nikki has gone through quite the character arc the past couple of months. She started out kind, sweet and loyal, a classic Hufflepuff. Then she joined the syndicate and straight up tried to kill a child, which is less Hufflepuff but who am I to judge. But in her core, as seen through her discussion with Jack about Tommy’s revival, she is still a good person that works hard for what she believes in, wants the best for everyone (Despite sometimes working in her best self interest) remains kind through it all. So yeah, Nikki is a Hufflepuff, just a bit of a sadistic one. But we can’t all be perfect ya know?

Fun Jonathan Michael Vincent Georgina James Sus Dy Soot

Ah, my favorite character, and also one of the best examples of a Ravenclaw. And I ain’t saying that just cuz I’m a Ravenclaw, Fundy is one of the most Ravenclaw characters out there. He’s creative, Clever, Spontaneous, Witty, Curious, Sharp, and a real trickster. The idea of Ravenclaws being the goody two shoes kids that always does their school work is just false, we never do our Homework and instead sit and read about things we find interesting, and Fundy is a good example of that. Also he was quite the eager learner during the Dreamon Hunters arc, which again is a good example of a Ravenclaw. So if Ranboo is the by the book Hufflepuff, then Fundy is the by the book Ravenclaw.

Dreamwastaken

I’m pretty sure it’s confirmed that Dream is actually a Slytherin, and I ain’t arguing with that. This boy is cunning, sly, a leader, traditional, Self-Preserving, and a master with words. There is not much more to say here, apart from the fact that Slytherins main colour is literally green, so it all checks out, this boy is a snake.

George Lore

Mr not found over here really is hard to pinpoint down, simply because his main character trait is his apathy, which isn’t really a trait for any of the houses. I was discussing this one with my girlfriend, and both of us were pretty clueless of what to do with him. I was thinking if Hufflepuff since they take the ones that don’t fit anywhere else, but then I was reminded of the most recent Dream XD stream, which showed us one thing, and that is that George is clever, observant, and Sharp Minded, all the traits of a Ravenclaw. Sure, he could also be Slytherin as he was both cunning and sly as well, but I think Ravenclaw fits him more personally.

Sappitus Nappitus Boyhalo

Finally we have another Gryffindor, there’s been a serious lack of them on the list. My man is a fighter, he’s bold, he’s brave, he’s passionate, he’s confident, and he doesn’t really think that much of the consequences of his actions (Cough the pet war cough), so yeah this boy a lion.

Punz

Ah, Punzie, the mercenary themself. Tbh, I know very little about them because Punz don’t get involved that much in lore unless they are hired for something. I mean, they were in the eggpire, but even then they were barely involved, which is sad cuz I like Punz. But what we have seen of Punz is that they are someone who does not care about you or what you want, as long as you pay them. They are power hungry and self preserving, which means that I have to put them in Slytherin.

Jack Thunder1408 TV Manifold

The boy who I can’t help but be sympathetic towards. Jack is also a hard character to pin point because of the reason that he’s gone through quite the development. Jackie boy is a very broken character that has literally been through hell, so it’s hard to properly sort him. He’s quite confident and clever, yet cunning and resourceful, so for me it’s either Slytherin or Gryffindor. But I do lean towards Gryffindor more, partly because of his stubbornness and gullibility, and part because of all the fire imagery that’s associated with him. I mean, the cc described him as burning inside, he’s been through the scape of fire and death, and he burnt his nation to the ground. In case you didn’t know, Fire is the element of Gryffindor, so yeah, another red and gold boy.

JSchlatt

Schlatt is as both charming, charismatic and calm in the early days, using subtle manipulation tactics to get his way and achieve ultimate power. He’s ambitious, narcissistic, cunning, and tyrannical, while still hiding it all behind a facade of smiles and waves. He could also be both cruel and irresponsible at times, aka the time he had an underage child drink during an event, but ya know, mistakes. So all in all, I think it’s pretty clear that he’s a Snakey boy.

QuackityHQ

As much as I love CC!Quackity, I also fucking hate him because of the many, many different directions he’s taken this character which makes it possible for him to fit in literally any of the houses. The duckie is both Chaotic and lawful, he’s both friendly and hostile, he’s a smart cookie and a fucking dumbass, so like bruh. But, I’m gonna have to go with how he is now, which is manipulative, power hungry, cruel, and strong willed. Aka, another Slytherin.

Karl Jacobs

Finally, a character that is not broken down to the point of barely making out a readable personality. Karl is a kind and funny person, who is very open to new people considering how often he gives tours to visitors and new people, and he is quite literally loosing himself traveling through time in an attempt to help people. Hufflepuff

Awesamdude

This one I know will be controversial, but I’m saying Hufflepuff on him. Sam is one of the best cases of the Hufflepuff loyalty, literally letting both Tommy and Ghostbur be stuck and ultimately die in the prison just so he wouldn’t risk Dream breaking out. Before that point he was very kind and gentle towards Tommy, literally building a robot to keep him safe and take care of him. Sam nook is a reflection of Sam’s feelings towards Tommy, and they are kind and gentle.

Dropsbyponk

Ughhhh, another tough one. Ponk is a chaotic being who is mostly neutral in conflicts, but is shown to be very open about their feelings towards those they care about, like Sam or Foolish. They seem to be have strong feelings in what they believe in, and can be a bit brash sometimes, not really caring about the consequences of their actions, which is what makes me say Gryffindor for them.

Badboyhalo

Our favorite muffin demon. I assume, I don’t know what life you live. Anyways, Bad is like the stereotypical Hufflepuff. The kindhearted, well meaning, sweet, responsible Hufflepuff. The Hufflepuff that’s like in all of those incorrect quotes blogs and “Slytherin and Hufflepuff friendships uwu” posts. But for real, Bad is very Hufflepuff. He does however have Slytherin Loyalty, considering he pretty much sacrificed the entire server for Skeppy, but if you would try to convince me that Bad is a Slytherin I will just laugh at you

Skeppy

It was at this point I realized what I’ve gotten myself into with this post, which you know, not fun. Skeppy is both cocky and filled with energy, with a real ambition to cause chaos. He’s also shown to be willing to sacrifice himself for the person he loves, Bad, when he gave himself up to the egg. I’ve seen some people say Slytherin, but I’m kinda getting Gryffindor from the lad, so yeah, another lion.

Antfrost

Frosty here is a kind hearted person that for the most part seem to be along for the ride. He reminds me a bit of a parent of toddlers, with his patience and serenity towards the more chaotic people on the server, so of course my natural instinct is Hufflepuff. Buuuuut, then there’s again the issue with the egg and the Slytherin loyalty, this time towards his boyfriend Velvet who he was willing to join a cult for (relationship goals) but again, you can’t really say Ant is a Slytherin considering how wrecked he was about what he did while in the eggpire when he was released from it’s grasp. So yeah, Puffle boy

Captain Puffy

Oh captain my captain, you are such a Gryffindor. And some of you may disagree on that, stating that she’s a Hufflepuff or something (I did research before this to check what other people think, I know) but naaah, she a lion. Puffy is very motherly and protective towards other people on the server, especially the minors, but in the way that a Bear is protective towards its cub, which is gentle towards them but fierce towards others. Puffy also falls natural in the role of a leader as seen with Pro-Omelette, but that is kinda expected since she’s a past Pirate Captain. But she wasn’t the leader she was supposed to be, as she waited quite a while to act against the eggpire out of fear of hurting her friends, which lead to quite the damage towards the rest of the server. She’s also been shown to act on impulse, killing Antfrost and taking one of his lives after he killed her son. Idk if this is a good explanation of why I believe Puffy to be a Gryffindor, it sounds more like I’m claiming her to be a Slytherin or Hufflepuff, but she is a Gryffindor I promise!

Foolish Gamers

Foolish is a kind and friendly being, if not a bit naive and easily distracted. He’s also not the brightest person, in fact I’d go as far as to call the guy a Himbo, and he can be a bit skittish sometimes if he’s stressed or haven’t taken a break in a while. But despite it all, the guy is someone who’s creative and hard working, with a brilliant mind for his building. The man is an artist who can get grumpy if you suppress his creative aura, and put his heart and soul into his works. He also has a habit of getting wrapped up in big projects, and ignoring sleep or personal care until he’s finished them. This all leads me to say that Mr Gamers is a Ravenclaw, just not the smartest one. But hey, we can’t all be geniuses, can we.

Slimecicle

Slime is very naive and very trusting towards people around him, taking every word they say as a fact. He can also be a bit dark and ominous at times, but quickly shakes it off as nothing important. This all makes him quite childish, which is very hard to sort, so I’m gonna say Hufflepuff for his friendliness and move on.

Purpled Bedwars

I actually started loving this guy the minute I saw him, purely because Purple is my favorite colour, like my man has taste. Purpled, like Punz, is a guy who helps whoever pays him the most. He’s not interested in most things on the server, too busy looking out for number one (And Dogchamp of course). He’s very self reliant and resourceful, but still quite passive. He may not be the most ambitious guy, but Purpled is definitely a Slytherin (It also brings me and my girlfriend Serotonin knowing that the mercenary siblings are both in the same house, we love those two)

Hannahxxrose

I don’t watch Hannah that much, but god I love her voice, it makes my lesbian little heart happy. Hannah is a friendly person who is very naive about the conflicts on the server, thinking it all can can be solved by placing a rose (God I wish). She’s a good decorator and a good hearted person, who unfortunately fell victim to the egg’s influence. I’m going with Hufflepuff on her, but I’m honestly not entirely sure as I don’t know that much about her.

HBomb94

H is a very well meaning person that only really wants people to be friendly towards each other. He had a strict moral code and he keeps to it, as shown where Fundy tried to get his help with blowing shit up. He’s very helpful to those who ask and is willing to back up his friends when it’s needed, which makes me say that the friendly totally not dirty cat maid is a Hufflepuff.

Connoreatspants

I just want you all to know that I’m writing this before Connor’s lore stream that surely will just go against everything I say because fate hates me, just so ya know. Connor is not a person that does stuff on the server with lore and he for the most part keeps to himself, so this is a bit hard. Connor also has this thing where he likes to say things just to confuse him, and also making a bit of cursed lore, but he’s still a fairly humble person. He does lie and steal a bit, and has this habit of moving into other people’s houses, but I digress. I’m actually leaning towards Ravenclaw on him, for some reason, so that’s what I’m going with until I have more of an established character.

ItsAlyssa

I know she has left the server and stuff, but she was one of the original members so it would be a crime not to include her. Alyssa is a bit chaotic, often going on killing sprees, or burning down the trees outside of L’Manburg. So I’m placing Alyssa in Gryffindor, but to be honest I don’t really know at this point.

Callahan

How do you sort a person who does not speak, stream, or show like anything of his personality? The answer is, you don’t. Hufflepuff is the house of those who don’t fit in anywhere else, and that’s where I’m placing him.

Vikkstar123

Please log onto the server I’m begging you, I didn’t watch you as a kid and honestly know nothing about you. From what I’ve seen of Vik he’s a very humble person that tries to stay out of it all, instead forming a land together with his bro Lazar. Honestly my instincts say Ravenclaw and I trust my instincts, so I’m putting him in Ravenclaw

Lazarbeam

Lazar was actually a big part of the exile arc which I realized after already have written his, so now I gotta rewrite it. Lazar is fairly ambitious on the server, and has the goal to obtain the most powerful objects on the server just to rival the other strong members of the smp. He’s especially against Tommy, and aims to do a lot to be the opposite of him, aka well respected and not a war criminal that got exiled (Totally fair goal). Despite that, he was able to show some empathy to the British child, even going as far as to give him a disk during his exile. This all makes me say Slytherin on him.

Michaelmcchill

Newest boy. Michael is a very apathetic person, showing little to no empathy towards most people’s trauma on the server. The person he does feel empathy for however is Dream, who of course did nothing wrong and is locked up in the prison which is just horrible oh no. Michael just truly does not care about what you’ve been through (as of now) which is why I’m gonna say Slytherin, because he does have Slytherin loyalty towards Mr Was Taken.

TL;DR

Tommy-Lion

Wilbur-Snake

Tubbo-Eagle

Techno-Eagle

Philza-Snake

Ranboo-Badger

Eret-Snake

Nikki-Badger

Fundy-Eagle

Dream-Snake

George-Eagle

Sapnap-Lion

Punz-Snake

Jack-Lion

Schlatt-Snake

Quackity-Snake

Karl-Badger

Sam-Badger

Ponk-Lion

Bad-Badger

Skeppy-Lion

Antfrost-Badger

Puffy-Lion

Foolish-Eagle

Slime-Badger

Purpled-Snake

Hannah-Badger

HBomb-Badger

Connor-Eagle

Alyssa-Lion

Callahan-Badger

Vik-Eagle

Lazar-Snake

Michael-Snake

So all together we have Seven lions, Ten Snakes, Seven Eagles and Ten Badgers. I think that’s fair tbh

127 notes · View notes

ufonaut · 2 years

Note

HANS VON HAMMER ♦ ൠ ♡ ☾ and CONNOR HAWKE ☆ ♥ ★ ☯

THANK U!!!

HANS VON HAMMER

♦ - quirks/hobbies headcanon

as the specialest boy in wwi, hans has all the hobbies of a typical aristocrat aka fencing, horseback riding, skiing etc etc but the thing is i get the impression he wouldn't consider these hobbies at all as much as things he merely does to get his mind off the war every now & again as there's no real pleasure or passion in them

i think, when he's found himself an unlikely survivor after the war, he does collect planes from all across the board & occasionally tinkers with them. i'll admit that's wholly inspired by his collection in dc challenge but it's a solid take as far as i'm concerned, hans would never be able to stay away from planes or flying when the sky's the only place he feels weightless

ൠ - random headcanon

during the long nights spent in the black forest he sometimes snuggles up with the wolf by whatever fire he's built. i won't accept anything else, the one consistent trace of affection in hans' entire life is from a random feral wolf that he's spent four years getting to know and not quite taming. This Is My Belief.

♡ - romantic headcanon

hans von hammer is gay. that's non-negotiable. and i think he's been a little bit in love with every other enemy ace that's ever shown him kindness & understanding, like the hangman during that entire ssws arc, but that's as far as anything's ever gone. yknow, stolen moments on enemy territory.

after the war, i can imagine a single attempt at playing normal but he quickly becomes a complete recluse & that's the end of that

☾ - sleep headcanon

INSOMNIA CENTRAL!!!!! we've read more than half of all his appearances and hans is yet to sleep without nightmares or frankly at all. the literal only time he ever slept well was with the hangman! and that's inexplicably canon! i don't think he ever gets much better, hans gets used to just enough sleep to keep him going

CONNOR HAWKE

☆ - happy headcanon

connor was at his happiest in the apartment his mother left him in san fran, where he lived with eddie & master jansen for a while. in an ideal timeline -- and our own little earth -- that's still where he's living, with occasional trips back to the ashram whenever he feels he needs to ground himself or a few visits per month to kyle over in nyc

♥ - family headcanon

I'M JUST GONNA GET IT OUT OF THE WAY: CONNOR SHOULD NEVER REALLY FORGIVE OLLIE FOR ABANDONING/REJECTING HIM.

i don't think connor would ever want or even be able to seamlessly blend into the group of people ollie's surrounded himself with & seemingly sees as a sort of family without some small part of him growing to resent him for choosing them but not him. that's precisely why the family connor builds for himself, the people he grows to love and be loved by, is so absolutely vital to who he is as a person

connor's real mother & father have the worst track record in history but that doesn't mean he doesn't still have his grandpa, eddie, master jansen, kyle & any friends he might gain while living in san francisco (like his neighbour mia!). he definitely comes to see eddie as the closest thing he's got to a father figure and loves him as much

★ - sad headcanon

i think the above qualifies for both happy & sad in various ways honestly but. i think ollie's rejection is something that'll always weight on connor while simultaneously being something he learns to live with. it's never easy, not even during the rare times ollie tries, but he eventually comes to understand it has no bearing on him as a person even if it still makes him sad to think about

☯ - likes/dislikes headcanon

connor's favourite thing in the world is movie nights with kyle because kyle's seen every nerd movie ever made in human history and connor's seen none but it's really how much kyle's enjoying showing him all this that delights connor endlessly

other likes: subjecting eddie & kyle to vegan home-cooked meals that they can't refuse because connor made them, archery despite everything, meditation in master jansen's company, snow days in new york because he's so used to california

dislikes: how loud cities can get after so much time spent in the ashram, coffee at radu's but he'd never tell kyle, situations that get dire enough to necessitate his occasional return to the field as green arrow, his own anger that he's been frightened of since he was a child and is always working on controlling (very successfully, of course)

#HOPE U LIKE THESE #asks #slaapkat #hans von hammer #enemy ace #connor hawke #green arrow

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theflashdriver · 3 years

Text

Shipwrecked (Silvaze)

New silvaze oneshot! Marine crashes her newly built submarine, interrupting a picnicking date being had by a certain time traveler and fiery princess. Can Silver console the raccoon while still making the most of Blaze's day off? I hope you enjoy!

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The salty waterers of the Sol dimension were surprisingly warm today. Silver the hedgehog had long since learned that a hot day on the land didn’t necessarily mean the waters were good for swimming. For the first handful of summer days, that trick of the sun had caught him off guard, sending him into, and then very quickly out of, the icy cold sea. He supposed that they were now deep enough into the warm season that even the ocean was feeling it, a fact that was quite fortunate given his current predicament.

A psychically manifested scuba suit, including a breathing tank, was aiding him in a search for strips of metal that had been torn from a certain ship. He must have scanned the ocean floor for a good half hour by now and most of the pieces had been collected, but he had to gather as much as was feasible. If it wasn’t for the rocky nature of these waters, then he’d have surely finished this job in a matter of minutes. Alas, great stony spears seemed to jut out of the seabed at every angle and the commonality of seaweed and barnacle beds wasn’t helping matters. This wasn’t a terrible way to spend an afternoon, but the psychokinetic hadn’t expected today to go like this.

What had started as a very well planned and regular day had quickly spiralled out of control. The twenty-three-year-old hedgehog had woken up with butterflies in his stomach and excitement on his mind, knowing that Blaze had managed to procure a day away from her royal duties. Their bond had been rekindled several years ago, but it was only with the final restoration of the future that those flames had grown.

Silver had ended up staying in the Sol dimension and, following more than a few fumbled kisses and the feline’s much too subtle hints, gradually entered a more romantic relationship with Blaze. More romantic rather than actually romantic because, well, they hadn’t exactly talked about the shift so much as simply drifted in the general direction of deeper intimacy. Whenever he tried to bring it up, she’d silence him with a kiss or call him naive, just as she had when he’d historically asked if they were friends. It’d started as a way to obscure her own embarrassment, but she’d always enjoyed teasing him.

Reflecting on those moments made his heart pound and a goofy grin slip onto his lips, but the sight of something lying in a seaweed bed stole his attention. With the point of his finger, cyan aura ruffled through the seagrass patch and eventually managed to manifest around a single mass. The hedgehog heaved up his right hand and, matching the movement, a large rasher of metal rose from the depths. It was bent in a few places, it’d clearly torn against the rocks and been flung away by the swell, but it seemed to be in better condition than the bulk of the metal he’d found.

The hedgehog swam a little further, positioning himself above where the piece had crashed. Sure enough, it looked as though three more pieces had landed in the vicinity. Perhaps these were the last of the missing chunks? Blaze would chastise him for assuming that…

He dropped the strip he’d been carrying, a mass roughly the size of his torso, back down onto the seagrass before raising his hands to the sunny surface. Quickly, a bubble as big as his head descended into the depths and, following another gesture, fused into his psychic breathing apparatus. He heaved a deep breath, channelling more psychic energy from his palms before sending it to scour the seafloor.

His eyes shut as he allowed his sense of touch to guide the search, clinging to anything hard as he felt the sea and its flora alike slip through his grasp. There were actually five large pieces and seven or eight smaller fragments, it was difficult to count with his mind so full. Even if this wasn’t the last of the lost metal, it’d surely be enough to keep his partner busy. He clenched his feet, tightening his grasp on the metal to pull it after him.

Kicking his feet, the hedgehog managed to emerge at the surface and take to the sky. The now obsolete parts of his scuba suit vanished, resulting in the usual layer of cyan skin wore to fly. He was entirely dry, totally untouched by the seawater.

Flanked by the metal, he scanned his surroundings and quickly found their destination. Not too far away, around a stone’s throw from the horizon, floated a small and sandy island with a current population of two, soon to be three. As he approached, heaving his discovery behind him, its details came more clearly into view. The island was no bigger than a modest family house, home to three palm trees and five large grey rocks. Recently though, it’d seen the addition of one Marine the Raccoon’s crashed speedy-submarine.

The young shipwright, only thirteen, had designed the submarine to retrieve treasures lost on the seafloor. She’d been expressly told not to test it out without someone around to supervise her but, not one to be told what to do, she’d taken it out this morning, assumedly the instant Silver had left to meet with Blaze. The sobbing and babbling call that they’d received, just as they’d found a spot to picnic, had sent them into a manic dash. He’d swept the feline off her feet, abandoning their lunch, and taken to the sky. It’d taken less than an hour to track her down, a feat only possible due to the raccoon building a giant metal spire out of pieces she’d torn from her own craft.

Silver landed on the eastern edge of the island only to find that things were different from how he had left them. Marine had evidently run out of energy and crashed beneath one of the palm trees. The tide had quickly come in, swallowing more of what little land they had, but the speedy-submarine was still a ways away from being swept underwater. Somehow, likely due to the craft’s ludicrously powerful propulsion, Marine had ground it through the shallow waters for quite a distance before smashing it into a larger rock at the foot of the island. She’d managed to half-flip the submersible into the air and land it upside down on the island, the blatant damage she’d done exposed to the sky. The craft wasn’t especially big, it could roughly fit six people within its cramped interior, but seven breaches had clearly formed in the hull and all of its external gadgets had flown in various directions. It was fortunate that the propeller itself hadn’t been damaged.

Blaze was currently sat atop the cream-orange sub, clearly distracted by her work. While he’d been gathering the shed hunks of metal, she had been welding the craft back towards a more watertight state. She’d shed her usual royal robes before their outing, replacing them with a flowing black skirt and a tie dye purple shirt. Suffice to say, having planned things for weeks before finally managing to steal some free time, his partner wasn’t especially pleased to be working today. The thought of how to make things up to her had been weighing on him ever since they observed the extent of the damage. After all, they still had an afternoon and evening to share.

He approached the submarine on foot, still flanked by the dozen pieces of floating metal and watched as she pulled back from the gash she was sealing to wipe her brow with the back of her forearm. Despite how annoying this all was, he couldn’t help but feel his heart flutter a little. Perhaps it was the way the sun silhouetted her from above, maybe it was down to her change of dress or even the fact that she was using her power so casually, but, ultimately, why he felt this way didn’t matter. It’d taken him ages to understand concepts like romance and attraction, much longer than it probably should have, but, now that he did, Silver couldn’t help but bask in them. He didn’t just love her; he was in love. That fact was still so fresh in his mind.

It took Blaze throwing him a glance to snap him out of it, followed by a coy, “Did you enjoy your swim?”

“Oh, um, y-yeah,” He managed to stutter, turning to gesture toward the shards, “Are things going okay? I’m pretty sure this is the last of it. You should have all the important parts now.”

“I’m fine,” She managed to shrug and look back down to the hull, “I just hope we can get off this island soon.”

Catching the annoyance lingering in her tone, he couldn’t help but pipe up, “We can do something tonight if you want,” She looked down to him and, despite the intrigue on her muzzle, his confidence flagged, “J-Just if you want to, of course. I could cook something or maybe we could go out? Anything really, it’s up to you, I just don’t want to waste today.”

“Well, I suppose I could spare another couple of hours,” That smile crept back across her muzzle, “On one condition.”

She didn’t elaborate, but her tail swished as she awaited his response, “What condition?”

“You have to plan it this time,” Her coyness grew into a full smirk, “You’re in charge.”

Silver felt his heart skip a beat and his tongue grow very heavy. Throughout their time not explicitly dating, Blaze had taken the lead in most things. Even if he ended up doing the bulk of the preparation, as had been the case for their abandoned picnic, their outings and endeavours were driven by her. Sure, he’d show up and bring Blaze gifts from time to time but that was usually born of spur of the moment ideas rather than planning. The feline being the limiting factor on their outings had historically put her in charge of them, it was her time off after all and he hadn’t wanted to squander it.

“If you’re sure that’s what you want,” He managed to reply, “I have a couple of ideas-

“Surprise me,” In a single fluid motion, Blaze turned back to her work, still smirking, “You’ve got plenty of time to figure something out.”

The hedgehog swallowed, feeling sweat mount on his brow. He drifted into the air, tugging a slab of the metal after him, and quickly landed atop the submarine. Like putting together a puzzle, he tried to match a piece of torn metal to its respective hole. The action was barely enough to distract him from the pounding of his own heart but, fortunately, Blaze seemed to be caught up in her work. He managed to get a single large piece to mostly fit, positioning a couple of the smaller pieces nearby in an attempt to complete the shape.

As he finished and turned to grab another though, his eyes drifted over to Marine. Now closer, he noticed that the raccoon wasn’t actually asleep. Rather uncharacteristically, the shipwright had simply been sitting quietly beneath the tree. It was difficult to tell from so far away but Silver could plainly detect a certain solemness from her posture, her arms loosely crossed and back rigid. When he’d left for the ocean, she’d been working away at the hull as best as she could.

“Is everything okay with Marine?” He asked Blaze as she shifted from one hole to another.

“She tried to draw a blueprint in the sand to help explain some more complex repairs to me, but the tide came in and washed them all away,” The feline winced, “I think it’ll be fine without them, but she really wanted to help. I told her it’s fine but…”

The cat and raccoon pair’s friendship had changed a lot over the years. When he’d first arrived the two would occasionally get into spats that could last for days, usually deriving from Blaze’s longing to protect the youngster from her own sense of adventure. The princess was right to do so, Marine would get herself stranded or stuck fairly regularly, but Blaze’s own patience would occasionally wear thin and she’d end up angrily inspiring those very adventures. The raccoon would often leave in a strop, promising to prove Blaze wrong but very rarely doing so. Ultimately, the two of them had come to a sort of mutual appreciation over the years, likely urged on by a combination of familiarity and Blaze gradually letting down her walls. That change hadn’t stopped the raccoon’s adventurous tendencies, but it had made her a lot more responsible regarding them.

“If you’ll be okay doing this on your own for a little while, I could go talk to her?” Silver offered.

“I’d appreciate it,” She managed to nod, “Tell her that I’ll at least make it sailable again.”

“Alright,” He cast another glance to the youngster, allowing the remaining metal pieces to pile themselves in the sand, “I’ll do my best.”

He dropped from the top of the submarine but, as he made his approach, the raccoon had turned away. Rather than her typical green dress, she’d opted to go out in her denim work overalls and a simple t-shirt, perhaps suggesting that she’d anticipated some sort of issue. Her toolbox was sat beside her, messy as usual.

“Hey, Marine,” He could hear the hesitation in his own voice. He swallowed before dropping down to sit beside her, “It looks like Blaze will be able to fix your submarine up. It’ll all be fine.”

“Oh, that’s good,” She responded, offering no further insight through her words but a world’s worth with her tone.

Marine was more like him than she was like Blaze, even he wasn’t so oblivious as to miss that. While Blaze was frankly too good at obscuring her emotions and denying herself enjoyment, Marine and he were far more obvious in their expression. He could tell how disheartened she was by the tone of her voice, let alone her change in posture and wincing expression. Usually Marine was endlessly talkative, she’d talk for hours on end without even a moment’s thought, so for her to respond so simply was a clear indication of her current state.

The hedgehog’s hand found his chest fluff and began to awkwardly tug, “I think we’ll make it back well before dinner. Is there anything you particularly want?”

“Not really,” She glumly responded. For a moment, Silver thought that was all she’d say, “Shouldn’t you spend that time with Blaze? Seeing as I’ve already…”

“Don’t worry about that Marine,” Silver shook his head, “We’re just glad you’re okay. That crash could have been much worse.”

“Yeah, well,” She still hadn’t turned to him, “I messed up, again.”

“Marine,” He sighed, “It’s fine, it’s all fine.”

“But I ruined you two’s date. Blaze hardly gets time off as it is, she’s got to be boilin’ mad with me,” The raccoon protested, “And she’s right to be, she told me not to, that’s the worst part.”

“I told you, we’re just glad you’re okay. The instant we got your call we set out, your safety is more important,” A silence briefly filled the air and he felt the need to fill it, “As for the date, well, she still wants that to happen but…” That caught the Racoon’s eye, he couldn’t back out, “She’s put me in charge of it and I’ve got to figure out what we’ll do.”

“Oh, mate, that sounds like a lot of pressure for you,” She snorted, looking away again, “Try not to break under the strain.”

“Thank you for the show of confidence,” He mumbled, “She wants me to surprise her like she surprises me. I doubt she’s being serious about it, but I want to do my best.”

“I dunno mate,” She shrugged, “Sounds pretty serious to me. You’d better give it some thought.”

“Well, I’m open to ideas,” He said, more trying to get her talking rather than actually asking for ideas, “I could just make dinner or plan a walk, but this feels like it should be something special.”

“Probably, you want to make a good impression, show her that you can handle this,” The raccoon was slipping back into her usual tone, “She teases you enough as it is, imagine how much ammunition this could give her.”

“She already has enough to last the rest of our lives,” The hedgehog happily mused, “It’ll hardly be a drop in the bucket either way, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do this as best I can.”

“I guess so,” She mumbled.

The raccoon seemed to have realised that she was being led out of her wallowing and, rather than allow that, retreated back into herself. He had to keep this up, “You know, she used to chew me out just like she used to tell you off,” That got her attention, “Ever since we were tiny, she always took the lead.”

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me,” Marine bluntly responded.

“H-Hey,” His stammer put a small smirk on her face, “Well, you’re not wrong. She still does now, even if it’s not quite in the same way,” He continued, swallowing what little pride he had, “I used to come up with plans and run off on my own a lot, I’d get into all kinds of scrapes.”

“What?” She exclaimed, “But I thought she was the boss?”

“Eventually she got sick of me doing it and took charge,” He explained “Before that, I’d leave her behind, promising to beat a monster and come back, only to return all roughed up but insisting I was fine. She’d have to trick me into letting her see my injuries, I wanted to do everything myself and fix our world.”

“But wasn’t the future,” She made a vaguely t-rex like hand motion, “Overrun by monsters back then? They’d literally destroyed the world, hadn’t they?”

“Rivers of lava literally ran through the city and the sun was blotted out by clouds of soot,” Silver recalled, “My younger self didn’t really see that as an issue though. He thought it’d be easy, the kind of thing you could sort in a day.”

Marine snorted, almost chuckling, “That sounds like you.”

“The first time she stood up to me was incredible, you should have seen it,” Silver’s eyes drifted back to the feline, still welding the submarine, as he began to reminisce, “I’d limped in after fighting like an idiot, running all over the city, and she just pushed me over,” He heard Marine snort again, “She’s cute now but, back then, her frown didn’t fit on her face. Blaze was this tiny purple kitten and I’d convinced myself that I had to protect her, even though I was much shorter than her,” Now the raccoon was chuckling but Silver’s eyes didn’t leave Blaze, “I tried to make a fuss and get back up, but she properly pinned me down and mercilessly bandaged everything. By the time she’d finished, I was practically a mummy, I couldn’t even move.”

“That that really sounds like her,” Marine responded, finally reclaiming his gaze. She’d left her shell again, “It doesn’t sound like she was especially scary though.”

“Well, even back then, she could spit fire as easily as she could conjure it,” He grinned, “Once she had me trapped, she talked my ear off. She stood over me and just started shouting, letting out all of her annoyance, and, from then on, she never held back with me. If there was a problem, she’d make it very clear,” His gaze wandered back to Blaze, “Whenever I was about to do something stupid she’d just grab me but, eventually, she didn’t even need to do that. She’d call me naïve and it’d stop me in my tracks.”

The raccoon giggled, “Mate, she’s had you on a leash for that long?”

“She’s just cared for that long,” He bumped her shoulder with his, “I know she’s been harsh in the past but that’s only because she cares about you too. That was the only way she could show her concern.”

“I know, I know. She’s not as…” She seemed to be searching for the right word, “Stern as she used to be.”

“Things have changed, she’s learned that being more open is okay so she feels comfortable showing off her softer side,” The psychic agreed, “I certainly wouldn’t be in my current position if that wasn’t the case, neither of us would have any idea what to do with our relationship.”

“Now you’re the only clueless one,” She joked.

“Y-Yeah,” He quickly turned from Blaze as the feline threw a glance towards them, feeling the heat on his muzzle, “What am I going to do…”

“Flounder and fail probably,” She smirked.

“Flounder huh?” Perhaps it was born of that word alone, or it was bolstered by the shipwright’s creation and his time spent seeking out its parts, but an idea manifested in Silver’s head, “Marine, when you were in your submarine, did you see anything interesting?”

“Interesting?” She blinked, “What do you mean, mate?”

“You had to sail pretty far to get here,” He thought aloud, “Did you actually find anything? Any sunken wrecks or interesting spots?”

“No, there were no sunken wrecks, mate. I wouldn’t have crashed it if there was. I would have found my treasure and then headed back to rub it in everyone’s faces,” She responded, finally talking more positively about her experience, “I saw some pretty little fish and maybe a giant squid at one point but, besides that, it was all very boring.”

Setting his questions about the giant squid aside, Silver pried further, “Pretty fish? Did you see them anywhere in particular or just in general?”

Marine squinted, rubbing her chin, “Well, there was one place that they were pretty common. There was one of those coral reef places, a pretty small one though. There were all sorts of fish and crabs and stuff, it was real rough to navigate.”

That sounded perfect, “Once we’ve fixed up your submarine, do you think you could get there again?”

“Probably mate, why?” She questioned.

“Well, while carrying your submarine home would have been too much for me, I think I can manage a little bit of scuba diving,” He half explained, “Maintaining a couple of suits with my power shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“Oh, I get it! Aww mate, that’s a brilliant idea, you two’ll can do that and I’ll keep-

Silver clamped his hand over Marine’s mouth, throwing a quick glance at Blaze. The feline hadn’t turned to face them, even though she’d undoubtedly heard the raccoon’s shouting, “Th-This is supposed to be a surprise Marine, remember?”

“Oh, right, yeah,” She muttered, forcing her way free, “But alright mate, I can totally get you guys there.”

The raccoon looked far more like her usual self. Her ears had even returned to their usual formation. Honestly, just having heard her laugh had relaxed him, “Alright, I’m going to go check if Blaze needs help fixing the submarine. Will you be okay?”

“Who, me? Yeah, I’ll be fine. Fine as ever,” He gave her one last nod before rising, making sure that was the truth. As he went to turn though, her voice called out again, “Thanks, mate.”

“It’s no problem, Marine,” Silver smiled back to her, “We’ll have this sorted in no time.”

He made his way across the sand, approaching the large pile of dented and worn metal. With little more than the flick of his wrist, the hedgehog again lifted himself to stand atop the submersible. The feline had just about finished sealing the largest of the remaining holes so, quick to respond, the hedgehog weaved his hands through the air and began to set up the rest of her patchwork.

“Hello again,” She called up to him, not looking away from her work.

“Good afternoon,” He hummed, psychically fiddling with the giant puzzle, “Didn’t think I’d see you here.”

“I didn’t think I’d be here either, it’s been an interesting day,” She was smirking again, her fangs were only just visible.

The feline shifted, moving to a slightly smaller breach. With the snap of her fingers a flame manifested atop her fingertip before quickly shrinking and growing brighter. Bracing against the hull, she began to trace that finger along where the two masses met. Sparks flew as she moved slowly, allowing the metal to reach a near molten state before leaving it to cool and fuse.

Though it was no different from Marine doing the bulk of her metalwork, Silver found himself more and more enamoured as Blaze continued. Despite the difficult nature of the work, there was something almost elegant to her movements, it was like watching her write or dance. The flames she’d hidden for so long were now just another part of her, an extension of her being that came to her as naturally as curling her fingers. What she’d once insisted was separate from her now worked with her to do all manner of good.

“Silver, you’re staring,” She reminded him, not so much as glancing up.

“S-Sorry, I just like watching you work,” He said, feeling a goofy grin grow on his lips, “It reminds me of how things have changed.”

“If you stand so close, you’ll get burned,” She warned, smirking as she continued to work.

Accepting her words but unwilling to depart, the hedgehog took to the air. In a single motion he went from standing upright to hovering upside down, still face to face with her but having put his body well out of the way.

“Better?” As she looked up to see him, her smirk almost failing to contain her laugher, he felt his face light up red. If his heart had skipped any more beats, being stranded would be the least of his worries.

“You’re so naïve,” She tutted, rolling her eyes. In an instant, the flare vanished from her finger. She scooted just a little closer, “But…”

“But you always-

Before he could finish, her lips found his. Still upside down, he was kissed and soon found himself kissing her. The warmth of her lips pressing against his, the lingering taste of the lemonade he’d made for them, and the inherent knowledge that the woman he knew to be so powerful was being so very gentle sent the hedgehog into a blissful daze. Even her smoky scent, that he was sure would irk others, so thoroughly and completely completed the experience that was kissing his beloved. As if the ecstasy somehow wasn’t enough, he felt her fingers brush through his quills and tilt his head to pull him closer.

This was still new to him, strange to him, and he wasn’t certain that he was doing it correctly… but did that matter when he was enjoying it so much? Maybe he would get better at this with time but, then again, maybe he wouldn’t. They had grown together and would continue to grow together, taking on new aspects and improving on their failings. Who was to say when their growth would stop or whether it ever would? All Silver knew for certain was that he wanted to keep growing with her and see just what that growth would bring.

#silvaze #Silver the Hedgehog #Blaze the Cat #sonic the hedgehog #marine the raccoon #silverxblaze

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nomunamuinmybrain · 3 years

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Work you out (M)

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Rating: M

Genre: Smut

Word Count: 2.4K

In collaboration with the lovely @alwaysdarkestbeforethedawn94

Disclaimer: if you are under the age of 18 please know that this contains heavy sexual themes and mature language.

Summary: Working for Hybe has been an experience. Being Jungkook’s manager is another story. His sharp eyes, firm jawline and snarky attitude was a deadly combination to begin with. The guy easily found his way to your heart and you simply couldn't take it anymore.

Thinking back to how I managed to land such an unimaginable employment opportunity must have been a miracle. Unquestionably, working for HYBE had so many benefits; I swore to never leave this place. Sure, I was a simple manager's assistant, but I was by the side of one of the managers that handled the most important talent in the stretch of South Korea, the entire globe to be honest, BTS. I was assigned the position of assistant to the manager of one of the guys, none other than Jeon Jungkook. I really couldn’t believe my luck. Not only was I a part of one of the most skyrocketing influential enterprises in the country, but I also had the chance to meet some of the most inspiring people in the whole world! Who would have thought?!

Did I have a crush on the guy by the end of my first month working here? Yes, but who wouldn't? He is the sweetest, always polite and courteous. I've met my share of self-boasting asshats; this industry is flooded with such. This guy is worth billions and he has remained ridiculously humble. Word got around about him being a wonderful young man and I could positively say he is so much more up close. Jungkook is ridiculously handsome that’s a given already, but his personality was the real deal-maker. He reminds me of a dark stormy thundery night where I cover myself with my favourite warm fluffy blanket starring out of the window a rich flavored hot chocolate in hand.

In general, I quite enjoy working at the company’s principled environment. Don’t get me wrong, nothing in this world is rainbows and butterflies, but overall, I can confidently say that it’s been a mainly positive experience. Thankfully, the department I am in is assembled by kind, funny people who like to get things done. There hasn’t been a day were I regretted coming here. As for my daily duties as an assistant, working for Jungkook meant keeping up with his appointments, helping him with anything at anytime, managing his schedule, making sure it matches with the other guys' and so much more. I was required to work around the clock and as a single independent woman in her late twenties who was trying to figure out the world around her that didn’t sound like such a bad idea, though I digress. Essentially, I was one of the employees responsible for pretty much anything and everything he needed. Our department was at his disposal 24/7 running around, living that busy life.

That's until the pandemic struck. That was the first time I thought to myself that this might be nature’s valiant plan to get back what man so forcefully took from her. Suddenly, everything was canceled; life got put on a hold. My dearest supervisor, Jungkook's manager, had to stay at home because he had kids. In fact, a lot of people had to stay at home. Abruptly, days became weeks and weeks became months. The desperation and frustration we were feeling was like nothing else ever experienced. Truthfully, it felt like something had been stolen from us and we could never get it back. In this manner, when the gears finally started grinding again I was assigned to be the on-site manager for Jungkook. That meant being in direct contact with him more so than before and of course, being responsible for a ton of other obligations.

Not going to lie, the first months were slightly awkward for both of us and understandably so. We both were used to very different working arrangements. I might have been working behind the scenes before, but now I had to step into the spotlight becoming his own personal shadow, and I am sure he wasn’t really comfortable with that. Taken into account the current situation everyone looked like a volcano ready to erupt.

Once, I happened to accidentally step in a not so common incident; maybe it was a circumstance I wasn’t supposed to witness. He was on the phone at the time, when I saw him. That’s why I decided it was best if I stayed behind the half closed door of the studio. I couldn’t hear what he was saying and it was none of my business after all, but I could tell by the minute I laid my eyes on him that something was wrong. Something had been bothering him; irritation written all over his face. He was pacing back and forth, phone still on his ear. He was clenching his fist so hard I wondered if his nails cut into his skin. He was breathing heavily, almost as if he would burst and his muscles grew tense.

Then, in an instant, it seemed that the call ended and as he was putting the phone in his pocket he slammed his fists down onto the table a loud bang echoing in the room. After some consideration, I knocked on the door to make my presence known and he sharply looked at me. Without having the chance to say anything to him he let out a loud growl and left the room leaving me dumbfounded and unaware by the door. Soon after that, he apologized for the way he acted confessing that he had an unfortunate falling out with one of his closest friends and at the time he couldn’t process what was happening. I would never forget that day. It was the day I came across a not so familiar side to him.

From that day forward, things miraculously became easier and Jungkook was way more relaxed around my presence, we joked around often and he even texted me to ask about a variety of things outside of regular working hours. We managed to develop a teasing relationship full of endless borderline flirtatious banter. He had this other side to him that only a selected few got the chance to know. Jeon Jungkook was indeed a comforting raging night, but he was also an infuriating playful mischievous brat when he wanted to be. This in all honesty, made him a hundred times more irresistible in my eyes.

Life was going on smoothly until Jungkook decided that taking after midnight trips to the gym was perfectly acceptable, insisting that I escort him instead of his bodyguard. I cursed every single time but I went anyway. Forty-five minutes after midnight he was lifting weights, unbothered. Taking secret short glances towards him I contemplated what I had done in my previous life to deserve this torment. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t care less about the late hour, but to have this view in front of my eyes was causing me both mental and physical pain. The guy was clearly sculpted by the gods. With his broad chest, muscular arms and thick thighs he could have anyone he ever wanted. He even sported an hourglass figure; He is insanely unreal. That’s the main reason why I decided to sit there preoccupied with a silly game on my phone to kill time until the suffering ended. I was barely hanging from a string at the verge of blowing off the barrier between my personal and professional life.

Out of the blue, with a loud grunt, he dropped the weights, drawing me out of my contemplation. He looked annoyed for whatever reason. He tried his best to seem nonchalant but it was obvious, in his beautiful stern eyes. Could he be craving for an audience? Abandoning every rational thought I had, I put my phone away, looked in his direction as I got up to get water. I smirked at his clear annoyance. Surely, we weren't supposed to interact with the artists this way but I am cranky and sleepy, and for the first time ever, he was being kind of an ass to me. Was I perhaps the reason behind his sudden personality change? The thought kept floating at the back of my mind.

This kept going on for about three weeks or so and I gave him nothing. His annoyance prominent in his expression, more and more as the weeks went by. He was hot but I am sure all he had been seeking was an audience given that he missed it, or so I thought. Thursday evening rolls around and I was particularly iffy tonight ‘because I was extremely frustrated, sexually. This one was making my situation worse, sporting a tight black tank top and skinny grey sweatpants which made him look like a treat. He could easily pass for a bodyguard with those broad well-built shoulders. As my eyes scanned his body I realized this was the first time his tatted sleeve was on display. I couldn’t help but let my eyes wander. By the time I was done his eyes were already fixed on mine and I turned away immediately, embarrassment written all over my face.

Seeking solace in the women’s bathroom I tried to extinguish this ravenous yearning. The feeling of cold water did nothing to help the burning desire that was building inside me. Without warning, a knock at the door was heard, his sweet angelic voice following "Are you okay?" he asked, the remnants of a smirk could be heard still. "Jungkook you cannot be here, I am okay. I'll be out in a minute." I exclaimed, as calm as I could. "It's been ten minutes. I can't continue unless you're there." He insisted, I heard him chuckle after that.

With that, it was now or never, I pushed the door’s handle and made my way outside rolling my eyes in the process and he caught that, quickly moving closer, clearly annoyed, jaw clenched, eyes taking in my features, making him look not quite intimidating but definitely interesting. No, it was my mistake. Not just interesting, he looked ravishing. "As I said, I'll be out in a minute. Then you can finish up" I argued. But he didn't budge, moving even closer, if that was even possible, he was almost a breath away. "I don't feel like working out anymore" he declared like a child whose toy was taken away from him. As if I chose to play heads or tails with my career, I poked the beast further, "What is it that you want to do then?" I asked making sure he heard the annoyance in my tone. Coming even closer, to the point where he was completely pressed up against me, "You" he uttered calmly yet authoritatively. Before I could process what he had just said his soft lips crushed mine with a vengeance, thirsty. Pulling my lip with his teeth, he kept planting kisses from my lips to my jaw trailing down to my neck and décolletage; a surprised panting left my lips.

It felt as if I had involuntarily awakened this beastly hunger within him. His kisses insatiable and his touch was possessive, "I've been thinking about this for so long" he confessed as he took my hoodie off. "Sitting there, not giving a word let alone a glimpse. If you think this is off-limits you're wrong" he growled pointing at himself. "I can guarantee that once we're done here you definitely won't be able to look at me, ever." As he said all that, he managed to get me in a compromising position against the sink, his slim waist in between my legs. He kept my gaze as he lowered his head between my thighs. Little shit kept giving me hickeys on the soft flesh of my inner thighs, so close to my now dripping core. He enjoyed tormenting me and it showed. I was helpless but oh, God was all of this hot. He licked a stripe over my soaked panties, "Oh baby, you smell delicious" and with one hand he took off my underwear completely.

He sank in my folds, letting a guttural moan that I felt vibrating through my core. Not being able to think about what was happening I let myself indulge in my carnal desire my hands tangled in between his luscious hair.

He loved food and I've watched him eat before, but this must be one of his favorites ‘cause he was doing his best not to let a drop go to waste; he acted like a man starved. His hands held me in place, thankfully, ‘cause everything was too much; nothing could stop me from shaking, feeling everything deep in my core, he was too much. He just had to be good at everything. He kept a torturous tempo, from sucking my clit to his sinful tongue penetrating me, and as tears gathered around my eyes he decided to add his slender fingers in bringing me closer to heaven than I've ever been. "That's it baby, let go. Let go for me" he exhaled and just like that I had the most intense climax. My limbs felt numb, my whole body felt like rubber.

Before I could register what was happening he was back at it, sucking my over stimulated clit, my thighs unconsciously closing around his head as oversensitivity hit. "One more, please, come on baby, you can do it" he begged. He kept pumping his fingers while sucking my clit, as if it was his only goal in life. My screams muffled through my own hand clamped on my mouth as I reached my high for a second time that night. I felt it take over me with such intensity I didn't register what had happened. He emerged from between my thighs, soaked from me squirting and with a proud look on his face he declared "Now I look like I had the workout of a lifetime".

He helped me get dressed and pulled me close for a soft peck. He must have noticed my concerned look because he wrapped his arms around me in a warm hug and said "Don't be scared about this, we can work it out. I really like you and I'd like you to stick around". Starring into his eyes, I nodded and he pulled me close for the sweetest kiss, trying to tame my bewildered hair. He helped me get dressed and got out the door first to make sure that no one was around. I waited for a moment and then I got a text.

#bts #bts fanfic #BTS jungkook #jungkook fanfic #jeon jungkook #jungkook x you #jungkook smut #bts smut #idolau #bts imagines #jungkook oneshot #bts one shot #bts text #jungkook text

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st-just · 3 years

Text

A Setting: The City of Sethennai

Because I’ve spent long enough tinkering on this that I might as well share it with a population of more than a half-dozen potential players. Also it could almost certainly use an editing pass, and I don’t want to lose it all next time my computer dies.

So, a collection of densely packed plot hooks in the shape of a city

City History

The City of Sethennai is quite possibly the oldest city in the world, or at least the oldest still inhabited. When the first Dwarfs and Goliaths fled the Titans for the coast, they found ziggurats already rising from the water and tunnels dug beneath their feet, ruined by some already ancient cataclysm. Supported by fertile soil and full waters, they built their own city over it, and welcomed their own gods to it, a center of resistance to the Titanomarchy that became an empire in its own right.

Centuries passed and power drifted inland, to the mountain palaces of the Titans’ Giant heirs and the divinely appointed heroes who sometimes overthrew them. The City was rich, but peaceful, its soldiers only raised when one princess or another took it as a capital during a civil war. Such was the case when the first ships appeared from the East.

The adventurers from the League of Free Cities had been spurred across the sea by visions of fortune and glory, overwhelming the defenders with armies of goblin slaves and the ability to evoke demons far beyond what they could deal with. Their leader Sethennai proclaimed himself Emperor and renamed the city in his honour, taking it as his capital. After his assassination some years later the ‘empire’ fell into an anarchy it has never quite recovered from, but the name has stuck, and for the two hundred years since wonders and riches have flowed across the eastern ocean while mercenaries and adventurers have poured west in ever greater numbers.

The city’s ruler for the last fifteen years has been Prince Cael, an adventurer universally believed to be supported by the League’s political rivals back East. If so, they got what they paid for – experts and financiers have been imported and sponsored, and trade opened to anyone capable of paying the reasonable import duties.

Until two years ago, he had been the picture of brutal decadence, rousing himself from luxurious hedonism only to brutally deal with any threats to his power. Recently though, he changed – sponsoring vast expeditions into the ancient palaces of the interior and the ruins buried on the city’s outskirts, and installing a self-proclaimed Hierophant whose heresies had earned her a death warrant back East in the city’s grandest temples (violently banishing the cults which had held them since the Conquest in the process).

One week ago, at exactly noon, the sun vanished from the sky for one minute, and the entire city was filled with a deafening scream. Since then, the Prince’s grand palace has been sealed tight, with ingeniously horrifying magical defences ensuring that anyone who tries to force a door or window isn’t around to try again. Everything’s very rapidly falling apart, and the city’s traditional power brokers are reacting like so many rabid weasels in too small a cage.

It is, then, a perfect opportunity for people with the will to seize it.

Districts

The Palantine

If Sethennai is the oldest continually inhabited city in the world, the vast palace complex which crowns its central hill is probably likewise the oldest building still in use. Its foundation is burrowed deep into the hill on which it stands, to the point that some delvers and historians have theorized that it was once a truly massive pyramid now mostly buried by the ages. Rising out of it are two great peaks - impressive ziggurats in their own right - of obvious dwarven make, fashioned to house their ancient Ancestors-Kings and gods in suitable splendor, and since renovated and built over to house the city’s rulers and most favored priesthoods. Surrounding them are a dozen smaller peaks, each the estate of one of the city’s foremost patrician families, teeming with retainers and servants. The land around them is pristine and perfectly manicured, full of wondrous botanical gardens and menageries for the amusement of Sethennai’s greatest citizens.

Location of Interest: The Throne

A palace built on the ruins of a palace built on the ruins of a palace. The grand ziggurat which the city’s rulers have called home since time immemorial is built into and sits at the peak of its highest hill, the highest point in the sky for dozens of miles in every direction. Its labyrinthine apartments, kitchens, vaults, galleries and corridors house the Prince and his family, dozens of favorites and notables, and hundreds of guards, servants, retainers and entertainers.

Or, well, housed.

One week ago, the sun vanished from the sky, and a scream echoed through the city. Since then, the palace complex has proven impenetrable. Every door and window is closed, and attempts to open them by force have fared...poorly. In a ‘never going to walk again’ sort of way. Scrying and other means of magical surveillance so far attempted have simply failed. No one has tried to escape, and no noises have been heard - the whole complex is simply silent.

Of course, that means that all its secrets and riches are there for the taking. Or that’s the growing consensus - at least three separate groups have camped out near various gates and major entrances, each preparing their own scheme to break in and seize everything within. There’s no fighting between them. Yet.

Faction of Note: The Hierophant

Yri Cenred is many things. A self-proclaimed ‘experimental theologian’. One of shockingly few mortal humans to piss off the Illyrin clergy enough to be specifically declared Anathema. A member of the Commonwealth’s very exclusive list of ‘Enemies of Reason’. Empirically immune to thunderbolts from cloudless skies and most other signs of divine disfavor. Easily one of the most powerful mages in the city. And, for most of the last two years, its High Priestess and Hierophant.

No one knows quite how her first meeting with Prince Cael went, and whether she was responsible for her change in personality or if he sought her out because of it. All anyone knows is that shortly after she arrived in the city a few days ahead of Imperial Witch-Hunters looking for her head on a pike, Cael forcibly expelled the Khasali cults which had occupied the Palantine’s grand temples since the Conquest, and installed her in their place with the newly minted title of Hierophant for the city. Since then she and her growing coterie of acolytes (bright-eyed, motivated and young, though you can flip a coin as to whether their hands are stained with ink or blood) have been extremely busy, though no one can say exactly what with. Certainly they haven’t held any public rituals or services. Despite the costs - both political and monetary - in protecting and sponsoring her, Cael never seemed to question whether it was worthwhile.

The general opinion on the streets is that she’s probably to blame for anything and everything worth complaining about. The only real divide is between those who think she bewitched the Prince and turned him into her puppet, those who think she’s the one who killed him, and the moderates who think the correct answer is probably ‘both’.

Foundrytown

The New World is absolutely full of exotic reagents, fuel sources, and materials to craft and invent with. It is also absolutely full of people who will pay in your currency of choice for finished goods, armor, weaponry, and whatever nasty alchemical tricks you can keep from blowing up in their face until they want them to. Foundrytown is the sprawling mass of smokestacks, workshops, factories and markets that has spilled to the north of Sethennai’s walls, exploiting both opportunities to the fullest while limiting the chance that some idiot will burn half the city down (again). Robber barons, militant workers, loose fraternities of tinkerers and half-trainer artificers, and the occasional rogue clockwork or alchemical monstrosity all jostle for space and control of the beating heart of Sethennai’s economy.

Faction of Note: The Grand Bazaar

Official Imperial theology accords true dragons a place of honour - the Princes of the Earth, entrusted by Heaven with containing the fury of the elements within themselves so as to render the world peaceful enough for cultivation by the younger races - and forbids very few things to wyrms willing to play the part. (Principally, do not become undead, a god in your own right, or an archdemon of the elements. Though some justification can usually be found for how any sufficiently problematic dragon is actually doing one of those).

And Tyramara the Magnificent, the Fire of the Deeps has not technically done any of those things. Still, the ancient wyrm has little interest in allowing the wasting disease which has crippled her continue to spread, and her solution is unorthodox enough that she thought it prudent to abandon her palace-lair in Imir and relocate to the New World, six treasure galleons worth of her hoard in tow.

One of the city’s wealthiest residents from the moment she landed, she has bought a plaza in Foundrytown and offered her sponsorship to nearly every tinker and engineer who cares to set up shop there, provided they help sustain and improve the mechanical and hydraulic prosthetics that supplement and replace her dying organs. She has promised a full half of her hoard to any who can permanently deal with her condition, a fortune men have killed for in the past, and certainly will again.

Faction of Note: The Hellworks

They’re not officially called the Hellworks - there are, in fact, absolutely no devils involved. Still, between the billowing clouds of soot and steam pouring from their chimneys at all hours of the day, the severe architecture, and the bound spirits who keep the looms running at all hours of the day and eagerly take any opportunity to leave anyone who gets too close crippled or maimed to vent their anger - well, the name stuck.

One of the most obvious consequences of Prince Cael’s turn towards the esoteric these last years, the ' ‘Royal Sethennai Weaver’s Trust” is the brainchild and absolute domain of the Lady Binder Katerine sol Dalme sol Telrin ir’Paimon. An Illyrin magister with heterodox opinions on the proper uses of magic, popular opinion is divided on whether it’s more accurate to say Cael invited her to reside in the city, or just offered her asylum before her elders had a chance to properly condemn her.

Regardless, after six months of operation she - and her half-dozen strictly bound and extremely unhappy ifrit, and several hundred eminently replaceable more mundane workers - are already well on their way to supplying all the clothing and textiles Sethennai’s teeming masses require single-handedly, produced at a scale and speed far beyond what any traditional artisans guild could hope to compete with.

Crossroads

Dominating the Old City - synonymous with it, really - that the district is called the ‘Crossroads’ is often considered something of a cruel joke by new arrivals. The ‘Labyrinth’ is usually offered instead. Ancient stone tenements and storehouses are basic facts of geography, surviving through conquest and fire, and over and around and through them are generations of newer building - mansions of imported oak and marble, shantytowns of cannibalized carts and derelict ships built on rooftops, and nondescript inns and stores conveniently built on top of trap doors and tunnels leading to much more exciting locales. Natives of a neighborhood who know all the secret passages and blind alleys can quickly get to anywhere they like. New arrivals are strongly advised to pay well for a reliable guide.

Faction of Note: The Dreamers

There’s something under the harbor. There always has been. There probably always will be. Most people can go their whole lives without noticing it, but a certain few find living in the Old City a haunting experience, their nights spent dreaming of drowned palaces and impossible angles, their days spent lost in alleys and markets that have never existed. Inevitably, they come out of a daze and find themselves perched on the waters edge, staring into the filthy, polluted depths with an intense sense of longing.

Called the Dreamers, they’re an eclectic and informal fraternity, living in makeshift houseboats or the cheapest tenements that press against the water. Quite a few simply sleep on the streets. They’re something like a religion, and something like a guild - the most personable and talkative are merchants, selling the fish that others catch, the strange relics and minor treasures that their divers retrieve from the harbor, and the often beautiful - if always uncanny - art they produce. They take care of each other and, though no one has ever seen a dreamer raise a hand in anger, every attempt by syndicates or rival cults to extort or expel them has ended with their opponents going mad, screaming and clawing at their flesh in the middle of the night, or found poised in some elaborate and improbable suicide. After the third time, everyone more or less got the idea.

No one knows who leads them - if anyone does. Insofar as they have a public face, Zoe Alvane is it - a street urchin who ‘found the sea’ before she had hit puberty, for the last few years she has been the one who spends seemingly every hour of the day ensuring her ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ have food and shelter, and looking after the other beggars and poor in the neighborhood while she can as well. She’s also the one outsiders deal with when they come looking to buy information - it’s a disquieting fact of life in Sethennai that the Dreamers’ know almost everything there is to know about almost everyone. They are generally content to be left alone, and Zoe is very sympathetic and willing to offer personal advice and play the part of fortune teller to anyone desperate and willing to trade or do a favor - but it’s generally agreed that trying to force information from them is a bad idea.

Faction of Note: Ironfang Mercenary Company

When Prince Cael seized the throne, he didn’t do so single handedly. He needed trained, disciplined soldiers to seize the Palantine and coastal forts, ensure no one escaped the palace, and keep order on the streets while the messy business of extinguishing the previous dynasty was carried out. For all this and more, he relied on the professional expertise of the Ironfang Company.

Formed around a core of hardened hobgoblin veterans of various border wars and colonial filibusters in the Free Cities, the Company has for the last fifteen years been the Prince’s favorite tool for securing his interests, keeping order, and bloodily making examples of any threats to his rule. For their trouble, they’ve grown fat and happy - a steady paycheck and yearly bonuses have left every officer with a townhouse, and most common soldiers with coin for families and apartments for them to live in.

Despite the lack of real combat - and the need to take on locals as new recruits, as more and more soldiers retire or die over the years - Captain Azaersi is a leathery old warehouse who has never let her troops grow soft. Even week the grand parade ground in Crossroads echoes with screaming drill sergeants and the crack of muskets, and it’s an open secret that the Prince paid to import stocks of grenades and munitions from Quepta for her arsenal. No one knows quite how she plans to deal with the sudden disappearance of her patron and employer, but for the moment the Ironfang seem content to keep order in the corner of Crossroads around the arsenal and parade ground that they call home.

The Ruins

The ruins are not, legally, part of Sethanni, and absolutely no one with anything resembling sense would ever actually choose to live there. No one actually knows where the eponymous ruins come from - or at least, no one can agree which section is from where. Shantytowns of the most despised and desperate and built on top of their predecessors, which are built on top of battered and broken pre-Conquest ziggurats and homes, which are built on top of - well, some of it is just a natural cave system, and no one is sure about the rest. Or ever found just how deep it goes. Aside from the casualties of the Prince’s attempts to map it, the Ruins are inhabited exclusively by those that would be strung up or burned alive if they tried to live anywhere else, or those sufficiently dedicated to their greed or ambition that they’re absolutely certain they alone can unlock the secrets and find whatever wonders are buried beneath all the traps and monsters. Not great company, either way.

Faction of Note: The Weavers’ Masquerade

Sethennai never really followed its ‘sister cities’ in the League in religion, with a sort of tolerant anarchy of different gods and sects almost always predominating over the gleefully blasphemously sublime demon-cults that the conquerors originally brought with them. But the small cultists that did exist at least enjoyed a luxurious, privileged irrelevance, with sanctums in the city’s grand temple. That finally changed when Cael seized the temples for his new Hierophant - and every relic and sacred text in them, as bloodily as necessary. Which with demon worshippers meant a massacre - letting one escape and beseech their patron for aid in crafting some horrible vengeance being generally agreed to be a terrible idea.

Not that that actually worked, of course. One acolyte managed to escape - no one’s quite sure how, but then, probably best not to ask unless you’ve got a particularly strong stomach. Well, that’s one of her stories, anyway - she goes by Maia Dayal, Beloved of the Architect, Wearer of Ten Thousand Faces, and sometimes she prefers to say she’s a recently arrived priestess from Celmy, or a street urchin who found enlightenment entirely on her own. As might be expected by the self-proclaimed title, she also changes her face (and build, age, species…) about as often as everyone else bathes.

While she has shown no interest in actually taking bloody revenge on the Prince, Dayal has done plenty to earn the price on her head. The Masquerade that has grown around her is a carnival of wonders and horrors, where all manner of temptations are offered to the truly desperate, debauched and vile. Skinweavers and facetakers always need raw material, and secrets and deaths can both be easily bought for the right price - though in keeping with their patron, the Masquerade is hardly a safe or stable place to do business, and offending the wrong cultist can easily lead to a shift from ‘visitor’ to ‘canvas for artistic expression’.

Faction of Note: The Keendream Expedition

Over the last two centuries, the actual facts about the pre-Conquest city has (with few exceptions) been buried under the weight of legends, rumors and (when necessary) several tons of rock. Despite this (or because of it) whenever things get bad (...worse) for the original population of goliaths and dwarves who can trace their lineage back to that time, stories about some hidden savior or buried relic that will free them spread like wildfire. This is just such a time.

Ilidak Keendream Kathu-Viano is an explorer from a family with some grounds for its claim of being pre-conquest nobility. For the last year he has worked on commission for the Prince, leading a large and incredibly well-armed expedition into the ruins across the water from the Old City, digging into them in search of..something. No one who knows the goal has been willing to talk, but certainly it has involved hiring every historian and scholar with anything like knowledge of the city before it was Sethennai (not to mention half the charlatans and rumor mongers who might know something).

Once news of the Prince’s disappearance reached Kathu-Viano, work shifted from its previous sedate pace to something much more determined. Certain paranoid minds have said it’s almost like he was waiting for this. Other, moderately less paranoid ones have pointed out it’s a bit odd that the government-sponsored expedition is so short on patricians and city notables and so high on mercenaries form the interior and goliath clans with far more reason to listen to Kathu-Viano than the Prince, should some conflict break out.

The Stacks

Museums, exhibitions, satellite campuses, mystical archives, storehouses of eldritch knowledge, and one actual wizard tower - if the faint taste of ozone in the air doesn’t warn you what you’re getting in for leaving the city’s eastern gates, then the architecture certainly will. Wedged between variously reputable bookstores and inquisitives, different formalized and longstanding campuses are dedicated to the arts of conjuration, enchantment, sparkcraft, and practical cosmology. Competition for new discoveries and to fully unlock ancient secrets are good natured and nonviolent - at least, that’s all you can get out of anyone left standing once the smoke clears.

Faction of Note: The Bookhounds

The Bookhounds aren’t any sort of formal organization - and at least half of them would roll their eyes at the name - but rather a loose network of gutter mages, disreputable academics, private inquisitives and researchers for hire, and people with a little talent or cash to burn and far too much curiosity for their own good. They act as a sort of volunteer police force in the Stacks, passing each other clues and leads and doing each other favors to track down stolen (or escaped) relics and curses, stop idiots from unleashing anything really dramatic, and generally help people and save the day. Not to mention accumulate really impressive bags of tricks and rare books themselves in the process.

While they don’t have anything like a real leader, the group’s beating heart is Nikos Roth, an Esheri academic who arrived in the city as a fresh-faced student on a three month expedition a decade back and who never intends to leave. Running a small, incredibly ramshackle-looking secondhand book store wedged between two tenements, he nonetheless has one of the more impressive collections of occult lore in the city, and is more than happy to trade for more of it, or connect anyone in need with a specialist who can help them. As more than one would-be thief has discovered, he’s also a fairly talented mage, and for all that being entirely self-taught has left him with some obvious holes in his training, it’s also left him with some tricks that basically no one comes prepared to counter.

Redgate

Once, Redgate Prison stood alone, a fearsome warning of the Prince’s power to anyone looking south from the city center. Eighty-some years of steady urban sprawl later, most of its inmates would probably just need a running start from the prison walls to land back home. Filled mostly with those whose dreams of a new world fell flat, but with too little cash or too many enemies to get home, the slums of Redgate are a natural habitat for street gangs, drug peddlers, flesh traders, and everyone else looking to take advantage of the desperate and vulnerable. The prison itself - and its infamous and heavily armed wardens - has stumbled into being the center of law writ large, dealing out summary justice for criminals that are (correctly) assumed to be beneath the Prince’s notice.

Faction of Note: Regate Prison

Sitting on a steep hill across the water from the Old City, Redgate prison was at one point a fortress, but for generations has been put to use housing the city’s worst, most dangerous, and most profitable criminals. Given the sprawling, crime-ridden slums that now surround it, its wardens also work as a sort of brutal police force, keeping the pretence of order on the street and preserving the Prince’s Peace. Usually.

The problems with discipline start at the top, really. The Prison’s infamously brutal First Warden is also its oldest and most dangerous prisoner. Before the Conquest, Vrocdruk was one of the city’s lesser gods, enthroned in one of the Palantine’s grand temples. When Sethennai - the man - defeated him, he chose to pull his demons away before they could tear the god into so much bloody aether. Instead he was crippled, lessened, and bound to a new home in the fortress and a new purpose; defending the city and its rulers. Later, less skillful, princes altered the binding, making him responsible for most crime and punishment and hoping that his sacred nature would make the native dwarves and goliaths more obedient.

Vrocdruk is still crippled, still bound to the prison, still forced to obey the orders of the city’s acclaimed ruler, and still extremely unhappy about it. He takes any excuse to work out his unhappiness on criminals or troublemakers with the incredible bad luck to catch his direct attention. His wardens largely follow his example, often acting less like agents of justice and more like a particularly well armed gang - to the point of semi-officially collecting fees for ‘security’ from nearby businesses, supplementing the cash extorted from prisoners and their families for both necessities and luxuries while incarcerated.

Sootcliff

Trailing south of Foundrytown, on and under the steep slope beneath the city’s western walls, the densely packed tenements of Sootcliff are certainly stained grey enough to earn the name. Existing primarily as a source of blood and sweat to feed into the ever-hungry foundries and assembly lines to the north, The buildings are cheap, massive, and constructed at the lowest possible cost, with all the consequences you would expect from that. With easy access to weapons and alchemical supplies from Foundrytown and (literally) beneath the notice of the Old City, Sootcliff is famous as the home of militant bands, revolutionary conspiracies, disgraced artificers, and generally anyone who has a dream for a new world and a plan that will require a lot of explosions to get there.

Faction of Note: The Painted Doctors

Less a single organization and more an extraordinarily loose confederation of - often feuding - crimelords, the Painted Doctors are a fraternity of (largely half- or self-) taught alchemists who have over the last year grown to be the dominant criminal guild in Sootcliff. The name sometimes refers to the incredibly distinctive tattoos each ‘Doctor’ has covering much of their body, universally agreed to be somehow enchanted or cursed. Otherwise it refers to the incredibly alien and vibrant skin tones that their test subjects and muscle develop after repeatedly ingesting their ‘miraculous’ potions and tonics.

While possessing remarkably little actual magical talent among them, the Doctors have perfected the recipes for several extremely useful potions - several incredibly addictive drugs, a half dozen forms of acids and grenades, and a dizzying variety of enhancing tonics to improve themselves and distribute to their thugs - and have managed to keep both the recipes and their sources for the necessary reagents entirely secret. This has left them in the enviable position of being able to promise anyone signing on with them that they’ll be able to more or less become a regenerating ogre for an hour whenever they need to fight, while their opposition has had to settle with advising their men to stock up on fire and acid.

The leading light of the Doctors is one ‘Dr’ Fadre - almost certainly not his real name - an alchemical savant whose ‘miracle cures’ are bought and resold across the city. A flashy and well dressed sort whose patronage has turned several of Sootcliff’s most prominent dens of vice into something close to palaces for those who can afford it, he’s said to be far less interested in the nuts and bolts of running a criminal empire than enjoying its fruits and indulging his passion for the Sciences. It doesn’t hurt his reputation that he doesn’t look a day over thirty, and has for as long as anyone has known him.

Chance

Facing Oldport from across the river’s mouth, the docks of Chance are significantly new, cheaper, and altogether more ramshackle. Not really a part of any conscious design, Chance grew organically as the city sprawled beyond its original walls, essentially smuggling docks so successful it was easier to legitimize and start taxing them than it was to hang everyone involved. They now provide the city with a constant infusion of nerdowells and fortune seekers, and the district around them takes great pride in fleecing new arrivals of every penny to their name by the end of their first night on land. Hostels and boarding houses are usually safe, traditional vice dealers less so, and anyone selling treasure maps or magical amulets not at all. Still, they’re probably more harmless than the various mercenary recruiters and ‘exiled princes’ promising to give new arrivals exactly the thrill and fortune they came searching for.

Faction of Note: The Red Ocean Trading Company

What is now the Red Ocean Trading Company has gone through several dramatic changes over it’s eighty years of existence. First a privateer fleet hired by the Free City of Celmy during the First Armada War. Then eventually growing strong enough to seize several islands as an independent pirate state, before being crushed by the Esheri Navy during the Second Armada War. It’s remnants learned a bit of humility from that, and it is now seemingly content with its existence as either (depending on who you ask) a obscenely profitable shipping firm, or one of the most widespread criminal syndicates in the world.

The Company’s significant interests in Sethennai - nearly half the docks in Chance, guides and guards for anyone heading into the Interior, and fingers in quite a few less legitimate pies as well - are ably represented by Captain Arun Prem, a(n in)famous adventurer and scoundrel in his own right, apparently enjoying his semi-retirement behind a desk by getting outrageously drunk with his favorite mercenaries and criminals every night and swapping incredible (and implausible) old war stories.

There’s plenty of rumors, of course - that he’s here in de facto exile after angering the Company’s mysterious senior leadership. That he’s a thousand-year-old vampire and is the Company’s mysterious senior leadership. That he ate a kraken’s heart, and is immortal as long as he doesn’t lose sight of the water. That he’s biding his time to prepare an army before heading inland to carve a new kingdom for himself. That he’s only in the city for as long as it takes to carry out some truly spectacular heist. That he killed Prince Cael in a secret duel and trapped his soul in the pocketwatch he wears at all times. And so on. Of course, other rumours say that he started all of those himself to preserve his mystique as he grows fat in his old age.

Oldport

Facing out to the harbour but safely ensconced within the city walls, Oldpot is, as the name implies, one of the oldest ports in the new world - and certainly one of the busiest. Fully loaded merchant ships arrive daily, their cargoes emptied and replaced with the plunder of the New World almost overnight so they can return home on the next turn of the wind. Beyond the grand ports themselves, this district is home to all the most respectable shipping companies, merchant banks, hotels, and townhouses and apartments, as well as all the official consulates and embassies that Sethennai plays host to.

Faction of Note: First Bank of Sethennai

Despite only being as old as Prince Cael’s reign, the Bank already feels like an eternal and irreplaceable part of Sethennai. This isn’t something people are necessarily happy about, but its leadership had done a truly amazing job at keeping dissent to grumbling and resentment of the inevitable, and not actual resistance. They’re good at that sort of thing, even when they used Prince Cael’s (and, thus, the City’s) massive debts to his foreign benefactors as justification for taking control of the city’s tariffs and tolls, and began rigorously enforcing them, possibly for the first time ever.

Combined with a legal monopoly on the ability to mint coins, this has of course made the Bank incredibly wealthy. But not to the degree that might be assumed - the riches collected are to a large degree shipped back east to foreign creditors. Of the remaining, quite a bit is invested with as much an eye for politics as strict profit.

Executive Director Salman Ticaret, like most of his staff, is a Sethennai native who sought education in the Commonwealth (like most, he took a new name on gaining citizenship). Along with modern accounting and investing techniques, he came home with a firm grasp of political economy - and so for the last decade and a half has been more than happy to offer favorable rates to well positioned patrician and merchant houses, in exchange for their own favors and consideration in turn. The result is that the bank’s marble halls and adamant vaults house information as much as money. And Ticaret is perfectly willing to invest both, if the opportunity is promising enough.

Foreign Interests

The League of Free Cities

The League of Free Cities is not so much a single power as a collection of fiercely independent deomcratic city-states held together by the intertwined private empires of their leading citizens, deep and interdependent trading relationships, and a common religion that the rest of the world calls demon-worship - they view this as deeply offensive. Also they’ve been doing it for hundreds of years and they’re not all dead yet, so clearly everyone else is just doing demonology wrong. Politics are a mess of knives in the dark and openly bribing the voting populace with feasts and spectacles, with glory and riches to anyone who can hold the mob’s favor for long.

Demonic evocation - and the arts learned as a result of it, like fleshweaving, orienomarchy , breaking reality down into elemental chaos and shaping it to your whims, and so on - are in the rest of the world generally met with very thorough execution, making the freethinkers of the League the world’s bleeding edge in magical innovation. The entire culture of the League is also nearly custom-made to produce bold idiots willing to do what it takes to get rich or die trying, and the various Free City’s Adventurers Guilds are (in)famous the world over.

Until recently, the Free Cities considered Sethennai, if not one of them, then at least a younger sibling or benevolent dependency. Prince Cael’s coup has been taken as something of a wound, and the merchant interests who have lost out as he opened trade have made sure that in the decades since his name has become synonymous with bloody-handed tyranny. The first broadsheets celebrating his death will sell out in moments, and the acclaimed merchant adventurer Vyas Asraya, said to be en route to the city, is said to be very optimistic about future trading opportunities.

Holy Illyric Empire

Technically speaking a vast and sprawling feudal state unified only in the person of the Sovereign (Empress of Illyrin, Queen of Belthaya, Defender of the Hierophant of Imir, Grand Duchess of Abhari, etc, and so on, and so forth), the Empire dominates the better part of two continents, and in terms of size and prestige is unquestionably the foremost state on the globe. It is also a bureaucrat’s nightmare, its aristocracy distracted from their internal feuds only when they need to defend their ancestral rights from central overreach.

Ancient controls and long established relationships make Imperial binders the most fearsome conjurers and thaumaturges in the known world, a process not at all hurt by the wholesale incorporation of any powerful spirits or terrestrial god who will sign on the dotted line into the official pantheon. Illyrin Paladins are also easily the most storied heavy cavalry the world has ever seen, and Abharic necromancers are generally held to be the heirs (or direct pupils) of the inventors of the craft.

Illyric interests have prospered under Prince Cael’s reign, but the last years have seen Sethennai become a haven for heretical priests and radical binders, something Ambassador Konrad Reingard has been rumored to be increasingly frustrated with, though no one heard a word from his Oldport estate since the chaos began.

The Sublime Esheri Commonwealth

A thoroughly modern and enlightened state, the Commonwealth is history’s gift to the cartographer, an empire with firmly delineated borders and clear, rationally determined administrative divisions. Governed by a Janissary Corps educated and conditioned from childhood to put principle above self interest and the good of the Commonwealth above friends or (nonexistent) family, the Esheri control far less land than the Illyrin Empire, but has been able to fight it to a standstill and even force it to abandon certain far flung dependencies over a series of wars across the last century.

Beyond a ruthlessly efficient system for taxation and conscription, the Commonwealth’s military might is credited to two sources - on the one hand, its marines are the finest and most disciplined line infantry anyone is likely to ever see, experts in the use of gas and artillery and famously cool under fire. One the other, their heavy automata are an answer to any conjured devil or bound beast, enlightened clockwork providing enough force to cleave through scales and enchanted plate without missing a beat. But the Janissaries are as happy as their enemies to admit that they prefer unfair fights - though they credit their infamous spy network to the fruits of their scientific studies of society and history, while their enemies instead blame the corrupting effects of gold, blackmail, and a complete indifference to the morals of those they work with.

While the Commonwealth does have an embassy in the city, it mostly exists as an appendage of the First Sethennai Bank, the private institution responsible for printing and guarding the solvency of the city’s currency, its entire upper rung staffed by experts trained in the Commonwealth and generally considered Prince Cael’s way of paying back their support for his coup. More recently, it has been rumored that the Secretariat has taken an interest in the struggles in the interior. Coincidentally, an ‘Academic’ has been seen floating around various less than reputable bars in Chance, ostensibly as part of a project to record the city’s myths and folklore.

The Warlord States

For the last two hundred years, the interior has been an evershifting patchwork of successor kingdoms, native revolts, monstrous empires, released horrors, and stranger things besides, the unending tide of weapons and adventurers ensuring that no single player was ever able to secure dominance (and the various rulers of Sethennai have certainly played their part in keeping things that way). At the moment the foremost powers are a giantblooded kingdom led by a messaniac priest-king claiming to be the reincarnation of a Titan, a personal union enforced at sword point between a Khasli pirate queen and a goliath ‘emperor’, a red dragon who has claimed an old giant palace and forced the dwarves living in the mountains around it to provide tribute and worship, and several dozen more minor principalities. It should go without saying that war is the natural state of being, and soldiers are sucked up like ships in a whirlpool.

Adventurers are the lifeblood of Sethennai, and they don’t only flow one way. A constant stream of veterans - either enriched or embittered - skulk, limp or run back once they’ve had their fill of the wonders of the new world, usually missing something important or carrying something priceless - sometimes both. The courts and inner circles of every powerful warlord are composed exclusively of this sort of hard, tricky and generally insufferable type of rogue, and they’re often the only agents trusted enough to be dispatched on delicate missions. The line between warlord and criminal kingpin or pirate magnate is also extremely thin - sometimes nonexistent - as smuggling, sabotage and assassinations are simply basic tools of statecraft in the ruthless arena of the interior. More than once, an ambitious Prince of Sethennai has attempted to recreate their ancestor’s short lived empire, only to be found butchered in their bed but the agents of one warlord or another.

The Warlord States view Sethennai as a vital artery for supplies and funding, and for manpower to refill their armies with disposable bodies for their constant border wars. On a grander scale, those with ambition view it as either a crown jewel and future capital, or a bleeding ulcer on the land which needs to be razed to its foundations. In either case, few are interested in a strong, stable government for it. Regardless of their opinions, sending emissaries and embassies to the city is the first (and often only) diplomatic initiative of every new warlord state - though in truth their role is often closer to mercenary recruiter and fundraiser.

#this is theoretically a writing blog #D&D #abhari #well D&Dified but mostly #worlbuilding

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katiebug445 · 3 years

Text

“I didn’t ask to be commander.”

A late entry for Jearmin week 2021 prompt: run away with me

@twoboys-onesoul

The world was full of danger. That was something they both knew better than most. From watching friends and strangers alike be killed in front of them, their bodies ripped apart mercilessly as their cries for help were cut off by jaws of titans, to knowing there was a whole world out there, and every person in it wanted them dead. Jean and Armin knew every breath they took had the threat of being their last.

So what was the point in doing this?

Jean lay panting on his bed, the familiar ache between his legs becoming noticeable now that Armin wasn’t there, and turned over onto his side to watch him. Armin was already sitting up, gathering his clothes, and the sight made him hurt so badly he could barely stand it. “Do you have to go so soon?” He asked, reaching out and gently tugging Armin’s arm.

“You know I have to.”

Jean just sighed, letting his hand fall away, but kept it dangerously close to the other man. “I miss back when we could do this and spend the night together.”

Armin stiffened, pausing in getting his socks back on, and Jean knew what was coming. “I didn’t ask to be commander, Jean.” He said, his voice tense.

“I know that. But even Erwin took a minute to himself now and then.”

Armin froze, and Jean knew he’d taken it a step too far. They had made a silent agreement years ago not to mention Erwin unless they absolutely had to.

“I’m not Erwin.” Armin said softly, coldly, a tone that always unsettled Jean more than anything. He’d never had it used directly at him before, and he really didn’t like it. “And things are a lot different than when he was commander.”

Jean fell silent after that, knowing he was right but also knowing that was exactly why Armin needed to take a second to breathe now and then. It wasn’t healthy to take on the entire world and add more and more to it every day. He needed to have a minute to at least drink a cup of tea before he snapped completely. He always had been way too hard on himself, and being thrust into the position unexpectedly only made it worse. Jean knew he lived in both Erwin and Hange’s shadows, the expectation of living up to their strength and wisdom always sat heavy in his heart, and he hated it.

“Yeah,” was all Jean said.

Armin stood, pulling his pants on and buttoning up his shirt, and ran his hands through his hair to smooth it down a little. Jean could see the tenseness in his body coming back now that he had a moment to think, and part of him wanted to beg the other man to come back to bed and do whatever he wanted to him as long as it meant he could get some of it out.

Surprisingly, Armin sat back down on the side of the mattress when he finished, the air heavy with repressed emotions, and the only sound between them being Armin’s unsteady breaths. Jean knew he was trying not to cry, and a pang of guilt shot through him knowing that it was his fault he’d gotten so worked up. Pulling the sheets up over his lower half, Jean scooted closer and ran his hand over Armin’s back to offer some sort of comfort.

Much to his alarm, though, Armin bowed his head and let out a sound that never failed to break Jean’s heart. He choked a sob and curled deep into himself, like he always did when he fell apart, and pulled away from the warmth of Jean’s hand.

Jean scooted even closer, but Armin squirmed away again, and he wasn’t having it. Jean followed after him as the other man really started to break, and before he could protest, he had his arms around him and was holding him securely, kissing softly at the top of his head.

“I never asked for this.” Armin said again, his voice soft and wavering as he reached up and laid his hands over Jean’s arms. “I-I never wanted this.”

Jean shushed him, holding him while he got everything out.

It took ages for Armin to calm down, but that was okay. Jean knew it had been a long time since he’d been able to, and it was the best thing for him to do it. When his sobs finally quieted, Jean ran his hand over Armin’s hair, laying his head against the blond’s, and whispered: “Why don’t we just leave? Just us. We can go right now and make for the ocean, build a house on the beach, and spend the rest of our lives there.”

“Are you fine with living the majority of yours alone?” Armin asked brokenly. “Because I’m not going to be with you long.”

Beside him, Jean exhaled. “It would be worth it to me.” He promised.

“It would be worth losing whatever chance we have at stopping Eren?” Armin asked, pulling back and looking confusedly at Jean. “What if we could find a way to stop this? To break this curse?” He had little hope they would, but he knew Jean believed it.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

Armin did know, but how could he let himself accept that? He wasn’t a good person anymore; he’d completely abandoned his humanity for the sake of Eldia’s future, and the only thing left was an awful, broken shell of a man who was in over his head. He wasn’t like Jean. He didn’t deserve the love the other man showed so openly for him in moments like this.

“How about this then,” Jean started, pulling back a little and looking at Armin’s face. “We stop Eren, we find a way to break the curse, and then you and me run away and leave the rest of this behind. I think we’ve more than earned a peaceful life, haven’t we?”

Hearing him say that brought on a fresh wave of tears, and Armin shook his head, burying his face in Jean’s chest. “Don’t talk like that.” He begged.

“Why not?”

“Because something could happen.” Armin sniffed, clinging even tighter to him. “I don’t… I don’t want to make promises we might not be able to keep.”

“But that’s exactly why we should make it.” Jean argued. “Because if we do, then we have to keep it. No matter what.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Life.” Armin breathed, his eyes slipping shut as he leaned heavy on Jean’s chest. “I don’t want to make any plans until I know we’re both safe.”

Jean inhaled deeply and Armin found some small comfort in feeling that breath, knowing that Jean was still there with him. They’d made it this far and still had each other, and despite himself a small, hopeful part of him began imagining that house on the beach.

Neither of them had much of an idea on how to build things like that, so Armin figured it would be a simple structure, with the necessities only, and maybe… maybe two more built a little ways away for Connie and Mikasa. Aside from Jean, she was the only person he had left in the world, and he knew he was for her too. There was no way he’d be able to leave her behind while he went off on his own. And he knew it was the same for Jean with Connie.

The idea of waking up every morning with sand under his feet and the sound and smell of the ocean to greet him, with a long, long life ahead of him to spend with the man he loved… it sounded perfect. It was everything he could have ever dreamed of, and it terrified him. Dreams died so easily in the world, and usually ended with the dreamer left in a bloody heap on the ground, but still that small, hopeful piece of him held tight to that image, that feeling, and wouldn’t let it go.

It was quiet for a little while as they held each other, and after a moment, Jean pressed a lingering kiss to the top of his head. “I’m not giving up on that house.” He murmured, the warmth of Armin’s body making him sleepy.

Instead of replying, Armin pulled out of his grip and, deciding to humor the other man a little, lay back down on the bed and got under the blankets with him. Jean smiled in the low light and lay down, too, melting when he felt Armin’s arm slip around his middle and hold onto him. A quiet promise that he would stay with him in the only way he felt comfortable making one.

#jearmin #jearmin week 2021 #jearmin week #katie's writing

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novelconcepts · 3 years

Note

novel, just look at this https://www.instagram.com/p/CMILP2ZAjsw/?igshid=1ve4cwcbiy69y

mayhaps you could use this as a prompt sometime? 👀 (no pressure)

The greatest injustice in the world, Owen Sharma thinks, is in how many women he’s buried. How many loved ones--why are brilliant young women always punished?--he’s laid to rest. How many times he’s looked away for only a second, only to find they’ve slipped through his fingers.

The greatest injustice in the world, Owen thinks, is in how many times he’s stood over the graves of women who should have had so much more time. Women with new recipes untested, new cities left unexplored, new experiences permanently unlived. Rebecca Jessel will never practice law. Hannah Grose will never see Paris. Dani Clayton will never...

Dani will never...

He’s never even there. Maybe that’s the worst part of all--that he’s always just off-camera, always just this side of where he ought to be. At home, when Rebecca drowned; at the manor when his mother passed; looking at his shoes while Hannah...

And now: now, with no warning at all, the phone ringing in the middle of the night. The voice on the other end is almost unrecognizably flat. The voice on the other end, he thinks, will haunt his dreams for years to come.

“Come to Vermont.”

“Jamie?” She sounds wrong. Not simply too calm, not simply too level, but as though all the life has been wrung from her body. As though she’s calling him from another plane altogether, and Owen will later be embarrassed by his first awful thought: She’s dead. She’s calling me from her own grave. It’s Hannah all over again.

But of course nothing ever could be. Nothing could ever match Hannah, the impossibility of her that summer. The impossible, cruel way the universe had of pushing her nearly into his arms before letting that trapdoor fall open beneath his feet. Jamie isn’t dead; Jamie is breathing into the other end of the phone, as though straining to keep herself together. Which can only mean one thing.

He’s on the first flight. A bag with a few changes of clothes, a passport, a photo he is to this day unable to travel without. The plane juddering beneath him, his legs crammed into the small space, he presses his thumb to the smile beneath the plastic sheet.

Hannah, I don’t know how to do this again. He’s never quite known how to do it at all, how to be this person--and wasn’t that because of Jamie all along? Jamie, who had found Rebecca’s body and made all the appropriate calls, her expression stony as she’d explained to the police how they’d found her. Jamie, who had answered the phone that night, turning on her heel with eyes that suddenly took up half her face, apologizing as he’d never heard her do before. Jamie, who made arrangements for food and drink while he stood like a puncture wound in blue jeans staring at what was left of his mother’s estate.

Jamie, who stood beside him in front of a well, looking down even when he hadn’t been able to stomach it any longer. Jamie, always looking down into the face of cold reality.

He’s never quite where he needs to be when it happens, but Jamie is. Jamie has always been. She is almost unfairly good at it: standing tall, accepting the truth, holding them all up when they shatter.

And now, here she is: opening the door in cuffed jeans and a rumpled brown flannel shirt. Here she is, a few years older than Paris, looking at him like she’s never seen him before. Like the woman who called was someone else entirely. He thinks he sees a little of his mother in the blank distance of her eyes, and his heart cracks.

“What happened?”

She turns from him, gesturing for him to come in. The flat, which has every hallmark of home, is surprisingly warm. Surprisingly messy, too--there are clothes on the couch, most of them things he recognizes as Dani’s from the photos they’ve been mailing his way for years. The floor is covered with pots, lemongrass and tiny succulents and a large-leaved plant he doesn’t recognize standing proudly amid clods of dirt, a watering can, several crumpled packs of cigarettes.

She reaches for one of these now, taps out the final smoke into her palm, crunches the wrapping. “Want one?”

That voice again, that strange timbre--the accent a little less than he remembers, a little ironed-out by nearly fifteen years in this country, though that isn’t what works a shiver up his spine. It’s so flat. It’s so toneless. Jamie has been many things since he’s known her--angry, aggressive, cool, even violent--but never this detached.

He’s never seen her like this. He’s never thought to worry he ever would. Jamie has aways been the most stable of them, taking up the mantle when even he couldn’t carry it.

We, he thinks wearily, are the survivors. The witnesses. No one ever talks about what that’s like.

Untrue. People talk about it. People who do useful things, like attend support groups, or get themselves to therapy. Henry does, sometimes--nursing seltzer, smiling ruefully at Owen over dinner. We think it’s the losing them that hurts the worst, until it happens, he’d said once. It isn’t. It’s the part where you have to keep waking up, dreaming for a split second each morning they’re still here.

Nearly fifteen years, and there hasn’t been a single morning Owen hasn’t thought absently of calling her up. Not one where he hasn’t thought, Been too long without her voice. Without her laugh. God, that woman’s laugh.

“Jamie...”

Her head comes up sharply, her eyes flashing--and then, like it was never there, the expression passes. She lights the cigarette with a steady hand, settles herself back on the rug with it clamped between her teeth. There’s soil smudged on her cheek, caked into her hair, and he wonders when last she showered.

“Jamie, do you want to talk about it?”

She doesn’t. He knows that. He remembers too well how she’d sat beside him on a sofa in 1987, passed him a bottle of wine in silence. How she’d said simply, covering all bases in two words, “Fuck it.”

It had been Dani, he remembers, who spoke of it first. Dani, looking paler than normal, looking shaken, saying firmly, “We should do something. We should do something for her.”

“Sit,” Jamie says without looking at him. She’s already getting back into it, he realizes--working her hands carefully back into a terra cotta pot, brushing the soil from spindly roots with loving care. It’s how she looked after Rebecca, brow furrowed, smoking and working in silence. There are problems that can’t be managed, he understands, and the only way someone like Jamie can tolerate that fact is to find new troubles to set right.

“Where is she, Jamie?” She’s not going to like this, he knows. He’d hate it, in her place. Had hated it, whenever someone dared speak Hannah’s name for those first few months. She’s going to hate him for it now.

But someone has to speak. Someone has to throw the line, lest she drift too far to come back. She called. There was a reason for it.

“Jamie. Where is she?”

She gives him nothing. Jets smoke, taps ash into an empty beer can, keeps her eyes on the work. This isn’t like after Rebecca, he can see--Jamie back then had been hard-edged, furious that she hadn’t gotten to Becca in time, but she’d at least been willing to hold conversation. More than willing. It had seemed to ground her, reflecting on the Peter Quint of it all, on the shame of not being able to help enough, on how to explain it to the kids.

Now, she sits with her back against the couch, her eyes not tracking the progress of her own hands. Owen, kneeling beside her, feels as though the room is waiting for something. Waiting for a knife to slide into the bubble she’s built, tearing it open to allow all that building water to rush in.

He changes tack. “How long have you been doing this?”

“Three days,” she says. Her face is scrunched with concentration, her fingers testing something he can’t track in the roots.

“Have you eaten?”

“’Course,” she says, gesturing recklessly with the cigarette at a stack of pizza boxes, several empty wine bottles, a dozen abandoned mugs. “All the food groups.”

“Slept?” He remembers that was the worst part, sleeping. Before it had all gone wrong, he’d gone to bed each night with a promise: Tomorrow, I’ll tell her. Tomorrow, I’ll finally do it.

After, he’d stayed up until dawn in the kitchen, kneading dough, testing wilder and wilder concoctions. Jamie would stumble in at three in the morning, still half-asleep, to find him shoving a bowl of batter under her nose.

Here. Try this. What does it need?

Cinnamon, she’d say gamely, though she’d clearly only been craving a glass of water. He’d slump against the table, head hanging between his arms.

She’d say it was divine as-is.

Yeah, well. She always did like to see that idiot grin.

“Jamie,” he says now, patiently. “Have you slept?”

She shrugs. He doesn’t need to walk down the hall to know the bed is likely sitting untouched, perfectly made--or, worse, exactly as she’d rolled out of it the last time. Exactly how she’d left it, when whatever had gone wrong had happened.

It’s so easy, leaving things.

It’s nearly impossible, setting them right again when the bigger problem can’t be fixed.

“Where is she, Jamie?” He hates himself. Hates pushing her. Hates the way her shoulders square a little tighter, her jaw clenching, her muddy fingers stretching to find an unopened pack of cigarettes to replace the one burned to nearly nothing between her lips. “Jamie. You called me.”

“Wouldn’t have,” she grumbles, “if I’d thought you’d talk this fucking much.”

Not true. He can see it in her, the shade not of the woman she’d been when they had met--hardy, rugged, a little grin around her mouth that said she’d make him regret it if he even considered pulling on her strings--but the one Dani had loved into being. We are all, he thinks, shaped by the love they give. Changes the molecules. Turns us from dough to something worth serving.

The woman he’d met, tempered by a past she never discussed, patience she couldn't quite get a handle on, wouldn’t want him to talk this much.

The woman she is now, the one who had sat in his restaurant watching Dani like she was written in the only language worth knowing, called for a reason.

“Jamie.”

“Stop.” She closes her eyes. Her hands are shaking too hard to work out another cigarette, too hard to urge the Bic to light.

“Where,” he asks gently. She’s shaking her head. When did so much silver slip into her hair? When did those lines crop up around her mouth? How long has it been, since he was where she needed him to be?

Didn’t need me. Not then. Had everything she needed, with Dani, but now--

“Jamie, where--”

“She’s gone.” Her eyes are blazing, her lips trembling. He has never, never seen this look on her face. This shattered, almost exultant misery is impossible to endure. She doesn’t look like Jamie now. She is only a collection of her worst fears made real. “She’s gone, Owen. She’s--”

She hunches into herself, a single crack splitting like a windscreen beneath a thrown rock. One foot lashes out sharply, sending a pot cartwheeling over onto its side.

“She’s fucking gone,” she repeats in a voice like a woman kicked in the stomach. She raises her eyes, red-rimmed, and almost smiles. “I fell asleep.”

Strange, he thinks as he shuffles across the rug to wrap his arms around her, the last thought that kicks out when they’re gone. Not I should have told her, not I should have been there, but: I was in the kitchen. Not I should have stopped her, not I should have been faster, but: I fell asleep. The should doesn’t matter anymore, once they’re gone. All that matters is what you did. Where you were. What you can never change.

“I fell asleep,” she repeats, and there’s nothing flat about her voice now. Even speaking of Rebecca, the Wingraves, Hannah, she’s never sounded half this shattered. “I fell asleep, Owen. I fell--”

He’s pressing his face against her shoulder, feeling unforgivably enormous draped this way over her slight frame. She folds double, rocking back and forth, one hand digging so hard into the other arm that he’ll be gently patching bloody gouges in an hour’s time. For now, he only sways with her, allowing the momentum of her grief to rock him back and forth, back and forth.

“She’s gone,” she says again. “She’s gone. She’s--”

He’ll stay a while--not quite feeling secure leaving her on her own, not quite willing to risk letting her slide back into this space. He’ll stay, helping her in the kitchen (She was better at it. Less likely to poison us, anyway.), and with the nightmare of making those phone calls (Her mum needs to know. Hated me, but still. And Judy O’Mara. And Henry. Fuck. The kids won’t even...). She won’t let him near the bedroom, won’t let him tuck her into that bed. The one and only time he’ll offer to help sift through Dani’s belongings, she’ll flex a fist around a bottle like she’s thinking of swinging it at him.

She won’t look at him when he steps into the bathroom to find the tub draining over the side onto the floor, either, the sink full of clean water. When he opens his mouth to question, she’ll reach past him, slap down the plunger, stride out of the room without a word.

Leave her whatever rituals she needs, he’ll think, remembering all those unnecessary three-a.m. cakes. Leave her whatever ghosts she can’t let go.

He’ll stay as long as she needs, he decides with her beginning to sob at last. He’s never quite been there, when it happens--never been able to look death in the eye as Jamie has. It’s the greatest injustice in the world, how many loved ones have gone on without him, leaving only stories in their wake.

He’s never where he needs to be, to stop it happening--but he can be here. For a little while, at least. He can hold her, and he can look down.

There is no justice, this time, in letting Jamie believe she needs to be strong enough to do it alone.

#fanfiction #ficlet #the haunting of bly manor #the haunting of bly manor spoilers #politely: you did ask for this #I take no responsibility for wounds inflicted #also this art is fucking heartbreaking and I always crave more when this artist does anything #so like. couldn’t resist. but it’s still not my fault

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