#and not once did they discover that cave or the door before the day after the meteor shower
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THE ROGUE TAX (2)
SUMMARY: Fed up with paying Astarion to pick all the locks, you force yourself to learn the hard way.
PAIRING: Astarion & Female Reader (reads as Gender Neutral but future chapters will be femme focused, just a heads up!)
WORD COUNT: 2,635
WARNINGS: Short nightmare sequence, too much sexual tension, slight mentions of a handkink, inappropriate lock pick teaching.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know I'm posting these super early but day two of the Haunted Hoedown! This time the prompt is "finders keepers!" I honestly had so much fun with this one, so hopefully all the new Astarion fans that've followed me in the last day enjoy? Love you guys. :))))
Also I was originally going to make all of these challenge fics separate but I've since decided to make it more of a connected fic so... that's a thing now? I'll link the last chapter below!
CHAPTER LIST / MASTERLIST / NEXT CHAPTER
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“I wasn’t aware you were so proficient at lock picking.”
You smirk at Astarion’s false praise, busying your hands against the lock’s mechanism. You’ve only been at it for five or six, maybe seven tops but you can already tell it’ll be a while. The lock itself is tough; covered in a layer of thick rust. Plus, being that it’s a chest and not a door, it’s a bit more advanced than you’re used to.
“Yes, well, not all of us are vampires that can woo their way through a padlock.”
In response, Astarion laughs, throwing his head back so dramatically that from the corner of your eye, it looks as if he’s lost his head for a moment. “You do realize who you’re talking to, correct?”
You hum out a response and push the short hook further in, feeling the pressure of a loose pin hit the end. When that happens, you grin to yourself and slide closer to the chest, biting your bottom lip in excitement.
Over the last few weeks, you and the rest of the group had come upon some interesting findings. A cave inside a well, a few hidden cellars around the surrounding the goblin camp, a hidden chest or two. At first, it was exciting, getting to experience the joys of a good treasure hunt but quickly such feelings fell once you discovered how difficult it was to break into said things without the help of Astarion and his seemingly magic hands.
“I know you’re excited to prove yourself, darling, but why don’t you let me finish things off, hm? It’ll go a lot quicker.”
You shake your head and continue your ministrations, carefully pushing the hook further in, feeling that alleviated pressure of another pin. “I’m tired of relying on you and your bloody rogue tax.”
After agreeing that Astarion would just pick every lock your party found for a price, it was evident he was more than willing to take more than he was owed. Saying things like I did all the work or you wouldn’t be here if not for me, it was obvious he was exploiting you. Using his roguish charms to earn himself a bigger cut despite doing next to nothing else.
It was frustrating, to say the least. Another minor annoyance to add to his long list of negative personality traits, and lately you were determined to combat it. To learn the trade for yourself so that every piece of treasure found could remain solely yours.
“I’m sure everyone is but that’s the price you pay for a professional.”
You roll your eyes and continue to fiddle, feeling his gaze glued to the positioning of your hands —how your fingers tighten and twist around the metal instrument.
You’d be lying if you said it didn’t make you at least a little bit nervous —having his eyes on you. Across your palms, you can feel the slick of sweat collecting with each new movement, while behind you, you can practically feel Astarion’s judgement throughout, silently picking apart all of your mistakes.
“You’re doing—“
You shush him angrily before he can continue, knowing he’s trying to break your concentration. Knowing that he thinks that if he can prove to be enough of a distraction you’ll end up slipping up and giving in.
“I was just going to tell you about the wonderful job you’re doing.” His tone is laced with sarcasm. Drenched in a thick layer of impatience that has you groaning under your breath.
“Isn’t there someone else you can bother?”
“No.”
You know there is. In the other room of the abandoned building you currently find yourselves in, at least four other people are rooting through the rubble. Most likely they’re stationed in their usual areas. Gale’s probably next to the stack of bookshelves with Karlach, telling her all about his collection back at the camp while Wyll and Shadowheart are searching through the cellar in hopes of more wine.
“You sure?”
For a moment you debate telling him to go keep watch with Lae’zel just so that he’ll shut up but the thought dissipates once you feel him flop onto the floor beside you with a groan.
“Everyone else is so dull,” he complains. His line of slight flickers between your face and hands, watching the way they remain almost too still as he speaks. “They’re all do this do that, and for what?”
You shrug your shoulders ever so slightly, unsure of what he means.
“They’re all living for other people, darling. Other causes. Everything they do serves a higher purpose and for that reason alone, they’re boring.”
Despite your previous determination your hands release themselves from the padlock before you find yourself readjusting —moving to plop down next to him. “You think everyone’s boring because they’re selfless?”
“Predictable,” he corrects, pointing a loose finger in your direction. “All of them talk too much about a future that may not even come considering we’re infected and have little idea on how to remedy the situation.”
You’re not sure where this rant is coming from but you welcome it considering it’s been weeks since you’ve had a normal conversation that didn’t revolve around mapping or looting or combat. Weeks since you’ve taken a moment to learn about the people you find yourself in constant contact with.
“Some people just don’t like looking back.”
There’s a hint of surprise in his eyes when you respond as if he wasn’t expecting such an answer. Or really, maybe an answer at all. All at once his face seems to rise in thought, taking a moment to absorb the words before he hums in response, pursing his lips. “Yes, well, I suppose some people don’t have a past worth running from.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
The tadpole behind your eye wriggles for his attention before you can even think to suppress it. Working to pull him in as you stare at one another, narrowing your eyes at the sudden cerebral contact. At first, he’s reluctant. You can feel the pushing sensation suggesting that you stop. That you should stick to the confines of your own mind rather than pestering him, but quicker than you can move away to agree, it’s as if you’re sucked back in again. Pulled by the very thread of your own brain matter to see flashes of a life you assume to be his.
The first thing you see is candlelight. A flickering of warm hues that dance across wooden interiors. It’s almost dizzying the way the light shifts across your vision, forcing you to close your eyes. Next to you, you can hear Astarion breathing heavily. Deep inhales followed by even deeper exhales that you swiftly use as a metronome to carry your focus. To aid your tadpole’s connection.
Swallowing hard, you listen to the beats of his breath, feeling them take over your chest as the vision in front of you grows to reveal bits of cobblestone. In the background, you can hear the faint sounds of scuttling feet. The dripping of water. A hungry growl followed by an even hungrier gnaw of flesh that squelches on your tongue.
You can taste the iron —feel the fur and bones of an unknown animal brush against your lips and gums. All of it swirls around your mouth like a tornado of overstimulating sensations, forcing the vision to pass as you reach for your throat, coughing up nothing but your own spit despite how real it feels.
It’s apparent then what Astarion means. That some people aren’t always blessed with the privilege of running away. That people like him don’t have the means of calling upon allies to aid them through the awful shit that is reality.
Even with such little context, you can sense through his tadpole that he’s alone in this life. Alone before the Illithid —alone now. And more than likely, he’ll be alone after it’s all over, in death or otherwise.
Rubbing your throat —trying your best to get rid of the tainted feeling of skin and bone from your mouth, you feel empathy rather than sympathy. An understanding of his words as you look toward him, noticing the far-off look in his eye before he blinks and travels back.
“I only showed you that to save the explanation,” he says, and whether or not it’s true you merely just nod, welcoming the silence. The tranquil hush of two people attempting to navigate the other.
It doesn’t last long. In between, there are a few moments of background noise. The sound of echoing footsteps and muffled voices. You know it’s the others looting just as you should be, but neither of you moves to join until Astarion eventually clears his throat, signalling change.
“Anyway, they’re all in their own worlds, coasting on the wings of optimism.” He flicks his hand around the air while rolling his eyes. “It’s disgusting and partly why I choose your company above theirs.”
Letting yourself fall back into your usual, somewhat antagonistic rhythm, you give him a curious look. “Partly, huh?”
“Don’t get too excited,” he quips, the edge of his lip twitching into that usual grin of his. “The other part is the potential of your blood, darling.”
“Ah yes. And here I was assuming you were just following me around so that you could steal my treasure.”
Both of your eyes move back to the unbroken padlock. It’s the only thing in this room that seems to be worth either of your time and Astarion knows it. It’s why he’s been so keen on your failure.
“You know, I could help you if you like. Show you a thing or two so that the next time this happens you don’t have to rely on me.”
It’s tempting, even if you know that you’ll be taxed to all hell. Whatever spoils you find will ultimately be cut in half and, more than likely, he’ll sweeten the deal for himself by claiming first pick.
“What’s the price?”
He shoots you a look of offence, clutching his chest. “My dear, I’d never dare put a price on the education of thievery.”
You hold back a grin, pressing your lips together, watching the way he quickly springs into action, motioning for you to hand him your tools. When you do he begins to explain the process, showcasing all the tips and tricks against the air with careful precision. Which would be helpful if you weren’t so focused on his hands rather than his words. On the way they curl around the handles of your tools, tightening with every gesture performed.
Astarion’s got nicer hands than most. Long and thin and surprisingly well-manicured for someone who spends most of his time in the forest or drinking the blood of unsuspecting animals. And guiltily enough staring at them so intently just reminds you of that night he drained your neck.
You can still feel the pressure of his fingers against your head. The way they roughly cupped you like a goblet of wine. Despite the fear in that moment, you’re now able to look back at that memory almost fondly. A moment of potential weakness for you somehow became a moment of trust for him and as a result, here you were now, acting almost friendly amid a terrible situation.
It makes you grin, prompting Astarion to stop his explanation and narrow his eyes.
“Are you even listening?”
“Hm?”
There’s a knowing glance that befalls his face then. A transition of clarity that has his mouth opening and closing before he hands you your tools. “Might be best if we take a more hands on approach.”
You look at him confused, letting the hooks in your hand lazily rest in your palm as you watch him hop to his knees and begin to guide you.
“I want you to do exactly what you were doing before, alright? Use the hook to push the pins.”
Despite your continued confusion, you follow his position by kneeling in front of the chest and popping the hook into the hole, digging around the darkened space until you feel the shift of that first pin.
“Got it?” You spare him a glance and a nod, watching him crawl towards you, positioning his chest firmly against your back before reaching out to hold your wrists. “Now, take that other hook of yours and situate it at the base of the barrel.”
Doing exactly that, you feel his fingers slowly slip over yours, navigating you through the trials of getting that second pin to shift as the barrel turns in your grasp. At first, it’s difficult. Mostly because all you can focus on is the breath that hits the side of your face. The heat of the air that travels down your spine in nervous waves you’re almost certain he can feel. But then you’re reminded that you’ve been here before; stuck within his heated grasp.
“That’s it. Just like that.”
You’re practically holding your breath as you find that third pin, feeling Astarion’s hand shift you in the right direction before you lose it at the last second. Ever so gently, his chest shifts upwards against your back so that he can rest his chin on your shoulder to get a better look. A newfound weight that makes you close your eyes and release a bit of air from your nose, realizing how intimate this is.
Somehow it feels even more personal than letting him feed off of you. Perhaps because the bloodsucking was for his own benefit, knowing Astarion, moments like that where he’s able to take rather than give mean next to nothing to him. They’re just moments of manipulation. A series of tactical steps he takes to get whatever he wants whereas this is different. This is for you.
You’re not sure how to describe it other than an offering of trust. Maybe it’s a token of appreciation for letting him consume. Maybe it’s nothing more than a game to make you squirm beneath his grasp. Either or, it’s an experience you know you’ll be thinking of for days to come, attempting to decipher its intent.
“Once you feel that final pin I want you to ease it in gently, alright? Be delicate.”
You offer him no response as you listen to his words. If you did, you’re certain he’d make some offhand comment that would only further the lewdness of it all, grinning like the mischievous prick he is.
“After that, you should feel a little shift and —voilà!”
The chest clicks open. Your breath releases in a long, much-needed stream but Astarion makes no effort to move from your frame. Instead, he continues to cling to your hands, angling his chin so that when you eventually look at him you’re practically touching noses.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“It’s that easy?”
Slowly but surely he slips from your frame with a nod, his hands sliding across the expanse of your sleeves, coating your skin in a wave of goosebumps as he moves to stand. “Yes, but keep it hush, hush. Wouldn’t want the others to find out, would we?”
You shake your head, a small smile creeping across your lips as you then turn towards your reward, gripping both edges of the lid before pushing it up. Inside there are only a few items. A few spell scrolls and some fabric but it’s enough to get you excited regardless, realizing that it’s yours.
“Not bad for your first go.” Peeking over your shoulder, Astarion watches as you sift through everything carefully, unrolling each scroll to read the details before looking back up and raising a brow.
“You sure there’s no tax?” you ask, but all he does is laugh and shake his head.
“Finders keepers, darling. As I promised.”
#the rogue tax#baldur's gate 3 fan fic#bg3 fan fic#astarion#astarion bg3#astarion fan fic#astarion series#astarion x female reader#astarion x reader#astarion x you#haunted hoedown#haunted hoedown writing challenge#summer writes
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can i please request something with azriel where reader has a voice kink? like when he whisper something in her ear her, she gets goosebumps and can’t focus, literally like his deep, dark voice turns her on. He could be asking about the laundry and she’ll literally blush bc pls it’s azriel. And he notices this immedietly 👀
I'm sweating. Are you sweating?
Whispers in the Dark
Summary - Azriel is ever the opportunist when it comes to using a recently discovered fetish against you.
Warnings - Auralism, dom/sub dynamics, implied smut/sexual situations, implied edging and teasing, Azriel being a daddy and playful
"What's wrong, starlight?" You could feel him smirking against your ear, his scarred hands running up and down your arms as chills broke out around them. "Why are you so distracted, hmm?"
Your eyes fluttered shut as he placed a kiss and then a gentle nip to your pointed ear. "Stop it," your voice was shaking. "I need to get this done for Rhys. I promised him I'd have his desk organized by the end of the day."
Azriel licked your ear before pulling away. "Fine. Have it your way." The shit eating grin on his face, the way he left the room without turning his back to you, all of it had wetness pooling between your thighs as you went back to organizing Rhysand's countless reports and separating them by who should be handling them.
Azriel had figured out three months into your relationship he could get you off on his voice alone. He had asked you one day about laundry and mending a shirt Cassian had torn turning a sparring matching, and he said it was your face that gave it way before the scent of arousal did.
He said you gave him that pretty glazed over eyes, mouth slightly parted stare he normally only saw during intimate moments. "That's new," he had said gently. "What am I supposed to do with information, starlight?" And the torture began.
He'd use that deep timber in hushed bedroom tones while asking you the most mundane things, simply to keep you on edge for hours at a time until you two were finally alone and that ache would become too much.
Then he'd use that same tone, praising you for how well you sucked or took his cock, how pretty you looked being obedient for him, blushing for him, and calling you the dirtiest names as he thrust into you long into the early hours of the morning.
He could get you off with his voice and fingers alone. And the cocky bastard knew it, too. Hed make you sit there, naked and backed against his chest with one of his long fingers circling your clit as he whispered in your ear all the things he'd be doing to you later, if you were just a good enough girl to cum.
Today was exceptionally horrible. He had been gone for month with nothing but his own hand to please himself with and the second he saw you in that pretty black dress, that blue topaz necklace dangling perfectly between your breasts, he knew he had to have you within the next few hours.
He had stopped at nothing. Sending his lust down the bond, sending his shadows to play underneath that tight dress, and finally pulling the last card he had, his voice. It'd been an hour of speaking to you about nothing and everything all at once. And now he waited, feet prompted up on his desk, truth teller in hand, and shoulders relaxed.
The second his shadows warned him you were coming, he set it out to look like he was working by pretending to read over some mission updates from the twins. You entered his office, shutting the door behind you with a soft click, and waited. "Do you need something, my starlight?" He smirked, hidden behind the report, as he watched you shiver.
You'd be here, caving to his every whim and nasty desire in a few minutes. The constant tug on the bond followed by wave after wave of arousal crashing down on him ensured that.
"I need you," your voice was laced with desperation. "Please."
Azriel continued speaking to you, that husky low voice doing exactly what he was intending. "I thought you needed to take care of Rhysand, hmm? I'm sure he can help you with your needs."
Your breathing had hitched, eyes slightly shut. He would not cave to you until you told him exactly what you needed. "I need your cock, sir."
"Oh? Is that so, starlight?" You nodded as he finally looked up at you and dropped the papers. "Then come have it and take what's yours."
#acotar#acotar x reader#azriel acotar#azriel#azriel x reader#az x reader#azriel shadowsinger#azriel x you
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4:30am | happy birthday, dumbass
pairing : bakugo katsuki x f!reader
tags : fluff, childhood friends to lovers, college!au, extremely self indulgent
tw : alcohol usage (legal)
wc : 4452 words
once a year, every year, katsuki breaks his nightly routine of heading to bed at 8pm sharp in favour of sitting and waiting for the clock to countdown to midnight. the boy is dressed and out of the door by 11:45pm.
glancing down at his phone to check the time, a warm breath escapes his lips as he comes to a stop, staring up at your bedroom window as he quietly opens the gate and heads for the front door. he doesn't knock, there's no need. the door swings open just as he shuts off his phone that reads 11:59pm, and he's met with your grinning face.
"happy birthday, dumbass." bakugou grumbles, tearing his eyes up off the groud to take in the way the moon delicately shines upon your features. your eyes form crescents and you laugh softly, impatiently ushering the male inside before the chilly night air has another chance to bite at his flushed cheeks.
inside, you'd already prepared your living room for the 'ultimate movie night’ as you liked to put it. the couch was practically engulfed by a mountain of pillows and plushies, topped off with blankets thrown atop haphazardly. "i can’t believe your dumb ass is 16." katsuki scoffs as he makes himself comfortable, throwing a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “this is for you, or whatever.” he shoves something soft and orange into your hands, eyes avoiding yours.
an orange fox stares up at you with beady little eyes, and you immediately recognised it’s lopsided little face. “katsuki! did you go back for him!?” you question with excitement, plopping down besides your friend and cooing over your gift. you had stopped by an arcade a few days ago with bakugou, and spent almost half your allowance on desperately trying (and failing) to win the toy, whining miserably on the walk back home.
“tch, no. i just had some free time yesterday. it was easy peasy.” the blonde boasts with a cocky grin to match his tone. he’d in fact demanded some extra money off his old man, and went back there on a mission to bring home the ugly thing. “now are we gonna watch this stupid lion movie or what?”
your arms fling around him for a quick thank you hug that leaves his cheeks warm and ears red, before readying yourself for what would probably be the hundredth viewing of your favourite movie–the lion king. bakugou had recently admitted to never seeing it before, much to your horror, and you'd finally managed to get him to cave for your birthday.
the two of you settle into a comfortable silence as the movie begins, that’s only disturbed with bakugou’s snarky commentary. luckily, he eventually begins to fall quieter and quieter as his eyelids grow heavier and heavier. it was way after his bedtime after all. about halfway through the film, the sounds of his even breathing signifies that he's knocked out cold. stifling your laughter as you gently reach to shut off the tv, you let out a small yawn before relaxing into your side of the couch with your new plushie and falling into a peaceful sleep.
the next morning your mother discovers the two of you just as she'd expected to, a fond smile on her face as she snaps a picture of the troublesome duo to send to mitsuki. the two mothers gush over how cute their babies are and joke about how they’d wish you guys were as quiet together as when you were both asleep.
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there is a calm stillness that has settled over your household as your parents had long gone off to bed, but quiet sniffles break the silence as you furiously rubbed at your misty eyes, an aura of misery shrouding your frame as you gave yourself a once over in your bathroom mirror. you were moments away from turning 18 yet you looked a mess.
you’d thought you were handling your breakup rather well, but unfortunately the late night spiralling thoughts intertwined with feelings of both anger and hurt eventually brought you to tears. a gentle knock at the door notified you of someone's presence, and you were soon met with a familiar face.
concern adorned bakugou's expression, his brows furrowing as his chest tightened with a quiet rage. "happy birthday, dumbass." the soft tone of his voice betraying his intentionally agitating words, leaving them devoid of any hints of playful malice. heavy arms envelop you in a comforting embrace, and the dam you'd just managed to clumsily build in your eyes breaks in an instant, and tears began flowing once more. “i don’t know why i’m crying.” you admit with a huff, shaking your head in annoyance.
if he wasn't so preoccupied with being here with you right now, bakugou's almost certain he'd be heading towards that asshole's house, prepared to give the beat down of a lifetime. "he's a fucking asshole. i'll kill him." the blonde sneers mostly to himself, earning a breathy chuckle from you in response. "i'm almost tempted to let you." you respond dryly, looking up at him through wet lashes.
"let me?" he frowns. "the fuck do i need your permission for?" red eyes squinting at you with a grumble, releasing you from his hold. you roll your eyes in response, wiping your wet eyes with the sleeves of your hoodie. “okay, i’m done.” you announce, straightening your posture. “i’m not wasting anymore tears on that asshole, good fucking riddance!”. katsuki grins proudly, your resolve is admirable. he never understood what you saw in that loser anyway, you were way out of his league.
“thats my girl.” the blond pats your head roughly, making his way out of your bathroom with you in tow. “do you wanna, uh.. watch one of your stupid chick flicks or something?” his hand rubs at his neck, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other and you laugh.
“you can just say you enjoyed mean girls the other day ‘tsuki.” mischievous glint in your eyes as you look up at him with a teasing grin, and the sight of you finally smiling again was all he’d ever wanted.
“i fucking didn’t!”
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“hey yn, what are you thinking of doing for your birthday?” the pink haired girl asks curiously, immediately catching the attention of the other girl sitting besides you. “yeah! twenty one is a milestone, we should do something super fun!” ochako chimes in agreement, plopping her pen down onto her notebook. “how about a girls night out?” she suggests.
“ah, i’m not sure yet guys.” you laugh with a shrug. you had never really done anything big for your birthday before honestly, you were happy to just spend time with the people you cared about. no one asides from your parents were aware of your little yearly ritual with a certain hothead, and you’d gotten so used to spending the first few hours of every birthday with him that you never even thought about it–it had become second nature to the both of you. your friends chatter animatedly as they discuss potential party plans, unbeknownst to your wandering thoughts.
things were slightly different this year, you’d met both mina and ochako at the start of the year and the three of you quickly became an inseparable trio. you wondered if bakugou would be willing to attend any of the ridiculous plans the two girls were discussing.
“i don’t know guys, clubbing isn’t really my scene.” you chuckle, imagining loud booming techno music and a sea of sweaty bodies. “well, we could always just throw a house party instead? that way there wouldn’t be a bunch of strangers and we have complete control over the music!” mina, the infamous party girl suggests as she clasps her hands together eagerly.
“it’s only if you’re down though, obviously.” she adds.
“yeah, definitely! we’re happy to do whatever it is you want, it’s your day!” ochako reassures with a warm smile, putting down her pen on the journal she was just doodling in. you’d never really thrown a party before, but there was a first time for everything, no?
“okay. but you guys really have to help me, i have no idea what to do.” you give in, excitement growing at the possible new experience. “yes!” “of course!” the two girls cheer, immediately chattering up a storm about the millions of potential plans.
it had been just over two weeks now since you’d established your birthday party plans with your girlfriends, and surprisingly, quite a lot had been organised since. your parents agreed to go out with mitsuki and masaru and for the night, having their own little old people party before spending the night at their place.
you’d promised that you would only allow your closest friends to spend the night, and that you wouldn’t let things get too out of hand. katsuki had also put your parents at ease, promising to keep an eye on things and handling it if anything got out of hand.
and before you knew it, everything had fallen into place. all that was left to do was to actually host the damn thing, which you were admittedly feeling quite nervous about. you’d never really had all that many friends before, real, close friends that is.
being lumped together with bakugou katsuki for as long as you could remember was both a blessing and curse, and so you’d never really felt the need to venture out on your own socially speaking. you were mostly cordial and friendly with peers at school, but it was thanks to mina and ochako and their vast social circle that you actually begun really talking to new people.
you would be in for a rude awakening if those same new people didn’t actually consider you a friend the same way you do them, and you’d hate for the girls efforts to go to waste.
“oi, did you come over just to stare at my wall? if so, you’ve got plenty of your own at home.” katsuki breaks you out of your trance, sending a sudden flick to your forehead that leaves behind a stinging sensation.
“why are you always so damn violent! you’re never going to get a girlfriend this way!” rubbing at your head with a whine, you childishly scribble in the top hand corner of his pristine page of notes as petty revenge.
“FUCK OFF, NOW I HAVE TO REWRITE EVERYTHING!” there’s a deep exhale from bakugou’s lips and the annoyance fades from his expression, he looks over at you sitting across him at the dinner table. “you’re going to be fine. stop overthinking about your damn party when it hasn’t even happened yet.”
startled that he’d actually managed to pick up on your damp mood, your brows knit together as you feign ignorance, “i’m not overthinking it, i don’t know what you’re talking about.” katsuki raises a brow, so unconvinced that it’s almost laughable but you stubbornly avoid making eye contact.
“it’ll be fine cus i’ll be there.” the sentence falls from his mouth so effortlessly, a guaranteed reassurance that no matter what goes down he’ll be right there with you–as he always has been. sure, he may not understand your worry wart tendencies, but whether katsuki realises it or not, his strong sense of unwavering reliability leaves you with a small smile as you both return to peacefully studying. or, mostly peaceful studying.
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“are you sure my ass isn’t hanging out guys?” mina whines exasperatedly, neck craning round to see her back side in the mirror in front of her. “you look hot mina, stop fussing!” ochako chides, shifting her attention away from her phone for a moment. “izuku’s gonna be here soon.” she beams with adoration, liking the text he’d just sent.
“careful, if you look anymore excited he might mistake you for a lovesick schoolgirl.” the other teases, playfully tugging at ochako’s cheeks. you roll your eyes with a smile, amused by their antics and smooth out the pleats in your skirt, giving yourself a final once over before turning to seek your friend’s approval.
you’d thought that you looked fine–cute even, but the sudden silence causes a bundle of nerves to begin forming in the pit of your stomach. maybe your eyeliner wasn’t even? or your hair was ugly? or maybe, the outfit you’d bought was actually really hideous and you should just call off the entire thing because no one’s going to want to come anyway and you’d really just be embarrassing yourself?
a sharp squeal pierces through your spiralling, and you see a blur of pink hair before mina is bouncing up and down in front of you clapping her hands together with glee, and you take this means she does approve. ochako has now joined along side you two, minus the squealing, and the three of you huddle around your floor length mirror, for few cute photos together before you’re all eventually shitfaced.
“we’re so cute! i love you guys! happy birthday yn! LET’S PARTY!” mina gushes, barely allowing herself to catch her breath in between sentences as she pulls the both of you in for a group hug. “you,” she suddenly juts her finger at your chest “little miss birthday girl, you have to let loose and have fun tonight. no responsibilities, capiche?”
“you do realise her actual birthday is tomorrow right?” uraraka giggles, and you hear someone knock thrice before a green mop of hair pokes his head in, izuku offers a small wave before informing you of the crowd that is now gathering downstairs.
it was hard to believe that this was actually your house, with the walls all dressed up with balloons and various cute party decor littering almost every surface. the strobing lights and thumping music perfectly emulated the vibe of a club, and with how busy it was starting to get you almost couldn’t tell the difference. you have got to get a thank you gift for the girls after this.
“what’re you staring off into space for ya dunce.” the ever so recognisable gruff voice comes from behind, the sudden proximity sending a chill down your spine. spinning on your feet, you’re met with katsuki’s stoic expression, and you allow yourself a mere moment to glance over his appearance for the occasion.
a loose white button-up drapes over his large frame, with a few top buttons popped open just enough that his toned pecs daringly peek through. it’s paired with one of his nicer black leather jackets, you’d never admit it to his face but it was always one of your favourites. it was practically made for him. he’d also opted for simple pair of darker blue jeans, not too formal but nice enough that you can tell he put a bit more thought into his outfit, rather than his usual t-shirt and sweats.
“take a picture loser, it’ll last longer.” your cheeks flush, and you tear your eyes away from him immediately, now having a staring contest with the brown hardwood floors instead.
“shut up. i’m just so used to you looking like a bum i was caught by surprise.” embarrassed that you were caught ogling your own best friend you grumble out a snarky response, praying that he lets this go on account of it being your (almost) birthday.
“so you admit it.”
“what?”
“you think i look nice.” he’s smirking, cocking a brow and feeling so damn smug you could practically taste it and you refuse to stroke his inflated ego any further. opting to cross your arms and huff, akin to a petulant child as you grind your teeth with a scowl. you can’t lie to him and disagree, but you’d rather die than give in and admit that he’s right.
“you look pretty.” katsuki’s tone is completely different, lacking any pompousness, and if you looked closely enough you would notice that the tips of his ears now burn a bright shade of red that rival his eyes. for the second time that night he’s caught you off guard completely. before you can stammer out a response, a loud red head stumbles into the room and throws a heavy arm around the both of you.
“happy birthday yn! this is some bash!” eijiro beams, tugging the two of you in for a three way hug before katsuki can wrestle him off. “woah, bro! you look so manly!” it was clear he’d had a few drinks before this encounter, and you chuckle at the obvious irritation painted across bakugo’s face.
you internally thank kirishima for interrupting the strange tension that had unknowingly begun to creep up on you and bakugo, and with an exhale of relief you’re filled with giddiness to match kiri’s tipsy state.
“will you do shots with me eijiro?” he’s still got his arm slung over you, not that you’re complaining of course, comfortable enough in your relationship with him to know that there’s nothing between you two but platonic affection.
“anything for my birthday girl!” the red head cheers, leading you to the kitchen with bakugou trailing behind begrudgingly. katsuki knows better than to get jealous over kirishima, hell, other than you he probably considers him his closest friend. but that doesn’t ease the tight burning sensation that he feels in his chest upon hearing eijiro’s words. who’s birthday girl?
hours had gone by and at this point you were now teetering dangerously on the line of tipsy, and just flat out drunk. kiri and mina were currently having a dance off in the middle of the dance floor, with a crowd hollering so loud you would be worried about a noise complaint if you weren’t so out of it yourself.
you were cheering and laughing uncontrollably, most of the control over your senses had disappeared with the last straight vodka shot you’d downed at your friend’s behest. it was your birthday! you needed to let loose so what’s a shot or two, or three? to be quite frank you had stopped keeping track of your drinks after the consecutive beer pong losses.
partying this hard was fairly uncommon for you, only feeling safe enough to let your guard down due to the fact that you were in the comfort of your own home, and thankfully katsuki had been glued to your side all night (to no one’s surprise). he had even shouldered some (most) of the penalties from the games as a result of your piss poor aim.
“hey, idiot. you need to drink more water, come with me.” katsuki appeared to be almost stone cold sober, but even he was not immune to copious amounts of alcohol coursing through his system. for some strange reason he had been feeling more.. irritable? for lack of better of word.
all night, any potentially wandering hands or even mere glances in your direction that lasted just a bit too long for his liking had been peeving him for the past hour or so. kaminari had even teasingly called him a guard dog a little earlier much to his misfortune, earning the guy some very colourful language and a punch to the gut.
you let out a whine, but compliantly allow him to lead you off the makeshift dance floor without further protest. his hand swallowed yours, enveloping your entire palm with zero difficulty which left you wondering just when he’d gotten so much larger than you. his sheer height and size caused the sea of people to simply peel apart, allowing the two of you an easy exit route.
lost in your thoughts, you’re brought back to reality when you’ve plopped down onto something soft, the familiarity of the walls makes you realise he’d brought you upstairs to your room. bakugou knew the layout of your home like the back of his hand, a privilege borne from the countless days of his childhood spent within these very walls, with you attached to his hip.
“drink.” the blonde commands, and you oblige, the cool water flowing down your throat offers your body some reprise from the hard liquor, and you’re left feeling surprisingly refreshed. once he was content with how much you drank, bakugou took the glass from your hands and placed it on your nightstand, besides the picture frame of the two of you as kids, sporting toothy grins and peace signs.
there’s quiet shuffling as he settles down besides your bed on the carpeted floors, a comfortable silence falling over the two young adults to the soundtrack of a far away thumping. you hum absentmindedly, glancing over at your clock that read 11:59pm and then down at katsuki who was already looking up at you.
he rarely got to see you like this nowadays, the height disparity between the two of you growing so vast over time that he almost exclusively looks down at you now. but as of this moment, a small part of him wishes that he hadn’t grown so tall, if only for the chance to look up at you the way he was currently.
the moonlight shone through your thinly veiled blinds, he knew from a young age that you were always her favourite, he knew from the moment he saw how she cupped your face in her rays ever so delicately, shining over your soft features and painting you in such a romantic light it was practically unfair. katsuki bakugou had come to the realisation that he had never once stood a chance.
“happy birthday, dumbass.” his usual commanding tone was soft, demure almost, as if he were trying to coax a small animal out of hiding. there was no one else but the two of you here in your bedroom right now, same as it had always been for all your lives, but this time, something else was there.
it was the poorly concealed tension that you both so carefully avoided, stuck in a constant loop of dancing around a topic that neither dared to breath a word of, in fear of speaking it into existence. your mind suddenly felt as clear as it had ever been, and you were consumed with a need to lean into him, just as you’ve always done, except this time around you fear that simply laying your head on his broad shoulders won’t be enough.
bakugou clears his throat, breaking his trance as he digs around in the pocket of his pants.
“it’s for you. or whatever.” he mumbles, offering his enclosed fist up to you whilst vehemently avoiding eye contact. he had never shown that much interest in your walls before and you had half a mind to repeat the sarcastic phrase he’d offered you just a few days prior.
you stick out your palm inquisitively, and a second later there’s a dainty silver chain resting in the previously unoccupied space. a soft gasp falls from your lips as you carefully pick up the necklace, thumbing over the small heart pendant.
“‘tsuki, it’s, it’s so pretty.” you smile fondly, eyes flickering over to katsuki who is feeling uncharacteristically shy, despite telling himself it was just a stupid birthday present. it was normal for someone to give gifts for a birthday, so why did this feel so stupidly intimate?
“thought it’d look good on you. i dunno. i don’t know that stupid girly stuff so, if you want to exchange it for something else you can, i don’t care, i just-”
“since it’s my birthday now, can i ask for my birthday wish?”
“hah? don’t you always say you can’t tell me cus it won’t come true or some shit? plus there’s not even a candle to blow out so it doesn’t even make any sense.” you interrupt his incessant rambling by sliding down off your bed, clumsily settling besides him on the plush floor and gazing up at him with an unfamiliar glint in your eyes.
regrets and worries be damned, this tension had already begun to swallow you whole and with just enough liquid courage, you feel as if you could possibly take charge of it for once. your judgement may be clouded but your desire was not, you knew exactly what you wanted as of this moment, clear as the current night sky.
“can you kiss me?”
⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
a sweet caramel scent drifts around your kitchen, your favourite candle that you’d burnt earlier had already blanketed the apartment with a fragrant haze that’s begun blending in with the aromatics coming from the sizzling pan.
a long forgotten movie is playing in the background, providing white noise as you lean your head into your palms resting atop the kitchen island. the sizzling and crackling groans of the pan had almost put you intro a trance, as you admired the tall blonde figure seamlessly handling the kitchenware with expertise.
“ah.” a pair of chopsticks deposit a juicy and succulent slice of wagyu into your eagerly awaiting mouth, the perfectly prepared meat melting between your chewing as you writhe in your seat with joy.
“mm, that’s so good ‘tsuki! can i have another piece?” you open your mouth expectantly, eyes twinkling as you savour the taste left over on your tongue. the male doesn’t oblige however, instead bringing down two plates from the cupboard above.
“no, idiot. i’m done now anyway, just let me finish plating it and go sit at the dinner table. your staring is creepy.” your face scrunches at his denial, yet you slide off the stool and settle down at meticulously set dinner table.
a freshly purchased bouquet of your favourite flowers acts as the centrepiece, accompanied by a few lit candles and two carefully folded napkins besides matching silverware. your heart swells with joy as you take in all the minute details that were all so thoughtfully prepared, before katsuki sets down both plates of food.
he finally joins you over at the table, placing a chaste kiss to the top of your head before sitting down as well. it was definitely a late dinner, your eyes flickering over to the living room clock now reading 11:59pm while he cuts your food into bite sizes.
you absentmindedly twirl the dainty heart chain on your necklace, before katsuki draws your attention by gently cupping your cheek with his hand and softly stroking with his thumb, as if you were a doll made of porcelain. you never fail to take his breath away, he thinks to himself.
“happy birthday, dumbass. i love you.” he grins adoringly, reduced to nothing but a love struck man who will forever be captivated by just how beautifully you reflect the moon’s light.
# mew’s comments :
FIRST POST BACK LET'S GOOO!!!
i drafted this TWO (2) whole years ago on a lonely night before my birthday, as self-indulgence and actually finishing it now healed something in me :')
#ador3rin#ador3mha#bakugo katsuki x reader#bakugou katsuki#bakugo fluff#boku no hero academia#my hero academia#you are so precious to me katsuki
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omg can you do a spiderman au
FEAR OF SPIDERS
PAIRING ➩ spiderman! heeseung x reader
SUMMARY ➩ you’re pretty sure that your quiet and mysterious roommate just might be a serial killer… plus he’s weirdly afraid of spiders
WC ➩ 3k
WARNINGS ➩ none really other than descriptions of injuries and the brief mention of series killers lol
AUTHORS NOTE ➩ once again written at 4am and not proofread but im a big spider man nerd so this was fun and a perfect request for me
At this point you were pretty much convinced your roommate had to be a serial killer.
A bold assumption, you are aware, but ever since he moved in about 6 months, eagerly answering a Craigslist ad you had posted with suspiciously little amount of information on his page, you’d been attempting to understand him and his usual habits and this was the most solid conclusion you’d drawn.
Heeseung wasn’t a bad roommate necessarily, he kept in his own space and he very rarely made any messes. Honestly half the time you never even noticed somebody living with you, surprisingly light on his feet for how tall he was. He moved around the apartment silently during the rare times he was actually out of his room at the same time you were.
He was shy too you had noticed judging by the way he’d jump in shock everytime you rounded a corner abruptly or turn red and scamper off back to his man cave whenever you stared at him for a little too long. Not to mention the fact he was absolutely terrified of spiders apparently judging by the way he’d completely panic every time you screeched and announced the presence of one.
These fun fact were harmless though, so why did you think he was a serial killer?
Well the first thing you had noticed that was off about him was the fact he didn’t sleep. It took you almost 4 months to understand why he was always up before you or why he constantly had dark bags under his eyes. Your roommate simply did not sleep, maybe even during the day.
When you had told your friend Jake about this he had joked around that maybe your roommate was just a vampire. Jay, the more reasonable of your trio, had monotonely countered that guess and said that he was probably just a third shift worker and you were too nosy for your own good.
He was completely accurate in the second half of his statement, curiosity running through your veins and causing you to snoop one day while Heeseung was off doing whatever he did during sunlight hours. You’d called off from work sick, faking a pained groaned when your roommate yelled from the living room to announce the fact he was leaving and he hoped you felt better.
The second the front door was clicking shut as it closed off in the distance you had hopped out of bed, throwing your blankets to the side and racing to make sure the coast was truly clear before you began your investigation.
When you cracked open the door to Heeseung’s room after determining it safe to look, you knew you were doing something wrong and being overly invasive. Yet you couldn’t help the excitement that washed over you as you looked around his dark bedroom, somewhere you’d never even caught a glimpse inside before.
His room was spotless which surprised you considering how often he was inside of it, even eating his meals behind the closed door. There were no clothes hanging around and his bed was perfectly made like he’d never even laid on it before. He had a few posters hung up and you marveled at the bands he was seemingly interested in, wondering why he never said anything when he had heard you playing some of the same ones in the kitchen.
Despite being grateful you’d gotten some insight on who he was as a human being, nice to finally discover after all these months sleeping two doors down from a mere stranger, you were disappointed regarding the fact you’d found out absolutely nothing that would explain his weird behavior.
When you met back up with your friends a few days later to give them an update, one that they hadn’t asked for Jay begrudgingly reminded you, they had thought you were absolutely crazy. Even Jake who was originally on board with mission find-out-your-roommates-secret.
So you told then the second thing that you had noticed about the boy.
Heeseung was pretty and that’s one of the first things that drew you to him. After he had answered your ad with zero photos or information on his page other than his name, you’d requested to meet in a public place so you could make sure he wasn’t somebody crazy or trying to scam you. He eventually agreed hesitantly and two weeks later you were sat at a coffee shop as you waited for him to arrive.
The first thing you noted when he had walked in was that he was annoyingly handsome. Immediately followed by the fact he had the most gentle face you’d ever seen, big round eyes peering around the shop anxiously as he tried to spot somebody who looked similarly to your photo on your profile.
When you smiled and waved at him, calling him over to the table you were at, he had given you a small grin of relief and you immediately figured he was harmless.
So when he started to show up late at night, injured and bleeding, you thought that somebody had to be crazy to hurt a person as kind as Heeseung. At first you’d assumed he maybe had been mugged, finding bloody tissues and bandages left over in the bathroom trash one night.
It took three weeks for you to actually catch him coming home, staking out on the couch half asleep after you realized his bruises weren’t healing and more just continued to pop up. He’d staggered into the apartment around 5 in the morning, not noticing you sitting in the dark until you cleared your throat.
His eyes were immediately shooting towards yours, shocking you slightly that he was able to find you so fast considering how dark it was, and you saw his eyes widen from where his face was illuminated by the kitchen light in the distance.
“If somebody is messing with you, we need to go to the police.” Your voice was soft as you broke the tensioned silence, watching the way he tensed up at the last word you said and started to shake his head.
“I’m fine.” He mumbled back but you could hear the wince in his words and one of his hands came up to rest on his ribs.
You were getting off the couch and making your way over to him before he could disappear back into his bedroom and deal with it alone. He stiffened when you gently grabbed his hand and dragged him over to your shared bathroom, sitting him down on the toilet softly as you started to scramble and look for the first aid kit under the sink.
“You don’t have to tell me.” You shook your head as you looked and hoped he was paying attention to you. “But I took first aid in highschool and your wrap jobs are just terrible.”
He let out a little scoff of a laugh and then immediately bent over with a hiss of pain. You snapped your head up to look at him and your heart hurt when you saw the complete state of his face now that you were sat under better lighting.
His face was pretty much swollen or bruised in all areas and your stomach turned thinking about how bad the rest of his body must be. The blood from his split lip was dripping down onto his chin and shirt and you watched as he instinctively tongued at it before wincing in pain at the burning sensation.
You were standing once you found the wraps you were looking for and going back over to him, trying to ignore how cute he looked as he peered up at you from his spot on the toilet seat.
“You’ll need to take your shirt off.” You were whispering awkwardly and he froze for a second but eventually nodded.
Heeseung had been fit when you first met him but you weren’t unaware to the fact he had suddenly bulked up sometime this summer. It had confused you considering he didn’t seem like the type to work out and you couldn’t figure out for the life of you when he could possibly be making time for that, but the results were apparent as he nearly doubled in shoulder and arm width.
He started to try and pull his shirt over his head but he stopped abruptly with a low stretched out groan of pain, putting his arms back to his sides and shaking his head in denial.
You sighed and shifted closer to him, holding the hem at the bottom of his shirt with your fingertips and looking at him for permission. His eyes watched you for a second with a strange expression before he was nodding slowly, trying not to flinch away as you helped him undress and get it safely over his more intense injuries.
It was hard not to over react to the sight of his bruised chest but you didn’t want to upset him or make him less inclined to come to you for help. Heeseung’s body was pretty much a mess of colors, black and blue in most spots but some parts of his skin were tinted yellow like they were a few days old.
You glanced up at his eyes to find him already watching you, a dark expression on his face as he waited for you to say something. You imagined he figured you’d press him for answers about who had done this but you didn’t, nodding softly before moving closer to him so you could gently wrap him in the bandage.
He shivered slightly when your hands touched his skin, your fingertips brushing over him softly as you meticulously wrapped his ribs tightly in the material.
You tried to do a good job despite the fact he was still staring at you, watching you with those big eyes as you avoided meeting them. When you had finally finished he sucked in a deep breath in relief, the pressure helping the pain slightly.
He sat obediently as you continued to try and help relieve his suffering, letting you dab at the cuts on his face with a wet rag and apply ointment over them with trembling hands. When you were finished, neither one of you made a move to leave, so you sat down on the edge of the tub right beside the toilet.
Your knees knocked against his and he glanced at you, shocking you when he extended a hand in your direction. You took it gratefully, yours still shaking, and squeezed his warm skin in thanks.
It was weird for both of you to be in this situation together but it felt strangely natural and intimate. You can’t recall ever touching Heeseung like this or even hanging out with him for as long as this had been stretching on. You wondered if he was realizing the same things as he zoned out slightly.
“Why don’t you let me come with you tomorrow?” You were breaking the silence to suggest and his head whipped up to look at you with fear. “I won’t pry about wherever you go I promise but maybe they’ll leave you alone if you have company.”
He was swiftly turning on the toilet seat so he was facing you, his knee slotting in between yours as he grasped your hand with both of his and gave you a desperate look. “Y/N, look at me.”
“Under no circumstance can that happen.” He was shaking his head and squeezing your hand to properly get his point across. “And you absolutely can’t follow me, you need to promise me this.”
You watched him with a pained expression, feeling frustrated and helpless but also hearing the pure panic and sternness in his tone as he stared at you anxiously waiting for a solid response. He looked terrified at the thought of you going wherever he does and your stomach turned as you got a very bad feeling.
You were flipping your conjoined hands so yours were released and he glanced down at them in confusion but realizing you were wrapping his pinky in yours.
“I promise.” You whispered back to him.
That was the first time you had considered the possibly that Heeseung was into something very dangerous, that you had completely misjudged your soft gentle roommate and he was possibly as axe murderer or some kind of hit man.
“Maybe he’s Spider-Man.” Jake was exclaiming after you’d told them this and a few heads shot your way in the restaurant causing him to duck his head down.
Jay scoffed and rolled his eyes as he said this and you paid him no mind, the suggestion almost making less sense than his previously mentioned vampires. As far as you and the rest of the city were aware, there was only one Spider-Man in the whole world and it simply wasn’t possible that it coincidentally would be your awkward roommate.
“More realistically, he’s one of the bad guys Spider-Man beats up for a living.” You were shaking your head, knowing that statistically it made more sense.
“Why not just follow him then.” Jay was shrugging and taking a bite of his fry nonchalantly. “So what he told you not to, he might be a murderer. Why does what he says matter anyways?”
“He seemed really scared.” You were shaking your head as you sighed and leaned back in your seat. “I’m not going to die just because I’m too curious for my own good.”
“Well… we could always come with you if you’re worried.” Jake was slowly suggesting.
You glanced at him in surprise, not having thought of that for some reason. You looked over at Jay and expected to see him with a scowl, denying the idea of spying on your roommate on his only day off but he was surprisingly calm looking, shrugging his shoulders when he realized you were waiting for his opinion.
So that’s how you wound up in your current situation, ducking low inside Jake’s car with dark clothes and beanies on. You’d been preforming your amateur stake out for only two hours but there’d been no sign of Heeseung leaving your apartment building that you were currently parked in front of.
“Are you sure he’s even going to come out?” Jake was whispering from the drivers seat and you sat up to listen to him closer, elbows resting on the middle console between the two boys.
“He does every night.” You whispered back with a shrug and almost like you had summoned him, your roommate was slipping out from the lobbies from door and looking around his surrounding areas before starting to speed walk down the street.
Jake made a celebratory noise and started the car slowly, peeling off in a slow cruise around the block as you waited to see which direction Heeseung was going to turn to next. It’d been a few minutes of watching him before guilt started to settle in.
“Should we be doing this?” You sighed and rested your chin over Jay’s shoulder who was only paying half attention to the operation going on.
“Well he is kind of suspicious.” He murmured and you glanced at him from the corner of your eye as you waited for him to explain more thoroughly. “He looks over his shoulder every three seconds and he just totally ducked into that alley over there.”
Jay was right you realized as you picked your head up, not noticing you had completely lost sight of your roommate. Jake slowed to a stop behind a few cars, up the street from the alley Jay saw him disappear into and you waited to see if he would come back out or if there was maybe a secret business or club residing back there in the darkness.
It was only about 30 seconds before something was shooting out of the alley and the three of you froze, jaws dropping open almost comically as you pieced together what it was that you had just potentially saw.
“Oh no fucking way.” Jay was sitting up in his seat and showing his widest range of emotion and interest, finally seemingly invested in this situation as he leaned forward to try and look outside the front window. “Dude that was…”
“Spider-Man.” Jake was exclaiming excitedly, hollering as he gripped the steering wheel and shook it slightly, glancing back at you with a childish amount of happiness on his face.
Despite the superhero’s alarmingly large presence in the city and the feeling that he was constantly looking over everybody’s shoulder, you hadn’t actually ever seen him for yourself until he just swung his way out of the alley and off into the city skyline.
You were ignoring the two boys excitement and jumping from the car, their yells of confusion as they told you to come back bleeding off into the distance as you sprinted towards the alley. Half of you expected to see a bloody Heeseung sprawled against its wet cement floor but the other half wasn’t that surprised when you spotted nothing but his sweater and pants carefully folded and tucked away.
You could hear your friends shoes against the sidewalk before you saw them and they paused when they realized what you were approaching, grabbing the clothes in your hands and turning to look at them.
“Well fuck.”
#enhypen#enhypen drabbles#enhypen fanfiction#heeseung#jake enhypen#heeseung drabbles#heeseung x reader#heeseung smut#jake drabbles#jay drabbles#jay enhypen#spiderman#spiderman au#enhypen au#heeseung au
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Distractions
This is a sequel to You and me
Arthur Shelby x sister!reader
warning: description of self-harm scars
WC: 2.4K
MASTERLIST
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*
You were having a crisis. It had been around two weeks since your attempt and you had done so well, but then you nearly fucked it up. You felt like you were stuck in a cruel conundrum. If you spoke to a family member, they would probably end up hiding all sharp objects which would certainly make them resent you even more than they already did. Alternatively, if you didn’t, they would be immensely disappointed to inevitably discover that you’d broken your promise in a little under twenty days.
Deep down, you knew the right thing to do. You desperately craved the comfort of your twin, Finn, but he was fuck knows where doing fuck knows what.
Maybe he doesn’t want to be around me.
Deep down, you knew this was a stupid assumption, but your irrational side was screaming at you: You are dragging him down.
“It’s you and me, Y/N.” Did he still mean it? After all these years?
Fuck, I need help I need help.
You pulled your aching body off your groaning bed, your bones clicking after being curled in an unnatural position for the best part of a day. You resolved to sweep the house, if no one was there to help her, you'd give in and relapse. But, if someone was there, you'd keep her promise to Tommy.
You secretly wished Ada still lived with you and didn’t run off to London. Your elder sister offered her vital comfort on the phone after Polly told her what had transpired.
“I need you, Y/N. I can’t deal with all these Shelby men without my Shelby girl.”
You could ring Ada, but she didn’t want to disrupt Karl’s day by upsetting his mum, or god forbid cause Ada to put her life on hold and visit.
Your fragile frame trudged down the creaky wooden stairs, the home where you grew up. You once chased your brothers up these stairs as a child - before the world went to shit; but now they’ve all moved out, even Polly had a house. It left just you and Finn, along with any visiting family member or friend. The house was so dead and empty. Selfishly you missed when the whole family was under one roof - before the war.
You snapped yourself out of your reminiscing, now was no time for fantasies.
“Y/N?” A gruff voice called out from the living room - Arthur - shit.
As much as you idolised your eldest brother, you never had any deep, emotional talks due to your wide age gap (twenty-one years, to be precise) along with your fear surrounding Arthur’s addiction and his anger. Things only got worse whenever he and his wife fought. That’s probably why he was there.
“Y/N, love?” He repeated.
You cautiously shuffled towards the oak door of the living room and shoved it open. Immediately, you were hit with a wall of warmth and the stench of cigarette smoke.
“I’ve been waiting on ya. Thought you’d lock yourself up there forever.” Arthur sighed, putting his cigarette out and discarding it in the glass ashtray on the table. He glanced up at you and saw the all too familiar feelings of despair and sadness flooding your face. The pain radiated off you. It crushed him to see that you were feeling the same anguish he once felt. Despite his eyes on you, you remained still.
Arthur shifted over and gestured to the sofa next to him, a pleading look in his eyes. You hesitated, but then caved and sunk down next to him. His aura engulfed you like a blanket.
“What’s going on little’un?” he questioned, attempting to expel the gruff undertone from his voice
“Nothing. I - I just wanted to say hi.” you mumbled in response, evidently lying.
Arthur didn’t respond. He instead gave you a look, as if to say “bullshit.”
“I just…” Your voice broke “I don’t want to be alone right now.” You sniffled, not looking him in the eyes, instead focusing on your knees.
He sighed. He desperately wanted to help you, he empathised, but it was sometimes hard to force the words out. What would Tommy do? What would Polly do? What would Ada do?
“Then, let’s stay here together.” he half-smiled, you only hummed in response.
“Can you - can we talk about this?” Arthur stammered, immediately regretting his word choice. “I mean - do you want to talk about it?”
You didn’t respond, you stayed still. Your rational brain was telling you to spill everything, vomit your thoughts up. However, your darker side wanted your thoughts to stay locked alone.
Your fear was palpable. You wanted Finn. You and Arthur had never spoken about this. When he found out about your attempt, he broke into a fit of rage, leaving a trail of destruction - smashed glass, dented furniture - behind him. To his credit, he did try to apologise to you, but you remained silent throughout the ordeal.
"Sister." Arthur choked "I'm sorry for scaring you. I was just in my rage, you know? But… but not at you! just myself."
You glanced up at him, tears silently falling down his cheeks. You had no words left in you, so you did the only thing you could: held him. It was ironic because really you were the one who needed comforting right now, but you knew Arthur was in just as deep shit as yourself.
"I - I just feel…" your voice whispered out to him "I feel like a failure."
Immediately, the older man's bloodshot eyes widened. Had she - ?
"What did you do? It’s ok." He sure didn’t sound like it was ok.
"I swear, nothing, yet."
"Can I have a look?"
Arthur hadn't actually seen but your self-inflicted injuries were described to him in vivid detail by a very traumatised Finn. Despite this, nothing could have prepared him for what he was about witness, physical evidence making the gravity of your situation more real.
You were far too embarrassed to reveal your handiwork to him, so you instead rested your wrist on his leg to let him discover them.
"my jumper" he smiled, "but it smells too clean."
You chuckled through your pouring tears.
Cautiously, he lifted up the cuff. It revealed a few large, burning scabs, still outlined by a deep crimson. It also revealed the start of Tommy's row of stitches. The cut couldn't be as long as they said, right?
Arthur looked up at you for some kind of reassurance, but your eyes were locked on your arm. He leaned in closer to your shaking body and continued.
The black channel of parallel lines seemed to never end. He continued to slide up your sleeve, nearing your elbow. Anyone could tell how bad the cut was by the deep channel forming between the two sides. It almost looked like a stab wound, but way too large. As the sleeve bunched up and rested on your elbow, the forming scar ended.
"shit." Arthur mumbled in disbelief "can I check the other?"
The process on your right wrist was considerably faster. Much to Arthur's relief, it was still populated by the old scarring he'd been warned of. Horizontal, raised bumps ran across your arm. In a messed up way, it reminded him of trenches on the battlefield.
"D'ya promise there ain't no others?" he spoke in a low, soothing voice. You nodded your head rapidly. "I'll get Finn or Polly to check fully later, ok?"
"thank- thank you" your voice shook
"So, why're we feeling like a failure, ay?"
"Because, I - I just can't be strong. I'm meant to be strong." you cried
"says who?" Arthur countered
"I - just everything. You are all strong, and I can't do it."
"You think I'm strong? I can assure you I'm no different to you, same with Tom."
You looked up, shocked at his forwardness.
"This," Arthur picked up your stitched wrist and held it tendering in his cracked hand "this is just a physical sign of the pain you feel. We all feel pain. We all do stupid shit because of it, there ain't nothing to be ashamed of in this family."
You let a small smile tease the edge of your lips. Your were scared Arthur hated you for it, but he clearly cared way more than you'd realised.
"There's that smile, ay?" Arthur cooed, your eyes locking.
"I thought you hated me." you sobbed, confused.
He was taken aback to hear those words coming from your mouth. He and Polly raised you and Finn. He could have sworn you were a little child last year, but now you was all grown up and in a lot of pain.
"yeah? says who? don't listen to those voices, listen to me, ok?" He gripped your shoulders with his hands and pulled you in so your faces were nearly touching. "I love you, I love you so much"
His tender words made you lose it. You were surprised that you even had tears left, resting your forehead against his shoulder. Arthur wrapped his arms tightly around you and patted your back rhythmically, humming something incoherent.
"I'm sorry I made you mad with yourself, Arthur. I swear none of this is your fault." You gazed back up at her older brother, guilt clouding your vision. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you when we spoke before, you must have felt bad."
He didn't respond, just shushed you and kept a reassuring hand on your back. They remained in that position until your cries subsided and Arthur had composed himself.
He let out a strained cough to clear his throat of tears and tobacco. "What are we going to do ay? Gotta keep your big mind occupied."
You knew what you desperately wanted: Finn. But you hated to admit that to Arthur. Finn needed a break. You didn't want Arthur to think you didn't want him.
"Can we go on a walk?" You asked, yearning for fresh air and a change of scenery
He slapped his knees and stood up slowing. "I probably need the exercise anyway for the ole lungs"
You laughed again.
Arthur trudged to the door, throwing on his trench coat and cap. You shuffled behind him and wrapped your coat around your body, enjoying its warmth and softness - one of Ada's posh hand downs.
Outside, the frigid evening air enveloped Watery Lane, however the setting sun cut through the fog leaving an amber haze.
“Where’re we off to then, Y/N?”
You hummed in thought, “The Cut? It should be quiet.”
And you were off, your elbows interlinked. Arthur rambled about nearly anything he could think of - mostly Linda. You enjoyed hearing your troubled brother talk about his future - how he want a baby and a quaint house in the country.
“And I want you there playing in the grass with little Arthur junior!”
“And what if it’s a girl?”
“Little Linda! I dunno!”
He told you stories of you and Finn as small children. How Arthur would bounce Finn on his shoulders or chase you around the house in circles, much to the dismay of literally everyone else (Polly). You spoke about how during the war, if there was a problem, you and Finn would play “What would Arthur/Tommy/John do?” (depending on the day) where you would pretend to be your older brothers; going so far as to wear their clothes.
For a minute, you forgot why you were in all of this mess to begin with. Life was so simple. As the two of you walked along the cut, you gazed at your reflection in the murky water. You were so much older now, there was so much more at stake.
“Gotten quiet now? What are you thinking?” Arthur stopped and turned to face you.
“I wish we could all go back.” You sighed longingly, looking up into your brother’s face. In all your memories, he’s a twenty-something year old playing father to you and Finn - now he was in his forties.
After that revelation and some tears (from both of you), you somehow ended up at the Garrison. Typical Shelbys. After ordering a drink each from the flustered barmaid, you slipped into the snug where Finn and Isiah were deep in a drunken game of cards. After your entrance, Finn perked up, his cap nearly falling from his head.
“My favourite Shelbys!” Finn slurred, stumbling to embrace you both.
“I’d be careful where you say that mate!” Isiah laughed, clumsily slamming his cards onto the table and taking a swig of a beer.
Arthur thoroughly enjoyed the sight of Finn drunk off his head “and how many deep are we, ay?” he chuckled, settling down on the bench.
“How many what?” Finn frowned, dragging you to his side of the table.
“Drinks, Finn, drinks.” You joined Arthur in his amusement
“Ooooh! I dunno.” He shrugged over dramatically in response, wrapping his arm around you. “What I do know is that I’m winning now with my new teammate.”
“I am NOT helping you gamble, Finn.”
The night eventually wound down and concluded with you helping Finn stumble home, him slurring incoherent nonsense about some girl he fancied. You found it funny how he was technically your younger brother (by a few minutes) yet he was the drunk one.
You dragged Finn over the threshold of your home, the second you let go of him to lock the door he collapsed unceremoniously onto the stairs with a thud. You yanked his shoes off and practically dragged him into the living room, relighting the fire Arthur had started earlier knowing Finn wouldn’t make it up the stairs in this state.
You'd barely turned your back before Finn was fast asleep, curled up like a child on the sofa. You settled down on the floor next to him and gazed into the popping fire. Within minutes, the radiant warmth sent you into a slumber.
Tommy came by the next morning and let himself in. His heart swelled at the sight of his two youngest siblings sleeping peacefully in the living room. Finn had gradually made his way onto the floor and was lying down next to you, your hands intertwined.
He considered waking you both up but instead resorted to spreading a blanket over you, taking the time to admire the calm atmosphere.
As long as they have each other, he thought, they will be alright.
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*
please drop me a comment or message with any feedback or suggestions! I'd love to hear from you ♡
Vee x
MASTERLIST
#peaky blinders#peaky fucking blinders#thomas shelby#tommy shelby#shelby#finn shelby#angst#hurt#comfort#shelby sister#peaky fookin blinders#cillian murphy#peaky blinder fanfic#peaky blinder imagine#imagines#peaky blinder imagines#shelby sis#tw self harm#peaky blinders x sister!reader
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Rick finds reader camping in the woods and, over time, convinces her to join Alexandria. Happy, lovey (optional smutty) ending please!
A/N - Thank you very much for the request! ^_^ Your comments and reblogs always touch my heart <3 I'm glad you're enjoying my stuff.
WARNINGS: Canon-typical violence, blood, injury, strong language. Reader has trust issues. Set during the time-jump between seasons 8 and 9. This will likely have a second part with smut to come >.>
The first time you meet him, he scares you.
You hadn't anticipated meeting anyone out here in the wilderness, let alone someone who didn't intend to kill you. But there he was, stumbling out from the thicket of trees you'd camped within, gun held loosely in his hand, seeming just as startled as you that he'd found someone out here. The pure shock of it had left you both silent, staring
There were so few of you left, and often the people you did have the misfortune of encountering were something less than human nowadays. It was better--safer--to assume he was no different. But rather than lift the weapon to shoot you then and there, he held up his hands in a placating gesture, backing away when you'd stood to prepare yourself for a fight.
"Hey, hey...'m not gonna hurt you. Let's not do anythin' we can't take back, now." He reassured, one palm facing you and the other slowly lowering his gun back into his holster to show he meant the words. Your eyes are riveted on the weapon, your hand grasping the hilt of your knife with a white-knuckle grip.
There's little it could do for you at range against his gun, but still, holding onto it made you feel better.
"My name is Rick Grimes." He watches you carefully, his hand still stretched out to try calming you. "And I ain't lookin' for violence. Just out scavengin'."
You say nothing at the introduction, not trusting anything he had to say. You shift uneasily on your feet, eyes flicking away to the surrounding tree line to look for anyone else hidden from your view. Surely a man like this wasn't alone-
"It's just me out here." He seems to understand what's on your mind, settling into a more relaxed standing position in an effort to get you to do the same. "Just us."
Still, you say nothing. Whatever his true motivation for being out here, you know better than to believe what people tell you at face value. It was a big factor as to why you'd lived this long.
"Can I ask your name?" Perhaps discouraged that you still hadn't responded to his words, his head tilts in a reassuring way, and he takes a step forward, hesitantly.
"Got nothing to say." You gripe, throat tight with anxiety. You match his step back, taking care not to stumble over the log you'd been sitting on mere moments before he'd arrived. "Just wanna be left alone. Best be on your way."
"Maybe we can help each other-"
"Leave."
It's so obvious that he wants to say more, wants to try convincing you he was harmless, but the hair on the back of your neck is standing straight up and you can't bring yourself to care. Your hand takes a better grip of your knife meaningfully, and Rick seems to get the message, once more holding his hands up and slowly backing away the direction he'd come from.
"I'll leave you be, then."
You stay standing, waiting, for at least 20 minutes after he disappears and the sound of his footsteps fade away in the sounds of the forest. You can't trust that he won't turn around and try killing you when your guard was most lowered.
Eventually, your hackles lower. And with a somber glance around at the cozy little campsite you'd occupied for the past couple months, you sigh. You supposed it was time to move on.
The second time you meet, you nearly kill him.
The little cabin in the woods you'd discovered after packing up camp had clearly seen better days, but over the course of the few weeks you'd been staying there, it felt a little more like a home. Some reinforcing wood planks to keep the door from caving in case the infected got wind of you, and a bit of cleaning to get the worst of the bloodstains off from the floor saw the inside looking downright cosy.
It wasn't exactly your apartment from back in the day, but hey, one couldn't be picky.
The sound of shuffling feet outside has you glancing up from your book and sighing, annoyed that an infected or two had wandered their way close to your shelter. It was strange that they so frequently seemed to wander by this deep into the woods. You hadn't seen that pattern at your old campsite, but here it was almost routine.
You dog-ear the page you were on and set it on the side table, next to the burning candle providing you with the light. Grabbing your improvised spear leaning in the corner of the main living space, you rise and peer out the window to out into the darkening evening.
You freeze, pulling yourself out of the window's sight. A stuttered breath escapes you.
Two men. Not infected. Shit.
Backing away and crouching down below the sill of the window, you scramble as quietly as you can towards where you kept your small bag of weapons on the nearby counter. One hand reaches up into it, ears perked up for any sign that the men had reached your doorstep, and blindly closes around the handle of your 9mm pistol.
Thank fuck you always kept it loaded.
You catch snippets of the two talking outside, the distance and the walls in between you making the words indistinguishable, but their closeness had your heart pounding a little faster in your chest. Your eyes scan the room, looking for a hiding spot or a vantage point that would protect you from possible harm. And suddenly the cabin doesn't seem all that great anymore, seeing nothing to aid you and nowhere to hide.
With a snarl, you curse your own shitty luck. This might get ugly.
Drawing the knife from your hip into your other hand, you crouch to the right of the front doorway, back to the wall. At least it should shield you when they initially entered your little home. Maybe it would buy you a little time, but you didn't hold out hope you could hide from them completely. Not with two of them...
Heavy boots on the steps to your cabin alert you to their impending entrance. With a moment to close your eyes and focus, you adjust the gun's grip in your hand, opening them again when you hear mumbling and hesitation from the two intruders. Their voices are low, gruff.
A spike shoots through your heart when the door bursts open, swinging towards you on its squeaking hinges. Just as planned, it shields you from their initial entrance. They step inside, systematically checking the room. You get ready on your toes, prepared to spring out at a moment's notice.
You get your chance as the door begins to close, the man doing so with their back to you, talking to their companion in a hushed tone. And while the crossbow-wielding companion widens his eyes as he spots you, the other that you'd set your sights on is too late to react as you gun is held to his temple and the knife rests upon his neck. He tenses with a curse under his breath, and smartly doesn't try to resist.
"Hey!" Your captive's companion shouts, eyes hard. "Let 'im go."
"Hell if I'm gonna just let you bastards walk in and take what you want." You say with as much steadiness as you can manage in your voice. "Y'all're trespassing in my home. I got every right to defend myself."
He practically growls back. "Ain't gonna be anyone's if you don't get those outta his face."
The crossbowman shifts on his feet, trying to figure out what to do, given his friends is currently in such a precarious spot between your weapons. It surely doesn't help your own nerves seeing him so antsy. You find yourself pressing the knife just a little bit more against your hostage's skin, not enough to actually cut, but at least so he doesn't get any stupid ideas while you have control.
"Tell your friend to put the crossbow down." You mutter into the man's ear, ignoring the feeling that you somehow...recognized him. You hadn't gotten a great look at his face before holding him captive, but something about him felt...familiar.
"Daryl, easy." The man in front of you says, one hand coming up to try placating the other. "Put it down. We'll talk."
One of the crossbow bolts is leveled straight at you, but you're careful to keep most of your body hidden behind the man you were currently holding hostage. If he was smart, he wouldn't try taking his chances with shooting the small portion of you that was visible. Besides, even if he got a shot off, there was no telling if you'd accidentally pull the trigger or slice his neck on the way down. And that doubt was exactly what you needed.
You can see him--Daryl, supposedly-- glancing between you and his friend, but eventually the crossbow is lowered to a more non-threatening state. Wasn't all that happy about it, either. He still hadn't put it onto his back, ready to bring it up and shoot you at a moment's notice, but at least you weren't staring down the business end of an arrow.
"Say your piece." Daryl spits.
"All I want is to be left alone." You demand, keeping the knife to your captive's neck, but pointing the gun at Daryl. You flick it quickly towards the open door behind you. "Leave, and I'll send your friend a few minutes after when I'm satisfied you're not nearby."
Clearly unhappy with that demand, Daryl takes a step forward, but your gun returns to his companion's head for emphasis. "Don't have to like it, but if you don't want him hurt, then do as I ask."
"Like hell I'll-"
"Do what she says."
Daryl's jaw sets. "Rick, I ain't leavin' you with-"
"Like she said, it's her home."
Before you can fully mask it, your brows twitch upwards in recognition. That name...
"Askin' me to trust her..." Chewing on his bottle lip with worry, Daryl looks back to you with a glare. "What's to say you won't kill him the moment I walk out that door?"
"All you got is my word that I won't." You admit, knowing that promises meant so little nowadays. Your answer doesn't inspire any reassurance in the bowman, who scoffs and shakes his head. "I just want you away from me, and I'd prefer not to kill anyone to do it. But I will if you make me."
Rick nods as much as your knife allows him to towards the open door. "Go on. I'll catch up with you."
It takes several seconds, and no doubt some unspoken conversation between Rick and Daryl, but eventually the crossbowman takes one step and then another towards the door. You shift and lead Rick so that your back is never to Daryl as he goes, the gun and knife staying right where they are just in case he tries anything stupid.
You watch, adrenaline quickening your breath, as Daryl does as he's told and steps down onto the grass, finally disappearing into the trees beyond after some minutes. And even still, it takes another minute before you're completely comfortable that he's left.
Now, to deal with your hostage...
You release the knife and push him away from you harshly, gun leveled squarely on his head. Rick recovers, turning to see that while he was no longer in your hostile grip, he wasn't fully in the clear either.
"Told you once already Rick." You say, immediately recognizing the man and his scruffy facial hair. From the scrunch of his eyes and furrowed brow, clearly he'd also been wondering why you sounded so familiar too. "I just wanna be left alone."
"Didn't know it was you." He says, reaching up to rub at his neck, checking for cuts. But there was nothing. "Far as I knew, you were still campin' somewhere in the woods. If I'da known, wouldn't have come out here."
"Well..." You give a sigh, feeling a sudden sensation of fatigue. All this had thoroughly exhausted you. "Doesn't matter now. What's done is done."
He looks at you silently, appearing very relaxed for still having the gun aimed at him. Perhaps he didn't believe you'd really shoot. And unfortunately for you, it was growing more and more likely you wouldn't.
With a glance towards the door--there was no sign of Daryl, still--you gesture to it with your knife. "Go on. Don't come back. I'll be gone by the time you might come looking anyway."
Rick gives one last look, before slowly walking to the open door. But, he stops just as he gets to the threshold, turning back to you again with a thoughtful expression.
"You don't have to be alone." His voice is soft, gentle, and yet still holds onto that confidence and certainty you'd heard when you'd first met. "Daryl and I...we come from a community. Dozens of people. Good people."
You only stare, making it clear what your answer was with the hardness of your expression. Even still, it doesn't stop him from trying one more time.
"It ain't safe out here on your own anymore. People have always needed each other, even before, but that's more true now than it ever was. Can't you see that?"
At the very least, you spare him a few moments of thought, before you gesture towards the door with your gun without a word. Rick looks down, accepting that he hadn't convinced you. Then, you see a little amused smile lift the corners of his mouth, head shaking slightly.
"I still don't even know your name."
You match his smile, though it lacks the amusement.
"It's better that way."
Hmm, well, they say the third time's the charm.
Out of breath, heart beating the drums of adrenaline and survival instinct through you, your eyes whipped around the forest for any sign of your pursuers. The rain wasn't making it easy at all, pouring down through the canopy of leaves above and making everything much too noisy to hear if anyone was closing in.
You'd lost a lot of blood, and you'd no doubt lose a lot more unless you managed to get a decent bandage on your wound. The first had already fallen off, sopping wet from the rain and doing nothing whatsoever to staunch the blood from seeping out of your side. Whatever caliber round the person with the rifle was using was terrifying, and you doubted another shot would miss its mark quite like the first did.
Fatigue was dangerously close to descending on your muscles and limbs, and already you could feel the impending weakness from not enough blood pumping through your veins. You didn't have much time. But your only option was to run.
Blindly. Frantically. No destination in mind, and no one to help you. Was this how you died? Were all those years making ends meet, killing and scavenging and surviving just to bleed out like this? Like a wounded animal in the middle of nowhere? It all felt so unbelievably unfair.
Teeth grit against both the searing pain of your wound and the tired muscles in your legs, you rise from against the tree with a gasp and limp as fast as you were able through the dark grey forest.
Paranoia had you hearing the crunch of leaves behind you every few feet, but no matter how many times you'd whip your head around to face the incoming threat, there was no one there. The rain deafened everything else, and it was then that you realized you needed to have a better sense of the direction you were running. All of this wouldn't be helped by running face-first into the jaws of a hungry infected.
Wiping the rain from your eyes as best you can, squinting into the gloom, you make your way in one set direction. The forest all looked the same, no matter where you swept your gaze. For all you knew, you could be running in circles-
The distant bang somewhere behind you wasn't what caused your body to jolt painfully in place, but the splintering of the tree trunk from the bullet's impact right beside you certainly did. With a yelp of surprise and fear, you take off with renewed vigor, pushing past your already screaming lungs and shaking limbs.
You would not die out here. You swore it.
Now making a zig-zagging path through the forest, hopeful that the unpredictable path would discourage further shots from your would-be killer, you keep going. Your own sense of dread rises the more you feel yourself becoming dizzy. Whether it was from pushing yourself too hard, running for too long, or simply the loss of blood, you can't be sure.
And suddenly you're breaking through the trees and onto an empty road. And while you're surprised by the unexpected change of scenery, you don't have time to properly stop and process it.
That's why, seeing something that looked manmade at the end of the road up ahead--too far to make out properly, but clearly a construction of some kind--you immediately make your way towards it. The thought that someone might be inside didn't even cross your mind. Perhaps it would give you the shelter or place to hide that you needed. That was the plan, anyway.
Black dots edge at your vision, and you slow, chest heaving with the need for oxygen. Which, in turn, only further worsens your body's need for blood to distribute it.
No, no, no no no!
You'd reached your limit, and barely 100 meters from the walls you'd been running towards, you collapse in a heap in the rain. The impact upon the pavement doesn't register until moments later, and by then you swear you're hearing things because...over the sound of the pounding rain, you swear you hear voices.
Stay with me.
Don't close your eyes.
Self-preservation tells you that something is nearby, and a figure takes up the small window of vision you still have left, but everything is much too blurry to make out. The disorientation of being on the brink of passing out is terrifying.
This is the end, you think, cursing everything and everyone you can think of in your last moments, quickly losing the ability to even care as blood loss seeps you of strength. How completely unfair.
Consciousness eludes you, and everything goes black.
No matter how many days you heard it, some part of you believed you'd never get used to the sound; the laughter of children. Sing-songy voices as they played chalk games and tag in some nearby yard. When was the last time you'd heard such...such joy?
You'd cried when you realized you could no longer remember. The doctor attending to you--Siddiq as you'd learned his name to be later on--was quite concerned upon seeing you with red, watery eyes when he'd returned. It had taken quite a lot to convince him you were fine. It had taken all afternoon to truly accept the fact that you weren't dreaming and this was indeed real life. Without even having to explain your feelings, he'd seemed to just know, and understand.
There was little else to do but sleep and think when stuck in an infirmary bed for days on end. It had only taken you until that first afternoon to inspect your room with suspicion. The decorative trinkets and knick-knacks almost felt offensive. You'd nearly just died, and they'd stuck your ass in a room that looked right at home in one of those interior design magazines from way back when.
Rick had visited you that first evening. Came to check on you and see if you were recovering ok. Past the basic small talk, and the most superficial of answers to deeper questions, the conversation had been brief. And then he'd left, promising to come back another time when you were feeling more up to talking.
After that, there'd been more hours of staring up at a ceiling. More bouts of short naps that, admittedly, were very much needed. You hadn't slept as long or so comfortably in...hell, you couldn't recall. Unable to lift yourself from the bed, there was little else to do but wait, bide your time and recover.
And it unfortunately wouldn't be quick.
For the most part, you were left alone. From what you had surmised, they'd stuck you in a room separate to the rest of the infirmary, perhaps for safety. You didn't mind the distance. It gave you plenty of time to listen, to observe, to get an idea of what Rick had talked about in that cabins all those weeks ago. His words had meant so little back then, but now...?
Rick and his people truly had it lucky. All this...normality. People forgetting about the world out there, if even for a moment. Such luxury you'd never been able to afford. Slipping up for even a moment could very literally be a death sentence--hell, it nearly had been, even when you'd stayed vigilant--but these people...they didn't live every waking moment wondering if the next would be their last. They didn't sleep with a knife in their hands, ready to strike against anything that felt out of place. They didn't need walls around their hearts and minds because they'd built them from metal to protects their homes and their families. Large sheets, tall and sturdy.
These people...they laughed, they loved, they danced and sang. They ate dinners together around a table as a family. They gossiped with their neighbors, worried about if you were comfortable or if you needed another pillow behind your head. They cared, damnit. They felt safe.
They lived, so fully and freely.
Could you say the same for yourself?
If asked, you didn't think you'd be able to describe the feelings being in a place like this was invoking. Some mix between disbelief and...hope, perhaps. Something once thought unattainable, or lost forever, was right here in front of your eyes. And suddenly you thought you understood the difference between living and just surviving. Or, at the very least, began to grasp at the concept.
Your wound was still tender. It would be for another week still. But after several days of bed rest you could finally stand and walk around without much difficulty now. You wouldn't be running marathons anytime soon, but it was better than being confined. Although, Siddiq kept you from leaving the infirmary and getting some fresh air, which indicated that someone had put you on some sort of house arrest.
Made sense. You weren't much more than a stranger to any of these people. No one would let someone like that run amuck in their home.
You heard the footsteps leading up to your door before it actually opened. Turning away from the window you'd been looking out of, Rick enters almost cautiously. You meet his gaze, searching for any hint of deception, or bad intentions, but find none. He was comfortable in his surroundings.
He even felt safe enough to offer you a smile.
"Good to see you on your feet." He says evenly, leaning one elbow against a shelf on the opposite end of the room. His thumb slots into his jean pockets with the other. "Siddiq wasn't sure if you'd pull through that first night."
"Yeah, well..." You shrug, not sure what else to say, arms crossing over your chest. "Tougher than I look, I guess."
"That you are."
There's a lull, neither of you really sure what to say. Your gaze returned out the window of your infirmary room, tracking a group of children running after one another playing some sort of game. You couldn't tell exactly what the objective was, watching from afar.
After several moments of watching them, your lip twitches upwards a little. "This all...still feels a bit like a dream. Like I'll wake up at any second and be hit with reality."
You hear him huff an amused breath, steps coming closer. And while you once might have tensed and put more distance between the two of you, it seems illogical that he'd drag you into his home to save your life just to take it now. The reassurance that Rick didn't mean you harm meant you didn't flinch when he came up beside you to peer out the window as well.
"Felt that way for us, too, when we first came." He says with an understanding nod. "Feelin' like the floor's 'bout to give way from underneath you, somethin' like that?"
You nod, then something he'd said makes your brow raise. "You weren't here from the start?"
"My people came later. Much later, actually. We spent weeks on the road just...survivin.' Searchin' for somethin' we didn't know was there or not. And this,'" he gestures out the window, "is what we find at the end of it all. All I could tell myself is 'there must be somethin'. There had to be somethin'...wrong about it. Nothin's that easy. Not anymore."
"And was there? Something wrong?" You can't help but ask, unable to help but get invested in his little story.
"Nothing a harsh wake-up call couldn't fix. They weren't prepared for it, what's out there. Didn't realize how bad it could actually be." Another gesture, this time to the wall you could see in between the gaps of two houses further down. "But they're still here, and that's gotta say something about this place."
You look to him with a side eye. "That they're lucky?"
"That they're capable." Rick's head shakes, meeting your gaze. "See, that's what I missed the first time. I didn't see what they could make themselves to be. It may look like the old world, might have a few fancy amenities, but they've been through more than you think to still be here. And we did it together. For one another."
It's silent as you take in what he'd told you, eyes flicking back to the kids outside. "Tryin' to convince me to stay?" You ask, the humor evident in your tone.
Rick chuckles, that same smile gracing his expression. It still amazed you how at ease he could be in a stranger's presence. "Is it workin'?"
"Not sure yet." You say honestly, a lot of things on your mind.
"I'll take 'not sure' over 'hell no.'" Rick surmises with an accepting nod, not pushing it any further than that. "Siddiq expects you to need awhile longer to recover, so...gives you plenty of time to think on it."
"Maybe..." A thought suddenly comes to mind, and your own smile comes out. "I doubt your friend would appreciate me stayin'."
"Who, Daryl?" Rick's hand dismisses it with a wave. "He'll come around. We were the ones breakin' into your home, after all. Can't blame how you went about defendin' it."
You only shake your head, not truly believing him. Daryl, as you recall, had been ready to skewer you with one of his crossbow bolts. You weren't altogether convinced he still wouldn't the next time you met face to face.
"I'll let you rest." Rick says, pushing away from the window and laying his hand on your shoulder briefly, before turning to leave. "And if you do come to a decision, let me know."
Chewing on your bottom lip in thought, you nod, and he takes his leave of your room, the door closing shut behind him. Your stare remains on the wood for several minutes after, before eventually returning to the window. The children had disappeared from sight, perhaps off to get something to eat. It felt around lunch time anyway.
You had a lot to think about...
#rick grimes#rick Grimes x reader#fem reader#the walking dead#twd#the walking dead x reader#scenario
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With Many Regrets and Much Hope
Summary: Regulus wrote two letters the night he left for the cave. One for the dark lord, the other for himself.
CW: Mentions of suicide, suicidal tendencies. Discussions of death and mental illness.
If you are ever feeling lost or like there is no hope, please reach out to your local suicide hotline. No one should ever be forced to feel that death is the only way out. 💕
To Myself,
You will be dead long before these words are ever discovered, if they are at all, but I felt it important to write the words I never let leave my mind. The words in which I held inside for so long because uttering them felt a betrayal to the person I tried so hard to be…
Perhaps, that’s the point. That in my last moments I have lost all will to be that person. To be the perfect child that they all demanded I be. That for once I truly share just how I feel, just how lonely and broken I truly am. You see, all they ever saw was the perfect child, the one who never said no, the one with perfect grades, the one who would do absolutely anything, be absolutely anything, as long as it meant I would feel some shred of love from those meant to love me unconditionally. And yet, I sit here writing this letter and realize that I never felt love at all. What a sad realization that at death’s door the only one to look at me with any true emotion is the grim reaper himself. I thought I knew love once. Thought that it was the yellowing of bruises, the remarks at the dinner table to sit straight, to be polite. I thought love was the reprimands whispered in large crowds and shouted in private rooms. I was wrong. Love… feels like it should be so much more. It is what I desired from the start. It was the unconditional warmth that fuels your heart and reminds you to dance in the rain and laugh at even the stupidest joke. It is the days spent holed away with friends and dreaming of what could have been. It is the belief that I deserved so much better than what I received. It is knowing that the authors of the books that share what love is must have known something I did not, had experienced something I had not for I have never known the emotions that they write upon their pages…
I face death knowing that I am ready to find love and warmth and some… some sign that all the pain and torture that I have put myself through has been worth it. They say man should not fear death, but welcome it with open arms. I never understood, never could comprehend leaving behind those that needed me. But maybe that’s the whole point. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not about leaving people behind, it’s about making a choice for yourself. They’ll call me selfish, a coward, a necessary loss in a war that no side is winning, and at the end of the day people will move on. They will go about their lives and forget I ever existed. They will come to the same realization that I have; that I had always loved more than I had been loved…
I can’t keep chasing whatever it is I am after. Perfection, love, any kind of emotion to stop the dull numb that has washed through my mind? I am tired. I am so incredibly tired. My bones ache with exhaustion and the mere idea of moving forward feels like an impossible task. I want to rest. I want to feel free. I want to be let out of this cage that I have locked myself in.
I was wrong. I was wrong to hate my brother, to spite him in the wake of his own freedom. I was so busy clipping my own wings that when I saw him take flight all I could feel was utter hatred and disgusting jealousy. And to you, Sirius, if you ever have the misfortune of finding this letter, I want to apologize. I’m sorry for putting our parents first, for letting my need to be perfect get in the way of what could have been a brotherhood we will never know. I’m sorry for leaving you with these words and nothing else. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the brother you deserved, but I am so glad you could find that in someone else. That in my failure you had James. A man I know who will stand by your side for eternity, a man much better than I could ever dream of being.
To my younger self I wish to tell you that you will find freedom. You will find a voice beyond the silenced screams you so desperately wanted to release. I want you to know that in our finals moments we finally found peace. The anguish and hurt that you held in for so long will be set free. That in our last moments, in our last moments, we finally understood what it meant to live for ourselves. There were no more expectations, no more need for perfections… There was just us and a weightless chest no longer holding stuttering breaths of panic. To my younger self, I give you permission to not be ok, to not be the perfect son you expect yourself to be. I give you permission to live and not just survive. It’s okay, I promise.
Lastly, to the future heirs and heiresses that follow in my wake, I implore you to be better, not more perfect, no, but just better. I implore you to live better lives, to find better friends, to find better purposes in life than just pleasing others. It will surely be all our downfalls. There is so much I wish had been said to me as a young boy. So many times, I wish someone had seen the pain in my eyes and bruises upon my skin. Do not be silent in your suffering. Do not let those that lock you in gilded cages convince you that the riches within outweigh the freedom from outside. Do not be complacent in this ever-growing fear of incompetence. Do not believe that you are not worth the love you deserve simply for being you. And if no one else has told you today, let it be me, you deserve to live your own life and find your own love wherever it may take you. Be the person the younger you would’ve never thought possible. Heed my warning, and hear my strife, the wind in your wings will feel better than whatever any rainy day could bring. I may have lived and died alone, but you do not have to…
With many regrets and much hope,
R.A.B
#regulus black#regulus black deserved better#regulus black fanfiction#regulus black imagine#marauders era#marauders#marauders imagine#slytherin skittles#the most ancient and noble house of black
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Do I know that much about Zelda lore? Eh. Do I care? Meh. Did I see that rehydrated Ganon trend a while back? Ok yes that one's on me.
Zelda wakes to a faint shiver in the balmy summer air.
Oh. Oh, it's early this time. Very early. (It's shallow this time, and so very close to the castle...)
She climbs out of bed, wriggling to slide safely down onto her bare feet with a tiny pap on the stone floor. Her thin summer blanket tries to come along, but she untwists it from her chemise and climbs up onto her dresser. It's sturdier than her washstand, can hold her weight without tipping over, and close enough that she can reach into the washbasin there.
That's not on purpose. It's very much something the castle staff would change if they realized it was so close, since the nanny that helps her get ready for bed puts a candle in the basin as a nightlight for Zelda. Not a fresh one, but old tapers at most as long as the woman's thumb. Zelda's seen her measure them like that.
Tonight's candle is still lit. Not for much longer, maybe a couple of hours... but given how close by he must be, it should be enough for her to at least get back into the castle proper.
The Triforce of Wisdom holds knowledge, the shining power of a goddess, an innate understanding of how to hold Power firm, to curb it indefinitely, if not break it. It knows things the people of Hyrule can't, mustn't, discover.
Zelda's tiny fingers prod at the wall next to her bed, prying between the stones above her head until something shifts with a gravelly click. It takes her pushing with her full weight, but the hidden door creaks open, and Zelda scurries onto a narrow passage winding down between the walls.
There's always a passage from Zelda's room in the many castles and temples the family's built and moved on from over the centuries. If the builders don't put in a false wall, half-asleep in the twilight hours after the workday's done, remembering nothing once the last stone's mortar dries, it's heavy rain leaking through tiny gaps -- the burrows left by Keese, who once were called bats and later were spelled Keys, a joke and epithet so old no one else remembers it ever existed at all. The rain soaks into cheap rubble filling the space between defensive walls, breaking it to finer and finer grit as it freezes over and over during unseasonably cold winters. Always there are cold winters after a castle's built, sometimes for decades, but the records are never connected.
Always, the power of Hylia ensures free passage for her. Even if it's centuries before Zelda is reborn, before the cycle begins again... the underpinnings are always set in place. Secret passages and orderly cave systems, cracked walls and lost treasures, villages building temples that their descendants abandon to the wilderness, that fade into myth and rumors.
Always, the power of Hylia does far more.
Zelda puts her candle down on a somewhat flat bit of the sloping floor, and goes around the corner. The passage dead-ends here, or at least seems to. Faint light peppers the wall here, tiny cracks at several different eye-levels, and she peers through the lowest one, listening.
Nothing. The castle basement is empty, and why wouldn't it be? It's the middle of the night, well before servants get up to start bread and stoke fires for the day. Zelda retrieves her candle and slips out into the dungeons.
Usually, her tunnels don't pass through useable parts of the castle. Someone's been interfering -- one of the Oracles, likely. Someday she may find a message to reach forward in time, someday when she's far older and well-settled as the Queen, when she's had decades to charge the Triforce after this turn in the cycle.
(Last time she possessed a descendant, the girl was a sailor -- it'd given her previous true incarnation enough warning to imbue the land with her power, to put the forests and fields in a shielded stasis, burrow the animals away, so the ocean didn't scour the land and leave Hyrule nothing but hundreds of miles of barren salt flat. It'd taken so much power that she died young, that life before the land drowned.)
She exhales shakily, making the candlelight dance across tombs of her ancestors. The effigies have twisted well out of true, armor thickening, developing spikes and jutting curves, crowns long since grown to helms concealing most or all of the flattened face. Their eye sockets don't yet shine -- there could be as much as another decade before they kindle -- but she can feel their bleary attention on her, feather-light for now, following until she steps onto an ancient switch and heads into the natural caverns below Hyrule.
There's no dirt or damp here to stick to her bare feet. There wouldn't be; there never has. It all gets sucked up into the rocky walls. It's another of the effects of the divine powers that no one outside the Triforce knows -- Zelda may carry Wisdom, but Hylia embodies Life. Her rebirth brings fertile fields and abundant harvests, thickens the forests, steadies the flow of water in the desert. As said... a mortal can't fully contain the power.
Ganon also embodies a god. Corrupted, destructive, but a god. His power spills over into the world just as much as Hylia's. Zelda trails fingertips over the tunnel's lumpy wall as she walks. By now, every smooth curve in the stone has visibly rippled, and those ripples are taking on the faint definition of future teeth and claws.
Demise makes the forms, the malevolence and hunger. It can't make the life, though. Just incubate its creatures in Hylia's power, feed on it, hatch in ones and twos in the remote wilds of the land... and tear loose in massive waves when Ganon does, when he wakes from the wash of Hylia's power refreshed -- reborn with Zelda -- and breaks free.
And then someone must slay the beasts before they devour everything, and put Demise back down to sleep and recover until Zelda's reborn once more.
And so the cycle continues.
Ganon's prison lies behind a door flecked with gold this time, black crystal under a shell of dull brown stone that flakes and crumbles to dust at a touch. Zelda can only reach about halfway up the intricate sigil sketching itself out, but that's high enough to poke at the bit of ruby developing into an eye, and the door clunks open just long enough for her to slip through.
The same black, gold-flecked crystal has grown into low braziers in each corner, which puff into flame without the touch of her little candle, casting warm light into the shadowy center of the room.
It's just enough to see a figure lying on a massive altar there: an effigy of Ganon, all thick planes of heavy muscle, dark clay under a fall of coiling terracotta hair. So... it hasn't been nearly as long as it was between Zelda's last two lives. Last time... last time, she'd come down late, already nine when the Call of Power finally reached her, leading her down through sub-basements and catacombs, through a cave system she'd had to return to with rope and supplies, hoping Hylia's power blurred the attention of the palace inhabitants long enough to actually reach his cell.
She'd only found a slowly-churning wisp of energy, that time. The effigy lay cracked, unfinished, the altar nothing but dried-out clay crumbled across the cave floor. His spirit had ended up possessing someone to carry out its compulsion.
This time, though, Ganon lives. Sort of. After all, he never truly dies.
The effigy is no statue. Or it won't be, in a few short years. This is the only reason Ganon never wakes to ravage the land while Zelda and Link are small children -- older ones, yes, sometimes, but never when they're just toddlers. The powers diffused through the land have to build him a body. How quickly that happens, how viable it is...
... that depends on Zelda. She doesn't always remember enough to know that.
The altar's a good three or four times the size of her bed, and stands nearly as high as the kitchen countertops the cook scolds her for climbing. (And then gives her a small treat from a batch of whatever sweets they're making.) Zelda has to put her candle down by Ganon's hip, way over at the tips of his half-sculpted hands, and jump to catch the edge, scrambling up to sit next to his shoulder. Which she then has to throw a leg over, getting one foot down into the gap that will someday divide his arm and chest, to reach the candlestick and bring it back.
Lifting the candle at this angle shows that Ganon's fingers aren't the only thing already half-sculpted. The effigy is never made with clothes on -- those come from some magical device hidden deep in the altar, the same way a number of Link's armors and such do -- but the details of his body are... not always relevant. Not even often relevant, especially if he's... if he's yet again...
She swallows, one hand on Ganon's future barrel of a chest, his massive shoulder between her legs, and allows herself one long -- possibly last, possibly only in this life -- moment to feel the faint powdery surface of clay already halfway flesh, still a bit too cool and stiff to mistake for alive. Then she raises the candle to his face.
The heavy brow and wide mouth are those of a man, with no hint of any kind of beast. His nose is large and sharp, beautiful by Gerudo standards; protruding canine teeth are blunted rosethorn points just visible past his lips, not tusks. His ears, what little of them are visible under the terracotta, are still just lumps, but they aren't positioned in the wrong, too-high manner of his many and varied bestial incarnations. He's forming normally. No dark witches or sorcerers have sunk their spells into him this time, and he's too far along to be caught now.
He'll still be Destruction when he's complete. Compelled to the cycle, just as Zelda is, just as Link will be. But he won't be maddened, won't follow the whims of some power-hungry mortal... will recognize them while he's still chained and until his defeat. He'll be himself when he wakes.
"Oh, husband..." she breathes.
It's been centuries since he was himself.
She'll try to delay his waking as long as possible. Zelda presses a kiss, open-mouthed, onto his forehead, the flat bridge of his nose; another to his parted mouth, then one each, more a breath than a touch, to the barely-there curves of developing eyes. "Slow, husband," she murmurs, patting his cheek with her small hand. "Wait for us."
-0-0-0
She doesn't nap on him that night. She'd started the journey down too late, and couldn't stay much longer than giving the benediction -- even if she blew out the candle for a time, and relit it from the braziers, the nanny would notice if she was missing in the morning. She's still too young to be expected to get up and ready on her own.
At least there isn't much Zelda has to pretend to be well-rested for. Just her writing lessons, scheduled before lunch, since if they have to wash her hands anyway they might as well be splattered with ink. Otherwise she's expected to play, the nanny trailing after her in case she bothers the wrong groundskeeper or stablehand with incessant questions. Though she doesn't do that today. Being tired hurts too much; she sulks under a bench in the garden, toying with a peony drooping low on its bush, and waits for either the sunlight or her body to quit this nauseating, sore horribleness called being awake.
This lifetime's Link hasn't been brought to Castle Town yet. He might not be -- he isn't always found before Ganon breaks free -- but Zelda has a feeling. He'll show up before Ganon wakes.
It'd be nice if it was now, though.
-0-0-0
Weeks pass. Months. Zelda's days slowly fill with formal lessons -- math, science, philosophy and history and civics. The lore of Ganon is slanted towards the terrifying, the theology only somewhat accurate. Why centuries of scholars have gotten the idea that numbers have any more significance than 'Triforce means three Aspects', Zelda does not know. Of course a lot of magical items come in threes. Part of it is, yes, the Triforce influencing how magic tends to settle, but most of what the scholars wandered off into comes from how few numbers even exist before you can start subdividing them back out. The Hero's Items can get into the dozens, but the wise philosophers of Hyrule are dividing them into pendants vs. armor vs. spell medallions and on and on.
Zelda may have Opinions. No one will bother listening until she's grown, though. Centuries of experience have long since proven that.
So Zelda's days are filled with lessons that are dull (this time, she remembers more than usual -- she'd be done with math by now if she didn't keep forgetting to use the new symbols for addition and such), biased (someone's remembered Ganon was once a Gerudo, so it isn't a fun time to be one this century), or outright wrong (no, Zelda is not constantly reborn -- she'd be her own mother and things would get creepy very, very quickly).
Her nights, though, become increasingly filled with visits to Ganon. His body is shaping itself well, thick muscles and large hands, chest defined in mathematically perfect swells of padding that Zelda pillows her head on while she traces sleep spells over his face, sigils for quiet between his ribs.
Ganon's skin reddens from clay to lifelike the same week that his hair finally flows through Zelda's fingers like silk -- on her last visit, it had still been intricate terracotta, fine locks scored like the nonexistent artisan had combed the clay with a wire brush before firing, glazed smooth with a transluscent layer of Gerudo red.
One hand comes fully free of his hip on her tenth birthday. His fingers, each nearly as thick as her wrist, do the same over the next five days, and the split between arm and torso completes all at once right under her foot a couple of nights after that, sending her tumbling onto his head.
Link still hasn't appeared. This may be one of the lives where he grows up in a rural cottage, or half-feral in the woods. Where they don't meet until Ganon's captured her, until she sends the call for help to begin the active questing of the cycle anew... where Link only sees Ganon at the end, over shield and sword.
No. She can't think like that. It's been nearly a thousand years... Link deserves to have this just as much as she does. A few months, a week, even if just a day, he deserves a moment with destiny fallen silent before it must play out.
She's twelve, and a sudden growth spurt has left her tall enough to not have to climb to get onto the altar. Ganon's thighs have fully separated, his body finally warm enough to make a difference when she tucks her chilly toes there. She's going to have to discard her chemise soon -- Ganon is always a furnace by the time he wakes.
Her hair stirs ever-so-slightly as she traces the sleeping spell high onto his chest.
Ganon's finally breathing.
-0-0-0
Link, if you don't hurry, you'll miss it.
But Zelda only has one aspect of the Triforce, and isn't connected to Power -- that one lies dormant until Ganon wakes. She isn't strong enough to reach Link.
-0-0-0
Deep laughter draws her to a small outbuilding that's been used for storage since Zelda was a baby. She'd thought it was a carriage house, perhaps -- it's certainly close enough to the castle gate -- but the latches that made her think so have been undone, and the doors were actually the entire wall, panels folding back in on themselves all the way around the corner and to the stone parts of the cottage. The space has been emptied of the junk that used to be in there -- broken wheels and cart panels, mysterious crates and barrels, a truly ridiculous number of cheap pots stacked to the rafters -- and with it all out of the way, Zelda can identify the place as a smithy. Someone's sweeping out the forge, kneeling on the raised firebreak and half-tucked inside, showers of glittering soot and rupees coming out between his knees.
Her father's talking to a different man near the anvil, a stout and heavy-shouldered one with gray streaks in his frizzly hair and beard.
"--couldn't kick me out with a little tyke!" the man is saying, and he laughs again. "Even if he was a boy! Started him on that sand-sign of theirs, apparently they can talk with their hands if the wind's too loud. Craziest thing."
Her father hums, considering that. It's not an entirely pleasant sound. "I seem to recall the Zora do something similar," he muses leadingly.
"That they do!" The smith -- he's probably a smith -- replies. "Something about not hearing the same under water. They call it water-sign... or it might be swim-sign, I never did manage to figure out the difference. Damn near identical to the Gerudo stuff, though. I hope some people around here know Zora sign," he adds more quietly. "Hyrulian's our native language, sure, but only for hearing. Link's--"
"Link," Zelda echoes, gaze snapping back to the boy eeling out of the forge. The soot is everywhere: his legs from thighs to ankles look like artists' charcoal all up the front and insides; his shorts are gray, the hem freshly blackened and riding too high to not be old childhood clothing bound for the rag bin. The side seams have been pieced with a few extra inches of cloth, quick basting stitches stretching to show tiny gaps as Link twists to sit on the hearth, long legs akimbo. The hands he rests over one upraised knee are also matte charcoal-black, though the palms and fingertips are slightly paler, like he tried to wipe them clean -- the excess soot's spread in long blotches over his shoulders and back. Except, no, that's probably from brushing up against the forge's walls. The excess soot from his hands is actually streaked across his forehead and nose, and in ragged stripes through his blond hair.
He offers her a shy little grin, face going pink under the black marks, and wiggles his fingers a bit.
Zelda does know Zora sign. Mostly political niceties, but that's enough to cover all the forms of hello. "Hello, Link," she signs back, hands flicking warmth and delight at him.
He ducks his head and blushes all the way down to his shoulders.
"So that's where you've been all this time?" Zelda asks later, after Link's uncle has freed him from cleaning duty and he's charmed the bathhouse attendants into opening early. (At least the Hyrulian bath, anyway. Not that either of the other two are in use at the moment, with only Hyrulians in the castle, but if they were Link wouldn't need to make pleading faces at their attendants: the Zora bath only ever closes for cleaning, since its water only gets lukewarm at best and doesn't need well-monitored furnaces, and the Goron bath stays locked as a potentially-lethal scalding risk for most of the palace inhabitants.) She lathers up more soap into a fresh cloth and scrubs at the fading stains on Link's legs. "A wandering smith and his nephew in the outlands?"
Link shrugs. Learning other peoples' skills, he says (the reason Zelda's helping him bathe, so that he has both hands free to talk). Don't get him started; he'll flap his hands off -- talk your ear off translates very oddly in sign -- about how different circumstances make different needs, and then go off into anti-corrosion and weight-lowering alloys if you let him. And then complain he still hasn't figured out where the Gerudo get their bronze.
"Bronze?" Zelda asks, though she isn't surprised. Just prompting.
Nomad forges, Link explains. They don't get hot enough for iron. And that, Zelda did not know.
She scoops up another bucket of warm water and dumps it over his head. "What else did you learn?" she asks as he sputters, and settles in to watch him talk.
-0-0-0
That night, she finds Link waiting in the tombs, hovering by an archway deep in the back. He's close to the switch hidden in the floor, but... Zelda doesn't think he's actually waiting at it. He's too close to the archway, his attention on a Darknut too large for the sarcophagus it's lying on. Its armor is starting to tinge blue at the edges, noticeable only by the fact that the rest is a dull pewter gray.
How Link is managing to have a staring contest with something that doesn't yet have eyes, much less is pointing them in his direction, Zelda does not know. He loses when she slips up next to him, glancing her way before his gaze returns to the Darknut.
He passes over his own candle, so Zelda now has two, and slowly raises his hands.
This one... I think it was yours, he says, uncertain and hesitant. I outlived you? That's not a question for her; he sounds like he only half-remembers.
"You may have," Zelda answers anyway. Her own memories tend to fade towards the end of her lifespans, but if Link died first last time, she doesn't remember being told. She offers his candle back, wiggling it a bit until he takes it. "Come on." And she steps over onto the switch and leads him down into the caves.
The golden sigil etched into the door is complete, now. Intricate Sheikah patterns -- what they were in the dimmest reaches of Hylia's knowledge, once when the cycle was new, before they diverged into Gerudo and Zora and Hyrulian styles -- trace out an eye in the center of a Triforce, the triangles solid black crystal amid the curls and coils of gold. But it doesn't need arrows to unlock, not yet, just a gentle tap.
The door won't lock until Ganon puts Zelda in here.
Zelda steps aside to let Link pass. She had her privacy for that first sight of Ganon's untwisted face. Link should have that too.
She's never really bothered to look around the rest of the chamber. It's smaller than the black crystal makes it look, though it's starting to develop bas-relief pillars that distort the firelight where it catches on the gold flecks in the stone. Larger gold flecks than are in the smooth expanses between, actually -- the pillars may well develop gold filigree to outline the room better, so it looks less like a field of stars off behind the firepits.
The crystal to hold her is growing as well. That one's deep in the back of the room, where the light is blocked a bit by Ganon's altar. Not much, but there isn't much light down here in the first place. The crystal -- nearly shoulder height on her now, and almost too large to encircle with her arms should she have the space to try -- all but disappears into the shadows despite being a transluscent milky white.
Link claps at her, and Zelda glances back to find him perched in the same square of space she's had to climb on before being able to reach Ganon himself: there above his right shoulder, where she'd minced about on tiny feet until Ganon's hair softened enough to push out of the way.
Forgot what he looked like, Link tells her, slow and reluctant. One hand slides fingertips back into Ganon's hair, pulled there like a magnet; with the other, he mumbles, Been so long.
"Still the prettiest?" Zelda asks, because she wasn't sure of that herself until a couple of years ago. (He is, by classical -- and all but forgotten -- Gerudo standards. 'Male' generally doesn't fit Gerudo ideas of beauty anymore.)
Link snorts. Nope, he tells her. That's me. But he's not bad.
Red hair slips between Link's fingers, just enough curl that it catches before falling free, and he winds the lock around. After a few passes of this, combing through the strands, Link sighs and lets Ganon's hair fall, turning tired eyes to Zelda. Will we ever get out of this cycle?
"I don't know, Link." She can't see any way it could happen. "I just don't know."
-0-0-0
With Link having finally arrived, they can actually start preparing for the next rise. Link can get around unsupervised far more easily than Zelda, is even ignored somewhat more than should be polite once people realize he can't speak. He can gather and cache supplies, clear the hidden supply (read: smuggling) routes between towns, and spruce up the spellmarks that keep Ganon's beasts out.
Zelda handles setting up bunkers and watch towers, but she can't prevent people from putting up too many at the Gerudo border. Or from cutting off open trade.
Link puts extra effort into the Gerudo routes after that.
-0-0-0
Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen, and one night Link jerks with surprise. Zelda follows his stare to find the tiniest glint of reflected candlelight where there's only been closed eyes for years.
Ganon isn't awake. He's not even animate enough to shift in his sleep yet. But his eyes can open now.
It won't be much longer.
-0-0-0
Even knowing how close Ganon is to waking, it still comes as a shock when it happens.
A hoarse yelp has Zelda spinning away from the buckets she's just set by a brazier, to see Link flailing where he's standing on the altar. He barely manages to throw his weight back, so instead of hitting the stone floor with his face, he lands on Ganon's chest with a distinct grunt. Not his own -- Ganon's eyes pop open at the hit, his back curling in on himself as he wheezes, as Link struggles trying to push himself upright and off of Ganon and nearly topples over again like he's stuck.
Like his legs are stuck. Or, rather, one leg: one large hand has a firm grip around Link's ankle, reaching halfway to his knee, though his other foot is almost caught as well; it's not quite jammed between Ganon's biceps and ribcage.
It takes a moment for Ganon's eyes to focus on Link. His expression goes sharp, confusion warring with... recognition, Zelda hopes, but it might be a threat assessment instead. (It's probably the assessment. Hopefully Link's nightshirt and lack of weapons is overriding the part where Ganon identifies him.)
Zelda has no idea what to say. ".... Good morning."
She has no idea what language that came out in. It certainly isn't modern Hyrulian.
Ganon's burning gaze snaps to her. His mouth works for a moment, air hissing in his throat. Then, voice dry -- barely more than a whisper -- and halting as he searches for words in that same ancient dialect, he says, "... Is... it?"
Of course he can barely speak, this body hasn't ever been anything but magic, clay, and air. Thank Hylia that she hasn't yet put soap in the water she's brought. Though she's been thoughtless enough to forget to bring a cup.
"It's close enough, I suppose," Zelda replies, bending to scoop up some of the lukewarm water in cupped hands. She pads across the floor, that calculating gaze flicking down to her bare feet (and then catching just below the hem of her chemise instead of returning to her face -- fair enough, the modern type is shorter than it's been in a millenium, even before she hit a late growth spurt last season... not that he would know, he's been monstrous for centuries and only ever captured her fully clothed the entire time).
They both pretend to ignore Link, perched uneasily on Ganon's chest.
"Here," Zelda says, coming well into reach. She brings the water to his lips, fully aware that neither she nor Link could move fast enough if he grabs for her. Ganon probably knows that. But he doesn't try, simply raises one thick eyebrow and leans in to sip.
Oh.
Zelda feels the blush rising to her face. Ganon's being warily delicate here, the scarcest brush of his mouth against her fingertips, almost -- almost -- a courtly greeting kiss to her hands.
And then Link shoves Ganon's face aside -- the sheer surprise enough to make Ganon move -- and pulls Zelda's hands up, and he drinks all the water with an impish little smirk.
"Link!" Zelda yelps. "That's for Ganon!"
Link's eyes brighten further, and he twists to face Ganon. One hand's still on Ganon's cheek, and that thumb taps Ganon's mouth. Link taps his own with his free hand, and raises an eyebrow.
Ganon goes very, very still. "... I... may be misremembering some important details here," he manages, his voice still thready but not a harsh whisper anymore.
Link's expectant question doesn't shift a single hair.
Zelda sighs. "If they're at all about taking liberties with either of us," her face is burning, it's not fair that Link's barely gone pink, "you aren't." That gets only a stunned silence. "It's been a very long time," Zelda allows. Ganon's been aware all of five minutes... and they've been fighting and killing him far more often than speaking to him, much less kissing. There's a lot of bad memories for him to consider. "I'll get you more water if you don't want a kiss."
Silence.
... Well, what did she expect. Zelda turns away to get that water. She should probably just bring the entire bucket over. He can wash up later, maybe even get up and find... whatever it is that he cleans in before dressing, Zelda hasn't been looking for a bathing room in here...
A muffled sound of surprise behind her almost covers that of movement.
He. They.
Well.
Ganon's not letting the bad memories guide him after all. He's pulled Link down, one heavy hand keeping his head in place, strands of blond hair caught between dark fingers. Link's bright red now, wide eyes going soft before falling closed; a thin trickle of water gleams in the dim light, trailing down Ganon's jaw.
In several hours, Zelda will have to go attend her duties upstairs in the castle. In several days, Ganon will have the strength to walk the room; just hours after that, to lift his swords, and the cycle will begin again. But for now, she goes to join them.
#legend of zelda#zelda fanfiction#worldbuilding#triforce shipping#idk if there's a ship name but you probably get the idea
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Frank knew something was wrong the moment she walked into her office, but he hadn’t said anything initially. Watching her closely for the first hour or two of the day seemed about the only thing he could do, as he fought against an unfamiliar urge to discover whatever it was that was different.
A part of him understood somehow that she would not be too open about her private life, because whenever he had asked her questions before, she seemed to close up. Whatever had happened this time, though, made it quite clear that her home life was not the greatest.
Frank eyed her like a hawk a little while longer until she got up and headed toward the conference room which they wouldn’t be needing today as far as he knew. His brows furrowed and he waited a moment or two before following after her so there would be no questions from anyone else in the area.
" What’s going on, Helene? " he asks, for once calling to her by her given name, which immediately makes her turn around.
" It’s nothing, Frank. Don’t worry about it, " she says, a breath releasing as though she had been holding it all this time, but it doesn’t go unnoticed by him at all.
He takes a step closer, closing the door behind him while his eyes do not leave her face as he walks around the huge table to the other side of the room where she is standing. She looks almost frightened in that moment, her pretty brown eyes wide and searching when he finally stops in front of her.
There is a very obvious need behind his eyes, which she can very clearly detect, perhaps to badger her with questions for the rest of the day until she caves and answers him. However, he doesn’t open his mouth again, at least not right away.
The usually loud and domineering male carefully, slowly, lifts one of his hands and softly brushes the back of his finger against the slight swell on the left side of her cheek.
" What happened to your face? " it’s a very direct question and catches her off guard right away, her eyes dropping down so she is no longer looking up at him as tears fill them.
Helene considered lying through her teeth but nothing would really convince him that it had been any kind of accident. The man evidently noticed the bruising and now, unfortunately, a swelling she hadn’t even known was there at all.
" I had a run in with someone I used to date, " she tells him. a look of embarrassment crossing her expression because she feels small every single time she talks about Joel and all of the things he has ever done to her over the years.
Frank bristled, which she noticed seemed to turn him into an even bigger predator than the seminars he hosted regulary in this very building. This was a totally different sort of predatory stance, though, because there was a readable anger filling his features so quickly, he has to clench his jaw to still it.
" And what? did he always beat the shit out of you? " Frank is pissed the fuck off and makes that known, not realising that his anger toward the man in question is almost mirroring that same mans own issues, which leaves Helene cowering.
Luckily, he isn’t too dense to the situation and so breathes in and out a few ragged breaths to ease the tension inside of his body. His muscles relax a little and he loosens his jaw before closing the distance between them again, hoping she won’t move away from him a second time.
Frank is very used to women being both all over him and also trying to keep their distance from him at the same time. He’s almost pleasantly taken back by her ability to stay in the same room as him every single day.
After acknowledging this detail, he manages to offer her a little understanding with a smile, to help calm any nerves that may still be lingering.
" Sometimes.. most of the time, but it’s been four years since we were even together, " she scoffs these words, making sure he knows how troubled ahe is by the ordeal, because Joel has been coming back around for a long time now even though it has become quite obvious she has tried to move on.
Again, the male has a physical response to her words, fists in such a clenched position that it reminds her of the hand that is always swinging toward her face. She winces in preparation for what she assumes is about to happen, the rational part of her brain not connecting the dots fast enough.
Frank is troubled by this, calming himself as much as he can, reaching out to pull her into his arms and holding her there to still her worries.
He can feel her shaking in his embrace and soft whimpers begin to leave her mouth, when suddenly, her own arms come up and wrap around him, her fingers just about clasping onto the back of his shirt.
He is so much out of his comfort zone right now and without practice in this department, that he simply remains silent and allows her to be near him in such a way and cry it out.
Frank is the last person the world to do something like this, but in the time he has known Helene, in spite of the bickering the two of them have endured now and again, there is something about her that keeps him awake at night.
" I’ll take care of it— " he finally says, breaking the silence that took over while she cried. He didn’t say anything more or add on to that, but did feel the tightening in her grip.
" Frank, you can’t.. " she says, her eyes wide as she pulls back slightly to look up at him, frightened by the idea that he could very well land himself in prison if he acts recklessly.
Helene knew there would be no stopping him from doing what it was he wanted to do, though, as he wasn’t one who took too well to being told what do at all. She would never try to control him, of course, but making suggestions happened often.
If she didn’t give him some direction in his daily life, things would go a lot worse for him as far as business was concerned.
" Just don’t even worry about it, okay? Focus on yourself, " is the last thing he says, holding her at arms length as he speaks to her so he can search her tearful eyes. " I’ll be back soon, " he adds, briskly taking his leave out the door and right down the corridor, his hair whipping around behind him despite the fact that it was half tied to keep it out of his face.
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Ooohh!! Did you post you Cap-wolf/Witch Tony fic or is it a fun head-fic? It looks vry cute in any case, have any points you wanna share?
🎃
Thanks!!
ah!! thanks for asking about it! 〔´∇｀〕
It’s um sort of in-between? It's not a completed and posted fic, but it has advanced from the head-fic stage in the sense that I’ve written down lots of notes about it and bits and pieces of scenes. Fingers crossed, one of these days I'll have the time and strength of mind to sit down and wrangle it all into paragraph form.
As for points I'd wanna share, hm... I could try to give the basic premise of it?
Steve's a werewolf (obviously), and he's spent the past half year since he received this curse trying and failing to find a cure. He's making his way deeper and deeper into a system of caves in preparation for the full moon when the wolf overtakes him (This universe's version of werewolf doesn't need contact with moonlight.). Steve's several days' subterranean journey is reversed in a matter of a few hours by the wolf, and the beast pounds off after the scent of a town filtering through the miles of forest between them.
Halfway through this forest, without warning, Steve is lifted back into consciousness and blearily peers up at the distinctly disappointed face of a witch. He can tell the man's a witch because of the otherwise unexplainable tendrils of light reaching toward him. Before he has the chance to get a single word out, he's shoved back down into unconsciousness. When he wakes, he's on the seashore. The ocean's so far from the region Steve lives in that he's never seen it before now. Even more miraculous than any distance travelled, not a single drop of blood stains his clothes.
Steve spends the next month hunting tirelessly for that witch in the woods.
The thirtieth secluded cottage he visits is overgrown and falling to pieces in places. Disregarding the seemingly abandoned state of the property after the small army of pumpkin golems springs to life and besieges him (as, he's discovered, is standard of occupied witches' dwellings), Steve marches through the bramble and pumpkin guts covering the faint memory of a front path and knocks on the door.
The witch he's been searching for does answer the door, though more out of confusion than anything else. But it takes several tries before Steve can get more than three sentences in before the witch magics him away to whatever far-off, increasingly dangerous location suits his fancy that day.
Wow ok, wait. I'm going on about this "basic premise" for way longer than I'd meant to. I'll try and wrap things up quick!
Eventually a conversation is managed. Steve learns that Tony is a witch who specializes in magical creatures and that his taming spell somehow worked on Steve's wolf. However, Tony, for reasons Steve can't comprehend, refuses to help Steve, you know, not go on a killing spree against his will once a month. Steve despises Tony for having no conscience, and Tony despises Steve for demanding his help, not leaving him the fuck alone, and also for being a former famed beast hunter (not for sport, don't worry).
But then, Steve discovers Tony stopped his wolf in the woods that night because he's deeply interested in studying the creature. Steve's all like "It's kind of sick for you to be so interested in studying bloodthirsty monsters." to which Tony rolls his eyes and tells him, "You're not a werewolf. Somehow, your form got bound to a particularly violent member of a species of beast that's near-extinct. How you two got bound, I don't know. Why's your beast so violent? Well, being bound to you's probably enough to drive anyone to madness." (He'll regret those words.)
Steve soon realizes he can strike up a deal: If Tony keeps Steve's beast tame for the full moon, in exchange, Tony can study the beast during that time. Neither of them is at all trusting that the other will keep their word, so they bind themselves to the arrangement using a magical oath with vague, magical consequences. Those vague, magical consequences are quickly demystified when Steve steps past the low, outer wall of the property.
Tony irritably flips through his spell book to find what on Earth either of them had done to break the oath so soon and then apparently un-break it once Steve walked back toward him. Horror dawns on him as he realizes he forgot about the distancing limit baked into the oath he chose. Steve's equally horrified but doesn't pass up the opportunity to laugh in Tony's face for being such a shit witch.
And so, Tony swears to work out a way of loosening the oath's boundaries, but in the meantime, he has no choice but to let Steve move in with him (mwahahaha). The first morning, Tony refuses to give Steve anything to do. After some arguing, he reluctantly agrees to Steve working around the yard just to keep him out of the house as much as possible. Once Steve's weeded, trimmed, and repaired every inch of the yard (with the help of the recovered pumpkin golems he gradually befriended), Tony reluctantly allows repairs and tidying of the inside of the house, except for the cramped library he spends most of his time in.
Ahh!! I am not "wrapping things up quick"! Ok basically, Steve and Tony slowly warm up to each other, and Tony starts forgetting to work day and night to find a way out of the oath. Steve helps Tony unpack his past and become less of a complete hermit. Tony helps Steve solve the mystery of his curse. Maybe they catch some feelings somewhere along the way.
Anyway! Thanks for shooting me a message letting me know you thought it was cute! Mega-warmed my heart since, as you can tell, this AU is- It's kind of on my mind. like kind of. 🎃
oh! and in the drawing: It's Tony info-dumping about his favorite beasts :3
#don't worry I will not and frankly can not insist you read it all the way through anon!#I'm just dropping the bones of the lore for anyone who remembers my capwolf post and is at all interested#Once again reminded of my chronic inability to summarize and keep things short#if given the opportunity to blab i simply will#maybe it just looks like a lot bc tumblr posts are formatted so skinny?#oh AND I don't know when exactly anon sent me this ask but I know it was a goddamn WHILE ago and I'm so sorry it took me this long!!!#school's got me by the throat and I'm actually still supposed to be studying rn but.... your ask needed answered!!#steve rogers#tony stark#stevetony#marvel#ask
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Stowaway Mer AU
Vega’s Hideaway
A little bonus story for y’all where Vega gets kicked out of Port Murlow’s only seaside motel for making the fish tank in his room glow and making it permanently smell of fish, and then proceeds to commit what is probably a crime.
Also this story contains alcohol mention, and animal abuse (fish). Also this is going to be a l o n g story
It was a fine Thursday morning when Vega had heard a knock from his motel room door. When he opened it he was greeted to the motel manager who had a sour look covering his face, and a pair of earplugs stuffed up his nose.
“Good morning Mr. Anders, how are you today?” He asked the man.
“Get out,”
“Pardon?” Vega replied startled by the man’s aggressiveness.
“I have had it with you and your damn ‘studies’,” Mr. Anders said,
“I-” Vega was cut off by Mr. Anders.
“I know what you’re really doing in here! You’re always leaving in the dead of the night and coming back in the wee hours of the morning,”
“I apologize if I’ve disturbed the other guests, I have been trying to be quiet when leaving-” Vega apologized.
“Also I’ve been receiving multiple complaints of a rancid smell coming from the room. Said it smelt like dead fish, but I know what you’re really up to…” Mr. Anders said in an accusatory tone.
“I-what?” Vega replied now thoroughly confused as to what the man was upset about. “Mr. Anders, what exactly do you think I’m doing?”
“Don’t play dumb with me Mr. Triton!” he growled, “I want you out of here by the end of the day.”
“Yes Mr. Anders, I will begin packing immediately. I apologize for any inconveniences I have caused you.”Vega calmly said before closing the door.
“Well that was rude,” he said to himself and he sat down at the kitchen table.
He looked out the window and sighed when he noticed Mr. Anders staring at him from across the motel. He looked around his room before digging out his suitcases from the closet.
He started with his clothes, then his waders and boots. Then he moved onto packing up his equipment, he carefully packed away his microscope and samples. His gaze drifted to the fish tank where he had managed to establish a colony of Vegastella scriptorseintillais, a species of algae he had recently discovered in the local sea caves.
The algae was quite peculiar, it hadn’t caused any skin irritation and life seemed to thrive where it bloomed. Though he noted that it had a hallucinogenic effect, but after repeated exposure to the algae Vega had developed somewhat of an immunity to the effects. It wasn’t a complete immunity as some days he’d swear he had seen the faces of his former colleagues in the algae.
Vega had taken his skimmer and skimmed the top of the fish tank trying to get as much algae as he could. He didn’t want to risk the algae affecting any future inhabitants. He was dumping said algae into a small container filled with water.
Once he was satisfied with the amount of algae in the container Vega contemplated doing a deep clean of the tank, but decided against it due to his time limit.
Vega finished packing up his equipment and belongings and was almost out the door when he remembered one last thing.
He quickly walked back to the kitchenette and grabbed a picture frame from the table. The picture was of Vega, Samuel, and Olivia, with a few other researchers as well. Vega sighed before packing the picture with his sweaters, he didn’t want to risk breaking it.
Vega grabbed the keys to his rental car and started bringing bags down. As he did so he noticed Mr. Anders had moved to the administrative office, and was still watching him like he was expecting him to load a body into the trunk.
Before leaving his motel room for the last time, Vega left a note on the fish tank stating that it would be wise to give it a thorough cleaning.
“Goodbye my friends. I have greatly enjoyed your company, and apologize for any unforeseen effects that my studies may have in the future.” He said to the tank of cichlids, though he knew they didn’t understand him nor would they remember him.
But as he took one last look at his finned companions he noticed a small group stare at him. They looked as though they understood him. Vega stood up before telling himself,
“They’re just fish, they aren’t going to miss you. No need to get emotional, right?”
He looked at the fish again and the small group were now looking at the container of algae water. Vega bit his lip for a moment and looked at the container as well.
“V. scriptorseintillias does produce a significant amount of oxygen… and I do have the funds to buy an acceptable temporary tank…” he mused.
There were about three cichlids in the group looking at the container, surely Mr. Anders wouldn’t miss three cichlids out of 15. And honestly the amount of cichlids in the small tank was far too many, cichlids needed at least 55 gallons while the one in the room was only 30.
“Honestly I should give Mr. Anders a piece of his mind for the poor state these fish are kept in, poor things.” Vega muttered to himself as he moved the five fish into the algae container, making sure to add more water for them.
“First stop after this is that pet store uptown to get you all a more ethical home.” He said as he wrapped the container in his jacket to hide his less than legal actions.
Vega placed the container in the front passenger seat and buckled it in before going to the admin office. He walked through the door and greeted Mr. Anders. He handed in the keys to his room and payed his for his stay.
“Oh Mr. Anders, I’m sorry to inform you that three of the cichlids in the fish tank have died. I was going to inform you when you visited this morning, but you refused to let me speak.” Vega said as he handed Mr. Anders the money.
“Oh, ok.” Mr. Anders replied rather annoyed.
“Also I must say the state that those poor fish are kept in is abhorrent and unethical. African Cichlids need at minimum 55 gallons, meanwhile you had 15 in a 30 gallon tank! 30 gallons is only acceptable for a single cichlid,” Vega explained as calmly as he could.
“They’re just fish, it’s not like they care or anything.” Mr. Anders replied dryly.
“They may be fish but they’re also a living thing. Fish most certainly care about the conditions they are kept in, and are more than capable of dying from stress and poor living conditions. This is animal cruelty.” Vega continued now slightly more agitated.
“Don’t care, now get out of my office.” Mr. Anders said also becoming agitated.
Vega left the office in a huff. Getting into his rental he drove away from the motel and made his way uptown.
—————————————————————————
Vega had managed to rent out an old boathouse by the port and had set up to the best of his ability in it. The dusty building creaked and groaned in the wind, and the roof leaked often but Vega had made do.
He had patched the holes with tarps, and he had even managed to set up a small generator to provide light and power the filter on the large tank that housed his cichlids.
Tonight, Vega planned to continue searching the sea caves for more colonies of Vegastella scriptorseintillais. So far he had no luck in finding any other colonies but he enjoyed these late night excursions.
Vega got into his small boat and started the engine. The small boat pulled out of the boathouse and into the bay. Vega was glad he had bought an electric motor as he quietly glided across the bay.
As he neared the cliffs and the stony beaches, Vega pulled out his map to check what caves he still needed to check. So far he had explored most of the caves accessible by foot leaving only the ones he had needed his boat to check.
There were quite a few caves that were water access only, so Vega opted to start from the edge of the bay and work his way in.
The first cave wasn’t of any interest, just a wet cave. The second cave however was much more interesting.
Inside the cave was a small wooden dock. Vega pulled the boat up to the small dock and stepped out.
The dusty boards creaked and groaned under his weight as Vega investigated the dock. It wasn’t too small but most of the space was taken up by various crates. Some covered in tarps and others exposed to the damp cave air.
One of the crates appeared to have been converted into a table of sorts with chairs surrounding it. Old cards and glasses sat upon it, left as though people intended to return to it.
A thick layer of dust on the cards suggested that those people never returned. Vega set his lantern down on the makeshift table and continued looking.
A part of the wall had been chiseled smooth to act as a sort of chalkboard, with notes and schedules still listed upon its cold surface. A large portion of the space appeared to be taken up by a drawing of a clock, while another smaller portion was dedicated to a scoreboard.
Vega inspected the “clock” and found a note saying,
The Whales Graveyard is at 4:27
As Vega continued to search about a soft crumpling sound came from underfoot. He looked down and discovered a small piece of paper. It depicted a drawing of the the bay and Port Murlow, it also had Xs marking where some sea caves were.
“Interesting… I wonder…” Vega mused as he held the paper up to the “clock”.
Looking back at the note Vega held the paper with Port Murlow at twelve O’clock, this left both the caves and the old whaling yard nowhere near 4:27.
Actually now that he was fully looking at the small map, Vega noticed that the old whaling yard wasn’t even on the map. Just Murlow and the bay.
“Maybe I’m missing something,” He said stepping away.
Vega looked at the paper again, this time he noticed that something was written on the back of the map. He flipped it over and looked at the note.
Docks at 7 O’clock
“Hmm…”
Vega held up the paper to the “clock” again this time having Port Murlow situated at the seven. This time one of the marked caves lined up with the time of 4:27. With the hour hand on the cave he was currently in, and the minute hand on one of the other unexplored caves.
Well, well, well… this is interesting.” Vega mused as he marked down this “Whale’s Graveyard”. He placed the paper back on the ground before getting back into his boat and left the cave.
Vega looked at the map and made course for the newly marked cave.
—————————————————————————
After a few minutes Vega had found what he thought was the correct sea cave. The cave was long and winding and it branched in different directions fairly often.
He had taken a wrong turn a few times before he noticed something peculiar about the dead end tunnels. It seemed that they had been chiseled out and made to appear natural. At first glance one wouldn’t have known, but upon closer inspection you could faintly make out the old chisel marks.
They had worn down over the years adding to the illusion of their authenticity. Vega made sure to take note of which tunnel was natural and which was not. He suspected that the natural tunnel was the one he wanted to take to find this “Whale’s Graveyard”.
He had made his third right turn when the passage began to open up into a larger chamber. What he found both surprised and amazed him.
Inside the cavern towards the back left corner was a stone dock and past that stone dock was what appeared to be a ballroom of sorts.
Vega moored his boat on the dock and walked up the steps and into this “ballroom”. It appeared to have been partially constructed in the water of the cave. Some sections of the floor were made up of large glass panels revealing an old neglected aquarium. Some panels were broken leaving gaps in the floor
Carved into one of the walls was an old wet bar. Dusty glasses and bottles sat on the counter, some were shattered littering glass everywhere. Old blood was splattered against the shelves and cabinets.
From the ceiling hung many elaborate chandeliers, but the most eye catching feature was the complete skeleton of a grey whale that also hung from the ceiling.
Soot and wax clung to its eye sockets giving the skeleton an eerie look. A large crack ran across the left side of skull. Vega was both amazed and saddened by the sight. When he saw the crack Vega absentmindedly touched the side of his head, running his fingers along his own scar.
At the very back of the ballroom was a large stage with its curtains drawn. They revealed more bloodstains as well as glass, scorch marks, and deep scratches in the oak flooring.
Vega frowned at scratch marks and quickly scanned the room before investigating them further.
They were old and deep, and appeared frenzied in their placement. Whatever made them was desperate.
The blood and scratches led off stage and down what appeared to be a corridor. The scratches turned to smears of black against the wall. The trail lead to a thick wooden door.
The door had clearly seen better days. Riddled with scratches and bullet holes, it was a miracle that it was still standing.
Vega tried the door but to his relief it refused to open. Still his curiosity got the better of him and he peered through one of the bullet holes.
From what he could see the room was once a storage room. There were boxes and shelves all around the room, many were toppled over presumably blocking the door.
Vega could feel his gaze being drawn to the centre of the room. He tried to fight the feeling but he quickly found himself staring into the charred eye socket of… something.
The body was burned beyond recognition, but he could still make out a few fragments of whatever this thing was. He refused to look at the corpse any longer and tore his eyes from the door.
After Vega regained his composure he finished exploring the establishment. In his search he found a kitchen, four bathrooms, several more storage rooms, and a generator room.
Vega had cleared off on of the barstools and sat down.
“Clearly no one has been in this place for quite a long time, I may even be the first person to set foot in here since it was abandoned.” He said to himself,
“It’d be a shame to let this place go to waste. It’s significantly closer to the Vegastella colony too…” he pondered, “No, it’d be illegal to set up my research here.”
“It is highly plausible that the town might not even know this place exists…” Vega continued, “It is a very nice place…”
—————————————————————————
About month and a half had passed since Vega had set up in the Whale’s Graveyard. During that time he had also bought another generator and upgraded the tank for his cichlids.
He had also done some research during that time and discovered that while the town was aware that the Whale’s Graveyard existed, they didn’t know where it was.
In fact most people thought it was either located on Taggart point or was on a retired whaling ship. Vega had decided that once he was done his research on Vegastella scriptorseintillais, he would clear out his belongings and make it appear he was never there. Before informing the town the whereabouts of the Whale’s Graveyard.
Though he’d have to remove the corpse of that thing beforehand.
For now though Vega was happy to have a larger place to conduct his studies. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt as free as he did on this day.
To celebrate this feeling Vega decided to go for a stroll along the beach. The weather was overcast and a light breeze danced around the bay. Maybe he’d find some sea glass on his walk.
#mermay 2023#mermay#stowaway mer au#my writing#goblin’s mermay project#I felt kinda bad not having Vega appear much in the au so far#so here’s a Vega centric fic for y’all#also take a wild guess what happens later that day#you’ll get more Vega information on Friday#I’m starting to notice that I have a tendency to go into too much detail with my writing
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You and me, ma Kota
Neteyam Sully x human/Omaticaya reader
Summary: You were a girl with no family, just racing. When you get a job offer to help kill Toruk Makto. Accepting it wasn't as easy as you thought. What will happen on Pandora?
A/N: Neteyam will be 19 in this story. So, he will still be that soft guy but better. Also, since Neteyam never died, Colonel will attack a lil bit later than he was supposed to.
Pairing: Neteyam x Human/Omaticaya Reader
Word count: 1,057
Warnings: cursing, nothing too much rn
“Where have you been. Do you know if you’re coming back ... We were too close to the stars”
Part 2
Before leaving for Pandora
As I grabbed my bags out the door. I signed almost tearing up. I would be leaving my apartment. I never went anywhere. If it wasn’t my apartment or the racetrack, I wasn’t going. It's crazy how I, of all people. Got a call to go to Pandora. Which I wished to see, but could I believe these people? I looked at my place one last time. Not knowing this was the last time I would be here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(That Morning)
I woke up to a loud ringing next to my ear. I picked up my phone and answered.
“Hello,” I said yawning.
“Miss Bourda, have you made your decision?” The man on the phone said. He was so straightforward about it. I thought I asked him to give me a day to think about this.
“O... Umm” I sighed. Giving this one last thought. ‘Fuck it, Dakota. you only live once. I said that to myself often to get myself to agree on things I didn't know were a good idea.
“I accept sir,” I said as I walked into my bathroom with my hand on my head.
“Alright, guess we have a deal. We leave for Pandora tomorrow. Before we take off, I want you to keep our deal in mind.” He demanded. Talking to this man on the phone made me not want to get on his bad side.
“Jake Sully was just like you, and he betrayed us. Remember my words.” Then he hung up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For the rest of the day, I clean and packed up my stuff. I didn’t have a lot of things, but my apartment was a mess. I packed my one small suitcase with all my clothes and personal belongings. I look around satisfied that my place was finally clean for once.
I kept what the Colonel said to me in mind all day. I wasn’t sure what was in store on Pandora. I’ve never seen the Na’vi people. I was nervous, even though I was in the military. I hated shooting guns or anything at all. I was a laid-back black chic, who worked hard and stayed to herself. Before racing, I only went to the military because I thought I should learn something in life. At the time I felt like the military would give me a better mind and discipline. It did alright. Racing though, was my life though. I was faster than anyone I raced against. I didn’t brag on it but I was the shit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After I got myself ready for the night, I got on my computer and searched for anything I could find on Pandora. In 2037, people discovered Pandora many times, but where I am from. We don't do that shit. We mind our business.
I found a few things on safari about Pandora and the Na’vi people. They didn’t show any pictures though. In the Articles on them, they explain how they were similar to cave people. But they were beautiful. It was hard to explain how I was taking this information. I just needed to see.
I saved my computer and put my bags near the door. I went into my room and got in my bed. Before I went to sleep, I checked my phone and noticed Colonel had texted me the location. It wasn't very far. So, I made my mind up to take the train to the location tomorrow morning.
After I got off the train, some man came to pick me up and drove me to the location. He didn't say much he just told me he was with the Colonel and to get in. As we were arriving, my face couldn't explain what I was seeing. They were flying drones and huge machines everywhere. Walking machines with guns and so many people. This wasn’t something you would see daily. As we rolled up, I see 4 tall blue figures.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was questioning myself if I should get out of this car. But someone opened my door for me.
I just stared at the long blue person who was so unreal to me. He was beautiful, they all were.
“You must be alarmed and shocked. I'm Colonel Quaritch, and this is what we will be flying into Pandora. We will go over everything and our training before we get inside and settled.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After I got settled in, I met a few friendly faces, well one. Her name was Z Dog and she was Na’vi. She had come into the room to give me a rundown. What happened with Jake Sully and his team. How they defeated Colonel, and he became Na’vi. She explained that I was going to get my own avatar. We would have to train for a week and then get straight to it. We didn’t have much time cause Jake Sully's attacks were getting bigger by the day.
We headed to where the main area was with all the people. This plane was huge. So many faces to remember. As I follow her to Colonel. He greets us and talks about the mission. A lot to remember, but I understood. Once everyone disperses, Colonel brought me to the side.
“So, how are you taking in this information?” he said.
“Great, a lil shocked but understood sir” I mumbled.
“I like you, and about your avatar. If you succeed with this mission. If you want, you could keep your avatar and keep the 1 million.”
“I will succeed with this mission, and I will take the million, but the avatar I’ll think about that. Thanks for this opportunity, sir.” I thanked him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pandora
“So close, so close. Yet so far away”
“I have made it ma teyam”
“Welcome to Pandora”
After getting off that plane and onto a bigger one, I was told I was there for 4 Years. ‘What the fuck did I get myself into. 4 years!’
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(After landing and getting set up)
“This is your avatar. Isn't she beautiful?” the lady said.
“She is, does she have a name,” I said. She was everything, so tall and lean. Her hair was long and straight just flowing in the incubator water. She looked like me, just blue.
“It’s whatever you want it to be.”
“Kota”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hope you enjoyed!
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Warframe OC Lore - Clara the Drifter
More Warframe OC lore! This time it's the alternate reality version of Claros! An agender gunslingin queen, trapped in an infinite loop of DEATH BY IMPALEMENT! She takes no shits and gives no shits: it's Clara the Drifter!
CONTENT WARNINGS
gender identity | mental illness | trauma | death | suicide | spoilers
Name: Clara
Age: appears mid 30s
Gender: None
School: None
Loadout: Nova | Dragon Nikana
Callsign: Drifter
BACKGROUND --------
Clara and Claros have a shared history up to the Jump. Not much is known about how things deviated for Clara after that point, though it is clear that she did not have the support of her friends. Orbis Vitae was never formed in her timeline, and she remained trapped in the Void for an extended period of time, eventually escaping into the greater Void and creating Duviri from her emotional memories of faerietales of her time.
It was during her initial experiences in the Void that she began to reject her inborn gender identity. She was able to gradually morph her body to a more ideal, androgynous form using Void energy, though it fractured her mind and made it difficult for her to live safely. She didn't care; she wanted to be someone else, anyone else, to distance herself from her trauma and pain... Even if that someone else was utterly insane.
The first time she experienced a spiral reset was during a particularly violent episode of schizophrenic rage wherein she committed suicide. She awoke in the middle of a large town square, her body having been reverted to before she changed it, her mind mended from the harm she had inflicted on herself. She was immediately seized by strange skeletal Dax that hauled her before an imposing general. He declared her a traitor and that she would be executed via death by impalement. The Dax behind her ran her through with a sword, and once again the world went dark...
...and once again she awoke in the town square. Immediately she knew what was coming and attempted to flee, only to be cut down before she could leave the square.
This went on and on, over and over, dozens, hundreds, thousands??? of times. Eventually she gave up. She began mocking the general. The executioner. The Dominus they all served. No matter what, it all ended the same: "DEATH BY IMPALEMENT." It got to the point that she didn't even feel the blade pierce her anymore. She'd become so conditioned, the Dax doing it exactly the same every single time... It became a personalized Hell, just for her.
But then, one day, out of all the countless looping deaths and rebirths, routine for her every minute or so... Things changed.
Before the Dax could whet its blade on her lifeblood, she felt a new blade skewer her very soul. This was different. The Dax never missed the exact spot it always stabbed. And she was... Still alive?
A meteor came raining down. All in attendance stood in awe, but Clara knew she had a single, glorious chance to break the cycle, heralded by that prismatic bolide aimed directly at her...
She dove! The ground behind her ruptured and her entire body recoiled at the sound. The Dax, the general, the executioner, all obliterated, their bodies tossed aside like broken dolls. Clara approached the smoking crater and discovered a severed hand... Tendrils! Reaching out! Too fast, they gripped around her wrist and arm, the hand folding disturbingly like a gauntlet around hers... And POWER rushed through her body. A feeling like no other, the ragged pincushion for Dax swords felt for the first time in what felt to be eternity... Strength. Rushing forward with uncharacteristic vigor, she snagged the Sirocco pistol from the general's corpse, and made good her escape!
After convening with Teshin, claiming new weapons, learning the art of Transference, and freeing Duviri from its cursed cycles, Clara knew that she had a greater destiny beyond the door in the cave. That back on the hellish prison of a ship, there was a portal to another world, another timeline, another hope.
She traversed the frayed, twisting strands of time as Claros's timeline ended and hers began. The ends joined together, and together they became one.
CURRENT LORE --------
After defeating the Archons and revitalizing Natah's broken form, Clara met her alternate self for the first time. Once alive, now alive again, Claros deigned to give Clara the chance to take hold of fate, to direct history with her newfound power. Gladly she accepted, her heart racing with eager determination to take control and finally be the arbiter of her own destiny.
Defeating Ballas should have felt good. Saving Natah, winning back her will and power should've been a victory. But it was short-lived. The Void hungers, as it always does. The Wall cracked, and the Man within reached out. The Veil was breached, and the reborn Lotus held the line... But the Man In The Wall appeared to be... Allowing her to hold it back. Clara could see its wicked grinning face, torn asunder into an eldritch semblance that was both human and alien. The gremlin child, a duplicate of Claros, cackled with joy atop the Wall, that infernal chanting filling her ears, her mind, her heart, her soul--!
And then it was gone.
Barely holding herself together, Clara carried the exhausted Lotus back to Claros's ship. She delivered her charge to the nexus on Lua, where she took on her new identity, the Lotus Radiant. Her job done, Clara ceded control back to Claros who was overjoyed to see his mother returned at last.
But Clara was not alright.
She returned to Duviri, knowing that there was more for her to do. And no matter what she did, she saw it whenever she closed her eyes.
The Wall with the Man within.
Towering over her, enveloping her, ripping her apart, remaking her, killing her, birthing her...
An utter paradox of logic, emotion, physics, time, and thought.
A paradox she now would never live without.
--------
Clara's story is not over! Far from it, in fact. I have headcanons that she steps in for Claros sometimes. Whenever a hard fist is needed to rattle the skulls of the enemy, that's Clara's job. Nova befits her perfectly, with explosive power and an elegant grace Clara could only dream of embodying without her. Of course, her time in Duviri swordfighting Dax taught her to love the balanced beauty of the Nikana, so she mastered single edge grace.
I hope to have some actual narrative pieces written up soon, so stay tuned!
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Some post-”Because of Them” Thoughts
Red and I have been discussing things after watching the episode (three times at last count) and:
1) Why did Belos return to the Boiling Isles?
On the surface, it really doesn’t make much sense. He’s no longer even remotely humanoid-looking, he’s severely depowered, and there’s a Collector running around there who can whup his butt from here to eternity. His Great Mission has failed...or has it?
It wouldn’t surprise me if he had a backup genocide plan, though on the other hand, Belos is so egotistical he would never think that his grand scheme would ever fail (and it would have worked if it hadn’t been for those KIDS!) and thus need a backup. This from the man who’s been repeatedly suckered by a 14-year-old kid.
Given what we saw in the past episode, though, Red’s wondering if he has an emergency backup grimwalker somewhere in his castle or Belos-Cave.
2) Belos’ legacy.
It’s almost pitiful. Four hundred years, he’s schemed to save humanity by purging all those damned witches (and it would worked etc.). This has been his grand ideal, to return in glory and adulation to the human world and be known as The Greatest Witchhunter General ever.
Instead he discovers that the human world is now just as alien to him as the Boiling Isles, and his noble, heroic and tragic story has been reduced to “sounds like big bro got a hot witch girlfriend and little bro got upset” (and honestly, that is probably the greatest line of dialogue that TOH has or ever will come up with).
As a wise woman once said, “So, you’re having a little bit of a day.”
3) Evelyn.
So many questions here. What was she doing in the human realm to begin with? My wife’s initial response was “She’s a Clawthorne, duh.” Other thoughts included “running away from her mother” (family trait) and “The Boiling Isles desperately needed handsome, virile human men for repopulation purposes because the male witches could no longer...” (Very old Amazon Women on the Moon joke, sorry).
How did she get there? Might have been accidental, though I doubt it. Titan’s Blood can create temporary portals (which is probably why there was a backup vial in the cemetery as a “just in case” solution). Or maybe she had the original portal door--we don’t know, though hopefully we’ll find out.
At any rate, as I told Red, I’m certain that Caleb’s initial trip to the BI was facilitated by a) magic and b) cleavage. Teenage male. You know. Mesmerizes them every time.
But you know, if I were Luz I’d be pissed as hell that really all it took was some Titan’s Blood and a doorway...and I mean, now that they know, going back and forth will be much easier (Camila will need to get home, the kids will want to take their stuff back, and Luz has to get her palisman!). And as far as I know, Hooty does have that blood sample from King...?
4) Vee.
She’s totally adorable, and man, she has come so far so quickly in the human realm--even knows how to drive! But it’s going to drive the school principal crazy--to his point of view, first Luz was the problem student with the overactive imagination, then she was the model student whose grades soared and was a dream come true, and then she was the morose, depressed kid who clearly needed help.
Fortunately this new kid Vee, who apparently is a cousin of Luz’s living at the Noceda’s, looks like a real bright spot! Smart, eager to learn, just a dream come true!
(She’s going to have to tell Masha the truth at some point--not that Masha’s going to care that much, honestly. This is Gravesfield, after all--what’s one more bit of weirdness?)
5) Camila.
Boy, if I didn’t love her before (and I did), I sure do now. Red and I could really relate, having met at a SF event and taking off from that. The fact that Luz, much like our own Darling Daughter, is the result of When Nerds Marry (which is what we call it) amused the hell out of us.
Manny must have been one hell of a man. And from what we could tell, despite what Luz said about “it happened long ago”, it sounds like his passing was fairly recent. Having had a creative, imaginative daughter, I can relate to the pride and the challenges that entails.
This is getting longer than I meant, so I’m signing off for now. :)
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I wasn't feeling well...So instead to kill myself I simply wrote a drabble where the Madrigals are killing people because they killed Bruno.
Sorry it's so far from the fluff I usually write!
Enjoy! I already posted it on Ao3 here
Warning : Blood and violence
657 words
Didn't proofread it for once
The Madrigals' Vendetta
Synopsis: Julieta discovers Bruno dead in his vision cave, killed by a townsperson. Thus, the entire family decides to apply their revenge on the townspeople.
Julieta knew something wasn't right when she saw that townsperson run outside Casita. She had almost missed the red paint on her hands, making her wonder if he helped Bruno make one of his paintings.
It wasn't paint.
When going up to see her brother and asking for news, she saw Bruno lying on his back, eyes opened with horror, a knife in his chest, blood leaking from the opening. Seeing this she couldn't help but stare in horror, realising what happened.
Then, she ran to the kitchen to grab some arepas, before coming back in the vision cave to try to reanimate her brother. It was too late though, he was dead and she couldn't do anything about death.
When her family joined her, curious about her whereabouts, they all gasped in horror in front of the body. Some, like Mirabel, Dolores and Luisa, ran to Julieta's side to cry while some others, like Pepa, Isabela and Alma, were turning mad. This was illustrated by thunder we could hear outside, which Félix didn't bother taking care of by comforting his wife. Agustín quickly hid Antonio behind the vision cave door so he wouldn't see the body.
Pepa finally asked Julieta "Who did this?"
"The Rodriguez's son. I saw him leave Casita with hands full of blood."
"That boy..." said Alma with a voice full of grief and anger. "I didn't think I'd ever see the day he'd attack a Madrigal."
"Maybe he doesn't view him as a Madrigal", suggested Mirabel.
Nobody said anything else then, but they were thinking the same thing. None of the townspeople probably view him as a Madrigal. They were always so rude to him, complaining for each bad vision he had, talking about him as a harbinger of disasters. It barely changed after Casita's fall. Now, one had killed him because of that lack of respect for him.
The next thing Julieta knew she was in town with her family, minus Antonio, and they were punishing the townspeople for what one of them did to Bruno.
While Julieta was healing her family when they happened to be hurt, Pepa was unleashing lightning and hurricanes on the community.
Her daughters, Isabela and Mirabel, were united to grow sundews to attack people, as well as other plants, and vines to catch their foes and send them flying.
Her last daughter, Luisa, had the help of Dolores and Camilo to beat the townspeople to death. Dolores was listening to spot one, then Camilo was shapeshifting into one of its relatives to bring it to Luisa, who then killed it.
While Alma was keeping Antonio company, Félix and Agustín went to fetch Mariano to bring it into a safe space and explain the situation to him.
When the family came back to Casita, they were finishing their explanations in the living room. The poor guy only watched them with round eyes, obviously not really knowing how to react. With a smile, Dolores approached him while reassuring him "I can still hear your mother, she's alive. Your Abuela too."
"Oh good!" he answered with a sigh of relief.
Alma left Antonio to go out and talk to the community members left. She told them, out loud so nobody would miss it "Consider it a warning! One of you killed my son, so we collectively punished you by killing most of you. For now, please know we Madrigals first serve our family members. We let you take advantage of our gifts, but in return you must show respect to each one of us, even those you don't like. And be careful, Antonio can talk to animals and tell us if one of you lacks respect toward our family."
Then, with a scary grin Julieta only rarely saw her showing, she clarified "We'll continue helping you, of course. Now you'll simply be aware you can be punished for attacking one of us."
Finally, she came back inside Casita.
#encanto#drabble#ficlet#encanto ficlet#encanto drabble#bruno madrigal#julieta madrigal#luisa madrigal#pepa madrigal#abuela alma madrigal#abuela madrigal#alma madrigal#camilo madrigal#mirabel madrigal#isabela madrigal#antonio madrigal#félix madrigal#agustín madrigal#dolores madrigal#mariano guzman
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Well once Tripitaka is out of the cave, and Monkey is out of the MotW’s guts, it’s Monkey who decides to mess with things by attacking the woman who’d surrendered. Dude, not cool. I mean, after that I can’t blame her for fighting back and doing another snatch and run. Monkey broke the truce before she did. Still, they still have to save Tripitaka, so Monkey heads back down only to discover the fiend’s identity before finding the fiend herself. And so he heads out and off to the Jade Court to sue Devaraja Li, claiming that the demon is his daughter. The devaraja is furious over this, as he’s only got one daughter and she’s 7. Little too young to be committing kidnapping and sex crimes. But then his son, Prince Nata, reminds his dad about an incident a few centuries ago when the Buddha convinced him to adopt a fiend rather than kill her, so as to rehabilitate her while she set up a site for his worship.
Considering how Devaraja Li completely forgot she existed and she’s kidnapping and eating priests, you can see how good of a job he’s done. But then this chapter also gives backstory for him and Nata, and really he’s not a bad foster father so much as a horrible father in general.
But anyway after that he’s far more eager to help Monkey out, and they lead a bunch of troops down to the demon’s lair, break down the door of her hiding place, and just arrest everyone there who ain’t one of the pilgrims. So once again the day is saved, thanks to… formal complaints about bad dads.
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