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yanban-san · 2 years

Note

I'm kind of wondering how local eldritch demon dude Ingo would react to a darling that's scared of the dark. I'm talking freeze up, won't move for anything, likely to start crying kind of scared. Because I'm like that, but I think that Ingo's abilities are so cool despite being so terrifying

Ingo would not want to hurt or frighten his Darling! He loves you- Adores you- and wants nothing more than to see you happy.

Tags: Poly, Demon/Monster AU, Cutesy, Also no beta we die like men if I’m posting after 11 PM

But the fact of the matter is, you have a rather involuntary and unfortunate response to being engulfed in absolute darkness- So many humans do, he understands! Or at least, claims he does. He doesn't want to make you uncomfortable, even though it's fairly evident that he's been hurt a great deal that his darling beloved has such a visceral reaction to a core part of his nature. No amount of apologizing and appeasing him, telling him that it's not him, and you want to be with him is going to make it any easier for him though. He'll refuse to cuddle you in his true form, remaining as a human and taking extra care to ensure there's lots of pleasant, little lights for you to keep your fear away. He understands you don't want to react the way you do, but it's still painful.

After all, he wants to hold you- to look at you with his own eyes, to feel your hands over all his pretty shiny scales and to coil his tail and wings around you just like Emmet can.

Like Emmet.

But he's having trouble thinking of a way, and you're also quite sad- Your pretty, shadowy boyfriend- Who adores you so very much- Can't hold you close to him. And you can see how much it pains him, and how much it pains him that you're so scared of the dark. Occasionally you notice him slipping- He'll come up behind you at Gear Station, giving you a hug and you'll feel extra arms coming around you, and little hollow holes of darkness opening up around you... the hands have sleek, dark claws and more of those beautiful, black scales decorating them- with squishy, liquidy? pads of swirling, dark void on the palms- and dark, soft fur that always feels- Almost ice cold- To the touch.

And you're always almost tempted to try to just power through your fear for once- Just to try to see him- But he always withdraws at the last second, apologizing and disappearing into a shadowy pool before you can react, and scare yourself.

Emmet is saddened at the realization that you're so scared of the dark- He's always found his brother's tenebrous presence to be quite reassuring and comforting, especially in their home realm, where Ingo's powers are quite the dissuasion from anyone trying to murder and eat the twins. Ingo's shadows cut and tear up and obliterate anything he wants, erasing it's existence completely- Turning it into a part of the shadows. The only thing capable of cutting through Ingo's shadows is Emmet's own light- and the only thing capable of dimming Emmet's light is Ingo's own shadows. Don't ask what happens if they try to out-do one another though- It's some paradoxical nonsense.

But Emmet's light can cut through Ingo's shadows, and that's all you needed to understand.

And you got an idea.

You snuck into a maintenance tunnel in Gear Station- quite away from any prying eyes, you were confident. Now, you just needed to ask a favor of your other beloved.

"Kudari, Kudari!" You half whispered into the dreary half-light of the tunnel-

And suddenly there was a brilliant flash of light, and there before you stood the Station Master, Emmet. Without even waiting, he rushed up to you, picking you up and holding you against him- His wings unfurling happily as you felt his feathers curl around you, brushing against your skin and the many mouths of his voices peppering little kisses along your face and neck-

"Darrling! You called me! You called me! Is something the matter?" He inquired, setting you down on his lap as he sat down, shifting to hold you in his arms.

"Em! Actually, I wanted- to ask you something, in private, if that's alright."

He squeezed you tighter against him. "Of course, my beloved- You may ask me anything at all. At all! Now tell me, What is it?"

And you explained your plan- And how sad you were that Ingo- Nobori, couldn't hold you without your fear overtaking you. Kudari listened to your plan, touched at how much you'd thought this over- He found it sad too! His brother was wonderful- He wouldn't let your fear get in the way of his brother being able to hug and adore you!

And he had the perfect solution. "Not to worry, little love- Do not worry over such trivial things. I have the solution. Brother will be verrry happy! I can tell. And so will you."

---

Emmet returned to his work, begrudgingly though- Couldn't you let him stay with you a litttle longer? Or maybe you could come back with him and just sit in his lap for the rest of the day while he handled paperwork- Please? You did you best to reject his offer- promising to fulfill his request in a little bit, which appeased the cheery demon enough to return to his work for the time being and left you with the present.

And thus, you had your gift to Ingo. Wrapped up a in a strange, smooth box of- stone? Crystal? You weren't sure- And only Ingo was to open it, Emmet told you- It would be verrrrry bad to open this present when Ingo wasn't around, he warned! Dangerous for you and dangerous for others. Of course, you were not dumb- You wouldn't open the box by yourself.

You returned to your apartment- The entire space had been blessed with gifts from your twin beloveds after they'd revealed their true selves to you. In your bedroom, the ceiling gave way to a beautiful void that looked like the midnight sky- twinkling with little starlights that illuminated the whole of your room in a warm, golden glow. Both of them had made gifts to you of bedding- softer and more luxurious than anything you'd ever felt and could ever feel in this world. They'd put all sorts of protective enchantments around your dwelling as well. It was always vaguely comforting and immediately relaxing to walk into your living space.

You readied yourself- changing into comfortable lounge wear and standing in your living room.

"Nobori!" You again whispered- A whisper was all it took, after all. And the shadows grabbed hold of you as Ingo appeared behind you, his physical form gradually settling around you as he wrapped his arms around your waist. He sighed deeply as his lidded silver eyes moved over you. You looked comfortable.

"Yes, Darling?" He answered back, his voice as seductive as ever.

"I- I uh, I have- I have something for you." You answered sheepishly. Oh, you hoped this would work.

Ingo's face betrayed little emotion- though his eyes opened a little more out of curiosity. If it was a gift from you, he'd happily accept anything- Though why not wait until this evening when he and his brother would return to be with you?

"You know- How I said- I'm afraid of the dark, right? And I can't really- control how I respond- Like, I just freeze up, you know? Like how that happened the uh, the first couple times you tried?"

Ingo's frown deepened at the memories. "...Yes, I do." He did not like to recall causing you such discomfort and pain.

And you reached around, grabbing the box from your couch. "Well, I asked Emmet about it- and he- He said that uh, whatever's... in this box should- Should help us with that!"

Ingo looked at the box, gingerly taking into his own hands. His expression was unreadable, aside from his softening frown. He studied the box without opening it for a good minute.

And quite quickly, his frown shifted to a rare smile. And he laughed a little.

"I-Ingo?"

Your dear sweetheart looked down at you, bending over to kiss your forehead. His demeanor had shifted completely, and he almost seemed- giddy, you dared to think.

"My dear, my darling sweetheart- This is a most wonderful gift. If you would be so kind- Might I try it now? I am quite eager to see if it will alleviate your suffering- From my form."

You had been fairly certain Ingo would want to try the gift out immediately- Hence why you'd prepared before hand. "If you think it'll work, then sure!"

He kissed you again- "Then, please, close your eyes, love- And open them when I tell you to."

You did as he said- closing your eyes tightly- And your eyelids went even darker as you felt yourself suddenly fall- Something that happened whenever Ingo tried to cuddle you.

"You may open them again, love."

And you did- And gasped.

A beautiful, warm light- in the form of little stars- decorated the pair of massive, draconic wings that encircled you- The membranes less like membranes and more like shimmering gossamery-silky-glassy-watery-windows into a midnight sky- And coiling around your body, supporting you, running over you and around you with seemingly no end, seeming to go on forever- A beautiful, black, scaled... tail. Shining with a rainbow iridescence unlike anything you'd ever seen. Every shift of Ingo's tail caused a new splash of muted rainbows and gem-like tones to sparkle against them- And the colors ran deep into the scales, making them look like multi-layered pools of darkness and beauty that went on forever...

And then Nobori spun you around to look at him- His face shielded by a mask similar to the one you'd seen Kudari wear- Except the mouth was frowning. Around his head, poking out from his conductor's cap, was a pair of rather cute horns- And behind his head was a radiant ring of light- Bright enough to pierce the all-consuming darkness that normally engulfed him- And you.

His body still looked relatively human, you noted- Still wearing his conductor's coat, though it had changed appearance... slightly. It was pitch black, and had an extra set of arm holes for a new set of arms that had emerged from his body. His tie and undershirt were gone, though- His chest was covered in the same iridescent scales and also a collar of silken fur, strangely blending with the collar of his coat around his neck. You reached out a hand, grasping it and stroking it- It shimmered under the light as well, turning to smoke and settling back into a shape when the light touched it.

Ingo closed his eyes languidly- He was quite nervous like this. Being so- solid. And- He'd never expected to have you studying him so intently- The way your eyes sparkled in the light, darting over every feature you could make out against his still-considerably-dark-body- It was so beautiful- He brought down his scaled claws around you, little shadows poking around you where they could before dissolving in the light, only to re-merge seconds later-

"You're beautiful, Nobori."

Nobori stopped. His impossibly long tail twitched, flicking and writing- and his wings, covered in the trails of his brother's lights- gathered around you aggressively as he squeezed you a little tighter.

"What did you say, love?"

"You are beautiful!" You repeated- And it was true. He was very beautiful- Handsome, pretty- Whatever! His fur was soft, silky, cold and refreshing- And his scales were much the same way, but hard and smooth- flexing and shimmering gently under your touch as you ran your hands over his chest. And not only that, but the darkness was no longer overwhelming, thanks to the lights Kudari had given him. It was less like being trapped in a never-ending void of blackness and more like being enclosed in a warmly lit canopy bed- If the curtains were made of dragon wings and the bed itself was a scaly... dragon man thing.

"Oh, darling-" He practically purred- And he bent his head down to kiss you, trailing them all over your face and head as his claws ran over your scalp- Making you giggle.

He pulled you against him, tightly- He had no heartbeat of his own, nor breath that he drew- But somehow you could still feel the nervousness and excitement that radiated from his being- And a deep, hollow purr of contentment. You felt the tail- and hundreds of little shadowy tentacles pull at your back, and legs- writhing and curling around you happily, gently massaging you and playing with your hair, intertwining with your fingers...

"I adore you, Darling."

You nuzzled against the dragon-man hugging you, and the shadowy monster sunk you down into his embrace, cuddling you against him as he laid down beside you, wrapping you in little starlights and pressing you into his chest.

"Thank you, love." He whispered happily.

#Demon AU #Monster AU #Demon Submas #Monster Submas #I wasn't sure if it should be reader-san who would go to Emmet to ask for help or if it would be Ingo who'd go to his brother #This was with Reader doing it but hey #Emmet X Reader #Ingo X Reader #Ingo/Reader #Emmet/Reader #seth.anon #Seth.asks

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ura-writes · 3 years

Text

Trampolinist

Summary - You’re a player who jumps from server to server, often revisiting several and always trying to find access to new ones. When a victorious game of duos Skywars on Hypixel wins you an invitation to one of the most famous yet exclusive servers in the community, you find a world you never knew existed, allies you’re not certain you can trust, and enemies that may not be just that. Oh, yeah, and an anarchist piglin hybrid.

(c!technoblade/server jumper!reader)

Basic warnings: minor blood, swearing, light threats

A/N - hello! I decided to start this series as a result of a sporadic idea at midnight after quite an odd dream. Some information you might need:

A few select people can jump servers without using portals, and you (the reader) are one of them.

Some servers are public and some require invites. Hypixel and a lot of the other bigger servers are public, while SMPs such as the Dream SMP are private and require an invite.

Jumpers, as they are commonly referred to throughout the series, still require an invite to private servers, though some have figured out loopholes to this process and actively exploit it, earning the title of “Crashers”. You have figured it out but don’t use the ability.

The rating for this series is 14-15+, most likely including minor to graphic descriptions of blood/injuries, violence, swearing, minor manipulation and death.

There are select groups of people who hate Jumpers and actively try to perma-kill them or get them source-banned from servers, leaving them stuck in single player and isolation.

From the author:

This will be in second person.

There will be no use of Y/N or (Y/N) or anything along those lines. I understand some people use them as a descriptor, but in my opinion, it looks a bit messy/choppy.

Feel free to criticize, though don’t be super harsh.

Also gl free to point out spelling mistakes.

I love love LOVE feedback! Gimme it! Please! /lh /gen

Anyway, those are the basics that you need to know! For now, at least… hehe.

Enjoy the first part!

-ura

——

The familiar particles signalling a personal portal opening in the lobby sends a few people scattering, but most just move to the side, though there are a fair few that stay to watch the person step out of the rip in reality.

The person stumbles out, cursing the deities to high heaven, brushing dirt and sweat and even a bug off of their face, certainly looking a bit worse for wear.

This was certainly not what the audience was expecting. They were expecting a prim, proper or at least somewhat distinguished person to step out of the actively sparking spiral, as most Jumpers are that way, even just a bit.

Nope.

“What are you looking at?”

The people step back a bit, noticing the sword the person clutches in their hand.

That person is you.

“Fuck off, would you? You probably see Jumpers on the daily! Fuckin’ annoying.” you grumble, sheathing the sword at your side. “Fuck… is this Hypixel?”

With a cursory sweep of the attire of the people surrounding you and buildings towering over everyone, you determine that yes, it is, in fact, Hypixel.

Of course, that may have also been the big-ass sign in the sky with the server’s name on it. That too.

With a sigh and a wave of your hand, you pull your inventory up. The typical “please place your personal belongings in a safe place before playing a match, otherwise they may be wiped.” message pops up when you do. You huff, wave your fingers to dismiss the text. Not like you’ve been here a hundred thousand times or anything like that.

The Netherite blade at your side, your armor and any sentimental belongings you have on you go straight into your enderchest, categorized in one of the shulker boxes designated specifically for this purpose.

As you walk along, trying to sort your inventory out (fortunately the server provides a free repair and replace to anyone’s clothing, as yours are beaten pretty much beyond self-help), deciding what match you might want to play, the crowd that was surrounding you quickly scurries off with a few screams.

A quick glance upwards catches your gaze on a red and white nametag.

Huh. Don’t see those often.

Whispers of the name you can’t quite see from where you stand rapidly reach your ears, ringing with slight familiarity.

Dream.

Odd. The masked man doesn’t often come onto public servers, mainly sticking to his own private server, named after him. The Dream SMP. How egotistical.

Without another glance towards the fan-people, you select a game idly. The blue text pops up in front of you, confirming your want to play the match.

Skywars Duos.

Before you know it, you’re whisked off to the arena, a bit dizzy from your landing, but fine nonetheless. The timer for the start slowly counts down, ticking slowly as people pop into existence with increasing frequency.

A presence behind you alerts you to your teammate. You nod at them just as the beeping of the final ten seconds counts down.

After a few repeated sessions, most being losses, you decide on one more match before you head to a tavern for the night, preferably one with a view.

This time you’re the second one to arrive. And for once, you take a longer look at your teammate.

He’s the guy everyone was freaking out about a few hours earlier… what was his name again? Dr-something. Or was it a Tr-something? Ah, who knows. It doesn’t matter as long as he’s good. You don’t bother to look at his nametag; he’s probably just some hotshot who thinks he’s all that.

“Not going to freak out?” he asks you. You snort at the question, shaking your head with a glance at the timer.

“Just here to kick ass.”

“Fair enough,” he replies. “You any good?”

A laugh from you echoes as the beeping of the countdown starts.

“We’ll see.”

The barrier below you drops, sending you hurtling to the floating island below. You quickly hit the ground, rolling into a crouch while your teammate raids the chest beside you, tossing a few bits of armor and a stone axe as well as a golden apple, which you catch and nod gratefully.

The hood on his head drops when another player attempts to take him out of the game. He ducks, barely avoiding the glimmer of the enchanted sword, sweeping her legs out from under her. The enemy player narrowly rolls out of the way with her shield being knocked out of her hands into the dark blue void below the floating island.

She curses loudly as his axe lands beside her head, kicking it to the side.

In that moment, you shove her hard off of the crumbling stone, jabbing your axe in her shoulder for final measure. Her falling figure flashes red with the loss of hearts, and eventually, she disintegrates into dust, the announcement of her tag being eliminated in the chat making you smirk.

“Well, you are good.”

You send him a smirk and collect the spoils of your kill, mostly a few potions and the iron blade, tossing a few of the former to your teammate and splashing a speed potion on yourself.

With practiced movements you begin to build to the middle islands, your teammate throwing the occasional snowball at any approaching enemy players, even knocking one off their bridge. The message of their death rings in the chat, being the fifth elimination.

The chests there contain better loot, even a diamond sword and chestplate, a strength II potion and a Power I bow with fifteen arrows. You take the bow and chestplate (with permission from your teammate, who gladly takes the sword and potion) and book it to the center chests, almost laughing at the amount of snowballs and arrows lying there.

“Well, I’m not complaining,” you muse.

You hear a yell of your tag, quickly spinning around to block the swing of an enchanted axe, their teammate quickly turning to gang up on you after finishing off another person.

Great. You’re fighting two people now.

Swing, duck, dodge, swipe, duck, swipe, block—shit, you got stabbed! Two hearts disappear from your health bar, sending a flurry of curses flying from your lips.

But luckily, your teammate is fast enough to eliminate the weaker of the two.

The tables turn.

The clash of blades, splash of potions and grunts of pain quickly move to the edge of the center island. It’s two verses one now, and the three of you are the last competitors in the match.

Block the swing, return the blow, duck, block, dodge—

A sudden stab in your shoulder alerts you to an arrow stuck in the skin there, slowly depleting your health.

It’s merely a distraction.

The enemy player barrels into you, sending you stumbling backwards right at the edge of crumbling gravel.

Poison becomes your downfall.

The smack of another half heart.

As one last resort, you grip onto the block with one hand, the other dangling with your bow into the void. Gritting your teeth, you do your damndest to drag yourself up, the poison wreaking havoc through your body and strength.

Shit. I’m not going to survive this, am I?

The one-handed grip on your bow tightens, nocked arrow slipping between your dirt-covered fingers.

You make a decision.

Just as the enemy player comes over, smirking but low on health, you let go of the block, drawing your arrow back as you fall into the void.

The broadhead meets its mark just in time, signalling a victory with a dragon appearing underneath you right before you hit the death line. A sigh of relief escapes your lips; you direct the dragon upwards with a rush of gratefulness soaring through your body. Respawning isn’t a pleasant process.

Twenty or so seconds later, you appear back in the lobby with your teammate at your side. The lobby is nearly empty, only a few people milling around, most having traveled elsewhere or checked into a tavern or hotel.

“You’re good. We could use you on our side.”

“ ‘We’?”

Two other figures appear out of seemingly nowhere, one wearing white-rimmed black sunglasses with a blue hoodie, the other a bandana and a white hoodie with flames on the front of it.

Your fingers twitch at your sides, calling up a portal in your mind, ready to dash through it at the slightest hint of a threat. Sparks form by your palms, their signature color drawing the leader’s attention.

“Calm down. I have no interest in killing you.”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” you retort. “Three versus one isn’t exactly fair y’know.” The sparks grow brighter; though they are primarily used to call up portals, they can deal quite a blow to anyone who forcefully comes into contact with them.

Dream (you now read off his nametag, getting sick of referring to him by random aliases) extends a hand in front of his body. Something hovers in it, glowing a soft white and reading something you can’t quite make out.

“It’s not going to kill you.”

Bandanna laughs at that.

“Reassuring,” you snap, taking a closer look at it.

Invitation: Dream SMP

Active?: Yes

Expires: Never

Taken aback, you sputter out a few jumbled sentences before asking why they’d invite you of all people. Sure, you may be okay at Skywars, but that doesn’t warrant an invitation to literally the most exclusive server in the network.

“Uh—what?”

You take a quick glance at the two others, noting their tags are red and white as well, reading Sapnap and Georgenotfound.

“You don’t have to accept.” Dream steps forward to set the glowing orb in your hands. “Just know that we picked you for a very good reason.

How… interesting.

“Is it ‘cause I’m an inactive Crasher?”

The three stiffen at the moniker used for the infamous Jumpers, the ones who figure out ways around the system, the lines of fate that make up the different servers, finding loopholes that not even the best Mender can. They exploit them, gaining almost god-like abilities on the server only to wreak absolute anarchy on the infrastructure until the admin can step in, if they haven’t been eliminated from the system or perma-killed already.

From what little you know about the Dream SMP, you know the admin is a god of sorts, mostly staying out of the way but occasionally fixing matters that need it. Otherwise they stay… wherever gods stay.

“No,” George pipes up. You note his accent, odd and slightly out of place, but not unpleasant. “You being a Jumper does help, however.”

You’ve heard of elusive servers where Jumpers have access to a lot of power and near-unlimited resources, though no one can quite figure out why. Those servers are typically entirely anarchy.

“Yeah, sure.” But you clutch the invitation closer to your person anyway. It glows a bit brighter at the increased contact.

“Think on it.”

Those words echo through your mind throughout the rest of the night, in your bed, subconsciously in your dreams and into the next morning.

It’s no easy decision. You know you’ll be dragged into all sorts of politics, conflict and battles unlike the Skywars ones you usually find yourself dealing with.

Your hand grips the glowing ball a bit tighter, reading the same three statements engraved on it repeatedly until the words are branded into your mind.

And then it disappears.

“Invitation accepted.”

#mcyt x reader #reader insert #xreader #x reader #mcyt x you #technoblade x reader #dreamwastaken x reader #Trampolinist: Series

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alovesongshewrote · 3 years

Text

The Fall | Loki Laufeyson

Plot: You’ve mourned the god of mischief too many times. You refuse to do so anymore. [Loki x Gender Neutral!Reader]

Word Count: 1,914

Warnings: loki threatens the reader a little, but they’re a bad bitch and it does not effect them

A/N: i don’t,,,, i don’t know what this is. it just kind of happened. pls forgive me

Tags: @blixeon @yagirlcheesely @furblrwurblr

masterlist

You had mourned the god of mischief before.

When from far away you saw him fall from the Bifrost and into the empty void of space below, you mourned him. You let yourself despair for some time. And it was for good reason, you’d just lost one of your oldest friends. You had watched him fall from grace into a starry abyss, into an inevitable death from which he could not be saved. You never even got the chance to say goodbye.

That was probably why you were so pissed at the bastard when he made his spontaneous return to the world of the living.

To say you were “livid” would have been an understatement. I mean, he didn’t just come back without so much as a “hello,” he came back, didn’t say hello, stole the tesseract and terrorized Midgard for a hot minute and a half. So, yeah. You weren’t pleased.

With that in mind, Loki should not have been as surprised as he was when you appeared in his cell. It may not have been the best idea for you to go in there. It may not have been the most “legal” thing, either, but shit, if he could appear out of nowhere after years of no contact, then so could you.

“(Y/N)? Well, this is a surprise-”

“It shouldn’t be you prick.”

“There’s no need to be cold-”

“tHeRe’S nO nEeD tO bE cOLd. That may be the worst lie you’ve ever told, Lok, and you lie a lot. More than you should, if you ask me.”

“It’s a good thing I didn’t ask, then.”

“iT’s A gOoD tHiNg I diDn’T aSk ThEn. You are insufferable. Silence yourself before I do it for you.”

“And what exactly do you plan to do?”

He had you there. You could threaten to do whatever you wanted, but generally, as far as plans went, you had none, “I-I’ll think of something!”

“You get on that,” he spoke with the most irritating grin etched onto his face. It was a smirk that you wanted to smack right off him. Alas, you didn’t raise a hand against him. You raised your voice, though.

“Y’know, you act like this is perfect, like this is exactly where you want to be as if you didn’t just take off to go and claim Midgard and fail spectacularly. Face it, Lok, you got yourself dragged here, and now you’re stuck. And this? This wouldn’t be a problem in the first place if you had just stayed here, if- if you didn’t run away and let everyone think you were dead. We mourned you, y’know? You disappeared and it hurt. And now you’re back, and now you’re a killer, and why? For what? Because you think your daddy loved Thor more than he loved you? Because you felt out of place!? Did you not recognize that you had people who loved you more than your brother? That you weren’t the only one who felt like they didn’t belong here!? Did you ever think of anyone other than yourself, Loki, or are you the monster they say you are?”

You definitely had more to say, but Loki, unwisely, cut you off, “Loved?”

You took a shaky breath, trying to keep from killing the god before you. Now was the time for anger, but not for murder. Instead, you just looked into the eyes of your old friend. It seemed, for a second, like you had cracked through his shell. You decided to give him an answer. Maybe not the one he wanted to hear, but the one he had to. You stared right through his soul as you told him, “Yes. I loved you. But I can’t anymore. I don’t know who you are now. You're not the man I knew, but I don’t believe you’re what they say you are. I can’t.”

“And what if I told you,” he said, drawing closer, until his figure loomed over yours, “I am exactly what the rumours say I am?”

“I-”

“What if I told you the man you knew, the man you loved died when he fell from the Bifrost? What if I told you that I killed him? And that soon, you shall meet the same fate!?”

The threat in his words was glaringly obvious, so much so that you would have been a fool if you'd missed it. Part of you was afraid. The other part was just tired. Tired of the theatrics, tired of the grief. You spread your arms out on either side of you, making yourself an easy target. If he wanted you dead, then he could go for it.

And when you told him as much, he pulled back. Just like you knew he would.

“See, Lok, if you were the monster everyone feared, you would have killed me, just now. Butcha didn’t. You aren’t what they say you are. Remember that, when you escape here, will you?”

You turned to leave, the slightly stunned god staying in his place behind you, watching you walk away. He had one last question, though, “I’m sorry, when?”

You turned, almost lazily, holding the door open so it didn’t smush you, “Well, yeah. Loki, trickster god, lord of mischief, cheater of death, whatever, whatever. I don’t expect this cell to hold you for very long. When you do break out-”

You shook your head, cutting yourself off, and leaving Loki in horrible suspense.

Not long after your visit, you mourned the god of mischief again.

This time, though, the fates had mercy and you did not witness the death. You heard the tale of it though, as soon as Thor was back on Asgard. By the sounds of it, Loki died in a heroic fashion, assisting his brother in the villain’s defeat. It seemed that you had been right about quite a few things. Loki wasn’t a monster, that cell hadn’t held him for long, and he was, in fact, a cheater of death.

You were not the first person to figure out that Odin was acting weird. Pouring money into the arts was never really his thing, but alas, it seemed the old king had found a new appreciation for the finer things in life.

Yeah, no, you and several others called that crap. Something was up, and it was not a very well hidden secret, but no one really spoke up about it. Most were fine with the new, slightly more dramatic Odin.

Most.

There was one Asgardian, a general or soldier or something, you were unsure of his title, that seemed to throw a fit every time Odin did anything even slightly out of character. Frankly, it was more than a little exhausting, and unfortunately, this man’s “radical” claims were starting to draw attention.

It came to a head in the throne room, late one afternoon. You were lying low, watching the court’s proceedings until that one guy decided he had had enough. He threw a helmet to the ground and stomped forward. Whether or not the helmet was his, you didn’t know, but you were too preoccupied with the man’s little announcement to care very much.

“Don’t you all see it!?” he yelled out to the other guards, servants and courtiers. “This man, this trickster cannot be our king! The true Odin would never let Asgard go so undefended!”

“Undefended?” the old god asked from his throne, “How could Asgard be undefended, as you say, while I am here to protect it? How could this kingdom be vulnerable if I am here?” he rose and moved toward the wayward guard, “How could it be undefended if I am everything the people say?”

And then it clicked. You knew precisely what was so different about Odin.

And you weren’t about to let anyone else in on the secret.

“If I may, my king,” you said as you made your way to where the guard and the god stood. One nodded as you took his place. The other had nothing but confusion and fear behind his eyes. Good, “How dare you speak of the Allfather in this way?”

Behind you, the kind smirked. Before you, the guard cowered. You continued, “You disrespect not only the throne but the entirety of Asgard! Our king has protected us for centuries and for what? For men like you to question him? Shameful.”

You turned to face the king, matching smirks painted across both of your faces, “Out with you. All of you,” he commanded, with a rather majestic wave of his hand.

The guard or general, or whatever was the first one out of the room, followed shortly by everyone else but you.

“You need to be more careful, my king.”

“Must I? I think I’d rather enjoy watching you humiliate another courtier.”

“If you aren’t careful, the next humiliation will be yours.”

“Watch what you say, my dear. You’re speaking to your king.”

“Mhmm, yeah, drop the act, Lok. I know it’s you.”

“Like how you knew that coward’s rank and title?”

You sighed, planting your hands on your hips, “I may not know my courtiers, but I know a bitch when I see one. Now drop the act, I miss your face.”

He did as he was told, and there he was. Your oldest friend in the place of your king. You would be lying if you said the power didn’t suit him.

“Ah, (Y/N.) Good to know you’re still weak to my charms.”

“And it’s good to know that you listen to me upon occasion. I see you aren’t becoming what the public believed you would be.”

“I must keep up appearances. Act like the Allfather, pretend to be him. You know how ruling a kingdom goes.”

“Of course,” you were ready and willing to keep up this strange song and dance, but alas, you heard someone coming down the hall. Unfortunate. You had so many mind games planned. As the steps got closer, you decided to play the greatest game of them all, to use the one thing that could trick and confuse even the god of mischief. It was time for the truth.

You moved forward before Loki could even think, and you pressed your lips to the corner of his mouth. You hovered only for a second, only long enough to say, “It’s good to see you again.”

Then you pulled away, far away, and bowed. Loki’s disguise returned to him the second the door at the end of the hallway opened. You left just as a group of servants entered, leaving the king more than a little shocked.

The third time you mourned Loki, it felt different. More vivid, more real.

You had seen him only moments before he lost his life. You were trying to evacuate as many Asgardians as you could before Thanos managed to wipe out everyone when the former king stopped you. He didn’t say much. He only made you promise to keep yourself safe.

And then he kissed you.

It was his turn to leave with the last word.

Five years later, you were on Earth. You didn’t remember how you got there. Everything after Thanos was a blur. A blur of dust, and ashes, and regret. Five years later you weren’t just mourning Loki, you were mourning the time you wasted. There was so much of it once, and then suddenly, it was gone. In the blink of an eye, in a single breath, in a snap.

That’s why, when there was talk of going back in time amongst the Avengers, you volunteered. That’s why, when the time came to return the stones to their rightful place, you went. You were going to make up for lost time, and you were going to stop mourning. And you did.

#loki x you #loki x reader #x reader #marvel x you #marvel x reader #marvel imagine #loki lafeyson x you #loki layfeyson x reader #loki imagine #weirdly ambiguous ending #angst #angst????????????#i don't know what this is #i #i have very mixed feelings about it #i apologize for this #whatever it is #lovesong's writing

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professorsnape394 · 3 years

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The Potions Master’s Apprentice

Chapter Eighteen: Faith

A/N: This is the Eighteenth part to my fanfiction ‘The Potions Master’s Apprentice (Severus Snape x OC)’. Chapters 1-18 can also be found already uploaded on Wattpad under the same name. Feel free to leave requests in my inbox for anything Snape related you want me to write. Leave a comment below or send me a message if you wish to be added to my tag list.

Pairing: Severus Snape x OC (Dumbledore’s Granddaughter)

Summary: A talented young witch is employed as an apprentice professor at Hogwarts, but who will she be working under? Severus Snape is not best pleased with his new responsibility of taking on an apprentice, however she is relentless to create a friendship between them. Will she be successful? Or might the friendship just go a little two far? With the eyes of her grandfather constantly watching over them, an attempt at a relationship might not be in the cards for Aria Dumbledore and Severus Snape.

Word Count: 4199

Warnings: n/a

Credits to Gif Creator

The rapping of knuckles against the old oak door echoed throughout the potions master's office. Breaking through the thick silence that had engulfed the room, a wave of anxiety washed over Severus Snape.

"Can I not go one day without you bothering me, Miss Dumbledore." Snape complained, trying to hide slight crack of nervousness in his voice.

"Sadly, Severus, it is not your beloved Miss Dumbledore." A thick Bulgarian accent announced.

Admittedly disappointed by the unveiling of his visitor, Severus lowered himself back down into his chair, not willing to make an effort for anyone but his apprentice.

"Why are you here, Igor. You should have learned your lesson by now to leave me alone." He said, rubbing his eyes back into focus and running a hand through his hair lazily.

"I have something you'll want to hear." Karkaroff divulged mysteriously, plopping himself down on the chair across from the professor.

"I do not imagine anything you have to say is of any interest to me."

"Then lucky for you Snape, I won't be the one talking."

Unbothered by the man's deliberate awkwardness, Severus allowed him to ramble on, too exhausted to argue with him.

With a flick of his wand and a small puff off smoke, the space between the two men began to whirl and spin, slowly forming a picture-like image in the air, the scene beginning to unfold. Revealing a staff room full of unusually dressed professors, the focus turned to a small cluster of teachers gathered in the centre of the room. Recognising both Igor Karkaroff and Aria Dumbledore sitting side by side on the old couch, Snape grew suspicious of the man's intentions.

"Why are you showing me this?" Severus asked, unsure of whether he wanted to see what was about to happen.

"Just listen." The Durmstrang headmaster hissed.

"How do I feel about Snape?" Aria wondered, the scene enclosing in on her.

"He's... curious. He has the capacity for love and friendship just like the rest of us, yet he chooses to be mean-spirited."

"I don't want to hear this." Snape declared, turning his eyes away from the woman.

"You must." Igor demanded.

"...he can be mean and arrogant and cruel. And despite it all I try my best to show him kindness, but where does that get me? He calls me out in front of practically the whole school? That was so fucking humiliating, and I'm just supposed to forgive him? I think it's safe to say I'd live a happy life if I were to never see that man again."

Severus felt his heart drop in his chest, unable to process what he had just heard. Slowly a sharp ringing in his ears grew louder and louder, deafening him to the scene before him, as well as the reality in which he existed. He refused to believe the woman he cared so much about, the woman who had demanded to be his friend, had lied about everything. Did she truly hate him beneath her annoyingly cheerful demeanour, was it all a façade?

He wanted to insist Karkaroff had fabricated the whole thing, but he knew exactly what spell he had cast, there was no way he could have faked it.

A deep rage grew within the man, an anger he had not felt in a number of decades. Severus Snape prided himself on having a monotone disposition, void of all emotion. But that familiar feeling of being betrayed by someone he trusted brought forward a plethora of pent up emotions, namely anger and frustration.

A wide, devilish grin spread across Karkaroff's face, satisfied by his colleague's reaction.

"You see now what she is truly like, Severus. You see now that she was playing you all along. That girl pretends to be your friend to keep her job, not because she likes you." Igor laughed maliciously. "You and I both know what is coming, and when it does, Dumbledore is prepared to replace you. Even he knows where your true loyalties lie. Do not be fooled into thinking the Dumbledore's are your friends. They use you for their own advantage, but the second you are no longer useful, or you become a threat to them, you'll be taken down by any means necessary."

"You're lying." Snape tried to convince himself, refusing to meet the professors gaze. "You're scared of what he will do to you if he returns. You need an alliance with someone on the inside."

"He has returned, you must feel it just as I do." The ex-deatheater practically screamed.

"I will not be manipulated by you Igor. This changes nothing, the girl was nothing but a distraction."

"We both know that isn't true." He sniggered, attempting once last time to convince Snape. "Do you know what she said to me, the last time I was in this office? She told me she could never be with a man like you, she told me your actions were unforgivable. I can prove that as well if you don't believe me."

"Get out, Igor. Just leave." Severus exhaled, starting to pace slowly behind his desk. He knew Karkaroff was trying to manipulate him, he was not stupid enough to fall for that. But proof does not lie, and the facts remain. Everything he was saying true, there was no denying it.

With a short bow, Igor danced out of the room. Completely satisfied with the havoc he'd reeked. He'd successfully toyed with what little emotions the great dungeon bat had left. And who's to say what can happen when Severus Snape's feelings get hurt?

Hoot. Hoot.

The bird bleated as it swooped through the open window.

"Another letter for the pile?" Aria sighed to herself. "Will he ever stop?"

Whoo.

It purred in response.

The witch couldn't help but laugh at the coincidence.

"You know exactly who." She giggled, plucking the envelope from the creatures beak, and throwing it on the ever growing pile.

"I just wish he would give me some time to think, you know?" She asked turning back to the barn owl, only to witness it taking off, disappearing into the distance.

Look at me. I'm talking to a bird. She thought with a roll of her eyes. I need to get some sleep.

Catching a glimpse of herself reflection of the window, Aria decided she needed to freshen herself up with a little pamper time, finishing the day off with a very long and well deserved nap.

Dumping almost a whole bottle of bubble bath into the tub, topping with springs of lavender and dried chamomile, Aria plunged herself deep into the warm water.

Relaxing for approximately 2.5 seconds, the woman flew out of the bath, her naked body sopping with bubbles, dripping puddles of water as she explored her quarters impatiently.

"Why can I never find any of my books when I need them most!" She groaned, shivering from the sudden change in temperature as goose bumps formed all over her arms and legs.

Letting out a single yelp of excitement, Aria grabbed the first book she laid eyes on and dived back into her tub.

"Pride and Prejudice, of course." She mumbled, thinking back to that night Severus visited her quarters.

As she read and her mind wandered, Aria found herself making unconscious comparisons between the infamous, brooding Mr. Darcy, and her stern, yet lovable Potions mentor, Severus Snape. They were both mildly rude and arrogant, determined to never show their true emotions, but deep down it was quite possible that they loved more fiercely than anyone ever could.

Elizabeth Bennet enchanted Darcy mind, body and soul. If only there were someone brave enough to do the same to Professor Snape. Aria thought, as she allowed herself to drift off to sleep in the water.

Hours later a thunderously loud 'Bang' frightened Aria awake.

Although not positively sure of how much later it was, she could be certain a decent sleep was had given the icy temperature of the water.

Aria allowed herself a moment to come to, bracing herself against the cold, her was body aching from the ceramic constraints of the tub.

A series of bangs came this time, chapping very loudly on her chamber door. Who ever it was was clearly extremely impatient, forcing her to hurry herself up.

Wrapping herself in nothing but a white cotton towel, the witch slid her way through her rooms to the door. Clearly she wasn't even awake enough to remember where she was, and that answering her door half naked wasn't exactly professional.

Bang. Bang. BANG.

The knocks reverberated through her body, sending shivers down her spine.

Gingerly she opened the door, revealing a more than pissed off Severus Snape.

"Severus." She yawned. "What's wrong?"

"Don't act dumb with me, girl. I am not falling for this act any longer." He snapped.

"What act, Severus? Why are you here?"

"Just tell me why?" He seethed. "Why did go to so much trouble trying to convince me to be your friend, only to confess to Karkaroff, as well as the rest of the Hogwarts staff, your true feelings. Why couldn't you just leave me alone."

"Severus listen, I think we need to talk about this in private. Please come in."

"So you can try and seduce me again? I don't think so. Jesus, look at the state of you, are you really that desperate to entice me? What's next, showing up to dinner completely naked? You really are just as I thought." The potions master growled, his pitch back eyes looking her up and down.

"Severus stop" Aria begged. "I thought we had moved past all this."

"So did I. But considering you have deemed me as "unforgivable" then there doesn't appear to be much point in trying to redeem myself, does there?"

"But you're only going to make everything worse. Let me explain myself, please."

"There is nothing to explain, I shall be putting in a formal request for the headmaster to employ a separate tutor for your apprenticeship in the morning, so you never have to see me again."

The professor stormed off, just as quickly as he had arrived, achieving exactly what he had come to do; humiliate Aria Dumbledore.

Desperate to apologise for her cruel words, Aria made to follow Severus to his classroom.

Forgetting her attire, or rather lack of, she was soon reminded of it when a crowd of Slytherin students erupted in a fit laughter with its fair share of cat-calls and whistles. Clearly they had emerged from their common room to investigate the noise, but stayed for the show of the two arguing potions professors.

"Nice legs, Miss." One of the older boys called, sending a wink in her direction.

Shit. She mumbled under her breath, rushing back to her quarters to change.

Hair still dripping wet, Aria shoved it into a bun on top of her head and pulled on some shorts and an oversized t-shirt, before hunting down the potions master.

"Severus, open the door." She called, upon initially finding it to be locked.

He didn't even bother to reply.

Fine. She thought. I'll do it myself.

"Alohomora." The lock burst apart, allowing the door to slowly creep open, revealing a dishevelled and distressed professor sitting at his desk.

"Severus, please." She whispered softly, realising he had clearly come down from his short outburst of rage.

"Get out." He commanded, though he didn't make any effort to remove his head from his hands.

"Let's talk about this." The woman pleaded, pulling a chair up next to the man. "Let me explain everything."

Snape stirred from his position the closer she came, until finally he was able to look her in the eye.

"Go on." He droned. His eyes red and blood shot, whether it was from lack of sleep or tears was unclear.

"You know more than anyone that Karkaroff cannot be trusted-"

"Don't try and lie to me, Miss Dumbledore. I saw the whole thing with my own eyes." Snape snapped.

"Will you let me finish. I'm not lying to you, Severus." Aria promised. "I said what I said because I didn't want them to know the truth, Karkaroff especially. I don't know what his problem is but I know he's up to something and it involves you. You really think I'd answer any question he asked me truthfully. You're my friend, Severus, I care about you, and that man is a snake for trying to turn us against each other."

"Why should I believe you. I've barely known you a few months, I've known Igor decades."

"That is precisely why you should believe me. He's not your friend, Severus. If he was he'd be able to see the real you; the man behind the mask." She urged, begging for his trust.

Reaching out her hand to take his, Aria stroked a thumb over the cold and calloused hand of her friend.

"And who might that be?" Severus questioned in return, feeling slightly nervous under her touch, but not enough to want to pull away.

"A man." She stated simply. "Not a beast, as you and many others may presume. A good, and decent man. Perhaps he's a even a little bit scared, of what I'm not entirely sure yet. But I will find out one day, if you'll allow me, that is. Let me be your friend, Severus. Let me see what you hide from everyone else. And I promise, I'll be there for you when it matters most."

Her sweet soft tones encapsulated Severus. He had become so lost in her words and her touch that without realising he found himself falling for her speech wholeheartedly. He even risked settling his remaining hand upon hers, clasping her delicate fist between his palms.

"Well then I suppose an apology is in order. I believe I may have acted rather rash and unprofessional."

"There's really no need. You reacted just as you should have to the things you heard. I would have done the same thing in your circumstance." Aria admitted, removing her hand from his, as she made to stand up. "Though there is one thing you could do to make it up to me." She suggested.

"Dare I even ask?" Severus joked.

"I want to know what Karkaroff's after. Tell me how you know him. Why does he care so much about your life?"

Snape practically laughed in response.

"We may be friends now, Miss Dumbledore, but I'm afraid that information is rather personal. And I am not convinced we are quite at that stage in our friendship, just yet."

"I respect that." She shrugged, knowing he wasn't about to give in that easily. "I suppose that just means we'll have to get to know each other a bit more." She smiled almost ear to ear at the prospect.

"What do you have planned for your lesson today, Professor Dumbledore?" Severus queried, finally using the woman's rightful professional title.

"Ooooh 'Professor' now, am I?" She smirked, sashaying in front of her co-worker, balancing a handful of potion ingredients in her arms.

"I suppose that is your given title after all, I might as well start using it."

"Hmmm I'm not sure. I think it make's me sound too much like my grandfather. I'm not sure I could pull of the beard quite as well, what do you think?" She giggled, holding her long hair in front of her chin, imitating the old wizard playfully before clumsily dropping another dozen bottles on the table.

Severus tried his hardest to conceal his smile, busying himself with paper work, but however hard he tried he could not hide it from Aria. Every so often she managed to catch him off guard, with a silly joke, or a quick witted comment, in those rare times he allowed himself a glimmer of emotion she always managed to notice. Most of the time Severus found himself smiling at the woman for no reason other than she was simply smiling too.

Finally turning her attention away from the potions master, Aria finished setting up her table full of small bottles and vials.

"We're going to play a game." She announced cheerfully spinning on her heel.

"A game?" Severus asked, unable to stop himself turning his nose up at her idea.

"Yes. It's like a test, but more fun." She persuaded, sensing his judgement.

"And what, might I ask, is wrong with a traditional test." He queried bitterly.

"The students need motivation, Severus. The word 'test' makes people nervous. With nervousness comes panic, and with panic comes mistakes. Fear is not an accurate motivator, however competition is. The students will be less inclined to make mistakes, if they are rewarded for their efforts." The apprentice hypothesised.

"And this reward is?"

"I haven't decided yet."

Severus fought the urge to roll his eyes, but allowed her to do her thing uninterrupted.

Since their little 'heart to heart' that night in Snape's office the two professors were finding working with each other a lot more amiable. Severus had given Aria a little more free reign with her portion of the lessons, which in turn, allowed her to respect Severus' strict theoretical practices without causing too many interruptions. The pair had almost started to enjoy working together.

Student by student the class trickled in, each of them intrigued by the new set up of the class room.

"Everyone please take your seats, do not touch the table at the front of the room, class will begin momentarily." Miss Dumbledore announced.

A moment of panic set in as Aria scrambled around Snape's desk, looking for her list of possible potions. This may not have been her first time teaching solo, but it was, however, her opportunity to prove her practices are successful in front of her mentor, Severus Snape. The man in question could see the fear in her eyes, and that she was desperate to impress.

"Here." He mouthed, handing her the piece of parchment. "Relax."

Brushing fingers, as she took the parchment from him, Aria grinned.

"Thank you." She whispered, once again turning to face the class, now with a little more confidence.

"Now today, as you may have guessed, we are going to do something a little different. Professor Snape and I have chosen to take this opportunity to allow you, our promising young N.E.W.Ts students, to show off your skill set to the best of your ability's. On this table in front of me you will find a select variety of potions ingredients that correspond to a number of potions all very much within your capability, your task is to complete one of these potions within the allotted time, at the end of which, a winner will be selected by us."

"What do we win then, professor?" One eager student asked.

"A potion of their choice." She declared, impulsively.

A murmer of chatter instantly broke out among the class, intrigued at the prospect of winning such a thing.

"That all sounds very exciting, Miss Dumbledore." Snape cut in, unwilling to take a backseat quite so easily. "However, sadly as an apprentice professor you are not permitted to take anything from my stores to use so frivolously. The prize will have to be decided at a later time."

Unsurprisingly the students weren't too pleased with Snape's intervention causing for a series of disappointed groans and heckles.

"Then I shall make it myself." Aria concluded.

Another bout of cheers erupted.

"Collect your ingredients, light up your cauldrons, your time starts now!"

Immediately the students jumped from their seats, swarming the table to get what they needed. The professors moved away from the crowd, giving the class a moment to get started.

"Miss Dumbledore, this is not a wise decision." Severus spoke in hushed tones. "I understand entirely the prize of a potion chosen by you, but to give them a choice could be extremely dangerous, think of the chaos that will ensue."

"How about you have a little faith in them for once. Trust that they will make the right decision."

Looking down on the woman, Severus couldn't help but trust she would be right.

"I have faith in you. Not in them." He made clear.

Severus made to walk away, leaving Aria to relish in her small victory, until he was suddenly pulled back by the young woman's hand in his. Not saying a word, Aria Dumbledore gave him an appreciative squeeze, before releasing him back to his desk.

The first hour of the classes passed by effortlessly, the students worked quietly and Severus found no reason to complain. All in all, Aria was quite pleased with how her lesson was going.

That was until...

"Oh shiiiiit."

"Language Mr. Lawrence." Severus warned, briefly looking up from his marking.

"Right, sorry sir. But what the fuck am I supposed to do when this thing starts bubbling like crazy." He freaked out, completely ignoring the potions master's warning.

"What?" Aria gasped, only just becoming aware of the situation.

"Yeah like this thing looks likes 'bout to blow, to be honest with you." The seventh year Hufflepuff boy informed nonchalantly.

"Step away from that cauldron students, quickly!" Aria ordered, ushering them to the sides of the classroom. "You were attempting a wit-sharpening potion, is that correct?"

"Yup."

"I'm afraid there's no saving it now, Mr. Lawrence, the best we can hope for is that it does not turn to acid and burn through bench."

"Out of my way." Severus huffed impatiently, forcing his way through the crowd of students that had formed around the cauldron.

"Pass me that root of ginger" Snape demanded, positioning himself in front of the ever growing cauldron of bubbling green liquid. Aria obeyed hastily, as the professor performed what she could only describe as a miracle on this horrifying concoction. "Some more newt spleens." He requested, holding out a hand expectantly, while the other gripped onto his wand, casting an enchantment over the potion.

The potions master continued adding a bit of this and a dash of that to the potion, all ingredients Aria Dumbledore would never have considered to associate with this particular brew. Jars of herbs, spices and animal parts were passed through the classroom in order to reach Professor Snape who continuously stirred the potion, muttering all sorts of charms and spells.

However skilled Aria had assumed she was at the art of potion making, it was made clear to her that she was no match for Severus' skills, brewing potions was second nature to him now. Within minutes he had achieved what Aria Dumbledore had deemed impossible, and thus the potion was brought back to it's natural state.

"Severus..." The apprentice gawped. "That was amazing."

"That was nothing." He replied curtly, removing himself from the scene. "Everybody back to work, this is not an excuse to slack off."

Still in awe at the pure artistry she had witnessed, Aria trotted sheepishly back to the front of the class.

Blissfully unaware of the pure talent they had just seen, the students continued on with their work. The Hufflepuff boy did not even have the decency to thank his professor for salvaging the mess he called a potion, let alone be grateful he never received a detention, or deduction of house points.

"What are you staring at, Miss Dumbledore, is there no better way you can spend your time?"

"I'm sorry Severus, but that display was just... brilliant." She beamed.

"Like I said, it was nothing. It comes with the job, I refuse to have any of those delinquents burn through my entire store cupboard because they cannot brew a simple potion, a year below their level no less."

"Well, at least we know who definitely won't be winning anyway." Aria giggled.

"The most we can hope for from that boy is that he manages to finish his potion, god knows he'll need it."

Playfully slapping Snape on the arm for his cheek, the witch perched herself on the edge of the professor's desk, attempting a quick sketch on a scrap piece of parchment, while the students begun to finish off their potions.

"Professor Snape, the winner?" Aria asked, turning to her colleague for a verdict once all of the potions had been completed.

"You want me to choose?" Severus replied, skeptical of her offer.

"Of course. I don't think it would be fair of me to do it, considering I've been giving all of them tips this lesson."

"Very well." He droned, stepping forth to analyse the contents of the cauldrons.

"This one." He announced, pointing a single finger to the cauldron of a young Slytherin witch. "Given that it was the only potion brewed to complete perfection, there is no other possible candidate. I suggest the rest of you get studying before your N.E.W.T's exams, at the rate you lot are going, none of you besides Miss Johnstone here is likely to pass." Snape scolded.

"Well then, congratulations Miss Johnstone, you are the winner of a potion of your choice. See me after lessons tomorrow and let me know your decision."

The girl practically beamed with pride, expecting nothing less than first place.

"Class dismissed."

Taglist:

@ayamenimthiriel @lizlil

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tigerkirby215 · 3 years

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5e Ezreal, the Prodigal Explorer build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Suke “hugehugesword” Su. Made for Riot Games.)

In my constant and continued effort to deny Ezreal’s existence I finally had to get around to building him. Again it’s not that I don’t like him... I mean I don’t. But I kinda forgot what I was going to build him as. Lol.

Dorans & Dragons also made a build for Ezreal back in like... early 2020. Christ that’s before the world went to shit, ain’t it? Well regardless they also made their build before Tasha’s Cauldron came out and I think I can make a build that is different enough to warrant my build existing alongside theirs.

In short: this is an elaborate excuse for me to make another Artificer build.

GOALS

Gawk at this! - We need many a glowing projectile to spam at foes before blowing them up. Ezreal isn’t the type to just autoattack.

I always know a shortcut - Flash on a 15 second cooldown is nice. We’ll need to be able to blink around constantly throughout the entire fight.

Time to show 'em who's best - Nothing’s more dangerous than a well-placed Trueshot Barrage sniping through the entire enemy team.

RACE

Back to good ol’ Variant Human. As a Variant Human you can increase two of your ability scores by 1: increase your Intelligence and your Charisma, to be the hot smart twink you are. You also learn a Language of your choice along with a Skill of choice. You spent plenty of time studying The Void so Abyssal would make sense as a language, and for your skill Perception would help you spot traps or incoming ganks... as long as you remember to ward.

For your feat we’re going to be grabbing Arcane Shift as fast as possible with Fey Touched so you can start Flashing. (Not like that!) You can increase your Intelligence score by 1 and also learn the Misty Step spell. You can also add a Divination or Enchantment spell to your list and a little Heroism never hurt anyone. You can cast both of these spells once without spending a spell slot, and can then spend spell slots on them after the fact.

ABILITY SCORES

15; INTELLIGENCE - Archeology is a lot of history and facts... If you do it the boring way, that is!

14; DEXTERITY - Repeat it after me: “something something Medium armor.”

13; CHARISMA - You’re a pretty boy twink who got at least two girls on the Rift to fall for you.

12; WISDOM - Traveling through ancient temples and traps takes a degree of common sense. Not necessarily common sense you have, but a bit of boost never hurt.

10; CONSTITUTION - You’re an ADC, which means you’re squishy.

8; STRENGTH - Twink.

Feel free to swap Constitution around with another stat for better health but worse roleplay.

BACKGROUND

“Archaeologist” is just the nice way of saying Tomb Raider, which is the mean way of saying Adventurer! You get proficiency with History and Survival (hey you’ve gotta tough it out in the desert sometimes!) You also get proficiency in a language of your choice (I went for Dwarvish because Dwarves seem to have built most ruins) and proficiency in either Navigator’s Tools or Cartographer’s Tools... “Who needs a map?”

You spent enough time in ruins to pick up some Historical Knowledge on ancient dungeons and temples to know who made them. And if you find anything that belongs in a museum you know how much it’s worth to the museum!

(Artwork by Sangsoo Jeong. Made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - ARTIFICER 1

Starting off as Artificer to “borrow” a few inventions. But also because you get training in Arcana to know your magical artifacts, Investigation to find said magical artifacts, and Calligrapher’s Tools to slay Ascended and Darkin alike in one blow. You also get Magical Tinkering to wave that gauntlet of yours around on some Tiny objects, making them glow or play sounds or do all sorts of things that Prestidigitation would probably do better. But at least you can play your own theme music too!

But of course the main appeal of being an Artificer is the Spellcasting. You can learn two cantrips from the Artificer list like Message to coordinate with your support and Guidance to help yourself find treasure! (Or help others I guess.) You can prepare a number of spells equal to your Intelligence modifier plus your Artificer level (rounded down.) Cure Wounds will let you summoner spell Heal yourself or your Support. Faerie Fire will serve as a more basic version of your Essence Flux, making an enemy easier to hit (therefor making them take more damage!) And Feather Fall is always useful in a pinch!

Also yes you don’t have your gauntlet yet so you’re going to have to use a Light Crossbow for now. Feel free to take a combat cantrip if you want but you don’t really need it.

LEVEL 2 - ARTIFICER 2

Second level Artificers can make Infusions, special definitely-not-stolen magical treasures that make them more awesome than everyone else. For a little more AD an Enhanced Weapon is useful to have. You can also put those goggles on your head to use by making Goggles of Night to see with your dumb human eyes. A Mind Sharpener may feel like a cheat, but I’m not going to say no to keeping Concentration in check. And for your final infusion? A Rope of Climbing might be useful? Honestly the more impressive stuff comes after you’ve done a bit more exploring.

You can also prepare another spell like Alarm, just in case someone’s planning to steal your... legitimately earned treasure.

LEVEL 3 - ARTIFICER 3

Third level Artificers get to choose their specialty and Armorers don’t have to wear an entire suit of armor; just a gauntlet! Along with proficiency in Smith’s Tools you can turn any suit of armor you find into Arcane Armor. The armor has a variety of benefits: no Strength requirement, the inability to have your armor removed against your will, the ability to take it off or put it on as an action, and some replacement limbs. But notably it works as an Artificer spell focus!

There’s two different Armor Models and we’ll be going for the Infiltrator variant for a Lightning Launcher. This makes your Gauntlet a weapon that deals a d6 of lightning damage, with a regular range of 90 and a long range of 300 in case you want to go for long ranged snipes. Additionally once per turn you can pop Essence Flux to do an extra d6 of damage on hit! And I didn’t even mention the best part: this works off your Intelligence! So no more need for the crossbow.

You also get your boots for Powered Steps, increasing your movement speed by 5 feet. And thanks to your Dampening Field you can hide in bushes with free Stealth advantage! I’d recommend trying to get a Breastplate because that’s the best armor you can get that doesn’t also impose stealth disadvantage, but even with Half Plate you can still be sneaky! Heck, you can even wear Platemail if you want! "And my boots are not waterproof. Fantastic."

Oh and you get some Armorer Spells! Magic Missile will autoaim for you like your Arcane Shift projectile, and Thunderwave is helpful for some self-peel.

LEVEL 4 - ARTIFICER 4

4th level Artificers get an Ability Score Improvement: seeing as we have uneven Intelligence take the Observant feat for +1 Intelligence and a boost to your passive Perception and Investigation to watch the minimap for people to snipe! Additionally you can spy on the bad guys if you want and read their lips to gain knowledge of all their secret plans!

More Intelligence does also usually mean more spells prepared but I’m going to wait for...

(Artwork by Xu “Crow God” Cheng. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 5 - ARTIFICER 5

5th level Armorers up their Attack Speed with Rising Spell Force, gaining an Extra Attack with the attack action!

You also get Mirror Image and Shatter added to your list of Armorer Spells, and can prepare spells like Rope Trick for a safe place to rest for awhile, and Heat Metal to really lay in that Essence Flux.

LEVEL 6 - ARTIFICER 6

6th level Artificers get more Infusions which is what I was waiting for! A Radiant Weapon is all the fun of an Enhanced Weapon but it also doubles as a flashlight for your dumb human eyes! And Boots of the Winding Path will let you Arcane Shift back to safety in case you accidentally run into danger.

Feel free to swap some of your old infusions around too. A Lantern of Revealing or Cloak of Elvenkind would be helpful... and Gloves of Thievery never hurt anyone.

And finally you can prepare Aid, as your natural awesomeness rubs off on your allies. "Oh, please, don't die. I can't lose a sidekick. Not again."

LEVEL 7 - WIZARD 1

You didn’t think this would just be a pure Artificer build, did you? Even if that would’ve been stronger I’m legally obligated to needlessly stick multiclass levels into all my builds. And Wizard is definitely a good multiclass for more slots to do Spellcasting! You learn 3 cantrips and six leveled spells as a first level Wizard:

CANTRIPS

To help your allies land their shots take Mind Sliver to weaken an enemy’s saving throws.

Prestidigitation will let you do a bunch of simple magic, and if you want you can have your own hero music too!

Finally Friends is good to make friends you don’t mind losing after they tell you where the ancient ruins are.

SPELLS

I basically just took everything with the Ritual tag. Alarm (yes you have it as an Artificer spell but you can swap that out), Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Identify, Tenser’s Floating Disk... and sure why not Find Familiar too? Seeing as you can ritual cast at will most of your early level stuff is going to be reserved for Ritual Casting, as you’re probably going to be spending most of your first level slots on Magic Missile and Faerie Fire anyways.

You also get Arcane Recovery, letting you recover spell slots equal to half your Wizard level (rounded up.) So right now you can get a first level spell slot back at the end of a Short Rest! And later on you can get more!

LEVEL 8 - WIZARD 2

Second level Wizards get to choose the school that their parents left them in before disappearing in the jungle, and the School of Evocation has a surprise tool that will help us later. Along with being an Evocation Savant (allowing you to copy Evocation spells into your spell book with half the time and cost) you can Sculpt Spells so that they only hit the bad guys: when you cast an Evocation spell (from any class, not just Wizard!) you can choose a number creatures equal to the spell’s level + 1. The chosen creatures automatically succeed on their saving throws against the spell, and they take no damage if they would normally take half damage on a successful save. This will be really useful when we get our (pseudo-)Global ultimate; wouldn’t want to fry your pals now would you?

We may as well grab some of those Evocation spells, right? Earth Tremor will let you hit an AoE Mystic Shot because Riot decided that Tiamat should have a cleave I guess, and I mean... Shield is never a bad thing to have?

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 9 - ARTIFICER 7

Back to the big brain plays: 7th level Artificers can make the biggest brain plays thanks to Flash of Genius, letting you boost an ally’s skill check or saving throw with your own natural perfection. The boost is equal to your Intelligence modifier and you can use this reaction a number of times equal to double your Intelligence modifier.

LEVEL 10 - ARTIFICER 8

8th level Artificers get another Ability Score Improvement? Well seeing as Intelligence still controls just about everything we do it would do good to increase that by 2! That does mean you can prepare more spells (both as a Wizard and as an Artificer) but I’m going to wait for...

LEVEL 11 - ARTIFICER 9

Every ADC dreams of being six-slotted; now you can be with Armor Modifications! Your Armorer armor counts as 4 separate items for the sake of your Infusions: the chest piece, boots, helmet, and the armor’s special weapon can all be infused. Far more importantly however you can have two extra infusions! Those infusions have to be on your armor, but you can put the Radiant Weapon (weapon) and Goggles of Night (helmet) onto your armor and save your other infusions for your allies! Or for yourself; yourself works too.

And we can’t forget the third level spells! You get Hypnotic Pattern from your Armorer Spells for an AoE stun, but far more importantly you get Lightning Bolt which will serve as Trueshot Barrage! And since you’re an Evocation Wizard you can shoot past your friends without blowing them to bits. "Oh, a plan. Yeah, I totally have one of those."

You can also prepare spells like Haste for more DPS (just don’t get stunned), Blink for some Duskblade invisibility, and replace Alarm with Revifify... Ya know: just in case.

LEVEL 12 - ARTIFICER 10

As an ADC it would be good to get six-slotted, and Magic Item Adept lets you get your 4th Legendary item! That’s because you can now attune to 4 magic items at once! (And can also craft Common and Uncommon magic items more easily.)

Speaking of Infusions, we can make more of them, such as a Cloak of Protection or Winged Boots! These are just generally useful but not really Ezreal specific; they’re mostly for your allies. "The gauntlet's for show... the talent's all me."

You can also prepare another spell like Fly which is just universally useful, and holy shit you get another cantrip. Take Mage Hand and maybe try to be a little more cautious when tomb raiding?

(Artwork by Bo “chenbowow” Chen. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 13 - ARTIFICER 11

Do you want a lot more Mystic Shots? 11th level Artificers can make a Spell Storing Item and put an Artificer spell of first or second level inside. What’s cool about this is that anyone can use it, allowing them to cast the spell as if they were you!

My recommendation? Give them Mirror Image. It’s an amazing buff that doesn’t require Concentration. Even a low DEX Paladin will appreciate the chance to not be hit, and a high DEX ally can really get value out of Mirror Image. Yeah the Barbarian technically can’t cast while raging, but they can use this before going into a Rage to be very hard to hit!

And speaking of spells you can prepare another one, so how about you grab Create Food and Water to keep yourself sated on longer archeological trips. "Why didn't I eat before I got here...? Ezreal, why?!”

LEVEL 14 - ARITIFCER 12

12th level Artificers get another Ability Score Improvement... we got all we need in terms of stats (Intelligence lol) so now it’s time to really make some impressive trick shots: the Sharpshooter feat will let you attack at long range without disadvantage and ignore cover bonuses, but most importantly you can take a -5 to your attack roll for a whopping +10 to damage! Don’t use this on high AC targets obviously but if you think you’ll hit why not go for the one-shot? "No applause, please. ...Okay, maybe just a bit of thunderous acclaim. ...A little?"

LEVEL 15 - WIZARD 3

I do still want more spell slots, as well as more spells known! Truthfully there isn’t too much I want from second level, so take Locate Object to find hidden treasure and Augry (added to the Wizard spell list thanks to Tasha’s!) to know what to expect in the next dungeon... sorta. "No plan survives first contact with me."

LEVEL 16 - WIZARD 4

4th level Wizards get an Ability Score Improvement: we got all the abilities we wanted really, so why not Get Lucky? The Lucky Feat will give you a bit of anime protagonist power to guarantee that you make the perfect daring escape. Feel free to take Warcaster or just increase your Constitution however; by this point Ability Scores don’t matter too much.

You can also learn two more spells like Melf’s Acid Arrow for another Essence Flux-esque DoT ability and See Invisibility, in case you need a Sweeper Lense to deal with any clowns.

LEVEL 17 - WIZARD 5

Ima be honest I kinda just wanted third level for Thunder Step to get an Arcane Shift that does damage. Artificer 18 / Wizard 2 (or even just Artificer 20) would’ve been a fine build for Ezeal too, if you don’t think this one spell is worth a 5 level class dip.

Anyways you also learn another cantrip and I mean... you may as well take Shocking Grasp for some defense up close? You also get one other spell and I’m gonna suggest Galder’s Tower this time which is like Tiny Hut... but awesome. And really small. This is mostly just a way for me to talk about a fun spell and also recommend my homebrew fix for it.

(Artwork by Alvin Lee. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 18 - ARTIFICER 13

You got third level spells as a Wizard, you can now prepare 4th level spells as an Artificer! Fire Shield and Greater Invisibility are both available as Armorer Spells, one of which is far more useful for you than the other one. Bro imagine how crazy Evelynn would be with Evelynn’s passive. But yeah feel free to swap around your prepared spells a bit for more 4th level spells, since you definitely have the slots to do so.

LEVEL 19 - ARTIFICER 14

14th level Artificers are Magic Item Savants who can attune to 5 magic items at once, meaning that along with your boots which are technically magical but whatever you can finally be properly six-slotted! But far more importantly you can attune to any item, regardless of any class or race restrictions tied to the item! "I can't get hauled into wizard court again. Technically I don't have a permit for the gauntlet."

Speaking of more attunement: more Infusions. An Amulet of Health will let you boost your bad Constitution from a 10 to a 19, giving you a solid 76 health boost near max level! Other than that more movement speed is never a bad thing, and Boots of Speed may give you more value than your other magic boots.

But holy shit forget all that because you finally get your 4th Artificer cantrip! Grab Mending because somehow we don’t have that yet; gotta keep your outfit in check! Oh and you can get around to preparing another 4th level spell! Truth be told though the 4th level spells for Artificer are kinda... bad? But at least Tasha’s gave us Summon Construct which is a surprisingly strong summon!

"Last time I was in Shurima, I decoded some glyphs. Something about a jackal head... End of times... The usual. All I wanted was this ruby scarab. It looks great on my mantle."

LEVEL 20 - ARTIFICER 15

Our final level is the 15th level of Artificer for the Perfected Armor Armorer capstone. When you shoot an enemy you mark them with Essence Flux, giving them disadvantage to hit you. In addition the next attack (including your own I’m pretty sure!) has Advantage against the enemy while they’re marked with Essence Flux, and if they’re hit they’ll take an extra d6 of Lightning damage!

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Blast 'em, gauntlet! - With your capstone ability you do 4d6 + 10 damage with your Lightning Launcher, and that’s before using Sharpshooter. Even without your capstone 3d6 + 10 is still really good damage output, especially when you can cast spells for big bursts of damage.

See if you can handle this! - Speaking of spells your slots go all the way up to 7th level, and while you’ll mostly just be upcasting a 12d6 Lightning Bolt is nothing to sneeze at! Not to mention other options like a 7d8 Fire damage Heat Metal or +30 HP Aid.

If anyone asks, I didn't see any of these priceless artifacts for sale - It goes without saying that having two more attunement slots than the average character is massive, especially when you can stick infusions onto your armor to maximize the amount of treasures on your person.

CONS

I wasn't strong enough? - Investing fully in INT gives us maxed out combat stats but it leaves a lot of our other abilities lacking. We’re nowhere near Charismatic enough to sell (somewhat) illegitimately gotten gains, and while Infusions can help augment our health (and even our Strength if you grab a Belt of Giant’s Strength) your Wisdom and even your Dexterity are rather mediocre, which is bad for both skill checks and saving throws.

Impossible comebacks are sorta my specialty - Most of your coolest stuff is tied to spell slots and other Long Rest dependent mechanics, and while you have a lot of spell slots (as well as Arcane Recovery to get some of them back) they are still quite limited. You’re perfectly viable as just an auto-attack and Q spammer, but who doesn’t want to shoot lasers and explosions, ya know?

Never met a problem that I couldn't blast away with magic... that I don't even understand - 5 levels in Wizard give us big spell slots but that’s about it, and yeah a 7d6 Lightning Bolt (that won’t hit your allies) is nothing to sneeze at but for the most part you are more of a Martial character. Just saying that level 18 of Artificer would’ve given you Magic Item Master for a whole 6 attunement slots! And level 20 of Artificer would’ve given you Soul of Artifice, essentially operating as a +6 to all saving throws and a 6 time use Guardian Angel.

But if a teamfight breaks out you’re more than a capable ADC. Artificers are the masters of magic items and it doesn’t matter if you make them yourself or “borrow” them from an ancient tomb; you can be the hero mom and dad always wanted you to be! Just concentrate on your farm in the early game and don’t take unnecessary risks. You may be the perfect man of magic but you’re not immortal, despite what the ADCs I’m forced to support always seem to think.

(Artwork by Jennifer Wuesting. Made for Riot Games.)

#dnd #dnd build #dnd guide #League of Legends #League of Legends Ezreal #you belong in a museum #dnd artificer #dnd wizard #twink

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star-spangledstud · 3 years

Text

MIND GAMES - THREE

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: The team goes on a mission. You meet someone who might expose you.

Warnings: angst, mentions of violence

Note: Wanna be tagged in future chapters? Shoot me a message :) Sorry for being MIA for so long. I’ve been sad. Blegh.

SERIES MASTERLIST.

PREVIOUS CHAPTER.

Over the few days that follow, you become increasingly paranoid. It’s your own fault, because you shouldn’t have lied to the people that have welcomed you into their homes with open arms, but lying is a survival skill that you were taught many years ago, and old habits die hard. You become shadowy, avoid team members in the hallways and common areas of the penthouse floor you all share, and stay in your room as much as possible without alarming anyone. Of course Natasha knows something is up, but Steve doesn’t, and he waves off her concern as you simply ‘needing more time to adjust, Nat’. You watch their body language during breakfast – one of two meals a day you simply cannot get out of without causing anyone’s alarm bells to start ringing – and engage in light conversation wherever possible to keep them out of your hair.

Guilt gnaws at your insides when you find yourself wandering the deserted wrap-around balcony at nearly 3 a.m., brain searching for a clue to any bad things that might happen. If any one of them figures out you’re ex-hydra you’re done for, that much you know, but the man with golden hair and twinkling azure eyes might just be your ticket to safety.

The thought alone sickens you, because you vowed never to mess with someone’s feelings to get what you need ever again. It’s a twisted thought, but the vines of its root wrap themselves around the stem of your brain nonetheless.

A month after first moving in, you’ve already figured out their routines. Steve’s the early riser of the bunch, getting up every morning at 6:30 a..m. sharp to go on a run around the city. On rare occasions, he manages to convince Sam to come along with him, but more often than not, he remains in his bed until at least 10 o’clock, when Steve’s already come back to shower and get dressed for the day. Tony and Bruce are in the lab 24/7, both of them constantly bickering about artificial intelligence and microbiology among other matters you can’t even begin to understand. As a result, you don’t see them around too often, a notion you don’t particularly mind. Clint left to be with his family two weeks ago and hasn’t been back since, and Natasha leaves all the time, sometimes for days at a time. You don’t dare to ask anyone where she goes when she disappears, but nobody seems surprised to find her seat at the dining table empty again.

It’s a gloomy day when you wake up to find the entire place void of all life. Not even Steve, who’s adamant about his morning coffee, is there to grace you with his presence when you walk into the kitchen that Saturday morning. The counter is clean, no empty coffee cups, half-eaten bowls of oatmeal or bread crumbs to indicate anyone’s eaten yet, and all of the chairs are still perfectly lined against the table.

Your pulse involuntarily quickens to an uncomfortable pace, and you bite the inside of your cheek until the metallic taste of blood is heavy on your tongue. With quick steps, you walk towards the common room, footsteps loud in your ears when you consider where they might be. As expected, there’s nobody there. The TV is switched off, there are no dents in the heavy fabric of the couch from where Steve usually sits, and again, no empty cups or bowls can be found on the coffee table. You have the jitters when you finally get to the library, which is again void of all life.

Black socks covered in small holes squeak across the wooden floors when you walk around the room. It’s not surprising to see the library vacant. You’re sure Avengers have more pressing matters to tend to than reading books on any given day, but it was your last hope nonetheless. With your head tilted to the side, you focus on scanning the titles that line the walls. You follow every shelf in the room until your eye finally catches something. You take the book with a sigh, flip through its tattered pages, and wonder for a moment which one of the Avengers has read the crap out of Pride and Prejudice. Definitely not Sam, judging by his internal monologue. That guy doesn’t appear to have an ounce of romanticism inside him.

“They’re out,” a gentle voice suddenly says behind you, “Steve didn’t want to wake you up this morning to tell you.”

You slap your hand over your heart in surprise, and inhale sharply, “Jesus Christ, doc. You scared the hell out of me.”

Bruce throws his hands up in the air and shrugs his shoulders, “Sorry, it’s just me.”

“Are they on a mission?” you ask, feeling your heart jump in your chest like a skippy ball.

“Yeah, they should be back in a few days. Are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

You swallow thickly, noticing all of a sudden how your mouth is dry like sandpaper, “you just spooked me, that’s all. What kind of mission is it?”

“Intel gathering, in an out. That’s why I didn’t come. They only bring me when they need the green guy,” he says.

“Oh yeah,” you reply slowly, “how’s he holding up?”

“Asleep,” Bruce smiles, then clears his throat, “for now, anyway. Would you like to get some breakfast?”

You follow Bruce through the rain, which started to gust from the grey sky just as you were getting dressed. You’d rather have said no, but you knew you couldn’t; it wouldn’t be polite to decline his offer. Besides, he’s oblivious, and for whatever reason, he trusts you. When he bites into his chocolate croissant, you know why – Steve’s let you in. This notion once more confirms the thoughts that have been occupying your mind for the last week; Steve is your one-way ticket to inclusivity.

You shudder at the thought and fake a smile before taking a large sip of coffee. The cafe is small, mostly empty, and your seat by the window gives you a perfect view of pedestrians struggling in the howling, icy wind. One year ago, you could never have imagined yourself sitting in a café with a cup of coffee clutched between your fingers, chatting with someone who you could potentially call a friend. The idea alone of being able to enjoy a warm mug filled with freshly brewed coffee would’ve sounded preposterous to you.

There was no warmth with HYDRA. Only cold.

It takes the team three days to return from their mission. Three long days, during which you spend most of your time with Bruce in his lab, perched on a desk-chair with a book in your hands while he works on – actually, you have no idea what he’s working on. You quickly grow to become fond of him, because he doesn’t feel the need to constantly fill the silence between you with empty words. His thoughts are coherent, focused on his project, and the lingo is too advanced for you to understand, which makes it easy to drown out. His inner monologue is quiet, except for a few angry words from the Hulk when Bruce becomes frustrated with his work, but that only happened on day two, and only for ten minutes.

Steve smells like gun powder and sweat when he hugs you softly against his chest after exiting the Quinjet. Natasha waves at you, and the smile that dons her dirt-caked face surprises you, but you return it nonetheless. Sam even ruffles your hair, causes a sound to escape your throat that you haven’t heard yourself make in over a decade; a strange combination of a snort and a chuckle that sounds like music to your own ears. Your heart pounds again, but in a good way this time, because for a small moment in time, you’ve managed to put the guilt on the back-burner. The roaring engine behind you falls silent at last, and nobody else visibly exits the plane before you make it inside.

“You held up okay?” Steve asks as he follows you back inside the building.

You nod in response and shove your hands deep inside the pockets of your hoodie, “I’ve been helping Bruce with his research.”

“Oh, did you? How’s it coming?” he asks.

His eyes sparkle like two tiny stars even through the exhaustion that nearly forces them shut every time he blinks. He’s exhausted, you can tell, and you have to bite your tongue before you make a comment about the state he’s in.

“I mostly sat there while he did all the thinking. Turns out computer science isn’t really my thing after all.”

Steve fights a yawn that threatens to overcome him, and nods, “yeah, I feel you. I can barely get the damn things to start. I’ve given up on technology.”

He turns back to face you when he’s come to a halt in front of his room.

“Sorry I didn’t tell you where I went,” he tells you, meaning it as he says it, “we kinda left in a hurry, and you were still sleeping.”

“Don’t worry about it,” you reply, “I understand.”

He quickly retreats after that, leaving you once again with nothing to do. You go back to your room to grab the worn copy of Pride and Prejudice from your nightstand and, after plopping down on your bed, flip to the page where you last left off. You read for a while, before the idea to make some tea with warm milk and honey pops into your head, and you skip along the hallway to the kitchen with the book securely wrapped in your arms.

You’re surprised to hear Steve’s voice when you enter the common area, and a smile appears on his face the second his eyes fall on you. You raise one arm to wave at him, but a loud gasp and a large thud followed by the sound of breaking glass have you freezing on the spot before you can open your mouth to greet him at all.

Your head snaps towards the source of the sound, causing your neck to twist and crack painfully. Red, glowing eyes meet your large ones when you dare to look up at whoever made the noise, and the book in your hands falls to the ground with a loud bang that startles everyone in the room. You stumble backwards when you can feel the woman standing before you deep inside of your head, and you nearly trip over the rug when you instinctly try to get away from her. Frantically, you scramble to stop her from seeing more than she’s already seen. Still, by the time you manage to build up a mental barrier to keep her out of your head, it’s already too late.

You haven’t seen her before, and you can’t remember for the life of you if the image of her has popped up in any of the Avengers’ heads. Your brain is mushy, images hazy as you try to focus on keeping the woman from digging around deeper. You can see distant memories of your time with HYDRA flash before her eyes, and the images blur with the present in a spasm that makes your eyes water.

Wanda Maximoff lets out a shrill, piercing shriek, one that chills everyone to the bone. Thor, who you didn’t even know was there, is by her side before she can collapse onto the cold, hard floor, and Steve jumps up from his chair before you have time to register his movements. He grabs your arm and drags you out of the kitchen, fingers digging painfully in your tender flesh when he pulls you away from the scene. Sympathy fills Sam’s dark brown eyes when you turn back around to look at him, and guilt roils in your stomach when the redhead sinks to her knees with tears streaming down her face.

Your arms hang limply to your side when you watch Steve pace back and forth around his room. You’re waiting for him to yell at you, to tell you to get the fuck out of the compound and never return, but he remains awfully quiet. His silence confuses and unnerves you simultaneously.

His eyes, swimming with unimaginable depth, find your face while the scent of his cologne and pure testosterone invades your nostrils. Pressure clamps down on your chest, and the intensity of his gaze causes you to shiver. Never in your entire life have you wanted to read someone’s mind more.

“Are you alright?” your head cocks to the side, mouth twitching while you try to find words.

You nearly gave that woman an aneurysm, and he’s asking you if you’re okay?

“Yes,” you stammer, “I’m so sorry.”

“Wanda is telepathic,” Steve says, “she has trouble controlling what she sees sometimes.”

“Like I said, I’m so so-”

A soft exhale leaves your lips when Steve’s hands find their way to your shoulders, and your voice dies down in your throat when he bends down slightly to meet your eyes. Calloused fingertips penetrate the thin material of your t-shirt, and the warmth of his hands creates a buzzing sensation just beneath your skin.

“She was in Europe, scouting the location of the mission with Rhodey. She’s been in Eastern Europe for a while, that’s why you haven’t seen her. I should’ve told you about her.”

“Will she be okay?” you ask. You hardly recognize your own voice.

“Sam’s got her. She’s stronger than she looks. Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t look so good.”

You don’t know how to respond. You crave a cigarette all of a sudden, even though you don’t smoke. Alcohol then, maybe, to numb down the prickling sensation of firing synapses and goosebumps that line your bare arms. Yeah, a good couple of shots of whiskey will do the trick. Not vodka though, you hate that stuff.

You bite your bow-shaped lips and inhale deeply. Steve is so close that you can feel his breath fanning across your face. It’s wrong, being so near him after what just happened. You’re on thin ice. It won’t be long before the entire team, undoubtedly informed by what Wanda just saw, comes barging into Steve’s room, ready to drag you away to prison or worse, put a bullet through your skull. You deserve it, you think, for what you used to do. For who you used to be. You almost want somebody to call you out on your shit, because then at least you wouldn’t have to hide it anymore.

But seconds turn into minutes, and nobody comes. It’s quiet, except for the sound of Steve’s breathing and the steady beating of his heart, and you realize when he looks at you with sympathy and sincerity that you hate yourself for lying. It’s an ironic realization, because lying is like second nature to you. HYDRA spent so much time ingraining it into your brain that it’s become almost like a second language, a means of communication that flows so naturally that you don’t even have an accent anymore. It’s brought you many things, and ruined even more people.

Your hands are going numb from how hard you’re clenching them into fists. Steve’s thumbs are rubbing small circles on your shoulders, and it takes all of your effort not to shake them off. You’re disgusted with yourself, bile threatening to rise to the back of your throat while the sensation of his warm fingers on you is the only thing left for you to feel. The world is dark and cold, but the heat radiating from Steve’s hands is just enough to stop you from getting frostbite. The concern is evident on his face, from the deep crease between his brows to the thin line of his lips; he’s worried about you, someone he doesn’t even know. Someone he would kill if he’d met you under any other circumstances.

You want to go home, you think to yourself, but as soon as the thought appears do you smack it down with your fist. You don’t have a home, you scold yourself, just like the doctors would tell you when you cried and screamed on the dingey operating table in the early days, when they didn’t control you yet. When they still wore their special masks to stop you from controlling their minds so they could freely fuck with yours.

It’s an icy reality, one that rattles you to your core every time it makes an appearance. Steve’s eyes are still scanning your face, which is twisted and contorted into a painful scowl before you even realize what’s happening.

An inexplicable panic washes over you, heart jackhammering in your chest while your cheeks turn a sickly shade of pink. A bead of sweat rolls down your back, followed by cold shivers that envelop your skin in ice. The scent of laundry detergent and cologne hits you like a truck, and you have to bite your tongue to stop yourself from gagging.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, his voice melting and morphing into the sound of rain slamming against the window like gunfire.

“My head,” you cry out in a desperate whimper, “it hurts.”

Steve forces your body down onto his bed, and while you begin to writhe in pain that causes white spots to dance in front of your eyes, he closes the curtains to keep the light from coming in. His mother had head aches all the time, and she’d be in bed for days on end if they got bad enough. He remembers her clear as day, lying in bed with an empty bucket next to her on the floor in the dark, because the light hurt so bad it would make her vomit sometimes. He’d tiptoe around the house because the sound of his feet creaking across the floorboards would pain her. He recognizes her in you, lying on his bed with your hands clutching the sides of your head.

“I’ll get you some aspirin,” he says, quieting his voice, the incident with Wanda long forgotten as instinct takes over.

Tears blur your vision at this point, and it takes every ounce of focus that you have left to keep yourself from screaming out in pain. Aspirin won’t help, but you don’t possess the capability to tell him not to bother. You’ve experienced this type of pain before, and have endured it without medicine each time. Many times actually; while you were forced to extract information from the people taken and captured by HYDRA with whatever means necessary. This time however, it’s come as a surprise and it’s caught you completely off-guard, although you suspect Wanda’s poking and prodding has something to do with it.

With all the strength you have left, you manage to pull the covers over your head, engulfing yourself in darkness and warmth to drown out your senses. The sudden darkness is disorienting, but you welcome it with open arms. Steve opens his mouth, but shuts it, and heads for the door without uttering another word.

All you hear when Steve exits the room is the sound of your former victims crying out in despair.

NEXT CHAPTER.

TAGLIST:

@foxyjwls007 @littlegasps @hurricane-abigail @idk123906 @ bubblicious-trashcan @wooya1224

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watevermelon · 4 years

Text

Aot!Haikyuu | MSBY Black Jackals x Reader (Atsumu Route)

✧ Summary: (Attack on Titan x Haikyuu) In an effort to unlock the secrets behind Titans, you got injured during one of Tendou’s Scout Regiment experiments. This was nothing new, but even you were surprised at how much those boys cared about you. ➳ Warnings: Language and Attack on Titan Canon Violence ➳ Tags: Reader x MSBY Black Jackals; Slight Reader x Schweiden Adlers; Takes place before the Fall of Trost; ➳ Masterlist

Pick your route!

Introduction | Sakusa Kiyoomi | Hinata Shoyou | Bokuto Koutarou

✧ Atsumu Miya Route:

Sakusa and the rest of your squad-mates had visited you throughout your entire first week in the medic tent. Thankfully, you were told that you would be able to recover, luckily nothing was long-term damage, neither punctured nor permanently broken in your Titan encounter. Tendou told you that the weeks of physical therapy wouldn’t be easy, but you’d be back on the field within the year if you really tried.

Sakusa cursed you to your face for even thinking about it while the two sunshine's on your team told you not to rush your health.

You were worried most about what Atsumu would say.

He was always quick smiles and smirks - tended to tease and keep things light-hearted in order not to lose his sanity during the war. He flirted and had plenty of women over his shoulder, very easy to cause others to swoon over his handsome appearance. But that was all to drown out his worries, these shallow relationships filled the void from the death of his comrades.

No matter how hard you tried to reach Atsumu’s heart, it just would not budge. Not when you first joined the team and even now years later. There were small cracks here and there. Genuine smiles that he would indulge you in when your squad was in their off-hours. But otherwise, he kept people at an arm’s length.

You knew that this was Atsumu’s second team in the Scout Regiment, originally an officer under the infamous Squad Leader Kita. There were lots of rumors around his earlier life, how he and his brother were one of the best duo’s in the entire regiment. Along with Kita, they were all childhood friends, entering the training corps together and later the scouts as a trio. There were lots of stories around that squad and how they courageously acted during expeditions.

Such as when Kita boldly laid down his life at the Fall of Shiganshina, detonating a large bomb for dozens of Garrison troops to get away.

He saved over two-hundred soldiers from the clutches of abnormal Titans, suddenly let in by both the armored and colossal Titan. The stories were second and even third-hand by now, but it was all generally the same. Soldiers scrambling with their unknown enemy, paralyzed with the fear that their lives were about to end then and there.

Both civilians and soldiers alike had minimal chances of surviving that day.

Shinsuke Kita was a bold soldier through and through.

But all of that occurred before you even joined the scouts. You knew of the current effects on your teammate, now. Atsumu had closed himself off while his brother left the military entirely, opening an onigiri shop within Wall Sina. You could not blame him, your lifestyle must have been a constant reminder for what Osamu had lost. But for Atsumu to continue in the Scouts, you wondered how he had the mental fortitude to continue when his childhood best friend was taken from him.

And so it was no surprise that Atsumu hadn’t visited you your entire first week in the hospital, keeping you at a distance since he had almost lost you as well. But after another week passed you wondered if you did something else to annoy the two-toned man.

Him and Sakusa did not hold back their scalding words the first day you woke-up. And even during the mission, Atsumu had quick curses each time something unexpected happened. So why was he avoiding you now if he was there the first day? Was he trying to reinstate the distance in your friendship? You were disappointed, but by no means surprised.

However, one night three weeks into your hospital stay, as they lowered the doses of painkillers circulating in your system, you woke up to see a figure sitting silently beside you.

You called out to the familiar shadow, “Atsumu?”

It was quiet for a good minute, before he answered. “Ah, it’s me.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Just visiting’.”

“Do you usually visit when I’m asleep?”

“.... Ah.”

So Atsumu visited you when he knew you would not be conscious.

You felt your annoyance flare.

“You’re such a coward.” You bit out.

He stood at your words, his own anger rolling off his tongue. “Ya want to say that again?”

“Yes, I do!” You tried to sit-up, but felt pain shoot through your lower half. Out of relex, his arms shot out toward you to steady you, but you swatted them away and continued, “You can’t face me when I’m awake so you’d rather watch a silent corpse.”

“Don’t call yourself that.” Atsumu bit out, the stoic expression on his face enough to make you recoil in surprise.

You snapped yourself back, “And why not?! There’s obviously something else you have to say if you’re being such a dick about this.”

“You are so fucking unbelievable.” Atsumu muttered as he carded a hand through his blond hair, “I can’t believe I almost lost ya and you’re sitting here acting like life is just gonna move on.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No. It isn’t.” Atsumu stated clearly, “You’ll get out of this bed, one day, and you will never be able to fight the same again. Your leg is fucked, ya know that right?”

“Tendou said I’ll be able to walk again.”

“And that should mean everything will go back to normal, right?” Atsumu stood straight, his height twice your own as you sat in the raised cot. “You tryin’ to tell me that the next time ya see a Titan, you won’t be worried it’ll steal ya like a personal doll again? Or better yet, that you won’t rely on your right leg now that your other side has been shot to shit?”

“I - it’ll take time.” You stuttered, not liking how his words struck a bitter chord.

It took years of training in the cadet corps for anyone to get adept to balancing themselves on the 3DMG. It took even more actual live experience to get used to fighting while doing so. And here you were with a new handicap, years into the battle with all your own personal idiocincinrecies. It would be harder, but you had pushed off that factoid to the recess of your mind, more focused on your current recovery.

“No, ya weren’t thinking at all.” Atsumu stated.

But you didn’t need this asshole pointing out your new weakness.

“What’s your problem?” You asked back sharply.

“My problem? My problem is that I have such a selfish teammate that she doesn’t even care about the rest of her team!”

You turned your head in genuine confusion, “What?”

“I can’t fuckin’ stand ya sometimes!” He said instead, “Even if you can fight again, if it was up to me I’d never let your ass leave your office. I don’t give a fuck, I’ll ask Sakusa to switch ya to Tendou’s team if we have to.”

“What?!”

He leaned over your bedside and gripped your chin harshly. “You almost died. Do ya understand that? I was the last person to see ya before you disappeared into the trees.”

Now closer to his face, it was more than just his anger and annoyance that was reflecting back to you. It made you physically recoil, surprised at seeing the usually distant Atsumu shout his worries about you.

“You were willing to give everythin’ up for some stupid shit-show about a single Titan!” His pressure behind his hold increased, almost bruising the skin there.

“I.. I’m sorry.” You felt yourself apologize more than realized. This was more than just another argument, from the brutal shake of his shoulders and how Atsumu tucked his head into your shoulder. He was leaning into your body, not fully, but enough for you to feel the tenseness in his body.

Atsumu was worried about you.

It made you want to reach out to him. To curl your hands around his middle and comfort him that you were still here - still alive. And so you did - bringing a gentle touch up his back before it started to hurt from the strain. Instead, you folded your arms behind his neck, holding him for as long as Atsumu needed to assure himself that you were okay. And while it seemed redundant initially, you had to remind yourself that Atsumu had lots of demons that were still alive, but worse off because of it.

“Fuck.” You felt him murmur against the skin of your neck. “Please, I am begging ya. Do not pull that shit again.”

You trailed the hands “I’ll try not to.”

He leaned back to look at you directly in the eyes, “That’s not good enough.”

You felt a small smile crack your expression, “I promise I’ll try to stay safe.”

“Good enough for now.” Atsumu said as he frowned, before leaning forward. You felt the soft crease of his lips against your skin, lingering on your forehead before he trailed his nose down against yours.

“Atsumu?”

“Do ya understand now?” He asked, the two of you basically sharing the same breath at this point. Atsumu brought a hand up to your cheek, gently caressing as he went and tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear. You hung onto every bit of his actions, from the way his eyes pierced your own to the way he drew lazy circles on your skin.

“I can’t lose you too.” Atsumu continued, breathing out harshly into your shared space. “I went through this shit before and it almost killed me. But if I lost you? Fuck, I can’t…”

You brought a hand up to cup his face, your heart leaping out at you to be there for him. He was more than just another Scout soldier, more than just your fellow squad-mate and now even more than just your friend.

“I won’t let it happen again.” You reassured him, moving to place soft pecks to his cheeks as he silently cried out his worries.

This was a side of Atsumu you never got to see before. His usually coarse words were more than just shallow-deep, expressing his genuine care over your person. And while you always crave a deep relationship with the older soldier, he always kept you at an arm's-length. At least now you knew why - because Atsumu was afraid to lose those close to him again.

“I love you, ya know that right?” Atsumu murmured.

“I know that now.” You teased, but he gently poked your forehead to bring you back to his serious statement.

“You’re so stupidly headstrong.” Atsumu started listing off as he placed pecks on the side of your head, “Joining our squad was like a breath of fresh air I didn’t know I needed. So smart and yet you value yourself so little.”

You just listened to his words, surprised that he was so keenly paying attention to you in the past when it seemed like Atsumu was so carefree.

“I’m not expecting ya to answer, by the way.” Atsumu continued, “I just need ya to know that before ya make any choices.”

You smiled at him, thankful for how uncharacteristically patient he was being with you. Instead, you scooted over in the hospital bed and patted down in the empty space.

“Keep me company tonight?”

He gave you a genuine smile, pulling off to take off his jacket and throw it over his shoulder to the chair. Atsumu laid on the side, trying to take up as minimal space as possible as he threw an arm across to rest your head on.

“I’ll never leave you alone again.”

You pulled his face toward you, trying to seal a kiss but struggling as you both kept grinning. His arms trailed up and around your body, pulling you close to feel every plain of skin against his own. You relished in the love Atsumu could give you, grateful for how much of his heart he was willing to give you after having been hurt so many times.

You would treat his heart warmly and give him so much love in kind.

Introduction | Sakusa Kiyoomi | Hinata Shoyou | Bokuto Koutarou

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laur-rants · 3 years

Text

Fic Update: Blood Wolf

Chapter 3

Fandom: Dishonored Ship: Daud/The Outsider. yes, I made that executive decision.

Rated: Mature to Explicit, Strong Violence and Gore Ahead!!

Synopsis: Daud-Centric Prequel to Wolfbann. The story centers on how Daud turned, and his subsequent marking by the outsider and his formulation of the Whalers. Notes: There probably won’t be nsfw content in this fic, but it WILL be… violent. I want to play with my own boundaries of written violence and also Daud’s start wasn’t nearly as clean as Corvo’s. Their contrast on dealing with the werewolf transformation is one of the things I want to really explore, and Daud gets very close to falling off the wagon.

CHAPTER TAGS: Daud transforms. It’s horrible and wonderful all at the same time. There is a mild description of consuming a person, but I wouldn’t consider it cannibalism. Necessarily. Werewolves sometimes... eat people. AO3 link First :: Previous :: Next

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Dunwall, Gristol

Month of Clans -- 1820

Daud set up a meeting with the contract creator the next night. It gave him time to prepare, to consider his options and perhaps, to look a little less frightful for the person he wished to work with. The address given on the contract was nondescript; a small general practitioner's office, tucked away in Draper's Ward and identified by the universal dual-snake staff on the window. Daud chose to drop by after hours, of course; no need for others to see the owner conversing with an assassin. He had planted an earlier note to say he would be visiting unconventionally but the individual inside the office room still jumped when suddenly a whaler mask was knocking gently at the upstairs office window.

It was a small man with a round face and large eyebrows that greeted Daud, glasses getting pushed up as he quickly came over, unlatching the terrace doors and allowing the assassin entry. Daud slipped in, silent and stealthy despite the tremble in his hands and shoulders. He hadn't expected his client to be a doctor and quietly hoped the man wouldn't pay close enough attention to ask questions.

"Thank you for finally getting back to me on this contract," the man -- Misha Romanov, if Daud remembered the contract properly -- nervously said, looking over Daud. His eyes trailed from the mask and hood to the black clothes to the whaler blade at his side. He swallowed, clearly intimidated, walking around the office to physically put distance between the two of them. Daud tilted his head, clicking his tongue.

"You've never hired a hitman before," Daud remarked, posing it more as an annoyed observation than a question. It was clear; from the man's unease to the amount of coin offered, he was a novice when it came to dealing with and understanding the job he was asking for. Perhaps this was a bad idea after all; but Daud was here, and it would be ludicrous to turn around now. Might as well make the best of it.

"This is my first time, yes," Misha replied, choosing to busy himself with one of his displayed medical instruments instead of looking Daud in the glassy eye. "I have never had a need before. I try more to save lives, rather than take them, you see." He wrung his hands, then offered a small smile. "But now... my brothers are dead and I have no idea what happened to them, or their dogs. They were the only family I had left… I didn't know where else to turn."

"Misha Romanov then, right?" The doctor nodded, confirming what he knew. "What happened to your brothers-- before they disappeared?" Daud asked, his voice muffled behind the thick mask. Misha, emboldened by the question, answered as clinically as possible, recounting how his brothers had gotten into a dog fighting business over the last few years, completely sucked in, throwing money into dogs and gambling over Fink's wagers. It had been an obsession -- one that ultimately, they didn't return from. Naturally, Misha feared the worst and blamed Eustace and Howard Fink for their disappearance.

"I saw the one brother, Eustace, sulking near the cafe one morning soon after Adrian and Mikhail didn't return at their usual time," Misha supplied, "and that's when I knew I'd be powerless to get justice unless I hired an assassin. So I posted my contract and waited. And waited. I had almost given up on anyone taking the job, until you contacted me. Your interest in this hit is greatly appreciated."

Daud held up a frustrated hand. "Please do not offer appreciation, not until my work is done. I'm not doing this out of the kindness of my heart. I'm doing it because it's personal, and the pay is so low only someone like me would take the contract anyway. If anyone is the lucky party in this deal, trust me, it's you."

Misha blinked. "Oh? You… you know Fink?" He then blanched, his face going terrified. "You didn't work for him in the past, did you?"

"No, nothing like that," Daud said, taking a too-ragged breath. He could feel the sweat trickling down his neck, across his wounds-- even that simple contact burned. "I actually was contracted to kill Eustace's brother, Howard. The same day your brothers most likely perished, I almost died, too. Lady Luck herself is the only reason I'm still alive; the Fink brothers were into some deep, disgusting shit."

Misha blinked, adjusting his glasses before giving Daud a more thorough look-over. Daud stiffened under the gaze, suddenly self-consciousness, and he tried to still the tremor of his limbs.

"Are you well now? You appear in pain, or feverish."

Of course this guy could tell. Daud cursed him for being such an astute doctor.

"You're not being paid enough as a doctor if you can tell that just from looking me over," Daud sneered, hiding the rasp of his voice. This only furrowed the man's brow further, his tone growing serious.

"If you need me to offer medical assistance before the mission, I'd be more than willing to--"

"I'm here for a job, doctor. Not a diagnosis."

"Right, of course, of course… But, if you're still in a state when the job is over, consider it part of the payment. I can easily add it to the contract between us, mister…?"

Void-- "Daud. Just Daud." He said, annoyed. "No Lord, no mister, no honorifics at all. I'm an assassin, not a noble."

"Sorry, just trying to be polite. And you know my name, of course, but I can supply a business card if needed--"

"No. All I need is half payment up front, and as many details on Fink that you can provide." Misha nodded; he went to a dusty safe in the corner, opened it, and pulled out a small purse of 100 silver. Daud noticed very few valuables in the safe and wondered just how lucrative being a general practitioner was in the Draper's Ward. Or, perhaps, his gambling brothers had preyed on his meager earnings too, an addiction that drained the doctor and ultimately tore apart their family. He felt the urge to ask, to reach out and inquire, but he managed to keep his curiosity to himself. It wasn't important to the job, and it wasn't Daud's business to know how wealthy his clients were, or where they got the coin they paid him with.

Misha returned with the coin and Daud carefully pocketed it. Misha also handed over papers: they contained a few addresses, including one not too far from here. Daud frowned under the mask, his breath hissing out of the respirator.

"That's his home and work addresses," Misha explained. "I tend to see him at this cafe, Swinney's, down off Cashmere Ave in the mornings. I pass it on my way to the clinic in the mornings."

"That's quite a ways from here," Daud muttered, before he could stop himself. Misha just shrugged.

"The commute is long on foot, but it's what I can afford. Most nights I just stay here. Cheaper that way."

Daud said nothing. Just crumpled the paper in his hand before folding it up and tucking it away, next to his contract.

"Do not be surprised if this takes some time. Assassination is not easy, nor is it quick in the way you expect it is. I will seek you out once the hit is complete, understood?"

Misha nodded, and if he had any further questions, he didn't ask them. "Whatever you need to do, I suppose."

"That's why they call it 'wet work,' Romanov," Daud told him, a hint of dark humor coloring his words. Daud then took his departure, leaving Misha and the office as silently as he had entered.

------

It should be simple. An easy set up: an easy take down. Silent, efficient, no trace to let anyone ask after. Eustace Fink was not well guarded, not spatially aware, and he was incredibly routine. Textbook, really.

Instead, it was shaping up to be one of the hardest stake outs of Daud's career.

He had spent a few days setting up the kill, pulling himself through the motions. He cached any necessary food, plenty of coin, and a few changes of clothes. He knew where he needed to be and when. He had all of his equipment restocked from the black market right outside of the Distillery District, where nobody asked twice about his mask or his stance. It was all ready to go.

But of course it couldn't be that simple. Nothing of importance ever was.

It was the fourth night of his stakeout when it happened. As soon as he settled in to make the hit finally happen, his fever rolled him over like a riptide.

It came on quickly, the nausea. He hadn't expected it; for the last week his fever had been low-grade, barely noticeable. He had, effectively, learned to ignore it. But it came roaring back up as if it was the day he spent crawling out of the sewer. One second, he was relaxing, waiting for Fink to be alone in his own home; the next he was lurching, tossing the whaler mask up and over his head just in time to empty the contents of his stomach over the side of the roof.

It stank so bad he reeled, dry heaving again. He managed to keep the rest of it down, the sweat drenching his forehead as he wiped his mouth with the back of a clammy glove. He growled in frustration, his arms barely holding his weight, but he spent the extra moments to breathe, evening out his heartbeat and emotions. He looked over to the estate; Fink was alone. Daud felt his stomach flip again, making itself known. He swallowed back the sensation; it was now or never.

Sickness be damned, he needed to get this hit off.

He stood and his feet were surprisingly steady for the vertigo he was experiencing. Not that he was worried; Daud had stalked and successfully killed someone drunk before. It was a dare, one that Rulfio didn't think he would go through with, but he was even younger and cockier back then. A little head sickness was nothing compared to that job, but the thought of Rulfio sobered him enough to keep focused on the task at hand. He lithely jumped from the roof, heading to the Draper's Ward residence, as silent as a street cat.

He kept a bead on Fink even as he felt the sweat gather on his forehead again; something in his chest felt like it wanted to burst, and Daud vaguely hoped it wasn't his heart. He slipped on a roof tile, steadied himself, then listened intently, hearing Eustace's voice float up.

"I should be fine, but I can't help but think that I should be more worried about what happened that night. I mean-- I woke up and Howard was dead and so was that huge black magic brute. There was another person, dead in the corner, and so many unlucky bodies that didn't make it out alive… there will be questions soon. So many questions. How do they not smell it there under the Pub? Maybe the rats ate the bodies… how convenient if so. Nothing to investigate, nothing to convict. If the City Watch ever got wind of this..."

It took Daud a bit of processing to suss out if Eustace was speaking to someone else in the room, but no; the beat and cadence was reminiscent of someone recording an audiograph. If he listened closely enough, nearing the balcony door, he could hear the whirr of the machine, the click of the hole punch. His breathing hitched and his pulse thundered in his ear.

His prey was so, deliciously, tantalizingly, close. Daud stayed his hand, listening closely.

The machine stopped, pushing the card out and finishing the audiograph. There were footsteps, and Eustace walked out onto his balcony, his hands tight as he tucked the audiograph away in his vest, where he clearly thought it safe. His back was to Daud and the balcony door, lighting a cigar, the smoke curling up into the warm summer night air.

The wind roared in Daud's ears. It would be so easy to drop down, slit his throat, watch the blood spill over his gloves-- and suddenly he was aching for it, longing for the crunch of bones, the heat of crimson rivers running from a burst vein, the thrill of a new kill…

The thoughts were intrusive and revolting, nearly causing him to heave again. He still managed to hold himself together, not wanting to drown in his mask, even ignoring the persistent itch on his face. The rising threat of bile burned at the back of his throat but he swallowed it down, his grip growing tight on the roof's edge. He held his position and waited, patience baked into him from years of careful practice. Fink eventually finished enjoying his cigar, extinguishing the butt before turning back to his room.

Daud waited for Fink to pass under him. He then slipped down, his boots silent against the stone. He crouched, righted himself, and pulled his blade from his side. His thumb found the notch in the metal.

When Eustace Fink turned around to close the balcony doors, Daud was there, glassy eyes and muzzled mask glaring down at the second noble that had caused this nightmare of his to happen.

Fink opened his mouth to scream. Daud rushed him, faster than he's ever moved. A powerful hand gripped Eustace by the throat, silencing him and guiding him over to a wall far from any escape route. He felt like nothing in Daud's grasp, like he was a weighted bag that Daud had the displeasure of carrying for a friend. The man was larger than him, heftier, and yet Daud could take him and lift him with a single arm, his right hand still holding the blade he'd drawn. It was heady and unbelievable, Daud didn't know where this power was coming from but it surged through him like a rising storm. He tapped further into that tempest, slamming Eustace into the wall next to his desk.

The man whimpered. Daud snarled. Fink flinched and gasped and Daud almost laughed. He can't believe someone so weak-hearted tried to command a literal monster.

Or perhaps, a nasty little voice in his head supplied, the monster was the weak one... Show him that you are different. Show him what your Power is.

"You and your brother sure made a lot of enemies, didn't you, Eustace…" Daud growled out, his teeth feeling oddly heavy, morphing his words as he spoke them. They came out graveled and sharp and he suppressed the urge to lick his lips as he continued. "If I'm here, you have a bigger problem than the City Watch finding bloated bodies under a riverside bar."

Fink said nothing. Instead, he started crying. Of all things, the man wept in front of his soon-to-be killer. Daud almost recoiled in disgust; this man wasn't even worth the coin. He slammed Fink against the wall again, eliciting a startled yelp from him.

"Do you even know why I'm here, Eustace Fink?" Daud spat the name out like it was undercooked blood ox. "Do you know who killed your brother? It was the assassin who you thought was dead in the sewers when you woke up. Your brother's monster ruined me but I survived and if you value your life, you're going to give me the answers I deserve."

His voice grew in power despite the low whisper he spoke with. His words filled his own ears, reaching the room around them, and Fink gulped visibly. He looked Daud over, rasping against the hold that kept him in place.

"Did it mark you?" He asked, finally. "The Outsider's monster?"

"And if it did?" Daud threatened, mask dangerously close to Fink's face. "What does it matter?" He brought the blade up, his head tilting. "What do you know, Eustace Fink?"

"Ah, I-I don't know as much as Howard did! He found the original beast, not me! But it… they always changed. The curse was always passed down. There isn't a cure for it. They all went mad and eventually--" Eustace gasped and his words died as Daud's grip dangerously tightened. He recalled what Brimsley had said to him, the words burning in his ears.

"You're one now too, aren't you?"

Daud's body lurched. His grip loosened, freeing Fink as that nausea filled him again, along with a different sensation, one where his head, his chest, his limbs wanted to burst, his skin scorching him all over.

"No," Daud rasped out, his eyes far away. "I am not--" He stared at his gloves; his vision blurring dangerously. When Fink tried to crawl away, however, his sight caught the movement, head turning sharply. In a flurry, the blade was singing through Eustace's heels; the tendons sliced like butter and Fink collapsed, crying out. The blood pooled around his ankles, the smell of it sharp in Daud's nose. Eustace stayed prone on the floor, whimpering, his face rapidly losing color as shock set in.

Pathetic.

Daud hunched over Fink's form, his breath ragged and heavy. Eustace stared at him, eyes wet and terrified, and Daud felt his seams unravel, his body falling apart.

"It's happening? Here, now? Oh Void, oh Outsider's eyes…" Fink continued to babble, crying out for the fabled god of the Void, as if such an entity existed, could even save him from what was happening. Daud opened his mouth to refute Eustace; it came out as a splintered roar, words failing him.

"Where is your god, Eustace?" His voice boomed, but he did not know where the words came from, not when his mouth was making such unearthly noise. "You were the one who played god, killing assassins for your games, your bloody gambling coin. Did you think yourself honorable, setting such a trap? How many men died to serve you and your fucked up brother?"

Eustace paled and he looked so small, so tiny, so weak. To think this man and his brother succeeded as much as they had, enslaving unknowing participants for entertainment…

His head reeled in anger and rage. He pulled the man close, his hands curling into smoking, burning claws that dig deep into Eustace's clothes, ripping at skin.

"Stop praying to a god who won't listen! This is your reality! Now face your judgement!"

Daud ripped the whaler mask off and underneath was no longer the face of a man. A true muzzle burst from his face, black and filled with glistening, razored fangs. His wounds burned and steamed as his eyes bulged and he screamed, the pain of the last month consuming him entirely. Ribs cracked and bones shifted and he grew, his body doubling, tripling. His skin was tearing off and it felt so good, like he had been waiting his whole life, his whole existence, for this singular moment of unbridled ecstasy.

He roared and it was like the land, the sea, like the Void itself, shook under the sound of his cry. He laughed, eyes watering, filled with relief and pain and it was all so much, too much. He screeched, the sounding reminiscent of a dying whale, before his teeth slammed together like a crashing wave. Fink was still in his vicinity; he could smell the fear, hear the pleading, but all it did was anger him further. He didn't need this sniveling worm of a human.

A clawed hand grabbed Eustace and in the next second his body was in ribbons. Guts spilled and a head rolled and Daud felt his mind flee, the smell of iron and heat overwhelming his senses in a way he'd never known after a kill. Suddenly he was ravenous, he needed that blood on his tongue. He obliged his primal desire, ripping the man's arm off with ease, letting bone and fat and muscle fill his mouth with the heat of a fleeing life.

There was a scream. Daud's ears caught it and he turned, lip curling. He had nothing to say to the woman standing in the door, hair tied back and clutching her dress. The sound of her distress continued, unwavering. Daud stepped towards her, snarling.

She ran.

He was moving faster than he could ever have imagined, his legs possessing a strength that was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. His body moved on its own accord, spurred on by the thrill of the hunt, of the pursuit of prey and he was giddy, drunk off it. The house was a maze but his nose cut through the turns, following the fear and nausea, the horror of his unhinged rampage left in his wake. Walls and doors meant nothing; his body either forced its way through or smoked through openings, dissolving and coalescing in ways he didn't understand and spent no time dwelling on. He was consumed instead with the goal of reaching for and pouncing on his next victim, then the next. He caught sounds over the rush of his own blood; a tiny shrill voice here, a male voice there, the howl of hounds released upon him. All of them meant nothing; their teeth could not hurt him now. Their attacks were just pin pricks of lucidity within his fever dream, all dying or cowering before his unbridled wrath. Two dogs were bodily thrown, another bitten in half, still another tossed at a human handler, throwing both dog and man through a wall. He pursued, determined to not let anyone in the house escape. Not this time. Not after this hell month, not after everything--

A drop of water rippled through the chaos of his mind. The scent of the sea filled his nostrils, the sound of whales keened in his ears. Daud stilled, suddenly entranced, and turned his head.

A rune chittered and vibrated and sang on an ensconced shrine. The room was small, perhaps a hidden pantry; it had been revealed when Daud had thrown the body through the wall. Purple cloth fluttered from the disturbance of the crash and used candles scattered about the floor and table.

Someone was sitting on that table, cross-legged: someone lithe, dark, and still holding the ageless beauty of youth. Despite the slim, ethereal frame the person presented, Daud could sense the incredible shadow lurking just out of sight, the leviathan crying from the deep.

The figure smiled, his black, endless eyes glittering. He beckoned, and Daud obeyed. Like a leashed hound, he was irrevocably pulled under the waves, his huge body buckling before the sight of something greater, something far more ancient than he could ever fathom to be. He bowed his giant furred head and cold hands ran over his wounds, calming the persistent itch and smoothing away his month-long fever. Daud whined, giving himself over entirely as the figure held him close, arms embracing him like a long lost lover. The voice in his ears calmed his storm and soothed his pain and called him Home.

"Oh, Daud, beautiful Daud," the man cooed and Daud was enraptured, a whale's cry leaving him like a warbled gasp. The grip tightened on him and suddenly his body was melting away, the fur turning to ash to reveal his human skin underneath. He breathed, his left hand itching pleasantly where the figure held it, the other hand running smooth circles across his shoulders and down his back. Daud looked up into that ancient face and when it smiled, there was no warmth, no stars in those endlessly black eyes.

"I knew you would come back to me, Daud. After all..." the god's smile spread, breaking his face.

"...It was just a matter of time."

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journalofimprobablethings · 3 years

Text

take me back to the start

That idea about the Chalice and Lucretia would not leave me alone, so here's the full dang thing. Turns out Lucretia's temptation takes about 4k words.

Tags: Mentioned Lup, Mentioned Magnus Burnsides, Stolen Century Spoilers, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation

Summary: The Chalice makes Lucretia an offer, and she has to decide whether she's willing to pay the price for a second chance.

Full thing below but you can also read it on AO3 here

Lucretia wakes up in a white space.

She blinks, and as the room comes into focus, she can see it's not just an undefined void. There are shapes around her: furniture and plants, pillows and blankets and a coffee table, all so familiar—and she realizes with a pang that she's in the lounge of the Starblaster. But it's like she's in a ghost version of the room; everything is washed out, somehow insubstantial. She reaches out and touches a pillow, and even though she can feel it, there's something not quite there about it.

She looks around, torn between confusion at her surroundings and a sort of painful joy at the familiarity of it all. Then she jumps as a voice speaks behind her.

"Hey, Luce."

She turns and there, sitting on one of the couches, is Magnus.

Unlike the rest of the room, he's not washed out or ghostly. He's all there, solid, full-color. He's leaning back against the cushions, his arms spread over the top of the couch. He looks so relaxed, totally at home in a way she hasn't seen in a long time. Something about the whole scene bothers her, but she can't put a finger on what it is.

"Magnus? Where—what is this?"

"I thought we should talk. Since you finally found me and all."

"Finally found you? What are you—?" She looks at him more closely. There's something...off about him. The way he's sitting, the way he holds his head—it's like someone doing an impression of Magnus: the broad strokes are there, but the details are not quite right.

Then she realizes what it was that bothered her just now:

He'd called her Luce.

It's been years since anyone has called her that. Magnus always used to, before. But the Magnus she knows right now, at the Bureau, has never used that name for her. He's forgotten that he ever did.

She takes a step back.

"You're not Magnus."

He smiles, and there's a sharpness in it that sends a shiver down her spine. "No, I'm not."

"Who are you?"

Magnus—or the thing pretending to be Magnus—leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees.

"What were you doing just now? Before you came here?"

She thinks back. The boys had just gotten back from Refuge, had told her the story of the time-stuck town and all their loops—all their deaths. (And she'd wondered then whether it had felt familiar, all that dying. But she'd said nothing.) They'd told her, in broad terms, about the thrall of this most recent relic, how it was different from the others.

And then she'd gone back to her office, to channel the Light out of the relic into her staff.

She looks at not-Magnus again, a mix of fear and fascination roiling inside her.

"The Chalice," she says. "You're the Chalice."

He smiles, wider this time, and a smile that is distinctly un-Magnus-like.

"That's right," he says. "And I want to show you something."

Lucretia closes her eyes against that smile, takes a breath to steady herself.

The Chalice.

When she’s thought about what it would take to collect the relics, this is the one that has always worried and frightened her the most. The others have their thrall, but the things they offer—riches, power—are things that she has an easy enough time rejecting. She’s never wanted those things, not really.

But the Chalice holds something that she has always wanted desperately: the opportunity to fix your mistakes. The idea of second chances.

She’d worried about sending Magnus and Merle and Taako after it—even without all their memories, there are plenty of things they might wish were different. They didn’t go into detail about what the Chalice offered them, but she knows it can’t have been easy. She's proud of them for resisting it.

She's not sure she'd be as strong.

Lucretia opens her eyes, and summons every bit of the gravitas and distance she has cultivated in the last decade, pulling her professional mask back into place.

“Thank you, but I’m fine,” she says. “I know what I’ve done. And even if there are things I wish were different, I know you’re not the solution.”

His face twists into a wry smile. “Look at you, Luce. We used to think you were such a wallflower. And now here you are: Madam Director. You're so...sure. So certain that everything you've done is for the best."

She shouldn't let it hurt her, the hint of judgement in his voice. This isn't Magnus, after all. But she can't help feeling stung.

"I did what I had to do," she says.

"And it's worth it? Worth the price you made us pay?"

"Don't say us," she snaps. "You're not him."

"You're avoiding the question."

He stands, and she resists the urge to step away from him as he approaches her.

“Come on,” the Chalice says, with Magnus’s voice, Magnus’s earnestness. “There really isn't anything you'd change? You really don't want a second chance to get it right?”

She could almost laugh at the question. Of course she wants a second chance. Of course there are things she wants to change. Every day when she looks at Davenport, when she watches the boys train and notes the difference in how they treat each other, she longs for what used to be. She can’t say she hasn’t thought about what she could do with the Chalice’s power, wondered what it would be like if she--

Wait.

There’s something missing here, something she’s forgetting. It’s a terrifying feeling, like missing a step on the stairs, putting your foot down expecting solid ground and finding only empty air. (Is this what it felt like? a tiny part of her whispers. Is this what she did to them?)

She does back away from the Chalice now, just a few steps. Her heart is beating hard in her chest, and she closes her hands into fists to stop them shaking.

"Why am I here?" she asks. “You shouldn’t be able to do this.”

"Oh, Luce." He smiles again, that same, awful, sharp smile. “You know why. You picked me up.”

She—

Oh.

Oh, no.

She had been in her office, getting ready to channel this piece of the Light into her staff, to join it with the others. She didn’t need to take the relic out of the iron ball it had been placed in to do this. No need to touch it, to risk being thralled. That was the point.

But she had been so curious.

This relic, of all of them, has always held such fascination for her.

“You wanted to see what I can do," the Chalice says. “And here I am.”

And with that, the lounge around them disappears. The ghostly furniture vanishes, leaving only the white void behind—and the Chalice standing next to her, still wearing Magnus's face. He reaches for her hand, but she jerks away before he can take it.

"Let me show you," he says. "I promise I won't force you to do anything you don't want to do. Just let me show you."

Then he gestures, and the void around them bursts into life.

At first, there is so much at once the Lucretia can't parse through the chaos of colors and images. But as her eyes grow more accustomed, she realizes that they are surrounded by her memories. She sees snippets of herself over the last weeks, sitting in her office at the Bureau, talking to Avi in the cannon bay, visiting Johann and Fisher downstairs. She sees herself at the spa with Merle, trying Taako's macarons at the Candlenights party. The memories move farther and farther back in time, and as they do they begin to fly by faster and faster until the images blur together and the specifics are lost in a swirl of color. The flash and movement of it churns Lucretia's stomach, and she tries to turn away, to block it out, but the Chalice takes her by the arm and will not let her turn.

"Look," he says.

The blur of memories is slowing again, enough that she can once again pick out individual images—and as they resolve, the memories they show hit her like a knife in the gut.

Lucretia is surrounded, suddenly, but images of the day she broke their family apart.

She sees herself leaving Merle in the house she found for him on the beach

walking away from Magnus's carpentry shop in Raven's Roost

leaving Taako asleep in the back of his caravan

finding Barry's body in a field outside Neverwinter

collapsed on the floor beside Davenport's bed as he curls under the covers, clutching his temples.

Each image is clearer than the last, and each one twists the knife in her gut a little deeper. She wraps her arms tight around herself, trying to steady herself, to hold herself together, but she can't keep the tremor out of her voice.

"Please," she says. "I don't want to see this."

"Why not? I thought you did what you had to do." There is no pity in his voice. "I thought this price was worth paying."

The memories keep coming, and she sees herself finding each of her family after the redaction, reaching out to try and calm and comfort them. She sees Magnus walking into her room, the journal floating in Fisher's tank, a duck painted to look just like her dropping to the floor. She watches herself catch Magnus as he staggers, watches as her knees give out under his weight, as she catches his head before it can hit the floor and whispers assurances and love that he is too lost to hear.

The Magnus standing next to her watches too, expressionless.

It feels like they linger on that scene for an eternity before it, too, fades away.

Then, finally, the flashes of memories slow and stop, exactly where Lucretia knew they would.

They're standing in her quarters on the Starblaster, the glow from Fisher's tank casting the room into shades of grey and blue. Along one wall, the bookcase where she kept all her journals is half empty, each shelf pockmarked with holes. The desk is a mess of papers and journals and mugs of tea long gone cold. Lucretia looks to the corner where Fisher's tank sits, and even though she knows what to expect, the sight still takes her breath away.

She sees herself, wearing her red IPRE jacket, her hair longer than she's had it in years, stray curls escaping from the cord holding it in place. She's standing frozen in front of Fisher's tank, holding a blue journal bound in silver trim in both hands. Her grip on the journal is so tight that her knuckles are white.

The Chalice looks over at Lucretia. The whole time he was scanning through her memories, his face had been blank, dispassionate. But now, for the first time, he's looking at her with compassion and understanding in his eyes.

“This was the moment, right? The moment you changed everything.”

Lucretia nods. She remembers the feeling of this moment: like she was standing on the edge of a cliff, getting ready to jump. The terror of it, and the possibility.

She looks at her past self, standing at Fisher’s tank clutching the journal in her hands. Gods, she forgot how young she used to look. Her face is lit by the glow of the tank, her lips pressed tight together and eyes shining. There’s fear there, but there’s also hope—hope that this will be worth it, that she will be able to help her family be happy again. Hope that she will be able to fix everything.

She’s not sure when that hope transformed into a need; when the belief that her plan would work morphed from a quiet determination to a desperate desire, a story she told herself because to believe otherwise would break her.

Would she still have that hope, if she had made a different choice?

You can change it," the Chalice says. "Everything you just saw. All that pain you caused them. It doesn't have to go that way."

Lucretia looks at the frozen memory of herself, a version of her that thought she knew the cost of what she was doing. Who had no idea what loneliness and heartbreak she held in her hands.

What would it mean, if she had the chance to try again?

She could talk to the others about her plan, try to get them on board. She could still go through with the redaction, but she could make sure her family were inoculated first. The worst thing, the hardest thing, about what she’s done has been seeing what it did to the others. Seeing the sharp, cold person Taako’s become without Lup; the way that Davenport’s been left a shell of himself. Knowing that Barry is out there somewhere, alone and angry and afraid. The fact that the lives that she built for them fell apart one by one, and she could only watch.

She could save them that pain, if she changed this moment.

Everything she just had to watch, everything they've lost, everything they've suffered because of her.

She could fix it.

She could—

Could she?

The last time she tried to fix everything with one big decision, she ended up here.

If she did this, what new pains would come instead—what unintended consequences would such a choice unleash? If there’s anything she’s learned in the past decade, it’s that she can never fully predict the effects of her decisions, no matter how hard she tries. What if this decision only leads to new regrets?

Lucretia drops her head in her hands, all her desires and wishes and hopes warring inside her with a dreadful fear at what other hurts she might inadvertently cause.

The price of using any relic is so high; she's not even sure what exactly the price of this one would be. She has spent the last ten years working so hard to keep others from using them, to collect them so that she can cast her barrier and stop the Hunger once and for all. Would she really sacrifice all that to fix this one mistake?

She wants to say she would. She wants to say that if she knew she could spare her family pain, she would sacrifice everything else she’s done. But when she asks the question bluntly, the same answer that has gotten her through the last ten years comes up.

She did what she did for a reason. It cost them all so much more than she ever thought it would. But she’s not sure what else would be lost, if she tried to change this moment—and there is too much at stake for her to risk getting it wrong again.

No. She can't fix it. Not this way.

Lucretia lowers her hands, slowly, and shakes her head.

“I made my choice,” she says. “It hasn’t turned out exactly like I thought it would, but...I did what I had to do. I have to see it through.”

She lets her hands fall to her sides, staring at the still-frozen form of her past self. That's it, then. She should feel proud of herself, she supposes, for resisting the Chalice’s thrall. But instead she just feels empty.

She looks up at the Chalice, expecting him to be angry, or frustrated, or at least disappointed. This was his last big play, after all. The temptation of Lucretia.

But the Chalice only smiles, and she hates the way that smile looks on Magnus’s face, all condescension and smug knowing.

“I thought you might say that,” he says. “You’re nothing if not stubborn."

What?

She had thought she knew what was happening here: a temptation, an offer that the Chalice hoped she would take and that she would have to resist, and if she did, then she would win. If that's not what this was--reliving those memories was bad enough, but to do it for no purpose?

Lucretia does her best to hide her confusion, to let only anger show in her voice. "Why did you show this to me if you knew I wouldn't change it?"

He shrugs. "It was worth a try. You might have surprised me. And it's important that you saw this first."

"What do you mean?" She doesn't like the sound of first. "I thought we were done."

“Not quite," the Chalice says. "There’s one other moment I want to show you."

The images around them are already blurring again, the vision of her standing in front of Fisher’s tank disappearing into flashes of color and memory. Lucretia braces herself for another onslaught, but it's only a few seconds before the blur slows, and when it stops, they are once again standing in her quarters on the Starblaster. It’s nighttime, the room lit only by a candle on her desk, and the glow from Fisher’s tank.

The younger version of her sits at the desk, her head leaning on one hand, the other hand twirling and pulling at a loose curl. She's reading one of her journals. Two more journals sit to one side on the desk, and there is a pile of several more at her feet. The young Lucretia’s leg is jiggling, and her hand pulls on her hair hard enough to hurt. Her posture might seem relaxed, but present Lucretia can feel her anxiety.

Her heart sinks. She remembers this night. It was the night after Lup had told them about the gauntlet’s latest death toll in Cordelia—and one of the first nights she really thought about what it would take, to use Fisher to erase the relics. She remembers the weariness on Lup’s face, the despair at what these things they’d made were doing to the world. How much she wanted to wipe that weariness away, how she’d thought that there had to be a way to fix it. She had sat up late into the night, a growing pile of journals surrounding her as she read through her records of the last year, and then further and further back into the century. Eventually she had fallen asleep at her desk, her head pillowed on an open journal, her mind spinning with questions—whether such a plan would work; whether it was worth it.

The next morning, they had found Lup’s note on the kitchen table.

"You think about this night a lot," the Chalice says. "The last night you were all together."

He walks over to the desk, looking down at the memory of her, and Lucretia resists the urge to step between them, to protect her younger self from the future looming over her.

“You didn’t know it at the time, but you were awake, when Lup left,” he continues. “She waited until she thought everyone would be asleep, and then she left her note on the table, and she slipped away. She thought she would only be gone a few days.

“And while she did that you were sitting at your desk, reading, thinking it might be time to take a break soon, but not ready to put down your work just yet."

Past Lucretia turns a page and sighs. Even more than the last version of her, Lucretia thinks, she has no idea what's coming.

"You never did end up taking a break, that night. And by morning she was gone.”

The scene shifts, and suddenly it’s like they’re standing inside the wall between her old room and the corridor outside. She can still see herself, sitting at her desk. But she can also see a figure in a hooded red robe making her way along the hall, her footfalls carefully soft. The scene freezes just as Lup passes Lucretia's door.

“Right now, in this moment, she’s walking past your room on her way to the kitchen. If you get up now, you’ll run into her, and you’ll be able to talk.”

Lucretia stares, frozen, at her younger self, at the cloaked figure of Lup outside the door. She had been right there. She had been so close. She never even thought—

What would have happened, if she and Lup had talked before Lup left?

If she had told Lup what she was thinking, of her plan to use Fisher to stop the war?

If she had asked Lup for help, tried to get her to stay?

What would have happened to them all, if they hadn’t lost Lup?

Suddenly, all her earlier firm resolve dissipates like mist. Lucretia looks at the figure silhouetted in the dim light of the corridor, and her heart aches and her stomach clenches with longing.

Lup.

It shouldn't change anything. All her arguments from before still stand.

She doesn’t know what consequences such a change would have.

She’d be sacrificing everything she’s done, everything she’s worked for the past ten years.

The price of using a relic is still so very high.

But Lup.

There’s a sudden, gentle touch on the back of her wrist. She startles, but this time she does not pull away as the Chalice takes her hand in his. His fingers are rough and calloused, the exact feel of Magnus’s hands, and the sensation brings tears to her eyes. It’s been so long since she’s felt anything like this.

“You can save us, Luce,” the Chalice says—Magnus says. “You know we fell apart, after Lup left. You can stop it. You can persuade her to stay, and we can find some other way to stop the war. Together.”

"Don't say us," she says, but there is no fire in it. She can see it, the future he describes. She can see it so clearly.

"Please, Lucretia." His eyes meet hers with such an earnest look. "You can save her."

And despite herself, despite all her caution and well-honed arguments, Lucretia can feel herself faltering.

When he made his first offer, she had been able to push her own desires aside. However much she might want to change what has happened since the redaction, she knows she did what she did for a reason, and she is too practiced at setting aside her guilt to let it sway her.

But this. This is different.

Lup's disappearance had no reason behind it, no purpose. She might have left with an intention in mind, but Lucretia is certain her not coming back was not part of any plan.

And now, she's being given the chance to make it right.

If she can keep Lup from leaving, then Barry will never have to waste away on a fruitless search, Taako will never be reduced to moving through the ship like a ghost, half empty. If she can talk to her, maybe they can keep their family together, keep them from falling into that place where the redaction felt like the only option. With Lup still with them, maybe the Chalice is right—maybe they can find another way to save the world.

There will be a price to pay. She knows this. The stakes are just as high as before, the uncertainty in some ways even higher. But by now she is used to calculating the costs of her decisions, and the prices she has to pay herself are always the easiest to bear.

And to save Lup? To bring her back? She's willing to pay just about anything.

Lucretia looks up at the Chalice, and though she knows he is not Magnus, he is so like him that just for this moment, she can pretend that there is nothing else lurking behind his earnest expression. She takes both of the Chalice's callused hands in hers, and she looks him dead in the eye, and she makes her choice.

"What do I have to do?”

#taz balance #taz lucretia #taz fanfic #taz #taz au #temporal chalice #grand relics #there's more to explore here in terms of alternate timelines #and maybe i'll do it someday #but time manipulation is Complicated and makes my head hurt D:#scribblings #long post #taz balance spoilers

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assassins-and-hidden-blades · 4 years

Text

Don’t Let Go

So this is a sequel (not requested) to Hold On that I really loved writing… I hope you all enjoy it, because I’m really nervous on posting it. I decided on the sequel after very careful thought, not wanting to ruin ‘Hold On’; but after scrutinising every detail, I hope people can have fun reading this. Also, over 2.5K words -- that’s a first lmao.

Also, this was beta read by none other than @marshmallow--3! So, thank you, Sam! Go check them out -- they’re awesome!

Obviously, this is going to diverge from canon A LOT here -- so bear that in mind.

I could write this plot forever omfg I was finding it hard to stop -- I’m really sad to be putting this away now, but I could always write drabbles relating to it *wink wink*

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated! I’d love to know what you all think; every comment/reblog is precious to me haha.

Tagging: @yourlocalfrenchie (if anyone wants to be tagged, let me know!)

The link to Hold On is HERE

Warnings: Violence, Angst with a fluffy ending. No swearing, (miraculously)

Days went by. Your body lay in the train; Jacob couldn’t figure out what to do with it.

He couldn’t eat, sleep or even hold a conversation. Evie couldn’t communicate with him, as he would never reply. His mind was always occupied, for if it wasn’t, it would always end up in the most terrifying places.

The deprivation of necessities had taken its toll on his body. He was becoming fatigued after only a few hours, and he would frequently pass out from lack of sleep on top of his work, only to be woken up by re-enactments of the one moment he wished he could forget. He would be left gasping, sweating; clutching his chest as his anxiety and fear left an agony that squeezed his heart. In fact, the only time he managed to get any sleep was when it was dreamless.

In order to keep his mind busy, he studied.

Clad in only a shirt and breeches, he spent all his time pouring over the books in the train, for it was only a matter of time before you couldn’t be saved, and he had to let you go. There was a reason you mentioned the shroud, after all. Henry had talked about it once, when him and Evie went to visit the Kenway Estate. So he focused all his time on it, delving deep into lore.

One particular book was being heavily scrutinised by his hazel eyes. It was not a particularly interesting book, and in a half second of laziness, his Eagle Vision crackled through. The colours on the page, however, was not what he expected.

The words on the page turned from different types of fabrics to something much more relevant. It wrote about one certain thread; a material so powerful, it could hold the Elixir of Life.

It could resurrect people -- it was the fabric of the Shroud.

And Starrick had it.

Dressing, Jacob shrugged his overcoat over his shoulders and sifted his hand through his hair to allow his hat to sit on it. In the past, you would have done that.

Hopefully you would do so again.

He looked out over the sunset of the city as the train moved, adjusting his hat. His coat whipped at his knees; it was time to find that shroud.

----------

The night was freezing. The temporary Stronghold was heavily guarded, and was also very sophisticated; it could easily be mistaken for a house belonging to a wealthy family. He sat on a roof overlooking the property. The easiest entrance seemed to be through the balcony, but it seemed extremely easy.

He took the risk; he was already on a time limit.

However, as he leapt towards the balcony, he didn’t take into account his weakened state from lack of sleep and food. Instead of landing inside the balcony, his fingers had just about brushed against the railings. He had a lot of trouble pulling himself up and over, his muscles already beginning to ache. In the cold, his fingers fumbled around his lockpicks. It didn’t take long for him to open the window, but the lack of urgency of his body was beginning to frustrate his mind.

Jacob stalked the halls, peering into every room, and working downwards. There were a few close calls where he was almost caught, but he blended into the shadows quick enough to hide.

He reached the ground floor, and made a beeline to the one door that stood out over all of the others. It had locks spanning from the top to the bottom of the door. Inwardly, he huffed.

He almost made it without being detected.

That was, until a force pushed him face first into the wall. A hand grappled to reach his throat. Jacob elbowed the enemy on instinct, and managed to turn enough to kick a brute away. He grinned maliciously. “Don’t look too good, Frye.”

Already in a foul mood, Jacob snarled. “Wait until you see the other bloke.” He unsheathed his hidden blade and struck like a viper towards his neck.

His wrist got caught.

The brute bent his hand and manipulated his arm to persuade Jacob to collapse on one knee. He tried to mask his pain, sharp breaths exhaled instead of pained grunts, which sat in the back of his throat. His nostrils flared as he tried to jab the brute’s leg, and what was between them. However, instead of letting go, the brute pulled against his arm harder, releasing a pained noise. Jacob’s other hand came to ease the pressure his perpetrator was putting on his bone. He could hear and feel it began to crack. “One too many beers, Frye,” the brute tutted. “Disappointing, really.” In one smooth motion his arm snapped.

He yelled, the brute throwing him to his side. Before he could get up, a shoe was pressed firmly against his limb, evoking another pained noise. Jacob’s other hand tried to pry it off. “D’you recognise me, Frye?” He pushed an inch harder to keep the gang leader’s attention. Squinting, Jacob did agree that there was some familiarity to his face.

“I can’t remember angering such a handsome fellow; we can always reschedule those beers,” he panted, trying to ignore the throbbing through a pained smile.

The man smiled angrily, pressing down harder as he placed his other foot against his throat. “You murdered my twin brother.” Jacob squinted again, and realised who he reminded him of.

He growled. “Your twin brother murdered my lover.”

Against the wall hung a spear on display, it was unknown whether it was old or fake. “And now…” He pushed the point against the centre of his chest, where Jacob’s hand struck out to grab the shaft above the blade, attempting to prevent the piercing of his skin. “I can finish the job. First you; slowly, painfully, and then--”

All the pressure against Jacob disappeared. As air flooded through his lungs, his good hand dropped the spear and took out a small, agile throwing knife. He looked and threw it within one adrenaline-filled second.

The brute went limp, bleeding out of his exploded eye socket.

He drew in a few breaths, to take in oxygen and to calm the anxiety. A figure came into view, offering a hand out. The shadow looked familiar, and for a moment, he wondered…

“Good throw.” Evie smiled softly with a gleam of concern.

“I was aiming between the eyes.” He took the help, groaning softly at the pain in the arm he held against his chest. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to help my little brother -- and I want to get my best friend back.”

Jacob smiled, grateful for the backup.

“Why don’t you leave the combat to me?”

For once, that was something he could agree with.

Evie picked the locks efficiently; it took no longer than a minute or two to get through all of them.

The dark, damp room was completely bare, void of windows and furniture, except for a single chest. It was big, it was grand, and it was definitely First Civilisation. It had various cracks, through which a mysterious light glowed. Evie knelt by the chest, and by methods unknown to Jacob, managed to open it. Inside was the most intimately woven shawl he had ever seen, showered in silver and gold. Picking it up, she partly unfolded it, moving to wrap it around Jacob’s arm. He recoiled. “What--”

“Jacob, trust me.” He relented, not being in much of a state to complain.

“Let’s get out of here.”

As they escaped out of the back door of the mansion, Jacob began to feel his neck begin to tingle. There was no doubt that there were bruises there, but he’s never felt them actually prick before. By the time they were clear of the territory, the throbbing began to worsen in his arm. “Evie, I don’t think it’s--” his vision blacked out suddenly, and his knees buckled beneath him. Evie managed to catch half of him, his weight still taking him to the floor. She leaned him against the wall. “Jacob? Are you alright?”

He furrowed his brows. “Aye; I just couldn’t see for a moment.” He was about to get up before he felt a peculiar feeling in his arm, before he felt his bone snap again. He winced with a yell, before the pain all but disappeared. He exchanged glances with a very worried Evie before he tentatively pulled the shroud off of his arm. There was no pain, and he could move it just fine.

“It works.” Jacob got up, hiding the shroud under his coat. “Back to the train.” He tripped over his words excitedly -- the hope in his eyes had returned.

“Race you there?” Evie smirked.

In a sudden heart palpitation, he agreed.

----------

Jacob never waited for the train to stop, and instead leapt into the open door before Evie would even consider it safe. He unbuckled his gauntlet and threw his coat off without caring whether they would hit his sofa or his floor, heading to your carriage with the folded shroud in hand. Henry was inside, watching over you. With no time for words he unfolded the fabric and pulled it over your shoulders so it would cover your torso.

Henry was left starstruck. “How--”

Evie entered the carriage. “So?”

Jacob watched, eyes scrutinising every inch of the shroud. He lightly shook his head, expression not changing.

He became restless very quickly, from rolling up his sleeves to keep his fingers occupied to pacing the length of the carriage, never once taking his eyes off of you. As soon as he let go of the shroud, he could feel all of his energy dissipating with it -- he was extremely tired and hungry again, but his anxiety wouldn’t let him look after his own body -- he could only think about you.

As seconds turned to minutes, he became more sleep deprived, and therefore a lot more frustrated. He could feel it bubbling in his chest, and he resorted to the one thing he knew would calm it.

“I’m getting a drink.”

As he walked into the bar carriage, all conversations and laughter disappeared. He knew it wasn’t because of how he was dressed, but rather the look on his face. “Keep talking,” he ordered, praying for his Rooks to just ignore him for once as he sat at the bar. Gesturing for a whisky, he hunched over his glass, savouring the burn as he knocked the liquid down his throat. He was worried that it wasn’t going to work; that it would all be for nought. As quick as his hope had returned, it was quickly seeping away. He felt the tears prick his eyes, and properly downed his glass to keep them at bay, ordering another one to nurse slowly… just in case sobriety was needed.

----------

He took care in making his second drink last as long as possible. Once he had pushed the glass back to the bartender, he didn’t ask for another one, and instead put his head in his hands, threading his fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes, taking deep breaths. When the door opened, he didn’t look up at first, thinking it was another rook. So he just ignored it, clasping a hand over the other to work as a chin rest. What confused him was the look the bartender gave the ‘rook’ who came in. He turned over his shoulder once he realised that the crowd had once again gone quiet. They were all staring too. Furrowing his brows, he turned to look at the door.

His heart skipped a beat and he froze. It was silent as he drank in the scene before him. He swallowed thickly, pushed himself off of his stool and walked with loud purpose. One hand wrapped tightly around your waist, and the other cradled your head. He rested his cheek on the top of your head and just stood there. You brought your arms around his back, and felt his shoulders begin to shake.

“I’m so sorry,” he sobbed under his breath.

“Jacob, Jacob.” You pulled him off of you and grasped his face in your hands. One of his own came over your hand while the other caressed your cheek. “Breathe.” You saw him inhale a shuddering breath, composing himself. “I’m here now; it’s okay.” Smiling, he pulled you to his lips, dipping down to close the height gap. You laughed against his lips once you heard the whooping of the Rooks around you. Although you both broke apart, your noses stayed touching. Jacob sniffed noisily, but you didn’t move. “Yuck,” you joked.

For the first time in forever, Jacob laughed. It felt foreign, but he welcomed it. He pecked your lips again, a smile fixed on his face. You trailed your fingers across his left forearm. “How’s your arm?”

Jacob squinted. “How do you--” Looking up, he saw Evie and Henry in the doorway. They both looked like they’d been crying. Jacob shared a twin look at his sister. Thank you, it said.

Evie smiled, another tear running down her face as she gave him one back. No -- thank you, it replied.

Jacob brought you into another hug, holding you less tightly this time around, but just as securely.

“I love you, Y/N. So much.”

“I love you more, Jacob.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Anything’s possible.”

----------

BONUS:

Evening

Jacob had finally succumbed to sleep. You watched him try and stay awake, but you negotiated until he finally lost interest and dozed off, his bottom half fully dressed, but top half shirtless; sleeping in a bloodied shirt was not going to be nice at all. Stuff like that always got him yawning. Evie came into the room quietly, fully aware of the lack of sleep Jacob had had recently. She greeted you with a sisterly hug. “Are you not going to join him?” she asked, watching over her brother’s sleeping form. “I’ve been sleeping for days, Evie. I’m anything but tired.”

She chuckled, patting your shoulder. “Henry and I are in my carriage if you need us.”

You pulled a suggestive face. “Ah, I see how it is.”

Blushing, she tried to hide a smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Her tone showed that she knew exactly what you were talking about. You raised both of your eyebrows. “Don’t tell Jacob,” she whispered with a bashful smile, leaving you and Jacob alone.

Looking at Jacob, you mulled over your thoughts. Coming to a quick conclusion, you did decide to join him. You stripped yourself of your heavy clothing and joined him in his bed in a blouse and breeches. As you settled next to him, you felt his arm enclose protectively around you.

“So, Evie and Greenie, huh?”

Your eyes widened. “Uh…”

His chest rumbled in a sleepy chuckle as he responded in an equally sleepy voice. “Don’t worry, she’ll never know that I know.”

It didn’t take long for his breathing to deepen again, and slowly you began to drift off as well, relieved that you’ll be able to wake up again.

#assassins creed #assassin's creed x reader #x reader #Jacob Frye #jacob frye x reader #assassin's creed imagine #assassin's creed oneshot #jacob frye onshot #jacob frye imagine #jacob frye x gn!reader #assassin’s creed x gn!reader

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maladaptive-ninja-returns · 4 years

Text

It’s The Avengers (03x04)

Loki x Reader Avengers The Office AU (Slowwwwww Burn)

Season 3 Episode 04: She Who Seduces

Series Summary: Living in the Avengers facility post-apocalypse in a better timeline Tony Stark has decided to capture every moment by pulling The Office on the Avengers. All of housemates are pretty used to the idea except for you, who had just come here to finish her degree, and the newest member- Loki.

Warnings: wow! lots of stuff you guys want but at the same time aren’t gettin’ any

Word Count: It’s a weird feeling to be tagged as an essential worker, but not be made to feel like an essential worker? I mean I feel I’m not one. But if I am being forced out of my house, being exposed to the possibility of catching the virus, being ignored by corporate, media and the govt as humans, I have to wonder why am I even sitting here. I get the doctors and nurses and no amount of verbal praise can even come close to what they are doing right now. But if me and my colleagues have be ignored and made to work at large, I’d rather we do it from the safety of our homes, man. (Just when I had started to get better on my own)

MASTERLIST in bio, darlings. Tags are open (check bio)

The camera focused on a blue egg the colour of sky lying in the dirt, zooming in on it a little before jolting back as the egg moved. The camera did the entire cycle once again before a fluff hand tried to smack that egg like a cat curious about this unexplained cute atrocity in front of them.

“Lulu!” a voice called from somewhere in the distance in the midst of a mixture of all sorts of noises- like the ones experienced in your neighbourhood local market. But the camera did not budge till it recorded the sky egg crack bit by bit before a pair of blue eyes popped out on a little white head. Those gorgeous cute eyes looked at the camera, blinking out of coordination before looking at the little golden fuzzy arm slowly coming towards its head. Blinking again- this time with curiosity- the blue eyes froze on that snail-paced extension of a husk behind the camera before a tiny void opened under those innocent eyes to take that husk arm into it and bite down with an audible crunch.

Javier��s camera swiftly turned to Lulu’s cries, finding him far behind in the crowd of aliens trying to knock something away from his arm.

The little husk- screaming and howling like a little dog in pain- was rescued by pale fingers catching hold of the round head that was too stubborn to let go. A little squeeze and those surprisingly vicious teeth let go, breaking the remnants of the eggshells to let out white paws attached to the tiniest legs.

“Scram,” Loki ordered the white alien- who ran away as quickly as possible- before turning towards Lulu, “what were you trying to do with that beast? Have it for breakfast?”

Lulu chirped, nodding before slumping a little into the ground.

“Yeah, good luck with that while you’re in Y/N’s care,” he stated, getting and turning to look at the judgmental zoom Javier’s camera threw on him. “What. You want her to keep another alien as a pet?”

“Guys, I found a restaurant,” your voice called out of the frame, making Loki look in your direction, “OH MY GOD YOU GUYS! THERE ARE REAL LIFE SAILOR SOLDIERS IN HERE!!”

Loki looked at the camera, ageing a thousand years more. “Please tell me it’s not one of those mangas she keeps talking about.”

When Javier spelt it out for him from behind the camera, Loki’s eyes closed and he let out the heaviest sigh he possibly could

Loki: *with a very serious face* the prospect of me having died before being teleported here does not seem so bad. It looks fantastic now. *camera zooms in on his face while you scream in delight in the background, “I’m sitting with real-life Sailor Soldiers!! Aaaahhhh-”*

The Lounge

"Where's Stark?"

One camera panned in on Bucky's face as he came out of the dorm with bed hair while the other looked at a mildly surprised Scott drinking orange juice from a crystal wine glass.

"He said he'll come in twenty. He's gone for his weekly therapy session," Scott replied, swirling the juice in his glass with his pinky out while observing Bucky from head to toe. "You should try that sometimes. It's really good."

Bucky sat down on the sofa with a stare filled with judgemental questions in Scott's direction. "Me? Therapy? That stuff's for looneys."

Scott furrowed his brows at Bucky, pause all moments for a second before bringing the glass ever so slowly to his lips. "Okay, Boomer."

"What?"

Bucky: I don’t need therapy. *mocks a laugh* Shuri made me better than ever in Wakanda. All I need is exercise, healthy food in my stomach and a good amount of sleep. *nods in satisfaction*

*camera zooms out to reveal Scott sitting next to him, shaking his head lightly in mild disbelief*

Scott: *softly* Now I know where that attitude in this present world comes from.

Bucky: *turns to look at Scott* *shifts uncomfortably in his seat while shifting his gaze between the camera and Scott*

*silence erodes the room before Bucky finally breaks*

Why are you looking at me like that? I haven’t killed anyone recently.

Scott: *furrows brows in confusion* what?

Bucky: *stops mid-way and looks away from Scott towards the camera* Nothing

Scott: I never said about killing anyone. *pitch grows higher with every word* Bucky, I never said about killing anyone. Bucky, did you kill someone?

Bucky: *shakes his head with disinterest* mm-mm.

Scott: *mouth opens wide in disbelief* *hands go into his hair on his head* OH MY GOD YOU KILLED SOMEONE!!!

Bucky: NO! I DID N-

Fifteen Minutes Later

Bucky: *softly* So I’ve decided after...a lot of thinking that I should go talk to a...a therapist.

Scott: *nods and smiles at the camera like an encouraging wife*

Bucky: *gives a forceful smile*

Scott: And I too will be going to see a therapist.

Bucky: *nods* *presses lips*

Bucky and Scott: *look at the door, forcing the camera to turn and land on a somewhat irritated Natasha glaring at them from outside the door with arms crossed across her chest*

Back In The Lounge

Wanda walked into the living room space where Bruce was working on some calculations on his laptop while another camera discreetly caught Bucky and Scott giving each other the stink eye.

"You should take a break, Bruce," Wanda stressed while placing a mug of hot tea on his table. Bruce half-looked at the mug before turning back to it, pulling it close and smelling it. "Since when do we drink so much tea?"

Wanda shrugged. "Since Loki and Y/N came into our lives?" She was unsure but that's what all things pointed at. Bruce went with it too.

He rubbed his eyes and shut his laptop. "Yeah, I guess we can take a break." He yawns and gets up. "Loki seems to have everything under control anyway, so…"

Wanda seemed to wince very quietly, her expressions showing no surety in Bruce’s words; or a reflection of an upset stomach.

“I mean, Y/N is being a levelheaded person too. It’s not all Loki.”

A scoff came from the other side of the room where Bucky stood, all eyes and camera turning to stare at him, his crumbling confident posture trying to display reason. “I mean...she hasn’t been to space before. She does not know what’s out there as well as Loki.”

“So, what you are trying to say is she won’t be able to survive if it wasn’t for Loki?” Scott stretched his words to make sure Bucky heard every single one of them.

“Of course she wouldn’t survive out there. She is a kid.” A very sweaty Clint walked into the lounge and went straight for the orange juice inside the fridge. The camera caught the muted gasps coming out of Wanda and Scott for the men in the room not having much faith in your survival skills.

“So are you,” a very sweaty Natasha acknowledged Clint’s words as she grabbed the juice bottle from Clint’s hand, “but you survived the Infinity War without your family. Oh, wait. You didn’t really survive. You just turned into a whiny little bitch and started killing the first thing you saw.”

Wanda looked at the camera with her eyes wide and her lips pressed tightly to stop her from screaming at the burn. Bruce, on the other hand, whispered ‘oh shit’ and tried to disappear in his mug. Scott sipped his juice like the best tea he had been served in a long time, all the while smirking like a content goofball.

“That was so below the belt, Nat,” Clint protested, his hands resting on his hips as he watched her gulp down half the bottle of juice before handing Clint the rest and smacking her lips in satisfaction. “Y/N is in outer space with a frost giant. And so is Javier. But I don’t hear any of you mention him in this conversation when it comes to surviving on one's own?”

“Javier is a-”

Bruce paused before finishing his sentence as he realised the error of his words right before they came out. “Nice guy?” He finally breathed out, his lungs not being able to take the torture. “He is also in danger, of course. That is a given. I was in danger too when I was stuck in space. Thor can vouch for me.”

Thor: *standing on a cliff while the Asgardians celebrate in the background around a fire* *yells over the sound of waves crashing in on the rocks below* BRUCE WAS SO MUCH FUN ON SAKAAR! WE HAD DRINKS AND DANCES AND SO MANY GIRLS OGLING AT HIM! OF COURSE, THAT WAS WHEN HE WAS THE HULK. WHEN HE WAS BACK TO BEING A BORING OLD SCIENTIST ALL HE SPOKE WAS OF HIS PHDS AND HIS HOW MUCH THIS ONE GUY HERE WAS ALL OVER HIM! I THINK HE LIKED IT. HIM! HE LIKED HIM. IF THIS IDIOT WASN’T STUCK ON BORING OLD NAT THEN I WAS BETTING ON THEM DOIN’ IT. YEAH!!! *pauses and smiles his widest smile* *blinks into an invisible void in the distance* PLEASE DON’T TELL NATASHA I CALLED HER BORING. OR-OR OLD.

Bruce gulped where he sat. “Maybe he can’t vouch for me. He was too trippy throughout his trip to space anyways. Maybe the lack of oxygen did it to him.”

The silence grew uncomfortable by the second as he exchanged a look with a camera while Clint just shook his head and let out a defeated “dude”.

Space Place

“Hey, where’s Loki?” you asked Javier while Lulu climbed up the bar stool in the small inn right by the farmer’s market that you had just passed. “Right behind you?” you looked past Javier before walking towards the way he had come- “but he’s not he-”

Your words were cut short by something you saw from the window, forcing the camera to shift on seeing the concern cloud your face towards the scene outside the window. Outside, four buffed up aliens stood surrounding Loki while he raised his hands a little like a white flag.

Instinct took over and you stepped out of the inn but stopped on the porch as Loki yelled, “No! Do not come any closer!” without making eye contact.

One of the buff guys did step closer, his face breathing down right into Loki’s. And Loki? He chuckled at the alien. “One more inch and I think we’ll be kissing, Kronk.”

Kronk the big boulder looking guy hissed at him. “You stepped on the wrong planet, Silvertongue. Hudon wants your head or your body. And he will make sure you pay up your dues.”

Loki tried to increase the distance between him and Kronk, moving back a little; enough to stop smelling his breath on him. “Wow. Looks like someone had a lot of raw Siluji fish today. Hehe. And I thought Hudon was on Myscul. Anyways. How about I talk to Hudon and offer him something that he cannot refuse. And both of us can get back to our respective business.” No matter how much he smiled, Loki did not seem to be getting through that guy.

“Hudon does not want to talk to you. He knows how you work, trickster. He will cut his ears off before he listens to you.”

Loki wanted to contradict the guy but shut his lips to be on the better side of this guy. “Okay. Fine. I will meet him in two hours then? I’ll even bring some good sushi for you.” Loki started to walk away from them when one of Kronk’s men caught hold of him and slapped black handcuffs onto his wrists.

“You are coming with us, traitor.”

The camera recorded Loki being dragged away in broad daylight while no one even batted an eye at the incident. You walked to the end of the porch- the end close enough to watch Loki being taken away as his brows reflected concern in your direction before disappearing behind the nearest stall of berries.

“Javi,” you uttered softly, your eyes still looking for Loki, “I think Loki’s in trouble. Oh, God. I think we are in trouble.”

The Foreigner’s Inn

The camera settled on the window sill and a pair of hands moved away to reveal Javier sitting back in the seat of the corner table far away from the bustle of the inn. You sat opposite him, nervously biting your nails and moving your leg under the table while Lulu sat right in the middle, facing the camera, drinking some green concoction you bought him with a few talons from the ones Loki handed you once you had landed on this planet. Javier’s blue eyes scrutinised the place before coming back to you. He tapped your hand for attention before signing something.

“Yeah,” you acknowledged with a nod, “a plan. We need to come up with a plan to save Loki. But we don’t know where they took him. Oh, shi-should we have followed them? Ah fuck! Now, we won’t know where they went. Maybe we should ask someone. But we don’t know what kind of guy Hudon is. What if he’s got eyes everywhere? Then if we ask someone about him, we’ll be the ones walking right into the lion’s den. And we’ll be the ones who will need saving. Okay okay okay okay okay okay. Right right right right right right.”

Javier knocked the table to get your spiralling conscience back to him, directing you to stop, breathe in and breathe out. And you did, pausing for a moment before things got worse in your head. “Right. We need to think this with a clear head. Um...what would Mr Stark tell us to do.”

With your back straight you looked right at Javier. “He would say stop, take a breather. Make sure that you are safe first. It’s fine to worry about Loki but he is a great strategist. He will definitely find a way out of trouble. But that does not mean we do not go look for him. No one gets left behind. Not even that ugly gourd. Help is always around. All you need to do is ask. And never forget that I love you no matter what. Now go save that son of a bitch.”

Javier stared blankly for a second before breaking into silent applause. “So, we need to find something or someone that can give information about that guy holding Loki. Where can we get someone who would know that and help us, complete strangers?”

Lulu, who, all this time had been swinging his bushy bottom from the chair, suddenly stopped, put the drink from his hand on the table and pressed his belly with a click.

[Hippie Sabotage’s Righteous starts playing]

Lulu got down from his chair and moved towards the door of the inn. You called after him but he did not stop and so you and Javier followed with the camera.

Lulu’s camera took in the boots stepping into the inn first. Then the ripped pants, going up to the open shirt revealing perfect abs. Then came those familiar faces carrying their smouldering looks with them still.

Javi’s camera recorded your expression of surprise followed by a hint of something schemy going on in those eyes. A smile was all that you gave them though. “Never thought I would see you guys again.”

The camera swerved to the rainbow k-pop donning shades that were being taken off as slowly as possible. White turned to look at you, the smoulder still holding strong on his face. “And leave you to fend for yourself, princess. Not on my watch.”

You: Yeah *mildly disgusted* I forgot how clingy he is.

“I need your help.”

Sky jumped where he stood and clapped his hand before slipping behind Mauve and blushing.

“Loki’s in trouble. I need to help him es-”

“Say no more,” White whispered while bringing his pale finger on your lips, which you smacked away. “But before we go on the adventure together, my beautiful princess, I urge you to imagine going on another adventure. Just you. And me. And planets with no one but us.”

“And me,” came a faint whisper from behind Mauve.

“Oh, my G-is there anyone of you who is a normal one?”

“I don’t know about normal,” Green came forward and tucked at the edges of his shirt, “but I can take him away from you and help you save your…”

You waited for him to finish his sentence.

“Boyfriend?” he sounded as unsure as the uneasy lines on his face. Before you could say anything to contradict him, White gasped and Sky whimpered. “Boyfriend! He is your boyfriend?! Oh my stars,” White cried, “what are the odds that fate made us meet when you were already someone else’s.”

You stood there, blinking, questioning whether it would be a good decision to tell him the truth. “So, because I have a boyfriend, you will stop pursuing me?”

Sky sniffled, White sighed in defeat and Orange clicked his tongue at the lost opportunity. “I am a creature of code. I would never even think pretty thoughts about someone else’s queen,” he assured with a weak vibration in his voice.

“Cool,” you exclaimed, “Loki is my boyfriend! And I am Y/N, hi. And you are…”

“Call us whatever you like,” Green replied with a smile. “We don’t have names. Just voice notes as a way of identification. Now, let’s get to work.”

“Oh my God,” Mauve groaned audibly and rolled his eyes under those shades, “finally. She definitely needs that work.”

You and the cameras looked at you, wondering what was so wrong to have blunt judgement thrown at you out of nowhere. “Why would I need work?”

Green gestured to you to move up the stairs of the inn with them. “You mentioned Loki being captured by the alien named Hudon.”

“Never mentioned that.”

“He is a classic brute,” Green continued, like he never heard you, as you walked next to him while Lulu got himself lifted into your arms, “who owns all the brothels of this base. He trades in creatures who can exploit their own bodies for what he pays them. The fact that Loki was taken away by his men points at the possibility of trade between them gone wrong.”

You gasped at the sudden revelation that was dawning upon you. “Wait. So, that could mean he wants payback from Loki. Does he want payback in...in cash or...in kind?”

Green’s eyes reflected sympathy for your situation. “Let’s hope, for you and Loki, that it is cash.”

“But wouldn’t that mean he has to sell his body?!”

Green nodded. Lulu’s camera caught White murmuring to Violet, “do you think that furry thing is their child?”

“We have something that might help you. And for that-” he stopped in front of a door of one room at the far end of the corridor, twisting the knob and clicking it open for you to enter- “we would need your help.”

“Okay,” you nodded before confusion took over your face and Lulu purred while rubbing against your shoulder, “what kind of help.”

Mauve sighed loudly, pushing you away- gently- to enter the room first. “We would need your help to do something about the drab that you humans call fashion on your planet,” he nearly puked while looking at your clothes.

“Hey! This shirt is really comfortable. So are these leggings and boots!”

Mauve screwed his face at you. “Oh, they better be! Because that hue-combination is a disaster,” he stressed.

You felt your head go back a little. "Just because I don't have much interest in fashion, I'm gonna let that pass. But I am pretty sure the Queer Eye won't stand for that insult."

"The Queer Eye would've made you into a walking weapon had they been in your vicinity darling," Mauve mentioned matter-of-factly and walked towards the lone dresser and dragged out the chair before tapping it. "Now sit your ass down and let me show you how it's done while Mr Green fills you in about everything."

You looked at Green. He nodded jovially. White on the other hand went and plopped on the bed. Violet went and splayed himself on the sofa, Red went for the window sill to go and brood there. Sky took the foot of the bed and made himself comfortable to look at you for the next two hours. Orange took off his shirt and trousers and went into the bathroom.

"Hey, Lulu," White called out from the bed, "put on a sexy getting-ready song."

Lulu got up on the dresser and pressed his stomach to play Rachel Bloom’s Sexy Getting Ready Song.

“Wait. Hold on,” you called out, making Mauve and Green stop in their tracks and Lulu pausing the song, “I...I gotta poop. Please get that orange pervert out of there?”

Hudon’s Whorehouse

A hush, beginning from the entrance, fell as the eyes followed the figure. A sweet yet strong melody seemed to follow that black-clad creature, stirring both fear and excitement in the witnesses; who completely missed the two companions walking on its either side.

Never feel too good in crowds With folks around when they're playing

The clack of those pointed heels seemed to be a pound at the doors of the devil himself and every minion that walked in the path she walked, only stopping in the room fit for a queen; nothing less. A seat was taken on the gold-framed sofa, legs spread in comfort and defiance of the one in charge, arms rested on the armrest while popping a grape in the mouth with lips painted red as the blood that flowed in her veins.

A creature with the body of a human- except for the extra pair of hands- and the head of a furry with antlers entered the hall, sitting opposite you. “Welcome to the house of Hudon!” he greeted, the gold on his antlers jingling like bells on Rudolph, “the finest whorehouse you would find in this system.”

“I will evaluate the ‘fine’ myself, Hudon,” you stated quite indifferently, your attention taken by a golden strawberry resting in your fingers, “how old is this rotten blasphemy.”

The anthems of rape, culture loud Crude and proud creatures baying

It was easy to get that accent on your tongue. The tone was smooth enough to show not much effort was being put to talk while the words were spoken like a dagger stabbing the listener with every breath.”

Hudon directed his men to take those old fruits away and to replace them with new ones. But you had already lost interest in them. Sitting straight up, you let your arms go back on the headrest, your suit jacket revealing the skin underneath, the acne on your chest from the sweat and dust revealing itself in full glory. Hudon nearly feels himself blackout with the sheer audacity of a human woman walk into his house and sit there as a client while making him- the one who runs the sex business- make him feel things that were quite transparent in his gaze.

All I've ever done is hide From our times when you're near me

“Here I am, out on a vacation from my boring home, looking for some fun and adventure when someone suggests to me your name and business,” you mutter loud enough for him to hear. “Hudon the hoarder. The one who has everything you can ask for. Anything out of your fantasy. You name it, he has it for you.”

“I do,” he agreed with a smile, interrupted just as he is about to start listing his merchandise.

“Oh, but I don’t think you do, Hudon.” You leaned forward, your legs still spread apart in those black trousers, your frame bent enough to reveal more and still reveal nothing at all, making Hudon’s eyes linger there far longer than he expected them to. “I don’t think you do. What could you possibly have that could seem human enough for my taste and yet not human at all, Hudon? What could you possibly have that could meet my demands, unlike the men on my planet? One who is not meant to be ruled and yet-” your voice turned to a whisper, and Hudon’s eyes were stuck on the hypnotising moment of your lips under that netted veil covering your smokey eyes- “he bends under my commands like a good dog because he knows he will get a treat if he behaves.”

Hudon gulped and blinked.

Honey, when you kill the lights and kiss my eyes I feel like a person for a moment of my life

“I am not here to have some cheap fun, Hudon. Nor some sloppy seconds. I want a challenge that I can smother between my thighs, making him question how he ended up there, under me. And then make him question how he can get under me, again.”

A silence proceeded your laced words. A long lingering silence which would have stretched even more had one of Hudon’s men not brought that shook fur-face back to the present.

“I I I I I think I have the perfect specimen for you, miss…”

“Lady. Lady...Morticia Addams,” you declared, blinking at Javier’s camera.

You: *cringing* I did not think this part through. But I did come up with a nice personality? *does a weak thumbs up*

“I will send for him immediately, Lady Morticia,” Hudon declared, getting and taking a bow, “and if he is not able to satisfy you, I will humbly present myself to you as a sacrifice.”

You: *deadpan* Pervert.

“If your specimen does not satisfy me, then mark my words, Hudon, you won’t find any piece of him in your excuse of a brothel.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied with a weak voice, walking out and scolding his guards to get him ‘Silvertongue’.

You noticed the two guards still in the hall by the door, looking at you and your companions. Javier moved from his place by the fireplace to the door, to let the tiny camera- courtesy of the rainbow k-pop- strapped to his chest take in the patient steps of the man of the hour; at the same time, directing with his hands to Lulu to resume his score.

But you don't know what hell you put me through To have someone kiss the skin that crawls from you

Loki, bare-chested and in chains, was walked towards your hall with four guards- two on front and two on back. This was the first time any of the cameras had seen so much of his bare skin. Neither had they seen so many muscles on that body that seemed so lean on the outside with the clothes on. The raven hairs snaked around his shoulders while his eyes were set at the goal in front of him: you. And if you did not know any better you would have thought those peach curtains were flying right and left to get a one-touch, one whiff of that God.

To feel your weight in arms I'd never use It's the god that heroin prays to

You almost choked on the juice you were offered on seeing Loki like that- in just his pants. Like a healthy supermodel straight out of a pin-up hidden in your childhood drawer. Quickly recovering and changing into the persona created for this place you leaned back on the sofa to admire the view when all five men came to a halt in front of you.

It feels good, girl, it feels good It feels good, girl, it feels good

“Hm,” you muttered, your eyes going up and down an apparently tight-jawed Loki, “decent. Where did you catch this fish?”

“Caught him fresh in the market today,” Hudon’s henchman answered, surprisingly in an Australian accent, “owed our master for quite some time. Will finally pay his debts now.”

It feels good, girl, it feels good Oh, to be alone with you

The laugh that came out of the prude was murky. You got up and nonchalantly waved your hand to make the guards stand away from the merch, letting you get a good three-sixty view. Loki could feel your eyes on him even when you stood behind him, carefully studying these marks on an otherwise flawless skin that ran all over his back and some did on arms, right down his wrist.

A wave of emotion washed over you on seeing them, which you hastily veiled for the sharp eyes lurking in the background. Clearing your throat, you took out your silver hair stick from the bun at the back and walked to face the frost giant.

There are questions I can't ask Now, at last, the worst is over

“Sit,” you commanded.

Loki’s eyes grew dark. The camera recorded the silent change of roles for a quick moment before Loki finally obeyed, getting down on his knees.

See the way you hold yourself Reel against your body's borders

You took a step to his side before looking at the guards still standing there. “What. You want in on the show as well?” Your raised-up brow was judging them hard at this moment.

The guards stood there looking at each other before one of them finally spilt. “We are not allowed to leave him alone with you till you sign the contract and make the payment.”

“Hm. Well, if that is the case-” you took another step to stand right behind Loki- “I will inspect this...merchandise before I make the payment.”

I know that you hate this place Not a trace of me would argue

The hair stick in your hand made its first contact with the bare skin on Loki’s back, promptly making his muscles move underneath that pale skin. A smile found its way to your lips. “Sensitive to touch, I see. I prefer virgin skin.” You dragged stick all the way from one end of those shoulder scales in the back to the other, taking light steps to move towards the front.

The camera zoomed in on the shadow of something brewing inside Loki’s eyes while his lips stretched ever so slightly with a thought only he knew. The stick came to the collar bone, travelling up his neck to land right below his chin, lifting it up to watch your tongue in between your teeth, peeking out for a look.

Honey, we should run away, oh, someday Our baby and her momma And the damaged love she made

“Say, boy,” you asked softly, letting the stick dig into that chin to raise it up further, “what does that mouth do.”

A chuckle rose in Loki’s chest and burst out to close his eyes before they could look at you in a new light. “They do things you wouldn’t want to know.”

But I don't know what else that I would do Than try to kiss the skin that crawls from you

Questioning- or pretending to question- his audacity you responded with a sly ‘uh-huh’ before getting down on one knee, letting both your arms rest on the other. “Well, it better-” your voice grew duskier by the minute while that thin stick landed on his lips, circling them- “do things unspeakable. Otherwise-” you gently pushed the stick in his mouth, and he took it in, wrapping his tongue around it- “what is the point of that pretty pretty mouth.”

Then feel your weight in arms I'd never use It's the god that heroin prays to

Javier could not help but record the drooling and uncomfortable faces of the guards standing by the door, half of them looking at each other, other half stuck on the hypnotic movements happening between the two of you; all of them standing with their hands hiding their bulges in those leather pants.