#any tips or sources for writing more distinct voices let me know | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

quindolyn · 3 years

Note

heyyyyy, can you do harry imagine where when they fight with the death eaters fem reader rescues sirius from bellatrix because she know he is the only relative harry has and gets hurt, so in the hospital harry visits her and thanks her and she tells him that she loves her? like lots of fluff😻

To Be Lovable || Harry Potter

Word Count: 4069

A/N: Hey love, I hope you enjoy this! It was a lot of fun to write.

Warnings: mentions of a broken bone, let’s just pretend that Sirius’ name has already been cleared, obviously not canon, I believe that that is it.

Masterlist

Life had fucked Harry Potter over, that was for sure. It basically said “fuck you” and gave him the responsibility of saving muggle and wizardkind alike. Robbed him of a family, of a childhood, of any semblance of the confidence he so desperately needed.

But life always outs. Life will always find a way to straighten itself out, even the scales. Life had given Harry Sirius Black, so it was doing a pretty good job so far. Just as life had fucked Harry Potter, it’d fucked Sirius Black too.

When life gave them each other it slowly started mending its wrong doings with Sirius’ false imprisonment, Harry’s lack of a father figure, their shared lack of affection of any sort. In Harry Sirius had found a friend, a son and in Sirius, Harry had found a father, someone to care.

You had spent the last five years watching Harry suffer trial after trial all while you suffered a trial of your own, the trial of loving him from afar. As much as you adored Harry, and you really did, how could you not? From the blush that painted his cheeks at the slightest compliment, to the way his glasses sat crooked on his nose, to the messy black mop of hair that sat upon his head the boy was completely and utterly loveable. But it was because of the love you harbored for the boy that you refused to confess your feelings to him, he had more than enough on his plate. The Boy Who Lived most definitely had better things to do with his time than deal with the feelings of a hormonal teenager. Perhaps that was life’s way of fucking with you, making you love a boy who didn’t have it within him to love you back.

Life didn’t get to fuck with Harry Potter anymore, he’d done more than his fair share of suffering, of grieving, he’d more than served a punishment he’d never earned. That’s all you could think about as you saw Bellatrix point her wand at Sirius’ form, laughing maniacally as a jet of green light shot from the tip of her wand, aimed directly at Sirius.

Head thrown back in laughter, eyes closed, it was clear that he wasn’t going to be able to dodge the curse leaving you with no other option but to full on tackle him. You threw your body at him, aiming to take him down at the knees but failing rather miserably instead wrapping your arms around his chest and instead of knocking him to the ground, making him stumble backward.

Regardless, on the floor, or a few inches to the right, you still managed to knock him out of the curse’s path. Sirius hadn’t realized who was on top of him or that their intentions were good rather than evil, in the heat of the moment, with curses flying to and fro you were flung from his body as he knocked you onto the floor.

As you landed on your side, your arm trapped beneath you, you heard the distinct, sickening snap of what couldn't have been anything other than bone. The sound rang through the din in the room, impossible to miss but yet no one seemed to offer you so much as a glance, anyone except Sirius that was.

“Shit” He swore, bending down to access the damage, gently turning you on to your back so that he could get a better look at your arm, “I’m so sorry (Y/N).”

“It’s fine Sirius,” You slurred, not daring to look at your arm, the pain you were feeling was enough, you were more than fine without visuals to match. Having never broken a bone before you were not ready for the immense pain that festered in your arm, sharp and stabbing it felt like every single nerve in your arm was being bludgeoned over and over again, mercy be damned.

“You’re slurring your words (Y/N),” Sirius scolded, not angry at you but rather at himself, “You’re not okay and it’s not fine. Now did you hit your head too?”

You thought for a moment, had you hit your head?

Yes, you remembered the thump of your skull against the hard stone of the room hidden deep within the Department of Mysteries, and the more you thought about it, the more clearly you could feel that the dull thrum of pain was still present where the initial impact had occurred.

“Y-yeah,” You stuttered out, your vision blurring as the man kneeling above you started to fade, “I think so, it hurts.” Black spots began to dance through your vision, the cacophony of noise in the room became a low buzz as the sound of your blood rushing through your veins overwhelmed you. It became the only thing you could hear.

You heard the faint noise of Sirius letting out a slew of curses, not all of which seemed to be in English as his hands moved to your scalp, gently pressing down until a sharp pain coursed through you.

“Fuck,” Someone, swore, him or you, you weren’t sure. It was very possible it had been either of you as Sirius pulled his hand away from your head and back into your visage. His middle three fingers were soaked in blood, your blood. Crimson and dripping from his digits the metallic scent flooded your nostrils making you work not to gag as you found the stench to be truly nauseating.

He spoke again, or at least you thought he did as you could faintly make out the whisper of his voice and the moving of his lips.

Faintly you wondered if you heard the familiar voice of a certain bespectacled boy, frantic as he approached you, and the glimpse of dark, messy hair you caught almost convinced you of such. But as more and more blackness took over your vision it became harder and harder to tell until you were completely swallowed, and your eyes blinked closed into a dark, dreamless sleep.

“She’s not exactly asleep,” Someone was talking.

“Well she sure as hell isn’t awake,” There was someone in the room.

“If you’d let me finish Mr. Weasley-”

“Oh shut up,” This voice was new, deeper than either of the previous ones, its posh accent distinctly different than the other two, “No need to condescend the boy just tell us if (Y/N)’s going to be alright. Harry’s going to want to know when he finishes his business with Dumbledore.”

Harry? Was Harry alright? Stupid question, if precedent was anything to go on, he probably wasn’t.

At the mention of his name you felt a wave of energy surge through you, it was only with that energy you were able to blink your eyes open. They desperately wanted to close as the harsh white light of the room flooded your irises but you refused to let them, instead squinting so that the light entering your vision was limited.

“As I was saying,” The first voice continued, “She’s in a medically induced coma, this isn’t a restful sleep this is because she can’t afford to be conscious right now and when she wakes up she’s going to be in a whole world of pain and having the six of you here isn’t going to help her.”

No one seemed to notice your new state of consciousness as they continued their conversation, voices tense with worry as they batted back and forth in a game of verbal racketball, a question met by an answer which was countered by another question.

You were too out of it to take offense to their neglect as you felt that surge of energy start to slip away from you, like sand through your fingertips. Grasping onto the last whispers of it before it drifted away from you entirely you cleared your throat, the sound minuscule but apparently just loud enough to catch the attention of a certain red headed girl.

“(Y/N),” This voice was unmistakable Ginny. You turned your head to face the source of her voice, met by the blurry outline of unmistakable Weasley red, they really should just patent it at this point, hair surrounding a pale face. “(Y/N) you’re awake!” She lunged towards you gripping your arm in her hand, albeit a little painfully, but all pain, and sound, and sight seemed fuzzy, like remembering a dream from the night prior.

At Ginny’s words, all heads in the room snapped to your form where you laid in the hospital bed, looking as though you’d seen better days. Which granted, you had.

It took a second for them all to register the meaning behind what Ginny had announced, but as soon as they did they went into a flurry, a healer rushing to take your vitals, moving her wand up and down your body, muttering incantations under her breath. Molly was at your side, gazing at you with brown eyes swimming with worry as she ran a hand down the side of your face which was still lolled to the side. Two identical boys stood at the foot of your bed while two girls, the previously spoken of redhead and her curly haired friend stood back, giving the Healers space to move about.

Sirius stood over Molly’s shoulder, his eyes drowning in guilt as he failed to return your gaze.

“Where am I?” Godric you sounded awful, and it felt like there was gravel in your throat, irritating you even as you merely swallowed.

“St. Mungo’s darling,” Molly answered promptly, trying and failing to suppress a sniffle, “You were hurt at the Department of Mysteries.”

You remembered, oh you undoubtedly remembered. The ache in your arm and head was more than enough to remind you of what had occurred, it was reinforced by the dark haired man looming in the corner refusing to meet your eyes.

After a good deal of fussing both by the Healers and Molly people finally started to stream out of your room, first Ginny and Hermione, followed by the twins and finally the Healers and Molly.

That left just you and Sirius, who still refused to meet your eyes, in the small room which smelt of dittany and blood.

It was silent for a minute, then two, before you simply couldn’t take it anymore, if he wasn’t going to say something you would, “S’not your fault Sirius,” Your voice was still rather hoarse but it had improved significantly after downing the three cups of water than had been placed in front of you.

“You were just trying to save me, you did save me and now you’re hurt.” His head which had previously been hung raised to finally meet your eyes, the shame he carried in his eyes was palpable, remorse etched into his face. A face which reflected every year he’d lived on this planet and then some.

“M’gonna be fine Sirius, you didn’t know it was me I know you didn’t mean to hurt me.” You shook your head lightly to refocus your eyes but that just amplified the pain already pounding in your skull.

Reluctantly Sirius trudged towards you before pulling a chair up to your bed and eventually resting himself in it, not looking at your face but rather at the foot of the bed. “Why’d you do it (Y/N)? Why’d you go to all that trouble to save an old man like me?” There was none of his usual humor in his voice, only a sorrowful curiosity.

“You’re all he has left Sirius,” This drew his attention, craning his neck to look at you, his eyes, accompanied by his continued silence urged you on, “You can’t die on him because then he’ll have no one.”

For the first time since you’d tackled him in the Department on Mysteries however long ago, Sirius Black smiled. Unlike his usual smirks or grins, the one that graced his face was gentle, and perhaps a bit hopeful as well.

“Not so sure about that love,” He let out a laugh so light it was barely a laugh, more like a puff of air, “He’d still have you, wouldn’t he?”

You willed yourself not to give away your true feelings for Harry to his godfather of all people, but the nervous grin that adorned your face was a dead give away to his already good guess.

“He cares about you (Y/N),” Sirius was merciful, sparing you from verbalizing the feelings that the both of you now acknowledged existed, “We had to drag him away from you at the Department of Mysteries.”

“That was Harry?” You perked up, “I didn’t just imagine him?”

“Nope,” He replied, popping his p, “He almost punched Moony when tried to drag him away from you.”

Not knowing how to respond to that you simply didn’t.

“He had to meet with Dumbledore to discuss something, that’s why he wasn’t here when you woke up,” Sirius explained.

“Oh, its okay, I’m sure he has much better things to do than come visit-”

You were cut off mid sentence by the sound of feet thumping down the hallway outside your room. Both you and Sirius turned your heads to watch someone fly by the cracked door of the room, his voice booming as he called out for you, then Ron, then Hermione.

“Sir, I’m going to need you to be a little quieter,” The stern but kind voice drifted into the room from the hallway.

“Where is she?” Yup, that has Harry. The sound of his voice was ingrained in your head and had been for countless years now.

You and Sirius stayed silent, still watching the door, listening to the tense conversation taking place between Harry and the St. Mungo’s staff member before you heard Hermione’s voice cut in, trying to calm the two men down.

“Well it sounds like he’s going to be in here soon,” Sirius said, standing up from his chair, gazing down at you.

“It does,” You agreed.

“I will never be able to thank you enough (Y/N), not only for saving my life today but for being such a good friend to Harry, giving him the love that he deserves.” Tears brimmed at the raven haired man’s eyes as he laid his palm atop your hand.

“Of course Sirius,” Your voice cracked mid sentence as you too were gulping down tears.

Leaning down Sirius pressed a fatherly kiss to the crown of your head just as Harry burst through the door.

“Speak of the devil,” The older chuckled, pulling back to his full height as Harry bounded towards you, completely ignoring the presence of his godfather.

“(Y/N)!” His long legs got him to you in no time at all, when he reached you his eyes snagged on your broken arm before meeting your own.

Sirius sent you a silent wink as he slipped from the room, you hadn’t noticed him even make his way towards the door. He made sure to shut the door tightly behind him so that you and Harry would be granted some privacy.

“Hi Harry,” You let out a watery chuckle as you took in his appearance, he looked like he’d gotten caught in a wind tunnel with his hair all messy, and the fabric of his tight fitting t-shirt clinging to his chest.

“Don’t laugh,” He frowned down at you as he settled himself next to you on the bed, “You might hurt your lung or something.”

You smiled at his clueless, over protective behavior, “S’not my lungs that are hurt H, just my arm and my head.”

“There’s nothing just about it,” He countered, “You’d be fine without your arm but you need your head (Y/N/N), can’t go walking around without it.”

You opened your mouth to say something but you didn’t get the chance before he started talking again, pushing himself off up the flimsy mattress to pace next to your bed, “What the hell were you thinking jumping on Sirius like that?”

You rolled your eyes at his outburst, “Bellatrix had cast the Killing Curse at him, Harry, he was going to die if I didn’t do something!” Your voice raised against your will as you got defensive, you may have loved Harry but that didn’t stop you from getting aggravated with him when he was being an idiot. Take now for example.

“You could’ve died (Y/N)! Don’t you understand that? You could’ve died and I-”

“But I didn’t Harry! I didn’t die and I’m fine now.”

“The hell you are! You’re lying in a hospital bed at St. Mungo’s with a broken arm and a concussion, if that's your definition of fine then I’d hate to see what not fine is!”

“I’m a big girl Potter, I can take care of myself,” You argued, pushing yourself up on the bed so that you were sitting upright, independent of your pillows. How was he being so daft? You’d saved the closest person he had to real family and now here he was, completely railing on you.

He was so caught up in his own head, continuing to pace up and down the length of the room that he didn’t seem to notice when you started swaying, no doubt because you had lifted yourself up too quickly and your head should’ve been resting on your pillow.

“You may be a big girl (Y/N), but clearly you shouldn’t be left to your own devices because what would possess someone to do something so idiotic?”

You tried to swallow the anger you felt bubbling up in your stomach, threatening to explode in an eruption of words you weren’t quite ready to say out loud. But as he went on and on you found it harder and harder to swallow your feelings until they inevitably bubbled over.

“You idiot,” You cut him off, too fed up with him to listen to what he had to say, “I wasn’t going to let Sirius die because he’s the only family you have Harry! You love him and it would kill me to see him ripped from you, just like so many other good things have been ripped from you, because…”

You went silent, all of a sudden your voice seemed very loud in the sterile room and you realized it’s because he finally shut up.

“Because why?” He asked turning so that he was facing you, “Because why?”

“Because I-” You felt a rush of heat flooded your face and quickly averted your gaze from the boy, focusing instead on the clock hung on the wall opposite your bed.

You were quiet for a moment, hoping he would show you mercy and continue on with his ranting but he didn’t. Harry never did stand down from a fight, especially not one that he could win.

Coming to terms with the fact that the only way this was ending was with a confession from you, you gulped. And with your saliva you swallowed your pride, turning back to face the boy who still hadn’t taken his eyes off of you.

“Because I love you, okay?” You admitted to him, letting your vision glaze over so you wouldn’t have to see the eventual look of guilt wash over his features before he gently turned you down, apologizing, calling you beautiful, telling you how you deserved someone better. Even though there was no one better than him.

You thought he looked like a deer caught in the headlights as he stared at you, unblinking.

Eventually, after what could’ve been a couple of seconds or could’ve been a couple of hours, he spoke, “Y-you love me?” He sounded incredulous like he didn’t really believe you.

And that’s when it hit you, he didn’t really believe you.

As a wave of indescribable sorrow washed over you, at the notion that the beautiful boy in front of you really had no clue just how beautiful he was, you maneuvered yourself so that you could stand up, throwing one leg over the edge of the bed, and then the other.

Pushing yourself up into an upright position you were immediately swaying, ready to collapse onto the floor, and Harry must’ve observed that as he came back to his senses as he looped his arms under yours, pulling you into his toned chest, hard from countless hours of Quidditch practice.

“What do you think you’re doing (Y/N/N)?” His voice was softer now, meant for only you to hear.

“Was gonna show you how much I love you,” Your voice was muffled by the fabric of his t-shirt as you abandoned all of your inhibitions, you needed to tell him how you felt, “You clearly don’t believe me when I tell you and that’s ridiculous Haz because you’re lovely and wonderful and you light up my day every time I see you. I can’t imagine my life without you,” You paused your ramble, not noticing the brilliant shade of vermillion his face had turned.

“No, I can imagine it without you Harry and it’s horrible, it’s not a life worth living.”

“Don’t say that (Y/N),” He cut you off, a frown gracing his enviably red lips.

“Would you let me finish Potter?” You sniped playfully, “I love you, Harry, I’ve loved you since we were first years and it kills me that you don’t see how lovable you are. Because you are lovable Harry,” You pulled back a bit to rest your chin on his chest, gazing up at him, “You are completely lovable, and that’s why I put myself in harm’s way today, because if it meant saving someone you love, then it is worth it. It will always be worth it.”

You watched as tears spilled down his cheeks, but you could tell by the smile pulling at his wobbling lips that they were happy tears, “Y-you love me?”

How your heart could break at three simple words baffled you but it did, “I love you, Harry, I have loved you and I will always love you.”

A smile overtaking his entire face split it in half, a toothy grin you’d like to see on him more often, “I-”

“You don’t have to say it back H, the fact you’re not turning me down right now is more than enough. You don’t have to say it back, we can take it slow,” You cut him off, not wanting to rush him.

“I want to though, I want to say it back.” He insisted, sounding like an eager puppy.

“Really?” You couldn’t suppress the optimistic lilt to your voice.

He nodded surely, still grinning down at you. “I love you (Y/N).”

You had to stop yourself from crying, or screaming, or jumping in the air, or some combination of all three, but that’s all you wanted to do. You wanted to scream and jump and cry but you preferred being in Harry’s arms much more.

“May I kiss you?” Harry’s voice dropped to a whisper you could barely hear.

“Yes please,” You giggled, standing up on your tippy toes as he leaned down to capture your lips in his.

You poured all the passion of the past five years into that kiss, all of the stolen glances at him, all of the nights spent sobbing, thinking that he could never love you back. All of the sacrifices, all of the hugs, and the smiles you shared. They were all poured into the kiss and they all meant so much more now because being part of something so beautiful could only make those memories better.

Harry wrapped his arms around your back, pressing your body to his while being careful to mind your hurt arm. You dug the fingers on the hand of your healthy arm in his thick hair, using it as an anchor to pull yourself closer to him.

You pulled away first, taking big gulps of air in an attempt to refill your empty lungs.

“You love me,” Harry stated simply, staring down at you adoringly.

“I love you,” You agreed with a small nod of your head.

“I can’t believe you actually love me.” He smiled again, this grin even goofier than the last, making his emerald eyes shine.

You smiled at the look of childlike happiness that adorned his face, “And I can’t believe it took me this long to tell you.”

tagging: @randomoutsiders @weasleyposts @kittykylax @amourtentiaa @superbturtlemakerathlete

#harry potter fanfic #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter #harry potter x reader #harry potter imagines #harry potter x y/n #harry potter x you #harry potter fluff #harry potter angst

490 notes · View notes

dreamerstreamer · 3 years

Text

Devil-May-Care

Pairing: demon!Dream / Clay x demon hunter!gn!reader

Summary: [Demon Hunter!AU] When you went in search of the most powerful demon known to mankind, you didn’t expect him to be so charming.

Warnings: a little horror + some violence + tw// weapons (crossbow, gun)

Word Count: 4.2k

A/N: this was requested by a passionate anon! i fell in love with the request at first sight and had loads of fun writing this, although i did take some creative liberty with it. i hope you all enjoy :)

You huffed as you pushed past the branch hanging in your face, wrinkling your nose as you trudged onward. The forest was almost eerily silent around you, the pitch black night doing nothing to ease the tension that had gathered in your shoulders. Above you, the moon and stars twinkled soundlessly, peering down at you with wide, watching eyes.

Where could he possibly be hiding? you thought to yourself with a grimace. Is he even in this forest?

Your mentor had told you that this forest was the last place he’d ever been seen, and that it would be your best bet. But she also told you not to get your hopes too high, since he was known to be a trickster who never stayed in one spot for too long.

You sighed as you stepped over a fallen log, making sure not to trip. Despite how young the night was, you were already getting tired. Tracking was arguably the hardest part of your job, and easily your least favourite part of it.

Then again, no one said being a demon hunter was easy.

With a slight grumble, you squinted through the darkness while walking past another tree. So far, all you’d seen was tree after after tree, and you were getting fed up. Heck, you could have sworn there was a clearing just ahead of you here.

It was at that moment that the trees suddenly parted before you, and you found yourself standing in the middle of a clearing. The soft grass rustled beneath your feet as you took a tentative step forward, your ears perking up for any noise or movement. When nothing came, the muscles in your legs tensed.

This was the first clearing you had found in hours, and something about it just felt off.

“What are you looking for, little hunter?”

You whirled at the sound of the low, curling voice, your gaze frantically darting around the darkness for its source. You kept your lips pursed as your head whipped this way and that, nothing but silence filling the forest air. Even with the light of the moon, all you could make out between the shadows were the silhouettes of trees and their taunting branches looming over you.

There was no way it was who you thought it was... right?

“Not gonna say anything? Hm. Perhaps that’s just because you can’t see me. Here.”

You heard the snap of a finger, and the clearing around you suddenly lit up in a faint, greenish hue. Your eyes widened as the earth you stood upon began to glow, your fingers twitching at your side. Turning again, you quickly searched your surroundings once more for the voice’s owner. Everything seemed to be exactly how it appeared when you first arrived—the trees were just trees and the grass was just grass, even if they were both admittedly glowing.

Just then, there came a whistle from above you.

You lifted your head, and your gaze fell upon a figure sitting atop a tree branch a few feet away. Your breath caught in your throat at the sight.

Piercing, emerald eyes. A green fitted shirt to match. Dark, golden hair. A smattering of freckles. A cold, wicked grin.

The man smiled at you, swinging his legs leisurely as he tilted his head. “Hello there, pet.”

You didn’t wait another second before your arms were reaching up behind you, pulling your crossbow off your back. You slotted the arrow into the flight groove in near record time before aiming it up at him, aiming for but a split second before you pulled the trigger. In a flash, the arrow went flying through the night sky, pointed directly at his face. You could have sworn you caught his eyes turn red before he suddenly vanished, your arrow passing through empty space before pinning itself into the tree trunk he had been leaning against just seconds prior.

You panted, quickly pulling another arrow out of your quiver and reloading your crossbow as you turned in a circle, not a single detail going unnoticed by your watchful eyes. Adrenaline pumped through your veins as you tried to focus on the rustling leaves around you. Your fingers curled around the stock of your bow a fraction tighter, your heartbeat pounding in your ears.

Where is he? Where did he go?

A smooth voice curled around the back of your neck.

“Is this how you greet everyone you meet, or am I just special?”

Whipping around again, you pulled the trigger without even an ounce of hesitation. A twang of satisfaction shot through you as you heard the distinct sound of flesh being pierced, followed by a tumble to the ground. You rushed over at the sight of the man—or demon, as you should be calling him—lying sprawled on the ground, his arms casually tucked under his head as if he hadn’t just been shot.

“Ooh,” he murmured, wrapping his fingers around the arrow sticking out of his chest, “your arrows are made of dreamshade.” He grinned at you. “Smart one, aren’t you?”

Before you could even react, he ripped the arrow out, watching with amusement as crimson slowly dripped onto the front of his shirt. You stared at the hole in his chest, left behind by your arrow, a glimmer of glee expanding in your chest. Yes! you thought, your lips quirking as your hand floated toward the pistol hanging at your side. Now’s my cha—

All of a sudden, you watched in horror as the skin began to reform, the sinew and muscle stitching themselves back together to fill the gap. In an instant, his chest was whole again, the hole having disappeared entirely with nothing to even hint at its existence, were it not for the tear in his shirt.

“Unfortunately for you,” he said, tossing the arrow behind his head with a flick of his fingers, “I’m tougher than most demons out there.”

In a flash, you were standing over him, one foot digging into his chest. You didn’t even give him the chance to blink before you were pointing your crossbow at him once more, this time just barely allowing the arrow tip to hover above his neck. You tried to calm your breaths, pushing back the sick sense of joy you could feel starting to boil over inside you. You were so, so close to just killing hi—

“Don’t you think it’s a little rude to attack me without even asking for my name?” he calmly drawled, looking bored out of his mind.

You blinked in surprise, your thoughts faltering for a moment before your expression hardened once more. “I know who you are.”

He cocked his head at you, something like delight swimming in his viridian eyes. “Do you, now?”

You gulped, hesitating only for a moment before you began to speak. “Y-You’re Dream. Lord of chaos. Progenitor of destruction. Harbinger of nightmares.” You nearly choked on your own words.

“The world’s most powerful demon.”

He grinned at you, clapping his hands together above his head as he let out a small hoot. “Aw, you know all my titles?” He winked. “That’s cute.”

Cute, your brain repeated dumbly, a fuzzy feeling forming in your chest, but you quickly shook the thought from your head with a scowl. You should not be happy that one of the most powerful demon’s known to mankind called you cute.

(Okay, well. Maybe you were a little happy. Not that you would ever admit it.)

With a stony look, your finger wrapped around the crossbow trigger, the cool metal sending a shiver down you spine. “I’m here to kill you, Dream.”

He didn’t look fazed. “Oh? Even though we only just met?”

A snarl ripped itself out of your throat, fury slowly beginning to claw up your insides. Why did he sound so calm? Didn’t he understand that he was about to die to your hand?

“That doesn’t matter,” you said bluntly, trying to ignore your heart ramming away at your ribcage. “You’re a monster that needs to be disposed of.”

He hummed, absentmindedly picking at his nail. “That’s bold of you to say.” His tone was dull and interested, and his eyes seemed to shine even brighter thanks the green glow surrounding his head. “I can’t remember the last time a demon hunter has ever been so upfront with me.”

The string tying your restraint together snapped. That was it. How could he be so nonchalant? So apathetic? Didn’t he care?

“You’ve killed so many people,” you spat, “taken so many innocent lives, and for what?” You narrowed your eyes, nothing but pure disgust running through your veins as you dug the tip of your crossbow into the soft flesh of his neck. “What reason do I have to stop myself from ending your life right here, right now?”

Below you, Dream only stared blankly at you, his eyebrows raised. Then, he let out a sigh, wrapping a hand around the stock of your crossbow. Panic shot through you as he pulled it away from his throat with ease, his fingers curling around the polished wood. “First of all,” he said lowly, “that little thing isn’t going to do anything.”

In a blink of an eye, you heard the snapping of metal and wood, your gaze going wide. He shot you a cocky grin. “Not anymore.”

You leapt back, gritting you teeth and tossing your now useless crossbow onto the earth beside you. Your hand moved in a blur as you reached down and pulled out your pistol from its holster, pointing it toward him. “Each and every one of these bullets is soaked in holy water,” you shouted, your hand cocking back the safety. “Don’t think I won’t shoot.”

Dream rolled over onto his stomach, his grin widening as he rested his chin on his hand. “Tell me,” he drawled, tilting his head, “do you really think you scare me?”

You ignored the shaking of your fingers. “I—I can and will shoot you.”

He laughed, an uncomfortable warmth wrapping around your gut. “Please, darling—I’ve been alive for longer than you can even fathom. As if you’d be the first to pin me down, let alone try to shoot me.” His eyes flashed crimson, and you felt your stomach drop. “I know all your hunter tricks and tactics, and believe me when I say they won’t work.”

Suddenly, he floated up off the ground, not changing his position whatsoever. In only a matter of seconds, he was hovering above you, blinking down at your shocked expression with mirth glimmering in his scarlet gaze.

Of course he could levitate—what were you expecting?

“Second,” he said, “I did a lot of those things a long time ago, especially in human years. How long has it been?” He tapped his chin. “Probably centuries by now, which is like forever for you guys.”

You scowled at him, your pistol still pointed at him. “That doesn’t mean you haven’t caused any chaos recently.”

“That’s true!” he chirped, snapping his fingers. “But my more recent activities have been much more... tame in comparison to my golden years, don’t you think?”

As much as you wanted to shoot him right here and now, you also wanted to punch him in the face before you did. “Lives are lives, Dream!” you shouted. “Any more or less lost doesn’t make you any more redeemable.”

A chuckle slipped from his lips, flipping onto his back as he continued to hover in the cool, night air. “Oh, you humans and your morality. How entertaining you all are.”

There was only one word running through your mind as you glared at him, your jaw clenching tight as your rage only multiplied inside you. Monster, monster, monster.

His eyelids fluttered shut as he allowed himself to drift a fraction lower toward you. “Well, I do believe I should ask—who’s to say that I was the one who killed those people, anyways?”

Your heart stopped in your chest. “...what are you talking about?”

He peeked an eye open at you. “It’s not like I flew down from the sky and shot them all with a rifle, and it’s not like I just snapped my fingers and everyone dropped dead.” He hummed at the thought. “Just what kind of person do you take me for?”

You bit the inside of your cheek, your toes curling in your boots. “Stop distracting me—you’re dodging the question.”

“On the contrary,” he shot back without missing a beat, “I’d argue that you’re dodging mine, pet.” You could hear the laughter threatening to bubble up his throat as he spoke. “Do you really think I was the one purely responsible for all that destruction?”

You tried to ignore the slight tremble of your hands. “A-Aren’t you?” you stammered out. “You’ve started wars, detonated massive bombs, pushed people to their absolute limits. That stuff’s all your fault.” You gulped. “...isn’t it?”

For a second, he simply stared at you. Then, he burst into a fit of giggles. “Oh, how naïve you are, pet. Just what were you taught?” As he clutched his chest, he sunk a little lower toward you. “I didn’t fight on those battlefields. I didn’t press the red button. I didn’t kick men and women to the ground, pointing guns in their faces. But do you know who did?”

The cogs in your head began to turn as you wracked your mind over his words. Then, a wave of understanding slammed into you, and you lowered your pistol, your arm going limp at your side.

He couldn’t possibly mean...

“Ding, ding, ding! You guessed it.” His lips curled up into a delighted smirk. “Humanity did.”

Your eyes widened in horror. Oh, no.

The manic look in his eyes only grew. “Oh, yes.” He cackled at the look on your face, pointing at you. “I didn’t even have to lift a finger for you to all walk straight into your own demise! How pathetic is that?”

You took a shaky step back, your pistol dropping to the ground. “B-B—”

“B-B-B-But what?” he said mockingly, mimicking you in a high-pitched tone. “Did they tell you that I’m the big, bad wolf and that humanity is Little Red? Because they lied, pet. They lied to you.” He pointed his fingers together to form an X, tilting his head at you. “I’ll have you know that I’m not a liar. A trickster, perhaps. But a liar?” He narrowed his eyes. “Never.”

He bent down where he hovered in the air, waggling a finger in your face. “The truth is, darling, is that I didn’t do anything. I just stood in the room and watched. I might have pointed out that that one little duke was in perfect view, or that that one city only had so many people living in it, but I never took any lives myself.” He lightly tapped your nose, and you shrunk back as he crooned, “Humanity did all that, pet. They’re the real monsters to blame here.”

You wanted to sink to your knees and melt into a puddle on the ground. He was wrong. He had to be wrong. Your mentor told you that Dream killed all those people—that he was the one to stab the knife in and twist it while pulling it out. She wouldn’t lie to you, never in a million years.

You wanted to believe him, you really did. But there was something about the freckles scattered across Dream’s face and the way the moonlight bounced off his eyes that made you realize.

He was telling the truth.

A few moments passed in silence as you stared long and hard down at your feet. You could feel Dream’s gaze boring into your figure, eyeing you up and down as you struggled to steady the beating of your heart. You half-expected him to mock you even more, but to your surprise, he didn’t. Maybe he was more human than you thought.

“Why?” you finally whispered after god knows how long.

When you were met with silence, you raised your eyes to meet his once more. “Why did you do it?” you said, louder this time. “Why did you interact with us at all if you wouldn’t even get your own hands dirty? If you knew it would only end like this?”

His eyes flashed, the tiniest hint of carmine swirling in their murky depths. “Isn’t the answer obvious, pet?” He flashed you a wicked grin. “I was bored.”

You blinked, realization slowly setting in. “Bored? Bored?” You were about to lose it, now. “You did all that just because you were bored?”

He shrugged. “Sure did. Chaos makes the world so much more interesting, don’t you think? If only good things happened, you would be bored, too.”

Your stomach churned with disgust. “You’re twisted.”

His smile only widened. “At least I’m having fun.”

All you could do was stare at him in defeat. This wasn’t right. There were more ways to have fun than to toy with humanity’s psyche and drive them to end people’s lives, even for a demon like him. There had to be something you could do. For some inexplicable reason you couldn’t bring yourself to name, a part of you almost wanted to help him.

I must be losing my mind, you thought. What person in their right mind would try to save a demon, let alone the most powerful one of them all?

You, apparently.

The cogs in your head began to churn, your mind bustling as it tried to come up with some alternative, no matter how silly. There had to be something he could do that wasn’t just this.

That was when it hit you.

“Why,” you started slowly, your voice coming out shaky and unsure, “don’t you have fun in a way that doesn’t destroy things... but creates them?”

He blinked lazily at you. “Hm?”

You swallowed, raising your chin. “You—you can have chaos, but it doesn’t need to be destructive.”

He raised his brows. “It doesn’t?”

Your gaze hardened. “Not at all.”

Just then, a flash of memory shot through your skull, and you gasped. “Say, Dream,” you began, “do you—do you know how the Greeks thought the universe came to be?”

You didn’t wait for him to answer. “First,” you said, “there was chaos. And from chaos, life was born. Gods and goddesses, plants and animals.”

“And humans,” he added.

You nodded. “And humans—like me.” You pressed a hand to your chest. “See? Chaos can create things. It doesn’t have to be so full of death and terror.”

While his expression was bemused, there was something sad about it that you couldn’t quite put your finger on. “You do realize that that’s just a story that you human made up?” he hummed. “How the universe came to be is far more different.”

You blinked. “You were alive for that?”

He sent you a blank smile, the look in his eyes betraying nothing. “Maybe, maybe not.” Waving his hand, he flipped over onto his back, floating a fraction higher than before. “Point is, that kind of chaos probably doesn’t exist.”

Your hands clenched into fists at your side. “But it could,” you whispered.

He paused, curiosity flickering in his gaze. “What?”

You dug your heel into the ground, raising your voice. “It could! You don’t know that it doesn’t.” You took a step toward him, throwing your arms out. “Isn’t that fun? Isn’t that exciting? That there’s a whole other form of chaos you’ve never discovered before?!”

Your shout rang out into the quiet forest as Dream stared at you, his lips parted the tiniest bit. Rather than looking amused or arrogant, he almost looked... raw. Real. This might just the most vulnerable look you’d gotten of him all night.

Then, he burst into laughter.

Lowering your arms, you huffed at him, trying and failing to ignore the warmth blossoming between your lungs as you took in his wheezing face. “W-What?”

“Oh,” he gasped between peals of laughter, “what a treat you are, pet.”

Heat flashed across your cheeks as he wiped away a tear from his eye, his chuckles slowly dying down. His laugh should not sound as attractive as it was—he should not be as attractive as he was.

“Tell you what,” he said as he caught his breath once more, sending you a devilish grin. “If you tell me your name, I’ll tell you my real one.”

You stared at him for a moment, then your jaw dropped. “What?”

He stared at you, his emerald eyes glowing in the dim light. “You heard me.”

For a few seconds, you simply gaped, your brain still struggling to process his words. “But... but why?” you finally blurted. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

He hummed at you, flipping upside down. “What about it doesn’t make sense? It seems like a fair trade to me.”

Sputtering, you threw your hands into the air. “A demon’s true name is the source of their power! By handing it over to me, you’re basically putting your life in my hands—in a demon hunter’s hands.” Your face blanched at the mere thought. “A human name and demon name aren’t even remotely comparable.”

He blinked at you, slow and lazy. “I know.”

You didn’t understand—you couldn’t understand. “Then why are you doing this?”

He dipped his down toward you, his face hovering mere inches away from yours. “Isn’t it obvious?” he murmured. “You’re interesting. And rather cute, I suppose.”

You back-pedaled, your eyes wide as you stammered, “I-I could kill you if you told me your real name.”

He hummed, tucking his hand under his chin. “Perhaps, I suppose.” His lips curled upward. “But you won’t.”

Your hand squeezed around nothing. “You don’t know that.”

He chuckled again, and your heart skipped a beat in your chest. “Oh, yes I do, pet. Don’t act as though I can’t see right through you. I know you’re too wishy-washy to kill me off just like that.”

He tilted his head at you, his gaze brimming with mischief. “That’s the thing about humans—you’re all so greedy. You all want something you don’t have, something that fuels you to acquire more. It might be power, or fame, or fortune, or love. It’s quite pathetic, really. But curiosity?”

Lowering himself, he pushed himself up until he was standing flat on the ground again, his hands sliding into his pockets. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and your mouth went dry. “Why, curiosity is your greatest flaw of all. You humans always want to know more, and I know that you want to know what I do next, whether you’re aware of it or not.”

You felt like your blood was going to tear right out of your veins. You hated how right he was, how well he seemed to know you. “You’re insane,” you said.

His smile was lazy and wide as he took a single step toward you. “Probably. But I’ve been alive for ages now, and you might be the most fun thing I’ve seen in millennia. I want to know your name, pet.”

This was crazy in every sense of the word. Any other demon wouldn’t even dare utter their true name aloud, even to themselves, yet here Dream was, bargaining his for yours.

You’d be an idiot not to tell him your name, now.

Swallowing, you didn’t dare look away from his piercing eyes. “It—my name is [Y/N].”

His lips parted in awe, and he stepped toward you once more. “[Y/N],” he repeated, slowly. Carefully, like a wolf stalking its prey. “Fascinating name. Haven’t met too many of those in my lifetime, shocking as it may be.” He paused for a moment, and you could have sworn his smile looked different. “It’s pretty.”

A rush of heat went shooting down your spine, your stomach doing a flip. Biting the inside of your cheek, you glared at him. “Well, stop dawdling! What’s your real name, Dream?”

For a long, excruciatingly slow minute, he only stared at you, scanning every inch of your face. You could feel anxiety begin to crawl up your throat as he did nothing more than watch the rise and fall of your chest as you breathed.

All of a sudden, he was standing in front of you, his hand tucked underneath your chin and lifting it upward. You barely had the chance to gasp before you felt a soft warmth pressing against your lips, light as a feather and tasting like ash and smoke.

Before you could even register what had just happened, he was gone.

You whirled, your face growing astronomically hot. Your heartbeat was pounding in your ears again, but for an entirely different reason this time. You raised your hand to touch your lips while your cheeks burned furiously.

Did he just... kiss me?

Just then, a whisper ran along the shell of your ear, so soft that you almost missed it.

“My name is Clay.”

814 notes · View notes

blackjack-15 · 3 years

Text

Two Can Keep a Secret (if the Family Tree is Dead) — Thoughts on: Ghost of Thornton Hall (GTH)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE, CRY, VEN, HAU, RAN, WAC, TOT, SAW, CAP, ASH, TMB, DED

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with my list of previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: GTH; SPY; mention of ASH (and the ASH meta); mention of Nik/HER’s spoilery hints about GTH.

NOTE: THIS META CONTAINS DISCUSSION OF AND REFERENCE TO SEXUAL ASSAULT. MORE DETAILED SECTIONS ARE MARKED, BUT THIS WARNING STANDS FOR THE WHOLE META.

The Intro:

It’s time to get our Spooky on, lads. And we’re gonna do it in a meta of truly staggering length, so maybe go to the bathroom and get a snack before you start. My apologies.

Due to the (to be quite frank) absence of nostalgia surrounding them, there’s not really many games that are post 2010 that the fandom tends to agree on, but Ghost of Thornton Hall happens to be a standout in that pretty much everyone has found something to like about it. It often tops the charts of “best newer game” polls, and puts in a valiant effort against the more nostalgic mainstays.

There are a lot of reasons for this, in my mind – the quality of the writing, the choices that Nancy can make that actually affect the outcome of the game and especially affect Nancy, the fabulous voice work, the purposely-unanswered questions that give a deeper sense of horror — but if you ask me, the love for GTH really boils down to one thing:

Atmosphere.

Nancy Drew game fans (and I’m including myself in this) tend to prioritize atmosphere in the games, probably because without good and proper atmosphere it’s easier to pick apart the formula as you’re playing and to avoid being immersed in the game’s story, and GTH has it thick on the ground (figuratively and literally). The fear, unease, and overall sense of being an Intruder in this story comes from the overwhelming atmosphere provided by the grief of the characters, the time-sensitive nature of the crime, the secrets of the house and family, and, of course, the rather stellar visuals and locations.

The Thornton’s house and grounds really feel alive, but dead — in fact, they almost feel alive in the way that a zombie is, where they function and feed but have no heart. The gloriously (and meticulously) decorated walls are cast in shadow and grime; the portraits feel ominous and disapproving rather than lifelike and nostalgic; even the graveyard, as spread out and opulent as it is, feels claustrophobic and unwelcoming.

In a word, the game is – visually, thematically, story-wise, and atmospherically — haunting. And I think that overwhelming feeling of being haunted is, in large part, what draws fans back to this game again and again.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the scariest parts of this game are the things that you, as the player, do not see. Sure, the apparitions of Charlotte, the ghostly figures, the appearance of Harper — these are all scary, but the fear is gone after a moment, leaving the player unsettled but not running to hide under a blanket. The deaths of the fifty-four souls, the secret behind Clara’s birth, Harper’s breakdown — all these things that you don’t see, that you can only hear about or have hinted at are where the fear of the game kicks in, especially for older players.

It’s no secret that, despite the games being labeled for ages 10 and up, that the actual age of the Nancy Drew games fandom hasn’t been around 10 for some time — most people playing these games are in their 20s or 30s, or have siblings who are in their 20s and 30s and got into the games through them. Sure, there are some outliers, but the Clue Crew is much closer in general to the ages of the River Heights crew than they are to the age that that box says.

Because of this, the writers (and I’m going to especially hat-tip Nik here) behind the games have been able to slowly graduate the topics of the games to be a little bit older, hiding the true horror behind things that younger kids just won’t think about. This is especially the case with GTH and SPY, but you see it in a lot of the newer games, where the implications of events are normally scarier than the events themselves.

GTH takes that and runs with it, choosing to hint at and dance around truly upsetting — for any age — topics, presenting a mystery and a story that only get scarier once you’ve finished staring at the screen. The characters’ emotional problems and issues — loss, abandonment, anxiety, guilt — are like this too; while they’re present in the game itself, when you take a step back after finishing the game you realize just how badly scarred everyone is in the story.

Because answers were purposely left vague in order to 1) make the player work for it and 2) keep the 10+ rating, pretty much everyone who plays GTH has a slightly different opinion on what went down at Charlotte’s party, who the Thorntons really are, the circumstances of Clara’s birth, why the children of a female Thornton take their mother’s name — you name it, and there’s around 10 distinct opinions on it, and many more offshoots of those opinions besides.

I’m going to talk a little bit here about a couple of the “biggies”, since I don’t want it cluttering up the Suspect portion of this meta, so bear with me. I’m not so much interested in “this is the Correct answer” as much as just presenting the information from the game and wondering about its conclusions…but I (like everyone else) have my little pet theories, so what follows will be a little bit of reporting, a little bit of inference, and a little bit of supposition.

What follows is a frank discussion of topics such as rape and incest as they apply to GTH. If this is something you’d rather not consume, skip down to the next bolded line.

The most talked-about question left hanging in the game is, of course, who Clara’s father was. I think this question is best addressed from a two-pronged approach, however, because to figure out who Clara’s father could have been is a question that requires another question to be answered: why would Clara’s mother not tell her, even on her deathbed.

The most popular — and horrifying — answer to this is that Clara’s father is Jackson, and that she was a product of rape and incest. Now, just looking at the timeline, this theory adds up; Rosalie (Clara’s mum) would have been 25 when her father was 51 and would have raped her — young enough (especially in relation to her father, a middle-aged man of a lot of power in and out of the family) that she would have been scared to tell anyone anything, but old enough to not have it be super out of the ordinary that she got pregnant and had a baby — especially in 1968.

To add to this theory, there’s the note in the cellar that asks “who was this Jackson?...what’s he hiding, and who put it there? Was it Charlotte?”. If you’re looking for clues with the incest theory in mind, this seems to point directly to it — “who was this Jackson”? both Rosalie and Clara’s father. “What’s he hiding”? his crime of raping his daughter and impregnating her. The mention of Charlotte alludes to the supposition that Charlotte found proof of this crime — tangible proof — and put it somewhere; this pretty much supposes that there’s a document somewhere that names Jackson as Clara’s biological father, such as an admission of guilt or a paternity test.

The final “proof-positive” to this theory is that Rosalie refused to tell Clara who her father was even on her deathbed. We know from the family tree and Wade that Clara was between 5-10 when her mother died (I’m inclined to believe the family tree, and chalk the discrepancy up to either the writers not being concerned with math or, more likely and more charitably, to show that Wade isn’t a Perfectly Reliable source, just like everyone else), and Rosalie’s protection of Clara from the truth makes sense with a child in that age span. It’s one (horrible, horrible) thing to be forcibly impregnated by your father, but to have to say it out loud, and to say it to your child — that’s something that no one can even remotely blame Rosalie for not being up to, especially when weakened by sickness.

There are smaller points — like pointing out that this might be why Virginia (Wade’s mum) was skipped over in inheritance — but these small points have dozens of explanations, so they’re not really good for bolstering a theory unless you’re already dedicated to it and are looking for crumbs to shore it up.

End of frank discussion. The previous topics may be alluded to and/or mentioned, but not discussed in detail from this point on.

Now, let’s talk about another explanation. I think there’s a tendency to jump on the “Jackson Theory” because 1) there are clues that support it, but more importantly 2) because it’s horrifying, and it’s natural to leap to the scariest thing you can think of when considering a game that relies on fridge horror in the first place.

In the “Jackson Theory”, Rosalie would have hidden Clara’s parentage because of shame, horror, and trauma, and probably to (at least momentarily) spare Clara’s feelings — but Jackson isn’t the only explanation for her reticence.

Generally, we can break apart the reasons for Rosalie’s silence into three distinct emotions or emotional states: shame (supports the Jackson Theory), trauma (supports an assault by a known wolf), or, often overlooked, ignorance.

Clara is mentioned repeatedly as being outwardly and obviously scared about her place in the family — a fear borne from and exacerbated in her childhood, as Nik plainly states (“her insecurity wasn’t just a personal flaw, it was a response to her uneven upbringing,” emphasis mine).

An easy way for Rosalie, worried as she must have been about leaving her daughter alone, to fix this if Clara really was a product of incest, is to name a distant Thornton cousin, preferably one who was already dead or out of the picture, as the father, which would assure Clara’s place in the Thornton line by both blood and her future adoption. This way, if Clara’s parentage was tested, she’d show up as a Thornton from both sides in a way that wouldn’t be suspicious, and her daughter would have an easier life.

But Rosalie didn’t do this — she never even hinted at the identity of Clara’s father. As a woman known primarily for secret keeping — not just about Clara, but about everything (“She loved her secrets,” Wade says), Rosalie would have been adept at hiding things through various means, including through lies and subterfuge, not simply staying silent. Given the little we know of Rosalie’s character, then, let’s consider why she wouldn’t have said anything — even something false — to ensure her daughter’s safety when she died.

Looking outside of Jackson (and with any other known Thornton being quite unlikely), the vast majority of assaults are committed by those known to their victim — friends, acquaintances, classmates, etc.

The Thorntons were — and are — an incredibly powerful family, both monetarily and socially. Having dealt with families such as the Thorntons before in matters like this one, it is frankly incredibly unlikely that, had Rosalie been assaulted by someone she knew, that the truth wouldn’t have come to light through another source, and that the perpetrator would have been punished in every way possible.

BRIEF DISCUSSION OF ASSAULT STATISTICS AS THEY RELATE TO ROSALIE’S POSSIBLE CASE.

Some people familiar with only the post-20th-century world as “the modern age” and with a less stellar grasp of the pre-tech-boom world might raise an eyebrow at this supposition of punishment, but this is Exactly what would have happened — and did happen with regularity — even as “far back” as ’68 — especially when the crime was committed against a young, privileged, wealthy woman of the community.

Note, this is after the USMPC adjustment to the definition of rape in ’62, but before the adjustments in the early 70s; in 9 years, forcible rape rates (this number includes only female victims, so the true number of victims is indisputably higher, given the enormous jump in rape statistics in 2016-present as male cases have been included) had soared in the United States from around 17,000 per year in 1960 to, in the year Clara was born, 31,000 reported cases (source: DisasterCenter). With these soaring numbers came soaring awareness, and combined with Rosalie’s identity as a rich, powerful young woman in a rich, powerful family, it’s on the outside of belief that, had her attacker’s identity been known or suspected, that it could have remained a secret and gone unpunished.

END OF BRIEF DISCUSSION OF ASSAULT STATISTICS AS THEY RELATE TO ROSALIE’S POSSIBLE CASE.

Given this historical and social backing, the simplest and unavoidable potential answer to why Rosalie wouldn’t have either told Clara who her father was or made up a “brief love” who abandoned her Dishonorably, is this: she didn’t know.

(I’ll spare a mention here to say that, ignorance because of being a “wild child” in the 60s and having had multiple partners would be a possible theory, but it disregards everything else we know about Rosalie and her behavior, and that her reputation as a party girl would have been common knowledge, unable to be hidden from those who were alive at the time. So let’s move on to what else would cause ignorance.)

Though attacks by a person unknown to the victim are, in relation to known assailants, rare, in the absence of other evidence, the simplest answer to Clara’s parentage was that Rosalie was assaulted by someone that she did not know and had no way of knowing — and who had no idea of the social power of his victim.

Rosalie truly left nothing behind that points to her daughter’s parentage, even for later discovery or for Clara’s private eyes in a bank lockbox when she came of an Age that Rosalie deemed appropriate — so the conclusion to be drawn is, in the absence of evidence, that Rosalie didn’t answer Clara’s question because she simply couldn’t.

This ties into the other theory/mystery I want to cover here — that of what happened the night Charlotte died, and how (and in what way) Clara was culpable and responsible for Charlotte’s death. We know that, according to her, Clara went there simply to “scare” Charlotte — and given the circumstances that Clara gives this confession in, I’m inclined to believe her — and it’s my opinion that the reason didn’t have anything to do with the truth of the identity of Clara’s father.

My stance here — and it’s here that I take a solid stance, rather than presenting options — with Charlotte (and I’ll talk more about her general character in the Suspects section) is that Charlotte found the same breadcrumbs as the players did and came to the same conclusion — that Jackson was Clara’s biological father. The difference, however, is that I believe Charlotte’s conclusion to be understandable, but ultimately incorrect, and that Rosalie’s assaulter was a stranger.

Horrified, this is where Charlotte’s “cryptic obsession with Jackson” (mentioned in the note in the cellar) began, and what led to her changing the beneficiary of her will from Clara — poor, pitiable Clara, already a victim of so much, whose insecurities would be compounded by this truth — to Harper.

An important part of this theory — and of really any theory — is the consideration that Clara was pregnant with Jessalyn at the time. Not only does this partially explain why Clara’s thought was to save herself (and her baby) rather than dragging Charlotte out with her (regardless of any other factor), but it also brings a potential answer as to why Charlotte would change her will to favor Harper, rather than Clara. Just as the cellar note asks “Who was this Jackson?”, I find myself asking a similar, but no less important question:

“Who was this Austin Neely?”

Listed as Jessalyn’s (still living) father on the family tree, Austin Neely isn’t present anywhere else in the game — not by name and not through mentions of “Jessalyn’s father” or “Clara’s ex-husband/ex-boyfriend” or anything like that. There’s not even a mention of Clara contacting him as a guest for the wedding or to help search for their daughter. His absence is glaring, especially in a game so focused around family — so the question of who is Austin Neely is a question that seems incredibly important to me, given that Clara was pregnant at the time of Charlotte’s death.

In mentioning this theory, I do fully acknowledge that I have only some circumstantial evidence — mostly emotional, and based off of who the characters are/were — to support it, but given the total lack of information on Austin Neely, my guess is as good as anything else.

So here’s my theory: Austin Neely is not Jessalyn’s father, and Clara, like her mother, became pregnant via some type of assault (and given that this was the late 80s and given Clara’s age at the time, I would say the most likely culprit is date rape). When Clara became aware that she was pregnant, given her insecurities about her place in the Thornton clan and her lack of knowledge of her own father, would have come to this conclusion: she was not going to let her baby go through what she herself went through. So she did what her mother could have — and honestly speaking, probably should have — done, and lied.

Austin Neely was probably a friend or an acquaintance of Clara’s — someone her family didn’t really know, but that she could make up a story about dating/being engaged to and became pregnant by before it all fell apart. He would have likely received a payout (probably a rather large payout, given the Thornton’s money and influence) and disappeared from the area and the Thornton’s lives, signing off any responsibility or claim to “their” child before he left.

As a result of this, her child now has a father and doesn’t have to grow up wondering, and Clara avoids the stigma, court case, and general Uproar that would come with attempting to find her attacker. She also, importantly for her, avoids that mess for her child, who will grow up in a semi-normal atmosphere, surrounded by family, not doubting her place in the world — and no one has to know.

Except, of course, one person would know. The head of the family: Charlotte Thornton. From then on, based on this series of events, the story behind Charlotte’s death becomes quite straightforward.

Clara’s paranoia and general cleverness clue her in to the fact that Charlotte has changed her will in Harper’s favor, and is scared out of her mind; having recently experienced a trauma and being pregnant with a child, she’s afraid that she will be left with absolutely nothing, that her machinations with Austin Neely and all her striving will have been for nothing, and she will be cast off, unable to give her child the life she wants to give her.

Compounded by her ground-in fear that she does not belong, she decides to try to settle it with Charlotte — she’s going to scare her, to punish her, and make Charlotte rethink the changed will.

And Charlotte, bearing the weight of the family name and business, not to mention its continued propagation on her shoulders, sees a woman who has been — like her mother — assaulted and left pregnant, whose mental state is already fragile, and who the “revelation” of who Charlotte thinks her true father is would topple her completely — sees poor, pitiable, emotional, suspicious Clara, and refuses.

I think that, more than anything else, would have set Clara off. Remember what she yells at Charlotte’s ghost?

“You had so much, so much, and I had nothing.”

In answering some of the questions about the game, Nik/HER’s response is to say that Clara did not literally light the match that burned Charlotte alive — but we know that Charlotte burned all the same. In the video of her birthday, there are candles; in the dust and soot on the floor where Charlotte died, we see candlesticks. And in the response, again, we know that Charlotte lit the candles for the celebration.

In my ASH meta, I discussed the many meanings of the word “fire” and the term “setting the fire” — and that’s important here too. In this case, the fire was set by Charlotte refusing to reconsider the terms of her will; in her refusal, she probably touched on the same point that she makes in the note in her room — that Clara isn’t stable enough to take over the company. Now, I doubt she would have said that straight to Clara’s face, but even framed as a “you have enough to be going on with and I don’t want to burden you” sort of thing, that just would have reaffirmed all of Clara’s fears — that she was unwanted by the Thornton clan, that her child would be unwanted as a matter of course, and that she would truly have nothing.

And so my guess would be that Clara shoved her. Not hard enough to break anything, not even into a direct flame, but shoved her, and Charlotte jostled the table, and a candelabra fell to the floor, where we see it still in the modern day.

When Nancy sees Charlotte’s ghost out in that house — and yes, I’m firm on that being Charlotte’s actual ghost, as she’s out in the open air so carbon monoxide doesn’t figure in, and there’s no way for that to be Harper/Jessalyn — she burns from the skirt up, which follows with a candle falling to the floor and lighting that incredibly flammable dress on fire.

The last thing to note from HER/Nik’s response is that at the end of the game, Nancy faces the exact same choice that the Thorntons have: to help, or to save herself. In this, we have to look back to Clara and Charlotte, and conclude this: Clara chose not to help. It’s debatable how much help she could have really been — we’re not sure how pregnant she was at the time — or if it even occurred to her until she was already out and chose not to go back in — but at the very least, Clara’s guilt comes not only from the fact that she quarreled with Charlotte right before her death, but that she could have tried to prevent it, and didn’t.

Given the supposition that Charlotte was literally on fire, I really do doubt that getting her out or finding water to throw on her would have been successful, but it doesn’t matter — because Clara looks at it as a choice, and Clara (more importantly) looks at it as the wrong choice, and a choice that she’s been punished for since the day it happened. That’s why, when speaking to Charlotte’s ghost, she says this:

“Haven’t I suffered enough for you?”

The last point I want to make in this OBSCENELY long introduction is about GTH’s place in the pantheon of “Haunting Games”. When you look at the bare-bones (heh) circumstances that make up GTH, you’ll start to see shades of other games.

A relationship/marriage gone a bit wrong, a family secret, an ancestral home, a relative/ancestor whose spectre looms over the story, mysterious apparitions and appearances, and Nancy’s status as an outsider and a skeptic — yeah, both CUR and HAU should come to mind immediately.

Having said my piece about, well, the badness of CUR and HAU and their unsuccessful approach to their basic plot points, it delights me that GTH takes a good hard look at them and says “well, what if we did this well this time? What if we gave our characters the complexity, the emotional resonance, the secrets and lies that we should have the first time?”

Like CUR and HAU, the Family is at the center of the game — except this time we believe in this family, in their relationships to one another, and we feel the effects of the family and their choices, not just hear about it from a diffident 9-year-old or a cranky caretaker. The history of the Thornton clan comes alive through the house, the graveyard, the books and journals that we have of them. We understand what this family is and the choices that they make — even if we don’t approve of them — and they feel real, not just like a background chucked in to Make The Spooky Things Happen.

Also like CUR and HAU, we deal with a central relationship and the complexities that come over two people deciding to get married. Happily, this game (unlike CUR and HAU) treats the central relationship as a thing of Import, and comes to the conclusion that it’s the happiness and well-suitedness of the couple that matters, not the family that surrounds them or anything else. It asks the question “what happens if one person runs away from the relationship?” and answers it, quite satisfactorily, with “there are probably some issues that need ironed out before anything else should happen”.

Interestingly, GTH also takes the good points of CUR and HAU – especially HAU’s atmosphere and CUR’s love of family tidbits — and improves upon them as well. Instead of Jane showing off her studies so that Nancy can solve a few puzzles, Wade walks her through the Thorntons were (at least in his eyes) and helps her get to know the people she’s helping. Instead of being duly impressed at the atmosphere in a bombed-out castle, everywhere on the island is teeming with fog — literal and figurative — as Nancy tries to decode the past to help the future.

Now then, let’s leave the general behind, and focus on the specifics of GTH.

The Title:

Ghost of Thornton Hall is a great title in the way that Secret of the Scarlet Hand is a great title – moody, evocative, gives us our location/focus right away, but not in a way that spoils anything, etc. If anything, it’s a little more flexible – are we dealing with The Ghost of Thornton Hall (Charlotte), the ghost(s) of the Thornton family, the ghosts of those who died on the island, or — in a very fun way — are we talking about the ghost of Thornton Hall — the spirit of the building where so much life and death has happened?

As a title for a Haunting game, you really don’t get much better than GTH, and it centers the player’s attention right where it should be — on the messed up family that the game centers around, and how their past impacts their future.

The Mystery:

Nancy’s phone rings in the middle of the night, with Savannah Woodham’s drawl on the other end, informing her of a kidnapping that’s taken place. She’d go herself, but believes wholeheartedly – and is frightened by — the ghost that’s taken up residence on Blackrock Island, Georgia, and doesn’t believe she’d be enough help.

Of course, this isn’t the whole truth, but we’ll get into that later.

Armed with both her detective skills and her inherent skepticism, Nancy sets off for Georgia to find the missing bride-to-be. Of course, when she gets there, she quickly discovers that the family — and family history — is even murkier and laced with tragedy than the presence of a ghost would suggest, and that, even with everyone searching for Jessalyn Thornton, she is nowhere to be found.

To find her, Nancy has to delve deep into the Thornton family lore, Jessalyn’s relationships with her family and friends – not to mention her preoccupied fiancé — and figure out what really did happen to dear, sweet Charlotte Thornton nearly two decades ago…

GTH, as a mystery, is chock-full of hints, clues, red herrings, and background facts that make figuring out the truth behind everything a joy and a delight — not to mention a task that will take more than one playthrough. GTH is also unique in that its mystery can end in more than one way, and that Nancy’s choices actually have more of an impact than just what souvenir she sends home to her erstwhile boyfriend. Choosing to save herself, to save just the “innocent” (for a certain value of innocence), or to save everyone leads to different endings not just for Nancy but for everyone involved with the Thornton Clan, from its matriarch all the way down to a certain spook-hunting ex-girlfriend.

Underpinning the mystery is this question: did Charlotte really come back as a ghost to haunt Blackrock and the Thorntons, or are her appearances just the result of sneaky relatives and atmospheric maleficence? Can all of the sightings be explained by a mixture of carbon monoxide poisoning, a few relatives playing dress-up, and huge amounts of suggestion and guilt? Is it the case, as Rentaro posited a few games earlier, that a ghost doesn’t have to be real to haunt you?

In a word, no. In a few more words, of course not.

Tying the whole of the ‘haunting’ mysteries together is this (previously mentioned) fact: Nancy is not remarkable for being a Skeptic, she is remarkable for being a Skeptic in a world where ghosts exist. The moving wood (and possibly the silhouette) in MHM, Camille’s ghost dancing along in TRN, the reflection of Kasumi in the water in SAW, the ghost of the Willow in GTH — these are all real, unexplainable-by-tech-or-imagination ghost sightings, and the fact that Nancy doesn’t believe in them doesn’t change their reality one bit.

In the house, you can cite carbon monoxide and Jessalyn/Harper running around in a costume for at least some of them — though not all. But the sightings outside — carbon monoxide does not stay in the system for very long in clear air, blessedly — of Charlotte? The consistency of the spectre? The apparition of her burning up at the site of her birthday party? These aren’t things that you can explain by costume theater — especially since these sightings have been happening for over a decade by people who haven’t stepped foot in Thornton Hall.

When they say that Blackrock belongs to Charlotte and has since the fire, it’s not a literary turn of phrase — Charlotte is there, and refuses to be forgotten. Nancy’s status as a Skeptic prevents her from hysteria, but it does not stop her from being haunted by the Ghost of Thornton Hall.

Now, let’s talk about the players — dead and alive — that make this mystery as complicated and dark as it is.

The Suspects:

Beginning with the matriarch of the Thorntons seems as good a place to start as any, so let’s talk about Clara Thornton. Cousin to Charlotte and Harper, Clara was taken in after her mother’s untimely death (but before her aunt and uncle’s equally untimely deaths) and became the equivalent of a sister in at least Charlotte and Harper’s eyes — though Clara herself was always unsettled and wary about her place in the family.

After the events of Charlotte’s tragic birthday (covered above), Clara visited Charlotte’s grave every night for a year, and was hospitalized after being pushed off of the widow’s walk (more on this later). Whether due to her upbringing or her Thornton blood – or, most likely, both — Clara is secretive, paranoid, wracked with guilt…and a loving mother and extremely capable businesswoman.

Though GTH doesn’t actually have a culprit —Jessalyn wasn’t kidnapped and Charlotte wasn’t murdered — Clara is, as the resident secret keeper and witness to Charlotte’s death, the closest thing that we’ve got. Clara’s sense of guilt is far beyond anything that she could have done, and is haunted so completely as to turn her rather cold.

I have a lot of sympathy for Clara, who made a mistake in a fit of anger (whether that’s pushing Charlotte or just not helping her when she started to burn) at the age of 21 and has been wracked with guilt and haunted by the spectre — real and imagined — of her ‘sister’ ever since (not to mention knowing that her other ‘sister’ blamed and hated her for it). Charlotte died before she had the time to make too many mistakes, but Clara had the entirety of the estate and the business — thousands of people’s livelihoods — thrust into her hand when she was a single mother of 21 years of age. Even had Clara been completely stable, it would have been a lot, and it’s no wonder that she rules the company with an iron fist.

I also want to point out that, due to Harper’s breakdown at the funeral and her afterwards, that even had Charlotte’s second will been found right then, Clara still would have inherited until at least Harper received her bill of mental health, as the closest heir to Charlotte of (legally) sound mind and body.

Let’s talk then about the other heir, Harper Thornton. A fan favorite for a myriad of reasons — her Helena-Bonham-Carter-esque design, her wonderful VA (props to Keri Healey, voice of Hotchkiss, Sally, Paula, Simone, and Madeline!) knocking her lines out of the park, and her dark sense of humor, Harper is, like most of the Thorntons, incredibly unstable, paranoid, violent…an affectionate aunt, and a pretty darn good detective in her own right.

Since GTH doesn’t have a ‘culprit’, Harper stands in her own guilty/not guilty paradigm along with Clara. She had nothing to do with Charlotte’s death personally, but was the one who caused assorted injuries and thousands of dollars in property damage at the funeral, and the one who pushed Clara off the widow’s walk and hospitalized her. Yes, Harper was young — 18 when Charlotte died, but pushing your cousin/sister off of a balcony is wrong at any age.

It’s worth noting that of the three Thornton ‘sisters’, one is guilty of some degree of manslaughter/criminal negligence, and the other of attempted murder. When Charlotte notes that she herself has a dose of the “Thornton paranoia”, she’s not just whistling Dixie.

The biggest problem the Thorntons have, honestly speaking, is that all of them are way too emotional and react without thinking. Clara confronting Charlotte, Charlotte not taking Clara aside to talk about the will, Harper’s injuring of others and blaming/pushing Clara, Wade destroying machinery, Jessalyn disappearing rather than talking things out…none of the Thorntons, past or present, have seemed to think with their brains since the woman who received the land on Blackrock Island after the Civil War in the first place.

In keeping with the theme, I want to talk about Charlotte Thornton next. A girl who inherited the Thornton land and business at way too young an age — I don’t even wanna know why Jackson hated his adult daughter Virginia (and yes, I know that there’s a supposition to this in the “Jackson Theory”, but it’s pure supposition) so much that he would stake the family future on a 20-year-old, no matter how much everyone liked her — after the death of her parents four years prior, Charlotte was the darling of the Thornton family.

Well-liked by everyone with a beautiful singing voice, Charlotte was nonetheless every inch a Thornton; she outright acknowledged her own paranoia, kept secrets and locked rooms closer to her than her family, and had a flair for the dramatic and emotional. After considering her cousin/sister Clara too unstable for the task of inheriting the family Business, Charlotte, rather than turning to her older aunt or naming multiple beneficiaries to ease the load, instead leaves 100% of it to her younger sister Harper.

I do want to point out the irony here in leaving the business to Harper over Clara on the grounds of mental stability. Whatever else Charlotte was good at, she was not a good judge of character, even giving leeway for her being 21.

After her death, Charlotte haunts the family home, unable to leave the place that was, for a year, hers to inherit. But why would ‘dear, sweet’ Charlotte haunt, frighten, and otherwise unsettle those around her — from family to neighbors to curious kids — especially to the extent that she does?

To answer that question, we need to talk about the family member that everyone says is incredibly close to Charlotte in personality — our missing bride, Jessalyn Thornton.

Clara’s daughter, Jessalyn is painted as being a sort of return of Charlotte; everyone loves her (all Thornton employees are combing the island looking for her, for heaven’s sake), everyone agrees on her, and she’s next in line to inherit the Thornton family business. She’s even around Charlotte’s age (24, rather than 21, but close enough) during the game, for heaven’s sake — the comparisons are not subtle, nor are they meant to be.

Since it’s more than halfway through the game that Nancy meets Jessalyn, the things that people say about her are the best clues to her personality that we have…right?

Everyone agrees that Jessalyn would never run off and make people worry like this, that even if she was scared or had second thoughts about the wedding or even just needed to be alone, that she would never do this to her family. And, as it turns out, everyone — her mother, her uncle, her best-friend-cum-fiancé — everyone is wrong. Jessalyn did exactly that — she ran off, made everyone worry, and didn’t think about her family, friends, fiancé, or employees one bit.

It also takes her no effort at all to fully believe a woman she’s never met that her mom is a vicious, cackling murderer just because her (single, incredibly busy) mother is a bit emotionally cold, so she’s also not a great judge of character.

And remember, we’re told over and over again — Jessalyn is just like Charlotte. Sure, Jessalyn is also our Nancy foil in this game — a young woman who needs to learn the truth about her mother, coerced/guided by a quasi-unreliable source, worrying her family by running off — and that’s important for Nancy’s character, but Jessalyn is first and foremost our Charlotte analogue. Jessalyn’s family and friends don’t understand who Jessalyn is…so I think it’s fair to say that Charlotte’s family and friends didn’t understand who Charlotte was, either.

We see Charlotte, through her writings and actions, could be thoughtless, was a poor judge of character, was secretive and paranoid — all things that no one even alludes to when speaking of her. Sure, there’s the idea of not speaking ill of the dead, but someone would have noted these things, even fondly or mildly.

So why would Charlotte haunt this place, haunt these people, when she was so good and kind and loved everyone? The simplest answer, the least convoluted explanation, is just that she wasn’t. That the Thorntons didn’t understand Charlotte, as much as they loved her, just like they didn’t understand Jessalyn.

Speaking of Thorntons who may be misunderstood, we’ll focus on Wade Thornton next. A little more rough-and-tumble and a little less refined than his relatives seem to be, Wade is introspective, superstitious, hard-working, and a bit gloomy…along with having some anger issues, vast amounts of distrust, and a bit of egotism.

Wade’s (at least legally) guilty of a few things in the past, but since he won’t even go into Thornton Hall, he’s a pretty easy cross-off of our list of suspects. Wade’s there to give Nancy information on the Thornton Clan, to provide the explanation as for (partially) why Savannah isn’t there herself, and to show another facet of the Thorntons — their anger.

Whether or not you agree with Wade’s actions that led to Clara pressing charges — though I think everyone can agree it’s pretty stupid to destroy your own family’s machinery, especially when the only danger to the employees was caused by him scaring them half to death — and it highlights that Wade, philosophical though he is, is just as much a Thornton as those he despises. He even calls himself out on it – that while he used to think he was on the side of “Good Thorntons”, he’s not so sure anymore.

The best (serious) line in the game does come from Wade — I will be in love with his description of dating Savannah as “[falling] for her like a Black Tuesday banker” until I die. It’s a perfect metaphor without sounding pretentious, and shows just how bleak his own worldview really is.

Next is The Fiancé, Colton Birchfield, who has the most hilariously WASP-y name to ever come out of a Nancy Drew game. A man who’s struggled with depression and anxiety all his life, Colton was born to two politicians and has lived in the spotlight — and his marriage to Jessalyn is getting just as show-stopper-y as a campaign trail before she disappeared.

I mentioned above that the resolution to Colton and Jessalyn’s relationship is the healthy, sane version of what should have happened in CUR and HAU, and I stand by that. While I don’t necessarily like him going back to Lexi after the game is over — a relationship interrupted by one party being paid off is not the healthy, loving, loyal relationship that Colton needs — it’s clear that he and Jessalyn would have made each other content, but never fulfilled romantically.

Colton’s guilty of nothing more than not being in love with his best friend, and he’s a refreshing breath of air as someone related tangentially to, but not cast down by, the Thornton family drama. He may get less sympathy than our other cast members, but he’s no less deserving of it, and I’m really rooting for him to find someone that will give him the same amount of love and loyalty that he’ll give them.

We’ll journey outside the Thornton family and their (almost) relations for our next ‘suspect’. Addison Hammond, Jessalyn’s friend and bridesmaid, makes a cameo phone appearance here to tell us that Thornton Hall is Totes Spooky, and that Jessalyn vanished not once, but twice in the night.

I quite enjoy Addison, not because she plays a big part or because she’s an exceptional character — she’s as bare-bones as we get in the later games (ignoring MED/SEA/MID), honestly — but because she’s simply a girl in her 20s reacting the way that most of us would if our unnecessarily spooky friend dragged us to an old haunted house and then vanished twice. Good for you, girl.

Coming in for a wonderful appearance is Savannah Woodham, ex-ghost hunter, ex-girlfriend of Wade Thornton, and the detective who was supposed to be on the case. Savannah’s too scared of the Ghost (and too reticent to talk to Wade face-to-face) to risk stepping foot on Blackrock Island herself, but she’s more than willing to send the biggest skeptic she knows, hoping that Nancy’s skepticism will keep her safe.

As lovely as Savannah is in SAW — and I adore her in that game — she really shines in GTH. Probably the biggest moment she gets in the game — and probably my second favorite moment in the game period — is her tale of tracing the shape of the old willow tree on her wall, only to have a body discovered under that exact willow tree after a storm. It’s a delightfully creepy — and most importantly, completely inexplicable by any means other than accepting that the supernatural exists — moment, and I think it’s key to understanding Savannah as a character in GTH.

Savannah suffers under the weight of knowing that there truly are Things that Go Bump in the Night, that can’t be arrested or captured or gotten rid of by normal, legal means. Her background knowledge of the Thorntons helps Nancy to get an initial feel for the family, and it helps to not have an ex-girlfriend wandering around that the Thorntons might have a grudge against or dislike for.

She is, in effect, the mirror image of Nancy — what Nancy might have become without her inborn skepticism — and that alone, even ignoring everything else about her, is fascinating to me.

Our other phone contacts are Ned Nickerson and Bess Marvin, teamed up due to George’s absence while doing an internship (at Technology of Tomorrow Today, no less!) and Bess’ extreme boredom without anyone else to hang out with.

The lovely thing about Ned and Bess is that we get to see Ned when he’s not Solo Boyfriend Ned, but a college guy hanging out with his friend. Their light-hearted banter is hilarious and comfortable (Bess dramatically asking permission to do a spit-take in his living room is of particular note), and we really get to see a different side of Nancy’s oft-abandoned boyfriend.

You can tell that their voice actors are having a terrific time as well (Scott Carty’s pitch-perfect imitation of Jennifer Pratt’s cadence and tone makes me laugh every time), and it really helps bring a bright and colorful spot to this otherwise rather tense and grim mystery.

We’ll round out our character list with the quasi-amateur, quasi-professional detective herself, Nancy Drew. Through her foil with Jessalyn — discussed above, so I won’t get too into it here — we get to see Nancy in a slightly different light, and get to look at the effect that she has on those around her when she disappears.

We know Carson and Ned (and occasionally Bess/George, and even more occasionally, Hannah) worry about Nancy while she’s off on a case, but this is the first time Nancy herself is dealing with what she leaves behind every time she jets off to Venice, or gets trapped in a lava tube, or lost in a rock maze. Nancy hasn’t investigated a straight-up kidnapping (or what appears to be one) since Maya in FIN (no, I’m not counting HAU, as it’s not played as a kidnapping nor does anyone think it is until 2/3 of the way through the game), and she has the same sense of urgency here that she did back then.

Upon replaying the game, the player will lose that sense of urgency for Jessalyn — we know she’s alive and well, and was never kidnapped — but Nancy’s reactions to the family are what stay interesting. She’s concerned for Jessalyn, but does most of her detective work through getting a sense of what the rest of the family thinks of the missing girl.

Given Nancy’s reputation as a good girl, a solid presence (if an occasional one) who loves her family and friends, and who is always responsible, it’s easy to see why she misses the one question that would have helped her solve the case in half of the time: what if Jessalyn isn’t missing? After all, Jessalyn, like Nancy, would never jet off after hearing an unsubstantiated claim about her mother without telling anyone or pausing to confirm it through a different, more trustworthy source, right?

In this game, we discover a huge characteristic about Nancy: she is reckless. Now, we know this already from other games — that Nancy is reckless physically, confronting bad guys alone, diving down into murky catacombs, jumping from pillars in ancient tombs — but here we see that she’s also reckless emotionally. Even though it interferes with her investigation, Nancy gets personally involved in this case; she’s mad at Colton for “cheating” on Jessalyn, she’s upset by the tragedy of Charlotte’s death, and she’s concerned for Jessalyn’s safety in a different way than she usually is with a victim or suspect.

Nancy’s always been willing to take huge risks, but she always stays emotionally on the surface level of a case — a good and necessary trait for a detective, and one that allows her to face down killers, saboteurs, and forgers without blinking. Here, Nancy’s dragged down into the web of the Thorntons, and — as we see in the middle and bad endings especially — she doesn’t quite recover from it. Nancy loses a bit of objectivity here, but what she gains is humanity — and she’ll need that for the last two games in this meta series.

The Favorite:

With such a well-executed game — even though it doesn’t fall in my personal top 5 ranking — there’s going to be a lot to love, so let’s get down to it.

My favorite puzzle is probably Nancy’s trek to ‘discover’ the ‘ghost’ — aka completing Harper’s tasks in order to meet her, culminating with reciting Charlotte’s rhyme while blindfolded. It’s a different kind of puzzle than the type we get commonly with Nancy Drew games, and really helped spark and keep the tension needed to maintain such a spooky game.

My favorite moment in the game is a quieter one — it’s Nancy’s remarks on Charlotte’s room. She’s taken aback at how, after a game of everyone talking about Charlotte, that it’s opening the door to her room that cements Charlotte as a living, breathing person. She continues that she can’t let that feeling distract her, that she needs to treat the room like the rest of the house and gather tools that will let her find Jessalyn, but it’s lovely to see the effect of the Thornton’s history really settle into Nancy’s bones as Charlotte Thornton turns from a scary rhyme that children chant to a girl who lived and died in the same walls that Nancy’s exploring.

There are, of course, other things that I love — the objectively creepy poem (“we’ll let you share with Charlotte/a gown of coal and glowing flame” is an incredible line), Savannah’s story about the willow tree, the small Francy crumbs of Frank being sullen after his Very Revealing voicemail in DED and considering an MBA, the multi-layered relationship that Wade and Savannah have, the gorgeous detail of Thornton Hall — and all of these add up to a game that’s frankly just enjoyable to play.

The big thing to mention in this game, as I talked a bit about in the intro, is its atmosphere.

Throughout the entire game, there’s this palpable feeling of death and grief and loss and pure pain, and those emotions are what GTH relies on to keep itself Scary, not the few spectre scares and swinging scythes that it also has to offer.

I don’t normally quote things other than the games/words of the cast and crew in these metas, but I do make exceptions when the quotation is this good, so I tip my hat here to Tumblr user aniceworld, speaking about ranking GTH their top Nancy Drew game of all time:

“The reason GTH is so successful as a scary game is because there’s such a pervasive sense of sorrow at Thornton Hall. People have died here who shouldn’t have. A family has been destroyed. The house has seen so much trauma it can literally no longer stand on its own. There are ghosts that live here, whether you can see them or not.”

This horror is far better than bloody slashers or obnoxious “continuous mysterious accidents”-style thrillers that tend to permeate the genre; instead of random death-by-umbrella or scary-guy-in-the-shower incidents driving the plot, the emotion behind death and loss and betrayal gets to take a turn at the wheel, and the game is much better for it.

The Un-Favorite:

As with any game, however, no matter how good the atmosphere, there are some things that I don’t love.

I’m not actually the biggest fan of Harper; while her design is great and her VA does a spectacular job, she’s a little cartoonish among a cast that endeavors to stay as far away from broad stereotypes as possible.

It’s fine to have a large personality, it’s fine that she’s a bit cracked, it’s great that she has her own reasons and motivations beyond “expose the truth” (especially since she’s not interested in exposing the truth, just in proving that Clara’s a murderer) — she’s just really not my cup of tea, and I prefer Harper as the Anonymous Note Leaver to Harper the Conversational Partner.

Even if she does get some of the best lines in the game.

I don’t really have a least favorite moment or puzzle that sticks out to me; there are puzzles I struggle more or less with, but none of them are immersion-breaking or so frustrating that I have to get up and walk away. The ones I love, I enjoy solving; the ones I don’t love, I turn to the walkthrough and finish them up to get on with the story.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Ghost of Thornton Hall?

Even given my small problems with Harper, I’m not sure I’d change her. Sure, she’s a bit Broad for the game, generally speaking, but she’s also another example of what loss can do to a person — it can make you cold and withdrawn, it can make you righteously angry and dismissive…or it can turn you malicious and violent. She’s an important presence regardless of my personal taste, and while I might tweak a line of dialogue or two, it’s important to note that her Persona is just another thing for Nancy to discover and re-discover as she investigates the Thorntons.

While not a perfect game — very few, if any, of the Nancy Drew games qualify for that title — Ghost of Thornton Hall is an excellent entry in the Nancy Drew series as a whole, and in the smaller series of Nancy-centric games. Through it, we get to see what happens to those who are left behind after a tragic, sudden, and even violent loss — and that becomes more and more important as we leave behind the gloomy Georgia island and leap across the pond to Glasgow.

#nancy drew #nancy drew games #clue crew #ghost of thornton hall #nancy drew meta #GTH #my meta #long post #video games

37 notes · View notes

smolbeandrabbles · 3 years

Text

Penguin, James Penguin - Killian x Reader (Spies in Disguise)

Alternate Title: ‘I Wish I Was James Bond’

Holiday Fic 5! 🐧🐧

@wltz-bby @happyskywhale

@xxstar-bluesxx - From one Killian Stan, to another 😉

Author’s Note: It is EXACTLY a year since I saw this movie for the first time.

I had way too much fun writing these two again, safe to say I missed them a lot 🥰🥰

Not joking, this plot has been in my notes since January - and I was like “Well I missed my chance completely with the song and everything!” It’s too good not to pass up!!

Reader character from my SiD series/prequel? You betcha! 😉 But this time we’re writing for them post-movie!

Also playing into the rehabilitation program / Agent!McFord storyline here. So I hope, Killian Stans, that he’s been worth the wait to come back to you. And that I’m ticking a bunch of boxes.

Note: Whilst the song itself certainly has a Christmas theme, the fic does not. At all.

Penguin, James Penguin - Brad Paisley

I Wish I Was James Bond - Scouting For Girls

Disclaimer: SiD & all associated characters not mine / basically taking the same idea as everyone else and slightly subverting expectations, because it wouldn’t be my fic if I didn’t / you don’t necessarily have to read ‘Mine’ to ‘Fresh Start Fever’ to understand this but it might help / lyrics & gifs not mine.

Premise: In an attempt to figure out how Walters Bio-molecular tech works, Killian ends up getting it wrong with disastrous (hilarious) results...

Words: 6793

Warnings: Christmas themed lyrics/No Christmas themed fic / if you squint there’s some slight sexual banter at the end there /

______

I've got another story That I bet you haven't heard Did you know that Santa Has a secret agent bird From an undisclosed location He's watching me and you He's got satellite uplinks in his cufflinks Yeah he sees everything you do He's Penguin, James Penguin That dapper little guy Like a well dressed duck in a three piece tux He's Santa's secret spy Not so very long ago Santa didn't need much help But with more and more kids every year He soon got overwhelmed He told the elves one Christmas We can't do this anymore Then a knight in shining polyester Waddled through his door And it was Penguin, James Penguin He was there to save the day He had wireless And GPS outfitted on the sleigh And Santa said Penguin Won't you be my ears and eyes How'd you like to help me run My SCFBI He's Penguin, James Penguin And now I guess you've heard How Santa got his little Christmas Secret Agent Bird

---

I've seen you walk the screen, it's you that I adore Since I was a boy I wanted to be like Roger Moore A girl in every port, and gadgets up my sleeve The world is not enough for the both of us it seems Hello Mr Bond, I've been expecting you Martini in your hand, and that eyebrow that you move Don't take this the wrong way, I know it might sound odd I'm the next double-0, I'm the right man for the job I wanted to be you, I wanted to be you I wanted to be someone else And I wish I was James Bond Just for the day Kissing all the girls, blow the bad guys away And I wish I was James Bond Just for the day Kissing all the girls, blow the bad guys away And I wish I was James Bond Just for the day Kissing all the girls, blow the bad guys away Roger and Sean and Timmy and George And Daniel and Pierce and maybe one day me

---

The light grey clouds rolled over the mountains on the horizon line. By the colour alone you suspected that you were due heavy snowfall. Up in a mountaintop hideaway you were growing used to such things... no bright blue sky today.

You folded your arms with a sigh; still, a little bit of sunshine would be nice.

KiTT - your assistance drone - beeped every so often as he moved about the room, doing the odd task. Other than that, the house was silent, for now. Your eyes hovered on the helicopter outside and then back to the clouds; would there be a chance of getting out of here for the next few days? You knew cars would be out of the question, it was treacherous even in snow fairing vehicles... Note to self: Next time choose a boyfriend whose idea of a home is not a typical villain’s hide out. Although you supposed it fit his role in all this. At least to the Agency. Things had changed a lot since Killian had tried to take everyone out with his own drones, but they were still very wary of him. You found yourself tasked with keeping him straight - you weren’t sure they understood your relationship. But agreed anyway.

Having finished his tasks and now bored, KiTT whirred his way back over to you, beeping his greeting. Blue lights flashing. You shook your head at him, “What would you have me do? I’ve given you everything I had on my list, why don’t you ask him if he needs any help?” KiTT’s next series of bleeps had you laughing; “I’m sure he didn’t mean to kick you out like that. K just needs to concentrate. You can get pretty loud!” Your drone protested, which only made you giggle. Especially as he tried to make the argument that he couldn’t possibly be any worse than the rest of them.

KiTT had a point: the drones that the Agency had let you take back now helped both you and Killian with lab work - amongst other things – and, with your own expertise in AI, each now had their own distinctive personality just as KiTT did. Sometimes you regretted that decision. Although they couldn’t have been further from his blue and silver finish; in sleek black and red lights. Fitting for your significant other maybe, but it made little sense to you for the Agency to have given them such colours. (And if you were honest, KiTT looks a damn sight better, but you supposed there was a bit of favouritism in that comment.) “Oh, yeah. Cuz nothing says evil robot quite like red lights.” Killian couldn’t clap back at that, KiTT was exclusively blue. “I didn’t design it.” “I know. Which begs the question, why the Agency was building an assassination drone.” He folded his arms, “Well they don’t care, do they?” Protection by any means necessary. Stop the bad guys by any means necessary. “Well...” You raised your eyebrows and tipped your head in agreement. He’d know a lot about that alright...

You found yourself looking back to the clouds and sighed, “You could always go check the weather for me if you’re really that desperate. Or if you could figure out a really quick weather changing machine?” If you could count KiTT’s next sound as a scoff you would, before blue lights ran across his body to let you know he was contacting weather satellites for you.

The sudden crash behind you snapped you both from caring about the weather. It was followed by a slightly smaller - but still loud – one, and then silence again. You immediately started towards the labs, “On second thought, sounds like I should have just asked you to go straight to him!”

When you both got down there it was a little hard to tell what had happened. At first it looked like nothing too serious; work surfaces scattered with tools, screens full of science mechanics... until you spotted the broken glass beakers and liquid running across the surface of a worktop, dripping onto the floor. “K?!” He didn’t appear to be in here, and yet none of his drones were either, which made you think it also hadn’t been them to make this mess. Or they’d made themselves scarce. You turned the lights up a little further and kept walking, cautiously. Well - for one thing, the floor was now covered in broken glass and curious liquids… they should probably be tidied up at the very least. Good thing your drone was in a working mood. There was another sound from further in the lab that made you jump, and you turned towards it. KiTT made a sound of worry. “Hush, clear this away, I got it.” He beeped again, “I’ll be FINE. Cybernetic, remember!?” KiTT’s next beep caused you to glare at him, “Don’t use that tone with me-!”

You made your way carefully over to the noise, stepping around the glass that had been spat all over the floor. You were sure it’d made its way to unknown reaches of the lab, and you should be careful where you were stepping. Sure, you wouldn’t bleed, but thanks to the upgrades it’d still hurt. When you turned the corner, you came face to face with a huddled form. Your head tilted curiously; eyebrow raised. You recognised it alright: but it was more the mystery of how it got in here. It might well have been the source of the crash - after all, you wouldn’t think a penguin to be very careful in a lab. You were just thinking about how you were supposed to catch it and then tell your partner: “Well, a penguin got into the house, and then your lab somehow, and destroyed all your research. Sorry about that-!”, when it turned towards you and-

“AGH-!!” This time you didn’t jump, although both of you were startled. Your eyes widened even further as you stared at him, on the verge of collapsing into laughter. “K?!” The laugh wavered in your voice and you tried to swallow it back, “What did you do?” Killian was very blunt about it; “Turned myself into a penguin, alright. Are you happy now?” “How?” - Trying not to laugh was having the opposite effect and he sighed. “Go on, laugh-!” You did, but still tried to make it muted, before taking a deep breath, “What the hell...? Did you try to copy Walter’s formula-!?” “Well, it didn’t work did it-!” “They are all pigeons; although this is appropriate for our living conditions.” You crouched beside him, “...I gotta say, it’s very cute.” “Shut up!” You knew, were he still human, he’d be red with both anger and embarrassment by now. You reached out to delicately touch his feathers; it seemed, just like Sterling managed to retain the bow tie, Killian would retain the outlines of his suit. He swatted your hand away and hissed; “Stop it!” “Just take the antidote. I mean, it’s all over the desk, but I’m sure we can salvage some of it. I assume you are trying for a pigeon, right? Or maybe you aren’t; gotta say I prefer penguins.” “Thanks.” He responded dryly. You only grinned your ‘you’re welcome’ and then stood to walk back to his desk; even if KiTT had managed to clear everything by now, if Killian had all the data, creating another batch of antidote shouldn’t take too long, and you could enjoy him as a penguin for a few minutes... or hours... more. “No! Wait! Y/N!” He hissed again, flippers grabbing your leg. “What?” Killian gave you a look of significance. Your eyes narrowed; “You took it without making an antidote!?!” “I took it accidentally!! And I had an antidote, it just wasn’t perfected-! Now I’m stuck as a flightless bird-!” “Deadly in water though.” You mused, tilting your head – that was not well received. Killian grumbled, huffing something under his breath. “So, this isn’t Walter’s formula?” “No!” Although it didn’t look like he was prepared to admit it. And you weren’t sure exactly how he managed to take it ‘accidentally’. “I did it myself!” “Well, this part worked.” You continued walking though, which made him waddle after you as fast as he could, “WHERE ARE YOU GOING!?!” “Uhm, to get Walter. He’ll be able to fix this-!” “No!!” He got ahead of you and tried to push you backwards, you halted; you supposed you understood why he wouldn’t want to admit what he’d done. You thought Walter would actually love that Killian’s formula was at least correct, even if he couldn’t reverse it yet. “What are you going to do Killian? Perfect the antidote as a Penguin? Think about this-!” “I AM!” “Rationally.” You stooped again and gathered him in your arms, to which he squirmed until you set him on a clear desk. “He’s the only one who can help you.” “I can do this myself..!” “As a flightless bird?” He’d been the one to say it-! He sighed, but was still unwilling to concede. Folding his flippers across his chest and turning slightly away from you. You stroked a hand over his feathers again, and grumpy as he was, you felt Killian lean into your touch and smirked as you teased him. “We could be halfway to D.C. by now...” He turned to you, eyes narrowed, and pushed your fingers away again, gentler this time. “Fine. But not a word to anyone.” “I promise.” You placed your hand over your heart. “And don’t pick me up again. It’s embarrassing.” You raised an eyebrow, folding your own arms, “So... what are you going to do, waddle around after me?” “Yup.” Killian jumped down from the counter, sliding across the floor to the exit, passing KiTT who beeped curiously and looked to you. You gave a shrug and rolled your eyes. “You coming?”

It didn’t take very long to gather all that you needed and throw yourselves into the helicopter. You thanked your lucky stars that he’d taught you how to fly this thing. Your eyes flicked back to those clouds, “KiTT what did the weather say?” He beeped the response; cold, very cold, chance of snow later but the clouds may have been long gone by then. What concerned you most was if the chopper would fly, he seemed to suggest you’d be fine.

You took a deep breath and flicked all the switches to their correct positions before starting the ignition, blades whirring into life. Your penguin turned to you from his seat, where you’d firmly belted him in. “You sure you know what you’re doing!?! You have to get us all the way to Washington D.C.!” You glared at him, “You wanna try it in your current situation!? You taught me!!” Killian knew he had no choice but to concede. “Just be careful! Nothing reckless!” “Says the man that just turned himself into a Penguin-!” “It was accidental-!” His voice pitched. You placed your hands assuredly on the joystick and moved the helicopter steadily into the air and into higher altitudes. “Accidental my ass, how do you take something like that accidentally-!?” There was overwhelming silence and you knew you’d won again. But sighed, saying softer, “Look, it doesn’t matter...” You pulled out across the mountains and smiled at the blue sky out across your horizon line, the end of this grey was in sight-! “Walter will have you fixed into a sarcastic, Australian, pain-in-the-ass by the end of the day.” Even Killian couldn’t help but laugh at that.

How exactly did you end up in this mess? It’s probably best to go back to the beginning...

Shortly after the whole drone revenge plan had failed, you received an anonymous text telling you to bring a car to a building close to the Capitol Reflecting Pool and Washington Monument. It said nothing more than that, but it made you curious. Upon running it through KiTT and discovering it was from the Agency, your curiosity was only further piqued. And on the dot of the specified time, you were standing outside the building leaning against your car, shades on. To be honest you probably couldn’t have looked less inconspicuous, and you wondered if the Agency, in reality, were about to laugh at you for being so gullible and arrest you too. Well, you’d escaped from them before, and that was more than just a few upgrades ago.

The doors of the building opposite slid open and your mouth was suddenly agape, you slid your shades slowly from your eyes, unable to hide your shock. Stepping into daylight - in a brand-new suit - was none other than Killian himself.

His smile was gentle as he made his way down the steps to you, and your heart was hammering against your ribs. As Killian stopped in front of you, you couldn’t help yourself but throw your arms around him. “Am- am- am I here to pick you up!?” God I missed you, I missed you, I missed you… He chucked, returning your embrace, “I believe that’s the idea, yeah.” “They just let you go!?” Killian placed his right hand in his pocket and huffed, “Well. That’s not exactly it, I had to bargain my way out...” You surveyed him for a minute, all his cybernetics seemed intact; he didn’t look messed with. Running a full diagnostic would give you the whole picture, but you were puzzled. “What’s the price?” “Joining the good guys.” You pulled slightly back, “You’re working for the Agency!?” He gave a nod, “That’s the deal.” “Double cross all your acquaintances?” You smiled, leaning back against the car, “Does kinda sound like you... Oh. Wow. You’re an informant?” “Not exactly.” Your eyes widened further than you felt possible; “You’re an agent!?” “You got it.” But Killian’s smile slightly faded, “Y/N, I- I was only part of the bargain, though.” You understood him immediately, “Me? They want me.” “You’re an inspired scientist; your expertise in the fusion of human biology and robotics… not to mention AI- they can use that. It’s not really even me they want working with them, it’s you.” “You offered me up as a chip!?” You couldn’t help but be a little upset at him for that. “You’re the only chip I had to play!” Even by the desperate look on his face you shook your head, “No.” “I need you with me on this, you think I was gonna do it without you?” His hand reached for yours, and you didn’t pull away. “So, are we... a team?” “Well, about that—-” His eyes flicked over his shoulder and you both turned.

Standing in the doorway now - each with a wildly different expression on their face - were Walter, Lance and... you believed her name was Marcy. Your eyes flicked to his face and back to them. Walter was the only one that seemed to show any kind of joy; and he was ecstatic. You pushed back just about every swear word you could think of. “You’re kidding me?”

He was not, in fact, kidding and after being hauled into a two-hour meeting - which you felt really explained nothing - you were essentially handed a file and an ultimatum. Either you worked with them, or you were thrown in a maximum-security prison. You had to laugh, because you didn’t think this was exactly fair on you. And they had you between a rock and a hard place... Killian and you had always had the same vendetta against the Agency since Kyrgyzstan (maybe his a little more aggressive than yours), and you had a life outside all of this. You couldn’t afford not to take their offer. The Agency knew it.

That made you a lot less mad at him for signing you up, and you turned down the opportunity to vent to him on the drive back; “What do I call you now? Agent McFord!?” “Shut up!” The faint blush across his face made you smile and tease him again: “You do know all that James Bond stuff was a joke, right-!?”

It was one of your favourites. The two of you loved spy movies, unironically. And Killian really liked the classic Bond films, how any time he’d make himself a certain drink you’d come for him with the same joke: “Is that a martini!?” “Yes-??” He was always curious as to why that mattered, only for you to give a pointed smirk, “Alright... James Bond!” And he laughed, hard. And you loved that sound, because it was such a rarity these days, “Surely in this situation Sterling is James Bond...?” Then you smirked again, and gave Killian your best flirty wink, “Not to me!” That seemed to always get you where you wanted. And wasn’t 007 known for his way with the ladies, after all?

Today in your car Killian did not raise to the bait, but you saw him shake his head as he stared out the window. “So, are you going by Tristan or Killian…?” There was a little smile on his face as he continued to stare at the scenery, “I’ll leave that up to you…” Your sudden gasp had him looking back to you as something else gelled in your brain; “Wait does that mean I get to say I’m dating a secret agent!?” “Oh god.” His groan was quiet and you were already grinning, enjoying yourself even more. “You should never have agreed to this!” “Clearly.” “Wait—!” You turned to him in absolute joy, “Can you just put on a British accent for like five minutes-!?” “NO!” And you noticed how he managed to accent his Australian to new levels. Clearly his childhood wish to be James Bond was getting fulfilled, but he wasn’t about to play into it for your whims...

You’d figure out how to break that will before long-!

It took Killian a little more time than he would have liked to convince you that his deal was a good one. You were basically flat out refusing to work for them, doing the bare minimum you possibly could get away with; it felt too much like coercion to you, and they must have known how much you stood to lose.

His first track was to use Walter; with both similar approaches to science & technology and similar levels of enthusiasm for it, the work it would be possible for you to do together would be nothing short of incredible, and both of you knew it. You acknowledged Killian was right, but it wasn’t something you fell for. The files Killian gave you, the access to read about the technology... that interested you. The potential to further yourself in your own field, even if it had to be done with the Agency, was a good draw. But still not enough.

So Killian did the one thing he could, and played the last card he had left. Himself. Baiting you with his own fate. “If they say I’m not doing my job and throw me back where I came from, what then?” You hated him for it, hated even more that he had a point. Hated yourself for having to admit you couldn’t be without him. You’d almost gone stir crazy between his arrest and picking him up. You couldn’t stand to think of it being any longer than that. Too much of a pain point, your one line. You’d both lost enough; you refused to let yourselves lose each other.

You did not become an agent though. Your role was strictly technology and it confined you to the labs. Which you had to be honest, you enjoyed. And because you had your own job – and were a name the industry knew well – you weren’t a full time Agency employee. Your research saved lives – was the reason you still had yours – the Agency couldn’t exactly stop you working on good conscience. Even better! The tension in the team didn’t really let up, but the combination of the four of you (and Marcy and co when necessary) worked well. You all got more done than any other team in the Agency.

Still, the enjoyment of working alone, or with Walter, didn’t stop you from itching to get out there or complaining about it to Killian. “Oh. I see I’m not an agent.” “Less expendable than I.” “Out of me and you, how am I-” “You have a reputation beyond the Agency and they know it. You’re the poster child of cybernetics. They did it to save your brain; didn’t you tell me that yourself?” “You made this...” You indicated to the parts of your body that were, indeed, cybernetic. “Yes, I did.” He touched his forehead to yours, “but the top half of you is flesh and blood and I do not possess the brain you do. For now, you’re best staying in the lab.” Walter didn’t stay in the lab and it made you antsy; running around with Killian or getting to do stuff for him was half the fun.

And eventually you whined enough to get to accompany him on missions, even though you still didn’t get to be an agent.

You had a few style tips for your 007 too. In the same vein as Lance Sterling, Killian’s crisp new Agency suit was complete with bow tie and dazzlingly white shirt. You couldn’t help yourself, looking him over. Oh, sure, Killian looked great, but he didn’t look like him. As you strolled over, Killian stood still and as tall as possible: his obvious thought was that you we’re going to straighten his bow tie. Not a chance! Instead, you unfurled it and threw the fabric to one side, proceeding to undo one... two... you hovered over the third button. Killian placed his hand over yours, “Isn’t that enough?” He should have known that was a fatal mistake to say; “For me? No!” You took a step back with a smile, at the creased eyebrow and small frown look on his face, surveying your handy work: “Mmm. That’s more you. Agent McFord.” And so this was how he started to wear his suits, and before long that signature blue shirt found its way back into the mix, much to your delight.

It was on these missions together that you both became curious in Walter’s biomolecular tech. You from a purely scientific fascination. He had Sterling turning from man to pigeon left, right and centre. And the two of you had drones (now equipped with AI), but even you didn’t have anything like that. Clearly Killian’s interest had become a little more than just the spectacle and scientific theory though.

No, clearly he’d tried to replicate it for himself. And the result hasn’t exactly gone as planned. You supposed he wasn’t about to allow Lance to one up him for the rest of his Agency career - however long that lasted. And Killian wanted to get back on level footing without Walters help; he wanted to do it himself.

And it had worked, a very valiant attempt, but he hadn’t finished his antidote or had miscalculated somewhere... And that was how you had all ended up in a helicopter flying yourself to the Agency labs, with a penguin in the passenger seat.

Yet with what you’d seen working here, this just seemed like a typical day!

***

You landed to the best of your ability, ignoring his slight glare of annoyance at the small bump as you set the helicopter down. You would call that trip a success. You stared at the heavy doors in front of you and gathered your pass; you heard KiTT behind you and his metallic fussing as he switched himself into all the correct safety modes and access clearances for the Agency. That you had done yourself; you didn’t trust Killian with KiTT, did they really think they would get the go ahead to touch him? Turning to Killian you cleared your throat; “You gotta act like a penguin remember-! So don’t talk to me! Or do anything a penguin wouldn’t do!” “What wouldn’t a penguin do!?” You unclipped his seatbelt. Well, you supposed a researcher would know, or someone that worked with them closely in a zoo. But he couldn’t just guess the Agency’s experience. Then again, it wouldn’t surprise you if he knew everyone in it inside out by now. “Look, I don’t know. But don’t make me talk to you, I’m going to look like an insane person-!” Realising that you were both still talking to each other you shared the same ‘shut up!’ look before agreeing not to talk with a silent nod, and with both KiTT and penguin Killian trailing you, you headed across the helipad with your Agency pass.

Here we go again...

God, you hated this building. Most times you’d been out here it hadn’t been for any good reason - and you still didn’t feel particularly safe within it. And so many people… Even when you worked your legitimate job you usually worked alone - or with people you actually liked - you could talk to yourself or KiTT and run your mouth, or talk things through without anyone answering you. Everyone at the Agency had an opinion. When it was just you and Walter it was okay, and Killian was right, you liked him. But sometimes other people got involved and it got messy. To the point where Walter would gingerly steer you from the room before you really went off at someone.

You keyed yourself in; immediately scanned by the Agency’s automatic sensors, the switch turned green and the door swung open for you. You hesitated for a moment and looked down to Killian. “I know you’re gonna hate this, but I’m going to have to carry you through security. I think that’s all there is for it.” You didn’t let him answer as you picked him up but, as before, Killian protested by squirming in your arms as you walked down the hall to the security area. “Geez, now I look like I’m smuggling in a penguin…”

You gained some funny looks for doing so, but you need only say the word research and they let you through with him. As you turned into the next corridor, through the next security door and it all looked empty, Killian nipped at your fingers; “OW! Okay… Geez-!” You put him back on the ground, only for him to shake out his ruffled feathers with a ‘humph!’ The corridors remained silent as you took the long way down to the research centre. And Killian switched from waddling to sliding around on his stomach. You watched with curiosity; you supposed that was faster for him than trying to keep up with you. You turned to KiTT with a raised eyebrow, only to see him also focused with puzzlement on the penguin. Knowing you weren’t about to get anything sensible out of your drone, you spoke once again to your boyfriend: “Is that easier to move, or is it just fun?” Killian barely glanced up at you, but you knew the look he was giving: ‘you’re the one that said don’t talk!’ He was right, but this corridor was empty, the last 10 corridors had been empty! “Geez you can just nod.” You were met with nearly exactly the same look, before he paused, nodded, and carried on his sliding. “It’s fun? You are too cute.”

It took you until the next door for him to stand up and retaliate, but when Killian did, he smacked your leg as best he could with his flipper; you could only laugh.

***

You wandered cautiously through the laboratory and he stayed close; perhaps you should have checked that Walter was actually in today. You could already hear the stirring of whispers, and KiTT beeped in acknowledgement. You glanced to him, “Tell them to shut the hell up then!” His beep was a little louder in annoyance, and you rolled your eyes, but he began flying ominously over the heads of the other scientists and chatter stopped, work resumed. You smiled to yourself; everyone was scared of KiTT because of what they knew Killian’s drones had been capable of. KiTT was harmless, and had no weaponry, but they didn’t need to know that. You quite enjoyed how scared they got sometimes. Served them right for the majority of it. You were a little overcome with joy to see that Walter was indeed in his lab, and even more happy to see that Lance was nowhere to be found. You gave him a wave as you knocked on his door and received a big smile back. “Y/N! I didn’t know you were coming in today!” “Unplanned, I do confess. But it’s good to see you Walter!” “Well, it’s lovely to see you too! You working?” “Actually I came to ask a favour…” “Oh!” He straightened in his chair as he swung it towards you, large blue eyes curious, “What is it?” “Your bio-molecular technology?” “Yes.” It was at this point he noticed the penguin, and you could see the million questions racing in his mind, so you opted to continue quick before he got a chance to ask them. “Is that just for Lance? Would it work on anyone? You must have the formula, right? Is there any chance I can take a look? Both for the transformation process and the antidote to it. I mean you guys are using it all the time.” “Uuuhhhh…” Now you’d given Walter a million questions, and his eyes kept flicking downwards to your companion. “Well, I…Yes, I guess I could…. show you how to… Do you want to do this with a penguin?” “Ignore the penguin.”

Walter tried to keep his eyes on you, especially as the look you were giving him was serious, but eventually they trailed back to the bird at your feet. He studied it for a while and ignored you trying to protest him disregarding what you’d said. He leant forward on his chair, “Killian?” Instead of acting as he was supposed to, your partner became immediately angry. “Not a WORD to Sterling, or I SWEAR-!!” Instead, Walter lit up with a gasp, “You perfected your own formula!?! That’s so amazing—!! Colour me impressed-! Well, I could make what I made for him, so you can turn pretty much at will-!! Well-” He turned to you with a smile, “with some assistance of course-!” “A secret agent penguin!” The idea was funny to you, but at the same time you couldn’t help but love it. Killian immediately protested, “NO-! THATS STUPID, WE ARE NOT—!” You nudged him with your foot to shut him up, before continuing a sensible track of conversation, “First off, I suppose we should get the formula done. Then we can think about what we want to do with it afterward.” “All you need is the antidote right? I can get right on that… but, Killian, I’m going to need your help with what you did…” Walter spun back to the computer and began typing away, “Pull up a seat you two!” You dragged one across, and Killian scrambled up onto your lap; “I don’t have my formula, but KiTT could probably download it. He has a satellite uplink to the lab back home.” Walter nodded, “That’ll do, I’ll have to make sure the antidote coincides… I can’t promise this will be short though, you might be stuck like that for a few more hours.” “Hours!?” Killian sounded exasperated but turned to your assistance drone: “KiTT, see if you can link back to the lab and access file F-BMP5. Then send it across to Walter.” KiTT, glad of something to do, bleeped happily and set to work. “Sorry buddy.” Walter replied softly, “A penguin though, I’m impressed.” “Not entirely easy to find birds where we live.” This caused you to chime in, “Genuinely there are penguins up there?” “If you know where to look.” “Huh!” You smiled gently, “You’ll have to show me!”

Walter worked as quickly and carefully as possible, and as you suspected people were fascinated. Everyone who passed couldn’t resist knocking on the door and asking what a penguin was doing here. Some even having the nerve to ask, ‘Is that penguin talking?’ By the time the last one had enquired you were up by the door: “NO!” and slamming it back in their face. Walter took precautions to lock you all in here and frost the glass for privacy after that.

Killian remained in your lap, and you held him close, stroking your fingers through his feathers again, this time he didn’t seem to mind too much, and at times when you paused, he would nuzzle against your hands to get you to continue. Though you knew he would never admit it. As he continued working on the antidote, Walter again brought up the possibility of using this ultimate spy tech regularly. Killian didn’t seem keen, but you wondered if you could get him to warm to the idea… “I’m sure that we could find a little suit jacket for you in that form.” He glared back at you, “You’re enjoying this a little too much, aren’t you?” “A little, yeah!” You grinned in admittance, making him turn to Walter. “It’s a hard no from me.” “Aw, Killian, c’mon!” That only made Walter chuckle, “Let him get used to it Y/N, he’ll like it eventually, Lance did.” “You mean just leave him like this for a while?” Walter grinned, “Something like that!” Killian spluttered, stamping his foot against your leg; “YOU TWO PUT ME BACK RIGHT NOW!”

When Walter had the serum made up, he walked you both into another lab to perform the procedure. Killian let you carry him. “You can drink it if you want, but I’d like to run a few tests.” “Meaning what?” “I mean, if I put you under anaesthetic… I can check a few things.” “Is that usual?” “No but it’s your first time, and Lance’s wasn’t a pleasant experience I just want to make sure you’re okay, or Y/N will kill me.” Killian narrowed his eyes at both of you, standing there trying to look so innocent. “Fine. If I wake up and I’m not human again, I’m going to kill both of you.” Walter winced, however you only smirked; “Noted!”

***

When Killian awoke again, he was indeed human. But he was not in a lab in Washington D.C. instead he was in bed, back in the mountain top hideout. Had he really been out that long? Or was whatever drug used in the anaesthetic or antidote so strong he simply couldn’t remember anything else. He stretched, glad his head wasn’t spinning, and walked into the bathroom. Skimming his fingers up the side of his neck he pressed down on the projection switch. Killian checked this every morning as routine; that the system worked, that there were no problems with the metal, or his eye. This morning, nothing worked. He straightened up with a frown and tried again. Nothing. Killian rushed through the house; “Y/N! Y/N!” He sounded panicked, making you shake your head and call him through. “In the main room, babe.” He ran the rest of the way, “Y/N, my projection isn’t working!” You turned to him slowly, crooked, amused smile on your face; as if you were trying to hold back a laugh. “Are you sure? Why don’t you check again?” This time Killian was more careful, fingers sliding up his neck tentatively. He paused, realising that he couldn’t even feel the switch. It no longer existed. His eyes flew wide, voice quiet; “You- you- fixed it!” You grinned, smile slowly spreading across your face as you nodded, “Yes! So now you have a complete face!” He sprinted the rest of the way to you, grabbing you into a hug. You couldn’t help laughing, throwing your arms around him too as Killian buried his face in his shoulder, “You can cry now too! But please don’t! I would feel terrible!” “How-!?” “Turns out I can pick up a thing or two… Called in a few favours...” He pulled back and you framed his face with your hands, stroking your thumbs over his cheeks, “The Agency have better tech, but I never admitted that out loud. I’ve been wanting to do it for a little while but… Walter finally gave me the opportunity.” “...Thank you.” “Oh, don’t you start.” You indicated to yourself, “I have far more to thank you for.” You gestured to his robotic arm, “I thought… maybe I’d leave that. That was a feat of engineering y’know?” He laughed, “One thing at a time, huh?” “Yes!” You agreed with a nod.

Killian tugged away from you for a moment, and studied your clothes. He was in luck; they were the ones you had been wearing at the labs. Although, as he glanced to the colour of the sky perhaps it wasn’t the morning after all, perhaps it was later in the same day. It was snowing, though, so that weather prediction had been correct. Killian couldn’t be sure when it was exactly, but it was imperative you were wearing these clothes. “I just need to do something.” You were confused as he got closer to you. “What?” “Don’t get too excited.” He ran his hand down your body to the pocket of your jeans. “I mean, I can’t help get excited, you’re here and touching me.” “Stop it.” Although Killian smirked, slipping his hand into your pocket. You stilled, and your features pulled into a highly suggestive look as your eyes scanned his; “I mean, I have questions, Agent McFord.” He rolled his eyes at you as he fished a small disk drive out of your pocket. “…Wait!” You gasped, moment broken, “What the hell is that!? Where did you get that!?” You patted yourself down suddenly, “Killian-!” He closed his hand around it and beckoned you with him, turning to walk back to the labs, you hurried after him, “No one was paying much attention to the Penguin, were they!” “Wait! Seriously! What is that?” “Shush, you’ll see.” He plugged it into his computer and you waited patiently for it to boot up before you found yourself gasping again; “Is that… The Agency’s entire weapons tech!?” “Yup.” You whipped around to him, hands on his desk, “ARE YOU DOUBLE CROSSING THE AGENCY!” “Kinda.” His face was fairly nonchalant as his eyes held yours again. “Killian!” You couldn’t believe this was happening. After all that talk, and trying to persuade you into this. “After what they did...” He transposed the files, “are you really THAT surprised?” You folded your arms, hating that he had a point, “...Well no. But I... thought you might be a little more discreet.” “What they don’t know won’t hurt them - besides a few months ago you were telling me I was double crossing all the people I worked with, so is it double crossing a double cross or is it simply that I’m an effective double agent?” “... That’s a lot of doubles.” “Mm.” “I figure that’s not what the programme and agreement of your release was for. K, if they find out…” He tipped his head, eyes very nearly pleading with you. “I’m not covering for you!” “Accomplice?” “Not in your wildest dreams!” You were grinning - but maybe grimacing, because you thought perhaps you’d get caught up in this too, being part of his damn agreement - and Killian already knew he’d got away with it. You were going to be there for him no matter what he did and no matter what happened, you’d made that promise too long ago and you’d never break it. Not after what you’d been through together. You folded your arms again, “I won’t rat on one condition.” His eyes rolled, “What could that be?” “If you’ll agree to use Walter’s biomolecular tech, penguin yourself on missions in the same way Lance does his pigeon transformation.” Killian scoffed, “How?!” You were sure he wished he didn’t ask as you produced a collection of vials from a table across the lab. Killian’s face fell slightly. “You did not.” “Oh, we did!” “That’s most certainly punishment.” You indicated to the screen, “Someone brought this upon himself.”

There was silence, before he began chuckling, pulling you into his arms gently - and you were only too happy to accept his hug and a kiss to your forehead. “Geez. The things I do for you!” You moved to catch his lips delicately in ‘thanks’. Oh yeah, like you couldn’t say the same thing!

---

Thank you for reading the penultimate fic of the year! 😁

#Killian #Killian sid #Tristan McFord #Spies in Disguise #Killian x Reader #Tristan McFord x Reader #Agent McFord #Killian/Ashlinn #Ashlinn #Kitt the Drone #KiTT #205 #This boy went in a box in Jan/Feb popped up in April and now he's back for December!#Alternatively: I Wish I Was James Bond #Which is the song I would have used for the 007 pieces because this is technically 2 fics in one #I'm rambling again but whatever...#Linzi Writes #Smol Bean Drabbles #I have missed writing for these two SO much!!#But then I look in the SID tag and I'm like /oh yeah. this is why.../#I still don't understand this Keller Killian thing but I crack up every time I see it because Ben also played Keller in Captain Marvel...#...so that's hilarious!!#And now I can only think of them being somehow related and thats even funnier #New Canon: Director Keller becomes Killian #burn everything you love / then burn the ashes #I've been listening to this song on repeat all day and its very Krennic but it's very good for Killian too!

124 notes · View notes

artificialqueens · 3 years

Text

Ever in Your Favor, Chapter Five (Rosnali) - Athena2

Summary: Denali and Rosé officially enter the arena.

A/N: Thank you so much for the amazing comments on the last chapter! It really does mean a lot to me, especially because this one has been a little challenging to write. I'd really appreciate any feedback you have on this chapter!

Denali opens her eyes to gray.

The arena is gray and wet, mist falling over the damp grass, fog curling around tall trees and a massive cliffside. A chill bites at her, but Denali doesn’t mind. She might even have an advantage here. The warmer districts don’t know this cold, wet weather, but Denali knows the cold like an old friend.

Rosé coached her for this part, said to find a bow and whatever she could grab, but not to go in too deep or engage in any fights. After that, her first priority is getting far away and finding water.

Denali repeats it to herself, avoiding how the other tributes tower over her. The gong sounds, and she runs—

“Denali!”

Rosé’s voice brings her back, and the world around her isn’t wet, but grassy, with forest all around. Pine hits her nose, and it reminds her of the hours in the woods back home, her dad showing her which plants were safe to eat. The odds just might be in her favor this year.

Rosé is on her platform a few feet away, and the Cornucopia looms in front of them, an enormous golden horn stuffed with weapons and supplies. The others are spread in a circle around the Cornucopia, waiting for the gong that releases them.

The gong sounds.

“Denali, run!”

Denali doesn’t think twice. Her boots fly over the grass, the other tributes just blurs in her vision. She reaches the Cornucopia seconds before anyone else, and in those seconds, she finds what she needs: a bow and a quiver stuffed with arrows. The quiver is a comforting weight on her back, the bow warm in her hand, and if it wasn’t for her pounding fear she could almost convince herself she’s back home. She grabs a backpack and two knives in another heartbeat before footsteps and shouts erupt.

The tributes have arrived.

Most brush past her, deeper into the Cornucopia, where the best stuff is--weather-proof tents, huge bags of food, medicine. Part of Denali wants to join them, but there are always a lot of deaths at the Cornucopia, and she has what she really needs. She can’t get killed on the first day.

Blood suddenly splatters over Denali’s boots, and she sees the District 7 man hit the grass with a knife in his back. Denali tugs it free and adds it to her weapons, running towards the woods. She can’t see Rosé among the bodies at war with each other, and her heart skips a beat at the thought that something happened to her--

A distinct flash of red comes on her side, and Denali almost crumples in relief. Rosé has a sword and two spears, plus a backpack. And better yet--four full water bottles. Denali doesn’t want to know what she went through for those.

“You good?” she asks Rosé.

Rosé nods. “Let’s get out of here.”

---

They go for hours, switching between walking and jogging, trying to get as far from the Cornucopia as possible. They haven’t run into any dangers yet--no murder-wasps or anything--and Rosé doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. They don’t want to be complacent, and they keep pushing themselves, not even stopping to check their supplies, taking only the smallest sips of water. Rosé’s grateful for all that running with Denali--she probably would have dropped by now without it.

When the sun sets, bathing the arena in a golden light so warm and peaceful it almost makes you forget where you are, they finally stop. They’re in a clearing, and Denali arranges thick bushes and leaves to cover them.

“Let’s see what we have,” Denali says, and they lay out their stuff.

A sword, two spears, a bow, thirty arrows, three knives, four water bottles, a tiny first aid kit, six packs of dried meat, matches, and a sleeping bag.

“Damn, we did good,” Rosé whispers. “I got a freaking plastic tarp and a sword I didn’t know how to use for my first round.” She doesn’t want to get overconfident yet--it’s still day one, after all--but there’s comfort in knowing they have stuff, in not ending the first day so hungry and thirsty it hurts.

Denali nods, splitting up the food, and it’s almost nice in their little hiding spot. If they weren’t in the arena, if they both weren’t constantly looking around for danger, it’s a place Rosé might like to be. Berries even fill the bushes, ripe and juicy-looking.

“You think we can eat those?” Rosé asks. Denali taught her the most common edible leaves and plants when they trained, but Rosé’s never seen berries like these.

Denali almost jumps in the air. “Do not eat those, Rosé. They’re nightlock, they’ll kill you instantly. If we--if we get separated or anything, promise me you’ll remember.”

“Promise,” Rosé says. She’s quiet after that, and it’s because of what Denali said. If we get separated. Rosé’s been with Denali so much lately that she can’t imagine her not being there. She did fine on her own last time, and figured she’d be on her own again this time. But they’ve somehow crawled back into each other’s lives, and Rosé doesn’t want to do this--doesn’t want to be here--alone. The thought of them getting separated, of losing Denali in the arena, is enough to make her sick.

The anthem cuts across the dark sky, and they look up to see the images of the tributes that were killed today. It starts with the man from District 3 and ends with the woman from District 11. Ten dead tributes ticked off on Rosé’s fingers. Pretty high for day one, but not the highest. She knows she should feel something, but she doesn’t. She didn’t even learn their names. It’s easier that way.

“Twelve more left besides us,” Denali says.

“Glad all that math help I gave you paid off,” Rosé teases, and Denali smiles big enough to show her dimples. God, those dimples. Rosé forgot how much she missed them. She grabs the sleeping bag and hands it to Denali. “Get some sleep. I’ll take first watch.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Wake me in four hours.” Denali slides into it with a white-knuckled grip on her knife and her bow within arm’s reach. She keeps twisting in the bag--Rosé figures she’s right on Denali being afraid to sleep around people--but eventually settles down, exhaustion winning over.

It’s too dark to see much, and quiet enough to hear Denali’s gentle breaths. Rosé doesn’t think any tributes will attack tonight--they’d only be putting themselves in danger attacking in the dark--but she wouldn’t put it past the Gamemakers to spring something. Rosé is sure she keeps hearing noises, every muscle tense in preparation of an attack. The only thing that eases the tension is closing her eyes and listening to Denali breathe. It centers her somehow, helps Rosé figure out what she’s really hearing and what her mind is making up. As long as Denali’s here, as long as she’s breathing, Rosé is okay.

“Denali, wake up,” Rosé says softly after four and a half--she gives Denali some extra rest; she probably won’t know--agonizing hours. She’d tap her shoulder, but something tells her it’s not a good idea. Definitely not, because Denali immediately shoots awake and her knife hits Rosé’s chest. Even with the tip there, Rosé’s reluctantly impressed at how good Denali’s sight and aim are in dim moonlight.

“It’s just me. Rosé.”

Denali inhales sharply, yanking the knife away. “I--Rosé, I--I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Rosé understands. She’d shoved Lagoona after a nightmare once, her brain convinced her sister was a threat.

Rosé crawls into the sleeping bag and feels Denali’s unease seep over her. Besides her family, she never has anyone around when she sleeps. What if something happens? What if they’re attacked before Denali can do anything? What if she has a nightmare in front of Denali? She doesn’t know if they’re on camera, but that won’t look good in front of the Capitol. They want strength and toughness from their tributes. Waking up screaming from a nightmare will only hurt their cause, make them question Rosé’s strength, and she can’t do that.

But she’s tired, really tired. The sleeping bag is surprisingly plush, so thick she can’t even feel the hard ground beneath her. Everything is warm and soft, and though she tries to fight it, she sleeps.

---

The sun wakes Rosé before Denali does.

Day two in the arena, and Rosé resists the urge to burrow back into the sleeping bag and sleep until it’s over.

“I was just about to wake you,” Denali says. She’s ready to go, bag on and weapons in hand, and Rosé thinks Denali gave her some extra rest too, paying back the favor. “There should be a water source nearby,” Denali continues.

Rosé nods and follows, trusting Denali to guide them. Rosé’s world was one of icing and sugar and butter, of kneading dough and sweating in front of hot ovens. But Denali knows forests better than anything, her childhood made of branches and trees and plants. Rosé is amazed at how she keeps track of it all. Those water bottles won’t last forever, and if anyone can find water here, it’s Denali.

They continue through the woods, and again they don’t encounter anything. It has to be deliberate. The Gamemakers want to lure them into a false safety so the danger is that much more frightening when it does come. Rosé doesn’t want to think about what they might send.

She makes a mental map of the arena as they go. The forest seems to be the largest part of it, leading to another large valley, and then the mountain. Not an obviously threatening arena, and again Rosé thinks it was a choice. When faced with tributes who’ve seen so many different arenas with so many different dangers, leave them guessing about what to expect. A basic arena like this could accommodate anything the Gamemakers want to unleash.

But nothing is unleashed the second day, and they trade uneasy sleep shifts.

---

Day three brings the first threat--a group of lizards in bright neon colors that roam down a tree when Denali and Rosé are resting. They're definitely a Capitol hybrid, and Denali isn't sure if they're poisonous, but she doesn't wait to find out. Five arrows, five dead lizards, before they even know what hit them. It's almost comforting, in a way, to have something to fight against for a few seconds. Instead of just wandering the arena and waiting.

They decide to move on in case more lizards come, and see the District 4 tributes crossing the field.

Denali freezes, grip tight on her bow. They're out in the open, and she could get them both before they even hear her arrows whistling by them. Two less tributes to worry about. More odds in their favor. But they're defenseless. No threat at all, just walking along. Denali knows that they'll have to be killed eventually if she wants to win. She just doesn't want to be the one doing the killing. At least not unless they try to kill her first.

She lowers her bow. "Rosé, I don't think I can do it. I'm sorry." She hangs her head, expecting Rosé to tell her she's being stupid, or get mad at her for blowing an opportunity most tributes would literally kill for. What if Denali's lost her nerve? Will she be able to kill when her life really is on the line, when she really has to?

But Rosé just nods. "It's okay."

And they move on.

---

By day four, Denali is on edge. She flinches at every rustle, every snapping of a twig, but they haven't run into anything or anyone since District 4. Two tributes die, cutting it down to ten more besides them. They’re at the halfway point, and that surely means something big is coming. The Gamemakers won’t leave things alone this long, won’t let the tributes stay separated. This suspense, this tension hanging over their heads, while intentional, has to break at some point, to the interest of the viewers and horror of the tributes. Something has to come.

And on day four, it does.

Denali senses the change in the air before the rain comes, reaching her hand up to catch a drop.

It sizzles against her palm.

“Run!” she barks at Rosé, cradling her singed hand to her chest.

Burning rain pelts off their jackets as they tear through the woods. The material offers some protection, but tiny drops make their way over Denali’s hands, on her face, down her back. She hisses against the burning, and Rosé curses beside her as they try to find dryness. In one direction, gusts of wind almost bring Denali to her knees, ruffling her jacket and making the rain pound down, and she glimpses a thick spiral in the distance that she numbly realizes is a tornado. A fucking burning rain-tornado combo. The Gamemakers really want their money’s worth today.

“There,” Rosé pants, and Denali realizes a valley to their left is perfectly clear. They sprint into it, collapsing on the grass, and Denali can’t even look at the blisters on her hands. There’s a plant that helps burns, her father told her, she just has to remember--

“Aloe!” She runs to the leaves. She finds the plant and cuts it with her knife, letting the cool gel soothe her hands and face, sighing in relief. She cuts more and takes it to Rosé, who’s bent over in the grass so no one sees her face screwed up in pain.

“Rosé, it’s okay. I can help.” She places the gel on Rosé’s hands, ignoring the tingle in her arm at the touch.

“Can I do your back?” Denali asks gently, and Rosé only hesitates a second before she nods.

Denali lifts Rosé’s shirt and jacket, letting her hands trace up the hard muscles of her back as she spreads the gel over her blistered skin. She keeps her touch gentle, not wanting to cause more pain, and she knows this has to be on camera and exaggerates her touches, makes herself seem extra caring, even if she hates herself for it.

“Let me do yours now,” Rosé offers.

Denali freezes. For the briefest second, her ankle tightens with the grip of the girl from District 4, but Rosé isn’t her. Rosé is only trying to help, not hurt, and Denali nods, even if she hasn’t asked for help in years. It would blow their cover if she refuses anyway. She holds her breath as Rosé moves her shirt, not letting herself tremble or show pain in front of the Capitol.

“I’m gonna put it on now,” Rosé says. Denali sighs when the gel hits, grinning when Rosé scolds her to stay still. She hasn’t had someone care for her like this since her mother died. In seconds, the pain is gone, and they watch the rain. Denali wonders how long they’ll be trapped here. Not to mention that finding aloe seems too good to be true. Too suspicious.

“Some rain, huh?” Rosé mutters.

“Don’t forget the tornado,” Denali laughs bitterly.

“Wait.” Rosé stills, ear toward the rain. “Do you hear something?”

Denali doesn’t hear anything before five tributes sprint into the clearing. The storm was clearly meant to send them into one dry spot, and even with the burns, a windswept tribute from District 1--Denali thinks his name is Castor--launches himself at her with a sword. It’s too late to string her bow, and he’s too close--but Rosé jumps in front of her, the sword cutting across her leg as she swings her own sword at him. Metal clangs as they go at it, and Denali can’t even process that Rosé just saved her life before the woman from District 4 comes at her. Denali grabs a spear that Rosé dropped and blocks the woman’s arm, sinking the point into her chest a second later. The woman hits the grass, and cannon fire joins the noises of battle.

“On your left, Fox!” someone yells. The voice is too deep to be Rosé, and Denali realizes it’s Finn from District 4, currently locked in battle with the man from District 8. She barely has time to thank him before the woman from District 1 pounces at Denali, nails clawing at her neck. Denali blocks her just in time. The world is sweat and blood and heaving breaths, and Denali just hopes Rosé is still alive.

The fight ends as suddenly as it started, when Denali stabs the woman and looks around and realizes the rain has stopped, and there’s no one left to fight. The man from District 8 escaped into the woods, but the clearing is littered with dead tributes from Districts 1 and 4. Her bloody hands still grip the spear, just in case. Her arm is trickling blood, and her neck stings with scratches from the woman grabbing at her, but she’ll survive. She hardly feels it, hardly feels anything, really, as she looks around. And Rosé--Rosé is still standing, thank God, limping over to Denali. The gash on her leg is huge, soaking her pants with blood, but she’s alive, and Denali’s knees almost buckle in relief.

“Are you okay?” Denali asks. “We gotta get out of here, then we can bandage your leg.”

Before Rosé can speak, a wheeze sounds from the ground, and they dart toward the noise. It’s Finn, clinging to whatever life he has left. The man from District 8 must’ve got him. As she looks at him lying there, golden hair stained red, she finds the numbness fading into emptiness, emptiness that swallows her heart. Sparing his life yesterday had been for nothing. But deep down she knew it would be. There's no escaping the fate of the arena. He had been kind, had offered her an alliance she barely considered, had warned her of an attack even when she killed his fellow tribute. And now he’s dying. Would things have been different with an alliance? Would they have protected each other? Would he have become a friend that she would inevitably lose? He was going to have a baby, she remembers, but hearing it in the training room and remembering it now are two different things, and she wishes she didn’t remember. She understands why Rosé avoided the other tributes and didn't talk to them, why she tries to avoid the Games entirely.

“You said he was having a kid,” Rosé says quietly. Her normally wary eyes seem sad.

It’s not a question, but Denali nods anyway.

Finn wheezes again, letting out a hoarse please. Please what, Denali has no idea, and watches in confusion as Rosé approaches him. She can’t mean to kill him--he’s good as dead. Instead she crouches down, takes his hand, and begins to hum something. It’s a simple melody, one that sounds like a lullaby. Denali understands--Rosé can’t help him, no one can, but at least he won’t be alone. Denali kneels with her and just listens, goosebumps on her arms, and pretends she’s somewhere else. Somewhere she never had to do this. Somewhere the two women she killed today never attacked her in the first place.

The cannon sounds, and they leave the clearing in silence.

---

They don’t talk again until that night.

They bandage each other up and eat some fruit Denali found as they walked, lost in their own minds. Rosé’s eyes finally lose that far-off look as she eats, though she keeps turning her apple over and over like she’s never seen one.

Denali doesn’t know what to say. The cold side of her has already calculated that six other tributes remain--both from District 2, both from District 8, the woman from 7, and the man from 9. But how can she focus on who’s left after this afternoon?

They both jump when two parachutes appear.

The first contains a medicated cream, one that instantly starts healing their burns and soothes any remaining pain. The second is a platter of bread and fish, clearly from District 4, the fishing district, and Denali knows it’s because of what Rosé did for Finn. She swallows the lump in her throat, resenting the part of her that’s so hungry it wants to grab the food and shove it down without a thought. Another part of her doesn’t want to eat it at all, doesn’t want this reward when there’s blood on her hands. They don’t deserve this. They weren’t even friends with him, didn’t do anything to help. But Rosé made his last moments easier, and maybe that counts for something.

“I almost don’t want to eat it,” Rosé whispers, and Denali knows she feels the same way.

“I know. But I think it’s disrespectful not to,” Denali says.

Rosé nods. She turns her head, because there’s clearly a camera on them, and thanks District 4 for their gift. They split the food and eat slowly, savoring each bite.

The silence continues until the anthem ends, and Rosé nudges the sleeping bag toward her.

“I don’t really feel like sleeping,” Denali admits.

“Me neither. Nightmares are a bitch.”

Denali had long assumed Rosé had nightmares, given that the lights in her house are on almost any time Denali wakes up in the night. Denali’s not worried so much about dreams--it’s more that she’s sure she won’t be able to sleep and will just be lying in the sleeping bag with nothing to do but think of today’s deaths, or how Rosé protected her. Denali’s come to rely on her, to enjoy her company, and today just proved how close she is to losing Rosé and doing this on her own.

“Things seem...different now,” Denali says.

“It feels more real,” Rosé says simply, because she understands.

Denali nods. “We left while everyone fought at the Cornucopia. We didn’t see the other deaths. But this time...”

There’s a difference between watching someone die and killing them yourself, and it’s a difference only a few people fully understand.

“We did what we had to,” Rosé says quietly.

Denali nods, because it is true. She never wants to kill just to kill, only when she has to in order to live. And being in the arena again makes her realize how much she wants to live. She wants to go home and and watch the sunrise each morning instead of just ignoring it on her runs. She wants to invite Kandy and Kahmora over for dinner, and talk to Jan and Lagoona again, wants so many people in her house that she’ll need a whole new set of coffee mugs. And she really wants Rosé to be part of it. Maybe she can. Somehow.

Denali doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, and she can tell Rosé doesn’t either, from how she’s picking at her sword.

“I--I’m glad we both made it,” Denali says. “I’m glad I’m here with you. Thanks, by the way. For saving me back there.” Her subconscious knows it's a good thing to say strategy-wise, to prove the romance, but she really means it. She’s used to fighting tooth and nail for what she wants, not anyone helping her or protecting her. She didn’t have an older sister running to the stage to save her from the Games, didn’t have an alliance in the arena last time. She really is grateful for Rosé.

“So am I,” Rosé says sincerely. “And you don’t have to thank me. We look out for each other, okay?”

“Yeah. What was that thing you were humming?” Denali asks before she can stop herself.

Rosé looks down at her lap. A shaft of moonlight falls over her face and bathes her in silver, and Denali’s heart skips a beat. “It’s a lullaby my mom used to sing us. I don’t actually know all of it. We were usually asleep before she finished. But I never forgot the melody.”

“Oh.” Denali’s mother wasn’t one for singing. She told stories instead, old fairy tales of princesses and knights that Denali used to fight sleep to hear the end of. Sometimes her father would join in, and when he died, Denali lost not one but two storytellers. Her mother became a half-finished story after losing him, one that ended abruptly eleven years ago. Denali’s hand goes to her necklace, but she meets empty space.

No. No no no--

“What’s wrong?” Rosé asks.

Denali hadn’t realized she was speaking aloud. She doesn’t answer, instead digging through their bags while her heart pounds. She’s making too much noise as throws aside knives and food packets, but she doesn’t care because it’s gone--

“Denali,” Rosé says, and her calm voice breaks through. “What’s wrong?”

“My mom's necklace. It’s gone. I must’ve lost it in the fight.” Denali remembers the woman from District 1 clawing at her neck. She must have torn off the necklace in her struggle, and Denali didn’t notice among the chaos. Now it’s gone and she’ll never get it back, when she has so little of her mother at all, and she angrily forces back the tears stinging in her eyes. She won’t cry. Not in this arena.

“I’m sorry. It's your mom's, right?” Rosé asks quietly, and Denali nods. “Tomorrow we can go look for it. It could still be in the clearing.”

Denali knows it’s a long shot, but the mere offer—an offer to go back into danger for something that’s not physically necessary—stirs something in her chest. It’s more kindness than she’s been offered in years, more kindness offered without any reward expected, just like Rosé sneaking cookies into her bag, and it’s too much to take. She mumbles a thank you and crawls into the sleeping bag, explaining that she’s tired after all. It’s an excuse to not look at Rosé, at the concern in her eyes, because Denali can’t bear it. No one has looked at her like that in years. She feels too exposed, just like at the interview, and looking at Rosé is impossible when every part of her is raw and laid bare.

Surprisingly, sleep comes easy, and it brings not nightmares, but dreams of Rosé.

---

The sound of trumpets wake Rosé the next morning, after a restless sleep of tossing and turning. Her leg felt like it was on fire, and sweat ran down her neck all night even though it was cool outside. Her head kept swimming with images of the fight, but what really kept her awake was her confusion over Denali. Why couldn’t she look at Rosé, and why did she throw herself in the sleeping bag minutes after saying she didn’t want to sleep? Maybe it was the stress of losing the necklace. Maybe she wanted to hide in the sleeping bag so no one saw her cry. The necklace is obviously a touchy subject for Denali, and she’s probably just stressed. They both are. Rosé won’t pry.

She sits up and rubs her eyes with a groan. “What’s with the trumpets?”

Denali shrugs, seeming back to normal. “Must be an announcement. Maybe because there’s only eight of us left? We’re at the last third.”

Rosé can’t believe sixteen people have died, that they’re already at the final eight. It feels like ages and yet like no time at all has passed.

“After we win this, I should be a math teacher,” Rosé says, heart lightening when Denali smiles. Announcements are usually done to bring tributes together for a big bloodbath. Though the rain accomplished that yesterday. Maybe this is something different.

Rosé listens as the announcer explains an unprecedented rule change. In light of three full teams remaining, the most ever at the eight-tribute-mark, both tributes from the same district will be winners if they are the last two alive.

“Does that mean…”

“It does,” Rosé answers. If she and Denali are the last two standing, they’ll both win.

“We can do this. We can really do this.” Denali leaps to her feet, all the sorrow from last night gone. Rosé hesitates, a dark part of her wondering if there’s a catch, or if this is a trick. But they can’t just announce something like this and take it back, not when the audience will expect a team victory. Not when the audience will expect a District 12 team victory, because the parachutes last night just prove that they’ve succeeded, that their love has won over the crowd. They can win this, and the audience is rooting for them.

Rosé nods. “Let’s move, before they send more rain.” She hauls herself up, but a sudden pain explodes in her leg. The world spins around her, blackness closing in on her vision. She hears Denali saying her name but she can’t answer, can’t do anything but close her eyes and let the darkness take her.

#rpdr fanfiction #s13 #denali foxx #rosé #rosnali #lesbian au #hunger games au #ever in your favor #athena2 #tw violence #tw blood #tw injury #tw minor character death #concrit welcome

11 notes · View notes

missvalerietanner · 2 years

Note

Metaphor, Imagery, Colloquialism, Alliteration, Tone, & Exposition :D

Whew, boy. Thanks, my dear. :] Here we go!

Metaphor: What does your own personal writing style have in common with your favourite author/writer?

I'd say my vivid descriptions. I like to overindulge in the details of a place, always treating a setting like another character.

Mark Danielewski is one of my favorites who excels at describing settings and surroundings in unique and interesting ways. I read House of Leaves (one of my favorite novels) in high school, and it still has me reeling from its descriptions of the 8 1/2 Minute Hallway. I could picture each setting, from the main character's apartment and the tattoo parlor to Navidson's house so clearly. And that house and the ending of the story still linger in my mind today.

Imagery: How much do you worldbuild in your current writing project? How do you make your setting seem real and vivid?

I never try to do everything at the beginning. I focus on writing the story, and I let the world grow naturally aso the story and characters develop together. Mostly, I keep notes. For larger, more detailed worlds, I sketch a map from scratch and mark off where everything is located along with notes about the climate or people or whatever. If I get stuck, I research real places with similar settings/climates for inspiration.

To make the worlds more vivid/real: I tie the settings to the personality of the characters. And usually the settings are a contrast to who the characters first seem to be. Like with Vincent in Kingdom Beneath the Tower, the architecture and design of his castle is intricate and fragile and full of color: a direct contrast to his silent, stoic nature when he first appears. Same with Lia Alodia from Straitjacket Sisters; Lia is cruel and hateful when she first enters the story, but her home and garden are alive with carefully pruned and watered plants, brimming with life and color (and it's also full of pictures from her past she can't let go, hence the source of her cruelty -- so double-usage there).

Colloquialism: How do you approach writing character voice? Do you have any hints or tips for making a character’s voice unique?

I feel like I am TERRIBLE at distinguishing one character's voice from another. In my head, they sound different, so... yeah... I guess I rely on personality to shape their voice, and I use little gimmicks to pull that off???

Like with Seek the Seven Kings, Roderick is poorer than the others, bit of a alcoholic, and a wise-cracker, so he uses abbreviated words, slang/informal language, so only he would say stuff like: "Hey, I dunno who the hell you think you are, bud, but you and me, we got a problem 'cause of what you just did."

Like-wise in Monster, the main protagonist spoke very little, but when she did, I needed her words to be direct and powerful, so I never used contractions when she spoke. She would always opt to say "they will" or "I have" rather than "they'll" or "I've," and I let that detail (which would probably never be noticed by anyone) play to her fear of being misunderstood (hence the title) like someone would miss hear what she said, so she speaks clearly and says the full word. And the character she shared most of her scenes with tended to rattle on, so it made her lines that much more distinct.

Alliteration: Do you title your chapters? Why/why not?

Obsessively so, yes.

I don't know why??? It's just an extra nugget to help me frame the story, maybe, 'cause I don't really outline, so the subtitle is like a reminder of the purpose of each chapter.

Tone: Why do you write? Do you write for a purpose or just for fun?

... is "because the voices in my head tell me to" not a valid answer?

I write because I don't know what else I would do. Like sure, there are tasks I could be doing, other skills I could learn, and sometimes the want to learn those other skills takes priority over writing, but I always come back. I have often had the thought of "what all could I accomplish if I wasn't writing in my spare time," and that thought used to bug me, but writing stories is what I've always done, and no matter how long of a dry spell I go through (the longest in my life so far was 7 years), eventually I always come back like I'm drawn to it, compelled to do it.

I definitely write to get the stories out of my head, but I do enjoy writing. Sometimes it's hard. A lot of times it's frustrating, but reading back what I've written is fun and exciting, and I do believe I would miss this skill if I didn't have it.

Exposition: What do you find hardest to write: titles, summaries, blurbs, or loglines? Why?

OH MY GOD, SUMMARIES!!

Bastard summaries, especially for query letters, where you have to perfectly pack a 170,000 word novel into 3 tiny paragraphs and after ten rewrites, I'm still at two pages when I need to be contained to 1 page and I'm scrutinizing each fucking word for which ones I can ditch and which ones have to stay and then realizing that each word is precious and perfect and has to stay cause if I get rid of even ONE the whole damn sentence doesn't have POP and WOW factor anymore and then it's 2AM and I'm sobbing and half-screaming while rewriting the SAME GOd DaMN sentence for the fifteenth fucking time...

yeah... summaries. Hate 'em. I can do extremely short. I can do crazy long. I apparently CANNOT DO tight, concise middles.

#little facts about me #writings #ask #technique asks #sorry for my rants and adult language #but you know #summaries man FUCK

2 notes · View notes

heyhihellowhatsup0 · 4 years

Text

Tangled Webs - Chapter Five (Peter Parker x Reader)

Dark Webs Masterlist | Tangled Webs Masterlist

Warnings: Angst, language, Smut (smut in this chapter!), Topics of death and depression, PTSD, more angst, violence, a bit more fluff and smut than the last series? Somewhat ignoring the MCU timeline due to mature content

Word Count: 5922

Summary: After doing your best to walk on eggshells around Peter, you finally reach the boiling point as you and him face (most) of your drama head on...

A/N: I am so sorry this took so long to post! But trust me, I think this chapter is worth it! There’s a lot of angst but some smut as well so I hope you guys enjoy this! I’m nervous af so please let me know what you guys think! Your sweet words and comments always make me smile! (Also I found this .gif on google, so if you made it, or know who did, let me know and I will credit!) Thank you xx -N

Local deli, ‘Delmars Delicatessen,’ was robbed early yesterday morning, leaving the owner minorly injured. Sources say the burglar managed to steal over $25,000 in cash from a cash safe in the back room. Officials have no word on how the burglars were aware of such a safe in the first place but suspects as of late are currently former employees.

The only identification of the potential burglar is that it was female. The woman who robbed the store managed to stun the owner with a taser and left him on the floor as she cracked the code to his safe and left him.

Spider-Man was not on scene during the robbery, making it the first actual successful burglary since the start of these random acts. Officials stated that the webbed avenger was off securing the Hudson River from a potential attack; making the burglary an open opportunity.

The Queensboro Police Department announced that they will be on high alert in the area in regards to catching the female burglar. The descriptions of the woman are currently nondescript, as she was wearing a blask mask and had no distinctive marks.

The previous five attempted burglaries within the Queensboro and Forest Hill area were all brought in to authorities by Queens’ very own, Spider-Man. There has been no comment or any sort of proclamation by any authority that any or all of these burglaries are related. However, locals have taken to believe that they are and are doing whatever they can to feel safe.

Spider-Man has released an exclusive statement with The Daily Globe saying he will be on a watch of his own to capture this masked woman in order to bring her in.

You tensed as you stared at the cover story with a wary look. You never had to write a news story about yourself before and it wasn’t a good look at that. You felt as if you were about to throw up and the worst thing was that Peter had no idea you wrote this about yourself.

A bad thing was done. A really bad thing. And you were the one responsible. You hurt a man who has never done any harm to you. A man who always treated you and Peter well whenever you went to visit him and his shop. And what you did to him last night was completely unforgivable.

You weren’t in control and you knew that. But it was still your body and you had to take responsibility for your body. Your hands being the only ones who put that mask over your eyes last night. Your feet being the ones who ran all the way to Delmars before it opened. Your fingers pushing the trigger of your taser gun to stun Mr. Delmar right into his side. Your leg being the one that kicked the safe open with your new strength, grabbing everything inside and using the same exact legs to run out of there before the sun came up.

You did as you were told but it was still you. And now because of that, you were wanted.

It wasn’t surprising that when Peter came home, he came home with a story for you to write. He just had no idea it was your story. He knew you needed a story for the Daily Globe and were doing so well covering these random robberies, he wanted you to spread the word to everyone in the city. It resonated with Peter a lot and you could tell how much this hurt him seeing his friend going through something like this. All because of you.

Peter wanted to find this person, you. He came home with such defeat, which was why he wanted you to write this story so badly. To scare the one who robbed Delmars that Spider-Man was looking for you. And he wasn’t going to rest until he brought you to justice.

You were also a reporter and you had a job to do. You couldn’t stop writing about the news because you were the news. And you had a reputation to uphold so you knew you couldn’t lie about what Peter had seen, that wouldn’t help anybody. The only thing you could do was withhold information that only Peter knew. The information Peter found out that the authorities wouldn’t believe. The corrupt or cons going on that Peter brought to justice.

And now you were part of that category, weren’t you?

You could barely even look at the article, or Peter reading it from across the table as he sipped on his coffee. The look on his face was something that he was proud of you, but you knew that if he knew the truth that he would be nothing but disgusted and horrified by you.

It didn’t help that you couldn’t tell him either. You couldn’t risk it after learning what Octavious would do to Peter if he found out. You already had so much blood on your hands as it was, Peter’s sure as hell wasn’t going to be one of them. Throughout all of this, you had to keep him safe no matter what.

Your hand went to your chest, holding your spider-web pendant against your palm as you watched Peter’s reaction as he continued to read, “I hope I covered everything,” you told him with an unsteady voice.

“You said it better than I did,” Peter told you, giving you a somewhat sigh of relief as he put the article down and gave you a proud smile. There wasn’t anything for him to be proud of though as you sat there awkwardly as he leaned over to kiss you cheek to let you know how he felt, “This is going to nail that woman to the wall, I know it,” he added lowly.

Nearly choking on your coffee, you let out an awkward laugh as you nodded your head. How could you even respond to something like that without sounding suspicious? Or without Octavious listening in and threatening you again that he would kill Peter. Because you knew he’d be listening in.

“Peter, are you sure that this was a good idea? How do you know that whoever this woman was hasn’t already fled the country? Or how do you know that she isn’t looking for you too?” you tried. You knew Peter could sometimes let things get to him a bit quicker when they were so personal to him. And you were hoping to maybe knock some sense into him to stand down a bit while you waited for Octavious to finish using you for whatever he needed you.

Peter scoffed as he grabbed his EDITH glasses, flashing you a cocky smile, “Y/N, please. I’ve seen her type thousands of times. The day I can’t handle an armed robber is the day I really do retire and go to that lake house,” he said to you as he tipped his head close to yours and captured your bottom lip.

Kissing him back, you tried not to make it obvious how nervous you were with him finding out the truth. What if he figured it out on his own? There was no way in hell that you could lie to him about it if he did. You worried about Peter constantly and now you were worried about him even more because you were afraid that you were going to hurt him. Both emotionally and physically.

“I’m so proud of you, Y/N,” Peter answered as he pulled away from the kiss, pecking your lips once more before he started heading down to the gym to practice, “Like I say, I’m just your henchman, right?” he laughed into another kiss as he slid his EDITH glasses up the bridge of your nose.

You mustered up a nod, “Love you,” you told Peter as you sent him towards the elevator to head out for the afternoon, leaving you face to face with the hack job of an article you had written.

It stared back at you like it had fangs and red eyes, like it was evil. And suddenly, you felt that way about yourself. Rereading the words you used to describe yourself; you read over again how many people were looking for you and how severely you hurt Mr. Delmar. And you had no idea what that sweet man had anything to do with Octavious’ plan.

What else was he going to have you do? Or who else was he going to have you hurt? You had a horrible feeling he wasn’t going to be done with you any time soon and that made you feel even more sick. Not to mention, based off the transmission you weren’t supposed to receive the other night during Peter’s mission, you knew Octavious wasn’t working alone; and there were things, bad things, that he didn’t want you hearing. At least not yet.

After staring at the paper for so long, you grabbed it and ripped it in half, flinging it across the room as if it were confetti. You couldn’t look at the mess you made anymore because the thoughts of what was going to happen next were too upsetting. You knew it would be inevitable before the next and you were only getting stronger. You didn’t know what you were capable of anymore.

“You did a stupendous job, sweetheart,” Octavious’ voice came through giddily. His happy-go-lucky tone made you even more sick to your stomach as you got up from your chair with fury.

“The money is yours, just get out of my head,” you told him, beginning to march up towards the lab to get his cash out of the safe. You needed out of this...whatever it was. And you were hoping the money would be enough.

“It’s not that simple. And you’re just what I need to finish this, so we’re not done quite yet,” Octavious chuckled in your head, which only made you want to cry right then and there.

It was then when you realized he wasn’t ever planning on letting you go. Not even if you were done. You were strong and capable of a lot and he knew that now. And because he knew that, he was turning you into his own personalized weapon. Because he’d never get caught when it came to you. And even if you got caught, they’d never find the chip in your head that traced back to him. Octavious would get off scot free and find someone else to manipulate.

You knew Octavious wasn’t acting alone. There was someone else, maybe a partner or even a puppet master of his own that was calling these shots. You knew you weren’t his first test subject but you didn’t know what happened to the others. Did they get killed? Or did the microchips not take like yours did? Maybe it made them sick? There had to be a reason why Octavious was keeping you over the rest, it was because you were the only success story thus far.

“Then you gotta tell me who else I’m working for,” you demanded as you unlocked the lab, heading over to your secret stash. Opening the safe as you saw the entire motherlode staring right back at you. Your mask, the loads upon loads of cash, and your unopened bottles. Everything you had been dying to get rid of.

“Do you really think you have power over me, sweetheart?” Octavious said as he suddenly forced you to lean into the safe and grab the bottle, “You’re nothing without me. You’re his proxy who writes little articles about what he wants while you drink away the pain. Thanks to me, I’m making you something,” he told you as he let go of you.

You slammed the bottle down on the floor, taking a step away from it, “What do you want with Peter? He’s no use to you and you have to know that I don’t control him,” you tried again as you tried to fight back the tears once again.

But Doctor Octavious laughed maniacally as you remained seated on the floor, staring down at the bottle that was beginning to look more and more appetizing the more you stared at it. But you knew Octavious wasn’t the one making you crave it right now, that was coming from you.

The stress and anxiety was eating at you bit by bit. Needing something so badly to take some of your pain away, even just temporarily. Fighting with your brain and going back and forth, hearing Peter’s voice in the back of your head. You knew you should refrain yourself, that’s what you wanted overall. You turned your head away from the bottle, fighting with your vision to not look at the temptation that was before you.

“I beg to differ. There’s a lot of things that worthless little spider would be willing to do for you and I’d bet money on it…” he threatened as he fixed your vision back onto the bottle, making you begin to unscrew the cap, “And I know what you’d do to keep him alive, right? So have a drink and let’s have a toast to your amazing work the other night and to many more!” he cheered in your voice.

Only he wasn’t forcing you to drink it. But he knew you would. It was a threat if you didn’t, otherwise he would kill Peter. That was his leverage over your head, knowing you would keep your mouth shut and comply with whatever he wanted because you were trying to save Peter.

Closing your eyes, you brought the rim of the bottle to your lips as the harsh scent ran up your nostrils. Scrunching your nose up with a whimper, you took a quick swig before you placed it back down on the floor. Wiping your mouth of the alcohol, you hoped that would be enough to appease Octavious to just leave you alone.

“Good girl,” he told you as you tried to relax your body a bit as you curled up near the safe as tears began running down your cheeks. Knowing perfectly well that with Doctor Octavious or whoever else in your brain, there was no relaxing. Not now, not ever.

There was silence and for a moment you thought Octavious had departed for the time being but you still felt his presence. He was just observing now, haunting you, reminding you that he could. At any given time, he could just pay you a visit or worse, take control of you.

Because he had full control over you because you were scared he’d hurt Peter. And you’d do anything, rob anything you had to if it meant Peter was unharmed. And Octavious was well aware of that and he was determined to use it against you at any moment like this.

“Now finish it,” he told you as he disconnected from your device. Automatically feeling a difference in your head, feeling a bit lighter as you sank into the floor; now clutching the bottle in your hand.

————

Peter deactivated his suit, catching his breath as he looked at the success statistics KAREN and EDITH had relayed for him after the last simulation had come to an end. He couldn’t help but feel a bit proud of the numbers that were displayed for him. It wasn't that long ago that Peter was failing simulation after simulation and he was glad that he was getting stronger and becoming a better fighter like he used to be.

Strong like the old Peter…

Walking towards the exit, he noticed Agent Kent standing by the door with a smile. Peter shook his head as he removed his mask from his head, “You know it's dangerous to be in here while I’m running simulations, right?” Peter told him with a joking voice as he gave him a high-five.

“Did you just win all of those simulations on the hardest level?” Kent asked Peter with an impressed voice. He watched as Peter nodded his head, walking past him to grab a towel to dry off, “Remind me to check to make sure they’re programmed correctly,” he teased Peter with a nudge.

“I programmed them, they better be,” Peter retorted with a smug look. He was feeling good about himself, “Got to be ready next time that lady thief comes by again. I’m on a high alert for her,” he told Kent with a knowing look.

Kent shook his head with a laugh, “Meeting tomorrow was moved to 8 am, don’t be late,” he told Peter as he walked down the hall towards his quarters on one of the lower floors. Great, an early meeting to talk about what else was fucked up in this city, Peter thought as he headed into the elevator, pressing your floor as he rode it back up.

But Peter didn’t want to think about how fucked up the city or the world was right now. He knew plenty of how the world was. Right now, he just wanted to get back to his floor. His own tiny haven in this enormous tower with little to no privacy. Even when he was practicing, somebody found him. He never truly had a moment just to himself. Not as Spider-Man.

The thoughts in Peter’s mind went blank as he felt the goose bumps beginning to raise on his arms as the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stuck out. Something was off as he stepped foot into your apartment, and he could tell right away that it had something to do with you.

Calling your name, Peter dropped his gym bag onto the floor and walked towards the bedroom, trying to find you as quickly as possible. He stopped in his tracks when he got a whiff of what was coming from the kitchen.

He turned his head and saw you standing by the stove, slicing some vegetables as you smiled up at him, “I’m making a frittata,” you told him quietly, trying to function as best as you could and hoping that the smell of the food was masking the other scents you knew Peter was bound to detect.

There was something off and Peter could sense it. But he couldn’t figure out what it was. Nodding his head he smiled back at you as he came behind you in the kitchen to grab a bottle of water, kissing your cheek in the process.

“Do you smell that?” Peter asked as he stood in front of the sink curiously. The same hairs still sticking up like something was wrong.

“The frittata?” you asked him, trying to keep yourself composed as you looked at him with the same blank expression.

Peter shook his head as he looked around, “Something doesn’t feel right,” he said warily as he looked around more, “I can’t tell what it is…” he trailed off as he walked into the other room to try to investigate.

“Stand down, tiger,” you snorted as he brought the vegetables into the frying pan to simmer for a bit as you cleaned your hands off, “A bit paranoid are we?” you offered again.

You could sense Peter’s paranoia and it was making you nervous. Mainly because you knew you were the reason he was detecting something was wrong, and you knew you weren’t going to be able to hide it from him. It was making your stomach do back flips, making you nauseous as the smell of the frittata you were making went through your nostrils while the alcohol you annihilated earlier was bound to resurface.

Before you knew it, your hand was over your mouth as you ran to the bathroom, pushing Peter to the side as you hovered over the toilet, emptying your stomach out as you heaved into it. Peter came up behind you, holding your hair back as he motioned his hand gently against your back to try and relax you.

Peter looked away from it as you slowly began to pull yourself away and clean your face in the sink. But he saw the clear liquid that was purged out and he knew the hairs on his neck were standing because you were the one who was in trouble.

“Y/N…” Peter bit his lip as he pulled your hair out of the way as you washed your face. You knew where he was going with it and you couldn’t face that truth right now. You just couldn’t.

“No, Peter,” you shot him down as you splashed some water on your face before you rinsed your mouth out, “Don’t start,” you warned him, hoping that would keep him from continuing the conversation. But who were you kidding? If the tables were turned you knew you wouldn’t either. In fact, you didn’t when it was Peter drinking excessively.

Of course, this time it was because you were forced to by Doctor Octavious. You just couldn’t tell Peter that otherwise he would get killed. So now, you had no choice but to act like you did this willingly.

“I have to, Y/N,” Peter answered lowly as he followed you out of the bathroom again, “I...I can’t be around you like this,” he finally said the words. The words he never thought he would say because he never thought he would need to. But he needed to.

Peter knew this was dangerous. You needed help but he couldn’t force you right now. And he also knew he couldn’t be around you when you were drinking so much. It broke his heart and he cared so much right now but you needed to care about yourself too, and you weren’t. But Peter needed you to so he wouldn’t fall apart either, as selfish as that sounded. And maybe you needed more of a push to get to that point to better yourself.

“What? You’re going to break up with me over this? When you drank, you threw me against the wall in a chokehold, Peter,” you reminded him vividly, still clearly not in your best state of mind. But Peter’s threat not only hurt you, it scared you immensely. The idea of losing him because of you was something you couldn’t deal with, not now or ever.

Peter winced at the thought. Those were his most dark and troubling times. And even though he took responsibility and was grateful every moment of every day you forgave him, he still had a hard time forgiving himself for what he put you through. It was hard reliving those memories and he tried not to so he could live in the present, with you. But right now, your present was beginning to look a lot like Peter’s past.

“I never said I was dumping you, I would never leave you. But I think you may need some time alone to figure out what you need,” Peter tried again, a bit more sternly but his eyes were filled with concern for you, “This isn’t you, Y/N,” he told you as he softened his tone.

You shook your head and scoffed at him, feeling your head getting heated as Peter started again, “Really, Peter? You’re one to talk about not being yourself,” you bit your lip as you pivoted in his direction.

“Me?” Peter asked monotonously, licking his lips as he saw all of the anger in your eyes. Peter really didn’t want this to turn into a fight. But it always did because you were still in denial. And Peter knew the only one who could make you see your truth was you, so until you did, it was an argument each and every time.

And he wasn’t sure how much longer he could watch you do this to yourself. Allowing his group therapy peer’s advice to look a little more intriguing.

“Yes. You’ve been acting like a completely different person lately,” you snapped back, trying to keep your tone level like Peter’s as you continued, “You asked me to move to a lake house upstate because you couldn’t stand the city and then acted as if it never even happened, Peter,” you reminded him of that incident and how the both of you were guilty for never actually talking about it again.

“You said no and the idea clearly upset you. I didn’t want to make you more upset by begging you to move. What did you want me to do, Y/N?” Peter asked you as he felt his throat beginning to feel dry. He hated fighting like this and he knew this wasn’t going to end well because now you were looking for a reason to blame Peter. He saw the signs all too well.

You didn’t know why you were so angry. You were hurt, and terrified of losing Peter, and you didn’t know what else to do. And now you were just letting out all of the things you had been bottling up over the last month or so, even though you knew that wasn’t fair. Maybe it was the alcohol in your system but you didn’t know how to turn it off.

“I don’t know. But the Peter I know wouldn’t have done anything of that,” you challenged him finally. The final nail in the coffin and you saw the look on Peter’s face, you knew that was an answer he was not expecting.

Because the old Peter was the one who you both hated. The one who put you in harm’s way and pushed you away until there was barely anything left. The old Peter was aggressive and hurt you in more ways he wasn’t proud of. So it took Peter by surprise hearing you say that. Maybe it was out of anger or to get a rise out of him, but you were both saying things you didn’t necessarily mean right now and he knew he needed to stop.

Peter walked over towards the kitchen and turned the stove off, seeing everything starting to burn. He shook his head as he cleaned off some of the utensils to focus his stress elsewhere, “Did you want me to shout at you like I used to? Kill someone?” Peter paused as he bit the inside of his lower lip, “Drink myself to death like you are because I’m angry?”

He was making his own blood boil when he spoke, clenching the glass in his hand as he accidentally shattered it, making you jump backwards, “I am angry, okay? I am! I’m angry every fucking day and all of this work I’m doing with my group is supposed to help me keep my anger from taking over again. So are you saying you don’t want that? You don’t like that I’m trying to do this for me and for you?!” he shouted as he looked down at the shattered glass on the floor.

Silence filled the room between the two of you as you inched yourself a bit closer to Peter, standing in front of the island as you looked into his soft brown eyes. Of course, you were so proud of Peter and how far he had come these months. And you knew he didn’t do this for you, he did it for him which was the most proud you could get.

Peter was trying to get you down the same path he was and you saw that and you were glad he cared about you so much. But how Peter was the last few weeks, and possibly months, was a very shut down version. Trying to push you to therapy, and then when you declined, he would act like nothing had happened. Not the Peter you were used to at all.

And maybe that was on you. Maybe you pushed him to shut down here and there. But Peter was a fighter, and so were you. So it always surprised you when you got to these boiling points. And this was a point neither of you reached until just now. Both of you feeling scared and upset, and you had no idea what was going to happen next. But neither of you could stop.

“No. I want you, Peter, I do,” you told him as you took another step closer to him, “But you just seem so….different. Like lately you’ve just been Peter Parker without Peter Parker,” you told him in a small voice as you tried to catch his gaze, but his focus was on the wall.

It was everything Peter didn’t want to hear. He knew he wasn’t the same Peter but he was accepting that. He thought after everything that had happened, you would too. But maybe it was because of the things that were troubling you that it was making you question and challenge Peter in return.

Balling his hand into a fist, Peter had enough as he suddenly drove it right into the wall in front of his face. He saw you jump backward as you gasped at the loud bang. Pulling his hand out of the wall, his cut up hand now covered in blood was splayed against the wall as he steadied his breath.

“That Peter Parker?” he finally asked you without looking your way. He knew he took it too far, and he was ashamed that he did that. Especially in front of you. He hadn’t lost his cool like that in months, and certainly not in front of you. He never wanted to blow up in front of you like that again. He was so embarrassed for letting his anger get to him for even a second.

You swallowed thickly as silence filled the room between the two of you. Blinking slowly, you nodded your head before you grabbed Peter by his arm and pulled him towards you as you crashed your lips against his. Pulling him closer as you began to feel him return your kiss.

Both of you were still angry and reeling, but for now you just wanted to be close to each other. You were both shaken by Peter’s words and your actions, and for now the intimacy between you both was all that mattered. A temporary fix for your laundry list of problems that neither of you knew how to fix.

Peter pushed you against the wall as he rolled his lips over yours with lust and desire. Craning your neck to the side as he moved his lips down to your neck, finding your sweet spot right away. Picking you up swiftly, you wrapped your legs around his waist in between his sloppy and slightly aggressive kisses. Bringing your arms to the nape of your neck to hold yourself up as Peter’s fingers began traveling to your waist.

His fingers tucked underneath your jeans as he pushed them off, dropping them to the floor as his lips found yours once more. Your pent up anger for each other building between you both as you helped him shake his sweatpants off; your breath heavy and ragged as the fire between you both grew.

The back of your head hit the wall as Peter began to tease your entrance, your free hand raising up to his chest to feel his heartbeat. Both of your senses on high alert as you looked into Peter’s eyes as you located his heart. Listening to the thuds, your way of finding your Peter in there as your eyes began fluttering closed while you pushed Peter into you.

Peter grabbed you by the leg gently and thrust in to you slowly. Placing his free hand against the wall to support you both as he pushed himself into you further. Hearing you let out a soft whimper as you moved your hips into him a bit faster, your hands running through the curls on the back of his neck.

Grunting into your ear, Peter found your lips again. Your tongues searching for each other as your thrusts intensified, your whimpers and moans vibrating against your lips. He found your hands and laced your fingers into his against the wall as he moved his hips faster into you, letting his senses take over as he continued.

Peter cussed under his breath as he ran a hand up your bare leg and against your inner thigh. As you clenched around his length, your body burning with each and every motion as you bit your lip, beginning to feel all of the sensations take control as you gripped Peter firmly.

You held onto Peter’s hand as he began to circle you slowly with his fingers, making you moan louder as you felt yourself getting closer and closer to your edge. Your bodies forming a rhythm together as your kisses grew sloppy and more desperate for each other, the neediness for being close still apparent amongst the two of you.

Circling you faster, Peter kept thrusting into you as your whimpers together grew more and more. He could sense how close you were from how tense your body was getting, and he was letting all of his aggression out with you. He knew he wasn’t far behind as he found your lips again. Moaning into his kiss as he pushed you both to your edges.

Finally reaching your highs together as you cried out Peter’s name and he collapsed into the nape of your neck. Shaking and vibrating underneath Peter as his hips continued into you as he began moaning into your sensitive skin. Everything felt so intense as you began to open your eyes, slowly coming down from your intoxicating state.

Peter took a breath as he slowly brought you back down to the earth. Pushing the hair out of your face he reached over and kissed your lips again. This time it felt different from moments earlier, it was more loving, tender even. You can feel how much he loved and cared for you in the kiss as you returned the same thing to him as he lifted you into his arms.

Carrying you into the bedroom, he knew you both needed to sleep this off. He placed you down on the bed in the darkness, crawling over to his side of the bed without even needing the light on. He pulled the covers up over the two of you and found his place in between your arms as he kissed your bare shoulder.

The two of you didn’t speak, the silence spoke for itself as you both let the exhaustion from earlier take over.

It wasn’t until you woke up in the middle of the night that you felt Peter get out of bed. Only you didn’t feel it, you sensed it. You rubbed your eyes as they adjusted to the darkness and crawled towards the edge of the bed, seeing Peter by the balcony window.

Holding his gym bag over his back…

Taglist: @missmulti @hazmyheart @lauras-collection @osterfield-holland-andcompany @iamapersonwholikesunicorns @farfromhazreads @detroitbydark @mcuassemble @blahhhhhhhaaa @lonikje @beiroviski @ruefulposts @rebekkah4766 @desir-ae @kayla-m1996 @averyfosterthoughts @unicorn-princess-1999 @asmilinghopelessromantic @itsjusttor @whatareyouhidingpeter @when-marvellous-things-happen @mannien @lilostif16 @u-rrose @jillanaholland @ninjalex1d @dee-rosemary @baby-unidorn @astoldbydanid @honey-sea @fallingforfics @lulueliott24 @mikalaka @babebenhardy @coni-martina @geniousparker @captainemrys @mktravelbuggie @underoosmarvel @pluckypete @hollandfanficlove @lookalivefrosty @lightmelikeacigarette @msmarvel-19 @averyfosterthoughts @parker-holland-osterfield @thwip-it-real-good @shirukitsune @justanotherusername80 @jillanaholland @dangerdolns @jwolfesblog @jjayyc @sad-thinker-over @ifilosemyselfagain @axisnpalma @sunflxwer99 @just-a-littlebit-of-everything @bookgirlunicorn @kfcyum @thenoddingbunny-blog @buzzbuzzitsmeagainbitch @herondale-snow-carstairs @marvelobsessedteenager @samallbee @unlimitedd @dramaholic18 @softholand @panicattheeverywherekid @emotionally-unstable23 @quackeroos @unbelievableholland @the-crazy-fanfictionist @holyhumorliteraturelight @shayminisshiny @spideyyeet @katiekinzs @fanficparker @peachyxholland @ifntelyinspirit @rubberducky-jrr @xguardgirlx @hollandstea @t-holland2080 @oh-whatabeautiful-parker @selfcarecap @localfangirlx @xxpeachyxo @hazardosterfield @xstarbae @justanotherusername80 @halfblood-princess-505 @photoshopart15 @spiderbibby @the-fandom-life-forever @thinkoutsidethebex

#peter parker #tom holland #tom holland x reader #peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #tom holland x you #spiderman #spiderman x reader #tangled webs #heyhihellowhatsup0

107 notes · View notes

pressedinthepages · 4 years

Photo

Chapter 16: Precipice

Summary: Oxenfurt is a large, sprawling place, with answers for some and only more questions for others.

Series Masterlist

Words: 2510

(There is a link on my page where you can be added to my taglist :D)

Warnings: mild language, nudity

Oxenfurt is just as miserable as you had anticipated. It’s far too loud, too smelly, someone bumps into you no matter where you step, and you can soon feel your mind getting overwhelmed with it all. You slip into an alley, using Eskel’s advice to control your breathing before stepping back into the street. Quickly weaving through side streets you find yourself at the University with no idea where to go next.

Fuck, you should’ve gone with Eskel. In an effort to prove to yourself that you can handle this damn nonsense yourself, the two of you had split up this morning. Eskel went in the direction of the apothecary, while you tasked yourself with speaking to the head of the University. But now, looking up at the twisting walkways with too many staircases to count, you feel far in over your head.

“Excuse me, miss?” A young man, probably no more than 18 summers old, approaches you, a dense pack slung over one shoulder. His hair is loose and curly under a little floppy cap and his clothes are a light green, uncommon this far into Redania.

You hum in acknowledgment, looking the boy up and down with suspicion.

“You look lost, what are you trying to find?”

“I’m not lost,” you lie through your teeth, not needing some seedling’s help.

“I can help you, Witcher,” the man’s voice is clear and confident and when you scent the air around him, you notice a distinct lack of the salty tang of lies.

You hum noncommittally, glancing up at the numerous towers before shaking your head with a resigned sigh. “I need the Headmaster.”

“Well, that wasn’t so difficult, now was it?” the man starts walking, light on his toes as he twists through the oceans of people that feel suffocating in their presence. You roll your eyes and follow, bumping into shoulders and trying not to let your swords get too banged up.

He tips open a door on the lower level, holding it for you. “You first,” you growl, nodding in his direction. He shrugs, ducking into the entrance as you follow behind him.

When he shuts the door behind you it is blissfully quiet, marble hallways dampening the din of noise from outside. You look over to him, finding him with a stupid grin on his face as he bounces on his toes. You crook an eyebrow, impatiently gesturing for him to lead the way.

“Ah, right, sorry,” he says as he startles before striding down the hallway. Now that you are inside and away from all of the competing signals you catch the man’s scent, paper and ink and booze and just a little bit of grass. Your nose twitches oddly before you suddenly sneeze, the poor boy almost jumping out of his skin at the noise.

“My gods!” He clutches his hand to his chest dramatically. “I thought Witchers didn’t get sick?”

“We don’t.” You wipe your nose on the back of your wrist as you continue following at a bit more distance, breathing primarily through your mouth. “I just don’t like grass.”

The boy chuckles, shaking his head without any more questions. Thank Melitele.

You keep track of your movements in the school, up the left staircase, take the third door on the right, pass by the courtyard, up two flights of stairs, turn right, back down one staircase, and through an ornate set of doors into a large office foyer that smells of dust and books and wine.

“Headmistress?” The young man calls, poking his head around the edge of the door leading to the main office. “There’s a Witcher here to see you.”

“Very well, send him in.” You hear a curt voice reply and you shift shoulders back before sliding a coin into the young man’s palm as thanks. He shuffles out of the way, giving you a little wave as he departs.

When you open the door you are stunned by the sheer amount of books along the walls of this room. You whistle lowly as you take them all in, bookcases stretching to the ceiling and filled to bursting with tomes on anything and everything.

“Forgive me,” the Headmistress sits at the desk, a woman with dark brown hair tinged with grey at the roots. She has a kind face, but one that could turn stern at the drop of a hat. “I thought all Witchers were men.”

You hum, walking further into the room and sitting in a chair across from her desk. She raises an eyebrow at your quite blatant lack of decorum, but she seems amused by it. “I’m the only woman who survived.”

She hums back, leaning in her chair and regarding you with an appraising gaze. “Fascinating, truly. I’ll not trouble you with my personal curiosities, though if you were to ever return, I would love to hear more of your life…”

You blink, a bit taken aback by her absence of animosity. “Maybe one day, miss. Today, though, I am in a bit of a hurry.”

“Of course, what can I help you with?”

You think back to the professor who you had met earlier in the year, deciding to start with her. “Where can I find Professor Malkyn?”

The Headmistress’ scent turns cold, stained with musky rainwater. “Unfortunately, she was killed by a group of bandits just past the border into Kovir. It’s only been a few months, but we still feel her loss greatly.”

You sigh, shifting uncomfortably in the chair. Malkyn had been kind, and was a neverending source of seemingly useless information. You enjoyed her company when you had traveled for a bit together, and you had found warmth and comfort in each other’s bodies on more than one occasion.

“That’s too bad,” you keep your voice calm and level, “she was a good friend…”

The two of you sit in silence for a moment before you speak again. “I am looking for a mage, and I believe that he may have been a professor here in the past.”

The Headmistress blinks and furrows her brow, flipping in a journal with vigor. “Well, it’s been quite a while since we’ve had any mages employed here, do you know their name?”

“Irion, maybe? Or Stregobor, I’m looking for him as well.”

The Headmistress hums, looking through the pages quickly. “Aha!” She exclaims, handing over the journal with her thumb holding a particular page. “This is the previous headmaster’s ledger, and it says that Irion taught herbalism here for a while almost fifty years ago, but one day he just disappeared, and there’s nothing that says he ever showed back up.”

You grunt in acknowledgment, quickly reading through the writing on the page. “I thank you for your time, as well as your help. Not everyone would be so willing for a Witcher.”

She looks at you with a crooked eyebrow as you rise and turn towards the door. As you exit and move to close the door behind you, you notice her smiling, and with a departing nod, you head back towards the Alchemist.

…

Eskel returns not long after you sit at a table, ale in hand. He sits across from you, something painful in his eyes for only a moment before it is blinked away.

“Find anything?” you ask.

“Not a damn thing. No one here was alive the last time either of those two was in Oxenfurt.”

“That’s what I got too,” you shake your head before taking a long swig of your ale. It’s not much more than warm piss water, but it’s keeping your hands busy.

“Actually,” Eskel hums, “I did come across a nice enough looking bathhouse...what if we go over there, figure out where to go next?”

Just the idea of Eskel, bare and dripping as you run your hands over the breadth of his chest is enough to have you growing hot in your chair. Before your brain can catch up with your mouth, you find yourself blurting, “Sounds great, let’s go now.”

…

The water is almost scalding, with just the barest hint of rosemary oil added in. Your eyes are closed, your head resting along the edge of the marble bath as your mind floats. All of your senses feel somewhat muffled by the water and it’s a better gift than you could ever ask for.

You hear the door tip open and peek open an eye, closing it back when you see Eskel stepping into the room. He has dressed down to just his trousers and chemise, looking all the world the perfect picture of relaxation.

You can hear the rustling of his clothes as they hit the floor and the little splashes of water when he steps into the bath. The water swells, gently caressing your skin as he lowers himself to sit an arm’s length away. The groan that Eskel makes when he finally relaxes shoots straight to your core, and the soft edges of your mind begin to wonder just what other noises you might be able to pull out of him.

A knock at the door startles the both of you before it opens, revealing a young woman, fair and svelt and completely nude.

“Just wanted to check on everyone,” her voice is almost a purr with how sultry it is, “as well as offer my services to you.” Her eyes are squarely on Eskel, shameless in their observation of his body above the water. You’re glad that the bath is so damn hot, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to excuse the way that you feel your cheeks flush.

Eskel dips his head for a moment and smiles, and your heart plummets in the moment before he speaks. Since when has he been bashful around women? “Well, thank you for the offer,” he says, looking back up at her, “but I will have to refuse. My friend and I have some very important things to take care of.”

“Well, the offer stands. You know where to find me.”

The low burn of jealousy washes away any semblance of tranquility you had as she turns to leave, Eskel watching her every move. The door closes gently, plunging the little room back into silence.

You chance a glimpse in Eskel’s direction just as he ducks his head under the water. When he comes back up you watch as beads of water dip and roll across his skin and through the dark thatch of hair on his chest. You swallow and close your eyes, leaning your head back on the edge of the bath as you try to will away your wandering thoughts.

Eskel calls your name, pulling you from your meager attempt. Apparently he had been trying to get your attention unsuccessfully, the remnants of a question already asked in his eyes.

“Hmm?” you blink, “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Eskel chuckles, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck, the muscles of his arm swelling with the movement and tempting you to lust.

“I asked if you’d like a hand, you seem...tense.”

If you were tense before, you only turn worse, your nerves stretched taut as a bowstring, ready to snap at any moment. You let out a nervous little laugh, refusing to meet his eyes before your willpower finally gives under the pressure.

“I-uh, yeah alright, if you really don’t mind…”

Eskel smiles wordlessly as he slides to the little array of bottles at the edge of the tub. You turn your back to him, settling in the middle of the tub with your legs stretched out in front of you.

“Mmm…” you hear Eskel hum under his breath.

“What is it?”

“They have orange soap…” he whispers, and you can hear the tiny clinking of glass as he ponders his options.

You laugh, your shoulders shaking a bit as you glance over your shoulder. Eskel is balancing four different bottles in his hands, trying to scent them all and not spill them into the water.

“Oh gods,” you whisper, still chuckling a bit, “why don’t we save that one for you...I’ll just use a lavender, or maybe some jasmine?”

The water sways gently as Eskel moves back towards you, and now you can smell the lavender soap drifting lazily from the glass. Eskel sits down behind you, pouring some of the soap into his hand before setting the bottle on the edge of the bath within reach. You face forward again and close your eyes as you listen to Eskel work the soap into a lather. He is impossibly warm at your back, somehow making the water even hotter in his presence.

When his hands finally touch you, gently rubbing the soap into your shoulders, you shudder with the chill that runs through you. Eskel’s fingers move with a simple reverence, smoothing the suds down your arms and the line of your back. Your mind wars with itself, wanting so desperately to lean into his touch, but so terrified of him pulling away that your instinct is to pull away first. But when his hands come back to your neck, squeezing and rubbing his thumbs into the tender skin where your shoulders begin, you feel boneless in his arms, your head falling back to rest on his shoulder.

You feel his chest shaking on your back as he laughs under his breath, still working his hands over the muscles of your shoulders and moving slowly down your arms. “You alright?” he teases.

You grunt, sounding more like Geralt than yourself. Gods, if Eskel always touched you like this, you think you may be rendered completely non-verbal. His hands carefully press between your shoulder blades, slowly smoothing down to the base of your spine. His thumbs move in little circles as his hands move back up, kneading and undoing the knots that have engrained themselves into your muscles.

You can’t fully relax though, something else tapping at your mind. “Eskel…” you murmur, turning your head to where he is settled at your shoulder.

“Why didn’t you go with her?” you nod at the door, referring to the young lady from earlier.

Eskel’s hands still for half a second and you hear his heart skip a beat. He hums lightly as he resumes his movements, his fingers working deftly against your skin.

“Eskel?”

He sighs, looking over to you. Your mind is soft with peace and Eskel is right there, and his hands feel like home, and then he leans down, his breath hot on your lips.

“I didn’t want her,” he whispers, his mouth just barely brushing yours with his words. You sigh into him, closing your eyes and leaning to close the distance between you. You are so close, only the steam from the bath separating you when the door suddenly slams open.

You both startle, Eskel bracketing himself between you and the intruder. It’s the owner of the bathhouse, and he carries the both of your clothes under his arms.

“Witchers, you must go, they’re coming for you…”

#hollow things #eskel x reader #we're almost there!

33 notes · View notes

thegoodthebadthesickly · 4 years

Text

Jaskier- Dehydration

Request: Dehydration

Fandom: The Witcher (Netflix)

Requested by: Who even knows at this point? You think I keep accurate records?

TBH I've been looking for an excuse to write about my current hyper fixation, so...

Warnings: Language

@badthingshappenbingo

Stars are complete, Swirls are requests

Jaskier plodded through the forest with the enthusiasm of a child that had just been told it was time to come in from their daily playtime. He licked at his lips, but they were as dry as his mouth. He'd lost track of how long they'd been walking through the same forest, a fortnight, maybe? It'd been at least half that since he and Geralt had come across any kind of suitable water source, and their water skin had run dry three days ago. Jaskier made a face at a plump, green tree as they walked past, mentally shaming it for having the nerve to look so hydrated.

"Jaskier, keep up." Geralt ground out, not bothering to turn around. "The last thing I need is having to save your arse from something in this forest."

Despite the fatigue that had pushed it's way into his bones, Jaskier tried to quicken his step to match Geralt's. The forest looked innocent, if not for it's taunting hydration. Jaskier scarcely longed to know what lurked in the tall limbs of the trees.

"Geralt, can you-" Jaskier took a deep, hitching breath, his lungs protesting at the feeling. "Can you, perhaps, use those amazing Witcher skills of yours to find us some drinking water?" Yes, he was so thirsty it was maddening, but a stream, hell, he'd even take a trickle at this point, would provide a chance to sit and clear his sleep muddled thoughts.

"Jaskier, I've already told you that you will know about a stream as soon as I-" Geralt paused, putting a hand up to signal silence.

"I hear a stream a few miles northeast of here." Geralt huffed, putting his hand down and resuming his quick, loping walk.

"How- nevermind." Jaskier put up his hands in surrender, learning long ago not to question the senses of his Witcher. "Exactly how far is 'a few miles?'" Jaskier asked, knowing that his perception of distance was decidedly less intense than the Witcher's.

"Maybe five." Geralt grunted.

"Maybe? You've gone soft in old age, Geralt." Jaskier wheezed a laugh, his lungs still refusing to cooperate.

"It's actually six, but I wanted to give you a little hope." Geralt smirked, yellow eyes cutting in Jaskier's direction.

"Shove off!" Jaskier pouted, resigning himself to tired silence.

Comfortable silence fell over the duo as they walked on. The only sound being Roach's occasional soft snorts.

"How much-" Jaskier tried to clear his throat. "How much longer?" He asked, swallowing against the raspiness of his voice.

Geralt only grunted.

Jaskier rolled his eyes.

Jaskier could only just see dusk start to fall through the thick foliage above him. That's when things got strange.

Lights danced in the corner of Jaskier's eyes, but when he tried to see them head on, they dissapeared. Soon enough, little black dots began to accompany the lights with flitting in and out of Jaskier's vision. Remembering what Geralt had said about things in the forest, Jaskier quickened his pace to match Geralt's, a feat that was not kind to his lungs or heart.

After only a moment of keeping pace with Geralt, Jaskier pulled back, and then stopped all together. Bending over, he put his hands on his knees in an effort to catch his breath and still his rapidly beating heart. The lights were getting closer, the black dots were getting bigger. Fae.

"Geralt, Ger-" Jaskier ran to get in front of Geralt, losing his breath. His heart was at a steady gallop now. "Fae. we've been followed by fae. They thought they could trick us, but I see them. I see they're lights when they think I'm not looking."

Geralt, having learned, on some level, to trust his frie-travel companion long ago, scanned the area for any signs of fae. Fae were nasty creatures, willing to give you anything, but in return, they could take anything. There was nothing. Not a single spark in the darkened forest. Geralt turned 360 degrees just to be sure, but he saw nothing, nor heard the tell-tale twitter of the fae.

"Jaskier, your eyes play tricks. There are no fae in this part of the forest." Geralt explained, surveying his companion. Jaskier's face was wan and his eyes were bloodshot and sunken. "You're tired. We will hike to the stream and make camp for the night." Geralt pushed past Jaskier gently and continued walking.

Jaskier looked around wildly, the starbursts still dancing at the edge of his vision. Geralt was messing with him, he wanted Jaskier to be taken by the fae, be rid of him finally. He'd never wanted a travelling companion. Jaskier shivered, although he remembered it being a warm day before night fell.

"Just going to let me turn my back on the fae? You'd like that, wouldn't you? Finally rid of me, and you didn't even have to make it look like an accident." Jaskier spat, feeling dizzy. Had Geralt drugged him?

"Did-did you drug me?" Jaskier asked, his words slurring together.

"What the hell are you on about?" Geralt turned back around to face Jaskier, but the bard was indeed swaying on the spot.

"No, I didn't drug you. Did you eat anything? Any berries or leaves?" Geralt turned and walked back toward Jaskier, steadying him with a strong hand on his shoulder.

"N-no. Jus' tired. Thirsty." Jaskier batted his eyelashes, looking ready to fall over.

Geralt put a hand to Jaskier's forehead. It was bone dry, but burning to the touch. In fact, Jaskier's entire body was dry, which was odd for both the heat of the forest and the odd fever.

Jaskier looked up at Geralt through what he now saw as dangerously fevered eyes. Geralt needed to get the fever down, but the only supplies readily available were his potions he used for battles, and those were much too potent for any mortal man.

"Get on Roach." Geralt said gruffly, more putting Jaskier into the saddle than waiting for him to climb up.

Jaskier only hummed in response, looking like he'd fallen asleep standing up.

"Jaskier," Geralt grunted, not certain it was a good idea for the bard to sleep just now, "stay awake. Please." He added that last part as a near whisper.

Everything was coming in muddy flashes now, but Jaskier was certain he'd felt himself being lifted. Was he sitting on Roach? Geralt scarcely let him touch the creature, much less ride her. Jaskier was also fairly certain he'd heard Geralt say "please", which was slightly less fathomable than Geralt letting him ride Roach. Feeling something, someone, press up against his back, Jaskier let himself drift.

His dreams were odd, mostly just colors and shapes and Geralt's face creased with worry floating in and out of Jaskier's vision every so often. Then, there was the distinct taste of magic, like someone had been burning wood nearby.

When Jaskier woke, it was to someone holding something cool to his lips. He opened his eyes to see Yennefer's form kneeling over him. "Shh" She hummed. Jaskier just managed to catch Geralt's white mane behind her, his form muddled by the bright sunlight. Then, he was off again.

When Jaskier woke next- for good this time, he hoped- everything felt much more solid, including the feeling that he'd been trampled by Roach.

"Ugh" Jaskier groaned, his voice a hoarse croak.

"Jaskier?" Two voices asked. Geralt and Yennefer. Yennefer? That hadn't been a dream?

Yennefer knelt down beside Jaskier, her long hair tickling the tip of his nose. She opened her mouth to speak, but Geralt beat her to the punch.

"How are you feeling?" Geralt grunted, looking oddly uncomfortable and out of his element as he stood behind Yennefer.

"Like I was trampled by Roach."

"That's to be expected," Yennefer spoke up, cutting Geralt off. "I used magic to heal you and with magic, there's always some kind of give and take. It seems the trade off was your strength. Temporarily." Yennefer added the last part as Jaskier balked.

"What happened?" Jaskier pushed up on his elbow and looked past Yennefer to Geralt.

"Simple dehydration. Your body overheated, resulting in a delirium and fever." Geralt explained, still looking like a child who'd been given a chiding.

"Simple dehydration, Geralt? Really?" Yennefer asked in disbelief. "What your Witcher is trying to say, is that he doesn't understand how human body's work and forgot that you might need a sip of water every few days to continue breathing." She rolled her eyes, helping Jaskier to sit up all the way and handing him a cup (where had the cup come from? Jaskier wondered. Magic?) of cool water.

"Small sips, your stomach still tender." Yennefer instructed softly.

"How did you get here?" Jaskier looked at Yennefer quizzically.

"I have my ways." She said mystically.

"I called to her. Magic." Geralt explained simply.

"Must you always spoil my fun." Yennefer pouted, standing up. "Well boys, it's been fun, but I've really got to be going, there's a gentleman in Essoros that will be getting quite worried about a, erm, perky problem right about now. You better be glad I have a vested interest in both of you living. I was in the middle of something very important when you called." Yennefer smiled, a gleam of mischief in her eyes. She created a portal and was about to step through when she stopped and looked back at the two men over her shoulder.

"Do try to remember that it is dangerous for mortals to have an erection for more than four hours, Geralt. Don't need you calling on me just because your bard's little lute is rotting off from blood loss." Yennefer added cheerily, stepping through the portal.

The portal closed with a hiss, leaving a heavy silence between the two blushing men. Did Yennefer have spies? Jaskier looked around, feeling nonexistent eyes on his back.

"Do you, um, do you need anything?" Geralt asked uncomfortably.

"As a matter of fact, yes." Jaskier crossed his arms over his chest, suddenly overly aware he'd been stripped down to his undershirt and pants at some point. "Why are you acting so odd?"

"I'm not." Geralt grunted, shifting from foot to foot.

"You are. You look nervous, like you think I'll break if you come too close." Jaskier huffed a laugh, putting down his cup of water and pushing himself to sit up straight, the muscles in his stomach and arms burned with the effort. Stupid give and take, he thought.

"Well, won't you?" Geralt asked.

"Geralt, what's wrong? Seriously, talk to me." Jaskier lightened his tone, looking at his-the Witcher with soft eyes.

"You're so, so courageous so much of the time that I sometimes forget." Geralt sat down beside the bard, gently pushing the cup of water back into his hand. "Drink." He said softly.

Jaskier did as he was told, shocked at how gentle Geralt was acting.

"Forget what?"

"I forget that you're not like me. You're human. You're fragile. Frankly, it's terrifying." Geralt huffed, looking off into the distance.

"I'm not 'fragile'." Jaskier countered.

"Yes, you are. Almost anything could bring your death. A mild illness, dehydration, lack of food, too much food, the wrong food, weather that's too cold or too hot-" Geralt could have gone on and on, but Jaskier cut him off.

"Geralt, look at me, I'm alright."

"This time."

"Geralt, listen to me, humans spend our entire lives being fragile. I reckon a dragon is fragile by your standards." Jaskier laughed, putting a hand on Geralt's bicep.

"Some species of dragon actually are quite fragile."

"The point is," Jaskier rolled his eyes, "I'm always going to be fragile, but that will never stop me from singing your praises to each town we cross through. I will always be right there by your side." Jaskier promised.

"Are you sure?" Geralt grumbled, a smile playing at his lips.

"Now that's just rude!" Jaskier gasped, fighting his own smile.

Banter between the two floated into the air. In the end, Geralt was the one to insist that they stay an extra day for Jaskier to gain some strength back, despite the latter's half-hearted attempts to get back on the road.

In the future, if Geralt took a little more interest when Jaskier said he was tired or hungry or thirsty, he would just say that it seemed to be a good time for a break, but Jaskier would swear he could hear Geralt mumbled something about remembering that his bard was fragile and had limits.

#bad things happen bingo #prompt fill #prompt: dehydration #fandom: the witcher #netflix #jaskier #geralt #yennefer

84 notes · View notes

nomadmilk · 4 years

Text

Why the God Isn’t Bored on Midgard - Loki x F!Reader Drabble - 8

Summary: With Ragnarok decimating Asgard, Thor and Loki and their people return to Earth searching for refuge. Everyone else has seemed to settle, except for Loki - the God of Mischief and Chaos - who isn’t willing to live the domesticated Midgard life, and getting utterly bored out of his mind... Until he discovered you.

Word Count: 1.4K

Warnings: Rated M/18+. Nothing too explicit, just strong feelings of admiration and desire. Suggestive themes.

Author’s Note: I’ve been re-writing some of the previous chapters, but not so much that it changes any of the plot. Also, I’ve been thinking about this part a lot, and have decided to split it into 2. Anyways, enjoy! Let me know what you think! <3

Here are the other parts to the series: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 (First Half) Part 8.5 (Second Half) Part 9

You had bought a cheap beverage. You didn’t want wine, cider, or beer; you wanted to just forget about your embarrassment today, and hopefully get through what was gonna’ happen when Loki showed up back from his work. So, you bought those canned cocktails; terrible in taste and low in alcohol, but cheap. Although, you knew one can lacked in ethanol, so you compensate in the number of cans you bought.

You reach the kitchen counter, and tip the plastic bag you carried your drinks in upside down on top of it. They clatter loudly, and you immediately note the action as careless as you are soon using all your limbs to stop them from rolling and crashing onto the panelled floor.

After rearranging all the cans, you choose a random can to open; raspberry mojito.

Looking for Loki was not a good idea. It had never been a good idea.

You had contacted Thor about getting to know his brother a little better. And you both agreed that simply asking him questions wasn’t going to go anywhere; Loki was mysterious, but he had a knack of skilfully avoiding subjects and lying quite a bit.

Thor couldn’t suggest much. It was only recently, he admits, that he got to truly understand Loki after thousands of years of being his brother.

“Besides his skills in battle, and his fondness of causing trouble…” Thor ruminates. He’s been texting you all day. When you were finally out of shift, he called you. “There’s not much else I can say about my brother… He reads, quite a lot.”

Reading was the one thing that Loki did in his time You tried to remember the times you pass him in his home office; he’s usually reading. The titles of the books are fuzzy in your memory, and some of them aren’t in the English Language.

“There’s also his work at the University – I know he’s quite invested. Maybe you should see him there?” Thor adds.

The University that Loki works in is the biggest educational institute in the city. However, that made things a little more difficult when you were trying to locate him. You found it awkward to specifically ask for Loki. So, you texted Thor once more, to ask if there was a building that the Prince was likely to be in.

The first bet was the campus library. It didn’t take much looking, as most of the students were coming and going from the central edifice. As you take the stairs, you weave through the individuals, arriving into the interior full of endless shelves and endless floors. The space was filled with quiet hushes and swipes of book pages, and the place smelt of a mix of dust, old carpet and aged paper.

The more you searched, the more you began to doubt the location; there were too many faces, and too many rooms to wonder into. What if you did find Loki somewhere? What were you going to do then? Talk to him? Explain to him that you were just there to stare at what he does during the day?

Exiting with another sea of people out of the library, you reconsider searching for the Arts and Humanities department. The sun blares its beams; the start of summer finally hits you. You reach the end of the stairs, and give one last glance around the campus to see if the Universe agreed or disagreed with your doubts.

You catch a conversation of a woman speaking to someone familiar to you. “The text isn’t recommended on the syllabus, but if it’s sources are correct-“

It was Loki. “As long as that’s the case, it should be no problem.”

Quickly ducking behind the nearest obstacle, your eyes hone on him, his face quite distinct in the distance. As you began to follow them, a few people get in your way and you lose sight of his back.

You stride towards the direction of the Arts and Humanities department, following the few signposts showing the way. Entering the double doors, you pause; you realise the corridors are extensive, and there are a few flights of stairs to the top floor. The building wasn’t as crowded as the library, but you can still feel the start of your head going a little delirious the more you investigated.

You had no idea why you were rushing. It was probably the curiosity of how Loki was as a teacher. Would he be the strict type? Would he be willing to use his Seidr to silence a student that he found annoying?...

You pass by another door.

“… Professor, I think the texts on Thor are pretty biased…”

Back pedalling, your hand pushes the door open to a large room. The back of the room was sparse as the front was packed with students with their hands raised, writing notes, and typing away on laptops that were slim as paper, but seemed too large for their side tables.

Loki is in the centre of all of them. He’s just finished stretching and marking something on the whiteboard. He’s wearing a waistcoat you haven’t seen before, and his hair is tied into a bun. But before you could concoct a joke for future reference; his eyes lock with yours. Your mind stops reeling and your chest heaves a heavy sigh, as if something was taken off your shoulders finally.

He freezes, emerald irises squinting slightly from momentary disbelief. Glancing away, he clears his throat and retouches the knot of his tie. He continues talking. You have no idea what he’s talking about, but his voice bellows through the auditorium; has it always sounded that… Good?

Loki stood tall, proud. He seemed comfortable in the spotlight. It made you smile that the thought of teaching was somehow his calling. As you take your seat at the back with eyes overlooking him, Loki grasped your attention like a natural. His level-headed self not stuttering a word, and no movement seem out of place. It baffled you a little. He was the God of Chaos and Mischief that was unapologetic to the trouble he caused; how was he and this guy the same person?

Observing his movements, your trail of thought begins to drift again. His outfit, although expected, fitted his body and highlighted his strong yet slender build. He rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, exposing his forearms, and all you could remember was how they had held you. You reminisced the way his cream-like tenor breathed into your ear, and how those very hands held you with ease and craving…

“Good afternoon.” Loki was all of a sudden in front of you. “Are you that desperate to see me?”

You bite your tongue; the question obviously rhetorical and was meant to provoke you. But your body had a different response in mind.

Nothing legible came out of your mouth; you were stuttering.

“Take a breath, my dear.” By the sneer in his eye, you could tell it was another phrase meant to set you off.

“We need to talk.” You said, getting onto your feet.

Loki’s brows furrowed. “Now?”

“No, later. It’s not gonna’ be quick chat.”

“Are you aware that our conversations don’t tend to last that long?”

“It’s about you.” You reply. Loki closes his lips. “The kiss. Stark’s party. I-… I just need to talk to you about it, okay? Not now. When you’re all done.”

There’s a pause. Loki’s eyes rove your form.

“Just-…” You begin to leave the room. “I’ll see you back at home.”

You had learnt nothing from your investigations of Loki. But you had learnt something about yourself; you had a thing for him, and it took you this long to actually stop denying that fact. It was almost comedic as to how many signs you had passed by; what were you? A child? No, you were an adult, who had valid emotions and a sense of vindication.

Most of the time.

But there was another way of getting some sort of profile with Loki; it was the one that seemed the most rational, but you knew it was going to get complicated. Even though he didn’t explicitly say, you could tell Loki was willing to talk to you. You just needed to make sure you stood your ground. And, you just had to make sure that you had enough balls to ask the questions and have enough confidence to handle the answers.

#Loki #Loki Laufeyson #loki fanfic #loki (marvel)#loki odinson #loki x reader #Loki x you #tom hiddleston #MCU #roommates #Professor Loki #University #🐄🗂TheNomaArchives

44 notes · View notes

justheretobreakthings · 4 years

Text

Desperate Measures

As well as being my first new fic in way too long, this also is a very, very, very late gift for @zolanort as a thank-you for writing an ace Keith fic (my sincerest apologies for the super long wait!) I hope the amount of pain I put Keith through here will help make up for it.

Word Count: 5,408 Content warning for mild gore. Read on AO3

The first thing Keith saw when he opened his eyes was red.

And for a moment, that had given him some odd inkling of comfort. He had crashed, yes, and he was woozy and exhausted and in pain, but he was in Red. And Red would keep him safe.

It took a few seconds to remember that, no, Red wasn’t here. It was a Blade cruiser that he had been piloting, that had been shot down over Nuqel as he and the others Kolivan assigned to the mission had descended toward the base hidden amongst the foliage of the forest in an attempted ambush, a mission that, clearly, had gone belly-up. Not Red.

He hadn’t flown Red in… a long time. He hadn’t been keeping track.

Wearily, he squinted, trying to bring the world around him into focus. It wasn’t easy. He tried to pick just one thing to look at, to orient himself, and went with the center of a spider web of cracks on the cruiser’s windshield.

He would have to get that fixed. Hell, there were probably a lot of things he would have to fix after a crash landing like that.

At first the red that had flooded his vision when first he had regained consciousness had looked like it was surrounding him, as if his blood had splattered in thick puddles around the cockpit, but thankfully, as he realized with more certainty once he was able to steady his vision, this wasn’t the case. The blood was just in his eyes, dripped down from a wound in his forehead which, now that Keith was aware of it, was starting to throb incessantly. That, no doubt, explained how he had been knocked out. He’d probably knocked his head against the yoke or something during the crash.

With a hint of a groan, he brought one of his arms up to wipe away the blood in his eyes, and discovered that the limb felt bizarrely heavy, as if the bones had been replaced with lead while he was unconscious. It was a chore to lift the arm, and a relief to drop it back down again once his vision was clearer and he could take stock of himself and his surroundings.

As for his body, he was sore. He wasn’t quite sure where he was injured, or how badly, but instead felt an all-over hurt. Like his whole body from head to foot was just one big bruise. He closed his eyes again to try to focus, try to identify any particular sources of pain. There was a more distinct throbbing from his head injury, and now that he thought about it, the pain from his right calf seemed to be pulsing harder than anywhere else.

He looked down, opening his eyes again, to see that his leg was under the dashboard where it had caved inward. Hesitantly he tried to wiggle his toes, and he let out a breath of relief when he succeeded. No nerve damage, then, and he didn’t detect any unusual numbness anywhere else either. That was good.

He tested his head next, rolling his neck and immediately having to shut his eyes against the wave of dizziness that came over him and the increased intensity of the hammering in his skull. Definitely concussed at the very least, he figured, which wasn’t a comforting realization, but hopefully the damage wasn’t anything permanent. His vision was still working, he knew, and his thoughts clear. His hearing - he paused as he realized just how silent the world around him was. He felt his heart rate quicken, and a possibly imagined ringing started up in his ears. Not good, not good.

Dread crawling up his throat, he hesitantly opened his mouth. “Hello?” he managed to call out.

To his immense relief, he heard his own voice echo throughout the cockpit, the sound perfectly clear despite the strain and croakiness. His hearing was fine, then; it was simply just that quiet. Which, now that he thought about it, was unsettling on its own. All the sounds that the cruiser normally made - the hum of the engine, the beeps and tones of various meters and monitors, the crackling of his comm link - were absent, as were the noises of his fellow agents’ vehicles alongside him and the attacking forces from Nuqel.

Didn’t exactly bode well for the state of the cruiser. He lifted his head up to peer through the cracks of the windshield and into the thick foliage around him, and all he saw were trees. No other signs of his fellow Blades or of the Nuqelites.

“Hello?” he called out again, and only silence answered him.

With a sigh he dropped his head back down. At least this meant that the coast was probably clear - if the Nuqelites knew he had survived being shot down and where he’d crashed, he doubted they would have waited to finish the job. As for the other Blades, well… it either meant they had made a clean getaway, or had been shot down too. He had no way of knowing which.

If they’d made it, though, that still didn’t mean they’d be coming back for him. He was more than aware of the Blade’s policy. For now, he was on his own.

He looked to the side - slowly, as to not aggravate his headache - and to his relief it appeared that the hatch into the cockpit seemed to be undamaged, or at least, any damage it had incurred hadn’t bent it out of shape. As best he could tell, the cruiser had maintained its equilibrium fairly well even while crashing; it was currently tilted too far toward the nose, but otherwise had stayed more or less upright. He’d be able to leave.

Keith reached around to unclip the safety belt that held him in place, grimacing as the upper half of his body tipped forward before he managed to balance again. Once he was steady, he started to turn toward the hatch and swing his legs around.

Only to discover that he couldn’t.

A hot, flat pain spread over his thigh as he tried to move it, and it didn’t take more than a moment to realize that he had overestimated how well the dashboard had held up in the crash. It was difficult to angle himself in order to see what might be holding his leg in place; as far as he could see, a few inches above the knee, his leg simply seemed to disappear into the caved-in metal.

A few experimental tugs only yielded more sharp twinges, and Keith grimaces as he felt the trickle of blood ooze from wherever he was being pinned and down his calf. Whatever was holding him in place seemed reluctant to give.

For a couple of minutes he tried lifting the dented dashboard up and off of his knee so he could get a look at what was pinning him, but the Blade hadn’t shirked on the durability of their vehicles; he couldn’t get the dashboard to budge so much as a hair’s width.

Well, fine. If the dashboard wasn’t going to move, Keith was just going to have to try harder to pull the leg out. Perhaps get it done in one quick move, like ripping off a bandaid.

Taking a deep breath, he grit his teeth and gave his leg a good hard yank, a move that he instantly regretted as his vision went stark white and pain from his leg flooded him, fire shooting up the limb and seeming to envelop his every nerve. Something rang in his ears, a sudden surge of noise deafening in the prior silence, and after a moment the raw feeling in his throat told him that it was his own shouting.

He was panting by the time his vision had cleared again, and his eyes stung with tears. Clearly, the bandaid technique was not going to work. His leg was well and truly stuck.

He tried to ignore the coppery scent of blood that had surged into the cockpit as he cast his mind about for some other solution, but it wasn’t easy. His headache was making the air in here so thick, not helped by the fact that the dents and torn openings in the cruiser only let so much air into the vehicle. He needed a fan, maybe some water…

Water. Water and food were in the emergency kit, as were first-aid supplies and a portable radio. The radio, of course, he would save for a last-ditch effort - the most likely ones to pick up the distress signal were the Nuqelites, and he doubted they’d be eager to help him out. Everything else, though, he would definitely need.

He leaned back and reached for the overhead compartment where the emergency kit was stored.

And when his hand couldn’t reach it, he strained harder, stretching as far as his body would allow, the throbbing pain in both his leg and his head starting up again as his fingertips came within an inch of brushing against the compartment door but not quite touching it.

His heart sank with the realization of what this meant, and he wasn’t sure if the blood he felt suddenly surging with increased vigor was due to his injuries or his nerves. These cruisers were designed to be flown by Galra pilots, the emergency supplies placed to be within reach of a Galra arm. He’d been able to adjust his seat to accommodate his small stature before flying it, back when the cruiser was still in working order, but now that the ship was dead, he was stuck just out of reach of the emergency kit.

Which meant no first-aid supplies. No radio. No food. No water.

Keith groaned as he dropped his arm and collapsed back into the seat. There was nothing he could do. He was pinned within the wreckage of his ship, and all that was left for him was to wait for help. The realization hit him with nauseating force.

“Hey!” he yelled out, and normally the desperation in his voice would have embarrassed the hell out of him, but now was no time for pride. “Hey, is anyone out there?! Is anyone nearby?! I need help!”

No answer. He hadn’t really expected one.

“Help me! Hey! Is there anybody there?! Help!”

He wasn’t quite sure how long he kept up the shouting, only that eventually a part of him realized that not only was it fruitless, but he was quickly starting to dry out his throat. His shouts tapered off and he was left with just the quiet of the planet around him. It was growing dark out, too, he noticed. The planet was approaching its night cycle. He didn’t know how long the days were on Nuqel, or what time, relatively, it had been when he and the Blade had set off toward the planet’s surface, or how long he’d been unconscious, so any time passage meant little to him. Except that it would make it that much harder for any potential rescuers to find him once it grew dark.

Not that anyone was looking for him anyhow.

That thought was hurriedly pushed away. It wasn’t a matter of being abandoned, of his teammates not caring about his state. The other Blade members had probably been taken down too, and if they hadn’t, they had no way to know that he himself had lived through that crash landing. He wasn’t being rejected. Wasn’t being forgotten. Wasn’t being abandoned.

Didn’t change the fact that he was trapped in here, alone, bereft of supplies and contact with anyone outside the cockpit.

He squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself not to think about that. To think about anything else but the tiny, darkening cockpit and his trapped leg…

How he managed to fall asleep soon after, he would never know. Perhaps it wasn’t so much falling asleep as it was passing out again. What he did know was that when his eyes drifted open again, the cockpit was pink with sunrise, his mouth was cottony and throat scratchy from lack of water, and he was just as stuck as he had been before.

For lack of anything better to do, he tried again to reach for the emergency kit, an endeavor he gave up on before too long. It was useless, and the strain left him aching. Not to mention sweaty. He was sweating quite a bit. Too much. He couldn’t afford to lose the hydration. But he couldn’t help it; it was so ungodly warm in the cockpit, and somehow it seemed to be growing warmer by the minute.

As the light grew in the cockpit, his vision slowly faded in and out, as if he were constantly falling half-asleep and waking up again. Might have been a side effect from the head injury. Hard to be certain. It might also have been due to the sheer boredom that came with having nothing to do, nothing to occupy his thoughts but blood and his trapped leg and the way the cockpit was so much smaller when the dashboard was caved in that way -

Don’t think about that. Don’t think about that.

He needed to keep his mind occupied to get through this, to make it through this awful waiting. Had to think about anything else.

The first thing his mind went to was the Castle, but he had to shake that memory away, try to replace it with thoughts of the Blade headquarters, but it didn’t hold. He didn’t want to think about the Blade right now, and he definitely couldn’t stand to think about the paladins.

So he decided on spacecraft. Tried to keep his mind on the sensation of piloting, and when that kept pulling back toward thoughts of the destroyed cruiser he was currently trapped inside, he grasped for something else. History. He knew spacecraft history. Not just what he was taught at the Garrison; he learned plenty on his own time.

He went through and mentally recited missions to the moon, in order, just as he’d learned them. No thoughts of his injuries, no thoughts of his isolation, just names of spacecraft. Pioneer 0. Luna E-1 number 1. Pioneer 1. Luna E-1 number 2. Pioneer 2. Luna E-1 number 3. Pioneer 3. Mechta. Pioneer 4.

He made it to Kosmos 305 before he forgot what came next. So he switched to constellations. And when he ran out of constellations, he moved on to state capitals. Then periodic elements. Then song lyrics. Anything to keep himself occupied.

All the while he faded. In and out, in and out. It was almost peaceful, in a way. Just him, in the quiet of the cockpit, trying to remember words from songs he hadn’t heard since his days in the desert as he tried to ignore the ever-growing headache and the stomach cramps and the heat.

That last bit wasn’t peaceful, but they did seem to make the parts where he faded out come faster.

Eventually the cockpit seemed to be growing dark again due not to his own fading consciousness, but to the sun outside setting once more. Keith watched the dashboard’s shadow as it grew longer along the cockpit’s floor until he finally couldn’t see it anymore, then closed his eyes, hoping for sleep. Sure, he had been half-asleep all day, but he didn’t really count that. He’d still been just as tired as he would have been if he’d spent the day training, not to mention just as sweaty. His hair was sticky with it, his back chafing against the pilot’s seat from the leftover dampness.

Although, he hadn’t actually tasted the salt of sweat on his lip for some time now. The sweat that was there seemed to have dried, crusted over.

He was familiar with dehydration. You don’t live in a desert for a year without getting some good hands-on knowledge on the subject. And the fact that he had stopped sweating was definitely a bad sign.

It was frustrating, and a little bit confusing. Just sitting in a cockpit for so long shouldn’t have dried him out this badly; without moving much, he should have been able to survive about a week without water. Something was wrong.

Something besides the obvious, that is.

Keith shivered as he tried to huddle further into the seat as best he could. He shouldn’t dwell on what was going wrong, not while there was nothing he could do about it. All he was supposed to focus on right now was passing time until, by some miracle, help arrived. And if it didn’t… well, he decided he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

He came to it by daybreak.

He had been woken by the arrival of light in the cockpit, although it was the last of several times he’d woken throughout the night. The others were from muscles seizing up and spasming, his body finally having had enough of being stuck in this position and rebelling against him.

The throbbing of his pinned leg had been present all throughout the night, growing just slowly enough that it was hard to notice the difference from hour to hour. But now in the daylight, he finally got a hint of just what sort of state the injury was in.

There, on his Blade uniform where it covered the leg, just before the swollen knee disappeared under the dashboard. There had been a dark bloodstained there for a while, but now something else was mixed in, a pale yellow that had seeped out, drying over the bloodstain. Pus.

Keith’s breath hitched as he focused on it, the only point holding steady in his swimming vision. Pus meant infection. Infection explained the fever - the heat and the sweat and the muscle cramps and the dizziness.

And it also meant that he wouldn’t make it much longer if it wasn’t dealt with, and dealt with fast.

Once more he tried reaching for the emergency kit, despite his every instinct screaming that it was pointless. If he could just get to the kit, he could fix this. He could clean out the wound, get antibiotics from the first aid kit and stave off the gangrene that was surely well on its way.

If he could reach it, he wouldn’t have to - wouldn’t have to -

He was going to have to do it, he realized with a sinking heart as he let his arm fall.

For a long moment he sat still except for his heaving breaths, ones that probably would have been frustrated sobs if he’d been hydrated enough to allow for that.

With nausea bubbling up his throat, Keith slowly reached around to his hip, where his Marmora blade was strapped into place as usual. He removed it, lifting it to the light and trying to steady his grip as he watched the light reflect off its surface. The luxite surface had been cleaned before this mission. Not to the level of pristine sanitation that would typically be required of surgical tools, but enough that it should be okay for this task. It was certainly sharp and sturdy enough.

He brought the tip of the blade to his arm first, ripping off the sleeve from the seam where it attached to his glove and all the way up to his shoulder, and he brought the length of fabric down to tie around his leg as tightly as he could right above the spot where the limb disappeared into the wreckage of the dashboard.

Then, swallowing down the nausea, he moved his blade down toward the trapped leg.

His hand hovered over the skin below his knee, and he tried to convince himself that the shakiness was due more to blood loss and fever than apprehension, because perhaps if he didn’t think about how terrifying this was, it would somehow become less so. Still he hesitated.

He adjusted his grip on the knife and leaned back, taking the blade to the seatbelt that dangled beside him. He had to press the seatbelt down with his elbow to get it to hold steady, but soon he was able to slice a length of it away.

Already starting to feel worn from the energy spent on just that task, he took the length of seatbelt in his free hand, folded it over, and placed it in his mouth, holding it between his teeth. Something a little sturdier to keep him from biting his tongue, and to muffle his screams a bit as he didn’t know what sort of wildlife a sound like that may attract.

And he was definitely going to wind up screaming, he knew.

A fog settled at the borders of his vision as he returned his blade to the leg, the edge easily slicing through the threads of his uniform and coming to rest on the skin - skin that was now visible through the tear, and that he could now see was blazing red from infection.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. The only thing between him and getting free of the wreckage now was a bit of slicing. He could do it.

He had once been a paladin of Voltron. If Shiro could handle being down one limb, so could he.

He would have liked to be able to look away, or close his, but of course, that was hardly an option when he was the one holding the knife.

So he didn’t so much as blink as the blade pressed into his skin, the scarlet of blood welling up over the edges of the cut at once. His vision swam, and he was certain that if he hadn’t gone the last couple of days without eating, anything in his stomach would be coming up now as he pressed the knife further, soon needing to saw the blade back and forth as whatever he was hitting grew thicker and more durable than the skin he’d gone through first - tendons or muscles or something, he wasn’t sure; anatomy had never been a strong subject for him in school.

The sound of blood dripping onto the floor of the cockpit was almost drowned out by the growing buzzing in his ears, and he was biting down so hard onto the length of seatbelt that he was honestly surprised his teeth weren’t ripping straight through it. He didn’t even think he was actually screaming; his throat was too raw, or perhaps the scream just had gotten lost somewhere on the way out, the way it did in nightmares.

This probably fit the criteria of one.

Every ounce of focus, every bit of energy he had went into that knife in his leg, everything else in the cockpit fading as blood flooded his vision, pouring from the ever-growing wound and over his hand, slick and warm as he felt the blade hit bone and it was getting harder and harder to hold onto the hilt of the blade, harder to keep his eyes open.

He lost his grip entirely at one point, his hand shaking too hard, and the blade shifted sideways as it split through the skin of his leg in a new deep tear. His vision went white, and he trembled as he waited for it to return to the image of the cockpit.

It didn’t. It just grew darker.

And darker.

Until the whole world went black.

There was no easy way to track the time in the darkness and the nothing. All Keith knew for sure was that when he finally started to fade back, it was to the feeling of a chill against his skin and the sound of an electronic hiss, followed by -

“Give him space, we can’t all catch him at once.”

- a voice he hadn’t heard in far too long.

He collapsed forward, partly out of exhaustion, partly relief, and two arms caught him and held him steady. Keith didn’t bother opening his eyes, and instead just let his face drop into the nearest shoulder as if it were the softest pillow he’d ever known.

“Mind that leg, Number Four, it’s still going to be rather tender for a while yet. Shiro, if you don’t mind…?”

“Right, I got it. Keith?” A hand rubbed his back. “Wanna go take a seat, get your weight off that leg?”

Keith didn’t answer, was too focused on breathing in the familiar scent of his older brother, when another hand came, this one tapping his head.

“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey, Mullet. Time to cooperate.”

He finally lifted his head and opened his eyes, solely to shoot Lance a glare.

His teammates gradually came into focus, all in their day clothes, all tired-eyed and with varying degrees of worry and relief on their faces. Keith blinked up at them slowly before asking in a dry rasp, “How - how did I - ?”

“How’d you get here?” Shiro finished for him, and Keith nodded.

“You hitched a ride in Green,” Pidge answered.

“What?” Keith said.

“We tracked you down to Nuqel,” Shiro explained as he began leading Keith over to the med bay’s steps, wordlessly lowering him to take a seat and positioning himself right next to him as he continued, “You… weren’t in the best shape when we got to you.”

“How’d you guys find me?” Keith asked. “My ship, it was - ” He was cut off by a cough, and before he’d even finished coughing a water pouch had been placed into his hands, courtesy of Hunk. Keith nodded his thanks and took a sip before continuing, “All the electronics and stuff were down for the count. How did you track me?”

“We didn’t,” Pidge said. “Had to hunt you down the old-fashioned way.”

“Kolivan contacted us a few quintants ago,” Allura spoke up. “To inform us that your ship had been downed on a mission and that you were, er…”

“He said they were guessing you were dead,” said Lance. “Which, you know, didn’t sound right to us. Our samurai’s not exactly the dying sort, you know?”

“So Allura managed to get Kolivan to tell us the details of the mission you went missing on,” said Pidge. She grinned. “You should’ve seen her. Kolivan was being all stubborn about confidentiality, and by the end of it Allura pretty much threatened to march into the Blade headquarters and strangle Kolivan with her own hands if he didn’t give us every last detail and coordinate of your mission.”

Keith raised a brow toward Allura. “Really? You did that?”

“She is somewhat... embellishing the details,” Allura said sheepishly.

“Aww, come on, Allura, you can admit you were upset,” said Hunk. “We all were.” The last bit he addressed to Keith.

“Anyway, we got the general location and I went down to scout in Green,” Pidge continued. “Since she’s the one with the cloaking and apparently Nuqelites aren’t super welcoming to visitors. It, well, it took some time tracking you down. I was scanning for life forms, but apparently whatever that cruiser’s made of was blocking you from being picked up. I know the Blade loves their stealth, but damn, sometimes it can be a real pain. Still, finally managed to find you, and you were, um…” Her face fell to a tense frowned. “You really weren’t looking so hot when I found you. I mean, you were white as a ghost and everything smelled and there was a lot of blood - like, a lot of blood - and I was sure at first that you were - that you had - ”

She swallowed and dropped her gaze, and Keith tried not to imagine the scene Pidge had come across when she’d found him in that cockpit, or how she might have reacted in the moment.

“Well, um, the important thing is, you were still alive, and I tried to get you out of that wreckage but you were really wedged in there. Wound up having to fly back up to the castle and then come back with Shiro so he could use his arm. We got you out, eventually. Took you back up in Green. You kinda bled out all over her, actually, it was sort of a mess.”

“Not as much a mess as that leg was, though,” Coran piped up.

“True enough,” Pidge said with a nod. “Yeah, that leg of yours was - it was really messed up. Coran even thought maybe it might have been severed too deep for the cryopod to fix it, that we’d have to amputate it. Luckily it didn’t quite come to that, think we were all kinda freaked out by the notion.”

“Sorry,” Keith mumbled.

Shiro’s hand was moving comfortingly against his back immediately. “Hey, bud, don’t apologize,” he said. “Not your fault you crashed.”

“Yeah, but the leg thing,” he said. “That was, um… that was my doing.”

Hunk let out a strangled sound and Lance yelped, “What the shit, Mullet?!” but Pidge and Shiro just exchanged a silent glance between them.

“What?” Keith asked.

“We kinda suspected,” Shiro answered.

“Just, on account of the way we found your Marmora knife,” Pidge said.

“I had to,” Keith said. “I mean, I - I thought I did. I was stuck. It was the only way - ”

“We know, Keith,” Shiro said softly.

“I wasn’t trying to - to hurt myself or - ”

“No one thinks you were, Keith,” Allura said. “You were badly trapped. Pidge and Shiro told us as much when we brought you back.”

“I couldn’t do it anyway,” Keith mumbled. “I tried to, but… I couldn’t. I was too - ”

“Hey, dude, it’s a good thing that you couldn’t do it,” Lance interrupted. “Why the hell are you apologizing for not pulling it off?”

“Just… I don’t know. Just sorry you guys had to deal with the, um, the aftermath, I guess? I was - I was close, to getting out on my own. You shouldn’t have had to - ”

“Oh, God, he’s doing that Keith thing,” Pidge groaned.

“Keith thing?” Keith repeated.

“That thing where you try to act like like you’ve got everything under control and didn’t want help and no one else should have gone to the trouble. Didn’t you do the same thing that time you got shot when we were on Uthulea?”

“Ooh, yeah, that was bad,” Hunk said. “You wouldn’t even let me help you walk. Up until you passed out, I mean.”

“The head injury you tried to ‘walk off’ when we were in Yisitov comes to mind,” Coran said, tapping his chin.

“I don’t remember that,” Keith said.

“Yes, I doubt you would have.”

“Point is,” said Pidge, “Don’t even think about trying to pretend like you had things under control, or that we shouldn’t have come to the rescue.”

“That’s not what I was saying, I just - ”

“Or that we had gone to too much trouble for you,” Shiro cut him off, and Keith closed his mouth. He’d got it in one. “We hadn’t gone to nearly as much trouble as you almost did. The idea of you trying to make it on your own with one leg, an infection and fever, and what looked to be a couple days of dehydration and starvation, well… it’s definitely not a pretty picture.”

“... I guess not,” Keith said. “Well, um… thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Mullet,” said Lance. “See, was that so complicated? That’s how these things should go. ‘What happened?’ ‘We saved you.’ ‘Oh, thanks.’ ‘You’re welcome.’ None of this weird guilt stuff. Would save so much time.”

“Shut up, Lance,” Keith grunted over Pidge’s snort.

Lance shrugged. “But seriously, man, good to have you back in one piece.”

“And let’s make sure you stay in one piece,” Coran said. “The damage to your leg was quite severe, lad. Even with the pod it’ll take some recuperation, and there will, unfortunately, be a good bit of scarring, although I’m given to understand you seldom wear short pants, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem for you. I’ve done a bit of planning for some physical exercises you’ll want to engage in over the next few movements to get it back into tip-top shape; perhaps you’d benefit from a full written schedule…”

Keith let his head drop back onto Shiro’s shoulder as Coran babbled. He’d think about getting his leg back to normal later. For now, it was enough to just enjoy being home again.

#vld fic #voltron fic #keith #keith whump #vldgen #my writing #fic: desperate measures

103 notes · View notes

malaysian-rants · 4 years

Text

In Conversation: Malaysian Strippers in Melbourne

In Malaysia, most sex workers are still referred to as “prostitutes” - women that sell sex for payment, a derogatory slur. The definition perpetuates a very narrow vision of sex work for our population. That, combined with the religious underpinnings of many of our laws, criminalizes most forms of sex work and in turn endangers the livelihood of sex workers throughout the country. Many conflate sex work with sex trade/human trafficking but whilst many people that are trafficked are wrongfully subjected to rape and sexual abuse, it is important to not mix a sex worker that has agency versus someone that is being trafficked. Strip clubs/Gentlemen’s clubs are popular destinations across Australia and are not illegal as opposed to Malaysia. I had the pleasure to chat with Kenji and Aria, both Malaysian born and raised, who are or were strippers in the Melbourne industry.

Disclaimer: To protect their identities, the dancers are referred by their aliases and also the reason why this interview was transcribed into a piece of writing instead of a voice recording!

Thank you so much for joining me today, ladies. Let’s dive straight in. How did you both come into the industry and why?

Aria: I love telling this story because it clearly encapsulates how naive I was! I was an international student pursuing my undergraduate degree in Melbourne - it’s a privilege to be able to study abroad but it also comes with a lot of financial strain if you don’t come from the RICH rich section of Malaysian society. I wanted to do more than just the typical go-to-class, study, and done regime. But applying for a job in Australia when you’re fresh out of college and don’t have any credentials, is so difficult. It’s already difficult enough to get a job when you’re qualified so you can imagine the struggle with not much. A friend recommended trying a search for nightclubs that needed podium go-go dancers. I thought, “hell yeah! I love dancing and I think I’m pretty good at it so might as well get paid!”. I went through different job sites and found something on Gumtree, that should’ve been my first indication of dodginess but hey, I didn’t know better. So I scored an interview with what I thought was a night club which turned out to be a gentlemen’s club - a guy friend pointed it out to me when I told him about the interview and where it was! I tossed about whether to go or not but ended up doing it. I wanted to be able to save money and invest in myself so this was a way for me to do just that.

Kenji: I was studying too. I had a slight idea of what the industry was like having met a dancer through one of my friends beforehand. For me, it was kind of like curiosity killed the cat. I’ve always been attracted to the strip club scene but never had the balls because of how taboo it was or is. On my birthday, I did my first audition. I was fortunate enough that I knew someone that was familiar with the industry - so he pointed me towards the more reputable clubs in the city. I did my thing and there were a few other dancers auditioning - they felt pretty stern and unfriendly but having been in the industry myself now, I understand why they weren’t too warm to new dancers because the more dancers there are the more competitive it becomes, on a broader scale. My audition happened during club hours - didn’t get the part because at the time they were looking for girls that could do pole tricks BUT I got tipped which was a nice birthday gift. King street was notorious for being the hub for strip clubs so unknowingly, my best friend and I stumbled across another club. We got in for free at this other club because we were girls. We went straight to the manager and asked about jobs there so we were kind of scouting and wanted to get a dance from one of the girls there to get a better grasp of what it was like. She to this day is still the BEST hustler and dancer in my eyes. She approached us and worked her magic - experiencing this and getting to work with her later on I will always be in awe of how she hustled us. Many that approached us were standoff-ish after they found out we wanted to be dancers but she wasn’t. I ended up applying to that club a few months later and started working. One of my parents fell sick and filed for bankruptcy a few months after I started working so it worked in my favour because I had this as a source of income to support myself while at uni.

What was it like for both of you starting out? Did you have a friend to hold your hands through the initial few months or did you have to hit the ground running and how did it evolve?

Kenji: I’ve definitely got a broader network of sex workers; dancers, escorts, and even pornstars and it’s completely different from when I started out. Like I said before, I had a friend who was familiar with the industry so he was able to answer any queries I had. I remember him telling me, “oh you’ve really come out of your shell” and to an extent, I had, but in saying that, when I’m stripping I’ve got a whole persona going for me. I’ve noticed that with a lot of girls, they have a facade almost. The more full-time you do it, the more you embody that persona. Then the less you do it, especially now with COVID, so many girls in the sex industry speak out about how they feel like they’ve lost their sense of their identity.

Aria: You know I definitely think the loss of identity also spreads across the board of people that have lost their jobs due to redundancies. The sex work industry definitely suffers more because we don’t have a lot of spaces to openly talk about it. I’m no longer a stripper but I feel for my sex workers across the board. But to answer your question, I started in the industry not knowing anyone - it can be quite isolating. I quickly made friends with girls that auditioned the same time I did. We had a rule in the club that newbies had to work every Tuesday night for the 1st 3 months - it was poker night, also very dead but great to practice getting comfortable with the pole and patrons. I think becoming a sex worker really dispelled a lot of the internalized myths, especially when people say that it was/is easy. It’s something that gets signaled through language, through media when you’re growing up that sex workers choose this line of work because it’s easy but if they only knew the sheer amount of work it takes to be a successful one! You need to act, it’s a business, and it’s also a lot of rapport building whether that’s with clients or your fellow strippers. Sex work also opened another door into the hospitality industry for me and it served as a wonderful stepping stone into different work that probably fit better with my schedule.

Kenji: Yes! Dancers can come off as standoff-ish sometimes but I know it’s just a wall to protect themselves from all the bullshit they go through day in day out.

I know the clubs have different touching and no-touching policies. Can you both tell me about how you navigated those boundaries with different patrons?

Aria: Those boundaries were definitely something I learnt about the stripper world, I guess. There are rules and like any workplace, some people think it fit to bend those rules and blur the lines. It’s frustrating because it skews shit for other dancers because then you get the clients that say, “oh but X did this for me and it was fine” Well I’m not them!

Kenji: Exactly! Every strip club has its politics like every other workplace. Stripping can be seen as teasing. “It doesn’t matter where you get your appetite as long as you go for dinner”. It’s built for these corporate men who have wives at home. I was working at one of the two non-touching clubs in Victoria. I can’t speak for the whole of Australia but it seems like most clubs have a waist and above policy. It would be annoying whenever we’d get clients that kept insisting for more. You’re probably at the wrong club if that’s what you’re after. You came in, there’s a certain set of rules, we don’t want to be touched, none of the girls want that but too often we’re faced with a rebuttal insinuating that another dancer in the club would allow it. When asked who it is, so we can do justice and tell management, often it’s a sham or they’d be ridden with fear. I have seen it happen once or twice but the girls never seem to last many shifts. Some clubs are stricter than others; though it’s difficult to police and check even with all the security cameras because it’s dark and the weekends get pretty busy.

So no touching meaning they can’t touch you at all or are there some exceptions?

Kenji: We call it control touching. So you can sit on them, you can’t grind on their privates. They can have their hands on your waist but not too low.

How did you make the distinction on who to disclose your sex work to? Do you wish you could have been more open about it?

Kenji: It’s something that I’m proud of but secretly proud of. There’s that conflict in my head because it’s not something that’s widely accepted but it’s a great way to filter out those whose values don’t align. People’s views on sex work are a huge prerequisite to whether I can hold space for them in my life or not. I’ve told a few people from home, and there are a few people I regret telling because it’s so easy to slip and that can have a ripple effect. I’ve got a handful of people from home that share this secret, my sister included. It’s a lot easier telling the people I meet in Melbourne being foreign. Dating is a lot easier when you lay out the facts from the get-go - if you can’t take the heat you gotta leave the kitchen!

Aria: It’s so important to be upfront about it. When I started, I told a few friends who I knew wouldn’t react badly to it, all they cared about was my safety. The men I dated in Melbourne were mostly so lovely. Their responses were like “Yas, get that bread!!” It was nice and unexpected. Funnily enough, it was the opposite when I went back to KL and dated during the holidays. I wasn’t dancing anymore at that time but for me, my partner’s views on sex work were important for me to understand their own whorephobia. So I had a great date with this guy and the next day I told him about my previous sex work - he flipped. He said, “how can you be someone that wants to practice feminist values, someone that wants to empower women, and then you do this?!?!”. Sometimes, you have to protect your peace and walk away but I was feeling up to the emotional labour that day. Sometimes, you just have to respond with a little empathy because he grew up with a lot of conservative/puritanical values. So I explained everything to him and unpacked his skewed perceptions and biases; it took him a day to process but hey, now we’ve been dating for almost 4 years. Being a sex worker is part of me and will always be. It’s nice to see people capable of changing their mindset when they get the chance to and when they matter enough to you for you to put in the effort.

Safety is one of the most common things people have concerns about. How did you personally manage your own safety? Whether that's you know, maintaining your anonymity, maintaining safety from clients outside the club, and working late hours?

Kenji: Kenji is my alter ego. Keeping your identity separate definitely helps. With regulars, some have my number but it’s a lot easier to give out your strippergram if you have one. It’s a great way to stay anonymous considering I don’t have my face on there. With physical safety, we’re not allowed to leave with any clients and we’ve got backdoors if we wanna leave unseen. The guards are lovely enough to escort you to your car or uber if they’re not busy breaking a fight or tossing someone out of the club!

Aria: Sometimes, you also just leave with friends and you grab a bite after. Those are some of my best memories after work. It’s 5 am and you go for a quick Maccas run or burger run with the girls.

Kenji: Yes! The guards are your best friends when it comes to safety. They’re big teddy bears to us but vicious to patrons and those who disrespect us. All I have to do is tell a guard someone’s harassing me in order for them to send them out. The night I found out my dad fell sick, I still had to go to work after bawling my eyes out. I went to work at 9 pm and the shift lasted till 7 am. My phone died whilst I was trying to book an Uber so I asked the Head of Security to help hail me a cab. He asked how far away I lived, and it was barely a 5-minute drive so he took his own car and drove me home mid-shift. It’s comforting to know that we’re being looked after.

Aria: I did a lot of half an hour walks back home in the wee hours of the morning. Not the safest, I know but I honestly was at the point where booking an Uber was an expense I didn’t need. I would dress up in baggy clothes and have a large hoodie to protect my safety and you couldn’t tell I was a woman.

Kenji before we started the interview, you briefly mentioned grappling with your sense of identity. Can you delve a little further into this?

Kenji: This club has been my home club for over three years now and that overlaps with the years that I’ve spent in this foreign city. I had a little more of an ambiguous accent back then and it was fun at first but the question “where you from?” grew old. I’d mix it up, play around with my accent, or make them guess and pretend they’d get it right on the first go. These guesses are usually telling of what they want you to be. Further, into my Melbourne journey, it was a lot easier to speak in an Australian accent to cut the story short. This was sometimes confusing to my peers and whoever was close to me. The versatility I have coming from a multiracial country is usually an advantage because of the ability to mirror whoever I speak to but that too can be hard on me especially when I’ve been away from home for a while and it’s difficult to distinguish what home is. That and the persona you adopt in the club because I can be quite the introvert outside of work. I’ve always been an openly sexual person so being in Malaysia definitely hindered me from being my authentic self. It’s suppressing being there in the way I dress, speak, and carry myself. As Aria said, it’s been a part of your life and it will always be there and I completely agree. The best piece of advice I got was that this is a transition, not a destination and I always felt that. You can definitely become a successful full-time stripper and retire with stripper savings but I am studying and I believe that this experience will only supplement what I choose to do in the future!

Aria: That’s definitely relatable. When you’re a dancer, you have to come up with your dancer name and like Kenji said it becomes your persona or alter ego. You have to create a whole character with that and it feeds into how you dress, what your stage performances are like - I feel like my time dancing was a time for me to explore parts of myself I didn't get to, back home in Malaysia. At home, it was always "that's too much" "that's too revealing"....... through stripping, I became so comfortable in my body. The club I worked at had mirrors surrounding the stage and when you turned on the pole, you could see every nook & cranny of your body. If you didn't like what you saw, then you really couldn't expect your clients to buy into your persona - at least I couldn't. So it was almost like I had to fall in love with myself and the character I portrayed. One day I remember thinking "wow, I'm everything.” When you feel that way then people that see you feel similarly when they see you too.

That’s fascinating - so much internal growth. How did you both come up with your names?

Kenji: I always wanted the name KAYA but another girl at the club beat me to it and had it spelled differently. I wanted KAYA because being Malaysian it meant, you know, something sweet, a coconut buttery spread, good ol' Malaysian; it also means rich, and that's exactly what I want to be as a dancer - but of course no one else would know what it meant. Funny thing though, after that I ended up looking up Asian baby girl names because I wanted to market my Asian-ness. "FETISHIZE ME! As long as I'm profiting from it, but don't fetishize me outside of work, that'll piss me off”. The more exotic I was to them, the better. It’s honestly not ideal and I wouldn’t accept it outside of the strip club. Patrons would come up to me and say something like, “My friend likes Asians, do you want to talk to him? I’ll buy him a dance” and I’ll say of course, but in real life, if I were to experience that in a nightclub or a bar setting, fuck no. I will not stand for it.

Aria: Yeah, how do you balance that? I chose Aria randomly actually. With the name though, I realised quickly it was also really racially ambiguous which really mimicked my world outside of work. My name wasn’t a typical Indian name so I’d always get the “Are you Chindian?” or “Are you Eurasian” growing up. And again, you can’t really tell Aria is a brown person’s name, it almost plays into the mystery. Growing up I never felt Indian enough and at the same time didn’t feel Malaysian enough - now I realise that’s absolutely bullshit but we conflate nationality, ethnicity, and culture too often. Outside of dancing, I don’t enjoy it when people fetishize South Asian women and reduce us to just qualities instead of a whole person.

Kenji: I feel that. The more a guy fetishizes me at work, the more of an incentive it is to milk him for it!

Aria: Its powerplay. Who has the power in that moment? It’s up to us to make sure the men believe they do. In the moment though, I am, in fact, profiting from his desires.

Kenji: This is true. One guy pulled the slanted eye gesture and I was quick to walk away from that client. I told the guards about him and this man was apparently being a nuisance to other girls too so it didn’t take long before he was chucked out of the club. Always feels so liberating when that happens. During my baby stripper days, I was naive and genuinely thought I was only selling dances but got to learn that the whole marketing scheme was pivoted around a man’s libido. I understand that now and it’s important to find those boundaries and not let it consume me inside and outside of work.

What are some of the biggest misconceptions of what it’s like to be a stripper?

Kenji: That all strippers are loaded. We all have bills to pay so it’s not like we can dance for free and it’s actually ludicrous the number of times we get asked to do a free dance for whatever reason as if we’re partying with them and not working laborious hours in 6-8 inch heels.

Aria: Another one is that we’re all very sexual just because we’re sex workers.

Kenji: Yes!! We’re sexually open but I think that makes us more protective of whose energies we allow into our personal space.

Aria: When I was dating, I had to weed out the men that only saw me as a sex object. Sex work is my work. Outside of that, I’m not always trying to have sex! I’m a whole person with other interests too. Just like you.

Do you have any favourite clients or stories about them?

Kenji: I love foot fetish guys! They don’t make you dance or anything, they just want to admire your feet. It’s an absolute blessing to have a break in the night where you can put your feet up, literally, and have your feet rubbed and not to mention get paid for it!

Aria: Oh who doesn’t love the simpler clients! My favourite client definitely had to be someone that booked me for 3 hours to just sit and talk. So a regular of one of my good friends at work, let’s call her Lila, walks into the club. He already booked Lila out for the remainder of the night but also had a friend with him and asked her to find a girl to keep his friend company. So she pulled me to the side to see if I was free. That’s where, you know, it’s so important to build good rapport amongst other workers because they can also bring clients and good business to you. It was the best because all this guy wanted to do with me was talk! Lila was fully naked enjoying her time with her person and in my head, I was down to do the same for mine but he turned to me and said, “could you just maybe keep your clothes on and we just talk instead?” so hell yeah! We made great conversation and went on the most interesting tangents - anxiety, his addiction to cocaine and how it fuelled his anxiety which he tried to subside through masturbating to pornography, his struggle dating because most milked him for his wealth.

Kenji: Yes! Completely forgot about those kinds of clients as they’re a lot rarer these days. Some men, typically older and more established tend to just want a chat and have a good time. These men are the best because you can drop your guard and essentially have a break from your usual stripper act. International clients with experience in foreign clubs often come in and you can observe the differences in stripper culture, typically American or European club etiquette... So you have to learn to be assertive of your boundaries and the rules at your club because they come in with their own preconceived rules; especially if you’re in a non-touching club vs a touching club. Clubs have their own set of rules, some have table bookings, some have tipping dollars, some make it compulsory to tip if you’re seated around the stage.

Final thoughts and final words for the people?

Kenji: To anyone that wants to join the sex industry, do your research. It’s so important. It will definitely have an impact on your life. I’ve definitely grown to love my naked body more from this experience. You can say I’m vagina positive - I’m a huge advocate for vagina lovin’, no pun intended. I’ve come a long way from being ashamed of it to be able to recognize that there are so many different types of vaginas and that they’re all beautiful; whatever shape, size, or colour. Anyway, it’s good to know what you’re going up against. For both myself and Aria, it seems like we dove head in. I think it’s done more positive than it has negative for us personally. But many girls do lose themselves in the process, some really hurt themselves because it’s a tough job. Know how to protect yourself while you’re in the industry. Some girls get stuck and don’t know which way is out and it’s difficult when there’s a huge gap in your resume. I feel similarly but I know it’s a means to support myself whilst studying and it’s important to keep a goal in mind and stick to it.

Aria: Sex workers are all different and multi-dimensional, like any other workplace and community. We’re such a diverse background of people. There’s the perception that there’s just one type of person that goes into dancing or goes into sex work, but in reality, people come from various backgrounds. Whether it’s a lifestyle, whether it’s survival work, whether it’s a side hustle; we all deserve respect. To decriminalise sex work and reach a point of respectability, it’s not just us who need to speak out. Clients and patrons need to also try to be unashamed about buying sex or seeing sex workers. People that date sex workers need to call out whorephobia within their circles and address it. Pay for your porn when you have the means to, don’t ask for discounts from sex workers. Respect the work.

It was so lovely to listen to both of their stories. Both Aria and Kenji both talked about how being sex workers pushed them to come out of their shells. Kenji had friends that complimented her newfound assertiveness and Aria personally became a lot more comfortable with her skin suit/ her body. I hope if you’ve made it this far into this piece of writing and conversation that you learnt a new perspective. This isn’t just a story about two sex workers, it’s also a story of two women of colour who are students in a foreign country.

#sexwork malaysian strippers stripclub aria kenji #interview

1 note · View note