#but they turn yellow -> orange -> red when they get stressed/about to explode
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a quick fic for c!dream hybrid day !! involving creeper hybrids c!dream and c!sam (what will they do)
tws: abuse, torture and death mentions, lots of Weirdness about hybrid traits bc c!sam has Issues (tm)
The cell is hot.
It cuts through even the coolant running through the insides of Sam’s armor, the residual effects of the fire resistance he downed before pearling through the lava. The air shimmers and warps next to the lava, and he turns away from the overwhelming brightness with a tight frown, fist tightening over Warden’s Will as he surveys the cell. It’s relatively clean for one of Quackity’s visits, not that that means very much. Dream has managed to pull himself upright against the back wall, eyes blank.
“Dream,” Sam rolls his eyes, rapping his sword against the floor until his gaze swivels over to focus on him. His pupils are pinpricks, shining gold.
“Sam,” Dream mutters, his voice hoarse. He blinks, shakes his head, blinks again. “Sorry.”
The apology is tacked on like an afterthought, and Sam sighs again.
“Get up.” He surveys the damage as Dream struggles up to his feet; there’s another series of bleeding gashes carved into his back, some sort of large, amorphous burn that’s ruined one pant leg and covers most of his shin, his hair stringy and wet - if Sam were to guess, from being dunked in the cauldron again. Manageable enough, even without potions, but he’ll use one anyway for his back just to ensure he won’t bleed out. Dream’s legs wobble underneath him, his ear flicking back and forth, and Sam pushes him away from the back wall of the cell with the flat of his sword, handing over a change of clothes and a health potion as he does.
“Don’t take too long,” he warns, watching carefully as Dream cradles the glass bottle with two hands. “And don’t drop the potion. You’re not getting a second one.”
“Okay.”
Sam turns away from him, looking at the blood and grime on the ground and internally lamenting the mess; no matter how many times he tells Quackity to be more careful, he never manages to listen quite as well as Sam would like. This is supposed to be better than the last few days, which - if Sam is to be fair - it is. But better doesn’t mean he’s not going to be here for the next thirty minutes mopping the obsidian, nor does it mean that Quackity hasn’t ruined yet another prison uniform that Sam will inevitably end up having to find the materials to replace. He lets his sword fall back into his inventory, pulling out a bucket of water and a mop with a frustrated sigh that barely skirts around becoming a low hiss, starting at the leftmost wall of the cell in silence.
It’s barely five minutes later when the hissing begins: an almost inaudible low hum of noise at his back that he stubbornly ignores. The mop splashes loudly as he dunks it in the water, scrubbing grit and grime from the cracks in the stone and staining the head of it red-brown, and the hissing grows in volume like it’s trying to drown it out. His fists tighten on the mop handle. There’s a puddle of dried blood and vomit in the corner he has to scrub at for a solid minute and a half. He adjusts how his mask sits on his face with one hand, a spark of a rising headache pulsing brighter against the front of his skull-
“Will you stop that?”
The hissing cuts off. Dream stares back at him, wide-eyed, the points of his eyes impossibly small and bright. Smoke curls from the corner of his lips, mouth barely open. Sam notes, with no small measure of irritation, that he has yet to put on his new shirt.
Dream looks away first. “Sorry.”
“Hurry up. And stay quiet.”
Sam turns back, mop clutched tightly in his hands until the joints of his gauntlets creak against each other, headache worsening despite the silence from the man behind him. With new vigor, he scrubs at the floor along the back of the cell, determined to leave as soon as possible.
“Sam-”
“What, Dream.”
“I- my shirt.” Sam looks back at him; with how sickly pale he’s become, the embarrassed flush that settles over his face and neck is impossible to ignore, the darker, blocky patches of green over his cheeks and shoulders much like Sam’s own fading into the rest of his skin. “I can’t-”
Sam bites back a flash of burning anger, startled momentarily at the ferocity of it even in his own head. “Figure it out, Dream. I’m not your butler.”
“Please, Sam.” Behind the words, the hissing builds, then stops. “I-”
The cell is sweltering; heat gathers at Sam’s collar, the fire resistance long having worn off. He sets his jaw and looks over at Dream, who - admittedly - looks a little pathetic. He’s tangled up in his shirt, one sleeve dangling loosely, beads of sweat gathering at his hairline from the heat or exertion. His eyes have brightened to a piercing orange, pinpricks of brilliant light in his dark eyes, and Sam feels the hairs of his neck stand on end.
“Watch it, Dream,” he mutters, waving away a curling fog of smoke and gunpowder. Dream hesitates, then nods, shoulders tight as Sam reaches for his shirt, careful not to touch him. The lava glitters at the edges of his vision, hair sticking to the skin of his neck. It’s awkward, maneuvering his arm into the sleeve, and Sam backs away immediately after with a roll of his shoulders.
“Thank you,” Dream says, voice almost a whisper. He pulls at the shirt awkwardly, wincing every so often from the strain at his back, and Sam turns his gaze back to the cell after he starts fumbling with the buttons. There’s a dull ache in his head that he tamps down, clearing his throat awkwardly as he returns to the mop.
He finishes cleaning the rest of the cell without any more interruptions, finally looking back at Dream clutching the bloody rags of his old uniform and an empty potion bottle. Sam picks up the bucket of water from the ground and returns it and the mop to his inventory.
“Sam,” Dream says, voice pitched hesitantly, and Sam feels his jaw jump.
“What now, Dream!”
Dream stares back at him, silent. His expression is unreadable, eyes an even darker orange, a dull, inconsistent buzzing making Sam’s ears ring. Inside his own ribcage, there’s something hot and bright and sharp, begging to tear loose. To swell into light and aching heat, to set the world aflame, and Sam swallows a gulp of air that’s not cool enough to do anything more than fan the flames.
“It’s hot in here, Sam,” Dream says, looking away. His eyebrows are furrowed in inscrutable thought. “It’s too hot. You know that.”
“You should’ve thought of that earlier then,” Sam says, clipped. “This cell was your design-”
“I know, I know-” Dream mutters, dismissive, and Sam forces down the hiss building in his own lungs. “But- with Quackity-”
“I don’t see how this has to do with Quackity.”
“The- the gunpowder, Sam! And the lava!” Sam’s ear flicks irritably, and he runs his hand through his hair beside it, remembering Dream’s doing the same. “It’s not- you know it’s not-”
“Quackity has been supplied a mask and appropriate precautionary equipment.” Sam’s voice comes out more guttural than he intends, and he forces himself to take a deep breath. He has to leave. The searing brightness at his sternum presses against the cool metal of his chestplate.
“You mean- a bucket of ice water and a shield? Yeah, because that’s going to do so much when I literally explode and kill us both, Sam! Don’t you remember-”
“He’s been informed with what to do in case-”
“-what happened to Tommy!”
Sam whirls around. Dream’s eyes are wide, eyes glittering in the lava’s light, lips still slightly parted as Sam stares down at him. There’s a seething rattle to the air, steam in a kettle, rising to a fever pitch as Sam feels himself move forward towards where Dream is still standing in the middle of the cell.
“Tommy? You killed Tommy, Dream! You ruined his life! You wanted to put him in here!” The mask digs into his face, knocking against his chin as his mouth moves.
“Sam-”
“You’re the reason why the cell is like this. You’re the reason why Quackity has to visit. Stop trying to- use all of these things to convince me- you know what? You’re right! You’re right, I do know what’s necessary for the cell. I know better than anyone, and you know that. So don’t try and threaten me, Dream!”
“Sam, please-”
“You deserve this, Dream-”
“SAM!”
Sam’s hand clamps around Dream’s wrist only to wrench away - the cell is hot, and Dream’s skin burns. Dream’s eyes are wide as saucers, the smoke spilling from his mouth blurring the image of his face with a hazy sheet of translucent grey, and Sam only barely registers himself pulling out a pearl and launching himself into the lava, forcing himself through over to the opposite side with his heart pounding in his chest.
He waits; one second passes, then two. His breathing is harsh and heavy and loud through the mask, hissing ringing in his ears. From Dream’s cell, there’s no sudden swell of sound, no harsh crack of an explosion tempered through the lava curtain. He forces his breathing to steady with his shoulders pressed against the atrium wall, waiting for a detonation that never comes.
Finally, relatively confident that the danger zone has passed, Sam peels himself from the wall, feeling strangely heavy on his feet, almost disoriented. He ignores the levers on the wall - Dream is fine, surely, he didn’t hear anything from the cell - and heads for the bathroom. Some cold water on his face sounds amazing right now.
(A few minutes later, he hesitates as he leans over the sink, focusing on his reflection.)
(The eyes in the mirror glow bright orange as they stare back.)
#chybrid day#tw death#tw torture#tw abuse#writing !!#my writing :D#some additional notes bc i made up so much random shit about creeper hybrids in here:#no one knew c!dream was a creeper hybrid pre-finale#creeper hybrids usually have smoke that comes from their mouth - they don't mind it#but the fumes can be noxious to others#hence c!sam and c!dream's masks#they have black sclera and white eyes Usually#but they turn yellow -> orange -> red when they get stressed/about to explode#they also usually run cold but heat up when they're about to detonate#explosions by creeper hybrids can be more controlled than regular creepers#(as in they can explode partially instead of their entire body)#but as they're still very painful + regeneration takes a long time#most avoid explosions if they can manage it#explosions become especially hard to control with heightened emotion + stress#and are very destructive + potentially fatal if you explode#so yeah c!quackity is literally torturing a living bomb that's . fun.#sam had Some weirdness about being a creeper hybrid bc of the destructiveness before#but it definitely gets 20x worse with the reveal of c!dream being one#cause he sees c!dream as being the embodiment of everything he fears about himself etc#as well as being u know. Terribly Evil.#hissing from creepers is a warning they're about to explode as well skks#so yeah a lot of sam's deal here is telling dream to control himself#as to not literally blow up#which is hard considering the constant stress of being u know. tortured.#anyway that's about all i think !! hope u guys enjoy :D
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Distrail
Chreon, Rated-T
Read on Ao3
For a price, anyone could check into a seedy motel, even three people covered in blood, guts, and grime, no questions asked, especially with the ashes of Raccoon City still cooling 100 miles away. So the horizon still held a faint glow of destruction when Leon and Claire stumbled, barely conscious, through the front door of the Tadpole motel at 2 PM October 1st, using each other as support and Sherry clinging to Leon’s back like a koala if a koala drooled and snored.
Two other motels along the highway turned the odd couple away, rumours already flying about Raccoon City, zombies, and a nuclear cover-up. But at the right price, triple the going rate, Claire managed to convince the manager to let them bunk down, courtesy of Leon’s stressed credit card.
The fact Leon’s credit card worked, or that he even still had his credit card, was a miracle. His wallet hadn’t exactly been a priority, and honestly, they could sleep in a cockroach-infested basement, and Leon would be happy because they were dead on their feet after hiking on foot what Leon estimated to be a good 30 miles of rough terrain to get to the nearest town. The sun barely peeked over the horizon when the sky behind them exploded.
Raccoon City was gone. The people Leon had sworn to defend were gone. Sherry and Claire were all he managed to protect, and he’d be damned if he failed now.
The motel room wasn’t terrible; two double beds, a small tube TV, and a leaky faucet. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t something out of a horrible nightmare. They’d left that behind them.
“I’m glad we don’t have a blacklight,” Claire joked, but her tone fell flat.
Leon nudged the bed farthest from the door suspiciously with his boot, dragged back the yellow duvet, and inspected the mattress before he lay Sherry down and tucked her in. He even let Claire shower first, insisted, while he watched Sherry sleep, tossing and turning and whimpering from reliving the horrors in her dreams until Claire emerged from the bathroom, hair still damp, and crawled into bed beside Sherry.
By the time Leon scrubbed his skin raw, the water was cold, and Claire had passed out cold with Sherry cuddled up beside her, little hand tangled in the front of Claire’s dirty tank top like a lifeline. Leon passed out face first on the other bed. He couldn’t even muster the energy to get under the covers.
Movement woke Leon. He jolted awake, reaching for his gun on the bedside table, only to find Claire, fully dressed, perched on the end of his bed and tugging one of her boots. She smiled sadly at the gun levelled at her head.
Leon lowered Matilda, gasping for air. His arm fell limply to his side. “Claire?”
“Hey.” Claire pulled on her second boot. “Sorry.”
Leon blinked at the sleep crusting his eyes. “What... what are you doing?”
Claire sighed and set her foot back down solidly on the ground, hands grasping her thighs. “I need to find Chris. I need... I need to know he’s okay.”
“Now?” Leon glanced at the clock. The bright red numbers read 7:46. The setting sun outside glowed faintly behind the curtains.
“If you ever need me...”
“Forget me. What about Sherry?” Leon snapped, somewhat mollified when Claire winced.
“I know you’ll take good care of her.” Claire’s attention briefly snapped to the sleeping 12-year-old that had survived literal hell. “Leon... if I didn’t have to.”
“Yeah. Yeah, whatever,” Leon scoffed, then rolled over. His heart thundered in his chest. He heard Claire briefly wake up Sherry to say goodbye, promising they’d be in touch, that if Sherry ever needed her, all she needed to do was call.
The door creaked open. Leon clenched his eyes shut, willing down the panic swelling in his chest until it ached. This was it. He was all Sherry had left. They were on their own.
“Take care of our girl for me.” Claire’s voice was barely a whisper.
Leon’s hands trembled, buried in the sheets and pillows, he struggled to suck down air, and his hearing fuzzed. Claire was gone.
For hours, Leon faded in and out of consciousness, barely able to keep the crush of dread at bay. Finally, at some point around 3 AM, he gave up all pretense to sleep and kept a vigilant guard. He jumped at a car alarm, tensed at the slam of a door, and clenched Matilda tightly when soft footfalls passed their door. Eventually, Sherry climbed into his bed to watch early morning cartoons with him.
“Is Claire going to be okay?” Sherry asked softly. She hugged Leon’s arm, cuddling into his side like he used to with his grandma.
“Yeah. Don’t worry about her,” Leon said. He slumped to the side, gently resting his head on top of Sherry’s. “She’ll be fine, kiddo.”
When the sun rose, Leon and Sherry trekked down to the front office to extend their stay another night, then hiked into town searching for clothes and sustenance. Being out in public, surrounded by people, set both Leon and Sherry on edge. They jumped at the slightest sound, and Sherry refused to release Leon’s hand for anything less than going to the bathroom, and even then, he had to stand guard outside the stall. Thank god he had pissed before they left the motel because Sherry was clinging to the back of his jacket while he tried seemed ridiculous.
Their shopping trip was quick. They grabbed what they could, Sherry setting a brisk pace through the little thrift store they found, dragging Leon from rack to rack. They scrounged up a few changes of clothes, socks, underwear, which Leon was a little uncertain of, a jacket that fits over his side holster since he had a license to carry, and a backpack that they filled with snacks and a deck of cards from a little corner store. It turns out Leon’s palette was similar to a twelve-year-old.
The tenuous credit limit finally crapped out on Leon when he tried to buy a six-pack at a shady liquor store on the way back to the motel.
“No job. No money. Just great,” Leon sighed.
For the rest of the day, they holed up in their room munching on junk food, watching terrible daytime TV, and playing Go Fish until Leon made the brilliant decision to teach Sherry how to play poker, and she fleeced him for all the Cheetos.
Leon had no plan beyond survive, and he hadn’t even planned for that. His body ached from being tossed by mutated monsters and shot. His wrapped shoulder twinged.
“Shit,” Leon cursed and clutched his wound. They needed help. He needed help. Taking care of a kid without any resources would be impossible; never mind, he’d never taken care of a person in his life. He had no siblings, no parents. His grandma died when he was nine.
Leon smiled at Sherry in reassurance when she questioned him. This little girl couldn’t be another statistic of the system. He could fix that. He would fix that.
Covered in orange Cheeto dust, Sherry crashed around 8 in the evening. The glow of the sun behind the curtain reminded Leon of the mushroom cloud that had enveloped the sky 36 hours ago. Leon’s stomach twisted in knots. Every creak, every thump, every squeaky break, Leon tensed, waiting for something to crash through the door and disrupt the precarious peace.
Leon hunkered down on his bed, the one closest to the door and any potential threat that came for them, and prepared for another sleepless night on edge.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Around one in the morning, his eyes beginning to droop, Leon nearly fell off the bed in his mad scramble for his gun when someone knocked heavily on the door. Checking his clip, Leon cautiously crept to the door, motioning for now very awake Sherry to stay out of sight.
“Who is it,” Leon called.
“Hi. Look, I’m sorry to bother you. My name is Chris Redfield. I’m looking for my sister Claire.”
Leon blinked and glanced back at Sherry, whose head had popped out of the blanket at the sound of Claire’s name. Then, double-checking he had bolted the chain, Leon opened the door a crack to peek out.
A man a little taller than Leon stood under the flickering light outside the door, his hair cut short and a 5 o’clock shadow. Chris Redfield, decorated member of the Racoon City Stars Division. Leon recognized him from the old photo Claire had shown him, but also the records he’d run across during his frantic hunt through the Police Department.
“Chris?” Leon said, astonished it was actually him. He slammed the door, unbolted the chain, and flung the door open again. “What the- Claire’s looking for you. What are you doing here?”
Chris, who eyed the gun uncertainly, brightened at the mention of his sister. “Is she here? The manager at the front recognized her. Said she was here with some guy and a kid.” Chris glanced past Leon into the room to Sherry curled up in the other bed peering out with curious fear from under the blankets.
Leon shook his head, eyes scanning the parking lot. “She’s not here. She left this morning to find you.”
“Fuck.” Chris winced and glanced at Sherry again. “Shit, sorry.”
Sherry giggled into her hands, and Leon rolled his eyes. “I think she’s dealt with worse.” Like the apocalypse.
“But she’s okay. She’s alive?” Chris asked.
“Who? Claire? Yeah. Yeah, she’s fine. Saved my ass more than a few times.” Leon smiled wistfully and then frowned. So Claire had left, and now, here, her brother was trying to track her down. It must be nice to have someone that gave a damn about you.
“Oh, thank god.” Then, finally, all the tension and stiffness in Chris’ posture melted. “I got her message, and...”
Leon scanned the dark parking lot again for any sign of life, then gestured into the motel room. “You should come in.”
“No.” Chris waved off the invitation. “No, I need to find her.” But the fatigue in his voice threatened to topple him, and that would definitely fell Leon if he tried to catch him.
“Dude, you’re dead on your feet,” Leon said. “It’s the middle of the night. Crash for a few hours.”
“Yeah!” Sherry chimed in, bouncing on her bed. “Stay!”
Chris shook his head. “I can’t.”
Leon pursed his lips. “Look, I don’t know you, man. But I do know that if you pass out behind the wheel and wrap yourself around a pole, you’re pretty damn useless to her.”
Chris opened his mouth to argue, and Leon sighed, tilting his head to the side, ready to give up when Chris snapped his mouth closed and cleared his throat. He studied Leon closely, scrutinizing him like he would a suspect, but Chris must have been satisfied with what he found - weakness, terror, immaturity - because he finally said, “just a few hours.” And the anxiety squeezing the life out of Leon eased, just a tiny bit. Enough that he could breathe.
Chris excused himself to run and grab his go-bag, and Leon cursed his stupidity because nothing was stopping Chris from running. That tightness immediately returned, but a few minutes later, another sharp knock sounded at the door.
Leon smiled tiredly and welcomed Chris into the room, relieved to have the company, someone who knew what they were doing; an adult. Leon grew up fast, but he’d never been an adult in his life. Racoon City was supposed to be a fresh start, and now, he was back to square one. Not even. He was in the basement of square one—the root cellar.
Leon finally caught a good look at Sherry with the lights on, still covered in orange dust, her fingers and cheeks stained. “Jesus. Did you eat the Cheetos or roll in them?”
Sherry laughed. “Leon taught me to play poker, and then I won all the cheezies,” she said to Chris, who grinned.
“Nice job.” Chris offered her a high-five, which she eagerly accepted. The hero worship was already forming.
“He gets a little wrinkle right here when he lies,” Sherry said, pointing a small finger between her eyebrows.
“Okay,” Leon said, scooping Sherry off the bed and carrying her off under one arm. “Let’s get you cleaned up and back in bed, munchkin.”
Cheeto dust proved a formidable adversary, but they managed. When they walked back into the room, Chris was standing exactly where they had left him, his bag still slung over his shoulder and his boots laced.
Getting Sherry tucked back into bed became a struggle now that the brand new company hyped her up; no hesitation whatsoever. She liked Chris. She even made Chris put her to bed, Leon faking offence at being disregarded for the new guy, but there was something about seeing a six-foot boulder of a man coax a tiny twelve-year-old back to sleep that made Leon’s chest ache. Especially when Chris told the story of how Claire was convinced that if she left fake teeth under her pillow, she could trick the tooth fairy into giving her more money. It never worked. The tooth fairy left chocolate coins instead. Fake money for a fake tooth.
Leon watched perched on the edge of the other bed, a little envious of Chris’ skill with kids. He double-checked the safety on his handgun, then the clip. Chris eyed Leon as he set his weapon back down on the bedside table, and Leon couldn’t muster the energy to be self-conscious about his paranoia.
Chris may be Claire’s sister and a fellow survivor of Raccoon City, but Leon didn’t actually know him. For all he knew, he was a traitor like Irons or Wesker. Maybe he wasn’t the man Claire believed him to be. What the hell had he been thinking? Inviting a stranger to stay with them?
With Sherry asleep again, Leon and Chris were left to settle in for the remainder of the night. For Chris, that meant shedding his bulky jacket and combat boots.
“It’s Leon, right?” Chris said. He stood awkwardly beside the bed, watching Leon click off the light and climb under the blankets, tucking himself up against the edge of the mattress as close as he possibly could without toppling off. “Claire mentioned you in one of her messages.”
Leon almost facepalmed. He hadn’t introduced himself. He really was doing everything backwards. “Yeah. That’s me. Leon S. Kennedy.” He curled up into a small ball.
“Jesus Christ.” Chris swiped his palm across his mouth. “You’re the new rookie.”
Leon chuckled humourlessly, his hands tightening into fists around the sheets pulled up to his neck. “Was a hell of a first day.”
Chris picked up real quick that Leon didn’t want to talk about it. So instead, he climbed into his side of the bed, the one closest to the door. The mattress dipped under his weight, and Leon tensed. Where else would Chris have slept? The floor? The last person Leon shared a bed with was his ex, who had seemingly saved his life. If she hadn’t broken up with him, if he hadn’t gotten drunk, if he hadn’t slept in hungover as hell, he would have arrived right in the middle of the initial panic, and who knows if he would have survived that. No one else in the department had.
What would it have been like? The screams, the moans, the pleas for help- the sounds still played on repeat in Leon’s head. Lieutenant Marvin Branagh, mouth agape, stumbling towards him with his hands out. Leon had put two bullets between his eyes.
The first indications of a panic attack slammed into Leon. Abruptly, his throat closed. He couldn’t breathe, his vision slid out of focus, and his chest compressed. Like someone reached into his chest and squeezed his heart in a vice. His entire body shook.
Suddenly, a warm voice murmured in his ear, the soothing tone talking him down, calming him. Leon wasn’t alone. He wasn’t trapped in the police station battling endless waves of the undead, the people of Raccoon City he’d taken an oath to serve and protect.
“Leon, kid, you need to breathe,” Chris said. His presence was a solid wall behind Leon. “I’m going to touch you, okay?”
Leon focused on Chris’ voice. His vision began to swim back into focus, his hearing rushed back in a sudden wall of familiar night noises like the drip of the faucet in the bathroom or the lonely car that passed on the highway. He nodded, not fully understanding what Chris was saying. An arm slid around his waist and pulled him back into a firm chest. Leon flailed, seconds from panic again when Chris’ voice rumbled in his ear.
“You’re going to be okay. I got you.”
Leon grasped Chris’ arm, his grip probably tight enough to leave bruises, and he choked on a shuddering sob.
“It’s okay, Leon. You’re going to be okay.”
Gasping for air, Leon rolled over and buried his face in Chris’ chest, and Chris let him. Leon’s sobs were muffled in Chris’ arms, not wanting to disturb Sherry in the next bed. He felt every subtle muscle flex when Chris tightened his grip or shifted them into a more comfortable position. That’s how Leon passed out, wrapped in the reassuring embrace of a complete stranger, one who understood the hell he’d lived through and the fear and uncertainty he felt in his soul.
Morning came quickly. Leon woke up still curled into Chris’ chest with a death grip on the other man’s faded t-shirt. Chris’ nose was buried in Leon’s hair, each soft snore ruffling his hair, but his embrace hadn’t lessened overnight.
The warmth of embarrassment burning, Leon snuck out of bed, anxiously loosening Chris’ hold and dashing for the safety and solitude of the bathroom, horrified at his complete lack of control the night before. No one had held him like that before, at least not since he was a child and his grandma would sit up with him after a nightmare. But, sadly, this was another type of nightmare, a waking one.
When Leon finally mustered the courage to wander back into the room, Chris was up, sitting on the edge of the bed with his elbows on his knees.
“You okay?” Chris asked the same time Leon burst out, “I’m sorry!”
Chris sighed. “You didn’t do anything wrong. When I showed up on your doorstep last night, I saw right away that you were barely holding it together.”
Leon’s fists clenched at his side. He couldn’t meet Chris’ gentle gaze.
Chris crossed the room in two enormous strides and considerately grasped Leon by the shoulders. “It was the shock finally hitting you. It happened to me too, but I was alone,” Chris admitted. “Hey. Hey, come on. Look at me.”
Leon bit his lower lip, but he slowly looked up, eyes stinging. “I don’t know what to do.”
Telegraphing his movements, Chris gently pulled Leon into a tight hug. “You’re not alone. We’re going to do this together. I want to take Umbrella down, but first, I wanna make sure you’re okay.”
Leon jerked back so fast Chris stumbled. “I want to help. I want to make those sons of bitches pay.”
Chris smiled. “Good. But first, I have a safe house.”
Together, they set the plans. Leon and Sherry would meet Chris in two days, hopefully with Claire in tow, at Chris’ new safehouse three states over. Sherry and Leon could catch a bus a couple miles down the highway to get them most of the way. The trick would be getting up the mountain to the cabin. But they were in this together. Hope simmered once again.
Armed with a freshly drawn map on motel stationery, Leon watched Chris pack. Umbrella wouldn’t know what hit them.
“Here. Take it.”Chris handed Leon two rumpled twenties, a five, and a few ones he dug out of his wallet. “It’s all the cash I have on me, but it should be enough to get you there. I’ll drop you off-”
“No.” Leon took the cash, but waved off Chris’ offer to give him and Sherry a lift to the bus station. “It’s in the opposite direction. We’ll be fine.”
“Two days,” Chris promised. Sherry had climbed out of bed and now clung to Chris’ arm as if he couldn’t leave as long as she was attached. He ruffled her hair. “With or without Claire, I’ll be there and we’ll go from there.” Chris grabbed Leon by the back of the neck and dragged him into a gruff hug, their foreheads lightly pressed together. “It’s gonna be okay, kid.”
And Leon believed him. That is, until two hours later when an unmarked vehicle pulled up on Leon and Sherry hiking down the side of the road, hand in hand. They never made it to the rendezvous.
#chreon#leon s kennedy#chris redfield#claire redfield#sherry birkin#re2make#re fanfic#leon kennedy#kennfield
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Who wants a new fic? YOU HAVE NO CHOICE >3 On today’s menu we have SBI Hogwarts AU, with a side dash of angst, some hurt/comfort and an eventual happy end in the distant future!!! You can read it HERE!
And under the cut, to tease the palate my favourite scene in the first chapter! Enjoy~~~
“We’ll have some Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans please,” Wilbur smiles at the trolley lady and Techno grimaces as he observes the transaction. He slams the door shut fairly quickly and turns towards his brother.
“Really? Could you have picked something grosser?” Wilbur grins at him.
“All I’m gonna say is surely the taste of something vile like vomit is cause for a reaction,” Techno’s eyes widen as Wilbur hurriedly opens the box of sweets. “Hey, Tommy, open your mouth for a second.”
Techno is quick to put his hand between Tommy’s mouth and the suspiciously yellow jellybean. He narrows his eyes at his twin.
“You’re not feeding him that. That’s got to be torture or something; forcing someone who’s already gone through a lot to purposefully suffer is just cruel,” Techno can’t believe he’s having to explain this (at least when it comes to their brother, Wilbur loves their youngest as much as he does. He’d never want to see their brother suffer).
“Oh, come on. It’s a jellybean, it’s not like I’m forcing him to eat something he’s allergic to. We literally dare each other to eat these all the time. You dared him to eat a whole handful once!” And Wilbur… Wilbur’s eyes glance around frantically and… he’s as lost about this as Techno is. He just wants Tommy to be ok like Techno does. He’s panicking like Techno has been.
They’re… they’re all young, they shouldn’t have to deal with this. They should be joking and laughing and not thinking everyone on the train is out to get them. Tommy should have rushed into his own compartment with Ranboo and Tubbo. Techno and Wilbur should be checking in on him throughout the journey, checking in that would quickly turn to teasing and embarrassing him in front of his friends. Things should be good. Things should be normal.
Their brother shouldn’t be hurt like this.
“The difference,” Techno tries to keep his voice calm, Wilbur needs someone to help with the panic. “Is Tommy had the autonomy to accept the dares. Right now, he’s… he’s not really giving us anything to think he’d be alright with sticking those gross things in his mouth.”
“Then what? What do we do?” Wilbur is building up his hysteria, it’s how Wilbur always deals with emotions. They build up and up and up, until he can’t contain them anymore and they explode. Sometimes the explosion is pleasant if a little embarrassing (like when he confessed to Sally Salmon or when he cheers for either of his brothers at quidditch), sometimes they’re destructive and hurtful (like when he screamed at a teacher and got detention or when he stormed off after an argument and got lost in the Forbidden Forest).
“We…” Techno sighs and holds his hand out. “Give me the box.”
Wilbur does so without complaint, just another sign his brother is stressed and panicked, but Techno can’t focus on that right now. One thing at a time. He looks into the box. There are lots of colours and variation in patterns, but that doesn’t actually help in figuring out what flavour they are. Sure, there are some flavours you know will be a certain colour (for example the orange flavour would be an orange colour), but that doesn’t help when there are hundreds of other things that could represent that colour (an orange jellybean could also be earwax). Still, Techno scrutinises every bean, before pulling out one that is a colour between red and pink.
Techno hates these little jellybeans. He likes to deal with things that have certainty, he likes things where skills are valuable. He can train a skill; luck doesn’t help him at all. Still, he takes a bite of the little bean, bites it in half and chews one half of the gooey sweet up. Flavour floods his mouth, and he nods like he’s made some great discovery.
“Strawberry,” he announces and pushes the half of the bean he hasn’t eaten against Tommy’s lips. “Eat this, Tommy.”
Tommy mindlessly obeys (and Techno hates it, all week they’ve had to hold food against his mouth and command their brother to eat. The way he obeys so listlessly, Techno’s almost sure he himself had put the imperius curse on his brother, but he knows he didn’t, knows he would never. But a person doesn’t just obey so easily like this, but… but he is, and the school nurse said there weren't any curses at play. That his brother was like this for reasons outside of magic, which doesn’t make sense. Tommy couldn’t have just become like this with no outside help).
Still, at least they were able to get him to eat. The first couple of days when they hadn’t figured out that he’d listen if they told him to eat had been dreadful. They had requested he eat, had asked if he was hungry, and had begged him to please eat. Those first few days Techno was almost positive he was going to have to watch his brother wither away.
“Is that… is that all we can do?” Wilbur asks, staring at the box of sweets.
“Until we get back to King’s Cross, until we have Dad here, all we can do is protect Tommy. Even if it’s just from the worst flavours of Bertie Bott’s ridiculous beans,” and it’s a childish thought (it’s so horribly childish, their dad can’t protect them from everything and jellybeans are hardly something worth protecting against), but it’s all they have. It’s all they can do.
Wilbur stares at him hard. Fighting to accept their situation. Techno gets it, if there was a spell that would help, he’d spend weeks without sleeping to learn it, if there was someone he could duel for Tommy, he’d be challenging them. But they have nothing. Tommy has given them nothing, but silence, so all they can do is guard him until he gives them something to work with.
Wilbur understands, Techno sees the reluctant acceptance dull his eyes, and he takes a half bite of the jellybean he had been planning to force Tommy to have. Wilbur winces.
“Mustard,” he announces, finishing the entire thing before diving his hand in for more beans. “A weird flavour for that texture.”
“Almost all of them are,” Techno snorts, biting into a green jellybean with displeasure. “Grass.”
#SBI#neapolitan trio#technoblade#tommyinnit#wilbur soot#bedrock bros#crime boys#techbur twins#hogwarts AU#this one is a bit depressing at first#angst#angst with a happy ending#hurt and comfort#magic battles will appear in later chapters :D#my fanfic#my fic#Enjoy~~~
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San leaves his AU
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San is laying on his couch, watching one of his favorite TV series, but he can't really focus on it.
There was the signiture loud crackle of Sci's portal opening up followed by a knock at San's door not long after.
San got up and opened the door for Sci, "Hey . . ."
"Hey! Woah, you ok there bud? you're lookin a little rough tibia honest." Sci half heartedly chuckles, looking more concerned than anything.
"Yeah, yeah . . . Just didn't really sleep right . . ."
Sci frowned. "What's up?"
"Just feel nervous I guess . . . Overthinking some things a bit . . ."
"You wanna talk about it? ... And do you mind if i come in"
"yeah . . . Uh come in . . ." San let him inside. Sci nods gratefully and steps in. San closed the door behind him and sat down on the couch. Sci joined San on the couch and faced his friend, worry etched into his features.
"So what's eating you?"
"I'm just nervous that I'll see him again . . . I literally avoid going to my brother because he lives near there . . . Like he could be anywhere and i don't want to see him, it's honestly destroying me . . . Like this constant fear and stress . . . It doesn't let me sleep sometimes . . ." San sighed "Nothing here brings me happiness anymore, only our little meetings . . ."
"Oh geeze... I'm sorry... I didn't know you were having such a hard time." Sci reached out to pat San but quickly retracted his hand. He wanted to comfort him but didn't wish to trigger his sensitivities with being touched.
"it's okay i guess . . . Just have to get over this . . ."
Sci sat in silence with his hand folded in his lap.
"Honestly i wish i could just leave . . . Just for a while, take a break from this life . . ." San wrapped his arms around himself.
"I mean... you could? If you wanted you could come stay with me for a little while." Sci started sounding a little excited as he spoke. "I really wouldn't mind, and I could show you my lab." He twiddled his thumbs in his lap, looking at San with a very faint blush on his face.
"r-really? I could?" San' tone of voice is a bit excited too, he seems happy at this proposition.
"Well yeah! ...I mean, but there are some risks involved...." Sci tugged on his shirt collar.
"Like if this universe was to RESET you could get erased from the code... or there is a very small potential when traveling to get stuck in the anti-void between universes. I haven't had that happen yet... but some of the spiders that volunteered for the time that went wrong... when i managed to bring them back they'd... changed... I'm not trying to spook you though! I'm sorry, I just figure you ought to know what you're potentially getting into." Sci chuckled nervously.
San nodded slightly, he thinks for a moment, before looking at Sci, "I want to do it"
Sci's face broke into a big grin. "Oh hell yeah!" Sci looked jittery with excitement. "I haven't brought anyone back with me before! This is going to be so fun! and oh... the data I could collect from this!"
San is smiling at him, he seems happier now.
"Ok um... So! When do you wanna leave? I assume you'll wanna grab some things before we go..."
"y-yeah, uh . . . I should take some clothes, right?"
Sci chuckled, "That would definitely be a good idea. Think anything you'd take on a vacation. Here, I can even help you pack!" Sci jumped up from the couch and held a hand out to San to help him stand.
San hesitantly grabbed his hand and stood up, "you can help me if you really want"
Between the two, packing went by quickly and they both were standing outside of San's house within half an hour. San with bags in hand and Sci fiddling with his portal device, hands shaking lightly in excitement.
"You ready?" He flashes a wide grin at San.
"yeah!"
"Perhaps you would like to do the honors then?" Sci held out the device and made a grand gesture to the button that needed pushing.
San looked at Sci then pushed the button.
There was a whir and a crackle of a portal trying to start but it quickly fizzled out, leaving the two looking on in dead silence.
"Heh... T-This doesn't usually happen i swear." Sci chuckled nervously. He smacked the side of the device a couple times and pressed the button again, a portal springing to life solidly before them.
"so see you on the other side?" San is still looking at Sci.
"Hold up." Sci holds out a hand as if to stop San and kicks a rock through the portal, watching it with narrowed sockets for a second.
"Ahhhh ok yeah we're good let's go." He picks up some of San's belongings, smiles at him, and confidently walks through the portal.
San picks up the rest of his things and goes after Sci through the portal.
On the other side of the portal Sci's setting San's things on a table in a large brightly lit laboratory.
It's cluttered but organized, everything separated in respective groups. And the air was filled with the sound of machinery whirring.
Some of them were plain and boxy with flashing and blinking lights and some of tem were foreboding and alien looking and along one wall several were printing out a nonstop stream of information on paper that was neatly folding itself into piles.
"wow . . ." San is looking around, clearly amazed by what he's seeing.
Sci turns around and looks at San. "Heh yeah there's alot going on huh? Sorry it's kinda a mess right now though... I wasn't expecting company." Sci rubs the back of his skull bashfully.
"it's . . . it's amazing! this is your lab? Like seriously it's amazing" San is excited.
"Yeah, I-I mean, yeah! Thanks!" Sci chuckled, a light blush dusting his cheeks. "It is pretty cool isn't it? Want me to show you around?"
"yeah!"
"Sweet! You can just set your stuff over there... or wherever here lemme show you the most dangerous one first!!!" Sci's grin took on a slight manic edge to it in his excitement.
San put down his things and came closer to Sci.
Sci's standing by a large dark looking piece of machinery with a nozzle pointed directly into a dusty looking glass case He flicks a few switches and it whirs to life, making a loud grinding noise.
"This is a disintegrator ray! Watch this." Sci pulls out a heavy thick board and places it in the glass case with an apple and shuts the door. He looks to San to watch for his reaction and pushes the button.
The surface of the apple bubbles for a split second before imploding violently and leaving a dusty scorched indent in the board.
"No matter, physical or magical can withstand it's force!" Sci flicks it's switch off, halting the grinding noise emanating from it.
"This could kill everyone in this multiverse if it were to explode!" He said excitedly.
"wow . . ." San is clearly impressed.
"Heh yeah, right? Pretty sweet." Sci chuckled. "Let me know if you wanna try putting anything in there."
"okay" San is smiling slightly, He's clearly happy.
"And this one?" Sci bounds over to a plain looking yellow metal box with a simple red button on top. "I got super wasted one night and made it for shits and giggles. All it does is turn anything you put inside it blue for 48 hours. Probably the least dangerous thing here." Sci smiles at it fondly. "It's so dumb and pointless. I love it."
San chuckled, "sounds like fun"
Sci did this for a while, leading San around the lab, showing off different machinery, telling him all about what everything did until he got to the machinery along the back wall printing nonstop. "And these monitor the au's I've visited!"
"Oh, what do they monitor exactly?"
"The timelines, resets, fun value, number of souls in an au... how many people are takin a shit at any given moment." Sci chuckles. "Nah I'm just messin with you on that last one. It's mostly just basic stats and statistics."
San chuckled, "seems interesting"
"Heh well I think it is at least." Sci watches the machine pumping out information for a moment before turning back to San. "But, yeah... this is my lab."
"it's really amazing, how you thought of so many things, how you built them and they actually work" San is still amazed by everything he saw, He's smiling softly.
Sci blushed. "Thanks... ya really think so?"
"yeah! It's just so cool!"
Sci's face lights up even further at the complement. "Heheh thanks. I suppose you wouldn't mind helping me in here a little bit later then?"
"I wouldn't, honestly I would be glad to help you" San is blushing slightly.
"Cool. Cool. Uhmm cool. Heh sorry I'm done saying cool." Sci chuckled nervously.
San chuckled too, "so what now?"
"Well we-" Sci starts to walk towards the table of San's belongings and stumbled, tripping over his own feet.
San caught Sci, "are you okay?" His voice sounds worried.
Sci looked up at San eyes wide and his cheekbones lighting up brightly. "Ye-yeah. Heheh... I'm just falling for you." His mouth clacked shut as soon as soon as he realized he said the flirtatious pun out loud.
"I-I mean-" Sci stammered nervously.
San blushed too, an orange blush dusting his cheekbones, "I . . . i-it's okay, g-great that you're n-not hurt"
"Thanks." Sci's soul pounded in his chest... This was probably the closest he'd been to San ever... What with his haphephobia... His haphephobia!
"Oh! I'm sorry I can stand!" Sci scrambled to stand and rather clumsily got to his feet, brushing the wrinkles from his lab coat.
San nodded slightly, watching Sci to make sure that everything is okay.
"Well as I was saying we could go get you settled in for your stay." Sci continued to nervously adjust his lab coat.
"Sure"
#san#san!sans#sci#sci!sans#asks and requests are always appreciated and needed#undermine#undertale#undertale alternate universe#undertale ask blog#undertale au#ut#au#utau#utmv#skeleton ask blog#ask blog#science#science!sans#sciencetale
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Maybe Aizawa has a neice who lives with him? She has the same quirk as her mother (his sister) and her grandmother. She has cat ears, claws, a tail, and cat eyes. When the class meets her one day (she brought her Uncle his lunch) Katsuki is smitten with this kitten.
This is another old ask I have and it's beyond embarrassing answering these bc y'all probably forgot. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!!!!!!! I hope you still accept this😔 Aizawa's sister is older than him!!! So the nieces age is the same as the UA students.
Edit: I just read that you said "lives WITH him" omfg im SORRYYYY AHHHHH
Words: 1,915
Warnings: None
The other day your mother mentioned she would be visiting your Uncle Aizawa and you practically jumped at the chance to see him at the UA high school. It's not like you couldn't wait to see him outside of his job, but seeing the most famous hero school in Japan where your favorite uncle taught who was also a notable pro hero...?!?! It was such a golden opportunity.
"They're outside on the training grounds right now. I'll take you, but not before giving you the ALL EXCLUSIVE UA TOUR!!!" Laughing in agreement, you grin up at Present Mic, the man who you've known since your childhood. He always was hanging around your Uncle Aizawa and made you laugh constantly. He was considered family.
Yamada had met you in front of the school gates, his excitement booming across the courtyard. "YOOOO, (Y/N), LOOK HOW MUCH YOU'VE GROWN!" After laughing and trying to get him to stop reminiscing of you in diapers, he finally escorted you through the building giving you a brief tour. Clutching the packed bento box at your side, you listen to the tour attentively, ears twitching with interest.
"...And this door will take you to the training grounds. They have lunch after this so you came at the perfect time. I have a class to go teach now, but come see me before you leave!" Yamada pats your head and walks off. You push on the door and the sight of your Uncle Aizawa standing in the center of the imitated city made you giddy with excitement. Without thinking, you surge forward, grinning widely. "Uncle!!!"
It all happened in slow motion.
Aizawa turned towards your voice, eyes widening once they focused on you. You saw his hand moving to his scarves, panic evident on his face, as his eyes started to glow that familiar red you missed so much. For a split second, confusion washed over you from the unexpected reaction. Just when you were about to halt and question what's wrong, the hairs on the back of your neck stood up abruptly on high alert.
Without turning around, you crouched as low as you could, building up tension in your legs, your feline quirk enhancing all of your senses. Closing your eyes, you grip the bento tightly in one arm and jump.
Wind whipped at your skin, your ears flattening against your head at the uncomfortable feeling as you launched yourself in the air. Opening your eyes, all you saw was a bright flash of yellow and orange before the ground where you were just standing exploded.
Gasping, instincts suddenly consumed you as you backflipped in the air, falling back down gracefully. The smoke from the explosion made it difficult to see, but your keen senses told you where to drop. You land on a panting figure, hearing him grunt as the two of you fall to the ground. Curses start flying from his mouth as you two wrestle in the smoke. "The fuck-?! What happened to my quirk?!"
Hissing, you finally pin him to the ground, your tail wrapped around his thigh as you straddled his hips. The smoke began to clear and you were met with beautiful angered scarlet eyes that narrowed dangerously on his scratched-up face. Some rubble must've hit his cheek and some dirt flecked across his cheekbones making him even more handsome.
You could see the startled confusion on his face when he finally saw you too, the both of your eyes locked for what seemed like an eternity. Your breathing slowed as his chest still rose with his deep breaths, his hands twitching under your grip, claws extended right above his veins.
You tilted your head slightly, ears twitching in curiosity realizing you walked straight into a training exercise. The boy beneath you finally calmed his breathing as your claws retracted. "Hey-"
"(Y/n)? (Y/n)!" Aizawa's worried voice brought you out of your trance, your trail slowly sliding from around the boy's thigh, and stood up just when Aizawa entered your field of vision.
He looked relieved as soon and he saw you and ran up to give you a hug. "Are you okay?" He sighed and reached up to scratch behind your ear, making you purr. Nodding, you lean into his touch before you remember the death grip you had on the bento box at your side.
"I brought you lunch," you frown, "hopefully it's not all messed up." Handing it over, Aizawa takes it and shakes his head in disbelief.
"I can't believe you, kid. No matter how old you get, you're still reckless. The saying 'curiosity kills the cat' was made because you do reckless actions and almost get yourself killed."
Pouting, you look back down at the boy who still hasn't moved, his eyes widened in shock as he watched you and Aizawa's interaction. "I'm not going to get killed," you stress, "I caught him. See?"
Aizawa finally turns his attention to the boy who was on the ground. "Bakugou." The seething voice that came from your Uncle surprised you until you heard the name.
"Bakugou?! As in the sports festival Bakugou?!" With the tension forgotten, you turn back to the boy who was still too stunned to move, various questions swirling in your mind.
"Aizawa-sensei!" A group of voices could be heard before a strong wind came out of nowhere, making you close your eyes at the force. When it suddenly stopped, you opened to find the smoke had dispersed and that you were in the middle of a rocky crater. You breathed out a breathless 'wow' as Bakugou finally stood up abruptly.
A group of students slid down the side of the crater and Aizawa sighed and muttered to himself, "Why can we never have a normal training class?"
A boy with glasses came running over at the speed of light making your tail twitch in surprise. "Aizawa-sensei are you alright? We went to fetch Kendo after seeing the explosion happen in the CCTV room. A random figure came running at you as well, so we were concerned it was a vil-"
Aizawa raised his hand, making the boy stop talking, and motioned to you. "Class, this is my niece, (Y/n)."
Smiling you wave at everyone, the silence deafeningly awkward. All at once the class surrounded you and bombarded you with questions you couldn't make out. Aizawa's quirk flashed and they all became silent and backed off in apology.
"Ah!" You bow suddenly to the class. "I'm sorry I ran in on your class time! I was just excited to see Uncle Aizawa, so I was selfish to risk lives when I didn't know the situation." When you were finished with your apology, you straighten out and smile sheepishly to the class, seeing some of the boys blush and look away.
Aizawa sighs, looking drained from everything that just happened. "Class is dismissed. Bakugou, (Y/n), stay here." The class mumbled and walked back over to climb out of the crater.
Turning towards you two, Aizawa glared at Bakugou but then sighed. "I can't grade you today because of my niece's disturbance. I would've expelled you if landed that hit on her. But..." Aizawa glances at you and saw your anxious expression. "...I know she wouldn't want me to do that. Be nice, Bakugou, or I will expel you. Dismissed."
Aizawa walks off with the bento and you turn towards Bakugou who looked even more pissed off. "Like hell I would've hit her! I saw her jump out of the way and we were told to come at you with all we got!" He shouts after Aizawa, who only raises his hand in acknowledgment.
You giggle, making the blonde whip his head towards you. "I think he knows that. He just acts tough when it comes to me." You step forward to the explosion hero, feeling bashful that your Uncle left you alone with him. "Sorry about ruining your training today."
Bakugou eyed you up and down, a small pink tint forming on his cheeks when he looked at your tail again before adverting his eyes. "Yeah, well. Something always fucking happens anyway."
Your eyes catch on the twitching of his arms, a small grimace of pain twisting up his face. "Did you overdo it? Where's the infirmary at? I'll come with you." You reach out and grab one of his hands, startling him.
"What-hng-!" Gently, you massage his forearms as you urge him to start walking. The scent of caramel-filled your nose and a low purr escaped your mouth. Hoping he didn't hear, you avoid looking back but could see a flash of white out of the corner of your eye.
"Do you know where you're going?" The cocky tone startled you and you paused turning to him with your bright red face. Shaking your head slowly, Bakugou's smirk widens and he leans in closer, the caramel smell more potent than before making your eyes dilate.
"...Tch. Such a confident kitty. It's this way." Bakugou turns from you and removes his arm from your grasp before heading out of the other side of the crater. You follow behind at a distance and see his ears bright red.
~*~*~*~*
On the way to the infirmary, Bakugou mentally exhausts himself trying to convince himself he doesn't find Aizawa's niece attractive but fails miserably. The feeling of your tail wrapped around his thigh as you had glanced down at him in wonder was permanently etched into his memory. Or the sound of your small purr when you massaged his arm.
You had stayed with him until recovery girl finished her treatment, and walked with him back to class. Along the way, you asked him many questions about his quirk and told him about how you saw him on TV during the sports festival. Your genuine excitement made his heart race pick up though he didn't show it.
Arriving back to the classroom, Aizawa shot him a look that made uneasiness run down his spine as he took his seat. Unknowingly, you skipped over to your Uncle and he reintroduced you to the class as the questions from before resurface and you answered a few. Bakugou scoffed and the fierce scribbling he heard from behind him but nonetheless paid the same attention to your talking as you did to him.
He found a small smirk on his face when you glanced at him when mentioning some heroes you like (a question asked by Kirishima). He felt a burning gaze at the side of his head and shifted to see the low burning red glare of Aizawa.
Bakugou nonchalantly shifted his gaze back to you and tried not to react. How the hell was he supposed to get close to you with the old man around? Tch...overprotective much?
He'll just have to do it in secret then. After all, he noticed you slipping something into his jacket earlier when he grabbed his clothes to go change. This old man can't shelter her forever. And her fighting sense was pretty good...we'll just have to make plans then.
Smirking fully again, Bakugou leaned back in his chair as you finished up talking and said your goodbyes. As Aizawa went back to teaching, (Y/n) caught his eye and shot him a small wink.
He shot one back, watching a cute blush cover her cheeks as the door closed. Anticipation rolled in his stomach as he couldn't wait to see his kitty cat again.
#answering the rest of these asks ks going to be embarrassing#bc my blog just started last year and i never officially opened my ask box#bc i was writing my ideas and so when i git these i was just like#??? omg what? me?#again.... sorry#my hero academia x reader#my hero academia#mha#mha x reader#bnha#bnha x reader#boku no hero academia#bakugou katsuki#katsuki bakugou x reader#bakugou x reader#bakugo x reader#katsuki bakugo x reader#bakugo katsuki
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Scars {Maria Hill x Reader Oneshot}
Requested by: Anonymous
Wordcount: 3266
Summary: You’re afraid of your own fire powers; Maria, however, is not, even when you do accidentally burn a house down.
Notes: Swearing; Minor Death
You were careful to never leave your hands, or your arms, exposed to others. The SHIELD uniform did a good job of that, covering your body like another skin, and then the gloves which slipped over your fingers smoothly. They had heat sensors wired inside of the fabric that helped to tell your body temperature, particularly if you were heating up. It warned you by shining lights inside, changing the color of the glove as a warning that you were getting too heated. Dangerous things could happen when that was the case. It was a handy little suit that they gave you, full of such technological innovations. If only other aspects of your life were as helpful; like if only you had powers that were more useful than accidentally starting forest fires, or burning marshmallows when attempting to make smores.
At least the carrier that you worked on, alongside many other agents, wasn’t made of wood and timber, but rather many different types of metal which didn’t easily melt. You weren’t considered a total liability. SHIELD, Nick Fury in particular, believed that your brain was better than your powers, and wanted you to work by his side, as his third in command, just in case something was to happen to Maria Hill.
Ahh, Maria. She was one of the reasons why you wished life could be just a little bit simpler. If all you had to worry about was SHIELD’s disapproval of employees dating one another. Where the worst thing that could happen was getting fired if you were caught sneaking around during off-shift hours. You were in love with the woman, and had been since you met her. God, she was absolutely beautiful, even though she held the same stern facial expression ninety percent of the time. But occasionally, if you caught her in a good moment, she would smile or she would laugh and it was like a field of butterflies on an already beautiful day.
“There you are!” A loud voice said, coming to you from across the hallway. You looked up to see Nick Fury walking towards you, and you instantly straightened up your posture, going from daydreaming to work mode. “I wanted you in the control room five minutes ago!”
“Yes sir. Sorry sir,” You said, chasticizing yourself. There were many rules on board the aircaft, but there was one that was especially important. Always, always, always be on time when Nick Fury wanted you somewhere. You strode beside him, small steps, hands by your side. Your eyes always seemed to wander to them, making sure that they were the color that they were supposed to be. “Is there anything in particular you needed me for, Sir?”
“There’s a mission that I need you and Maria to do for me.”
-
The terrain under the vehicle was far from easy to drive on, and the jeep kept bumping you around. You had to hold on tight to the exterior in order to keep yourself from getting hurt. How Maria was handling it, while driving, was beyond you. A large bump nearly set you falling from the seat, seatbelt be damned. “Now this is what I call off-roading,” You muttered to yourself, but Maria’s keen ears caught you.
“You don’t know the half of it,” She said, eyes forward. “Hold on-” She put her arm out, catching you in the chest as you went over what must have been an ancient log or something, since it broke under the wheels and sent the jeep careening forward. You fell back with a deep breath against the seat.
“Thanks,” You said, taking note of the faint yellow glow coming from your gloves. It was far from orange, so you felt that you were safe from exploding, but you weren’t sure how much more stress that you could take. Being around so many flammable trees didn’t help your nerves in the slightest. “Do you know how much further until we hit a road again?”
“Another minute, I can see it from here,” Maria said. Her tone gave you a hint, and you held onto the door for dear life as the vehicle roared towards the asphalt, did a quick u-turn with the tires squealing and protesting all the way, then rushed forward. Once you were on smooth ground, you were able to relax once more, and put your hands onto your lap.
“You should be a stunt driver in movies if SHIELD doesn’t work out for you,” You said, looking out the window at the jungle that you had come out of. That made Maria laugh, just a single time, then go back to concentrating on the road. Her hair had come out of the bun that she had put it in before driving, and was hanging in her face, framing it wonderfully. She pushed it out of her face, sweat helping to make it stick back.
Yeah, you were smitten.
Since you were on a steady road now, heading towards the destination, you brought out your tablet and went through the mission details again. You were to bring in someone who had done a number of things to violate SHIELD’s protocol. A disgruntled former employee, who had been caught pulling pranks, which was a serious waste of resources. The guy had apparently been spilling secrets, out of date secrets but confidential none-the-less, to criminals who were willing to pay for that sort of information. Blueprints of old carriers, inventories, any weak spots that SHIELD might have.
The guy was clearly an idiot. He was hiding out in Peru, thinking that would keep him safe. As if the renowned SHIELD wouldn’t be able to track him down easier than finding a fly in a web. At least he was in the lowlands, rather than up high. Making the climb up to Macchu Pichu was on your bucketlist, but not like this.
“Obviously, the more alive the guy is the better,” You said, reading about how he was wanted dead or alive. You didn’t like to hurt people unless it was necessary. “Though how he’s still alive is beyond me. Keeping companies with war criminals is a dangerous business.”
“They’re just using him until he has nothing more to give. Then they’ll kill him. Hardly seems worth saving.”
“Everyone deserves a second chance, Maria,” You said, avoiding looking at her. Instead, you kept your eyes on the tablet, opening up the map to see how far it was to your destination. She would know what you meant. She knew why you kept yourself emotionally unavailable despite the strong feelings between the two of you. She knew why you wore the gloves at all times. Because as long as you were safe, you were worth the second chance that SHIELD had given you.
“Not everyone,” She stated. She pressed her foot down on the gas pedal and the Jeep roared in response, speeding you to your destination. You bit down on your lip, seeing the yellow in your gloves glow all the brighter.
-
With searing red hands, the gloves having burnt off by now, you pushed Maria out of the path of the falling ceiling. You were beyond the thought of hurting her, just making sure that she didn’t get killed was enough for you right now. It was getting harder to breathe, even to you, so it must have been nearly impossible for her.
A lot of people talk about the way that fire feels, how the warmth surrounds and it suffocates. They never talk about the way that it smells. It wasn’t pleasant, like a campfire, though a lot of wood was burning around them right now. The Cabana paradise that the traitor had fled to had a lot of wooden insides, but brick walls with insulation inside, for hurricanes were popular in this region. The smell of burnt plastic, of hair burning on exposed skin, it was heavy, and overbearing.
Maria coughed as she got back up from where you had pushed her, but didn’t hesitate for a moment to ask what you were doing. She knew you. She knew that you loved her, and that you would do nothing to harm her on purpose. As the ceiling fell down behind her, you managed to burn it into ash, causing it to look like a black snow that landed on your shoulders. Your hands were pure white, like the hottest flames, for that was what was coming out of them. You could destroy the whole building if you had wanted to, but that was not your intention coming into this house.
When you arrived a half hour earlier, you played dumb. Just two girls who were out and about on a beach vacation. The guy, seeing right through it, invited you in nonetheless. He couldn’t help but take his chances to brag about getting away with everything, about how he knew that you were coming for him, about how he was going to make you regret coming here.
You exchanged looks with Maria. Men and their bragging monologues. You were anticipating this, counting on it in fact. You played scared as he tied you down to a chair, though you could easily burn through the ropes. Maria did the same, but stated that she was going to report him to Nick Fury, and oh boy, would he be in trouble then. The perp laughed right in her face. “Oh, you won’t be talking to Fury ever again,” He gloated.
The plan was to wait until he made a further move. Let him implicate himself even further. The speaker inside of your hoodie was recording everything. It would be played at his trial and he’d get sentenced to life in a dirty prison.
But then something happened that got rid of the plan entirely. A knock on the door. Neither you, nor Maria, were expecting any sort of backup since this was meant to be an easy but important job. You looked at one another again, not with annoyance, but with confusion.
“I’ll be right back, don’t you move,” The perp said, then laughed as if he thought that it was funny. He turned his back on you, which was never a good idea. And considering that you were off of the beaten path, it was a bad idea for him to get the door since it seemed unlikely to be a pizza deliveryman.
You thought of something infuriating. You thought about how you were never going to be able to touch, or to kiss Maria, in the way that you wanted, all because of these stupid powers. And that caused enough heat for you to be able to burn through the ropes, and get to your feet in the stealthiest way that SHIELD had taught you. You hid behind the wall, peering out towards the front door where the perp stood, unlocking it, then opening it.
He was greeted with a bullet to the head.
It was an unexpected sound, and made you jump, which of course, triggered your powers. You began to feel your hand growing warm, and your glove was nearly burned off by the time the body hit the floor. You held your hand out to shoot fire at the gunman, but hit the wooden door instead, which started to burn. “Shit!” You swore, looking back to see Maria escape from her own constraints and get to her feet, pulling her gun out. “Come on, let’s find a back way out, we might be able to catch him still.”
Maria nodded, then turned to go through the kitchen to see if there was a back way. She then returned then shook her head. You really fucked this one up, since the flames were spreading towards the cheap curtains. Everything would be going up in smoke within a few minutes. Given the wooden and polyester furniture, you would guess you had maybe ten minutes.
You went over to the body, ignoring the heat of the door. You could handle it without getting burned. It was all a part of your ‘gift’, or mutation as you called it. The shot was perfect, right through the forehead. The victim didn’t even have the chance to be surprised. He died with a smile on his face. You took a picture with your phone, which sent it right to SHIELD, then called in a potential SOS. It meant that someone would be keeping an eye on your situation, and send in help if necessary. It was starting to seem necessary.
Maria was kicking at one of the windows in the living room, but it was screwed shut, and the glass wasn’t cracking. “So they spend the money on bulletproof glass, but nothing else?” She complained, pushing her hair out of her face once more. If it wasn’t such a dangerous situation, it would be hot. But pay attention to the task. The door was a pillar of fire, going up to the ceiling. It was starting to spread up there, with it warping. Smoke was coming out in plumes. If you didn’t do something soon, you were going to die in here. You sent out the SOS.
Maria came to your side, and crouched down where the air wasn’t as smoke filled, and you joined her. It was then that you looked up and heard the cracking of the ceiling. That was when you used your bare hands to push Maria out of the way. She sprawled on the ground, looked at you in surprise, then got up, slowly.
“Thanks,” She said, then started to cough as the smoke affected her. “We’re going to have to try to go through the doorway, there’s no other way.”
You nodded, knowing that she was right, as scary as it was. And you knew that there was only going to be one way that you were both going to get out of here alive. So you started to do it without thinking or worrying about how Maria was going to react.
Bare hands were the only option that you had. You grabbed onto her wrist, pulled her against your chest, and made yourself as big as you possibly could be by spreading out your arms. By doing this, and pushing her forward with your body, you went through the flaming doorway and out into the fresh air, taking all of the damage from the fire around you. It burnt through your clothes, and affected your skin, though you couldn’t feel it much. You still had the potential of infections though, and it was a huge risk.
You rolled onto the ground after getting out, doing the old ‘stop, drop, and roll’ technique that you learned in elementary school. Maria was beside you, slapping out some of the leftover flames. Now that - that, you could feel.
Something flew over head, spilling gallons of water over the fire that you had started. The fire that put you and more importantly, Maria in danger. You sat up after being sure that you were no longer on fire, with tears in your eyes. You fucked this up completely. The killer was who-knows-where and you had no clues. You hadn’t even been able to see a face. If you had aimed properly, if you had gone for your gun instead of a fireball, you might have caught him. You pulled your knees up against your chest and rested your head on them in a fetal position, trying not to fully cry out of frustration.
“It’s okay,” Maria said in a voice that she very rarely used. One of comfort. One of compassion. You looked at her out of the corner of your eye and saw that she was holding a hand over her arm. Right where you had pushed her to get her out of the way of the falling ceiling.
“Did I hurt you?” You asked, feeling the guilt shower over you once more. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you marked her like this.
“It’s nothing. I’m more worried about you,” She said, circling around you to take in the extent of the damage. “It’s not so bad. You won’t need skin grafts.”
“Thank Thor for that, I don’t want to go through that again,” You mumbled. “I showed you mine, now show me yours.”
Maria stared at you, hard enough for you to feel like she was cutting through you like a damn boulder. She clearly didn’t want to move her hand away, but she did slowly. You could see the imprint of your hand seared against her skin. “Oh shit. Oh fuck, Maria, I’m so sorry-”
“Don’t apologize,” She said, sharply. “You saved my life in there. This is just a scar that proves your love to me.”
Your breath caught in your throat. You knew that she knew about your feelings, and that you would do anything to save her, hence why Fury often put you on missions together. “It sounds abusive when you put it that way.”
“It’s not.” Maria said. The heavy noise of a rotating propeller took over the calm landscape, as a helicopter hovered nearby, touching down to send out the medics and other officers. You didn’t have a chance to talk to Maria alone, since you were both rushed in and had to sit down to let the doctors take a look at your burns. You couldn’t stop watching her as she revealed the burn not only on her upper arm where you had pushed her, but on her wrist where you had grabbed her. Two perfect hand-shaped burns, on her forever.
She didn’t avoid looking at you. As soon as you were both cleared for flight to be taken back to SHIELD headquarters for further assessment, she sat beside you, strapped in tight to the seat. “Do not feel guilty,” She ordered.
“That’s not something you can just command someone to do,” You retorted back, hiding your hands in the pocket of your sweater. Somehow, it had retained enough fabric to stay on, though most of the back was destroyed. It was a shame, this was a nice sweater, bought for you by the much-loved Coulson.
“Well, I’m commanding it anyway. As your superior officer, I am ordering you to not feel guilty, because by doing this small amount of damage, you saved me. There was no other way. I will be putting that in my report.”
Professional as always. You rolled your eyes, then leaned back against the seat. You were heavily bandaged by the medics so as not to bother the burns until they could be looked at in a more sterile environment. “Now do you understand why we can’t be together?” You asked, just loud enough for Maria to hear.
“No,” She said, staring straight ahead. “I can handle a few burns, y/l/n. Can you?”
It was enough to make you think on the ride back to base. You couldn’t handle the thought of hurting her, you were barely coping with the reality of it all. But Maria remained as cool and as calm as ever.
You were having second thoughts about denying her now; perhaps her strength was beginning to rub off on you.
#Maria Hill#Maria Hill x reader#Maria Hill oneshot#Marvel#Marvel Oneshot#SHIELD#SHIELD oneshot#request#oneshot#one shot#x reader#mariah
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Exploding symphonies✨ // Patrick Verona x Reader
How about one for Patrick? Maybe he and the reader could go and watch some fireworks together? @tsukiakarinobara
Word count: 1, 042.
Since the first day that Pat had ran up to you in the courtyard and asked you out on a date, he had been the one to arrange everything - the spontaneous ones were also in his hands.
You adored it whenever Pat showed up on your doorstep with a “seven thirty, right? Well, I’m early.” and a cheeky grin, and the heat which bloomed in your chest every time he surprised you with a paintball fight during the lunch break at school only made you fall even deeper in love with Pat than you already were.
There was a fireworks show on tonight, you had heard about it as Joey had walked past, chatting loudly to anyone who would listen, and you decided that you would surprise Pat with it tonight.
You also decided that you would tell Pat your simplest truth this night.
It would be perfect and thoughts of how you would go about it kept you company all through the day.
It kept you light, feeling as if you were floating on clouds, and it made the stresses of the day only melt away.
By the time you arrived on Pat’s doorstep at half past eight, you were practically vibrating with excitement.
“Hey there, Y/N,” Pat grinned, always so happy to see you was he, and you felt your soul relaxing as you took a step forward into his already open and waiting arms.
Pat always hugged you like it was the first and last time that he would ever get to feel your body against his, so adept was he at living in the moment.
You sunk into his touch, your eyes drifting shut of their own accord. Your eyelashes caressed your upper cheeks like butterfly wings and you sighed in happiness, Pat’s arms tightening around you in response as he pressed a kiss to your temple, his full lips reverent upon your skin.
“How are you, Pat? You okay?”
“I’m doin’ better, and you?” Oh, but you adored the way that Pat frowned with his whole face as he pulled away so that he could look at you, so that he could really look.
You were nervous but Pat and the love which you shared made you brave and you nodded. “I actually... I actually came here for a reason.”
“Ooh, so not for the pleasure of my company, then?” Pat’s teasing always made you smile and right now was no exception.
“No... well, yes. I - I’m taking you out on a date.”
“A - a date? Now?”
You began to backtrack, thinking you had made a mistake, but then Pat’s face cleared and he beamed and, oh, all the stars were in his eyes at that moment as he cup your cheek in one hand and kissed you so soundly that you almost forgot your name for a moment.
“I love you, Y/N, do I ever tell you that?”
“Mm... once or twice. Tell me again?”
Pat laughed and stepped out of his house, shutting and locking it. When at least he was settled did he offer you his arm; a gentleman was he.
Though Pat asked no questions about where you were taking him, you could tell that he was full of questions, always so curious was he, and indeed as you turned the corner and got to the field where the firework show was taking place could you see that Pat was excited.
The two of you hurriedly picked a spot upon which to sit; you used a blanket which you had hidden in your bag to protect your clothes from the grass.
Not that Pat would care about getting his clothes dirty but it would also keep your bodies warm while you sat together for the time of the display.
Pat sat with his legs stretched out in front of him, his feet pointing outwards, an arm slung around your shoulder. His fingers gripped the slope there, pads stroking along your clothed skin and leaving goosebumps in his wake.
At some point, as the sky darkened and the various hues of reds, pinks, oranges and a golden yellow all blended and merged together before they bled into darker hues of purples and blues, before finally did night descend like a cloak, you slumped down, down, until you could rest your head in Pat’s lap.
His hand slid from your shoulder, up the column of your neck, to rest in your hair. He massaged your scalp, played with your strands, and the heat from his lap seeped into your own skin and kept the chill of the night away.
Finally did the black sky, unpunctuated by stars, signal the beginning of the show.
Fireworks exploded across the sky. You could hear Pat’s hushed awes, the way he would chuckle with sheer enjoyment sometimes and it only made your truth, simple but weighted, spring off your tongue.
“You remind me of fireworks, Pat.”
“Fireworks?” You had stunned him; he had nothing sassy to say.
There was, blissfully, an intermission of fireworks, and you sat up so that you could face Pat. You need to look at him and to see him looking back in this moment.
“Before you, I had... there was nothing. I wasn’t living but then... but then I met you and it was like you were a firework. You just... exploded across my life and you made me feel alive again. I want to live because of you, pretty boy.”
Silence.
There was only the wind in your hair, the chill of the night against your thin layers, the quiet whistling of fireworks... a small explosion of purple and green, then of red and yellow...
You saw not the next colour combination, for Pat’s full lips were upon yours, his large hands cupping your face and his fingers curling behind your ears.
He kissed you so hard that it was almost bruising, but it was also the tenderest, most loving kiss.
“Then let’s make it a show for the ages, all right?” Pat chuckled as he tucked a strand of hair behind your ears and then he kissed you again, as fireworks continued to liven up and brighten up the dark night sky.
Sometimes is reality better than the dream.
Patrick Verona @jokershyena @loveletterstoledger @itsthejoker @royaleclownx @tsukiakarinobara @arianatheangelworld @antonija89 @hotpacino @call-me-harley-quinn
#patrick verona#patrick verona imagine#patrick verona x reader#patrick verona x you#patrick verona x y/n#10 things i hate about you#10 things i hate about you imagine#10 things i hate about you x reader#heath ledger#heath ledger imagine#heath ledger x reader
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Sarakh the Gallu
Commissioned by a lovely anonymous user who wanted to expand their monster match. I hope you all enjoy!
With the volume turned down on your speakers, you select a playlist, then make sure your hair is out of your face. Even though you are grateful for your internship, the amount of work the museum staff shovels on you is quickly growing, and the checklist you have to fill out and categorize is thickly stacked. The many boxes coming up from storage and shipped from neighboring galleries are placed about with no rhyme or reason, but it’s your job to make sure all the objects for an upcoming exhibition on Mesopotamian artifacts. Supposedly, everything is there, because the paid daytime personnel already gave it a lookover and signed off, but checking and double-checking seems to be your boss’ MO. Even though you are begrudging to approach a redundant task, he swore up and down that being able to do this will increase your chances of getting hired once you get that sweet, sweet degree.
A benefit from working past closing is that you can listen to music. Earphones? Strictly forbidden for workers, though you don’t know why. Still, you guess you aren’t really in a place to complain since you managed to snag such a coveted internship position... but come on. No customers are allowed back here, it’s not like you’re going to have to be ready to answer every question about a particular expressionist piece, but nope! Zero tolerance from upper management. Cool. So anyway, you turn on your playlist, softly mumbling along to the lyrics, bobbing your head to the beat.
Most of the boxes are filled with the decorations for the actual setup, and once you’re done making sure everything’s here, you’re also supposed to begin setting up the exhibition. Under no circumstances, though, are you allowed to go poking around the genuine artifacts. Still, you’re expected to place the plaques, the fakes, the pedestals, and the long, plastic boards covered in various information where they belong. You look over the diagram on a crumpled piece of paper, mouthing the lyrics of the accompanying music, and dig through the decorations until you find the one labeled ASHJ-123, then pin it in place.
Something thuds in the adjoining room.
Immediately, your anxiety spikes, but you try to calm yourself with some logic. One of the plaques probably fell down, or maybe a new security guard just bit the dust. You need to stop imagining the worst. Still, turning your music down just a bit, you step out to investigate. The area where you heard the noise is mostly finished, with the artifacts already out on display, the whole thing resembling a tomb. Props to the designers, too, because walking through during your late shifts always gives you this weird, eerie feeling, like you’re trespassing on sacred grounds.
As you near a corner, you see one of the coffins slightly ajar, which is odd. Indignation sparks inside your chest, because if someone is going around willy-nilly and touching the artifacts, you’re going to be the one who suffers for it. You aren’t even allowed to fix it, you don’t have the know-how or skill, so that means you’re going to have to report it immediately and hope it can wait until morning. Turning the camera app on, you lift your phone up, snapping a picture from three different sides, and send it to your manager with an angry huff.
More noises. You’re back on alert, phone gripped tightly in hand, and you predial 911, thumb hovering the call button. Along the wall, where a reconstructed archway is, there’s a warm, bluish glow, the cuneiform engraved in the stone pulsing with some kind of strange energy. Which… Okay, maybe the curator uncharacteristically wanted some special effects to spice things up? To make some sort of ‘appeal to the younger generation,’ as he has said before? You gulp, wondering what’s triggering it, if you’re alone, or maybe the crew is still here?
Someone steps out from behind a statue, and you scream.
In your hasty stress, though, instead of managing to hit the Call button with your shaking fingers, you end up dropping your phone onto the thinly carpeted floor. You try to pick it back up, eyes on whoever that is, trembling, hoping that the very tall, muscular, bearded man wearing- uh, you don’t know what those robes are- isn’t here to harm you. But you want that fucking phone in your hands just in case.
“Do not be afraid,” he says, voice remarkably calming, low, and soft, “I mean no harm to you.”
“So-sorry,” you gasp, trying to calm yourself, “I um- I thought I was alone.”
He nods once, then looks around the exhibit, his eyebrows scrunched and furrowed in concentration. Like he’s lost. His hair is long, dark, falling past his shoulders in perfectly crafted waves, his beard about the same length, perfectly coiled in long ringlets. It’s… definitely a look, that’s for sure, though you don’t know what exactly he’s going for. Six thousand years too late, maybe? Washed out Bible movie actor? Having a beard is one thing, but giving it those Shirly Temple curls is something else. Perhaps it’s some sort of new underground hipster trend you aren’t aware of.
Letting in a deep, calming breath, you rub your arms. “Are you lost? The museum is closed, you’re not supposed to be here.”
The man frowns, his eyes… weirdly glowing, you think, when he looks at you. “I wouldn’t be here unless I needed to be.”
Sass. Great. Instead of the cops, you’re already dialing up the number for the museum’s internal security. “No, really, if you don’t have a badge, you need to leave.”
Something tingles in the air, causing all your hair to stand on end. “I assure you,” the man says, calmly, “I would not be called to this place unless there was a task for me to accomplish.”
“Cool,” you say, hitting the call button and setting your phone to speaker mode, the wall behind you exploding before the security guard even has a chance to pick up. You didn’t even know that’s what happened until a few moments after, because your vision takes a moment to return, chunks of the exhibit spread out around the floor. There’s blood in your mouth, tiny pricks of heat pinch against your arms and back.
Shakily, you try to get your bearings, maybe to rise to your knees, and you notice the man is standing over you, facing something just over your shoulder, arms outstretched, eyes glowing with an intensity that sends shivers through your spine. Something cackles, loud, chittering, you don’t know what could make that sound, it’s like a wounded animal. Wheezing from the plaster dust, you reach over to where your phone fell, bringing back a horrifically cracked mess. Fuck. Frantically, with tears pricking the edges of your eyes, you tap on the screen and press the sleep button, but nothing happens.
The man steps around your body, you hear the sound of… smacking? Like cement against cement, the telltale crunch of something breaking vibrating through the space. You roll, flipping your body over, trying to scurry out of the line of fire. As you look around for a hiding spot, you finally catch a glimpse of what busted through the walls, and you gulp, because surely your eyes are playing tricks. This can’t be happening.
It’s like a shadow, black and shimmering, a thick, viscous fog devoid of any kind of color beyond to, glowing orbs on its seemingly fluid-like body, but then it splits in half, revealing a throbbing, drooling maw filled to the brink with needle-like teeth. And the man- the man is fighting it, arms glowing with some kind of warm, primordial energy that almost seems to match the color of his eyes? It’s like magma, orange, red, and yellow, oozing and melting together, and he’s wrapping the stuff around whatever that creature is like a lasso. It’s struggling, knocking over priceless fucking artifacts as it writhes, wriggles, and shrieks, your ears popping oddly against the desperate shrillness.
You don’t even have it in you to scream in fear, despite the fact you are deeply afraid, because you are currently focused on one thing: survival. There are no places for you to hide that you would trust not to get immediately smashed, so you’re focused solely on dodging the scuffle, your eyes focused on the fire alarm on the other side of the room, where the hallway that leads out of this dead end exhibit also is. With a careful gaze, you watch the fight, slowly picking your way around the chunks of wall plaster and brick, trying to call the least amount of attention to yourself as you do so.
Something swipes at the back of your head, leaving a thick, slimy trail in your hair. Already you’re planning on how long and hot the shower you’re going to take once you manage to get home, thousands of little, prickly snakes working their way through your nerves as you dodge another one of that thing’s tendrils. Gross, gross, gross, gross, you almost choke, stepping over a fallen pedestal, then make a run for the fire alarm, reaching out and pulling on the little lever harder than you need to.
Alarms start blaring, red flashing light pulsing at the ceiling. No water, though, this is a museum, after all, with priceless artifacts hung up against the walls, can you even imagine? But the sound seems to throw the creature off its rhythm, it folds in on itself and starts screaming, you have to cover your ears because you’re afraid you might go deaf. The man who might not be a man takes advantage of this little hiccup, smiting the creature with a bright, hot flash of energy bursting from his hands, and the damn thing melts, the screams fading into a muted sob, and you suddenly can’t help but feel pity for the little thing. It… it’s like it’s in pain.
You watch, sickly fascinated, as it folds in on itself, crumpling like a piece of thin paper, smaller, smaller, until it no longer seems to exist. There’s a soft, anticlimactic pop, and the shadow is gone, like it never existed. The only evidence that it had would be the, well, the leftover, decimated exhibit, pieces of priceless objects from thousands of years ago shattered and broken. You swallow, thickly, staring at the mess, and realize numbly that you’re probably going to be fired.
The man approaches where you stand, gasping and shaking with a jumble of emotions you don’t have time to place, and he reaches out his hand. Carefully, he looks over the area where that thing slimed you, a thick layer of black mucus clinging onto your skin for dear life. The messy thoughts in your head slowly manage to form a full sentence, and, gasping, you manage to choke out, “what was that thing?”
Sirens roar in the distance, but the man seems only mildly bothered by them, “a corrupted spirit. If you aren’t careful, you’re going to end up just like that.”
Fear spikes through your system. “What?”
With a kind of calm that only works to annoy you, he says, “any living creature that the corrupted spirit marks are likely to become corrupt themselves. Come, my brothers and I should be able to cleanse you.”
“I’m sorry- go where? You’re over this already, there’s a layer of nervous sweat on your skin, and you’re afraid. “I don’t think I’m going anywhere with you.”
He lets out a huff of frustration, shaking his head. “Given the fact you aided in my victory- I am indebted to you. I must help your mortal health.”
The sirens grow closer. Rapidly, you shake your head, refusing the offer, downright suspicious of what it might mean. It’s just goop, you can probably get the damn stuff off with a bit of shampoo and hot water. Still, though, he’s insistent.
“It won’t happen overnight, but it will eventually overtake your heart and corrupt your spirit.” He holds his hand out. “You must accept my help if you would prefer remaining sane.”
You hear people calling your name, realizing dully that it must be the security guards. Numbly, you turn around, seeing their silhouettes in the stairway, running down with frantic desperation. You need to go to them, to tell them what happened- but you realize that no one is going to believe you. Letting in a soft, calming breath, you turn back to the man, brain trying to restart after being knocked around a few times. Even if what he says is true, can you really trust him to do as he claims? You can’t just run from a crime scene, that would make you suspect number one.
What reason would he have to lie, though? He just saved you from that thing, you don’t know how you would have managed to escape without those… fantastic… biceps. Rubbing your arms, you try to quickly weigh the pros and cons of following him, but someone grabs you, pulling you back from the mess, you can feel them looking over the bruises on your arm. Something solid pinches in your hand suddenly, and you look down, finding an unfamiliar coin in your palm. Slyly, you pocket the thing as you’re swarmed by a few rather concerned paramedics.
You get questioned by the police as someone bandages you, but you’re… well, unbelievably wary about telling the truth, so you forget to mention the presence of the man and the creature. Did you notice any odd smells? No. Did you see anyone? You heard noises and went to investigate. Do you know anyone who would do you harm? Not like this. Are you aware of any groups threatening the museum? No. It goes on like that for a while, and you have to put your information down so they can contact you as a witness to what they believe to be a terrorist attack.
A bomb, they decide, though they can’t seem to find any evidence beyond what appeared to be an actual explosion. Still, no shrapnel from a weapon, no traces of chemicals, and the wall clearly look like it was unceremoniously shoved through, rather than an evenly dispersed burst of energy. You can tell that one of the detectives think that you’re the one to do it, but of course, there’s no bomb, no evidence. Plus, you pulled the fire alarm, that’s a point in your basket.
The paramedics want you to get a once-over from a doctor, but you want to go home and shower. After you swear on your mom’s life that you’ll book an appointment shortly, after you reassure to your supervisor that you’re fine, you’re just tired, they book you an uber home, so you don’t have to drive. Once you get back, you go into a cleaning frenzy, stripping out of your dusty, plaster covered and slightly torn clothes, and spending about an hour in the shower, slightly hotter than you can tolerate, shampooing, reshampooing, conditioning, shampooing again.
You’re still shaking, even after wrapping yourself up in your biggest, fluffiest pampering towel, looking over your dirty clothes, trying to figure out what to do with them. A part of you wants to throw them away, forget the night, put the memories under lock and key, because it’s been a few hours and you’re not even sure if what you experienced was at all true, or if you imagined the entire thing in some sort of trauma-induced lucid dream. A glimmer flickers, the coin slipping out of your pocket, and you find yourself on the verge of crumbling.
Carefully, you pick it up, running your fingers over the golden inscription, biting your lower lip. This has to mean something, why else would it just… appear in your hand? You flick it against your thumb, sending it across the table, and then it disappears. Well, maybe it transforms, or summons, or you don’t fucking know, but the man is in your kitchen. The same man from the museum. In your kitchen. And you, you’re wearing nothing but a towel, so that’s just the cherry on top.
He looks at you.
You look at him.
He breaks eye contact first.
“I’m going to get dressed,” you say as calmly as you turn around, heading back to the bathroom, clothes in hand. You gave yourself some time to think about… well, that, working to put your pajamas as slowly as possible. When you reemerge, you take a long, huffy, exhausted breath, placing your hands on the kitchen counter as you try to fight for words. Finally, all you can imagine saying is, “would you like some tea?”
“If you would be so inclined.” He doesn’t seem to know what you’re talking about but accepts out of politeness.
You don’t care about the actual tea, though, but you are definitely thankful for the mindless work. Two mugs. Two teabags. If he doesn’t know what tea is, he’s not going to have a preference, right? The water heats up, and you have to take a moment, staring at the clock on your microwave, to think. Turning around, you look back to him and ask what exactly is on your mind. “Why are you here?”
“You still need to be cleansed from the corrupted spirit.”
You suspected that might be the case. At least this way, you can think about it in the comfort of your own home, without the time tables of frantic paramedics rushing to get to your first.
“Can we do it here?” You ask, because you just got home, and you’d like to go to bed.
“If you’d like,” he says, nodding.
You hand him the mug of tea, not bothering to offer any honey or cream. “How long will it take?”
“A few months, by your calendar. Your soul must be wholly purified for there to be no remains, it takes… prayer, chants, rituals of cleansing.”
“Where will you be staying in the meantime?”
He seems caught off guard by the question and takes a moment to think it over.
With a sigh, you offer, “I guess you can stay with me. But,” you gesture in his general direction, “we’re going to have to modernize that look a bit, alright?” At his look of confusion, you elaborate with a sigh. “If you’re going to stay with me, anyone and everyone will notice you, you have a very strong presence, so I think it would be best if you try to… blend in a bit more.”
He offers a nod, “if that would make you happy, then I will allow you to… er, ‘modernize’ my appearance.”
Oh, you almost forgot. Drumming your fingers against the table, you ask, “what’s your name?”
“Sarakh, the Seventh son of Asag, my predecessor, Gallu of the Underworld, Slayer of those Corrupt, Salt of the-”
“Can I call you Sarakh?” You ask, almost overwhelmed by the amount of titles he has.
“If it pleases you,” he nods.
“Cool.” You nod to yourself, letting out a breath. “Welcome to my home, then, Sarakh.”
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Homesick (Entry #16)
(cw: drug withdrawal)
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01/04/88 12:02 AM
Hey.
I don’t like this part.
That’s nothing new.
As I was waking up, a small, ghostly memory of your trailer floated around in my head again. Blame it on the couch, I guess. I thought I heard you rummaging around in the kitchen and talking to yourself, but it was short-lived. Reality woke up slowly after I did, growing like a huge, hot light that burned my eyes. You were still gone. I still had no idea what to do about it. I’d still been murdered without actually dying. The entire arcade was still against me. I was still up to my eyeballs in withdrawal. And, of course, it was just Fix-it I heard, going about his morning routine. When I asked him who the hell he’d been talking to, he said it was me. Apparently, I’d been carrying on a sparse conversation with him since he got up. That was just splendid. I didn’t ask what we’d talked about. I figured, on top of everything else, I was better off not knowing.
Fix-it asked if I wanted anything, but I was still too sick for breakfast. I didn’t want food, anyway. All I wanted was Boosts. But I couldn’t very well say that, could I? He knew I’d been taking buffs on the regular, but I didn’t think he knew my sickness was withdrawal, and I wanted it to stay that way. Let him believe it was just stress-induced. The last thing I needed was him throwing together some sort of intervention or something, totally blowing out of proportion a tiny, accidental dependency that would leave my system in under a week. Blink, and it’d be over.
Not to say it didn’t suck while it was happening.
We lingered in extremely awkward silence for far too long after Fix-it finished making his breakfast. He sat at his table and ate quietly, pretending to gloss over some papers I didn’t care to identify. I shivered on the couch, struggling with the fact that the arcade would open soon, and I’d have to find something to do with myself. Eventually, the atmosphere became too suffocatingly heavy to bear. Whether I was ready or not, I had to leave. I’d figure something out.
When I stood up, I realized just how disgusting I felt, like a lukewarm, moist, smelly sock. My code itself felt swollen stiff. I grabbed my clean clothes, which Fix-it had folded in an annoyingly neat pile, and went to have another shower. I was just about clean when I heard a knock.
At first, I was understandably irritated, and called out, “Can it wait?”
But he didn’t answer, which was somehow more irritating. Like he’d knocked and run off just for the fun of it, completely in the wrong context for that kind of prank. Once I turned off the water, though, I heard him talking just outside of the door.
I called out again, “Uh, y’know I can’t hear you, right?”
“No, no, it’s okay, Mavy, it’s the front door.”
Great, I thought. Nicelanders. I’d scarcely been in less of a mood to deal with them. I also had no idea what Fix-it would tell them about the night before, intentionally or not. I turned on the sink faucet so he wouldn’t get suspicious, and put my ear to the door.
Whoever was at the door was too muffled to hear, but I could just barely hear Fix-it’s side of the conversation. He sounded anxious.
“--course not, but you know, she’s feeling quite under the weather, so she’s staying with me for now.”
Stayed with him, I wanted to say.
“What do you mean? ...Yes, I know… No, I know it’s not, but it’s not exactly a normal situation, either.”
I grasped the door handle, ready to open it and punch him out if he said absolutely anything about the night before. But then things took a turn unlike any they had taken in the past. A firmness crept into his voice, relative to his usual overly friendly tone.
“I understand your concern, but it’s a private matter… Yes, a very private matter… No need, I’ll handle all that before we--... Exactly what I told you… I’m afraid I’ll just have to ask you to trust me, and carry on-- and, and... not get involved. Not even a little bit.”
I could hardly believe it -- suddenly, there was a note of anger. It was faint and mild-mannered, but still there.
“Yes, yes, I’m well aware of what you think, but it’s not what I know. I do not appreciate you behaving as if you know my cousin better than I do. Now, I can’t change your ridiculous opinion of her, but I’ll not hear another hurtful word about her from you, or anyone else in this building. Are we clear?”
He scolded a Nicelander for me.
“Very good… I’ll see you in the morning huddle. Good morning, Gene.”
I heard the door close.
He scolded Gene.
Where in the eight bits was that four-and-a-half years ago!?
I took a generous amount of time getting dressed before I left the bathroom. By then, Fix-it was obviously ready to go, and seemed like he might have been waiting on me. The emotional loop-de-loops were really starting to give me vertigo, so I hoped he’d keep whatever he wanted to say brief.
He asked if I had plans for the day, and I said I didn’t know. He said I was welcome to stay in his apartment and rest, and I told him it would be hard to rest with the building getting pounded. He offered for me to take the puke bucket with me, and I told him I probably had a few in my hoard. He told me that I was still welcome to come back and spend the night. I told him I’d think about it, and at the time, I meant it.
When it was really time to part ways, he squeezed his hands anxiously, and said with grating sincerity, “Mavy… you’ll make it through this. I believe in you.”
In the usual way, his words seemed to force my gaze away. I just stared at the curtains and fidgeted, unsure of how to proceed. I didn’t want to say anything -- there were lots of things I could have said, I guess, but I didn’t want to. I appreciated a few things about that whole ‘visit’, but none of them magically fixed everything about us. If we’re really a family, we’re a pretty poor excuse for one, and I couldn’t see that changing.
But I think I’d be lying if I said, after all I’d been through, I wasn’t at least a little glad to hear it.
Eventually, I settled on mumbling, “Yeah. ‘Making it’ is kinda my thing.”
We ended at that. He hovered towards the door, but mostly watched me open a window and get ready to fly out. Freshly fixed brush in hand, I went to paint feathers on my heels. But when I looked down, there was just… a sheet of yellow paint splattered over my heel.
Needless to say, I was confused. I had a perfect grasp of all the colors in my head, so wetting my brush with them should have been as easy as flexing my fingers. But, for some reason, only yellow was showing up, no matter what I tried. Just short-lived splatters of yellow paint.
This had never happened before, but I tried to stay calm. I called Fix-it over and asked him to hit my brush and paint can with his hammer again, thinking it must have glitched or something the night before. He complied.
At first, I thought it did something. I hadn’t exactly tried to produce red or orange before calling him over, but I found that I could after his fixing attempt. But that was still just it: Red, orange, and yellow.
I asked him to do it again. Nothing changed. I asked again. Nothing. My attempt to stay calm flew straight out the window, like I should have. I threw down frantic splatters, all disappearing and reappearing right after another.
Red, orange, yellow. Red, orange, yellow. Red, orange, yellow.
My brush didn’t work anymore.
Hey... Remember when I said that things weren’t about to look up any time soon? Well, I wasn’t kidding. I wish I had been.
Before that, I already thought I’d lost everything that mattered to me. Now the Devs were coming for things I’d never even considered that I could lose before. They took the very fabric of what makes me who I am and shredded it. I’m supposed to be a chaotic twister of rainbows. After that, I was nothing but an analogous smear on the wall.
I could feel something terrible about to burst from me. I held my brush in my hands like a dead bird, shaking so hard I could have dropped it. Fix-it looked just about as mortified and panicked as I’d ever seen him, looking from my brush to his hammer, turning it around like something might have been wrong with it, too.
“Hey,” I said, barely stopping myself from shouting. I grabbed the glass from the coffee table, poured it out on the floor, and stomped it beneath my foot. “Fix this.”
He did as he was told quickly, seemingly just as much for himself as for me. Flash of light, and the shards were completely whole again, forming a glass that looked even better than before I crushed it.
“I’m-- I’m so sorry, Mavy, I don’t-- I don’t know what’s wrong! I mean, this hammer fixes everything, even things that aren’t broken in the first place, and it’s never done this before, so I have no idea what to--”
He went on babbling quicker than his mouth could keep up with. At a certain point, I couldn’t hear him anymore. I felt like my insides were about to crawl out of my mouth.
It wasn’t his fault. I know that, now. I probably knew it deep down, back then, too. But if he wasn’t to blame, then it meant there was something wrong with me. Something that, if it had even resisted his hammer, could very well never be fixed. I just couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t let myself believe I was broken, not when I needed to be strong more than ever.
I’m not proud of it. But blaming him was all I could do.
“Hey, it’s okay, maybe it was a fluke.” I strode back to the window, grabbed the curtain, and yanked it so hard, the curtain rod broke away and sent drywall crumbling down. “Fix this.”
He leapt up, panicking even harder than before. I could see it in his face -- he knew what was coming, and he wasn’t prepared. By the time he reached the window, I was already across the room, blocky lamp in hand.
“Can you fix this, too?!” I threw it full-force at him, and he just barely ducked in time. It exploded into pieces on the wall right where his head had been.
He may have made some sort of plea for me to calm down, but I was having none of it. I’d started to rage, and, as we both know, there’s no stopping me once the momentum builds. It was going to run its course, one way or another. And its course led me right into the kitchen. I swung open the lower cupboards and kicked them off their hinges. I opened the fridge and swept an entire shelf to the floor, breaking a few jars. I grabbed armfuls of plates and glasses and shattered them on every surface available. I trashed everything I could get my hands on, all the while screaming things I barely remember, things like...
“C’MON, HANDYMAN!! WHERE’S YOUR MAGIC HAMMER?! FIX IT, FELIX!! FIX IT, FELIX!!”
I’m not even sure what Fix-it was doing during all that. I lost track of him -- it didn’t matter to me anymore. He was probably appalled, keeping a safe distance somewhere, maybe trying to get through to me, more likely crying or something. I honestly don’t know. I didn’t see him again until after I’d flipped his kitchen table and grabbed one of the chairs. Even then, I avoided looking directly at him, like I’d rupture something if I did.
I took the chair in both arms and swung it at one of the windows, hearing a boing indicative of Fix-it springing out of the way. The glass took a few hits to break, and I found myself screaming with every swing: “THIS!! CAN’T!! BE!!--”
The glass shattered.
“--HAPPENING!!”
Then, with a whole-body spin, I flung the chair at Fix-it’s wall of medals. It busted a huge fold into the drywall and more than a few shiny medals hit the floor. Suddenly, I had nothing in immediate range to break, but my body threatened to crumple in on itself, quaking with the thunderous rage still rolling inside me. It had to get out somehow. I just grasped my hair, closed my eyes, and screamed so hard, it hurt. In such a small space, it was ear-splitting -- at least for Fix-it.
Then, well. You know all too well what happens when there’s nothing left to break. The stinging in my eyes could not have been a clearer cue to hightail it out of there.
I didn’t stop to say anything, didn’t even look his way. I just made a beeline for the window I meant to leave through earlier. But I was so out-of-it and desperate to make my escape, I just threw my legs right out into the open air. Forgetting that I couldn’t paint my shoes mid-fall anymore. I just barely caught the sill in time to plant my feet against the brick wall.
Naturally, Fix-it appeared, at his wit’s end, trying to help me back up, but I screamed “DON’T TOUCH ME!!” before he could. He shrunk back, and I climbed over onto the fire escape, like an earthbound loser. I hate, hate using that thing, but I had no choice. I tore down the stairs as quickly as my weary body could handle, and started to run towards my den. But my balance lurched and my vision darkened. It was a miracle that I hadn’t puked from all the exertion already. So I had to slow to a walk. Broken code, buff withdrawal, on the verge of tears, walking.
I know my game’s forest by heart. It’s not really my home, but I’ve lived in it for almost my entire life.
But when I reached the tree line, I froze to the spot. My trees look drastically different from the ones in Dragon’s Lair, but it didn’t matter. I stared into the darkness, and, for the first time in my life, I was too afraid to go in.
Then, inevitably, the tears came. I folded up on the grass, clutching my brush close, crying in the most pitiful way imaginable. I just wanted it all to stop. Just once, I wanted to believe that things couldn’t get any worse, and be right.
More than anything in the world, I just wanted my best friend back.
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Love After the Fact Chapter 66: On the Road Again
Lance makes a confession and tells Keith a story.
First Previous Next
Lance’s eyes scan the rocky foothills’ landscape. In the past few vargas, they’ve passed kilns, tanneries, quarries, gardens, orchards, and vineyards tumbling over the uneven terrain beneath the terraced mountain civilization. Now, he and Keith find themselves at the edge of the foothills, where the last of the mountainous landscape fades into rocky tundra. This is a more arid part of Daibazaal, though parts of it are temperate, or even tropical. And then there’s the vast grassy marsh at the equator, which filters all the water south until the continent slips into the sea.
Lance has since learned that the large body of water he’d seen from space is in fact salt water, and it’s so large that crossing it takes an entire quintant.
He won’t see the sea on this visit, but he’s already promised himself he’ll come back. The tundra, however, is spellbinding. On either side of the road are flowers in shades of yellow, pink, blue, orange, and white with thick, waxy, bluish-green leaves. Among the flowering hills with twisty-trunked trees, are small mounds, topped with little towers of stacked stones. Some have toppled over. Others have small nests in the gaps. Others are held in place with vines and foliage.
Cairns, marking ancient burials, Keith told him a ways back.
Ahead is a river, one so wide, so deep, and so fast that they need a bridge to cross it. Lance can already hear the water, and given how one of Keith’s ears is rotating in every direction, and the other is fixed on the rushing water, so can he. Every now and then, the ears switch duties, keeping an eye out for the many predators that call Daibazaal home.
It's the cutest thing Lance has ever seen.
Keith halts his bull elk by the river, leads him forward to drink. Lance follows his lead. Rubbing Bruna’s furry neck as she drinks at the river’s edge. They’ve been riding all morning, and it’s time for a rest, and some lunch.
Wrapped in leaves, Lance finds some bread, dried meat, and a soft, somewhat amorphous white substance. He sniffs the substance, finding it has a bit of a stink to it. It also smells… good? Somehow?
“Beloved?”
“Hm?”
“What the quiznak is this?”
“Oh. Cheese.”
“Cheese? What’s in it?”
“Milk. From the elk.” Keith pulls out his blade, slicing a bit off the lump, spreading it on the bread. “Try some. If your body produces lactase. Otherwise, do not.”
“I do. Some plants on Altea have lactose. Milk does, too?” At Keith’s nod, Lance shrugs, taking a bite of the offered food. It’s good. Salty, a bit gamey, a little nutty? No matter how Lance thinks to describe it, cheese sounds absolutely disgusting, but it’s delicious.
Keith hands him a wrinkled red fruit that looks past its prime. “Here, try this purp fruit. I know it looks gross, and I think they’re disgusting, but Lotor likes them a lot, so you probably will too.”
Lance takes a bite, humming as sweet, syrupy juices explode over his tongue. It’s delightful, probably the sweetest thing he’s tasted since arriving on Daibazaal. The taste sours almost instantly as Lance remembers something he’d said earlier. “Hey, Keith? There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Okay?”
“I may have made a deal with my father that we would return to Altea as mates.”
“You what?” Keith stares at his spouse, clearly displeased. His ear pin back against his head, tail twitching back and forth. “That wasn’t your place to say. At all.”
“I know. I thought it was fine, since it’s not like he’d actually do anything if we didn’t, but I also didn’t say anything, so… I got the feeling I was in the wrong.”
Keith stares at him, fur bristled, murmurs, “Did you mean it?”
“No! I-” The Altean’s shoulder sag. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so,” Keith echoes. “So you assumed that we would, and figured that meant it was fine for you to agree to those terms.”
“...I suppose,” Lance mumbles.
Keith shakes his head, disappointed in his spouse. Not that he’d say that. Nothing damages a person like hearing their loved one is disappointed in them. “Why, Lance? Why would you agree to that? You’ve kept me safe all this time. What changed?”
“He made it a stipulation of our trip to Daibazaal. I should have argued the point, but I just wanted to get you here as fast as possible. I wanted to make sure that happened, with as little trouble or wasted energy as possible, and as little stress to you. Still, I was careless, and thoughtless, and I am so. Sorry, Keith.”
The Galra sighs, staring at his mate. “Well, you told me, and I know you wouldn’t have forced yourself on me, so I’ll forgive you. This time. But even though I’m mated to you, you can still lose my respect, and my trust. Just like I can lose yours.”
“I know, I know.” Lance’s ears droop. “The idea that I could have damaged this…” He shakes his head.
“It’s nothing that can’t be fixed,” Keith murmurs, letting the hurt ease away as he gazes over the river, watching the wind move through the tundra flora. “You’re reasoning saved your ass though, just so you know.”
Lance chuckles, still subdued as he picks at the last of his food. “I really am sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m upset, but we’re gonna be okay.” Keith takes Lance’s hand, squeezes it tight. “You haven’t ruined this. Your intentions were good, if a bit careless, and we’re going to be fine.”
“Okay…”
“You need to be careful, though. It’s not like you to make hasty promises like that. We can't rule like that, so it can't become a habit.”
“I know,” Lance groans, carding a hand through his white hair. “The Ancients are going to smite me if I can’t get my shit together!”
Keith licks his lips, anxious. He still trusts Lance, and his intentions, no matter how misguided in practice. And the man clearly recognizes that he’s been an idiot. Now, he just wants to move on. “Hey. Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.” The Altean rests his head against Keith���s shoulder. Keith wraps his tail around Lance’s waist.
“What happened to Romelle?”
“Ah. It’s kind of a long story...”
Alfor leaned against the control board of their small craft, shaking. On either side of him, Romelle and Honerva stood in awe as they gazed at the sight before them. A white hole, light pouring in seemingly endless arcs of light.
“I can’t believe it,” the blonde girl breathed. “We’re finally here.”
“Everything we’re searching for, everything we could ever want, is right here before us,” Alfor murmured. They stared a moment longer, then the king gave a cocky grin he’d later dread seeing on his son. “Let’s go get it!”
The women giggled, giddy on new discovery, as they hurried to their control panels, Alfor at the helm. They were here for everything they could possibly get, and the adventure, but also with a specific goal in mind.
Oriande, among other things, reportedly had its own unique flora and fauna, from which Altea’s organic life had evolved. It was possible, perhaps even probable, that they could find a cure for the thing that killed his wife.
“Wait. What exactly happened to your mother ?”
"A fungus. They found a capsule in her reading room. It... It grew up underneath her scales, and made them die and fall off."
"That's... horrific. I can't believe anyone would do that!"
“Mnh.” Lance sighs. “They cut me out of her as soon as they could so I wouldn’t die with her. They put me in a pod for phoebs, until I could breathe on my own and they were sure I didn’t have the same thing.”
“What an awful way to die,” Keith whispers, thinking about watching his power and lifeforce fall away from his body before his very eyes.
“Romelle’s brother died later from the same thing. We still don’t even know where it came from. We couldn’t figure out how to kill it. It kept spreading even when they were put in suspension.”
“Does Romelle know?”
“I’m not sure. We told her, but…”
“I don’t understand!” Romelle clinged to her research console, staring at the apparition formed from the light of the white hole. “Why won’t it let us pass?!”
Alfor glared at the ghostly obstacle, pale blue scales flaring in time with his frustration. “Try again. If it doesn’t let us pass, we’ll pull back and think of a new strategy.”
“Yes, your Majesty.” Honerva did as she was told, wheeling their craft back around, soaring through space, dodging the arcs of light curling from the white hole. The apparition struck again, sending them spiraling into another arc of light. The entire ship shuddered and creaked, threatening to come apart as it was assaulted by pure energy.
Alfor fell to the floor, wrapped his arms around the leg of the console. He heard a crash from behind him and assumed they’d taken some kind of damage. Once the ship settled, however, it became clear that wasn’t the case.
Romelle was on the floor, Honerva leaning over her, dark hair falling from it’s usual bun. “Alfor…”
The girl was bleeding profusely, gray matter visible from a gaping wound in her head.
“Ancients… Pick her up. We have to put her in a pod.”
“Alfor that could kill her!”
“What about her exposed brain? Couldn’t that kill her?”
Honerva grew pale beneath her orange, green-tinted scales. She nodded, scooping the girl into her arms as Alfor rushed to calibrate a pod to preserve her life.
As Honerva prepared to take them home, Alfor turned back to the formidable white hole. He’d been so close. He could practically smell that familiar, unfamiliar atmosphere just beyond these outer limits.
Were it not for the beast that guarded it...
“So what happened to Romelle?”
“My father spent decaphoebs rebuilding her brain. At first, everything seemed fine. That’s when she and Allura got close, and fell in love. But not long after that… She started talking about odd things. Guardians and descendants and glass that is water but also holding water and a blue ember growing cold. Weird stuff. Eventually, that took up more and more of her. I think that’s all that’s left now.
She doesn’t recognize Allura. I don’t think she even knows Allura’s pregnant. I’m not sure she even knows who she is, or that she’s a person. Alfor says that trying to fix her is just doing more damage and causing her pain. As much as I hate it, I think he’s right.”
“I wonder what she means,” he whispers. “I wonder what she’s trying to tell us.”
“I don’t know,” Lance murmurs. “But whatever it is, she’s too far gone to understand it herself, let alone tell us.”
“Right…” Keith frowns, unsure what to make of the story, but he lets it go for now. He’s heard Romelle speak plenty of times before he moved to Altea, Allura having gone out of her way to visit with him and try to ease his anxiety. It always sounded like nonsense.
All the same, he has a nauseous feeling that Romelle’s ramblings aren’t ramblings at all.
Keith stares at Lance’s scales, glittering up and down his arms, exposed by his rolled up sleeves. Blue, shining red in the light. Water and fire.
Suspend the ember in water. Stall its final breath.
The guardian waits for the descendant.
#LoveAftertheFact#LAtF#klance#galtean au#altean lance#galra keith#adashi#altean adam#galra shiro#voltron legendary defender#vld
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Wannabe Chap 11: Star Wars x Reader
-i'm so happy that I made it this far into the book
-i hope you enjoy reading my work, because I put a lot of love and care into what I do. Basically, this book is my baby that I'm nurturing and growing
-you're a young child in your flashbacks btw. Also sorry it's been like two weeks since I updated. School just started like two days ago and I was so confused on what was happening and stressed since I chose to do remote learning
'𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗜 𝘀𝗮𝘄 𝗺𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 '𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗺𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻.'
-𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗲, 𝗙𝗹𝗲𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝗰
"Excuse me..."
(Y/n) turned to the location of the voice. The young teen's padawan braid dangled from his brown locks, swaying as a strong breeze brushed past the courtyard. Today was a fairly cool day, so (Y/n) shivered a bit as she stood. "Were you speaking to me?" she quietly inquired. The boy let out a small, awkward laugh. "I don't know who else I'd be talking to."
She surveyed the serene courtyard. At this time, it wasn't uncommon to find students studying together or other Masters holding classes in the afternoon sun. Today, it was absolutely dead. There was not a soul in sight save for her and the boy approaching. (Y/n) knew she had been meditating for a while, but not that long.
"By any chance," the boy added, "have you seen my master Obi-wan Kenobi?"
(Y/n) froze for a second, eyes widening in awe. She recognised the boy from class. He was a very eager and passionate student, but that seemed to be what held him back. Ever since he'd first shown up at the Temple, a plethora of rumours had spread about how he was the 'Chosen One' said to destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force. Despite that, he himself hadn't reached equilibrium. "I," she swallowed and settled on the fountain's ledge. "I have not seen your master. Sorry."
She settled back onto the side of the fountain and the boy sighed in defeat. He plopped down next to her, placing his squarish hands on the ledge as he swung his feet in frustration. "Stars, he's been gone for hours and I haven't seen a single sign of him! Where could he be?" (Y/n) shyly shook her head with a shrug. "Master Kenobi is part of the Council, perhaps he is in a meeting?"
"I haven't really thought about that." mumbled the boy. "Say, what's your name? I know I have some classes with you, but I've never really..." (Y/n) nodded in agreement. "Yes. I have not conversed with you. I am (Y/n)."
"Last name?"
She faltered, pausing to lick her chapped lips. The boy seemed so eager to hear her speak that she replied with, "Kryze. (Y/n) Kryze." He awkwardly smiled in reply. "Anakin Skywalker." (Y/n) frowned, knitting her brows so close together that they could have been one. "You are not going to...you know..."
"You know what?"
"Say something about me?" she quietly finished. Anakin mimicked her expression. "Why would I say anything about you?" (Y/n) played with the hem of her robes, turning her gaze to the loose threads to fiddle with. "I'm...I'm Mandalorian. The other kids always say I'll turn bad because of that." Anakin didn't seem to be all well-versed in Jedi history, because he only sat there with a dumb look on his face. Although he was older than (Y/n), he was definitely not the wiser.
"That's mean of them." (Y/n) dryly laughed. Her heart ached thinking about all the times kids picked on her for her heritage. It left an open wound that continued to grow with every passing day, and she knew that it was slowly turning her bitter. "That is what all the masters say, but none of them stand up for me. Some kids say that I should be a senator instead of a Jedi." (Y/n)'s shoulders slumped and Anakin crossed his arms. "I can't say I know how that feels like, but I do know that you shouldn't pay attention to that kind of stuff. My mum used to tell me that when I was younger."
(Y/n) nodded thoughtfully. "That is true. I suppose I just can't though. It is no easy feat to ignore people when they say I might as well be a killer."
"Why would they have any reason to say that?"
"There was a battle between the Mandalorians and the Jedi long ago."
"Oh...I see."
There was an uncomfortable beat of silence. (Y/n) half-expected Anakin to get up and abandon her, but he turned to face her with a soft look in his bright eyes. "For the record," he piped up, "I think you're a wonderful person. I may not talk to you in class, but I see how nice you are to everyone. It doesn't matter what they say about you because I think it's great to be proud of who you are." (Y/n) furrowed her brows together. "Do you really believe so?"
He firmly nodded. "I know so." He was about to stand up, but he tripped over his own robes and fell into the fountain. And for the first time in a while, (Y/n) laughed.
---
(Y/n) thought back to when Anakin shielded her from the exploding star ship probably a day or two ago. He had faced the full impact of the blast as she tumbled to the ground in his safe arms.
"(Y/n)."
The pain in his voice was still so real to her. He meant every single word he said.
"I would never let anyone hurt you, and that includes me."
She turned back to the man marching towards her with the blood red saber. Her heart thumped so loudly that it could have popped out of her chest. That couldn't be Anakin--she was probably just imagining it. It wasn't possible and never would be. Even if it was, she saw him a few days ago.
"Master Jedi," called the Princess, "we have to go now. If we stay here any longer, we all will die." The princess pulled (Y/n) up the ramp and into the safety of the rubbish ship and helped (Y/n) into the main lounge room. The two slid into the booth against the wall, and for a moment, (Y/n) relaxed. Her heart rate began to slow, and the blood rushing in her ears smoothly lessened into a dull throbbing.
Then it hit her: that feeling of imbalance with the sense that something was wrong. She felt it in the air and in her veins and in the Force that what just happened was not meant to be. The Princess was saying something to her, but again, she couldn't hear.
---
"Why are you crying?"
(Y/n) met Anakin's sky blue eyes with a sniffle. Her heart weighed heavy in her chest, and it was hard to breathe as she held back a sob. The temple was quiet this early in the morning, so she didn't expect to find Anakin in one of the main halls. "What...what are you doing here?" she cried out. Anakin leaned back against the wall and sunk down to the floor beside her. "I could ask you the same too." (Y/n) sniffled again and rubbed her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. Anakin dug around in his pockets and produced a small napkin.
"Here."
"...Thanks..." (Y/n) quietly blew her nose as Anakin averted his gaze to the open windows. The vibrant yellows and oranges of the sun illuminated across the brightening skies, reflecting off the clouds and shining over all of the city. Speeders lifted into the skies along with a variety of starships, zooming past skyscrapers and into the streets or up into the vast ink of space. "Are you okay?"
"Yes."
Anakin frowned and scooted closer to her. He lifted up his sleeve and helped her wipe away the tears streaming down her face. "It's okay to cry, you know." (Y/n) knitted her brows together and said, "Everyone here says I shouldn't cry. They say it's a weakness and that I should release it into the Force but..." Her shoulders wildly shook and Anakin practically threw his arms around her.
"Oh, no," he said. "Don't cry anymore. It's okay." He cradled (Y/n)'s small form close like his mother used to do. (Y/n) savoured the warmth reflecting off his aura and rested her head on his chest as he rocked back and forth, humming a small tune. The sun continued to rise over the horizon, soaring higher over the skyline and bringing with it a powerful light. "Did someone make you cry?" (Y/n) nodded. "Yeah." Anakin rested his head over hers. "What did they say?"
"That...that I-I don't belong here. They said I'll never...that I'll never be a padawan..." Anakin wanted to believe he knew what he was doing, but he really didn't. Ever since he showed up at the Temple, all he's ever done was bow, speak beautifully, and learn the ways of the Force. Love wasn't exactly something they openly showed here, so he continued to hug (Y/n) close.
"They...they said I'll be kicked out..."
Anakin's jaw dropped. "What? No! That won't happen. That won't ever happen. The Jedi wouldn't kick you out just because you're Mandalorian. They aren't like that, I promise." (Y/n) pulled away to wipe her eyes. "But those kids said..."
"What those kids did was waste their breath!" exclaimed Anakin. He wanted to say he was going to deal with this like a responsible padawan, but his lips curled into a scowl and his blood boiled like the lava on Mustafar. How dare her peers always insult her and make her days spent in the temple a complete nightmare? That wasn't the mark of a Peace Keeper, no it was one of pretender, a fake who only abused their titles.
"You shouldn't care about what those kids say because you're an incredible, kind, and smart girl." he firmly said. The anger making his blood boil began to morph and cool into a sense of protectiveness. He didn't want to have to do anything he'd regret, so he resolved to protect (Y/n). Confrontation would only cause bigger problems, he thought.
"You've taught me so much about the Force and the Ways of the Jedi." Anakin added. He helped (Y/n) stand in the sun's morning rays. "When they knock you down, you've gotta get up again. You're better than them. You're so much kinder and nicer than them. If anyone's going to be kicked out, you better believe it'll be them!"
(Y/n) gave a watery smile and Anakin wrapped an arm around her shoulders, giving it a good rub. "Come on, let's get some breakfast."
---
(Y/n) leaned back in the booth, resting her head against the ship's wall with a long sigh. That was her Anakin, the one and only who cared deeply for everyone and everything. He was like no other Jedi, compassionate and a bit unpredictable, but (Y/n) trusted him with her life. She paused for a moment and closed her eyes to bring her focus back. Her loud mind began to settle down before another face came into mind.
Obi-wan Kenobi. Why had she sense him fighting the guy clad in black when he should've been back in Coruscant with Anakin? Her instincts were never wrong, but this? It again didn't make any sense. In fact, nothing made sense.
The Princess placed a hand on (Y/n)'s shoulder as Han and Luke came barrelling into the ship. Chewie had already started the controls, and while the boys made a racket and got the ship up and running, the Princess made sure to keep (Y/n)'s attention on her. "Are you okay?" (Y/n) opened her mouth, but the words wouldn't leave her lips. There was a disturbance in the Force that literally made her feel like the galaxy were a seesaw, tipping this way and that in a weak attempt to keep the balance.
"I..."
She didn't know anymore. Was she okay? Was she not? Maybe she was drugged and that was the problem.
"...what year is it?"
The Princess frowned in concern. "Han, do you have any water?" she called. He dug around the cockpit before throwing a flask over his shoulder. The Princess caught the flask with ease and pried the top open. "Here, we've all been through a lot today." (Y/n) took the flask and chugged down the cool liquid without a second thought. She drained the container until every last drop had gone down her throat. Leia took the flask back and closed it. "Feel better?"
"A bit. Thank you, Princess..."
"Call me Leia. What's your name?"
"(Y/n) Kryze." she replied. Leia was about to set the flask down on the booth, but she went completely rigid. "Kryze?" she breathily repeated. (Y/n) nodded. Leia's hand flew to her forehead as if she were about to suffer from a stroke. "You're Mandalorian and a Jedi? Is that even possible?" (Y/n) shrugged. "I used to think the same thing when I was younger."
"How did the Empire capture you?" (Y/n) knitted her brows. There was that word again 'Empire'. "I apologise, but what does that mean?" she inquired. Leia pursed her lips together with a hum. "Did you hit your head? What was the last thing that happened before you ended up on that space station?"
"I was in a warehouse on Coruscant. There was an explosion, and then I saw Count Dooku. He...I believe he was the one who kidnapped me." Leia looked beyond concerned. A small 'oh dear' left her lips that send chills down (Y/n)'s spine. "I don't know how to put this, but Count Dooku died a decade or so ago." (Y/n) wasn't sure how to feel about that. Confusion was her first instinct, then worry, and lastly, shock. It was like her body had completely frozen over in ice. She couldn't move or think straight.
A decade or so ago.
She missed out on a decade or so of history.
But how?
"I'm not too sure," continued Leia, "but you may have been frozen in carbonite or kept in a stasis pod. The Clone Wars ended about nineteen or twenty years ago, so you've probably slept through all that along with the Jedi Purge." Jedi Purge? The ending of the Clone Wars? Her vision suddenly became blurry. "I think I need to..." (Y/n) never finished that thought. Her eyes rolled back into her head and it was lights out completely.
PART 12
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Starlight and Beskar - Ch. 1
MandalorianxOC
Rated: E
“They say home is where your heart is. Mine is among the stars, across the universe.”
- Quotes ‘nd Notes
Entry 1: Mission to Mars
Date: 20 JUL 2028
First Lt. Cruz, Estella M. (USN)
I am keeping this log to jot down everything that is seen or heard on our mission to Mars. It will take us, at least, a year to get there. We are the first shuttle with human bodies to enter its atmosphere and the first humans to step foot onto the planet.
“Estella, mija,” she heard the sound of her adoptive father call to her in a concerned tone. “Are you okay? I’m sure you’re nervous right?”
Estella looked up from the dinner table and over at both her adoptive parents. She nodded and smiled a bit.
“Yeah. I’m good.”
Estella was the adoptive daughter of Mateo and Natalie Cruz. She was originally from Puerto Rico and was adopted by them in San Juan when she was four years old. Mateo and Natalie, at the time, were planning on adopting a child as they couldn’t have any of their own. They flew all the way there from Camp Pendleton, California. Both Mateo and Natalie were stationed at that base. They were both U.S. Marines. After Natalie and Mateo adopted Estella, Natalie finished up her enlistment with the Marine Corps and decided to become a full time mom to her. Mateo stayed in and later on went on to retire from the Marine Corps Infantry as a Gunnery Sergeant.
Like her parents, Estella went into the military. The only difference being that she went into college first and then later joined the U.S. Navy. She was determined to be a pilot and not just any pilot, a fighter pilot. She was successful and even went all the way to Top Gun just to be the best. Her call sign: Phoenix. She was a fire spitting female and she blazed through the skies. At least, that’s what everyone else says but, she is one of the best and it showed.
Her heart remained in the skies but, her biggest love of all was the stars. Her father had bought her a telescope when she was very young. She had always wanted to be an astronaut and explore the galaxy. Now that she’s older it’s obviously not doable to explore the entire Milky Way galaxy, nevertheless the universe, right? Here she was, though, packing her essentials for space exploration for the next day.
Was she actually nervous? Perhaps. Someone else was going to be flying the shuttle and not her. That actually made her a bit nervous in itself. She was used to flying her own fighter jet herself. Anytime someone else flew, it was a no go!
Estella sat in her old bedroom on it’s little balcony. Her parents had already said their goodnights and went to bed. She had to get some sleep soon. She had to be by at least 4 a.m. to get ready, eat, get out of the house and be there on time for pre-flight formation and accountability. This was going to be an exciting new chapter and journey in her life and she couldn’t wait but Estella had this weird notion going on in her gut that this was probably going to also change her life forever.
She poured that hot coffee from the pot and into her metal Tervis Tumbler cup, added sugar and her mocha flavored creamer and headed on out the door with her parents trailing behind her. Of course they were going to go with her and drop her off at the space station: Kennedy Space Center. After her father had retired, the whole family moved to Florida. Her mother was from there. They had family living here still too.
The air in Florida was warm even though it was still pretty dark out. She shut her door to the Honda they were driving in and stared at the station. She could see people lining up around the area to catch a glimpse of the shuttle taking off when it was time. She took a deep breath and wrapped her one arm around her mother’s waist as they walked up to the station's doors with her father trailing behind with her bag.
“Did you bring your notebook?” her mother asked.
Estella nodded and replied, “yes mama. Everything is all packed and ready to go.”
Her mother smiled and faced forward again, “make sure you write everything down in that book. You're gonna want to look back on these days and remember what you witnessed, even when you’re old and you’re grandchildren or even, you’re children, will want to know. Maybe they'll even use your experiences for research around the world.”
Natalie was excited for her daughter. She had watched her grow up and leave home to join the military after college. She watched her go through all her training and has been there from the start of it all, even on the days Estella would call and cry about how stressed and tired she is from everything. It all led to the dream Estella had from when she was a little girl.
“Well…” They had now reached the area where her parents could not go and Estella had turned to her parents with tears forming in her eyes. “I will be seeing you guys in two years from now o-or longer?... I’ll be fine and I’ll call you guys on Skype or something when we have down time.”
Her parents smiled at her and hugged her long and tight.
“We love you so much and we are so proud of you, Stella. You have done so much more than what we have ever done in our lives and we are so happy that you're getting to be a part of this. Don’t worry about us, we will be fine and we will be waiting for your return,” her father said as he held her hands.
“I love you guys too. More than anything and… thank you for everything.”
With that, she turned around to face one of her fellow comrades that was waiting for her down the hall and walked on. She turned again to face her parents from afar and waved at them, smiling.
*************
He stared off into space while in deep thought. Lives were lost at the cost of this little, green child and they were still going to be hunted down by Moff Gideon and his pack of womprat, Empire scum. Yet, he perhaps felt a little something for the child now that he was his adoptive father and all. The child was his foundling and nothing else could be done of it. This is the Way.
He had to find the child’s family or at least someone who knew how to help the child control his powers. The “Force” is what he heard it was called. He had only ever heard stories of Jedi’s who wielded it back from the days of the Old Republic and of one sole Jedi by the name of Skywalker who had defeated the Empire. Also the stories of the war between Mandalore and the Jedi. But, they had to be just tales, right? Probably not and the child was proof that something just had to be true.
The child sat next to him in his seat fast asleep with the little metal ball in his clutch. The Mandalorian stared at him and watched for a little bit and was distracted by some type of explosion in between the stars. He had never seen such a thing in his entire life. It was like a hole. A dark hole that led to just blackness? He put the Razor Crest at a slower speed than what it was originally to watch this random scene take place. Some type of ship flew out from it. It was white in color and all banged up. It was a weird looking thing in all honesty with a logo that was not from this sector at all.
He wondered if there was anyone inside or if they were even alive.There was no way they’d be alive if they crashed into another planet. Could they? The random space ship was headed straight for the same place that he was going to be stopping at for supplies: Tatooine.
***********
The point of this mission to Mars that they were attempting was for ‘Project Life.’ It was simply a project that had been done before: looking for life on Mars. This time, instead of robots, they were going to use people. Of course, they would have a robot with them though. They called the robot ‘Bee.’ There was no particular reason but that it was black and yellow in color.
Estella’s heart was racing as they all clamored into their seats to prepare for take off. There would be six people on this mission, including her. She could feel the engine thundering from below them, it’s sound vibrating in her ears and almost drowning out the voices coming from the headphones they wore. She could make out the beep-boop noises from the control and buttons on the ship. They radiated flashing lights of blue and red with hints or green and orange.
The pilot and co-pilot of the ship placed their hands on the controls and feet firmly on the floor. She was so distracted by everything around her that she had just missed the execution: take off. This was nothing new to her, the G forces that she felt weighing down on her body. She hoped and prayed silently in her mind that they would not explode while exiting the different layers of atmospheres. Morbid as it may seem, it has happened before and she, unfortunately, had thought about it before they took off. Not exactly the kind of mentality you want to have while going on a space shuttle into space.
It seemed like hours had gone by before they suddenly stopped. It was then she heard a crowd cheering in the ear pieces and her comrades cheering in the shuttle. They had made it! All those atmospheric layers were behind them and they were suddenly drifting in space. Slow and steady. She could feel her body trying to rise from the seat. She almost forgot that there was zero gravity up here too. She smiled to herself and waited for everyone to unbuckle from their seats so that she could follow suit. This was going to be a long, long journey but, to planet Earth, it was all worth it.
1 year later…
“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The captain of the crew was the first to venture out into the unknown territory of planet Mars. Did he really use that quote? Yes, yes he did. Estella laughed and shook her head. The crew she was with had become like family over the course of the year while they were in flight to Mars. She got along with each one of them and they all seemed to know each other more personally than they had when they first started. Not much to do on a spaceship to another planet than actually talk to each other.
Estella stepped out and her anxiety eased itself out. The ground really was red and left footprints in her wake wherever she went. The texture was almost like clay.
Don’t know how plants would be able to grow here? She thought to herself. Who knows if the ground had any type of nutritional value to it for plants.
The biggest thing for them at this moment was to see if water could even withstand the air here. If they could pour it into a glass cup and it would stay. Planting some type of plant would come next because they were going to try that as well. She looked over the horizon as she got to the top of a small hill, her and another crew member. The sun always seemed like it was setting here or at least it wasn't and it was just the sky that remained like it was. Everything just seemed so red. It would take years and years on life living here to make it, well, colorful.
There has to be more out there…
She felt the wind blow a little bit from behind her as if it beckoned her to go across it’s red desert. That gut feeling she felt a while back had crept itself back into her mind and her breathing trembled. She became nervous once more.
“Cruz? We need you and McKinley back at the shuttle. We’re turning in for the day.” Thank Heavens for the Captain calling them back and distracting her gut feeling.
1 Month later…
All her logs from the month had been written successfully and on time. It feels like it had gone by really quickly, being here on the big, red planet. They were going to leave the plant they had brought with them here in hopes that perhaps the seeds would spread and create more of the same plant, like it would as if it was on Earth. Estella got the honor of planting it into the ground. She had a beautiful garden back home herself and so the crew voted that she would plant it on Mars.
Home.
What was that again?
She was shocked that she would even ask herself that question. She had grown an attachment to life out here and on the spaceship that she almost wanted to cry as they were getting ready to take off again. Like she didn’t want to leave? She wanted to explore more but, there was only so much time and supplies that they had.
This time she actually paid more attention as they took off. The engine thundered underneath them again.
“You’re clear for take off,” the voice inside the headphones said.
“Here we gooo!” Exclaimed one of the crew members and everyone smiled to themselves. This had been a successful journey. It was one that they would return home from and be placed into history books as the pioneers who went to look for life on Mars. Though no alien life forms were found, they planted one from their planet instead. For the next few months that plant will be watched. The plant was cactus. Hardy and can survive droughts. They hoped that maybe rain would fall onto the planet although, they weren’t entirely sure if the rain was actually acidic. If so, it would probably kill the plant. It didn't hurt to try and experi-
The alarms blared and panic rose all around her.
“Captain what’s going on?” the commander from Earth was now on the headphones calling in.
“I have no idea!” the Captain shouted into the mic. “It’s like we’re being turned around!”
She could hear fear rise from back at the station they communicated with from Earth. She sat there frozen and she looked outside the window from the seat. There seemed to be a hole. A dark, black hole that led to nothingness on the other side. The hole looked like there was light haloed around it with rings, like Saturn. They weren’t really rings though, just light.
A noise from all around the ship startled the crew. It sounded like a low groan and then little pebbles hitting it all at once. The captain resumed his communication with the station back on Earth, trying to figure out how to use the ship's power to pull them out and then the whole crew saw it. The captain froze and his mouth dropped open.
“No way…” he muttered.
His co-pilot looked over at him and she said, “I didn’t know a wormhole existed right near Mars. How did we not see this?”
She tried to not sound like she was panicking but Estella could hear it in her voice that she was definitely scared. That concerned the rest of them. Space was a wild place and we didn’t know that much about it even after all the years of space exploration. We did, however, know that there existed these things called wormholes. Holes that would lead to other dimensions? Perhaps. Take us back in time? Maybe… Another galaxy?... If we survived it. Then how would you get home from there?
Everyone had scurried in their seats to do their part in turning the ship back around and from out of the wormhole’s pull. Then came the crashing noises and the louder groans from the ship. It was as if it was gonna tear the space shuttle in half. Before they knew it, it was too late. The communication had started to get staticy and was cutting the other side out so they couldn’t hear them. The lights in the ship flickered more than they should have and then all went black.
Her thoughts flickered immediately to her family and friends back home. To the butterfly garden she made in her parents backyard. The ocean when she went surfing in the fall. Her fighter jet and the times when she flew. Her times at the Top Gun academy. College and bootcamp in the Navy. High School and middle school. The first time she went to kindergarten and when she was adopted by her parents. Puerto Rico. The place she was born and the poor village she lived in…. Everything was going backwards?
Estella felt sick to her stomach. She could feel the ship turn and roll as it was swallowed. The sounds of it roaring in her ears. Her body felt like it was being ripped in half. Her face numbed and she felt dizzy. She thinks she might have thrown up but her mind was hazed over.
So, this is death. She thought to herself as she blacked out.
************
He followed the ship all the way to the planet Tatooine and witnessed it going into flames and crashing into the ground.
He looked over at the now awoken child and sighed, “this does not look good.”
The child cooed as they slowly flew down about a few miles away from the crash site so that they could go and search for survivors. Although he was more curious about this than anything the Mandalorian had a gut feeling that this was going to change his life forever.
#the mandalorian#mandalorian x reader#original character#baby yoda#smut#strangers to lovers#friends to lovers
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Episode 9 - I’m My Own Girl
Returning from Tribal Council Russell ties his horse to the saloon and turns back toward his tribemates to say, “So, everyone voted for Todd but me?”
“That was the plan from the very beginning, Russell,” Kass reminds him. “I don’t know why you had to go trying to screw things up.”
“I’m not screwing anything up!”
“Clearly,” Kass smirks.
Russell storms off to the inn above the saloon. The rest of the tribe chuckles as he leaves.
Somewhere in the Mojave Desert, a kangaroo rat’s eyes glow as she scurries around.
The next morning, the tribe reads the tree mail. Colby clears his throat as the residents of their small ghost town gather round.
“gun,” Ben finishes.
When their shadows are their smallest, the Cheynne tribe finds Jeff behind the saloon. Painted on the wall is a silhouette of a cowboy on horseback. The horse is grey with the number one printed on it. The cowboy is black with the number two printed on it. The cowboy’s head is yellow with the number three. The tan hat is worth four points and the cowboy’s red heart is five. Jeff tells them they will split into two randomly selected teams. He places two six-shooters, one with a teal grip and one with an orange grip, on the wooden stand in front of the silhouette. “Each person has one shot at the cowboy and his horse. The team who scores highest, wins reward. A breakfast buffet with sausage and eggs and bacon, biscuits and gravy, pancakes and syrup and of course, beans.”
Everyone cheers, especially when the beans are mentioned. The team wearing teal is Russell, Wardog, Ken, Bi, and Ben. The team wearing orange is Michaela, Jerri, Colby, Kass, and Wendy. Lauren draws neither and sits out.
Russell fires first. He takes aim and hits the cowboy in the leg. A teal gel is left where the bullet strikes, giving them two points. Michaela takes the first shot for the orange team. Her orange bullet explodes on the cowboys head, giving them a 3-2 lead. Wardog takes a shot and hits between the horse’s legs and its chest, giving them zero points. It’s 3-2 as Jerri takes her shot and hits the cowboy’s chest. The score 5-2 as Ken takes a deep breath, steadies his arm, knowing exactly where he’s aiming, he fires and hits the hat, giving the teal team a 6-5 lead. Colby fires and just barely knicks the cowboy’s leg. The score is now 7-6. Ben lines up his shot and everyone gets quiet. He pulls the trigger and the bullet hits the edge of the cowboy’s heart, giving them five more points. The score is 11-7 when Kass takes her shot. She hits the cowboy in his ribs, giving them two more points. Wendy takes her shot and hits the cowboy in the leg, covering Russel’s shot. The score is 11-11. Bi picks up the gun, lines up her shot and asks Jeff, “What do I need to win?”
“One point.”
“Oh, easy.” She fires. Her bullet explodes in the exact center of the cowboy’s heart, winning reward for her team.
“But five will do,��� Jeff continues.
“Killher Bee!” Wardog yells as their team celebrates.
Somewhere in the Mojave Desert, a swallowtail floats through the dry air with grace.
The teal team find themselves at a long table set up in a small cave. A pile of pancakes wider than any one of them sits as a centerpiece within a mountain of scrambled eggs, sausage and bacon. A ring of biscuits lines the mountain. The peak of the mountain is decorated with deviled eggs, each dashed with just enough paprika to give the ensemble that pop of red any good Cave Breakfast requires. At the end of the long table is a plate of beans on a warmer. The five castaways take their seats. Russell looks over his compatriots, tucks his napkin into his collar and folds his hands in his lap before touching his food.
Wardog makes an argument against Kass again, but it doesn’t gain much traction. Then Russell speaks up, “I’m glad to have you all here. I’m sure you all know my game. And I’m sure you all know how well that’s done me. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since Brandon left. Who I am, who he thought I was, who I want to be. I am turning a new leaf. I am becoming a new man. I want to play an honest game.”
“So, what are you suggesting,” Bi asks.
“The five of us come together. Ken can bring in Lauren and then we have the upperhand for the rest of the game.”
“Who do you want to take out, Russell,” Ben asks.
“Wendy. She has proved to me time and time again, she is not trustworthy. I want to play a game based on trust. I know you two are close, Wardog, but you gotta think about your future in this game and Wendy ain’t it.”
“That works for me,” Bi says, licking deviled egg yolk from her thumb.
“Ken, can you get Lauren, Ken” Russell asks.
“Yeah, I think so,” he says.
“Ben?”
“I’m in,” he says.
“Wardog?”
“I hate to go against Wendy, but I’m in,” he admits.
Russell says in a talking head, “And they say Survivor’s hard.”
Somewhere in the Mojave Desert, a goldfinch sits atop a willow tree.
Back in town, Lauren, Kass, Michaela, Jerri, Colby, and Wendy sit around the fire and boil some beans.
“Do you guys want to talk about who to target,” Kass asks.
“Is anyone close with Bi,” Colby asks.
“I’d rather see Wardog go to be honest,” Lauren says, “I know he’s itching to make a move. He’s going to do something that blows up everyone’s game soon. I promise you.”
“I’m good with that,” Michaela says and everyone around the fire comes to an easy consensus.
Somewhere in the Mojave Desert, a scorpion hides between two rocks.
After the beans they considered lunch, Kass and Jerri wash dishes in the sink in the inn’s kitchen when Wendy and Lauren walk in. They sit at the rickety wooden table in the corner.
“So, you two are really on board with voting Wardog,” Jerri asks as she looks into the pot she’s drying.
“Absolutely,” Lauren says.
“I’ve wanted him out since I saw he was here,” Wendy says.
“I’m surprised you three don’t have some Edge of Extinction alliance,” Kass says while she rinses the dishes in the sink.
“No way,” Wendy assures her through a hiccup.
“Well, that’s good to hear,” Jerri says.
“What about your friend, Lauren,” Kass asks, passing a freshly cleaned bowl to Jerri to dry.
“We’re just friends. That’s it.”
Jerri turns around and raises a single eyebrow to Lauren then looks back to Kass. They share a snicker before returning to dishwashing.
“So, when are you gonna cut him loose,” Kass asks Lauren.
“Well, I think the four of us would be a strong final four, so I could use him up until five?”
“I think Final Five is a good time for the Ken & Barbie story to end.”
“He actually doesn’t like to be called that,” Lauren says.
“What,” Jerri says.
“Isn’t that his name,” Wendy asks.
“Yeah, no but like the barbie doll, he doesn’t like that.” Lauren explains.
“Okay,” Jerri says as she dries the last dish.
“Oh my god,” Lauren says in a talking head, “That was so stressful. I felt like a teenager bringing a boy home for the first time.”
Somewhere in the Mojave Desert, a cottontail rabbit hops up to and munches on a plant under a log.
The winning team returns to camp with enough leftovers for the rest of the tribe to eat for the day. Russell immediately finds Jerri and the two head to The Oasis for water.
“What’s going on,” Russell asks.
“We’re targeting Wardog.”
“Wardog? Why?”
“It’s what Lauren and Wendy wanted.”
“Hmm. Interesting,” Russell says, scratching his head.
“Who did you target?”
Russell looks up at her, apologizing with his eyes before mouthing, “Wendy.”
“No, why?!”
“It was the consensus.”
“Fuck,” she says, massaging her temples, “Okay. Fine.”
“Really, you’re fine with it?”
“Yeah, I mean, it’s a massive wrench in my plan, but it’s fine.”
“I thought you’d be more mad. Isn’t that your girl?”
“I’m Jerri Manthey,” she says with a grin, “I’m my own girl.”
Russell smiles a real big, proud smile back to her.
Somewhere in the Mojave Desert, the shadows of rocks grow and shrink as the sun rises and sets.
Michaela finds Ken in the inn. He’s laying down on a cot after a hard day of eating and chatting on the reward.
“How was the reward,” she asks.
“Oh, It was great,” he says, “Oh my god. I think I ate too much.”
“Where’s everyone’s head at?”
“Looks like Wendy’s the target. I’m supposed to get Lauren to come over to our side.”
“Cause y’all are shacking up?”
“Shacking up?”
“Or whatever you’re calling it.”
“We’re just friends.”
“Right. Sure. I know y’all are just waiting for the opportunity to take Ben out so you can get this room to yourselves.”
“I mean, it’s not our number one priority…”
“But...”
“It’s been brought up.”
“Ha! Y’all are nasty.”
Ken just shrugs his shoulders.
Somewhere in the Mojave Desert, a coyote howls as it crosses a path left by a roadrunner.
Wardog finds Lauren sitting with her horse at the fire just before the sunset. She holds the reins in her fist beside her.
“Hey, Lauren,” Wardog says as he sits next to her, “I gotta talk to you.”
“Yes, Wardog?”
“I know you me and Wendy were supposed to be working together but,”
“What did you do Wardog?”
“Wendy’s the target.”
“What? Since when?”
“Since the reward, we all got together and decided to vote Wendy because she’s untrustworthy.”
“What?”
“That’s what Russell said.”
“Why are you listening to Russell? You know who he is.”
“No, he said he’s turned a new leaf.”
“Wardog. Come on. Don’t be stupid.”
“So, who are you voting for?”
“Russell! Obviously,” Lauren says, rolling her eyes and looking back at the fire.
“Okay, okay, okay,” Wardog says as he runs the plan through his head.
Ken approaches on his horse and reaches a hand to Lauren, “m’lady,” he says as she takes his hand and climbs atop her horse. The two ride off as the sun descends and the sky turns from blue to orange to pink and violet. Far from ear shot, as the stars become visible, Lauren tells Ken, “I know we agreed to not talk about the game on these walks, but I have to tell you, I can’t vote for Wendy.”
“So, who are we targeting instead?”
“Wardog.”
“What’s Wardog ever done?”
“Nothing. That’s my point. He’s going to do something soon if someone doesn’t take him out.”
“What if he wins immunity.”
“Have you seen Wardog in challenges? He’s not winning immunity.”
Somewhere under the Mojave Night Sky, a ringtail cat stands alert.
The next morning, Colby rouses the tribe and gathers them around the fire to read them the day’s tree mail.
At high noon, Cheyenne rides their horses out to the challenge where they meet Jeff. He stands in front of 11 balance beams.
“For today’s challenge,” he explains, “each of you will stand on a beam while balancing a ball as it races around a ring. If your ball drops or you drop, you’re out. Last person standing wins immunity, and, as you have all informed me, has exclusive access to the immunity suite.”
He holds up the rusty old key and tucks it into a pocket inside the bandolier.
Everyone takes their place and begins spinning the ball. Once everyone finds their rhythm, Jeff announces the challenge has begun. Almost immediately, the ball clips Wardog’s finger and he falls off the beam. Michaela drops soon after, then Kass, then Ben, all within a few seconds of each other. Russell loses his rhythm for a moment but is able to gain it back for a few moments before succumbing to the sound of wood scraping against wood. Colby loses focus and drops his ball. Ken, Lauren, Bi, Wendy and Jerri remain. Ken’s ball increases in speed with each rotation. Next to him is Lauren, who instinctively matches his speed. It eventually becomes too fast for either of them to control and they drop out one right after the other. Jerri, Wendy and Bi remain. All three women have found a concentrated rhythm.
Jeff announces they must move to the next smallest section of the beam. Once they do, Jerri easily finds her rhythm again, followed by Wendy. Bi is unable to find her speed again and drops out. Jeff notices Russell grinning.
“What are you so happy about,” Jeff asks.
“It’s both my girls up there. I’m good either way.”
“You don’t think you’d be good if Bi won?”
“Let’s just say, I’m more good with one of them two winning. I know they got me.”
“That’s right, Russ,” Jerri says, not breaking her concentration, “We got you.”
Wendy loses her concentration after a high pitched tic, forcing her ball to the ground.
“Jerri wins immunity,” Jeff yells.
Jerri quickly drops her ball to check on Wendy. Wendy tells her she’s fine. Jerri kisses the top of her head and cuddles her under her shoulder.
In a talking head, Wardog says, “I gotta choose between Wendy and Russell. I’ve played with Wendy but that’s the past. I gotta worry about my own future. Wendy’s my past and Russell’s my future.”
After the challenge, everyone congratulates Jerri on her win as she hangs the bandolier over the bar in the saloon. At the bar, Colby, Ken and Jerri all take a seat. Jerri spins around, tips her hat back and asks in an exaggerated drawl, “What can I get y’all?”
“Y’all got any sarsaparilla,” Colby asks, mirroring her charm.
“Darn tootin we do!”
“What are you guys doing,” Michaela asks with disdain as she takes a seat next to Ken.
Jerri and Colby giggle together like teenagers while Jerri pours each of them a whiskey. As she passes each of them a tumblr of the brown stuff, she asks, “So, it’s Wardog tonight, yeah?”
“I don’t know, Jerri,” Michaela says, “I’ve thought about it a lot and I think we’re pissing off less people with Wendy.”
“But, who cares about Wardog?”
“It’s just not the time,” Ken says.
“We can take him out at any time,” Michaela assures her.
“Colby,” Jerri asks for support.
“I just don’t think it’s worth the effort to save her,” he says.
“Fine,” Jerri mutters.
She downs her drink and walks upstairs. In one of the bedrooms, Jerri finds Kass resting. Jerri falls back on the creaky mattress. Her greying brown curls fall over the pillow as she groans.
“They’re targeting Wendy,” she says with her face in her hands.
“Do they have the numbers?”
“I think so.”
“Well that really throws a wrench in our plan, huh?”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“What is Lauren thinking?”
“She doesn’t want to vote for Wendy.”
“You don’t have an idol for her?”
“No, I don’t...”
“Well, that is unfortunate.”
Somewhere in the Mojave Desert, a spider jumps over a crevice between two rocks as it builds its web.
As the sky takes on an orange hue, Ken and Lauren work on the fire when Jerri approaches them.
“Hey guys,” she says.
“What’s up Jerri,” Lauren says.
“Hey Jerri,” Ken says.
“So, you know it’s Wendy?”
“I heard.”
“You’re definitely voting for Wendy, Lauren?”
“I mean, what’s my vote for Wardog gonna do?”
Jerri gets up from the fire and wanders through the town until she finds Wendy doing the same.
“Wendy,” Jerri calls over.
“Jerri, hi.”
“Who are you voting for tonight?”
“Wardog, isn’t that the plan?”
“No, listen to me. Don’t waste your vote on Wardog, unless you want to. You have an opportunity to take out whoever you want in this game with your vote.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re gonna need to play your idol.”
“I don’t have an idol.”
“I know you do.”
“How do you know?”
“Because when I asked you if Hannah had an idol, your eyes darted around the same way they did just now. The votes are coming your way. All of them.”
“What do I do?”
“Play your idol. Take out whoever you want.”
“Whoever I want?”
“Whoever you want.”
Somewhere in the Mojave Desert, a leopard lizard rests on the side of a rock formation.
With the moon now lighting the desert town, the tribe rides out to Tribal Council. Jeff takes his usual seat at the head of fire while the remaining members of Cheyenne gather around. Todd and Elizabeth ride in on two gallant and gold akhal-tekes. The horses stand across from each other, as their riders preside over tribal council.
“Ben,” Jeff begins, “you mentioned at last tribal council, you felt there was a target on your back for having won before. Do you still feel that’s true?”
“Oh, yessir. Of course. I imagine there will always be a target on my back.”
“Do you agree, Michaela, will there always be a target on Ben’s back?”
“I don’t think so. If we take out Ben, then do we take out Colby and Russ next because they did the next best? Nah, you know that’s not how this game works.”
“Colby, do you feel targeted?”
“Well, sure. I’ve done well in Survivor, why shouldn’t I be considered a threat, but this game’s evolved. It’s so much more than building strong relationships with people. I don’t know that I can navigate this new advantage-heavy game.”
“Russell, how do you feel you fare in this next evolution of Survivor?”
“Well, clearly I’m still a threat or else Michaela wouldn’ta said my name!”
“I think at this point, Jeff,” Kass says, “It’s fair to say everyone’s a threat.”
“That’s the thing about Survivor,” Bi says, “Anyone can win.”
“Can anyone win, Survivor, Ken?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“Lauren, do you believe anyone can win Survivor?”
“With the right amount of tact and luck, I think anyone could win Survivor, yes.”
“Wendy, do you think you could win Survivor?”
“Oh, I really hope so, Jeff,” Wendy says with a smile wider than her cheeks should allow.
“Alright, with that, it is time to vote. Wardog, you’re up first.”
Wardog makes his way from the campfire into the cave and the voting booth inside. He holds up a begrudging vote for Wendy and just says, “Sorry.” Colby makes his vote. He’s seen writing a “W” before fading to Russell. He proudly writes Wendy’s name, holds it just over the urn, leans his elbows on the stand, and says, ”You never should have turned your back on me.”
Wendy makes her way to the voting booth and contemplates her vote for a good while. Jeff turns around and peers into the cave after a few minutes to see Wendy briskly walking back to her seat.
“I’ll go tally the votes.” Jeff walks into the cave and returns with the urn full of votes. He sets it upon the rock he’s stood behind and says, “If anyone has a hidden immunity idol and you would like to play it, now is the time to do so.”
Wendy looks over at Jerri who’s staring back with her eyebrows raised as high as they’ll go.
“Jeff,” Wendy exclaims, getting up from her seat. She reaches into her bag and pulls out her gold nugget of an immunity idol. “During the challenge, Russell said that me and Jerri were his girls and I just wanted to tell him,” she turns to Russell before handing the idol to Jeff, “I’m my own girl.” She turns back to Jeff, “I’m playing this for myself.”
Wendy returns to her seat, looks to a beaming Jerri, then to Russell, who’s winning a staring contest with the sand.
Jeff tells them, “This is a hidden immunity idol. Any votes cast for Wendy will not count. First vote: Wendy. Will not count.”
“Wendy. Will not count. Wendy. Will not count. Wendy. Will not count. Wendy. Will not count. Wendy. Will not count. Wendy. Will not count. Wendy. Will not count. Wendy. Will not count. Wendy. Will not count. Tenth person voted out of Survivor: Wild West and third member of our Jury... Russell.”
The jury and the rest of Cheyenne gasp. Jerri reaches over to Wendy and rubs her shoulder. Wendy smiles a humble, quietly proud smile. Russell grabs his torch, shaking his head, and makes his way to Jeff. His torch is snuffed and he walks away into the night with his small grey horse following close behind him. Jeff gets back on his clydesdale and rides off with Elizabeth and Todd.
“Player got played,” Russell says in his final talking head, “Gotta give her that. I ain’t mad. Great job, Wendy Girl.”
Read Episode 10 here
#survivor#survivor wild west#wild west#jerri manthey#russell hantz#wendy diaz#michaela bradshaw#colby donaldson#kass mcquillen#bi nguyen#wardof#Lauren O'Connell#ken mcnickle#Ben Driebergen
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fulcrum makes candy
i havent be able to work on any of my fics bcos i’ve been busy (and terribly unmotivated lately) but! i thought i’d post a wip since it reads as mostly finished so far.
(artistic licence for science stuff btw. i’m basically writing what should be chemistry as confectionery lmao.)
It all started when Crankcase told him about meeting up with CONS4EVA again.
Or Symbols, rather. The dimension-hopping Dire Wraith figured that a Cybertronian translation of his name would be a smidge less awkward than using his TBC handle or a mispronounced, synthesized version of his actual name. It sounded about the same to him with the universal translator, so no big deal. Crankcase still tried to say his real name right anyway.
Regardless. The point was--Fulcrum needed to make more energon goodies. The last batch had unfortunately been thrown in Symbols' face when the Dire Wraith was disguised as Thunderwing, so it was imperative to try again. He also ate all the good ones last time, which, note to self: don't do that, Fulcrum.
He almost forgot to ask, actually, if Symbols was even capable of eating the sweets. The answer had been yes, maybe. The Dire Wraith could
\consume/ energon, but whether or not it'd taste any good or if it would all end up regurgitated on the floor was a mystery. Still! Fulcrum needed any excuse he could get to make goodies.
The pressure of being around so many Autobots was starting to get to him, a little. His proximity alerts kept popping up, all the time, because none of these people had any sense of personal space. Plus, do you have any idea how many times he had to frantically re-label someone from [enemy] to [ally]? It was a lot! His drop on Clemency might not have killed him, but it certainly didn't do him any good. He had to do all that manually, now. It was stressful, okay?
And Fulcrum liked to stress-bake. When he \could/, anyway. It was certainly better than some of his \other/ coping methods. But there usually wasn't enough energon on the WAP to go around making candy, so it had been saved for the particularly bad nervous breakdowns or for special occasions, like successfully escaping mortal danger or Crankcase going on a date.
Thankfully, the Lost Light seemed to have plenty of fuel for both itself and its passengers, which was beyond nice. Fulcrum had reluctantly gotten used to the whole siphoning and cannibalising thing while living as a Scavenger, but boy was it good to be back to consuming real energon. He might actually be able to make more than just plain gelled energon cubes! But since he didn't \actually/ know if Symbols could enjoy the treats, he'd keep it simple... This time.
The hard part was getting the equipment to make candy in the first place. He didn't know if there was a kitchen area on the Lost Light, but even if there was, he didn't really want to make candy around other people. He knew, from experience, that it was a bad idea. But the anxiety of asking someone for materials left him paralysed, and he almost gave up on the goodies entirely if it wasn't for Krok.
The mech, Primus bless his spark, had gone to ask the command staff in his stead, and surely enough, Krok arrived in Fulcrum's room arms full of everything the K-Con needed and more, in both equipment and ingredients.
"The captain got real excited when he heard that someone was thinking of making sweets," he said, with smiling optics, "A lot of these weren't even on your list."
And so, Fulcrum got started.
Cooking might seem a little daunting for the average Cybertronian. Energon had a reputation of being volatile, to an almost comical level. Heat it up a bit too much, and it just might explode. Every element had their own distinct flavour that changed wildly based on their interactions with other substances, and it was impossible to memorise them all! Or so it seemed. But in reality, it wasn't so difficult. At least to him it wasn't.
For a mech with absolutely no background in chemistry or metallurgy, Fulcrum took to the culinary arts very well. While he might not fully understand the hows and the whys of chemical reactions, he definitely knew what was delicious and what wasn't.
The first step was making the flavouring. Energon itself, in its processed liquid form, was virtually tasteless, so this was important. Adding simple ingredients like copper shavings, which had a tangy, sour taste to it and chromium flakes, which was just plain sweet, was the most basic form of food preparation.
Just dumping metal into energon felt a bit amateurish to Fulcrum, though. He wanted the goodies to have a consistent look and taste to them, like they were professionally made.
So, the little metal flakes--he went with copper, cobalt (tart, with a subtle sweetness), iron (bittersweet and kinda savoury) and cadmium (mildly sweet and rich, his personal favourite)--were finely ground into a powder alongside pigments to add variety to the colour palette. He didn't want everything to be bright neon pink. One had to differentiate between the flavours somehow. Plus, the pigments themselves could also add to the taste, depending on what you chose. Unless you bought those tasteless food dyes, but those are for cowards, and in the kitchen, Fulcrum was not one.
Cadmium sulfide, for example, worked as a yellow dye, but gave the energon a certain acidic sharpness that wasn't there before, thanks to the sulfur. Cadmium \selenide/, on the other hand, was a deep red pigment that went beyond sharp and turned it into full-blown spicy. But Fulcrum was supposed to be making sweet treats here. So instead, he paired the cadmium shavings with chrome yellow, or lead chromate, to enhance the sweetness of the pure cadmium.
The cobalt and iron powders were simple, matched with cobalt aluminate (blue) and iron oxide (red). Classic choices, though he had to be careful with the latter, because it could very easily start tasting like actual rust, which was simply disgusting. He \could/ use the mercury-based vermillion instead, which was also savoury, but again, Fulcrum was not a coward. In candy-making, anyway.
The last one, however, he always had to have a whole internal debate over. Copper-based pigments tended towards greens and blues, but that wasn't really what people thought of, now was it? He could use gold ochre, but the iron-based pigment didn't really mesh well with copper, in \his/ opinion. He could mix a cadmium orange, but, again, he didn't want his candy to be spicy.
In the end, he just went with the basic green copper carbonate.
Alright! With that done, it was time to work on the energon itself.
In a large pot, Fulcrum gently heated the liquid fuel up, slowly pouring in a gelling agent that he had warmed up earlier. Under normal circumstances, regular processed energon did not solidify. To do so, you'd have to freeze it or leave it out for \way/ too long, letting it congeal, which was gross. (Looking at you, Misfire.) The gelling agent would let the fuel cool into a nice firm slab of jelly.
He then added one and a half cups of crushed lead acetate, stirring constantly to dissolve the sweetener in the energon until no particles were left in the semi-opaque pink liquid. It had also gotten lighter, light enough that the dyes wouldn't end up mixing into really ugly colours.
When the mixture started to bubble the tiniest little bit, Fulcrum took the pot off the heat, pouring the fuel into four bowls, one for each flavour, that he then mixed with the corresponding pigment. Red iron, blue cobalt, green copper and yellow cadmium.
The jelly would need a flat plane to cool on, of course. When Fulcrum went to grab a tray though, he noticed that he'd also been provided with plastic molds. Someone else must've been into cooking, then. He wondered who it could be, maybe they could share tips or something.
The molds were pretty basic shapes, like stars and circles, but it was nice of them to have given him this, whoever it was. He should use them then. If he poured the blue cobalt into the circle ones, it could look like little sparks... which was a really cute idea.
...He did it. Of course he did.
Blue sparks, yellow stars, red cyberkittens and green raindrops. It was almost unbearably adorable.
The leftover fuel was poured onto the same tray, creating some neat rainbow gradients. They were pretty to look at but to be honest, he had no idea how those parts would taste. Welp! Who cares!
Fulcrum stretched.
That was the hard part done. He put all of the filled up casts inside his room's mini-fridge. A few hours and they'll be solid. At that point, he'd have to take them out of the molds and cut the leftover ones into little cubes. Then after \that/, he'd have to leave them out to dry overnight so the goodies could form their crisp exterior, while also exercising enough self-restraint to not surreptitiously pop one into his mouth.
Oof. Forget what he said, the hard part hasn't been done yet, actually.
Still. This meant that he had time to take a break.
#transformers#maccadam#fulcrum#fanfiction#long post#i thought i might pull up one of my fics and work on it but. i have Zero motivation today ha ha..#this has been sitting on my laptop for a while#maybe if i ever finish it i'll post it to ao3
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The Steps in Finding Love; Patience
Title: The Steps in Finding Love; Patience
Word Count: 7.2k+
Rating: T with eventual M
Genre: Realistic fiction, slice of life, drama, fluff with eventual smut
Warnings: Smoking, Established member x member relationship, angst that heals, bad made up makeup names and references, mentions of bad past relationships, a supportive yet sassy maknae line. This is part two of a four part series.
Pairings: Female Reader x BTS members, Jimin x Jungkook (Jikook)
Summary: “Mama said the next step was always the worse for the women in our family, and that step, was patience.”
1, 2, 3 (coming August 9th)
Tonight was the night. Tonight was the launch of the Cake palette you and your team worked tirelessly for, for months. You worked through the pain of your breakup until you passed out from exhaustion, filling the painful and broken void of your heart with the struggles and stress of work. You worked yourself to the bone up until tonight, making sure everything was in place for the party and informing security that Kim Seokjin was removed from the guest list and shouldn’t be allowed entry under any circumstances. Eventually Taehyung’s words started to make sense to you: you felt enlightened now that you’ve experienced a real heartbreak. The amount of tears that you cried grew less and less with each passing hour and day of work until you couldn’t come up with a logical reason to cry anymore. And the pain? Well, most of it was gone. But then again, no one ever really gets over the pain of their first real heartbreak, do they? Now here you were with your three friends in Jimin’s and Jungkook’s apartment, getting ready for the night of celebration.
“Babe, you need to chill.” Taehyung pursed his lips at you, bopping the eyeshadow brush he held against your nose. “I’m gonna ruin your makeup if you keep shaking like that.”
“Sorry Tae,” you said absentmindedly, playing with the hem of your bright turquoise dress. “I’m just nervous.”
“About the party or about you-know-who?” Jungkook asked from across the room, carefully applying Jimin’s eyeliner. He smiled and clicked his tongue when he was done, holding up a mirror to show Jimin his work.
“Beautiful as always Kookie.” Jimin smiled, straightening out his husband’s tie before moving to sit next to you.
He held your hand, and the warm gesture made you relax enough to allow Taehyung to finish applying your bright white eyeshadow, the shade you dubbed ‘Bavarian Cream’.
“Y/N. It’s been three months honey. If Seokjin was going to try something he would’ve done it by now.” Jimin tried to calm your nerves.
“Yeah, I’m surprised he didn’t pull our distributor out from under us.” Jungkook chuckled, touching up his smoky eye look.
“Seokjin may be a jerk, but he isn’t as low as to destroy our business. He believed in us, believed in me.” you felt tears well-up in your eyes from the fond recollection and before they could fall Jimin and Taehyung were on you in an instant.
“Nuh-uh babe, no tears tonight. This is a happy night! And if you cry you’re gonna ruin your look.” Taehyung fussed, placing a tissue under your eyes to catch the stray tears.
“Oh honey. You’re too good for that asshole. I know you loved him, but you’re so much better than he is.” Jimin kissed your knuckles in reassurance. “Prove that bitch wrong, Y/N. When he sees pictures of tonight’s launch he’s going to be wishing he never cheated on you.” you laughed at Jimin’s exuberance, nodding your head at him.
“You’re a motherfucking woman, you don’t need an ass like Kim Seokjin to make you happy! He’s not worth your tears or your time. He’s just a scrub compared to you; a self-made, independent business woman who don’t need no man.” Jimin snapped his fingers at you, making a new wave of giggles expel from your lips.
“You’re right Jiminie. I’m gonna prove him wrong.” you spoke with a newfound confidence the boys haven’t heard you have since the breakup, and they all smiled at each other.
“That’s my girl.” Jimin squeezed you hand in determination. “Now, let Tae finish you up so we can leave and celebrate!” Jimin cheered, allowing his husband to place a kiss on his colored lips. You smiled at the boys, turning back to Taehyung with confidence in your eyes.
“Make me look like a bad bitch, Tae.” he giggled at your words, giving you a boxy grin.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do girl!”
You chuckled as Taehyung finished up your eyes, and you made funny faces at him when he put on your highlighter and blush (”Only the best of the V line for you, my dear”). You looked at each of your boys and pride swelled in your chest at how far you all have come. They all looked radiant.
Jungkook was the simplest of the group; his brown hair was quaffed and his foundation was basic, but his eyes were dark and smoky with underlying sins and promises, and his suit was form fitting with a black tie to match. Jimin was pristine. His eyes were in the deep matte purple of the famous ‘Mixed Berry’ color from Cake, his eyeliner was a rich blue that came from his own collection and his mouth held a nude lip color that he was touching up from the kiss he shared. He wore all white, drawing more attention to his eyes and freshly bleached-blonde hair. And Taehyung? He was absolutely gorgeous. His eyes reflected that of a sunset: the reds, oranges, and yellows from all your palettes blended in to create a cacophony of color that matched beautifully with his red hair. His full bodysuit was red as well, and even though it was a women’s cut, Taehyung’s curves and ass filled it out perfectly. His custom made six-inch heels from Gucci were drool-worthy, made with red velvet material so that he “Could walk the red carpet all the time”. His lips were thick and blood red from Jungkook’s Devil line, and you prayed for Taehyung’s boys for when he returns home that night, because god damn if you didn’t jump your friend, you knew his boys would.
“And…there! The most beautiful one of us all, is complete.” Taehyung flourished, turning you around to meet the gaze of Jimin and Jungkook.
Your eyes were white with glitter and a sparkling liner to boot, shining wonderfully against your bright turquoise dress. The dress was low cut, revealing the skin of your chest and thighs in the most seductive way. Your lashes were long and luscious and your cheeks glowed under the lights of the apartment. Your lips looked divine, the tint of pink Taehyung applied made your lips look natural, yet enticing to the eye. And when you stood and toed on your sparkling Betsey Johnson heels, you suddenly became as tall as Taehyung, spinning around to give the boys a complete 360 view. Jimin ‘ooo’ed and Jungkook whistled low in his throat.
“If I wasn’t gay I would be all over you Y/N.” Jimin said in awe, gently running his fingers over your cheek. “Taehyung, you did an astonishing job. Your technique is superb with the winged shapes.”
As Taehyung giggled and thanked the eldest of the group you felt a pair of arms wrap around your waist, and you knew it was Jungkook when he chuckled behind you, his hands splaying around your hips.
“Well, I’m not completely gay, so I have every right to hang off of my incredibly gorgeous friend.” You saw Jimin purse his lips at the man behind you and Jungkook whined softly. “Oh c’mon Jiminie, can’t we whisk her off into bliss for one night? They always say that two is better than one.” he teased. You rolled your eyes and removed yourself from his hold.
“I already told you Kookie, I’m not indulging you in your threesome fantasy.” you laughed as he pouted, crossing his arms like a child would.
“But why not?” he whined. Jimin sighed and linked his arm with Jungkook’s, a coy smile playing on his face.
“Because she doesn’t want to Kookie. You’ll just have to deal with me, your loving husband.” Jimin teased, pressing numerous kisses into Jungkook’s pouty cheeks.
“Children,” Taehyung sighed fondly, linking your arm with his. “Now c’mon, or we’re going to be late for our own event!” Taehyung guided you out the door and you couldn’t help but giggle at Jungkook who whined behind you,
“Oh, so he can hang off Y/N but I can’t?! Totally unfair.”
~*~
“What kind of sick game is he trying to play!?” you yelled in frustration, causing numerous heads to turn towards you. Jungkook chuckled nervously at your outlandish display, guiding you towards the empty bar and away from the public eye.
“Get her a drink, anything, please.” Jungkook turned towards the bartender as you groaned in frustration.
The launch had been going smoothly. Everyone adored the palette, the media attention was great, and you and your boys were having a blast. But right in the middle of it all, when you were talking to the executives of Jancôme, your phone went off. Normally you would ignore notifications during events like this, especially one you worked so hard for, but it was Seokjin. It was Seokjin and you couldn’t help but excuse yourself from the conversation to peer at the Tweet he posted. Jungkook followed in confusion, asking you why you left so abruptly when you exploded, leaving him to guide you to where you were now.
“I can’t believe the nerve of this guy,” you huffed as the bartender brought you a glass of wine. You quickly chugged it down and asked for another before turning on Jungkook. “Look at this!” you slid your phone to him.
The main part of the Tweet was a picture of the four of you in front of the Cake palette display, right next to the actual cupcake display that the owners of your favorite cake ship in Seoul catered for the event. You all were smiling as the owners of the cake shop held cupcakes in their hands, the four of you holding the palettes like you didn’t have a care in the world.
“‘I’m so proud of @BeauVCosmetics for releasing their new #CakePalette, it looks good enough to eat! Almost as good looking as @y/n_l/n007 does in that beautiful dress, own it BeauV Team!’“ you read out loud to Jungkook, shaking your head in disbelief.
“Who does he think he’s fooling, trying to play it off as if we’re friends I mean c’mon! He’s just trying to get a share of the limelight we’ve taken from him and his Bloodlust line.” you shook your head, gripping your second glass of wine hard enough that your knuckles turned white. Jungkook chuckled nervously beside you, awkwardly patting your shoulder in some semblance of comfort.
“Maybe he really is just trying to be supportive? I mean you said earlier that he believed in us and our business?” Jungkook tried to reason with you. You huffed, standing and grabbing your wine.
“I need some air.” and with that you left him, ignoring Jungkook’s calls of your name and to wait.
You took the elevator up three floors to the rooftop lounge, and once you were out in the open air you allowed yourself to scream in frustration, running a hand through your styled hair as you kicked off your heels. You took a deep breath, looking up at the open sky as you tried to calm the rising anger you felt. But no matter how many times you took deep breaths and counted the stars, you still felt angry. The rooftop was pretty, with lounge chairs and low lighted lanterns in the planter boxes of flowers and small shrubs, but your eyes traveled to the hot tub in the back corner. You marched over to the edge of the hot tub, sticking your feet in the searing water with a shiver as you took a sip of wine.
“I’d give that scream a solid eight.”
You jumped at the sound of another voice, placing your hand over your heart when you realized you weren’t alone. There was a man standing a good couple of feet away from you, leaning against the railing of the roof, and with the low lighting and nighttime sky around you, you couldn’t make out any of his features. How had you not noticed him before?
“You gave me a fright. I’m so sorry for screaming.” you chuckled, splashing the water around you with your right foot.
“It sounded like you needed it.” he admitted, moving closer towards you as the low lighting began to illuminate his features.
The man was good looking, extremely so. He wasn’t the traditional kind of handsome like Seokjin was, but he had is own unique charm about him. His cat-like eyes were piercing and when laced with the light, you could clearly read the nonchalant attitude they held. His lips curled up to his left cheek in a half-sided smirk as he sauntered towards you, plopping himself down next to you on the edge of the hot tub with his back facing the water. He tilted his head in your direction, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he offered, his gaze never leaving yours.
“It’s silly, really.” you admitted, staring into your glass of wine as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. You heard him chuckle next to you.
“Do you mind?” he asked, his long fingers wrapped around a pack of smokes. He raised his brows as you looked at the package, gently taking his lower lip between his teeth as he waited for your response.
“Go ahead,” you said. You watched as he put one between his lips, flicking the old zippo lighter he had until the tip of the cig burned bright amber. He puffed out a breath of smoke and looked up at the sky, his eyes wandering over the light of the stars.
“Whenever you want to talk, I’m ready to listen,” he smirked, bringing his attention back on you. “And I know you want to. I can see it behind the hesitation in your eyes.”
Your mouth fell in a gape when you turned to look at him. The man didn’t seem to care though, puffing at his cigarette in content as he looked back up at the sky. You pursed your lips as you mulled over your thoughts, idly kicking at the water. You had already embarrassed yourself in front of this man when you screamed, why not indulge him even further?
“It’s my ex.” you started and the man next to you snorted.
“It always is,” he said through a stream of smoke.
“He cheated on me with some random chick and we broke it off on bad terms. He hurt me and broke my heart when I was in a growing phase in my life and I’m just now getting over him. But then he tries to act like we’re close on social media, complementing me and my team like he cares about us or some shit. It’s fucking pathetic.” the man hummed softly, tapping his foot as he pondered his next words.
“Seems to me like you really cared about him.” you could tell this stranger chose his words carefully and you sighed in defeat, downing the rest of the wine in your glass for liquid courage so you could tell him the truth.
“I did. He believed in me, believed in us, before we were large. He was the one that got us our connections, our distributors, without him our business would be nothing. Without him, I wouldn’t know what pain truly felt like.” you admitted softly, blinking away your tears before the stranger could see you break. Silence greeted you for a few moments, and all you could focus on was the man’s puffs and the bubbling from the hot tub.
“Seems like you’re at an internal war with yourself. On one hand, you thank him for your success, but on the other hand he hurt you beyond the point of repair. You’re not really angry at him for putting on a façade for social media. Are you?” he questioned.
“No,” you sighed. “I’m not mad about that, not really.”
“You’re upset because you feel like he’s playing you, right? Using you for his advantage and knowing he’s over you even though you’re not over him.” the stranger sighed, dragging the nub of his cig across the titles of the hot tub to put it out.
“How do you know all this?” you couldn’t help but ask. The stranger laughed through his nose, looking over at you with a sad smile as the corners of his eyes turned up.
“Because I’ve been there before.” he simply said, chuckling as he pushed himself off the hot tub. “But you know what princess? Things get better. You live, you learn, and you heal eventually. Patience is but a virtue and you have to have a lot of it to heal a broken heart completely.” he held his hand out to you, helping you out of the hot tub with a surprising gentleness. He didn’t let go of your hand as he walked you to your shoes, bending down to pick them up and hand them to you.
“These aren’t my style, but y’know what they say. Every princess needs the perfect pair of shoes. Whether they are heels or Converse, it doesn’t really matter,” he knelt down, taking your foot in his hand as he slid on one shoe, than another. He stood up, grabbing your hands as a smirk laced through his lips when he saw that you towered over him. “As long as they have the perfect fit.”
This man’s words were disarming; you never met someone who spoke as eloquently as he did. And his smile was something else, reserved but open at the same time. He intrigued you in the best of ways and you wanted nothing more than to just sit and talk with him for hours.
“Who are you?”
The man opened his mouth to speak but before he could, the elevator dinged open and out rushed Taehyung, his heels clicking against the ground. You both turned to look at him and when he saw you two his eyes widened, his lips falling open in a soft gasp. You followed his eyes to where yours and the strangers hands were linked, quickly dropping them down to your sides.
“Y/N.” Taehyung broke the silence, moving towards you in swift steps. “We were worried sick. Jungkook came running up to us, saying you stormed off and we couldn’t find you anywhere-”
“Taehyung,” the stranger cut him off. “Y/N’s fine, she’s been up here with me. She just needed to vent for a little bit, isn’t that right?” the stranger playfully nudged your side
“Wait, wait, hold up. You two know each other?” you asked Taehyung, your eyes darting between the two men.
“Y/N, this is Yoongi-hyung, my plus one.”
“Taehyung invited me because he said I needed social interaction,” Yoongi smirked, looking up at his lavish friend. “And much to all our shock I did in fact engage in conversation, even though it wasn’t in the setting you expected, huh Tae?”
“I’ll admit I am surprised hyung. I’m proud of you.” Taehyung smiled, patting his friend on the back. “But c’mon back downstairs you two, the party is still alive and well and people are still dying to chat with you Y/N.” Taehyung grabbed yours and Yoongi’s hands, dragging you into the elevator much to both of your dismays.
“So how did you two…?” your thought trailed off, wondering how two contrasting men ever came to be friends.
“Meet?” Yoongi chuckled. “At an art gallery in Daegu. Taehyung found me and he was utterly enamored.”
“Hyung,” Taehyung whined. “Don’t say it so lamely. When I heard Yoongi’s music, I knew that we had to be friends. I couldn’t just let raw talent like that walk away from me!”
“I made the music for the event,” Yoongi explained, noticing your confused look. The elevator opened back out into the party and Yoongi clapped his hands together.
“As much as I enjoyed this, I really should be on my way to the other guests. I enjoyed myself tonight Y/N, hopefully we’ll meet again.” he left you and Tae with a parting smile and a flick of his wrist, escaping into the throngs of people. You chuckled, stepping off the elevator with Taehyung, shaking your head.
“Oh, I know that look.” Taehyung frowned, his eyes squinting at the expression he saw in your face.
“Don’t worry about it Tae.”
Taehyung sighed when you went back out into the crowd, shaking his head in disbelief before immersing himself into the talk of makeup and brand deals.
~*~
Yoongi idly walked through the art exhibition, cigarette between his fingers as he examined the pieces with mild interest. The art gallery was in an outside hotel plaza, fairy lights adorned the trees as Yoongi’s jazz compositions flew through the open air, embracing the guests in the warm comfort that only pianos and saxophones could bring. He hummed along softly to the wordless music as he wandered, coming to stop at a piece depicting an alien world in some nameless galaxy. He chuckled, his eyes never wavering from the painting as he shook his head.
“Y/N?” he called, “Come out from hiding, I know you’re there.”
You cursed under your breath, coming out of the shadows to stand next to Yoongi.
“How’d you know I was here?”
“I guess you could call it a seventh sense,” he told you, sending you a half-sided smirk as he took a drag. “How’d you know I’d be here?”
“Taehyung told me you would. He said you always compose for Art Walk.”
“For good reason. They fund local artists, showcase their work to potential clients. It’s a good organization and event.” Yoongi deliberated, flicking some ash away into the open air. You both stood there in silence for a few minutes, staring at the painting before Yoongi flicked his spent cigarette to the ground, crushing it beneath his foot for good measure.
“Come walk with me.” he told you, turning to stroll through the rest of the gallery. You followed him, idly looking at the various displays with little interest.
“So, why’re you here?” Yoongi asked.
“Can’t I just be here to support local artists?” you defended, making the man next to you chuckle.
“I would’ve believed that if you weren’t hiding behind those trees.”
“Okay, fine, I just really wanted to talk with you again.” you admitted with blush on your cheeks.
“Y’know, most people would just call and ask for a date right?” Yoongi smirked when he saw you sputter, his eyes growing soft when your blush grew.
“W-Who said I wanted to go on a date with you?! Maybe I just wanted to see you in a merely platonic way.” you stuttered. Yoongi hummed, looking at you with a small smile on his face.
“Right.”
You two continued walking through the plaza, thanking god you chose to wear flats to this event instead of heels. Without the added height from your shoes, you were almost level with Yoongi, give or take a couple of inches that his dress shoes gave him. He looked handsome under the soft glow of the lights, his dark hair shining and his all black attire made him look mysterious and provocative. Sure it was just black jeans, a button-up, and a leather jacket, but he made the simple clothing look great. He had in silver earrings, noting that he didn’t have them in at your launch. Could he have been insecure about them enough to take them out as to not make the wrong impression in front of potential clients? You knew Jimin and Jungkook did the same thing (Taehyung, honestly, couldn’t give two fucks about it and kept his earrings in always) but you would’ve thought Yoongi wouldn’t care about trivial things like that.
“Have you been to the music plaza yet?” Yoongi asked you suddenly, making you jump slightly at the sound of his voice.
“No, I haven’t.” you admitted.
“Would you like to?” he asked, holding his hand out to you. You glanced between his face and his hand for a few seconds too long before Yoongi rolled his eyes. “Fine, don’t hold my hand then.” he teased, dropping his hand back to his side as he walked away.
You scurried after him, hearing his soft chuckle when you laced your fingers with his. His hand was calloused, but smooth and oh so warm as his long fingers loosely gripped your own. Yoongi began to swing your hands lightly as he guided you out of the art gallery and down the block towards where the bands were playing. He squeezed your hand gently, looking over at you expectantly.
“So, what’re you in the mood for?”
“Hmm,” you pondered your next move carefully. You didn’t know what kind of music Yoongi liked, all you knew was that he made soft jazz. And THAT didn’t help much considering the fact you couldn’t hear any brass elements in the air that made up jazz.
“Can we wander? Stop at something we both like?” you suggested. Yoongi gave you a nod, before taking you along the avenues of music. Everyone was good, and everyone was talented. Different genres rang through your ears the more you walked and nothing really caught your attention, until you made it down the end of the street. You gripped Yoongi’s hand a little tighter, making him stop in his stroll.
“I didn’t take you as a soft rock fan.” Yoongi chuckled, guiding you closer towards the stage. There were four or five couples slow dancing to the sounds of electric guitar and pounding drums, the tempo slow and steady. The singer’s raspy voice made your heart pound in anticipation as you looked at Yoongi. Would he allow you to slow dance with him and savor the music? Yoongi hummed along to the melody, gently letting go of your hand. You almost whined in protest.
“Now don’t pout,” Yoongi smirked, his eyes light and full of mischief. “Otherwise I may take back my thoughts of asking you for a dance.”
Yoongi’s smirked turned into a full smile when you blushed, taking a step closer to him. Yoongi’s hands guided your arms to drape around his neck, his own wrapping loosely around your waist as he led you in a slow shuffle. You both swayed to music as you turned in slow circles. You noticed Yoongi’s eyes never left your face, even as yours shifted focus from him, to the band, and down to your feet, his eyes were steady like the music.
“What’re you staring at?” you couldn’t help but ask.
“You,” Yoongi’s voice was soft and endearing, and his bluntness made you part your lips in shock. “Aren’t you supposed to look at your partner when you dance?” Yoongi countered back snidely. You had no comeback for that, so instead you just laid your head down onto Yoongi’s shoulder as you moved.
“So, how’s the business?”
“Going strong, we’re taking a break before we start coming up with more products. We want the Cake hype to die down then wait a couple months before trying to come up with new products.” you spoke softly and Yoongi pulled you closer, whether it was to just hear you better or create more contact you didn’t know, but you liked it.
“And the ex drama?” Yoongi asked. You scoffed, shaking your head into the leather of his jacket.
“Over it. It was silly and he hasn’t done anything since.”
“That’s good to hear. You’re too strong to be hung up over an idiot like that.”
Yoongi’s words made you smile, and you finished the slow dance in silence, clapping and leaving a tip for the band as they packed up their equipment. Yoongi walked you back to your car, making you laugh and making you smile, making you intrigued to want to know more. To know more about him, what he does, what his passions were. You knew you made the right choice when you asked for his number, because the smile he gave you was one like no other as he punched it into your phone. You knew Yoongi was something else, because the only other smile you’ve seen that radiant was from Taehyung, and you wanted to make it appear over and over again.
~*~
Days turned into weeks, and the time you spent with Yoongi increased with each day that passed you by. The more you both talked, the more you both laughed, the more you realized you had some sort of feelings for the man. You didn’t know if it was love, but whatever it was, it was there, and it was growing, and it was so much better than anything you felt with Kim Seokjin. Seokjin was seductive and Seokjin was society’s standard of perfect. But Yoongi? Yoongi was provocative, not in the way he acted, but the way he spoke. His words never failed to make you breathless as your mind pondered over his thoughts. Yoongi was ragged around the edges, but he was beautiful in the way he spoke, the way he acted, in the way his eyes would flicker with sparks when speaking passionately and in the way he really smiled, a thing you’ve seen more as time went on.
And his music was just like him. You couldn’t remember how many times Yoongi asked you to listen to his music, new and old alike to get your opinion. You didn’t realize the extent of his passion and work, originally thinking all he did was instrumental pieces. Oh, was that far from the truth. He rapped, his way with words making memorable compositions that you begged him to let you download for your personal use. He also produced music for others; some fellow rappers and some singers. The variety of music though, is what surprised you the most. Whether it was classical or jazz or rock or rap, Yoongi always added his own flair of life into the music with hip hop undertones and beats you could always count out when listening to the song.
That’s what you were doing tonight. And as you sat on his bed, waiting for him to start the song, you noticed the hesitation in his eyes.
“You alright Yoongi?” he sighed at the sound of your voice, turning to look at you with a solemn expression, as if he was about to confess his sins to you.
“I want to listen to this song with earbuds this time.” he said, laying down on his side of the bed as he plugged the buds into his phone. This was unusual for him, he always played his songs from his laptop with the speakers on his desk.
“Is there any reason why?” you probed.
“This song…is very dear to me,” he explained. “I wrote it when I was in a very dark place, when my ex broke up with me. I’ve never shared it with anyone before, besides the woman that sings it for me. But I want you to hear it. Because I trust you, Y/N.” he confessed.
“Yoongi-”
“I’m sure I want to do this.” Yoongi stole the words right out of your mouth, the corners of his lips turning upwards at your shock. “You’ve been asking why I act the way I do and speak the way I speak. Well, this explains it all. So come, lay with me.” he patted the open space with one hand, the other offering you the other earbud.
You sighed and laid yourself down next to Yoongi on his bed and allowed the music to consume your entire focus. The bass reminded you of a heartbeat as the vocalist sang behind it; her voice powerful and strong. Soft electronic undertones and piano joined the composition, and your ears felt light as the lyrics dug deep into your heart and rooted themselves in with no intention of coming out. You listened carefully to Yoongi’s words and the emotion he had laced into them. Your eyes welled with tears as the song went on and you tried to blink them away, but Yoongi reached out for your hand, meeting your gaze in dim light of his room. His eyes were dark and stormy and matched the lyrics of the songs perfectly. He shook his head, and with that you allowed the tears to roll freely down your cheeks, squeezing his hand back as the song ended. You both laid together in silence, holding each other’s hands as if they were your lifelines to the real world.
“You were really hurt.” you stated softly, looking into Yoongi’s soulless eyes. He hummed in acknowledgement, tentatively brushing his fingers along your cheek.
“I was,” he whispered. “I still am sometimes, but it’s okay. I guess that’s why I act and speak the way I do now. I don’t want to be personable nor do I want to be relatable. Reading people comes easy now after that experience, and I keep my distance to keep from hurting again. But it’s okay.”
“Yoongi,” you sat up, pulling Yoongi with you as you took the earbud out of your ear. “I care about you a lot. More than I probably should for knowing you only for a few months. But I really like you. I like you so, so much and I don’t want you to live with the memories of that hurt anymore.” your sudden confession was met with silence at first, but then, Yoongi laughed, removing his own earbud.
“Are you sure?”
“Well, yeah I’m sure.” you chuckled nervously, running a hand through your hair as you blushed. You weren’t planning on sharing your growing feelings with Yoongi, but it was out there, and you couldn’t take it back now. Yoongi didn’t say anything for a minute. He just stared at your fingers that were laced with his. With a sigh, he let go of your hand and you felt your blood run cold.
“I can’t.” he said, shaking his head at you. “I’m sorry.”
“But aren’t you tired Yoongi? Aren’t you tired of living in an inescapable trap of pain?”
“Of course I am-”
“Then why can’t we heal each other and stop hurting?” you asked. “I want to move on completely, and I want to be happy again, and I want to do it with you. I know it’s hard, living with that hollow feeling pain brings you. But pain doesn’t last forever, I should know, but-”
“I can’t because you don’t love me.” Yoongi said simply, finally turning his head to look at you. “Not really.”
“You don’t know how I feel Yoongi.” he just chuckled, pulling out a smoke and lighting it up.
“You’re right. I don’t know how you feel Y/N. But I do know what love is. And what you have isn’t it.” he paused, contemplating his next words.
“Love isn’t that easy to come about,” Yoongi explained with a sigh of smoke, standing from the bed to languidly pace around the room.
“We aren’t in a John Green novel or a 90′s rom com. Love is insatiable. Love in the real world isn’t like the Disney fantasies that’ve perpetuated everyone into believing that you can fall in love in a short period of time. Love is-” Yoongi stopped his movement, turning to look into your eyes from across the room. His lips pulled up into a half-smile as the cigarette hung between his teeth.
“Love is raw. Love grows with time, and patience. You can’t just jump into love. You have to earn it, respect it, and let it grow.” Yoongi moved towards you, his gait slow and each step he took felt like minutes were passing by. Finally, he stood in front of you, your head level with his chest. You looked up at him, the white of your eyes growing red with tears. Yoongi blew out a puff of smoke, extinguishing the half used cig with the tips of his fingers and shoving it in his pocket. He gently cupped your cheeks with his hands, tilting his head as his eyes roamed your face. Yoongi sighed out a laugh, gently biting his lower lip as he shook his head.
“Y’know, I told myself I was never going to fall in love again. And that plan was working just fine until I met you. What I feel isn’t true love, not yet anyways. But it’s enough to know I can’t deny my feelings for you.” his thumbs rubbed your cheeks as he spoke, his gaze never wavering.
“But you, princess, are surely mistaken. You don’t love me. You love the idea of me. The idea of a happy ending after the pain you’ve just been through. An easy way out. Hmm?” Yoongi wiped at the tears that fell down your cheeks, mascara caking onto his thumbs. He gently shushed you, guiding your head to lay against his chest as you hugged him around his middle. Yoongi began to hum, gently rocking you as you cried.
You cried because he was right. You cried because you were mistaking friendship for love; and everything became clearer once Yoongi said those words. Because what you felt, felt like how you did with Taehyung, only intensified from the newness of the experience. All the blushing, all the nerves and racing heartbeats, came because you had only done those things with past lovers, and with Taehyung. And the idea of Yoongi being in the same realm as Taehyung never crossed your mind, only the thoughts of a potential lover did, spurred on from impatience of finding some semblance of love again to rid yourself of the lingering pain in your heart. Even though Yoongi was more reserved than Taehyung was, both men had that flirty edge to them, and both loved contact. Maybe you had really undermined them and their personalities; they were more alike than you thought. Once you realized this you just cried harder, for not only leading Yoongi on, but for being so stupid as to mistake what you felt for romantic love. Were you really that desperate?
“I’m sorry.” you gasped into his chest.
“It’s okay Y/N. Just let it out.” he coaxed, placing a kiss into your hair.
“You’re right. You’re always right about how I feel. I’m such a fool.” you sniffled, peering back to look up at Yoongi’s blank face.
“You’re not foolish to want something, Y/N. It’s not foolish to want love, not at all. But that love won’t be with me. Princess, you’re beautiful. Smart. Insightful. You’ll find your Prince Charming eventually. I promise you that. You just need time, that’s all.” he smiled down at you sadly.
“I’m willing to wait.” you tried to give the man a feeling of hope, but he just chuckled.
“I’ll believe you if you can come back to me and say those same words of confession in a year.” he smiled. “I’ve been patient all these years, what’s a couple more added on? I don’t think I’m going to hurt very much anymore, now that I know you.”
“I’m sorry Yoongi. But I do like you, platonically that is, can we still be-”
“Don’t.” Yoongi cut you off, shaking his head slightly. “Don’t say the ‘f’ word yet, because once you say it, everything’s going to change for me.”
“Yoongi…”
“Can I do something? Can I do something before we shift into being just friends? So I don’t regret anything.” Yoongi’s words were ominous, but you nodded anyways. He stared at you with a newfound determination at your approval, his eyes searching yours intently.
“What’re you waiting for?” you whispered.
“I want to remember every detail of this, so I don’t forget.”
Yoongi nodded once before leaning down to place a kiss on your lips. His lips were firm and warm, the taste of smoke filling your senses as your lips moved against each other. His movements were languid and slow and you wrapped your arms around his neck to relish in the feeling of being kissed again. You felt fingers tug at your hair, angling your face up to give Yoongi better access to your mouth as his tongue gently parted your lips, meeting your tongue with calculated strokes. There was no rush to the kiss, nor was there any urgency behind it; the two of you were content in just savoring the feeling of warmth spreading through your veins. To savor the feeling of being held with such love and care, of feeling protected and safe within the grasp of another.
You parted from Yoongi’s lips with a soft gasp, your noses bumping together as you caught your breath. You could’ve sat there and kissed Yoongi for hours, you didn’t want the feelings to end. Yoongi chuckled low in his throat, leaving a peck against your lips.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “That was amazing, and more than I could’ve ever hoped for.”
“Of course,” you whispered.
“Y’know, Taehyung told me about the time you both kissed in middle school, how you were each other’s first kiss.” Yoongi smiled, moving to sit next to you. “Since I figured our friendship is gonna be like yours and Tae’s, we should kiss at least once. That and because I just really wanted to.”
You groaned in horror that Yoongi knew that secret, burying your face in your hands. The mood was completely gone now.
“I’m gonna kill that son-of-a-”
“Easy there tiger,” Yoongi chuckled, “No need to get all worked up. It’s cool.”
“It was supposed to be a secret though.”
“I think it’s cute. Since you’re both still close.” Yoongi admitted and you smiled sheepishly at him.
“Taehyung called me after the Cake launch y’know? Telling me that you were curious about me. He also told me not to hurt you if anything happened between us. He really cares about you, you know that?” Yoongi continued on, a small smile gracing his lips.
“Taehyung…” you paused, trying to come up with the right words to say. “Taehyung means the world to me. He’s been with me through thick and thin.” you admitted.
“And you mean the world to him too.” Yoongi said.
“How long have you known that I didn’t really love you?” you couldn’t help but ask, the curiosity was eating you alive.
“Art walk,” Yoongi shrugged. “You didn’t have that spark, and even though your body language said differently, I think it was because you were nervous. And to be physically intimate like that with a new person always gets pheromones running.”
“Hit it right on the head,” you chuckled. “I wanted to know more about you. I love the way you talk and provoke the mind with your thoughts.”
“That’s an overtly sexual way of saying ‘You have a cool brain, let’s be friends so I can talk to you.’“ you giggled at Yoongi’s bluntness, shaking your head at him.
“You really meant what you said?” you asked.
“About?”
“About me finding love, you think I can?”
Yoongi just smiled, taking your hand into both of his own.
“Well, I never lie. And yes, I do. Like I said, you’re beautiful, smart, an amazing kisser,” Yoongi paused to send you a cheesy wink. “You’ll find love and get your happily ever after. Believe me, you will. Even if it isn’t with me, I’ll still be happy when you finally meet the right person for you, and I expect every single detail when it does happen. And like my mother always said; good things come to those who wait.”
#bts#bts x reader#bts fanfic#bts fanfiction#bts angst#bts fluff#bts smut#bts series#jin x reader#seokjin x reader#suga x reader#yoongi x reader#jhope x reader#hoseok x reader#rm x reader#namjoon x reader#jimin x reader#park jimin x reader#v x reader#taehyung x reader#jungkook x reader#jeon jungkook x reader#seokjin#yoongi#hoseok#namjoon#jimin#taehyung#jungkook
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Can you do a JaeYona fanfiction prompt for me? I want a story where Yona's problem with not eating for long periods of time when she gets really stressed resurfaces? I noticed that Yona had that problem mentioned a couple times in the series, but it never really gets brought up again, and I could see Jae Ha and some of the others getting really concerned over it. I hope this isn't too sudden, but I'm surprised that there aren't more fanfictions that bring it up and I'd like if somebody wrote one
Thanks so much for the prompt anon! I’m sorry this took me so long I’m working on my backlog of prompt immediately during current events hope you like this take for my Castle AU series where Yona is queen of Kouka
“Daddy! Daddy!” tiny voices could be heard running across the hallways of the palace as King Jae-ha turned to see his twin children rushing towards him. He was currently sitting with his cane watching Hak, Ura, Hawke and Shiro practice, Lina bouncing her 6-year-old Krystal in her lap and giggling at her silly siblings. The child squealed when she’d feel her unborn sibling kick at her, considering Lina was 6 months pregnant with her next child. Sitting next to her was her second daughter, Jin-ae, who was named after the first Queen of Kouka, Hiryuu’s wife.
“Here comes Aki and Mido, Uncle Jae-ha.” Hinto, Shin-ah’s 10-year-old son chuckled as he at saw them coming with his dragon’s eye.
“Aka-dori? Mido-ka? What is it?” Jae-ha asked once the two children arrived. They were 5 years old, the girl with long raven hair and the boy with short ginger hair. The girl had clear blue eyes and the boy had green.
“Mommy won’t eat!” Aki cried, whimpering. “The cooks don’t know what to do she didn’t eat breakfast and now she says she doesn’t want lunch.”
Hak stopped his practice run and sighed, shaking his head. “… She’s still upset over…” he glanced to Zeno who nodded.
“We all miss former Seiryuu and Hakuryuu.” The Yellow Dragon answered. “It didn’t help they passed only a year apart. Not to mention former Ryokuryuu lately has…”
“Oh please, I’m just fine.” Jae-ha waved him off. “I mean seriously Lina’s 22 now, I honestly thought I would have long kicked the bucket by now.”
“Yeah and you fell down the stairs the other day again, Droopy Eyes.” Hak growled. “You gave her a heart attack.”
“Hak come on, you have enough on your plate.” Jae-ha looked at him sadly, after all Valerie had just passed away in childbirth a year ago. “No point in me bothering you all the time to get around.”
“But I can help you uncle!” Shiro, the current 12-year-old Hakuryuu said while extending his arm.
“Precious child.” Jae-ha hummed, petting the boy on the head. He sure had his father’s enthusiasm.
Tetora smiled as she hugged her son from behind. “You’re always so eager to help.”
“Really guys I’ll tend to my wife, lead the way treasures.” Jae-ha hummed, Aki and Mido eagerly rushed back in. “But don’t run or you’ll…”
“GAH!” Gigan, Jae-ha’s middle daughter growled as the twins nearly plowed her over when they ran past her, the 16-year-old looking rather annoyed. “Aki! Mido! Watch where you’re going!” she growled as she almost dropped the books she was holding.
“Done with your lesson already Gigi?” Hawke called out to his older sister.
“Yes which you skipped!” Gigan snapped at him, her eyebrow twitching at the nickname. “What kind of prince are you when all you want to do is run off and learn fighting with our Uncle Hak? Seriously you can’t solve everything with your muscles idiot.”
“Not everyone enjoys lessons like you do Gigan.” Lina giggled.
Jae-ha laughed, petting Gigan on the head. “My smart little treasure. You’re going to make a fine queen someday you know.”
That made the raven-haired girl blush. “F-father really I mean I would be honored if mother were to choose me but I’m not the oldest…”
“You really think Lina wants the throne?” Jae-ha snorted.
“Hell no, I’m traveling with Ura after the kids are grown.” Lina rolled her eyes and took her husband’s hand. “I’m a Ryokuryuu my job is to protect our mother and eventually I’ll protect the future king and queen. Which could be you and Shiro when you get married.” She teased.
Shiro practically choked as he turned red at that. “I-I-I… T-that’s n-not funny Lina!”
“LINA!” Gigan’s face turned into a fireball. “I’m not you I don’t go around marrying our cousins!”
“Please, Kija and I weren’t exactly blood brothers just dragon brothers.” Jae-ha hummed. “Otherwise Shiro & Hinto would be Lina’s brothers with their dragon connection. Besides look how happy Ura and Lina are you know I sure won’t complain…”
“FATHER THAT’S NOT FUNNY!” Gigan shouted, looking ready to explode. “GAH! Why am I the only normal one in this crazy family?!”
Jae-ha laughed how his daughter would always have a meltdown over things like this. The rest of his children got his carefree attitude and Gigan was more like her namesake it made me smile. “Anyway where’s your mother? I hear she’s being stubborn again.”
“In the library.” Gigan answered after she settled down. “One of the scholars just dropped off a new scroll with her and she said she was putting it away…. She was forcing a smile so I was going to bring her a new specimen from Kai that my instructor brought.” She held up an orange colored orchid. “Give it to her father, you know new flowers for her garden always cheers her up.”
Jae-ha nodded, smiling as he took the flower. “I will my dear. Try to not let your siblings drive you insane.”
Gigan looked at him deadpan. “Don’t ask for the impossible, father.”
Jae-ha snorted, then kissed her forehead and headed on for the library. His twins ran so far ahead of him he shook his head as they found their mother first, her back to them and not even noticing they entered as she was looking over a scroll.
Tears floated down Yona’s cheeks as it was a new illustration of her and her Four Dragons surrounding her, along with many of the tales the scholars sat her down and made her recall because they wanted to make a full record of the second incarnation of King Hiryuu. Shin-ah’s funeral was only a few weeks ago and she still wasn’t over the loss of both Kija and Valerie. She sobbed to herself as she clutched the parchment close, hating the fact her family was slowly being torn apart but at the same time blessed she had so many happy years with them…
“Mommy!” Aki and Mido were suddenly hugging her ankles, snapping her out of her trance. “Mommy! We brought you something!” the twins bounced on their toes as they pulled back.
“Oh what is it you two? Don’t tell me you’re trying to butter me up because you set the garden on fire again.” Yona sighed, bending down to her kids to pet them on the head.
“No mommy that was an accident we swear!” Aki whimpered.
“Even though it happened three times.” Mido squirmed.
Jae-ha chuckled as he walked in. “They’re just worried about you my lovely, here. A gift from Gigan.” He handed her the flower, bringing a small smile the queen’s face.
“It’s lovely.” Yona said, joining him in standing. “But you should be resting.” She scolded her husband.
“I’m behaving.” Jae-ha hummed, leaning on his cane for support. He tried to hide the fact he was trying to catch his breath from the walk over, lately just getting out of bed was a chore for the aging dragon.
Yona brushed her fingers over his bangs, noting the sweat on his forehead as she chided him. “You can’t hide from me, husband. Sit down.” She pushed him into a nearby chair that the twins helped bring closer. “Or else I’ll let our terror twins tie you down again.”
“Can we mommy?!” Aki cried, excitement dancing in her eyes.
Jae-ha snorted. “Now you’re using the kids against me, that’s not fair love.”
“You use them against me so it’s only fair.” Yona giggled, kissing him playfully as she pulled away. “Aki, Mido, go get something from the chefs for daddy along with his medicine from Grandma Yoon ok?”
“Ok mommy!” Mido darted off, Aki rushing after him.
“I’ll only eat if you do.” Jae-ha said in a sing-song voice.
Yona made a face. “I’m not hungry.”
The Ryokuryuu sighed, grabbing her hands. “… Love… Come on it’s not your fault. You know Shin-ah and Kija wouldn’t want you to feel guilty.”
“But…” Yona choked, tears in her eyes as her hands trembled. “If only I wasn’t… And one day the same will happen to our own daughter and then… I was so absorbed in worrying about you I never thought that they would…”
Jae-ha pulled her into his lap, giving her a long kiss full of love while caressing her back. “Shhhh, it’s ok love. It’s only natural, my successor was born first after all everyone even Zeno expected me to die by now. It’s a strange miracle I’ve lasted this long. Guess Ik-su wasn’t kidding when he said our child is twice blessed and I wouldn’t die as soon as I thought.” He kissed away her tears as he brushed her crimson hair. “But that doesn’t change the fact that they both loved you and wouldn’t want you upset. They lived wonderful lives here by your side and found their beautiful wives. Their children are safe here and we’ve basically broken the curse of Ryokuryuu and Seiryuu villages as their lines will continue here where they are celebrated not hated. We might even mix dragon blood with the way Gigan and Shiro are crushing on each other.”
Yona rolled her eyes. “Stop playing match maker with our children.”
“It worked with Lina didn’t it?” Jae-ha hummed, kissing her cheek. “… Please love, you’ve barely ate anything all week or do I have to pop another treasure inside you to make you take care of yourself?” he offered, fluttering his eyelashes at her.
Yona turned bright red at that, squirming in his lap. “… I-I… I can’t do that, they might never meet their…” she sadly brushed his cheek.
“Think of it as me leaving you a treasure behind my love.” Jae-ha hummed, pressing his forehead against hers. “Besides we know they won’t be lonely with as many siblings as they’ll have. Just think about it love.” He gave her another kiss. “After all I don’t seem to have the stamina I used to in my prime.”
“What a crime.” Yona giggled slightly, smiling warmly at her husband. “… Thank you Jae-ha… You and all the dragons helped me find the greatest happiness in my life. I just…. Hate the thought of waking up without you by my side.” She choked.
Jae-ha looked at her sadly. “… I know, I feel the same. But the kingdom and our family need you love. Besides… You know I’ll be waiting for you on the other side.”
“Jae-ha….” Yona sobbed, her eyes threatening to let out another waterfall of tears until she heard the sounds of her twins rushing back into the room.
“We got food mommy! You gotta eat too!” Mido said, holding up a tray that was bigger than he was of food as Aki was holding Jae-ha’s medicine.
Yoon stood in the doorway as he came behind them, holding a second tray. “Yona how many times have I told you that you can’t skip meals like this?”
Yona pursed her lips as she crawled out of her husband’s lap. “… I told you kids just to get your father’s medicine not tell on me.”
Aki giggled. “But Grandma Yoon is your advisor and he can advise you to eat!”
“Not like she ever takes my advice when it’s about her health lately she’s as bad as her husband.” Yoon rolled his eyes, looking over Jae-ha and handing him a powder. “Now take that or else you’re on bedrest the rest of the week.”
“Thank you mother.” Jae-ha teased, though the boy genius was so used to it that didn’t even faze him anymore.
“We just don’t want you to get sick mommy please?” Aki bat her eyes at Yona, looking ready to cry. “Daddy gets sick enough and you take care of him so who’s going to take care of you if you feel bad?”
“Me probably.” Yoon mumbled under his breath.
Yona groaned as she took a seat, her twins at her legs immediately trying to force her something to eat as she sighed and grabbed a bread roll. “Fine, I’m eating are you guys happy now?” she then had the kids put the tray down on the table full of books as she lifted them into her arms, kissing their cheeks. “You two are too precious, so worried about me and your silly daddy.”
“Because daddy makes you cry when he gets hurt!” Mido whimpered. “You’ll make daddy cry if you get sick.”
Jae-ha hummed. “That’s right dear, don’t you know it’s a crime to make the king cry?” he tried to tease.
“Don’t you start.” Yona snapped. “It’s not my fault I was tired last week and you insisted on trying to carrying me to my room like a stubborn fool.”
Yoon groaned. “Don’t remind me. I’m the one the kids got when they found you two at the bottom of the stairs.”
“So I can’t land as gracefully as I used to…” Jae-ha rubbed his cheek in embarrassment as he chuckled, then grabbed something off the tray for himself to get the bitter taste of the medicine out of his mouth.
Yona sighed at that. “Sorry. I guess I have been worrying you guys just…”
“Well all miss them.” Yoon gave her a hug. “… Just know that you aren’t alone, ok? And we can’t lose you too. This idiot will probably jump off a cliff to join you if you die on him.” He jabbed a thumb at Jae-ha.
“Yoon not in front of the little ears.” Jae-ha groaned, not exactly denying it.
“No die mommy!” Aki and Mido clung to their mother tightly. “You can’t leave us!”
Yona wilted at that, hugging her twins tightly. “… You’re right. I’m not leaving you kids anytime soon I swear.” She kissed each of their foreheads. “And now go tell daddy he can’t leave you either so he has to stay stubborn for at least a few more years.” She smirked, letting them go as they rushed to their father.
“Daddy! Daddy! You too!” Aki cried, clinging to his legs as Mido tugged on his robes.
“Oh you little darlings I wouldn’t dare leave you just yet, I have to keep seeing all the trouble you get into come here!” Jae-ha smirked, lifting the kids into his lap and smothering them with kisses. “My precious little treasures.”
Yona smiled at the sight, hoping that her precious family could stay together just a bit while longer…
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