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alltheirdamn · 5 months

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A Bounty for Reward (Mando x f!reader)

CHAPTER 6

Summary: Trust goes both ways. Warnings: smut (per usual), ROUGH sex, some mild edging, mando being a bit possessive (and soft?), fluff & angst, usual language warning, a heaping ton of stubbornness, fmc being her usual bratty self Word count: 6.2k A/N: I wasn't planning on posting so soon, but I wrote this out in like three days and needed to just shove it into the universe. So yeah, here you go... (ps. If you want to be added to the tag list, just comment and let me know!)

tag list: @deceiver-of-gods @drunkennunicornn @orcasoul @spacecatbowtie @dins-riduur-anthe

Going from Aldelphi to Trask was a drastic change in plans. The planet was all too wet and gloomy for your liking, and by Mando's body language, he didn’t like it much either. While en route to the planet, he had sent an urgent message to someone he knew on the Trask, asking for their aid in finding Kesi. You only heard bits and pieces of his message as you were tucked away in the hull, rummaging through the medpack, looking for a new bandage to use on your injured hand.

“... I wouldn’t contact you unless it were serious, Bo Katan.”

Whoever the hell they were, you hoped they could help. It had been a close call on Adelphi, the stark reality of your life now coming to fruition. Kesi had put out more hunters in search of you, and that hope for freedom was dwindling with each passing day. The idea to run was still lingering in the back of your mind, but it was clear that the safest option was to stay with Mando. He had proven time and time again he meant what he said—he was protecting you. You were grateful for it, but his answer of ‘I don’t know’ to everything was starting to piss you off. There had to be some fucking reason he cared so much, if care was even the right word. You didn’t know what he felt towards you, but it was apparent he wouldn’t let you go any time soon.

Mando insisted you come with him, all safety concerns aside. It was safer to be within reach of him than a sitting target on the Crest. With your hood pulled tight over your head and face, you scanned the crowds for anyone who could be a threat. You felt more at ease being in public, knowing your blade was strapped to your thigh. It felt like home, having that piece of you back.

The docking bay was busy with locals reeling in their catches for the day, the pungent smell of fish tinging your nose. You hadn’t been on a planet like Trask before, where the lifestyle was so vastly simple and mundane. Any place Kesi sent you had been buzzing with life and, unfortunately, buzzing with business. He kept you busy enough never to enjoy the cities you were in, only keeping you confined to the transport ships and muggy inns. You willed away those memories before they could consume your focus. You needed to stay alert.

“You okay?” Mando asked, his hand ghosting against your back.

You shivered at his touch, all too aware of the lingering tension that remained between you. What happened on the beach before the attack was your way of deflecting. If you force out the emotions suffocating you, it may be easier to be around him. It wasn’t working.

“Yeah, 'm fine,” you lied, but it hardly sounded believable.

He gave up the small talk, and you walked in harmonious silence through the seaside city toward the local cantina. Patrons took up a few tables, their heads on a swivel as a shiny Mandalorian stepped through the entrance. It didn’t phase Mando or you; you were growing accustomed to the attention he drew in. You caught a glimpse of blue armor like Mando’s in the furthest corner of the cantina—another Mandalorian.

Mando went ahead of you, greeting them with a firm handshake. The Mandalorian nodded at the open seats in front of them, urging you to sit. You did with reluctance, your hand flexing against your blade for reassurance. Mando trusted this person, but could you?

The Mandalorian reached for their helmet, and your breath hitched. Sat in front of you was a female Mandalorian, her red hair cut short and sharp at her jaw and eyes complimentary of her blue armor. This must have been Bo Katan.

“Still wearing that terrible helmet, I see,” she teased with a roll of her eyes.

“My loyalty remains to my clan,” Mando’s voice was harsh. You winced at the violence in his tone, worried this meeting may go sideways.

“So you say.”

Your eyes scan over her helmet, so unlike Mando’s. The visor was outlined in white, grey swirls painted above it to resemble eyes. It was feminine and lethal but hardly as frightening as Mando’s. Bo Katan cleared her throat, and you redirected your focus to her. She scrutinized you with a piercing stare, her lips set in a thin line.

“Who’s this Mando?” She asked, her eyes never leaving yours. “I didn��t take you for someone to keep company around.”

Your lips twitched with a retort, but Mando’s hand clamped down on your thigh before you could get a word out. He didn’t release his hold on you as he leaned forward across the table, his fingers flexing against the fabric of your pants. Bo Katan settled into her chair, clearly amused and satisfied with the response she had elicited from you both.

“I came here for help,” Mando snapped. “Not your antics.”

She shrugged, a smug smirk stretching across her face. “What’re you going to do to help me?”

“This isn’t a favor for a favor, Bo Katan,” Mando said.

Your eyes flickered between them, the animosity thick and palpable. Whatever the story was between them, it wasn’t one of friendliness. Mando’s hand traced mindless circles against your thigh, a simple gesture to ease the tension tightening in your muscles.

“As I see it, you and I want something. Easy trade, if you ask me.”

“Fine,” he relented.

Bo Katan was pleased with herself; her ability to pacify a man with such power must have boosted her ego. You weren’t amused, though; you were beyond irritated. How dare she abuse Mando’s trust to get what she wants?

“Hold on a minute,” you interjected, leaning forward towards her relaxed body. Mando squeezed your leg hard as if to say, ‘Let it go.’ But you wouldn’t. “Who are you to make demands? All we want is help, and you’re trying to use it for your benefit?”

“I like this one, Mando,” she smirked.

This one? What the fuck did that mean?

“So naive,” she tutted. “You don’t know a thing about the world.”

Mando whispered your name, attempting to calm you down. You wouldn’t let up; you were tired of backing down to those around you. Unsheathing the blade from your thigh holster, you stabbed it into the wooden table, watching with a sadistic grin as Bo Katan’s eyes widened.

“I know enough,” you seethed. “Now, are you going to help or not?”

“My offer still remains,” she said, gazing again at Mando. “I’ll help you if you help me. That’s the best I can do.”

“You help us now, and you can call in your favor any time,” Mando conceded.

Bo Katan extended her hand towards Mando, shaking on their agreement. You weren’t entirely satisfied with it, but it was Mando’s choice, not yours. All you could do was sit helplessly aside, letting two people wager against your safety. She didn’t extend a hand toward you; instead, she pulled your blade from the table and returned it to you. You took it without a word, returning it to your thigh holster.

“So, what can I do for you?” Bo Katan asked.

“I need to get into Oba Diah, and I can’t do it alone.”

“Oba Diah? For what reason?”

“I’m looking for a spice trader,” Mando explained.

“And you’re willing to put not only yourself but me within arm's length of the Pykes? Who are you looking for?”

“Kesi Jissard,” you interjected. “He’s an associate… of Cad Bane.”

Bo Katan looked at you incredulously, letting out a low whistle. “I’m not sure you want to mess with that man.”

“I need Kesi dead,” Mando said firmly. “You help me kill him, then I’ll help with whatever you need.”

Leaning her arms against the table, Bo Katan narrowed her gaze at you. Her eyes lowered as if piecing together the scene in front of her.

“Who are you to Kesi?” She wondered.

You shifted in your seat, glancing at Mando and realizing he was already staring at you. You had to choose your next words carefully, or everything would change. You couldn’t predict his reaction if you told the truth.

“I was his associate,” you spoke slowly.

Bo Katan’s eyebrow rose in question, clearly unconvinced by your words. Maker, you didn’t believe it either. Someone like you wouldn’t be selling spice, nor would you be working directly with Kesi in his business deals. Unless you considered selling your body for spice, a loose term for ‘associate.’

“And you want to kill your boss?” She questioned. “Care to explain why?”

You hesitated, looking at Mando for any sort of help. His helmet was tilted, looking at you as if he wondered the same thing. Maker, I’m fucked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mando interjected, helmet still trained on you. Your body relaxed, the tension withering away in your muscles. “We need him dead. That’s the end of it.”

Bo Katan shrugged, grabbing her helmet from the table. Slipping it back over her head, she stood and ushered for you both to do the same. Mando relinquished his grip on your leg, replacing it with your lower back as he guided you into the streets of the humid city. Bo Katan turned to you both once more, giving a stern nod.

“Stay the night here and meet me in the morning at the docking bay,” she instructed. “I’ll have some sort of plan for you. At least, I hope so.”

“Thank you,” Mando said.

With that, she turned and dissolved into the crowd, her armor blending into the grey sky and throng of bodies walking the market street. You exhaled deeply, turning to head back to the ship, but Mando’s hand caught your arm before you moved too far.

“We’re not going back to the ship,” he said.

“Isn’t it safer there?”

“There’s an inn down past the market. We’ll stay there till tomorrow.”

“Are you sure it's safe?” You asked.

“You’re safe with me, I promise.”

His words warmed your body, and you followed him willingly through the winding streets. Your eyes caught onto a few market stalls, especially one with leather goods. You stopped trailing Mando momentarily, inspecting the blade sheaths and blaster holsters.

“Excuse me, how much are these?” You asked the woman behind the stall.

“Fifty credits.”

You scoffed, running your fingers along the stitched edges of the dark leather holster. If you were back on Coruscant, you could afford it. But you had no credits and no ability to negotiate for what you wanted.

“Thirty,” came a deep voice beside you.

Mando’s presence startled you, and you pressed a hand to his breastplate to urge him back from the stall.

“Mando, it’s okay. I–I was just looking,” you stuttered. “Let’s go.”

He was reluctant to move, his helmet scanning the leather goods before you. You shoved him lightly, forcing him away and back onto the street. It was just a fleeting need to own something again, to have something you could claim as yours. But you’d have that one day.

Hopefully.

Mando relented and took your hand to lead you through the streets and into the entrance of a quiet inn. Purple shades covered the windows, and the wooden walls were molding from the wet air. An older man sat behind the counter, peering up through thick glasses. You let yourself linger in Mando’s shadow as he negotiated the room rate. After several minutes of back-and-forth bickering, the price was set, and Mando had the keys to your room.

The smell of saltwater floated through the door as you walked into the small room. Mando quickly locked the door behind you, stalking towards the windows to draw the shades. You stood there idly, unsure what to do and where to sit.

“I’m sorry,” you began. “I know I lost my temper.”

“You have to learn to trust me,” he grumbled, his back still turned to you.

“I’m new at this whole trust thing,” you said, exasperated.

Mando looked over his shoulder, watching as you swayed by the door. There was only one bed in the room, which was covered in a horribly old comforter with a few suspicious stains. Beside it was a wooden side table and a wall lamp that kept a continuous flicker. Mando made his way around the bed, sitting on the edge facing you, and began to strip away his weapons. He let them fall to the floor, and with a quick flick of his fingers, he motioned you forward.

Your heart thrummed against your chest, hard and quick, as you walked towards him. Once you were within reach, Mando’s warm, gloved hands wrapped around your thighs, tugging you closer. He made quick work of unclasping the blade from your right thigh, letting it clatter onto the carpeted ground.

“We need to talk about yesterday,” he said, roaming his hands up your backside.

“Yesterday?” You echoed breathlessly.

“Why’d you run away after I fucked you?” He growled.

You straightened your spine, the memories of his cock inside you flooding back.

“I–I don’t know,” you stuttered. “I’m scared.”

“Scared of what?”

His hands palmed your ass, and you let out a soft moan as he kneaded your skin. You were fumbling over your words, trying to formulate some explanation as to why you shied away. You wanted him—maker, you wanted him so bad—but how long could this last until either of you got hurt?

“I don’t want to get hurt,” you admitted, biting down on your lower lip.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Mando said softly.

“How can I trust you?” You whispered.

“Have I failed you yet?”

You thought back to Tatooine, how he had come back for you. You were willing to die in that junkyard you had once called home, to rot away in the sand the same as your parents, but he had come for you. He had killed a man for you, for only the cost of touching you. And he blew up a fucking ship to keep you safe. Trust was a heavy word filled with uncertainty. Secrets were deep within you, marring your soul and tainting your judgment. But Mando was right; he had not failed you. He had kept his word time and time again. How were you to argue the facts that lay in front of you?

Out of all the men who had claimed your body, Mando had been the first to treat it with such delicacy and care. You could grapple with the unease of the truth all you wanted, but he was different. He was a man of his word, a man of loyalty and trust. You just needed to forego your fears to indulge in the world he was offering. You may not have freedom yet, but you had the closest thing to it.

“You haven’t failed me,” you sighed. “I’m sorry for having fled yesterday. It wasn’t what I wanted.”

Mando’s hands stopped at your lower back, squeezing your muscles and holding you firmly in place.

“What do you want?”

“You. I don’t know what this is, but I want it.”

“Then promise me you’ll trust me,” he pushed. “I’ll take care of you.”

“Okay,” you exhaled.

“Can I take these off?” He asked, tugging at the waistband of your pants.

You nodded ardently, letting his leathered fingers work at the zipper of your pants, shoving them down your thighs. You made quick work of shucking them off and tossing them aside, your body nearly exposed from the waist down.

“Shirt?” He asked as if he needed permission. You made no effort to deny him; at this point, you’d give him anything he asked.

You pulled off your jacket and quickly stripped off your shirt, leaving your chest exposed and your lower half only covered by thin underwear. Mando made a strange noise deep within his chest of hunger and passion. His body shimmered in the shadows of the flickering light, an outline of a predator with his prey in reach. It was such a poetic thing to realize; you weren’t his bounty any longer, but you were still something he sought out time and time again. And if it were only a physical wanton need, you’d happily indulge. Giving any more of yourself to him would be a catastrophe, pulling you both down into the rubble.

“Beautiful,” he exhaled.

A deep blush crept up your skin, flushing down your face, neck, and chest. His voice dripped with pure ardor, dripping off each syllable, saturating you in earnest need. You waited for his restraint to snap, for that hunger to consume him and ravage you. On bated breath, you swayed under his stare, fingers itching to reach out and pull him against your bare body.

“Are you going to sit there and stare? Or are you going to fuck me?” You smirked, cocking a brow.

Mando leaned back, resting his body on the bed with his weight under his forearms. You imagined a devilish smile stretching across his face, the amusement of your impatience written all over his expression.

“Let me look at you.”

Maker, scars, and all, he ravished you with a silent gaze. Your body was scattered with cuts, some deep, some shallow, from the years of struggle. You had never been ashamed of the scars you bore, nor did you fear Mando seeing you like this. But you grappled with the possibility of questions that would arise. You didn’t want that.

“Touch me,” you begged.

“Do you trust me?”

“Y–Yes,” you stammered.

“Get on the bed,” he ordered. “Hands and knees.”

In a haze of lust, you obeyed, crawling onto the floral fabric and positioning yourself as he asked. There was a dip in the mattress behind you and a soft touch that coasted over your backside. His body dipped over yours, the cool touch of his beskar grazing over your back, and his gloved fingers came to your lips.

“Bite.”

You sunk your teeth into the leather fingertips of his gloves, tugging at them until they peeled away from his hands. You blinked back your shock as it exposed a tan, calloused hand, his fingers long and thick. Raising the other to your mouth, you did the same, pieces of himself now bare before you. He was giving you a piece of himself, something to trust. He was proving it.

With the gloves laying at your head, his hands tangled in your hair, trailing through the tendrils and down your spine. You shivered under his bare touch, the feeling of skin against skin igniting a deep ache within your core. Mando traced over the seam of your underwear, traveling further until the tip of his fingers pressed against the dampened fabric. Your clit throbbed in torment, begging to be touched. But he moved slow—calculated—knowing how responsive you were to the phantom brushes of his skin over yours.

“So wet,” he taunted, his voice dropping an octave. Hidden within the modulation of his helmet, everything he said sounded so decadent and salacious.

“I swear to the Maker, Mando,” you groaned. “If you don’t—.”

“Trust me,” he urged, teasing slow circles against the apex of your cunt.

You mewled into the sheets, rocking back against his touch. Mando chuckled at your desperation, rubbing slower. The pad of his finger pressed against your clit harder, eliciting another loud groan from your mouth. Each touch electrified you, forcing you to search for more.

“Please,” you whimpered.

Finally, maker, finally, you heard the delicious sound of his zipper opening. His fingers slid down your underwear, no doubt exposing the dripping mess he had left you with, and pressed the tip of his cock against your entrance. With one hand pressing into your back and the other clutching your waist, Mando guided himself into you inch by fucking inch. Your muscles tightened around his cock, stretching to the thick girth until he was flush with your body. He moved with shallow thrusts, easing your body back against him at a delicate pace. Each thrust went deeper, hitting that sweet spot in your core until you were pliant under his hold.

“Fuck,” he gritted out. “So tight around my cock.”

You rocked back into him, meeting him thrust for thrust, attempting to set a faster pace. But he was immovable, keeping you right at the cusp of ecstasy until you were blubbering nonsense into the bed. He pulled out to the tip, driving himself into you with such ferocity your body shoved deeper into the mattress. You cried out, fists clenching the bedspread, begging for any sort of release. Mando picked up the pace with a brutalizing force, punching you into the mattress with each snap of his hips.

You buried your head into the pillows surrounding you, exhaling the most guttural cry of bliss. Pinning you down, he savaged your body, completely wrecking you with brute force. It was disgusting, it was filthy… and you fucking craved it. Your cunt pulsated with the oncoming surge of an orgasm, rippling around his cock until you tensed up at the climax that paralyzed you.

“Shit,” Mando choked.

Sliding his hand from your back to your neck, he grasped your throat and pulled you back until you were flush against the armor that hugged his body. He continued his violent thrusts, the tip of his cock spearing into you at a new angle that shot stars into your vision. The room was darkening around you as another blazing wave of euphoria erupted through your body.

Shoving you back against the bed, Mando pulled out, flipping you over as he fisted his cock. Your chest was heaving from the power he exerted on you, and you tried to reclaim air from your aching lungs.

“Open your mouth,” he ordered, voice wavering.

Your eyes sparkled with excitement, and you let your jaw loosen, watching him ardently as he worked himself faster. With a carnal grunt, Mando painted you with his release, the saltiness covering your lips and tongue. Bracing himself against the headboard, Mando hunched over your body, catching his breath and shuddering through the aftershocks of his release. A wicked grin formed when you arched your neck to peer up at him. Bringing a finger to your lips, you collected the remnants of his cum, and licked them clean as his helmet bowed over you.

Mando clamored off of you, rolling onto his back with a grunt. Your eyes closed, your body still simmering with reverbs of your orgasm. Bare and exposed, you lay next to your beskar-clad Mandalorian.

Your Mandalorian? The thought was so heavy in your mind, and you tried to force that possessive desire far from your heart. He wasn’t yours. You weren’t his. You were simply two people in need of some connection.

“Hey,” he spoke softly. You turned your head towards him, shivering as the stagnant air around you crept over your naked skin.

“You’re closing yourself off,” he noted. “I told you to trust me.”

“I know,” you sighed, fingers crawling up his shoulder pauldrons. You traced the signet engraved into his right shoulder, mindlessly focused on the metal etching and less on the heavy stare behind his helmet.

“Will you tell me about Kesi?” His voice was low. “I’m going to kill him either way, but I need to know what he’s done.”

“You don’t need to know anything,” you said defensively.

“You’re right,” he lamented. “But I need to understand why more people are after you. If Adelphi is any indication of what’s to come, you’re clearly very valuable to Kesi.”

“Valuable,” You scoffed. “If that’s how you want to describe it.”

“When I was given your puck, all I knew was that you were a runaway,” he explained. “Nothing more.”

“I’m not a criminal, Mando.”

“I never said you were,” he countered.

You retracted your hand from his shoulder, wrapping your arms around your chest, cocooning inwards.

“What’s Cad Bane’s involvement?” He asked, changing the subject. “This is the first time you’ve said anything about him.”

“He’s Kesi’s boss.”

“You said that earlier.”

“Okay, and I’m saying it again,” you rolled your eyes.

“The less you give me, the more danger we’re in. I can’t protect you without knowing what we’re up against.”

“You know, this isn’t the pillow talk I was expecting,” you scowled.

Mando was silent for a moment, his helmet toward the ceiling. Guilt crept into your chest, knowing you were withholding information for him. You wanted to be honest, to share the truth, but he would view you in such a different light, and there was no telling what kind of destruction he would cause in the wake of it. Your past was dark enough; the last thing you wanted was to bring life to the ghosts that haunted you.

“You’re being stubborn.”

You sat straight up and turned to look at him, disregarding your bare chest. Jabbing a finger into his chest, you yelled, “You need to understand I am telling you enough! Don’t ask me for more.”

“What are you so afraid of?” He pushed.

He had sat up now, his helmet a breath away from you. He was challenging you, and your blood boiled, knowing he would give up until he got answers. But you weren’t ready to relive those memories because opening that door would release a hailstorm of emotions you couldn’t face.

“Drop it,” you growled.

“What did he do to you, angel?” His voice softened.

Angel? Your eyes welled with tears, threatening to breach the composure you had worked so hard to maintain. His softness was so fucking unfair; he couldn’t weaponize his kindness like that.

“Don’t do that,” your voice wavered, tears spilling onto your cheeks.

Mando lifted his hand to cup your face, his thumb swiping away the tears. You turned away from him, wiping them away aggressively. Fuck him for acting like he cared; he only cared because it helped him. He wouldn’t care about you.

“Tell me,” he begged.

“I will,” you whimpered. “Just not now.”

You were done with the conversation, having moved off the bed and searching for the articles of clothes strewn around the room. Piecing yourself back together, you left the space and locked yourself in the tiny bathroom connected to the bedroom. Mando didn’t follow, nor did he protest you leaving. Clutching the sink, you let the sobs wrack through your body, not caring if he heard.

Mando couldn’t listen to any more of her crying. It had been at least an hour, and all that filled the silence were her sobs muffled by just a door between them. He had laid in contempt, wondering if any words could surface in his mind to fix things. To comfort her. But how could he comfort her when he knew nothing? She was so fucking hard to understand, and he was genuinely trying to make sense of everything she had offered—which wasn’t much. He was left wondering what her past was filled with, the pain and heartache that still chained her heart away.

And he was so fucking stupid for slipping up and calling her angel. What a fucking sentiment to say. He wanted to soothe her fear and anger, but clearly, he wasn’t thinking straight. Mando needed distance to sort out the mess in his mind, and that’s when he found himself walking down the market street, aimlessly wasting time looking through the different stalls.

Nestled in the thicket of the market was the saleswoman with leather goods. He had caught her staring at the leather thigh holster amongst the other items, and though she had her own blade sheath, she was overdue for a new one.

Aside from the holster, the saleswoman had options for leather clothing and weaponry belts. Mando still had the credits from her bounty, endlessly weighing him down in guilt, and he figured spending them on her was the best way to rid himself of that burden.

“I remember you,” the woman said as Mando sifted through the items. “You were with that girl.”

Mando grunted a vague response, trying not to rope himself into any more conversation for the day. The woman, though, was relentless.

“Is she someone important to you?”

“What?” It caught him off guard.

“If she’s important to you, may I recommend our finer options?” She gave him a genuine smile, motioning toward the end of the table.

Rows of weaponry accessories and clothing were neatly laid out, made of thicker, black leather. A black vest caught Mando’s attention, and he imagined her wearing it for safety. The stitching was thin along the sides, giving it a slimmer appearance and tighter fit. Perfect, he thought.

“This one,” he said, holding it up.

The woman smiled, “And a holster, no?”

“And a holster,” he agreed.

She searched behind her table for a moment, presenting a matching black holster that clasped with two metal buckles. They were perfect for her, and he didn’t even care to negotiate a price.

Mando left the market street searching for food to bring back; he assumed she’d be hungry, or at the very least, considering some sort of meal before she slept. At this point, he was trying anything to make up for their argument. He just wanted her to be okay.

The sun had slowly begun to dip below the horizon by the time he returned to the inn. The man at the front desk paid no mind to him, only acknowledging Mando’s presence with a stiff nod and grunt. Mando wound his way through the hallways back to their room, lightly knocking before entering. She was curled up under the sheets, her body rising and falling in a slow rhythm.

Setting aside the things he had bought, Mando sat at the foot of the bed, hoping the dip in the mattress wouldn’t wake her. Time passed slowly as he watched her face under the shadow of the bedroom light, noticing that furrow in her brow as she slept.

She mumbled something in her sleep, the words distorted and incoherent. Mando hesitated to intervene; sleep wasn’t the kindest to her, and he had spent several nights listening to the nightmares overwhelm her. She shifted in the bed, her body rolling over and curling together. Her eyes stirred a moment, and she caught on to the outline of his body, hers stiffening in response.

“Do you make a habit out of watching me sleep?” She grumbled.

“Sometimes,” he said, honestly.

She pulled the comforter over her head, disappearing into the bedding and out of sight. If this were any other time, maybe Mando would have laughed, but the space between them was fragile and tender. His hand roamed over the bedding, catching onto the outline of her calf. He squeezed it lightly, and she finally unveiled her face to deadpan him.

“I have something for you,” Mando said.

Her brow did that familiar furrow, and she glanced at the side table. Mando watched as her eyes widened, that crease between her brows disappearing. She crawled out from under the sheets, reaching towards the best and holster that lay on the table—a slight tremor in her fingers as she brushed over the leather.

“Mando,” she started.

“I don’t want to hear it. They’re yours.”

She glanced over her shoulder, eyes shimmering with fresh tears. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“I want you to wear them at all times. I need you protected.”

“Oh, you need me protected?” She laughed.

Mando rounded the bed to where she bent over to look at the items. He carded a hand through her hair, forcing her to stare at him.

“I’m serious.”

Her pupils were blown wide, the look of desire twisting over her features. Mando had to find some resolve to lessen his hunger for her, knowing he wouldn’t be gentle or kind if he took her again. He was still trying to reel in his anger from earlier, and the last thing he wanted was to fuck out his frustration.

“I brought food,” he said, changing the course of the conversation. “Eat.”

“Did you get some for yourself?” She asked, eyes sliding to the thermos of soup sitting on the table.

Mando shook his head, “I’m fine. You need it more than me.”

“I can—I can leave if you need to eat.”

“I’m fine,” he repeated.

She relented, obviously aware arguing with him would be a losing battle. Sitting up in the bed, she took the thermos in her hands, drinking from it slowly. After some peaceful moments in shared silence, she finally spoke again.

“How do you know Bo Katan?”

Mando sat on the bed beside her, leaning against the headboard. With legs crossed, he tried to relax and enjoy the simplicity of the evening alone with her.

“We’ve worked together before,” he responded.

“On a hunt?”

“Not necessarily. I helped her Clan on a mission once before.”

She took another sip of the soup, nodding along to his explanation.

“Is her Clan different from yours?” She asked.

Mando nodded, “She belongs to Clan Kryze. Her family once ruled Mandalore,” he explained.

“If you’ve helped her before, why was she so—?”

“Unfriendly?” Mando interjected. “She views my Clan as a cult… Extremists, as she calls it.”

“Do you think she’ll really help up?” Her voice wavered a bit.

“I do.”

Mando had little left to say, so he let the silence settle over them again. After a while, she put down the soup and curled into the bed. She rolled over to face away from him, and Mando studied the rise and fall of her shoulders until she was asleep.

He hoped for a better tomorrow.

Morning came quickly, the sun seeping through the thin curtains of the room. Mando hadn’t slept all night, forfeiting rest to watch over her. She had restless moments where he could hear her mumbling to herself, but he never tried to wake her. Whatever the plan that Bo Katan had created was, he needed her rested and ready. Danger was on the horizon for them both, and he struggled to face the reality of what was to come. She hadn’t given him a single viable reason as to why Kesi should be dead, leaving his mind to wander and sort through the possibilities of what he had done to her. She was fearful of something, but what, Mando had no clue.

And now Bane was in the mix of it all, making his stomach churn with unease.

She didn’t say much as they left the inn, her chest now covered by the vest and blade strapped to her thigh. A twinge of satisfaction coursed through Mando’s veins seeing her wearing what he bought, a sense of possessiveness he had never quite experienced. After getting dressed that morning, she gave him another ‘thank you,’ her eyes sparkling with gratitude.

Bo Katan was already waiting for them at the cantina when they arrived, her helmet on the chair beside her—another reminder of their indifferences.

“Clan Kryze will stand with you,” Bo Katan announced.

“Thank you,” Mando said.

She nodded, her lips set in a firm line. “Give us a week to gather forces, and I will contact you with our next steps. Oba Diah will be no easy feat.”

“Until then, we will retreat to a more secluded planet,” Mando explained. “It will keep us safe until it’s time to attack.”

Bo Katan gave a firm nod, glancing between him and the girl.

“This is the Way.”

Mando noticed the relief in her body language as they returned to the Crest. Her shoulders were relaxed, and there was a calmness in her expression. Once the ramp closed behind them, she made her way to the carbonite chamber, checking the valve as she had before. Her interest in the ship's technology didn’t go unnoticed by Mando; in fact, he was grateful to have an extra hand to fix various problems. She was a skilled mechanic; he gave her that.

They found some sense of normalcy as they navigated through the Crest, Mando taking his usual spot in the cockpit and her retreating to the bed. He wanted to join her or her to join him; either way, he didn’t want to be alone, which was a startling realization. Secluded inside the cockpit, Mando allowed the turmoil of thoughts to stir, spinning until he felt helpless. He had to make a plan. He needed to keep her safe.

Starting up the nav panel, Mando punched in the coordinates to the only planet he could ensure their safety: Sorgan. It had been years since he had traveled there; ghosts of the past left to roam through the foliage and swamps. It was the last time he had grown too close to someone; the last time he had almost slipped away from his Creed. Now, with her, those same doubts stirred within his mind. He was drawing himself too close, knowing one day he could—would—lose her. She wanted freedom, and he had sworn to give it to her. She could ask him for anything, and Mando knew he wouldn’t be strong enough to deny her.

Navigating the Crest out of Trask, Mando cleared his mind and focused on the atmosphere swallowing him whole.

#mando x reader #mando x f!reader #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian #fluff and angst and smut

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dilucids · 3 years

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ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤSacrificial duties, Mondstadt ver.

would they sacrifice you or mondstadt?

includes: jean, lisa, kaeya, diluc, amber, albedo and venti.

( i'm too socially inept to request for someone to do this so i took matters into my own hands. )

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ〔 JEAN GUNNHILDR ━━ DANDELION KNIGHT 〕

━━ is this even a debate? jean would sacrifice you to save mondstadt.

━━ the question would tear her apart though, she'd spend so much time trying to find another way to save both her city and you that she'd neglect her health ( basic needs, like eating, sleeping )

━━ if it were a person or god who was demanding these terms, she'd try to negotiate anything to save both, even her own life, though if you were willing, she'd hesitantly ( literally beg you to not go through it and reassure she'll find another way ) let you go.

━━ no matter what she chooses, she'll still feel incompetent in the end, as if she isn't good enough to be the acting grandmaster and would probably overwork herself to try and focus on something.

"I'll do it," Jean looks back at you, horror flashing through her eyes though you didn't falter, still staring the entity in her eyes. The wind picks up as if feeling the ameno swordswoman's vivid emotions, she shakes her head, taking small steps towards you as she reaches out for your hand. You cringe when she fell to her knees, "no no no, please, you don't have to do this."

You don't look at her, knowing it would only make things worse for the both of you, you didn't want her to be the last thing you saw nor did you want your face to plague her dreams like a ghost. "I care about Mondstadt too, Jean." You hope she understands that you were also doing this for your city and doesn't blame herself, "it's my duty."

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ〔 LISA MINCI ━━ WITCH OF PURPLE ROSE 〕

━━ lisa is a bit more of a wild card.

━━ lisa only oversees the library of mondstadt but it's really unclear the extent of her care for the city itself.

━━ it's impossible for one to say if she would hold a lover priority over a city due to lack of background so that's why she's more of a wild card right now, because i could see her potentially doing either.

━━ though i'm leaning a little towards sacrificing you because of her closeness with jean and her involvement in the knights of farvonius, she knows it would be morally wrong to sacrifice an entire city for one person, lover or not.

"It's okay," you reassure her, smile still gracing your face albeit the heavyweight pressure of death for your city digging it's claws into your shoulders. "I'm sorry," she apologises for the nth time and you can do no more than squeeze her hand in affirmation, knowing a hug would be too much for the both of you right now.

You feel her fingers slip through yours and your hand is embraced by the winds of Mondstadt, a sudden change from the electricity that plagued her fingertips and passed onto yours. You take a shaky breath and leave her behind you, her eyes watching your back along the way until you were nothing more than a dot in the horizon━━ ready to become a star in the sky.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ〔 KAEYA ALBERICH ━━ FROSTWIND SWORDSMAN 〕

━━ another wildcard!

━━ unlike lisa, however, i'm leaning towards sacrificing monstadt.

━━ even with all his background knowledge, kaeya is still a character that holds a lot of secrets and it's canon that he's a mysterious figure, cavalry captain or not.

━━ don't get your hopes up though, because he still may sacrifice you ( after a talk with jean or diluc/j )

━━ kaeya lets anything happen as long as it falls into place of how he has expected to end, he really doesn't know what to do when an unknown entity shows up and demands the price of you for his city or vice versa.

━━ really hard to get a grasp on him.

━━ i could see him spending one last day with you after deciding he was going to give you up ( you obviously knew of this ) but after 24 hours with you, away from mondstadt, he might realise that, even if he regrets it for the rest of his life, he'll never be able to give you up.

━━ alternatively, if he didn't open up to you about this or went to jean or diluc, they would convince him to "do what's right" and give you up.

"No. I'm not doing it," his tone differed from the norm━━ he was never like this, not even on official knights' business. His eyes unnervingly determined, tone you were unable to refute, and words that scared you. "Kaeya, you have to," your fingers place themselves over his, which were barely touching your cheeks.

"I'm not doing it," he reaffirms, sounding as if he were trying to convince himself out of all people. "I'm━━ I'm not losing you to some city. I can rebuild a city, we can find a city elsewhere," he states, eyebrows furrowed and not taking a single breath between his words. You pry his fingers away from your cheek, holding them over your lap. "Kaeya, this isn't just 'some city', it's the city you love. The city we love." You coax, finally getting him to look into your eyes. "You're the person I love." He says, exasperated.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ〔 DILUC RAGNVINDR ━━ DARKNIGHT HERO 〕

━━ hate to be the bearer of bad news,, and as biased as i am to this man, he would give you up.

━━ wouldn't open up to anyone about it, he'll just drive himself insane pondering both options.

━━ and although it would literally make him insane even thinking about losing someone precious to him ( again ) but his loyalty lies within the city of freedom and the city alone.

━━ even after the dispute with the knights of farvonius ( in the webtoon ), he still remains as the protector of mondstadt and i don't think nor am i able to see it will ever change.

━━ unlike kaeya though, i don't think he'll be able to see you at all once he decides to sacrifice you, he'll just be reminded that he'll never be able to see you again and the terrible decision that he's going to go through with.

━━ will also throw himself into extensive work to get you off his mind afterwards.

"You okay there?" Your eyebrows furrow, leaning against the open door of Diluc's office, seeing his hair tied back into a bun, hands in his face as he gazed deeply at his wooden desk. His head flies up at the sound of your voice, clearing his throat, "when did you get here?"

You shrug, taking steps towards him as he leans back into his chair, "being a hero taking a toll on you?" You tease him, taking a seat on his desk next to him and placing your feet on the chair, leaning forward to cup his cheek. He turns away. You're no stranger to his austere ways so you merely lean back, balancing yourself with your hands against his desk, telling him about your day.

"━━and then he wrapped it up and sent it to me, which was awfully disturbing might I add."

"I'm sorry," your eyebrow quirks when he suddenly cuts into your storytelling. You push yourself forward, reaching out for him and redirecting his gaze ( which hadn't looked in your direction even once ) onto you. "What's wrong my dear?" He only grimaces at the nickname━━ wincing almost and still refused to look at you, gaze cast upon the floor behind his bangs. You couldn't even see his eyes.

"Your guilty act is making me ponder if you've had previous relations with someone else, Master Diluc," you frown a little, using your other hand to force him to peer at you. He leans forward, placing his forehead on yours and whispers, "never."

"I just wanted to apologise for the future," you smile a little and place a kiss on his forehead. "I will always forgive you."

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ〔 ALBEDO ━━ THE CHALK PRINCE 〕

━━ albedo's original creator hails from khaeri'ah and venti, archon of mondstadt, was one of the original seven who aided in the destruction of khaeri'ah; is that enough reason to destroy it for a lover? no.

━━ would he still do it? yes, yes, yes.

━━ we all know he considers himself a threat to mondstadt but i don't think he would've ever thought this was why he was a threat, to hold an entire city in his palms and be able to destroy it with a single word was quite a terrifying thought.

━━ it wouldn't stop him though, i really don't think albedo holds any sentimental attachment to mondstadt, he only works and lives there as of right now but he's currently heeding his creater's words and pursuing the truth of the world.

━━ he might grimace over losing a few people that he holds dear and end up rethinking his decision but in the end, will choose you.

━━ another reason i think he would destroy mondstadt is that, once albedo discovers something or the feeling of enlightenment that comes with studying something new disperses, he is quick to stop studying that and abandon it due to the "bittersweet truth" hitting him so if he grew tired of mondstadt,,,,,, rip to jean 🙏

Your eyes flicker from the sight of his back to the unknown entity, hovering just above the floor, her eyes uninterested in you as she gazed into Albedo's eyes, maybe trying to read his expressionless face. "Have you made a choice, Kreideprinz?"

Nothing is said. Nothing from Albedo nor you, you didn't seem to have a part in this private conversation but you also seemed to be an integral part of it due to the way Albedo kept looking back at you, squeezing your hand as if to remind himself that you existed. "I'm choosing them."

She peers at you now, her eyes boring into yours as she scans you for something, "are you sure about this decision?"

For some odd reason, you're not offended by her words, maybe because she didn't sound like she meant it in a rude way ( it also seemed out of her standoffish character ) but was genuine in her curiosity if Albedo would go back on his words. He squeezes your hand again, rubbing circles on the back of your hand━━ something he did to calm you but it seemed that this action was to ground him instead.

"Yes, I am."

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ〔 AMBER ━━ OUTRIDER 〕

━━ YOU.

━━ in the most heart breaking – heart warming way ever, she'd give you up.

━━ notice how more than half of these mondstadt fuckers would give you up? yeah 🙄

━━ on a serious note, a lot of them have devoted themselves fully to protecting the city and i don't see any one of them being able to give the command to destory the city, even if their s/o was being held with a knife to their throat right infront of them and amber is the very same.

━━ even though we don't know to much about her, she is seen as a perfect example of justice by kaeya, and is extremely devoted to her work, she's just below diluc and jean in the most to least likely to sacrifice you in my opinion. it's simply overlooked due to her lack of presence in the game.

━━ i think her compassionate and kind side will make it harder for her to come to a decision because she doesn't want to have to lose one thing to keep another but in the end, she will give you up.

Amber seemed extremely distressed, immediately running into Jean's office once arriving back at the Knight's base after finishing her usual trek of Mondstadt's surroundings. You had attempted to call out her as she ran through the halls but she didn't even look your way, which was peculiar to you but you could only guess something dangerous must've happened due to her eagerness of reaching Jean's office, slamming the door wide open.

You quirk an eyebrow and Kaeya, stood beside you, whistled briskly, hands on his hip. "Someone's in a hurry," you roll your eyes at his comment and simply grab his arm, dragging him over to Jean's office, "just shut up and come."

The minute you knock and open the door however, the room is quiet. Jean sat on her chair, elbows placed on the table and concern burrowed deeply within her furrowed eyebrows and Amber, who was shaking her leg up and down in anxiety, fiddling with her nails.

Kaeya seems a little amused by the situation, unlike you, who was extremely concerned by the little actions of anxieties Amber was exhibiting, striding over to her side in an instant. Placing your hand on her shoulder, she leans into you almost instantly and begins quietly sniffling into your shirt.

You mouth to Jean that you're taking her out and Jean nods, thanking you with a small smile on her face. You guide Amber into a quiet room in the headquarters, letting her silently cry as you attempt to soothe her. "Hey, hey, what's wrong?"

She shakes her head, only repeating a small, "I'm sorry."

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ〔 VENTI ━━ WINDBORNE BARD 〕

━━ venti is characterised as a free spirit, like the freedom that the city of mondstadt represents, he carries that within him but at the end of the day, he is still mondstadt's archon.

━━ so we all saw this coming but you 👫

━━ i don't really think there's a lot to explain, he's their archon and even if he loses everyone he's ever loved, his priority is mondstadt.

━━ he'll probably take you on that ride on dvalin he's been promising you for the past year with no explanation.

━━ you'll ask him why he's dragged you from work and he'll just say he's feeling nice or that the winds are good for a ride right now.

━━ you'll stare at him with that, 'don't–you–control–the–winds?' look and he'll wink at you, telling you to stop staring at him or he'll blush.

━━ will completely come undone when he seed you happily laughing on dvalin's back, arms spread open as your laugh echoes into the wind.

Your excited whooping is all he hears, previous nervousness abandoned with his hands placed on your waist as Dvalin pierced up above the clouds; the ground nothing more than a fleeting dream to you both. It's such a shame that young, immature Dendro Archon got his hands on you first, gifting you his gift of Earth's nature━━ if not for the God of Wisdom, Venti would've gifted you heaven's winds if he knew how simply being in the sky made you so ecstatic.

The adrenaline finally dies down when Dvalin arrives just above the clouds, wings creating new and dispersing the old. You lean into Venti who takes this as an invitation to push himself further into your side and begin playing with your fingers, allowing you time to simply relish in the situation. "You're awfully quiet today," you muse, staring at Venti with a small smile.

He hums, "it's quiet up here," in nothing less of a whisper. You nod along with his words, fighting the urge to jump into the clouds, knowing you'll pass right through them. Venti sinks into you further somehow, like you were a passing cloud; his shoulder pressed into the crack of your arm and torso, head leaning on your shoulder. "You'll be okay Venti," and you embrace him.

#genshin impact #genshin headcanons #genshin scenarios #genshin oneshot #genshin lisa #genshin jean #genshin kaeya #genshin amber #genshin albedo #genshin diluc #genshin venti #genshin x gender neutral reader #genshin x reader

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blackwidow-bby · 3 years

Text

Never Be The Same- Mafia!Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Prompt: Mafia Boss au but y/n kidnaps the mafia boss

Warnings: Cursing, violence, gun mention and gun use, kidnapping

AN: I saw this prompt from a tiktok where someone asked "your favorite trope but reverse" so I did it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn't often that you got anonymous letters sent to you by someone looking for your "services". You had left the spy life years ago with a little help from the Witness Protection Program in order to pursue a much quieter life doing...well currently you were just working as a florist. Before that you cleaned headstones at the towns local graveyard, which was scarily a lot bigger than the town you were in. You had quit that job when you got the first anonymous letter on the steps of the shed where you kept your tools. The thought of someone knowing where you worked, hell, who you were, especially when they shouldn't spooked you more than working in the graveyard around sunset.

The request wasn't for anything serious. A simple adult-napping job of some woman. The stranger who left the note definitely specified that they wanted the target alive. It would have been an easy job with some extra cash to put in your pocket, but instead you jumped ship and quit that day and moved to another apartment complex. You even went so far as to get a P.O. Box instead of using the complex's mail. The threat wasn't that big to get the government involved in relocating you again.

You almost you wish you could go back in time to the early morning before you received the letter by some covered stranger. Your skin turned white when you saw the simple little envelope with your old agent code name; Viper.

Sneaky and deadly, you always knew the perfect moment to strike. Whoever this person was had to have also been an old agent from the same organization you worked for. That was the only way you could explain away the anxiety that boiled in the pit of your stomach. Once was an instance, but twice is a hobby, you decide you'll at least think about taking the job. Opening the envelope, your heart started to pound quickly inside its cage. You can't believe you were about to put yourself in this position after leaving it for so long.

The letter read:

Dear Viper;

It has been many years since the last time I've seen your face, the first time I thought you were a ghost. Certainly after seeing your face again, I knew for sure my mind wasn't fooling me. It is with a heavy heart that I ask for your help. Unfortunately a family member of mine had found themselves in trouble with a mafia member. Unable to keep their end of whatever bargain, the mob killed him. I need you to find the person who did this to my brother and bring them to me completely unharmed. I want them conscious, I want my face to be the last ting they see before I get revenge for a member of my family ceasing to live among those that loved them.

The target's name is Natasha Romanoff. At the bottom I've left a burner number and an address if you do decide to take my offer this time, the payment will be handsomely.

Much Thanks;

Otter

Natasha Romanoff? Sounds mafia enough to you. Gods, what a messed up situation to get into. Would it really be enough to possibly have to change your identity again? What if this person was important to this group and they decided to come after you? You sat in silence thinking for a long time if any of this was really worth it. There was a tiny voice that peeped up in the back of your mind. You had been kinda bored lately, this could be the spice you need to add back an old pep in your step.

It was decided. You'll get to work searching for this person in the morning. Wow, that took so much persuasion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You got started early the next day. Definitely not due to not being able to sleep in the first place. Oh no. Thanks to the nerves building up over putting yourself in a shitty position. Luckily for you though, this Natasha woman wasn't hard to find at all. The mafia she was affiliated with, operated in the city near the town you lived in. They also apparently seemed to operate most of their business out of a simple pet shop. This has to be the inner workings of a screen writer, you thought to yourself.

Your nerves began to get the best of you on your walk back home. It seemed like everyone's eyes were suddenly on you, like they knew exactly what you were up to. You picked up your speed and released a breath you didn't realize you were holding when you saw the steps to your apartment complex. You quickly ran inside up to your floor and slammed the door behind you. Gosh your nerves were starting to annoy you. How did you ever make it as a top agent is beyond you thinking of the position you were currently in. All feelings aside, you pressured n to pack for the trip you'll soon be taking to the city. It was going to be another long night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your trip to the city was surprisingly smooth. Light traffic. Sun was out. If not for this little mission, if you could call it that, the day would have been perfect to do some sight seeing. You found the "pet shop" just as easy as well. You set up camp on the side of the street in front of the building to see if your target would possibly show up today. You were really hoping this didn't turn into a multi-day stake out. just wanting to get all of this over as quickly as possible so you can go back into hiding again.

It took about 7 hours, well into the late afternoon, before you spotted her walk in. Surprisingly, she was alone. Perfect, time to move in. You got out of your car and casually walked around the side of the business to see if there happened to be a door. The alleyway of the building was dark enough that anyone on the street wouldn't be able to see in. The sound of a creaky metal door could be heard just around the corner. You guess the back will have to do. As you got closer to the sound, you saw the woman in the back of the building talking with a man. You couldn't make out a single word they were saying. Their conversation wasn't important though, only getting her to Otter was.

Your heart began to race as the moment to make your move came closer. This is what you had trained for your whole life. The stealth and ability to make a move without anyone around you knowing until it was too late. Your eyes trained on the red-head in the back of the building. You gave a silent prayer to whoever was listening that the person she was with, would leave her alone for just one second. That's all you needed; one second.

Suddenly, it was as if all of the puzzle pieces fell into place. He left to go back inside. Time slowed down in an instant. You immediately released a breath through your mouth and moved in. You could see every single moment, all of the steps you took right up to behind her. Watching her turn around carefully but never hearing you step up behind her. At the very last second when she had finally caught sight, one hand reached but to grab her arm and pin it behind her back while the other reached around her head with a chloroform rag to incapacitate her.

The hard part was done. The red-haired woman fell limp in your arms, so you maneuvered her into a bridal position to easily carry her to your car. Time was of the essence. Someone would be coming to look for her soon. Swiftly and quietly, you walked back through the alley and reached your car. Knowing you had some time before she woke up, you could stop later to tie her hands and legs once you were farther away from the city. You placed her down in the back seat before getting in the front and driving away. You let out the most dramatic exhale and looked for the letter Otter had given you of his number and location.

One ring

Two rings

So you did take my offer?

Yes, I'm headed to the location now.

Excellent, thank you for your work.

Yeah, whatever.

Click

You drove on for another half an hour before you reached the location. It was an old abandoned warehouse settled 20 minutes in the opposite direction from the city. The sun was completely settled at this point making the surroundings very dark. The sky had an almost purple glow from the towns nearby lights. Getting out, you circled the car to the back passenger door to remove the woman and bring her inside. She was still passed out from the chloroform only stirring slightly as you picked her up.

Maybe it was the exhaustion catching up to you, but you don't remember her being this heavy. Trudging the knocked out woman inside, you found a small chair and placed her down. Your timing was sort of off and thought better to tie down her hands and legs now before checking her pockets for any weapons or forms of identification. The woman's head lulled from left to right while you searched. You found a knife on her belt holster, a small revolver tucked in the back of her pants, a wallet, and a set of keys but not car keys. Her eyes started to flutter while you fingered through the wallet. Nothing important, a drivers license, a couple of business cards from the "pet store", and a what looked like a family photo. The people in the photo looked familiar to you, very familiar.

"What are you doing with that?" The woman mumbled in your direction. You looked her in the eye not saying anything. The woman was gorgeous with the single light shining down on her causing an angelic glow upon the crown of her head. Her red tresses seemed to almost burn in your presence. You looked away from her and continued to inspect the photo she kept in her wallet.

"Who are these people with you?"

Her head lulled once more, "Why do you want to know?"

"Answering a question with a question won't help you. What is your affiliation with the mafia?"

"I'm their fucking boss."

In that instance your eyes widened. Of course, that's why the men in the photo looked familiar to you. She was the fucking heir to one of the top mafia rings in the country. This idiot, Otter, wanted you to bring in the living heir and current head hancho for what she did to a simple family member that got caught up in the wrong group. The sweat was beginning to pour now that you realized you were absolutely fucked.

Before you could say anything else, Otter, the man of the hour, busted trough the doors.

"Viper! I knew I could count on you!"

"What the fuck man?! You really had me capture the fucking mafia BOSS?! We're both going to be fucked if you don't explain everything right now, Otter." You were sweating rivers at this point. Utterly frustrated and hot in the warehouse. The red-head was slowly coming to 100% but her eyes still couldn't fully focus.

"Calm down Viper. Your work is done with me. I'll cover everything up and you can go back to your quiet life."

"Over?! If you don't give me a very good reason to leave her here in your possession, I'm taking her with me." you were shouting at this point. The red-head was now staring at the both of you dumbfounded at the whole situation everyone was in.

"She killed my brother!" You swore you could see steam coming off of his head. "She killed him and left him to rot!"

"Your brother was nothing but scum who tried to steal weapons from me to sell for himself." She had responded this time. Otter quickly pulled out a gun from his pocket and aimed it at the woman.

"He would never have done anything to harm his family or himself!"

She didn't falter her glare one single bit, even with a weapon pointed at her head. "He'd be living a healthy fulfilling life had he not crossed me."

He cocked the gun this time. "Shut up you stupid bitch!"

A smirk played on her lips, she was enjoying getting a rise out of him. Like she knew something the both of you didn't know. Like she knew no matter her outcome someone would always be out there searching for both of you for the rest of your lives until you got caught, or god forbid, kill yourselves to keep from being caught. Your nerves were spiking again, you couldn't let Otter kill Natasha Romanoff.

You sucked a quick gasp. Otter didn't notice but Natasha did. You had her gun.

Natasha's eyes darted back and forth between you and Otter. He was getting upset at the fact that her attention wasn't solely on him. The arm that was holding the gun stopped its falter and held up straight to Natasha's face. "Look at me! I want my face to be the last thing you see when I kill you, you stu-"

BANG

Natasha jumped. She had seen the whole thing take place but didn't really expect you to do it. She could see the tremble in in your hands as they stayed in the same spot. Your eyes were wide, lip quivering, you couldn't believe what you had done and now you had a new problem to cover up. Natasha had a look of empathy in her eyes. You didn't want to be in this position from the get go and it had only gotten worse for you.

"Hey, look at me..." Natasha spoke up softly to break your trance. She had leaned her body towards you in a manner to reach out. "You can put the gun down, its going to be okay now." Your eyes darted down to the gun and back up to Natasha's green eyes. Still shaking you slowly lowered the gun to the ground before you walked over to her cautiously. Tears were falling down your face, the weight of the situation was hitting you. If you had never agreed to Otter's request, you would be cozied up in your bed, awaiting another new day.

Your fingers found Natasha's bound wrists. her skin was surprisingly cool to the touch. She stared at your face the whole time you unwrapped her from the chair. The fresh tears leaving clear trails down your slightly dirtied cheeks. The slight glow of your e/c eyes under the florescent lights of the warehouse. You knelt down in front of her to then remove the binding on her ankles. Something within her compelled her to reach out to you. Without even realizing it, the red-heads palm was already resting on your head. She reveled in the silky smooth feel of your h/c locks. The slight dampness from the sweat that had overcome your skin. She could feel the softness of your fingers slowly circling around her last ankle when your sad eyes looked up to hers.

"How did you manage to capture me without anyone seeing you?" Her hand slipped down to your cheek. "In all of my years, I have not once not heard someone creep up behind me the way you did."

The steady stream of tears grew heavier, your quiet life was about to be destroyed by your own need for a change. She would certainly have your feet for getting a one up on her.

"It was my job. I was known for being so light on my toes, no one could hear me coming." your voice wavered, but the words got out.

"Well I could use someone like you by my side." Natasha held out her hand to you as she got up on her feet. Not really having her ground, she nearly fell when you caught her by the waist. The two of you held your breath as you both stared deeply into each others eyes. You could swear if you inhaled, her scent would be enough to drive you mad. "My guys will cover all of this up for you."

You sat and thought about everything she said. The would would probably prove more exciting than working at a flower shop and probably be more fruitful. You smiled at her. You could feel her warm breath near your lips.

"When do I start?"

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #x reader insert #marvel #black widow x reader #mafia!Natasha romanoff #prompt fic

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yutahoes · 3 years

Text

Roses and Blood

pairing: private detective! Yuta Nakamoto x journalist! Y/N

word count: 4.4k words

genre: angst, a bit of smut, NOIR

summary : A high-profile cheating case just become a murder case. And the center of it all is the detective himself.

warnings : death, murder, blood, cigarettes, alcohol, sexual themes (masturbation) but not detailed, abuse, mentions of cheating, mentions of torture

This is my attempt to write a Noir AU, I’m not a fan of detective movies or this genre so this is the best that I can make up. This is heavily inspired by Secret’s Poison MV. 😁

taglist: @dimplehyunn @nominsgirl @jaesqueso @ahsshilee-me @readers-posts @justpeachygirl

written for Neo-City Noir Collab Call by @suh-insane

An extra cube of sugar in my cup of coffee. The only thing that changed in my everyday routine. The everyday bustling and hustling of the street outside didn’t change a bit. A typical day.

The calmness of the office was disturbed when the door opened. A strong scent of woman’s perfume hitting my nose. Roses. She smelled like roses.

The woman removed her coat, revealing a red button-down blouse hugging her figure. Blood. She reminds me of blood. A woman who might bring trouble.

Her heels click-clacking against the hardwood of my office and she slumped on the chair before I could remove my eyes from her. “I need your help.” She started, crossing her legs. “Detective Nakamoto.”

I leaned in on the table to assess her. An unreadable expression. She might be used to this. She took an envelope from her white handbag, sliding it on the table in front of me. "This is the file for Senator Hall." I opened the envelope which revealed a detailed copy of the said senator's information. "There had been threats to his life and I wanted to ask your help in finding who the mystery sender is."

There are different sized papers inside the envelope, letters cut from magazines that contain messages of threats. “Are you and the senator…?” Her lips curled up even before I could finish my sentence.

She handed a card, slipping it on the table. “I’m Y/N, Senator Hall’s publicist.” True enough, the card says that she is a journalist. “There are talks about how good you are, considering you found the mistress of Otto Holding’s chairman.” My jaw clenched. It’s not my best work but why did I get famous because of that? “Can I assure your help, Detective?”

I nodded with a smirk. She knew the business. Interesting. The woman placed the briefcase on the table, “This is just the first payment.” A briefcase full of money? This is serious business. She placed a gold-colored card above the briefcase with the letters ‘Fantasia’ written on it. “The senator usually comes to this club. He often gets the letters in this place.”

Fantasia? It’s a new high-end club that just opened for VIPs. This just narrowed down the list of potential suspects. They can either be VIPs or someone working in that club.

“I trust that you do your job discreetly,” She leaned on the table and I found myself staring at the low cut of her red blouse. “Mr. Yuta Nakamoto.” The way my name rolled on her tongue sent shivers down my spine. And as she left the office, her heels clicking on the floor, I was left with the scent of roses and an unhealthy amount of attraction for the senator’s publicist.

My fingers fiddled with the business card she handed.

Miss Y/N.

Trouble.

Will I get to see her again?

Fantasia is so posh, so high class, that security is so tight. It runs in an invite-only policy, the golden card that Miss Y/N handed. But even if you had the said invite, you needed to give them your personal information. Nothing bad will surely happen here.

The inside was not anything I imagined. The smell of alcohol and the blinding lights are the first thing noticeable inside, followed by jazz music playing. Girls in promiscuous clothes were serving drinks as another girl with flashy red clothes was singing on the stage. The color of rose and blood. And I was reminded of Ms. Y/N once again.

Senator. I’m here for a task.

After getting my drink from the bartender, I searched for a place where I could sit and surveyed the place. Before I approached a corner seat, I spotted the man I should be eyeing, seated on a velvet couch and staring at the girl on the stage. Based on the files, he has a wife and she’s very wealthy. Is this another case of a cheating husband? Then this case will be solved immediately.

The girl in the red dress singing earlier made her way to the crowd, stopping in front of the senator before giving him a smile and a wink. A smirk escaped my lips, case closed. I've been in this work for so long to know that his wife is giving him threats for having a girlfriend. A cliché love story.

The task was done even before I could begin so I drank a little to celebrate my small victory. Although the drink is expensive, I deserved this.

I'm busy minding my drink when the seat beside me gets occupied. "Hi." The same girl in the red dress singing on stage earlier. The senator's lover. "You're new here, aren't you?"

Does she keep track of the people here? "Want me to show you a good time?" What? But before I could say anything, she lightly pushed up her skirt to show me her thigh. What the hell is this club?

I turned around from her, facing the female bartender who was wiping the counter, and drank the contents of my glass in one gulp. I have to get out of here. The girl held my chest and I hastily stood up, feeling my head throbbed. What is happening to me? I felt my legs lose their strength as my stomach grumbled, sour liquid creeping up in my throat.

Immediately, I ran to the men's toilet to vomit everything in my stomach. The sour and bitter taste coming out of my mouth. Where did this come from? Is it the expensive drink? Am I not allowed to drink expensive scotch? Luxury life isn't really for me.

The moment I went out, wiping my mouth with my handkerchief, a surprise overtook me. A body was lying on the floor, a pool of blood by my feet. Turning it, I stumbled on my feet to see the senator as pale as a ghost. What the hell? I kneeled on the bloody floor, pumping his chest to at least save him but it's too late. He already lost a lot of blood. Shit, this is bad.

A stray bullet can be seen on the side of his body next to something glistening. An earring. Gold flower earring. The lingering smell of cigarettes, mint cigarettes. Before I could stand, the door opened followed by a scream of terror. This is really bad.

The door closed. I had to save myself. Even if it is the most questionable thing, I jumped out of the window and ran for my life. My hands were still bloody as well as my coat, the earring in my coat pocket. This is a first. What will happen to me now? There's only one person who saw me. They can't actually remember me, right?

It must be the distress, the lightheaded feeling of panic. A blinding car light made me stop in my tracks. This might be my death. I should have bought the fanciest drink there is.

"Detective Nakamoto?" Then the voice of an angel. I might be dead. "Are you alright?" The angel appears to wear a red shirt. The color of blood. Death. "What happened to you?" Her flesh feels warm, she's alive.

It is the distress, the panic, that I cling to her arm. The police sirens could be heard and I begged for her to take me out of the place.

The evening lights were blinding as she drove. Destination, unknown. Her phone rang and she accepted the call, Mrs. Hall. "My husband is dead." She stepped on the brakes immediately, putting her phone on handset before glancing at me.

I didn't hear what they were talking about but her stare at me got me ideas. She might have found out that I'm in the same club as him. When she put down the call, she only stared at me. "You killed him?"

"What? Of course not."

She raised an eyebrow, eyeing my bloody coat. "I swear I didn't. I saw him lying in his own blood when I left the restroom stall."

"Someone saw you." She opened the radio of her car, "And now, they're looking for you." The voice from the radio was talking about how the senator was found dead in the jazz club and that they're looking for a man in a coat. I hastily removed my coat, throwing it on the backseat of the car.

She laughed at that. "You think that's all, detective?" She showed her phone, a picture of me taken earlier in the club with a wanted sign on top. Shit! "I asked you to find who tried to kill him, not kill him."

"I swear I didn't," I shouted, putting my hands up. "I don't even own a gun and he was shot." I tried to think of other things I noticed at the scene of the crime. Come on Yuta, think. "It smells like cigarettes and I don't smoke."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "But why are you there?"

"You asked me to come there."

"I mean the restroom." She rolled her eyes. "If he was shot, why didn't you hear the gunfire? Why didn't you ask for help?"

I closed my eyes in frustration. Journalists really are inquisitive. "I was vomiting my drink and I don't know, I panicked. I thought I could save him." She started the car without a word and I just sat there, looking outside to see where we were going.

What will happen to me now? A wanted man. I can't return to my original life. Why am I in this mess? "I'm sorry. I believe you. I asked you for help and you were just trying to do your job." I nodded. At least she understands. "But for now, everyone knows you so I'll help you hide then maybe we can clear your name."

I have nothing to do but trust her. I need to clear my name. Why is my brain so blank now?

We stopped at a gas station to get some food. I’m pretty famished after vomiting everything but the moment I stepped inside the store, the news of the senator can be heard followed by a description of the person who killed him. The attendant stared at me before Y/N took his attention. This is bad.

Hastily, I made a beeline outside after cleaning my hands off the blood. Y/N is already outside with a lollipop in her mouth, leaning by her car. “I borrowed some clothes.” She should have said that when I was inside but where did she get those clothes? “You can change inside the car.”

Here? In the open? But she was already opening the door for me. The clothes were on the backseat of her car, a black shirt and jogger pants. And it’s better than having my bloody clothes so even if the shirt is a little tight, pants shorter, I have to wear this.

She eyed me from head to toe and for the first time, I felt exposed. A raise of an eyebrow followed by the lollipop removed from her mouth with a popping sound. "Do you have any place you can go?" Is there? They're probably at my apartment address by now. The police might be in my office. I shook my head and she smirked, gesturing to the car.

The city buildings are now gone, replaced by endless empty landscapes. It was a long drive. The news from the radio was replaced by jazz music, her phone kept ringing but she didn't mind it all. A blinding light changed the overall aura of the surroundings as she made a sharp turn heading to what seems like a motel. Why here of all places? It looks like a rundown. Is someone still living here?

I followed her to what seems like an endless hallway, the smell of cigarettes and weed in the air as the sounds of grunting and bed squeaking can be heard. She inserted a key on the last door to the right, opening it and switching the lights on. “Stay here for a while.” She whispered before casually entering the room. It smelled like roses. Her scent.

“Do you live here?” She shook her head, handing me a bottle of beer. Then why does she look so comfortable here? She removed her coat and casually throwing it to the couch in the middle of the room. Her arms filled with bruises and scars. “What happened?”

She shrugged, disappearing to another door and I took time to look around. A large window covered with dark curtains, bottles of beer on the floor under the table. I even saw underwear which made me immediately turn around. There was a sound of murmuring from inside the room, she might be on a call with someone.

I took my phone out of my coat pocket which revealed countless calls and even messages asking where I was. In annoyance, I just closed my phone and return it to the pocket where my fingers grazed at something sharp. The earring. The gold flower earring. It’s a woman.

“A woman killed him.” I immediately told Y/N when she went out of the room. “I’m certain of that.” She glanced at me in question. “Maybe his wife.”

“Mrs. Hall? She’s so kind.” She claimed. “Why would she do that?”

“Because he’s seeing someone else.” The statement obviously came as a surprise to her. Doesn’t she know? “Senator Hall is seeing another girl in that jazz club.” Her eyebrows were scrunched to focus on my words. Then it came. That girl. She was beside me before I took a shot of my drink. She might have put something in my drink. She listened as I narrate everything to her, no one can help me with this shithole but her. I need to clear my name and find who really killed the senator.

She bit her lip. “Do you really think she did it? The jazz singer?” I nodded. It’s only her or his wife. “I’m meeting Mrs. Hall tomorrow. I’ll try and look at this.” She rolled her eyes. “This is supposed to be your job.” I apologized. It really is. But my hands are tied now. I can’t do anything.

The death was all over the news. My face plastered on every newspaper and wanted poster. How quick are they to assume that I killed the senator? Should I just come clean and tell them that I don’t have a gun? That I don’t smoke?

With nothing to do, I laundry my bloody clothes and some of Y/N’s things. Lightly tidying up her motel room. Why would a girl like her live in a place like this?

And as I reached out from under the couch, I found out exactly why.

It’s almost midnight yet she isn’t back. Maybe she isn’t coming here tonight. So I settled to bed, removing the dirty shirt I have been wearing the whole day. The incessant pounding of the bed on the wall from the other room only made me annoyed and, well, disturbed. I can’t fucking sleep. The moans got louder, mattress squeaking that made it unable for me to focus on just sleeping. Fuck! I’m very well disturbed.

My hand slipped inside my pants, finger tracing the outline of my member while thinking of a certain girl in red lace underwear. Hand wrapped around the hard rod, I started stroking while creating soft moans along with the sound of sex next door. “Y/N,” I whispered and a gasp can be heard that made me open my eyes. She’s in the doorway, looking at me in surprise. Fuck! Immediately, I removed my hand from my pants then stood up from the bed that made me light-headed. “It’s not what it looked like. I…”

“Yuta,” she called. A sound that rang like a melody in my ears. There were tears in her eyes, a bruised lip, and a cut on her cheek. The reason why she’s staying in this motel room. Why that ring is under the couch. “I don’t want to come back to him anymore.” She choked on her tears.

Y/N’s cries got louder as I wrap my arms around her. “Then don’t come back to him,” I whispered. How long was this? Why isn’t she speaking up about this? Why is she hiding here? “I’ll protect you, Y/N.”

She stared right into my eyes. And I knew that very moment I shouldn't have let myself be taken by her good looks and smell. I realized that she was the kind of trouble I was looking for. The kind that would give my life a sense of purpose.

My hunches might be right seeing how there are bruises and scars all over her skin. How can a confident girl be this fucked up? Now, I have more reasons to clear my name. "When everything clears up, stay with me." I whispered then kissed her bare shoulder. My lips went to hers, gently kissing the bruises and cuts in her skin as if I could erase them. My arms trying to give her the warmth she needed.

When I woke up, she was nowhere in sight. Her car wasn’t outside as well, she must be off to work. The news is different now, something about the stocks dropping and the murder of another man in town. Maybe I can come outside now. But where should I go? There isn’t any diner or restaurant near the motel, even a store where I can buy food. I’ll have to wait for her to come home and wish that she brought food.

Luckily, Y/N did. Sushi. Along with the take-out foods is an envelope that contains papers inside. A picture is inside the brown file, the girl from the jazz club. “Is she the one you’re talking about?” I nodded. Although her clothes are different and with a lesser make-up on, she’s obviously that girl. There were details about her, her name and her address. “Do you think she killed the senator?”

“Why would she drug me if not?”

“That’s not enough evidence, Yuta.” She’s right. It really isn’t enough evidence to name her the suspect. Shit! Is there anything I can do to clear my name? “I’ll try and watch her, maybe I can get some answers.”

I moved closer to her, holding her in my arms. If we’re going to clear my name, she wouldn’t be doing this alone. She’s been through a lot. “I’ll come with you.” When she kissed my lips, I already knew her answer.

She was exactly that girl in the bar. My eyes can’t fool me. It’s a high possibility that she is the killer now that we’re watching her smoke a cigarette. All we need to do is get her alibi and see if she has a gun. But I'm positive that she is the killer. Why would she put poison in my drink? Why me?

Is it to frame me? She doesn't know me. Is it obvious that I'm a detective at first glance? Which came to my first question, why me?

That question still lingered in my mind. It's been a week since we saw the girl. Y/N would always leave in the morning and come back each night with new information about the Senator's case. She had been working closely with the lawyers and the police about the case, updating me of recent findings. "Can I come out now? Tell the police everything I know about the case?" I asked while brushing her hair, her head laying on my arm. "I have enough evidence."

"Evidence?"

"An earring," I whispered and she jolted to sit, looking at me surprised. "I saw an earring at the scene of the crime."

"Why didn't you tell me about this?" She picked up her discarded clothes in a hurry. Why? What’s wrong? But before I could ask anything, she had already left.

The news of the senator’s death was once again on the headlines but this time, my face isn’t the one flashing but the jazz singer’s as the suspect. She admitted to the crime, saying that she had been threatening the senator since he promised that he’ll buy her out of the club. Fantasia club is now under a lot of criticism for prostitution and the unethical labor of the workers. A gun with a silencer was found in her possession, the weapon used for the crime.

My picture flashed on the screen, not as a suspect, but as the detective who solved all of this.

There’s only one thing to do now. Go back to my normal life.

Journalists all came to the office and asked me a lot of questions. The newspaper was filled with pictures of me, claiming that I’m the best detective in town and the phone kept ringing endlessly in the office. I smiled, it hadn’t been a typical day even if I didn’t put an extra cube of sugar in my coffee.

I was on a call with a journalist from the local newspaper when two uniformed personnel came inside my office. “Detective Nakamoto, we need your help.” And I knew, this is something serious.

Maybe it already happened two times. I have been to this place before. Thrice. I have been here thrice. The mansion of the Chairman of Otto Holdings. It was his wife who asked me to come here before. Now, the reason was him.

The officials informed me about the corpse, stabbed in the stomach then shot in the head. The killer wants him dead, I’m sure of that. I saw him a couple of times before and he is a tall man. If someone were to kill him by stabbing his stomach, that person might be close to him. Who would do this? His wife? But she’s already living abroad. His lover perhaps? Someone working for him?

“Reports said that he’s here with his daughter. We’re trying to locate her.” He had a daughter? They showed a plastic bag with the pieces of evidence found at the crime scene: strands of long hair, cigarette butt, a bullet. Familiar shreds of evidence.

They let me look around his office, the place polished in cleanliness except for little splotches of blood on the carpet. Old marks of blood. On one side of the wall were torture devices: floggers, leather whips, handcuffs, and wooden cane. Either he’s into serious sexual acts or he’s just a demon who loves torture.

A picture hanging on the wall took my attention. A happy family. The young-looking chairman was standing behind his estranged wife who looked really happy and youthful. On her lap is a young girl with such angelic features. Bright shining eyes. Then a familiar thing caught my attention.

The gold flower earring was shining on my hand. The same earring the little girl is wearing in the picture. Why do I feel like I’ve been chasing the wrong suspect all along? I drank some beer, seated by the edge of my desk when the door opened. Before I could tell that the office was closed for the day, a strong scent of a woman’s perfume hit my nose. Roses. The familiar smell of roses. Y/N.

She removed the black coat she had on, revealing a red wrap-around dress that shows some skin below her neckline and stops midthigh. Her hair has gotten shorter since the last time I saw her. Lips deep red. Her heels click-clacking against the hardwood of my office. A sheer lace thigh-high stocking completed her look.

Her hand slipped on my neck, leaning close to whisper in my ear “Long time no see, hotshot.” My heart beating wildly against my chest. Her smell. That addicting smell. Her lips went to mine. Her taste. A deadly combination of alcohol, cigarette, and mint. “I missed you, Yuta.” She whispered in that erotic voice, fingers heading south my shirt.

I took the glass of alcohol to relieve the parching of my throat, finishing the contents before holding her by the waist. “It’s you, isn’t it?” A smirk escaped her lips. “You killed the chairman.” I should have been aware the moment it smelled like roses in the chairman’s house. “You’re his daughter.” The same eyes as the girl in the picture. “Why…?”

My chest suddenly felt tight. Like someone just punched my heart. I gasped for air. Mouth burning as if on fire. She just sat on the chair, crossing her legs while watching me. “Because he promised mom that he’ll take care of me.” She flexed her fingers, checking her nails. “I hate people who don’t fulfill their promises.”

Promises. The same thing the jazz singer said about the senator. “You…” I coughed blood. “You also killed the senator.” It makes sense now. She came to me. She wanted me there. She pretended to help me. The earring. Her reaction. The taste of mint and cigarettes. “Why? Why me?” My legs feel numb that I fell on the floor.

“Isn’t it your fault why mom left my dad? Why I’m in hell because of him?” It wasn’t a husband. It was her dad. He really is a monster. “Think of this as a little gift. You’ve became famous. Everyone will know that you died.” Her fingers glide on the edge of the desk, placing a small white pill beside the glass. “They just wouldn’t know how.”

I called for her name but she just stared at me with an evil look in her eyes. “I sincerely liked you, Yuta. I even believed that we could be together.”

“We can.” But every word felt like a thorn in my chest. “I love you.”

The corner of her lips curled up, kneeling beside me. “But you’re also like them. Promising things and not actually doing it.” I grasp her arm, words not coming out of my mouth. She took her phone. “Mrs. Hall, the work is done.” She stared right into me with cold eyes. “Detective Nakamoto is gone.”

Her lips were as red as rose as she smirked at me. Her dress, red. The color of blood.

The memory of when I first saw her came to me. The same smell of roses. The gold flower earrings on her ears. The same color as blood telling me that she’s bad news.

I should have listened.

But it’s too late.

She is indeed trouble.

The kind of trouble that will be the death of me.

Like a sweet poison. She’s a poison. Addicting. Deadly.

And then everything went black.

#neo city noir collab #yuta #yuta nakamoto #nakamoto yuta #yuta angst #yuta nakamoto angst #nakamoto yuta angst #detective yuta #yuta au #nakamoto yuta au #yuta nakamoto au

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ibijau · 3 years

Text

Futures Past pt6 / On AO3

Lan Xichen comes to Yunping City with a secret mission in his heart. Things don't quite go according to plan.

Huang Quiling bowed deeply and thanked Lan Qiren and Jiang Fengmian once more for their help dealing with that gang of fierce corpses, which had escaped from the Burial Mounds of Yiling and made their way to Yunping City. He had explained, when they'd arrived, that he’d asked two Great Sects for their help because it had seemed to him that anything concerning the Burial Mounds required close attention. It had made sense at the moment, but Lan Xichen now realised that above all else Yunping Huang was a very small, very young sect that just didn’t have the manpower to deal with such a threat.

Not that the threat had been too great, in the end. The fierce corpses had been dealt with quite easily, just like in Lan Xichen’s memories. More easily, perhaps, since he’d remembered exactly how and where to strike them for a quick victory. For that reason, young Jiang Cheng had been particularly impressed by his performance, and Nie Huaisang even more so.

Nie Huaisang who shouldn’t have been there.

While his uncle and sect leader Jiang discussed with sect leader Huang about precautions to be taken, and what to do with the remains of those fierce corpses, Lan Xichen allowed his gaze to drift toward Nie Huaisang. The younger boy was standing on his own, near the lined up corpses, observing them with bored curiosity as if he’d never seen fierce corpses before and wasn’t too impressed by the sight.

It might well have been the case. Lan Xichen knew that Nie Mingjue had rarely managed to drag his brother on Night Hunts, and always had to select very easy preys even when he did… not that Nie Huaisang ever did much when he was brought on Night Hunts anyway. Lan Xichen doubted he’d ever so much as subdued a small ghost, at an age when other boys already had killed several monsters and conducted exorcisms.

And yet, as soon as he’d heard about this Night Hunt near Yunping City, Nie Huaisang had begged to come.

Lan Xichen had been so stunned by the request that he'd almost refused on principle. Night Hunts were serious business, even one he knew would go smoothly, and idle observers always brought trouble. Besides, Lan Xichen had big plans for that trip to Yunping City, and knew that agreeing to let Nie Huaisang come meant he’d be put in charge of the other boy, which would disrupt his efforts to find and recruit Meng Yao into Gusu Lan.

The very last thing Lan Xichen wanted was for Nie Huaisang to be following him around while he tried to change that part of history. Partly because he dreaded anything that would bring together those two future enemies, but mostly because Nie Mingjue would never forgive him for taking his precious little brother into the brothel district.

Lan Xichen had wanted to refuse.

He should have refused.

He hadn’t, and even pushed against his uncle’s reluctance when Lan Qiren said, not without wisdom, that it might be a dangerous Night Hunt for someone of such a low level. But Lan Xichen had insisted, knowing as his uncle did not that the fierce corpses would reach the borders of Yunping City already weakened and too disoriented by their long walk to put up much resistance.

Besides, Lan Xichen hadn’t expected Nie Huaisang to do much except stand around and allow others to deal with the threat.

He’d been right. Nie Huaisang had stayed close to Lan Xichen the whole time, having apparently decided that this was the safest place to be.

That, along with the request to come to this Night Hunt, was giving Lan Xichen an impression of progress. That was something he desperately needed, he realised while watching Nie Huaisang wander among their group. The younger boy had proven surprisingly reluctant to the concept of making friends. Or at least, he’d been resisting all of Lan Xichen’s efforts, and showed no interest in the other guest disciples either, while developing an apparent obsession with Su She, of all people.

A mutual obsession, judging by the way they were both always seeking each other. A dangerous obsession, Lan Xichen thought, and so when his uncle had wondered about taking Su She with them, Lan Xichen had been forced to disagree.

They didn’t need a traitor in their midst.

Truly, if Lan Xichen had had the power, he’d have ordered Su She away already, even if it was unfair when he hadn’t yet committed any crimes. Still, since he intended to bring Meng Yao to the Cloud Recesses and keep him there, then Su She couldn't be kept around. It would be better to avoid…

“Lan gongzi, did I do something bad?” Nie Huaisang cried out, suddenly appearing in front of Lan Xichen, startling him. “You’ve been looking at me for a while and you’re frowning… I’m really sorry I wasn’t much use at all, you know! I swear I didn’t mean to drop my sabre like that, and then it would have been dangerous to get it back!”

Lan Xichen smiled, and tried not to wonder if Nie Huaisang had dropped his weapon on purpose.

Tried and failed. It was hard to not suspect Nie Huaisang of secretly scheming every time he cried out about being stupid, every time he failed at some easy task.

“You’ll have to try to train a little harder,” Lan Xichen gently scolded. “You could have gotten hurt. You’re lucky there were others to protect you, but it might not always be the case.”

“I’d never go anywhere dangerous without someone strong,” Nie Huaisang retorted with an insolent grin. “Or anywhere dangerous at all, if I can help it. I thought maybe Night Hunts would be more fun without my brother shouting at me, but in the end this was still scary and boring. I don’t think I’ll try again.”

Only years of good education prevented Lan Xichen from rolling his eyes. “I hope Nie gongzi realises that these things aren’t about having fun,” he said. “It is about helping those in need, and defeating evil before it can cause harm to innocents.”

“Is it?” Nie Huaisang asked, looking sincerely surprised. “I thought that was just something people said. But I guess Lan gongzi is such an honest person, of course you’d really believe that, right?”

Lan Xichen tensed.

It was amazing, really, how Nie Huaisang always found exactly the most awful thing to say, and to make something like ‘honest’ sound like an insult.

“What’s going to happen now?” Nie Huaisang asked, blissfully unaware he’d said anything wrong. “It’s still pretty early in the day, do you think we’ll have a chance to visit Yunping City a bit? It'd be really neat if we could. I even brought my pocket money in case I see something nice.”

So that was why Nie Huaisang had wanted to come, Lan Xichen realised, instantly relaxing. For tourism, and to get a break from lessons. It was such a simple and innocent reason, perfectly fitting the sort of person Nie Huaisang appeared to be, but Lan Xichen had been too taken by his future memories of a ruthless manipulator. Perhaps it hadn’t all been a comedy. Perhaps until his brother’s death, Nie Huaisang had really been just silly. Just an ordinary, lazy teenager whose only agenda was to make as few efforts as possible.

It gave Lan Xichen some comfort. He would have been blind in that future he wanted to avoid, but perhaps that was because for the longest of times there really had been nothing to see.

“We need to do some clean-up first,” Lan Xichen explained, gesturing toward the defeated fierce corpses. “But I’m sure that won’t take too long. We might have the afternoon off at least, if shufu and Jiang zongzhu wish to talk with Huang zongzhu.”

They would, as Lan Xichen already knew. In fact, they had so much to say that the Lan and Jiang wouldn’t start heading home until the following afternoon. It should give Lan Xichen plenty of time to look for Meng Yao and find a way to bring him to Gusu, so he could be prevented from ever joining Lanling Jin.

Somehow.

“Will this take long?” Nie Huaisang asked, glancing toward the city.

“It’ll take less time if you help,” Lan Xichen suggested. “You’re here anyway, so you might as well. And I’m sure your brother will be proud of you if he hears you did your part.”

The advice caused Nie Huaisang to grimace and sigh, as if being asked to participate was the very worst thing he’d ever been ordered to do. In the end, he was more of a hindrance than anything, until Lan Qiren told him to get out of the way. That order he obeyed quite efficiently.

When all the fierce corpses had been purified, their group headed back into town, toward Yunping Huang's home where they had all been invited to stay. It wasn't a very large place, so while Lan Qiren and Jiang Fengmian were offered their own rooms to freshen up, the juniors had to share one room between all of them, Lan and Jiang mixed together.

Several basins were offered to them to clean a bit, as well as some light collations to help them last until the next meal. Some of the boys were more interested in chatting than in getting clean. The Jiang boys in particular seemed quite talkative, blabbering between themselves about their great deeds, talking about how much they'd boast to Wei Wuxian about the great Night Hunt he'd missed out on, and even trying to start conversations with the Lan disciples to comment on their technique.

Even Jiang Cheng, who Lan Xichen remembered from his future as severe and joyless, was chatting with enthusiasm. He also kept glancing toward Lan Xichen, as if wishing to say something but lacking the nerves to actually do it. Lan Xichen found it a little amusing to think that the terrifying future Sandu Shengshou had once been shy, but didn't pay it much mind.

He had a goal to accomplish while in Yunping City, and mingling with peers would have to wait.

It did not take too long for Lan Xichen to clean up and be ready to head out again. As he prepared to do so, he stumbled upon his uncle who asked him whether he’d seen Nie Huaisang. It appeared that while everyone went to rest and freshen up, Nie Huaisang had left the house, and alone at that.

Although he tried his best to look suitably worried, Lan Xichen almost leaped from joy at the news. Nie Huaisang’s mischief gave him the perfect excuse to head out as well… and since none of the other juniors were done cleaning up, since the adults had much to discuss, Lan Xichen had no trouble at all arguing that he could go alone after his friend’s brother. He promised to be careful, and to bring back Nie Huaisang as soon as he found him. He’d have promised anything, really, and only felt mildly guilty for immediately heading in the direction where he thought Meng Shi’s brothel should stand.

Lan Xichen had not often come to Yunping City, in that future he remembered, and the town had not left a very big impression on him. On this present Night Hunt, he’d mostly been worried about supervising other juniors while his uncle discussed politics with the other two sect leaders. Then, on his second visit, Lan Xichen had been a prisoner, weakened and worried that after having been kidnapped by the man he had trusted the most, he might get murdered once he outlived his usefulness as a hostage. In such circumstances, in neither of his visits Lan Xichen had really paid attention to his surroundings. Adding to this the fact that Yunping City would change a good deal in the twenty years to come...

Lan Xichen got lost.

He got immensely lost, and realised, a little late, that he couldn’t ask for direction. He’d never learned the name of the brothel where Meng Shi worked, partly because he’d never thought to ask. Why would he have ever needed that information? Why ask a question that would only have upset his dear friend by reminding him of his origins?

Of course this wouldn’t have been a problem if there had only been one brothel in Yunping City.

There were many more than one brothel in the city, as Lan Xichen discovered when he reached the right neighbourhood. Wrong neighbourhood.

A neighbourhood.

Since it was only afternoon, there wasn’t too much activity going on, aside from the different brothels starting to get ready for the night, or welcoming a few special clients. Walking in the streets, Lan Xichen heard laughter coming from the buildings, and arguments as well. He found himself forced to mostly keep his eyes to the road in front of him, because looking up meant he risked catching a glimpse of a lady or young man in a partly undressed state, arguing from a window with someone in the street or just enjoying some fresh air. But of course, refusing to look up made it virtually impossible to try and recognise the building he was looking for.

After well over a shichen of aimless wandering, Lan Xichen felt himself fall into despair. This plan of his might not have been very well thought out, and he was well and truly lost now. If his uncle came looking for him and found him in such a place…

“Lan gongzi?” a squeaky voice called out, startling him. “What are you doing here?”

Lan Xichen turned, and found himself staring at Nie Huaisang.

It would have been hard to say, between the two of them, who was the most embarrassed one. Nie Huaisang certainly looked quite stunned, but perhaps also a little upset that he had cried out like that instead of escaping unseen. Lan Xichen had a feeling the younger boy wasn’t quite as lost as him.

“I was looking for you,” Lan Xichen explained. “And then I ended up here.”

Nie Huaisang let out a curse. “Damn, I thought I’d been more discreet than that,” he grumbled, confirming Lan Xichen’s suspicion. “Well, cat’s out of the bag, uh? I’m here because I figured I might buy some spring books without anyone breathing down my neck. So, uh, I’m quite well as you see, so you can go back. I’m sure I won’t be very long. Well, I hope. I’ve just got to find what I’m looking for.”

Lan Xichen couldn’t refrain a small smile upon hearing this. He knew, distantly, that Nie Huaisang had eventually become quite well known among guest disciples for having smuggled some spring books into the Cloud Recesses. Apparently, it was a hobby in which he was already quite invested, if he’d dared to venture alone in such a part of an unknown city.

“You really should head back to the Huang sect's home,” Lan Xichen gently scolded. “It’s getting late, and you might get in trouble.”

“I’m in trouble already since you found me,” Nie Huaisang muttered, nervously glancing around. “I’m… I’m not really finding what I want so far, so I’d like… please Lan gongzi, can you pretend you didn’t see me and let me look a little longer?”

“I promised I’d take you back as soon as I found you.”

Lan Xichen paused, and considered the situation. It was obvious that Nie Huaisang wasn’t quite as uncomfortable as him in this place. Maybe if they walked together, Lan Xichen himself would feel more at ease, and even manage to actually look at the buildings surrounding them to try and recognise those that had been near that temple, twenty years in the future.

“Nie gongzi, if you must really stay here, then at the very least I should stay at your side to make sure you don’t get in trouble.”

Nie Huaisang startled so badly at the suggestion that he nearly tripped and fell. His face turned very pale, and he started fidgeting nervously with his sleeve. He hadn’t yet gotten into the habit of always carrying a fan, as he would during the following year, or else Lan Xichen knew Nie Huaisang would have opened such a fan and hidden behind it.

“Lan gongzi! This really isn’t a place for you!” Nie Huaisang squeaked.

“And it is one for you?”

Nie Huaisang grimaced. His face was turning grey with anguish, while his eyes looked red, as if he might cry.

“I’d really rather be alone, it’s too embarrassing if you’re here,” he whined miserable.

“You’re just here for spring books, right?” Lan Xichen asked, worried that the younger boy might have wanted to do more than merely look while in such a neighbourhood. “You’re not here to…”

“No!” Nie Huaisang urgently shouted. “No, I’m just here to… I just wanted to… I was…” He took a deep breath, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. “Lan gongzi, believe it or not, but I had no bad intentions at all. But something like this… how could I do it with you around? I just can’t… you’re too… And it’s getting late now, and it’ll be impossible to… ah, I messed this up, I really messed this up!”

He’d burst into tears, sobbing loudly and attracting the attention of a few passerbys. Lan Xichen knew he should have said something, tried to calm the other boy, but the sight of those tears, the tone of his voice, brought back unpleasant memories.

Lan Xichen found himself frozen, and unable to breathe.

Nie Huaisang had sounded, would have sounded the same all those times he’d come crying for help after the death of Nie Mingjue. The same pathetic tears, the same stuttering, all lies, all pretences.

Lan Xichen couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t…

“Lan gongzi?” he heard Nie Huaisang call to him, voice distant, as if coming through a thick wall. “Lan gongzi, are you unwell?”

Lan Xichen didn’t answer.

One needed air to speak, and he still couldn’t breathe.

He was feeling as if he might pass out from the lack of air, when the feeling of a burning hand on his own freezing one pulled him back to the present.

Lan Xichen took a deep, shaky breath, then another, and another, until he found himself in control again. The whole time Nie Huaisang held his hand, still sniffling and crying a few tears. His face was splotched with red, and his nose was runny, when Lan Xichen had always taken him to be the sort of person blessed enough to become more handsome with tears. Perhaps it meant this fit of crying was real, when other ones had been staged.

He couldn’t imagine the man Nie Huaisang would become holding anyone’s hand while they were unwell, nor indeed letting anyone’s discomfort distract from his own antics.

There was comfort to be found in that.

“Sorry, I sometimes have episodes like this,” Lan Xichen explained when he felt capable of speaking again. It hadn’t been the first time his other memories provoked an intense reaction, and he feared it wouldn’t be the last either. “I hope I didn’t worry you too much.”

“It was really scary,” Nie Huaisang said, squeezing his hand tight. “You looked like you were going to faint. Actually, you still don’t look too good.”

Lan Xichen didn’t feel so well, truth be told. He knew from experience he probably would be a little uneasy until he’d slept.

“I can’t leave you here alone,” he still insisted. “It could be dangerous.”

After glancing around at the now busier streets, Nie Huaisang sighed deeply. He let go of Lan Xichen’s hand and quickly wiped a few new tears.

“It’s too late, I don’t think I can do this,” he mumbled, sounding rather more emotional than he should have been about mere spring books. “I’d get in trouble now that the brothels are opening for the night. I’ll just… I don’t know. I really don’t know what I’ll do,” he sighed, and for a second Lan Xichen thought he was going to lose his breath again, until Nie Huaisang spoke again. “I can’t leave you on your own when you’re unwell, anyway. Da-ge would never forgive me. So let’s head back, and like that I can help you if you start feeling bad again.”

At some other time, Lan Xichen might have laughed, or at least smiled at the idea that Nie Huaisang could help him in any way. Whether he was a foolish boy or a scheming avenger, Nie Huaisang wasn’t one to help others.

But it was the other boy’s hand on his own that had called him back to the present, and Nie Huaisang certainly looked sincerely worried.

“Thank you, I think I’d like that,” Lan Xichen said. “I’m really sorry for ruining your fun.”

“It wasn’t much fun anyway,” Nie Huaisang replied as they started walking back toward the local sect. “And anyway, this is important too.”

Lan Xichen said nothing, a certain tiredness slowly creeping up inside him as a consequence of his moment of panic, but he smiled faintly.

Maybe he really was making progress with Nie Huaisang. And as for Meng Yao, there was always the following morning to try and find him.

Nie Huaisang was scolded by Lan Qiren when they returned to the Huang sect's dwellings, promised punishment, and ordered not to wander off again. He looked as if he might cry again, being talked down like this in front of everyone, but he just pinched his lips and nodded along, as if accepting he would be punished this harshly. It was not quite in character for him, since he usually was more the sort to argue and whine to get out of trouble, and he looked utterly depressed, almost as much as he would in a few years upon losing his brother.

If Lan Xichen hadn't been so exhausted by his moment of panic, he would have made a note of it and tried asking the younger boy what was wrong. As it was, he could barely stand anymore and had to excuse himself to go sleep before even having dinner. He thought his uncle looked a little disapproving, aware surely that such a simple Night Hunt shouldn't have tired him so… but Lan Xichen didn't care. All that mattered was sleep, so he could leave that day behind him.

Sleep, however, brought less rest than Lan Xichen would have liked. He had nightmares throughout the night, though he couldn't remember them when he opened his eyes. He thought they'd had to do with Nie Huaisang and Meng Yao, perhaps also with Nie Mingjue, but he couldn't be quite sure.

He didn't want to remember those dreams.

It wasn’t quite dawn when Lan Xichen woke up one final time. He quickly decided that he probably wouldn’t manage to go back to sleep, not when it might bring more nightmares. Instead he got up quietly and got dressed. As he did so his eyes scanned the room he shared with other juniors, and noticed that Nie Huaisang wasn’t present, his bed slept in but currently empty. Lan Xichen, who had wanted to meditate until the other Lan disciples awoke, changed his plans and instead went to look for Nie Huaisang.

He didn’t have to go very far. Yunping Huang’s home wasn’t large, and there weren’t many places a guest might wander off. After checking at the door with the Huang disciple on watch duty, Lan Xichen learned that Nie Huaisang had indeed tried to go out only to be denied, and had been directed to the courtyard if he didn’t want to go back to bed. That was where Lan Xichen found the younger boy, sitting on a bench among some potted plants, restlessly moving his legs in small jerky movements and chewing on the skin around his nails hard enough to draw blood.

Lan Xichen walked closer, making sure to step a little harder than he normally would so Nie Huaisang would hear him coming. Even like this, Nie Huaisang appeared startled when he noticed he wasn’t alone anymore, and went completely still for a moment. He quickly recovered though, and without getting up bowed to Lan Xichen.

“Good morning, Lan gongzi. You’re up early, are you still unwell?”

“I’m much better. Thank you again for helping me yesterday. May I ask why you are up so early? I never took you for a morning person.”

“Well, I am, actually,” Nie Huaisang said, wringing his hands. “Early mornings are good for bird watching, you know. And I’m a night person too, because, well, there’s a lot of birds in the evening too. It’s the middle of the day I don’t like so much.”

Lan Xichen smiled, pleased that Nie Huaisang, for once, would speak to him so freely. He gestured at the bench. “May I sit with you?”

“You’re not scolding me for being awake when I shouldn’t be?”

“I’m awake too, how could I scold you?”

That answer appeared to satisfy Nie Huaisang, who motioned for Lan Xichen to sit.

"I really should be sleeping, I know that," Nie Huaisang said, words shooting out of his mouth at high speed. "I tried, but I couldn't. And then I wanted to go for a walk, but I was told I can't, because the city has a curfew on because of those fierce corpses and also to avoid smugglers, and what if I got in trouble, or someone attacked me because I look like I have money, and also your uncle said I'm punished so I wouldn't be able to go out anyway. But I'm really bored, and I really need to go into Yunping, it's very necessary."

Nie Huaisang paused to take a breath, then resumed speaking at a more resonable speed.

"Lan gongzi, do you think you might help me go out? I have something really important I have to do, you see. I think I'll be in huge trouble if I don't do it. And if you help me…"

"What is it you need to do?"

"Can't say," Nie Huaisang muttered, instantly closing off.

"Then you have to understand I can't…"

"I can't say what it is, but I can say it's important," Nie Huaisang corrected, starting to chew on his nails again. "It's very important, and I'll owe you a favour if you help me. Please, Lan gongzi? I swear I won't do anything bad, please believe me!"

His hands clenching on the fabric over his knees, Lan Xichen felt on the verge of another attack of breathlessness. If only Nie Huaisang had come to him in that horrible future, if he'd asked his help then…

Before panic could really seize him, Nie Huaisang grabbed the hem of his sleeve and pulled on it like a child demanding attention.

"Please Lan gongzi, please help me and I'll do anything you want!"

"Anything?" Lan Xichen asked in a voice he barely recognised, as if he'd already started struggling to breathe. Nie Huaisang didn't appear to notice, and nodded eagerly.

If Lan Xichen had slept better, if he hadn't had so much on his mind, he might have told Nie Huaisang that his help didn't need to be bought, or invoked a friendship that didn't exist yet between them. But he was only half awake still, and there was in fact one thing he wanted from Nie Huaisang, something which had caused him immense distress and worry for weeks now.

"What if I asked that you distance yourself from Su She?"

Instantly Nie Huaisang let go of his sleeve and jumped to his feet, his face twisting into a mask of contempt.

"Then I guess I'll just do this on my own, if you're going to be like that! I can't believe… well, maybe I can,” Nie Huaisang laughed darkly. “In the end, Lan gongzi is no better than others, eh? You hold just the same ideas as the rests! It's fine. I don't need your help, if you only give it upon such a condition!"

Lan Xichen stood up as well, and grabbed Nie Huaisang by the wrist to stop him from leaving.

"I didn't mean that," he lied, terrified he might have ruined all his efforts already. Terrified, also, by the apparent strength of Nie Huaisang’s attachment to Su She. "I was just trying to tease you, but I'm not very good at it. I thought…” He hesitated, looking for a decent excuse only to panic again. “Isn't it common to tease people on their crush?"

"My what?" Nie Huaisang sputtered, so shocked he stopped struggling to free himself. "He's not… I'm not… I don't think? I mean, I do like him a lot, I guess..."

Seeing the other boy's growing confusion, Lan Xichen winced. From watching other boys his age make friends, he had assumed it was normal to tease on such a matter, and that the accepted reaction was always to vehemently deny having a crush on anyone, let alone on another boy. He had hoped that the unexpected accusation would confuse Nie Huaisang enough to make him forget his anger.

If instead, after having forced the encounter with Su She, he ended up causing a romance between the two…

"Huaisang, I swear I'll help you sneak outside if you forget I said anything," Lan Xichen pleaded. "I was just… I'm still a little tired and I said nonsense, please forget it."

Nie Huaisang kept silent a moment more, still thinking over that matter, before turning his attention back to Lan Xichen. It seemed to the older boy that something had changed in Nie Huaisang, who now stood a little stiffer and watched him with even less warmth than before.

“I’ll take Lan gongzi’s offer,” he said coldly. “The second offer, to be clear. But I have to say, I don’t think you should make jokes. You’re really not good at this.”

On that matter, at least, they could agree, Lan Xichen thought as they both sat again, and silently waited for a more reasonable hour to head into Yunping City. He was starting to realise that making friends was a much harder endeavour than he’d ever expected.

Lan Xichen had never tried to make anyone like him, be it in this life or the other one he remembered. His uncle had always taught him that only inferior men needed to go out of their way to obtain the good will of others, while men of true quality would let their actions speak for them and find peers of equal rank in that manner. Lan Xichen strove to be polite to people regardless of rank or affection, because being disrespectful to others was also the mark of an inferior man, but he had never tried to cross the distance between himself and others, convinced that friendship would bloom naturally where it was meant to do so.

Looking back on it, Lan Xichen realised that the man he would have become only ever had two friends, and very few people that could be described as more than acquaintances. Three friends, if one included his younger brother… but it left something of a sour taste in Lan Xichen’s mouth to think that he needed to include Lan Wangji in such a list. Most people, he was aware, didn't need to count family among their list of friends.

What bothered him the most, though, was that his future self hadn’t even minded. After everything that had happened, he had counted himself lucky to even have a friend like Jin Guangyao, and had been willing to close his eyes to anything that might have displeased him about the other man. Lan Xichen had convinced himself that he didn’t need to become close to others, all because becoming close to others meant exposing himself to the pain of losing them, should they die.

He hadn't been very good at dealing with loss.

Lan Xichen didn’t want that part of his future, either, he realised. Being an accomplice to crimes was awful, certainly, but this bothered him as well. He had no interest in becoming that lonely man who hid everything behind a smile of empty warmth.

Sadly, that meant he needed to learn to make friends

Judging by the side glares Nie Huaisang was throwing his way now and again, and the way the younger boy kept moving aside so there was as much space as possible between them, as if Lan Xichen's very proximity were now intolerable to him, making friends wasn't going to be easy.

#xisang #nie huaisang #lan xichen #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes #double time travel #this one is a bit long oops lxc had a lot of thoughts ok #It would have been longer but I decided to cut it in two already so... yeah

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misslynn99 · 3 years

Text

Epicenter: Chapter Two

Pro Hero! Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

Link on AO3: Epicenter

Link to Chapter 1

Author: misslynn_99 (Me!)

The next morning, the café regulars buzzed around the TV monitors, excitedly chatting about the news. Official footage of the attack had finally been aired. Concrete flew everywhere as the villain lashed out against heroes, sending distraught civilians fleeing from the scene. The scene that every news station had on repeat, however, was that of several tons of concrete on a direct collision course for a young family, until Ground Zero put himself between the two. He squared back one shoulder to pulverize the rubble with a blast, and in that moment, his wild eyes were molten flames, the fine cascade of dust casting a hazy halo around his form.

It was such a harsh contrast to the villain swinging a pillar of concrete immediately after, colliding directly with the hero’s chest and sending him hurtling back against the harsh exterior of another building, slumping bonelessly on the ground.

“He saved them.” You whispered to yourself. Icy needles twisted in your chest. Eijirou had trusted you to care for his closest friend at his most vulnerable. The café was much closer than any hospital to the scene, but your heart skipped a beat, fluttering in astonishment. “He could have died. It’s a wonder he didn’t.” Just how close had Ground Zero been to death’s door when he showed up here?

“Blasty is lucky he’s got a rad, manly partner like me.” Eijirou’s voice startled you, suddenly far too close to your ear.

“Hi!” You squeaked. “Didn’t hear you come in.”

“You think I’d let my best girl go un-thanked after saving my partner’s ass yesterday?” His arms swept you into a tight bear hug, twirling your feet off of the floor. Eijirou’s easy smile seemed to smooth over the awkward tension from the day before, as if it were no more than an insignificant blight of an otherwise sunny day.

“Quit harassing the woman, Shitty Hair. We’re here on business.”

“She likes it.” Eijirou had the gall to stick out his tongue. “Isn’t that right?”

“I, I don’t mind.” You couldn’t help but squeeze your eyes shut in embarrassment, dropping your head forward, and you prayed that no one would notice. This crush was spiraling out of control, as the sturdy muscles that could shatter any obstacle and strong enough to lift cars supported you easily in his embrace.

“ ‘Don’t mind’ isn’t the same as ‘like’.” Ground Zero’s mouth turned even further downward into a scowl. Reluctantly, Eijirou set you down, and you felt cold at the absence of his touch. The tension settled again like a thick cloud, choking out whatever embers of affection you felt for the red haired hero.

“I didn’t mean to impose.” The red-head’s own face was dusted with faint pink, nervously scratching the back of his neck.

“It’s no problem.” You tried your best to smile kindly, wincing internally at the memory of his flinch. “Why don’t I get you both some coffee on the house? It’s the least I can do for everything you two do to protect the city.”

“One black coffee it is then!” Eijirou perked back up.

“So, I take it you’ll have the latte, extra heavy cream with two pumps caramel, two pumps cinnamon, and cinnamon-brown sugar mix dusted on top?”

Ground Zero’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have to say that so loud.”

“No shame.” You chuckled despite yourself. “Plenty of people take their coffee sweet, too.”

“Don’t spare Blasty’s feelings!” Eijirou laughed. “Even Mr. ‘Nothing is spicy enough’ likes sweets on occasion.”

“You better shut your mouth!” Ground Zero snapped, his tone climbing with each word. Curiously, Eijirou kept laughing, and tapped at his own ear.

“Right, got it.” The blonde grumbled. “Too loud.”

“Here you go, boys.”

“I have a name, you know.” The blonde held the cup up, scowling. “I’m off work, damn it. You called Shitty hair by his name on the cup.”

“It’s not like you introduced yourself between eating shit against the building and going in for surgery.” Eijirou scoffed.

“And you did?”

“Kiri stayed with me while they gave me IV fluids.” You supplied bashfully. “And I wanted to know when you made it out okay.”

“Call me Bakugou then.” He made a strangled noise. “When I’m not in suit tearing shit up, I don’t wanna hear ‘Ground Zero’ from you, got it?

“Not your given name?” Eijirou seemed to take a savage joy in goading on the explosive hero. “That’s awful cold, Katsuki. She did save you from a hospital stay and a month off of hero work.”

“Or Katsuki, whatever.” If looks could kill, Eijirou would have dropped dead in his tracks. Bakugou’s eye twitched and small firework-pops crackled off of his palms, clenched into fists at his side. You hoped that the café regulars were too enamored with the news and their own conversations to notice the sparks flying.

“I can call you Bakugou, if that’s what make you more comfortable. Wouldn’t want to get on your bad side.” You chuckled, carefully watching his expression for his reaction to the playful jab.

“Kacchan’s bark is worse than his bite, at least off of the battlefield.” A new voice drifted in from the door. The emerald curls, gelled up from his undercut, were unmistakable. “I’m afraid that we didn’t get introduced last night. I’m Deku, but you can call me Midoriya if you’d like.”

“Kacchan?” You grinned wickedly. “Isn’t that so cute!”

Bakugou bristled. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, you fucking nerd!” He whipped around to snarl at the green-haired hero that had just walked in. For someone who was effectively co-workers with the number one hero, Bakugou acted like he despised the man.

“Aw, pump the breaks Kacchan.” Midoriya scrunched his freckled nose in a wide grin. “I’m just here to say hello to the woman who saved your life last night. So, this is where Kiri has been getting your coffee from? It’s such a nice little café, I think I’ll have stop by more often.”

“Like hell you will! We found it first!” Bakugou growled, stepping between you and Deku, while Eijirou chimed in the background, “I think you mean that I found it first.”

“Boys, boys, you’re all very pretty.” You ducked around the pro hero’s side, attempting to soothe the bickering. “I have plenty of coffee to go around. “

“You’re not keeping her as your personal barista and healer, Kacchan.”

“What happened to keeping this on the down-low?” Bakugou suddenly stiffened, whispering harshly.

“I think someone is feeling a bit embarrassed.” Eijirou rolled his eyes.

“I got my shit rocked on national television, of fucking course I feel embarrassed.” The blonde snapped. “But for her safety, I thought we agreed to keep any rescue shit-talk out of the public eye.”

Wincing, you looked up at him. “I think they’re calling you saving that family the rescue of the year though. And lots of people have minor healing quirks.”

Whipping his head back and forth, he snagged the strings of your apron and tugged you behind the coffee bar, through the doorway into the kitchen.

“Wait!” The two other heroes followed suit, chasing you as Bakugou dragged you out of the public eye.

“You don’t have a ‘minor healing quirk.’ “ He scowled, placing a hand on each of your shoulders, hands trembling as if he were resisting the urge to shake you. You could feel the residual heat of his calloused palms, the threat of an explosion ghosting along your skin and sending shivers up your spine.

“You have a self-destructive healing quirk that has major potential to get you kidnapped. Do you know the League of Villains would do to get their hands on you? Or fuck it, the Hero Commission? They’d keep you caged up like some animal to fix up their toys as they broke so that they could be sent out scot-free again.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Midoriya and Eijirou recoil, especially as the blonde hero turned his ire towards them once again. “Is some kind of joke to you two? Kirishima, if you could take two minutes to keep it in your pants, and Deku, if you could be serious, we need to come up with a plan.”

“Yes, Kacchan.” Midoriya and Eijirou nodded.

“Where do you live?” His burning eyes narrowed in your direction once again.

Swallowing thickly, you met his gaze. “In the loft above the café.”

“Hmm. Who all knows about the full extent of your quirk?”

“Just my parents, and my best friend from middle school, who moved to the states while we were in college.”

“Maybe she should stay with one of us?” Midoriya offered. “Just to see if anyone’s decided to target her?”

Panic froze your feet to the floor. “I don’t think that’s necessary.” You laughed nervously, fiddling with the apron strings tied at your hip. “I mean, you’re all very nice, but I could never ask that of anyone. I’m up at 4 in the morning to get the café ready to open at five, and walking alone in the dark is not my forte.” Especially if I might as well have a big target painted on my forehead now.

“The League definitely keeps an eye on our flats. They might not have made the connection that she’s done anything yet, but moving her in would be a surefire way to draw their attention. Also, there’s no way the Commission would just ignore someone else hanging out all the time.” Eijirou argued. “I think it would be better to set up surveillance on the café and her loft, and maybe get her a panic button or something.”

“A panic button.” Bakugou snorted. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but there are these novel things called ‘cellphones.’ “

“And if she can’t call?” Midoriya raised an eyebrow.

“Brave words for someone who dropped his location to Icy-Hot, with literally no context, in the middle of an alleyway, and he magically appeared anyways.”

Sighing and stepping between the two bickering men, Eijirou held his hand out expectantly. “Here, I’ll put our numbers in your phone. We should probably scope out your apartment later.”

“I close at five tonight.” You offered, passing your cell to him, contacts open. “I’ll probably be done cleaning up by six, but you’re free to drop by whenever you get the chance after that. All of this feels pretty crazy though. It’s not like I did anything out in the open.”

Turning on the full force of his overwhelming intensity, Bakugou rounded on you once again, having caught the tail of your conversation. “There’s a couple articles floating around. You’re in the pictures, being floated to the hospital, and some low life bloggers are wondering how I was fine so soon afterwards, when Recovery Girl was on the other side of the country for some other case.” Venom dripped from his words, as if this were your fault somehow.

“It’s not my fault that I helped you!” Anger leaked into your voice. You couldn’t believe that he had the audacityto blame you for this. “Don’t talk to me like it is. I couldn’t not do anything. It’s a wonder that hit didn’t do worse, and I am certainly not responsible for them taking me to the hospital with you.”

In frustration, you stormed out of the kitchen, straightening your apron and apologizing to the handful of customers who were waiting by the cash register. A friendly smile and a few discounted coffees later, they sat down at a booth. The heroes were still in your kitchen, and you felt your resolve to ignore them crumbling. “I did give Kiri and Bakugou free coffee earlier.” You mumbled to yourself, a mischievous idea taking root; Bakugou’s buttons were so easy to press.

Leaning around the corner, you poked your head back through the kitchen doorway. The heroes froze, their argument in low tones evaporating with your return. “Midoriya!” You grinned, drawing out the syllables playfully and deliberately ignoring the blonde hero’s angry stare. “How do you like your coffee? Sweet as you are?”

“Uh, umm” He stuttered and his eyes darted between you and the door. “With oat milk, white chocolate and toffee, and iced please.”

“Coming right up! On the house.” The sound of sparks dancing off of Bakugou’s palms eased your flare of anger, taking a little bit of satisfaction in riling up the blonde in return, and you set about making the drink.

The trio must have finally decided to drop their discussion, and shortly followed you out to wait by the coffee bar. Bakugo turned his back to you, eyeing the door and clutching his coffee while Midoriya and Eijirou resigned themselves to facing you, their awkward expressions apologetic. The other café patrons were thankfully still transfixed by the TVs, oblivious to the situation at hand.

“Here’s your phone back.” Eijirou mumbled, setting your phone on the counter. “He doesn’t mean it. He’s just frustrated and annoyed, nothing against you personally. It’s just kinda how he is, ya know? He takes it out on everyone. He’s been this way since he was a teenager, but he doesn’t blame you. Promise.”

“Hmm. I suppose I can accept your apology on his behalf, just this once.” You whispered back, sliding a coffee cup to Midoriya, who sipped it gratefully.

“We’ll be back later. Come on, nerds.” Bakugo’s voice was gruff as he called over his shoulder. “We have a meeting and a patrol shift soon.”

The heroes left and an unease settled in your gut at their absence, acutely missing their larger than life presence. Even as the customers milled about, coming up for refills and pastries, their words weighed on your mind. Villains and Heroes had never been a major point of contention in your life; a quirk like yours wasn’t suited for the spotlight, and like thousands of others, accepted your fate as a civilian.

The coffee shop felt like a homage to another era, before quirks existed. The small planters bloomed in the window display under your mindful care, without any sparks of magic to enhance their color or growth. The coffee beans that arrived each week were roasted delicately by hand, and each new drink was born from trial and error; no surprising powers of charm or persuasion lured customers to your door. It was an honest life that you were proud of, built with hard work and love.

Ringing up another customer and brewing the earl grey tea for a London Fog, it felt like your head was ringing. Your quirk had never been an active threat to your well-being. You had gained some control over the years, having only been able to tend minor scratches and bruises as a child, but never showed enough promise to be recruited into the medical field as a young teen. Even now, the drawbacks were too great. Healing left you exhausted, and the more extensive the injury, the greater the fatigue.

It wasn’t like you came from a family of fantastic heroes either. Your mother worked as a doctor in a wound care and surgical center because she could clean infected tissue at the expense of the patient’s energy. Your father’s quirk was completely unrelated to your own, allowing him to sculpt metal by heating his hands, albeit without flames. It was hard to believe that the arguably worse version of your mother’s quirk made you a target, but the underlying assumptions behind it sent shivers of fear down your spine. If there was no regard for your well-being, your quirk could be indispensable, could be used to patch anyone up at the expense of draining you dry.

Nevertheless, the hours ticked by, dread worrying the pit of your stomach. Bile rose in the back of your throat the longer your anxious thoughts raced. Without the grace of someone with a more offensive quirk, there was little you could do to defend yourself.

Maybe Bakugou was right to be annoyed, but he didn’t have the right to be such an ass about it. Closing time was only half an hour away, and the customers had dwindled in the shop. The pleasant humming of customers faded, exposing every raw nerve that you had. The last person was out, and at 5:06,

... there was a knock.

Snapping to attention, you jerked towards the doors, feeling a strange mixture of relief and annoyance upon seeing Bakugou waiting by the door. Sighing, you called out, “It’s still unlocked.”

He didn’t enter though. He leaned partially against the window with one hand, the other shoved deep into the pocket of his white jeans. He had the hood up on his black and gold hoodie, but not enough to conceal his distinctive blonde hair and you could have sworn his red eyes could burn a hole through anything as he peered in the window. He must not have heard you, and you steeled your resolve to go and let him in.

“Shitty Hair sent me.” He grumbled.

“Hmm.” You hummed in response, wandering back behind the counter to tuck away the extra bottles of syrup and take down the pastry display. “Make yourself at home then.”

The hero looked even more uncomfortable, his shifting gaze never lingering on anything for too long, before he spotted the bottle of disinfectant. To your surprise, he started wiping off tables, but you don’t breath a word, afraid to break the uncanny silence.

At 5:45, Eijirou, Midoriya, and a woman you could only assume was Uravity knocked, and Bakugou dropped the supplies as if he had been burned. Midoriya was the first to heckle him, teasing “Kacchan, I didn’t know that you could be helpful!”

“I was bored, you damn nerd. That’s all.”

The heroes were almost unrecognizably causal. Uravity and Midoriya were in matching letterman jackets, sky blue and patterned with delicate pink cherry blossoms falling from slender black branches, with Shouto written across the back in a beautiful script. Eijirou was also devastatingly casual, wearing baggy, low-rise black jeans and a white v-neck that dipped dangerously below his collar bones. His long red hair was up in his trademark loose ponytail, spilling over his shoulders and down his back.

“So nice to see you again! I’m Uraraka.” Her smile glowed as she bounced forward to greet you. “It’s nice to really see the place that Kirishima and Bakugo talk so much about.”

A frown creased your features. “I think I would have remembered Bakugou coming in for coffee. Doesn’t Kiri just get his?” You mumbled, panicking as you realized it was out loud.

Thankfully, Uraraka giggled. “No, he just won’t let Kiri get coffee from anywhere else now. I think the whole agency knows his order by now.”

“It’s just the least shitty.” Bakugou growled. “But whatever. I have shit to do, so let’s get this over with.”

“Lead the way.” Midoriya smiled kindly.

The stairs to the flat were in the kitchen, the door tucked out of sight next to a supply closet. Butterflies fluttered in your chest, and a sudden self-consciousness that almost froze you in place. The apartment was an intimate insight into your life and personality. Your reading was on the living room table, and cherished photos hung on the walls. Is my laundry hanging up to dry? You winced at the thought.

“Welcome!” You forced a smile and led them to the kitchen table. “So, what do you need to check out?”

“We’re not trying to invade your privacy more than necessary.” Midoriya looked solemn, glancing at you shyly from underneath his lashes. “I was thinking we should put a camera right in the stairway that faces the entrance, another on the fire escape, and one on the outside of each of your windows. Then, we can just set up a bunch around the café.”

“Oh,” You relaxed into your seat. “That’s not as bad as I was expecting.”

Midoriya and Uraraka were sitting ram-rod straight at your table, posture stiff and schooled. Eijirou was examining your end table in the living room, carefully turning your favorite candle in his hands, while Bakugou trailed behind like a sullen shadow.

“We just want to make sure you’re safe.” Uraraka reassured. “We’ll probably change the patrol route to make sure that we stop by here, but we won’t be in the shop every time. If nothing is weird, we’ll leave you be after a while.”

“I’m glad.” The remaining tension left your shoulders, and you let out a sigh of relief. “I really don’t want to put my life on pause. I’ve worked really hard for what I have here. “

“Of course!” Eijirou looked over his shoulder, now surveying the sliding glass door that led to the fire escape. “This is the best place in town, and I don’t think I’ll ever stay awake through another Commission meeting without my usual again. Plus, we owe you big time. It’s our fault that you’re starting to get some media attention.”

“Do the cameras need plug-ins or batteries?” You asked cautiously.

“Nah, they’re the special surveillance ones Chargebolt rigged, and we’ll get a notification if the battery is less than 25%. We’ve just gotta get them set up. Uraraka can up to stick them, then make ‘em weightless so they don’t fall down.”

At Eijirou’s words, you could see Uraraka tapping her fingers, jumping up to stick the device to the ceiling. With a frown of concentration, she pulled out her phone, checking the feed and fiddling with the camera until it was angled to her satisfaction before drifting back to the floor.

“We can take it from here. Feel free to go back to closing, or what you usually do in the evening. Don’t be afraid to let us know if you need anything.” Midoriya nodded before excitedly leaning in closer, eyes sparkling with the enthusiasm of a little kid. “Also, at some point, can I study your quirk? I keep notebooks of all different quirks I encounter, and yours is so interesting.”

“Shut your trap, nerd!” Bakugou growled from behind Eijirou, who jumped and clutched his partner’s arm. “Stop acting like we’re at the damn zoo. Save it for later.”

“Am not, Kacchan!” Midoriya whined. Turning to you, he put up his hands in a peace gesture. “I think we better get going, though. I think today’s probably been quite the day for you. Uraraka will set those up outside, and we’ll be out of your hair.”

Snagging Bakugou’s sleeve, Midoriya pulled him unwillingly down the stairs, with Uraraka having already moved on to install the security cameras in the café. Despite his tough front, the blonde didn’t fight too much, only grimacing and batting away the other hero’s hand as they left.

“Hey Kiri,” You said nervously, before the hero had the chance to follow his teammates out of your apartment. “Thanks for having Bakugou come over to be there while I was closing. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what you guys said this morning. I just feel so uneasy, like every stranger could be dangerous and I can’t do anything to save myself. It really set my mind at ease to have someone else there.”

“I bet.” He winced with sympathy. “But I didn’t ship Bakugou out here. He volunteered, and you didn't hear that from me.”

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #fanfiction #reader insert #bakugou katuski x reader #female reader #she/her pronouns #pro hero bakugou #aged up characters #pro hero au #coffee shop au #angst with a happy ending #reader has a healing quirk #canon typical violence #somewhat graphic description of wounds #slow burn #no beta we die like men #Ground zero Au

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carewyncromwell · 3 years

Note

Maybe part of the reason JC shies away from utilizing Duncan more is, not only does he know too much WHICH HE DOES, but any development into his character would just be too dark for the game. Anything past his "im dead lol" jokes just gets... depressing. This is a kid who was murdered in a very painful way with no hope for the future. Everyone he loves will die and leave him alone forever. Is this level dark stuff allowed in a kids game? Part 1

Whew! Okay, so first off, wow! Very interesting sidequest idea for Duncan. Thank you so much for sharing it with me!

But to your first point, at the very top...this is kind of one of my biggest problems with Jam City and its writing. “Is this level dark stuff allowed in a kids game?” And my counterpoint would be it should be.

Look -- I work at a Disney theme park. I work with kids every single day. And from my experience, I can say with certainty that kids are a helluva lot more intelligent and reasonable than a lot of adults give them credit for. They know that terrible things happen in the world, and they know that the world isn’t always fair. And there would be ways to use Duncan’s character where he doesn’t have to be doomed to watch everyone he grows to care about fade away forever -- who says he couldn’t find some measure of peace through his friendship with MC and Jacob and be able to finally pass on into the next life knowing he really did make an impact? That’s what I plan to do in my headcanon version of events.

And for that matter, this game is not played by very young children -- it’s geared for 12+, as in the audience that Harry Potter as a franchise was always geared toward. And I’m sorry, but for all of J.K.’s faults as a writer, she never doubted that young people could handle dark subject matter like murder, bigotry, etc. without being coddled. We’ve already watched MC’s friends get Imperiused and tortured. We’ve already watched a character we got emotionally invested in at the very beginning of the game get brutally murdered before our very eyes. Yes, maybe it was upsetting, but that’s the POINT. Stories shouldn’t just be fluffy and inconsequential all the time. I can’t help but feel like the vast majority of the sidequests as of late have suffered because they have so little of substance or stakes behind them, even compared to what came previously -- and honestly, even the main storyline since mid-year 6 has petered out to nothing because R is busy doing things like dropping off random magical creatures from around the globe in Britain and apparently putting memory potions in haircare products rather than doing things a real Cabal would do. It doesn’t feel like some grand plan or conspiracy, or even like some well-planned distractions while R does more evil things on the side, since we don’t get any evidence R is actually USING those things to do anything more serious, like getting access to classified Ministry intelligence or killing people. (Instead they steal one Portkey, and the Ministry doesn’t even bother to find out where it’s Charmed to go, since that might be a pretty big hint about their true intentions. I mean, there’s a bloody CHARM to turn things into Portkeys, you don’t need to steal specific objects to turn them into a Portkey.) It feels like some rabble-rousers causing trouble for the government, a la Carmen Sandiego stealing random pieces of world history for the thrill of it, not a group trying to destroy or overthrow anything or terrorize people to get their way. Young Harry Potter fans could digest the Death Eaters back in the day -- they could handle R being more of a real threat, just as they could accept other types of dark subject matter. They could handle discussion of PTSD post-Redacted -- Harry goes through some of that in Order of the Phoenix. They could handle a discussion about bigotry and prejudice -- that’s one of the central themes of the original Potter books. They could handle both Duncan and Jacob being sort of stuck out of time after dying prematurely and coming back as a ghost and being stuck in a portrait for so many years -- that same sort of thing happens to Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers in the MCU, and plenty of young adults watch the MCU.

I understand doing anything with Duncan could be “depressing” if not properly balanced out, but you know, being sad isn’t a crime. It’s part of being human. I frankly think getting a real emotional reaction for a character you created should be a welcome thing, rather than a half-hearted shrug like the vast majority of these recent sidequests have prompted out of me. It means that people actually care about the characters you’ve created -- go figure.

As well -- I don’t think Duncan “knows too much,” personally. I know this game is called Hogwarts Mystery, but it can’t be a real mystery if we don’t have tools that could allow us to start putting the big picture together ourselves. Again, for all of her faults, Rowling understood this as a writer. We could put together, with all the info we got about Snape throughout the books, that him killing Dumbledore wasn’t because he was truly evil all along. We could put together that Rita Skeeter was an illegal Animagus, like we learned the Marauders were a book prior. We could put together that Harry was a Horcrux, based on what we learned about Horcruxes and Harry’s connection with Voldemort. And maybe having someone who could help us get a better picture of what R wants would help us better define these antagonists we’re facing and develop them into a real threat, instead of this vague red-robed shadow that honestly just seems to do random things for the hell of it rather than as part of some grand plan. I understand not understanding someone in small doses can make them intimidating, but it also makes them less fleshed-out and developed as characters and makes it harder for us to care about whether they get what they want or not. As they say, a hero is only as good as one’s villain.

#ask me #lol recycled art #duncan ashe #opinion #hphm #hogwarts mystery #jam city #goddamn it jam city #opinon #now you see why i have the tag 'oh boy here i go' on my home blog

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sondepoch · 4 years

Text

Day 10

10 Days (Jumin Han x Reader)

You didn't expect to find yourself locked in an engagement to Chairman Han, but with your own mother forcing you into it, you have no way of denying her. But as time continues and things change, you begin to develop affections for your fiance's son: Jumin Han. But the sad truth is that there's nothing either of you can do to stop the marriage, and you only have these 10 days before your future becomes reality. 10 days with Jumin Han.

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | ✔

MASTERLIST

Jumin's hand never leaves yours.

Not in the morning, when the two of you bathe together for the final time. Not when you check your phones, to learn the details of the wedding. Not when you leave the penthouse, kissing Elizabeth goodbye. Not when you board his private jet, beginning your journey to the private beach in Thailand, where the wedding is supposed to be held. And not now, as the two of you gaze out of the window into the endless expanse of clouds,

You open your mouth to make a comment about the pristineness of Jumin's jet, but before you can say anything, you're both interrupted by the pilot's voice over the speakers.

"Mr. Han, ma'am, I apologize for the inconvenience, but there's been a bomb threat delivered to one of the cities we're supposed to be flying over. All flight units passing through have been instructed to land immediately and wait until Air Traffic Control can process our new flight routes."

"Don't worry about it," Jumin responds, pressing a button as he speaks. "Tell us when it's safe to exit the jet."

"Yes, sir."

When the exchange is over, though, you're left gaping at Jumin, struck by his utter calmness to the whole situation. The man looks almost indifferent.

"What's wrong?" He asks you, eyes raised in concern.

"Jumin, your pilot said someone made a bomb threat to an entire city. Doesn't that scare you?" The very thought leaves your stomach with an uneasy feeling.

"Don't worry, I'm sure everything will be fine."

"Are you kidding?" Your tone is incredulous. "We might be fine, but think about all those people! They could die today!"

Jumin's neutral expression breaks when he sees your bottom lip quivering, a sudden swarm of emotion hitting you when you think about the prospect of death and pain.

"Don't worry," He mumbles, squeezing your hand. "No one will be harmed. I promise you. Don't let yourself be upset by this."

"How can you be certain?" You ask, glancing out the window. The jet is descending—you can feel it in the change in pressure—and the blanket of clouds you previously saw is no longer visible.

Jumin is silent, opting to not answer your question.

Only then do you notice his suspicious behavior. "Jumin," You say, eyes narrowing as you turn to face him. "How are you so certain that nothing will come to fruition of this bomb threat?"

The man averts his eyes from your hard gaze, sheepishly staring forward while he confesses the truth. "I may have...called in a favor from Luciel."

"Oh my god," You mumble, resisting an urge to facepalm. "You had Luciel threaten an entire city? To postpone this wedding for, what, one more hour?"

"No," Jumin responds quickly, meeting your eyes once more. "That wasn't my reasoning."

"Then, why?"

Jumin is silent, reaching over your body and closing the window cover so that you can't see outside anymore. "You'll see when we exit the jet."

You cross your arms in a huff, your frown deepening when you realize that you and Jumin are no longer holding hands. A part of you can't believe that Jumin, of all people—Luciel's involvement is unsurprising—would go to such dramatic lengths to achieve something. Air Traffic Control will have control of the situation quickly enough, and the two of you only be nothing but inconvenienced with the delay this will cause in arriving at the wedding, so why?

You allow Jumin to guide you out of the jet after the pilot confirms that it's okay, the man subtly slipping his hand back in yours as he slides open the door to the plane.

You gasp.

"Jumin..." You murmur, momentarily unable to think of anything to say other than his name. If you thought yesterday's revamping of the living room was amazing, then this is something else entirely.

Unable to hold yourself back, you pull Jumin's arm forward, leading him out of the jet. "It's beautiful, Jumin. It's beautiful."

You tilt your head right, then left, then forward, then right again—utterly unsure of what to look at when there's so much beauty to take in.

The plane has landed in a field, no trees in sight for as far as your eye can see, and every inch of the ground is covered in color, covered in lovely flowers that beam brightly beneath the afternoon sun.

At your feet, over a hundred daisies surround you. Then further on, there's a patch of anemones, and then asters, and then magnolias, and you can't even identify some of the petalled plants as they stand proudly in bold pinks, bright yellows, rich purples, deep reds, and every shade in between.

"It's amazing," You murmur. "I've never..."

You suddenly remember a conversation you had with Jumin, just three days ago, where you casually mentioned to him that all you've seen of the world has been city life. Your quiet yearning to see a beautiful field like this had been subtle, the two of you moving on from the conversation as quickly as it had been brought up, but Jumin remembered.

"I love you," You murmur, turning around to face Jumin. You already know the words as he repeats them back to you, pulling you in for a tight embrace followed by a loving kiss, but the moment is too sweet to pass by.

"How do you always manage to be so wonderful?" You ask, giggling lightly as the two of you begin walking away from the jet, venturing further out in this field of flowers. You bend down every so often, fingers ghosting over the petals but never plucking them: appreciating but never stealing.

"When you told me you'd never seen a field like this, I thought that it was one of the few tragedies in your life that I could amend." Jumin squeezes your palm, prompting you to stop and face him. "Your smile right now is more beautiful than all these flowers."

You lean up and kiss him again, smiling as the sun beats down on you. You don't even care that in four hours, you'll be on a beach in Thailand committing yourself to Chairman Han until death do you part. Right now, in this field, you and Jumin are untouchable. There's no one to tell you no. No one to pull you apart. No one to deny the most genuine affection you've ever felt.

Here, with only the plants to judge you, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

In this field of flowers, you can love Jumin freely.

You smile, feeling the sensation of a daffodil rub against your ankle.

"Was a bomb threat really necessary, though?" You ask with an amused smile. "Couldn't you have just asked your pilot to stop here?"

Jumin shakes his head. "Not quite. This is an unregistered landing spot—that's why the natural beauty here has been preserved so well. The only conditions where a plane would be instructed to land here is, well, in the case of something as serious as a bomb threat." Jumin smiles, lifting a hand to cup your cheek. "Few others have laid their eyes on this field, my love. All this beauty is for you."

You smile at Jumin, kissing him even deeper.

In his pocket, his phone vibrates twice: a message from the pilot, saying that the jet has been cleared for takeoff with an alternate route to your destination.

But Jumin doesn't head back immediately. He stays rooted to the spot, hands on your waist, leaning his forehead against yours while a cool breeze wraps around you both.

"I'm sorry I couldn't have given you more happiness," He murmurs, eyes still closed as he stands unmoving and tall.

"No, Jumin." You bring a hand up to cup his cheek, sensing that this is the goodbye he's been waiting for so long to give you. The most beautiful goodbye of them all—surrounded by flowers and fluffy clouds and a blue sky and a bright sun and all things lovely. "You've given me all the happiness I need."

You lean your head upward, a slight movement that barely requires any effort from you, and capture Jumin's lips in the softest kiss you've shared yet. His lips are a ghost on yours, already fading away with the knowledge of your futures pressing down on you both, and all you can feel is the wind as it blissfully dances around your bodies before it slowly, very slowly, comes between your figures and separates you: nature's gentle pull, letting you both know that it's time to part.

You take the man's hand in yours, walking slowly back to the jet, all too aware that you just had your final kiss with Jumin Han. Neither of you have said the word "Goodbye," but there's no need.

The goodbye was the kiss, the warmth, the love. Fleeting in the moment, but eternally longlasting in your memories.

You can't bring yourself to pull your hand away from Jumin's as you two sit down in a comfortable silence once more, suddenly acutely aware that, by clutching his hand, all you're doing is clinging to the memory of the love you're slowly being torn from.

But it doesn't matter.

Your fingers remain interlaced for the next four hours, all the way until the jet has landed on the beach Chairman Han selected for the wedding. Your eyes instantly dart to the large white tent nearby, just a few hundred feet away from where the jet landed, and you lead Jumin there—refusing to let him leave your side until the very end.

"Mother?" You ask, upon entry. But the tent is bare. A small note on a table instructs you to prepare yourself for the ceremony that, according to your phone, is in less than an hour. Will meet you there. Don't pull any funny business. Dress in what we've provided.

You sigh, wordlessly showing the note to Jumin. Of course you wouldn't even be provided with a proper wedding dresser—this whole wedding is exclusively for legal purposes, anyway. You should be surprised that you're not just signing documents.

The whole changing process is rather underwhelming. Your dress is gorgeous, no doubt, so stunning that when Jumin helps you into it, he's temporarily frozen in place by how utterly glamorous you look, the white fabric showing the perfect mix of skin and design. But you can't bring yourself to love the dress, or the shoes, or the jewelry that's been laid out for you. It's all for Chairman Han, when you want it to be for Jumin.

The beginning of the end, if you will.

In the distance, the two of you hear voices.

"It seems that they've arrived," Jumin notes, creeping open the flap of the tent to reveal what looks like your mother, Chairman Han, and a minister, all standing far in the distance. The setup is far from extravagant, but the setting sun in the background adds an element of serenity that you almost resent.

"They can wait," You mumble, wrapping a cover over your dress while trying to figure out what to do for your makeup.

You don't want to look pretty.

No, you want to look ugly.

You want your eyeliner to be shaky and uneven, your foundation unnecessarily thick, and your lipstick four shades too dark for your skin tone. You want your hair to stick up unnaturally as it does every so often, and to ruin all your natural beauty with the sea of makeup and hair products laid out in front of you.

You don't want Chairman Han to have the privilege of a beautiful bride.

But the more time you spend in this tent, preparing yourself, the more time you have to savor the last few moments you have with Jumin.

So you take your time, fingers working slowly as they go through the makeup routine you perfected years ago. You move at a leisurely pace, holding your hands steady as they work, preparing yourself not for the wedding with Chairman Han, but for the final walk you'll be making down the beach with Jumin.

He stares at you the whole time as you get ready, calmly taking in everything you do. You can tell that he's memorizing the deftness of your fingers, the crane of your neck, the posture of your shoulders, as you continue. And you go so slow that, from the corner of your eye, you're able to take in the last of the details about him, too: the rhythm to the rise and fall of his chest, the stiffness with which he readjusts his sleeve cuffs every so often, the bob of his neck as he swallows whenever you switch beauty products.

For once, time doesn't rush the moment forward. It's a quiet mercy, unnoticeable to most, but you can feel it in the slowness of the breeze and the lagging tranquility of the waves as they crash.

It's a final moment of peace.

You step back from the mirror, finally finished with the last of your makeup and hair. Slipping your white gloves on and the sheet protecting your wedding dress off, Jumin comes over to you the moment you're done, his hand resting tenderly on your hip as he faces the mirror with you.

He's imagining you as his bride, you know.

Why, in your head, you're doing the exact same thing—the man already dressed like the ideal groom in his elegant three-piece suit.

The two of you really do look perfect together.

But the moment does not last. It never lasts. In the distance, a seagull cries three times, pulling you both from your thoughts.

You turn around, gently clasping Jumin's gloved hands in your own.

"You look exquisite," He murmurs, softly caressing your fingertips. His eyes are filled with love, his grey affection being all you can see as you stare up into the eyes you've grown to love so much.

You feel an urge to lean up in your heels and kiss the man, but you force yourself to suppress it. The current moment isn't meant to be happy for either of you, and you won't allow yourself to forget that truth. The fates have spoken, and your destinies have been written. Along different paths.

Not a single tear slips down either of your cheeks as you prepare to step away from each other for the final time. There are no tears left to shed, nowhere for them to come from. Your hearts are gone, cold and abandoned in the flowery field of peace Jumin brought you to, only to be remembered in your fading memories of each other.

Jumin kisses your gloved fingers, lips ghosting over each of the knuckles as he gazes down at you. Doubtless, he knows as much as you do that the moment you leave this tent, you no longer belong to him.

His gaze shifts to the flap of the entrance, a gentle breeze opening it like nature's whisper that the time has come. The man looks at you, wordlessly offering his arm.

There's only one path forward.

MASTERLIST

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | ✔

Word count: 2.5k

Notes: Wow. I can't believe it's over! This series has been such a pleasure to write, and I want to thank everyone who's supported me by reading this. If I'm being honest, I think I planned on making this chapter a bit more angsty...but I'm content with the way I ended things. Their love wasn't perfect, but it was beautiful - and I think that's what made the journey so passionate.

Comment & Like

Thank you for reading <3

I do not own the rights to Mystic Messenger or any of the characters within it.

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wangxiangiftexchange · 3 years

Text

Winter Solstice Gift for journalsofagoddess

Happy Winter Solstice @journalsofagoddess!! <3 I hope you like your gift!! this was so much fun to write! I tried to fit as many of the original prompts/"likes" in as possible, so in here you'll find elements of fluff, h/c, horror, humour, modern au, a sprinkling of family!wangxian...

Title is from a fantastic song by No Resolve that is very wangxian, even if it has nothing at all to do with this fic! concept inspired loosely by fleurmatisse's spooky possession fic, minus some of the spookiness? :D

Warnings: light horror, mentions of injuries.

Read on AO3

*****

dancing with your ghost

The snow is just starting to stick to the pavement by the time Wei Ying makes it home.

The sky outside has been heavy and dark with clouds since the morning, but had only broken open as he left the client’s house. He closes the door on their suddenly white-coated and wet front stoop and takes a minute to shake the melted snow out of his hair.

“Hey,” he calls into the empty hall as he scrapes his boots on the mat, “I’m back!”

He bends down to untie his laces and his wrist gives a sharp twinge. In all of the excitement of the afternoon and the unexpected snowfall, he had almost forgotten that he had crushed it beneath him when he fell. He resigns himself to undoing his boots one-handed to not agitate it any further—it’s probably nothing serious, but between regular injuries and the growing threat of carpal tunnel that comes with age, Wei Ying isn’t sure he needs to take the risk.

Ghosts are always bad, as winter sinks into the city. The short days and cold nights make up the perfect breeding grounds for things that lurk in shadows and feed on melancholy.

Wei Ying doesn’t mind the ghosts, of course: as a self-certified freelance ghost hunter extraordinaire, he has been getting more than enough calls to keep busy. His days are longer, brining him home well after dark, but only ever sweetens the coming home. Lan Zhan disagrees, of course—he would rather Wei Ying be home more often, and not take on so much, but as long as they are still splitting bills half and half, this is the best solution.

The thought of his husband is clearly enough to summon him: Lan Zhan appears at the end of the hall. He’s dressed for a comfortable evening at home. Wei Ying waves, and doesn’t quite manage to hide the wince when his wrist stings again. The small smile that had started to grow at the edges of Lan Zhan’s mouth vanishes beneath a larger frown. His gaze is unerringly focused on Wei Ying’s wrist. Wei Ying doesn’t sigh out loud—he’s fine, really, and it was a stupid injury anyway. Nothing to be fussed over.

Lan Zhan does not get his psychic messaging.

“Wei Ying,” he says. Wei Ying kicks off his boots, giving up on the laces entirely. “You’re hurt.” It’s a question, even if it doesn’t sound like one.

“Messy job,” Wei Ying tells him with a bright grin. “You wouldn’t believe the stuff these people were just letting lie around in their attic.” It hadn’t been the worst job he’s ever done—surprisingly few dead mice, and no asbestos--but also not exactly what had been described in the email. Part of the reason Wei Ying is back so late tonight were the—“piles and piles of masks, Lan Zhan,” he complains, unwinding his scarf one-handedly, “and not the nice kind. They all had bleeding eyes or human teeth.”

The actual email had just described an old costume collection and some thumps in the night. They hadn’t been wrong, exactly, but Wei Ying spent an hour clearing all of the clothing debris to the edges of the room before he could actually get a sense for the space. It had been a waste of time, and with the woman and her son standing there and watching him without lifting a finger, it had taken much longer than necessary. “It wasn’t even the masks that were haunted,” he complains. “They were just freaky and maybe a little bit cursed.”

He looks up just in time to recognize the beginnings of actual worry in Lan Zhan’s expression. It’s the face he makes when he wants to volunteer to come with Wei Ying on ghost hunts, despite his students, or ask him never to put himself in harm’s way again. Wei Ying is sure he’d prefer that he were in any other line of work than freelance exorcism, when it so often involves Wei Ying jumping in, at least a little underprepared, and dealing with everything from bathtub water ghouls to cat fierce corpses.

So, Wei Ying shuts himself up, pressing a quick kiss to Lan Zhan’s cheek. “Nothing dangerous,” he promises his husband. “I just tripped, I’m not hurt-hurt.”

“Your wrist,” Lan Zhan says, still frowning, the faintest crease marring his forehead.

Wei Ying pats his husband’s chest with the hand that doesn’t hurt, and tells him, “I’ll let you put ice on it, if it’ll make you feel better.”

Lan Zhan looks at him with an expression that says clearly that it should also make Wei Ying feel better, but he ignores it. Today’s job hadn’t even been awful—just weird, and unsuccessful for the most part. He’ll have to go back another day, at least. Just another paycheck.

“You look cold,” Lan Zhan adds as they move to the living room. He offers Wei Ying a hoodie from his collection—not that Lan Zhan wears hoodies, but he owns enough alumnus merch that Wei Ying coopts them for nefarious husband purposes such as lounging around on their couch. Between that and the fact that Lan Zhan has always had a possessive streak that liked seeing Wei Ying in his clothes… well, there’s certainly no reason not to pull it on.

“Nah,” he says, “it started snowing on my way home, though. We might have to shovel tomorrow.”

“Mm,” Lan Zhan hums, “our shovels are in the shed.”

Wei Ying still feels icky with the cloying resentful energy that had swamped the attic. It happens often when the ghosts are particularly resentful: the energy soaks deeper into him—partly his own fault, since he essentially makes himself a conduit, but hardly a pleasant sensation. On his walk home, he usually spends time cleansing himself of the dredges as much as he can, but then it had started to snow…

Lan Zhan presses a quick kiss to his nose, there and gone again. “Come warm up,” he says. “There is dinner, if you are hungry.”

Wei Ying takes stock—he’d had a hot dog from the place around the corner of his make-shift office at lunch, plus a couple of stale cookies the owners of the house had offered him before he started work. They were awful, of course, but you never deal with any hauntings on an empty stomach—that’s just asking to be possessed. His stomach is still turning, though. Probably just resentful residue, but he’s not going to chance it turning into nausea.

“Maybe later,” he says. “I’m going to shower. Choose something for us to watch?”

Lan Zhan smiles—just barely, but it’s definitely there—and Wei Ying leans up to kiss him, barely more than press of his lips against his husbands’. He’s so warm, a furnace, and Wei Ying wants to wrap himself in him and never let go. The resentment soaking him doesn’t like that thought at all-- he can feel it like something oily against his skin, slithering down his spine in distaste or maybe anger. Wei Ying isn’t about to find out, though, so instead, he smiles into the kiss so Lan Zhan can feel it, and pulls away.

Lan Zhan keeps holding his hand, their fingers intertwined. “Not too long,” he says.

“I would never,” Wei Ying jokes, and kisses him again. It’s always a little intoxicating, being in Lan Zhan’s presence, and his love of long showers won’t keep him away.

The resentment starts to slide off in the shower, pretending it was never there. The hot water pounds down on Wei Ying’s skin turning it rosy and wiping away the last bits of lingering fear and anger along with the last of the chill. He can feel his frozen toes again, wiggles them against the porcelain and watches them turn pink. He should probably buy winter boots, he thinks, if his steel-toed ones aren’t going to be warm enough to last through the rest of the winter hunts.

The last of the energy, the cloying bit that hooked its greedy fingers under his skin, swirls away down the drain. It’s invisible to the naked eye at such low concentrations, but Wei Ying can sense it. He can feel the gluiness of these residues, non-Newtonian and sticky, in ways that even most cultivators couldn’t pick out. He’s spent years, after all, figuring out how to manipulate resentful energy as best he can to help other people, and he’s good at what he does, takes pride in it. He knows Lan Zhan is proud of him, too, no matter how worried he gets.

There is a moment after he has toweled off, when he’s pulling on clean boxers and Lan Zhan’s hoodie that he thinks he sees someone in the mirror. It’s the same feeling as when the lights are turned on in a previously dark room, the moment before all the shadows are banished, when eyes can be tricked into believing that there is someone, a figure, standing there and watching you from the corner—

Wei Ying stares at himself carefully, but it doesn’t happen again. His day has been stressful and longer than it should have been-- all that staring into all of those eyeless masks--he’s probably just haunted by the contorted porcelain faces. Besides getting home late, that’s the only other problem that working in the ghost industry brings: a teensy bit of justified paranoia. He towels off his hair and leaves the towel behind.

Lan Zhan is already sitting on the couch, curled comfortably in his corner, though his eyes find Wei Ying as soon has he enters the room. On the TV, the screen is paused on the opening credits of a C-drama that neither of them watch for the plot but is perfect for the kind of night Wei Ying needs. There’s an open box of crackers and some hummus on the table; their massive first aid kit in Lan Zhan’s lap.

Wei Ying isn’t sure he’ll ever stop being struck by just how well Lan Zhan knows him. His husband, his zhiji, has proven time and time again to be the very best thing that has ever happened to Wei Ying, and he will spend the rest of his life thanking him for it. He slides onto the couch next to Lan Zhan, curling into his side, and rests head on Lan Zhan’s shoulder.

Lan Zhan turns the TV on, volume down low, and the opening theme begins to play. Wei Ying lets himself relax.

“Let me wrap your wrist,” Lan Zhan says quietly, pulling a tensor bandage out of the kit.

“Lan Zhan, it’s really not necessary—” Wei Ying starts, even as Lan Zhan lifts his hand onto his lap. He quells his token protests at the look on Lan Zhan’s face. He still looks worried and tense. Wei Ying wonders if they’ll have to talk about it after all. Lan Zhan begins wrapping his wrist.

“You should be more careful,” his husband says.

Wei Ying could protest, as he has many times, that he’s exactly as careful as he can afford to be—that sometimes, sure, he puts his safety to the side, but it’s always for a good reason. They’ve had the argument before, though, and it’s not—they don’t need to have it again, not tonight. Lan Zhan is efficient, wrapping his wrist firmly but not too tightly. He presses a kiss to the bandage afterwards, his eyes warm. Wei Ying can feel his cheeks heat.

“I feel better already,” he says, mostly joking, and gets a kiss to the lips as reward.

Like this, and in many other ways, they fit perfectly together. Lan Zhan’s hand falls on his thigh, a wide swath of warmth against Wei Ying’s bare skin. He pushes up into the kiss, not urgent, just chasing closeness. He laces their fingers together, pulls back momentarily and Lan Zhan sways toward him. In the low light, Lan Zhan’s eyes are almost golden. Wei Ying traces his features with his eyes, and kisses him again.

“Ah, Lan Zhan,” he breathes, moments later. Lan Zhan has dared to bite his lip, albeit gently. “Don’t tease me now. Your husband is too tired.”

Lan Zhan looks skeptical but hums an agreement all the same, pressing one last kiss to his pouting mouth before settling back into the couch. It’s nearing late—Lan Zhan has gotten more flexible, with his sleep schedule, since they got together and since he left his old home behind, but he still starts flagging much earlier in the evening than Wei Ying does. He will probably be asleep by the time two episodes are over. Keeping that in mind, Wei Ying settles more firmly into Lan Zhan’s side, relishing the warmth.

He doesn’t focus on the screen, not really—instead, he spends his time mapping out the well-known lines of Lan Zhan’s palm with his fingertip. Lan Zhan bears this, as he always does, with patience. There is no small amount of fondness in his gaze when Wei Ying looks up at him. There don’t need to be words between them, right now, but Wei Ying asks anyway, “how was your day?”

Lan Zhan hums, glances down at their intertwined fingers, their matching rings. There is a fond look on his face.

“Good,” he answers after a minute. The love theme of the show is playing on screen, but Wei Ying doesn’t look away from Lan Zhan’s face. “Productive.”

“Good,” Wei Ying repeats. It’s been years since they worked together as cultivators—somewhere along the line, maybe when Lan Zhan discovered a passion for teaching only rivalled by his passion for music, or when Wei Ying’s business finally took off, the places where their work lives intersected disappeared. It’s been a long time since work and obligation were the only things they lived for. That’s why he doesn’t press, now, lets the comfort of the end of day settle between them. He presses a quick kiss to Lan Zhan’s cheek, and then his lips, lingering and sweet. Lan Zhan is warm, so warm.

Wei Ying eats a couple of crackers. The characters on the screen reunite, long lingering gazes exchanged as the orchestral version of the love theme soars. Lan Zhan slumps a little against his shoulder, breaths evening out into the first stages of sleep. Outside, snow is still falling. Wei Ying gets distracted from whatever dramatic goings-on happen next—a sibling reunion, maybe? A lost identity, being rediscovered?--watching the flakes fall in the light of the streetlamp out their window. It looks like it’s gearing up to be a proper snowstorm. He might have to postpone his appointments, tomorrow, if it keeps up.

Lan Zhan’s breath puffs out against his shoulder. Wei Ying can see their reflection in the glass: Lan Zhan’s relaxed figure, his own, curling into him. Like this, no time has passed at all—Lan Zhan in sleep is timeless, the two of them could still be undergrads. He spends time tracing the sleep softened lines of Lan Zhan’s face, which is why it takes him a minute to realize that something is wrong with the picture. It’s only when he finally looks at himself that he realizes—

While he is looking at his own reflection, it is still staring down at Lan Zhan.

Wei Ying stills his thumb where it was rubbing gentle circles into Lan Zhan’s arm. In the reflection on the glass, his hand keeps moving, gently swiping across his husband’s bicep. His reflection—though there’s something wrong with it, now, something distorted, something in the eyes that is looking less and less like himself—cocks its head slightly and looks back at him. There is a smile, though not one that Wei Ying has ever worn, on its face.

Masks, Wei Ying thinks. False faces. The mirror in the bathroom earlier, the sense that had dogged him all the way home of being watched, the oily slick resentment that he brought home with him--

Wei Ying’s work bag is across the room. He doesn’t dare take his eyes off of the reflection to go get it. There is adrenaline, sudden and shocking, spurring itself through his veins.

When all else fails, get it talking.

“Good to finally meet you,” he tells it. He can’t be sure it’s actually in his reflection at all—it could be anywhere in the room, choosing only to manifest like this strange echo.

The person in the reflection smiles, but it doesn’t reach their eyes. They’re as hollow as the masks now, just empty void—completely black, not even the snowstorm outside visible behind them. The face is no longer Wei Ying’s at all, rounder and paler with soulless eyes and a bleeding mouth. In the reflection, the blood drips Lan Zhan’s forehead, marring lines on his smooth skin. Wei Ying doesn’t dare look down to check.

The voice is more like a rasp than anything, like the sound of a body being dragged on a hardwood floor. “Give it back,” it says. “It’s not yours.”

Wei Ying casts his memory back desperately. Had he taken anything from the house? Had he left anything behind? He knows better than to do that, he thinks.

“I really don’t think so,” he says, fighting down a sudden eerie chill as the room’s temperature drops, “sorry.”

The shadows in the room are growing, spilling out from everywhere the ceiling light in the hall can’t reach, playing like smoke across the ground. On the screen, in his peripheral vision, the figures are frozen in a loop, jerking like marionettes pulled back and forth. The figure hisses. Wei Ying’s eyes are burning trying to focus—he blinks, and his reflection is his own again. The dread doesn’t leave and none of the shadows recede. They grow darker.

He shakes Lan Zhan awake, gently.

“Sweetheart,” he says, trying not to let his panic run his words together, “we have a—situation.”

“Wei Ying?” Lan Zhan says, a little bit sleep dulled. He blinks his eyes open, slowly focusing. Wei Ying only has a second’s warning when Lan Zhan’s eyes go wide at something behind him before Lan Zhan is pushing him off the couch and onto the floor. “Wei Ying!”

“Sorry!” Wei Ying yelps, scrambling to his feet, “looks like work came home with me!”

There’s no time for regrets, now. He’s not sure what Lan Zhan saw behind him, but he can see and feel the way the shadows in the room are coalescing, turning into something solid, building itself from the ground up. Wei Ying pushes the coffee table away—the crackers go tumbling, but that’s a problem for later, because the two of them need to be standing somewhere without shadows. Whatever this thing is, it’s powerful enough to manifest inside their wards. He thinks bitterly of the lies the woman and her son had told in the emails, how much they minimized the issue, and can only reassure himself that he can charge appropriately. This is more, much more than the measly sounds in the night he went to deal with, and it is growing.

Lan Zhan clearly has the same thought. He is no longer half-asleep, his face stony and serious in a way that makes Wei Ying shiver. He and Wei Ying stand, back to back, in the now clear floor of the living room. Only the hall light and the ghostly jitters of the TV illuminate their positions.

“Give it back,” the faceless shadows hiss. “It’s not yours!”

Wei Ying sees it out of the corner of his eye—a movement on the screen. He drops to the floor just in time for the coalesced fog of dense, dark mist to sweep over him. Its edges are too sharp to truly be vapour, its weight in the air too solid. It disperses like gas, though, sinks back into the shadows around them.

Between one second and the next, the hallway light flickers and turns off with a quiet pop, leaving them with only the flickers from the television. Lan Zhan summons his spiritual guqin—not the one he uses for teaching traditional music, but the one he uses when he night hunts. The chord he strums echoes in the small space and splinters another burst of the coalesced shade before it can attack. Whatever it is building, the shape looks more human now, albeit longer, and still faceless. Probably once an adult male, if Wei Ying had to guess, purely based on the size of all the costumes he had to move out of its room.

Whatever it is—he’s looking forward to the research, once they survive this—its hands are wicked sharp and it has too many elbows. It swipes at them, and it comes from the wrong direction, so Lan Zhan’s next chord goes wide. Wei Ying almost manages to dodge. The sleeve of the sweater is shredded.

Lan Zhan looks grim. He plays a succession of three quick chords which are quickly overtaken as the noise, just a murmur until now, grows into a roar of sound. It sounds like a thousand whispers all layered on top of each other, and it takes Wei Ying a second to figure out what, exactly, it is saying—

“Give it back,” it groans, “give it back, give it back, give it back.”

Wei Ying knows he didn’t take anything from the creepy attic, much less the house. There was nothing there to take, for one—stale cookies and awful tea, moth-eaten robes and rancid makeup, a hundred masks without eyes--but that’s not what this ghost is after. Wei Ying’s heart is pounding. He needs his exorcism stuff—at the very least his flute, or some chalk for an array.

First, liberate, second, suppress, third, eliminate, he thinks and almost wants to laugh. Too late for liberation, since it’s clearly already as free as can be-- he’d make the joke if the situation weren’t so dire. Ideally, this would be the time to offer it what it wants, but since he has no clue, suppression is the best option. He doesn’t even have talisman paper on him, since he’s still wearing Lan Zhan’s sweater.

He’s wearing Lan Zhan’s sweater.

Costumes. All of the masks. Faces beneath faces, bodies under clothes, the makeup chest and the mirrors.

Wei Ying wonders how he didn’t see it before. He should have burned all of his clothes the minute he stepped in the door because if he brought this with him, wearing him like a second skin—

He rips off the sweater, ignoring how it catches on his earring sending it tumbling to the floor—he throws it at the memory of the person, now just a mass of resentment and terror—and the sweater bursts into flames.

It’s a brief fire, but enough to light every corner of the room. As one, the shadows disperse, melting away and sinking into the floor, flying out the window. The figure, at the centre of the bright light, vanishes completely, leaving only an afterimage on Wei Ying’s eyelids. The smoke alarm wails.

Wei Ying’s heart is still beating too fast in his chest, adrenaline still racing through his veins. There is a burn mark on the carpet, to the left of the couch, a large black charred piece, that smells vaguely of burnt plastic. It’s the only sign, besides the burnt-out hall light, that anything strange happened at all. Even the reflections in the windows are normal again.

Wei Ying jumps when the C-drama starts playing behind him.

Lan Zhan doesn’t. He banishes his spiritual weapon with a wave of his hand and moves to the kitchen where he disables the alarm. The apartment is silent, and still.

“What the fuck,” Wei Ying manages. He drags his hands over his face, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. He’s standing in the middle of their living room, wearing only boxers, because the ghost that followed him home didn’t, what, like him dressing in someone else’s clothes? This has to make top twenty, no, top ten weirdest ghost revenge plots he has ever had to deal with. He looks at Lan Zhan, who is staring back at him across the small expanse of their living-slash-dining room, face blank. “I’m so sorry,” he tells Lan Zhan, “I can’t believe—it followed me home—I should have known—”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan interrupts. Wei Ying stops talking immediately, looks up at his husband. “There is no need for sorry, between us.”

“I mean,” Wei Ying says, staring at the mark in the rug, “usually I’d agree, but I think this kind of warrants an apology.” He digs at the mark with his toe. It’s not even warm anymore, just charred. “I destroyed the rug, Lan Zhan.”

Lan Zhan shakes his head and flips on the electric kettle. “I disagree,” he says calmly, as though Wei Ying hadn’t just accidentally invited in a clothing-obsessed ghost and also destroyed one of Lan Zhan’s hoodies. Sure, he has never worn them, but the point stands.

He gapes at his husband. “You were worried, before,” he blusters, “Why-- how aren’t you more freaked out about the ghost in our house?”

Lan Zhan takes two mugs out of the cupboard, and the marshmallows-in hot chocolate tin, too. There is the edge of a smile playing on his lips when he looks at Wei Ying again, made soft under the light.

He says, “this is an opportune time to rearrange the living room.”

Wei Ying laughs. It’s the last of the adrenaline—he’ll be crashing quickly after this—but suddenly it’s hysterical. He laughs until he can’t breathe, and keeps laughing.

“Lan Zhan,” he manages, still laughing, and stumbles into his husband’s waiting arms. They will definitely be having a conversation about the wards on their house, and possibly about Wei Ying’s safety—but that can happen tomorrow. Wei Ying muffles his giggles in Lan Zhan’s shoulder, waits until they subside. He looks up at his husband, keeping his arms hooked loosely around the back of his neck. Lan Zhan’s warm hands are on his waist.

“I love you so much,” Wei Ying admits.

“Mn,” Lan Zhan hums, “and I, you.”

#journalsofagoddess #wangxiansolstice20 #*fics20 #*gifts20

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xxwritemeastoryxx · 4 years

Text

These Violent Delights Ch. 4

The Black Card

Author: xxwritemeastoryxx

Pairings: Elijah Mikaelson x OC

Word Count: 2.4K

Warnings: Talk of murder, that’s pretty much it in this one. The next few chapters will have more warnings.

Author’s Note: Smaller chapter than the last two, but it’s definitely needed to help progress the storyline. I do hope you guys enjoy this one!

Feedback gives me life and motivation for future things. ♥

<< Chapter 3 || Series Masterlist || Chapter 5 >>

Elijah quickly walked into the conference room. "What do we have?" He asked as he looked over at the other officers in the room.

He had gotten a call moments ago that he was needed down at the station asap. Without hesitating, he was there at the station in record time. All he knew was the information coming in was about Damon Salvatore.

"We got word that Damon will be making a few calls today." One officer said, looking over at Elijah. "No doubt calling Rosa to confirm that she got the black card. "

"We've got a direct line to overhear the conversation, courtesy of Rebekah." Another officer added before handing Elijah a case file.

Elijah's eyes scanned the file. The only thing that was considered noteworthy was that Damon had already called Elena minutes before he arrived. Closing the file, he tossed it on the nearest desk.

"Alright, all ears in this room need to be open." He said as he addressed the room. "Whatever piece of information you think might be of use, write it down. If Damon is making this call to Rosa I want to know where she is in this city. If I catch anyone that so much as yawns during this call, you'll have me to deal with."

A throat cleared, getting Elijah's attention. "Sir, he just made the call."

"Bring it up." Elijah said with a nod.

The officer connected the call to the speakers in the room. The ringing played through the speakers, and it seemed as if everyone held their breath for a second. A moment later, the call connected. A distorted voice answered.

"Are you fucking nuts, Damon?" The distorted voice asked, earning a chuckle from Damon.

"I take it you've picked up the kitten." His voice clear over the line.

"Obviously. You know I don't mix business with personal affairs." The voice said, causing Elijah's eyebrow to rise. "This is definitely crossing my line of mixing the two."

"Take note of that." Elijah said as he snapped his fingers, wanting someone to take down that as a note. If Rosa didn't entangle herself in personal affairs, there might not be a hit after all. At least Elijah was hopeful about that thought. "Rosa isn't happy with who is on the hit list." he noted. "She might actually have a heart."

"Come on, Rosa." Damon said, not missing a beat. "You know this type of kitten a lot more than anyone else. You can train it in your favor until you get it to Elena."

"You're missing the point-"

"I get the point, Rosa. I get how attached you used to be. But things changed from the last time we were all in the sandbox and I need this done."

That was enough for everyone in the room to know Rosa had known her target intimately. This hit wasn't just some random person that Damon needed to be handled. It was someone who they both knew.

"Run a list of known associates to Damon." Elijah said, looking over at an officer. "Go far as back as you can. Including classmates. There's a connection in there somewhere."

"Don't expect me to do the works on this. I'm changing it to a drop and run."

The chuckle that came through the line from Damon was dark. "Just think of all the fun you'll have beforehand. You might hate dropping it off later but at least you'll enjoy it while you can. While dropping and running would be easier, you know you've been waiting a while for this."

"Fuck off, Damon."

"Has anyone ever found out what 'the works' meant?" Rebekah asked as she entered the room.

"Still working on that." Elijah mumbled as he listened to the next part of the call.

"It seems I've struck a nerve."

"No shit. I've got half a mind to back out of this and return it to sender."

"But no one does it as good as you do. Come on, Rosa. You promised if I called, you'd answer. Plus it'd be a shame if I had to have a talk with V about this."

"I dare you Salvatore. It'd be an eye for an eye and there's only one of them that's currently a sitting duck. While a personal visit would be fun, I have friends in low places that would be willing to help a girl out."

"There it is." Elijah said with a small smirk. "Our list can be narrowed by anyone with a name starting with a V or even their nickname. That's where our ticket to Rosa will be."

"As much as Rosa has been a pain in my side since taking this position, I do enjoy her threats against the Salvatores." Rebekah said with a smirk pulling at her lips. "We'll need a list of anyone who has access to both Salvatore brothers."

Damon sighed. "Look, I want this taken care of, and you're the best I've got. It's a bad one to you, and I get that. But name your price, and I'd gladly pay it if you don't walk away from it. We don't need anyone else being involved."

There was a brief pause in the conversation. It was as if Rosa was debating on whether or not she wanted to do this. Both Elijah and Rebekah held their breath. They hoped it would be easier for them all if Rosa just opted out.

"Triple the payment, upfront." The voice said a moment later. "And I'm cleared from your database."

"Done."

"That is one hell of a payout." Elijah noted as he looked towards his sister.

Rebekah nodded her head in agreement. "He's got enough to do just that."

"I'm serious, D. After this, I'm out. Our contract will be over and I expect you to find someone else."

"Deal. We won't discuss business at the dinner table anymore."

Without another word from Rosa, the line went dead.

A thought crossed Rebekah's mind as the call came to an end. "That payout is so she can completely disappear after she makes the hit."

"Looks like we'll just have to catch her before she does." Elijah said with a small smirk pulling at his lips.

_____

Adriana threw the phone across the room the moment she ended the call. She wanted nothing more than to strangle Damon for this black card. Damon knew all of her reasoning for why Adriana never wanted to mix business with personal dealings. And yet here she was.

After seeing Elijah's name at the bottom of the tablet's screen, Adriana couldn't get herself to go to dinner. She couldn't face the girls knowing that Elijah was her intended target. She couldn't sit there and pretend that everything would be okay. That she wasn't having an internal panic attack because she was supposed to kill the only positive best friend she had.

She hadn't even bothered to look at the complete file. The initial shock of it all forced her to shut down the tablet and put it away until now. She couldn't bring herself to look at any of the details just yet. Her heart wasn't ready for it.

It wasn't ready to find the traces of her past inside of it. Or learn the new things Elijah had gone through while she was gone. But this was a part of the job that she usually would breeze through. And with every passing second, it was a reminder that she was about to cross a line.

Part of her believed that she would already know a lot of the information contained in it. Even though it had been years since she last spent more than a few hours with Elijah, she still knew a lot of the details of their past. And that alone is what made her the right person for the job, just as Damon mentioned.

What she wasn't ready for at all were the plans Damon had forced on her. "The works" was a term that she and Damon used when Damon wanted Adriana to weasel her way into the target's life. Once she was in and they were least expecting, Adriana would make her kill.

But this was Elijah Mikaelson. The very guy that she had known for the majority of her life. He was the one that could easily tell when there was something wrong with her. And now, she was going to have to put on a brave face if she went through with this.

Now it was a matter if she could do it or not. She may have demanded triple the payment, but she didn't believe Damon would give it to her. But when Damon wanted something, he usually got it. What made it worse was Adriana never failed at her assignments. It's what made her the best on the market.

Elijah Mikaelson was going to either break her streak or make it so she could disappear from her life as Rosa. Adriana just didn't know which one she wanted to go with yet. She knew from the moment she left home that her life as Adriana Vega was a distant memory. Her life as Rosa was about to end if she completed this job. But it was the ghost of her past that was about to make or break everything.

_____

"What happened at Dinner last night?" Bonnie asked as she handed Adriana a cup of coffee.

Taking the cup, Adriana led her down the street. "I took a look at the travel arrangements after I left the bar last night."

"And?" Bonnie asked as she walked right beside her. She brought the cup up to her lips, taking a drink.

"I couldn't face the three of you after I found out who it was." She admitted. "This was never a life you were a part of-"

"That's bullshit." Bonnie said, cutting her off. "While we may not have known the life you were in, we were still a part of the same crowd."

Adriana's tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth. "Same crowd or not, I am stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to this hit. Damon crossed a line with this." Her words had barely been above a whisper.

Bonnie sighed. "How close is this person?"

"We were all in the sandbox together." Adriana said with a nod. "But I can't give you more than that." She shook her head.

Bonnie nodded her head in understanding. "You obviously care for this person. I know this is going to be hard for you to take care of."

"Taking care of it is the easy part. It's getting my emotions in check that will be the hardest." Adriana's voice was emotionless as she spoke about it.

"What happens if you don't go through with this?" Bonnie asked curiously. She probably shouldn't have asked, but she couldn't help it with how Adriana was looking at the moment.

Adriana thought about her answer. All she could think about was Greta's voice in her mind at that moment.

"You are not to fail." Greta said as she circled Adriana.

Adriana stood tall as Greta took her steps around her. After all the training Greta had put her through, Adriana was the perfect killing machine. Everything Greta knew, she taught Adriana, and she made it better.

"And if I fail?" Adriana asked the moment Greta was back in front of her.

The woman took a few steps towards her until she was right in her face. "You may as well as turn that pistol on you before the buyer finds out. It's never pretty, Rosa. Cause once they get a hold of you, you're gonna wish you had done it yourself."

Sighing, Adriana brought the cup up to her lips and took a drink of the hot liquid. "It's either them or me. And I kind of like having the air in my lungs."

"Damon wouldn't-" Bonnie began, but Adriana stopped her.

"This is a business." Adriana stopped in her tracks and looked over at Bonnie. "I knew what I was getting myself into the moment I left. Salvatore is no different from his father, and I've seen what is done to those who go against Damon's orders."

Adriana didn't miss the way Bonnie's eyes widened at her words. As much as Bonnie had been learning from Elena and Caroline, they were blind to what went on behind closed doors. It is evident to Adriana that this wasn't the world Bonnie belonged in.

"Are you going to go through with it?" Bonnie asked a moment later.

Adriana shrugged. "We'll see how deep down the rabbit hole I go tonight."

_____

Marcel's eyes scanned the list of connections to Damon Salvatore that started with a V. The list still held a decent amount of people on it. Most of them had a record. While a part of the list was still locked away and a few others were six feet under, two names were sticking out to him the most.

Shaking his head slightly, he sighed. The names were going to make things harder. Getting up from his seat and grabbing the paper, he headed over towards Rebekah and Elijah, who had been talking away about the case.

"You guys might want to see this." He said as he approached them and held out the paper.

Rebekah took the paper, and her eyes scanned the list. "Is this the known associates of Salvatore?"

"Yes." Marcel said with a nod. "Going back as far as the sandbox."

It was as her eyes landed on the same names Marcel had taken notice of that they widened. "That doesn't mean anything."

Elijah took the list away from his sister as she spoke. He went through the list quickly, trying to figure out what they had been talking about. His heart dropped at the names.

"We knew this." He said, shaking his head. "Vega and Salvatore were always tied together."

"You heard Rosa, though." Marcel said, looking at Elijah. "Only one of them was a sitting duck."

"It might be time to go speak with them and see what they know." Rebekah said, placing her hand on her brother's shoulder. "Victor is the only one who is still out in the open, and he might just be the connection to Rosa we need."

Elijah sighed. "Adriana isn't going to like this."

“The Mikaelsons to come and question a Vega isn’t going to sit well with either of them.” Marcel added.

“It might be better to give her a call as a heads up.” Rebekah said as she turned to grab her things.

Marcel grimaced. “She’ll still give us hell.”

Elijah shook his head. “Better to have before than after we get there.” He pulled his phone out and dialed her number.

The phone rang a few times before Adriana answered.

“Hello?”

“Adri, I hate to be the barer of bad news, but we are going to be heading over to speak with your father.” Elijah said as watched Marcel grab his things.

“Is there a reason, Mikaelson?” Elijah hadn’t missed the venom in her words.

“We believe he may be able to help us out in a case.” He wanted to give her as much information as possible without actually discussing the case.

“What case? The same one you questioned Caroline for?”

“Yes.” He said with a nod, even though she couldn’t see it. “Just a couple questions. If you’d like someone to be there, we’ll wait.”

“If my father leaves in cuffs from the house after you are done asking your questions, you won’t like what comes next.”

A small smirk pulled at Elijah’s lips. “Is that a threat, Adri?”

Adriana’s chuckle came through the line before she hung up.

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the-house-of-the-nine · 4 years

Text

In Mind of Misery: Manipulation, Part 12

[ And so the journey begins. Three Separate stories to tell here all happening Simultaneously. Attacking from three fronts, is this the beginning of the end for The Nine? Please Like, Share, and Follow us! We are hoping to get new people coming our way, and could use the love! Thank you everyone!!!!! ]

Cast:

[ L.K ] - Lazarius Kashebahl, Marseille, Raelyndia Duskhollow

[ P.K ] - Kretus Dark

[ V.D ] - Verzatea Duskflame, Pame Myl’Brin

[ J ] - Jursol, Jimba, Mawa

[ T ] - Talisin aka The Boy

[ R ] - Raven

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[ L. K ] Once the door was demolished and sent flying out into the other part of the crypt they would notice something very interesting indeed; the blood was gone. The previous room that was where the massive head had been was empty and all that remained was a simple stone room with a stairway up.

The group had no time for delay, they had to move quickly, and since the stairs were no longer a sliding board the would have no problem getting out. Once they reached the top the would notice that the sky was black and the massive tentacle worms were flying across the sky.

Take to the trees. The group raced away from the crypt in an attempt to put some distance between them and the horrible place. But once they were finally safely away from their hell on earth; the reality sunk in. What would they do now.

“We need a place to stay, somewhere we can repair and heal. Raven needs energy, and Marseille needs some serious medical attention. And it’s about time that boy got a proper meal. We can’t return to Quelthalas, if we do it will spell disaster. We all look like convicts. And we need to make contact with survivors....Siida...”.

Lazarius eyes narrowed as he clenched them tightly. Losing both sisters. He was certainly a mess.

[ R ] The redheaded woman was unresponsive in Lazarius’ hold. Her slender form wrapped in cloth that left only hear bare feet and shoulders with bra straps exposed, leaving much to the imagination.

At first, if through the panic and chaos any took notice, one might note beneath the mess of black blood all over her, her skin was darkened and the veins that could be seen were blackened. Her skin had split in some areas, evident by the blotches of black soaked through various points of the cloth.

Was she breathing?

It looked as if Laz returned with a dead body. Not a peep came from her as he clutched and ran holding her. Her thick red hair covering up half-elven ears.

By the time they reached the outside world and were breaking through the tree-line to cover, all of those signs of void corruption had faded from her body and any void she was emitting was dormant.

[ P . K ] Here he had been. Minding his own business. Cozied up in his small hut within the depths of the Ghostlands. He liked it here. It was oddly peaceful despite the badies within the woods. His favorite tavern was here, too and it made easy trek into the city if he needed supplies. He’d been in this small hut for… too long.

Anytime he began to think about how long his mood soured and he fell into a depression. But not today. He had hunted a lynx that morning, skinned it bare to sell its pelt, then gutted it, readying it for his dinner. Just as he was about to pour himself a steaming bowl of lynx and veggie stew, the rumbling started.

The red head was immediately on edge, tensing, a sense of gloom and doom overwhelming him a moment as memories began flooding back. No, this wasn’t happening. This place of his, this sanctuary he built, it was peaceful here. Then he heard voices over his crackling flame coming from the direction of the crypts.

The few people who would venture that area were usually experiences archaeologists and explorers. And so, his dinner interrupted, the man grabbed his daggers and headed toward that direction. A few minutes later… The red-haired male would easily be seen along the tree line, not hiding himself at all.

He never felt the need to in this area, finding most things barely able to call themselves threats. But what he saw, the mangled group, left him confused.

“What in the bloody. . . is this? Are… are you all o---“

He stopped dead, blinking once, twice,

“Teacup?”

He said quietly, realizing the blonde… was the spirited elf he’d met many months ago. The tall, lanky, tattoo-covered, red-headed elf gaped at the group, seemingly in shock.

[ V . D ] The fresh air had certainly done wonders to alleviate the tension for both kaldorei and sindorei, Pame shaking from exhaustion with all the consistent excitement... Verzatea was shaking as well, although her shaking more so had to do with the wave of tears rolling down her cheeks as she endured Lazarius's recant of their situation.

Things were looking terribly bleak for them in this moment, and all she could think about was the horrors those in the Bastille must have endured. If it were anything like what their small and disheveled group experienced in the tombs she could only pity those who remained alive. If any did.

But first and foremost the issue of a safe space was a prominent concern before all else. Without a place to rest they could all die here and now in these woods. They were vulnerable bring exhausted, the wounded wouldn't survive long in this chill either... But the stench of ichor and rotting flesh and other unidentifiable offense odors was replaced with a peculiar smell.

Something that tickled an old memory in the far back of her mind... It was then that she'd lift her eyes to inspect the woods, her breath hitching in her throat before Verzatea mentions, her voice a ghost of a whisper as she tried to remember,

"This place... It's familar-- Like walking through a memory."

Only then did the appearance of Kretus stir the two elven women from their state of dismay. Pame stiffened and bore her fangs in a threatening snarl, her grip on Mars tightening-- until Verzatea audibly.gasps in astonishment!

"Kretus!"

She breathes out, relief swelling in her chest to see such a familiar and friendly face,

"By the Shadows, what are you doing this far out?"

Her lip quivers as she stumbles closer, her normally straight blonde hair frazzled and tousled about wildly with blood matting some tresses together. Too her dress skirts were soaked around the bottom of in a similar blood-- fel, everyone was soaked likely.. Resembling the devils rejects no doubt.

[ P . K ] Kretus immediately moves forward upon her stumble, attempting to sling both arms under hers and tugging her to his chest in order to keep her from falling. Gods, they all looked a hot mess.

“I... live... out here,”

He replies absently to her inquiry as his golden eyes moved to each individual in her party of misfits.

“You all look as if N’zoth himself beat you up and dragged you through a pool of blood.”

[ L. K ] Lazarius would have probably just burst into attack mode on this stranger; had he not had his hands full with the blanketed Raven. She was curled up in his arms and he was unable to really do much, but all things considered he would have not given this man a second look if he was free.

"Verzatea, might we focus please. . . I am assuming you know this fire haired country boy. . . introductions can wait."

He huffed, making sure Raven was secure and calling over to the man.

"While I am all for sentimental reunions; you have hit the nail on the head my friend. . . Oddly square on the head. . . that is exactly what just happened. . . in every sense of the word."

Lazarius would take several steps closer, past Marseille and Pame, around Jursol and her raptors and beside Verza and the boy she carried. He would look the man square in the eye with those ancient blackened pools.

"We need a place to lay low, recover and take inventory on what exactly we are doing. . ."

He peered toward Verza.

"Familiar how, if you know someone who has a large enough facility for us to find refuge we need it. We're losing valuable time."

[ J ] Once outside she took to the trees to move, her raptors remained low but were cunning little fucks. They would easily avoid detection. Following the others in silence as they made their way to their destination. While she did not know where they were going, she fully trusted them.

She had at some point spaces out follows them, before hearing a strange elf yelling. There were no words yet from her as she watched and listened to the other talking. Her eyes glanced at Mars as she moved to help Pame with him.

“He be needin help now.”

Her words were few but she knew Pame understood. Jursol was ready to lend a hand with his wounds, and with a nasty tasting concoction that would help.

[ P . K ] The red head scowled, mouthing the words, fire haired country boy with a bemused look on his face. As the male came closer, he squinted a moment, locking gazes. Why does he look familiar?

Kretus didn’t have time to ponder nor did he seem startled at Lazarius’ blunt reply of how right he had been on his observation. His Adam’s apple merely bobbed as he swallowed hard, and then he cleared his throat.

“I have a hut nearby with medical supplies, food, blankets, so on and so forth. I just did a supply run to the city two days hence. Come. It’s just a few minutes from here near the river edge....”

[ L. K ] "I have a man with a missing arm, and teeth marks in his chest cavity. . .have you ever seen a twelve foot tall human head with a centipede body? He was devoured by it. . ."

Lazarius snapped, giving the man a stern look from his blood covered face.

"A comatose boy who has been out cold for several hours and is probably going to need a complete frontal lobe lobotomy. . .and this specimen I have quite literally plucked from an alternate reality who is going to die lest she feed on the raw dark energy of the cosmos. . . .and you've got a 'hut' was it?"

Lazarius peered down at Verza with another glance.

"Don't you have family somewhere around here? You were off for nearly two months visiting them. . . I thought you said the Duskflame Estate was somewhere on the border of the Ghostlands and Eversong. . ."

[ P . K ] Kretus just stared at the man, hardly phased by the implied insult to his... hut.

“I mean that’s fine. Be on your way then if you have some where better to be. But something tells me my hut with things you will need for a journey is better than what you just described.”

[ V . D ] Verzatea's shoulders tensed with the haughty and stressed tones, her hands clutching onto the familiar figure of Kretus. She would have pressed her forehead against the gentlemans torso when he first pulled her forth, but rather than linger in this moment - no matter how she wanted to given it was the safest she'd felt since the tomb - she recalled the severity of the situation. Her eyes glance around then, hissing out:

"Mind your tempers,"

She sighs through her nose, standing up right now and releasing Kretus after a grateful smile was sent his way,

"It id very good to see you again my friend... And once more I must ask your aid-- While your home would be an appreciated opportunity to rest..,"

Tea glances back to offer the group an apologetic stare,

"We cannot linger... Its no guarantee we're out of the woods just yet. Theres another place, one much safer than the middle of the woods-- I just..,"

She glances around, the familiar forest and its natural scents riling those old memories once more... Childhood memories, even, but not enough to navigate the woods blindly,

"I dont know how to get there from here."

Turning to the group Tea remarks hesitantly,

"If we can make it to the North-Eastern most tip between the Ghostlands and Eversong Woods we can gather safely at my childhood home..,"

Glancing over her shoulder she'd peer up toward Kretus to explain,

"You aren't safe in these woods anymore, after having contact with us. Come with us? Lead us, even, since you know these woods well?"

Pame grunts as the weight of Marseille begins to dawn on her tired muscles, huffing out in aggravation,

"Choose quickly."

@siidaraykashebahl

@pyravari-kashebahl

@frompage112

@thebladeitself

@whatadarkbitch

@zandalaridruidofgonk

@miss-irascible

To be continued in “In Mind of Misery, Manipulation, Part 13″

#thehouseofthenine #the house of the nine #our stories #OC stories #original characters #guild stories

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changingourdestiny · 5 years

Text

Fictober Day 2: The Enemy of my Enemy

Prompt number: 2. “Just follow me, I know the area”

Fandom (AU if applicable): Destiny (Changing Our Destiny Fan-Series)

Rating: M (Destiny is rated PEGI 16)

Warnings/Tags: Minor bad language

After receiving a mysterious message from the queen of rogues, Marcia, Fireteam Paralight set off to the Cosmodrome to aid in a search-and-rescue mission.

—

“Greetings Fireteam Paralight. While sending this message deals a massive blow to my pride, I am requesting your help. Many of my people have been taken captive by the Eliksni. We have sent rescue squads out to retrieve them, but all attempts have met with failure. We’d have concluded that…*sigh*…ok, look. I ain’t good with this humble crap, but I need your help. Badly. My people are being kept hostage in the Cosmodrome by Eliksni forces. We’ve been trying to send rescue parties to save them, but they’ve been captured too. I have eyes on the inside, but it ain’t enough. Our numbers are dwindling and…if I’m being fully honest here, I’m scared. I’m trying to act brave for my people…but with the Eliksni getting bolder and the threat of the Hive looming over us, I fear that we won’t last much longer out here. I’m considering moving the Umbrialyx somewhere safer than the Cosmodrome, maybe down south. There is not a hope in hell I’m going back to the Tower, so don’t even think about it. I hate to ask help from the Guardians, especially a few Kinderguardians, but I will put aside my pride for the sake of my people. Please…help us. I can’t lose anyone else. Queen Marcia of the Umbrialyx, signing off.

P.S: Tell the Vanguard, and Ghost gets an arrow to the eye.”

“I can’t believe we agreed to this.” Blaze grumbled. Fireteam Paralight arrived at the Steppes outside the Cosmodrome. “Marcia can be a…pain.” Rae began, “But she’s a Lightbearer too. We can’t just sit by and let others get hurt. Now where…” “Psst! Oi! Over here!” A hushed voice called out. Rae looked around for a moment in confusion before spotting a familiar figure hiding amongst the trees, her cloak wrapped around her. The Fireteam approached the rogue Guardian as she emerged from the trees, removing her bandana and goggles. “Huh…you punks actually came.” Marcia began, disbelief in her voice, “I…can’t believe I’m saying this but…thanks. I mean it.” “As the saying goes, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’” Rae shrugged. “Heh. I guess that’s true.” Marcia chuckled before a serious look took her face, “Alright, I’ll lead the way.” “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Why should you lead?” Blaze interrupted. “Just follow me, I know the area.” Marcia gave a frustrated sigh, “I’ve been keeping an eye on this place ever since the Eliksni started taking my people. I know where they’re being held captive.” “Lead the way then.” Rae nodded while Blaze just huffed, really not wanting to take orders from a rogue. “So, what should we expect from this?” Ghost asked. “The basics.” Nox, Marcia’s Ghost, replied, “Couple of Shanks, Dregs, Vandals…maybe a Captain or two. Haven’t seen any Servitors, so that’s good news…never liked those things. Creepy buggers.” “So what’s the plan?” Stormbringer spoke up. “I know my rogues are being held somewhere around Dock 13. Dunno where exactly though.” Marcia responded, “Once we’re in, we split up into two groups. Hothead and Titan on one, myself and Rae on the other.” “Why do you call Rae by her name and us by dumb names?!” Blaze growled in a hushed whisper. “I respect Rae. You I don’t. I kinda respect the Titan.” Blaze just sighed in defeat as Marcia continued, “There’re Dregs guarding the entrance. I have a spot where Rae and I can snipe ‘em and take ‘em out easily. Once their down, you two head in and we’ll be right behind ya. Once we’re in, split up and scout the area. Have your Ghosts contact me if you find my people. Do not, I repeat, do NOT engage until we group up with you and vice-versa. All good.” “Right.” “Sure…” Adam gave a thumbs up. “Alright. Move out. See you on the inside.”

———————————————————————

The two Paragonialans crept through the darkened halls of the Cosmodrome, their Ghosts lighting the way. “Hey, Nox?” Ghost began. “Yes?” Nox responded, still keeping his focus on the hall ahead. “Forgive me if this sounds rude…but why is your eye pink? Was it a modification like Firefly’s or…?” “…I don’t wish to discuss this topic.” “Oh…um, alright then…just trying to make conversation…” Rae turned to Marcia, “Was Nox’s eye pink when you met him?” “Nox always respects my wishes when I don’t wanna talk about somethin’.” Marcia replied, “It’s only fair I do the same.” “Ah. I can respect that. I try to respect Ghost’s wishes most of the time too. Right, Little Light?” “Oh, haha. Very funny.” Marcia chuckled before shaking her head, “Alright, let’s focus. My rogues have to be here somewhere.” “Anyone else find it weird that we haven’t seen a single Eliksni since the entrance?” Ghost piped up. “You’re right…either they’re all busy guarding the prisoners…” Nox began, “…or we’re walking straight into an ambush.” Ghost glanced behind him and exclaimed, “Watch out!” A tall Captain stood looming over the two Lightbearers and their Ghosts, a shock blade in one hand and a shrapnel launcher in another. Rae went for her auto-rifle, but was stopped by Marcia, “Hey, it’s cool.” Marcia looked up at the Captain, “Took ya long enough, Zakris.” “Would’ve been easier if there was any privacy in this blasted place.” The captain, who Rae assumed was Zakris, replied, “The House of Devils have increased their numbers here ever since the Hive arrived. Don’t blame ‘em. Little buggers are creepy as all hell. ‘Specially the Thralls.”

“Hold up, I’m super lost here!” Rae interrupted, glancing between Marcia and Zakris, “You know this guy?” “Ah…right, I forgot to mention it, didn’t I?” Marcia scratched her head sheepishly, “Rae, this is Zakris the Reborn. The very first Eliksni Lightbearer.” “Wait, you’re a…” Rae trailed off as a small grey and red Ghost popped up beside Zakris and spoke in a timid, child-like voice, “H-hello…I’m Vakoh…” “I…didn’t know Eliksni could become Guardians…” Ghost was at a near loss for words. “N’or did I…and yet the Great Machine, or the Traveller as you name it, saw me worthy. It is a gift I will not waste.” “Zakris was revived here on Earth but felt he wouldn’t be welcomed at the Last City.” Marcia explained, “So when we came across him, we took him in as an Umbrialyx. He’s the best rogue in the kingdom.” “Besides you.” Zakris added, before facing Rae, who still seemed to be in shock, “You are the one they call Rae, yes? My former house call you ‘Taker of Great Ships’. Queen Marcia calls you a strong warrior. Therefore, I call you my ally.” Rae broke out of her shocked stupor and gave Zakris a friendly smile, “Pleasure to meet you, Zakris.” Zakris nodded in response before addressing Marcia, “Come. I have located the prisoners. And the sooner I leave this place, the better.” “I’m a little surprised they haven’t recognised you…I mean, they are your old house…” Vakoh piped up. “I was just another Captain out of many.” Zakris replied, “They would not tell the difference if I was replaced with another. They aren’t very…intelligent. The Dregs specifically. The other day, I caught one of them trying to attack their own shadow.”

“You sure that wasn’t Blaze?” Marcia smirked. “Speaking of Blaze, I should probably contact her and Adam.” Ghost spoke up, “Let them know about-”

Suddenly, gunshots erupted from a nearby room, followed by the familiar whoops of a certain Awoken Hunter. “That punk had one job.” Marcia sighed in frustration. “My former house calls that one ‘Reckless Idiot’. Not as flattering as your title.” Zakris added. “I mean…they’re not wrong…” Rae laughed nervously. Marcia just sighed, “Let’s go and make sure she doesn’t get any of my rogues killed.” “Or herself.” Rae added. “Yeah, that too…”

#fictober19 #rae drakyx #blaze kiria #adam bergfalk #fireteam paralight #ghost #destiny ghost #marcia wyverk #queen marcia #zakris the reborn #zakris #umbrialyx #destiny fallen #fallen #eliksni #destiny #Changing our Destiny

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noctiferous-fr · 5 years

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can you do all the nitty gritty wb asks! :o

Oh my, sure!

This took longer than expected and is longer than expected sooo under the cut it goes!

1. How/why did your clan get it’s name?

Sylvhurst gets its name due to the large tree that the Rulers live in. It used to house the ‘soul’ or ‘essence’ of Queen Azraea until a spell went awry and she became a dragon. ‘Sylv’ and ‘hurst’ are both tree/forest words.

2. Are there any other clans living near by? Are they friendly or are they rivals? Tell us about their interactions with your clan.

The closest ‘clan’ would be the Seelie Court, which is about a day’s travel south. The Seelie Court and Sylvhurst are allies who trade and lend eachother support in times of need. Given that the Seelie Court has a hidden entrance and is generally not entirely open to outsiders, most of the interactions between the members of both clans happens within the boundaries of Sylvhurst, or in the unowned sections of the Tangled Wood.

3. What is your clan’s main source of income?

Probably the sale of magical goods and services. The Mage’s Quarter makes up a huge portion of the city, and there’s a good variety of magical beings each offering up their own unique type of magic.

4. What items does your clan have to import from other flights/clans/etc? Who is in charge of that?

The biggest import is building materials, despite the fact that Sylvhurst is in the middle of a forest. Because of Queen Azraea’s origin story, very few buildings in the town are made of wood, and it’s actually fairly difficult to get permission to build houses out of it. Instead, stone buildings are far more common (much to the joy of the magic users who find stone much more receptive to any spells they attempt to place on their residence).

5. Does your clan produce any sort of item coveted by other clans? Specialty items, services, food/drink?

Sorta in relation to #3, I’d say maybe Perseus’s enchanted items would be one of the more popular items for sale in Sylvhurst. They’re notoriously reliable and he has a myriad of spells that he can place on all sorts of items.

6. Is you clan independent or is it ruled by another governing body?

My clan is independent in the sense that Syvhurst is ruled by itself I guess?

7. Is your clan religious? Is there a single dominating religion or belief system in your clan or is it relaxed about different faiths?

All forms of religion are welcomed into Sylvhurst, though those who are fanatics may find some strange looks and whispers their way. For the festivals Sylvhurst dresses itself up and has a huge celebration for whichever God the festival is for.

8. What sort of superstitions do many in your clan believe? Is there any merit to it, or is it just wives tales?

There’s plenty of superstitions concerning the forest surrounding Sylvhurst, and most of it actually does have merit. There’s been plenty of legends about a mysterious young hatchling with glowing eyes who guides lost hatchlings back to their parents. Or about a ghost who seems to show up before deaths or disasters, wringing his hands in worry. Or even stories about a cheerful young man who can be helpful one second and a thief the next, and what to keep on hand to give him in return for his aid.

9. Any serious taboos?

Queen Azraea has been known to welcome all sorts of dragons into her clan, and even offer second chances to dragons who have done some fairly illegal things. The one crime that is expressly forbidden within Sylvhurst, however, is slavery or any form of trafficking. Any slavers moving through the territory are liable to be targeted and either killed or escorted out of the lands once their prisoners have been released.

10. How is your clan operated? Is there a single leader, a council, or something else?

Queen Azraea and King Arguim (technically) have final say on decisions made for the entirety of Sylvhurst, but they employ a fair number of advisors on different matters. Trickmurk is the tactician who is technically the immediate supervisor of the Guards. Iravat, while being the main advisor is also the leader of a smaller and more elite force that is targeted to more ‘high danger’ targets (Think Emperor level danger). Undine is another important person who oversees the docks to the west and enforces import and export restrictions. For the most part these advisors are able to rule over their own sectors without the Queen and King stepping in and overriding their rulings.

11. How is food stocked, stored and inventoried for rations during the lean times? Is there a specific dragon in charge of that?

Huh... I actually don’t have an answer for this. I would assume that the process would start with Undine at the docks, and she would begin to enforce export restrictions on anyone attempting to ship food out to make money. Then, she’d likely attempt to reach out to contacts and attempt to acquire more shipments of food. If it got really bad the treasurer, Aurelius, would most likely be brought in to sequester a portion of his vault for dried / salted portions of food.

12. How are your clans defenses operated?

Sylvhurst has a few defenses, but not many because of its somewhat secluded location and relatively few threats that they have dealt with so far. One of the largest defenses is a ‘shield’ that is controlled by Harlequin, which essentially ‘steers’ malicious people away from Sylvhurst and sends an alert of the location. It acts as a sort of suggestion -- and it is by no means going to turn someone around who is actively attempting to reach Sylvhurst. It’s more to try and prevent random people from stumbling into town and causing trouble.

Other than that, there are a number of guards who are stationed at the roads that enter and leave the city. This does leave the wooded areas without defenses, however, because there simply aren’t enough guards to actually surround the city.

13. How is waste removed from the clan?

Can I pull a JK Rowling and say it’s just magically vanished

I’m not sure! Waste such as packaging and trash is likely somewhat rare within Sylvhurst. Many things are reused and even bones from things like fish can be sold to vendors within the magical quarters for a small amount of money. Maybe any left over trash is incinerated?

14. Does your clan have livestock of any kind?

Not within the walls of the city itself, no. However there are a number of farms that have carved their way along the roads leading into town and while most of them are crop farms there are a few that also have various types of livestock.

15. How is water managed in the clan?

Water is collected for use in a number of ways. Almost every house in Sylvhurst has some form of a rain barrel (either for drinking water or for use in spells) which is the primary source for a number of people. There is a freshwater lake on the northern edge of the city which some people collect their water from as well. The ocean is another possibility, especially for those who live in the harbor area, as there are simple enchantments that can be used to turn the ocean water fresh and clean. Everyone handles their own water needs for the most part, barring of course businesses and inns which manage a much larger amount.

16. Is there a community hatchery/nursery, or do parents rear their young separately?

Parents rear young within their own homes, though there are nurseries which can look after hatchlings if something happens to their parents or if their parents cannot look after them all day long on their own.

17. Who teaches the younglings the basics?

The role of teaching is generally given to the parents, or, if they don’t feel comfortable it’s possible to find a mentor for the hatchling. The real basics of life are handled by the parents, but once they begin to branch out there are a number of tutors or mages that are happy to indulge the odd question from a child.

18. How does your clan view Exaltation? Is it an honor, banishment, something else?

Exaltation is more personal than anything. Most in Sylvhurst form their own opinions about it from their own experiences with family members and friends deciding on it. For most, exaltation is simply a journey a dragon takes when they decide that they wish to serve their god in any capacity. It’s definitely not a banishment, and it’s also not exactly an honor. It’s simply a different choice.

19. If your clan has a diverse number of dragons of different elements, how does that affect society? Are some dragons prejudiced against certain elements/breeds? How does the clan handle this?

Sylvhurst is a melting pot of every single element present on Sornieth. While Prejudice may occur behind the scenes, it is fairly obvious that overt prejudice will not be tolerated by the people of Sylvhurst or the King and Queen. Most of the conflicts seen in the clan are actually conflicts between dragons of the same element.

20. Are there Beast Clans near your clan? How does your clan interact with the Beast Clans?

Given the scope and mystery of the Tangled Wood I’d guess that there’s not-a-small amount of Beast Clans wandering near Sylvhurst. As of right now, no Beast Clans have taken up residence within the territory of the city, but they do stop by the marketplace or the docks more than occasionally.

21. Are there some Beast Clans that are allies and others that are enemies?

I don’t have any actual Beast Clan OCs or anything like that, but I like to think that Sylvhurst is a bit more friendly to Beast Clans than is regular for dragon clans. Many of them know the story of Azraea’s transformation and the dryads especially feel a kinship to her that they don’t feel towards dragons often.

22. Is your clan located near where the Emperor was sighted last? How is it preparing for that?

(I’m running on the assumption that the Emp was in Light territory because I don’t feel like looking it up lol). Sylvhurst is somewhat far from the border between Shadow and Light, so they’re not too concerned quite yet. The Queen and King aren’t doing many preparations other than the usual defenses. If it started moving closer, they might start taking preventative actions.

#Anonymous #clan: sylvhurst #long post 1003029120

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carmenlire · 6 years

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"When I look at you, I see my world and that scares the sh*t out of me." for Malec ohohoh

Ahhhh this was so much fun!! Thank you!!

read on ao3

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Goddamnit. God damn him. He was a fucking assassin. A killer for hire. He carried a tattoo for every man he’d ever killed and he had more offshore accounts than most people had dollar bills. He was very rich and very skilled and now here he was protecting his target against another threat.

The Institute was going to kill him and then kill him.

Alec ducks a swing from one of the men, adjusts his grip on his knife before slicing through the man’s shirt, hitting skin underneath in a shallow cut. It does nothing more than piss them both off and Alec’s well aware that the only way to win is to live.

He takes a deep breath, bellows out, “Run,” and watches in relief as he sees Magnus take off from his peripheral.

If he makes it out of this, they’ll talk. If he doesn’t, at least he made it so that Magnus would live another day, so that he wouldn’t have to see Alec get eviscerated by his own blade.

In the fight for his life– for both their lives– Alec knows he’s pathetically and tragically distracted.

He thinks about the past three months. Magnus was a rival, a fellow assassin who’d get any job done as long as the check cleared and the men were guilty. The first weeks had been a comedy of errors. They’d danced around each other, lost in the game between them, both determined to win this duel of wits.

But something had changed. First Magnus had earned his respect, and then Alec had started noticing things about him. The way the light hit his eyes and turned them golden. The way he carried his signature weapon, a nine millimeter pistol, with ease and elegance. There’d been barbed jokes and leading questions.

Each day that Alec let Magnus live was another day that his team back at headquarters grew more confused, increasingly antsy.

But Alec just couldn’t do it. For fuck’s sake, they’d shared a hotel room two weeks ago and murder had been the last thing on his mind. No, Alec and Magnus hadn’t traded veiled threats. There’d been no wariness, no questioning. They hadn’t slept all night but it hadn’t been a precaution– they’d been far too preoccupied to wonder whether the other man would stab them in the back before morning.

Which brings Alec to now.

The life of an assassin is doomed. It’s a fact of life and something that Alec’s long since accepted.

Things are different now, though.

Foolishly, Alec had been planning to walk away from it all. Take his offshore bank accounts, grab Magnus’s hand, and run away from the only life he’d ever known.

How unfortunate that the bad guys never act according to plan.

Alec groans as the henchman lands a lucky hit that’s quickly followed by an expert stab to his thigh. As his leg collapses underneath him, Alec hears a single gunshot.

He’s in too much pain to wonder where it came from, though. He knows there’s no hope for him and that his idealized future is going up in smoke as his consciousness wavers.

He’s laying on the ground when he feels gentle hands on his face.

“Alexander, darling, stay with me. Do you hear me? You’re not allowed to leave me.”

Groggy, Alec slurs, “I thought you left. You were supposed to leave. Run, Magnus.”

“Hush, Alec. You’re safe. Aldertree’s goon is dead and it’s just you and me. I’m not going anywhere.”

Alec only hears every third word and he’s growing more disoriented by the minute. “You ran away. You left me. You’re supposed to be gone. I need you safe.”

Alec’s eyes are closed so that he doesn’t see Magnus’s lips tremble. He’s so far gone– the man had hit an artery and he was bleeding out– that he doesn’t feel Magnus’s shaking fingers ghosting along his cheek.

“When I look at you, I see my world and that scares the shit out of me. I learned a long time ago that friends were a liability and anything more was pure stupidity.”

He brushes Alec’s hair back, almost collapsing as he hears the ambulance’s sirens a few miles away. “But you’ve changed me, darling. You’ve opened my eyes. I’ve known since that first night. I’d slipped into the courtyard behind you and you didn’t hear me. I could’ve killed you then. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I didn’t understand but I left you out there, in the rain and the cold and I disappeared. And we kept running into each other and every time you smiled and every time you let me leave unscathed, my world grew a little warmer.

“You can’t die on me, Alexander. I decided a few days ago to take you and run as fast as I can as far as I can. I can’t go back to a world that’s black and white and a million shades of gray. Not when I know how extraordinary you look in color.”

A smile ghosts on Alec’s lips. Magnus leans down and chases it, terrified when Alec, always warm and verging on hot, is ice cold.

He tries to stop the bleeding but there’s just so much and Magnus is perilously close to growing hysterical. It was absurd how much things could change in just a few short months but he wouldn’t change any of it. He wouldn’t change goddamn thing as long as at the end of the line, Alec and him were standing together, whole and well.

Alec goes limp just as the ambulance pulls up in the abandoned parking lot.

They work on Alec as Magnus clings to his hand, all the while shooting poisonous looks at the dead man lying just feet away.

Magnus follows Alec into the ambulance. It’s a long night and he has to explain everything a dozen times– to police officers, claiming to be federal agents, and to Alec’s family. They’re surprised, scandalized when they realize it’s Magnus Bane calling them but they rush to the hospital all the same.

When they reach the waiting room and see Magnus sitting in a hard plastic chair, dazed and covered in their brother’s blood, the puzzle completes itself. They remember Alec’s furtive looks and the tension that hadn’t left his shoulders in months.

They see the reason for the sudden light in Alec’s eyes and know that Magnus is on their side.

When the doctor walks in and informs them that Alec is conscious and out of the woods, Magnus sways where he’s standing. He doesn’t even look at Jace or Izzy as he follows the doctor to Alec’s room.

When he crosses the threshold, he breathes for the first time in hours as he sees his love awake and alert.

“Alexander,” Magnus murmurs, gently pushing his hair off his forehead. In the next minute, he’s leaning down until their noses brush. “I love you,” he breathes.

Alec looks a little groggy but his grin is a million watts as he replies, “I love you, too.”

They share a kiss and when Magnus pulls back, Alec hums. He looks up, expression just a hint mischievous. “I seem to remember someone saying that I looked like their world.”

Magnus laughs and ignores the edge of tears in it. “Who would have thought that two rival killers for hire would fall for each other?”

Alec’s quiet for a minute as he looks at Magnus, serious. “I’ve known since the first time I saw you that something was different.”

Magnus smiles softly and kisses Alec again. They’re interrupted by a loud harrumph and pull back to see Alec’s family at the door.

What follows are three days of intense planning. Jace and Izzy scheme along with them and keep The Institute out of their hair and out of their lives. For good.

Magnus and Alec solidify their feelings, sharing intense discussions and heated debates.

Alec’s released from the hospital seventy-two hours later.

He’s never heard from again and no one can pin down the man who never left his side. When questioned, Jace and Isabelle claim ignorance. They’re eventually cleared and it’s only months later that both are honorably discharged from their organization.

They lead a civilian life, living half a world away and forming their own families.

By a stroke of luck and sheer coincidence, they choose the same city as Magnus and Alec.

Magnus’s world grows unimaginably rich and fuller than he could’ve dreamed. When their kids ask how they meet years later, both Alec and Magnus share small smiles and just explain that they were business rivals, remaining tight lipped on the details.

Everyone lives happily ever after.

#I seriously enjoyed this so much #thank you!!!#lightwoodsbanes #my writing #missing on the inside #malec fic

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glitchinthesystemspiderbyte · 6 years

Text

Glitch in the System - Conflict of Interests (pt. 1)

This will probably be a 4-5 part story arc. Maybe more. Who knows!

Enjoy part 1.

By E. A new adventure happens.

They sat together on the couch, Widow sipping a glass of wine as she absorbed yet another dry French novel, while Sombra went through her nightly motions. Ever the digital huntress, she checked her traps, her snares, and the usual trails, making the rounds as she did every night to see if anyone had tripped a wire. Normally it was an uneventful ritual, but tonight?

Well, it looked as though something very curious indeed had taken the bait.

“Widow, get Gabe,” Sombra said, the sharpness of her own words surprising her as she sat up ramrod straight, numbers flashing across the screen before her. It was so subtle she would have missed it but for the nets she’d put up.

“Gabe?” Widow asked as she pulled her gaze up from her book, brows furrowed. “Can you not call him yourself?”

Sombra glared hard at the screen. Dropping a token on the IP snaking through her web, she watched as it circled the globe in rapid purple flashes.

“Sombra?” Widow asked again, her book now closed in her lap, her expression indicating the ghost of concern.

“Sorry,” Sombra replied, shaking her head, keeping one eye on the screen. “Do you remember, a year ago, when we had a run-in with that group of cyborg separatists?”

“The Mechali,” Widow nodded slowly. “What about them?”

“Well, they just resurfaced,” Sombra replied, eyes darting around the screen. “And it looks big.”

Widowmaker raised an eyebrow, following it with the glass of wine to her lips. “What did you find?”

“Chatter, mostly, but the sort of chatter that precludes something serious. Won’t know the details until I hit their remote servers in person.”

“Where?” Widow asked, looking curiously over her glass of wine.

“Greece?” Sombra replied, shrugging, looking back at her screen. “Probably. The IP I’m tracking is pinging through a lot of locations, but there looks to be a spot in Athens that seems stronger than the rest. Decoys feel different than the real deal, you know?”

“No.”

Sombra rolled her eyes. “That was hypothetical,” she replied. “Anyway, we haven’t heard even a whisper from these guys since their failed attack on Numbani two years ago. Frankly I’d thought they had dissolved. Now they’re shouting and I want to know why.” Her screen flashed and her fingers slid to the bottom of the screen, pinching together to zoom in on an image. “Gabe has to let me check this out.”

Widowmaker watched her expression carefully for the span of several heartbeats before she set down her glass and reached for Sombra, taking her gently by the chin to tear her eyes from the screen. “I am going with you,” she insisted, eyes narrowed.

Sombra laughed, her intensity softening slightly. “Well yeah. I wouldn’t want you to be bored without me. Besides,” she shrugged, swiping Widow’s hand from her chin and giving it a kiss, “I’ll need someone to convince me not to join their weird mecha-human cult. I’m the embodiment of their ideals; I’ll bet they’d love to have me join their ranks.”

Widow let out a soft huff of distaste, part laugh, part disapproval. “And then your ego might finally attain sentience. I will get Gabe,” she said, long limbs unfolding until she was standing. She hesitated, then leaned forward to place a soft kiss on Sombra’s forehead. Turning from her, she left Sombra tapping away at her console.

“The Mechali,” Akande said, fingers steepled together in a typical show of removed emotion. “I had thought them history. Inconsequential history at that.”

“Yeah, well, history has a way of repeating itself,” Sombra shrugged. She was sprawled as usual over the tall meeting room chair, legs up, arms dangling in idle boredom. She ignored both Akande’s and Moira’s glare that she take her feet off the table, ignoring the impulse to kick off her shoes, considering that more than enough concession to their wishes.

“Refresh my memory,” Gabriel asked, rubbing his temples and growling as wisps of black smoke drifted from his head. “What, precisely, is their aim?”

Sombra shrugged and covered a yawn. “Oh, you know - bunch of heavily cybridized people who no longer feel fully human but aren’t ‘welcome’ within the omnic community coming together to establish their own separate group. The leader’s a real spitfire - Sasha Kuznetsov, been looking to break apart from the ‘oppression’ of humans and the ‘overreach’ of Omnics to create a real cyborg utopia for herself and her followers. She’s got an impressive history of failed terrorism and assassination attempts, from starting a fire at the Numbani consulate to a laughable attempt at converting Blackwatch’s own cyborg to her cause. Barring her general inability to follow through with her threats, you two would probably get along really well, Akande,” Sombra explained.

“I am not so certain of that,” Akande replied, lips pursed in thought. “A third party simply muddies the waters and leaves room for empathy. But as far as I can tell, they are not large enough to be anything more than a nuisance at this point.” His eyes shifted to Sombra. “Correct?”

“Numbers have swelled since we last clashed with them. They’re big enough to claim corporate tax exemption as a private group.”

Akande frowned. “Have they?”

Sombra shook her head. “No, but they have certainly grown, and they definitely have the drive. Frankly, if they’re employing encryption methods strong enough to tip me off, they’re up to something.” Idly rubbing a thumb along her cybernetics, she caught Akande’s eyes with utter seriousness. “Something big.”

Gabriel and Akande exchanged a glance. Moira crossed her arms, and Sombra thought she looked as though she felt left out.

“We don’t need chaos we can’t control. Not right now,” Gabe said, his voice maintaining its professional gravelly snarl. “I think an investigation of their intentions is warranted.”

“Now we’re on the same page,” Sombra replied, winking. “Let me at that sweet cyborg propaganda.”

“You say you need to go to Greece to properly access their data?” Akande finished, ignoring her glib commentary.

“If we want to know what precisely those intentions are, then yeah.” She smirked. “Also the gyros in Italy are terrible, and I have a need.”

Akande looked between Moira and Gabriel, receiving curt nods of assent from each. “Go. Take Lacroix for backup,” he said. Sombra smirked at Moira’s failed attempt at not looking annoyed at their joint assignment.

“Are we going to lose you to their cause?” Gabriel asked as they all left the room, his tone mostly joking, but Sombra thought she detected a hint of worry in it as well.

She laughed. “Well I guess that depends on how well you pay me.”

“I do not know how you do it,” Widow commented as they entered a busy little taverna in a populated section of Athens. The path there was crowded with twilight tourists sneaking a last peek at the acropolis looming above them on its hill, killing time before the nightlife kicked into gear.

“Do what?” Sombra asked, holding up two fingers as the server nodded and asked how many were in her party.

“Remember everything,” Widow replied, falling into step behind her. Sombra had disembarked their small commercial flight as Selena Santiago, hailed a taxi under the guise of Camila Santos, and checked into their small hotel just outside of Syntagma Square as Rafaela Rodriguez. Sombra hopped from name to name like they were bars in foreign towns, drunk off anonymity and the freedom it afforded her.

“Change your name enough and you don’t have to remember them, cielito,” Sombra grinned as they sat down on the patio outside overlooking the street. Like most European cities she had visited, it was bustling, and traffic was especially thick during the end of the day as businesses closed and people raced to get home to their families and loved ones. It was exciting and vibrant and she watched the cars pass with interest until their server arrived.

“Wine?” he offered the women, proffering a dented copper pitcher at the two.

“Nai, parakelo,” she said with a smile, and he took their orders, leaving the copper pitcher on the table for their pleasure. Sombra grinned - she’d always appreciated the way tavernas treated wine like water, allowing patrons to fill their glasses until they’d had enough. She wasn’t sure whether it was something done traditionally or as a way to hook tourists, but since she was rarely in Greece for very long, she figured she benefited either way.

“I didn’t realize you spoke Greek,” Widow commented after pouring herself a glass, leaning back and taking a sip of her wine. She grimaced, nose wrinkled in disgust. “What is this?” she asked.

“Well it’s not top shelf.” Sombra laughed. “And I don’t speak Greek, I speak select phrases that come in handy when shopping, or eating. You know,” she continued, shrugging, “tourist book stuff.”

“I see,” Widow nodded, eyeing her glass as though it offended her. Regardless, she took another sip, this one seeming to upset her slightly less than the first. “That does seem somewhat anticlimactic for you.”

“Hey, until I can work out an instant cerebral internal translator, I’m going to have to play the language game just like anyone else.” Sombra grinned, offering an exaggerated shrug, sitting up straighter as their waiter returned.

“Epharisto,” she nodded as he set down a plate of dolmades and olives at the center of the table as well as a lamb and tzatziki gyro before each of them. It smelled delicious, but unfamiliar, and nothing like the hearty spice from back home.

“Working?” he asked, nodding at her display.

“Always,” she smiled in response, more innocent than a college student researching a paper for school. Widow watched him coldly, and he made no move to address her before scurrying off to assist his other patrons.

“I can’t decide whether you make it harder or easier for me to do what I do,” Sombra smirked, picking up her gyro and taking a bite. It was perfect.

“How do you mean?” WIdow asked, gingerly picking up her own dolmade.

“You either scare away the mark or make me seem even more pleasant in comparison.” Widow rolled her eyes and Sombra grinned. She chewed slowly as the data file her scraping program had picked up was decrypted. It was a strong encryption, but she’d cracked harder. She watched it run, periodically jumping in for a manual override, taking sips of wine and bites of food in between.

“Am I that frightening?” Widow asked after a bit, seeming less offended and more curious.

“Babe, you’re terrifying,” Sombra laughed. As she did, a sharp ping and flash of light drew her attention. “Got ‘em.”

“You have a location?”

“You bet I do.” Hovering her hand over her screen, she pinched her fingers together and peeled off a bit of hard light, absorbing it into her skin in flecks of purple data. “And you’re never going to believe where we have to go.”

Widowmaker sighed, draining her wine glass, the smallest hint of distaste still flashing across her face, almost as an obligation at this point. “I assume I am going to hate this?” she asked.

“Sorry,” she grinned sheepishly. “Probably.”

“And where are your uncomfortable cyborgs holding out, then?”

Sombra’s grin widened. “Mycenae. Inside the cistern.”

Widow stared at her incredulously. “The cistern under the ruins?”

“Yup.”

Taking a steadying breath, Widowmaker poured herself another drink.

They arrived after dark, the ruins locked down with rope and makeshift gates that didn’t look to have changed much since the beginning of the century.

“Guess not a lot of folks are dying to get in here and cause trouble after dark,” Sombra commented, shrugging as she stepped over the pitiful barricade.

“A far cry from the Acropolis,” Widow murmured, visor in place as she scanned the area for people.

“Yeah I’ve never been yelled at for picking up rocks. Especially while watching a dog pee on the Parthenon steps at the same time.” She shook her head, illuminating the ground before them in a dim purple glow. “Preservation is weird. See anything?”

“No,” Widow replied, pressing the button at the base of her visor to disengage. Her golden eyes flashed in the light from Sombra’s cybernetics.

“Into the pit we go then,” Sombra said cheerfully as she waved Widow over to a small hole in the rock face, big enough for one person to descend at a time. She loved ancient ruins and the stories they told, but the lack of technological grid in place always made her feel a bit blind.

Which was why she was startled nearly to stumbling when she placed her hand against the wall and felt a thin, thready vibration coming from the damp rock, indicating the presence of some sort of network. With extreme caution, she connected to it, and found herself at the precipice not only of a stone staircase leading into the abyss, but a vault of data lingering just beneath her touch.

She shared this with Widow, and despite the darkness of the stairs as they slowly descended, could almost see the concerned wrinkling of her smooth brow.

“A connection,” she said, voice low but echoing regardless in the utter silence of the rock surrounding them, “in 3,500 year old ruins?”

“Hey, I’m baffled too. Best we can do is follow it I figure.” The places her fingers traced against the wall left faint glowing points of purple in their wake, like the remnants of touch witnessed through a heat sensor. It felt less like raw data and more like a guide leading to what Sombra hoped were the Mechali servers. It was the only thing that made any sense, really. If she hadn’t known they were tracking cyborgs, she’d have thought her hardware was malfunctioning.

They continued downward in silence.

The cistern itself was precisely what it said on the tin: a large body of water stretching into the darkness before them. Skirting the pool of subterranean water, she followed the lines of data to a false wall at the far end. Someone had blasted away part of the rock beneath, covering it with the hologram that was indistinguishable from the rock to anyone not approaching it with subterfuge in mind. The hard light was also modeled to feel like rock. The curators probably didn’t even know it was there.

“This is some high tech shit,” Sombra explained, awestruck as her fingers danced over the false stone. It was even damp to the touch like the rest of the cavern.

“Can you get through?” Widow asked, standing pointedly away from the walls, eyeing them with disgust.

Sombra snorted. “I said high tech, not impressive. This is kids’ stuff.” Pressing a palm against the wall, she summoned a small keypad into thin air. Her fingers danced and arcs of electricity shot from her hand into the device. There was no sound; no fanfare at all, really, as the hologram vanished from sight. It was instantaneous - one moment it was there, the next it was gone.

Sombra and Widowmaker peered into the hole in the wall of the cistern to see an unexpected anachronism: a long, sleek, metal wall, riveted together and leading down into the ground, the ceiling and ground carved from the same stone as the rest of the ancient city.

“Let’s go,” Sombra shrugged, stepping through into the hallway. Widowmaker hesitated and followed a moment later.

The metal walls glowed with internal white LEDs, making their passage comparatively easy to their descent into the cistern. As they passed over the threshold, Sombra looked back to see the hologram slip back into place behind them.

“Well done,” she said under her breath.

Widow’s frown was visible now. She activated her visor again, scanning the passage as they approached what was looking more and more like another doorway, this one made not of hard light, but of steel.

“Sombra,” she said, and her voice stopped Sombra in her tracks.

“What?” she asked.

“This place,” she said, pointing ahead of them, “is filled with people.”

Sombra stood where she was for a moment, considering the new intel. “Ah,” she replied, pursing her lips. “That makes sense. I wouldn’t leave my servers unguarded either.”

“This is more than guards, Sombra. This is,” she trailed off, peering at the door again before disengaging her visor. “This is a facility.”

Sombra stroked her chin a moment in thought. “Yeah, I’d thought that might be the case, honestly. Or at least a possibility.” Turning, she bridged the final gap to the door, reaching out to perform the same technical magic on the physical keypad as she had earlier on the hard light one.

“What are you doing?” Widow asked, standing rigidly beside her.

“What am I doing?” Sombra asked, tilting her head at Widow. “I’m going in to say hi.”

*Read from the beginning or check out our intro post! All stories tagged under #glitchfic. Table of contents located here.

#spiderbyte #widowsombra #sombramaker #sombra x widowmaker #widowmaker x sombra #sombra #Olivia colomar #Widowmaker #amelie lacroix #Amélie Lacroix #Overwatch #overwatch fanfic #overwatch fandom #glitchfic #glitch in the system

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