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harrysweasleys · 4 years

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a place for us // d.m

Summary: I’d like to request a Draco x reader please, she’s the plus one to the golden trio & Malfoy actually has a crush on her since 1st year but never tells her even though she comes from a pureblood family too. In the 6th year she’s the first one who noticed how drastically Malfoy has changed and decided to investigate & that’s how she founds him in the room of requirements and they just bonded, Draco really opens up to her and they meet in secret every night plus a kiss in the end maybe? Thank you

Warnings: none

Word Count: 6.1k

A/N: dudes i’m so close to 600 followers i love you all. thank you so much for sticking by my work. also so very sorry it’s taking me ages to get around to these requests. writer’s block, ya know? but, enjoy!!!! xoxo

— —

As you watched Draco pick absentmindedly at his quill during Potions, you knew something was wrong. He had been acting off all year. Maybe he wasn’t a fan of Potions now that Slughorn was the Professor, but this didn’t excuse why he had been sulking the entire first month that school had returned.

“Y/N?” Harry’s voice caught you out of your trance, causing you to snap your head in his direction with a startled expression. You suddenly became dizzy, needing to blink rapidly to regain control of your head.

“Yeah?” you asked, pretending like you hadn’t just dozed off while staring at Draco for nearly five whole minutes.

Harry raised an eyebrow, “We’re partners for — you weren’t paying attention, were you?” The clear disappointment on his face made you feel awful, but you couldn’t help it. You were intrigued by Draco’s lack of boasting. For five years now, you had spent classes with him where he had spent the entire time bragging about his status and wealth, and now he was just silently sitting at the back of the class, head in his hands and his mind clearly distracted

“I was too,” you snapped back, furrowing your eyebrows and turning to face Ron and Hermione, who were also paired together and beginning to jot down instructions.

“Then,” Harry leaned his elbows on the table and stared you down, “what potion are we making?”

You squinted, trying to think of what you had picked up from the short time you payed attention to Slughorn, “Draught of Living Death?”

Harry groaned, “Lucky guess.”

You grinned, proud of your shot in the dark, and stood up to collect the ingredients, bringing your copy of Advanced Potion Making with you to search the stocked shelves.

As you turned around to go back to your desk, arms filled with ingredients, you nearly crashed into a body.

“Oh, I am so sorry—” you grimaced, wanting to smack yourself over the forehead for being so clumsy. Luckily, you hadn’t dropped any ingredients, but you felt like a fool nonetheless.

Draco smiled softly down at you, “My fault. Didn’t notice your arms were full.” He proceeded to maneuver around you and collect his own ingredients, gently pressing up against your arm as he did so.

You shuddered, choosing not to look back and glance at him before speed walking back to your station, where Harry was preparing the cauldron.

“You alright?” he asked, peering up at you quickly before picking at the ingredients.

You nodded, forcing yourself to continue staring down at the table to avoid looking at the Slytherin boy. Something about him was just incredibly off and despite not really being friends with him, you wanted nothing more than to figure out what was going on in that pale head of his.

When class came to an end, Slughorn deeming yours and Harry’s potion the best one in the class (Hermione scowled at Ron), you waited behind to walk with your friends, who were approaching you slowly after cleaning up their desk.

“Naturally, Ronald,” Hermione scoffed, discreetly rolling her eyes, causing you to chuckle.

“What? I’m just saying!” he argued back, holding his hands up in fake surrender, “If you drank Draught of Living Death as a dead person, you’d return to life! It’s called Living Death. So, of course, Zombie.”

“That’s what was going on in your mind during class?” you couldn’t help the bubbling laughter as the four of you exited the class, turning down the hallway with the crowd, “Charming, really. No wonder Harry and I beat you guys.”

However, out of the corner of your eye, you noticed a specific blond head rushing in the opposite direction. It was rather odd, considering your next class — Defence Against the Dark Arts — was also with the Slytherins.

“It’s what’s always going on in my mind, Y/N,” Ron deadpanned, looking over to where you were now staring, “What’re you looking at?

Hermione and Harry had now stopped walking, moving out of the way of the onslaught of students, being careful not to get trampled.

You turned back to face your friends, “I — need to pee, yeah, I need to pee.”

Despite your super unconvincing voice, they nodded at you and Hermione spoke up, “We’ll meet you in Defence class, then.”

“Right, yeah,” you mumbled, waving a quick bye and taking off in the current of students, unfortunately going against the tide as most of them were heading the opposite way.

You cursed yourself for being curious. Dodging students left and right, gripping onto your backpack to avoid having it get knocked off your shoulders, you eventually made your way into the clearing, adjusting your disheveled robes before continuing on.

Looking left and right, you couldn’t find Malfoy anywhere, but you were almost certain he had taken the left corridor. So you did the same. Luckily, you avoided coming in contact with anyone, rushing down and turning the corner.

As you turned, you saw Malfoy’s figure at the end, rounding another corner up ahead. You followed him, keeping your eyes peeled for anything that could give away what he was off to do.

He was by no means a star student, but skipping class wasn’t exactly ‘normal’ for him. In the five years you had known him, you had only noticed him skip class twice and both times were due to Quidditch injuries.

Yes, you had noticed both times he wasn’t there. Not because you wanted him around, but because he usually made his presence very well know, especially around your friends — who he seemed to strongly despise, despite the fact he had never been rude to you.

You continue following him up the stairs and down more empty hallways. You had never seen the school this empty, but that was because you had never decided to take a stroll while you were supposed to be in class.

Finally, after walking for what felt like ten minutes, Draco stopped abruptly and stared at a wall. You ducked, hiding behind a statue, and peered out through the tiny window you had.

He was staring at this blank stone wall, but you knew exactly what it was. You had been there countless times the year before where Harry had held practices for Dumbledore’s Army.

Why Malfoy needed the Room of Requirements was beyond you. He had always managed to get his way with Professor Snape, surely he couldn’t be doing anything proper or good behind those doors.

You watched as he stalked in, careful to double check if anyone was near him before the doors slowly started to vanish.

It was now or never, you thought.

So you bolted.

The doors were barely able to fit you as you squeezed through, the door turning into a wall behind you and disappearing completely. You stayed quiet as you turned around, ready to face a pissed off Malfoy, but he was nowhere to be seen.

The Room of Requirements was completely different from how you had seen it last year. Instead of a wide open space with mirrors and books on Defensive spells, it looked like a storage room.

Chairs, books, desks, anything and everything you could think of, were piled up to the ceiling in rows. The dust was unbelievable — your throat was already beginning to tickle after your first breath.

Not only could you not see Draco, but you could barely see anything with the amount of junk that was in this room. He had probably taken off down one of the rows, but which one, you had no clue.

You decided to head down the furthest right, passing old desks and books along the way. The smell of dust and decay got stronger along the way. You had to keep your eyes on your feet to avoid tripping on scattered objects.

Once you passed an old bookcase, you heard quiet muttering. Draco’s head came into view, along with what appeared to be a triangular cabinet. His head was leaned up against it, muttering silently, his shoulders shaking and his arms lying limp at his side.

“Malfoy?” you whispered, suddenly becoming very much aware that he probably didn’t want you following him.

He spun around, eyes wide. It was hard to tell since he was naturally so pale, but his complexion seemed even more ghostly than usual.

“What are you doing here?” his expression changed from shocked to anger, his hands clenching into fists by his sides.

You stammered, trying to find a reasoning that wouldn’t make you come off as a stalker, “Are you okay?”

That wasn’t exactly smooth, but his face seemed to soften. He looked you up and down, visually calming when he noticed your wand wasn’t in your hand, nor did you show any signs of accusing him of anything.

“Is Potter hiding around the corner?” he hardened again, standing stiff and placing his right hand inside his coat as if ready to grab his wand and defend himself any second.

“No, no, he’s not,” you raised your hands, “I’m alone. I just... sorry I followed you in here.”

He slowly removed his hand from his jacket, letting it fall limp at his side once again. Despite Draco being one of the most intimidating and feared students in the school, not once had he ever made you feel out of place. You figured it was probably because you were a pureblood, and your family did have a decent status in the magical world. He would torment your friends, calling Harry awful names — even going as far as calling Hermione a mudblood.

You should hate him. Everything about what he had done screamed awful, rude, bully, dangerous, but he had always been kinder to you, softer even. And somehow, deep within your heart, you knew you couldn’t hate him.

It was annoying, really. Every time he and Harry were in the same room, tensions would go through the roof. Draco would spit insults at your friend, but turn to you and greet you or bid you a good day like a normal person.

Ron would often rant about their disastrous encounters with him in the common room after everyone was asleep, and you’d sit quietly and offer no input.

One of the moments you realized Draco was nowhere near as bad as he seemed was during the Triwizard Tournament. When Harry was under water — Hermione and Ron having gone missing as well — the notorious Draco Malfoy had comforted you. Had told you everything would be alright. That your friends would be safe.

Really, there was no way you could hate him after that.

“Why did you follow me?” he asked, eyes darting to the ground to avoid eye contact. You were honestly surprised he wasn’t angrier. He had always had a short fuse around most people.

You took a deep breath, unsure of how to word it, “I was, uh, worried.”

His eyes snapped up to you and he scoffed, “You? Worried about me? Right.”

“I am,” you pressed on, “You’re not okay. I can tell. I just thought I’d try and find out what was wrong so I could... help, I guess.”

It wasn’t a lie, per se. You did want to figure out what was wrong, but you weren’t sure how you could be of any help to him.

“Well, thanks, but I don’t need your help,” his voice had more of an edge now, clearly a sign he was becoming fed up with your presence. Maybe it was a mistake following him.

“How do you know? Maybe it’s something I can relate to. We both have a lot of pressure, being purebloods, you know,” you crossed your arms as you spoke, slightly offended by his tone of voice.

He rolled his eyes, “This has nothing to do with you. You wouldn’t understand. I can handle myself.” Although his face was hard, steady, cold, you could tell that his eyes were pleading. Pleading for someone to care, to set him free.

“I can tell you’re lying,” you approached him slightly, trying your best not to seem as if you were cornering him, “Try me. Maybe I’ll understand.”

If you weren’t close to him, you wouldn’t have noticed the way his eyes were watery, becoming red as he clearly fought back his emotions.

“You think you would understand? You think anyone can possibly understand this?” he raised the sleeve of his left arm, revealing a dark tattoo on his forearm, the symbol immediately recognizable.

Your heart dropped to your stomach and you took a step away from him, mind becoming hazy as your eyes were glued to the Dark Mark etched into his pale skin.

“You — you have the mark,” you breathed out slowly. You couldn’t fathom why he’d have it. You knew his parents were Death Eaters — hell, everyone knew that — but why Draco? What could he do while he was still at Hogwarts?

“Yeah, thanks, almost didn’t realize,” he spoke through gritted teeth, rolling his sleeve back down and finally letting his emotions free. A tear slid down his cheek as he faced away from you, frustrated at himself for being so vulnerable around another person.

You were still frozen in your spot. You thought he had maybe been dealing with depression, anxiety, pressure, fear — but never this. You never in a million years thought that he was dealing with the Dark Mark.

“I’m so sorry,” you found yourself saying the only thing you could think of. It was true, you were sorry for him, but there was nothing that could be done. Once the Mark was on, was there even a way of removing it? It was unheard of, really. Once you pledged your undying fidelity to You Know Who, it was that or death from then on. Thinking of that, you couldn’t blame him for being quiet and distant all term.

You found yourself approaching him even more, feeling thankful he didn’t pull away, and did the only thing you could think of in the moment.

You hugged him.

Your arms wrapped around his waist slowly, noticing immediately how he tensed under your touch. When your arms were fully wrapped around him, you rested your head against his chest, hearing the violent thud of his heartbeat.

“What are you doing?” he asked tensely, his body completely rigid at the strange showing of affection.

“Hugging you,” you replied, voice slightly muffled by his clothing, “You can hug back, y’know.”

He hesitantly raised his arms and draped them around you, not fully hugging you just yet. But as his mind caught up with him, he pulled you even closer to his body, as if all of a sudden, you were the one thing grounding him to reality.

“Do you not like it? I can stop,” you chuckled humourlessly, suddenly feeling embarrassed by your rash movement. If anyone saw you hugging Draco Malfoy, your friends would shun you for life.

He shook his head, “No, no, it’s not that. I’ve just — I don’t get these often.”

Your heart broke for him, “Well, I can give them to you.”

You replaced your arms around him even tighter and he relaxed at your touch, letting his head rest atop of yours. For such a strange encounter moments before, this seemed an oddly intimate way to end up.

“Thank you,” he whispered, arms still wrapped tightly around you. You had to do a double take. You were nearly certain you had never heard him apologize before. Was this what it felt like to be accomplished?

“Don’t thank me,” you muttered, slowly pulling away from him and tugging at the hair that got caught in his buttons, “I just always find hugs make me feel better. Thought I’d give it a shot. And I know I can’t even begin to understand what you’re going through, but I am here. If ever you need anyone. Talking, listening, I’m good at it all.”

He forced a smile, cheeks more flushed with colour, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Even though you had just found out he was now a Death Eater, you didn’t fear him. You didn’t feel like you should be running in the opposite direction and warning Harry and Dumbledore. You didn’t feel like he should be kicked out, expelled or killed. In that moment, he was vulnerable, scared, human. You just wanted to help.

“I should probably head to class before Harry thinks I’ve been attacked,” you tried adding humour, but it didn’t seem to work.

Draco’s frown deepened, “I’m not going to attack you.”

“I know,” you reassured him calmly, regretting your joke, “I just don’t want Harry and Ron and Hermione to come searching. We’ll keep this a secret, yeah?”

He gazed up at you, a light smile on his lips, “Don’t exactly want the world knowing, so yeah. Thank you.”

You nodded curtly, unsure as to how to continue the conversation, “Well, I’ll see you around. Take care of yourself. Please.” You shot him a genuine smile and he returned the gesture, eyes locked on you as you disappeared from sight and out the door.

As you left the room, you let out a deep breath, leaning against the wall and processing what had just happened. Draco Malfoy was a Death Eater. A Death Eater. He wasn’t even old enough to do magic outside of school. Did that mean he had to do his Dark Arts in the school?

You shook your head, not wanting to dwell too much. The more you overthrought the situation, the more you’d be tempted to warn Harry. But you highly doubted Draco’s purpose was to harm Harry when You Know Who wanted to do that himself.

Beginning your speed-walk to class, you really did try to clear your mind. You thought about Quidditch, about your upcoming Transfigurations essay, and even about what topic you guys could be discussing in class, but it seemed nearly impossible considering what had just happened.

You had been so distracted by your own thoughts you hadn’t even noticed you were right in front of the class. You opened the door with a grimace, knowing Snape was bound to be aggravated as hell that you were late.

“Miss Y/L/N,” he scowled, turning all of the attention of the class on you, “Mind explaining why you’re nearly half an hour late to my class?”

Half an hour? Had you really been gone that long.

“Sorry, Professor, wasn’t feeling well,” you lied, raising your hand and placing it on your stomach, “Was thinking of going to the hospital wing but didn’t want to miss the class.”

Snape scoffed, hardly believing your lie, “Thirty points from Gryffindor. Now sit down.”

You nodded, sliding into your usual seat next to Ron, who glanced over at you with a quizzing expression, “Where’d you really run off to?”

Luckily Snape was too busy scolding Neville Longbottom because Ron was not exactly a pro whisperer.

“Just... I wasn’t doing anything. Thought I was onto something but I wasn’t. Just forget about it,” you brushed him off, turning to face the black board and taking down notes, ignoring the confused stare Ron kept sending your way.

You had promised Draco you wouldn’t tell anyone. And besides, he showed no signs of doing anything dangerous just yet. Maybe this made you an accomplice, but you wanted to gauge the severity of the situation before you ran off tattletaling to Dumbledore.

Draco may have new found power, but was he actually going to put it to the test?

You wanted to find out why Draco.

——

For days now, you had actually been meeting up with the Slytherin in secret. Whether it be the Room or Requirements or even the Astronomy Tower during warm evenings, you became someone he felt comfortable around.

And surprisingly, you had become comfortable around him too. If your friends found out, they’d kill you dead, but you were becoming better and better at coming up with lies and excuses as to why you always got back late and where you kept going off too.

You’re pretty sure Harry is suspicious of you, but he’s never shown signs of not trusting you, so that was a good thing. Hermione and Ron were too focused on ignoring each other to pay attention to what you were up to — honestly, a part of you was thankful for it.

The Astronomy Tower was dark as nightfall fell upon it once again, the twinkling stars and bright moon being the only source of light. It was peaceful, really. The only place you could really go to get away from the chaotic environment of the school during the day.

And, yes, it did make it slightly more enjoyable that Draco would accompany you here.

“How’re you feeling?” you asked, the usual question you’d greet him with.

He shrugged, “Same as usual.”

You nodded, looking out over the dark lake, “Remember, I’m always here if you wanna vent.”

He smiled slightly, stepping closer to you and leaning against the railing, “I haven’t forgotten.”

The air surrounding you was tense, yet strangely peaceful. As if you and Draco had slipped into a common ground. Unsure how to address the issues at hand, but very much aware that you were going to be there for him.

“What did you tell your friends you were doing today?” he smirked, knowing how you had started to lie for him.

Rolling your eyes, you turned away from him, “Told them I was going to the Owlery to write to my mum. Don’t know how they believed it.”

“Because they’re idiots,” he scoffed, causing you to turn around and face him with a stern glare.

“Hey, you can’t keep talking about them like that. They’re my best friends,” you defended, crossing your arms to emphasize your point. You cocked an eyebrow as he opened his mouth again, warning him not to call them any other names.

He raised his hands, “Fine. Apologies.”

You uncrossed your arms and rested them on the railing, looking back out over the starlit sky and shadows of mountains. The view from up here was gorgeous. You had the view of the entire castle, as well as the view of the scenery surrounding it.

No matter how many times you looked over Hogwarts, the view never got old.

“It’s stunning, isn’t it?” you asked, looking down to the courtyard, illuminated dimly under the moon.

“Yeah, it is,” Draco said softly. You looked over and noticed his eyes were still on you. Both of your cheeks went pink, turning away immediately and choosing to look at other things.

“I’m scared,” he said softly, pulling you attention back to him, “I think — I know — that the Dark Lord wants me to do something. Something bad; something dangerous. And I — I don’t want to do it.”

You felt your heart sink at the broken expression on his face. You knew that he hated himself for what he had become, he had told you numerous times. But it didn’t change the fact that you really did feel bad for him.

“What is it he wants you to do?” you asked, moving closer to him without even realizing it.

He shook his head, eyes wide, “I — I can’t tell you. It’ll put you in danger.”

Based on the paleness of his face, you knew you shouldn’t push it. After all, being the only one at school who knew he was a Death Eater was already putting you at enough risk. It didn’t help, either, that you were slowly, but surely, falling for the boy in front of you.

“You don’t have to tell me,” you smiled, placing your hand softly over his. You hadn’t realized he was shaking so much, but he relaxed under your touch and let out a deep breath.

“I just—” he sighed, closing his eyes, “—I just don’t want to do it.”

“I don’t blame you,” you moved even closer, placing your other hand on his cold cheek, “I can’t imagine what you’re feeling. I wish there was a way I could help.”

He opened his eyes, smiling softly down at you and placing his hand over yours, which was rubbing his cheek lightly, “I wish you could help too. But the last thing I want to do it place you in harm’s way.”

You felt heat creeping up your neck and into your cheeks due to the way he was gazing down at you. He seemed to be staring into your soul and it was the most intimate moment you had ever felt.

“I appreciate that,” you whispered, realizing in that moment how close you were, “But I don’t want you in harm’s way either.”

He chuckled dryly, “Kind of late for that. I was practically born in harm’s way.”

Quite suddenly, he pulled away from you, and you only then noticed how warm he was when his distance caused cold air to surround your body. You found yourself missing the closeness, but figured his distance was probably for the best. You could barely fathom telling your friends you were talking to Malfoy — you couldn’t imagine what they’d say if anything were to actually happen.

“I know, I wish you had a choice,” you spoke up, louder this time as he kept his back turned to you, “It’s not fair.”

He shook his head, letting it drop, “It’s not. But —,” his voice trailed off before he turned and faced you, his face set and all softness gone, “I should probably go to bed.”

Your eyes involuntarily widened and you couldn’t help the clear shock on your face, “Wait, did I say something?”

“No,” he replied rather quickly, “I just need to go.” And without saying another word, abruptly rushed down the stairs, his blond head disappearing from view before you could even say another word.

You stayed there, silently in the dark, for another long while. You couldn’t understand why he had taken off so hastily. Was he scared of you? For you? For himself? Did he have a realization? What was it that had rushed him away?

You walked back to the Gryffindor common room with a sulky mood, mind whirling as to what it was that could have caused a drastic, sudden change in his mood. Draco had always been a tough book to read, often leading to him being irrational, but something told you this was more than just his normal actions. You couldn’t exactly blame him for being paranoid — he was dealing with You Know Who — but you couldn’t help wanting to know more.

The common room was quiet as you re entered. Thankfully, you wouldn’t have to deal with your friends’ questions tonight. They could wait for the morning when your head was a little clearer and you could think of better answers.

You stalked up the stairs and into the room, glad that Hermione was snoring away so it was loud enough to cover the sounds of you sliding under your sheets and putting out the lantern next to your bed.

Safe to say, it was hard to sleep that night, your head far away and your body tossing and turning non stop.

You had never been more physically and mentally exhausted as you were the next morning.

——

Somehow, you had managed to go four days without seeing Malfoy. He hadn’t shown up to class, nor to any of the meals in the Great Hall. You were worried, there was no beating around the bush about that. But you still couldn’t express your worries to your friends or they’d think you were insane.

On the fifth day, the dark heavy rain poured down and the dark clouds in the ceiling of the Great Hall during breakfast did nothing to lighten your mood.

You had barely slept these last few night, Draco being the only thing you could think of. Both worried for his safety, and worried for the safety of others, you kept an eye out everywhere you walked to see if you could spot his familiar face.

But he was nowhere to be seen.

To your great distaste, seeing Harry and Ginny finally realize their feelings for each other in the span of these last five days had made your longing for Draco even worse. Yes, your stupid heart had decided to grow feelings for him. And yes, it ticked you off knowing you’d never be able to act on said feelings.

So, seeing Ginny linking her hand with Harry’s as she joined your table for breakfast made your blood boil.

“Morning,” she grinned, pressing a light kiss to Harry’s cheek, Ron grimacing at the affection.

“Bloody hell, can you not do that around me?” he groaned, looking down at his plate with disgust as if seeing the gesture caused him to loose his appetite.

“It’s sweet,” Hermione beamed, closing her book and placing it between you two on the bench, “I think it’s nice.”

Harry and Ginny grinned at her compliment, but it went unnoticed by you as your eyes scanned the Slytherin table once more. Draco’s head usually stuck out like a sore thumb, so you’d see him if he was there.

“Ron, you’re ready for Quidditch practice, yeah?” Harry nodded towards Ron, finishing off his pumpkin juice and standing up, “Let’s get going.”

“It’s raining, mate,” Ron groaned, about to stuff the last bit of toast in his mouth.

Harry shrugged, “Thanks for pointing out the weather, let’s go.”

Hermione giggled as Ron begrudgingly stood up and followed Harry out of the Great Hall. As you watched them leave, your eyes following them to the door, your heart leapt out of your chest.

Draco was standing in the doorway, looking like right hell. His face was ghostly, his eyes sunken in and dark and his hair matted to his head.

You stood up, nearly knocking Hermione over with the force of your movement. But as you looked over at him, Hermione seemed to vanish from your view.

“Gotta go,” you said to the two girls, striding towards the entrance. Draco must have seen you, because he took off in the opposite direction, his pace picking up once he noticed you following him.

“Oi, Draco, slow your roll,” you shouted, causing him to stop dead in his tracks. You hadn’t expected him to actually stop, causing you to crash into his back and nearly stumble over.

“Sorry about that,” you mumbled, regaining your balance and hiding the flush on your cheeks. He didn’t move, so you turned around to face him, holding back a gasp when you noticed the state he was in.

“Draco, what happened?” your voice was soft, reassuring. The last thing you wanted was for him to feel like you were judging him.

“Nothing,” he shook his head, looking down to his feet, “I’m fine.”

Scoffing, you raised a hand to his cheek and placed it against his skin lightly, “You can open up to me, remember?”

He leaned into your touch, eyes closing, “I’m sorry. I just — I needed to stay away.” He shuddered as he spoke. You could tell he was trying to be as open and honest as he could without giving too much away.

“From me?” you asked, stepping closer to him and pulling him behind a pillar so you couldn’t be seen by passing students.

He nodded, “I don’t want to put you in danger if I can help it. I’m — I like your company.”

“I like your company too,” you smiled softly, “Which is why it sucked when I couldn’t find you.”

“No, like — never mind,” he waved his hands, brushing you off, “It’s pathetic.”

“Wait, no, you need to be open with me,” you pointed a finger at him, a grin forming on your lips at the redness growing on his cheeks, “What is it?”

He fidgeted in his spot, avoiding your gaze before speaking so softly you almost missed it, “I actually like you. Like, like you. Since first year, actually. And I opened up to you. And then I realized I was putting you, the one person I care about, in danger.”

You stared at him, mouth agape and face drained of colour. Had he just said he likes you? Draco Malfoy likes you? You had always had a soft spot for him — even though you shouldn’t have had one — but you never imagined he felt the same to this extent. It slowly started to make sense; why he was always kinder to you, why he felt the need to open up to you, why he wanted to distance himself after doing so.

The redness on his cheeks grew, and you could feel the heat flooding into your own. For some reason, just the knowledge of his crush had your heart fluttering away because you couldn’t deny — you had one too.

“Well, that’s good to know,” you stepped closer, “I like you too.”

His head shot up, eyes nearly bulging out of his head, “You — you do?”

“Yes,” you said, more seriously this time, “And now that my little secret is out there, you need to start taking care of yourself. I know this is scary and you don’t know what’s going on, but take care of yourself. Please. For me.”

He seemed to ponder on your words, moving closer to you, “Promise. I will.”

Almost as if your presence had done something to him, the colour seemed to have flooded back into his face and his eyes seemed to spark life once more. You grinned, pleased at your affect on him, and wrapped your arms around him.

He leaned into the hug this time, less awkward and unsure. His head nestled into your neck and his hands gripped your waist firmly, the affectionate gesture being a source of comfort to both of you.

You pulled away after a long moment, grinning like an idiot and trying your best to hide it, “I’m really proud of you for opening up, y’know? It can’t be easy and I—,”

Your rambling was cut off by his lips forcefully pressing up against yours. You were too caught off guard to kiss back, standing there stiff as a board with your mind racing to catch up to his actions. He noticed your stiffness, causing him to immediately pull away and stare at you with panic in his eyes.

“I am so sorry, I don’t know why I did that,” he ran his hand down his face, pale as ever and the panic in his eyes growing more by the second, “Forgive me, it was heat of the moment.”

“Stop rambling,” your mind finally caught up with you to the point where you could process what just happened, “Kiss me again.”

He placed his hands softly on either sides of your head and pressed his lips softly against yours. Tingles shot through your entire body at his touch, your heart being sent into overdrive as fireworks erupted in your belly.

His kiss was soft but passionate and needy. You could tell he was desperate to cling to you as much as he could, his body pressed up against yours and holding you flush to him. His body was relaxed — this was probably the least stressed he had ever been around you.

Your hands went into his hair, his delicate kiss still sending your mind into a frenzy, even after he had pulled away and rested his forehead against yours.

“That was — that was —” Draco’s breathing was a little off as he chuckled, eyes staring into yours with a whole new level of adoration.

“Yeah,” you grinned, pulling your forehead away from his to look at him properly. His eyes were wide and he couldn’t fight his smile.

From that moment on, you didn’t leave his side. You met in the Astronomy Tower nearly every single night — it was a place just for the two of you. He confided in you about his feelings, his fears, worries, dreams. Anything that was going on in his mind, he told you about it.

And he loved you.

He felt like the didn’t deserve your kindness, your open heart, but he welcomed it and accepted every moment, feeling the least alone he had ever felt before.

You, on the other hand, managed to keep your time with Draco a secret from your friends for a long time. They had become suspicious, yes, but you managed to throw them off your scent and make up a storyline of what exactly was going on.

And you knew bigger things were to come. Wars, fights, probably even death. But you were going to keep your promise and stick by his side until the very end.

#draco malfoy #draco malfoy imagine #draco malfoy imagines #draco malfoy one shot #draco malfoy one shots #draco malfoy fic #draco malfoy fics #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy reader insert

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cosmicjoke · 3 years

Text

Okay, so on to chapter 3 of “No Regrets”!

I’ve got a few observations, so I’ll just delve in.

First thing, and once again, I found this a huge improvement over the visual novel, but we get more insight here into the reason Erwin was so intent on recruiting Levi. During the scene in which he’s arguing with the other squad leaders about letting a group of “criminals” into their organization, Erwin pushes back against the other scouts deriding Levi and his friends. I really loved Erwin’s line here, where he says “You’re right. These people had no training. They did not earn wings from us. They grew their own, out of necessity.” This shows us that Erwin has a grasp and an appreciation for the hardship Levi and his friends faced while growing up, while most of the other SC leaders and even regular recruits can only look down on them and see them as gutter trash. This shows Erwin’s own scope of vision, his ability to look past a person’s upbringing and background and not make judgments about them based on that. More telling still is his comment about how “those wings will play a part in revolutionizing this organization.”. He wanted Levi’s skills in particular because he knew having someone like Levi around, with exceptional ability, would shift the way they all fight Titans. He was, as always, looking for ways to increase the effectiveness of the SC, and was willing to do whatever he could, and through any means necessary, to ensure it.

The next thing that caught my attention is the glare Levi and Erwin share during the trio’s introduction to the rest of the soldiers. Erwin’s right in front of Levi, standing there, reminding him of his anger and humiliation no doubt, and I think that leads directly into and impacts the next scene, when Flagon shows them their sleeping arrangements. Levi’s already no doubt irritated by having to see Erwin again, and then Flagon makes his frankly deeply disparaging remark about Levi and his friends having spent their whole lives living in a trash heap, implying that they’re filthy gutter trash, and so surely are incapable of keeping themselves and their environment clean. Levi, understandably, reacts badly to this, and gets in Flagon’s face, asking him what he just said, before Furlan intervenes. When you consider the way Erwin already made Levi feel so humiliated and Levi’s subsequent anger at it, then having to see Erwin again not long before this scene, and hearing Flagon just callously make an accusation like that must have only infuriated Levi more. I think, once again, the manga is doing an infinitely better job of portraying the tension, then, that’s starting to form between Levi and Furlan. Furlan scolds Levi after Flagon leaves, almost talking down to him when he says “Didn’t I tell you not to cause trouble?!”. Almost like he’s talking to some misbehaving little kid. Levi’s expression in the following panel says a lot, I think. Levi looks almost chastised, like he knows he’s upset Furlan, before he tries to explain himself, asking Furlan “Didn’t you hear how he talked about us? Like shit calling shit dirty.”. It’s really interesting what this says about the power dynamic in their relationship. Levi is ostensibly the leader of their group, but Furlan’s acting, in a lot of ways, like he’s the one in charge and he expects Levi to fall in line. Clearly, he’s not afraid of scolding Levi, or challenging him. All of Furlan’s insistence that they lay low and not do anything to draw attention to themselves must only be chaffing though at Levi’s already heated feelings about the kind of treatment they’re receiving, how they’re being talked down to, etc... It must be galling to him, to see Furlan not seeming to care that they’re all being so deeply disrespected. But he still continues to defer to Furlan, and agree to go along with his plan for now, though he makes his displeasure known by calling it a pain in the ass.

But seeing Erwin, and then being treated the way they were by Flagon, seems to have rekindled Levi’s desire to take his revenge, and he reminds Furlan that he’ll continue to go along with his plan, but that he’s still going to kill Erwin. Once again, we see Levi being pulled in two different directions. He’s giving priority to Furlan’s plans and wishes, but he’s still thinking about getting Erwin back. He’s annoyed that they weren’t assigned to Erwin’s squad, probably because it means it’s going to limit their contact, giving him less opportunities to kill him. Another line that I think signifies Lev’s annoyance at Furlan and how, well, dismissive he is of Levi’s own feelings, is after he tells them they have to clean the area around their beds before leaving for training, and in response to Isabel’s protests, he says “You wouldn’t want me to cause trouble, would you?”. He’s throwing Furlan’s words back in his face here, and it seems clear to me that Levi is frustrated and doesn’t appreciate the way Furlan’s been talking to him, or how little consideration for his own wishes he’s shown. There’s a lot of tension there.

Another really important scene is the one in the training yard, so I’ll got through it here.

Particularly when Isabel is talking to the Scout helping her with horse riding, and they get to talking about life in the Underground, and then Levi. What Isabel says, and the visual of the panel here, is particularly powerful. She says “It got so I thought I was gonna die. But life’s a little better since Levi saved me from that.”. And we see in the panel Levi lifting Isabels’ head up, obviously checking if she’s alive. There’s all these people, collapsed around her, and the fact that Levi is checking to see if she’s alive is interesting, because it makes me think this is something Levi would regularly do. That he would check to see if anyone was alive when he came across people collapsed in the streets. It’s probably not unusual to come across dead bodies in the Underground, and for someone like Levi, who’s lived there all his life, he’s no doubt seen plenty. The fact he checks Isabel shows a lack of callousness towards the sight, which is incredible, to not become uncaring or apathetic towards suffering, even when you’re surrounded by it your whole life. It’s a highly unusual quality to have, but of course, it makes perfect sense for Levi, who’s so full of compassion.

Nevertheless, it would have been simpler for him to just keep moving and ignore her, but instead he stopped, and when he discovered she was still alive, he took her in and gave her food and shelter and a home. She would have died otherwise. Levi had no obligation towards her, he had no, really good reason to do something so selfless, and yet, he did. And this truly is remarkable, especially when you consider the kind of cut throat world Levi grew up in, the kind of ruthless people he’d encountered, and even lived with, like Kenny, all his life.

Then there’s Furlan’s discussion with another soldier, and his story about Levi. The most interesting thing Furlan says here is how, after his own friends turned on him, he’s followed Levi ever since. And then he says “Though it might be problematic making him any kind of leader!”. It’s interesting what this reveals to us about Levi. People want to follow him because he’s so strong, but Levi himself has no desire for power, or control over others. People willingly attach themselves to him, because they think Levi can protect them, but Levi isn’t any kind of natural leader. So we know Levi was more or less forced into the role of leader by way of others seeking him out and assigning him that role. What’s interesting about this is how it, once again, reveals the kind of person Levi is. He could easily have rejected all of these people and abandoned them. One thing we know is that Levi didn’t need any help surviving on his own in the Underground. But instead Levi allows them to stay with him and willingly offers his help and protection, and though it’s probably more of a pain and a nuisance to him than anything else. It shows that Levi’s never been able to turn away from those seeking his help.

Which leads nicely into the next scene.

I’ve talked about this scene before, and how disappointed I was that they didn’t include it in the OVA. This also wasn’t included in the visual novel, which is, once more, just another way in which the manga is superior.

Flagon is once again criticizing Levi for holding his blades “wrong”, telling him he’s going to end up getting killed outside the walls. And then the training exercise begins, and we see one of the other soldiers trying to compete with Levi, and growing increasingly incensed and annoyed at Levi’s prowess. He thinks “These vagrants with no knowledge as soldiers...” and then “I trained half to death, and these criminals think they’re better?!”. What’s interesting is to see that while this soldier is fuming internally over Levi’s perceived slight of him, glaring at him angrily, Levi clearly hasn’t even taken notice of him. This isn’t a competition to Levi at all. He’s just there to do the exercises. He’s staring straight ahead, blank faced as always.

Now what happens next is once more hugely revealing as to Levi’s character. The infuriated soldier decides he’s not going to accept that Levi’s better than him, and so he intentionally pushes off of a tree and cuts Levi off mid-flight. What struck me about this is how incredibly dangerous it was. Levi’s going, presumably, full speed, through this obstacle course, and this dude, out of petty jealousy, cuts him off by flying right in front of and past him, forcing Levi to pull back and change direction. A stunt like this could have easily resulted in serious injury for Levi, or even death, if he weren’t as gifted as he is. To top it off, this soldier then brags about it, calling out to Levi “Don’t get left behind!”. Of course, his arrogance leads to immediate disaster, as the soldier that went through the course before lost one of their blades in the dummy Titan, and this dude’s flying towards it at top speed, with no way to stop himself or change direction in time. He’s about to be impaled by a blade. Considering the danger he’s just placed Levi in, then, it truly is a testament to Levi’s goodness, that he launches off the tree he’s stopped on, racing ahead and slicing the stray blade free before the other soldier can make contact, resulting in him harmlessly crashing into the pad, instead of dying. This really shows how Levi’s first instinct is always to help others. Even when others have just not only treated him badly, but even endangered his life. He doesn’t owe this soldier anything, and by all rights should be extremely pissed at him for his petty display before. But instead Levi just automatically reacts to his life being threatened by saving the man. He doesn’t even scold him afterward or express anger, just flies off and continues the course.

What makes this whole thing kind of sad is both the soldier’s and Flagon’s reaction to this. The soldier is still angry and upset over Levi’s superior ability, wondering how he can be so fast, not even sparring a thought of appreciation for him just saving his life. And then Flagon grudgingly admits to Levi’s fighting prowess, but continues to doubt him and his ability to stay disciplined. Even after saving one of his own men’s lives, he still continues to look down on Levi. That’s pretty messed up. Levi glares back at him after, as if to say “Who’s the one who’s going to get people killed out there?”. Levi saved a soldiers life, while Flagon could only sit and watch. It’s interesting too how this, tragically, foreshadows what’s to come though, with Levi not being able to save the people he cares the most about. But we’ll get into that when we get there.

Also, just gotta mention also the way Levi reacts to Isabel’s getting upset after he bonks her in the head and calls her stupid. He looks surprised when she starts crying, and it’s clear he didn’t mean to actually hurt her feelings, and it’s just really sweet, the way he rubs her head after. He obviously felt bad.

Okay, into chapter 4 next!

#attack on titan #No Regrets #Levi Ackerman #shingeki no kyojin #Furlan Church #isabel magnolia #Erwin Smith #snk analysis

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cuddlepilefics · 3 years

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Lullaby and good night

Fandom: Stray Kids

Sickie/Little: Minho

Caregiver: Jisung

Minho’s POV.:

Our next comeback was approaching and 3racha had only finished up in the studio very recently. Now that all their tracks had been finished, it was the dance-line’s task to come up with choreographies. Being the oldest member of the dance-line, I felt a sense of responsibility, so I pretty much took the lead and spent most of my time in the practice room. In my free time, which was mostly at night, I went to the studio to practice my vocals. I knew I had to improve my singing, I read all the comments online, saying the only reason I was in the group was for my visuals. As much as it honored me that Stay found me handsome, as much did it hurt to hear I was good for nothing. Some nights I skipped entirely, not going back to the dorm at all and meeting up with my members for practice the next morning. Often it took a stern conversation with Chan-hyung to drag me back and get some rest. Couldn’t he see that I needed more time to practice? That I needed to work more to make up for the talent I was lacking? I hadn’t gone home after practice last night, instead dancing for another three hours before dragging my sore body to the studio to go over some of the new songs. I hoped with enough practice I’d get my lines down to perfection. It weren’t many anyways.

The next morning, I met up with Hyunjin and Felix to work on our choreos. The young Aussie was having a tough time, often messing up and being on edge the entire time. I saw his hands shaking every time he lost a step and his brows were furrowed as though he had a headache. Being a little myself, it didn’t take long for me to put two and two together. The poor boy was trying so hard not to slip but the stress was slowly getting to him. He wasn’t even there for a full hour before I decided to be a good hyung and send him home. It took a while for Felix to accept my decision, he didn’t want to hold us back and be a burden and I knew exactly how he felt but after quite some pushing from Hyunjin and me and a call to Chan, the dance-line maknae let the leader collect him from the practice room. From that on, it was only Hyunjin and me. We hadn’t even danced for that long but we were both drenched in sweat. My limbs ached and my protested with every movement. I doubted my dongsaeng felt any different but he put on a battle-face and soldiered on. Hyunjin really was something, though sensitive most of the time, when it came to dancing, he was pure professionalism. Not once did he complain about me torturing both of us with endless reruns of the same sequence. It was easy to work with him and seeing him be strong and push his exhaustion and pain away, gave me the strength to do the same.

We cut our lunch break short. Hyunjin gave me a proteinbar from his bag because I had eaten my last for dinner last night. I’d have to go back to the dorm soon to refill the snack-department of my practice bag. The break was just long enough to catch our breaths and force down a proteinbar and some water. Sure, it wasn’t a full meal but if we ate too much, the sharp movements would make us queasy. My eyes were burning and my head ached but on second thought, everything ached, so all I could do was suck it up and hope we’d finish soon. I was really craving a shower and my bed at this point. We had only resumed dancing for a few minutes, when my eyes were starting to bother me, well, bother me more than before. The bright overhead lights seamed distorted, casting strange shapes. I really shouldn’t wear my contacts for days on end. Blinking rapidly, I tried to clear my vision from the shimmering distortions before looking over at Hyunjin, squinting in an attempt to see him clearly. I’ve probably been staring at him for too long because he gave me a questioning look. The room suddenly shifted sideways before everything went black.

When I came to again, the first thing I heard was a loud howling noise quickly changing in pitch. It was too loud, my head was pounding and the noise didn’t help with that at all. Why couldn’t it just be quiet? I wanted to sleep. There were broken and half-suppressed sobs somewhere close. But where? It sounded a lot like Hyunjin. Trying to open my eyes, I failed as my eyelids seemed to be glued shut. There was a pressure around my hand, which seemed to come from the same direction as the sobs. Finally managing to blink my eyes open, I quickly closed them again and groaned as I hadn’t expected it too be so bright. I felt my hand being squeezed and I gave a weak squeeze back. There was also a voice that I didn’t recognize, words blurring together incomprehensible. Just wanting to sleep, I decided to ignore the voice and kept my eyes closed. It was too bright to open them anyways. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t go back to sleep. As soon as I became aware of the moist stickiness, with which my pants clung to me, it was too uncomfortable to get another minute of rest.

Through all the commotion, I kept my eyes closed. Why wouldn’t they stop bothering me? Is it too much to ask to just be allowed some rest? There were hands on me and my bed was shaking. I tried swatting the hands away but I wasn’t strong enough. My clothes were pulled on and suddenly I felt cold. Was I naked? My breathing quickened as I felt helpless and violated. All I had wanted to do was sleep off the pounding headache behind my temples. Oh thanks, someone had put a blanket on me. The commotion was slowly dying down and I dared opening my eyes again, though only a crack. The reassuring hand in mine had disappeared for a while but now I could feel it again. Looking over, I was faced with a tearstained Hyunjin. “H-Hey, you’re awake, hyung”, he smiled shakily. Trying to speak, I head to clear my throat a few times before I was able to get a sound out: “J-Jinnie? Wha’ happened? People were touching me, my head hurts.” – “It’s ok, hyung. They were only helping”, Hyunjin promised before breaking into tears again, “We were dancing together when you kept staring at me. I asked you a few times what was wrong but – but-…” – “Jinnie?”, rasped, squeezing his hand like he had done to me before. My dongsaeng just continued to choke on sobs, clearly terrified of something. But what?

I wanted to reassure him but how could I when I didn’t even know what happened? I was still so unbelievably tired but I couldn’t go to sleep, knowing my dongsaeng was crying next to me. The door opened and in piled my friends. Chan sat down on the bed next to my, taking my hand into his, while Changbin pulled Hyunjin out of the chair and into his arms. “Hyung?”, I looked at him with pleading eyes. The oldest sighed, studying my face: “You don’t remember what happened, do you Min?” I shook my head a bit, waiting for an explanation. “Hyunjin called us because you suddenly collapsed and had a seizure. He called an ambulance, which took both of you here, we followed”, the leader explained calmly but in his eyes I could see he was anything but calm. I had heard anything clearly but for some reason I couldn’t comprehend his words. They made no sense to me. Why would I have a seizure? I never had one before. My hyung must have sensed my confusion because he added: “The doctor said it might have been caused by sleep deprivation but they couldn’t confirm it yet because no one knew how much or rather little sleep you had gotten recently. To me it sounds likely because there were too many nights you didn’t come back at all.” Refusing to meet Chan’s eyes, I stared at the blanket in my lap, which seemed to confirm his suspicions. “I don’t think I have to tell you that you should have taken better care of yourself. You’re one of the oldest here and I know I haven’t been the greatest role-model but not even I have ever taken it to that extreme”, He frowned disappointed. Fighting tears back, I tried to explain myself: “It’s just, all those comments online, reminding me of my lack of talent. I just wanted to improve myself for Stay.” Great, with that confession I have earned myself another round of ‘Why we are not supposed to read comments on social media’, but I knew they meant well giving me a talk.

Another hour, many compliments for my skills and hugs from everyone later, most members went home, promising that one or two of them would come back later to bring me a bag with some clothes and my toothbrush. Much to my dismay, I learned that I’d have to stay at least one night for observation. Chan and Jisung stayed after everyone else left. I was grateful for their presence because I still needed to come to terms with what had happened. I had talked to a doctor, who had explained my situation again. It gave me hope because he said it might never happen again if I make sure to take good care of my body. His words were very inspirational to me: ‘Rest is a right, not a reward.’ I will probably make a poster of this and hang it in the 3racha studio, so others could also benefit from this man’s wise words.

No one’s POV.:

Chan and Jisung stayed to keep Minho company. The dancer kept a cool exterior to reassure his friends but the two knew he was really shaken-up inside. The trio continued talking, about everything and anything, trying to distract themselves and the mood in the room was considerably light. Until a nurse came in, that is. She wanted to give the dancer an IV, which would also be useful for administering medication for the pain. The atmosphere turned sour and Minho squirmed uncomfortably. He hated needles. Jisung quickly took his hand, trying to calm the older down. The nurse gave them a sympathetic smile as she had seen the same scene multiple times. Her promises, it would only be a tiny pinch and it would be over before Minho knew it, fell on deaf ears. When she took another step closer, needle in hand, the dancer couldn’t take it anymore. He screamed, trying to pull away from Jisung, who was holding onto his wrist. Then, as if a switch was flicked, he crawled back to the rapper, clutching his shirt. “Jiji, nuh let Min huwt!”, he sobbed, his breaths coming in short strained puffs. The nurse quickly put the needle down out of sight, taking a few steps back to give them space. Chan and Jisung had both paled immediately after noticing how Minho had slipped. They were terrified of it happening with a stranger in the room, afraid the little would be treated with disgust. Jisung was quick to sit on the edge of the bed, an arm wrapped around the dancer as he whispered soothing nothings and tried to help the other to slow his breathing down. At the same time, Chan studied the nurse, hoping for any clue on how she thought about little space.

A few minutes later, Jisung had finally managed to talk the little down and the nurse considered it safe to approach them again, without a needle this time. “Hey sweetie, can you tell me how old you feel right now?”, she cooed, crouching in front of the pair. All she got was a whimper from Minho, who pressed himself closer to Jisung, and the stunned looks of Chan and Jisung. She smiled at their confusion: “Regressing in age is a not too uncommon coping mechanism. People only thing it’s uncommon because everyone’s ashamed of talking about it. What’s bad about creating a safe space for oneself? It’s harmless, unlike taking drugs or self-harming as an outlet.” She wasn’t wrong there and her acceptance helped Minho build the courage to meet her eyes. When they were going to give the IV another try, Chan silently disappeared out of the room to call the members at the dorm, asking them to also pack Minho’s beloved cat plushie and a pacifier.

“Min, I’d need to give you some medicine but to be able to do that, I’ll have to put a small tube into the back of your hand”, she tried carefully. The little’s eyes went wide and he shook his head furiously. Jisung rubbed his back, hoping to be able to convince him: “Kitten, I know you’re scared. Hyung knows. But don’t you feel icky?” Minho sniffled and touched his head, whimpering a pitiful: “Ouchie.” – “I know, bubba. She’s going to help with that, if you let her. You trust Jiji-hyungie, right? I wouldn’t let anyone do anything that’s bad for you”, the rapper promised, “You’re my brave boy, aren’t you?” Minho whined loudly, he knew Jisung was right but he hated it. “Usually when we have to give a child an injection or IV, we let them sit on their parents lap”, the nurse mused. Jisung didn’t have to be told twice to kick of his shoes and sit down on the bed properly. He pulled the little onto his lap, who quickly buried his face against the rapper’s neck. Taking a few deep breaths and inhaling the caregiver’s soothing scent, Minho held out his right hand, stretching it far away from his body. “You’re so brave, kitten. Hyung’s really proud of you”, Jisung praised. The nurse wasted no time, afraid the little’s burst of confidence would be over before she’d have the needle in. It was really only a small prick and Minho didn’t even have the time to cry out before it was over. Quickly wrapping a few layers of bandage around the dancer’s hand to make sure he wouldn’t accidentally pull the needle out, she stepped back and smiled. She walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a small piece of paper, chuckling: “A brave boy like you totally deserves some stickers.” – “Stickers!!!”, the little squealed, accepting the sheet and studying it. Jisung grinned, glad the fuss was over, and reminded: “What do we say, Min?” – “Tank chuuu!”, the dancer giggled. With a satisfied smile, the nurse connected the bag of fluids and painkillers before leaving the room.

Chan returned and listened to Minho boast about his knew stickers, while they waited for their friends to arrive with the dancer’s necessities. “Hyung, I’m going to stay here with him tonight”, Jisung announced, still sitting on the bed with the little on his lap. The leader nodded, he had already expected this given the rapper was Minho’s main caregiver and the two were extremely close. They kept playing around for a while, the dancer giggling happily, IV already forgotten, till there was a knock on the door. In came Changbin and Seungmin their worried faces brightening at the sight of the happy little on Jisung’s lap. Their worry had doubled when Chan told them Minho had slipped but it now melted away completely. “Hey there, little one”, Seungmin laughed, walking over and ruffling the dancer’s hair, “You gave your Jinnie-hyung quite a scare”, noticing the little’s frown, he was quick to add, “Don’t worry Jinnie’s fine.” – “Look we brought Soori”, Changbin distracted, pulling the plushie from the bag and handing it over. Cuddling the stuffed cat close to his chest, Minho looked up with sparkling eyes and mumbled: “Tank chu, Binnie-hyung.”

Changbin and Seungmin took Chan back home with them after saying good bye to Minho and Jisung. The rapper gently helped the little to change out of the hospital into his own clothes, making sure to pull the bottle and tubing through the sleeve first and guiding Minho’s hand, so he wouldn’t mess with the IV. The energy and excitement, that had fueled the dancer while the other members were present, soon ebbed away and the exhaustion that had brought him into the current situation caught up to him. “Is there someone sleepy?”, Jisung cooed, running a hand through the little’s hair. Minho gave a small nod, yawning widely while he rubbed a fist against his eye: “Wan’ cuddle Jiji.” – “Okay baby, scoot over a bit”, the rapper requested, climbing under the blanket too, “Here, hold on to Soori, she wants cuddles too.” Clutching the plushie, the little snuggled up against his caregiver, who pulled a paci from the bag and slipped it between the little’s lips. “Go to sleep, kitten. Hyungie will sing for you, ok?”, Jisung hummed, he was hoping Minho would be able to catch up on the sleep he was lacking, “Good night, little one.”

#sick #sickfic #little #little space #agere #age regression #headspace #fanfic #fanfiction #skz #stray kkids #fluff #comfort #whump #lee know #lee minho #han jisung #minsung #hospital

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Goof Week: House of Mouse: Super Goof or Wish I Could Fly Like Super Goof (Patreon Review for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy gorshers and welcome back to Goof Week, my week long celebration of Goofy’s 89th Birthday. And today I take my once a month trip down to the house of mouse as part of my patron kev’s yearlong celebration of the show’s 20th anniversary. And since I had this theme week in mind I asked him if it’d be okay if he strictly randomized goofy episodes, he said yes and here we are.

Luck was on my side as I got what I remembered was one of my faviorite episodes of the show. But before I can get if it lived up to the hype or not a brief word on Super Goof.

Super Goof is actually from the comics, first debuting in a story where Goofy thought he had super powers and fought the Phantom Blot in a cowboy hat.

This concept was a hit so in 1965 Goofy was made a superhero for real with Super Goof #1. This dosen’t suprise me: this was the height of the silver age: The Lee and Kirby age of Marvel was in full swing and DC was still doing gangbusters. So there was market for a superhero spoof comic starring one of Disney’s best and brightest characters, who was given a bunch of super peanuts called super goobers to give him superman powers. What DOES surprise me is the series lasted 74 issues from 65-84. And what’s more insane and wonderful? It didn’t get canceled because of low sales or anything. That was simply when Gold Key shut down... and Gold Key was FOUNDED three years before it meaning this book lasted the company’s ENTIRE lifespan. I’ll say that again, a book about goofy eating peanuts that started because of a story where goofy thought he was a superhero and fought a cowboy phantom blot, lasted 74 issues and only ended because the publisher shut down. That... is one of the most amazing things I have ever heard in my life. I’m genuinely impressed... this isn’t even a bad concept, I likes it and wish Disney would give it a full series. Farmer could do wonders with it. I’m just amazed that this odball little comic took off like it did. And as one final fun fact much like Superman, Super Goof set off the trend of Disney’s classic characters becoming heroes, with Donald’s own Papernik/Duck Avenger following in his footsteps. I REALLY want a Disney Superhero Verse in animatoin now, I know there was a mini series like that. And I will have to visit these comics at some point I just simply didn’t have room in the week with a movie review tomorrow. .

So with all that out of the way how does Super Goof do on screen and does the episode hold up? Join me under the cut to find out.

As usual for HOM I’ll be doing the shorts and overarching story seperate soooo

How To To Take Care of Your Yard:

Look anyone whose read my stuff or even just my goofy shorts special will know how much I love the How To Shorts and how this series is responsible. This admittedly isn’t one of the BEST of them.. but it’s still fun to watch. Even a forgettable How To Short is still GOOD. It’s abotu Goofy taking care of his yard over the four seasons and has some decent gags but nothing really standout. I Honestly DO wish I had more to say but this one’s just okay and it woudln’t stick out as much if both the wraparound and the other short weren’t so spectacular. Speaking of which.

Locksmiths: This is one of the few shorts I VIVIDLY remembered from childhood and for damn good reason. This is THE best short i’ve seen so far for House of Mouse this year and for good reason. The premise is simple enough: The Golden Trio are locksmiths.. who end up getting locked inside their own office just after Minnie calls with something urgent to tell them.

The results are comic gold, with the standout bits being Goofy’s keys which is just such a wonderful hurricane of puns with some great visual gags to start it off that I can’t help but love it

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There’s TONS of other good stuff too: The boys fishing for the key, Mickey opening a ton of doors in a sequence MST3K would be proud of and the finale with the boys falling out the office. This is a true , hilarious classic and my words can’t really do it justice. Seek this one out on it’s own or in the episode you will not regret it. A true classic for Disney Shorts period.

Super Goof:

So onto the main story. Goofy asks Clarabelle out and she’s not only incredibly receptive but simply asks to check her schedule.. which he interprets as no. I would make a joke here but i’ts clear from previous episodes HOM goofy has Low Self Esteem: he was utterly crushed not having a valentine and by his friends all wishing he could be less Goofy. So him overreacting like this is in character and comes off as endearing: it’s not that he thinks so low of her he’d think sh’ed pull something like this.. it’s that he’s so doubtful of someone liking him for who he is deep down he self sabotages something I can PAINFULLY relate to as that’s one of my biggest personal issues hands down.

So outside presumably on break...

Not THAT kind of break. Though since I bring it up: they both were wrong. They WERE on a break, and it was wrong of tweedle dee and tweedle dum there to keep needling it ESPECIALLY since their the ones who TOLD HIM to hide his sleeping with the waitress and took NO responsibility for that. Rachel treating it like an affair constantly when she’s the one who wanted space and didn’t give him any paramerters for said is fucking terrible. It’s telling that in the reunion trailer everyone but Matthew LeBlanc, who was clearly just having some fun agreed they were. That being said Ross still slept with someone five seconds after being on said break, still listneed to the two of them on hiding it when it was a bad idea, and STILL caused said break by being a clingy asshole to such a degree even his previous history of being cheated on does not justify or excuse how badly he treated Rachel. What i’m saying is they both sucked, and thus deserved each other, and by the end NEITHER was remotely likeable, with both having done terrible things both in said will they or won’t they hellscape and outside it, with Ross dating a student and Rachel dating her assistant.

Anyways after that thing I clearly needed to get off my chest, we get a narration informing us a METEOR IS COMING and it strikes the peanuts Goofy’s depression snacking on, as a result he becomes SUPER GOOF! And after a display of his powers with various disney characters (finding Gepetto and Pinocchio in a whale, saving the dalmations from cruella , lifting the giant from the littlest tailor) and finds he has a narrator. No really Goofy notices and is not happy about it despite all superheros having one. I mean he’s not wrong, look what the X-Men’s did to Cyclops:

But regardless he has him and Goofy flies through the air with the quickest of ease through the house of mouse impressing everyone who has no idea he’s goofy. This gag is a carry over from the comics and a transparent parody of the superman clark kent thing. But it works because Goofy still uses his name in costume, still has his hat and really changes nothing about his appearance. It’s simple but sometimes you just need a very simple gag to work and overxplaning it spoils the whole thing. Trust me I know as a certified experinced fuck up.

So after the first cartoon Super Goofy guest stars, and we get some neat gags with the disney movie characters, though my faviorite is Peter Pan’s reactoin of “He Can fly he can fly he can fly, big deal. Anyone can do that”. It’s both perfectly in character and utterly hilarious.

Goofy however starts to feel disheartneed as everyone compliments him.. and Minnie says he’s better than a regular goofy as do the others minus Mickey because he’s a good egg. And Clarabelle but he misinertperts her like of super goof as her liking him better as that.

So fed up with everyone liking him better, Goofy throws away the peanuts, which he kept in his hat.. though one did fall in his waiter’s uniform. Remember that. The narrator questions if this is really the end and what if there’s peril but Goofy’s stubbornly instiant he won’t do it no matter what.

Cue the what: another MUCH LARGER metor heading straight for Mainstreet

Goofy refuses to summon super goof despite the danger... Mickey has an apt response for him

This is the one scene I don’t really like: Goofy has a righ tto be upset they all prefer someone who just showed up hours ago over him, especially beceause it IS him, to the point Daisy was upset she got a picture of goofy instead of super goofy because J Jonah Jameson’s not going to pay for pictures of his next door neighbor. But Mickey has a right to not want to die horribly in a cataclysm of fire.

So Goofy mopes off like his son to go save the world, fine whatever. Only as is cartoon law, the trash has been picked up meaning he dosen’t have any goobers.. except the CHEKOVS GOOBER. With it he chews it, flies up and has a truly impressive display holding it back while it’s just over clarabelle before dispoising of it. he hits on her in super form but she says she already has date with regular goofy. Goofy’s confidence is restored, he’s probably getting laid tonight and we close on a Mike add for a school for Goofy’s. How much is tution.. asking for a me.

Final Thoughts: This wraparound was great, a few small flaws but it has a great, engaging charcter driven story with some delightfully silly jokes that are right up my ally. It’s easy to see besides my love of superheroes why this one stood out to me: It’s funny, heartwrenching and stars one of my faviorite character.

The shorts are also good, one that’s okay , a bit too long but not bad, and one that’s an utter masterpiece. In fact the only reason the first short feels so long is you really want to get back to the main plot fast, and that’s not a bad problem to have. This was an excellen tepisode and I recommend seeing it out.

Before I get to my whole patreon speil, i’d like to say that House of Mouse STILL is not avaliable on Disney+ for reasons that haven’t been made clear. As such it’s on my Not Streaming List, a list I keep and update reguarly of shows that SHOULD be streaming on a particular service and have no clear reason NOT to be such as musical rights issues like the ones likely keeping shows like Drew Carrey, Northern Exposure and Murphy Brown off streaming. So check that out if your curious, link is on my main page and hit me up if you have any suggestoins for it.

So thank you for reading and if you liked this review give it a like and consider joining my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet. As a patron you’d get access to exclusive reviews, the patreon’s discord and to pick a short each time I do one of these shortstaculars. Donald’s comnig next month and the deadline is in only a few days to join up for said month so the clock is ticking. Even a dollar a month helps me reach my stretch goals so please i fyou can sign up today and if not, I understand and i’ll see you at the next rainbow

#goofy #goofy goof #clarabelle cow #house of mouse #mickey mouse #donald duck #minnie mouse #daisy duck #superheroes #super goof #goof week

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nyanberri · 3 years

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I've finally finished the first set! It's the same kids again tho, lol. But next time will be never before seen characters! So I wanted to get everyone drawn in the Omniverse style so I could visualize it all properly and it also made for a good opportunity to tweak designs as needed. They're all heavily referenced from official art so I could get it perfect and it made for great practice too! Of course I added some personal touches to the art style too cuz if I didn't it would have bothered me too much, lol.

Anyway, below the cut are finally proper profiles for all the kids and some additional info as well!

M'kay, so before we get started on the kids' bios, it's important to specify this is an alternate universe. And I don't mean it's an AU of the Prime Dimension. This is quite literally another universe within the omniverse. It's a mostly untouched one that even Paradox, Eon, and Maltruant have never been to and therefore a lot of things are different while a lot of things are still the same tho. It's unofficially called the Feniverse cuz Fen is the main character, but it does have a more official name. I'm just, uh… not aware of what that name is yet, lol!

Anyway, the Ben in this dimension branches off from the development of Prime Ben. Anybody remember the fact that the very first Ben 10K episode said Ben became the way he did in the future cuz he killed Vilgax by ripping him to pieces? Yep! That's what this Ben did too! But obviously he doesn't end up exactly like that Ben 10K. But so this dimension's Ben is therefore officially labelled Slayer Ben since some people refer to him as 'The Vilgax Slayer'. And that experience did definitely screw him up pretty bad, which is why he's so different from both Prime and 10K.

So from left to right:

Name: Fenrick Fih Rook-Tennyson

Age: 13

Height: 5'1

Voice: Todd Haberkorn

Bio: Fen is Ben and Rook's son. He has always been known for being quiet, surprisingly wise for his age, and quite the troublemaker. In actuality, only two of these things are true. Fen is more calm than he seems and as a young child he wasn't much of a talker, giving people the perception that he's quiet. Unfortunately, Fen also has many great ideas that end up badly. However, his ideas always come from the desire to help someone or solve a problem, but he always gets caught when his plans fall apart, making it look like he causes trouble. Some people even accuse him of trouble he didn't start, not helping his reputation. And as the son of Ben 10 of all people, he tends to be held to higher expectations. His wisdom never ceases to amaze people either. Even Ben and Rook get surprised at the wisdom he recites, wondering where exactly he learned it all. Due to that, he tends to put up a fight whenever himself or someone else gets wronged. He especially defends his friends and fellow alien kids in town. Although his only true friends seem to consist of his childhood friend, Millie, and his cousin, Sven.

At the age of 13, Fen discovered his ability to transform into a couple dozen of Ben's aliens. He quickly aspired to become a hero like his parents, much to Ben's disapproval, who worries about his safety. Despite that, Fen wants to form a hero trio with Sven and Millie and become the next generation of heroes in the galaxy.

Developer's Notes:

Fen's almost always been the same since I first created him, with just a few design and character tweaks done to him. He used to have a talent for jewelry making but that was switched out for him being wise for his age. He was also a bit more generic as far as the upbeat and reckless young male protagonist with famous parents archetype goes, but he's been adjusted enough that he now stands out from that archetype. Or, at least I hope, lol. Also, funny thing to note, Fenrick is not a real name! The closest name there is is Fenwick and iirc, that's a last name! I considered changing it to Fenwick or even Fenick but Fenrick is too special to me. His, uh, unfortunate name even has an impact in-universe with him being embarrassed by it and some using it to make fun of him. Also in-universe, I chalk it up to Ben having a dumb moment by misremembering the name Fenwick and Rook not knowing any better to catch Ben's mistake. Also, if you think his hair style is stupid, good. That's the point. He wanted it like that when he was seven and Ben and Rook were like 'sure' and it's been like that ever since.

Name: Millicent

Age: 13

Height: 5'0

Voice: Jennifer Paz

Bio: Millie is Ester's daughter. Her biological father is a human who decided he didn't want to be a father and Antonio soon stepped up to fill the father role when he and Ester got married. She has been friends with Fen and Sven since they were all babies. Millie is the level-headed one of the group and has been noted as being oddly emotionless. Her tone of voice is almost always flat and she usually keeps a straight face when not looking nervous. She never intends to be rude, but she will bluntly say whatever comes to her mind to her peers. At the same time, she can be nervous about making bold decisions and hates being a part of any decision making. She either refuses to do anything, or apologizes profusely for making a decision even when nothing bad happens.

Due to being more human than Kraaho, Millie is perfectly capable of handling the temperatures of Bellwood. However, she is still a bit sensitive to cold temperatures and needs to bundle up more than others during the winter. She sadly cannot handle the heat in the Hot Spot for very long either. Much to Millie's dismay, she was not born with the Kraaho's stretching ability. No one can figure out why, but it's simply something she can't do. As a result, she considers herself a normal human and has resigned herself to the fact that 'normal' is simply all she will ever be. Despite this, she has taken up quite a big secret that contradicts her decision and expresses who she wishes she really was.

Developer's Notes:

Millie only ever had one design change with her outfit and slight adjustment to the way her hair works and she's been the same ever since. Since the beginning she was always calm and stoic and I've always worried that she doesn't have much of a presence or purpose, but now I feel like she plays off Fen and Sven well enough that she stands out thanks to them. I've always flipped back and forth between Fen and/or Millie having a crush on each other, but I've finally settled on them both just seeing each other as near and dear loyal friends. It ultimately works out better that way and doesn't cause conflict with Millie's personal story or Fen's real love interest(and the one other character with feelings for him). Her name also used to be Mina, but since I've now taken that as one of my own names, it felt really awkward to keep her as that. I used to have a habit of naming characters with names I wanted before realizing I could change my name in the future, lol.

Name: Sven Elijah Levin

Age: 12

Height: 4'8

Voice: Wally Wingert

Bio: Sven is Gwendolyn and Kevin's son and Jenny's older brother. Sven is a rather unfortunate boy. He is constantly terrified of everything to the point of running millions of 'bad ends' through his head. He can barely talk most of the time without being a stuttering mess and always thinks he's going to be in trouble for anything and everything he does. Everyone is certain he either has severe anxiety or paranoia, or likely both. Perhaps even more. Who knows. Sven tends to cling to his cousin, Fen, who he looks to for guidance and advice, most of which isn't anything Sven should actually be following. Because he is a grade below Fen and Millie, he's often left alone to deal with problems in his own classes, or really just panic about them. He does, however, have a close relationship with Zed and likes to be the one to take her out on walks in the afternoon. And not many people know it, but he's actually a pretty decent artist.

Even though he is an Osmosian thanks to being Kevin's son, no one knows what ability he may have. It doesn't really matter though, since he wants to stay out of any potential trouble that having powers could bring him. Regardless of that, he has an interest in magic thanks to Gwendolyn's expertise in it. He even sneaks peeks at her spellbook and the strange bag she keeps in her office that he can hear a voice coming from at night.

Developer's Notes:

Now Sven is a character whose personality has always been pretty much the same while his design was never consistent until reaching his current one. He was originally very anime looking and in a gaudy orange outfit that I regret even thinking about, lol. He looks much better in neutral colors. I guess there's not much to say on him though, which makes me worry he's a tad unremarkable, but perhaps it's just since I'm leaving out the things about him that are better left discovering on your own… if I ever get to finishing that fic that is… ahaha.

Name: Saki Boulais

Age: 13

Height: 4'11

Voice: Stephanie Sheh

Bio: Julie and Hervé's daughter, one of the more popular girls in school, and the most deceptive in town. Saki has gone her whole life, since the first time she told a successful lie, tricking people into thinking she's a completely innocent little girl who's never done anything wrong. This allows her to get away with anything she wants, and she especially enjoys getting Fen in trouble when they butt heads with each other. The two have even been enemies since they first met at age three and Saki pulled Fen's tail, he pulled her hair in return, and she managed to get away with claiming he started it. Their feud has even turned into murderous intent, which Saki refuses to hide.

On a lighter note, Saki always has the company of her two best friends, Rachel and Diane, who will gladly join her in her tormenting of others. Saki even greatly admires the most popular girl in school, Fiona, and whoever the mysterious new hero girl, Miracle-M, is.

Developer's Notes:

Yes, Saki was always meant to be That Bitch in the cast. I feel like it's unrealistic to have all next gen kids be friends and get along with each other. It's perfectly believable to have some of them dislike, and in Saki and Fen's case, even hate each other. It makes it more interesting with them being Ben and Julie's kids respectively too. Adds good drama, lol. But anyway, really the only thing that's changed about Saki is her hairstyle and some other slight design tweaks like her necklace, shorts, and shoes. I also just recently changed her colors from purple and blue-ish purple to just blue so that isn't not all three girls here wearing purple. She also looks better in blue and it contrasts nicely with Julie's pink imo. I suppose I do worry about her being disliked since she's so antagonistic and with her being Julie's daughter, I really hope her character doesn't send the wrong message since I genuinely love Julie a lot. It really is just For The Drama Of It All. I think it's really fun to watch her go into full 'Murder Fen' mode too. Very fun to write, lol. Oh right, also Boulais is my headcanon last name for Herve. I just wanted her to have his last name but he doesn’t have one! So I had to pick one for myself.

Name: Jennifer Elizabeth Levin

Age: 10

Height: 4'6

Voice: Brina Palencia

Bio: Jenny is Gwendolyn and Kevin's daughter and Sven's younger sister. She is surprisingly serious and stoic for her age. She gets annoyed by her family's constant 'abnormal' status and wishes everyone could just act normal with no weird events happening. She throws herself into school work as a means to keep herself out of it and tries to keep her personal life at school with friends far away from her life involving family. She seems to have a quick temper, but really she just acts that way to get what she wants since she knows it works and in the hopes that she can use it as an opportunity to vent her frustrations. She hates getting involved in her brother and cousin Fen's antics, but sometimes her no nonsense attitude is needed to resolve a situation. She has a strange obsession with eating bread, finding it the perfect food and almost always exclusively eating something with bread involved. Gwendolyn definitely worries about her diet, but Kevin finds it harmless.

She may not have the spark like her mother, but she doesn't dare confess that her status as an Osmosian became very apparent just recently. As a result, she has a stash of broken objects stuffed under her bed and cracked floorboards that she covers with her rug.

Developer's Notes:

Jenny went through a decent redesign. Character wise I feel like I still don't have some things etched in stone for her as I still haven't gotten to the point in my writing where she does anything of interest. She could honestly probably end up pretty different from her bio here if I'm not careful, lol. The characters write themselves as they say after all! But I definitely prefer the newer Jenny compared to the previous way I envisioned her character, which was designed to fit a character type I actually hate just cuz I felt it worked for her. Thankfully I can avoid it tho with the big overhaul I did after returning to these characters. And I do like Jenny cuz I like writing her dialogue, but it still feels like her character is still that of a person I would not wanna be around, lol.

Name: Bevel Tennyson

Age: 20

Height: 5'9

Voice: Dee Bradley Baker/Yuri Lowenthal

Bio: Bevel is the youngest of the Big Chill offspring born twenty years ago. They were in an accident involving a passing spaceship on their way to Kylmyys that damaged their right wing to the point they could no longer fly. It's suspected the wing has severe nerve damage, making Bevel unable to unfold it as well. Their siblings helped them make it the rest of the way to Kylmyys, but over the years, the dangers of Kylmyys left the siblings with only Bevel and the eldest two, Emboss and Curve, remaining. As they got older, Bevel could never forget their only memory of their parent, who the others didn't remember. A desire to reunite with their parent caused Bevel to make the lone decision to explore the universe in search of their parent.

Bevel is a very cheerful and sweet person, but their secluded upbringing and lack of knowledge about Earth makes them very naive. They will believe anything they are told and have a very black and white moral view due to not understanding nuance. They have strange habits that appear unnatural in their attempt to act human and have an intense craving for Earth candy. They have also taken up being a mercenary to get by after leaving Kylmyys and once they join the Tennyson family, Rook suggests they use the skills they've picked up to become a Plumber, but that's an idea Ben isn't fully onboard with.

Developer's Notes:

Right off the bat I want to shout out that his old human design used to keep the Necrofriggian antennae. I still think it's a cute design even tho it wasn't canon compliant with the antennae. The only things that have changed about him too are just that, his hair style, and his shoes. Plus I stuck bunny ears on his hoodie recently as a shout out to those antennae he used to have. Otherwise he's always been the same. And I guess I haven't explained why he has a human form, but that's also an answer to discover later. I didn't draw his Necrofriggian form tho cuz we should all know what the UAF design looks like(and yes I am screwing with art style difference bullshit cuz OV Big Chill is not real and you cannot convince me otherwise). And I also just realized his pronouns aren't matching up in this section so I should add his official pronouns are he/they, but characters refer to him by he/him and narration uses they/them. He is still a Necrofriggian and therefore doesn't do the whole gender thing after all. Which is why he's fine with anyone viewing him as whatever they want to too. He just goes with it. That's also why he doesn't get what's weird about him calling Ben 'Mother' after he learned the word, lol.

#staff so help me if this disappears from the tags EVER we will have a problem #ben 10 #ben 10 oc #fenrick (oc)#Millie (OC)#Sven (OC)#saki (oc)#jenny (oc)#bevel (oc)#my art #artists on tumblr

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buzzdixonwriter · 3 years

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COMPARE & CONTRAST: Birth Of A Nation vs Gone With The Wind vs The General

TRIGGER WARNING: Talking about race in American culture and movies, so some readers may want to brace themselves (looking at you, wypipo).

. . .

Confining “classic films” to movies that: Demonstrate technical expertise, and Influenced other films and creators

-- we have three (and only three) movies about the American Civil War we can safely put in the classic bin.

Before we go further, let’s restate the obvious: A film’s impact in the medium of motion pictures is separate from its impact on the culture as a whole.

Case in point: Leni Riefenstahl’s The Triumph Of The Will is a perfect textbook example of how to stage massive crowd scenes for maximum visual impact, and how to promote individuals and ideas in purely cinematic terms.

It also contributed mightily to the Nazis’ rise to power, their subsequent wars of conquest, and the deaths directly and indirectly of tens of millions of human beings.

It’s important to know The Triumph Of The Will exists and why it’s important in film and cultural and political history, but you need never subject yourself to its vile hate mongering.

With that in mind, let us proceed.

. . .

Here are the three bona fide classic movies about the American Civil War:

The Birth Of A Nation (1915)

Gone With The Wind (1939)

The General (1926)

They are all problematic for the same reason: They embrace the “lost cause” myth of Southern white supremacists.

The Birth Of A Nation is by far the worst offender of the trio, helping to restart the Ku Klux Klan and promulgate jim crow for decades to come.

Director D.W. Griffith was a Southern boy, Kentucky born with a father who served as a colonel in the Confederate army (Kentucky, a border slave state, tried to stay neutral at the beginning of the Civil War, then leaned heavily towards secession, but by 1862 threw its lot in with the Union).

Griffith bought into the lost cause myth heavily, and The Birth Of A Nation explicitly states African-Americans are fit only for slavery, becoming a murderous / rapacious mob once freed, and the Ku Klux Klan were gallant heroes attempting to turn this tide.

Griffith tries to have it both ways, depicting Abraham Lincoln as a thoughtful and compassionate leader who would have treated the South better had he survived (ignoring the fact Andrew Johnson did everything in his power to prevent the Union from holding the South accountable, and that Lincoln’s assassin was a Southerner who killed him in revenge after the war ended).

There can be no denying Griffith’s enormous talents as a film maker (again, separating thematic content from the technical expertise). While the Hollywood publicity machine was quick to claim The Birth Of A Nation was the first feature length film (i.e., 65 minutes or more), the truth is the Australians, the Chinese, the English, the French, the Italians, the Japanese, and the Russians all made feature films long before Griffith, and Griffith wasn’t even the first American to make a feature but was preceded by at least a half a dozen other film makers.

What Griffith was, however, was a master synthesis of all the techniques that preceded him. Griffith made movies better than anyone else of his era, and his best films are still eminently watchable to this day.

That’s what makes The Birth Of A Nation so harmful and destructive: Like the Riefenstahl film, it seduced common audiences into complacency while stirring the worst people to action.

It’s a film whose final cost is not measured in dollars but in innocent blood and tears.

Griffith wasn’t stupid, and while he might have felt personally immune to the criticism of his racist attitudes, he was savvy enough to recognize publicly embracing them would not serve his career well. He followed The Birth Of A Nation with Intolerance, an epic that jumps around in its story lines like a Tarantino film, and in later movies displayed a far gentler albeit still patronizing attitude towards African-Americans.

But the damage was done, the lost cause myth cemented into not just the Southern psyche but white America in general.

Like The Triumph Of The Will, I would never recommend The Birth Of A Nation as a “must see” film to anyone. If you’re a film historian and you want to subject yourself to this cancer, that’s your choice, but if you’re a student of film there’s nothing Griffith did technically or artistically in this movie that he didn’t do better in his later efforts, and other film makers have since emulated his innovations and built upon them.

. . .

For many decades Gone With The Wind was celebrated as the pinnacle of American film making, but once the romantic blinders were removed we see it for what it is: An over long, over blown epic that promulgates what we now recognize as white supremacy, classism, and rape culture.

And while it uses every technical trick in the book, it doesn’t use them as well as Orson Welles did a year later with Citizen Kane.

Gone With The Wind is really two movies: A well made Civil War epic and its lackluster Reconstruction sequel.

They should have ended the movie with “As God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again!” (Seriously. The only two memorable scenes in the second half other than “I don’t give a damn” both center around Scarlett O’Hara’s dresses.)

Again, let’s emphasize that a technically well made movie does not excuse bad intentions in thematic content.

Gone With The Wind is a rip-roaring bodice-ripping historical novel, admittedly well research and well written by Margaret Mitchell.

She isn’t necessarily writing from a conscious desire to spread the message of white supremacy, but as a Southern gal who grew up in the midst of the lost cause myth, she ends up breathing that message into every line of the book.

The movie version can’t escape that, nor does it try to. There’s a brief scene early on where both Mitchell and the later film makers prefigure the lost cause myth where Rhett Butler explains to the good ol’ boys at the Tara cotillion that they’re about to be brutally decimated by the Union in a war of attrition, but both author and film makers side with the good ol’ boys and support their God given right to throw away their lives and destroy their homes in an attempt to keep enslaving millions of innocent people.

That last part in bold never gets mentioned, does it? As others have observed, Gone With The Wind isn’t antagonistic towards African-Americans, rather it treats them as if they don’t exist other that walking / talking props among the scenery.

In that regard, Gone With The Wind is on par with The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged (only with a far superior writing style). The protagonists of all three books are narcissistic sociopaths who will lie / cheat / steal / blow up buildings because the common folk -- the people who actually put in the grunt labor to make things work -- are nothing but slaves there for the elites’ entitlements, and God (or market forces, take your pick) help them if they ever raise their heads or voices -- much less their hands -- in protest.

Oh, but doesn’t it look gorgeous? As those beautiful rich Technicolor gowns and sets and matte paintings. All those balls and dances. All those smoldering looks. All those flames as Atlanta burns…

There’s the true hero of the story: William Tecumseh Sherman. The mofo cut the Confederacy in half, destroying lines of supply and communication, obliterating any rebels who dared to stand up to him, shortening the war by several months, and freeing tens of thousands of enslaved people in the process.

None of which would have been necessary if a few greedy bastards such as the O’Haras had lived Christian enough lives to say, “Y’know, maybe the way we’re treating these people is wrong…”

Gone With The Wind proved insanely popular, on a scale with The Birth Of A Nation a generation earlier, and once again it made it easier for mainstream middle American whites to turn a blind eye to injustices still being perpetuated on African-Americans of that day.

And it kept playing again and again, one of the very few non-Disney movies to enjoy a substantial re-release schedule, popping up about once every seven years in theaters until the arrival of first cable then VHS.

And it’s still popular, still a steady seller in DVD and BluRay.

That’s in no small part to the skill of both Mitchell and the film makers in hiding the most egregiously problematic elements of the story under a think patina of romanticism. It became a cultural touchstone that everyone knew and everyone could reference, from political cartoons to Carol Burnett skits.

But it’s still racist and white supremacist, saying African-Americans exist only to serve whites.

It’s still classist, saying not all whites are worthy of what the upper class hogs for itself.

It’s still about rape culture, saying all Scarlett needed was one good rape by Rhett Butler to set her straight.

Is it a product of its era?

Absolutely. The same way over the counter heroin at your friendly neighborhood drug store was a product of its era. The same way cocaine laced Coca-Cola was a product of its era.

Just because it wasn’t recognized as a bad idea then means we should still circulate it now.

Compared to The Birth Of A Nation, Gone With The Wind is a far less hate filled work, and one that inspires less immediate harm.

It has inspired harm over several generations by making it easy to overlook the real harm it represents in favor of a romantic antebellum fantasy.

If someone wants to see a film that represents the Hollywood studio system at the height of its creative power, I’d recommend Casablanca or The Wizard Of Oz.

I’d put Gone With The Wind way down on that list, and I’d caution it with caveats, but I would say it represents a good example of the old Hollywood system firing on all eight cylinders.

At least for the first half of the film.

. . .

In most ways, Buster Keaton’s The General is the least problematic of these three films.

In another, it’s as bad as Gone With The Wind.

The good thing about The General is that modern audiences can easily enjoy it.

Buster Keaton chasing after a stolen steam locomotive? What’s not to love?

It’s one of his best comedies and if it’s not the very best, I’d hate to live on the difference.

It certainly lacks the overt racism of The Birth Of A Nation.

In fact, it almost lacks any race at all.

And ironically, that’s what makes it a problem.

In researching this post, I re-watched The General, something I wasn’t willing to do for The Birth Of A Nation or Gone With The Wind.

I re-watched it looking for African-American faces anywhere in the film.

I think I found four.

Two porters lugging a trunk in an early scene at a train station, possibly two small children with their backs turned to the camera at the edge of a crowd about ten minutes later.

That’s it.

In a movie about one of the most crucial events in American history, an event entirely predicated on the issue of the enslavement of millions of African-Americans…that’s it.

Four faces.

Total screen time: Less than a minute.

If critics can justifiably lambast Gone With The Wind for sailing over the bloodied backs of millions of enslaved African-Americans to focus on the luxury liner S.S. Scarlett O’Hara, what can they say about a Civil War movie that almost succeeds in eradicating those enslaved humans from the story?

Paradoxically, this makes The General the safest of these movies to show an unsuspecting audience.

The Civil War is boiled down to the dark uniform army fighting the light uniform army; why they were fighting is never explored in detail.

But the lost cause myth was so prevalent at that point that Keaton and company didn’t need to discuss the causes of the war.

Audiences – even those completely ignorant of U.S. history -- automatically assume the light uniform army are the good guys simply because Buster is on their side.

Buster would never do anything bad, would he?

Of course not!

And so -- =poof!= -- millions of people erased from history.

Top that, Thanos.

To be honest, I don’t know how a modern audience should react to that, in particular an African-American audience.

Disappointment at being culturally short changed again?

Relief at being spared the most egregious stereotyping and white supremacy apologies?

Or just plain enjoy Buster chasing after a stolen locomotive?

The General’s cultural weightlessness helps it become a great film.

It’s a purely cinematic endeavor, with the intertitles used primarily to explain the spies’ and military leaders’ plans and motives, not tell us what Buster is thinking and doing.

For a guy called “the great stone face” Buster could be awfully expressive with his body language, and he needs title cards the least of all the performers in this movie

. . .

So where does that leave us, as a 21st century audience in a 21st century culture?

We can neither deny nor ignore the impact of these three films. Even The Birth Of A Nation, as vile and as hateful as it is, influenced the country and the countries attitudes for a century.

Gone With The Wind feels like something we’ve outgrown, something some audience members can look back on with fondness, but not anything we can fully embrace again.

The General can still make us laugh, and in this case the sin of omission seems far less than the others’ sins of commission.

Learn from the past.

Do better in the future.

#race relations #movies #art #cinema #morals #ethics #politics #Birth Of A Nation #Gone With The Wind #The General #DW Griffith #Buster Keaton

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coccinelle-et-chaton · 3 years

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come get ya miraculous juice

If your thirst for lukanette and slow burn adrinette cannot possibly wait for season 4, Chapter 10 of The Wall Between Us is up on AO3!

Or read in Tumblr below the cut

Chapter 10

“Aw, come on Luka, don’t be like this,” Albin said, swinging an arm around his neck.

“I’m not being like anything,” Luka protested as he and his group of friends made their way out of the metro station and towards Place de la Concorde. “I’m just saying I don’t feel like coming to a demonstration.”

“So, what would you rather be doing today instead, hm? Stay locked up in your room like an emo kid? Besides, the weather is great today and you know Margot will hang us by our heads if we don’t show up.”

Luka sighed and remitted to walk along, which pleased Albin.

Luka’s friends had been very adamant on helping him out of the house as often as possible since his breakup with Marinette. They knew that, left to his own devices, Luka would close up and keep to himself. He wasn’t the kind of guy that readily shared when something bothered him, he was more the type that had to be squeezed like an orange for him to share his mind when he was feeling low. However, this was not the reason why Luka had put up more of a fight than it was usually his style. It had been almost a week since the breakup and he had managed to keep out of trouble with Hawkmoth, but he attributed his success to a lot of calm evenings and just processing everything his own way.

As much as he supported the cause and his friend Margot, he could see how participating in a demonstration could get him riled up, especially if some asshole showed up. And he’d attended enough demonstrations during his lifetime to know that there was always some asshole showing up.

The trio of boys made their way to the organizers’ tent, where Margo kept busy readying cardboard signs. Without as much as a quick glance upwards and a smile, she said, “Oh good, you’re here. Help me with these, please. Paint is on the table over there.” She handed a couple of cardboard pieces to each of the boys and left them to their own devices.

Luka wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with these. His creativity didn’t exactly lie in the visual department. That was always more a thing for...

He shook his head and proceeded to grab some random paint and brushes for Albin, Noe, and himself. As he turned around, he accidentally knocked a container of black paint on the person behind him waiting their turn.

“What the heck! Watch it!” the girl exclaimed.

“Shit,” he hissed. “Oh my god, I'm so sorry! Let me help you clean-- Kagami?”

It took him a couple seconds to recognize who she was. It had been almost a year since he had last seen her. There was an air to her that made it evident she had changed a lot during that time, but it was also obvious in her appearance. She had cut her hair shorter than before and she had now several piercings on her ears. She seemed to have also shed her preppy outfits in favor of high-waisted mom jeans and a black crop top. Besides her appearance, Luka could just tell this was the type of girl who wouldn’t take crap from anyone, even more than before. It was a bit… daunting. He did always wonder how someone as intimidatingly sure of herself ended up with someone like Adrien.

“Luka,” she said deadpan.

“You... look very different.”

She gave him a dirty look. “Really? You come to a feminist demonstration and the first thing you do is comment on my appearance?”

Luka blushed with embarrassment. “No, no, no! Sorry! I didn’t mean it like that! You just-- in general. You look different in general.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Thanks for ruining my pants, by the way. They weren't my favorite or anything,” she said sarcastically, then stopped, looked around the room and asked, “Where’s Marinette, anyway? Maybe she knows some way to take the stain off.”

Luka clutched his painting utensils and gulped. He had tried to steer away from the subject as much as possible to reduce his risk of getting akumatized, but he supposed there wasn’t much of a way to evade it right now.

“We, uh... we broke up a few days ago.”

“Oh.” Kagami perked up, suddenly aware how her question might have been a little insensitive. “Sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah.”

“Not that it’s my business, but how are you doing? After your akumatization and so on?”

“I didn’t get akumatized,” he said, suddenly defensive, as an urge to get back to his friends built up.

“Really?” Kagami said, a bit surprised.

“Yes, really.”

“I always had the impression you were super into her,” she commented, but mostly to herself.

“I am--I was,” he said, getting angry.

“I got akumatized into this nightmarish monster when Adrien and I broke up and it turned out it didn’t take me so much to get over him.”

“That has absolutely nothing to do with it,” he retorted, evidently irked.

“No, no. Of course not,” she hurried to say, realizing she had unintentionally pushed his buttons. “I just meant to say props to you. Lesser people get akumatized for the weather or something like that. Sorry for the stupid comparison.

“Sure. Whatever…”

“... Anyway,” Kagami said, sighing. “I guess we’ve made this sufficiently awkward, right? So, I’ll get going.”

Luka marched back to his friends and unceremoniously dumped the materials at the center of their little circle as tried to calm himself down.

He tried to focus on getting something into his sign but the fact he was stuck doing something Marinette usually loved to do was not helping in the slightest.

He breathed heavily, his eyes prickling him as hot, angry tears pooled and then fell onto the cardboard.

“I need some fresh air,” he announced to his friends, who had noticed his mood but had not said anything yet and watched as he stormed outside.

He paced around, taking deep breaths. The anxiety of not being able to calm down mixed with the fear of getting akumatized, was like kindling soaked in gasoline being thrown into a starting fire. And, as wildfires do, it burst out of control.

Luka gasped for air and then, with horror saw as the black butterfly approached him. He sprinted back to the tent where his friends were but by the time he got there, the butterfly had already lodged in the paintbrush he was holding.

The voice of his friends urging him not to give into the spell was faint and distant in his ears, but enough to keep him steady.

The first thing he noticed is that this akumatization felt different. He's was still aware of everything. He hadn’t been completely akumatized yet. Hawkmoth held him in his petrifying grasp but stalled, as if deciding what to turn him into.

Suddenly, his grave voice echoed inside his head.

“What is it that you want, Luka Couffaine?”

“Get out of my head,” Luka hissed, focusing as hard as he could on not thinking of anything that would reveal the secrets he knew.

Hawkmoth laughed. “But you called me here. Your emotions... I can tell you’re a soul in pain. You lost something. I can relate to that pain.” Luka felt how Hawkmoth snaked through his thoughts, looking for something to convince him. A flash of a thought, and Hawkmoth knew he was hiding something.

“GET OUT!” he screamed in his head.

He laughed again. “Oh? And what secrets might you be keeping? Hm?”

Luka winced, straining to keep thinking of random things: music, the weather, that weird bench at school that wobbles when he sits and how he hates it. Anything.

“I can help you recover what you lost...” he whispered softly. “Your girlfriend… Don’t you want her back? What is her name? I can help you. I promise I won’t hurt her.”

He felt himself slipping, turning.

“No!” he said, reverting back into his human form. “Let me go!”

“Maybe what you want is revenge on him? The reason she abandoned you? You’re not worthy like him, are you? That’s why she left you… But I can make you worthy… Wouldn't you want to be in his place, hm? Wouldn’t everything be better with that pesky boy of the way?”

Again, Luka felt himself morph and forced himself to think of other things. He tried reciting stupid facts he knew about ship maintenance.

“Get out of my head!” he exclaimed, sounding much weaker.

“Your power of will is very commendable,” Hawkmoth said. “But if I’m overstaying my welcome all you need to do is tell me what you want.”

“N-no!” Luka said, straining and screaming. “GET OUT!”

“If you--”

Suddenly the contact broke, and he collapsed onto the ground. The world went dark.

When Luka regained consciousness, he did so with a jolt. He was surrounded by his friends, Ladybug and Chat Noir, and surprisingly enough, Kagami.

He had an ungodly headache and realized blood had dried on his upper lip. His nose must have bled.

“Give him some space,” Ladybug ordered the crowd, seeing as Luka was struggling to gather his bearings. He didn’t know what particular panic to tackle first.

“What happened?” he asked, noticing they were not under the tent anymore and the gathering crowd that was preparing for the demonstration had dissipated.

“You got akumatized,” Ladybug explained, a bit surprised she had to fill him in on that particular point.

“Or rather, were about to akumatized,” Chat Noir said, trying to help his confused expression.

“You kept changing into different things. Like, you were getting akumatized on and off again,” Albin explained. “It was pretty scary.”

He turned to Ladybug with horror realizing what that meant. “You need to take me out of here,” he urged.

“Please!”

“Just take it easy for a second, okay?” Ladybug said, trying her best not to share Luka’s worry. “We’ll take you home in a minute.”

Ladybug and Chat Noir had not been present for most of the incident, so they stayed to talk to the people that had seen the attack, mainly Luka’s friends and Kagami.

Chat Noir was the one to interview them while Ladybug found some water for Luka to drink. Once everyone had calmed down and gave Chat Noir their testimony, they took Luka away to a secluded place to talk. It was the abandoned industrial section where Chat usually led Akumas.

“He knows,” he said, with absolute terror in his voice, Luka said pacing around, trying his best to contain his tears. “He knows that I know something! He saw that I was hiding something. I’m so sorry, Ladybug. I tried but he--he was in my mind and saw--.” His voice broke down.

For a reason unknown to Chat, Ladybug suddenly assumed the same urgency as Luka.

“Did he see?” she asked as Luka cried. “Luka, did he see?”

“See what?” Chat Noir asked, with escalating worry. “What is going on?”

“He didn’t. That’s why I kept changing, he tried to convince me several times,” said Luka. “But he knows that I’m keeping a secret.”

Ladybug covered her mouth with her hands.

“Would somebody please just care to explain what is going on?” Chat demanded.

“You didn’t tell him?” Luka said with disbelief.

“Luka, I need you to tell me exactly everything you remember. What happened?” Ladybug said, ignoring the question.

“Nothing. He just… he figured that I… lost someone. And he was trying to get me to tell him who it was, and to convince me to try to get them back, or to get revenge. I managed to focus my thoughts, but what if he tries again,” Luka said fearfully. “You were right,” he sobbed. “I shouldn’t have—I should’ve just looked away that day! I wish I never knew about this.”

Despite Chat’s presence, Ladybug could only comfort Luka with a hug, not knowing what else to do. Chat, on the other hand, seemed to have put two and two together. Luka knew Marinette’s identity.

“Oh my god…” Chat muttered with disbelief as he leaned against the metal sliding door of one of the warehouse buildings and fell to the floor. He grabbed chunks of his hair just to process what all of this meant, what to feel first. His father was only an akumatization away from figuring out Marinette.

“Luka, I promise you I won’t let anything happen to you, okay? We will come up with a plan, Chat Noir and me. But for now, I need to you to lay as low as possible. We cannot be seen together anymore. At all. If Hawkmoth is the person Chat and I suspect he is, he could be very close to finding out who I am if he makes the connection that we were together. Erase everything. Everything we ever posted on our social media, messages, calls, anything that might be public evidence. Try to have Juleka do the same.”

Luka contemplated the prospect for a moment. Ladybug knew she was thinking exactly the same thing as him: how devastating it will be to have to pretend that nothing ever happened. To actively destroy their memories together.

“Okay,” he said after a while. “And what if I get akumatized again? I don’t think I’ll be able to hold him off for any longer than I did today.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Ladybug said. “That’s for us to figure out. Your only task is to pretend like you don’t know us, for your own sake.”

They sent Luka back home on a cab that Marinette called through her burner phone, leaving a heavy sense of danger looming between Chat and Ladybug. He was still on his spot on the ground, with his head on his hands as he supported his arms on his knees.

Ladybug sighed and slid down to sit next to him.

“You told him?”

“I’ve only ever told Alya. He found out by accident,” she said, already defensive and prepared for the argument that was bubbling up between them. “He also knows who you are.”

Chat’s stomach dropped. “Come again?”

“He was hiding in the same alley you transformed in one day.”

Chat let out a heavy sigh and swore loudly.

“You knew about this and you didn’t think to tell me?” he asked Ladybug.

Ladybug was in complete silence. She didn’t know what to say. “I—“

“You what?” Chat demanded.

“I— I meant to tell you next time we met,” she said. “I didn’t think—“

“You didn’t think to tell me that the boyfriend you just broke up with and was very much at risk of being akumatized knows who we are?” he exclaimed with frustration.

“I just—“ Ladybug tried to come up with an explanation, but the words kept getting stuck on her throat. Chat was right to be mad. She should have told him as soon as she found out. But everything had been so much, with him disappearing and Luka suddenly breaking up with her that, in a moment of weakness, him knowing her identity had been the least of her worries.

“What were you thinking?” Chat demanded. “Ladybug, I told you I’m close to the Agreste family!”

“I’m sorry!” she yelled. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t think—I was… I was so distracted by everything going on that I never thought… I meant to tell you! But then all this stupid teenage drama got in the way! He broke up with me literally the day after you and I talked. That’s when he told me. I meant to tell you Chat Noir, I swear. I just...” she sighed. “I’m so stupid!”

She knocked the back of her head on the metal wall that they were leaning against. “This was the kind of mistake I wanted to evade by telling someone! And it still happened… No matter what I do, nothing ever seems to be enough.”

She was angry at herself, at the situation, at the fact that no matter how hard she tried, she was still not a good enough Guardian.

“We still have time to fix this,” he said, a lot calmer and even with hints of reassurance in his voice. “We need to use our upper hand before Hawkmoth gets a chance to get his,” said Chat. “I can get a hold of his personal calendar. We can attack when he least expects it.”

“How are you going to do that, Chat? Let me go with you,” Ladybug said, worried.

Chat shook his head. “I’ll do it as a civilian.”

“The more reason!”

“No, Ladybug. If anything goes wrong and he sees you there, he’ll be able to figure everything out. Trust me. I promise I will be careful.”

“But--”

“Marinette, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anything happened to you,” Chat Noir said, his voice cracking and evidencing the whirlwind of emotions he had been trying to hide from her. “Please, just let me do this. Please, my lady.”

“Okay,” she said quietly. “But promise me you’ll be careful. And you’ll tell me when you do it. Please, promise me you’ll tell me.”

“I will.”

The clicking of Natalie’s heels as she entered the office disturbed the soft classical music playing in the background.

“Here’s the schedule for tomorrow, sir,” she said, placing a thin stack of papers on Gabriel’s desk. “Your flight to Helsinki is expected to arrive at nine a.m. and your first meeting is at ten, as you requested.”

“Excellent. Thank you, Natalie,” Gabriel said, without taking his sight off his screen.

Natalie nodded, heading to her desk.

“One more thing while I am absent, Natalie.”

“Yes, sir?”

Gabriel zoomed into the picture of the article he had been reading. The photographer had managed to capture the teenager he had akumatized looking urgently at Ladybug, who seemed to reciprocate his concern.

“Make sure to find out everything you can about this... Luka Couffaine.”

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gaycrouton · 4 years

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A Long-Standing Curiosity

This is a part of my "Countdown" Series, where I play with the "X" times Mulder and Scully "X" trope. 10-2 will be UST-y with the final one being their first time.

This one is Five times Scully was reminded of Mulder’s impressive size. NSFW

I - A Hint (S1)

Whenever Mulder dragged her over to the Gunmen's, she felt a wicked sense of dejavu from her years of being a tagalong little sister. When her parents were out and Missy was busy, Bill was saddled with the duty of watching her. He'd hang out with his friends, usually riding bikes around the neighborhood while she exerted herself trying to keep up, her equilibrium tilting back and forth from training wheel to training wheel scraping against the pavement.

She was the outsider, but she wanted to be included.

"Some spies are said to keep asps in their pockets in preparation for a quick suicide," Frohike proclaimed. For what reason, she didn't know.

"I heard that too," Langly agreed. "That when they feel they've been compromised, they just aggravate the asp into biting them and releasing their venom."

"Like the historical myth about Cleopatra," she added, wanting to contribute since she hadn't been able to chime in during the last several conversations.

The three unfamiliar men looked over at her with a quizzical look. Much like in the summer days spent with Bill's friend, she'd distanced herself more in an attempt to bridge the gap. She squirmed in her seat under their attention, but she didn't lower her eyes, meeting them each with a raised eyebrow that said "What? I'm right."

"Myth?" Mulder asked, drawing her attention to the corner of the room where he was lounging comfortably. Whereas Bill would look over his shoulder, just to make sure she was still there before taking off even faster, Mulder kept a steady gaze on her, unwilling to let her fall behind. "It's a fact she killed herself with an asp," he challenged.

The Gunmen's heads went back and forth with each volley of this proverbial match. "No, it's not. Despite the paintings of Reginald Arthur and Michel Corneille or the writing of Shakespeare making millions believe she held an asp to her breast after the death of Antony, historians have proven that it was either the stab of a sharp implement like a hairpin or a toxic ointment that caused her death."

"I'd never heard that before, that's really interesting," Byers remarked, offering her a sincere smile.

Mulder was nodding at her with what appeared to be pride as she explained this. "That does make a lot more sense than someone just having a snake in their pants at the ready," Mulder teased, turning his attention over to the more eccentric two of the trio.

"Why? You do it all the time," Frohike joked, causing Langly to cackle.

"Except he's packing a python instead of an asp," Langly added, smiling wider as Mulder grew redder.

And just like all those years ago, the group of boys defaulted to dick jokes. Except Mulder wasn't her brother, and she was a woman now. Hearing them talk so openly about a topic she'd mentally sanctioned as taboo made her eyes widen and her curiosity flare.

"How many women you bite with that thing, Mulder?" Frohike, teased.

Scully observed as Mulder's previous position of comfort became tense as his eyes flickered over to see how she was reacting to the crude locker room talk. The ease with which the comments rolled off his friends' tongues made her think that this wasn't unusual talk for them nor that it was unfounded. The only thing that seemed out of place was Mulder's embarrassment.

"Guys, come on," he chastised, glaring at them while motioning his head towards her.

Frohike looked at her and coughed away his chuckling. "Sorry, Agent Scully."

She waved her hand in front of her face in dismissal. "It doesn't bother me."

But a nagging curiosity in the back of her mind now was.

II - A Glimpse (S2)

Scully didn't even realize it until afterwards. A flash of a bulge in her memory coming unexpected like an after shock in an earthquake.

She was standing at her kitchen counter, sipping from a glass of water with a shaky hand while Mulder's weapon sat next to the sink. Her body was exhausted from the effort of removing Mulder's clothes without any help from the double-her-size man. She'd stumbled back into her bookshelf when his pants finally came free and she'd been too worried about waking him to realize what she'd just uncovered, but now that she was calming down, she could recollect it perfectly.

An elongated bulge in his briefs, resting innocently on his upper thigh.

Elongated.

She hadn't really seen anything. Not in the flesh at least.

But in the morning when she checked on him, after he'd shucked the comforter off in his sleep, she was greeted with the same visual she knew she should be politely ignoring: Mulder's impressive, albeit flaccid, penis.

She stood next to him in the silence of her bedroom and looked down at it - a one woman gallery to an amazing show. Was he a shower or a grower?

Despite the fact that question was running through her mind, many were presently answered. He was big, showing or growing be damned, and he wasn't a Jewish stereotype.

III - A Brush (S4)

"Well, you could lock the door to the office," Mulder offered, accidentally brushing against Scully's back before leaning away from her.

"Folks know I never lock the door," Sheriff Taylor responded in an uncompromising tone. Adding, "They'd start rumors," as an afterthought.

She'd been reaching for the gloves, preparing to slide them over her hands, when he shut the bathroom door. As he did this, Mulder took a few shuffling steps closer to her so he could make himself fit in the tiny room. It probably was no larger than her wingspan, but half of the area was taken by either the sink or the toilet, making it so they had no room to shuffle. She could feel his knees and chest against her, so she could tell he was trying to lean his hips back to avoid pressing against her.

However, as she snapped the latex gloves on, he tried to readjust his footing and something ended up brushing against her ass. A significant something.

Her eyes froze on the blue lip of the faux-autopsy-table lunch tray laying in front of her as her brain quickly caught up to what her body instinctively recognized. Scully turned her head, too surprised at what she was feeling to acknowledge how close his face was.

Mulder was obviously aware of what caused her look and he smoothly deadpanned, "Oh, that was my penlight," acting as if their bodies touching so intimately was just a run of the mill occurrence.

"Oh," she murmured, turning back to the tray. "I thought a longstanding curiosity had just been satisfied," she replied, with feigned despondency before intaking a breath and widening her eyes.

"What an awfully big and warm penlight you have," was the response she wished she could have said.

Mulder moaned in appreciation low next to her ear and it sent shivers down her spine. The feeling of him pressed against her on top of his warm breath tickling her ear began to feel overwhelming, so she pulled back the sheet to kill the mood instantly.

IV - A Tease (S6)

A four hour stakeout? No problem. Six? Manageable. Ten? They were going insane.

It was one thing when they were on the X-Files. A stakeout then usually didn't last too long. But now under Kersh's orders, they were stuck with grunt work that was redundant and usually fruitless.

During the first time they'd endured this, Mulder had come up with some hairbrained twist on a children's game so they could pass the time. After a few rounds, it became perfectly clear that the game was just them asking questions back and forth, and they decided to just do that unabashedly. "You're my friend, Scully. I just want to know more about you. Why hide behind a game?" he smirked, bumping her leg with his.

After he'd said it, she was reminded of a night only a couple of years ago where Eddie Van Bluhndt had given her a similar sentiment. Mulder had just gone on and on about a potential X-File for hours before that, so she had no doubts that this was her Mulder in the flesh, but that made it a little more intimidating than it was back then. She knew he'd always harbored some anger towards what had happened with Eddie, not at her but at himself, and she had an inkling that this was an attempt at him doing what she'd inadvertently demonstrated she wanted.

It was initially awkward for them both, but at the end of the day - they truly did just want to learn more about each other.

However, this was now their third stakeout and they'd exhausted awkward high school stories and menial facts about themselves. She supposed it was that, plus the hours of boredom under their belts that led him down this line of questioning.

"What's your bra size?" he asked, shifting in the driver's seat while trying to find a good position.

His last question had been "When did you get your first fish?" so the abrupt topic change made her start in her seat.

Scully turned to him, and didn't see any traces of humor on his face. It was like he'd just asked what her shoe size was. "My bra size?" she repeated.

There it was. A little smile on his lips as the sides of his eyes crinkled with mirth. He turned to her, his smile widening when he didn't see any angry indignation on her face, and he replied, "Yeah."

If he was going to blame their exhaustion for his boldness, so could she. "Guess."

Without even looking he replied, "34B."

Her mouth dropped as she turned to him. "Cheater!"

He laughed and held up his hands. "How?" he asked in shocked amusement.

"How did you know, you didn't even look?" She knew it was stupid as soon as the statement left her mouth. Him not looking now was his way of subtly telling her he'd looked enough in the past to have it committed to memory.

He lowered his head ever so slightly closer to her and murmured, "I thought that would have been improper of me." Her eyes fluttered to the stubble coming through across his jaw and she was brought back by the shrug of his shoulders. "But, if you insist," he declared dramatically before letting his gaze fall to her chest.

She elbowed him playfully and chuckled as he mockingly rubbed his arm. "Ow, ow, okay. Your turn."

Feeling emboldened by his question, she decided she wanted to satisfy a curiosity of her own once and for all. "How big are you?"

"Six foot even," he replied innocently. He knew damn well what she meant and his cocky grin told her that he just wanted to hear her say it.

"No. How big is your…" she stumbled over word choice. Cock was vulgar, dick sounded childish, penis sounded clinical - what effect did she want to go for? "...cock," she settled on defiantly. The last word was slightly softer than the rest and she felt the friction of every consonant in the back of her throat as her mouth opened around the vowel. She'd never realized how, if said right, the word was like an oral invitation for the namesake.

His nostrils flared in response to her bold choice and a devilish gleam twinkled in his eye. She knew what he was going to do as soon as the smile erupted across his face. "Guess."

She swallowed thickly and turned her attention to the streetlamps littering the street, wanting to appear as indifferent as he had. "Well, from the glimpses I've seen over the years-" she started with a lilt.

"Glimpses?" he asked in surprise.

She turned to him with a coquettish smile and explained, "Mulder, I'm your doctor, and you're reckless. I've seen it all."

It was too dark to see fully, but if she could trust her eyes, he was blushing. "What's your verdict, Doc?"

"Six inches," she stated firmly.

He nodded amusedly and she was just about ready to gloat when he murmured, "Half right."

"Half right?" she replied quizzically.

He turned to her and smoothly told her, "You're assuming I'm a shower."

Bigger than six inches.

"Okay, okay," she mused. "Five inches flaccid, seven inches erect."

"Good guess," he smirked.

"But you said-"

He shifted in his seat and her attention was inadvertently drawn to the ever present mound in his lap. "Six inches flaccid, eight and a half erect," he replied.

She sat there stunned for a moment and was flustered when he waved his hand in front of her face and sang, "Earth to Scully."

"I don't believe you," she laughed breathlessly.

"Even about this?" he chuckled.

"Mulder, the average is five inches. Anything above eight is so rare," she explained, trying not to think about what he could do to her with that thing.

"Wanna see it?" he teased, undoing his belt.

Mulder was just joking. She knew that. But her gaze fell into his lap anyway, eagerly committing the image of his fingers deftly undoing his belt to memory. She couldn't find her voice to stop him, so she just sat there watching him.

When the anticipated words of 'Mulder' or 'stop' didn't happen, his hands faltered and he paused, watching her until she met his gaze while he held part of his undone belt in both hands. His eyes were curious, but there was a tint of something else. Something she only saw when she dreamed of him. "Scully?" his voice came out as a whisper.

A loud banging sound reverberated through the empty streets as a woman started screaming at the top of her lungs. "Shit," Scully swore, hopping out of the car as she ran towards the suspect fleeing the scene.

V - A Curiosity Satisfied (S7)

After coming to Los Angeles spur of the moment, following an unseen fear monster around for the entire night, watching multiple people die, and having to deal with infuriating pests following their every move with cameras - they were exhausted.

She'd been asleep in the car the entire time it took him to drive back to their shitty motel, and when he woke her up, it was only so she could reassure him they did everything they could and all but collapse face first into her mattress. The only thing she could physically muster up the energy to do was take off her shoes and coat.

However, her sleep was interrupted by Mulder's staggered breathing from the other room, more audible to her because their adjoining rooms were still open. It was common for Mulder to have nightmares, but there had been a definite spike because of the stress from the last few weeks.

It had become a bit of an unspoken pact as of late between them that if one of them was having a nightmare, the other would just sleep next to them. It was simple and innocent, just carnal comfort of having another person near.

Scully sniffed lightly as she pulled herself off the mattress, trying to shake her exhaustion away for long enough to get to him. She grabbed the warm pillow she'd been resting on and hugged it against her chest as she shuffled across the floor to the adjoining doorway.

Along with the staggered breathing, she could hear him grunting lightly. Her eyes were barely open, but her lip tugged downward in empathy. He'd just worked so hard and he can't even find solace in his dreams.

She made it to the doorway when her eyes registered more flesh than what she'd anticipated. Blinking the sight in front of her into view, she had to bite down on her lip to suppress a gasp.

Mulder was lying on his back, his boxers shoved around his knees, and he was pumping a massive erection with a vigorous fist.

Two. Two fists.

The sight alone was like a shot of adrenaline to her system and she felt a coiling in her gut. When he wasn't fucking his hands, he was using one to rub his precum over his head while the other fondled his balls. Mulder's face was contorted in pleasure, sweaty and flush, as his hips lifted off the bed.

Her feet felt like lead on the floor and she didn't know what to do. Go to him? Run away? Watch?

Mulder's breath continued to hitch as he continued his thrusts, but he was becoming erratic and she realized she was stumbling in at the tail end of it. She wasn't sure how long she'd just been asleep for, but Mulder had worked himself into a frenzy and he wasn't going to be able to hold it in for much longer.

She knew she should leave, but she didn't want to. She wanted to see Mulder in his most primal form. His eyes opened for a moment and she felt excitement run though her body like a shiver. Not fear. Not worry. She was excited at the idea of him knowing she was watching him.

But when his eyes opened, it was just to rip off the shirt he's been wearing and throw it to the floor, rolling over to grab a box of kleenex and setting it next to him on the bed before continuing.

His eyes fluttered shut as he resumed his frantic pace, his arms working so hard she could see the muscles in his biceps flexing. He looked so long and lean like this, wearing nothing but tangled boxers and arousal.

Mulder's mouth dropped open and she knew he was coming undone. His back arched off the bed as he ground himself into his hands, spurting thick lines of come all over his abdomen. Her groin felt heavy and swollen from her own arousal and the sight made her want to go over to him and beg him to finish her off. She was hugging the pillow she'd brought so tightly to her chest that she could feel her own heartbeat through it.

Mulder's breathing slowly started to return to normal as he grabbed some tissues and started cleaning himself up. It took a few wipes, but once he was done, he lifted his hips and gently eased his boxers over his hips.

Not wanting to be caught, as quietly as she could, she tiptoed back into her room and into her own bed. Now it was her turn for her breathing to turn erratic. Scully could hear Mulder's sheets shifting around, presumably from him trying to get comfortable.

Deciding that it was unlikely he'd get up and mimic what she just did, she let her hand slide down her abdomen and under the elastic of her underwear as she thought about the best eight and a half inches she'd ever seen.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Other finished “Countdown” parts

10 times Mulder and Scully were as intimate as a couple

6 times Mulder saw Scully in her underwear

4 times they got a little too close

#x files #my fanfiction #gaycrouton #mulder #scully #msr #smutish #x files fanfic

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patandpran · 4 years

Text

The question of the Jersey

This is a Sarawatine fic that I wrote back in March that I thought I wore share on here too since Still 2gether is coming up so quickly!

When Sarawat asks Tine to wash his jersey for him, Tine starts to question the implications of what seems like a simple and harmless request.

Featuring: Tine's meddling friends, Oblivious Tine, Pining Sarawat and a sea of jealous #TeamSarawatwives

“Just wash it for me, okay?”

Those has been Sarawat’s simple instructions before leaving his soccer jersey in Tine’s hands. Tine was perplexed at the request but everything going on between him and Sarawat was confusing lately, so this wasn’t exactly an isolated incident.

Before he could object, Sarawat was walking away from Tine shirtless, and returning to his faculties side of the soccer field. Tine watched as Sarawat sauntered across the field, his muscles shifting as he moved. Tine couldn’t help but be somewhat mesmerized by the movement, as if he was watching the statue of David come to life and moving across the turf.

Tine was shaken from his close examination of Sarawat’s shoulder muscles by the screams of his fellow cheerleaders, likely appreciating the same view as he was - but for a different reason, obviously.

“I hope our faculties play against each more often.” He heard one of the girls say which caused him to roll his eyes.

Sarawat always had that effect on girls, no matter how little effort he put in. Tine had to bend over backward to even get a girl to smile at him and often it was more of a sympathetic smile than an interested one. Tine shook his head in jealousy of Sarawat’s command over the opposite sex.

“Whoa.” One of the cheerleader’s approached Tine and inspected what was cradled in his arms. “Is that Sarawat’s soccer jersey?”

Quickly, Tine was surrounded by a swarm of female cheerleaders. He couldn’t help but love the attention but was disappointed to know that it was, once again, connected back to his ‘fake boyfriend’, Sarawat.

“Uh, yah.” Tine muttered, trying to be as casual as possible. “He just wants me to wash it for him. I owe him a favour for him helping me with my guitar chords.”

Tine felt a hand fall down onto his shoulder, “I’ll give you 2500 baht for it.”

“What?!?” Tine blurted out in complete shock. “Why would you pay money for a dirty soccer jersey? Are you insane?”

“I’ll give you 3000 for it.” One of his senior’s stepped in front of him, a hungry look in her eyes.

Tine suddenly felt very claustrophobic. As much as he would love some extra cash to weigh down his pockets, he wasn’t about to sell of his friend’s jersey just to make some extra coin. What was so great about a soccer jersey anwyay? He knew that Sarawat’s fans were intense but he didn’t quite realize to what lengths they might go to get their hands on one of his possessions.

“Hey! I think I see Sarawat over there!” Tine pointed over the sea of #Teamsarawatwives members that he didn’t realize made up most his cheerleading team. “He looks thirsty. Maybe someone should bring him some water?”

The women surrounding Tine turned suddenly as if on the attack. They moved swiftly across the soccer field, like a swarm of bees, to stalk their prey. Tine took the opportunity to quickly snatch up his things and escape. He would have to apologize to Sarawat later for the sudden ambush.

Clutching the soccer jersey tightly in his hands, Tine made his escape back to his dorm, still dumbfounded as to why a worn soccer jersey had inspired so much hysteria.

*******************

A knock fell upon Tine’s dorm room door and he sat up from his with a panicked gasp. It was the morning after the soccer jersey exchange and he was still on high alert. He eyed Sarawat’s soccer jersey that he had cleaned the evening before and quickly shoved it under his pillow, worrying that word might have spread about the jersey’s whereabouts and that an insane fan might be right outside of his door.

He crept silently toward the door and cursed the fact that none of the dorm’s doors had eyeholes to be able to peek through to see if it was safe to answer it. Tine took a deep breath as another urgent knock fell upon the door.

Tine swung it open and was relieved as his trio of friends stumbled into the room. Phuak, Fong and Ohm entered his room and took up their usual posts around his bed. Ohm, without hesitation, grabbed Tine’s computer and quickly propped it open.

“And to what do I owe this lovely visit so early in the morning?” Tine asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Considering our classes don’t start for hours….”

“Have you not looked at your phone this morning?” Fong asked, flicking Tine in the head.

“I was getting my beauty sleep.” Tine retorted, striking a ‘model’ pose.

“I see that didn’t help improve your ‘beauty’ at all.” Phuak responded quickly, a devilish smirk on his lips. “You’re still ugly.”

Tine grabbed a pillow and chucked it at Phuak’s head but his friend dodged it easily. Ohm clearly his throat to bring his friend’s attention back to the matter at hand. “At 7PM last night, there was a report in the #TeamSarawatwives group that Sarawat’s soccer jersey had changed hands to a ‘average looking cheerleader’ from the law faculty. While efforts had been made by the members of the group, the jersey, in question, disappeared quickly from the scene when a visual distraction was made by the male cheerleader.”

Tine’s head began to hurt. “Why are people so obsessed with this stupid jersey? I really don’t get what the big deal is. I washed it and I’m going to it back to him. He was just trying to tease me and make a scene in front of the cheerleaders to embarrass me.”

Phuak, Ohm and Fong exchanged a look of disappointment and amusement at their friend’s response. Tine didn’t understand why everyone was putting so much weight on such a mundane situation. “Do you seriously not know what it means when a soccer player gives someone their jersey?” Ohm asked, his voice dripping with judgment and pity for his friend.

“It means that they are abusing their fake boyfriend privileges to make someone else do their laundry!” Tine objected, slamming his fists down on his mattress in frustration.

“No, man. You seriously are the most oblivious person I know.” Fong shook his head, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “It’s an old faculty tradition, kind of like when engineering students give people their gears? Soccer players give their jerseys to the people they want to pursue.”

“Pursue?” Tine’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Like, be friends with?”

Phuak groaned and threw the pillow back at Tine’s head. “No, you idiot! Like pursue romantically! Sarawat wants you to wear the jersey so people know that you belong to him. He wants people to know that he likes you.”

Tine’s cheeks started to burn. “I…. no. There’s no way. This must be something he’s doing to throw Green off. It must be part of the plan to get people to think we’re dating. He’s probably going to call me or text me sometime this morning to explain himself.”

“Was Green at the cheerleading practice yesterday?” Fong asked. “Has Green been around at all lately? Why would Sarawat make such a public claim if the very person that you are trying to convince is nowhere in the immediate vicinity? Plus, he’s risking his status with his fans with such a bold move.”

Tine felt his hear rate speeding up as he became increasingly anxious based on his friend’s accusations. “Sarawat probably knew it would blow up on IG. That’s why he made such a big public gesture.”

“You are seriously so blind, aren’t you?” Ohm closed the laptop and set it aside. “Don’t you see how he looks at you? I don’t think I have ever seen him focus that intently on anything before unless its sheet music.”

Tine absentmindedly reaches for the jersey and pulls it into his lap. Again, his three friends share a look between them at the movement as Tine’s mind raced as he silently processed what felt like new information. But as he truly thought about Ohm’s words, Tine wondered if this was something he was forcing himself to be blind to.

“It kind of seems like this is not an entirely foreign possibility to you too.” Fong shared gently and nodded his head toward the jersey in Tine’s grasp. “No matter what is going on, Tine, we are here to support you and help you figure this all out.”

“You might be right.” Tine expressed and was just as surprised as his friends as the words left his lips. “He tried to tell me who he liked the other night and I just got this feeling. I tried to ignore until now but maybe… maybe I shouldn’t.”

“Sarawat is an awesome guy.” Ohm answered enthusiastically. “There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s taking this whole thing seriously. He’s not trying to make a joke of you… If anything, he’s trying to prove himself to you.”

Tine let out a breath of relief. “Thanks guys. I think I just need some time alone to think through all this.”

Phuak, Fong and Ohm took this as their signal to leave. Each gave their own gesture of farewell before leaving Tine with his thoughts.

*****************

The first irrational thing that Tine did after his conversation with his friend was invite Sarawat over to retrieve his jersey. The second irrational thing that Tine did was put Sarawat’s soccer jersey on underneath the sweater he was wearing. The third irrational thing that Tine did was answer the door as soon as Sarawat knocked on it.

Tine swung the door open, prepared to say the words that he had practiced over and over again fore the past few hours, but as soon as his gaze fellow upon Sarawat’s, the words fell from his mouth and only silence remained.

Sarawat, the man of few words, therefore was forced to fill the silence. “Hey.”

Tine still couldn’t find his rational thought so he just opened the door further and gestured inside his dorm. Sarawat slid past him and Tine couldn’t but feel the urge to pull Sarawat into a hug. Thankfully, he resisted and Sarawat made his way into the door and found his usual post at the edge of Tine’s bed.

“Did you wash the jersey?” Sarawat asked, spying the basket full of folded clean laundry near Tine’s bed.

Tine wandered into the bedroom after Sarawat, feeling his ears burn at the question. Tine kept his distance between them by leaning on the doorframe. He wanted so desperately to play it cool like he usually did around Sarawat but things had changed so quickly over night.

“Helloooo?” Sarawat smirked as he waved in Tine’s direction. “Usually I can never get a word in but you aren’t saying a word.”

Tine swallowed slowly and tried to collect himself, feeling the soccer jersey brush again his chest. Sarawat suddenly stood up from the bed, a look of concern on his face as he advanced toward Tine who breathed in quickly.

Sarawat placed the back of his hand on Tine’s forehead. “Are you not feeling well? Do you have a fever? You feel warm and your cheeks are flushed. I can go get some medicine.”

It suddenly became abundantly clear to Tine how much Sarawat genuinely cared for him. He felt like a complete idiot for not seeing it before now and his heart broke at the look of desperation in Sarawat’s eyes.

“No, no I’m fine.” Tine reached up and grasped Sarawat’s hand in his, moving their hands down so they rested against his chest. “Can you feel that?”

Sarawat looked at Tine with a mix of fascination and confusion. His voice came out as barely a a whisper. “Feel what?”

“My heart.” Tine expressed, unsure of where the words he had planned so meticulously had gone and been replaced by this much more serious script.

“Not really.” Sarawat murmured, looking completely transfixed. Tine shuddered at the realization of how much power he held over Sarawat.

“This might help.” Tine guided Sarawat’s hand underneath the sweater so that it rested upon the smooth material of the soccer jersey.

The intimacy of the gesture did not go unnoticed by both Sarawat and Tine. Sarawat breathed out slowly, “Your heart is racing.”

“I just wanted to share that with you.” Tine moved his face closer to Sarawat’s boldly. “Because of how open you have with me about how you feel…”

Sarawat’s breath hitched suddenly and he pulled away from Tine. He turned away toward the window and Tine hoped that he hand’t just made the biggest mistake of his life. What if his friends were wrong? What if Sarawat didn’t like him? What if he misread all of this and ruined their friendship forever?

Slowly, Sarawat turned back to face Tine. “Sorry. I’m just….”

Tine couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He needed to know. He needed to know if what his heart was telling him was true. He needed to know the truth of how Sarawat felt for him. He needed to know what all this meant.

In one swift move, Tine closed the distance between him and Sarawat and pressed his lips to Sarawat’s.

At first, Sarawat was completely still, as if in shock. Tine quickly began to panic but instead decided to trust his instincts and brought his hands up to cradle the back of Sarawat’s neck and head. He deepened the kiss and the answer of his own feelings was quickly clarified.

If Sarawat wanted him, Tine was his.

Sarawat brought his hands up to Tine’s waist and pulled them flush together so Tine could feel Sarwat’s own heartbeat mirroring his own. The kiss lasted a few more heavy breaths before Sarwat pulled back.

“You’re wearing it.” He said breathlessly, a shy smirk on his deep red lips as he lifted up Tine’s sweater to reveal the soccer jersey.

A blush quickly spread across Tine’s face. “I just wanted to make it clear that I agree… and just so you know, there’s no way you’re getting this back anytime soon.”

“That is just fine with me.” Sarawat dropped a quick peck on Tine’s cheek. “You shouldn’t ever take it off.”

“You never want me to take this off?” A grin spread across Tine’s lips. “I’m surprised that you don’t want to see what’s underneath this…”

“All in good time.” Sarawat responded. “For now, I’m just happy for people to know what is mine.”

And that was all the answer that Tine needed.

#2gether #2gether the series #sarawatine #Brightwin #bright vachirawit #win metawin #tine x sarawat #thai bl #gmmtv #my writing #2gether fanfic #still 2gether

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stellarcat52 · 4 years

Text

Timeless blue chapter 5(edit)

Set my soul on fire. I fought writer’s block and still half-lost. It’s still kinda crappy but hey. Setting up comforting moments of Krel/Douxie in the next chapter which oh boy will take a while to figure out.

Hisirdoux had gotten Krel before getting the others, Krel was feeling somewhat better after what Hisirdoux believed was a night of rest. The prince had honestly been awake all night, something had been bugging him. He had been adding notes to the alchemy book until sunrise, trying not to focus on the strange feeling in his chest.

The group saw no difference in him, fatigue didn’t show, he didn’t bring it up, in fact he didn’t really talk to anyone but Hisirdoux. Douxie found this quite confusing while overhearing their whispers because Krel insisted on referring to both of them as Douxie.

Krel had to be asked personally to join them. Douxie almost asked Archie to steal the alchemy book that Krel was trying to use as an excuse to stay behind.

“Listen,” Krel stooped his grumbling, following behind Douxie on their way through the castle. “I... remember bits of what happened last night, with my past self and you. You’re not alone, and-“ Douxie fades off as Steve’s ramblings of monster trophies gets clearer.

The way there, and after setting up a campfire and such, Krel was mostly reading and marking down things still. Not even Merlin would be able to pry his focus away from it at this point.

“Do you really think Merlin’s plan will work?” Claire and Douxie were talking, on the opposite side of the small ship.

Douxie fumbled a bit with the time map. “We’ve run out of options, and my choices haven’t exactly been working recently.” Krel tensed nearby. “We cannot make any more mistakes. We’ll just have to trust Merlin this time.”

Claire sighs, “I just hope Jim made it out okay.”

Douxie responds with something that makes Steve laugh as they get closer to the cave entrance, and Krel was ready to hit himself. Douxie had apologized, Hisirdoux had helped him, and he was still blaming Douxie for bringing them to the past. Not because Douxie fought with him, not because Hisirdoux had originally bothered him, but because he was stuck in an unfamiliar place and time, and he blamed Douxie despite it not being the apprentice’s fault.

They had entered, while Merlin was speaking to Claire about shadow magic, Krel and Archie had very similar reactions to hearing what Steve’s swimsuit was.

“Blegh. Why does Aja like you?” Keel muttered, the first words he had spoken out loud during the trip itself.

Steve puffed or his chest. “I’m her blond oaf in shining armor. What’s not to like?”

“I could name a few.” Claire adds, rolling her eyes, but smiling.

“We’ve arrived.” Merlin announced.

Claire gasped in wonder. “The lady of the lake is real? I thought she was just a myth!”

“Oh, no. The lady of te lake is very much real.” Douxie pauses. “Though, only Merlin’s allowed to meet with her. Well... ‘Till now.”

“Because her power is beyond your comprehension.” Archie jumped up and flew around the cave. “It is from her waters I originally helped Arthur retrieve Excalibur.”

The group steps up to see a set of faced doors. Krel hangs back a little as Merlin takes the sword, and announces that he is to go inside alone. Krel zones out and tension fills the space void of his focus.

“I won’t just sit here without making things right!” Douxie knocks Krel out of his daze as Merlin opens the doors.

A blue hand lightly grabs the wizard’s shoulder. “Douxie.” Their eyes meet without anger or uncomfortable unsteadiness for the first time in a while. “Maybe this isn’t your place to fix things. Merlin knows what he’s doing, I’m sure it will be fine.”

Douxie pauses, and turns back to the doors well after they’ve closed. “Merlin’s magic is uncrackable, we won’t be able to get in now.” His tone isn’t accusing, not blaming Krel for holding him back, but just informing the others.

“Well,” Archie flies over and perched on Douxie’s other shoulder as Krel’s hand drops. “At least we won’t have to see Steve’s birthday suit.”

Douxie smiles and pets his familiar before the words “Too late” leave Steve’s lips. Archie extends a wing in front of Douxie’s eyes and covers his own. Krel decides not to turn around for a while, so he’s left facing Douxie, who eventually does look out from under Archie’s wing.

“Does this mean you don’t hate me?” Douxie still wasn’t looking up, probably due to the fact they didn’t know Steve was no longer in his birthday suit, but also because he didn’t want to meet Krel’s eyes again.

“I-“ Krel inhales. “I should’ve been the one to apologize. I was mad at you for something that you didn’t cause.”

“Oh.” Douxie glances up, but obviously doesn’t like what he sees behind Krel, which is Claire covering her eyes and quietly threatening Steve for good reason. “So.. we’re good now?” He extends a hand, which is met with a handshake.

“Yes.”

They stand in silence for another few seconds before moving. Claire was now glaring at Steve, but his visual was no longer mentally scarring.

They set up a camp, starting a fire with help from Archie and wondering how long it would take for Merlin to get Excalibur fixed.

Krel found it amusing that Steve was attempting to talk the doors open. Merlin had used magic, the only one there with a chance of opening the doors was Douxie. The doors commentary ruined the entertainment by causing Steve to open up about his stress.

“Well he needs a therapist.” Krel commented.

Douxie and Claire start talking about shadow magic, it’s danger, and how they could use it to get inside. Krel was reading over his notes, and using the blank pages to write down what he was hearing from their talk.

He clicks back into the conversations as Douxie convinces Claire to try, not hiding the laughter the comment on not being a good student brought.

He watched Douxie walk Claire through the steps, the portal appearing, Claire disappearing, and as she returned a strange uneasiness lingered around her.

They got their way in, after Claire, Steve and Archie had entered, Douxie looked back to the akiridion. “You coming Krel?”

“Yeah.” Krel stepped in cautiously, grabbing onto Douxie as the darkness encased them both.

Douxie hopped out after the others, taking in as much of the new cavern as he could. Claire, Steve, and Archie seemed to be doing the same thing. Krel on the other hand, was not to be seen. Douxie felt his touch lingering on his arm, he glanced back to where the portal had been.

“Did we leave Krel behind?” Claire pointed out what Douxie had also noticed.

The wizard shook his head. “No. He grabbed onto me as we entered.”

The group was still looking around for Krel when the raft appeared, knocking eerily up against shore.

“Maybe Krel went back, changed his mind?” Claire suggested.

“Yeah, he probably chickened out because he knew he would just get in the way of me saving the day.”

Douxie didn’t see another positive theory, so he agreed. “We need to fix Excalibur.”

They step into the raft, although hesitant to do so without their blue friend.

———

Krel hadn’t meant to let go of Douxie, but this sensation of not being on earth was one unfamiliar to him. Every planet felt different to him, and where he was didn’t feel like anything. It was a void, it was terrifying.

It was what he imagined dying to be like. No form, but conscience ruled everything.

But there was form, rocks, asteroids maybe, moving around him. He could move, his body was no longer blue, but he could move. Ghostly gray limbs helped propel himself out of the paths of the boulders. He looked at his now-changed body, and saw a blue core inside his chest, as if he actually was a ghost.

Between the floating rocks, Morgana’s body, visibly darker than what Krel had seen of her while alive, was watched by an unfamiliar trollish figure. The figure did not notic Krel as he seems to speak to Morgana. His eyes didn’t even linger anywhere but the sorcerous’ corpse. However, Morgana’s unnaturally dark eyes were fixed on a spot beyond the closer rocks.

Keel floated away, propelling himself as if he were swimming in the direction Morgana had been staring. He glances back once to see three dots of color come into view, one green, one blue, and one red.

He continues fleeing.

Quickly, three figures come into view, each with their own colored tint, Douxie, Claire, and Archie.

The trio seemed to be fighting, Archie was breathing fire, Claire was holding onto something for stability, and Douxie was glowing, indicating magic. As Archie stopped, Douxie put his hands up, bearing a great weight with his magic, and threw something back at their attacker. Merlin and Steve entered his sight, landing on ground Krel could not see.

And then Claire and Douxie were talking, confusion and anger mixed between the two and an unseen entity. Douxie three Excalibur up, te sword having its own faint aura, and it was hit by magic, and flew out of view.

They were talking again, and then Excalibur returned, fully fixed, and glowing a very bright green.

Krel reached forwards, the group seemed to have finished their talking, and their fighting, and he saw them celebrating. Until one word firmly appeared on Douxie’s lips.

“Krel.”

The akiridion couldn’t hear them in this void, but his name is something that resonates through his very core. Something everyone who has ever meant anything to him said. Not “the prince” “your highness” “king in waiting”, but Krel.

His fingers grazed Douxie’s arm, trying to communicate, “Hi, I’m right here” and being met with a set of almost-gold eyes meeting his.

The others of the group backed up, with an exception of Merlin, and he saw the glows of each person fade. A bubbling sensation covers his body, fading as te others start looking at him in wonder and confusion rather than fear.

Krel looked down, his arms and legs were less transparent, but his skin was still gray and he could still feel a strange presence in his core.

“Shadow magic.” Merlin grumbled.

“Magic? Magic!” Douxie’s eyes lit up, grinning as Krel let that sink in.

It wasn’t the magic Krel wanted, it was terrifying, it wasn’t like Douxie’s and he couldn’t control it like Claire.

It was still magic. “Lets go home, we can figure this out at the room.”

His unenthusiastic tone dimmed Douxie’s light, but the group agreed it was time to go back to Camelot.

And time to explain what was really happening to Krel, as he wasn’t quite sure.

———

Krel laughed at the description of the lady, “I would not call that a lady on this planet. Maybe on one I have not visited, but not here.”

“Yeah, how many planets have you visited?” Douxie and Krel stood next to each other, and although he was still off from the void, he was smiling as they talked in their own little world. They spent the trip talking, ignoring Claire, who was practicing making portals, and Steve’s wonderstruck protectiveness over his “monster trophy”.

Archie took perch on the edge of the boat instead of Douxie’s shoulder, he liked seeing his wizard happy, and did not want to ruin the moment.

Part four

#douxie x krel #timeless blue fic #krel x douxie #krelxie #drel #toa wizards #tales of arcadia #krel is not a shadow mage #spoiler hes a magic sponge #void spy krel #i wanna make his serrator his staff

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redrobinhoods · 3 years

Text

illicit affairs | Chapter 1, Buzzcut Season

AO3 Link | 4,000 words (approx) | Chapter 2

Story Summary: Commander Fox thought that his only love would be the Republic. He certainly never thought that a small blue senator would change that. But if the Republic wants to make him a martyr, it should be for something he believes in.

“They can’t do that.”

“I’m afraid they can.”

“I won’t let them.” Fox shook his head incredulously and Thire bit back a laugh.

“I don’t think you have the authority to do that, sir.” The Chancellor had made the request himself.

“We have a perfectly fine atrium here-”

“Sir, there’s still blast marks on the wall from the bounty hunters.”

“- I don’t know why we need to host it in the Galactic Museum. Do you know how many sniper perches there are in just the main hall?”

Thire thought back to the holomap he had been looking at five minutes prior, before Fox had commed him in practical hysterics. “Last I checked it was seventeen.”

“Seventeen.” Fox slammed his hand down on the device before him and a holomap of the Galactic Museum flicked to life before them. Thire noted that some light renovations had been done in one of the exhibition rooms, he would have to adjust his current plan. “Seventeen perches in one hall and they want to take over the entire museum.”

“I’m sure that the 501st would donate some of their ARCs to our cause if you asked.”

“Thire, I’m considering it.” Fox groaned and leaned into his hands. “At this point we may as well comm Cody’s Bad Batch.” He’d heard that they’d ended up with one of the 501st’s ARC Troopers and had an expert marksman on the team. But any of them would have different uniforms than the Guard and the Chancellor had been prioritizing the Guard’s visual conformity as of late.

“You two do remember that we have authority over both the Senate Guard and the Red Guard, right?” Commander Stone walked in without knocking, carrying three mugs of caf. “Spread out the Senate Guard and our boys equally around the rooms and have a detachment of Red Guard at each of the entrances and around the Chancellor.”

“Yes, but the Senate Guard is incompetent and corrupt at best.” Thire gratefully accepted a mug from Stone.

“So are the senators.” Fox scoffed as he accepted the other mug from Stone. “Name an honest senator off the top of your head that’s not part of the Delegation of the Two-thousand, not that all of them are honest either.”

“Representative Jar Jar Binks of course.” Stone grinned as he leaned against the back of Fox’s chair.

“First, he’s not a senator. Second, don’t get me started, Stone.” Fox sighed and took a long sip of his caf, looking into it as if the answers would swirl to the surface. “We’ll mobilize the Blue and Red Guards. Thire, get me the optimal force placement by tomorrow morning. Stone, prep the bomb squad and get Sergeant Hound up to date. I want him on site. I’ll inform the Chancellor.”

“Another thing, Fox.” Stone brought out a holopad that he’d had tucked under his arm. “Chairman Papanoida has requested an additional security detail for the Pantoran Senator at this event.”

“Senator Chuchi, again?” Thire shook his head in amazement. “She’s going to give Amidala a run for her credits. Have you met the senator, Fox?”

“I’m about to. I’ll take three of the men and lead the security detail myself.” Fox took the holopad from Stone and placed it by his helmet on the desk.

“You’ll like her, she’s the one that dropped off those sweets last month.” Stone said, rising from the back of Fox’s chair. “Brilliant young woman, prime target for assassination.”

“I’m familiar with her file, Stone.” Fox closed the holomap and rose from his chair, followed shortly by Thire. “Let’s get this shit-show on the road.”

“Don’t let the Chancellor hear you call his gala a shit-show.” Thire said.

Fox shrugged. “Fine. Poodoo-parade.”

---

The members of the Coruscant Guard were fond of Senator Riyo Chuchi. She had always been nice to them, looked at them-not past them- when walking in the Senate halls, and took the time to remember their names and greet them. Commander Thorn had spoken very highly of her to Fox. But Thorn wasn’t here anymore. While Thire had risen to the occasion of his promotion, Fox was still grieving Thorn’s loss. The entire Guard was grieving all the brothers they had lost on Scipio. An entire squad, all because of one man. But that was how Fox ended up running the senatorial detail for Senator Chuchi. Thorn had usually been the one running the show on all protection details, but while Thire was adjusting to his heightened responsibility Fox had taken over some of Thorn’s duties.

Few senators would’ve been able to pick out the commander of the Coruscant Guard out of a line-up. Impressive, given that his was now the only truly unique armor in the Guard. Of course they’d heard about him, how could they have not? He was the most highly decorated clone trooper in the GAR. But the names and faces of clone troopers didn’t come easily to non-clones. That is why Commander Fox was surprised to be approached by an unfamiliar face as he walked from the offices of the Coruscant Guard to that of the Chancellor.

“Commander Fox?”

Fox looked up from the holopad that he used to avoid eye contact with the senators. “Ma’am?”

“Senator Riyo Chuchi, Commander.” She held out her hand and he took it. “I heard that you will be leading my security detail this weekend.”

“You heard correctly, Senator. Though very quickly.” Did he need to check his office for bugs? It had been two days since the last scan. Perhaps that was too long.

“I just passed Commander Stone.” She smiled softly and Fox understood why all of his guardsmen were charmed by her. He had been told that his and many of his brother’s eyes were golden in the right light, but her eyes were downright gold. He felt his breath catch in his throat and was glad that she couldn’t see his look of wonder through the mask. Fortunately, his training prepared him for high-stress situations, and he was able to regain his composure quickly.

“Of course, our local chatterbox.”

She chuckled. “Really?”

“No.” He smiled, and though she couldn’t see it he felt that his body language probably conveyed it to her. If she could remember the names of his men, then surely she could read their body language through the helmets.

She laughed again, then turned her eyes down. “I’m very sorry, but I must be on my way.” She looked up into the black visor of his helmet. “I look forward to seeing you this weekend, Commander Fox.” Then she was off before Fox could respond. Suddenly, the gala was not entirely a poodoo-parade, but a rather enticing event. It was Fox’s job to protect the citizens of Coruscant, but he had never really wanted to protect someone until now. He suddenly understood why beings owned pets or had children. He had now only known Senator Chuchi for a few fleeting moments, but he would give anything to ensure her safety. He didn’t set off again until her retreating figure was no longer visible in the crowd.

---

“How’s the crap-carnival going, Commander?” Jek asked as soon as the door closed behind Fox.

“It’s going well, Jek. Thank you very much for volunteering for Senator Chuchi’s security detail.”

“You ran into her didn’t you, Fox?” Thire was where he had been when Fox left. In the corner of the main office-space in front of a holomap of the Galactic Museum. Fox noted that it was now the updated one.

“Are you also volunteering, Commander Thire?”

“What did you think?” Thire leaned forward onto the table before him, eyes on Fox. Every guardsman in the room turned to look at their commanding officer. Fox look around at them and said nothing. “So, you too would throw yourself in front of a blaster bolt for her.” A light laugh, quickly stifled, broke out across the room. One of the men couldn’t muffle his laughter in time and found himself fixed by the blank stare of Fox’s helmet.

“Shut up, Thire. And thank you, Impulse, for volunteering. Thire you may surrender your position to another volunteer at any time if your presence is required elsewhere.”

“With all due respect, sir. I wouldn’t miss this for the galaxy.” Fox knew that it would be something that Thire was more comfortable with. Thire had yet to command event security and starting off with the entire Senate body was a little too much. Two commanders for a single senator’s security detail may have been overkill, but at least it would put them both on the floor.

The next few days were a blur. Commander Stone was placed in charge of event security, and while Commander Thire was part of Senator Chuchi’s detail he was also placed in charge of watching the floor. The Guard was rearranged, with more senior members being moved to the gala detail and more junior members being shuffled to fill the vacant positions for the time being. This was one of the upsides of the Chancellor’s new uniform rules. With an identical body they could rearrange themselves however they wished, and no one would know the difference. Thire, who had stuck with his regulation uniform despite the promotion, found it to be very convenient. He was becoming a fast favorite of the Chancellor, and the ability to swap himself in and out with his men as he pleased was agreeable to him. He still found it so even as he lined up with Jek and Impulse as they waited for Fox to finalize the Chancellor’s final security briefing. Without knowing his name or CT number, he looked like just another trooper in the detail. Tonight, it would allow him to run security on the senator and get a better feeling for the room than Fox would be able to, considering how his inverted armor would stand out from the trio of white. Though Fox would have a greater intimidation factor than he would. Altogether, Thire doubted that something could go wrong in the next few hours.

---

Riyo stepped back from the mirror to cast a final look over her appearance. Padme had been the one to pick out her dress, a full length light blue gown that fell over her skin in soft pillows of fabric. The folds that appeared to be formfitting concealed thick plates of body armor that covered her torso. Very practical, very Padme. Riyo tucked a stray hair back behind her ear, not that it would matter after the speeder ride to the gala, and ensured that she’d grabbed the right tube of dark purple lipstick for her purse. She felt very regal.

Her doorbell chimed.

Checking over the contents of her purse one last time, she nearly ran to answer the door. Opening it she found four clones standing before her.

“Commander Fox, Commander Thire, Impulse, and I’m not sure I’ve ever caught your name.”

“Jek, ma’am.”

“Nice to meet you, Jek.” She stepped out of the door, closing it behind her before setting off towards the apartment complex landing platform. “Thank you all for your protection. I believe that Chairman Papanoida is merely being paranoid, but I feel much safer with you here.”

“Always a pleasure, Senator.” Said Thire, falling behind her in the escort. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you look stunning tonight.”

She giggled. “Thank you, Commander. I didn’t know that clones ever considered looks.”

“You wouldn’t know if you only knew Fox, ma’am.” Jek said, looking to the right at his commander. “He’s regulation cut, a good boy. No tattoos or fancy hair.”

Fox looked left at Jek. “Tattoos are the mark of a clone with too much spare time. Are you trying to tell me you’re bored, Jek? I can pass that on to the janitorial staff if you like. You wouldn’t imagine the things that they find in bathrooms. Could be useful to have a Guard member on the team.”

“With all due respect, sir. I’d rather lick the ground of the Undercity.”

From behind Riyo, Impulse spoke up. “I’m sure the commander could arrange that too! He could prepare your medical papers ahead of time.”

Riyo shuddered, though she was still grinning. Maybe having an escort for the night wouldn’t be as boring as she thought. “I’m sure medical would be preferable to cleaning up after one of Senator Orn Free Taa’s parties.”

Fox scoffed. “No comment.”

When they reached the speeder, Jek was the first one in. He held out his hand to Riyo and she took it, accepting the boost up into the vehicle. Impulse immediately followed her and the two clones took a seat on each side of her in the middle row. Thire and Fox still stood next to the speeder, and she watched Fox take off his helmet and hand it over to Thire before he ducked under the vehicle.

Thire caught her stare. “Additional anti-theft devices, ma’am. Makes placing undercarriage bombs harder, but you also have to turn the damn thing off.”

“Does the benefit outweigh the trouble, Commander?”

Fox popped back up, running a hand through his regulation hair, loosening a few curls. “Not at all, Senator.” She took in his face. As Jek had said, he had no tattoos, visible ones at least, but a few white lines of scar tissue crossed his throat. He looked tired. Fox took his helmet back from Thire and vaulted over the speeder door into the driver’s seat, taking a drink of water from a small canteen at his hip before putting his helmet back on. Thire sat behind her, facing backwards. Shielded on all sides, she relaxed. She had a feeling that the commander of the Coruscant Guard was what many beings called a ‘defensive driver’.

“Buckle up or be bucked.” Jek kicked the back of Fox’s chair lightly.

“That was one time.” Fox mumbled, pulling off the landing pad to join the lanes of air traffic.

“One time?” Riyo exclaimed.

“I saw our target and went for him, Senator. I assumed that any of my men would have the good mind to buckle up before going on a high-speed chase for a bounty hunter.”

“I almost died, Fox.”

“But you didn’t.” Fox made a sound as if he was going to say more, then turned his attention back to the traffic.

“Commander Thorn saved me, grabbed my ankle just in time.” Jek mumbled, the helmet vocabulator barely picking up the sound.

“I heard about Scipio, I’m sorry for your loss. He was a good man.” Riyo remembered him as the man who had once fully taken over her apartment with troopers after a threat on her life and personally installed security sensors on all her windows and doors. She’d ended up sleeping on the couch that night while he secured her bedroom. Afterwards, she had run into him often in the Senate halls, and always with a crack about how her window frame had never been the same.

Fox sighed. “He was the best of us.”

Thire was the first one out of the vehicle when they arrived at the Galactic Museum, followed shortly by Impulse and Riyo. She gratefully accepted his hand as she exited the speeder, heels and speeders never seemed to get along, and was followed shortly afterwards by Jek and Fox.

“You know the drill, Senator Chuchi. Enjoy your evening and pretend that we’re not watching your every move.”

“Thank you, Commander. I have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy your company tonight.”

The gala was a beautiful event. Held in honor of the founding of the Republic, all of the Senators and well-to-do of the city had been invited. Riyo spotted many beings who she knew only by name or by reputation amongst the crowd. She was not the only one with an escort, and she found a little comfort in that she wouldn’t stand out for being accompanied by the clones. Though the clones themselves stood out. She caught more than one being staring at the red-armor commander at her right side, and she couldn’t help a small twinge of jealousy. She wondered if she could convince one of the boys to dance with her. Perhaps not Thire or Impulse, they seemed busy scanning the floor for threats, but she was sure that Jek wouldn’t mind and she wondered if she could even convince Commander Fox to take her out on the floor. Then she realized how much she would stand out for dancing with a clone, red or white, and how that could negatively impact their positions in the Coruscant Guard. Many of the beings here were the type that didn’t like to be reminded of the humanity of the clones and she didn’t want to bring their outbursts down on her companions. She stuck to the edges of the rooms instead, where she could find many more senators who were not comfortable with mingling with the rich in the middle of the floor. Here she found solace in discussing some of the exhibits with those she considered to be her allies in the Senate, and occasionally with the clones if she noticed something intriguing in passing. They wouldn’t speak to her unprompted but would gladly respond when spoken to.

Towards the end of the night the crowds thinned out and she and her escort walked freely through even the middle of the rooms.

“There was an exhibit on the ice formations of Hoth that I would like to see again. Would that be suitable, Commander Fox?”

“Yes, ma’am. If you take a right before the mock mythosaur there is a shortcut that we can take if it pleases you.” Of course he knew the layout.

She weaved her way through the remaining guests, noting that it was mostly senators in this room, and passed through the small passage that Fox had recommended. This hall, Natural Formations of Wonder, was mostly empty save for a small crowd gathering around the volcanic glass from Mustafar. Across the room, there was a temperature-controlled case containing the formations she wanted to see.

“I didn’t see ice until I was thirteen, you know.” She spoke as they crossed the room. “Pantora is marshy by nature. My father took me to Scipio with him when he served as the Pantoran Senator. I’d never seen anything like it before.”

“We can relate, Senator.” Thire spoke up. “Kamino, our homeworld, is oceanic. Fox thought that the Kaminii were lying about trees for the longest time.”

A huff of air that could have been part of a laugh escaped Fox’s vocabulator. “I’m still not too sure about forests.”

“You need to get out more.” Jek reached over Riyo to give Fox’s shoulder a light shove. “Breathe the fresh air.”

“Never heard of it.” Fox shook his head lightly and went back to scanning the room. Riyo felt a stab of pity for the commander and made a note that she would have to find a way to get him off-world with her somehow, if only so he could experience fresh air.

“Do you miss Kamino?” She ventured, keeping her gaze on the ice crystals before her so that none of the men felt that they were being put on the spot.

There was silence around her until Impulse spoke. “I don’t think any of us have that option, Senator.”

“Well, if you could be on any planet in the galaxy right now, which one would you choose?” More silence greeted her question.

“Naboo.” Thire said, breaking the tension. “It’s nice there. I don’t think that we clones view Kamino as you view Pantora, Senator Chuchi. It’s the closest thing we have to a home, but it’s not ours. Personally speaking, my home is my brothers. It’s not tied to a place. I don’t miss my homeworld because my home is always with me, waking up at the ass-crack of dawn.”

Riyo laughed, turning away from the ice. “I believe I am ready to depart, before dawn finds us here instead of in our beds.”

“As you wish, Senator.”

They started back across the room the same way they had spent the evening, Fox and Jek at her side, Thire and Impulse behind her. But now there was no crowd to push through, and no chance of one as the group admiring the Mustafarian glass had departed. Riyo let her gaze wander around the room, taking in the natural marvels one last time. Her attention was grabbed by the sudden turn of Fox’s helmet as he looked up into the catwalks of the vaulted ceiling. She followed his gaze, but saw nothing.

“Senator!” Fox stepped back, grabbed her by the elbows and pulled her to the ground. The force brought her to her knees, and her head was pushed down as Fox covered her body with his own. He pulled her in with his left arm so that she was pressed against him, fully shielded from behind. Jek knelt in front of them, rifle drawn over Fox’s shoulder as he scanned the room around them. It was silent. Riyo watched Fox slowly bring a pistol out from its holster with his right hand. Thire and Impulse swept through the room, with the former going up into the catwalks. They gave the all clear minutes later as Thire rejoined the group. Fox and Jek eased away from Riyo, and she sat up straight. Fox didn’t move from behind her, and she stayed put as the four guards continued to visually scan the room. Then there was a flash of movement on her right. The sniper was fast, but Fox was faster. His hand had never left her side, and now he brought her close to himself as he twisted his body down to shield her.

The was a whistle and a crack. Fox’s grip around Riyo’s waist faltered and the two crashed into the ground. Riyo couldn’t help the whimper that escaped her lips, and Fox pulled her closer to his body to continue to shield her, curling around and over her tiny form. Another shot rang out and Fox clutched her even tighter to his chest. Her hands clung to his arm as if the touch would save her life. Perhaps it would. Two of the men, she couldn’t tell their boots apart, moved to stand over her and Fox, rifles raised towards where the shots had come from. There wasn’t a third shot.

One of the men standing above them raised his comm. “This is Commander Thire requesting a medic in Natural Formations, Commander Fox is down. Activate Contingency Theta.”

“Get her out of here.” Fox mumbled. She could feel the vibrations in his chest against the back of her head as he spoke. His grip on her waist relaxed. Riyo realized that he had been hit.

“Yes, sir.” Jek said. With Impulse and Thire standing guard Jek reached down and pulled Riyo from Fox’s grip.

“No, we can’t leave him!” She protested. She tried to pull away, but Jek’s grip on her arm was strong and soon she was surrounded by plastoid as she was taken away. Between Thire and Impulse she could see the motionless form of Commander Fox behind them, a black hole burning between his shoulder blades, another at his waist. She let out a quiet sob at the sight.

“He did his duty, Senator; you must do yours.” Thire said as the three men swept her away from the room.

#foxiyo #commander fox #commander thire #commander stone #riyo chuchi #clone trooper jek #my fics #illicit affairs fic

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vickylavey · 3 years

Text

Title: The visions of the Gnawed.

Pairings: gen

Words: 1.5k

Summary: MonProm VtM AU. WARNINGS- blood magic, buried alive; Vicky has dreams she shouldn't be having in the first place.

She was surrounded by an oppressive darkness. Was she a shovelhead, doomed to dig her way out of a shallow grave and become fodder for the Sabbat? Was she captured by hunters and tied with a tarp?

Was there a stake in her chest, only narrowly missing her heart?

She palpated her chest, free of stakes, and reached up above her. Her hands came to a cushy interior of silk.

Was she in a casket?

Vicky felt fear.

Was she found slumbering in her Haven, ruled dead, and buried?

Her hands slammed against the lid. "Help," she squealed, her chest tight, "help. Help! Help me!" Vicky slammed her fists against it. It didn't even rattle. Only muted thumps from her banging. "Somebody, please help me! Get me out of here! Get me out!"

---

Vicky's eyes opened. She bolted from her bed and fell onto the floor, shrieking like her eyes were plucked out. The stainless steel table toppled over with a crash, reverberating off the walls.

Bracing herself on the floor, she sat on her legs and looked around. She was still in her Haven. Was that a dream?

Did Kindred even dream?

Vicky righted the table and looked around. Her skin was covered in a thin film of blood- she was so scared she was sweating.

Did Kindred even fucking dream? Never before did Vicky dream. Whispers, epiphanies, but nothing visual. Nothing like that.

The wheels landed on the floor. Vicky heard something clatter onto the linoleum. She crouched and retrieved something odd. A piece of wood, stripped of bark, with thirteen knots. It was wet with blood.

Vicky whimpered. She immediately checked the door. Locked. The windows still nailed shut. Her mind raced. What the fuck was that? And how did someone break into her Haven?

She paused midstep. The Tremere, and by extension, the Camarilla.

Someone needed to be told. Vicky pocketed the fetish and ran from her Haven. It was still light outside, but twilight made it easier to stick to the shadows, avoiding the vestiges of burning rays.

Vicky holed up behind the bar. She held her legs and rocked.

Was she found? Was the bloodhunt ongoing? Would the Vegas Camarilla stop until they found her? Would she be staked and left to sunrise?

If she had a heart, would it fail because of her fear?

The door opened. Vicky vanished and peered over the counter. It was Amira and Vera. Vicky's Obfuscation was cut short and she raced to them. Vera caught her by her shoulders.

"Vicky, what the fuck?"

"I had the most terrible dream, and I found this in my Haven! Under my bed!"

Vera peered at the wooden fetish Vicky presented. She frowned. "It's nothing I recognize," she explained. "I'll give some Tremere I know a call. I doubt they'll give you anything substantial, given how they hoard their magic, but they might give you why it could've been made, and that could give you a lead." She turned to Amira then. "Accompany her."

Amira nodded. "Of course."

He fetched a towel from behind the bar and wiped off Vicky's skin. "You're covered in blood..." he remarked.

"I-I was so scared, I started sweating."

"I see." Amira hummed. "Let's get you washed up when Vera finishes, then we can check this shit out. Give you some dignity before we see those witches."

Vicky nodded. "Thank you. You're all such good friends."

He shrugged. "This Barony is mostly made of misfits like you and me, thanks to the Baron. He's more like a father to many of us. Jyhad isn't as extreme here because of it."

"I see." Vicky sniffed. She was grateful for that. The Camarilla was so cut-throat, so self-serving. It was like treading rapids there, and all she got out of it was her sire assassinated and existential fear.

Some minutes later, Vera returned. "I have to stay here. But some Tremere is willing to meet us."

"And they're willing to go against the fucking Camarilla?" Amira snorted. "Sounds like a trap."

Vera crossed her arms. "I never said to trust them. But I don't have any better ideas. God knows the Tremere cling to power in the Camarilla for self-preservation. An additional safety net to hide their Thaumaturgy."

"O-okay. I can see them," Vicky said. Who knows. They might be the very ones behind it.

Amira sighed and scratched the back of his head. "Okay. Where are we meeting them?"

"Parthi Park an hour from now. There are three of them. Hope and Joy are Tremere. The third, named Faith, is Lasombra. Don't expect the area to be cleared, however. It is a public park. The Masquerade holds."

They nodded.

When they came to Parthi Park, Amira and Vicky took a seat beside one another. He leaned back and kept an eye out with a cigarette between his lips.

Vicky sniffed. "Do you know these guys?" she asked.

"I know of them, and I've seen Faith with Polly over the years. They're not a part of my coterie, though."

She smiled. "How opportune then."

"Hardly. I'm not interested in politics and coteries and shit. I get why they're needed, but they're a pain. I don't think I'd give a Tremere the time of day anyway. They're creepier than Nagaraja and suck Cammy dick on top of it."

"Point taken."

Amira said, "In your shoes, though, I'd consider it. You're... feeble. All due respect. Feeble and unhinged. Almost to the point of being Gnawed. You need all the help you can get."

Vicky scowled. "I don't trust people Vera and Polly don't. I can't have people I don't trust in my coterie."

"I get that," he replied. "Just know we may not be around forever."

Vicky shook the memory of her dream. Of imagining Vera or Polly or Amira underground and scratching at a coffin.

It gave her goosebumps.

From the shadows emerged a trio of women. Witches. Vicky stood. "Hi... are you Joy, Hope, and Faith?"

"Ironic names for Kindred, no?" said the woman in the center. Height-wise, she was unimpressive, but otherwise gorgeous, with full lips painted black, and even fuller thighs.

Nonetheless, Vicky nodded to them. "Shalom."

Their company smiled at Vicky. "It's rare to find Kindred who cling to their old faith."

"I'm not a very good Jew," she replied.

"No matter," she smiled. "I'm Joy. These are Hope," Joy gestured to her right, where a small woman stood, black hair cut short, "and Faith." To her left was a tall, slender woman with hair white as snow and thick glasses. They nodded to Vicky and Amira.

"I must cut to the chase, however. Time is of the essence."

Vicky pulled the fetish from her pocket. The blood was drying by that time, and she presented it to them.

Joy took hold of it, delicately balancing it between her fingers, tasting the blood. "A wooden artifact covered in vitae, shaved, thirteen knots..." Her head cocked. "Hope, you're more familiar with ritualism. What do you make of it?"

"Easy. It's devoted to the thirteen clans." Hope was passed the fetish. She glanced at the bottom. Her eyebrows raised. "Interesting."

"What is?" Amira asked.

"A crown is carved on the bottom."

"What does that mean?"

Hope said, "It could be used to influence visions, manipulating the blood the right way."

"Then why is there a crown carved on it?" Vicky asked.

"I have a theory," Faith chirped. "There are Gehenna cults, Kindred who seek to cause the Final Nights." She held up the fetish. "This wasn't just meant to influence visions. This connected you to the Antediluvian."

Amira frowned. "The Antediluvians who haven't met Final Death are in torpor.

"Yeah," Vicky said. "And my nightmare... my nightmare was violent. Trying to escape a coffin."

"A silk-lined sarcophagus?" Faith asked.

Vicky's heart thumped. "How did you know that?"

In perfect unison, the mages said, "We know things."

"See things,"

"hear things,"

"feel things." Joy splayed her hand in front of her face. Blood, glowing like embers, made a web between her fingers. "The blood gives us many gifts, Vicky. You need only to learn."

Vicky understood why Amira disliked Tremere. They were creepy.

Amira said, "How do we trust y'all aren't part of the cult? The Camarilla doesn't believe in this shit."

"We are Kindred first, foremost, and lastly," Joy replied. "Our only allegiances are for self-preservation. You know that well, don't you?"

Her chest squeezed as she thought back to her escape from the Camarilla, and her arrival to the Barony. If she hadn't sided with the Barony, would she have been executed?

What a frightening thought.

Vicky bowed her head. "What now? Why me?"

"Your visions are famous. Someone may be reaching out for help. Who, I haven't the slightest, but that's the most rational conclusion." Joy folded her arms. "We're keeping the fetish regardless."

"Take it away." Far away. Vicky didn't want it. All she wanted was to board up her home.

They bid their farewells. Amira guided Vicky back to Vera's club.

And Vicky felt dread for the coming nights.

#kogi's shit #monprom vtm au #vicky schmidt

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sablelab · 4 years

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Covert Operations - Chapter 104

SYNOPSIS: Given Fergus Claudel’s question about Murtagh, Geillis Duncan reflects on his reasons for being on the mission. Meanwhile Sun Yee Lok awaits the return of the triad members to his home. While in transit, Murtagh observes Claire and Jamie who both are in need of medical attention and the sooner they return to Section One the better.

THANK YOU for your responses to my writing of this story. I very much appreciate you taking the time to read Covert Operations, like, reblog or leave a comment on what you have read.

The previous chapter can be found at Chapter 103 and all other chapters at https://sablelab.tumblr.com/covertoperations

CHAPTER 104

The rescue team leader Geillis Duncan had heard the worry in Fergus Claudel’s voice when he’d asked about his friend so she cast her eyes over to where Murtagh Fitzgibbons sat with his eyes closed catching some shut eye … or so she thought. As she observed him, he suddenly opened one eye then the other and looked her way. She felt a slight embarrassment at having been caught out staring at him, but Murtagh merely gave her a cheeky wink. Geillis gave a wry smile back at the older operative who had been instrumental in carrying out the retrieval mission with his explosives. They communicated silently for a while before they broke eye contact when Murtagh cast his eyes over towards Jamie and Claire. She in turn surreptitiously studied the seasoned Section One operative and reflected on his reasons for being on the mission.

She liked Murtagh Fitzgibbons. He was a free spirit, and although cantankerous at times and rebellious at others, he was to be admired. He’d learned the art of survival in Section One and for any field operative that was not an easy feat. She could learn a lot from him and had been grateful that he was on her team for this mission. Having volunteered to come into the field to search for Jamie and Claire was testament to the obvious friendship Murtagh had with the couple. The wily old fox had managed to ingratiate himself onto the team in the ruse of being indispensable on this retrieval mission because of his expertise in Asian weaponry techniques. What humbug! She knew he and Fergus had been worried sick about Claire’s welfare and they had wanted to help Jamie. This way he could be in the thick of things if something had gone wrong rather than hear it second hand when the teams returned to Section. However, despite his age Murtagh had proved his mettle time and again and had certainly been invaluable to the mission’s success. Although he’d once been a field operative, it had been some time since his last foray into the field. But he had been superb. His knowledge of explosives and the destructive gadgets he’d created had been very useful in the end. If not for Murtagh Fitzgibbons ... things may have gone pear shape. Her eyes also cast one last look over at their wounded colleagues.

There wasn't much else that could be done about Jamie and Claire on the flight back to Section One other than to keep them both comfortable and try to prevent any further bleeding from Jamie’s wound. She returned to her debrief making a mental note to give Murtagh a special mention in her report. Fergus had said Operations would want it as soon as possible on her return and she had much to cover about this mission and how all the team members had performed. Meanwhile the triads are nearing their destination … The three triad members had gone over their recollection of events and were satisfied that they had done everything possible to bring closure for the Rising Dragons. James Fraser and Claire Beauchamp were dead and now there was nothing stopping the triad from regrouping and rising from the ashes stronger and more resilient than ever. Sun Yee Lok would be delighted. They had left nothing to chance and were prepared for whatever questions he may ask of them when they finally landed. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Situated on several secluded acres of pristine coastal land the aircraft neared the palatial home of their leader where his private residence was sheltered on the north and east side by a mountain range. Being very superstitious it was vital to Sun Yee Lok that the layout of his home was in line with the powerful chi for prosperity, wealth and longevity. It was important that visually the first impression was pleasing to the eye but more importantly that the energy flow in and around his home was as beneficial as possible. By creating an internal and external environment that welcomed an abundance of positive chi then Sun Yee Lok was able to enjoy its beneficial influence in his life. Thus, all the elements were aligned to make the most of every aspect of favourable Feng Shui and being situated near water was also very fortuitous and lucky as it carried good chi. Meeting at his home in this auspicious environment would put a positive spin on what had been a troublesome time for the Rising Dragons.

He was interested to hear what his daughter and the others had to say about what had happened on Lantau Island. He was positive that their meeting would be extremely constructive and looked forward to their accounts of events at the monastery and the future repercussions for the triad. Having placed his trust in Jonathon Randall and Wang Yu to carry out his orders in whatever way they deemed necessary to gain the success, he was also confident that the news he would hear from them would only bring good luck to the Rising Dragons from here on in. As leader of the triad, he also needed to know how Karen had performed and would ask Wang for his candid impression of his daughter’s leadership capabilities. He had his reasons for wanting to know every detail of the part she’d played in turning the triad’s fortune around. However, a full account was not necessary this evening but first thing in the morning he expected to hear only good news about what had occurred at the monastery. When all three were rested and refreshed he would meet with them individually, but tonight was cause for great celebration. Tomorrow was time to make headway. Having put an end to all the mysteries and problems that had befallen the triad over the past few months meant that things could return to some normalcy. The Rising Dragons could now avoid a turf war with the Black Panthers which had been simmering ever since Jonathon Randall’s nightclub, The Triangle had been firebombed. Perhaps he could also mend fences with Samuel Li although he had his suspicions that still waters ran deep with the Black Panther’s leader. Time would tell if he had his eyes on usurping his authority as supreme Dragon Head to seize control of turf in Hong Kong and destabilise the Rising Dragons’ stronghold. Yet, he’d certainly contemplated the possibility that he may need to call for a gathering of the fractions first to negotiate the territory they would control in Hong Kong for this very reason. Keeping your enemy close was always the preferred option to keep his finger on the pulse. He was willing to concede a small inconsequential district for the Black Panthers and Red Lanterns to control, but the majority of Hong Kong belonged to the Rising Dragons and would continue to do so. This was a time for the survival of the fittest.

Sun Yee Lok smiled knowingly.

It was time for the triad to assert its dominance in Hong Kong and beyond once more and he intended that the Rising Dragons would be the one to triumph over all the smaller fractious groups. If Samuel Li or others thought it possible to overthrow his authority then they would have another thing coming. The Rising Dragons took no prisoners. His triad was always ruthlessly aggressive and uncompromising in the pursuit of their objectives. Forceful and determined they had no compunction if they harmed anyone and James Fraser and Claire Beauchamp were testament to that scenario. Thus, any triad leader thinking they could overthrow him would feel the depth of his cunning and wrath.

To all who dare to take us on We will demonstrate forceful prowess You may try but you will never win Your failure only brings success ... to The Rising Dragon! But tonight ... there was much to celebrate.

With much to think about on his mind, Sun Yee Lok signalled to a staff member to ready the chilled champagne that awaited the trio’s successful return. On the Section One jet …

Although Murtagh observed both his friends as they settled in for the flight back to Section One, he made a closer appraisal of his Sugar, Claire Beauchamp.

She will be all right. Everything will be all right now that we have her back with us. Had Claire known how worried he and Fergus were after seeing the tape of her being tortured? Did she ever think that if there was anything he could do to get her back then he would do it? Claire knew for certain that Jamie would always come after her but in her wildest dreams she would never think that he would be on the retrieval team. He was surprised that Operations had granted permission to go on the mission but who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth? Despite his ageing years he was still in top physical condition and the adrenalin rush had been euphoric. Not only had that, but the new explosive device he’d invented had been sensational. The impact of the blast was his best yet. Unaware of the thoughts careening through Murtagh’s mind as he intently looked over her way; Claire lifted her head and caught his eye. They looked at each other for a moment then Murtagh’s eyes crinkled up with his most lecherous smile hoping that he would get a reaction from his Sugar. She took the bait and nodded her head in reply with the smile that he loved … and mouthed the words “Thank you,” before closing her eyes once more. She will be all right, he thought, but he was still very worried about his Sugar.

Claire had lost the sparkle from her eyes, but in time he was confident that it would return ... all she needed was a little rest and recuperation. She needed to gain her strength back as well as come to terms with what she’d experienced at the hands of her captors. However long that took, didn’t matter for he would be there for her as would Fergus. Along with Jamie, they would see her get better and help her put those memories of incarceration from the recesses of her mind. His Sugar was a ray of sunshine in Section One and he wanted her to shine brightly once more. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Murtagh Fitzgibbons then turned his attention to James Fraser. Worriedly he took in his ashen features and the sweat beading on his brow. His breathing wasn’t right either ... it appeared to be laboured and shallow. He also noticed that Jamie’s chest rose and fell in an uneven staccato. That wasn’t good, but he was obviously covering up his own distress for Claire’s sake. This man had moved heaven and earth to find her. Jamie had come through as they knew he would and Murtagh was extremely grateful that he was the operative that he was. If anyone could have found her then ... James Fraser would have. When they’d first entered the aircraft, Jamie had ignored everyone in the transport plane until he had settled Claire down for the return flight. He didn’t want to watch but he’d been mesmerized by the tenderness that both covertly showed towards each other … but without drawing undue attention to one another. He’d watched as Jamie tenderly looked to Claire’s needs as she did to his. The cold Section One operative’s eyes were anything but cold, on the contrary they had gleamed with dark emotion as he’d gently cradled her against his body. He would know that look anywhere. He knew what it meant. Jamie’s actions spoke volumes. He’d glanced around wondering if others had noticed, but the other exhausted operatives were already asleep and Geillis Duncan was occupied with writing her report. Thankfully Jamie and Claire’s shared moment had not been witnessed by anyone else. Murtagh’s eyes travelled over to Claire once more as she sat next to Jamie with her head resting on his good shoulder. Both appeared to be asleep. These two people had given their all for Section One but would Madeline and Operations be of the same view? They needed some well-earned downtime to get back on track but would they have the compassion to grant them some leave together? Surely Section’s leaders wouldn’t be that heartless to deny them some recovery time away from Section One? Could they show some empathy for their two best operatives who had done everything conceivably possible to carry out their mission but who had fallen foul of the ruthless triad’s torture and interrogation? When they actually saw them would Madeline and Operations have a change of heart?

The roar of the engines brought Claire back to consciousness and her eyes opened briefly. He looked up to see her watching him through drowsy eyes. She smiled at him then nestled back into Jamie’s warmth. Murtagh Fitzgibbons smiled back at his Sugar with only one wish on his mind ... that the plane could go faster. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ As Claire nestled back into Jamie’s warmth she continued to glance over to where her friend sat in the transport plane.

He’d returned her faint smile with a reassuring one and she had picked up on his tacit clues ... they were safe at last and he was glad. However, she also saw the concentration that furrowed her friend’s brow. What was he thinking about? She wondered. He was probably wishing that they were already back at Section One and that the plane was travelling too slowly in his opinion. Well ... she thought the same thing too. Unconcerned about her own well being, Claire was more worried about Jamie.

Although he gave the impression that he was okay, she was convinced that this was not the case. The sooner he got medical attention the better. Not only that but she loathed the thought that Madeline and Operations would analyse every phase of this mission once they were recovered and before that if they thought it would be more advantageous. Nonetheless, she and Jamie would deal with their interrogation once they were better, but right now she couldn’t concentrate enough to think clearly about what was to come. She was much too drowsy and exhausted. Claire chanced another look at her friend.

He’d been the last person she would have thought would have been on the retrieval team. It was still hard to believe that he actually was here. If the truth be known, she was still recovering from the surprise of seeing his craggy face at finding her. Murtagh’s wrinkled yet concerned smile had been pure magic but as usual he’d tried to brush it off as nothing. But it wasn’t nothing … it meant everything to her. It must have taken a lot for him to volunteer for this mission. It was wonderful that her best friend had come to their rescue, and both she and Jamie were fortunate that Murtagh and the team had arrived when they did. Overcome with fatigue Claire finally closed her eyes unable to keep them open a moment longer. One word however, reverberated through her brain. Safe. They were all safe at long last. For a while there it had been touch and go. Nestling into the warmth of Jamie’s body, she was thankful that they were out of that situation once and for all. Being subjected to such horrific things at the hands of these particular triad members would not be forgotten. Jamie would not forgive or forget their actions and once he had recovered from his wounds there would be no stopping his mission to find them and bring them to justice. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Murtagh too was incapable of taking his eyes off of her. He sat in his seat and stared at Claire as she lay against Jamie fast asleep. Knowing that they were both safe was a great relief as these last couple of days had been the longest of his life. His emotions had certainly gone through the wringer as well. Not knowing where Claire was being held and not being able to contact Jamie had sent, he and Fergus off on a mission of their own. They’d done everything possible to contact the level 5 operative, while nothing would have stopped him from going on this mission to rescue his Sugar once they had finally found them. Claire was like a daughter to him. Little did they know but they would also be rescuing her rescuer as well. Murtagh knew Jamie was a chameleon but he had witnessed his love for Claire when others were merely speculating as to their relationship.

James Fraser had moved heaven and earth to find Claire and had gone to hell and back for her. He had manipulated missions to protect her and had managed to save her from the wrath of Operations and Madeline on many an occasion and the Rising Dragons’ mission was no exception. Still waters ran deep with James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser but Claire Beauchamp was the one person who had been able to penetrate the barriers he had placed around himself.

Despite his condition Murtagh saw Jamie tighten his arm around her pulling Claire closer to his warmth even in sleep.

Those two were joined at the hip. They were Ying and Yang … one could not survive without the other. He sighed knowing that when they returned to Section One Jamie would be under the microscope for his actions on this rescue mission. The question was how would Operations and Madeline deal with their recalcitrant operative? His life in Section was always one test after another ... what would his report card be this time? The pressures placed on Jamie by Section’s leaders were great but his self-imposed pressures were at times far greater. Just keeping alive day after day was enough of a challenge but where Claire was concerned; Jamie always went that extra mile. He was her protector and Claire his … and despite all they had been through on this mission for Section One they still remained true to each other. Awww! … Young love. They may deny their feelings for one another and hide them from their superiors but he knew all the signs. Together they were formidable operatives … Section’s best … they deserved a break. Jamie and Claire were meant to be together but the consequences of their relationship still riled Operations and Madeline. The two operatives couldn’t take a trick, but maybe this time their superiors would relent and grant them some well-deserved downtime together to recover.

The weapons’ expert had nothing but admiration for James Fraser but the sound of a soft groan snapped him back to the present. He chanced a look at Section’s cold operative and found himself biting the inside of his lip with concern. Knowing that Jamie had finally found Claire was a welcome relief but they certainly were not expecting that he may have been captured. Jamie was in a sorry state too. Like Claire he’d been tortured as well … badly by the looks of him. Murtagh scrutinized the sallow and pain filled features of the young man. Jamie was obviously in greater distress than he was letting on. He was very worried about him, and he also noticed that Jamie’s wound had started to seep while Claire’s lethargy was a worry too.

This trip back to Section was taking far too long for his liking. Both of them were in a bad way. They needed medical attention and the quicker the better.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Averting his eyes away from the sight of the two wounded Section operatives still protecting each other even in repose, Murtagh Fitzgibbons glanced from the sleeping couple over to Geillis Duncan when he heard her communicate with Fergus once more. With his curiosity peaked; he just couldn’t help eavesdropping on her conversation with him and when he heard her statement his admiration for the team leader increased tenfold.

Bravo! He uttered under his breath. “Tell Operations that they’re going to need some downtime when they return.” “I don’t think he’ll agree to that request,” Fergus stated despondently as his mind raced with visions of what had happened to Jamie and Claire. “He will when he sees the condition they are in. They’re badly injured, but alive.” ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Fergus Claudel had been living on tenterhooks ever since Claire’s tape had arrived at Section but he had also been worried about his good buddy Murtagh. Having volunteered to go on the retrieval mission had not really surprised him especially knowing the fondness that he held for Claire but he was very worried about him and hoped that Murtagh had come to no harm. Although he knew he was being repetitious, Fergus took the opportunity to ask about his buddy again while he had the chance. He wanted to make sure that what Geillis had said the first time was true ... and that she wasn’t just saying things to appease his worry. He hesitated ... he wanted to know, and yet he didn't. There was no point avoiding the issue. He bit the bullet and asked the question that was uppermost on his mind. “And Murtagh? How did he do? He’s okay, isn’t he?” There was a slight pause before Geillis replied. To Fergus it was an indescribable few seconds of torture not knowing the fate of his friend. Finally, she answered. “Like I said before ... He did good … He’s fine Fergus.” Releasing a sigh of relief, Fergus acknowledged her report before closing the channel thankful that nothing serious had happened to his best buddy. He ran his hands through his hair grateful that everyone was finally returning back to Section One. Removing his comm. unit, he sat back in his chair and stared into space marshalling the strength he knew he would need to face his superiors. A nervous tick suddenly started to throb in his head and Fergus felt a bead of sweat appear on his brow. He wondered how in heaven’s name he would be able to relay Geillis Duncan’s Intel and requests to Madeline and Operations.

Perhaps if I wait a while longer, they would see for themselves and he wouldn’t need to say anything. His superiors would surely greet the team on their return to Section, Fergus thought. Nonetheless, finally, he got up from his terminal and took a deep breath. With that thought in his mind as the solution to his dilemma, he made his way towards the perch. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* ~*~*~ Geillis felt a pair of eyes trained on her as she spoke. Turning her head, she saw a wily grin plastered over Murtagh’s face. She stared back in a similar vein pointedly asking. “Well, what are you looking at?” Feigning ignorance he responded, “Oh ...Did you say something?” “You know what I mean … One of these days you're going to carry this cranky old man act a little too far Murtagh Fitzgibbons.” His brow rose at her teasing manner. “Really?” “Really ... If you want something from me, just come out and say it.” Geillis tried to hide the mirth from her voice. “I just wanted to say thanks for the good work.” Taken aback by his compliment, Geillis Duncan nodded her head in confirmation. “I don't need a pat on the back ... but thanks Murtagh ... coming from you that means a lot.” She gave him a warm smile, blinked then broke off their conversation before turning her attention to other matters. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* ~*~*~ Deciding to try and get some shuteye on the journey back to Section One Murtagh knew that when they returned, Madeline and Operations would want a thorough debrief from all team members ... himself included. He felt a slight smile tug at the corner of his mouth as he anticipated Fergus' reaction to Claire's return. He’ll be stoked. I can't wait to see his face! He reflected. Yet it was Geillis Duncan’s reaction to his flirting that put a genuine smile on his face. Fitzgibbons you old devil you! He chuckled. Well, well, well. All those years of … uh … experience ... still hold you in good stead. Geillis is eating out of your hand. He smiled to himself thinking that he hadn’t lost his touch with the ladies after all, then closing his eyes Murtagh too succumbed to weariness.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ to be continued on Tuesday 10th March

#Jamieandclairefanfic #jamieandclairecrossover #jamieandclaireau #outlander fanfic #the lallybroch library #covert operations #LFNoutlander

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