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aminiatureworld · 3 years

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Injury II

Characters: Kaeya, Ningguang, Xiao, Zhongli, gn!reader

Word Count: 5,650

Warnings: Various injuries, blood, burns, minor villain death

Premise: Sometimes the pain of others can hurt even more than one’s own. In which the reader is injured.

Author’s Note: Okay so after the mind numbing fear of my computer almost dying and now maybe emitting a weird smell I’m five seconds away from pure panic. But the show much go on! Even if my word document keeps blacking out.

This is my first time writing for Ningguang! I hope I do my girl justice, she’s voiced by my fav VA, she’s a total powerhouse, I love her so much.

I tried to make all of the injuries personal to each character in some way. Funny enough Zhongli’s was the hardest to figure out. I eventually settled upon the act of you being injured causing Zhongli’s personal angst, rather than the cause of the injury. I hope it came out well!

Kaeya

Kaeya didn’t often let himself fall into fear. Not since he’d been young did he feel that he could indulge in such a sentiment. True to his vision he’d frozen that part of himself, and now when panic seized him he could feel nothing but stone cold determination, and the need to continue forward without hesitation. Fear was hardly alien to him, he could conjure up the emotion all too well, but it had been dulled and replaced by cynicism and coldness. And occasionally guilt.

Looking back on it Kaeya wasn’t even sure why the two of you had strayed so close to Dragonspine, so close snowflakes were congregating in your hair.

You’d called him a winter fairy in jest at the time, wondering if he wasn’t truly the ruler of that mountain of frost. He’d laughed then, before threatening to take you away to his fairy court. “That would be quite an easy task.” You’d replied. “You’ve already captured my heart after all.”

The two of you were strolling on the rocks that lined the river which separated Dragonspine from the greater Monstadt area. Although adventurers usually roamed the area in the daytime it was now evening, and the lack of people certainly made up for the cold in Kaeya’s mind. He could only be his true self around you after all. Otherwise it was the charming and slick Cavalry Captain, a man who always knew what to say and never harbored any doubts in his mind. Not that he wasn’t still charming around you, he loved seeing you blush from his effusive praise, loved the way you buried your head in his shoulder if the flirting and the teasing ramped up enough. But there was a sincerity to his words that one couldn’t find normally in Kaeya, and he loved to show you bits and pieces of his soul, relieved to finally have someone to talk to.

“Watch your step.” You warned, grabbing onto Kaeya’s hand as he slid a little ways along a rock.

“Thank you darling, although I daresay I’m more worried about you. After all who’s the snow fairy here and who’s the wind sprite, liable to blow away at any moment?”

“So cheesy.” You mumbled, shaking your head, though Kaeya could’ve sworn your cheeks were slightly redder than they were a few moments ago. Laughing he wrapped his arm around your waist. You snuggled into his fur lined coat. “Cold.” You murmured, though you made no move to disconnect yourself. Kaeya smiled and brought his other hand around you in a soft embrace.

“Sorry my dearest, but you’re in love with an icicle.”

“Only terms of magic.” You shot back. “Otherwise you’re a nice warm fire. And don’t you forget that.”

The two of you headed a little ways down, closer to the river. A small group of frost flowers had made it to this side of the banks, and you were adamant on picking some. “They’re so beautiful!” You explained to Kaeya. “And incredibly strong, I can’t believe they managed to grow in that permafrost. They’re simply lovely.”

“Just be careful.” Kaeya commented, standing a little ways back. He didn’t like getting near the river, a river so cold it was always at nearly freezing at the bottom. Cold water and a vision of Cryo didn’t mix well.

“I’ll be fine.” You hopped to your feet, a bouquet of pale blue in your hand. You were smiling from your victory, face full of light and happiness.

It was an expression that changed swiftly as you lost your balance and plummeted into the freezing waters.

Immediately Kaeya leapt down from the rocks he was standing on, kneeling near where you were standing a moment ago. The river wasn’t very fast, bogged down by its width and how far it was away from the waterfalls in the warmer parts of Monstadt. Still it cut off very quickly, having barely the semblance of a beach before opening into a deep chasm, and anyone who fell in it would quickly fall into cold shock. Already your limbs had started seizing, and you were hyperventilating hard. Your arms felt like dead weight, and every second that passed your head dipped lower into the freezing water.

Kaeya gingerly put his hand out to make a platform of ice for him to stand on. Whatever happened he couldn’t fall in as well, it would mean the death of you two. Fear had reared its ugly head again and Kaeya twisted those feelings into action. No matter what he had to act fast and sure. Hesitation was fatal.

Plunging his hand into the water, sucking in a deep breath as the ice that still coated his palms and fingers made contact with the freezing river Kaeya hauled you up onto the icy platform. Taking off his coat he wrapped you up. Removing your gloves so the frozen water wouldn’t be in contact with your already freezing skin Kaeya cursed as he ran towards Springvale, the nearest place he could think of. He’d lugged you onto his back, and could feel the freezing water through his shirt. As he ran he kept up a stream of slightly shaky conversation, rattling off what little he knew of hypothermia.

“It’ll be alright darling, I promise it’ll be alright. You’re just going through shock right now, okay? You’ll be alright, I promise. Just stay awake a little while longer. I know you must be tired from all that excitement, but just stay awake a little longer, just a little longer and then you’ll be nice and warm, just stay awake right now okay?” His voice became more and more desperate as his fear started to tumble out of his grasp, but he kept moving. He wouldn’t lose control of himself now, not until you were safe.

Finally he arrived at Springvale and you’d been rushed to the village doctor. Kaeya was told to go and wait somewhere else, and preferably change out of his freezing cold shirt, but you’d grabbed his hand as he turned to leave and after that he refused to budge, instead borrowing a shirt from the village. He’d reimburse the people who let you two borrow their clothes later.

The entire process was a terrifying one, as you were slowly brought back to warmth. Kaeya took the opportunity to learn as much as he could, noting that you shouldn’t massage limbs back to warmth for fear of heart attack and – much to his chagrin he later joked when the situation was far enough in the past – alcohol was too much of a depressant on your system and could lead to death. All throughout he kept talking to you, even though there were times you didn’t seem to hear, times when he thought his heart would split in two.

Still it was evident you were going to survive and when you’d finally finished being warmed up Kaeya thought he could cry in relief, if only he’d been numbed from such an act for so many years. You’d run into some sort of rock in the water, and the long gash down the side of your leg was later determined by the doctor to reveal torn muscle. It’d take about a month and a half for you to recover. Kaeya thought he should’ve felt worse about it, but in the moment he felt nothing but relief, utter relief in the knowledge you were going to be fine. Utter relief that came with having almost lost you.

Kaeya had carried you back to Monstadt, much to your consternation. All the ways back you mumbled about how his penchant for drama seemed to have increased tenfold. Kaeya simply shook his head, not bothering to ask how you would’ve gotten back otherwise with your leg in the shape it was. Still it was a relief to both of you to see the city walls. Even more of a relief when you finally arrived home, safe and sound.

“I’m so glad you were there.” You confessed as Kaeya sat you down on the couch, propping up your leg and pulling a chair up next to you. “I don’t know what I would’ve done had I fallen and you weren’t there.”

“You probably wouldn’t have been there in the first place.” Kaeya remarked, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. You brought your hand up to his cheek and he leaned into it slightly, grateful for the contact between you two. It’d been hours but the panic that he’d felt still tugged at his consciousness, as if any moment you might slip away again and leave him panicked and alone.

“Were you afraid?” You asked.

“Of course I was afraid.” Kaeya’s reply came swift and sure. “I was terrified, terrified in a way that I haven’t been in years.” Kaeya’s eyes clouded over, as if reaching deep into his memories. He brought your hand up to his lips, kissing your knuckles and then your palm. “I thought that you might die, and in that moment I was ready to curse the world all over again.”

“But I didn’t die.” You said solemnly.

“No, you didn’t.”

“And that’s because of you. Because you reacted quickly, because you had the magic with which to do so, and most of all because you never hesitated. And because of that I’m alive and well now. Injuries aside I’ll be fine. I promise.”

Kaeya knew you were right. You were alive. You weren’t going to go where he couldn’t follow. The fear coiling in his stomach began to subside. He’d been so afraid, yes, and in that fear he’d managed to find the strength and determination to save you. But now you were safe and he no longer needed to rely on that strength; he could give into his relief. Realizing this, realizing how frightened he’d been and how that was now part of a past he could move forward from, could truly forget, Kaeya could only marvel at his relief. Only then did the tears begin to fall.

Ningguang

If there was one thing Ningguang wasn’t expecting out of today it was your leg collapsing and her winding up in the waiting room of the Liyue hospital, mind replaying the last week or so, wondering where she might’ve realized something was wrong.

It seemed like the kind of thing Keqing would make a joke about. Here Ningguang was, the Tianquan of the Liyue Qixing, the most powerful woman in the trade capital of Liyue; here she was, her world completely gone awry, completely shattered by your injury.

A stress fracture, the doctor had said. It was the kind of injury that developed slowly and came about after weeks instead of in moments. The initial strain was usually something mundane, a sprain, a bruise, maybe you’d walked on your foot for too long. But after sometimes weeks of ignoring pain and swelling your body couldn’t take it any longer. Ten weeks, that’s how long you would be laid up. And Ningguang couldn’t help but feel every one of those ten weeks was her fault.

She should’ve noticed it. That train of thought continued all throughout the process of you being treated at, and eventually discharged from, the hospital. You weren’t just one of the people she worked with daily, weren’t just her closest colleague. You were the person that Ningguang loved more than anything in this world. How could she possibly not have noticed the signs?

Ningguang found herself obsessively trying to connect the warning signs that must’ve been there. She knew that your foot had been aching for some time, but though she’d been vaguely concerned she’d said nothing other than a simple “be careful”. She’d never thought to check after you later, sure that it was nothing. Now she felt nothing but shame, both that of a personal and of a greater kind. How could she manage looking after all of Liyue if she couldn’t even look after you?

You noticed Ningguang’s silence as you two made your way out of the hospital and towards the apartment you shared. Although Ningguang was perhaps seen as a reticent individual you’d found her surprisingly open, always ready to discuss things that were of interest either to you or to her. She wasn’t the kind of person to walk along in silence; not when she was around those that she cared for, not unless she was thinking about something important, not unless…

Finally you two arrived home. You collapsed on the couch, tired and ready to either read or nap. Ningguang was preparing some tea and a various array of fruit, not that there was much food in the lavish apartment you two shared. Considering the workload between the both of you it was perhaps unsurprising that there was nothing much to eat. That would have to change, Ningguang noted; she’d make sure that you were recovering in the most comfortable way possible. It was the least she could do.

“Are you feeling well?” Ningguang asked, placing the food and tea on the table in your room. You nodded.

“I feel fine, although I’m not looking forward to the walk to the Qixing headquarters. I have to admit dear this might be the only time I’m a bit glad that I don’t have to make my way to the Jade Chamber every day.” Ningguang smiled at that, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She sat silently, sipping her tea slowly. Your expression clouded over. “Hey, can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Oh it’s nothing my love.” Ningguang spoke up quickly, leaning over and kissing you on the cheek. “I’m just sorry to see you like this.”

“Well you can’t blame yourself. You know that, right?”

Ningguang found she couldn’t bring herself to lie to you. Your gaze, though soft, seemed to pierce right through all her excuses and all her bluffing. She sighed softly. Maybe it would be better to be upfront about it, clear and concise, how one should always be. At least then she could apologize properly.

“In truth I do blame myself. I can’t believe I was so neglectful of your health, so blind to your pain.” She shook her head, staring at the hand that was holding yours. A disconnected part of her thought of how well the two fit together, fingers intertwined softly, your palm warm and comforting.

“If you were blind to this then so was I.” You spoke softly but firmly, refusing to sugar coat your words. Ningguang admired you for it, even if she didn’t believe you, something painfully clear in the expression on her face. “You cannot blame yourself.” You continued, “I won’t let you. I don’t want you beating yourself up for something that neither of us predicted. If you feel the need to blame yourself for this you must also blame me; I was the one walking on the injury without paying enough attention.”

“But – ” Ningguang paused, realizing the truth behind your words, slouching slightly she sat in deep thought. “I… I realize there’s not a lot of logic behind my thinking.”

“Well feelings are hardly logical.” You pointed out, squeezing her hand. “And because they’re illogical they don’t go away quickly. But I at least want you to try and combat your guilt with what I’ve told you. Because just like you hate seeing me in this cast I hate seeing you in pain.”

Ningguang nodded, heart filled with a deep sense of love and tenderness. Leaning over to give you a kiss she smiled softly. You did too. For a moment you two basked in each other’s presence and happiness, before you smile turned mischievous.

“Although… I won’t object to a little pampering.” Ningguang chuckled, shaking her head. But her smile was real this time, and you wouldn’t ask for anything more.

“You’re lucky I love you so much.”

“I know I am.” You replied. “And you’re lucky I adore you.”

“I am.” Ningguang’s reply was just as sure, was full of quiet but strong emotion. She was lucky. And she would never take you or your love for granted. No matter what.

Xiao

By the time he’d met you Xiao had long come to the conclusion that he’d never find it in him to like humans.

Humans were dirty, they were untrustworthy and full of darkness, they broke things without thinking about it, mangled their own people, their own families and friends and countrymen. Humans slaughtered one another without thinking of how it might stain them, and when they weren’t killing they were stealing and lying and ruining the land around them. How could he, a being designed solely to destroy the darkness in the world, ever find in himself the will or the ability to look past all that?

When he’d met you and had fallen in love in earnest this view had still changed ultimately very little. But even if you’d admitted that what he said was mostly true, you’d found that you still wanted him to learn to care at least a little bit about humanity. I mean you were ultimately one of them at your core. It didn’t feel right to prop yourself up as the one great exception, not when there were other people who were certainly like you in mind and in morality. Xiao silently disagreed with this analysis; to him there never was and never would be someone like you, in all of Teyvat. Still, he felt compelled to try, though more for your sake than for his, and as the weeks had gone on he’d begun to look at humanity not with any sort of respect or hope but with a sort of begrudging curiosity, and an admittance that maybe, just maybe, there was a bit of that light you saw in it.

What a fool he’d been.

Although Xiao was aware of the growing threat of treasure hoarders across Liyue – so widespread that they’d even managed to eat away at the tranquil lands surrounding Jueyen Karst – he’d never considered them a serious threat. So when the two of you accidentally ran into a group of them while exploring some of the older Liyue ruins Xiao didn’t bother to do much more than wrap an arm around your waist, sure that even the most idiotic of treasure hoarders wouldn’t be so foolish as to pick a fight with either an adeptus or their beloved. You seemed unfazed at any rate, explaining that the two of you were simply passing by and had no desire to pick a fight; if they’d be so kind the two of you would be on your way.

Perhaps the treasure hoarders were well aware of the fact that you could report them to the Liyue Qixing. Perhaps they were simply in a bad mood. Either way your words apparently did nothing. Xiao was becoming tenser and tenser, feeling as if something catastrophic was about to happen. That moment came to pass when one of the treasure hoarders pulled out a knife and threw it, lodging itself with deadly accuracy into your torso.

At that point Xiao felt himself overcome with a supernatural sort of calm, a calm which raced to cover up the anguish and rage that was coursing through him, threatening to burn him from the inside out. He only paused to make sure you didn’t hit the ground hard, before summoning his spear. Ignoring the cries of the treasure hoarders he made quick work of disposing of them, for what was a measly human, a piece of trash, when compared to that which had slayed countless demons? A small part of him cried out against the act, pointing out the fact that every time he wielded his polearm to kill it might bring him closer to the precipice, the fact that you were hurt mattered more than revenge, the fact that he was going to regret killing in front of you. He ignored it. At that moment there was nothing in his mind, it was as empty and staid as a clear pool of water. The only ripple in it was the way you’d jolted back in surprised, and the way you’d let out a cry before crumpling.

Xiao didn’t look back to see the havoc he’d wreaked. Instead he ran to your side. Peeling off his gloves, worried that they might bring infection, he pressed his bare hands to your wound, desperately trying to staunch the blood that was spilling out, ignoring the shocks that jolted through his hands, the result of the dagger somehow being infused with electro. The feeling of blood, your blood, beneath his fingers was nauseating, and for a moment Xiao felt his head filling with static as the pure panic that he’d felt began to overcome the initial rush of adrenaline. Snapping out of it when you let out a groan of pain Xiao looked into your eyes. They were clouded, and for a moment the adeptus was afraid you might be on the verge of passing out – had you really lost so much blood? Holding you tightly, one hand never leaving your wound, Xiao summoned a burst of air. His thoughts were still too chaotic to be processed, there was only one thing connecting them all. Let them live. If there’s any justice in this world, please let them live.

Verr Goldet had grasped the situation as soon as she saw Xiao appear on the balcony, face contorted in fear. Taking you to her room, she’d instructed Xiao to get one of the doctors from Liyue while she and the resident apothecary took care of you. Xiao did the task without thinking, and once he’d arrived with the doctor he refused to leave your side. Xiao knew death better than most adepti, certainly more than most humans. It was cold and unfeeling, and had a nasty habit of leaping onto people when they least expected it. It didn’t matter to him that all three, Goldet, the apothecary, and the doctor, said that you would be fine; Xiao was going to be there the entire time.

Eventually you managed to rouse yourself from the pain induced stupor, and when you did you saw Xiao first, eyes wide with fear and relief, tears threatening to spill down his face.

In the end you’d been lucky. Although the dagger had ruptured your spleen Xiao had acted quickly enough to avert catastrophe. You were going to survive, though it’d be 12 weeks most likely until you were completely recovered. The moment of crisis having passed the two of you were finally given a moment alone.

“Are you alright?” Xiao immediately asked. You didn’t make a move to answer, instead cupping Xiao’s cheek before moving to take his hand. At that moment how Xiao remembered. Oh; the blood. Quickly moving away he ran to the nearest basin of water, scrubbing furiously. As the water turned red a faint smell of iron filled the air; it was the most disgusting thing Xiao had ever smelt, and he scrubbed even harder. You waited silently as he finished cleaning his hands and disposing of the water. Finally he came back to sit next to you, still hesitating a moment before placing his palm in yours.

“I… I don’t understand how you could ever like humans.” That was the first thing Xiao could think of. “They betrayed you. Without even blinking. That man, all those men and women, they would’ve ended your life without even thinking about it. They would’ve killed you and lived without ever having such a thing weigh on their conscience. Humans never think about the weight of their sins. They just keep committing atrocities.”

“And what about you, Xiao. Will their deaths weigh on you?”

“As much as all the others.” Xiao wished he could be matter of fact about it, but he found that trait of his had somehow disappeared. Instead an emotion washed over him, so unfamiliar and unexplainable it seemed to choke him. “Perhaps more.” He managed to get out, before beginning to cry in earnest.

You would’ve died. If he hadn’t been there you would’ve died. For you he gladly shouldered the weight of human life, would do so again and again if only to ensure your safety. And yet it was such a heavy weight, and no matter how many Xiao killed it wouldn’t heal you.

“I’m sorry.” He choked out. You shook your head.

“Xiao I always knew that you weren’t going to be able to see humans as I see them immediately. And I know that you have a relationship with death and killing that most humans, most beings, will never have. I’m not going to blame you, nor will I turn on you. I cannot pretend that what happened didn’t make me angry. In retrospect it made me incredibly angry. It’s also true that – had you not been there – I would’ve raised my own weapon in self-defense. But now I’m going to ask you for one thing, and one thing only.”

“What?”

“Help me recover. Help me recover and let me help you recover. If there’s one thing I don’t want to happen now it’s for you to turn away from me and from everyone else, to let yourself be consumed. I want you to have somewhere you can let your feelings exist, and I want somewhere I can feel happy and comfortable as myself. You make me feel that way, so even if it’s selfish I don’t want you to turn away. And I don’t want you to grieve for me. Injured as I may be I’m not dead.” There was a pause as you let yourself catch your breath, having gotten more and more excited as you went on. “I realize that’s more than one thing.” You concluded, a bit sheepish.

Xiao said nothing for a while before leaning towards you. “May I?” He whispered. You nodded and Xiao pressed his lips to yours. The kiss wasn’t one of fire or passion. It was different, defined within the parameters of fear and relief, there seemed to be a sort of desperation in it, yet it was surprisingly sedate. Pulling away Xiao buried his face in your neck, careful to make sure he wasn’t touching where you’d been stabbed.

“I will. I promise.” He whispered. You nodded, smiling softly. But Xiao couldn’t bring himself to smile, not just yet.

Xiao couldn’t understand humans. They were dirty and cruel and lived without fear of consequences. Their actions haunted him and he found them easier to hate than to understand. But for you he’d try, because to him there was one thing strong than all, strong than fear, stronger than mistrust, stronger than hatred.

And that was the love he held for you.

Zhongli

If there was one thing Zhongli hadn’t been prepared for when it came to falling in love with humans it was their combination of fragility and utter ignorance to said fragility.

One of Zhongli’s favorite things to do was to simply sit and listen to you talk about your life. Humans fascinated Zhongli, it was one of the reasons he’d ultimately given up his place as Rex Lapis; inside him lived a desire to interact with humanity in a more intimate way, to know what made people behave as they did and to perhaps grow closer to them in the process.

But despite all that he still wasn’t ready for the utter fear he felt when listening to the stories of you getting hurt. You’d laughed off scrapes and bruises and fractures. The time you’d accidentally ripped off your nail was a painful yet funny anecdote, and the fact that you’d fractured your kneecap as a child was something you now looked back on with an odd sense of nostalgia.

Zhongli didn’t understand why these stories frightened him on such a visceral level. Such injuries were nothing to gods and adepti. Although the idea of a broken bone was certainly an irritation there was nothing more in it, and the kind of injuries that could easily kill humans would to Zhongli be the kind of thing that would be unpleasant for its novelty, not for its potential fatality.

He didn’t bring up these thoughts to you, feeling as if they’d somehow place an undue burden on you, or perhaps he was afraid you’d stop telling him about yourself. Still it lurked at the back of his mind, the fear of what might happen to you.

The fears that Zhongli harbored were proven in the most mundane, and thus most poignant, way. The two of you had been preparing a meal when suddenly you’d stumbled on an uneven part of the floor. Reaching your hands out to steady yourself your arm had landed flat on the hot stove, the stove which had been heating up for the past fifteen or so minutes. The scream that you let out sent a shock through Zhongli which shook him to his core. It rang through his ears incessantly, a terrifying reminder of how breakable humans were.

You’d immediately yanked your arm off from the stove but the sight that met both his and your eyes was a ghastly one. The skin on your arm was charred various colors, white blisters mixed with black flaky skin, all outlined in a terrible circle of red. You were shaking, and you face had turned a frightful ashen color. Springing into action Zhongli wracked his brain for all he could remember about burns. If the burn is serious enough go to the hospital. Never try to treat intense burns yourself as the burning has gone deeper than the initial layer of skin, raise your burn above your heart. Go to the hospital. Slinging your arm around his shoulder so that it was raised, whisper soft words of reassurance as you let out a shriek of pain, Zhongli half walked half carried you to the hospital, all while the same thought was running through his head.

How fragile humans are.

The doctors had insisted you stay overnight. Apparently the burn was bad enough to require surgery. Zhongli’s stomach had dropped as he was told that, but he managed to nod in response. Walking back home Zhongli felt all in a daze. He barely made it in the door before he collapsed, fear having seeped the energy out of him. The world pressed down on him, heavier than it’d ever been before. At least you’d be okay, he reminded himself. If he had anything to cling to at least he had that.

Zhongli was the first visitor to arrive at the hospital, having given Hu Tao the run of the funeral home as he spent as much time as possible with you. You were well enough, although a bit bogged down from the painkillers you’d been given. You’d once offhandedly commented that although magic infused medicine tended to be safer for the patient – more successful and less addictive – it was also more powerful; now Zhongli could see you weren’t kidding.

Your burn was wrapped up carefully, the doctors had managed to take the charred skin of, you’d explain, but now the burn had to be treated with the utmost care until the surgery later in the afternoon, infection was no joke.

“Well this’ll certainly be an interesting anecdote.” You let out half a laugh. “Not that I’m happy this happened, but at least this will shut up the next person who complains about how cardio was the most painful thing they’ve experienced.”

“I don’t know how you can be so cavalier about it.” Zhongli replied, tone soft and introspective. “It seems to terrifying to me, how easily humans are hurt.”

“Hey, I’ll be fine.” You assured him, voice soft but firm. “I understand how to adepti and archons and gods this might be terrifying. I’d be the first to admit we can’t really keep up with you in terms of pure healing and resistance to injury. But we’ve continued on this far haven’t we?” You smiled softly. “I promise I’m not about to die from something like a kitchen accident.”

“But what if next time it’s not your arm?” Zhongli replied. “What if it’s your neck or your chest? What if you cut yourself too deeply, what if your cut becomes infected. There are so many things I haven’t thought about until now, so many things that could hurt you. It frightens me terribly.”

“I’m very grateful that you’re worrying for me like this. But Zhongli?” You waited for his eyes to meet yours, smiling once more when he faced you. “You cannot be consumed by your anxiety. Believe me humans worry about these kinds of things. What if I tripped and fell and broke my neck, what if I scratched myself and developed and infection, what if I choked on an apple? These fears live with us, sometimes constantly, but we cannot let them consume us. As much as I’m flattered and glad you care for my wellbeing so much, I also don’t want you consumed by it, nor do I want to be treated like glass.”

“I cannot understand how you’re so resilient.” Zhongli replied after a short pause. You shrugged.

“We are because we must be.”

Zhongli knew in his heart that these fears he harbored weren’t going to go away. He knew that they were going to become more and more apparent through the month of your initial recovery, and through the longer period too as scar tissue formed and subsided.

Humans were indeed fragile. But if there was one thing stronger than said fragility it was their even greater determination to supersede it. Humans may be fragile in body, but they were stronger in spirit even than the gods.

That was something Zhongli wasn’t going to forget. Not for a very long time.

#my computer's about to die but this was totally worth it #also I never want to learn that much about burns again oof #tonight was wild #also I love ningguang so much aaa #kaeya #ningguang #xiao #zhongli #kaeya x reader #ningguang x reader #xiao x reader #zhongli x reader #genshin impact #genshin impact fanfiction #scenarios #my writing

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txciaz · 3 years

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Hi!! So,

it's my ( literal ) first time writing fanfiction, so I'm pretty new at this stuff, but Lady Dimitrescu is all I was able to think about for weeks and I >needed< to do something about it.

( If you want some context, I wrote this thinking “what if Alcina survived?” - Alcina's pov )

———

The fall,

The end of everything you once loved

Ethan Winters.

You woke up... somehow, you woke up. The frigid air hitting your fresh wounds felt like a jolt send by reality, as if one says "you're still alive" -

- and oh how you were starting to hate that feeling.

Laying on the demolished floor of your castle, muscles twitching in pain, mouth open gasping for air... that's how you are, how you will remember yourself from now on. A defeated dragon, a crushed woman, a dead mother.

You should get up, you should let go of your carcass and crawl your way back into the warmth of your home, you should—

—you should be dead, actually. Resting on death's cold embrace along with your daughters.

Daughters.

God, your daughters.

The memories flood your mind with a painful, unbearable reminder; they're gone, dead, crystalized - gone. They're gone. Your lovely daughters, your pride and joy, the main reason you'd open up your eyes in the morning...

...Bela,

Cassandra,

Daniela....

Their names are long cold, not yet forgotten - no, never forgotten - but somewhere else, as they don't belong here anymore; not on your arms, tucking them to bed. Not on your hands, caressing their faces. Not on your lips, kissing their foreheads. Not on your tongue, as you say them.

A raspy scream leaves your throat, it sounds disturbing.

You sob, hot tears trailing down your cheeks and neck, small cries for help find their way into the wind, disappearing with less importance then when they materialized.

You cannot recall for how long you stayed at that very same position, perhaps some hours, perhaps a day, but you are certain that at some point you were overcame by tiredness and collapsed - probably the best to do for now.

xxx

And so, rises the moon and the stars watch upon your limp body, the night howling a merciful wind and singing a melodic song. Grunting, you push yourself up with your elbows, sitting up and facing the sky through the hole you've made on the roof... and the levels above...

A huge carcass sits besides you, it's wings bended on itself and it's big mouth open to whoever would like to have a peek; you probably changed back into your normal body while unconscious... Now that you can see it clearly, you notice the damage that man-thing did to you... by heavens, how were you still alive and...

Oh. The castle. You look forward, taking in the horizon - the stars look exclusively shiny tonight - you breath in, the dusty air causes you to chough a few times. Stretching your neck a bit to see your whole house, you tell yourself it looks.. fine, actually, ignoring the broken windows. The broken windows.

It's cold. You shiver harshly, panting as the air meets your bare back and rumbles through your lungs, making you hug yourself, - you're naked, you just realized - the winter in Romania is truly kind to no one.

Your legs tremble with just the thought of trying to stand on your feet. You don't rush to do it either, let the wintry breeze take in your wounds, make it sting, burn it, freeze it; freeze your body along.

“To die. To die is to live. To live without them, that's torture. To live without their presence, absent of their scents, to not hear them, nor see their faces again, that's worse than death; far, far worse. How could I ever walk into that damned house without the heavenly sounds of their laughs, the tapping of their feet as they walk free, the steadiness of their heartbeats, reminding me that my own still beats.

Beats for them. For them only.

And they're gone.

So who shall my heart beat for? Myself? No, that wouldn't do. I will rip it out from my chest if I must, sacrifice it to any god who may hear me, all so I could spend five more minutes with them. Then I'd die in peace and find them at my arms again at whatever comes after this poor life.

But I'm here.”

You still hold yourself as you stare at a castle's - broken - window, new warm tears hanging the same trail the old and now dry ones did, a silent cry.

Your intrusive thoughts were abruptly cut by a loud noise from the inside of the castle, making you jump up, gathering all your last strengths to stand and walk a few shaky steps closer to home. The more you walked, the louder the noises got; a little rustle became a bang, and your tiptoing became a sprint, you hold yourself as tight as you can, ignoring the bleeding, the cold air spiking your lungs, how insanely fast you heartbeat was. You need to get there, protect the last remnant of them you still have.

The gates felt heavy now, even for you, who would open them with one hand. Where is your strength now? The fearless dragon who'd do anything to protect her house? Perhaps she died on that fall, and now all there's left is a shadow of what you were one day.

With much pain, you open the big doors, leading to the comfort of your house; you don't get in, you throw yourself in. The warm atmosphere engulfed you like a summer kiss on a winter storm, all you needed to ground yourself to reality for now. Grabbing some sheets laying over an old counter, you wrap yourself in it – oh, that's gonna get soaked in blood, but that's not of your concern now – moving incredibly fast for someone as hurt as yourself, you follow the continuous sounds that could not mean something good. The main doors are open, the cellar is unlocked as well, that idiotic man-thing couldn't even close the doors once he finished slaughtering your home? Imbecile.

You stand at the library's door now, suddenly frozen; you know what happened in there... do you really want to get in? Are you truly ready to face it again? Maybe you should take a step back and walk away, it would be the most logical decision to take now.

But what is logic when the heart screams? What is the brain for once your emotions take the best of you? You can't walk away. Put some honor on your name. Save the last bit of your daughter that fate is still conceiving you. Your chest rises and falls completely out of coordination, your fists close around the fabric involving your body; get ready, you're going in; gather the last bit of courage you have inside yourself and blast these doors.

And so you do.

You bring those pieces of wood to the ground, the only barrier between you and the reality you couldn't accept; a guttural growl forms in your chest as you see a lycan approach your child's crystalized body; you're blind with ire, sorrow, protectorship - you name it - and it makes you shout at the top of your lungs as you dilacerate the filthy beasts you'd bat your eye at. A bloody trail of corpses marks your way through the castle grounds, your claws dripping with fresh sanguine fluid - which you can't tell if it's from the creatures or from yourself - the crimson path follows you all the way to the other wing of mansion like a spirit who must haunt you for eternity.

You scream like a feral animal, blood soaking the once white cloth around your form; the scream becomes a shriek, which descends to a yelp, ending as a furious cry. You can feel the anger leaving you, like the waters of a waterfall; explosive, big portions of water falling into a numb, deaden lake. Hopefully those waters will carry you with them, you shall fall and sink at a anesthetizing lagoon.

You kneel, eyes closed, eyebrows frowned; a loud sigh fills the deafening silence in the air, your mind is blank – better, your mind is red, scarlet red mixed with black, ire and grief. Slowly, your head lower itself so you're facing the floor.

The big Lady Dimitrescu,

kneeling on a pool of blood, defeated.

•

“Lady Dimitrescu!”

Who..? The voice was so far yet so close, you try your best to focus on the direction of the calls but your nerves just won't cooperate.

“Lady!”

Who would be calling for you? Is your mind playing tricks on you now? And since when you were laying on the floor? Too many questions for too little answers. You try to stand up, but a sharp pain on your side made you cry out and fall on your back, face knotted in pain – perhaps your adrenaline rush was keeping you from feeling what was really happening with your body, and now you feel like you're betraying yourself for that.

A small figure approaches you in a fast pace, causing you to unleash your claws one more time and snarl at the not-so-possible threat; you were hurt. Vulnerable. Letting someone close was the last thing you wanted now. The humanoid thing backs away a few steps with your aggressive reaction, hands on their chest, visibly afraid – even though your vision is quite blurry, you identify their expression: scared, desperate, sorrowful – they call out once more, almost shouting.

“Please, Lady Dimitrescu, let me help!”

Ah... Help... The now clearer feminine voice washes over you - a wave of compassion - as if hope has found its way to your house again. Well, it better go away again, or you'll drag it out yourself.

“Out.” was all that left your lips, your intense gaze locking with hers, a silent yet not so discrete warning; although you had only said one word, it was well understood by the woman, who stepped away, eyes still meeting yours, a dreadful cast hang on her face.

Still, she didn't left.

Is that girl testing her luck? It can only be. Once again you warn her: “Leave. I will not repeat myself.”

Her posture stiffens, after a moment of silence she looks at the door, truly wondering about leaving or not; her body turns around, her knuckles going white from how hard she was grabbing the fabric on her chest – she's conflicted. But why? Who is she, after all? – A long, defeated sigh leaves her, as if she knows there is no choice left.

“Allow me to help.” A failed effort on trying to sound confident; her voice is full of tears and her tone is oscillating – it makes you wonder if she has been crying – The human walks towards you, trying not to make any eye contact; you can't stand on your feet, you left hand is pressed on your injured side, the other is open and directing your now extended nails towards her.

Oh how funny it is, no?

The predator being cornered by the prey. The dragon being trapped by the rabbit. How ridiculous it is.

Her extremely shaky hands hang in front of her, trying to say she won't hurt you – oh if she only knew it's going to be the other way round. – One step closer.. Her lips and chin tremble; Another. Your claws grow bigger, eyes peering through her soul; another step, your eyebrows frown, her eyes are teary. The last step - your blood is boiling hot, your nerves on edge; you are still the predator. - a slicing sound and a half-scream saturate the air for a millisecond, just for silence to overfill it once more. Red splashes over the room again, on your face, on your chest, but mostly on the floor, where the girl was thrown at.

An agonizing scream leaves her throat - what a miracle, she remains alive - both of her hands cover her face, blood spilling all over her; what a sight, you would most definitely enjoy this very much on another situation. She cries out in despair, making you face the ceiling and close your eyes, a tired look on your face – you just want all this to end, you don't have any more patience for this. You want to crawl back into your bed and starve, you want to destroy this place, make it abandoned ruins of what one day was a home; you want to kill that damned sickening man-thing, kill this foolish girl for perturbing your grieving, and then yourself.

The woman captures your attention once again, she is kneeling, her body facing yours, her right hand presses her ripped face, the other makes its slow way up to you, although she is trembling, she manages to keep her hand steady enough to hand you a little green flask with a yellow-y label; You look closer, 'treatment disinfectant' it says... Oh you can only be joking. You feel like slaughtering the girl right this instant, but takes in a deep breath and holds the flask, her hand immediately falling along with her body. Is she dead? No, her slow yet consistent breathing exclaims that she is still alive – you honestly find it a bit offensive – You should, but you cannot bring yourself to finish the human; you should end her suffering, but now she caught your attention; and besides, she wants to help, doesn't she? then the price she'll pay is staying alive.

———

hahaaa I'm so nervous about posting this,,, ,

and yes! It is a alcina x maiden fic! I do plan it to be slow burn, and if some you liked it and read it till here, please like and/or reblog and I'll post chapter 2!

( posted on Ao3! Name: “The woman in your castle” )

( chapter 2 posted!! )

#lady dimitrescu x reader #alcina x reader #alcina dimitrescu x reader #lady dimitrescu #help idk what im doing

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violetgardens · 3 years

Text

A Rainy Day Takes the Stress Away.

♔Zhongli + Female!Reader ♔

♚Working at the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor in the bustling city of Liyue Harbor can be tiring work. On a specific rainy day, when the city was quiet and the rain as his acquaintance does he make his way home for some well needed stress relief. ♚

♔nsfw under cut. ♔

“Drip… drop… drip…”

The streets of Liyue were filled with crowds. Consumers rushed to get under builds as the skies started to cry a melancholic tune. Businesses were quick to close their stands and rushed inside as the thunder boomed. The Millelith stood at their posts, umbrellas in hand. As the sky started to pour down harder, the clouds covered the sun and darkness engulfed Liyue Harbor.

Such minor issues did not bother Mr. Zhongli though, as he sat in his chair at his desk and continued filling out papers as consultant of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. His assistant was quick to rush into the business, drenched from the rain that poured outside. He simply looked up and nodded his head before getting back to his writings.

Rain filled him with a sense of relaxation, a time of peace. Days where he could find himself thinking of the older days of Liyue and how prosperous it would be without Rex Lapis. Or days where he could recollect the past memories of archon war to which he would tell Aether whenever they had visited an area or went out for tea. Even days where he could sit at Xiangling’s restaurant and reminisce, basking in the warmth of the small rain drops.

He sighed to himself before putting his pen down and closing his folder, his back was aching and he needed a break, thus, he called off work for the rest of the day.

Walking to his home down the empty streets of Liyue (save for a few merchants and vendors who still had carts up) had given him a lonely feeling, one lacking the warmth that the bustling streets of Liyue usual had as he walked home. His longing for a better Liyue without him had affected him in a way that seeing the lack of people and interaction on the streets left him in a state of dread. He pushed through the storm and hurriedly walked the rest of the way to his home when the rain began to pour harder than before.

“Drip… drop… drip…”

The rain cascaded off the roof of his small home creating a waterfall between him and his front door. Swiftly evading the water, he held his hands towards the knob, the color a beautiful gold. It didn't take long for him to realize you were home, the sweet aroma of one of the delicacies in Mondstadt, Sticky Honey Roast. It put a smile on his face as he opened the door, the sound alerting to you that he was home, and quite early.

“Welcome home Zhongli!” you said ecstatically, not expecting him to be home before you finished cooking. A large smile plastered on your face before you ran to get him a towel to dry off. He gratefully took it, waving you a small hello and muttering a thank you, reciprocating a smile. He started to remove his gloves, his hands calloused from the many fights he had endured. You took his gloves in your hands while he started to remove his coat, still drenched from the storm outside. Removing the top button of his shirt and tie, he heaved a heavy sigh. Lastly, he took off the band that held his hair together, allowing it to fall to his shoulders. You smiled bigger than before at his relaxed form.

“Feeling better? You look tired. Here, come sit with me” you said while grabbing his hand and leading him to a chair in which he comfortably sat in. You rushed over to the stove and put out the fire that cooked the food, letting it sit, and began making him a cup of tea.

“I’m feeling fine, although I seem to have an ache in my shoulders, nothing I cannot do about, though” he started as he graciously took the cup of tea out of your hands and took a sip, the heat warming his body. It wasn’t unusual to see Zhongli in a state like this. He was easily able to let off his guard around you because he trusted you more than anyone else. You were genuinely happy when he was able to let go of his standard demeanor and be himself.

He put down the cup and looked towards you as you got up to stand behind him. Your hands found his way into his hair, combing your fingers through it. This elicited a soft humming of approval from him while you continued. Your hands slowly fell to his shoulders and softly started to massage him from the base of his neck towards the tips of his shoulders. He laid his head back in content against your body and closed his eyes, basking in the peaceful silence between the two of you.

“That’s great to hear,” you said, breaking the silence and looking down towards his peaceful face. This man had never ceased to make you blush, his features becoming more and more clear to you since the day he’d met you in the Guili Plains.

- ♔

The Guili plains are a magnificent area. Full of many ruins, one would think it was quite dangerous to traverse. But you were different. Today you were on the lookout for glaze lilies, the flowers that would thrive off of melodic singing and gave off a beautiful blue hue that lit up any area. Smiling to yourself, you ran over to a desolate area of the plains where the glaze lily buds were peacefully sitting. You sat in between the buds and started singing a tune of old you had learnt previously from a storyteller in Liyue.

“♫ ♪ ♫~”

The buds started opening and the lilies were in full form. Unbeknownst to you though, one of the buds was not what you thought. It sprung off the ground, a cryo whopperflower looking straight in your direction whilst the other glaze lilies were destroyed by its presence. You shrieked and jumped back, making a run for it. It wasn’t until more creatures began to aggro you, creating more obstacles for you that were hard to escape from. The rumors were right, Guili plains were certainly a dangerous place. Every twist in turn there was a new enemy that would stop you in your place. Ranged hilichurls, mitachurls, heck even abyss mages and ruin guards followed your path as you tried to escape back to Liyue Harbor.

You were running out of breath and needed to hide somewhere, taking your chances and running over to a tree. There, you saw a man.

Zhongli had taken his day off to come to the Guili plains, a sight he could not forget. He recollected all of his memories from the archon war, and stood in front of a lake pondering the future of Liyue. Lost in thought, he had not seen the commotion that went on around him until he found you right next to him, breathlessly holding on to one of his arms as you looked up to him pleadingly. Then, he turned around and saw a ruin guard following you. Quickly connecting the dots he told you to stay put and walked over to the ruin guard, spear in hand.

And within a moment. It was over. Blink and you’ll miss it.

He walked back over to you once he finished surveying the area. Your eyes held a look of awe as you clutched your chest and hurriedly met with Zhongli, to which you shot a nice smile. He nodded before looking back down to you.

“You do know these plains are quite dangerous. Given that you have come here with no more than a basket and no weapon, I can assume you are not a fighter. What brings you here?” He asked with a questioning tone. His assumption made you blush with embarrassment, for what he said was true. You had come only to pick glaze lilies, not be attacked by hordes of monsters. But you digress. Clearing your throat you muttered to him, “I have come to pick the glaze lilies. A storyteller once said that singing a song of the past would bring them to bloom, and once he told me of their beauty I had to come and check them out. Though, I was not expecting a whopperflower to attack me… and then… well, you know the rest” rubbing the back of your head with a cheeky smile. He put his hand on his chin and closed his eyes and looked back at you. “Well, I suppose I could help you find these lilies. They are a special part of Liyue’s history after all” he started. “It is rather rude of me to interject into your plans. Please, allow me your name first? Apologies for not asking first.”

“Oh, I’m (Y/N). Nice to meet you. And yours?”

“Zhongli. A pleasure as well. Shall we go find those flowers?”

- ♔

And thus was the start of your relationship. One started on the brinks of your own death that blossomed into a love just as the glaze lilies displayed their beauty towards the songs of Liyue. It’s a story that always makes you chuckle, for if Zhongli hadn’t saved you that day who knows what might’ve happened. Sighing contently, you smiled down to the man you now call your love, and leaned down to give him a peck. His hands met yours that sat on his shoulders and he reciprocated the kiss.

“Drip… drop.. drip…”

The rain continued to pour on the glass on your window. The aroma of the roast is still in the air. A lovely little house on the side of the harbor that consisted of small artifacts from your travels and stories of long ago. Comfy, perfect fit for two. And the sight on the inside, well…

One could say it’s a sight that keeps you coming back.

He sat straight up on the chair, his shoulders loosely hanging. His shirt, once buttoned down by his collar, thrown into the disheveled mesh of clothing that sat in a pile. His face, bright red and sweating profusely from the contact making his hair stick to his forehead and back. Labored breaths came out as he groaned quite loudly, much different from his composed demeanor. Was this the same Zhongli as everyone at his work or on the streets would see? The one who knows every inch of history in Liyue? One of the most attractive men on the harbor who seemed unfazed by everything?

No. This is your Zhongli. One that the public would never see.

He tilted his head back in surprise when you took more of him in, his grip tight in your hair and his other hand slicking his hair back and out his face. He shut his eyes tightly, mouth slightly parted as he tried to hide his groans. Yet you weren’t one to hold back. While he may have been bare, you on the other hand had been fully clothed. Why not tease him a bit? He works too hard, it’s time to take care of him.

You slowly retracted your mouth from his cock before looking back up at him. He looked to submissive, so innocent as you tore down his walls and opened up a new world for him. His grip on your hair loosened and he cupped your cheeks, looking down in your eyes with fervor. You took this opportunity to sweetly smile at him as if you were innocent, and grabbed his member again to stroke it. This aroused him even more, the look in his eyes getting more intense and his hand going back into your hair. You knew what he wanted, slowly sticking your tongue out to lick the tip of his cock before taking it in once again. This elicited a noise from Zhongli, the intense pleasure coming within seconds, too quick for him. You bobbed your head up and down, closing your eyes when he hit the back of your throat, slightly choking. You hummed, the vibrations sending more pleasurable sensations through his body.

He was going to cum. You knew him too well.

You stopped all motion before he could, and looked back at him, slightly panting. He eyed you lowly, a mixture of disappointment and urgency on his face. You chuckled before standing up and placing a kiss to his forehead, an action that he always cherished. He wondered what your next move would be. You had left him bare and yet here you stood, fully clothed, even your apron was still on.

It was as though you could read his mind. You simply hushed him, bringing him out of his thoughts and ran a finger under his chin, lifting his head up. Gracefully taking a step back, you ran your hands over clothed breasts and down to your hips, shaking your body in tune. He sighed, trying to repress himself. He had long forgotten the name of Rex Lapis, one of war, and had reduced himself to Zhongli, a mortal. Yet the dominating aura of Rex Lapis stayed with him just as it had been displayed all those years ago. He knew he had to stop himself before he went over to you and ripped off your clothes himself and made you his. He breathed in a shaky breath, resting his hand on one leg and the other grabbing his shaft, slowly rubbing himself.

You loved breaking him down, knowing that he would be unable to show his dominance, that he had to repress himself. The sight made you smile as you removed the apron, the cloth swiftly falling to your feet. You kick it away, moving your hands to the buttons on your dress. Each undoing felt slower and slower to Zhongli, his pace going faster as if demanding you to hurry up. He ached for you as lust clouded his mind yet he is powerless in the situation. You watched him, smile still plastered on your face while you undid the last button, your body in full view. Letting it cascade off your shoulders, you watched as his eyes widened and his breathing began to get heavier.

“Oh dear. Don’t cum.”

A demand that made him stop, both eyes focused on you. His amber irises glistened over with lust, cheeks red, drenched in sweat. God, that turned him on even more. And just as you removed the last article of clothing he breathed a sigh of relief that he could finally be given the long awaited pleasure he was seeking.

You slowly made your way over to him and he sat up in the process, upper body straightening. You sat upon his lap, grabbing his cock and positioning it near your entrance. He grabbed onto your hips and rubbed them, helping you down onto his shaft. He breathed out a groaned, your walls tightening against him. You shut your eyes tightly and parted your lips, soft moans leaving your mouth when he fully made his way into you. You opened your eyes and stared back at his orbs, leaned down to kiss him. Lips locked into a battle, you lifted yourself up before roughly slamming back down, removing yourself from his lips and letting out a loud moan. You continued with a slow pace, keeping contact with Zhongli as he tried to mask his groans.

He’d always been a patient man, yet the pace was too teasingly slow.

Could he resist the temptation to speed it up?

Of course not.

It seemed only like seconds had passed and yet he had you pinned to the wall. You gasped in surprise, hands quickly meeting his neck and legs wrapping around his waist. The repressed dominance he had tried his best holding back had come out full force as he roughly held onto your hips and rammed into your wet core. You didn’t suppress any moans, sounds meshing into the air like a song. He moved his head to meet your neck, hot breath hovering over your neck. He kissed your neck and sucked the skin, biting it to leave a mark. Your arms held on tight to his neck, holding him for dear life. He pulled back, looking you in your eyes. He was panting, his legs were shaking, he was close. You met foreheads, his pace going faster and faster to the brink of pleasure. Bringing your lips together for a final kiss, your walls tightened against his cock, signaling your orgasm. You moaned loudly into the kiss, head reeling back and eyes shutting tightly. He soon finished with you, ramming himself as far as he could into your core, leaving him flustered and panting.

Your bodies meshed together, the sweat glistening off and the warmth of your bodies radiating off each other. You were tired and he knew it, slowly making his way to the sofa where he laid your body comfortably. About to leave, you quickly grabbed his hand to stop him, looking up at him with half lidded eyes.

“Stay with me.”

The rain accompanied the sounds of comfortable silence. His eyes followed your form and he chuckled to himself. He knew.

This was a demand he could not ignore.

“Drip… drop… drip…”

♕ violetgardens.

#genshin impact #genshin impact imagines #zhongli genshin impact #zhongli x reader #genshin impact x reader #not sfw #violetgardens

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magicmanias · 3 years

Text

The Wanderer

Episode 2 of Polaris

[per - uh - jee] (n). Astronomy. the point in the orbit of a heavenly body at which it is nearest to the earth

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Summary: A fugitive out of time + interdimensional space travel + a love story. Always on the run, and while Loki might be able to escape the TVA, he always gravitates towards you. Not even bending the fabric of space and time itself can cut his heartstrings.

Occurs after the events of Endgame. Replaces Loki mini-series timeline.

Warnings: You know it’s gonna be angst. You just know. Come on now.

Word Count: 3.0k

A/N: Sorry this took so long! I have exams coming up, so I’ve been having to study for those a lot. Once exams are over at the end of May, you know I’ll be writing like a maniac. Also, the word count will definitely increase as the chapters go along. It's been a bit short, but right now, we're just building traction! And yes… You will come across a part that is vague and opens up more questions about the reader who I have named Goddess Divine.

<- Previous | Next -> (Coming soon)

“Thank you.” Loki rubs his wrists as the chains fall to the ground. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“You—My husband taught me,” you said. Loki nodded but offered nothing in response. “We need to leave here. I know a way.”

“Hey, hold on.” Loki reached out to grab her wrist, but lowered his hand once he got her attention instead. “We don’t have the Tesseract.”

“There are other ways to leave this planet.”

Loki scoffed. “I don’t think you understand how powerful that thing is.”

You turned fully to face him, craning your neck to meet his eyes. “I know more than you. Trust me. It’s better if you forget about it.”

The children are constantly at the forefront of your thoughts even as you searched for an escape in the caverns under Asgard. Memories of posies in hand and your old, favorite pink dress drew all your attention from the damp halls illuminated by enchanted flame. This place… this time that you’re in was all-too-well ingrained in the core of everything you remembered of your home.

Your calves started to strain and it took you some time until you realized that you’ve been trying to sync your steps with Loki’s, an unconscious effort you would always put in walking alongside your husband. The difference was that his doppleganger didn’t take care to shorten his strides to allow for you to keep up.

“We’ve fallen into a past timeline of yours.” Loki glanced at you over his shoulder. “Those children were you and… your husband.”

“Yes.” You give up on trying to keep up and let him take the lead. “I remember why we were up there. Today was the Perigee.”

Loki was curious. He’d never heard of such a thing. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

You made a confused look on your face, but then immediately understood. “I suppose you don’t observe that in your world.”

“No, I can’t say that we do. Is it a celestial celebration? We only commemorate the coming of the seasons.”

At the end of the hall, you finally arrived at the center of the caverns, a chamber of nine interconnected murals telling the story of creation. You and Loki used to play under these paintings, waiting until Thor would find you at last.

“The Perigee is not of Asgard. It exists on Midgard, the mortal planet, when the moon is at its closest point in orbit to the earth. It happens so often there, but we hold the festival when Asgard, too, is at its closest point with Midgard.”

“That seems a bit arbitrary,” he commented, now gazing at the murals of his father above him. Odin was painted in a beautiful light as he constructed the world. Ymir simply seemed to disappear from the artwork, but the muralist failed to convey that Odin slew the giant and used his body to form the cosmos.

“There is a story behind it, like all great Norse holidays have. It tells the story of Gaea and Máni. A tale of forbidden love. Lofn loves to tell the story for all the children at each festival. She claims that without her, they would never have ended up together,” you laughed, “I remember pulling Loki from his books so we could make it on time.” You giggled at the memory.

“Máni? I haven’t ever heard of him retiring from pulling the moon. And Gaea has been sleeping for eons.”

“Our history is different, perhaps. I do not exist in your Asgard, yes?” You continued to walk, choosing the fourth passage from the left that led to the waterfall beneath the palace.

“No. No, I’m afraid not.” Loki paused in thought as he contemplated your assumption. Surely you must have existed somewhere in his world. “So what was so forbidden of their love?”

“Where I come from, Gaea was truly the first realm to exist, made of the blood and dust from a time even beyond her. In an empty universe, she was lonely, though she was a goddess of life itself. So she collected more dust in the reaches of space and breathed life into Máni. He was born, bright like the stars and light in his heart. He was grateful for life, and in return, he gave her his love… and her children. The mortals. But when they came close to embrace one another, he came too close and scorched the earth, burning her children. Gaea mourned, crying until Midgard flooded with her tears. From the water, the plants regrew and the animals emerged, but still, she missed her children. Máni couldn’t bear to see his love so saddened, so he sacrificed almost all of his power to breathe new life in the mortals. He grew dim and small, no longer so mighty without Gaea’s magic. Now in a realm of eternal darkness, Sol had finally caught up to Máni. She was born with the duty to bring light to the mortals, but Odin also tasked her with the job to separate Gaea and Máni when they became too close. Every day, she shines her light on the earth, but when she goes to rest, Máni returns to see Gaea before Sol wakes up once again to warn Máni. Yet sometimes, Máni can’t help but to come a little bit closer to Gaea—the rising tides his only warning. We call it the Perigee.”

“And what of Lofn? How did she contribute her skills in this forbidden love?”

“Oh yes. Lofn told us that she was the only being to give her consent to their love. The rest of Aesir vehemently rejected the bond. She used to try and match all the children up in the village and she would host all the play weddings. We must have been married by her hundreds of times. She could never resist the idea of the God of Mischief with a maiden Vanir.”

The sound of water crashing down into the abyss grew louder and louder as natural light started to creep into the passage.

“What is your role?”

“My role?”

“Yes, what do you do? What do you reign over?”

“Oh, I’m really no one. I don’t even think the Midgardians are aware of me. My role is quite insignificant compared to the likes of your brother or even the infamous trickster.”

“What is your role, Goddess?” he pushed once more.

“Seidr,” you shrugged, racing your finger along the stone wall.

“I would hardly call that insignificant. The power of prophecy is a force to be reckoned with.”

“I was born with a divine title, but I can’t even perform a healing spell,” you admitted.

“Your husband never taught you?” Loki smirked, the tease hanging loose from his lips.

You frowned. “No, he couldn’t.”

A rumble of footsteps approached and neither you nor Loki hesitated to make a final run towards the end of the tunnel. As you started to gain some speed, you suddenly froze, completely still as a hazy orange light encased you. Loki’s hand glowed green, battling against the force that trapped you, but just as quickly as he tried to free you, he was captured.

The TVA launched you through the exact same process as the first time. Long lines, an infinite number of signatures on documents you didn’t understand, and a maze of doorways. You didn’t see Loki again for a long time. It felt like days, but in a place as distorted as this, you couldn’t keep track of the hours.

Another agent guided you into a holding cell. It looked strange—more like an inn room more than a jail. There was a bed, a tiny washroom, and a square box that showed what looked like a play for children. The characters chattered silently while their simple dialogue was scrawled in the glass. The door opened.

“It appears we’re roommates this time.” Loki strolled into the room and the agent closed the door behind him, the lock clicking in place.

The box flashed and the program changed to the man you had just become acquainted with before your escape. “Well that was fun, wasn’t it? Unfortunately, we will have to keep you here since you didn’t seem to enjoy the more open kind of hospitality we offered you last time. Just until everything is processed. You know how bureaucracy is. I’ll see you in a few.” Mobius winks and the moving picture contraption clicks off with a warm hum.

“Tell me about myself.” You looked up from the book provided by your captors. Loki leaned back in the desk chair with his legs on the table. He fiddled with a glass cup, tossing it in the air and catching it.

You dropped the book in your lap, still open. “I’m sorry?”

“Well you were married to an alternate version of me. He’s lived more life than me. Surely you must have something to tell me that would be of use.” He shrugged, not bothering to drag any more of his attention away from the glass.

You were sure you looked surprised as he followed his answer with, “Am I so different from him? Come on now, he must have been at least half as charming.”

“Oh… He was charming.” You closed the book and placed it on the table next to the bed. The edge of the sheet rubbed between your fingers while you considered what to tell him. “He was my best friend in childhood.”

“Tell me about the children. The younger versions of yourselves on that day. What were you doing?” Loki placed the cup on the desk and crossed one leg over the other.

It was so easy to answer. In all the years, you never forgot that particular celebration. “It was my idea to climb the hill. To pick flowers before we watched the Perigee. Lofn had paired us up for her little wedding ceremony to host in front of the children and I wanted a bouquet… for the morning gift. I didn’t know what they were at the time, but I figured it could be anything.”

“Aren’t morning gifts usually given to the bride? And… in the morning?”

You tossed your head back in calm, tired laughter. “Yes, but that wouldn’t have stopped me anyway. I think I gave them to you after we said ‘I do.’ We were… eight at the time.”

“Goddess Divine…” He kissed her hands. The red skyline fades into purple as the water at the dock darkens below. “Never doubt my love for you. Will you miss me?” said he.

“As much as there are stars in the sky.”

“Always the poet’s tongue,” said he.

“Well, I had some inspiration,” said she.

He looks wearily past the Goddess, but smiles warmly once more. “I’m afraid our time has come to an end, Goddess. I love you.”

“No resurrections this time...” No. It was supposed to happen like this. Thanos. He wasn’t supposed to be here. It’s happening all over again.

“LOKI—”

Warm water tickled your cheeks and then you were enveloped in a pool of water. Your husband’s arms wrapped around your waist as the water climbed the walls of the tub. No, this wasn’t him… It wasn’t him. It wouldn’t ever be him. “Goddess…”

“Let me go! Let me go… I want to go.” You grasp desperately at the edge of the tub, wringing yourself from Loki’s grasp. You fell onto the tile floor of the washroom, your wet clothes heavy on your back.

“Wait, just—” Loki cuts himself short when you stumble into the bathroom doorway and pull the knob to the bedroom.

“Shit—Loki…”

“You need—”

“Don’t tell me what I need! You don’t kn—know.” Your body felt weak. The walls felt like they were closing in on you. No matter how hard you tried, it seemed like you could never get enough air.

“I know being alive is certainly better than suffocating in space.”

“Is it!? I can’t even grieve for him! Be-Be… Be—cause I… Becau—se I ke-keep…” You choked, breaking out into a violent sob. Your legs buckle underneath you, but you managed to catch the ground under your hand. Tears stained the fabric covering your lap as you struggled to breathe in between your bawling, forcing you to hiccup only further fueling your frustration. “Why am I here?”

Loki knelt down and watched as you pulled your knees up to your chest and buried your head in the space between. “Heartbreak is… a sorrow that I am all too familiar with. The feeling of your chest burning and freezing and being crushed all at once. But I didn’t give you a moment to simply… catch your breath after I, admittedly, forced you to escape with me. And I will never understand what it’s like to have to look at the face of your husband every minute of every day, but I do know this…” Loki let out a steady breath. “I will never leave you behind. Ever. Until I am able to fix this mess that I have brought upon you.” Loki lowered himself onto his knees. “That is my vow to you, goddess.”

He placed a hand over yours. It was a small gesture, leaving you wanting more. You tugged on his hand, manually tucking his arm underneath yours. He leaned into your motion, sitting on the floor behind you and pulling you close between his legs. Your eyes pierced him like venom, toxic but more addictive than the sweetest wine. A Goddess Divine.

Loki grew older in recent years, but his eyes had never changed. A sea of chaos and calm. He was there, your husband. Right in front of you, holding you.

“I always liked your eyes,” you murmured. You dragged your finger across the top of his cheek, tracing a line under his eye.

And I, yours.

You slid your finger up and cupped his face in your palm. Your husband. “I love you.”

Your lips swept gently along his; hesitant, yet your hand dragged through his hair, pulling him closer. Loki held still, but made no move to stop you. Your breaths grew harder as you grew more persistent. Even though you knew you would never be able to utter a word about this after, the need for him overcame you. In the sickest of ways, he was your only chance at truly saying goodbye to your husband.

Never doubt my love for you.

Your lips were soft. As irrational as the better part of him knew it was, he couldn’t help but think this felt almost habitual. He knew he should have pushed you away or reminded you of who he was. But when your fingers glided through his hair, Loki lost all sense of what was proper. He leaned into your touch, letting you relax in his lap as you continued to kiss him… eyes clenched shut. Loki wished he could look at your eyes and pretend he was the man you were pretending he was.

“Thank you.”

The agents dragged Loki to a door labeled “INTERROGATION ROOM #603521.”

An agent walked into the room, reviewing several documents attached to a clipboard.. “Do you know why you’re here, Mr. Laufeyson?” She didn’t bother to look up from the papers as she sat down in the seat on the other side of the table.

“Where is she?”

“I’m afraid your questions will have to be saved for the end of this, Mr. Laufeyson. Please comply.”

Loki lifted his head lazily, shifting his legs wide in the metal chair. A grin curled at his lips. He didn’t know how they were going to escape this hell. Running from an infinitely powerful force existing beyond time. It would never end… Was he ready to drag you through eternal hell with him?

Yes.

He would rot in hell for all he cared, but the TVA was no more than a joke—a circus of clowns playing their parts… and he would find you.

“I’m going to burn this place to the ground.”

“Never teleport me again. This is worse than the Bifrost.” You placed a clenched hand to your forehead and winced. The pounding in your head was ceaseless, though you were too cold to be completely tortured by it. The TVA was left in shambles, subjected to Loki’s wrath after he found you freezing in the depths of space. He hadn’t said a word to you since he discovered you, nearly lifeless. The ice burned your skin and your vision was useless for the time being. You could hear the crackles of flame and stone beneath your feet. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know, but we need to heal these burns before they scar.” Loki carefully lifted your hand, examining your wounds. “Are you in pain?”

“I can’t feel anything. Just cold.” You inched your feet closer to the heat of the fire. It wasn’t as painful as you had expected it to be. Dying in space wasn’t such a bad way to go… You only wished Loki had anything else less painful.

He hummed in response. The burns begin to warm. A peculiar feeling tickles your skin and makes its way down your torso.

“Seidr?”

“My mother taught me. I can teach you.”

“What?” Loki placed more wood on the fire. Perhaps Thor’s boyish interests were good for something…

“You need to learn how to use your powers. A seidr goddess is no goddess without seidr.”

“I told you. I don’t have it. I’ve tried. You’ve tried.” Loki didn’t answer, but footsteps fell away from you.

Loki watched the asteroids floating in the foggy atmosphere. Odin once told him stories of how he acquired all his wisdom. Life itself is knowledge, he would say. War, politics, distant planets. They all have something to offer, but there is a place where wisdom flows like water in the roots of the Tree of Life. “The Allfather once traveled to the roots of Yggdrasil to attain knowledge and guide his reign. Perhaps we can go there.”

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michaelbogild · 3 years

Text

Lines by Leonard Cohen

As someone long prepared for the occasion In full command of every plan you wrecked – Do not choose a coward’s explanation that hides behind the cause and the effect

And it's stronger than drink And it's deeper than sorrow This darkness she's left in my heart.

And I'll dance with you in Vienna I'll be wearing a river's disguise The hyacinth wild on my shoulder, My mouth on the dew of your thighs

He wants to write a love song An anthem of forgiving A manual for living With defeat

The birds they sang At the break of day Start again I heard them say Don't dwell on what Has passed away Or what is yet to be.

You never liked to get The letters that I sent. But now you've got the gist Of what my letters meant. You're reading them again, The ones you didn't burn. You press them to your lips, My pages of concern.

I caught the darkness It was drinking from your cup. I said: Is this contagious? You said: Just drink it up

Everybody talking to their pockets Everybody wants a box of chocolates And a long stem rose Everybody knows

A cross on every hill A star, a minaret So many graves to fill O love, aren't you tired yet?

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming Everybody knows that it's moving fast Everybody knows that the naked man and woman Are just a shining artifact of the past

Yeah I missed you since the place got wrecked By the winds of change and the weeds of sex looks like freedom but it feels like death it's something in between, I guess

I walked into this empty church I had no place else to go When the sweetest voice I ever heard, whispered to my soul

I heard the snake was baffled by his sin He shed his scales to find the snake within But born again is born without a skin The poison enters into everything

And summoned now to deal With your invincible defeat, You live your life as if it’s real, A Thousand Kisses Deep.

I’m slowing down the tune I never liked it fast You want to get there soon I want to get there last

When they said REPENT REPENT I wonder what they meant

Her thighs they slipped away from me Like schools of startled fish Though I've forgotten half my life I still remember this

And if no leaves were on the tree And no water in the sea And the break of day had nothing to reveal That's how broken I would be What my life would seem to me If I didn't have your love to make it real

And yes she lied about it all Her children and her husband You were born to judge the world Forgive me but I wasn't

O troubled dust concealing An undivided love The Heart beneath is teaching To the broken Heart above

The pull of the moon, the thrust of the sun And thus the ocean is crossed The waters are blessed while a shadowy guest Kindles a light for the lost

How come you called me here tonight? How come you bother With my heart at all? You raise me up in grace, Then you put me in a place, Where I must fall.

And everybody knows that it's now or never Everybody knows that it's me or you And everybody knows that you live forever Ah when you've done a line or two

It's coming like the tidal flood beneath the lunar sway, imperial, mysterious, in amorous array:

The lights went out behind us The fireflies undressed The broken sidewalk ended I touched her sleeping breasts They opened to me urgently Likelilies from the dead Behind a fine embroidery Her nipples rose like bread Then I took off my necktie And she took off her dress My belt and pistol set aside We tore away the rest

The Maestro says it's Mozart but it sounds like bubble gum when you're waiting for the miracle, for the miracle to come.

The sea so deep and blind The sun, the wild regret The club, the wheel, the mind, O love, aren't you tired yet?

The wounded forms appear: The loss, the full extent; And simple kindness here, The solitude of strength.

If the sun would lose its light And we lived in an endless night And there was nothing left that you could feel If the sea were sand alone And the flowers made of stone And no one that you hurt could ever heal Well that's how broken I would be What my life would seem to me If I didn't have your love to make it real

But you'll be hearing from me baby, long after I'm gone I'll be speaking to you sweetly From a window in the Tower of Song

I said I’d be your lover. You laughed at what I said. I lost my job forever. I was counted with the dead.

It failed my little fire But it's bright the dying spark Go tell the young messiah What happens to the heart

Good night, good night, my fallen star I guess you're right, you always are I know you're right about the blues You live some life you'd never choose

looks like freedom but it feels like death it's something in between, I guess

I've seen you change the water into wine I've seen you change it back to water, too I sit at your table every night I try but I just don't get high with you

The present's not that pleasant Just a lot of things to do I thought the past would last me But the darkness got that too

The splinters that you carry The cross you left behind Come healing of the body Come healing of the mind

I wish there was a treaty we could sign I do not care who takes this bloody hill I'm angry and I'm tired all the time I wish there was a treaty, I wish there was a treaty Between your love and mine

I’m lacing up my shoe But I don’t want to run I’ll get here when I do Don’t need no starting gun

Thanks For The Dance

Ah, they're dancing in the street — it's Jubilee We sold ourselves for love but now we're free I'm so sorry for that ghost I made you be Only one of us was real and that was me

And I'm still working with the wine, still dancing cheek to cheek, the band is playing Auld Lang Syne, but the heart will not retreat.

And maybe I had miles to drive, And promises to keep: You ditch it all to stay alive, A Thousand Kisses Deep.

Baby don’t ignore me We were smokers we were friends Forget that tired story Of betrayal and revenge

So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll I'm very sorry, baby, doesn't look like me at all I'm standing by the window where the light is strong Ah they don't let a woman kill you Not in the Tower of Song

Show me the place, help me roll away the stone Show me the place, I can't move this thing alone Show me the place where the word became a man Show me the place where the suffering began

And you're weak and you're harmless and you're sleeping in your harness and the wind going wild in the trees, and it ain't exactly prison but you'll never be forgiven for whatever you've done with the keys.

Steer your heart past the Truth that you believed in yesterday Such as Fundamental Goodness and the Wisdom of the Way Steer your heart, precious heart, past the women whom you bought Year by year, month by month, day by day Thought by thought

Word of words and measure of all measures Blessed is the name, the name be blessed Written on my heart in burning letters That’s all I know, I cannot read the rest

And O my love, I still recall The pleasures that we knew; The rivers and the waterfall, Wherein I bathed with you.

You said how could this happen You said how can this be The chains are gone from heaven The storms are wild and free

I cried for you this morning And I’ll cry for you again But I’m not in charge of sorrow So please don’t ask me when

Both of us say there are laws to obey But frankly I don’t like your tone You want to change the way I make love I want to leave it alone

Behold the gates of mercy In arbitrary space And none of us deserving The cruelty or the grace

Then I came back from where I’d been. My room, it looked the same – But there was nothing left between The Nameless and the Name.

O longing of the branches To lift the little bud O longing of the arteries To purify the blood

I to my side call the meek and the mild You to your side call the Word By virtue of suffering I claim to have won You claim to have never been heard

I know I said I’d meet you, I’d meet you at the store, But I can’t buy it, baby. I can’t buy it anymore.

I was idle with my soul, when I heard that you could use me I followed very closely, but my life remained the same But then you showed me where you had been wounded In every atom broken is the Name

I fled to the edge of the mighty sea of sorrow Pursued by the riders of a cruel and dark regime But the waters parted and my soul crossed over Out of Egypt, out of Pharaoh’s dream

They whisper still, the injured stones The blunted mountains weep As he died to make men holy Let us die to make things cheap

Sounded like the truth Seemed the better way Sounded like the truth But it's not the truth today

Hurt once and for all into silence. A long pain ending without a song to prove it. Who could stand beside you so close to Eden, When you glinted in every eye the held-high razor, shivering every ram and son?

Sleep baby sleep The day’s on the run The wind in the trees Is talking in tongues

And I loved you when our love was blessed and I love you now there's nothing left

There's silt on your ankles and sand on your feet The river too shallow, the ocean too deep You smile at your suffering, the sweetest reprieve Why did you leave us, why did you leave

I saw some people starving There was murder, there was rape Their villages were burning They were trying to escape I couldn't meet their glances I was staring at my shoes It was acid, it was tragic It was almost like the blues

If you want a partner Take my hand Or if you want to strike me down in anger Here I stand, I'm your man

Ah I don't believe you'd like it, You wouldn't like it here. There ain't no entertainment and the judgements are severe.

The opposites falter, the spirals reverse And Eve must re-enter the sleep of her birth

I don't need to be forgiven for loving you so much It's written in the scriptures It's written there in blood I even heard the angels declare it from above

Sometimes I’d head for the highway I’m old and the mirrors don’t lie But crazy has places to hide in That are deeper than any goodbye

If you want a boxer I will step into the ring for you And if you want a doctor I'll examine every inch of you

Yeah we're drinking and we're dancing but there's nothing really happening and the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night And my very close companion gets me fumbling gets me laughing she's a hundred but she's wearing something tight and I lift my glass to the Awful Truth which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth except to say it isn't worth a dime And the whole damn place goes crazy twice and it's once for the devil and once for Christ but the Boss don't like these dizzy heights we're busted in the blinding lights, busted in the blinding lights of CLOSING TIME

I want him to be certain That he doesn't have a burden That he doesn't need a vision That he only has permission To do my instant bidding which is to Say what I have told him to repeat

Though I take my song From a withered limb, Both song and tree, They sing for him.

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking Everybody knows that the captain lied Everybody got this broken feeling Like their father or their dog just died

Ditched on a beach Where the sea hates to go With a child in my arms And a chill in my soul And my heart the shape Of a begging bowl

And she says, Drink deeply, pilgrim but don't forget there's still a woman beneath this resplendent chemise.

You don't need a lawyer I'm not making a claim You don't need to surrender I'm not taking aim I don't need a lover, no, no The wretched beast is tame I don't need a lover So blow out the flame

O gather up the brokenness And bring it to me now The fragrance of those promises You never dared to vow

And I don’t really know who sent me, To raise my voice and say: May the lights in The Land of Plenty Shine on the truth some day.

There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking They've been sentenced to death by the blues

I know the burden’s heavy As you wheel it through the night Some people say it’s empty But that don’t mean it’s light

Ten New Songs

I better hold my tongue I better take my place Lift this glass of blood Try to say the grace

You came to me this morning and you handled me like meat. You’d have to be a man to know how good that feels, how sweet.

A sip of wine, a cigarette, And then it’s time to go. I tidied up the kitchenette; I tuned the old banjo. I’m wanted at the traffic-jam. They’re saving me a seat. I’m what I am, and what I am, Is back on Boogie Street.

Down in the valley the famine goes on The famine up on the hill I say that you shouldn’t, you couldn’t, you can’t You say that you must and you will

So we struggle and we stagger down the snakes and up the ladder to the tower where the blessed hours chime and I swear it happened just like this: a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss the Gates of Love they budged an inch I can't say much has happened since

And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook, With the photographs there, and the moss And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty My cheap violin and my cross

Then she dances so graceful and your heart's hard and hateful and she's naked but that's just a tease. And you turn in disgust from your hatred and from your love and comes to you light as the breeze.

I see the Ghost of Culture With numbers on his wrist Salute some new conclusion Which all of us have missed

I tried to love you my way, But I couldn’t make it hold. So I closed the Book of Longing And I do what I am told.

And up through the system the worlds are withdrawn From every dominion the mind stood upon And now that it's over and now that it's done The name has no number, not even the one

You got me singing Like a prisoner in a jail You got me singing Like my pardon's in the mail

You can add up the parts But you won't have the sum You can strike up the march, There is no drum Every heart, every heart To love will come But like a refugee.

Everybody knows you've been discreet But there were so many people you just had to meet Without your clothes And everybody knows

It's coming from the sorrow in the street, the holy places where the races meet; from the homicidal bitchin' that goes down in every kitchen to determine who will serve and who will eat. From the wells of disappointment where the women kneel to pray for the grace of God in the desert here and the desert far away:

Even though she sleeps upon your satin Even though she wakes you with a kiss Do not say the moment was imagined Do not stoop to strategies like this

I smile when I'm angry I cheat and I lie I do what I have to do To get by But I know what is wrong And I know what is right And I'd die for the truth In My Secret Life

I loved you for your beauty but that doesn't make a fool of me: you were in it for your beauty too and I loved you for your body there's a voice that sounds like God to me declaring, declaring, declaring that your body's really you

O baby I waited so long for your kiss for something to happen, oh something like this.

O let the heavens falter And let the earth proclaim: Come healing of the Altar Come healing of the Name

If you're squeezed for information, that's when you've got to play it dumb: You just say you're out there waiting for the miracle, for the miracle to come.

You put on a uniform To fight the Civil War You looked so good I didn’t care What side you’re fighting for

Did you confuse the Messiah in a mirror and rest because he had finally come? Let me cry Help beside you, Teacher.

It's coming to America first, the cradle of the best and of the worst. It's here they got the range and the machinery for change and it's here they got the spiritual thirst. It's here the family's broken and it's here the lonely say that the heart has got to open in a fundamental way:

I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get? Hank Williams hasn't answered yet But I hear him coughing all night long A hundred floors above me In the Tower of Song

Sail on, sail on O mighty Ship of State! To the Shores of Need Past the Reefs of Greed Through the Squalls of Hate Sail on, sail on

Ah the wars they will Be fought again The holy dove She will be caught again Bought and sold And bought again The dove is never free.

I should have seen it coming It was right behind your eyes You were young and it was summer I just had to take a dive Winning you was easy But darkness was the prize

The party’s over But I’ve landed on my feet I’ll be standing on this corner Where there used to be a street

I know you had to lie to me, I know you had to cheat, to pose all hot and high behind the veils of shear deceit, our perfect porn aristocrat so elegant and cheap, I’m old but I’m still into that, A thousand kisses deep.

It’s not a trick, your senses all deceiving A fitful dream, the morning will exhaust – Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost

If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask me to And if you want another kind of love I'll wear a mask for you

It's dark now and it's snowing O my love I must be going, The river has started to freeze. And I'm sick of pretending I'm broken from bending I've lived too long on my knees.

Well I don't know about tomorrow but I know what's coming next I've used up all my questions; I have no answers left

As for the world the job the war I ditched them all to love you more

The story's been written the letter's been sealed You gave me a lily but now it's a field

Your story was so long, The plot was so intense, It took you years to cross The lines of self-defense.

And soon there's sand in every kiss And soon the dawn is ready And soon the night surrenders To a daffodil machete

Waiting for the miracle There's nothing left to do. I haven't been this happy since the end of World War II.

The troubles came I saved what I could save A thread of light, a particle, a wave But there were chains, so I hastened to behave There were chains, so I loved you like a slave

his waltz With its very own breath of brandy and Death Dragging its tail in the sea

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom For trying to change the system from within I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

They oughta give my heart a medal For letting go of you When I turned my back on the devil Turned my back on the angel too

Had to go crazy to love you You who were never the one Whom I chased through the souvenir heartache Her braids and her blouse all undone

Well the mouse ate the crumb Then the cat ate the crust Now they’ve fallen in love They’re talking in tongues

There’s other ways to answer That certainly is true Me, I’m blind with death and anger And that’s no place for you

I'm guided by a signal in the heavens I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons

I was fighting with temptation But I didn't want to win A man like me don't like to see Temptation caving in

I know that I’m forgiven, But I don’t know how I know I don’t trust my inner feelings – Inner feelings come and go.

And sometimes when the night is slow, The wretched and the meek, We gather up our hearts and go, A Thousand Kisses Deep.

I dreamed about you, baby. It was just the other night. Most of you was naked Ah but some of you was light.

I don’t know why I come here, knowing as I do, what you really think of me, what I really think of you.

Had to go crazy to love you Had to let everything fall Had to be people I hated Had to be no one at all

I used to love the rainbow And I used to love the view I loved the early morning I'd pretend that it was new But I caught the darkness baby And I got it worse than you

Traveling light It's au revoir My once so bright, my fallen star I'm running late, they'll close the bar I used to play one mean guitar

I dreamed about you baby You were wearing half your dress I know you have to hate me But could you hate me less?

The night of Santiago And I was passing through So I took her to the river As any man would do

Let's keep it on the level When I walked away from you I turned my back on the devil Turned my back on the angel too

I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed, I’m back on Boogie Street. You lose your grip, and then you slip Into the Masterpiece.

So we'll go no more a-roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul outwears the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest.

You got me singing Even tho' it all looks grim You got me singing The Hallelujah hymn

I'm aching for you baby I can't pretend I'm not I need to see you naked In your body and your thought

If your heart is torn I don’t wonder why If the night is long Here’s my lullaby

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean I love the country but I can't stand the scene. And I'm neither left or right I'm just staying home tonight, getting lost in that hopeless little screen.

Now in Vienna there's ten pretty women There's a shoulder where Death comes to cry There's a lobby with nine hundred windows There's a tree where the doves go to die There's a piece that was torn from the morning And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost

Oh I want you, I want you, I want you On a chair with a dead magazine In the cave at the tip of the lily In some hallways where love's never been On a bed where the moon has been sweating In a cry filled with footsteps and sand

And everybody knows that you're in trouble Everybody knows what you've been through From the bloody cross on top of Calvary To the beach of Malibu

Ah you drift into my dreams as if you had the right And you show me how you broke me doing all the little things I really like

I gave her something pretty And I waited till she laughed I wasn't born a gypsy To make a woman sad

There is no God in Heaven And there is no Hell below So says the great professor Of all there is to know But I've had the invitation That a sinner can't refuse And it's almost like salvation It's almost like the blues

The war was lost The treaty signed I was not caught I crossed the line, I had to leave My life behind I dug some graves You'll never findI was not caught Though many tried I live among you Well disguised

Now I'm living in this temple Where they tell you what to do I'm old and I've had to settle On a different point of view

Too late to fix another drink – The lights are going out – I’ll listen to the darkness sing – I know what that’s about.

I loved you when you opened like a lily to the heat, you see I’m just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet, who loved you with his frozen love, his second hand physique, with all he is, and all he was, A thousand kisses deep.

And death is old But it's always new I freeze with fear And I'm there for you

I don't smoke no cigarette I don't drink no alcohol I ain't had much loving yet But that's always been your call Hey I don't miss it baby I got no taste for anything at all

I’ll try to say a little more: Love went on and on Until it reached an open door – Then Love Itself Love Itself was gone.

I said there'd been a flood. I said there's nothing left. I hoped that you would come. I gave you my address.

So I let my heart get frozen To keep away the rot My father says I'm chosen My mother says I'm not

O Crown of Light, O Darkened One, I never thought we’d meet. You kiss my lips, and then it’s done: I’m back on Boogie Street.

Ah, the moon's too bright The chain's too tight The beast won't go to sleep

And he cut my lip And he cut my heart. So I could not drink From the river dark.

O solitude of longing Where love has been confined Come healing of the body Come healing of the mind

My mirrored twin, my next of kin, I’d know you in my sleep and who but you would take me in, a thousand kisses deep.

Suddenly the night has grown colder The god of love preparing to depart Alexandra hoisted on his shoulder They slip between the sentries of the heart

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags that Time cannot decay, I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet

The autumn moved across your skin, got something in my eye, a light that doesn’t need to live, and doesn’t need to die. A riddle in the book of love, obscure and obsolete, till witnessed here in time and blood, A thousand kisses deep.

There's nobody missing There is no reward Little by little We're cutting the cord We're spending the treasure, oh, no, no That love cannot afford I know you can feel it The sweetness restored

The ponies run, the girls are young, The odds are there to beat. You win a while, and then it’s done – Your little winning streak.

I like to take my time I like to linger as it flies A weekend on your lips A lifetime in your eyes

Then he struck my heart With a deadly force, And he said, ‘This heart: It is not yours.’

Everybody knows that you love me baby Everybody knows that you really do Everybody knows that you've been faithful Ah give or take a night or two

Steer your way past the ruins of the Altar and the Mall Steer your way through the fables of Creation and The Fall Steer your way past the Palaces that rise above the rot Year by year, month by month, day by day Thought by thought

Your crazy fragrance all around Your secrets in my view My lost, my lost was saying found My don't was saying do

Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack a crack in everything That's how the light gets in.

Steer your way through the pain that is far more real than you That's smashed the Cosmic Model, that blinded every view And please don't make me go there, though there be a God or not Year by year, month by month, day by day Thought by thought

You sent me here You sent me there Breaking things I can't repair Making objects Out of thoughts Making more By thinking not

And you who were bewildered by a meaning Whose code was broken, crucifix uncrossed – Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost

I see you standing on the other side I don't know how the river got so wide I loved you baby, way back when And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed But I feel so close to everything that we lost We'll never, we'll never have to lose it again

If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame You want it darker We kill the flame

I used to be your favorite drunk Good for one more laugh Then we both ran out of luck Luck was all we ever had

There'll be the breaking of the ancient Western code Your private life will suddenly explode There'll be phantoms There'll be fires on the road And the white man dancing You'll see your woman Hanging upside down Her features covered by her fallen gown And all the lousy little poets Coming round Tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson

Confined to sex, we pressed against The limits of the sea: I saw there were no oceans left For scavengers like me.

I was born like this, I had no choice I was born with the gift of a golden voice And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond They tied me to this table right here In the Tower of Song

I’m naked and I’m filthy And both of us are guilty

the fiddler fiddles something so sublime all the women tear their blouses off and the men they dance on the polka-dots and it's partner found, it's partner lost and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops

I've seen the future, brother: It is murder

Who broke the heart and made it new? Who's moving on, who's kiddin' who?

So I knelt there at the delta, at the alpha and the omega, at the cradle of the river and the seas. And like a blessing come from heaven for something like a second I was healed and my heart was at ease.

And there's a mighty judgment coming, but I may be wrong You see, you hear these funny voices In the Tower of Song

Upheld by the simplicities of pleasure They gain the light, they formlessly entwine And radiant beyond your widest measure They fall among the voices and the wine

When you've fallen on the highway and you're lying in the rain, and they ask you how you're doing of course you'll say you can't complain

You always said we’re equal So let me march with you Just an extra in the sequel To the old red white and blue

She stands before you naked you can see it, you can taste it, and she comes to you light as the breeze. Now you can drink it or you can nurse it, it don't matter how you worship as long as you're down on your knees.

By the rivers dark I wandered on. I lived my life in Babylon. And I did forget My holy song: And I had no strength In Babylon.

All your moves are swift All your turns are tight Let me catch my breath I thought we had all night

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. It's coming through a crack in the wall; on a visionary flood of alcohol; from the staggering account of the Sermon on the Mount which I don't pretend to understand at all. It's coming from the silence on the dock of the bay, from the brave, the bold, the battered heart of Chevrolet: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

And let the heavens hear it The penitential hymn Come healing of the spirit Come healing of the limb

There's a lover in the story But the story's still the same There's a lullaby for suffering And a paradox to blame But it's written in the scriptures And it's not some idle claim You want it darker We kill the flame

I was alone on the road, your love was so confusing And all my teachers told me that I had myself to blame But in the grip of sensual illusion A sweet unknowing unified the name

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name Vilified, crucified, in the human frame A million candles burning for the help that never came

They're lining up the prisoners And the guards are taking aim I struggled with some demons They were middle class and tame I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim

So come, my friends, be not afraid. We are so lightly here. It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear.

I see my life In full review It was never me It was always you

We'll be going down so deep the river's going to weep, and the mountain's going to shout Amen!

Show me the place where my head is bendin' low Show me the place where you want your slave to go

I’m tired of choosing desire I been saved by a blessed fatigue The gates of commitment unwired And nobody trying to leave

Yeah my friends are gone and my hair is grey I ache in the places where I used to play And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on I'm just paying my rent every day Oh in the Tower of Song

There's an attic where children are playing Where I've got to lie down with you soon In a dream of Hungarian lanterns In the mist of some sweet afternoon And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow All your sheep and your lilies of snow

We find ourselves on different sides Of a line nobody drew Though it all may be one in the higher eye Down here where we live it is two

I've seen the nations rise and fall I've heard their stories, heard them all But love's the only engine of survival Your servant here, he has been told To say it clear, to say it cold: It's over, it ain't going Any further And now the wheels of heaven stop You feel the devil's riding crop Get ready for the future: It is murder

I've heard the soul unfolds in the chambers of its longing And the bitter liquor sweetens in the hammered cup Ah but all the ladders of the night have fallen Just darkness now, to lift the longing up

Why don’t you come on back to the war, that’s right, get in it, why don’t you come on back to the war, it’s just beginning.

If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

An Eskimo showed me a movie he’d recently taken of you: the poor man could hardly stop shivering, his lips and his fingers were blue. I suppose that he froze when the wind took your clothes and I guess he just never got warm. But you stand there so nice, in your blizzard of ice, oh please let me come into the storm.

I loved your master perfectly I taught him all that he knew. He was starving in some deep mystery like a man who is sure what is true.

I have begun to long for you, I who have no greed; I have begun to ask for you, I who have no need. You say you’ve gone away from me, but I can feel you when you breathe.

Hungry as an archway through which the troops have passed, I stand in ruins behind you, with your winter clothes, your broken sandal straps.

Well, you tell me that your lover has a broken limb, you say you’re kind of restless now and it’s on account of him.

Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon Show me slowly what I only know the limits of Dance me to the end of love

I tried to leave you, I don’t deny I closed the book on us, at least a hundred times.

And I can’t wait to tell you to your face And I can’t wait for you to take my place You are The Naked Angel In My Heart You are The Woman With Her Legs Apart It’s written on the walls of this hotel You go to heaven once you’ve been to hell

Then let the other selves be wrong, yeah, let them manifest and come till every taste is on the tongue, till love is pierced and love is hung, and every kind of freedom done

O come with me my little one, we will find that farm and grow us grass and apples there and keep all the animals warm. And if by chance I wake at night and I ask you who I am, O take me to the slaughterhouse, I will wait there with the lamb.

Ah they’re shutting down the factory now Just when all the bills are due And the fields they’re under lock and key Tho’ the rain and the sun come through And springtime starts but then it stops In the name of something new And all the senses rise against this Coming back to you

Like a baby, stillborn, like a beast with his horn I have torn everyone who reached out for me.

We met when we were almost young deep in the green lilac park. You held on to me like I was a crucifix, as we went kneeling through the dark.

And there are no letters in the mailbox, and there are no grapes upon the vine, and there are no chocolates in the boxes anymore, and there are no diamonds in the mine.

I cried, “Oh, Lady Midnight, I fear that you grow old, the stars eat your body and the wind makes you cold

So daily I renew my idle duty I touch her here and there – I know my place I kiss her open mouth and I praise her beauty and people call me traitor to my face

But my darling says “Leonard, just let it go by That old silhouette on the great western sky” So I pick out a tune and they move right along and they’re gone like the smoke and they’re gone like this song

And why are you so quiet now standing there in the doorway? You chose your journey long before you came upon this highway.

But I swear by this song and by all that I have done wrong I will make it all up to thee.

It was deep into his fiery heart he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and then she clearly understood if he was fire, oh then she must be wood.

And Jesus was a sailor When he walked upon the water And he spent a long time watching From his lonely wooden tower And when he knew for certain Only drowning men could see him He said “All men will be sailors then Until the sea shall free them” But he himself was broken Long before the sky would open Forsaken, almost human He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone And you want to travel with him And you want to travel blind And you think maybe you’ll trust him For he’s touched your perfect body with his mind.

Your master took you travelling, well at least that’s what you said. And now do you come back to bring your prisoner wine and bread?

Your pain is no credential here, it’s just the shadow, shadow of my wound.

And here where there is no description Oh here in the moment at hand No sinner need rise up forgiven No victim need limp to the stand

I met a woman long ago her hair the black that black can go, Are you a teacher of the heart? Soft she answered no. I met a girl across the sea, her hair the gold that gold can be, Are you a teacher of the heart? Yes, but not for thee.

Oh bless thee continuous stutter Of the word being made into flesh

The cripple here that you clothe and feed is neither starved nor cold; he does not ask for your company, not at the centre, the centre of the world.

Yes, you who are broken by power, you who are absent all day, you who are kings for the sake of your children’s story, the hand of your beggar is burdened down with money, the hand of your lover is clay.

the patron Saint of envy and the grocer of despair

She used to wear her hair like you except when she was sleeping, and then she’d weave it on a loom of smoke and gold and breathing.

And may the spirit of this song, may it rise up pure and free. May it be a shield for you, a shield against the enemy.

And deep into his fiery heart he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and high above the wedding guests he hung the ashes of her wedding dress.

to wear upon my swollen appetite.“ Well, I’m glad to hear you talk this way, you know I’ve watched you riding every day and something in me yearns to win such a cold and lonesome heroine.

Come over to the window, my little darling, I’d like to try to read your palm. I used to think I was some kind of Gypsy boy before I let you take me home.

Then I took the dust of a long sleepless night and I put it in your little shoe. And then I confess that I tortured the dress that you wore for the world to look through.

And the light came from her body And the night went through her grace All summer long she touched me And I knew her, I knew her Face to face

Let’s meet tomorrow if you choose Upon the shore, beneath the bridge That they are building on some endless river

And I’ve read the Bill of Human Rights And some of it was true But there wasn’t any burden left So I’m laying it on you.”

I listened to your kisses at the door I never heard the world so clear before You ran your bath and you began to sing I felt so good I couldn’t feel a thing

Like a worm on a hook, like a knight from some old fashioned book I have saved all my ribbons for thee.

Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc as she came riding through the dark; no moon to keep her armour bright, no man to get her through this very smoky night.

And we read from pleasant Bibles that are bound in blood and skin That the wilderness is gathering All its children back again

And now this woman by your side, well, she’s asleep And there’s nothing you can give her and there’s nothing you want to keep

Just take this longing from my tongue all the lonely things my hands have done. Let me see your beauty broken down like you would do for one your love.

And she shows you where to look Among the garbage and the flowers There are heroes in the seaweed There are children in the morning They are leaning out for love And they will lean that way forever While Suzanne holds the mirror

Ah but if you cannot raise your love To a very high degree, Then you’re just the man I’ve been thinking of – So come and stand with me.

You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn, learn to serve me well.

Why don’t you try to do without him? Why don’t you try to live alone? Do you really need his hands for your passion? Do you really need his heart for your throne?

I left a wife in Tennessee And a baby in Saigon – I risked my life, but not to hear Some country-western song.

I did my best, it wasn’t much I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you And even though it all went wrong I’ll stand before the Lord of Song With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Oh take this longing from my tongue, all the useless things my hands have done, untie for me your hired blue gown, like you would do for one that you love.

I heard of a saint who had loved you, so I studied all night in his school. He taught that the duty of lovers is to tarnish the golden rule. And just when I was sure that his teachings were pure he drowned himself in the pool. His body is gone but back here on the lawn his spirit continues to drool.

It’s like our visit to the moon or to that other star I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.

Well I’ve been where you’re hanging, I think I can see how you’re pinned: When you’re not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you’ve sinned.

I lit a thin green candle, to make you jealous of me. But the room just filled up with mosquitos, they heard that my body was free.

Too early for the rainbow, too early for the dove These are the final days, this is the darkness, this is the flood And there is no man or woman can be touched But you who come between them will be judged

He tried to make a final stand beside the railway track She said, “The art of longing’s over and it’s never coming back.”

The judges said you missed it by a fraction rise up and brace your troops for the attack Ah the dreamers ride against the men of action Oh see the men of action falling back

Now the crickets are singing The vesper bells ringing The cat’s curled asleep in his chair I’ll go down to Bill’s Bar I can make it that far And I’ll see if my friends are still there Yes, and here’s to the few Who forgive what you do And the fewer who don’t even care And the night comes on It’s very calm I want to cross over, I want to go home But she says, Go back, go back to the World

Those who dance, begin to dance Those who weep begin Those who earnestly are lost Are lost and lost again

I asked my father, I said, “Father change my name.” The one I’m using now it’s covered up with fear and filth and cowardice and shame.

Even in your arms I know I’ll never get it right Even when you bend to give me Comfort in the night

And the last time that I saw her she was living with some boy who gives her soul an empty room and gives her body joy.

Your faith was strong but you needed proof You saw her bathing on the roof Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you She tied you to a kitchen chair She broke your throne, and she cut your hair And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Ah, there is no comfort in the covens of the witch, some very clever doctor went and sterilized the bitch, and the only man of energy, yes the revolution’s pride, he trained a hundred women just to kill an unborn child.

Oh, your chains are too dark For the seas you must swim You are smiling at the seaweed But your smile is too grim

And I thank you, I thank you for doing your duty, you keepers of truth, you guardians of beauty. Your vision is right, my vision is wrong, I’m sorry for smudging the air with my song.

But here, right here, between the birthmark and the stain, between the ocean and your open vein, between the snowman and the rain, once again, once again, love calls you by your name.

For now I need your hidden love. I’m cold as a new razor blade. You left when I told you I was curious, I never said that I was brave.

Your letters they all say that you’re beside me now. Then why do I feel alone? I’m standing on a ledge and your fine spider web is fastening my ankle to a stone.

I leave the lady meditating on the very love which I, I do not wish to claim, I journey down the hundred steps, but the street is still the very same.

And I sing this for the captain Whose ship has not been built For the mother in confusion Her cradle still unfilled

Well, I argued all night like so many have before, saying, “Whatever you give me, I seem to need so much more.” Then she pointed at me where I kneeled on her floor, she said, “Don’t try to use me or slyly refuse me, just win me or lose me, it is this that the darkness is for.”

Some girls wander by mistake into the mess that scalpels make. Are you the teachers of my heart? We teach old hearts to break.

And now the infant with his cord is hauled in like a kite, and one eye filled with blueprints, one eye filled with night.

I believe that you heard your master sing when I was sick in bed. I suppose that he told you everything that I keep locked away in my head.

Do you remember all of those pledges That we pledged in the passionate night Ah they’re soiled now, they’re torn at the edges Like moths on a still yellow light No penance serves to renew them No massive transfusions of trust Why not even revenge can undo them So twisted these vows and so crushed

I am the distance you put between all of the moments that we will be.

I choose the rooms that I live in with care, the windows are small and the walls almost bare, there’s only one bed and there’s only one prayer; I listen all night for your step on the stair.

And now I hear your master sing, you kneel for him to come. His body is a golden string that your body is hanging from.

Through windows in the dark The children come, the children go Like arrows with no targets Like shackles made of snow

Like any dealer he was watching for the card That is so high and wild He’ll never need to deal another He was just some Joseph looking for a manger

Where are you, Judy, where are you, Anne? Where are the paths your heroes came? Wondering out loud as the bandage pulls away, was I, was I only limping, was I really lame?

And it’s time for the burden it’s time for the whip Will she walk through the flame Can he shoot from the hip

Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don’t really care for music, do you? It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah

But you’ve used up all your coupons except the one that seems to be written on your wrist along with several thousand dreams.

Maybe I’m still hurting I can’t turn the other cheek But you know that I still love you It’s just that I can’t speak I looked for you in everyone And they called me on that too I lived alone but I was only Coming back to you

And they’re handing down my sentence now And I know what I must do Another mile of silence while I’m Coming back to you

The door is open, you can’t close your shelter You try the handle of the road It opens, do not be afraid It’s you my love, you who are the stranger

I’m on the side that’s always lost Against the side of Heaven I’m on the side of Snake-eyes tossed Against the side of Seven.

But you lost them in your freedom And you need him now, you’re wild Blessed is the memory Of everybody’s child

Then fire, make your body cold, I’m going to give you mine to hold,“ saying this she climbed inside to be his one, to be his only bride.

Now the clasp of this union who fastens it tight? Who snaps it asunder the very next night Some say the rider Some say the mare Or that love’s like the smoke beyond all repair

With one hand on the hexagram and one hand on the girl I balance on a wishing well that all men call the world.

As a falling leaf may rest A moment on the air So your head upon my breast So my hand upon your hair

I’m not asking for mercy Not from the man You just don’t ask for mercy While you’re still on the stand

And many nights endure Without a moon or star So we will endure When one is gone and far

And then leaning on your window sill He’ll say one day you caused his will To weaken with your love and warmth and shelter

The rain falls down on last year’s man An hour has gone by And he has not moved his hand But everything will happen if he only gives the word The lovers will rise up And the mountains touch the ground But the skylight is like skin for a drum I’ll never mend And all the rain falls down amen On the works of last year’s man

You’re faithful to the better man, I’m afraid that he left. So let me judge your love affair in this very room where I have sentenced mine to death.

If I, if I have been untrue I hope you know it was never to you.

Then I saw you naked in the early dawn, oh, I hoped you would be someone new. I reached for you but you were gone, so lady I’m going too.

And there’s nothing to follow There’s nowhere to go She’s gone like the summer gone like the snow

That’s all I can say, baby That’s all I can say It wasn’t for nothing That they put me away I fell with my angel Down the chain of command There’s a Law, there’s an Arm, there’s a Hand

Lost in the rages of fragrance Lost in the rags of remorse Lost in the waves of a sickness That loosens the high silver nerves

When I am on a pedestal, you did not raise me there. Your laws do not compel me to kneel grotesque and bare. I myself am the pedestal for this ugly hump at which you stare

We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky, and lost among the subway crowds I try to catch your eye.

You met him at some temple, where they take your clothes at the door. He was just a numberless man in a chair who’d just come back from the war.

And when we fell together all our flesh was like a veil That I had to draw aside to see The serpent eat its tail

Some women wait for Jesus, and some women wait for Cain So I hang upon my altar And I hoist my axe again And I take the one who finds me back to where it all began When Jesus was the honeymoon And Cain was just the man

But I lingered on her thighs a fatal moment I kissed her lips as though I thirsted still My falsity had stung me like a hornet The poison sank and it paralysed my will

in city and in forest they smiled like me and you, but now it’s come to distances and both of us must try, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.

Now my heart’s like a blister From doing what I do If the moon has a sister It’s got to be you

And where, where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight I’ve heard all the wild reports, they can’t be right But whose head is this she’s dancing with on the threshing floor Whose darkness deepens in her arms a little more

Do you want to be the ditch around a tower? Do you want to be the moonlight in his cave? Do you want to give your blessing to his power as he goes whistling past his daddy, past his daddy’s grave

If it be your will That a voice be true From this broken hill I will sing to you From this broken hill All your praises they shall ring If it be your will To let me sing

The age of lust is giving birth, and both the parents ask the nurse to tell them fairy tales on both sides of the glass.

But let me ask you one more time, O children of the dusk, All these hunters who are shrieking now oh do they speak for us?

And the vow of compassion That you swore through your teeth When the war began to end And the photographs weep

Goodnight, my darling, I hope you’re satisfied, the bed is kind of narrow, but my arms are open wide. And here’s a man still working for your smile.

Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control. It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul.

I’m not looking for another as I wander in my time, walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme you know my love goes with you as your love stays with me, it’s just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea, but let’s not talk of love or chains and things we can’t untie, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.

Do not dress in those rags for me, I know you are not poor; you don’t love me quite so fiercely now when you know that you are not sure, it is your turn, beloved, it is your flesh that I wear.

A war between the odd and the even.

Well I stepped into an avalanche, it covered up my soul; when I am not this hunchback that you see, I sleep beneath the golden hill.

And here, right here, between the dancer and his cane, between the sailboat and the drain, between the newsreel and your tiny pain, once again, once again, love calls you by your name.

I changed my style to silver I changed my clothes to black And where I would surrender Ah now I would attack

She said, "I’m tired of the war, I want the kind of work I had before, a wedding dress or something white to wear upon my swollen appetite.”

Then lay your rose on the fire The fire give up to the sun The sun give over to splendour In the arms of the high holy one

And draw us near And bind us tight All your children here In their rags of light In our rags of light All dressed to kill And end this night If it be your will

I met a man who lost his mind in some lost place I had to find, follow me the wise man said, but he walked behind.

I asked her to hold me, I said, “Lady, unfold me,” but she scorned me and she told me I was dead and I could never return.

Well I lived with a child of snow when I was a soldier, and I fought every man for her until the nights grew colder.

Into this furnace I ask you now to venture…

She took his tavern parliament, his cap, his cocky dance, she mocked his female fashions and his working-class moustache.

Like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free.

She took his much admired oriental frame of mind and the heart-of-darkness alibi his money hides behind She took his blonde madonna and his monastery wine – “This mental space is occupied and everything is mine.”

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river You can hear the boats go by You can spend the night beside her And you know that she’s half crazy But that’s why you want to be there And she feeds you tea and oranges That come all the way from China And just when you mean to tell her That you have no love to give her Then she gets you on her wavelength And she lets the river answer That you’ve always been her lover And you want to travel with her And you want to travel blind And you know that she will trust you For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.

So, now that you’ve decided To follow the sun Like a shadow of birds Or a king on the run

Well, I’ve been waiting, I was sure We’d meet between the trains we’re waiting for I think it’s time to board another Please understand, I never had a secret chart To get me to the heart of this Or any other matter While he talks like this, you don’t know what he’s after When he speaks like this, you don’t know what he’s after

Or she’ll make a break for the high plateau where there’s nothing above and there’s nothing below

The baby’s crying, so you do not go outside, and all your work it’s right before your eyes.

I met a lady, she was playing with her soldiers in the dark Oh one by one she had to tell them That her name was Joan of Arc

And you wrap up his tired face in your hair and he hands you the apple core. Then he touches your lips now so suddenly bare of all the kisses we put on some time before.

I fought in the old revolution on the side of the ghost and the King. Of course I was very young and I thought that we were winning; I can’t pretend I still feel very much like singing as they carry the bodies away.

Oh, you are really such a pretty one. I see you’ve gone and changed your name again. And just when I climbed this whole mountainside, to wash my eyelids in the rain!

Do you need to hold a leash to be a lady?

And who are you?“ she sternly spoke to the one beneath the smoke. "Why, I’m fire,” he replied, “And I love your solitude, I love your pride.

Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove

Just open up your dainty little hand. You know this life is filled with many sweet companions, many satisfying one-night stands.

And come forth from the cloud of unknowing And kiss the cheek of the moon

But climb on your tears and be silent Like a rose on its ladder of thorns

the crumbs of love that you offer me, they’re the crumbs I’ve left behind.

Yes, and here, right here between the moonlight and the lane, between the tunnel and the train, between the victim and his stain, once again, once again, love calls you by your name.

There’s a blaze of light in every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah

There is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn’t.

Oh sometimes I see her undressing for me, she’s the soft naked lady love meant her to be and she’s moving her body so brave and so free. If I’ve got to remember that’s a fine memory.

O lady with your legs so fine O stranger at your wheel, You are locked into your suffering and your pleasures are the seal.

He said, "I locked you in this body, I meant it as a kind of trial. You can use it for a weapon, or to make some woman smile.”

But the Rose I sickened with a scarlet fever and the Swan I tempted with a sense of shame She said at last I was her finest lover and if she withered I would be to blame

You will never see a man this naked I will never hold a woman this close

And you say you’ve been humbled in love Cut down in your love Forced to kneel in the mud next to me Ah but why so bitterly turn from the one Who kneels there as deeply as thee

I went down to the place Where I knew she lay waiting Under the marble and the snow I said, Mother I’m frightened The thunder and the lightning I’ll never come through this alone She said, I’ll be with you My shawl wrapped around you My hand on your head when you go And the night came on It was very calm I wanted the night to go on and on But she said, Go back, Go back to the World

May Christ have mercy on your soul For making such a joke Amid these hearts that burn like coal And the flesh that rose like smoke.

As the mist leaves no scar On the dark green hill So my body leaves no scar On you and never will

I showed my heart to the doctor: he said I just have to quit. Then he wrote himself a prescription, and your name was mentioned in it! Then he locked himself in a library shelf with the details of our honeymoon, and I hear from the nurse that he’s gotten much worse and his practice is all in a ruin.

And though I wear a uniform I was not born to fight All these wounded boys you lie beside Goodnight, my friends, goodnight

One by one, the guests arrive The guests are coming through The open-hearted many The broken-hearted few And no one knows where the night is going And no one knows why the wine is flowing Oh love I need you

I greet you from the other side Of sorrow and despair With a love so vast and shattered It will reach you everywhere

So you moved away the mountain That the sun rose behind And you said yourself a prayer And laid down with the blind

Your body like a searchlight my poverty revealed, I would like to try your charity until you cry, “Now you must try my greed.” And everything depends upon how near you sleep to me

and I lean from my window sill in this old hotel I chose, yes one hand on my suicide, one hand on the rose.

Ah the silver knives are flashing in the tired old cafe A ghost climbs on the table in a bridal negligee She says, My body is the light, my body is the way” I raise my arm against it all and I catch the bride’s bouquet

Children have takes these pledges They have ferried them out of the past Oh beyond all the graves and the hedges Where love must go hiding at last

It’s hard to hold the hand of anyone Who is reaching for the sky just to surrender

The river is swollen up with rusty cans and the trees are burning in your promised land.

Your father’s gone a-hunting Through the silver and the glass Where only greed can enter But spirit, spirit cannot pass

And all the ladies go moist, and the judge has no choice, a singer must die for the lie in his voice.

and there is no space but there’s left and right and there is no time but there’s day and night

Your father’s gone a-hunting And he’s lost his lucky charm And he’s lost the guardian heart That keeps the hunter from the harm

It’s not the news of burning towns that ruins your mind Like a spool you turn and you turn but it won’t unwind No these wars you did not start, they don’t tear your sleep apart It’s just a man taking what he needs from the store room

True love leaves no traces If you and I are one It’s lost in our embraces Like stars against the sun

And the crickets are breaking his heart with their song as the day caves in and the night is all wrong

Now the courtroom is quiet, but who will confess. Is it true you betrayed us? The answer is Yes. Then read me the list of the crimes that are mine, I will ask for the mercy that you love to decline.

I sang my songs, I told my lies, to lie between your matchless thighs.

Why do you stand by the window Abandoned to beauty and pride The thorn of the night in your bosom The spear of the age in your side

And clenching your fist for the ones like us who are oppressed by the figures of beauty, you fixed yourself, you said, “Well never mind, we are ugly but we have the music.”

Trav'ling lady stay awhile until the night is over. I’m just a station on your way, I know I’m not your lover.

Just take this longing from my tongue, all the useless things my hands have done, let me see your beauty broken down, like you would do for one you love.

Let your mercy spill On all these burning hearts in hell If it be your will To make us well

Oh the world is sweet the world is wide and she’s there where the light and the darkness divide and the steam’s coming off her she’s huge and she’s shy and she steps on the moon when she paws at the sky

And while he talks his dreams to sleep You notice there’s a highway That is curling up like smoke above his shoulder

For the heart with no companion For the soul without a king For the prima ballerina Who cannot dance to anything

You kept right on loving, I went on a fast, now I am too thin and your love is too vast.

I saw her wince, I saw her cry, I saw the glory in her eye. Myself I long for love and light, but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?

I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm, yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new, in city and in forest they smiled like me and you

Well you know that I love to live with you, but you make me forget so very much. I forget to pray for the angels and then the angels forget to pray for us.

I know you need your sleep now, I know your life’s been hard. But many men are falling, where you promised to stand guard.

And she comes to his hand but she’s not really tame She longs to be lost he longs for the same

Now I look for her always I’m lost in this calling I’m tied to the threads of some prayer Saying, When will she summon me When will she come to me What must I do to prepare When she bends to my longing Like a willow, like a fountain She stands in the luminous air And the night comes on And it’s very calm I lie in her arms she says, When I’m gone I’ll be yours, yours for a song

Through the days of shame that are coming Through the nights of wild distress Tho’ your promise count for nothing You must keep it nonetheless

Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone. They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can’t go on. And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song. Oh I hope you run into them, you who’ve been travelling so long.

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn Dance me to the end of love

The walls of this hotel are paper-thin Last night I heard you making love to him The struggle mouth to mouth and limb to limb The grunt of unity when he came in I stood there with my ear against the wall I was not seized by jealousy at all In fact a burden lifted from my soul I heard that love was out of my control

Your standing days are done,“ I cried, “You’ll rally me no more. I don’t even know what side We fought on, or what for.

#Leonard Cohen

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hitoshisbabygirl · 4 years

Text

Emerald eyes of an Oni~ I. Midorya

Author's Notes ♡: Hey guys! I’m back with another collab! It really loved this idea and it actually has me writing some other fantasy pieces I’ve been thinking about starting .･ﾟﾟ･(／ω＼)･ﾟﾟ･.! This is nice and steamy , I really wanna make like part two to go more into actual Oni Deku ʕ⊙ᴥ⊙ʔ. But I may or may not. I hope I did a decent job with this wonderful idea and I hope you enjoy reading this and much as I did writing it ~ bunny ❥

Warnings : NSFW!!! (´°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥ω°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥｀) we love making baby Deku in control and large (the best way I could ⊙﹏⊙)

There’s some pet names, female oral, Size Kink (sorta touching on it) and overall some sex and I think that’s it!

Word count : about 3.6k give or take!

Paring(s) : Oni!Izuku Midorya x F! Reader

Enjoy ♡

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Being lost in the woods could have the right perks for the right people. It can be both relaxing and terrifying , the way the forest could be both scenic and suffocating could make the strongest man cry. Fortunately for Izuku Midorya , he knew this forest all too well. Growing up as a boy living with a small mythical village of other children rejected , stolen or given up to the village over something tragic with their biological family or for the way they came out and became. From minotars to elfs, pixies to sirens, the forest children had all types of creatures that lived in the hidden village grotto. But Izuku or Zuku , a childhood name from some of the younger children of the village, he was different.

Unfortunately , Deku was the only child of his kind, a oni born child, both his mother and father being human to oni made, him being born already a fully oni without corruption being needed for him to awaken his bloodline. Being the only child of his kind came with perks like being his own special and unique child. But it also had its disadvantagements, many were afraid of his large stature , growing horns on his head and his canines grwoig . Besides his hulking disposition, Izuku was the most helpful and sweetest child of the village.

He always made sure that his other members were well taken care of and never sad or lacking. Being as he was one of the babies of the village, he tried giving as much as he could to everything and everyone he met. The village was all he knew, and as everyone started to grow up and get out of the village or protect it, the more he realized that he would probably stay in this forest forever, protecting the place he’s become to love and recognized as his home, his safe space. Years went by and now at 20 (2000 years in his demon form) Izuku was a hulking boy, filled out with decorative tattoos running down his arms and back, dark forest green hair covering his horns coming from his forehead. He had protected the forest all his life and was used to having other children around him. But for the last couple of years as other children from the village were moved to protect their home from different sides of the forest Izuku had been lonely, sitting in the trees warding off people who tried to sneak in or steal the hidden treasures of the forest.

One day while In a tree Izuku saw a new face, a person he had never seen or met before. A girl that looked very lost , pushing through the trees as she became more distressed. With a few hops Izuku got closer , watching the human girl glance around and tripped over a root of a tree, starting to fall with a streak. At that moment Izuku jumped down, catching the girl before she could fall. With eyes close the girl waited to hit the ground only to feel herself suspended. Cracking open an eye she saw emerald colored eyes and horns looking down at her, her facing heating up as she made eye contact with a rather handsome looking giant. As the giant placed her down, she looked at the rather friendly man in front of her as he opened his mouth to speak to her. “Are you okay? I saw you falling from in the trees and I thought I’d help you out. You don’t seem like you know where you are, and I don’t think you’re planning to do anything. My name is Izuku and I’m a guardian of this forest.” The y’all and freckled demon spoke, causing the girl in front of him to smile and respond.”Well hello Izuku my name is [ ] and I’m rather lost! I’m sorry to disturb you and your home, I hope I didn’t do any damage! It seems like you’re a friendly er, person” The girl named [ ] said as Izuku felt his heart flutter in his chest. She was the warmest person he had met, and he had the urge to protect her. “I'm an Oni with a human heart, so in essence I could be called a human from my emotional state” Izuku said causing [ ] to smile as he turned around, taking her hand to help her navigate with him throughout the forest. “Well Izuku, it seems like this forest is huge, and you could use a friend! How about every so often I can come and bring you something to eat? Or I’ll eat up here so you’re not as lonely!” [ ] said as Izuku froze, looking down at the girl with a warm feeling across his face. “S-sure why not? That would be nice..” Izuku said, smiling back as the girl held out her hand , Izuku taking it as the shook hands, sealing the fate of their relationship.

The next year, the unlikely duo had a closer bond than anyone had ever seen between a human and one of the creatures that protected the village, especially a Oni. The two had become a taboo but loving relationship between a demon and his human. Within the short time frame [ ] had met the other village children and seen all types of beautiful things hidden in the forest. She tried out different hobbies with all the the different types of species that lived in the forest, she swam in the forests’ waterfall with the sirens and mermaids, ran along with the Minotaurs, climbed up trees and watched the world around them with griffins, and much much more. Izuku couldn’t of been happier with everything he saw, happy he found a human that was normal, didn’t want to catch it keep any of his family as trophies and was the sweetest and loving person he had ever ment . He felt he was his happiest now, and the villages mother Uhume , could easily see that. She pulled him aside while everyone was having a small festival in the waterfall pit, handing him a gemed ring. She smiled as the confused boy looked down at her. Uhume told him very plainly that if this human was who he wanted to take up as a wife, that it was the love that mattered, not the species. If he really loved this girl , he should take up with her as his wife and they could live in the hidden village together. And within another year, the two would be married.

As the now married couple took care of various things around the forest and the village, [ ] noticed things. Izuku would cuddle up to her more and kiss her face but when it got too heated he’d stop, walking away from the situation or changing the subject completely. He would steer clear of her and head outside when she’d give him more affection and her own kisses on his face and neck. Most affection caused Izuku to freeze up and hide from her the rest of the day. Then one day [ ] couldn’t take it anymore. She decided to wait for him to come home and trap him in their bedroom. That day, when he came home [. ] let everything be normal as usual. Once Izuku went and laid down she strutted into the room, shutting and locking the door behind her as she saw her hulking boyfriend peer at her. “Hey my love whats up?” Izuku said as [ ] smiled, walking to the bed and sitting beside him.

“Hey zuku...are you scared of me?” She started as he raised an eyebrow, sitting up on the headboard of their bed. “No I’m not scared of you. I love you my dear, whats on your mind? Why did you ask me that?” He said , taking [ ]’s hands as she felt her face heat up as Izuku looked at her. “You just..avoid my affection and touches..is there something wrong with me?” [ ] hated to admit but the fear that one of the mythical creatures would do a better justice to Izuku than her human body. She was weak, and from him bring the only Oni born child from the village she knew his blood was strong. She couldn’t help the feeling Of hold him back, and Izuku noticed the way she tensed up. “My love..I chose you, from the first time I met you I felt something different. I know you might feel like you don’t do enough for me but I can promise you, you are the most beautiful person I’ve met and I’m so glad I have you in my life. I’m just scared..if we take that next step I’ll hurt you..I’m not the smallest person yknow” Izuku finished with a light laugh, face heating up as he kissed the back of [ ]’s hand.

With a small smile and a deep breath she leaned forward, kissing her large boyfriend without giving him the chance to move away from her. With a muffled moan Izuku kissed back,placing her hands around his neck as he pulled her closer, the kiss deepening as [ ] let out her own moan. With hesitation he pulled back, [ ] letting out a whine as he sheepishly giggled. “Sorry babe I’ll uh..let you calm down and I’ll go get you something to uh drink! Yeah drink..” Izuku said as he went to get up. With a huff [ ] grabbed his arm, stopping him mid stride to the door “Zuku..stay..kiss me more..?” [ ] said as he felt his heart get in his throat “[ ] if I stay and kiss you more...I’m not sure how much I can hold back..” Izuku whispered as she crawled closer, kissing the side of his neck as she turned his face to hers “I don’t want you to hold back..make me yours” And with that Izuku let out a growl, pushing [ ] back onto the bed as she let out a giggle. With eyes voided out of focus he crashed his lips onto hers, starling her breath away as she moaned at the feeling, kissing him back just as hard. With a light touch, Izuku grabbed at her clothed hips, pulling her shorts down with a tug.

As the kiss deepened , Izuku lowered himself onto [ ] , giving her no room to breathe as he pulled away slowly, panting as they caught their breaths. “Oh my..Zuku baby are you alright? You’re..so warm” [ ] said breathlessly as she rubbed his head , the male letting out a groan as he rubbed her hips harshly, sucking in his bottom lip. “[ ], I hope you know what you’re asking for...please, if it’s too much just..stop me?” Izuku said as he averted his eyes from hers. With a gentle smile she kissed his forehead and agreed, letting her husband do whatever he was planning. With a shaky breath he pulled the rest of her shorts and underwear off, soon helping her come out of her shirt and bra as she covered herself, feeling nervous as Izuku ran his glance over her body, biting his lip as he pulled her arms away from her body, showering her neck and breast with kisses. As he made his way down her chest to her stomach he bit her hip, a yelp falling from her lips as he laughed, kissing the bite as he started to pull her legs open. As his glance went from her puffy lower lips up to the eyes boring down at him and flushed face of his lover he smiled, reaching up to kiss her one more time as his fingers danced around her core.

“My love are you ready..? I promise..I’ll be as gentle as I can be” Izuku said as [ ] bit her lip “Pleaae..I’m ready for you ..” she said softly as she rubbed a horn sticking out through his bangs. With a grin he continued down, kissing the inner parts of her thighs as he made his way to her clit, blowing a small puff of air onto it. A gasp fell from [ ]’s lips as Izuku carefully let his curved tongue run over her clit, his eyes focused on her reactions as he sucked the small bundle of nerves into his mouth. With a long moan the smaller girls head fell back, biting her lip as she rubbed the top of his head, giving Izuku the courage to continue.

He soon pushed her legs up higher, letting his tongue lick up and down her lips, slowly pushing the tip into her dripping hole. [. ] whined, bucking her hips into his mouth as she gripped at a horn, the beast between her legs letting out his own groans as his movement picked up, between suckling her clit till her legs shook and rubbing her lips with a thick finger. Without warning she felt the one sip into her clenching hole, then another,causing a loud moan to come from her throat as she felt him start to stretch her wider. “So small..so cute..you have the prettiest little pussy [. ] I can’t wait to stuff it full” With those words alone [. ] let out a whimper as she gripped his head to pull him in more to her clit, chasing a high she could feel brewing in her belly “I-Izuku..I think I’m gonna..I’m gonna” She started “Cum for me baby..go right ahead you got it” He encouraged as he saw the way her body tensed up. He picked up the pace onto her clit , sucking harder as she started to have her first orgasam of many for the night. Without hesitation he slid in another finger , licking quickly at her clit as the overstimulation started to kick in , [. ] whimpering as she tried to close her legs. With a growl and a smack to her inner leg , Izuku continued to pump his fingers into her heat, hitting her g spot as well as rolling his tongue around her sensitive nub.

Pulling away slightly but not stopping the pumping of his hand he smiled up to her “I’m sorry sweetheart you’re just so tight..if you expecting to take me tonight I’m going to have to get you nice and wet..and wide..I don’t wanna hurt you okay?” He said with a deeper than normal voice, his eyes darker and intimidating as she shook her head to his words. The once sweet and bubbly boy in front of her was gone, replaced with the savage blood of his demon side. With a smirk Izuku sucked her clit in time with his fingers, causing the girl to feel a even tighter sensation in her belly “H-hey Izuku...stop wait..I feel like I have to pee..” [. ] warned , whimpering as dark emerald eyes looked into hers. He moaned over her clit after hearing what she said not slowing down his ministrations as he doubled them in speed. Afraid he didn’t hear her [. ] started to push at his head between her thighs, trying to slow him down as Izuku growled and pushed back, pulling her legs even higher as he started licking her clit in tight circles, pushing his fingers right against her g spot as she screeched, clear liquid gushing out from her trembling hole.

With a satisfied moan Izuku sucked the liquid from her hole, stopping as [. ] started to scream and tug at his hair and horns. With a quick glance up eh saw a beautiful mess, [. ] legs shaking, her chest falling a rising hard, a flushing face with tears running down her cheeks. Her lip was red and trembling from being big on. Being forgiving , Izuku pulled his sopping fingers from her pussy, popping his lips off of her lewdly as he let out a deep breath. “You okay sweetheart? I’m sorry I hope I didn’t push you too hard.” He started as he wiped the wet stains from her face. “You sure you’re not some type of sex demon..?” [. ] laughed as she ran her fingers through his thick hair. “That was..amazing..I feel like I’m ready for you now..” She admitted, feeling her face heat up as Izuku stuttered “I-it’s okay I can just go handle myself, tonight was about you not about me. If you aren’t ready it’s okay! Don’t force yourself” He said sweetly as he rubbed the back of his neck shyly. With a shaky hand [. ] took his hand and put it on her cheek, opening her legs up as her puffed out pussy clenched. “Please..Fuck me Izuku..” And with that all small sense of control snapped . With a groan he pulled down his loose sweatpants, the bulbous head of his dick red as he let himself free, the thick and long shaft throbbing as he crawled closer, it full and swinging . [. ] gulped ‘oh god how is that going to fit in me’ she thought as a glimpse of shy Izuku appeared “I promise I’ll be gentle, trust my baby I don’t want to hurt you..it’s why I took so long to get you ready” With a gasp she felt the tip touch her still sensitive clit. She moaned loudly as He started to runt his hips against hers, his head catching onto the hood of her clit, giving a delicious feeling of need pumping in her veins. “Ready..?” Izuku asked as he gripped himself, positioning against her clenching hole.

“H-hey Zu?” [. ] called out as he shot his eyes right back up to hers. “Yes?” “Kiss me when you put it in..I don’t wanna scream” She said , laughing as he did too “Trust me..you’ll be screaming a lot tonight” Finishing that statement her leaned down and gave her a deep kiss, pushing his hips slowing into hers as they moaned into eachothers mouths, her arms and legs wrapping like a vice around him as he settled himself into her dripping heat. Looking at where they are joined she could see he was over half way in, and with a slight pull and push the rest slipped through her lips.

With a deep and shaky breath Izuku sighed, holding himself above her as She whimpered, getting used to feeling so...full. Soft kisses and hushed words of praise fell from his lips as he rubbed the bulge he made in her stomach, kissing her neck to get her comfortable. Soon she moved her hips , gasping as she started to gush more around him. “I-I’m ready” she said. And slowly, on so slowly he started to moved his hips, soft pants and moans falling torn their lips as they both got accustomed to the feeling of eachother, Izuku with the tightness of her pussy and [. ] with the fullness of his dick. “I-I love you so much [. ]...”Izuku whispered as his pace picked up, a high pitched whine fell from [. ] lips as she scratched up his back, causing his pace to increase again as he let out his own groans.

“Please..harder Zu..please..give me more” [. ] whined as she felt her stomach turn. Her mouth falling open as he followed her command, wrapping his arms around her small body as he pulled her even closer, biting down on her neck as she watched his dick stretch out her pussy and bulge her stomach, her eyes rolling back as he kissed the spots he bit down on. “Come on baby..I can’t feel you getting tighter..cum..cum for me yeah? I promise I’ll give you more just let it out..” Izuku whispers as he pulled away from the artwork on her neck, looking her in eyes as she let her mouth fall open, a small string of drool leaving her mouth as her tongue rolled out, the feeling of him continuously hitting her g soloist overtaking her senses as he smirked, leaning down to suck on her lip and soon taking her tongue in his own mouth as a hand snaked down to run at her clit, throwing her into another orgasam. With a loud moan she clenched down on his dick, starting to squirt again as he still pumped into her, his hips slowly getting sloppy as she gushed over them both. With a deep groan he started to pump his cum into her, moaning into her mouth as they gave deep kisses to eachother through their orgasams. As he pulled out from her dripping heat he saw the mix of hers and his cum fall from inside of her. Softly , he leaned down and kissed her once again, moaning into their deep and sensual kiss.

Once they felt like they couldn’t breath he pulled away for air. Izuku smiled down at the woman he loved , her breath heavily as she slid her hazed eyes over to his “Yes..?” She said softly “I meant it [. ] I love you...you just look so pretty..so beautiful like this..under me and fucked out..” Feeling heat pool to her cheeks [. ] looked away and giggled. “Well you did it..finally..” she said. Looking at the mess between her legs she saw that Izuku was getting re excited from their kiss. With a smirk she turned around, sticking her ass out as her pussy throbbed , some of his cum leaking down her legs Seeing her turn around like that made him re-ignite , his dick getting back exciting go again. “You sure you can handle this again baby?” Izuku smirked, smacking her ass ash she moaned out, pushing her ass even closer to him. “Please daddy?” She whimpered, turning to him as she bit her lip. “You little slut..what you ask for you shall receive..”

#my hero academia #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha x reader #deku x reader #midoriya izuku #midoriya x reader #bnharem collab

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freaoscanlin · 3 years

Text

In the Arms of an Aila

Fandom: High Rollers Aerois Campaign

Notes: Rated PG, 4438 words, trigger warnings for minor blood mentions. This is a Uni AU wherein the Storm Chasers are a group of students sharing a house on Stormchaser Avenue after their dormitory burns down. Shout out to @obishenshenobi for being amazing and co-writing this series with me!

Summary: Four times Aila carries the party, and one time they return the favor.

Read it on AO3

“Hey, Aila?” Nova said.

“What?”

“Just...thanks.”

“Very welcome. Just do your part and hold on. Sentry will get mad if I drop you.”

Nova

The blister set in somewhere between mile two and mile four. Since it was supposed to be a five mile hike, and a torrential downpour hit at the end of mile two, soaking them to the bone within minutes, a blister was the last thing Nova needed.

Of course, who really needed a blister? Rubbing an actual sore onto the skin as the first step on the way to a callus was an absolute stupid function of humanity, and human feet should not be designed this way. In fact, all humans were composed of stupid engineering. Her thighs burned, her lower back ached, she was muddy and cross and cold, and the pain rubbing along the back of her heel made her actually want to cry.

“We’ll get to the end soon.” Sentry kept a cheerful look in place. This whole hike had been her idea in the first place, and she’d led the pack all the way out to the waterfall. Which, admittedly, had been very pretty. On a sunny day it might have even been gorgeous. But Nova could feel her teeth chattering, and she must have looked miserable because Sentry had been making remarks like that for the past twenty minutes. “And then we’ll be in a nice warm car. And we’ll get some hot chocolate.”

“Coffee,” Nova managed to say through her chattering teeth.

“Or coffee. Sure. Coffee’s fine.”

Lucius, following behind Sentry without too much trouble, should have looked bedraggled and miserable. But he’d packed a fancy purple camping jacket for the adventure. Quill, trudging behind him, kept flicking a hand through his sopping hair and sending water droplets everywhere.

Aila, after the first time Nova had landed on her ass, had taken the rear. Every so often, she reached out to grab Nova and keep her from careening off the edge of the path.

“Let’s take a hike,” Nova muttered under her breath as she limped along. “It’s beautiful, Nova. You’ll love it, Nova. Just think of the pretty views, Nova. This is great. Just great.”

She stepped down and hissed in pain as her boot moved against the blister. Instantly, the three people ahead of her turned to look. “Are you okay?” Sentry asked, her brow furrowed.

“Fi—I’m fine. It’s just a blister. I’ll be fine.”

It took a great deal of reassurance that she would be fine in order for the others to believe her. They had less than a mile to go, soon they’d be in the car, she could grit her teeth through it. After a day of holding the group back to her pace—it wasn’t her fault she lived with a bunch of jocks who preferred the gym to the library—the idea of stopping just because her foot hurt made her burn with shame. So she waved away their protests and gamely set off.

For a couple hundred meters, at least. At that point she began to whimper.

Something rustled behind her, followed by a sigh. Aila grabbed her arm to stop her. “What? Was I about to fall?” Nova asked, looking down at the steep incline beside the little trail.

“Hop on.” Aila turned to face away from her, bending her knees just a little.

“What?”

“I’ll give you a piggy-back ride.”

“But it’s so far still.”

“You weigh less than a sack of potatoes. I’ll be fine. Hop on.”

The others, having missed all of this, continued on their way up the path. Nova glanced back toward them, wondering if she should just suck it up and run to catch up. The thought alone made her want to cry.

Red-faced and embarrassed, she climbed onto Aila’s back and wrapped her arms around Aila’s neck. The relief of being off her feet came instantly.

“Comfortable?” Aila asked.

“If I get too heavy—”

Aila snorted at that. “Please. This isn’t even a workout. Hey, Sentry, wait up!”

In no time at all, she caught up to the group, trotting along as though she wasn’t even burdened by Nova’s weight. Nova decided she’d feel embarrassed later, when she wasn’t so wrecked. Aila was big and sturdy and warm, and it was the first reprieve from misery she’d had in over an hour. Quill gave her a small smile of commiseration, letting out a “hey” when she tiredly reached out to muss his hair.

“Hey, Aila?” Nova said.

“What?”

“Just...thanks.”

“Very welcome. Just do your part and hold on. Sentry will get mad if I drop you.”

Nova rested her cheek against the back of Aila’s shoulder, watching the landscape go by around them, and obeyed.

Sentry

“And just what do you think you’re doing?”

Sentry, about to reach for the pantry door in the darkness, froze. A split-second after Aila’s voice rang out through the kitchen, the lights flooded on. Sentry didn’t need a highly active imagination to fully see the picture it painted: Aila by the switch in an ancient pair of joggers and one of the hundreds of tacky free T-shirts they handed out during orientation week. A massive gulf of space between the pantry and Sentry’s bedroom. And Sentry herself in her Tom Servo sleep tank and shorts, balanced on one foot to stay off of her bad knee, right by the pantry—with her crutches nowhere nearby.

“Ah, um, ah,” Sentry said, looking about for an excuse. Her shoulders sagged. “I just wanted a snack?”

“And you decided, ‘oh, I’ll just hop to it, then, will I?’”

Sentry spread her hands wide, sheepishly. “Yes?”

Aila’s expression could melt steel. “Even though you’ve got a perfectly good pair of crutches by your bed.”

She hated the crutches, yes, but in that moment Sentry decided she hated disappointing Aila more. Still, she pushed her shoulders back. “I’m allowed to put a little weight on it—”

“In two weeks! You’re supposed to stay off it for now, or you’ll make it worse.”

“I’m only getting a snack. That’s not that strenuous.”

“For somebody who mothers the rest of us when we’ve so much as got the sniffles, you’re a bad patient yourself.” Aila strode across the kitchen and before Sentry quite knew what was happening, scooped her up. Just as quickly—though a little more gently—Sentry was deposited into one of the kitchen chairs. “You could have called one of us to get you a snack if you hate the crutches so much.”

“You were all asleep, and you need your rest.”

“We need our Sentry in one piece more than we need rest.”

Aila stomped into the pantry. A bag of crisps sailed through the air, landing in front of Sentry on the table. Grumbling under her breath the whole time, Aila emerged and stormed about the kitchen, collecting a midnight snack for herself. Sentry angled a chair over to prop her recovering leg up, trusting that Aila would work through this head of steam eventually. At long last, Aila sat down across from her with a glass of water for each of them. She dug viciously into a yogurt.

“Feel better now that you’ve bitched me out?” Sentry asked, digging into the chips.

Aila considered. “A little, actually. Now I see why Nova does it all the time.”

Sentry saluted her with a crisp. “Glad to help. Thanks for getting these for me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You don’t need to keep me company if all you were coming down for was a glass of water or something, though. I don’t want to keep you up.”

“Sentry,” Aila said in a measured voice. “If I leave you there, you’ll just hop right back to bed. So I’m going to stay here until you’re finished and I’m going to eat my yogurt and then I’ll carry you back to bed, and we’ll not tell the others any of this ever happened because they’ll scold you.”

“That might be the most I’ve ever heard you speak,” Sentry said.

“Yeah, I’m a real chatty Cathy at this hour, apparently.” Aila nudged one of the glasses toward her. “Drink your water. It’s good for recovery.”

“Yes, Mom,” Sentry teased, and Aila rolled her eyes at her.

Lucius

Lucius saw the blood, had a brief eternity to think whoopsy, there I go, and when time returned to its normal course of business, fainted. Well, he went woozy, at any rate. He felt his knees buckle, but from afar like they weren’t his knees anymore, and his vision squeezed into one narrow point of blankness, and he staggered.

He slammed into something very solid, but warm like a person. “Oh, no, you don’t,” said a familiar voice in his ear.

“S-so much blood,” Lucius said, his voice sounding as far away as his knees.

The entire world seemed to tilt and a feeling of warmth suffused him, reminding him of the earliest days with Nanny Nophir. That changed abruptly, though, when he realized that instead of being cradled like a small child, somebody had slung him over a shoulder like a bag of cement. Not just anybody, he realized in a muddled storm of thought. Aila had him over one shoulder, bracing him with an arm behind his knees.

Muzzily, he twisted his head to see Sentry hurrying out of the kitchen and into the shared living room. “What’s happened?” she asked.

“Nova’s got a nosebleed,” Aila said. “His majesty still faints at the sight of blood, apparently.”

“Hey,” Lucius said feebly, as the dig felt a little unfair. He let his body hang limp, too wrung out to really protest beyond that. There had been so much blood...

“I’m so sorry,” Nova said, her voice muffled by either a towel or her hand. “Lucius, I’m so sorry, I forgot you don’t like blood. It’s just so dry—”

“Let’s just get you cleaned up,” Sentry said kindly, resting a hand on Lucius’s back as she passed. “Maybe put him on the couch?”

The last must have been directed at Aila, for she moved over and Lucius found himself being lowered onto the divan. They really should have gotten a proper fainting couch for the living room, even though it clashed with the rest of the furniture he’d hand-selected. Though the ultimate irony remained: if Aila hadn’t caught him, he wouldn’t have made it to said fainting couch anyway.

Lucius, feeling queasy, glanced over. He spotted the bloody towel that Nova had instinctively put over her face to staunch the blood, and his eyes rolled back into his head.

“Hey—hey!” Something snapped loudly in front of his face and Lucius opened his eyes. Aila snapped her fingers a few more times. “None of that now. Turn that way.”

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Lucius said, automatically obeying. “Good heavens. I could have cracked my head open on the coffee table if you hadn’t caught me.”

“Doubt it.” Aila snorted. “Hard as your head is, you’d have cracked the coffee table in half.”

“Oh really, do you think?” Lucius couldn’t help but be a little pleased at the thought. Having somebody like Aila think any part of him was tough—she’d certainly made enough jokes about lacrosse in their first days together—was quite exhilarating. He studiously kept his gaze focused on the back of the couch, deliberately not looking as Aila took the bloody towel out of the room and returned with bleach wipes. “Oh, I do hope she didn’t stain the carpet.”

“Eh,” Aila said. “I’ve gotten blood out of worse. Though I’ll let Nova clean up her textbook on her own. I’m nice but not that nice. It should be safe for you to look now.”

Lucius swallowed hard and sat up, rubbing his head. He’d come in to inquire of Nova, seated at the coffee table with a textbook and a soap opera on in the background for noise, if she wanted to perhaps grab a quick dinner with him before their evening class. And she’d turned to him in horror, blood leaking and...

Well, he’d prefer not to remember beyond that point. Instead, he resolutely turned his thoughts to more pressing matters (after all, Sentry was taking care of Nova, which meant she would be just fine). He cleared his throat. “Aila, I do have a question for you.”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Do you think we should get a fainting couch in here? For the aesthetic?”

Aila stared at him for a long time, then turned on a heel and left without saying a word or even making a face at him.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Lucius said, and began to set his mussed clothing to rights.

Quill

No matter how they jeered and teased, there was no getting Sentry into the water. Even the triple dog dare, which would have worked on Quill without fail, held no effect. She merely gazed at them serenely from her lakeside lounger, told them they were all very clever, and closed her eyes once more, returning to sunbathing.

“Boo,” Quill called, cupping his hand around his mouth. He tried to splash water in her direction, but Sentry had wisely set her chair out of range.

“Oh, quit bugging her,” Nova said from deeper in the lake where she was treading water in her cute old-fashioned swim suit. Even in the water, she hadn’t taken off the elbow-length glove she wore to cover the scars from her lab accident. “Let the woman get some sun away from our shenanigans.”

“I refuse to let my best friend be too much of a coward,” and Quill raised his voice over his shoulder as he swam toward Nova, “to swim in the lake!”

“Love you too, Quill,” Sentry called back without opening her eyes.

The sun did feel nice, admittedly. Their first day at the cabin—one of Lucius’s family’s many, many vacation properties—had been gray and cold and unpromising, but today the skies were clear and the air was warm. Donning a pair of swim trunks and cannon-balling off of the private dock was the only logical choice to be made, in Quill’s opinion. And the others had followed not far behind: Nova in her one-piece, Lucius in speedos that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, and Aila in what Quill suspected just to be her underwear, as she hadn’t gone shopping for their vacation, even at Sentry and Nova’s urging. Sentry herself had donned a tankini but was staying far, far away from the water, having made it clear just how much she found the thought of parasites and other lakely dangers distressing.

Swimming wasn’t as easy as it had been before his accident, but Quill made it out to Nova and began to tread water beside her. She closed her eyes and tipped her face to the sun. “This feels so nice. I didn’t realize how much I needed a break. I had more than four hours of sleep last night, Quill. It felt like a miracle.”

“I may never go back,” Quill agreed. “Do you think Lucius would mind if we, like, just moved in permanently? There’s a bidet. Have you ever stayed in a place that had a bidet?”

“Can’t say that I have.” Nova turned. “Aila! Have you ever stayed in a place with a bidet?”

“When would I have done that?” came the reply. Aila didn’t even lift her head up from where she was floating on her back, eyes closed.

Lucius swam up, popped underwater, and emerged so that his hair flowed back in perfect waves. The sunlight caught very faint freckles on his shoulders. “I’ve been meaning to bring that up. It’s rather a travesty that we don’t have one at home. We could have one installed quite easily.”

“Eh,” Aila said, eyes still closed. “Feels bougie.”

“How dare you,” Lucius said.

Aila merely opened one eye a slit and smirked at him. Lucius, after a moment of grumpiness, smiled back.

“Did we bring a football or anything?” Nova twirled herself around in the water like a spinning top. “Or some kind of water game we could play? Not that I don’t love swimming.”

“We could play Chicken,” Quill said. When the other three merely gave him varying glances of confusion or interest (or disinterest on Aila’s part), he tilted his head. “Did none of you ever play Chicken as kids?”

“The thing where you dart out in front of cars and stay there until they almost hit you?” Nova asked.

“No, the bit where one person gets up on somebody’s shoulders and tries to knock another person—on somebody else’s shoulders—over into the water. Here, here, I’ll show you. It’s fun.” Quill glanced between the three of them and did some quick calculus that he would never, ever tell anybody else about. “Here, Aila, let me up on your shoulders.”

Aila kept floating for a few seconds more before she seemed to shrug to herself. “Eh. I’ve got nothing better to do.”

Left to his own devices, Quill was positive that he would have made it awkward to clamber up on Aila’s shoulders. But he’d forgotten just how strong rugby made Aila, and how often she went swimming. As they approached the shallower depths, she disappeared under the water. Quill felt something almost hit him from behind, and then he was launched toward the sky. He yelped and clung on for dear life as Aila straightened to her full height, the water coming up to her shoulders.

“Ooh! Ooh! I want to try. Lucius, let me up.” Nova scrambled over to Lucius and climbed up on his shoulders, kicking her feet excitedly (Lucius winced a little). She held her arms up like an old timey boxer. “You’re going into the water, bird-boy.”

“Hey, now,” Aila said. “Let’s make this fair. One hand behind your back.”

“Oh, right. Sorry, Quill.”

“I don’t need two hands to beat you,” Quill said, though he nearly disproved his entire point by overbalancing and almost falling off of Aila’s shoulders.

She merely locked her hands around his knees. Nova put her scarred hand behind her and waggled the fingers of her remaining hand at Quill.

“Oi!” A voice from the shore made all of them turn to look at Sentry, who’d sat up and set her book aside. “What are you doing? That looks dangerous!”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Lucius called back. “Aila and I have it all in hand.”

Sentry hovered on the edge of the lounger like she wasn’t entirely sure she believed that. “Well, just—just be careful.”

Quill used the distraction to lean over, scoop up a handful of water, and fling it in Nova’s direction.

“Hey!”

And just like that, the battle commenced. Aila charged forward with Quill holding on, Lucius did the same with Nova, and a wrestling match for the ages followed. Nobody would ever come up with a consensus on who actually hit the water first, though. Lucius swore it was Quill, Nova agreed, Quill argued vehemently that it was of course Nova, and Aila remained the neutral party, content to be the base for many, many games of Chicken afterward.

And Sentry remained on the shore, pretending she wasn’t keeping a close eye on them for injury and doing a horrible job at hiding it.

All in all, a pretty perfect summer morning, if you asked Quill.

+ 1 Time They Carried Her

“Sign up for survivalist camp, she says. It’ll be fun, she says. We’ll learn cool new techniques to surviving in the wild. Great bonding time!”

“To be fair,” Nova said from behind Aila’s head, where Aila couldn’t really see her without craning her neck, “we were having a great time bonding until, you know, all of this.”

Because Aila couldn’t see her, and moving to do so would only get her scolded, she had to imagine Nova waving her free hand in aggravation.

“I for one am having a perfectly lovely time,” Lucius said.

Aila could never tell when he was being sarcastic, and she didn’t see that changing any time soon. She suspected in this case he might be genuine, though. The course instructor had complimented him on his very fancy camping vest (“It has so many pockets,” Lucius had said) and nobody had yet found the heart to tell Lucius that had been sarcasm. So all through this hike he’d been in a particularly good mood. That made him the only one, probably.

Things had been going rather well during the whole course, up until this morning: the morning of their final day in the course, when they would be tested “randomly” and, using little but their wits, a compass, and a map, navigate themselves back to the parking lot. Camping with her friends had been fun, even if it meant being squished into a two-person tent with Sentry and Nova (the latter of whom had very bony elbows) at night. Aila liked the outdoors. She liked the feeling of self-sufficiency that this course had brought with it. She imagined herself as something of a pioneer. In the olden times, she would’ve kicked ass at all of this.

Unfortunately, it was nigh on impossible to kick ass with a “broken leg.”

And she wasn’t hiking out of the woods. She was being carried. On a stretcher. This sucked. The instructor had folded his arms over his chest in a rather smug fashion as he gave them their final assignment. His eyes had lingered between Sentry and Aila, easily the tallest members of the group. And he’d narrowed in on her, which was why she was being lifted by her friends on a tarp stretcher that they’d improvised.

“This sucks.”

“Yes,” Quill said, grimacing. “So you’ve said multiple times. We’re not having the best go of it either right now.”

Aila closed her eyes and leaned her head back. She’d already had to fold her arms close into her chest like a sleeping vampire to avoid being bumped and jostled about. The tarp they’d fashioned into a stretcher smelled bad. She felt like she’d been stuffed into a tiny little space, not great when she suspected she was a little claustrophobic anyway. “I’m bored.”

“I’ve got several books you could read,” Nova said, completely earnest.

That would only make this day worse, having to read. Fortunately Sentry, who was planted on the right side above Aila’s head and therefore easy to see, laughed. “I don’t think a book will help.”

“I was up late reading all about the local fauna in case there was a pop quiz,” Nova said. “I could tell you about some of them?”

“I’d rather read the book,” Aila said.

Nova tilted her head, considering. “You know what? Fair.”

“It’s not long to the parking lot,” Lucius said in a cheerful voice, though he was a bit out of breath.

“Feels like miles,” Quill grumbled.

“That’s probably because it is. I was lying,” Lucius said, tittering nervously.

Aila had pointed out that the course instructors couldn’t see them, so she could just get up and walk for a bit until they were nearing the end and all of her friends could be spared, but Nova had looked so abjectly horrified at the thought of cheating on a test that Aila had backpedaled and felt a little actual shame. Just a tiny bit, though. Not enough to fully penetrate the thick barrier of indifference she liked to carry about.

“Fine,” she said now, with a sigh. “Tell me all about these fascinating plants of yours, Nova. Not like I can do much else right now.”

Nova squeaked in excitement, reaching down to grab Aila’s leg.

“Ow,” Aila deadpanned. “That one’s broken.”

“I thought it was the other one?”

“It’s not real,” Quill said. “She’s messing with you.”

“Right. Right! Okay, so to start with, these are deciduous trees—”

Aila tuned her out in record time. Since there wasn’t anything to do but lay stiffly with her arms in a stupid position and the stretcher swaying nauseatingly below her, Aila let the patter of Nova’s excited overexplaining wash over her. She closed her eyes to stave off the nausea of watching the canopy overhead.

Sleep didn’t come right away, though it drifted near enough that she dozed a few times. Finally, she heard Nova whisper, “Did I do it? Is she out?”

“Think so, yeah,” Sentry replied.

“Oh, thank H’esper.”

“Quill!”

“We’re the ones marching miles carrying her and she’s whining?” Quill whispered back. “Have a care for my legs. I can’t feel them anymore.”

“Me either,” Lucius said.

“Meanwhile, all she has to do is lay there and be carried!”

“Which for Aila is torture and you know it,” Nova hissed.

“I do suppose she’d whine less with an actual broken leg,” Lucius said, thoughtfully, and Aila nearly gave up the game by grinning. “She does have that stoicism thing going for her. I rather admire it at times. Daddy always said that I should be stron—ow, splinter!”

“You okay? We can take a break if need be,” Sentry said.

“I’ll endeavor to carry on,” Lucius said, but he sounded tearful.

Aila almost opened her eyes again, but joining this conversation would require more mental energy than she was willing to expend. Maybe if she did actually fall asleep, this nightmare of a hike would be over sooner.

“She does look kind of peaceful,” Nova said. “In a very Angry Aila way. Nobody tell her I said that. Either of those things.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Sentry promised.

There was a long silence. The stretcher continued to sway, though not in a soothing or repeatable pattern that promoted sleep, and her friends were quiet apart from the sound of heavy breathing as they tromped through the woods. Not a bad day for a hike, overall. She really wished she could just get up and walk alongside them, but if she had to be carried, so be it. At least she had them around her.

Aila nearly opened her mouth to tell them so (and ruin the illusion that she’d been napping this entire time) when Quill cleared his throat. “We are agreed, yes, that she’ll be driving the whole way home since she’s been napping this entire time anyway?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Duh.”

“Why, obviously. I’ll be completely knackered by that point.”

Aila’s smile probably betrayed her, but she elected not to care about that. She merely let the group travel on, carrying her to their final destination in their survival course. There were worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon, even if it meant being the one to drive them home afterward.

#rollonsunday #high rollers #aerois #fanfiction #my fic #aila #nova v'ger #lucius virion elluin elenasto #qillek ad khollar #sentinel prime

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vemuabhi · 3 years

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Disney Romance - Tangled in the Stars - 200 followers special

Hiii ! Thanks a lot for letting me choose 💕 I would like Tangled with female reader and my Sabo boy 🎂 - @pure-kirarin

A/N : Hey Kirarin chan!! Thanks for the brilliant idea of the 200 followers event. I hope you like this cringe story of mine. Please don’t have any high expectations on it, I may not reach them. I enjoyed writing this story a lot. Please forgive me for any mistakes.

Pairing : Sabo X Fem! Reader

Word count : 2.3 K

Warnings : Angst, fluff, happy ending

Your team were given a mission to infiltrate the base of a well-known Merchant, who was also a kidnapper. To set free all the people who were kidnapped and to hand him over to the revolutionary was your work. But… it felt like, it was already an assigned mission. Brushing the feeling aside, you took on the mission without asking anything else.

Luckily you people achieved success because of your planning. It felt like… it was the first time, your plan was actually implemented, without any ruckus or chaos. But why? Thinking about this, you felt your heart clench and your eyes started to well up.

“Y/N! What happened”, asked Koala as she came towards you. You wiped your tears with your shirt sleeve and gave her a smile. “I feel happy because we completed the mission without any… havoc”, you said trying to brush off the topic.

She kissed your cheek and said, “Aww you are so cute. Btw, we have a break for 3 days before we set sail”.

“Oh that’s great. Do you think there is any-”

“LIBRARY AROUND”, she completed your sentence before you could, making you chuckle. “There is one beside the railway station but, what are you going to read about? The Cursed castle?”, she asked you gaining your complete interest.

“Cursed castle? What is it?”, you asked curiously. Koala raised her eye brow and asked you, “What? You don’t know about that castle? There are so many rumours about that castle”.

“No, can you tell me about it?”, you tugged at her shirt and she closed her eyes and started to think.

“Actually, I’ve heard that there is a place in the forest, where there is a one tower castle. Everyone said that the castle is absolutely beautiful but it is cursed. If an individual steps into the castle, they get cursed”.

“Where is the castle and What is the curse?”, you asked her but she shook her head no and continued, “Sadly, I know nothing more about it”

“Oh… Now I have a even more interesting reason to take a tour of the Library, Thanks Koala”, you said getting up from your place.

“But, what about our shopping, HEY Y/N!!”, she wined

“Rain check”, you said closing the door behind you earning a sigh from her.

You walked quickly towards the library as your heart started to beat faster with each step you took. It was as if you needed to know about it or… like your life depended on it. Reaching the library, you walked quietly into the section of myths of the place. Looking around the shelves about the cursed castle, you found nothing about it. You tried to read and search for anything similar to it, but you found nothing.

“Excuse me, it’s the closing time”, an old woman, who was apparently the librarian, said to you. You looked at the clock and it was 11 pm. Getting up from the place you bowed to the lady and started to walk. Then a closed section of the library caught your eye.

“Sorry mam but, why is this place closed?”, you asked the librarian. She looked at the section and said, “From the time I started working here, it has been closed and no one is allowed in there”.

“Oh… Okay, I’ll leave now. Thanks”, you said and exited the place. After 15 minutes the old lady came out of the library and closed the door. As soon as she left the place and making sure no one was there, you made your way towards the door and opened the lock. Oh c’mon, this lock was a child’s play in front of all the locks that you opened before. Looking back and closing the door silently, you turned the lamp which you held and proceeded towards the closed section. ‘No Trespassing, closed for now’, was written on the door. You raised an eye brow and opened the door as you smirked.

‘The door would be broken by now, if this was read by-’, your thoughts stopped. ‘By whom?’, you thought as you felt the same pain in your heart. You clenched your fist and started to look at the books. They were mostly about the place’s history on the dark side and also the war plans used in the past.

‘Should I give up?’, you thought but again you felt a sting in your heart, as if you were supposed to search for it. You looked at all the books but couldn’t find even a similar book regarding it. You placed the books as they were and turned to leave the place even though your heart felt like it was crying with pain. Just as when you were about to leave, a painting caught your attention.

You went towards it and lifted your lamp to see it clearly. You saw that, it was a painting of a castle. ‘A one tower castle’, you thought as you saw the painting even more carefully. There was a full moon in the sky, the waterfall in the background. The sky was filled with so many stars and when observed carefully, there you saw a guy, with blond hair staring at the stars. For some reason, your heart started to beat faster than usual looking at the man in the painting. Suddenly the man moved and went inside the castle. ‘What the hell? Did he just move?’, freaking out, you took a chair and climbed on it, to touch the painting.

As your hand came in contact with the painting, you got dragged into it. You screamed as you hit the hard surface.

“Ouch! What the…”, you said as you placed your hand on your back and looked around you. It was a beautiful room, coloured with royal gold and had red carpet on the floor.

“WHO ARE YOU?”, you turned towards the voice of the person. Your (eye colour) orbs met with black orbs of a man with blond hair. He was lean and tall, also had a scar on his left eye. Your heart started to beat faster as you looked at him as if you already knew him.

He gulped as he clenched his fists and asked again, “How did you come here? Who are you?”, you blinked your eyes and got up quickly. “I have no idea how I got here. I was in a library looking at a painting one moment and then suddenly I got here”, you said and looked around.

“What happened? Why are you crying?”, he asked you. You didn’t even notice that you were crying till he mentioned, wiping your tears, you said, “It’s.. It’s nothing, I just felt like, you were familiar”.

He exhaled and nodded. “I feel the same, as if we met before, but I don’t know you”

“Is that so… What are you doing here in this castle?”

“I… I think I am the owner of this place. I can’t go out”, he said looking down.

“Oh… Can you show me the exit?”, you asked him hoping to just leave the castle.

“Exit? This place has no exit. I searched but couldn’t find”, he said to your surprise. ‘What the hell is this new problem’, you thought as you looked around.

He walked towards the window and leaned his elbows on the window sill. Looking at the stars he said, “You can’t find it. You won’t be able to. I also want to leave”

“Didn’t you ever think about escaping?”, you asked him as he continued to stare at the sky. “I don’t know. When ever I think about it, I get the question of, why I should even leave?”

‘I don’t know what is happening with this guy but… I guess if I involve, I’ll definitely be in a big problem’, you thought

“That’s pretty lonely stuff right there. What is your name? I’m Y/N by the way”

“I…”, he turned towards you and continued, “Sabo… yeah, Sabo is my name”.

“Oh okay then Sabo, even if you don’t wanna go, I intend to leave. My friends are waiting for me”, you said, ignoring the fact that your heart was beating faster because of him, as if he was the answer, but… to what?

“Friends?”, he asked

“Yeah, So, Sabo… wanna escape if you have a chance?”, you asked him. Why do you want him to come with you? What is this blond man having this effect on you?

“Can I? Are you sure that I can?”, he asked clearly wanting to know the answer.

“Yeah, how about jumping from here for starters sake?”, you ask him but he shakes his head no.

“I tried. I got back here again”, he sighed and continued, “I even tried to destroy the castle but nothing happened to it. It feels like, its mocking me for being the strongest”

He again looked out the window and said, “I don’t know if it’s a riddle that needs to be solved but, I feel like the stars are trying to say something. But I can’t understand what”. You look at the stars and then you see that, some stars are in the shape of the letter ‘J’. You walked towards the window and stood beside him. You remember teaching someone about constellations before. But… who was it?

“You… you are correct. The stars… It’s a constellation”, you replied to him and he perked up with curiosity. You observed the constellation and your hunch was correct. Pointing towards the stars, you said, “See, its looking like a letter ‘J’ if you observe”, he keenly observed and yes it was a visible to him.

“Yes, so what does it mean?”, he asked you and you continued, “Its Scorpius, according to the Greek mythology, it represents the deadly scorpion that kills Orion, the hunter, who was really proud of himself for his hunting abilities. Once there was a hunter, Orion, bragged to kill the animals of the world, but Apollo, sky god, didn’t like his attitude, so he sent a scorpion, who would end the hunter, Orion”, he placed his hand on his head and closed his eyes tightly.

“What happened?”, you questioned him.

“It… it just feels like… someone used to talk with me about constellations before. But I can’t seem to remember”, he admitted and then enquired, “So, why do you think the stars were trying to convey it?”

“I may be wrong but… I feel like, the castle is like the hunter. You said that, it was mocking you. But I feel like, it can be destroyed”, you ended as you took Sabo’s hand in yours and walked towards the centre of the castle. If you weren’t so concentrated to destroy the castle, you could’ve heard how loud Sabo’s heart beat was getting.

You observed that, the celling indeed had designs of Scorpius and Orion on it, with a star between them. Pointing towards it, you said, “Lets aim the star between Orion and the Scorpius”. Without hesitating, Sabo nodded and you both aimed at it and placed a single hit. Suddenly, the castle started to shake and cracks were forming quickly.

“I think we did it”, you said and then gasp suddenly, you felt Sabo pick you up like a princess and run towards the window. “We don’t have all day, Lets jump”, he said before jumping. You hugged him tight and he also did the same.

After you two tightly held each other, you didn’t feel any ground hit you. You both opened your eyes and you both were in the dimly lit, library room, where you were searching for the book and found the painting.

You looked up and saw that, you were still holding Sabo… Sabo, your boyfriend, whom you forgot about.

“Sabo? Why did I forget you?”, you asked him tears threatening to fall from your eyes, as he looks at you. He exhales and looks around the place and then at you again.

“Y/N! Its you. Its you!”, he exclaimed as you hugged you tightly. Pulling back he kissed the tears on your cheeks.

“Why did I forget you? It felt like no one remembered you? You were the one who was assigned this mission. How did this happen?”, you wine and sob at the same time.

“When I reached this place, the merchant wasn’t in town, so we decided to wait to catch him and free the new kidnapped people he would bring with him. But I got to know about this cursed castle and infiltrated this library to find book, that you’d like to read about it. Then I broke this door open and tried to bring the painting to you. Then got stuck in it”, he wiped the tears again from your cheeks and continued, “I didn’t remember anyone from this world, but I swear, I missed you. Thankyou for coming here and saving me, Y/N”, he said as he leaned his forehead to yours.

“I… I missed you too. I felt like there was something missing always. I used to cry without any reason”, you sobbed as he nodded and apologised for making you cry. You both exited the library after a while and headed towards the room you were given, still holding hands.

“You know, we found the merchant and freed the people who were kidnapped. For the first time no one messed up my plan”, you said to him only to receive a chuckle in return.

“Is that so. I hope its enough for this life. Get ready now because, your plans will be disturbed again”, he said making you laugh.

After reaching the room, you and Sabo cuddled next to each other as you both tried to sleep. You both kissed goodnight and slept. The next day, everyone were shocked to see and also remember Sabo. They were so confused at the incident and couldn’t figure out why they forgot about Sabo. You both never mentioned about the incident and the cursed castle painting was destroyed thanks to you two. He was the answer that you were looking for.

XOXOXOXO

I hope you liked it! Thankyou for reading. I am no expert in all the constellations. I just did some research on it. Nothing more. Sorry if I made any mistakes.

Like and comment your feelings.

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#one piece sabo #sabo one piece #revolutionary sabo #op sabo #sabo x reader #one piece #one piece x reader #one piece x you #one piece x y/n #SABO #One Piece Fanfiction #one piece fluff #x reader

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artxyra · 4 years

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I'm not entirely sure that your taking requests (I'm only 68% sure) but if you are can you try doing a daminette fiction based on the song Karma (cover by CMKC) with some class salt? (Maybe even some sibling jasonette or some daminette (or maybe even both...?😏) if you can) Btw I love your writing! 💜 (And before I forget thx for doing my requests, the previous ones and hopefully future ones 💜)

Note: This fics original idea had Marinette being akumatized into KARMA, yeah that didn’t happen when I was writing this one.

I've lost my mind The skies are crashing around me I'm left behind Smoke obscures all that I can see

“Oh, look, honey, our daughter made her first dress. Get the camera.”

A doll sits on the windowsill overlooking the growing garden on the deck. The doll has blue straw-like hair, bright blue color buttons for eyes, and a black stitched smile.

“Get out! You’re nothing but a pest. How could I care for such a child when you couldn’t do the one thing you brought into this world for.”

The doll no longer sits on the windowsill, but now lays on in wastebasket. No longer did the doll possess the bright stitch smile. Instead, the face lays bare without a stitch in sight.

“Hey, what are you doing out here all alone? What’s your name?”

“K-ka-karma…”

A small blue jay flutters its wings.

“I’m Jason. I’ll protect you for now on.”

The blue jay chirps.

A bullet sounds off. A small pull of blood surrounds the bird.

“No!” A thunderous boom goes off in the distance. Multiple sirens join the assembly of loud music. A young pre-teen holds the girl close to his chest, blood oozing out of her chest. A hand touches his shoulder. He shakes it off. Never letting go of her.

Beep…Beep…the heart monitor comes to life slowly. Waiting for the young child to test its system. There is no movement. Then there is silence.

A dark-haired, blue eye teen, stares into the mirror. Her eyes showing no emotions as her body is littered with markings ranging from cuts to words meant to demean a person.

“Marinette! How could you take credit for Lila’s design?”

The mirror cracks slightly.

“You have to be an example, Marinette. Your peers look up to you.”

Another crack.

“Marinette how you be mean to that poor girl at your school?”

Another crack.

“I thought you were our everyday Ladybug.”

The mirror shatters. All that is left is darkness.

Marinette stares frozen in place. The gloss in her eyes fading away as the glass falls to the ground, blood in her hand as fragments of glass pierce her skin.

She gasps unsure what to do. Her hands never close as she stares at them with fear. The blood continues to ooze out. The room does dark. A thump.

Her frail arms wrap around her legs tightly. She doesn’t move.

When she comes to, it's by the rushing sound of running water. A waterfall, maybe. She looks up and all she can see is white.

“Why did you do it?” A voice pulls her away from the water. Quickly, she turns around but is halted by a pain aching feeling shooting through her body. She lets out a cry.

“I’m I dead?” Her voice was hoarse, she couldn’t even whisper.

“No,” The voice chuckles. The knobs squeal to life. The water stops following, no longer hitting her in the face. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

Her mouth opens but no words come out. She begins to breathe heavily like there was no air entering her lungs.

“How could you push Lila down the stairs? Here’s a taste to what Lila felt.” One moment she was standing top of the stairs getting ready to leave, the next she at the bottom of the platform. Everything was hurting. Then darkness.

Marinette eyes flutter open, there the no hard tile beneath her like earlier but now cotton sheets and a blanket. She could feel her body move, one toe wiggle, two taps against her fingers.

“Jason,” She sits up pulling the blanket closer to her chest. There is no one there.

A wave of sadness washes over her. A glossy shine covers her bluebell eyes.

“Hey, hey, I’m here, Pixie.” The voice was comforting. She curls into herself. His arms wrap around her and pull her close. Whatever happened to her should have never happened.

He looks down, a soft snore escapes her lips. A smile appears on his lips. At least she safe and with him. No longer in that toxic environment.

A phone vibrates. It’s Marinette’s.

Jason unlocks the phone to see a series of messages. None of which are good. The hand holding the phone shakes. He tightens his grip. Slowly the screen begins to crack.

“You’re safe now.” He whispers into her ear. “Your big brother is here to protect you.” The remaining source of light turns off. He stays next to her.

“We are meant for each other M’lady. To halves on the same coin. You belong to me and no one else can have you.” Green eyes haunt her dreams. The cold feeling returns with growing darkness that was all too familiar.

She wakes up screaming. Tears rolling down her cheeks. There was no stopping the waterfall.

Jason runs into the room cursing himself. He knew he should have left but his family needed him for a mission life or death.

“You’re okay, Pixie, no one but you and I are here.” She continues to cry into his chest. He doesn’t mind the dampness he welcomes it. “It was a bad dream, Mari. A really bad dream.” His free hand caresses her hair, calming her down slowly.

“Todd what is the meaning of this.” His little brother asks over the phone. Jason watches as Marinette takes small bits of her food before swirling the remains in her bowl before repeating the process.

“It sounds like you miss me, Demon Spawn.” Jason jokes back, half into the conversation. He keeps his attention on Marinette. “Hold on.” He hangs up before Damian could retort. Marinette had pushed her bowl away from her and picks up the spoon. She looks at her reflection.

“Why would Adrien even spare you a glance. You are ugly, dull, nothing you would do would ever get his attention.”

“Argh.” Something snaps. It was the spoon. Breathing heavily, Marinette staggeringly gets out of her chair.

Jason helps her to the floor. He could see that she wasn’t going to make it far in her current condition.

“Am I not pretty enough.” Jason barely caught her words. He must burry any of the anger he has for those idiots for the sake of his sister.

“You’re magnificent, Pixie. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” He replies. His phone continues to ring with the familiar ringtone, He ignores it.

“Thank you, Jay-Jay.” Marinette closes her eyes. The ringtone lures her to sleep.

“You’ll never be a real designer, Marinette. One word from him and Gabriel will have you blacklisted from the industry before you even put your name out there.”

“I like to see you try.”

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng, an aspiring fashion designer, has been blacklisted on the bases of copying designers for her work.”

“I told you, Dupain-Cheng, you should have back off when you had the chance.”

Marinette curls into herself as the memories flood back into her mind. She’s alone. The old TV flickers in the darkness. The channel continues to change as the voices, tone, and display changes with each click of a button.

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” She murmurs to no one. Her grip tightens around the blanket.

“What the fuck, Todd? You’ve been gone for days on end and being all secretive.”

“I didn’t think you care about my well-being, Demon. I have a life outside of this shithole.” Jason says as he cleans the barrels of his guns. His younger brother growls. He could only raise an eyebrow.

“I will find out what you’re hiding Todd.”

“Good luck with that.”

Jason picks up his guns and disappears within the shadows of the Batcave.

“Pixie,” The door creaks open. A little bit of light enters the room. Marinette is sleeping on the couch, the blankets cocooning her. Everything seems fine.

“So, she’s what you’ve been hiding.”

“What the fuck?” A gun cocks.

“Is she your girlfriend?”

“No, my sister in everything but blood.”

“Hmph…why is she here?”

Jason sets his gun down and shuts the door. He turns to Damian; the teen genuinely was curious.

“She needs helps and I’m the only one who can help her. Gina tried but the mental and physical abuse became too much to manage. So, for her protection, Gina sent her to me.” Popping the cork off the bottle, Jason pours himself a drink.

“Does father know?”

“If he did, she would have been adopted in the family by now.” Jason pours himself another glass. Damian scoffs at the out his brother is drinking.

“Ladybug is hereby declared an enemy of Paris.”

“Tikki, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“What do you mean you’re no longer going to be Ladybug? You’re a true creation soul. A true holder of the ladybug miraculous.”

“Find someone else to do it, Master. You heard the Mayor, I’m an enemy of Paris, no better than Hawkmoth and Mayura.” She hands him the ladybug miraculous. Her red eyes close at the thought of losing her best friend.

Marinette wakes up sweating, her hand immediately reaching for her ears. Nothing. She sighs and curls back up.

“She’s been through a lot Damian, whatever scheme you have in mind leave it be and forget about it.”

Swinging her legs over the bed, Marinette sneaks over to the door. The door opens just enough for her to rest her hand against the doorframe.

“Jay-Jay…” Her voice was a whisper again.

Jason pushes the bottle and glass to the side. He’s by her side examining her. She wasn’t hurt.

“Pixie, you should be sleeping.”

“I had another nightmare.” She tells him. “Who’s your friend?”

Damian shuffles in place. She’s so tiny compare to any of his sisters like the wind could just blow her over without even trying.

“I’m Damian.” He tells her.

Marinette gives him a curt nod. Her eyes lock onto his. They’re green. She could feel her chest tightening. No air could get in or out. The glossy look returns in her eye turn.

Sobbing Marinette screams out, “Je vais le faire, Chat Noir. Je vais le faire, arrête!” She slides the down the doorway.

“Shit,” Jason runs over to Marinette. She blocks her view of Damian. Her lock on the green eyes soon fades to blue. Jason’s eyes. She tightly wraps her arms around his neck. Jason rubs her back. Turning to Damian all while keeping him out of Marinette’s sight, he tells his brother, “We’ll finish this later. Your eye color triggered a memory. And Damian, do not tell anyone about her.”

Damian is frozen in place. So much had happened in the last ten or so minutes. He had met the most beautiful girl he has ever seen and then she has a panic attack, something clearly triggered by previous trauma.

“Okay, I won’t tell.” The youngest Wayne agrees but not without weighing the pros and cons. He left the small rundown apartment with more questions than answers.

Jason turns his attention back to Marinette, who’s sobs turn into sniffles. “He can’t hurt you anymore. He can’t hurt you anymore, Pixie.” Marinette buries her head into Jason’s chest. She takes a deep breath. She can only hope.

Now you've used up all your luck It's time to get what you deserve I'm holding out for KARMA I'm holding out to watch you burn

Years past before Marinette was completely healed. Gina would visit from time to time making sure that her granddaughter was okay. She was ecstatic to find that Marinette was healing even if it was a slow process.

“Are you ready?” Marinette turns to Damian; his green eyes hold so much love and care for her than the green eyes she had grown to hate. Nodding, she takes his hand.

Beyond the doors, a series of lights flashes along with shouts. Reporters are in a frenzy trying to get the latest scoop on the Wayne heir’s beloved. Never once had she made a public appearance.

“Yes, thank you all for coming and showing my family your support. Today marks a very special achievement, my young son proposed to his girlfriend just a couple of days ago much to my second oldest dismay.”

Jason disrupts Bruce’s speech by shouting, “Hey” from his location next to Roy.

“Please welcome my son and his fiancée, Marinette Karma Todd.” Bruce steps away from the podium. The doors behind him open to show Marinette holding hands with Damian. She grips his hand tightly as Damian gives her a reassuring smile.

In Paris, several people are thrown in for a loop. Several lawsuits were issued. Collège Françoise Dupont, the school board was not happy at the treatment of one their student, a student that would grow to become one of the most powerful women out there.

Adrien Agreste, who was outed as Chat Noir, received a sexual harassment charge and a restraining order. The Wayne’s were out for blood and wanted to add attempted rape charge and compensation for all the trauma he had caused Marinette.

Lila Rossi, who managed to keep a tight grip on her classmates was finally exposed. Apparently, her latest lie was about being the mysterious Damian Wayne’s girlfriend. That backfired. She was then hit a cease and desist order along with a restraining order. Marinette had won the war.

Alya, who never learned to check her sources, lost any and every opportunity in her field. She even lost her job because she published a story about her best friend being the Wayne heir’s girlfriend. Thankfully, for the business, that article was only hosted in Paris, but the damage was already done.

Marinette never sent anything to her adopted parents. They didn’t deserve her. She was their servant, someone to help with the bakery. Though they were better than her birth parents, she couldn’t find it in her to ruin their lives. Gina became her legal guardian and that was that.

“I’m so glad that I meet you,” Damian says to her, placing a kiss on her hand. Marinette giggles and pulls Damian in for an embrace.

“I’m the lucky one. You would have thought this would be my future.” Marinette gestures to their growing empire. It was small but with Wayne Enterprise and Damian’s Veterinarian business, they were doing quite fine.

“Can I offer you a dance, Angel?”

“I would love that.”

No music plays just the beat of their hearts as one.

Tag List: *View my Tagging System guidelines for how to to be properly tagged or removed.

#maribat #slight daminette #slight salt #angst?#ml x dc #mlb x dc #ml crossover #dc crossover

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primatechnosynthpop · 3 years

Text

Wow! Against all odds, I finally got around to actually writing the follow-up to I'm Gonna Be The Anti-Hero that's existed exclusively in my head for months! Well uh here it is :3

---

The secret underground room beneath Plymouth rock was dark and silent as always, save for the faint dripping of water through a crack in the ceiling. It figured that, after living there for countless centuries, the structural integrity would finally begin to erode. That dripping sound, although highly irritating when it first started a month or so ago, had now settled into background noise which John Smith paid no attention to. He was a pilgrim, not a witch; it wasn't like the water could hurt him.

Then again, he realized a few moments too late one rainy spring day, perhaps he should have reevaluated that statement. He was minding his own business sitting in his chair and reminiscing about the very old days (that was the only thing he could really do anymore, slowly decaying as his body was) when the soft and steady dripping suddenly escalated at an exponential rate into what sounded like a small waterfall. He turned his head to see a semi-transparent humanoid figure taking shape out of the water pooling in the corner--strangely tinted red, as though the water were mixed with blood. As the old pilgrim watched, jaw agape, the figure strode purposefully toward him, taking on a more solid form as it did so.

"What are you doing here, intruder?" John Smith demanded, one hand tightening around the hilt of his sword while his other hand reached behind his back to fumble for his musket.

"This secret underground room isn't government sanctioned," the stranger hissed. (Although... was he a stranger? John Smith somehow felt that he'd seen this youngster once before, but he couldn't quite place where or when.) "And you have no official identification registering you as a legal citizen. Not to mention, you haven't been paying taxes... disgraceful."

Before John Smith had the chance to concoct a retort or draw either of his weapons, the masked man's hands were around his throat and crushing his windpipe with a force that could only be driven by an inhuman amount of bloodlust. And within seconds, the life of a pilgrim that had been extended for centuries past its expiration date was finally put to an end.

"I can't believe they want us to make a clown movie at a time like this."

"I can believe it," Neil replied without looking up from the shopping list in his hand. "The studio wants a lot from us, remember? They're not going to care how sad we are. Anyway, it's been four months--" The emotions bubbling up within him refused to let his voice stay level, so he gritted his teeth and hissed out the rest of his sentence rather than let himself start crying in the middle of the dollar store. "We should be over it by now."

"Neil..." Kevin began in the way he'd often addressed Neil over the past few months--brow furrowed, voice edged with an obvious and vaguely patronizing concern--only to trail off and shake his head with a sigh. Apparently he'd finally given up on trying to make Neil feel better, which was just fine by him, because things are never gonna go back to the way they were before and it's my fault and I don't deserve to feel good about it.

"Anyway, we've got what we came for," Neil muttered, waving his hand in the general direction of Kevin's shopping basket without looking him in the eyes. "Let's go."

At the checkout counter, the cashier frowned and shook her head when Neil offered her a five-dollar bill. "Sorry," she told them, "But all this is going to cost $29.99."

"What? But we don't have that kind of money!" Neil lamented. "And we got this stuff from the clearance section... plus this is the dollar store, so shouldn't everything just cost a dollar?"

For a visual aid as he spoke, he grabbed one of the items they were ringing up--a bargain pack of multicoloured clown wigs--and shook it in the cashier's face. Apparently unmoved by his bargaining, she pursed her lips and crossed her arms.

"Maybe you should have checked the price tags first, sir."

"Huh? But, but..." Neil trailed off when he looked down at the price tag on the item in his hands. The bright orange tag had the original price, $7.50, crossed out and replaced with $2.35... but then below that, scribbled in tiny and barely legible font, it read "just kidding, it's actually eleven dollars now." "Aw, man," he groaned, tossing the pack down on the conveyor belt and sticking his hands in his pockets. "Just our luck."

Kevin had a thoughtful look in his eyes while he drove them home empty-handed. When he pulled up outside the clubhouse a few minutes later and they climbed out of the truck, he suddenly laid a hand on Neil's shoulder.

"Say, Neil, let's not get discouraged," he said. "I've got another idea for how we could get our hands on some props."

"Really?" Neil asked, perking up despite himself. "How?"

"Well, I think--" Kevin broke off as unexpectedly as he'd started, encouraging smile briefly dipping into a grimace. "...You know what, I'll take care of it myself. You can hold down the fort here, okay? I won't be long."

Neil's brow furrowed. "Okay, but what are you...?"

Without explaining himself any further, Kevin clapped him firmly on the back, hopped back into his truck, and drove off. Neil watched him recede down the road with bewilderment. Being all secretive like that wasn't like Kevin... Unless he's trying to protect me from something, he realized with a twinge of bitterness. That would be just like him, the way things had been recently. Ever since the past winter, and what had happened with Ryan, Kevin's latent big-brother-ish tendencies had escalated; now he watched over Neil like a hawk and freaked out every time he so much as stubbed his toe. Under different circumstances Neil would have relished being fussed over, but now it was more annoying than anything else. The thing was, he didn't deserve it. If anything... his fingers strayed up to absentmindedly fidget with the four-leaf clover pinned to his shirt. I deserve to have bad luck. I deserve to suffer, after what I did to Ryan.

Still, there wasn't much he could do about it now, and he wasn't going to say no to having the clubhouse to himself for a while. With a sigh, he disentangled his fingers from the clover's leaves, ran a hand through his overgrown bangs, and turned to head inside. Maybe he could play cards or something to pass the time.

A thick layer of dust had settled over everything in Ryan's house. That made sense, of course. It had been four months--no, five, since Ryan hadn't come home once while he was being a vigilante--since anyone had set foot there. Even so, Kevin was unprepared for the full-scale assault on his lungs when he opened the door, and promptly broke into a coughing fit.

"Man, good thing Neil stayed home," he thought aloud as he batted thick, swirling clouds of dust and spiderwebs out of his face. "The way things have been going for him lately..."

He'd probably choke to death on all this dust, he thought but didn't say aloud, and then felt bad for thinking it in the first place. Kevin didn't understand what had happened to Neil in the course of the past few days, but ever since picking up that clover, he seemed to be having a run of uncharacteristically bad luck. Whether it was random chance or something more suspicious was afoot, it sure wasn't doing much for his already thoroughly frayed nerves.

"Alright, calm down, James," he muttered to himself, shaking his head to clear his thoughts and ideally dispel the rest of the dust. "Focus. Concentrate. What are you here for? Props for your webisode. Right."

Keeping that objective in mind, he made his way past the front entrance and into the living room. There, a few objects were strewn around that caught his eye: a mannequin bust wearing a colourful wig; an eccentrically patterned jacket draped over a chair; a brush dipped into a rusted metal container filled with what he hoped was red paint. After looking around a little more he found a large cardboard box filled with mutilated stuffed animals, which he mostly emptied out and started filling with the useful items he came across.

All the while, a persistent feeling of unease stirred in his gut, becoming increasingly hard to ignore with each belonging of Ryan's he packed away. This is wrong. I shouldn't steal from him. Kevin paused and looked down at the box in his arms with a frown. One of the items sticking out the top, a blank-faced doll head, seemed to stare accusingly back at him. For a moment he saw it not as a plastic figure, but as a human form encased in ice and then broken apart. He blinked and the illusion quickly vanished, but an unsettling feeling remained in its wake. Neil was right; it had been months already. So why did going through Ryan's things make him feel so dirty? Ryan didn't need any of this stuff anymore. He was gone. Wasn't he?

With a weary sigh that, had anyone been around to ask, he would have accredited to the physical exertion of carrying heavy stuff around, Kevin set the box down and stepped back to survey the room he was in now. If he remembered right, this kind of room was called a study--there was an armchair with a few suspicious stains lurking beneath the dust, a desk strewn with papers all scrawled full of nonsense like the ravings of a mad scientist, and an ornate bookshelf. He wandered over to the latter furniture piece and ran his hands along the spines of the books, letting their leathery texture ground him in the present. He noticed several unusual bibles and other ancient texts, and a stash of calendars, some of which he was pretty sure had originally belonged to him or Neil; the up-to-date calendars and one of the more normal-looking bibles went into the box, while he decided everything else was better left where it was.

There was one other set of books he recognized: a teen fantasy series that Neil had often gushed about. Thinking back to the previous fall and all the events he normally tried not to think about, he experimentally lifted one of the fantasy books off the shelf. At once, just as he remembered from when Neil showed him, the bookshelf rumbled to the side and revealed a narrow staircase descending into the basement.

If anyone asked him, Kevin couldn't really say what compelled him to go down those stairs. The secret chamber was as empty as he remembered, with nothing down there that could possibly be of use for the webisode. And without a lantern, he could barely even see the only things that were there to speak of: the paintings of Ryan's ancestors.

"Ryan..." The name manifested on Kevin's lips unexpectedly as he stared, squinting through the dust and darkness, at the row of portraits grinning lopsidedly back at him. He knew the paintings couldn't hear him--hell, they weren't even paintings of Ryan himself, just his relatives. But their faces were practically identical to him, that face he hadn't seen in person for nearly half a year, and that alone was enough to clog up his throat with unbearable emotions.

The thought of It's a good thing Neil isn't here for this surfaced again, and this time Kevin had to agree with himself. Losing a close friend was... well, there was no way not to take it hard. But Neil seemed to have taken it particularly hard, even blaming himself, to the point where any mention of Ryan would immediately send him straight back into a depressive spiral no matter how happy he'd been a moment earlier. That was why Kevin had kept this idea a secret from his friend in the first place--that, and he wasn't sure if it was going to pan out and didn't want to get Neil's hopes up. He figured that if Neil asked where he got all the stuff he'd found, he'd just say it was from a garage sale.

Now, looking into the achingly familiar manic blue eyes of those portraits mounted on the wall, Kevin thought of those news reports about the mysterious killings that had been going on around town. If that really was Ryan, and he was somehow still alive...

"Why?" he whispered. Without really thinking, he reached out and pressed his hand against the painting as if to cup its cheek. "Why haven't you come home, Ryan? Where are you?"

The target was at home, alone in her bedroom playing video games. Casual, unbothered by any harm her actions may have caused. Shameful. In an icy swirl of perhaps not-so-righteous fury, the vigilante took form in the corner of her room and crept up behind her. With an average build and no weapons at the ready, she would be no trouble to dispose of.

"Playing dead in order to toy with an innocent man's feelings," he growled. "Some people would call it ghosting. I call it a crime punishable by death."

"Jesus christ, what the fuck?!" Wendy yelped as she spun to face the vigilante. "How'd you get in here?"

"You shouldn't worry about that," he told her, gloved hands already flexing in anticipation of tightening around her neck. Or perhaps this time he'd thrust his hand straight through her chest and rip out her heart--an appropriate punishment for her crimes. "You'll have plenty of time to figure it out once I send you to hell."

"Okay, seriously? What is happening here?" Eyes narrowed, Wendy put her game on pause and got to her feet to stare the vigilante down. "You said something about me playing dead..." Her eyes suddenly widened with recognition, and the vigilante waited for the fear to set in along with it, but instead she shook her head and laughed. A pitying laugh. "Wait, you're not friends with that, uh, that filmmaker guy, are you? Geez, I seriously must have dodged a bullet there."

"Filmmaker..." the vigilante murmured as the word echoed in his mind. Yes, that's right. The man she stood up was a filmmaker... of a sort. (How did he know that? How did he even know who this woman was? Those questions weren't worth dwelling on, he decided.) "You may have thought you dodged a bullet back then, but I'm here to see that the bullet circles back around and destroys you like you deserve."

Wendy crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow, any trace of fear on her face outmatched by her sad, pitying smile. "Sure, keep the edgy sayings coming, Mr. Hot Topic. And what's with the getup, anyway?" she added with a nod to the vigilante's predominantly dark outfit. "Must be kinda warm."

Warm? The vigilante snorted derisively. No, of course he wasn't too warm. His blood, as it always had for as far back as he could clearly remember, ran cold like that of a snake. He couldn't remember a time when he'd been warm. And he certainly couldn't remember a time when he'd worn anything other than his current ensemble. Rather than waste time telling this insufferable woman as much, though, he simply took a few purposeful strides to close the distance between them, hands extended and more than ready to kill.

"Ugh, get away from me, creep!"

In a startlingly swift motion, Wendy's leg shot out and connected with the vigilante's ankles, sending him toppling to the floor. He hissed in irration, though not in pain--when his sensations were already perpetually numb, it would take a lot more than that to hurt him--and got to his feet, dusting himself off with a scowl. In the few seconds this took, Wendy grabbed a baseball bat from the corner of the room. Now she stood brandishing it in perfect athletic form with a battle-ready glint in her eye.

"Not another step, you hear me?" When the vigilante didn't dignify her with a response, she gritted her teeth and gave the bat a twirl--attempting to show off, it seemed, but her hands shook slightly and she nearly dropped the bat, only barely managing to regain her grip on it. "My mom is in the other room right now, and... well, she hasn't done anything wrong, so you don't want to punish her, right? And if anything happens to me..."

He stiffened at Wendy's mention of her mother. An innocent citizen? That was the type of person a vigilante was meant to protect at all costs; otherwise vigilante justice was no better than the police. But no one is innocent in this city. Even so, he understood the implicit threat--not that Wendy's mother would bring him down herself, but that either woman could very well call the police. And the last thing he wanted was to get law enforcement involved.

"...Fine," he snarled at last, turning on his heel with a twirl of his vigilante cape. "You can live a while longer. But I'll be back, and then you'll regret your sins."

He heard her gasp but didn't bother sparing her another glance as he let his form dissolve into a splash of red-tinted ice, sinking through her floorboards and off to thwart another criminal.

Slowly and carefully as a technician deactivating a bomb, Neil set the three of spades down across the top of the three other cards he'd lined up on the table. The humble beginnings of a tower stood for a moment, and he held his breath eagerly as he reached for another card to place on top, only for it to suddenly shudder and collapse like an anime girl who'd stood in the rain for too long.

"Dang it!" Neil threw his hands in the air in exasperation. When he did, a droplet of his own blood landed on his glasses, and he realized with a start that his hand was bleeding--just a paper cut, but still, he'd better wash up.

As he ran his hand under cold water, transfixed by the sight of the blood swirling down the drain, a sudden cracking noise rang out just above him. His head snapped up to stare at the spontaneously cracked bathroom mirror. His reflection stared back, stricken and gaunt, as shards of shattered glass rained down into the sink, where they mixed with the water and the blood. Neil shivered, his breath quickening.

Icy water... ice, blood, broken mirrors. All mixed together. Shattered. Blood, guts, ice, mixed together, down the drain. My fault my fault my fault my fault--

"No," he whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut and digging his nails into his scalp as hard as he could. "No! I didn't do it, I didn't... I didn't mean to..."

Deep breaths, a voice in the back of his head reminded him. It sounded like Kevin's voice, worried to the point of being slightly patronizing. Neil grimaced, annoyed at his own brain for manifesting its self-preservation in such a way, but he complied nonetheless. Keeping his eyes wrenched shut, he took several deep breaths in and out until his heartbeat slowed to normal--he hadn't even noticed it speeding up--and his hands didn't shake when he lowered them away from his head.

"Hey, you know what'd really make me feel better?" he said aloud to nobody in particular, putting on a broad smile and wiping his hands off on a towel. "A nice hot bath! Yep, that'll counteract my blood running cold, alright..."

He ran his hands up and down his arms as he spoke, although he didn't know who he was trying to fool; the chill that had settled into his bones had nothing to do with the temperature. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure who this whole performance of forced cheerfulness was meant for... the studio, maybe. He wouldn't put it past them to hide cameras everywhere. Either way, even if it wouldn't fix his psychological issues, a bath really would be pretty nice. He put the plug in and started running the tub, with the water temperature set just hot enough that it would scald him a little at first.

He wasn't sure exactly what happened when he sat down on the edge of the tub to take his socks off, whether he slipped on something or leaned too far back or what, but suddenly he lost balance. And by the time he realized he was falling backward, he only had a split-second to curse his rotten luck before his head connected with the wall and he blacked out.

In the end, Kevin managed to get a pretty good haul from Ryan's house. In addition to the stuff he and Neil could use for their webisode, he'd retrieved the calendars and a couple other things it looked like Ryan had stolen from them, as well as their old communicator wristwatches. (He wasn't sure if the watches fell into the camp of things Ryan had stolen, or if they'd just brought them over to his place for a sleepover once and forgotten them there. Either way, Kevin figured it could come in handy to start using them again.)

"Hey, Neil," he called as he stepped into the clubhouse with the box in his arms and kicked the door shut behind him. "I'm back."

There was no reply. Frowning, Kevin set the box down with a slight grunt of effort and wandered through the living room and down the hall. There were a few playing cards scattered on the table, suggesting that Neil had been trying to make a house of cards but given up halfway. Kevin couldn't really blame him for that; assembling cards in such a way that they'd actually stay upright was yet another thing that had been more in Ryan's ballpark than in either of theirs. Still, that didn't explain where Neil was now...

"Neil? You there, bud?" Still being met with no answer, Kevin came to a stop outside the bathroom door, which was ajar with water pooling out from inside. "Oh, man, that's not a good sign..."

He gave a tentative knock, and when there was still no response, grabbed the handle and pushed the door open. The sight that met his eyes when he did so immediately made his breath hitch and his blood run cold. The broken mirror over the vanity reflected his slack-jawed expression as he stared at the overflowing bathtub, the pair of still-clothed legs dangling over the rim, and the smudge of blood on the wall leading down to the head of the man those legs belonged to, slumped inside the tub with his head submerged in the water.

"Neil!!"

Kevin sprinted across the room to lift Neil out of the tub. It then took him a few seconds longer to turn off the faucet and pull the plug, as by that point the shock had turned to dread and his hands were shaking. Once the water was slowly starting to drain, he fell to his knees and pulled Neil tight to his chest, one hand clutching at the back of his soaked-through t-shirt while the other fumbled across the back of his head searching for the source of the blood. It didn't take long for him to find the slightly matted patch of damp hair indicating where Neil had banged his head against the wall. Kevin swallowed hard as dread leapt up to claw at his throat. The only question is... how long was he submerged?

"Neil," he whispered, and was almost embarrassed to hear how hoarsely his own voice came out. "Wake up. Please."

No response. Kevin reluctantly pulled back to hold Neil at an arm's length, and shuddered at how limply his friend's body flopped forward. He noticed, with a white-hot jolt of irrational anger, that the four-leaf clover was still in place. Fat lot of good that thing's done for him. He grabbed the clover and crumpled it in his fist, all the while tears pressed against the back of his eyes; he struggled not to let them fall. Damn it... first Ryan, now Neil... What kind of protector was he? What kind of friend?

He slammed his fist, the useless clover still clenched within, against the drenched floor tiles. At that moment, the lightbulb above his head exploded and sent sparking wires raining down around him. As soon as electricity met water, it sent a nasty shock through Kevin's veins; he screamed out of equal parts surprise and pain and scrambled up onto the countertop, which was barely wide enough to support him.

On the floor below, Neil's body convulsed. Then his eyes snapped open and he drew in a gasp that turned into a scream halfway through. Although touching his friend's hand sent the current through his own body for a moment, Kevin was quick to grab him anyway, and he managed to pull Neil safely out of the electrified water and into a fierce embrace. Neil kept shrieking, and he squirmed frantically around, not seeming to recognize his surroundings at first.

"It's alright, Neil," Kevin assured him despite how hard his own heart was pounding. "I've got you."

"Oh..." Neil's body slackened, and he pulled back to blink slowly at Kevin, realization dawning in his eyes. His cheeks coloured with embarrassment and he ducked his head. "Uh, thanks."

Neither of them said anything else, for lack of ability or perhaps willingness to put it into words. After a moment, Kevin realized he was still holding the clover, and he handed it back to Neil, who took it with a dip of his head and a murmur of acknowledgement, and pinned it to his soaking wet t-shirt.

Somehow out of everything in the room, themselves included, that little scrap of plant matter was still intact. And although he wasn't superstitious, that simple fact was what would stick in Kevin's mind for the rest of the day, turning it over until he could only conclude: Yep, there's definitely something weird going on with that thing.

Despite the many months he'd prowled the city, this was the vigilante's first time in the hideout of a proper gang. It looked about the way he expected: dimly lit, no windows, weapons hung up on the wall and cigarette butts littering the floor. The gang members, dressed primarily in leather jackets with a few in denim, lounged in chairs leaning too far back, or on top of tables, or on their motorcycles parked right in the middle of the room. Most of them didn't even notice the vigilante as he approached. They were too caught up chattering and cackling amongst themselves like a nest of overgrown crows. The one gang member who did seem to notice the vigilante from the get-go simply looked up at him with raised eyebrows and addressed him once he got close enough to strike.

"Hey, haven't seen you around before. Looking to join the club?"

"Hardly," he snarled. "This whole place is crawling with criminals."

The whole room broke into laughter at that. The vigilante gritted his teeth, fists clenching at his sides. These people were different from the criminals he'd taken down before; between their numbers and all the weapons they had easy access to, they might just pose a serious threat if he wasn't careful.

"You're the ones, aren't you?" he went on once the laughter had died down and the gang members were all watching him with a mix of bemusement and curiosity. No trace of fear amongst them yet, but that would change... "Throwing bricks at innocent people, even seeking to damage their property. Absolutely detestable."

"Woah, hang on," another of the gang members cut in sharply, reaching for a weapon as they stood. "First off, the whole brick throwing thing was months ago. Second of all, we never did that to innocent people, you know!"

"Yeah!" yet another gang member cut in, pumping her fist in the air. "Only to those losers who blew up our boss!"

...Boss?

The vigilante slowly turned, a deeper chill than normal running down his spine, as a strangely familiar smug cackle echoed from behind him. He came face-to-face with a man in a tank top and baseball cap, sneering at him with his arms crossed. Max. Gulping, the vigilante took a step backward. He's their boss?

(How did he know that name? How had he known Wendy's name either, for that matter? Why, out of all the criminals in the city, did a select few ignite disproportionate resentment within him? He'd dealt with some of these people before, he knew, but when he tried to remember when and how it all just turned to slush in his brain.)

"Yep, those losers got what was coming to 'em," Max said. "Except not really, 'cause they didn't suffer enough. But it's okay, we'll get 'em extra hard next time."

"No..." For reasons he couldn't quite explain, the vigilante's voice shook with equal parts fury and sudden fear. "Don't you dare hurt them."

"Huh?" Max tilted his head, already slightly squinted eyes narrowing further. "Heyyy, wait a minute, aren't you one of--?"

Before he could finish that thought, the vigilante was upon him with a karate chop to the windpipe. It was a more reckless attack than he'd planned, and even as Max stumbled backward coughing, he could hear the rest of the gang grabbing their weapons and running up behind him. But it was fine; the vigilante could take them all on and then some. He could kill any number of people if it was for the sake of defending his friends.

(Friends? Did he have friends? Somehow it felt that he must have, once. But that was strange, because the only thing he could clearly remember himself ever being was a cold-blooded vigilante.)

"Don't you see? Society's the one to blame! It's society's fault that he had no choice but to become this way!"

As Kevin delivered this speech, waving his arms dramatically toward the focus of the scene, Neil spun the video camera around to point it toward himself. Hopefully the studio would think of the disorienting cinematography for this webisode as a bold artistic choice rather than thinking of it as amateurish and embarrassing. He then leapt back, breaking into maniacal laughter with his prop gun raised in the air. Under ideal circumstances, this role might have been better suited to Ryan, but... well, they couldn't stay hung up on him forever; they had a job to do.

"Eh-heh-heh! Thanks to society, I have the urge to kill!" Neil twirled around to show off his clown costume, while just out of frame, Kevin hastily put on a wig and fake mustache. "And now... I'll kill this innocent man, who's different than the guy who was talking a minute ago!"

(It was fascinating--fascinating and dumb--how a broken mirror and a bit of blood could set him off, but something as heavy as a gun in his hand only brought him the faintest twinge of discomfort, easily ignored for the sake of making a webisode. After all, as Kevin had assured him many times over the past few months, it was the gun and its villainous weilder who were to blame for what had happened to Ryan. On an intellectual level Neil knew that was true--and besides, if he hadn't deflected that bullet, all three of them would have died. But knowing that did nothing to redirect when and why the darkness in his brain manifested.)

Now, much to Neil's surprise as he took aim with his prop gun, Kevin shouted "Cut!" and walked across the abandoned lot they were filming in to turn the camera off.

Neil lowered the gun, confused, as his costar removed his costume with that now all-too-familiar look of concern etched across his face. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know... somehow I've just got a bad feeling about this," Kevin muttered. "Maybe try firing into the air a couple times first."

Neil complied, and was met with the expected result from the prop: a couple of clicks indicating an empty chamber. "You worry too much these days, Kev," he said as he fired one more blank into the sky and then lowered the prop again. "It's not a real gun; it can't--"

As he spoke, his finger accidentally pressed the trigger again, and he broke off with a yelp at the sudden burst of pain in his right foot. He dropped the apparently very real gun with a clatter and clutched at his injured appendage, losing his balance in the process. Kevin swore under his breath and rushed forward to catch him. Before his friend could reach him, Neil's other foot came down on a wide crack in the pavement. A chill ran through him, momentarily distracting him from the throbbing pain, but it passed as quickly as it arose without seeming to trigger any effects.

"By god, what's happening to you?" Kevin exclaimed as he grabbed Neil by the shoulders and held him upright. "You've been so unlucky lately, it... it almost seems like a curse."

"A curse?" Neil stiffened, but quickly forced himself to shrug and morphed his grimace into a dismissive eye-roll. "Pfft, what are you talking about? There's no curse! I've just been, y'know, having an off-day..."

"Neil." There was that concerned look again, that almost parental tone of voice, as Kevin stared him down and tightened his grip on Neil's shoulders. "A couple hours ago you almost died, and now... you can tell something weird is going on, right? And, look--" He sighed, gaze darkening. "I don't exactly know how to fix it, but whatever's happening, I can't just sit back and watch you succumb to it. I can't lose you, too, Neil... not after..."

He trailed off with a faint warble in his voice, lowering his head. Neil gulped, a heavy weight surfacing in his chest. It was true; though he hated to admit it, at this point it was hard to deny that he was cursed. And yet, even as his foot throbbed around the spot where the bullet was lodged and his shoe was slowly stained from within by his own blood, it was hard to convince himself that he should accept help. On some level, didn't he deserve this? Wasn't this a fitting comeuppance for getting one of his friends killed?

Yet here was his other friend, clutching at him ever tighter to the point where his grip on Neil's shoulders was nearly as painful as hitting his head or getting mildly electrocuted or shooting himself in the foot. I'm not the only one who lost Ryan, he reminded himself--another thing he knew perfectly well on an intellectual level, but easy to forget in practice. Kevin is hurting too. I shouldn't make him hurt any more.

"Fine, I admit it," he sighed, letting his tensed-up shoulders slump. "I'm unlucky, okay? And if you think it's possible--" He tore the clover off his shirt and glared down at it-- "then we're going to beat this thing."

For as tough as the gang presented themselves, it must have been most of these people's first time in an actual fight. The vigilante swerved to avoid weak punches, clumsy kicks, poor attempts at stabbing. It all blended together after a while, and he stopped thinking of the gang members as individuals; they were just an indistinguishable swarm of insects whose attacks were easily dodged. Unimportant, save for their leader.

The vigilante had Max pinned to the floor now, holding his thrashing form in place with one arm while he brought his other fist down on the ruffian's face, over and over, as hard as he could. Not every blow connected cleanly, and Max had managed to bite him several times already, but that was irrelevant. Criminals must be brought to justice. That was why the vigilante hated these people, wasn't it? Because they were criminals. Yes, what other reason could he have, when this was all he'd ever been?

And then, just as he managed to land a blow to Max's jaw that left him defiantly spitting out blood and a couple of teeth, the vigilante's spine snapped.

It took a moment for him to register what had happened. He just heard a loud crack, and a sharp pain shot through him, and suddenly he couldn't hold his legs in place and collapsed. Max wasted no time taking advantage; he delivered a kick to the vigilante's gut that sent him flying back across the room, where he hit a wall and slumped to the ground, gasping in breathless agony. At once the other gang members closed in on him. Grimacing, the vigilante drew himself up onto his hands and knees, then braced himself against the wall and, with a far greater strain of effort than expected, dragged himself upright. By the time he'd managed to get to his feet, dozens of knives were inches away from him.

Then, to his surprise, Max pushed through to the front of the crowd and held his arms out to hold back his underlings. "Nuh-uh, this one's mine," he told them, sneering as though oblivious to the blood dribbling from between his lips. "I said I'd get him twice tomorrow, and I meant it."

The vigilante flinched as Max took a swipe at him. But rather than a fist connecting with his face, he was met only with the shock of exposure as the bully grabbed his mask and triumphantly yanked it off his face. He was left dumbfounded, blinking, as his vision readjusted to the light.

Wait a minute, I remember--

And then came the punch, square in the nose. Ryan yelped, pressing his gloved hand over his nose to stop the bleeding. When he dodged another punch, his body failed to cooperate and he crashed to the ground again, back aching furiously and heart pounding against his ribcage.

How and why his back had broken, he couldn't say, but one thing was clear: he was horrendously outmatched. Max was saying something now, gloating as he advanced on Ryan with a dagger in his hands, but Ryan couldn't make out the words over the blood rushing in his head. Why on earth had he gotten into a fight like this in the first place? What was he doing? He had to get out of there!

With that thought, yet another thing happened that Ryan didn't entirely understand. (Ryan didn't understand, but the vigilante did. It was one of the few things the vigilante knew: dissolve, reform, enact ruthless vengeance, dissolve again.) His body shuddered, and suddenly he found his solid flesh and bone giving way to a slurry of blood and ice that slipped through the cracks in the floor and disappeared. Then he was formless, freefalling through the dark, or at least that was what it felt like. When he took shape again it felt like dragging himself out of quicksand. Yet when he raised his slowly resolidifying head and looked around, he found himself in the basement of his own home, staring up at the portraits of his ancestors that had started it all.

No. Not started it all. "I had a life before this," he whispered, voice raw with the shock of memory and too many months spent speaking in an inhuman growl. "My name is Ryan, I have a life and a job and friends, I..."

Yes, that's right. Friends. Where were they? He closed his eyes and tried to remember. Each recent memory that took form in his mind was accompanied by a crashing wave of guilt and regret, and soon his body shook and tears pricked at his wrenched-shut eyes. That's right... I became a vigilante, and I teamed up with such a horrible person, let him manipulate me, all because I was too afraid to go back and apologize. And then...

The last thing he remembered, just after the flash of light and shock of paralyzing cold, was the sound of a gunshot, something shattering, and Neil screaming.

"Oh, dear god," Ryan whispered. He raised his head, opening his eyes and lowering his hands from his newly tear-stained face, and sat back on his heels as though worshipping the paintings before him. "What have I become?"

The ropes were just slightly too tight around Neil's limbs to be comfortable; he couldn't resist squirming a little as Kevin laid out the open bible on the end table next to his proton pack and began reading from it.

"Okay, um, let's see... ex-or-ciz-amus te, omnis immunde spiritus..." He squinted at the yellowed, faded pages, biting his lip. "Omni satanica pot-es-tas, omnis incurs--incursio infernalis adversarii... uh..."

"You're doing great," Neil called from his position tied to the bed frame; Kevin gave him a weary smile and thumbs up.

As Kevin continued reciting the verse, occasionally stumbling over a particularly tricky Latin word, the room's temperature eventually dropped a few degrees. Neil shivered, but his heartbeat picked up in excitement. He could feel something stirring in his blood like ripples on a lake, and when the furniture in the room began to quiver, so too did his body in eager anticipation.

"...Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux..." A chill wind swept through the room; Kevin gritted his teeth, one hand pressing down on the bible to hold its pages in place while he grabbed his proton pack with the other. "Vade retro Satana! Nun-quam-suade mihi vana!"

The furniture rumbled louder. Neil's eyes widened as an entire bookcase lifted off the ground. "Kevin, watch out!"

"Hang on, Neil, I'm almost done. Uh, where was I... sunt mala quae libas..."

"No, Kevin, the--"

"Just one more line, okay? Ipse ven--"

"KEVIN!"

That last terrified yell was what it took for Kevin to finally turn, just in time to see the six-foot block of polished oak fly directly into him. Neil shrieked and thrashed against his bindings with all his might, but even if he weren't tied up, there was nothing he could have done. The bookcase came crashing down, its contents spilling out onto the floor around it in a flurry of paper. And when the dust settled, Kevin was pinned beneath it, unmoving.

"N... no..." Neil whimpered. Dread tightened like a noose around his throat as the horrible thought seeped into his mind: This is because of me. Now I've gotten them both killed.

"Oh, yes, what a tragedy... just your luck, isn't it?"

Neil's blood ran cold. He raised his head to see the translucent, smoke-shrouded figure of a giant clover looming over him. Its four leaves, dark green tipped with crimson and speckled with barnacles, opened down the middle to reveal a row of needle-sharp fangs. For a second, "Where did you come from?" was on the tip of Neil's tongue. But it was just as well that he was too terrified to speak, because no sooner than the question appeared in his mind, he realized the obvious answer. Oh, right. This is the demon that cursed me.

"Don't worry, your friend is alive... for now," the demon jeered. "But that could change. It's so easy for accidents to happen, you know?"

As if to demonstrate, the demon's leaves fluttered and suddenly a fire sprang up dangerously close to the scattered pile of books on the floor. When Neil screamed in protest, the demon laughed, and part of the ceiling gave in, sending down a controlled shower of debris to put out the fire before anything flammable could catch.

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Neil exclaimed with a shake of his head; he'd be almost exasperated if he weren't so terrified. "You're really powerful and want to hurt people, geez, not exactly a challenging concept. So, what do I have to do?"

That question seemed to give the demon pause. "...Do?"

"You know, to appease you or whatever. If you're threatening me with Kevin's life, then there must be something you want from me, right?" An idea occurred to Neil just then, and his already hammering heart beat even harder, to the point where he hoped the demon couldn't hear it and tell how freaked out he was. "Hey, it must suck having to be a clover. What if a lawnmower or forest fire had gotten to you before I did? And if you like hurting people so much..." He paused, smirking as the demon leaned toward him with obvious interest. "Wouldn't it be easier just to possess my whole body instead of wasting time messing with my luck?"

"That's..." The demon hesitated, its leaves curling up in what looked like excitement. "Ah. Ah-ha-ha! You're a clever little mortal, aren't you?"

"But don't get it twisted," he put in, glaring defiantly up at the demon despite hardly being in a position to threaten anyone. "You have to promise not to hurt anyone else. Especially not Kevin."

"It's a deal!"

Before Neil could stop and reconsider whether this was really a good idea, the demon dove toward him, row of fangs wide open as though it were going to bite his head off. He flinched a split-second before something cold and stinging like nettles clamped around him.

When he opened his eyes again, the world was tinted dark green as if viewed through a dingy screen, his head felt hazy... and he couldn't move, at least not of his own volition. Even opening his eyes just then wasn't his decision. He heard himself cackle, felt his arms and legs flex far harder than he'd known he was physically capable of flexing, breaking the ropes that bound him to the bed frame and setting his body free to do whatever the demon wanted.

"Hah..." the demon muttered in his voice as it made him walk over to where Kevin lay, still trapped and unconscious. The demon knelt down and poked experimentally at Kevin's shoulder and forearm. "This one has more muscle. It might have been a better choice for possession, if it wasn't so damaged already..."

For one petrifying moment, the demon grabbed Kevin's head and stared intently at him, stretching Neil's face into a grin so wide it made his whole face ache, and Neil's mind raced with horrible thoughts of things the demon might make his own hands inflict upon his poor helpless friend. But the demon simply laughed and dropped Kevin, who let out a low groan as his head lolled to the side--an indication that at least he really was still alive. But all of a sudden Neil had trouble believing that small mercy was really worth it.

"Ah, well, this body will do," the demon decided. "Let's take it out on the town and see how long it lasts!"

This time when the vigilante materialized in Wendy's room, she did little more than roll her eyes and move to grab her baseball bat. However, rather than try to attack her or even growl out any threats, the vigilante took two shaky steps and then collapsed, catching himself against her dresser. Wendy's eyes widened as she took a closer look at his face. His mask was off now, revealing a pair of striking blue eyes glistening with obvious distress, cheeks flushed with exertion, and a streak of half-dried blood running from his bruised nose. And when he spoke, it wasn't in the gravelly tone she'd heard from him before, but in a quiet higher-pitched voice--almost a whimper.

"Please... tell me..."

Wendy hung back, caught between a sharp tug of sympathy in her heart and a very rational wariness based on their previous encounter. The vigilante tried to walk again, and again nearly fell; his face wrenched up and he let out a pained hiss. At that, sympathy won out over rationality. Wendy edged toward him with her baseball bat in hand, and when she was close enough, held it out to him.

"Hey, uh... here. It's not exactly medically sanctioned, but maybe you could use this like a cane?"

"Oh... good idea, thank you!" He broke into a grin, and Wendy shivered; somehow he was far scarier when his eyes were bright and cheerful. "Terribly sorry for how I treated you last time, by the way. I really wasn't myself."

"Uh-huh?" While the vigilante tested out the makeshift cane, Wendy sat down on her bed, arms crossed. "And who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Ryan... or at least I think I still am." His smile faltered, and he looked away, anxiously running a hand through his hair. It was starting to come unpinned, and his hat was askew; evidently he'd been through a lot in the few hours it had been since their first encounter. "It's been... strange, lately. I don't think I'm entirely human anymore, if I ever was. But I came back here because there's something I want to understand."

"You want to know why I ghosted your friend?" It was just a guess, but Ryan nodded; Wendy smiled privately to herself for having figured it out. "Alright, I can tell you..."

She uncrossed her arms and leaned back on her bed, thinking back to the disastrous date she'd gone on several months prior. It was a story she'd recited many times to friends, relatives, other first dates as sort of a half-joking warning ("So, as long as you don't blow it as much as that guy did, we should be good...") and the more she told it, the more warped and exaggerated it became within her memory. But when she really thought back on it now, it hadn't been so disastrous at all--pretty damn awkward, sure, but not even close to the worst date she'd been on.

"Kevin actually seemed really sweet," she recalled, smiling despite herself at the memory of his big dorky grin. "I would have gone on a second date with him. But then, first thing the next morning, I read in the news that some guy got arrested right outside the restaurant while we were on our date. And the criminal's name? Neil. Same name as the 'friend' Kevin had said was helping him out." She shrugged, lips twisting into a frown. "I just got kinda freaked out, you know? Like, 'oh geez, did I go on a date with a drug dealer or serial killer or something?' Of course it probably wasn't anything that serious, and pretending to be dead was probably an overreaction, but... well, what's done is done."

Wendy was so caught up in her own memories as she explained all this that she wasn't really observing Ryan's reactions. Once she concluded her story, she glanced over to find him sitting on the floor with his legs tucked up awkwardly beneath him, the baseball bat in his lap; he was staring at the floor, expression unreadable. He stayed like that for a long moment, not seeming to notice that Wendy had stopped talking, until she cleared her throat. Then he jumped to attention, eyes flashing like those of a woodland cryptid in headlights.

"Ah! Yes, of course... well, I still don't entirely understand, but I think I resent you less now." Ryan tilted his head and shot her another shiver-inducing grin. (Whether it was supposed to be threatening or not, she had no idea.) "And you're right; I almost forgot--we're all criminals too, Neil and probably even Kevin and especially myself! So how can I be a vigilante?" He answered his own rhetorical question with a shake of his head, manic grin softening into a melancholy smile. "It's ridiculous. I've been so foolish."

With that, his body began to ripple, losing a little of its solidity. But before he could break apart and dissolve through the floorboards like last time, a chirpy little beep-beep-beedle-beep noise rang out. Ryan's eyebrows shot up, and he glanced down at an accessory around his wrist... Wait, is that one of those communicator watches like the one Kevin had?

If it was, Ryan wasn't quick to answer it. He simply stared, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, at the beeping device in silence. Although she knew even less about Ryan than she knew about his apparently only slightly more normal friends, and she didn't normally care to get too involved in the personal affairs of strangers, he was still in the middle of Wendy's bedroom. And the longer that little jingle repeated, the more annoying it got. So she cleared her throat again and asked, in as polite a tone as she could manage given the circumstances,

"So, are you gonna answer that, or what?"

It was a stupid, pointless idea. Not an idea at all, really. Just the last scraps of... not even hope, that was pretty much deplenished at the moment, but effort. The effort not to let everything fall apart even further than it already had.

Kevin had woken with a throbbing pain throughout pretty much his whole body. Judging by the crushing weight pressing down on his torso, he was lucky to have woken up at all. The only parts of him not pinned down were his head and right arm, and even those hurt to move, though at least the spinning in his head put some degree of separation between himself and his broken body. Forget about trying to wriggle free when it hurt just to breathe.

So there he was, stuck, the shelf slowly crushing the air out of him, and Neil was gone. Where to, he didn't know. When he craned his neck he could see the empty bed frame, and the ropes broken and discarded at the foot of it. The bible he'd gotten from Ryan's house was facedown beside the tipped-over end table, next to a crushed and twisted lump of metal and plastic that he was horrified to recognize as his beloved proton pack. So wherever Neil was now, he must have still been cursed... or worse. And there was nothing Kevin could do about it.

Unless. Grimacing at the way his joints twinged, he raised his unpinned arm above his head. There on his wrist, perfectly intact despite everything he'd been through, was his communicator wristwatch. In all the hubbub of that day, he'd never gotten around to mentioning them to Neil, so his friend wouldn't be wearing his. But what if...?

It was stupid. It was pointless. There was no way in hell. But it was the only thing he could do. In a display so lacking in dignity that he was grateful nobody was around to see it, Kevin used his teeth and tongue for lack of a free hand to dial in the frequency and send off a signal. The watch's screen flashed in affirmation; he let his head flop against the floor with a weary sigh. Now all he could do was wait.

When he was at Ryan's house going through his things, and he found those communicator wristwatches, he'd only found two of them. And although that could have meant a dozen different things, there was just one wild, far-fetched possibility that any last semblance of hope now rested upon: that the third watch was missing because Ryan was alive, and he was still wearing his.

He didn't expect to get a response. By the time he did, he was struggling to stay awake--funny thing, trying to breathe with fifty pounds of wood pressed directly on your chest really takes it out of you. But he snapped to attention, or the closest he could get when his head was swimming and his body was beginning to go numb from lack of circulation, the moment he heard that voice crackling through the speaker.

"H-hello? Kevin?"

The relief that coursed through his veins was so overwhelming, especially on top of everything else, that he could only laugh--only for it to quickly turn into hacking as his ribs offered a sharp jab of protest. He raised his sleeve to wipe away a streak of blood that dribbled from his lips before speaking into the watch.

"Ryan. Where are you?" He regretted wasting time with that question the moment he asked it; he could tell from the way his organs felt like they were curling in on themselves as he spoke that he didn't have the energy for a full conversation. So before Ryan could stammer out a proper response, Kevin continued: "Neil is in trouble. You've gotta help him."

"What?" The shrill uptick of anxiety in Ryan's voice was palpable, and even just hearing that voice in and of itself stirred up a whole miasma of feelings that there was no time to properly react to. "What's going on? Are you okay? You sound--"

"I'm fine," Kevin lied through gritted teeth. "And... I don't know exactly where Neil is, but I know he's in trouble." A choking mix of emotions and his own blood swelled in his throat as his slowly blurring gaze wandered to the facedown bible. "I've tried to do some stuff today that I couldn't do without you. I-- we need you, Ryan. So, please... help."

With that final plea, something broke within him like a dam that he hadn't even realized was cracking. His arm flopped to the ground, wrist landing near his ear, where the communicator watch kept emitting Ryan's voice as it slowly rose in pitch until he was almost shouting. But even as his friend called frantically out to him, Kevin found it harder to make out the words. He groaned, letting his head loll to the side and his eyes fall shut. The last sensation he was aware of as darkness closed around him was that there was something wet on his face.

"Kevin, are you still there? Hello? Kevin!"

He wasn't responding. Why wouldn't he be responding, if the situation was so urgent? Maybe because he couldn't respond. Because he was--

"What are you going to do?" Wendy's voice cut into the swirl of panic Ryan was rapidly descending into. She hovered over his shoulder, peering down at the watch with wide, anxious eyes. The watch's screen had gone dark. No signal. Yes, indeed, what to do?

"What else? I have to save Neil."

If Kevin didn't know where Neil was, then there was no way that Ryan should have been able to instantly find him. But when he closed his eyes and let his vigilante instincts take over, he found that he didn't have to know where someone was. Whatever dark magic was infused in him now, letting him exist in this not-quite-human state even after what should by all accounts have been his death, it was hardwired for vengeance. And saving Neil meant exacting vigilante justice on whoever or whatever was harming him. With that in mind, the vigilante dissolved in a flurry of blood-tinted ice and reformed seconds later in the place it somehow knew it needed to be.

The first thing Ryan noticed when he appeared on the rooftop was the storm brewing overhead. He raised his eyebrows at that; earlier that day there hadn't been a cloud in the sky--and for that matter, when he looked around, it appeared that most of the sky was still perfectly clear, with the storm clouds being localized around this building. The second thing he noticed, upon peering over the edge of the roof, was that he wasn't on just any rooftop, but a skyscraper that towered above every other building in the vicinity. Lastly, he noticed a flagpole at the far corner of the rooftop, several feet away from him. And that was when his gaze fell upon Neil.

Neil was laughing as he swayed back and forth, clad in a brightly patterned jacket that wasn't his usual style at all, his arms and legs wrapped tight around the tall metal pole. Above him, the dark clouds lit up in a flash, followed almost instantly by a rumble of thunder. Although these particular stormclouds didn't come with rain, Ryan shivered. An incredulous exclamation was on the tip of his tongue (What on earth are you doing, stop it, you'll be killed!) when Neil locked eyes with Ryan, and he realized with a jolt of horror that this wasn't Neil at all--his body, yes, but someone or something else was controlling it. His mouth was stretched into a grin far wider than what a human face could normally achieve, and rather than their usual brown, his eyes glowed a sickly shade of green.

"Why, if it isn't my dear friend Ryan!" Neil--or whatever was piloting him--called, raising one arm off the pole in an exaggerated wave. "Oh boy, the guy I got this body from is sure surprised to see you alive! And as much as I'd love to send you plummeting off the edge of this building, I did promise not to hurt anyone else, so..." He waved his hand in a circle, unnaturally glowing eyes crinkling with amusement. "How about instead I pull you in a little closer so you can get a nice good look when your friend's body fries?"

With that, a sudden gust of wind blew into Ryan from behind, sending him stumbling forward. When he attempted to regain his footing, his broken spine betrayed him once again and he flopped to the ground with an undignified oof just a few feet away from the base of the flagpole. Grimacing, he pushed himself up and crawled the remaining short distance to grab Neil's ankle. As he did so, he noticed there was a bloodstained hole in his friend's shoe, and that his pant leg was slightly damp and already bore a few singe marks. Between that and whatever had happened to Kevin... he shuddered at the thought of what his friends had gone through in his absence.

"Nice try, vigilante," the thing in Neil's body jeered. "But I've gotta say, you don't pose much of a threat since I broke your spine."

He stomped his other foot down on Ryan's hand; Ryan yelped and instinctively released his grip. And at the very instant he let go, in such perfectly unlucky timing that only a supernatural entity could orchestrate, the stormclouds above them opened up with a searing, crackling, blindingly bright lighting strike.

Neil tilted his head back and laughed at the top of his lungs as countless volts of electricity tore through him. That horrendous laughter drowned out Ryan's screams of protest, not that there was anything he could do anyway in his current state, when he couldn't so much as get to his feet. All he could do was lay there and gape in horror as Neil's body shuddered and his flesh began to sizzle and burn.

Though it felt like an eternity of torture, the lightning strike couldn't have lasted for more than a few seconds. When it ended, Neil dropped like a ragdoll into Ryan's arms. Ryan, too stricken to even check for a pulse, simply stared blankly into his friend's glazed-over eyes. Then Neil blinked, and his eyes were glowing green again, and he laughed, the sound rougher now that it was being produced by a charred set of lungs.

"Ah-ha-ha-ha! I wasn't expecting this body to survive that! Can you believe Neil is still kicking in here?" He tapped a finger against his head, then sat up with a playful kick of his legs. "...Or is he? It would be just like a demon to lie, wouldn't it?" He grabbed Ryan's chin with his burnt and blackened fingernails and forcefully tilted his head up so their gazes met. "You can't tell, can you, vigilante? So, how hard are you willing to throw your broken body around to try and save someone who might already be toast? Maybe you should just give up and go on with your day, hmm?"

While the demon taunted him, Ryan's mind raced to concoct a plan. Some miraculous last-minute solution that would fix everything... Neil would be able to think of one. Perhaps he already had. But that wouldn't do them any good when Neil was trapped and helpless within his own mind. If this really was a demon, and a powerful one at that, the only thing that might work was an impromptu exorcism.

"Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux! Vade retro Satana!" Reciting the passage from memory as rapidly as he could without tripping over his tongue, Ryan grabbed Neil by the wrists and held him tight while he hissed and tried to jerk away. "Nunquamsuade mihi vana! Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas!"

An ungodly noise somewhere between a shriek and a roar erupted from Neil as he tossed his head back and convulsed. It was far too visually similar for comfort to his electrocution less than a minute prior, and Ryan wondered if the demon was doing it that way on purpose in an attempt to scare him into stopping. If so, it wouldn't work. Even if this process was as painful for Neil as it was for the demon possessing him, it had to be done.

Sure enough, as the final line of the chant echoed across the rooftop, Neil shuddered and slumped to the ground next to Ryan. When their gazes met this time, the demonic glow was gone, but Neil was breathing fast and shallow and his eyes were wide with lingering terror.

"Ryan," he whispered. "You're... alive."

"I think so," he replied with a tentative smile. "It's all a little confusing. But we're going to be okay now, Neil."

However, no sooner had those words left his mouth than Neil stiffened up again, eyes momentarily flashing green. "No," he gasped, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head as if to dispel the demon's grasp. "Not yet. Still gotta... get rid of it..." He grabbed Ryan's hands and held them desperately tight, like a scared child clinging to their parent or older sibling. His eyes flashed once more, and this time when the glow faded, his face bore a strained smile. "I've got an idea. Ryan, don't freak out."

And with that, before Ryan could process what was happening and reach out to stop him, Neil sprung to his feet and took a running leap off the edge of the building.

For a while now, Neil had been having unusually vivid dreams. They weren't always nightmares, but they often were. Dreams about different worlds, different realities, different lives. Ones where him and Kevin and Ryan weren't all friends. Or worse, ones where they still were, but that wasn't enough to save them. One of those recent dreams, which began as an exciting fantasy only to devolve into a nightmare, was about some kind of flying vehicle. Ever since having that dream, Neil had made two vows to himself. Firstly, that as soon as he gathered the funds to afford it, he'd go back to school and complete his aeronautical engineering degree. Secondly, to always carry a parachute, just in case.

But the demon possessing him had no way of knowing that, now did it? And it wouldn't want to still be trapped inside a host body that was splattered all over the pavement. That was what Neil was banking on, at least. Otherwise he might really be in trouble.

As he fell, a stinging sensation rippled through his body. He shuddered, yet there was a smile on his face--no longer a grin stretched unnaturally wide, but an expression of his own volition--and his heart pounded not with terror but with exhilaration and boundless relief. Sure enough, the demon leapt forth from him and departed in a swirl of green smoke. And with it gone, he wasted no time in engaging the parachute--just in time to slow his acceleration enough that the fall wouldn't kill him.

Admittedly, he didn't exactly come down gracefully. He landed in a tangle of limbs and fabric that he had to shrug off the borrowed jacket, parachute and all, in order to escape, and the landing was just rough enough to deliver a painful reminder of the electrical burns covering the better part of his body. Still, Neil couldn't stop grinning as he gingerly picked himself up and dusted himself off. He was alive and no longer possessed; that was a win in his book.

When he craned his neck to look up at the roof, he thought he saw Ryan still sitting there. Neil grimaced as he recalled what the demon had said about breaking Ryan's back; hopefully that injury was undone with the demon being vanquished, but since Neil's injuries were still there, maybe that wasn't so. Either way, he couldn't just leave his friend up there alone.

As quickly as he could run with a bullet wound in his foot, he entered the building and took the closest elevator to the rooftop. But by the time the elevator chimed and its doors slid open, the rooftop was abandoned, with no sign of Ryan save for an abandoned hat, cape, and gloves, and a slowly fading dark red stain.

If Kevin hadn't already been surprised to wake up alive the first time, he sure as hell was now. The only reason he knew he was alive at all was the deep, persistent ache that wracked practically his entire body. That, and the warmth of the hand laid atop his own.

Forcing his eyes open with a pained groan, he turned his head to see the man sitting at his bedside. Ryan squeezed his hand and flashed him a sad smile when their eyes met. His vigilante costume was gone, traded for a simple dress shirt and tie, and his hair fell unpinned around his visibly tired face; the chair he sat in, upon closer inspection, was an old-fashioned wheelchair.

With some effort, Kevin pushed himself into a sitting position. Looking around, he found that he was laying on the couch in the living room with his chest bandaged. How Ryan had managed to pull him out from beneath the bookcase, he had no idea, but he sure wasn't going to complain about it.

"Ryan, you... you're hurt?" It was a stupid question--why else would he be in a wheelchair? "Did the demon...?"

"It's gone now," Ryan responded. "But..." His gaze lowered, and he dropped his hands into his lap to fidget with the blanket draped over his legs. "It was a costly victory, I'm afraid. In order to defeat the demon, Neil--"

His tearful speech was interrupted by the distant bang of the front door being thrown open.

"Geez, you could've told me you were going straight home!" Neil's indignant voice rang out down the hall. "I wandered all over town looking for you."

Ryan's head snapped up, and he and Kevin turned in unison to see their friend running toward them with a slightly crooked gait. With a cry of joyous disbelief, Ryan opened his arms, and Neil tackled him in an embrace that nearly sent him toppling over; Kevin had to lean forward to grab the back of Ryan's chair to keep him upright as he and Neil clung to each other.

"Neil, you're alive! I-I thought..."

"It's okay, Ryan," said Neil. Then, pulling back and glancing at Kevin with a melancholy smile: "I think we're all going to be okay."

"So, what do you think?"

As the ending credits rolled on their latest webisode, Neil and Kevin turned to face Ryan with matching expectant grins.

"Well..." Ryan drummed his fingers against the keys of the laptop and tried to think of something positive to say. "The costumes you used were a lot more fashionable than usual--wait, hold on. Weren't those my clothes?"

They were in Kevin's truck parked outside the studio's headquarters, with Neil in the passenger seat and Ryan in the back. It had taken a little over a week for them to recover to the point where they could comfortably climb inside a vehicle, let alone Kevin being able to actually drive, and the studio had already sent them several notes warning them that their pay would be docked for submitting their webisode behind schedule.

"Ah, yeah, sorry about that," Kevin muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

"To be fair, if he hadn't broken into your house and stolen a bunch of stuff from you, he couldn't have called you on your communicator watch," Neil interjected cheerfully. "Or tried to do an exorcism... but I guess that didn't really work out for him anyway."

"Hey, c'mon, it wasn't stealing!" Kevin gave Neil a gentle shove, prompting him to briefly wince but laugh anyway. "If we'd known you were still alive, we wouldn't have taken your stuff, Ryan, honest."

"Ah, I'll have to remember that for next time," Ryan quipped. He closed the laptop and handed it back to Neil, who tucked it away inside an oversized shoulder bag. "Well, that may not have been the best webisode we've made, but I can tell you two did your best."

"Yeah, it'll be way better once we get back to making them as a trio," Neil said.

It was still amazing to Ryan that his friends were so quick to accept him back after all he'd done. If anything, it made him feel worse about his prolonged absence, because he knew now that he could have come back at any point and they would have been glad to have him. It was easy to fall into regret when thinking of all that had gone wrong, and all that could easily have gone even worse. But the fact was, they were together again now--altered by what they'd gone through, and not entirely for the better, but still themselves.

And despite it all, the preceding events and the possibility that another horrible thing could happen to them in the future, he found himself agreeing with Neil's hopeful statement.

"Indeed..." Ryan reached out and took Neil and Kevin's hands in his own. They smiled back at him with the same residual traces of relief in their eyes that Ryan had felt every so often over the past week--relief that they were still there to smile at each other. "Gentlemen, I look forward to working with you again."

¤--END--¤

#epic gamer protip: plot something out and then mentally tweak it for the whole summer and then when autumn rolls around #write the whole thing in the span of like three days. works like a charm #hey did you know that i write stuff sometimes?

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thelastspeecher · 3 years

Text

Eggs and Pollywogs

This is the final ficlet I’ll be posting for my Nixie AU. Not because I won’t write anything else for it or anything like that, but because I’m going to be focusing my writing attention for the Nixie AU into making a multichap! I’m hoping to finish a couple of my WIPs before I start posting the Nixie AU multichap (which I’m titling “Amphibious Tendencies”), so it might be a little while. But I’m excited to clean up and expand my lil ficlets and make it into a multichap.

But I was already working on this ficlet, and since the last one ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, I finished this up so that y’all could have some Quality Egg Content. Enjoy.

——————————————————————————————

Water splashed Stan’s face. He sat up, spluttering.

“Good. Yer with us,” Fiddleford said flatly. Stan wiped the water out of his eyes. “Yer lil faintin’ spell made Angie cry.”

“Fidds, that’s a lie!” Angie protested.

“You cried.”

“I have a lot of emotions right now,” Angie argued. Stan got to his feet. Angie reached for his hand. She brushed her thumb across his fingers. “You all right, darlin’?”

“Yeah, I think- I think I am.” Stan rubbed the back of his neck. He swallowed. “So, uh, the egg in the jar, it’s-”

“Your offspring, yes,” Ford said. At some point while Stan was passed out, Ford had obtained the jar and was looking intently at the egg floating within it. “Hmm. I wonder if all nixie eggs are this cherry blossom color.”

“Cherry blossom? Ford, it’s fucking pink,” Stan said.

“I was specifying the shade of pink.”

“Whatever.” Stan turned his attention back to Angie. “Did you- did you lay it or something?” Angie nodded. “That had to have sucked.” Angie laughed softly.

“It most certainly did. I wouldn’t have disappeared fer so long fer no reason.”

“I suspect that it should hatch in a handful of months,” Ford interjected. “Shorter than the regular human gestation of nine months, but longer than the regular frog gestation of a month or two at most.” Angie rolled her eyes.

“I know how long it takes frog eggs to hatch, Stanford. I’ve got a doctorate in herpetology.”

“Thank god,” Stan muttered. “We’re gonna need your expert smarts when the kid hatches.” He grimaced. “My kid’s gonna hatch from an egg.”

“I’m sorry,” Angie said quietly.

“Why?”

“Yer kid’s goin’ to hatch from an egg ‘cause I’m the mother.”

“You being the mom is a good thing, Ang. I’m glad I’m having a kid with you,” Stan said. Angie smiled.

“Did you lay any others?” Ford asked. Angie sighed.

“No. Just the one.”

“Odd. Water sprites like nixies tend to spawn. Maybe you only laid one because it has a human for a father. Or maybe because you aren’t a full-blooded nixie.”

“Spawn,” Stan croaked, his voice cracking.

“Okay, that’s it.” Angie took the jar from Ford.

“Hey! I was examining that!”

“‘That’ happens to be my child,” Angie snarled. “You can examine my baby when I say it’s okay. And right now, my child, my boyfriend, and I are goin’ to find somewhere private. It’s darn difficult to have a serious conversation about us bein’ parents with ya interruptin’ every minute.”

-----

Stan and Angie walked down the dock. It was the middle of the day, so they weren’t alone at the lake, but they had decided it was still a better place to talk than the house. They sat down at the end of the dock, their legs dangling over the edge.

“Can I, uh, can I see the egg?” Stan asked quietly. Angie handed over the jar. Stan removed the lid to look more closely at his unborn child.

Not really unborn. She’s gonna hatch, so, unhatched, I guess.

“Are you all right?” Angie asked, just as quiet as Stan. Stan nodded.

“Yeah. I’m just, uh, trying to, y’know, come to terms with this. I didn’t even know if I’d be able to have kids with you, since you’re a frog,” he said. Angie chuckled softly. “And now…now I’m gonna have a daughter.”

“Wait. Daughter?” Angie asked.

“The egg’s pink. It’s gonna be a girl,” Stan said, matter-of-fact. Angie stared at him. “You’ve heard of pink going with girls and blue going with boys before, right?”

“I- yes, but I highly doubt that’ll translate in this way,” Angie said.

“I’ve got a feeling about it.”

“Hmm.”

“My gut feelings are never wrong, Ang,” Stan said firmly. “We’re gonna have a little girl.”

“Well, there is a 50% chance yer right,” Angie said after a moment. She reached for Stan’s hand and laced her fingers with his. “Do ya have any idea what names ya like?”

“Molly,” Stan said immediately. Angie quirked a small smile.

“Ya had that one locked and loaded.”

“I’ve wanted to be a dad since I was a teenager. I’ve thought about what I wanna name my kids,” Stan said with a shrug. Angie’s smile broadened.

“I like Molly, too. And if the lil one turns out to be a boy…”

“It’s a girl.”

“Ya don’t want to hear what I think we should name our son?” Angie asked.

“I mean, it’s not necessary, but go for it.”

“I was thinkin’ we could name him after you. Stan Junior.”

“I- you- you wanna name your kid after me?” Stan croaked. Angie leaned against him.

“Our kid, darlin’. Not mine. Ours. Why wouldn’t he be named after his father?” she said tenderly. Tears sprang to Stan’s eyes. He brushed them away roughly.

“Yeah,” he choked out. “Yeah, that sounds- that sounds good.” Angie stroked Stan’s cheek. “I don’t think we should still be living with Fidds and Ford when the kid hatches.”

“I reckon yer right ‘bout that.” Angie’s eyes widened. “Oh! So, durin’ my time explorin’ the lake, I stumbled across somethin’ incredible.”

“What?”

“There’s some nice-lookin’ caves behind the falls. There’s plenty of room fer a full fam’ly to live there. And there’s even some natural pools of water fer eggs or nixies to sleep in.”

“Huh.” Stan thought on that for a moment. “We wouldn’t have to pay rent.”

“Nope.” Angie rubbed the back of her neck. “I don’t know if it’s a good long-term solution, but I think it’s definitely a decent one fer right now.”

“Yeah, and it’s better than living with our brothers…” Stan grinned at Angie. “I think that we can live in a cave like frogs.”

Angie beamed.

-----

Stan watched anxiously as Ford removed the egg from its jar to examine it. Every instinct he had was screaming to rip the egg out of Ford’s hands. Ford gently set the egg into a bowl of water.

“She’s getting very large,” Ford commented. Angie rolled her eyes.

“Really? You, too?”

“The egg is the color associated with femininity.”

“Assignin’ pink ‘n blue to gender is a human construct, Stanford,” Angie said shortly. She, Stan, and Ford were in the basement lab at the house, where Ford and Angie were making their regular observations tracking the egg’s development. Angie was the one who suggested that Ford track the egg’s development with her, an opportunity he jumped at.

“I suppose we’ll find out when she hatches.” Ford carefully turned the egg over. Stan winced. “You’ll need a larger jar to transport her soon.” Angie sighed.

“Here’s the thing. I can’t find any bigger jars. I think that this is the last time I’ll be able to bring the egg over. From now on, it’ll have to stay in the cave pool.”

“Nope!” a voice said. Everyone looked over. Fiddleford had arrived, carrying something. He strode over to Angie. “I whipped somethin’ up fer ya.” He handed the item to Angie. She looked it over doubtfully.

“Uh, a tote bag?” Angie asked. Fiddleford chuckled.

“That’s just one of its uses. It’s multi-functional, o’ course.”

“Of course,” Stan muttered. Fiddleford ignored him.

“Think of it as a portable version of the tank I made fer ya. When ya zip up the top, it’ll keep water in perfectly, without any spillin’. Ya can carry it over yer shoulder, on yer back, or even on yer front.” Angie looked up curiously. Fiddleford beamed. “That’s the best part, I think. If ya wear it on yer front and tuck it under yer clothes, it’ll give the impression yer expectin’.”

“That’s actually a great idea,” Stan said. “Angie and I have been getting a bit worried about people noticing we have a kid when she was never pregnant.” He waved a hand. “Sure, adoption exists, but there’s no way the kid won’t have either my nose or Angie’s. She’s gonna look like us.”

“Thank you, Fidds,” Angie said. She smiled. “This really is great.” Fiddleford’s smile broadened further.

“Speaking of which traits your daughter is going to get…” Ford said slowly. Fiddleford frowned.

“What makes ya think the pollywog’s goin’ to be a girl?” he asked. Angie sighed.

“Stan and Ford are stuck on the egg bein’ pink.”

“Stanford, that don’t mean jack.”

“In my professional opinion-” Ford started, his voice rising.

“What were ya goin’ to say about traits?” Angie interrupted.

“I- ahem.” Ford cleared his throat. “I wonder which traits from which forms will pass down.” Angie frowned thoughtfully.

“Elaborate.”

“In your native form, you are blonde, like Fiddleford,” Ford said, gesturing to Angie’s caramel-colored hair. Stan rolled his eyes.

“The guy who said my kid’s egg is ‘cherry blossom’ thinks Angie and Fiddleford have the same hair color,” he muttered. Ford blinked.

“They’re both blonde.”

“Yeah, but in different ways.”

“Stanford, ignore him,” Fiddleford said. “Finish yer thought, please.”

“Right. As I was saying, Angie, you are blonde when in human form, but as a nixie, you have black hair. I’m curious as to whether your daughter will have black hair or blonde hair as a human.”

“Or brown hair,” Angie said. Ford frowned.

“Why would she have brown hair?” he asked. Stan cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Dumbass, I’m the kid’s dad!” he shouted.

“Ah. Yes. Fair point.” Ford looked at Stan with some concern. “Are you all right?”

“No, my genius brother is an idiot,” Stan retorted, crossing his arms.

“Not-” Ford huffed. “Your voice sounds…off. Do you have a frog in your throat?”

“That’s racist,” Angie mumbled.

“I mean, I don’t have a frog in my throat right now,” Stan said. Fiddleford and Angie turned beet red. After a moment, Ford flushed as well. Stan snickered. “Nah, I think that I’m just getting used to living behind the waterfall.”

“Why would that alter your voice?” Ford asked. Stan shrugged.

“I mean, I haven’t been able to fully dry off since we moved there. Don’t you get sick if you stay wet?”

“Not necessarily,” Ford said.

“He’s fine,” Angie said. “Can we please finish lookin’ at the egg? I’m eager to try this here bag Fidds made.”

“Yes, of course.” Ford and Angie turned their attention back to the egg. Fiddleford joined them as well. Stan leaned against the wall, deciding to observe from a distance. He uncrossed an arm to scratch his neck, unaware of the thin slime that briefly oozed from the itch.

-----

“Stan!” Stan looked up from his attempts to shave, using one of the cave pools as a mirror. Angie beamed broadly at him. “C’mere!” Stan wiped his face clean, got up, and joined Angie at the pool she had designated for the egg. “Look!” She pointed at the egg.

“Uh, what am I looking at?” Stan asked.

“The lil pollywog is swimmin’ in the egg!” Angie gushed. Stan sat down and leaned in to look closely at the egg. His eyes widened. Sure enough, the dark speck inside the egg was moving. “I reckon it’s a bit like when someone pregnant first feels their baby kickin’.”

“Yeah.”

“I’d say that we’ve only got a couple months ‘fore the lil one hatches.”

“Wow, that soon?”

“Yep.”

“Damn.” Stan smiled as he watched the tadpole swimming around inside its egg. “Holy Moses, I’m gonna be a dad soon,” he said quietly. His eyes widened. “I’m gonna be a dad, but I’m not married.”

“Oh,” Angie said, sounding surprised. “That’s right. We ain’t married.”

“We should probably do that at some point,” Stan said. Angie laughed softly. “What?”

“I’m just imaginin’ my fam’ly gettin’ invitations to a wedding where they haven’t even heard of the groom ‘fore.”

“Wait.”

“Oh. Oh no.” Stan and Angie stared at each other. “I never told my fam’ly ‘bout ya.”

“We’ve been dating for months! We’re gonna be parents soon!”

“I- well-” Angie spluttered. “Have you told yer fam’ly ‘bout me?” she shot back.

“Touché. But you talk to your family a lot more than I talk to mine.”

“Yeah.” Angie rubbed the back of her neck nervously. “There’s just- a lot has happened very quickly. We first met a lil over a year ago, ‘member?”

“That was only a year ago?”

“A bit more,” Angie corrected.

“Still.” Stan looked back at the egg. “Damn. We moved fast.”

“Apparently.” Angie groaned, kneading her forehead. “Oh, Lord. They’re all goin’ to blow their gaskets.”

“Especially when you mention the kid,” Stan pointed out. Angie groaned louder. “I wonder how easily we’ll be able to get the kid to look human…” After a moment, Angie nodded.

“Good point. Maybe we wait to mention we have a child until that child can hide its gills.”

-----

Stan scowled as he watched Lute stare at the egg. Angie had called her family to let them know she had a serious boyfriend about a month ago. Earlier that week, her older brother, Lute, had showed up determined to find out Stan’s “intentions” with his younger sister. Before Stan knew what was happening, Lute had discovered Angie was a nixie, as well as the existence of the egg.

And now, he’s in my home, gaping at my unhatched kid like it’s the star freak in a sideshow. Stan cleared his throat.

“All right, are you satisfied?” he asked tartly. Lute nodded, still staring at the egg. “Great. Now-”

“Is it s’pposed to be movin’?” Lute interrupted. Everyone looked over at the egg. Sure enough, it was rocking back and forth in the small pool. Stan looked at Angie. Her eyes were wide. She quickly got into the pool with the egg.

“Are you all right, honey?” she asked quietly, stroking the egg. The egg rocked more violently as the tadpole pushed against the membrane. Then, before their eyes, a tear formed. “Oh my- oh my goodness.” The tadpole slid out of the egg, into the water. Stan fell to his knees by the side of the pool.

“Holy shit,” he whispered. Ford, Fiddleford, and Lute knelt as well.

“I think we just watched our new niece or nephew get born,” Ford commented. The freshly hatched tadpole, the size of a human newborn, was swimming happily around the pool. Unlike Angie, whose nixie skin was green, the tadpole had mottled brown skin, and, like a regular tadpole, had a tail instead of legs. “Angie, is your child male or female?”

“I, uh, I’m not sure,” Angie said after a moment. She caught the tadpole with her arms, hugging it close. “Determining sex of amphibians isn’t easy to do.” Stan sat down and dangled his legs in the pool.

“C’mere, Ang.” Angie came over, still holding the tadpole. Stan looked down at his child, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. Most of the tadpole’s features in nixie form were very similar to Angie’s. There were a couple differences, namely that the tadpole’s nose looked like Angie’s human one, not her nixie one. The only other difference aside from skin color, was the tadpole’s eye color. Brown, not blue. Stan smiled.

The kid’s got my eyes.

“Hey, kiddo,” Stan said quietly. The tadpole looked up at him curiously. “I might be a human, but I’m still your dad, got it?” The tadpole blinked. “Good work, babe. The kid’s just as gorgeous as you are.” Angie chuckled softly. Stan leaned over and kissed her. The moment his lips touched Angie’s, a strange prickling sensation spread across Stan’s skin.

“What in the-” Lute muttered. Ford swore softly. Stan broke off the kiss to look at their audience.

“What, you’ve never seen a guy kiss his gal?” he demanded. His eyes widened at the suddenly much lower pitch to his voice, as well as the change in tone. Fiddleford and Lute’s jaws dropped.

“Ya don’t sound like a smoker no more,” Lute said after a moment. He gestured to Stan. “Maybe it has somethin’ to do with whatever just happened to yer skin.”

“My skin?” Stan looked down at his hands. His jaw dropped. His skin was soft and slimy like Angie’s, mottled brown like their tadpole’s. “Uh…”

“I warned you, Stanley,” Ford said. Stan looked up at his twin. To his surprise, Ford looked more amused than upset. “I warned you that if you continued to interact with Angie in nixie form, you would become a magical creature yourself.”

“That’s what just happened?” Lute asked. “But he don’t look anything like Angie or the, uh, the pollywog! His skin and voice changed, that’s all.”

“Okay, I need to get a good look at myself,” Stan muttered. Angie scooted away so that Stan could use the pool to look at his reflection. Stan leaned over, staring at the water. Like Lute had said, his features had remained the same, though his skin was now of the same texture as Angie and the tadpole. His face and the front of his body were a pale brown, with dark brown mottling around his sides. “I look like the missing link between myself and Angie.” Angie snickered softly.

“This is just an intermediate stage,” Ford said. “I have no doubts that you’ll soon complete your transformation into a nixie.”

“Huh.” Stan looked up at Angie. “Guess you don’t get to hog all the fresh bait now.”

“Pardon?” Lute asked. Stan looked over his shoulder.

“You’re still here?” he drawled. Lute scowled.

“Stan’s got a point,” Angie said. “Would the three of you mind leaving us alone for some quality time with our little pollywog?” Ford, Fiddleford, and Lute got up.

“Ya best bring that lil one of ya over first thing tomorrow, okay?” Fiddleford instructed. Stan waved a hand airily, noting absently that thin webbing stretched between his otherwise unchanged fingers.

“Yeah, yeah. Now, beat it.” Their brothers left. Stan looked at Angie. He winked. “Hey, babe.” Angie giggled. Stan removed his clothes and slid into the pool with Angie. Angie, still holding the tadpole, scooted over to be next to Stan.

“Given your color and the little one’s color, I wonder if our kidlet might be a boy,” Angie said, stroking the tadpole.

“Are you sure?”

“No. But it’s our best lead. So until we have some other piece of evidence, should we call the kidlet our son?” Angie asked. Stan grinned.

“I’ve always wanted a son, so, I’m down for it.”

“Hmm, or maybe you’re just happy because the name we came up with for a boy was Stan Junior,” Angie teased. She kissed his cheek. Stan felt another strange tingling, but this time, concentrated around his hands and feet. He looked down at his hands. They were now large and webbed like Angie’s. “Whoops.”

“Eh. I’m gonna turn all nixie at some point,” Stan said with a shrug. He looped an arm around Angie’s shoulders. She leaned against him. Stan stroked his son’s bald head. “Junior, I’m glad you’re here,” he said quietly. Angie smiled.

“So am I.”

#I'm sooooooo excited to turn this into a multichap y'all have no idea #but I'm going to finish at least one WIP before then. maybe two. we'll see. I've got some irons in the fire at the moment #(btw yes. Stan does pass out after he sees the egg that is his kid lmao)#Nixie AU #Stanley Pines #Stanford Pines #Fiddleford McGucket #Angie McGucket #Stangie #ficlet #my writing #my stuff #speecher speaks #(btw the things that are mentioned to have occurred but don't actually appear in the ficlet?#I'll be writing those things and scenes out for the multichap #just in case anyone was wondering why there are a few more summaries than I usually do in my writes)

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optimistic-dinosaur-nacho · 3 years

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A Boy - Kylo Ren Fic

Kylo Ren x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Kidnapping, violence, interrogation, language

Summary: You’re in the Resistance and The First Order raids your base, killing almost everyone there, leaving you. As the witness who knows where Luke Skywalker was. And the Knight of Ren was bound to have it at once.

A/N: Whaattt? Something that is not Chris Evans? SHOCKING!! This is so new to me, never in my life I was going to write someone different. This might be a one time thing, I need to relax on the requests from a lot of people so I’ll decide if I will do other characters like Bucky Barnes, Loki, Peter Parker or others.

Everything in here is a little bit different from the movies.

This is requested by my lovely friend, @just-one-ordinary-fangirl

You ran through the halls of the Resistance base to find the comms. The sirens blaring throughout the structure, pilots and the Resistance people ran through in panic and rush. Many people were pulled in with wounds and you heard someone scream.

“The First Order is here!”

You saw a woman fall to the ground and you knelt down to hold her up, “I got you. You okay?” You ask her. She nods and you helped her into another room. “Stay here, I’ll have someone grab you, okay?” She nods and you hear blasters down the hall. People on your side fell to the ground and Stormtroopers began to push through. You lock the room where the woman was and you run the other way.

You took another route to communications and saw people dead on the floor. “Oh God...” You ran to the screen and flicked a few switches. “Millennium Falcon, this is Y/N from the Resistance Base.”

“What’s going on?” You hear Rey ask. You hear explosions behind you, “The First Order is here. They’ve killed everyone, but whatever you do. Keep going. This is about Skywalker, you find him before they do.”

“What about you and survivors?”

You hear a loud humming sound of what sounded like the leader. Ren. “I don’t think there will be, Rey.” The next thing you hear is the static of her voice and when you hear the humming become louder, you run out of the room. There was no chance you could just leave on a X-wing. You weren’t specialized for that. So you ran out into the forest. You could hear stormtroopers talk back and forth. “Find survivors. The leader said no survivors.” You kept running and slid down the hill.

Coming up to a rock, you look over to see if anyone followed. And when you heard a twig snap, you whipped around and dodged a bright red light as it crackled in your ears. You fall onto the ground and look up to see the leader. Kylo Ren.

His lightsaber glowing red with the crackling sounds of it. You kicked yourself up and ran down the forest. When you make a turn, you hear a blaster fire and you fall to the ground with a shout. You look down to see your leg bleeding from the burn of the blaster, you stand back up and run up the hill, limping. On the urge of crying, you turn to see Kylo walking up to you like a predator.

You raised your small blaster up and fired. He swings his saber and blocks your firing and his other hand reaches out towards you and you froze. You budged yourself to move and your hand releases the blaster in your hand. He walks up to you, towering over you.

“Who are you?”

You flinched and gritted your teeth, “I’m no one.” The grip in your body tightens and you sucked in the air as he leans in. “I doubt that.” His hand reaches out to your head and sweat begins to form on your forehead as he forcefully reaches into your mind. “You’ve seen the map. You know where the Jedi is.”

“No...” You stuttered.

“Supreme Leader. This place is rigged to blow in five minutes,” One of the troops behind him says. You shake and whimper softly as the Supreme leader stares at you darkly behind the mask. “Fall back the troops. We have what we need.” his hand waves over your face and your eyes close. You fall limp into his arms and he takes you back onto the ship, heading back to the larger ship in space.

When you woke up, you had your arms held and your feet dragged against the floor as two troopers began to drag you. In an instant, you kicked one of the troopers legs and used his blaster to knock him out. Before you could shoot the other, he smacks your blaster out of your hands and points his at you. “Go on, kid,” He says, “You’re surrounded by a thousand more here. You won’t make it out.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Before you went to take a step, something stops you and the stormtrooper turns down the hall and straightens his posture. “Supreme Leader.” You look at the corner of your eye to see the dark figure approach. “We need her alive.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Restrain her.” The stormtrooper follows his order and takes you down the hall into a room. He gets you to the large restraint and binds your wrists as your sides and your ankles as well. “I don’t want any games from you.” You glared towards him and heard someone walk in. “Leave us.”

The trooper nods and turns to leave the room. And the Supreme Leader stands in front of you with his hood off, showing his mask. It was quiet as he looked at you, you weren’t sure where his eyes were at the moment, but your fists stayed clenched. “Do you know who I am?” He asked.

You straighten your back and sighed softly, “I know who you are. You’re just a boy.”

“A boy?” He walks up to you slowly, you swallowed hard as his mask inches closer to your face. “That boy... is dead.” He leans back and you swipe your tongue over your chapped lips. “Dead?” You stuttered out, Kylo watched you coldly, almost fearing to upset him. But if he killed you, he would have nothing. “I still see him. Whether you choose to look at yourself, you’re a boy hiding behind a mask.” He raises his gloved hand up to your face and you felt a headache form slightly.

“Whether you choose to give me the location of Skywalker or not. I will always get what I want. But don’t worry...” He says, “... your strength is weak. It’ll be easy.” You felt the headache begin to grow and your eyes clench tight as he pushed into your head. You closed your thoughts and tried to push him out with unnecessary thoughts. His hand twists as it hovers in front of your face, “Your parents died on Alderaan. They left you...” He reads in his own mind as you clenched your jaw, “You dream of a place... It’s peaceful... No life... Trees and a waterfall.” His head turns to finally look at you.

“How nice. But... I want the map to Luke Skywalker,” He pushes his hand towards you and the force slams your head into the metal as you screamed out. You kept pushing your thoughts and the map of Skywalker like a needle in a haystack. After another minute, his hand drops and you gasp for air, letting your head fall forward. Sweat building on your forehead as you choked a sob and raised your head up to him.

He noticed your eyes had tears and without another word, he walked out of the room. You finally relaxed your head back and suffered the hours of the headache. Eventually you fell asleep uncomfortably and you probably only got a few hours in till you hear the door open. And Kylo returned, this time without his cloak. Just him in his helmet. You knew he would try again to get into your head, he would’ve had the chance if he did it in your sleep. But you are pretty much a light-sleeper.

He sits down in front of you and his elbows lean on his thighs, watching you. “Comfortable?” He asked. You would’ve shouted at him but there was something in you that you can’t. “I rather be sitting on that chair than be restrained to this.”

He nodded once but it was a half-nod. “We can figure something out.”

“Figure something out, you mean, after you get what you want you’ll kill me.”

“I don’t plan on that last one,” He says. You tilt your head back and he watched you swallow weakly. He noticed your leg was bleeding overtime. The blood began to pool around. “You’re hurt.”

You don’t reply as you silently glared at him. He lifts himself up onto his feet and he walks up to you and reaches around. You felt the restraints unlatch and you limp down into his arm. He held you up, “If you pull anything, I will leave you here to bleed.”

“You wouldn’t do that. You need me,” You breathed out, he didn't reply but he grabbed your arm and began to guide you to the Med Bay. One of the medical droids began to operate on your leg as Kylo stood off to the side watching. You couldn’t tell if he was watching the droid or you. But you could feel his gaze behind the mask.

When the droid finished its stitching, your skin had a scar and you didn’t budge out of the chair until Kylo had said to. But the droid leaves your side as Kylo stands in front of you. You lifted your gaze up to him and you lightly shook, “Thank you.”

He turns his head away to look out the large window that faced the hangar. When you watched him, you could almost see... Ben Solo. Leia had told you a lot about him. You only knew his family name. He turns to look at you again and he faces you. The silent started to get a large tension and so you spoke.

“I see you...” You say, “Who you are. I know what you’re capable of.”

“What do you know what I’m capable of?” He says. You swallowed hard and inhaled sharply. “Take your mask off. I can tell a lot more with features of someone.” He takes a step up and silently, he stares at you. “Tell me. You won’t know what I’m capable of,” He said. You froze slightly when he reached up with both hands for his helmet.

Pushing it up, the helmet unlocks with a hiss and he lifts it up. Your breath gets caught to see... a boy. His dark hair, dark eyes and scar that dragged down from his brow to his neck. You took a shaky breath as he tilts his head down. “See? Nothing,” His voice was deep, not dark with his helmet on. You lifted yourself from the chair and slowly walked up to him. He doesn’t move when you make your way over slowly.

“Nothing is not what I see...” You said, “... even if I told you, you would refuse to accept it. Because you’re afraid to come back.” His bottom lip quivers as you look into his eyes. “People betrayed you. People who didn’t see what you were capable of.” Your hand reached up to touch his skin. Some way of showing him something.

When your hand was inches from his face, his hand grabs your wrist to stop you. But reassuring, your eyes didn’t change. When he didn’t sense your fear for him, something inside him made him let go of your wrist, allowing you. Your fingers touch his cheek bones first before your palm touches his jaw. The slight push of his head into your palm made you look up to him. “Ben.” His own name falling from your lips, he sucked in a breath and shook like a feather.

Just like you said. He was scared. A scared boy. “I know what I have to do... but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.” You shook your head at him, “Not what you have to. Do what you want.” His eyes looked for some kind of sign in yours. He wasn’t sure what sign.

What sign?

Sign of hope? A new hope? You felt the leather of his glove touch your cheek and you sucked in a breath. His eyes switched between yours and nodding once, he spoke. “I see you...” You felt the corner of your lip tug into a small grin, one that didn’t show much of your full smile. And your other hand laps over his on your cheek. “You can still join the light, Ben. End this war now.” His expressions were softened as you spoke in a low whisper.

“Snoke, Darth Vader, Palpatine, they can’t control you no more. Come home.” You noticed he seemed hesitant, it made him pull away from you and you flinched back. He shivered as he looked at you, terrified. His breathing picked up and he takes his helmet and slips it on, walking out of the room without another word. “Ben, wait!” You called out. He doesn’t come back and you went to chase him but once you turned that corner, he was gone.

There was something still pulling him back. Everyone he looked up to, Snoke, Palpatine and Darth Vader. They were dead. No one can keep him for themselves. It was Kylo Ren. Keeping a scared boy in a helmet and using the force for the Dark side. For the rest of that moment, you didn’t see Ben.

Walking down the halls with two pairs of others behind you, you started to feel angered. Annoyed. You stopped and whipped yourself around to face the two stormtroopers that had followed you throughout the ship. “Can you leave me be?”

“Wherever you go. We go. General Hux’s orders.”

“Who ordered him?” You asked, the stormtroopers go silent and they look at each other to see who had the answer. Your shoulders lift up into a better posture. “Where’s Kylo?” You asked. One of the stormtroopers looks over to the other and nods down the right hall. “We’ll take you.” You followed the troopers down the hall to meet with Ben. On your way over, a man in a vest steps in your way.

“Just where do you think you’re going?” He asks. One of the troopers nods at him, “She asked where the Supreme Leader is, General.” The man turns and he glares. “I’m sorry, he’s not seeing anyone at the moment.”

“He’ll see me,” You said coldly, “I suggest you move or I’ll move you myself.” Hux chuckles at that, “You watch yourself, girl. He will kill you once we get the map of Skywalker. You’re nothing but flesh on bones.” You kept your mouth shut as General Hux walked by and left you to continue your walk. When you reached his private chamber. Walking in, he was standing with his back facing you and you stopped just at the entrance.

“I’ve been looking for you,” You said.

Kylo doesn’t budge to your voice as he stared out to the hangar. “Well, you found me.” You turned your head to look at the two troopers behind you. “Did you order them to follow me around?” You asked, “I don’t like being stalked, they’re lucky to be alive still.” His head turns an inch towards his shoulder, “No. I never ordered them to. General Hux doesn’t trust you.”

“I can tell,” You reply. His hand flicks out and his two fingers make a shoo motion and the stormtroopers turn their heels and leave the room. Letting you engulf into the quiet and open room. “What is it that made you look for me?” You took a step up to him, “I can’t give you the map to Luke Skywalker,” You said. His head turns. “But I can give you a chance.” His shoulder turns so his body faces you. “I felt you, Ben. There’s still so much light in you, I can see it-”

Your hands reached up slowly hesitantly but his other hand takes your other cheek. Eyes closing, you placed your hands over his and down his forearms. His lips pull away from yours but his forehead stayed against yours. His breathing was slow huffs, you could feel his chest lift up and down. Looking up to his face, you held his hands on your cheeks. He opens his eyes and you tilt your head. Reaching up to his cheek and whispering his name softly, you spot the realization in his face.

“You don’t see anything. You believe there’s a place for you to live in peace, a place where no life is at. This is it, your way of escaping war. Every thing you dream of is no longer a place. It’s war.”

“You can stop it...” You say. Your body tightens and you felt yourself get pushed forward and you’re face to face with him. You felt yourself shiver out of fear as his stare grown dark. You shakily breathed in, “Please, Ben...” He huffs out a breath almost like a gasp and he noticed how you looked at him. You felt your body loosen and you let out a sigh before his hand takes your cheek and when you lifted up your head, his lips touch yours.

With a nod from him. You realized this isn’t Kylo Ren. This is Ben Solo.

I won’t be tagging the Chris Evans official tags because I don’t know who loves who and be tagged for nothing! I don’t know! If you’re into Kylo Ren/Adam Driver, you can tell me and if I do another fic, I’ll tag you in it.

Random Tags (but also a couple who asked to be tagged) :

@morby @just-one-ordinary-fangirl @kylorenxreader

#Adam Driver x Reader #Kylo Ren x Reader #Ben Solo x Reader #Not Chris Evans Related #optimistic-dinosaur-nacho #opti-dino-nacho #This is very new to me

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toukenramblings · 3 years

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Dating: Azuki Nagamitsu, Doudanuki Masakuni, Yamabushi Kunihiro

@areyousurprised

You are indeed right sweetie, these three are indeed underrated and I had soooo much fun writing em! I hope you enjoy em sweetie~!!!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Azuki Nagamitsu

Azuki is, by no doubt, a very caring young man. He is a dad figure of the citadel and this extends to you as well, his dear master. Even when you have first smithed him, he is there ready to bake you something sweet to enjoy or even make you tea. The perfect husband.

It honestly begins rather simple, perhaps the relationship between you two is already borderline on marriage anyway. You tend to his wounds and help him cook, he cooks for you and is also a shoulder for you to lean on. It’s a gentle circle of love.

Perhaps everyone around you assumes that you lot are already dating so when one of the lil tantous asks if you two are really a couple…he has to stop and think about it for like fifteen seconds before flushing, turning his face away as the realization settles into his mind. Are you two dating???????

Azuki begins to test the waters when he realizes he has a crush on you. Yes he already makes your favorite treats a lot, but he will do it more just to see that smile on your lips. Sometimes his hands will brush against yours when he’s handing the article of yumminess to you and it sends tingles down his spine. He doesn’t really avoid you, more so along the lines of trying to get closer and closer, just to gauge your reactions to see if you like him back.

At this point, you’ll never confess and it’s up to some tantou or other Osafune swords to scream, “JUST KISS ALREADY” while you two are chatting and eating on some kinda snacky. That, or lock you two into a room and not let you two out until you confess. It’s probably midare, he is an agent of chaos

To be honest, Azuki’s confession is lowkey a marriage proposal.

“I want to always see you smile, master, the way your eyes light up whenever I cook for you, it’s the most beautiful thing. I…I understand if you do not want to return my feelings, but please take your time to answer me. I will wait for you.”

Now how could you ever turn him down?

Azuki is a gentleman at heart, calling you his sweetheart or other delicacy related petnames. He adores hand kisses, will do so as he hands you something sweet. Along with cheek kisses, holy cow does he love them.

Speaking of PDA, I feel like Azuki does it at his own pace. If you even try to initiate it, he dies on the inside and his cheeks are this super cute pink; but then he wraps his hand around yours and squeezes it and man does it feel gOOD. If he initiates it, it’s mostly hand kisses, hand holding, or a simple peck on the cheek. The other stuff comes later, the kids are watching!

Speaking of the said tantous, they will find it cute that you do PDA but then there’s like others who are like: “EW GROSS” or “GET A ROOM” most likely Tsurumaru who screams the latter.

That being said, sooner or later, the tantous will start calling you whatever parental title you prefer along with calling Azuki ‘dad’. Azuki isn’t crying, he swears.

Call him your little red bean, he will die, it will be the most amazing thing.

Breakfast in bed? Breakfast in bed. All day, every day. You are never going to go hungry with him around. Sure he’s more of a baker than a chef like Shokudaikiri or Kasen but he will learn from them without a doubt. Start making regular dentist appointments though, he’s gonna load you up with sugar and sweets.

He’s also the kind of person who has candy on his person – to either give out to the little ones or you if you need a snack! He also carries an aid-kit, he’s just super prepared.

Will love it if you two cook together! Maybe get into a little food fight? Who knows.

Azuki is somewhat of a morning person, around you when you two are sleeping together? Oh man, he turns into putty. Sometimes he won’t want to wake up because you are so warm! But he will wake up on his own in the end, he does want to make you something to eat after all!

Matching aprons? Matching aprons.

The relationship you two have is almost marriage material, what every couple aspires to attain. You begin the day together and end it together on your own terms. All you two have to do now is to tie the knot.

Doudanuki Masakuni

·Doudanuki doesn’t really keep you at a distance per say? It’s respectable kind of distance, like a boss and an employee. He is a sword and he knows that he is here to be your blade, to cut down your enemies without hesitation. There is no doubt that he will protect you, and wants to be of use to you.

In fact, he doesn’t even realize the feelings he has for you are romantic in nature. You come around to watch him train yes, but most likely he won’t even notice that you are present unless he stops or you make yourself known. Hell, sometimes he’ll train you as well! Swordplay, how to throw a punch, sparring, anything man! But as time goes on, he will look forward to your little lessons together. It brings a small smile to his face whenever you appear at the edge of the door of the sparring hall, ready to face him yet again.

It has to be someone who has to tell him that he likes you. This will cause him to pause almost in horror at the thought, needing to go have some time to himself to think. That is when your daily lessons and training will stop for a while; he reschedules them or downright cancels them, making some kind of excuse. He doesn’t know how to deal with these emotions and the other swords had seen him pummel a punching bag until it was broken while he was in deep thought.

It’s not that he doesn’t want the emotions; Doudanuki doesn’t know how to feel about it. He is a weapon, not a piece of art. He lives to serve and to kill, why would you want to have a relationship with him?

Again, it’s probably someone midare or tsurumaru who needs to help. The distance between you two is unbearable and thus, you two are locked in a room. Doudanuki offers to destroy the door but it’s a good time for you to talk to him. He panics on the inside as you two sit in silence for a while before trying to speak.

“Look…I don’t what to do with these…emotions. It hurts whenever I’m around you, like I never want to let you go. It’s just…how do I say it…what do the others call it? Love?”

Hug him, immediately. He will melt into your embrace.

When you two become an official couple, daily morning training sessions are still a common thing. Except this time, Doudanuki is a lil bit more affectionate than before. Yes he smiles more, and sure he does help position your body with touches – but it feels much more…hm, wholesome now that your feelings are known to each other. You almost melt into his touch and he has to jokingly remind you that you two are training, cuddles can come later.

Doudanuki isn’t much into PDA, he feels a bit embarrassed by it. Again, he isn’t used to such affection and the least he will do in public is hold your hand in a loose grip – squeezing it every now and then – not because he doesn’t like you or anything, it’s because you two are going at a relationship at your own pace. In private? Cuddles are common. Again, loose grips in case you are uncomfy and want to move or body or something – but there are times when his bear hugs are just the thing you want and need.

He gives amazing massages and knows every inch of your muscles like the back of his hand – whether or not you two are truly intimate in a sexual sense. He knows how tense they can get so if he notices that you are hunched over your desk and your shoulders are tight, expect him to make himself known with a small, “I’m going to touch you, okay?” and then place his rough hands on your shoulders, smoothing out each and every kink you have.

If you massage him in turn, Doudanuki will turn into mush, leaning against you and almost purring.

Big spoon? Little spoon? Who cares? As long as he can hold you, he’s happy.

If he ever comes back all bloodied and bruised and you always take care of him with the most fond of care, there is a light blush to his cheeks as he leans into your touches. It’s super cute.

Also super dense, cannot understand how flirting works but easy to make blush if you manage to do so!

Over all, the relationship between you two is slow and patient, not at all in a rush to reach any kind of goal. It’s simple, awkward, full of ups and downs, but it’s a sweet one none the less.

Yamabushi Kunihiro

Bear hugs? Bear hugs. No matter if you two are dating or not, hugs all around. He will shout your name from across the yard and wave to you, and when he comes back from a sortie and isn’t too injured, he will find you and hug you! He’s just very affectionate!

Most often found in the mountains, probably running around and training but if you decide to come with him, he would be more than happy! He shows you around, tells you about nature and its gifts, and it’s more so of a hike than anything. Sure he may get ahead of you with his long ass legs and walk cycle, but he always waits for you to catch up. Or carry you if you ask. No hesitation there.

But when he starts falling for you, Yamabushi goes off to meditate on it a little bit. He will avoid you and ask that you do not disturb him during that time but it takes him at least a couple of hours before he settles on an answer. He meditates a lot whenever he has time to think, probably under a waterfall. In the end, he accepts those feelings of romance. He takes everything in stride after all.

After this meditation session, expect him to immediately go out to seek you and your attention. He may not confess right away, but simply become much more affectionate around you. But then again, he always is. Yamabushi’s hugs are softer, tighter, and he invites you out to the hikes much more often.

His confession will come outta nowhere, during a hike, enjoying the fresh air. Maybe it was the sunshine illuminating your form, but Yamabushi will suddenly speak.

“As gorgeous as ever, master! Kakaka! I wish I could forever capture your ethereal form!!”

You would think that he would want a camera but no, after explaining what he meant and his confession is something oh so earnest. He spills out his love for you in such a happy nonchalant manner you would think he was joking. But the minute you share his feelings, his eyes light up like a puppy and he screams into the mountain air that he is the happiest man alive.

Yeah don’t think that the physical affection doesn’t go away. You’re gonna be drowning in it, fam. Yamabushi lives for PDA. Random hugs outta nowhere, picking you up and spinning you around when you least expect it, cheek kisses, lips kisses; all of the works!

Cuddles are mandatory. That is it. You cannot escape cuddle time.

Very much a morning person. If he wakes up before you, Yamabushi will do his best to keep quiet and not wake you up. Instead, he might just lay there, watching you and how the sunlight hits your face. It’s there when he just…melts. Yamabushi falls almost into a lull state, enjoying your warmth and presence.

But if you two are indeed morning people, expect to be lying in bed for a while. Yamabushi cannot help but gaze upon your form. Then it’s time to get up and go into the mountains for training and hiking!

He tends to laugh at his sorrows and that is all fine and dandy, but he will lean on you for troubles from time to time. He will also do the same for you, his advice is sweet and sometimes it may not help but he is trying his best!

The relationship between you two is rather seamless, passing from friendship to romantic; the barrier between those words was already thin, and it just took a little bit to tear it down. It’s a comfortable, rambunctious, and overall, full of affection.

#touken ranbu #ur right tho they are indeed underreated #touken danshi #touken ranbu x reader #touken ranbu imagine #tkrb #tkrb x reader #tkrb imagine #azuki nagamitsu #azuki nagamitsu x reader #azuki nagamitsu imagine #doudanuki masakuni #doudanuki masakuni x reader #doudanuki masakuni imagine #yamabushi kunihiro #yamabushi kunihiro x reader #yamabushi kunihiro imagine #my writing

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anadrawzone · 3 years

Text

Tawnas departure

Wrote by: Ana González | Translated by: Oxide Mr. Crumb

- … Cortex was defeated. Do you know what that means? -

After an endless adventure touring tropical islands; Ancient ruins, rivers and waterfalls, mines, laboratories and even a macabre castle, our orange hero had finally managed to banish the villain. A battle between two opposite poles that, without hesitation at all, would surely have its revenge.

Now he just had to stay with the girl and live happily ever after, a wonderful ending to the story of these two lovebirds ... Or so it was supposed. -------- --------

Tawna and Crash watched the beautiful sunset on the horizon. Filled with vibrant warm colors, sitting in that old purple blimp. Crash was happy, fulfilled that he had achieved his main goal; his beloved was safe from any danger and no one was going to threaten them again, their own creator had fallen to a (possible) death and they were reunited again, but the girl did not look as happy as him. That confused him a bit.

While they "saw" the landscape, strangely the blonde girl was not paying attention to the beautiful image, instead, she was immersed in all her thoughts, doubts and desires staring at absolutely nothing. The little boy couldn't help but think that there was something wrong that was bothering him, so he slowly approached to see what she had.

- Uhm… ¿Mh? – The furry touched the blonde's arm gently, but hard enough to pull her out of her trance.

Tawna got up a little nervous and a little excited, turned to see the boy and began to talk to him in an animated way.

- Crash! You know, I really can't believe it, Yo- You came and rescued me. -She took a little pause to catch his breath. -Now that Cortex was defeated. Do you know what that means? - Crash shook his head somewhat confused, but interested in knowing the answer. Tawna leaned down to get closer to him and whispered. - It means we are free! -

- Woah. - Crash didn't quite understand; he knew all that, he had just experienced it ... Was it something so surprising?

"We can do what we want, be what we want…" Tawna moved from side to side, shaking a little. She could barely contain his excitement; Crash was quite curious of that. She was always someone very calm. - We can LEAVE THIS PLACE. - The girl took her partner's hands, joined them with hers and smiled at him. -Let's use this airship to get out of the Wumpa Islands. Crash, where would you like to go? We have so many possibilities. -

-…-

Crash did not take those words so well, he had to think about it for a couple of seconds, but he made the decision firmly, changed his face to a more serious one, taking a couple of steps away girlfriend and breathed a little. -Ah, ah. -

He shook his head firmly in denial, something unexpected for Tawna, who believed that the marsupial would be totally willing to go with her, that made her feel a lump in her throat. - No? ex-excuse me...? - With some pain, small tears began to fall from the blonde's face, even if Crash had not answered, her reaction would have been the same. She slowly sat down so she could catch up with the orange.

Crash felt bad, he didn't expect her to react that way, he got closer again and placed his hand on Tawna's shoulder and she looked up.

-I don't understand, why would you want to stay? - - Uh! Ah! - Crash tried to make various gestures, trying to tell the girl that he couldn't just leave, he felt that he should stay in this place.

Now that he thought about it, he had never seen beyond the Wumpas Islands, would it be worth leaving his home? Also, what about the flora and fauna of the islands? Without Aku Aku's protection something very bad could happen ...

I understand that your heart is very big, but you haven't seen the things that I saw when I was a prisoner. YOU HAVE NO IDEA ... - Tawna took a breath of air and began to count all the atrocities she had witnessed, things that only few mutants managed to see ... because she was not part of the army forces itself.

The blonde was created with a different purpose, her intelligence and attitude were perfect to stay after army operations and also to be Crash company; a hand that moved the strings, planning movements and giving orders, as well as a reason for his strongest general to always be loyal to his master.

Not being created to fight, the blonde never went through the lethal tests of Dr. Cortex and instead of having a strict training, she had some freedom to explore the castle, to learn the necessary and analyze everything she could. The girl was curious and would soon regret learning too much. ____________________________

Brio wasn't the best at keeping an eye on Tawna, regularly letting her wander alone and talking to other experiments wich she never saw again, very regularly wondering << Where will so many animals go?>>.

One of those days the girl found that "the subject" was being taken to one of the mysterious tests, the girl with some nerves began to follow her partner from a distance, while he was taken by two laboratory assistants; the mutant followed them quite happily, taking long strides while admiring the castle walls, as if it were a simple morning walk. After a certain time, they reached the test chamber, where the voice of their creator was heard through a speaker on the wall.

- Are you ready? - Asked the evil Dr. Neo Cortex, with some joy in his voice, Crash only responded by shaking his head up and down, while Tawna (without having entered) watched everything from a window placed in one of the walls.

What she saw did not liked at all, because, although Crash had no idea at the time, he was crossing highly lethal obstacles; Explosives, fatal falls and possible splinters could be seen from all sides ... this was inhuman, now the girl had an idea of where most of the friends that the bandicoot had made for weeks were going. Thinking of the worst for her partner, Tawna closed her eyes, wishing he managed to survive and not have to re-enter that ugly place again. Fortunately, the first of his prayers was fulfilled, unfortunately the second was not.

Weeks and even months passed, but the girl never managed to meet her goal, at least Crashworth was skillful enough to pass the tests without problems ... but only a few managed to reach the half. The blonde was grateful that she didn't have to go through all that, but she wished that no one else was forced to follow this silly plan of world domination, so she tried to resort to many things. She tried to talk to his friend and best company about the danger he was exposing to, but there was not much to do, Crash had a routine that became more and more strict, with less time in the cages and more in training, by far, whatever he wanted, he couldn't find a safe way to reunite with the girl without alerting the security of the place, so Tawna looked for other alternatives to undo all this. She spoke hundreds of times with Brio, it seemed that he did want to resign, however he always retracted his words, contradicted himself or ignored his surroundings.

- Yes, yes sweet one, we will end this soon, but I cannot disobey the master so easily ... maybe if we joined forces, we could… uh... No-no, I- maybe, ugh. SIGHT. I don't want to deal with this anymore. I feel like they're watching us, I could be in trouble …-

- But Brio I know you can convinc- The subordinate man's alien hand covered her mouth, seeing what appeared to be Cortex's shadow approaching.

- I can't, stop trying. It's time for you to go back to your cage ... you are not supposed to learn about this. - This was the case until the fateful day when the Cortex Vortex was used on the remaining mutants, after several failed tests and breakdowns that our blonde had caused in sabotage attempts.

____________________________

-I'm so glad that neither of us had become an evil slave of that cretin ... Now do you understand why we should not stay? He could still be here! -

- MHM! - Clearly Cortex could still be on the islands somewhere, but Crash was sure that there was still some goodness in that man, he could feel it, hear it. Something that Tawna surely did not know, if Cortex came back ... he should at least try and prove that there is still a kind heart within the doctor.

Having made his girlfriend understand this, she finally resigned herself to accepting her lover's wish. It was sad to think about it, both of them had supported each other when they did not know anyone else, always trying to see for each other, but now their paths were going in different directions ... they did not want to separate, but they were not going to force the other to do something they did not want.

Crash walked over to Tawna and gave her a big hug, while she was still sitting up. -Okay, you want to stay, but I can't do it… not with what I saw, not when I couldn't even protect myself, I wouldn't want to be a hindrance and that you have to worry about me. I'll be back… when I'm strong enough… Maybe we can go on an adventure together that day, okay? - A few tears came from both of them, each one gently dried the other's cry.

Thus, having agreed to separate, Tawna still couldn't leave and leave Crash completely alone and to his own devices, so she stayed for a few weeks while they built a nice home for him to live in. They spent beautiful times, laughed and rested on the seashore ... But despite all that new peace, they still felt the threat of Cortex in the air. His memories were still very fresh.

Crash took a stick and began to write in the sand "Where do you plan to go?", Then stung the blonde a bit slowly. Then she turned around and read the message.

- "I ... I don't really know." - The girl began to think a bit. She did not know the world as it is, she had only heard of it, but never gone. -I have a small map around here, maybe I could start with a somewhat remote place ... Wait, I'll go find it. - She stopped and entered the half-built house, looking among her things for a map that she remembered keeping. Meanwhile, Crash was waiting on the beach, Aku aku appeared out of nowhere (Literally), returning from having checked the status of the Islands. - Fortunately, there hasn't been any sign of Cortex around here in a long time, but I think I've seen an unknown mutant near here. I couldn't check if it was hostile or not so the best thing would be to prepare for whatever is coming. Its coming. –

Crash complied with what his mentor said and quickly stood on guard, ready to await a possible attack from a new enemy. Seconds later, the bushes in the distance began to rustle, moving strongly, much more than it would if a normal animal were behind them, so the marsupial was sure the enemy was there. A couple more steps and the creature emerged from its hiding place, falling as it became entangled with one of the roots of the plants around it. - Huhf! - The orange boy approached slowly ... looking at the creature he thought it did not look like a monster ... or a dangerous mutant, the creature was small, thin and with large blond hair. The girl got up slowly and our hero realized that he was a bandicoot just like him and Tawna ... how strange, they thought they were the only ones of that species created by Cortex

- ¿A-are you… Crash? – Said the girl touching her head. -Yes ... I would recognize I would recognize you wherever, you are something famous brother. -

Aku aku was quite surprised - Wait, brother? - The mask made his protégé move a bit away from the stranger, putting himself in front of her face (which Crash was unable to see, so he began to look out from all possible sides).

- Ehh… Ok, explained it. - He took a breath, raising one of his hands as if pointing to something.

- My name is Coco, I was created by this "Cortex" - While Coco said that Crash said in a low voice “¿Da-Daddy?”, something that made the minor make a somewhat disgusted face. -Yes ... you could say that he is like your father ... not mine, only the one who created me. He told me about you, he said you were still around ... he said you had abandoned me. And well I wanted to know if it was-true. -

- Crash, Crash!! I know it took me a long time, but I found the map. There is a very large island near ... - Tawna left the house euphoric, but stopped in her tracks when she saw the unknown mutant and was placed in a battle pose. - Who-who is she? -

-Coconut. Crash's sister… I need to talk to you. - Coco began to explain why he was here, what had happened these last weeks. -Well, while you guys escaped, I stayed behind. I always wondered why they had run away without me, it's strange. But I did not trust that strange bighead, if you are my family ... why would you? -Oh dear, we… we had no idea that you existed- The two older bandicoots went to hug the smallest, they knew that Cortex could be someone very cruel and liar.

-I think I've been lost for weeks… I didn't know if they were still here, I'm glad I found them. I thought I would be alone on this desolate island. Thanks. -

Coco smiled as they continued with the hug, which lasted a long time, the Bandicoot family just as it had suddenly grown a little more, in the same way it would lose a member. At least Crash would no longer be completely alone, with Coco and Aku by his side, any evil could be stopped. And Tawna? She would go a little calmer. Nervous about going somewhere unaccompanied, but she had to. She had to prove to herself that she would never be a damsel in distress again. Thus gathered all together, they continued talking throughout the afternoon, what they would make of their lives as they would keep communicated. The older blonde ultimately decided to venture to live near Sydney, Australia; due to the good reviews of the place. In addition to having received a curious message from some mutants that were established in that place. Tawna remembered them and thought they had perished during tests and experiments, but somehow, they also escaped without anyone knowing.

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

It took another 2 weeks until the house was completely finished. With decisions made and ready to be executed; Tawna packed her things, climbed into the old Cortex airship, and said goodbye to the brothers.

-I will write and send you messages whenever I can. Don't stop saving the world, please. - The girl dropped her suitcases to be able to receive a hug from the two boys, the last hug.

- We hope you find your place soon. Be the best version of yourself. - Coco was quite happy for her friend, but sad for her departure while Crash shed a few tears that he couldn't contain.

- ¡A-dah! – Crash said enthusiastically.

- Bye guys, take good care of yourselves. - The girl finished getting on the airship, taking flight and going to explore the endless world. Who knows, maybe one day the 4 of them can get together again as one big family.

- Let's go home, kids. - Aku aku thought of preparing a good hot chocolate to spend the cold night in the jungle, inside a little house surrounded by trees, where three heroes rested waiting for a new evil to fight.

#crash bandicoot #crash bandicoot 4 #crash x tawna #crash on the run #crash bandicoot it's about time #crash team racing #coco bandicoot #fanfic #crash bandicoot fanart #gritos draws

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