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thetriggeredhappy · 3 years

Note

in the dadspy au, what if jeremy was just going to be an assistant/cook/janitor at the base while his dad was being the mercenary (since spy didnt want him to follow the "career" but didnt want to be separated from him), but then jeremy turned out to be even better than the hired scout so they promote him to that position and spy is not happy with this at all

ok i was gonna put this in the queue to post but im impatient because im happy with this one. only thing i didnt have was spy being upset by this development

(warnings for canon-typical violence, discussion of mercenary-type things, paranoia, alcohol, and exactly one proper fight scene. consider this pg-13)

“Would you prefer the good news first, or the bad news?” Dad asked.

Jeremy looked up at him from where he’d snatched up the sunday comics from his dad’s newspaper and was doodling little hats on the characters while they waited for their food to arrive. “Uh,” he said, “good news first.”

“Alright. The good news is, do you remember that line I’ve been tailing? The one in New Mexico?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jeremy said, then nodded a little more confidently. “Immunity, safehouse, somethin’ like that, right?”

“...Something like that,” Dad agreed carefully, and that made him raise an eyebrow. “It went well, and I think there’s the very real possibility that I’ve all but closed the deal, all they want now is an interview.”

“...Interview, singular,” Jeremy said slowly.

“That’s where the bad news begins. Unfortunately... merde, how to phrase this?” He drew a hand down his face. “They’re fully willing to hire me on, but this is a more... corporate affair than I’m used to. They have rules, stipulations. Long story short, they will not hire you as a mercenary on the basis of your age.”

Jeremy tensed. “What?” he demanded. “That’s stupid, I’m old enough to drive and buy guns and whatever the hell else.”

“But not rent a car, at least in many places in the United States.”

“But—“ he started, and remembered they were in public, and lowered his voice to a hiss, leaning in. “We’re hired killers, thieves, criminals. Do they really think we’re above having fakes? False documentation?”

“Actually, that is one of their requirements,” Dad said dryly, taking a paper from his jacket and consulting it. “I’m not happy about it either, mon lapin, but those are their rules. Already they have slightly bent them for one individual, and already I am on thin ice. But I may have a way to manage this.”

“Yeah?” Jeremy asked, nervous now.

“I know the woman responsible for new hires and managing the team I’ve applied for. She owes me a favor—a fairly hefty one. When I go in for the interview, one of my demands will include you being hired on, not as a mercenary, but for... for custodial purposes, something like that. Cook, janitor, security guard, secretary—whatever job there is that needs doing there, and I am sure that there will be one. Something to allow you to live there. Pay will likely be her stipulation, and the play I hope to make is that really, you’re overqualified for the position and she’s lucky to have someone so competent available, and in the worst case scenario, the pay is still good enough even for just one of us that we will not cut too deeply into the savings.”

The savings. That made Scout blink, because they only ever brought up the savings when—

“You think this could be it?” he asked quietly. “Like, it it?”

A hard exhale, and he leaned his cheek on his hand. “Potentially,” he finally said. “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but the job promises a variety of things. Medical attention available, extremely low levels of danger, and most of all, confidentiality. The only people who will know any name we give them would be the woman in charge of hiring us and their singular medical professional. There is no mode of communication to or from the compound outside of emergency lines to the organization and a single secure payphone located two miles away, there is no civilization within a twenty-five minute drive minimum, and this operation has been going long enough that the local authorities have long since grown used to being paid off, and likely don’t even remember what for anymore. I cash in a few valuable favors and ask this employer to turn a blind eye, we’d have somewhere remote and secure to spend our time after our deaths are faked and once the contract is over, we can start over. No ties to the past.”

“Freedom,” Jeremy marveled.

Silence for a few seconds, broken only by the quiet chatter of the rest of the diner. “I want to warn you, this work may not be glamorous. It may not even be particularly easy. I’m giving you the option of saying no,” Dad said.

“What?! Yes, hell yes, are you joking? To get us to living like normal people? Steady work? Livin’ in one place? Count me in!” he laughed.

“What if the job is something you won’t enjoy? Long hours, boring work?” Dad asked, entirely serious.

“I’m still on board.”

“What if the other people working there are rude to you? Disrespectful?”

“Well most of the people I meet through our job now try to kill us, so really it’s an upgrade.”

“What if there’s no diner nearby?” he asked, and there was a glint of humor in his eye.

“Damn, sorry, that’s the dealbreaker,” he joked right back, and that made him snort, shake his head, greet the waitress as she came back with their coffee and soda and then informed them that their food would be out shortly.

“I’ll ask,” was what Dad said once she was gone again, and that was that, and they started driving to New Mexico two nights later.

“—A warm welcome to our two newest recruits. This is the Spy, and this is the Guard.”

“Guard?” asked one of the men at the table, his accent thick and distinctly Russian. It made Jeremy tense slightly, but he didn’t let it show.

“Night Guard,” Jeremy answered, voice clipped.

“He’s not technically hired on as a mercenary like you all, he won’t be joining you on missions,” the short woman apparently named Miss Pauling (Jeremy was fairly sure it was a fake name) said, hands folded in front of her neatly. “He’s here to work security. Keep an eye out during the night, filter through the camera footage, handle the archiving, things like that.”

“We’re hiring on a civvie now?” asked another man, thick Scottish accent a little harder to digest than the eyepatch and the grenade he was in the process of fiddling with the internal mechanisms of.

“He’s combat ready, and will still be armed. His job is to essentially make sure you’re all safe enough to sleep through the night,” Miss Pauling said.

“I’m not some chump,” Jeremy agreed. “I know my stuff.”

“How old is he?” another man asked, this one in a hardhat with a heavy drawl, looking concerned.

“Twenty, for your information,” Jeremy said, a little sharply, eyes narrowed.

“If you have any other questions, there’ll be time later on. For now, I do need to show our two newest recruits where they’ll be staying,” Miss Pauling cut in.

There was an audible scoff from one of the men at the table, a dramatic rolling of eyes. Jeremy glared at him. He unfolded and refolded his extremely tattoo’d tree-trunk-like arms, tugging the visor of his hat between. “Sorry,” he said, accent thick and distinctly Californian. “I just don’t have the most trust for some scrawny kid in slacks and creep in a ski mask.”

“Scout, don’t start,” Miss Pauling warned.

“Just saying,” this man, apparently called Scout, muttered under his breath regardless.

“Don’t,” she said again, more firmly, and ignored the second eye roll she got for the trouble. “If you two would follow me.”

And they were shown around the base, and Jeremy in particular was shown into a room stuck behind three locked doors, where he found camera feeds and recording equipment. She gave him a basic overview and a thick packet of instructions and policies labelled ‘highly classified’ and a phone number to call if he had any further questions, and a set of hours that were apparently meant to become the new standard for him (with the quiet addendum that if he finished early that was alright, and that technically he could turn in early if two or more members of the team were already awake for the day and he was caught up on the archiving of old tapes).

Then he was left to “get used to the equipment”, which he assumed meant his dad was getting a similar rundown of his job, and it took a pretty quick glance through the packet to understand that clearly this place ran on an extremely secretive and closely monitored series of systems. In the packet, between the sections on camera maintenance and operation hours, were a few sheets detailing what were apparently the movement patterns of the various members of the team, including frequented locations and previously recorded large-scale infractions (mostly on the part of the Soldier, the Medic, the Scout, and one from the Demoman).

He wasn’t the one with the title Spy, but fuck, it seemed like he might as well have it. His entire job wasn’t even necessarily to keep the team safe overnight—he was just meant to watch all of them to make sure nobody was anywhere or doing anything out of the ordinary.

The next time he saw his dad, waiting outside the infirmary to get some sort of physical evaluation, his face was arranged carefully enough that he could tell he’d figured out something was up, too.

“Got your job assignments?” he asked quietly in French, glancing towards the door into the infirmary.

A nod, a glance. “I’m intrigued by the methods used in employee evaluation,” he deadpanned. “Especially the fact that apparently, they’re willing to assign employees for the explicit task of doing them.”

“How often?”

“Weekly.”

“Thorough,” Jeremy deadpanned, and glanced towards the hall at the distant sound of laughter, echoing from somewhere else on the base. “That’s basically mine too.”

There was a long silence, and when Jeremy looked back over, his dad was giving him an almost expectant look, waiting. All he had to offer him was a shrug, which was returned after a moment with a vague shake of the head. “I don’t believe it will be a problem,” his dad said simply. “Not for us, at the very least.”

Jeremy nodded. “Yeah. Uh, anyways, good luck with the… physical, or whatever,” he said, and received a pat on the shoulder before he walked back off down the hall, hoping to figure out what exactly he was supposed to do with an entire room all to himself. He’d almost never had one before.

He was used to time changes and jet lag, to needing to switch his sleep schedule on the regular, but the switch to a straight up night shift was a rough one.

His nine-to-five was actually a ten-to-six, as in 10 PM through 6 AM. This meant that, assuming he managed to get his schedule in order, he’d be able to join in on the team dinners if he woke up early and could eat breakfast with them before he went to bed.

Very quickly he realized that going to dinner and breakfast with the team was going to become a staple part of his routine, because it didn’t take long before he began to feel extremely lonely all of the time. In a dark little room, everyone else asleep, scrubbing through tapes from during the day while half keeping an eye on the live feed from around the base that never showed much of anything, it was brutal. It was suffocating.

It was easy, at least. It didn’t take long before he got efficient at it and could start zoning out, and it wasn’t like he was under much pressure. His was the only room without any cameras in it. Security risk, apparently.  And to be honest, what small amount he and Dad interacted with mercenaries and other criminal types, Jeremy didn’t really tend to like them much. A lot of them were loud and rude and had the potential to turn around and try and kill them whenever they felt like it. He didn’t expect that he’d like the team as much as he did. He especially didn’t expect to like them so much without ever really talking to them.

But watching the camera feeds from throughout the day, seeing what they were up to, they were just... nice people. Soldier out by the dumpsters practicing rocket jumps and wrangling raccoons and apparently trying to learn how to spin a rifle, Pyro’s regular minor explosions in the kitchen while cooking and the surprised and frantic way they cleaned it up every time, the Demoman’s tendency to whistle wherever he went, watching through the feed as they all played cards and argued and jostled each other. They all seemed really nice. Really cool. Really dorky, too, but mostly just really nice and really cool.

And there were a few of them he was less sure about—he couldn’t get eyes on the Medic most of the time, what with the one camera in the Medbay being tilted down at an angle that made it hard to see much of anything but the occasional bird (probably by those same birds). The Heavy tended to just sit and read, and was pretty much silent most of the time otherwise. The Scout tended to leave the base pretty often. And the Sniper didn’t even live on base, he had a van outside that he could only occasionally see movement in when he squinted at the far edge of the camera leading outside. But even then, Heavy and Sniper mostly just seemed quiet, and Medic just seemed busy, and the Scout just seemed like a little bit of a dickhead.

But then one day when Jeremy was at breakfast the Heavy caught him leaning to try to get a look at the cover of the book he was reading, and he blurted that he was just wondering what book was so great that he’d stay up until like four in the morning reading, and then the entire team was gawking at him and asking questions and insisting that it was insane that there was someone actually watching all those cameras, and he shrugged and said there was always supposed to be someone watching the tapes back it was just usually some office worker type a hundred miles away. And they seemed almost... upset with him. And maybe that was fair, it wasn’t like he ever talked to any of them much, mostly he just spent breakfast and dinner half-asleep and listening to their chatter. And Demoman admitted that he’d honestly assumed that Jeremy slept his entire shift, he just always looked so tired at breakfast. There was almost this discomfort. This distrust.

And so, now that the jig was up, he made it a point to say some things to certain members of the team. To tell the Medic that his camera was tilted down so that he couldn’t see most of the room, and to very pointedly say that it was weird how that happened and that he didn’t know why they set it up like that in the first place, but it was really none of his business. Made it a point to warn the Engineer in the morning that the previous night, Soldier had been doing something in the fridge for a while, and to maybe check the labels before he made breakfast. Made it a point to tell the Demoman that the camera in his workshop was right in plain sight, and that if he moved one of his blackboards an inch or two to the left, it would obscure the room a pretty hefty amount. Made it a point to tell the Sniper that the camera on the rooftop seemed to be glitching out, and it’d just sort of lost the tapes of the previous two nights, and that it was really unfortunate since for all he knew there might have been someone ignoring the signs about there being no personnel allowed up there.

In return, he found that Pyro would sometimes make little sparkly notes with smiley faces on them and stick them to the door to the security room. That Sniper started tipping his hat at the camera above the door into the base from the garage. That on occasional drinking nights, the team would suddenly turn and start waving at the camera, laughing the whole way. On one night in particular he could hear through the low-quality and tinny speakers that they were trying to cajole him into leaving the security room for a while to join them for cards, and god, but he wanted to.

And he noticed more things. Soldier walking with a slight limp some days when rocket jumps had rough landings. Being able to count the doves in the infirmary and even tell them apart to some extent through blurry close-ups. The Engineer making it a point to sweep really regularly regardless of what project he was working on.

And then he noticed a weird thing.

It took him a long time to get used to the patterns of hallways, the cameras not really lined up linearly after a while, too many branching paths. He learned to follow progress, to flick from one camera to the next as someone walked around corners. And for a while he thought maybe he wasn’t very good at it.

Until he realized two things. First of all, that in a hallway where he knew there were five doors, he could only see four—apparently the door to Pyro’s room was just barely out of sight of the camera. He only figured it out because one day it swung open wide enough to almost bang against the wall.

And then, when he realized there was somehow that massive blindspot, that there was a corner with a blindspot too. One where that Scout kept disappearing.

He watched a few more times to make sure, and yep. He’d see the Engineer walking around the corner, flick to the next screen, and there he was, continuing down the hallway. And then later that same day, the Scout, walking, and flick to the next camera, and he wasn’t there.

One of the worse parts of the job was that he never got to see Dad anymore, never got to just sort of hang out the way they did all the time when he was growing up, and he knew he would miss it but he didn’t know how much. And he found it was even worse when he had something important to say, doubly so when he had something important to say but no idea if it was actually important.

He tried to bring it up casually, in the like ten minutes of time he ever got alone to talk to Dad. Dad was fighting the kettle trying to make some tea and he was trying to stay awake long enough to figure out how he was going to say this.

“Uh,” he said, and Dad looked at him. “So, uh, what’s the read you’re getting on that Scout guy?”

“Lazy,” Dad shrugged, looked back at the kettle. “Arrogant. He seems to care very little about doing his job correctly and has horrible communication on the field.”

“Right, right,” he nodded, fought a yawn down. “Uh. So like, kind of a dickhead.”

“Indeed,” Dad said, nodding vaguely.

“So uhhh... not the best.”

“Where are you going with this?” Dad asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

“I, I dunno, the guy just likes hanging out in this one blindspot in the cameras, and it’s kinda freaking me out,” Jeremy said, scratching at the back of his neck.

Dad frowned. “Strange. I wasn’t aware that there were any blindspots in the cameras.”

“There’s only a few, and only for pretty small spaces I think? But apparently he just likes hanging out in one of them.” Jeremy scuffed his shoe on the ground, glancing over as voices started echoing down the hall towards them. “Just thought it was weird.”

“I’ll look into it,” Dad muttered, voice quiet, and then raised it again slightly. “I refuse to keep up with sports.”

“C’mon,” Jeremy said, knowing this game well, changing subjects into something more normal as people entered earshot. “I’m not even asking you to keep up with sports, I’m just saying, I’d kill to go to a baseball game right about now.”

“The American Pasttime!” Soldier called from the room over.

“Exactly,” Jeremy agreed, nodding at Soldier as he also entered the kitchen, a half-asleep Demoman in tow.

“Any ghosties or ghoulies on the cameras last night, lad?” Demo had enough energy to ask, blinking blearily at the contents of the fridge.

“Oh, a billion,” Jeremy said.

“Guard!” Soldier barked, the most awake person in the room. “Should these ghost-ghouls appear again, don’t be afraid to point me in their direction! I have significant experience with them already and do not fear the likes of them!”

“Yeah sure,” Jeremy shrugged.

“You’re a champion, Guard,” Demo said with what was either a really disoriented blink or a wink, slugging him on the shoulder and wandering back out into the common room with the entire carton of milk in his other hand. Jeremy gave him a mock-salute that Soldier copied with absolute conviction. He and Dad shared a glance after the two of them left, and Jeremy was the first one to break, snickering under his breath.

“I’ll look into it,” Dad said, and also left the kitchen, and Jeremy nodded and started trying to remember what else he’d been planning on doing before bed.

“So,” Dad said a few days later, materializing next to Jeremy when he was in the middle of his jog and making him almost jump out of his skin, skidding to a stop.

“You’re enjoying that new watch way too much,” Jeremy panted, out of breath and still very much startled.

“Maybe,” Dad said, and he was smiling. “But as I was saying.”

“All you said was ‘so’,” Jeremy pointed out, giving him a look.

“There’s a juvenile joke here about how I’m your father and so of course I say ‘so’, but if you wouldn’t mind it, I did have something important to say, mon lapin,” Dad replied, and Jeremy rolled his eyes hard at the horrible joke and cheesy name, fighting back a smile of his own.

“Go for it,” he said, and took the opportunity to bend and tighten his shoelaces.

“So. Regarding that Scout and his habits. You mentioned he spends time in blind spots of the cameras, oui?” Dad asked.

“Yeah. Keeps, uh, I guess he keeps getting infractions for going off base too much, too. I’ve logged him leaving like three times this week already,” Jeremy nodded.

“Indeed. Well, considering how new we are to the team, I did not want to jump to conclusions, and so contacted Miss Pauling and asked on your behalf for any older records, and I found out something very... intriguing.”

Jeremy looked up at him, blinking. ‘Intriguing’, historically, had always been a very, very bad thing.

“Apparently, it has been two years since they last had a Guard situated on base. The previous one was a much older gentleman, retired from being a full member of the team due to health complications but not entirely ready to part with the company. The previous guard was somewhat strict, and the Scout—the same as we have now—very much disliked the man. He continued acquiring near-constant infractions under the man’s watch for leaving when he was not meant to, so much so that the previous Guard proposed enstating trackers on the team when they went off-base. And before this policy could take hold, the previous Guard left the base one day and did not return, and finally was found dead a state over, one month later.”

Jeremy blinked once, twice. “Holy shit,” he said, and took note of the wary look on his face. “Okay. So we’re thinkin’ the same thing, right?”

“I would assume so. And…” Dad hesitated, moved to fidget with his cufflinks. “And I would not be particularly concerned about this, as I’m confident that you wouldn’t have gotten his attention from what you’ve been up to lately, and therefore wouldn’t be in danger yet should history attempt to repeat itself, but… he’s already taken a disliking to you.”

“What?” he asked, eyebrows shooting up.

“I believe it’s something as simple as some sort of shallow jealousy. Another American on the team, also relatively young, filling the position of someone he disliked previously. He regularly complains about the fact that you don’t need to go do the same job as the rest of us.” Dad shrugged, glanced over at him. “That, combined with the fact that you have somewhat conflicting duties, well, he tends to rather tetchy. He claims that considering he’s meant to be the first line of defense, they shouldn’t also need a guard at night.”

Jeremy had a number of opinions about that, but he stuck to the most relevant ones. “I really don’t like this guy,” he said. “Might be, uh. Worth keeping an eye on.”

“Agreed.” Dad glanced back over his shoulder towards the base, then at his watch. “Enjoy the rest of your run. Don’t forget to eat.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, hit the bricks already, old man,” Jeremy scoffed, waving him off, and Dad rolled his eyes, disappearing again in a cloud of smoke. “You’re gonna be using that thing all the damn time now, aren’t you?”

“Oui,” came a voice from nowhere, and Jeremy huffed a laugh, meandering his way back into the rest of his jog.

Jeremy hummed along to the radio, flicking between cameras on autopilot and wondering when exactly to take his lunch break.

He didn’t face the clock or anything, so he wasn’t sure, but he thought he had a pretty solid rhythm at that point. Click, click, click, between the camera to the road, the camera to the main entrance, and the camera in the hall towards the middle of the building, for about one second each. At just about any time after 11 or 11:30, those were the only three in real time that he needed to keep an eye on, mostly for people coming back late from bar hopping or if Miss Pauling was rolling in on a delivery. All the other cameras he could see out of the corner of his eye, and any movement he’d pick up on pretty quick, even if it was usually just the doves fluttering on the camera to the Medbay. After he cycled through those (and there was almost never anything there) he’d cycle back through to the tape he had in, put it on high speed, and watch it for about two or three minutes, get through a chunk of that time. Mostly he’d just be making sure nobody had been in the base while the team was away ni o(which indeed there never was), so there wasn’t much of a reason to take it off high speed, and the second part of the night would be watching the tapes for the time the team was back on base.

Movement on a camera made him click the pause, and he glanced off to the side. One of the doves had shuffled to face the other direction. He rolled his eyes, looking back at the bigger monitor again and pressing play.

The second half of the night was a little more interesting. He just had to look at the tapes for the time the team was there, check for discrepancies that might point to Dad messing with the disguise technology off-the-clock or the enemy Spy having infiltrated. For the most part things were straightforward, but he at least got to see his teammates up to funny things sometimes. Pyro’s antics were usually entertaining. Soldier he only caught some of, on the basis of him often walking off out of range of the cameras when he went on his excursions. Demo was funny sometimes. Honestly, just seeing the Sniper anywhere but as a fuzzy distant shape was interesting.

Movement on a camera. Same dove. He ignored it. Click, click, click, all three cameras clear, back to the fast-forward of the same empty hallway as before.

He really needed to figure something out, for the Scout. Maybe he and Dad were just being paranoid. It would be insane for him to try to outright kill anyone who inconvenienced him, not to mention reckless, and stupid to boot. Acting like that in their line of work would make him a lot of enemies extremely quickly. It would make more sense for the old Guard disappearing to be unrelated, to be honest.

Yeah. Hell, he barely knew the guy, and here he was assuming he’d straight up whacked a guy for getting a little too on his case about something. Maybe they were wrong.

Movement on a camera. He glanced over and froze outright.

It took him five seconds to come to his senses enough to pause the playback on his screen.

Figures. Shapes. Not at the front entrance, in the hallway, there next to the back way, by the garage. At least three, moving carefully, hard to make out in the darkness.

Okay. Okay, don’t panic, focus.

Jeremy ran through a few things in his head. He’d already done a headcount, the only people he wasn’t sure about were the Sniper and the Medic, but he hadn’t seen the Medic in any of the hallways out of the infirmary. Three figures were two too many to be any of the team, and besides that, they didn’t look like the Medic. Too short to be the Sniper, moving differently. Different clothes.

Three people. He hopped up, rushed over to the wall, yanked open the panel he had there. Three buttons, which he needed to hit in order. The first would send an alert to Miss Pauling, the second to whoever was assigned to be on alert that night, the third would set off the alarm.

He hit the first, hit the second, and hesitated on the third.

Okay. Technically if he didn’t hit that third button, he’d be breaking protocol, which was, according to the manual, ‘grounds for termination’. He was pretty sure that meant a long swim with some concrete shoes. And it was apparently recorded every time he hit these buttons, so they could deduct from his pay on false alerts. So they’d know if he didn’t hit this third button. He needed to think fast.

This was a different button than the alert button. The alert was more subtle, set for just one person. The alarm was throughout the entire base, over every loudspeaker. Louder than a fire alarm. If he hit this one, these intruders would hear that there was an alarm going off. Anyone smart would book it, high tail it the hell out of there. But he still didn’t know where they came from.

There hadn’t been movement on any of the screens, and he looked at the camera feed facing the road already, a few times even. He should’ve seen them. And if they found their way in once, they could do it again.

If he didn’t hit the button, on the other hand, whoever was on alert would wake up and wonder why they’d gotten an alert but the alarm wasn’t going off. If they were clever, which they probably were if they’d lasted this long, they’d come to the security room to see what was up and they could work from there.

He closed the panel again and moved to wait.

A minute later, still no movement from the hallway where most of the rooms were. That was fine, they’d just woken up, and probably needed to get dressed and grab their guns.

Another minute later, no movement, which was fair, they just needed a second to get their bearings. The intruders, meanwhile, were just lurking, slowly making their way down the hall.

Another minute later, no movement, and he opened the panel to press the button again before he continued waiting. Maybe they didn’t hear him the first time.

Another minute later and he took to standing next to the panel, mashing the button rapidly, eyes on the screen where the intruders were passing the kitchen, starting to get pretty far into the building.

Another minute later and he stomped his way into his sneakers, grabbing his flashlight and gun and guard cap from where they were hung on the wall. “Fine, I’ll fucking do it myself,” he grumbled, and carefully shouldered open the door, taking one last glance at the camera before he shut the door behind himself.

He kept his footsteps quiet, squinting into the darkness, waiting for his eyes to finish adjusting as he crept towards where he’d last seen the figures. It was near-silent in the base at night except for the distant, quiet hum of generators and occasional shift of plumbing. It was getting more and more familiar, and he found himself able to tune it out somewhat, instead listening intently for footsteps besides his own, making sure to click the safety off his gun while he was still alone and not when he was close to whoever had decided to break in.

Okay. Dad did this all the time. He could handle this.

He slowed as he approached the corner near the kitchen, peering around as carefully as he could, tugging down the brim of his cap to try and hide any potential shine from his eyes. He caught sight of a vague shape standing near the doorway, hesitating before it crept inside, into the common area.

Not ideal, on the basis of that being their goddamn kitchen, but at least there would be cover.

By the time he managed to sneak up to the doorway, he could make out the sound of vague whispering. It was far enough that it gave him the boldness to peer into the room, and just slightly lit by the glow of the clock on the oven he could see two shapes there in the kitchen, the third lingering nearer to him, there by the table.

Jeremy was only just starting to make a plan, relieved to have the jump on them, when there was the distant sound of a generator humming to life, and all the figures stopped, paused for a moment.

“Fucking spooky here,” one whispered, barely audible.

“Calm down,” another whispered. “What, scared of ghosts?”

Jeremy inhaled, exhaled, shifted onto the balls of his feet and started creeping a little further into the room. If he could just get all three of them to one side, so he wouldn’t need to pivot so much…

“You don’t know, maybe there’s ghosts here,” the first protested, and swore quietly at what sounded like their winging their elbow against the corner of the tale, and Jeremy tried to stick near the wall, managed to creep half-behind one of the chairs, trying to keep his silhouette indistinct. “These guys kill people.”

“So do we,” the third mumbled, moving out of sight in the kitchen, and Jeremy bit down on a swear, starting to inch behind the couch. “Don’t be a coward. And stop making so much noise.”

“You can’t shoot a ghost,” the first pointed out, moving a bit closer to the kitchen, giving the table a wide berth now. “Or punch it.”

“I can try,” the second said, and stopped at the sound of a rustle.

Jeremy held his breath, weight half-balanced against where he’d tried to step, newspaper trapped beneath his foot.

“That one wasn’t me,” the first whispered. There was another, more significant rustle throughout the room, and Jeremy could see a glint as the intruders drew their weapons.

Jeremy inhaled, exhaled, and just barely managed not to swear out loud.

The first one was the closest by, lingering beside the arm of the couch Jeremy was crouched in the shadow of. “Do they have a cat here?” they asked, voice quiet.

The second was approaching into the main room more carefully. From the sound of the footsteps, trying to keep a shoulder closer to the wall, clearly paying more attention to the door. “Are you stupid or something?” was the reply, voice also quiet.

The third didn’t speak, but huffed out a laugh, which was enough to tell Jeremy that he was out of the kitchen.

Jeremy inhaled shakily, exhaled shakily, shifted his grip on his handgun and flashlight, and took a split second to think. Inhaled one more time.

He leapt to his feet, swinging his flashlight like a billy club and clobbering the first figure across the side of the head, sending them tumbling to the ground. From the sound of the impact, a dislocated jaw at the very least. One down.

A shout from the other side of the room, arms moving to try to aim, clearly struggling to see him, but that third figure was in the doorway, silhouetted against the faint light from the oven’s clock, and that was enough to figure out where the head and chest were. He aimed, fired, got what he was pretty sure was the neck considering the brief spray of blood that splattered against the oven, darkening the room completely.

A swear from the second figure, and Jeremy wanted to swear too, because he’d hoped that second figure would be stupid and try and charge him, but now he was ten steps away and didn’t have time to fiddle with and cock the gun again, other hand full with a flashlight and no way to—

Oh, duh.

“Stay where you are,” the second figure ordered, but Jeremy’s eyes were a little better adjusted and besides that, he wasn’t the one talking. He lifted his flashlight and clicked it on.

The second figure cried out, recoiling at the sudden blindingly bright light in what had been near-darkness, and Jeremy had time to finagle his thumb up to cock his gun again, now able to aim with absolute accuracy, this shot connecting with the figure’s head.

He exhaled.

It took Jeremy two minutes to remember to fire a bullet into the chest of the unconscious guy, and another minute for the other mercenaries to start showing up, half-dressed and armed. Dad, presumably to prove a point, showed up pretty close to the middle of the pack almost fully dressed. Jeremy wasn’t entirely sure how long it took before Miss Pauling showed up, but he wasn’t even halfway through their questions by that time.

“Guard, headcount?” she asked before she even bothered saying hello, still wearing her motorcycle helmet and looking more than a little bit miffed.

“Uh,” he said, eyes drawn away from where Medic was assessing the bodies on the kitchen table, “seven present and accounted for. Sniper’s probably out at his van, don’t know about the Scout.”

“Alright. Pyro,” she said, and Pyro stood at attention, bunny slippers squeaking at the movement. “go wake up Sniper and get him in here.”

Pyro nodded, handing their weird unicorn plushie thing to Jeremy as they passed by, giving him a solemn nod before hurrying away.

“Okay. Guard, hit me with a rundown, then,” she said, and shot a glance around the room. “No peanut gallery needed. And Medic, please don’t take them apart too much. I gotta get rid of those later.”

“Uh. Spotted these guys on the cameras, hit the first and second alerts,” Jeremy said.

“And not the third?” she asked pointedly.

“They were, like, right next to the door, and—here’s the thing, Miss P, is I dunno how the hell they got in here,” he said, and there was a general balk from the room. “No, seriously. They didn’t come in on the main road, they were in one of the back hallways by the garage. There’s gotta be a hole in the cameras or something, because I seriously don’t know where they came from. And if they booked it, they’d take whatever vehicle they used to get here, too, and we might not figure it out. Thought I’d just wait for whoever the hell was supposed to be on alert so we could… I dunno, at least see which way they went.”

“Guard,” she admonished, and he shrank a little bit. “That was incredibly reckless. What if nobody had shown up to help you?”

“Uh,” he said, blinked, “but… nobody did show up.”

A pause. She blinked. “What? You’re the one who did that?” she asked, entirely shocked, pointing towards the three bodies on the table.

“Uh, yeah? Isn’t that my job?” he asked carefully, shifting the stuffed animal under his arm.

“No, you’re—you’re just supposed to be the Guard, you’re supposed to watch cameras, not—“ She paused, taking a second to push up her glasses and rub at the bridge of her nose, inhaling, exhaling. “Okay. Points for… going above and beyond, here, but Guard, don’t do that again.”

“Sure thing, Miss P,” he mumbled, tugging on the brim of his guard cap, and sighed to himself as Miss Pauling moved away to try and stop Medic from attempting to covertly steal a few organs from the corpses. Dad clapped him on the shoulder supportively, and that did make him feel a little better. He wasn’t expecting a clap to the other shoulder, and looked up, surprised to see Heavy there, looking just slightly less grim than usual.

“Little Guard man is credit to team,” he said simply, solemnly.

Jeremy straightened up slightly. “Oh. Hey, thanks,” he said. Heavy nodded at him.

“It’s true,” Demo called, and he looked over, got another approving nod. “Really saved the lot of us, lad.”

“I, I mean, hey, it’s… what I’m here for. Or, uh. I thought that was it, anyways,” he shrugged, glancing away. “I mean, yeah, I’m pretty cool, though.”

Dad bumped his arm for the last part, and he snickered. “My question,” Dad continued, doing his best to ignore him, “is primarily regarding who, precisely, was supposed to be present to help Guard with this. Who is meant to be on alert?”

“It’s meant to be Scout, ain’t it?” the Engineer asked from nearby, frowning. A general murmur of agreement. “Could he have slept through it?”

“Heavy doubts this,” Heavy grumbled, looking troubled.

“Why’re we awake?” asked Sniper from the doorway, and various teammates called out a greeting. Sniper seemed half-gone, and completely grumpy, but not as grumpy as Pyro, and not nearly as gone as the man leaning heavily against Pyro’s shoulder.

“Hey,” the Scout managed, grinning, speech garbled, visibly sloppy and unbalanced. “What’s up, guys?”

Groans from parts of the room. “Drinkin’ again, Scout?” the Engineer drawled, visibly irritated.

“That’s my trademark, lad, go on,” Demo laughed, but the enthusiasm wasn’t entirely there.

“Scout,” Miss Pauling said, voice firm in a way that made Jeremy almost flinch in sympathy. “Are you aware that we’ve had a situation here while you’ve been sleeping?”

“Weren’t sleeping,” Sniper murmured, and eyes turned to him. He scratched at the back of his neck. “Came stumbling in ‘round when I was heading in. He was out for the night. Bar, looks like.”  “What?” Jeremy demanded. “Why the fuck didn’t I see him leave on the cameras?”

“Alright,” Miss Pauling said, and Jeremy looked at her. Her expression was hard to read. “It’s possible he went through the back tunnel.”

“Back tunnel?” Jeremy asked, and glanced around. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t heard of it.

“For emergencies only. Scout’s the only one who I’ve given a key card to. I have one too. It’s supposed to be used for transporting especially sensitive information, most of the team isn’t supposed to even know it exists. If there’s a gap in the cameras around the back of the building, he might have been using it to… sneak out to go to town, even though he knows he’s already in hot water for leaving the base so much,” Miss Pauling said, glaring at Scout, who was looking increasingly annoyed.

“Whatever, it’s not a big deal,” he protested, scoffing.

“That tunnel is for emergencies only,” Miss Pauling stressed. “I trusted you with the privilege of knowing about it account of having worked here for so long, and you’re using that privilege and key card to mess around?”

“He was coming back from around the front of the building, at least,” Sniper chimed in, and Pyro nodded. “Not that I’d understand the point of sneaking out if he’s going to just walk back in the front door.”

“Key card?” Medic repeated from near the table, eyebrows furrowed.

“Yeah, it’s, it’s a magnetized card, that can be read by a card reader, used like a key,” Miss Pauling explained, deflating a little bit.

His eyebrows furrowed further. “Would it happen to look anything like this?” he asked, picking up a lanyard from the table and holding it up, showing the room the card clipped onto the end of it.

Two beats of silence. “Spy, would you mind?” Miss Pauling asked politely, nodding towards the Scout, who had gone pale.

“Not at all,” Dad said just as politely, and walked over towards the Scout and Pyro, then circled around behind them, and sank a blade into the Scout’s spine. He promptly crumbled to the floor, dead.

“Well. At least that’s that mystery solved,” Miss Pauling sighed, and rubbed at the bridge of her nose again. “Now I’ve gotta block off time tomorrow to get rid of three bodies, and then hopefully that’s the last we’re gonna hear of this or else the Administrator is gonna kill me.”

“What about the Scout?” Heavy rumbled.

“…Scratch that. Four bodies,” she mumbled, face dropping into her hands. “And then I need to find his replacement. Ugh.”

“Can’t imagine you’d need to go far,” Demo said, and Jeremy looked up, and Demo was very obviously tilting a thumb in his direction.

“He’s proven himself to be better at this job,” Dad agreed, shrugging. “And I would say on a bad day he’s still a better runner than the previous Scout on a good one.”

“He can clearly handle a firearm well,” the Engineer noted, looking over one of the bodies.

“And a blunt object,” Medic chimed, just a bit too pleased. “This jaw is almost completely shattered!”

“Okay, okay, fine, sure,” Miss Pauling waved off, one hand still pressed to her face, clearly overwhelmed and tired. “We’ll get his paperwork in tomorrow. Congratulations, you’re the new Scout, any questions? Can the questions wait until morning? Great, thank you. Good night, everyone. Medic, have the bodies in bags for me at least, okay?”

A distracted thumbs up from Medic, and Miss Pauling was groaning, wandering back out of the room, and most of the team followed, yawning amongst themselves. Sniper half-attempted to ask again why the hell any of them were awake, but gave up halfway through. Pyro, for one, made sure to at least retrieve the plushie from Scout’s arms before wandering off, giving him an appreciative pat on the shoulder.

“So,” Dad said, and when he looked over, he was smiling. “A promotion, mon lapin. Congratulations, new Scout.”

“Do I gotta wear that stupid outfit he always wears?” Jeremy asked, entirely serious. His reply was a laugh and a pat on the shoulder before he disappeared in a puff of smoke. “Pops, I’m serious. Do I? Dad!?”

“—So that’s why I figured, y’know, might as well tell you guys,” Jeremy finished rambling, hands in his pockets, continuing down the hallway. “Because… I dunno. I could tell Miss P, but it’s nice having secret stuff, y’know?”

“You think this is how they actually got in?” Demo asked, looking dubious. “Little blind spot in the cameras?”

“Only a couple feet wide, you said?” Sniper grumbled.

“Sounds possible,” Heavy said hesitantly.

“I dunno. Maybe. But if I tell Miss P about it, they’re gonna fix it,” Jeremy shrugged, turning the corner and stopping. “There. I knew it.”

They stopped with him, following his line of sight. “You’re takin’ the piss, mate,” Sniper deadpanned. “You want to tell me he’d been climbing out a window like a teenager?”

Jeremy shrugged, moving to open the window in question. It swung open easily, just large enough to push through with only a little bit of a problem, barely needing to turn his shoulders. “He’s not much bigger than me, and what the hell else would he be doing here?” he pointed out.

“Heavy cannot fit through that window,” Heavy deadpanned.

“Yeah. Sorry, big guy,” Jeremy apologized, leaning back inside and closing it again. “But hey, mystery solved, right?”

“Well, if I ever need windows to climb out of, now I know just the lad for the job,” Demo said, nudging him. “Thanks, Guard. Or, er, Scout. Och, now that’s going to take getting used to, aye? Might just stick to calling you ‘laddie’, laddie.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he laughed, nudging him right back. And as much as they ribbed him for it, he did see a kind of appreciation there. Just like he’d figured, they seemed to take note of him taking their side and not just Miss Pauling’s.

Now he just needed to switch back over to the day shift.

#father-son bonding au #dad!spy #tf2 #team fortress 2 #shut up me #my fanfiction #everybody talks #really happy with this one even if it took Way Too Fucking Long

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carriagelamp · 4 years

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November Book Review - Freedom at last!

In a lot of ways I had more time to read this past month -- or at least more time to read without feeling guilty -- so I had a lot of fun with the various books I read this month. In particular, I really enjoyed the Canadian lit I was able to dig up; I never really gave enough attention to the writing my own country was producing and honestly we’re rocking this!

A Royal Guide To Monster Slaying

The novel I just finished, and the first Canadian novel I’ll mention here. This was an adorable take on fantasy monster slaying! This is a world were the various tribes of the land historically united under the leadership of a single clan, Clan Dacre, who were famous monster slayers. In exchange for leadership of the kingdom, Clan Dacre guaranteed that they would always have trained monster slayers available to protect to people, lead by the second born child of the royal family. The problem for Rowan though is that she is the eldest twin and destined to be queen while her brother becomes the royal slayer... despite the fact that they’re both better suited for the other role.

What really sets this book apart for me, was the compassionate approach the “slayers” had towards the monsters -- they were much more like monster conservationists who focused on learning about monsters, and trying to relocate or rehabilitate them so that the monsters could return to their rightful home rather than terrorize villages and have to be put down. They use a very scientific lens to view this high fantasy setting and it’s delightfully refreshing!

Of Fire And Stars

Also a fantasy medieval setting, though not Canadian this time. Instead, very queer! Princess Dennaleia has known since she was a child that while her older sister ruled their own kingdom, she was to be betrothed to the crown prince of the neighbouring kingdom. She has prepared for this her entire life. However now that she’s there, things keep going wrong - everything from her dangerous and illegal magic that she must keep hidden, to a sudden murder, to the complicated relationship she’s developing with the prince’s unruly and wild sister. While this book isn’t necessarily bringing anything particularly new to the table, it’s fun to see familiar beats and tropes done with a sapphic twist.

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me

An absolutely stunning graphic novel about the tumultuous relationship between two girls, Freddy and Laura, as well as the complications that relationship brings to the other relationships in Freddy’s life. This isn’t necessarily a “feel-good” story, but it is an incredibly cathartic one. The message, symbolism, and art is all stunning and I would definitely recommend it.

Underground To Canada

Swinging back towards some of the Can Lit I’ve read this month! This is a classic Canadian children’s novel, I remember being completely blown away by it when I read it as a class study in elementary school. It’s about two young slave girls forced to work on a Southern cotton plantation, and their eventual escape and desperate flee via The Underground Railroad towards Canada and the promise of freedom. I know that there’s definitely controversy surrounding this book, especially in the depiction of the underground railroad and the glorification of it -- as a white person in Canada I’m not really best suited to have an opinion on this, though I read some articles along side the book itself. In my experience, reading it as a child was an eye-opening introduction to the topic itself, though obviously as a children’s novel, much like previous books I reviewed (like Fatty Legs), it never goes into all the dark depths it could.

A Bear In War (and its sequel Bear on the Homefront)

A Canadian picture book I read for Remembrance Day, depicting the true story of one girl’s experience of her family living through WWI in Canada, and her father needing to go to the Europe to fight. The story is, charmingly, told through the point of view of her teddy bear, and it was heartbreaking enough to make some second graders cry.

Poppy & Sam books

Swinging back to the lighter side of Can Lit are these two absolutely adorable graphic novel / picture book hybrids. They’re simple, beautifully illustrated little adventures of the titular Poppy and Sam as they wander around their garden home and help their friends. So worth the read, whether it’s with a young early reader who would appreciate the simple speech bubbles and clear pictures, or if you’re older like me and just want something wholesome.

Jak and the Magic Nano-Beans

No longer Canadian, but still a great little graphic novel for emergent readers. Seriously this book was buckwild. Jak, a cyberpunk badass, and her robot COW12 have a wild adventure based off the classic Jack and the Beanstalk. I really don’t know where to begin or end about this, it was bizarre but the art style was very cool.

Dream Jumpers: Nightmare Escape

With all the cool, innovative, beautiful graphic novels out there, it makes you wonder how this happened. Absolute garbage. Miserable protagonist, shitty misogyny, an incredibly basic plot premise, and ugly ugly art. 0/10.

Yakari Chez Les Castors

Belgian comics can just be so damn gorgeous, and this is clearly not the exception. These Yakari comics seem to be simple stories, but the art is wonderful (I love this style) and it’s all quite charming. Again... cannot comment on the potential racism inherent in it because as carefully as I try to judge, I am white and not educated well enough in these issues. For the most part it seems harmless to me, besides for some probable pan-indianism at play, but I’m mildly distrustful of any story told about First Nations people that isn’t also written by them until I hear otherwise.

Ghosthunters and the Totally Moldy Baroness

I love Cornelia Funke as an author. This wasn’t one of her best works, but it was also for a younger audience than most of the novels I’ve read by her. For a chapter book, it was as quirky and fun as I would normally expect!

Jem and the Holograms: Infinite

Look, I know next to nothing about Jem and the Holograms, besides the little bit I picked up when the failed move reboot came out. But even then, this was just a fun romp. The art was pretty, the ladies were badasses who all had very distinct personalities, and it had lesbians. What more can I ask for in my graphic novels?

The Adventures of Reddy Fox

Last book I’ll mention, because for a while it was also the last book I saw before falling asleep. I started this back in October when things were still pretty stressful, and it was a very zen book to use as a bedtime story for myself. I remember my mom reading it to me and my brother when we were little. They very much fable-style animal tales, these ones all focusing around the rather cocky and foolish Reddy Fox, though there were tales about many of the different characters that lived in these woods. Simple, cute, classic. A lovely story to wind down with.

#book reviews #november book review #queer lit #canadian lit #cancon #laura dean keeps breaking up with me #a royal guide to monster slaying #kelley armstrong #of fire and stars #jem and the holograms #cornelia funke #ghosthunters #yakari #graphic novels #comics #chatter #book review

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quinlinkin · 4 years

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take it from me ( i’d be lost without you ) ↳ Q’s twdg writing challenge

character(s): mitch, louis ship(s): louitch ( louis/mitch ) word count: 1749 author’s note: ahhhhh, so i finally fell behind. but hopefully only for these couple of days! either way, this fic is based around a short louitch comic i started making in xnalara a couple of months ago that i never ended up finishing. though i do hope to get it done soon, esp if this ship starts to make some traction?? who knowssss

have a lil preview of that comic anyway!!

[ ao3 link ]

*credits to the wonderful @stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale for creating this challenge! you can view the entire prompt list + further details here. happy writing!!

― ☼ ―

day fourteen ; night sky.

“Makes you feel small, huh?”

“Hmm…?”

“Like… the universe. When you really think about it, we’re just so- insignificant. A puny, meaningless speck that doesn’t keep everything else from existing. It wouldn’t even matter in the grand scheme of things if we all disappeared one day.”

Pulling his gaze away from the blanket of stars above them, Mitch quirks an eyebrow at Louis. It’s become somewhat of a routine for them to find themselves right here, seated upon the roof of Mitch’s house as they stargaze and talk endlessly. They’ve occasionally even stayed put long enough for the sun to begin to rise, peeking over the horizon as a startling reminder for Louis that he needs to get home before his parents wake up and realize he isn’t where he’s supposed to be.

A crooked grin starts to tug at his lips, and he can’t help but to lightly tease, “Jesus… Deep, much? Y’know, I think you’d better quit that damn drama class before it’s too late, it’s obviously starting to get to your head.”

Louis rolls his eyes and scoffs, yet the unmistakable signs of his own subtle grin are plainly visible in the moonlight. “I’m just saying. When you put things into perspective, it’s pretty wild to think about.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Mitch shrugs, green eyes flicking back up to the inky black sky. Truth be told, he hasn’t spent a lot of time contemplating their existence like Louis apparently has. It didn’t really matter to him.

Except for aliens, of course. Aliens were real, the government are hiding the truth, and he’ll gladly fight anyone who tries to disagree.

“Well… What do you think, then?” Louis asks after a beat of silence.

Again, Mitch gives an offhanded shrug. “I dunno. Not much, I guess.”

He can feel Louis’ eyes on him without having to look. It makes his skin crawl, his cheeks tingle.

“No opinions on life beyond earth? No theories about our existence? Figured you’d be all about the conspiracy theory life.”

“I ain’t Shane Dawson.”

Louis laughs. “No, you’re definitely not.”

Mitch gives a breathy chuckle of his own, his elbows shifting against the shingles. “Yeah, I mean- conspiracies are fun to think about. But I wouldn’t go as far as… whatever all that was that came outta your mouth just now.”

“What, you didn’t like my awesomely philosophical speech?” Louis retorts. Mitch can hear the smirk present in his airy tone. “I should be offended.”

Mitch is forced to redirect his attention back to Louis’ face, where sure enough, that classic Louise-esque smirk is spread across it. His eyes linger for longer than intended. “I think you’re better off leaving all that shit to Aasim.”

With another brief, joined laugh, they both turn their attention back to the sky. It’s not uncommon for them to fall into comfortable silence, simply enjoying each other’s company. Sometimes, Mitch will light up a cigarette that Louis always decline to share. Other times, they’ll take turns with a bottle of alcohol snagged from his father’s liquor cabinet until their heads are warmly fuzzy and boundaries become just a little bit thinner.

Tonight, however, there’s nothing but the two of them, no distractions or obligations to be anywhere other than right here.

It’s also not uncommon for Mitch’s mind to wander during these bouts of silence. He wishes he only held positive thoughts for this odd, indescribable bond that’s formed between him and Louis.

He’s unable to understand why Louis would ever want to show up whenever Mitch decides to text him late at night, why he ever gives him the time of day or humors him when they have just about nothing in common. While it’s no exaggeration that Mitch could produce quite the lengthy list of reasons why Louis is so great and interesting, he’s yet to find a single reason why the opposite would prove to be true.

Mitch glances at Louis while his focus is directed above them. There’s a gentle smile on his face, his expression blissful and carefree. He looks positively at peace, and Mitch doesn’t get why.

He suddenly feels guilty. He’d called him out of bed at nearly two in the morning, after all, and while Mitch never dares to admit whenever there’s an underlying problem that prompts him to want Louis’ company, he suspects that Louis already knows.

Louis makes him feel better, plain and simple. Perhaps it’s his shining personality or his positive way of thinking, though whatever the true reason, Mitch never fails to feel his mood lifting from as early on as seeing Louis typing back a message despite immediately regretting sending his own in the first place.

“You don’t have to be here, y’know,” he suddenly tells him. Out of context, it’s entirely unprompted, yet in Mitch’s mind, they’re words that have to be spoken.

Louis immediately turns his head to look at him, his brows pulled together with a keen mixture of confusion and compassion. It’s more than enough for Mitch to be quickly looking away, that too-sincere expression tugging at his heart in a way that makes him feel queasy.

“I know,” Louis speaks quietly, steadily. Careful, as if saying the wrong thing will cause Mitch to freeze up and bolt. It wouldn’t be the first time. “But… I want to.”

The outward confession instinctively draws Mitch’s eyes back to his face, just for a second, before he’s forcing them away again. His eyebrows furrow, searching for words well beyond his grasp to say.

Naturally, Louis picks up on his uneasy silence. “Do… you not want me here?”

“What?” Mitch’s head snaps back towards him, eyes slightly rounded before he’s firmly shaking his head. “No, I - of course I do.”

While he hadn’t quite expected Louis’ response, he supposes he should have. With his standoffish, blunt nature, he can only imagine that he must come off as disinterested in Louis’ company from time to time. He curses his unapproachable demeanor, wishes it wasn’t so difficult for him to open up.

Apparently, Louis decides to push things a little further. Mitch doesn’t blame him for wanting answers, though once again, he’s no longer able to look at him as his expression grows more sympathetic. His voice is incredibly timid when he speaks up, and Mitch feels even worse.

“Then… why say that?”

Mitch sighs. “Ah… I dunno, I just- most people wouldn’t want to, I guess. Most people… wouldn’t care.”

He can feel Louis shifting closer, trying to crane his neck in order to meet his eye.

It doesn’t work until he speaks again, barely above a whisper. “Well… I do. I care.”

Mitch simply can’t control the troubled look that crosses over his face, displaying his every conflicted emotion and his perplexed thought for Louis to see despite the fact he doesn’t want him to.

There’s nothing he can do to stop himself from asking, “But… why? ”

Louis instantly falls quiet. For a moment, Mitch regrets asking, assumes that there’s nothing that Louis has to offer in response to his question. Of course there isn’t, his mind bitterly taunts. He only said he cares to make you feel better.

He’s proven entirely wrong in the next second.

“Because…” he starts, seeming to choose his words very carefully until they’re spilling freely from his mouth. “You’re worth so much more than you think you are. Yeah, you’re a little devious, and yeah, you’ve got this whole ‘tough guy’ act nailed down. But under all that, you… you have a good heart, Mitch. I can see it all the time. Even if you don’t.”

Mitch blanks. There’s nothing that could ever describe the whirlwind of emotions that instantly overtakes him, no amount of understanding that could hope to make sense of it all. Impossibly, he feels gut-wrenching sadness and heartwarming inspiration at exactly the same time, a melting pot of conflicting feelings coexisting with each other, relentlessly battling for the top spot within his mind.

Ultimately, sheer disbelief wins.

“I… think you give me way too much credit…” he mumbles, a rather pathetic reply to Louis’ meaningful expression of his self worth.

Louis doesn’t miss a beat. “Maybe you just don’t give yourself enough.”

Mitch can feel Louis’ eyes practically boring holes into his skin as he grows distressingly silent once again, their shoulders brushing in a way that has him tensing up despite himself. Yet as undeterred as ever, Louis is piping up again before he knows it.

“I see you for who you really are. Whether you like it or not.”

There’s no denying the phrase sums everything up better that Mitch could ever express, himself. Yet he’s unable to think about it for much longer after those words are spoken, for in another, completely unexpected turn of events, Mitch can feel Louis shifting even closer.

A brief pause ensues, before Louis is leaning in the rest of the way. He kisses Mitch’s cheek, and Mitch is blown away how such as simple action can bring forth such an intense response. His heart ricochets inside his chest, his thoughts all but exploding inside his head. He can’t think, can’t speak, can’t breathe.

Then, he’s turning to gawk at Louis as if he’s grown at least five extra heads. Louis bears a similar expression, seemingly shocked at himself, leaving them both staring at one another like two deer within the glow of the same headlights.

“I - I’m sorry, I-”

Maybe it’s instinct. Maybe the rapidly multiplying emotions within him take over, blinding him and masking all the rational common sense he already lacks.

Whatever the reason, there’s no stopping himself, no controlling his own actions. He doesn’t care if Louis regrets it, if he’s apologizing because he didn’t mean to.

Mitch closes the distance between them again, and kisses him.

Louis freezes, but for only a second. Mitch thinks that same emotionally fueled instinct must be taking over him, too, for faster than his mind can process, they’re quite literally kissing each other senseless. It feels as if a slowly cracking dam between them has finally broken, and with it, everything comes effectively pouring out.

He doesn’t know how long the kiss lasts. All concept of time becomes lost upon him, and the only thing that eventually separates them is the burning need for oxygen.

And, as they pull away, in some cheesy, embarrassingly cliche passing thought, Mitch swears the stars above Louis’ dazed, smiling face shine brighter than they ever have before.

#twdgdrabblechallenge #twdg #twdg mitch #twdg louis #twdg louitch #louitch #Q writes

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tanoraqui · 5 years

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those tags? ouch? mod worked so hard?

it’s hard to judge the level of tease vs condemnation in the tone of this, but for the record, I have thought about it, these last…god, over six years, and I’ve essentially concluded that what I put in my tags on my blog is my own business, and if the creator of a work I’m reblogging has some reaction to them, that reaction is not my responsibility, because they deliberately came to my space in order to view feedback on their work. Because is how tumblr works - you don’t see tags on your post unless you seek it out, even if “seek it out” is defined as “downloaded an extension years ago to show you tags with reblogs.” That’s still putting in extra effort, going the extra mile, or at least meter. I’m not adding my comments to the reblog, which they would automatically see in their Activity feed, nor am I replying to the post, ditto - tags are, everyone generally agrees, a place to sort things and to ramble in an undertone visible to you and your followers. If someone copies it onto the post with a reblog, that’s cool, but it wasn’t you that added it in a permanent and visible manner.

So if the creator then finds that I’ve commented - in the undertone permanent only on my own blog - with some critique, or maybe tagged it some way they never would have thought to just because it reminds me of that thing, how they feel about it is their concern, not mine. It’s a result of a thing I said, yes, about their work, but not to them. Just because a fellow tumblrer is more likely to see those comments than, say, JK Rowling is to see my extended complaints about the Fantastic Beasts movies - posted in this open forum where she is physically capable of seeing them but is unlikely to - does not mean I have cause to feel guilt or delight in any reactions they might have.

That’s the black-and-white answer, at least. The core of it. I’m aware, however, as I should be, that it is VERY much more likely that a tumblr-based creator like Modmad is going to see my tags than Rowling is, so I deliberately couched the comments in question in the classic compliment-critique-compliment sandwich of all good workshop comments everywhere - and you’d better believe I mean those first and last comments, too. I didn’t expand on them as much, but they were weighing on my chest less bc they’re positive, and what am I supposed to do, ramble endlessly about how much I like Mod’s duck comics? I mean, I could. I hope the fact that I keep reblogging and carefully tagging them all is some indication. I actually fully support the decision to make Leo an evil businessman doing it for a mix of profit and the lulz, rather than a scientist who believes in “pure” logic over magic, for the edited reasons here (shit, I didn’t think of that either), and because I agree that it WOULD have been kind of heavy-handed. There’s nothing wrong with bringing in one’s feelings on current events, and fuck that sort of businessperson.

Not that I’m the ultimate authority on skillful storytelling, but, like, I’m pretty good. Not to brag, but I’m pretty good. And it would have been better if there’d been some dialogue of, like, Magica asking Leo “WTF”, maybe more explicit reasoning/arguing/defining character moment from her about how she wants to use these animals but sustainability is important and when you get right down to it, she just likes magical things and wants it to thrive. She’s not a “hero”, but she has her own code. Then Leo is like, “But you’re still not one of heroes, so have you considered: pure profit”. Leo is working on a different angle of “pure” than Gladstone and to a lesser extent Magica, or at least, his moral code is roughly “who cares so long as I make money”, but the overall moral becomes much more coherently “purity in ‘moral’ actions is often impossible and when it’s not, it’s usually indistinguishable from heartless, dangerous extremism, so we should all just be thoughtful and aware of nuance and keep trying our best.” Which was, I think, the message Mod was trying to get across, and overall did really well.

…back to the non-specific-comic point: being aware that there was a decent chance Mod would see my tags, I did in fact deliberately leave out a comment that the particularly sketchy art of this comic got difficult for me to follow in the action sequences, because I know damn well that’s not Mod’s fault. I’m trying to offer some idle workshopping, now remind them of things they definitely feel bad about and cannot control bc tendonitis/carpel tunnel is a Bitch. I’m saying it now, despite the at-this-point high probability that they’re going to see this post, because I want to emphasize that I am aware of the impact of my tags on a creator who might read them, even if they are seeking out that response and thus accepting their own responsibility for said impact, and I’m not trying to be an asshole.

Edit added about a minute after posting: It would also be different if the creator in question followed me, because then then I WOULD assume that they would see my reblog of their work, and at least the first couple tags. I would in that case - indeed, I have in the past - either put critique under a Read More in a separate post, or PMed them, or put it in the tags but preceded by a tag like “warning: some critique coming next”. Because IMO constructive criticism is always good, but sometimes people don’t want it just now, or not for this work, and even if it’s all good, it’s polite to let people know it’s coming if they’re not already in a space explicitly for it (like a writing workshop.)

#random anon asks #fandom #tumblr

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mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker · 6 years

Link

Let’s debunk this hot trash

“Part of the problem in front of Marvel Comics is the Marvel Universe is one long, mostly-unbroken line since its inception in 1961's Fantastic Four #1. There have been retcons, changes, tweaks, and cuts, but by and large it's a straight run. The universe has seen a number of resets, but it's mostly been returned to the state that long-time fans are comfortable with.”

Why is this a problem? Marvel is the highest selling comic book company in America and the long continuity is objectively not a problem.

It’s just something people incorrectly claim is a problem.

By the 1990s Marvel already had shittons of complicated continuity that had been going longer than most other long running franchise stories.

The readers back then jumped on ship just fine.

The AMOUNT of continuity you have is never the problem it’s how you manage it. In the days where every issue was treated as someone’s first and made accessible the amount of continuity was never a problem.

“Marvel Comics as a whole and the current creative stewards of its characters have to roll with 57 years of punches. They have to take the good and the bad. In the case of Spider-Man, the current writers, artists, and editors have to occasionally tackle the fact that Peter Parker hit his wife, made a deal with Mephisto to wipe out his marriage, or that Gwen Stacy had sex with Norman Osborn. ”

They don’t HAVE to deal with any of that.

They already dealt with the first of those things and simply SHOULD deal with the other two by erasing them.

But it’s also not like the presence of those things (sans OMD) is a huge hamper on the storytelling abilities or sales of the writers.

“Many of these are moments that readers and creators would simply like to forget, but they're a part of the fabric of the character. ”

Yes and welcome to ‘This is how a dramatic character on serialized fiction’ works.

“With Marvel's Spider-Man for PlayStation 4, Insomniac Games had the chance to start from scratch. They get to pick and choose what works for their version of Peter Parker and his alter-ego. The only backstory he brings to the table is that which Insomniac has carefully considered. This allows the team to drop the facets of Spider-Man that maybe didn't work and play around with some new ideas that might be better. And if Marvel's smart, they should steal some of what Insomniac Games did here.”

Why?

Insomniac already stole from Marvel.

Sales and storytelling potential for Spider-Man is NOT hampered by large continuity or even negative patches of it for the most part.

When bad stories happen so long as they are fixed then things get to move on. Even something as bad as Sins Past isn’t overly a drag because the story itself is so nonsensical it might as well not be canon, people have isolated and ignored it and the scope of the damage it can cause is fairly limited, it doesn’t really cut to the heart of the franchise. The time he hit his wife on the other hand was dealt with and moved on from.

So the existence of bad patches doesn’t really matter. Doctor Who has had no end of bad stories merely in it’s TV incarnation (to say nothing of it’s plethora of spin-off media which are all canon to varying degrees) and all those things still happened. But the show is still going strong and hit stratospheric popularity in the mid-late 2000s and early 2010s.

Hell the Simpsons is still going despite there being at least 20 years of mediocre-bad stories.

“I'm going to be honest. I'm not a huge fan of Mary Jane Watson. I don't necessarily have a problem with the character, but I've never really been a fan either. The marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson was done on a whim and many writershated it at the time.”

Oy vey this shit again.

The marriage was not done on a whim. Stan Lee, the creator of Spider-Man wanted it to happen and EIC Jim Shooter decided to synch it up with the comics.

At the time Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz had been building up to Peter and MJ’s wedding with the intention of her jilting him.

But the build up from them, and other writers like Peter David, was still there.

Only the outcome changed.

As for this ‘many writers hated it’ thing, the article links to ONE writer’s opinion on the subject.

If we actually look at the majority of Spider-Man writers to have written for Spider-Man during and after the marriage we see most of them were okay or neutral on the subject.

David Michelinie wasn’t thrilled with it, but he came on side eventually. Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz were the same. Matt Fraction wasn’t too sure about it but wasn’t innately against it either. Nick Spencer clearly liked it. Howard Mackie has given statements indicating he was against it at a time but might over all be neutral. Roberto Aguirre Sacasa has never said anything on the subject to my knowledge but his work implies he’s supportive of it. Mark Millar has never said anything on the subject. J.M. DeMatteis, J. Michael Straczynski and Peter David have been outright supportive of it, as was probably Todd McFarlane, Jodie Houser and for sure artist Ryan Stegman.

Oh and Stan Lee the creator of Spider-Man. Let’s not leave him out.

Compared to that we have Roger Stern, Terry Kavanagh, John Byrne, Paul Jenkins, Gerry Conway and Jim Owsley who were against it.

Conway’s opposition was possibly due to his going through a divorce at the time. Stern’s opposition was based upon his idea of MJ being stuck in the Silver Age but he wasn’t innately opposed to Spider-Man marrying in general. Jim Owsley on his linked to blog (where he routinely lies, including claiming Ron Frenz was potentially suicidal when he never was) had a stupid sexist rationale for disliking the marriage. John Byrne is creepy shithead who would’ve preferred Spider-Man was dating underage girls anyway and along with Terry Kavanagh never wrote a good Spider-Man story in his life. In Kavanagh’s case he never even wrote a good story in his life.

So of all those people only Paul Jenkins dislike of it wasn’t unjustified. But he was an outlier.

Every other writer either liked it, was neutral on it, disliked it for nonsensical reasons or didn’t know about good storytelling in the first place to make citing them worth a damn in the first place.

And aside from aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall of this...does the author realize Peter and MJ’s relationship and MJ’s whole character doesn’t begin and end in the years they were married?

Like he talks about their marriage as though this being bad proves their relationship and her character is bad when there was 20+ years of MJ prior to that.

“I think Peter has had better love interests over the years, including Gwen Stacy. ”

And the author would be wrong.

Gwen Stacy is neither better nor more interesting that Mary Jane.

That’s why THEY KILLED HER!

“Part of that is giving Mary Jane something to do. She's been a model and an actress, but the books were always more concerned with the superheroics, so you never really got the chance to feel her drive there. She was a nightclub owner, but again, the same problem persisted. ”

Except Spider-Man stories ARE NOT MORE CONCERNED WITH THE SUPERHEROICS!

My God. How the fuck can someone have read any number of Spider-Man stories and not realized, oh yeah, the book is about Peter’s life over all and his normal life is as if not MORE important than whoever he is punching this month.

By this logic Harry Osborn, Aunt May, Flash Thompson and literally every supporting cast member who isn’t J. Jonah Jameson or like Ashley goddam Kafka, is a better supporting character than Mary Jane.

Mary jane doesn’t have to be involved in the superhero side of Peter’s life because the Spider-Man series isn’t about that. It’s about his life in general and sometimes one blurs over into the other but not always and frankly if you go by the classic stories not even most of the time.

That’s why on the occasions where such things did happen it was a big deal.

“Other than supporting Peter Parker, what did Mary Jane Watson really want? ”

To be an actress

To be taken seriously as more than a model

To support her sick cousin

To earn a psychology degree

To avoid commitment

“Sometimes she just wanted Peter to not be Spider-Man anymore, which is a downer of a conflict.”

This is another lie.

The ONLY times during which Mary jane didn’t want Peter to be Spider-Man were during the Clone Saga when she was pregnant, he’d retired and Ben Reilly was the new Spider-Man and new main character (meaning there was no issue there) or during the Mackie/Byrne reboot where she was being written deliberately out of character as an act of sabotage.

Unless the author meant like in specific stories where Peter was injured and she didn’t want him to go off and be Spider-Man at that moment or in that specific context, as opposed to wholesale retiring. At which point...how is this a downer conflict? It’s a starkly realistic and emotionally justified conflict in a series built off the back of realistic emotions because Spider-Man is a human drama and soap opera FFS!

“Sometimes, things are good... ...sometimes, they're not.

Go to the article itself and notice the second image the author uses.

If you’ve ever encountered similar lines of anti-MJ/anti-marriage argument before those panels, that artwork or stuff similar to it might strike you as familiar.

Why?

Because it’s from the exact same story. Maximum Carnage.

Every asshole who tries to make this argument uses Maximum Carnage, one of the worst Spider-Man stories over all to bolster their claims. The repetition of scenes from this story (and usually the same scene) is telling because it’s either cherry picking from a notoriously bad story and pretending like it represented a norm (and removes it from important context FYI) or...these people don’t know what they are talking about and just parrot one another with the same examples.

“Over in the Ultimate Comics line, writer Brian Michael Bendis would give Mary Jane a career choice that dovetails well with superheroes: journalist. See, the reason DC Comics' Lois Lane works is her driving motivation—to be the best investigative journalist in the world—puts her on a path to run into Clark Kent and Superman. ”

Yeah and the problem is that MJ worked as well for decades even when she wasn’t a journalist. Shit she worked for the majority of Ultimate Spider-Man’s run prior to her becoming a journalist!

Yeah, remember that tiny piece of vital information the author conveniently ignored. For MOST of Ultimate Spider-Man’s 10 year tenure with Peter Parker as the lead character Mary Jane wasn’t a journalist!

Shit, she worked for her school paper so the idea that it made her involvement in heroics more organic is pretty bullshit.

More importantly prior to her journalist job Ultimate MJ’s role and function within the narrative was strikingly similar to her 616 married counterpart!

“Her intense curiosity and lack of self-preservation makes her endearing; the audience knows what she wants and the lengths she'll go to get it.”

And MJ’s goofy deameanor at times, inner strength, sociable nature, insecutirs, struggles with guilt and commitment make her endearing.

“So Insomniac decided to take the Ultimate version of Mary Jane and play it up to Lois Lane levels. She's an investigative journalist at the Daily Bugle searching for more on the recently-arrested Wilson Fisk. Her own adventures put her on the path to meeting with Spider-Man. You get that moment where they're both asking, "What are you doing here?" and you realize there's old, unmentioned romantic history. MJ already knows Peter is Spider-Man and she's fine with that side of his life. ”

And it works great...in a video game setting where you truly are spending 90% of your time in the middle of action and the plot needs to be entirely in service of that plot.

But in the context of a comic book more about the normal lives of the characters than revolving around superheroics and starring the most famous character (who’s clad in red and blue) of one of the two biggest companies in the world MJ as a journalist would die on it’s ass because it WOULD just be derivative of Lois Lane.

I mean Jesus Christ people also deride Black Cat and Norman Osborn for being derivative of Catwoman and Norman Osborn even though they deviate in big ways. But if Spider-Man major love interest/wife literally also became an investigative journalist and primarily interacted with Spider-Man (at least within the context of the main plot) within that role it would literally just be Lois Lane.

“This Mary Jane's problem is one of equal partnership. She's a great, inventive journalist. Sure, she could die on an investigation, considering where she decides to focus her talent, but in her mind, that's no different from a police officer or firefighter dying in the line of duty. The truth is important. This flips the dynamic a bit; her problem is that Peter doesn't acknowledge that she's also right where she needs to be. She's his equal, even if she doesn't have fancy Spider-powers. ”

MJ was Peter’s equal in the comics too.

Being someone’s equal as a person doesn’t mean doing the same job as them, working in the same line of work or directly contributing to the superhero action.

You just need to be an equal in your personality and agency which in-universe MJ has had.

This is to say nothing of how by this logic Alfred, Batman’s FATHER FIGURE, is not his equal or how Ganke Lee in Miles Morales comics wouldn’t really be HIS equal either or how, again, Spider-Man stories do not innately codify the superheroics as MORE important than the normal life stuff.

“It's a great change.”

Yes it is, in the context of a video game.

“This Mary Jane is funny, a bit headstrong, and leaps sometimes before she looks. ”

You mean just like comic book Mary Jane.

“ Comic Mary Jane has many of these facets, but it's tough to get a grasp on what she really wants outside of Peter. ”

Unless you’ve literally read the issue immediately after Peter meets her where she makes it clear she wants to be an actress. Or read any comic in the interim where she wants to have financial security, be taken seriously, reconcile with her family, indulge in/get over her commitment issues, help her cousin, learn psychology, etc.

“Journalism doesn't have to be the answer, but there needs to be one that intersects with the lives of Peter and Spider-Man. ”

No there doesn’t. In the real world couples jobs don’t have to intersect. Many of Peter’s supporting cast members do not have jobs that intersect with his life outside of the fact that they are his friends and/or family. This is true of other heroes too.

MJ being Peter’s friend/girlfriend/wife is enough of a reason for her to intersect in his life and be featured in this stories, beyond that she can be given subplots of her own just like many other characters had.

Two of the best subplots in Spider-Man involved Flash Thompson. One of them was his and Betty Brant’s affair and the other was his struggles with alcoholism. These were problems that for the longest time Peter wasn’t even aware of but they were compelling and entertaining unto themselves because Flash was a great character and we cared because he was Peter’s friend. However these stories also at no point ever really involved Spider-Man’s life. It was strictly confined to the problems of Peter Parker’s world.

MJ’s job can be much the same.

MJ’s normalacy is in fact a MAJOR reason why so many fans love her so much and why so many people love Spider-Man himself.

Why make her more like Lois and her dynamic like that of Lois and Superman, those two characters who famously are awesome but also not as relatable as Spider-Man and MJ!

“With Insomniac's Mary Jane, everything just clicks into place.”

As would it for comic book MJ if you bothered to pay attention.

“The problem here is Marvel never sat down and explained how this worked. Again, Peter's death was the impetus for Miles becoming Spider-Man. In the Ultimate comics, he had the powers long before he actually put on the costume. Miles' creator Brian Michael Bendis never sat down and explained the new backstory before he jumped over to DC Comics. We don't know the specifics of why this version of Miles took up the mantle, the question of his motivations always remains a bit fuzzy.”

No it isn’t. Miles wasn’t REBOOTED into the 616 universe. He was integrated in with everyone’s memories altered around.

His backstory was the same as in the Ultimate Universe he just literally, physically migrated over.

Miles motivations were thus the same albeit undermined from a creative POV.

“When the title of Spider-Man was passed on in the Ultimate universe, that made sense. But the question the Prime universe needs to answer now is: Why do they share the title? ”

Because that was Miles’ chosen title and Peter gave his blessing for it and on a meta-level it is intended to represent how anyone can be Spider-Man.

“Peter has offered it to Miles, but why does this version of Miles want it in return?”

Because Ultimate Peter died and Miles wanted to honour him.

It isn’t the case of he just ALWAYS existed in this universe. You cannot time travel back like 15 years into the 616 Marvel universe and locate baby Miles Morales He literally, physically doesn’t exist there.

“That's really why these new versions of the characters work. I can see what they offer Peter and what he offers them in return. ”

Comic book MJ offered Peter a human connection, a friend, a confidant, someone to support him and companionship.

Why does she need to offer any more than that when in real life no one is hinging their deeper relationships upon the basis of what that person does for them in terms of their jobs or hobbies.

“And that facet is sometimes missing in the Marvel Comics iteration. ”

No it isn’t.

“I see what they offer Peter, but sometimes it's hard to see what they get out of the relationship.”

MJ gets a friend, companion, someone who understands and supports her, someone who helps emotionally fulfil her and make her a better person and sometimes someone who can help her in times of emotional and physical crises.

“Great artists steal, Marvel. The comic publisher is already bringing Insomniac's Spider-Man into the the universe with the upcoming Spider-Geddon crossover (shown below). Now it's time to steal certain facets of the storytelling for the universe. Marvel Comics is stuck with the millstone of continuity around its neck, but that doesn't mean there aren't new directions the company can move Spider-Man and his amazing friends toward. ”

Marvel has never rebooted it’s history since 1961.

DC has done so in varying ways 5 or 6 times.

Marvel outsells DC.

Of all iconic characters owned by DC, Batman’s history has altered the least from one reboot into the next.

Batman outsells every other DC character.

In the 1980s Marvel fans had no access to the internet, few information books or other resources and few reprints with which to catch up upon the 20-25 years worth of history for the characters and of the few resources they did have not everyone had access to them.

Marvel comics sold more physical copies back then than they do now.

The highest selling Marvel titles of the 1980s and 1990s were the X-Men related titles which had objectively the most complicated, convoluted and least accessible .

So STFU about too much continuity oh my God!

#Spider-Man #Spider-Man ps4 #Spider-Man Playstation 4 #Insomniac Spider-Man #insomniac games #mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #mary jane watson parker #MJ Watson #Peter Parker

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richietozierluv · 6 years

Text

tears over beers - (richie tozier)

Pairing: Richie Tozier x Reader (aged up)

Summary: Richie watches you chase after somebody else, too hopeful to back down from a lost cause.

Request: @beepbeeprichtozier hi! can you write richie x reader based on this song called tears over beers by modern baseball? a little angst but a happy but teary ending pls hahah AND CAN U ADD ME ON YOUR TAG LIST FOR ALL FINN (OR HIS CHARACTERS) FICS? 😁

Author’s Note: okay okay i’m sorry that there’s a little bit more than a little angst but i tried my hardest to do this song justice it is my favorite (but i hope you like it anyways!!!!!)

Word Count: 2,470

Warnings: Swearing, ?Angst? (a lot whoops)

When Richie was just a boy, about fifteen or so, he found himself annoyed by a syndrome of sorts in his bones. He couldn’t help but feel and fall so deeply in love with you, even despite knowing nothing would come from it. During the summer he’d moved to Derry, you both bonded over being alone, and alongside the hurt of finally having someone you could worry about, something you hadn’t had in a long time and missed, he hurt watching you chase after the wrong boy over and over again. In some sad way, when you climbed into his bedroom window on the nights you felt broken, the smile you’d given him, although fake, were his favorites. Because for once, you chose him.

As you slid open his window and carefully climbed through, making sure not to step on any scattered comic books, you whispered, “Richie?” He stirred, now half awake, waiting for you to crawl next to him, like you’d always do. “Hey, sorry Rich, go back to bed,” you joined him under the covers and smiled at him.

“What did he do this time?” his voice was raspy as he stared at you blindly in the dark.

You laughed lightly, “I’m not here because of him,”

Richie’s heart leapt a little, “yeah?” he moved closer, and had you been looking at him and instead of the ceiling, your faces would be an inch apart, “it’s 4am,”

“I know, I’m just, scared I guess,”

“You getting them again? I thought the nightmares stopped?”

“Not about that,” you sighed, “school starts tomorrow, and I have no idea what I’m doing with my life. I just want to leave, skip the decision making and wake up next to someone I love, grab a coffee, and go to work. I don’t wanna worry about how, I just want- I dunno-”

He watched your lips move in the distant light of the streetlamps outside, not listening, and realising how easy it’d be to kiss you. But while he would wake up three hours later next to someone he loved, you’d be wishing you were next to someone else.

“Bill!” you ran up to him in the school hallway and almost knocked him over, wrapping your arms around his neck. Through the crowd of people, Richie looked on and pushed up his glasses, wishing that you’d look at him the same way. “How are you? How was camp?”

“Oh y-yeah it was great, some new k-kid kept getting shit on by b-b-birds. Really the o-only interesting thing th-that happened,” Bill smiled at Richie as he made his way over, and started to complain about the food, and how glad he was to be back.

“I have no idea how you’ve missed ‘mystery meatloaf’ day, but each to his own I guess,” Richie pulled Bill in for a hug, and you rolled your eyes fondly, “it’s good to have you back Big Bill, Y/n’s a lot to handle on my own,”

“Hey!” you shot Richie a glare just as the bell went, and waved Bill off while you both headed to class, “you’re such a dick, Trashmouth,”

“Aw, you know I love you,” and he put his arm around your shoulders.

He couldn’t help but think how beautiful you looked, face squashed against your desk as you tried to make up for the hours of sleep you missed. Biting back a laugh, he realised how crazy he might sound, and pushed you lightly, earning a groan and a half-assed attempt at a middle finger.

“Not my fault you decided to sleep with me,” he smiled, before noticing Greta Bowie, who stared at him openly disgusted. At this, he raised his eyebrows and got back to his work.

“Richie?” you sat up, rubbing your face.

“What’s up?” he said, glancing at you, then at the teacher, who was sticking his ass in Greta’s face. He turned to you laughing, but immediately stopped, noticing that you were upset. “Do you need help? This is pretty easy stuff-“

“Why doesn’t Bill- I just thought since Beverly moved away that he’d, I dunno, look at me?”

“What do you mean?” he frowned.

“Am I just not good enough?” this left him speechless, and before he could say anything he was interrupted by the girl in front of you who asked if she could borrow a pen. You smiled at her, and turned back to Richie, telling him not to worry about it and waving him off.

After class, he pulled you to the side and found himself frustrated, not knowing where to start.

“Richie, I’m serious, just forget about it. I know I’m good enough or whatever,” you laughed lightly, and squeezed his hand, “I’m just tired and- I guess I thought things would be different now,”

“Bill’s not right in the head if he can’t see what he’s missing,” he muttered, and walked away.

With Richie running off to god knows where, you were left in an uncomfortable silence with Bill, trying to make conversation, and being met with more and more blunt answers. You watched him eat today’s lunch, wanting to laugh at his scrunched up face, make a joke, but you could only bring yourself to think about how things used to be. When everything was so easy, and so… right. Ever since you’d been kids, you and Bill had been inseparable, and somewhere along the way you fell in love with him, and he decided he liked holding your hand. Beverly had joined the group two summers ago, and in the moment it took for Bill to look her up and down, you could already feel him untangling your fingers.

“Y/n, you okay?” he could count on you to laugh at all of his jokes, but when you hadn’t so much as smiled, he realised you weren’t listening.

“Oh- yeah- I’m alright, ha-have you seen Richie?”

“I d-dunno, he might be smoking s-somewhere,”

“He’s actually quit since you’ve been gone,”

“No shit?”

“No shit.” You both laughed, and you realised it hurt more to get along with him than to sit there in silence. So you stood up, told Bill you’d see him later, and walked off before he’d notice you crying.

“You okay Y/n/n?” Richie found you sitting just outside the school’s building, in between choking on your sobs and choking on the smoke of your cigarette. He sat next to you, not saying anything at first but playing with a loose thread on his shirt. The school bell had come and gone, but he didn’t leave your side. Again, he put his arm around your shoulders, holding on to you so tightly, that you could no longer afford to cry. And with nothing else to do, not wanting to speak, you turned to him and kissed him; he would later remember this day differently, the day you tasted of smoke and tears; and you would taste alcohol, realising that perhaps Richie gave smoking up for something else.

“I’m so sorry, oh my god, I’m so sorry Richie!” you pulled away from him, and uttered another sob at the sight of him with his eyes still closed, lips and cheeks flushed.

“It’s- it’s fine Y/n,” he took the cigarette from your shaking hands and considered putting it in between his lips, hoping to grasp onto any aspect of that kiss. But instead he put it out, taking extra-long to press it into the cement, anything so that he didn’t have to look at you.

“Richie,” you held on to his hand, “look, I’m sorry-“

“You don’t need to be sorry-“

“I just- I need to get better,”

“What do you mean?” he finally looked back at you.

“I can’t take it anymore Rich, everything is too confusing, and… Richie I know you love me,”

“Y/n-“

“I’m sorry that I don’t love you- the way you need me too. But you’re all I’ve got-“

“When he’s not around,” although angry, he didn’t let go of your hand.

“No! Richie I love you so much-“

“But you love him more-“

“Shut up Richie!” you started to cry more. If Richie hadn’t prepared himself for this moment, hadn’t lived with the rejection from his parents and his old friends, perhaps he’d be crying too. “I love you so much, and I couldn’t thank you enough for sticking with me even though I’m such a fucking mess. And believe me,” you couldn’t help but laugh, “I wish I was in love with you.”

Together you and Richie had skipped the last two sessions of school, and made your way down to the barrens. Although you hadn’t been here since the day you came out of the standpipe with Stan and the others, you realised that after coming to your senses, realising that not only had Bill changed, but you as well, you needed to go somewhere familiar.

“So this is where you used to play when you were kids?” he still hadn’t let go of your hand, you wouldn’t let him.

“Yeah,” you pointed over to the Kenduskeag stream, “that’s where we first met Ben, he taught us how to build a dam.”

“Build a damn what?”

“Oh ha-ha,” you tripped over an uneven step in the ground, and almost found yourself on your face, if it hadn’t been for Richie’s hold on you. “Oh my god, this is the clubhouse we built,” you laughed hysterically as you let go of his hand and fell to your knees, pulling apart clumps of dirt and leaves, until you found the wooden roof, and, with the help of Richie, pulled it open. “We almost died in here because of this stupid idea in one of Bill’s or Ben’s books,” Richie looked at you, smiling through his confusion, “I can’t remember to be honest, but- shit, it still smells like smoke.” You climbed into the hole in the ground, and beckoned Richie to follow you, laughing at the look on his face.

You’d spent hours in the clubhouse, with nothing but the hole in the wall as entertainment. You both watched as the pale blue sky grew darker and stained with clouds, laughing as though you both hadn’t made the biggest mistake in your life not too long ago. As the light, as little as there was, cast on Richie’s face, the orange hues and the dirt on his chin made him nothing less of beautiful, but you hadn’t noticed. Richie on the other hand traced the shadows with his eyes, over your nose, and under your lips, taking in every last detail of you, all of you. “I haven’t met Beverly, but for Bill to choose her over you- I meant what I said, he’s not right in the head.”

“He needed more than me,” you smiled at him sadly. “I’m friendly, I’m thoughtful-“

“And quite awfully pretty,”

“-But he needed more than me.”

For a while, all that could be heard was the rushing water of the stream, and Richie’s slow breathing, but in the small clubhouse, with your legs tangled together, you realised you had what you needed. It just wasn’t here.

By the time you both climbed out of the hole in the ground, Richie doubted that his parents would even notice that he hadn’t come home. It was dark, cold, and with his jacket around you, uncomfortable. You felt like you needed to apologise, but didn’t know where to begin. I know he cheated on me but I’m so in love with him that I might as well give him another chance, sorry Rich. So you walked home in silence, hands brushing against each other; something that hadn’t seemed as such an offence a day ago, felt almost criminal after today.

“Y/n, we’re okay right?” Richie was cut off by the sight of Bill on your front porch steps, and didn’t find himself surprised to see you smiling wide and shrugging off his jacket, running towards him.

“Bill, what the hell are you doing here?” Richie could hear the happiness in your voice.

“I-I know things w-wuh-were weird b-between us today, and I’m s-sorry, that’s on m-me,”

Richie picked up his jacket from the curb, wanting to walk away, but felt glued to the spot, as though he was forced to live through his worst nightmare.

“It’s alright, it’s been months,” even in the dark, anyone could notice your cheeks reddening.

“No, the t-t-truth is, s-seeing you in the hallway, i-it made me realise h-how much I’ve missed you. So I spent the h-whole day thinking of what to say, and j-just as I was ab-about to, you ran off to find R-Richie,”

You’d almost forgotten Richie was behind you, but at the mention of his name you turned around, finding yourself in an impossible situation. He looked back at you blankly, and for the first time in a long time found himself trying not to cry.

“Y/n? A-are we o-okay?” Bill put his hand on your shoulder and you turned away from Richie once again, melting at Bill’s touch.

“Of course we are,” and you hugged him tightly, resting your head on his shoulder, finding it hard to feel sorry for Richie when this was everything you needed.

“Y/n?” this time, Richie spoke, his voice noticeably breaking. You told Bill to wait inside, and he kissed you on the forehead, frowning sadly at Richie before turning to make his way into the house. It was easy to hide your smile once you heard what he had to say. “All I can hope is for you to get better, because all I can take is no more- I think it’s only best if you don’t climb into my window anymore,”

“Richie, you’re still my best friend-“

“But you needed more than me, right?”

“Don’t do this, Rich,”

“I’m sorry, and- I hope it works out, I really do. You’ve been the best part of Derry for me, and it’s only right that you get what you deserve,”

“Richie you have no idea how much that means to me-“

“But he isn’t what you deserve.”

Again, for a moment all that could be heard were the crickets in your front yard, and Richie’s slow breathing; and the unmistakable hitch of his breath.

“I’ll see you around Richie, okay?” you squeezed his arm, and turned to leave, but he caught hold of your hand, just enough for you to stay, but enough for you to walk away if you wanted to. You stayed. He pulled you in closer and kissed you once more. And then he left you to watch him leave, the taste of alcohol still on your lips; a taste you’d associate with him on the nights you felt broken, and without a window to climb into.

an: im so sorry i haven’t been posting as much, i just started a new year at school like two weeks ago and between me being stressed and depressed, I’ve had no time, but i’ll definitely keep writing even tho i should be doing homework yikes

tagged: @riverdalerebel @johnsonxstilinski @littlepaperaeroplanes @tn22220-blog @goshdarnitthatsalongname @beepbeeprichtozier @emmaamalie

#richie tozier #richie tozier imagine #richie tozier x reader #IT movie #it cast #it cast imagine #finn wolfhard #finn wolfhard x reader #finn wolfhard imagine #stranger things #stranger things imagine #stranger things cast imagine #mike wheeler #mike wheeler imagine #mike wheeler x reader #richietozierluv

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bphillipyork · 3 years

Text

I love Magic, the Gathering, but I also hate it.

What people understand of a genre, and in fact, in a larger sense, of reality, is shaped by what they read and observe, what they hear, and is told to them. You can’t read everything, you can’t observe all the art and news and reports, but other people read the things you don’t, and it influences them. In genre fiction agents and publishers talk about comps, and what are considered comps are in a sense shaping what you can and can’t write about.

In that same way long-enduring franchises like Star Wars, Star Trek, Futurama, Marvel Comics, these things help shape what is possible to consider possible. In politics, this is referred to as the Overton Window.

Magic, the Gathering has been around since 1993 or so. It’s the invention of a mathematician and math teacher, Richard Garfield, and it spawned an entire type of game – the collectible card game. If you read fantasy novels, or science fiction, you’re probably at least marginally aware of magic.

The basic premise is based on a series of books by Lyndon Hardy, to summarize there are different kinds of magic that work differently. Not all that shocking that a physicist would come up with something like that. In some ways, it suffers from the flaw that many “magic as strange physics” suffers from, where overly rationalistic practitioners carefully define the rules of how magic works by performing rigorous empirical testing, in a sense it’s insulting to the idea of western science, which may be one of the few truly valuable, unique innovations of the Western world.

Some may pooh pooh this but I am one of those readers who like the idea of trying to explain magical phenomenon through science, though I think when it’s done it’s usually overly expositional, info-dumping prose. Perhaps the best example of this being done well is in Blindsight, and the vampires that humans have resurrected. To see the author himself give a mock lecture check this out: Peter Watts Vampire Lecture (in character).

I have heard it argued that such construct lacks imagination, and reduces the magical to merely rational, and it is often a failing of modern fantasy, but I think when it’s done well it can be very fun to see how something from history could scientifically have occurred. The problem, in part, is that it’s done all the damn time, especially in film and television, and it’s mostly done really, really horribly. So horribly in fact that anyone with a basic scientific knowledge base knows that it’s absurd, that the explanation makes no sense, that it’s not even remotely plausible.

Such works are sometimes referred to as “hard” fantasy, or hard sci-fi, and hard fantasy is probably more uncommon that hard sci-fi, though much that is considered “hard” sci-fi is not particularly hard.

Magic doesn’t spend a huge amount of time worrying about how people actually cast spells, which is nice, and it doesn’t even do that much with the basic idea of conflicting magics, which I find extremely dissapointing.

In the beginning there was a core idea to magic, each of the colors of magic was tied to two core philosophical ideas

White: Law, Good

Red : Chaos, Fire/Earth

Blue: Reason, Water/Air

Green: Life, Nature

Black: Death, Evil

The color pie has subsequently grown a lot more complex and vague, and subsequently mostly been discarded, which I think is truly a shame.

If you look at a geometric arrangement, there’s a lot of unique interactions (this is an interesting application of how systems grow exponentially more complex, the number of relationships grows rapidly as you add more elements). As opposed to the more usual Western arrangement of elements, with 4 elements in balance with direct opposites, the magic color pie has each color with 2 allies and 2 enemies, based in part on philosophies.

White has allies in Blue and Green, with Life and Nature are closely aligned, and Order and Reason likewise, but then White’s allies actually oppose each other. This is true for each of the colors, each colors allies are enemies and likewise, each color’s enemies are allies. This could lead to a huge amount of interesting philosophical arrangements, with magic taking on the nature of that conflict. Various expansions take place on different planes, and so on a given plane, you could have the different philosophical differences being resolved in different ways, leading to different alignments and different kinds of spells and creatures.

Unfortunately, and perhaps predictably, the vagaries of the market have distorted magic, the company was sold to Hasbro and at first, was an independently managed division, but seems to have been folded more and more into the corporate er… fold. The company is pushing out more and deluxe product faster and faster, at a rate that seems unsustainable. It’s hard to say though, because as the oldest CCG it has enormous brand value that’s built up over the years, and enormous network effect, players drop in and out of magic, but anytime you go to a roleplaying game shop, you’ll find yourself most likely at a card game shop. They may specialize in Warhammer 40k, or Vampire: the Masquerade, but they’ll almost certainly carry magic cards, have magic play nights, host tournaments. In addition Wizards of the Coast owns TSR, thus owns Dungeons and Dragons, so the fate of both are intertwined, and WotC has been willing to push “synergistic” products, with a recent release being adventures in the forgotten realms, the most default and generic of D&D settings.

There’s another product, Master of Magic, which came out in the Era of Civilization, the first of the series, and was a kind of smash-up of Magic: the Gathering and Civilization, which closely mirrored the five magics and their philosophical struggles. There’s apparently a remake planned, and information about it is on steam, but I’ve been tricked before, a game that was supposed to be a Master of Magic sequel became Enchantress, and there have been others.

What I find most frustrating about Magic the card game is the refusal to explore the idea space of the philosophies, even though they have associated media like comic books and novels, but I find myself drawn back in to the game, from time to time, like some comet trying to escape a gravity well and inexorably pulled back in, over and over.

The post I love Magic, the Gathering, but I also hate it. appeared first on BPhillipYork.

source http://bphillipyork.com/2021/09/13/i-love-magic-the-gathering-but-i-also-hate-it/

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ehstarwar · 4 years

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flesh stays no farther reason (3/6)

Absent his post, their lives would have never collided. Rey had no place in his life.

And yet… he kept talking to her. Kept asking for more time. How do you tell someone that their attention is killing you while simultaneously being the only thing keeping you alive?

Five times Ben looks for Rey and the one time she finds him.

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 6.5K

Read on AO3

ur lying

I’m not, actually.

u have to be bc if ur not lying then i can never fuck u again

Okay, then I’m lying.

you don’t read any fanfic?? like ever?

Why bring yourself more pain?

um fanfic TAKES AWAY the pain

i stg the only reason i still watch Galaxy Battles is bc

the fanfic authors are so fckin good

Rey smiles at her phone for what feels like the thousandth time that day. Plutt’s already yelled at her twice about being on her phone in front of customers, but, no one is in the shop right now and Plutt went home. There’s only 10 minutes to close, so Rey keeps herself occupied with closing procedures and tries not to get too worked up about her and Ben’s conversation.

In the two days since they last saw each other, they hadn’t stopped talking. They talked all day about inane things or cute pets that she saw on her way to work or societal issues and if Ben had the technology to rig the election so the orange ball of racism would be decidedly removed from office. Not yet, he’d said, but believe me, I’m trying.

Their latest discourse about Galaxy Battles had started when Rey admitted to creeping on his other Reddit post, including one of how the original trilogy would forever be superior to either the prequel or sequel trilogy. He was wrong of course, but somehow Rey berating his views of the evil emperors return from the grave had devolved into a discussion on Ben’s fan fic reading, or lack thereof.

imma send you some links to some works you

HAVE to read

honestly they changed the way i view

galaxy battles

but you HAVE to kudos and comment on them

after you read them

its fanfic etiquette

While that does sound fun, I can think of something

slightly more useful to do with my time.

um actually u can’t

but enlighten me anyways

See you again?

I’m off work for the next 36 hours if you’re free.

Rey stopped dead in her tracks.

Yes, her heart screamed, go to Ben!

No, her brain declared, you’ve already gone too far with him.

For someone she’d only met twice, Ben was occupying a lot of her thoughts recently. Everything Ben had done thus far in no way indicated that he was going to ghost Rey. Except, of course, the posting on reddit to find someone to fuck sans feelings. Which was hard the second time and would be damn near impossible the third.

If she met up with Ben, they would have sex. It was the very base nature of their relationship. Not that he would want it to be called a relationship at all. He would be sweet and fuck her so well, not even her wildest fantasy would hold up. He would buy her food and let her sleep in a comfy bed. Then, when their time was up, he would go work at his high paying job and schmoozing with the Coursant elite and she would go back to work at an Auto shop that was listed as a laundromat in the yellow pages.

Absent his post, their lives would have never collided. Rey had no place in his life.

And yet… he kept talking to her. Kept asking for more time. How do you tell someone that their attention is killing you while simultaneously being the only thing keeping you alive?

Don’t do it, her brain whispered again. Protect yourself from the hurt; it’s what you’re good at.

But something about Ben made it very hard for Rey to listen to reason.

sure, i’m free.

Ben is a foot taller than anyone else on the sidewalk. He glowers over everybody else, most people giving him a wide berth of space. He’s frowning down at his phone, typing so furiously that Rey is almost too scared to say anything.

“Ben?” She hazards, after a moment. Ben’s head instantly snaps up, and the frown dissipates. It’s replaced by a soft half-smile that makes something flutter in Rey.

“Rey,” He says, looking at her, up and down. Last time, Rey had chosen not to change when coming from work, this time she did not have that luxury. Even if the pair of overalls she was currently sporting were slightly newer than that pair, it was still a potato sack in comparison to Ben’s designer suit.

“Sorry… I, uh, didn’t expect to be doing much after work,” Rey says sheepishly. Ben looks confused, so she clarifies. “I would’ve changed, but…”

“I think you look perfect,” he simply states. She gulps. After a terse minute, Rey rolls her eyes and playfully slaps his arm, hoping to move on from this with some self-deprecation; a superpower of hers.

“Oh whatever. So, should we head to the hotel, or did you have something else in mind?” She asks.

“I’ve made the mistake of not feeding you beforehand twice now, it’s not an error I’m willing to make again. I thought we could have dinner first before.” Ben gestures to the restaurant on the other side of the street. The windows are blacked out, and the valet is wearing gloves. The hostess stand alone looks like it cost the same as a year’s worth of Rey’s rent.

“That’s a lovely idea, but… I can’t go in there.”

“Do you not like their menu? I could have the chef prepare something better, if you-”

“You really don’t see why I can’t go in there?” Rey asks, flabbergasted.

“No,” Ben simply states.

Rey has attempted, her entire life, to make as little of a scene as possible. Some may confuse this for timidness or meekness, but Rey knows better. Her ability to go though life making the least trouble possible for herself is one of the only reasons she’s been able to make it this far. It’s not shyness or second-hand embarrassment that holds her back (god knows she’s faced that enough in her life); it’s the desire to go on living life without creating trouble. Ben, it seems, does not understand that.

“Ben, regardless how you feel I look, the people in the restaurant will balk if they see someone like me, looking like this, walk into a restaurant that serves one dish that is more expensive than my apartment. I can’t go in there.”

“Why do you do that?” Ben asks, looking terse and unhappy. “First at the hotel, now here. You act like you don’t belong somewhere.”

“I don’t belong here.”

“You do. You’re here, so you belong here.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It could be, if you wanted it to.”

Rey sighs. This isn’t a conversation she’s willing to have with him, certainly not on the sidewalk during rush hour on a Thursday, and there’s a sinking feeling in her gut that Ben will not drop this without creative thinking on Rey’s part.

She scratches the back of her neck, looking anywhere but Ben. He’s stare at her, waiting for her to respond, giving her his undivided attention. It heats her cheeks.

“You know, I actually had a restaurant I was really looking forward to eating at for dinner; why don’t we just go there instead? If you really want to eat your… fancy food stuff, I can just meet you back at the hotel.” Ben’s frown falls slightly, replaced with a look of neutrality, and Rey represses a sigh of relief.

“I don’t care about eating there, Rey, I want to eat with you.”

“Okay, then Waffle House it is.”

It was comical how large Ben looked inside. The harsh, bright lighting made his hair look shinier than Rey had ever seen it, and he barely even fit in the small booth covered in yellow linoleum. When he grabs a laminated menu off the rack, Rey chuckles.

“Is it safe to assume you’ve never been to a waffle house before?” She asks, head cocked sideways. He shoots her a dirty look.

“I’m not entirely uncluttered, you know. I frequented the local waffle house plenty of times in undergrad.” Ben holds up the large plastic card in front of his face.

“If that were true, you wouldn’t need to look at the menu.” Rey pulls the menu down to the table and gives him a sweet smile. He softens at that.

“In my defense, it’s been a while,” He shrugs.

“Well, nothings changed. I’m pretty sure these were the same menus they used in the eighties.”

Ben inspects the menu carefully before putting it down. A older server comes over, giving them drinks (an orange juice for them both, Ben begrudges), and taking their order before leaving them. For the first time since she’s met Ben, the silence is uncomfortable.

“How was your day?” He asks after a moment. Rey is still looking at her chipped fingernail polish when she answers.

“Fine… long, I guess. It was my ninth day in a row,” She tells him. His gaze darkens.

“That’s criminal.”

She shrugs. “I get the next two days off so, it’s not totally unexpected. How was you day?”

“Busy. My bosses boss is visiting in a few weeks, so the office is in a state of chaos.”

“And yet you somehow stumbled upon 36 hours off?”

“An imposition from HR. I’ve accumulated enough sick leave to last a few lifetimes. When my boss got the memo, he sent me home. Told me to rest up for the weeks ahead.”

“Someone who’s accrued that much sick leave must have worked a lot more than nine days straight,” She taunts. “That’s criminal.” Ben rolls his eyes, but the corners of his mouth twitch.

Another moment of silence passes, making Rey squirm in her seat.

“I think I need to apologize, for earlier,” She says. Ben looks confused. “It was sweet of you to ask me out to dinner in your limited time off. I should’ve reacted… better.”

One of his large hands reaches the short distance across the table to grip hers. Her hands are dwarfed by his, so she stares down at them instead of looking up at him.

“I’m sorry, too. I can be… callous when it comes to others feelings. I should’ve warned you instead of thinking you’d blithely go along with my plans.” When Rey finally looks up, Ben is looking at her with the sweetest and softest expression.

Okay, her brain concedes, this is nice.

“I do have to admit,” he continues after a minute, “my intentions are not entirely virtuous.”

“I certainly hope not,” Rey grins, “because neither are mine.”

He brings her to a different hotel this time. Something much more modern and cool. None of the employees are wearing outfits too ostentatious, but Rey has a sneaking suspicion that the level of service is probably the same. The valet seems to be expecting them, despite Ben having made no calls during or after their meal, and hands Ben the keys to the room.

Only when they’re in the elevator, away from prying eyes, does Rey mention anything.

“Why the change of venue?” She asks.

“The views from here are better. You can see the skyline much more clearly from our floor,” Ben tells her. Rey scoffs.

“Plan on spending a ton of time looking out the window, are we?”

Ben quirks a brow down at her. His eyes turn predatory and Rey can feel her cunt throb. He slowly backs her into the wall of the elevator, pressing his front flush with hers, arms going out to cage her in.

“I think it’ll be a nice view for you when I fuck you against the window.”

Heat licks up her spine. His face is only a few centimeters away from her, but he keeps his lips to himself. He traces the side of her jaw with his nose, letting his lips skim across her skin, but never stopping.

“You told me once… that I deserved a bed…” her voice is unsteady when she uses it. Ben pulls back slightly, and brings his wrist up to check his watch.

“We still have about 34 hours left,” He replaces his hand and looks back down at Rey, “I think we can fit a few places in.”

His lips have only just brushed hers when the elevator chimes that they’re on their floor.

“You like this,” He whispers in the shell of her ear. “Being held up, open for any and all to see…” His cock drags inside her once again and Rey gasps. The glass is cold against her hand, and she can see her breath fogging up the window. Ben tightens his grip on her hips as he slowly pulls out of her again, making her whine.

“What was that? I didn’t quite catch that, baby.” He says, pressing a wet kiss to the top of her shoulder.

“Please, daddy…” Her hands clutch at the glass. “Faster… please,” She begs. She’s rewarded with a few quick thrusts. Her head lulls back, making him kiss at her throat.

“Good girl… asking so nicely,” He murmurs. Rey can feel a twitch of an orgasm approaching her.

“Gonna… make me… come, daddy…” She breaths. Ben snakes a hand downwards, until it finds her clit. He rubs her with soft strokes, flaming the fire within her. She tries to grind down on his hand, but Ben thrust into her harshly again keeping her where she it.

“Come on, baby…” he mumbles, “come all over me… above everyone…” His thrust move in time with the strokes on her clit, and the air in her lungs is sucked out as she tumbles into an orgasm. She’s boneless as he works her through it, still stroking her and pounding into her. She can feel the control slipping from his hands, the movements becoming erratic.

Rey can feel his muscles straining against her over-heated skin. Their bodies are sweaty, only adding to the sound of wet skin slapping against each other. It feels like she’s floating when coming down from her high. Ben grips her tighter as he begins to come, putting fresh bruises in her skin with his fingertips.

His mouth finds the back of her neck, and she can feel his teeth clenched as he comes. He grunts into her skin as his cock twitches within her; she can already feel the warmth of his come seeping downwards. Ben holds her hips flush with his as he continues to pump her full of him. He puts one hand on the font of her lower abdomen, and instinctively, she places her hand over his.

“I can feel myself… like this,” he says, mouth still against her neck. “I can feel myself inside of you… fuck…” he whispers. She strokes the back of his hand with her thumb as Ben regains his breath; trying to comfort him for reasons she didn’t understand.

His breath is hot against her neck, but she loves it. Love the feeling of him alive and hot against her. It fills her with a fuzzy feeling she’s unused to.

“Do you think that’s enough?” He asks, dryly. Rey ignored his comment and continued filling the ridiculously large tub with even more bubbles. The bottom of the tub is hard beneath her knees as she waddles her way over to the faucet, pouring the remaining soap underneath, filling the air with lavender.

Ben sits on the other side, arms stretched out of the tub, one knee just above the surface of the bubbles. Even though his comment was sarcastic, the expression on his face is soft. It makes Rey want to melt.

When she finishes adding every soap that was on the counter to the boiling hot water, she scoots herself in between his open legs. Her back leans onto his chest, head cradled on his shoulder, while his arms come down to wrap around her midsection, hands resting on her thighs.

“I don’t get to take baths like this. I think it’s only fair I add whatever soap I want to,” She says, once she’s comfortable. Ben only hums in response. He traces his nose on her wet hairline, lips brushing her skin every so often. If the plastic of the tub weren’t so hard on her ass, Rey would’ve fallen asleep.

After their tryst on the window, Ben had ushered her into the bathroom to clean her up. Ben notices as soon a her eyes landed on the tub that took up a solid quarter of the room, and silently obliged to bathe with her.

Ben’s hands begin massaging her thighs, so she does the same. Her hands seek him out, and land on the thick, corded, muscular tops of his thighs, hands tickled by the sparse hair there.

“Mmmm…” She mumbles, while feeling him up, “I want to ride your thighs later.” She feels him smile against her skin.

“Okay,” He says, voice low. She feels it rumble from his chest and sinks further into him. She can feel his cock, already half-hard again, against the small of her back, but Ben does nothing to indicate that he wants to move any time soon, so she ignores it.

His hands come up to caress her torso, fingers brushing just on the underside of her breast as they work in a rhythmic pattern. Her skin feels hyper-sensitive everywhere he’s touching her; against her back, his hands on her torso, his legs against hers. She wonders, idly, if he’s as unused to this kind of intimacy as she is. It’s not a secret that the two of them need to physically feel each other whenever they’re together. Rey is curious if this is one of the few ways he experiences intimacy, as it is for her.

“Ben?” She asks. He hmm’s against her, nose still tracing the side of her face. “You don’t… do this… with other people, do you? I don’t think you do, but… I’m curious.”

To his credit, Ben doesn’t really falter in his movements. There is a slight pause as soon as the words escape out of her mouth, but he resumes so quickly, Rey isn’t even sure the hesitation happened.

“Would you be jealous if I said yes?” He asks.

Her entire body stiffens. The water, hot against her skin, suddenly feels like ice.

“I don’t,” Ben says quickly, clearly attuned to the change in her demeanor. She relaxes again, but keeps slightly on edge.

“Why not?” She prods further, “It’s not like there’s anything holding you back.”

She feels him sigh beside her. His hands suddenly wrap around her hips, twisting her until she’s facing him and seated in his lap. The steam from the bath has formed sweat all over his skin, so he’s practically glowing in the yellow light. He looks like a greek god; full of imperfections that suit him perfectly. Her mouth goes dry at the sight.

“Do you want me to have… this, with anyone else?” He questions. Rey has to bite her lip from screaming absolutely fucking not!

“Does it matter what I think?” She counters. His eyes narrow at her.

“It does to me.”

Rey softens. Her hands come up to trace the features of his face, down to the hard planes of his chest that peak above the water.

“We’re treading in dangerous water, Ben,” She says before looking up at him. He smirks lightly.

“I think there’s a little too much soap in here, but I hardly think that makes it unsafe,” He jokes, playfully looking around the tub. She splashes him with soapy water, giggling in his lap. He holds her tighter, then bringer her closers to him to kiss her.

Kissing him is many things at one; it’s hot and sweet, promising yet daunting, full of emotion that words can’t convey, but above all, it feels so, so good. The kind of goodness that Rey has searched for in every person and yet to find. It’s terrifying, but she does it anyway.

They make out for a while, hands roaming over pruny bodies, until he’s fully hard again and Rey is wet enough to sink right onto him. They both loose their breath at the sensation, lips still touching but not quite kissing. After a minute, she begins to move, working herself up and down onto him in an unhurried pace. It makes the stretch of him even more pronounced and hot.

His hands guid her hips, and she complies, moving in any direction he so chooses. They only break from each others mouth to kiss at different part of skin; both going for the neck. She leave bites and bruises and he does the same. I hope they’re purple and huge, she thinks; I hope they last forever.

After a while, he whines into her mouth, needy and desperate.

“There is nothing… like coming in you… take me so well… such a good girl…”

She grind down harder on him, liking this desperate, pleading thing hie’s become.

“Wanna make you… full of me… mark you with… my come… would you let me? Let me- fuck- let me fill you… over and over… until you’re mine? Would you?”

She nods against him, telling him “Yes… yes… I’m yours.”

“I have tomorrow off, too. I don’t know if I mentioned that,” She tells him once they’re dry and in bed. She didn’t exactly plan for this, so she has no clothes of her own to change into, but Ben seems more than happy to let her snag his white undershirt from earlier. With no panties, of course.

“You did,” he mumbles against her stomach. She’s lying on her back with Ben’s head on her stomach, kissing her skin through the fabric. Rey had one hand brushing though his silky hair, the other holding her phone up as she text Rose.

hey, I won’t be home tonight, Ben called me again

i don’t think i’ll be home tomorrow either, but i’ll

keep u posted

…

are u sure its healthy to be spending this much

time with him?

wasn’t it supposed to be a one night stand?

yeah but the sex is good so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

why don’t u invite Finn over since u have

the place to urself??

don’t try and divert. I’m worried about u

I don’t want u to get hurt, regardless if

the dick too bomb

Rey doesn’t respond. She doesn’t know how to. She wants to accuse Rose of having a secret mic into Rey’s inner most thought and using them against her, but even she knows that’s crazy. Instead, she puts her phone down and luxuriates in the weighted blanket that is Ben.

They’ve been asleep for hours, but it’s still dark out. Rey is secretly thankful for the stormy weather outside, like it gives her an excuse to stay in this bubble with Ben. He’s still snoring softly, head buried between her shoulder and neck. She thinks of their second conversation when he told her he lean’s towards domination. Defiantly a switch, she thinks. Ben has wrapped himself around her, practically suffocating her with his embrace.

Rey loves it.

His face is buried in her cunt. So much so that she’s worried he’ll never resurface. He licks with sure, hard strokes, noes rubbing at her clit. It’s a cataclysmic rush of sensations that has her mewling and writing above him. She can see from the corner of her eye, him bucking his hips into the mattress beneath them. And she’s fucking jealous of it. A mattress.

“Ben…” She whines, high pitched and needy, no real message to convey, just liking the way his name feels rolling off her tongue. He grunts against her and sucks her clit.

Her hands tug his hair, trying not to be too rough, but knowing that he liked to be pushed a bit. His teeth graze her labia as a warning, but she pays it no mind. Rey tries to wedge a leg under him, so that she can feel the hardness between his legs and maybe even give him some relief. Ben obliges, using a hand to guide her leg under him, so that his cock brushes against the back side of her calf when he thrusts.

The threat of orgasm is imminent, marching towards her quickly and not giving her time to even breath. Her fingers find the shell of his ear, and Rey remembers how endearing she found it when they got red after sex. Her thumb caress his ears, hands covering them.

Ben looses his mind.

His bucking becomes more wild and his tongue more sure. Rey is stung into her orgasm when his teeth gently nip at her clit, either purposefully or not, and she can feel the hot come from Ben coat her leg.

It’s an overwhelming rush of sensations.

His come spurting out onto her skin and the sheets, his face now sopping with her juices, one of his hands holding her stomach down, the other holding her leg so that he can empty himself on her.

He’s gasping against her as his body shudders. She feels the last few gentle twitches of his cock against her calf before he stops moving and basically melts on top of her.

“Sorry… it was- my ears are- it was so good…” he says, still breathless. Rey makes an experimental stroke of her thumb along the shell of his ear once more, causing Ben to whine but not asking her to stop. She wonders how quickly he could come again, maybe just like this, but decides to save that hypothesis for a later date.

Instead, she holds him as he weakly climbs up to be closer to her.

Rey groans when she rolls over to an empty bed. Her stomach drops and suddenly her whole body is alert, immediately shaking off any remnant of sleep. She sits up quickly, panic running down her spine, mouth already open and dry with fear.

Thankfully, she spots Ben right away.

He’s sitting at the desk, typing on a computer, face illuminated only by the light from the screen. He looks so focused and Rey hesitates for a moment, considering weather or not to disturb him from his work. Screw it, she thinks, I only have him for a few more hours; his work can wait.

She gets up on unsteady legs, taking a moment to peak from behind the blinds. It look early out, even in the grey pouring rain. She slowly makes her way over to Ben, who still hasn’t noticed that she’s awake. She shuffles her feet, trying to make more noise as not to scare him before placing her hand on his shoulder.

Ben’s back straightens, and he looks up to Rey, who is pulling his rolling chair back and climbing into his lap with no resistance from him. He’s naked still, she notes, and so is she. She straddles his lap and brings her hands to his biceps. His mouth seeks hers out instantly, pressing wet kisses against her lips.

“Why are you… not… in bed?” She questions between kisses, trying to to sound too petulant. Judging by his chuckle, she’s clearly failed.

“I had some work to wrap up,” He tells her, hands now roaming her bare back. She glances at the clock, flashing a bright 6:43.

“You still have… 24 hours of… your weekend left… no work,” She says, sighing into his mouth. He pulls back, and her mouth instinctively goes to chase it, but stops when she sees him slightly smiling at her.

“You were asleep; I figured I could multitask. After all, you’ll need your strength for everything I have planned for today,” Ben tells her, voice going low. Rey surpasses a shiver.

“Plans?” She questions. He nods. “Care to enlighten me on these plans?”

“Well, you mentioned something about riding my thigh earlier, and I figured if you’re going to ride that, my face might feel left out so we should add that to the list,” Ben says, making Rey chuckle. “Then my cock might feel neglected also, so you should probably ride that at some point too. And I did have a dream about what my come might look like on your tits, so, I think today would be a good day to find out.”

Rey throws her head back laughing and Ben adjusts his hold on her, squeezing her tighter to him.

“So, as you can see, you’ll need your strength if we’re going to get through all of that today, Ms. Niima,” He taunts. Rey brushes some hair behind his ears, fingers purposefully ghosting them and making him shudder.

“That sounds like an excellent plan, Mr. Solo. What should we start with first?” She questions, already feeling his cock twitch where it rests between the two of them.

“Anything you want, Ms. Niima; I’m yours for the taking.”

Rey considers him for a moment, even though she’s already made up her mind. She squirms in his lap before settling her self firmly on one of his tree-trunk legs and begins grinding down. Her cunt is still puffy and slightly sore from all their… activities, but the feeling of his muscles beneath her is too delicious to pass up. She grinds her self until she is slick and wet against him. Ben drops his head to her shoulder, breathing deeply. She thinks of how much his words affect her when he’s the one talking, so she decides to give it a try.

“One of the first things I noticed about you… was your thighs,” She starts. “They’re so fucking strong, even in your pants. I didn’t know how to ask for it, that first night. But I couldn’t get it out of my head.”

Ben’s hands go to grope her ass, squeezing, as he breaths heavily against her sternum. His thigh is covered in her now, and she moves with a sicking wet sound that fills the room.

“I tried everything, after that. I humped pillows, tried to get off on the edge of my bed, even considered buying a sex doll just to recreate what your thigh would feel like,” She admits, voice becoming breathless as her movements pick up. Ben’s cock is red and twitching now, leaving a drop of precome on his stomach where it bumps against. Rey works faster now, fingers digging into the meat of his shoulder, no doubt leaving red slits in their wake.

“I thought about messaging you every night, trying to come up with some eloquent way to beg you to ride your thigh into oblivion. Even if it’s all you would give me; I wanted you dripping in my come like I’m covered in yours.”

“Rey,” he warns. She can feel herself approaching orgasm, so she readjust her hips to get her clit to hit his skin with every stroke. She gasps and feels Ben’s teeth on her neck.

“Want you… to wear my come… all day… soak it into your skin…so it stays,” She moans out, finding it harder to speak the closer she gets.

“Yes… yes, please…” Rey hears him beg. She can feel his cock so hard against her, but he’s brought no relief to himself in the form of his hand. She resist the urge to grab him and jerk him off, deciding it’ll be much more satisfying to see him come without her even touching it.

She moves quicker now, searching for that peak, and finds it so fast it scares her. Her orgasm wreaks through her body, sizzling down her spine and making her cunt clench and drip onto his thigh. Her hand goes to grip it, holding Ben’s thigh someone even closer between her, and letting her juices flow onto him. Ben comes too, with a cry into her skin. His cock twitches desperately as the white fluid spurts out of him, coming up to coat her abdomen. A rouge stripe of come lands on his shoulder where it’s bent to lean down onto her, and she licks it up without hesitation.

They sit together, not moving for a moment, catching their breath. Ben breaths heavily onto her skin as she licks up the sweat beads that have formed on the side of his throat. She whispers sweet endearment of good boy and thank you for coming for me. She uses a hand to trace up his spine to the back of his head, feeling Ben become putty in her embrace.

It’s a power trip unlike anything she’s experienced before.

Rey doesn’t tell him then, but she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they will be doing that again.

“Tell me what your childhood was like.”

She doesn’t know why she asks him. They had been silent for a while, but the conversation preceding the question had nothing to do with that topic. But still, the words bubble and spill out of her without a chance for Rey to begin them in.

She’s lying on top of Ben, listening to the soft thudding of his heartbeat, while some old Galaxy Battles that just happened to be on TV is playing. His hands a tracing her spine, occasionally dipping lower to kneed at her ass. His hands have stoped, midway down her back, but resume quickly.

“It was… loud,” He says, prompting Rey to push herself up to stare at him. “My mother is… popular, you could say. There was always something going on at our house. Meetings that turned into dinners that turned into parties that turned into more meetings. There was always so many people around that I didn’t know. But my father…” Ben trails off for a moment. “He didn’t like it either. So he’d leave for weeks at a time. Sometimes I think my mother didn’t even notice. God knows she didn’t notice me.” Something bitter traces his voice so Rey hums against his skin. “I was… not considered much, when I was with them. An extra bag they needed to pack whenever they went away.

Rey nuzzles her face into his chest, wanting to skin within his skin and give his heart a hug.

“I left home when I was 18 and didn’t speak to either of my parents for 10 years. The only reason I even started speaking with my mother again is because…” Ben takes a moment, and Rey lets him. “My father died.”

Rey doesn’t breath, unwilling to even move slightly and disturb whatever trace Ben seemed to be in.

“I was the first person my mother called to tell. That had never happened before. It was… strange.” She feels Ben shift beneath her, but his eyes still remain closed. “Our relationship is still awful, but we talk more now. Mostly her berating me for my career choices or asking for grandchildren, but… it’s talking.”

Rey hugs him. Squeezes him so tightly she’s worried he’ll bruise, but Ben doesn’t seem to mind.

“I’m an orphan,” She offers, after a moment. “My parents dropped me off at a fire station when I was two. Or… they think I was two. All they left was a piece of paper that said ‘Rey.’ Supposedly the state searched for my parents for a while, trying to track them down, but I’m not really sure that’s true. I was sent to Jakku when I was five and I grew up in a junkyard there. That’s why I’m a mechanic. I learned how to spot parts that were salvageable since I was a pre-teen. It’s the only thing I was ever good at.”

Her quiet admission hangs heavy in the air.

Slowly, she feel’s Ben roll them over so that he’s above her and her back is on the bed. His eyes are sad when they look down at her, and suddenly Rey realizes her eyes have tears in them too. Ben kisses away her tears, lips soft against her skin.

“You’re good at so much, Rey. More than even I know. So, so good. Don’t ever say that again, please.”

Ben’s plea pierces her heart with such a sharp precision, it feels like she’s been shot.

All at once, every fear that Rey had before meeting Ben comes rushing back. The feeling both of them were trying to avoid, crash around her like an avalanche, and Rey is stuck in the cold, hard ice. Somehow Rey knows that this was meant to happen. That she was meant to be on that Reddit page and refresh just in time to see his post and meet him in that fancy bar and fuck him in that gaudy room and do everything they’ve done together.

Ben kisses her as she realizes that there will be no soft break from this. That wherever this ends will hurt. It’ll break her even. But, even scarier than that, Rey is more than willing to let Ben do that.

“Don’t leave.”

It’s morning. Almost 7. The sun is just starting to peak behind the curtains. The bed is warm where they’ve laid and fucked and made love and held each other all night. The sound of a cart being placed outside of their door is the only besides the fan and their breathing. His hair tickles her face. His arms have wrapped around her so tightly she’s not sure she’ll ever break from his embrace.

“Don’t leave,” She whispers again.

He’s still snoring. He can’t hear her. She says it again anyway.

“Don’t leave me.”

The bacon is still hot by when Ben pulls the breakfast cart in. It’s full of wonderful looking food that Rey would gladly devour on any other day. But she can only bring herself to nibble at the fatty bacon that drips grease down her hand.

Ben is all but ready to go, his suit jacket hanging on the other side of his chair and shoes still waiting by the door. He’s go Rey in his lap and hands digging into the cup of greek yoghurt. He hasn’t stopped touching her since they’ve woken up. They showed together, he ate her out, she brought him off with her hand, they had to re-shower, and now they were enjoying a quiet breakfast. Her hair was still wet and dripping into his discarded bathrobe. She refused to wear her own, and Ben had happy obliged when she asked to put his on after he took it off.

He kisses her neck sometimes and she tries to take inconspicuous sniffs of his hair.

It’s nice outside, if a bit hot. Ben has to be at work in an hour. Rey still has today off. He’s got a busy few weeks ahead. She’s got the same monotonous tasks ahead of her for the foreseeable future. He offered to extend the room reservation so that she could keep it tonight. She declined. He extended it anyways.

She’s met him three times. They’ve talked about some of the deepest trauma any person can go through. They’ve argued about fan fiction. Ben is incredibly wealthy. Rey can’t afford her water bill this month.

Ben leaves her with multiple incessant kisses, each sweeter than the last. He tells her he’ll call, but maybe not for a while. He makes her promise to call if she needs anything at all. He kisses her again for good measure. Then her shoulder her forearms and her hands. Rey doesn’t cry until the door is closed.

She’s falling in love with him. (If she isn’t already.)

It fucking hurts.

come say hi on twitter!

#reylo #adam driver #daisy ridley #ben solo #kylo ren #rey #rey/ben solo #rey/kylo ren #fan fiction #star wars #sw #fluff #but mostly smut #and a dash of angst #my works #fsnfr #chapter 3 #ao3

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fairyshuuu · 7 years

Text

bittersweet part 1

.summary. You’re a runaway Frost Pixie, until you get dragged into the Council, forced to face your haunted past. .word count. 8.6k .pairing. baekhyun x reader .genre. fluff, a tiny bit of angst

.author’s note. this concept is not mine, the universe is not mine. It is a fanfic based on @kollectionn‘s Other World Universe, which you should all be familiar with by now since I scream about it almost daily. This story exists in her universe, but it does not follow her story lines. So, the events that happen in this story are purely made up from my brain. Okay, enjoy!

part 1. part 2.

The city is calm and silent today. It’s nice and chilly, just the way you like it. As you run your hand over the rough textures of the brick wall, you giggle. It tickles. You look back to see the frozen stone crack softly. The streets are pretty abandoned today. It doesn’t surprise you, most people are probably hiding inside to escape the cold. You sigh and breathe out, making a little cloud appear. As you watch the cloud fade out, you reach out a hand. You stand still for a second and reach your hand up to the sky.

A small snowflake comes to rest on your index finger. You giggle again and blow it off, making it float down slowly. You smile at the tiny icicle as it travels towards the ground. They are truly one of the most beautiful things, you think as you walk on down the street. To anyone walking past, you’d most likely look insane, wearing only a thin sweater and some jeans. They would probably be shivering in your place. But, you don’t get cold easily. Well, you do, but you relish in the cold. The cold air on your skin is refreshing. It feels like home.

You silently shake your head at that thought and walk on. As you turn the corner, you sigh deeply. Guess that is one of the advantages of being a Frost Pixie. Something that you are, despite everything, still very proud of. Granted, Frost may seem like a power with only a few uses. But if you know how to use it, it can turn out to be more limitless than first thought. Being versatile is important. And you are pretty versatile. Take Storm Sprites, for example. They basically make large and heavy clouds.

Clouds are just concentrations of water that are cold enough to form a mist-like structure. And cold is kind of your specialty. With some practicing, you had been able to make rain clouds just like some of your Sprite friends back in the Other World. Much to the annoyance of others when it started pouring down, drenching everyone in proximity. Or, Water People. One of their more impressive tricks is being able to split the water and travel through the sea, because they can breathe underwater.

Sure, you can’t breathe underwater, but why would that be necessary when you can just trap air in a bubble of ice and walk along the ocean bottom that way. It might seem like a lot of effort, but it works. You are always trying to find new ways to expand the reach of your powers. Not to impress anyone, or to take over the world like the Rebels. No, just because you’re extremely curious. Always trying to find out how things work and why they do what they do.

Another step and you arrive at your favorite place in the city. The warmth of the café is slightly smothering, you can’t lie and say that you don’t prefer the fresh cold air in your lungs. But hey, not everyone is as antifreeze as you are. As the waitress brings your drink with a smile, you sigh. Somehow, every Frost Pixie you’ve ever known has a mild obsession with hot drinks. At least you are similar in that regard. The feeling of the warm drink heating up your insides is a really calming feeling.

The door chimes and you look over your shoulder subtly. Light Fairy. You grin as you don’t even need a second thought to recognize him. Light Fairies are probably worst at hiding out in the human world. The light just seems to bend out of it’s way to get to them. You smile as he walks in with a shy smile and looks around the shop. Some people make confused noises as to why they are all of a sudden seated in the shadows, making you bite your lip to hold in a chuckle. The poor thing is probably so unaware of it as well. It’s something that comes totally naturally for them. They are just always shining, taking the light with them everywhere they go.

He takes a breath and sits down two booths away from you. You sit facing him, and get a particularly good view of his struggle with some ten dollar bills. He doesn't seem from around here. Probably a new runaway. You smile. You don't get a lot of Light Fairies who run away from home. Light Fairies are very social creatures and glow up around others. They are a lot of fun really. Very innocent and impressionable too. Suddenly, a ray of light falls on your table. You glance up. The fairy has adjusted himself in his seat and is now reading the menu with a slight frown. You grin and look down at the ray of light again. He sure isn’t being very subtle. In the back of your head an idea sparks with joy.

You look down at your hand and cover it in a thin but hard coat of smooth ice, creating a sort-of glove around your palm. You aim your hand in the ray of light and watch it flicker across the room, using your hand as a mirror to let the light play on the surface. You direct it just right until it hits his face. He closes his eye with a soft ‘aw’, and brings his hands to his face. You slam your hand back down, biting your cheek to hold in your laugh. He looks up confused, scanning the room for another of his kind. Any Other World Creature can recognize a Light Fairy from a mile away. Luckily, there are no other Light Fairies in this café today.

You pick up the menu and watch him from above it with a grin, as he scans the room with care. No one who looks like they ate the sun and now carry it around? Nope. His brows draw together in confusion and you have to hold back a giggle. When he finally seems to decide it might be a strange coincidence, you flicker the light in his eyes again. He looks around with big eyes this time, desperate to find the one pestering him. You can tell he is watching everyone in the room carefully, until his eyes fall on you.

You bite your bottom lip hard to avoid laughing and look down, but you can tell your mouth corners are curling up either way. You hear him make a sound of confusion but you don’t look up. Instead, you scan the menu for some good dessert options. After a couple of seconds, you lift your eyes to him. He is leaning back in his seat, his fingers tapping the table nervously. You can basically see his internal battle. Now that he is lost in thought, you allow yourself to take a good look at him. He has a soft face, a small button-nose and big, bright eyes.

His hair is dark brown, falling over his brows and almost into his eyes. Finally, he seems to make a decision and stands up, walking over to the counter. He mumbles something to the waitress, but you can’t make out what it is, before he glances over to you. The waitress hums an agreement. Suddenly he’s making his way over to your booth. He awkwardly stands in front of you for a bit, before sighing and sitting down across from you. You wrap your hands around your warm mug and look up at him. This is going to be fun.

“Hey,” he says, voice soft and careful.

Your mouth is still curled in a slight smirk. “Hi,” you answer.

You just can’t help it. He looks so lost and confused, making him look like a little puppy. He seems to relax a slight bit now that you don’t immediately ask him why the hell he is sitting with you. He looks around the room again before looking at you. Then, he eyes the mug you are holding. “What is that?”

“It’s hot chocolate. You should try some. It’s really good,” you mumble as you bring the mug to your lips again and take a sip.

His eyes follow every tiny move you make, teeth clenching down on his pouty bottom lip. By now, he is probably sure you are not just some human, but then what are you? You decide to put him out of his suffering at the awkward attempt to make small talk. “You should be careful with that,” you muse, pointing at him.

He looks down slightly confused and you chuckle. “With … what?”

“You’ve looked like a christmas tree in comparison to the rest of the room ever since you walked in.”

His eyes widen and his mouth falls open almost comically. Then, he quickly composes himself and leans closer. “So you are an Outsider than?”

You pause for a second. The only ones who call you Outsiders are … Council. You stare for another second before brusquely getting up, throwing a five dollar bill on the counter as you rush past and storm out of the café. As you turn left, walking with big steps while flipping up your hood to cover your face, you hear some murmuring before the door falls closed, but you don’t pay attention to it. You have come too far to let some cute Council member screw it up. Sure, they don't really care about the ones who want to get away, but now you were just sitting right across from one.

Even if he wasn’t planning on taking you back, it’s a risk you’d rather not take. You can feel your anxiety slipping out of you into the air and before you know it, it is raining— no, pouring down, shutting out the sun and drenching your sweater in a matter of seconds. This must be one of the heaviest clouds you’ve ever made. You sigh and keep walking on with a steady pace, turning corners every now and then. Finally, your street comes into view and you can feel the rain calm down. As you put in the last effort to make it home, you feel a tap on your shoulder.

Out of reflex, you elbow the person in the stomach and start to sprint away, but stop as you hear a familiar voice groan your name. You turn to see the guy bent double, his hands holding his stomach. “Damn…” he groans.

You bend down to hold him up. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“That was so unnecessary,” his voice sounds, a little strangled in his uncomfortable position.

You grin down at him as he tries to straighten up. “I told you before, Tao, don’t scare me like that and then this wouldn’t happen.”

He groans as he pushes himself up, making him tower over you. Then, he sighs and ruffles his hair, shaking it like a dog to get some of the rain out. “I trust that this is your work? I just thought that that storm was quite a big one, I wanted to check if you were okay. You’re normally good at controlling your powers.”

“First of all, there are tons of Stormies running around town, you shouldn’t assume it is me every time,” you say, lifting your brows at him. “But, I’m good. Just had a little run-in.”

This seems to catch his interest.

“What? Rebels?”

You sigh, stuffing your hands deep into your pockets as you shake your head at the taller young man. “Nope. Council.”

Tao smiles and rolls his eyes. “Oh, please. We could take them on any day. Actually…” Tao is already off, hauling you behind him. “Let’s go find this scary council member. I’ll show him.”

“Woah, hothead, calm down. I appreciate it, but we are not messing with any Council members.”

He stops pulling you on and turns around to look at you. “Are you forgetting who you are?” His voice gets significantly higher as he speaks, a mix of pride and excitement bubbling to the surface. “The master of Ice, Water and Storm. And I am the very attractive Warrior of Fire with amazing Wushu skills.”

You giggle as he looks at you with expecting eyes. What a dork. “I am not a Master of anything. I just like to mess around. And you are most likely not a Warrior. You ran away screaming bloody murder when I told you there was a bee in the toilet.”

He huffs and puts his hands on his hips, glaring down at you. “Whatever. Who was he anyway?”

You let out a deep breath and put down your hood, running a hand through your hair as you think. “I don’t know. A Light Fairy. He came into my favorite café looking extremely confused, so I assumed he was a new runaway. I was messing around a bit and he came over, asking me if I was an Outsider. It seemed harmless, but I’m not taking any chances.”

He nodded once before turning around and scanning the street. “Well, if you are fine. I’m going to go hang out at Boss’ place. You wanna come?”

“I don’t think she would appreciate me fucking up her plants. No thank you, I’ll be fine.”

He huffs and stomps his feet like a toddler before hugging you tightly. His warmth always makes you slightly light-headed, but you know that your cold hands give him frostbite just as much, so you sit it out. “You are no fun, Bubbles. Luhan goes there too from time to time, and he is fine.”

You smile as he finally lets go and puts you down. “Take care, fire boy. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He pouts but nods and takes off in the opposite direction. You stand in your street for a couple of seconds to enjoy the cold breeze, before turning to your door. But then, you catch an awfully familiar face in the reflection of the window. You turn around with big eyes. The light fairy is standing on the other side of the road, his eyes almost as big as yours and his face slightly red, like he has been running. You quickly push open your door, but somehow he manages to get to you faster. He grabs onto your arm gently and holds you so you can’t escape inside.

“Wow, you are fast,” he pants out, putting his other hand on his chest dramatically. You don’t say anything and instead glare at him. To your surprise, he lets go of your arm when he sees your expression. “Sorry.”

You take a step back and look at him, slightly confused. “Why are you here?”

“You ran out before I even got a chance to ask your name.”

You huff and put your hands in your pockets, giving him your best scowl. “I’m not dumb. I’m not telling a Council member my name.”

He pauses for a bit before realization hits him and he makes an ‘o’ face. “Oh. Is that why you ran out?” he asks, now suddenly looking very sad.

You sigh as you feel your hands go cold, so you push them deeper into your jeans. “Well, yeah. It’s nothing personal, I just don’t like taking risks.”

He seems to consider this for a moment before a huge grin spreads across his features. “That’s a lie. You were playing with your powers in the middle of a room full of humans. I don’t call that very careful.”

“Fine. I’m not very careful. Anyway, why are you here?”

He lowers his head to his toes before he mumbles something. It takes a while for your brain to decipher the words. “Just … curious.”

You stare at him before stepping a bit closer, making him look up. “Of what?”

“You. You were playing around with the light beams but you don’t glow like a normal Light Fairy. How are you so good at controlling your powers?” You open your mouth to answer, but a loud voice down the street cuts you off.

“BAEKHYUN! HERE YOU ARE!” You both look over to your left. The guy who shouted is walking towards the two of you with a mischievous smile, followed closely by another man with a neutral face, his hands pushed deep into his sweater pockets. The smiley one practically has lightning running up and down his arms, making you sigh. How are these men so oblivious to themselves and their surroundings. As he reaches you, you take a step back and he glances over to you, his smile turning into a tight line.

“Uhm… Jongdae. Hey,” Baekhyun mumbles, giving his friend a little smile. What’s meant as a friendly gesture only makes Jongdae more confused at your presence.

“Hello. Who’s this?” He asks, apprehensively looking you up and down. Baekhyun sighs but before he can answer, you cut in.

“Nice to meet you. I have a question. Are you aware of the lightning running around you so clearly that even a normal human would be able to see?” He looks taken aback by your bluntness, but shakes his head. “You should. First, Sunshine here almost blinds me and now you, looking like you have been rubbing your face across carpet for an entire week.” The silent one following behind chuckles with a snort before catching himself and looking back down. “Humans are not the brightest, but they are not oblivious. It’s clear that it’s your first time visiting.”

The silent one bites his lip before speaking up. “It’s not my first time.”

“I can tell. Hands in the pockets, smart move. Though not perfect, Snowflake. Humans breathe out little clouds when it’s cold. You have to think about the details.” When it stays awkwardly quiet, you look around the circle. All three men are looking at you with big eyes, Jongdae’s mouth opening and closing like a fash. It’s this that reminds you that you don’t want to deal with them, so you turn and dash into your complex.

“Bye,” you say— tossing the door closed and leaving them out on the street, extremely confused. Your conscious is nagging you to not leave those clueless idiots out in the street, but you quickly shake that out of your head. Why should you care? They are council, the thing their entire union is about is basically protecting the Kinds against problems like that. You sigh as walk up your stairs, unable to stop replaying Baekhyun’s face the first second he realized something was off in the café. You grin as you think about your best friend. He will love your new trick.

Bubbles, Master of Ice, Water, Storm and Light. You giggle to yourself. No way in hell. Tao is a conceited idiot, but you love him dearly. And you are really trying not to let his dramatics get to your head. Harder than it might seem though, as he finds the smallest things extremely impressive. One time, you made some ice cubes with flowers in them, for fun and because it looked pretty, and when he saw he basically called you an enchantress, because ‘the flowers are still alive inside??’. You smile at the thought of him when you choose to show up out of the blue tonight. Guess you’ll have to bring Tao a visit after all.

The bar is loud and busy, making you pause in front of the door for a bit. Tao, you think to yourself, you are doing this for him. That’s the least you can do as a nice friend. You gently push open the door and are immediately overwhelmed by the amount of people pushed into each corner of the bar. You feel a little dizzy because of all of the different Kinds mixed together. Boss’ café is one where all Kinds can come in peace.

You don't visit much though, one, because most young Kinds love playing around with their powers openly, second, there are plants everywhere. Plants and frost, not really a good combination. You sigh as you walk past the boots filled with Fire Sprites, twisting their fingers around to make the fire in their hands dance, past the Storm Sprites, who are having too much fun shocking each other. You release a tense sigh when your eyes find Tao’s. He gasps and jumps up, pulling you into a tight hug and twirling you around like a child. “BUBBLES!”

“Slow down there, marshmallow.”

“Bubbles! You came!” he repeats, grinning down at you from ear to ear, a proud glint in his eyes.

You just wave him off and cock your head to the bar. “Yes. Aren’t I a great friend?”

“You’re not half bad.” You smile at his response and he points to his booth, urging you to sit down next to him. You are met with another familiar face, big eyes looking you down curiously.

“Y/N.”

“Your Highness.”

The man shakes his handsome head just a tad, and folds his hands together on top of the table. “Please, just Luhan. That title was abandoned when I left.”

You nod and look around the booth some more. Next to Luhan sit two other guys, obviously shadowkinds. They are pretty in control of their powers, the only thing really giving it away is the way the shadows pool around their feet, making your booth fall in a dark corner. You don't recognize the faces, so you look at Tao in hopes he gets the hint. He does. “Oh, right. This is Yoongi and Vernon.”

Yoongi is looking at the table in slight disinterest. His hair is a platinum blonde, making his dark features stand out more. Vernon looks a little softer, regarding you with curious eyes. His hair is a light brown, but he has the same dark features Shadow kinds are known for. You smile at them, before turning back to Tao. “No offence, but why are we sitting with these two Gum Drops?”

Vernon smiles at you and shakes his head, before Tao speaks up. “Well, I know you said last time you don't want it, but I thought you might change your mind, so I was asking around.”

You look at Tao, your stomach turning now. You don't like where this is going. He keeps talking on and on but you spaced out from his first sentence. You know he doesn't mean anything bad— the kid is a sweetheart, but no means no. You look around the room, in hopes of something that could help you calm down. You don't know what you could be searching for, but you hope you find it quickly, because you can feel your hands become too cold for your liking.

You know Luhan notices the drop in temperature too, and turns to look at you with an unreadable expression. Sadly, looking around the room only makes your stomach turn more when you make eye-contact with Baekhyun, the light fairy of earlier. His mouth falls open when you make eye-contact, before turning to his friend and elbowing him. The three of them are now all looking in your direction. You quickly look away and turn back to Tao, trying to focus on what he’s saying. “He’s all alone now, he would be vulnerable. You can just swoop in and give him what he deserves. I know-”

“Tao, I said No.” Your voice is shaky and you can tell that everyone in your booth is now turned to you with some kind of worry.

“I know but-”

“No!” you burst out, making Tao shut up for just a second. Everyone is quiet, but luckily the rest of the room is too busy in conversation to notice your little outburst. You take a deep breath, trying your hardest to get your powers under control. But they are slipping, and you hate that feeling. It’s too familiar, and sadly, to connected to everything Tao is saying.

You know how he feels about the whole situation, but he shouldn’t bring it up again when you are clearly not okay with all of this. But being the fiery soul that he is, he just has to push you further. “No! You need to listen to me for once!”

“Tao, enough!”

“He has to pay! He hurt you and you’re still suffering from it, look at you here! He will-”

“I said ENOUGH!” you scream, voice cracking under the pressure. Before you could register what happens, you hear screams from left and right, people running out of the room quickly. Your hands are shaking with anger and pain, your eyes filling with tears that you try to blink away. You had pushed yourself up in an attempt to get away, but now your knees give out, making you stumble to the floor. Everything around you is blurry, until Tao comes into view. He is looking down at you, tears welling up in his eyes, with guilt and pity. His hands find your shoulders and you feel yourself bend into his touch.

After a couple of seconds, you find enough strength to push yourself up and look at the damage. It takes a second for you to realise rain is pouring down on you. Tao stays mostly dry because the drops hitting his skin evaporate immediately, but the rest of the crew is not that lucky. The floor of the café is drenched, you have never seen this much water on a wooden floor before. You carefully turn around and look behind you, to be met with two pairs of angry eyes. A tall man that you recognize to be Yifan, and a pretty young woman, Boss. She is looking with some kind of compassion in her eyes, but Yifan has a scowl on his face. He is the first to speak up. “What the hell is going on?”

You let your eyes drift to the ground, the hands on your shoulders leaving. Tao steps forward to shelter you. “I’m sorry, sir. It was my fault. I brought up some touchy subjects and didn't stop when I should have.”

You can only lift your head to meet the colorful eyes of the woman. She reaches forward and takes your hands in hers. Her hands are very warm and you are aware you were probably freezing hers, so you try to pull away but she doesn’t let you. She looks a bit confused, but doesn't let it notice too much. “You got it all out now?”

You nod carefully and to others’ relief, the rain stops falling. Most of the time, you are good at controlling your own power. Just, the tricks you have learned over time come out first when your body starts panicking. She drops your hands and looks around the room. Some people are still in the café, looking at you with nervousness that was not there before. You just know that the Council crew will still be here, but you don't care. You are just tired. Boss sighs and you look at her in confusion. Soon, you see what the problem is. All of the plants in a close radius are covered in ice, thick frosted chunks clinging to the leaves from your outburst. “Did I hit anyone?” you question, swallowing.

She shakes her head, making you sigh in relief. Before anyone can say anything else, you twist your hand, and the frost disappears in an instant. “I’m sorry about your plants. It’s just a temporary frost though, they should still be fine. With a little kindness and care, they’ll be themselves again tomorrow.”

Yifan stares at you in confusion but before anyone can say more, you lean over and whisper into Boss’ ear. She nods and takes Yifan’s hand, giving him a look that says enough, before the two of them disappear in thin air with a pop. Tao lets out a sigh behind you, so you turn to him. Luhan, Yoongi and Vernon are all looking at you with big eyes. “I thought Tao was just very good at overreacting. I guess he’s not.” You sigh and shake your head, walking closer to Yoongi, who spoke.

“No, he IS very good at overreacting. Do you mind?” You let your hands lift up and dry Yoongi’s clothes to the best of your ability, the water pulling into the iceball you create in your hand. You do the same for Vernon, who blinks at you with slight amazement. Then, Yoongi furrows his brows at something behind you, so you turn around. Of course, Baekhyun and his two friends are standing there. All three are staring at you with mouths open, Jongdae crackling with electricity from the tension. The silent one speaks up.

“I have to ask now. What are you?”

You sigh and give Luhan a look, to with he nods and motions both Vernon and Yoongi out of the café. Tao stays behind you stubbornly, and you know you can’t get him away now, so you let him. “I’m a Frost Pixie.”

Baekhyun’s mouth falls open, and Jongdae raises his eyebrows before looking over at said Light Fairy, trying to figure out what is going on. “But you- you were- wait, what?”

“I’m a Frost Pixie, I promise. Same as Snowflake over there.” You nod your head at the silent one of the group, the only one you don't know the name of.

“It’s Minseok,” he responds, as if on cue.

You nod as Jongdae turns back to you. “But you were playing with light earlier… and now you are causing a storm bigger than beginning Storm Sprites can. So, what is that about?”

“Wait, light?” Tao cuts in, looking down at you in confusion. You nod and look back at Baekhyun, who seems to be breaking his head trying to figure everything out.

“Baekhyun, if you could,” you ask, looking between your best friend and the new three men. Baekhyun nods and sends out a careful beam of light, pointing it on you. You coat your hand in ice again, making Baekhyun and Jongdae let out a gasp, before putting your hand in the beam and aiming it at the three boys in front of you. Tao grins down at you, shaking his head in disbelief. “Ice can be kind of like a mirror,” you mumble.

“You are unbelievable. You really are the Master of elements.” Tao is glowing, a proud grin on his face. You chuckle at his expression, pushing him aside before getting serious again. You open your mouth to speak, but the question stays stuck on your tongue. What will happen to you now? The question that spooked you out of talking to them in the first place, yet, here you are.

“So, what now?”

Jongdae looks up at your question, eyes flickering between his two friends, you and Tao. The three seem to come to an unspoken decision, turning back to you. It is Baekhyun who speaks up. “Could you teach us?”

You are sure that if it was possible, your jaw would have hit the floor. “What?”

“We came here as a learning trip, trying to figure out the other Kinds outside of the Other World. Our goal was- well- to blend in. But you were quick to point out that we kind of suck at that. And, even though this is not really the best example,” he pointed around the room, “-you have amazing control over your powers and what you do with them. It’s very impressive. It would be cool to learn that from you.”

Even after his explanation, things don't really seem to make sense. Why would the council be interested in learning so suddenly anyway. Not that you care, but it seems as if the council has had the same rules and ways for a couple of generations. These guys seem pretty young though. Maybe they do want to change stuff. At that thought, you almost say yes. Almost, but you sigh and turn away. “I can’t.”

Minseok and Jongdae frown before both speaking up at the same time. “Why not?”

You shake your head and look out of the tinted window of the bar, sunshine falling through. “People have their reason for leaving. I can’t— I- I don’t want to go back.”

Baekhyun doesn’t talk, his eyes studying you carefully. Jongdae sighs, putting his hands on your shoulders. A small zap goes through you and you yelp, making him grin for a second before going back to serious. “You know who we are, right?”

“Yes?” you frown, lifting one eyebrow.

Jongdae nods. “We’re offering right now. Please. None of us want to revert to other measurements.”

“Is that a threat?”

He just laughs, a bright cat-like smile on his lips. “It’s a suggestion, really. Come on.”

“I don’t know.”

“We’ll be in the council headquarters anyway. Just come, please?” You take a step back, Jongdae’s hands falling off your shoulders as you straighten up. As you pull your fingers through your hair, you sigh.

Jongdae is right. He’s at least giving you somewhat of an option right now. But if they really want to get you there, they can just perform an official arrest. No one would be able to say anything, because you’re still an ‘Outsider’. Either way, you find yourself slowly nodding. Tao is looking down at you with unreadable expression, before sighing and turning to the Council members. “If she’s going, I am too.”

“Who are you anyway?” Minseok can’t help the small frown on his face.

“Tao, Fire Sprite. Her best friend. Nice to meet you.”

A soft smile spreads on Baekhyun’s lips as he looks up at the tall Sprite, then back at you. “You’re friends with a Fire Sprite? You sure are a funny one.”

Minseok nods in agreement, skeptically eyeing your best friend. Tao doesn’t waste any time and takes a step forward, giving Jongdae, Baekhyun and Minseok a wide-armed hug all at the same time. You grin at Minseok’s uncomfortable face. Tao pulls away with a grin, and you giggle when you hear Minseok mumble a sarcastic ‘Frost and Fire friends pff’.

As you take a step back, Tao turns to look at you. Noticing your expression, he pulls you for a hug. “You’re gonna be okay.” You nod and bury your face into his chest. He makes a whiny noise, trying to push your cold forehead away from his skin but you just giggle and hold on to him.

When you let go, Baekhyun and Minseok are watching you two curiously. “I always thought Fire and Frost don't match at all.”

Tao chuckles as he pushes you farther away from him with a smile. “We don’t, she’s horrible.”

“Shut up, cookie dough. You love me.” The guys laugh as they start moving to the door. You look around the bar once more, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. It’s going to be alright. You are going to see this bar back in no time.

You’ve been tailing the four guys in front of you in silence for a couple of streets now, trying to get your thoughts in order. Minseok told you how they would have to get a formal pardon from the leader of the council for you to be there, but that it wouldn’t be a problem because they have a good reason. They’re walking you to one of the portals made by the hidden. Portals are the easiest way to get from the Other World to the human world, for Kinds who don't possess any kind of powers which bend time and space. A difficult concept which you would rather not break your head on. Both the Hidden and the Shadowkinds are Kinds that are more separated from the others, be it mostly by choice.

The Hidden are nomads who mostly don't have the need for constant housing and the Shadowkinds just don't crave sociability like other Kinds do. Suddenly, you are smacked out of your thoughts when you walk straight into Tao’s back, who stopped in front of a door.

You groan and take a step back, glaring at Tao, before getting distracted by the sight in front of you. The three council members open the door and walk in like it was the most normal thing in the world, followed by a more hesitant Tao and you. Why are they walking into an apartment building to get to the portal? Surely not- Apparently you’re wrong. There is indeed just a portal door sitting on the wall of someone’s apartment. “Uhm?”

Baekhyun glances back while Jongdae walks through the door, noticing your confused expression. “One of the Representatives lives in the human world from time to time, hence the portal.”

You nod and wait for your turn to go through. You’d never used a real portal before. Sighing once, you push yourself to move when Minseok and Baekhyun have gone through as well. “Too late to run away now?”

Tao smiles at you before patting your head. “It’s gonna be alright, don’t worry.”

One deep breath and you walk through the door. The corridor you arrive in is a bit dark, made of stone and has a couple of doors either side. You ignore the biting feeling of threat at being back and straighten yourself up. Tao comes through not long after so that the group starts moving. Baekhyun falls in step next to you, Minseok walking in front and Tao and Jongdae behind. “We’re going to the council room now. Minseok is going to get Junmyeon and the others so they can assess this case but it’ll be totally fine.”

“Who’s Junmyeon?”

Baekhyun smiles down at you. “Oh, Junmyeon is the Water Representative. He’s the leader of the council.”

“Are all Council members going to assess me?”

“Yup.”

“You’re not going to arrest me, are you?” you mumble.

Baekhyun grins, and keeps his eyes strictly to the front. “No, we won’t. Unless you do something terrible, that is.”

The teasing in his voice made you relax slightly, but you stayed a bit on edge. “Okay, so, who else is there?”

“Other than Jongdae, Minseok and me— we have Kyungsoo, Elf Representative; Sehun, Shadowkinds; Jongin, Hidden; Chanyeol, Fire Sprites; Yixing, Healer; and then Junmyeon.”

“I’ve never met a Healer before.”

“You haven’t?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m glad I can be your first.”

You frown at that, looking at him. He is grinning down at you, clearly not oblivious to the way that sounds. “I’m pretty sure you are not a Healer, Baekhyun. You can’t be my first.”

“Not technically, no. But since I got you here, I’m taking responsibility.”

You chuckle as you shake your head. “I’m holding you to that one. If anything goes wrong, it’s on you.”

The group arrives at a large round room, 9 seats set out to face each other in a circle. Above each seat hangs a banner, but you don't have the slightest idea of which language is written on them. Minseok gives a quick nod before walking out of the room, presumably to get the other Council members. “Uhm… what do I say?” you mumble.

Jongdae and Baekhyun turn back to face you. “I don’t think you’ll have to say much. We’ll do most of the talking for you.”

You nod and look around the room some more. “What do those say?”

Before anyone can answer, Tao leans forward to whisper in your ear. “It’s Keeper language. Nobody here can read it.”

Both the Representatives and you turn to him with furrowed brows. “How do you know that?”

Tao shrugs, walking away from you while inspecting the room some more. You stare at him with a small smile before doing some exploring on your own. The room is pretty big, but aside from the banners, the walls are bare. There is a skylight to let the sun into the place, though you are not sure if it is really connected to the outside. You walk up closer to inspect one of the seats. They are big and stoic, like they’ve not been moved for hundreds and hundreds of years. Probably haven’t.

On the little desk in front of the seat stands a glass of water. What a random, normal thing in such a strange room. You bend down in front of it. With your hands either side of the glass, barely touching, you let it freeze ever so slightly along the left side. The water pulls towards the ice, even pulling up a bit at the edge of the glass. Then you release it, creating a little wave that plops back. You grin. Repeating this a few times, from side to side. The water bends around in the glass from left to right, pulling up to meet your fingers. With a light chuckle, you let it go again. Who needs Water powers?

“Uhm… Bubbles?”

You look at the call of your voice, turning to your right. Tao is looking with big eyes, but he isn’t looking at you. You snap your head towards the door. The first man you see stands looking straight at you in the doorway. He looks regal in a way you can’t explain. You close your gaping mouth quickly, scrambling over to the back of the room. He doesn’t speak, but you’re glad he doesn’t. He seems to command some sort of authority, making you avert your eyes to look at your toes. As he passes you to walk to the seats, more people catch your eye.

The next man is tall, a stoic expression painted on his face. He has beautiful dark features, making you stare for a moment before pulling yourself together. The shadows looming around his feet are deep, pulling you in. You quickly look away. Two more men walk in at the same time. One very tall, the other, not so much. The shorter man had a neutral expression, as the tall one grinning widely with his arm around the other’s shoulders. The short man is steady, strong. He feels just as powerful, but in a reassuring way. The tall one though, you almost can’t turn to face him completely. If you think being with Tao is hard, it’s barely nothing in comparison to this man.

Seemingly unaware of himself, his flames are almost glowing off of him, leading a trail of ashes from his skin. He is too warm, too close, and you feel yourself take a step back, holding your head. Suddenly you feel very lightheaded, black spots swimming on your vision. Tao must have been holding his powers inside so much for you to have been almost unaffected by him. Said man rushes forward as he sees your reaction. With a hand on your lower back and one on your arm, he steadies you. You can see the worry in his eyes, but you shake your head. The next two men are silent, calm.

One of them brings a strange cooling sensation to you as he walks past, though not the same as a Frost Pixie would. Everything about this man feels calming, soothing. The other is an even stranger occurrence to you. He stands fitting about, his skin twitching softly from time to time. He seems weightless as he walks. All men take place in their seats, Baekhyun, Jongdae and Minseok having done the same already. You look around the room at all the men in front of you. They are all so powerful.

Your mind supplies the names for you. The tallest man sitting to your right must be Chanyeol, Fire Representative. His skin is glowing in a fire you had never seen on any other Fire Sprite. No wonder he is the Representative. You silently take a step away from him. You go further around the room until your eyes fall on Minseok, Jongdae and Baekhyun. You now notice how much they belong here. You stare at them. How had you not noticed earlier how strong they were? Minseok is sitting with a neutral expression, his hands glowing with a blue-ish tone, seemingly frozen.

Jongdae is sitting back in his chair relaxed, but despite him not having lightning littering his skin now, you can almost feel the shocks on your skin. And Baekhyun, who is looking at you with a small smile, is blinding. He was bright before, but now, his skin is not just reflecting the light, it is emitting light itself, creating in a bright white glow around him. You can feel yourself shy into Tao’s hold as some of the men turn their eyes to you.

The one in the middle of the circle, straight in front of you, speaks up. “Minseok, you called this meeting?”

Minseok nods and stands up, looking around the room. “Baekhyun, Jongdae and me all called upon this meeting today.”

“I’m guessing it has to do with the two individuals in front of us.”

Baekhyun now stands up too, looking at the other man. “It only concerns one of them, Junmyeon.”

You look over at the other man again. Junmyeon, Water Representative and leader of the council, of course. Junmyeon’s eyes find yours, as well as some of the other Council members. You can’t help the feeling stirring in your stomach. This is in no way going to end well. They aren’t going to let a runaway help them, why would they. You shake at the thought of being sent back home. Your hands go cold, you can feel your powers slip down into your fingers and hands, without meaning to. “I’ll let you take the word then, Baekhyun. Go ahead.”

Baekhyun nods before sending you a smile and turning back to the council. “As you all know, Jongdae, Minseok and me, were send out to the human world on a research trip. The most sheltered kinds, sent out to explore and learn about the human world and the Outsiders that reside there.” He pauses. “We’ve been there for two days now, trying to blend in. But, it seems that is a bit harder than expected.”

All the heads turn from Baekhyun to you, probably wondering where you come in. “To blend in is obviously hard for sheltered kinds. But this Frost Pixie,” nodding his head to you, “blends in very impressively. So much so, that when I first saw her, I had no clue of what Kind she was.”

Junmyeon holds his hand to stop Baekhyun’s explanation for a moment. “What is your name?”

“Y/N.”

“Am I assuming correctly that Y/N is an Outsider, Baekhyun?” Baekhyun pauses for a second, before nodding. Some mumbling breaks out in the room. “You three brought an Outsider to the Council room, without consulting with us first?”

Jongdae stands up now too, clearing his throat to call the attention to him. “Junmyeon, she’s harmless. Please, hear us out.”

Junmyeon hesitates but let’s them continue. Minseok speaks up again. “We want to let her help us learn to blend in as well as expand our powers. Not just us three, but all of us. Sienna has a good control over her powers and she’s very creative with how she uses her powers.”

Junmyeon’s eyes scan you once, before flicking to the glass in front of him for a split second, then back to you. The Fire Representative suddenly speaks up. “Who’s the guy?”

You hesitate, but since the question seems directed at you, you carefully answer. “This is my best friend, Tao. He’s a-”

“Fire Sprite,” Tao finishes for you, noticing the discomfort in your stance.

He subtly takes a step towards you, taking your hand. You look down in confusion before you can see your hands are almost frozen over because of the tension now. Because of Tao’s warm hands, yours unfreeze the slightest bit. You send him a grateful look. So much for controlling your own powers. Seems like being back brings back some memories. Junmyeon doesn’t say anything for a long while. When he finally does, the heaviness in his gaze seems to lift. “What were you doing earlier?”

“I’m sorry?”

“With the glass. Can you show me?”

You slowly nod, taking a step towards the leader, and focus on the glass. With a soft pull of your hand, the water in the glass moves towards one side. The edges of the glass freeze over slightly, but you make sure not to make it too cold. Then you move the water to the other side of the glass. A soft smile comes on your lips as you lose yourself in your powers for a second. When you notice how close you have stepped to Junmyeon’s chair, you take a few steps back with a blush. No one says anything for a while, but you can tell they are all thinking about it.

“What else can you do? It’s cool that you can move some water, but that isn’t of much help to us.” The Shadow Representative nods at you.

Before you can answer, Tao steps forward. “She can make storms.”

All heads turn to you in confusion, then to Jongdae. They probably expected the Storm Sprite to disagree, but he’s just smiling at you, mischief in his eyes. You look at Junmyeon in question. He nods. You take a deep breath and motion for Tao to take a step back. With the most concentration you can muster, you wave your hand up. Small drops of water start pulling together, pulling closer until suddenly, the skylight is covered by dark clouds.

Soft drops start patting down on the stone floor. Then, it starts pouring. You laugh slightly as you hear Sehun voice an annoyed grunt. All the council members are staring up at the clouds in slight amazement, and you try to hide your proud smile. Suddenly, a loud thunder strike makes everyone jump. You shriek and turn to Jongdae. “Don’t do that!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jongdae smirks, eyes proud. You roll your eyes but can’t help the smile on your face. Jongdae flicks his hand nonchalantly, making the cloud clear.

The room is silent as all eyes turn to Junmyeon. He seems to still be on edge. “Baekhyun?”

“Yes?”

“Why don't you know what Kind she was when you first saw her?”

Baekhyun grins a little guilty smile, his face suddenly turning a shade pinker. “I- I walked into this human café and sat down, but suddenly someone shone a beam of light in my face. That was her.”

More confused glances in your direction. You look at your feet but take a step forward. “I had noticed from the moment he walked in, that he was a Light Fairy. It really wasn’t very hard, either. I was just messing around.”

Baekhyun nods, sending a beam of light your way. You freeze your hand, catching the light and shining it across the room to flicker on the walls, like you had done earlier. Baekhyun continues. “This is why I thought she was a Light Fairy at first, and that was the reason I approached her.”

“So what do you plan to achieve with her stay here?” the Earth Representative asks, his eyes scanning you again.

“We can all learn, right? I would think this would be your kind of thing, Kyungsoo.” Baekhyun’s eyes glint as he smirks at his friend.

Junmyeon clears his throat, before pressing his hands together. “Does anyone have a problem with this proposition? If you do, speak up now.” The room stays silent. “Good. We’ll allow you a formal pardon, Y/N. But you are to have one of the Council members with you at all times.” You give a quick nod, as Junmyeon stands up and dismisses the Council meeting, all Representatives walking out of the room.

You let out a deep sigh, while Tao squeezes your hand victoriously. “I told you it would be fine.”

Behind you, someone claps their hands. “Right, let’s get going. The Frost Capital is quite a bit away.”

thank you so much for reading! I took quite a while getting this story back in reading order (my old writing was no joke, it was horrible) because some of my lovely followers showed it so much love. I couldn’t just get rid of it. I hope you enjoyed and that you’ll enjoy the next part!! go read C’s series if you haven’t already, it’s amazing.

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winedwords · 7 years

Text

Pete| Bloodsport |Dunne

Title; Bloodsport

Words; 4310

Pairing; Pete Dunne/Reader

Summary; It’s too late, you gave up your last chance to walk away.

Warnings; NSFW. Crude and suggestive language, UST, biting, some depictions of violence, smutty smut smut smut, latex free

A/N: repost from the old blog

Babe, you’re a hard game to catch. You fight and refuse, oh, you’re a wild little bruise.

“Ya look like shite.”

That’s it. I’ve been travelling for ten hours with little to no sleep direct from Orlando and I did not have the patience for this at seven in the morning. I still felt gross from the flight, the quick shower I had at the hotel had done nothing to refresh me, and the scowl on my face certainly didn’t help my appearance any. All I wanted was a proper meal and a nap, as I hadn’t slept in twenty hours, and I had been fueled only by protein bars and overly sugary coffee . Smart ass comments from one of my best friends lent nothing to better my mood.

“Finn, you ass, if you do not have a giant cup of coffee in your hand for me, I’m going to ruin your good shoulder.”

The Irishman further down the street from me just laughed at my acerbic words, still marching towards me. He’d been around me too long to be affected by my sometimes acidic tongue and he knew me too well, based off of the cup in his hand.

“Already got ye covered, love.”

I quickly closed the distance between us, making grabby hands all the while. I snatched the almost comically large cup of coffee out of his hands and took a deep swig, barely feeling the scalding liquid in the bitter English cold.

“I see where I stand, the coffee is more important than me.” He was still laughing, his head thrown back and eyes bright. I made a face, before wrapping him up in a deep hug. I hadn’t seen him in a solid three weeks and I was craving some time with my favorite nerd. He’d looked to be doing great, arm out of the sling and his face line free from stress. I could feel the soft smile creeping onto my face as he returned my hug.

“You’re a fucking pain in my ass, Bálor. Where are Regal and Hunter?”

Finn wrapped an arm around my shoulder, having noticed my shiver at a particularly strong gust of wind, and we started into the Empress Ballroom.

“Their flight was delayed from Hartford to London. They’re another two hours behind ye.”

I groaned, leaning into my friend as we neared the venue.

Finn and I were… a bit of an odd duo. It confounded people how we were friends. He was almost universally liked, sweet and nonthreatening. He was quick to smile, always willing to lend a hand, and he built stuff with Legos as a damn hobby. I, on the other hand, am a pretty divisive individual.

When I had come to the WWE, I was a bright eyed and idealistic intern ready to help make magic happen. I hadn’t been ready for the politics and the double crosses, the backstage drama and the gossip. That year long internship had taken a happy-go-lucky sorority girl and molded her into what some would say was a ruthless and shrewd harpy. Looking back, I wasn’t inclined to disagree. The talent I worked with was lovely, but the other members of the backstage staff was an entirely different beast.

It was all about power. First it was seizing it, through whatever means necessary and regardless of the cost. I will not lie, I did discreetly sabotage coworkers to get ahead. I played with their emotions and preyed on their insecurities. Then it was a game of using that power and keeping it by any means necessary. Influence and currying favor was how you got ahead backstage. We didn’t have the luxury of being in front of a camera and rallying the support of the audience behind us. We had to grind our competition to dust. Regal had noticed the change and approved, to a degree. I got results. I kept the personal entanglements to a minimum. I solved problems before they became problems and had shown promise in playing the backstage games.

I don’t know what I did to deserve Finn and his friendship. He’d shown up to NXT several months after I had started and he’d made it his mission to befriend me almost immediately. It had taken him weeks of near constant annoying me with his attempts at friendship before I relented and I didn’t regret it. I’d questioned him on why me multiple times. Each time he gave the same small, almost sad smile and simply stated that he saw a little of who he was in Japan in me. He never did elaborate after and I never pressed him for details.

“They were supposed to be the big welcoming committee. Is Nigel going to be there at least? We could always flip the order of things and have you two run them through drills?”

Finn shrugged next to me.

“We could? I know more than a couple of these lads and they’re damn good. Dunno how they’ll feel about being made to run drills like some rooks.”

We paused at the rear entrance to the Ballroom and I turned with a raised brow to my friend.

“What do you mean?”

Finn dragged a hand down his face.

“What I mean is that most of them will be fine, but there’s a couple that are concernin’. Ya don’t need ya any additional help makin’ any enemies in these two weeks, love. Not with that charmin’ personality.”

I scowled and went to bite back a retort, when Nigel McGuinness opened the door to beckon us in from the cold. The older man just looked at us knowingly, before guiding us to the locker room where all the talent for the tournament were.

I did really like Nigel. We’d only met a couple of times, but the Englishman was sweet with old school manners. Daniel Bryan had nearly died laughing when I had told him my opinion of Nigel. I didn’t understand until I was shown old footage of their battles back in Ring of Honor and to be honest, it only made me feel even warmer towards the older man. He presented himself as a charming member of the old guard, but that sweet countenance disguised a cunning nature and a keen mind for this business.

I wasted no time pushing the door open and announcing myself, heels clicking loudly.

“Good morning gentlemen, my name is (Y/N). I’m the executive assistant to William Regal.”

I had begun moving through the veritable sea of large men in the locker room, heading towards what appeared to be a makeshift podium. My voice carried, the tone clipped and authoritative, and the room hushed to a murmur.

“Bet that ya assist him with a lot of things.”

The heavy innuendo in the loudly spoken words that came from behind me caused all motion and noise to cease in the room. You could have heard a pin drop.

I had stopped when the man behind me spoke, my back rigid and one hand tightening around the coffee cup, the other forming into a fist. I took some deep breaths and counted backwards from ten, trying to keep from flying off the handle. This was far from the first time this particular insinuation had been made, but it got no less frustrating every time. I was entirely too sleep deprived and cranky to deal with this.

I turned with a flourish on my heeled boots to face the speaker, a brilliant smile on my face. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Finn grab Nigel’s arm, the Irishman shaking his head with a small, crooked smile. The vote of confidence was definitely appreciated as I sized up the man who’d implied that I was fucking my boss.

Dirty blonde and broad, the man in front of me was indeed attractive, but the shit eating smirk was what really lit the fire in my blood. I was quick to saunter into his personal bubble, using the hand not holding my coffee to straighten his suit jacket.

“What’s your name, handsome?” My words were so sugary sweet that they made my gums ache, teeth bared in what barely passed for a smile.

His chest puffed out at my attention and I could feel the tensing on his muscles wherever my hand trailed.

“It’s Pete Dunne love.” He was so self satisfied and practically preening knowing that every eye in the room was on him. Even on four inch heels, I still had to tilt my head upwards to hold a gaze with his blue-gray eyes. I measured my next words carefully, my tongue wetting my lower lip thoughtfully. His eyes trained on my mouth for a brief moment, pupils dilating and nostrils flaring, before the blue-gray eyes flicked back to mine.

Curious.

“Ohhh… So you’re the one that we took because we couldn’t get Scurll. It’s good to put a face to the name. Well, Petey boy, I’m glad you said something so I only have to say this once.”

The smirk dropped from his face faster than a stone at my words and the subtle raising of my voice. The echoes of my words reverberated around the locker room and I could feel a crackle of electricity between the Englishman and myself. There was a fire that sparked in his eyes and his lips curled into a snarl. The look on his face made something heat in my stomach and emboldened my next words.

“I am Mr. Regal’s eyes, ears, and right hand. When I speak, you are to assume that I speak with Mr. Regal’s full authority, because I do. I control the schedules, I control the flow of the work day, I control the access. I am the goddamn gatekeeper. My opinion is important to Mr. Regal, and his opinion is important to Mr. Helmsley. You all would do well to remember that.”

I paused for a moment, before continuing, “I’m not saying that I’m the tiebreaker, but I have… influence.”

It felt like the room took a collective intake of breath at my impassioned speech and I could have sworn I heard Finn snort from behind me. The wrestler in front of me wisely kept his mouth shut, the muscles in his jaw rapidly clenching, and his eyes dark and heated. There was an electric energy between the two of us that would have warranted further investigation, if our surroundings were different. I gave a couple pats to the lapels of his jacket before removing my hand and speaking again, never breaking eye contact.

“Now, as I was saying before I was interrupted. The big boss men had their flight delayed and they are going to be two hours late. In the meantime, you’ll be running drills with the two men at the back of the room, Finn Bálor and Nigel McGuinness. Any questions?”

I don’t know what possessed me to toss a wink at the intense man in front of me, but I did before turning to survey the room. There was no movement and the men were purposefully avoiding my eyes. I could feel Pete inching closer into my space, trying to crowd me into being intimidated by his size. I turned back to him, eye contact unflinching.

“And Mr. Bálor? Do me a favor. Make sure you have Mr. Dunne here run extra drills. It appears he needs to let off some steam.”

Dunne and I were practically nose to nose, the smell of his cologne and something pleasantly unidentifiable surrounding me. I was thankful for the long sleeves, because I could feel gooseflesh breaking out across my arms not because of the cold, but because of the energy crackling between us. The scowl on his face smoothed and stretched into a challenging smirk, his gray-blue eyes sharper than flint. He’d opened his mouth to say something, but Nigel interjected before Dunne could get a word out.

“Go change, young man. Drills start in ten.” The older man bit out, with a hand gripping Dunne’s elbow. The younger wrestler didn’t even look the least bit put out, his smirk widening to Cheshire levels.

“You best come watch us run drills, love. Would hate for you to miss the best the UK has to offer.”

He pursed his lips at me in a crude imitation of a kiss, shook off Nigel’s hand, and strutted off to change.

The older Englishman turned to me with an arched brow and an inscrutable look on his face.

“I hope you know what you’re doing. Dunne has a rep-”

I held up a hand, my face sour.

“He’s not the first to challenge me. It’s fine.”

Nigel looked unimpressed and his stare was almost enough to make me fidget. I felt like an ant under his eyes and I knew he didn’t believe me one bit. There was still some fresh meat lingering in the makeshift meeting room, so I couldn’t let on that the encounter and really, the mere presence of Pete Dunne had left me rattled and strangely invigorated. Nigel studied me a minute more before herding the stragglers out of the locker room, leaving me alone with my coffee and my thoughts.

The rest of the day, and indeed the next two weeks, passed by like a whirlwind. William Regal and Hunter Hearst Helmsley arrived that first day roughly two and a half hours after that initial confrontation with Dunne. The coffee had kicked in and I was on my game. Offices were set up, schedules were put out, and the backstage hands, though new to me, were running like a well oiled machine. Once Regal and Mr. Helmsley had entered the building, it felt like we were in Florida, not chilly Lancashire.

Everything had its place. Everything had its order.

We’d do a daily inspection around the facility, daily tests of the electrical and sound systems, and daily meetings with marketing and production. It was after those meetings that we’d meet the talent out in the ring, where they were running drills and sparring.

Dunne would always search for my eyes and give a little smirk when our eyes met.

I’d notice a pattern start to emerge, starting with that first day.

He’d do things to catch my attention.

He’d run the ropes harder and faster than the others if I was nearby. He’d lift heavier and spar more viciously with his partners in the ring if I was watching. Trent Seven had nearly had his head taken off with a particularly nasty lariat when I had spoken with Finn and Finn’s protégé of sorts, Jordan Devlin, too long for Dunne to tolerate.

It wasn’t just during training either.

He’d learned my routine and had made sure to be around when there were scarcely any other bodies. He’d pick little fights, about how I conducted business, about the other competitors in the tournament. Dunne would get just close enough to whisper or growl things into my ears that made me give just the barest of shivers. He’d smirk at my reaction, satisfied that he’d gotten to me.

I couldn’t let that stand. I wasn’t about to be felled by a cocky little shit that didn’t know his place.

The first time I had palmed his ass, he’d damn near jumped out of his skin. The sixteen wrestlers had been packed into one of the many makeshift conference rooms, for William Regal to speak to them about expectations for the tournament. Pete had been at the back of the crowd, his arms crossed across his chest, and paying full attention to my boss. It had been easy to come up next to him and sneak a squeeze across what I found was a firm cheek.

He’d turned and stared at me with something akin to wonder on his face before a mischievous grin broke out across his face.

Pete and I then began a very… curious game of cat and mouse, where we would do pretty much anything to rattle the other. I wasn’t positive on who was the cat and who was the mouse. Maybe we played both roles. What I did know, was there was this palpable tension between us. I didn’t know where it came from or when it had ratcheted up to unbearable levels, but something was going to give soon.

There will be no tenderness, no tenderness.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

I’d spent a solid twenty minutes tracking this son of a bitch down across the theater. Regal was in a mood and had spent a ten minutes following Dunne’s attack on Sam Gradwell verbally tanning my hide. He had later apologized for taking it out on me, but shit rolls down hill. Finn had seen me storm out of the office I shared with Regal and had tried to cool me down, to no effect.

FInn was too intuitive and good at reading me. He knew I was going to go attempt to collect a pound of flesh from Pete Dunne and after trying to cool me down, made no further attempts to stop me. Finn knew I would need this. I hadn’t been scolded by Regal like that, for something I was not responsible for, ever. The humiliation of being shouted at had screamed through my veins and I wanted, no, needed to take it out on Pete.

Pete turned around, with a smug look on his face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about love.”

I snorted derisively, and wasted no time crowding into his face, like I wasn’t significantly smaller than him, even with my customary sky high heels on.

“You know damn fucking well what I’m talking about Dunne. I have spent too much time, too much effort for you to fuck this up.”

His entire face brightened at my anger, but his eyes darkened with something that would have normally made my insides shudder if I were not so blindly livid.

“Don’t know why you’re havin’ a go at me, I’m just taking your advice. Make an impression by any means, right? At least that’s what I remember a bird that looks a hell of a lot like you saying.”

He was practically laughing at me, throwing words I had spoken a week before into my face. It felt like someone had poured lava directly into my veins and my sight had tinted red. I don’t know why I did what I did next. Maybe it was the toxic cocktail of my embarrassment, anger, and the attraction I refused to admit to the man in front of me.

I slapped him.

Pete’s head snapped to the right and he froze. The palm of my hand stung something fierce and the temperature of the room we were in ratcheted up about ten degrees.

“You’re a fucking idiot Pete. You’ll be lucky if they don’t disqualify you from the tourn-”

In hindsight, it probably wasn’t a good idea to get into Pete’s face shortly after my boss had a go at him. I was in the middle of verbally dressing him down when he grabbed the sides of my face, fingers curling into my hair, and slammed his lips against mine. I lost my balance on my heels and fell into him, gasping. I could feel him smirk before he took advantage of my parted lips, swiping his tongue against mine. The anger that had heated the blood in my veins shifted to lust so quickly that I was left dizzy. It took a moment to recover from the sudden shift in passions, but soon enough I was kissing him back just as violently.

There was nothing gentle or soft about our embrace. Our teeth had clicked together painfully and my hands gripped the straps of his singlet tightly. His fingers were beginning to grip my hair in the most painfully pleasurable way and the tiniest of moans escaped my throat.

It felt like time had sped up because I couldn’t tell you how I ended up pinned against the wall and Pete’s body, with my pencil skirt pushed up to my waist and a thick thigh pressed against my now uncomfortably wet panties.

“Been wanting to fuckin’ do this since the first fuckin’ day…” He muttered against my lips, his thigh rubbing in the most delicious way against my core. I shuddered and my hips began to move of their own accord against his thigh. He began to press rough kisses and bites along my jaw line and neck and I was helpless to my body’s response to crane upwards into his touch. It was with one particularly hard bite that I let out an embarrassingly loud mewl.

“God if I’d known you were this fuckin’ desperate for cock, I would have done this so much sooner.”

Two could play this game.

Faster than he could react, I’d tugged a fistful of his dirty blonde hair and with the other hand, cupped the sizeable bulge that was most definitely not hidden by the spandex singlet. His hips stuttered against mine at the pinpricks of pain in his scalp and the sudden touch against his length.

“You talk a lot of shit Dunne. Can you back it up?”

His nostrils flared at my lusty challenge and a crooked grin swept across his face. He looked like a devil and damned if that didn’t do things for me.

“I’m going to ruin you.”

He’d stepped away for just a moment to push his ring gear down and I took the opportunity to step out of my black lace panties. I moved to step out of my heels, but I was stopped by his gruff words.

“Leave those on.”

His body was soon back up against mine, his velvety cock pressed up against my abdomen, as he pressed a thick finger between my folds. The insistent press of his finger against my wetness made me gasp and squirm.

The grin on his face could only be described as predatory at the amount of slickness that coated his finger as removed the finger from me. I was enraptured as he put that same finger into his mouth to lewdly lick off the liquid there. His eyes were dark as he grabbed my left leg and hoisted it up across his hip.

I felt the blunt head of his cock pushing into me and my head fell back against the wall at the sensation. The Englishman let out a muttered curse, before snapping his hips and driving the entirety of his length into me. My lips parted into a silent scream at the sudden intrusion and Pete muffled his own groan by biting hard into the juncture where my neck met my shoulder.

There was just a moment for my body to attempt to adjust to Pete’s girth, before he set out on a punishing pace. I was left balancing on one leg, pressed between a wall and his driving hips. The angle we were at had his pelvis pressing against the taught bundle of nerves just above where we were joined at every press of his hips.

The room was filled with the sounds of our coupling. My gasps and moans were intermingled with the slaps of skin together and his mumbled curses.

“You fit me so perfectly Jesus…”

There was no way I was going to last long, given the relentless pace he had set and the way my insides quivered at every thrust and grind of his hips.

“Oh fuck Pete, right there. I’m about - ”

He’d reached underneath my dress shirt and bra with his free hand to roughly roll a nipple between his fingers while his hips picked up speed at my desperate words. His hips picked up speed and then there it was.

My vision went white and I shuddered around him. My blood was singing and my head was fuzzy and I’m sure I was babbling what passed as encouragement.

His thrusts became sloppy not long after, and then I felt a rush of liquid as ropes of his cum filled me.

“Let’s go back to the hotel.”

The night was spent with minimal sleep. I had woken up the next morning to Pete wrapped tightly around me, my body pleasantly sore and covered in a disturbing amount of love bites. The man slept like the dead, so I was able to sneak my way out of his embrace. I quickly dressed to head back to my hotel room for a quick shower and to strategize how to cover the perfect bite impressions on my neck. I took a fond look back at Pete’s slumbering form, before exiting the hotel room.

But not before making sure to leave my black lacy panties hanging from the hotel room door knob.

I could feel Pete’s eyes on me as I was working to get the night’s show set up. There was no time for us to talk between matches. I didn’t get to express my disapproval after Pete attacked Tyler Bate after the latter’s match with Wulfgang.

I didn’t even get to tell him good luck before his match with the young Tyler Bate.

The match had me on the edge of my seat and it was impossible to tell who was going to win.

It was an even exchange, even if Pete’s opponent was hurt.

Pete hit the Bitter End I could have sworn that was it. Pete was the new UK champion.

But Tyler had kicked out.

It was another moment or two of back and forth, then Tyler did it.

The younger wrestler hit the Tyler Driver ‘97.

One.

No, no, no.

Two.

Damn it Pete, kick out.

Three.

Oh fuck. This wasn’t going to be good.

So don’t fight me now cause you might need me later

#pete dunne imagine #pete dunne fic #pete dunne smut #repost from the old blog

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youre-on-a-starship · 7 years

Text

Word Count: 3,231

Author’s Note: The best part of being back at work full time is that I’ve got ample room to day dream, which means killer (IMHO) one-shot ideas. I ended up knitting Scotty’s hat from 2009 this week (it looks badass), and I just thought of this story idea.

I promised y’all a new story every Saturday, and it’s officially 2:46 a.m. on Saturday. So here ya go. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I used a handful of lines from Star Trek (2009), so all credit for those lines go to Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.

You bound off the last thread of yarn before turning the hat’s brim over so the seaming lined up right. The brim would be long enough so that the hat wrapped most of his head twice to keep his ears warm.

Popping the new garment on your head, you stood and walked to the mirror to make sure it looked perfect. You’d gotten the pattern just right; you had to learn three new techniques to get the garter stitch to go both ways and to get the sections to taper right and to be able to hide those thick seams.

The hat was comically oversized on you, the tip brushing your uniform between your shoulders and the brim gaping around your ears. But for Scotty, it would be perfect.

Gingerly, you reached up and pulled the toque from your head, turning the piece over in your hands. The green stood out against your cadet reds.

“Shit,” you hissed. Just last week you were gloating about how excited you were to get out of this stuffy uniform and into your new active duty one. Then you got the news.

That garbage Scotty pulled with Archer’s beagle… that damn dog didn’t have the good grace to reappear and now look what happened.

You folded the hat in your hands and strode from your quarters before making your way down the long hallway past the turbolifts from the womens’ wing to the mens’ wing.

Scotty’s room was right at the end across from the emergency exit. You sucked your teeth as you squeezed the piece in your hands. The soft yarn made the knot in your stomach feel so much harder.

You tapped the panel next to the door.

The door slid open and Scotty stood on the other side dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a snug white t-shirt.

“Y/N?” he asked, glancing down at himself and turning pink. “I didn’t think ye’d be coming by…”

“I can come back,” you hesitated.

“No,” he said firmly, “Please, I… I really need the company.”

You nodded and stepped through the door.

As it shut behind you, you looked around at the mess in Scotty’s quarters. Three shipping crates stood half-filled in front of the closet and a single duffle bag waited on the bed. Clothes and garbage were strewn across the room.

“Wha’s tha’?” Scotty asked, pointing at the hat in your hands.

“Oh,” you mumbled, unfolding the hat and handing it to him. “I made it. For you.”

Scotty touched the fabric with this fingertips and looked at you, his lips slightly parted in question.

“I read the weather reports for Delta Vega,” you explained. “The winters are bad there as it is, it’s so dry, and the base they’re sending you to was the one on the pole, right? It’s… it’s gonna be cold,” you voice petered off as Scotty wrapped his arms around you.

You clutched at his waist, your brain flying through the options again as you tried to figure out what you could possibly do to fix this situation.

“Ye didn’ have ta do tha’,” he murmured into your hair, kissing your head just above your ear.

“I wanted to,” you tried to keep your voice from cracking but as usual you were unsuccessful.

Scotty sniffed and pulled back, taking the hat from your hands.

“Did they end up assigning you a partner?” you asked as he looked over your work.

“God, you made this?” he asked, looking up at you and grabbing your bicep. “Thank you, I’m… yeah, they, they found a Roylan who didn’ mind being away… Wha’ did I do to deserve you?”

He pulled you back into a hug and you wrapped your arms all the way around him, holding on for dear life.

“Will you be here when I ge’ back?” he asked, pulling back just enough to look at you.

“I get my work assignment next week,” you sniffed. “So I’ll be... around. If I happen to get within comm distance, I’ll call, but…” you sucked in a breath, holding it while you collected your nerve. “You know, right?”

“Aye,” Scotty whispered, cupping a hand around your cheek. “I know, lassie. And you know… well…”

You smiled sadly. You always waited a moment too long for these kinds of talks.

“I was overthinking it, but I hoped,” you answered, pulling him back flush to you. “You send me a message as soon as they let you go.”

“It’s an eighteen month assignment…”

“Things happen, sometimes,” you wheezed as you squeezed him harder. “If you’re out sooner I want to know. I want to come find you.”

Scotty huffed a laugh and squeezed you in his arms.

“Lassie… will ya stay? Jus’ for a wee bit, I could use some company.”

“Are you taking all this with you?” you asked, pulling back as he let you go.

“Nae, I’m sending most of it back home. I’m just taking the one bag,” Scotty held the hat to his face for a moment before refolding it with a smile and tucking it into the bottom of the duffle.

“For eighteen months?”

“There’s not a hell of a lot o’ need for more,” Scotty shrugged, looking around at the cyclone of his belongings. “Don’ wan’ tae weigh myself down.”

You nodded and sat on the floor, dragging a stack of button-downs toward you before picking one up to start folding it.

“Ya don’ need tae -”

“I want to help,” you said, “and anyway, I like these, and you never fold them right.”

“I'm sending them home…”

“All the more reason for them to be folded properly,” you insisted, not letting your eyes venture from the bright fabrics.

Scotty sighed and started working through another pile of clothes at the head of the bed that formed a mountain against the bedside table.

“I don't remember your room looking like this,” you mused, remembering the pristinely kept quarters you usually visited.

“I… I had a bit of a moment when I was told. Los’ my temper,” Scotty stuttered with a shrug as he shoved a pair of sweaters into the bag.

“Do you have a coat?”

“Aye,” Scotty sniffed. “Enough about this, do you have any ideas where you might get assigned?”

Scotty reached up and held the top of the doorframe as he looked at you standing in the hallway. The angle and the stretch made his biceps bulge out where the sleeves of his shirt ended.

“I can’t believe this is it,” you sighed.

“Eighteen months,” he groaned.

“I don’t even know what to say,” you whispered.

Scotty took a deep breath and pressed himself forward and back on the doorframe.

“Y/N…”

“Yeah?”

“Would you stay?”

“Tonight?”

“Ye dinnae have ta, ‘s jus’... if you like.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Why else would I ask?”

You sucked in a breath. Now or never.

You took a stride forward and pressed your lips to his. Scotty released one hand from the doorframe and lowered it to your back, laying it flat between your shoulders and pulling your chest flush with his.

Using the door as leverage, he pulled you back into his room and slid the door shut before firmly placing his other hand on the small of your back. He opened his lips and ran his tongue along your bottom lip before eagerly exploring your mouth when you opened it.

You cupped the back of his head with one hand while the other groped at his waist.

You felt him starting to grow in his sweatpants, his length knocking against your leg, and you suddenly caught a wave of nervousness. Scotty’s arms softened around you and he pulled back, panting as he lined your noses up side-by-side.

“We don’ have tae do anything ye don’ wan’ to,” he breathed, watching your eyes. You never noticed, but there was a beautiful brown patch in the blueness of his right eye. “I jus’ don’ wan’ ya ta leave.”

“Maybe we just take it slow?” you suggested. “We’ve got all night.”

“I want to make it last,” Scotty admitted, rubbing his hand up and down the curve of your back.

You gently started pushing him back toward the bed. Scotty reached back and moved the duffle bag onto the floor and pulled you down to sit with him. He watched you carefully as he went to unzip your jacket, pushing it off your shoulders and letting it fall to the floor. You stood and unzipped your skirt, feeling your face grow warm as you let it fall. Scotty had seen you in as little as your workout clothes before, but your regulation undershirt and briefs were a different story.

Scotty laid down on his back and shuffled to the far side of the bed, extending an arm for you to join him. You laid next to him, curling into his side and laying your head on his chest.

He lifted a hand to your face and tipped your chin up, kissing you. You laid a hand on his stomach and relaxed into him, trying to memorize every moment: what he smelled like, what he felt like, and most importantly the need that came through his fingers where he touched your skin.

While you were in the process of considering leaving a note, Scotty woke up. He sat up in bed, the sheet falling past his naked chest and settling around his hips.

“You’re leaving?” he sounded hurt.

“I…” you couldn’t lie. “I was thinking about it.”

“Wasn’t that bad, was it?” he said with an unconvincing laugh.

“Not at all,” you sat on the edge of the bed and he crawled closer, kissing you while he trapped your wrist in one of his hands. “I just couldn’t think of a way to say goodbye after that.”

“Eighteen months,” he murmured, resting his forehead on yours.

“Eighteen months,” you agreed with a shallow nod.

“Promise it wasn’t that bad?” he asked.

“Give yourself more credit,” you grinned, kissing him again. “Send me a message.”

“Soon as I can.”

“I have to leave, I have a physical at nine.”

“I leave at 9:30.”

“I know. I wanted to be busy,” you watched the corners of his eyes turn down. “I can’t watch you leave, Scotty. I don’t trust myself.”

“I understand,” he nodded kissing you again. “Call me if you get close enough?”

“I promise.”

He kissed you one last time, pressing his lips to yours as hard as he could. His hand shook around your wrist. You pulled back and pressed your lips together.

“Thanks for the hat,” he said.

“Please be careful out there,” you whispered.

“I will,” he nodded. “Go. I’ll see you in eighteen months. Tell me where you get posted. I’ll come.”

“If I’m on the Enterprise…” you didn’t want to finish your thought.

“They can’t punish me forever,” Scotty said, kissing your forehead. “I’ll find a way ta get wherever you are.”

You nodded and stood, collecting your jacket from the floor. You bit the inside of your lips as you spun on your heel and left.

The door slid shut behind you and you had to resist the urge to lean back on it. Eighteen months. Sighing, you stalked down the hall back to your room. Your physical was in half an hour on the far end of campus.

“Security, seal the engineering deck. We have intruders in Turbine Section 3. Set phasers to stun,” Acting Captain Spock’s voice came over the comms and you jumped from your chair.

“Intruders, how the hell did that happen?” Hendorff growled as he picked his weapon up and locked it.

“Think it’s Romulans?” Jameson asked as you all boarded the turbolift.

“Fuck if I know,” you mumbled, holding your breath as the lift doors shut and reopened almost immediately. Your team spilled from the compartment and divided into two teams, Hendorff’s going right, yours going left.

“Up there!” you heard Jameson roar.

You tore off and started climbing onto the catwalks. Two flashes, one of black and one of green, tore past one level up. Leaping for the rail, you pulled yourself up onto the right level and careened down the walk.

“They’re going the other way!” Jameson cried.

“We’re gonna head ‘em off!” you yelled, jumping back down a level and reversing trajectory.

You rounded a corner and smirked in the face of James Kirk. Your phaser was up and ready to shoot that smug bastard in a second.

He and his tail flipped around to go the other way but you saw Hendorff ascending the stairs. Kirk tried running past his partner but stopped when he saw your large boss coming at him with his phaser more than ready to go.

“Come with me, Cupcake,” Hendorff spat.

That’s when you noticed the sopping hat in the clutches of Kirk’s partner, whose hands were raised to ear level.

“Scotty?” you said quietly.

The man turned around, his jaw going slack when he saw you.

You didn’t lower your phaser, but you felt your shoulders sag.

Kirk looked back at you.

“What, you two know each other?” he asked.

“Shut it!” Hendorff barked. “Walk!”

Hendorff lead the group back down the catwalks to the turbolift.

“You’re gonna get roasted, Kirk,” Hendorff snarked, standing at the front of the turbolift, ready to present his find to Captain Spock.

You stood in the middle of the turbolift, your phaser arm pressed to your chest in the tight quarters. Scotty stood next to you, dripping wet.

Not daring to say anything, you reached your fingers to the side until you felt wet skin. Scotty turned his face minutely in your direction and you looked sideways catching his eye for a split second before winding your pinky with his. He squeezed yours, reassuring both of you that this was happening.

The lift doors opened and you released his hand, following Hendorff onto the bridge.

Kirk sat in the Captain’s chair in the dead silence of the bridge.

“I sure hope you know what you’re doing, Captain,” Lieutenant Uhura bit at Kirk.

“So do I,” Kirk said, all hint of bravado mysteriously gone. “Lieutenant Y/N, please escort Mr. Scott to the quartermaster and find him some dry clothes.”

“Sir,” you nodded, leading Scotty to the turbolift.

When the doors closed, you hit the emergency override, pausing the pod. Scotty’s hands were already on your arms, pulling you in for a kiss.

You made a muffled noise and tried to keep your body away from his.

He pulled back, looking confused and worried.

“They’ll notice if I’m suddenly wet, too,” you explained, reaching up and cupping his face in one of your palms. “What happened? Why are you wet, anyway?” you stood on your toes and kissed him again before restarting the lift.

“I… mi’ have beamed myself into water reclamation.”

You gaped at him as the doors opened on the supply deck. You ushered him out first.

“Was it an accident?”

“... I want all departments at battle stations and ready in ten minutes…” Kirk’s announcement droned in the back.

“Do ya really thin’ I’d do tha’ on purpose?” he asked. “I dinnae have a death wish.”

“Are you alright?” you looked at him, pressing your lips together between your teeth. “I mean, not just from that.”

“I’m fine,” Scotty admitted, looking pained. “Let’s find some dry clothes, I cannae keep my hands off ya much longer.”

“Left,” you pointed to a door which opened as you passed in front.

The quartermaster looked up from her table.

“Who’s this?”

“Ensign Montgomery -”

“Lieutenant,” he corrected.

“Lieutenant Montgomery Scott. Captain sent us down for a uniform.”

“What size?”

Scotty gave her his size and you quirked an eyebrow.

“I lost weight,” Scotty mumbled when the quartermaster stepped away.

“I was worried about that. I can see it in your face.”

“Here,” the quartermaster tossed you Scotty’s uniform. “He can change in there.”

“Thanks,” you nodded. “Don’t happen to have a towel, do you?”

The quartermaster folded her arms over her chest and cocked her hip.

You looked at the bundle she tossed you. A black towel waited between the trousers and thermal undershirt.

“Thanks.”

The quartermaster hummed at you before retaking her seat, thumbing through her PADD.

You handed Scotty the towel and followed him to the change room. You set the uniform on the chair inside and stepped out.

“I’ll wait here and escort you back to the bridge,” you said, leaning against the wall and folding your arms over your chest.

Scotty just nodded and disappeared inside the room.

You leaned your head against the wall and sighed.

“How the hell did he even get on board?” the quartermaster asked. “He didn’t leave port with us.”

“I haven’t the foggiest,” you shrugged, closing your eyes.

“You seem to know him, though.”

“We went to school together.”

The quartermaster hummed again and stood, disappearing into her stores.

The change room door slid open and Scotty stepped out, running the towel over his head.

“Red suits you,” you smirked. “Come on, we’ve got about five minutes til we need to be ready,” you took the sopping bundle of his clothes from him. The hat topped the pile. “I can throw these in my quarters if we hurry.”

You lead Scotty out of the quartermaster’s chambers and back to the turbolift, going down two floors to your deck.

You tapped the keypad by your door, only two doors down from the turbolift, and stepped inside, setting the pile on the floor of your shower to drain.

“Looks a wee bit sparse,” Scotty said.

“Yeah, I didn’t have a lot of time to move in. I’ve been here about a week getting security set up before we had to make an emergency departure this afternoon. I’m sure I’ll get the chance to grow into it.”

If we survive this, your brain finished for you.

Scotty’s hand closed around your wrist and he pulled you around, wrapping his arms around you in a tight hug. He kissed your hair.

“I’ve never missed someone as much I’ve missed you,” he murmured, pulling back and laying a kiss on your lips. “I’ve good news, though.”

“What’s that?” you sighed, letting your arms find their way around his waist.

“If Kirk happens to keep command… I think he likes me. I mi’ be able to swing an assignment.”

You smiled sadly.

“We’ve got three minutes to get back,” you whispered. “Let’s worry about assignments when this is over.”

Scotty furrowed his brow.

“Look, I don’t know how much Kirk told you,” you reached behind yourself and pulled a towel off the bar, “here’s a dry one, come on.”

You led him from your quarters while he addressed the drips still coming off his hair.

“We suffered a huge loss today; a number of Starfleet ships were completely destroyed in Nero’s attack. We’ve just got to focus on not joining that number today, alright? We’ll worry about assignments later.”

You got on the turbolift and the doors slid shut when Scotty boarded. You wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled yourself up to give him one last hard kiss.

“I’m glad you’re safe.”

Scotty smiled as you pulled away and assumed a professional posture as the turbolift doors opened to let you back on the bridge.

#scotty #scotty x reader #montgomery scott

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phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess · 7 years

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Respect Fanartists & Fanfiction Writers

Listen, and do so carefully... because this will be said once.

Fanartists & Fanfiction Writers put a LOT of time, effort, emotion and skill into making things that you enjoy for free, friends.

Sure, it takes you a minute to stare at artwork that someone spent weeks on; or 15 minutes tops to skim through a fic that may have taken days... so you just see it as something to be consumed, and in a lot of frustrating cases, your RIGHT to have provided.

For one, providing feedback in the form of comments or reviews/asks is always appreciated. That’s awesome and we love it!

Sending ask after ask or Private Message after Private Message demanding they make you something specific... NOT okay. OR, worse, falsely befriending them in order to get them to make you free art/fiction, is alternatively what the creative side of the fandoms calls ‘a dick move’.

See, here’s the thing... if you are friends with someone, you are there for them. If you friend them with the ulterior motive of getting them to draw you a specific picture, or comic, or write you a highly-detailed fanfiction... then you are being a manipulative drain on their life.

Like, listen... even if someone reblogs a ‘Writing/Art Prompt’ post, you cannot sincerely anticipate they will answer every single request they get. There might be duplicates, the person receiving them may not like one received, they may lose energy or focus, or just be busy with the real world. To harass, to send additional follow-up asks bothering people? Not okay.

It used to happen more frequently in the past, but it’s rising up again.

Consistent harassment of the creative sides of fandom (encompasses gifmakers, SFM makers, all the types, etc.) just drains the creative batteries worse than a lack of comments/reviews on new art/fiction does.

It puts them under pressure to fulfil your demand, which is not okay. Hell, assholes in certain fandoms used to do CALLOUT posts on artists and writers who didn’t fulfil the requests they demanded. It was ridiculous?

Let’s not go back there.

So here’s the thing.

>You like their artstyle? Yes. <You would like them to draw you something? Oh yes! >Are they doing commissions, or would they be willing to do one? They are open to commissions/Oh, I will politely ask. <They are open to commissions and you can afford what you want? a)Yes (Proceed) b) No. You can save up to commission them later. YOU WILL NOT HARASS THE ARTIST FOR FREE ART (that includes trying manipulative tactics such as making up sob stories, falsely befriending them, and/or claiming you don’t trust internet banking options*). [*If you distrust paypal, or certain sites, you can actually buy preloaded/disposable credit cards (which are basically gift cards), that you can put the required amount on and use to pay. There are alternatives, just ask.]

>>>You can afford it, and what you are asking fits what the artist has said they are comfortable drawing for you? Yes. ~Ask them if they are happy to take this commission and provide the details necessary. ~Accept that it will take time, and effort, don’t hover trying to get them to finish it faster. ~Do not try to change the deal mid-way through the commission. E.g. if you paid for greyscale, don’t demand colour, or one character but now you want too for the same price, or withhold payment until you get your way. That is a major dick move, and your name will circle through the artistic sphere as ‘difficult’ and ‘untrustworthy’.

There have been a few notable people out there that have tried to get free art this way, and thought artist-hopping would make sure no one found out. But, buddy, if you know one artist, they know ten more, and it branches out from there... who do you think has the most feedback for creators, but other artists and writers? They will all find out, eventually.

>Not being able to afford it, it not a good excuse to hound the artist to change their prices. Listen, if you’re at the store and can’t afford the new action figure you want... you can’t haggle with the poor storeclerk at the counter (but numerous people have tried that? Is that where you have learned this from?) for a ‘better price’. You might counter, ‘but the clerk can’t set the price and an artist can’. Listen, lissen here fucko mccoconuts, the artists on tumblr charge an obscenely low pittance for the amazing art they do... like, barely anything. A coloured sketch? Some artists will do it for five bucks because they’re too goddamn afraid you whiny little bastards won’t agree to anything more; they are downselling their hard-earned artistic abilities.

And fanfiction authors? They have to do it for free because NO ONE pays for writing. Ask, and they will tell you almost all fanfiction commissions fall through, for one reason or another... but mostly the idea is considered absurd.

If you cannot afford it now, then either save, or maybe ask if the artist is open to a payment plan. E.g. If you requested a five-page comic at $60 coloured, by the way an obscenely low price compared to real-world prices, you could ask to pay it in two lots, or something of that nature. It depends on each artist as to whether they are amenable to it. Never assume.

>Not being able to afford it does not mean, ‘befriend the person and try to feed them your headcanons in the hopes of free art’ (nor the old, ‘so my birthday’s coming up... do you think you could make me _____?’). If that’s the whole reason you have ‘befriended’ them (manipulated them into thinking you are genuinely offering altruistic friendship) then you’re an absolute cactus, mate. A conglomeration of pricks, that is to say.

You don’t make friends to get things. And if you do, perhaps you need to re-evaluate your priorities, you drongo bastards, people are human beings not vending machines.

Sometimes, if an artist or writer gets inspired by the stupid headcanons you share at 3am your time and like 9am their time... accidental art or fanfiction happens. It’s spontaneous, fun, a gift based on mutual feedback and conversation. But to anticipate being rewarded simply for your friendship, is wrong.

ESPECIALLY, and I cannot stress this enough, especially if you try to feed the artist a headcanon... then ceaselessly pester them as to why they haven’t made the fiction/fanart of it yet? Everyday? What the fuck is your problem?

>Why is it so expensive? It isn’t. It really fucking isn’t. I’ve covered this. Also, everyone is so damn quick to say “But art is haaaaaard” when told to draw something themselves, because an artist doesn’t want to, but just as fast to question why that artist (who has learned that skill and ceaselessly practised until they have their own artstyle that you like enough to think about commissioning) is charging you MONEY for something you WANT (not NEED).

You will not actually die if you don’t get a pic of your OTP fucking in a jacuzzi, suzy. So just calm ya tiddies and carry on.

>Why won’t you draw my headcanon? Did you commission the artist? No? Then fuck off. They have their own life and ideas... and if you harass them, others who are less polite are going to have something to say about it. Especially the adults who pressure young artists to make them shit all the time... you will be found and shamed you bastards. >Why won’t you write my detailed headcanon? Same as above. But also, aren’t you the person who keeps saying ‘but writing is easy’? How about you write it yourself. One of the many things you will be told to do to yourself if you don’t stop pestering writers. That goes for bothering writers/artists here, on AO3, ff.net, DeviantArt or any random site they’re affiliated with.

- - - -

The biggest question is what makes you feel so ENTITLED to their work?

And that’s really what it is. “I want it. Make it for me.”

Oh sure, you can cover it in pretty words, “But we’re friends”, “But I can’t afford it”, “But I’m feeling so down recently, maybe this elaborate 15k OTP headcanon I want you to write will make things better, don’t skimp on the smut! XD” ...it all amounts to, “Hey, you should reward me for liking your art/writing. If I do not get it immediately, without cost, I will pester you either brazenly, or subtly... I may even pretend to be a genuine friend, to get what I want. You owe it to me.”

And, really, from the bottom of the creative community’s hearts, I’d love to just remind each and every person who feels this way... that you are not a good person, at heart, and can fuck right off out past alpha centauri where such disrespect might be considered flattering... because it sure as hell isn’t on earth.

Fanartists, Fanfiction writers, put up with this all the time.

It’s the sixteen asks they don’t publish, all demanding things.

It’s the excitement cut short when they thought they had a new fic review, but it’s actually just someone trying to get them to write them something.

It’s the person in your chat always giving headcanons, many you don’t agree with, and then checking in to see if you’ve drawn/written them. Relentlessly.

It’s the Private Messages, dozens of them, requesting you do something specific for someone, something that will require time and effort on your part but not theirs. And the angry messages that follow if you turn down their demands.

It’s the angry ‘callout’ posts from people who you’ve said No to. The people who were told, “I’m not taking requests, but if you would just see my commission post for details...” and were abhorred at the idea of PAYING for ART they WANT????

And more. There is always more, worse, unending, frustrating.

This goddamn barrage hits some more than others. Some acquiesce for the sake of peace, but it will not end if they do; because once someone gets free art, or fiction, they’ll demand again and again and again...

- - -

And as you can imagine, like a ceaseless cascade of waterfall over a cliff-face, eventually it erodes the joy, the fun, the creativity of your art or writing, or any of the other artistic abilities (e.g. gifsets, photomanips, videos, animations, etc.)

But the reality is, these groups (plus the whole gamete of other creative types out there) are putting time, effort and skill into making something; whether it’s free or a commission, and you need to respect that.

So please, be kind to the people who are putting their abilities out there, often entirely free, for the sake of enjoying something they love with the rest of the fandom. Respect them, don’t demand, and remember that a comment on what you enjoyed about their work can mean the world of encouragement.

Thank you.

#long post #stop fucking pulling this shit #fight me #i have two fists and no mercy

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iheartbuckynat · 7 years

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It’ll Be A Lonely Christmas Without You

Dear @king-queen-and-ace here is gift #4 (of 4). The fic that I was originally supposed to write for you over a whole month ago (again, even though you’ve forgiven me, still really sorry about that…)

I hope you like it!

Title: It’ll Be A Lonely Christmas Without You.

Rating: M (for swearing and references to sex).

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Natasha Romanoff.

Genre: Very Mild Angst with Fluff?

Summary: Bucky’s not having a good day, and he’s gone and bought a Christmas tree to boot. Set just after the Brubaker run. Based much more on their comic versions than their MCU ones. Canon compliant.

Author’s notes: I blame this angst on @king-queen-and-ace‘s prompt (the title of the fic) and, in equal measure, on @elithien (and this beautiful piece of inspiration) and @nataliaromanovs (for this beautiful piece of inspiration). Their art is so preeeeeetttttttyyyyyyyyy…

Thank you, @fuckyeahbuckynatasha, once again, for organising all the events that you do! Maybe next time I won’t be so late! ^_^;

In some ways, Bucky being a product of a less successful version of the super-soldier serum made him luckier than Steve. He could get drunk, for one. It took a lot to make it happen, but it was achievable. The buzz never lasted long enough, though… definitely not enough to get him to pass out completely (which was the ideal outcome at this point), but sufficient to at least see him through to a state of utter waste on his couch in nothing but boxers and a sleeveless undershirt.

In direct contradiction to all his years of discipline training, of muscle building, of ballet (yeah, the Soviets had trained all their elite spies in the art, Natasha hadn’t been special on that front, she’d just been better at it than anyone else), he was flopped back on the sofa, posture be fucking damned, his fifth bottle of vodka in his metal hand and one of the those A4 digital frames clasped in his right as it automatically transitioned, unnoticed by the apartment’s only occupant, through photograph after smiling photograph.

He was the quintessential picture of a broken-heart drowning in its own sorrow: his piercingly clear, icy eyes were overcast and glassy, his hair was unkempt, his face was dirtied with shadow so heavy it was practically a beard and his skin was a dehydrated wreck. His gaze, however… his gaze was intently focussed on the clichéd embodiment of holiday spirit twinkling prettily a few feet away from him. He smirked at the juxtaposition. Of all the unexpected things to have in his sparse, brick-and-glass apartment, James Buchanan Barnes was the current owner of a one-hundred-percent genuine (and unreasonably expensive) Christmas tree. It was bushy, it was bright and it battled admirably against the stench of potato-based ethanol for the right to infuse the air with its traditional scent of pine and joy.

He wasn’t afraid to admit to himself that he was mildly proud of his work. He’d done a decent job of the lights, but after he’d accidentally shattered a delicate glass bauble with his bare foot (and then picked out the multitude of very breakable slivers from his sole with tweezers) he’d given up decorating and just thrown a ton of tinsel all over the damn thing. It wasn’t the greatest tree he’d ever seen, but it wasn’t awful considering the minimal effort he’d applied in setting it up. The only glaringly obvious absence was the tree topper: an angel which, fittingly for his current situation and mood, rested on the floor just out of his reach, her eyes downcast and thus blinding her to his presence. “Metaphor’s kinda on the nose, isn’t it?” he asked her before deciding he sounded entirely too sober and took a hefty swig of the Russian cure-all (although technically this particular bottle was Polish, and pricier than the others, so it should have really been drunk first when he would’ve been better able to appreciate it. Then again, he thought, hindsight’s always been, and continues to be, a giant bitch).

In the silence of the apartment he could hear everything, despite (or maybe because of) the alcohol coursing through his body. He didn’t even have to try. Training, serum or a little of both, he wasn’t sure, not that he particularly cared… it wasn’t super-hearing (not like the gifts some of the others he knew possessed), it was more a hyper-awareness of himself and his surroundings. As a result the message he was receiving from his environment was, unfortunately for him, painfully loud and coldly clear: he was entirely alone. The littlest of sounds echoed out into the quiet, driving the point deep into his heart, like a blade slipping under the ribcage, burying itself angrily into giving flesh: the rhythmic and slow tick, tick, ticking of the analogue wall clock (he couldn’t bring himself to go entirely digital), the tiny, intermittent buzzing of the tree-lights, evidence of a loose connection in one of the strands (he’d have to fix that at some point), his own unusually heavy breathing, the clink of metal against glass as his grip tightened on the neck of the bottle, the clack of said glass against his teeth as he opened his mouth and vainly hoped the fire spilling into his throat would throw him into a pit of blissful oblivion… and the piercing shrill of his email notification.

He looked over to the far side of his foot rest (referred to normally as a coffee table) and glared at the offending piece of technology. “Not now, Steve (who else would it be today?). Fuck off.” He regretted the venom of his comment immediately (of course he did) and mentally apologised to his best friend as he sat up to reach for the phone.

~*~

One Year Ago

“This is going to take at least three weeks to heal.”

As James paused to allow the metal doors to slide open, Natasha looked up from her place in the wheelchair. “I was present at the infirmary,” she stated, her entire left leg cast and strapped up to the extended leg prop.

“That’s a spiral fracture to your femur, it’s not a sprained wrist.” He guided her smoothly into the elevator and pushed the button for the second floor basement. Alone as they descended, he continued their conversation. “Ordinary people have to be operated on for something like that, you know.”

“Again, I feel I should remind you that I was there,” she said as the corner of her ruby mouth quirked up in amusement, “looking at the x-ray of my leg, that the doctor was showing me, James.”

He placed his real hand onto her shoulder and traced it along the gentle slope in affection. “I’m just saying, spending that time recovering at my place makes more sense.”

“I have a bed at home, too,” she countered, “I also have a phone and a laptop with wifi. I’ve recovered perfectly fine from more serious injuries in worse conditions.”

“Just because you spent a week hiding out in a Somalian cave once with a broken arm and collarbone doesn’t mean you have to do that all the time.” The elevator arrived at its destination and slid open its doors. “You’re allowed to take your time to recover, and in a nice environment, too.”

“I’d actually been talking about the gut shot I took in São Paulo.”

He frowned, unable to recall the event. “When did that happen?”

“When I was sabotaging the primary operations of the international criminal commonly known as the ‘Favela Saint’.” There was no hiding the hint of pride in her voice as he wheeled her along the row of cars, heading towards a black SUV.

“The war lord?” he asked, mildly surprised. “That massacre was you?”

“It was originally supposed to be cleaner,” she admitted, “but things went south when they got to our man on the inside. Fortunately my improvised plan proved to be more effective than the original one. The only problem was I got caught up in the fray and took a hit to the abdomen.”

Being so intimately familiar with her body that he could practically recreate an exact replica of her from memory, he was completely certain that there wasn’t a single trace of that injury left on her. “The wonders of SHIELD medicine and super healing.” He opened the side door of the vehicle and picked her up carefully. “And don’t change the subject. Why don’t you want to stay at my place?”

Natasha didn’t answer until he’d placed her across the back seat and she’d shuffled into a more comfortable position. “I don’t want to impose,” she conceded, “and I know how to take care of myself.”

“It’s almost like you don’t want me around,” he said as he wheeled the empty chair into the back of the van.

She couldn’t see his face but she knew he was smiling by the sound of his voice. “You know that’s not true,” she said, not playing his game. He might have been joking, but she’d heard the hidden question underneath the fun: do you need me to give you some space? “You could stay at my apartment with me,” she offered (No, I don’t, but thank you for asking).

He stood at the side door of the van, giving himself an unobstructed view of her, and shook his head. “I know you, Nat. Being cooped up for almost a month is going to drive you crazy, and then add a big lump like me into the mix and you’re not going to feel comfortable in your own space… it’s not exactly a large apartment.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “You’re not planning on spending the entire time with me, are you?”

“Every single day, if you’ll have me.” He grinned and this time she did see it. “I got lucky. I don’t have another mission until the New Year.”

She didn’t believe that, not for a second. He’d been on his phone while her leg was being put into the cast, he must have been rearranging things then.

“I’m at your service, Ms Romanova,” he continued, “ready and willing to nurse you back to the pinnacle of health.”

It drew a reluctant smile from her as he shut the door of the van. “I don’t need you to do that for me,” she said once he’d settled into the driver’s seat.

“You don’t need anything from me, Nat, that’s why you’re so amazing.” He twisted around to face her. “Look, I get it. For people like us, spending three weeks together alone, with nothing else to do, is a lot of intimate time. That’s why it’ll be easier at my place, where there’s two bedrooms.” He watched her for a reaction at his attempt at humour but when she gave none he sighed. “I just want you to get well. If you’re most comfortable staying at your own apartment, then I’ll take you there. If you need some time alone, I understand that to-”

Natasha scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said, interrupting, “I get it. I’ll come to your dumb Christmas sleepover.” He grinned at her like a kid with a present, and her heart beat just a little faster at the thought that she could make him so happy. “We need to stop at my apartment first, though. I have to pick up a few things.”

“Sure, anything.” He pressed the ignition button and the van revved to life.

“You’re wrong, by the way,” she said as he reached for his seatbelt.

“About what?”

“I do need you, James.” His eyes flew to the rearview mirror and caught her waiting ones easily. “More than you know.”

He swallowed away the sudden dryness in his throat while he studied her reflection. They sat watching each other in silence for a long second, letting the weight of her words sink in, and then he smiled, unabashedly. “Onwards to Casa del Bucky, then.”

~*~

He was in awe. Truly he was. How she managed to do it, he had no idea, but Natasha Romanoff was sitting on his couch with her entire left leg casted up to the thigh (although, SHIELD being SHIELD, the cast was sleek, dark and high-tech) and propped up on the coffee table, cushioned by a myriad of pillows (he hadn’t been aware of even owning that many). She was sporting a thin, hunter-green t-shirt, a pair of black bikini briefs and literally nothing else. All adornments and makeup had been removed, her hair was tied back in a low ponytail (as was her way when she wasn’t working), and yet… and yet, doped up on cocodamol, half dressed in an old shirt and trapped by 3D-printed plastic as she was laying back on his couch, legs splayed, eating from a bag of chocolate covered pretzel sticks whilst flicking through random Christmas movies, she was still somehow the most sublime creature he had ever seen. It was like she was physically incapable of not being graceful. As if it was part of her very nature. For lack of a better way to describe it, Bucky thought she was fucking enchanting.

When she caught him staring she grinned and then placed a pretzel in between her teeth, tilting her head back and offering it to him. He leaned down into the couch, using the armrest as support for his weight, and bit the stick, pulling it into his mouth and crunching it. “These are pretty good,” he realised.

“I know,” she said, picking out another one and feeding it to him. “That’s why I had you get them from the store.” She proffered him a third one, but when he moved to bite it she pulled it back and kissed him instead. He didn’t mind the trade.

As he snaked his metal hand along her jaw, threading his fingers through her hair, he vaguely heard her dropping the pretzel bag. Before he could deepen the kiss, however, she pulled away, cutting him off from the source of the heat building within him and denying him the satisfaction of a full embrace. When he opened his eyes again, he found her holding a thin box wrapped in green paper. “Merry Christmas, James,” she said softly.

He blinked in surprise, his lust taking an instant back seat in favour of confusion. “I didn’t think you celebrated it,” was all he could think to say. He lowered himself onto the couch, careful not to touch her leg.

“No,” she replied, “but you used to.” She pushed the gift gently into his hands. “Open it, it’s Christmas Eve, after all.”

Touched by her kindness, he looked down at it and then up at her. “But I didn’t get you anything.”

Mirth danced across her features as she leaned down and lifted her bag of chocolate pretzels from the floor. “You got me these,” she said, shaking it.

His right hand rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly. “You’re making me feel like even more of a heel.”

“I’m pretty sure they stopped using that word back in the nineteen fifties,” she teased.

“Oh,” he said, dropping his hand and feigning offence, “is that a dig at my age, Ms Romanova, great spy of the early Cold War?”

“No, Mr Barnes, it was a dig at your archaic use of slang,” she countered, sitting back and popping another pretzel into her mouth. “I’m practically the same age as you and Steve and I don’t sound like an old lady.”

“You do in Russian.”

Her hand froze in the bag. “What?”

“You sound like a babushka,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.

She gasped. “I do not.”

“You do.”

“James Buchanan Barnes,” she said, her voice hardening to give her a more commanding tone, “you will retract that statement immediately.”

Others might have cowered (and if he hadn’t been having so much fun, he might have, too). “I will not.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I have a mastery of nine languages, a proficient grasp of another eleven and conversational fluency of a further four, with particular eloquence in my mother tongue.”

His eyes flicked down to her lips. “There’s no denying what a gift your mouth is.”

“I’m being serious, James.”

“So am I,” he said, barely able to contain his laughter.

For a moment she said nothing as she assessed the situation. “Hand back the present.”

He shook his head once. “It’s too late, you’ve already given it to me.”

“James-”

“Alright, I was kidding,” he conceded.

She didn’t believe him. “You weren’t.”

“I wasn’t,” he confirmed. And grinned again.

She folded her arms and huffed lightly. “Do I really sound like an old woman in Russian?”

He placed the gift on the coffee table and slid his metal arm along her right, uninjured leg. “It’s not that bad,” he admitted, his humour dying down in favour of honesty. “When you’re being formal it isn’t noticeable, but you haven’t adapted it to the change in times as much as you have with other languages.” He stole her bag of pretzels away from her and ate one. “I suppose you didn’t consciously acknowledge the need to do so in the same way you did for the others, since you’re already so comfortable speaking it.”

“You’re probably right,” she said, figuring he’d had a point. “Everything I read in Russian is pretty high-brow or technical, and when I’m over there I’m usually speaking with aged dignitaries. I haven’t had cause to speak it informally for a while, not unless I’m dealing with scumbags… and I haven’t exactly wanted to emulate how they speak,” she sighed before coming to a reluctant conclusion. “I’ll have to rectify this.”

Bucky had to physically stop himself from groaning with lust. She was killing him softly, that was for sure. He’d pointed out a sensitive and personal chink in her otherwise impenetrable armour and instead of resenting him for it, she’d assessed what he’d said and acknowledged her weakness. God, he thought, she even handles her flaws with grace and dignity. He cleared his throat and shifted in his sitting position. “If you want practice there are some terrible Russian TV shows which are supposed to be pretty compelling,” he suggested, “and some pretty interesting movies.”

Her eyebrows lifted in mild surprise. “When did you find the time to watch all of those?”

“I haven’t, yet. I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity.”

“Well, we have another two weeks to go before I’m out of this cast.” She plucked the bag of pretzels from his hands, her mouth quirked up at the corner. “Now open your gift and try not to insult me again while you do it.”

He rolled his eyes and pretended to be exasperated. “I said you sound like a babushka, not that you were-”

“Digging a bigger hole, James,” she said, daring him to finish his sentence.

He leaned in, a tender smile on his lips, and kissed her gently. “I take it all back,” he apologised.

She fed him another pretzel and then handed him his gift from the table. “<What am I going to do with you, my darling?>” she asked in Russian.

He looked up at her as he peeled open the green paper. “<I can think of all kinds of things,>” he replied as he pulled away the last of the wrapping. “Is this what I think it is?”

The box was cardboard - a glossy white - and printed on it was an image of the gift it cradled inside: a photo frame connected to a power plug, complete with a generic picture of a happy family with a dog.

“Yeah, I got the idea from Tony’s office. All your photos in one frame,” she said. “Do you like it?”

He looked up at her and smiled. “This is really thoughtful, Nat. Thank you.”

Pleased to see that he approved of her choice, she smiled back. “That’s not the real gift, though.” She took the box from him and placed it cautiously on her lap, leaning it more on her right leg than on the cast.

“No?”

“No.” She pulled out a memory stick and showed it to him. “This is.”

His dark eyebrows creased in curiosity as he took it from her. “What’s on it?” he asked. “Photographs?”

She nodded. “As many as I could find with you in them, or with people connected to you. From your past, from your present. Anything I could get my hands on. There’s over four hundred of them on there.”

Four hundred? “Natasha…” he breathed. “This is…” he looked at her in wonder. “This is amazing. Thank you.”

She shrugged a supple shoulder, her eyes affectionate. “Happiness in a single drive. Easy to take with you if you ever have to make a quick escape.”

He laughed lightly, observing the stick for a second before looking back at her. “This is awfully sentimental,” he said.

“You love it.” She smirked, knowing without a doubt it was true.

“I do,” he admitted without hesitation, “almost as much as I love you.”

She leaned in, inviting him to meet her halfway. “Then prove it, you sap.”

The kiss was more heated than their last and Natasha made the mistake of moving far too much, too quickly. A jolt of pain raced up her thigh bone and left a deep, pounding ache in its wake. She hissed and he pulled away immediately.

“Does your leg hurt?” he asked as he put the memory stick back into the box and moved it to the floor, out of the way.

“A little, yes.”

“Do you want a pain killer?”

“Please,” she said, nodding.

He got up from the couch and fetched a glass from the kitchen area. With his space now free, she readjusted herself, wincing slightly as she shifted. Home Alone was currently showing on his flat screen and she did her best to concentrate on it in order to distract herself from the pain. One of the criminals was breaking into a house, barefoot for some reason, and stepped on some glass baubles.

“Maybe next year we can put up a tree,” she suggested once he’d returned with the water and pills. “One one would do nicely over there.”

His gaze followed her finger to a spot by the large window. “That’s an unusually festive suggestion, coming from you.”

She lifted her right leg and pulled her knee back slowly to let him slot into the space on the couch.

“You don’t like the idea?” she asked as she lowered her calf onto his lap once he’d sat down.

“I don’t mind it.” He let his metal hand slide absently along her shin. “But we don’t have to have one if it’s just for me. Besides, we live in New York, there’s a pretty impressive one in Rockefeller Center if I’m not mistaken.”

“Yeah, but it would be nice to have one of my own. Just once, you know? To see if it’s worth the effort.”

He nodded. “Sure.”

“And if it is, it might be a good tradition to start together.”

The implication of her suggestion was not lost on him. With their lives the way they were - fluctuating with the slow, unstoppable grind of time, with the fear of death lurking behind any corner they turned - tradition was not ordinarily a luxury they could afford to have. They would never be a family, not in the nuclear two and half kids and white picket-fence kind of way (not that that was what either of them wanted), but they were something, and it was deep, it was special. It was worth holding onto. It was worth building on. “I’d like that.”

“So we’re agreed, then. Next year, you’re getting a tree.”

“Looks that way.” He was enjoying the fact that she seemed so happy about it. “You’ve started decorating it in your head already, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” She sipped at the glass of water still in her hand. “My living space is made up of a web of safe houses in various, secret locations. I don’t get much of a chance to try my hand at decor.”

“That’s a pity. I bet you’d be good at it. You have excellent taste.”

“Flatterer.” She nudged him lightly with her toe. “When you were young, what did you use to top your trees with?”

He thought about it for a second before answering. “I don’t remember what they used to use in the orphanage, but in the army camp,” a smile spread slowly across his lips as he retrieved the memory, “we used to drink a bottle of whatever we had at the time and shove it on upside down.”

“An empty bottle of booze? Really?”

“The alternative was a rusty tin can.”

“Hmm,” Natasha said, “I didn’t have a lot to celebrate in my youth, but that even sounds depressing to me.”

He laughed. “It wasn’t that bad. Some of the G.I.s would get creative and turn a leaflet into paper wings for the bottle. And there was always a lot of food for Christmas dinner.”

“What about when you were a little boy, with your sister?”

“For that tree, mom used to put an angel on top.”

“So let’s do that.”

“No star for the Russian, huh?” He cocked an eyebrow. “I didn’t think you believed in religion.”

“I can’t afford to,” she said in a low voice and then drained her glass of water before placing it on the floor, “not in my line of work, anyway.”

Bucky rubbed delicately at her ankle. “I believe in angels,” he said.

She look up at him and saw his expression. She debated answering him, knowing what he was setting her up for. She did it, anyway. “Oh?” she asked, playing ignorant.

“Yeah, and I’m staring at one right now.”

She let her head drop onto the back of the sofa. “Oh my God, James.”

He was laughing again. “Too much, huh?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed. She reached for the pillow behind her back and tossed it lightly at his chest. “That one was ridiculous.”

He caught it easily and narrowed his eyes with mischief. “Will it get me to second base, at least?” he asked.

Her pulse began to quicken at the thought. “Maybe even third,” she answered, “if you call and order the platter special from Ichiban’s Sushi.”

He grabbed his phone from his pocket and drew up the restaurant’s website. “I’m here to serve, Ms Romanova,” he said as he began filling out the online order form. When he was done he tossed it behind him and grinned.

“That was fast.”

“They guarantee delivery in thirty minutes,” he explained, “that doesn’t give us a lot of time.”

She nodded, agreeing. “Then we’d better hurry.”

“What’s more convenient for you? We could do it right here on the couch, or I could whisk you off to the bedroom.”

“Do I look like a fairy princess to you?”

“No,” he said, his grin turning feral as his gaze dropped to the parting between her bare thighs, “you don’t.”

He wet his bottom lip with his tongue, watching as she slowly shifted her hips into a more accessible position. “Make me scream, James,” she said, “only watch the leg.”

“Yes ma’am,” he whispered. And he did.

~*~

He reached over and picked up the phone from the coffee table, entering his passcode with his real hand while he used the other to help him polish off the remains of the vodka. When he saw who the message was from, he tossed the empty bottle to the far side of the couch and sat up, giving the email his full concentration:

Hi Barnes,

I found this polaroid behind one of my drawers while I was doing a clean out. I don’t know why I have this of you, I figured it might’ve been from a random dossier or something that I’d probably brought home at some point, but it’s not exactly standard SHIELD photography… Maybe it belonged to you or someone you know and it fell into my bag or something?

I didn’t want to throw it away, it seemed personal and it’s a nice picture of you so I thought you might want it back (if it’s yours). Have a Merry Christmas, Barnes, if you celebrate that sort of thing. And thanks for the save earlier this year. I owe you one.

Natasha Romanoff

Once he’d read the message he scrolled back up to the top and read it again, just to make sure he’d gotten every detail. Once he’d done that, he opened the attachment and recognised the photograph immediately. It had been taken at a rooftop barbecue during a summer day with some of the other Avengers at the time. Clint had been messing around with an old polaroid camera of Logan’s (how he’d gotten it, he had no idea) and passed it onto Natasha while making some joke about the number of old people at the party.

He gripped the phone tighter in his hand, his heart aching at the memory.

She’d caught him with his metal arm outstretched as he’d tried to reach for her and the camera. The smile on his face was half-posing and half displeasure at having his picture taken (Natasha had said it was sexy), with his eyes hidden by aviators and his t-shirt discarded because of the heat. She’d been laughing a lot that afternoon (Jessica Drew had been in fine comedic form), prompting him to return the favour by taking a few candid shots of her on his phone. Those were locked away in a secure safe, along with everything else which had evidenced their relationship, although if he was patient enough, copies of them would have eventually flitted across the screen of the digital photo frame which currently lay next to the empty vodka bottle on the couch.

He heaved in a shaky breath as his emotions threatened to get the better of him. Tossing the phone over to the other discarded items, he reached around the couch and picked up his final, unopened bottle of vodka. He’d saved this one for last (a shitty, commercial brand - it was all they’d had in the supermarket) so he wouldn’t be able to taste it. He cracked the seal and downed three gulps before coming up for air.

But it didn’t help. Of all days, he thought. Of all the days for her to make any form of contact it would, of course, be on the very day he was honouring his love for her by drunkenly decorating a Christmas tree. If that was fate trying to throw him a bone, it could go fuck itself.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and cradled his head in his left hand while his right one’s loose grip dangled the bottle. His long hair surrounded his face, placing him in shadow and mercifully shielding his view from the garish representation of love and family sparkling before him.

His shoulders shook as the tears began to fall. One by one they spilled into tiny, unseen puddles at his feet. He’d survived worse pains than the one he was facing (some of the people he’d killed, even before his time as the Winter Soldier… so many innocent faces…) but this one had been the cruelest. Every so often a memory of her would rear its beautiful head only to sting him with a venom as excruciating as the day he’d lost her. “Natalia…” he said in a broken whisper. She’s better off without me…

As thoughts of her assaulted him he gave up trying to reign in the tears, instead flooding the silence of his apartment with the sobs that wracked his body. He told himself that he would only give into the pain for a moment, that he’d allow himself a minute before he would take back control, but somehow in between that short space of time he ended up with his phone in his hands, and a message ready to send to her:

I love you imiss you so much im lost without you. Nothing feels the same nothingis the same. Youre my entire soul.

His thumb hovered over the word ‘send’ as he struggled to see sense through the fog of alcohol and longing. It was such an easy thing to do, to fall prey to that self-destructive temptation. It would do more damage than good. It would be selfish in every way, he knew that. But knowing did nothing to dampen the desires of the heart. She was gone, but she was also right there and it was supposed to be enough just to know that she was alright. But it wasn’t. Fuck no, it wasn’t. Because she didn’t love him, and that left him utterly empty inside. As if someone had ripped out the very parts of him that had kept him alive and scrapped him thin.

His better conscience won in the end, like it was supposed to, like she would have expected of him (like Steve would have). He deleted the message.

Cathartically, it seemed to break the spell (enough for him to take in a more sure breath than the one that had sent him spiralling downwards). Time’s up, he told himself, no more of this. She’s better off without you. His minute of self-pity was done.

He stood up, resigned to the reality of his situation, and stumbled his way to the bedroom, to sleep it all off.

~*~

His waking the next morning was not exactly a very pleasant affair. He’d left his phone in the living room and had no means to check the time, but given that he’d left his curtains open it was easy to see that the sun had yet to rise. He guessed that made it around six in the morning, which meant he’d gotten less than four hours of sleep. But it was Christmas Day, people had made plans with him in them and he wanted to visit Rebecca. So he got up (the hangover would die away quickly enough) and he walked out of the bedroom into the darkness of the rest of his open-plan apartment.

The sight of the tree, still blinking jovially, surprised him for a moment. The air was tinged with the smell of stale vodka, the empty bottles of which twinkled with multicoloured refraction of the Christmas lights. The sight was unexpectedly pretty, given the state he’d left the room in.

He set up his coffee machine, feeling his way in the dark, unwilling to switch on the ceiling lamps and ruin the view. While it percolated he retrieved his phone from the couch and, with a heavy sigh, he re-read Natasha’s email and began crafting a suitable response:

Hey Nat,

Yeah the photo’s mine. Someone took it while messing around with an old polaroid camera at a party. It must have gotten mixed up with some documents or something (or maybe you took it home on purpose? If so, I’m flattered). Could you keep it and give it to me the next time we meet? I kinda want it back since it’s one of the few decent photographs of me that exist out there. Of course I don’t know when that’ll next be, so you might have to keep it on your person for a while (which is not a thought I mind). I trust you to keep something like that safe for me until I can get it back.

And in case you’re curious, I do celebrate Christmas, I even got a tree this year. A friend suggested I get one, she thought it would brighten the place up. She was right… sort of.

You don’t owe me anything, Nat, you never have. Just know I’ll always be there for you, if you need it.

Take care of yourself.

Yours always,

James.

He put the phone down without sending it and started on making himself (a large) breakfast, turning on no more than the stove’s hood light. The pancakes, eggs and bacon took longer to make as a result, but as he sat himself on the dining time, facing the tree as it shone out, illuminating the entire apartment with its pretty, Christmas spirit, he decided it had been worth the extra effort. She would have loved it. It would have been a great tradition.

He smiled to himself as he shovelled a forkful of pancakes into his eager mouth (a hyped-up metabolism and a liquid dinner could drive a man to starvation), and thought about how the saying, “it’ll look better in the morning,” was kind of true. Maybe he’d needed to get it all out of his system. Bucky had his good days, but he had his bad, too, and they tended to build and climax in unhealthy bouts of self-loathing and heavy-drinking sessions. Yesterday had been the latter, but today… who knew?

He looked down at his phone again and evaluated his intended reply with a critical eye. “No,” he said, to no one in particular, “this is too personal.”

With a clearer head and a full belly, he edited the message:

Hi Natasha,

Yeah the photo’s mine, thanks. It must have gotten mixed up with some documents or something. Could you keep it and give it to me next time we meet? I’d really appreciate that.

Thanks for the Christmas wishes, I’d reciprocate but I have a feeling you don’t celebrate the holiday, so I’ll just wish you well for the New Year.

There’s no need to thank me, you’re more than welcome. I’m always around if you need anything.

Take care,

James.

Polite. Not too personal. Perfect.

His heart beat painfully in his chest, but he sent it anyway.

When he was done, he took his cup of coffee and walked over to the couch, analysing the tree as he approached. It definitely needed to be finished. “Alright then, you’re up, angel face. Make this look good.” He picked up the porcelain ornament and carefully placed her into position, adjusting her a few times to make sure she was securely set and facing the right direction.

When he finally took a step back to survey his work he found he was sufficiently satisfied - at least enough to get him through the rest of the day.

He raised his cup in a toast. “Merry Christmas, ‘Tasha,” he whispered.

#buckynat secret santa #king-queen-and-ace #buckynat fanfiction #winterwidow fanfiction #buckynat #winterwidow #charlie writes #very mild angst

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