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foxytoxx · 5 months

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The Night Before (Astarion x fem!durge fanfic)

The Night Before

Words: 2.5k

Read on AO3

Summary: Morella has been gone for a while and it unnerves Astarion when he suddenly finds her in a compromising situation.

TW: Bad coping mechanism, Drug Use, Angst, Anxiety, Naked Body (no smut tho), Protective Astarion,

A/N: Heya! Been a lurker for a few months now and had an idea for my newly finished Durge Resist play. If this goes ok, I might write up some other ideas I have. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

He looked up from his book. It had been there again, that sound. He stole a quick glance around the other companions socialising lazily in the shared sitting area of their room at the Elfsong. By the looks of it none of the others had heard the sound.

His ears perked up behind the book, trying not to alarm the others unnecessarily.

The last few days had been spent destroying the Steel Watch Foundry, freeing the Gondians who had been forced into the cruel machinery’s creation and today Lord Gortash had finally met his end. The whole group had been exhausted at the end of it.

Astarion lifted his crimson gaze once more to the tall, red tiefling. Karlach had been the one to land the final blow on the man who had stolen her life from her, but she hadn’t seemed happy about Gortash’s death. Only sad and distant.

His trail of thought was quickly dissipated suddenly to… was that laughter?

“I believe that would be our dear fearless leader.” Gale said, hovering his eyes to the elf’s direction.

Astarion closed his book and rose to his feet. How long had it been since Morella went to the washroom to clean herself up? 30 minutes? An hour? She was entitled to privacy as much as any of them, and he wanted nothing more for her than to try to relax and take her mind off things every now and then. She had stolen away with a wine bottle to the washroom hadn’t she? But what could possibly have caused that near manic sound to come from her now?

Dagger at his hip he strode across the room and exited into the hallway. The washroom was just across from the rented room. He knocked softly at the door, there was some rustling inside.

“Darling, I hope one of the Gondians haven’t persuaded you into a moment of passion as thanks for their freedom” a sly smirk toyed with his lips. “I’m not sharing my meals with… gnomes.”

A hushed voice answered, but the door distorted it into an incoherent muffle.

He slowly walked into the room. What met him caught him off guard.

It was surprisingly dark. Only a few candles valiantly lit the room from complete darkness. The tub was filled, but seemed undisturbed. She wasn’t there, or at least not currently visible.

“Morella, darling?”

Then it hit him. A faint, but unmistakable scent. Her blood. His brows instinctively knitted together, hand hovering over the hilt of his dagger. His entire being felt tight like a coiled spring.

He noticed the lack of alcohol in the air, but instead there was something he could not quite place. Something earthy, almost herbal.

“A-starion…” her voice was breathy, distant even, but it had a slight humorous undertone.

He moved past the tub to find her curled up in the corner of the room. She was still in her camp clothes, but they were unnaturally dishevelled for her.

He quickly stooped down to her and cradled her in his arms. His eyes didn’t have to look long til he found the source of the blood. Her lips had been tinted red from a light streak coming from her nose.

She giggled softly as she looked up at him through glazed eyes.

“Shit…” he quickly scanned the room. Eyes landed on a bottle laying off to her side. It had been the bottle she had brought, but it had not been wine.

On their way back to camp from the burning ruins of the Foundry the other day they had run into some arms and drug smugglers down by the docks. Morella had used her silvery tongue to convince them to hand their ware over to the group without drama. Astarion had figured she would take the goods and sell it off for extra coin, but he thought he had seen a little glimpse of familiarity in her eyes. He had thought nothing of it at the time.

Without letting go of his grip on her he reached out for the bottle. Without getting too close he tried to get a little sniff of its content to try identify it. Silkroot.

He put away the bottle and looked back down at her quivering body in his arms.

“Darling, how much did you take?” His voice almost cold yet steady.

She shifted in his grip.

“Enough- '' her voice barely above a whisper. “but she still won’t leave me alone… “ palm raised up to her temple.

“Who, darling?” He had his suspicions, but didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

“Orin… ”

His grip on her tightened and he couldn’t help but quickly examine the dim room for any sign of the shapeshifter, but they were alone. Morella’s bloodkin Orin had been generous with her bloodstained letters as of recent. Which come to think of it had probably been what had sent his lover spiralling into the drug induced mania.

There had been a fresh letter centred in a perfect pool of blood when they had returned from Gortash’s execution that day. But somehow this one had somehow made Morella seem… off? The others in the group wouldn’t have noticed the difference, but he did. He had asked her if she was alright, but she had just waved him off with a deceptive smile and laughed. The laugh had a nerve to it though.

“We need to get you an antidote.” He gently lifted her to her unsteady feet and guided her over to a chair, not letting go of her swaying body until he was certain she wouldn’t firmly plant her face onto the wooden floor.

“I’ll be right back dear, don’t go anywhere.” He quickly exited the room, closed the door and hurried into the rented one. Making his way hurriedly over to his pack rummaging through it.

“Everything alright in there?” Shadowheart asked with a smirk.

Astarion with only half a mind to pay them any attention finally grabbed the neck of the bottle and turned around.

“Hmm? Oh yes, yes. Everything is fine. Our dear leader only had a tad too much to drink is all.”

“And for that you want her to drink more? Or is that an antidote bottle I see? Are you sure everything is alright?” There was an uncertainty in her voice.

Gods above, he couldn’t remember the cleric being this quizzitive.

“I’m sure everything will be fine. I’ll let you know otherwise.” He wished he could ask Shadowheart for assistance, but he didn’t want to cause Morella any unnecessary embarrassment. Although this wasn’t his first run in with the substance, he hadn’t expected it from her. Hells he had used it himself once many many years ago while still under Cazador’s control.

One of his attempted conquests had convinced him to partake in a dark corner of a tavern once. It hadn’t gone unnoticed or unpunished…

He quickly shook the memory from his head as he quickly made his way back to Morella. As he closed the door behind him he noted that she was still in the chair. She had probably been landing from the euphoria when he had found her.

He scooted her up into his lap as he sat down.

“Come here. Now you are going to drink this all up. And when you have come back to me fully, we will have a talk.” His tone was warm, but stern. Her back was very warm and clammy. Her shirt drenched in sweat. As she shakingly placed the bottle to her lips and drank it down he gingerly pulled some loose silvery white locks of hair behind her pointed ear.

Early on in their adventures the group had jested about how the two of them might be related simply because they were both silver haired high-elves. But the tone had quickly changed once they had become an established couple.

With the antidote bottle empty in her hands he held her tightly to his chest while he listened to her heartbeat slowly picking up its pace.

Finally after what felt like forever there was a weak sob from her.

“I’m sorry, Astarion… I’m sorry.”

He hooked his index finger and lifted her chin so her golden blue eyes would meet his crimson. It struck him as uncanny how close the colouration of her prosthetic eye was to her original eye. He could almost not tell them apart if it wasn’t for the slight yellow tint to the prosthetic.

“It’s alright, darling. I just wished you would have talked to me about what was bothering you.” The corner of his lip lifted into a warm smirk. “I mean honestly you are setting a piss poor example for me now. Do as I say, not as I do isn’t really the greatest way of learning now is it? Or so I’m told at least.”

A small huff escaped her lips. He placed a soft kiss on her forehead, and her eyes pooled over with tears. Her fingers fidgeted with the empty bottle, her breath became more laboured and her heartbeat quickened. He has seen it in her on a few sheltered occasions before, anxiety eating away at her.

He started tracing her black tendril-like neck tattoo with his cold fingers. This had become somewhat of a favoured way to keep her grounded while she worked through it.

“Come on, dear. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

He helped her up. Her legs were more trustworthy now that she was back. He stood back a bit, giving her room to undress and get into the warm tub. As she sank down into the warm water he moved the chair over to sit behind her. Once she was comfortable seated, he continued the cooling tracing along her neck.

“So…” broke the silence tenderly.

Her body tensed up. Eyes flickered.

“We are going after her tomorrow aren’t we…” her voice was more hollow than he was used to.

“That is the plan. Or so you said at least.”

She nodded slowly.

“I’m scared, Astarion…” her bluntness caught him slightly off guard.

“Our fearless leader, scared. Why, I would never have thought it possible?” he smiled light heartedly, and kissed her forehead again.

“Darling, you’ve got nothing to fear about Orin. Or I doubt there is at least. Hells! With a tongue as sharp as yours you might cut her down with words alone.”

“It’s not just Orin thought, is it… It’s all of it… Bhaal, Orin, what if I can’t resist him down there? What of Lae’zel? Hells what about you, I could end up hurting you or try to, like the night outside Reithwin…” her voice caught as her memory fell on her attempt on his life.

He leaned forward, shirtsleeves be damned, and held her tightly.

“Shh, no need to dwell on that.” he hushed her. “I’m safe, you are safe. We are safe. And I am sure Lae’zel is relatively fine. Orin signed up for more than she was prepared for by abducting the gith and keeping her leverage.”

He moved out of his chair and crouched along the side of the tub to lock eyes with her. Astarion reached out and took hold of her hands.

“Remember what I said when you tried to break up with me because of your fear for my safety?”

She nodded.

“Well, my statement still stands. We will save you. And if I have to fight for your freedom like you fought for mine, then damn it I will fight for you. Until my last undead breath…” he paused for a quick moment. “Or something like that.”

Morella’s eyes teared up again, but a smile crossed her lips.

“Now with all the roundabout love declarations out of the way, I do believe you owe me an explanation.” His brow rose with a look over at the bottle of silkroot.

“It’s alright, darling. I’m not mad at you, but I do want the truth…” his voice had gone soft as he looked back into her eyes.

She didn’t have it in her to meet his gaze. Her eyes dropped down to her hands under the water. She started picking at her nails.

“I can’t quite explain it. But when we got all the stuff off of the smugglers I recognised the silkroot. Not from our travels, but from before. Almost like a memory of a memory.”

Astarion gently reached for a bar of soap and a sponge while he listened to her, and started sudding up the sponge.

“So when we came back here tonight, the letter was waiting for me… I guess realisation just hit a bit harder about our next steps. I had all these emotions and thoughts flood through me. And it all just became too much. I thought maybe a bath would help clear my mind, but on my way I passed the camp stash, and I just grabbed…”

Her voice broke off into a sob.

“I’m sorry…”

Suddenly she felt a cold hand at the nape of her neck.

“Do you have any idea of how much of that stuff you would consume previously?” she couldn’t detect any judgement in his tone. Only concern.

With a deep steadying breath she shook her head.

“Like I said; memory of a memory.”

He gave her an understanding nod.

“If you wouldn’t mind I would like Shadowheart or Halsin to look you over later. You can’t flip off daddy if you let drugs eat out your stomach lining, and honestly I should be the only thing that gets to eat you out.”

He snickered as a deep blush and a smirk crossed her face, eyes lifting slowly from the water and she nods.

He continued the wash in silence. Her heart had calmed down, and her breath was easy. Too soon for her liking he rose and grabbed a towel. She followed soon after. He couldn’t help but admire her body as she rose. Water droplets would dance downwards along her curves, it mesmerised him completely. He pulled the towel around her and held her tightly to him. She rested her head against his shoulder and let his scent consume her.

He looked over to the pile of clothes she had tossed to the side. “You didn’t bring a set of change did you…”

She dared a look up at him, with a shit eating grin plastered on her lips.

“I figured I could just wear those until I got back.” gesturing to the pile.

“No you are not…” He started unlacing his own shirt. “I didn’t put that much effort into getting you cleaned up for you to ruin my fine work. Tck, honestly…”

He pulled his own shirt off and pulled it over her head, pulling up her long braid.

“Darling, your foresight is absolutely criminal.”

She giggled and kissed him softly. His hands greeted her forearm and lower back as he leaned into it.

“Come on, let's get you back before the others worry more than they already do.”

He piled up her things and they walked out of the washroom and closed the door behind them.

#astarion #astarion fic #astarion fanfic #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #dark urge #astarion x tav #astarion x dark urge #astarion ancunin

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themswritinwords · 7 months

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The Hundred Fifty Seven Deaths of the Immortal Ethan Ellis: Cast profiles: Ethan Ellis

The man himself (Ethan) - he/him; 24 years old biologically, 310 years old chronologically; Quietly Depressed Optimist in Desperate Need of a Hug and a Nap

Depressed, traumatized, self-sacrificial, dysfunctional, exhausted--what's not to relate to love?

Just woke up during his own autopsy. That's definitely not going to unearth any poorly-buried Issues!

What do you mean endless gallows humor and self deprecation aren't healthy coping mechanisms?

*slaps bruised and blood-stained noggin* This bad boy can fit so much mental illness and metaphor in him.

The result of a necromancer-wannabe's attempts at immortality; ex-human-guinea-pig with all of the attendant moral, philosophical, and psychological conundrums that come with death being a temporary condition.

One of three "successful" experiments. The other two adjusted pretty well, all things considered. Ethan did not.

Alas, they didn't have therapy in colonial America. You know what they did have, though? An abundance of dangerous life paths and causes worth dying for. That's not gonna reinforce any dangerous thought patterns or unhealthy mental states, I'm sure!

Longest streak between deaths has been just shy of 4 years. All but one of them has been his own dang fault. He is fully aware of this, but in a deeper sense, he is entirely unaware of this.

Always cared more about others than himself. This got infinitely worse when he realized he could die without consequences (supposedly).

Animals hate him! and no that is not just the start of a clickbait article. Every animal he's met since getting immortal'd has tried to put him back in the ground. He used to be a cat person, though.

Chronically friendless and self-isolated. People don't handle the dead guy coming back to life very well, and he's gotten more than one witness in life-ruining trouble by reviving in front of them. He finds it easier to just stay away from people on all but a surface level. (Again, I can't imagine that's going to cause problems down the line....)

Travels like an overripe peach, which is to say he is the King of Motion Sickness

Repeated resurrection has turned the man into a caloric dumpster. Over the course of a day and a half he consumes ~30 chicken nuggets, four burgers, a large fry, a medium bag of chips, a popsicle, and half a cup of ice and he's still desperately hungry.

Flip flops between annoying little brother energy and annoyed big brother energy depending on who he's arguing with at the time.

Wants: Everyone and Everything to leave him tf alone (also a shower)

Needs: One good reason to live and way fewer reasons to get himself killed

Immediate goals: Keep his only friends from getting dragged down with him and all his issues

Long term goals: None, and that's rather the point (not that this is a recurring theme in my characters or anything....)

Character arc can best be described as: that quote that's like "Dying is easy, living is hard;" the shift from hope, caring, and love as passive traits to hope, caring, and love as active choices worth making

Favorite things about writing him

The Catharsis. There's a reason so many of my OCs end up with mental illnesses and unhealthy patterns of thought. Ethan is just the most explicit of these self-inserts.

The snarcasm and humor were both challenging and so fun. I'm not a witty person by nature, so it took a bit of perspective shift to get right. I think I got better a dialogue overall by writing him.

He's a very internal and thought-ful person, and it was an interesting balance to write. He always thinks more than he says and feels more than he thinks.

Not to toot my own horn, but his third act breakdown and "Oh Sh*t" moment were a delight to write and some of my strongest writing moments.

His voice is very informal and sarcastic, and it was fun to write genuine horror in a goofball, this-might-as-well-happen sort of way.

#writing #original writing #original character #oc #ethan ellis #my writing #creative writing #novel manuscript #writeblr #thfsdotiee

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regionalcinnabonmanager · 1 year

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Cheating prick (3/4)

tags: implied smut, drinking, very brief mentions of alcohol as a coping mechanism, sugawara is a prick

1 2 3

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A cup of steaming hot tea. The comforting scent of pine. A glass of red wine and dried tear streaks on your face.

You tried to focus on literally anything else but the current matter at hand.

Your best friend at across from you silently as he took in the information you have him.

When you broke up with your now ex-boyfriend, you had no idea what to do next. Celebrate? Cry?

You could do neither at that moment, so you got up and went to the man who introduced you to him in the first place.

"Well, this certainly wasn't what I was expecting to hear on a Saturday night" Daichi said, trying to lighten your mood a bit. He sipped his tea and looked at you. "What are you gonna do now?"

You stayed silent, pondering his question. You had come to his house in a moment of frustration and weakness, and you didn't really know what you wanted.

He had let you stay the night, taking one glance at your face and allowing you space to talk about it the next day. Only, you two didn't get to talk until right now as his shift just ended over an hour ago.

"I don't know, Dai." You said, downing the rest of your wine, the alcohol running down your throat. He always had good wine.

"I mean, I don't know what else is there to do. He's packed the rest of shit and I wasn't there for that, so, I really don't know"

You poured yourself another glass, Daichi watching you with observant eyes.

Silent befell the two of you, not really knowing what to say or do next.

"How long?"

You perked up, "Hm?"

"How long was he- you know," Daichi sipped his tea.

You sighed, recollecting the names in your little journal.

"Well, we've been together for 6 years, so the latter half of our relationship has just been him picking up different side pieces." You took a sip. "All because I got boring."

"Can't trust anyone these days." Daichi poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue.

"Listen, I'm so sorry I didn't find out sooner. I always felt like something was off. If I had known, then maybe you didn't have to go through that." He leaned in closer, resting his forearms on the table. Was he always that hot when he did that?

"Daichi, it isn't your fault. You didn't know, and honestly I should have left when it first happened." You put your leg up on your chair, resting your elbow on it, your hand to your temple.

The glass of wine sat comfortably in your free hand, swirling it, you took a sip. Daichi eyed your glass warily.

"I'm taking this from you," he took the glass of wine from your hand, placing it on his side of the table. "I really wanna keep you sober for this"

"Why? Afraid I'll do something I'll regret?" You asked, shifting in your seat.

"No, just a precaution that this doesn't become a habit for you. I mean, you knew about my dad, didn't you?" Daichi raised his eyebrows are you. Concern evident in his face and voice.

You said nothing, acknowledging his concern.

You observed him silently instead. He seemed distracted, which was rare for him.

Daichi's mind was full of questions. Primarily why. Why did Sugawara do what he did? Why did he give up the one he loved just for that playboy fuck to break the heart that truly loved him.

He was angry. Angry that his best friend was hurt. Angry that he distanced himself from you just for Sugawara to be able to pursue you only for it to have been broken by someone who wasn't loyal.

But most of all, he hated seeing you cry. He loved you so, so much. He wanted nothing more than to kiss you, hold you in his arms, console you, anything to soothe his aching heart.

Not yet, says his mind. His heart, however..

You, on the other hand, are also angry. Angry that you basically threw away your life to be with him just for it to be mesningless in the end. You wanted your revenge.

And was it just you, or was Daichi kind of..hot.

Then just like that,

Ding!

A plan formed in your head.

Sugawara Koushi removed himself as your constant the moment he cheated on you. So why not take his? Why not claim the very person who had his back through thick and thin.

What if, you fucked Daichi Sawamura?

And that's what you did.

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@multi-fandom-fanfic

@nachotrash

@selfdeprecatingnerd

@haitanifxn

#:)#well #things are heating up #daichi x reader #daichi x you #daichi fluff #daichi angst #sugawara koushi #sugawara #daichi #daichi sawamura #sugawara angst #sugawara x reader #sugawara x you

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razorbeard · 3 months

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Hazbin Hotel Verse for Cale???

Just a lil idea I'm fiddling with, thinking I'm gonna throw it on my side blog. With all them funny HH/HB muses. But for Cale his verse and timeline are gonna be more modern and current day to fit in with Hazbin's timeline and stuff. BUT a lotta what Cale does/is after his military service can translate well into HB/HH's setting cuz I can't imagine there's any shortage of needing a good gun for hire or a bounty hunter so wouldn't have to change much. As far as the reason he's THERE per say? Gotta fiddle around with a few more ideas and stuff but this version of him is going to have a much darker vibe to it, no healthy coping mechanisms for PTSD/Anxiety just self medication and acts of violence :D. Self medication varies from drinking himself into a stupor after having a bad nightmare or using unprescribed meds to make him feel normal. Like I said it's the darkest version of the worst aspects of him, but that streak a light that's always been in him of a guy wanting to DO the right thing, even if time and time again doing the right thing ends up causing him more harm then good, shines through in the end no matter what everyone else around him is saying. This drive to try and do the right thing being a double edged sword, time and time again blowing up in his face when he was alive staying with him in the afterlife, it causing him the same issues it did in life, taking all his good intentions all his good will and burning it to ash in front of him. But even with the worst aspects of him being dialed up to 10, he isn't the stereotypical sinner, he isn't power hungry he isn't inherently self serving. Because these were thing he was never in life, so as much as he's all for getting paid at the end of the day he isn't looking to be the next big bad overlord. He's a man with a particular set of skills and most of them have to do with killing people. Or at the best hurting people, or the bestest being the intimidating Body guard hired to protect whoever's shelling out the cash at the time. He's a merc and he does what the money needs him to do......M O S T the time. Long story short just a fun lil alternate verse idea to play with my meat head of a oc here. Been really enjoying the show and the setting so thought 'fuck it' LOL I'M PROLLY Gonna throw him on the Side blog as well just to not clog things up here but doesn't mean you can't interact/give me a poke about it if any of the rambling here catches ya fancy!

#ooc #cale razor #hazbin hotel #Hellaverse #(Idfk how to tag this so fuck it lol)#hazbin hotel rp

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lets-talk-spirituality · 10 months

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Idk because I think for some people, love is like a Disney film. Maybe I’m just too hopeful but I do think the message in Cinderella is about how love can save us. And that’s true. Maybe it’s not the love of a prince, it’s the love of self, but love is what saves us. So much of unhappiness and pain can be rooted to a perceived lack of love. The energy of anti love

// Oh, I didn't mean to sound cynical or anything. I'm totally a hopeless romantic and believe a Disney love is out there for me. But I also agree that we need to love ourselves too cos without that, it can cause issues in relationships. Not saying we have to be perfect, but more balanced

Y'know, it's funny you say your favourite Disney princess reveals something about you cos it's so true. I love Ariel and Rapunzel, and both are adventurous types who fight back against the status quo/what they're life is like. I also did love Belle cos, ngl, if someone gifted me a whole library, I would marry them in a heartbeat. Like, that is a dream!

But I actually loved Ariel cos I watched a lot of these Disney princess films and didn't see myself represented. So it was a huge deal when a childminder showed me that film cos I didn't feel insecure about being ginger, and I did happen to have an adventurous streak, so that worked out well 😅 But it's why I'm fully supporting this live action movie, cos I know how special it made me feel when I saw myself represented, and now little Black girls have that too

I loved Cinderella for a similar reason (I think). To be kind to all, and you'll be rewarded with a similar kindness/love back. It's a beautiful message, and one I've certainly stuck with

You didn’t sound cynical! I just have gotten on this blog before that I’m too hopeful and optimistic about love? Too Disney. Which is weird right. I know the capacity for love I have for others, I know how love can be, and I know not everyone can love how I do, it’s my gift. But I also think being optimistic and hopeful of goodness in our world isn’t naïveté or a bad thing. It’s a coping mechanism. People confuse choosing goodness with not being aware of reality. Some of us are super aware of reality which is why we choose hope.

People wanna shit on Cinderella sometimes and in general the idea that a man is saving a woman, but I agree with you. There are a lot of empowering messages in these movies too. And also some beautiful beautiful songs.

#ask box

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demoreelrewound · 10 months

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Karl Copenhagen

Do not fear death.

Canon traits: stern, emotionally distant, loyal, steadfast, deeply jaded, laconic, pragmatic and single-minded approach to problems, ruthless streak, little care for the lives of animals, invasive of personal space and privacy, encouraging in a tough-love way

Canon backstory:

Karl lived in the German Democratic Republic (DDR) with a family including a wife and child. A soldier in the Navy, he later became an agent of the Stasi, implied to have been an interrogator or involved with the censorship of written communication. In 1991 his family was crushed to death when a piece of the Berlin Wall fell on them. At some point before or during employment at Demo Reel, he and Quinn drunkenly broke into and stole equipment from Planet Hollywood.

My ideas:

One of the two mains I am willing to tweak the established backstory of, I don't recall if it's confirmed what role he played in the Stasi but I have decided it isn't as a chief interrogator -- too many people would remember his face, both victims and colleagues, for him to possibly get away. More likely to have been an investigator -- a brutal and ruthless man all too willing to sell people out for not being careful enough, even if they had a connection.

Regarding his childhood, he was brought up on a meat-producing farm with mother Charlotte, father Viktor, and younger twin sisters Anna and Nora. He is an eldest child through and through. Much of it was spent studying, following his parents in tending to the animals, and watching over his sisters. At this point, his surname was not Copenhagen, but Bauer (peasant/farmer) - the former was his mother's maiden name that he took with him to the States.

The family was one that took every measure to blend in and stay under the radar, with other relatives having been caught out and disappeared by authorities. Some were democratic activists, others on Charlotte's side were trying to preserve religious heritage for new generations - Charlotte and Viktor vowed to not leave their children to fend for themselves or lead them to a "pointless" death, so only told them necessary information about it all.

The Navy was a logical route for him even without his teachers ushering him that way - he had an eye for mechanisms and processes, combined with a very strong stomach and ease with blood. They picked him up straight out of school and he coped with the first major separation by writing regularly to them. (He still recalls bits of their replies, one from each sister.)

He met his wife Frieda once he was in the Stasi - she was a clerk in the main office who also introduced him to cinema and its techniques. They had a child, Hans, a few years into the marriage - a sweet, happy child who needed great big glasses.

That same year, a fire broke out at the family farm, killing his parents and severely injuring Anna, who died in the hospital. Nora had been at a meeting at the time, being accepted into the household immediately after. The farm was rebuilt and taken over by an associate of the family.

At the time of the Wall falling, he was assigned to disposing of evidence, though when he heard of a human crush (aka stampede) near where Nora, Frieda and Hans were out on errands, he broke the rules for the first time in his life and damn near sprinted to their location - too late. Somehow Hans' teddy bear ended up in the rubble of the Berlin Wall. He couldn't bear picking it up, instead just walking across with the crowd of others doing the same.

Cooking is one of his few hobbies in life; he prides himself on making use of what he had and selecting the cheapest high quality goods. (Being high-ish ranking in the Stasi helped with this as better Party members got better resources.)

Camera work was something he had to learn in the States - he knows how cameras work and what different shot names are but not so much how to use them for effect. For that he relies on Quinn's expertise and Donnie's direction.

#{reel rewound}#reel rewound: karl copenhagen #torture mention #fire cw #blood cw #child death cw #(the teddy bear is referencing ep. 4 when he punches Donnie for showing him it - him and his big round glasses showing him a toy..!)#(maybe he won't outright punch this time but do something with a similar effect)#eye contact

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abdelsalam774 · 2 months

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The Existential Funhouse: A One-Man Show

So, here I am, staring into the abyss and the abyss, bless its black heart, stares right back. You'd think after all this staring one of us would blink, but apparently, the abyss prefers a good, long, soul-crushing gaze. Desolation, folks, let me tell you, it's not a five-star resort. It's more like a roach motel with a complimentary existential dread minibar.

The world feels like a malfunctioning funhouse mirror, warping everything into a grotesque caricature. Dreams turn into crumpled receipts, laughter echoes hollowly, and even the sun seems to be perpetually stuck on the "meh" setting. It's enough to make you want to curl up in a fetal position and plead with the universe for a participation trophy.

But here's the thing – I haven't curled up. Not yet, anyway. There's a stubborn streak in me, a fly buzzing against the windowpane of despair. Maybe it's a death wish in disguise, who knows? But I can't seem to accept the complimentary existential bathrobe and slippers just yet.

Denial? Maybe a little. But hey, denial's a coping mechanism, and frankly, right now, I'll take whatever coping mechanism comes with a two-for-one happy hour on tequila shots. Besides, denial gets a bad rap. It's not about burying your head in the sand like a particularly slow ostrich (though that does sound tempting at times).

No, my denial is more like a defiant middle finger to the abyss. It's saying, "Yeah, things suck, but I'm still here, dammit. And I'm going to keep stumbling through this funhouse, even if the only prize at the end is a slightly chipped sense of humor."

Look, I'm not delusional. I know there are no guarantees. Life might very well decide to kick me in the shins repeatedly for the foreseeable future. But here's the beauty of the whole thing – I get to choose how I react. I can be the whiny toddler throwing a tantrum at the cosmic carnival, or I can be the slightly deranged clown, juggling flaming existential dread with a manic grin.

Sure, the juggling act might end in tears and singed eyebrows, but at least I'll go down with a flourish. Besides, who knows? Maybe the audience will appreciate the show. Maybe someone else out there is also staring into the abyss and needs a good laugh (or a good cry, no judgment here).

So yeah, the world might be a desolate funhouse, but I'm here for the ride. Buckle up, existential dread, it's going to be a bumpy one.

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little-fics · 3 years

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Bee

Fandom: Marvel

Pairing: Stucky x Reader; platonic!uncle!Tony

Summary: Reader is teetering the edge of a slip when her buddies Sam and Clint are mean to her, daddy stucky to the rescue

Warnings: age regression, scary bees, bottle, pacifier, anxiety, a little violence, angry!Steve (not at you), mean!sam and mean!clint, I may have missed some, read at your own risk

Word count: 2.2K

A/N: I had fun with this one! I hope you like it!

Disclaimer for my blog!

Life with Bucky and Steve was great, you'd officially been together for about a year, and they'd been your daddies about half that time. You didn't always regress, just when the world got a little too big and you needed to leave it all behind. The avengers didn't know about your coping mechanism, at your own request, save for Tony who has programmed Friday to detect when you're little and were about to do something that babies shouldn't do, such as cooking or showering because babies makes messes and get hurt. It was something you'd kept private and to yourself for a long time, and it took months to feel comfortable enough to talk with Steve and Bucky about it. You weren't always feeling little, and had the capability of being a very vital part to the team, but on your days off, it was easy to find yourself slipping into that headspace.

That's how you got to sitting on the balcony, slowly slipping into that headspace after a difficult mission. You'd woken up between Steve and Bucky, crawling out of the bed quietly, not quite feeling small but you know it's coming. Clint and Sam find you outside, sunbathing and staring at the clouds. Sam is the first one to come outside, Clint following close behind.

"Mornin' sunshine," Sam sits next to you, Clint moving to the other side of you, relaxing in his seat, Sam holding out a glass to you, "want some lemonade? I know that coffee makes you jittery on your days off." You take the glass, smiling at the yellow straw poking up from the top, "Thank you! And a straw!" You twiddle with it gently, pulling it out to take a sip. "Gosh," your shoulders sag and your head leans back in ecstasy, "Clint's lemonade is the best, thank you." Clint pointedly looks at Sam, smug, "Why thank you Y/n, I'm blushing." Sam scoffs, "You wouldn't have even made it if I didn't beg!" Clint shrugs, "I made food," he looks to you, "speaking of," he has you a plate with a sausage and egg biscuit. You tentatively take it from him, "Oh thank you, are you sure?" Clint laughs, leaning back in his seat, "Yeah, honey, me and Sam already had some."

Once you finish your biscuit, you're back to staring at the pretty sky, sipping on your lemonade listening to Sam and Clint bicker back and forth. A bee comes out of nowhere, eliciting a small yelp from you and you're quickly standing from your seat. They're laughing, which hurt your feelings, the fear of the bee causing you to slip fully. You try to go inside but hear Sam speak to the AI, "Friday, lock patio doors under code Falcon," before you make it to the door. When you pull on it the door won't budge. "Sam," your voice is meek, "that's not funny," you whine and shake the door again, getting nervous over the buzzing around your lemonade on the table. "Friday, open the door." Clint laughs again, "It's just a bee, you've been shot before and you can't handle a bee?" A tear slips down your face, and you feel your heartbeat pick up.

You shake on the door, trying to get away from your mean friends, wiping a tear away, "Open the door Sam." He's laughing, he thinks this is funny, "It's just a bee, it'll be gone in a minute Y/n, it's fine." You shake the door more violently, and it's clear Sam wasn't going to open the door. You bring your hand to the bracelet that lays around your wrist, a fail safe if something is wrong, to immediately notify Steve and Bucky that you need them. You find the tiny sun charm, pressing the tiny button that notifies your daddies of your state of mind and that you're in trouble, different from the other charm, a moon, who notifies your boyfriends of an emergency.

Bucky is the first one to hear Friday, "Mr. Barnes, Mr. Rogers," he groans groggily, "Friday, it's too early for this, what is it?" Bucky reaches over to find just Steve, no tiny baby to love on as he hears Friday once more, "I am sorry Mr. Barnes, but it seems munchkin has requested your presence with signs of distress." Bucky's eyes snap open at the use of the programmed name for when you're in your little space, throwing the covers off and slapping Steve's shoulder. "Bucky, what the-" Steve stops when he realizes that Bucky is already out the door, he's quickly behind him, not bothering to put a shirt on, as Bucky hadn't.

"Friday, where is munchkin?" Bucky spits, FRIDAY speaking up once more, "Munchkin is on the patio with Mr. Wilson and Mr. Barton." Their brows crunch together in confusion, Steve finally speaking up on their way to the patio, sleep still heavy in his voice, "Is something wrong?" Bucky shrugs nervously, "Friday said she was showing signs of distress." The system speaks up once more, "That is correct. Munchkin's heart rate seems to be elevated and she is showing signs of high stress. She notified me by her emergency contact Sun Ray." At this, Bucky and Steve speed up, trying to get to you as quickly as possible.

The bee is still there, attracted not only to the lemonade, but the brightly colored pajamas keeping its attention as it flies back and forth between you and the lemonade. When it flies towards you, you hide in the corner of the patio, screaming, running to the other corner to hide from it when it follows you, a tear streaking down your face. Sam sees the stray tear, immediately his stomach sinking while you're piddling with your bracelet, ignoring the tears on your face, not hearing Sam when he stands and calls out gently, "Friday unlock the doors." Sam's in front of you, "Let's go inside, come on." When he reaches for you, you flinch back from him, causing his heart to break a little. You're now frantically pushing the button on your charm.

"Mr. Rogers, Mr. Barnes, munchkin has sent a distress call 13 times, up to 17, 23," and then they're at the doors to the patio, slinging them open.

Bucky takes in your appearance, you look afraid, tears freely streaming down your face, now surrounded by Clint and Sam, who are violently moved by Bucky. He's lifting you by your thighs, bringing them around his waist, glaring at Sam and Clint before carrying you inside. When you're back inside, feeling the rush of AC, you let loose, heavy thick tears falling with sobs. "Shhh my little bunny, I've got you."

Steve remains on the porch, staring at a shell shocked Sam and Clint, "What happened?" They shrug, "It was just a bee, we didn't know it would scare her so bad." Steve rolls his eyes at the men, following Bucky back to your room. When he gets there, you're straddling Bucky on the bed, hands tucked under you, fists balled up tightly, hiccuping sobs. "'S mean," Bucky is rubbing your back, shushing softly while you try to explain what happened, "wouldn't let me 'nside daddy, I try." More sobs erupt from you, Steve's brow furrowing, wondering what you meant.

"Friday, show me what happened with munchkin on the patio before Sun Ray was activated." He watches as the TV screen starts playing the scene, fury creeping up in his bones, while Bucky continued to console you, but matching the fire Steve has in his eyes. Steve saunters out of the room when the TV shuts off, heading straight for Sam and Clint. Bucky holds you closer when you whimper, "Oh doll, dada will be right back, he's just gonna go get you something to drink." You continue to sob, you refused to take your pacifier, dropping it out of your mouth every time he tried to put it in, sobs not allowing it to stay. "Baby baby baby, you're okay, that little bee isn't gonna getcha in here, only daddy." He tries to tickle you, but you just sob louder. He's thankful for the soundproof walls, knowing you don't like to draw attention.

Steve finds Sam and Clint in the common room with Nat and Tony. Tony stands when he sees Steve, anger on his face still shirtless. Steve comes up from behind Sam and Clint, grabbing their shirts roughly, pulling them up and off the couch, feet dangling a foot above the floor, turning them to face him. They're shouting, trying to get Steve to let go. Tony is trying to pull Sam away from him, Nat trying to hit his weak spots so he will drop Clint but he doesn't budge.

"Did you think it was funny?" Steve spits, bringing his face closer to theirs, "Did you? You think it was funny when she cried? Think it was funny when she screamed and pulled on the door? How would you feel huh? If someone laughed at you because you were scared? If your friends laughed at you?" Tony and Nat are confused, "Steve calm down, what happened?" Steve scowls, overpowering the men easily as he turns them around, still holding them in the air. "Friday, pull up the patio clip and my bedroom feed on the common room television."

"Voice identification confirmed. One moment." The video starts playing, but all they can hear are your sobs, not able to hear the small consoling your daddy is trying or the talk from the patio clip as it plays. "Is it still funny bird boy? Is it still funny when you know you're the reason she's like this? No? Good." Steve throws them down on the couch, Tony is furious, Nat is scolding them, and Steve's on his way into the kitchen.

Tony follows Steve after shutting off the video feed, Nat still scolding the two perpetrators. Steve is piddling around, heating up some milk in the microwave. "You okay man?" Tony asks, placing a hand on his back, when Steve glares at him Tony sighs. "Man you can't go back to her seething like this." Steve lets out a huff, "I've never wanted to throttle someone like I do right now." He grabs the milk from the microwave, mixing some hot chocolate power in it, something that frequently happens when you're having a very bad day. Tony hands Steve a bottle, hidden in a thin cabinet, only unlocked by four people in the tower; Uncle Tony, your daddies, and you. "She's your baby, and she hasn't stopped crying because her buddies were mean to her and she doesn't understand, if you go in there angry, she will think you're mad at her." Tony chides, Steve, resonating with Tony's words, takes a deep breath, filling up your bottle and continuing to shake it. "Want me to come cheer her up with you?" Steve sighs, "Let us calm her down a bit, get her feeling right and we'll play some games later yeah?" Tony starts to rummage through the fridge, "Have Friday notify me." Steve nods, leaving Tony and going back to his baby.

When he opens the door, you're still crying, but when Steve sits he pulls you into his lap, holding you like a baby and rocking you. "Shhh, it's okay baby, I know they were mean, but papa's here now. It's okay," he's rubbing your face gently, your sobs turned to weak whimpers. "That's it baby, you want some milk?" You nuzzle into his chest, Bucky taking a sip of the bottle making sure it's not too hot and gives it back to Steve. He holds the tip to your lips, you instantly wrap your lips around it and hum happily.

"There she is, sweet girl," his fingers tangle in your hair, massaging your scalp gently while Bucky rubs your legs with a feather light touch. You hiccup on the milk, Steve moving it away from you and wiping away a stray tear. Your fingers clutch around his shoulder, whining, "Papa." He coos at you, "Drinking too fast aren't we love?" You let out another whine, your bottom lip wobbling, "Pease papa." He traces your jawline before bringing the bottle back to your lips, "Slower, you hear me dove?" You nod gently, closing your eyes and continuing to drink the bottle.

You're teetering on the edge of sleep, Steve wiping away a drop of milk that finds its way to the corner of your mouth. He takes the bottle very carefully, stopping when you suck on it a little harder, trying to hold it in your mouth. "Bunny," Bucky's voice sings to you, "let daddy have that, okay?" Steve tries to pull it away again, this time with no fight, Bucky pressing your pacifier to your lips, which you take happily. He clips it to the top of your pajama shirt so if you drop it, it'll stay relatively within reach. "Friday, put on munchkins lullaby playlist."

Soft music starts playing through the room, bringing you all the way under, soft snores against Steves chest alerting them to your slumber. "Mr. Rogers, Mr. Barnes, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Barton are outside, requesting entrance." Bucky rolls his eyes as he slides back down into the bed, "Friday, decline entrance and leave us be to nap for an hour." Steve moves you to Bucky, your sleeping form habitually wrapping around him and his warmth. Steve huddles behind you, wrapping his arm over you and resting it on Bucky, rubbing small circles. "She's gonna be a handful today," Steve comments, letting Bucky know that he thinks today is going to be one of those days where you regress further than usual. "She's gonna have such a good time with Tony." Bucky laughs, his eyes flutter shut, "Don't count her daddies short."

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loststarphounix · 2 years

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I Present to You: My Kazuich and Gundham Headcannon’s that Just Make Sense to Me

Gundham

Repressed his emotions so much that when he feels his emotions anger/sadness/lust etc overflows it overwhelming and becomes 10X more intense than anyone expected

Very socially awkward and escapes reality using his imagination as a coping mechanism. Gundham’s unusual way of speaking is due to insecurity. Growing up powerless and in constant fear of his father, he retreated in the macabre and occult around 9-10 years old. A lot of the literature and fiction surrounding the genre became his source of comfort and he liked to imagine he was a strong, powerful and mysterious figure of the dark arts.

Overtime, this incorporated into his sense of self. Still, he’ll have times of a fluster where he’ll drop his speech patterns and stutter clumsily over his words.

Kazuichi. Kazuichi makes him a stuttering little nerd. He secretly loves it when Gundham drops his act and becomes flustered he finds it cute

He is (shockingly) actually a bit perverse but he hides it well...kinda. It manifests by his bandage arm suddenly groping, lingering touchings or slapping butt (Kaz). Kazuichi is still not believed by this fact when he told Hajime but Sonia knows and she finds it all amusing

Gundham is gay but did have a relationship with Sonia until they both realized they worked better as friends/placebo siblings than actual lovers. Sonia is Bi leaning towards women and Kazuichi is Pan

Gundham gets very very ghetto when he’s super upset. He breaks his “Overlord of Ice” character and while still using his high level vocabulary, will speak normally and curse you tf out - like Celeste but more scary Kazuichi is equal parts terrified and turned on by this and he always berates himself for it

He cares about his animals a lot and feels like a complete failure when one is beyond saving even his ultimate talent. Kazuichi saw this first hand when he was still struggling with his attraction to the breeder and not for Sonia and was kind and offered him comfort and a small funeral. He visited Gundham for a week after to make sure the “idiot didn’t beat himself up about it” as he put it. This was around the time Gundham found himself actually falling for the mechanic

Has cute Hamtaro and Hello Kitty sleepwear - given to him by Sonia and later Kaz.

Has a lip piercing but doesn’t wear it often

His hair is naturally streaked with grey but his eyes are not heterochromatic

Scar is kinda not real - the shape is exaggerated but there is a long, somewhat thick scar running down his forehead to under his eye that he uses makeup to hide

Kazuichi

For Kazuichi the inverse is true- only his eyes and teeth are natural. His hair is actually black but he dyed it to look more like his mother, who had more pale rose colored locks and less like his father

Kazuichi’s simp behavior and low social intelligence stems from several different factors - the main being his home life and the fact that he doesn’t know what a good mutually beneficial relationship looks like. His mom died when he was too young to really remember her, and his dad was an abusive alcoholic who brought women in the house like it was a weekly grocery trip. He also wasn’t allowed to go out and play or have friends due to his dad beating him and not wanting people in his “business”.

Kaz was taught that women were pretty and needed a man to provide for them as well as how men were “supposed to be” and that warped him into his unhealthy habits of crushes and even friendships. He was also taught and told that he was worthless and would be ignored by his father and his dad’s lovers to the point that he’d do something-anything- to get their attention/approval

He has an unfortunate habit of developing crushes and feelings for anyone very easily - it’s kinda why he doesn’t like Nagito in the beginning cause the dude reflects it to a point that it disturbs him. Most people respond to abuse in different ways: I like to think Kazuichi’s hyper sexual attitude and high emotional state and it’s highs and lows, are responses to his abuse. For comparison, Gundham is the opposite in his response to trauma and abuse: he also lacks social intelligence, but he was raised by a mother who loved, helped him through his abuse and taught him to treat everyone like, well, people. He doesn’t like touch and will react violently if someone didn’t respect his physical boundaries. His response was escapism and playing himself to be something other and stronger than a human.

Anyone who shows him a hint or crumb of kindness or compassion and he is head over heels. This is later curbed thanks to therapy and his friend group

Despite his easy to crush mentality, Kazuichi is always on guard and hesitant around people. This is due to a “friend” who betrayed him in middle school that was so horrendously horrible that Kazuichi changed nearly everything about himself before he was scouted for Hope's Peak. Thanks to class 77 - his new real friends - he has begun to shed that suspicious nature bit by bit. But he is always on the lookout for the next betrayal.

Kazuichi is ticklish on his ribs. It’s the only place he’s actually ticklish and it’s abused greatly by Hajime, Sonia and Gundham

Kazuichi is secretly well toned and plump underneath his jumpsuit and is insecure about it.. His figure is very curvy and his thighs and butt are thiccccck as hell and he HATES it. Dad would beat him for trying to get “attention” from his employees and male customers and kids are just cruel

Wearing baggy jumpsuits makes him feel better and feel more “normal”. On really hot days he has to be convinced to wear “10 shorts and a tshirt or else have a heatstroke. Gundham is personally working on getting his paramour to love his body

San-D is Kazuichi’s favorite Deva - she was the first one to cuddle into his hand and not bite him. He spoils her with extra sunflower seeds when Gundham and the others aren’t looking. They can be found together most days with her nesting in his beanie or cap on a workstation

Kazuichi is touch starved. He wants to hug and headlock his friends and cuddle and hold hands but his home life makes him feel like this is “unmanly” and represses it. Because of this, he has moments of aborted attempts at contact and will cling to someone when he is scared or stressed. Gundham and Sonia notice this and along with Chiaki and Hajime, sit him down and have a long discussion about it and how if he needed to, he could come to them for comfort. Chiaki is (un)surprising the best at it and when Kaz is having a mental breakdown and Gundham can’t be there, she’ll lay in his bed with him and let him hold her while she plays Zelda cause he once told her that the soundtrack was soothing.

While it’s known that Kazuichi has a tongue ring, he actually has four piercings - two on his tongue and one on each nipple (Gundham is fond of all of them)

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thefanficmonster · 3 years

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Just Two Sad Roommates

Corpse Husband x Reader(Female)

Warnings: Swearing (maybe)

Genre: Angst, Fluff

Summary: The power of medieval tavern music gets put to the test when Corpse’s roommate is having a rough day. SPOILER ALERT: it’s more powerful than anyone could assume.

Requested by Anon. You know who you are 😊😋 Wish I could tag you, I loved this idea so much and had such a fun time writing it. Hope you enjoy it just as much 🥰

The last twenty four hours haven’t been so great.

Last night I had a huge fight with my boyfriend over his flirty messages with several girls. It was not just witty banter, it was way more and way more hurtful to me. He obviously denied it and defended himself, at least in the beginning of the argument. Then he took on the accusatory stance, pointing fingers at me for living with another guy. That had me absolutely fuming. Not only was his statement fabricated and literally made up on the spot, but he also used some seriously horrible insults for him. I was having non of it. Corpse is a really great roommate, sweet guy and overall amazing person. I haven’t once argued with him since we’ve started living together. We’re actually quite good friends. So hearing my asshole boyfriend call him all those names was more than enough to chase him out of the apartment. Thankfully, Corpse wasn’t home to hear all that. He rarely leaves the apartment but by some miracle this was the time he was absent.

Then this morning my mom called me to have a chat. It started off decently enough but it only remained that way for so long. It didn’t take her long to start criticizing each and every element of my existence. From my job, my boyfriend, my living arrangement, the career I’ve decided to pursue, the fact I moved to a different state, my paycheck that’s lower than her friend’s daughter’s...…..You get the point.

Now I’m sitting here, contemplating what the two years I’ve been in a relationship with Marcus mean to me. I guess it is just like a phone call from my mother - starts off nice but slowly deteriorates. All things follow this pattern in my life, apparently. And just like the phone calls, I’ve considered ending things between me and him many times but never actually decided on it. Until now. The last part of this decision is executing it, which doesn’t look very promising. My thumbs are frozen, hovering over the keyboard.

I take a second to take a look at my life from a third person point of view, like an out of body experience. I am wrapped in a blanket, huddled on the couch like a burrito with a face. A really sad burrito with a face. I have a job where I work as much as three highly ranked workers and get paid a little over a secretary’s paycheck. I’m in a constant state of exhaustion and disinterest. I often forget I’m human and just assume I can live like a cactus - no food, no water. I have a boyfriend that’s cheating on me and most likely has been for quite some time now. And we’ve been dating for two fucking years. Man, that must be the longest cheat streak in history. Who knows with how many girls as well. And I still have trouble deciding weather to break up with him or not. Actually no, scratch that, I have already decided, but it feel so unnatural and so out of character that my body refuses to complete the task of delivering the final blow to the structure of this relationship which was already weak to begin with.

And it only got weaker when I started catching feelings for another guy. I know, I know, I’m a bad person for that, but I was never planning to act on those feelings. They have always just...lingered, loomed over me. They got stronger and stronger every time Marcus and I would fight, as though they were laughing at my mock of a relationship.

Speaking of laughter, I hear my roommate laughing in his recording room. I gave him the spare room for his recording equipment for a cheap add to his rent fee and it’s probably the second best decision I’ve ever made - first being picking him to be my roommate. He was among the first to reply to my online add and appeared the least sketchy over the phone. More hypnotizing if I’m honest. He could’ve told me he was a hitman and I wouldn’t have batted an eye, handing the keys to his room and the apartment without a second thought. All he had to do was keep talking. Again, SUE ME.

“Fuck, I’m so fucking pathetic!“ I drop my phone when all the strings inside me snap, releasing the sobs and tears I’ve been holding back for so long.

I bring my knees up to my chest, hiding my head in between them, desperately trying to shield myself from the plane crash that is my life at the moment. Crying makes me feel even sadder and more miserable but I have nothing left to do to get all the crap that’s piled up inside me out.

I’m on the verge of falling asleep, the tears have dried and the sobs have died somewhere in my chest, when I hear what sounds like music straight from Robin Hood’s time.

Holy shit, I’ve lost it

I lift my head from in-between my knees, looking around the living room for the source of the jolly, lighthearted tune which despite all the heaviness of my self-loathing makes me feel like the main character in an medieval adventure. Wait...Holy crap, it’s that medieval adventure, Robin Hood-ass music I hear from Corpse’s room!

I whip around to face the entrance from to the hallway where I see an arm sticking out, holding a phone which is where the music is coming from.

“Corpse?“ I call out to him in a questioning manner, shifting to a sitting position with my blanket kicked off of me and bunched up next to me.

“I can’t tell if you’re angry or sad...or both. Didn’t want to get attacked upon entering the room.“ I see the right side of his face peek out as well.

I break out into laughter, covering my mouth with one hand, “You’re such a dork.”

He takes this as a sign to come in, pausing the music as he does so. “What’s wrong?”

My laugh stops but a smile remains on my face as I look at him. He just has that effect on me. “A lot. What’s going on with you?”

He shrugs his shoulders, plopping down on the couch, “The usual, streaming Among Us. You should play with me and my friends some time.”

I scoff, “I can pull of a lie no problem. Maybe I really should.” I don’t actually consider it, it’s just funny to think about.

I have never watched any of Corpse’s content. Not his scary story videos, not his streams, not his animated compilations. Just his songs. And let me tell you...they are hella good. One song and I was hooked.

“Hey, I have a question.“ I tilt my head to look at him, “What’s with you and your love for medieval adventure music?“

“Medieval tavern music, and it’s not really love.“ He shakes his head with this dopey grin that is just. so. adorable. “More like a coping mechanism. Tell me, did you feel less sad I played it for you?“

I stop and think for a second. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Point made.“ He declares, leaving me to nod in amusement. “Now, tell me what that ‘a lot’ is.“

So, I do. I tell him everything, from how my boyfriend is cheating on me to how my mother thinks I’m a complete failure. He listens carefully, paying close attention to everything I’m saying. I catch myself laughing a few times while I retell the recent upsetting events.

Must be that music.

“So, you broke up?“ He asks once I end my monologue with a sigh

I shake my head disappointedly, “Not yet. I still haven’t pulled the plug. I don’t know what to say.”

He holds out his hand to me, “May I be of assistance?”

I look at his hand then at him and contemplate for only a second before deciding ‘what the hell’ and handing over my phone after unlocking it. The screen displays my boyfriend’s chat so Corpse just types away what he has in mind. Before pressing ‘send’, he hands the phone back to me. “Proofread it.”

‘Dear Marcus, this is one of your girlfriends speaking. Yes, one of them. You think I’m not onto what you’re doing, you little shit? Well, to your dismay, I am. And so, I discontinue this relation between us. That word might have been too long for your IQ so let me rephrase: We are over. Finished. Hope your other girlfriends wake up too, unless they are already in the know, of course. Love, but really hate, Y/N‘

I was never aware this level of sass even existed.

I add a smiling emoji and send the message, sighing in relief. “I can check that off my to-do list now.”

We both lean back on the couch, looking up at the ceiling. A moment of comfortable silence takes over, leaving us both wandering in our own heads.

“Hey, um, I wanted to do this when I first moved in, but then I met your boyfriend and I took the hint. Now that you’re single, would you want to...“ he sounds a bit uncertain but continues regardless, “It’s ridiculous cause I don’t really like the idea of going out, but maybe we could order take-out...“

“Are you circling around asking me on an at-home date?“ I am surprised by how unbothered I manage to sound while I’m squealing on the inside. It’s fascinating how quickly a person can flip someone’s day around. Turns out it wasn’t the music at all. It was him that had the positive effect on mine.

Out of the corner of my eye I catch his face turn red and have to contain my laughter. The grin can’t be tamed though, especially not when he says, “Yes.”

Internally squealing, I launch myself from the couch, standing up straight in front of him. “Thai. My usual order is on the sticky note on the fridge. But first,” I offer him my hand, “I need to find out if a person can even dance to that ridiculous music.” At his amusement, my grin widens, “May I have this dance?”

He laughs that adorable laugh of his I’ve only heard through the layer of a wooden door. It’s even cuter when there’s nothing between me and its source. The source is cute too, not gonna lie.

With a shake of his head which is most likely disbelief, he takes the hand I’ve offered him, saying: “And you call me a dork.”

@susceptible-but-siriusexual @simonsbluee @save-the-sky @hacker-ghost @itsminniekat @bi-andready-tocry @imtiredaffff @jazzkaurtheglorious @hereforbeebo @fandomgirl17 @chrysanthykios @maehemscorpyus @loraleiix @letsloveimagines @annshit @i-cant-choose-a-username-help @enigmaticmaze

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babydarkstar · 3 years

Text

cacoethes

part two: bring your sweet loving

rating: E (18+ ONLY) || pairing: ezra x f!reader || word count: 10.5k

chapter summary: as the night winds down and tensions simmer, we learn more about you, pieces of your past, and your relationship with ezra.

warnings: ezra’s gigantic mouth that won’t shut up (suggestive language) and two criminals not knowing how to act; caretaking, i guess? reader cleans ezra but it’s nothing erotic; SMUT; handjob and graphic depictions of a glorious dick; dirty talk; dubcon maybe bc painkillers but he’s enthusiastic abt it; praise kink; switches having a great time; ezra’s subby in this but i promise he’s a dom too just not tonight; mentions of death, killing, tattoos, scars; mention of past drug use, bad coping mechanisms; mm i hc that ezra is a tiny tattoo guy so there’s that; fluff bc im sweet; author is a southern peach, forgive her if it gets a little slow and twangy up in here

a/n: un-beta’d bc mistakes are sexy. i’ll go back later and fix whatever i find but for now. enjoy. i’m literally just making shit up about this universe as we go but it’s working out for the best so bear with me. lmk if u want me to add u to be tagged here. tagging: @pedros-mustache @jk7789

crossposted to ao3 :) || playlist || one || two || three

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“Here, Cee,” you said, adjusting the threadbare blanket over your cot and splaying a hand over it while she eyed you from across the tent, still standing amongst the carnage of a violent field surgery, “I’ll sleep on the floor tonight.”

The poor girl was scared. Well—not scared, not anymore.

Vengeful, for certain, though it seemed to dwindle with every minute she watched you interact.

Definitely wary of the two of you.

Which was appropriate, given that Ezra had killed her father and left her alone on an uninhabitable moon, only to be scooped up by his partner and deceived into thinking she was safe, and then forced to perform impromptu surgery to hack off an arm. But she appeared more wary to accept help from you than wary of you.

And honestly, if Ezra hadn’t just lost a limb and you didn’t want to hover beside him after not seeing him for a month to make sure he didn’t slip the veil in his sleep or disappear beneath your fingertips—and if you weren’t trying to earn her trust, you’d have made her take the floor.

But things were different now, they might always be. She had saved his life. You owed her your cot to sleep on.

“Wait,” Ezra said, swallowing thickly as he blinked, seeming to just process the words you had spoken, “You think so little of me that I’d let you sleep on the dirt after the day you’ve had? Now, I agree that our guest should find comfort in a cot of her own, but I will not deny you the simple respite of sleep. That would prove me an unworthy companion.”

“Ezra,” you said, giving him a look of incredulity that seeped into your tone, “You can’t be serious.”

He eyed you and clenched his jaw, still stomaching the fact that he had one less limb to worry about, and a bunch more problems to deal with. It was a look that told you he was not arguing with you, you were going to sleep on the cot. He would not be coddled like a child just because he lost an arm.

Which was, in itself, ridiculous. You didn’t plan to coddle him—you weren’t the type, not really. But. He’d lost a fucking arm. But he was also still delirious from the anesthetic, so that didn’t help his desire to prove something to the universe.

“You’re taking the cot, I’m not having this conversation,” you said, wiping his sweaty brow with your sleeve, “Tap into the ruthless outlaw inside of you and take it without regret. You know I hardly sleep anyways, I’ll live without a bed for the night.”

“Then I must insist you share it with me, precious angel,” he sighed, and you could almost see the cogs in his head turning as his distant gaze darkened into something hungry, “I’ve longed to feel your body pressed against mine since I left with Number Two. The divinity of your skin.” He hummed, eyes fluttering shut, “More…more precious than the ore we risk our lives for. Sweeter than fruit. Fresher than a rainstorm.”

“Ez,” you warned, snapping a glare at him.

“Your body…so tender, warm,” he continued, entranced in his own fantasy, not even hearing you when you warned him yet again, “All soft and pliant beneath my touch. It has been far too long since we partook in a pleasure as indulgent as one another—before our partnership with Two, if I can recall. Grant me heaven tonight. I deserve the satisfaction of watching you drip honey for me—”

“Hey! None of that,” you snapped, cocking an eyebrow—and fighting the flutter in your chest and the heat tingling down your core, “There are young ears present, Shakespeare Erotica. Not to mention young eyes.”

You would do no such thing with him as long as this teenager remained in close quarters and under your care. He turned to look at Cee, as if he’d forgotten all about her for a moment. Or maybe it was that he didn’t care. Bastard.

“I’m okay as long as you guys don’t fuck in front of me,” Cee sighed, resigned to have dealt with too much in her past to be worried about flirting—no, verbal-fucking.

“We won’t be doing any of that,” you assured her, giving Ezra another pointed look before slinging his arm around your shoulders and helping him to the cot. He grumbled incoherently, moaning and groaning the few steps it took to ease him down into the squeaky frame.

When you finally got him down—forced him to lay down—he let out another soft whimper of pain, followed by your name. “Don’t go.”

Brushing the hair off his sweaty forehead, you bent down to press a kiss there, “M’right here, Ez. Rest. I’m gonna clean you up, okay?”

It was the least you could do—and that way you could take inventory of every inch of him to ensure he didn’t have any other wounds hiding and festering and threatening his life. Just as this wouldn’t be your first time tending to him while he laid incapacitated, he’d done the same for you plenty of times. There was very little, if anything at all, the two of you hadn’t seen of each other. Vulnerability had another name here: normalcy.

“After—” he rasped up at you, coughing and then righting himself, “After we find our way off this Kevva-damned moon—which we will—I understand if you no longer deem me…worthy of your affections. It’s the only explanation I can find for your denial of my offer to dote on you. I only pray you make good on your long-standing promise to drop me where I stand should I ever disappoint you, dear heart of mine.”

Okay, you didn’t know where all the insecurity and sentiment was coming from, especially hearing it from the mouth of your dear old confident mean-streak Ezra, but he couldn’t possibly be serious. It made you ache to think that he didn’t trust you to stay with him, that he viewed himself as lesser because he lost his arm. Well, he was lesser, but only by mass.

Also, really? The only explanation he could find for you not wanting to sleep with him was that you hated him and didn’t want him because of his injury? He couldn’t think of any more glaringly obvious reasons, those of which had just been pointed out to him?

With a sigh, you brushed your thumb across the silvery scar on his cheek, “Rest now, chatterbox. I’ll be here when you wake up—and every morning after, for as long as I can. Only death could pry you from me, and me from you. You’ve got me, forever….I still see you as you are—a hundred percent you, a hundred percent mine.”

The words felt foreign on your lips, but he was bound to forget them the moment he fell asleep, so you didn’t feel as weird waxing poetic right back at him. The man had rubbed off on you in more ways than one. You normally didn’t speak to one another so frankly—at least, you didn’t, given the nature of what it meant to care out here and how you’d already unofficially established that you two were something more—but tonight you couldn’t fucking help it.

Ezra leaned into your touch, pawing at it with his hand, grabbing onto your fingers and kissing into your palm. A dull smile poked at his mouth and he let it engulf him. “Quite the charmer you are, siren.”

You didn’t respond, only half-smiled and wriggled—reluctantly—from his grasp to grab a few clean cloths and fill a bucket with water. After squirting the sanitizing solution in the water, you simmered the lights down to the lowest setting, to where your eyes had to adjust for a moment before you could make your way across the tent. His gaze bore into you—no, both Ezra and Cee watched every move you made; one in lazy admiration and the other in curiosity.

“Do you need me to put a drape over the post? I’m strippin’ him,” you asked Cee as you slung Ezra’s clean shirt from off the drying line onto your shoulder—you smiled at the floor, thanking yourself from hours ago for deciding not to burn it. You grabbed the bucket and tottered over to him, nodding at him to scoot. He obliged, giving you room to sit by his hip so you could ease his clothes off.

Cee shook her head when you looked to her for a response, opting to sit on your cot facing away from you with her nose in her book, so you shrugged and tugged the fabric off of Ezra in slow, deliberate motions, wincing every time he grunted.

As you took the time to clean off the grime and dirt and sweat of the Green, he told you about running into Cee and her father Damon; how he tried to take his entire harvest from the few cycles he’d spent with Two; about Two’s untimely, irrational outburst that cost them their life. About the Queen’s Lair and the mercs, and the plan to ravage and plunder and take it all for themselves. You thought the Queen’s Lair was a rumor. Not even a rumor—a myth, a legend, something fabricated by desperate fools with hazy minds of dust and their eyes set on fortune. But Ezra told you he’d seen part of it marked on Cee’s map, that her father was contracted to help extract the deposit. Cee even pulled her map out to point to the marked areas, albeit with clinical movements and short words.

So you made a plan to head out at first light, with the trip taking most of the daylight, and they’d be cutting it close but there was no way you’d let Ezra hike so many klicks in his state—not without a few hours’ rest first.

After you’d managed to clean his legs, his hips, his feet and get him into something more comfortable than compression pants, you moved to his torso and traced over each scar marring his skin, each jagged edge where something hadn’t healed right or wasn’t stitched properly. He’d lost some weight under the harsh conditions of the Green—you both had. But he still held onto muscle from the toil that came with survival on such harsh terrain; and he was naturally broad, he always would be, which made him sturdy.

Your fingers ghosted over a few microtattoos he’d gotten; one beneath his ribcage, one on his hipbone, and the one you’d given him yourself on his lower sternum. That one, as you brushed over it with a wet cloth, never failed to make you smile. A sad smile, but a smile nonetheless.

A tiny, unfilled heart, a mere outline, barely a centimeter in size. It was messy, simple, done in minutes. But it meant something, meant exactly what you’d never quite been able to voice.

My heart is yours. Take it.

You’d done it one night when the two of you had gone on a two spin bender, which happened more towards the end of your glory days, when the drugs came easy and heavy and the illusion of time slipped by like sand on the wind.

Any time someone hired your services as cleaners, it took a toll. They didn’t do it often because of that, but the payout was worth the work. No matter how many times you swore you would never do it again, you went back. Because it was hard to ignore the way it felt to flood a deserving someone’s mouth with the taste of their own blood, or to slip a knife in between their ribs and let it slide like butter and watch the light die. It was hard to ignore that you liked it, especially when it was so violent—one of the worst sins to commit, and you enjoyed it.

The act of killing had become cathartic for you. It made you feel more alive, reminded you that you had a beating, bloody heart, and a brain, and veins that pumped blood, and muscles that tore apart and rebuilt themselves stronger. Killing came easy when you didn’t know the target. It felt like a game.

Ezra didn’t enjoy it as much as you did—not to say he didn’t enjoy it at all, for he most certainly did. But he didn’t process it the same way you did. He saw killing as a means to survive and a means to get where he needed to go. He enjoyed turning it into a game, making fun out of whatever circumstance presented itself.

But that one—the last one—it had gone wrong. Messy, slow, noisy, choppy. There was only supposed to be one person in the house: typical target, a man who owed the wrong people a whole lot of money and refused to pay up.

One man.

One man was all you’d expected.

One man was all you’d been instructed would be in the condo.

He went down easy enough, quiet enough—Ezra snuffed him and stuffed him and you’d made to transfer his points into the right pockets.

And that was that.

They had tossed the bodybag over the high-rise balcony and into the pits of the bottomless highway next to the building, with a blinker-bomb inside just in case.

That was that.

Except it wasn’t, it was so fucking far from it.

Ezra, being himself, had wanted so bad to sneak in a quickie before heading back—an unholy, immoral ritual you two had initiated, to fuck where you killed—and who were you to protest? Who were you to say no to pretty words and soft eyes glittering with an untamed wild? To say no to the hands that already ripped at gear and pushed beneath underwear just to get a taste—you couldn’t, it was impossible.

Fresh off a high of adrenaline, pulsing with nervous energy—he was always so good, he always got you right where you needed and then that much further.

And Ezra—being himself—could not keep his fucking mouth shut. The stereotype about men holding in their moans, about them never whimpering or whining or groaning or grunting—yeah, that was a load of Bearkie-shit.

Maybe it held true for some men, but.

Not your Ezra. Not even a little bit.

He talked like heaven’s mouthpiece—or maybe the devil, given all the sinful things he’d whisper to you in the crux of any given night. He let loose whatever noise he deemed necessary to make.

They’d only just made it to the dried, bloody stain on the carpet (a bed on which to copulate), knocking over a floating hilolamp and pulling a chuckle from your paramour, when a shout rang through the apartment and shattered your moment into a thousand pieces.

It was only supposed to be one. One man.

Instead, you were met with another man who you’d later learn to be his brother, the target’s mother, and his pregnant wife.

The man held onto some type of curved sports bat, keeping it up threateningly as if warning you of something imposing. Ezra didn’t hesitate to shoot him in the head, not even bothering to get up from where he’d pressed his hips between your legs. But then you’d had to go and check the other rooms, effectively killing any mood the two of you had shared.

Because fuck, where the men had no fight in them, the women wouldn’t go down without a struggle. Or maybe it was that you pitied them, and it distracted you. They’d already peeked their heads out from behind the door of the master bedroom, worried and doe-eyed and determined.

Maybe if they hadn’t seen your faces—if they’d still been asleep while you swept for warm bodies after the first assailant—maybe they’d have gotten out with their lives. But who were you kidding? You killed without thought. You’d likely have put a pillow over their heads before aiming your thrower and firing twice for good measure, had you been sharp and not distracted by a tongue in your mouth.

Instead, Ezra had the audacity to try to bargain with them. Something about having a soft spot for mothers—his own having been a beacon in his life until she left him orphaned as a young boy. He made it a point not to kill women and children. It was one thing in which he remained unwavering. (He’d kill a grown woman if she gave him reason to, like he had on Exon-5, but that was another story for another time, and a different circumstance which called for such measures, namely that of protecting you.) But he should have known better, he should have known not to try something like that. He should’ve known that he’d have to let go of the final shred of morality he held onto.

So Ezra took down the old woman in a way you still have yet to ask about and don’t care to know; and you’d ended with the pregnant woman choking on her own blood when you twisted your knife into the dip of her throat—and you felt awful about it after watching her crumble beneath you, but she’d hit you upside the head with a thick textbook of outdated skimmer-craft modules and it made you see red among pinpricks of stars.

And that night, after all was said and done they’d spent a fortune on getting high—just to forget, just to be okay.

That night they’d locked themselves in a self-imposed prison of satin sheets and destructive tendencies. Two days buzzing with no food, little water, just him and you and needles and spoons and eyedroppers and blades and pills. Like you couldn’t breathe if he didn’t fill you with all of him, you wouldn’t be able to stand upright if he took his hands off you and stopped letting you flood your veins with a chemical glow. Heavy eyelids, messy sex, raw arms and red eyes.

It felt fucking awful, coping that way, but it felt too fucking good and it made you forget about the lives you’d taken in (somewhat) cold blood.

So after sprawling beside him on the gigantic plush bed with his hand ghosting over your spine, you’d found a part of yourself snagged at the corner of this wild-eyed man’s tar-black soul, and you had thought about what could have happened in an alternate universe.

A moment when he was the target, you were (somehow) the pregnant wife, and you watched him die before succumbing to the dark of your own soul escaping you. And it made you desperate to cling to him as he was in the moment, desperate to know that he was yours and you were his. It was then that you’d asked him if you could mark him. Claim him, to know that he wouldn’t leave you like that, and if he did, he’d have a piece of you everywhere. He’d go down with a piece of you.

Ezra had been delighted, of course, as he was always one for symbolism and deeper meaning even if he didn’t quite understand the rhetoric. And it wasn’t the first time you’d marked each other, just a different time with a different meaning. So he let you dip a sterile needle in ink and plunge it into the tender skin of his chest.

You had one too, a heart on your sternum. Nestled between your breasts, just close enough to your heart to feel like it mattered, like it meant that he felt the same. But you didn’t even let yourself go that far—you two were doped up and delirious and he enjoyed marking you in any way he could, so an opportunity to stick and poke his way further into your skin than he already had was an opportunity he could not pass up. At least, that was how you saw it. Nevertheless, it made you happy to see it there on his chest, and to have one that matched.

Ezra’s soft voice snapped you from the memory.

“What’s crossed your mind to make you so delicate in your touch, so solemn in your stare?”

You realized you had stopped your ministrations and had planted your palm on his chest, staring just over his shoulder and onto the canvas beside him. With a careful hand, you resumed gentle motion over his pecs, up his clavicle, his throat.

“Thinking about Beta-Mobilia,” you whispered, unable to meet his eye, “And after.”

“Mm,” he grunted in recognition, the vibration tickling your fingertips, “Regrettable night. Unavoidable, necessary. But I dwell in shame identical to yours.”

“I don’t deserve to be here after that. I didn’t deserve to live after the Exons, The Grime. Why am I still alive?”

“We’ve discussed this in great length by now, siren. Don’t doubt your existence. It’s beyond sense, beyond comprehension.”

You nodded, still unable to look at him. But then he latched onto your wrist, brushing his calloused thumb over the delicate skin there, and this time you couldn’t keep your gaze away from the soft smile that begged to form on his lips.

“And I appreciate your tender care, wildfire,” he hummed, eyes glittering up at you like two dark pools of amber, “Where would I be without it? Mmm…mhm. Dead, likely. Or bitter. Wicked with taciturn rage. No meaning could come from that.”

“You, bitter and unspeaking? Unthinkable, I’d sooner pronounce you dead,” you drawled, thankful for his kindness to grant distraction, and he granted you an eye-roll. But his expression softened when you sat him upright and maneuvered behind him, wiping down his back in gentle strokes. You folded the cloth over once the side turned brown with grime, and moved up to his neck, scrubbing over his shoulders and giving short strokes down his nape and behind his ears.

“So you planned to go ravage the Queen without me, huh?” you asked quietly, irked that he hadn’t even come to find you before setting out on that venture, “Planned to leave me to rot on the Green, take the money for yourself and steal away with the girl.”

Ezra sighed, and you could see from behind his shoulder how he worked his jaw, formulating what to say.

“Understand that I do nothing without you willingly. Birdie over there’s about as fleeting as a real one. But trust that I planned to come get you—I’d never leave you stranded. I just couldn’t introduce another person into the threadbare alliance I had forged until the time was right.”

“She likes me,” you countered, smiling over at Cee, who now laid with her back facing you as her ribs contracted with the first breaths of sleep. A sign of trust. You didn’t know when exactly you’d earned it, but you’d accept it nonetheless. She had also taken both of your throwers (something you protested and Ezra waved off), so maybe that helped.

“No doubt—there’s plenty to like about you.”

Ever the flatterer, even when delirious with pain.

With a coy smile, you scrubbed over his head and then his face, careful to avoid his snapping mouth that reached out ever so often to nip at your hand—there was that playfulness, the natural effervescence of his presence. When you decided your work was done, you eased him back down on the cot and he allowed it with no protest.

You fluffed his pillow and moved the book you’d stashed beside it. He turned his head and pressed his nose to the pillow, grunting in mild appreciation.

“Smells like you down here,” he remarked with a half-smile, eyes drooping, “You sleep on my cot while I was away?”

“I missed you,” you whispered, nodding, just now aware of how much his presence affected you. To think that you had resolved to try to move on without him—it seemed ridiculous now.

“I missed you,” he returned, “You haven’t the slightest idea how much I wanted you beside me. Number Two was a fond ally but not a companion. Nothing like the banter we exchange, nor the secrets we share.”

“They never talked. I imagine your time away was just as lonely as mine.”

“Absolutely. I regret agreeing to leave with Two. But you know we couldn’t have trusted them to stay at camp while we went off—not absolutely. Not when they’d never spoken a word,” he chuckled and then coughed, a quiet rumble you felt against your leg as it zigzagged through his chest.

Thank Kevva you had a plan to leave now. The spent filter had taken a toll on Ezra—and it wasn’t even his to begin with. He insisted on giving you his when the one your new suit came with was almost completely used up.

Fuck the man for caring about you; he’d gone soft during your time on the Green, and you hated how much you loved it. Hated it because he needed to focus on himself, needed to stop putting you before him. Hated it because every day it made you feel like somehow, he loved you back. That somehow, he thought of you as more than just a constant in his life, more than a body to fuck and a brain to pick.

You’d grown used to each other. But his unpredictability oozed into every aspect of himself, every nook and cranny of his life, and you were too worried about fucking up a good thing over a simple conversation. All it took was one sensitive topic breached and you’d surely find yourself shit out of luck. He was all you had left of the scraps of a fucked up life. Without him, you’d make do but not without a struggle and not without reluctance. Some part of you knew he’d be the same even if he initiated a split.

The thought had you hurrying to tug his shirt on before gathering the cloths and scurrying to place the bucket near the front of the tent.

And you shouldn’t have been so scared to be honest with him—the two of you rarely kept things to yourselves. But to love someone so fully within your heart, to never want to be away from them, to never grow tired of their presence no matter how tedious they may be or frustrating they could get, it scared you.

“A kiss for the wounded?” Ezra asked, brown eyes wide and mouth pouty enough to break you from your racing mind. You softened then, padding back over to him on tiptoe and settling back at his side for a brief moment.

With a gentle smile, you leaned down to grant him a kiss to his lips—the first one you’d shared with him in fuck knows how long. Too long, that was for sure, because when your lips notched with his chapped ones you melted, every worry and every qualm simply washed away in a swirl of pink pleasure.

You couldn’t help yourself—an indulgent, quiet moan pooled in your chest and slipped from your throat before you could stop it, and he hummed right back when his tongue pushed between your lips and you let him devour you. Always the ravager, ever a greedy bastard when it came to his pleasure, he licked up into your mouth and tangled his tongue with yours. It took very little for you to melt right into his chest, pressing your own against him and whimpering when he sneaked his hand up the hem of your shirt to rub circles over the skin of your back. You remained sloppy and almost lazy but intentional as you held either side of his nape and toyed with the strands of his still-damp hair, pouring yourself into this kiss like you’d never kiss him again.

Fuck. Fuck, you wanted him so bad. You missed this man with every vibrating inch of you. You missed his body, you missed his voice calling to you from the very depths of himself, you missed everything about him, and you needed him as close as possible. Closer than close, you needed him.

But fuck. You couldn’t. When you pulled back for air, it didn’t surprise you when he pressed his palm flat on your back to keep you from moving too far.

“Mm, baby—you’re divine. I ache for you,” he all but whimpered into your mouth, breath brutally hot and heavy as he fed you his soul, “Come sit down on me—come take what’s yours. I want to feel you strangle me, show me just how much you—”

“No, Ez,” you cut him off in a biting whisper, lips kiss-swollen, hating how, if there had been literally any other person in the tent beside you, you might’ve taken him up on the offer, “I want to, I promise you that. But she’s a kid and I have limits—one of those limits is fucking in the same room as one.” You glared at him with half a heart, then leaned down to run the tip of your nose along the curve of his ear, smiling when he shivered, “I swear, once we get out of here I’ll make it up to you so many times you’ll forget your own name. You get first choice—however you want me, I’m yours to take.”

“Fuck—alright, I apologize for my eagerness,” he smiled, tilting his head to kiss your forehead.

“But,” you whispered, your heart racing as you glanced over to be sure Cee had fallen asleep before inching up to look back into his eyes. Fuck it, he deserved it. “If you stay quiet, I’ll take care of you right now.”

His eyebrows raised in deft interest at your offer.

“Will you let me take care of you, Sailor?”

Ezra would never admit it, and you’d never tease him about it because it made you feel some kind of way—but he fucking adored when you used his callsign. You were his siren, after all. Only made sense for him to draw to you like a dying man at sea when you called for him. You used it rarely aside from in the field, opting for your preferred chatterbox—because he was more that than anything else—so it came as a treat when you decided to pull it from your bag of tricks.

“I can hardly refuse such a tempting offer.”

“Quiet, though,” you reminded him, tiptoeing your fingers across his chest and tugging the waistband of his pants and his underwear down. Just enough to spring his cock free, which was already hard and leaking for you.

Fuck, he was such a gorgeous sight, and you couldn’t help the urge to cup his balls and nudge them free too, to admire every glorious inch of him.

Spreading your fingers out over his groin through the coarse curls gone wild with mistreatment, you paid extra attention to the white patch of hair ghosting over the base of his cock and spreading out near his abdomen before stopping abruptly on the left and diverging back down into dark brown. You remember when you’d first noticed it and had all but squealed in delight.

Every bit of him was a pleasant surprise, just as you’d found yourself more than eager to let him ruin you for anybody else with the sheer size of him.

Nobody fucked you like they were dying and you were salvation; nobody but him. And shit, did he tear you open. As if he’d carved a space inside of you just for him, each time he’d leave you with a hollow ache that only he could sate.

“Baby,” you purred in a whisper, kissing his hipbone and then leaning up to wrap your hand around the girth of him, rubbing your thumb over the weeping red of the head, “You’re so pretty for me like this.” Forever a glutton for compliments, he whimpered his soft appreciation and you hushed him accordingly. He was so thick, so big that you struggled to touch the tip of your middle finger to your thumb, so long that if you had planned to swallow him down tonight, you would’ve been needing your hand to help. But tonight you could not risk the absolutely filthy noise of you gagging on him; he’d likely cum faster and in less time to worry about waking up a certain tentmate, but you wanted to watch every muscle in his face twitch, wanted to see him take his pleasure unobstructed by your tears. This way was quieter.

So with that thought in mind, you shifted to straddle one of his thighs so you could watch him without tiring your hand in an awkward position. Then you let a string of spit drool down and over him and you gave him a twist and then more, sharp and sudden and fast in your movements as opposed to the slow, appreciative way you’d unsheathed him.

Ezra hissed out a curse, bucking up into your hand, “Shit, darlin’—“

Arching an eyebrow, you halted your work on him immediately. His pulse beat through the throbbing vein jutting out

“What did I tell you?” you snapped. With your free hand you reached up and wrapped your fingers around his neck, feeling the column of his throat contracting as he swallowed. Wide brown eyes looked up at you, a tinge of amusement in their stare.

“Are you gonna be good for me?” you asked in a low rasp, tightening your grip on his neck and giving him a little shake before going slack again, “I don’t wanna hear a single word come outta that pretty-boy mouth. If I do, I’m blue-balling you. Fair?”

Ezra nodded, his gorgeous fat mouth blessedly shut for once.

“Good boy,” you cooed, kissing him before forcing his jaw open and spitting in his mouth. It would’ve been cruel but you meant it so affectionately, and his gentle moan told you he was more than willing to accept it.

You felt his cock twitch beneath your fingers and you simpered, giving a little shimmy of your shoulders in appreciation.

Controlling this stubborn man, resorting him to silence made you feel powerful. It made you feel respected, worshipped; if the man who never shut up and always called the shots would gladly take the backseat and grant you the power to take charge, that meant more than you could wish for.

So you resumed pumping his cock, working him with both hands and then switching to hold onto his throat again before going back to two hands. The act still made quite some noise—filthy and wet and sloppy—but at this point you were less concerned about it than you had been prior. When you decided, despite his tip dripping precum, to spit down onto him again for the fun of it and twist him with a gentle tug, he couldn’t stop the whine that left him even with his bottom lip pulled between his teeth. It had you darting to clamp over his mouth, shooting daggers down at him as he stared up with a silent apology in his eyes, one you might have taken as genuine if not for the way the brown of his irises had disappeared into black, blown out with lust and glassy with pleasure.

“If you’re gonna cum, let me know so you can do it in my mouth. I just cleaned you up and I’m not doing it again.”

The last bit came out harsher than you meant but he took it all the same, biting back a grunt in the form of a sharp exhale as he twitched violently in your hand. Yeah, he didn’t really need to let you know when he was about to blow; you knew him too well. At that, you took it upon yourself to remove your hand from his mouth in favor of scooting to lean down and put your mouth over his angry, swollen tip, flinching at the way the frame creaked but ignoring it and opting to swirl your tongue over him instead.

“There it is,” you whispered with an arguably evil smile—quickly, before pulling him back into the heat of your mouth, resuming your work and grunting when he bucked up into your mouth, chasing the high you were drawing out of him.

Ezra came with a muffled, broken sob, his face buried in his arm as he bit down on his bicep, flexing and squeezing his fingers. A thick stream of his cum hit the roof of your mouth and you indulged him, taking him in further so you could swallow everything he gave you. Ropes and ropes and ropes of cum, like he hadn’t let himself get off in so long, like he’d been saving all of it for you. The thought made you whine around him, and you pulled off when he finished, flashing him your dripping tongue with his spend still on it and drawing it back in before any of it could spill.

“Holy fuck, baby,” he sighed, letting out a quiet, breathy laugh as he tugged on the front of your shirt to kiss you, tasting himself on your tongue.

This time when you pulled back and smiled, you granted him a toothy grin, goofy and knowing. It took you a minute not to giggle like a little kid as you carded your fingers through his hair. He grinned right back, still catching his breath. To you, he was gorgeous, inside and out, flaws and all. You wanted to fuck him right then. You wanted to make love to him, to let him fill you entirely and to sob into his mouth, showing him everything you couldn’t tell him.

“Get some sleep,” you settled on instead, slipping off the cot with little grace after replacing the waistband of his pants, “We head out early tomorrow.”

“Hey now, what about you?” Ezra asked, brows drawn together in concern that you wouldn’t find the same enjoyment he did.

“You’ll just owe me.” You winked then, and gave him one last kiss, which he hummed into with a great appreciative rumble.

Then you pressed your forehead into his, “Mine—you’re mine. Never leave me again or I’ll hunt you down and kill you myself. You’re everything.”

Because he was.

“Nothing without you.”

That was his response, always always always. To hear it again pricked tears in your eyes, so much so you squeezed them shut.

And once again, you caught yourself wanting to say it. This time it had ghosted in your throat, almost making it into the curve of your mouth for you to hold its shape and give voice to a thought. But you stopped it before it could get far. Those three words, the same ones that now haunted you since you’d decided to indulge in every reminiscence involving them. Somehow he had come back to you, a feat which could not be commended enough, but now you ached for him—yearned for him even stronger than if he had well and truly died.

As you settled down onto the floor beside him, those three torturous words surfaced into a memory. The one that, among other fears, made you ever so hesitant to admit just how much you loved him.

————————————

“—In that vein, I don’t find myself in particular need of a great, star-shattering love story. If love is all-encompassing, I can do without the obstacle. Romanticizing my life and its quarrels is satisfaction enough.”

You didn’t know why you were still listening. You just knew that if Ezra kept it up, you’d find a way out of this cell just to break into his and strangle him. Anything to get him to shut the hell up. Banging your head methodically against the wall that separated the two of you, you didn’t even try to hold back your groan of displeasure as he rambled on.

“Now, don’t doubt my skill in worship. I have plenty of practice in the art of copulation”—you could hear the shit-eating grin on his face—“To say I haven’t affixed my interests on one soul or another at some point in time would ordain me a liar. I simply prefer to remain lovers in action…and not in name nor feeling. Companionship…yes, it’s something we all yearn for. It can’t be helped. A warm body, a brain to pick. All wonderful facets to enjoy for the sake of one’s own baser desiderata. But—“

“Shut up,” you bit out through gritted teeth, tugging at the roots of your hair when he kept going and you had to repeat yourself, “Shut up, you goddamned chatterbox. I don’t give a fuck about your love life. Why are you even talking about this?”

A brief silence occupied the space, as if he was thoroughly perplexed by your outburst. Then he let out a huffed laugh, amused.

“You inquired about the specifics of my occupation, little thorn.”

Every time he used that nickname for you—the thorn in my side—it made you bristle. Especially when he used it almost affectionately, soothingly, full of calm and charm that had you balling your fists and pricking the skin of your palms with your fingernails. You despised him, and he treated your existence as a joke, or as a little pet he would grab from its cage and admire before tossing it back and neglecting it until he deemed its presence acceptable again. Everything was funny. Everything could be laughed at. Sometimes you didn’t mind when the guards came to beat him bloody; it made him shut up, whether from pain or because he had passed out.

“Prospecting has nothing to do with love,” you snapped, shoulders tense despite the ache in your body. If these fuckers holding you captive didn’t kill you, the stress of surviving next to this fucker surely would.

“No, it doesn’t,” he agreed, suddenly serious, “Love for others, at least. Love for the dig, love for the hunt and the adventure—that’s a different narrative altogether. Which is why I deemed it appropriate to explain such measures. The lifestyle I settled for is no small undertaking. It comes with sacrifice.”

His condescension was unintentional but still stabbed and poked at you like keepers at a circus.

————————————

It comes with sacrifice. That it did.

That long-ago night haunted you to this day.

But Ezra had his mind focused on softer dreams as he broke you from your self-destruction once more.

“Nights like these make me keen to hear you sing for me again,” he lilted out through the dark, a reminiscent simper pulling at his mouth and crinkling his eyes as he shifted to look down at you, “The melody of your voice haunts the halls of my midnight reveries. But it is such a sweet possession—as though I willed a ghost to enchant me with her gift. A siren indeed. Lure me into the sea of your deception, try to pull me under like the rest of them. But not me. No…not me—I float like driftwood in the breeze…follow the tides of your affection. Somehow I remain unscathed, and you lap at me in gentle waves.”

“Such powerful words from a man who should be asleep,” you chuckled quietly, pressing your lips to the back of his hand where you held onto it now, fingers laced.

“I am but a vendor of poetry. And you, a weaver of melody. Sing for me, siren,” he murmured, his voice thick with the drowsy pull of lassitude. He hadn’t asked that of you in so long you had almost forgotten what it felt like to hear it. Almost. And you would have agreed to it, but—

“No, the girl, she—“

“I don’t mind,” Cee interrupted, quiet and soft. It surprised you; you thought she had fallen asleep—you didn’t want to wake her with your singing. And then you were—

Shit. You sincerely hoped she had just woken up due to Ezra’s long-winded soliloquy about your singing, and hadn’t heard anything else beyond that. Mm, no. You think she would’ve said something about how fucking gross it was. Or pulled a thrower on you.

“As well you shouldn’t,” Ezra chuckled, turning his head to grin at the girl where she had turned to face him on the opposite cot, “She sings like Kevva strung her throat with gold. Or the very strings of a harp.”

You blushed and ducked your head into your shoulder, embarrassed by his flattery. Looked to him and found his honey-dark eyes drinking you in from above, the ghost of a smile on his lips as he flattened his palm over your chest and rubbed it affectionately. “What would you like to hear?” you asked, running a hand over your hair and shifting on the floor to calm your nerves.

It was just Ez.

…and a girl who harbored a teen angst bigger than ten moons; fuck if you wanted her to judge you.

“Whatever tickles your fancy,” he replied, his grin wider now that you’d agreed, “You know I’m not particular to any one hymn—I find myself enraptured by it all.”

“Okay.” You pondered for a moment before settling on one of your favorites.

Then you sang.

Quietly, nervously at first in an unpracticed rasp, then growing more steady and mellow and soft.

Some swirling folk melody from your childhood in your native tongue, one you’d never forget even if someday you lost your memory. A lullaby for village children; a lilting work song for the women to hum when laundering clothes at the stream, soothing the babies strapped to their backs or their chests or both.

It told the story of a curious young girl who loved the stillness of the ocean, found peace in its silky depths. She liked the silence so much that she would spend hours beneath the water, training to hold her breath and exploring the creatures of the reef and listening to the wavering silence.

Until one humming summer night she swam so deep the water turned black. She was scared she wouldn’t be able find her way back home but she reveled in the quiet—the quiet that not even the nighttime forest could provide, nor the village when the hunters and scavengers left for work. It was then that she saw a light shining from the deep, and decided to chase it.

Down, down, down.

And down. Until the light became so bright it surrounded her, seeped into her until she did not know where she began and it ended. No pain, no fear surrounded her. Just a sense of calm, and peace.

And she became the moon, the biggest one in the sky. The silence up there was incomparable.

The song was meant as a warning to the village children not to wander too far from the town and somehow find themselves in the cove breaching the outer mountain range. A warning to stay away, else you’d become one of the many moons in the sky, never to return to your family and the life you loved.

But you’d always found it more compelling than that, more meaningful, because the story originated from a similar legend of the moon goddess your village worshipped, the deity of the biggest satellite in your skies. The minor difference came in the detail that she chose to become the Great Moon after divine conversation instead of chasing a light down into the deep on a whim. And there was a ceremony held to initiate her transition into a celestial body.

When you’d wrapped up the lullaby you found yourself more at peace than you’d felt in a long time. You didn’t like to think about your planet, nor your village, nor the tragedies that occurred there. But this memory was a happy one, filled with sleepy eyes and chubby fingers grabbing onto mothers’ cloaks, and getting tucked into warm soft blankets by a fireplace.

“Sweet siren,” Ezra whispered in a drowsy slur, giving your hand a gentle squeeze as he turned to rest on his back, “Never fail to soothe me even when ’m in utmost anguish.”

And with that, he left you in silence, and you knew he wasn’t far from sleep.

By the time his breath evened out, you felt your eyes drooping.

Fuck, you were exhausted.

This spin had been arguably more eventful than any you’d had in a long while, and it didn’t occur to you that you could be tired when you’d hardly done much until the action rolled in.

The floor was actually not half bad, given that you laid on the tarp that absorbed heat but quickly cooled when you moved. The nights here got cold, surprisingly. But Ezra’s hand hanging down and resting across your chest felt so good. The weight of him, the heat of him, it grounded you. You circled patterns into his upturned palm until you became too sleepy for that, settling on threading your fingers with his and feeling his pulse beneath your fingertips.

How dare he think you’d care for him less with only one arm? If anything, it showed his perseverance, his will to move forward and make hard decisions. Only something a man with determination could do.

He felt so warm and sure—steady. He was safe now that he had come back. You felt the inky black of sleep begin to wash over you as organized thought became jumbled feeling.

You didn’t have to worry anymore, not about his whereabouts. Everything was alright. It was as good as it had been in quite a while.

Everything would be alright, you could just…

Just…

“I wish my parents had loved each other like that,” Cee murmured in the quiet dark of the tent, rendering you wide awake with a jolt, as if someone had plunged a shot of adrenaline into your chest.

“They separate?” you managed, knowing it came out strange but not wanting to confirm or deny anything about you and Ezra. The silence that greeted you implied that she had had no intention of you hearing it. But she spoke regardless.

“No,” she scoffed, then went quiet for a moment, “My mom died when I was little. And I can’t remember what they were like together. We were always working so there wasn’t a lot of time for love between them.”

Oh. An orphan. It softened you a little more for her, made you more sympathetic to the fact that Ezra had killed her last living parent. You were an orphan too. So was he.

“We’re all missing parts of our family in some way or another. People with worldly attachments don’t usually sign up for this level of intensity. Not the strays, anyhow.”

“But you have each other,” she insisted.

“By chance alone. We didn’t start off liking each other. And we’re not…married, or anything.”

The last bit came out strangled—you’d never…said something like that aloud.

You and Ezra, married? It was odd, to say the least. You never thought of yourself as one to desire marriage in any respect—ceremonial, legal, the like. It just didn’t sit well with you. Too many complications, a lot of governing body involvement that you didn’t care for.

And Ezra…he wasn’t too fond of it either. But not because he didn’t want it, that much he’d admitted to you one night after admitting the complications of his feelings on his love life, ones that somewhat contradicted the first time he told you about it all; he couldn’t have it, he’d never let himself believe even a fraction of him deserved it. The life of a floater—and sure, just as Cee’s parents had prospected and been married (you assumed) and had a kid, many others did the same. But then you supposed it ended with kids like Cee, and she was lucky to not lay dead next to her idiot father, or trapped and sold as a body in the Dark-Spawn Trades. Lucky Ezra wasn’t filthy and depraved, lucky you were once young and scared like her and so took it upon yourself to keep her in your sights for now.

“How’d you meet?”

A chuckle bubbled out of you as you sat up and ran your fingers through Ezra’s hair, watching his chest rise and fall in even strokes, thinking back on that night so long ago.

“Stealing supplies from the same drop company. Two feral dogs fighting over who deserved it more. We bickered and threatened so much we lost track of time and made a mess and a ruckus and got caught.” A smile threatened to break your features and you let it, for just a moment. It faded as you recalled your awful encounter, “Captured, tortured for information because they thought we worked for a rival mining company. They wanted the locations of dig-sites we didn’t have, mining techniques we didn’t know. When he brought up the Wastes earlier…that’s what he meant. Surprised we didn’t die, but they really thought we were valuable or something.”

You gave yourself a minute before continuing. In a panic, you rubbed circles over the tattoo on the web of Ezra’s hand between his thumb and forefinger, trying to ground yourself as wicked, blood-specked memories flooded your head.

Deep breath. You’re safe, he’s here. This will be good to get off your chest. You’ve never spelled it out to anyone before. Nobody’s ever asked. Maybe this girl is a gift from the universe, maybe she was sent here to give you space to heal. Deep breath. You’re safe. He’s here.

You eventually pressed the back of his limp hand to your cheek, and found your voice once more. You didn’t need to worry about waking him; once he conked out into REM sleep it took a freight train to wake him up. At least, when he was with you he always slept deeper. He’d told you one night; how it helped to have you there, like you dragged all the bad memories and nightmares away, pulling them so far out of reach he only found thoughtless, worry-free sleep.

“Hearing someone’s screams from the other side of a cell wall makes you more susceptible to care about them. A bonding experience, so to speak. He’d talk to me for hours on the nights they made us sit and anticipate another session. Recited poetry, recalled stories from his time as a prospector as an escape from our reality. I would sing for him, when we knew the guards had left. It was how we got to know each other. It’s—that’s why he calls me his siren. The reason I call him a chatterbox, among other obvious explanation.”

“How’d you get out?” Cee asked, resting her cheek on her hands as she laid on her side, watching you with keen interest.

“Killed them,” you rasped, not wanting to go into the gory details, “Every single one.”

For nights you had laid awake, haunted by memories of blood staining your only pair of clothes, blood splattering into your mouth, chunks of brain matter on Ezra’s gloves as he dragged you through a maze of tents and established buildings, viscera on your recovered suit, the way you’d had to swallow bile back down your esophagus at the sight of all the lives you’d taken. But you had to do it; it’s what you told yourself when the images would replay every time you closed your eyes.

Vengeance, necessity, paired with Ezra’s seemingly insatiable bloodlust—and your own. Your own shameful desire to incite violence, one you bred in the early years of your youth and had stuffed away until needed.

But you hadn’t been able to deny that, when Ezra shot a man who’d pinned you to the ground and then finished him off with a knife spurting blood out his neck, it stirred your blood something wild. Hearing him panting through the transmitter, grunts and curses as he tore through humans and humanoids and alien creatures alike right beside you. Hearing him call out targets, watching your six, taking single-word direction from you when you did the same.

They worked like a well-oiled machine, like you two had never not known the other. And he was sloppy in his technique, grounded more in brute force than strategy—but you made up for that in quick, evasive maneuvers and stealth. Both of you had near-perfect aim and could work around the clunky gear of your suits.

Messy—pools of blood, the sickening crunch of bone and cartilage crushed beneath your hands and your feet and your knife and whatever other weapon you scavenged along the way.

It felt like a ritual. A baptism of carnage that ensured neither one of you could live without the other.

So of course, when it all was over and the last vertebra snapped—

—there had been filthy, unhinged, surely unsanitary, bio-hazardous fucking in a tent surrounded by carnage.

Fucking in way you could only describe as feral.

Unrestrained.

Hot, Kevva’s saints was it brutally hot and so needy—but also so, so tender.

Full of soft emotion. Unspoken, even for Ezra’s standards. Almost loving.

Your aching bodies, exhausted and weak and battered, dragged lazily against one another once both of you had ceased the initial writhing pace of passion and the adrenaline ebbed. It tasted tinny like blood and musky like spit and salty with sweat and tears, and if nothing more, it was real. Whispering about how fuck, they’d made it and god, they were on the same level, we made it, baby—can’t live without you, I need you I need you I need you—

That day was quite possibly your favorite memory as well as one of your darkest. The day that you knew, in the charred, most twisted part of you, that you’d follow this man to the ends of every planet, to the far reaches of the universe—and he’d very well do the same.

Of course, you shared none of that with Cee.

“We took down the main base of the entire company. They were small but well-endowed. Got to transfer points into our accounts and sort through the mining equipment and the food,” you offered instead after a long bout of silence, “And the spoils of their labor. We were rich, could have retired early.”

“Why didn’t you?”

You debated whether to lie or tell her the truth, deciding on the latter. This girl wasn’t a threat, she genuinely wanted to know. “Ezra and I have—had a certain…interest in finding thrill wherever we can.”

Cee quirked an eyebrow, and you elaborated, “It’s not something to romanticize, we certainly weren’t smart about our spending. Gambling, drugs, slingshot scooter racing, smuggled creature ring-fights. The risk makes winning worth it. It was addicting. We earned a lot. Uncountable amounts of money. But we spent it all and then spent more. Pulled stunts that not even the most daring would try. Heists, intel-theft for enemies of certain people. We got caught up in it. Eventually drowned in a swamp of debt and unrequited favors. Got put on watchlists by the head crime syndicate and peace officers alike in the Core Worlds because we got cocky. Sloppy. So many people want our heads on a stake that we’d be better off dying out here. It’d be ironic, given the executions we deserve.”

You shuddered at the thought of Karolclan and their unusual procedures for punishment. They wanted you the most—you owed them the most. Them and Omni-Five. But Karolclan was decidedly worse.

“Why are you still mining? Wouldn’t it be easier to hide somewhere less dangerous?”

“We have debts to pay, bird,” you sighed, fond of the nickname Ezra gave her as it fit her well, “It’s the only honest work we can get without a biotracker recognizing our scans or someone realizing that the burner names and scouting codes we give them are bullshit. We work alone—no drop company, no mining corps. Until we can get our names cleared and our bio-scans off the watchlist, we can’t do shit else.”

If nothing more, Karolclan did allow debt payoff. But only if you could evade their capture, and only if you had the means to satisfy compounded interest. They were brutal, ruthless.

“He said you had a crew…and a ship…before you ended up stranded.”

“We did. A group of people like us. But you can imagine that a group of outlaws don’t always see eye to eye—buncha hotheaded criminals. Fought over aurelac, argued over fair shares, resources, everything.”

That wasn’t the whole story.

It started as a dispute over aurelac, but had quickly turned into a spat against Ezra, why he had so many successful harvests and surely he was stealing or cheating, how it wasn’t fair that you two were attached at the hip and didn’t section off when you split into groups to cover more land. In the heat of argument and the desperation of man, that had morphed into threats against you—Why don’t you fucking share her, Ezra? We all have needs and she’s barely good at the dig-sites. Put her to use somewhere else or we’ll find a use for her, and that devolved into Might take her right from under you if you don’t watch yourself, don’t be surprised if you hear her struggle tonight.

You had gotten used to the crude commentary, the snickers and wolf-whistles when you bent over, and if they had tried to somehow steal you away in the night, they’d have been reminded that you slept fully armed and showed no mercy to anyone who touched you unless they knew just where to start—and only one person did.

But that…that had not gone over well with him. It ended before you even knew what he did, and pretty soon you had a dead crewmate spilling blood over your boots while the familiar sound of throwers charging up rang in your ears, all of them pointed at the man panting beside you. The only one from the group to live and remain on the Green had been Two, and honestly you were never fond of them but weren’t surprised when they helped you and Ezra take the heat off your backs—they always teamed up with you two and they were good at what they did. It was a shame they were gone—despite their silence and threatening demeanor and sometimes uncalculated moves in a plan, they never made a move to harm either of you; they just wanted to harvest and get out like you did. Better them than Ezra, though. You’d have genuinely lost your mind if they had shown up in his stead.

“Did you kill the crew too?”

“Only a few,” you said honestly, “The others left us stranded when they realized we’d kill them next. Number Two was our only ally. Now they’re dead.”

You laid back down and put Ezra’s hand across your chest again, “Get some rest now. We’ve got a long day ahead of us. And if you choose to kill him while we sleep—kill both of us.”

You didn’t know why you’d felt compelled to say that, but revealing such a dark part of yourself to her convinced you that she’d plant a bolt in you or Ezra’s head and run. Ezra was the more likely target, given his history with the girl. It was irrational, for the most part; if she truly wanted him dead she would have let his wound kill him. Or she would have shot him sooner. But you couldn’t be too sure.

And you’d sooner die than wake up to him cold next to you.

#ezra (prospect)#ezra x reader #ezra x f!reader #ezra (prospect) x reader #anya writes #ohhhh boy! a second installment #pedrostories #ezra smut #cacoethes

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