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raendown · 3 years

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Just crawling out of my hole real quick to say that no one else used that stupid prompt generator they apparently wanted for @madatobiweek so I did it myself. The one I pulled was “blood”.

Fandom: Naruto Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 2500 Rated: T+ Summary: If he thought really hard about it Madara still wasn’t sure if he would be able to remember what it felt like to live.

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And All That I Loved, I Loved Alone

If he thought really hard about it Madara still wasn’t sure if he would be able to remember what it felt like to live. The freedom to run, the touch of grass under his feet, the taste of anything that wasn’t plain gruel with its minimum basic nutrients, it was strange how easily the memories faded. Then again, he couldn’t even remember how long he’d been here so who was he to say how quickly memories of his previous life should fade? All he knew and all he cared about was that Tobirama had been gone for three winters now.

This would mark the fourth when it came. Standing in line to receive his morning bowl of slop, Madara cast his eyes to what little sky he was allowed to glimpse and tried to remember the color of the eyes that used to watch him in the night. Red, of course, but what shade? What forgotten fruits and gems had he compared them to when they danced in the glow of torchlight? The air was growing cold again, frost gathering on the manacles that held him in place to sleep at night, and already Madara couldn’t recall the feeling of warm fingers pulling him close. Precious memories and they too were fading. Like so many of the others here liked to say, there wasn’t anything this place would not take from you. Some of the men who’d been worked until their fingers were little more than bone had even forgotten their own names. Madara once vowed to never let himself fall in to that state but without Tobirama everything here was so much harder and after waiting for so long he’d begun to wonder if maybe it hadn’t all been a fantastical dream.

Had he imagined the soft touches, the hoarsely whispered promises? To ask would be to risk knowing.

Several spaces ahead in line, a woman fell, body sagging and crumbling to the side. Her bowl clattered as it rolled away across the rocky ground. Madara stepped around her with everyone else as the line continued onwards, implacable, undeniable. Eventually someone would come to take the body away; he could only hope they got around to it before she bloated and filled the whole area with the stench of rot. Their unwashed bodies were stench enough - or so he’d been told by the latest additions to his work team. Madara couldn’t remember what the world smelled like away from unwashed bodies and the scent of burning metal.

They were building something, that much he knew, but asking questions generally resulted in losing blood and if there was one thing Madara had kept of himself it was that he was a very fast learner. He watched and he learned to keep his mouth shut. He observed and he learned that the guards were unkind to those who met their eyes. He listened and he learned that there really was no way out of this place.

Maybe he’d imagined it after all. No one had ever escaped this prison, that’s what everyone said. And if no one ever escaped then either his dying mind had crafted the illusion of Tobirama to keep him sane or the man had indeed once been real only to die in making his attempt at the impossible. Madara closed his eyes, shuffling along with the slowly moving line. He supposed it didn’t matter what the truth was. Whatever the case, Tobirama was not here and Madara felt the lack of him in every cell of his body. The few memories of imagining that were left to him were precious, hoarded like secrets to be remembered in the night and soothe him to sleep, dreaming of places his waking mind could never conceive of. Giving up on those little bits of himself were all that kept him from becoming like the wraiths that gibbered in their cells at night and cackled as their bloody hands worked the mines day after day, rattling the air around them with insanity like a siren calls a sailor to their doom. No, Madara was hopeless but he was not quite ready to give in to that.

Eventually. Some day. He knew his fate just as everyone here learned at some point. If they didn’t die from the lack of sun where their prison was sunk just below the earth’s surface then the exhaustion of their daily labors would do it. Madara couldn’t say what they were building, that wasn’t for someone like him to question, but he supposed it didn’t really matter. They could be constructing absolutely nothing just for the sake of punishment and it would all be the same to them, collapsing at the end of every day covered in sweat and dirt and their own filth. Endless cycles that began the day they arrived and ended long after forgetting that they had not always been here. Madara himself struggled to so much as envision a world outside of this place, let alone recall who he might have been, all the places he might have seen. Was Madara even his true name? Only the past would ever know.

Shouting from one of the farther encampments rose suddenly and Madara ducked his head low in time with everyone else. Any show of interest in whatever was causing such a commotion would be taken as a desire to get involved, something that would no doubt lead to punishment. Everything led to punishment here. It took breaking and reforging in to a shell of shattered pieces to go even one full day without punishment and that was only if you didn’t count their daily labors as a punishment unto itself. The entire line of prisoners before and after him bowed their heads, eyes on their own filthy toes, watching the cold dust rise as they shuffled along in search of food.

When the noise drew closer Madara wasn’t the only one to squeeze his eyes shut as though hoping he could disappear in to the shadows until whatever nonsense was happening had passed over them. The line moved and he moved with it. Foreign sounds echoed off the rough hewn walls around them but the only thoughts in his mind were reserved for prayers that Cell Block Fourteen would not be denied their morning meal for someone else’s stupidity.

A flash of light made him flinch away on instinct. Long burns scars on his back had taught him years before to be wary of anyone bearing torchlight. Then it flashed again and he realized it wasn’t dancing the way a flame should. The anomaly was enough to light a spark of curiosity in him that should not still have the energy to live, canting his head in time to watch something rise and fall, catching the light as it did, something long and shining. Not creating light but reflecting it. Madara watched it rise again and the curiosity was there, if dull, to wonder at the dark substance that sprayed from its tip. Strange, he could have sworn there was nothing to dull that shine the first time it raised. The prisoner in front of him stepped forward and Madara drew his eyes away. Not his business. He knew better than to look, he scolded himself.

Tobirama would have looked.

It was this thought that left him open and vulnerable to a scream that shook him down to his core, different from the others because this one was close enough to reverberate through his skull, real in a way he couldn’t escape when he looked round a second time just fast enough to watch a long blade slide through flesh and bone to come out stained on the other side, cold steel parting the crest of the guards’ uniform. He wasn’t the only one who looked. Suddenly the screaming was all around him as the line scattered and Madara was just slow enough to get knocked to the ground, nearly trampled in the stampede of terrified prisoners.

Somehow it was even more frightening from here where the constant thunder of flight knocked him back again and again, unable to regain his feet and unwilling to let his head be crushed. Madara rolled back and forth, dodging the flying limbs as best he could, and counted the new bruises on his legs out of sheer habit. At least these came without the price of blood. He’d had worse. Still, he was glad when there finally came a break in the rush, just enough space for him to roll his feet underneath him and stand. He stood to see a new world descending on the one that had subsumed him more years ago than he knew how to count.

Flashes of steel drew the eyes in too many directions at once. Blood sprayed through the air, stained the dirt and the walls and the heavy armor that marched inexorably forward. Prison guards lay dead and dying in broken heaps. One of them had been pinned to a wall by a long polearm weapon and Madara was morbidly fascinated to see the body thrashing against its own will. Good, he thought distantly, now they will know the pain we felt at their hands.

And then. Oh and then.

There he was.

Limned in golden torchlight with a face as implacable as the tides themselves he came, sword in hand, steel in his eyes. Madara knew those eyes. Had looked for them when his world was darkest and dreamed of them when all hope had left him. Had clung to the memories even as they warped and faded. Oh but he knew those eyes and the voice that roared beneath them. Three years apart had put muscle and flesh upon his bones, filled out the body now cased in metal, but Madara would have known him by the corner of an elbow glanced around a corner.

Tobirama had come. Promises whispered in the dark made real.

For all the chaos around him and the occasional body that tossed him from side to side Madara could do nothing but stand utterly still and watch as Tobirama cut a path through the bodies in front of him like they were nothing but chaff and shadows, white skin stained as red as his eyes and entirely unbothered by the death he wrought. The sword he carried rose and fell, swooped and slashed, death in the form of a dance, and Madara could not imagine that anything more beautiful could exist in any world. If there were a god then surely they had chosen this man as their avatar on earth, the instrument of their will. In every direction prisoners panicked and guards called out the alarm but in those moments as he watched the rebirth of his own dreams Madara knew safety for the very first time.

He realized that he might by his very refusal to move stand out from the writhing chaos around them only when he felt a hand close around his throat and a fire he hadn’t known was still there inside him flickered to life. Embers long buried coughing away the dust of imprisonment, both hands coming up to pull at the fingers choking him in a protest he would not have had the strength for only an hour before. Now was different. Now when his eyes fell closed against the fading air in his lungs he knew there was something to fight for, scrabbling and kicking with withered limbs, gnashing teeth when a second hand came around to cover his mouth. The taste of blood was a triumph he hadn’t known in so long he nearly stopped moving just to savor it.

As the world turned hazy it occurred to him that this might be the end and the thought was not a terrible one despite his instincts to fight. The awakening desire to live. So long he had spent in the darkness, so much time alone and uncertain, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that an end like this would be anything but a victory. Did he not have vindication? Proof that Tobirama was real, alive, that everything they shared had been as true as he remembered in the dreams that gave him warmth through the frosted nights? At least he would die with a kernal of happiness fluttering in his belly like something forbidden. One last grand rebellion to the ones that had made him so miserable for who even knew how many years.

Oxygen rushed back down his throat so fast he nearly choked on that as well when the hands upon him fell away. Madara coughed through the taste of dust and blood, stumbling back until his eyes could focus again and then struggling to clear his mind, to understand what he was seeing. Shining silver and dripping red. Fear and shock and some instinctual plea for mercy all twisted together in an ugly grimace as the guard who dared to touch him spent his death throes on the point of a steady blade. When the body fell it was gone from his mind as easily as that. What could ever possibly hope to hold his attention with a face like that staring back at him with such adoration?

“You came,” Madara croaked, voice hoarse with disuse and thick with emotion.

“Did I not promise?” Ah but Tobirama’s voice had always been a honeyed rumble, a caress upon the ear like nothing else. Time and distance had only made his tones all the sweeter.

His fingers were gentle, even encased in steel as they were, but even if he had been rough and unthinking Madara would have fallen in to his arms just as easily. Because he had indeed promised and he was here now keeping that vow. Keeping the dreams they had spun together alive, weaving new possibilities with nothing but his steady and undeniable presence.

Trust was not something easily come by in this place where only pain existed. It had been three long years since Madara knew what trust could feel like, the taste of absolute certainty that he could rely on anything but his own efforts. He knew it again now, after three long and endless years, resting his weight fully against Tobirama’s chest and closing his eyes. Chaos strained and flowed around them. Death rang out in echoes that flickered back against themselves over and over and over. Madara knew none of it. His world had been darkness, despair, and desperation, had been struggle, sorrow, and strife, and all of it had been worth it now to feel the arms that circled his waist and pulled him in close, the hand that cradled his neck like something so very, very precious. Tobirama had come. Whatever came after they would face it together again as they had before and that was all Madara could ever - would ever - need.

In the darkness where once he expected to die Madara learned again what it was to live.

#rae writes #madatobi #madara #tobirama #medeival au #sort of??#fanfiction

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geminimoonbeamx · 7 years

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Naive: Part 2

A/N: I’m so freaking happy you guys seemed to like the intro, I wrote this and a few other chapters up in one night! Hopefully I can get you guys as hyped as I am for this story

Word Count: 2k+

Warnings: Just cursing in this chapter because I have the mouth of a sailor. The stirrings of sexual tension. The big stuffs coming next time though you guys I promise lol

Summary: As the goddaughter of Tony Stark you were no stranger to the Avengers, but when you meet the newest member- you’re a little more then intrigued. Unfortunately for him, Bucky Barnes has caught your eye. 💘💘💘💘💘💘

You’ve been at the tower for close to five-ish days now, and you’re still trying to get reaccoustomed to the enormity of the building.

Had it always been so fucking big?

You’d think since you we’re older now, it should have shrunk a bit. You know, size relativity and all that? If anything now that you we’re older you had the mental capacity to process just how freakishly huge this building was. The man tower is over sixty floors.

…that gave you a lot of opportunity to get totally lost. All the time.

You’d never had the greatest internal navigation system in the first place. You could get lost down the street from your house.

“I don’t know where I am! I’m between a Del Taco and a Walgreens”

You’d made many a lost phone call that sounded just like that.

You’d probably text Tony and ask him exactly what floor the main gym was on but 1) he’d tease you and ask “How exactly do you plan on playing Lara Croft all over the world and you cant find your way to the gym” and 2) it was three thirty in the morning.

You we’re irritated, being up this early when you didn’t have to. Especially when within the next few weeks you’d be starting adult life again and you’d have no choice but to wake up at the ass crack of dawn. It felt like a waste of precious sleep.

But no matter how hard you’d tried, it was no use. You’d smoked an entire joint of indica. Made chamomile tea- meditated until it felt like you we’re going to scream. Everything. And yet you couldn’t manage to get comfortable in the king sized, memory foam mattress.

Starting to come down off of the medication hadn’t been as awful as you and Tony had both been fearing. You we’re a little jittery- your anxiety acting up more then normal but you weren’t all strung the hell out and pale with sunken in eyes. You weren’t crying, hunched up in a corner begging for death or your next fix.

You we’re tired though. Exhausted and yet somehow couldn’t sleep. Your body just wouldn’t let you.

Why? Why lort? Sleeping was your favorite activity in the world. Dreaming an actual hobby of yours.

“This is bullshit” You complained to Tony a few days ago. You we’re going on 48 hours with close to no sleep. “I feel like I did like a kilo of Cocaine”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. You don’t know what cocaine feels like. That’s what I’m going to choose to believe” He had given you a pointed look when the both of you sat in his lab “Look kid, we knew there would be some side effects. It should ware off within the week, as your body gets used to this lower dosage. I can have the doc prescribe you some sleeping pills?”

You’d thought on it for a moment before denying it. You didn’t really wanting to be taking more meds right now.

“Alright, when you change your mind come find me” Tony had sighed. Your head was full of cement. Just like Jamie’s had been.

So since you didn’t take prescription- you figured you we’re going to have to find another way.

Your brilliant idea; run your body down until it had no choice but to crash.

It takes you another close to fifteen minutes before you find the main gym. It’s just a luxurious and lush as the rest of the building; three stories high. The top two floors looking over the large basket ball court. The equipment was state of the art and the various metal machines gleamed. You figured you’d do some cardio and then some weight lifting. Double whammy yourself.

People who have the pre conceived notion that fat people never work out are stupid. Point blank.

What, do they think people like you just sit on couches and stuff their mouths with twinkies while watching Rosanne…well that actually sounded like a good ass time but still.

You’d always been active, always loved going on hikes and exploring zoo’s and Museums and beaches for hours. Plus hadn’t anyone realized that shopping was the most hardcore cardio there was? And you lived to shop. After your mom- you’d needed to do something. To keep your mind clear and that is how your relationship with working out had come to be. You didn’t do it to lose weight, you did it to work on your health. Mental mostly, but your physical health came with that. Yeah you had a belly and thunder thighs. You also had kick ass blood pressure and strong calves.

You slip your headphones in after switching on your “Get it gurllll” playlist and hopping onto one of the elliptical machines, putting your water bottle in the holder before turning on the machine to pick your traction, starting at a decent pace.

The music shuffles from Amy Winehouse to J. Cole, to Lana Del Rey and Fleetwood Mac. Everyone had always teased you that you liked to work out to slow songs. It was something about the melody that got you moving. You go through song after song, keeping up your pace until your legs are screaming in protest and your breaths are labored.

With the blaring music in your ears, you don’t notice when someone else enters the room.

Bucky always came to workout early, usually getting the gym to himself. It’s not even that he liked the quiet or being alone or any of that- even though it was nice to not have Sam’s annoying, booming voice around. No, it was because he didn’t have anything else to do. When he woke up from the nightmares that still frequented him, he figured he should do something with all of that pent up energy, so he’d come to the empty gym and work his muscles until he could barley move.

He wasn’t used to the lights already being on when he got there.

He takes the steps to the cardio machine and stops in his tracks for a moment at the sight infront of him.

Y/N’s there, on an elliptical. He can hear the music in your ears from his spot across the floor, so he knew there was no way you could have heard him come in. Your working hard, your body straining in your skin tight leggings. Your silky ponytail bobs with your efforts, your breaths coming out in little pants. He can feel the look on his face. What were you doing here this early?

Should he leave? Was that weird, if he left after seeing that you was there? Surely this place was big enough for the two of you.

He thinks it’s probably smart to make his presence known, he’s just about to call for you when you stop and turn your head.

“OH HOLY FUCKING FUCK!” You cry in shock, your eyes wide with surprise as you yank the headphones from your ears before grabbing your chest, almost falling off the machine.

Bucky stands there, his own eyes big and his hands shooting up in a “sorry, I’m harmless” kind of way. A wordless surrender.

When your bell like laughter echo’s around him he relaxes a little bit “Bucky you scared the living crap out of me”

You accuse, good naturedly, still holding your hoodie clad chest.

“I’m sorry, It’s usually dead at this time so I kind of just barged in. I didn’t realize anyone is here” He explains himself. Leaving out the fact that he’d taken a moment to look at the way your thighs joggled in the spandex, of course.

You don’t know why you feel so…hot. Are your cheeks burning? No? It’s just your body reacting to the heart attack you’d almost just had.

“No, you’re good. Just give a girl a little warning next time, okay?” You chuckle as look down at the touch screen of the machine. You’d been on it for over an hour. You grab your water bottle and hop off. He hides his smile at how short your legs are.

“I’ll make sure to do that. So what are you doin’ up so early?” He hopes his attempt to make conversation didn’t sound as forced as it felt.

“I couldn’t sleep so I figured I might as well come try to run myself until I can knock out. You? I thought that you and Steve and Sam have some sort of fitness club?” You walk over to him, giving him a small smile before passing him on your way to the weights section. He shakes his head with a low chuckle and follows you,

Not because he was - like- following you. But because he was going to warm up with some lifting anyway.

You plop down on one of the leg lifts “You an insomniac like me?”

“Somethin’ like that. I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep and figured somethin’ the same” Bucky goes over and lays out flat on one of the work benches, adjusting the weights.

“Hmm great minds think alike then” You croon. You hadn’t really gotten the chance to get to know him yet. Yeah, the two of you had talked in passing. At dinner. When you we’re messing with Steve. But never alone like this.

Damn. Did he look GOOD in those gray sweatpants.

“They do. How long have you been here” Bucky inquires as he grabs onto the weight bar and begins to lift. It’s nothing major. Not to him. Just three hundred pounds- on each side.

You watch him with wonder at the ease his arms move with.

You know its weird, but its hot seeing someone being able to bench that much with little effort…you wonder how easily he’d be able to bench you…

“Like an hour?” You answer him, tearing your eyes away from him.

Huh, he thinks. You’d been working out like that on the elliptical for an hour? You didn’t even look that winded.

“You work out a lot?” He feels like an idiot the moment it comes out of his mouth and your laughter doesn’t make it any better.

“What are you trying to say, huh?” You’re not mad, mostly just seizing the opportunity to tease him.

“Nothing! I just meant that you- uh- looked good up there. Like you don’t even look tired” He tries to unjumble his words, feeling like a total fucking bozo all the way.

“Yeah? Thanks. I spent the summer sight seeing in Europe which meant hiking like everywhere. I sweat I climbed like a gazillion steps. I guess it strengthened my core”

“Where in Europe did you go exactly?” He decides to go with a safer topic. Hoping he wont continue to make a total ass out of himself. He’d happened to have done his fair share of hiking that continent.

“All over but I mostly Italy. I spent a few weeks in Greece though, those we’re my favorite” You sound wistful. And that’s how it starts.

Bucky used to be able to spark up a conversation with just about anyone. Back before- back when he was younger, he could keep a conversation flowing like no one’s business. Steve had always idolized the way the people just seemed to like the guy. But it had been hard to get back to that now. Yeah, he wasn’t nearly as quiet as he’d been back in Romania, but he still didn’t talk. For hours. With near strangers.

Which is why he’s surprised he’s able to with you.

The conversation was bubbling, like a brook, ebbing and lively. He found himself wanting, almost needing to hear your little stories and opinions and jokes. You’d both abandoned working out and just sat on the machines, laughing and talking.

He learned that you liked to tease- a lot. Nearly everything was a joke with you. Your sense of humor sharp and sarcastic. Your nature playful and inviting.

You tell him stories from Europe and then about the tower and being here when you we’re younger with Tony. And in turn, surprisingly, he tells you a couple of his own stories back. A couple that he could actually remember. What it was like living in Romania- not knowing a lick of the language before hand. How fucking awkward he still felt as he adjusted to the 21st century.

“So lets get this straight, you’ve been de-iced for almost three years and you haven’t watched Harry Potter?” Your tone is dead serious and he grins and shakes his head.

“Nah”

“Or Lord of the Rings?”

“Negative”

“Or Star Wars?”

“Is that the one with the little green guy?”

“Yes!”

“I caught a little of it when Tony was watchin’ it”

“Oh my god, Bucky. I can’t. This is fucking blasphemous. I mean Lord of the Rings and Star Wars I guess could wait, I GUESS…But Harry Potter?! Harry Potter is the best thing this generation has to give! It will change your life!” The pure passion in your voice is almost palpable. Why cant he stop smiling?

“I guess I’ve been really missing out, haven’t I?”

“Yes! You have! Ugh, okay we’re going to have to have a movie night ASAP. It is just unacceptable for us to be living under the same roof and you haven’t seen a single Harry Potter movie” He thinks your kidding but your really not.

You don’t play about Potter, okay?!

When you check your phone and see the time your eyes bulge a little. You’d been sitting talking to him for nearly three hours.

“Oh shit, is it really almost seven?” You cant believe it. It really didn’t feel like you’d been here for that long.

“Is it?” Bucky sits up a little, not believing it either.

“Yeah” You bite you lip as you look at him for a moment, before standing “I should probably go and see if I can get any sleep at all”

He masks the small disappointment he feels at your words “Of course”

“It was really cool talking to you. I’m serious about our marathon! I have to school you on the most important stuff” You’re voice is flirty. As fuck. You don’t even know if you mean for it to be as you look down at him. He tries to tear his eyes from your face- and fails. Twice. Before he’s able to.

“Yeah uh, just tell me when”

“Definitely. Goodnight Bucky…or I guess Morning?” You giggle on your way out. He watches your retreating figure until your out of sight before he lets out huff and reclines hardly back. The machine sighs in protest. He fixes his eyes on the ceiling as he deals with the stirring in his head. The one though he can clearly decipher is…

Fuck.

Because although he’d liked having Tony not at his throat, he doesn’t see how he’s going to be able to stay away from you. No wonder Steve had gotten caught with his hands in the cookie jar.

—–

So I just had to pump out another part for you guys! I hope you like it! Tell me what you think? Do you like the dynamic between them yet? Does Y/N just seem like a little hoe? Do you want to be tagged. Tell me ya'lllllllllll.

@devenrenee @skeletoresinthebasement @kendallefire @mellifluousbabe @toniinhere @agentmstark @purplekitten30 @bellaballanda @yslbucky @arabellaaurorabarnes @prinxessofspace @supernaturally-lucky @sngforme @kyritha

#bucky barnes x plus size reader #Bucky Barnes #Bucky Barnes smut #mcu imagine #marvel #tony stark #tony stark daughter #steve rogers #poc reader #mixed #reader

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