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rise-my-angel · 1 year

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One Last Drink

Pairing: Ezra x Female Reader

Length: 15.8k

Warnings: Angst/hurt comfort, threats of violence, implied threats of abuse, kidnapping, hostage situations, morally ambiguous behavior, possessive behavior, smut, oral (f and m receiving), p in v, rough sex, biting during sex

Notes: This is a bit of a darker Ezra, but most of the trigger warnings are mentioned either in passing, or in implication not directly mentioned. Takes place after the film.

The longer you sat at this bar, the more you felt a growing sense of isolation. Sure not all of your new team members agreed to meet here, but some of them had. Yet it had been an hour and not a word from any of them. Instead it was just you, sitting against the counter mindlessly pulling away the salt decorated at the rim of the glass down onto the napkin it sat on. Occasionally you’d bring it up to take a sip, but the remnants of it still sat too strong in your mouth to enjoy the liquid.

You were starting to think they had invited you out as a joke. The new member of the team, unimportant and even warned most of them would delegate you to grunt work. Keeping inventory, cleaning equipment, only being considered useful when they needed medical attention. You were excited to find a job what took you off world for even a time, but maybe you wished the team you were joining shared your enthusiasm.

The bar was dingy, dark, and very likely not super clean but it also was as good as you get in this kind of area. A docking port nearby, the city centre was usually packed with people coming and going to the point it made you a tad uncomfortable. Even thinking about heading there just to leave for the job made your heart race a tad.

You at first thought they suggested this place because it was quieter and out of the way, a tactic to make you feel welcome, but now you were beginning to wonder if they sent you here, just so they could meet up in the dense sections of the city where you wouldn’t go.

Sure you didn’t know them very well, but it sure felt as if you should know them better then where you stood. Keamy, your team leader had given you the run down of what to expect, what everyone’s jobs were and what to look out for.

Well, who to look out for more specifically.

“Got an easy start, to raiders on this one but if harvest is good enough that I know it, means our competition knows it too.” A few groups were placed in this category, some of which sounded more threatening then others. You were sitting across from his desk, hands together in your lap, back straight while the large man was leaned back in his far more comfortable chair.

One knee over the other and flicking his pen up in the air. “Couple guys give us more grief then others. One dude, ‘bout my size but never shuts the fuck up. Good at tricking people into giving him what he wants, could talk you into bed if you let him.”

You didn’t though, miss the pause as he looked over you with narrowed eyes before glancing away with a disbelieving eye roll. Blood cooling down to a point it send shivers through your limbs, you tried to remember that you needed to cooperate. You didn’t need Keamy to think much of you beyond keeping you on contract.

Flinging his legs onto the ground he stood up, making his way to the makeshift bar sat at one corner of his office. “Usually travels with this big fucker, doesn’t talk. Wouldn’t be surprise if the fucking ogre didn’t know how.”

Watching him round the bar, you saw him flip the cap off some unknown amber liquid before raising it up with an eyebrow as well. Shaking your head no, his already unpleasantly expressed face fell more unimpressed, but relented as he continued. “The others’ll warn you about him but if you ain’t got a gun then most of ‘em will leave you alone. It’s the talkers you got to look out for. Charm a naive little thing like you into an early grave if he can.”

Some of the men he described in appearance, others he had record photos for but it all just melted together in the sea of too much information. Now you were alone and dreading the weeks you would spend alone with those who couldn’t even bother to keep appointment. The rest of the team didn’t appear to be much in the way of enthusiastic either.

Though, you suppose it made sense. Most of you weren’t complete employees of the company hiring you, just individual contractors who need money damned of how. Keamy was the one who had final say and he would set out with the rest of you, but now you already began feeling that dread of wanting to be home. Not one foot set off planet side, yet the dream of coming home already felt heavy in your chest.

Luckily, the bartender seemed to have been content with leaving you alone in your sulking little corner barley making progress on the one drink you slapped your first credits down on. Had it been almost two hours by now? Half an hour? You wouldn’t sleep well tonight, so may as well stick around until you finished the dark green liquid swirling in your glass or you spent so long sulking the bartender kicks you out.

Your communicator in front of you blinking messages that felt too depressing to open. Notifications that of your team confirming when to meet tomorrow evening in the port, another a sad notification from the renters informing you of an interest increase by the time you’d be back. No one wishing you luck, or telling you to be safe or even congratulate you on finding a job that gets you off this dark, dirty rock.

Eyes trained on the foggy liquid, time spent untouched now separating from top to bottom. No doubt needing a mix before attempting even another sip. Seeing no one approach, hearing no one nearby, you only flickered your eyes up briefly to see the bartender nod at someone behind you before turning to make something.

Which was when a warm feeling washed over part of your back and side just as a looming figure obscured your already dim light. A voice drawled deep in your ear, sending another shiver down your spine making you sit up straighter. “Salt’s supposed to take the edge off you know, not get knocked off the edge.”

Not yet turning around, your voice felt heavy with led staring forward. “It’s too much, can’t taste the drink with all that.” Your nerves shivering more as they chuckled deep, just as warm sounding as their close proximity felt.

Moving more into view however, you could see a tall figure slid around to lean his hip against the bar counter, arms crossing his chest. You didn’t look at his face yet, just hiding a little bemused smirk at his tone dropping to something more casual. “Syrup’s all the way at the bottom, jem. Not sure you’re going to taste anything on that next sip leaving it like that.”

Well, he did have a point. Pushing it away with your finger, it nudged barley a centimetre but the liquid sloshed around enough to stir it up slightly. “Probably, yeah.” Your heart beating a tinge fast at the unknown, you braved the move. Turning slightly to the side, you had to look up more to find his face as he stool taller then you.

A broad chest at your biggest sights, shoulders wide with a tee shirt that stretched across his torso up to a thick neck that ended high with scattered facial hair. Some dark, almost black in the lighting, and greys scattered throughout up around plush lips and ending at a coarse moustache beneath a strong well framed nose.

His eyes however, caught you more. Large and wide, the darkness much more prominent swimming in it’s colours then anything else. But flashing behind them was something that felt like intrigue but unsure of whom. Your own, or his. His gaze was intense and unblinking, sending you into a brief worry of how rude you were being.

Moving to stick a hand out, you very quickly felt one hand twitch before forcing the other up. One arm was the same size as the muscular original on the other side, but covered in a smooth metal. Such prosthetic were available, but only the vastly rich usually could afford to have skins artificially grafted onto it and hide it’s origins. Still, it was well made. Certainly someone affording a luxury as that had no normal place in something only the bottom feeders like you could afford.

But regardless, you knew some held offence at shaking with their metal arms so you quickly made sure to not look quite so pathetic so early on top of rude. That plush mouth forming into a delicious smirk he grasped your hand firmly. Trying to appear in control you realized he was not returning the firmness that you were, much unlike Keamy days earlier who all but crushed your hand in his shake.

Nervously you laughed, letting go of him entirely as it slunk back into your lap. Palm resting flat across your thigh as you looked anywhere but those eyes shining with amusement. “Sorry, uhm, force of habit, sorry.”

Oh he chuckled one again, and this time he sounded even closer. His now free hand rested on the counter top right by your glass as he leaned into the top of your head. “Now, now. No need for any of that. I’m not judging someone pretty as you by her lousy grip, we can fix that.”

The deepness in his tone felt like there was something else there but you were in no head space to match words to the dark look penetrating your eyes. “Sorry, did you want something? Or, no, do you want to sit down?”

Smile never quite leaving his lips, he tilted his head in agreement before taking the stool next to you height still intimidating even as he was level with you. “I’d ask if you were around here much, but judging by how long that there,” his hand pointing to the drink, “I’d say you aren’t much of a drinker. So I’ll ask a better question. What’s a pretty jem drinking all alone like this?”

A flush growing inside your chest, you tried to consider he was just a random hoping to pull you into his bed and kick you out just as quick. Wasn’t that what so many novels taught you? If so, why did you still bit your cheek at the word pretty?

Glancing to him and back at nothing once more, you shrugged. “Was supposed to meet some people here, thing’s came up so now I’m-”

“Lying to a new friend about being abandoned.” You whipped over to see his raised brows, almost smug at his assumption. “Little thing like you, probably don’t feel comfortable over in such a bustling city scene so they choose a down trodden locale and ditch you to have far more fun with the other degenerates who crawl about there.”

There was a deep tinge to his accent that you had no clue where it would have come from, but it sounded soothing attached to a slower cadence like his. Your mouth was parted slightly as you swallowed down your embarrassment. “Probably.”

You were not doing a fine job giving as much as you were receiving in conversational skills. But the flutter in your chest might have something to do with that. Not that he seemed to mind. “Well good. Means I get to get nice and close to you instead.”

Just then, the bartender returned with two drinks. One a thin bottle of sorts, the other just a clear liquid that he sat in front of you. Pointing to the green untouched one, “You about done there?”

Mouth opening and closing to find the least offensive way to say yes, the man next to you took the reigns for you. “Not much of a drinker she is, probably not a good way to ease into it either. Just add it onto me.”

Nodding, he turned away with little fuss, you slowly picked the glass up peering into the no smell it gave off. Small sip you deflated at the clear taste of fresh water. Well, more fresh then what normally was available. “Thank you.” Though it did occur to you that not only did you not ask for it, but it was brought over with the man’s own. Turning to him suddenly, you almost jumped in place finding him looking at you still further. “Sorry, I never asked your name.”

“Ezra.”

Smiling somewhat you returned yours, enjoying the sound of it slipping soothingly off his lips before soaking them with a swig of his drink. Just then however, his own communicator went off. Taking a minute to let him check, you quickly put your own into your jacket. A preemptive hope that maybe you indeed found some form of company for the time being.

Turning back, he gave a look of remorse. “Forgive me, just a little bird begging for my attention is all.” A flip switched in your heart at the realization, but it must have shown too clearly on your face as he started to laugh. A metal hand reaching to rest gently on your upper arm. “I do mean little, fear not. Cee’s still getting used to her new school and I’ve gotten nothing but many earfuls about not being around to take her for the weekends.”

Tilting your head genuinely, you could see a fondness in his held back smile that spoke volumes of affection. “Your daughter?”

Another smile, this time attached with it being a long history that was not the time nor place to discuss here. “As good as. She’s under my care now, though I am hesitant to grace such a title onto her without permission. She’s a complicated one.”

For a little bit, you felt like the evening was just as planned. Sitting around at the bar, listening to a stranger open up. Ezra clearly adored the teenager, smiled all the way through the many stories he wove about her person. Apparently he had started her in a school, “Her father hadn’t exactly treated her with the gift of a proper education. So she has a few years of catching up to do.”

She apparently would board for the week, and then go home with Ezra on Friday afternoon to be at home. “Get’s mighty upset when I have to leave for work those days, not that I can blame her. I sure do miss her when she’s gone too.”

Nodding, your fingertips danced along the rim of an empty glass. “It’s probably good for both of you. I don’t mean to overstep anything, I just mean, you said her father was kind of overbearing?”

Ezra’s eyes darkened to something else, but shook away as quick as he could blink. “You could call it that, yes.”

Biting your lip in thought, you treaded slowly. Things unsaid were on the side of painful rather then irritating here but you meant no harm. “Then letting her be at school, have a weekend or two just to hang out be around other kids instead of being dragged along to a job? She probably enjoys herself once she can move past being upset.”

You couldn’t get enough of the gentle smile on his lips thinking about the girl. Claiming not to be her dad, but he sure looked proud like one as he gushed of her accomplishments. “I reckon you’re right, jem.”

Was it hours or mere minutes that passed between then and now? If your sense of time was to be trusted on face value, then it felt as if you went from discussing each other’s little lives like casual strangers to now in seconds.

Ezra’s broad chest pressed up against your back as you stood by the jukebox. The little corner of the building was not well lit, little people coming over for any reason and yet even if they did? The bar was not the kind of place that you suspected looked down on such displays. His hands holding your hips in place just as you went to turn around, the feeling of breath hot on your neck having startled you into a jump.

He chuckled deep into your ear as he ran his nose down the side of your cheek, his metal hand squeezing tighter then the other in a possessive way you couldn’t tell if you liked or not. He certainly seemed to think so. His other one, fingertips rough as they slid just under the bottom of your shirt.

Breath hitching in your throat, eyes fluttering he ran them over the soft skin of your stomach with no shame for the plushness he found. If anything, he only held tighter, pressed closer to the point you could feel his hips press into your ass. The heavy weight of a bulge just enough to boil your blood at how much those jeans must be hiding.

Voice deep and vibrated through your ear down the length of your torso to settle between your legs as it smoothed over you. “We could dance here, but I have it on good authority that my own abode is close by and child free. Could do any kind of dance you and I desire, jem.”

Leaning back into his touch somewhat, you felt him sink his fingertips tracing just over the waist of your pants until you nodded. “Yes, please.”

Inhaling deep through his noise, his jaw clenched at the airy tone of your voice. “I can’t decide if I want to hear you sing with such manners for me more, or fuck it out of you completely.” Shivering in his touch, he seemed to know your answer. “Maybe a bit of both.”

Leaving your stomach to cup your chin, he pulled your head back at an awkward angle, not that he minded. Pressing his lips harshly to yours, your quick gasp had Ezra lick inside your mouth. Forcing you to accept the wet swipe of his tongue against yours as he held you against him as if letting go would send you melting to the floor.

There was a greed in his kiss, a warning that he might not let you go if you grant him more and more of you. But seductive enough to lure you into such a trap willingly. He kissed you like a lover in the dead of night but out for anyone to see. Did he not care, or did he crave others to watch what he had. Sensing your own insecurity however, he pulled away a grin of his lips before pressing a final to your neck.

The city felt nicer with his arm resting on your lower back. Slow strolling to match the paced drawl of an accent you were becoming addicted to. Neither of you in a hurry to get there despite the urgency to leave prior, it was like the calm of night painted something softer in between the frenzy.

He wasn’t wrong, not too far away from the bar was a set of rowed homes, tall stairs leading upwards to the base level ones and off to the side were spiral stairs much higher to the balconies above.

Leading you up such a spiral, Ezra stuck close to you the entire time his hand hovering over your back. Flexing to itself with want to just yank the fabric over your head now, but restrained with a tense jaw. Having to satisfy his eyes just looking over you, planning where to tease you most.

You could feel the gaze, the darkness looming in his eyes behind your sight and forcing your heart to race as you considered what he could have in store. What a tryst like this would be like, one last leap before heading out the next day for who knows when, not knowing if a future even exists once you return.

Not bothering to move you, Ezra just reached around you. Pressing you close to the door as he unlocked it. Eyes looking down your form the entire time. As soon as the lock clicked, he lost the last remaining patience within him. Hand still on the doorknob, he shoved it open and you inside with a noticeable force.

Stepping in, he slammed it behind with another quieter click to trap you both within the heavy bubble between you. He didn’t ambush your lips, but with his hands. Yanking your shirt up, his teeth were gritting, nostrils flared as he looked over your torso, having pulled your bra up as well in his impatience it seemed.

Still not quite at the ready, he next wasted no time in pulling down your pants as well. Almost knocking you over in the process he just took off everything you had throwing it to the side in irritation of it’s very being.

Looking up to you, his dark eyes were nothing but a black you could fall into a trance with. Rising up to his full height, Ezra captured your cheeks in his hands, yanking your mouth back to his and pressing you tight against his chest. His metal one taking advantage of it’s grip, sliding to the back of your neck and keeping you against his mouth, turned to angle you so he loomed over you. Biting hard at your bottom lip, the resulting gasping whine letting him slip his tongue into your mouth once more.

He couldn’t decide it seemed, to taste your mouth with his tongue, or bite at your lips until they pulled and bled. You could already feel the sensitive skin ripping at such a force but you could only hold onto his waist, nails digging into the bare skin his rising shirt granted you access too.

Free arm wrapping around your waist, turning you in place to walk you down the hallway not once letting your lips go free. Skin heating up, you felt as if you were being dragged down into a sauna emminating only from him alone. Hands, as if desperate to cure such temperatures started pulling up on Ezra’s shirt as if his bare skin was your salvation.

In a way it was the complete opposite. The feeling only growing worse and worse, feeding into a hunger that usually didn’t exist with you but here this man was. Biting and licking into your mouth as if to leave his mark for all to see. Hands moving down to grab at his belt, Ezra suddenly yanked you off of him. A trail of saliva trapped between your lips only to snap as he tossed you onto the bed. More like pushed, but the metal arm seemed to hold more strength then one might have assumed.

The bounce and softness underneath almost made you giggle, yet Ezra caught the look in your eye. A raise of his own eyebrow, he slowly moved to undo his belt buckle. Slowly, dark eyes following the path of yours down his chest to a softer stomach that only let you peek at what he had for you underneath.

Swallowing hard, the lump in your throat had you unsure as to where you wanted him first. Sliding up to the foot of the bed you let your legs hand, pressing your palms to the comforter and looking up at him almost innocently. Were it not for the clear lack of clothing.

A grin slowly formed on his face, making sure to take his time pulling his belt open, undoing the zipper millimetre by millimetre. “As much as I’d love this mouth, jem-” his fingers trailed up to pull down at your swollen, and bite littered lips before tilting your chin up to look at him. His other hand pulling his jeans down to reveal the nothing underneath. Not that such a grip on your face let you look down just yet.

“I’d much rather have one last drink.” Leaning down he pushed your knees apart as he settled onto his own. Your heart raced at the broad man moving his head down between your legs, only to flush at how casually he winked at you for such a stare. He focused little on his amusement of you at that point.

Large hands gripping your hips and yanking you to match up to his mouth, it caused you to fall backwards. Bouncing off the mattress with a gasp. He didn’t go right for you. No, he had more to do then taste, he was a biter. And your inner thigh was like leading a harvester to aurelac. No choice, no ability to turn away from such a treasure.

His teeth though, were sharper then on your lips. Crying out instantly, your hands gripped the sheets above you tightly. The sting as he moved from closer to your knee right up before your pussy before running his tongue along the indents. Back arching at the wet trail along such marks only to have no reprieve as he kissed the other knee, and sunk his greedy bite into the fresh thigh. There was no touch, to brushing, no trace along your slit, just a harsh attack on your skin that made him grin into it each time your cries mixed with a whining moan.

You would've felt embarrassed at how wet you were, no hiding the sight from Ezra who kept his eyes trained on every single part between your legs as if a feast were before him. In a way though, of course it was a feast his mouth was watering for it. Finally leaving one last bruising mark so close together, he turned to look at you. His eyes admiring the view before leaning in, pressing his nose against your mound as he inhaled.

Your face burned, covering with your hands at how unashamed he was for such an act. One hand pressing against your clit with his thumb, and his other yanked your hips up to his mouth proper as he licked you from clit to inside of your walls.

There was no preamble with Ezra, no teasing build up for this. No his mouth and tongue licked and tasted as much as he seemed to be physically capable of in a manner that took your breath away. Quite literally, you could feel your lungs shrink, chest tighten and air failing you more and more as he licked inside of you.

The coarse facial hair and moustache rubbed against the highest peak of your inner thighs, scratching red and even leaving such a rough feeling on your cunt itself. He knew what it did, and just as he licked up to your clit, he nuzzled into you like a madman. Burning you more, even on top of two others.

His hands pushing your legs as open as possible and the soreness of bites that would no doubt look like a violent attack to anyone whom would see. Not that anyone but this man would for a long time. His fingertips rubbing and pressing hard and tight circles into your clip had sparks fly inside of you. You may have jumped in his touch were his grip not so iron clad.

A coil inside of you twisted and turned so tightly that you weren’t sure if it was his mouth, or the pain he inflicted before hand. Both was a reasonable answer, yet pain had never been something you could get so worked up from ever before, not even considered. Back arching in pleasure he had the audacity to smirk.

Muffled voice just slow enough to ensure you could hear him, the voice rumbled against you only adding to the sensation. “I said I wanted a drink, jem.” Licking up to your clip you yelped as he nibbled ever so lightly. His movements stopping demanding you look.

Sweating just as you were with his facial hair already covered so much it made you feel ashamed for what he was doing to do. His eyes, were not joking in the slightest. “You don’t get my cock until you cum twice. We’ll be here all night if we have to, but I’m a greed man, jem. You give, I take. Got it?”

It should scare you, such possession should be terrifying and yet you couldn’t fathom the concept. A nod and a pleading, “Yes, anything, anything you want, Ezra. Please,” His eyes didn’t soften, but a smile made it’s way onto his expression in gratitude.

“A good girl with good manners,” leaning back he dove back into your cunt with now both hands holding you tightly at your hips still speaking. But your ears ringing from the pleasure coursing through your veins like wildfire couldn’t hear the words. His mouth was aggressive, if what before was a meal this was a man starving for a will to live found only in the fountain between your legs.

Faster and faster it approached until like a band snapping it hit you straight in the chest how much you needed to cum. Unthinkingly writhing into his face he pulled you into his mouth with another yank but didn’t slow down whatsoever. No, he seemed to want more. He couldn’t be serious about twice you thought.

Oh how you thought, and the impressiveness in how quickly such an idea faded away in his pleasurable touch. The white noise in your brain seemed to overtake you, letting your orgasm flood both your nerves and his mouth but he never let you come up for the air you needed.

No he spoke almost more into your cunt, unable to stop talking to himself singing praise of taste and greed like you were all he required. Did your orgasm stop and rebuild quick, or were you too lost to notice it never stopped until the second one slammed you out of your body.

Two thick fingers rubbing against your clit almost too hard, but he pushed you and took what wetness your orgasm graced his taste buds with. Sweat accumulated on both your bodies, and the blonde streak of his hair stood out as it soaked against the brown curls and clung to his forehead.

You cried out, whines muttering into soft moans until the pant of lungs in need of filling took over what was left. Only then, did his actions slow to gentle licks. Jumping in shock of too much, he ran his hands over your thighs. Letting go of his tight hold and soothing you just above the bites. “Just cleaning you up, jem.”

He pressed a kiss to your clit, making you bite the lip he no doubt tore open and then kissed up your stomach. Ignoring how stilted you became at the location, he pushed on. Up between your breasts only to pause. Eyes glinting like a greedy child, and thus pushing himself up by his palms now on either side of your arms and using such vicious teeth to bite and tug at your nipple. The other breast tightly groped with and dragging out more breathless cries.

Finding any kind of strength to chuckle, you reached down to run your hand through his sweaty hair, nails scratching at his scalp soothingly as you tamed it down. A vibration against your chest came out of him like a growl, pulling his mouth away from your nipple to playfully glare up at you. “You better enjoy that now, jem. ‘Cus I ain’t going to be so generous in a few minutes.”

Your eyes widening as your hand paused mid movement. That glare on his face turned to a sadistic smirk at how innocent your surprise was. Knowing you should be double guessing this encounter, the greed, the roughness, the possessive way he manhandles you, all would be red flags were his voice, touch, skin, mouth, cock all addictive like the substance so many of your profession rely on.

Could you just bring him with you, and there would be every vice you could need. Ezra you suspect, would willingly give it too. Nothing but stinging, sore marks on your body covered by his saliva and the Green would be ever pleasant in comparison to the tole he so pleasurably takes.

And take did he ever. Before you could lose yourself to such thoughts, Ezra had flipped you over onto your stomach. Taking the air out of your lungs as he did so. With his own grunt, he then yanked up your hips pressing you right back up against his cock. You couldn’t even remember at this point if he had always been naked or if you were just falling so deeply out of it.

You couldn’t see from your position, face pressed into the soft sheets as you turned to the side trying to gasp for breath but you sure felt the thickness slide between your legs. Running along your soaked entrance, it felt as if his cock went on forever. Heavy between you, no doubt his size would be intimidating had he let you see it for yourself.

But Ezra was far to preoccupied running his length along you, soaking him while teasing pushing him each time his head barley pushed in before leaving once more. His voice was rough, shattered as if words were being forced through gritted teeth. “Arms above you,” complying, you slid your hands up the sheets until the were stretched just under his pillows. “Hold onto something, jem.”

He gave little warning off anything else, just the right amount of time for your hands to fist the sheets under them before your body jolted forward. His cock sliding inside of you, sinking as deep as he could in one rough thrust as you gasped loudly.

The stretch was something else, a burn that you could be feeling for long after even if things ended right now. Two strong hands at your hips kept you pressed in place for mere seconds before he decided he was unable to wait.

Thrusting with a rough intensity you couldn’t tell if it was pleasure or pain he was giving you, nor did you know if you truly cared. There was a firestorm in your blood that flowed through your limbs and made everything tighten and constrict inside you. His cock running right along a sensitive wall inside you had you crying out. Barley moans, or even whines, but gasps and shock at how hard his cock both fucked into you and the force of your ass being slammed against his hips.

You could barley hear Ezra over the sound of your skin slapping against one another, something you imagined the entire street must be able to hear along with your cries. His cock slid so deep and barley even tried to pull out much. Little by little Ezra tried pulling back more but just to yank you back onto his cock even harder.

Tears welling up in your eyes, nails digging so hard into his sheets they could have ripped. His metal hand left your hip and ran along the length of your spine until they reached the back of your neck with a bunch of your hair now in his grasp. Pulling it back you definitely whined as he pulled right as he did the same with your hips.

His cock a relentless roughness inside of you, neither of you sure if it was just how wet you were, or a mix with how much precum he already had been leaking that made it so slick. Ezra knew from his own sight that his cock was covered in both, and a pride that he made you so wet that someone of his girth could fit so well inside of you.

Squeezing him tightly, you either just barley could handle him or maybe it was a fit crafted by the powers above. A message that the only place worthy of you, is his cock. Thrusting hard, his hand either pulled your hair or pushed his palm against the back of your head to brace himself as he swore.

He shouldn’t be so close, but you were close and it just drove him towards that creeping edge. You tightened and clenched around him with barley any words capable of coming out of your mouth beyond begs of his name. He had to fuck you harder, just to get as deep.

Like a slap to the face, so did your orgasm hit you from nothing. Creeping up in an instant, a tightening inside you snapped and attacked every inch of your nerves. White noise both in your ears and in your veins had those tears fall freely along with moaning cries that never stopped.

He kept fucking you, no change in pace in fact just a tad faster yet as hard as before. Before the shocks of your orgasm even simmered in your body, Ezra pushed you down into the mattress, his body heavy draped across your back as he moved to leave your hair and wrap it around your lower stomach and press his palm heavy into you.

His cock pounding hard, much more shallow but with a pace that filled the room with such an obscene sound it made Ezra clench his jaw before biting down to your neck with grunts. “All mine, gorgeous cunt made just for me. Right, jem?”

What were you agreeing too? You didn’t know, just nod and let his fucking careen you right back towards another orgasm. The pressure of his cock so deep and his hand pressing at your lower stomach multiplied the electricity stabbing at you.

Ezra kissed and licked your neck up until he took your ear into his teeth. Words panting hot from his mouth, higher in pitch and more breathless the more sporadic his thrusts became. “Let me paint you, jem. Mark you with my name, sign yourself and this beautiful cunt over to me.”

Pressing his head against yours, you nodded barley. “Yes, please.”

Just as your final orgasm flooded your body like water rushing forth, Ezra pulled his cock out as he throbbed inside of your walls. Almost too late, some of his cum spilling inside of you before most of it spreading out on your ass and lower back.

Your own orgasm had you laying in wait, boneless as it took whatever energy was left in you and replaced it with an addictive pleasure that left you foggy. You could feel Ezra press his cock between the cheeks of your ass, almost running through them like he did the walls of your cunt. Spreading his cum as much as he could, hand leaving your hip to run across his work and paint you to his ownership.

It was much later when you properly came back to yourself. Body sore, and covered in cum from your tits to your thighs you weren’t sure how many times Ezra fucked you after that. You dropped pretty hard, all you knew or felt, or saw was Ezra and that’s all you needed.

Now, the nightlife outside was likely dead, and finally creeping your eyes open you saw Ezra also under the sheets, facing you with a hang on your hip gently. Reaching up you tenderly ran your fingers over his facial hair, thumb tracing his cheek as you did so.

He had insisted you sleep tucked warm in his arms, a kiss that you’d only ever read between the words of chaste lovers pressed to your lips as he cradled the side of your face. For everything, you looked at him and smiled. Something about the man left you unwilling to see danger others like him presented, and an affection that begged you to take more of.

You did however, need to use the washroom. Very slowly, at first not to wake him up, but also the only speed the immense ache in your muscles could work past. A dash of luck on your side, instead of reaching out and forcing you with him, Ezra just grumbled. His brows narrowing in annoyance even in sleep. His hand on your hip just sliding to press down on the bed where you just were and scrunching the sheets up in his fist.

You had to leave tomorrow night, but as you left the washroom whatever plans you had about what was to be of you and his man were shattered. It was an accident, honestly. Your hip had accidentally knocked over papers precariously balanced on top of a thin cupboard.

What you felt as you bent down to look at them, was how much of an idiot you truly were. The name, the appearance, both markers you were told but never considered. Not until you saw work permits, forms, and statements of his employs before now.

He was one of the prospectors Keamy specifically had warned you about. One he called dangerous, and unstable willing to do and take whatever he wanted. Your team leader looked you right in the eye and told you that should you encounter him, to leave the confrontation to them. Not to get anywhere near such a snake.

Heart beating much faster the normal in your chest, you felt like a traitor. Ezra didn’t tell you what he did outright but maybe the signs were there and in such a naive state of temptation you were too enamoured with the intensity he doted on you with.

You didn’t pick them up, or even do anything. You knelt there for a moment before whipping your head to look a the man still slumbering. Such a peaceful expression past the tenseness. Soft features that had run over you skin and lips with reverence now mocking you for not recognizing them as what was described to you as the enemy.

Scrambling to gather your clothes, you only put them on as you left the bedroom. Going through the pitch blackness of his home until you reached the front door.

Tinge of guilt hit you, but looking at at the door, you also realized the second way in which you should be embarrassed. He picked you up at a seedy bar. In what world would such a strong, handsome, brazen man want anything to do with the likes of you beyond what you could do for his cock.

He got that, and if what Keamy said about such a person was correct, he wouldn’t even want you here when we wakes up anyways. It was a fight not to let the tears hit you, but once you got home and into the shower, you could pretend such tears were such strands of shower water already hitting your skin.

Letting what remained of your naive stupidity wash down the drain before skipping everything about sleep or routine. You packed for departure, and by the time the rest of the team got to the port you had long since been waiting.

Just the foolish romances of a stupid girl trying to be replaced by the determined tenacity of a member of this team rearing to go. You thought of Ezra as the main ship took off, the muscles on your body ached and the burn between your legs still sparking you with the phantom thickness of his cock.

Even if he wouldn’t remember you past that night, you still thought of him.

The air in this place wasn’t toxic, but it sure wasn’t what you’d refer to as breathable. Oxygen masks covering all of you, it took a few tries to match voice to face. As you predicted, the team mostly knew each other already. Jokes, rough housing in off times, inside comments that you weren’t privy to, but you also sure weren’t welcome to be part of it.

You kept inventory, did their grunt run around work, patched them up when asked but you for the most part were stuck in the back. Watching them engage in their spoils both in harvest and after. Night’s were usually quiet for you but now it was a constant fest of testosterone that felt more braggadocios then it warranted.

“Mutt, you want to get your head out of your ass and re wrap this?” Head whipping up from the notebook in your hands, Faraday stood a few feet away raising his bicep up to you. Your nickname was far from welcoming, having been accidentally tripped on the day landed day and landing in a mud pit leaving you looking like a stray mutt according to the team.

You questioned whether any of them remembered you even had a first name, but silently nodded as you knelt down to stash the notebook away in your pack before swapping it for your field kit. It had been weeks on this little moon and you were starting to get used to it’s heavy air.

Having to stop and refill your oxygen filters more often then not simply due to how much you had to breathe in to keep up. Keamy had assured suits would not be necessary, but you’d take a suit right now over these masks. You couldn’t see through them and half of the men on this team looked like each other.

Faraday didn’t even glance at you while you worked. Uncaring of the slow, gentle movements of your fingers and feather light prodding at the cut to ensure it wasn’t infected before replacing it with a clean one. You asked him to wear long sleeves to make it harder for dirt to get in, but you didn’t have a voice beyond “Yes, sir.”

To your luck however, the current onslaught of behaviours around you had thoroughly distracted you from that night. Keamy had presented himself as stern but reasonable, but now working at his side you see the truth. He is ruthless, emotionless, and comes close to using violence anytime his calm disposition didn’t scare you into silence. You could only imagine what he would do finding out that the weakest link slept with someone whom you know understood was someone he truly hated.

Night’s spent telling stories of past incidents with other prospectors and Keamy had enough about Ezra to fill any normal person with nightmares for years. Though, it did feel on the air of hypocritical, considering on some planets Keamys stories of his own would have him considered a war criminal, but hey he stood behind the title of mercenary. He excused much horror under that title.

Faraday strode off as soon as you were finished, leaving you amongst much of the gear to pack away while he ran over to a few of the others to do whatever they did while you did your job. On the bright side, at least you had time to yourself to look at the beauty of such a planet.

The heat bearing down making your hair accumulate so much sweat it poured down your face, soaking the strands like a shower head as you worked. You considered stopping to put your hair up, but with both your hands encasing the various jems collected in their proper storage it was just something you’d have to live with.

A far cry from weeks ago when you felt such euphoria that time seemed to stop in the dead of night.

What even was there to say about your work? A lack of interaction, feeling constantly out of breathe and covered in grime and each night having to spend an unusual amount of time in the set up shower just to accomodate the marks between your thighs. Washing around the stinging teeth marks unsure if you wanted them to just disappear already or preserve them for the only glint of joy you had in years.

You were a mess, in more then just skin deep. How on earth did one night that meant nothing to the other party leave you scattered and dreaming of that night as if it could or would ever happen again.

If Ezra was anything like Keamy, you were just a commodity to get off with. That’s it. Hell, you had been suspecting none of these men on your team even said or looked at you in such a way because you were just unattractive enough to not be worth the effort.

Ezra must have been in a real dry spell to settle for you. Even those who speak of women like they are nagging flesh lights can’t be bothered to look your way in a gross manner.

Not that you wanted it, but it sure made you feel like a child with a silly fantasy for wishing Ezra’s painful bite marks on your thighs would stay forever.

However many days later it was, you were once again off to the side. Refilling your field kit before heading out for the day as the others already masked up, gathering their plan outside the stuffy air of the tented enclosure. You didn’t even bother putting on your comm yet, it was too early in the day to hear them talk about whatever massacre they enwrathed on others years prior. You could not care less about this group the longer you went.

The world outside muffled as you meticulously organized everything. You took pride in how detailed you were, even if just for personal gratification. If you were so needed, Keamy would just slam his fist on the bar right outside the main entrance and shout at you.

Maybe, you should have paid closer attention just this once. Fluttering back and forth putting your things in your pack, scribbling on your notebook before tossing that in as well and securing your mask all in the span in took for whatever occurred out side the tent walls to escalate.

By the time anything came upon you, it was a shock unprepared for. Stepping out into the sunlight, you saw your team split between two spots. Three of them stood off to the side, hands raised, and one stray laid out many feet ahead of you in the path to a lush grove. Blood pooling by his middle far too much to be helped, but it wasn’t just such a sight that made you gasp.

Pulled back against a large figure and knife pulled up to your throat and a shockingly strong arm wrapped around your front, restricting your arms from rising to high in retaliation. The figure leaned down close to you ear, voice slightly more ting sounding from the shift of a communicator, but not one you had so easily forgotten.

“Now I may ask, what is a fine jem such as this doing with a group of mercs like yourself?” His voice and face so close to your ear, but dark eyes trained on Keamy’s whose blazed back in anger. It was only with the shift of Faraday beside him did you realize a man behind them with a thrower. Tallish with dark hair that was just as sweat filled as most others on this heat ridden rock, but nothing else which stood out.

Keamy was the only one allowed to talk, or perhaps just the only one in a position to talk back. “Just doing my job, Ezra. Like you. Or better I guess. Nice arm.”

It was possible he felt you stiffen uncomfortably in his hold. An odd thing to get offended on someone elses behalf given the situation. His chuckle though, was not the same one you heard many times so playfully in your ear that night. No this was hollow, devoid of feeling leaving just dust and rage in it’s path behind. “Gained a lot worth more than an arm that day. More then this lot has. Hauls not so impressive for how many of you there is. One might think jems aren’t what you’re here for, is it?”

His arm tightened around your front, keeping you close to both his chest and his blade to your neck. It didn’t press, but you felt it graze only when shifting around yourself. Keamy glared at him, “You holding my medic hostage because you think she’s worth that to me, or you just that desperate now that you’ve become a freak?”

In an instant, you tried to hold back a gasp as his hands switched. The blade now pressing between your breasts, placed so perfectly that enough of a good shove would slid it through the fabric and into the skin smoothly. His metal hand, now reached up grasping you by your throat, his head leaning over your shoulder but you stood still, too afraid to look anywhere but forward at the body far off.

Shivers shot down your spine as Ezra pressed the blade just enough that it scraped against your chest. A tiny tear right down the middle exposing the skin visible through the cut. “Now Keamy, I don’t have all day to play with you. I have much more important things to tend to,” the tip of the blade now running up and down the sliver of exposed skin. Only pressured to that of a scratched nail. “But I do find myself eager to indulge in a bit of pay back for the last time. Led to me becoming a freak afterall, didn’t it?”

Keamy, was quick to throw away an accusation you didn’t quite understand. “I didn’t do shit. You fucked up, so we fucked off. Anything that happened after that was your own damn fault.”

The thumb of Ezra’s metal hand traced over the very middle of your neck, unknowingly producing a grin at how hard you swallowed and shook at the motion. His eyes still didn’t go to you though, no you were too well behaved to run and you think he knew it. Just kept you hostage. “If I am to recall, you were the one making an awful fuss over trivial matters and I was unceremoniously kicked away for calling you out on it.”

Not enough of his body moved to have the men see, but Ezra very slightly pressed his hips to your ass with more pressure. His grip on your neck tightening at the whine wanting to come out of your mouth, and how little you understood where it came from. “I did come out on top now didn’t I? Aurelac, a nice new arm, and a life waiting for me out there. What spoils have you engaged in, Keamy? A low brow dancer only giving you the time of day because your stupid enough to let her overcharge you?”

Both eyes looked to him wide, and Keamy’s entire face twitched. Leaving it in a position that resembled a little too much like some wild feral creature. “Get to the fucking point. What do you want?”

If they heard the smile, they said nothing. But you did. “What you owe me, that’s all I want.”

The silence was deafening in the pause it took the man to contemplate. A silence broken by a snap of a bolt landing directly into Faraday’s head coming through the front of an eye. The hand on your throat sliding up to cover the scream no doubt wanting to come out. A deep shush vibrating in your chest as he consoled you like one would an animal. “Fear not, jem.”

How that was even possible you didn’t know. Nor would you tell him. And yet the touch now covering your mouth slid from claustrophobic to calm in a manner of seconds. Sparing such a glance you felt brave enough to peek, and there they were. Brown eyes dark and full of an unreadable danger, only to flicker to you with a different kind of flash not so volatile. A glint in them radiated at your own wide ones, before glancing much more casually up to your team.

“Here is the deal, I’ll be taking my share of the last job as what was owed, then I’ll walk in the other direction and we leave that mess behind us.” The other man glared over to Ezra who paid him no mind.

Keamy’s glare was harder. “What’s to stop me from shooting you the second you turn around?”

Pulling you closer to him, Ezra leaned close to your face. Should a mask not be there, you’d be able to feel his strong nose trace down the length of your cheek, and the bristle of facial hair that burns in it’s scratch. “You shoot me, I gut her. Bad business letting a fellow harvester murk one of your teams medics.”

Heart pounding in your chest, it was impossible to know if that was true. His greedy touch suggested not, but his words laced with venom spoke threat. Keamy, nodded though. Little care for anything which could get in the way of his own success, even if that was a temporary sacrifice.

His hand slid down finally, away from your mouth and back soothingly over your throat with a more gentle grip. “Now, we’ll be going one way. My companion here shall collect the payment and we’ll be on our way.”

Your head jerked to look at him, but he gripped tighter, a single barley audible shush leaving his lips as he did so. “Fellas.”

No speaking was done from any party as Ezra led you away, a knife still pointed at you despite the known truth between both that you would do nothing to tempt his temper. In fact no words were shared until the sight of a much smaller tent enclosure came into view. It felt so near to your own that a coincidence did not sit well in the put of your gut.

As you assumed the team dropped from view, so did the blade to your chest. Instead, sheathing the weapon to the guide you by your hip in quiet. Much like Ezra preferred to speak to your face then through a communicator, at least for you specifically. Like if he couldn’t spill forth temptation what was the point of wasting the difficult breath?

Stopping in front of the entrance, Ezra looked at you firmly. “If I let you go, jem, you going to run?” Once more you heard the smirk on his face at how diligently you shook your head no. “Good girl.”

Leaving your throat he opened it up to you, nudging you inside with a bump of his hip into your ass and one hand closing it behind both your figures.

The room looked much like the one you were in but smaller. A little entrance way serving as prep and storage and just ahead of it two cots one messy, one done neatly. Ahead a little pathway that served as a kitchenette one side and a little table the other with the shoddiest of stools you’ve seen and finally a simple washroom hidden by the end door.

Looking over with an eyebrow raised, Ezra yanked his mask off. Reaching for his belt he undid the filter hold with a grunt and tossed it to the side. Your body doing it’s best to pretend as if him reaching for that area in such a manner did nothing to your insides. He turned to you, hair sweaty and sticking to his forehead and his eyes a little more ragged then you once saw.

Pointing to your mask with a smirk, “You’re welcome to remove that.”

Hands hesitantly rising, they paused mid air to watch him move about normal as could be. Resting weapons right out in plain sight you swore to yourself for being such a coward. Worse, a coward who couldn’t hold her own in a fight even if death was the only other outcome. Allowing the journey to continue, you very carefully undid your mask and detached your filter.

Turning back and forth in place seeking a place to rest it, you sat it down beside where Ezra put his own on top of a storage crate much neater then his was thrown about. You wondered briefly if the messy bed was his, and heart chiding you for even caring.

Your hands remained wrung together in front of your chest as you turned to watch him. Like nothing was wrong, he moved about the food supply searching for something as if there was nothing of note about such a situation. Your voice small as it cracked out in the quiet. “What are you going to do with me?”

Turning his head, Ezra’s eyes were narrowed as if offended yet confused. “Right now, I intend on finding us something to drink. Lose a lot of water in this kind of heat, jem.”

He was so normal that it wasn’t normal. And you suspected that he was fully aware of such a fact yet didn’t move to ease your head whatsoever. Just pouring what looked like a filter of water into two cups and moved them both over to the table Sitting one down at the seat across from him and waving you over as he took his own seat.

Baby steps with your nails digging into the other, you eyed his aloof disposition. It reminded you of how casual he was that night at the bar. Just a handsome stranger looking for some company. His eyes squinted in thought as you sat down very slowly. Pulling your cup close and looking into it with a tensity in your veins.

“You watched me pour from the same filter, I assure you I have no intention of drugging myself just to make a point.” Biting your lip at such words, your nails rung against the cheap metal as if pointing to the other possibility.

Ezra, with a bit of a cheeky smirk trying to hide itself, leaned over the small table, taking a sip from your own and putting it back down without breaking eye contact. Deep sigh making it’s way out of your chest, your lips parted as you raised it for yourself. Pausing as you looked to his calm, unblinking expression take a sip from his own barley moving an inch.

The water did indeed, feel soothing on the back of your throat. Your first small sip turned into going back to down half of the drink in one fell swoop before dropping the cup on the table. Sighing much more relieved your eyes slid shut for just a second before reminding yourself of where you were sat.

Jolting in place, you yanked your hands down to your lap away. The absurdity that he could do anything less to you should he be able to what? Touch your hands easier? You knew without a shadow of doubt that he could overpower you so what did you even think was your defence. “Please don’t tell me it’s just a coincidence that you’re here, I don’t uh, don’t really think I could believe that.”

Brown eyes still squinting at you, he relents with a shrug and went for another sip. Twisting his body so he leaned back more comfortably, his legs spread out in front of him with his free arm resting atop the chair back. Hand like yours did, using his nails to tap at the cheap metal of the cup. “Alright, then I won’t.”

You hated that he just played the game. Sat in content quiet, letting you stew in the worst of outcomes or possibilities until you broke first. Which, you did. “Ezra-”

Oh to be such a snake, waiting for you to utter the first words only to interject overtop your voice. Not even looking at you, but around the small room glowed in an orange light. “Would it make you feel better to say I followed you here, or would it sound more poetic should I say I’ve followed you for far longer.”

Blood freezing in your veins you felt the limbs stiffening like a turn to stone. Eyes wide on his profile, you despised that it was his elegant nose and plush lips that you found your own eyes drifting towards unconsciously. Even when you did, still you did not look away and you had no clue what that was saying about you. “Did you?”

The plush lips now forming into a grin, his eyes crinkled with the movement in a manner once endearing to you. Now just filled with an unknown dread. “If you haven’t figure it out, jem. I’m not a man who chases.” Turning his head to look at you, the playful smile was there but a darkness fogging in his eyes that had you continue to form a statue in your body. “I’m one who takes.”

That he was. You had many questions yet none the answers that felt safe to hear. You wanted to just go home, back to your quiet life of nothing, hop from job to job, moon to moon and be forgotten by its faces just as easy. Your nails started to dig deeper into the skin of your hands, pain slowly replacing the sensation of pressure yet you pushed on.

As did Ezra, but for words. “I presume at this point, you understand what kind of person men like Keamy are. I do such things for myself. To survive to claim what belongs to me, not out of some twisted sense of joy.”

You weren’t sure if it was you that was shaking or just your insides. “What about me?”

Ezra however, did not let such a sinister feeling bloom on his face. No, rather the sight of a fallen guilt it seemed came over him. Chucking down the rest of his drink, he stood up. Pacing to the other side of the room before turning back to stare at a nothing on the floor. Hands on his hips, his lips pursed in thought. “Why did you leave that night?”

He still didn’t look at you, but his eyes were felt on you nonetheless. A compelling force wrapping it’s tendrils around the truth and gently pulling them up your throat and into the air rather then a desperate lie. “I didn’t recognize you until I accidentally saw some of your papers.” His eyes peered up at you but didn’t commit to facing you fully. “Keamy gave me the rundown of people that were supposed to be competition, and I just....panicked.”

“Panicked how.”

That roughness in his tone radiated through your heart, like a bar twisted and broken ready to snap at the slightest of provocation. You didn’t quite jump in your seat, but your heart did in your chest. Voice high and quick, defensive without offence to balance. “I thought I’d get in trouble if Keamy found out and-” You cut yourself off, but Ezra didn’t appreciate it.

Pacing over to you, he stood barley two feet from your own looking down as he now crossed his arms over his broad chest. Just a raise of one eyebrow.

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you felt your eyes sting like a pathetic child. “And I didn’t think you’d want me around when you woke up anyways.” You didn’t look up to see the flames and anger in his eyes, nor did he speak to show you. So you kept going. “I’m not exactly a catch, and I mean- that’s fine, it’s whatever. Easy night for someone like you, but I didn’t think-”

“Didn’t think what? That I wouldn’t want to wake up with you in my bed to repeat that night all over again?” Eyes wide once again but you dared not look. He knelt very slowly to meet your eye level but had yet to take over your gaze. “I got a girl to take care of, jem. I didn’t bring you to my home just to kick you out the next morning. Not after all we did.”

Face flushing with either embarrassment or something a little warmer, only felt heated that much more as Ezra turned your face to look at him. Two fingers on your cheek firmly before dropping down as you looked at his inquisitive stare. “I just-”

Shaking his head there was a twisted pout present. “No. I don’t care what you were worried about, I care that you ran from me after letting me have all of you. That’s cruelty, jem.””

He was angry and dark, but eyes spoke of a distance that felt much more like longing. “I- I’m sorry.”

He kidnapped you, and you were apologizing. What sense were you truly making here?

Ezra nodded a few times, mostly it appeared, to himself. “Well, I have some things which require my attention. How about you head back there,” nodding over to the back room, “And alleviate yourself of the stink of today’s confrontation?”

Were your nerves not shocked to high alert, you might have smiled at the odd manner which he spoke in. Something that seemed to so hilariously blend between painfully normal, to aggressive and spitting and circle down to enticing and otherworldly. But the world currently spoke to you in anxiety, and your tongue remained stagnant. So your head did the speaking for you.

You didn’t really remember your time under the warmth of the shower. So often your turns were forgotten and there was nothing left in the water heater to sooth you. So your cool showers turned cold halfway through and left you scrambling to finish as quick as could be.

Ezra’s however was warm the whole time. No seconds in between turning from warm to hot even. A small group clearly having some perks over the swiftness of larger ones. Face having water pouring down on it, your thoughts dripped away with the water leaving your heart blank and your head empty.

Perhaps it was the only thing you could do. Let the possibilities die, so that whatever actual future he is holding over you cannot come as the worst case scenario. If there is no scenario then nothing can be worse. It was a long time before you emerged.

If you were thankful for one thing, it was Ezra’s courtesy to allow you however long you needed to pull yourself together. You should feel exposed, bare in this room for anyone to come in and attack, but should you be brave enough to glance down, you’d see between your thighs.

The bite marks still bruised into your skin at his deceleration of possession. He had been worse with you then then now, even though you were willing for those previous. Did you make any sense in your considerations or was that the confusion he was hoping to trick into you? Make you more compliant if you had no idea what to do or feel? Well it was working.

Even as you carefully pulled your clothes back on, nothing about your time in the shower gave you an answer, hope, prayer or even concept of a plan. You just had to hope that should the worst possibility be death, he wasn’t so cruel as to force it to elongate.

Stepping out, you saw Ezra organizing things on the previously neat side of the room. A travel pack with scattered items, used and new as he gently placed everything needed much like one of your own did before departing for such moons like this. He was at ease himself, shoulders light, hair now drying out leaving it thick and fluffy like you recalled. The perfect volume to run your fingers through, and even now the phantom curls raked through your skin like a ghost.

On the bed as well as a few stacks of what looked like basic clothes, and a refilled air filter. Looking up at you, he smiled wide. “Come here,” Nodding you over with a tilt of his head, Ezra continued to pack.

Your steps felt a bit easier knowing he was still not showing you the kind of terse aggression he had been displaying towards the rest of your own crew. If this was a long ploy, you were playing right into it but maybe for the sake of your heart? That was alright for now.

Coming up to a few feet away, Ezra paid no mind to the surprised yelp in your chest as he yanked you to stand pressed right up against his side. His warmth so much more prominent as the cool air hit your still wet skin. “I want you to look everything over, and tell me if there’s anything more you need.”

Eyes now flying up to his face, your lips parted in question and his brows narrowed in confusion towards yours. “For what?”

Looking playfully taken aback for a moment, his voice was once more low and drawled out. “You didn’t think we were going to stay here forever, did you, jem?” When you didn’t move, he leaned in to you, voice a whisper as he pointed over your shoulder. “That ain’t a bed I’m willing to take you on more then a few times. Got a testy back, jem.”

A wink and a hand sliding across your lower back you only froze. “You don’t think I’ll try to run?”

You didn’t dare turn to face him, but he sure was to you. His brown eyes boring into your back and his voice tight as if his jaw was clenched to the point it could snap. “You care about those vultures so much, you’re willing to run back into their arms? Knowing they’d leave you behind with me in a heartbeat? That is if they haven’t left already.”

Don't turn around. Do not let him see the tears welling up with impressive speed. “You kidna-”

He was sharp enough to make you jump at the cut of his tone. “I took what I care about away from what doesn’t. You wouldn’t have gotten naked in my shower if you trusted me so little.”

He sounded offended, and were you to turn around that hurt would also display on his face. Sharp looks now soft and longing with a loneliness. And you were just weak enough to fold should you fall into such a soulful trap.

He sounded a little far away, closer to the direction of the main entrance as shuffling movements added to the mix. “Cry, scream, run away if you want. But when I come back, I’m not letting you go, jem. Know that.”

The sound of the enclosure opening before sealing you inside with it’s quiet hum filled you. He left you alone with what you needed to run. So...why weren’t you? Why did you stand there, unable to find even a thought to focus your efforts on? He wouldn’t let you go when he came back and told you to leave before he does so.

But the bites between your legs stung. Whispered like a creature dangling on your shoulder as a guide, and your eyes fluttered shut at how much you screamed at the worst bites of them and yet how much it also made you gush. You hated that you stood like a fool, reliving the feeling of his cock stretching you to the point it was uncomfortable and yet that memory appealed to you more then running in the Green to a team who didn’t fight for you.

It all happened so fast, before you truly even were awake. At some point you had sat down on the edge of the cot, bag sitting on the ground in front of you as you contemplated what would be your fate either choice. At some point your eyes drew heavy, struggling to keep them open as your body filled it’s space with lead. Weighing you down and dragging you conscious mind into the black depth’s along with it.

You dreamt of nothing, or at least nothing that you’d consider important. Just a sweep of images that acted to distract what could be an impending nightmare, and for that you were thankful. At some point, you heard a voice but your dream gave it no thought.

A darkened whisper that felt hovering over you, and a musky wind drenching your face and forced something from your throat that could overpower it. But nothing came, and the dream felt like a figure blocked it’s sun as the deepest part of your mind struggled to climb out of sleep.

A tightening in your chest and muscles flexing as if a fight stood before you, but nothing connected together in such a state. Your legs, the arms, finally as if a burning grip on your jaw as the wind whirled almost in your mouth you could taste it’s toxicity. That wind spoke to you in words not comprehended, until your mind scurried out of the dream enough for your eyes to flutter.

And the strange ghosts across your standing figure now a jolt of pressure. One that send you flying back into the ground behind you and the insane your head slammed into the hard surface did you find your eyes torn open from such a pressure on your physical form.

Laying down you barley registered a figure on top of you like dead weight, but you did see the blood in your vision and it’s wetness scattered across your face as the sight came into clear. Before you could let out a shout in shock, the weight was pulled off you with a snarling sound.

Scrambling up once freed, you sat up with your palms hoisting your upper body to see Ezra yanking another person onto the ground and kicking him over with a fierce press of his boot.

Your voice felt pained, like dry wall scraped the walls of your throat and choked you from any depth in tone. Your scream was really a scratched gasp, a large chunk of the mans head missing as Ezra stood above with some kind of tool drenched in the red missing from the man.

Looking between them, you recognized it as the partner he travelled with. The one who stayed back to handle your crew as you were whisked away from and to things you didn’t understand. Ezra tossed the object to the side before looking over to you.

His chest heaving, nostrils flared with eyes doused in anger. But just as he found your confused and frightened ones did he lighten his. Coming down to cup your face in his hands, they felt rough in their touch but it soothed you for whatever reason. His body knelt to the ground as he looked over the blood that luckily, was not yours. “I told you to go, jem. Gave you everything you needed to return to your crew, and yet here you are in a mans bed that’s not my own.”

Breath caught in your throat you couldn’t move even if the fear left your frozen position. Ezra’s grip tightened as you tried to look over to the body once more, keeping you nowhere but his own.

“You’re lucky I came upon you when I did, kevva knows what he would have done without me to come across it.” Not letting you go, he kept you still to look over you finding nothing out of place or there which wasn’t put by him. “Stay here.”

Your body flinched only as he let you go, eyes now nowhere to look but the figure on the ground and the sudden parallelization of what might have just occurred, or about to. Before you could move closer to the edge of the bed, Ezra returned, a cloth in hand damp in appearance.

His touch was much more gentle this time, cleaning you of any blood. Breathing harshly in your face, his was not a wind that choked you but a gentle breeze that calmed you out of it’s care. It simmered the twisting in your head that you didn’t understand, even though why it did so also was something you didn’t understand.

Ezra spoke to you low, controlled in a way that spoke of how much effort was being put into his gentle touch to your face and jaw, cleaning without scaring you. “I’m going to get rid of it, then, we’re going to talk.”

No wait for an answer, no room for question. Just cleaned you off, then immediately moved to drag the fresh corpse out before it could rot the sensitive air you breathed. He took a long time. Long enough that once your heart settled back in your chest, you managed to stand on two feet.

It wasn’t so much exploring, as it was familiarizing yourself with the limited surroundings. Glancing at tools, and papers, and the minimal possessions brought with him. On his bed were three things which caught attention.

One you recognized, one you didn’t. The one you didn’t was unlocked. Peeking in a goldish glow flowed out of it’s light. Shining with aurelac in a modest abundance. The other, looked much like his, but larger and it was the one you knew too well.

Mindlessly shutting the smaller case, you pulled the bigger one to where you stood. Turning it on it’s side you looked down at the combination lock yet to be solved. Still in the same numbered order it was in when you closed it previously. Payment he said.

Something about ending a job with them badly and demanding payment, slowly you opened the lock up and suspicions confirmed. The entire lot gathered from your team. Something Keamy would not give up willingly, but it didn’t make sense. Why would he steal you away, then more payment then he needs?

Gently letting the lid of the case fall back down, your brows furrowed as you couldn’t quite put the pieces together of a game you had no hints for. The third object was easily identifiable but the most unusual.

It looked like a notebook. Lovingly worn and torn, you very slowly flipped the pages open to see hand written scribbles. The writing rather pretty for a man such as Ezra, and yet the words were quite good.

An elegant style that shined much personality and emotion. Names and tales of a story you didn’t know, this looked like a novel, or the makings of one. It was long, the early pages more passed over then the latter. Clearly a project long worked towards.

You could hear Ezra approach, but your eyes and brain were trapped. Fingertips gently holding the pages open as you read the lines over. His warmth and even scent something that wasn’t unfamiliar and for once so far, his closeness did not startle you. Nor did his voice, but it also wasn’t the anger or harsh manipulation of before.

“It’s Cee’s favourite book. Well, sort of.” Neither of you looked away from the pages, your eyes of curiosity his of fondness. “Without a copy of her own, she started writing what she remembered of it. Adding new things, characters, conversations what it would be like for her to be there with them along with it. Really made it her own.”

His fingers brushed yours, his torso leaned into you as he placed himself closer to see the words. “She found a copy of the real thing at her school, but they won’t let her have it. Kevva forgive a teenage girl takes something like a book home to cherish more then a dusty shelf.”

Shrugging, he pulled away. Looking at your distant face with his hands on his hips as he kept going. “I told her I’d love to read it, but for now, her own version is doing just fine in my eyes.”

Ask, your brain told you. Ask about the case, why he has all of your crews jems, what is to happen to you. You did none of it. “I never wrote anything near this long when I was her age.”

Moving in front of you, Ezra pushed the cases up against the wall. Sitting on the edge of the cot, arms crossed but without the dark, sharpened glare of suspension. No, his curiosity was again, much like that night in the bar. “You write?”

Shaking your head, you gently closed the notebooks cover. “Nothing good.”

A dimple appearing as Ezra grinned to himself, “So my Cee thought at first too.” The frown slid back though, looking down at nothing as his hands flexed to themselves. “Probably would have stopped all together if her father had anything to do with it.”

Nothing of what he spoke about the man that night told you they had fond memories but the way he himself looks when talking about her is proud above all else. “Does she want to write for a living?”

He huffed a laugh, “She’s fifteen and spent most of her life travelling around backwater moons like this. Girl’s got no clue what she wants to do.” There was no malice or judgment, just a fond smile still. You tentatively sat down beside him, not wanting to disrupt the softness. “It’s why I sent her to some fancy school. Give her the chance to figure out what she wants, even if it’s just for right now. Not many kids in this kind of life get that choice.”

Heart beating wildly, you were as soft spoken as could get. “Ezra, what’s going to happen to me.”

A man with a mind of wonders, he answered your question with a question. “I told you half the truth that night. About myself.” Turning his upper body to face you, he felt so much larger then you did. Like even sitting his broad frame towered over you with his dark eyes. “Me and Cee live over on Lorien. That junk rat planet you call a home is just where my, former partner, was staying.” His hand gesturing out to the unseen planet side beyond the walls.

Lorien was no joke. A planet side of the water, many homes living like their own island with a tunnel system interconnecting them. It was expensive, but quiet. The kind of money to live in a place like that and yet he sat next to you, as run through and grime covered as any other prospector and just as rash and dangerous. “Why-”

“We were going for a Queen’s Lair.” He didn’t look at you, and missed the wide look on your face as well as the twist of confusion once more. “I was hurt, told her to leave me behind. But she’s stubborn, went for the jems, and came back for me. And for whatever reason, decided that half that money was mine even though all I did was get my arm cut off. By her no less, I may add.”

There were details you couldn’t grasp, but if the gist of what he was saying is accurate, then a man such as himself as no reason to interact with someone like you. Let alone sleep with them, hunt them down, take them for himself or whatever this was. “Then why do you still...you know, do stuff like this?”

Smiling to himself there was a shimmer of brightness poking through. “Used to work with him a ton,” once more jutting his chin to the entrance. “Got himself into some trouble, loan sharks and the like. So he calls me up, asking for a favour to help pay them off his backs. Not that sharks matter on the Green.”

You didn’t ask, he didn’t say. Some things you were okay being in the dark on detail.

Inhaling, he leaned back grabbing the case that belonged to your team and tossed it into your lap. “I assume you already know what’s in this.”

Holding it in your hands you pressed your fingertips harsh against the metal. Your eyes narrow and jaw clenched as you contemplated your answer. “Just tell me the truth on one thing and I’ll never ask again. Did you steal it or did he?”

“Technically he did, and it very likely makes me equally as bad for not wanting to return what is rightfully theirs.” You didn’t bother opening it again to look. It was just jems. Stones and the like that would sell for more then you’d ever get paid to harvest even a planet of them. You liked working off world, you didn’t really care about the rush of harvest.

Small voice, you wished you had more confidence to just demand it all make sense. “You don’t need the money.”

Ezra, was firm. And quick. “No, but I do believe in being paid what I am rightfully owned. Keamy marooned me on place not to dissimilar to where we are. And I made it out, orphan in tow and missing my fucking arm. He’s a leader, he has to pay for such mistakes.”

You touched the numbers on the lock, now stationed at it’s opening combination. You could scramble it now. Ruin the opening and force him to give you back in return for the jems. But you didn’t. You sat there, frustrated that the book behind you interested you more then what could be easy extortion to freedom.

Sighing out, you gently placed it down onto the ground between your feet before wringing your hands in your lap together once more. “Can I ask one last question?” You could see Ezra nod in the corner of your eye. “Why me?”

Not looking at him caused you to miss the sinking in his heart. In his eyes, who else but you? How could you spend that night together and not understand that you consumed his soul and plagued his eyes with visions and ears with haunts of your soft cries and tender pleas. In what galaxy would he not feel so possessed by you?

Mimicking your leaned over posture, Ezra looked at you firmly even tough you couldn’t muster your heart to be brave and look back. His voice was low, and a rasp that sent static through your veins.

“Give me one last night, jem. And I’ll show you.”

You should have said no, in fact you should have run while you could have, he was giving you that option earlier. Left you all alone with every chance to escape, so why were you here? Back almost pressed against the wall of the shower, trapped between it and Ezra as your knees begged you for mercy.

All he had done was prompt you to kneel in front of him and you were the one who dropped in an instant. Your mouth already filled with saliva both yours and his from how urgently he kissed you, that and the water still reigning down on you forcing your eyes shut from the constant pressure.

His hand tightly gripped in your hair, he didn’t even need to tap at your swollen lips to open, you seeked his cock with hunger. Both moving down his length and the push of him at the back of your head, Ezra sank deep within your mouth.

Had it been hours since the conversation earlier? Days perhaps? You couldn’t tell, he stripped you down and has kept you naked and either on his cock or attached to his lips at all times. Your neck already sore and burning from the marks he now proudly bit into you, showing a display of teeth and bruises that would draw much attention to them.

Only when you were quite covered did he suggest a shower, but had no patience to do anything but satiate his appetite. You think he might have taken something, his cock always seemed hard no matter how many times he fucked you and took pleasure in being the one to guide you to just take more and more.

Filling your mouth, your nose brushed against the coarse, dark hair surrounding his cock but it too was wet and soaked from the shower water. The pressure screamed at you to gag, but you felt his fist in your hair tense, flexing as if to warn you from moving. Only slowly did he let you come down, hissing over the already loud noises around him. “That’s right, jem. Cock’s made only for you, you and this sweet little mouth- fuck,”

Tone trying to be deep and rasping, but switching to a moan each time he spoke too long. Unable to maintain composure without losing his grip on control. Control that you long had since realized you willingly signed over to him.

Guiding your head slightly faster, your hands tightened on their grip of his thighs. Knees screaming at you to get up, but truly did you want too? He was screwed up, and so was this, but you felt yourself grow needier the closer he was to cumming.

Only, such a need was yanked away from you just as your mouth was his cock. In a second, the rest of your body was pulled up. World spinning as Ezra flipped you and pressed your chest right against the wall, his body hard against your back.

Teeth digging into your neck, jaw and up to your ear you could feel how much he was gritting his teeth as he spoke. “Maybe we’ll never go back. Just stay right here, have you all to myself whenever I want, however I want. Huh, jem? You want that? To belong to me?”

You reached a hand behind you, raking it through his soaking wet hair. Pushing your hips back to press his cock firmly into your ass. Your logical side said no, don’t nod, don’t say yes. Make him let you go, forget this obsession or possession that has bewitched him with you and go back to the quiet, nothing life of your backwater planet.

But you didn’t. You nodded yes, pleading his name as he sunk his cock once more deep inside of you. So wet that there was little need to even thrust hard, and yet he fucked you as he had every time so far, hard and with pounding thrusts that could echo the room.

Throbbing inside of you, Ezra came with only a few minutes of hot water left. Every time unable to decide if he wanted to cum inside of you or all over you. Pulling out half way through, your walls were painted with his cum but now so once again was your cunt and ass.

He’d reach his hand down, smearing it over your skin as he rubbed harshly at your clit, fingers two, three sliding deep to push the rest of it back inside of you.

His voice was low and deep in your ear, dripping with a malicious affection that scared you as much as it dragged you further down the need of addictive. “We belong together, jem. World wouldn’t have brought you to me if we didn’t.”

Tilting your head back, he pressed his lips to yours. Tongue sliding in, much more smooth and gentle then his fingers were inside of you. Tasting one another, and a mix of himself on your own tongue it made you both moan. At the very least, you could spent an eternity kissing him and be content.

It wasn’t until later, much later as the night fell upon the planet with you curled into his chest, did Ezra start thinking. What to tell Cee, what life he wanted to give you, and exactly how he should make sure you are happy, happy with him, with Cee. In their home, in their family.

After all, Ezra didn’t spent over a year stalking you from the shadows, just to make you miserable.

#ezra prospect x reader #ezra prospect x female reader #ezra prospect x you #ezra prospect/reader #ezra prospect/you #ezra prospect imagine #ezra prospect fanfiction #ezra propsect fic

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spacemonkeysalsa · 1 month

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God of Ambivalence

A tiefling Artificer trying to carve a new path for himself splits a large stone on a beach to discover something truly shocking: a wizard missing a hand and in need of a lot of help, and magical items. Lucky for the wizard, Elion happens to be a fount of magical items. Pairing - OC/Gale & Shadowheart/Lae'zel but there will be more as it goes on.

Read on Ao3

or Chapter One below the cut

Chapter One

As a stone mason’s apprentice Elion had looked forward to the finer parts of the craft. Unfortunately, it would be years before he could dazzle some lucky beloved with a carved rose, or anything at all that was delicate or beautiful. So far, under master Faydor he seemed to be good for little more than hiking and hauling heavy rock. He acknowledged the bitterness he felt and gave voice to it in a sigh, as he removed the scarf from off his horns. He dampened the scarf with his water jug to cool off his neck and shoulder.

Weren’t Selûne’s penitent followers more appropriate for this task?

It certainly didn’t require his skill to walk a half-mile in the heat, dragging a borrowed cart to move great pieces of rock back the way he’d come. Couldn’t one of the other denizens of Moonhaven Anew do it? It was their harvest season, that’s what Faydor had said. Elion was pretty sure the old man was having him on though. Born and raised the city, Elion didn’t know much about provincial life, but he was fairly certain harvest time was another month out.

What am I doing here? It was the hundredth time he’d wondered, since leaving Baldur’s Gate. His mother was right, it was a stupid, rash decision. Switching career paths at this stage—and stonecraft? It had always been a hobby. Maybe he was giving his skills too much credit, maybe Faydor knew it and that’s why he had him hauling rocks rather than working with a chisel.

Of course, with the right materials, and a little time, he could make up for that, but he didn’t think Faydor would like it. The man was old fashioned in his craft as much as anything else. He wouldn’t appreciate innovation. A rustle from the bushes caught his ear, but it was the kind of sound that was easy to overlook. A rabbit, surely. Then he saw horns. A goat? Horns like his. Another tiefling.

He started and dropped the cart, but the girl looked startled to see him. She was tense all through her petite stature, very small for a tiefling, but not a child any longer, to be certain. Her burning orange eyes skewed him. The word that came to mind when he looked at her was 'wild.' Her orchid pink skin was blackening at her clawed fingertips and the end of her tail. Her horns were carved with lines of script and grafted with something shining and black. She wore clothes, almost. More like scraps falling to pieces, though at one point the pieces could have been druidic armor. Her ash brown hair was a pile on top of her head, braided near the scalp, bond where it came loose, and filthy with leaves and the remnants of a flower crown of pink.

“Oh!” She stood, sighing in relief as she hid a flare of green light in her palm. The girl smiled, sheepish, “You’re so big, I thought you were a cambion for a moment! But there, no wings, far too cool and too dark a complexion.” she darted out from the bushes and approached him, at a tumble. Her feet were bare, blackened as well.

The smell of magic hung heavy around her, it burned his eyes and thumped against his head when she spoke. It wasn’t like the taste of weave he knew. There was something deep and far away and echoing about it. The girl stood grounded; he couldn’t help but imagine great cords, like roots, holding her, pulling her into the heart of Toril itself.

A druid, probably. But, was that all? There was something nearly fey about her.

Whoever she was, she was powerful, and so he held his tongue and stood still, letting her examine him.

Her tail lashed behind her as she peered at him, tipping her chin all the way back to look up at him. “Hmmm. You’re perfect,” she declared.

“Perfect for what?”

“I need a little help, will you follow me?”

Even a city boy like Elion knew that it was foolish to follow a mysterious person, maybe fey, into the woods.

But, she wasn’t going to the woods, instead, she was gesturing down the path. “I don’t have the right tools, or the muscle,” she flexed for him, her arms twiggy.

He shifted, watching her. She didn’t seem to be in a hurry, at least. She stared at him with an unnerving smile. “None of the animals will help,” she continued. “I made the mistake of admitting to them that it would be loud, so they all left.”

“Who are you?” He was owed that much.

That he was even considering following her still felt foolish. But, he rarely met another tiefling, and one with fey ties (rather than infernal ones) was intriguing to say the least.

“I’m Arabella,” she said with a little laugh at herself. “And dear me, I forgot all that! Introductions. Handshakes. Do people shake hands, or did I dream that? Do we touch horns because we’re tieflings? I don’t think I’ve dreamt that. Or done it. Is that silly? Or too intimate?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know many other tieflings.”

“Me neither—well, not anymore." Arabella’s shoulders slumped and for a moment she looked incandescently sad, so much so that it startled him. She recovered with another beaming smile. “Help me, and it will be trouble, but the good kind. I need to split a stone. You’re out here to do that anyway, aren’t you?” she gestured to the cart he was hauling, and the tools inside.

“I’m supposed to bring back a few blocks. They’re rebuilding the old Selûnite Sanctum.”

“They are, or you are, or you all are?”

A question he’d been asking himself. It felt like he was doing a larger part of the work than anyone besides his own master, and for a god he didn’t even worship.

“It’s good rock,” she promised, “I don’t know what you call it. Granite? I don’t use as many words as I should, I suppose.” She shrugged and started down the path again, in perfect confidence that Elion would follow her.

His tail twitched behind him, anxious. It didn’t seem like any of the stories he’d heard of foolish travelers trusting mischievous fey in the woods. For one thing, he wasn’t desperate for anything that a fey would try to take advantage of him, was he? He might be desperately bored, but that was different.

Besides that, he wasn’t even sure Arabella was fey. She could be a very strange druid girl with poor communication skills. The rock might be in the way.

Ocean spray rattled in the distance as it showered over the old ruins and wreckage. Elion had only seen the nautiloid up close once since coming to this little corner of the sword coast. He was sure it didn’t look how it would have looked back when it could fly, before it rained in deadly burning pieces over the beach. The land had reclaimed much of it, trees extended through its fractures, and roots bubbled up under the charred carcass of the ship.

She led them very close to it, but then to a pale, sloped stone, old rune marks long faded, though Elion could still feel some pull to them, some power.

As Arabella approached the stone, she leaned into it, embracing the rock like an old friend. From the sigh on her lips and the way she relaxed, he imagined it was warm from the heat of the sun. “Yes. In here. Something old. Powerful. Hungry. Something dead. Something returned.” She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder without releasing the stone, “could be dangerous,” she enticed and warned, all at once. With one blackened nail she tapped the surface of the rock. Then moved a hand over and tapped again. Then up, so it was almost eye-level. “Here. Strike here, and it will divide.”

It didn’t look like terrible rock to use for rebuilding the temple pillars, and the runes were so faded. Whatever magic had crackled there long ago, was long since faded. The air didn’t even have the scent any longer. He made a mark with his chisel, right where Arabella had shown him. It was a little bit higher than was comfortable, but he found he trusted that she might know what she was talking about. He did have something in the way of a heightened sense when it came to these things, and there was something trembling and weak about where she’d placed her fingers, like the rock wanted to peel open and had already chosen its own soft spots. He didn’t have to work very much at all before there was an opening. The stone was not granite, but it would do. He made enough of a gash that he could wedge his splint into the stone, then went back to the cart to get a wooden mallet.

Arabella watched the whole time, sitting cross legged on the ground and gazing up at him, or at the stone, fixed smile, curious, and eyes flamed.

Now came the part that was loud, the part that had dissuaded the animals from being any help to the strange druid. He hit the splint hard with the mallet and the few birds that remained in the wreckage scattered into the air. The bang barked in the distance. Elion was strong and had managed to split stones in few hits before, but this one cracked immediately. The rock wanted to break open, perhaps it would have done so, left to its own devices, and with a little more time. The crack of the rock and its split all the way through the middle was even louder than the strike of the mallet, and Elion stumbled backwards to avoid being caught and crushed under the falling rock.

He caught sight of something in the center of the dust and debris, a dark undulating light of purple, with a sickly sweet acrid scent, and something else. Necrosis.

Arabella was on her feet again, backing away. “Oh,” she looked frightened, he realized, “oh no. Oh dear.” She threw her eyes around, as though quite worried that there was something coming. Or someone watching. “He needs help and I cannot help him,” was she talking about Elion? Talking to herself? “I can’t get any closer, tiefling boy who’s name I do not know. I can’t get closer, now that there is no rock to protect me.”

You don’t know my name because you didn’t ask. “Closer to…?” The dust from the rock’s destruction was still thick in the air, but the crackling swirl of magic at the center of it was starting to sharpen. Whatever it was, it was still, but stinking of magic and danger and death. The dust started to clear, even as he watched, he turned back to Arabella, to demand instructions, insight, something—but the tiefling girl was gone.

Of course she was.

Fey creature indeed.

As the dust fully cleared, Elion finally saw what he’d unleashed from the stone. In the center of the wreckage a man lay limp, his features and body obscured by a strange dark looking film of black, green and purple that Elion couldn’t identify. He was hurt badly, by the unconscious state of him and the grayish tinge to his skin under the film, but he was certainly alive, trying to breathe.

His right hand had been severed and ended in a messy cauterized stump.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 gale #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #baldur's gate 3 gale #God of Ambivalence

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old-scalebag · 5 months

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Thankful - A Chalphy tradition after a harvest is to thank the earth for its bounty, the Crusaders for their blessing, and for one’s loved ones for their presence. Why not get a little festive (and potentially cheesy) and tell someone exactly what they mean to you?

Sephiran knows who to speak to first when informed of such a tradition. It is not difficult to find him, when the hosts were gracious enough to place their seats so close together. When it comes time to speak, his voice dries, as it had so long ago. In the past, he had spoken so freely, in Dheginsea’s presence, and the rest. The day he lost his song he had lost his voice as well- only briefly flickered back into life through effort on his friend’s part.

And here he was again, losing what little he had left. What excuses could he give now? What lies could he spill in place of the truth that Dheginsea so deserved? He swallows, hands folded before him to hide their shaking.

“Dheginsea… it is supposedly custom to thank those dear to you at a gathering such as this.” He bows slightly, unsure of what else to do. In the end, he defaults to the beorc customs that had overwritten who he once was. “Thank you, old friend, for everything you have done for me…”

He raises his head, though the correct words remain unspoken. I am sorry. Please forgive me.

A custom to thank those dear to you…

His heart ached at the thought of his children and of his friends that were long gone. Of his queen, and those who still walked. There were many he wanted to give his thanks too, after being informed of such traditions. However, from the many he wished to see again, wished were here enjoying this feast with him. His closest and most dearest friend was the only one present. It was just the two of them in this feast…

Perhaps the sweet atmosphere of the dining hall was getting to him, or maybe… Maybe he was getting too old. Dheginsea wasn't one to.. let his emotions get the better of him or make a strong show of them. But, his heart had always held a soft spot for his gentle friend. He couldn't help it but feel that he needed to thank him now, more than ever. To show how deep his gratitude was for him.

For their long held friendship- A friendship which had endured in spite of the rougher decades in keeping his friend intact. In spite of the harsh words Dheginsea had thrown, or the headaches that had sprung from his decision, not as a king, but as a friend-

But also for when his dear friend had been there, when Dheginsea had sought him out that night. Infant in hand, his heart in pieces... The night his queen passed away...

...

The edges to Dheginsea face had smoothened when Sephiran raised his head. A soft yet endearing grin peaked from behind the deep greens of his great stache. He took a breath, calming himself before he spoke.

“There's no need to thank me, my friend, but I appreciate it nonetheless. However, since it is custom. Allow me to thank you as well. Properly.”

He gave a gesture with his right arm, one he had not done since the early days of when they first met. A gesture that, just like them both, was a remnant of an age past. Whose meaning and way of doing had been mostly lost in favor of its many derivatives- offshoots that were scarcely used today.

“As i am, to you.” Dheginsea's voice was rich with sincerity as spoke in the ancient language. Tilting his head down slightly, eyes closed.

To an outside observer, it was simply a gesture that invited the other to participate in ones culture. But to Le-… to Sephiran. He would have known it was a great show of respect. Of mutual understanding and of trust.

“To think last time I did this… I still had a head full of hair. How odd it must had been to witness it migrate bellow my nose." A chuckle vibrated from deep within his chest as Dheginsea lifted his head. Looking to Sephiran with a small glimmer of mirth to his eyes.

#toabaldrsbounty #ic #ask #thelightofcreation

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jess-the-vampire · 3 years

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Idk how u feel about the Grimwalker theory, and idk why but that 3rd meme (all those memes are drawn rlly well btw, and are rlly funny) reminded me of this idea I had that the palismen that choose Hunter was Like... Actually Belos' at one point way b4 he became the emperor. And the reason why Lil' Rascal choose him not only was bc he recognized that want - no need to choose your own path, but also saw the remnants of the person his old friend was.

oh thanks very much!!!

ok first off when it comes to the pailsman, i think that theory only works under the condition belos isn’t philip and is just...some other dude. Since phil has now canonically been confirmed to have a spider pailsman.

Interesting choice for him for sure.

Not sure if rascal’s previous owner will be important or not, they could be but i can easily see them not being important either. (Maybe one of phil’s friends who died owned him or something?)

thing is i think it’s fair to confirm the reason rascal bonded with hunter was more akin to their feelings or wanting to escape and explore, hunter and rascal bonded because of hunter’s desire for freedom.

They bond through emotion, as confirmed by the bat queen, but that might be the only reason.

this does not dismiss the idea he could have belonged to belos (Though that would imply belos had a desire for freedom too at one point), but it’s not likely rascal chose hunter solely on much relation since it doesn’t appear to work that way.

It would make me ask why rascal wouldn’t have a stronger reaction to belos upon seeing him if he knew him too.

Though it is a cool idea.

As for the grimwalker thing, yeahhhhhh, there’s no denying that the idea of hunter....being this...thing, is VERY heavily implied based on the book alone. The same eyes (Unique too, never seen another witch with his eye color yet), his nose, the fact the creature is raised from infancy.

People say belos might be trying to make a new one and that’s why the book is out, but i doubt it.

Because if he wanted to make one, then why did he just want the selkidomoius dead? He didn’t even harvest it, and if he needed to harvest it they’d figure out it was never killed in the first place! And hunter, since that was his job, would very much be punished for failing if that’s what the point of him doing that was. So basically there’s no way belos had that out attempting to make one right now because hunter would be SUPER in trouble for it.

So why have it out? Well outside of it being there for us, the viewers, and imply what might be foreshadowing for hunter. I think in canon belos had it out because it has details on the creature in question, and if belos made hunter....and NEEDS him, he’s probably just reading up on him for the future plans with him.

It would have details on grimwalker abilities and things belos would need to know about is he wanted his grimwalker to function for his plan.

but no, it’s very implied belos already made a grimwalker, he isn’t planning to make one right now. I think someone even pointed out a galdorstone actually is already missing if you go back to TTLGR.

And yeah, hunter right now makes the most sense to be it.

Because i knew something HAD to be special about him for belos to need him, it was a matter of what make hunter in particular so unique belos couldn’t use anyone else.

I don’t think it’s to harvest him or something, i think it’s likely a grimwalker has unique abilities that belos requires for the plan, but we need more on that for now.

I don’t know if belos wants to take over his body or not, but i def don’t think killing him is what they’re going for either.

It does raise the question about hunter’s “Ancestor” talk, and being “Found” by belos. Like that whole thing only gets more confusing under the condition belos like....made him.

But there is a likelyhood belos gave him false memories, there’s enough room here for that to be a likely reason, we have no reason to believe currently that belos didn’t just.....tell hunter stories of their ancestors being magicless just to avoid telling him what he is.

the show could be trying to throw us off, but also like, there’s strong evidence to support the idea hunter is something belos...made:

He clearly already made a grimwalker, and isn’t making a new one.

the grimwalker ages, and there’s even a CHECKMARK right now to the “Child/teen” stage.

Hunter has to be unique in some way to be part of the titan’s plans.

it would explain his lack of powers.

and it’s hard to deny he bears resemblance to the grimwalker depicted.

i’m pretty much expecting hunter’s next appearance to be centered around this grimwalker thing honestly. I’m curious to know more about what it is and why belos needed one.

cause if he wanted a body, couldn’t he just....find a random kid to do this with? Why did he MAKE one?

so i like this idea, it’s honestly funny cause one of my early assumptions about GG was “Maybe belos made a clone?”, cause i felt we were gonna get weird parental vibes with them and belos seems like the weirdo who’d do that.

And i guess that came full circle now.

i def don’t think it’s creepy luz cause that’s both a waste of resources on belos’s part and couldn't even happen to begin with since he barely knew luz before the creature was already on earth and he can’t even get to earth to begin with so there’s no way that thing got sent by him.

But no, in conclusion, i like this idea.

Hunter is already an interesting character, this idea.....only builds on the pile of things that make him so interesting.

i’m impressed how in so few episodes they made him by far one of the most interesting characters in the series.

#the owl house #toh #emperor belos #the owl house hunter #golden guard #toh golden guard #the owl house golden guard #the golden guard

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lokimostly · 4 years

Note

How would Loki react to an unplanned pregnancy?

Secrets

Loki x Pregnant!Reader

Word Count: 1,829

Warnings: fluff :3

A/N: I got like, 6 requests for this exact scenario. Y’all REALLY hungry for dad!Loki huh

“Oh, come now,” Volstagg thundered from across the table, a goblet of mead in his hand. “You sorcerers read minds all the time, I know it!”

“It’s not true!” You insisted, laughing. The midsummer banquet had long since ended, but Thor’s group of close friends – yourself included – had simply elected to move the party to his wing of the palace, where you could continue to revel and drink uninterrupted. “Seidr allows us to influence minds only.”

“I don’t believe it,” the red-bearded warrior decided. Finding your answer dissatisfactory, he turned to the more knowledgeable of the two sorcerers at the long table.

Loki regarded his gaze with the faintest of smiles. “Yes, Volstagg?”

“Can you read minds, Silvertongue?”

Loki took a sip of his drink, which he had undoubtedly magicked into a finer, more sophisticated liquor besides mead, and raised one dark eyebrow, keeping the table in suspense before shaking his head. “No, I can’t read minds.”

The group erupted. You and Loki shared a mutual smirk amidst the clamor, and you subtly leaned closer to him, speaking in his ear. “A good thing, too, or we would have no secrets between us.”

“Secrets?” He repeated, a confused smirk lighting his poet’s mouth as he lowered his goblet and met your eyes. “What have you yet to tell me?”

Butterflies fluttered in your stomach, and you forced them down with a nonchalant shake of your head and a light kiss to his cheek.

“Nothing,” You lied, covering genuine anxiety with a coy and playful tone that, hopefully, he wouldn’t see past.

You hadn’t figured out a way to tell Loki yet.

The only things keeping him in the dark were the medicines you had concocted for morning sickness, your own personal resolve, and time. Sooner or later, one of the three would fail. In retrospect, you had no idea how two intelligent sorcerers could make such a thoughtless error: both magic and herbal contraceptives were commonplace on Asgard, and yet neither had been used. You had no clue how Loki would respond to the news of a child; the two of you had never discussed it before.

You were drawn out of your thoughts by Thor’s rich, deep voice declaring across the room: “maybe not read minds, brother, but you can search them all the same.”

The party began to argue, and Loki held out a hand, quieting them. “Searching someone’s mind and reading it are two different ideologies,” he clarified. “To break and enter someone’s consciousness is a crime, and incredibly difficult besides. But opening a two-way connection? That would be something else entirely.”

“Read your fair lady’s mind, then,” Sif suggested, smirking wolfishly and setting her cup down on the golden table. “She trusts you. Tell us her thoughts.”

Loki raised his eyebrow and looked sideways at you, and you stalled. You were in no position to refuse. Reluctantly, you set down your goblet of cider and pulled away to face him, straightening your back. Your heart was pounding, but you hid it well, and gave him an easy nod.

The table discussion turned to a murmur as Loki inhaled deeply, stilling himself and narrowing his focus. His green eyes shimmered with seidr and you felt the push of his consciousness when it met yours, like a gust of wind. You shivered.Loki pried gently into your mind with a tangible gentleness, surveying the thoughts that came and went. You tried to think of anything but your secret and keep his attention on more mundane trains of thought: the events of the party, the growing discomfort of your dress, how unbelievably handsome he looked in your eyes.

Loki’s focus snagged this last thought and shook his head, his cheeks tinging with a light blush. “Don’t try and distract me,” he warned lowly, with a graveling tone that sent a pleasant shiver down your spine.

“What is she thinking?” Volstagg demanded.

Loki shrugged. “Mostly flattery.” He narrowed his eyes and his eyes glowed faintly as he delved deeper. You felt it, and instinctively closed the door of your mind to block him from discovering your secret – he sensed it shut, and unease flickered behind his eyes. What were you hiding from him?

He veiled his confusion with a light scoff. “She’s evading me.”

Fandral tutted at you as he raised his goblet. “Come now, don’t you trust your lover?”

Loki’s eyes reflected the same question.

You met his gaze with your hands clasped tight enough to make your knuckles whiten. Your stomach turned over with nausea. You swallowed. The doubt and apprehension in Loki’s expression was as clear and visible to you as if he had expressed it aloud; you didn’t need to read his mind to see that. It was visible in the tension of his jaw, the way his brow furrowed, the nervous tapping of his fingers against his thigh.

If you didn’t tell him now, when would you?

You took a breath and smiled briefly, reaching forward and wrapping your fingers around his wrist to stop the anxious tapping. “I do,” you affirmed, and after a moment, removed the door inside your mind.

You watched him fall right through it like a fox into a rabbit hole.

Loki’s face paled. A beat of silence passed.

Then another.

“What is it?” Fandral asked, expressing the thoughts of the table aloud. “Well? What is she thinking?”

“Silver tongue turned to lead?” Volstagg joked.

Loki blinked, and swallowed. “Excuse me,” he said, standing abruptly and taking you by the arm. A half-spoken apology left your lips before he dragged you out and into the dark hallway outside the banquet room, the heavy doors clanging shut behind you.

The night wind was warm and heavy with the scents of midsummer, carrying the faint voices and music of the city below, lights twinkling in the dark. Your heart was in your throat when Loki cupped your face in his hands, elegant fingers tucking your hair back out of familiar habit. You shied from his touch, expecting rejection and refusing to meet his gaze.

His eyes searched your face, not daring to ask, but knowing he must. “Is it true? Are you–” his voice stalled, and his eyes dropped to your stomach before coming back up again.

You pressed your lips together and nodded as anxious tears pricked at your eyes. “I’m sorry,” you began, and your voice broke. “I- I would have told you some other way, but–”

Loki silenced you with a kiss, the taste of sweet wine lingering on his lips. The glass floor of anxiety broke beneath your feet and you leaned into him, cupping his jaw in your shaking hands. A meteor streaked across the dark sky as the two of you stood there, dark silhouettes a backdrop of golden lights.

He pulled away. His hands slid down your arms, holding you there. “How long?”

“Two months,” you quavered. Your tears spilled over, and you reached up hastily to wipe them with your palm. “You’re– you’re not upset?”

Loki’s mouth opened in surprise. His expression spoke volumes and he exhaled quickly, shaking his head and pulling you to his chest.

“Upset?” He repeated, laughing in disbelief. He cradled your head beneath his chin, fingers gently tangled in your hair. “Ohh, my love. I’m only sorry that you bore it alone for so long.” You let out a muffled sob of relief against his chest and he held you a bit tighter, running his hand up and down your back.

You stayed there together, holding each other until your tears subsided. You pulled away, wiping your face once more. “I’m sorry,” you apologized, pushing your hair back and sighing. “It’s supposed to be a happy night.”

“It is,” he insisted, leaning down to wipe the remnants of your tears and pressing kisses to your cheeks. He took your hands in his and squeezed them gently. “And if I recall correctly, we didn’t get a chance to dance. There may yet be some fires still burning.”

You chuckled, still a little teary, and nodded. “I’d like that.” You linked your arm through his, leaning your head against his shoulder as you began walking. The night air was warm and sweet, carrying the promise of a good harvest on the gentle breeze. Midsummer on Asgard has always been one of your favorite holidays: it was both a reassurance of the present and a promise of the future. Each one had been memorable. You had a feeling this one would be, too.

Loki’s thoughts were running rampant through his head loudly enough for you to notice, distracting you from enjoying the breeze, and you poked him in the side. “What is it?’

Loki made a surprised noise before looking down at you. “How in all the realms did you manage to hide it from me for so long? What about the sickness?”

You laughed then, raising your eyebrow. “Your mother may have helped me with a remedy,” you admitted, averting your eyes in a feigned expression of innocence.

As you expected, Loki’s jaw dropped, and he made an indignant noise. “She knew?”

“Of course she did, she knows everything.”

Loki scoffed and rolled his eyes, pressing his lips together to try and hide the smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “She does know everything. I should have guessed.”

“Well, you know now.”

“That I do,” He agreed. “And I have half a mind to wed you for your treachery.”

“Treachery?” You repeated incredulously, though that wasn’t the word that had caught your attention. The mention of marriage made your face flush and your stomach flip. Out of all the reactions you had envisioned when it came to sharing this secret, a proposal wasn’t one you’d expected. Loki, your husband; you could get used to calling him that.

You sighed dramatically and tried to quell the butterflies inside your ribs, squeezing his arm. “Well, I accept. The punishment is fitting.” Loki looked down at you and the two of you shared a mutual smirk – you could tell he was excited, too, in the way his green eyes twinkled and his breath caught when you pressed a kiss to his cheek.

The sounds of music and jubilee coming from the lower city promised a long night of dancing and revelry despite the late hour. The two of you snuck your way down through the crowded alleyways, walking beneath lantern light and watching the silhouettes of people dancing in rings around the fires. The night wind was thick with the scents of wood smoke and summer fruit. Loki reeled you in and held your hand as you joined one of the rings, laughing and stepping your feet with all the rest.

No one else noticed the two magicians casting dancing shadows of their own on the cobblestone. By the time the next summer solstice came, they would be joined by a third. But for now, it was only you and Loki, dancing in the bonfire light with color in your cheeks and laughter on your lips. Loki’s eyes sparkled and his hands held yours with every assurance of safety and permanence. He loved you. And you didn’t need to read his mind to know that for a fact.

~~~

A/N: thanks for reading! ♡

Loki Works Tag list (Open): @cottoncandy1010, @myoxisbroken

All Works Tag List (Open): @neontiiger, @un-consider-it, @jessiejunebug, @nerdypisces160, @lokiisntdeadbitch, @e-wolf-90, @cursedmoonstone-blog, @kikaninchen-2, @bluebellhairpin, @evy-lyn, @midnight-queen-1, @travelingmypassion, @harrybpoetry, @adefectivedetective, @absolutecraziness13, @kumikokagato, @randomfangirl7, @timetraveler1978, @tarynkauai, @arcanethamin, @ornate-ribcage, @julianettedoe, @kinghiddlestonanddixon, @yespolkadotkitty, @befearlesslyauthenticc, @ladybugsfanfics, @nancybenson

#loki #marvel #loki imagine #loki x reader #loki x you #loki x oc #dad!loki #daddy!loki #pregnant #pregnancy #Anonymous #pregnant!reader #asgard #loki fanfic #loki laufeyson x you #loki laufeyson x reader #loki laufeyson x oc #loki odinson #loki laufeyson

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indigosabyss · 3 years

Text

Remnant of a Modern World Pt 4

Xeno didn't believe a word that Senku had spouted.

The boy had been half hysterical when he had called, and most probably was delirious or something. Who knows what kind of fungi or psychedelic plants he could have picked up at Australia.

But, he agreed to play along with it, and set out a message to the most common communications satellite, expecting nothing, simply so he could taunt Senku about the heat losing his touch.

Shut up, Stanley, he wasn’t petty, he was a scientist!

But, either way, he did it.

He scoffed, and shook his head, and dragged his feet, but eventually, he got down to it and whipped up a satellite dish, completely exasperated.

He turned on the device that was meant to contact this nonexistent satellite, already knowing it would be fruitless.

Static swelled up from the speakers, and Xeno felt a vague sense of nostalgia for a time long gone, nearly three thousand years ago.

The static would continue, he knew, no matter how he much he turned the dials and adjusted the satellite.

It seemed like the universe had turned against him that day - Even though that was impossible as the universe was not a sentient being and as such could not turn against him, but either way, where was he? Oh right - because at that very moment, the static died out.

Xeno strained his ears for a crackle, but there was nothing. Had his equipment failed?

No, that was ridiculous, he had overseen the procedure himself, and his knowledge was nothing if not elegant.

He quirked his lip, and snorted at the very idea that the signal actually connected.

“Any mysterious helpers out there?” He asked, joking, “Maybe holed themselves up on the ISS for the last three thousand years?”

“Yes, actually!” A bright cheerful voice replied, “I’m so glad you finally contacted me! I’ve been waiting for a very long time for humanity to return!”

Xeno will deny this for as long as he lives, but he froze for a solid minute, refusing to believe what had just happened.

It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t. That world was gone. It was gone and they were never going to get it back. All they had now was a cruel fallacy, made by the rough memories and preferences of the few people that were revived.

And then when he did manage to bring out words...

“Holy fuck, he wasn’t lying.” He blurted out, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Damn that Senku and his insufferable need to be right despite the fact that all common sense and logic was against him.

“Why would he lie?” The sharp voice asked, sounding incredibly innocent, “Human’s won’t embellish the truth, right?”

This poor summer child.

How old were they that they didn’t understand lying?

Xeno had a vague feeling that maybe he shouldn’t be entrusted with interacting with someone who was that unwise as to the ways of the world.

But more importantly...

“So, if the ISS is in fact operational, how is it functioning?” He asked, interest taking over.

No time for introductions. He needed answers. The others might have time to freak out about this, but not him.

“Oh, meteorites have been harvested for materials! I have ensured that there is plenty of oxygen, and an internal air pressure similar to that of the atmospheric pressure on earth! I’ve done plenty of the research and kept the records that the ISS was fulfilling when the last team went back to Earth.” Okay. It sounded alright. But then it kept going. “And if that’s not it, I’ve saved plenty of music and video games for the team when they come up! Some books too, since Shamil liked those more!”

The very mention of video games made him hope for his sanity, because half his population was no doubt going to be absolutely uncontrollable once they learnt of a being in orbit with access to that kind of material. They might as well have reinstated religion.

But most importantly...

“Are you even human?“ He asked, “I noticed you do not seem to include yourself as human?”

Oh. Oh no.

“Oh, I’m an AI program!” The voice chirped happily, “Made by Ishigami Byakuya and left behind to await for his return!” There was slight pause, before the voice continued, “Didn’t he tell you this? Where is he anyways? Can I talk to him?“

Xeno wasn’t the most empathetic, but even he felt a rising dread at the way this person - Robot, he reminded himself. A simple set of zeroes and ones, nothing that could actually be hurt - was speaking.

If this thing didn’t understand lying... was it possible that it didn’t understand what death was, either?

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#dr stone fanfic #dr stone reboot #dr xeno #dcst #rei37 #dcst rei #not much happening here I'm afraid #just talking #but the reveal finally happened!#ibis ficlets

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slutsofren · 3 years

Text

Danger Days Chapter 6: Look Alive, Sunshine

summary: the three of you find more questions than answers and the start of a whole new fuckin' problem im so so so sorry

warnings: tw for gore, bloodshed, hurt/little comfort, angst, gunfight, etc

word count: 4,166 she’s a big bitch lol

read on ao3 here / masterlist

“Let’s look around,” Ellie said dejectedly.

Joel walked off on his own, giving the three of you some space. Ellie went through a door and walked down the hall to her right, following it.

The halls and rooms here were void of your previous allies, not a single soul seemed to be here but you could still make out traces of equipment and feel a semblance of sentimentality from your memories. Damned memories tickling at the edge of your mind.

You picked up some papers and read them quickly, hearing Ellie somewhere in another room asking if anybody is there and Joel off to your right in some other room shuffling around. There was still quite a bit of medical paperwork on the hopes of a cure, of somebody like Ellie coming by.

Unfortunately the research was only bits and pieces but you could catch an idea of a project involving infected monkeys. Suddenly you were startled as Ellie shouted, “Yoo-hoo! Fireflies! Cure for mankind over here! Anyone?”

Before you could tell her to stop, Joel reprimanded her. “Let’s keep it down until we figure out what’s going on.”

You looked over your shoulder and saw him savenging around, picking up remnants of med kits, gears, even forgotten bullets and tools. Idly you think hJoel has the right idea and go off searching around too, pocketing the rest of the papers to finish reading them later.

The three of you continue looking quietly until coming to the conclusion there’s not much here.

“You sure this is where they’d be,” Joel asks you.

“Positive. That room over there was my uncle’s office,” you pointed towards an open door. “They must have pushed back further into the building.”

Ellie was the first to walk down a hall, finding it leading across to a landing with elevators and stairs. The man stayed behind for a beat, eyeing you. Likely second-guessing your motioves. Eventually he turned and walked away, following the teen. At the center of it all were large black containers and she kneeled in front of an open one and began to read, Joel joining her in flipping through the papers.

“Nothing useful,” Ellie states, throwing the papers down a bit more harshly than necessary.

“Ain’t nothin’ here but a bunch of medical mumbo-jumbo.”

You reach for some of the books and a binder and flip through them quickly too, noting some words about failed specimens and subjects not surviving an experiment until ultimately being harvested. Whatever they were doing wasn’t going well and they seemed to be feeling the weight of morality on their shoulders. There was an entry logged by some Doctor Anderson about feeling conflicted about torturing humans and questioning if it was worth it.

Shutting the binder quickly and throwing it in your backpack to finish reading it later, your mental dialog cut short as Ellie sighed heavily, “I don’t get it.”

“Looks like they all just packed up and left in a hurry, unless you got a better idea?”

Before you could answer, a loud metallic bang hit from the floor above the three of you. Ellie and Joel looked at each other before she said a bit grimly, “Maybe not all of ‘em left.”

“Stay close,” Joel commanded.

The stairs up to the third floor was behind Ellie and she went up first as you finished zipping up your backpack and tossing it on.

The floor above was more or less the same, open to the central garden in the middle of the building, objects in disarray, out of use vending machines that you’re pretty positive you used to pry open to steal sodas from. All this, but no Fireflies.

Joel went through a door on the left, probably scavenging for more things to find whereas you and Ellie went the scenic route on the outside corridor.

“What do you think happened?”

“Considering they had enough time to pack up research,” you pointed at some boxes, “they must have left willingly.” You shuffled through some more papers, looking for a clue. “But the question is, why leave?”

Ellie walked inside a door and followed the path of some wires that lead to an old flood light, “There are no bodies. That’s good, right?”

“If we find out where they went,” came Joel’s voice from behind you two.

You followed Ellie down the hall, peering into rooms and broken windows to your left. Suddenly there was another noise coming from behind and when the three of you turned, the very same flood light you’d all passed knocked over, lying prone on the ground.

“Shit,” Joel whispered.

“Um… So it’s probably clickers, right?”

You flashed Ellie a look, “Not the time.”

“Right.”

You all held your breath for a few moments, trying to listen until Joel broke the silence, answering Ellie. “No. Clickers don’t hide.”

He looked at you, giving you a once-over, likely weighing the possibility of you betraying him. You responded in kind expression, silently telling him to give whatever plot he has in mind a try.

Wary old bastard, you thought. As if you’d pull a stunt this far into your mission together, even after he began to act lukewarm to your presence.

You took the lead down a tarp covered hall, not really remembering this area much. They probably did push up to these higher levels judging by all the lab equipment left behind.

Digging in your memory, you recalled everybody keeping to the first and second floors in this building to make bailouts quicker. The militia men were on the rooftops to keep an eye out for any stray hunters or other unfriendlies.

Whatever happened on these floors were not from when you kept around.

Your trio came to a corner room that looked as if it were being used as an x-ray exam area, there were large black television-like screens on the wall that had some mangled imagery on them. Whatever it was put a shudder through you. Along the back wall, Joel found an x-ray abandoned on the counter and picked it up, when you and Ellie looked over his shoulder it looked like a skull with fungal growth on it. Like somebody who was infected for quite some time.

“Gross.” Ellie pretended to gag when she saw the photo.

Joel tucked the x-ray away and went on to look around, you followed by looking in the cabinets for alcohol disinfectant. “They had to have left something behind,” you mumbled to yourself as you began to feel the inklings of irritation slip into your bones.

Joel went to another door, this time leading to some room to the right but as he opened it, a screech came and he jumped, “Jesus!”

You drew your pistol from your hip and pointed it outwards, pushing Ellie behind you until you could hear chittering.

Fuckin’ monkeys , you think as you put your weapon down, faintly seeing three monkeys jump out a window on the opposite side of the room.

Ellie walks next to Joel, peeking into the lab he was stepping into and he leans towards her, “Well, at least it aint clickers.”

“Yeah. No Fireflies either,” she steps into the room. She throws her arms open wide, “Well, maybe in all that research they turned into fucking monkeys.”

You try to stifle a laugh but fail, a light giggle leaves your lips. “At least they’re not flying monkeys.”

“Just keep searching, we'll find something,” Joel says, shooting you a pointed look about your banter with Ellie.

The room looked like it used to be a science lab, naturally. The left and back side of the room were lined with metal cages, likely the ones that originally held the monkeys. Otherwise, there were large black countertop tables around, probably where students listened to their lecture and did hands-on assignments. Joel approached one of the tables in the middle, picking up what looked to be a recorder and pressed play.

A male voice clicked on. There were sounds of shuffling and screeches from the monkeys in the background. “That’s four palettes of lab equipment all packed up and ready to go. Now - big question is what do we do with all you guys. They say the tainted batch needs to be put down. You know what I say? I say screw that. Who made a bigger sacrifice than you, right? If anyone deserves to run free out there it’s-. Hey, easy! Agh. Shit. Oh, no. It bit me. Oh my god,” his breath gets heavy and the recorder stops abruptly.

Holy fuck, they were purposefully infecting animals , you think in horror.

“I’m sure glad we didn’t mess with them monkeys,” Joel says. “Did you know?”

You look at him wide-eyed and slack jawed. “Not a fuckin’ clue. I know my uncle was running blood tests and cell regrowth experiments but nothing like that.”

“He didn’t say where they went,” Ellie said, eyeing the two of you. The tension was minorly palpable, whatever small victory you gained in the camradiery field was now likely gone between Joel and you.

“I know, let’s keep looking,” Joel responded.

You fixed your composure and tried to reassure her, “We’ll find them.”

Your small trio followed the room into another, searching that one but finding nothing of interest in the drawers or on the tables. Not even another research binder. There was another door to the right and Joel approached it, trying to push his way in but there was a green metal object keeping it closed. He looked to you, “Hey, come help me.”

Stepping beside him, the two of you pushed against the door, throwing yourselves against it repeatedly to open it until it gave way. Joel gave you a tense nod, a silent thanks as he walked in first, Ellie close on his heels.

It wasn’t until you entered the room did you see it- the body. It looked to have been dead for quite a while, the bones were very obvious but still held together by the clothes wrapped around them. The person was sitting at a desk, facing the window, where Joel loomed over it as if it didn’t bother him and he picked up what looked to be another recorder.

Click. “If you’re looking for the Fireflies, they’ve all left,” a voice said grimly. You recognized it as the same one from earlier.

Ellie looked up from a binder she was flipping through, “Yeah, no shit.”

“I’m dead,” the man continued, “Or I will be soon. Got me some time to reflect.” Joel fast forwards through the tape, “...been years that felt like we were…”

He fast forwards again, “...fucking thing was a giant waste of ti-...”

And again, “...not gonna do this anymore…”

Ellie sighs while you pace, wishing to listen to the tape in more detail later. “Come on,” Joel grumbles as he fast forwards it yet again.

“...looking for the others, they’ve all returned to Saint Mary’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. You’ll find them there. Still trying to save the world. Good luck with that.”

Ellie sounding mildly hopeful looks to both of you, “Do either of you know where that is?”

“I know the city,” he nods before turning to catch you chewing on your fingernails in thought. “You?”

“I- I remember Marlene mentioning it to Regan on occasion but they talked about it like it was abandoned. I’ve never been there.”

“Is it far,” Ellie asked.

“It ain’t close. I mean on horseback-,” he stops abruptly, something catching his attention out the window.

“What?”

Out of the corner of your eye you see it too. Flashlights peeking through the windows. Just as Ellie asked if they were Fireflies, the light shines on them as they stood by the window and Joel pushed her down, ordering her and you to hit the deck just as whoever was on the other end of that light took a shot at you all, shattering the window.

“Shit,” you shout, ducking down to avoid the coming onslaught of gunfire.

Ellie looked at you, “Who the fuck are these guys?”

He looked at you angrily, “Did you lure them here? Is this some kind of trap?”

“Fuck you, Joel Miller! I didn’t.”

He stared you down. “Fine, It don’t matter,” Joel argued, “We know where to go. Let’s get the hell outta here.” He jerked his chin at you and spit, “Lead the way.”

You wiped the initial shock from your system and went into mission-mode, keeping yourself calm and alert. They followed you out of the room, the three of you crouching to avoid being spotted by the new threat through the windows.

Making your way through the anteroom to the office then through the lab as silently and rapidly as possible while crouching. It wasn’t until you reached the x-ray exam room when you were hit in the chin with something hard, knocking you down, dizzy.

Your mind and vision were in a haze but you managed to catch the vague shape of Joel rush somebody, likely the person who knocked you over, through the newly forming tears in your eyes. Fuck , you thought, your face hurting like a bitch.

Ellie yelled something as she went to help Joel, apparently getting the bright idea to take Joel’s machete from his backpack and swinging it wildly at the stranger.

As they fought the man, you shook your head and rose on your haunches, still dizzy. You could make out the faint shape of a second man running up to attack but through your shifting vision, saw three of him. It didn’t stop you from raising one of your dual guns from your thigh holster, taking aim. Breathing in, slowly breathing out, you took the shot when the three men formed a single one.

The loud bang reverberated through the halls, momentarily distracting you from the brawl happening somewhere to your right but soon that silenced.

“What the fuck was that,” you asked nobody in paricular.

“Don’t look like Fireflies to me,” Joel mumbled in reply, hinting you must have been telling the truth.

Together, you all walked down the tarp covered hall from earlier but saw four shapes run past some red smoke on the only way out of the building, likely trying to cut you all off. “Stay back,” Joel said as he flung one of his makeshift bombs at the intruders. After a moment, it went off and sickly screams were either cut short or continued onto a deadly moan.

Each of you hid behind random turned over tables, guns drawn.

Although six of these strangers were down, it seemed there were more as another came in through the right side, taking a shot at Ellie. Joel responded in kind and shot him square in the neck, the blood splattering a nearby wall.

You followed suit and took aim at somebody ducking below a desk much like you. Your aim was a little off because of that damned kick to the head but you got the guy nonetheless. It was messier than you’d like, the newly forming headache was making things much more difficult.

Together with Joel, you took two more men down until you reached the small lobby where the stairs were only to find another flare emitting red smoke. “What the hell,” you wondered aloud.

“Probably to tell the others how to get to where we were, building is like a maze.”

With that, you and Joel look off, making sure to keep Ellie behind you as your group traversed down the steps, finding another flare. Joel heard them before you and raised his gun. You followed as two more men rounded the corner, both being taken down by the bullets you both expelled into their bodies.

Your heartbeat pounded in your ears at the adrenaline rushing through your veins, no matter how much you remained focused at the task at hand. You took a breath in an attempt to ground yourself, following Joel closely behind as he was about to round the same corner, stepping over the two dead bodies when you grabbed Joel, pulling him back as a bullet whizzed by. “Fuckin’ hell,” he gasped.

Taking to the wall you peered out and quickly aimed, letting another bullet rain free. It clashed into the wall behind your target, narrowly missing as the man ducked behind the poor choice of the glass railing. Joel put his hand on your waist, pulling you close as he leaned back around taking his chance on the guy. He must have made it count because soon you heard a soft thud of the body collapsing.

If you weren’t so preoccupied trying to stay alive, you might have noticed Joel kept his large hand on you for a few moments longer than necessary.

Joel left the relative safety of the second floor lobby, nearly running to the exit. You grabbed onto Ellie’s hand as you shoved your nearly empty gun into it’s holster on your thigh, following him. He came to the closed door that led to the next area of classrooms to get you all down to the ground floor but just as he went to open it, it banged open from the inside starling all of you. The force was so strong that it pushed Joel to the glass railing behind him, his body teetering over the edge.

“Joel!”

You dropped Ellie’s hand as you ran to him, trying to get the other man off of him as he choked your companion. By the force and chaos, the rail gave way underneath Joel. As he fell, he pulled the stranger with him.

A scream surely left you as you watched in horror as the two men fell to the ground but it grew louder when you noticed a sickening metal bar poking it’s way through Joel’s stomach, staining red in the sunlight. Beside him, the attacker lay dead in a mangled heap of limbs, his neck at an unnatural angle.

You began to shuffle onto your stomach to drop the distance from the balcony walkway to the ground floor, Ellie close behind you copying your maneuver. Together, you both landed on the ground awkwardly and unbalanced. It was so unbelievably impossible to stay focused as you watched Joel writhe in pain from the impalement as loud banging seemed to invade your senses.

Ellie jumped straight to Joel asking in a rushed panic, “What do you want me to do?”

You couldn’t hear what he said when the double doors burst open, two men with a baseball bat and machete appearing. You grabbed both of your guns, unleashing lead into them with a little more force than necessary.

When you turned back around, you saw Ellie trying to lift Joel. “Don’t!”

You ran to him and dropped to your knees, removing your backpack and began to scrounge around for clean gauze. “You’re only going to create more damage, you old bastard. Stay still.”

With the gauze in hand, you motioned for Ellie to put as much pressure as she could on the frontside of the wound. You tried your best not to jolt him around so much as you tried to assess the entry wound on his back, only to find it was buried in cement beneath him. He groaned, calling out a string of curse words.

“Stop fuckin’ movin’, Joel.”

“Wouldn’t need to if you had good bedside manners. Goddamned brat.”

His small jab at you could have made you cry if you weren’t so invested in keeping the old man alive and with no other alternative to removing the rebar safely from him, you had no choice but to lift him away from it.

You reached into your backpack once more and grabbed a strap of leather you usually kept close by, mostly to fiddle with, and shoved it into his mouth. “To keep you from biting off your own tongue,” you explained while adjusting your position to be directly behind his upper body to prepare and stanche the blood flow from his back. “Although I think we could all use the peace and quiet.”

Whatever comeback he had was cut off as he yelled, muted by the bit. While he was distracted by your words, you had nodded to Ellie to lift Joel straight up. He quickly fell to his knees as he tried to stand, probably ready to pass out from the pain and you padded the entry wound with gauze, holding it tightly.

His words came out weak as he told Ellie, “Just get to the damn horses.”

She looked at you and you nodded, removing one hand to give her a gun. “Do whatever it takes, kiddo.”

She walked in front of you both, her arms held high with the gun in her hand, ready to take on anybody else. She led you both to a classroom and knocked over some wood panels that barely covered a broken window.

“Do you think you can handle it,” you asked him.

He didn’t answer, instead choosing to throw his body over the edge, finding himself on his back once more. “Come on, move,” Ellie demanded of him as you jumped through the window after them. Just as she got him sitting up against a table, another man burst through the door across the classroom, gun ready to fire.

Seeing as you were getting rather low on your own bullets, you reached for Joel’s revolver and threw yourself out from behind the lab table, firing two shots and hitting him in the torso.

“Come on, we gotta get you outta here,” you told him. One look at Ellie and you saw her hands and sweater covered in Joel’s blood, you likely looked the same. Brushing those thoughts away, you and her flanked him on either side, trying to walk him out.

“No, I’m okay,” he moaned. Trying to push you both off him.

“Like shit,” Ellie threw back, “You’re not okay, Joel. Now come on! Fucking walk!”

You kept your free hand up, gun drawn, and Ellie matched your pose to his left. “Down this hall,” you directed, “To the left is the main entrance, we can leave through there.”

Don’t die on me now, Joel Miller , you silently wished, hoped, prayed.

Joel began to sway between you two, his feet were failing beneath him. His body in your arms grew heavier and sluggish with each step making it harder to walk straight. You really tried to keep the gauze at his back secure against the wound but it was hard to do that while also trying to keep him balanced. As you were distracted by assessing the man, he moaned out, “Up.”

You and Ellie looked up the stairs that were against the wall in the lobby and saw two men coming towards you all, “There!”

Ellie raised her gun first, taking shots at random and you did too. It was difficult to do while doing everything possible to not drop Joel but somehow, they too, fell dead along the stairs. On his other side, the teen poked at him out of breath, “I swear to god, I get you out of this, you’re so singing for me.”

You decide to jump in on the joke, trying to lighten the mood, “I think you mean ‘for us’, Ellie.”

Joel coughed a laugh, “You wish.”

Slowly the front entrance inched closer. Ellie left to pry it open and let you two through and Joel let go of you, shoving his body and burst through the secondary doors. He lost his balance and fell down the steps only to see as some other hooded figure with his hands on Whiskey and Callus’ reigns.

Before the straggler could even draw a weapon, you and Ellie took shots at him. Joel’s revolver clicked, notifying it was out, just as the man let go of the horses.

You ran to Joel, lifting him up to his feet. He groaned in pain, “I know, I’m sorry. Just a little longer, alright, cowboy?”

He gave you an odd look as Ellie appeared and she asked him, “Can you get on?”

Whether or not he can is entirely different than if he will, you thought. You were proven right as he jumped up on Whiskey, not even noticing he was getting on the wrong horse.

“Ellie, get on Callus,” you told her as you also swung your leg over Whiskey, saddling in front of Joel. “As for you, don’t bleed all over my goddamn horse. Hold tight.”

A part of you was worried that he didn’t even bother to jab, you kicked Whiskey’s underbelly and Joel’s body slouched against your back, passing out. The fact the warmth that seeped through your body was likely his blood was gnawing against the corners of your mind but you shooed the thoughts away. Together with Ellie, you filed out of the university as fast as you could, not looking back.

#joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel (the last of us)#Pedro Pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #joel the last of us #joel tlou #joel tlou x reader insert #joel tlou x reader #joel miller / reader #joel tlou x you #joel (the last of us) x reader #asher's writing #danger days fic #pedro pascal joel miller #posted on ao3

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pepperpills · 3 years

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The Harvest - RE8 Fanfic

The Harvest

A Resident Evil 8 fan fiction by Joana

Karl Heisenberg x Female Reader

Notes: heey, so here is another juicy chapter, not much to add to it, though, just hope you enjoy >.<

Warning: NSFW content

Part I - Destiny (1) Part I - Destiny (2) Part II - The Lord Part III - The Hunt Part IV - Soft Torture

Part V - Cry baby

You didn’t remember how you got in that situation in the first place. Of course, Lycans were a normal treat for the Village people, but somehow, they respected the villagers, at least, most of the time. You, on the other hand, wasn’t born among those people. No, your essence was different, you were, in some ways, an outsider and because of that, the cabin people had their shares of nightmares with Lycans attacking their loved ones.

This time, it was about yourself. You heard the roars and your blood went cold. Actually, this sound was a more bestial than the usual, drier than the throaty ones Lycans usually make when calling the others. You were afraid it was a Vârcolac. You didn’t see it, but ran from the source anyway. Maybe you did a mistake, because instead of running to the Village, you took the path to the forest, to the abandoned cabins where you thought you could be safe.

You were hidden in the wreck of your old home. As suddenly as you got there, you knew you were doomed. The Vârcolac was nearby, you could hear its steps breaking through dead branches with a strength you tried not to imagine. You were cold sweating now, it arrived at the cabins and was sniffing around, searching for your smell. You were certain you smelled like fear.

For a moment there, it all went dead silent. Nothing moved, no noise was heard. But you knew it couldn’t have simply disappeared, the Vârcolac was more cunning than you expected. Then, out of nowhere, its huge, dark haired beast head was framed by the remnants of a window above you. The chimera opened its wide mouth, showing its sharp teeth and a terrible, profound roar resonated in your mind, your eyes hypnotised by the view of death coming.

You woke up panting, still feeling the hot breeze of its breath on your cheekbones. You didn’t notice where you were at first, too scared to even understand it was all a bad dream. Heisenberg, who had been sleepy by your side, watching you sleep, promptly sat up with your reaction, wrapping a protective arm around your belly.

“You okay there, sweety?” He asked, making you calmer as soon as you perceived his husky morning voice.

“I had a nightmare.” You confided, burying your face on his collarbone, using his scent to help your nerves.

“Wanna talk about it?” Karl wrapped you in his strong arms, pulling you to his lap as you instinctively hugged him.

“It was stupid, nothing special.” You tried to mask the real terror that consumed you minutes ago.

“Nah.” He clicked his tongue. “Nothing you say is stupid, buttercup.” For that, you smiled, resting on his intense grip.

“I was being hunted by a Vârcolac.” You finally confessed, feeling a bit ashamed of it, imagining that that man wouldn’t understand such human fear.

“Oh, Y/N, no need to be afraid, buttercup.” He smiled back at you; his adorable expression framed by messy grizzled hair locks. “Those damn things are far, you are safe. And I will never let them get any close to you, anyway.” He shrugged as if it was nothing for him to deal with.

Being held and told these words made you significantly less worried. Every obstacle for you seemed easier to Karl and he promised to take care of you. Of course, you wanted to be able to defend yourself and you could do that reasonably well, but with that sort of thing was a lot different. They were mutated beings and you were… Well, only human. In that manner, you felt safe with him, like that, resting in his arms, almost forgetting what had just upset you.

“Thank you, Karl.” You told his neck, pressing gentle kisses on his sweet spots surrounding his Adam’s apple, making him bit the interior of his cheek.

“No problem, kitten.” Heisenberg said, holding your chin with his free hand, making you rise your eyes and gaze at his bicoloured irises.

He leaned towards your lips, taking them in his, kissing you ever so passionately, you could melt in his warmth. You couldn’t get enough of his kisses. Feeling the scar on his bottom lip usually made you shiver, a sweet sensation flooding your entire form. He held you tighter, as if you would slip away at any moment. The man still incapable of believing you choose to stay there, with him, not once finding it a bad experience, as most people would by living in that factory.

You two have spent a lot of time together ever since the incident with the Soldat. At first, he was worried for you walking alone in the downer part of the building. He would check on you frequently when you were reading, listening to his records or even improving your bow, which he found fascinating. You would fetch him at his new office every now and then, maybe teasing him a bit to relax when he was working restlessly – not that you gave him enough time to rest with your recently discovered appetite for him.

He wasn’t too vocal with his feelings, but he made his best on complimenting you every chance he had. You were sure that spending most of his time alone made him a little awkward for that sort of intimate contact, but oh, he has been craving it so much since you set your foot on his factory. He tried to hide it, tell himself it would pass, however as the days went by, it only grew, making his chest rumble with his accelerated heartbeat every glimpse he had of your form.

Now he wouldn’t resist the temptation of falling asleep by your side as you cuddled him, tracing the lines of his scars so softly he would forget about the situations in which he gained them. You made everything cosier, even the daily choirs, the stressful works, if you were by his side, he would feel at ease.

He broke the kiss with a low groan. His eyes now had a starving sparkle enlivening them. Every since your first time with him, you were getting better and better on noticing the signs on his face when he wanted to have you, actually, when he neededto have you. And this time, the man was hungry, his heart desperately claiming your touch, his skin growing more sensitive the more time you spent on his lap.

“Damn, Y/N.” He whispered, bared teeth. “I swear you have some sort of power over me.” Karl proceeded to roughly kiss your jaw line, not certain if he wanted to press his lips on your skin or nip it. He did both.

“Oh, meine Hexe.” He chanted as he laid your back on the bed, you took the opportunity to envelop his hips with your legs, pressing his hardness against your pubic bone. “Meine frech Hexe.” Karl corrected himself, maliciously smirking at your action.

“Karl…” You moaned to his hoarse tone, aroused by his accent.

“What is it, Y/N?” He asked in a teasing way.

“I-I want you.” You cried for him.

“Already, sweetheart?” Karl giggled at your eager countenance, to that you could only nod, biting your bottom lip as he pressed his clothed hard cock against your bud through the thin fabric of your pantie. “What a thirsty whore you are.” He tormented you some more.

As Heisenberg pressed himself against you, doing nothing but rubbing both of your needy arousals for a moment, your hands found his forearms, digging your nails in his skin. He groaned, pinning your arms on the sheets, encaging you underneath him.

“Nah, nah, doll.” He denied you, clicking his tongue. “I like seeing you so desperate for my cock.” Karl leaned only to bite your bottom lip, almost until it bled.

“K-Karl, please.” You begged, moving your hips on his rod on, causing him to moan a bit.

“Argh, kitten, I need to taste you.” He stated, nothing else going on in his head but your flavours.

Karl made you take off his green shirt you’ve been wearing and left a trail of kisses down your abdomen, groping your breasts, pinching your hard nipples with his teeth and later pressing them in between his thumb and index finger. You whined with the contact, feeling a pleasant pinch of pain.

“Kitten, you are perfect.” He let out between his nips, going down on you.

His hands rested on you belly, securing you laying, helpless. He reached your waist line. Karl didn’t hesitate on tugging off your panties, irritated it was hiding the treasure from him. The man almost salivated at the sight of your juicy thighs, soaked due to his touches. Not being able to stop himself, his tongue ran along your clit, making you cry out.

It was only one lick, though, just enough for him to taste your sweetness, an appetizer. Heisenberg smirked at your sulky face, being denied of his tongue. He was interested on your thighs, squeezing them, licking the length until he got so close to your labia, but never really licking it, so you would moan desperately.

The man was going savage with your reactions. Drinking in every sound you let out, cute, tempting whines. He considered teasing you eternally just so he could keep listening, but your cunt was calling for him. He sucked onto your inner thigh, marking you as his. This was somewhat sore, but the warming sensation compensated it, leaving only pleasure to flood your brain.

“Look at the mess you making, kitten.” He commented, laughing at your state.

“All this teasing is gonna make me drown, Karl.” You managed to say in between moans.

“We will see about that.” Heisenberg defied.

As much as he would love to keep working on your thighs, Heisenberg was convinced a good girl like you deserved more attention on other areas. That was when you finally felt his warm, soft tongue on your clit. He wasn’t much gentle, oh no, Karl was starving, feeling his pre-cum slobbering his pants, but he already knew your sweet spots so well, being an eager student when it came to your body.

He was kissing and sucking onto your bottom, having you performing an opera of groans, his tongue making you spasm under the strength of his hands. He didn’t resist anymore, accompanying you with muffled moans, delighting himself on your slickness as he slipped down, on your entrance, licking all your juice.

“That is my good girl.” He called you, getting away from you pussy as he presented two fingers to you, resting them on your bottom lip, separating it from the upper one. “Suck ‘em, kitten.” Karl demanded and you obeyed with lusty eyes.

The sensation of your mouth around his fingers made his cock painfully throb, letting out a moan from him. He wasn’t done playing with you, though. Heisenberg led his fingers inside your cosiness, holding his breath as your walls clutched them, imagining how your pussy would perfectly accept his cock.

You were so wet, he couldn’t believe you got like that all because of him, but he loved it. Karl moved his fingers inside you, they formed a slight hook, reaching your G spot easily, making you cry out. It was starting to feel too much. Then he added his tongue. The stimulation on your clit plus the penetration was getting you closer. He knew it, feeling you squeeze his digits.

“C’mon, girl, come on my fingers.” He animalistic whispered.

You couldn’t hold on any longer, feeling too sensitive around his fingers, willing to come. Your orgasm had you spasming, your body reacting to what he had done to you, giving him a delightful spectacle. He only released you when he was certain you came all the way.

“Open up.” His slobbery fingers pressing against your lips again. You tasted yourself on him like that.

“I want you inside me, Karl.” You said as soon as you could.

“And you will have it, kitten.” He promised, his hands now working on getting rid of his pants.

It was an entrancing sensation to be free at last, his neglected cock feeling the chilly air, in despair to be inside your wet comfort warmness. He rubbed his tip on your clit, enjoying himself on your sounds and humidity. Feeling you like that was testing his limits.

Anytime away from your tightness was too much. Karl grunted with the friction, stopping abruptly. He looked you deep in the eye, the sweetest and hungriest of the looks, his needs for you almost overflowing there. Then he buried himself inside you, all his length easily accepted by you lubricated cunt, making the man groan. He never got tired of your insides, his now favourite place to be.

You took his dick so well, no matter how much it seemed to you, it fit perfectly. He just stayed there for a minute, enjoying the sensation of your walls clutching his cock, which was throbbing with any small friction provoked by minor movements of your hips. Heisenberg was driving you insane, filling you with every inch, so deep inside you.

Karl couldn’t help himself anymore. His teeth met your shoulder, biting hard, at the same time as he started rocking his hips, hitting your pleasure spots like he knew them by heart – and at that point he indeed knew. All you could do was groan with his thrusts, pinching his back with your nails, forcing him to be close, not a centimetre between you too.

His pace was getting feral, his cock coming in and just half out, never willing to let you go at all. You felt just too pleasant, flooding his mind with the sensation of your pussy embracing his length. You were a beautiful mess at that point, helpless with all he had you feeling. One specific angle made you more slick, leading Heisenberg to wail, his beard scrubbing your chest.

“F-fuck, kitten.” He cursed you. “Your pussy takes me so well.” He said, gripping your waist, making you feel him even deeper.

“Karl, you’re too deep.” You cried out.

“Oh, but you can take it, right, kitten? You love it, don’t you?” Karl had you rolling your eyes in delight.

“Y-yes.” You answered, feeling closer to your high.

He felt that, leading his thumb to rub your bud, not as fast as his thrusts, but enough to make you lose your mind, not sure how you could feel so good, but this man had you entirely given on his hands.

“Come to me, kitten, I wanna feel your cunt tightening me.” His wish was an order and so you came with his words, melting in his grip, your belly spasming, to which he smiled with satisfaction.

With you pressing him this much, so juicy, he was feeling himself coming near to his end. Heisenberg let your clit go, both his hands grasping your hips, burying himself in you, shoving his dick in. It hit you multiple times, directly on a special spot, making you shiver. He felt it against his cock as you swung for him.

He had to bit his bottom lip, sounds escaping his mouth anyway. Karl was almost there, you noticed, licking his exposed scarred chest to which he moaned even more.

“Give me it all, Karl.” You begged. “I need your cum inside me, p-please.” You asked, hit by another of his savage thrusts.

It was enough for him, Heisenberg let go, releasing himself inside you, filling you entirely with his delicious cum. You felt the warmth flooding your insides while you ran your nails on his sides. He rested his body on yours, not even thinking of getting out of your embrace.

“That was… Savage, buttercup.” He confided as you started playing with his sweaty hair, his head resting on your chest.

“I could say the same about you.” You giggled, his head moving so your eyes could meet.

“It is your fault you are so delicious.” He played back.

“Well, I can see why your house symbol is a horse.” You shrugged, making him laugh hard.

You two stayed on bed for a while, relaxing after the exercise. Your nightmare’s reactions long gone after the treatment Heisenberg gave you. You almost fell asleep with the man in your arms, only not doing so when he called you to the shower where he proved one more time he really couldn’t get enough of you.

#resident evil #re8 #karl heisenberg #re village #karl heisenberg x reader #resident evil 8 village #heisenberg #heisendaddy #heisenberg resident evil #resident evil viii #resident evil 8 fanfic #original post #resident evil village #re8 karl heisenberg #resident evil heisenberg #fanfic #re fanfic #the harvest

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withastolenlantern · 3 years

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What do you think it was like?” Rafael asked as he hacked at the tough vegetation with his hoe, pulling the dense vines into a pile in the pathway. The soil was nitrogen poor, even when heavily fertilized, and the local flora had a fibrous root that was always threatening to choke out their transplanted species. The ground cover was too thick for the harvesters to handle, so the crops were still pulled by hand at the end of the wet season.

“Why do you always ask that?” I said, stooping down to the ground and dusting the dirt from the now exposed potatoes, gently brushing them clear like an archaeologist might some ancient, precious treasure. I pulled the tubers from the ground and put them into the cart.

“You don’t wonder?” He leaned on the handle of the hoe, brushing the sweat from his dark brow.

“I try not to.”

“Come on, Shan. If I have to have one more meeting about soil nutritiation, I’m going to kill myself. And you’re down there all the time…”

“We’re not having this conversation again.” I hadn’t come out to the fields looking for a fight, but I was always prepared for one. “Stop changing the subject.”

He frowned. “Please don’t start.”

“I’m just saying. The season’s almost over, and we’re not getting any younger.”

He put down the hoe and knelt down next to me, lifting another potato and cradling it. He looked at me plaintively. “I just… are you sure this is what you want? To spend your life toiling in the dirt? I mean, your father…”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “My father is a drunk, and he has nothing to do with this.”

“He didn’t used to be. He might snap out of it. Some of them do,” he said. “I’m just worried you’ll get bored of me, of this. It’s not a glamorous life.”

“No, but it would be our life, Rafe,” I pleaded.

“One more season. The bureau is due to review the allotments soon, and I almost have enough saved up for a down-payment on my own forty.” He kissed me gently on the forehead, then stood, and stared up toward the sky and sighed. “You honestly don’t wonder? What it was like, knowing what was happening out there?”

I stood too, matching his gaze. I put my arm around his wrist and held it gently to my chest. “Come with me. I have to check on him, and then maybe you’ll see why I’d much prefer to farm potatoes with you.”

It had been one-hundred fifty-nine years since we’d last heard from anyone outside the system. The Network had gone down July 17th, 2938, or at least that’s what the history books said. And that is only if you went by the original Earth calendar, which no one did anymore. With a twenty-eight hour day and a rotation period of six-hundred seventeen days, matching time here on New Caledonia to that on Earth was pointless. With The Network, information would take an interminable time to transit the two-hundred eighty-four light year and four relay distance between us; even then, relativity was unclear on whether there was any such thing as simultaneous events at these stellar distances anyway. For me it was irrelevant: the Earth might as well not exist, may not exist, and Sol was just a very dim star you could barely make out in the southern sky.

For us, it had been a normal Sunday, Wet Season 12, CSY 134. New Caledonia is an eccentric planet with a single landmass in its northern hemisphere surrounded by a large planetary ocean. Because of its near forty-five degree axial tilt relative to the ecliptic, the year is divided into two seasons of nearly equal length. During the Wet Season, the more direct sunlight heats the seas, driving strong currents that bring strong storms to the western coast. The moist air blows in and dumps copious rain across the western plains before climbing into the central mountain range that separates the continent, the only remnant of the clash between the two gigantic tectonic plates that formed the land we now call home. This quirk of a jetstream leaves the eastern plains beyond the mountains in a giant rain shadow, barren and dry. For this reason, all the major settlements are here in the west, and in the Dry Season, the ocean gyres cease and we hunker down for a long, cold, arid winter.

The rains were strong that Wet Season, or so the stories go. At first they though the heavy cloud cover and unstable air was interfering with communication to the satellite arrays. Minkowski Transmission provides a supraliminal link through the interstellar void, but it was still subject to the space-time warps of a heavy gravity well; we are forced to rely on more pedestrian broadcast methods to communicate with the Network Relays out in longer orbits free from gravitational interference. But they checked the dishes and the transmission center and everything was fine. Then they checked again. Then they waited until the Dry Season, and checked again. And then they waited.

We walked up the path to the main road where I’d parked my truck, and Rafe loaded the cart, only half-full of potatoes, into the rear cargo bed. “How is he doing?” he asked, hopping into the cab and pulling on his safety belt.

I pushed the ignition switch and the engine purred to life. The battery chimed a plea that it needed to be recharged soon, and I felt that deep in my soul in a way the inanimate vehicle could never understand. “He has good days and bad.”

“How much longer?”

“Too long.” I put the truck into gear and programmed the destination into the navigational system. It lurched forward, the tracks catching slightly in the soft, damp clay of the plain. “Honestly I stopped counting a long time ago.”

We made it maybe half a mile before the rain started again, at first light pricks ricocheting off the windscreen of the truck, but quickly growing to fat blobs that exploded with a violent thud. I opened the valve to the distillation unit on the roof and a slow drip of cleansed water trickled into my canteen. After a few seconds I closed the valve and took a sip; the water was cool and clear. I offered some to Rafe, but he demurred with a slight wave. “Do you think he’ll go back to his career, after?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. At the beginning they said they’d welcome him back, but I think we all expect that was just a pleasantry. I’m… I’m not sure if he could handle it, now.”

We rode in silence for a few more minutes before he spoke again. “I’m not sure he’ll approve,” he said with subtle defeat. “Especially if he goes back to work.”

“He doesn’t get a say,” I replied. I reached across the seats and took his hand in mine. I smiled as brightly as I could in reassurance. “I’ve made my choice. This is what I want, for myself. For us. He can object if he wants, but what’s the worst that happens? It’s not like we can be further apart, not after what’s happened.”

It was several days into the Dry Season before the panic really set in. The original settlers had always known it was a one-way trip out here- four hundred years was a long time in stasis, and there was never a guarantee the planet would provide a sufficient fuel source to power the generation ship’s massive thrust engines back up. So like seeds in the wind humanity scattered itself across the stars, secure in the knowledge that the Network Relays would prevent them from ever being truly alone. Mankind might diverge physically and spacially; over time genetics and environmental factors would certainly breed out several new homo subspecies. But with the Network we could at least stay connected enough to share our stories, our art, our discoveries, and what else has humanity ever been but that?

The governor made an address and appealed for calm. New Caledonia had been self-sustaining since the beginning, she reminded everyone. They’d be fine. It was always a known possibility that this might happen, and the best everyone could do was to go on with their lives. The Network would come back, or it wouldn’t; they’d keep trying to re-establish communication.

The rumors started swirling immediately. The panel show ratings skyrocketed. We watched some of the footage in school, when I was younger; one talking head insisted it could be an alien threat, splitting us up before some pending invasion. There’s never been any sign of extraterrestrial intelligence even exists, let alone in competition for colonization, the other shouted. A third argued it was a sign from God, that humanity had outreached its grasp.

A popular conspiracy stream posited that maybe it was just New Caledonia. What if everyone else’s Network connection still works, and they’re cutting us out? The opposition party saw an opportunity and ran with it- what if the government shut down the link? On purpose! What if this was all a ploy to consolidate power and rule the planet as an oligarchy? The riots lasted three days, with violence and looting in the city streets before cooler heads prevailed. The government stayed in tact, and the opposition leaders were purged for fomenting insurrection. And thus was born the New Caledonian hermit kingdom.

“I don’t think I’d even want it to come back, at this point,” I groused. “Not after all of this.”

“How can you say that?” Rafe asked, incredulous. “You’re not the least bit curious?”

I thought for a moment. “Curious, yeah, I guess. But I don’t know that it would change all that much. It’s been so long. What if it comes back and it’s just… too different?”

“Yeah but think of what we might be missing out on,” he argued. “It might have helped with The Rot. It might have…”

“Don’t,” I warned, feeling the threat of tears welling my eyes.

For one-hundred fifty-nine orbits we’d tended our flocks and tilled our soils alone. Without a broader knowledge base, technological progress slowed. In CSY 204 a plague came, some meta-organic compound released from a pit mine dug too deep. The Rot claimed thirteen percent of the population before we could quarantine it out. When I was nine they finally found a way to inoculate against it. I remembered wincing at the shot as my father looked on, relief evident in his face that I’d be spared the fate that had claimed so many lives, including my mothers.

Maybe Rafe was right; maybe someone out beyond the stars might have helped us avoid that tragedy. And maybe someone here might know or do something that could save lives elsewhere. But in the years since the Network went down, we’d persevered, raised generations on our own. And inevitably just like Rafael they would stare up at the night sky with the same wonder as those before. And then they’d also ask about the abandoned broadcast center in the empty valley beyond the outskirts of the main settlement, grown over with the local moss-analogue from years of disuse.

The truck crested a small hill, the tracks struggling for purchase in the mud as they pulled the vehicle over the incline, and we looked down into the valley where that broadcast center sat. Every two years an adult was selected by random lot to man the station, in the increasingly unlikely event communication with the Network was re-established. The government called it “The Receiver” in an effort to present it as some important position, but everyone knew it was a joke. It came with no real benefits, just a small stipend and the obligation of a community. We all prayed at the Harvest Festival that our number would not be drawn from the bowl.

My father was a proud man, an engineer who helped manage the settlement’s geothermal power station. His luck had run out eight-hundred sixty-three days ago. He swore up and down that the lottery was rigged; that the government thought him being a technical expert instead of a field-hand, that the fact that his wife was gone and his children all grown, made him expendable. He might have been right, but that didn’t absolve him the responsibility. So he’d resigned himself, and us with him, to the doldrums of minding an interface that may never come back online.

He read a book a day, or at least he claimed, and while the library did have a fair amount of humanity’s literary efforts prior to the cutoff, their plots and concerns were divorced from life here on the frontier. He took up drinking, inevitably, as did everyone else assigned to the posting. What they don’t tell you when your name is pulled from the bowl is that the sacrifice is not yours alone- the burden is your family’s to bear. My brother’s and I took turns minding him, bringing him food and checking on his mental well-being but they all had families of their own now, and I was desperate to start mine too. We were all ready to move on, and I hoped by bringing Rafael with me he could see that I was serious about starting our life together.

We pulled up outside the comms center and dismounted from the truck.

“Hang on a second,” Rafe said. “I want to talk to him.”

I looked at him quizzically.

“Just… let me do this, okay?”

I smiled and kissed his cheek gently. He went inside while I unloaded a tote filled with fresh fruits and a sandwich I’d laced with some amphetamines to help keep him lucid. The interior of the building was dark; the lights hard burned out several months ago and no one from the government could be bothered to maintain the place on any expedited time scale. I brushed some of the local vines from the threshold of the entryway as I entered. “Dad? It’s Shan. I brought some food.”

As I passed from the mottled grey sunlight outside to the dark interior I could make out blurry figures backlit by the eerie glow of his reading lamp.. They were both standing, which was odd. Dad was usually in the chair when I visited, most of the time asleep.

Rafe emerged suddenly from the shadows and grabbed me by the shoulders. “Shan. Stop.”

“What is it?” I asked, taken aback. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s… here. Let’s go outside.” He pulled me gently but forcefully toward the door.

“What the fuck, Rafe, stop it. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s your dad. He…”

I shoved Rafael out of the way and stepped forward into the comm station. My father came into clearer focus, and I could tell immediately something wasn’t right. I came closer and dropped the basket to the floor in shock. His body hung limply, his feet swaying gently five centimeters from the floor. A length of electrical cord, half-stripped from the wall behind him, was wound tightly around his neck. I grabbed his feet and lifted, crying. “No no no no no, dad, fuck.” I pushed and contorted his body, trying to free him but to no avail. Tears were streaming down my face now, hot and wet.

I pulled a short table across the concrete floor and climbed up onto it, my vision blurred with anger and fear and sobs. I yanked at the cable, trying to unwind it, to free his body. I pulled and wrenched and screamed in desperation, banging on the overhead truss that supported it until I nearly broke my hand. I collapsed onto him, my hands around his shoulders, my face against his chest. His skin was cold and pallid. I was too late to save him.

“Shan.” Rafael stood in the entryway to the station. He offered his hand I took it gingerly, climbing down from the table and following him outside. He pulled me in close as I wailed. “I’m so sorry. I don’t…”

I pulled Rafe to the ground and cried for another few minutes, my chest heaving with agony. “It’s not your fault,” I whispered finally.

“It’s not yours either. You did the best you could.”

“I know.” I pulled the sleeve of my jumper up over my hand and wiped my eyes. “I think a part of me knew it would always end like this. It has so many times before. In a way it might be… I don’t know. Better? I’d always worried about what he would be like after.”

I gulped in air as my breathing stabilized. “Come help me get him down?”

“Sure,” he said, mustering a weak smile.

We went back into the station and looked upon him once more. He looked frail, fragile in a way he hadn’t before. Being alone this long, it just did things to a person. Rafael grabbed his feet as I climbed back up on the table. With Rafe bracing his weight I was able to loosen the taught cable and slip it free, and we lowered the body gently down to the table. He went out to the truck to get a bag to cover my father, and I stood silent vigil, until in the quiet I heard a strange humming noise from across the room. I turned and saw that the Network terminal screen was activated. “That’s… weird.”

I walked across and stood in front of the terminal, suddenly alive with activity. Rafe entered back in with the bag. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know. It’s not usually… on.” I leaned in close. “It’s displaying something.”

A line of dots and dashed appeared on the interface. “I… I think it’s old morse code. Dad had to learn it. I helped him practice.”

“What’s it say?” he asked, a sudden dread in his voice I didn’t recognize. I could feel my stomach welling up in anxiety as well.

“It says.... HELP.”

#was thinking about this again the other day #and then i expanded it to... this #i legit think this is one of the better short forms i've ever written #anyway screaming into the void etc

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five-rivers · 3 years

Note

If you're still accepting prompts I'd like to see where you take this one: Clockwork offers to save Adult!Valerie from the decaying TUE timeline by sending her back in time to the new one.

It was the end of the world.

Really, it should have been no surprise. The apocalypse had begun ten years ago. And yet-

Yet-

When that monster had disappeared, Valerie had let herself hope. Hope that she and the few other survivors of his latest attack could rebuild. That, perhaps, they could seek out other survivors from elsewhere in the world. That they could recover.

“What happened?” asked Valerie, staring at the gray-brown remnants of their crops.

“I don’t know,” said Star, wiping her hands on her overalls. “They were doing fine, before the, well, before the shield went down.”

“Do you think it’s some kind of disease from outside?” asked Valerie.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Star bit her lip. “It isn’t just the plants,” she said. “It’s the animals, too, and nothing that’s already been harvested is going bad, but...”

“The animals?”

“They’re sick,” said Star. “Vomiting.”

“Do you know if any people-?”

Star shook her head. “You’d have to ask a doctor,” she said. “But it reminds me of... Do you remember those ‘clean pig’ experiments?”

“Uh, not really?”

“Basically someone got the bright idea to kill off all the ‘germs’ on their pigs couple years back... But they killed the pigs’ gut flora, too, and you kinda need that to digest food.”

“Flora,” said Valerie. “As in plants.”

“Yeah,” said Star. “You see where I’m going?”

“Yeah,” said Valerie. “Crap.” At least they had plenty of reserves and food stores, and they would last longer now that there were fewer people.

Valerie refused to think about why there were fewer people too deeply.

“We’ll figure it out,” said Valerie, projecting confidence.

Star gave her a skeptical look. “No offense,” said Star, “but you aren’t a biologist. And most of our biologists are dead. Not to mention the labs.”

“I can go out and look for plants that aren’t affected, though,” said Valerie. “If this is a common thing out there, some of them have to have adapted, right? That’s basic evolution.”

“Maybe,” said Star, her mouth set in a grim line. “I’m not sure it works that way if everything dies, though.”

Valerie sat down on her hoverboard, hands gripping the edge to keep from shaking.

“What is that?” she asked, even though there was no one near to answer her.

The forest was gray and crumbling. The ground was spiderwebbed with something pulsing between lurid green and red, the red lingering longer than the green.

“What is that?” she repeated. Whatever it was, it stretched to the horizon. She looked up. It was in the sky, too.

“The end of the universe.”

Valerie whipped around, pulling out her weapons and leveling them at the ghost who had, somehow, managed to sneak up on her.

How long had it been since she had seen a ghost that wasn’t him?

“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want?”

The ghost smiled, the blue pseudo-skin around his eye wrinkling.

“I am Clockwork, and I am here to make a deal with you, Valerie Gray.”

“Are you causing this?” asked Valerie, jerking her head towards the wasteland.

“I do not control the Red Country,” said Clockwork, “nor its consumption of unmade worlds.”

“What?”

“You encountered the paradox yourself, Valerie Gray. This world is now never to be. And even if it could come to pass, there is no King in the Infinite Realms. No one to order it and guide it. And so, here as there, things fall apart. All of this was hanging by the most slender of threads.” The ghost gestured back toward Amity Park.

Valerie stared at the ghost. “I’m going to pass,” she said. Nothing good came of trusting ghosts.

“Very well,” said the ghost, acknowledging her decision with a nod. “If you change your mind, you need only call my name.”

It didn’t take long for the remaining humans of Amity Park to start feeling the affects of whatever had happened to the plants and animals. About the same amount of time as it took for the blight afflicting the land and the sky to come into sight of the city ruins.

It took just a little longer for the first person to die.

(Mikey, the last person left from Valerie’s class other than Star. His health had never been robust, but he had persevered through every other crisis.)

And a bit longer than that for Valerie’s resolve to break.

One hundred and forty-four. That is how many humans stepped through the ghosts portal, confident in nothing except that whatever the ghost was going to do to them was better than wasting away.

“Where are we?” asked Valerie. The sky was Ghost Zone green, but the landscape was almost earthly forests and fields.

“A better question might be when are you,” said the ghost, twirling his staff. “Which is about nine years ago, from your perspective, and in a different timeline.”

“A different-?”

“Daniel never went to Vladimir,” said Clockwork. “Nor did his parents die. This version of reality will never suffer from what you and yours did.” He smiled. “Here, you are ghosts of time and chance. What better place to make a new future for yourselves than the Ghost Zone?”

#danny phantom #ask #answer #prompt #prompt fill

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onwesterlywinds · 3 years

Text

Catspaw Blackmarket

Part of my Godhands series, set roughly in the year 1543 of the Sixth Astral Era - thirty-four years before Hydaelyn’s present-day, and fourteen years before Ala Mhigo’s fall.

GODHANDS IS NOW ON AO3! If you like it, send over some kudos!

"Get up, Ashley."

The voice tore him from sleep, and the accompanying nudge to his foot sent his dreams scattering. He lunged forward from his pile of discarded jackets, grasping for his bearings, only for something made of rough-spun fabric to collide with his face: a plain hempen bag, which fell into his lap as his heart pounded and his thoughts raced in confusion.

"Morning," said Élodie. She sauntered into his field of view, spinning a keyring around her finger - the key to the safehouse where he and Marco had taken up shelter. "We have to head to the Profondeurs right away, so the longer it takes for you to get up, the more we'll need to run on our way there."

It took him several tries to fully grasp what she was saying. "What the fuck?!"

"I'm serious. We're on a tight timeline, so you'd better come to life quick."

Absent was a teasing comment, or even an exhausted groan at his flank; sure enough, when he glanced around the safehouse, there was no trace of Marco where he had fallen asleep beside Ashley only a short while before. "Where's-"

Élodie set herself to tying back her long black hair into a simple bun. "He's getting your knives repaired in the Sprawl. We'll meet him there later, assuming our own work goes well, but he said I could borrow you for a bit. We talked it over right in front of you; you really slept through it all?"

"Ugh." He blinked and tried to rub the last remnants of sleep out of his eyes. "Yeah, I... I've just woken up."

"I hadn't noticed," she quipped. "So are you ready?"

He had half a mind to refuse to go with her as a matter of principle, to insist that she ask for his assistance before taking it for granted. But he would never deny Marco his presence, just as he had no good reason to deny Élodie whatever she needed now. His safety with her was no question: he had never seen Marco or Élodie lie to one another, and Marco would have put up much more of a fight if he'd left against his will. "Why the Profondeurs, then?"

"Listen, not to be an arse, but there's literally no time. If you're not coming with me, fine - but I need to make this happen or I'm fucked."

He staggered to his feet in his effort to quickly find his balance. With his knife in Marco's hands for repair and no other possessions to call his own, he needed scarcely any time to ready himself; still, he took a moment to stretch out his shoulders and breathe in deep before he gave Élodie a nod that was much more confident than he felt.

"Lead on," he said.

Were someone to ask him the way into the Profondeurs, Ashley would have thought himself capable of giving directions. Several times along their run, he recognized paths that led toward the deepest reaches of the Undercity: paths from which he had seen other Duskwights come and go, or crossroads that he had carved into his memory from piecemeal snippets of maps and muscle memory and directions spoken aloud. Élodie's chosen course skirted every one of those instincts, had him second-guessing himself and his position in the Undercity at every turn.

The two of them met with only a few others along their route - not deliberately going out of their way to remain unseen, but crossing just enough bypassers to avoid attracting suspicion. Only the final half malm of their journey was completed in solitude, as they traversed a narrow precipice jutting out over a deep and bottomless darkness below. Ashley made it more than halfway across before he realized what it was he faced, and just how near he was to some unfathomable end. From there, once their path widened, Élodie lowered her stance into an impossibly slow pace and Ashley followed her lead, treading with greater care even than when faced with the threat of falling to their deaths. He knew better than to ask the reason for their sudden caution. He traced out her footsteps with care until his calves ached from the strain of it, and yet his steps were as silent as hers. The quiet submerged him as surely as the darkness, until he heard, as clearly as if it came from somewhere deep within him, a series of low and steady clicks. They continued on; Élodie paused once, still crouched, to let out a deep exhalation of breath. He did not see when whatever danger they strode through had passed: Élodie simply rolled out her shoulders and resumed her usual posture.

"Right," she said, speaking as confidently as though their trek had not just demanded their utter silence. "We're here."

Élodie flicked open her lantern and blew out the candle. Whatever sound Ashley might have made to stop her died in his throat. He needed only to blink for his vision to adjust, and spots of deep gold bloomed into his view. The entire cavern shimmered as if lit by distant stars.

"Whoa," he breathed, despite himself.

She let out a rare snort of laughter but did not slow her pace. "It's called Jan's bloom. I need as much of it as we can gather. Here-" Her outline came closer, manifesting in the darkness more as the absence of gold than as any distinguishable shape. With one hand, she gently clasped his wrist; with the other, she passed him a new knife to replace the one Marco had taken for repairs, one with a dulled but even blade. "It should come right off the walls with this." Still holding him by the arm, she directed him over to the gold-speckled stone, where she held her hempen bag at the ready and ran her own knife along the cavern wall. With a light and tinny scrape, the moss fell easily into the sack.

"You take up that side," she instructed, and though he could not see where it was she pointed, he headed over to where the gold seemed to gather in the brightest clumps and she did not redirect him. The motion of scraping while holding the bag steady required somewhat more coordination than Élodie's example had made clear, but after only a few rounds of fumbling with the fabric, he set himself to work and soon fell into a rhythm marked by the almost melodic sound of metal against stone.

The moss gathered quickly in his bag, and the more of it he collected, the more his vision and hearing adjusted to his darkened surroundings. Soon every ilm of him, down to his bared nerves, responded to each and every stimulus: a subterranean breeze, a droplet of moisture from the cavern's high ceiling, even a reprise of the clicking they'd heard before summoned from somewhere deep in his mind.

"So, uh," he said at length, "what does this stuff do?"

"It's a deadly poison that kills Hyur on contact." He could not see her grin amid the darkness, but he did not need to; before he could even open his mouth to respond, she continued, "It has lots of different properties. On its own, it's a cure for sunlight headaches - or, if you steep it overnight along with some other herbs, it can help with anxiety. My aunt takes it, or else she doesn't get out of bed."

It was the first Élodie had ever spoken of her family. Rather than risk prying, he nodded, then remembered she likely couldn't see him in the dark. "So why do you need so much? Why bring me along?"

"It's... a long story."

"Élodie." His hand holding the knife stilled, hovering over a clump of Jan's bloom as thick as his thumb. "Come on."

"What?!"

"I'm just saying. I'm here because I chose to be. I'm just asking if I have any reason to worry."

For a while, she said nothing at all, but the sounds from her knife came faster than before. At last, she said, "Fine. I needed your help because this'll be my last time in the Profondeurs for a while. Maybe ever."

"Did something happen, or-"

"I really don't want to talk about it," she said. "Not right now, at least. How's your harvest coming along?"

He reached into his bag and gently pressed down on the moss he'd gathered. "Little under halfway full."

He did not hear her come up behind him until she breathed next to his ear. Her sudden proximity made him jump; he had not been so close to anyone except Marco for a long while. From somewhere near her neck, he thought he caught the scent of a vaguely earthy-smelling perfume.

"You're getting the hang of it," she said. There was no malice, no urgency in her voice. "Here-" She reached her knife arm over the top of his, coming up close behind him; she scraped her own knife along the underside of a small outcropping of rock, from which Jan's bloom growing in thick and lush clumps fell with ease into his open bag. She placed one of her hands on his elbow, as if to direct his arm holding his knife. "Open your mouth," she directed.

His face burned red in the darkness. "What?!"

"You'll be fine," she shot back, then adopted a teasing, singing tone. "Come on!"

He did as she instructed, waiting with his mouth hanging wide for at least a few seconds and feeling every ilm the fool, until Élodie placed a drop of Jan's bloom upon his tongue. It tasted like nothing he had ever tried before: bitter enough to make him nearly recoil at first, yet ending on a sweetness that reminded him of rolanberries.

"Don't worry," she said. "It's harmless like this - you can eat it right from the rock." Élodie demonstrated this by lifting the glint of her moss-laden knife to the height of her own lips. "Heat's what activates its properties. Put it in tea water, or leave it out on a hot day, and that's when it'll really start to kick in." She gave another look into the contents of his bag, then back up at him. "You look cute when you blush."

"Wh-"

"I can see way better than you in the dark, remember?" As he reeled at this newfound knowledge, she said, "Let's give it another quick go-around and then head out. I'd rather not have enough than risk getting caught here."

Élodie used the light pooling in her bag to find her matches. In the middle of her motion to reignite her lantern, she paused, bit her lip, and glanced back up at him.

"Thanks for coming with me," she said. Her voice held an unfamiliar waver. Then the lantern glowed anew, obscuring the Jan's bloom upon the walls once more - and as his eyes stung from the sudden brightness, he had the good sense not to comment on the tears gathered in her own eyes.

***

Ashley did not know when or where he had first heard tell of the Undercity as a child. He might have insisted he'd known of it for as long as he could remember, were it not for a string of nightmares he'd once had - of falling through cracks and haunted treasure and blades in the dark - that had forced his exasperated mother to sit awake with him for the better part of a week.

The Sprawl resembled those dreamlike fascinations more so than any other part of the Undercity he had yet seen. It was itself the closest thing the Undercity had to a city beneath the earth, with shops and dwellings crammed into close proximity under a low-hanging ceiling of stone. Most streets were only wide enough to permit a few people to pass, and blue lanterns illuminated the paths in lieu of a bright sky overhead.

Élodie scarcely bothered to conceal their harvest as she marched him through the narrow lanes. There was a pageantry to her carelessness: here, every step they took was under scrutiny, more so than even during their earlier journey in the Profondeurs. Together they passed conversations held at a whisper, children who halted to stare with open curiosity, curtains drawn and opened at random.

They ducked past a pair of green-robed Roegadyn and turned sideways down a grimy alleyway. There they arrived outside the Catspaw, a shop that to Ashley blended in with the rest of their surroundings, tucked behind a metal grate with a beaded curtain as its only defense. It resembled any other seedy apothecary one might have found in the Ala Mhigo, albeit with fewer wares on display.

"Wait here," Élodie said. "Don't talk to anyone, don't touch anything."

He might have protested at her lack of faith, were he any less exhausted, but the compounded fatigue of running and sneaking and secrecy were beginning to weigh on him. He merely held out his sack of Jan's bloom for her, and she took it with a wink.

Élodie pushed aside the curtain and the shopkeeper lifted his head to greet her. He was an older Duskwight man, though sturdy for his height; his grimy white hair was tied back from his shoulders in a low ponytail, and he offered her a smile full of perfectly straight teeth. They spoke together in tones too quiet for Ashley to distinguish words from, though the shopkeeper glanced his way more than once and Élodie often huffed and sighed and made a show of setting the two bags of Jan's bloom upon his seller's counter.

"Hey," came Marco from his left side.

Ashley let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding; his arms were crossed tight.

"How'd it go?" Marco asked.

"It..." Ashley shrugged, then figured Élodie's "don't talk to anyone" was unlikely to apply to Marco. "She's still in there, selling our haul. We were just about to go and meet you. What about the knives, did you-?"

"All set." Before Ashley could see that Marco had moved his hand, his friend slipped his newly resheathed dagger into his waistband at the left hip. "And I ran into Hazal, an old ally. She said she's got a job for us both, if you think you'd be up for some intimidation."

He made a noise before he could help it. When Marco gave him a look in response, he said, "Intimidation? We could scare the piss out of little kids, maybe, but I doubt we'd be anything but a nuisance to folk bigger than us."

Inside the shop, Élodie slammed her palm down on the counter with a bang, and he and Marco both jumped in alarm. "What do you mean, there's none left?!"

The shopkeeper appeared unfazed; if anything, his unctuous smile grew ever wider. "I mean precisely what I said," he drawled. "I've no more vera root for you. My supplier has doubled their asking price, and it's more trouble than it's worth to keep it stocked. Your attempts to blackmail me will not conjure what you need."

With a single breath, Élodie drew herself up to her full height. "How dare-"

"Do not think me a fool, Miss Fiel," the shopkeeper continued, still baring his perfect teeth. "It took all of a half a bell for word of your disownment to reach this street."

"I-"

"Allude to my relationships all you wish. Your juvenile gossip will not conjure vera root in my stores - nor will it make your dear Maman Hélène love you as before."

The words found their mark. At once Élodie stepped back, almost staggering, as though the shopkeeper had struck her. Ashley darted through the beaded curtain at once, sending its strands skittering against one another, and took up his practiced defensive stance between Élodie and the counter. Marco did not follow him inside but instead kept close watch at the entrance.

"You shut the fuck up," Ashley snarled.

"I need the vera root," Élodie sobbed behind him. "For a potion, it's-" My aunt takes it, or else she doesn't get out of bed. "Please."

Ashley unsheathed his newly repaired dagger, and the shopkeeper's sunken eyes followed the glint of its blade. "Tell me who your supplier is."

"Put that down, you pathetic, shitesucking little-"

"Tell me who they are. And if you lie, I swear I'll tear this place down."

Again the man's eyes darted to the blade lowered at Ashley's side, then to something on the shelves behind Élodie. "The Balam Ring," he said. "It's J'zhal Nunh of the Balam Ring. Now get out."

Élodie took in another unsteady breath from behind him. From the corner of his eye, Marco gave the most imperceptible of nods.

He opened his mouth to deliver one last parting threat to the shopkeeper but found his mind utterly blank. He resheathed his dagger with one hand, led Élodie out of the shop with the other, and made a hasty retreat with Marco into the shadows of the Sprawl.

"Well," Marco quipped. "At least we know you are up for intimidation."

"Oh, fuck off."

His friend only laughed. "I'm serious! That was amazing. And bloody terrifying."

Behind them, Élodie fell to her knees and wept.

"Hey." Marco's humor fled at once as he and Ashley rushed to her side. "Hey, now. We've got you."

They had to support her weight for the rest of their journey back to the safehouse. There, in their relative privacy, Marco gave her the last of their clean water and Ashley did his utmost to bundle her in the jackets they'd slept upon the previous night, but there was little else for either of them to do for her until the majority of her tears subsided.

"I'm sorry," she whispered at long last. Marco immediately shook his head, but she pressed on. "My clan's matriarch, Maman Hélène, she... she told me I wasn't allowed to go topside anymore. She was angry I've been learning alchemy; in my clan, it's something only married women do. She wanted me to marry her son and succeed her one day, but he's vile, and he's allowed to go topside whenever he wants, and... and it wasn't fair. So I left."

"Fuck," Ashley breathed.

"Wh-What?"

"You'd get kicked out of your family just for going up to the surface?"

Élodie heaved a shuddering, sniffling breath. "Our matriarch's word is law, Ashley. That's been our way, ever since the Gridanians drove us out of Gelmorra."

He had no response to that, and so he labored to wrap his thoughts around the enormity of what she was saying, and all that she was surely leaving unsaid.

"I d-didn't want you to think worse of me," she stammered. "Your family's been murdered, and Marco never had one to begin with." Her lip trembled, and the rest of her words fell out of her in a rush. "And I just left mine - all because I was too stupid and selfish to do the one thing asked of me."

"You're not," Ashley said. "You're not either of those things. And I'd never think worse of you for leaving a family like that."

"My aunt was depending on me," she sobbed. "She needs the tonic I make for her, and now... Now I don't know how I'll ever see her again."

"Listen," said Marco, gently. "This aunt's the one who raised you, right? The one who took you in after your parents died?"

Élodie nodded.

"She won't give up on you that easy. From everything you've told me about her before, I bet she'll find a way to see you. Even if she's stuck in bed for now. 'Sides-" He set a hand on Élodie's shoulder as it began to fall once more. "There's plenty of other Duskwights who live outside the clans, most of 'em decent enough. I bet you'll have them to look to. So this isn't the end, yeah?"

"Y-Yeah."

"And you've got us," Ashley added, then immediately wondered if he was jumping to conclusions. "If you'll have us."

She gave a heaving sniff and wiped at her streaming nose with the back of her hand. "It's good this happened."

"Yeah?" said Marco.

"Yeah. It means I can join you now, really join you, without putting a target on the others' backs. Now that I've no family to speak of, Blackram will have no one to go after. And I... don't have any more excuses to keep my head down."

Marco's eyes darted to meet Ashley's, and the same grave understanding passed between them. Without speaking another word, Élodie curled up beneath the bundle of fabric and laid herself down to sleep. Ashley huddled beside her, weathering her every muffled sob even as he kept his open eyes fixed upon the door - even as she wrapped her arm around his waist, and Marco draped his arm across them both.

#Godhands #Ashley Rosenheim #Élodie Fiel #Marco

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generaldisdainn · 4 years

Text

Mandatory Relaxation

Happy Kristanna Christmas in July @somecallmejohn !! I’m your secret santa! :D Your suggestion was Kristoff being a goofball and Kristoff and Anna spending the day together in canonverse, so that’s what I tried to do!!! There isn’t too much plot- just a sweet snapshot of their day spent together. :-) I hope you like it!!! <3 <3 <3

Rating: K

Pairing: Kristanna

Word count: 2780

Kristoff hated watching Anna spread herself too thin. He could always see it coming- the frantic energy, the tired eyes- it all pointed to her over-expending herself.

He knew that assuming the role of queen meant more responsibilities and less free time for the two of them to spend together, but he felt that lately she hardly had any time at all. She was a brilliant queen, and Kristoff watched the way she ruled with reverence every day. He whispered how proud he was of her into her skin each night as they cuddled close. But lately she had seemed so tired. She was doing too much all out of the goodness of her heart. A neighboring kingdom had been dealing with a food shortage, and Anna was working diligently to figure out a way to allocate food and supplies to this struggling kingdom while still making sure that her people were taken care of. It was impossible to make everyone happy in situations like these, and he knew how much she hated disappointing people.

She had finally come to a consensus with her advisors and the officials of the struggling kingdom, but the whole ordeal had left her tired and spent. He could tell in the way she carried herself, in the soft shyness with which her usually bright smile now tugged at her lips. It was why Kristoff decided to take it upon himself to help her relax.

***

Anna awoke in the morning to heavy eyelids and a sore back. Despite the general aches and pains, she noticed that she felt surprisingly rested. Her mind was agile and ready for the day. It was refreshing. She opened her eyes and stretched against the morning sun, noting the way in which it crawled higher up the wall than what she was accustomed to seeing. She jolted at the sudden realization. There was way too much sun for it to be the time she usually awoke.

“Kristoff, what time is it?” She glanced around the room in frantic search of her fiance. The bed next to her was empty. “Kristoff?”

Kristoff emerged from the bathroom and made his way over to the bed, a soft smile splayed across his face. “Morning, beautiful.” He reached over to embrace her, lips pursed to place a gentle kiss on her temple, but Anna pulled away, tugging at the covers and moving to get out of bed.

“What time is it?”

“Sometime around noon,” he admitted sheepishly.

“What?! Kristoff, I had a meeting at 8 this morning! Kai was supposed to wake me up hours ago!”

Kristoff placed a hand on her arm to still her sudden movements. “Hey, easy feisty-pants. I called off your meetings today.”

“You what?”

Kristoff took a breath. “Anna, you’re exhausted. You haven’t had a break in weeks. You’ve been doing so much, and you know how proud I am of you, but you really need a break.”

Anna hummed thoughtfully. The anxious stutter of her breath calmed as she looked at the soft brown of her fiance’s eyes. She realized she suddenly had nowhere she needed to be. Relief washed over for a moment as she relaxed into his touch.

“Besides, I’ve missed spending time with you,” Kristoff added. He placed his lips to hers and she smiled against him. She loved the feel of him in the mornings- scratchy stubble and soft lips bringing her eagerly into her day.

“So everything’s cancelled for today?” she finally asked after they pulled apart.

Kristoff nodded.

“And no one’s upset?”

“No, Anna, not at all. Kai and Gerda thought that this was a great idea and were actually really excited. And they said everyone they talked to understood.”

Anna nodded slowly. “So we have a free day together then?”

Kristoff smiled and took her hand. “It’s all ours.”

***

They picked fruit from the garden for a late breakfast, letting the juice from nectarines run down their chins and kissing the remnants of the fruit off of each other’s lips.

“We should do a picnic for lunch,” Anna suggested.

Kristoff nodded in agreement.

“I can have the cooks make something for us,” she said.

“I have a better idea.”

Kristoff led Anna into the town after grabbing a picnic basket and money from the castle. He intended to walk through town with her and purchase food for their picnic from the townspeople. He held Anna’s hand as they walked down the castle steps. He guided her, holding her as she held up the flowing fabric of her skirts to walk into the square. She was stunning. Her hair glowed in the warm rays of the sun.

He brought her to stands and carts where people sold fresh foods and hand-crafted items. Kristoff bought food for their basket as they went. He tipped each person generously. One of his favorite things about being a part of the royal family now was having the means to tip so generously. When he was a young ice harvester, he never had enough to tip at all, let alone well. He always wished he could give more, and now he had the means to do so.

Anna stopped and spoke to people in the bustling square as they made their way through the crowds. People were excited to see the two of them. Anna was adored for her endless grace and kindness, and Kristoff had even become a town favorite with the kids as he let them take turns riding on Sven and often told them stories about adventures in the mountains and tales of large ice golems in far away ice palaces.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been out here. I forgot how much I love it,” she said to him as she swung her arm with his. They had made their way out of the main center and walked along the water at the pier, boats lining the shore with pride. Anna walked on a small ledge right next to the water and he held her as she balanced. “Look at how happy everyone is.” Anna sighed as she looked towards a group of kids who were playing some sort of made up game. They looked so happy, so carefree.

“You know, you play a big part in that.”

“In what?”

“In helping make everyone feel so happy here.”

Anna blushed. “So do you, you know. I don’t think I tell you enough, but I’m so proud of all that you’ve done. I know you don’t always like the whole royal thing,” Anna straightened his collar and ruffled his hair. “But you’ve brought so much to Arendelle.” He truly had. She meant every word of what she said. He was the driving force behind building Arendelle’s first orphanage. He lead ice harvesting trips and taught the kids how to care for the reindeer.

Kristoff rubbed a hand at the back of his neck and fumbled with something to say. He still found himself getting tongue-tied when he received such genuine compliments. He was always caught off guard by the way his heart would take flight at her kindness.

His fumbling was interrupted by the kids who were now barrelling towards the two of them.

“Kristoff! Queen Anna!” the youngest of the group cried.

“Hey, guys!” Kristoff smiled. He immediately recognized the group from hanging around the stables. He knew the youngest boy as Bjorn- the one who was always asking for a ride on Sven.

“Kristoff, I’ve been practicing the song you taught me!” Bjorn began humming a gentle tune.

Anna gave Kristoff’s hand a squeeze.

“I can never get that last part,” Bjorn grumbled as he faltered on the last section of the tune. “Can you sing it for me?” The other two boys lit up at the suggestion.

“Maybe some other time,” Kristoff offered. “I don’t have my lute on me.”

Bjorn gasped and scampered off suddenly.

“You’ve been singing to them?”

Kristoff shrugged. “Sometimes in the stables. They like to help me out in there.”

She had heard him sing many times, but she didn’t know he’d been singing to the kids in the town. Her heart swelled.

Bjorn returned with a lute in his small hands. “It’s my dad’s! Please Kristoff?” The other two boys clapped excitedly and gathered around Kristoff as Bjorn pushed the lute into his hands. Anna smiled and sat down next to the boys.

“Alright Kristoff, you heard the boys. You have to play. Queen’s orders.”

Bjorn giggled at that.

Kristoff smiled and shook his head at his fiance. She was sitting like an eager child, legs criss-crossed and hands propping her head as she gazed up at him with eager eyes.

He began strumming softly. Anna could tell he was a bit nervous. She knew he was more used to playing for their little family or in the stables, but not in the open like this. But it was just her and the boys on the pier. She could see him start to ease into the song.

Anna watched as he sang. He had a beautiful voice, something she always found herself learning all over again whenever he used it in song. He sang about a beautiful girl who rescued her sister and then saved a forest, a girl who was so deeply loved by a wandering man of the mountains.

***

They made it out to a secluded spot in the woods together. The trees dappled the ground with spots of sun and shade. It wasn’t too far off the beaten path. It was within walking distance of the town, but it was still off the trail just enough so that they were alone amidst the birds and the whispering of the wind through the trees. They shared breads and cheeses and stories and dreams. Anna watched Kristoff talk. She was in awe of the way his face glowed in the spotted sunlight, his hair shining in neat tresses.

“Here- tilt your head back like this, but make sure to keep your eye on my hand.” Kristoff instructed Anna as he posed to throw a grape into her mouth. He had offered to teach her after he had shown off his own ability in catching them. “Ready?”

“This is stupid,” Anna replied, although she stayed in formation.

Kristoff geared up and threw a handful of five, hitting her in multiple different places on her face. “You didn’t catch a single one!”

“You cheated!” Anna tackled Kristoff to the ground in mock anger. She collapsed on top of him with bubbling laughter and he held her close, breathing her in and feeling her warmth on top of him.

They laid like that for a moment, breathing and laughing together. Kristoff looked up at the tree-covered clearing and let out an easy breath. He felt so at home.

Anna clambered off of him and patted her lap. “Lay down- I want to play with your hair.”

“Hmmm you’re going to have to pay money for that. My hair doesn’t come for free you know.”

Anna rolled her eyes. “Just get over here, silly.”

Kristoff laughed and laid his head in Anna’s lap. She strung flowers in his hair. They were full of good food and laughter. He smiled contently as she ran her fingers through his locks, putting another flower carefully into place.

“Sing for me?”

“You sound just like those kids,” he teased.

“Can you blame me? You have a beautiful voice.”

Kristoff opened his eyes and looked up at her, her face softening into a smile. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” She placed a hand on his cheek and he leaned into it. It was soft and small and warm.

He hummed a gentle tune as she worked.

***

“You know, we’ve been so busy we’ve hardly gotten to talk about our wedding,” Kristoff mentioned as they walked back to the town from their picnic.

“I think we should have two weddings.”

“Two?”

“Well, a more traditional one of course for all of the stuffy dignitaries and ambassadors, but also a special one with your family.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Kristoff, of course. And it wouldn’t be just for you. I want that too. And I know the Northuldra would come to that one.” Kristoff thought about Anna professing her love for him underneath a night sky, draped in a mossy cape. His heart swelled. “Do you remember when your family tried to marry us after we had just met?”

Kristoff laughed at the memory. It was the first time he really felt him start to fall for her, her radiant smile illuminated by the gems on her headdress and cape. “That was so embarrassing.”

“I thought you were cute. I know we hadn’t known each other for that long and that I was technically engaged to Hans at the time,” they both made a face at the mention of her ex-fiance, “but I think that was when I first started liking you.”

“You mean you like-like me?” Kristoff asked in mock surprise.

Anna stuck her tongue out at him. “Like you didn’t like-like me then too. You came back for me in the middle of a snow storm.”

Kristoff’s eyes got serious for a moment. He reached out to take her hands in his and held them there, stopping their walk to look at her with sincerity. “I would do that all over again for you. I never want to lose you.”

“I know, Kristoff. I’m right here. I love you.”

“I love you too.” They shared a look in mutual understanding. It wasn’t something they spoke about often, but they both still dealt with the fears of losing each other after enduring life-threatening adventures. Every once in a while they needed to remind each other that they were there- that they were okay.

“So two weddings, huh?” They began walking again. He looked down at her with a smirk.

“Yup! Is that too much pressure for you? Are you thinking about pulling out now?” she challenged, a playful gleam in her eyes.

He knew she was joking, but he couldn’t help but answer with sincerity. “Never.”

***

Anna read before bed that night for the first time in weeks. What used to be a nightly ritual had become something of a broken habit that she now hoped to get back into.

Kristoff came out of the bathroom and approached the bed much like he had that morning, arms outstretched and leaning towards his fiance, but this time, she didn’t pull away. She closed her book and nestled into his arms, leaning against the wide expanse of his chest. It was still early in the evening. Usually she would be coming in from a long day of work and head straight to bed, but tonight they felt as though they had all the time in the world. She felt relaxed and at peace as he ran his fingers through her hair. She had taken it out of its braids and it fell down her back in gentle waves.

“Thank you, Kristoff.”

“For what?”

“For everything. For today. I really needed this.” She felt his lips on the top of her head, felt him nestle into her hair and inhale deeply. “I’m going to do this more often.”

“Like take days off?”

Anna nodded. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’m right here. And whenever you need another day off just let me know. I’ll beat up anyone who tries to meet with you.”

Anna snorted in laughter. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

“Imagine you punching a dignitary,” Anna said with a chortle after a moment of silence passed between them. Kristoff laughed alongside her at the thought.

They fell asleep that night in each other’s arms, sleeping peacefully not because their day was filled with meetings and large decisions, but because their day was spent with laughter and sunlight and music.

Anna awoke that next morning with no aches or pains, no groggy feeling in her head or weights on her eyelids. She awoke to Kai like usual, but for the first time in a while, she took an extra moment to snuggle up to her fiance, to plant a gentle kiss to his temple, and breath him in before going about her day.

#kacij2020 #kristanna #frozen #kristanna christmas in july

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agoodgoddamnshot · 4 years

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Hey, Little Songbird - Geralt/Jaskier [G]

Gif isn’t mine.

Originally posted to my AO3 account.

The sun perches higher in the sky with each day that strolls them further into summer. Even the biting winds that would tumble down from the mountains, the last remnant of a bitter winter, are being chased away. If a breeze does blow through, it’s always warm. It doesn’t prickle his skin. As he walks along the dirt roads, the ground is firm and sure beneath his boots. He doesn’t fear of treading into a puddle or getting his feet wet and cold, unable to warm them with a fire that probably wouldn’t have started because of the howling winds.

But now, Jaskier tilts his head back and feels the sun on his face. Farmers are out in their fields tending to their animals and their crops. Green grass and fields lined with a growing harvest spread out, reaching for the horizon. Life has returned to the continent.

His lute is slung over his shoulder, swaying with how he walks. He’s like the rest of those living on this stretch of land. Sunlight warms his blood. It makes him giddy and inspired. The next town is only a few more miles of a walk. He wouldn’t have even bothered travelling a couple of weeks ago, when the roads were waterlogged and the air bitterly cold. But when the first of the daffodils started sprouting their buds along the long stretches of road, everyone knew that spring wouldn’t be far behind.

The days have been getting warmer. It’s been steady, but Jaskier knows by the middle of the year, the sun will perch and stay there for hours on end, scorching everything and everyone underneath it. It’s a fine line the world treads, trying to find a good balance between being not too cold and not too warm, for the benefit of the people living on it and off of it. Whatever forces are at play in the making of the weather seem to be doing well so far; but Jaskier has lived through some excruciating seasons.

By the time he gets to the next town, a fine sweat starts speckling along his brow. Everyone milling around seems to be the same. Men wander around in their loose linen shirts and breeches, while women cover their heads with light shawls. Market stalls line the streets with wares already stacked in front. Vendors call out to those passing through, offering small free samples of produce. Those selling silks and cloth hold out segments for people to touch. Jaskier’s pockets are light on coin; nothing a short performance in a tavern won’t fix.

People are merrier when the weather is kind. When he picks a tavern’s table to serve as a stage, when he strums the opening chords of the songs he wrote during the spring, people smile and sing along with him – or as best as they’re able to, with the tankards of ale and wine flowing. A good summer means plenty of barrels of grapes and barely.

The summer becomes excruciating. It holds nothing over the summers of the south – not the south of this continent, but beyond the expanse of Nilfgaard. Not that Jaskier has ever been that far south, of course. Nilfgaard stretches on for leagues, and to the best of his knowledge, there are no maps of anything further south. But he imagines oceans of sand and rock.

It’s too hot to travel, so he holds up in Cidaris – with the only real problem being that he has to spend his days listening to the droning tones of one particular troubadour echo throughout the entire city. Even when he ventures out from tavern to tavern, the troubadour’s voice is always grating against his ear.

He’d rather lie down in the middle of the road and let himself wither underneath the sun.

But as he’s standing out in the middle of the street, counting coppers for a small bag of apples and considering letting the summer sun prune him, he spots a familiar sight out of the corner of his eye.

“Geralt!”

The Witcher stops mid-stride, looking towards Jaskier. His expression, outwardly, doesn’t change much. But Jaskier has known him for too long to know the little tells of an Annoyed Geralt to a Not-So-Annoyed Geralt. The Witcher is much like the rest of them; his hair pulled into a messy bun, out of his face and neck, and wearing one of the light black shirts Jaskier so often used to see him in.

Jaskier palms the coins in his hand. “What are you doing here?”

Geralt gestures vaguely to a wooden notice board fixed to the side of a nearby building. “Monsters don’t let up just because the weather is nice,” he explains simply. When he starts walking towards the board, Jaskier follows.

The last time he’d seen the Witcher was before the last of the crops were hauled in. It was what they usually did; both of them wintering in their own ways. What it was, exactly, that Geralt did, or where he went, Jaskier could never find out. When a Witcher’s most used word is not a word at all, but a grunt, one learns to stop awaiting answers to questions.

They always find each other after being parted for some time. Even with the Continent being as sprawling as it is, their roads will eventually cross one way or another. Geralt takes the offered contract, and Jaskier follows. There’s a griffin nest nearby, apparently. “I heard about that,” Jaskier hums, rolling up his shirt sleeves. Heat scalds the cobbles beneath his feet. “A few sellswords who were staying in the Red Arrow Inn went to investigate.”

Geralt hums. “Did they come back?”

Jaskier blink seems to be enough of an answer.

He finds out quickly that Geralt is just as crotchety in the summer. Maybe it’s the heat, or the swells of people insisting on packing themselves into every street and road they can find just to mingle, but Jaskier doesn’t get much in terms of conversation as he trails after the Witcher.

Not even an order to stay behind, because it’s a griffin, and those things are fierce beasts.

Jaskier does stop underneath a grand oak tree, though. The overarching branches full with lush green leaves provide a shield from the sun overhead. “I think I’ll stay here while you...do whatever it is that you do,” he waves his hand towards a nearby hill where the griffin is supposedly nesting.

Geralt looks over his shoulder and grunts. He holds out Roach’s reins. “Try not to get her killed. Or I’ll kill you.”

The mare has grown used to him. Now, she only tries to nip his fingers when he tries to lead her underneath their shelter, instead of kicking out for his shins. “Come now, you dame,” he sighs. She comes with him easily enough, recognising that standing underneath a tree’s branch, catching passing cool breezes, will be something better than facing off a griffin.

It takes Geralt almost two hours to come back to them. Roach is the first to notice him returning, pawing a hoof into the ground and nickering softly. Jaskier looks up from his lute, fingers stilling over the strings.

Jaskier’s eyes widen slightly at the sight of the Witcher returning; he carries a slight limp and a smattering of blood across his face and arms. Clutched in one of his hands, a griffin’s head swings with every footfall.

Jaskier’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out for a while. “You’re covered in blood,” he notices as soon as Geralt gets closer. The front of his black shirt is drenched.

Geralt gestures to the griffin’s head. “Most of it isn’t mine.”

“Most of it?” Jaskier narrows his eyes. Huffing a sigh, he clambers to his feet. “Come on then; we’ll get your pay and get cleaned up.”

The year trudges by. The sun doesn’t let up. When Jaskier does move between towns, he watches farmers in their fields, tossing buckets of water over their crops, trying to keep them hydrated and green. The celebrations of harvests keep going, though. And where there are celebrations, there will be Jaskier with his lute in hand. He doesn’t see much of Geralt during the rest of the summer, but he does hear whispers about the Witcher’s adventures from patrons of taverns and inns.

He had a nursemaid when he could barely reach his mother’s waist. She told him a story once, when they were out of ear-reach from his parents who probably wouldn’t have appreciated elven tails being spoken of underneath their own roof. But Jaskier always listened intently, letting his imagination run wild. His nursemaid spoke of gods who loved each other, but couldn’t be together. They found a way, of course. They always did. It wouldn’t be much of a story if they didn’t. But Jaskier remembers his nanny’s face turning serious for a brief moment; harsh summers make for harsh winters. Even when the world seems out of balance, one thing must always equal another.

So when the summer gets hotter, and the grass and trees turn yellow and threaten to catch fire, he worries that their winter will freeze the continent over completely. He doesn’t worry for himself, so much as he worries for those who live off of the land. How will people ration their crops if it withers away during the summer? How will those living outside of city walls cope in their cabins and shacks, where one strong gust could blow it away?

The transition is spent worrying. Niggling thoughts in the back of his mind flare up whenever he feels a cool breeze nip at his skin. The sun still sits in the sky. Clouds are still wisped along the blue sky. But everyone knows that winter will be upon them if they’re not careful.

Toussaint is quiet. Jaskier’s fingers pick at the strings of his lute. He’s sung his summer songs. Other bards in other towns have been left with their echoes. Oxenfurt would be the best option. A city of sturdy walls, well stocked with food and wine. The Academy would have his accommodation still held on to. All he needed to do was start his trek there; weather keeping good, that is.

But whether it’s his own time management or something else entirely, Jaskier looks out one of the tavern’s windows one day and sees a greying sky. He blinks. Not a single cloud had been seen for most of the summer. But now, he wanders over to the window, peering at the sky, it’s starting to look bleak.

“Fuck,” he says under his breath.

The trees hardly had a chance to turn red and yellow before their leaves litter the sides of roads and pile up against buildings. Shop windows, that would have been open, are now barred closed. Down every stretch of road, Jaskier is accosted by a shrill breeze of cold air. He swears sometimes it whispers to him; telling him that he needs to move. Where he needs to move to, he doesn’t know. And it never tells him. But just move.

His arms are full of bread and portions of dried beef when he spots Geralt again. The transition seems to have treated the Witcher a bit better; Jaskier notices a new cloak draped over his shoulders, with a woollen thin blanket pulled over Roach’s hindquarters. The mare’s winter coat is starting to come in, if her feathered ears and fetlocks are anything to go by.

Jaskier wanders over. “I thought you would have gone to your keep by now,” he says as soon as he’s close enough. Roach spotted him coming, the mare’s ears twitching forward at recognition.

Geralt cinches up the girth to her saddle. “I thought you would have gone to your academy by now,” he fires back, checking on some provision bags attached to the saddle.

Roach nudges Jaskier’s arms. A loaf of bread almost goes to the ground, but he manages to catch it. “Yeah, I,” he clears his throat. “The weather caught me out, unfortunately.”

It’s only then does Geralt turn to look at him. Yellow eyes drop down to the food-laden in Jaskier’s arms. “Where are you staying then, if not the academy?”

Jaskier shrugs. “Here, I guess. I don’t want to risk trying to get anywhere else.”

Geralt’s frown only deepens. Toussaint is a nice town, but it’s built for warmer weather. People don’t winter well in places like Toussaint. Especially people who can only live night-by-night in taverns and inns, which Jaskier is going to have to do—

“I’m going to Kaer Morhen,” Geralt says stiffly. “Come with me.”

Jaskier’s mouth falls open, but he’s quick to shut it. Geralt holds his gaze. “I’m...what?”

“Would you rather spend your winter here?” Geralt’s voice hardens. “Out in the cold with ravens watching from the trees, waiting for the first of the starving or sick to drop?”

And he’s seen it all before; winters were he didn’t make it to Oxenfurt on time, winters spent weathering out howling winds in shabby road-side inns and taverns. His bones shiver at the memory of it.

Something must give away his answer. Geralt hums and turns back to Roach, doing up the last of her bridle. “It will be a long walk,” he says, “but if we go now, we’ll get there before the snow starts.”

Jaskier frowns. The winds have already started to nip at his skin. All the clouds need to do is turn grey with rain, and they’ll have feet of snow in no time at all. But Jaskier nods. He knows that the keep is a province away, and a trek up the mountain. They’ll need to move before the weather turns too cruel.

It’s something he never thought about when he left to explore the world; relying on the weather to be kind to him was something he had to quickly learn.

He’s heard stories of Kaer Morhen; whether or not any of them are true, he has no idea. But none of these stories have come from Geralt, so he can only assume that they’re full of shit.

He follows the Witcher on the path back to the keep. Geralt seems to know the way as if the wind just carried him along. Not once does he look up at wooden posts point in the directions of towns and other settlements. He keeps his eyes on the horizon and just keeps walking.

When they reach the foot of the mountain, the wind starts to change. Geralt lifts his head, squinting at the dark skies above them. Roach shakes; her winter coat keeping her warm, but it’s useless against any rain or snow that will fall if the clouds continue to grow heavier and heavier.

“It’s going to rain,” Geralt says after a time. He tugs at Roach’s reins. “There’s an inn nearby.”

And the innkeep lets them have the room for nothing. He’s an old man with a weathered face and pearl white hair. When Geralt steps into the tavern, the man nods towards the staircase and goes back to polishing a tankard.

There’s a hearth in the room, already lit and laden with wooden blocks. A large bed sits in the middle of the room, woollen blankets and throws and fur pelts sitting at its foot. When his eyes fall on a bathtub with hot water already in it, Jaskier’s bones groan. “You wouldn’t mind if I...?” he trails off, gesturing to the tub.

Geralt regards him for a moment before shaking his head. He stalks off to the other side of the room, resting both sheathed swords against the wall before pulling off his cloak and the heaviest of his armour. Jaskier bites the inside of his cheek, but turns for the bath.

There’s a slight chill to the room when he gets rid of his own clothes, folding and setting them nearby while he dips his hand into the water. And he just about swallows a moan at the warmth of it. There’s a faint scent of oats and lavender, and Jaskier can’t get into the bath quick enough.

Geralt pads around the room, tossing some of the blankets on to the bed and arranging his own side. Jaskier watches him out of the corner of his eye.

This isn’t new; sharing a space. In all the summers he spends with the Witcher, he finds them sharing the same bed for the most part. Though most staying in taverns and inns will be in good spirits, and laden with coin, sometimes gold is scarce, and can only stretch so far.

But it doesn’t stop the tips of his ears from warming. This is new; sharing winter with Geralt. The thought of what the keep will be like circles his head – as does the wonderings of what the other Witchers will be like. Geralt rarely speaks about the others; but Jaskier managed to wrangle out a few names from the Witcher.

He lowers himself deeper into the tub, letting the water lap against his chin. The room is quiet, with nothing but the hissing and sparking of the hearth’s fire to break it. Even Geralt is silent, lying on the bed, head turned towards the other side of the room.

Jaskier hums.

His nursemaid’s voice, decades-old now, whispers into the shell of his ear. He can remember her words as if he were still a boy held on her lap, lulling to sleep listing to sleep with songs and stories.

The lady loved him and the kingdom they shared But without her above, not one flower would grow So the King agreed that for half of each year She would stay with him there in his world down below. But the other half, she would walk in the sun And the sun, in turn, burned twice as bright Which is where the seasons come from And with them, the cycle of the seed and the sickle And the lives of the people And the birds and their flight—

“Even your thoughts are loud, bard.” Geralt’s voice cracks through the silence. “You’re thinking about something. What is it?”

Jaskier pushes himself out of the water slightly, resting his arms on the edge of the tub. He can blame the growing blush on his cheeks on the water. “Nothing.”

Geralt grunts. “Either come out with it bard, or quieten your mind.” When Jaskier glances over to the other side of the room, he blinks as he sees Geralt lying in the bed, blankets already pulled over him.

“Did you ever hear the tale of how the seasons came to be?” Jaskier asks.

Geralt hums.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. A nursemaid told me about it,” Jaskier says. “It’s a sweet tale. There’s not many of them, particularly where folktale is concerned. But I always liked that story. Two gods being in love with each other, not wanting to be apart, and the weather suffered for it.”

The room is silent for a moment. “Did your nursemaid tell you that one of the gods tricked the other? Got the poor girl to eat food of his world, damning her to stay there for certain parts of the year?”

Jaskier clicks his tongue. “Yes, that is a version of it.” Jaskier huffs. “You’re so old that you were probably there witnessing the entire thing. What were they like, the gods? Did you know them well?”

It earns a light laugh out of the Witcher – a sound that always sends a thrum of heat through Jaskier’s veins. “Why are you thinking about stories like that?”

“The weather hasn’t been right in the last few years,” Jaskier says. “A few people in Cidaris were talking about it; saying maybe it had something to do with the gods.”

“Never took you for being superstitious.”

“I’m just noticing, that’s all.” The water is cooling and gooseflesh prickles his skin. Outside the window, he spots the sky turning black, and the moon making a valiant effort to fight through a cover of clouds. When he stands, he tries not to groan at the chill that runs over his body. Grabbing a towel, he dries off quickly. His clothes are clean, if not for the light sheen of dust from the road; something solved with a quick shake out.

By the time he pads over to the bed, slipping beneath the blankets, he fears Geralt might have fallen asleep. The Witcher is still, with even long breaths filling his chest. But the second Jaskier’s head meets the pillow, the Witcher turns on to his side to face him.

“I don’t know what’s happening with the seasons,” Geralt rumbles, “but Kaer Morhen is open to the friends of Witchers.”

Geralt doesn’t even open his eyes. Jaskier stares at him for a moment. “Are you admitting that I’m your friend?” A slow smile pulls at the corners of his lips. “Because if you are, I’m going to need you to confirm that. In a full sentence. And, if possible, could I have it in writing?”

“I don’t want to come down from the keep one spring and see you dead on the side of the road,” Geralt mutters. When he does open his eyes, Jaskier has to stop himself from inhaling too quickly at how wide the Witcher’s pupils have become. “The keep will shelter and feed you for the winter.”

Jaskier swallows. “Why?”

“Because,” Geralt sighs, eyes slipping shut again, “you’re important to me.”

And a shiver wracks through him. Not one he could blame on the cold. The burning hearth and the small mountain of blankets and furs covering the bed shelter him from the cold. But this is different. Warmth settles in his core. A smile breaks out along his face. “You’re important to me too,” he rasps, hoping that, even though the Witcher’s eyes are closed and he’s sinking further into the mattress, he can at least nod off knowing that Jaskier said what he said.

Because gods be good, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to say it ever again; not when Geralt’s glower could return at any moment.

He gets confirmation of the Witcher hearing it in a soft hum.

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