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aerynwrites · 7 months

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Lovers Embrace

Halsin x afab!reader

A/N: I finally have an excuse to use the shirtless Halsin gif and I couldn’t be happier lmao. But yes - sex pollen/potion fic at your service 😏 hope y’all enjoy!

Word Count: 3.4k

Warnings: 18+ ONLY! Smut, sex pollen trope and all that comes with it, accidental consumption of aphrodisiac potion, reader has female anatomy, PiV sex, oral (female receiving), nudity, unprotected sex, fluff.

The only sound filling the tent is of the pestle grinding down into the mortar. It’s uncharacteristic for the camp to be so calm and devoid of sound, but most everyone else had agreed to Karlach’s idea of a jaunt into the city to spend the rest of the day at the Elfsong Tavern.

They had tried to get everyone to go, but Halsin chose to stay back and you followed suit - both because you won’t ever say no to some alone time with your partner, and because you had also wanted to stock up on some potions.

Which is where you are now - you’ve already got a good batch of lesser healing potions brewing and you’re currently working on a potion you found a recipe for, which just seems to be an amped up version of the greater healing potion while adding in a stamina aspect as well.

Halsin had left not long ago to look for a bit more of one of the ingredients, since you’re working with the last of what you have. Just as you finish preparing the ingredients, the first batch of the trial is done.

You look over the instructions one more time just to double-check that everything you’ve done was correct before taking the vial in hand, appraising your handy work.

Silently, you wish there was a better way to test potions rather than trying them outright, but if something were to go awry, you know Halsin isn’t far.

The potion is tinged red like the other healing potions, but held up to the candlelight, you can see that it’s slightly purple as well. Most likely from the stamina portion of the potion.

Slowly, you bring it towards you, carefully sniffing the concoction. When nothing seems off, you finally place the vial against your lips. The liquid is warm as it hits your lips and spreads over your tongue, and you automatically notice a difference in taste.

The other healing potions taste medicinal in nature, not at all pleasant. But this is…different. Sweeter. It’s more rich as well, coating your mouth and throat in a syrupy thickness as you consume it.

You pull the vial away from your lips and stare at the empty glass curiously before glancing down at your hands. You’d been sparring with Lae’zel earlier, resulting in bruised and split knuckles - the perfect way to test this new potion.

Except…they’re still there. Even after you wipe away the dried blood, the minor injuries are still present. Quickly, you set the vial off to the side and look back to your notes. Maybe the potion has a delay in effect, or takes longer than usual?

However, after reading over the notes several times, one particular phrase leaps off the page.

Effects are immediate.

So why isn��t it working?

You move to look over the ingredients once more, but stop as you reach for them. Your hands are shaking. Badly. And not only that - it feels as if the air in the tent has risen several degrees, a cold sweat breaking out along your skin.

Oh fuck.

Did you just poison yourself?

You move to stand but the world sways, mind foggy as a wave of…something rushes through you and settles low in your belly. Your knees almost buckle beneath you as something all too familiar clenches in your core.

“Halsin!” His name is falling from your lips before you can even stop it, not even wondering if he is in ear shot to hear you.

Panic is settling in now, fear of not knowing what you consumed or what it’s going to do to you. You stagger towards the tent’s entrance, pulling the flap back just as your partner does the same.

He stands before you, brows furrowed as he looks down at you. “I heard you call out as I came back into camp. Are you alright, my love?”

You shake your head, wanting to tell him no, you’re not alright, when your eyes land on the bundles of plants in his hand. Confusion fights its way to the front of your mind as you reach out to touch the plants.

“What is that?”

Halsin looks even more concerned now, “It is what you asked me to gather for the potion you are working on. Is it not?”

You shake your head, turning back to the desk to pick up the last stalk of belladonna you have before showing it to Halsin. “No, I needed belladonna, I-ah-“

Another wave of, what you now realize is pleasure courses through you, finally bringing you to your knees. But Halsin is quick. His hands catch you before you hit the ground as he gently lowers you both to your knees.

His concern is palpable now as he looks from you to the plant in your hand, and finally to the empty vial on the desk. His grip on you tightens.

“That is not belladonna,” he informs you, pulling away to show you what he gathered. “This is.”

“Then what…what is this?” You choke on a gasp, curling in on yourself. “What did I drink? Am I…Did I poison myself?”

Halsin quickly reaches over you to take the papers from the desk, scanning them over quickly. His eyes widen slightly before he lets out a soft sigh, eyes falling shut tightly.

“You did not poison yourself, my heart,” he tells you, causing a slight sense of relief to course through you.

However, any relief is overshadowed by the aching need now flowing through your veins. And Halsin’s presence just seems to make it worse, his smell invading your senses, his presence calling to you. You try to shove it away.

“Then what is happening?” The words are a plea on your lips as the pain starts to bloom in your belly, gnawing into your very bones.

Sensing your discomfort, Halsin speaks quickly, tossing the things aside in favor of taking the plant still gripped in your hand.

“This is Lover’s Nettle. It’s a rare plant, so I am surprised you stumbled upon it.” He reaches over you again to trade the plant for the empty vial on the desk, sticky purple residue still stuck to the glass.

He takes a small sniff and his lips quirk upwards ever so slightly. “It seems you accidentally created an aphrodisiac potion, little one - a potent one at that.”

Embarrassment wells up in your chest, almost strong enough to overwhelm your other senses. “I…what?”

Ever attuned to your emotions, the druid takes your face gently in his hands, turning your gaze towards him. “I have encountered what I believe to be this same elixir in the days of my youth. They called it Lover’s Embrace, as I am sure you can see why-“

“Halsin, you know I love you, but please-” Your plea comes out in a whine. “Is it harmful?”

Halsin smiles at you, that all too familiar twinkle in his eye. “No, my heart, it will not harm you. But it does tend to cause great discomfort until one’s…baser needs are met.”

“What?” you gasp, “why would someone create something like that?”

Gently, not wanting to rush you, Halsin readjusts and tugs you into his lap. The new position has you straddling his lap and places you slightly above him so the usually taller man has to gaze up at you for once.

“For many reasons, but the most common is just for pleasure’s sake - it was very common in brothels in the city to increase one’s pleasure during their time there.” Halsin’s voice is low now, his hands tracing patterns onto your back and making it even harder for you to stay focused.

“Although, the potion was meant to be consumed by both parties, but…” he’s leaned in now, lips brushing your jaw as he speaks. “It seems you’ve taken enough for the both of us.”

His words, his lips, the way his hands caress you, it all comes together to snap that final tiny string of restraint you had left. Turning, you capture Halsin’s lips with your own, your hands coming up to fist in the material of his shirt as you finally let the potion take over.

Gods, you want him.

You always want him, but now…you feel as if you’ll shatter into a million fragile pieces if he doesn’t touch you.

Halsin, always attuned to every part of you it seems, quickly obliges your silent thoughts. Large hands run from your hips up your sides, rucking up the fabric of your shirt as he does until, eventually, he slips his hands beneath the piece of clothing. They’re warm, as they always are - but now it feels like they’re on fire, scorching a path on your skin as he moves ever upwards, fingers trailing delicately along your spine.

“Halsin.” His name is a plea on your lips as you pull away from the kiss, forehead falling to rest against his own. “Please…”

His lips land on the corner of your own before trailing down to your jaw and lower, stoking the flames even more, until he finally moves to tug your shirt over your head - separating you both for just a brief moment before his lips are on your skin once more.

“Tell me what you need from me, my heart. State your desire and it is yours.” Halsin’s voice is low, almost a rasp as his lips brush over your neck, stopping there to suckle the skin sweetly, teeth barely grazing before moving lower.

His hands never cease their movement, both steadying in ther strength yet infuriating in the way the flit about, never staying in one place for too long and never seeming to touch you where you want him most.

A gasp slips past your lips as his thumb brush just below your breasts, and you squeeze his shoulders sharply. “Just…touch me, Halsin. Kiss me, touch me, fuck me just- please-“ Your words end on a moan as he places a particularly sharp bite to your shoulder. “Just do something, anything.”

Faster than you can blink, Halsin has you on your back beneath him, the furs that make up the tents floor soft beneath against you.

“Careful, my heart,” Halsin warns, voice low. “Your presence alone tests my control, but with words like that I cannot promise I will be able to contain it.”

You fist the fabric of Halsin’s shirt in your hands where they rest on his sides, trying to pull him impossibly closer from where he hovers over you.

“Then lose it,” you gasp, rolling your hips up into his own in search of some - any kind - of friction. “I just want you, I don’t care how. Just, please…”

That word, the one that’s already fallen from your lips several times tonight, finally reaches the man above you. His mouth is on you as soon as he hears it and you don’t bother to fight back the sounds that fall from your lips as he starts a path down your body.

The heat that started after you drank the potion feels like molten lava beneath your skin, and Halsin’s lips are doing little to douse the fire. Teeth scrape at the tender flesh of your chest before moving lower, as if he’s as desperate to touch you as you are.

After what feels like an eternity, his nose brushes the waistband of your pants, and before you can so much as think about begging, his hands are already taking them off, taking your underwear with them.

Halsin is an experienced and thorough lover, typically drawing things out to give you both the most pleasure possible. Tonight, however, he must take mercy on you. Because the moment your trousers are tossed to the side, his mouth is on you.

You almost come right there, the second you feel his tongue on you, drinking in your arousal. It’s like electricity shoots through you, and you can’t suppress the cry that falls from your lips, your hands shooting down to tangle in his hair.

Thick fingers dig into your thighs, keeping your hips pressed to the floor and his lips against your center.

You can’t stop writhing against him as his tongue presses against your clit teasing that bundle of nerves as one hand starts to slide downwards, fingers slipping through your folds to press against your entrance.

“Ah, Halsin-“ His name is like a prayer on your lips, begging him to keep touching you, afraid of what will happen if he doesn’t.

Your lover praises your plea with action, finally pressing two fingers into your warm heat. Normally, he would have to work you up to this, but with how wet you are and what you assume to be the work of the potion, he faces no resistance.

Immediately, stars erupt behind your eyes, and you are catapulted off the edge. Your climax comes on so suddenly it steals your breath away, your back arching upwards as your body fights to get closer to the source of your pleasure. It’s as if the potion has made every nerve ending more sensitive. Euphoria washes over you, and Halsin coaxes you through the tumultuous waves, lapping at you until you feel there’s nothing left.

It feels like there is not enough air to fill your lungs as you lay panting on the floor, a pitiful whine escaping your lips as Halsin pulls his fingers from you.

You watch through half-lidded eyes as he licks your spend from himself before your head falls back onto the soft furs.

Warm lips press to the inside of your leg before traveling upwards again, leaving barely-there kisses to your hips, then your stomach, then upwards still. His slow ascent gives you just enough time to gather your senses once more, just enough to realize that it’s still there.

That need. The fire beneath your skin. Even if it’s slightly dulled, you can feel the flames growing once more.

Halsin presses his lips to the valley of your breasts, then your collarbone, reaching your neck before you can gather enough words to speak.

“Gods,” you groan, arms moving to wrap around his shoulders as he presses a kiss to the corner of your lips, a breathy chuckle brushing over your cheek.

“I told you it was a potent mixture,” he says, voice full of amusement as he settles between your thighs.

It’s then, as you struggled to pull him closer, that you realize he’s still fully clothed. You paw at his shirt, your arousal growing hot in your belly once more.

“Off.”

Halsin can’t help but laugh again, kissing away the frown that tugs at your lips.

“As my lady commands.”

In a flash of that all too familiar druidic magic, his clothes are gone, leaving him blissfully bare above you.

Despite the need coursing through you, you can’t stop the way your eyes trail over him. The muscles rippling in his shoulders as he adjusts his position, the dark hair dusting his chest, the way his hair falls over his shoulders as he gazes down at you.

Taking his face in your hands, you lean up to capture his lips in a desperate kiss - one he returns eagerly.

He dips lower, his forearms resting beside your head as he moves to press flush against you. A moan escapes you, his body fitting perfectly against your own. You can feel him, hot and heavy against your core, can sense the way he tries to restrain himself but fails as his hips rut against you.

Halsin pulls away from your lips, chest heaving with ragged breaths as he presses his forehead to yours. You watch the slight grimace in his face as his eyes flicker open and a flash of gold overtakes them before disappearing.

The beast.

Gods, if you weren’t desperate for him the way his now, you’d tell him to let go. Beg for him to devour you like you know he’s able. But you don’t, instead you wrap your legs around his waist as fingers dig into his back.

“Halsin please, I can’t wait another moment, just-” A whine escapes from your throat as he rolls his hips again, teasing your clit as he pressed harder against you.

“Take me.”

He needs no more encouragement, lining himself up before thrusting into you in one fluid motion. Your body gives way to him with ease, taking him to the hilt in one thrust that pushes the air from your lungs.

You dig your heels into him, begging him to move as words escape you, a request he complies with eagerly. His thrusts are firm, and soon he’s built up a steady rhythm that brushes against that devastating spot inside you each time.

His head falls to the crook of your neck, kissing just below your ear and nipping the delicate skin with blunt teeth.

“I am not ashamed to say I have fantasized about this,” Halsin breathes, voice ragged as he continues to move against you, arms slipping beneath your shoulders to wrap you in a snug embrace.

“I imagined what it would be like having you like this beneath me, writhing and needy just as you are now.”

His words spark something within you, increasing the pleasure pooling in your belly and forcing a moan from your lips again. “Halsin…”

He lets out a groan of his own at the sound of his name on your lips, and suddenly your world is spinning as he hauls you up from the floor. He’s on his knees now, you in his lap as he continues to thrust up into you, arms wrapped securely around your body to keep you pressed flush against him.

The new angle allows him to press deeper, sending shocks of pleasure that have your fingers tingling and toes curling as you sag against him.

A firm hand settles at the back of your head, cradling it gently as his lips brush your ear.

“But in my dreams, it’s not just you who’ve consumed the elixir. Instead, we both indulge.” A kiss is pressed to your cheek, arms tightening around you as his thrusts become more frantic and that familiar coil in your core starts to pull taut.

“The potion works as it’s designed, making us crave each other to the point of lust-addled passion. The craving is so strong that all control is lost and there is nothing but pure pleasure as we claim each other.”

Gods, his words are pure fuel to the fire within you, creating images you don’t dare to push away. Fingers dig into his back, your nails no doubt leaving marks on his tanned skin as you cry out.

“Halsin, please, I’m close, I-“ A strangled moan leaves your lips as one of his hands works its way between your bodies to tease your clit.

“Come for me, my heart,” Halsin says, his voice a whispered command against your skin. “Let me hear my name on your lips once more.”

All it takes is one more press of his hips for you to obey. The coil snaps and you are falling once again into unadulterated bliss, Halsin’s name flowing from your lips like a mantra.

He works you through your climax as he chases his own end, a few more harsh thrusts before he’s filling you with a groan, then going still against you.

Slowly, ever so gently, he leans forward, laying you amongst the furs before following suit.

You wince slightly as he moves away from you, but quickly settled into the arms he offers you, cheek against his damp chest and one leg thrown over his own as you press against his side.

Exhaustion tugs at every part of your being, but despite being blissed out and spent, you can still feel that smoldering ember in your belly, unsure if it is the pleasure still waning or the potion waiting to be flamed once more.

“Is it…how long does it take for it to wear off?” you ask softly, tongue heavy in your parched mouth.

Halsin hums and you can feel the vibrations against your cheek as he reaches up to place a hand against your forehead.

“You are still running hot,” he observes before dropping his hand to rub soothingly up your arm. “This particular mixture does not wane quickly,” he tells you, a tinge of apology in his voice. “It may be well into sunrise before it completely leaves your system.”

He smiles then, an action you see solely because his words cause you to look up at him, eyes wide and mouth agape. “That long?”

Halsin laughs, nodding and pulling you against him again. “It is a powerful concoction. However,” he pauses, leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead, “it is gracious enough to give you brief respites. So, sleep now, my heart, and when the tendrils of desire pull you from your slumber I will be here waiting.”

Your eyes are already slipping closed as he speaks, your limbs resting heavily against him as he holds you close.

And as you drift off to sleep you can’t help the eagerness that stirs in your chest for what awaits when you wake.

Tags:

@daedriclys

#halsin x reader #bg3 x reader #halsin bg3 #bg3

1K notes · View notes

charles-leclerizz · 2 months

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🏎️ ๋࣭ ⭑blue views

🏁 Pairings : Carlos Sainz X fem! Reader

🏁 Warnings : smut [nothing major, listed at the end of the writing], fluff, stress [which is aliviated by the smut]

🏁 Word Count : 3.6k words (3612 words)

🏁 Summary : It’s time to celebrate! For everyone else that is. You, on the other hand, will be planning your’s and your fiance’s “engagement week” festivities, until you die. That is, until an impromptu intervention is planned.

🏁 translations via radio comm below

🏁 credits : word dividers by @heavenlayt

🏁 Music player : Good to be by Mark Ambor

“Carlos!” You shouted out, leaning back against the heel of your soft wedges as you reached behind you for more cocktail glasses. The sound of your fiancé’s loafers against the terracotta staircase echoed throughout the ground level as he made his way to the kitchen, where you were working alongside half a dozen cooks.

“Si, Mariposa?” He came up behind you, plucking the crystal margarita glass from your fingers and taking a sip of the peachy, carbonated concoction that you had masterfully created. You giggled when he hummed happily and kissed your neck, “It’s delicious.”

“Ay, Ay, Señor. Tienes que esperar a la luna de miel” An elderly voice scolded from your left followed with a hollow bonk. Carlos hissed, rubbing the back of his head where a thick wooden rolling pin had struck him playfully, “You wound me, Maria.”

He followed with a pained “Literally.” When Maria had merely shot him a fond look over her shoulder as she went back to washing the tomatoes in the deep-set ceramic sink.

“You’re absolutely sure that everyone got the invites?” You leaned down to inspect the dozen drinks that you had made, “Because we invited at least 60 people, and if I make 60 drinks and there are not exactly 60 throats present to ingest them. You are going to remain abstinent until we’re married.”

Carlos stared at you open mouthed, a betrayed expression overtook his face, “So you would choose Maria’s wishes over mine? muy cruel.” He then bought his hands up from your waist to brush your hair from your shoulder, dragging his fingers up your arm-he slipped off the thin spaghetti strap of your white, cotton summer dress to press short, sweet kisses on your skin, “I mean can you really resist this?” He reasoned.

“It would be very easy Mi Amour.” You harrumphed, ignoring the tingling shocks that fluttered beneath your skin at the drag of his lips against your shoulder. You jolted forward when you felt his other hand travel from your waist, down to the front of your dress, “Carlos- I have so much to do. I mean I promised Alex and Lily I would make trifle for dessert, but then your parents have this one friend who hates custard! I mean did you hear the story, he literally puked, and I will not have him puke in my engagement party, nope. Not on my watch.”

You wagged your finger in the air before grabbing another five glasses from their upside-down position on the kitchen island where you were working. Taking the washcloth that sat comofortably in the front pocket of your plaid apron, you began wiping away the droplets of water from the crystal before continuing to babble about your long list of duties for the upcoming week of festivities.

“So, I need to also make these cute fruit tarts that I made that one time. But then I realised that Charles and Max hate kiwi, and the whole dessert is basically that, so for them I’m making this great chocolate gateau, the one at the restaurant? Since they really fucking liked that one.”

You grumbled out the last part, crushing up your freshly picked strawberries that had previously been resting in a metal strainer along with a cream, cotton cover up to keep them moist. The marble mortar grinded against the matching pestle as the sweet fruits reduced to a thick paste.

“On top of that the other like, 40 guests have very specific wants, so I have 20 different things to make along with this signature drink that Jenni designed for us! You know her, right? the bar tender at the other restaurant in Monaco, I learnt how to make it, and you said its good. It’s good right?”

You add a few cups of carbonated water to the pinkish paste in front of you, before turning back to Carlos, who had been patiently listening to you rant- mainly due to the fear that if he were to stop, you would give his ear the same treatment as the berries that remain crushed beneath you, “Si, mi mariposa. Very good.”

You sighed before fully spinning around to face him, resting your back on the dark wood counter, looping your hands around his neck, “I’m sorry Carlito.” You brush a singular strand of hair that fell from its carefully crafted style onto his forehead, “This isn’t very fun for you, is it?” You move onto your tiptoes to reach his cheek.

“Nonsense, I have Papa and Guillermo coming to help with the decorations outside, I think Blanca and Mama are also coming- to help.” He chuckles when you groan happily and bring his head down to kiss his lips graciously.

“Thank you, Mi Amour.” You murmur against his mouth, running your fingers through his hair as his arms came to circle your waist, pulling you against his chest. You sigh against him, melting in his embrace as you barely manage to hold yourself up and anchor yourself on his broad shoulders that strain against the baby blue polo top, he chose to wear.

“AY, SEÑOR,” Maria bumped Carlos slightly as she came rushing through the walkway, trotting determinedly through the low, exposed brick archway and outside to the patio area that was protected from the morning sunrays by the lattice structure that stood tall whilst being overtaken by winding ivy.

Beneath this, Maria sat down at least 3 trays full of freshly sliced vegetables, sun drying them as preparation for the multiple dishes that would be served that evening, “Si no estás aquí para aportar nada útil, sal de la cocina.” She screeched whilst heading to the other side of your estate, towards the large garden that housed many seasoned plants, ready with multiple fruits and vegetables for plucking.

“I think she will cook me next.” He shuddered before laying his forehead on yours, “Do not worry, Mariposa. Everything will turn out fine.”

“Why did I suggest an engagement week.” You pouted, nuzzling your head into his chest, to hide away from all the responsibilities you had brought onto yourself. You shake your head wildly, causing flurries of hair to escape from the bun you had messily done up, “All I know is that it must go well. Maria will for sure have a heart attack if it doesn’t,”

“I still think it’s a good idea” He comforts you, until the melodic sound of the doorbell resounds throughout the house, and he detaches from you, “That must be the back-up.” He winks at you as he jogs off to open the large, rustic door. You watch from the kitchen as Carlos laughs boisterously whilst embracing his family.

His mother and sister quickly wave him off, ushering the men out to the acres of back garden they have yet to decorate to approach you.

Blanca dances up to you, wiggling her arms and hands excitedly as she beams at your exhausted face, “There she is! Beautiful bride-to-be, our mariposa.” The knee length dress she chose skims her legs as the burgundy silk falls from her shoulders delicately, she hugs your neck tightly, swinging you both side to side whilst you flail around.

“Hola, diabla.” You chuckle, catching your mother-in-law’s eyes, you wait until Blanca removes herself from you for Reyes to do the same, but instead of violently rotating you like a ragdoll, she rubs your back and coos sympathetically.

“Ay mi muñeca, you look too tired to be a blushing bride.” She moves her arms from being drawn around your neck to rub your shoulders.

“What can I say? There’s too much to be done for me to be blushing.” You shrug, already going back to pouring out 10 more drinks, adding to the sea of glasses in front of you.

Blanca tuts disapprovingly, “This is not what being engaged is meant to be, it’s meant to be fun! And new! And sexy!” She waggles her eyebrows suggestively, ignoring her mother who had picked up your to-do list and hid her face in the paper.

“Blanca, please.” Reyes rolled her eyes, “But she’s not wrong.” She reaches for a spare apron that hung rejected on the back of the pantry door.

“No, mamá please,” You attempt to snatch the apron away from Reyes, who tuts disapprovingly and had already begun to collect multiple utensils from your spacious kitchen whilst talking quickly with the cooks who had been diligently making progress on the rest of the menu, “I can’t possibly allow you to do my work.”

Blanca plucked the neatly tied bow around your waist, undoing the stained, pale blue cotton that protected your dress, “No, your job is to relax, and let my culo brother treat you nicely. Champagne, strawberries, chocolate.” She listed off the aphrodisiacs one by one, pushing you through the living room and up the stairs. You braced yourself on the railing as you let her guide you through the landing.

“I have all of that in the food that I should be making,” You whined, stomping your foot, and swivelling to level her with your eyes, “There is just too much to do before tonight. And the boys don’t even know what to do for decorations.”

Blanca swatted her hand through the air, as if physically plummeting away your doubts, “You’ve had the entire family added on your Pinterest board.” You snorted at that, but pressed your lips together when she shot you a look, “If I can’t whip them into shape, consider me a bad sister from day 1.” She planted her hands on her waist before pointing at your bedroom door, “Now either you can start yourself a bath, or I will.”

You harrumph and dig your feet into their spot on the newly waxed, wooden floors beneath you, “I see how it is.” Blanca squints her eyes at you, “Fine, I see how it is.”

You half expect her to push you into the room, but instead she leans over the banister and shouts, “CARLOS !!”

“Blanca!” You gasp, grabbing her dress and tugging her back from the beam, “W-Why would you?” You splutter.

“AY CARLOS !!” She continues to screech until you slap a palm over her mouth, careful of the nude brown lipstick she had worn.

“Si diabla?” Your fiancé shouts back up, already at the base of the staircase. Blanca licks your hand, causing you to yelp and jump back, giving her the perfect opportunity to answer, “Your fiancé is anxious as fuck.”

“What else is new?” He chuckles, hand braced on the railing as he emerges from the winding staircase. Carlos takes in the new scene, you are tackling Blanca onto the floor, she’s squealing whilst attempting to wrangle free from you, tummy first on the floor, “Mi amour, if you are going to leave me for my sister...” He starts, crossing his arms and tilting his head at you.

“You both are insufferable.” You grit out, twisting the knob to your bedroom, wating for Carlos to step inside. He stops momentarily when Blanca darts an arm out and begins to ramble to him in Spanish, Carlos answers just as quickly before his sister reaches up to smack the underside of his head.

“Blanca!” He shouts out after her, but she ignores him and sprints downstairs to assist with the preparations. Carlos turns back to you, slumping forward to rest his head against the door frame that you were currently leaning on, arms folded amusedly as you looked at him from under your eyelashes. He pivots his neck, gazing fondly into your eyes, “You’re pretty.” He mumbles, bringing a limp hand up to rest on your cheek, thumb moving soothingly against your face. You lean into his touch, “So are you” You breathe out, leaning upwards to ghost your lips over his.

This moment was merely poetic, the two of you, finding respite in the chaos within each other. His soft touch as he leaned forward for more, you grant it, because you craved him as deeply as he did for you. The astringent sweetness of his lips against yours and the heavenly feeling of his fingers cradling your hips made you moan out as he caught you weight when your knees gave out from beneath you.

The door creaked shut behind the two of you, your palms digging into the waistline of his shorts to tug his shirt out, his fingers dance down from your neck to the large cut-out of your dress that showed off the curve of your spine. Carlos broke away from you momentarily, his eyes still shut as he chuckled when you whined, chasing his lips desperately, “Jump,” He murmured, bracing himself by tugging you close and digging his fingers into the back of your thighs.

You complied, hopping into his secure hold before attaching your mouth to his once again, nipping at his full bottom lip. Carlos passed through the bedroom with ease, his muscle memory allowing him to walk underneath the long archway that led to your shared bathroom. He released you gently, his fingers pinching the hem of your dress on your way down, he bunched up the flowy linen, dragging it up to your waist and tugging it over your head- leaving you in just a pair of white, lacy underwear.

You laughed slightly, your hair mussed at taking over half of your face, “Carlos” you huff out. He laughs at your annoyance, gently moving the strands out of your eyes before tracing the dips and curves of your chest and stomach with feather-light touches.

Sighing, you tilt your head back, allowing him to press his lips against the column of your neck. You loop your hands around his neck, stumbling backwards towards the sink whilst bringing him with you. Carlos hoists you up and onto the counter, finally stepping back to gaze at your naked body, his eyes ravish you, the stiff peaks of your breasts and curve of your stomach, you watch him intently when he finally makes his way down to your panties, a damp patch already forming.

Carlos approaches you once again, his breath fresh and minty against your skin, “Tan bonita.” He compliments, trailing warm, open mouth kisses on your collar bone, starting from your shoulder until he reaches your sternum, “Tan deliciosa.” He moves to your breast, decorating it with his own purple-ish love marks, he littered them across until he enveloped your nipple into his mouth, his tongue licking against the pebble until it hardened beneath his attention.

Carlos turned his attention to the other whilst his other hand slipped beneath the elastic of your underwear, his middle finger teasing your wet slit, “all for me?” he moaned against your breast.

“of course.” You bury your hand in his hair, arching into his touch before he lowered to his knees in front of you.

“F-fuck” you whine, biting your lip harshly as he settles between your legs, he shucks you closer, harshly tugging you to the edge of the counter as he inches his mouth closer, hot breathe settling on the front of your underwear. You arch your back at the feeling, fingers teasing your peaked nipple, “please,” you whisper, eyes darting down to where Carlos had begun to lave lazily at your newly soaked panties.

“Please what? Huh?” He whispers, tongue darting out to push further into your throbbing hole. You whine, thighs threatening to clamp shut around his head, your hand inches down to shyly tug at his hair and guide him closer to your leaking cunt, “can’t even talk now? ‘s okay mariposa. I’ll take care of you.” He promises, laying one of your legs over his shoulder.

You breathe hitches slightly when you feel him drag his lips up your hip, only for his teeth to sink into your underwear band, trailing it off you.

You scrunch your eyes with a gasp when his kisses trail up from your ankle, to your calf and towards the inside of your thigh- you growl playfully when you hear him chuckle and coo up at you, “you were just stressed...” he pressed an open mouthed kiss to your skin, “being so diligent..” he continued, tongue ghosting over your leaking folds, “so perfect.”

“Carlos,” You moan, scratching your nails against his scalp, “you’re being mean. Hah. It’s not good to be mean to your future wi-“you cut yourself off with a scream, well, a muffled one, you managed to cover your agape mouth with your hand. He dove into your sex, tongue searing through you as he fucked the muscle steadily into you, curling it to poke gently at the sensitive, spongy part within you.

Carlos let his eyes flutter shut, the sweet taste of you staining itself onto his tongue, how he could stay like this forever, fuck the dinner, he only ever wanted to taste you. Only you.

“taste so good,” he panted against you, his tongue nudging your clit, in an oh-so delicious way that made you bite down on your fingers to stop your needy moans leaking down from the open, semi-circle window towards your in-laws, who were dedicatedly preparing your back garden to host a multitude of people.

“uh uh mariposa, quiero oír tu voz.” He reached up with one hand, tugging your palm away from your still open mouth.

“I-“you gulp heavily, trying to unscramble your mind from its mush state, “I- wan’ want more, need you to- do something please.” You bring your other leg to his shoulder, locking him between your limbs.

Carlos huffs out a laugh, biting playfully at your tender skin, he brings up one hand laying his fingers gently against your pussy lips, creating a ‘V’ to spread them wide, exposing the sensitive area to the midday warmth. And then, he spat, a fat string slowly drips from his mouth to land directly on your hole, he gawks at it with interest, his large puppy-dog eyes shining with lust.

You blush and cover your face, “come on- please? I’ve been soo good, did ever’thin you wanted.” You babbled, gyrating your hips against his face, baiting him into pleasuring you again until the delicious wave reached the crown of your skull until the tips of your toes.

“have you? You been my good girl? Hm?” He arches a brow at you, but stops you from answering when he lays his tongue flat against your clit, gently shaking his head side to side until you begin to shake and whine, “yeah, I know mi amor, se siente bien, ¿sí?” he whispers, prodding you cunt with his index finger, “you want it, don’t you?”

You hummed, eyes widening as though he had proposed all over again, “yeah, come on, please, pretty please with a- ahh,” once again, he wouldn’t let you finish your pleading, instead, he answered you with your prize, him pushing his fingers into you, your wetness dripping down into his palm and along his wrist.

Obscene squelches echoed through the bathroom, along with explicit sounds of his knuckles slapping against your skin and your high-pitched moans.

“yes- oh, don’t stop.” You sobbed, tears pricking at your eyes when he thrusted in a second finger, stretching you out whilst he crooked his digits to continue stimulating your g-spot mercilessly.

“don’t plan on it,” he promised, delving back in for another sacred taste, he tongue worked wonders against you, drinking in your nectar as though from the gods- letting in slip down his throat graciously. You groaned and bit your lip harshly, arching your back at angles that chiropractors would wince at until you could feel that euphoric feeling begin to bloom within your stomach.

Your walls fluttered around Carlos’ fingers, making him smirk against you and continue his movements, hungrily licking and slurping at you until your toes curled and eyes crossed over, “fuck,” you grit out, gasping laboriously as the tight knot finally snapped and torrential pleasure rained over you.

“te entendí my love,” He crawled over you, bracing himself above with his hands planted on the thick, white marble countertop you were currently blissed out on.

You brought your shaky hands up to his face, kissing him gently, “what about-hah, what about you,” you panted, wrapping your arms around him, continuing to softly brush your lips against his face. His temple, stubbled cheek, and muscled neck.

“We still have-“ He looked down at the heavy, silver Rolex on his wrist, “40 minutes, until Blanca comes hunting for us.” Carlos looked over to the floating bath that sat in front of the Juliet balcony, “and we have a bath.”

“That is just by a huge ass window,” You reminded him, glancing over to the open doors, revealing the intricate black grill of the balcony along with the pristine view of your tall trees that lined the well-kept entertaining space of your garden.

“Well, I doubt they don’t know what’s going on, I mean, my sister probably told them to leave a box of condoms outside.” He shrugged.

“In that case,” You started, your low whisper a mere breath of warm air between the two of you. Marinating hard and heady eye contact with him, you reached down to take his hand in yours, then slipped the two fingers that still dripped with your wetness, into your mouth.

Carlos stared at the sight, a short, strangled noise leaving him when you popped out his digits with an all too innocent noise, “Better make the most of it,” You leaned back against the mirror, hand open for him to carry you.

He groaned, shaking his head slightly before hoisting you in his arms, “best 40 minutes of my life.”

[Smut warnings : alot of kissing, fingering, sucking, love-bites, fem! oral recieving, fem! fingering recieving.]

📻 Kcccchh.... come in.... come in...translatiion available...over

📻 Kchh...Spnish..to engli..sh....over

Ay, Ay, Señor. Tienes que esperar a la luna de miel - Oh, Oh, Lord. You have to wait for the honeymoon

muy cruel - very cruel

AY, SEÑOR - OH, SIR

Si no estás aquí para aportar nada útil, sal de la cocina - If you're not here to contribute anything useful, get out of the kitchen.

mariposa - butterfly

Hola, diabla - Hello, devil

Ay mi muñeca - Oh, my doll

Si, diabla? - Yes, devil?

Mi amour - My love

Tan deliciosa - So delicious

Tan bonita - So beautifull

quiero oír tu voz - I want to hear your voice

te entendí, mi amor, se siente bien, ¿sí? - I understood you, my love, it feels good, yeah

📻 Kchhhhh.loosing sign....al.....kcchh....over and out...

421 notes · View notes

sprout-fics · 5 months

Text

First Day of the Rest of Your Life

(TF141 & Reader Old Guard AU)

Call of Duty Masterlist

Rating: 16+ Wordcount: 4k Tags: Old Guard AU, Immortals AU, Newly Immortal Reader, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Open Ending, Rescue Missions, Shadow Company, Major Character Death (non permanent) Warnings: Forced Drugging, Character Death (and revival) A/N: A silly little idea that I won't be continuing, but others are free to build off of

They’re not known by anyone but themselves.

Things like them shouldn’t exist. It goes against all laws of nature, to rise from dirt and to return. Yet somehow, the men you come to meet defy death itself, unable to be killed, to die a death that lasts long and forever.

And…

You come to realize you’re just like them.

But first, you have to die.

A “Shadow”, you’re called. One of many, under the authority of Commander Phillip Graves and his company. It’s a reluctant job, one that you took with little other option to settle old debts and to escape from a life that haunts you even now. Even so, you share a camaraderie with the men and women around you, bonds forged under mortar fire and bullet wounds.

Graves himself takes you under his wing, reluctant as you are, makes a point to check on you after missions, to tease you when he can, needling you and trying to make you roll your eyes at him. He likes getting under your skin, cracking jokes so your mouth twitches up as you suppress a smile. It’s hard not to like him with his charisma, but you can’t even shake the little bit of guardedness that remains ever present when you’re around him. You’re not friends, but you certainly aren’t enemies either. Comrades, perhaps.

That changes when you die.

You’re supporting SAS forces in their hunt for a known AQ leader, in a remote village, when your squad is ambushed. The desert sun bores down harshly on you all, and you find yourself squinting upwards when the first shot echoes out.

Graves is not far behind you as bullets begin to rain down on your position, leaning into his comms and barking orders. His eyes are focused with trained intent, finger on the trigger of his weapon, and when you catch his eyes he shoots you a wild grin.

You spot something out of the corner of your eye as you return fire- a woman and a child, hidden behind a low wall as she tries to cover him from the firefight. Her eyes are different. Scared, full of tears, her shoulders tight as he holds back her cries.

You shout for cover, instantly on your feet moving and diving for the pair. You shield her as you aid them both to safety, only for one of your squad to shout for you a moment too late.

The bullet goes straight through your heart.

You fall forward into the arid earth, watching the woman and her son be quickly escorted to shelter. The pang of relief you feel is stifled by the agony that laces through your veins, wet and viscous and much too warm. As you gasp, dying and bleeding out, the last thing you see is Graves’ face hovering over yours, steely and grim as your life gushes out onto his hands.

“Breathe, darlin’, breathe.”

You can’t. With every pulse of your heart you feel the sickening ooze of red spill from the gap in your chest. You wheeze, try to speak, but it’s too late. You hear him call for you as you go under, and your last thought is that you wish just had more time.

There’s a flash of something then- brief and vague, like the shimmering outline on the horizon. Four figures standing tall, turning to gaze at you before it all goes dark.

You wake up in the infirmary an hour or so later. Staring up at the medical tent and trying to process the fact that you’re alive.

Remarkably, you feel…fine?

A hand smooths over your chest, and you find no bullet hole at all. No gaping wound where your life force bled out of you. Perfectly healed.

It doesn’t make any sense, and you try to reconcile the sudden, agonizing pain and darkness with your unscathed state. You died. There’s no way you should be alive right now, much less without a horrible, life altering injury.

Graves pushes aside the tent flap and paces to your bedside with long strides. You expect him to look relieved, to smile and offer a joke to cover his concern. Instead, he appears guarded, cautious, like he no longer trusts you.

You flinch.

Graves watches you with wary eyes, and when you ask him if perhaps you dreamt it he doesn’t show any indication of shock. Instead, he crowds closer, gets in your personal space, and asks you what you remember. You tell him. You died…and then…and then…

Nothing.

This doesn’t satisfy him, and you can tell by the harsh light in his eyes. He smiles anyways, but you feel something curl in your stomach at the fact that it feels so sinister. Graves pats your shoulder and tells you to rest up, offers a little murmur of relief that doesn’t reach your ears.

You’re too busy looking at his eyes.

On his way out of the infirmary, Graves whispers something to the medic, who pales and tries to protest. Yet then Graves goes icy cold, and you feel a shiver run up your spine. He vanishes after that, and after a moment the medic appears with a syringe.

“This should help with the pain.” He offers with a wobbly smile.

“But…I’m not in pain.” You offer, brow knotted in confusion, but before you can offer anything else he holds out your arm and presses the needle to the inside of your elbow with practiced ease.

“W-wait-”

You look at the medic in confusion as he pulls back, and somehow when he presses on your shoulder you go flat on the bed with sluggish limbs.

“What-” You try, feeling something dark and liquid descend over your senses slowly.

“I’m sorry.” He offers, face pinched. “Please don’t die.”

You grab at him then, recognizing the injection too late for what it is, a lethal dose. You try to raise your voice, try to beg, but the soldier above you hushes you, murmurs apologies even as the newly familiar grip of death settles over you.

…And then, you wake up again

This time, however, you’re restrained. Your arms are above your head, shackled to the metal bars of the infirmary cot. There’s a dull ache that colors your senses, and when you try to raise your hand to rub at your head you find it immobile. Panic instantly rises within you, doubled by your prone position.

As you panic and struggle Graves appears and hovers over your bedside

“Feel like talkin now, soldier?” He asks, gaze cold.

He had you killed, you realize. He sent the medic to drug you, to test this newfound ability of yours to come back after apparent death. Now, he has you trapped under his mercy, eyes dark as he scrutinizes your restrained form.

You try to tell him you don’t know, you don’t understand, but you know he doesn’t believe you. Even after your babbling protests and attempts to explain, he remains unmoved.

At last, he sighs in frustration and turns away to the medic once more.

“Put em’ under.”

Terror grips at you. You scream, thrash, a primal fear screeching through your veins as you’re approached by the grim faced medic.

Then, the medical tent shakes with the force of a nearby explosion. Graves spins, eyes wide. Instantly, the base alarm begins to roar, nearly deafening the instant chatter of his radio. Graves is moving, barking order, growling at the two shadows who stand nearby.

“Prep for transport. We’re takin’ em to the general.”

Shepherd.

They’re moving you. They’re going to give you to Shepherd because of…whatever this is. Your instincts scream danger, and it only renews your effort to escape, thrashing at your restraints and screaming with all your might.

The two shadows press down on your struggling limbs- a hand snaking up to cover your mouth. You plead with teary eyes, desperately afraid, whimpering as the medic pushes the needle down into your arm once more. The overly warm rush of morphine slinks through your veins, draws your eyelids heavy against your will.

It’s at that moment that you see them.

Four armed figures sweep into the tent, and as the two soldiers spin and reach for their weapons. They're taken out before they can even shout for aid, two of the men instantly subduing the two guards, choking them into unconsciousness with heavy, muscular arms. A third points a weapon at the medic, growling as the man cowers.

A face hovers into view- Brown eyes a deeper color than his skin, warm gaze concerned even as he smiles. He’s handsome, a delirious part of your brain realizes as unconsciousness begins to descend over you.

“Nice to meet you, mate.” He tells you as you begin to fade. “Name’s Gaz. Don’t worry, we’ll be here when you wake up. We got it from here.”

You try to ask him what he means, but you’re gone before the words can pass your lips.

- - -

“I’m getting kind of tired of this.” You think as soon as you wake up for the third time in twelve or so hours, flat on your back and looking at the ceiling of a plane.

There’s a jacket covering you, and as you sit up your groan, feeling the remnants of morphine clear from the uncomfortable haze of your brain.

“Easy.” A gruff voice tells you, and your eyes dart up to take in the sight of a man sitting on a bench beside you, the airplane rattling around you both. “You’ve had a rough go of it, take it slow.”

“Who…?” You manage to ask, pressing a heel of your palm to the center of your eye to dispel the lingering headache, looking around to take in the other three men who sit in various stages of alertness. You take them in one by one, starting with the man beside you with the beard and the hat. He looks older than you suspect he is- the age showing in his eyes.

Beside him sits a man in a mask, the hard plastic of it in the shape of a skull. He blinks at you slow like a cat, and with his arms crossed he seems to take up so much space on the tiny aircraft.

Across from him sits a younger man with a mohawk, blue eyed and bright. He smiles at you, gaze twinkling as you blink in confusion.

Your eyes land on a familiar face. “...Gaz.” You offer uncertainly, and he beams at you.

“Right’o.” He tells you, and then nods to the man beside him. “And Soap-” The man in the mohawk gives a grin and a wave. “Ghost-” The man is the skull mask, arms crossed, regarding you coolly. “And Price.” The man who sits beside you, elbows on his knees, blue eyes staring keenly down at you.

You reply with your name purely out of politeness, but are unable to stop the tensing of your limbs as you slowly and cautiously press away from the four men who have kidnapped you.

The questions pour out of you before you can stop them. Who are they? Where are you? Where’s Shadow Company? Where are they taking you? How did you get here?

…Do they know you died?

The men before you exchange some looks of concern, before at last it’s Price who moves and settles on his haunches before you with a reassuring smile. He sits just out of reach, trying to respect your personal space as much as he can in the tiny plane.

“You’re safe.” Is the first thing he tells you, voice firm but soft. “We’ll make sure your commander can’t find you, so don’t you worry about that.”

“The rest will have to wait.” He goes on, offering you a hand to stand and helping you to a seat beside Gaz. “We’ll wait until we’re at our safehouse to tell you the rest.”

You swallow nervously, hands bunched in the jacket draped over your lap. Your mind desperately tries to understand what has happened, how you could have ended up here.

“He…killed me.” You manage shakily, remembering Graves standing over you as you woke up from the lethal rush of morphine. “Graves.”

Price looks grim as he nods silently.

“But…” You trail off, confused, scared, trembling. You look at him, wrapping your arms around yourself for comfort. “I’m…alive?”

“That you are.” Price replies with grave seriousness. “And you’re not dying anytime soon.”

You find out later that ‘soon’ doesn’t begin to describe what your life will become.

You have no option but to trust these men, you realize. You think about running, but you have no idea where you are, where they’ve taken you. As you’re gently escorted off the plane on an abandoned runway somewhere in the desert, you think about climbing back aboard and forcing the pilot to take you home.

There’s nothing back there for you, you realize. Not with your outstanding debts and mistakes, not when Graves will be able to track you down.

You curl into a corner of the safehouse- skittish and forlorn as you lose yourself in your thoughts. The others busy themselves disposing of their gear, talking in low voices, and you ignore the sympathetic looks they offer you.

Gaz settles in front of you, pushes a steaming mug of something warm into your hands, and you manage a grateful glance.

“Where are we?” You ask him quietly, and he gives you a worried little smile.

“A few hours outside Cairo. A safehouse. An old one.”

You hear Soap sneeze in another room, complaining about spiderwebs. It summons a weary smile to your features.

“Will you tell me what’s going on?” You ask quietly, and Gaz stands, offers you a hand so you rise with him.

“Of course.” He tells you, and places a hand on your shoulder to guide you in the direction of the brightly lit kitchen. “But first? Dinner. Can’t have you starve to death.”

“Will that actually kill me?” You think, but offer no other reply

Dinner is a mix of MREs and canned fruit from one of the cabinets. You watch as Ghost passes his pineapple pieces over to Soap, who swallows them down happily. Price leans over to murmur something to him, and Soap huffs a little sound of amusement around his fork. You observe them, realizing that there’s a warm familiarity between all of them, a trust that runs inherently deep and profound. It summons a little pang of longing inside you, wishing that maybe you might find something similar one day

You pick at your dinner, not really hungry. The food sits uneasily in your stomach with your anxiety, and as the plates lay scattered across the table the others finally turn to you.

“You died.” Price begins, startlingly direct.

“Yes.” You tell him breathily in return. He nods, pauses before his next words.

“So did all of us.”

You blink at that, trying to process- before Soap finally chimes in.

“Aye, your commander shot me straight in the neck, the bastard.” He grins sunnily. “Shoulda seen his face when I got right back up, fit as a fiddle.”

You do smile at that, imagining Grave’s utter shock at a dead man walking. It fades as you fidget with the cooling mug in your hands.

“So…what?” You ask quietly. “I’m some kind of…immortal?”

The silence that follows is deafening.

You look up, meet the blank stares of the men before you, and feel your stomach turn to ice.

“You’re kidding.”

Price shakes his head slowly, and you watch as he reaches for a cigar in his jacket.

“Those’ll kill you.” You want to tell him, but you wonder if it truly is a moot point.

“We were all like you, once.” He sighs as smoke spills from his mouth. “Soldiers, young, trying to do some good in a war we didn’t ask for.”

They tell you their stories, and you sit transfixed as the tale of their lives unravel before you.

Gaz and Soap are the ‘youngest’ they claim, both in age and in the time they first died. World War 2, they tell you. Gaz was a pilot shot down in France, and Soap was an infantryman only a few hundred miles west.

“Price found me.” Gaz tells you, smiling fondly at the older man, who returns the expression.

Price tells you of the vision he had- of Kyle terrified, tugging at his straps as his plane burned and spiraled out of control, only to wake up completely unscathed in a pasture. Of course, he’d been killed twice over by German forces before Price managed to find him. Gaz had been the same as you- flighty, scared, uncertain. Price had hauled him to an abandoned farmhouse, had explained to him the same they explain to you now- that one day you just stop dying. You don’t age. You can’t be killed. You blackout, bleed out, and then you just wake back up.

“Soap had it less easy.” He nods to the Scot, who grimaces. Ghost tilts his head in Soap’s direction.

“You want me to tell em, Johnny?”

Soap grumbles, and explains the story of waking up downriver, having drowned, with his entire squad dead after a charge across the Rhine. He tried to find his way back under the cover of night and found a man in a mask instead. He thought he was the reaper coming to collect his soul, but when Ghost started trying to explain immortality and becoming ageless, Soap had stared at him in complete disbelief- and then ran.

“You pitched a fit when I finally caught you.” Ghost remarks smugly, and Johnny’s frown deepens.

“Couldnae help it.” He grouses. “You did a shite job of explaining. Plus-” He jabs a finger in his friend’s direction. “You shot me.”

You blink at that, looking at Ghost, who shrugs, completely unrepentant.

“You tried to escape.”

“But still-!”

“And they’ve been trying to kill each other ever since.” Gaz adds cheekily as the two bicker.

“No killing each other.” Price reminds them sternly, and it quiets down the squabbling.

“Wait-” You try, looking to Soap and Gaz. “So you’re…what, like 100 years old?”

“Give or take a few years.” Soap offers. “I’m the older one.”

Gaz snorts. “You are not.”

“I got found first.”

“I was literally born before you.”

“By eight months.”

“Still counts.”

You turn to Ghost. “So then how old are you?”

“I stopped counting.” He replies plainly. “16th century.”

Your jaw drops. Ghost looks smug at your expression as you try to run the numbers.

“You’re leaving out the part where you were in the Anglo-Scottish War, Simon.” Soap bemoans, displeased. It sours Ghost’s expressions as he turns to the Scot.

“I didn’t even know you yet.” He remarks, mildly annoyed, and it does little to ease Soap’s vague irritation.

“So then Price found you too.” You comment, and Ghost turns back to you.

“After years of chasing him.” Price interjects. “There’s a reason we call him ‘Ghost’.”

You learn later about the things Ghost doesn’t tell you- about being buried alive by his enemies, of suffocating and dying over and over as he clawed through the dirt on his way to freedom. An inevitable, stifling death where he didn’t understand how he kept coming back, only to suffocate once more.

All eyes then turn to Price, who regards you with a knowing smile.

“Old.” He responds to your wordless question. “Too old.”

You want to press him, but there’s a twinkle in his eyes that makes you bite your tongue.

“So…do you…we…” You correct slowly. “...get sick? Starve? Drown?”

“Can’t say I’ve ever been sick.” Ghost provides. “Been starved and drowned, though.”

“Starving is a fool’s death.” Price says, oddly grim. His cigar burns down to ash, and he sighs.

There’s a solemn silence that settles over the safehouse then, and you feel the heavy weight of unspoken words sink between you all.

“There’s rules for us.” Price states then, once more reigning in his air of authority that draws you all a little straighter, attentive.

He goes on to tell you the rules that these men live and die by.

Don’t be seen. Don’t stay in one place for more than a few years at a time. If you die, move on. Stay together. Always communicate. Never leave a man behind.

They’ve spent decades, centuries trying to find ways to use their time to the best of their ability- and the only thing they’ve come to is to stay as soldiers, trying their best to scrub the scum off the face of the earth so the world stays clean. Illegal drug trade, weapons smuggling, extremism, genocide, doing whatever they can to help the innocent and the blameless from violence, and dying to do so.

What else is there to do with all the time? They tell you. Money, luxury, empires, it doesn’t matter when you live forever. So instead they fight, do what they can to save humanity from itself. It’s not an easy job, but it must be done.

They’ve seen things that haunt the shadows of their eyes, witness to the worst villainy and grotesqueness humanity has to offer. They’ve all had to take years off when the burden of the world became too heavy for their souls.

You don’t learn of the time when one of them, and they’ll never say who, tried to give up entirely, had become lost as he desperately tried to rid himself of his immortality. They don’t speak of the decade it took to bring him back, to mend his soul back to fullness once more. It’s a gift, they’ll tell you, but you too will come to learn it’s a curse.

The silence is broken by Soap.

“Can be fun, sometimes.” He offers. “Kyle and I have a runnin’ bet over who dies first in whatever year we’re in.”

“No killing each other.” Price reiterates, scowling at Soap and Gaz, who look guilty. “Not even for fun.”

You make a note to ask about that story later.

“And most of all…” Price goes on, voice grave. “Don’t get captured.”

You remember the infirmary, the cuffs, Graves standing over you with his cold, calculating gaze as fear mounted higher inside you.

You shudder, and Soap lays a warm hand on your shoulder in reassurance.

“They won’t find you.” Ghost provides, and his voice is softer, eyes kinder. “You’re with us now.”

“Simon is right.” Gaz adds seriously. “We’ve been doing this for decades. Your commander has nothing on us.”

You offer him a grateful smile, and remember his warm eyes in the moment you first met him.

“We’ll be here when you wake up.”

These men saved you from a fate that was out of your control. They rescued you, kept you safe, and refused to leave you behind. They brought you to safety, comforted you, and even now they take care of you from your own fear of the future.

“You’re one of us.” Price offers quietly, strangely tender. His hand settles on yours, squeezes it hard for just a moment. “We don’t leave behind one of our own.”

You smile at him through the tears, more grateful than you can express. You’re still scared, and in the years to come you’ll still have nightmares of the man who killed you twice over, who had once been your ally. His betrayal sits in your heart as distant terror, and when it becomes too much your new family holds you, comforts you once more.

You’ll grow with them, fight with them. You’ll hold them as they breathe their last, cry with them over the things you couldn’t accomplish in your never ending fight against the worst of humanity. You’ll lament the agelessness between you all, but will help each other to stand once more. You’ll stand beside them for the centuries to come, and you’ll die alongside them.

And then you’ll wake up.

#cod x reader #cod x you #cod x gn!reader #cod x y/n #141 x reader #oneshots #old guard au

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sun-snatcher · 2 months

Text

🌾 ・ OF CLARION CALLS

summ. The rebellion runs into trouble, & Jet takes the brunt of it. In the aftermath, you fight to keep him alive. pairing. Jet x f!medic!reader w.count. 1.5k a/n. So little Jet fics/imagines around so i had to take matters into my own hands. Enjoy!

The moonlight casts a halo above your head, and for a brief moment, Jet thinks you’re a divine spirit, perhaps a goddess— or whatever it is his mother used to read to him before bed.

( In some ways, you are. )

…Jet, he hears, distant. He can’t pinpoint exactly where— every sound is either muffled or echoing, and the world keeps tipping in and out of a blur. All he can sense through the haze is the belt of dull pain creeping up his chest, and the cotton-numbness engulfing his head. Right. He’d been shot clean through his armor plate by a wayward arrow after he’d jumped infront of Sneers to protect him. He remembers now, vaguely. It had been an ambush on their way home.

...et, stay with me.

Jet.

“Jet!”

The world focuses. He inhales, sharp, and the pain blinds him white as he gasps.

“Easy there, handsome,” you joke (not really), holding his twitching body down and trying to meet his dazed look. The blood is thick enough to taste, and one look is enough to tell he’s walking a tightrope between life or death. He's growing colder, and losing colour by the minute. You make quick work to staunch the gaping wound in his chest, hope he can’t detect the shakiness in your hands, or the tears gathering in your eyes. “You’re gonna be okay.”

“Will he?” comes a voice behind the two medics crowding him. It’s Smellerbee, standing at the step of the medical tent; her voice sounds uncharacteristically frightened, and it sends a pang through your heart. I’m fine, Jet instinctively wants to insist, but you answer for him instead. “Yes. He will." ( And, well, surely such a small deception would not count against you, not when it was meant to give the others some measure of peace. )

Jet blinks, finally orienting himself enough to look at you and not through you— and blinks again. You’re lying. He could feel it. He could always tell, whenever it comes to you.

…Stay, he thinks, suddenly and senselessly, and clasps his bloodied hand around your wrist. He calls your name, voice straining in pain. But he must’ve said it aloud instead, because you’d smiled at him as gently as you could— even when it looked as if the effort of doing so would wound you— and said, calmly, convincingly: I promise, I’m not going anywhere.

“With me?” he asks, again, even when he knows he must’ve sounded like a madman. Perhaps it’s the bloodloss. Likely, it was. It wouldn’t be such a bad end, though, so long as you stood by his side. He wants to tell you this— been wanting to for a long time, now— but the strength has left him, leaving him floating somewhere between the world of waking and dreaming.

“With you,” comes your reply.

You catch the ghost of his trademark smile just before he slips away.

Jet survives.

That’s the first surprise.

The second is that; you’re here. Just as you’d promised.

He must have been out for longer than he thinks, because the atmosphere in the medical tent seemed to have ebbed to something much more conducive than last he remembers. The tinctures of alcohol and sedatives surrounding him and his bloody bandages that night are now replaced with dry ingredients; yarrow half-crushed in a mortar and pestle, mixed herbs and colourful liquids corked in tiny bottles and tins he couldn’t begin to name. His armour had been stripped from him, lying above a chest by the corner.

Ever the leader; “Sneers,” is the first word out his mouth, once he’d stirred awake on his cot and recognition returned slowly to him. It’s early sometime in the morning, judging by the colour of the sky outside the tattered tent flaps and the still quietness in the air. Beside him, an incense of sandalwood burns. “Sneers—”

“Is alive, thanks to you,” you override. The faint bitterness in your voice is not lost on him.

Somehow, someway, seeing him conscious now seemed to make you bristle. You think— no, you know— that it’s unfair of you; that it’s simply the pent-up frustrations and stress overflowing from the night he’d been hauled back to camp with one foot in the grave. But Longshot’s harrowing clarion call for a medic from the trees still rings clear as a bell in your head, just as much as the cold shock that had seized you the moment you realised the birdcall was for Jet.

“Good.”

“Not good,” you correct, “Not when you of all people pay the price.”

( Jet doesn’t delude himself into thinking that there could possibly be another meaning to what you said. It would be impossible. ) “You would’ve done the same,” he bites back, and takes your silence as quiet agreement.

“You’re upset,” Jet points out, narrowing his eyes. “Why?”

A sigh. “You just woke up,” you dismiss, if only to get him off your scent. “We can talk another day.”

“We’re already here, so let’s settle it now. The mission went well, and as far as I can see, I’m the only one in here, which means nobody else got hurt on the way back but me. Atleast, not as badly.”

It’s a debrief, you recognise. A coping mechanism for him— to spur himself into action and settle himself. Given the stress and trauma his body has been enduring the past days, you let it pass.

It’s only when you shift out from your seat by his cot, standing to begin putting away the bowls of medicine prepared, that Jet realises your fingers had been holding his wrist before. You must have stayed up for, what he can only imagine to be long nights, to keep track on whether his pulse was still beating. ( Something inside his chest burns. He can’t tell if it’s your doing or the injury being fussy. )

“I’m sorry,” he huffs, sighing out. “If that’s what you wanna hear.”

“For what?” You set the mortar down on your table with more force than necessary, and looked at him sharply from over your shoulder. Jet, damn him, still looks at you straight in the eyes, confident as ever. You want to kiss him. You want to break his nose. “For being a hero?”

“No.”

“Playing martyr?”

“No.”

“For saving Sneers? Everyone?”

“No—”

“Then what?”

“For scaring you,” he says, simply.

Your heart starts.

A frisson runs through you, and you feel the back of your eyes begin to burn.

“I’m sorry you had to see me like that,” he emphasises, and doesn’t say, I’m sorry I made you cry, because your prideful self would have denied it instantly, even if he remembers it clear as day. “I’m sorry I put you through that.”

He yanks at a loose thread on the blanket you’d laid on him a night ago. It must have been terrifying to see him be dragged to the table, half-dead with a broken arrow in his chest, and leave a mess of blood and horror in his wake. It must have been terrifying, indeed, to be the one responsible for him against Death itself— to carry the weight of his life on your shoulders, while the rest of the Freedom Fighters watched on.

“It’s, it’s my job,” you turn away to close a drawer of medical instruments, because you’re not quite sure you can stand meeting his gaze. Not when it only reminds you of just how much he lived, breathed and bleeds chaos and revolution; not when you know this accident definitely won’t be the last.

You can’t handle him. Or maybe it’s yourself you can’t handle, when it comes to him. “Just, be careful.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he salutes mockingly, albeit with a wince. The flinch is what kicks you back into action.

“You’re staying in bed until you’re better,” you order, curt, ignoring his groan. His wrapped shoulder still seems painfully defiant despite all the numbing you’d given him; it would be a couple of weeks longer before he’d be fully healed, but knowing Jet— he’ll be up performing duties within a week. “That means no strain at all. No scouting or recon or hunting, got it?”

He lulls his head, but there’s a dash of humour on his face. “Since I’m bedridden, does that mean you’re at my every beck and call, then?”

Your face twists. He lets out a laugh when you answer, "In your dreams, Jet."

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

You roll your eyes, though without heat, and place a bowl of fresh water by his side. There is, at the very least, a smile on your face, and Jet’s sure he can sleep well tonight knowing you both are, at the end of the day, okay.

“Hey,” he calls your name, once you've begun making your way out the tent. You try to ignore how much more sweeter it sounds coming from him. “I really am sorry. I’m serious.”

He had caught your sleeve when he spoke, so your fingers now brush against his. You try not to focus on the touch too much. “So am I.”

“We can’t lose you, Jet,” you continue, unsteady; because saying I can’t lose you would have been unthinkable.

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mylovelies-docx · 10 months

Text

Sorry, I Love You - Part 3

I think some of you were looking for this?

Plot: You and Bucky have a good thing going - best of friends that also have more than a little chemistry between the sheets. Everything is fine until you develop feelings for the man who doesn't want a relationship. What will happen when Bucky finds out?

C/W: WAR, fighting, guns, anxiety

Word Count: 1,800

Tag List: NOW CLOSED! If you'd like to keep up with this story, please follow my blog and turn on notifications! ❤️ you :)

Part 2

The explosion of brick and mortar behind you leaves your ears ringing. The drone strike you’d called in had saved your life, but the impact zone was a little too close for comfort. Looking around at the small pieces of debris raining down, you shrug your shoulders and can’t help but think that these pieces of rock are far more preferable than the bullets that it had been only moments ago.

You’ve bounced from place to place, helping out where you’re wanted – a few negotiations here, a few training courses there. You’ve been assisting SHIELD allies around the world for the last half of a year, hoping that the time and distance was helping Bucky get over your fuck up.

Not that you aren’t still in love with him – you knew you loved him then, and it hadn’t gone away. Even after the radio silence since you last spoke to him in the kitchen.

You’ve been in contact with all the other Avengers since you left. Obviously you called Nat and Wanda as often as you could, and Steve every other time, and Sam when you needed someone to really talk to about situations like the one you’re in now. You’re looking forward to actually seeing everyone when you get out of this mess.

A static crackle permeates through your still ringing ears. Assuming it’s the commanding officer in charge of this mission, you give your head a little shake and a rough smack to your temple in order to clear the sound.

When sound comes flooding back in, you press a finger to your in-ear communication device. “What was that, ma’am?”

“I said,” a distinctly male voice responds, “on your left.”

Your eyes light up at Steve’s voice in your ear. You peek over what’s left of the wall you’re hiding behind just in time to see him running full speed and leaping over your cover to land beside you. You holster your weapons and throw your arms around his wide shoulders, happy to see your friend in the flesh for the first time in what feels like forever. Steve puts one arm around you, the one holding the shield rising to deflect shots coming towards the two of you.

“‘Ma’am’!” someone laughs in your ear. “Man, that’s hilarious. It’s been so long that she’s forgotten what you sound like, Cap.”

You laugh along, happy to hear Sam’s teasing. “It hasn’t been that long, Sammy. My ears just weren’t working when he said it.”

“I obviously need to work on my timing,” Steve sighs good-naturedly. Your smile widens further when you pull away to look at his face. He smiles down at you. “It’s good to see ya, kid.”

“You too, Cap.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s not like we’re busy with something right now,” Sam grumbles jokingly as he flies over where you and Steve are to land on a rooftop just across the alley.

You step away from Steve completely to cup your hands up to your mouth and shout up at Sam, “It’s good to see you, too, buddy!” He bats his hand at you dismissively, taking off again as someone takes a shot at his position.

Your smile refuses to leave your face as you turn back to Steve and motion for him to follow. You dual wield your pistols and get back in the fray, Steve running at your side.You turn a corner and take down three enemies that were coming toward you, gathering ammo from their belts.

“So,” you start, “to what do I owe the pleasure, boys?”

“Do we need a reason to come see a friend?” Steve asks mock innocently.

“You do if said friend is in the middle of an active war zone.” You prop a hand on your hip to sass at Steve, pointing the other one over your shoulder and fire at the single combatant coming up behind you. They go down with a heavy thump. Steve lifts a brow.

You shrug self-assuredly, knowing that you’ve got great skills and not afraid to show it. You direct Steve further across the battlefield, making your way towards where the enemies have hunkered down.

“So?” You question again as you both settle inside a building that is miraculously still standing. “Are you going to make me ask Sam?”

“You go right ahead and ask me, baby girl,” Sam coos in your ear. You laugh delightedly and smile at Steve.

Steve sighs and shakes his head. “Let’s discuss this when we’re not about to die, alright?”

“10-4, good buddy.” You give Steve a proper salute and run away cackling, high on the feeling of having your friends with you again.

***

Hours later, you’re sitting in the medical tent, getting patched up. The nurse delicately pulls the needle and thread through the flesh of your upper arm, murmuring an apology when you flinch. You assure her not to worry, you wanted to save the numbing agent for the other soldiers that were hurt worse than you, anyway.

You look away from her kind but tired eyes when Steve and Sam part the entrance and walk into the tent. You smile up at them as they come to stand before your seated position. Sam grins and slaps an arm around your shoulder, tugging you into his side.

The nurse chides him gently, asking you to please keep still. You apologize to her and shove Sam away, laughing at his fake-hurt expression.

“So boys,” you try again. “What brings you to my temporary corner of the world?”

Steve diverts his attention away from you to address the nurse still at your side.

“How long does she need to recover, nurse?” He asks her.

“Oh, she’s fine,” the nurse replies, finished with your sutures. She turns away to pack up her kit. “It’s just a scratch.”

Turning back around to you, she says, “Just as long as you don’t lift anything too heavy. Okay, honey?”

You nod reassuringly at her and jump off the bed. “Will do, Marta. Thanks!”

Joining the boys, you slap them each on their shoulders as you pass by. “Come on, since you’re being so secretive. Let’s go to my tent.”

You journey across camp, leading Steve and Sam to the bunks you share with a couple other women. Everyone is in the mess hall having a late dinner, so you’ve all got a few minutes to speak in private.

You flop down on your cot, fluffing your pillow behind you and bringing your favorite blanket up and over your lap. You scoot your feet backwards until you can circle your arms around your knees and lean your chin on them.

“Out with it, Stevie.”

Steve sighs and takes a seat on the cot across from you, Sam sitting beside your feet.

“Before you start freaking out –” Steve says, holding his hands up in a hold on, wait a minute gesture, “Nat is fine.”

“Nat!” you exclaim, lifting your head in alarm. “What happened to Nat? Is she okay?”

“Hey, he literally just said not to freak out,” Sam interjects, elbowing you in the shins. You kick lightly at him to get him to stop.

“She’s fine,” Steve repeats. “It’s just that her mission is taking a lot longer than we had originally anticipated.”

Phew, you think to yourself. You narrow your eyes at Steve before saying, “Don’t worry me like that, dude.”

Steve rolls his eyes exasperatedly. “I told you she was fine up front.”

You cross your arms over your knees and let out a huff as you place your chin on your forearms. You decide to let Steve say what he needs to say.

“Anyway,” he continues. “That means we need help with the next mission.”

“Okay?” You respond questioningly. “You know I don’t mind coming back, it’s just…”

You glance between Steve and Sam, letting the name hang in the air between you. Sam snatches it up and speaks it into existence.

“Bucky.”

You nod your head slowly and grimace. “Yeah.”

“Look,” Sam says, “I don’t know exactly what happened between you two, but that man’s been –”

Steve abruptly cuts him off. “Sam. Don’t.”

“And why the hell not?” Sam counters. “It’s not like she’s the one that screwed it up.”

You reach over and gently pat Sam on the leg, ending the argument between the two men before it can begin. “It’s alright, Sam.” You retract your hand, settling your legs into a criss-cross and worrying your fingers in your lap. You nibble on your lip before saying, “It kind of is my fault, though.”

“Bullshit,” he grumbles and crosses his arms. The material of his t-shirt stretches across his back and chest with the movement. You smile appreciatively, happy that Sam is always on your side, and rub your palm across his shoulder blades in a soothing motion. “Everything is always the Tin Man’s fault.”

“Sam,” you chide. “You can’t say things like that unless he’s here to argue with you.”

Sam harrumps and stops talking.

You finally turn back to Steve. “You know I only left to give him some space. As long as me being on this mission won’t bother him, you know I’ll do it.”

“That’s the thing…” Steve raises his hand to rub at the back of his neck, not meeting your eyes. You lift a brow, not liking the hesitation. “This is the undercover mission we were going to send you on.”

Your heart plummets in your chest hearing Steve’s words. A spark of anxiety burrows into your stomach, making you slightly nauseated.

“Ah, that’s – uh…” You really don’t know what to say in response. Your mind spins, running through all the possible scenarios of reuniting with Bucky before he’s ready. Before you’re both ready.

Based on Bucky’s previous reactions, none of them turn out well.

You start picking at a hangnail on your finger, not meeting their eyes. Sam places his hand on your knee and squeezes gently. “Does Bucky…?” you begin.

“Ohhh yeah,” Sam chuckles, “he knows. Man, you should have seen Steve’s face when Buck asked –”

Steve’s long-suffering sigh cuts Sam off. He stands abruptly and walks the two paces to your cot, settling his hand on your shoulder and forcing you to look up into his eyes. “It’s not our place to tell you anything, Y/N. You and Buck can figure things out when we arrive back at base.”

“And when will that be?” You question, hoping beyond hope that you’ve got your dates wrong and the undercover mission isn’t actually set to begin two days from now.

“As soon as you’re packed,” Steve responds.

He claps your shoulder and turns to grab Sam. Steve ushers him out to allow you the privacy to pack up your belongings.

Part 4

@jackiehollanderr @rabbitrabbit12321 @12345sebby @blackwood-bodecker-housewife @lauraashley93 @themorningsunshine @happinessinthebeing @nash-dara @calwitch @stany0url0calwh0res111 @pono-pura-vida @learisa @introverbatim @kentokaze @marvelogic @kaz11283

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky fanfic #Sorry I Love You

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hopefullygettingtaller · 5 months

Text

When The Amazing Devil wrote "You will scream, 'I won't forget you' but I'll cover my cold ears, It cannot be a lie if no one hears. 'Cause although you say good day to me, I know I don't belong. And although you hold my hand and say I love you, you are wrong. 'Cause love does not exist in this garden, there's no feeling. And you say the words so often that I barely know the meaning. And when the flowers are rotten and all cannons shot, I'll scream but you won't hear, 'forget me not'" and when they said "Pray for me, oh children, pray for what I've done, I'll haunt the very wrinkles of your skin" and when they yelled "God made all man in his image, Honey I'm no man, I'm what's left when children go to war" and when they cried "The cracks you made, I filled with mortar, a broken pot can still hold water" and when they whispered "These hands are growing old, they're running out of things to hold" and when we all weeped with them "If I'm good will you come back, If I'm good will you come back to us" and when they scribbled "Let foul men band and heed your hum for that ancient hymn you heard me strumming's nought but fumble-falls and guns and tumbleweeds, love run. It's nought that rum won't solve though some would harm you, none, not one, no one would raise to you a hand nor thumb, not while by you, I stand and hum" and expected people to just go on about their days, and when they said "If I have to be who I was (You're not) Do I have to be who I am" and then they said "'Cause I will suffer silence for the strings you tune. And I'll withstand what's written for the writer in you. Write me well, my love, write me weird, write me willing, write me well." And when we all sang "Shoulder the sky (I can't wait to show you how much) Open those eyes (I know you can be, just let the rain come) There's a kind (Let the rain come down, darling) (Can't you hear it howling) Of calling" and when they made me freeze right where I stood with "Back then, I wasn't hopeful. But now my ink's blood red, not black. And I'll blink like ripping envelopes in the hopes that you'll write back" and BACK TO BACK they wrote "Cause I'm between that just-one-more and drank-too-much again" "And I promise you I'll write I love you with my fingers on your sleeping hand" "And when I think I'm fine you'll visit, and then you'll happen to me, happen to me all over again" and then had the audacity to say "And I'll sing silence, and ask my glass of wine for guidance. I might not make it tonight" and then "They'd paint your eyes with sunsets (my saints, my sigs, my upsets)" and ON TOP OF THAT "You're not a coward 'cause you cower. You're brave because they broke you, yet broken, still you breathe." AND SOMEHOW WROTE "'Cause I'm not trapped with you, you see. you're the one who's trapped with me." IN THE SAME FUCKING SONG ALONGSIDE "Sometimes I fall to pieces just to see what bits of me don't fit" then decided to break some hearts with "We didn't talk, we made universes out of bitten lips and broken hands. You said I love you less than when it all began, and I said fewer cause I make jokes to show how broken I really am" and then they were both the man their fathers never were and more than what their mums told them to be. And then there was the utter heartbreak of "If I don't make it back from where I've gone, just know I've loved you all along" being repeated for an entire outro. AND THEN THERE WAS "Remember me I ask, remember me I sing. Give me back my heart, you wingless thing." with "Think of all the horrors that I promised you I'd bring, I promised you, they'll sing of every time you passed your fingers through my hair and called me child. Witness me old man I'm the wild." "How bold I was, could be, would be, still am. By God still am" AND THEN THE SHEER FORCE OF THE LINES "Welcome to the storm, I'm thunder. Welcome to my table bring your hunger"

AND EVERY TIME THEY COMPARED THEMSELVES TO THE SAINT OF THE PAINT THAT WAS LEFT IN THE POT, YOUR ANGEL ELLIPSIS, YOUR DEVIL OF DOTS, THE HEARTBREAK THAT ACHES FAR TOO MUCH TO BE SHUNNED, ALL THOSE LETTERS UNSENT, AND THAT GARDEN UNGROWN, THE CAPTAIN OF COURAGE THAT YOU'VE ETERNALLY LACKED AND THE JESUS OF WISHING TO CHRIST YOU'LL COME BACK AND SO. MUCH. MORE.

"This here is not make up, It's a porcelain tomb. And this here is not singing I'm just screaming in tune" ARE YOU KIDDING ME "You try so loud to love me, I cannot seem to hear" and "'Cause If we join our hands in prayer enough, to God I imagine it all starts to sound like applause" IN THE SAME ALBUM WITH "And these plates they smash like waves (place your hand in mine) And on the wind, it howls (how long can this last?)" AND "'Cause these plates, they smash like waves (Place your smile in mine) And the wine stains, hide the tears (Why stay? Hide the-) But that breathing you hear, don't mistake it with sighs. Don't you realize, they're just battle cries, my dear?" And then, when they said "And you, you follow philosophies, but me, I laugh, I choke. 'Well hello my hollow Holofernes' I wink but you don't get the joke" and while we were all busy processing, they reminded us "Your eyes aren't rivers there to weep, but a place for crows to rest their feet" AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON "I chipped my teeth on every joke you cracked" In this essay I will-

#the amazing devil #joey batey #madeleine hyland #I WILL FOREVER MOURN THE FACT THAT I CANNOT PROCESS THESE LYRICS AS WELL AS THEY DESERVE TO BE UNDERSTOOD BECAUSE I'M NOT A NATIVE SPEAKER #I AM NOT NORMAL ABOUT THIS #I CAN NEVER BE NORMAL ABOUT THIS #THE FACT THAT I WROTE MOST OF THESE FROM MEMORY

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imabeautifulbutterfly · 2 months

Note

Hi <3

May I have Cody with f!Jedi reader and the prompt 15 and 35?

(I hope I memorized the numbers correctly 😂)

💕

Hello love @your-local-jedi-commanderThank you for the love and participating, it's so sweet of you.

I hope you enjoy the story.

The General

Warnings: Fighting, blood, wound, medical procedure, bantering, discussions of death and violence, explosions, mud. I think that's it, if I miss any please let me know.

Main Master List | Star Wars Fic Roulette

The battle was enduring much longer than anyone anticipated, it didn’t help that this god-forsaken planet wouldn’t stop raining. Cody crouched down behind a boulder doing his best to provide cover for the General who joined their operation. It’d been three months since they’ve been fighting and they barely made any advancement.

The blood from the gash on his forehead was trickling down and into his eye, he kept wiping it away, trying to get a line on where you stood and where the droids were; but it was all starting to blur. He closed one eye, aiming as best he could; force, how he missed his helmet, but a stupid mortar shell damaged his HUD and now he had to deal with the elements. A new one was on its way, but it wouldn’t get to him until he made it back to the FOB, so for now squinting and wiping had to do.

He wiped one more time, taking aim, and fired. Only to see his laser beam, pass by only an inch from where you were, nearly hitting you. You dismantled the droid, with one swing, and spun to look at him, “What are you doing!”

“Sorry, General. My eyes …”

You shook your head, “Commander, do me a favor. Just sit there and look pretty, let me handle this.”

He felt embarrassed by that embarrassing shot. His embarrassment grew, when he saw you call the force and push all the droids away, somehow simultaneously igniting all their grenades. You turned and walked away as the explosion ricocheted behind you, making you look ethereal. Cody wished he had his helmet so he could’ve captured the image.

You didn’t even bother to look back, your only concern was Cody. It wasn’t like him to be sloppy with his shots, he was either in a lot of pain, or his vision was getting worse, which was even more worrisome.

You couldn’t help but worry about the Commander, ever since you joined Obi-wan’s fleet, he’d been a breath of fresh air in the force. With all the violence and death surrounding you because of the war, the dark side of the force swallowed up all that was good. It drained you more than you realized, that was until the moment you met Cody, it was as though someone brought out the sun, and breathed life back into your life.

As you walked over to Cody, you noticed the gash on his forehead was still bleeding pretty profusely, “Why didn’t you get this taken care of?” You kneeled beside him, your fingers gently prodding the wound.

“I wanted to watch your back.”

You tilted your head as you smiled at him, “And who’s watching yours, while you’re watching mine?”

He smirked as he looked at you, “Doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.”

You looked him in the eye, wanting to tell him what he really meant to you, even if it was against the code. Even if he wasn’t allowed to have relationships, you didn’t care. You just wanted to let him know, but somehow it never came out. Sure variations of what you wanted to say, made it past your lips, but never exactly what was pressing on your heart.

“It’s not that bad.”

“I beg to differ, Commander.” Your hand slid down the side of his face, as you gently cupped his cheek, it lasted for a brief second, but that brief second could’ve been an eternity for all you cared. You pulled your hand away slowly, reluctantly.

Cody almost chased the warmth of your hand, feeling your fingers, your palm, your skin on his, made it feel like a dream come true. Ever since you stepped off that shuttle, and joined General Kenobi’s fleet, it was as though life had shown him there was more than to simply exist. It wasn’t just about the war and his brothers. There was you. You brought meaning to his life, something he never quite understood, but was happy to accept.

Maybe it was when he first saw you take down twenty droids on your own, maybe it was when you used the force to protect him and his brothers, when you shielded them from the explosions, or maybe it had to do with that laugh that somehow made his heart want to lurch forward, and made his stomach flutter, all he knew was at some point he fell in love with you.

“Come on, I’ll take you back to the med tent. Get you cleaned up.” You guided his arm around your shoulder as you helped him up.

“I can walk, General.”

“You nearly shot me. Right now, I don’t trust you to take a pee without assistance. Just accept the help.”

“You always this stubborn?”

“Says the quacta calling the stifling slimy.”

“I have to be, have you met my General.”

You laughed that laugh that made his heart feel as though it had wings, he tightened his arm around your shoulder, wanting to pull you in close. “Obi-wan does have a knack for getting into trouble, I will grant you that.”

“You can blame him for my stubbornness.”

“Oh, I will.”

You pulled him in closer, wanting to take as much advantage of the warmth from his body as you could. Before you helped him sit on a med cot. Although you weren’t a healer, you did make it a point to learn how to perform certain medical treatments on the field. Oftentimes there were not enough medics and one more extra hand, meant one more soldier was saved. So you did what needed to be done. You moved away from Cody to grab a suture kit, placing it on the cot beside him, and grabbing a santizing wipe.

“Alright, I’m going to need to clean this first.” You prepared him, hoping he understood the pain that was about to happen.

“You don’t have trouble yourself, General, I can wait for another medic.”

“The other medics are dealing with more severe cases, I can handle this. Now, this is going to hurt, okay?”

Cody simply nodded, gripping his knee, as you started to wipe away the rain, the blood and even some mud that had splashed on to his face. His face twisted in pain, you leaned forward and blew gently on the wound, it shouldn’t have seemed as romantic or even as sensual as it did, but somehow the both of you found it to be rather intimate.

His eyes opened and looked into yours, in that moment he was saying all the things he couldn’t, as he looked into your warm, kind, beautiful eyes.

You took a shuddering breath, when it felt as though time stopped as you looked into his eyes, you wanted to lean forward, to press your lips to his, to let him know how much of your heart was already his.

Before the distance could be closed, a noise from outside the tent startled the both of you, when you realized how close you were. Cody could feel his cheeks flushing, as you slowly pulled back looking aside for a second, before you moved to grab the needle and thread. You looked into his eyes one more time, a smile on your face, that told him, you knew.

He simply smiled back and whispered, “Me too.”

The smile on your face grew, before you started to stitch him up.

Main Master List | Star Wars Fic Roulette

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howlingday · 1 month

Note

Ask

Everyone goes back to beacon during the reunion. Jaune was voted most likely Die in his class.

Q to everyone in the reunion. Watching the news as jaune the rusted knight. Medal gear rising rules of Of nature a gigantic grimm.

"Wait, wait, so you were The Rusted Knight the entire time?"

"Pretty much." Jaune shrugged, taking a sip of his fruity beverage. Shade Academy, despite the rumors and tales told from his close friends, was still an academy for students and just as strict for being so. Not that he was complaining, since he never really got into the harder drinks, partially because of Ruby's uncle. "That's not even the craziest thing to happen." Everyone gave him a weird look. He scratched his cheek. "Okay, it was, but it's not the last weird thing to happen to me."

"What was it?" Velvet asked.

"While we were making our way to Shade, we ran into some Grimm, these huge worms with big ol' red eyes-"

"Blind Worms." Everyone said in unison.

"Oh, uh, you guys know about them, too?"

"We've been in Shade for a while now, dude." Neptune answered.

"Some of us longer than others." Sun added.

"I was actually eaten by one." Coco said, drinking from her canteen. It could have been coffee, or it could have been soda. Jaune wasn't sure what Coco's tastes were. "Pretty dark in there."

"Tell me about it." Jaune said with a sigh. "Thought I was going to die for a minute, which would have sucked since I just came out of the Ever After."

"How did you get out?" Cardin asked with a quirked brow.

"Did the Vomit Boy induce vomiting?" Russel sniggered before being elbowed by his leader.

"No, I just kinda... cut myself out." At this, everyone glanced at one another before passing a judging gaze at him. Sure, Jaune had grown since his departure from Beacon. Everyone saw the message Ruby sent out AND the video beforehand of Jaune fumbling with the camera controls, but they paid less attention to how much he'd physically changed and saw that he was still the lovably dense goofball that was Jaune Arc. He might have changed, but, at his core, he stayed the same. "What are you guys looking at me for?"

"If you were small enough to be eaten by a Blind Worm, then there's no way you could have just "cut your way out." No offense, of course." Neptune said.

"It's true, though!"

"Yuh-huh! I even have the video!" Everyone turned to see Jaune's team, Nora and Ren, standing by, with the former holding a scroll out. "Ren and I got the whole thing on our scroll!"

"I got it on my scroll." Ren clarified, tapping the screen to unlock it and prove that it was indeed his scroll in his girlfriend's hands. "Nora provided commentary while she fired mortar shots at the Grimm around them."

"Enough yapping!" Nora shouted, tapping the now unlocked scroll. "Check out my sick as hell fearless leader!"

The video played and, just as Ren had said, Nora was shouting profanities and making... disturbingly cheery remarks as the Grimm had been blown to pieces. In the distance, Team RWBY and Jaune were being surrounded by the Blind Worms while a huntsman team was dispatched to assist after almost an hour of fighting. The smaller ones were easy to dispatch, but a much larger one was taking potshots with its acidic spit from a distance. Jaune then broke from the group to engage the larger one alone, but soon realized none of the smaller Grimm were following him.

The sand beneath Jaune began to shift until he was then swallowed whole by the larger Blind Worm. The massive Grimm then dove back down, taking Jaune with him. The camera began to shake as you could hear Ren grinding his teeth at the sight. Faint whispers of, "Come on, Jaune" were uttered for everyone to hear. By the third iteration of the chant, the worm emerged once more, letting out a howling scream as it was sliced in half. Unlike the other instances when this happens, in which the Blind Worm would retreat to grow into two more Blind Worms, the titanic creature began to fade away into dust and ash from being sliced in half longways across its entire body.

It was at this point that the backup huntsmen arrived and Ren screamed "HOLY SHIT!" for everyone to hear. Cardin and Russel mocked the exclamation for a bit, but this didn't detract from everyone sharing the same reaction as they all looked at Jaune.

"Did we miss the video?" Ruby asked, running up to the group.

"You've already seen it a thousand times." Weiss groused as she followed behind. "How many more times do you need to see the same thing?"

"At least a thousand and one." Ruby replied, after thinking about it for a few moments, earning a groan from her partner.

"It's really not that impressive, Ruby." Jaune shrugged. "Pretty sure you could pull that off ten times over." At this, the group erupted into a mixture of emotions, ranging from guffaws of disbelief to outcries of disparages to uproarious laughter at the strangely humble and awkward Jaune Arc.

#rwby #jaune arc #ruby rose #yang xiao long #weiss schnee #nora valkyrie #blake belladonna #lie ren #cardin winchester #coco adel #velvet Scarlatina #russel thrush #sun wukong #neptune vasilias

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precious-little-scoundrel · 2 months

Text

WIP teaser

I got myself a lovely little request over a week ago for a Nurse!xBuck fic. Well, hi, it’s me, can’t not take that and run with it straight off the edge of the known world. I don’t even have a fixed name for it yet but I’ve been enjoying AU-ing our familiar faves to death with it

MOTA Pacific Theatre AU: yeah, you heard that right. Maybe it’s the anniversary of Iwo Jima currently happening or maybe it’s my ongoing crush on Ensign Jane Kendeigh, or -more likely- my subconscious awareness that nurse OC’s are a pretty favorited bunch for fandom writers, so I’ve found myself mixing it up entirely.

We’ve got Navy Flight Nurses and we’ve got Lt. Commander Doc Egan and co-pilots Cleven and Demarco who aren’t too fond of having to fly cargo planes full of wounded out of war zones all due to flight surgeon John Egan’s special request to have Cleven chauffeur him around. Oh yeah, and somehere in here there’s a developing thing between Cleven x oc Nurse!Ensign Maureen Kendeigh

TW: blood? Use of the word “Jap”

…

“You got it, commander.”

More than a little sure her mission was more provoking than necessary, Maureen still obeyed and followed Brady up the length of the plane and towards his station, then past it to poke her head between the pilots’ seats.

“Well, well, this is a pleasant surprise, getting car sick, kiddo?” Demarco joked, “Hey, I get it, I’d find it hell back there with no windows to look out.”

“Those mortars obligingly made a few.” Maureen joked back.

“Anybody hurt?” Cleven asked, and to her surprise, he turned from his panel to look at her with unmasked concern.

A joke was ready made there about everyone quite literally being shot to hell but she sensed he’d not appreciate it and following some uninterpreted impulse of desiring his good opinion, she hardly wished to repay his earnestness with flippancy. “Only one.”

“How bad?”

“He looked -dead.” Maureen admitted, she hadn’t gotten a good look at the man moving past him but she’d seen Egan’s treatment of the body and it wasn’t promising.

Cleven’s jaw worked overtime at the news and something snapped in his mouth, followed by a soft curse from lips too full and soft to always be so stern. Maureen thought he may have broken a tooth with all that tension but he spit out two halves of a bloodied toothpick instead. It fell to his pant leg.

“Major Cleven, sir, you’re bleeding.” It had drawn Maureen’s attention to his wet lap.

“That’s what I said.” Demarco agreed.

“It’s somebody else’s.” Cleven shook his head.

“You know if you pass out on me-“ Demarco warned, completely ignoring Cleven’s denial.

“-that’s why we’ve got co-pilots.” Cleven finished for him with a maddening smirk that made Benny Demarco throw his hands up.

“Can you check him?” he asked, “I mean -you are a nurse!”

“What? Hell no!” Major Cleven spooked for the first time all day at the suggestion, glancing quickly from his reddened trousers, behind him to Maureen Kendeigh, and back again. “I’m fine.” he declared in a firm tone that dettered her almost as much as the challenge of getting over the instruments and a steering column to pull down his pants and look. “Ensign Kendeigh, was there a purpose to your visit?” He redirected, resolutely ignoring Demarco’s unabated concerns.

“Yes sir,” she replied, meekly as she could, “Doc Egan asked me to remind you that you’re not flying a bomber. To mind the oxygen, sir. And that it’s cold.”

Cleven let out a mirthless little laugh. “We’re full of holes Ensign, of course it’s cold.”

“I know sir.”

“Yeah, ‘course you know,” his eyes lightened for a moment and Maureen almost deluded herself he was being chummy when he murmured next, “you’re smart like that. Tell the Lieutenant Commander I’ll keep her nice and low, so low the Jap navy gunners can blow the floor out without a sweat.”

“Thank you, Major.” Maureen chirped, pleased to have been trusted with a bit of morbid humor -it was the truest test of being taken seriously a woman could hope for in the service.

“Thank you, Ensign.” And with that she was dismissed.

#wip #those who can #mota #masters of the air #Gale Cleven #mota AU #Buck Cleven #Austin butler #Austin butler fanfiction #mota fanfic #gale cleven x reader #john egan

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pigeontheoneandonly · 4 months

Text

exit criteria

ETA: Now with AO3 link! Link

For once, I was actually feeling writerly, so I did a little time loop fic tonight about the run to the beam at the end of ME3:

The mortar struck the tank, flipped it, and in one single motion smeared Kaidan and Garrus into paste.

Shock took Shepard first, and the bullet took her second.

* * *

This time, Shepard threw her arm out and kept Kaidan from running ahead. So the bullet got him instead.

* * *

She had figured out far more complex problems than this, many times over. Failing twice was annoying. A blemish on her record, even if nobody else would ever know. So Shepard took half a beat before charging down the London rubble once again, used it to draw her own heavy weapon, and simply blasted the tank out of the way.

Garrus spared a moment none of them had to toss her a confused glance. Her answering smirk had just reached peak smugness when the airborne reaper unit, alerted by the explosion, sighted and fired, briefly illuminating each of their three outlines in its plasma beam before they atomized.

* * *

Her squad balked at running down the right side of the field when the center was clearly optimal. But they’d followed her to hell, and there was no time to argue.

Kaidan didn’t say I told you so when the banshee lifted him by his hair to her fetid mouth. He was too preoccupied with screaming, suddenly cut off.

* * *

Think, Shepard. She stared across the battlefield. Twenty seconds, then a minute, then five—an eternity in these conditions. The profligate waste didn’t concern her. Clearly, she’d have as many attempts as necessary to get this right.

(You hope, whispered a poisonous thought. You assume. You need.)

Beyond the beam that led to the Citadel, Harbinger crouched.

“I need to go further back,” she said aloud, abrupt, just before the reaper’s cherry red beam shot out through the dark with unerring precision.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Hackett told her, on the med evac shuttle more than a day after she left Garrus and Liara dead under the tank. “The Crucible firing disabled most of the fleet, but stopped short of outright destroying it. Cerberus put too much reaper technology into the Normandy’s redesign. We found no survivors.”

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Shepard said, as Kaidan broke their goodbye kiss, eyes wide. A hypodermic needle was small but still noticeable when it pricked the delicate skin of the neck. “I need you to live.”

Her arms caught him as he folded up, gentle. Forgive me.

A bombed-out building had few good or secure hiding spots the size of an adult human male. Someone found him and brought him back to the Normandy. To the impromptu field hospital. To the personal care of an inexperienced and self-trained civilian medic whose misdiagnosis led to organ failure.

After the fourth attempt, Shepard abandoned the approach in exasperation.

* * *

Her squad charged down the left side. Killing a brute wasn’t unprecedented at this point in the war, but doing so with barely twenty feet of maneuvering room proved impossible. She should know. She tried ten times.

* * *

Shepard sat down at the top of hill, wrapping her arms around her knees and staring down the beam with real anger.

“Shouldn’t we charge?” Kaidan asked.

“You’d think so,” she grumbled.

* * *

The tank flipped.

The tank flipped—

* * *

Once, she went to the hill alone and screamed with every last ounce of frustration in her body. “What do you want from me?!”

Harbinger did not deign to reply. It did not even deign to slap her aside itself. Instead, it left her to be overrun, eventually, by various husks.

* * *

It merited further consideration, however: What did Harbinger (or the universe, or fate, or or or) want from her?

Her eyes narrowed over the London apocalypse. The galaxy can burn. There is no version of this mission where I let Kaidan die.

* * *

I won’t, she said, as a marauder broke through his armor.

I won’t, she said, while Kaidan flew thirty feet into the air and hit the ground with terrible finality.

I won’t, she said, as the tank flipped over him.

* * *

Kaidan found her in starboard observation, Earth growing ever larger in the port. Her hand pushed against the glass as if she could, by force, prevent it coming any closer.

She knew his footsteps. She knew the way the air stirred around his shape, the faint rustle of his clothes and the even fainter whiff of soap. Every line, tick, and habit.

Her shoulders hunched.

He asked her what was wrong, because he knew her, too, every mood and every flinch.

So Shepard did something she’d never done before, in any iteration: she told him.

It took a bit of time, and then they were both quiet for a long while. Kaidan held her curled in his arms. His breath in her hair. Her fingers digging into his forearm.

“I need you to do something for me,” he said, at last, sounding as tired as she felt.

Shepard knew Kaidan. Her grip tightens another fraction. “Don’t you dare say it.”

Quietly, inexorably, gently. “You need to let me go.”

The only answer she could bear was to shake her head, her throat stopped up.

* * *

Shepard never made that mistake again. But yet.

He kissed her in London, his hand lingering, cupped around her cheek. You need to let me go.

His gloved hand scooped up hers, just for a few paces, a stolen moment on a quiet street between packs of roaming reaper forces on their way to the beam, an ounce of warmth amid terror and despair. You need to let me go.

His breath woofed out, relief and new tension all at once, as they crested the hill and stared down at the frighteningly open terrain teeming with endless enemies, glowing with gunfire, the last stand, the last fight. You need to let me go.

* * *

She sat beside the tank a long while. Kaidan, his meat, was somewhere under it. In point of fact, this was the longest she’d ever lasted, any time she’d paused during the run to the beam. Nothing cared about her. Not here in the shadow of a ruined vehicle, no gun drawn, no fight left in the lines of her body. They all saw instinctively that she was no true threat.

There wasn’t a name for this sort of grief. How could anyone grieve a person who was dead thirty or forty or a hundred times over? He’d been dead the first time the mortar struck the tank and he was still dead now and there was absolutely nothing, nothing, to be done about it.

After a time, other reapers landed, legions of them making mountains on the horizon with their long, raised thoraxes. Systemically, they scoured London clean in a shower of particle beams and sonorous booms.

Shepard fell asleep not long after dawn and died without knowing it.

* * *

Kaidan tore his gaze away from the beam when he felt the pressure of Shepard looking at him. He cocked his head. “What are you doing?”

She took him in. Not long, not nearly long enough, but she took what she could get of him, always. Almost too quiet to hear, she sighed out, “Letting go.”

His brow creased. Then Garrus yelled, as the first of the enemy took notice of them, and they were flying down the field, Shepard chasing Kaidan chasing Garrus.

The mortar arced downward.

The tank flipped up into the air.

Shepard ran. The bullet whizzed past her shoulder, where she stood not a fraction of a second earlier.

The airborne reaper, passing overhead, took note of the human, and fired a plasma beam. The angle was not optimal. Even perfect machines bow to physics.

The beam flashed by her at near light-speed, hot enough to scorch her cheek.

It met the tank in the midair.

The tank glowed, and then exploded, knocking Kaidan and Garrus to the ground under a hot shrapnel rain.

The stab in her chest never lost its edge, no matter how many dozens of times he died. But her step didn’t falter. Her arms pumped, her legs flying, moving so fast, in fact, that the tears leaking out of her eyes flowed back into her hair—

Until, as she flashed by the tank’s remains, something new:

Kaidan sat up.

#mass effect #kaidan alenko #commander shepard #shenko #this is like...barely edited but it felt SO GOOD to be able to write something #i don't even care lol

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underdark-dreams · 3 months

Text

🖤 WIP Whenever 🖤

Tagged by @commander-krios and @dutifullylazybread! Thank you both! No-obligation tags for your fic or art WIPs: @rolansrighthorn, @faerunsbest, @swordcreature

I thought I'd share more from my in-progress Rolan rut fic, Birds and Bees. It started as a one-shot and is now drafted out at 3 chapters (oops!)

(Featuring a new Tav! She's a ranger who swings by Sorcerous Sundries to do her alchemy when she's in the city, and attempts to flirt with the oblivious wizard in her free time)

A laugh came from behind his back. “Do you mind?”

Rolan turned to look. Tav was gesturing at the corner of her makeshift alchemy station with eyebrows raised. To his own confusion, he found that his tail had traveled there of its own accord sometime in the past minutes. It lay coiled on the wood, its tip flicking back and forth in her direction, as if seeking her attention.

With another chuckle, Tav’s fingers closed around it and playfully dropped the appendage off the edge of her work desk.

An involuntary sound caught in Rolan’s throat. The moment her hand connected with his skin, a shock of blood rushed to his groin. He nearly tipped forward in alarm at the feeling.

The rapid redirection left his legs wobbling and bloodless. His knees nearly buckled under him; he gripped sharp claws into the edge of his wooden desk to steady himself.

As the ringing in his ears cleared, he heard Tav reading under her breath behind him as she ground something in her mortar. Praise the gods that whatever just happened to his body had escaped her notice.

“I need a book from the library—”

Without a backward glance, Rolan stumbled toward the stairs.

#if you see this and want to join #consider yourself tagged!!#wip whenever #rebgrrl writes #rolan x tav #i initially planned this as just a smut oneshot #but it's so interesting to think about how ruts work #and specifically what rolan's nuclear embarrassment surrounding it would look like

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workersolidarity · 18 days

Text

[ 📹 A montage of scenes from six months of Israeli siege, bombardment, blockade, and genocide in the Gaza Strip as part of "Israel's" goal of ethnically cleansing the entirety of the Gaza Strip and genociding the Palestinian population that refuses to leave their homeland.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

ISRAELI OCCUPATION COMMITTS DEADLY MASSACRE ON THE EVE OF EID AL-FITR AS GAZA BOMBINGS RAMPS UP ONCE AGAIN

On the 187th day of "Israel's" special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed several massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 122 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 56 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

In the latest Zionist massacre and atrocity, the Israeli occupation air forces bombed a residential building belonging to the Abu Youssef family, located in the Al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, largely destroying the building and killing at least 14 Palestinian civilians, the majority of which were women and children, and wounding a large number of others.

The attack targeted a residential square housing Palestinian families and comes on the eve of Eid al-Fitr, the celebrations and prayers which mark the end of the Holy month of Ramadan, and the welcoming of the month of Shawwal, a major Muslim holiday.

Similarly, occupation warplanes bombed agricultural lands in the Al-Zuhur neighborhood, north of the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least one woman and wounding two others.

In another tragedy, a Zionist sniper shot a young Palestinian man near the Shuhada junction in central Gaza, resulting in the man's death.

At the same time, Zionist occupation forces destroyed a residential tower in the city of Al-Zahra, north of the Nuseirat Camp, in central Gaza.

In the meantime, local civil defense crews continue to recover the bodies of those murdered by the Israeli occupation in the Khan Yunis governate, in the southern Gaza Strip, after the withdrawal of the Zionist army from the area after months of ground operations, with reports that local paramedics transported the bodies of at least three citizens killed by the occupation in the southeast of Khan Yunis.

Occupation fighter jets also bombed a residential home in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, while also dropping bombs in the vicinity of the Al-Khazandar station, northwest of Gaza City.

Several Palestinian civilians were also martyred and wounded as a result of the Zionist bombing of a residential building in the eastern neighborhoods of the Jabalia Refugee Camp, in the northern Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, as Israeli bombings slaughtered innocent families in the Gaza Strip, Zionist-extremist colonists launched an attack on the Palestinian village of Burqa, located to the east of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

According to local sources, more than 30 Israeli colonial settlers launched an attack on the village of Burqa, firing automatic weapons with live bullets towards Palestinian families, injuring four civilians, including at least one 15-year-old child. The colonists also burned a barn during the attack which was used to house sheep.

The Palestinian Resistance, in particular the Mujahideen Brigades, belonging to the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, announced today a joint operation conducted with the Al-Qassam Brigades, belonging to the Hamas Resistance movement, in which Resistance forces attacked a unit of Israeli occupation soldiers operating southwest of Gaza City using mortar shells, successfully hitting their targets.

In other news today, Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin announced the Irish government would be submitting a proposal to the Parliament for the recognition of a Palestinian State in the next few weeks as part of "broader international discussions."

In a speech before the Irish Parliament, Martin said that "None of you has any doubt that recognition of a Palestinian state will happen," and that postponing the decision "is no longer convincing or defensible anymore."

Martin went on to slam the Israeli occupation's genocidal war in Gaza, telling Parliament that he had "no doubt that war crimes have been committed, and I strongly condemn the ongoing bombing of Palestinian citizens of Gaza," adding that the recognition of a Palestinian state could "strengthen the Arab peace initiative."

As a result of "Israel's" special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the death toll among the Palestinian population of the enclave has risen in excess of 33'482 Palestinians killed by the Israeli occupation, over 14'000 of which being children, accounting for over 44% of those killed, while another 76'049 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning on October 7th, 2023.

#source1

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#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

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historia-vitae-magistras · 3 months

Text

Part Nine: Drownings

Chapter Directory: Here

Current Installment: You are here!

Author's note: Inspired by the 1950s short story "The Man Who Came Early" by Poul Anderson. I rewrote this seven times and had an unrelated mental breakdown. I'm still not happy with it but at least everything that was in the outline is in this version. No major trigger warnings for this chapter. Also on ao3 here.

Burial Mound, Cumbria

Matthew slid beneath the water, practically consumed by the dark concentric circles flowing out and lapping gently at the stone. They had built the spring like an inverted broch, no mortar, all perfectly fitted stone.

“No!” Arthur was whipping off his coat. The wool would only become waterlogged and drown him. His body was a spring, energy coiling from shin to shoulder, arms thrown up over his head to break the surface tension, anything to give him an extra boost to get and clasp his son to him. Toes off the ground, arms snatched him back.

“No!” Rhys was slamming him to the ground like he was a boy, and Mother was a corpse upon a driftwood throne. There’s scuffling. He flipped himself over, white-hot rage replacing whatever desperation was before.

“Let me go!” It was always English when they argued, a force of speech as effective as a spear point since the Angles.

Rhys drove down, rolled him over, face in the moss and clover of the Cumbrian soil beneath his face, the heart of him a thousand years ago and forbid him in a dead language. More loss. He wouldn’t take more loss. But his arm would snap if he struggled anymore.

“Rhys.” Brighid was pulling him off. “Rhys, let him go.”

“No!” He shot back at her. “Absolutely not—”

“You have too.” She looked gentle now, not fearsome. Herself, St. Brighid, not the warrior goddess mother left her to inherit. Soft clover, her prized cattle roamed rather than the wine-dark seas that thrashed her shores. Her hand released him.

Rhys was protesting, but he wasn’t fighting or wrestling. Arthur couldn’t hear him or Brighid now. Their voices were silent; Alasdair was on the ground, shed of his clothes, bleeding from a cut on his hairline. He almost snorted. Brighid would have had to strike him as hard as she could to stop him. Alasdair was saying something, mouth open to the French that was so familiar, calling after his favourite nephew. But his attention was gone now. The water spoke to him with Alfred’s laugh.

He dove.

—

Sometimes, when Matthew hasn’t slept, the ice starts whispering at home. Singing or whispering, luring him with cracks in the seracs as serpentine as a woman’s hips. It whispers about how much of him is already frozen. He can rest as much as he wants if he lays down and slips into blue-black waters. It sighs and tells him he can close his eyes, and everything will be all right. Tempts him. He’ll be so numb, but for a good reason. Everything would slide away, and he would be as empty as he felt. Sometimes, the ice sings.

And sometimes, he answers. He’s laid himself down into a gap in the pack ice for a nap so casually that the frigid water rushing over him feels gentle, not cold and cutting. Matthew has closed his eyes and let himself float away. He could emerge in a few months with the spring melt, float up, and return refreshed and rebuilt. Any absence unconsidered, and anyone who might have eventually noticed usually yet unbothered.

The spring sings like that, in a gentle burble instead of staccato groans but promising nonetheless. His brother’s laugh has gone quieter, disappearing under the water. The dry stone edge of the spring is cold under his hands, but the lure is louder, and the water is not so cold. Words his aunt sang drop from sounds flesh might make to the deep metallic of something like bronze clacking on stone. Like wind forced through chimes or a horn. The water sings like that, a hymn for the missing or maybe the mad, urging him on as he let himself sink and then swam down, searching for a bottom as he kept one hand on the round stone wall.

Then, the world was rotating. The light had gone so bright. Turning, he slammed against the stone, what air he had left bubbling out of his mouth and gurgling away. Fuck. He tried to twist and paddle up; he could swim like a fish, but something had snagged—no! Something had grabbed and hauled him up from behind. He must have been running out of air. His vision flashed red, even against his shut eyelids, and he broke the surface. Heaving, he groped for stone but found green and freshly cut wood boards. A woman looked down at him, a bucket fitted together of wood in her hand. Her hair was pulled out of her face in a crown of braids. The linen shift she wore draped off her shoulders and dipped below the neckline of her bodice, a style that had been popular when he was a child, but it was her eyes he’d locked on.

“Katya?” She looked a bit healthier than he’d ever known her to be, but her eyes were the same sky blue. Hope and harvest blue. He would have recognized her if he didn’t have eyes, though, because that part of him that was hers sang louder than the water or the shout coming from behind him. Something was pulling at his shoulder. He didn’t care. Matt pulled himself closer. He could smell summer wafting off her.

Her surprise turned to something tender, and her hand lifted to his face and beckoned behind him. Someone else was saying his name from his shoulder. He didn’t care.

“I’m not what you’re looking for yet.”

“Yes, you are.” He said. “I’ll always look for you.”

“But not yet.” She insisted. Pushing his soaking wet hair off his face. “Return to my dreams, wraith.”

“Katy—” He was being dragged away then. She didn’t look sad but hopeful.

“Swim.”

“What the fuck— DAD?”

“My sons and their cocks, I swear to God.” Arthur was griping, and Matt was spinning, looking for a handhold to climb the wall of the… was it a well he was inside of? It was not a spring; the water was too cold and too dark. He was shivering. Katya was there, happier than he’d ever seen her, and he was stuck here, pushed away, banished.

“Matthew!” Two hands on his face, making him look. His father was soaked but deathly serious. “Focus.”

“What?”

“Focus on your brother and swim.”

His father’s voice cut the panicked babble of thoughts, and he heard the laugh again. He sucked in the air and dove. If it was one thing he was, it was a good swimmer, reaching out and down, striving forward. He has never seen such darkness. Only the odd, purposeful tap on his calf keeps him in contact with his father. They don’t have much time before Arthur begins to freeze, or they burst for air. His lungs are straining, individual bronchioles tracing branches of pain through his chest when light shines. Harvest gathering greens, mostly, then woad blues and sparks of red like fruit. If only stained glass could flow and distort light like tide pools, it would look like this. He can’t tell which way is up then. He can’t breathe. He’s blacking out, hand reaching for his father’s tumbling form next to him as they fell rather than swam. The colours drained from the world, and rushing water froze, black and fractal.

Then he’s on his back, and his father is slapping him across the face. He jackknifes into consciousness. Dad’s there, dripping like a drowned rat. But his body is normal. No blood showed, no bones were broken, and strength flooded back into his extremities as his body staved off hypothermia in the much warmer air.

“What the fuck was that?” He gasped.

“Breathe.” Arthur is a bit frantic. They’re both shivering. “Focus.”

“Where are we?” Matt was so confused. He recognized stones, the well. But there were so many trees. The trunks were as tall as any he had at home, taller than anything that had been replanted after they’d been hacked from him to build the empire. The rainbow of smeared colour still danced in his eyes and his vision smeared.

“Not where.” Arthur was pale. “When. I haven’t had this many oak trees since before your brother was born.”

“When?” Matt practically gagged on a shiver and laid back down. “Was that—Was that the rainbow bridge? Like the sagas?”

“The— Rainbow bridge? Really, lad? You gawking at Kateryna was the single most heterosexual thing I’ve ever seen you do.”

The less relevant his sense of humour, the more fucked they were. But the blood rushing back into his fingers and toes hurt ungodly amounts. He lost focus again, the trees blurring into the low clouds like brushes into well-used rinse water, only revealing the buttresses of his grandmother’s pre-Christian cathedral in the foliage. Better than stained glass.

He’s lying there, aware of Arthur having gotten to his feet, but not other people, until there are voices. He sits again. A small caravan of wagons heaped with goods stands at the edge of the clearing, and his father is speaking with them. He can only make out so many words. He almost thinks they’re speaking Dutch for a moment, those fluid, almost gurgly sounds Jan makes when he’s happy and well fucked. His body feels so normal now, warm and boneless, like he’s eaten and slept so much he needs to sleep more. He’s supposed to be alert but can’t understand what’s being said. He tried to learn Beowulf by heart once when he was a boy. Before Jack was born and no one cared enough to call a strange creature at the end of the frozen world kin, he’d poured over the pages of an ancient cracked book bound in even older leather. His father has no such issues, understanding or being understood.

“Hƿelċ tīd is hit nū?” He recognized the word for time, but the man laughed and replied in a way that took Matt the logic of forming half-forgotten grammar into a sentence that might not even be the same. That is something for the priests.

More words. He only caught the last two. Ælfrēd Cyninġ.

He sat straight, lightning running down his back. Alfred. Ælfrēd. The pressure of normalcy pushed his consciousness from all sides, embracing that empty, silent despair of days and days. It filled him back with life, like warm water over the cold. Not so near, not so strong, but there. Alive. His brother was in existence.

#hws england #hws canada #the dangeld axe to grind: the viking age time travel au #my writing || cacoethes scribendi

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sleepingelvhen · 4 months

Text

Work-Study Pt.1

Wriothesley/Reader NSFW

Minors DO NOT interact

MASTERLIST PART 1 PART 2

Working part-time as a Sigewinne's assistant, you find yourself enamored by the Duke of Meropide. One day when helping Sigewinne gather medicines, you discover on of the Duke's secrets and end up helping him in ways you never imagined.

The sounds of gears turning and clicking into place was all that filled the silence once the elevator descended below the ocean’s surface. Another day where you came down from the overworld of Fontaine to retrieve more medical supplies for Sigewinne and you still hadn’t quite gotten used to just how strange the change was. Going from bright scenery with the scent of the ocean upon the wind to being surrounded by cogs and mechanics and the ominous sound of being beneath the surface. It was almost like muted waves or bubbles surrounding your ears and pressuring your head.

Thankfully the ride down had gotten shorter in feeling from how often you did this for Sigewinne, so often that you felt your body relaxed when the doors opened to the underground mechanical world, the soft puff of metal and dust filling your nose now comforting than it was when you first stepped foot here. It had all become so…familiar…in a homey sense.

You made your way confidently to the infirmary, greeting the stark and silent guards as you went, trying to ignore the fact that they never once greeted you back. They treated everyone like a prisoner here, even guests, and especially you. A student from Sumeru, studying and taking notes upon the living conditions of the Fortress of Meropide, you had assumed it would make them less hostile. On the contrary, they seemed more peeved by your presence than some of the more violent denizens.

But you kept yourself up, ignored the feeling of being watched and happily entered the infirmary where Sigewinne was patching up someone who looked like they went a little too hard in the boxing ring. She patted the man's arm and gestured for him to leave as you set the herbs and other ingredients onto her side table for organizing later.

“Good, you’re back! Thank you for taking care of that, I prefer to be available as often as I can.” Her voice was as sweet as her personality, the little Melusine smiling softly and swinging her little body to the sides in joy. Sigewinne skipped over to the table, looking through everything, often humming with consideration as she pulled some items aside.

“Aha! There’s one more thing I’d like you to do,” she wasn’t looking at you. In fact she had piled some small herbs into a mortar and pestle and began grinding away, her face strewn in a small focused face.

“What else do you—”

“Give me a second!” She cut you off before you could speak and continued grinding and adding some liquids until she had a small vial of some sort of greenish liquid in her little palm.

“There! Alright, take this to Wriothesley.”

“Uhm…why?” You quickly regretted the dismissive tone you spoke in as Sigewinne shot you a sharp look, her face soon returned to her sweet smile.

“Because, it's to help him with an injury. Can’t keep himself out of trouble,” she sighed as she spoke and pushed the vial into your hands before shooing you out of the infirmary, shutting the door behind you.

With nothing else to do, you headed to Duke Wriothesley’s office. That was something you had definitely found unique about the Fortress of Meropide. Where most prisons simply had a warden who was basically a glorified guard, the warden here was a certified Duke and a previously convicted criminal. Everything about this place was interesting, you noted. Every day was similar and yet something new was happening all around. Not to mention the people you found company in were lovely, especially the Duke.

Your face flushed as you thought about it, quickly shaking away your feelings as you knocked on Wriothesley’s office door.

“Come in.” His voice was gruff and forced, like he was in pain.

His office was fairly neat and, of course, had a likeness to most rooms within the Fortress, the only difference being his was a little larger and he had a fairly nice desk. One he was sitting at, hunched over a bit with his fingers pressed into his temples.

“If this is about another fight breaking out, I’ll handle it–” He stopped once he noticed it was you and smiled softly, trying to mask his irritation and pain.

“Oh, sorry, I thought you were another guard. Come on in.”

You softly shut the door behind you and stepped up to his desk, setting the small vial of medicine in front of him.

“Order up from Sigewinne, pain medication for someone who ‘can’t stay out of trouble’. Her words, not mine.”

Wriothesley chuckled and took the medicine like a shot, grimacing as it went down.

“Ugh, she….certainly knows how to make a tasty drink.” His sarcastic tone was one of the things you found endearing about him and you giggled a bit from the little joke. Wriothesley leaned back in his chair, looking a little proud of himself for getting you to laugh.

“So…how goes your research? I’ve heard much talk of our curious little ‘Sumeru mouse’.”

You froze at that and blushed, “Sumeru mouse? Is that what everyone is calling me?”

He chuckled, looking at you with his eyebrows cocked.

“Indeed. Did you not know? Well, you’ve been the talk of the Fortress since you arrived, little mouse.”

That didn’t help your blush. Now he was giving you nicknames, and now your heart was fluttering.

“What kinds of things are they saying?” The question was just to try distracting yourself from the way his arms flex as he changes his sitting position. This time he leaned forward, elbows on his knees and…that was simply a little hotter than leaning back.

“Nothing bad, I assure you. If you were doing anything illegal, you’d be here in handcuffs.”

It was irritating how just the mention of something so small could make you shiver at the thought. Just the mention of ‘handcuffs’ had your mind whirling like some of the gears that spun around to make this place work. It was…difficult to hold the naughty thoughts and images at bay.

“You alright? You’re as quiet as a…mouse. A cute little mouse,” he laughed at his own little play on words, his mouth curved into a mischievous smirk.

“I’m fine…it’s just a little hot in here…I believe I’m more suited for the cold.” Your smile was unconvincing. You watched as he raised an eyebrow at that.

“Aren’t you from Sumeru?”

Shit. You slowly nodded and looked to the side, trying to think of something to say to get yourself out of this situation before you said anything stupid.

“A-anyways, I should probably get going–” You started to step away when Wriothesley growled in pain, wrapping his arm around his chest and doubling over. Only a second was wasted until you were at his side, kneeling so you were level with where he seemed to be injured.

“Wriothesley! What’s wrong?”

He grunted, choking back a cough as he rolled his neck, the sound of his bones cracking loud in the empty room. It didn’t seem like there was an obvious injury, but he looked like he had been in a lot of pain.

“Wriothesley.” Your voice lowered, almost like Sigewinne’s when talking to her patients. You had absolutely started mimicking some of her tendencies as a doctor.

“I’m fine…just some old pains…it’s what the medicine is for…you can leave,” he looked away, his face flushing a soft pink, obviously avoiding looking at you. But that wasn’t a good answer, you needed to know more.

“Something that has you doubling over in pain isn’t just something to brush off, tell me what it is.”

Wriothesley huffed, putting an arm in front of his face and taking a deep breath, almost like he was smelling the air. His breath was shaky and uncertain, his body shivering with a phantom chill.

“I…have a condition…and the medicine helps lessen it.”

“I’m going to need more than that.” You watch as he sighs, still keeping his face turned away from you.

“It’s something that comes and goes…you know like monthly…and usually the medicine helps but…it hasn’t started working so you should definitely leave right now.”

You reached out to touch his arm. “Wriothesley–”

A loud squeak escaped your mouth as you found yourself suddenly pushed down onto Wriothesley’s desk, one of his large hands holding your wrists together above your head, his body looming over your own.

He was panting deeply, his face a crimson red. You could hear the air as he sucked it in between clenched teeth. You noted the sharpness of his canines before turning to face him and his darkened eyes, his pupils blown wide.

“What…kind of condition?” Your voice was small but he cocked his head to the side. He heard you and he definitely ignored your question as he leaned in slowly, pushing his face into the crook of your neck. He breathed in deeply through his mouth, the heat of his breath against your throat making your body quiver in sudden pleasure.

“Fuck,” his voice shook as he took another deep breath of you. “You smell so damn good.”

“Wriothesley?”

He grunted and slowly pulled away, obviously fighting an urge to keep sniffing you. His hand stayed gripping your wrists, tighter than handcuffs could ever be.

“It’s like a…heat,” he growled it out, his voice quiet as if he were ashamed of it. “Like I’m a damn animal.”

Your face flushed a bright red upon realizing what he meant. You did always kind of think of him as a likeness to a wolf, minus the tail and ears. Though his hair sometimes made it look like he had ears.

“I…I never knew humans could…”

“Well I guess I’m an outlier,” he murmured under his breath, grunting in pain again as his free hand gripped his stomach. “You–you should leave…the medicine isn't working…so you should—should leave.”

But he wasn’t letting you go, his hand almost tightening again. You couldn’t exactly move, not like you wanted to. You had to admit, you were entranced by his eyes, how dark they were, how he looked at you with this…heat in them.

“I guess I should…but…”

Wriothesley’s head shot up, his jaw tight from gritting his teeth, from holding back these urges he must have. Just how pent up is he from this condition? You were curious and absolutely interested in him more than ever now.

“We were talking about rumors earlier…well, I heard a rumor that you like someone..”

You were lying…you just wanted to know if you stayed because he liked you back and not just because he needed to put his cock into something.

Another growl escaped his throat, more primal than before but he nodded. Taking another sharp breath, the sound almost like a hiss.

“I do. What does this have to do with anything?”

“Who is it?”

He seemed a bit taken aback and he looked at you incredulously.

“What?”

“Who is it?” You stared him dead in the eyes, determined to know if this would stand to be more than just ‘relieving stress’, if you had any reason at all to actually stay.

He lowered his head, pressing his brow against yours so his eyes bore into you.

“Isn’t it obvious, little mouse?”

You couldn’t help the blush that dusted your cheeks. Despite the entire situation being what it was, your heart beat hard against your chest upon finally hearing what you had wanted for so long now. There was no denying you had an attraction to him since the beginning of your work studies here and now…now there was proof he felt it too.

“Then I think I’ll stay, if it’s all the same to you, my lord.”

A soft puff of laughter left his mouth and he licked his lips, his eyes roving your face, your lips, then down to see your body still caged beneath him.

“You sure?” His free hand traveled up one of your legs, lifting it to his waist by the crook of your knee. His body now slotted between your thighs, forcing them to spread to compensate for his larger frame. You nodded, assured of this, though a little intimidated.

Wriothesley leaned back a bit, looking down at you as if considering even though you knew how hard it was for him to hold himself back from simply lunging at the opportunity. His smirk turned into a wicked smile that matched his lust-filled eyes.

“Good.”

#wriothesley x reader #wriothesley x you #wriothesley smut #genshin smut #genshin x reader #reader insert

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