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avintagekiss24 · 3 years

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WE LOVED WITH A LOVE THAT WAS MORE THAN LOVE || STEVE ROGERS

pairing: Steve Rogers x black!reader ; minor pairings: peter parker x michelle “mj” jones, andy barber x black!reader, sam wilson x black!reader, ransom drysdale x black!reader, bucky barnes x black!reader || word count: 19,080 || warnings: smut, sex, gang bang/multiple sex partners m/m/m/m/m/f, vaginal fingering, oral sex (male and female receiving), biting, marking, anal sex, hand job, nipple play, cult-like gathering, mentions of voodoo, voodoo lore, cult rituals

authors note: it’s here! took me forever. i wanted to post this much earlier, but the election week threw me off my schedule so this got pushed because i had another deadline to meet for another challenge. this is for @darkficsyouneveraskedfor once upon a midnight dreary challenge! i chose “believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see”, an invitation to a stranger’s party, and a cultish gathering for my prompts. again, i got a little help from my girl @tropicalcap in helping me piece together a few plot points.

just a quick note :: steve never goes into the ice and the government doesn’t give him the serum... his transformation is achieved in a different manner. therefore, bucky’s transformation is also a little different than canon.

manip of peter & mj by sidewalk manips (i think they’re on instagram... not sure, i found it on google) // divider by @whimsicalrogers

MONDAY

The ornate envelope in your hand is heavy. It’s decorated with thin, gold leaf, hand drawn designs, almost resembling the intricate henna leaves. Your name is scrolled across the front in big, black Old English calligraphy— hand written as well; you can just tell. You flip it over in your hand, the weight of it making a soft thud when it rests against the heel of your palm. A red wax seal is pressed against the flap and the back of the envelope, two initials carved deep— S.G.R.

Flipping the envelope back over in your hand, you press your lips together in a hard line. Junk mail is getting really fancy now-a-days. You blink at the front, reading and then rereading your name. A tinge of something— you’re not sure what, pulls at your stomach, making it constrict as your breath deepens harder than before. You even stop walking. You just stare at the envelope, drawing your bottom lip in between your teeth as you blink down at it.

It’s just unsettling. The weight of it, the attention to the little details of the writing and the designs. It’s anything but junk mail, but the tiny shards of anxiety that are prickling up against your skin don’t want you to think too much into it.

You shove it to the back of the pile of mail in your hand and continue flipping through it as you walk down the hallway towards your apartment, your purse bouncing against your hip as you move. Once inside, you throw the mail down first, then your keys, before you turn on your heel and move towards your bedroom, already tugging out of your blouse.

The TV is nothing more than background noise at this point. You’re curled up on your couch, a bowl of popcorn in your lap and a glass of red wine in your left hand as your eyes flit across the screen of your iPad. You scroll slowly with your right index finger, gobbling up a Stucky fic on ao3. Your eyes widen at the written words before you, your mouth dropping open as your heart starts to beat just a little harder— you’d die if anyone at work ever found out that you spend your free time reading about Bucky Barnes getting his back blown out by Captain America— but nobody told them to be so attractive. It’s their fault, really.

There’s a heavy knock at the door, but you don’t budge. You just push back against the pillows and keep your eyes on the illuminated screen as the door opens, “Take your shoes off.” A heavy sigh greets your ears seconds later, drawing a smile onto your lips as you throw your eyes quickly towards your little sister, “House rule.”

She rolls her eyes hard and toes at her sneakers— making sure to kick them up against the wall so the thuds rumble through the apartment— you know, for added drama. She pulls her bag over her head and drops it to the floor before padding across the carpet and plopping down next to you.

“You readin’ the one I sent you?” she asks, grabbing the popcorn out of your lap, “Can we order a pizza?”

“Yes and yes.” You answer absentmindedly as your eyes nearly pop out of your skull at the smut on your screen, “MJ!”

She laughs, scrunching up her nose as she pops some popcorn into her mouth and nods slowly as she focuses on the tv, “I told you it was nasty.”

“You didn’t say it was this nasty, good God.”

The younger woman scoffs as she throws her loose, wavy hair over her shoulder, “But you steady readin’ it though.”

You cut your eyes towards her, “I didn’t say that I don’t like nasty, just that it’s nasty. I think I have a coupon up on the counter for Tony’s if you wanna order now.” MJ is up on her feet as soon as the words leave your mouth, “Get some bread sticks too.”

The rummaging MJ does in the kitchen blurs with the screams from the television as you start to read again, losing yourself quickly back in the BDSM world the author has so vividly painted. You leave a kudos and a quick comment before tossing your iPad to the side and lift your eyes to your sister again, blinking as you find her leaning up against the counter, the weird envelope in her hand.

“The fuck is this?” she asks, her lip snarled, eyes squinted as she turns it over in her hand, “Why’s it so heavy?”

“I don’t know,” you laugh a little, “I got it in the mail today. It gives me the creeps.”

MJ moves around the coffee table and falls next to you again, tossing the coupon at you before sliding her finger underneath the flap. You grab her wrist before she goes to open it, tutting softly, “Don’t. Just leave it.”

“Why?”

“Because! I’m gonna throw it out.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m opening it.”

“Come on MJ—”

She slides her finger underneath the flap before you can stop her again, breaking the wax seal in two. You huff as she pulls out the 5x7 piece of heavy cardstock, then tips the envelope to lodge whatever was weighing it down free. A brooch falls into her palm, both of you leaning up to inspect the intricate piece of jewelry. It’s floral in design— pearls, or what look like pearls, placed strategically between the little, diamond encrusted, platinum leaves. Three pearls are bunched in the middle— the center of the flower, with three larger diamonds outlining them.

“Holy shit, is this real?” MJ asks, lifting it up and turning it over, “Holy fuckin’ shit.”

You shake your head, “It can’t be. There’s no way.”

“It looks real.”

“No,” you scoff, waving her off, “It’s costume.”

She shoves it into your palm, “Feel that thing! It’s heavy as fuck, that ain’t costume jewelry.”

You furrow your brow as you let it sit in your palm, feeling it. It looks old— really old, like something that would have been worn back in the 1800s. You flip it over, bringing it up to your face as you spot another set of the S.G.R. initials engraved in the back of one of the small leaves.

“Fuck.”

The word slips out of your mouth effortlessly as you eye the jewelry and lick your bottom lip. You glance over at MJ who stares back at you with wide, hazel eyes, her lips parted, “See? That shit is real.”

You point at the card in her hand, swallowing quickly before you clear your throat, “What does that say?”

She takes a breath as you push your side into hers, your eyes scanning the writing, “We request the honor of your presence this Friday, October 31st, 2020 at 1543 Asher Ln. 8pm. No extra guests. S.G.R.” she slides her eyes towards you, “You know somebody with those initials?”

You blink, racking your brain, “No. I don’t— I don’t think so, at least.”

“Well, he or she obviously knows you.”

You grab the invitation from her, reading it again before you turn it over, hoping to find something else scribbled on the back. You drop your hand to your lap when you don’t and zero your gaze in on the television as it starts to tunnel.

“Bro,” MJ laughs quickly, “This is some freaky deaky shit.”

You eye the white invitation once more, reading it over again and again— as if you’re missing something, “What, um,” you start absentmindedly, “What do you mean?”

“This is some Eyes Wide Shut shit, sis!”

You scoff again, rolling your eyes as your shoulders slump, “Stop it MJ.”

“Girl,” she laughs harder, clapping her hands and letting her head fall back against the couch, “You gonna go?”

“No!” you squeal at her audacity, tossing the invitation and brooch on the coffee table, “It’s obviously some kind of joke or something.”

“That is no joke! The brooch has got to be at least ten g’s, easy.”

“It’s not real. That shit’s not worth ten dollars.”

“Keep tellin’ yourself that, prude.”

You feel anger flushing through your veins, your face heating up as you stand quickly and walk into the kitchen, “I’m not a prude, Mary Jane.”

“Oooh, my full name,” she mocks, “What are you gettin’ mad for?”

“I’m not mad, I told you that thing gave me the creeps. Everything is a joke to you.”

“I’m not jokin’! Somebody obviously went through a lot of trouble to send you that, I’m just callin’ it as I see it.”

You down the rest of the wine in your glass and quickly pour another, bringing it to your lips as you rub the back of your neck with your free hand, “It’s some kind of prank.” you exhale, taking another sip, “I’m throwing it away.”

MJ rolls her eyes again, grabbing your iPad before she props her feet up on the small, square table in front of her, “Sure, sure. Yeah, somebody sends a diamond encrusted brooch and a handwritten invitation just for funsies. Got’cha.”

You close your eyes and take another gulp of wine, using it to stop yourself from saying something that will more than likely dissolve your evening into a fight. You swallow slowly, pushing the smooth alcohol down your throat and letting it settle and warm in your belly.

“1543 Asher Ln. is a real house, just so you know. Pops right up on Zillow.”

You sigh loudly.

“And,” she starts, dragging out the end of the word, “It’s only fifteen minutes from here.”

“Are you gonna order the pizza or what?”

“You should go, I’m just sayin’.”

“I’m not gonna,” you stop yourself as you glare over at her, her eyes and posture taking that MJ tone as your voice gets sharp, “I’m not going to a strangers house. Okay? Drop it.”

“There’s no reason not to go.” You stare at her for a few seconds. You squint your eyes and let your mouth fall open as you scrunch your face, honestly in disbelief, “What?” she shrugs, “I literally met Peter last year at a party of someone who, to this day, I still don’t know. I can’t even remember how I ended up there.”

“MJ—”

“Don’t MJ me. It could be fun!” She smiles big as you sit next to her again, “You need to live a little. Get some dick, man.” You cut your eyes back over at her and lift your middle finger, “I mean it!” she laughs again, “There is nothing more fun than a Halloween party.”

You lean forward, reaching for the brooch. You roll it around in your palm, keeping your eyes on it as MJ babbles on. You eye the invitation as it lays on the table. The anxiety is back— constricting your stomach, making you itchy and jumbling your thoughts. It’s like it’s screaming at you— like something or someone is trying to get your attention.

You reach forward and slide the invitation to the edge of the table with your fingertips. You grab it swiftly and stand again, feeling MJ’s eyes on your back as you move into the kitchen. Shoving the invitation, the envelope, and the brooch in a drawer, you push the notion right out of your mind.

You’ve never entertained MJ’s crap before and you aren’t going to start now. Out of sight, out of mind.

TUESDAY

There’s a flower arrangement sitting on your desk the next morning. It’s lively— all of the flowers a different shade of pink. The stocks are a blush-pink, the roses spanning the pink spectrum. The spray roses are more purple than anything, but they bring the whole thing together.

There’s a small card leaning up against the glass vase, your name scribbled across the front. You pluck it up quickly and flip it over.

Hope to see you Friday— J.B.B.

Your purse falls off your shoulder and down your arm as your eyes go wide. You turn quickly, scanning the bullpen as people move about but you’re not exactly sure what or who you’re looking for. You drop your purse into the chair front of your desk and walk out to your assistant.

“Did you sign for these?” you ask, your voice slightly raised and agitated.

Nakia glances up at you slowly over the rims of her glasses, clearly picking up on your demeanor, “Uh, yeah? ‘Bout half an hour ago… everything okay?”

“What flower shop are they from?”

She shrugs, widening her eyes, “I don’t know, it came by delivery service.”

You tug at your suit jacket around your hip and let out a huff, “Don’t accept anymore, okay?”

You turn on your heel before she can answer and stomp back into your office, closing the door behind you. Heat ripples through you as you grab the handset of your phone and bring it to your ear, angrily dialing your sister’s number. You lean against your desk, arms crossed over your chest as it rings, eyes shifting around the room.

“Yo.”

“There are flowers sitting on my desk.”

You’re met with silence for a few seconds, “... okay?”

“There from someone else that I don’t know,” you huff, “The initials are J.B.B. this time.”

“Oh shit, I forgot about that. Okay, so two dudes wanna rail you at this party. That’s my kind of Friday night, sis.”

“Will you cut it out!” you hiss angrily, turning to face the windows behind you, “This is freaking me out!”

“Oh my god,” you hear her moving around, like sheets and pillows being rumpled until a muffled, groggy moan sounds, “Peter… wake up… wake the fuck up… what did you say about that weird party thing?”

You roll your eyes and tap your foot nervously as the two go back and forth. There’s shuffling again on her end, and then a heavy sigh, “I think it’s a masquerade party.” Peter Parker finally says, his words slurred with sleep, “That’s where—”

“I know what a masquerade party is Peter, thank you.”

“Oh yeah, okay, sorry, so,” he starts, shuffling around again, “I heard for the past couple of years that somebody has been throwing a secret masquerade party at different places around town.”

“How did you hear that?”

“So, there’s this girl I had a class with last year, her name was uh, Liz. She said her older sister was invited to it. And then, there was this other girl, Shuri, she also said that her sister got invited one year too. I didn’t get the full scoop from Shuri though cuz she ended up transferring to Columbia, which, okay, yeah it’s a great school and all, but—”

“Peter,” you say, closing your eyes, “Focus please.”

“Right, sorry. So, yeah, it could be that party. Liz said her sister got the same brooch.”

The hair on the back of your neck stands up. You clear your throat as you shift, cutting your eyes back to the vase of roses sitting in the corner of your glass desk, “Did she go?” you ask trepidatiously, rubbing the back of your neck with your hand.

“Uh, yeah. She said it was pretty chill.”

“Pretty chill? The fuck does that mean?”

“Sorry, um, she said her sister said it was fun. Plenty of alcohol, plenty of food. But, because of the whole masquerade thing, she never found out who invited her.”

Put it on speaker, your sister's voice rings, then a sharp, sudden sound of skin on skin followed by a squeal from Peter, “Ow! Okay!”

“So,” you start, your fingers picking at the spiral telephone cord, “They didn’t say anything weird happened or anything? They’re both okay?”

“Liz said that her sister said she talked to some blonde guy for a while. He was asking her a bunch of like, weird, artsy questions but she thought it was all a part of the allure of the party so she just went with it. Other than that,” Peter trails off, and you can practically see him shrugging as if he’s right in front of you, “She said it was fun.”

“See? Everything is on the up and up.” MJ adds, “You should go.”

You don’t answer right away. You slide the small card towards the edge of your desk, picking it up again.

Hope to see you Friday— J.B.B.

“Peter, thank you, sorry for waking you up.” You say a few moments later, clearing your throat, “I’ll call you later MJ, okay?”

“Okie,” she purrs into the phone, “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Your answer is distracted— quiet and airy as you set the handset back into the base. You stare back at the flowers, chewing on the inside of your cheek as something starts to gnaw at you. Something deep. You set the small card back up against the vase and shake your mouse to wake up your computer, forcing yourself into your emails, the small sentiment running circles in your mind.

Hope to see you Friday— J.B.B.

WEDNESDAY

You’re barely home from work when there’s a knock at your door— in fact, you only have one shoe off when the thud sounds through your apartment. You sigh, slipping your pump back onto your foot before you stand from the bed and move to the door. Peering out of the peephole, you spot a FedEx driver, his hands full of packages.

“Hi,” you greet as you open the door, “Goodness, these are all for me?”

“As soon as you sign for them they are.” He laughs, handing you the small pen and handheld scanner.

You sign quickly as he places the boxes just inside your door, and wiggle your fingers as he makes his leave, hustling back down to his truck. You keep your eyes on the boxes as you close and lock the door— you didn’t order anything. You haven’t ordered anything in at least a week and when you do, it’s always from Amazon. All of these boxes are unmarked, except for the shipping label, that has no return address.

An envelope is taped to the side of the largest box and based on how your week has been going, you already half know what to expect. You rip it away from the box and slide your finger underneath the flap, pulling out another handwritten, five-by-seven card.

Hope it fits… A.S.B.

You shove the card back into the envelope and toss it aside before grabbing the large box, sitting it on the bar. With the help of your house key, you rip into the box, popping open the flaps once the tape is broken down the middle. You gasp as you pull out a black and gold ball gown, your mouth dropping open as your eyes go wide.

The corset top is strapless and intricately hand woven with small, black beads in a leafy design. A layer of gold tulle spills down an even longer layer of black tulle, all the way to the floor. The dress is thick— heavy, as you hold it up in your hands. You search for a tag, sewn in initials, something to try and place where this could have possibly come from, but find nothing, as if it’s one of a kind. You splay it out over the couch and move to the second box— your interest now suddenly piqued.

You pop open the second box to find a slightly smaller box inside. Tucking your fingers underneath the rim, you pull the top away and gasp again— this time bigger— and take a physical step back. You blink stupidly and you fumble around in your pants pocket, trying to find your phone. You slam your finger down on MJ’s name and bring it to your ear, lifting a gold Giuseppe heel up in the air.

“You need to get your ass over here, now.”

There’s total silence in the apartment as you, MJ, and Peter stare at the Giuseppe heels and a handful of jewelry. The most jaw-dropping being a thin rose gold chain adorned with ninety one (Peter counted), different shaped diamonds arranged to resemble the leaves of a vine. At the center, they all meet at a large— museum caliber— yellow diamond.

“So let me get this straight,” MJ starts, placing her hands on her hips, “Those are Giuseppe heels, and not just any Giuseppe heel, the Cruel Crystal Giuseppe heel, that they don’t even make anymore,” she emphasizes with her hands, “A necklace with a diamond that bigger than my goddamn fist, and a, hang on a second,” she closes her eyes, holding up her hands to add to the drama of it all, “A hand stitched ball gown?”

“Don’t forget the mask,” Peter breathes heavily, “That’s, I’m pretty sure that’s made outta pure crystal, so,”

You play with your bottom lip nervously, your left arm thrown over your stomach as you slowly turn your head towards your sister and her boyfriend, “Did your friend's sister get all of this shit too?”

The young, brown haired man scratches his head as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other before shrugging and expelling a breath out of his mouth, “I mean, I…” he shrugs again, completely at a loss, “I don’t know.”

“Maybe we can google the initials or something. Where’s your iPad?” MJ asks, turning on her heel and rushing into your bedroom.

“I tried that already,” you call, grabbing the shoes from the counter and slipping your feet into it, “Oh my god, they fit.” You whisper more to yourself than to anyone else in the room.

MJ rolls her eyes, “Well, what came up?”

“Steven Grant Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes,” you answer as you twirl around in a circle, completely enamored with your shoes, “So, nothing.”

Peter gasps and places his hands on his chest as his face fills with a quick fear, “Fuuuckkk, what if it’s them?”

You and MJ both scoff, “Don’t be stupid, Parker.” MJ says.

“It could be! You don’t know!”

“Ok, yes, Captain America and the Winter Soldier are behind this. Sure,” she cuts her eyes towards you, “He has such a crush on them. Did you try the third set of initials?”

You nod as you stare down at your feet, turning your right foot slightly, watching as the gold glints underneath the light, “Yeah, no luck there either. Just random ass dudes— look at how good these look on my feet, sissy.”

She waves you off as she sits on the coffee table, her face being lit up by the light of your iPad, “Okay, A.S.B., Andrew Stephen Barber, assistant district attorney— could be him… he’s cute at least.” she shrugs.

“I doubt it,” you let out a breath, “I should try on the dress, huh? I mean, you know, just to see.” MJ throws you a look while Peter glances between the two of you nervously, “What? I’m still not going, I just want to see how it looks.”

“Uh huh,” MJ squints her eyes, following you as you walk back into your bedroom, already pulling down the zipper on the back of your shirt, “Sure.”

THURSDAY

MJ💕 12:37pm

Lunch? I’m right around the corner from your building

You hear your phone chime, but you don’t tear your eyes away from your screen immediately. Voices come from the speaker on your phone as you type fervorously. You’re only really half listening— this meeting has nothing to do with you, but, you’re the account manager, so you have to at least try and seem interested while you work on another contract with a much more lucrative, expensive company.

The iPhone rattles again against your glass desk and you snap it up this time, your eyes scanning the message. Right on cue, your stomach rumbles.

You 12:40pm

Sure, sure. Chinese?

MJ💕 12:41pm

Yum.

A small smile tugs at the corners of your mouth as you open your SPARK messenger and tap on Nakia’s name. She knows you and MJ’s order like that back of her hand, and messages you back minutes later to confirm the food will be on it’s way within the hour. You return your attention to the large computer screen before you, pushing your glasses up your nose as you shift your vision to the second monitor slightly to your left.

There’s a small tap a few minutes later, followed by Nakia’s beautiful face peeking in as she mouth’s MJ before opening the door wider to let your lanky sister breeze into the room. You hold your fingers up to your lips as the chorus of voices still speak from your speaker, but keep your eyes on her as she pulls her bag over her shoulder and head and plops down in one of the plush seats in front of your desk.

She makes herself busy on her phone, no doubt texting Peter as you return to your emails and contract, losing twenty or thirty more minutes.

“Okay guys, I’ll talk to you next week right?” You ask, your fingers hovering over the speaker button, “Okay… alrightly, buh-bye.” you slam your finger down on the small, round button and widen your eyes as you let out an audible breath, “Sorry, sissy.”

MJ holds up her hand, her face still buried in her phone, “You’re an important lady, I get it.”

“I thought you had class today?”

“That’s the good thing about having a pregnant Professor,” she smiles, wiggling her eyebrows, “Morning sickness apparently lasts throughout the day.”

Another tap comes at the door before Nakia emerges again, this time her hands full of food, “Here we are ladies,” she smiles as she sits the bags on your desk, “This also just arrived for you too.”

Your face twists in confusion as she hands you something wrapped in plain brown paper. There’s a black ribbing wrapped around it, tied in a neat little bow in the center of the package. It’s light whatever it is. Your eyes drift slowly over to MJ, who sits up in her seat, peering at the package in your hands before she blinks up at you— a knowing look on her face.

“Thanks Nakia,” you smile, trying not to draw her attention to all of the air being sucked out of the room.

MJ’s phone rings just as Nakia exits the room. You hear her mumble a greeting, but your attention is quickly sucked back to your hands. Curiosity gets the best of you. You pull at the ribbon and toss it aside before curling your fingers around the edges to find where it’s taped together.

Just as your fingers find where the edges meet, Peter Parker’s voice fills the room, “Am I on speaker?”

“Yes!” MJ hisses, “Talk.”

“Ok, so, I was talking to Liz about the weirdo party her sister went to last year. She got the same packages throughout the week! Monday, she got the invite, Tuesday she got flowers, Wednesday she got a dress, shoes, and a masquerade mask, and Thursday she got—“

“A book of poems,” you breathe, the sound low and airy, “By Edgar Allan Poe.”

“Exa-Exactly.” Peter stutters.

It’s delicate, this book— the pages. You thumb through them gently, smelling the authenticity of it— the rarity. It’s been kept in pristine condition but it still looks old, the pages a dull brown; crisp and brittle to the touch. Your heart thumps against your chest as the hair on the back of your neck stands on end. Your throat constricts as you swallow hard, nerves filling your body.

“Which one is it?” Peter asks softly, the weight of this affecting him through the phone.

“Tamerlane and other poems.” You recite as you close the small book and run your fingers over the front cover.

MJ scrambles to her feet and scurries around you, her eyes plastered on your computer monitor as she starts to type.

Peter clears his throat, “Liz’s sister got a copy of Al Aaraaf. It was like, a first edition or something.”

“Fuck,” the obscenity falls from MJ’s lips with ease, but with a gentle discomfort, “This says there’s less than twelve copies of this in existence— twelve. I mean, how do you even get your hands on something like this?”

You can’t even speak. You just sit there, feeling the small book in your hands, staring blankly at the cover. Peter and MJ start to bicker back and forth as they try to make heads and tails of all of this. You aren’t taken by the book exactly, yeah, you're holding one of maybe twelve copies left in the entire world, but there’s something else gnawing at you in the pit of your stomach— something that’s been just at the tip of your subconscious all week long.

It’s like—

“Was Liz’s sister into Edgar Allan Poe?” You ask suddenly.

“Not at all,” Peter answers quickly, “She thought it was weird.”

“And the dress and the shoes? Did they um,” you blink up at MJ but avert your eyes just as quickly, “They didn’t fit, did they?”

There’s silence from Peter. You can almost see him, standing there in the middle of the college campus with a dumbfounded look on his face— his fingers threading through his hair, his mouth hanging open, eyes wide, “No,” he answers after a slow minute or two, “They were too small.” He goes quiet again before he says, “How did you know that?”

The feeling that’s been gnawing at you all week. You’ve felt like someone’s been looking for you. There’s been this… pull— somewhere deep inside of you— like someone is calling for you.

What scares you is that you want to answer.

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting,” MJ recites slowly.

“Dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before,” you finish for her, “I used to read that to you when you were a kid.”

“He’s your favorite.”

“My absolute favorite,” you laugh nervously, “I wrote my thesis on Al Aaraaf when I was in school.” You fall back into your chair, “That dress fit me like a glove, MJ— the shoes too.”

She shakes her head quickly, her eyes closed as she slowly comes to the realization that you are. She runs her thin fingers through her wavy hair before she rests her hands on her shoulders, squeezing to comfort herself, “Do you think it’s—”

You shrug, “It could be.”

MJ drops her eyes from yours.

“What’s happening?” Peter’s voice sounds again, “What— what do you mean? Who do you think it is?”

“I’m adopted,” you say slowly, a soft smile on your face as you keep your eyes on MJ, “I was two, maybe three when they took me from my mom. I was placed with our parents, MJ’s biological parents, really quickly— I don’t remember a whole lot, but I remember someone reading Edgar Allan Poe to me, specifically Tamerlane.”

“Fuck,” Peter breathes, “You think it’s her? Your mom?”

You glance towards the floor, a small card catching your eye. You pick it up gingerly and turn it over, your eyes scanning over the handwritten note.

For passionate love is still divine

I lov’d her as an angel might

With ray of the all living light

Which blazes upon Edis’ shrine

See you tomorrow, love — H.R.D.

You drag your eyes back up to MJ’s as you pull your bottom lip between your teeth, “It’s definitely someone that knows her.”

FRIDAY

You don’t go into work.

Peter and MJ have been at your apartment all day, helping you piece this crazy story all together. Liz’s sister, Shuri’s sister— they were all you. Same age, all of you born within days of each other. All born at the same hospital. All adopted around the same age.

Someone is looking for you; and has been for years.

You and MJ are now on opposite sides about this party than you were at the beginning of the week. You want to go. You need to; especially if it’ll lead you to your mother. MJ voiced her newfound concerns, to the point where she shed a few tears— but, being the big sister you are, you brushed them away and explained it as best you could. You just need to know if she’s out there— what these people, S.R.G., J.B.B., A.S.B., H.R.D. know about her.

So, she helps you get ready. She curls your hair and pins it up. She paints your nails and helps you into the dress before she leans against the door jam of the bathroom, watching you do your makeup— just like she used to when you were a teenager. Peter knocks on the bedroom door before he barely opens it and shoves his arm inside, an envelope hanging off his finger tips.

“Hey guys,” he says softly, “This just came.”

“You want me to read it?” MJ asks, tapping it against her fingers. When you nod, she tears the flap and slides out the card, “A chariot will await you at 7:30 sharp… but please take your time. S.T.W.”

“What time is it?”

She glances at her phone, “7:25.”

You let out a shaky breath. You lean into the mirror and dab at your lips, removing any excess lipstick before you push back again and drag your eyes down your reflection.

“You know,” you start, keeping your eyes on your painted nails, “I don’t remember my mom at all. Not her face, not her voice, but I remember a man— my dad, I guess.” You blink back towards your reflection, squinting your eyes as the gears turn in your head, “I just remember blonde hair and a deep voice reading those poems to me. I remember feeling safe when he held me.”

MJ drops her eyes and nods slowly as she rakes her fingernails up and down her forearm, “I get why you wanna go. I do.”

“I just need to make these fragments make sense, you know? I remember these other guys too— which,” you shrug, “Would make sense since mom said that my real mom lived in a commune, but,” your words drift off.

“Remember when you thought Steve Rogers was your dad?”

You laugh wholeheartedly, “I do! I just always felt like I knew him, I don’t know why.”

You still do— feel like you know him.

“So, yeah. I get it, I really do. It’s gotta be hard not knowing where you come from— thinking that every stranger you meet, or every person you see could possibly be someone you used to know.” MJ sighs as she meets your gaze through the mirror, “You look great. You always look great.”

“Thanks, sissy.” You bunch your dress in your hand and lift it gently as you step towards her, “I’ll be fine.”

She nods quickly, pursing her lips as she cuts her eyes away from yours, “I know that.”

You smile and tilt your head towards her gaze to grab her attention again, “I’m your big sister, you know. I can handle myself.”

“I know you can, I just—” she shrugs, “I don’t want you to forget me.”

“MJ,” you start, grabbing her elbow when her chin quivers, “This has nothing to do with you or mom or dad. I love you guys, you’re my family, that will never change. I promise you, okay?” you pull her into a tight hug, rubbing her back, “You will always be my sister— no one will ever take that away from us.”

“Guys,” Peter calls, “A red Audi just pulled up out front, like, an expensive one.”

“Your chariot awaits.” MJ laughs as she pulls away from you, wiping the wetness on her cheeks away.

You thread your fingers with hers and walk out into the living room where Peter smiles softly. You hug him too— he’s the best thing that could have ever happened to your sister.

“You guys are staying here for the night, right?” you ask, grabbing your clutch.

“We’re not leaving until you come back.” MJ answers.

“Okay. I’ll um, I’ll stay in touch throughout the night, okay?”

MJ nods, “We’ll stay by our phones.”

You head for the front door, opening it quickly before you step out into the hallway, “Don’t have sex in my bed,” you say suddenly, whipping back around to face the couple, “Please.”

“Oh my god,” Peter scoffs, rolling his eyes as a red tint flushes through his face, “We won’t.”

“Yeah, we’ll have sex on the couch.” Your shoulders slump as you squint at MJ, her laughter rolling off her tongue, “Just joking. Have fun, please text us.”

“I will. I love you.”

“I love you too. Be careful.”

You have to turn away from them abruptly or you’d never leave. Grasping your phone and the small clutch you borrowed from MJ, and your crystal mask in your hands, you head for the elevator. It’s a slow ride down to the main floor— silent too. Nothing but the sound of your racing thoughts bouncing back and forth in your mind. The metal box slows to a stop, a soft ding fills the air, and then the world slides back into view— a sleek, red Audi visible through the glass front doors.

A man steps out of the driver seat as you walk towards the door and push through, tightening your grip on your dress. He moves around the car, stopping just at the back door. You notice his eyes dip to your chest and you can’t help but follow his gaze. The flower shaped brooch catches the artificial light of the street lights and each little diamond starts to glint and gleam, even the pearls taking on a new shine.

The driver smiles softly, “The invitation you received was handwritten in an Old English font. The initials at the bottom?”

A test.

“Oh, um, S.G.R.”

“Those flowers you received on Tuesday were beautiful— white carnations, right?”

You shake your head, “Pink roses.”

“I read a poem the other day, I can’t remember what it was called though. It went something like ‘know thou the secret of a spirit bow’d from its wild pride into shame’…”

“O! Yearning heart! I did inherit thy withering portion with the fame, the searing glory which hath shone amid the Jewels of my throne, Halo of Hell! And with a pain not hell shall make me fear again— o craving heart, for the lost flowers and sunshine of my summer hours,” you smile gently, “Tamerlane— the name of the poem.”

He opens the door and holds out his white, gloved hand to you.

1543 Asher Lane is lit up like Rockefeller Center during Christmas. Your mouth drops open as you pull up out front, every window glowing with a warm light. The front doors are thrown open with seemingly hundreds of people moving about inside. The driver opens your door and holds out his hand for you, prompting you to slide your palm into his. He keeps a firm grip on your fingers as you step out, and then helps you up the long front steps.

He only releases your hand when you reach the front door, bowing gently before he skips back down the stairs and towards the car. Your heart drums in your ears as you place your crystal, half face mask on your face and adjust it gently before you drop your hand to the necklace nestled in your cleavage. You play with the large yellow diamond as you step inside, your eyes going wide as the lively noise of a full blown party suddenly fills your ears.

An orchestra plays in the middle of the large, open foyer, the sounds bouncing off the walls and rising up into the tall ceiling. Twenty or thirty couples dance to the upbeat tune and you’d swear you’d just stepped into the 1800s. All the men that move about are dressed in black tuxedos, the only distinction between them all being their different masks. The women twirl in their Venetian ball gowns, their jewelry and intricate, flamboyant masks glinting underneath the light.

There’s double staircases winding up walls, leading up to the second floor, more people laughing and talking intimately on them. Waiters in white suits, black ties and white gloves move seamlessly about, slipping in between the bodies with plates of champagne and finger foods— each one bending forward politely and placing their free hand behind their back as party goers pluck the goodies off their silver serving plates.

The floors are made of marble. A large, ornate chandelier hangs from the high ceiling, spilling a warm, almost golden light over everything and everyone.

“Champagne, ma’am?”

You snap your head towards the voice as it breaks you from your trance, “Thank you,” you smile as you take the thin champagne flute from his tray.

Just as quickly as he arrived, the waiter is gone again, leaving you to admire the scene before you. You take a sip of the bubbly liquid and pull out your phone, taking a quick picture and sending it to MJ with a short message. You’ve barely tucked it away when another voice sounds at your side.

“Would you care to dance?”

You turn towards the calm, deep voice, your lips parting as your eyes bounce between two crystal blue eyes. Blonde hair is swept back neatly, a strong, smooth chin and jawline visible underneath his silver, laser cut Venetian mask. He’s tall— towering almost, his chest and shoulders wide and broad. You’re taken by him almost immediately. You nod quickly, blinking a few times as he takes your champagne flute from you and hands it to a nearby server before he takes your hand and leads you into the middle of the floor.

You gasp as he sweeps you up in his arms, resting his large hand on the small of your back and pulls you into his hard body. You can’t help but stare up at him as he starts to twirl you around the floor, taking complete control of your steps. A laugh bubbles up from your chest as he spins you away from him, extending his long arm until just your fingertips are touching, and then pulls you back into his chest.

He’s a confident man— you can tell by the way he spins you around the dance floor. Even as the tempo of the music changes, from upbeat and fun, to slow and somewhat sad, he stays right in rhythm. You’ve always been a sucker for a man that can dance.

A slow smile creeps onto your face as your eyes bounce back and forth between his while the orchestra plays, “What is this song?” you ask suddenly, breaking the ice between the two of you.

“Sicilienne in E flat major, do you like it?”

“It’s beautiful.” You laugh a little, turning your head to watch the young cellist, “He’s so young, is he local?”

“He isn’t, no. That’s Sheku Kanneh-Mason of Britain, you may—”

You snap your head back towards him, “He played at the Royal Wedding! Oh my god!”

He chuckles as he gently tightens his hold around your waist, “The very one.”

You turn your head to watch the young man as he plays, completely in awe of his raw talent and bask in it, knowing you’ll never be in such company again, “My God, this is incredible. I have no idea what I’m doing here.” You laugh.

“Well, you were invited, yes?”

“Yeah but I—” you stop yourself, shaking your head gently before you smile again, “I had a crazy thought about this party. I thought someone from my past was trying to reach out to me.” He tilts his head a little, his eyes scanning your face. You laugh again, “Don’t mind me, I’m just imagining things apparently.”

“Someone from your past?” He nudges gently.

You’re not sure if it's the champagne you’ve been sipping all evening, or just because for some reason you feel like you’ve known this man your whole life, but you start to spill your guts, “I thought, God, this is going to sound stupid. I thought my mom, or someone who knew my mom was trying to reach out to me through this party, which sounds insane now that I think about it. I was adopted, so,” you shrug, “I dunno, I was kinda hoping that she’d be here or that someone could get me in touch with her. Sounds crazy, right?”

He spins you again, this time slow, his eyes dragging down your body. He pulls you back into him and you rest your hand on his chest as you watch the orchestra, a soft smile on your face, “You are young yet, my friend, but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others,” you recite, “Believe nothing you hear and only one half that you see.”

His steps hitch ever so lightly.

You turn back to face him, blinking up at him as another smile spreads on your lips, “I didn’t catch your name?”

He blinks at you, something new in his eyes— something like relief? You can’t tell. His lips part and he takes a breath, trying but failing to get his mouth to move, “I’m sorry,” he finally says, laughing gently as he shakes his head, “Um, I’m Steven— Steve. Um, Edgar Allan Poe?”

“Yeah, sorry,” you laugh, “He’s one of my favorite poets. That last line just kind of describes my thoughts over the past few days is all.”

“It’s strange for a young girl like yourself to be an Edgar Allan Poe aficionado.”

You shrug again, nodding, “I know. I just, I’ve always had an affinity for him, it’s one of the few memories of my father that I have. He used to read Poe’s poems to me as a child.”

He stops dancing abruptly, “May you excuse me? I’m sorry, I have to um, I have to go see someone very quickly. I’ll be right back.”

Before you can even answer, he brushes past you, dipping in and out of the people still filling the dance floor. You blink in confusion, watching as he jogs up the stairs and stops at the very top step, leaning into a dark haired man. They both turn in your direction after a few minutes, catching your eye before they turn back to one another, the dark haired man grabbing Steven’s arm in… surprise, maybe?

They break apart seconds later, Steven jogging back down the stairs, the dark haired man walking briskly along the long catwalk, stopping only to tap three other men on the back before they too follow quickly behind him and disappear. You grab another champagne glass from a waiter and take a gulp as heat flushes through you— nerves suddenly racking your body.

You keep your eyes on Steve as he pushes through the people again, making a line straight towards you. Tilting your head back, you finish off the rest of your glass as he approaches you again, “I’m sorry,” he smiles, “That was rude of me.”

“Oh, it’s, it’s no problem,” you laugh nervously, clearing your throat as you glance around the crowded room.

He holds out his hand to you, “Would you come with me? Please?”

You shake your head as fear strikes you, “Oh, you know, I actually have to get going, I—”

“I know your mother,” your eyes widen at his words, stopping you dead in your tracks, “And your father. Please, come with me.”

You aren’t crazy.

Someone is really trying to contact you.

You grab his hand and let him pull you through the crowd and towards the stairs. He steps aside and lets you lead, placing his hands on your waist as the two of you move up the long staircase. Once you reach the top, he grabs your hand again and pulls you along the catwalk until you disappear down the hallway. You pass by a series of doors before you stop at the last one, Steve stopping to knock.

The door pops open seconds later and Steve steps aside again, dropping your hand to hold his out towards the door. You remove your mask and sweep your hair out of your face as your mouth falls open, your eyes wide as you stare at Steve.

“It’s okay,” he reassures, his voice soft and calm.

You take a step, and then another, your heart beating hard and fast, goosebumps popping up on your skin. You step into the room but stop dead in your tracks as the air is sucked right out of your body. Four men sit at a long, antique, baroque style table. Their hands are placed flat on the dark marble top, heads bowed. The room is dark except for the flickering candles that sit in their ornate holders in the middle of the table, the light accentuating the mens’ black and gold scaramouche masks.

Fear rolls through you in waves, your breaths shaky and heavy as it falls from your lips. The door clicks behind you and you feel a hand on the small of your back again, another one on your elbow, “It’s alright darling,” he whispers in your ear, “I’ll help you to your seat, okay?”

“Steve,” your voice trembling, “I don’t, I don’t understand, I—”

“It’s alright, I promise you. We are not going to hurt you. That goes against everything we stand for. Come.”

You blink wildly at the men at the table as Steve pushes you past them slowly. They don’t flinch— no one makes a move to glance up at you or even breathe harder than what they already are. You were so busy staring at the men occupying four of the five chairs at the table, that you didn’t even notice the hand carved chair sitting against the wall at the back of the room.

The frame is golden, the upholstery teal in color and covered with floral embroidery, the back designed with a diamond tuft. It sits up a little higher than the table— propped up on a small, hand built stage with three steps leading up to it. Steve helps you up the small steps, keeping your hand in his until you’re seated.

As soon as you're settled, the four seated men pull a candle from the center of the table and place it right in front of them. The golden flames dance at the tips of the long, white candles, casting shadows over the dark walls.

“You may begin.”

You snap your head towards Steve as he speaks, your mouth hanging open, your eyes wide, breath shaky. The dark haired man that Steve first spoke to stands, his chair scuffing against the floor as he pushes away from the table. He grasps the candle holder in both hands as he approaches you slowly, his eyes cast down towards the floor.

Your breath quickens as he nears you. You squeeze Steve’s hand as you push back into the chair, starting to draw your feet up as he kneels before you, “Wait, wait, wait, wait! What are you—”

“It’s okay, darling.” Steve purrs, his thumb sweeping over the back of your hands, “It’s okay. He’s not going to hurt you. Just relax.”

A hot tear streaks down your cheek as your whimper, your chin trembling as you push a hard, focused breath out of your mouth. The man in front of you mumbles something— in French you think, but you aren’t sure— before he reaches into his pocket. Your breath hitches in your throat as he starts to sprinkle rose petals at your feet, chanting as he does.

You feel his fingers brush over your exposed toes before he lifts your right foot and slips off your gold shoe— tracing a cross with the tip of his finger on the top of your foot. He repeats his actions to the left and stands, keeping his head down as he makes a cross over his face and chest and then turns and returns to his seat.

The next man stands, a thick beard covering his chin, his candle in hand as he approaches you, never making eye contact. Instead of rose petals, he lays money at your feet— a single dollar bill— before he traces the cross into your skin while he speaks in French.

The third man is clean shaven, like Steve, but his hair dark— some falling over his mask and onto his forehead. He leaves a handful of herbs and one white egg at your feet before sweeping his fingertips over your toes and branding each foot with an imaginary cross.

The fourth man that kneels before you repeats everything to a T. He’s tall, his skin a deep, smooth walnut brown. He leaves behind a handful of wheat grain and what looks like raw sugarcane before he blesses your feet and rises again. He taps his forehead and chest before each shoulder and moves away, retaking his seat at the table.

Tears still trickle down your cheeks as you blink furiously— your stomach churning, your palms clammy. You snap your eyes towards Steve as he finally releases your hand and grabs a bowl from the small table tucked into the corner of the room. He steps in front of you and kneels, setting the hand painted bowl at your feet. He lifts your feet gently, placing them in the bowl with care, massaging your ankles and lower calves to calm you.

It works— your voice trembles as you push out a gentle hum, focusing on his hands on your skin. He starts to speak in French, his voice low and calm, much like most of the evening. He pulls a small flask out of his jacket pocket and pops the lid before he pours the unusually cool liquid over your feet. You flinch instinctively but focus again on his soft hands, kneading your feet as he washes them.

Steve pulls the white silk pocket square from his suit jacket and dabs at your feet, wiping away the moisture. He traces a cross on the tops of your feet before standing again and cups your face with his hands. You’re drawn into him— resting your forehead to his as he continues to chant, his lips so close they brush against yours as he speaks.

“Bless this missing child,” he whispers, the only part of his chant in english, “She is home at last.”

As soon as the words leave his lips, every burning candle is suddenly extinguished by some force now filling the room. You blink in the darkness, your breath quickening as you grab Steve’s forearms.

“Shhh, shhh, shhhh,” he coos, stroking your bottom lip with his thumbs, “It’s alright. I’ve got you.”

The room is full— so full of energy; power. It whips around you, electrifying your skin and blood, rattling your bones. It’s foreign— anomalous— but yet feels so comforting and warm. Like love. Like you're surrounded by family. You loosen your grip on Steve’s forearms as the fear drains from your body, a voice— a soft whisper in your ears. A voice you’ve never heard before but have somehow heard your whole life. It’s a language you don’t understand, but yet you know exactly what it’s saying.

Your eyes pop open suddenly and the room is washed in a warm light as the candles are suddenly lit again. Steve smiles at you softly as your eyes, now full of wonder and a new sacred knowledge, bounce back and forth between his deep blues. There’s a new electricity between the two of you, something unspoken, but written in the stars all the same.

The blood in your veins rushes hard, the sound of your thumping heart beating in your ears as goosebumps pop up over your skin again. Your stomach tightens as the molten of your ardor starts to pool and spread through your body, blazing a quick path. Steve’s thumbs still sweep over your lips, underneath your eyes, over your nose as you hold loosely onto his wrists. You grab your bottom lip between your teeth and let your eyes fall to his mouth before you inhale sharply— soft and pink, his lips.

His large palms spread warmth through your face, his thumbs still circling— still pushing along your smooth skin. Blue eyes dart around your face, continually meeting your deep brown eyes before dipping to your expectant lips. He pushes closer— so close that his pillowy lips rest against yours, but he doesn’t rush it— doesn’t press any harder.

He leaves it all up to you.

The energy is back in the room, swirling, filling you up with the power and presence with each breath you take. You press your lips to his as the sweet sirens start to whisper to you again. A moan slips from your mouth and into Steve’s, where he gobbles it up, exchanging a deep, pleased groan of his own.

His lips start to travel, moving down to your chin and jaw. He nuzzles into the soft, warm crook of your neck where he sucks lightly— his velvet tongue sneaking out and slipping along your skin. You push your chest into his as your back straightens, a gasp filling your lungs with the sweet air that surrounds you.

The emotion takes over in the heat of the moment— the fire of his lips and hands setting you a flame. Your leg hooks around his waist as you curl your fingers over his broad shoulders, digging your black painted nails into his shoulder blades. His teeth nip at your taut flesh and you lurch forward, your head tilting towards the ceiling as a choked moan strains in your throat.

You feel his deft fingertips on your naked calf, slipping along the length— over and around your knee, up your thigh— where he kneads and gropes, pulling heavier, louder sounds from you as his lips caress your flesh. A shiver rolls down your spine when his thick digits brush over your sticky panties. He doesn’t shy away, he sweeps the pads of his fingers over you again and again, finding a sweet little rhythm as he applies a gentle pressure.

Hips roll. Chests swell. Grips tighten as your head rolls back. Your mouth falls open as you drag in a breath, pushing it out with a husky groan. Your teeth grab your bottom lip again as you slide your hand around his wide back, hooking your arm around his neck. Humming, you open your eyes, blinking slowly back at four sets of hungry eyes trained on you and Steve. You inhale again, letting your lips part as you link eyes with each man at the table.

The men sit stark still— not moving a muscle as the flame from the candles light your bodies. Shadows dance across their masked faces as they watch in silence, but you can feel each and every one of them. Each energy is slightly different but acutely masculine, acutely tuned into you.

You don’t mind them watching. The scene salacious— vulgar.

Wrapped up in two large, muscly arms, you’re hoisted from the chair as Steve grabs your lips again with his own. He walks you to the table and sits you on the edge, right between two of the four men occupying it. The marble top is cool to the touch as he helps you up onto your feet, holding the tips of your fingers with his hand. He leads you into the center of the table, five heads all tilted up towards you as you stand there, the bottom of your dress dragging behind you as you move.

You feel like a princess with all of their eyes on you, hanging on to your every move, drinking in every inch of you. You twirl— a giggle falling from your lips before you sink down to your knees, peeking over your shoulder at the only brown eyed man in the room. You place your thin fingers over your lips, playing with them gently as you bat your eyes at him and sweep your hair over your shoulder— exposing the zipper of your dress.

He obliges without hesitation. Standing to his feet, he reaches for you— a warm hand on your bare shoulder, another grasping the zipper. You nuzzle your chin and cheek against his long fingers before brushing your lips over them quickly. His warm brown skin melts into yours as he pulls on your zipper, exposing more and more of your naked back as he goes.

The soft smile on your face grows wider as he centers his large palm in the middle of your back. Warm skin to warm skin. His eyes are ablaze— dark, blown pupils against a lighter brown iris— set dead on you as his lips part, showing off a distinctive gap in his teeth as his fingers whisk across your back and shoulder.

You turn to face him, still kneeling in the center of the table, and reach for his mask— pulling gently on the black tie until the bow falls away. He lets you remove it from him, a soft smile playing on his lips as you reveal the handsome face underneath.

“Samuel Thomas Wilson,” Steve offers softly.

Samuel tips his head towards you as you run the tips of your fingers along his softly bearded jaw, “S.T.W.” you say easy, recalling the last of your calling cards, “Hi Sam.”

You lean forward and place your lips on his— one gentle, chaste kiss before you break away from him with a soft smack.

You follow Steve with your eyes as he moves to the man seated next to Sam. Steve places his hand on his shoulder, “Andrew Stephen Barber.”

You bat your eyes at Andrew as he stands and takes your hand, bringing the backs of your fingers to his lips, “Andy.” He supplies as he removes his mask and sits it gently on the table.

“A.S.B., thank you for the dress.”

His presence is calm— gentle, matching the softness of his beard and dark hair. You press your free hand into the halter top of your dress to keep it from falling, but all the modesty you once had is evaporating quickly. You feel like you’ve known them all forever.

The next pair of blue eyes bring a forceful energy, one of entitlement and defiance. Before Steve can get his name out, he’s standing, his mask in his hand revealing his boyish, clean face, “Hugh Ransom Drysdale.” He winks at you suggestively, “Ransom.”

He wraps his long arm around your waist and pulls you close, crashing his lips to yours in a fury. You giggle against him before accepting his velvety tongue into your mouth, letting it sweep along your bottom lip and then slide along yours. Steve taps his shoulder and after a beat… or two, Ransom releases you from his grip, a smirk on his face, a twinkle in his eye.

You turn to the fourth man— the dark haired man that Steve initially spoke to on the stairs. He’s standing, with Steve behind him, the tips of his fingers resting on the edge of the long table. He’s the only one wearing gloves. His breathing is controlled, his eyes set on you as you inch towards him, sitting up on your knees in front of him.

You walk your fingers up his chest seductively, your teeth digging into your bottom lip as you smile at him, “You must be J.B.B.”

He tilts his head, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, “I could be S.G.R.”

“While the guy named Steven stands behind you?” you squint playfully, reaching for his mask.

He grabs your wrist with his left hand, making you gasp. It’s a firm grip, but it excites something deep in you. You drop your hands into your lap, flattening them on your thighs as you take a deep breath and push it out of your nose. He glances over his shoulder at Steve, who nods just once before he turns back to face you and starts to pull at the fingers of his gloves. He removes the right hand first, tucking the black glove into his pocket before he starts on the left, pulling slowly— finger by finger.

Your mouth drops open as he pulls the nylon material away, your eyes going wide as he stretches out his digits, the candle light glinting off of the dark metal. The breath in your throat hitches as you watch him reach for his mask and untie it, pulling it away from his face to reveal a familiar one.

J.B.B.

James Buchanan Barnes.

So that means—

You blink towards Steve, whose mask is now off and sitting on the table. He rests his hand on Bucky’s shoulder as he exhales deeply, “James Buchanan Barnes,” he then points at himself, “Steven Grant Rogers.”

You blink rapidly— completely dumbfounded as the two super soldiers stand before you. Bucky takes your hand, brushing his lips over your fingers before he pops them into his mouth, sucking gently on your digits as he flicks his eyes back up to yours. Your stomach tightens. A hum accompanies the breath that vibrates through your chest as he drags his left hand up and down your arm.

Steve cups your cheek and turns your head towards him before he traces your jaw and chin with his index finger, “We’re gonna take care of you baby girl,” he whispers as he places his fingertips on your forehead and brushes them down your face, “We’ve searched for you for so long.”

You believe him— you don’t know what he’s talking about, but you believe every word.

You push in and kiss Bucky, wrapping your hand around the back of his neck and squeeze gently before you turn towards Steve, pulling him into another deep kiss, “Get this dress off of me.” You whisper.

Hands— so many hands, each pair distinctively different, are on your body within seconds, tugging and pulling at the heavy dress until you’re free of it. The only piece of clothing left on you is your thin thong as you lay back on the table, your hands over your bare breasts, covering them. You gaze up at the five men peering at you, their eyes wide and hungry.

Steve slips his hand down your sternum, the pads of his fingers sliding down your stomach to your hips, where he traces the thin band of your underwear— his touch making you raise your hips from the table. Sam drags his thumb along your chin and bottom lip before he pushes the tip just inside your all too eager mouth. You suck gently, running your tongue the length of his digit as Ransom pries your hands away from your breasts.

You moan softly, arching your back into Ransom’s hands as he starts to tweak your taut nipples, rolling them both between his fingers before he leans down and sucks your right breast into his mouth. Hands grab your thighs, kneading your flesh and pull them apart as Andy licks into your mouth, his tongue massaging the roof as he holds your chin.

The energy is back in the room— the power swirling as the men start to devour you. There’s tongues over your toes, hands on your tight nipples and abundant breasts, lips on your shoulders and neck. Fingernails scrape against your skin as they slink underneath the band of your panties, pulling them down your thighs and calves before they slide over your ankle and are discarded to the floor.

You feel the warm metal and flesh hand of Bucky around your ankles, drawing your legs up so they’re bent at the knee. He crawls onto the table, his heavy blue eyes drinking you in as he lets his metal fingers dance up and down the inside of your thigh. You start to shiver at his touch— your back arching away from the table as you gasp and hiss from the hands and mouths and tongues all over you.

Bucky sinks down— low, onto his belly— his eyes still trained on yours as he wraps his arms around your thighs. He starts to blow warm air against your sticky, hot sex, his eyes finally dipping away from yours and to your lower half as your hips jerk and whine. His metal fingers push through your folds gently, rubbing the sensitive nub at the center of you, then teasing your slit and opening.

Steve presses his balmy lips right in the valley of your breasts and peppers kisses along your jiggling flesh. The tip of his tongue circles your nipples before his teeth nip and bite. You gasp loud as a metal finger, and then a second push into your cunt— a thumb pressing against your clit. Your hips jut upward as you mewl, the sound quickly being covered up by Sam’s mouth as he kisses you hard.

Bucky blinks up at you as he withdrawals his fingers and waits— waits for you to make eye contact with him before he sucks them into his mouth, wiping them clean of your slick. He moans— heavy and hard as he closes his eyes, savoring your taste.

Your hips start to roll into his hand as he dips his fingers back into you, his breath washing over your quivering thighs. Ransom tickles your right knee, then skips his hand down the inside of your thigh, where he cups your sex around Bucky’s pushing fingers. Ransom starts to rub your clit, pressing firm circles into your wet flesh as Bucky curls his fingers to massage your muscles.

Andy sinks his teeth into your side before his tongue glances out over your stomach, circling your belly button before he sucks on your skin. He presses his hand into your lower stomach to add some pressure— Sam and Steve each taking a breast into their wet mouths, their tongues swishing and swirling.

You dig a hand into Steve’s hair and cup Sam’s head as they tease your nipples, a sharp yelp bursting through your lips as Sam bites down gently. Ransom spreads your folds with his index and middle fingers and suddenly, there’s a tongue— a warm, velvety tongue flattening against your clit. You push your head up to watch as Bucky sucks on your nub, his eyes searing into yours as he releases you with a smack, and then dives back in, the tip of his tongue flirting with your opening, his fingers still pumping.

Your head and hips roll as unrestrained groans rumble through your chest and fill the room, mingling with the deep moans and growls of the five men pleasing you. The sound of a zipper bounces off the walls— your hand then grabbed and pulled to your left. You gasp at the heavy warmth that fills your palm as your fingers wrap around Sam’s length. You roll your head towards him, biting your bottom lip as you watch your hand slide up and down his impressive girth.

You grab Steve’s hip with your free hand, digging your fingers into him as you lean up, beckoning him to come closer. You kiss him hard once he’s within distance, smacking your lips against his before you sound into his mouth as Ransom slaps your pussy, the gold band around his ring finger adding a heaviness to the strikes.

Bucky kisses up your thigh, sinking his teeth into your flesh every now and again until he reaches your ankle and foot. He thumbs at your black painted nails before he pulls your toes into his mouth as he massages your calf, “These are cute, these toes.” He murmurs, a light chuckle vibrating through him.

A chorus of zips start to sound, one right after the other. Their jackets soon hit the floor, the crisp, white sleeves of their button downs are rolled up their forearms before they all descend on you again. You’re lifted from the table into Andy’s arms as Sam slides into the space you once occupied on the table, his pants riding low on his hips. Andy kisses you deeply before placing you back on your feet on the top of the table, keeping a hold of your hand as you traipse along Sam’s side.

You throw your leg over Sam’s body and sit slowly, wiggling your hips as you position yourself on his lower stomach. You reach back, dragging your fingers through the curly patch of hair covering his lower half, tickling his skin. You slip your fingers into his unzipped pants and pull him free, stroking and squeezing him slowly before you swipe your fingers over his wet tip.

Two strong hands grip your waist— Ransom— as you slip your hand down to Sam’s base and lift upward, guiding him towards your entrance. Ransom holds you steady as you sit down on Sam, your cunt swallowing every delicious inch of Sam’s cock until he’s completely disappeared. You lean forward, splaying your fingers out on his wide, thick chest as he grabs hold of your thighs. You pull up, hissing as his cock slides out of the tight grasp of your pussy and then sit back down, moaning as he fills you again.

Ransom slips his hand up your spine and wraps his fingers over your shoulder as you start a slow rhythm, up and down, up and down, up and down. Your hips roll as Sam starts to buck his hips up into you, each stroke a little harder, a little sharper than the one before it. There’s a chest to your back and then teeth nibbling at your earlobe as you lean back into the body and rest your head on a shoulder. Ransom’s mouth then covers yours as he wraps his arm around your waist, holding you tight as you ride Sam, your nails digging into his rich brown skin.

You gasp as a tongue teases your thick nipple, and then a hand closes over your left breast, squeezing and kneading gently. You slide your hand into Ransom’s hair as you watch Steve flick the tip of his tongue against your nipple before he sucks your breast into his mouth, moaning as his tongue swirls.

Andy slips his hand down your stomach and starts to work your clit, grabbing your chin with his free hand and tilting your head towards his. His head is tilted upwards, his eyes hooded as he peers down at you through his long, thick eye lashes. You whine as Sam’s pace quickens, fucking up into you hard as he grips your hips so tight you’re sure he’ll leave marks behind. Andy snarls his lip as he watches you struggle to keep your eyes open, as your hips falter, as you get louder and less restrained. He licks into your mouth before he lays a filthy kiss on you— demanding and sloppy.

Ransom squeezes your shoulder before he pushes you forward with his other hand, nearly crushing you against Sam’s chest. You shiver when you feel his cock slide through your ass cheeks, leaving a wetness behind. He pulls back and the backs of his fingers glance over your ass, deep hisses and a grunt coming from him as he strokes his cock— a drop of his cum dribbling onto your skin.

He suddenly pushes his fingers into your mouth— index, middle, and ring— wetting them with your saliva before he drags them back through your ass, the tips circling your hole. There’s a tangy taste left in your mouth, some of you, some of him, as he slaps his dick against your ass and then spreads you apart. Sam slows beneath you and then stops as he drags his large hands up and down your forearms, grabbing your hand and sucking your fingers into his warm mouth.

You slam your eyes closed, tensing as Ransom starts to push the head of his cock against your asshole. He places his hand against the center of your back, Bucky cups your face in his palms, sweeping his thumbs over your cheeks as he pecks your lips with his, singing gentle praise to help relax you.

“You can do it baby,” Bucky whispers, rubbing his nose against yours, smiling softly, “You can take him baby, I know you can. Can’t she Steve?”

Steve sinks his teeth into your shoulder, humming as he drags his red, swollen lips down your arm, “This pretty girl sure can,” he reassures, his voice smooth and low, “And it’s gonna feel so good, baby. You’re gonna feel so full, so stretched.”

You whimper loudly. You grab Bucky’s shoulder as Ransom’s dick finally breaks through your threshold. Ransom lets out a breath, the warm splashing over your back as he stills, a shuddering groan vibrating through his chest. Ransom squeezes your shoulder again, leaning forward to place sloppy kisses on your back, “More?”

Steve kisses your temple before he nuzzles into the side of your face, “You can do it sweet girl. You can take him all.”

Bucky kisses your lips again. Sam nibbles on the tips of your fingers as he nudges his hips into yours, burying deeper into you. You nod quickly— you do want more. More, more, more.

Ransom starts to push again, spreading your tight muscles as he forges, filling you right up. He doesn’t stop until he bottoms out— his stomach now pressing into your ass as he wraps his hand around the back of your neck.

“Such a good girl,” Bucky purrs as he reaches between you and Sam’s bodies, starting to play with your nub, “Such a sweet, pretty girl.”

Sam is the first to move, pressing up into you before he withdrawals slowly. Ransom counters his actions, pulling out when Sam pushes in, delving in when Sam drags out. It’s hypnotizing— the rhythm, the push and pull. Your mouth goes slack as Steve rolls your nipples in his hands, his tongue and teeth nipping and licking at your damp skin. You roll your hips, pushing back into Ransom as Sam fucks up into you as electricity flows through your veins.

“That’s it baby girl,” Bucky praises through impassioned kisses, his tongue slipping along your lips and the roof of your mouth, “Stuffed full, aren’t you sweetie?”

Your stomach tightens at the words, your heart beat pounding against your chest and in your ears as a tingle rushing up your spine. There’s a pull deep in your belly, a molten heat and the raw emotions spreading through you as your body tightens hard. Your hips jerk as a sudden current strikes you— your cunt closing around Sam. He shudders and you feel it, feel it rumble through his chest as his own hips get desperate.

Ransom fucks your ass with fluid motions, his enormous hands and long fingers digging into the supple flesh of your waist. He grunts, hard and grainy as the warmth of your insides caress his cock. Ransom gets loud, Sam gets loud, you get whimpery— needy, almost to the point of tears as the waves roll harder and faster through you. Each stroke, each thrust, each plow of their hips driving you closer and closer to your demise.

A moan chokes in your throat as your orgasm blooms across your skin, but soon the sounds are pouring out of you. Loud, desperate, relieved as the waves finally crash. Bucky bites his bottom lip hard as his fingers slap against your jumping clit. Steve pinches your nipples as he rests his forehead against the side of your face, his hot breath sticking to your skin.

Sam drives his hips into yours once more and digs his thumbs into the creases of your thighs as his cock starts to spit, over and over again, spilling into you. Ransom fucks through it all, keeping a firm grip on your shoulder until he too comes undone in your ass. He pushes deep, deep, deep inside as he spurts, watching as your hole spasms around him.

Ransom pulls out of you as soon as he’s milked and you feel his cum bubble out of you, slipping down the inside of your thigh. You’re lifted off of Sam— brought to the edge of the table, on your hands and knees, your feet hanging over the end. A massive hand presses between your shoulder blades, forcing your chest and head down onto the cool surface as you try and catch your breath. You jump when a pair of warm lips connect where your ass ends and your thigh begins, a soft beard brushing against your skin.

Andy drags his finger up the inside of your thigh, collecting the cum that’s spilled from you and pushes two fingers into your hot cunt— your muscles still quaking, still constricting. He fingers you slowly, skimming his fingertips up and down your thigh as he pushes his digits, cramming Sam and Ransom’s cum deep.

You hum with each stroke, lunging forward softly, your nipples grazing over the marble table top as you move. You blink slowly as you lift your head, watching as Bucky climbs onto the table, spreading his legs as they slide around you. He slides his flesh hand into his pants and starts to stroke his cock— long, languid pulls as his metal fingers pull on his tight balls. You wrap your hands around his thighs, the excitement bubbling up in your chest once more as you watch him.

Andy replaces his fingers with his dick in one fell swoop. You mewl, your tits bouncing as he starts a brisk pace. The sound of his skin slapping against yours bouncing off the walls as Ransom, Sam, and Steve watch on, chests rising and falling hard as they tug their hands up and down their cocks at the sight.

You rock forward, your face inches from Bucky’s cock as he jerks himself, peering down his long body at you. Keeping your eyes on his, you push your tongue out from behind your teeth and lick at his shaft quickly before puckering your lips to kiss the thick vein running the length of him. You push your hands over his hips and up over his abs as your mouth slides over his wet, red mushroom tip.

Bucky moans deep, his back arching from the table as he pushes his hips up into your mouth, sending his cock right to the back of your throat. You pull upward as his hips sink back to the table, releasing him with a pop and smiling as his cock sways back and forth. You wrap your fingers around the base of his dick, wiggling him a little before you lower your mouth over his tip, sucking lightly as you swirl your tongue over his slit.

Your plump lips go slack around Bucky as Andy presses into a spot— sending a jolt right to your heart. Andy lets his hands roam along your back and sides as he fucks you, gripping and squeezing, groping and kneading your thick, soft flesh. He’ll push deep, and then just stay there for a few seconds, savoring the warmth, the tightness of your slick muscles before he wiggles his hips and withdrawals from you, just to plunge back in.

You release Bucky quickly to swallow the piquant spunk left on your tongue before you cram him back into your mouth. You suck on his cock head as you pump him up and down, twisting and turning your hand as you go. A muffled moan seeps from your mouth, vibrating around Bucky’s cock as you slam your eyes closed, feeling Andy’s strokes in your stomach.

The tingles are back— the pull in your belly. Your pussy tightens as the electricity within you starts to bounce around, synapses firing. Andy feels it, Bucky too, their hips pushing harder and faster. Your nails scratch at Bucky’s skin, squeezing uncontrollably as your heart beats in your ears, heat flushing your face.

Andy fucks into you good, hard and deep, sending you right over the edge once more. Your release spreads through you, warming every inch of flesh, every pore, every follicle. Andy thumbs your clit as he continues to pump his hips, fucking your right through your orgasm until your contracting muscles and slick coax his climax. Bucky erupts at nearly the same time— long, hot ribbons of his cum shooting from him, splattering on his stomach and dribbling down his cock.

There’s movement out of the corner of your eye, Steve standing from one of the chairs to grab your chin, pushing your head and face up towards him. He kisses you hard— sloppy, sucking on your bottom lip before he tongues the roof of your mouth. He pulls away, cupping your face in his hands gently as he rubs his thumbs along your cheeks, a soft smile on his lips, eyes full of affection.

“Such a good girl.” he whispers.

He pulls you into another kiss, but this time it’s softer— sweeter. Slower.

Andy pulls out of you, his hands still sweeping over your back and ass and thighs. He presses another kiss right into the creases of each cheek before he falls into a chair next to Sam. Bucky slides off of the table and sits next to Ransom, resting his head on the back of the chair and lets his mouth go slack as he lets out a breath.

Steve crawls onto the table as the four other men drag their chairs to the edges of the table, sitting up straighter once they get situated. Steve grabs your lips with his, a soft hum wavering in his throat. He separates from you but doesn’t go far— resting his forehead on yours as he nuzzles into you, rubbing the tip of his nose along the bridge of yours. He starts to guide you back, his hand behind your head, as he lays you down flat on the table, your knees drawn up, your feet flat against the cool surface.

You sweep your hands up and down your thighs in anticipation as you watch him unbutton his shirt slowly, his blue eyes wandering the length of your body as his fingers move. You push up onto your elbows, tilting your head as you blink at him when he pulls the material away from his buff torso.

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you dip your eyes to his broad chest, his skin tanned and tight. There are faint scars littered along his skin— a few tiger stripes on his biceps and sides. His stomach is firm and flat, six perfect abs carved out, and the cutest belly button you think you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. You sit up, placing your hand in the middle of his chest, right in the middle of those hard pecs and watch your hand move with each breath he takes. Your fingers fall, down his sternum, over those abs, and slightly into the dark blonde patch of hair that peeks out of his open pants.

You draw your bottom lip into your mouth and send your eyes up to his as your hand digs deeper— your dainty fingers wrapping around his hard, hot cock. His chest tightens at your touch. You inch your body closer to his, throwing your legs open and around either side of his body as you start to pump him slowly. You draw your hand up his shaft, sweeping your palm over his sensitive, weeping tip before you push back down, squeezing him gently— feeling him.

His breathing gets deeper, his chest and stomach constricting, his lips parting and quivering ever so lightly as you massage him. All five pairs of eyes are on you— unwavering, barely blinking as they consume you and only you. The power swells in your chest. You feel like a goddamn queen. Captivating. Strong.

You pull him free of his dark slacks and have to take a breath at the sight of him. He’s gorgeous. Thick and long, his tip shiny and wet and red— eager— his dick jumping every now and again as cum dribbles out of his slit. You sweep the pads of your fingers over the tip again, collecting the warm, cloudy spunk and push it down his shaft, along the thick vein that runs down him, wetting every inch of him.

He pulls you into his lap in one swift move, like you’re absolutely weightless. His cock settles against your pussy and clit, resting against your stomach as he wraps his arm around your back and waist. You instantly start to roll your hips, sliding your skin along his dick— coping a feel— letting it radiate through you.

The current in the room picks up. The flames of the candles start to flicker as if there’s a strong breeze that threatens to extinguish them. You push up with the help of Steve’s strength, your mouth hanging open as you guide him towards your entrance. You push his flesh through your folds, teasing yourself a little before you align him with you, starting to sink your hips down.

You dig your fingertips into his shoulders, let your head fall back as he opens you up inch by inch. A growl scratches at the back of your throat when you feel his hot lips on your neck, peppering kisses, tongue lapping, teeth nipping as you take him. The candles flicker hard as Steve bottoms out in you— hip to hip; flesh to flesh.

Throwing an arm around his neck, you really start to move, pulling up on that towering dick before sinking back down on it. Your tits bounce as your hips roll, a delicious burn starting to spread through your thighs. Steve’s hips fuck into yours, meeting you halfway as you crash down. There’s hands on you again— on your shoulders and arms, on your thighs, wrapping around your ankles— Andy, Ransom, Sam, and Bucky— grabbing, kneading, gripping, groping.

The electricity in the room bounces off the walls, energizing you, drawing you into Steve more and more with each passing second. The wind even kicks up outside, slamming against the sprawling house, shaking the lush trees. The warm moonlight cascades into the room and over your bodies as you fuck Steve unmercifully on top of the old table. You gasp and moan and pant— the sounds bitten off, choked, and heavy as your pussy constricts around him.

He appeases each whim of your hips, driving into you deep and hard, taking control when your hips jerk and shudder. He encourages you— they all do— sweet, tiny whispers, filthy, low declamations. Their voices rattle your brain and your bones as the candle light trembles again.

You’re slamming into each other, Steve bottoming out with each thrust. Your stomach is tight, your body warm and prickly, your clit stinging as another orgasm looms in the distance. Steve’s hips are rolling and pushing, his fingernails scratching your skin as he rakes them down your naked back. There’s teeth on your shoulders and neck, lips over your nipples, fingers prodding against your clit until you come undone, shouting and pleading to every God you know.

A sudden burst of warmth explodes inside of you— Steve’s strangled groans growing loud as he comes. Your face breaks with passion, tears threatening to spill as ungodly, high-pitched sounds spill from your lips. You’re all shrouded in darkness. The candle light whipped away, suddenly extinguished by the invisible forces in the room.

The candles relight again out of nowhere as you collapse against Steve as your body finally gives out after the thorough fuck session. You’re heavy and limp, air rushing out of your mouth, sticking to his damp, humid skin. You can’t even keep your eyes open. You hum intermittently as their hands brush over your skin before they pull you away from him, laying you back down on the table.

Their voices ring out, all in sink, chanting again in French. Sam sprinkles your body with the flask, from your head to your toes— Steve traces a cross on your chest. They all flatten your hands on you as their chorus finishes, and you hear the soft voices again. They’re warm and happy, the feminine voices, as the love— the familial undercurrent— fills the room again.

You’re lifted into arms, pressed against a chest before one of their discarded jackets is thrown over your shoulders. Your head is foggy, thoughts slow as someone carries you out of the room. You feel their protection, the fierce safeguard of you as suddenly you’re the center of attention. It feels as if hundreds of eyes are on you— because there are as they walk you right through the center of the party.

“Our missing child is home.” Steve announces, smiling softly down on you, sweeping his large hand over your forehead, “The family is complete once more.”

An exuberant applause erupts.

You’re moving again, slowly the eyes on you disappearing as the fivesome moves you through the house. A door clicks, the sound of the bottom of it sweeping across the carpet filling your ears. A warmth surrounds you as you’re laid down onto a bed, a large, full comforter covering your naked body. You squirm, your head rolling against the pillow as you murmur and whimper.

“Shh shh shh, little one,” Sam purrs, stroking your face with his thick fingers, “You’re safe.”

“We’re all here sweet girl. Just rest.” Andy says calmly, brushing his lips over the backs of your fingers.

Naked bodies surround you— cram you right in the middle of them. Arms and legs are thrown over you, fingers thread with yours, lips and beards glance over your skin as they whisper and blether. You roll into a body, you’re not even sure who’s, and you hold onto them tight, letting the sleep seep in, letting it pull you away into the deep.

SATURDAY

There’s an intrusive light burning into your face. You shift, rolling your head away from it before rolling your entire body over onto your side. You stretch your arms out and sigh slowly, wanting nothing more than to melt back into the soft, deep slumber that had been disturbed— but your brain has other plans. It slowly starts to awaken, the fog lifting, memories and visions of the night before playing before your eyes. Hands on your skin, lips locked on yours, eyes following your every move.

You spring upwards.

Your eyes pop open as you inhale sharply. You snap your head to the right and then the left before you scan the room, finding it completely empty. You turn back towards the windows, squinting and blinking as the sun belts into the room, the light spilling over the floor and bed. Voices float towards you— warm, male laughter— before it dies away again and all you hear are the random chirps of birds and the soft swish of the breeze against the trees and house.

That’s when the soreness seeps in. You roll your shoulders as you recognize the subtle pain, roll your neck before stretching your arms above your head. There’s laughter again, the clatter of pans and dishes and you blink at the closed bedroom door. Questions start to populate and swarm, pushing away the rest of the sleepy fog in your mind.

You throw your legs over the side of the bed and stand, but throw your hands back on the mattress as you stumble, having to steady yourself. Your legs are jelly. A hum vibrates in your chest and throat as you take a step after a few sobering seconds. The muscles of your sex scream at you— achy and tight— used. It’s sharp but also dull, nagging and deep— the soreness. It feels good. Feels right.

Spotting an egg shaped floor length mirror leaning up against the far wall, you pad towards it, squinting and hissing as pangs of the delicious pain prickle along your skin and muscles. You peer at your body, twisting and turning. You’re marked beyond belief— suck marks on your neck and shoulders, red raised welts on your sides and thighs, deep bruises and teeth marks scattered along your body like a map.

A smile tugs at the corners of your mouth.

You spot a small bench in front of the bed, a pink satin tank top and matching shorts tossed over it. You slip the tank top over your arms to cover your bare torso and pull the shorts up your legs, your ample behind poking out of the bottom of them. You start for the door and move into a long hallway, following the laughter and voices emanating from deep in the house.

This is a really big house. It takes a while, well, you’re nosey so you peek into each room you pass and stop to eye the paintings on the wall, but you finally find the source of all the noise. You turn into the vast kitchen, finding five men placed throughout it. Sam is over the stove, cracking eggs and flipping potatoes and fresh vegetables. Andy sits at the bar, his nose buried in the Saturday paper as he sips on a black coffee. Bucky and Steve sit at the table, talking hushly over some old papers, and Ransom leans against the fridge, thumbing through his phone.

Bucky’s the first to notice you. He greets you with a wide, bright smile, his eyes crinkling at the sides, his nose scrunching, “Good morning beautiful.”

The rest of the men all blink at you and a warmth flushes through your face as you play with your fingers. Before you can respond, Ransom sweeps you off your feet and into his arms, kissing you hard and deep before he sits you back down and swats your behind, “Mornin’ doll.”

“Don’t be so rough with her,” Andy chides the slightly younger man. He grabs your wrist, bringing the back of your hand to his lips, “Sleep well, baby?”

“I did, thank you.” You smile, nervous but flattered by the attention.

“Hope you’re hungry sweetie,” Sam says, leaning into you to peck your lips as you move towards him.

“I’m starving.”

“I bet. You slept hard last night.” He winks, nudging you with his shoulder, “Ransom, plates.”

“I’m not the help, Wilson.”

“Well you are to-fuckin-day. Get the plates, trust fund baby.”

You laugh as you move towards the table, getting swept up into another breathless kiss by Bucky before Steve pulls you into his lap, brushing his nose over the back of your shoulder. Ransom and Sam hand out the plates one by one, taking drink orders and handing them out before they take their seats at the long table. You stay in Steve’s lap as you eat, listening as they all chat and cut up a little, teasing the youngest of them, Ransom, and listening intently as Andy talks about his latest case.

“I bet baby girl over here has some questions, hmm?” Bucky says after a while, cutting into his sausage and popping a small piece into his mouth.

You nod as you chew and swallow, before your eyes go wide, “Oh shit! My sister MJ! I bet she’s—”

Ransom slides your phone towards you, “I texted her for you last night and again this morning. Convinced her not to call the cops— she’s a feisty one.”

“Oh God, thank you.” You sigh, glancing over the texts.

“You can call her if you’d like. We can step out.” Steve offers, peering at you over your shoulder.

“No, no. She seems to be pacified for the moment. I’ll call her in a little while. So,” you lead in, “How, um, what is all of this? How do you guys know me, or my mom, to be more specific?”

Steve wraps his arm around your waist, holding you to him before he takes a breath, “This is going to sound really strange and it’s a really long story.”

“I got time,” you laugh, “It’s the only reason I came last night. Didn’t expect to get fucked by five dudes, but, you know,” you giggle, “Shit happens.”

“Steve and I,” Bucky starts, “We knew your great-grandmother, Marie-Angelie Paris Laveau of New Orleans. Steve was… sickly.” You nod quickly, having read everything there is to know about the great Steve Rogers, “I had heard that there was this new religion, down south. A woman that claimed to be a healer and Steve was my best friend, so, we decided to check it out in the early forties— wanted to see if she could help him.”

“When we finally got to Louisiana and tracked Marie-Angelie down, it was nothing that Bucky and I had ever seen before.” Steve chuckles, “Your great-grandmother was a beautiful woman, had thousands of followers, just like her mother, and her mother before her.”

“Followers?” You ask, furrowing your brow.

Bucky shifts his eyes to Steve before they land back on you, “You’re a direct descendant of Marie Laveau, the voodoo queen of the French quarter.”

Your eyes widen at the words.

“The elder Marie was a very powerful woman, passed down her knowledge and her gift to her daughters who kept her spirit and her craft alive. Marie-Angelie took one look at Steve and knew she could help. So,” Bucky takes a breath, holding it in his chest for a second before he pushes it out, “We made our offerings, appeased the spirits and we had Steve stay with her for the night.”

“She prayed over me all night. Chanted, offered the spirits many gifts, had me drink this potion that she’d made,” Steve says slowly, “I’m not too sure what happened. I just remember waking up and looking like this. It came with conditions of course, one of which she told us about, the other she didn’t.”

“What were they?” you breathe, engrossed in the story.

“The condition we knew about was that Bucky and I had to join the society.” You raise your eyebrows, prompting Steve to smile, “The elder Marie, your great-great-great-great grandmother entered into a pact with Sam’s great-great-great-great grandfather.”

“He was a farmer,” Sam says after he takes a sip of his coffee, taking over the story, “My great-great-great-great granddaddy went to Marie for a little advice and to have her pray for his crops. He was flat broke, about to lose the farm, Louisiana was going through a terrible drought— he offered Marie the last dollar he had in his pocket. His crop came in more bountiful than ever, in fact, it was the only farm that yielded that season. Made him a millionaire overnight. So, in exchange for her prayers, he offered her and her offspring protection. As long as there's a Laveau bloodline, the Wilson’s will watch over them.”

Silence falls over the room as you blink back at Sam, unable to speak. Bucky leans forward, placing his flesh hand over yours and rubs gently as concern fills his blue eyes, “You okay, honey?”

You nod, closing your eyes as you swallow, “Yeah, I, um, so… okay, so Sam, Steve and you are bound to protect me? Because of this society that was formed?”

“Us too,” Andy adds, “My great-great-great-great grandfather, Reginald Barber was a politician, went to Marie for some help around the same time as Sam’s granddad did, and when she fulfilled his request, he also joined.”

“My grandad is a writer, he too ended up joining the society in the early sixties with your grandmother when his first novel blew up.” Ransom says, “Harland Thrombey.”

“Harland Thrombey, the mystery writer, right? I thought he had a daughter?”

“That’s my mom. When I was born, I took her place in the order.”

You lift your eyebrows, nodding your head, “Wow.” you laugh a little, “So, what exactly do you guys do for me?”

“We just keep you safe. Watch over you, try to fulfill all of your… needs.” Sam answers with a smirk on his face and a glint in his eye, “Keep the bloodline going, if need be.”

You squint suddenly as the wheels and gears in your brain turn, “Wait so, this is passed down? From generation to generation?”

“Yes.” Andy answers simply.

“So, that means that all of your fathers, had sex with my mother? Am I.. oh my god,” your hands fly to your face, “Am I related to you one you?”

“No, oh my god!” Ransom recoils, his face screwed up in disgust, “The fuck do you think we are, weirdos? No.”

Steve laughs, rubbing your stomach with his large hand, “Your father is James Rhodes. He’s part of the congregation, the followers of your grandmothers. He was chosen for your mother, just like your partner will be chosen for you.”

You blink, your mind empty, “Chosen?”

“It will be someone either in the society— one of us— or someone in the congregation.” Steve nods, “Either way, your partner will be someone who will understand our debt to you and your family. If your partner is indeed someone in the society, that person is then removed, so there’s no impropriety, and someone in the congregation will take his place to keep the society full. Once you’re paired with whoever, we all then have a duty to reproduce so our children can take care of yours— again, with women in the congregation who understand our duty, and so on and so forth.”

You fall back against Steve’s chest, slumping a little at all of the information, “It’s a lot,” Sam reassures, “I know, I’m sorry.”

Insane is what it is, you think, rubbing your forehead with your manicured fingers. Somehow though, it all just kind of makes sense, “You said there was another condition? After you and Bucky went to Louisiana? What was it?”

“Me.” Bucky smiles, leaning back into his seat as his eyes fall into his lap.

You glance back at Steve, “I don’t understand.”

“In order for me to achieve this,” Steve motions towards his body, “Something had to be sacrificed, “The spirits chose Bucky. Some years later, after we joined the army—”

You gasp, covering your mouth again, “When he fell from the train.” You finish for him.

Steve just nods, “I put two and two together after a while. I went back to Marie and told her I was done— I wanted out and I didn’t care what happened to me for it. So I ended up just kind of floating through life. Threw myself into my work and saving the world. I didn’t know at the time that some of my blood had gotten into the hands of the Germans during the war. They studied it— noticed that my enzymes were nearly indestructible. They created the super soldier serum to replicate my strength and healing abilities.”

“Hydra, is what they were called. They found me and started experimenting.” A sad smile covers Bucky’s face. You lean forward, cupping his cheek in your hand and rub your thumb just under his eye. His smile turns upward as he nuzzles into your warm palm, “I’m alright.”

“I got wind of Bucky in the eighties, he had assassinated this researcher, they actually got a picture of him. I had to bring him home,” Steve shrugs, “But he was tricky— elusive. I tracked him for a few years but I couldn’t ever get close, and I knew I only had one option at that point.” Steve rests his lips against your shoulder, brushing them back and forth slowly against your warm skin, “I tracked down your grandmother and your mom for help.”

You feel him smile against you and you turn, throwing your arms around his neck as he continues his story, “You were barely walking when I met you the first time. You were so cute, so little. Even though I was still pissed, you stole my heart as soon as I saw you. You were the only innocence in this craziness.”

A tear slips down your cheek. He wipes it away with his fingers, smiling softly at you as you’re overcome with emotion, “Did you used to read to me?” you ask with a shaky voice, the early, fragmented memories you have of a blonde, blue eyed man suddenly making sense.

“Tamerlane by Edgar Allan Poe was your favorite.” he smiles, “That’s how I knew it was you last night. Poe was your favorite, even back then.”

You hug him tightly and feel hands on your back and shoulders, a pair of lips on the top of your head and the side of your face as Andy, Bucky, Ransom, and Sam crowd around you, “We brought you home now.” Sam voices gently, “We’ll take care of you baby. From now until the end of days.”

You let them soothe you. Let them stroke your hair and whisper their sweet nothings. Let them kiss your skin and wipe away the tears as the sun cutting into the room through the windows washes you in warmth. You lean back after what seems like forever, sniffling gently as Steve brushes those fingers underneath your eyes, “I want to meet my mom.”

“Of course. We’ll take you to her whenever you’re ready. She was supposed to be here but, she couldn’t deal with the heartbreak again if it wasn’t you. She’s been looking for you for so long— they both have.”

You exhale deeply, closing your eyes as you rest your head against Steve’s chest, nuzzling into him, “Why was I taken?”

“Somebody sent a tip to the police that your mother was living in a commune—” you feel him tense, his tone going harsh, “Just a nosey ass woman who didn’t have anything better to do with her time. Made up some shit about drug trafficking coming out of the house. It was raided while I was in Europe— they took you, put you up for adoption. I should have been there. I should have protected you.”

“You're protecting me now. That’s all that matters.” You whisper, “But,” your voice drops away as you open your eyes, blinking slowly.

Ransom’s massive hand runs up and down your back, “What is it, honey?”

“My sister. My mom and my dad— the people that raised me. I love them.”

“We are not going to take you away from them,” Bucky answers quickly, “They’re a part of you. We understand that.”

“Can’t wait to meet that sister of yours,” Ransom adds, “She seems fun.”

You laugh through the fresh wave of tears that have wetted your face, “She is fun. She has a boyfriend named Peter, he loves you two,” you smile, gesturing towards Steve and Bucky, “He’s gonna shit his pants.”

You close your eyes again, your head starting to pound from all of the information that’s been placed at your feet. Your stomach churns and you shiver, causing Steve to tighten his grip, “Let’s lay you down, huh? That was a lot to take in.”

They all follow you and Steve back into the bedroom where you first woke up that morning. You’re stripped naked again, crowded in the middle of their hulky bodies. They let you cry. They let you talk aimlessly. They let you get angry, and then sad, and then content as you work through your sordid history. One by one, their lips are on yours again. Hands dig into your sides and grip your thighs. Languid thrusts, hot breaths, short whimpers, and long cries fill the room as they make love to you over and over.

Your bones are liquid. Your body, your cunt stretched and used— so sore you’re not even sure your limbs are connected anymore. You come, time and time again, from their mouths, their fingers, their wet, hard cocks. You take it all— two of them stuffing you full while a third occupies your mouth, the other two not-so-patiently waiting for their turn at you.

Sleep tugs at you from every angle after a while and you fade in and out as the day drags on. Women come to you in your dreams— the women of your family. They whisper to you, the great secrets of your long lineage. They smile and lay their hands on you, filling you with their spirits, their love.

You’re suddenly at a large body of water— Bayou St. John. A woman perches by the bank, her hand swishing back and forth in the cool water. You traipse towards her through the tall grass, your feet sinking into the wet ground. You kneel next to her as she sings a native song. She’s wrapped in a red, white, and blue shawl, her eyes sparkling as she turns towards you. She cups your face, running her hand down your cheek and jaw before she reaches into the water and pulls out a large, multicolored fish.

You spring forward, gasping hard and deep as you wake from the vivid dream. You cover your face with your hands as a chill runs down your spine, your forehead covered in a cold sweat. Without thinking, you splay your hand over your stomach as your heart stills. There’s movement behind you— Steve slinks his hand around your middle, settling his hand over your much smaller one.

You peek over your shoulder and he’s staring at you, his lips parted slightly, his blue eyes wide and full of knowing. His words from earlier coming back to you. Your partner will be chosen for you. It will be someone either in the society— one of us— or someone in the congregation. You lay back down, curling into him, tracing his nose and jaw, his chin and eyes with your fingers as he blinks back at you.

“Did you see her too?” You breathe. Great-great-great-great grandmother Marie Laveau.

He nods, “I’ll take care of you,” he whispers as Sam, Andy, Ransom, and Bucky all sprawl out around the two of you, “I promise.”

You nod, smiling slowly, “I know.”

You mean it. You know he will— that they all will.

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erminecore · 4 years

Text

I really liked @doodledrawsthings’s A Hat in Time “Coffee Shop AU” idea… but also got me to thinkin. What if Vanessa’s poison was rather more immediate, so she had time to gloat, and so poor Luka had to deal with the idea of coming home to Harriet as a big snakeghost… who won’t recognize him at all?

“I’m not here to talk about custody.” Vanessa says, her smile angelic, perfect. She flicks a strand of hair from her shoulder, just to complete the illusion of the person Luka thought she’d been.

Luka’s emptied cup hits the saucer with a clatter. His nerves, which were screaming at him the whole time, rise to a fever pitch. He sharply stands, his stomach rolling, his hands hitting the table with the clatter of cutlery - but if anything, Vanessa’s smile only widens at the show of frustration. “...If this isn’t about custody, then what is this about?”

Vanessa laughs even as Luka’s stomach winds knots like dancing snakes, even as he bends double with the roiling pain of it. She laughs even as he hit the floor, his arm coming up to grip the tablecloth for support - and failing, his nerves turning to jelly, his muscles screaming as if melting under an acid kiss. “Oh, Luka. You should really know better by now. I’m here for revenge.”

From his vantage point on the floor, Luka gets a good view of the tableware as it comes crashing down around him. Forks and knives twirling like dangerous silver dancers around his spinning head, the graceful fall of a teapot in slow motion… but it is his own cup that, rolling to a stop near his arm, that draws his attention. In the tea, he sees the same purple, the same stain that is creeping down his arm - the purple of night, of pouring ink, of scribbled over legal documents and things gone wrong. Luka is aware, painfully aware, that he may be dying.

“What,” he rasps, aware of the spasming of his own arms, of the distant sound of his shirt tearing. His entire body was nothing but a ball of fire and nerves, somehow nebulous, but growing longer all the time, growing larger. “Have you done to me, Vanessa?”

In response, Vanessa stands - perhaps was always standing. Luka doesn’t know. His sense of time, of continuity, is near shattered. But he sees her perfect pink shoes, ribboned and sweet, as she walks over, and deftly kicks the cup away.

“I never wanted the child, you know.” Vanessa says, her voice full of spite. “You should have known that. I just wanted to make you suffer - to remind you whose you were.”

Luka tries to speak, tried to form the words to tell her just how awful she was, just how awful she still is. But the only sound that comes out is a soft gurgling, a pained wheeze. It’s like trying to breathe through a straw. His hands come to his neck and he feels them - large and clumsy, clawed and fumbling, two fingered, inhuman.

“You know? I don’t think you’ll be winning custody now.” Vanessa says, her voice sweet and pleasant. As pleasant as when she cut his hair while he was sleeping. As pleasant as when she told him to choose between her and Harriet. As pleasant as when she told him to stop talking to his tutor at law school. “No one would give a child to a monster like you.”

“You’re the monster!” Luka manages to spit, coughing up something black, something wretched onto the carpet. He forces his gaze upwards and yes, Vanessa’s glaring at him, glaring, but smoothing her face quickly, tightening it into a smile just like always…

“You think so?” She says, with a little chuckle, reaching into her pocket to pull out a silvered hand mirror, no bigger than her palm. It shows very little. But what it reflects nearly stops Luka’s heart.

Glimpses of black, of yellow eyes like a lantern, of fangs lit by an endless glow set above a gaping maw. He’ll never work at a law firm again - he’ll never fit in a law firm again. A long slithering tail where his legs should be… it is no wonder he cannot feel them anymore.

“You always were a little snake, my prince…” Vanessa croons, her eyes twinkling even as the monster in the mirror begins to cry. “Now the whole world will know.”

“...How could you? How could you?!” Luka sobs. He’s not thinking about Vanessa. He’s thinking about poor Harriet. He’s thinking about his job. He’s thinking about his life, in tatters. About the child he has to support. About the case he has to win. How in the world is he even going to get through courtroom doors like this? How is he going to navigate the formal attire required to be his own lawyer? What, is he going to just wear a tie on the day of the hearing and nothing else?

“How could I? How could you?” Vanessa snaps right back, crossing her arms and glaring, glaring as if Luka’s the one in the wrong. “You took my heart and ran away with it! You left me, alone, all alone in the world over a child!”

Luka sees frost beading at the edges of Vanessa’s clenched fists. Sees the tears of fury in her eyes. It explains everything. Magic? Magic. God, of all the people in the world to have magic, it has to be his ex…

“Now you understand, though, don’t you?” She says, her smile smoothing crookedly, uneasily over her face. Jagged lines and uncertain swoops. “You’re mine. Mine and mine alone. You can’t go anywhere else. No one else will accept you. No one will love you, not like me. That wretched child won’t even recognize you now.”

Vanessa reaches down, her pale hands coming to caress Luka’s cheek. Her fingers are still icy, horribly cold, all the worse on Luka’s freshly burned skin. “There’s nowhere else for you to go…”

“...I…” Luka whispers, shivering, trembling in her fingers. He sees her eyes widen. He sees the hope there. It’s the old hope, the hope he fell in love with, the light that was brilliant, that drew him in like a moth to the flame. God, he’d loved her so much, when he first saw her look up from her books, when he saw the boredom drain from her eyes to be replaced by this fire…

But that was then, and this is now.

“...I’m going to be pressing charges.” He hisses, pressing his hands into the dirt, scrabbling, sliding, slipping away into the night, however he can. He doesn’t think about it, can’t think about it - to think about it is to not be thinking about the furious howls of rage behind him, the wintry blasts of ice that shatter and smash tree branches above him - flash frozen in an instant.

Somehow. Somehow he gets away. Hauls himself up to a park bench somewhere, puts his head in his hands. Somehow, he finds a moment to think, but there’s only worry, only the same burning fear, over and over.

“She’s right.” Luka whispers, the horror dawning on him. “There’s no way the kid will recognize me now.”

He said he was only supposed to be an an hour, maybe two.

Luka had never been home late before. But, then… he usually didn’t make appointments this suddenly either. Not the day of, not thirty minutes before. But… it was with Harriet’s mom. So maybe that’s what made it special?

Harriet wasn’t supposed to know where, or with who but… she’d kind of listened in. Heard the phone call. It was… easy enough to pick up the details through the shouting, even without poking her head through a crack in the door. Subcon park, eight pm, sharp. They were going to talk about things. Talk about her.

It felt like the only thing anyone ever talked about anymore was her. But not in the way Harriet liked. Not talking about how brilliant she was, or how bright, or what she brought home from school. Talking about who she’d be happier with. Where she belonged. Who owned her.

Luka still talked about how bright she was, of course. How brilliant, how beautiful. But when he spoke about it, he was always… defensive. Or tired. Harriet wasn’t sure which one was worse.

Harriet… isn’t supposed to go out late. Or alone. But her dad is really, really late now. Maybe… maybe he got lost? Maybe it’s time to go look for him, to make sure he’s okay…

Harriet checks her phone again. Still no calls, no texts, nothing. Except, exactly as she’s looking the phone lights up, with a text from her dad -

“Dad

11:48PM

idmworot994 w”

-and nothing else. Not even the usual “Sorry I forgot it was in my pocket, kiddo!” that her dad always sends after scrambled texts. That seals it. He really must be in trouble, or he wouldn’t be so sloppy and un-Luka like…

Harriet snatches her hat from the hatstand, grabs her coat, and rushes out of the front door, into the night, unaware of the bright yellow eyes anxiously following her the whole way…

Luka follows along behind his own daughter, clumsily, awkwardly, anxiously, his body ribboning through the trees like an eel. He feels horrible doing it, but who else will keep an eye on her? Except, now he’s the embodiment of everything that he’s warned her to be afraid of in the night, the very essence of a “stranger.”

How is he going to be able to talk to her? How is he going to warn her about Vanessa, Vanessa who is even now, on the prowl, hunting for the both of them?

He waits until there is light, at least. A light and a bench and… hope. It’s risky. But he can’t wait any longer. He calls out, his voice rasping, low. Will she even recognize it?

“Hey, kiddo?”

Harriet jumps nearly out of her skin, starting back from the light - gazing around wildly into the night. She sees nothing. Just trees, darkness… and two glowing yellow eyes, suspended above a grinning mouth.

“M-monster!” Harriet shrieks, fear tingling up her tiny spine as she scrambles for the bench, crawling under it, losing her hat her haste to take cover and hide. Trembling like a leaf, too scared even to cry…

Luka feels his heart fall out of his chest to shatter on the cold ground below. Wasn’t it just like this? When things started getting rough. When him and Vanessa started fighting, and he had to turn the whole house upside down just to find the poor kid cowering under the bed…

Vanessa was right, of course. He doesn’t see any recognition in Harriet’s eyes. For the first time, he is a stranger, someone new, someone terrifying. Someone awful - a monster. He can’t blame her for hiding. But it still hurts him, leaves a sucking wound that sinks down to the pit of his soul, a chasm that might never heal…

“...H-hey, I’m not gonna hurt ya.” He chuckles, clumsily flopping down from the tree tops. The ground is hard, and the impact is harder as he lands in an ungainly heap. But the little giggle Harriet gives is worth it, even if the humor is lost as he shakily pulls himself into the light. “Don’t you recognize me, kiddo?”

Nothing. No reply, no recognition. Not even a response. He’s raised his kid well, even if it’s to his detriment. Don’t talk to suspiciously friendly people. If anything, she crawls further under the bench, keeping a wary eye on him. Luka sighs, running a hand over his head. Of course… it wouldn’t be this easy.

He spots the forgotten hat, lying on the ground, and reaches for it, stretching his arm far, grabbing it - and in that moment, when his eyes shift, Harriet makes a run for it. Smart girl. But he sees her hesitate, as he’s lying there with her favorite thing in the world. In response Luka slowly lifts up his girl’s favorite little topper, smiling forlornly.

“Come on Harriet. It’s me, Luka. I know it might be hard to believe right now but… don’t you recognize your father?”

Harriet stops. Not because she believes him. But because those words are familiar. Because when she was under the bed, sobbing her eyes out because her parents were splitting over her, over her… her dad had leaned down, with that same, forlorn smile, and had said…

“Come on, Harriet. I know it might be hard to believe right now… but it’s going to be okay.”

...In that same tone of voice…

“...D...dad?!” Harriet whispers, leaning down to take the hat, her eyes practically boggling. “What happened to you?”

Luka just laughs. That nervous, over-loud laugh he does when he’s losing a case, and pulls himself closer, wrapping around his daughter for a hug. Harriet tenses under him for the suddenness, the strangeness of it - but she doesn’t try to run. Instead she holds him back, comforting and being comforted at the same time.

“I have no idea. But we need to go. It’s not safe with Vanessa still around.”

#ahit #a hat in time #ahit 'coffee shop au'#the snatcher #hat kid #queen vanessa #writing #fanfiction time

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narutoblog · 3 years

Note

can i request minato x kushina younger sister scenario pls? thank you 😁

a/n: eek this is my first request; i’m so honored & excited <3 <3 that being said tho, I got a bit carried away with this scenario & it turned into a full fanfic story w/multiple parts, my b 😩 i’ll try to post part 2 tomorrow (it’ll have more fluff i promise)

Everlasting Beauty (Part 1)

prompt: Minato x Kushina’s younger sister OC (Kumiko); these two are dating, but Kushina didn’t know & she’s an overprotective big sis

Content/warning: set before 3rd shinobi war, Kushina & Minato are 16(ish?), Kumiko is 14-15;; mostly backstory & wholesome depiction of the sisters <3;; little bit of angst/loneliness in this first part

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fall had arrived in Konoha – the crisp wind gently passed through the trees as the streets were dusted with the remnants of summer. Kumiko had always felt attune to this time of year. It was something about the way the reddish brown leaves seemed to swirl across the ground with a mind of their own that mesmerized her, and she often found herself sitting in the Uzumaki courtyard letting her thoughts drift away with the leaves.

The Uzumaki home wasn’t big (it didn’t need to be, considering the dwindling size of the clan), but it was more than enough for Kumiko and her older sister, Kushina. As far back as Kumiko could remember, it had always just been the two of them. She was too young to remember their parents, but Kushina often told her stories of their parents’ bravery before they went to sleep. It became a nightly ritual; Kushina and Kumiko would tuck themselves into bed next to one another and Kumiko would fall asleep to the excited voice of Kushina retelling stories of their invisible heroes. Kushina would fall asleep soon afterwards, feeling assured by the soft breathing of her little sister.

Back in the day, it didn’t take long for Kushina’s temper to become well known by the children of Konoha. After she enrolled in the academy, Kushina faced bully after bully who made fun of her red hair and her ambition to be the first female Hokage. She was a born fighter and made it clear to her offenders that she wouldn’t back down, no matter what; she couldn’t afford to, not when she had a younger sister who would start the academy soon after her with the same trademark Uzumaki hair. Kushina was quickly labeled the “red hot habanero,” but much to her bullies’ dismay, she wore the name with pride. Afterwards, she spent her first few years as a genin with an impeccable mission record to prove to everyone that the Uzumaki clan weren’t just simple outsiders to be underestimated. Time and time again, Kumiko watched her sister claim victory over what seemed like the impossible. Kushina had ferociously fought off her bullies, graduated to genin level, and succeeded in missions with an actual team. To Kumiko, her sister was a real-life hero – similar to the ones she’d heard about in Kushina’s stories, but tangible and alive.

By the time Kumiko started the academy two years after her, the Uzumaki name was well known among other kids, but somewhat feared, and no one dared to mess with the red hot habanero’s sister. In fact, no one dared to talk to her at all. For most of her time in the academy, Kumiko spent her days sitting in the corner of the classroom away from the other girls giggling behind her, or throwing practice shuriken in the yard while the other kids played ninja in the courtyard. She was recognized by her clan name only and ignored in all other aspects; Kumiko jokingly wondered if she had some sort of unknown jutsu that made her invisible around the other students.

The Uzumaki clan, however, has always had an undeniable strength that allowed them to endure and continue in the face of adversity. While Kushina’s strength was loud and aflame, Kumiko discovered that her strength was one found in stillness, as the bedrock guiding the path of a crashing river.

After graduating from the academy, Kumiko spent every morning in the Uzumaki courtyard, meditating on a flat stone next to the small pond. When her sister began training for the chunin exams, Kumiko threw herself into intense training of her own to perfect her chakra control. Working closely with her sensei, she developed a knack for medical ninjutsu and began interning at the hospital to develop her skills further. On days when Kushina was home from missions, Kumiko asked her to help improve her taijutsu and teach her the Uzumaki sealing jutsu. With their enormous chakra reserves, they trained relentlessly, interrupted only by their grumbling stomachs which they happily filled at their favorite dumpling shop. In a short few years, the Uzumaki sisters had made themselves an invaluable part of the fabric of Konoha; the red hot habanero was a fierce jonin kunoichi with a trapping and sealing specialty, while her sister quickly became one of the head medical ninja in the hospital, promoted to chunin and already leading teams through hours of intense surgery without breaking a sweat.

With political tensions running high between the great nations, the number of dangerous and intense missions were increasing, even for chunin and genin teams. But due to their different specialties, Kushina and Kumiko often only crossed paths at home or at the hospital after returning from a mission. Kumiko was often stationed in the hospital for emergency operations or called in by messenger bird whenever necessary; Kushina, on the other hand, was often placed on front-line teams to gather intel on the other nations, which ultimately meant high-risk missions where death was not unlikely. Most recently, Lord Third had sent Kushina with a team gathering intel on Kirigakure forces, and she wasn’t due to return for another two days.

Kumiko drifted back to reality as a sigh escaped her lips. I wonder how Kushina’s doing.. she thought, as a stray leaf brushed against her cheek. She shook her head and picked out the leaf that had now lodged itself in her hair and held it up to examine it. The leaf was long and jagged, one that she didn’t recognize from the Uzumaki courtyard. Still a little dazed from her wandering thoughts, Kumiko blinked and tried to focus her eyes on the leaf when the wind ripped it out of her hand and dropped it into the pond. Kumiko’s skin raised slightly in goosebumps as she stepped towards the water to look for the leaf. It was torn clean in half, each end floating away from one another as it rode the ripples of the pond.

Just as Kumiko realized the probable omen, a messenger bird from the hospital flew down and perched itself on her shoulder. Kumiko did her best to not flinch too hard to avoid scaring the bird. She unraveled the small scroll and revealed a message that summoned her immediately to the operating room. She quickly imprinted her chakra signature on the scroll to let them know she was on her way, then tied the message to the bird and let it fly away. Kumiko’s instincts kicked in as she ran through her mental list of preparations for working at the hospital. She changed into her hospital uniform, grabbed her medical notes, and rushed onto the roofs of Konoha, racing towards emergency room.

When Kumiko arrived at the hospital, the medical staff were in an unusual frenzy. She joined the other medical staff in the hurry as she tried to gather as much information as she could from scribbled charts, but there wasn’t enough information.

“Kumiko! Over here!” Kumiko jolted her head up and looked down the hallway to see the jonin in charge frantically waving in her direction. She navigated past the other medical staff and civilians to get closer, then followed the jonin into the operating room near the end of the hall. “We’ve got two teams back from their A-rank missions, four with moderate injuries, two in intensive care,” the jonin explained as she scrubbed her hands, forearms, then put on sterile gloves. Kumiko followed suit as she listened. “We pulled her into the operating room a few minutes ago because her chakra levels weren’t responding to the emergency treatment and we can’t figure out why; we need to detect any abnormalities in the chakra network to see if it has been tampered with and restore her levels immediately,” the jonin spoke quickly, nodding to the patient on the table.

Kumiko nodded in understanding, then followed the jonin’s gaze to the patient. She could hear the jonin in charge hold her breath as Kumiko noticed the curtain of red hair spilling out from underneath the medical cover. no… no no no nono..

“Kumiko,” she heard her name from somewhere in the distance. She wanted to look for whoever called her name, but she couldn’t move. Her eyes were glued to the red hair she knew so well, the thick strands that had always roared with life at Kushina’s anger and yet were somehow so limp in the operating room, gone of their previous passions, lifeless.

“No,” Kumiko’s voice choked as she struggled to regain feeling in her hands. “No, no, no, it can’t..”

“Kumiko,” her name was spoken more firmly this time, laced with urgency. She turned her head slowly, painfully dragging her eyes away from her sister’s body. The jonin gave her a grave look. “We can save her, but we need your help. You’re the only one on staff who has as much chakra as Kushina does, and right now, we need you to focus and do what you do best. We can do this, I promise. You can do it.”

Kumiko gulped and tried to take a deep breath. She quickly finished putting on her gloves and nodded, following the jonin closer to Kushina’s body. The jonin did a quick scan then began giving orders to the other operating staff, requesting injections and creating a list of ingredients for a possible antidote. She turned to Kumiko, who stood still, listening to her sister’s weak breathing. “Kumiko,” the jonin said. Kumiko looked up. “Prepare for a chakra transfusion,” Kumiko nodded, understanding her orders. “But Kumiko,” she looked up again. “do NOT push the limit. I mean it. We need you on the other side of the operation, we can’t take care of you and save her too. Understood?” She nodded again and gathered her hands to prepare for the chakra transfusion. Once she had built up a steady flow from her network to her hands, she placed them gently on Kushina’s vital points to push chakra into her body. She cringed as she felt the chakra rush out of her system, but stayed focused. I will not let you go like this, Kumiko shouted in her head. Not like this, not ever! With an unmistakable Uzumaki fire in her eyes, Kumiko nodded at the others to begin the operation.

*************************************************

Minato had known Kushina from their academy days, but he hadn’t seen her around much after their genin teams were formed. Most of his time was spent training under Master Jiraiya, who spent half their time doing “research” by the onsens. But Minato was ever quick to learn and ingeniously skilled; under Jiraiya’s guidance, he quickly mastered the toad sage mode and developed a strong relationship with his toad summons. In the few years after leaving the academy, Minato rose through the ranks and was promoted to jonin. His trademark technique of the flying raijin gave him the name “yellow flash of the leaf,” and his speed combined with his original jutsu of the rasengan made him feared by all the great nations. And yet for all his talent, he couldn’t protect his teammates on this mission. Elite shinobi or not, he was still left sitting in a pool of worry outside the ICU, anxiously waiting for some news about his injured teammates.

As the hours passed, Minato stayed put in the area outside of his teammates’ rooms, watching medics flow in and out. The only proof of the passage of time was a nurse that stopped by every now and then to check and replace his bandages.

“You should get some rest,” a familiar voice suggested, placing a weighted hand on his shoulder. Minato struggled against his heavy eyelids and shook his head, determined to stay by his teammates until he was able to see them with his own eyes. Jiraiya chuckled and let out a deep sigh. “You know, you may be a smart kid, but you’re still young.” Minato raised his head to meet his sensei’s gaze slowly and Jiraiya gave him a grim look. “To be a shinobi is to endure, even if that is the consequences of our decisions.” Minato grit his teeth and looked away. “You decided a plan of action you thought was best, but this time, the enemy outsmarted you. Should things have gone their way, all of you would be dead.” Jiraiya slowly turned to walk away. “Your team was able to get out there alive. Use this opportunity to get stronger.. Or else next time, you won’t have the chance, “ Jiraiya advised, walking away towards the front door, one arm held up in goodbye. Minato looked at Jiraiya’s back, replaying his words in his head. Next time.. I’ll protect them.. he vowed as his body slumped in the chair, finally falling asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

part 2 is here!!

#naruto imagines #naruto fanfiction #naruto shippuden #kushina uzumaki #minato x reader #minato x oc #reader request #naruto headcanons

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atamascolily · 3 years

Text

more before the storm quotes

In which Luke is in fucking quarantine, I kid you not:

Sealed behind opaque walls, he lived in darkness for days at a time, barely conscious of hunger, thirst, or other bodily demands. He wore clothing only out of habit, but the habit weakened. The winds howled outside the hermitage, but Luke was oblivious to them. He took no notice of the sun or moons in their courses, the rise and fall of the tide, the ever-changing sky painted in light and cloud.

Yup, I called it. Dude is depressed. Or at least he is until Destiny knocks in the form of an attractive woman.

He took her at first for a projection, because it was unthinkable that anyone could have passed through the walls, his screens, without alerting him. But then he touched her bare arm, and touch told him her skin was real, and warm. He circled her, and scent told him of salt air, dead quarrelgrass crushed underfoot, a body bathed in flowers, a hint of the taint of the old oils and clinging vapors that hung on one’s person after a long flight.

“Explain yourself,” he said when he had circled around to face her again.

Oh, and then there’s this bit, which is a little too mind-rapey for me:

As rudely as his visitor had invaded his hermitage, Luke suddenly invaded her mind, probing the secret place where sensitivity to the Force resided. If she possessed the sort of talent her words claimed for her, he should be thrown halfway across the room when the ancient reflex repelled his mental touch. It was so with every Jedi he had probed, every candidate he had brought to Yavin for training.

YOU NEED A BETTER SYSTEM, THAT’S ALL I’M SAYING. Like, everyone made fun of the midi-chlorian test, but at least it was a blood sample, and not, you know, barging into somebody’s mind without permission??

Ah, the days when we knew absolutely nothing about Luke’s mother (not that this series will shed any more light on the matter, but still).

wow, Akanah is very clearly projecting onto Luke here in retrospect. nice foreshadowing there.

there’s actually a really interesting AU in assuming Luke’s mother really is like Akanah describes, tho.

Oh, and here we go:

“Perhaps that is why you cannot let yourself love without fear,” Akanah said softly. “Perhaps that is why you have no children of your own. You must fear that you will repeat your family’s tragedy in another generation. You must fear that someday you will find yourself ready to kill your own son, and him ready to kill you.”

AHHHHH, this is really good! A++++ Let’s talk about breaking the cycle of pain and violence and TRAUMA, everybody! AAAAAAAH.

“I will wait here, if you want to return to Yavin for your testing equipment,” she offered. “But I can tell you what you would see—nothing. The White Current is not the Force you know, only with a different name. But it is a manifestation of the All. I will teach you what I can.”

There’s this continued emphasis on Leia, which is interesting - iirc, the Fallanassi are matriarchal, but in a very different way from Dathomir. Interesting.

Also, this is interesting in light of the civilian-military balance:

Technically, the E-wing was on loan to the Jedi academy for training purposes, but only because there was no provision in the quartermaster’s regulations for loaning a front-line starfighter to a civilian. Ackbar had persuaded him that, given the unpredictability of life, it was far more sensible for him to have a fully armed E-wing at his disposal than an unarmed sprint, ketch, or runabout.

“Think of yourself as a member of the Republic’s militia. And a militiaman should have his weapon at home with him, in the event he is called on again,” Ackbar had said.

Luke had accepted that argument reluctantly. But in the months before he returned to Coruscant, he had become more and more uncomfortable in the E-wing’s cockpit. It was a heavily armed killer, an intimidator, an unspoken threat wherever it appeared. As such, it represented a part of his life that he was trying to leave behind.

His X-wing had fit him like a second skin, like an extension of himself. He had taken joy in flying it, even in battle. But that had been another, younger Luke. The E-wing was different. It was an embarrassment, an ugly set of clothes he was forced to wear when he went out in public. And he missed the familiar presence of Artoo, who simply did not fit—physically or electronically—in the E-wing’s R7 astromech interface.

One last time, he thought. Then maybe they’ll let me give it back.

Luke, it’s okay to just come out and say you prefer X-wings.

WOW Leia feels OOC here re: Luke’s attitude towards Vader, given that SHE keeps having issues about it herself. Also, did someone let the parentage thing slip at some point?? When did that happen, exactly?

“You don’t have to remind me about that,” said Leia, shrugging into a white robe and tying the sash in a bow. “But I’m the one who has to deal with it, not Luke. I’m the one who gets accused and screamed at and threatened, not Luke. And I’m handling it.”

The reactions of all the people at the port are hilarious, though:

It was as though they couldn’t pass up a chance to see Luke Skywalker but were too intimidated by his status to risk trying to shake his hand, clap him on the back, or even speak to him. He felt less a celebrity than a curiosity, more a dead legend than a living hero.

Luke wished they would all just go away. He had no interest in being celebrity or curiosity, legend or hero.

LOL.

He seemed so serious—

So mysterious—

He floated to the ground like a leaf—

He was as close to me as I am to you—

He smiled at me—

I never thought I’d have a chance to meet him—

You can tell just looking at him that he’s a Jedi—

You can tell just looking at him what he’s been through—

Luke closed his eyes in relief as the airspeeder took flight.

Luke refuses to listen to Leia’s refusal that she doesn’t want to go down Memory Lane, ugh. Leia has been dealing with a whole stream of women claiming to be her mother, and I’m only surprised that hasn’t happened to Luke.

“Listen to me—we’re never going to have a tidy family tree,” Leia snapped. “Why can’t you realize? We’re never going to know our parents better than we do right now. We’re never going to have fond stories of our grandparents to tell our children. We’re better off telling them about Owen and Beru, about Bail—the real people who cared for us, protected us, loved us like we were their own. You make too much of blood.”

YOU TELL HIM LEIA. Also, it’s so hypocritical of Luke to tell Leia she has to deal with her Jedi children alone and then pull a stunt like this. Yes, he’s depressed. No, that’s not an excuse.

#star wars #eu fuckery #the black fleet crisis

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ilkkawhat · 3 years

Text

just for the sake of sharing. and since i didn’t get the fic done like i wanted to yesterday. here’s a preview of that haunted mansion fic. feel free to ignore.

They’ve been driving for hours on an impromptu road trip to California, since the lab was being shut down for the week due to unfortunate circumstances that they decided to make the best of, collectively pooling the reaped rewards of their overtime paychecks as well as their rainy day funds to sponsor the vacation. They would hit all the big spots in Los Angeles at Greg’s request, then visit the Sequoia National Forest at Nick’s, all while visiting the big tourist attractions per Hodges’ wish—and then finally, in a half-joke but not really a joke, a trip to Disneyland prompted by Henry.

It was an ambitious quest and one that lost its appeal as highway hypnosis drained their exuberant energies, adding in the fact that they had left rather late to begin with, making little progress in the vastness of the state. Their lighthearted banter turned sour, teasing became tense, and Nick in particular had white knuckles decorating the steering wheel as he pushed a couple digits over the speed limit.

They find a motel, the flickering neon of a broken sign outshadowed by the green tinted fluorescence that engulfs Nick and Hodges as they walk through a thin, floating slab of cloud surrounding the entrance to check in. Greg may as well be alone in the car, as Henry is knocked out in the back, overcome with drowsiness from his motion sickness medicine. As he watches Nick enter the office, he swears he gets some sort of double vision, seeing another Nick standing by the pillar on the edge of the canopy, staring at the car.

The hairs on the back of his head stand up, goosebumps tickling his skin and he keeps wary but also weary-eyed contact with the duplicate, and when Hodges and Nick emerge from the office and he finally blinks, the doppel-Nick vanishes and so he takes it for what it was; a figment of his overtired brain playing to the part of him that is truly unsettled in this desolate nightscape void of the flashing sirens and bustling crowds that he’s used to—this is pure isolation.

That, or the apparition was an omen, warning him of danger, possibly to Nick.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Guy at the front desk said there’s some nasty fog rolling into the valley,” Nick’s voice startles Greg out of his thoughts as he lingers on the empty space, and as Nick pats his back softly he asks a silent question with his eyes, and Greg gives a quick nod of his head.

“Plenty of rooms vacant but none with more than one bed,” Hodges announces, patting Henry awake gently despite his loud voice doing the deed, earning a glare from the awakening man, rubbing his eyes.

So they get two rooms and split up. Henry and Hodges in one room, Nick and Greg in the other—the obvious choices, of course, but also logical as Greg snores, and Nick’s an insomniac anyway.

Yet Greg doesn’t seem to fall asleep so easily, or at all, despite his exhaustion. Plagued with restless dreams of a flickering Nick-less void, there’s an unease churning in his stomach and a thumping concert of paranoia in his heart.

“G? You still awake?” Nick asks from the armchair in the corner of the room, leafing through a magazine in the intrusive fluorescent light bleeding through the thin curtains. His voice perks Greg’s ears, but yet doesn’t soothe the flight response bubbling under his skin.

“Yeah,” Greg grunts, still resisting his urge to toss and turn to the other side, not wanting to be uncomfortably watched by the grumpy zombie in the corner. “How’d you know?”

“Y’ain’t snoring.”

“And how’d you know that?”

“Sara told me. Remember when we had...that case...in Pioche?”

Of course Greg remembers, and finds it odd that Nick didn’t refer to it as the McBride case for the first time in almost five years.

“You and her shared a room,” he pauses, Greg can envision how his tongue is washing over suddenly dry lips, even with his back turned. “Me and Rick in the other. She told me in the mornin’ how badly you snored.”

“So you can remember that...but you can’t remember...” Greg sighs in exhaustion, his eyes finally dropping but then snapping open at the sound of the magazine getting tossed harshly to the ground with a groan trailing after it. Hears the creaking of leather, and knowing Nick, he’s gotten up from the chair to start to pace like a lion trapped in a cage.

“I told ya I’m sorry—”

“No.” Greg’s turn, to bite down on his lower lip and decide if he really wants to have this conversation right now, but they’re both cranky and tired anyway. “No, from what I recall you just promised not to do it again. You never actually apologized—“

“Well, I’m sorry. Happy?”

“You don’t mean it.”

“Greg—of course I mean it!”

Greg doesn’t realize how tightly his jaw is clenched until it seals tighter when he feels the space next to him sink down. He almost rolls backwards into Nick, whose touch indicates a softness not found in Greg’s vision of animalistic anger and places a tentative hand on Greg’s shoulder which quickly retreats when he feels how stiff Greg is.

“I know that...I’m not invincible,” Nick’s fingers curl into the palm of his hand.

“Coulda fooled me,” Greg scoffs.

“And I didn’t mean to accuse you of being...some sort of bad guy, I-I mean, you had a point, that kid was probably gonna kill me—”

“He never would have stood a chance anyway,” Greg admits dully. “But that’s really not what upset me. You were just so...angry.”

“I was almost blown up. Twice!” Nick laughs, dropping the softness in his words and exchanging it for daggers. “What, was I supposed to be prancing around giddy with glee that I was alive? That wore off fast after I was pulled outta hell the first goddamn time, Greg.”

“Cath told me what you said.”

“What do you mean?”

“‘I’m not afraid to die.’”

“Yeah. Well...I’m not.”

Greg spins around, propping himself up on his elbows.

“But maybe I am, Nick!” Greg hisses. “And maybe...I’m afraid of...”

“What?” Nick wipes his nose to mask the escaping sniffle. “What are you so afraid of?”

Losing you.

Greg’s elbows give out, he falls back onto the bed, a hand rubbing throbbing temples while the other shoves down the heart bulging out of his chest. There’s an odd sloshing in his lungs, airways in his nose blocked. If he’s not careful he’ll work himself up into an asthma attack. He turns his head away from Nick to ensure the inhaler is right where he left it on the end table.

“Nothing. Just forget it.”

Nick gets up from the bed, and it’s the sound of clicking—a certain clicking, the one that only comes from the opening of a door, that snaps his head back to the main attraction, the man standing in the opened doorway, ready to escape the suffocating imprisonment of spending the night with Greg Sanders.

“Wait, where are you going—?” Greg sits up, his heart now soaring, telling him to give Nick a reason to say because he knows that really, he’s about to....

“I’m taking a drive,” Nick answers gruffly, popping the collar to his jacket and pulling on his sleeves. “Gonna fill up the car, I’ll be back by morning.”

“Let me come with you—”

“Get some sleep. You need it.”

“Nick—” Greg gestures to the empty space that Nick just occupied, waving a hand for him to come back.

He knows he won’t.

He picks up the car keys instead.

“Save it.”

He walks out the door without another word, and Greg leaps out of bed, boxers be damned he flings the door to call out to his friend.

“Nick!”

Nick enters the car, slamming the door without consideration to the sleeping residents and prying eyes of the motel.

Or even to Greg.

“NICK!”

Squealing tires, a loud gasp—multiple gasps, from his passengers who start shouting in the white noise of panic as Nick veers off course of an almost collision with a shadowy figure ahead—a figure that was short enough to pass for a child, long hair and a faceless face but the curvature of the body under a slender dress registered the humanoid figure as potentially female—but he doesn’t dwell on that for long as he regains control of the car, swerving in and out of the parallel yellow lines—the car almost tips, he doesn’t release his breath until all four wheels touch the ground and he finally tunes into his passenger’s dialogue.

“What was that?”

“Was that a girl?”

“Jesus, man! Keep your eyes on the road!”

He allows himself a few shortened gasps before gulping down the remainder of his adrenaline, forcing calm on himself as fatigue comes crawling from under his eyelids, daring to pull the curtains.

“Sorry,” Nick gulps. He looks at the clock on the radio. Five A.M. He feels as if he’s been on the road all night, but he remembers getting some semblance of sleep in the dingy motel room with Greg after filling up the gas tank, going back and apologizing through pillow talk.

Phantom whispers fill his ears, unintelligible voices but it sounds like Greg. He tries to focus but his attention is taken by the urgency of looking for his almost-fatal victim in the rear view mirror and the returning reaction of panic as his mind unscrambles.

Whatever shadow was there that he almost hit is gone. All that’s left is a thick layer of fog that swirls around the car, trailing behind yet also retreating ahead of them. Thick walls sandwich the car and Nick cracks his window to suck in the cold, misty air as a reminder that he’s not necessarily entrapped so much as they are just...well, okay maybe a little trapped but he doesn’t want to admit it, parting his lips and gritting his teeth as he reels himself in before he unravels further.

“Should we go back?” Henry mercifully asks and breaks Nick’s concentration on his inner self. He’s spun around, looking out the rear window but seeing nothing but the same fog, though it’s much less suffocating to him than it is to Nick.

“Y-yeah,” Nick breathes, then swallows down the last nagging thought of panic. It’s time to be the leader of the assclowns. “But I don’t know if a U-turn is a good idea with this fog.”

“Maybe we should stop. Stretch our legs, we can just take a quick walk down the road, we haven’t gone too far yet,” Greg offers. Nick’s ears perk up, he’d very much like that, and immediately schemes a scenario of holding hands so they don’t lose each other.

“I don’t know, with Lightning McQueen here, we may already be into the next town,” Hodges scoffs, an intrusive finger sliding past Nick’s shoulder to point at the speedometer.

Fifteen over the speed limit. Whatever the speed limit actually is—the sign is masked and as faceless as the road wanderer.

“I don’t think walkin’ in the fog will do us any favors either,” Nick reluctantly growls as he takes his foot off the pedal and bats Hodges’ finger out of the way. The initial appeal of walking around loses to the settling danger of either losing each other, or losing the car, or losing their minds walking around the ceaseless skyfallen ground. He thinks of how Sara described wandering in the desert for hours and hours and hours, while the intense desert heat is the polar opposite of the frigid foggy roads, he still empathizes with the prospect of having no direction, no hope.

Only difference is, he wouldn’t be so alone.

He puts his foot on the brake and pulls off to the side, channeling his frustrated energy into putting the car in park. He swivels in his seat for a full group discussion.

“Well, what’s it going to be then?” Greg sighs, his tone dripping in annoyance.

A beat.

“I’ll turn around. If we find the girl, we’ll pick her up and take her home,” Nick concludes, nodding his head to amp himself up for this more logical plan, rather than the more emotionally driven choice of walking around, stretching the cramping legs that kick at the floor of the vehicle. “‘S why it’s a good idea to drive, cover more ground that way.”

“Think she’ll fit back here between us? And she was walking so slow—” She was walking? Nick thinks to himself, astonished that he really wasn’t paying any attention. “—what if she’s hurt, or diseased or something?”

“C’mon, Hodges, wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had a girl between us,” Henry teases.

Hodges begins to stammer, the corners of Nick’s lips twitch up as he does a three-point, as efficiently and cautiously as he can in case there are other blind drivers in the fog, but after nearly ten minutes of driving, there’s no girl in sight.

“There was a turn about a mile back, maybe she went down that road?” Henry suggests.

They follow the road, and reach a dead end with nothing but the road sign sprouting in the sea of fog.

“Guess not.”

They turn around, but the main road is either passed or not reached. They find themselves in a fork that doesn’t seem familiar to Nick.

“Do any of y’all remember seein’ this? Did I run a sign?”

The backseat passengers shake their head, Greg is looking to the left, past Nick.

“Turn left,” he nudges.

“You sure?”

“Positive,” Greg nods his head.

They turn down the road and continue on, Nick’s eyes flicker to the clock. Seven A.M, and no signs of the fog letting up—in fact, it’s somehow more packed, though specks of what might be...snow? Scatter the air—It makes no sense, Nick thinks, this part of Cali doesn’t get snow...does it?

Snow was such a rare occurrence for a young boy growing up in Texas that it was a little more disturbing than it was luxurious. He of course, would often see depictions of children such as himself building snowmen, making snow angels, having snowball fights and so at first, the idea of snow excited him—but it was never enough to stick, never enough to craft meltable creations, never enough to get a cold. He appreciated how lighter it was compared to the heaviness of rainfall, but didn’t quite appreciate how it would disappear just as soon as it fell.

Fleeting, like life itself.

The wind slices across his cheek, waking him from a ride down memory lane to find a more distorted one, winding downward—he doesn’t typically get nauseous when he’s driving, but something sinks and settles to the pit of his stomach, clogging the drain with a tight not that threatens to burst like a geyser out of his body.

The road straightens out, and they reach another fork that’s missing a prong.

Nick keeps driving forward.

“You sure this is the way?” Hodges asks.

“Quit bein’ a backseat driver, I know where I’m goin’!” Nick hushes him, his accent thickening in his annoyance. “The map had a long winding road, just like this one, dinn’t it?”

“Here, I can pull it up on my phone—Oh...maybe not. No cell service,” Greg mutters. “Maybe we should find the gas station, ask for directions?”

Nick puffs his chest, lifts his chin.

“Don’t needta. Fog’ll clear up soon.”

“Well, it hasn’t yet—”

“Calm down, G—”

“I am calm!”

“I think we’re lost,” Henry groans.

“We ain’t lost,” Nick proclaims. “When have I ever steered us wrong?”

“When you rolled the car and sprained Henry’s ankle,” Hodges responds immediately.

“That—That wasn’t my fault, just the rolling—which you laughed at, and hey, if I didn’t, we coulda crashed—”

“When you told me that riding that mechanical bull was as easy as those twenty-five cent kiddie rides at the grocery store,” Henry offers.

“That one just had a screw loose is all—”

“When you, Warrick and Sara convinced me to stage a coup against Catherine,” Greg jabs.

“She betrayed our trust, Greggo!”

“No, she betrayed your trust. You guys kinda forced me into it.”

“That’s not—It wasn’t just—This was years ago and what the hell’s gotten into you?”

“Me? What’s gotten into you? You’ve been all over the place since we got to the motel—”

“Well, sorry I can’t close my eyes for more than a minute without gettin’ nightmares, and therefore, no goddamn sleep!”

“Mm. Suddenly saying ‘sorry’ a lot now, I see.”

“You know, Nick, if you need a break, maybe I can drive—” Hodges interrupts.

“No.” Nick and Greg say flatly, simultaneously.

A terse, awkward silence flitters in through the open window, which Nick rolls down even further. He allows himself a few breaths after a few endless minutes before he speaks again.

“Just...need some food in me or somethin’, tank’s gettin’ empty.”

“So’s the gas tank,” Greg observes.

“I knew that,” Nick mutters, though really, he didn’t know that. He scrunched his face, hadn’t he left to fill up last night?

They reach another fork with no sign in sight. Nick squints and leans, before getting out of the car to do a quick sweep, as if he’d suddenly find the direction along the listless roads, but the only signs are the red ones telling him to stop.

He gets back in the car, flexes his fingers around the wheel, and takes a deep breath.

“I think we’re lost,” Nick admits.

“Oh, really?” Greg sighs loudly in exasperation, tossing a hand into the air to wave at the directionless driver.

“Relax, man, I’m sure we’ll find our way.”

“Then why even bring it up?” Henry whines from the backseat.

“Just to make you whine, buttercup,” Nick teases with a playful smile into the mirror.

#mk.op #mk writes stuff #fic: the day the world went away #i'm giffing some assclowns stuff to get in the mood #it's not working #and like. i know i don't HAVE to have a fic posted every week but #i really honestly don't know when i'm gonna have another fic ready.#i don't know.#i'm sorry #also no italics cause i'm too lazy to fix that #but there's a lot of them

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chemicalmagecraft · 3 years

Text

Foresight is 20/20 Chapter 12

Chikage

I axe kicked a giant rock in half. That was fun. I also found floating around not with demon sage cores but with glittery red fairy wings made from demon sage chakra to be enjoyable as well. Because I was pure chakra, I was actually a lot better at handling natural energy than weak, inferior carbon-based lifeforms and could absorb more without any kind of negative effects. Sure, there was some instability if I went too high, but it was nowhere near as bad as the side effects on a human, and I could expel the excess pretty easily. "Dang," Kouki said from where he was sitting on another rock. I turned to face m-him. "So I guess you're just default a lot stronger than me. Makes sense, you're basically a mini biju." I could tell through our connection that he was a little off about how he couldn't access the red chakra that was now me, but that was mostly overshadowed by his marvel over the potential of Demon Shadow Clone Jutsu, the jutsu that created me. He fidgeted a bit, causing his arm to mutate slightly, red scales forming instead of the frog limbs that comes from using toad oil as a medium. "Dangit." The demon sage cores orbiting him sucked all of the natural energy out of him, setting him back to square one.

I grinned and "sat" on the air in front of him. "You having trouble, bro?" Kouki had decided that with the extra control granted to him whenever we were separate, combined with the fact that he couldn't fall back on red chakra without me, that he should finally learn how to make sage chakra the right way.

He glared at me. "You know as well as I do that this isn't easy to do properly."

I grinned and started telekinetically messing with a leaf using my sage aura. "Do I really?" I spontaneously combusted it.

"Haha." He closed his eyes and stuck his tongue out in concentration.

"Right," I said. "Imma go see what else I can do." I melted into the ground, merging the energy that made up my body with the shadows of the grass. It turned out that, while I couldn't move fast at all when projecting myself as a shadow that didn't already exist, whenever I entered a real shadow, I could move... well, I didn't know how fast exactly because I hadn't gotten around to figuring out how to calculate that, but at the very least it was fast enough that it looked like teleportation even when Kouki pulled a little trick with the Shoraigan to slow down the "footage."

So yeah, I got to the the trees pretty dang fast. I flew out of the shadows in my "biju form," which was really just me as a fox with fur the color of my clothes with the exception of a "mane" the same color as my hair, and sliced a tree in half with my claws. I opened my mouth, compressing red and blue chakra in a way that just felt... right. Even with sage mode it was small and a little draining, but it was still a biju dama. I launched it at a tree, obliterating it into smoking mulch. I sighed at the relatively small AOE, but then grinned about the fact that I just made a biju dama. Unfortunately, my victory was cut short by Kouki calling for me to come back through our telepathic link. That meant it was time for our experiment, which he wanted to be whole for just in case something went wrong. I shrugged. "Guess it's for the best," I thought to myself. "Was probably going to just throw around dama 'til I ran out of chakra." I melted into the shadows and zipped off to Kouki.

kukukuku~

I sighed as I felt Chikage returning to me. It was reassuring to have my red chakra back, even if I didn't really use it that much. Still, I suppose I did have the demon gems to fall back on, on account of how my connection to other sources of my own red chakra was uninterrupted. I crossed my arms behind my back and turned around, my eyes closed. "Finally," I said. "A project months in the making, about to be fulfilled. I'm assuming you're here to watch, eh, Tenko?"

Ai laughed. "That's a lot less intimidating if we know you can sense us, kid." I sighed and opened my eyes. "And wasn't it only one month?"

I shrugged. "Felt like more. Might just have been from that one part where they read my journal..." I held my hands out in front of me and the giant scroll I'd taken to sealing as much demon Sage chakra into as possible once I'd filled the demon sage seal on my body, the Scroll of the Demon Sage, appeared floating in front of me through a summoning instead of a sealing on account of how its power meant I couldn't seal it in my inventory scrolls and actually keep anything else in it as well. "This is it. What might be the second most powerful thing in Konoha." The scroll unfurled slightly, revealing a seal tag that as of then contained most of its power. Uzumaki are really good at handling stupid levels of energy, okay? At least I'd also managed to complete my first mini biju dama paper bomb... "Are you ready to receive this power?" I asked Ai.

"Is this really necessary?" Tenko asked, worried.

"No," Ai and I both said at the same time.

"But really, what's the point of amassing an insane amount of dangerously powerful chakra if you don't infuse as much as possible into the best known person for taking in stupid amounts of chakra just to see what happens?" I elaborated.

Ai nodded and gingerly took the demon sage seal tag from its place in the scroll. "Right, so I'm guessing you have somewhere you want me to stand?"

I slung the scroll on my back and pointed over to an area I'd prepared in advance. "There. I've already set up four cores with orders to use the Four Violet Flames Formation should anything go wrong." A nice thing about having multiple potent sources of chakra at my total command, I'd found, was the fact that I could potentially use collaboration nin- or genjutsu without actually having to collaborate with anyone.

Tenko sighed. "That's not reassuring."

Before Tenko could actually object, Ai slapped the tag on her chest. "Toolatealreadyusedit!" She quickly shouted. The red lines of the seal tag began to glow orangey-gold, then started to spread to cover her entire body in a thick chakra cloak. She laughed maniacally, floating into the air as nine tail-like chains made of the same chakra sprouted from her backside. The chains spread to curl around the entire training ground, a red, domed barrier coming into existence at the edges. I don't know if she meant to or not, but her barrier materialized just before the shinobi that I'd had posted nearby via Sandaime just in case of a worst-case scenario, cutting them off.

"Kouki-kun, what did you do to my wife?" Tenko asked worriedly.

I grinned. "'Wife?' So did either of you finally pop the question?"

She flinched, then blushed. "I... haven't yet... I do have the ring, though."

I shrugged. "Hope for the best with you two. And by the way, I'm sure it'll go over fine." Ai's maniacal laughter grew louder, causing me to turn my attention back to her. She put her hands in front of her, as if she was holding an invisible ball. Oh. "A thought occurs to me," I said, making sure to keep my voice calm.

"That doesn't sound good..." As if on cue, Ai started to slowly form a disconcertingly familiar-looking chakra ball in between her hands. In addition to that, countless streaks of energy began to slowly form in the air, gravitating to the epicenter. That epicenter being a modified biju dama.

"So there was this one clan with a Kekkei Genkai that allowed them to passively accumulate natural energy and then use that to mutate themselves. Because they didn't work for it, though, the natural energy caused them to become uncontrollable, entering homicidal rages. Because of that, they were almost completely wiped out." At that point, I started to feel a slight tug on my chakra, though I was able to resist it.

"So what you're saying is..."

"She's drunk on power, yeah. Whoops."

"How, exactly, did you not notice that'd happen with your eyes?"

"Figured out a way to make sure that nothing bad enough I can't fix it will happen while still not spoiling me on what happens. Use exclusively that for my experiments now," I explained. I noticed a bit of chakra chain straying near me and had an idea. "Hang on, let me fix this." I tried to grab the chain with a chakra thread, but it was just sucked in, so I aborted almost immediately and just lunged at it. It was starting to get to the point where I needed to have my demon gems actively cling to me to make sure they weren't sucked in. That would be bad. Thankfully, I managed to grab the chain and my theory was right. Just like how Kurama still held some link to my red chakra and Kaguya still had some link to his chakra, I could feel my connection to the chakra in the modified Adamantine Sealing Chain. I grabbed it with both hands, wrapped one side around my arm, then tugged the two sides in opposite directions.

With a bit of willpower applied, one link snapped and got spaghettified by the still-growing ball of impending doom, leaving me with a really long chain of chakra that I could control wrapped around my arm. "Right, let's hope this works or Konoha probably becomes partially made of smoking crater," I said, glad that I'd picked one of the farthest training grounds from Konoha proper, then pulled a leaf out of Ai's new book and sucked the chain into my body, making sure to strip enough natural energy off of it that I didn't become a glittery garden statue. "Oooh," I grunted, then sucked in a breath. I noticed that with one chain down, the chakra-sucking had slowed back down, though I knew it was going to pick back up if I didn't do anything.

"Are you okay?" Tenko asked.

"Yeah, just a bit of a rush," I said. "Sorry. Well, here goes..." I concentrated on the chakra that I'd absorbed. After a few seconds, I was able to form two purple chains of chakra that emerged from my sleeves. I drew on the power I'd stolen from Ai to lengthen the chains significantly, taking the shortest possible paths I could to intersect her chains with my own. Once I'd gotten all of her chains, I tugged on the chakra in them, converting Ai's golden chains to my purple chains. The effect cascaded, eating away at all of her chains until her chains were fully turned, making the barrier fall and stopping the suction effect fully. I jerked my arm, causing nine chains to sprout from Ai's arms and wrap around the biju dama. I started retracting the chains back into my body, removing almost every last trace of demon sage chakra from Ai's body. Thankfully, she didn't fall on her face, as she was able to recover almost immediately and shoot some now non-glowing yellow chains into the ground and lower herself down gently.

"I have no idea what just happened, but I'm assuming it worked because I can make chains out of my chakra now," she said.

I nodded, concentrating on the ball of dangerously explosive chakra I was slowly reeling in. "Tenko, I need you to take the scroll off of my back and open it up a bit." She did as I asked, holding the scroll up so I could easily access it. I slowly put my hands on the scroll, converting the chain into the seal. The chain, no longer attached to my body, continued to reel in the demon sage chakra. As it did that, I placed my hand on the chain, removing the impurities the chakra gained from being in Ai's system. I greedily absorbed those bits of chakra. As I suspected, my body accepted it as readily as it did Shukaku's chakra.

"What exactly happened there?" one of the shinobi asked now that they'd arrived.

"Science," I answered.

"What were we even supposed to do about that?"

I shrugged. "Sorry, I didn't expect that to happen. I just figured Ai wouldn't have very good control of her chains at first. Turns out that that much sage chakra means going crazy, though."

"So I'm guessing I shouldn't use that seal for a super mode?" Ai asked after walking over to us. I swiped the empty tag that still stuck to her.

"No, if I segment it to lower the dosage, then it both becomes multi-use and lets you keep your sanity, at the tradeoff of power, obviously. Just make sure to use it for emergencies only. And while we're at it, I should be able to eventually teach you how to enter proper sage mode, which you could do any time with just a few minutes to charge up." I looked back up to survey the mostly concerned, but with one happy, faces looking at me. "I'd say that this little experiment has been a success."

kukukuku~

Yeah, I got chewed out by my dad. In hindsight, though, I really couldn't blame him. Thankfully, I was able to get off with just a tongue-lashing and promising to make absolutely sure to test out anything that could theoretically have a large blast radius by making a gem take it far away from Konoha and remote detonate it or just not do it at all. To be honest, though, I was bracing myself for a grounding, so I was actually fine with that. And he even organized a lesson on nature transformation for me. After giving me another lecture, this time on not doing things that could potentially destroy my hands or other parts of my body unless absolutely necessary. And so there I was, leaning on the wall of the Hyuuga compound courtyard. I'd made sure that there was a chain of shadows that Chikage could use to get away from me because I knew Kakashi was going to use that one chakra paper thing on me and I didn't want to have any interference from her/my power, yet still have her accessible once we started the lesson in earnest. "Sup," I said when Kakashi arrived.

"So you want to learn how to use nature transformation?" he asked.

I shrugged and licked my lips. "I already know how to use wind, but I'd like to learn at least the basics of the others."

"Right, learning it now if you have the chakra for it is actually probably a good idea." He pulled out a piece of paper. "I doubt you can do much with it at the moment, but at the very least, you'll be able to practice until you're ready for the big stuff." He used the paper, crinkling it. "This paper is made to test one's elemental affinity. Channel a light amount of chakra onto it and it'll react in different ways depending on what your primary affinity is. Mine's lightning, so the paper became wrinkled." He gave me a second piece of paper. "You try."

I complied, channeling a bit of my chakra into the paper. "Well what a coincidence," I said, referring to the fact that my paper was now as crumpled as his was. "We have the same element, don't we?"

"Yes, that's what that means. I suppose we'll start with the lightning exercises, then?"

I called Chikage back, and she reentered me without Kakashi even seeming to notice. For whatever reason, her chakra signature was muted whenever she was inside a shadow, and she could easily suppress her signature even more and spread herself out to lower the density of her chakra in the shadows, so the only way he would've noticed was when we joined or if his Sharingan was out. It would've been the perfect ability for stealth if not for the fact that she couldn't bring anything with her, and I was already trying to think of ways around that one little weakness. Well, there was also the little snag of how she needed shadows, but really, where aren't there shadows?

"Let's start this lightshow, then," I said with a smile.

kukukuku~

And now for something completely different.

A rabbit bounded across a field near End Valley. It did not know what its destination was, just that something was... calling to it. It stopped by the roots of a great tree and began to sniff at the ground. Whatever it was looking for, it was there. It found it after a few minutes of searching. A small red stone, barely a flake, that glowed with some unearthly light. Now that it could see it, the rabbit's every instinct screamed to get away, that this stone was a predator, but it couldn't stop itself. Its body wasn't its own anymore. The now-terrified rabbit tried to fight back with all its might as its head came closer to the gem, but to no avail. The stone already had a hold over it, it just needed to touch it and it would be over. A spectre of death seemed to emerge from the jewel of death, ready to embrace the rabbit. When the rabbit's head was close enough, the stone lifted from the ground and adhered to its forehead. The rabbit screamed as a foreign presence entered its body, burning away its very soul to make room for something else.

I grinned a rabbitty grin and hopped around a bit, testing out my new rabbity body. It was a shame that I could only gain a proper body by stealing it from a living creature, but what can you do? I sniffed at the ground with my new nose. The rabbit's sense of smell was different from my original's, but when I took over the rabbit's brain I gained complete access to all its memories, so I was able to adjust soon enough. Plus I noticed that I could understand rabbits now. I sent a telepathic message back to Kouki and Chikage.

"You find a body?" they asked.

"Yup. Rabbit. Surprisingly good chakra affinity, despite being wild," I replied.

"Cool. Right, you should probably act natural for at least a month, to build up plausible deniability." they instructed. "Then you can start doing supernatural stuff. Cannibalize the body and continue your mission."

I sent a scoff through our link. "I know what to do, I have all your memories."

"Stop being so sarcastic, you're not supposed to be me."

"Right."

"By the way, did you pick out a name?"

I gave a small rabbit grin. "Of course. If my first body after my 'resurrection' is to be that of a rabbit's, then why shouldn't my name be Usagi?"

"Cool. You'd better give at least one 'name of the moon' speech though."

"Certainly. I would never pass up such an opportunity." It may have purely been within my mind, but I was already preparing my cover by practicing my new mannerisms, at the very least those dealing with how I spoke.

"Right, I'ma get back to this stupid leaf, you go do your rabbit thing. Rabbit." I hopped around a bit, searching for some food. A deep cover assignment. It was going to be marvelous.

kukukuku~

I growled as I passed my chakra through the leaf. No matter what I did, it just wasn't getting wet!

"Did you try turning it off and turning it back on again?" Chikage asked me as she floated over me.

I rolled my eyes, cut off the flow, then let my chakra flow over the leaf like water once more. "Don't think that helped."

"Dude it's been a day," she said. "You're not Naruto, you don't have an army of clones to poorly manage yet still somehow get your thing done. Just take a deep breath, accept that this is going to take some time, and do the other three exercises that you actually did make some headway in. You don't have Tsunade-levels of control when we're unfused yet."

I stared at her for a second. "How are you taking this better than me?" I asked.

"I mean, two heads are better than one. I have the perspective that you're being a lil dummy."

I stopped trying to wet the leaf and started trying to set it aflame instead. Because I already had experience doing it with and as Chikage, it started to smoke after a few seconds. I removed my thumb, seeing a smoldering thumbprint on it. Chikage picked it up, then it just disintegrated. "Showoff," I griped.

#naruto #naruto fanfiction #fanfiction #Foresight is 20/20 #F20 CH12

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1-1snailxd-art · 4 years

Note

20. “Please don’t leave me, I can’t do this without you.” Anxceit, as angsty as possible

I hope this is angsty enough for you (also, writing is tough when your family keeps interrupting. I miss my own room)

Sanders Sides Oneshot - Trial Me

Relationships/characters: Anxceit, Logince (Virgil’s parents and Logan is trans fyi), Remus is aro/ace and Dee’s adoptive father, Remy’s a kid with Emile as his father, Patton is flying solo because platonic relationships are enough.

Warnings: blood, major injuries, death mentioned (this is important), animal death (it’s kill or be killed), the ending isn’t all that happy

Words: 4377

Summary: The tribe has an ancient tradition of earning your mark as an adult but completing a trial set by your ancestors. Surviving the elements trials and collecting your ancestors trophies will earn youngling their marks and honour their family’s name. Failure results in either shame or death. Dee is desperate to earn his mark and prove his worth in the tribe that adopted him, while Virgil is happy to wait til his final years of childhood. When Dee wins that argument they must both be prepared to face the consequences of entering the trial. (Honestly, this is like Hunger Games meets Naruto in a way).

“I can’t do this without you, Virgil. I need you with me.”

Pushing his sleeves up, Virgil sunk his hands into the stream water to collect the bag of produce he’d sunk for washing. A frown left his face with deep wrinkles as he pretended to ignore Dee’s pleading words until the other splashed him, causing his hair to droop and stick to his forehead.

“Really! Did you seriously just splash me?”

“No. That would be childish, almost like ignoring someone who is talking to you.”

Grabbing the other end of the bag, Dee helped pull it from the water and held it aloft while the water drained off.

“I just don’t think I’m ready to earn my mark yet, Dee. I still have a few years of childhood left and-and I’m happy to keep being a-“

“No!” Yanking the bag from Virgil’s hands, Dee slung it over his shoulder and fixed the other with a stern look. “I won’t let you second guess yourself any longer. You’re a great warrior, Virgil, and I want you by my side. We can earn our marks together; I know we can.”

Looking into Dee’s eyes was unbearable; earnest and pleading. He had grown from the lying trickster Virgil first met when the tribe took him in from an outlying village. But Virgil was still so unsure of his abilities compared to his friend. To earn their mark was no simple task, it was a race against time and a trial of the elements to prove their worth.

A firm hand on his shoulder drew Virgil’s attention back and he realised he’d been starring at his feet for a while.

“I don’t want to do this alone.”

“Why do you even want to do it at all. You’re an outsider; you don’t even have to do it.”

“I have to do this to be accepted.”

That hit Virgil harder than a punch to the face. He never realised how much Dee wanted to be accepted until that moment. Virgil’s pale complexion and thin frame had always made him an outcast in the tribes eyes, despite being a pure blood; but Dee was a different story altogether.

“People die earning their marks, Dee.” Fear shone in his eyes and threatened to turn to tears as he thought of shaming his family by failing the trial.

“Nothing will happen to us, Virge.” Stepping closer, Dee caressed Virgil’s cheek and watched his face relax into his touch. “Please… do this with me.”

“You promise you won’t let me fail?”

Grey eyes glistened with tears from fear and stared at Dee for reassurance. Leaning close, Dee rested his forehead against Virgil’s; locking eyes to affirm his words.

“I promise.”

********************

Purple flames engulfed an arrow as it was released, sinking deep into the giant, black wolfs shoulder; filling the clearing with a howl that quickly shifted to a growl as the creature turned and sought its new target. Virgil’s chest heaved as he held eyes with the beast and drew another arrow; thankful to see the formally pinned figure crawling away to safety. Blood held his bangs clear of his sight as the wind crossed the clearing, making him adjust his aim before the animal burst forward. Grey eyes blazed purple as flame took hold of the new arrow soaring directly through the creatures eye, ending its life as the flames took hold were it fell.

“By my flame, your spirit is returned to the natural plains.” Kneeling, Virgil took a shaky breath and extinguished the flame with a thought. “May we meet again on different terms.”

Using the small knife he kept in his boot, Virgil cut a tuft of hair from the paw closest to him and added it to the leather bag that hung from his belt. He had already collected algae from the rivers bed, a red and yellow feather, a lava stone and now the fur of the beast; all part of the trial his ancestors had designed for him.

Looking up at the suns position, Virgil knew he only had hours until his time was up. Two suns ago, he’d walked through the forests mist with 10 other younglings wanting to earn their marks. They were all clean and full of determination, though Virgil had been mostly consumed by fear despite Dee’s comforting hand around his own. He had no idea where the others had gone now; the few they’d stayed with he’d lost track of in the chaos of the wolf attack because he’d been far more concerned about his cousin that was dragged away.

Leaves rustled as the wind blew harder, masking the approach of an additional assailant until Virgil was knocked against the ground by an aggressive force. Claws sunk into his shoulder and Virgil cried out as another wolf gnawed at the quiver on his back. Pinned and unable to access his weapons, Virgil released a primal scream as his eyes illuminated and the quiver burst into flames. Heat spread over his body quickly before the wolf released him and he extinguished the flames as he rolled away. His body ached and burned from the movement; the ground quickly staining red with the blood that poured from his wounded shoulder.

“Virgil!”

Dee burst through the tree line, machete coated with blood and leaf litter from his own battle, and froze at the edge of the clearing.

“Dee!” Panic was thick is Virgil’s voice as he tried to sit up; head spinning with the movement and his legs uncooperative.

The wolf raises its head, muzzle caked in dirt from soothing its singed fur, and met the injured boys eye. Virgil let his head fall back onto the ground, now fighting to stay awake as exhaustion took hold from using magic and slow blood-loss. A deep growl vibrated from the wolf that stalked closer to its immobile prey; unfazed by Dee’s presence entirely. Warm breath reached Virgil’s leg and he held his own, biting his tongue to keep from crying out when a heavy paw rested on his leg.

A high pitched whistle drew the wolf’s attention; Virgil blinked at Dee’s figure, slightly translucent in the sunlight.

“I’m right here, Wolfe.”

The figure solidified and swing the machete; slashing through the wolf’s fur but not enough to kill. Growling, the wolf snapped at Dee but collected nothing but smoke in its jaws before another Dee slashed its back leg. Chest heaving, Virgil watched Dee’s shadow figures alternate their physicality before finally slicing clean through the animals jugular. The smoking figures came together and Dee moved to Virgil’s side.

“Shit. You’re alright. You’re alright.” Dee’s hands shook as he lent over Virgil’s arm, mind reeling for what to do first. “I’ll get you somewhere safe. I-I promise.”

He went to help Virgil up but his hand was swatted away.

“You need to…farewell.”

“I’m not giving you farewell! I’m getting you-”

“Wolf. Idiot.” Dee screwed up his face and went to argue, but Virgil groaned and pointed to the fallen animal. “Tradition.”

Dee looked between the wolf and his friend; mind wanting to honour the ways of his adoptive people, but heart eager to help.

“Why not do both.”

Pupils blazed yellow as Dee split again, a ghostly figure moving to the wolf’s side so his physical form could help Virgil stand.

“Cheater.”

“I prefer innovator. Let’s just get you safe.”

The forest floor was damp, but the trees gave the pair plenty of cover while Dee pulled the torn fabric away from Virgil’s shoulder. Deep gashes ran with blood and Virgil hissed with each stream of water that washed the dirt away.

“You still got a medpack?” Dee questioned, pulling out his own limited resources and trying to work out how he was going to approach the situation.

“Just - Patch.”

Leaning heavily against the tree, Virgil’s breathing was laboured but he’d managed to remain conscious since they’d moved. He gestured to the pocket on his pant leg and Dee was quick to retrieve the small healing patch he had left.

“This might seal one, at least. I haven’t got much left either, I’m afraid.” He set to work attaching the patch to the widest wound, pulling the skin close together before activating it with magic. “Heal the warrior and bless the ancestors.”

Securing the final makeshift bandage in place, Dee sighed and looked up at the sky; sun dropping further into the tree line. Eyelids like lead, Virgil finally gave in and let them close; sliding back into Dee’s hold as exhaustion finally won its battle.

“Virgil! Hey!” Panicked, Dee rubbed his fist into his sternum, hoping the movement would wake his friend. “Come on, Virge, you need to wake up. We’re so close.”

The hairs on the back of Dee’s neck bristled with the sound of shifting undergrowth and his duplicate was soon stalking the area to find the source.

“Dee?” Remy’s familiar voice met the smokey double and they both visually sighed. “Thank goodness it’s you, babe. You seen Vee?”

“Do you have a medpack?”

“What?”

“Medpack! Do you have one!” The machete was pulled into view and Remy stumbled backwards slightly at the sight.

“Ye-yes.”

“Good. Follow me.”

Remy hesitated briefly before following, thankful to see ‘Dee’ vanish as he approached the huddled pair. His heart sank seeing Virgil’s limp form pulled close to Dee’s chest, blood soaking his clothes and bandaged shoulder. Wasting no time with questions, Remy tipped out his limited supply on the ground before them.

“I’ve got burn paste, adrenaline and a serve of my ma’s brew. I’m afraid I used mine, and most of Virgil’s, patches at the cliffs.”

“I think we all did.”

“He’s beyond his limit and time is running out.” Remy said, placing a hand to Virgil’s forehead and feeling his cool clammy skin. “Sleeping Beauty won’t be waking up any time soon. What you wanna do, Dee?”

Looking down at his tired friends face, Dee knew giving up wasn’t an option. He’d promised Virgil that if he did this he would pass; he wouldn’t go back on his word. Looking at the sky one more time, he made his decision.

“We’re finishing this. Are you ready to leave?”

“I’ve been ready since the cliffs.” With a smile, Remy took Virgil’s shoulder over his own, scooping his leg so Virgil’s weight was across his back as he stood. “I’ll take first carry while you watch my back. You good with that?”

“Lead the way.”

The new trio headed towards the caves that would take them out of the mystic forest and earn them their mark in the tribe.

********************

The echoes of moving rocks had Dee quickening his step, despite the weight on his shoulders. They had made surprisingly good time, even with a sudden heavy downpour, and reached the caves mouth before the sun had set. Determination fuelled him to follow Remy’s flaming torch; knowing they would soon reach their goal and he would finally be accepted.

“Is it just me, or is that rumbling getting louder?” Holding the torch aloft, Remy tried to get a better look at the walls around them. “You Earth aligned, Dee?”

“No, but Virgil is.” At the mention of his name, Virgil stirred on Dee’s shoulders and the other was quick to set the injured boy down before he fully woke. “You back with us, Virge?”

Remy knelt with the pair and quickly fished his flask from their shared pack, bringing it to the tired boy’s lips.

“Drink this, babes. Ma’s brew will put a spring back in your step.”

Virgil coughed slightly at the bitter liquid, but accepted a few mouthfuls before speaking.

“What happened?”

“You’ve been out for a few hours.” Dee caressed Virgil’s cheek and tried to ignore the pain that hung in their eyes. “You have me worried for a bit there. Thought you were going to make a liar out of me.”

Shaking his head, Virgil used his good arm to return the gesture. “Not today.”

“Do you two need some space or can we get out of here?” Remy raised his eyebrow at the pair and took a long drink from his flask while Dee helped Virgil to his feet. “That’s more like it. Final drinks before we’re on our way.”

Dee accepted the flask before helping Virgil finish it off. The trio set off again down the path, Virgil bracing one arm to his chest while the other used Dee for support as the brew slowly worked to replenish his energy.

The group had only been walking a few minutes when Virgil gasped in pain, eyes blazing indigo as his magic surged with a warning.

“Run.”

“Virgil? Virgil, what’s wrong?”

Dee and Remy both waited anxiously for Virgil to repeat his whispered warning and were met with a rumbling that surrounded them.

“RUN!”

Dust and rocks rained from the ceiling as the trio ran; cave walls crumbling around them. Each boy pushed their body to move faster, desperate to escape and reach adulthood on the other side. Remy and Dee pulled ahead slightly, stronger than their injured counterpart and unfortunately giving Virgil a clear view of the large rock sheet that broke away from the ceiling.

*******************

Logan nervously fidgeted with the ring on his finger, eyes glued to the mists edge and praying his son would burst through any moment. He’d been waiting with the other family members since the younglings first entered the mist and not a single one had returned yet.

“The elements must be extremely testing this cycle.” Roman commented, moving to his partners side with two steaming cups.

“Oh, there will definitely be casualties. I guarantee it.”

Logan sucked in a shaky breath and Roman fixed his twin brother with a harsh look.

“Not helping, Remus.”

“It’s true though. I told Dee he wasn’t ready but he went and signed up anyway and dragged Virgil in with him. Will serve him right to fail.”

“Remus…shut up.”

Shrugging, Remus turned away from his twin and continued his act of indifference while his fingernails silently dug into his palms from clenched fists.

“Someone’s coming!”

Logan pushed out of the arm Roman had wrapped around his shoulder and took a few small steps forward; eyes straining to identify the figure that shifted through the mist. Roman watched on anxiously, hoping Virgil or Dee would be the first to break free of their trials.

*******************

Virgil had tried to help both his friends, truly he had as he dove forward and attempted to blast the falling rock away; unfortunately, nature could be an unstoppable and unforgiving force. The air was thick and his body burnt from the effort of moving each boulder clear with a combination of magic and adrenaline fuelled strength. Each moved piece brought him closer to his friends, but also threatened to rain more rock down.

“I’m almost there! Talk to me Dee!”

Two Dee’s used their backs to hold up a rock that threaten to crush an unconscious Remy; blood seeping from deep wounds to his head. He could feel the rocks shifting as Virgil called out his own movements, but refused falter in his efforts to save them both.

“Still…here!”

Panting, Virgil rested his hand on the large chunk still before him, closed his eyes and tried to get a read of his friends on the other side.

“I think this is the last barrier, but the top is weak! If I…if I move it…more is coming down!”

Looking around his potential tomb, Dee’s mind ticked over how they could possibly move the rock in front and all get out.

“What if…you pushed it!”

“Do you want me to crush you?” Virgil gasped, looking at the massive weight before him. “This isn’t a science, Dee!” When I blast this it could-“

“It won’t! I trust you!”

“What about Remy? How are you-“

“I’ve got him!” Dee practically growled; not wanting to stretch their argument out any further. “Aim left! We’ll get out…through the gap!”

A stream of dust running down the rock face reminded Virgil that he didn’t have time for any other options; Dee was right, using the rock in front to temporarily take the weight was the best way out.

“Fine! You ready?”

“As ever!”

Eyes blazing again, Virgil cried out as he lurched forward and commanded the rock to do the same; hoping it was just enough to help Dee out. The rain of rock and dirt started again as Virgil moved to the gap and pulled Remy clear when Dee pushed him out. Ghostly Dee figures appeared and disappeared as rocks fell, but Virgil’s sole focus was on running backwards as fast as he could; ignoring the objects that battered and cut into his body. A scream had Virgil tumbling backwards, head connecting with solid ground and knocking the air clear of his already struggling lungs.

Dee collapsed on the ground, clear of the rock fall but not free of its wrath. While using his clones to stay ahead, Dee hadn’t separated his soul fast enough and now wore the wounds of his crushed self. Blood ran into the ground from multiple cuts across his left side that made Virgil sick to his stomach when he rushed over.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit.” Virgil’s hands shook as he pushed Dee’s hair back and avoided disturbing any open wounds. “Hold on, Dee. I’ll get you out.”

“No.” Voice strained but firm, Dee did his best to focus on Virgil’s face with his good eye. “Remy first.”

“Don’t be stupid, I’m not-“

“Remy. First…my. Fault.”

“I can’t just leave you like this!” Tears ran from Virgil’s eyes and tracked muddy streaks down his face. “You’ll die.”

“Go.”

Dee reached up with his good hand and cupped Virgil’s face liked he’d done many times before.

“Please don’t leave me, I can’t do this without you.” He leaned down so their foreheads touched; desperation in his voice.

“Not. Going.”

“Promise me.” Virgil’s voice was a whisper, chest heaving as he held back sobs that desperately wanted to escape his body. “Promise you won’t leave.”

“Promise.”

Gently letting his lips touch Dee’s for just a moment, Virgil said a silent prayer to his ancestors and hoped they’d keep him safe. Decisions made, Virgil heaved Remy over his shoulders and ran toward the caves exit using strength from pure determination.

********************

Patton pushed through the elders the moment Virgil and Remy came into view, calling the other healers into action.

“Let me through! That’s my son!”

Logan pushed desperately through onlookers that blocked his path; Emile fairing similarly from his vantage point. At the mists edge, Virgil lay Remy down and threw his pouch of trial trophies at the elder closest to him.

“My trial is done, but I’m returning for my friend.”

“Wait!” An elder called and grabbed Virgil’s hand to stop him in his tracks. “You can not return.”

Logan finally reached the front and caught a glimpse of Virgil’s blood soaked form; eyes void orbs as he pulled free of the elders grasp.

“Virgil!”

The fathers call fell on deaf ears as Virgil headed back through the mist to get Dee, numb all over as he continued his own personal trial.

Sinking to his knees, Logan could only watch as his son vanished into the mist again; the sound of Patton reassuring Emile behind him before their comforting hand reached his shoulder.

“He’ll be fine, Logan. Virgil already proved his worth and-”

“He isn’t fine.” Silent tears painted his face from behind wired glasses; a sight Patton had never seen before on his friend. “I know my boy. He is far from fine.”

Roman finally got clearance to the mists edge and made his way to Logan, Remus only a few steps behind. While Roman pulled his partner close and whispered reassurances, Remus pulled Patton aside and spoke in a hushed voice.

“Did he say anything about Dee?”

“I’m sorry, Remus.” Patton said, shaking his head and looking over to where Remy was being stretchered away. “He just said he was returning for a friend.”

Colour drained from his face and Remus looked from Remy’s blood soaked form and back to the mist, mind now unstoppable in providing a plethora of scenarios for how his adoptive son would return.

********************

Virgil didn’t utter a word when he reached Dee’s discarded body and pulled him up onto his shoulders. He didn’t feel the warmth of Dee’s blood mixing with his own on his back. He didn’t register his feet slapping against the ground as he propelled them forward. He didn’t see anything until the caves mouth opened wide enough for him to push through the mist and see the safety of the healers; passing Dee into their arms as soon as he could. He barely comprehended his father’s voice as his consciousness finally slipped away.

Logan wrapped his arms around his son the moment Dee was clear, sinking down as Virgil’s legs gave out and sobbing into his hair. Blood mixed with tears and Patton called for Roman’s help in prying Logan away so he could see to Virgil himself. With the others preoccupied, Remus was left alone to observe the scene; an onlooker of chaos and heartache, too stubborn to ask for help and too afraid to move to Dee’s side.

“A lot of weak families this cycle.”

“The suns almost risen and only three are out; that’s a disappointment.”

“If Logan’s boy brought them to the finish, does it still count as completing the trial?”

“I don’t think so. He should have left them. If they can’t do it on their own, they don’t deserve their mark.”

Remus frowned at the whispered questions of the onlookers behind him. His sadness was numbed by anger as he reached breaking point and turned to face them.

“Nowhere does it say they can’t help each other!” The group ceased their conversation and stared at Remus with wide eyes. “We don’t know what happened in there, only that these boys - no - these men, formed a bond strong enough to risk their lives for each other. Now shut those useless traps and show some respect before I remind you what the trials are like!”

“Remus.” Patton put a firm hand on the mans shoulder and encouraged him to move away. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you somewhere quieter, hey.”

Tears finally broke free of Remus’s stronghold and Patton put a secure arm around his shoulder; feigning calm despite reeling that his friends with the strongest wills had both been broken in a matter of minutes.

As the sun breached the horizon, the elders moved through the clearing mist to asses the sleeping children that had been left in its wake. Only one was carried away to the healers while the others were left for their family to collect. The usual celebration of the emerged adults was forgotten, onlookers instead following the elders back to the village in prayer for those injured in the trial; a cloud of sorrow slowly forming as the severity of the situation finally sunk in.

************

It’s been said that the hardest part of parenthood is watching your child grow before your eyes, though others would argue the hardest part is letting them go. Not letting them go to travel and find their way, but letting them go from this world to move onto the next. Emile had already farewelled his youngest daughter and wife, and was truly thankful his only son hadn’t been taken from him as well. Logan, Roman and Remus on the other hand, were strangers to death and their cruel touch, making the days after the trial even harder to endure. Roman spent his time moving from room to room, just as worried for his brother as he was for his own family in the days that followed. By the third day he was left numb and that made it harder to leave Virgil’s crowded room to check on his twin and injured nephew.

Roman entered Dee’s room to find Remus in his regular spot, carefully smoothing a healing ointment over the scars that tore across his son’s left eye. Colour had returned to the young mans face and a calmness had returned to the room.

“How’s he doing?” Roman asked, taking his usual seat beside Remus and keeping his tone and expression neutral.

“Better - um - much better.” He gave his brother a guilty look, heart aching talking about his own fortune while he knew the other was still suffering. “And Virgil? Has there been any change?”

“He-“

Roman didn’t get to finish as Dee took a shaky breath in, eyes slowly blinking open as consciousness returned. His nephews well-being was instantly forgotten as Remus called for help and set about assuring his confused son. When the healers entered, Roman took his leave in silence and swiped away silent tears while he walked away. He peaked into Remy’s room to see Emile tucking his son back in bed after they were allowed a brief visit to Virgil’s room, a positive sign that he could finally be alone with Logan again. The silence from the room was a blessing and a curse compared to earlier. Leaning in the doorway, Roman watched Logan gently stroke their son’s hair and willed his eyes to dry so he could remain the strong supporter he wanted to be.

“Do you remember the day I gave birth to him, Roman?”

The question shocked him slightly, but Roman acknowledged it and moved into the room.

“I do…it was the best day of my life.”

“Mine too… I thought I understood pain until I gave birth. Do you remember what I said?”

“If I remember correctly,” Roman shifted closer to his partner and put his arm around his waist, “you said it was the worst pain imaginable.”

“Indeed…but I think I was wrong.” His hand continued to stroke Virgil’s hair rhythmically, even though his voice was breaking. “This…this is the worst pain possible.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to feel anymore, Roman.”

Logan broke down, hand leaving his son to grip the man that pulled him close; tears streaming just as heavily from Roman’s eyes as reality dawned on him.

“Me too, Lo…me too.”____________________________________________end note: my goal for 2020 is to not make massive worlds for little oneshots because they just get away from me 😝 Thanks for reading anyway. Posting while on holiday so not edited (sorry)

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@thequeensphinx @ollyollyoxinfree @celeste-tyrrell @pumpkinminette @ahyeahisurehopeit-does

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iwritewhatineedtoread · 3 years

Text

You’re Welcome Chapter one

Dear Eira Hastings,

You have been cordially invited to the 73rd meeting of the illusive club, Morning Glories. Be on the roof of the observatory by midnight tonight or this invite will expire and you will fail one of your classes.

Sincerely,

Morning Glories

You gotta be kidding me.

The air is so cold up here I can see my exhales in the air. I have seen the Morning Glories in the school paper. They’re not as illusive as they think they are. No one knows who’s in the club though, only that they exist. The articles never have direct quotes in them either, only anonymous. There’s even a theory going around that there’s a Morning Glory in the paper that gives the club publicity.

“Ms. Hastings. Glad you made it onto the roof,” a young blonde with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen holds an old style candle holder with the wick lit. She wore all white and had a golden leaf crown on top of her head. “My name is Lilliana but you can call me Lana and I’ll be your tour of the group today,” she tilts her head to the side and looks me up and down. “I’m surprised Jocob thought you'd fit in here, you don’t look like one of our normal recruits.” she turned around and opened the door to the stairway that led off the roof.

Lana walks swiftly down the steps like she has done this a thousand times before. The more that I think about it she probably has. We stop about six feet before the next door. Lana turns to face me once more. “Do you swear to keep this meeting secret? Because if you don't, the Morning Glory’s threat still stands.”

“Yeah, fine, whatever it’s not like I have a choice now is it?.” Lana grins like a cheshire cat.

“Then welcome to the 73rd meeting of the Morning Glory Illusive Society,” She [synonym for turns] and counts the bricks. I’m starting to think this girl is wacko before she pushes the 73rd one in.

The entire wall pushes back and slides to the side to reveal a large circle, walls covered in morning glories. Six wooden doors line the circle, but the closer I go to them the more I can see that they’re just paint. But then I see a group of people walk out of one and think again. Men and Women sit and joke on purple couches and a giant cube sits in the middle. All six faces are whiteboards and have the number 73 written on them in black marker. On top of the cube stood hundreds of candles, each in the same style as Lana’s.

“What is this place,” I say as I spin around in a cliche manner to try to get a good look at everything.

“This is the Morning Glories HQ,” Lana says, the candle that she was holding joining the others on top of the cube.

“Now that I’m here I’m not going to fail my course am I? How can the Morning Glories guarantee that if I didn’t come that I was going to fail my class?” I had more questions fighting to be leader in line like kindergartners but Lana had started laughing and had her hand up. Signaling that it was her turn to talk.

“We have eyes and ears everywhere. Take the paper for example, how do you think the paper gets the articles about us when there were no witnesses? How do you think they know who to ask for the anonymous tips they keep getting?”

“Is there a member inside the paper? Even if there was, he wouldn't have to be extremely clever and cunning to be able to get those articles published in the first place and not found out,” Lana continues to chuckle.

“You seem very clever yourself, you should join me on the paper,” She laughs once she sees my job drop.

“I am the person on the inside. But if you think you’re going to get any more secrets out of us tonight you’re going to be sorry,” Lana pokes my side and walks to a long glass table with pressed morning glories inside the glass.

“Fellow Morning Glories, may I introduce to you Eira Hastings. She will be joining us today and I think may even join us, which means less memory wiping we have to cover up,” Lana winks in my direction. “Please be as welcoming to her as possible and as always, please refrain from telling her what our initiation ceremony is, we don’t want to scare her away.”

Lana bunny jumps off the table and back to me. Why don’t you make yourself better acquainted with the other members? It may help your chances of being invited back.”

“Invited back?” She shrugs. “You have to be invited back three times to get the chance to be initiated.”

“What if I don’t want to be initiated? And what’s behind those doors?”

“If you want to find out the answer to your question, you’ll want to be initiated, but feel free to decline initiation.” Winking again, Lana turns around to a group of girls calling her name. “Feel free to chat with me anytime you want tonight I won’t be going into any of the painted rooms today so you’ll know where to find me.” I glance around the room and don’t know where to start.

“Eira Hasting! Thought you’d come,” Jocob jogged towards me in a dark gray turtleneck and black suit jacket. He slings his arm around my shoulder and steers me towards Zane and Zathrian. “Sorry ‘bout the embarrassing drama act, that’s kinda the Morning Glories way of saying to others members that we want you to get an invite.” I cross my arms in front of my chest and shrug off his arm. “Really? Or is that just the way you like to do it?” He laughs and puts his hands up in defense. “Look, Eira, you can ask anyone here, it’s simply tradition. You can even ask Lils if you like, though don’t tell I called her that. She hates it.” I quirk an eyebrow up.

“Lana.” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his slacks. I make a soundless ‘ah’ and watch with a poker face as Zane and Zathrian wave and come over to us. The new addition of people and a couple girls that accompanied the two allowed us to be able to make a cult-mimicking circle. I get offered a glass of unknown liquid and put my hand up to pass while I continue to observe the strange group that had invited me with a wax sealed letter. We went around the circle and the girls introduced themselves. The brunette with a pixie cut said she was Stephanie, and the willowy black girl introduced herself as Astrid. I nodded my head to greet them.

“So, Eira, what do you think of the club so far?” Jocob says at the same time Zathrian says, “why’d you refuse the drink?”

“It’s been… interesting.” I shrug as I answer Jocob’s question.

As the night passed on, the clock struck multiple times, sodas were offered, the amount of chatting dimmed down to a small hum, the Morning Glory headquarters started to empty. I was about to join them in their retirement, but Lana came up and handed me a cup full of a strong smelling liquid.

“Don’t worry, it’s just chamomile.” She laughs as the disgust on my face drains out and relief takes its place. Lana takes her place on top of an empty table, crosses her ankles. Swinging her legs back and forth so that they disappear under the table only to reappear when she swung them forward. “What are your thoughts on joining us?”

The night had been entertaining and fun (to say the least). But my increasing curiosity about what was behind those painted doors was the final factor in my decision.

“I’ll join.”

Taglist: @dustylovelyrun

#wip #workinghard #work in progress #writing #writing community #writers on tumblr #writer #writers #creative writing #dark academia #murder mystery #chapter one #writeblr #writeblr project #my wip #my work in progress

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curiosity-killed · 4 years

Text

a bow for the bad decisions

canon-divergent AU from ep. 24 (on ao3)

There are seven paths through the mountain, and Wei Wuxian strikes off on one of his own. His fingers still twitch, itch, with the indignation and rage that had licked up his arms when the Wen prisoners were drug out in front of the targets. He draws in long breaths, tries to remember what it felt like to harmonize his qi with the rhythms of the air and the ground beneath him. It’s harder now, with resentment hissing where golden energy once sang. As he passes away from the rest of the participants, winding through the quiet wood, his heart steadies into an easier rhythm, and he can feel his shoulders loosen. “No mess,” he breathes out. He turns in a slow circle, more for the sake of movement than any surveying purpose. Energy winds restless and eager through his limbs, unsatisfied by the long walk up the hills. He’s tired and antsy in a way he can’t wholly blame on the competition.

Since that night, since Jiang Cheng found out, he’s been trying to bully Wei Wuxian into getting more sleep, as if the problem is Wei Wuxian not wanting to rest. It’s sweet, almost. For all that the world has hardened and sharpened Jiang Cheng, it’s nice to know he’s still naïve in some ways.

The problem isn’t that Wei Wuxian doesn’t want to sleep. He’s been walking around half-exhausted since he stopped using resentment to prop him up during the war. He would love to sleep if it weren’t for the screaming, clawing, raving hands that scrabble across his throat and rip into his chest every time he tries. He’s no longer sure how much of it is from the seal and how much he carries on from the Burial Mounds, wraiths as a reminder of his bargain. Either way, the only way to quiet their wailing is to wait until he’s so exhausted oblivion takes him out at the knees or to drink until everything is sodden and soft-edged. With Jiang Cheng and shijie’s new campaign to ensure he takes better care of himself, he’s been cut off from either option. Instead, he’s left dreading evening, skin crawling at the thought of lying down. It leaves him brittle, dry-edged, like a leaf turning crisped and fragile in autumn. He perches on a fallen tree and sets to playing. It’s a gentle song, softer and brighter than any he played in the war. Monsters like music, it turns out, as long as it’s played right, as long as it sounds like an invitation. He lures them on and into Yunmeng Jiang’s nets and stops when there’s just enough, when he feels the pressure on the mountain ease just-so. He could draw all the creatures of the mountain into their nets. He could lure the dead from their graves and send them dancing all the way to Jin Guangshan’s bedside in the middle of the night. With the seal humming against his chest, there is so very little he cannot do. But – Jiang Cheng doesn’t want a mess. So. Lowering Chenqing, he settles back into his perch and exhales. The air is sweet up here, purified by the trees and the living things growing through the soft soil. Closing his eyes briefly, he drinks it in and lets the sunlight dapple his skin with warmth. He’s tempted to fold his legs beneath himself and meditate in the afternoon quiet. As a kid, he always struggled with their meditation classes, too aware of the rest of the disciples sitting around him and constantly tempted to open his eyes, to check how much time had passed, if he was doing it correctly, if there was something he was missing. But outside of their classes, floating in the cool lake waters or sitting alone in the grasses, he had slipped into it like the softest sea. Listening to the gentle murmurs of the universe, feeling the expanse of his own breath, has always settled him. The way the rhythms of his own body echo those of the tide, the wind, the steady earth, makes him feel small in a way nothing else does: like he is only a piece of a whole, a bud on an endless tree, rather than a child running, bleeding, from hungry dogs. There’s a noise, the quietest scuff of feet on the road, and he shifts, opening his eyes. Lan Zhan walks carefully between the shadows, upright and alone. Sunlight catches on the silver of his hairpiece, the summer blue of his robes. A smile pulls at Wei Wuxian’s lips, instinctive, reflexive, and he straightens up to call out to him. Unbidden, Zewu-jun’s words return to him. I hope you will not be so selfish to the people who care about you. Back when they were young, before, he and Lan Zhan were an even match. Strong enough to challenge each other, to hold each other up. There was a reason they’d worked so well on the hunt for the yin iron. Now, though — how can Wei Wuxian possibly be Lan Zhan’s match? Lan Wangji, Hanguang-jun, the righteous and indomitable. His stomach twists sickly, grief and regret and hurt coiling deep in his low belly. It would be selfish, to try to keep Lan Zhan, to try to bind him to his own dead weight. Steps sound steady up the slope toward him, and Wei Wuxian barely scrambles to his feet before Lan Zhan is there, directly in front of him. “Ah Lan Zhan,” he greets, trying to steady his voice with some of his old lightheartedness, “I heard you were tired of mending your family’s principles in Cloud Recesses.” “I made some progress composing the music score,” Lan Zhan says, “and I wanted to share it with you to see how it works.” Disappointment slides bitter down Wei Wuxian’s throat. Of course he’s only interested in fixing Wei Wuxian, as if he’s ever been anything but a problem. He taps Chenqing against his open palm. “Lan Wangji, who do you take me for? Can’t you leave me alone?” he complains. He’d rather be left on his own than have to deal with this constant nagging reminder of what he’s thrown away. “Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says stubbornly, “who do you take me for?” He swallows, suddenly caught by the earnestness in Lan Zhan’s voice. That bitter part of him, the teeth and claws he grew in the Burial Mounds, wants to bite back that Lan Zhan is nothing, that he is only a mythic hero just like everyone else thinks him and Wei Wuxian has no need of his concern, his presence. Hanguang-jun, it wants to say. I take you for Hanguang-jun, cold and aloof and empty. He can’t. As much as he could lash out and fight back in the war, it never really lasted that long. From that first night in Gusu, the first shuddering connection of his sword against Suibian’s sheath, Wei Wuxian has had a tether sewn into his soul, pulling him always back to Lan Wangji. Now, he breathes out and looks away. “I had once taken you as the one who knew me in this life,” he says. It falls from his lips like spring blooms, delicate and easily bruised. His whole self feels newly raw with the admission, as if he has opened himself to Lan Zhan’s inspection. “I still am.” His eyes flit up to Lan Zhan’s face, startled and unsure. There is no doubt in his amber eyes, no hesitance in his reply. In the face of that certainty, Wei Wuxian is left shaken, rocked. How? he wants to ask. How can Lan Zhan stay so firm in the tempest wake of Wei Wuxian? How can he answer so surely when Wei Wuxian has lashed him with rebuke and insult and distance? It is terrifying to feel that unwavering gaze on him, the weight of his conviction too much for Wei Wuxian’s exhausted shoulders. “Lan Zhan,” he says, because the words are now pressing to his lips, the confession budding on his tongue, “Lan Zhan, there’s something I need to tell you.” His brow tenses, just the faintest line of shadow between them, and Wei Wuxian knows he needs to say it even as he can’t fathom how to begin. It was easier with Jiang Cheng and shijie, when it came out by accident. Now that he’s had time to think and prepare, he finds himself with none of the right words. “There’s— I—” he starts, stumbles. He wants to make it easy, to grab Lan Zhan’s hand and press it against his chest over that gaping hollow gnawing beneath his skin. “Wei Ying?” Lan Zhan asks, swaying half a step closer. Before he can find any word or betray himself by reaching out, Wei Wuxian catches footsteps behind him and twists, tugging Lan Zhan with him. It’s instinct more than anything, paranoia the smallest cost of survival. Annoyance rears up when he catches Jin Zixuan walking alongside shijie, boasting about Lanling Jin’s hunts. Shijie looks miserable, eyes downcast and posture carefully correct. She deserves better than this, deserves someone who brings the smile out on her lips and the brightness into her eyes. Jin Zixuan deserves far more than a single punch to the face. “Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan chides, a hand on his arm, and he subsides with a scowl. He holds out until Jin Zixuan plants his foot firmly in his own mouth and shijie starts stammering, nerves catching up to her. It’s far more patience than he really owes the peacock, he thinks. “Wei Wuxian? Why do you keep showing up?” “I should be asking you that question,” Wei Wuxian snaps back. “Why did you stop her after she rejected you?” For all that he’s tried to respect shijie’s wishes in regards to this match, he can’t understand what she sees in the man. Every encounter Wei Wuxian has had with him, barring a few councils in the war, has further reduced his opinion. He’s less of a peacock and more of an ass draped in fine silk; no amount of gold or perfume can cover that stench. The rustle of his sleeves is all the warning he has before Jin Zixuan has drawn his blade, swinging it down toward Wei Wuxian. He presses back, straightening to better shield shijie, but before he can lift Chenqing, there’s a ringing retort as the blade connects with another, far more familiar. “Hanguang-jun?” Jin Zixuan demands, stepping back in surprise. Lan Zhan lowers Bichen but remains just in front of Wei Wuxian and shijie, as if he’s taken up the role of guard. Despite himself, Wei Wuxian is glad for his presence. Before any more can be said, before he can demand Jin Zixuan explain why he just drew a sword on an ally without provocation, there’s the sound of footsteps from either direction and a flock of descending Jin disciples. Wei Wuxian’s hand tightens briefly around shijie’s wrist in a wishful thought of just turning his back on all of them and walking away. “What happened? Zixuan, did Wei Wuxian cause you trouble again? I’ll deal with him,” one of the Jin cousins declares. He looks familiar in a way that means Wei Wuxian probably ought to know his name, but a cursory search turns up nothing in his memory, and he’s too irritated right now to try harder. “Wei Wuxian, what do you want? Why do you keep troubling Zixuan?” the man demands, shoving forward. Leaning back enough to breathe his own air, Wei Wuxian huffs out a breath and turns to face him fully. “Who are you?” he asks. Immediately, the younger peacock stiffens, all those gold feathers ruffling while Wei Wuxian waits with an eyebrow lifted. This is ridiculous. He just wanted to stop idiot Zixuan from bullying shijie and now this moron wants to take a swing. “How dare you not know who I am?” he blurts out. “Should I?” Wei Wuxian returns, breathing out a laugh. “You—!” He’s kept from drawing his own sword and waving it in Wei Wuxian’s face by Jin-furen’s arrival, along with her apricot-robed attendants. She crosses between the men as if she can’t see them, immediately reaching out for shijie’s hands. Wei Wuxian retreats half a step, lowering his gaze. Jin-furen’s always treated shijie well, cared for her like the daughter she wished she had. He’s glad of that, grateful someone else can see shijie for who she is and want to protect her. He just wishes she didn’t look at him the same way Madam Yu did: like he’s an animal brought in from the woods, something diseased masquerading as a pet that might bite at any time. “A-Li, why do you look upset?” she asks. “I appreciate your concern, Madam Jin, but I am fine,” shijie answers with a small smile. She’s not fine, Wei Wuxian wants to say, but he’d never shame shijie that way. Her eyes are still damp with tears that don’t quite fall, and her smile trembles a little. “Did my intractable son bully you again?” Jin-furen demands. She twists around to glare at Jin Zixuan. “Zixuan, what’s wrong with you? What did you promise me before leaving?” It is, Wei Wuxian will admit, a little satisfying to watch Jin Zixuan bow his head under his mother’s scolding. He holds himself on such an arrogant pedestal he ought to be reminded that the same dirt touches his shoes as everyone else’s. Beside Jin-furen, though, shijie has her head dipped and lips thinned in a way that signals embarrassment, her quiet retreat from the trouble she’ll blame herself for causing. Wei Wuxian steps forward and takes her wrist gently. “No matter what he promised, Jin-furen,” he says, “from today on, he and Yanli will no longer have any association with each other.” A little pull and shijie turns with him to leave. “Wei Wuxian! My aunt is your senior. How can you talk this way? Aren’t you being too proud?”

#mdzs #cql #the untamed #untamed fic #yunmeng siblings #wei wuxian #jiang yanli #accidentally wrote this entire chapter yesterday and it's almost 2k longer than intended :|#@me can you not?

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semiramis-audron · 4 years

Text

There’s British things in British Columbia

It was half past six when the medics finally packed up their equipment and the police had finished their report, made all the photos for the property damage charges and the insurance and allowed him to finally close up the place.

It hadn't been that big of a deal. He wouldn't press charges for the door or the glass. But there had been humans involved and hurt, so there was no way around calling an ambulance and the police. Doing things the human way was so… involved.

So he had to wait for them to arrive, while the bouncers held the demon who had been the reason for the fight. Really the human started it but… ah well, no use crying over spilled glass and blood. The human got fixed up and was on his save way home. As was the lady, who thankfully suffered no harm and as far as he knew also the demon. A friend picked him up and made sure of it... as he was assured…

Trevor locked the door to the pub and began putting up the chairs while the dust and wood and glass on the floor moved itself into a heap and then hovered towards the bin. He mopped the blood off the floor and sighed at his shirt, and his watch. They were cleaned a finger snap later, but the glass of the watch had cracked, the mechanism had stopped. He could fix that later, or get a new one. Maybe Richard would like to help him pick one.

He reached for the bandage tape at his ear. The area was throbbing with pain. Even more so when he realised too late that hair was stuck to the tape. A sharp breath of air through his teeth and he pulled it off all the way. The gauze pad came off dark red, the bleeding had stopped by now. He removed the hair gel before his fingertips felt for the stitched gash. The wound closed swiftly, there would be no traces left in a day or two. The pain subsided a little, nothing to bother a healer about.

He looked around the pub. All done.

Fixing the door would need to wait a bit to not seem suspicious. Then again, no one was going to even attempt a break in to begin with, so he wouldn’t lose sleep over that detail.

How late was it anyway? He checked his phone. Almost 7… And there were several messages. Huh.

All of them from Richard. Did he get wind of what had happened? No, the messages were from earlier in the night… day… Right he was in… Vancouver… they were 8 hours behind London.

Apparently he could see all the skyscrapers of the city from the meeting room.

Trevor imagined it was a great view, if one wasn't afraid of heights. There was supposed to be a meeting and the other party was late? So Richard was busying himself.

They had a bowl of maple candy with the city flag of Vancouver pressed on at the reception desk, but it was for kids visiting the tower for the lookout platform. So he wasn’t supposed to get one, sadly. But he had charmed the lady and got a sealed bag full.

He did have a childlike wonder to him sometimes, Trevor admitted.

Earlier in the day he had also been to the Capilano Suspension Bridge in the nearby forest, in also terrifying heights.

✉ You can walk through the treetops! It's all safe and up to code ;) They are very strict about their regulations. And so many trees! You would love it! ✉

Trevor couldn't help a sensible chuckle escaping. He did imply that he enjoyed it whenever Richard sent him updates and fascinating things that he encountered on his travels. The photo on the bridge was breathtaking. It was kind of Richard to take his time to make it. And yes, he would probably love it there. If he had been aware of the messages earlier, he would have asked him for more pictures. Accursed timezones…

The other party of the meeting had been a no show according to a later message, so he got a selfie of Richard in front of the McDonald's on Main Street with it's architecturally intriguing angular glass roof. He was holding a box of nuggets. The message implied he was craving nuggets, and an evil >;P smiley. Outrageous!

He was staying in Canada for another day since the meeting was now planned for the next afternoon and Jeff had made it clear that the partner had in their previous, very lucrative deals, always been reliable. So should be given some leniency especially in this important case.

Richard informed Trevor, that he was reminded of him, when he learned about the British Properties a good 700m air line from the bridge, where only people with an actual British passport used to be allowed to live. They excluded non-white and Jewish people in olden times, but were less racist now. At least something?

After that Trevor was treated to some facts about Richard’s hotel.

His balcony had wooden covered flooring that smelled like freshly cut pine trees. They must use a special varnish. He was going to try and find out about that tomorrow.

And the Lookout of the Vancouver Harbour Center was clearly visible. Not as high up as the meeting room, but equally beautiful.

According to the bartender at that Hotel bar, it was regularly used as a set for movie shoots, because Vancouver was considered the “North Hollywood” with how important it is to the film industry.

To Richard’s delight, they also served sushi. It was from the same bartender, that Richard apparently learned that the so-called California Roll wasn’t invented in California! It was invented in Vancouver, by a Japanese Chef, owning a restaurant nearby.

Trevor yawned slightly in the dark, wondering whether he should be concerned about Richard finding a more interesting bartender than him. He took off his shoes and made it to the kitchen, pointing a finger and a snap at the stove, heating some water for tea to settle down while scrolling through the messages.

He was further informed him that Richard could see the hills of Stanley Park from his Hotel room, and that all of the grey squirrels found in Stanley Park, which is by the way 10% bigger than Central Park, are descendants of eight pairs of grey squirrels that Vancouver received as a gift from New York City in 1909.

And that the Beaver Lake in the park, was ironically beaverless until just 2008.

Also, that he was again reminded of London and Trevor, because right next to the Hotel was an apartment building called London Place and because Vancouver, due to its geographical and vegetational zone, had one of the mildest climates in Canada, but more rain. So kinda like London. But more trees.

✉ So if you want me to check out any trails or trees for you tomorrow, drop me a message. <3 ✉

Right, Vancouver was basically in a rain forest.

The latest message was only a few minutes old. The light of the phone was casting eerie shadows on Trevor’s face, reflecting the message in his eyes. The dim coloured glow of the Streets of SOHO, shining through the window like moonlight through the stained glass of a church.

He hadn’t bothered about the brightness, but slowly the glare of the screen was beginning to irritate his tired eyes. He put the phone in his pocket and leaned against the counter, waiting for the water to boil, stifling another yawn, closing his eyes.

After this long night in the bustling pub, the quiet of his empty flat was a stark contrast. At first there was just the background hum of silence in his ears, then slowly the natural noises in it grew louder. The muffled sounds of the awakening streets outside became more clear and the soft pearly bubbling of the water. Finally he could hear himself breathe in the quiet of the morning, opening his eyes again, now more used to the dark.

He was looking at his clean and neat kitchen table, the polished counters and precisely closing drawers. Everything had its place in the greyish darkness. There was pristine and almost sterile order, even more so in the monochrome colours of the night.

And towards his living room, a bit more homely, that lay also vacant in the dull grey. The fireplace was empty, wood neatly stacked, the tv pitch black. Books and magazines shelved proper and no spine out of line. Unless SOMEONE took one out to leaf through it and didn't put them back properly. Or put them on the coffee table instead. Or just dropped his stuff there, even though he had a nightstand just for his stuff...

The coffee table was unburdened though. The flat was quiet, his solitude undisturbed, his privacy uninvaded and isolated from the life of human beings. He checked his watch, sighed at the shattered glass, then took out his phone again. The little circle next to Richard’s name was still green.

The tea kettle whistled and the water stopped boiling as the soft magical aura disappeared around it.

~~~~~~~~~~ 🍁 ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Richard was leaning on his balcony, shirt half unbuttoned. Zooming in on some of the more extravagant buildings to get a better look. There had been some changes made in recent years by starchitects, or those that were paid as much at least. And there were still suggestions in the air, as far as he was keeping track of the business. Maybe an opportunity or two might arise from this prolonged stay yet.

“Mind if I join you?” the voice was husky and a bit tired, but very familiar and unexpected. He whirled around. “Trevor!? Of course! Sure! Hi! I mean, yes, I’d be happy.” He welcomed him with open arms, then realising the gesture might be a bit much, dropped the arms a bit and smiled. The barkeeper was still standing in the door to the balcony, one hand clutching the frame. Also barefoot, as Richard noted.

“The view is even more impressive than you described…” Trevor pointed out, not making eye contact, with either Richard, or the view. “Ah, you noticed the high quality wooden panelling of the balcony too.” this was bad. Trevor was clearly stuck and apparently too proud to admit it. “I- didn’t send you any pictures of the bathroom, would you like to see it? The tub is huge and it’s spotless. Great for relaxing.” Richard watched as one naked foot touched the wooden boards and the knuckles on the already pale hand at the frame stood out white. The helplessness would be adorable if it wasn't born out of stubbornness.

Their eyes met. “It’s fine…” Trevor said, taking a deep breath. “I’ll look at it later…” And the brown eyes motioned towards their left hand. Which was reaching out for him. For Richard, to take it, silently pleading for help.

He put his fingers around Trevor’s wrist and felt him return the gesture. It was a safe grip, reliable. He slowly led the acrophobic man onto the balcony and offered him a chair. Into which Trevor slumped with an apologetic smile. “It’s really… high up… But it IS beautiful.” Richard sat down on the other chair, the little wrought iron table between them. Staring at the man who was now staring at the view with the colour returning to his face. "Thank you for dropping by, that's a welcome change." also a bit of an awkward one. Just sitting there, all settled into the chair now. Hard to make physical contact like that. Why did he show up all of a sudden. Why was he there in the first place? He never teleported to him before. Should he ask? Should he offer him a drink? A snack? A tour of the hotel? Of the city? He was going to ask! “Canada is bloody cold! Do you want tea?” Trevor huffed, rubbing his arms and looked at Richard who had been a bit lost in thought staring at the more calmly breathing man. He nodded with a soft “Uh… uh huh.” and a snap later there were steaming cups on the table. They smelled warm, and a bit of spices that made Richard think of winter. The milk still spreading in amber clouds through the liquid. The brew was sweet, and with a dash of something foreign, that didn’t taste like a bitter British cuppa. Trevor shuddered, rubbing his now socked feet together. “And you said Vancouver was mild! That’s better, do you need more sugar?” Richard shook his head, watching the goosebumps on Trevor’s forearms go down.

“Well, it’s not exactly Summer. You never teleported to me before?” He really wanted to say something and Trevor took his sweet time to answer, this was a bit nerve wracking. The night air hummed with the murmur of the city beneath them and the wind rushing around the skyscrapers like a serpentine river. Trevor kept sipping his tea. His breath afterwards was visible in the air. “You made it sound like an interesting city to visit.” was the blasé response after a minute or two. "But it's a bit late for sightseeing now, isn't it?" Richard leaned partially over the table, trying to make sense of this sudden behaviour change. “The sights I’m seeing are good for now.” Trevor looked away and back out over the balcony, clearly uncomfortable. He took another sip of the tea.

Richard slumped back in his chair, picking his own tea up. They fell silent again. Watching the change of colours in the street and the clouds above. Richard was sure the tea was different than what Trevor was usually drinking. He enjoyed the thought of sharing in something special. Bitter at first, then sweet and with a hint of something exciting. Trevor tea. He watched the angel’s eyes observe the sky and the blinking lights below them. One might even say, he looked relaxed now. How peculiar. What was going on?

The deep voice sent a shiver down Richard’s spine as Trevor cleared his throat. “It’s unusual for you to be so quiet. Are you okay, Richard?” The verbal equivalent of having his chair pulled out from under him. "It's unusual for YOU to come to me! I didn't think Vancouver of all places would do that." he searched the man's face for a real reason. "Well, …" Trevor sighed. "...my watch broke and I thought you could help." A smile popped on Richard's face. "Oh it's probably the battery, I'll charge it. For you, free of charge." a small wink as he took Trevor's wrist again. "The… glass is broken." his smile faltered a little when he saw the raised eyebrow. "And it's an automated watch, yes, no battery." that explained why he couldn't find one! His own always remained charged through himself. "No problem! I get tons of fancy watches from business deals, there's bound to be an automatic one among those." He flinched when Trevor pulled his hand back, rubbing the wrist around the strap a little. He hadn't actually held him that tight? Maybe a small shock when he had tried to charge a non existent battery?

"I was actually thinking about getting a new one from a watchmaker… or jeweller." Trevor didn't make eye contact, his face a strange expression that Richard couldn't decipher. "I was hoping, with your impeccable style, you knew a good one and… would help me pick one you think will suit me…" still no eye contact, but his face had become more rosey and, yep, the goosebumps were back.

"I just wear them as I get them? But sure we can have a look tomorrow?" Trevor sighed, and emptied his cup. Wrong answer apparently. "It's a bit out of nowhere, I'm sorry." Richard waved his hands. "No, I understand, keeping your schedule is important to you and you need your watch for that. There's actually a Vienna watchmaker with 30 years in the business, right here in Vancouver, we can go there. I walked past his shop today, I didn't know ‘cause he has no website. His name is Fritz Irrgang which is funny cause his watches are all going right. Very interesting old guy---" He had gotten up in excitement and now hesitated and looked Trevor in the eyes again. He didn't look annoyed as expected, he was listening, with an amused, soft smile, and half lidded eyes. "--- but it's almost 2 in the morning so we… can't go now…” Richard continued slowly. “-- it would be rude to get him out of bed---" thoughts trailing off into nonsense as he made sense of what he was seeing. Trevor's eyes weren't just half lidded. They looked tired and unusually reflective, shimmering. Then the angel sniffed. "I'm fine with tomorrow, if you have time." he smiled, then rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb and sniffed again.

Oh. Oh no.

"Trevor, it's almost 10 in London. - You should be asleep." The Brit laughed quietly at what sounded like honest worry in Richard's voice, though not sneering, really. "You're absolutely right.” he replied with a more firm voice. “- we should both go to bed." he got up and vanished the cups, ignoring the view from the balcony. He squeezed Richard’s shoulder, then waved at him as he went through the sliding door and into the hotel room.

Stopping there in the dark, with his back to the air demon, toeing off his socks. Unbuttoning his Barkeeper vest, taking it off. Folding it and placing it neatly on a chair, before beginning to unbutton his dress shirt.

He tilted his head a little back to the balcony. "Are you coming or do you plan to stay there all night?"

A speaking, nightly Fata Morgana in the middle of his hotel room. Unbelievable. Richard slowly made his way into the room.

"Please close the door and turn up the thermo, it's as cold in here as out there."

Richard closed the door and stared at what amounted to an optical illusion. Watched the white shirt slide down over the other man's lightly freckled shoulders, like the casual routine it probably was. Watched him slip out of it, the light from outside enhancing the soft shadows of his spine’s curvature and shoulder blades on the fabric of his close-fitting undershirt.

This mirage however seemed, though unbelievable, to be physically there. Trevor had not left and he was doing what Richard thought he saw him doing. Unless it was a cruel trick of the light. He could maybe try to reach out for it, touch it even, if he dared.

Trevor was in the process of folding his shirt when he felt two arms wrap around his waist, a chin coming to rest on his shoulder and a chest pressing lightly against his back. The comfort that hit him when he smelled Richard's aftershave almost rolled over him like a wave. "I'll keep you warm, okay?" The angel nodded into the embrace with a shaky breath. Fingers clutching into the fabric of the shirt, while the arms lowered in defeat. "This isn't about the watch, is it?" He felt Richard’s breath at his ear, on his temple, where a few hours earlier glass had cut deep. All pain that had still been there, now suddenly gone. He shook his head slowly, quietly, leaning into the embrace, closing his eyes. Like a hot, sweet tea going down his throat and spreading warmth and courage in his stomach on a cold Canadian night.

Then he felt Richard’s nose tousling his hairline as he kissed the nape of his neck. Gentle lips. A shiver going down his spine, goosebumps flaring up, heart beating faster, but also calmer... somehow. Richard’s hands moved to his belt buckle, until Trevor’s fingers interlocked with his. The angel shook his head almost imperceptibly, one hand still clutching the shirt. “I’d like to…” Trevor whispered hesitantly “... replace some old broken things… with new ones… but gradually...”

Richard nodded, warm face against the angel’s cold shoulder, taking the shirt out of his hand. “Gradually…” he replied, folding the shirt against Trevor’s belly, one hand guided by the angel’s.

The shirt appeared neatly onto the chair, as the two men-shaped beings sank into the soft covers of the bed.

“...I’d like that…” Trevor mumbled curling his back up against Richard’s chest, pulling the demon’s arms tighter around himself. Richard buried his face in the angel’s surprisingly soft hair, breathing calmly, deeply. No gel tonight? He smelt incense and styrax but also salt and a hint of iron. “Sleep well, Trevor.” The tension in the other’s muscles broke away as he relaxed and he felt the skin noticeably heat up. The demon chuckled and kissed the angel behind the ear, before closing his eyes as well. “... thank you, Richard…”

#RichardNTrevor #AsheesRichardDickinson #Trevor Matthews #visiting the colonies #bringing tea #it's called an engagement watch you uncultured jelly bean

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jhaernyl · 4 years

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Kiri meta (and a little bit about Suna)

Me: I had an idea about Kiri and their death toll of shinobi.

(Which is, if you ask me, another piece of bs from Kishi that is actually an unsustainable practice in any kind of society)

@shetanshadowwolf: Absolutely

Me: So I was thinking that while literal deaths do happen, what usually happens is one of the various levels of 'death'.

Which can be a damnatio memoriae of traitors (Roman Empire practice were convicted criminals/traitors of the state were removed from all official documents and any likenesses of them were destroyed, effectively striking them out of existence by excising their memory) or it can be that by being beaten by someone else you ended up in the other person's position in the rankings or even at the bottom of the rankings (depending on the differences between two people's rankings and the kind of duel and the stipulations in place beforehand) and so the operative you were before 'dies' and the one who beat you takes on your title and job or it can be a way to terminate a specific identity and either go back to your life or start your life anew.

It can also be a death of the person that you were before and then you have to abandon all previous ties, friendships, favors owned, debts incurred, etc. and you have to start your life anew as a new person and the old you is considered dead to the world or you it can be the death of the person that you were and then not only you have to abandon all previous ties / friendships / favors owned / debts incurred / etc. but you also have given your life over to the one who won the spar / showed how much superior to you they are to do whatever they want to it (which fits with Zabuza taking in Haku as his Tool and it turns that sorta-adoption into a cultural Kiri practice).

So when a Kiri shinobi says that someone else 'died' it can mean a lot of things that depend on the context of the 'death' and while sometimes it is a literal cessation of life even within Kiri, usually the literal cessation of life part happens when dealing with enemies.

But it also makes a great fear-based propaganda tool to wave at outsiders, to make it sound like Kiri kills their own indiscriminately and without any kind of logical sense to it.

@shetanshadowwolf: The second one sounds a bit like what the. Fuck. Brain. The whole "I was the sole survivor of my team/ class" stuffs. Like. If they put four chuunin-ready teams to pit each other and one ones who make it out are down to just one or two operatives. If you really wanna strike fear you brag that the rest died

Maybe they didn't really- they could be broken down in ranks y made to wait longer, etc

But I always felt that kiri shouldn't have, in practicality, been literally chumming thru their genin

Me: Or you can always dump a whole class of graduates down to get re-taught because what the fuck was that, you are not even close to the standards we want you to meet, except you Zabuza, you did great.

And then you reward Zabuza with the 'Monster of the Mist' title because Zabuza should have been way the fuck scarier than he was in the manga/anime (but he was basically the first main antagonist and I know Kishi hadn't even planned or wanted to do that arc so I can see why Zabuza, and hell even Kakashi in that arc, doesn't hold up to other big antagonists in retrospective) and surely had a fuckton of promise and bloodthirst.

@shetanshadowwolf: Yuuup

And an "if you're gonna have a reputation, kid. Make one that makes your opponents flee the battlefield. Short of that, make them fight with fear in their hearts"

Tho admittedly I think a lot of the continuity issues / hey why are things keep getting worse" is just a bad mix of how long everything got and backfill on things end up twisting into mad BS

Me: Oh I absolutely agree on that point, I just have fun with filling in the plot holes and colouring the lines.

I also think that Kiri could have a communal society that is not structured the way the land villages are.

From the maps I've found online, Whirpool (if it's placed on a map at all) was probably costal to the Land of Fire but Mist is his own island surrounded by other islands.

So, to blow some dust off that old theory of mine about ninja making deals to get kekkei genkai, the Mist people probably made deals with water spirits/gods.

Which explains why so many of them have sharp, shark-like teeth and the Hozuki can turn into water and the Yuki clan was basically a cross between ice spirits and ninjas and it explains a lot about Kisame.

So this is the map I'm going off of (mostly because it has Whirpool in it in a position that makes sense to me) and the thing about Mist is that they could have easily not become a village, just remained a set of Clans with their own land, away from the mainland and the squabbles of the other newly founded villages, right? They are away from there, they have the sea in between them and the rest of it, why would they have banded together to form a village of their own?

And what my brain threw at me (which doesn't have to be in contrast with anyone else's idea, this is just my own headcanon) is "Trade and Fear of Raiding."

Hidden Mist is clearly self-sufficient, they can afford to survive in their islands, but they have to have some materials/production that nobody else has because what you find on the coast is not the same kind of things that you get from the deeper sea and so they have stuff that they can trade but that can also be taken by them and while I would headcanon that they had trade with Whirpool, the moment Whirlpool went into a marriage alliance with the newborn Leaf, who is a village of ninja clans that falls under the command of the Daimyo of the Land of Fire, the Mist Clans probably looked at each and went well, fuck.

Because now their trade partners not only are a smaller village full of badass seal masters who can pop chains out of their bodies but now they also have the support of the Clan of A Thousand Skills, aka the Senju, and the scariest motherfuckers around, aka the Uchiha, and they are collecting other powerful clans, like those noble assholes who were all cozy with the various Daimyo's and could see through most shit, aka the Hyuga, and the scary as fuck Nara and their merchant buddies the Akimichi and those scary rip-your-brain-out Yamanaka, as if they are prizes at a fair.

That's ... that's fucking scary is what it is.

@shetanshadowwolf: When presented that way, yes

Me: And then other Villages start to form, including Cloud at their north (which I headcanon other villages formed exactly because the newborn Konoha was a huge threat to all other Clans and also because some Clans were shafted because their rivals joined first and they weren't allowed to and what are they going to do, play sitting ducks for their enemy clans? Fuck no, let's talk with others and make our own village and that's how we get to rival villages) and okay, hold your fucking horses, do we all agree that we are sitting ducks here? I mean, we are the toughest, nastiest motherfuckers around, we have done our deals with the spirits of the wind and sea, we are strong, yes but we are also one isolated, large island with smaller islands around and no way to easily decamp, not that we would if we could. This is our land and fucks everyone else if they try to take it from us.

[For an example of 'potential a clan who wanted to join Konoha but was not allowed' see the wasp people who have a beef with the Aburame and who apparently had the first Tsuchikage as a clan member. Those two clans reciprocally look down on each other and are bitter enemies and it would come to no surprise to me if the Aburame joined as long as those assholes don't. Not everyone is Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara and is either mutually willing or mutually able to convince their clan to bury the feud and so of course they ran and so the other Clan Head went 'fuck you all, I'll make my own damn village and it will be better structured and truer to our ideals than yours could ever be' and that's how we get Iwa being founded.]

So, being faced with the various land Daimyo's getting their own militias and with the chakra-wielding Clans thinking they were faced with the threat of other Clans banding together and being able to overcome them and either assimilate them or steal their trade/islands/people the Mist Clans probably met together and a deal was made for a Hidden Mist Village to be founded (possibly with someone playing as a puppet Daimyo so they could argue for political sovereignty over their own territory and nobody could use a lack of Daimyo as an excuse to invade or 'bring them to heel' or whatever shitty propaganda reason would be found).

@shetanshadowwolf: ... Valid points. (And had not zoomed out to note that some of the country to country rivalries might be as strongly tied to the previously vicious clan rivalries)

Me: They are pretty isolated.

So what they know is that some time ago, how much time ago differs from person to person, the Senju and the Uchiha buried their differences and founded a village and other Clans joined them and then some more Clans formed their own villages and now every Daimyo has a village and here they are, isolated from everyone else, behind on information, surrounded by potential enemies, with probably some pretty good trades.

Kiri is the place the Seven Swordsmen hail from that means that they have to have figured out how to make the Seven Swords which means swordsmanship and swordsmithing and probably good smiths in general on top of precious, luxury materials like mother of pearl, pearls, corals, healing methods/productions that are based on either product of the sea or things they could grow on their island etc.

A bunch of Clans working with each other and making mixed Clan teams and teaching chakra-wielding civilians how to pull off techniques and working for their Daimyo? That's a fucking problem.

@shetanshadowwolf: Yuuuup

Me: Kiri's people were hard, to begin with, because life out at sea, even on a big island, is a pretty isolated and self-sufficiency-requiring kind of system and they were probably close-knit, to begin with, a community that supported each other and because they were comparatively small and had less access to the resources of the other Villages they made themselves harder still.

Balls to the wall, we are the scariest, nastiest motherfuckers you will ever meet and you have better leg it before I chop your legs off and sink my teeth into your throat.

(Which is not to say that Kiri is necessarily nice or soft or home to a lot of sane ninja. Ninja as a general bunch are pretty insane people and Kiri was hard, to begin with, and got harder as they made deals with ice spirits and sea spirits and got even harder as a Village but it's not the outright let's throw together a bunch of scary tropes without rhyme or reason because they look cool bs I got from the canon)

@shetanshadowwolf: Kiri is not soft

Me: Not at all.

They are pretty much feral whenever someone Not One Of Us is around and they are hard as hell but tight-knit too when it's Just Us.

At least until Madara came around and screw them up and over and fucked with the Clans by destroying them and basically did everything he could to stoke them into becoming the hell pit every outsider thought they were, pushing them into being what Obito had grown up hearing about.

@shetanshadowwolf: On the scale of "we are our element/affinity" sand and kiri are some the baddest bitches, per se

Sand with its puppetry and poisons and the desert WILL devour you

And Kiri with its mist and feralness

Me: And, I would argue, water as well.

Zabuza did a few water attacks on top of the swordsmanship as did Hoshigaki Kisame.

So Sand is puppetry and poisons and the desert WILL devour you and Kiri is mist and feralness and swordsmanship and the sea WILL swallow you up

@shetanshadowwolf: Yes. Desert dehydration and water's all-powerful consumption

Two different sides of a brutal coin

Me: And since Suna is considered one of the weaker villages, big enough to be one of the 'Big Powers' but also inferior to Konoha / Iwa / Kumo I would say that Suna, like Kiri, was a village founded in direct reaction to the Big Three founding themselves.

Desert is not welcoming, like Kiri it's an isolated kind of living and I could see their Clans initially being nomadic, except that with those encroaching powers (especially highly militaristic Iwa at the north with two unnamed regions between them on the left side of the map that do not seem to have enough importance to be labelled or have a village that could be crossed by the Iwa people to spill over Suna) they also felt they should pull together and form their own village.

Consolidate their territory, make sure they can support each other and defend themselves in the face of outsiders and probably under pressure from their own Daimyo, since we know that there is a Daimyo of Wind that was turning his back on Suna and outsourcing missions to Konoha in Naruto's time.

What politician would want to be the one of the Four Great Lands (Five once Kiri declared itself a sovereign territory of their own) without its own standing militia? Especially with an aggressively militarized neighbour at the North and someone in the East who can not only capture and hand out Bijus but has also managed to entice both of the all-seeing eyes clans and has the sealing masters on their side.

#Jhae's original material #words words words #9th April 2020 #Naruto meta #Naruto #Kirigakure meta #Sunagakure meta #my meta #world building meta #long post #long post without a cut #hello new tags

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cherry-flavored-sigh · 5 years

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i really wanna write or draw a short story about a little girl coming into aziraphale’s book shop because she thinks it has so many old books that it must have a book for summoning demons and azira FREAKS OUT when he hears that’s what she wants because oh my god why would a child need to summon a demon?! (fuck it i’m gonna write it right now lol)

he’s just like “my dear girl, why would you ever need to do something as awful as that?!” and crowley is in the back of the store, listening and chuckling to himself, and she explains that she needs a demon to help her fight some bullies at school, and azira’s face just... drops. “m-my dear, there’s no need for such... drastic measures! you just need courage and confidence to overcome the bullies!” he says, trying to force a smile. “why, they might even become your friends!” the girl shakes her head angrily, “that’s what all the other adults said to. but it doesn’t work! they just bully me more! so i’m just gonna kick their butts with a demon!” ”please, do reconsider-” “i’ll go find a spellbook somewhere else!” she shouts, knocking over a pile of his books (to which he audibly gasps in shock) on her way out and slamming the front door behind her. aziraphale sighs, picking up the books (”you didn’t deserve that” he tells them soothingly), and crowley pops around the corner. “demon summoning isn’t a joke,” he drawls. “i know that, you don’t think i don’t know that?” aziraphale cries. “what happens if she accidentally summons a real demon?” crowley lowers his sunglasses, staring hard at the angel. “or makes a mistake and summons something worse?” he offers warily. “most of the time, when kids try to do this, nothing happens, but there have been plenty of incidents where... less-scrupulous demons take advantage of hell’s numerous summoning loopholes and just sort of... pop out.” aziraphale pales noticeably. “we have to make sure she doesn’t go looking for more spellbooks! or... heavens, what if she looks ON THE INTERNET?” his lower lip trembles as if he might burst into tears. crowley sighs the sigh of someone who has been putting up with a huge worrywart for over 6,000 years. “don’t worry, angel. i’ve got this.” he snaps, disappearing in a puff of cloudy smoke. “crowley, wait!” aziraphale bites his lip, frowning. he has no idea what the demon is planning but he hopes it doesn’t cause more trouble. ------ the girl continues to stomp along the sidewalk, crying angry tears. she gets nasty glares when she bumps into other people on the sidewalk, but she doesn’t look up at them. suddenly she steps on a crumpled piece of paper. she growls, pulling it from her shoe and ready to chuck it back onto the ground when she notices a scribbled red pentagram and some strange symbols on the paper. unfolding it, she leaves the sidewalk and leans against a building. “how to summon a bully-fighting demon” is written in crude handwriting. the paper smells like cinders and ash and is fairly warm. her heart races a bit, wondering where it came from, but she grins to herself, folding up the paper and putting it in her pocket. ------ it’s past midnight, and she can barely keep her eyes open, but she has to follow the instructions to the letter, she tells herself. she luckily had found just enough birthday candles (and one of her mom’s scented candles - she’d have to be careful returning that to the living room) for the spell. using masking tape she made a crooked circle on her bedroom floor, lining up the candles around the circumference and drawing on the tape with a permanent marker. she looks around at her handiwork. this has to work. it has to. one by one, she lights up the candles and the room is set aglow with a dim light (and the scent of sugar cookies). she stands outside of the circle, closes her eyes, and starts murmuring, “bully-fighting demon, i summon thee. hear my call, hear my plea.” the room begins to shake. she nearly screams as a burst of bright light shoots up from the ground and flames engulf the entire circle. they’re hot and nearly blinding, but they don’t burn her. a serpentine-like figure emerges from the flames, first a dark shadow, then shapeshifts into a more human-like figure as the flames dim slightly. he looks a lot like a human in a black suit, but his eyes have an unearthly yellow glow and his skinny limbs look like they end in claws. he floats above the center of the circle and looks down at her. “you have sssssummoned the great demon crowley, hunter of bulliessss,” the tall, lanky figure declares, glaring at her with piercing snake eyes. “what purpose do you have for calling me?” she gulps, terrified, but balls her hands into fists, closing her eyes against the bright flames. “i need... i n-need you to fight some bullies for me! these two m-mean boys have been picking on me at school and won’t stop! none of the adults will believe me and all of my friends are too scared to help, either!” the tears are flowing again, but she opens her eyes and looks up at the demon. “please! make them stop! i want them to leave me alone!” crowley laughs and puts his hands on his hips. “and why should i do this for you, little girl? i’ve got lots of business to attend to. lots of bigger bullies to fight. what will you give me in return? after all, demons don’t do this stuff for free. you ever hear of a contract?” he raises an eyebrow. she looks around her room frantically, then picks up a unicorn plushie. “w-will this do? it’s my favorite stuffed animal... his name is king grandhooves... i’ve had him since i was a baby, and he’s the noblest steed of them all...” she trails off. there’s no way this demon will care about her toy, even if it means the world to her, even if it’s been by her side for ages- “a noble steed, you say?” his eyebrows shoot up, his interest suddenly piqued. “let me see that.” she shakily hands it over to crowley, who turns it over in his hands, examining it. “yes, yessss, this will do nicely. it truly is a noble steed. it has seen many battles, and i shall use it to ride into my own battles. yes, a horse like this must belong to someone very brave indeed.” he snaps his fingers, and the unicorn disappears in a puff of smoke. “very well. hold out your pinkie.” the girl looks utterly confused. “wh... what?” crowley rolls his eyes impatiently. “we have to seal the contract, obviously! your noble horse for my bully hunting!” he says, extending a long thin pinky forward. “do we have a deal or not?” his snake eyes are still piercing, but there’s a glint of something else in his gaze. silence, save for the crackling of the demonic fire, fills the room. after a moment, the girl nods, linking her tiny pinky finger around his. she does not look away from the tall demon. crowley pulls back in a grandiose manner, throwing his arms in the air as a loud boom that sounds like thunder echoes in the room. “VERY WELL! the contract is sealed! those bullies will be destroyed - i mean, taken care of by tomorrow. now... go to bed!” he hisses, and his shadow along with all the flames and light from the circle seem to be sucked back down into the earth. the candles go out with a WHOOSH and the ends of the masking tape curl up, breaking the circle. shaking like a leaf, she climbs into bed. she can’t believe it worked. there was a demon in her room. but somehow her parents are still asleep. she pulls the blanket over her head and shudders. she misses king grandhooves, but she has to believe in the contract. she has no other choice. ------ the next day, at the beginning of the girl’s homeroom, the teacher announces that two boys from the class have been pulled out of school, explaining that they had to transfer suddenly. sure enough, there are two empty seats adjacent to each other. the bullies. the girl’s eyes widen in shock. the other students murmur, wondering why both boys would be transferring at the same time, and the teacher hesitantly explains that they had suffered from some “heavy emotional trauma” and were being taken to schools closer to the city to receive necessary therapy. the class buzzes even more, wondering what happened to the boys, and later that day, while looking online in the computer lab, the girl sees a news story about two massive snake infestations found the night before. authorities were shocked since the two houses were nowhere near each other but the types of snakes infesting the house were the same, and in both cases, the infestation had started in their sons’ bedroom closets. out of curiosity, the girl checks her pocket. the folded up piece of paper is still in it, and it’s warm again. she unfolds it, but this time, the pentagram and weird symbols are gone. they’ve been replaced by more messy text: “THE CONTRACT HAS BEEN COMPLETED. HOWEVER, I MUST RETURN YOUR STEED, AS I AM UNABLE TO TAME IT. IT IS TOO STRONG FOR ME TO COMMAND AND WILL ONLY LISTEN TO SOMEONE WITH A BRAVE, CONFIDENT SOUL. DO NOT FALTER IN THIS AND HE WILL REMAIN LOYAL TO YOU FOR ALL TIME. AS ALTERNATE COMPENSATION, I HAVE TAKEN TWO (2) NINTENDO GAMECUBES FROM THE BULLIES’ HOUSES. NO FURTHER ACTION IS REQUIRED.” a smell of cinders reaches her nose, and the girl looks up suddenly. in the chair next to her is king grandhooves. she snatches him up and hugs him tightly. she looks around, wondering where he had appeared from or for any sign of the strange, lanky demon. she gulps loudly, hugging her plushie tighter. “thank you, crowley,” she whispers to herself. outside the building, in the shade of a tall tree, a demon smiles to himself.

#long post #good omens #fanfic #good omens fanfic #this is garbage i know #and written all in one go #but i had to get it out somehow #sorry!#writing #my writing #robin's writing

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taediuswrites · 4 years

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A Matter of Agreements

A writing commission for a friend. Their directions: a story between a vampire lawyer and a fae teacher, with all other details to be left to my discretion.

I liked this, a lot.

Rating: G

Word Count: 1500

Want to commission me? Check out my commission page here!

“von Reiter! Baby! Hey, can you help me out with something?”

As a voice is heard behind the closed wooden door, upon which was emblazoned ‘Edvard von Reiter, Attorney at Law’, the sole inhabitant of the office glances up from his papers. The moonlight shone in through a window, yet only a candlelight illuminated the office otherwise. Papers sat piled high upon a mahogany desk, and vials of reddish-ink were lined up next to quills- a veritable high-speed signing station. Glasses are shifted up the man’s nose through a sharp-nailed finger pressing to the bridge; his other hand reaches up to sweep ebon-black hair atop his head, down to brush his dark tailcoat into place. By the puzzled look on the sharply-dressed man’s face, whoever was beyond the door was an unexpected visitor this evening. “Enter. How may I assist-”

No time to finish that sentence. In a blur of colour, a figure throws wide the door, dashes in, and slams it behind them. The bell that sat atop the frame jangles wildly, ringing out discordant notes, until some moments pass and silence comes again. In that same time, the figure dashes towards the chair, hovering behind it.

Immediately, the man’s eyes half-lid, and his brow falls again. Lovely. A fae.

“You know, for a vampire’s office, this place is positively clean!” A voice more high-pitched than it sounded behind the door rings out from the winged little creature. Blue skin was offset by verdant adornments, vines and leaves coiling around a lithe form. A shock of purplish, leaf-like hair sat atop their head, and pointed ears seem to perk as the figure took in their surroundings. “You’d think there’d be dust and papers scattered about, a bloodstain, maybe, but this is-”

A sharp clear of the throat cuts the fae off, the attorney folding his hands upon his desk. “Do you have a case for me, or not?” von Reiter replies. “I am a very busy man.”

“Right! Right. The name’s Elvina.” The fae pauses to bend their upper body forward in what might be construed as a bow. “So, you know all about the rules and laws and all that un-fun stuff, right?”

Von Reiter dips his head in response. “That is, indeed, my line of work. Explain to me the situation, and we shall proceed from there.” A piece of paper is fwipped from a stack; a quill dips into blood-red ink, and his chin lifts to encourage the other to speak.

“Excellent!” Diminutive hands clap together once, a surprisingly bell-like sound echoing out. “So! I was...eh- summoned by a mortal, right? Wizard, lovely chap, nice and amicable. Wanted their children to learn aaaaaall about the magic that runs through the worlds!”

“An understandable choice.” Notes are scribbled in shorthand, von Reiter’s eyes not leaving the fae. “And an intriguing choice of professor- but, continue.”

“Why, thank you! See, I knew you would understand. A-hem- but there’s a little...snag. Tiny one! Really, almost insignificant-” Here, an index and thumb come dangerously close together. “I noticed that one of the kids- lovable little scamp, but not the best at his homework, not by far, let me tell you!- wasn’t doing so well! So, I may have- may, mind you!- invited him to come home with me for some...extra lessons!”

The scratching of quill to paper suddenly stops. Perking up, von Reiter redoubles his focus on Elvina, eyelids coming close in a narrow squint.

“...And I left a little...gift behind!” Elvina smiles, bright, yet nervous.

“...You what.”

Finally, the fae comes to the desk proper. They rise over the chair, arms folded over their chest as blue-hued fingertips drum in anxiety. However, they did not sit in the chair before von Reiter’s desk; rather, they ‘sat’ in mid-air, hovering gently above it through the fluttering of glitter-spewing wings. “And maybe the wizard was a little bothered by it. Maybe. Really, I don’t see what the big deal is.” This comment comes with a roll of too-bright eyes. “The child was failing in their lessons, so it’s only right that, as their teacher, I take them for personal tutoring.”

A hand runs down the lawyer’s face. Had his skin not already have achieved its ghastly pallor a hundred years ago- or about that, since after a while, one simply stops counting- he would have paled considerably. He had a feeling where this was going, and thoughts roil like a tempest through his mind. Such flagrant disrespect for the rules of this realm! Such gross mishandling of a delicate situation! And yet, the realization hits that he should not be surprised in the least by this, considering this would-be client’s peoples’ predisposition towards trickery.

That did not mean, of course, that he could not be disappointed.

With a heavy sigh, von Reiter shifts his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, eyes shut as he regards the fae. “Allow me to get this straight. You are a-”

“Teacher, yes,” Elvine cuts in. “Magical theory, history of the Wilds, so on and so forth. Go on.”

A blank stare precedes von Reiter continuing. “...And you were instructing human-”

“Children. A wizard’s children, specifically, thank you!”

“...to which one of them was failing in their lessons.”

“Really, you’d think a magical child would be better at understanding magical history.” Elvine’s hand lifts to roll at the wrist, as if to summon understanding.

Lips peel back, revealing sharp canines, as von Reiter sucks in a strained breath. “And as such, to help one of them…’better understand’...

“I knew you’d get i-”

Both hands suddenly rise, and slam down upon his desk. “You kidnapped the child!?”

That got the fae startled; arms and legs flail, and they tumble from their place in the air to the chair below them. The sudden action sends a shower of glitterdust across the room (something that, no doubt, would make the vampire’s forehead vein bulge in annoyance if his blood yet flowed). “I- I didn’t kidnap them!” they shout back, arms lifted in a defensive posture. “I simply- intended to expose them to the fae side of things! It’s hands-on teaching!”

“Hands-on?! You spirited the child away and replaced them with a changeling!”

“It’s what we do!”

That brings a scoff, and for von Reiter to stand, one hand outstretched over the desk. “Show me the contract?”

“I-” Blinkblink. The silence is palpable as Elvina looks back towards him, head slowly canting off to one side in confusion. “The, ah… the contract?”

His stare bores back, levelled directly on the fae’s eyes. “The contract. Between you and this wizard. The deal to instruct their children. You did bring a copy of it, yes?”

Once more, the fae blinks, unevenly this time. Pointed ears begin to droop, slowly but surely. “Ah...heheh. The...contract, right!” Their hands slip from their arms, beginning to pat down at the pockets of their ‘clothes’. “Yes, well- I- I mean, I may not have a copy here, precisely…”

Von Reiter waits in silence.

“And- you know, us fae- we really deal more in pacts than contracts! All that paper- truly, it’s a waste of the trees! We hate to damage the, ah- the trees, and...ah...”

“You do not have one, do you?” he says back, the words affixed firmly between a statement of doubt and a question in hope that maybe he would be wrong this time.

Gradually, Elvina’s smile creeps upwards, while the rest of her body shrinks back in awkward timidness. “...Not...exactly…”

Reaching behind him, von Reiter sweeps his tailcoat down. His cravat is adjusted- the cloth came undone, just a touch, in his outburst- then with gradual, purposeful motions, he sits back onto his chair. “And you thought to seal this pact with no formal proceedings, so that you might do as you pleased with your ‘lessons’. Am I on the mark?”

Elvina’s face contorts in a grimace. They cringe back, consigned to their fate slumped in the leather chair. “...Yes. You know, you’re quite sharp. I see I’ve come to the right man…!”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” von Reiter responds, already moving another slip of paper from the myriad stacks. Once more, his quill is dipped, and he begins to write in long, fluid strokes. His attention has finally shifted away from the fae to focus on this task in particular.

“Right. So...will you help me out?”

The vampire’s eyes shut. Slowly, he draws in a deep breath. An unnecessary gesture, of course, as he did not truly need to breathe, but yet, there was something to be said about showmanship when it came to the fae. Whether he could see it or not, Elvina did, indeed, cringe back once more- until he releases that selfsame breath, and opens his eyes again. “Do get comfortable, Elvina,” he eventually responds, drawing an ‘X’ and a sharp underline at the bottom of the page. “This is going to be a very long night.”

#writing #writing commission #personal #writers on tumblr #commission

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barfzal · 5 years

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light my fire

word count: 4,600

warnings: oof lots of smut, public sex (no one catches you no worries)

requested: yup!

a/n: hello, sunflowers. sorry this one is so freakin long. this one is for the anon who requested some very romantic loving with my favorite lover boy brock. basically you two get caught up in the moment on a camping trip with his dog, coola (sorry i love dogs and nature, so i couldn’t resist). i was inspired by the songs meet me in the woods by lord huron and light my fire by the doors, and this features a reference to the lyrics in break on through by the doors - “i found an island in your arms; country in your eyes.” as always, all the love and thank you for taking the time to read my stuff. and i always love reading your feedback and comments ⋆ mia

Leafs and twigs crunch under the weight of your feet. The wind whistles through the four hundred foot tall trees of the forest. The air is comfortably warm even as the sun starts to droop in the sky in its leisurely descent into the horizon. Overhead, the quiet jingling of Coola’s collar and tags chiming together with each step blended in seamlessly with the chirping of the birds. Your ears tune into the peaceful scurrying of every beetle and four pawed creature over the fallen pine needles, when Brock’s thick fingers weave between yours. His fingertips close over your knuckles and squeezes your hand lightly, his large palm swallowing your small hand. “Sun is starting to fall,” he points out while bringing your hand up to his face and pressing a sweet kiss into the back of your hand. Your arms swing back between the two of you and your shoulder rubs against his while you step over exposed tree roots together. “Yeah, I think the tent is only ten minutes from here,” you say with a small smile, acknowledging the affectionate gesture with a kiss to his shoulder. He turns his head to meet yours, and kisses into your forehead while your head is there in his shoulder, and the warmth of a hundred suns spreads over your chest and cheeks. All of his small gestures of romance and love came like second nature to him, and they were silently adored by you.

Golden white tufts of hair flip out from under the navy blue Minnesota Twins baseball cap secured around your boyfriend’s head. His jaw and upper lip are lined with fine, blonde stubble. His heavy arm holds you securely to his side while the two of you walk hand in hand until you reach the clearing of your campsite. Brock’s black Wrangler is parked next to the khaki green tent that’s spacious enough for ten. Inside the open trunk of the car is a plush dog bed, which Coola eagerly leaps up into. His tongue hangs out as he pants, and his body falls into the cushion, finally relaxing after your long hike. Brock pulls out the brushed steel canister of water from the cooler next to the tent. He pours some of the water into Coola’s bowl which Coola greedily pushes his snout into and laps up. You and Brock smile a bit at his excitement. You sit next to Coola, your legs hanging over the edge of the bumper while your hand runs over the dark fur between his ears. “Easy Coolie,” Brock jokes and you laugh out. Brock takes a swig of water himself some of the water dribbling down his chin. He brushes it away with the back of his hand, and offers you the bottle. You take it and place your lips where his were and take a small sip, the water cooling your throat on the way down.

As the bottle leaves your lips, Brock pushes his hips between your thighs. His hands sweep up the hair behind your neck, and he folds his knuckles into your hair. He draws your head back, and leads with a kiss into your open mouth. His lips closing into yours, and a surprised yet content moan leaves your lips. Your lips draw apart, and you let out one breath filled laugh. “What was that for?” you ask with an irrepressible grin. Your eyes connect with his, and you look over the narrow, almond shape of his steel blue eyes. “Because I love you,” he says with a calm smile mirroring yours. “And your lips looked really pretty,” he adds under his breath, with his eyes lowering to your lips, still glistening from the water you sipped. Your forehead presses into his while you both let out a harmonious chuckle and you press a kiss into the tip of his nose. He carries his thumb to your cheek and brushes it over your skin before you feel Coola’s wet snout press against his hand and your face, and you feel his quick patterned sniffing against your cheek, and you both let out a big laugh. “Coolie wants a kiss too, baby,” you say while your hands fold back his ears and rub behind them. Brock lowers his lips to Coola’s nose, and give him a quick kiss to his wet nose.

For a while after, you would throw Coola’s tennis ball, and he would go sprinting after it only to come bouncing back to you a few moments later with a drool covered ball. All the while, Brock built a fire for the three of you, and you sipped on hot cocoa from a thermos. The sun starts to dwindle down further, fading into a cranberry colored orb, and the waning crescent moon starts to form through the cloudless, magenta sky. Now you are holding Coola’s head in your lap, his chin resting in your thigh while your fingers scratch the fur behind his ear. Your head is nestled back into the crevice of Brock’s broad chest. His sturdy arm is wrapped around you while his fingers rest over the center of your stomach. The sun tucks behind the mountainous horizon, and the stars seep through a sky shifting to indigo. The sounds of the babbling creek, water washing over stones, Brock’s eased breathing just over your head, and the rhythm of his heart beats in the back of your head. You watch Coola’s blinking grow longer and heavier while an extraordinary sense of contentment floods you in this island of Brock’s arms.

Glancing up, you can see the definition of his jaw and his stunning bone structures. All of his features illuminated by the orange glow of the kindling fire. The Adam’s apple in his throat shifting while he takes in a deep breath. The air grows crisp with the sun now resting beyond the horizon, and the cool nips at your exposed skin, still in the short sleeved top and athletic shorts from your ten mile hike. Your back shifts, closer into the warmth of Brock’s arms, and his fingers wrap over the cold flesh of your arms. The warmth of his palms travels over your arms. He presses a kiss into your scalp, and you hum out quietly; you kiss into his thick forearm, your lips brushing over the light wash of blonde hair on his arm, in response to his kiss. “Coolie’s falling asleep,” you murmur into the sleeve of his white, lululemon shirt, and he glances down at the big puppy who’s leaning into your lap. Brock lets out a quiet chuckle, his lips curling up slightly while he runs one hand down Coola’s back, making his heavy eyes lift and close again; he adjusts his posture on his bed, moving his face from your lap, and tucking it close to his paws as he curls up for bed.

Brock’s nails lightly tickle the surface of your arms, his short nails sliding up your arms drawing a little giggle from you. With your hands resting on the outside of his full thighs, that you sat between, you squeeze him. He scoops up your hair, pushing it all over to one side of your shoulder before he places a kiss into the back of your neck, and you sigh quietly but contently. His nose presses into your neck, inhaling the scent of your shampoo while you trace patterns into his soft thighs. “I love you,” he mumbles out bashfully. Brock was always quiet in nature, so when he said it, it meant more to you than any other ‘I love you’ you would ever receive. You turn your head, your nose pressing into his jaw while you nuzzle into him. “I love you more,” you whisper to him, your lips tracing over his stubble sprinkled jaw as you speak. He turns his face to meet your eyes, his thick fingers tracing strands of your hair behind your ear while your fingers trace over the highest point of his cheek bones. His smile is almost immediately mirrored by your own, and it doesn’t take long for him to connect your lips.

His lips are soft and move gingerly over yours. His tongue is gentle when it parts your lips, and he lets out a quiet whimper into your mouth while you seal the kiss, your lips lightly sucking on his bottom lip before you pull apart. His forehead is resting against yours, and your eyelashes lift at the same time to meet each others. “Now that the kid’s asleep, why don’t mom and dad have some fun?” he suggests, and both of you laugh with one another. Brock playfully presses his thumb into your cheek, squeezing you there. Your hand that is cupping the back of his neck, slides into the layers of silk hair at the nape of his neck. You pull him into another kiss; both of your lips move harmoniously with one another’s. You pull apart just an inch, and your eyes glance down to take in his glistening lips. You slowly gather yourself up to sit up in his lap, his arms falling from their position on your body. You slide off the edge of the Jeep and come to your feet, already kicking off your running shoes. His eyebrows lift slightly at you, and you slip your hand into his oversized palm and lead him into the opening of the tent.

He stumbles along eagerly into the tent with you while you giggle at his rushed manner, and he kicks off his shoes near yours while a sleeping Coola rests in the open trunk. Once inside, you turn around to face him, your face level with his chest. You slide your fingers along the hem of his shirt, and start to lift it up past his bellybutton. He fervently lifts the fabric over his shoulders, and your hands slide down his bare chest. Your lips press into his chest, and you hear one of his soft moans over your head, making you smile. He leans down, taking your cheeks into his palms and kissing you with a desperate passion. Your hands slide up his warm chest, past his neck, and your fingers rake over his thick, feathery hair. His own hands slide down the center of your back, his fingers tracing down your spine until his hands sink into your ass. He clasps onto you there while pressing his lips into yours, both of you letting out moans from the satisfaction of tasting each other.

“Wait,” he says in a hushed tone, his breathing more unsteady than before and his hair disheveled from your ambitious hands. You raise your eyebrows curiously, and without answering your concerned expression, he shuffles around the dark tent finding something and muttering a quiet “there we go.” Over a hundred miniature fairy lights illuminate the tent in a yellow glow. The strings are dangling sloppily over the tent, but you could tell it was done with such care. In the center was a blown up air mattress covered in approximately four old comforters and two mixed pattern floral quilts from your apartment. Brock was in charge of the tent set up this morning while you were in charge of the extremely easily constructed hammock outside. You stood there, silently gazing around the tent in wonder with a blank expression on your face until your eyes find Brock. He is stifling a shy smile, and before you could speak he is already stumbling over his words. “I know it’s not done like well or anything, but I just…” he stammers explaining before your lips interrupt him. You press a tender kiss into his lips, and his nerves dissipate while his arms rope around you, and pull you into his body. “Brock it’s amazing,” you breathe out as your lips part. You both melt into another kiss. Brock starts to sink back into the bed, holding the connection between your lips while he leans back. He is pulling you into his lap as he sits into the center of the full sized air mattress scattered with worn-in blankets. Your thighs wrap over his hips and your fingers graze his scalp through a warm kiss. His fingers run grasp at your hips, pulling you in closer to him. “You’re amazing,” you murmur softly as your lips draw apart, your eyes moving from his lips over the bridge of his nose and to the country of his gray toned blue eyes. “I love you,” he hums quietly before pressing a kiss into your forehead. “I love you,” you murmur back while pressing a kiss into the tip of his nose.

With that you press your hands into his chest, and he follows your silent instruction to lay back on the bed. Your lips follow a path down his throat, your lips brushing over the tendons in his neck, noting the way his throat moves when he swallows. His jaw hangs lower when his lips part to let out a quiet breathe. He closes his eyes when you kiss down his chest. His skin of his chest soft, and his body is warm and inviting. Your lips trail down the center of his stomach, and you feel the muscles in his abdomen raising and relaxing when you press kisses past his ribcage. You smooth a kiss over the thin trail of hair trailing from his bellybutton to the hem of his black shorts. You start to peel them off slowly, and you notice Brock lift his head to watch you. Your fingers hook under his underwear to strip them off in one swift motion. You watch his growing length slap against his stomach, and your eyes lift to see Brock with his teeth digging into his bottom lip, his eyes shifting from your lips to your eyes. With a sigh of relief, you slide your tongue slowly up the underside of his shaft, and his lips open to take in a deep breathe. He hums as he exhales, and you slide your tongue up his shaft again, teasing him. His cock jumps slightly at the sensation, and he hisses slightly. You wrap your lips around him, taking him in your mouth and you let out a muffled moan around his shaft, and Brock lets out a guttural groan at this. His hips shift slightly, pushing himself deeper into your mouth. You keep your eyes on his as you bob your head up and down. From this angle, you can see the way his stomach flinches, and with your hands on his thighs, you can feel his thighs tense. He opens his mouth to let out a soft moan while lifting his hand to push back a gold strand of hair that fell in front of his eyes. “Just like that, baby,” he encourages you before he groans out. His hips shifting slightly at the pleasure of your mouth around him. You take as much of his thick shaft down, and you watch his jaw clench. His eyes close, and he takes in a sharp breath. “Fuck,” he chokes out, and you feel his fingers rake over your scalp, pulling your hair from your eyes and gripping you there gently. He holds your hair back as your lips slide up and down his fully erect shaft. Your lips pull off of him, and his eyes open. His hand, not occupied with your hair, grips the base of his cock, and he lightly taps your tongue with the head of it, letting out a long groan as he does. Your saliva rolls down him, and as you were about to close your mouth around him again, he grasps you by your cheeks and pulls your face up to his.

Brock’s full lips urgently reconnect with yours. His moans come from the depths of his throat as he kisses into you sloppily. The saliva that had rolled down your chin smeared on his. His fingers trace over your cheek, as the two of you pull from the kiss that left both of you panting. “I need to taste you,” he murmurs to you while flipping over on top of you. You let out an excited giggle while Brock turns you on to your back, and you’re laying in the ocean of blankets that made the air mattress surprisingly cozy. He lines your jaw with kisses warmer than spring. His breathing against your flesh made your back arch, pressing yourself into him. He muses at your body’s appetite for more of him, and he lifts your shirt off of you. He presses open mouthed kisses along the tops of your breasts before rolling the sports bra off of your chest. His teeth drag across into the plumpest part of your chest and his tongue runs over the mark left behind from his teeth causing you to hiss out. He presses kisses down the center of your stomach that tightens with anticipation. His fingers tug at your athletic shorts, a signal for you to lift your hips. When your hips lift, he presses a kiss into your hip before pulling your shorts off. He rolls them past your ankles and peels your socks off with them.

His force is strong, all the while still quite gentle with you as he forces your thighs open and apart. Your thighs spreading easily under his palms and he leans in to press a kiss to you through your seamless thong. He presses a kiss into the your pussy before he takes your panties between his teeth. He pulls from you and releases the panties letting them snap back against your heat. You let out a gasp while the blood rushes to your cheeks. “Brock, baby,” you whine out, and he chuckles into your inner thigh. He slides his tongue over your inner thigh and presses a kiss there before he runs his tongue over your slit through the fabric of your underwear. You moan out, twisting your hips desperately. He responds by hooking his strong arm under your thigh, his flexed bicep propping your thigh out while his forearm wraps over your hips. His arm rests there firmly to keep you from wiggling into him or away from him, giving him free rein over your body. Now he nudges your panties over to one side and he presses a firm kiss into your clit while his eyes meet yours. You whimper softly to him: a stifled plea for more. His closed lips form a smirk before he slides the fullness of his tongue over your slit. You gasp out, your fingers slipping through his silk hair. His warm tongue rolls over from your entrance to your clit until, making your breathing is uneven. He hums quietly into you, enjoying his time between your thighs. “You taste so good,” he remarks before sucking your clit into his mouth. His warm lips pulsing around your clit making your toes curl into his defined shoulder blade. All the while his blue eyes held your gaze.

The stubble on his upper lip brushed just over your clit, and the stubble of his jaw grazed your inner thighs just right. He pulls from your pussy with your clit between his lips, sucking on it before snapping away from it. His thick tongue slides over the entirety of your folds before his mouth clamps down on your mound. He lets out a deep groan as he sucks on you. Between the sensations of his tongue and they symphony of his muffled groans and the sound of his wet tongue pleasuring you, you are a withering, moaning mess under his tongue, and it’s something Brock takes pride in. His lips purse, and your eyes follow him carefully, tucking strands of his hair behind his ear as he spits on your slit. His eyes follow the stream of his saliva down to your entrance, and two of his thick fingers slip over your slit, lightly tapping your clit making you wince from the sharp pleasure that accompanied it. “Baby,” you murmur breathlessly. The euphoria making your head grow faint and light. You look down through lidded eyes, and you see Brock’s chin glistening from his delightfully messy service. His tongue runs over his lips before he presses two fingers into you making you moan out helplessly loud. Your fingers knotting into his hair before they slide out to grip the quilt underneath you. Your knuckles turn a shade of white as he curls his fingers towards himself inside of you, finding that spot that makes you forget how to breathe. You whine once he presses into it, and he muses at you. “Is that it, baby?” he spurs you on by wiggling his fingers inside of you, nudging the spot. “Yes,” you manage to sputter out through long moans. He grins and his hand that’s resting on top of your pubic bone slides down and the pad of his large thumb presses down onto your clit, and in controlled circles he rubs over it slowly with a steady pressure. He presses his fingers in and out, the veins in the back of his hand even more prominent as he works you. Your impending orgasm is coming at you faster than you anticipated, and you quietly cry out at the pleasure. The euphoria cracked through your body like lightening, and for a few moments, you could hardly feel anything but the pleasure at all. Your legs quiver from an orgasm that sent waves of satisfaction like an aftershock over you; an orgasm that only Brock could induce. He pulls his wet fingers from you and sucks the remanence of you from his fingers.

Lifting his head from between your thighs, Brock has a smug grin on his face, and you look at his self satisfied smile and giggle still breathless from his work on you. He pulls himself to his knees in front of you while matching your laugh. You pull yourself up to him, rising to your knees to press a kiss into his lips. He eagerly accepts your lips, and on his lips you can taste yourself. You moan quietly into the kiss before your palm wraps around his shaft and you lightly slide your palm along the length. He moans quietly between your lips and you pull away. You push him onto his back again, one hand resting on his strong chest for leverage while the other guides him inside of you. You sink down slowly until you’re on his lap and the entirety of his thick cock is resting inside of you, stretching you out. “Oh my god,” you manage out through a long moan, and Brock groans hopelessly under you. He melted under the sensation that came from being inside of you, and it makes you all the more confident that he is just as helplessly enthralled by you as you were by him. His rough palms slide over your thighs wrapped around either side of him, and his hands trail up your hips and over your waist. Your hands meet his, and your fingers lace between his. Your hands knit together and you use him for leverage as you start to lift your hips and sink back down onto him. He let out husky moans from deep in his throat as you bounce on him. His eyes periodically closing from the sensation, only to open and run all over your body. His eyes were constantly flickering from where the two of you connected, to your breasts and to the details of your face, silently admiring you while you silently admired him. The muscles in his biceps tensing as he guides your hips, and the tendons in his throat moving as he lets out soft noises of pleasure.

With his hands lifting from yours, he beckons you down to him. He wraps his fingers behind your neck, and pulls you into a tender kiss while you lightly wriggle your hips back and forth for friction. You both let out soft moans into the kiss and you take a breathe from the long moments of physical exertion. “I love you,” he murmurs into your lips while both of you pant against each others lips. “I love you, baby,” you whisper back. Brock’s forceful hands slide down to your hips, and he lifts you from him gently. You lay on to your side, your fingers sliding over his chest until he turns you over again by your hips. Your back presses into his sturdy chest, and he pushes all your hair over to the pillow. His face buries between your shoulder and your neck and he presses warm kisses into the nape of your neck. His large, athletic frame engulfs yours from this position, and you feel him slowly press himself between your thighs. He positions his cock between your legs and slowly sinks in with a low groan just behind your ear. A strand of his blonde hair falls to your cheek and he presses another kiss into your temple. “You feel so good,” he hums between slow thrusts. His hips pressing into you, and in this new position he hit that one spot like before. One of his hands slides over the front of your scalp, holding you gently by the root of your hair, and the other slides over your hip, holding you steady as he pushes into you. His thrusts become stronger and at a fast and steady pace. He fucks into you, and his groans come out strained like rough growls into your neck. His hand slides down between your thighs, and he uses two of his large fingers to rub over the entire surface of your clit, brushing it back and forth to amplify the pleasure of his thrusts. “Oh my god, yes,” you cry out to him. His breathing turns into light whimpers and his thrusts become more careless and sloppy. “I’m gonna cum,” he rasps out to you while pressing his hips faster and deeper to you.

A couple of thrusts later, and he pushes all of himself in as deeply as he can inside of you. You can feel his thighs tense behind yours, and his abdomen flexes when he releases into you. Your fingers brush over the tensed portion of his forearm that hangs over you, and once his own orgasm slowly descends, you run your fingers over his arm. Your fingers sketch patterns into his arm, and his head hangs into your neck. His breathing is heavy against your ear, and he kisses at your earlobe. “I love you,” he lets out in a calmed voice. All together, the two of you must have burned enough calories to equal a marathon today. You turn over in his arms, and he wraps you up in them. His arms consume your upper body and you press a kiss into his forehead. “I love you more,” you murmur into him with a playful giggle. Both of you are still panting while your heart beats try to come to a rest. His neck is glistening with a dew of sweat. His cheeks are flushed a peach color, and his lips are raw from the kissing and licking. You lift your eyes to his, and he shakes his head sleepily. “I love you the most,” he murmurs into your forehead before kissing you there. His forehead sinks down into yours, and though neither of you usually slept tangled up like that, the exhaustion left you both drifting away, curled up and woven as one.

#brock boeser #brock boeser smut #brock boeser fic #brock boeser imagine #vancouver canucks #mia's writing

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