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yunho0o0o0o · 4 years

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my fic recs: a masterlist

note: most of these have been reblogged on my account, but here’s a list for convenience, author’s summary is copy and pasted here if there is one, if it’s the first in a series I recommend the whole series, I’ll probably add to this as I read more, yes i know some people are missing i just somehow didn’t have any fics in my stache that included them

A- angst, S- smut, F- fluff

Includes BTS and Ateez

BTS:

OT7:

Lost & Found (F, 1.7k) - @namjoontunes - In a world where mythical creatures like dryads and vampires are commonplace, how will a household of supernatural humanoids react to their new kitten being a shapeshifting girl?

Lilies of the Valley (A) - @girlmeetsliv3 - includes ABO, yandere themes

Sunlight (F, A, 16,5k) - @floralsuga - A soulmate. That was all you had wished for. Someone to come home to, someone to be there for you, to build a life together with. And yet you were cursed with having seven. Seven soulmates that you could not allow yourself to have.

Fading Legacies (A, 3k) - @mindays - BTS achieved everything they’d ever dreamed of, becoming world wide idols. But then the zombie apocalypse hits and it’s all they can do to survive. And they’re going to need Y/N to do it.

The Gentlemen (M, A, F, 5.2k) - @honeymoonjin - Sick of unsatisfying hookups, boring relationships or the company of your own hand? Apply today for the chance to be on bangasm.com’s very first reality show! Seven attractive young gentlemen will be vying for your choice of who is best in bed. All from different backgrounds, these men claim they’ll be able to rock your world, so don’t hesitate! Apply now!

Ethereal Orbit (A, F, S, 1.1k) - @miamorjoon - somehow you’ve landed on this strange planet named Utepnia and you have to save their race from extinction.

Taehyung:

Chism (S, A, F, 19.9k) - @kpopfanfictrash - The entirety of your life, you have never fit in. A woman soldier. A passive power, wielded in the land of the bold. Despite this, you have followed your father’s advice and striven to blend into the crowd. You feel you have succeeded, until your Queen calls you before her with an arduous task. Guard the darkest cell in the lowest dungeon. Do not listen to what the prisoner has to say and above all else, keep your head. The old gods may be dead, but the humans are living.

Beastly Gods (M, A?, F, 8k) - @lemonjoonah - ‘Don’t leave the forest,’ a rule that you've been forced to follow since birth, but you are tired of living in this wooden cage. Out of desperation you cut a deal with Taehyung, who claims to be the only one who can get you out safely, even though he might be just as dangerous as the god you’re trying to escape.

Teach Me Dirty (S, 2.9k) - @forgottenpasta - Taehyung has a lot to teach his English teacher. Fortunately for him, you’re an eager and willing pupil.

Hoseok:

World of Pride (A, F?, 5.2k) - @an-ambivalent - artificial intelligence hoseok, includes yandere themes, your father created an AI to protect you when he’s gone

Yoongi:

Make Me (S, F, 4.4k) - @ppersonna - an ordinary sleepover with your best friend turns into anything but ordinary, thanks to your ridiculously loud neighbors above you.

Lineage (M, S, 6.7k) - @kosmosguk - When an engagement locks you, the 8th and forgotten princess, to the duke infamous for his cruelty, you find yourself counting the days until your inevitable death. It’s terrifying to think of your end, but when you arrive at his territory, you realize there’s a more morbid reason behind your marriage, and that the duke is much worse than the rumors have painted him out to be.

Switching Places (F, 1.7k) - @ijungkooki - soulmate au where you switch places with your soulmate at random times

Jin:

Scopophilic Affection (M, F, 7.8k) - @bibbykins - Scopophilia is a more dignified way to define voyeurism, something Seokjin had no intention of partaking in until he came across your live stream. Seokjin is a dignified man, but never in his life had he felt so depraved watching you smile and work like it was his profession, unable to reach through the screen and make you his. Unable to tell you how much he loves to watch you because you have no idea you’re live stream even exists. He can’t tell you how hypnotizing you are without the glaring controversy of him watching your hacked-into webcam, both as a human and director in the computer science division of the company he is a board member of. Nevertheless, you were his very guilty utmost pleasure.

Jungkook:

Shadow (2.2k) - @yoonologue - Shadow has been on the run her whole life. Her survival depended on her keeping her mouth shut and staying hidden. If she didn't then she would be captured and used as a pawn to do their bidding. But it seemed that her heart did not seem to understand that. She had never been able to ignore a person in need. She never had a problem before, but it seems that her luck had run out. Now she was left with scraped hands and unconscious boy that was too nosy for his own good.

Asterismos (A, F, S, 7.1k) - @hobiance - As far as you’re concerned, things like magic, prophecies, and fate are nothing more than fairytales. But when you accidentally bind your soul to a mysterious amulet you found at an antique shop, a group of seven warriors from a magical world inform you that you now hold the key to saving them all. The fate of the realm Elodia now rests in your hands, and you realize that you couldn’t have been more wrong.

Sweets (F, 4.2k) - @worldwidemochiguy - in which jungkook steals your lip balm and perfume instead of talking to you, you leave a post-it note with your number on it for the strange thief who only seems to take the most inexplicable items and has a strange sense of responsibility for your wellbeing, and the cute boy in your photography class with the fluffy hair and the oversized sweater keeps getting more and more endearing… , includes yandere themes

Pen Pal (A, 5.3k) - @chinkbihh - As a lonely person, the idea of exchanging letters with someone apart from society was actually quite appealing to you. In a random act of charity and desperation, you sign up for a pen pal and get paired up with an inmate named Jungkook. The letters were meant to help him cope with prison life, but little did anyone know it was actually driving him more mad., includes yandere themes

Quarter Quell (11.2k) - @chinkbihh - includes yandere themes, you are selected as a tribute for the next quarter quell (hunger games au), the volunteer from district two seems to have an unhealthy obsession with you

Haunted (A, S, 14.1k) - @mint-yooxgi - you move into a new house without knowing it’s already occupied, includes yandere themes, ghost! jungkook

ATEEZ:

OT8:

All Eyes On Me (S, A, F, 3.5k) - @atiny-piratequeen - member x member, not an x reader, yeosang focused, Yeosang is a very shy man. Everyone knows this.But he’s fed up of his shyness and insecurities being the reason he’s left out of sexual activities from the others. He wants them to look at him like they look at each other

Mingi:

Two is Better Than One (ft. Yunho) (S, F, 4.2k) - @mingishoe - a threesome with your boyfriend sub! Yunho and dom! Mingi

Yunho:

Two is Better Than One (ft. Mingi) (S, F, 4.2k) - @mingishoe - a threesome with your boyfriend sub! Yunho and dom! Mingi

Bassists Do It Deeper (S, 6.3k) - @luvteez - while using what you thought was your brother’s laptop you find a search history full of exhibitionism, only to find out you’ve been using one belonging to Yunho, the newest bandmate and your childhood enemy

Shower Sex (ft. Seonghwa) (S) - @atothetiny - after a long day at work you decide to join your boyfriend in the shower

San:

First Time With San (S, F, 3.5k) - @call-me-bha - Choi San, recognized as sex on legs among fans, was exactly-if not more- truthful to his reputation, and you quickly discovered that from the beginning of your relationship with him. In fact, you were about to find out about how much that name was made for him.

Seonghwa:

Truth or Dare (ft. Jaehyun and Johnny from NCT) (S, 6.2k) - @domjaehyun - playing truth or dare with your boyfriend and two guys you’ve hooked up with in the past when they propose a different kind of game

Focus (S) - @yeosangs-horizon - you and seonghwa try cockwarming in the study room, includes a little size kink

Shower Sex (ft. Yunho) (S) - @atothetiny - after a long day at work, you decide to join. your boyfriend in the shower

Yeosang:

Listen (F, 3k) - @mingishoe - You can hear every song your soulmate does, yours just happens to listen to the same song on repeat… for days.

Wooyoung:

Talkative (S) - @needyateez - when your car dies you’re forced to accept help from your enemy, Wooyoung, however things turn a different way than either of you were expecting

Hongjoong:

Miss (S) - @mingi-baby - sub hongjoong calling you miss

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josy57 · 3 years

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Philosophy 101 (reprise)

Philosophy 101

It's now drawing to a close, This encore, this year as an echo I will depart again shortly and this time, it will be for good So this is a curtain call A bow so low my forehead grazes these old floorboards Their wood creaking untold secrets Splintering under the weight The compounded stampede of dozens of generations Layer after layer of teenage specters Hurrying down the hallways long after the bell has rung I watch them shuffle away Knowing I’ll soon join their fading ranks

This last month will unfold as a slow ritual Counting the steps of every flight of stairs Touching each wall, each yellowish stone Following the grooves in the bark of the chestnut tree in the courtyard Letting it memorize the swirling lines on my finger tips This place and I, united in shared remembering

II.

Yesterday I came back to your class For the sake of circularity So things can conclude as they began A page folding on itself in perfect Rorschach symmetry That day, the topic was freedom Whether such a thing even exists Whether man stands above Nature He alone, capable of choice Or whether we, like every other creature Are subject to the same cruel, unchanging rules Living on a tight leash A chain of causes and effects That, try as we might, we can never escape Are we tossed about in an uncertain flight By a thousand random happenings By our own misguided decisions? Or do we suffer to a precisely set tune As sure as water's boiling point Or the orbit of celestial bodies?

I jotted down your every word In a comfortably familiar frenzy But this time around, unlike I used to at seventeen I kept my mouth shut I did not raise my hand to offer my observations To remark that the question of free will can be rephrased thus: Is life drama or tragedy? Did we get a chance and failed? Was there a way out of the maze we missed? Or do we walk, from cradle to grave, in a trench so deep We never see the sky The hedges around us shifting Giving only the illusion of diverging paths?

III.

You don't say it, but I have an inkling what side you favor And so I’m curious what you think How you make sense of my presence here How you fill in the blanks In your attempt to unravel the strings of consequences That led me right back to where you first met me Part of the answer is that I love this place That in many ways, I was born here It was where my life first became something I actually wanted to live I emerged from the mire, a soot-black mass of clay And slowly took form Like a flipbook of evolution A fish out of water, growing lungs, legs And painstakingly becoming human Learning to stand, to pile each vertebra like a game of Jenga And see the horizon

Yes, these corridors, these classrooms That's where I discovered the great loves that shaped me Language, poetry, and him Because, of course, the truth is that he had a hand in it In my second coming I returned, not searching for myself but for a ghostly closeness to him Whichever spin you’d like to put on it He was my fate, the gravitational force pulling me in

I know you would not approve You never did like him But following your logic, you cannot blame me It'd be ironic for you to throw the first stone After explaining that a pebble thinks itself free Only because it doesn't know who cast it Pathetic as it is, it was all written from the start There is no alternative version of that story In which we pass each other by without a hitch Without some part of me getting caught and torn clean off The ripping sounding like a great gust of wind I love him and it's enmeshed in everything In the grief I feel at the thought of leaving once more No one in this world knows the extent of it How long I've carried it with me, How marrow-deep it runs But this place does It knew and held both him and me Enclosed together Two chambers in the same beating heart

You'd probably laugh at all my pretty excuses You explained that every action, even the seemingly gratuitous Is only us acting out some forgotten trauma Some imprint left on an impressionable mind So early the slate was wiped clean but the mark remained You'd most likely say that this fluttering in my chest Is just me trembling in the aftershock Of something from childhood that shook a screw loose Those insane recurring thoughts, merely its rattling in my brain And you’re likely not wrong It fits neatly, doesn’t it? The girl whom no one loved Choosing a boy who won’t ever look at her Because of the familiar dynamics The safe, distant yearning Or because of the mad thought That changing his mind would shift the whole world

IV.

Still, even if it did not come down To a simple game of mechanics If it wasn't ordained or predetermined It would still mean something That you and I stand here again That I have passed my disease along I can see it Kind as you are, it permeates our clumsy exchanges As we watch each other, you peer into me Trying, through the cloudy film of today Through the tarnishing of the last ten years To catch the gaze of the stubborn, bright, smart-mouthed girl Who once sat in the front row You wade against the current, And see the past, alive, squirming silver Strikingly vivid in the murky stream of present consciousness If I could speak plainly and turn the tables on you That’s the answer I would give That’s what I would teach A lesson like a curse Those who cannot seize the day Strive to recapture the eve Groping blindly for what couldn’t be grasped Closure or justice or vengeance Those who did not live the first time around are bound to return.

@lexiklecksi @distilled-prose

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insomniac-dot-ink · 3 years

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things I don’t know

Genre: wlw slice of life

Words: 1.4k

Summary: Two girls come back from college and reunite to stargaze and see if they still know each other. A love story of waiting and finding.

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The things I don't know: I don’t know how rockets function or how birds fly home for winter or how adjectives in other languages work. I don't know why we know more about our moon than our oceans. I don't know how time and space are actually the same thing. Time doesn't exist, not really, but maybe I know that when I look over.

You are laid back on the roof all long legs and loose limbs like the city made you edgeless instead of full of honking cars. A dull ache spreads through my chest and that list of “Things I Don’t Know” is longer than ever.

We sit apart, knees almost touching, and enough room for sneezing and not mush else. We don’t look at each other, not yet.

“There’s something about the stars here,” you say because we were waiting for something to say. “You know?” I know. I knew it in the way I know nothing else.

“It’s the rabbits . . . Allota feet hopping around out here. Gotta be lucky.”

“I was going to say it’s the lack of pollution.”

“Nah, we’re just God’s favorite.” I scratch my chin and try not to think about how little I know what to do with my hands. I don’t know how to fix a sink. I don’t know how to change a tire. I don’t know how to hold a baby or build a house—the list was endless.

“You still kicking a ball around?”

“Not since it kicked my ass first.” I gesture. “Ankles still wrong.”

“Aw. Grade 11, right.” You say softly and get lost somewhere in your head, you do that sometimes. We’re both looking up again.

The sky is velvet black, spread thick like jam, staring down with diamond eyes, and there we were, on the roof of a building not cleaning. We were supposed to be inspecting and helping make the place presentable for the church. It could be a day-care or meeting space or maybe just a storage shed, but first we needed to dust and mop and check the roof for leaks. Which we weren’t doing, but maybe this wasn’t why I went to church anymore.

"You still sing?" I basically grunt.

Your smile is a curved sickle, it punctures.

"Sure, in the shower every morning."

“Not out there in the world?” I snort. “Waste a water.”

“You kidding me? You’re the only who thought I could hit high notes. Pastor Dave asked me to stop doing Silent Night last Christmas.”

“Tell ‘em the high notes aren’t the point.”

“What’s the point then?” You tease. My smile returns sloppy, no edges, just dull hills to fall off of.

“All the other ones.”

You run a hand through your short hair, it’s short now, I’d never thought it could do that; I try to know you again. You are tall, and wiry and the divot above your eyebrow is fishhook-shaped. The fishhook scar looks the same, white and curved and deep, but it’s different now, unhidden by bangs.

I sit there, trying to figure it all out. We both flew away, both to college and bigger places, maybe that made our movements slower and more deliberate. Maybe breathing in the Oklahoma City air had worked its way into my joints and bones and tendons and shifted their weight. It pulled my ligaments into new orbits and other directions.

I don’t know how bodies work though, I don’t know how joints stay put or knees hold up all that weight or how bodies come together—what a frightening thought. And yet I’m still looking at you.

“How have you liked it?” I ask deliberately, or try to at least. “Really.”

“How is it really?” You tease, again.

“Yeah, Sammy, really.”

Your little grin fades. A long pause follows, thoughtful, you’re always thinking and going places I can’t follow. “I like it,” you say in that simple way. “It’s different.” I nod and ache and do all those other things without names. “I think good different. Maybe.”

I gesture to the jewel-knitted above. “But they don’t got this.”

“Oh no, God no. They don’t have this.” You shift, I feel the ghost of you there even without touching. “How about you? How is it really?” You’re never done teasing me, but luckily, I’m never done being teased.

“You know me . . . Though, I dunno, I wish, I wish some,” I swallow thickly, and let my heart squeeze in several languages I can unfortunately understand. My gaze darts over, quick and guilty, and then away again. “Stuff.”

“Yeah?” You blink at me, leaning forward. I inhale like I can’t get enough of the stuff. “Come on, Tricky.” You called me Tricky since we were 6.

“I just wish,” I whisper, eyes fogging over, “I wish I had known some stuff sooner.”

“What kind of stuff?” It’s gentle, gentle as a mended bone, and your knee touches mine.

“Lots of stuff . . . That’s all.”

You seem to frown and nod and think all at once. It’s something you did since 3rd grade before every spelling bee; and time right then is a patchwork, existing and not existing all at once. A series of tiny moments of belly-hurt laughter, tickling breath against my ear, secrets told, and hands clasped together under blankets. I don’t say it of course, I don’t say: you never left me, you never leave me, even when you’re not there. Time is a jumbled mess like that.

“And there’s a lot I still don’t know . . .” I find myself mumbling.

“Alright, what do you know now? And don’t just say stuff.” You slow-grin, it punctures, I turn to face away and try not to shrink and disappear under it.

“Well for one, my brother was right about 8am classes. It is the work of the devil.”

“I could have told you that,” you chuckle.

“Oh yeah? Never pegged you as know-it-all.” I wink and you roll your eyes. “So then what did you learn in Boston, Miss Ivy League?”

“Not much.” You run a hand through your hair again, and I can see the edge of that fishhook working into your thoughts. “Not enough.”

“Guess that’s disappointing. Lotta money to learn nothing.” I sniff.

“I think that’s what I’m paying for.” You shrug. “Plus, it’s not over yet. I just . . . there’s so much. You know?”

“Too much,” I agree softly.

The silence between us dries like paint on the wall. I can hear you considering something, turning it over and over to find the seams. You turn to me glacially, like you’re moving through cement. I could always tell when you found something after all that digging.

“I feel it though. I feel like . . . like maybe I missed out.” Our eyes meet when you say that, and maybe it feels like the first time. Had I ever been looked at before that moment? I didn’t know.

“It’s not too late.” I say it, I do. "I learned in physics . . . time doesn’t exist. So nothings too late, it can’t be.”

You chuckle and it’s sparkling and young, just like 5 and 13 and now. “I’m not sure that’s how physics works.”

“It could.” I almost pout.

“Well,” you stare down at your lap like your legs might leave. “I’d like it to work like that.”

“It really could,” I say again this time, but dangerously.

My mouth is dry and empty and I’m leaning forward like the fool. The fool doesn’t know when to stop, the fool doesn’t know when she's going to ruin everything, a fool doesn’t know a damn thing. I am the fool.

But maybe even Harvard lets in fools as well.

You follow, trailing down until our foreheads touch, sweaty and delicate. I’m at your mercy, stopping right before your big brown eyes and feeling the breath hot on my cheek. You could have killed me right then and I woulda done nothing.

I gulp though, cheeks heating up, and remembering all the things I don’t know. I kinda wish I was dead.

“I’m not sure how to. . .” I search the air. I search every part of myself.

You grin, feral and terrible and close enough to kill. You take my face between your hands.

“You think too much.”

I stop breathing. I don’t know what to do with my hands, but maybe I don’t need to. We close the gap, desperate and opening; we come together.

Your mouth tastes like cherry jam and summer heat. I can feel you there, all gangly limbs and damp skin. I kiss like I want to know it. Your lips press warm and urgent to mine. Your hands are all familiar ridges and rough pads and your soft skin flushes splotchy as we meet and meet again.

The list of things I do not know is longer than God’s sin list and a rabbit hole with no bottom. The list of things I don’t know is too much to handle, vast as skies, but there is one thing: I know you. I know that first kiss in the way physicists understand rockets. I knew it in the way birds know true north and the moon knows the weight of the ocean.

I know it in the way you learn new languages: all taste, clumsy and earnest, trying to savor every new word.

We kiss on that roof with the stars bursting in the Oklahoma summer, because there’s just enough rabbits to make me that damn lucky. And maybe time is just a little less real.

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#wlw #short story #slice of life #cute #sapphic #lesbian romance #long post cw

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writingsfromhome · 4 years

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Josslyn

Request: Harry imagine based off the song Josslyn by Olivia O'Brien?

A/N: This was in my inbox for a while, but I finally finished it! It got a little long but I really wanted to set up a backstory. Hope it’s what you wanted! :)

Part 2

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My leg bounces under the table, eyeing everyone walking through the door until my best friend Regan walks in. The first day back to school always felt like hell on earth. It would be more unbearable if my best friend didn’t have the same homeroom as me.

“I want to die,” she drops into the seat in front of mine and turns around. “Like literally. I can’t wait to be done with this dump.”

“We just do it all over again in uni,” My stomach turns remembering what our final year meant. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and I had to choose this year. It was a scary thought.

“At least there’ll be more freedom, I won’t be living with my crazy family, and,” she pauses ticking each item on her fingers, and wiggles her eyebrows. “All the hot guys.”

“Is somebody talking about me?”

We turn and Harry Styles, class jock, stands above us with a pencil behind his ear and a shit-eating grin on his face.

“If we were, you would’ve heard ‘major douchebag loser’,” Regan rolls her eyes. I give Regan a look like what an idiot and she ignores him to continue on about her dream school. As hard as I concentrate though, I’m too aware of Harry walking around and settling into the seat behind me.

It had happened, over the summer-we had hooked up. I can’t say it was a shining time for me, I also didn’t reqret it quite as much as one might think.

It was at a party I was invited to while Regan was visiting her grandparents in New Jersey and I was getting lonely. He’d cornered me, made me feel less alone. The hookup lasted a week, before we were off, and then another two weeks in August. I quit him-like a habit-the week before school started.

I confessed to Regan, she’d warned me to avoid him during the year if I wanted to have a decent final year. So I didn’t know if him showing up in the first hour of senior year was a good sign or an omen.

“You girls have a good summer?” Harry asks behind me. Regan locks eyes with me-she would handle it.

“You’re sort of interrupting our conversation here. Maybe you should find a new seat if you wanted to make friends.”

A small laugh escapes me, I couldn’t help it.

“Y/N,” Harry calls me out. “Have you forgotten how to talk or you’re getting shy on me?”

I turn around, he was way too smug. “Regan’s said it perfectly, why do you need me to talk.”

“Just making sure you could,” his eyes flash with humour before he says casually: “I wasn’t sure if you’d worked your mouth too hard this summer that it stopped working or something.”

My jaw drops and I hear Regan gasp.

“Yeah, like that.” Harry points to my open mouth and it takes everything in me not to slap him. But then he does a strange thing, his mocking smile softens into a genuine one. His eyes crinkling like we were on the ins of a joke and the angry flame softens at the curve of his smile.

There was this one weekend where his parents had left town and we’d spent the whole time just binging bad movies, under covers, learning every inch of each other. I never thought it would be a calming feeling waking up and seeing Harry’s sleeping face on the pillow next to me but I had stared at it for what felt like an hour until I’d poked him awake and he’s just pulled me in to sleep longer.

“You’re disgusting,” I tell him now, but it doesn’t have the same rage it would have last year. He’d worn me down, and I know he only liked to wind me up because he thought it was hot. He’d said as much over the summer.

I turn just as our teacher walks in and class begins. Harry gets in trouble for talking to his friends, I ignore the note he throws my way, we’re told it’s the most important year in our life thus far and I almost fall asleep halfway. Just a typical day of high school.

***

It was near the end of the first week, already I had an essay and a project due in two weeks and a thousand pages of math. I was just happy it was Friday and Regan and I were going to do our regular end-of-the-week detox: Starbucks and driving around town.

“Don’t hate me,” Regan says as I approach her car. “But Adam just invited me with his friends to the mall and I know we were supposed to hang out but this is maybe the first time he actually looked me in the eye and talked to me so-“

“It’s okay,” I interrupt her even though I was bummed. “You’ve been trying to get him to notice you all year so...finally! we’ll hang out over the weekend.”

Regan hugs me. “Really? You’re okay? You could come with us. Or I can drop you home first...”

“I can take the bus,” I insist. “We rode the bus last year remember?”

“Ugh, too soon,” Regan shakes her head. “I’ll make it up to you I promise. He’s calling now I’ll see ya!”

I wave her off and begin the slow walk to the bus stop, thinking of things I could do tonight by myself. Someone whistles to my right and I look up. Harry waves his hand, standing by his car. My face flushes as I remember the things that went on in that back seat.

“Where’s a pretty girl like you going all alone?” Harry shouts. I sigh and walk up to him.

“Do you ever realise how predatory you sound?”

“I’m king of the jungle,” he gestures to the school. “Why wouldn’t I sound predatory.”

I cover my face, “Omg please shut up Harry do you even hear yourself? You’re such a-an-ugh!”

“Hey,” his hand peels mine off of my eyes and he holds it in his grip as he walks backwards until his back hits his car, pulling me along. “What’s the matter with you? Didn’t we have fun this summer-why do you act like you hate me?”

His honesty shuts me up. “I-I don’t. I never said I hated you.”

“You sure act like it,” he crosses his arms. “You ignore me in homeroom, roll your eyes every time I say something...”

“We had a fling Harry, we’re not dating each other.” I shrug, trying to tug my hand away from Harry but he holds tight. “There’s nothing more to it. And to be honest...you’ve always been kind of annoying.”

“You’re kind of annoying,” Harry smiles again, tugging my sleeve to bring me closer. I don’t even resist moving into his orbit and settling between his outstretched legs as his arms wrap around my waist.

The truth was being with Harry was nice. He was a cocky jerk who knew he was desirable but when I was with him all the noise in my head died down for a bit and I existed in the present. That’s how he lived: for the now. And even though we were only more than friends and less than together forever, we had something between us. I just had to make sure my heart didn’t get caught up in between it. I’d had too many guys break my heart like I’d told Harry about one day when he’d driven us to a beach and we’d spent most of the day laying in the sun. Something about being there made me open up. He’d said he didn’t want to hurt me like the boys before. So we’d kept things light.

“You have any plans tonight?” Harry asks, his eyes shamelessly on my lips. I feel the familiar flutter in my stomach. Even though Harry would get with any body with boobs, it still felt nice to be looked at like this. By him.

“Not anymore,” I say. “Regan cancelled last minute so-“

“You’re free?” Harry sounds happy. I nod and he lets me go to move to the passenger door. “Get in, where do you want to go?”

“I...” I move to the car and sit inside, I told myself-and Regan-this wouldn’t happen and yet. It was. But Regan did ditch me for Adam so, maybe this was just the alternative. “Regan and I usually just grab drinks and drive around with music on.”

“Can I drive you somewhere?” Harry asks. I smile, of course.

***

Harry ends up taking me to a drive-in theatre. I’d never been to one and the excitement is all over my face. “It’s exactly like the old photos!” I squeal as he leans over and pushes my seat back. He does the same to his. “Have you been here before?”

“My family used to come here when we younger,” Harry smiles. I grin back at him and soon we’re locked in a staring contest because neither of us can look away. I open my mouth to say something but Harry moves forward, cupping my face to pull me to him. All common sense flies out the window as I get lost in his kiss. I tug at his hair the way he likes it and he presses me against the door as he kisses me harder, the handle jabbing my back but I didn’t even care. I’d missed Harry even though it had only been a week. His hands roam lower and lower until they stop as someone knocks on his window.

“Hello!” A muffled voice shouts from his window. We force each other apart. Harry looks at me with a drunken look on his face-eyes half lidded, a lopsided smile...and I’m sure I looked the same. We check who was at his door and it’s the girl bringing us our snacks.

“Harry?” She says as we roll down the window.

“Uh-oh-oh hey, Josslyn right? Long time!”

Harry grabs the drinks from...Josslyn, who looked familiar, and passes them to me to put in the dashboard holder we’d received when we entered. I keep an eye on the interaction as Josslyn goes from professional to flirty in under a second.

“Uh yeah because you never responded to any of my messages over the summer! How have you been? You look so good!”

“Yeah I’m good, I didn’t know you worked here?”

“My parents own the thing,” she glances back. “I have to work here when it gets busy.”

“No way,” Harry’s now fully interested in their conversation with his back to me and I feel a little left out. “I used to come here all the time as a kid did your parents own it back then?”

“Yeah! They took over from my grandparents. We definitely saw each other as kids cuz I was here all the time. Like every summer. I know every single lyric to every single summer hit from 1999 to present.”

“That’s impressive,” Harry laughs. I pick at the m&ms off the popcorn, feeling slightly jealous even though it didn’t make sense to be. Harry and I weren’t exclusive or anything, he wasn’t mine and I wasn’t his.

“Well I gotta go get the next order but we should catch up some time,” Josslyn puts her hand on Harry’s arm. “My number’s the same: if you’ve been ignoring my texts like I think you were then you should have it in your phone. Maybe we can recreate old times.”

With a wink, she’s gone and Harry clears his throat as he goes through his phone. His chuckle when he finds her texts irritates me.

“So like, do you have a lot of girls texting you that you just ignore?”

“What?” Harry looks up like he’d forgotten I was even there. “No, we just have some history. The texts were...funny.”

If I was a crazy girlfriend I would’ve demanded to see those texts but I was neither crazy or his girlfriend so I just look forward, kicking off my shoes and folding my legs into myself. I didn’t want to feel this way but I couldn’t help it.

“You’re not jealous are you?” Harry sneaks closer to me, clearly intrigued that I could be. But I don’t give him the satisfaction.

“Why would I be jealous?”

“Right?” He puts his hand on my knee and it tingles. “She doesn’t mean anything anyway. Just someone from the past.”

“Like me someday,” I don’t know what makes me say it. Maybe I was just moody.

He furrows his brow, leaning back in his seat. “Y/N,” I look over at him but he looks like he’s struggling for words. I raise my eyebrow and he holds out his arm. “Come here.”

“Where?” I ask, looking him over. He sighs and in a single move he’s put one arm under my knees and the other around my back as he tries to lift me while seated.

“Harry stop!” I can’t help but laugh as the stick hits my bum, my knees spill the overflow of popcorn, and we knock heads. “What are you doing!”

Harry laughs and motions to me, “Just c’mere!”

I oblige, twisting my body to straddle him in the front seat. I make sure not to lean back-I’d done that in the past and blared the horn. I’d learned since then.

“What?” I ask, pretending to still be upset but the ridiculous move minutes earlier had already washed it away. He moves my hair behind my ear and holds my face above his.

“You’re lovely,” he says and I melt. He knows it.

“I wasn’t jealous,” I mumble as he peppers my neck with kisses, “I just...” the words already slip away from me.

“Mhm,” he hums.

***

“Thanks,” I say to Harry. We’re parked outside my house and we hesitate to leave each other. The movie was fun, Harry was distracting throughout but that just added to the fun.

“Your parents home?” Harry asks innocently.

“Yes,” I roll my eyes. I check the time, it was nearly 11pm. I’d told them I would be home by 10 but I knew they would be asleep so I had pushed my luck. “Where else would they be?”

Harry shrugs, “My parents are out of town again.”

He scratches at a scab on his hand, hiding his face. After spending time with Harry, I knew his parents weren’t around much what with high profile jobs and travelling all over. His house was huge but empty and it made Harry make a little more sense to me then. Right now though, he just wanted to get me in bed.

“I’d invite you in but if you were caught, my funeral would be Sunday.”

“I’d come in a disguise,” Harry reaches for my hand and threads his fingers through it. “And jump into the grave after you, I’d be as dramatic as possible.”

“Harry you’re mistaken,” I say. “Your funeral would be the exact same day.”

Harry laughs and kisses my hand, “Then we’d just find each other in the afterlife yeah?”

I lean towards him and kiss him tenderly, I try to stop myself but it feels like I’m falling and I remember Regan’s words as I cave and sneak him into my room, hushing him as he bumps into every possible piece of furniture. But I forget it all the second we get under covers only to find him gone the next morning with a text promising me coffee on my front porch.

***

“Kiss any hot guys over the weekend?” Harry whispers in my ear Monday morning. It was a couple weeks since I’d snuck him into my room and we had been seeing each other pretty regularly. Harry sat with Regan and I at lunch sometimes despite her glares, and threw me notes often in class that were just bad drawings. But there were days where he would be distant and I would see him flirting with another girl. I would have to scold myself then, even though I was in his bed half the time we never said where we drew the line. Although I felt what I felt, I couldn’t expect any more from him.

This past weekend, Regan and I had driven to a few universities she was interested in and I could potentially be interested in. We’d crashed at a friend’s dorm before driving back Sunday afternoon. It gave me a small thrill that Harry might have been thinking about me kissing other guys even though he didn’t text me once.

“That depends on what you define as a hot guy,” I tease as I turn around but Harry looks annoyed.

“Oh,” he stares. “So you had fun over the weekend?”

His annoyance rubs me the wrong way, he could flirt with people and do whatever he wanted but he was annoyed at a joke? “Lots, not that you would know since you went awol yourself.”

Harry raises a brow but I just shrug and turn to the front. He was probably hanging out with other girls, not that I should care. But when it’s confirmed when Regan shows me the instagram story of someone she follows, I click through and find he was indeed. The picture shows him, a girl from our basketball team, and Josslyn on the beach getting high. My stomach churns for the rest of the day but I don’t dare bring it up. I just tell him we needed a break, maybe the distance would stop the obsession.

***

Harry was throwing one of his parties on Friday. With his parents gone most of the time it was the perfect place to host our class. This morning when he told Regan and I to swing by, I’d lingered behind and we’d made up. I was still nervous about the party, even though Harry and I were on again.

At the party, I hang out with Regan, Adam, and his friends for a bit. I talk to a few other friends and see some unfamiliar face. Harry catches up to me halfway through and apologises.

“I got caught up with everyone,” he says, his words softened with alcohol. I had seen glimpses of him with his friends, seen him flirt with a few girls when he came in but he ended up with me here so I don’t hold onto it.

“That’s okay,” I place my hand without a drink on his chest, feeling the steady heartbeat underneath. “You’re here now.”

He wraps his arms around me, “You’re staying the night right?” He whispers in my ear. It tickles and I giggle.

“As long as you don’t get too drunk.”

“So you won’t help me out if I get too drunk?” He pouts.

I laugh, about to say something but someone comes up to us in our private moment. Josslyn.

“Harry! Thanks for the invite!” Josslyn puts her arms out so Harry lets go of me to give her a hug. I try to wash away the possessive paranoia with my beer but I feel it creeping up. Josslyn glances over at me and I give her a smile.

“Hey,” I say awkwardly.

“Hi! You’re from the drive-in right?”

I was surprised she remembered me considering she didn’t even look at me that day. “Yeah, the same one.”

“Ooh,” she glances between us. “So are you two like dating or something?”

“Uhm...” Harry and I awkwardly look at one another as we try to find the right words. “Not really-“ I start to say as Harry says, “We just hang out...”

“That makes sense,” she flashes her eyes at Harry and I feel more insecure than ever. It reminds me that they did hang out together on the beach, maybe more often than I knew. Harry looks unbothered though. “So I can steal Harry away for a bit? You don’t mind? It’s been a while since we caught up!”

“I don’t own him,” I fake laugh even though I want to shout leave us alone liar!

I watch them leave, a sinking feeling in my stomach as Harry only glances my way before leaving. I stumble from group to group after that, finally locating Regan in a game of beer pong. I cheer her on and almost convince myself I was having fun but I continue to scan the room for Harry. My phone finally buzzes later in the night, Harry was upstairs asking me to come up.

“Harry?” I ask quietly as I knock on his door and peer around the corner. He’s laying on his floor shirtless and his room needs airing out. I sigh and open his window. “Where did you get the weed?”

“What? I didn’t do anything,” Harry says from the floor. “Where were you?”

“I was downstairs, at your party. You disappeared with Josslyn.” I can’t hide the edge in my voice.

“She shared her stash,” Harry says, his voice a low rumble. “We just talked about life.”

“Right, is this all she does?” It seemed Harry and her only ever got high together. “Did you want anything? I was watching Regan win and I’d like to go back if I’m here for no reason.”

“No wait,” he gets up slowly and walks to me, trying to kiss me but I pull away.

“I’m not interested right now Harry,” I push his arms off me. All I knew was he left with Josslyn and ended shirtless on his floor, high and alone. Who knows what they did.

“I was alone this whole time,” Harry tries to convince me. “She left a long time ago.”

“She left that too?” I point to a tanktop draped on his bed.

“That’s....that’s yours?” Harry says.

“Oh right, I forgot what my own fucking clothes look like.”

I stomp to the door but he calls out, “You’re making it a big deal! Nothing happened!”

I didn’t trust that. Not when he lied to my face like that.

***

At school on Monday, Harry tries to talk to me but I ignore him all morning. He forces me into an empty classroom and tries to win me over but I push him away as a teacher walks in and tells us to leave.

“Y/N,” Harry whines. “It’s not a big deal come on! She’s just an old friend!”

“Did you date her?” I demand, finally stopping by my locker.

“No I-we didn’t date. She’s just an old friend.”

“You keep mentioning,” I roll my eyes.

“Because it’s true, babe.” Harry touches my arm. “Listen. Nothing happened.” When I don’t respond he takes it as in invitation to ask if I wanted to do homework at his place after school. I tell him I’d see.

I end up going. We don’t do a lot of homework.

***

A couple weeks go by without a snag, I finally settle into a rythm for senior year and join the basketball team with Regan for our final year. I go over the endless decisions of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and on weekends, I would hang out with Harry at his place.

It’s our first game of the season and Regan and I are doing our warmups as we watch the bleachers fill with friends and our rival school.

“Will Harry be here?” Regan asks, although she still didn’t like him she had accepted she would see him from time to time.

“I thought he would. Maybe I should call him.”

I leave the loud gym and duck into the locker room. There’s only two other people, so I shuffle to the side and call Harry.

“Y/N,” he picks up on the fourth ring, he sounds out of breath. “What’s up?”

“Harry,” I say cautiously. “Where are you? I thought you were coming to our first game?”

“Oh shit uh yeah,” he sounds panicked. “I uh can’t-really uhm-.”

I hear a laugh and muffled noise, like Harry had dragged his microphone against his shirt. “Babe I can’t see you right now okay? I’ll swing by at halftime.”

“Oh okay...” before I can say anything he’d hung up. That was weird, unless I was overthinking it. But I remember the muffled noises in the back-he was with someone else.

I slowly put my phone back in my bag and look up, the one girl from my team, I think her name was Valentina. She stays near her locker but she’s obviously listening to my conversation. I don’t think much of it, and head out to find Regan. Screw Harry, we had a game to win.

I take my position as forward and Regan and I exchange fierce looks before smiling. I look around at our rival team, recognising a few from last year. And that’s when I realise why Josslyn looked familiar to me. She stands exactly diagonally from me, already looking at me-I remember her from semi-finals last year.

She narrows her eyes and I do a double take, maybe she was just being friendly competitive. But as the first quarter progresses, she gets aggressive, coming over to my side even when she should be on hers, and making sure to check me as she runs past. I glance at the referree but she doesn’t notice a thing. What was going on?

I ask Regan before the second quarter begins but she hadn’t noticed. She tells me she’d keep an eye out and once the whistle blows for halftime she runs up to me.

“She has it in for you, what did you do to her?” Regan whispers.

“Nothing!” I shout-whisper. “She’s an ‘old friend’ of Harry’s but I don’t know what I did to her...she hates me!”

“She wants to kill you Y/N, I have never-“

“Hey Y/N,” Regan’s interrupted by Harry who finally shows up. I continue drinking my water as he stands there uncomfortably. “Uh, I’m sorry I’m late?”

“Missing the first half isn’t late,” Regan pipes in for me. “It’s missing half the game.”

“Well...sorry for missing half the game,” Harry says but it doesn’t actually sound like he’s sorry. Just on the edge of annoyance. “Could I talk to you alone Y/N?”

I glance at Regan and let her know I was okay. She makes a show of being annoyed and goes to find Adam.

“What do you want?” I ask.

“To say I’m sorry,” Harry says again.

“About?” I raise my eyebrow. There was something he wasn’t telling me, everything about today was off from our phone call to the way Josslyn was attacking me on the court. Speaking of, I glance around and notice her staring at us.

“You know,” Harry doesn’t meet my eye. “Missing your first game and stuff.”

“Okay,” I watch the timer count down our halftime and I needed a water refill. “I’ll catch up with you later. Your ‘old friend’ Josslyn is here if you want to hang out with her!”

Harry stares at me like he’s trying to figure me out, my sarcasm lost on him. I raise my eyebrow which makes him stop. He kisses my cheek and walks to the bleachers. Weird.

***

When we switch sides, Josslyn must’ve negotiated with someone because she stands opposite me.

“Bring it on 15,” Josslyn calls me by my number as we wait for the whistle. She didn’t even know my name.

“Likewise,” I crouch down. “We don’t lose on home turf.”

“Too bad you already lost on home turf,” she says just as the whistle blows and she’s off. My head spins as I try to figure out what she meant and I end up missing a pass. My teammates shoot me a look and I try to focus. But Josslyn continues to taunt me and try to mess with me. By the end of it, we win by three and I gloat as much as I want to.

Until Valentina corners me in the changeroom.

“Hey, Y/N. I know we don’t talk much but can we talk? Girl-to-girl?”

I walk towards the windows and she follows. “What’s up Val?”

“I...don’t know how to say this. I’ve been friends with Harry for a while and Josslyn too...” As soon as I hear the name I realise it was her instagram Regan had shown me. And that’s why she was eavesdropping on the conversation. Her and Josslyn were friends. “...a couple times but you should know she doesn’t care he’s with you. I tried to tell her he had a girlfriend but she said he didn’t? I think they...hang out if you know what I mean.”

My ears ring as I stare at Val, what she’s trying to tell me. I couldn’t believe it, I’d been so stupid. Of course that’s what was going on.

“Thanks,” I say abruptly and turn around to grab my stuff from my locker. Letting Regan know I’d meet her at her car. My mind was heaving as everthing clicked into place. Harry’s party, Val’s stories that weekend I was away, how he had lied to my face...the other voice on the line when he said he couldn’t come to the first half. It was Josslyn. He was with Josslyn.

I’m still in my shorts, only having changed my shirt. But I storm out and find Harry at his car where he said he would be.

“Hey Y/N, where are we celebrat-“

“Josslyn,” I say and Harry shuts up. “You and Josslyn? Really? It’s one thing to do it and another thing to fucking lie to me for weeks!”

“Okay wait, can we talk somewhere-“

“No!” I shove Harry in his chest and he stumbles into his car. “I-I’m such an idiot! Everyone told me this would happen and I thought okay, he’s a player and a flirt but at least he doesn’t lie! But you lie like the truth is a chore, you’re scum just like everyone said you were!”

“Wait!” Harry shouts as I leave. “You can’t be this angry with me, it didn’t mean anything! And we aren’t even together Y/N!”

“You’re really playing that card?” I spin around. “We never drew the line but read the fucking signs Styles, I thought we made it clear how we felt. You didn’t even care at all did you?”

I ignore what he says and head back, towards Regan’s car to wait for her. People in the lot stare but I don’t care. And to make it worse, I walk past a group of the other team on my way to Regan’s car and Josslyn is one of them. She smirks and I want to strangle her.

“I told you you’d already lost,” she says as I shoot her a dirty look.

“It’s not called losing when he was never worth having,” I stick up my middle finger and use my rage to propel me the rest of the way without breaking down. As soon as I sit in Regan’s car, I break down. She doesn’t say anything, just turns up the music and we go for a drive.

***

Harry tries to speak to me. Through text or calls, he tries to pass me notes and tap my shoulder but Regan offers to switch seats and I accept it. I was torn between feeling absolutely nothing and wanting to cry into a tub of ice cream. Mostly I was angry, at Harry but also myself.

After practice on Thursday, I walk towards the bus stop with my gym bag bouncing off my knees. Regan couldn’t make practice so I didn’t have a ride, but I didn’t mind-I could use the time to clear my head....Until the very person I was trying to clear away falls into step with me. Harry.

“Y/N can we talk? You’re avoiding me and I feel really bad about what happened I just want to talk.”

“Nothing to talk about,” I pick up my pace.

“I’m sorry okay? I fucked up but we were never an item Y/N! We never said what we were. It didn’t mean anything with Joss.”

He hits the nail on the head, the same thing I was angry at myself about. I try to continue my steely silence but I couldn’t, not with the way he says her name.

“I know that Harry, we never said where we drew the line, but I’m sure you read the signs. You knew what we had was different. But I guess you had to go and ruin it just so you could get a quick fuck and I’m sure you had fun doing it too so I’ll leave you to her. I don’t care anymore.”

“Y/N wait don’t say that! Don’t give up on us! It-it wasn’t like that! I didn’t know...wait!” Harry falls behind as I continue speed walking but he catches up at the bus shelter. There’s no one else waiting so it’s hard to ignore him.

“Y/N, it just happened. I didn’t mean to hurt you, it just happened.”

I snort, not amused in the least. “You were hanging out with her whenever we were off, maybe when we were on too. It was bound to happen,” I turn and watch for the bus so I didn’t have to look at his face, “those things don’t just happen. They don’t.”

“Okay listen, we can take a break. If you want space I can give that to you. I hate fighting, Y/N you mean something to me. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I’m thinking now just please. I never said it before but you mean a lot to me, you’re different Y/N...I’m different around you and I-well I-“

“Harry,” I force him to stop. I didn’t want him to say the words out of desperation. Not like this. Not from him. I see the bus off in the distance, finally. “Harry you act like you’re the victim but you hurt me, you lied to me like telling the truth was a chore to you. You’re right though. I was never yours. I don’t want to fight...I just never wanna talk again.”

Harry opens his mouth to say something just as the bus pulls up. I turn to face him once more.

“Don’t call me, what we had...whatever is was, is over.” I turn as the doors open but not before saying: “I hope that it was worth it, fucking Josslyn.”

His mouth opens in disbelief, the same mouth I used to dream about when it wasn’t kissing me, and be consumed by when it was. The person I knew would ruin me but I thought might turn out different. The guy I toed a line with but will never cross. Especially not anymore.

I flash my card to the bus driver and hoist my bag onto my shoulder as I shuffle further into the bus. My legs ache from practice and my stomach rumbles as I sit. This was senior year, it’d been fun but this was my future. Harry wasn’t the kind of guy who was ever going to be in my future.

As the bus groans and moves forward, I look out the window. Harry sits at the bus stop with his head in his hands, maybe this was a turning point for him. Maybe he was going to change. Maybe he wasn’t. But I couldn’t stick around to find out. I decided I was going to move on, and leave him in the dust with his Josslyn.

#harry styles fic #harry styles x reader #harry styles #olivia o'brien #harry styles angst #harry styles imagine #harry styles fanfic

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captainkurosolaire · 3 years

Text

A Father’s Instinct!

The emerging stark black and white halves returned with a shattering of Silv’a ice-fence with a flashiness, they were past their play-enclosure. When arriving they saw only the foul demon who was kicking back and forth Nihlius and Klethera with their helpless unconscious state, each painfully being decimated and cheaply used as something to get aggression off with sadistic intent. Grinding a foot over and slamming it over and over Klethera who was screeching in bloodied pain in such defensiveness, trickling of celestially sparks of life, called tears, were protruding from her oceanic blues. Captain and Shiro stood in dismay both trembling but a slow-languid stare, tilted head of the Noble, came to look at the pirate’s response… Blistering red heat emitted his sun-kissed complexion. Why... why was it so scorching hot, so hot, so painfully searing like being thrust in the Sun. Blood pumping and swelling out against the surface breaking every blood-vessel into vascular veins, muscles enlarging and expanding from tensing, bulging, nail’s breaking flesh into its own. Sweaty and unruly deep thick melting red waters flowed in contesting against the cool-shifting room’s temperature. Brow-twisting and twitching, eye’s dilating and spinning around faster than the rotating orbit of the world. This feeling… Uneven attainable unless you possessed someone of your own, those tears held glitter stars of hope, and they were shedding from anguish. Gut-wrenched his diaphragm uncaring to even breathe. Caution drowned away, rightful sanity was murdered. Zieton’s own heed, ‘The half-soul you have is now an empty pot, what you fill, is what you’ll receive, that goes for all seed’s in life.’ Disregarded, nothing mattered, who cared anymore, was transcribed over. He was careful. Never wanting to let a child of his own into his dangerous sailor escapades, the same went for all he valued and loved, wives.., To know him, is to die so it seemed the outcome, or be forced to be strong, he pushed away everything and castaway it for many sake’s…but... Klethera, weaseled herself into his life with unrelenting to track and succeed in finding her deadbeat and chose this on her own, not for him, but her. Shiro was staggering noticing and barely able to fathom what was consuming his rival. Captain drowned and died on this day. He blew through with a Father’s instinct, of sheer resolve, the power that’d DESTROY anything God or none, to rip the head off shoulders for those who’d make their children suffer. The same adrenaline that’d an exhibiting atypical regular parent, under desperation were documented in news the uncanny performance to seething of upset feats which punctured through impossibilities. Pupil’s swallowed away as his eye’s seethed and glowered red. He broke through a Ghost-Step and round kicked the devil off her and then instantaneously a series of two identical clones carrying his fury began erupting with the same rage, the room was being taken over from an uproar of animistic rage that brought even sorrow. A demon found himself becoming intensified and strong from this and was able to dodge the clone’s before grabbing both their legs on respective sides. Limit’s were insignificantly allowing Captain to push another close in quarter, ghost-step, nothing would allow him to get away, his teeth puncturing his own mouth, as he brought an indomitable punch that shattered through Silv’a’s entire sternum and broke through on the opposing side. Silv’a found himself in more agony than he could suffer screaming, ‘get off, get off, get off!’ getting his karma. Senses overloaded Captain was devoid of all reason, logic. Returning to his heritage of a lineage of savages. Harkening primal and primitiveness that conquered his mind. Backhead round kick’s of the clone’s unleashed before squeezing this fiend’s arm’s and tugging on them to yank them off with a ferocity. Trying to escape the clutches but that blasted fist straight through the sternum prevented him, his feet were caught and pinned as Captain’s boots and weight prevented him, that facial rage overflowing with hostility, Captain broke a torrent of headbutts and then wrapped his second palm around a wrangling throat and began tugging up, at the risk of tearing this demon sheerly apart from spine, like a furious lion who watched a cub being abducted. His aether… so volatile was biting at both their fleshes like stings of bees. Shiro reinforced his rival with a skin of diamond ice but had to channel it and maintain it. Captain was temporarily indestructible, unwavering, finding his nails growing and sharpening from the Amdapori’s cell that had a small remnant trace left, settling into puncturing that so called perfectly immortal body Silv’a sold himself too. Silv’a felt every bone of his rattle like tide’s were going to swallow him into an endless vortex. His own survival instinct, unleashed all the might of the medallion’s of fire and lightning he swallowed. Captain scowled and winced before erupting even more angry and explosively mad, “ANYONE WHO MAKES MY BABY GIRL CRY IS T’ DIE! I WILL RIP YOU LIMB FROM LIMB N’ EVERY EXISTING HELL, THERE IS NO REALM YOU’LL ESCAPE ME.” This was not a threat… It was a promise! No.. worse, it was being proven. Fear knew the demon of a Father who held the belly of a beast. So counter-opposite in their parental approaches and handling. Silv’a was fighting for his life and survival as his neck bones were heard snapping from their sockets. The clone’s kept back and forth punching his face into left and right cheek barrages of complete annihilation and barbarically. Flesh and skin was being removed in an unbridled flash flood of gore. The clone’s dissipated and were electrified out. Giving back his arms, Silv’a unrelenting back, squeezing back and punching fist’s of the voidal inferno into the Seeker. Even with reinforced diamond skin it still busted through with hellish need. The Warlock set a palm on Captain’s face to push him back and even gouged a thumb against his eye socket. This viscous black lion, wasn’t halting though, only terrifying ever shivering bone of the demoniacal entity. His soul and spirit were being feasted by a fearful aura. Shiro collapsed from being aethercially drained to maintain and sustain all those hits, “I’m sorry.” Face planting with exhaustion barely conscious. Captain showed no restraint as if he was accepting on dying here, wanting to claim the trophy of this demon’s head before. It was his resolve. Though suddenly in fortunate favor, for the demon, the pressure loosened as Captain slunk back and collapsed instantaneously with a lifelessness thud into the pavement. The Noble actually had a shot of mourning and disbelief. Did he just witness his first unspoken…secret friend… die. The Keeper didn’t have anything in his reservoir to repeat the same feat. He didn’t have the force of a brute with carnage. The opposite effect transpired throughout him though. Realization of something angelical, as if felt, he saw the glimpse of a bright sun-ray exorcise all the traces of evilness in him. He felt sheer remorse and emotion that could icebreak his coldness. Convinced and impulsed, ‘to save’ Solaire. At all, cost. His body denied him, making him crawl like a peasant but his arrogance was beside that fact. For once he wanted more than any other time, he wanted to save and protect a life truly. He never wished to do anything else but be an Aegis. Though always unsuccessful or felt, never achieved it. The terrible Silv’a still looked through his shallow hole that went completely through him. He kept puking up an endless entrails of organs. Starting to regenerate, heaving and having to use the maximum force of his medallions wasn’t designed. Furthermore, that shot also broke a Voidal Relic mirror that Silv’a kept clinging to prevent that type of thing from occurring, this beast even punctured through that, these infuriating insects had nullified his foresight, overextending only for that to fail too. Their troublesome union and teamwork was a fellow nightmare. Silv’a gassed and tried to recuperate with such dreadfulness and still a swelling of life-threatening that crept in his spine, immortality… Was this useless his plan for Project Immortal Age? “NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” How dare this mortal question his own self! Demon’s can't feel doubt… He couldn’t either, he achieved a higher-level above all these scattered disarray insignificant whelps! (Previous) << (Voidal Relics) >> (Next)

#tw:violence #tw:gore #Lord Shiro Elune #Klethera Sunkiller #Silv'a #Pirate #Miqo'te #Immortal Age Saga #Tales of the Goldbrand #FFXIV #Power of a Father #Treasure Hunter #Dark Fantasy #creative writing

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scarlets-maximoff · 3 years

Text

of falling stars and crescent moons

a wandagatha oneshot (also on ao3)

pairing: agatha harkness/wanda maximoff

au - gods and goddesses

word count: 3472

In the beginning, there was nothing.

Nothing, however, was already something and, when the Elder Gods looked upon the blank canvas that one day would become the universe, they saw it was good. Life could be nurtured here, they would say. Their children would gasp excitedly, Papa, papa! Will you make me a star too? Ah, she already was. His little star.

Soon, my child, He would answer softly, bouncing his daughter on his knee.

And then, in the blink of an eye and a whispered command-

Nothing became everything.

An explosion. The Big Bang, some of the Elder Gods liked to call it.

Light flashed in unimaginable directions. Colorful waves of matter spread across space with unrestricted power and every once in a while the Gods would hear their rumble reverberating as thunders in the sky. All that was necessary for life to flourish was already coming together.

Nebulas and constellations now decorated the universe like splashes of paint on a black canvas. Stars colliding and galaxies being formed. Upon seeing part of their hearts and souls coloring their creation, the Gods rejoiced. Their creation was good.

But something was missing.

The universe couldn't be left barren. It was not made for that. What was the point of it all if not for life to be created and appreciated? To be lived? They needed a place where life could bloom and grow in all its glory. From birth till death. Where all creatures could exist.

So, hand in hand with one another, the Gods closed their eyes and imagined their second creation: the Earth. A small blue planet, born from the fire and blossoming under divine light. But darkness still lingered there, hiding just beneath the myriad of clouds and thunder. No living beings could settle in such an inhospitable environment.

He looked down on his child clinging to his legs. His beautiful Wanda. Running his fingers through her hair, he knew a decision had to be made.

"My darling, Papa needs to tell you something." His voice was deep but soothing and it reached the little girl's ears as if it were a breeze. She glanced up at him with curiosity gleaming in her eyes.

"Yes, Papa?"

"You're my light, Wanda. You always have been and always will be. But this world needs you to shine on them. To guide them when darkness looms over their heads." Tears threatened to fall but He stood strong. A little hand grasped his in a surprisingly firm hold.

He pulled her up in his arms with a choked sob.

"You need to be their sun, little one." The girl tried to wiggle out of his embrace such was the excitement she felt. "I'll make you a star. Their star."

A tear fell.

Twinkle, little star.

The Sun was created.

—

Wanda sighed dejectedly.

Being the sun goddess was total, utter boredom. She had to wake up early every day to shine on those hideous living beings down on Earth—just a bunch of microbes, for dad's sake— and when nighttime came, there was no one to talk to! Not even a falling star! Asteroids were rude so she didn't even bother with them. It was lonely.

She knew her dad had been right. She knew how important her mission was and how essential for life to exist it was. In spite of all that… Wanda felt unbearably alone. Don't get her wrong, solitude was becoming to her. Even though she was an actual goddess, she only felt like one when she gazed down upon her kingdom. Her planet. And yet-

There was no one by her side. No one to share the sky with her. The days were bright and beautiful; the nights, dark and rueful. And it's been like that for the past 4 billion years. Wanda's lips trembled at the sudden realization.

4 billion years on her own. What kind of existence is that?

When the first tear fell, others soon followed. The night was silent if not for the sorrowful cries of the Sun. Up there, in the starry sky, the morning star wept. For her loneliness. For her family that wasn't there. For her heart, which thundered inside of her just like the rain that fell down on Earth. That night, Wanda prayed.

Her dad didn't talk to her much anymore. Until that moment, she hadn't tried to reach out either. There were no hard feelings between them—'Tis the right thing to do, my daughter— but after years of isolation, they grew apart. Or maybe, she just drifted away from him. A lost star in the endless void of the universe. How fitting.

Still, she prayed. A desperate plea from a chilling heart.

"Father-" Her fiery red hair fell like a curtain around her face. Shoulders heaving with each sob. "Please. Please, leave me alone no more, for I cannot bear it any longer. You said I would shine and bring light to this world. What world, Father?" Between sobs, Wanda screamed at the sky above. Each tear sizzled as they touched her skin. "How can I shine so brightly if there's no one to see me, dad? N-no one to share my light with?" Wanda, the morning star. Lost star. Dimming star.

Twilight in the sky.

From above, her creator observed the scene regretfully. How much He ached to be with her. To hold his daughter again. In an attempt to right what was wrong—Listen to my prayers, Father!— He waved his hand in a difficult motion, eyes swimming in tears that had yet to fall. As you wish, darling one.

"Let there be the Moon."

—

Bleary-eyed, the Moon rises.

What is she doing up there in the sky? It's quiet but eerily so. No star is close enough for her to speak with, only capable of seeing their light from afar. Glancing down, she notices her hands. They are pretty hands. Long fingers stained purple—why purple?— and pale skin. Agatha can almost see the little blood vessels underneath.

It is then that she notices her surroundings. The night is a lilac sky with drops of light in it, planets a million miles away and stars shining so brightly her eyes sting. Agatha herself is glowing. Or rather, reflecting the glow. There is a woman on the horizon. It's too far for Agatha to see what she looks like, but even from far away, she can see how much she shines. A beacon in the dark. Warmth sweeps through her in gentle waves. It comes from the woman too.

In a bout of courage, the Moon waves at her. She has no idea if it will work, given how bright is the space between them. She tries. There's something magnetic in this woman as if she was the Sun and Agatha, the satellite stuck in its orbit. But isn't that exactly what they are? And suddenly, as if heaven itself had illuminated her mind, she realizes that she is the Moon.

Agatha, Goddess of the night and the dark.

Lost in her thoughts, she doesn't notice the Sun wiping away her tears, nor does she hear the surprised gasp the other woman erupts. Father listened!

"Hello?" Wanda calls out, confusion present in her tone. Dark hair flails wildly as Agatha focuses her gaze on her. She is so beautiful, the redhead thinks as she watches her from afar. Raven black mane of lustrous hair gently falling down on lean shoulders; pale, almost silver skin catching the light coming from Wanda in a soft glow. A reflection. Not quite her mirror but her opposite. This is the Moon in all her glory.

“You there!” She has to shout if she wants the other to hear it. “I’m the Sun. Or Wanda, if you prefer.” The star feels ridiculous shouting at someone who’s so far away, almost unreachable in the night sky. “What is your name?” A hopeful smile lights up her face by the time she finishes.

“I’m Agatha, dear.” The Moon smiles back. “Charmed to make your acquaintance. Now, is there any way we can meet up without all this screaming?” As if to make a point, Agatha puts a hand around her own throat. “Give a break to these vocal cords, ya know?” If she squinted her eyes just a bit, Wanda would see a teasing smile gracing the woman’s lips. However, having heard what she’d said, the Sun laughed merrily.

Thank you, Dad.

They talked the night away. What was once a sorrowful evening quickly became a cheerful night. However, when dawn starts to break, Wanda notices the Moon beginning to fade away. She tries to shine brighter, stronger in her light, desperation clutching her heart at the prospect of being alone again.

“Agatha,” The Sun is set ablaze. “Will I see you again?” The Moon is almost gone now. Giving up her place in the sky for the sunlight to shine. It would be poetic if it weren’t for the pain in her chest. How come the Moon missed her already?

“Darling, you’re the center of the universe.” Her voice is but a gentle whisper in the forenoon. Despite the distance, Wanda can hear it as if it had been whispered right by her ear. “Wherever you go, I follow.” And with sad blue eyes and a wistful smile, the moon Goddess disappears in the aurora.

—

173 days had passed since their first and only conversation. For some reason, on each night they shared, it became harder and harder for them to hear one another. And each time the Sun had to see her friend disappear in the sky, she took a little piece of her heart with her. She knew she was being dramatic. And if Agatha were here she would probably make fun of her too. Now, did she care? No, she didn't.

Wanda yearns for the Moon. Craves her soothing voice and cheeky remarks. Teasing smiles and soft eyes. The Sun felt seen under her gaze. After billions of years with only herself as company, the sun Goddess can't help but feel attached to her. Even though moths still didn't exist and she was the actual flame, Wanda was attracted to the moonlight just the same.

A little voice, however, just hidden in the confines of her mind, tells her that there was a purpose to this. This distance that they always try to close but never do. Yearning for someone she could never hold in her arms. Maybe this is just another way for Father to punish me again, Wanda thinks bitterly. She'd never been so wrong before. This was no punishment.

It was salvation.

Brooding up in the sky, the Sun hadn't noticed when night started to fall. Nor had she noticed when—instead of the Earth blocking her vision of the Moon—the object of her thoughts suddenly appeared right in front of her.

It's during a solar eclipse when they meet for the first time.

"Agatha? Is it really you?" Jumping to her feet from where she sat, Wanda feels her heart skip a beat. Nothing could compare to the Moon up close.

"It is. Come here so I can see you, darling!" A delighted smile curls on dark red lips. The goddess reaches up to softly cradle Wanda's face, a thumb brushing the warm skin of her cheek. "You're really here…"

The redhead leans into the touch. "I am. You have no idea how much I wanted to see you, Agatha. To talk to you eye to eye." The black-haired woman revels in the way green orbs gleam under her light. Their light. "To touch you." Hands to her hips pulls her closer. The Moon buries herself in those arms. It feels like being hugged by the Sun but literally this time. She giggles at her own silliness. A husky voice laughs along.

"Why are you laughing?" Wanda whispers in the crook of her neck. Agatha gives a small intake of breath, and her laughing subsides.

"I just realized the Sun is hugging me. A strange metaphor, don't you think?"

"Perhaps. Do you want me to-"

"No!" Agatha says, startling them both. She speaks quieter, "No. S-sorry, I'm just too silly for my own good. Comes with loneliness, I guess." She gives a bit of a laugh but her gaze finds the ground. A finger under her chin lifts it up.

"Hey," A soft smile spreads across the Sun's face. "It's okay. Maybe we could be silly together?" And as if to emphasize her point, she makes a silly face. Agatha can't help the guffaw that comes out. They laugh together again.

Hand in hand, they walk through the night sky. Talking about everything and nothing, they discover little things about each other, such as Agatha's liking for the sea and her influence on the tides, or Wanda's love for early mornings and summer evenings. Both women feel at home with each other, their past sorrows all but forgotten memories in their minds. Day and night. Light and darkness.

Total eclipse of the Sun.

—

It didn't take long for them to realize that they only had time to meet in person during eclipses. Solar ones, in fact. As such, whenever they got the chance, the two goddesses would always try to get the best out of the few hours they had together. Today is no different.

It was also in each other's company that they discovered the ability to incarnate themselves. In their human forms—Dad needs to create them soon—they would head down to their shared planet and take walks on the small patches of land they could find.

They're laying side by side on the ground. "Dear gods, Wanda, whatever those poor things have done to you? It's just phytoplankton," Between giggles, Agatha tries not to let a full laugh come out as she watches Wanda turn and glare at her, the redhead's own lips twitching as if she too were having a hard time not laughing. "Why do you despise them so?" Agatha is actually curious about that.

"They're just so bland! Father said that He would create mankind when I was little but apparently He forgot." She says grumpily but with a ghost of a smile on her lips. "Photosynthesis is the only thing they do all day. Not to mention under my account too!" Wanda puts on a serious face for a few moments, only for it to fall away as the twinkling laughter of her Moon hits her ears. It occurs to her, like a flash of lightning, how beautiful Agatha looks under the penumbra.

Their human forms came with the inability to display their god-like features, which was why Wanda didn't shine as the actual sun and Agatha didn't reflect her rays.

She is glad for it, really. Mortality looks heavenly on her Moon.

"You're a goofball!"

"Am not!"

"Yes, you are!" Agatha turns fully on her side, arms under her head and tenderness coloring her ocean eyes. Her gaze trails over the woman beside her. Without thinking, her hand finds Wanda's. Their laughter ceases to give space to a companionable silence. There's no need for words right now.

Despite knowing each other for months now—It feels like I've known her for years, they both think—it's at this very moment the goddesses realize how important and vital the other's presence is in their lives. Wanda found a friend in Agatha, something she had longed for as long as she could remember. Solace and understanding the foundation of their budding relationship. Yet, a flame started inside of her chest. It was small at first, barely there. A candle in the dark. Now?

Fire overtook her entire being.

The Sun burns for the Moon's touch and her smile; her azure eyes and sharp tongue, quick wit and soft words-

Wanda, the sun Goddess. The only morning star. The lost star. Once dimming but never giving out. Enters the Moon and she falls. A falling star in the dark night sky. And woe is Wanda, for she hopes Agatha catches her. Never to fade away. Never to let go.

"Wanda?" The hand Agatha holds trembles slightly. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine, I'm just- it's nothing, really." There are tears in her eyes but she wills them not to fall. She is my only friend, I can't lose her for this-

"Honey, don't do this. I know there's something upsetting you. I won't force you to talk to me but know that I'm here, Wanda. I'm not going anywhere." She pulls her hand away to run her fingers through soft auburn hair. The Sun feels fire spread within.

"Promise we can still be friends?" Never in her life had she felt so insecure. But she had to know.

"Darling, how could I not be your friend? You're my sun, superstar. But yes, I promise you." Agatha tried to joke around to see if she could bring a smile to the woman's face. It is to no avail.

Wanda rests a warm hand on her cheek. Caresses the skin just beneath her eyes, brushes her nose. Ghosts over lips. With each touch, Agatha's heart plummeted in her chest. A crescent moon, thundering core.

"I've always wanted to be a star. When the Gods created the universe, I was there. I've seen things you can't even imagine. Whole galaxies colliding with each other, the death of a million stars." She closes her eyes briefly, and her voice cracks as she continues. "And when I became one, I felt completely happy. Excited even. I was to shine upon a whole world, the entire solar system. And yet… I was lonely. I was alone for so long, Agatha. But then- Then you came along. I prayed for someone, anyone to come and put me out of my misery.

My light was going out but you brought it back. You are my light, Agatha. You're the reason I still burn and will continue to burn until the end of time itself, if it means you're by my side." By the time she finishes, tears have long started falling. And by the time they fall, the Moon has already pulled the Sun into her embrace.

Black nails into her scalp. Murmured words of comfort in her ear.

The Sun sets and lays in her chest.

"Remember that thing I said on the day we met?" She waits for Wanda to nod, her mane of red hair tickling Agatha's nose. "Wherever you go, I follow. That's the truth, Wanda. Not only am I incapable of getting away from you, I also don't want to. And do you know why?" Green eyes red with crying look up at her. "Because I can't bear the thought of not being with you. The very prospect of not seeing you shine so brightly in the sky saddens me so much that-" Her voice chokes. "That sometimes I can't breathe. But when morning comes and you're up there in the sky being your sunny self," They both laugh tearfully. "I feel alive. You make me feel alive, Wanda."

It doesn't really matter who leans in first.

Day and night find each other's lips in a searing kiss. Wanda might have witnessed many things in her long life, but never had she seen the collision of a satellite and its star. What a spectacle it was. Lucky her for having the pleasure to participate in it.

They are a mess of limbs curling into one another. Not once separating from their kiss, Wanda manages to straddle Agatha with dexterity, her hands pining those of the woman to the hard surface. Tongue against tongue in an elegant and passionate dance. Total eclipse of the Sun, full Moon its only spectator.

Then, coming from the heavens above, a deep rumble sounded.

"No." A whispered command. Father had come back.

And the falling star and her crescent moon were no more.

—

Wanda opens her eyes with a silent gasp.

Sunlight hits her face lazily as if it had just woken up as well. Agatha sleeps by her side. Looking out, she sees the snowy mountain tops and the woods that surrounded their cabin being grazed by the morning sun.

Her girlfriend murmurs something in her sleep the younger witch can't quite comprehend. Trying to calm her rabbit-heart, Wanda pulls her closer and breathes into her hair. Feels her own breathing slow down. It was just a dream, it was just dream-

"Well, good morning, sunshine." Violet eyes hazy with sleep slowly blink at her. A soft smile on red lips. "What's with the long face?" Agatha taps her nose. The warm breeze coming from outside suddenly feels too hot.

Too much.

"Nothing, I- I just had the strangest dream…"

Up in the sky, the Sun wept.

#wandavision #wandagatha #wanda maximoff #agatha harkness #wandavision au #fics #moon writes

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malfoymuch · 4 years

Text

nyctophile [draco malfoy]

Pairing; Draco x Reader

Genre; Fluff

Word Count; 1240

A/n: I wrote this because I love “lost-words,” and I love the moon. So, I wrote both together, so I hope you enjoy. I was wondering if anyone wanted my last fic, “The Peculiar Girl,” to be a series? Or should I create one? Thank you and I hope you stay safe!!!!

It was therapeutic.

An escape you relished in; complete solitude with no one but the stars above. To welcome your presence, silently. As billions of lights flickered down upon the world, the moon in all its glory, radiating such a fair glow to the world below.

The cool breeze that passed, enough to send a quick shiver down one’s spine if they lingered.

Even in the worst of days, you could look up into the darkness, and felt warmth. Despite the colder weather, the night had just been more relatable.

The sun was appreciated for everything, the world’s orbit, the growth of plants, the smiles it can emit, the laughter that soon follows. But the moon was briefly taken into account, for the imperfections of its craters, and it’s “bleak” color.

Oh, but if they had only looked closer.

For the moon was more beautiful than the sun and with it, contrasted the darkness. Even with its imperfections, it gleams with beauty and all its various phases. Not only that, but it stands alongside its friends, all the stars in the cosmos. Truly, the moon deserved so much more.

Any distress seemed to vanish as you strolled through the garden, knowing very well you could be caught. Honestly, you were shocked that you hadn’t been caught years beforehand, but you knew that someone was watching. Whether it was a professor, a student, or even the Dumbledore himself, but you could feel it.

Now, as a fifth-year, you were shocked when a letter had been gifted to you in regards to being chosen as a prefect. Its responsibilities being listed within the context and procedures taken for certain matters.

Truth be told, you weren’t exactly doing your job as a prefect, most of the time. What could you say, the moon entranced you, it was alluring.

And tonight, it was a full moon.

With its large, blue ring encircling it. The existence of the color around it was a question that had been plaguing your mind for as long as you could remember.

As you finished your quick check-around, you winded up back to the courtyard, where you sat and admired the sky with your undivided attention.

Today hadn’t been completely hectic, in your opinion. Fifth-year was a vital year for all Hogwarts students, and most were completely swamped and engulfed in stress, exams seemed to be all that mattered.

That, and gossip. Which never seemed to end, when it came to the students in Hogwarts. And lately, everything had revolved around by once again, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy.

A Chosen One and a Prevailing Prince.

It seemed to fit, segregating once again, between who was “good” and who was “bad.” It seemed that Slytherin had developed poor character over time, whether it may be from one in the house or its prejudice. In this case, you couldn’t choose a side, unlike most.

You hadn’t really known either of them remarkably well. Only what rumors had suggested and all you could hear from an earful away.

From all that you heard, it seemed both were much similar then people have realized. In a way, they are both misunderstood and falsely conveyed themselves within society, for whatever reasons. To be frank, the only two reasons they must hate each other is because of their house, and the way they both rubbed off each other. Clearly wrong.

Closing your eyes, you slowly inhaled, enjoying the cold, refreshing air. A bit of mist had begun to form, bringing a small smile on your lips.

“I assume you’ve finished your rounds?” A voice interrupted your thoughts, the ends of your mouth only lifting. “You are correct, how pleasant for you to finally join me. I was wondering when you were going to come out.”

You didn’t need to look behind to sense a sudden emotion of embarrassment and horrified.

“B-believe me, I most certainly… was not staring at you.” The voice defended, stumbling over his words. The statement made a soft giggle pass through your lips, as you bent over to delicately trace the veins of a fallen leaf, before turning around to see him.

Draco Malfoy.

“Oh, Mr. Malfoy. How delightful for you to join me, have you finished your rounds for the night?” You inquired, a small smile formed as you saw the pink in his ears.

“I-I’ve done most, I was going to do a few more before I saw you,” Draco replied, coughing. “May I ask, what’re you doing here?”

“I’m always here, if you must know.” You started, fumbling with the leaf in your hand, “I’m simply intrigued with the night.”

“What’s so grand about the night?” The question came out a bit harsher than Draco expected, but nonetheless, curious.

“Many things,” you spoke out in a whisper, tilting your head up. “Take a look for yourself.” And in that moment, he did.

And the words within Draco, left him. All his questions.

As he gazed at the inky canopy of darkness, dabbed with an infinite amount of glistening stars, swirls of slight colors somehow appearing on the midnight canvas.

You took the time to stare at his expression, his sudden absorption in the sky, it was at that moment you felt like you knew him. He seemed just as fascinated with the sky as you did. And for a minute, you wondered how quaint he was, perhaps just as much as you?

Did he also seek freedom?

Isolation.

A moment, where time froze, and all seemed all right.

“You seem to be enjoying this,” you mocked, finally getting the boy to tear his gaze away from the atmosphere and towards you. “What do you think?”

“What do you I think?” He repeated.

“Yes, silly. Of above? What do you think?”

Draco’s eyes twinkled as the course of light had changed, and shifted to a single, yet powerful beam of light towards you. Your figure glowed, and for the first second time that night, he felt hypnotized.

“It… it’s captivating,” he mustered out, taking another look. “It’s compelling somehow as if it’s--”

“--Drawing you near.”

You grinned again, watching Draco’s face light up as he laughed.

“You come out here, every night?” He asked as he slowly approached you. Nodding, you turned your attention fully to him, and a sudden feeling of delightment enveloping you. “Every day, since I could remember. Now that I’m a prefect, it only aids my infatuation… funny enough, you seem to be infatuated just as I.”

Another smile dawned Draco’s face as he gazed into your eyes, soon noticing that those too, hold pools of universes he was eager to explore. It seemed to be almost nostalgic, the sudden meeting between the two of you.

“Perhaps I am, and I have you to thank.” As he extended his hand out, he grinned.

“I don’t think we’ve ever formally introduced ourselves throughout our entire conversation. I’m Draco Malfoy.” A rich laugh came from yours, your hand clasping his in a gentle, delicate handshake.

“Honor to meet you, Malfoy. I’m (Y/N) (L/N).”

“Please, call me Draco.”

“And why should I?”

“Because we’re well-acquainted now, aren’t we? Both charmed with the sky?”

“Very well, a pleasure to meet you Draco. I hope we have more of these moments in the future.”

“Me too, (Y/N).”

Within a single night, both of you had become not only bewitched by the sky… but each other.

#draco imagine #draco malfoy #draco x reader #draco lucious malfoy #draco #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy imagine #draco reader insert #dracoxreader #hogwarts #imagines #malfoymuch #draco x you #draco malfoy scenario #harry potter #harry potter imagine #fluff

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vyvesvi · 3 years

Text

updated top albums list + recommended tracks from each bc im bored lol

*tentatively* in order

unnatural - wjsn | recommended songs: all of them (especially unnatural, supermoon, and yalla) except for rewind | skips: just rewind bc ballad /// im not sure what style to call this album but they really made such a smash, its crazy that it came out so early in the year and no gg is touching it (album wise). literally the only complaints i have are the obligatory ballad (that they always do bc they can all sing lmfao), the album cover/title (dont love the cover design and i dont love when the album name is the tt name, except in certain circumstances (a full album (especially where the title isnt necessarily from the title track) like montero) or when it's a single album (the inverse of this being rsq's prequel which couldve just been called colorfull since that was the only damn song 😐)). i also was disappointed with the outfits for last dance but that's peripheral.

timeabout, - yukika | recommended songs: insomnia & secret | skips: none /// okay to keep it very real im genuinely scared that she'll never surpass soul lady. i love, and i mean LOVE timeabout, but soul lady was on another plane of existence. like she could've held that album a little bit

the other side of the moon - gwsn | recommended songs: like it hot, starry night, i cant breathe | skips: i sing, depending on my mood /// i dont have much commentary tbh,this is just a very solid mini idk. id like to see a fusion of i cant breathe/tweaks/after the bloom/burn, maybe on their next mini. i love their brighter stuff but maybe a darker concept next (halloween cb pls pls pls)

montero - lil nas x | lowkey too soon for me to pick recommended songs but i'll say montero, scoop, lost in the citadel, sun goes down, and am i dreaming for now. will update! | skips: none /// i cant say that this is this year's sawayama bc sawayama was kinda more like a collection of really strong singles? whereas i feel like these songs shine as an album. i dont even know what to say except that im soooo surprised and impressed because i didnt know that this is the type of music he made???? like he raps but theres a lot of singing? not like belting but definitely not rapping. its kinda...alt ish? in some places? if i had to use ine genre to describe the whole album id probably say alt pop? idk but whatever it is it's definitely working

hide & seek - purple kiss | recommended songs: zombie & so why (tbh all of them) | 2am and zzzz depend on my mood but theyre def not full skips /// no bad song on the album this is crazy....i might rerank since i just listened to it for the first time but as of now idk, its good im just super impressed. ponzona wasnt for me but this cb theyre really doing all the things, lovr tht for them

produced by: [myself] - onlyoneof | recommended songs: coy & night flight | question mark depends on my mood /// im still mad at them (read: 8d) sooooo...idk. i can’t really listen to their music rn. but this mini is still good

play game: holiday - weeekly | recommended songs: check it out, weekend, holiday party | i like memories of summer rain and la luna but it depends on my mood /// very cohesive mini, def their best overall imo! not much to say, but i hope jiyoon gets well soon TTTT

enchant - orbit | recommended songs: gokurakuchouka & never gonna get away but also all of them except flor lunar | skips: flor lunar is nice but boring /// i need kpoppies to get into it im tired of being here alone cmon y’all

set - woodz | recommended songs: feel like | skips: none /// i prefer his bright tracks but this mini was solid as usual. where is the full album tho seungyoun hmmm????

guess who - itzy | recommended songs: sorry not sorry, tennis (0:0), kidding me | skips: in the morning, occasionally wild wild west /// i remember being very surprised that i liked this album, especially given that i dont like mitm. not anything groundbreaking but still solid. i think the naming of tennis (0:0) was really clever

intersection: trace - bae173 | recommended songs: green light, loved you | skips: none (sometimes the intro tho) /// honestly their music is really good??? mbk just hasn’t promoted them well, i feel like they make it a little hard to stan...i really appreciate that they’re not doing the stereotypical hard bg concept thing

lilac - iu | recommended songs: coin, flu, ah puh, troll | skips: honestly id have to relisten, some of the songs a lil boring but idr them at the moment

hello future - nct dream | recommended songs: hello future, life is still going on | skips: idr tbh, probably hot sauce though //// was very surprised that i liked this album, but the outro of hello future really got me after a few listens so i had to check it out. very decent!

killa - mirae | recommended songs: killa, sweet dreams, 1 thing | skips: none really but all of the bsides are a little mid tbh /// i will be 1000% honest in saying that the three reasons this allbum made this list are 1.) killa (the tt), 2.) none of the songs are bad, 3.) lien’s vocals. something about lien....he really just sells whatever song he’s on. his belting >>>>>>>>>>>. he makes their music very enjoyable to listen to, next in that department would be junhyuk. based on their most recent cb, siyoung and khael also contribute a lot as well. shame that the rest of the cb album kinda does nothing for me idk. random but i would really like a gg to cover higher and/or killa

& - loona | recommended songs: ur, ptt | skips: a different night, dance on my own /// these r my girls but this is not their best. ur is wonderful though, and ptt is addicting somehow. wow and be honest are fine but really not their best. i like wow’s choreo tho!

albums im excited to listen to (no particular order):

last year was weird volume 3, tkay maidza (i’ve already listened to a bunch of it but i need to sit and just listen to the whole thing)

troubled paradise, slayyter (same as above, but i didn’t even realize it came out this year, i thought it was old for some reason lol)

jo1, challenger (every song of theirs i hear i like pretty much so i need to take an organized look at them lmfao)

jo1, stranger (same as above)

only lovers left, woodz (duhhh its woodz. not out yet but im excited! i do prefer his brighter concepts and this def isn’t that. he says its not gonna be like what he’s done before but the title and concept photo that’s out rn is giving lift up)

the book of us: negentropy - chaos swallowed up in love, day6 (the title kinda bored me but we’ll see. also sungjin’s gone so.....................we’ll see.)

ancient dreams in a modern land, marina (i barely got past venus fly trap because its soooooo good. i’ve listened to a little after that but the songs i heard didn’t really compare. i have to give it a shot tho)

the chaos chapter: fight or escape, txt (i liked the blue hour mini so i need to give them a chance i suppose)

333, tinashe (i just feel like i should idk)

honorable mentions (no particular order):

blue hour, txt - discovered this year, came out last year. retroactively makes the 2020 albums list bc whew the market research that went into that thing paid off

hula hoop/ starseed ~kakusei~, loona (why tf does the album not have a name) - duhhh loona + synths = a smash. in fact like i said when it dropped i dont even wanna call them loona anymore. this is kongetsu no shoujo!!! this isn’t on my top albums list because im counting as two songs and my limit is 3. i might add it anyways lmfao. we’ll see

ugly beauty, jolin tsai - discovered this year, came out in 2018. i just really like jolin tsai idk. i had only heard that album w play and i’m not yours, both are iconic but the production quality sounds...low? like its older but ik they’re not *that* old. either way, ugly beauty does everything i wanted it to - dramatic, vocals, rapping, boa vibes...jolin tsai is a queen what can i say

also, there are of course a ton of singles that i love as well, this is albums only though lmfao. i have no idea if i could even attempt to organize the singles lol

#vyvesvi's year #song rec

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achaoticeternal · 4 years

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BACK TO YOU

PETER PARKER X POC!READER masterlist // taglist

Request: anon - “76 and 80 with Peter Parker and T’challa Sister Reader”

Summary: When you look back on it, life before the Snap was simpler and nearly perfect. You had family, purpose, and a sense of home. Now you have to search for that purpose and home again. Word Count: 1.8k A/N: This is my first work where the reader is explicitly intended to be POC/ BIPOC. I thoroughly enjoyed writing this and I hope that I did the reader proper justice. I researched to make sure I avoided anything sensitive or touchy. If I have missed something or need to further look into something, please correct me and let me know. Warnings: Angst, Death, Loss

You remember life before the Snap all too well. The prosperity of Wakanda, exploring the outside world, meeting people from all walks of life - it was simply astonishing.

You remembered sitting with the tribal council to talk about starting the Outreach Program. Wakanda would continue to disguise itself as a third-world country that refused aid from the Western cultures, while also reaching out to the nations in need throughout Africa. The hopes of welcoming in the rest of the world sat not only of your shoulders but T’Challa’s and Shuri’s as well. That hope had existed in your father too, until the bombing of the UN Meeting.

You remember traveling with your siblings to America to visit the Avenger’s Compound. While Shuri was excited to see what science America and Tony Stark offered, you were just excited to meet people from all walks of life. You had read and watched so much from your research about the States, but now you could finally experience it.

As a guest of Tony Stark, your stay was just as lavish as your life at home. You didn’t know where to start with your exploration and studies that you needed to gather in order to consult with the Council upon your return to Wakanda. Yet, that’s when you met him. Peter Parker - a regular boy from New York City who also happened to be an Avenger. He was your sister’s age and just as creative and inventive as Shuri. The pair of them became friends easily. But Peter was also a kind soul, who wanted to make sure that everyone felt welcomed when they were around him.

It was easy to befriend Peter. He was goofy, always lightened the mood, and constantly put others before himself. You remember the first night that the pair of you accidentally stayed up all night while asking each other questions about all matters of life. As time went on; Peter, Shuri, and yourself became a trio that caused quite a ruckus in the compound.

But you’d never forget one night when you were chatting about the differences between adolecense in America versus Wakanda. Peter told you about high school, Prom, American football, and the awkwardness of the talking phase.

“Are you in the friendzone with somebody?” You asked, wondering if he;d be honest.

“I definitely have been. This one girl, she was super cool, but her dad literally tried to kill me. And now he’s in jail, and she’s across the country... so I guess I’m technically in the friendzone anymore,” He laughed awkwardly.

“Sorry... that sounds weird.”

“It was, but that doesn’t happen like... with everyone. Just superheros, I guess,” the two of you laughed together.

“Even though Wakanda is an advanced nation, we still treasure some of our traditions and custom. Not dowries and arranged marriages, but the idea of courting is widely popular.”

“Well, is someone courting you?”

“Me?” You laughed, not at him, but just the thought, “No, I don’t have anyone that is trying to, nor am I looking for someone right now. It’s not the priority for the women in my country. We always serve Wakanda before any man. Okoye serves to protect and lead the warriors of Wakanda, Nakia serves our country by helping others, Shuri serves by offering new science and knowledge”

“And you?”

“I serve my country by seeking allies outside of borders, by offering harmony, and by seeking no only what Wakanda can offer the world- but what the world can offer Wakanda. Even though I want to open our nation to the world, I will not let those in who seek to exploit it.”

“Wow, I- that’s just amazing. It puts my life into perspective. Your life constantly seems to have a purpose and a reason”

“Yeah,” you smiled, “well, we also make sure to keep life fun, and simple”

“Can I just say something? Even if I sound dumb and goofy...”

“Of course, Peter. I would consider us friends so go ahead,” You responded, shifting yourself around in order to pull your legs up onto the couch.

“Well, you’re just so interesting and fascinating. You’re so knowledgeable about the world around you and also extremely sincere about everything you say or do,” his cheeks tinted a light pink as he spoke.

His words came as a pleasant surprise and a fuzzy warmth settled in your heart, “I- Peter?”

“Yes?”

“There’s one thing I’m not very familiar with, but I’m hoping you can teach me,” you said while leaning towards him.

Instinctively, Peter also leaned into you, “What can I teach you?”

“Will you teach me how to kiss?”

It’s been five years and four months since that night. You hadn’t seen Peter in five years and two months. Because that’s when he arrived and took everything away.

When Steve Rogers and the Black Widow had contacted Wakanda in an emergency, you knew something was wrong. T’Challa and you had seen the spacecraft that had landed in New York along with various pictures from news outlets and social media that showed Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man all protecting the city. Yet, apparently they ended up in the ship on it’s way out of orbit.

You hoped it wasn’t true. So you called Peter. If he picked up, you knew he wasn’t lost in space. You dialed his number and let if ring. There was no answer. Maybe he was changing back into civilian clothing. You dialed again - voicemail. Again - voicemail. Again - voicemail. You dialed and listened to his voicemail continually.

“Hi! This is Peter Parker and I’m super sorry I missed your call. Leave me a voicemail and try again later!”

You kept trying to call him, tears streaming down your face. You called, listened to the ringing followed by his voicemail until your phone died. Peter was gone, lost in the void of space, and for the first time in a long time, you were scared.

But then Thanos’ army arrived in Wakanda. Shuri was working to get the Infinity Stone out of Vision’s head while T’Challa helped Captain Rogers lead what was left of the Avengers and Wakanda’s armies. You assisted by offering air support from the lab Shuri was in - simultaneously protecting the skies and your sister.

When Thor arrived, hope filled your heart. Until an alien attacked the lab, your sister, and Vision. You tried to fight it off and keep it out of the lab, but it hit you upside the head with it’s staff. You only woke up when Shuri grabbed your shoulders and shook you into consciousness.

“Sister, sister - the borders have fallen and now Thanos has arrived. Okoye and T’Challa are fighting in the forested areas. The armies remain battalking on the plains, but all the support we can offer is gone. Vision is gone. I’m afraid, we have lost.”

The pair of you scrambled onto your feet and ran towards the window when the sky and land seemed to flash white. Out on the fields, ash appeared to be rising into the air. But it wasn’t thick and smokey like ash from a fire. You didn’t realize what the ash was until it was drifting in the air above your face.

“Sister,” you turned towards Shuri as her right arm slowly became transparent. But she seemed to be fixating on your arms. Then your eyes met as you realized what was happening.

You stumbled into each other’s arms, tears escaping your eyes, “Shuri?”

“Yes, my sister,” you could feel her hold on you fading.

“I’m scared”

For five long years, you were trapped in the soul stone. Alone, surrounded by a white void. Time didn’t seem to exist. Nothing seemed to exist. You sat there. You could never tell if you were asleep, dreaming, or wide awake. Honestly, you didn’t want to know.

It stayed like this until one day, a visitor appeared. The small blazing orange circle presented itself to you first, but then grew to reveal a hand. Then a body and then a face. The face of Doctor Strange, and their behind him - T’Challa and Shuri.

The Doctor stepped aside and allowed your siblings to step forward. T’Challa’s hand extended out to you, “Come, little sister. It’s time to return home to Earth.”

When you left the soul stone and returned back to the Earth, a war presented itself. The final battle of the Avengers against Thanos’ army. The battle for the universe to return to it’s former self.

When Thanos fell, you also felt the sadness the spread across the battlefield. But you also heard Peter. So you ran to him, as fast as your legs would let your grieving body. You were a few steps away when you realized the scene taking place in front of you.

Tony Stark, the only human to wield the power of all six Infinity Stones, was dying. Rhodey, Pepper, and Peter were all gathered around him. You ran up next to Peter, taking his hand into your own to show him you were there while the grief began to hit him.

“Mr. Stark - hey. Mr. Stark, it’s Peter,” Peter stumbled over to his mentor, his only father-figure left. You squatted slightly behind him as he said his goodbye, “hey, we won, Mr. Stark. We won, you did it, sir, you did it.”

Tony’s eyes flashed over to you and you nodded to show your appreciation and gratitude towards the man. In his eyes, you could tell he was trying to tell you something. ‘Take care of Peter.’

His eyes turned back to Peter as Rhodey approached you both from behind, “I’m sorry, Tony.”

You helped Peter stand and Pepper took her place with her husband, saying goodbye to the man she had loved for so long.

In the end, the Avengers were able to defeat Thanos and his army. But not without a great price to pay. Not only were the original Avengers no longer together, but Iron Man and Black Widow had died in order to save the Earth and the surrounding Universe.

Peter and you mourned the death of Tony with the others at Tony’s funeral. You hadn’t left his side since the battle and you would remain by him not only to offer him unconditional support and love, but to fulfill your promise to Tony. You watched the video Tony left to his close family with Pepper, Morgan, Rhodey, Steve, Happy, and Peter.

Before the processional began, the pair of you stepped into another room so that Peter could dry his tears, “(Y/N)...”

“Yes, Peter. Even though, I thought I had died in space, lost you to Thanos, and now- Tony being gone,” he took in a shaky breath, and you squeezed both his hands tightly, “I am happy about one thing.”

“And what is that, Peter?”

“We found each other. That’s all that matters.”

SPIDER-MAN TAGLIST: @underratedmisfit @inactivewhore

ALL MARVEL TAGLIST:

@underratedmisfit

In order to join a taglist, click the link at the top of this post.

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alias-b · 4 years

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Eros & Psyche: SOMY drabble

Billy Hargrove x Evie Fenny: Whump with a Happy Ending Drabble

~Evie contemplates her past relationship after getting together with Billy. ((No real fic spoilers, it’s no secret that Billy & Evie are soulmates & Endgame. Just some extra words for them to touch.)) TW: Talk of past grooming/Abusive student& teach relationship.

Whew, I wrote something, guys. Lol named is sorta after an existing chp bc I'm shameless. xoxo askbox open. Goodnight! :)))

He’s perfect.

Heaven carved her a prince from all her favorite fairy tales. Dash of charming. Sprinkle of classical good looks. A darling smile. Enough to melt any girl. Evangeline had no chance.

Fredrick always included Evie in his life. Well, the part of it no one else was involved in. That counted. She told herself it did.

Hawkins couldn’t know how much he loved her. She was sure that truly ached him.

She was pretty sure.

Fredrick included Evie in what was under his mask. She told herself that was what mattered most of all. His true self and it was bared. All hers and hers alone.

She told herself.

Evie was telling herself lots of things these days. Fredrick called her a classic over-thinker. She didn’t need to think, she had him. He’d guide her along. Being wise and experienced of course. All she needed to do was let go and trust him.

But, he was perfect.

Fredrick took her to parties with other thirty year olds. Always held her hand. Said the right thing. Brought her under one arm. Introduced her as if he was thrilled and proud she was with him. Showed her off like a new designer watch. Fredrick liked to buy Evie designer things too in lace.

Things that made for a better pose in cotton sheets. Pictures she claimed she was too shy to let him take.

He’d press a tight smile. Telling her it was enough to have her trapped in his thoughts.

The, he’d unzip his pants. The sound prickled under her skin.

“This is Evangeline,” he boasted at parties, “my girl.”

Men and women extended their hands. Fussed over her. She just looked so youthful. She must have secrets.

“For now,” Fredrick said in the car once, “just tell anyone who asks that you’re nineteen.” He smiled and caressed her cheek. Fredrick always said the right thing. “You’re too beautiful. I love you so much.”

Slowly, he unzipped his pants.

All Evie wanted to do was please him. See that smile. See the lights behind it because he was hers and she was a moth drawn to them. Fredrick liked most that she was his too. He came to her upon a deathly white horse with a silken, red cape upon his back. Bought her lace and flowers.

Fed her only a certain amount and took plates away before she was finished.

“There’s this silk nightie I want to buy you, but it’s just a smidge too small. Couple pounds should do it. Not that I think you need to lose it.” He cared so much. Evie welled and drank her cool water down. Swallowed the ice cubes when he went to the kitchen.

They drank quite a bit. He liked her swaying and loose. Not alert. Not overthinking too much. Cause he cared. More than anything.

Evie always said no to coke lines. Yes to shots. Yes to the occasional pill that lit shit up inside her. Let her see the night sky in living color.

Fredrick kept close. He always did. Especially if other men approached her. His arm pulled her back into his orbit. One sharp snap. Another prickle that made her skin pulse.

Europa trapped circling Jupiter and its great red storms. Clinging desperately maybe cause she’s scared and she doesn’t know it. She doesn’t have anywhere to go and no planet will love her or hold her like her Jupiter.

Fredrick could storm too. Could get snappy. Grip her too hard. Leave marks she had to hide from her mother and classmates. It’s all passion. That’s what he said. He loved fierce and unyielding. Just like a prince would, they’re supposed to love hard.

Evie’s terrified to disappoint him. Terrified to leave the narrative because who would she be without it? She figured that was normal, growing up with the same dynamic in her household. Children wetting the bed cause their parents build these anxieties into them. Phantoms that never leave.

“Letting everyone down would be my greatest unhappiness.” She often repeated that to the mirror. Repeated it when Fredrick was slamming things around. Pretending he’s fine until she’s crawling to unzip his pants and then all is forgiven.

Evie loved being forgiven. Gentle pats and warm embraces into the night. Fingers to swipe her loose tears. Fredrick gave her everything she needed.

Even if he was the one telling her she needed it.

Prince Charming knew to force his kisses and wake the princess. Now she owed a debt. He knew she needed saving from her tower or dragon. She was too helpless to decide her own path. He knew that she had to love him in return to break the curse. She doesn’t get a choice, it’s destiny.

Evie believed in destiny when she met Fredrick. He certainly murmured it into her ear enough. Hushed tones that made her feel cradled. Made her feel found. Made her float.

But, she can’t tell people, “This is Fredrick, my prince.”

Once he screamed at her for even signing a little heart above the “i” in her name during class. All because he cares. Because he’s the prince who knew better. Because no one would ever understand them.

Maybe that was why she loathed Billy upon meeting him that windy autumn day.

Billy Hargrove was the exact opposite. He never pretended to know better. Not as far as Evie’s soul was concerned. Evie didn’t grovel. Didn’t beg his forgiveness for the slightest misstep or incorrect thought. They nipped at each other, but it was an equal exchange.

Billy’s not a prince. He didn’t try to be either.

He didn’t shake her hand when they met. Not until Neil made him. He doesn’t always hold doors. Doesn’t constantly have to have Evie under his arm. Under his eye.

Especially doesn’t start slamming things when she laughs at Tommy’s stupid jokes or shares her drinks with Steve. He didn’t tell her she couldn’t hang out with Heather or Carol without him. Didn’t steer her from her mother or friends. He also didn’t pry for secrets out of mistrust.

He doesn’t care what she does as long as she isn’t getting herself into deep shit. Without him. His words. He’s not perfect and he doesn’t try to be.

Billy drove like shit. He smoked too much. He got into fights. He could be a total sourpuss grump, but he doesn’t grab Evie to leave bruises over it.

He fucked hard though, he always made sure Evie got off. Never unzips unprompted. Girls hit on him and he says that he’s seeing someone. Easy enough. Sometimes gesturing to Evie if she’s in the room. No need to bother her with pointless shit.

They were always aware of each other even if they didn’t interact. Something magical there neither could place.

Billy knew things Fredrick didn’t care to remember about Evie as well. How she’s a talented roller skater. What she liked on her cheeseburger. Her favorite movie snacks. Her order when they grab Chinese. The articles of clothing that always comforted her on bad days. How to gauge her mood by the song she’d hum or the book in her hand.

How she tapped the rhythm of songs she wrote into flesh and hard surfaces. How she wanted to turn the radio up when her favorite song was on, but politely doesn’t always. Billy does it for her.

He doesn’t comment when she eats and doesn’t care what she wears out or to bed.

He’s often trying to piece together the bits of songs he hears her humming and creating. She’ll share them with him one day, he won’t make her.

Billy’s not a prince. He’s probably beaten up a few in his day. But, he remembers. He pays attention. He lets Evie exist as her own soul and take up her own needed space.

They’re two equal stars twinkling pleasantly in the same shared constellation.

There’s plenty he didn’t tell her. About himself. About his life. Things he wanted to share, but he couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe one day. She needed to trust him enough in that light. And she did.

Before getting together, Evie thought of Billy too often when she was with Fredrick. Especially when she was under him. Counting the seconds before he finished with her. She hadn’t been warmed up enough and her prince was hurting her with his passion.

She wondered about asking him to stop. If he would. If he’d ignore her and chase his end. If he’d bruise her wrists again. A lot could be said about Billy, but he’d stop.

He wouldn’t ignore this beautiful star he’s so well attuned to. Billy wouldn’t hurt Evie and call it passion. He’d own his shit.

But, they tell her Billy isn’t the prince and the princess always was supposed to end up with her prince. Billy was a lone, glittering god with his own marble pedestal. Unobtainable. Eyes that watch the mortals below.

Maybe he’ll grace them with his presence and a fresh set of shiny arrows. Messy, little Eros with a laundry list of issues and vices he’ll never outrun. Evie didn’t mind to carry a few vices if he’d watch hers too. She was just a mortal girl with dreams higher than stars could go. Piled with dead weight as Fredrick collapsed into her. Smothering her.

And Evie’s first thought was always the shine of Billy’s eyes blaring into her after Fredrick dropped her at the end of Cherry Land so she could walk home. Defeated and wanting for more. They broke her heart.

Fredrick pushed down. Crushed her until Evie was gasping herself awake in her own bed. Eons later after she left him. After he shattered her already.

“Squirming more than usual.” A voice in the pillows next to her muttered. Billy groaned, turning over like he was annoyed.

Evie knew he wasn’t. She didn’t feel her heart give an unpleasant clench like she’d upset him. One arm slung over her stomach as Billy stretched back out on his front, facing her. A barely there glow from the moon trickled between the curtains showing his lashes fluttering.

“Just a dream.” Evie reached out and traced a line into his shoulder. Let her finger trail up to tap his nose. Made him scrunch and look sorta adorable.

“Well, it’s over.” Billy closed his eyes. Nestled into her heat. “Try rolling for another.”

“I like this better.” She caught his lip twitching up. Billy remained silent for a while there. Almost lulling back to sleep. He shifted up. Revived Evie with a simple, cathartic kiss. Mapping more across her cheek as lazy as can be.

They still felt carefully packaged. Billy had a way with careless affection that was still so striking and beautiful. Flaming arrows through her heart.

They don’t hurt. So few things hurt with Billy. Evie liked to think she returned that.

His arm tightened.

“I’ll roll this time.”

And Evie could let him without sacrificing her own agency. Her own narrative.

Fingers reached up to draw select gold curls aside. She decided princes were small and overrated. Billy had wings and he had light and he had a swelter of carefully exposed nerves that he trusted Evie to pluck. A heart he let her guard. He wouldn’t ask but she’d give that back.

Love cannot exist without soul. Without trust.

Evie pushed up to meet his oncoming kiss. Brought him back down to touch the soft earth with her. Where they felt safe together.

She realized it then as Billy shifted up to see her there. Fredrick never made her feel safe, he just used her to save himself. Sunk his teeth in to suck her dry of vitality so he could have it.

She didn’t ask Billy if he trusted her. Didn’t tell him in this moment that she trusted him. That was destiny. Not the draining of your soul until you’re forced to give it over.

Sometimes it was just knowing the obvious placement of stars. Glittery dust might sprinkle delicately over them.

“Let’s roll later,” Evie nudged her head into his, “always time for dreaming. But, I think I want to be wide awake right now. Hope that’s not too disappointing.” Hands shifted around his shoulders. A fuller smile crossed and Billy matched it. Blue eyes glinting almost iridescent. He hummed in thought. Seemed to agree.

“Evangeline,” he sounded out with some lazy amusement, “you couldn’t disappoint me if you tried, you know that?” Billy settled himself against her. Continued to map his euphoric paths. Stroking her cheek and hair. Sparking. Hushing. “Hope you know that much, Angel.”

“I know, Billy,” she sighed out to the forgiving cloak of night, “I do.”

#whump #Billy x Angel #billy hargrove #Billy hargrove x oc #writing #mine #Angel Fenny

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thliahls · 3 years

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it is very obvious i don’t know how family trees work but ! richard and dominique are her parents, although thalia doesn’t know anything about her mother including her name or what she looks like. thalia spent most of her upbringing under the care of tony and gong lau who ran, what could most readily be compared to a foster home for children of spies. many kids came and went, short-term stays of a month to a year most common, but thalia, along with archie and arella, came when they were around seven or eight and were the only three that stayed there pretty much full-time even after they turned eighteen ( until her dad found out about her boyfriend and blamed them for her expulsion, believing they had been complacent with her ). maggie’s their biological child who’s in their thirties now but would often frequent the house so the kids became just as close with them too. prose about her d*d under the cut, stream kyoto (copycat killer version) for clear skin ! @gallaghertasks

there's a gravitational pull that leaves thalia hall orbiting around her father. similar to how it is impossible for the sun and the earth to cut ties with each other, it is equally as impossible to not regard everything through the eyes of richard hall. over the years he has become equal part man and myth, fragmented the way memories do over time. she is unsure as to whether that is his real name, the same way she is unsure about everything else that composes his being. while it is likely that he has a family, and as an extension, that she has one too, he has cut the cord between himself and them. no one arrives in this world untethered, but if anyone could, it would be him. he has always been alone. it makes her very existence a mystery.

the first time she learned about her father was through him. it is one of her first memories, before she lived with her guardians, when it was just him and her. the accuracy tilts between reality and fiction, further skewed by her father's insistence that it never happened at all. she does think it seems absurd, something pulled from a high art film that plays on a loop in contemporary art museums. perhaps she is making it all up. in this memory she is on her father's lap, in the bathroom, steadied on the closed seat of the toilet bowl. she is staring them down in the mirrored cabinet above the sink, and her father is trimming the ends of her hair with nail clippers, with meticulous precision. silence in their house always carries tension, she knows this now - she can label it, tension. when she was younger, it just had just felt like an invisible, nameless weight. when she breaches the silence it is with an existential question with a juvenile motive: "what will happen when you die?” look dad, only six years old and already thinking about these things. she wants so desperately to know what he values, is it her intelligence or servility? is it the way she hangs on to his hand when he sprints through traffic, how she doesn’t tug him back to the safety of the sidewalk, or is it the threat she poses when every once in a blue moon she successfully reads him? "you'll die long before i do sweetheart." that hadn't been what she meant. it hadn't been a threat or a thinly-veiled prophesy. it had been a six year old girl trying to act smarter than she was. that's all. the corner of the clippers nicks the fleshy part of her neck, and she's too much in shock to notice that she's bleeding. the next day she recites the question in the mirror, in different tongues and tones - she makes it sound like a threat to convince herself the way she'd said it yesterday wasn't one. they all blur together in the end.

the second time she gained insight to who her father was, was in the company of her guardians and siblings. "my dad's a deadbeat too." she'd die for this kid as easily as she'd kill him. the snivelling blonde haired boy who wipes his snot with the raggedy hem of his worn out t-shirt. she instinctively pins him down, his arms right angles as she secures his wrists into the dirt. his squirms are nothing more than flinches. "my dad's not a deadbeat." the blood drain's from his already pale face before he lets out a shrill pre-pubescent scream, and she presses a palm against his open mouth. her guardians hardly ever interfere, letting them go at it because it builds character. often at dinner, they'll discuss their day, sparing no details. that night, both her and archie are silent, prodding at mash potatoes, leaving their parents curious about their battle wounds: his shiner and her scratch that runs down the length of her neck, already scabbing. then, begrudgingly, because this silence feels like that invisible weight called tension, she says: "he called my dad a deadbeat. he's not." thalia's makeshift mom, guardian, closest person she's ever come to loving says easily in reply, "he's the farthest thing from it. men like him are invincible. they have nothing to lose." at first, the cruelty of it stings, whiplashed, a palm firm against the burner. but gong gives her an identity outside of her father: nothing. she is nothing, and for one, spectacular moment, it is liberating.

"he's a woman hater, he hates woman." is what her first and only boyfriend comes to understand about her father. her boyfriend, unaware of the spy world and thus the hate that breeds from it, thinks of billionaire magnates who don't respect women and men put dated, sexist jokes about wanting a girl to make them a sandwich in their bios. while she is well versed in feminist theory and the structures that are perpetuated to keep sexism in place, when he prattles on about how centrism is bad actually and that post-feminism isn't much better, with his overwhelming cynical attitude that she loves, she interrupts to say that wasn't what she had meant. what was the type of hate she's talking about? it's hard to explain: opaque and as dense as cement, it's virile, fertile too - it feeds on anything and everything, reproducing. it's got it's claws in love, it would gut her and kill him. "that's not what i meant." she doesn't have an answer prepared. "what did you mean?" he looks at her, willing to learn. she could tell him the earth is flat and he'd believe it, that's love. "he hates me but he'd never kill me. but he'd kill you to hurt me." there's a flash of panic in his eyes, before she smiles, a soft dimpled smile that makes him forget what fear is. they laugh it away, all this talk of hate, and it melts under warm breath. it is rendered less dense, it becomes extricable from everything else like they can pull it away as easily as a pesky piece of lint. like hate's a nuisance that's easy to rid, nothing more than a hassle. of course, when her father inevitably does find out, she never sees him again.

she talks to her mother in her dreams. thalia doesn't know what she looks like. sometimes she's working at a diner, in a putrid baby blue get up with a voice as sweet as treacle. sometimes she's a spy, wearing sunglasses too big for her face and a red lip that's smearing at the edges. she's never with her father in these dreams, but he's always there. she knows this because her mother is unable to maintain eye contact with her own daughter without looking over her shoulder. glass panes are a warning signal, she knows him inside and out. she knows him as a blurred reflection, a photograph, a body. she knows him this intimately so it's always her and never thalia. thalia has never met her mother, but she is a guardian angel all the same. the dreams end the same way, always. her mother repeats it like a mantra: "he is not the myth, i am." and thalia responds, "he is a man." they go back and forth like this, over and over until their words overlap, until it turns to a ritual, a chant that summons nothing but their disappearance. her mother falls back into the underbelly of her conscience, awaiting the next time thalia's dreams pull her to the surface again, and thalia wakes up. when she dreams of her mother she is often foggy for the rest of the day, and sometimes she believes that this grants her a temporary barrier from her father, that in the midst of lethargy and a lack of clarity, her thoughts are her own. she relishes in the privacy - and bares her teeth, a delighted wolf, in the face of this gift.

dreams never linger, she doesn't heed her mother's words. either of them. she doesn't becoming nothing and she mythologizes her own father to anyone who will listen. he is a piece of theory, jeremy bentham, panopticism. he is rules; how she uses her phone and what classes she takes. he's in her recollections of her summer break, he is six p.m on the dot. she's going to love him so much it kills him, the way he hates her so much it keeps her alive.

#gallagher:task #Nooo don't have daddy issues your so sexy Aha xx

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isuzukuretsuki · 4 years

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me before playing blue lions: haha I’m not like ~other girls~ I don’t like Dimitri and I think he’s boring and basic.

me after playing blue lions: I will die for Dimitri.

I finally finished Azure Moon!! Can’t believe it took me 4 damn months to finish this route. Just like with Crimson Flower, I decided to do a very long write up of my thoughts of this route after letting my thoughts marinate for a bit. There will be spoilers for both Azure Moon and Crimson Flower. Also disclaimer: these are just my personal opinions.

Tldr: this route was so fucking good!!!! I jumped ship from being team Edie/BE to team Dimitri/BL faster than Sylvain jumps girlfriends because I enjoyed this route more than Crimson Flower in almost every way possible. The Blue Lions are my KIDS and I will die for each and every one of them. Blue Lions may not be my first route/house, but this is where my heart rightfully lies.

I guess the first thing I should get out of the way are the negatives. While this isn’t really a complaint about AM specifically and more so the narrative over the entire game... the conflict between Edelgard and Dimitri seems really stupid and contrived. In other games, war happens because the villain is evil. In this game, war happens because the villain is fucking stupid. Basically, I still ain’t convinced that Edelgard’s war was ever necessary LMAO. She straight up nuked the church’s authority and relevancy out of orbit the chapter before the time skip, so she technically already accomplished her goal; why she still feels the need to go on a savage conquest alludes me.

Speaking of nuking the church’s relevancy out of orbit, that’s exactly what happened to Rhea LOL. Despite all the church goons clamoring every .5 seconds about how they gotta save Rhea, we literally never see her again at all after the time skip, even at the end of the game. It makes no sense why Edelgard would keep Rhea imprisoned and not kill her, especially when Rhea seemingly served no greater purpose to Edelgard and became completely irrelevant in the war phase.

Edie says some mumbo jumbo of “I weighed the victims of this war against the victims of the world and I deem that there will be less victims of war” like bitch, how??? How do you tangibly quantify “victims of this world”. If she means “people who had a shitty life because of shitty society”, then those people are always going to exist because every society has its flaws. Even if you change society, you aren’t decreasing that number because you’re only solving problems by creating new ones (Edelgard’s specialty). Also the mental gymnastics you have to do to be tortured by an evil organization only to team up with said evil organization to take down another organization that, unless I missed something, isn’t even directly responsible for the death of all your siblings??? In both CF and AM, Edelgard comes off as incredibly thoughtless and illogical in her actions and I can’t help but feel that if she had been just a little bit more diplomatic, then maybe, just maybe, she could have found a better solution without starting a bloody war.

This brings me to the god forsaken chat between Edelgard and Dimitri. Dimitri demanding to know why Edelgard started the war only for her to go “it was the only way” has about the same narrative weight as “Riku why did you become one with the darkness?!” “Because I’m the worst”. Instead of bitching about whose ~ideals~ are better, how about y’all sit down and actually discuss what each person wants to accomplish and maybe figure out a way to accomplish these goals without murdering each other over it? Not that I think Edelgard would accept anything BUT murder, but jesus, this is why you don’t leave diplomatic matters to actual children.

Speaking of why you don’t leave diplomatic matters to children, god that Gronder battle. I get that it’s supposed to be an epic showdown between the three houses that mirrored the mock battle pre time skip but... the Kingdom had literally NO reason to fight the Alliance!!! The reasons they provided to justify why the Kingdom and Alliance couldn’t team up at Gronder was so fucking dumb, especially when two chapters down the line, Claude is knocking at our door begging for help. I will say tho, I never knew how much I appreciated himbo in distress Claude until now lmao.

Rodrigue's death was also really poorly done imo. As much as I liked having Dimitri’s father figure be the one to snap him out of his insanity, (I love found father/son relationships...) how on earth are you guys so fucking incompetent that you let this tiny little girl kill Rodrigue??? It doesn’t help that the exact same thing happened with Jeralt and Monica. This... just ain’t it, chief.

I think the biggest bone I have to pick at AM specifically is... so what the fuck is the truth behind the Tragedy of Duscur LMAO??? They literally blue balled me by dropping the bomb of “Dimitri’s step mom may have conspired in it” ONLY TO NOT DO ANYTHING WITH IT. I assume that the full truth behind the Duscur tragedy will probably be revealed in VW (I hope) because it involves the slithers but it’s highkey ridiculous that the BL goons... never actually find out what really happened, and why. And I get that the story is about them moving on from their trauma and the past, but they should have at least figured out the actual truth behind it so they can get the closure they deserve???

Despite the gripes I have with some of the writing, unless VW or SS is mind blowingly amazing, this route will easily stand as the best route for me, because.... it is kind of is mind blowingly amazing. I wholeheartedly love character driven stories, and this route absolutely delivers in that respect-- the character writing is amazing and is essentially the heart of this story. To think Dimitri and the Blue Lions were the lord/house I was least interested in at first. Even after hearing people talk about what the BL goons and Dimitri’s character arc was roughly about, I was still blown away by just how damn fucking good it was, and this route exceeded my expectations in every way possible.

When playing CF, I struggled to connect with a lot of the beagles; I didn’t have that problem at all with the BL goons and the route does a phenomenal job at making me actually give a shit about these characters and their problems. Childhood friend squad (+Marianne and Ashe) are easily my favourite characters in this game by a landslide, and the dynamic between not only the childhood friend squad, but all the BL goons, was just so, so amazing. Watching these characters that are seemingly joined by a single tragedy, rise above all their suffering as they grow, heal, and overcome hardship together is just so... MY KIDS... MY HEART..... I really got the sense of not only their shared pain, but also shared intimacy, care, and friendship. Their support conversations with each other had everything; from goofy and fun, to soothing and nurturing, to painful and harrowing.

The connections that the BL goons have to the pre time skip missions gave part 1 story so much more meaning, and it only gets better after the time skip. I really appreciate that the BL bean boys actually feel relevant to the main story, and that their input and opinions actually mattered. The cast’s struggle to come to a consensus on the best course of action during the war phase made them feel like actual people with opinions, unlike in CF, where everyone was just a mindless passenger to Edie’s not so merry joyride. This also made Dimitri’s arc way more impactful because the narrative actually holds him accountable for the consequences that his behavior/poor decisions had on others. What I also really liked about the war phase is that you could just feel how war torn the kingdom was and how much everything went to shit after the time skip. I felt really strongly to the characters’ sense of hopelessness at fighting a losing battle as they struggled to keep their home land in tact while everything just kept spiraling out of control and deteriorating further.

So to see the BL goon beans slowly, one battle at a time, turn the tide of the war and push back against the corner they were backed in, was SO fulfilling and rewarding. The battle of Fhirdiad is probably my favourite battle in the entire game because it felt like all the suffering and toiling that the BL goons went through was finally worth it, and just watching the kingdom slowly heal after being liberated was just such a good feeling. This kind of payoff is something I think CF sorely lacked, since tbh, I struggled to celebrate Edie’s victories with her. Though I do appreciate how Edie’s a much more threatening antagonistic force than either Dimitri or Rhea were in CF too bad Edelgard’s boss battle was pathetically easy and Dimitri shredded through her armor like swiss cheese... at least Rhea put up a slightly challenging fight.

I could gush about the characters all day, but Dimitri? He makes this game, 100%. This truly felt like his story and he was the star of this route. On a superficial level, I’m a basic bitch as well as a slut for angsty boys who have trouble talking about their trauma because I want them to rail me. I fucking loved his feral personality it was just so fun to watch and interact with LMAO 10/10 would let him use me until the flesh falls from my bones. His dialogue in this state is just so demeaning, belittling and raw that it somehow comes a full circle and becomes charming I promise I’m not a sick masochist.

I’m also a degenerate and dimileth is my otp. The way the relationship between Dimitri and Byleth develops over the game truly felt like a bond forged over time. The way Dimitri admits that he couldn’t trust Byleth at first because he was put off by the way they could “kill without batting an eye”, to being so elated when he sees them smile for the first time that he’s completely mesmerized when they starts expressing emotion... oof, talk about otp material. I think what really sold me is the way he’s their anchor after Jeralt’s death; their emotional support both in a traditional sense, but also in a darker sense when he declares he will kill anyone so they desire it because their enemies are his enemies. Character A declaring they’d die for character B? Soft shit. Character A declaring they’d kill for character B? A+ romance right there, boys.

On a non superficial level, Dimitri’s character arc of his fall from grace and subsequent redemption was absolutely phenomenal. Just seeing how far he sinks, how far he goes, only to see how far he climbs his way back up after hitting rock bottom, was such a roller coaster and I loved every minute of it. I also probably like revenge stories more than I care to admit. Dimitri has everything; blood lust, cruelty, obsession, but also empathy and compassion so extreme that it’s his very own innate kindness that drives him into insanity, which is what makes him such a compelling character in my eyes. The extremity of his psychosis was absolutely heart breaking, but despite everything, him making the conscious decision to change for the better and rise up to fulfill his role as king was just astounding to watch.

I will say though... maybe I have a screwed up moral compass but tbh Dimitri brutally killing imperial soldires didn’t really upset me because... this is war??? That he didn’t even start?? Everyone is killing everyone??? Even if he never went feral, he’d still be killing because his bloody kingdom is being invaded?????? But I digress.

While I think just how damn avoidable everything was kind of detracts from the tragedy of his relationship with Edelgard, I still really loved how steadfast and unconditional his love for her was (after he stops going feral), and you can tell just how much she meant to him every time he spoke of her. I also love how the dagger kind of becomes a symbolic motif throughout the story, and Edie throwing the dagger at him in the final cutscene as a sign of her wholehearted rejection of him was just fucking depressing, but also very fitting of her character.

I adore the whole overarching narrative and themes surrounding grief and death, befitting of a war game. How, as tempting as it is to constantly keep the memory of the dead alive, there comes a point where you have to move on and not let your life be ruled by those no longer around. The way that the characters react to the death of loved ones and grieve so differently was a huge highlight of the BL squad’s characterizations, which just makes them feel more alive and human. Honestly, no words can really describe just how incredible of an experience Azure Moon was.

Anyway my order from favourite to least favourite BL goon bean boys are: Dimitri > Ashe >/= Sylvain >/= Felix > Ingrid > Mercedes > Annette > Dedue. (I love Ashe/Sylvain/Felix almost equally LOL)

tldr my experience with Azure Moon:

tfw my second best girl is childhood friends with all the best boys in the entIRE GAME and she settles for a guy with a dead wife, daughter, and most likely triple her age :|.

I’ll be finally playing Golden Deer next, which I’m gonna do on NG+ Maddening so.... hope that goes well!!

#fire emblem three houses #ellie plays fe3h terribly

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swtorpadawan · 4 years

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Breaking Even

“Kriffing Nar Shaddaa.”

Captain Errul Marsh grumbled under his breath as his light freighter, the Devil’s Horn, finally broke orbit from the infamous Smuggler’s Moon. The Zabrak merchant captain – which, sure, made him a smuggler if you wanted to be crude about it – pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long sigh. It was getting harder and harder to make even a (moderately) honest living in his line of work, especially where it concerned the Hutts.

But that was the galaxy for you. With war brewing between the Republic and the Empire everyone was quickly picking sides and carving out their territory. The true independents were getting squeezed out or just dying off.

Errul might have done business with the Republic. He might even have appreciated the Republic when they weren’t trying to arrest him over one of their silly ‘law’ things.

But Errul Marsh was, above all, a true independent. He owned his own freighter outright and incredibly he was debt free, even if he was just keeping his head just above water. He’d die with his ship before he gave any of that up.

It was an existence that had its price. He hadn’t seen or even heard from a family member in decades. Friends (the kind who hadn’t tried to stab him in the back, anyway) had been few and far between. Crew and companions aboard his ship had proved fleeting, signing on with him and staying for a time but each eventually leaving when they finally found something better for themselves. Lovers, likewise, came and went. Usually amicably and with no hard feelings, but sometimes only when they realized that the ace smuggler would never be tied down to anything, not even by love.

He didn’t begrudge any of them – family, friends, lovers, all – anything. Everyone in the galaxy was chasing after something and they were welcome to chase it. Many of his old associates – the ones he’d stayed in touch with, anyway – had done well for themselves. Two of his erstwhile proteges were now captaining their own cargo ships. Others were running cantinas or small shipping companies. One had ultimately made a name for herself as a Mandalorian bounty hunter, of all things. Indeed, there were worse legacies a man could leave behind.

Still, as the Zabrak had inevitably advanced deeper into middle age, he recognized that his had become mostly a solitary existence. And he was comfortable with that, but still, every now and then…

Ah, well. Life was too short for regrets.

Regardless, loner or not, he still had to make a living. Paying off those Cartel ‘customs agents’ at the spaceport had cut deeply into his profits on this trip. In fact, after his projected expenses for docking at Carrick Station, what with refueling and the Republic’s precious ‘docking fees’ for non-Republic personnel, he’d barely break even after delivering his cargo of adrenals.

Errul exhaled again. He wasn’t that old for a Zabrak, but he was for an independent smuggler. This life would be the death of him.

Force help him, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

The ship wouldn’t be ready to jump to hyperspace for about half an hour, and it wouldn’t reach Carrick for a couple of days yet. Still, there was no reason to prolong anything that needed doing.

Errul rose from his seat, feeling his back ache in protest. He’d been in hundreds (thousands?) of firefights throughout his life, and he could still beat any young up-and-comers on the draw if it came down to it. But the price being paid by his aging body didn’t make it any easier.

Silently telling his back to stow it, the old smuggler made his way to the cargo hold. The room was stocked with pallets full of stim-packs and combat adrenals, and his ‘arrangement’ with the Republic meant that this shipment was bound for their military. With fighting breaking out in so many theaters, the ‘Pubs couldn’t be too choosy these days about from whom they received their supplies.

Errul surveyed the stacks. It was all in order. The Cartel agents had threatened to delay his departure as they ‘processed’ the outgoing cargo and verified the contents. Errul knew that game, and knew how to haggle them down on the inevitable bribe he offered them. The delay would have cost him with the Republic, and he certainly couldn’t let those agents spend too much time in his cargo hold, anyway.

“Barely breaking even.” The Zabrak sighed again as he stomped his foot three times on the floor panel to the right between the pallets.

“You can come out now.” Errul called out to the empty room. “It’s safe.”

It took several seconds, but finally, tentatively, the floor panel slid open, revealing the secret smuggling compartment he had installed years before.

Huddled within, looking up at him with a frightened expression, was a young Twi’lek woman.

She’s still rattled. He reminded himself. He’d have to play this carefully. Very slowly, making no sudden movements, he reached down, offering her his hand.

“It’s safe.” He repeated softly. “Nar Shaddaa is already behind us.”

The woman – the girl he should say – slowly reached up and took his hand. He helped her out of the hold, and she looked around anxiously.

Errul regarded her with care. Looking at her now in the normal lighting of his ship’s cargo hold, she was clearly even younger than he’d originally thought, having met her in the darkened chambers of Donje the Hutt’s extravagant sanctum. She was still wearing the yellow jumpsuit he had given her earlier – it was at least two sizes too large for her, but it had been all he had lying around that she could wear. It was certainly more appropriate than the skimpy ‘slave girl’ outfit she was still wearing beneath it that left nothing to the imagination. (There was no way he was going to have her running around his ship dressed like that, thank you very much.) Her face and lekku were adorned with elaborate markings which Errul judged to be natural Twi’lek birthmarks and not artificial tattoos. She was quite beautiful, with a painfully feminine figure and lovely blue eyes almost matching the shade of her skin. But then, physical attractiveness tended to be a much sought-after trait of Twi’leks working for Hutts.

Certainly, with the female Twi’leks. Errul reflected somberly. Rescuing her from that disgusting Hutt on Nar Shaddaa, ferreting her to the spaceport undetected and smuggling her off-world had pressed even his considerable talents. He didn’t doubt for one moment that both of their lives would get very complicated if the Hutt ever found out what he’d done.

“Donje cannot reach me?” she swallowed, finally looking up at Errul, hopefully. Her hands had slid from Errul’s hand to his arm.

The Zabrak shook his head for emphasis.

“No, that giant slug can’t reach you here. In a while, we’ll be in hyperspace. After that, you’ll be out of Hutt space entirely, and you’ll be as free as a bird.”

The girl blinked up at him with her blue eyes, still gripping his arm for comfort.

“I…. thank you, master.”

Errul shook his head vigorously again. He had to put the kibosh on that idea right away.

“I’m not your master, kid.” He insisted. “Call me ‘Captain’. Or Errul, if you like. You don’t have a master anymore.” Errul tried to give her a comforting look. “That’s what being ‘free’ means.”

The smuggler let that sit with her for a moment. He figured she’d probably been born into slavery… or maybe she’d been taken so young that she didn’t remember anything else. The Twi’lek looked down at the floor, and for a moment, Errul was worried he’d lost her entirely. But after a long moment, she looked back up at him with a hopeful look in her eyes.

“Free.” She whispered, like it was all a dream to her.

Errul grinned. “Free.” He repeated, for emphasis. The Zabrak tilted his head. “What’s your name, kid?”

The Twi’lek swallowed, nervously. Probably she’d been forbidden to use her real name in public. Forced renaming was a common enough practice among Hutt pleasure slaves.

“Rhi’kih.”

Errul then gave her his most charming smile. It was a look that had melted the hearts of hundreds of women over the years. (And, Errul reflected, a handful of men, as well.)

“Are you hungry, Rhi’kih?”

“I…” the Twi’lek looked up at him, uncertain, as she regarded his expression. Finally, her features softened and she swallowed again.

“Yes, I am.”

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

The galley wasn’t much to look at. To be honest, with the Devil’s Horn having only one permanent resident who wasn’t a droid – that being Errul himself – it didn’t really need to be anything special.

Yet another benefit of bachelorhood. Errul reflected. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he disliked over-decoration, preferring the utilitarian to any ostentatious aesthetic.

Nevertheless, he had always tried to keep it fairly well-stocked and in good order for when he did have company, and with the help of his Seetoo droid, it was kept clean as well. At this moment, there were exactly two frozen bantha steaks left, and Errul decided now was as good a time as any to break them out of the freezer and grill them up.

The girl - Rhi’kih, he had to remember – had sat down at the small table only at Errul’s prodding. She was still very skittish, taking everything in with trepidation. He couldn’t blame her, given where she’d been living.

Finally finished preparing the food, he served the steaks up on a pair of plates, along with glasses of blue milk for each of them.

“Here. Eat up.” Errul smiled, taking his own seat after distributing utensils.

The Zabrak took up his knife and fork and then tasted the succulent meat, closing his eyes in pleasure. Out of all the skills he’d picked up over the years, learning how to cook – properly, and not like the bachelor he was – easily ranked in the top three in having improved his personal quality of life, going along with how to pilot a ship and how to talk your way out of a tight spot.

(Shooting a blaster? Oh, don’t be silly. He was born knowing how to do that.)

Opening his eyes again, he noticed that Rhi’kih was merely poking the steak with her fork, clearly troubled over something.

“Something wrong?” he asked, concerned. “Its not undercooked for you, is it?”

“Uhm. No.” She looked down embarrassed. “My… my master never let me use knives. No one taught me.”

Errul cringed inwardly. There were a hundred plus one evils resulting from slavery. One of the most underrated was the lack of basic life skills many oppressed people suffered from even after finding their freedom. It could keep them on the fringes of society forever, and perhaps, more likely to end up in the desperate circumstances that had seen them become slaves in the first place. Neither the Republic government nor anyone else seemed equipped to help them acclimate.

“Here.” Errul got up and came around the table. Very gently, he took her by the wrist and helped her grasp the knife. She let him, having apparently grown comfortable with him by now.

“Hold it like this. Good. Now the fork like that – yes. Good. Now cut…. Perfect.”

It took about a minute. But Errul was finally satisfied the Twi’lek had learned how to cut her own food adequately.

“It’ll get more natural with time. Trust me.” He reassured her, observing her progress as he took his seat back.

Rhi’khi finally tasted her steak. Her eyes lit up, and he couldn’t help but think of it as a sign of life.

“Good?” he asked with a grin.

“I…. yes!” she gasped.

Errul was rewarded with a lovely smile from the Twi’lek. It was the first time he’d seen her smile genuinely since meeting her. He’d seen the conditions under which slaves were kept on Nar Shaddaa, and what sustenance they were given. Occasionally, pleasure slaves like Rhi’khi would be fed rich food or wine from the plates and goblets of their masters, almost as if they were pets. The rest of the time they tended to be served an unappetizing gruel back in their pens. Neither option was particularly healthy in Errul’s estimation.

A reasonable nutritional diet – including bantha steaks – was another thing she’d have to adjust to.

As it turned out, Rhi’khi was famished. Her table manners needed some work, but she ate her bantha steak and drank her blue milk with gusto. Errul took it as a positive sign; she’d have to learn to pace herself, but that could come later.

Errul was almost done with his steak when he glanced up, realizing that the girl was eyeing him tentatively as if chewing something over.

He put aside his utensils.

“What is it now?” he asked.

The Twi’lek swallowed, then reached out, laying her hand on his.

“I owe you everything for freeing me… Captain.” Rhi’khi smiled up at him, coyly. It was the same smile she’d worn while dancing for Donje’s visitors back on Nar Shaddaa. Noting her brief pause, Errul suspected that she had had to stop herself from calling him ‘master’ again. “I am… very grateful.” Her fingers gently entangled themselves with his, her thumb brushing against his palm.

Errul felt a sudden but familiar warmth in his belly and down to his loins. This beautiful young woman – with her lovely figure, pretty blue eyes and coy smile – was offering him comfort. Even at Errul’s age, the urges still came, and he certainly couldn’t deny the Twi’lek’s sex appeal.

It was the Zabrak’s turn to swallow, as he looked up into Rhi’khi’s eyes.

Errul Marsh prided himself on his ability to read people. During negotiations. During games at the Pazzak table. During a tense stand-off with guns drawn. And the fact that he was still alive after all this time was a sign that he was good at it. It had always been a talent, but he’d refined it over the years with invaluable experience.

So it was that he noticed things. In particular, the slight tension around the girl’s otherwise enticing eyes.

No.

This was not a young woman who was genuinely smitten or enchanted by him. (Galaxy knows Errul knew what that looked like, even if it had been awhile.) No. This was a girl who was, even now, still worried that he would sell her off to the next gangster he ran into or that he’d otherwise abandon her to some unknown fate the moment she became inconvenient.

In her mind, this was about taking control of the situation in the only way she knew how. Rhi’khi was desperately trying to offer him something to ensure he would protect and look after her, this was only coin she could possibly offer him. It bothered him that she’d been conditioned to think that her sex appeal was all she could ever offer to the galaxy. Errul added that to the growing list of consequences of her enslavement. The fear of going back to Nar Shaddaa or the fear of the unknown would lead her to continue living the life she had been living, even after she had just risked everything to escape that very life.

After all, it was all she knew.

That wasn’t what bothered him the most, though.

No, what bothered him the most was knowing – knowing – that not so many years ago, Errul would have taken her up on the offer in a heartbeat. By now, his lips would have been on hers, she’d have been propped up on the table and soon the clothes would have gone flying. (And few of Errul’s lovers had ever complained about his skills in the bedchamber.) Oh, he’d have shown her a great time; he’d have taken her on a trade run or two to some exotic planets and shown her sights few beings could even imagine. Beautiful beaches, majestic mountains, cities that were clean and comfortable in stark contrast to the filth and grit she’d seen on Nar Shaddaa.

He’d have let it last a week. Or maybe – maybe – as long as a month. (He’d only gone as long as a month with a woman a couple of times. It was better that way.) Certainly no longer than that. Then he’d have found something for the young Twi’lek, letting her down gently and making sure she had something to get her started on the rest of her life.

After all, he’d have thought to himself, what she was offering him had been offered freely and was therefore his to take.

That was one of the lies people told themselves. But with age had come wisdom, and Errul liked to think he had given up lying to himself a long time ago.

“How old are you, kid?”

The words came from his lips abruptly. Rhi’khi looked confused for a moment, then worried, as if she thought she had done something wrong, and might be punished for it. She withdrew her hand.

“I…. nineteen, I think.” She said with uncertainty.

Nineteen. Shavit. He was more than twenty years her senior. Force. He’d lived too blasted long.

“Hold on a second, okay?” he offered.

Errul rose from his seat and walked to the far corner of the galley, right next to the washer. He opened the small cabinet above, being careful to block Rhi’khi’s vision of what he was doing. (He didn’t have any reason to distrust the Twi’lek, but he hadn’t survived this long by being careless.) He removed the panel at the back of the cabinet, revealing a hidden biometric safe box. The Zabrak pressed his hand to bio-scanner, then entered a code into the keypad. The safe popped open.

There were a number of trinkets located within, some appearing to be mundane while others would have caught the eye of any professional treasure hunter. Errul ignored the rest and took the one object he had sought. Then he closed the safe, putting the fake panel back in place.

Errul turned back to Rhi’khi, setting the item down on the table. It was a small metallic cube, with ornate engravings etched on all six sides.

“Don’t worry. It won’t hurt you. Promise.” He gave her a soft smile. “Go ahead and touch it.”

Rhi’khi tentatively reached out and lightly brushed the foreign object with her fingertips.

After about a second, the cube suddenly lit up with the engravings emanating a blue light. A small holoprojection then materialized above it, revealing a Cathar woman wearing long robes.

“I am Master Juhani of the Jedi Order.” The projection spoke in an accent that was provincial, but the voice was clear and nevertheless confident. “And these are my teachings.”

Rhi’khi cried out in alarm, withdrawing her hand from the cube. All on its own, the object went flying off the table and through the air, ricocheting off the ship’s bulkhead before coming to a rest on the floor. The Twi’lek, plainly rattled, pulled her knees up to her chest, staring down at it in fear.

Errul just chuckled nonchalantly.

“Sorry about that. I had to be sure, and this saved me a lot of time.” The smuggler reached down and picked up the cube, setting it back on the table. It was undamaged from Rhi’khi’s inadvertent outburst, which he took a relief in. Errul knew it was nearly three hundred years old. “Like I said, this won’t harm you.” He regarded her with a satisfied expression, having been proven right. “I figured as much about you, when I saw you talk that Gamorrean out of ‘enjoying’ the company of your Nautolan friend back at Donje’s club.”

“What… what was that?” Rhi’khi asked nervously, still staring at the cube.

“This? This is a Jedi Holocron.” Errul tapped it, nonchalantly. “I’ve been hanging onto it for a while, mostly for occasions like this.”

The Twi’lek swallowed, starting to regain her composure.

“I don’t understand.”

“Hmmm.” Errul regarded her, debating how to continue. “Have you ever heard of the Jedi?”

“I… yes.” Rhi’khi stammered. “My master… Donje, I mean… sometimes ranted about them. He called them ‘meddlesome Republic fools’. And he said that they fought the Sith.” She paused. “I think he was a little frightened of them.”

The Zabrak just nodded.

“Not without cause. Jedi and Hutts don’t really see eye to eye on much.” Errul sat down across from her, stretching his arms. “Jedi are… well, peace-keepers, you might say. When things are going alright for the Republic, they’re like diplomats. They go around resolving conflicts and helping to uphold the law. They’re pretty… noble, I guess. They’ve helped a lot of people when no one else could. Not as many as you’d hope, but a lot.” He chewed that over. “Of course, these days, they’ve been at war with the Sith Empire, even when they’ve had that sham of a peace treaty. So it’s been tough going these last few decades. They’ve got a lot of rules they have to follow, and they can be very pretentious. These days, they have to defend the citizens of the galaxy, uphold their own lofty principles and beat the Sith all at the same time. No one is going to succeed at that. But to their credit, they keep trying.”

“Having said that…” he continued. “I can honestly say that they do the best they can in a crazy galaxy.” Errul paused at a bygone memory, his voice taking a more conciliatory tone, then looked the Twi’lek directly in the eye.

“You’re Force-sensitive, kid.”

Rhi’khi just blinked.

“The… Force?” she asked in confusion.

“Yeah.” The old smuggler settled into his seat. “It’s like this… invisible energy field created by all living things. It binds the galaxy together, or so the Jedi say. And some special people – like the Jedi and the Sith – can manipulate it; it gives them power.”

“You have that power. You’ve been able to talk people out of doing things before, haven’t you? Maybe not Donje or other Hutts, but others, right?”

Rhi’khi nodded nervously.

“Right. Basically, Rhi’khi, it means you have the chance to become a Jedi.” He paused and looked up at the ceiling. “Or a Sith.” He added dourly. “If you like, I can introduce you to someone on Carrick Station, and, if you decide it’s what you want, they’ll test you to confirm what I just told you. The Jedi usually recruit kids young, but they’re less discerning these days. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but I’m confident they’ll take you in and teach you how to become a Jedi.”

Errul paused here for effect.

“But I won’t do that if that’s not what you want.”

The Twi’lek stared down at the table.

“I don’t know what I want.” She whispered quietly.

The Zabrak nodded. No surprise, there. Rhi’khi had probably never been given the chance to think about what she wanted.

“Well, I think you’re in shock, kiddo. A lot of stuff is happening to you very quickly. I wish things were different, but here we are.” He gave her what he hoped was a comforting look. “Not everybody can quite get over the things life throws at them. And you’ve had way more thrown at you in the last few hours than a lot of people will experience in a lifetime.”

“But… if you can let go of it – what with growing up a slave, everything that’s happened to you, everything that was done to you – then maybe, just maybe, this is for you. And maybe, maybe, maybe someday you can help some other little girl from having to grow the way you did.”

The Zabrak considered what he had said. She deserved the truth. All of it.

“No promises, though.” He added firmly. “Even at their best, before the Empire came back, the Jedi couldn’t stop the Hutts from trading in slaves entirely. The best they could claim to accomplish was keeping the slugs in check. And like I’ve said, the Jedi aren’t at their strongest right now. It’s a dangerous life, what with the Empire hanging around.”

Rhi’khi seemed to chew that over for a long moment. Despite his reputation for being a fast-talker, Errul was actually quite comfortable with long silences, and gave her all the time she needed.

“What if I can’t do that?” she finally whispered.

He understood. Rhi’khi might seem meek and innocent at the moment, but Errul couldn’t imagine anyone going through her life without building up a sense of indignation, and scars on her soul that ran deep. If she were aware of that, then she was wiser than she let on.

“If the anger and resentment are too much, well, odds are you’ll become a slave again. Except not a slave to another Hutt, but a slave to your own anger. And to your past. I’ve seen it happen with others who’ve been through the kinds of things you have, even the ones who weren’t Force sensitive. They just… can’t be free of it. They can’t be free of what they’ve gone through. Even with otherwise good people, it eats away at them, over time, and it never ends well.”

The Zabrak looked away, not wanting the Twi’lek to see the look on his face just now. He was speaking from experience, but that experience wasn’t something he was ready to share.

“And then a lot of them wind up doing to others what was done to them.” Errul continued, speaking from experience. “They all have justifications, of course. Little lies they tell themselves. ‘Oh, the galaxy owes me this’ or ‘these people deserve what I’m doing to them because their ancestors killed my ancestors’. It’s all a load of druk.”

“People hurt other people because they can’t let go.”

Trusting himself now, Errul took a breath and turned back at Rhi’khi, giving her a hard look in the eye. She was still watching him closely.

“The ones who do that who are Force-sensitive? We call those Sith.”

The girl shivered again, wrapping her arms around herself.

His expression softened at the sight. He’d given her the ice bucket of water to the face. The least he could do was offer her a towel.

“But… if neither of those choices appeal to you, the guy who runs the cantina on Carrick Station owes me a favor. He’s a tough boss, and the pay isn’t that much, but he treats his waitresses right. He doesn’t put up with any flyboys like me messing with them, y’know? I could set you up. You could work for him for a while, just serving drinks and finding your feet, until you found something better.”

“As for this ‘Force’ business… well, maybe it will let you just live your life.“

“I promise I’m not going to make you choose anything. I’m just telling you what I can do to help you, since you look like you need it.”

Rhi’khi was looking up at him again. She probably didn’t completely understand everything he had said, but she seemed comforted by his words nonetheless. Maybe she liked having a third option, or maybe she just liked listening to his voice. That didn’t really matter right now.

“Well. I’ve just dropped a barrel of Hutt manure on you, kid. I’m sorry to do it like this, but I find it’s for the best in the long run.”

Errul polished off the last of his blue milk, then cleared the table. He put everything away in the washer, set the machine to run, then turned to her again.

“I don’t pretend to know what’s best for you. But I’ll give you as much time as I can to think all this over.”

He moved to stand, only for Rhi’khi to reach for his hand again.

“Captain, wait.” She suddenly interrupted.

Errul noted she didn’t need to stop and start again to remember to call him ‘Captain’ and not ‘Master’. He smiled at her progress and stopped, sitting back down.

“How… how do you know all of this?” she asked. “If you are just a ship captain, how do you know about the Force, and me, and… why do you have this?” she looked at the holocron again.

The Zabrak slowly grinned. She was a sharp one. Most people struggled to use their intelligence in tight spots; when you’re threatened and focused on simple survival, it was hard to think things through. He’d seen enough of that in the refugee camps growing up. But if you offer folks just a little security and comfort, a little breathing room, sometimes they could surprise you with what they could come up. Rhi’khi may have been under-educated and naïve, but he was suddenly confidant that whatever path she took, she’d figure things out, in time.

“Well, let’s just say that once upon a time, a Jedi helped me out of a jam.” He answered wistfully. “They took the time to tell me about a couple of things. As for why I have the holocron… well, it just sort of fell into my lap during a little misadventure on Dantooine this one time, years ago. It’s no good to me personally; I’m not Force-sensitive. But it’ll make a useful bargaining chip if I’m ever in a tight spot… or for confirming cases like yours.”

The Twi’lek took that in and released his hand, thinking.

A chime sounded throughout the ship, and Errul cocked his head.

“I’ve gotta get that. We’re ready to jump into hyperspace.”

With that, Errul stood up. Rhi’khi turned and stared down at the holocron, lost in thought. The Zabrak made for the door and then stopped, turning just enough to speak to her over his shoulder.

“Just remember: Whatever you choose, that’s your choice, and yours alone. That’s the hardest lesson of freedom. What’s happened to you up until now was someone else’s doing. What you do after this is yours.”

As Errul stepped out of the galley and prepared to head back to the cockpit, he hung back for a second out of view around the corner, watching the young Twi’lek mull over her future. He certainly didn’t envy her the choice before her, but he needed to make sure she was okay to be alone right now.

Slowly, tentatively, Rhi’kih reached for the holocron. As she touched it, the little holo-image – the ‘Gatekeeper’ – once again materialized.

“I am Master Juhani of the Jedi Order.” The Jedi started again. “And these are my teachings…”

Errul observed as Rhi’khi watched the projection, a look of fascination coming across her features. As she listened to the words of the long-dead Jedi, she seemed to Errul to become more relaxed, a small smile coming to her lips. A natural, organic smile – not the coy put-on she’d shown him earlier.

The Zabrak turned away. He didn’t pretend to know his own destiny any more than he knew Rhi’khi’s, but maybe both of them were about to take the next step on their respective paths.

Errul sighed again as he sat down in the chair of his cockpit, finally pulling the lever and triggering the jump into hyperspace. The stars outside the cockpit canopy shifted as the Horn made it’s jump, as the galaxy seemed to bend around the trusty old freighter. It was a welcome sight. No matter how many times he saw it, it always relaxed him.

This had already been too much philosophy for him in one day. He decided to blame it all on that Reactor Core he’d had at the cantina before he left Nar Shaddaa. That Rodian bartender was a good listener, but he always put too much spice liquor in his concoctions, and no doubt that was making Errul sentimental. It made him reflect back on what he’d thought to himself earlier.

If it wasn’t ‘this life’ that would be the death of him someday, then it would be sentimentality. He didn’t doubt it for one minute.

He thought back to Rhi’kih listening to that holocron in the galley.

“Yeah, barely breaking even.” He whispered with a smile. He shook his head. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Kriffing Nar Shaddaa.” He grumbled.

END

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

Author’s Notes: I’ve never written about Errul before, but he’s my oldest ‘active’ O.C., as I developed him way back when I was on Free-to-Play. I eventually abandoned his game play, as in my mind, I don’t see him as an ‘Outlander’ type figure. But I keep him around. I saw some talk on Tumblr complaining about the player’s tendency to make our O.C.s on the young side. Errul, in my head-canon anyway, is a smuggler on the wrong side of forty.

People do change. They learn and they grow and they don’t stop doing that the moment they turn into an ‘adult’. (Which is totally a made-up word anyway.) True, the changes aren’t always for the better, but they do come. How you feel about things twenty years from now may be very different than how you feel about things now. That doesn’t make your opinions any less valid; it just means that they don’t define who you are.

Juhani is here just because I like Easter Eggs.

The character of Rhi’khi is inspired by a Twi’lek slave in Nar Shaddaa who was planning to escape with a smuggler in a bit of ambient dialogue within the actual game.

I remember reading an article about people who defected from North Korea, and the immense challenges they faced adapting to the modern world. Even given assistance by South Korea and other countries, most of them have no practical job skills and an education that was incomplete to say the least. It was very sobering.

Oh – and spoilers – Rhi’khi ‘grows up’ to be the Barsen'thor of the Jedi Order in this iteration. The first lesson there is you never know what the person you help might go on to do. The second lesson is don’t worry if you feel you’re getting a late start on pursuing your life goals. Honestly, it is not a race. It never was.

Good luck, and may the Force be with you.

#swtor #swtor fanfiction #oc: errul marsh #oc: rhi'khi #zabrak #twi'lek #smuggler #jedi counselor #juhani #kotor callback

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zmediaoutlet · 4 years

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in support of Black Lives Matter, @mystifiedgal donated $30, and requested Tony Stark/Stephen Strange pre-slash. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post. (no longer taking prompts)

It’s a real busy month. The superfriends break out of supermax, with the help of a blond beefboy who flings frisbees at the security cameras and doesn’t care who sees his face; the UN goes ballistic and demands Tony help; Tony gets extremely, extremely drunk like he hasn’t in years and sends Ross a manip video of Tucker Maxx getting rawed by a donkey dressed as a colonel instead of responding; the superfriends crash back into America, and Natasha--traitor--lets them back in to the Avengers compound upstate; Tony, still drunk, decides to let them stay instead of incinerating the damn thing from space; Wanda gets kidnapped by a wizard; Tony and Steve have to go save her. Tony and Steve. No, Tony’s not bitter.

“I’m struggling to come up with a reason why I shouldn’t have my house nuke your house from orbit,” Tony says. Steve gives him a bitchy look. Yeah, what else is new. He lifts his chin, looks at the wizard through his green glasses. Everything’s better in green. “Anything? Mister Wizard?”

Said wizard gives him an unimpressed look. Tony doesn’t know why. His facial hair is even more ridiculous than Tony’s, and Tony cultivates this shit. “Strange.”

“Yes, you are,” Tony says, and Steve sighs and cuts his hand through the air before Tony can continue.

“Doctor,” he says, polite. Tony rolls his eyes. Wanda, in stasis halfway up to the skylight in this weird-ass mansion, pulsates in angry red, trapped in amber. “You have to understand that things were--different. The Avengers have no desire to go to war with the--Sanctum.”

“The Sanctum has no desire to go to war with the Avengers,” the wizard says--and, jesus, what is his name? Blue eyes, good hair, cape that seems to float in magic wind. Fancy Bastard isn’t something that should go on a birth certificate. “However, you are harboring a magic user who could cause extreme damage to the innocent people of this plane if left unchecked.”

Steve frowns. “Now, look--” he says, and the wizard’s eyebrow cocks and he waves a hand, and in the circle of amber that appears midair (how?) there’s a perfect 4k, 3D view of the deaths of innocents in Lagos, of the devastation of Johannesburg after the Hulk was enraged there, of a man with red light crawling up his neck and the terror filling his eyes before his neck snaps.

Above, Wanda’s silent fury goes quiet as the red dims. Steve looks constipated, which Tony can admit inside his own head actually means he looks grim and upset and heroic. The wizard looks between the two of them. “This is a problem. It would be wisest to transfer her to an alternate plane, or at least to have her abilities removed.”

“They’re part of her,” Steve says, immediately. Tony looks up. Hard to see, from down here, but he can see that Wanda’s eyes are closed, inside her amber prison, and her face--he looks away. “You can’t remove them without killing her.”

“Well,” the wizard says, and doesn’t look even remotely regretful--who is this guy?--and Steve’s shoulders square up in that muscular way that presages a truly stupid fucking fight that’s about to ensue, and Tony opens his mouth without a single iota of a plan and says, “Wait a minute,” and the wizard and Steve and Wanda all look at him, and oh, for fuck’s sake. That means--

Doctor Stephen Strange. Brilliant surgeon. Incredible asshole. Drama queen, and the worst kind of all because he pretends not to be. No one has that beard without wanting to cause drama. Tony would know. Unfortunately--Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, and Stephen Strange, super wizard, and Stephen Strange, taking over a wing of the compound, coming and going as he pleases in a whisk of amber light, and Stephen Strange, Tony’s lab companion for the foreseeable future.

He misses Bruce.

The compound isn’t comfy. The various wings are divided into factions. Steve and the superfriends, hiding out from the UN and all of the other dozens of countries that want to prosecute them, are on the east side where the sparring rooms are. Tony’s set up on the west side where the labs are, and he didn’t think to put a bedroom in the lab because he thought this place would be all kumbaya, superhero summer camp, and figured maybe they’d actually want to talk to each other when they were all here. More fool him. He sleeps on the couch in the lab most days, when he sleeps at all, and it means he’s got a great view every time there’s a swirling mind-bending circle of amber light and all of a sudden there’s a fucking wizard in his house, ready to work with Wanda on how not to accidentally kill thousands of people.

This morning, for example. Morning? Tony drags a hand over his face, smears drool and engine grease. “Good morning, Mr. Stark,” Strange says, and Tony mouths it back at him schoolyard style--what he assumes normal kids did in schoolyards--and Tony lets Friday speak the room into brightness, telling him the time and the weather and whether the world’s blown up, while he’s catnapped.

“How’s the scarlet terror?” Tony says, knuckling his eyes. Christ, this sucks. 69 degrees and he can’t even make a joke about it.

A pause. “Progressing,” Strange says. He’s still wearing that stupidass cosplay outfit. Cape and all.

Tony squints at him, slumped back on the couch. “You know, if you were a real wizard, you’d magic me up some coffee.”

Strange looks at him. He always looks stern. Like Tony’s failing some test. It’s tiring from the rest of the supercrew; it’s not better from some rando in a RenFaire uniform. Strange gestures, with his left hand, and unfurls the fist of his right at the lab table, which--abruptly becomes a coffee table, in that there’s a pot of steaming coffee and toast and what Tony thinks is--fucking lox?

“From that deli on 44th,” Strange says, matter-of-fact. “You know, when I’m not a sorcerer I’m a doctor. In my medical opinion, you could look less like shit.”

Tony staggers upright, fetches up against the table. His head gongs like a--like a fuckin’ gong. It’s too early for metaphor. He pours a cup of coffee and ignores that his hands are trembling. “In my layman opinion you can suck my dick,” he says, friendly, and Strange rolls his eyes but he--he smiles, too, and he--doesn’t look like nearly so much of a dickhead when he smiles. Cape or no. Tony holds the cup (finest porcelain, like Tony has drunk coffee at Buckingham Palace in less-nice china than this) and squints, brain still offline, and Strange shakes his head and says, “Good luck, Tony,” and whisks away to deal with their little magical terror, and leaves Tony to think of what the hell. Just--what the hell.

Turns out there’s a big difference between kinds of magic. And here was Tony, just thinking that physics were physics. “No, no,” Strange says, impatiently. “There is of course the physics of our plane, which follow their own laws. Then, naturally, there is the magic of Asgard, brought forth from Yggdrasil the world-tree and the belief therein, which is the sort that Loki and Odin may perform. Then there is the magic of the Infinity Stones, which perform their own miracles, and of course there is our problem with Miss Maximoff.”

He’s drawing a chart in the air with his hands as he talks, marked out in amber light. Tony says, “Friday, take that down,” and the house grabs the image of whatever magic Strange is doing and transmutes it into data, neatly transcribed in cells and manipulable forms for Tony to grab and hold and think about, and Tony grips Strange’s leatherette-and-cape shoulder and says, “Buddy, I could kiss you,” and Strange rolls his eyes but his cape swirls up and pats Tony on the hand in a brush of woolly affection, and Tony doesn’t really think about that because he’s locked into the possibilities and sees a lot of sleepless nights ahead, but that’s okay. He’s got time to think about it, later.

Strange won’t give up much info about the rest of his little magic crew. Numbers, attitudes, location. “I am the representative on Earth,” is all he’ll say, and--jeez-us, what a statement.

“I am the representative of the Avengers in Oneida County,” Tony says, in exactly the same tone, and then pauses, flicking armor designs from one ephemeral bin to another. “Shit. Am I? Maybe it’s Steve. Okay. I am the deposed representative of the Avengers in--”

“You’re the one I’m talking to,” Strange says. He’s still sitting in the antique armchair he magicked up for himself, sipping tea. Seriously. Like every single thing he does is for the hashtag-aesthetic. “Mr. Rogers is certainly impressive, but it’s you who has had every actionable idea on streamlining Ms. Maximoff’s abilities. Don’t undercut yourself.”

Tony raises his eyebrows, lowers his hands. “How dare you,” he says, lightly, even if his chest feels--some kind of way. “I have never, in my life, in my entire existence, undercut myself, and in fact I think I’m going to set the StarkTech legal team on you--Friday, call up Pepper, see if we can sue the entirety of the Sanctum Sanctorum and also magic itself, and throw David Bowie in there too--”

Yes, Mister Stark, Friday says from nowhere, lightly amused just like she should be--good girl--and Strange rolls his eyes. “Don’t bring Bowie into this,” he says, mild, and Tony grins and Friday cues up Fame without even needing to be asked.

“Oh, very good choice,” Strange says, looking up at the ceiling, and Tony waves the armor out of existence and says, “Okay, Mister Wizard--dinner, and we’re talking Bowie and we’re talking King Crimson and we’re talking Yes, and you’re putting in an opinion about those star-and-moon pants Page used to wear, let’s go--” and Strange says, “First, they’re incredible; second, only if we’re getting Thai,” and Tony--Tony could just--

A bad night. Tony lays on the couch in the lab and hugs a bottle of very good, very rare, very expensive scotch against his ribs, and doesn’t drink it, and wants to. Above he’s had Friday peel away the armor of the ceiling and the sky’s a patchwork quilt of stars. Enough sound baffling and he can’t hear whatever might be going on in the rest of the compound; if Steve and the others are training; if anyone’s even here, but him. It’s peaceful. It sucks.

A swirl of amber. “You look ridiculous.”

“Yeah, well.” Tony shrugs. “Sometimes you get sued by grieving parents for your technology being used in exactly the way you intended and you think, fuck, they sure have a point. And then you want a ham sandwich and no one will get you one. It’s tough.”

He thinks he maybe sounded more bitter than he needed to. He maybe should’ve tried harder. He watches a satellite track across the sky, feels his body. Even now, when he breathes deep, there’s still a twinge where the reactor should be. He wishes sometimes--but it’s stupid. The reactor didn’t make him him. It wasn’t any more accountability than any other pain could’ve been.

There’s a sinking sensation, by his feet. Strange, sitting on the couch. “I could get you a ham sandwich,” he says, quiet. “But I suspect it wouldn’t do the trick.”

“Clever man, Doctor,” Tony says, acid. He closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to be acid. He imagines--the armor--dissolving slowly, the facemask melting into a broken sizzle of empty gestures. He maybe should’ve had less to drink.

“We are making progress, Tony,” Strange says. “Every day. Time... isn’t always on our side. But we do what we can. That’s all there is. What we can.”

Tony stretches his legs out. His shins bump Strange’s back. He’s not wearing the whole ensemble--cape and leather and whatever the hell. He’s in a sweater, and jeans, and he looks like someone Tony can actually touch. Something that obeys the physics Tony understands. Something real.

He puts the bottle of scotch on the floor. “Maybe a ham sandwich wouldn’t hurt,” he says, finally.

Strange--Stephen--touches his knee, lightly. He smiles at Tony, in the dark. “Mustard?” he says. “I can do whatever you want.”

Tony breathes deep. Settles. He says, “And you better add a pickle, cheapskate,” and feels Stephen squeeze his knee, and feels--well. Some kind of way.

#fffb #mystifiedgal #tony stark/stephen strange #...ironwizard?#my writing

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spacebookettes · 3 years

Text

Unstable Lady

Retirement homes are better now. Now the robots assist. Endless Gaga dancing queens, the robots keep the people young.

Unstable Lady had trouble getting about, the Walky Walky electronic leg braces kept her independent. Though hers had little bells on. Tinkling little sounds could be heard slowly moving around the Home. The tinkling little sound meant you had to be alert, if you didn’t want to succumb. In the office the assistants heard the familiar tinkling and all looked around. The tinkling stopped and someone had not come into view. The faces looked at each other and sighed a little. An assistant went to look. Nothing. No one in the corridor. The air ducting above them creaked. The assistant got the ladders, popped the vent door in the ducting and had a look. Nothing. Their head torch only saw emptiness. They heard a little tinkling below them. The assistant climbed down. Nothing.

At lunch the robots brought around the various delights. The assistants kept looking over to Unstable Lady. She ate alone, with her back to everyone. An occasional tinkling took attentions away from their food.

As the Unstable Lady walked away from the luncheon. She glanced at the little dents, burn marks and splatterings that littered the bright hallways and corridors. Each a little shrine to past ‘achievements’. They had taken Unstable Lady's possessions, her little toolbox and assortment of gizmos, bits of string, old tubing that sort of thing. Younger she had collected all kinds of useful objects. Only a few left hidden.

A piece of funneled plastic was one of them. She liked to use it to project little tinklings around corners. Unstable Lady kept fruit stalks she could still expertly curve through the air. Some of the people believed the home was infested. Only some of the people. No longer any salt pots or little sachets. Balls weren’t allowed anymore, POP. The robots had been replaced with more robust ones... these still had some ‘achievements.'

Unstable Lady was miserable. She snapped a giant glow stick and shoved it up her nose. A robot hand retrieved it and patted Unstable Lady on the head.

Unstable Lady had a few regrets in her cruelty.. even for her she felt she had gone too far on occasion. The pangs of regret stayed with her.

Unstable Lady had resisted all taming medication. They’d tried the lot as well. “is she psychotic”

Someone played Rammstein in their room. Wild tinkling.

The End

By Peter Stringer

Rasputin

Rasputin is still alive they say. He is and he lives in Cheshire, for the cheese.

He seems to have made himself immortal somehow accidentally.

“You’re intolerant to dairy"

‘MILK, I made myself invulnerable to all toxins’

“yes, but, I’m afraid your bowel can’t tolerate dairy anymore... you’ll be fine if you switch to soya milk... organic soya milk, no horrible GMOs... massive amounts of gmo pollen, humanity had no business introducing into an already strained earthly eco system.”

The doctor started to leave, she looked back... “at least the native people’s investment in green technology saved the day, the fidget droids and such. No need for chemicals now.”

She looked back a second time... “of course they’ve got the nukes now.”

By Peter Stringer

Space girls

A mission to Pluto. A mission that goes missing some where around the orbit of Jupiter.

“Where are we” all the shuttles systems were black, no light anywhere. “Is everyone ok" the five space girls all checked in. The lights and flashing buttons of the shuttle all came back to life. The space girls all looked out of the command module windows. Total blackness. No stars.

A globule of liquid moved slowly across the windows. The Space Girls all got close to the window to watch. They were reflected in the liquid ball. The reflections winked back. The Space Girls all drew backwards shocked inhaling. They all watched the liquid disappear beyond the window. “check all the instruments for position and orientation” one of them checked and rechecked their control panel. Nothing. No readings. “try the thrusters". one of them flipped the relevant switches. No inertia. The thrusters worked, there was just no apparent movement. The command module stopped shaking as the Space Girl flipped back the switches. One of the Space Girls dropped to the floor, dead.

The four Space Girls had checked the whole shuttle craft. They tried every piece of scientific equipment on board to see if they could learn just anything. Nothing. They ate some of the nourishing space goo packets. It was tasteless. They had enough food and water for months.

The four Space Girls sat for hours losing track of all space and time. The command module was silent. Someone was keeping an eye on the windows for signs of anything. A space walk, all that was left.

The short straw suited up. They glanced and stared at the logo of the Space Girl Missions; it’s looping white rings and central flashing green star. The symbol she had been so proud to be representing. Next to it a sponsor advertisement for Red Space Dew. Had it always been the sponsor; an anti deja vu came over her. The trivial advertisment seemed alien to her, new. Had it always been there.

The hatch doors silently opened. The Space Girl looked out into the blackness. A gloved hand reached out beyond the hatch doors. Nothing. Nothing changed. She shifted her body closer to the void. A space boot stepped out onto the hull of the space shuttle. She wasn’t floating, there was gravity. It felt like Earth gravity. Space Girl slipped falling along around the hull of the shuttle. Falling around it’s gravity. The only gravity in existence was the ship. She kept falling. External equipment broke off of the hull and joined Space Girl falling around and around. She looked desperately for the hatch opening. It’s central to the science module next to the spectrum sensors; they had broken off and were clattering somewhere near her. “ok" she shuffled her suited body to a central pathway on the module. Wildly trying for anything that felt like a gap. Something hooked around space girls arm. An antenna or some broken attachment and she jolted to a stop. Half a leg inside the hatchway.

Back on the ship Short Straw told them there was nothing in existence out there. Only them and the shuttle. Someone inhaled quickly and pointed toward the hatch window. A globule of liquid slowly floated across. They dare not look too closely.

The clattering equipment falling around the outside of the space shuttle was constant. The four Space Girls all had noise cancelling headsets on.

The solar interweb was offline. No connection to Earth. No SpaceTube. No SpaceGram. No SpaceTweet. Everything on the solar cloud, so no music. No pics. No video. Through the weeks the Space Girls got to know each other over the microphones of the headsets. Each sentence spoken with an obnoxious background clattering. Short Straw, they decided was the luckiest, even with her outside encounter.

Weeks later. They had tried the thrusters in all directions, full thrust. Full thrust for days. Random thruster directions. Spinning thrusters. Sudden reverse thrusters. Nothing. All signals had been sent out into the void.

They were putting on a play. Each Space Girl had to create her own comedy show. Once a week. One of them was impersonating some future celebrity to roaring laughter, at the front of the command module. The laughter stopped, a massive sphere of liquid undulated across the windows. The back of the impersonator reflected. The reflection dropped to the floor. The impersonator didn’t; she dare not move looking behind her at the three other faces and no reflection of herself. The liquid disappeared beyond the window.

Two days later the void was full of liquid globules. Giant and small. All manner of winkings and death scenes was being reflected back at the four Space Girls. They moved to a part of the shuttle with no windows.

The Space Girls didn’t want to put on anymore stand-up. The things they’d seen reflected back from the void would finish most people. They had rationed the food so far over the weeks. The Space Girls had a feast. Full bellies the ship started to shake. Short Straw got to the piloting controls first. Beyond the windows the liquid was swirling and merging, streaming in all directions. The shuttle had thrust. Short Straw could control the direction. The liquid was flying apart in all directions. A bright light was in front of them, growing bigger. Noise came from the cabin speakers. They took off their headsets to listen. ‘Girl look at that body, girl look at that body, girl look at that body, I work out, girl look at that body, girl look at that body, girl look at that body...I'm sexy and i know it'

Jupiter came into view. The liquid disappeared into the star studded space-scape. They all danced and sang with smiles and laughter. ‘wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle, yeah.

The End

By Peter Stringer

The Other Woman

“we should work on other projects”

The man’s words echoed around Wednesday.

They had been partners, co-workers. A small business of stories. The man had been emotionally disturbed at the beginning of both of their relationships. A man who made no sense, whirling away from functional adulthood. Bonsai trees helped. The Other Woman helped more.

The man loved his Significant Other. But perhaps two more, secret, partnerships and he knew the Other Woman would wait; very patiently... Almost.

He loved the nakedness, with both: he felt free. He only felt free clothed... with his Significant Other. He felt massive colleague respect for the Other Woman. Their first partnership had been cyber trees. The meeting of two non-professional minds. She good at the branches, he good at the leaves. They both knew they wanted nakedness. The first time next to the mulch. He knew the Other Woman would fall. He knew he could keep her... and he knew that made him rotten.

He thought the Other Woman was a thinker, she wanted to save the world and believed her little piece of it might. He too believed in her. But he was one of the monsters, he knew, she feared. If life were a film he would have slowly fallen in love with the Other Woman.

The man wanted to be king and felt a spark of it when he met the Other Woman. They were massively successful. She did the coding, he did the wiring. The Other Woman saved him, he knew she knew it.

He was in charge of the money, she was in charge of the lasers. That was his mistake.

He wasn't so rotten that he’d fiddle the money in his favour. In fact he did fiddle the money, fiddled himself in her favour. It helped with the knowledge that he’d always love the Significant Other. The man and the Other Woman worked hard, long into the night... there was so much to do. She came up with the bigger concepts, he ordered the equipment.

The Other Woman, he knew, her patience was running out.

He was the thinker, she was becoming a monster.

He had fiddled the finances, she had fiddled the equipment.

The End

By Peter Stringer

#future tale #future things #retirement #retirement home #pensioner #creative writing #shorts stories #scifi #scifiandfantasy #silly story #mean lady #mischief #book #space shuttle #pluto #saturn #space travel #lost in space

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