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pucksandpower · 1 month

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Blackmail Material

Charles Leclerc x Reader

Summary: you love your boyfriend more than life itself but who can blame you for keeping a folder of all the blackmail material he has given you over the years … just in case

You hear a bloodcurdling scream from the other room. “Y/N! Come quick!” Charles yells.

You rush over to find him standing on top of the couch, a look of sheer terror on his face. “What’s wrong?” You ask.

He points a shaky finger at the floor. “Sp-spider!”

You look down to see a tiny little spider no bigger than a blueberry crawling across the hardwood. You have to stop yourself from laughing at the sight of your brave Formula 1 driver boyfriend absolutely losing it over this tiny critter.

“Really? That’s what all the fuss is about?” You don’t bother to keep the amusement out of your voice.

“Don’t laugh!” He says indignantly. “It’s a monster! Kill it, please!”

You kneel down and take a closer look at the offending arachnid. “Aww, it’s just a little jumping spider,” you say. “It’s actually kind of cute.”

Charles makes a strangled sound of disbelief. “Cute? It’s a beast from the depths of hell! I want it gone!”

You roll your eyes affectionately. “You race cars at over 300 kilometers per hour, but you’re scared of a little spider barely bigger than a piece of lint?”

“Yes! Spiders are my worst fear. Now stop teasing me and get rid of it!” He gives you his best pleading look from his perch on top of the couch.

“Alright, alright,” you acquiesce, grabbing an empty glass from the coffee table. You gently trap the spider under it and slide a piece of cardstock underneath, trapping the spider safely.

“Is it dead? Please tell me you killed it,” Charles asks hopefully.

“Of course not, I’m just going to let it go outside. Spiders are good, they eat other bugs.”

Charles visibly shudders. “Well get it out of here! I don’t want to see it ever again.”

You carry the spider carefully to the sliding door and release it on the balcony. When you come back inside, Charles is still standing on the couch looking suspiciously around at the floor.

“The horrible beast has been banished, you can come down now,” you say.

He hesitantly steps back down onto the floor. “Are you sure it’s gone? You didn’t just give it free reign to run wild in the apartment?”

You try and fail to hold back a laugh. “Yes, I’m sure. Your life is no longer in peril.”

He narrows his eyes at you. “This isn’t funny! Spiders are evil creatures with too many legs and eyes. They should not exist.”

You go over and wrap your arms around him comfortingly, though you’re still struggling not to giggle. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. But you have to admit, it’s kind of silly that someone who races cars at death-defying speeds could be so terrified of a tiny spider.”

He huffs indignantly. “It’s a completely rational fear. They’re all legs and eyes and they move so fast and erratically and some of them can be venomous. Absolutely horrifying.”

You smile indulgently and kiss his cheek. “Okay, I get it. I promise I’ll protect you if any more evil spiders invade our home.”

“Thank you,” he says, finally relaxing into your arms now that the threat has passed.

But you just can’t resist teasing him a little more. “It was just so small!”

He pulls back and gives you an unamused look. “You’re not going to let this go anytime soon, are you?”

You grin impishly. “Letting my big macho boyfriend stand on the couch and scream because of a teeny tiny spider? Yeah, probably not gonna let you live this one down for a while.”

Charles groans. “This is so unfair. The guys will never let me hear the end of it if they find out.”

You pat his shoulder sympathetically. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. I won’t tell anyone that Charles Leclerc is terrified of itsy bitsy spiders.”

And if you happened to save evidence of his freak out just in case? Well … it’s not technically telling anyone unless you share the video.

***

You can’t help but grin as Charles paces back and forth in your New York hotel room, running his hands through his hair in distress.

“Chill out babe, I’m sure the airline will find your luggage soon,” you try to soothe him.

Charles whips around, eyes wide. “Chill out? How can I chill out when my La Mer is missing? Do you have any idea how long it took me to perfect my skincare routine?”

You stifle a laugh at his dramatics. “I mean, it’s just skincare products. Not the end of the world.”

“Just skincare products?” Charles looks at you in horror. “That’s like saying a Ferrari is just a car! La Mer is the cream of the crop, the holy grail of skin care! My face needs it to survive!”

You can’t hold back your grin anymore. “Wow, didn’t realize I was dating such a high maintenance diva,” you tease.

Charles huffs, crossing his arms. “I am not high maintenance, I just have discerning taste and an appreciation for quality.”

“Uh huh, sure,” you say. “Is that why you made us stop at three different Whole Foods on the way here from the airport until you found your favorite protein shake?”

“That is completely different,” Charles protests. “My skin is very sensitive, I can’t just use any old drugstore products.”

You laugh and pull Charles onto the couch next to you. “You’re cute when you pout.”

He tries to keep a straight face but ends up cracking a smile. “I can’t help it, I’m freaking out! Do you know how dry airplanes are? My skin is going to be a flaky desert by tomorrow.”

You run a hand through his hair. “Aww poor baby. However will you cope without your six hundred dollar moisturizer?”

Charles narrows his eyes at you. “You joke, but this is serious stuff. Do you want a boyfriend with wrinkles and acne?”

“I mean, a few wrinkles never hurt anyone,” you say, kissing his cheek.

He gasps dramatically. “Don’t even joke about that! I’ll be twenty seven soon, wrinkle prevention needs to start now.”

You shake your head in amusement. “Most twenty seven year olds aren’t this worried about wrinkles. But I guess Formula 1 drivers really are high maintenance.”

“With good reason! We can’t have crows feet interfering with our vision,” Charles says matter-of-factly.

You give him a look. “You’re just making things up now.”

Charles holds your hands, looking deeply into your eyes. “Mon amour, you must understand. Athletes age in dog years. We need anti-aging products just to keep up.”

You burst out laughing, shoving him playfully. “You’re so full of it!”

Charles grins cheekily. “But you love me anyway.”

You lean in and give him a soft kiss. “Yeah I do. Even if you are a high maintenance diva.”

Charles puts a hand to his chest in mock offense. “I thought girlfriends were supposed to be supportive! My skincare is obviously very important to me.”

You snuggle up next to him, running a hand through his hair. “You’re right, I’m sorry. Tell me all about this super special moisturizer.”

His eyes light up. “Well first of all it contains like crushed up diamonds or something. And they freeze each jar before shipping it to keep the ingredients ultra fresh.”

You make a mental note to Google this later, since it sounds completely absurd that diamonds would be an effective skincare ingredient. Though with Charles, you can never be too sure.

“Uh huh, diamonds. That’s totally normal,” you say, playing along.

“Exactly! And the founder makes sure each jar charges under the energy of a full moon before it’s sold. It’s really an intricate artisanal process.” Charles sighs longingly.

You smile and kiss his pouting lips. “You’re cute. I promise your skin will survive one night without magic moon diamonds.”

Charles snuggles against your shoulder. “I know, I know. Skincare is just part of my routine, it makes me feel relaxed and put together. And smelling like citrus blossoms is an added bonus.”

You kiss the top of his head. “I get that. Hopefully the airline finds your stuff soon. But in the meantime, want me to see if anyone sells La Mer nearby?”

Charles perks up. “Ooh yes, let’s check! I saw they have a Dior down the block too.”

You laugh and take his hand. “Of course they do. Come on, let’s go spoil you with new overpriced skincare products until yours turn up.”

***

You walk into the kitchen and see your boyfriend standing at the counter, a pile of uncooked spaghetti next to him. He takes a portion in his hand … which he proceeds to snap in half before dropping it into the pot of boiling water on the stove.

“Charles! What are you doing?” You exclaim in shock.

He turns to you, confused. “What do you mean? I’m just making sure the pasta will fit better in the pot.”

“But you can’t break spaghetti before cooking it!” You say incredulously. “That’s like a cardinal sin in Italy!”

Charles laughs. “Oh come on, it’s not that big of a deal. The pasta will cook just fine this way.”

You shake your head in disbelief. “I can’t believe Il Predestinato is out here breaking pasta. Do you have any idea how offensive Italians would find this?”

“I’m sure they will survive the absolute tragedy of some broken spaghetti,” he jokes.

You nod to your phone. “It’s a good thing I’m recording this for posterity then. The whole country needs to know about this travesty.”

Charles’ eyes go wide. “What? No, don’t record me!” He reaches for your phone but you spin away, giggling.

“The people of Italy deserve to know the truth about their hero!” You declare dramatically.

“Mon ange, please give me the phone,” he pleads, trying to grab your arm. You dance out of reach.

“Truth and justice will prevail!” You continue recording as Charles chases you around the kitchen island.

“Come on, delete it! This could start an international incident if it gets out!”

You pause to catch your breath, phone held high. “An international inchident? Wow, look at you being all dramatic now. I thought it wasn’t a big deal?”

Charles runs a hand through his hair in exasperation. “I didn’t think you’d actually record it as blackmail material! Please, mon amour, I’m begging you, delete the video.”

You pretend to think about it. “Hmm I don’t know … this seems like prime viral video content. Scuderia Ferrari Driver Destroys Pasta, Enrages Italy. Can you imagine the views it would get?”

“Y/N!” Charles lunges forward and tackles you onto the living room couch. You shriek with laughter as he tries to pry the phone from your grip.

“Noooo my video!” You yell dramatically.

Charles pins your arms above your head with one hand and reaches for the phone with the other. “Give it to me!”

You squirm underneath him. “Never!”

He leans down until his face is just inches from yours. “What’s it going to take for you to delete that video, huh?” His voice is low and gravelly.

You catch your breath, hyper aware of his body pressing against yours. “I don’t know, what are you offering?” You ask cheekily.

Charles brushes his nose against yours. “What if I made you your favorite dinner tomorrow night?”

You tilt your chin up in defiance. “That’s all I get for deleting potential internet gold? I don’t think so.”

He moves even closer, his lips just barely grazing your cheek. “Okay, what if I take you out for a nice date too? Dinner and a show at the opera, your choice.” His breath is warm against your skin.

You close your eyes for a second, affected by his closeness but not ready to give in yet. “Tempting, but I think this video is worth even more than that.”

Charles makes a small noise of frustration before capturing your lips in a passionate kiss. You melt into it for a blissful moment before pulling back slightly.

“Well that’s certainly a start,” you murmur, your heart racing.

Charles lets go of your hands to cradle your face tenderly. “Mon cœur, please delete the video. I’m begging you. I’ll do anything.”

You search his eyes intently. “Anything?”

“Anything,” he confirms fervently before kissing you again, deeper this time.

You wrap your arms around his neck and give yourself over to the kiss. After several heated moments, you gently break away.

“Okay fine, I’ll delete the video on one condition.”

Charles looks at you warily. “Name it.”

“You have to let me drive your Ferrari.”

Charles groans and drops his head against your shoulder. “You’re killing me, you know that?”

You laugh and pat his head consolingly. “Those are my terms.”

He lifts his head to grin ruefully at you. “You drive a hard bargain. But for the sake of Italian nonnas everywhere, I accept your deal.”

You lift up your phone and pretend to wipe away a tear. “The souls of broken spaghetti can finally rest easy.”

Charles just shakes his head before leaning down to silence you with another deep kiss. As you lose yourself in the feeling of his body against yours, you quietly move the video into an encrypted folder. After all, you never know when it might come in handy.

***

You raise an eyebrow as you watch Charles carefully pour Red Bull into his Ferrari water bottle. “Do you buy those in bulk?” You ask with a laugh.

Charles gasps in exaggerated outrage. “Buy from the enemy? Never!” He screws the cap on tightly and gives you a sly grin. “Max and I have an arrangement.”

“An arrangement?” You echo in surprise. This is news to you.

Charles nods, looking pleased with himself. “Yes, a secret trade deal. I provide him cappuccinos from the Ferrari cafe and Max supplies me with as much Red Bull as I need.”

You burst out laughing. “Are you serious? You and Max smuggle each other contraband caffeinated drinks?”

“Shh, not so loud!” Charles glances around furtively, but the motorhome is empty except for the two of you. “It must remain a secret.”

Still chuckling, you lower your voice conspiratorially. “So the great Charles Leclerc betrays his team for energy drinks. The Tifosi would riot if they knew!”

Charles winces dramatically. “Do not say such things! It is not betrayal, merely … creative problem solving.” He takes a long swig of Red Bull and grins. “The taste of the enemy is sweet.”

“I can’t believe you drink that stuff. And I can’t believe Max is your supplier!” You shake your head in amusement. “Does anyone else know about this arrangement of yours?”

“Only Lando. We needed a neutral third party to broker the deal and make the exchanges.” Charles leans in with a playful smile. “So do not be getting any ideas about exposing our scheme, yes?”

You mimic zipping your lips. “My lips are sealed … as long as you share some of that!”

Charles pretends to think about it for a second before breaking into a grin and handing you the bottle. The carbonated liquid fizzes pleasantly on your tongue, the familiar flavor mingling with the surrealness of drinking Red Bull from a Ferrari bottle. You take one more sip then hand it back to Charles.

“Just don’t let Fred or Christian find out,” you warn teasingly. “Pretty sure this counts as treason.”

Charles just laughs. “They turn a blind eye. The team knows I perform best when properly caffeinated.” He caps the bottle and adds, “But no more for you, ma belle. I only have a limited supply!”

You pout dramatically. “Fine, keep your precious Red Bull. I guess I’ll just have to tell everyone what’s really in your water bottle!”

The can of Red Bull that Charles rushes to give you tastes even sweeter than usual.

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nottobehornyonthemain · 8 months

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Crowley’s fatal flaw is curiosity. He is fundamentally an optimist, although he tries not to be. He likes to explore, and snoop around places he shouldn’t go, and ask questions, and use the funny new human technologies. He likes watching things grow. He’s a creator.

His first gift to humanity was knowledge.

Now Aziraphale is fundamentally a realist, even a pessimist. Before he even knew that it was possible to Fall, he was afraid about what seeming to go up against The Plan could mean. He worries about the potential horrible outcomes of everything, even going unarmed into the wilderness. He wants to keep everyone safe, even if that sometimes means doing hard things to ensure an ultimate good. He’s a protector.

His first gift to humanity was a weapon.

One of these beings usually sits in a shop devoted to the passing on of knowledge, but doesn’t actually want to pass it on to anyone. One of these beings refuses to bring harm any innocent thing when there is a chance he can reduce suffering.

Heaven has assumed that Aziraphale’s fatal flaw is that he’s soft, and weak willed. That he’s someone easy to manipulate. But they’re wrong. Because Aziraphale is not soft, and his fatal flaw is his inability to compromise on his beliefs.

Now, I don’t know about anyone else. But to me, one of those two beings sounds a lot more unpredictable and dangerous than the other, and it’s not the one currently crying to Michael Bublé in a car full of plants. The one I’m more concerned about is currently being given the tools to bring about the end of the world.

And God knows what he did with the last tool heaven gave him.

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens spoilers #ineffable husbands #aziraphale good omens #aziraphel #crowley good omens #crowley #azicrow #the sheep ramble analysis

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gffa · 11 months

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I NEED EVERYONE TO UNDERSTAND HOW FUCKING FUNNY THIS WAS Diana comes to pick up Cassie from the newly formed Teen Titans team, because she never directly approved of it, and she means well, but she’s running over them way too hard and everyone’s nerves are kind of frayed right now, so of course it all breaks out into a fight. Kon’s powers are not fully under his control so he winds up accidentally heat-visioning Clark in the back, Cassie has recently developed lightning powers so she’s trying to fry Diana with them, Bart is trying to whip up a hurricane, but doesn’t get the physics quite right, Bruce is being Bruce and Tim is being Tim, so they’re fighting but really digging into the emotional wounds of it all, and Starfire is ready to just PUNCH EVERYTHING INTO THE SUN. It’s like seven pages of pure CHAOS and then they get the superhero equivalent of being sprayed with the garden hose because Nightwing showed up and is like JESUS CHRIST YOU GUYS I LEAVE YOU ALONE FOR FIVE MINUTES AND YOU’RE FIGHTING WITH EACH OTHER AND DESTROYING THE GROUNDS? He’s so disappointed in ALL of them, the Justice League should know better than to just barge in on the kids setting up their own lives like this, much less getting into a physical fight with their kids and the Teen Titans should know better than to act like children when they want to be more grown up, and I am LAUGHING MY ASS OFF THE ENTIRE TIME. Sure, it’s fun because this is why everyone looks to Dick Grayson to be a leader, because he works to actually talk to people despite that he has his own rage issues, you gotta work to overcome your temper, and I love that he respects both sides, he remembers what it was like to be a Titan trying to establish himself and the others feeling the same way, even as he also gets why the adults are worried about them. But it’s also so goddamned funny that he walks in on the top-level superheroes behaving like children in a fight with their actual children, I hope he made fun of Bruce for THREE MONTHS STRAIGHT for being involved in this and showing up like this as if he shouldn’t already fucking know this lesson backwards and forwards, because I HYENA LAUGHED MY WAY THROUGH THE ENTIRE “I’M NOT MAD, I’M JUST DISAPPOINTED IN YOU ALL” LECTURE NIGHTWING GAVE THE JUSTICE LEAGUE

#lumi.txt #dc #batfam #bruce wayne #dick grayson #tim drake #clark kent #conner kent #diana prince #cassie sandsmark #wally west #bart allen #koriand'r #victor stone #teen titans 2003 #long post

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phoenixkaptain · 2 years

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I think Tim is the cryptid of the superhero community. Hear me out:

In Young Justice, it’s explicitly stated multiple times that Tim Drake’s Robin has never been caught on film. There are no pictures or videos. Even earlier on, in World’s Finest Three, Tim gets Superboy to take all of the credit for taking down Metallo and Poison Ivy (something even the reporters find hard to believe) because Tim can’t let anyone know it was Robin.

Furthermore in Young Justice, the ongoing conflict between Robin and his team is that they find it hard to trust him because he can’t reveal his identity to them. But more than that, he can’t reveal his identity to anyone, he isn’t supposed to let anyone know that Robin even exists. There are fake “files” on all of the characters and even the government doesn’t know who the f Robin is, and the file questions whether or not he actually exists.

Then, there’s the part of the comics where Tim is forced to give up Robin, and Steph replaces him for a bit, and literally nobody outside of Gotham knows. He didn’t tell his friends, Bruce didn’t tell anyone, nobody knows that Tim isn’t Robin anymore. And then, he comes back. Just as out of the blue.

In the Red Robin run, it’s canon that nobody knows where Tim is aside from Ra’s al Ghul (who stalked him from the start and so shouldn’t count). Oracle doesn’t know where he is, none of his friends know (two of them are “dead,” so it’d be hard for them to know), everyone who runs into him is like “??? who tf???” Even Dick only has a vague idea. The whole point of Tam’s side plot is that it is nigh impossible to find Tim unless he decides to collapse onto your hotel room’s bed while bleeding out next to an assassin. As one does.

What does this mean?

It means that some superheroes definitely don’t believe that Tim exists, probably the younger ones. Superman or someone is like “Man, I miss the Robin that didn’t threaten me with swords,” and they’re like “Dick?” “No.” “Jason?” “No.” “??? The girl one?” “No.”

Like, some people have definitely never seen/heard of this weird third Robin, and they definitely think it’s something the older heroes are making up to mess with them. On conspiracy boards in Gotham, some people tell tale of the third Robin, the one that came before the Stabby Robin, and other people are like “You’re making this up! This guy doesn’t exist!”

I bet Duke is occasionally like “Hey, I haven’t seen Tim in like three weeks, is he still alive?” And someone else (Dick or Bruce) is just like “What are you talking about? Tim’s been sitting over in that corner.” And Duke just sees Tim unmoving in a corner, and is like “…that doesn’t answer the question, is he still alive?”

Tim is canonically, in the comics, the best at remaining unseen. He’s a cryptid. Kon and Bart tell horror stories about him and have blurry photos (taken blurrily on purpose in the same vein as Big Foot) that they show younger heroes. Jason occasionally regales his goons with stories of a creepy stalker child who fights crime. Dick tells his coworkers about his brothers but they don’t believe Tim exists because everytime they ask for a photo of him, Dick just shrugs and says he’s a bit camera shy. Damian complains about his brothers and all of his classmates are kind of worried he made up Tim, because he’s never come (it’s funny to imagine Jason and Dick and Bruce all coming to pick up Damian from school. It’s funnier to imagine that even Cass has picked him up). Several workers at Wayne Enterprises think that “Tim Drake-Wayne” is just a made up entity to keep the company out of enemy hands.

Tim is a cryptid, thanks for coming to my TED Talk

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athenamikaelson · 2 months

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War of Scars - A Luke Castellan Story

PART 1

Thunder Daddy is Real?

Word Count- 3.7k

Warnings- Swearing, blood, gore, fighting, some mature content

“What the actual fuck is a half-blood?”

I scream to Keiko as she grips the steering wheel of the stolen Passat we were now flooring down the vacant back road of New York. Keiko’s short, white-bleached hair stuck up as if she’d just been electrocuted, and a look of concern in her dark eyes as she glanced between both front-view mirrors. I tried to figure out what she was so worried about as I glanced through my passenger seat mirror but was only met with the darkening road. The red cast from the taillights shone a light on the passing forest and trees. The branches from the trees cast shadows over the backroad, a small shiver goes through my back as I imagine that they look like limbs and arms reaching for our car as we drive away. As if begging us not to drive any further. I want to yell to them that I don’t want to go any further either, that I want to go back home. Home to my mother and father, a mother and father that no longer want me I remind myself, and home to my brothers who probably don’t even know I’ve left.

“A half-blood is what you are Y/N.”

Keiko’s words snap my attention back into the car as I turn to her with an annoyed look. I can feel the tips of my nails scratching against the skin of my palms, reading to break the already calloused skin. A nasty habit I picked up a few years ago.

“Ya, that’s what everyone keeps telling me! But that doesn’t answer what the fuck it is!” I can feel the breaking of skin as I dig my nails deeper, trying to ground my feelings and stop another outburst from happening.

“Do you remember all those stories I used to tell you about the Greek Gods and myths?”

Keiko’s eyes briefly meet mine for the first time since I watched her steal this car over 3 hours ago. I think over what she said. The stories about the woman who the goddess Athena turned into a snake lady, and the man who stole fire from the Gods just to give to humans come to mind. I slowly nod my head at her, hoping that this isn’t some psychotic break she’s having because I’m on the verge of having my own right now and this car is already tiny as fuck. Two people freaking the fuck out would not be a good idea.

I watch as Keiko’s chest rises and falls deeply, her ACDC shirt that she had stolen from a lost and found at school stretches at the movement.

“All those stories I told you, about the Gods, Zeus, Posideon, Hades, and all the others,” She turns back to look at me, “they’re all true. And one of them is your biological parent,” Her face scrunches up as she goes back to look at the road, “well technically not biological per se since gods don’t have DNA.”

She goes to continue speaking but stops once I let out a laugh that comes deep from the back of my throat. I watch with scrunched eyes as she stares at me in slight worry I hunch over gripping my stomach as more laughter rises out of my mouth.

“Are you ok?”

Keiko’s worried voice comes from beside me and I sit up and wipe stray tears from my eyes.

“Am I alright? I should be the one asking you that question, you’re the one saying that the almighty thunder daddy Zeus is real, and then saying that one of his buddies is my parent.”

Keiko’s face scrunches up in disgust and she casts a glance to the star-covered sky for some reason.

“You really shouldn’t talk like that, the Gods don’t like to be disrespected.”

Her worried expression halts my jokes as I stare at the now serious face in front of mine. Keiko has never been the one in this friendship to care about following the rules or being scared of anything, she’s the fearless one. So why the hell does she look terrified at the talk of a bunch of fictional deities?

“Ok, Kio the joke was funny for the first five minutes but I want the truth now. Why did my parents kick me out after saying I’m not theirs and that you’d know what to do?”

I try to cover up the slight break in my voice at the mention of my parents, or adopted parents I guess, telling me that after 18 years I wasn’t theirs. Flashes of my caring mother holding me when I was a child telling me that I was a gift to her, that she would never let anything happen to me. Was all of that some sick lie?

“Y/N listen to me,” Keiko catches my attention, “I’m not lying to you. Your mother or father is a god. A Greek god. Which makes you a half-blood, half mortal half god. And because of this, it means being out here in the mortal world is going to get you killed. I was sent here, as your satyr to protect you until the time came where I’d take you to camp. I’m not sure why it’s taken this long for the monsters to catch up to you, most of the time half-bloods are brought to camp around 12. But you being 18 brings up some questions. I think your parent is a smaller god that’s why there hasn't been much focus on you.”

I can feel my mouth start to dry up from the air entering my now-opened mouth. I’ve been staring at Keiko with wide eyes the entire time she's been going on about gods and death and shit. She must have noticed my lack of response because she stopped talking and looked at me. Her serious expression brings a wave of anger through my system which is the final breaking point for the palms as my nails break skin and a warm liquid coats my nails.

“Stop the car.”

Three words are all I say to her as I unbuckle my seat belt.

“What?”

I turn to Keiko, my teeth grinding against one another.

“Stop the goddamn car. I’m done being lied to. My parents have lied to me my entire life and now my so-called best friend is making fun of my shitty life with made-up fairytales. So stop the fucking car or I’ll jump out myself.”

“I’m not stopping, we can’t if we want to make it to camp as soon as possible. And we’re going,” Keiko glances at the speedometer, “64 miles per hour. If you jump out of the car now you’ll die.”

I look out of the forest and think of all that has happened in the past 12 hours.

“It’s not like I have anything to lose. I’d rather be mangled and dead than sit in this car with you, driving to god knows where, while you tell me a bunch of lies.”

I hear a deep sigh come from Keiko and wait a moment to hear whatever bullshit she’s about to start spewing at me but it never comes. Instead, I feel the car start to accelerate, and a few words in an unknown language spill from her mouth.

“Put your seatbelt on.”

Keiko’s voice comes out harsh and deadly as I watch her grip the worn steering wheel. Her frantic gaze moves from the back of us to the dark road ahead.

“I’m not putting my seatbelt on, just stop the car already.”

I try to argue back at her but she just lets out a huff of air and reaches over the center console of the car, grabs my seatbelt, and snaps it back into place. I watch her with wide eyes at the fucking audacity of the bitch. I go to yell at her but she raises a single finger at me, just like a mother who’s had enough of her child talking would.

“We’re being followed.”

Her dark eyes move frantically all over the place as if she sees something I don’t. Ok, maybe she is losing her mind. Fuck now I feel like an asshole.

“Listen Keiko maybe we should just take some deep breaths and talk this through. Cause it seems like right now some of us are going a bit crazy. And by some of us, I don’t mean me.”

I lightly raise a finger and point at her. I go to laugh at my joke but the car jolts forward as if we’d just got rear-ended.

“What the-”

“It’s right there shit!”

Keiko slams her leg onto the gas pedal but it doesn’t seem to do much help as another hit comes from behind us. My long legs bang against the dash of the car as I look behind us trying to figure out what asshat doesn’t know how to drive, but I freeze when I see nothing there. No headlights, no cars, nothing. We’re the only ones on the road.

“There you see it! You see I’m not lying! I can’t tell what creature it is but it’s big and has wings so that crosses out giants, thankfully.”

Kieko glances between the front and me and her face falls once she reads my features.

“What?”

“What do you mean what? There is nothing there.”

I turn to the back of the car and point to the vacant road behind us. Keiko turns around and her eyebrows raise.

“No, it was right there.”

But as she turns back around to face the front, I jump from the loud yelp that escapes her lips as she appears to see something before us on the road. Something I can’t seem to see. What I don’t see coming either is the tight right turn Keiko makes to miss the invisible “creature.” I grasped onto the passenger side door and turned wide-eyed to her. About to yell at her when the driver’s side of the car is lifted and I feel my heart fall to my ass as I watch the trees that were once reaching and calling for me, get their wish as the car is thrown into the woods.

“Y/N, come wake up, Y/N!”

I hear muffled voices come from above me as cold winds envelop me. I must be in heaven, God must be calling for me. I try to open my eyes but the overwhelming pressure in my head urges me to keep them closed for just five more minutes. I’m about to give in to the thought when a sharp pressure hits the side of my cheek, shocking me awake.

I abruptly sit up but quickly regret it when a pounding pain comes from every part of my body. My eyes can’t seem to register my dark surroundings either as more pain enters my frontal lobe.

“I’m sorry I did that but I need you to get up, I don’t know where the chimera is, but I can feel it’s close.”

Kieko, that’s Kieko. My brain tries to get me to register her words but the throbbing in my head is halting any thought process from going on. Another wave of red pain goes through my body as I feel an arm wrap itself around my waist and lift me.

“Do you think you can walk?”

A voice asks me. No, not a voice, Kieko’s voice. Kieko is talking to me. I try to shake my head as if to fight away the overwhelming urge to close my eyes and lay down and sleep for the foreseen future.

“Get up and walk”.

A voice comes into my head. Why does my subconscious sound so manly and bossy? But I listen to it as I feel my feet try to move one after the other. The overwhelming pressure coming from my entire body though makes it feel as if I’m dragging two cinderblocks on each leg.

“OK, good. We’re about a mile from camp I think if I got my constellations correct.”

I finally can get my eyes open as I stare at Kieko beside me. If I wasn’t feeling like absolute dogshit right now I’d laugh at the image of her short body leaning awkwardly to the side trying to carry my taller one. I try to lean off of her slightly to give her help but her grip tightens on me.

“Don’t, you got banged up pretty hard in the accident. I thought I had lost you for a moment there, but it was my mistake for thinking you’d ever let death take you this young or without your approval.”

Kieko lets out a small laugh which quickly turns into a cough as she winces in pain.

“Are you hurt?”

My voice comes out strained and rough, like an old woman who’s been smoking since she was 13 years old. Kieko just shakes her head and picks up the pace of her walking.

“Just a few scratches, nothing as bad as you. We need to move faster though I can sense the chimera getting closer. The smell of your blood is making it easier for it to track us.”

My face scrunches up at the words. I want to argue to her that there’s no creature out there hunting us and that she is just having a psychotic break but once I feel the cold metallic-smelling liquid move down my face as if it was caressing it, I stay quiet.

We continue to walk for what seems like hours, or well Kieko walks and I latch on to her and get dragged. I don’t know where the hell she’s going but I have no other choice but to go with her. I lurch forward as Kieko abruptly stops. Her heading whipped around us like a mad woman.

“Did you hear that?”

She whispers into my ear. I shake my head in response. And we stand there for a moment before she tightens her hold on me and starts to walk again. Her hand around my waist quickly detaches and I can only watch in what seems like slow motion as she is thrown against a neighboring tree. A sickening crack comes from her body as I watch it fall to the ground. I go to run to her a roar turns my attention to behind me. I can feel my heart beat erratically as I slowly turn to the monstrous being behind me. With a body that must stand above 10 feet tall, a lion stands before me. Wait. No. Not a lion. Defiantly not a lion.

Acidic bile starts to make its way up my throat as my eyes meet the red beady eyes of a goat, a goat that is protruding from the lion's back. A hissing sound catches my attention as I slowly turn my gaze to the python that has replaced the lion goat’s tail.

As I stare at the creature I want to pass out. Or maybe I’m already asleep and this is some bad nightmare. But as the lion-goat-snake thing takes a step toward me, with its paws that rival the size of my big head I use whatever strength I have left and run. If I can lead it away from Kieko that's all that matters.

I don’t have to worry about it not following me as I hear the thundering footsteps catch up behind me. I try to dodge tree after tree, jumping over fallen logs, and feel my sneakers imprint into the mud that has started to form from the light downfall of rain that has started to coat myself and the forest.

I go to turn right, the downpour of the rain falling harder and blocking much of my already shitty vision. But a burst of heat and flames come from behind me hitting the trees to my right. I whip my head around to see smoke coming from the lion-goat-snake thing and curse to myself. Of course, it can breathe fire too. I try to go to my left but a searing pain catches on my back as I drop to the ground.

I lift myself on my elbows as I watch the monster lift its large paw and lick the red liquid off of its nails as if it were mocking me. Its eyes glint with malice as the goat lets out a strangled noise.

“We’re a gift from Athena.”

A strangled hiss comes from the snake's mouth.

I go to close my eyes and just accept my fate but stop when my manly subconscious chimes in again.

“Get up and fight, you’re a warrior. Grab the stick next to you and fight back. Make it bleed. If it can bleed it can be killed.”

God, when did I become so melodramatic? But I realize manly me is right, if I die this thing will go back for Keiko. The monster continues its prowl toward me as I keep eye contact with it. Hoping it doesn’t see my right hand that has grasped onto the stick by my side. I wait until the lion opens its mouth, probably to light me on fucking fire and that’s when I strike.

I lift myself onto my knees and lurch forward with the stick in my hand and as the lion opens its ginormous mouth and I see the start of embers begin to light in its throat I stab the stick right down into it. I loud howl of pain comes from the creature as it tries to dislodge the stick that is now protruding from its mouth. I watch for another moment as the goat and the snake move around frantically trying to help their injured creature. But I know if they do succeed in getting that out I’m fucked so I push myself up with a hiss. The overwhelming smell of blood coming from my back, the more I move the harsher the pull and pain. But I'm not letting the ugly motherfucker be my demise.

I come up from behind the creature, which is now facing away from me with its entire focus on dislodging the stick, and I leap onto its back. The goat and the snake are the only ones to notice my arrival as they start hissing and making whatever strange noise the goat is making. I grab onto the fur of the creature to keep myself upright and I grasp the snake into my hands. It thrashes in my hands, its cool slimy body almost making me drop it as I try to wrap the snake around the goat's throat. I pull in the opposite direction with all my weight as the hissing constricts until I hear the crack of the goat's neck. The strangled snake and the now dead goat have caught the attention of the lion who has finally dislodged the stick and has now noticed me.

The lion roars so deeply that it makes my body shake. I would almost feel bad for killing its friends/body sharers if it wasn’t trying to y’know fucking kill me. The lion stands to its full height and starts to thrash its body as a means to get me off. I quickly grasp the curled horns of the goat as a means of stabilization. But as the thrashing gets harsher I hear a sharp snap as I’m thrown against yet another tree.

Bark scratches up my already bloody back as I let out a loud wail. The rain from before crashing down all around me thunder shakes the earth and forest and lightning strikes a nearby tree. But my attention is fully on the lion who has now started its attack on me. I can sit there as I lift my hands to protect my face as the lion comes rushing at me.

I sit there drenched, cold, and bloody waiting for my demise, but nothing comes. I slowly open one eye and flinch as I see the lion staring at me. But it’s not moving. It’s not breathing either. Its once hatred-filled eyes are now glossed over with death. My gaze goes from its haunting eyes to its chest where the goat horn I had cracked off is now lodged into the lion's heart. Red liquid coated my hands as I loosened my grip on the horn and backed away from the dead creature.

“How did you do that?”

I thrash my head to the side grabbing the horn a second time in defense. I halt though when I see Keiko holding herself up against a tree. Blood trickles down her whitening skin as she looks at the monster in awe and slight disgust. She pushes off the tree and starts to walk to me but her knees lock up and she falls to the ground. I push myself back up quickly and crawl to her.

“Are you ok?”

I quickly ask her, wiping away the blood that has now made its way onto her eyebrows. Keiko sends me an unreadable look.

“How did you kill the Chimera?”

I go to answer, but a shock of lightning comes down between us. The only thing I can focus on is the scorching pain that has taken over my body and left arm. My vision goes black as I feel my heart start to give out.

“We need a medic.” A strained voice yells from beside me. Or is it coming from behind me? I can’t tell. All I can focus on is the searing pain that has taken over my being, I can’t seem to focus on the campers running over to me and Kieko, I can’t hear any more of Keiko's cries for help, and I don’t feel the muscular arms wrap around my body as I feel my heart start to slow down again, everything going back to dark.

“I think she’s waking up!”

A loud girlish voice comes from beside me.

“That’s what you said two days ago.”

Another more annoyed voice talks back. I strain to open my eyes as light crashes against my burning pupils. But I do I open them enough to look up to see dark brown eyes staring down at my Y/E/C ones.

“Welcome to Camp Half-Blood Sleeping Beauty.”

#luke castellan #luke castellan x reader #luke castellan pjo #luke castellan imagine #pjo series #percy jackon and the olympians #annabeth chase #grover underwood #pjo #percy jackson #camp half blood #percy series #author #athenamikaelson #percy jackson tv show

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trungles · 1 month

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Processing Process, and More Processing

I made this post free and publicly readable on Patreon, but I'm reposting the whole thing right here too because, well, it's a free post, and I don't want to make you click away from your dashboard if you don't need to. But also if you want to support my work, here's the link to the post.

It's a little bit about cartooning, a little bit about drawing, and then it turns into a eulogy for a chicken.

I wrote “process” more than once, and now the word looks funny and is beginning to lose its meaning to me.

This post is about a few things, and it’s a little bit on the sad end of things. Nothing dire! No worries. There’s just a little mention of death, just as a heads up.

Before we get to that, though, I’ve been doing some work and had some thoughts.

I’m often asked about how I draw the noodle hair on my characters, and the answer is typically that I draw each and every line with my hand. But there are considerations of movement and volume that go into it beyond its texturally decorative purposes. I love being able to convey shape and motion with it. It’s less evident, I think, in my illustration work, but I think it’s much more obvious when I do sequential work. In the above image, you can see me working out a sequence of Angelica having a series of thoughts. Her head sort of moves, and her eyes follow. You can see I’d planned out the general shape of the hair and how I’d like it to move.

I wound up moving the drawings a little bit so that the readers eyes will actually follow the character’s eyes as it moves gently rightward on the page. The hair is there to accentuate the movement, like so:

It’s a consideration I employ in all my drawings, but especially when I’m drawing hair and fabric. I don’t use a lot of action lines, so this becomes an important way to give the reader the information that someone is moving through a space. Resistance, gravity, and motion are all things I have to keep in the back of my head when I’m doing these little drawings. I think the planning actually takes more time than the inking, which can happen pretty quickly once I map it all out.

In other news, I’m starting to take my extracurricular artistic development a little more seriously in the silliest way possible.

You wouldn’t know it, but I studied painting college—a medium I switched to after the printmaking professor and head of the Art Department at the time told me I probably shouldn’t be an artist (he gave me a hard candy for my trouble). I recently bought a bunch of little dolls, dressed them up, and am returning to my painting roots. It feels really nice to work in big blobs of color instead of lines. It’s an exercise I came up with in response to a common lament from art students.

One of the more aggravating generational tensions described to me by art school students is when professors describe a student’s portfolio as “too anime” without much explanation. I know what the professor means. They’re trying to get at how referencing your favorite anime or cartoons means that your style becomes a simulacrum, an imperfect copy of a copy, and you never learn to develop your own sense of judgment about where a line or a shape needs to go. And we can tell. It’s a way of working that is perfectly fine for cartooning because cartooning is closer to hand-writing than it is to drawing. I always turn to Charles Schulz’s work for an example. Those figures aren’t literally depicting children—with their little chessboard-pawn proportions and bread-loaf feet—but we read them as endearing children because we’ve come to a consensus between us, the readers, and Charles Schulz, the author, that those shapes mean those things. There are no whiskers or paws in the shape of the word “CAT” but you look at those three letters together, and you know the thing to which it refers. That’s an aspect of cartooning, too. Of course, what elevates it from mere writing is, in part, due to the fact that those little figures do not lose their meaning the more you depict them.

To really draw well, though, you have to do those fundamentals. You have to draw from life. There’s no way around it. It helps you develop a stronger sense of where you like to lay down your lines and shapes, no matter how stylized you like to work. It grows your judgment, and every artist’s best tool is their own well-honed sense of artistic discernment about their own work.

But that doesn’t mean you have to surrender the stuff you like or the things that inspire you to make art! I tell students that if they want to hold fast to their anime style AND hone their fundamentals to develop their eye as an artist, they should buy little figurines and toys of their favorite characters, prop those up against a light source, and draw them as still life objects. Like, yes, do the vases and the figure drawings and all those, I still think those are important. But if this is what you need to keep you interested in drawing from life, having some toys around is a great way to do it! Also, bless those sculptors and toy designers. They’re the best.

I think there’s something to be said about remembering to imagine the physicality of the things we draw, in all its dimensions and in the way it catches the light or casts a shadow. It helps sentimentalize things, too. Makes them feel more real, even emotionally.

Edwina died on Tuesday night, after a few final snuggles, surrounded by her favorite treats. She was about five years old, which is old for a chicken, and she had a very comfortable life. We buried her this morning. She was a good hen, J’s personal favorite.

It really feels like the end of an era. She was the last surviving member of our very first flock. After the other hens died, she really seemed to prefer the company of people over other hens. She is survived by Snooki and Nelly, our two other young birds who get along quite well together, actually.

A baby chick costs between three and five American dollars, typically. An egg-laying hen could be between twenty and fifty bucks, depending on the breed. There are roughly 26 billion chickens living in the world today, about 518 million of them here in the United States. They come pretty cheap. And a part of me was moved to cynicism, entertaining the thought that it might be strange to feel sadly over a little animal that, at most, might be roughly equivalent to the price of a fancy lunch and a coffee.

I watched the 1974 musical version of The Little Prince recently, and I remember it mostly because Bob Fosse was in it and scared the crap out of me as a kid—he played the snake that would take the Little Prince back into the sky when his body gets too heavy to take with him. Gene Wilder plays the Fox whom the Little Prince befriends and tames among a garden of roses. The Fox explains that he is like any other fox in the world, but he is changed—made special and particular to the Little Prince—with time, effort, and patience. So, too, is the Prince’s little flower special to him. Out of all the flowers in the universe, she was the one he watered and protected under a little glass jar. And that’s enough.

I knew my little hen would not live that long. It could be very easy to take a broad view of the life expectancy of a hen and distance myself from it by virtue of its mortality and its commonness. People who raise livestock do it all the time. But I also think it’s wonderful that we should all be capable of loving very small, very brief little things. Edwina is not, to my mind, the rough equivalent of a fancy lunch and a coffee. She was our little hen. For her whole life, she was ours. And I’m so happy she was here.

#cartooning #drawing #patreon #cw death #cw pet death #comics #trungles #artists on tumblr

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fourmula1 · 5 months

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heyy! just wonder how baby omega max is doing...has he figured out/accepted his feelings for daniel yet?

1,797 words. oops.

Max should be looking forward to winter break but all he can think about is Daniel being a world away in Australia.

Max hasn’t been apart from Daniel since he’s presented as an omega and Daniel’s always been his safe, comforting, warm place to go when he’s stressed and anxious and hiding from the sniffs and stares that linger wherever he goes.

He’s on suppressants now that he’s had his first heat but that doesn’t stop people knowing. That he’s newly presented and untouched and it’s not like anyone’s actually tried to get to close to him but that isn’t the point. The point is with presentation came the horribly annoying ability to be so acutely aware of the emotions and pheromones of alphas in close proximity and Max, now, knows all to well what hunger smells like.

Tangy, sharp, bitter; cloying and overbearing and awful.

Daniel smells like sunshine on warm, sandy beaches. He smells like Max feels when Daniel barks a laugh at something Max has said – bursting with warmth and fond happiness. It’s so deeply satisfying to make Daniel laugh and smile at him, like that. As good as when he stood on the top step in Spain.

Max knows he shouldn’t feel as upset as he does about winter break and going home to Holland. He should be excited to be in his home, with his family, and his friends, celebrating the season and having his first win, and a few more podiums besides, and a promising 2017 ahead.

All he can think about is how cold it feels knowing he won’t be around Daniel for a good month, while Daniel’s living it up in the Australian summer.

Meeting up with his friends and partying and probably letting other omegas tuck up in Max’s place underneath Daniel’s arm and.

Max flushes at the thought of what else Daniel might be doing with other omegas over break.

He hasn’t been able to smell other omegas on Daniel, or in Daniel’s hotel rooms, all season and Max frowns a little when he thinks about the lengths Daniel must be going to to neutralize other omegas’ scents in Max’s presence.

He’s not sure what upsets him more – Daniel spending time with other omegas, or the lengths he’s gone to hide it from Max.

Because surely Daniel is doing both. Other omegas, and hiding them.

Daniel is beautiful, and funny, and kind, and handsome, and nice, and most certainly he’s got lots of omegas ready to be at his beck and call.

Max’s stomach rolls.

Eyebrows knitted together, Max makes up his mind to say goodbye to Daniel and let him know that Max will be fine. Just like Daniel’s told him. He’s going to be fine, without Daniel, and so what if Daniel’s going to be hanging out and doing all sorts of things with other omegas?

Next year. Next year, Max isn’t going to need Daniel, he’s decided. Next year, he’s going to turn up at testing a new, confident omega who doesn’t need the warmth and safety and protective comfort of any alpha and certainly not Daniel, who no doubtedly will have some hot new supermodel omega girlfriend or something dumb and won’t be there for Max anyway.

The flutter of sadness at the thought washes over him but Max shakes it off as he crosses the hall to knock on Daniel’s hotel room door. They’re supposed to be packing for their flights home tomorrow but Max has it in his mind that he’s going to tell Daniel to have a good winter break and have lots of fun and Max doesn’t need Daniel to baby him or worry about him or look out for him anymore.

Maybe… maybe he’ll even find an alpha or two of his own to have fun with over winter break. Like Daniel will be doing with omegas in Australia.

The thought makes Max flinch, for a moment.

“Maximus!” Daniel is all smiles and opening the door wider to let Max in – like so many other nights in hotels this season – but the smile drops and Max can see his nostrils flare. He can smell Max’s bitter determination to make sure he knows Max doesn’t need him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Max says, wills his voice to keep even as he slips past Daniel into the room. It’s the same as his. They all are. “I just came over to say goodbye before we go. I am sure you will have so many omegas ready for you now that you have so much time without looking after me.”

Max knows he’s word vomiting but he needs to make sure Daniel knows he’s not going to keep being the needy, anxious baby omega he’s been this year. He can’t bear the thought of Daniel being the one to put an end to it all, so it has to be him.

Max can smell, and then feel, the wave of surprised discomfort rolling off of Daniel.

“Whoa, Max, what?” He asks as he lets the hotel door close. They’re standing awkwardly in the little foyer to Daniel’s suite. Max can see Daniel hasn’t started packing literally at all – his clothes and shoes are everywhere as they are in every room. So much of Daniel all over the place. It’s comforting to Max that it’s… that Daniel’s always the same every place they go.

“You are of course going to be able to see all kinds of omegas without having to worry about hiding it from me, when you’re in Australia,” Max says, shrugging and trying so hard to be nonchalant about it. It sits so uncomfortable in his tummy, and he can’t pinpoint why, exactly. Daniel is his friend and has always been nice to him, but that’s all. He shouldn’t feel this upset about the idea of Daniel with other omegas.

“Hiding from you?” Daniel asks, and Max can’t look at him. He can sense Daniel’s changing emotions – confusion, to shock, to… hurt? Sadness. He’s sad. Max swallows the lump in his throat.

“I’m not stupid, Daniel, I know you of course spend time with omegas and you’ve been very good about not letting me smell anything on you but I am just saying you don’t have to do that, next season. I need to start growing up next season and you won’t have to look after me anymore.”

The room… Max could swear it turns cold as he chances a glance up at Daniel, who’s looking back at him with his stupid, sad, big, brown eyes that make Max want to squirm.

“I don’t… Max, I haven’t been… I spend all my fucking time with you,” Daniel says, and it’s sharp and. And hurt.

“Not all you time, surely you’re-“

“I’m not,” Daniel cuts him off, shaking his head. “Max, are you serious right now?”

“What?”

Daniel throws his hands up, incredulous and shaking his head as he reaches out to grab Max’s wrist and pull him in. In, to the safe, sunshine-beach-warm scent of his embrace. In, to tuck up under his arm wrapped around Max’s shoulders and forcing him into a hug. In, to the way he presses his lips to Max’s temple, and sighs.

He’s never done that before.

The lump in Max’s throat is back.

“You’re so stupid,” Daniel whispers into the quiet between them, lips grazing the shell of Max’s ear, but his words aren’t malicious. They’re… they’re fond and gentle and Max can hear Daniel’s smile.

Max closes his eyes, lets his arms curl up around Daniel’s waist to hold on, tucked under Daniel’s chin, trying his best not to tremble. He’d been so resolved in his decision to make a clean break so it didn’t hurt when Daniel came back to Europe for testing next year. He can’t speak. He was hear to be strong. Now all he is is exactly where he was trying not to be, anymore. Pressed up against Daniel, breathing him in, safe and warm and happy.

“I’m going home for Christmas but I’m coming back to be with you,” Daniel said. “No other omegas, okay?”

Max’s omega senses can feel Daniel’s earnest intentions and it makes something hot flicker in his chest.

“But,” Max starts, but Daniel cuts him off.

“I was going to come to your room before you knocked,” Daniel says as he gently pulls back enough to make Max look at him, his hand coming up to cup the side of Max’s neck. “Tell you I’d miss you over break and I’d worry about you and it scared me so much to leave. Maxy. It’s just you I want to be with.”

Max stares. Daniel’s sincerity is almost too much to bear. Daniel laughs, and Max is warmed up inside by the sound.

“Oh god, Maxy, you’re so much, you know?” He asks, and Max doesn’t know. Daniel cuddles him back into a hug and presses a real kiss to Max’s cheekbone and Max’s heart thuds. “I don’t see other omegas, Max. Just waiting around for you.”

Daniel is maybe right. Max is stupid.

The season flashes through Max’s mind like a movie; presenting as an omega and Daniel being so immediately protective of him, so gentle and re-assuring, so patient and kind and warm and patient, so willing to comfort Max and let him work out his anxieties about his presentation and his woes about how alphas saw and looked at him now, and. And Daniel never once did any of that.

“Oh,” he says. He’s definitely stupid. Daniel laughs.

“I want to kiss you so bad but if I do I won’t be able to leave you and Mum will kill me if I don’t come home for Christmas,” Daniel says and Max shivers in his arms. He wants that. He clings a little tighter to Daniel, pressed up against him and unable to help the way he rubs his cheek gentle against Daniel’s shoulder. He wants to be washed in the sunshine happy smell of Daniel.

“But when you come back?” Max wonders, heartbeat kicking in his chest. This is so not how he thought tonight was going to go.

“Will you let me court you?” Daniel asks and Max shivers. Yes. “Do it real proper. An alpha has to earn an omega’s affections, you know,” he says, cheeky as if he hasn’t done that – whether Max knew it or not – all along.

“Don’t go,” Max whispers, selfishly. He’d come here tonight with the intentions of making it known that he didn’t need Daniel’s laugh and warmth and touch all along.

“I’ll come back,” Daniel says as he cuddles Max tighter in his embrace. “To you.”

His scent is warm and rich and sunshine and golden.

All for Max.

Always, for Max.

#anxious baby omega max #my ficlet

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dotieeee · 2 months

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The Gamemaker's Apprentice

Level 9

Pairing: Dark!Young!Coriolanus Snow x You, named!Reader

Overall Warnings:

NON-CON, DUB-CON, Dark!Young!Coriolanus Snow, Snow himself should be a warning, lots of blackmailing, gaslighting, manipulation, obsession, possesiveness, eventual forced marriage, eventual loss of virginity, breeding kink, canon-compliant major character death, reader is named but has no physical descriptions in the fic so one might also consider her an OC but in 2nd POV, will have canon inconsistencies, drugging, somnophilia, and other stuff that may be added

Masterlist

Level 9 Warnings:

Graphic violence, torture and experiments conducted on children (because it isn't Hunger Games without it lol), jealous Snow if you squint

Replay Level 8

Ready? Level 9 Start:

The tyres screech when your Uncle Cas hits the brakes. You’re still several blocks away from your apartment building and you’ve just reached a red light, although, with your uncle’s questionable driving skills, you’re not quite sure you’d both make it home intact.

“Uncle Cas? I’m pretty sure we hit someone back there and they’re still twitching.”

Thankfully, your attempt at lightening the mood isn’t in vain. Your uncle chortles behind the wheel.

“Really? I thought I did a decent job running them over.”

A pause ensues in the car before your uncle glances sideways at you. “Nellie, are you okay?”

You could only nod, bracing yourself as the red light turns green and your uncle steps on the gas pedal like a madman.

“What’s on your mind?” He presses.

“Nothing much,” you reply in a mock-nonchalant tone. “Just crossing my fingers we don’t actually hit anything.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” he deadpans. “Enough wisecracks about my driving. What’s going on? I mean, I know it’s always about that bastard you call your ‘mentor,’ but is there anything you’d like to tell your dear old uncle?”

You release a drawn-out sigh. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin, Uncle Cas.”

He nods in understanding. “Okay. You can tell me once we get home.”

You pull up to the Corso III in a matter of minutes, and you step out of the car hoping you’d never have to endure being in a ride with Acacius Innis driving. Your uncle playfully throws the keys to his dumbfounded driver, who’s waiting by the building entrance.

“I didn’t know you could drive, sir,” he says with a confused expression when he catches the keys.

“I’m just as surprised as you are, Gustav!” Your uncle says brightly, much to Gustav’s bewilderment.

Once you get inside the apartment, your uncle makes tea, which you politely decline, and sits you down on the kitchen counter. He only says one word after a single sip on his mug:

“Talk.”

“I want to quit,” is the first thing you blurt out.

“I didn’t know that was an option,” your uncle says.

You shake your head miserably. “No, it isn’t. But I can’t let them have that program. It’s yours. They shouldn’t be allowed to do whatever the fuck they want with it.”

You let out a deep exhale but a few tears of frustration come along with it.

Your uncle offers no words and just continues sipping his tea in contemplation. Maybe, just like you, he’s also run out of ideas. Maybe there really is no escape from any of this, and you’re better off just letting Snow have his way with your uncle’s work.

Perhaps your uncle punching him was the only way any of you could ever get back at him.

“Did any shipments come in when I left the office?”

You frown at his question. “Yes, a few boxes of drives arrived.”

Why is he asking this out of the blue, you wonder?

Uncle Cas hums as he takes another sip. “Huh. That’s... peculiar . Peculiar, indeed.”

“It is?” you ask, now getting mildly annoyed. You’re about to surrender his most important work to the most dangerous child-killing woman in Panem and her younger, potentially more tyrannical male version and he’s worried about packages arriving that he didn’t order? “You mean, you didn’t send for them?”

Seemingly oblivious to your dilemma, he maintains this abnormally carefree attitude. “I guess it doesn’t matter now who did. Have you done a malware scan on them?”

You sigh and decide to humour him. Who knows, maybe this is his copium. “What for? They’re blanks. And shouldn’t your staff be doing that?”

Uncle Cas lets out a derisive laugh. “Not my department anymore, plumcake.”

“But within your scope!” Growing more and more confused, you argue, even though you don’t know what for anymore.

He just snorts. “Yeah, because we have all the time in the world to check blank hard drives and not at all busy running the entire government’s military cyber defence system and keeping it safe from rebel cyberattacks. What do I know?”

He makes himself another cup of tea, and, joining you back on the kitchen counter, he asks, “What else did the drives come with?”

You shrug. “A single floppy disk?”

And once again, he just lets out another contemplative hum. You narrow your eyes at him, your confusion slowly being replaced by suspicion. He knows something you don’t.

He always does.

“Check the drives. I’d start with the floppy disk if it were me,” he says airily. “You know, your aunt Marcelline and I separated just shortly before I became your guardian. Even after I moved to the Capitol, I used to really want to get under her skin.”

Knowing your uncle by now, this is his way of trying to make a point, so you go along with him.

“True, I was mad at her at first for leaving me, but after a while, it just became banter. Nothing more than a practical joke,” he chuckles. “I started creating viruses and sending them to her. The first one I sent was in this drive I claimed to be defective, and she checked it out herself. Big mistake. It wiped half the source code all our factories ran on.”

“What?” you ask incredulously. But your uncle is laughing heartily, and imagining your aunt fuming mad at his prank makes you laugh with him. The Aunt Marcelline you know is rarely ever fazed.

“Oh, she was flying off the handle. Operations went on a standstill for half a day until they installed the backups. She then video-called me just to tell me I was a ‘fucking nutcase.’ Next thing I know, every single personal shipment I requested came with this harmless little worm that entered in my name spelt ‘Ac-ASS-cius’ for every fourteenth line of code I type,” he pauses as he wipes the tears of laughter from his eyes. “That shit went on for months, I tell you.”

Your Uncle Cas empties his mug with a single swig and asks you, “Are you getting a lesson somewhere here?”

In between bouts of light chortling, you admit, “No, not really...”

He gives you a look between exasperation and amusement. “Just check the floppy disk. I built a virtual machine environment on the station you’re using, so test it within that environment. You may never know what that contains. Who knows, maybe it’s a virus harmful enough to render most of your code completely unusable.”

Your laughter dies down at once as his point dawns on you.

Is this him giving you permission to kill his brainchild? The head of Cybersecurity, hinting at infecting Citadel property?

Was Acacius Innis the one who sent you that disk?

Now, your curiosity is even more piqued.

“Why would any creator nuke their own work?” you ask carefully.

Your Uncle Cas just gives you an unconcerned look. “Maybe to them, it’s just that: work . Just a simple set of codes they can easily write again. Sure, they were probably attached to it at first, as all creators are, but maybe down the line, they realised how their work could impact others negatively and decided it wasn’t worth the effort. It happens all the time.”

He gets up from his seat and sighs. “That’s it: enough riddle talk.”

He deposits his empty mug on the sink and leans against it with his arms crossed. He declares with mocking authority, “Check the floppy disk. This is an official mandate from the head of Cybersecurity. Noncompliance could result in the issuance of an interdepartmental memo.”

Ah yes. That little piece of paper – essentially an airing of a list of grievances from one department to another disguised pretentiously in the form of corporate claptrap. Just more red tape your mentor would gladly put on top of your growing pile of paperwork.

“Oh no, a memo, so scary,” you joke back with an eye roll.

“You bet it is. Now go to bed. This is now your uncle speaking, by the way.”

Now filled with renewed hope, you nod. Your uncle had once again carved a way out for you. If you can pull plant the virus in one of the supercomputers without drawing suspicion, you can destroy a huge chunk of the code, rendering the program useless, thereby making you appear inadequate for the job in the eyes of the Citadel, and most of all, your mentor. You can turn in your resignation and work for your uncle, just like before, while staying away forever from Coriolanus Snow.

Sounds like a plan.

You get up from your chair and hug your dear old Uncle Cas around his midriff.

“Uncle? Thank you. I’m sorry.” For destroying your work in the near future. “For everything.”

He ruffles your hair, grinning at you affectionately when you let go.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, plumcake.”

“You shouldn’t have punched him, you know,” you say as an afterthought.

“Really? It felt great. Nine out of ten will do it again. Now for the umpteenth time, plumcake, go to bed.”

You bid him goodnight and saunter to your room to shed your work clothes in favour of something more comfortable. You’re a bit miffed your stockings are now ruined owing to the gash on the right leg, so you peel them off to throw them away. Strangely enough, you also obtained this nasty purplish little bruise, even if you don’t really remember hitting something when you fell. Sighing to yourself, you resolve to be more careful around the folks at the Citadel and mostly, around him.

You take the little vial that he gave you out of your coat pocket, debating whether you’re going to try it or not.

You fell asleep without help a while ago, right?

You decide to stow it on your nightstand just in case. It turns out that after an hour or two of just tossing and turning in bed without the mercy of unconsciousness, placing it nearby was an excellent decision. You take a tiny sip directly from the bottle and let it do its work.

True to its promise, you wake up in the late morning hours of a free Thursday without ever being woken up by your uncle in the middle of a nightmare.

I guess there are things even he can’t lie about, you conclude.

Friday. The day you’re dreading has finally come to a close, and you begin it by getting to your office at ten past six in the morning when even the Peacekeepers on night shift have cups of coffee in their hands to try and power through the last hour of their shift. You make no detours and head straight to your office, remaining vigilant in case any of your team decide to come in early as well.

Under no circumstance must you ever, ever be caught with a potential malware powerful enough to destroy one of the Citadel’s best assets.

So, turning on the virtual machine environment, you insert the disk and let your uncle’s system do its magic.

You almost choke on your second cup of coffee as your computer alerts you of its findings.

In the disk are two harmless-looking folders that are designed to run in the background – one, a little virus that replicates tasks at lightning-fast speeds. Essentially harmless on its own, the most it can do is overload the chips, leading to overheating, and eventually alerting the antimalware which would shut down the system to prevent further hardware damage. But by the time of the shutdown and an unsuspecting user is drawn to trying to fix what looks like a hardware issue, the second more devastating virus in the disk would have already wormed its way around the cybersecurity measures and into the other computers, attacking any and all files it can latch onto. By the time the antimalware would have been alerted of its presence and taken the other computers offline, the virus would have dealt with significant corruption in the program’s source code and its backups. All it takes for a user to unknowingly activate both is a simple set of keyboard commands.

It’s an astonishing work of art in the form of malicious code crafted by none other than the genius that is Acacius Innis.

A beep at the door, followed by two others, indicates the arrival of the triplets, so you immediately eject the disk and shut down the virtual environment machine. You manage to hide the disk in your drawer just as they greet you ‘good morning’ in unison, which you return with just as much enthusiasm. They all seem to look forward to seeing what they have been labouring for come to fruition, with F1 and F3 more so, with their lighthearted chatter filling the room while a more reserved F2 prints out the list of test cases for the trial.

You follow the triplets to the testing room by eight for final preparations for the start of the official grey-box tests. Every minute that passes, your stomach sinks further in dread, thinking of the three district teens who are going to be subject to bouts of experimentation that could potentially kill them, plus the added bonus of being in possession of something only a Capitol rebel would have at hand.

The arrival of your mentor thirty minutes before the briefing just amplifies your anxiety.

Coriolanus Snow, with his dapper suit and his combed-back locks, greets you in his normal fashion like your uncle did not attempt to pummel his face right in front of his own apartment building the other night.

“How are you?” you ask him softly as you approach. You feel a bit guilty about what your Uncle Cas did – after all, he was only trying to help. “How’s your…lip?”

His smile just widens further while he observes your face. “Relax, it was nothing I couldn’t handle. You were worried about me,” he concludes.

You don’t miss the way his eyes twinkle when you nod. “I’m really sorry.”

He dips his head closer to your space and responds, “You have nothing to apologise for, my sugarplum. Your concern, however, warms my heart.”

You say nothing and merely flash him a quick smile, intending to walk off to continue your work, but his hold on your arm keeps you close.

“I could ask the same of you. The Games upset you, I can see that,” he says, as he takes your chin between his fingers to keep you from facing away. “But this is merely a test, so one is going to die. It’ll only last a day. And you’ve seen it yourself – these children are being paid for these tests. They know what they signed up for.”

You know Coriolanus’s words are meant to reassure you, but it’s hard not to feel pressure when you know your freedom from him depends on how successful you’ll be in planting the virus.

Just a few more hours of this.

The thought should be enough for you to power through the day, so you nod and say, “I’ll be fine, Coryo. Thank you.”

“Good.” Your mentor flashes you a look of approval as he releases your chin and your arm, his hand travelling down to clasp your hand. “I made reservations at The White Knight for dinner tonight at eight. Let’s hope we finish this by then because I have an important matter to discuss with you.”

Oh no. “What is it?” What could it be that it needs to wait until tonight? “W-we…we have time, now…” you trail off.

The last time you had a conversation with him about ‘important matters,’ you ended up getting blackmailed to work for him. So naturally, you aren’t too keen on giving him another chance to potentially corner you into a vulnerable position.

Coriolanus just crinkles his eyes and lets out a mix of a sigh and a chuckle, his grip on your hand shifting so he can lace your fingers between his. “As much as I find your enthusiasm endearing, sugarplum, you’re distracted at the present. I’d like to have your full attention when we broach this matter.”

You’re a few seconds shy of just pulling your hand away, but thankfully a clearing of someone’s throat behind you makes him release his hold first.

“Sorry to interrupt this little office romance, kids, but we got about fifteen minutes before the boss lady gets here,” F1 says, trying to hold back a smirk.

Laughing lightly, Coriolanus flicks his gaze to yours knowingly before sauntering over to the male computer engineers huddled over the main command console. You move away from the group for the sake of productivity to help F2 check the other consoles.

By the time the Head Gamemaker makes her entrance, you’re all awaiting her arrival in a semi-circle, and you exchange polite morning greetings before F1 and F2 take the reigns and signal the start of the grey-box tests.

“Using highly advanced technological randomisation, we shall begin with assigning you a test tribute,” F1 declares.

F2 takes out a small glass bowl containing three rolled-up pieces of paper, smirking slightly as she shakes it, much to everyone’s amusement. She hands it out, and together, you, F3 and Coriolanus unfurl the tiny roll.

Test Tribute 2

“I got Tansey,” you say.

F3 hums curiously as he gazes at his piece of paper before he puts it back in the bowl.

“Test Tribute 3. I get the feral girl,” he says simply.

Coriolanus puts his back, looking satisfied with getting Callahan. He, too, confirms his tribute and adds, lifting a corner of his mouth, “I’ve worked with worse odds than this before.”

F3 nods in agreement. “Yes, that kid’s never given us trouble.”

F1 leads the three of you outside the testing room and you follow him about two doors down into another room where the three test tributes await. The room is overwhelmingly grey and sparse of furniture, save the tables and chairs, all bolted to the floor, where the three of the teenagers are chained to by their hands and feet.

Callahan’s face instantly lights up when he sees you and even manages a small wave despite his shackles. You give him a tiny wave back.

“You’re given ten minutes to talk to them, give them instructions, and...whatever else you feel like,” says F1. Bringing out a pocket timer, he then hangs back at the corner while you each take your place at the empty seat before your test tributes. Coriolanus proceeds to the far left corner of the room where his tribute is, immediately motioning Callahan to come closer and whispering something you can’t hear over his ear. The boy blanches and mutters sorry as he stares at the table with a shaken expression. Audrey, to your far right, refuses point-blank to engage after F3’s multiple attempts to call her name as she fixates on her chains. F3 sighs in defeat, crossing his arms and leaning against his chair to observe her. You smile warmly at Tansey, which she returns shyly.

“Hello, Tansey,” you greet her.

“Hi,” she manages.

Wordlessly, you place three large pieces of strawberry-flavoured candy – the only sweets you’re able to bring with you, unfortunately – on the table and push it towards her. Her eyes widen as she looks at the candy and then at you, as if asking if it really is for her. You urge her to take it with a nod.

Tansey’s smile brightens significantly as she peels off the wrapper on one.

“Thank you,” she mumbles. “I...I don’t remember the last time I had one of these. They really smell like the strawberries we pick.”

“You’re welcome. If I knew we’d be meeting like this, I could’ve brought blackberry-flavoured ones.”

You try not to feel sorry for her because you’re aware that doesn’t help her, and the only thing that will is ensuring that she gets to live at the end of this trial. Coriolanus’s promise of keeping everyone alive is fanciful at best, knowing that the game environment itself could be lethal.

“Keep the rest for later,” you advise, placing the candy in her palms. “I don’t know what time I’ll be able to send you food. Have you been given breakfast?”

She nods, and you note how she seems a little more chipper. “They gave us two pieces of bread instead of one. Even smeared a bit of butter on them.”

You’re glad to hear they at least were given more food, but you wonder whether this is because the team thinks this might be their last.

“And some tea, too. No sugar, but it was good. My aunt likes it that way.” Then she adds, “I miss her. She gets sick sometimes.”

“Why did you enlist, Tansey?” you ask softly.

Tansey seems to hesitate before answering, “I had to.” She licks her lips, and continues, “Once I get the money, I’d buy her a better wheelchair and she can start taking care of chickens so we could sell them in the market.”

So much responsibility assumed so willingly at such a young age. Sejanus would’ve hated the thought of Tansey doing so much for so little. He would’ve helped her however he could.

Now more determined to make sure Tansey gets home safely back to her aunt and lives a better life, you begin instructing her on what she’s about to face.

Tansey listens aptly to every detail, but the further you go on, the more the fear behind her eyes grows. Guilt for what you’re about to make her face gnaws at you the entire time, seeing as you’re partly to blame for creating the system that could fatally injure her later in the day.

F1 calls out the last remaining minute.

“Tansey, please be careful down there, okay?” you say. You hold both her hands clasped with the shackles.

“Thank you. I wish everyone here was as nice as you,” she says in her usual faint tone. “If I make it, do you think I’ll be allowed to say goodbye to you at least before I go back home?”

“Ten minutes is up!”

With a sorrowful smile, you respond to her, “I don’t know. Good luck, Tansey.”

“Mentors, please follow me back to the testing room. The tributes will be escorted to the test arena during your final briefing,” F1 says as he gestures to the door where you came in.

You spare Tansey a final glance just as Coriolanus catches up to you and ushers you to the door by the shoulder. Once you're back in the testing room, you assume your mentor station which has a stapled file labelled ‘test cases’ sitting just under the keyboard. You also note Dr Gaul’s glaring absence from the room. Perhaps, she’s grown bored of waiting? It can’t be, the woman thrives on watching children suffer; she would not pass on this opportunity.

F2 clears her throat and begins the final briefing as the monitors fitted on the wall turn on, displaying the Hunger Games screensaver.

“The tributes should be escorted by now to the test arena and are awaiting the start of the Games, which will be signalled via a siren. As test mentors, you’re given the additional task of checking inconsistencies and errors not only with the gamemaker console and its software but also with the software installed on your stations. Your checklist of test cases should be on your stations, as well.”

You pore through the ten-page document with an inaudible sigh. F2 had been thorough with the test cases and made sure not to miss a single, important detail.

“Each tribute has been allocated sponsorship money to use for testing, which you can choose to send out at any time,” she continues. “Dr Gaul, who will be observing the entire test –” she waves lightly behind you where the Head Gamemaker is, inside the glass observation deck, grinning down at everyone with her arms crossed – “Will grant additional sponsorship money to any tribute whenever she pleases to test the sponsor console, which I will run. In the event of a test winner, a siren will go off, indicating the end of the Games. The Peacekeepers will unlock the basement and escort the mock tributes out for medical attention.”

F1 adds, “While they do so, we initiate the final steps of the game, and that is saving the footage and the data we gathered and uploading it on the database for the other gamemakers to analyse. Saving and uploading can take a bit of time, by the way, because of the massive amount of data the program will gather,” he pauses, adding lightheartedly, “In short, we’ll be here a while, ladies and gents.”

Turning to you, F2 asks, “Will you do the honours, Nellie?” she gestures at the main command console with a flair.

You saunter over to the console while you will your hands to stop shaking. On the keyboard, you initiate the Begin Game command, and the program wizard starts.

Here we go.

The program finishes detecting cameras and microphones installed in the arena, along with the programmed environmental elements. You simply enter Continue. It goes on detecting vitals trackers and flashes:

3 Out of 24 players detected.

Press Enter to Continue.

Press ⬅️to cancel.

Once you hit Enter, your screen begins another progress bar as the big screen on the wall flashes the list of tributes for the very first time. The smaller screens simultaneously begin to display the different camera angles across the test arena. In no less than a fraction of a second, the current tribute odds appear according to the motion-tracking algorithm:

Audrey at 46%, Callahan at 38%, and Tansey the lowest at 16%.

You peer at the gamemaker console, which shows the three tributes’ vitals on one screen and the odds on another, and on your station, where only Tansey’s appears. Elevated heart rate and a slightly higher-than-normal blood pressure brought about the increase in cortisol levels – Tansey is understandably nervous.

You watch as they’re escorted by three peacekeepers to an open clearing in the middle of the old equipment, where three small bags are placed containing what you think are weapons. Their hands are still bound together by chains, so they all stand awkwardly a few feet away from each other as if they’re unsure what to do.

It’s a painful wait for the system to give the go signal, as it’s timed to start at the next exact hour. Once the clock strikes ten, the siren sounds in the makeshift arena, and the trial Hunger Games begins.

Everyone in the room seems to hold their breath as they all stare at the big screen, watching as the shackles that bind their hands simply fall off and land on the tiled floor beneath them with a clang. It takes a few moments for it to sink in, but Audrey gets there first – she runs straight to the centre and grabs a bag before scampering off to hide among a row of control panels located at the farthest eastern part of the basement. Tansey and Callahan share a look and they wordlessly divvy up the remaining bags between themselves before striking up a conversation.

Or in this case, it’s Callahan talking Tansey’s ear off as they explore the grounds together.

“This is a great time to check camera software,” you say as you peer through the gamemaker console F2 is navigating. You check your list of test cases for the camera while F1 and F2 shift between several cameras on the big screen.

“My stats are increasing, the algorithm is picking up movement from Test Tribute 3,” F3 observes after a while and then points at one of the smaller screens. “Check camera nineteen.”

At his prompt, the view on camera nineteen is flashed on the big screen – it shows Audrey holding up a dagger and swishing it in the air. She may not look entirely adept at it, but her temperament alone makes her dangerous in the test arena.

F2 moves on to the rest, finally landing on the view of the last one where Callahan and Tansey are visible. Located opposite Audrey’s chosen hideout, Callahan is hunched over a decades-old computer set with a knife in hand, presumably intending to take it apart, while Tansey just looks on curiously as she sits on the floor where the contents of their bags are spread. They seem to be in the middle of a friendly exchange judging by the way their mouths are moving on occasion, but the microphones aren’t quite picking the conversation up. You take to the vacant gamemaker console and put on the headphones to hear the sound better. There seems to be a hint of audio, so you amp the volume just in time to catch what Callahan is saying.

“ – what he said to me when he first came up? He said,‘You look her in the eyes again, and I’ll gouge yours out with my bare hands.’”

Callahan sighs in resignation, adding under his breath, “Jerk.”

Is he talking about Coriolanus Snow?

Tansey scrunches her brows. “Really? He’s her boyfriend?” She asks. “But she’s nice. She gave me candy and everything.”

“Yeah, she’s nice; he ain’t. Dunno how she can stand him, honest.”

We’re not together, dammit.

A touch on your forearm nearly startles you. It’s F2, saying she found low volume on a few of the microphones as well. Overall, you and the others spend about two hours troubleshooting the audio settings and testing changes on the camera angles, finding no other minor problems.

The lunch hour rolls without event, which in this case is an immense relief for you and the test tributes. No bloodshed (yet?). You ask F1 if you could go first with testing the drone software as an excuse to send Tansey some food.

“Nah, they can wait,” he shrugs.

Apparently, catered food courtesy of The White Knight was brought in while you were busy with the tests. A tad too extravagant even for six people, the long table that was brought in was filled with pasta dishes, meatball platters and pastries, and they also supplied fresh juice and coffee for drinks. It’s almost laughable how they choose this exact moment to host this fare when you have three underfed teens locked in the basement and nothing but bread and water to feed them.

You make no move to get food, going back to your place behind the mentor console, but a cup of coffee and a croissant sandwich is placed on your peripheral. Coriolanus has taken it upon himself to ensure you partake. You whisper your thanks with a small smile and eat mechanically. Thankfully, the food seems to lighten everyone else’s mood, and F1 gives you permission to test the drones at five minutes past one.

On your console, you add a bottle of water and two slices of bread to a drone. Tansey’s odds are predicted to increase by about three per cent on the preview.

“Odds preview working just as intended,” you say as you cross it out of the checklist.

F3 peeks into your screen as he bites into a cream puff. “That’s it? Three per cent? If this was the actual Games, this kid would be done for.”

You could’ve defended her, but you decide against it – Tansey might have little chance of making it out of this alive if she’s ever reaped. You hit enter on the keyboard and let the system send the drone her package.

Everyone’s eyes are glued to the big screen as the drone flies over the rows of gigantic electronic waste, carrying a grey drawstring pouch, and hardly emitting any noise now with its recent enhancements. It reaches Tansey at a surprising speed and drops the pouch off gently on the ground about three feet shy of where she’s sitting before flying off back to its base. Tansey just looks at the bag with a flabbergasted expression and Callahan has to throw a couple of keyboard caps at her to nudge her into taking it.

“Before that other girl steals it,” he adds.

Tansey’s eyes turn to saucers at the mere mention of Audrey. She then sprints and snatches the bag so quickly before taking it with her back to her previous spot. This move of hers adds four per cent to her odds. Her face lights up at what she sees inside, takes a slice of bread out and holds it out to Callahan. The boy seems reluctant to accept the offer.

“Shouldn’t you be savin’ that for later?” He asks.

She shakes her head and replies, “There’s one more in the bag.”

Smiling warmly, Callahan scoots over to her side on the floor and accepts the piece of bread. He whispers his thanks and they eat together in companionable silence.

You and Coriolanus point out that the vital signs chip software is working perfectly.

The teens continue finishing the humble meal, then take little sips of the water from her bottle. Having nothing else to do, they gather their loot and decide to explore more of the basement together. They reach the area where the artificial rain drenched from the previous test, where large puddles of water still littered about. A couple of hours into their uneventful exploration, Audrey gets to her feet from her corner at the far end of the basement and begins a trek among the labyrinthine pathways littered with massive junk.

F3 hums as he stares intently into his screen, observing, “She’s on the move. I think she’s looking for food. According to her hormones, she’s hungry.”

Audrey eventually gets close to where Callhan and Tansey are, but she ducks behind a rusty file cabinet the moment she hears their voices.

Out of the corner of your eyes, you notice your mentor typing something on his station, on the big screen everyone sees a drone making its way to his tribute. The bag is dropped on top of a dusty table just within meters from the file cabinet where Audrey is hiding. Callahan falls behind Tansey and tells her he’ll catch up to her in a bit to retrieve the package. His hands are but a few inches from the pouch, but Audrey springs from behind the cabinet and tackles Callahan to the floor with her entire weight, pushing him out of the way and knocking the wind out of him.

F3, grimacing, lets out a tiny ‘oof.’ Coriolanus’s face is as impassive as ever, but you can sense the mirth behind his eyes watching the entire scene unfold.

Cursing under his breath, Callahan looks around, more confused than hurt, and it takes a few seconds for him to spot Audrey running on her heels with the bag in tow.

“Hey, what in the livin’ fuck?!” He shouts after her.

Tansey had heard the commotion and had rushed back to where her friend was. She helps him get to his feet as Callahan mutters what sounds like ‘crazy-ass bitch’ to himself. He calls out to the direction where Audrey ran off to, “Whatever happened to askin’ nicely?”

In the testing room, F3 breaks the silence with a lighthearted comment. “Sorry about that. I wouldn’t mind if your tribute steals this, so we’d be even.”

Coriolanus just smirks as he watches F3’s drone reach Audrey.

Of course, he’s enjoying this.

“You knew Audrey was hungry, yet you chose that moment to send Callahan something,” you blurt out.

Coriolanus’s smirk doesn’t fade when he turns to you, leaning back coolly against his chair. “I was merely curious.”

But to a man like him, curiosity often blends with cruelty. Still, you purse your lips and let the matter go. There is so much work to be done, and if you do it right, this could potentially be the last interaction you’d ever have with him.

At F1’s prompt, since everyone has finished sending food to the test tributes, you take turns trying out and crossing out cases on your list related to the drones, sending bottles of water to check for any abnormal drone behaviour. When every test yields satisfactory, you conclude the drone software to be fully functional.

Which is a bummer because that means you’re now moving on to testing the game environment controls.

F1 rubs his palms and whispers, “Here we go.” He types a command you’ve never seen used before, so you peek into his screen behind his back.

He just activated the Muttations Release function.

From the basement’s tall ceiling, a chasm opens wide from which a glass case descends. It’s difficult to make out what’s inside the tank given the limited lighting in the basement, but whatever species is inside is brown, palm-sized, and writhing .

“What in the world are those?” F2 whispers, her eyes bulging at the display.

“That, my lovely little miracle workers, are my Genetic team’s brand-new itty-bitty side project.”

Everyone in the room turns their heads to the glass observation deck, where Dr Gaul just spoke through the intercom. She waves her gloved fingers at all of you, baring her teeth in a diabolical smile.

“Fire-ant muttations, modified to be two-hundred times their original size and weight – voracious, aggressive little buggers. The catch? A single bite not only causes severe burning sensations courtesy of the solenopsin venom, but also induces convulsions, delirium, and, the best out of all of them? Either intense displays of aggression or a deep state of comatose, brought about by a slow-acting compound genetically added to their venom glands.

“In short, not your typical ant bite,” she says, followed by a deep, throaty chuckle that makes your hair stand on end. “Feast your eyes.”

You’re on your feet at once, madly searching the screen for Tansey, whom you find twice as terrified as you are and clinging onto Callahan’s sleeve. Callahan, however, takes a single look at the tank with eyes bulged, grabs Tansey’s arm and makes a run for it.

Just seconds before the glass cage splits at the bottom and releases the creatures.

Your eyes are trained on the pair as droves and droves of the crawling freaks of nature chase after them. Callahan and Tansey are both thankfully light on their feet, jumping over obstacles without much issue, except this advantage doesn’t last. Mere inches away from being overtaken by the ant mutts, Callahan all but hauls his companion to the top of the nearest control panel before climbing to safety, while an ant that manages to crawl on top of another ant for leverage narrowly misses his ankles with its pincers.

Audrey had also managed to make it on top of a short cabinet physically intact not far away from where the tank had dropped from the ceiling.

“Goddammit, goddammit,” you can hear Callahan mutter under his breath. He’s rummaging through their bags frantically for something he can use to fend the accursed insects off, as they have begun to climb the control panel they’re perched onto. He finally fishes out a machete with a loud ‘ha!’ before throwing it to Tansey, and launches himself to the row of shelves on the left.

Is he leaving her?

Tansey seems to have the same question in mind.

“Wait, Callahan - !” – she impales an ant with the machete – “Come back!” she screams after her friend, but it’s too late – the boy is already several rows of cabinets and shelves away, rummaging through the junk he can reach in search of something. Eventually, he hops back on the floor, disappearing from her view entirely.

“Callahan, don’t leave me, please!” Tansey’s panicked scream echoes in your ears.

“Their vitals are going haywire...” F1 says as he checks his console.

More ants begin reaching the top of the control panel which Tansey defends with all her might, and she stomps on and slices as many of them as she can. Audrey, too, seems to manage well on her own with the knife she was rehearsing earlier despite her perch being closer to the floor.

Tansey’s control panel, however, starts getting flanked on three sides by the climbing ant mutts, and you know it would only be a matter of seconds before she herself, gets overtaken –

“TANSEY, GET OUT OF THE FUCKIN’ WAY!”

Tansey heeds the scream of warning just in time for most of her to avoid getting licked by huge bursts of flame that attack the ant mutts and keep them at bay.

It’s Callahan, who looks like he managed to successfully build the flamethrower out of parts he scavenged from the electronic trash he was rummaging through just a short while ago.

Relief, however short-lived, washes over you as you note Tansey’s appearance – she takes in the scene before her with a mixture of fascination and relief, her curls partly singed from the flames earlier, but otherwise, safe and unbitten.

“There’s too many of ‘em – fuck!” Callahan’s frustration becomes more evident in his yell as waves of ant mutts keep coming at them from all sides. Tansey still holds her ground from behind him with her machete, hacking at every moving, crawling thing coming at her.

The boy shifts his position as he observes the horizon. His eyes land on something to his south before a look of realisation hits him.

“Hey, Tansey, remember that area with them puddles? We gotta get there, I got a plan,” he tells her over his back. “Follow me, and whatever you do, don’t fuckin’ fall, got it?”

Tansey shouts in the affirmative. Callahan begins hurdling on top of the sea of shelves, computers and cabinets, with her tailing from behind. The ant mutts pursue them relentlessly, which puzzles you. Fire ants, after all, only attack a target which they've marked with their pheromones.

“How did they manage to get fire-ant pheromones on them?” you wonder out loud.

“My, my, aren’t you just astute, Ms Innis,” Dr Gaul’s drawling, delighted voice comes through the intercom. “Their shackles were smeared generously with them – a rather brilliant idea you can thank your mentor for.”

You flick your gaze sharply at Coriolanus, who simply beams at you. You open your mouth to react, but a scream from Tansey makes you whip your head to the big screen.

An ant mutt had managed to crawl on her back, but a hand swats it away.

It’s Audrey, falling into step beside her. Tansey mouths her thanks, which the other doesn’t acknowledge. Together, they spring towards the massive computer that Callahan had just landed on, with Audrey landing square at the centre. Tansey, however, barely makes it, her torso draped over the edge as she attempts desperately to pull herself up to higher ground with one hand while clutching the flamethrower with the other. Below her are several ant mutts, emitting clicking noises, as if calling for the rest of their colony.

To everyone’s surprise, Audrey rises to her rescue yet again: she takes the flamethrower and pulls her up to safety, only this time, Tansey doesn’t bother with niceties and just smiles at her. Audrey just blinks once, indicating she understands.

The tributes finally make it to their target area, so Callahan looks around, and as he does, his eyes land on their new companion.

“How nice of you to join us,” he says with a sarcastically formal flair. “Make yourself useful and fend ‘em off. Tansey!”

“They’re coming!”

“I know that – listen to me – I’mma need you to draw these little shits to the largest, deepest puddle,” he urgently instructs her. Turning to Audrey, he says, “Protect each other, and the both of you: when I tell you to get off the floor, get off the damn floor, understand?”

The girls nod in accord and at their leader’s prompt, they steel themselves and hop down the floor, where the mutts are but a few rows away. Callahan takes this time to hastily head to his left.

Where the main electrical source is.

F1 whoops in approval in the testing room. “And once again, the nerd saves the day.”

Everyone in the room is collectively holding their breath and ignoring their systems, now aware of Callahan’s grand plan.

He turns off the main power source, which automatically activates the secondary source. With brute force, he yanks the massive wires and drags them with him over the mountains of metallic trash. It’s obviously not an easy feat, having to lug wires heavier than his entire body weight.

From several rows away, Tansey and Audrey kill as many of the bugs as they can, the former with the flamethrower and the latter with her dagger, while they keep them in the puddle as Callahan instructed.

Callahan arrives heaving the wires and taking them apart. Then, he drops the wires to the floor where the copper ends touch the puddle, before taking off and back to the switch.

“You two: get off the floor NOW!” he hollers.

The two scramble through the hoard of mutts upon hearing Callahan’s cue. They make sure to trample some of the mutts along the way for good measure before ferrying themselves on top of the control panel, just as Callahan flips the switch to main.

For a fraction of a second, all the screens in the testing room turn black. Tiny high-pitched clicking noises are heard, which you assume are the mutts’ final cry before being fried to their death, along with sparks flying and electricity crackling, and the surges of electricity continue until you hear the switch being turned off.

The lights, however, don’t turn back on and are replaced by the tiny, flickering yellow emergency lights mounted on the basement walls. Callahan must’ve inadvertently fried the secondary electrical source as well.

“Switch to night vision view, please,” you say, to which F2 complies.

Panicking internally, your eyes scan for Tansey’s whereabouts, and you release the breath you’d been holding once you see her, crouched down and on top of the control panel, slowly rising to her feet as she looks around at the mess of an aftermath. Audrey follows suit, whipping her head around for any imminent danger.

“Is everyone alright? I didn’t zap ya’ll, did I?” shouts Callahan from right before the electrical switches. He sprints among the debris right to where they are.

“No, we’re okay,” Tansey responds. “You?”

Callahan just lets out a heavy sigh, followed by an eruption of relieved laughter from him. “Aside from wantin’ to puke at this stinkin’ pile of shit we just fried, I think I’m good.”

“Uh, guys? I think camera fifteen is conked out,” F3 notices.

F1 attempts a reboot of the camera, but the feed doesn’t return. He concludes eventually after multiple attempts, “The surge must’ve fried the chip.”

F2 logs this down on her checklist.

“Whoa, that was some great footage,” F1 whistles. “The other gamemakers are going to have a blast reviewing these files.”

The rest of the team nods in agreement.

They made it. Despite the glaring odds stacked against them, the three teens made it. Barely.

“You said nobody was going to die. That was a close call, Coriolanus.”

You had not meant to say that out loud but you do. You face him with your brows stitched together, ignoring the way he narrows his eyes at the name you used on him. You had not called him that in a long time.

“Nellie, we could not have gathered that much valuable data if we skipped that part of the test,” he replies gently. His console, however, lights up and emits the notification sound. “Sponsorship worked seamlessly, F2,” he calls out to her.

“Yep!” F2 nods enthusiastically. “Lucky Callahan.”

Pursing your lips, you head back to your station while your mentor sends more food to his tribute, perhaps as a reward for keeping everyone alive and, in consequence, extending the tests further. Instead, you quietly stew in your irritation and try to find comfort in the way the three of them finally descend to the floor and share the slices of bread among themselves. As an added treat, Tansey brings out the two remaining candies that you gave her that morning. She tries to give it to the two of them selflessly, but Callahan isn’t having it. In the end, they agree to share one between themselves and save the last for later.

Your joy at seeing them partake in a heartwarming moment is dampened by the fact that in your world, you can never imagine sharing a single piece of candy with two other people.

A few more uneventful hours pass as you and the rest of your team assess electrical damage that might’ve been dealt with by the electrical surge. You discover along the way that several cameras have a few microsecond delays in transmitting the footage, but nothing the team can’t repair or replace.

The three have already taken to foraging weaponry amidst the debris. Just in case, Callahan had said. Audrey had gone off by herself to do the same and had found electrical parts that Callahan had instructed her to find.

And then she just crumples on the floor into a screaming heap.

It’s visceral, haunting, and she sounds like she’s in extreme agony. Callahan rushes instantly to her side, but it’s Tansey who pries the source of the apparent pain: a lone ant mutt that had been left alive had latched its pincers on her left ankle.

“We got no meds for this,” Callahan says as he and Tansey carry her back to their makeshift camp where they earlier had shared the food. All they could do is wrap her in a blanket they pulled out from one of their bags. The pitiful cries continue for a while. Tansey just sobs helplessly in the background as she takes Audrey’s head and places it on her lap, stroking her blond hair in a vain attempt to soothe her.

And you don’t know what’s harder to watch: Audrey’s screaming or her convulsing on the floor.

“Hey, hey!” Callahan spots a camera nearby and waves at it. “You gotta stop the Games, or whatever, she can’t go on like this…”

His appeals, of course, are ignored by Coriolanus and F3.

Not like you could do anything either: there isn’t any anti-venom for that specific mutt programmed in the source code.

And then the convulsions stop, followed by a deathly silence, indicating the venom had finally put her into a coma she may never wake from.

“He’s right; we have to stop this.” You walk over to your mentor's station. “Coryo, please. We can save whatever data we have and continue next week when she’s better.”

Coriolanus just regards you with a strange look, like he’s contemplating what you just said. Wordlessly he rises from his seat and walks over to F1, probably to inspect the data the console has on Audrey before glancing at the big screen.

“I think you’re right, Nellie. Time is of the essence.” Your mentor says finally. He turns to face you with the stoniest smile you’ve ever seen in him yet. “Let’s test the remaining environment controls, but we need to hurry. We have a few more of them left to run.”

You could feel the blood drain from your face to your feet. He’s willing to let Audrey die just to see the test to completion. And because his word is the only authority next to Dr Gaul’s in this playing field, F1 simply shrugs and presses a command you can’t see on the gamemaker station.

“Wait - !”

The next thing you know is that thrumming pain in your ears, followed by that unbearable ringing that makes you close your eyes. A cloud of dust is all that greets you when you open them next.

You know this day; you’ve revisited it countless times in your life. Always vivid and exactly as you remember it to be, but that fact doesn’t make it any less painful.

When the dust finally clears, that’s when you see her.

“Mommy…no…”

You always sob like a baby at this part. You can’t even bear the thought of seeing her mangled body bathing in her own blood, but here you are, walking over to that heap of a woman who’s barely minutes away from dying. Just like you always do, you cradle her in your arms, letting yourself soak in her blood as you watch the life drain from her eyes.

Daddy's hand. You're supposed to find Daddy's severed hand now.

Cold hands cup your tear-stained cheeks, and a pair of lips touch the top of your head – something that has never happened to you before in any of these visions.

You lift your eyes, and instead of seeing a cloud of dust that you know should be clearing by now, it’s the all-too-familiar pair of the emptiest, most soulless blue eyes you’ve ever seen in your life, tearing you away from a nightmarish memory and shoving you into an even more nightmarish reality.

Enter Level 10

Author notes:

Please reblog and comment, it's always appreciated!!!

Sorry for the delay and forgive any typos. I shall edit when I wake up. Level 10 out tomorrow (crossing my fingers), I just had to cut what was supposedly Level 9 and divide it into two because it was getting too lengthy and the pacing might not make sense so... :P

Also, any guesses what 'important thing' that was that Snowball wanted to talk to her about?? Hmmm...

#dark!coriolanus snow #dark!coriolanus snow x reader #young!coriolanus snow #young!coriolanus snow x reader #named!reader #or #x OC2ndPOV #18+ only #dark!coriolanus snow fic #dark!coriolanus #dark!coriolanus fic #dark!fic

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moonshynecybin · 2 months

Text

short fic (~1000 words ish) i wrote inspired by @kingofthering's wonderful fake dating au which you can find here ! go read it... anyways thinking about valentino and anger and his love languages and his insane little brain and PERFORMANCEEE and fame being a nightmare. anyways:

“And so my question, I suppose, is about your previous comments about Marc— would you say that you’ve put your feud behind you?”

Vale feels Marc shift from one foot to the other, his shoulders tensing under the lazy stretch of Vale’s arm. He’d tucked him there as soon as they’d entered the room, hoping the physical contact would sell it a bit more— give the two of them something to fall back on in front of the press— make their answers more convincing. Pictures sell faster than words, in his experience. But he shouldn’t have worried, Marc’s media training is a well exercised muscle, and his usual wide smile is pasted across his face. He’s good at this, but Vale may be the only person in the room who can tell how nervous he actually is, his slight change in posture and the rigid line of his jaw giving him away. Valentino is not exactly at ease, himself. It's the first time in quite a while that a press conference has made him feel like he was about to vomit.

Camera flashes light up in a dazzling flurry, pulling Vale back into the present. The entire room is holding its breath, paying careful attention to their answer, dying to know how two of the biggest stars in motorsport went from hating each other to being photographed together with one of them on their knees in the span of a calendar year. Sharks smelling chum in the water.

So Vale makes himself laugh, open and gregarious. Does what he does best— make it into something funny. Something that can’t touch him. Bring everyone else in on how hilarious it is, how absurd. Because if he thinks about it too long he feels like smashing things. He cannot fucking believe the nerve of this reporter. Cannot believe he has to do this. Cannot believe that Yamaha had asked him to let Marc do this alone. Cannot believe he thought about letting him. Cannot believe they’re pretending that they’re— that they—

“I would hope so! It would make being together very difficult otherwise.” He says, light enough to be a joke, gesturing between Marc and him. Marc’s hand tightens on his waist, catching against the smooth fabric of his Yamaha shirt. It’s the first verbal confirmation of what they said in their joint press release— that they’ve been dating. That they are together. That sometime in the off-season they’d reconciled and fell in love.

Of course, that’s not exactly what happened. It’s just harder to explain to the world that the sex you’ve been having with your rival 14 years your junior has been— well. Decidedly closer to something like hate sex than the kind of sex you have with a person that you’re in a committed relationship with. And that a lucky paparazzo had simply been in the right alleyway at the right time. And that Marc and him had barely been on speaking terms before the photo had hit the front page of every major publication in the world.

So here they are.

“And what about last year’s championship? Do you still hold the same opinion about Marc and Jorge Lorenzo's actions at the end of the year?” Another journo asks.

Vale pushes down the wave of emotion, hot and tense—embarrassed—that crests in his chest when he thinks about last year. That’s not what he’s here to do. He grits his teeth, instead. Keeps on smiling. He turns a little, uses the height difference between him and Marc to smile down at him, face close to his, and really sell it. The perfect couple. He winks back at the press.

“It sounds like you all want me to sleep on the couch!” He tries, and the tension in the room breaks, laughter tittering up from the press corp. A bomb defused. “No no no no, Marc and I, we are fine. We are better than fine, even! We are—“ He looks back at Marc, still too close, and pauses when he sees something complicated and delicate playing over his face. Something a little too real to be acting. But Marc quashes it when he sees Vale looking, and turns back towards the room, grin huge and polite. Vale’s words catch in his chest and tangle there for a moment, coming out a little stilted. He covers it with a theatrical shrug and a big smile. “We are good.”

As the press laugh, Marc’s shoulders unspool where they’re pressed against Vale—and he can tell Marc is relaxing, a little. Letting out some of whatever breath he’s been holding. It’s clear that what they’re doing, what Vale is saying, it’s working– the press swaying back to their side as they absorb the news, the shock of the two of them together. The picture they make.

Vale rubs a thumb over the bone of Marc’s shoulder. He's warm.

Marc starts to speak. “You know, that is in the past. Valentino and I…” He searches for the words in English, brings a hand up to fiddle with his ear– one of his nervous tics. “We had a not so good relationship at the end of last year. But in the off-season, we talk. And learn to separate on-track and off-track. It is good between us.”

And Vale just about can’t stand that, even though he knows this is the plan. He can’t very well smooth this photo thing over and air his grievances at the same time. Doing this is the path of least resistance, he remembers. He tells himself. The one most palatable to the masses– him and Marc, united. Love overcomes all, he thinks bitterly.

A journalist picks their head up.

“So it’s serious between you two, then? This is for real?”

Vale looks at Marc again, watches the slight flutter of his eyelashes, blinking as the question hits him. Vale wonders what he’s thinking about. If he’s wondering why they’re doing this, now in front of the whole world. If he’s asking himself how they let it get this far. Wondering why he got to his knees in that alleyway when Vale had told him to. Why he’d raced Vale the way he had the entire second half of last season.

Marc’s smile dims, just for a second, and Vale pulls him closer.

He crushes the instinct to crack a joke just for Marc, to make him smile for real. To ask him why he’d had that look on his face a moment ago. To ask him to come to his trailer later just to– talk. Not to strategize with their PR teams, with their families. To just– be. Like it was before.

But that’s just not the kind of lives they lead. That’s not possible.

Valentino turns back to the press. Smiles. Lies.

“It’s real.”

#callie speaks #motogp #rosquez #my fic #forced coming out au

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beyondspaceandstars · 1 year

Note

Hey babes, can you do a Mando x reader where the reader is a bounty hunter and leaves the ship to complete a mission and is only supposed to be gone a few hours but they’re gone all night and Din starts to panic and the next morning they show up slightly injured sand Din completely loses it and he was so scared then feels guilty? (fluff and ANGST) (sorry this is long!)

Safe With You

Relationship: Din Djarin x Reader

Warnings: fluff and angst, as ordered

Word Count: 1.7k

A/N: Thank you so so much for requesting!! I haven’t written for the Mandalorian in so long, it feels so great to do again. And the new season was wonderful, I loved the ending so much, so thank you for requesting this fluffy, angsty thing! (P.S. I am very aware of the fact that we just learned the mandalorian’s first name is not actually his first name however, I am a woman who is set in her ways and this was written before finding that fact out. He’s "Din" throughout this, I’m sorry.)

Masterlist

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

"You’re sure you’re going to be okay?" He asked you for what felt like the millionth time. You had to force yourself to stop rolling your eyes as you finished packing your supplies.

When you came back to the make-shift base you two had set up and told Din you picked up an easy job while in town, you had expected him to maybe ask a couple of questions, just so he knew where you’d be. What you hadn’t expected was for him to practically pester you. Not to mention, he’d already offered to come with about a dozen times now.

"Honey, I was working alone way before I ever met you," you replied, "I think I’m going to be able to handle myself."

He sighed. "I know, but this planet… Can you at least tell me what the job is?"

You shook your head. "I was paid extra for my discretion and the last thing we need is to lose a couple of credits, right? Besides, there’s worse in the galaxy, I’m sure of it. It’ll be fine, I’ll be back before you know it."

Din peaked up at the dimming sky. It would be getting dark soon.

"This still doesn’t feel right to me. Can you be back before nightfall?" He asked.

You shrugged. "Maybe." You felt his hard stare from behind his helmet. You sighed. "I’ll try."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

****

When you two make promises, you kept them. There were no if ands or buts about it. You both had demanding, dangerous lives, and promises were a foundation you thrived on. It kept you whole, loyal.

So, when night fell on the planet and the only thing he could make out was the fluttering nocturnal bugs, Din grew worried beyond belief. The night was ticking on and he was still alone. You had promised. He shouldn’t have this worry in him right now. He should be holding you tight, hearing you give a recap of the job while you two lay snuggled up, slowly drifting off to sleep.

He should be listening to your dream about what you’d want to use the credits for. Realistically, you always put it toward food and medical aid, but he knew you liked to save just some to the side for when you two found little markets throughout your journeys. You liked buying textiles for crafts in your downtime, jewelry from the local women…

Din was losing his mind. His head spun with thoughts and worries about you. Unable to do much else, he grabbed some supplies and made his way back into town, hoping on the off chance he’d be able to find whoever offered you the job. He decided he’d do whatever was necessary to get them to tell him where you were. He didn’t care what it would take or who he’d have to hurt.

This was you. His other half. His adorable, fearless, bright, charming, funny, caring significant other. And now you were gone…

Well, everyone was gone. In the pitch black of the night, just the faint hint of stars now guiding his path, Din found the town to be completely closed up for the night. It was a stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of the afternoon. It was like everyone just up and left but he knew better than that.

Most of the dusty buildings were used as shops, he remembered, but the flickering glow from some windows on the taller buildings points him toward some of the residents.

Din didn’t hesitate to knock on some doors. It would’ve been more powerful had it ended up working. He pounded on them. Kicked. Yelled. But all of his fits fell on deaf ears. He had half the mind to start breaking in through windows and backdoors but he had to reel himself back. It would do neither of you any good if he was restrained.

When it was growing more and more evident no one in the town would cater to him, Din forced himself to give up. He had to put some faith in you, he knew that. You were incredibly skilled—almost as much as him—and if you weren’t worried about something, he should be trusting of that.

And yet, he couldn’t help himself. Worry and defeat overcame him as he made his way back to where you two were staying. Din decided he’d make himself comfortable and then just wait for you to come back. Surely, that wouldn’t be so bad. He could keep himself awake. You’d probably be back any minute, he tried telling himself. It’d be fine. It’d be easy, right?

Nope. Wrong. So very wrong. Din only realized how foolish he had been when he felt a hint of warmth on his body and light trying to break through the visor of his helmet. Slowly, he blinked his eyes open, forcing himself awake.

It was morning. The next day. It was the morning of the next day…and he was alone. The realization hit Din like a ton of bricks. He shot up from his slouched position, and a new kind of worry came over him. Not only had he fallen asleep, but he had also done so without you, and it still didn’t appear like you were here. Worry shifted into guilty. He thought was going to be sick—

"Over here, darling." Your voice rang out in a scratchy tone from behind Din. He whipped his head around and your slumped, exhausted form came into focus. You were sitting in just your undergarments next to the nearby, splashing water over what appeared to be fresh wounds. A stack of wraps and aid supplies sat next to you. Most of your clothes were tossed to the side and turning brown from dried blood. Din felt every part of him seize up.

"Cyra’ika, what…" Din’s throat felt like it was on fire as he slowly stepped toward you. He knew he should’ve rushed to your side, gave you all the attention and care you absolutely needed, but he had never seen you in this state before. "What happened?"

You shrugged. "Mission was a little bit rougher than anticipate but don’t worry, I finished it and we were paid."

You had the nerve to flash a smirk at him. Din thought he was about to lose it all over again, maybe even worse, as he had the previous night.

"I’m not worried about the funds," he snapped. His sudden and typically unusual harsh tone made you flinch but he didn’t seem to care. "You’re… You’re bleeding. You’re pale. Oh my… You need— We need—,"

"To calm down," you snapped back. "We need to calm down. Honey, I’m okay, really. It was just a bit more difficult than the employer had made it out to be. That was probably my fault, I guess I didn’t ask the right questions, but it’s alright. Brought them in warm and everything. It just took slightly longer than anticipated."

Din groaned. "You said you’d be back by nightfall."

"Well, that didn’t happen."

"I’m very aware that that didn’t happen."

You rolled your eyes and turned your attention back onto your injuries. You patted one of the wounds dry and began trying to wrap it gently but firmly. Every movement made you flinch. "

"I don’t understand what the big fuss is about," you muttered. "I still returned and the mission was complete. What’s the big deal?"

"The big deal is I thought you were dead," Din replied harshly.

"Well, I’m not!" You yelled back, your own fuse nearly at its end. But losing your temper wasn’t the smartest idea you realized as a sharp pain tore through your side. You let out a frightened yelp. You had expected bruises but the one that covered more torso was a ridiculous one.

"Cyra’ika…" Din sighed as he rushed to kneel at your side. He inspected the bruised skin you were gripping. "You need to rest. Let me bandage the rest."

"No, I’m fine," you gritted. Your anger still simmered within you despite Din’s gentle words.

"No, you’re not," he replied. "And… And I’m sorry for being upset with you instead of helping." He pulled at the wrap you were holding in your hands. You forced yourself to give in. You leaned into his touch as he finished drying your wounds and began bandaging them.

"I tried coming back by nightfall," you murmured. "I really did but it was harder than I intended."

"I don’t doubt that for a second," Din said. "You promised and we try to keep our promises but I was… I was so scared." His helmet-distorted voice cracked slightly and that was more painful than any wound some bounty could ever inflict upon you.

"I was scared, too," you admitted, "but I didn’t want to make a big deal of it because I’m finally back here, safe, with you. That’s all that matters." Slowly, you raised a bruised hand to his helmet. You wanted nothing more than to cup his face and promise him you were okay but you knew this was as close as you were going to get.

"You’re right," he agreed, "and that’s what I’m trying to remind myself as I wrap your injuries."

You shook your head. "They’re not that bad, really. I’m sure you’ve had worse."

"This isn’t about me."

"Okay," you sighed. "But the next time you come back all bruised and beaten, I get to reprimand you."

Din hummed. "Maybe we should just start taking jobs together."

"Yeah?" You chuckled. "Wanna be my partner in crime?"

"I think I just want to be wherever you are."

"Good because I want you there with me," you said with a wide smile creeping up on your face. You knew if you saw Din’s face he would be blushing. "Hey, do you think one day we’ll be able to leave all this behind and just live a…normal life together?"

Din’s focus stayed on the bandages. "Is that what you would want?"

"Of course," you replied with no hesitation.

"Then, yes." Din nodded. "I’ll make sure of it."

A good kind of warmth spread throughout your face and down your body. "I love you."

"I love you, too," Din responded. "Always."

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