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friendlylocalwhumper · 2 years

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“It’s alright. Shh, you’re okay. You’ll be okay. It’ll all be over soon.”

He’s been searching for a good one to kill for months now. One that he’d like to see fading, whose eyes are pretty and hold a spark that he can put out. Over the years the kills have become less and less satisfying. This one will be fun, though - sandy hair with spurts of gray, sad blue eyes, muscled arms and shoulders that aren’t large but rounded slightly with subtle strength. This one is pretty. Not as young as he used to seek out, but the Hunter isn’t so young either, anymore.

There is a knife buried in the man’s side, and the Hunter’s hands wrapped around his neck. His soon-to-be latest kill is trying to gasp, his lips moving. They always beg in the end, unless there’s something hard and cold where their heart once was.

The tears in the corners of his victim’s eyes, and his grip on the wrists so close to his neck, and the force with with he kicks to struggle free - all of it feels just a little wrong. Off-center from the fantasies of a bored serial killer longing for a new victim. Nick tries and fails to ignore the itching of old scars under his shirt.

Fingers losing their white-edged color with the force he’s using to strangle the man, the Hunter frowns at the whispers that have been lent some volume. He leans in, still relishing the feeling of a throat trapped under his palms, and listens.

“-ave… -ave… a li-, a little…”

His grip slips further. The blond man gasps and coughs, chest heaving for air. The struggle isn’t even all that gorgeous. “What? What are you trying to say?”

He’s almost dead. He was halfway there, spasming and losing the light in his eyes. The Hunter should’ve finished the job… but he still can, once he just hears what the pretty man was trying to say.

“That - that - I have a baby,” Croaks the man who’s lucky to be alive. Now that he has a chance to speak again, after being so close to losing it forever, his words come in an avalanche. “A baby, my first, and I want, nnnh, I want, want ten more, now that I know him, his mom’s beautiful and he’s got, Jesus fuck don’t kill me, I’ve gotta see his little toes again, he’s so small and I don’t know how I made him, made little toes with the smallest little toenails, the size of a ri-, a grain of rice, and he’s warm and we didn’t name ‘im yet because he’s too perfect for a name and we just stare at him and I stare at her and he’s got her nose and if I die I won’t get to, to hold, I won’t get to hold…”

Tears and snot run down the man’s face. Deep pain twists in Nick’s gut at the thought that this man isn’t crying for himself, but for a little person that he made who will cry harder if this guy never makes it back home.

His hands flex, trying to get back to the strangling, and his victim yelps in despair, but he can’t follow through. Fingers losing their tension again, Nick growls in frustration. It’s not right for this man to die here. It feels like a truth that’s annoying and obvious and it can be ignored, but it won’t change.

“I’ve heard this lie before,” He rumbles in a threat that is met with more tears. He says it even though he knows it wasn’t a lie. When his hands slide up to find the man’s temples and push magic into his head, the Hunter isn’t surprised to find horror and fear and panic, and then behind the bright emotions, deeper love. He’s disheartened but not surprised to find recent memories of little feet and bubbly giggles and a woman asleep with hair strewn over a pillow that this man watched for hours instead of sleeping himself.

He’s been waiting for months for a good one. The tragedy of this death could turn sweet instead of sour, his last dying breath and final whimpers could be a thrill. Could be. But it feels wrong, it feels so wrong and Nick is nearly ill with how much devastation he could cause just by strangling this man until he shudders one last time and then goes still.

As if the man is growing hotter and is slowly beginning to burn the hands on him, the Hunter pulls his touch away and climbs off his victim. On his way he pulls the knife free and watches hot blood spill, deciding after a moment that the wound won’t drain enough to kill the father.

The man is sobbing quietly, eyes shut, reeling from being seconds from death and having his mind torn into by magic. The killer stands with a disgruntled sigh.

“Go on and leave, when you can manage to. Up the stairs and out the door. Don’t tell anyone I have mercy like this. And don’t you ever let someone like me take you away from him.”

#whump #drabble #mine #the hunter #choking #death tw #captivity #torture #the hunter is a creepy and scary man #i was struck by the inspiration to write the first hints of how he changes over time #how it changes him to see lux grow older and heal #intimate whumper #knife #blood

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milfcodeddean · 3 years

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Memento Moratus Sum

Emma Haunts the Necklace- The Fic <3

Starts more post/concepty and becomes a fic bc I did not plan on this it was stream of consciousness! I have not seen all of the later seasons and it was hard to keep track of what plot points to mention even of all the seasons I have seen!

AO3

Emma dies and Dean keeps her necklace to have something to remember her by, partly out of grief for what could have been partly as an act of emotional self flagellation. He wears it under his shirt, a secret, just like any thoughts he has about his dead daughter.

Emma is a ghost because she didn’t do enough to be a monster and earn her place in purgatory but she isn’t human enough for heaven and she’s anchored to the necklace.

She follows Dean around silently, quickly learning enough about ghosts to know if she reveals herself too soon or ever really then Dean is going to burn the necklace.

During season seven Dean is haunted by two ghosts, Bobby, who is actively reaching out for him, and Emma, who is a silent observer. I think Emma hides from Bobby, he’s a hunter and she doesn’t want him to tell Dean about her, OR Bobby sees her before she knows ghosts can see other ghosts and they talk and he pities her but agrees to not let Dean know

Dean is wearing the necklace when he goes to purgatory. Emma is still a ghost here but it’s different, and she’s been watching this man for months now, he’s her world now. She keeps some of the monsters away, she makes him wake up when there are threats at night, she watches him befriend a monster and burns with pain at the knowledge that maybe she could have had that. Maybe she didn’t need to kill him, maybe he would have loved her not just as a dead hypothetical but as her.

Dean comes out of purgatory with an extra extra passenger. She watches with a sense of smugness as he rages at Sam, she pretends he’s also mad over her. She doesn’t like Sam’s attitude towards Benny either. She gets to see her great grandfather and she sees him die. She talks to his ghost, he calls her granddaughter (forgetting the great) even after learning she’s an amazon, before he gets reaped.

There’s an empty room in the bunker she pretends is hers. She moves objects in there, never quite decorating, but practicing telekinesis where Dean won’t see it and making up a fantasy of a life she could have had. She still never minds being tethered to Dean, especially now as he doesn’t sleep around and spends less time in bars where she’s left uncomfortably watching. She likes going to the grocery store, she likes watching him cook, maybe a few times she’s kept a pot from boiling over or a bag from falling. She’s learning to live from watching Dean, he doesn’t know it, but he’s teaching her life skills. She doesn’t know the names for the dishes he teaches her to make or the parts of cars or guns but she etches the motions he makes into her mind. She likes Charlie, she wishes she could meet her, and she likes larping. She imagines herself as an Amazon warrior of antiquity, armored in bronze.

She tried to wake Dean and Charlie out of their djinn dream but nothing worked, she tried to fight the djinn to no avail either. When Dean and Charlie hugged she wished she could be in their embrace too.

She’s glad it’s Bobby’s ghost they use for the trial, she’s so glad she never revealed herself.

Sam is slowly growing on her, she doesn’t love him but he means enough to Dean that she would try to stop him from dying.

She knows about Gadreel. She hides harder now, afraid too of the new angel in the bunker. Castiel she likes, Castiel she watched in purgatory and she watched beat her father bloody in the crypt and she understood brain washing and the control of authorities. She almost reveals herself and her knowledge of Gadreel when Dean kicks Cas out of the bunker, but her hesitation lasts too long.

She’s tethered to Dean so she isn’t there when Kevin dies. Kevin had been another one she enjoyed observing, she envied him his mother in so many ways, Linda had been everything Lydia hadn’t been. When Kevin dies he’s haunting the bunker too. It’s almost like having a friend. He pities her, but she’ll take anything, he’s sort of her age in some ways and she teaches him how to be a ghost.

Crowley almost gives her away. He knows she’s there, but he saves her presence as a bargaining chip against Dean, a surprise tidbit to bring up later.

The father of murder can see her too. Cain keeps his eyes on her father most of the time, but the spark in his eyes and smirk when he sees her and her bloody pink shirt cut straight through her.

Her father dies. She wants to run to him, to fling her arms around him and greet him with her bloody lips and stained shirt and tell him she forgives him and she loves him and she’s sorry he’s dead but can she at least spend some of eternity with him and she wants to teach him to be a ghost and she wants to tell him so many things she’s noticed. But Crowley does something that locks her voice and powers and keeps her from the room.

Demon dean leaves the bunker with Emma’s necklace ripped off and dropped beside a bedstead.

Sam picks up the necklace. Emma hates him touching it but it’s all she can hope that he doesn’t destroy it. She doesn’t know if he recognizes it, but he doesn’t throw it away, and brings it out to show Castiel as evidence for Dean’s absence. Castiel names it as Amazon gold, recognizes it as Dean’s, but does not know it’s origin. Emma has to hear her story from her murderer’s lips. She almost shows herself, but she’s afraid Sam will cast the necklace into a fire. If they could do that to Bobby, they’ll do it to her. But she doesn’t feel like a vengeful uncontrolled spirit, perhaps it’s the Amazon magic, but she feels calmer than she ever was during her days of life.

Her necklace stays in the bunker, she watches demon Dean from a distance at first, she tries to comfort him strapped to the chair but he calls her a hallucination and lets something between a sob and a laugh out before turning away. She tries, she wipes his brow, she begs him to become human again or to die, she tries to keep the devil’s trap intact. Still she is called a hallucination. It’s almost nice to be important enough that he’d hallucinate her.

When Dean, normal human dean, is back, he fixes the necklace with pliers and holds it staring at it in his hands. He’s alone in his room. Emma gently puts her hands over his where they are clasped around her anchor to him. She doesn’t know if he can feel her. Her name comes from his mouth in a breathy whisper, wet and rough, a word unused to being spoken. He bends over himself, weeping with the necklace pressed to his mouth. Emma weeps as well. He would not weep if he did not love her, but he is a hunter and she has to chose between this silent spectatorship where she can pretend she is living in rooms beside him, or the knowledge that if he knew she was haunting him, he would burn the necklace to send her on.

She doesn’t know if there’s another afterlife for failed amazons, and from what she understands of Heaven, hers would be something pathetic like the day she met Dean before she died, or an eternity as a ghost watching him weep.

She hates watching Dean with Amara those few days. She hates the burning wretched envy risking corrupting her as he holds a baby girl that isn’t her. She hates that Amara loves Dean. And she hates even more that Amara brings back Mary instead of her.

She never realized that she wanted to be brought back and resurrected so badly and that it was even an option until she watches Dean reunite with Mary.

Dean mentions her to Mary- almost - he says he had a kid, and the cut off gesture to the necklace means her. Emma stopped minding that Dean never spoke about her. She didn’t want him to talk about her with Sam, and she quickly realized he didn’t talk about his grief with anyone. But he did wear her necklace, and sometimes he took it out from under his shirt and rubbed his thumb over the metal and she would pretend it was his thumb stroking the back of her hand. Dean didn’t talk about her and she didn’t need him to. But now he had, and with his mother. And he implied he had thought about what he would want for her, that he wouldn’t want his life of violence and moving for her.

Emma likes Mary as a warrior woman, but can’t help but understand Dean’s pain when she leaves. She understands being the surprise child older than a parent wants too much.

She tried to help Dean as she always has, but the British Men of Letters terrify her. She knows they would either keep her to study or destroy her and she can’t trust anyone to keep her secret from their spying.

Later it seems the world collapses again. Cas dies. Angels don’t have ghosts, she can never meet him. And Kelly has eyes only for her son until she is reaped. Emma wishes she could comfort Dean or that she could truly leave him to his grief. She turns away as he ties Castiel’s body with yellow curtains. She stands beside him watching the pyre.

She doesn’t understand Dean’s attitude towards Jack. She’s watched jealously how Dean interacts with Krissy, with Claire, with the orphan boys at the home, and she has her fantasy of how Dean would have treated her had she lived. The jealous part of her doesn’t want Dean to like Jack, but most of her wants Dean to go back to acting like how she expected him to, she wants the man she could pretend was being her father. And she watches Jack enough to be afraid of their similarities. To see herself in him. And if Dean hates him, would he have hated her. Does he only wear her necklace because she’s dead.

She watches silently when Dean finally breaks, confronted, and tells Sam that he sees her in Jack. She hears how he loves her. She watches Sam realize the enormity of his crime and apologize. She accepts the apology, even if it wasn’t meant for her ears. Dean doesn’t see her, but she sits beside him on the opposite side of Sam on that floor.

Something has changed.

Sometimes, it seems like Dean is glimpsing her out of the corner of his eye. He stares at the steamy bathroom mirror while he’s shaving, right at the red smear on the pink of her shirt. He nicks himself, swears, and swipes a hand through the steam, through her image. He does double takes in the rear view mirror, glancing twice at the backseat where she sits, pretending she’s part of his road trips.

Jack brings back Castiel. Jack has powers beyond what Emma could have imagined. And Jack is both nice and not fully indoctrinated into hunting ways. Emma also likes Jack, she understands so much about him, and she likes the shows he watches, she likes the way he’s nice, and in her elaborate fantasy of what if she was alive, she decides he’s her brother.

It’s hard to find a time when Jack is alone but near enough to Dean and the anchoring necklace that she can talk to him, but it happens.

Emma focuses everything she has into appearing, a heavy grounding feeling she hasn’t felt since Dean was a chained demon. The words catch in her throat, unpracticed at speaking, but she blurts out to Jack that she’s his sister, the words spilling fast, that she’s Dean’s dead daughter, she doesn’t tell him that Sam killed her, she’s seen Sam with him, their closeness she can’t decide if she envies or not. She tells him she’s an Amazon, how she’s dead but anchored, how she doesn’t have a heaven or purgatory or hell, how she wants to come back. She tells him that she likes his shows and she tells him she loves Dean and Castiel and she finds things she likes about Sam. He doesn’t look at her with pity. He looks at her with a bright spark to his eyes.

But he doesn’t resurrect her. At least not right away. Apparently he’s been too recently warned off from the idea of asking for forgiveness rather than permission. He thinks she should reveal herself to Dean first, before they decide. Emma hates the idea, she spent all of these years afraid of Dean destroying her anchor, and now she’s afraid of his rejection, what if he resents her watching him all the time, what if he blames her for not doing more. What if he wants her gone instead of brought back.

The Amazons,in their scant days of raising her, taught her to be brave.

Jack asks the family to stay after dinner.

Emma takes a deep breath, more for the instinctive motion than for a need for air, and materializes.

There’s a beat of silence and then a mess of noises. Dean drops a mug, Sam’s chair skids, everyone one is talking at once.

Emma can’t find words to say to Dean, she wants to stare at him as she always does, but she can’t bear to see rejection on his face. She waits and Jack opens his mouth to introduce her but then her name comes from Dean’s lips. It’s like that dark night where they wept in his bedroom again. She has called him many variants of father in her mind in several languages, but it is the most childish “daddy” that slips out.

No one else in the room matters, he looks at her, meeting her eyes instead of the gorey wound, and she gets eye contact without having to pretend she is what’s in his sight line.

He doesn’t ask if she’s a ghost or if she’s dead or any of the silly civilian questions. He only manages “how” before fumbling for the necklace, and she nods confirmation. She wonders if he’s planning on burning it.

He asks how long and suddenly words spill forth, she tells him she’s been here the whole time, watching, she says she sorry about Bobby and Kevin and Charlie and Kelly and Cas and Benny she tells him the ones she helped with being a ghost, she tells him about watching the others move on, she says she’s sorry she couldn’t do more when he was a demon and something in his expression breaks, she says she’s sorry she never showed herself.

He holds up a hand, stopping her before she apologizes again, and says he remembers her when he was a demon, that he had thought she was a hallucination, she nods and cries anew.

She wants to tell him that she’s watched him and loves him and even if it’s embarrassing she wants to say she’s pretended to be alive with him, and she wants most of all to ask if he loves her, to hear it said to her face.

Instead he asks weakly why she’s here now.

She says she wanted to come clean about haunting him, says she’s thought about it for years and was scared he would burn the necklace, says she’s learned about ghosts from him and she’s never felt vengeful, she doesn’t feel corrupted, and maybe it’s because she’s a monster. His face twitches at that word.

Jack interrupts, changing the air in the room and suddenly both she and Dean remember their audience. Sam’s eyes are wet and he looks something close to afraid. Emma hopes the look on Castiel’s face is softness for her too and not just Jack.

Jack offers to bring her back, tells Dean that they didn’t want to do it behind his back. Emma turns invisible again out of the sick swoosh of anxiety that overwhelms her. She barely hears through her ringing ears that Dean desperately agrees and says yes, fumbling to take the necklace off and pass it to Jack.

She’s going to have to wait a few days. Jack is going to bring her back where her body is, and that’s more than 24 hours of driving away, and Dean wants to be there.

It’s a weird car ride, they know she’s there, and she sits between Castiel and Jack in the back of the Impala. They had her pick a set of Jack’s clothes to replace her bloody shirt, they have food and water for her. Emma doesn’t have a name for the emotions she’s feeling and they’re almost overwhelming.

They don’t have to dig her up to bring her back, Jack’s powers allow for that at least, and Emma is glad, she’s watched Dean dig up enough graves to imagine what she’ll look like.

Then Jack’s eyes glow bright gold.

It’s like what she imagines being born feels like. Overwhelming and dark and bright and both blissful and painful. And then she is gasping with real lungs and the sunlight is bright in her eyes and she can feel the textures of her clothing and the grass.

And then arms and hands are on her, Dean is pulling her to her feet and into his embrace in one motion.

She’s never been hugged by him, and it’s better than her jealous imaginings when he held others. She never wants to let go, she feels safe and warm and loved and his hand is on her hair and she can smell him and feel his heartbeat.

He finally lets go and steps back to look at her, keeping a hand on her shoulder and cupping her cheek with the other. There are streaks of tears matching her own on his face. His hands leave only to be replaced by Jack.

Jack’s hug is different but enthusiastic, there are no tears, he is beaming, part proud, part delighted, she can’t help but smile back. He calls her sister and she accepts him as brother.

Castiel does not embrace her, but his greeting his warm and his eyes match his smile. He clasps her hand between his and Emma’s heart swells.

She knows Sam doesn’t know how to look at her or how to talk to her. She doesn’t know what she wants from him either. She knows hes sorry, she’s heard it from his own lips, not to her, but to the only other person to whom it would matter. She smiles hesitantly at him, instead of glaring, and waves.

Then she slips her hand back into Dean’s and lets him pull her into another hug. She feels light and giddy and afraid this is all a dream. If she died and this is heaven then she would accept that too.

But it’s real, she changes out of her bloody shirt and into a blue one of Jack’s, she drinks water for the first time in years and eats fruit snacks from a packet pulled from Castiel’s trench-coat pocket, and a cereal bar.

A few hours later they stop at a nicer diner than Emma usually sees them eat at, and Dean tells the hostess it’s his daughter’s birthday and Emma gets to order foods she’s been curiously watching people eat for years off the menu. The restaurant gives her cake.

Emma’s cheeks hurt from smiling, and Dean’s eyes have not lost their cheerful crinkle and Jack is beaming and even Sam and Castiel look endlessly pleased.

Later there will be harder talks, about the things she’s witnessed, later she’ll talk about haunting their steps, about the years of questions built up, later she’ll realize she doesn’t remember how to sleep and Dean will sit and try to stroke her hair and talk softly and it’s nice but not enough. Later it will be Castiel who explains how to become human, how to adjust to having a body, how to sleep and how to tell if you like a food or not. Later she will argue with Dean about her usefulness on hunts and he will tell her how scared he is of her dying again. Later Mary will come back and die. Later Jack will die and a demon will wear his corpse and she will hate and fear it, later God will tell her she is an interloper in his story.

But for now Emma has a family and a piece of cake and a table of smiles.

#emma winchester #emmanatural #dean winchester #dad dean winchester #my writing #this was not planned this was just me thinking Hey what if Emma haunted the necklace and was there watching events and like the Emma feeling #s spilled over into a whole 3.5k fic so #i might put this on ao3? the start is so weak tho #yes that is a reference to buried ghosts and bitter truths

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novantinuum · 3 years

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Trollhunters alt timeline AU concept:

Okay, so since I’ll never have the emotional energy to Write It in full, I just want to share my wild ass Trollhunters alt timeline AU, inspired by that chaos ride of a movie.

Disclaimer: Personally speaking, I actually enjoyed the RotT movie for the absolutely absurdist, emotion-murdering storyline it was. I can certainly say that it... (and in fact, Wizards too) most definitely doesn’t follow the ToA personal canon I hold in my heart, BUT- I don’t consider my idea a “fix-it” because I strongly dislike using that term myself. In all its imperfection, canon simply is what it is, and thus my idea is instead just a wild little AU concept, because thinking about what-ifs is fun. However, given that self-indulgence is a hoot, this is also my way of molding a plotline where some of my favored elements get to play in to everything.

Beginnings:

This AU diverges from the very end of the RotT movie.

So… from my reading of the last scene, one could argue that Jim’s canon decision to return to before he picked up the amulet and avoid picking it up again was born out of a sense of failure… a feeling that he failed as a hero because he wasn’t there to save his best friend from dying. He kinda wished himself (as he is, as the Trollhunter) away in a “It’s a Wonderful Life” type manner, hoping that by simply allowing someone else to take up the mantle, maybe things could end up better.

In this AU, instead of sending himself back to before he picked up the amulet, Jim’s last spoken desire before he uses the time crystal is a stubborn, confident assertion. Not doubting his own ability as the Trollhunter, but resolving to save all his friends in whatever way he can.

And he’s going to do this starting from Draal.

However, there’s a catch. This time crystal… powerful magic like this always poses consequences. And once he uses it, he discovers that the terms of this second chance are that no one can ever find out that this previous world ever existed. Jim is alone in his knowledge. He must tread carefully. Should anyone ever discover this secret… cataclysm will occur.

Time will shatter.

No pressure, or anything.

Timeline 2.0:

Future Jim is shucked back to his old body somewhere amidst early season 3. His first goal is keeping Draal alive. His foreknowledge of Angor Rot’s involvement in Merlin’s tomb will aid them greatly in how to better protect his friends.

His second goal... is one that he’s kinda of two minds about, but knows is desperately necessary for the fights he’ll face in the future. He’ll of course have to become a half-troll again. Thankfully, this go around it’s entirely his choice, and he knows it’s coming. That transition will be easier. Along with this... he knows he’ll have to somehow manage to keep ahold of his amulet. He can’t let the Arcane Order destroy it, and he can’t let them take control of him. If he stands any chance of being on top of his game in the early stages of their eventual fight against the titans, he’ll need to keep both that AND remain half-troll.

His challenge early on: Jim is stuck in the very awkward position of having to play chess master with events that he’s already lived through, so as to attain the same old victories WHILE ensuring all of his allies come out alive this time around... and WHILE not cluing anyone else in on the fact that he knows their futures. The stress involved with that is immense, and there’s bound to be instances in which he’s very clumsy with how he manages this. One of the largest early consequences of this second timeline is that he grows more emotionally distant from his friends and allies, especially those who had died in the original timeline... because after all, it’s almost as if he’s walking among ghosts, right now.

I honestly don’t know exactly how Wizards would shift because I haven’t seen it in eons, but Jim still has to ensure they end up in the past, right? Since he knows they’re a part of the past for better or for worse. He isn’t injured this time around, he likely has been hiding his amulet while back there, and there’s no beast Jim situation because the Arcane Order hasn’t wrest control of him. That’s all I know at the moment.

But yeah, those earlier battles end in victory (or partial victory, since of course the Arcane Order are a slippery bunch)... all allies are still alive... Jim remains half-troll by the beginning of the events of RotT in timeline 2.0...

HOWEVER.

Because of Jim’s extreme focus on keeping his friends- Nomura, Nari, Strickler, Toby- alive... because of how bonds within the group have weakened from his emotional distance... his second go at trying to stop complete armaggeddon is an entire failure.

Nari is saved, but they fail at stopping the other two titans. The world is set to be reborn in ice and fire. Jim has failed, once again. It’s at this moment that in a fit of frustration and rage, he lets his secret slip... accidentally reveals what was supposed to remain hidden... that this is his Second Time experiencing this.

Time shatters.

And then, the whole of creation falls silent. On pause, for Jim’s eyes only.

At this point in this AU story, since I am super self indulgent, I want to do a literal God from the Machine. Because I had a concept flash into my mind... a concept of a literal ancient deity rising from a deep sleep to set her attention upon the mess these mortals have created. All she appears as is bright, blinding light, and an echoing, sonorous voice.

When Jim asks her identity, she simply replies that she is the First Spark. The origin of all life, light, and magic. She has many names… names that countless souls have used to name their young in unknowing reverence… but one in particular that he might recognize.

Deya.

This goddess is the embodiment of daylight and creation, and the sword Jim wields? The armor? It is essentially made of her body. Her power. Her essence. Stripped away and used for whatever purpose mortals desired whilst she slept. How egotistical, she thinks, that Merlin directed all glory towards himself, rather than to the deity that allowed for his use of magic in the first place.

And so Deya reveals that she aims to clean up this cataclysm by returning the world to its original state. The original timeline. The one where this world hasn’t been destroyed in a horrible cataclysm. Jim, of course… immediately protests. Brings up all the hard, desperate days he lived just to get this far, just to save his closest friends and family. Begs her to do something, ANYTHING to help.

And eventually… the goddess offers up a choice. She’ll agree to restore the individuals who were dead in the original timeline, weaving the living souls of those in the second timeline into the first… but. To provide consequence for the disastrous mess mortal kind made, she refuses to use such power of resurrection in a “pick and choose” sort of manner. If she’s going to resurrect Jim’s allies, then she’s going to resurrect his enemies too. Everyone who has died throughout his journey will be brought back, no matter their alignment with the Trollhunter team.

Now, in order to save everyone, Jim must once again risk re-igniting the same conflicts with many of these foes all over again... except this time, in new paradigms and patterns that even he cannot predict. Is it worth it, for his friends? For the ones he loves?

Endgame:

Jim makes the deal. All the dead are restored. As time begins to flow again, they stand in the rubble of the titan they destroyed in timeline one. Jim feels great anxiety at the thought of the last two members of the Arcane Order being alive once more, but at very least the titans they piloted are no more. They’d have to come up with a new plan of attack now, if they had their hearts set on the same goal.

Toby is alive. So is Strickler, Nomura, Draal, Nari... Those who were dead, however... quickly realize that they remember dying. Those who remained alive in both timelines realize that they possess memories of both. Certain relationships will likely be rocky and strained for the first while.

Somewhere on this planet, old foes, old allies, and unpredictable agents alike have returned from the cold grasp of death with a shock. It’s anyone’s guess what new rivalries, alliances, and driving plans will emerge this time. At the very least, however... team Trolhunters is intact... and they’re more than willing to face this new, unpredictable future once more, wherever it leads. Together, hand-in-hand.

Fin.

#trollhunters #tales of arcadia #rise of the titans #jim lake jr #my post stuff #toa spoilers

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a-solitary-marshmallow · 3 years

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Rewind Chapter 9 - A Deal is Made

When Stan ran off, to Ford’s relief – he didn’t think he could handle any more of Bill’s cruelty towards his little brother – the demon didn’t chase after him. After his little display Bill turned to Ford with a wide, unnatural grin and lifted his arms like an actor bowing after a particularly brilliant performance.

“I do a wonderful Stanford impression, don’t I? It’s pretty easy. You’re like a broken record, Sixer, all repetitive and annoying. ‘My science project, my science project!’ But I really think I spiced it up a bit while still staying in character!”

Ford stabbed a finger at the demon wearing his skin. “You – how dare you?”

Bill merely shrugged and rifled through Ford’s pockets, letting out a little ‘ah’ of triumph when he pulled out a pocket knife. “Hah! I didn’t take you for the stabbing type.”

“It’s for self defense!” Ford fumed.

“Sure, sure, don’t wanna get eaten alive by monsters, excuses excuses.” Bill stepped back, sizing up a nearby tree. “I was looking for rope but this will work too.”

“Wait, what are you-”

Bill placed one hand against the tree’s bark and slammed the pocket knife into it, cutting through skin and flesh to bury the knife into hard wood. Ford hissed.

“That should do it!” Bill said cheerfully, watching blood drip down Ford’s wrist. “That looks like it’s gonna be a gusher, Sixer. I wouldn’t take the knife out if I were you. You never know, maybe you’ll bleed to death!”

Ford very deliberately kept his mouth shut about the placement of arteries in the human body. What Bill didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. And getting stabbed through the hand couldn’t hurt that much, could it?

He soon found out, once Bill zipped away and he lunged back into his own body, that it did indeed hurt. Ford bit down a scream and fought to keep his hand still. Every twitch and tremor sent pain racing down his arm and he was very aware of the metal piercing through his hand, sharp edge rubbing up against skin and muscle and nerves.

Ford grabbed the handle of the pocket knife with his free hand (pain pain pain) and wrenched it out. This time he couldn’t smother the scream that bubbled from his lips. He dropped the bloody knife and clutched at his bleeding hand.

Calm. Calm down. He couldn’t help anyone if he was panicking.

Ford fumbled around in his pockets until he found a handkerchief, wrapping it around the seeping wound and tying it tight with his teeth. It wasn’t a long-term solution but it would stop dirt getting under the skin, and hopefully slow the bloodflow. Though the fabric was already getting stained with red.

Move. He didn’t have time to waste, Bill could have caught up to Stan already. Who knew what the demon would do? Ford took off through the trees in the direction he had seen Stan run, every step sending a flash of burning pain up his arm.

By the time he caught up with his brother he was lightheaded, a yellow triangle swimming in his vision – Stan looked so small, so confused in the demon’s shadow. Ford would not fail his brother again.

“STAN!”

_______________________________________________________________

Ford was here. Stan’s gaze snapped up at his brother’s shout, the traitorous part of him whispering, ‘apologize, make him like you again’. He clenched his fists as Ford staggered into sight, looking kinda pale.

“Stan-” Ford caught a tree and clung to it as he struggled to regain his breath. He looked shaky, and Stan ached to go over and make sure he was alright. He took a few steps past the demon despite himself. “Stanley – listen to me, whatever Bill is telling you, it’s a lie-”

“Well well well well well!”

Stan was treated to the lovely sight of the skin on Bill’s back peeling open to reveal an eyeball, his body contorting and turning inside out until he was staring right at Ford with that neon yellow gaze.

“Just when I thought I’d taken care of you.”

Stan hesitated, the word striking a chord. “…taken care of? What does that mean?”

Bill drifted forward, placing himself in front of Stan but Ford looked right past the triangle, staring at Stan with desperation in his gaze. It made Stan’s stomach twist, made him feel guilty and angry and so very confused. He wrapped his arms around himself and backed away, Ford reaching after him.

“Stanley please. I’m sorry – I was stupid and cruel and I treated you badly because I was angry, but you didn’t deserve it. I saw what Bill said to you in my body and it’s not true, Stan, none of it’s true-”

“Shut up!” Stan stabbed a finger in Ford’s direction, glaring at him through tears. Ford didn’t even look scary anymore – just afraid, and that was the scariest thing. Adult Ford was supposed to be big and determined, he wasn’t supposed to be afraid. “Just – just shut up! I don’t even know what you’re saying!”

“Exactly!” Bill’s cheerful tone reverberated through the trees, making Stan shiver despite himself. “The man’s speaking nonsense, don’t listen to him.”

Stan wasn’t smart, but he wasn’t totally stupid either. He could see the ‘shut up’ glare the demon sent his brother. Bill was trying to be his friend, why was he hiding something from him?

Ford pushed himself off the tree to stand by himself, gaze still fixed on Stan. “The eyes, Stanley! What colour were my eyes, when I was saying those terrible things to you?”

“I dunno!” Stan yelled back.

What kind of stupid question was that? Stan didn’t want to think about that, he didn’t want to think about how he was a dead weight and a nuisance and how Ford was better off without him. But something – something about that encounter seemed off…

“Answer me, Stanley!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“What colour were my eyes?”

“Yellow!”

Wait.

Yellow?

“Please believe me.” Ford stepped closer, holding his hands out desperately. “Bill took over my body and he made me hurt you, more than I already have. He’s evil, he’s trying to take advantage of you and trick you into doing terrible things. And – I know you have no reason to believe me. I know I’ve treated you badly, since you arrive at Gravity Falls and before that. But please.”

Stan twisted his hands, anxiety swirling in his stomach and making him want to barf. He glanced up at the fuming demon.

“You’re all-powerful, right?”

“Stanley no-”

Bill’s body flashed lemon-yellow, his eye curling into a grin as he spun around to face Stan. “Sure I am kid! I can get you anything you want.”

“…anything I ask for? Anything at all?”

“You bet!”

“Stanley! He’s trying to trick you, he’s evil-”

“Oh shut it, Sixer!” Bill snapped his fingers and Ford’s body lurched sideways, sending him slamming into a tree with a yelp. He slumped to the grass. Stan dug his fingers into his palms. “See, kid? When you open the portal I’ll be even more powerful! Enough to give you anything you want.”

Stan looked between the prone body of his brother and the demon, and he made his decision. His hand reached out to snatch Bill’s.

“It’s a deal.”

Blue flames erupted across their joined hands, flicking over Stan’s skin but not burning, warm and tickly. Bill’s eye creased up in a grin.

“I knew you were the smart one! Now come on, name your price! Anything you want is yours, once you open the portal for me.”

Stan frowned, staring at their joined hands. The fire was the least weird thing about these last few days – it blazed warm and blue, spitting sparks every which way. Hypnotizing, almost. It was so much power – not his, of course – but flaming at his fingertips. He wanted it.

Bill released his hand, letting Stan’s drop down by his side. Stan stuffed them in his pockets, feeling the tingle of residual warmth against his skin.

“Well? I don’t have all day!” Bill heaved a sigh, folding his little stick arms. Stan’s mouth tasted sour. “What’s your price? A galaxy all of your own, right? Or a billion dollars?”

“…I want a hug.”

Silence reined in the clearing.

“Are you kidding me?” Bill’s eye hung open in disbelief. “I’m offering you your own galaxy and all you want is a flipping hug?”

Stan nodded. “Yep. And like you said, you gotta give it to me.” He opened his arms. “I want my hug now.”

Bill sighed in frustration. “I’m incorporeal, kid, I can’t give hugs. Why would I even want to touch a fleshbag like you in the first place?”

Stan put his hands on his hips. “You’re just gonna have to be corp-or-real. I know you can, you can touch and move things around! You gotta do the deal or the whole thing’s off, remember?” He scowled. “If I don’t get my hug you can’t use me to open the portal.”

“Ugh.” Bill’s form shimmered, becoming a little more corporeal – enough, at least, to interact with the physical world. The triangle’s ‘face’ screwed up. “Gross. Let’s get this over with already.”

He extended his stick-arms out with a grimace, and Stan flew in to hug him, wrapping tiny arms around the triangular body and squeezing tight. Bill let out a disgusted noise and patted his back awkwardly.

“There. There’s your hug.”

Stan pulled back enough to grin at him. “You give shit hugs.” Then he jammed the magic capsule into Bill’s huge eye.

The triangle-

Screamed.

There was an explosion of light and colour and searing heat that scorched across his face and Stan was flying back, breath knocked out of his lungs. He slammed into something and that something wrapped its arms around him and swung him away from the blast, shielding him with its body.

When Stan’s ears stopped ringing and the spots faded from his vision, the sight that met his eyes made him freeze.

Bill was dripping, fizzling like a dying candle, his eye seeping down his figure and body glitching red in places, showing glimpses of scarlet-colored bricks and bits of muscle and scenes played in sepia like they were being shown on an old TV. The demon lurched towards them, fingers curled into half-melted claws and body pulsing with its deep, distorted voice like an earthquake.

“STANLEY-”

There was the pop of a rifle being discharged and a hole blew open Bill’s body. Something crackled like broken glass, and then the demon

shattered.

#gravity falls #rewind #chapter 9 #the stans #oh gosh this is coming late #we're near the end now #chapters will be coming faster #rip my writing pace #hope you guys enjoy anyway

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the-darklings · 3 years

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coa one year later & self-reflection

(*drags out a creaky metal chair and plops down on it heavily*)

Hi. It’s me, ya boi skinny--

Wait, wrong one. Do over.

Hi, it’s me, Kat, and I’m not dead. Clearly. Today being one year anniversary of COA has kinda put me in a reflective mood, so I guess I decided to sit down and just...talk about some things, thoughts and feelings I’ve been bottling inside for a hot sec. Especially given how radio silent I have gone on here and people deserve a bit of perspective.

And before anyone starts worrying, it’s all good, and I’m still around and currently in good health for the most part.

So, let’s take it back to the start. Regardless of how dramatic it may sound, we need to go back a year for that.

By technicality alone, COA actually turned one year old on October 12th. That’s when the first part was posted. However, the reason I’m treating today as the aforementioned birthday is simple: I had no intention of this story ever being more than a short two-parter. I told this to the discord gang already but COA was only going to have two parts. V was going to die in Tokyo and the rest of the story follows glimpses of John throughout the movies and it’s her ghost that haunts him. Skipping ahead, it was going to have a bittersweet ending of John eventually dying, having completed his task, only to be greeted by V, Daisy and Helen in the afterlife. A peace of sorts. Then, I realised that, well, no. I have more to say on this world and intrigue about this placeholder character V kept growing.

November 1st happened and I made a very last minute call to continue COA but with the added pressure of doing it during NaNoWriMo 2019. And boy did I. Most of the story was figured out during that very intense month. I posted Part 2 on this day a year ago because I was so eager to share it. Perhaps, in retrospect, a bit too eager.

For those of you who may not know this, I work as a writer full time for my actual every day job. I’m the main writer for an original webcomic called In the Bleak Midwinter on Webtoon.com and have been for almost two years now. Getting what is essentially your dream job is amazing. I’m very lucky on that front but it also taught me stark realities of having your job and only hobby overlap. It’s a dangerous creative mix. Especially because I was not used to being constraint in what I create or the feeling like I have to please anyone else. Writing as a job is a whole other avenue of creative exhaustion. I love my job a lot and am very, very lucky to have it but it doesn’t change the fact that those initial stages made me fall back on COA a lot for creative freedom that I craved so desperately. To an unhealthy degree looking back on it now.

But going back to November last year. NaNo time. I did it. Finished on the 24/25th I believe. A juicy final count of 52k+. All while maintaining a weekly update schedule for a fic that usually hit around 10k per update, if not more, even during those early days. Add writing an original story on top of that. Writing every day for hours on end (we are talking 10-12hr days) without any time for other hobbies or time for myself in general. I kept pushing and pushing and pushing. Losing weight and sleep in the process. I think the thing that convinced me that I should continue doing so is the fact that the outpour of support for COA ended up surpassing anything I ever expected or even dared to hope for. I’m not a huge numbers person but the outpour of love and just sheer investment in the story and characters blew me away. John Wick fandom is on the smaller side and has been going through downtime when I posted COA so my expectations were...well, small tbh. I like keeping expectations low to avoid any disappointments in general. But I’ve also always had an issue of being a massive 0 or 100 kind of person. If I love something, it consumes me. In this case, it brought me as much joy and freedom as much as it was steadily pushing me towards the ultimate crash.

That being said, I can’t thank you all enough for every comment, like, reblog and message and fanart. You’re the reason I got this far. With your support. It brightened some really dark days for me.

But.

To be frank, it’s never been about you guys. I never wrote or pushed because I felt like I had to appease anyone. That creative mindset is pure poison and I long since learned to let go of it. I kept pushing and kept working myself to the bone because I liked it. I liked how reading peoples’ responses made me feel. I liked the addictive nature of reading all the comments and theories after an update. I loved the idea of brightening peoples’ days and giving them something to cheer them up after what might have been a shitty day. Even if that was at expense of my own time/well being. But for a long time, it wasn’t. I love writing a lot but facts remain facts.

It was beyond unhealthy and burnout wasn’t a question of if but when and that when was approaching at neck-breaking speed.

So we come to the end of November. Part 4 has just come out. People were invested and I was invested alongside them. I was just finishing up Part 5 which (back then) was the biggest single chapter I’ve ever written and god I still recall my sheer dread because that was the beginning of Santino being established as a LI. Looking back on that now, it’s downright hilarious how worried I was about the reception of him and V together after John.

So honestly, I hit burnout at around Part 8. Because that’s the first time I recall struggling with writing a chapter. Part 8 came out on December 28th. I had a brief break for holidays. But my mistake was not taking longer back then. Because I continued writing with a barely healed burnout. Followed by almost a year of struggling and continuously creating through that state. It wasn’t like I eased off the pressure, either. Oh, no. The chapters grew in size, the world and the characters with it. AUs amassed quickly and while I adore every single one - again, I didn’t know how to pace myself well enough.

I’m spiteful though. The more the chapters struggled the more I pushed against the burnout. By the time Chicago arrived, however, I knew I was in trouble. I ended up writing 43k+ in a span of 2 months, I believe. And while to some it may not seem like a lot given the time frame, it’s a lot when you’re burnout to a crisp & writing an original story for work + deadlines. Which I was burned out and then some. Chicago was something I was looking forward to writing for months. I have built it up since Part 4. It was a long time coming. So while I’m still proud of it, I would be lying if I said that some scenes were not sacrificed for the sake of keeping to my invisible schedule that no one but me actually cared about. You guys have always been patient. I never felt pushed into anything. It’s always only ever been me doing the harm.

Chicago was the downwards spiral for me mentally. I felt like I was failing to live up to my own expectations. That people were drifting away from it. I was plagued by the thought that the story I poured so much into was falling apart and growing weaker. Which this has always been an issue with me: I am my own harshest critic. Always have been. In fact, I’m a downright mean little fucker when it comes to just tearing at myself. I know writing is for fun - and it is - but I still like the idea of being proud of my work which only made everything worse despite the love each update received.

This takes us to the beginning of June. Specifically, June the 2nd. Or, as I like to call it: Kat Makes Another Impulsive Decision but This One Actually Works Out For the Better. On this day, I created the COA Discord server. And damn, I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting when I did ngl. I did it for fun and as an escape more so than anything. But somehow it ended up being the best decision I made in a long while. I know some of you are reading this. So love you lots, dorks. It’s such a privilege to be able to call so many of you my friends even outside of COA now. That little community has given me some of the best memories from this year and helped me to crawl out of my own metaphorical pit I was stuck in. Mentally, I’m doing much better than I did beginning of this summer. Which could be summed up as a constant self-hatred cycle and a feeling of inadequacy.

That, however, does not mean my burnout magically disappeared. If anything Chapter 17 just put a nail in the coffin so to speak. 2020 has been a shitty year just across the board for obvious reasons I don’t need to go into here but that can only partially be attributed to my mental state. Chapter 17 was...exhaustive. To say the least. But I was determined to stick with my vision and not split it up. I was also starting to be a bit more forgiving towards myself in terms of how long I may take to write it thanks to guys on discord though the feeling of failure and worry never quite faded fully. I’m proud of Part 17. Truly. But that was also when I hit rock bottom creatively on COA. It drained me completely.

I tried writing Part 18 for weeks after, day in and day out, not getting past the first scene and hating every word I wrote. So I took a deep breath and stopped. Figured I let it marinate and wait instead of trying to piece one of the most crucial chapters in this story like some Frankenstein monster two sentences at the time.

So my solution was simple: give myself some distance from it and write other things. Get my spark back. Of course that’s always a good idea. Having multiple creative escapes is the best thing you can do for yourself creatively. There was just one tiny little problem.

I was still burned out. Still am. The problem went deeper than just being burned out over COA. I was burned out over writing itself.

Which is an issue for a person who only has writing as a creative outlet.

I don’t have any other way to express myself. So I was stuck in a runt, trying to write because it’s the only thing that makes me genuinely happy even when I really shouldn’t have. And let me tell you. It’s a shitty fucking feeling. My burnout worsened. I had a thousand ideas but every time I tried to get them down it felt forced, fragmented, and weak. Repetitive and dry. Now, this is also in part because English isn’t my native language, so my vocab is limited as a result, but I hit that sweet rock bottom in that regard, too.

So, I worked on V (but in her OC form Clara), Lucien and The Elites. All those characters have grown so much since you last read about them. I have multiple original projects planned down the line that will feature all of them existing in their own world, with their own stories and no longer constrained by JW canon.

Which, finally, takes us to the end of October and beginning of November 2020.

I was convinced that the best course of action was to do NaNo again but with an original story this time (involving V). Suffice to say, it took a grand total of maybe 5-6 days and hating every second of writing it while also feeling like this project I’m so passionate and excited to write (still am) is just...going down the toilet to be blunt, to realise I may have made the wrong call.

Still, the stubborn ass that I am, I pushed through. Convinced I can get into it if I just keep going. The realizations that I am sharing with you right now won’t have been possible if it hadn’t been for a rather curious turn of events about a week and a half ago.

I recently bought a gaming laptop, all in preparation for Cyberpunk 2077 dropping ofc. But, in the meantime, I kept recommending a game to a friend on the COA server. That game? Far Cry 5. (It’s a blast to play btw, just a side note.) And playing it brought back all the feelings of nostalgia from the days when I used to write for that fandom. So I revisited some old work. Checked the stuff I never published and that has been sitting ducks in my docs for months and hoo boy. Let me tell you it was a vibe check of the worst kind.

The stark difference in the prose and the ease with which it flowed was...startling. It made me remember why I love writing so much and how proud I used to be of what I wrote back in the day. Which is not to say I’m not proud now, but it was just such a sharp dip in quality it was impossible to ignore.

So I didn’t.

I paused NaNo, moving it to another month. I paused writing for everything but work, which with our season coming to an end I will also get a rest from soon, too. I kinda paused in general. For the first time in a while, I finally forced myself to switch off. Rest.

The reason why I haven’t been on here is simple: guilt and not having energy to be on here. I like making my blog a safe space for everyone. Similar to escape it has become for me. I couldn’t pretend I was fine when I wasn’t. I felt obliged to perform and being here became exhausting. I haven’t been checking my inbox. Haven’t done much of anything except occasionally dropping by and reblogging a random post so people know I’m alive.

And that’s that, folks. That’s where I am currently. Resting. Completely exhausted mentally but resting. Getting my energy back.

So where does that leave us, huh? If you read this far, dunno what to tell you. Thanks, I suppose. It’s still odd to think people actually care about my existence sometimes.

I know what you’re likely thinking, too. So does this mean COA is never gonna be finished? What is gonna happen to it? Are you abandoning it?

The answer: no. 17 out of 25 chapters and 250k+ in, I’m too far in not to give it a proper conclusion. Not because I owe it to anyone other than myself. I want this story to be a stepping stone for my future as a writer. I want to prove to myself that I can get this done and finish it. As of right now (as you can no doubt tell with how long it’s been since last update) it’s on a soft hiatus while I rest. This rest? Not sure how long it may last. Right now, my plan is till mid December at which point I will reevaluate. Ideally, I finish the year with an update. But my New Year’s resolution is to finish COA. That timeline has become a little more murky now but, again, ideally it’s within the first quarter of 2021. Will that happen? I don’t know. And I don’t want to make false promises, either.

All I’m saying is that it will be done. I’m just no longer sure how long, exactly, it may take me to reach that Epilogue. I don’t expect many people to stick around for however long it may take me, but if you do, thank you. Truly. I really and deeply mean that.

So what’s on the cards for this blog in the meantime? Well, CP77 is coming out in under a month (if it doesn’t get moved again lmao rip) and I expect that to be my soft return to posting my writing on here again. We will see where the muse takes me, if at all. Regardless though, I’m excited.

One doctorate thesis later, here we are at the end of this really long rambling session. I hope that this has given you some perspective on things going on behind the scenes. I spared you some of the gorier details but I think this post has been long overdue. I suppose I, myself, was just too unwilling to face these things despite knowing about them deep down for a while now. I’m too self-critical not to notice but acting on correcting this behavior has been a whole other matter clearly.

Thank you for reading this post, my writing in general, and supporting me. I’m not going anywhere. I’m still around. More is on the way in the future. I’ll be seeing you all real soon. And all my love to all of you.

Love,

- Kat.

#kat speaks #blog psa #i suppose

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facialteeth · 3 years

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A Christmas Miracle | Ao3.

Magnus wasn't quite sure how he was going to spend his Christmas but struggling to close a rift in the middle of an icy hellscape as a sweet surprising shadowhunter offered him assistance wasn't quite what Magnus expected.

This is my ‘Christmas Fic’ square for @shadowhunterbingo.

When Magnus imagined his Christmas plans, he’d thought that maybe he’d go visit Catarina and Ragnor. Maybe, he’d attend one of the various parties he’d been invited to. Maybe, he’d go to his own unofficial party in his club and he’d find someone to invite into his bed for the night. Really, he hadn’t had a solid plan yet. He never really did when it came to holidays. As a warlock, holidays came and went so quickly that none of them were very special and trying to plan something for an event that seemed to come and go so often was hard.

Christmas eve, Magnus still hadn’t known what he was going to do the next day but he had known what he wasn’t planning on doing and what Magnus had not been planning on doing Christmas day was chasing down a rogue warlock who was apparently dead set on summoning demons to wreak havoc on the world. Now, Magnus really didn’t understand why said warlock was determined to ruin such a lovely holiday but even beyond that, what really confused Magnus was why he personally had been tasked with containing the situation.

He was the High Warlock of Brooklyn and this snowy tundra that he had been sent to was not Brooklyn or even in the surrounding New York area. No, Magnus had been sent to the middle of godforsaken nowhere, to an area he had never been before and had no jurisdiction over, simply because he had made the unfortunate choice to answer the phone when he’d received a call from an unknown number.

What Magnus also hadn’t expected of his Christmas was the shadowhunters. Ideally, Magnus imagined his Christmas involving no shadowhunters at all but apparently, the world had decided to gift him a Christmas surprise in the from of a small band of shadowhunters, lurking in the woods around Magnus like he was stuck in a horror movie, fighting the stray demons that the warlock had managed to summon already.

Magnus, for his part, decided to stay as far away from the shadowhunters as he could. That was Magnus’ Christmas present to himself. He didn’t care if he was being rude. Magnus stayed away and ignored every effort they made at communication. They were there to fight demons. Magnus was there for a warlock. As far as Magnus was concerned, they had no reason to combine the two missions and for the most part, Magnus kept to that fairly well.

That is, until the end of the mission. Unfortunately for Magnus, towards the end of the mission, he found himself entangled with the same shadowhunters he’d set out to ignore. The warlock, apparently determined to ruin Magnus’ day even further, had made one last ditch effort to complete the summoning spell he’d already failed at countless times. This brought along a blast of magic that Magnus had felt shake the earth under his feet, effectively telling him exactly where he was supposed to go. This also alerted the shadowhunters, who met Magnus at the sight of the blast just when he walked up on it.

That meant that Magnus hadn’t had a second to assess the situation before he had shadowhunters up his ass, asking what he was going to do and how he was going to close the rift that had opened in the middle of the forest. Maybe, Magnus would have had an answer for them, if they’d shut up and given Magnus a moment to think.

Instead, they’d stood there and harped to him about the demons pouring through the rift, rather than you know, going to fight them like they were supposed to. Finally, Magnus had turned to snap and that’s when he’d looked at the shadowhunter that had come to bother him for the first time. The moment he did, he fell silent, any words dying on Magnus’ tongue.

The shadowhunter was beautiful. He was breathtaking even with dark hair, broad shoulders and a rune that Magnus would normally find distasteful placed in the spot on his neck that would put it at just the right angle for someone to suck on. Now, Magnus normally wasn’t one to let someone’s looks sweep any rational thought from his head, especially when it came to the gross danger shadowhunters brought but it was Christmas.

How could Magnus help but indulge himself? How could he see this opportunity as anything less than reparations from the Christmas gods in repayment for his horrible day? How could he see this as anything less than a gift? Sure, he was a shadowhunter but even a shadowhunter would look beautiful laying under him as they brought in Christmas Day the way the holiday was always meant to be celebrated - in pleasure.

Sure, Magnus also hadn’t hooked up with anyone in a very long time. If he took a step back and considered things rationally, that was probably a very big factor at play here. He was rather deprived at this point and it was Christmas. This shadowhunter was stunning and it was Christmas. Magnus was a weak man for a Christmas gift. He always had been.

The shadowhunter blinked, starting in nothing but confusion as Magnus thought all of this and said nothing to the questions the shadowhunter had posed a moment before, the ones that were all but lost to Magnus now.

Magnus blinked in return. He heard demons swarming around him, accompanied by the whirring noise of a rift breaking from their world to another. Right. It wasn’t just Christmas. Magnus had a job here, one that involved this shadowhunter, which Magnus was starting to see in a much more favorable light.

“Right,” Magnus started. He spoke confidently, despite not knowing what the shadowhunter had said while he was zoning out. He knew what Shadowhunters said anyway. He’d probably said something like, ‘Warlock! What are you going to do about these demons? Do you see the giant hole in the fabric of our reality? Are you going to do anything about that?’

They were ever so charming. Well, this one was. Magnus was hoping he’d manage not to ruin it when he opened his pretty mouth again. “I can close this rift easily,” Magnus waved his hand towards it dismissively. Truthfully, the rift was rather big. It would take a lot of effort, time and energy to close it but Magnus could close it. It would just… take a bit more effort than Magnus was letting on. Which is when Magnus realized he’d made a grave error trying to play the rift off like it was no big deal.

“Actually, I could use some help closing it if your friends can handle the other demons on their own?” Magnus raised an eyebrow. It was all a ruse to get the shadowhunter to stick by him but truthfully, the shadowhunter would be helpful. Magnus would be distracted closing a rift after all. He couldn’t bat demons away at the same time.

The shadowhunter blinked staring at Magnus in confusion before nodding suddenly as he seemed to realize that Magnus was asking for help. “Uh, yeah. I can help, Mr. Bane.”

Magnus stared. While he loved the sound of respect rolling off a shadowhunter’s tongue, ‘Mr. Bane’ was a little too formal for Magnus’ liking, especially considering what Magnus was hoping the shadowhunter would be into later in the evening, when all this mess was over.

“Magnus is fine,” he said quickly, “And you would be?” Magnus raised an eyebrow.

“Alec,” the shadowhunter said. His hand shot out for Magnus’, a reflective gesture that Magnus found amusing amidst this chaos.

Magnus reached for his hand and he couldn’t help but smile as their skin touched. Maybe it was the Christmas magic in the air or maybe Magnus was just fooling himself but he was sure there was a spark.

It would be a Christmas miracle if Alec felt it too. Truthfully, Magnus was pretty sure he was letting himself get swept up in a fantasy where a beautiful shadowhunter would not cringe at the thought of sleeping with him but hey, it was Christmas. Magnus could indulge his most unrealistic fantasies for the night, especially when the alternative was that Magnus was alone on Christmas, surrounded by demons and shadowhunters alike.

Magnus tried not to lament too deeply on the fact that he’d resorted to this to make his evening seem more promising.

Only a half an hour later, Magnus found himself in an even worse situation than he had before. Alec had graciously followed Magnus and guarded him while he attempted to close the rift that was currently scattering demons all over the woods.

All was going well, except for the fact that this rift was tricky. Some were harder to close than others. It depended on what word they’d open to. The most common rifts opened into Edom, their nearest demonic realm. Rifts to Edom were easy to open and therefore, rather easy to close. Other demonic realms could be tricker. They were harder to open and much harder to close.

Magnus had assumed this was a rift to Edom. He’d assumed based on the fact that the warlock who’d been determined to cause this distraction was thought to be rather young. Magnus had apparently been wrong. This rift was not open to Edom. Magnus didn’t know what world it was open to but Magnus did know that it was a hell of a lot harder to close than Magnus had expected it would be, even considering its size.

By the time that Magnus had the rift even a couple of feet smaller than it was originally, Magnus could feel himself wavering on his feet. He could do this. He knew he could. He had to do this. There wasn’t another warlock available to help, excluding the warlock who’d caused this and was probably miles and miles away by now.

Magnus had to close it but just then, he wasn’t sure that he could and it was almost as soon as Magnus thought this that the beautiful shadowhunter who he’d last seen darting around, shooting any demons who dared to threaten to come close to Magnus, was suddenly there. Alec held his hand out, his eyes wide and panicked.

Magnus froze. His hands were raised, holding the rift in place. He wasn’t closing it exactly. He wasn’t sure if he had the energy to try that again but he was at least holding it there, so that it wouldn’t erase all of his progress and pop back open. He’d just been about to figure out how the hell he was going to handle this and now, he didn’t know how this shadowhunter fit into that.

He wanted the shadowhunters' attention but not now. Now, it seemed a little more than disruptive.

The shadowhunter thrust his hand forward even further and when Magnus still failed to move, the shadowhunter slipped his hand into Magnus’ own. Beside himself, beside the situation before him, Alec’s hand was warm and Magnus’ fingers curled around him.

The other shadowhunters had moved closer and were now fighting off the demons that strayed too close, protecting them both so this shadowhunter could come over and… hold Magnus’ hand?

“Take it,” Alec said insistently. “My strength. It’s yours. Take what you need.”

Magnus blinked again. For a brief second, he had a moment of wondering just what Christmas miracle Magnus had found thrust at him to find a shadowhunter like this who was not only beautiful but willing to share his strength with Magnus, a warlock, when he needed it.

Magnus’ fingers tightened in Alec’s own. He didn’t have another second to contemplate it. Demons were pouring out. There was a rift. Magnus pulled strength from Alec’s hand and he didn’t have a second to look over and watch to see if the shadowhunter flinched at the feeling of a warlock draining him.

A minute later, the rift was closed. A few seconds after that, Magnus’ hand relaxed and then, Magnus’ entire body went slack. Another moment after that, Magnus felt himself teetering backwards and falling limp as the entire world went dark.

Magnus thought he felt arms grabbing at him but he passed out before he felt if he hit the ground or if his savior did manage to grab him.

Magnus woke up in one of his least favorite places: An Institute. Magnus wasn’t exactly sure which Institute he was in but it was dark and apparently, they couldn’t invest in decent heaters because it was freezing.

Magnus had been about to throw himself out of the bed, find the exit and then, somehow find his way home when he realized that he was in fact not alone. There was a shadowhunter sitting in the chair next to him and when Magnus blinked past his bleary eyes and looked closer, he saw that it was in fact his beautiful handsome shadowhunter from earlier - Alec, he’d said his name was.

Magnus leaned closer to look but when the man’s eyes snapped open and darted up to him, Magnus suddenly sat back.

“Mr. Bane,” Alec rushed out. His cheeks darkened and he seemed incredibly embarrassed to have been caught not only waiting next to Magnus’ bed but asleep. “You’re alright. Do you need anything?”

Magnus blinked and slowly leaned back into the very uncomfortable pillows that the Institute’s infirmary provided. This was a lot for Magnus to be dealing with all in a matter of a few minutes after passing out closing a rift on Christmas. “The warlock-” Magnus managed at last.

He had a lot that he wanted to say just then but his job was at the forefront of his mind. It had been his job to close the rift and capture the warlock. He’d only done the first half.

“Has been taken in and contained,” the shadowhunter reported diligently.

Magnus nodded, closing his eyes to try and ease back the throbbing that he was suddenly aware of in his temples. It was a familiar feeling that came when he used too much magic. He wasn’t thrilled, knowing the feeling would remain for at least the next twelve hours.

“You never gave me your last name,” Magnus said when he finally opened his eyes again.

The shadowhunter flushed, looking again embarrassed. Magnus almost smiled at the sight of it. He might have, if he hadn’t been feeling so weak. It was rare to find a shadowhunter so easily flustered. It was rare to find a shadowhunter like the one before Magnus in general.

“Alec,” the man hushed, though Magnus already knew that. He still looked quite embarrassed. Magnus thought it was adorable. “Alec Lightwood,” the man continued at last.

At that, Magnus’ eyes went wide. He couldn’t help the way that his spine straightened and he sat up a little taller in the bed.

Alec ducked his head, looking away instantly.

“You’re a long way from home, Lightwood,” Magnus cooed. His tone wasn’t exceptionally kind. He couldn’t help it. He had his prejudices just as well as anyone else. The Lightwoods were absolutely one of them and Magnus thought he’d earned that judgement, considering what he’d seen Alexander’s parents do.

Alec sat up a little straighter himself. His hands folded politely in his lap. “I decided to travel for a few years,” Alec said simply.

He didn’t seem inclined to provide more information but Magnus was never one to leave things alone.

“Needed some space from Mother Lightwood?” Magnus quipped.

He was kidding but Alec’s jaw tightened anyway. After a moment, he shifted and nodded stiffly. “I found out my parents were in the Circle last year. I decided to take some time away.” Alec fell silent but he didn’t remain silent for very long. His eyes flicked up to Magnus’ own again. “‘I’m sure you can understand that. I know you had a lot of encounters with the Circle when they were active.”

Magnus thought that ‘encounters’ was putting it a bit lightly but it would be picking at syntax to say so. Instead, Magnus said nothing for a long moment and Alec didn’t seem inclined to break the silence either. Magnus had just woken up. His brain was still foggy and this… well, this was even more unexpected than anything else Alec Lightwood had done thus far.

Part of Magnus thought this must be a facade. Truly, no shadowhunter could act like this and mean all of it. It was just too odd but subtly so. This could be who Alec was and yet, Magnus felt like he’d walked into a trap anyway. Shadowhunters didn’t care about what the Circle had done. Shadowhunters didn’t care if a warlock was struggling to close a rift. Shadowhunters didn’t sit by a warlock's bedside and wait for them to wake up.

Magnus had liked him. He’d thought he was handsome but it was a fun little fantasy.

He had not truly expected Alec to have a soft and kind personality to go along with his pretty Lightwood face, not even on Christmas.

“Why were you waiting by my bedside, Alec?”

Alec frowned, his hands suddenly twisting nervously in his lap. “You passed out. I carried you back because I didn’t want to leave you. I just wanted to make sure you were alright.” Alec moved suddenly like he was going to stand and flee. “I’m sorry. Maybe, I shouldn’t have.”

“It’s Christmas,” Magnus said in lieu of responding.

Alec stilled and looked up at him confused until Magnus kept speaking.

“You found what your parents did to be so distasteful that you’re in the middle of nowhere at an isolated cold Institute on Christmas instead of spending time with your family?”

Alec frowned uncomfortably and then nodded anyway. “Yes. I wasn’t exactly invited back anyway, after what I had to say when I left.”

Magnus held Alec’s eyes for a long moment before he pulled the blanket from his lap and swung his legs over the side of the bed to stand. His joints and his muscles ached. His magic was screaming at him for stretching it so far. Magnus turned back to Alec and raised an eyebrow.

“Well, would you like to come have a drink with me, Alec? Perhaps in a place that doesn’t run an average of thirty degrees?” Magnus swung his arms wide across the empty infirmary they were in. “Unless you have some better plan for Christmas.”

Alec’s eyes widened and when he seemed to realize that Magnus was serious, he nodded frantically. “No, I don’t uh- I mean, I’m not doing anything and it is cold here.” Alec’s mouth snapped shut and his cheeks flushed red yet again. “I would like a drink,” he blurted out. “Somewhere warm would be pleasant.”

Magnus hummed softly and when Alec finally rose to his feet, Magnus reached his hand out for Alec’s own.

Alec looked exceptionally confused but he complied easily, slipping his hand into Magnus’. He clearly didn’t know what Magnus had intended and the fact that he’d given Magnus his hand anyway made Magnus laugh softly.

“I could use a bit of that strength again, unless you’d prefer to be stuck here.”

Alec nodded quickly. “Oh. Of course, take it,” he insisted.

Magnus paused, staring at Alec yet again. He didn’t think he’d ever get over a shadowhunter who was so eager to let a warlock use their energy. He’d tell Alec that later or perhaps, he’d just keep it to himself. Magnus wasn’t sure but he did know one thing. He was starting to think that Alec just might be his Christmas miracle and there was no way in hell he’d say that aloud, no matter how many drinks he’d need after a night like this.

Magnus opened a portal with Alec’s hand tight in his own and he tried not to think too deeply about where this could be going as they both stepped through together and landed in Magnus’ warm loft on the other side. A kind and beautiful Lightwood? It was a Christmas miracle indeed.

#fluff #malec #magnus bane #alec lightwood #alternative meeting

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princess-of-riviaa · 4 years

Text

Secrets

Pairing: Clark Kent x Reader

Summary: Superman saves you on the darkest night of your life. A year later, your best friend and colleague Clark Kent makes a confession.

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of depression, attempted suicide

Warning(s): angst(ish), oral (m receiving)

Word Count: 3,170

Your mind is silent, empty. All you can think about is the ground below you, growing ever closer with each passing second. Your instinct is to scream, but the way your stomach is in your throat and the wind burns your lungs, you have no air to scream out. This is it. This is how it ends. Your arms flail around you desperately, your body determined to stop the fall, but you keep moving towards the ground anyways. The ground is twenty feet away. Ten feet. Five--

Something wraps around you. You can’t see what it is, nor can your brain move fast enough to process what’s happening, but suddenly you’re moving up, up, up--back to the roof you jumped off of.

You struggle to breathe as you’re set down on the roof, your heart beating so fast that your head is spinning. You were seconds away from dying. You should be dead right now.

Why aren’t you dead right now?

You look in front of you. A red cape waves in the wind. You recognize the man in the blue suit the way anyone would. Superman.

“Are you alright?” he asks, his eyes scanning your body with protective worry. “Did you slip? What are you doing on the roof?”

You put your hands on your knees, struggling to calm your breathing. Every muscle inside of you is tensed. Your brain still can’t process the fact that you’re not dead right now. You should be.

“Why the hell did you do that?!” you scream at him. Tears pour down your face faster than you can stop them.

“You were about to die,” the hero in blue tights tells you, like you’re an idiot who has yet to realize that.

“That’s the point!” you cry out. “I didn’t slip!” Nothing about this was accidental.

His face falls when he realizes your meaning. The look he gives you… it’s too vulnerable a look for a stranger to give.

“Don’t look at me like that. Someone else probably needs saving. Go somewhere you’re wanted.” You don’t mean to be a bitch, but you’d worked so hard to get to this point. To come to terms with your death, to plan it all out, even to act it out. And at the very last second it all went crashing down.

“I’m not leaving until I know you won’t try to do this again,” he says.

You want to scream in his face. He’s ruined everything!

He steps towards you, but you take two steps back. He holds his hands up, showing you he’s not going to try anything, and says, “Let me take you to the ground, and then I’ll leave.”

You’d much rather punch him than let him carry you to safety. But the look on his face is stubborn and you know he’s not about to leave you alone until you agree. So you huff and nod your head.

He closes the distance between you. Something about him feels familiar, almost… safe. His arms wrap around you, pulling you tight against him so he won’t lose his grip, and only then do you realize how strong he is. You feel his biceps dance against your back as he adjusts you in his arms. It almost takes your breath away. If you were someone else--if you had enough hope to think about these things--you’d be attracted to him. There’s something about how his black waves of hair resembles the night sky, while his bright blue eyes look like the sky at high noon, that pulls you in.

Superman picks you up easily, lifting you like you weigh no more than a feather. His grip is tight around you as he slowly lowers the both of you to the ground. It’s breathtaking--his flight, his strength. As soon as your feet touch the ground of the parking lot, he lets go of you and moves a respectful distance away.

“What’s your name?” you find yourself wondering.

He smiles at you. “Superman.”

You shake your head. “No, I mean your real name. Who are you?”

All he says is, “I’m just a man that believes, wholeheartedly, that the world is better off with you in it.”

“You don’t even know me--” you begin, but he’s already gone, a shooting star in the night sky.

…

ONE YEAR LATER

The sound of your glasses clinking is drowned out by the noisy chatter of the restaurant around you. You take a long sip of your wine, feeling Clark’s gaze on you as you do.

“Rough day?” he jokes.

You shake your head and set your glass down, returning to your food. “Just the opposite. This article is going to put us on the map. Your writing is going to make us famous, Clark Kent.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” Clark insists humbly. “We’re a team.”

Your cheeks begin to burn with how much you’ve been smiling. It’s mind blowing to think how much your life has changed in just eleven months. A year ago you were lost, fighting against your depression and losing, and now you’re a successful woman living in the city. You run a yoga class on weeknights and buy a new book for your collection every paycheck. You’ve really learned how to take care of yourself.

“Can I say something, as a friend? I don’t want it to come across as weird,” Clark says, playing with his fork nervously.

Your stomach knots. “Uh, yeah. Go ahead.”

“It makes me really happy to see you like this,” he confesses. “You’re always smiling lately, you really brighten up the office.”

You feel your cheeks burn. You’d been expecting him to say something bad. But of course he didn’t; this is Clark. He’s the sweetest man you’ve ever met. You’re very happy you’re friends with him.

“I am happy,” you admit. “Things have really turned around for me this year.” You hesitate, wanting to tell him the one thing you’ve never told anyone, but you’re afraid. He won’t look at you the same after you tell him. No one ever does when you mention depression.

“What is it?” Clark, ever the mind-reader, notices that you’re holding back from him. “You look like you want to say something.” He reaches across the small table and holds your hand. A spark of heat shoots up your arm, making your heart race.

You’ve had feelings for Clark for a while, but you’ve forced yourself to keep things professional. You work together on a lot of investigative pieces. You can’t afford to have a fling, end it poorly, and then lose a coworker. But that doesn’t mean that every time you two take the elevator in the morning, you don’t feel a heat between him and you; or that every time his hand accidentally brushes yours, the touch doesn’t register in your core, making you ache for more.

“It’s me,” Clark says, giving you that smile that always makes you give in to him. “You can tell me anything, you know.”

You hesitate. “It’s just… nothing. Never mind. Don’t worry about it.”

But he shakes his head insistently. “If it’s bothering you this much, it’s clearly not nothing.”

So you tell him. About your failed suicide attempt. About your run in with Superman. About how you held a grudge against the beloved hero for several months because for such a long time, you regretted not dying. You regretted staying alive. And then, when you finally got the help you needed through regular therapy sessions, you felt like you could breathe again. Like this entire time you’d been drowning under ten-foot waves and you can finally come up for air again. And now you feel like you owe Superman everything, if only you knew who he was.

Clark doesn’t let go of your hand the entire time you talk. His touch manages to soothe you enough to make you tell him everything. He waits until you’ve gotten everything out before saying anything.

“You really want to know who Superman is?” he wonders.

You nod. “I want to pay him back. Or thank him at the very least.”

He hesitates. “Can I show you something?”

You nod. “Of course.”

“It’s at my apartment,” he warns. “Are you comfortable with me taking you there?”

You’ve known Clark long enough to know he’s not trying to trick you into anything. And even if he was, you wouldn’t object, not that you’d ever tell him that. But you nod.

Clark pays for the meal and you walk to his car. As you turn to grab your seat belt, though, your skirt rises up. You tense. A sliver of your black underwear is revealed and you look up to see Clark’s eyes locked on your legs. He’s silent as he swallows and suddenly the air between you is heated, stiff. You quickly pull your skirt back down and do your best to laugh it off, though it just comes out breathy and tense. Clark doesn’t mention it though, much to your relief.

His apartment is a quick seven minute drive from the Italian restaurant you’d just finished eating at. You’re both quiet throughout the drive, the walk to the elevator, and the ride up to his floor. But it’s an easy silence, one only people who are very close can experience.

Clark hesitates outside his apartment door. “What I’m about to show you… it’s an important secret. I trust you enough to show you, and I think you need to know this, but I ask that you don’t tell anyone.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Are you showing me your prized Pokemon collection?”

But he doesn’t laugh like you’d expected him to. He’s very serious about this, you realize.

You nod. “Of course, Clark. You don’t have to worry about me saying anything. But now you’ve got me dying of curiosity, so please open the door.”

He does. You’ve been to his place before--when your deadlines have crept up on you and you magically had to pull one-thousand words out of your ass by midnight, Clark’s place became the place to be--and you know your way around to know that he’s leading you to his bedroom. You grow a little uneasy, if only because this is very much starting to feel like a trap. But Clark walks right past his queen-sized bed and towards his closet.

“I just… try not to freak out,” Clark says as he pulls something out.

You frown as he turns to face you with a folded shirt in his hands. It’s a deep blue and made of what looks like latex. You’d have no idea what is or what importance it holds--if it weren’t for the red-and-gold S engraved in the middle. But you still struggle to comprehend what he’s showing you.

“So you’re… a secret Superman fanatic?” you guess.

Clark laughs. “Not exactly.”

You refuse to believe what he’s trying to tell you. “Clark, I need you to spell it out for me.”

You watch him take off his glasses and hold the outfit up to his body. It’s… off-putting is the first word that comes to mind. He looks exactly like Superman. But that’s impossible. If Clark were Superman, you would’ve figured it out by now. You’re not an idiot, nor are you blind. But he looks like a different person without those glasses. And with that costume held up to his body…

“Clark…” you manage to get out, still refusing to believe what’s right in front of your eyes.

“You know what I’m trying to tell you,” he insists.

Part of you doesn’t want to believe it. Clark is your partner-in-crime, your friend… Superman is some stranger that ran into you on the worst night of your life. You don’t want to combine the two. You want to keep Clark--who practically embodies everything good about your present life--as far away from the reminder of the broken thing you used to be.

But you have to ask… “Who are you?”

Clark just smiles and says, “I’m just a man that believes, wholeheartedly, that the world is better off with you in it.” The same words Superman had spoken to you eleven months ago.

Your legs cave in on you. Luckily you land on the edge of Clark’s bed. You’re silent as your brain finally begins to accept all of this. Clark watches you carefully, trying to gauge your reaction. He finally moves to sit beside you. Though his thigh brushes against yours, sending heat to your core, his presence is friendly.

“I want to know what you’re thinking,” he says.

“You’ve known,” you finally get out. “You’ve known this whole time--you’ve known since before I started working at the Daily Planet. Everything I told you tonight… you knew this whole time! And you lied about it!”

You rise to your feet and move to the corner of the room, suddenly needing to put as much distance between you as possible. You’re mad at him--no, you’re livid. He’s been lying to you since the day you met him. You try to push back angry, hot tears from rising to the surface but they come anyways.

“Y/N…” Clark says, his voice breaking in a heartbreaking sound. He moves towards you.

You back up until your back hits the wall. “You’re a liar!”

“I never denied finding you that night,” he says, still continuing to move towards you. He moves slow, though, treating you like a scared animal. “I didn’t lie about it.”

“You deceived me!” you argue through your tears.

Pain flashes through his eyes as you yell at him, and though your instinct is to hug him and tell him whatever he needs to hear to feel better, you ignore it. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t have you knowing--”

“I was pissed at you!” You’re unable to stop your voice from rising with every word, growing desperately louder. “I was mad at you for saving me for so long! I hated you! Don’t you get that?” You move towards him and shove his shoulders. He stumbles back, surprised that your anger has turned violent. “How could you do this to me?!” You shove him again but this time he expects it. His feet are planted firmly on the ground and you don’t even make him move an inch. When you go to hit him for the third time, he grabs your wrists and holds them against his chest. You can feel the warmth radiating through his shirt, feel the solidness of his chest.

“Do you hate me?” he asks, looking deeply in your eyes.

“Y-yes,” you sob out.

But he knows that you’re lying. “Do you hate me, Y/N?” He enunciates each word slowly this time.

You step towards him again, but instead of hitting him you just rest your head on his chest. The only person you want to talk to when you feel this upset is Clark; he’s always the one to talk you off the ledge, to get you thinking logically instead of emotionally. So you don’t know what to do when he’s the one making you feel like this.

He brings one hand to the back of your head, cradling you against his chest, while his other begins to rub your back. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I never wanted to hurt you. But no one can know who I am.”

“Then why me?” you sob into his chest.

“Because…” he begins, then pauses.

You lift your head up just enough to meet his gaze. Only then do you become aware that there’s no distance between you. Your bodies are pressed tight against each other, your mouths inches apart. His breath tickles your face, sending shivers down your spine.

“Because what?” you force yourself to ask, struggling to find your voice.

He answers by kissing you. You freeze. Never in a million years would you have seen this coming. There’s no way Clark is as attracted to you as you are him. And yet here you stand, being kissed like you’re oxygen and he’s craving a fresh breath of air. As soon as the shock fades, you kiss him back. Your hands tug on his flannel, pulling him even tighter against him. When he pulls away from you, you’re both breathless.

“Because I love you,” he admits.

Love. That’s what he feels for you. It’s not just lust, not just a crush. Your heart races when he says those words. You must be dreaming. There’s no way this is happening.

“I’m sorry if that ruins things between us,” he says, “but I needed you to know. I’m good at keeping secrets, but I didn’t want to keep that one.”

You kiss him again. His hands tug at your hips, pressing your body tight against his. You gasp when you feel his erection press into you. Before you can talk yourself out of it, you bring a hand to his growing erection and palm him over his jeans. He groans into your mouth and the sound registers deep inside of you, making you drip with arousal.

You pull away from him and fall to your knees. His lustful gaze is locked on yours as you undo his jeans and pull them down enough to reveal his aching member. You practically gasp at his girth and length. There’s no way you can fit all of him in your mouth. But you try anyways, first with teasing licks up the length of his shaft and a few sucks on his balls. He groans as you open your mouth and take him deep inside of you. His cock brushes against the back of your throat and you gag but resist the urge to pull away from him. With the way he’s looking at you right now and the sounds he’s making, you’d happily gag on his cock. You place your hands on his thighs to steady yourself as he places a hand on the back of your head and begins to fuck your mouth.

Clark has never been anything but sweet and gentle. But right now, with how he’s fisting your hair and shoving his cock deeper inside of you, you feel like his own personal whore. And you love every second of it.

“Fuck,” he groans out. The sounds he makes has your toes curling and your heart racing when you remember that you’re the one making him fall apart. You feel powerful, beautiful, even as he uses you like this. “I’m gonna come soon… you gotta stop or I’m… gonna come down your throat.”

You moan at the thought. The vibrations of your voice register deep within him and two thrusts later he releases his seed down your throat. You swallow all of it, loving the salty, bitter taste.

“I think that’s the best blowjob I’ve ever had,” he admits, his cheeks a light pink from his orgasm.

You smirk up at him and get off the floor.

Clark nods to the bed. “Mind if I return the favor?”

***

Tag Squad:

@agniavateira @hnryycvll @littlefreya @celestial-vomit @lestersglitterglue @watermeloncavill @honeychicana @penwieldingdreamer @mary-ann84 @elixasays @buckysgoldenheart @noz4a2 @trippedmetaldetector @omgkatinka @lunedelorient @aphrodites-punch @yespolkadotkitty @sweetybuzz25 @iloveyouyen @deathonyourtongue @utterlyhopeful @wondersofdreaming @tsukuyomi011 @the-soot-sprite @desperate-and-broken @jayismz @emelinelovesjc @palaiasaurus64 @wolvesandhoundshowltogether @henrythickcavill @secretlyactivated @madbaddic7ed @persephonehemingway @geralt-of-baevia @stargazingfangirl18 @thedarkplume @spookypeachx @pensieveforyourthoughts @aletheladyinred @littlemissthistle

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#clark kent #clark kent imagine #clark kent smut #clark kent x reader #clark kent x you #henry cavill #henry cavill smut

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ninaahelvar · 3 years

Text

Power Over Me

Summary: Nina is an annoying Grisha brat, Matthias wants to put her in her place. Let’s see how far that goes.

AO3

A/N: I wrote this series as a sort of “what could have been” thing? I was originally going to release this as just one fic with multiple chapters, but you know what? i wanted to post something so it's now a series and these are individual fics You can think that each takes place in this ‘different version’ or just stand alone fics of moments that these two reek of sexual tension. Anyway. I do hope you enjoy.

ALSO; this is basically dedicated to @warrenslayla who implanted this idea in my head and i just...had to write it.

The Drüsje that had ordered him about and now sat naked wrapped in furs on the bed was driving Matthias to the brink of insanity. He stripped down, wrapping one of the heavy furs around his waist and jumped in beside her. It would have been fine if she didn’t make him shift closer or how she wouldn’t stop wiggling around. She was maddening.

Women in Fjerda were not like this - they didn’t order around their men, especially Drüskelle, and they certainly wouldn’t stripe nude in front of a man that wasn’t their husband. This grisha was everything that Drüskelle were taught to hate, the worst kind of witch that should be killed rather than used for survival. And yet, every moment with her felt like heaven and torture, her power providing him the blissful warmth that he craved in the cold.

But now, she lay next to him naked and infuriating, and it would be so much easier to ignore just how different she was from the women of Fjerda if she would just shut her mouth.

“You’re cold and clammy! It’s like lying next to a burly squid!” she chastised, and for Matthias, it was the last straw. Hoisting himself up on his knees and his lands braced either side of her head, he snarled down at her. She remained unmoved until he grasped her face.

“Would you shut your ridiculous Drüsje mouth!” he snapped, his hand gripping up underneath her chin, scowling down at her. What he was met with was a spark of curiosity and intrigue - as though she were waiting for something more. Her body relaxed, even as it shivered

“You’re welcome to stop me,” she teased and Matthias couldn’t stop the surge of anger that erupted from within him. It was mixed with something he couldn’t understand, and what he did next surprised him more than sticking with a Drüsje for survival - he kissed her. His hand was cupped underneath her jaw, keeping her still and positioned at the disadvantage.

Yet, in the name of Djel, she propped her leg up, almost hooking up over his hip as her fingers gently curled around his wrists. Part of him froze, but at the sound of her slight moan against his mouth, he continued. Her nails bit into his skin, her body dragging his in with desperate and unforgiving tugs - but it seemed to be the way of things for them. This wasn’t going to be gentle; it was anger, passion, unresolved hatred that had mingled with something that tasted sour and sweet in one infuriating gulp.

“I thought you wanted me to shut up, Drüskelle?” she smiled, and in a hard pull, had Matthias back down to kiss her again. She was demanding and didn’t care about how lewd she may be - in fact, it seemed as though she relished being as indecent as possible, tugging him in until their bodies were together in hot and rough motions. Matthias hadn’t truly ever pleasured himself - it wasn’t as though Drüskelle couldn’t do such a thing, he had just never felt such a surge of lust before. This was new territory, his cock sliding over her stomach as he sighed into her mouth.

The grisha hoisted her legs higher, both straddling over the backs of his thighs and urging him forward. This was what insanity felt like - it had to be because his body felt like every inch was alive and dying all in one. As Matthias’ hand slipped from her jaw to the back of her neck, his other hand gripped her thigh, the softness of her skin and the hearty give of her body was intoxicating - as though the more he sank his fingers into her, he’d continue to fall into her. All he wanted to do was dive straight into her, to feel all the warmth she was truly going to give him. He could feel the stirrings of it in the pit of his stomach, that their bodies now - just tumbling together in a heated kiss - was giving him a heat that no power could truly give.

“Stop,” she demanded, and part of Matthias didn’t want - she’d just continue to talk and he’d have to deal with her foul mouth nature. She panted, her breast heaving as she struggled to regain her breath. Could she damn well make up her mind? “What’s your name?” she asked.

“What?”

“I’m not going to let you devour me without at least praising the man who takes my breath away,” she smirked, and even with his body filled with lust and longing for her, his actions finally caught up to him. It was too personal - it was like they were supposed to be lovers, but that was a life that could never be.

“Why must you ruin such things?” he huffed, rolling onto his back, only to be met with the grisha on his lap, her grunt of frustration following as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. Her body was completely bare, full and plump, each curve a temptation he hadn’t realised was there until she sat upon him. He wanted to protest, but couldn’t help himself - Matthias wanted to stare for hours if he could.

“Because, Drüskelle, you wouldn’t have kissed me if you didn’t like me. Or at least want me to be quiet. So what shall you do? Tell me your name and have me quiet for a few hours, or I keep yapping away until you wish you had drowned?” she asked, her hips pushing back and he could feel his cock sliding underneath her, touching something warm and wet all in one.

“Matthias...Helvar,” he gulped, unable to stop his hand as it reached for her waist.

“Nina Zenik,” she whispered as her lips touched his, stealing any last trace of sanity that was left for him to grasp. Once more, he sunk his hands into her skin, tugging her closer and making sure he savoured the way every curve foamed to his. It was a wonderful sensation, to have a woman on top of him, to have this woman on top of him. She was beautiful and did things to him that he could barely fathom or understand, but he wanted to fall for every word, to be a fool for every line she spoke - even when he wanted to strangle her.

Then, her hips started to move. Just as before, she glided along his length, her back arching as her hands pressed to his chest, rocking back and forth, her breath coming in hearty gulps with soft giggles erupting as he looked down at him. Then, she picked up her pace, as though she were racing him to something he wasn’t quite sure was a competition to begin with. His own breath was ragged when he felt a coil binding in tight in his belly.

“Ah! What are you doing?” he hissed, almost wanting to still her hips to stop the torment. All Nina did in return was smile, her fingers dancing over the stubble on his chin.

“This way, the only thing keeping you warm is my body. No powers. Just me, Matthias.”

Matthias felt his heart pounding, and for the first time, he believed that Nina used no magic on his body; it was just her.

“Nina,” he sighed, eyes closing as her hand gripped at the base of his length and guided him to the warmth that had been teasing his shaft for so long - it was as though his heart was leaping into his throat. He wanted to swear, wanted to yell and speak words of pleasure that could damn him forever. But she was breaking him - and he wasn’t even inside her yet.

Then, Nina let herself rest back down on his cock, letting him sink inside her and - dear Djel - it was like he had been blessed beyond reason. Matthias almost gasped, head falling back and eyes shut tight, it was as though something had built far quicker than it was supposed to and his stomach clenched. Matthias’ hands gripped in harder to her hips, trying to get her to stop. She did, almost instantly.

“Do you need me to stop?”

Matthias nodded, eyes firmly shut, trying to regain his breath.

“Don’t want you wasting all the heat I’m giving you,” she smiled.

Matthias wasn’t sure how to further their movements, the cold already starting to set his bones to shiver and ache. So, he did what he thought he could muster - he tapped at her thigh, two soft thrums across the ample flesh that rested on top of him. Nina smiled, her hands gracing up the sides of his torso before they rested on his shoulders.

“Good, Drüskelle,” she praised and Matthias sighed, “tell me anyway you can if you need me to slow down,” she instructed.

“I don’t know how,” he said, voice breaking as he admitted his failings.

“I can tell you’ll find a way,” she whispered, as though the wind were listening to all the secrets she was willing to share. Matthias found that he would fight anyone and anything, including all the elements, that dared intrude on his moment with Nina. How dare they touch at her, whisper her name, or invade her space when he wanted to be the only one to ever do it again.

Nina rose up, her hands braced on his shoulders before she descended back down onto him. She was heavy, but it was a welcome weight, her rise and fall an intoxicating experience, one that no liquor could ever compare.

His hips sunk down into the furs, slowly rising to meet Nina as she descended down onto him. Matthias couldn’t believe the sensation was real - it was like lightning shooting through him and every essential part of him had come alive. This grisha - this woman - made him come alive in a way he hadn’t known was possible. Sighing, he let his hands grace up from her thighs to her hips, feeling the rhythm she set upon him and followed suit, gaining confidence with every rise and fall that they gave over.

At first, he was clumsy and made Nina squeak in surprise, her hands persistently digging and tugging at him as her hips jut up against his. With every few strides, she hit somewhere deep inside her with his shaft and her head would fall back. Every time he did it, he could feel how her body responded, how it seemed to cling to him for more than what she was already giving him. All the while, her breasts were tormenting him - the perfect bounce and prickling skin that rose as she fed into her desire was something he couldn’t ignore.

Matthias shot up from the bed of furs and grasped her hips, making Nina’s breath hiccup. His mouth fell to her breast, nipping and biting at the risen peak that lay there teasing him. With his arm slung around her back, he helped their bodies find their pleasures together, bucking up and meeting every thrust that Nina had been performing like a temptress. Nina’s arms wrapped around him, her lips dragging and kissing at his temple.

“Oh, Matthias,” she called, rocking back and forth in his lap, her hand in his hair as the other scraped up his back in a painful delight. “Please, just a little more,” she whined, her hips working hard to race to something. All the while, he could feel her body, how her core grasped him like a wicked vice that didn’t dare let him loose. All thoughts were gone as he drove himself as deep as he could, over and over again until he felt her body tense, her breathing hitched and a perfectly seductive cry left her lips, panting as she let herself feel every part of her pleasure. It pushed Matthias over the edge, and he grunted, feeling himself release every ounce of himself inside. Nina shivered once more, panting as her hands went to his cheeks, propping his face up to her and kissing him in a desperate moan.

Her hips worked in slow circular movements, giving them a moment to relax and kiss until they were once again met with the frigid cold of the snow storm outside. Getting out of his lap, Nina found the furs she had been wrapped in and found her spot back in the cot.

Nina tossed over, panting as she hauled the furs back over her sweat ridden body. Matthias couldn’t believe he had done such a thing - gone against every fibre of his being to lay with a grisha. It was wrong and amoral; everything he was taught to hate had been above him, he’d been inside her, finished inside her. How could he have done? In the moment, it felt right, it felt as though it was everything he should be doing, because it was a beautiful woman that made his heart race by doing nothing more than smiling. He wanted to tumble her in the sheets for the rest of the night, learning every inch of her as they kept each other warm. But he knew something like that could be the end of him - his heart was already half way lost to a grisha, how was he ever meant to recover. It was a fast track to losing himself and everything he thought he stood for.

Matthias watched out of the corner of his eye as she turned to him. Her eyes were like the ocean shore after a raging storm - a mix of light blues and dirty silver frothing on the shores - and Matthias should know, he had survived in a storm just as strong with the woman beside him.

“What are you staring at?” she asked, voice low, and almost scared for what his answer could be. Instead, all he did was pull her into him, pressing their heated bodies to one another to keep their warmth underneath the furs and radiate as much as possible.

“To keep each other warm,” he muttered, but as she snuggled in deep into his chest and waiting arms, he could have sworn that Nina smiled against his skin. Or maybe it was because Matthias was smiling that he was certain of it. It felt like a night for smiling.

#helnik #nina x matthias #nina zenik #matthias helvar #shadow and bone #grishaverse fic #six of crows #my fics

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alittlebitmaybe · 3 years

Text

with a fated touch

For @sugar-and-spice-witcher-bingo

Prompt: reunion

Pairing: Geralt/Yennefer

Rating: E

Warnings: None

Additional Tags: PWP, Canon-Typical Mind Reading, Inappropriate Use of Magic, Cunnilingus, Facefucking/riding, Light D/S dynamics, Dirty Talk, Mild Praise Kink

Summary: (2.6k)

“Presumptuous,” she murmurs, running her forefinger over his bottom lip.

“Sorry,” Geralt says, not sounding so at all. His tongue comes out briefly to meet her touch. “I’ve missed this. You.”

Or: The first time they meet after the dragon hunt, Yennefer puts Geralt on his knees.

Read more on AO3 or below the cut!

Geralt’s hands slide up her thigh, pushing her dress higher, and gooseflesh erupts over her skin when cool air hits it. His other hand brushes her hair back from her shoulder while his mouth moves along the line of her collarbone, desperate open-mouthed kisses a counterpoint to the burn of his stubble as it drags against her.

He’s beginning to harden against her stomach. She fists her fingers through his loose hair, lets her nails scrape his scalp. He groans as she pulls him back.

“Are we doing this?” she asks him. He tries to lean in again, unfocused and helpless, but she channels chaos to hold him in place. “Geralt. Answer me.”

“Yen,” he says, gruff. She withholds a shiver. “I am trying to do this. If you’ll let me continue.”

His hand, without permit, continues its journey up her leg. She allows this for an inch, two, his thumb brushing the hem of her smallclothes, before reaching out with her magic and halting that too. His palm spans the width of her thigh—he looms over her—yet she can control him with a spell, a touch, a word. It never fails to send a thrill through her. He has no real power over her. He wants to be hers. He craves it.

“Don’t you want it?” he asks. That thumb sweeps back and forth at the crease of her hip, though it can move no higher. His other hand has settled around the back of her neck, tilting her up to meet his gaze. A wall of lust smashes into her from his thoughts, impossible to ignore. He projects it at her nevertheless. It rushes through her, slips hot down her spine. She could block it, but she doesn’t.

“Yes,” she breathes. “Always.” A betrayal, perhaps—she shouldn’t want him, it’s not real. But it’s not in her nature to deprive herself. Not when images are pushing into her mind, memories, fantasies, spreading the heat through her belly.

Geralt must know she’s attuned to him, because he says, “How do you want it?” An image of him on his back, her on top. Using him. “Like this?” Yennefer perched on her vanity with him before her, both of them fully clothed. “Or this?” Both of them on their sides on the bed, him curled behind her, her leg held high to make room for him. “I’m full of ideas. Say the word.”

“Presumptuous,” she murmurs, running her forefinger over his bottom lip.

“Sorry,” he says, not sounding so at all. His tongue comes out briefly to meet her touch. “I’ve missed this. You.”

All at once she releases the magical restraints and yanks his mouth down to her own, kissing him with the same urgent passion that had driven them together all the way back in Rinde. She wants to mount him above her mantle. To sink her teeth in and rip him open. She does away with kindness—she hates him for what he’s done to her. For her own failure to resist him. For the longing that radiates from him under the lust. He has yearned for her. He tells her this with his mind, with the way he yields control of the kiss to her without a second’s hesitation, with the way he presses them together sternum-to-stomach as though even a hint of space between them is too far. More than yearning, he thinks, and she realizes she has been pushing her own thoughts back to him unintentionally.

“Enough,” she says in the gasp separating one kiss from the next. He steals another peck before awaiting her judgment. He is hot all over, so close, his breath, his chest, his straining cock. She’s doing this to him. It’s all for her, and she’s weak. She wants him again like she’s had him before. Like no one has ever—

She stops that seed of thought before it can grow wild. She says, “Undress me.”

It takes only a moment for him to pick out the knot of her corset and loosen the lacing. The straps of her dress droop down her shoulders.

“Anything else?” he asks, a faint smirk crossing his bitten lips. Too lucid. She’s going to undo him.

Yen smiles back despite herself. “You’ll put yourself to good use. On your knees, Witcher.”

He kisses the corner of her mouth one last time, lingering, and says, “As m’lady wishes.”

Her retort is lost somewhere in her throat when he begins tracing a slow path down her body with hands and mouth, following the dress as he guides it down. Gods, he knows how to touch her—knows where to bite to send sparks up her spine, knows that her right breast is much more sensitive than the left, knows that fingertips swept down her side will toe the line between enticing and ticklish. Her dress puddles to the ground at last when he lowers himself to kneeling and puts his teeth to her hipbone, lightly, before nuzzling at the rise of her belly.

Only her smallclothes are left now. “Well? Finish the job,” she orders, voice thin and higher-pitched but thankfully even. He hooks two fingers in the waistband, tugs, and leaves her bare. She steps out of the pile of clothing, kicking it to the side.

He looks up at her with widened pupils, trusting. Her Geralt. For he is hers, isn’t he? He treats her as if she’s the answer he’s always sought; she knows he’d do anything she wanted at the barest suggestion. She’s tested those limits, and not even the godsforsaken unicorn shook him. Is that truly him, or simply the wish? How can she ever know?

Not the time. Not with him waiting on the floor where she’d put him, and her naked in the drafty air.

“Light the fire,” she tells him.

He forms Igni at the dying hearth, which catches in a blaze. She spreads her legs, runs her fingers over the backs of his scarred hands to urge them under the curve of her ass.

“Brace me,” she says, and his grip tightens to take her weight. “You’re not to let go.”

He stares up at her, taking her commands in stride, patient even though he’s still untouched. Even though he must smell her arousal. In his position even an unenhanced man would be able to tell how slick she’s gotten.

The stream of his thoughts continues to flow thick with want but otherwise remains calm and steady. She’d like to see how long he can wait before the current turns turbulent. How long he can await instruction without moving a muscle, and all the while she gets wetter until her cunt threatens to drip on the rug.

Geralt’s chin bumps the inside of her thigh. “You’re testing me,” he rumbles.

“Yes, quite,” replies Yennefer. To up the ante, she reaches down and circles her clit slowly. When she presses harder, she moans softly at the relief. He watches the movement, jaw tensing, before flicking his gaze back to her face.

“Is this a punishment?”

“Perhaps.” Her breath hitches and she fights to keep still as she teases herself, just this side of not what she really needs. She aches to get it but can’t give in yet. “What do you want, Geralt? Do you want to taste me?”

He nods.

“Speak when you’re spoken to.”

“Yes,” he says. “Please.”

“Good boy, remembering your manners.” She rocks into her touch just a little, slipping two fingers inside herself before she removes her hand. “Open up.” When he obediently parts his lips, she withdraws her fingers and places them on his tongue, pressing down. “Clean them for me, Witcher, and maybe you can have more.”

He groans as he sucks the wetness from her skin, his eyes dropping shut as if he could get drunk on her. She gathers another fistful of his hair, cards it back out of his face. Holds it tight.

She sends him a question. What would you do for me?

Geralt shifts on the floor, his breeches taut over his cock and thighs when he leans back on his heels. A damp spot spreads near his waistband—already, the needy bastard. She’s barely begun.

What would you let me do to you?

It takes a few moments and even then a flurry of vivid images is his only answer. She takes them to mean Everything.

Her fingers leave his mouth with a pop, and she cups his cheek, tugging on his hair. He chases after them—so easy. So easy to have him like this, but only for her. Only with her does he stop checking his blind spots. Gods, she could burst from the disappointment of living in a reality that would keep her from him. Of a destiny that would force them together.

“Yen,” he starts, voice like gravel. “Here? Wouldn’t you rather we—”

“Don’t presume to know what I would rather,” she snaps, and grips him under the chin. “We do this my way or no way at all.”

He quirks an eyebrow but doesn’t argue.

She says, “I’ll tell you what I would rather. I’d rather come on your face and then leave you here as a toy for my personal use. I could immobilize you, but I wouldn’t have to. You’d stay right here on your knees until I told you otherwise. Tell me you would.”

“I would,” he rasps.

“I’d leave you hard and unsatisfied, drooling with how much you want it. Like a dog for a bone. I’d go over to my bed and get a full night of peaceful sleep, and you would have to stay here and hope I’d come back in the morning to take mercy on you.”

“Yen, fuck.”

“Should I, Geralt? Do you deserve my mercy?”

Reaching out with her magic, trailing it over his nipples and down his abdomen under his clothes, she finally wraps it around the base of his cock. He inhales sharply but does not reply.

She leans more fully into his support, spreads her legs as wide as she can manage to open herself to him.

“Don’t take all night,” she says, releasing his chin and urging him forward by the back of the head.

He buries his nose into dark hair, lips kissing along her vulva and the crease of her thighs. Building anticipation that doesn’t need to be built. She’s already clenching around nothing from his proximity, from the way she can feel his hips pushing against the tight hold of her magic for some semblance of friction. At last he goes where she wants him, licking broadly up her cunt. She bites her lip as he flicks his tongue over her clit. Swears when he sucks, and lifts herself towards the wet heat of his mouth.

His fingers flex and dig into her the skin of her ass. If he had his way, she knows he’d have them inside her by now. He loves to rub over that spot that makes her eyes roll back while he works her clit with his mouth, bringing her to ruin inside and out. One time he had lain her out and made her come over and over again on his mouth and fingers until she could no longer tell how many hours had passed. Gods, she’d nearly screamed for him that day. She had let him get her there. She’d wanted to.

Without the use of his fingers, Geralt makes do. His mind simmers with frustration and determination and need.

Yen eases the phantom touch up his shaft as he licks down toward her entrance, and his teeth catch against her on his gasp. She can’t quiet the whine that tumbles out of her throat. “You like that, don’t you?” He makes his way back to her clit, circles it with just the right pressure. “You like—oh—you like feeling my magic on your cock. I bet you want more. I bet you’d beg for it after long enough, with my taste on your lips and nothing in return.”

He pulls her tighter to his face, and she yanks on his hair to make him groan. At the same time, she forms the magic into a fist around him. It begins stroking him at a moderate pace, not how he wants it, quick and hard and now, but enough to keep him on the edge of desperate. It squeezes around the head how she’s seen him do to himself—how she has done to him—and he pauses his work to pant harshly against her skin.

When he stops, so does the magic. He growls.

“Now you know the rules,” Yen says breathlessly. “I come, then you come. Not before.”

“Fucking—” he curses quietly, hips rutting uselessly into the stilled touch. He settles for biting down on her inner thigh. Her legs tremble.

With renewed vigor he licks into her once more, doing away with technique and strategy. He centers his energy on her clit, clearly not aiming for anything other than to make her fall apart above him—her shoulders curve in and her mouth falls open on a cry.

“Yes, like that. Good boy,” she tells him again when he lets off enough for her to find the words. “Can you do that while I ride you? Hold still for me?”

He makes eye contact with her, irises nearly swallowed by pupil. Nods.

“Perfect,” she whispers, and grinds her cunt into his face.

He meets her rhythm with some guiding from the hand still in his hair, alternating his flicks from his tongue with firm suction that shoots sparks through her nerves. By the gods, she’s not going to last long. He knows her too well, knows how to put himself where she needs him most. The higher he sends her the more of her weight he must support, until it’s nearly only him holding her up to his mouth while she shakes and fucks herself on him with rolling hips.

The magic on his cock speeds as she ascends; she can feel the tension climbing through his muscles with the effort to hold back. A flick of her wrist sends the touch to engulf him as if he is sunk deep in a warm throat. He moans, and one of his hands slaps against her ass.

“Careful, just—almost—”

She thrusts forward and he sucks hard and she comes, convulsing in his grip, keeping him there by his hair while he works her through it. Until he must be running out of air, even with the mutations, and his eyelids flutter with the effort. The throat around him tightens, swallows.

Yen says, chest heaving, “Go on, Geralt. You can come now.”

He does, his forehead pressed snug into the soft give of her stomach, breathing her name so quiet that she might not hear it.

She combs her fingers through his hair and stands fully on her own, though her legs are still weak and her spine aches. The pins in her hair are poking at her scalp, so she pulls them out and tosses them on the vanity on her way to the bed, stepping over the discarded dress. It can be hung in the wardrobe in the morning.

Yennefer has one knee on the mattress before she realizes Geralt is still where she left him on the rug by the fire, gazing after her with a question in his eyes, like she might actually leave him there in his soaking breeches to be used at her whim.

Maybe next time.

She throws back the blankets and pats the space beside her. “Are you joining me or not, Witcher?”

He grins.

#my fic #the witcher #the witcher fic #yenralt #geralt x yennefer #yennefer of vengerberg #geralt of rivia #lmao i tried to edit the post last night and broke it and i just decided to post it today instead bc it was a weird time anyway #writing 2600 words of pwp took like 2 years off my life <3

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markmalevolent · 2 years

Text

Malevolence: Painful Memories

The memories rushed in as if he were reliving it all over again. That's how it worked for him, even before the curse. He'd feel everything all over again, the hope, the shame, the rage, the embarassment. Remembering never came without the strongest and the worst of feelings, which is why he always allowed himself to just forget. But he needed to remember, any detail, anything might spark something that would let him find her again. "The spell you're looking for, the magic you want- it must have a steep price." Karogen could remember the conversation clearly, but not her face, not the sound of her voice. Maybe a flash of auburn hair? The sorceress he had hired to bring this fate upon him... she had seemed amused, but he couldn't recall the look on her face as she sat at the table across from him. "What's the price? Look, I don't have much, but I'm willing to do what it takes." "Lives. Several of them, countless. Someone must be cursed to die, at least once for the moon's cycle." Karogen sighed. This was exactly what he had been trying to prevent. He could... agree to this, trade in lives upon lives for the safety of his sister. He could just never tell her. After being turned, the taking of human lives is exactly what she could not tolerate, what was slowly driving her to madness. This would simply change whose fault it was people were dying- it would shift the blame from her, to him. "So, I'd be... what, taking their life force? How's that any different than the fucking vamps?" It didn't sit right. There had to be another way- his sister would lose all respect for him if she ever found out.

There was a chuckle from the sorceress. He remembered that. God, why couldn't he remember her now, why couldn't a name or face come to mind? Had she done something to rob his memories after the fact? It made sense. After the spell he had her had cast, she probably didn't want to be found again. "Nothing so dramatic," she replied. "It's merely the cost of such a spell. You want immortality, but you do not want to become undead. The cost of this life you wish to lead, is death."

How the hell is that not dramatic?? "How would it work? Do I have to kill them myself, or..."

"The spell does the work for you, my dear. You can guide its target if you wish, but fate will find a way to ensure death."

Karogen hesitated. This wasn't at all what he had hoped for. He needed to give his sister someone to feed from, someone who wouldn't die, because she couldn't bear the idea of people dying just so he could live. "There's no other way?"

He remembered the snort of indignation. "You're a coward, Adam Karogen. You always have been." The use of his full name threw him back- he'd only ever introduced himself as his last name, as usual. "I see your mind, I see your dreams. You grew up fantasizing of being a war hero, yet you hid when the recruiter visited your high school. Your dreams shifted to being a firefighter, then a journalist who exposes corruption... in one way or another, you've always yearned to be the hero, and you've always failed to have the conviction to do so. Even now, you're failing to save your sister from starving herself to madness. You're wasting my time. Leave." Karogen's lips parted. A coward? No, he just... he realized the world wasn't as simple as just fighting like that! He wasn't, couldn't be a coward. But the words wrung true. He lacked conviction. He had used excuses all along- he dropped out of school years ago to help raise his sister, but really? He was afraid of what happened if he had applied himself and still failed. Hell, she was the excuse he gave himself for giving up on half the things he was afraid of seeing through. "Stop standing there with your mouth hanging open. Get out, or I'll force you out. I'd much rather you just leave, teleporting you over an active volcano would be tiring." "Wait! Any death will do? Any at all? And I can guide it?" "Yes. At a minimum of once a month." "Me. Can it be me?" There was a tense pause- then she burst out laughing, a cruel, mocking howl of amusement. In the memory of that laugh, in the feeling of the shame and embarassment he felt at that moment, he could see her face in his mind- he had it! But the moment that part of the memory passed, so did his recollection of who she was. He thought she had been laughing at the ridiculousness of what he asked, but he was wrong. "Adam Karogen- you will be cursed to die a thousand deaths and be forced to meet life again head on every time. No matter what happens- your entire body could be reduced to ash, and you'll be back with the memories and trauma of that pain. Your life will be an endless cycle of misery. Do you truly think you can commit to that?" Fear filled his heart as he heard those words. He took a step back, ready to turn and leave, hanging his head in shame, but he stopped. A coward, no conviction. Always using his sister as an excuse. No, fuck that.

"Do it." "Fine," she said. Even now, he could still feel she seemed... too satisfied with this outcome. Thinking about it now, he began to realize: did the sorceress have it out for him? Was she someone he knew? It started to make sense, why she'd actually erase his memories of her, and it made even more sense once the terms of the spell were laid out. "A phylactery is the way to do this. Your soul will be placed into an item of my choosing," she said. "Normally, this would make you a lich, but being bound to your constant cycle of death will prevent you from becoming the undead. This item can only be harmed intentionally, and only by someone who understands exactly what it is. This will prevent any accidents from ending you. Oh... and I'll ensure it cannot be destroyed by you," she said. "Is... that part of the spell?" "That part? No. That's me, making sure you can't back out of this like you do everything else. What is part of the spell, though, is that anyone who holds your phylactery will hold complete control of you, mind, body, and soul. They could command you to do anything, to want anything, to love or to hate, and you'll be bound to it. So, it would benfit you to keep it safe and hidden."

Fear was starting to overwhelm him. Fight or flight was kicking in, and flight was definitely winning. "Do it before I change my mind." "So impatient," she said. "Normally, a phylactery is chosen carefully, but since you're in such a rush we'll just have to use whatever we have on hand, won't we?" The memory stopped there- Karogen pushed to recall. Something told him he shouldn't- something told him to just stop, but he needed to find that sorceress again. This didn't feel like magic robbing him of the memory at this point- it was something terrible his own brain had blocked. He had to remember, as much as something in him didn't want to. There had to be something to trigger the rest of the memory- the smell of fruit in the room she had him in, maybe? Smell was supposed to be a strong trigger for memories, right? No, it wasn't working. The feeling of the air, the sounds of the room, her voice. Her voice. For the first time, he actually heard her voice, as clear as day as he remembered her final words to him: "And now, for my personal price," she said, taking a knife towards the very item she had stashed his soul in.

Karogen screamed, both in his memories and in his livingroom where he sat trying to recall, as he felt that knife slice into his very soul, carving into his being. He held his head, where a scar began to form- the only scar he'd gotten since the curse. And as he screamed, the pain as real now as it was when it had happened, he could see her, grinning silently at him. He could see her! He knew her, her face, her name, where she'd be! In that moment of agony, all the memories he had came flooding back, even those he hadn't known he lost! He knew exactly where to find her, exactly why she hated him. He knew what he needed to do. And then, as the pain ended, nothing. It had all gone blank again. Karogen stared straight forward, tears streaming from his bloodshot eyes. His memory of her again faded as the pain did. It was a pain worse than any death he'd experienced, and remembering it was nearly as bad. His fingers ran over the X-shaped scar over his brow. This had all been for nothing. He looked at the urn on his counter, the one with his sister's name engraved into it, and his face fell into his hands as he sobbed.

#malevolence #adamkarogen #karogen #original character #tiktokoc #torture #supernatural #fiction writing

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diddlesanddoodles · 3 years

Text

DUMPLING ch 60

The trees were shapeless shadows against the night as she ran as fast as her legs could carry her. Blood pumped hard in her ears, and even with her gasping breaths, she could still hear them coming for her. Beneath her feet, she could feel their heavy footfalls as they crashed into the earth, and it was as though the very ground vibrated. Seven of her steps to one of their own, and even at a slower pace, their wider strides more than made up for the difference.

Her saving grace was the narrow gaps between the ancient trees. Additionally, her pursuers were just as hindered by the dark as she was. If she used her fire, she would reveal herself and her advantage would be lost. As it stood, she was not in a good position to face off against a large group of bloodthirsty giants.

She was lucky before, she doubted any chance at a repeat performance. The others had not expected their fellow to fall as easily as he did.

As Thrist fled with Jae, Nenani had turned to face the marauding group that attacked them and left Andy dead. The giant with the dagger had rushed her. His enormous frame had been cast in deep shadows against the stark white of her flames. He barreled towards her, dagger raised and shining. The blade was nearly as long as she was tall, glittering with the white and blue of her fire.

Nenani ran to one of the closer trees, whipping a vine back and upward towards the giant as he drew closer. Instinct rather than real calculation drove her. But it had been a lucky strike, with the end of her vine catching the edge of the giant’s jaw just as he passed. It curled around the back of his neck, and the thorns snagged into his flesh and began to slice as the vine pulled taught. The whites of his eyes grew large as he fell forward, dropping his dagger to reach for his neck as he fell. Nenani made it to the shelter of the tree just as he slammed into the earth, and the shock of it nearly threw her off her feet.

But Nenani did not bother to look back to gauge how devastating her hit had been. Instead, she ran onward, using his fellows’ momentary confusion and shock to her advantage. She had the barest head start before they began to follow after her. The height of their hubris was diminished, but not altogether extinguished.

And now they were angry.

“I thought you said you knew how to fight fire mages!” demanded one of them.

“I do!” snapped someone else. “Killed three during the war, but I never saw one do anything like that!”

“Then what fucking good are you?”

“Just shut up! New magic or not, it’s a damn child!”

“Go tell that to Baeu!”

“Sooner rather than later the little bitch is gonna lose steam,” snarled another giant. “And when we do catch her, I’m gonna pull each of her fucking limbs off one by one. And then peel her skin off.”

……………….

She was growing tired and slow, with her legs becoming clunky and dumb with fatigue. She found herself tripping over small twigs and mud holes until at last, she had to stop. Her lungs were on fire, and no amount of air seemed enough to satisfy them. Nenani huddled miserably under the heavy brush of a bush at the base of a small cluster of yearling trees. Their leaves were still thick and green, but their points were hard and thorn-like, gripping at her hair and dress and stabbing her hands and legs as she scrambled into them to hide.

The giants were moving as one group rather than splitting up, and their enraged prattling had not ceased. Nenani waited quietly under the prickly bush until she could breathe evenly again to move to another hiding spot.

Several times she dove for the cover of a bush and waited for them to move on before running back the direction she had come, just to try and throw them off her trail. Then the giants’ voices began to draw closer again.

In the dark, Nenani moved slowly in the other direction but continued to eye the brush and trees behind her. She was sure that any moment they would come into view and spot her and the chase would begin anew. But if she could keep her steps slow, perhaps they would not hear her at all and she could put more distance between them without having to kill anyone else.

The fleeting moment of power she had felt earlier in the day now tasted putrid and bitter.

A hand slipped through the dark to rest upon her shoulder. Nenani started, nearly leaping clear out of her skin as she whirled around, arms erupting into orange flames. There stood a human boy with short cut hair and grayish-green garb regarding her and her flames with a dour expression. It took her only a moment to recognize him as the boy in the tree who they had come across earlier.

The one who said she smelled like fire.

“Oh,” Nenani said, her flames dying away. “It’s you...”

“Come with me,” he whispered. The hand resting on her shoulder gripped hard, and he bodily steered her forward. She went without a fight, more out of bewilderment than anything, and by the time she came back to her senses enough to ask him anything, they were a good distance away.

“Where did you—” she began.

“Say nothing,” he warned in a harsh whisper. “Just keep moving. The tree with the hollow there. Go to it. Inside. Hide there.”

“I can’t see very well. And there are giants...”

“They won’t find you,” he said shortly and pushed her along at a quicker pace. She could see the dim outline of a large ironwood tree, the base of it wide and dark. When they got closer, Nenani could see better that the dark area was actually the hollow itself. She felt a hard push between her shoulders and fell forward. Gracelessly, she tumbled into the patch of wet leaves and muck, grimacing as her hands fell upon the slimy debris. Turning back to the boy, she opened her mouth to berate him, but he silenced her with a hand. With his other, he traced along the edges of the hallow, and a thin iridescent sheen fell across the opening. Through it, she could see the world beyond in better light. “No one will see you if I do not wish for them to. So long as you stay inside there, the charm will shade you from prying eyes.”

Nenani took a moment to watch the swirling colors, reminded of how light and colors danced across the surface of a soap bubble. She turned her eyes to the boy.

“Are you helping me?” she asked. “Why?”

“You are a walking wildfire,” he told her.

She blinked at him and frowned. “I’m sorry?”

“Left alone, you will burn my forest to the ground. I would fail in my duties to not stop that from happening,” he explained bitterly. He studied her for several moments and the severity of his expression softened. “But I also see a little of the Green Mother in you. It is very small, but it is there. Like that little boy who ate the ironwood sap. But your fire is far more a part of you than the green. Strange oddity, you are. You must have uncommon parentage.”

Though Nenani knew she should feel offended by the way he said ‘uncommon parentage’, she decided to ignore his tone.

“Our father,” Nenani answered. “He was Thorn.”

The boy gave a small nod in understanding, regarding her again with an enigmatic expression.

“I have knowledge of them. Lost cousins, we call them. So that makes us distant cousins as well I suppose,” he said at last, a spark of amusement in his eyes. He knelt down to her level. “I have never seen fire and earth merged into one being. Your magic was a wonder to behold, cousin. But there is a great imbalance in you.”

“Imbalance?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

“One side is pulling you to fire. Anger and fear and destruction. Revenge and blood. The other pulls you towards the Green Mother. Kindness and love and healing. Protection and trust.”

Nenani bit hard into her lip, his words ringing truth loudly in her head.

“Do not feed the fire so willingly,” he warned. “Fire is power, yes. But it is also unwieldy and short-lived if not tended and nurtured properly. Fire is a forever hungry beast, and no matter how much you feed it, it will never be satiated. It will take all of you until you have nothing left to give. You are on a path of destruction. Your fire will consume you if you allow it.”

Nenani looked down at her hands, just barely visible in the dark. “I need to be strong. I have to save my friends. My family. I can’t just do nothing. The...the giant who rules this place...the lord here. He is an evil man. The people you put in your gardens. That is his doing. They escaped his prisons. And there are others. Many.”

The boy regarded her for a long moment. “It is not my place to interfere with the affairs of outsiders. My priority is the safety of my people and the preservation of my forest. But this false lord concerns me greatly. There are giants all over my forest tonight. Fighting one another. Killing one another. I cannot breathe without smelling their blood, and I very much wish for them all to be gone.”

Nenani got to her knees and crawled closer to the barrier.

“Lord Colem came to help us,” Nenani explained. “He wants to bring Lord Brennan to justice. If we can do that, your forest will be yours again and we can rescue the people he has prisoner. My friends are already trying to free them. Could you help? You can do magic too. You’re a mage like me. Could you help us?”

“I cannot promise you anything,” the boy said, rising back to his feet and stepping back. “But we will make sure this forest is protected. When the spell drops away, it means you are safe to leave the hallow. Until then, stay inside. Regain your strength.”

“I can’t just sit here,” she replied. She pushed a hand towards the shimmering veil, but as he fingers brushed against it, her hand stopped as though pressing against glass. “What?”

“You should practice patience,” he suggested. “When the danger has been dealt with, the spell will fade.”

“No!” she snapped and began to bang her hands against the barrier. “Let me out!”

The boy tapped it with a finger. “You are a child who has wandered too far from her minders. You want to fight a foe as tall as the ironwoods who would snap you into bloody little splinters.”

“I’ve already killed two of them,” she shot back. “I’m not weak. I just need rest.”

“And I am giving it to you.”

“Not like this!”

“Do not mistake brutality for strength,” he quipped. “Stay here. Rest.”

“Fine!” she said. “But please! My friends are at the big house trying to save the humans there. If you can help them, please do it.”

“I will do what I must,” the boy said after a pause. “But I make no promises.”

As he turned to leave, Nenani called out. “Wait! One more thing. What’s your name?”

The boy tilted his head around just enough that she could see one green eye. “Ezra. And you, cousin?”

“I’m Nenani,” she replied.

“Like the river,” he said, the ghost of a smile creeping along his jawline. “I will leave you to rest, cousin Nenani. And heed my words about the fire.”

With great reluctance, she looked around her and at last nodded, giving into her fatigue. “Thank you, Ezra.”

With a nod, Ezra ran to a tree and scaled up the trunk as fast and as agile as a squirrel before disappearing into the branches above. She did as Ezra had instructed her to do and waited. For what seemed like hours, she waited, and as a deeper night fell upon the forest, Nenani found the pull of sleep pulling at her more and more.

It was not until she awoke to find the first whispers of dawn brightening the sky that she realized she had fallen asleep. For the briefest of moments, she did not know where she was and thought she was back in Vhasshal. But her chilled skin pulled her back to reality with a sickening crash.

The barrier was gone and the early morning quiet. Set just outside was a bright orange leaf, and set atop it was a pile of shriveled dark things. Picking one up to examine it, Nenani realized they were dried berries. She ate them quickly and with abject relish. Only after the fact did she realize it was probably not a very wise thing for her to eat random berries.

But if Ezra wanted to kill her, he was going about it in a very roundabout way. After she had finished her meager breakfast, she crawled out from the hollow and began to walk. She let her instincts guide her but still kept her eyes and ears open for any signs or sounds of giants. After a half hour, she came upon the first of them.

The vines had no thorns, but they were as thick as ropes and of such a deep green they almost appeared black. They snaked up from the ground in great numbers, wrapping around one foot and up the leg, squeezing hard against the body. They wound across the chest and under the arms, around each bicep, down to the wrists. Wrapped tightly around the neck, Nenani did not have to wonder what it was that had ultimately done the giant in. His lips were blue and his tongue swelled out from his mouth.

The giant was entangled with the vines against a large ironwood much in the same way the humans they had found had been. But instead of being preserved in a peaceful forever sleep, the giant’s remains were more akin to a warning than anything else. She did not linger.

After a few minutes' walk, Nenani came across another much in the same state and two more close by. As she studied the last one’s face, she marveled how someone who looked so human could behave like such a monster. Lost in her own musings, she did not hear the approaching footsteps. It was not till she heard the soft squish of damp leaves that Nenani turned to face the sound. Above her she saw the mouth of a large bag descending upon her, and then all at once, everything went dark. The walls pressed in as large hands gathered her and the bag up and into the air. She flailed and kicked at the fingers that held her and cried out.

“Easy there, little thing,” said a voice. “It’s dangerous out here all alone – OW!”

The rough spun fabric was dry and brittle and caught flames in mere seconds. The owner of the giant hands at the very least had the presence of mind to not immediately drop the flaming bag and instead quickly sat the whole bundle down very quickly.

The vertigo sent Nenani’s head spinning and she was tangled up in the charred remnants as she desperately swatted and pushed her way free. Arms still aflame, she scrambled to her feet and looked up to see an unfamiliar giant. Balls of fire materialized in her palms, but the giant was already putting a good bit of distance between her and himself.

“Gods above!” he squawked, nursing his singed fingertips and staring in open shock and fear at Nenani. “Why did you do that? I was just trying to help you! I didn’t mean no harm!”

Nenani glared. “Liar. You’re trying to capture me!”

The giant’s shock was rotating towards incredulity. “You could have said you were a fire mage!”

Nenani returned his incredulous look. “Who are you?”

“I’m the fella you just burned!” he snapped.

“Do better than that,” she snapped back. “Or I’ll do worse. So who are you? What do you want?”

The giant made a face and took several large steps back. “Captain told me to do a sweep for any stragglers and that’s what I’m doing. Cripes and crackers, I think you burned my finger prints off!”

Nenani paused. “Wait. Stragglers? What sort of stragglers?”

“Human stragglers!” he replied. He wasn’t even looking at Nenani anymore, seeming far too preoccupied with assessing the damage to his fingers. He stuck one in his mouth, wincing. “A few got lost in all the chaos of last night and we’re looking for them. I thought you were one, but clearly you’re…wait.”

The giant’s eyes widened and he turned them back to Nenani, seeing her in a new light. He pulled his hurt finger from his mouth. “You...you’re a fire mage.”

Nenani raised an eyebrow and looked pointed at the still flaming balls in her palms.

“I mean,” he continued. “That means…uh, well. You aren’t...the Princess by any chance, are you?”

Nenani eyed him more seriously. “Are you with Lord Colem’s men?”

The giant nodded. “I am.”

Nenani slowly lowered her hands. “Uh, then yes. I am. The princess I mean. Nenani. My name is Nenani.”

“But...I thought the rangers took you and the prince to safety already?” he asked. “What happened?”

“We were attacked. One of the rangers, Andy, he was killed,” she explained. “I told Thrist to get Jae to safety.”

The giant regarded her as though he thought very little of her actions. “Why didn’t you just go with him?”

“I could fend the attackers off better than Thrist could,” she answered.

The giant looked down at his fingers and back at her before his eyes drifted over to one of the dead giants still strung up in Ezra’s vines. “You...you did that then?”

“No,” she replied. “That was someone else.”

The giant shook his head in disbelief and ran a hand down his face. “Well, all that doesn't matter much right now. I need to get you back to camp and be quick about it. Our scouts reported earlier last night that the line we pushed back was a distraction and two more are sweeping in on our weaker side. Probably gonna try and take manor back. Colem won’t give it up easily.”

Nenani perked up. If they had taken the manor then surely Farris and Keral’s mission would have been successful. “Do you know if they were able to get the humans out? The ones down in the kitchens?”

“Most of them were moved last night,” the giant explained. “A lot of them aren’t too keen on us though, and a few ran off the moment they were free. I was to do a sweep to try and find them before Brennan’s men come through.”

Relief swept over her and she broke into a smile. “I’m glad,” she said quietly. “They did it then...”

He regarded Nenani cautiously and held his hands up. “Now, if you promise not to burst into flames, I can escort you back to the camp. As I was saying, those bastards are supposed to be coming through this way soon. I’d imagine these fellows all strung up were a scouting party.”

Nenani opened her mouth to answer when a rustling of foliage overhead drew both their gazes upwards. Pressed between the branches, Nenani spotted green gray garb and the now-familiar face of Ezra. He looked ragged and tired, and there were several rips along his sleeves.

“They are coming,” he said. “Many. We tried to slow their march, but we do not have the numbers. My people have moved away for their safety.”

“What the...” said the giant, squinting up at the human. “Who are…?”

“How close are they?” Nenani asked with renewed anxiety. “Ezra?”

The boy looked down at her with a defeated expression. “They will be upon you soon. You must flee from here, cousin. I am sorry. I did all we could.”

Before she could ask anything else, her ears pricked up as they caught a strange sound on the wind. Like a strong gale pushing trees. Her feet could feel the faint vibrations of many moving feet. An army on the march.

Ezra looked off behind them and sneered before turning back to Nenani. “Leave now!”

BONUS ART

#Dumpling #G/T #giant tiny #fantasy giant #magic #Nenani #Ezra #tw death #tw blood

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whenwordsmakesense · 3 years

Text

Day 7: Crossover | Day 8: Magic

@pridewrite2021

Okay, so, this work consists of Dimension Travel, or “Crossing” into another world as I have taken from the prompt. I’m not sure if that counts, but I’ve already written it so... Here it is :D

(Lost You) Found You

Fandom: Teen Wolf

Ship: Derek Hale × Stiles Stilinski

Words: 3.3k

Summary: Only Derek is here. Maybe, once, Stiles would have thought that was enough. But it's not, it's not enough.It's not enough because there's a whole in his heart, his soul, his very being where the pack used to be.

He can't do this. He can't just—just forget and move on.

His panic attack goes away as fast as it had come, leaving behind a clear idea of what he should do.

For him and for Derek.

This is the link for AO3. Or you can read here.

Warning(s): Grief/Mourning, MCD, Child(ren) Death [not graphic, mentioned], Kate Argent [also mentioned]

>> Starts from here.

The rain falling down on the earth is harsh and unforgiving, and Stiles Stilinski loves it. The pain of the droplets falling on his skin makes him feel alive, lets him feel everything he's trying to repress feeling for a long time.

He thinks he mostly started to bottle up his feelings after he killed Allison.

“Let's go.”

Stiles doesn't move. He stays seated on the broken, burnt porch of the Hale House, tasting the guilt on his tongue, it's so potent.

It's not just his own, after all. Survivor's guilt is a bitch enough on its own, but mixed with two dudes who hate their very existence, what their choices have caused their loved ones—dead loved ones—it's so much more.

“It will follow us, you know.” Stiles says, because he knows it will. The bad luck is like a suffocating cloak around him, around both of them, a sadist entity that has pulled out the last breath from everyone but them.

Derek Hale sits beside him, their hands coming to intertwine of its own accord.

Stiles doesn't exactly remember when he fell in love with him. When his heart beat not for Lydia, but Derek. But he remembers the day he realised it.

It was in Mexico, when Derek died—only to evolve. But Stiles hadn't known he was evolving, and he'd wanted to stay beside the ex-Alpha. But because Derek Hale is a fucking martyr, he'd insisted Stiles go and save his best friend—even if Scott hadn't been his best buddy in ages. Stiles wasn't even sure he had friends anymore.

So Stiles had left. And then he'd come out with Scott alive, only to find Derek as a wolf, evolved and majestic and every inch strong and beautiful that Derek's soul is.

And then Derek had left with Braeden.

That had been four years ago, now. Derek had come back with him to fight against Monroe three years ago—and stayed.

Even if it meant watching his third pack die. Even if it meant having people to care about, and vowing to let no harm come to them, and failing them.

But the past-them didn't know what was about to come.

Stiles wished they did, because then he could have done something.

Not let everyone die, for one.

When their relationship began—his and Derek's—it was like the best feeling in the world. The two of them were easy, when the dust settled. There was—and still is—a familiarity between them that Stiles' soul believes comes from a past life.

But nothing good lasts in Beacon Hills, and soon the war became a death warrant for everyone in their pack.

There were divides so deep that none of them could trust each other with their personal information—Even Scott didn't know Liam and Theo were together until they found their bodies, Theo's body over Liam's, as if protecting him—Stiles still doesn't know if anyone but Lydia and his dad even knew about him and Derek. But despite the personal mistrust, they were pack. And pack kept each other alive.

Because they had each other's backs. Always.

Stiles remembers those late-nights, when everyone would hope for a better future without a war, where they could start living again. And he smiles at their hope, their positive attitudes.

And then he cries. Because none of them are alive and everyone is dead and it's just them and dad's gone and Scott is gone and Melissa is gone and Lydia is gone—

“Breathe, Stiles, please. Breathe.”

Only Derek is here. Maybe, once, Stiles would have thought that was enough. But it's not, it's not enough. It's not enough because there's a whole in his heart, his soul, his very being where the pack used to be.

He can't do this. He can't just—just forget and move on.

His panic attack goes away as fast as it had come, leaving behind a clear idea of what he should do.

For him and Derek.

At least one thing in his life isn't completely bad.

***

The Animal Clinic—the one Deaton left behind after his death in Scott's name, and now belongs to the County since Scott didn't think to name it to anyone else—stands deserted and dirty in the pale light of the half-full moon.

“What if it doesn't work?” Derek asks him. Stiles looks at him, and he looks just as he'd expected. Resigned.

It's either this will work, or they'll die trying.

Derek doesn't mind dying. Stiles knows because he's heard the man crying and shaking and admitting it—losing Cora after years of believing she was dead only to find she wasn't dead, and then being a major reason in her actual death would do that to anyone, not to mention the tremendous loss Derek's faced his whole life.

It's ironically sad, how the both of them have drifted closer, both of them hating themselves for the loss of everyone so much that the love they share for each other is barely more than an attempt to have something right.

But Stiles loves Derek, and he thanks the universe for loving Derek not just to hold on to something, but because he cares. As Derek does for him.

Derek helps him prepare the spell, the set-up. Stiles has never been more grateful in his life for his weird brand of magic—of the power his belief holds.

Stiles knows this is the only way he'll be able to live, and he knows it's the same for Derek. But he also knows that he would have made it, even if barely, as long as Derek would be by his side.

He kisses Derek, long and passionate and with everything he has. When they part, Derek rests their foreheads together.

“I love you.” Derek tells him. A tear flows from his electric, glowing blue eyes, and Stiles wipes it away with his thumb.

“I love you too. With everything in me.”

And then he believes.

***

The residents of Beacon Hills, the few those remain, feel goosebumps rise on their skin on one evening of 2017, days after the latest massacre of their little town.

They all hallucinate a voice saying, “Balance,” freezing everyone, and then they continue on, unaware that the things were about to change.

Things were about to change for the better, The Spark's and The Alpha's belief powered the Nemeton to make sure of that.

***

The cold air is what wakes him up. That, and the soft groaning from his right, which Stiles instantly recognises as Derek.

Stiles opens his eyes, and the air around him doesn't feel oppressive. It's easier to breathe, to think. There's a feeling in his chest that can't quite grasp, and he's so buy trying to analyse it that he completely misses the huge tree stump behind him.

It's only when Derek curses about fucking woods that he realises they aren't in the clinic at all, but out in the preserve and near the Nemeton.

Stiles looks over at Derek. The 'wolf looks back with wide eyes.

“I—Stiles,” he chokes out, voice a thin line between relief and a sob, “I can feel them. I can feel them, all of them,”

The hole in his heart, his soul seems smaller, somehow, like they're being stitched together, and Stiles only has a vague idea about it. But the way Derek is reacting, his suspicions are confirmed.

“It worked,” Stiles whispers, and hugs Derek tight, both of them crying in euphoria.

Lost in themselves, neither of them notices the small plant that blooms behind them on the Nemeton, a new life breathed into it by the sacrifice of the various souls the two travelers brought with them.

Across the town, a Druid snaps his eyes at the sky above, instantly alerted to the change in the air—the lightness, the power—and his eyes almost bug out of his skull when a voice whispers, “Balance.”

***

Stiles and Derek trek through the familiar woods of the preserve in soft whispers and an excitement that neither has felt in a long time.

“I wonder what's different here,” Stiles says, hands moving with Derek's, clasped tightly as it is. They might have made it to another dimension or universe or whatever this is, but they haven't left their paranoia or love or past behind him. They're who they are because of their experiences, and it's not going to change, even if they get an eternity to do so. But it doesn't mean they aren't at least a little bit excited.

Derek had said he smelled his family all over the preserve, which means Stiles has somehow made them cross into a universe where the fire never happened.

“We aren't here.”

Stiles stops in his tracks. He looks at Derek. Stares, really. “The hell?”

Derek looks at him with soft, but sad eyes, like he has since they first lost Stiles' dad and then slowly everyone else.

“Stiles,” he says, “I might not know much about magic, but I know that there can't be two of us in the same universe. Magic won't let it happen.”

Stiles stares at Derek for a long while. “You can't smell yourself, can you?” He asks softly.

Derek nods his head. He laughs hollowly. “Guess me dying would really have been the best thing,”

Stiles kisses him to shut him up. “No, dumbass. Neither of us can have two of us here. If you're gone it means I am too,” he says fiercely. “We don't know what's different here, Der. For all we know you died in a stupid car crash because you drive so fucking fast—”

Derek's laugh, a little more genuine now, makes him smile and kiss Derek on the cheek.

“The thing is, we don't know. Anything could have happened, okay? Your family's death has never been your fault.”

Derek nods, and then with his eyes boring into Stiles' like they can read everything on his mind, Derek says, “Your mother's death or Allison's and Aiden's deaths has never been your fault.”

They both ignore the tears that fall from Stiles' eyes, and then Derek is tugging at his hand to continue on their little trek to the Hale House—which is hopefully standing, unburnt and filled with every bit of joy and noise that it wasn't in their world.

***

The two of them emerge from the trees to a house that's filled with silence. There's no noise coming from inside, and the lights are off—Stiles thinks they're in mourning. But why?

Derek leads him further, their hands forever joined together, and Stiles can't even appreciate the beauty of the house—the images of the burnt out husk that it was in theirs plays over and over in his mind—because it feels... Wrong.

He would have thought they'd all be happy. Full of life and enjoying every moment spent together.

Before Stiles can ask Derek to relay what he can hear, the 'wolf's breath hitches and groans out a choked off, “Laura,”

The main door of the house slams open, and there stands a woman who Stiles has seen all but once in his life—body sliced in half—and instantly recognises.

Tears falls from his eyes, and he lets Derek stick his nose in his neck, inhaling the scent of his boyfriend, of his comfort, his anchor.

Stiles rubs his hands over Derek's back, comforting him as much as he's able while he himself grieves for the years Derek's sister—her Alpha—could have lived but didn't. “She's alive, Der. She's alive, your sister is alive.”

He looks up at Laura when he hears a whine. Laura looks like she's seen a ghost, and when she keeps looking at Derek—and him, like she's seeing his ghost too, but they didn't know each other in this world, or did they?—Stiles can only crumble in his self-hatred and guilt.

He's never claimed he's not a liar, after all.

“We're dead in this world, aren't we,” he whispers, and Derek steps back just enough to say, “I was right,”

Stiles punches him in the shoulders. It makes Derek smile, even if it's wobbly.

Stiles watches as Derek goes to hug his sister, and the way she falls into his arms, boneless. He feels himself wishing to hug his dad, his pack. And then like suddenly his luck has gotten turned around and it's all good from then on, he sees two people he never would have thought to in the Hale House.

“Mom, dad,” he whispers, and then he's being hugged, too.

***

Stiles and Derek sit on the loveseat in the living room, both of their hands intertwined, anchoring them in the sea of people they'd never thought they'd see again. Not after they buried them all.

Stiles feels angry and envious at them all at only ever losing two people when he and Derek have lost everyone, but he pushes that feeling down underneath all the happiness he gets at having to have back all of them. Derek seems to be on the same boat as him, because they always seem to be.

Talia Hale and Nathaniel Hale—Alpha and Alpha Mate of the Hale Pack—sit in the middle of the room, in direct eyesight of him and Derek, as good Alphas are wont to do when unknown people wearing their dead kid's faces show up unexpectedly.

Peter Hale, Laura Hale and Cora Hale all sit on the floor before the two of them, Isaac Lahey, Erica Reyes and Vernon Boyd sitting in their touching distance.

And then there's Noah John Stilinski and Claudia Stilinski, both of them sitting on the other loveseat, completing the circle.

Derek and him have put their emotions in the backburner for now, because both of them know when it comes to the safety of their pack, they'd rather be objective than emotional. They've lost too much to not learn that.

“So,” Talia Hale starts, eyes boring into Derek's for a moment before she has to avert her eyes, “you claim to be Derek Hale and Stiles Stilinski.”

Derek shares a look with him, and Stiles puts his hand on Derek's knees. They might have decided to put their emotions in check, but doing it is harder in practice.

“Yes,” he says, and squeezes Derek's thigh in comfort. Everyone is drawn to that movement, but none of them say anything. Stiles throws Laura a glance though, because she seems to be biting back a smirk.

“Why should we believe you?” Talia continues.

“Ask us anything that only we would know.” There can't be that much of a difference in their lives, right? The fire obviously didn't happen, and his mom is alive, but Erica, Boyd and Isaac still ended up being werewolves. There has to be some sort of overlap.

Cora flashes her yellow beta eyes at them. “My brother died at 16. Stiles—the real Stiles—died when he was 10. There's not much we can ask.” She gives them a feral smile, full of teeth—Derek and Stiles share a look; she's definitely been spending a lot of time with Peter—and adds, “But you already know that, don't you?”

Derek takes a deep breath and shuffles closer to Stiles, and Stiles knows without words that he is missing their Cora right now—the one they buried beside Laura.

Cora's smile falters at Derek's display, and she looks at everyone before focusing back on them.

Stiles gives her a hard look. “No, Cora. We didn't know that.” He says, voice hard from the tears he's holding back. “How did they die? And when?”

Nobody answers him. Well, if it's going to be like that.

Stiles has always been good at research. It's not hard to figure things out. And given that it's January here—like it was there—and the fact that he knows they were all mouring together... Something must have brought the two families together. Something other than their kids' death.

“Der, when did the fire happen?” He asks softly. Derek looks up at him with furrowed brows.

“You know when,” Derek says.

“I do,” he agrees. “Tell them.”

Understanding dawns on his face. Bunching up Stiles' hoodie, Derek leans in and kisses him, hard and desperate, like he's afraid Stiles will vanish any second.

“Idiot.” Derek calls him fondly.

“Says the ex-Alpha with the martyr complex,”

Someone clears their throat, and Stiles pulls back sheepishly. It's strangely good to be scolded on his PDA with his boyfriend. Actually it's good to not be just the two of them anymore.

“Want to share with the class?” Stiles' dad asks, and he turns to look at Derek.

Derek takes a deep breath in, and looks straight at Talia. “25 January, 2005. Kate Argent and her goons line the house with mountain ash and trap eleven members of the Hale Pack inside, burning them alive.” His jaw works painfully as he continues, words filled the pain that never really went away, only to be filled with more pain than a person should endure. “But I am guessing that didn't happen here. Somehow Stiles—” he looks defiantly at the Stilinski's, “—Mieczyslaw managed to find his way to me and fought her. Didn't they? And she killed them.”

“And I killed her,” Peter tells them. Stiles isn't really surprised.

“And it all happened today, on January 25, twelve years ago,” Stiles states. It's not a question. And with the way everyone in the room stiffens, it's true.

“Are you sure she's dead?” Derek asks then, and Stiles kisses his knuckles when the 'wolf's hands trembles in Stiles' hold.

Peter's eyes flash. They're golden. “I burned her with the same match she was going to kill my pack with.”

“Good.” Stiles tells him.

He and Derek are never going to be okay again. They might have found a world where none of their loved ones—their pack—die, but that doesn't erase their past. The scars are there, etched on every atom of their being, and they won't ever leave. They will fade, maybe, one day. And there might be bonds in his heart connecting him to everyone—Derek, his parents, the Hale Pack. Even Scott, Malia. Melissa, Lydia, Jackson, Ethan, Jordan, Allison, Kira, Liam, Mason and Theo—even if he has no idea where any of them are.

Stiles just knows he has his bonds, however fragile, connecting him to everyone, and Derek has his. It's clear in the way Derek's posture is just a little more relaxed—a little more tall, like he's purging the negative feelings from himself—like Stiles supposes he is too.

Crossing over to another world simply with the will of his magic might not be what Stiles had imagined he'd find that night when he urged Scott to find the dead body with him—Laura's body—but Stiles can't do anything to change that.

And something tells him this was always supposed to be how it all played out.

Him and Derek, losing everyone that ever meant something to them, only to jump to another world where every person they loved lost them.

Proving themselves they're who they say—and then being smushed in a hug that's as stifling as it's freeing.

Stiles won't say he'd rather have changed what happened, even if he wants to. Magic is its own entity, another form of nature that's manifested itself over eons, and if magic has brought them here—and it has—then Stiles, or Derek, or anyone, none of them have any say in what will happen.

They can only hope this was their last trial.

#pridewrite2021 #pw alt7 #pw alt8 #f: teen wolf #m: fanfic #r: Mature #c: stiles stilinski #I: Bisexual #c: derek hale #I: Demisexual #spark stiles stilinski #beta derek hale #MCD #alternate universe - canon divergence #everyone dies #dimension travel #everyone lives #my fic #whenwordsmakesense

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dreadwulf · 4 years

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The scars of your love, they leave me breathless

The prisoner lies unmoving in a darkened tent.

Her wrists and ankles are chained heavily and staked to the dirt below. They needn’t have bothered. Though she was as dangerous once as anyone alive, there is no spirit left in her now. What lies bound and chained on the ground is only a body.

The prisoner had been a hedge knight, armed and armored. She is also a woman, though one might have to unclothe her to be sure. Tall and broad, well-muscled and masculine, and ugly besides. Her face is scarred horrifically, her body bruised and broken. She does not appear to have any fight left in her, but still they chain her to be certain.

Beauty, they call her mockingly. Once she had been astonished at the consistency of her nickname, how from place to place it would follow her among strangers like a stray dog trailing behind her. No one can resist the irony of her hulking form with a name so delicate and pretty, and every man thinks themselves brilliant for thinking of it anew. In this camp here she no longer takes note of her nickname. She hears very little now.

Since they brought her to the Lannister camp, Brienne has done nothing but lie here lifelessly in the dark.

Soldiers come in from time to time. They sneer at her, check her bindings and change her bandages with rough hands. Each time she expects, dully, that this is when they will beat her, rip the clothes from her, but their manhandling is half-hearted at best and she remains unmolested. Brienne the Beauty is too hideous for that, she is told. There is some grumbling about orders, that she is to be kept undamaged, and that is a mockery as well. There is nothing undamaged about her.

Brienne the Beauty. She knew that woman once. Even that is a distant memory. Now she is Brienne the Beaten, Brienne the Broken.

She has betrayed everyone. The Starks will remember only that she broke faith with Catelyn Stark and absconded with the Kingslayer. The Brotherhood Without Banners calls her Kingslayer’s Whore and the Lannister Camp calls her beast and traitor. She brought Jaime Lannister to Lady Stoneheart to save her squire Podrick, and now Jaime imprisons her and Pod is gone. Hyle Hunt is gone. Her magic sword is gone, her horse and her armor and the shield she had brought with her from Tarth. All gone. She has failed in her knightly quest, failed in her life. Failed King Renly, failed her father, failed her Lady Catelyn, failed Podrick Payne and Hyle Hunt, failed Jaime Lannister. She has had nothing but her honor to sustain her, and now she has no honor left.

And what is she without her honor? What use is she, what is the point of her? Without that she is only a body, as battered and broken as it is. Without it she is nothing.

There is nothing more for her in this world but the stubborn insistence of her body to keep living, her lungs still breathing and her heart still beating. But even that will cease, given time.

The hours crawl by while she is awake and dreaming she slides into horror.

She is hanging. Hanging and choking and clawing at the air. And all around her are all the people she has failed, in a ring surrounding her. As the rope twists she can see each face in turn, spinning and spinning, and it seems to go on forever. So many faces. Her father, Renly, Septon Merribald, Catelyn Stark, Randall Tarly, her old quartermaster, Ronnet Connington, half a hundred more she cannot put a name to. She wants to beg them all for forgiveness, but she can’t breathe. She pulls urgently at the rope around her neck, trying to loosen it enough to get the words out, but she can only rasp and suck in small gasps of air that taste like death and decay. It goes on and on, the world spinning around her while her life drains out. Kicking, dying, issuing faint, animal cries for mercy.

No matter where her dreams begin they end here, with the agonizing pain of the noose choking the life from her as the onlookers cheer. She wakes gasping for air and feeling for the rope around her neck and it is no better. Awake there is no ending to her suffering. Her wounds pain her, old and new, and the knowledge of her betrayal pains her even more. Somewhere beyond this tent is Jaime and he will not come to her. Her most painful wound is from him, a dagger sunk into her shoulder without hesitation or mercy. It throbs even now, and bleeds through the bandages still tied there.

The last she had seen of him, he had cursed her for a traitor and ordered her taken captive by his arriving reinforcements, lead by the silent headsman Ser Illyn Payne. Somehow he had followed them, turned back, and brought a rescue party. Somehow he had been in time to stop the Brotherhood from murdering his liege lord. He had not been in time to stop her betrayal of him, his capture at her hands.

Ser Illyn had dragged her away from Lady Catelyn’s body. Threw Brienne over a horse and rode her roughly to a new camp, somewhere in the Riverlands, she knows not where. She could hardly see her surroundings during the ride for weeping. Then she had been thrust into irons and left here, alone, ever since.

Periodically a bowl of stew is put before her, which she ignores. She has no stomach for it, no use for food anymore.

A guard kicks her when he comes to collect her bowl. “Eat up, Beauty. The Lord Commander will have my head if you don’t get a meal in you before we march.” Later he kicks her again, but it does not improve her appetite. The bowl is taken away untouched.

She is wasting away, drifting. It is almost peaceful, to leave behind the striving and struggle. Hope is a cruel weight, and without it she is light as a feather.

But when she closes her eyes…

A weight atop her heavy as a boulder that she cannot lift with all of her strength, pinning her back to the ground. A weight that claws and scrambles and tears into her with teeth like knives. Biter. Biter tearing at her face, Biter eating her flesh. And all around a faceless crowd of soldiers from the Baratheon camp, from the Lannister camp, from the Vale Knights, from every camp she had ever encountered, watching her struggle and die and doing nothing. They could even be cheering, but she cannot hear them over the wet ripping sound of another bite –

Brienne jerks awake from these violent dreams out of breath and with her heart racing. Such terror afflicts her in these moments that she cannot take in where or when she is or what danger exactly surrounds her. She reaches out for Oathkeeper every time, hands fumbling at her waist where her sword-belt should be, at the space beside her where she would keep it at the ready. Her magic sword can soothe her at such times, and just to hold it in her hands makes her feel protected and strong. But Oathkeeper is gone. Jaime took it from her, when he locked her in shackles.

Oathkeeper comforts her as much for its deadly effectiveness as for the memory it brings of the man who bestowed it on her, she is beginning to realize. The blade has been her connection to Jaime, and when she holds it, she feels him with her. Her protector. Her source of strength. Now its absence punctuates the breaking of that connection. Her hands fumbling in the dark cannot find the lion pommel that her fingers know so well, and she remembers now that Jaime despises her.

She remembers this and shuts her eyes against the reality of her surroundings, the hard iron around her wrists and ankles. She would rather sleep and dream of dying than live in a nightmare she cannot wake from.

At last, in the monotony of her drifting days, a well-familiar voice interrupts her half-dreaming state.

“You aren’t eating.”

She doesn’t look at him, nor reply. In the corner of her eye she can still see his shape hovering there in the flap of the tent, shifting unsteadily, unable to hold still.

“If you intend to spite me by starving to death, you should know it’s a very slow process. We will have reached King’s Landing before that can happen.”

He says it casually, almost conversationally. There is only a hint of the bitter edge in his voice that she knows she will see on his face, if she can bring herself to look.

“You have to eat,” he insists strangely.

Why? What would be the point? It doesn’t matter even enough to respond. She just looks at his shadow stretching across the ground, how it reaches past her, carried in the moonlight.

There is a rustling sound, and then movement. The tent flap closes, and the moonlight winks out. The shadow is replaced with fine leather boots, and Brienne has to close her eyes.

Then he is crouching down beside her.

“I’ve spent a great deal of time pondering what to do with you,” Jaime Lannister says quietly, directly above her face.

He waits.

“Are you going to ask me what I’ve decided?” He pauses again. She can feel his eyes on her steadily. “No interest?”

His presence sparks something in her, feeble but present. She is more awake than she has been in days. Her wounds ache in his presence. The one in her shoulder sharpest of all.

“Come now, you are disappointing me. Where has your cunning gone? You playacted so earnestly to entice me to my doom, and now you lay there like a lump. Will you not argue for your release, at least?”

She has nothing to say to that. There is nowhere for her to go, if he releases her.

Her inaction is upsetting him. She is realizing it slowly, but can’t understand. She is so tired. She wants everything to be over.

He repeats his order, a little bit louder. “You have to eat.”

“What for?” she murmurs weakly.

He comes nearer, satisfied perhaps that at last she has responded to him. “Your wounds won’t heal if you don’t eat.”

Her wounds won’t heal anyway. She is more wounds than flesh at this point. Why is he bothering with her? He should go away and let her sleep.

Confused, she opens one eye and takes in his blurry shape. When she glimpses his face she gasps, despite herself. He looks awful. There are dark rings around his eyes, and a cut on his forehead from the melee with the Brotherhood. He looks pale and exhausted, aged, haunted.

“You stabbed me,” she says in a hoarse whisper.

He makes a noise that resembles a laugh, but sounds a little more like a punch in the stomach. “You betrayed me. How else should I respond?”

Does that make them even? Probably not. She is chained to a stake in the ground. That does not suggest forgiveness is in the offering.

He goes on. “Let’s have it then, your excuses. You did not mean to do it. You were forced into it. Your liege lady commanded you and you had to obey. Which tale will you go with? Tell it to me.”

Jaime’s voice breaks on this last and he glares at her, furious, or so she thinks.

It will do no good. She could tell him any number of things, and it will not matter. Her reasons are not reason enough, and anyway he will not believe her.

She stays silent, watching him.

“Do you mean to die now? Is that what this is?” His words are heavier now, laden with feeling. “But you will not die. After all this? You should be enjoying your victory. You had me fooled, Brienne of Tarth. You made me believe in honor and justice again. Me, the Oathbreaker, the man without honor. A stunning achievement. You should be proud.”

He doesn’t wait for her to reply this time.

“I suppose I should thank you. Here I have been wasting my time trying to make a hero of myself, and you have reminded me of what I truly am. It does not matter what I do, my whole life long. I shall always be a villain. The Smiling Knight forever.”

He laughs at it again, and it is awful.

“How is it you are suffering so? Do you mourn your liege lady? Don’t take well to imprisonment? Sore loser? Or do you expect a cruel fate at my hands? Shall I tell you what I have planned?”

She doesn’t mean to speak. The words slip out without her notice, accusingly.

“You stabbed me.”

Jaime seizes her by the shoulders. He moves so suddenly she jerks in surprise, gasping audibly. Before she knows quite what’s happened, he is atop her, holding her down. His lips are pursed in grim determination. But his eyes are wild.

"The neck," he tells her through gritted teeth, his voice lowered, "will kill at the slightest cut. The groin will spit blood to ten paces and empty you in under a minute. The belly - that would kill you slowly. The knee, that long cord at the ankle, you'd live, but you'd never walk rightly again. But here --"

He pushes his hand into her wound roughly, painfully, until his hand is bloody and she is wincing so her face nearly collapses in on itself.

"- this will heal," he finishes, with great emphasis. "It will heal."

He glares at her, wild with worry, completely unable to look away.

Her mind reassembles itself slowly. Takes in what he has said.

"I would have-" she tries to say, but he stops her. He cannot help himself.

"You didn't. And now no one we left alive will believe you came willingly. My forces destroyed the Brotherhood, killed their leader, and took you prisoner. When you escape the villainous Kingslayer in the Riverlands you can safely journey North, or wherever decent people go now."

She swallows several objections, her sluggish mind parsing through his intentions.

He manages to sound accusing and spiteful even as he offers her a lifeline. She cannot understand it.

Escape. He means her to escape. He means to let her go? Why?

"And if I don’t?" she manages to ask.

"We don’t keep prisoners. Do you want to be hanged again?"

She turns her face away from him. That, she does not want. Anything but that.

His hands holding her down grow heavier. The metal hand and the flesh one.

“We will march soon for King’s Landing, and there is no reason I should ever see you again. Is there anything you would tell me? This is your last chance.”

Brienne looks back up at him, as much as it pains her. She owes him that at least.

She remembers the look on his face when the Brotherhood took him. It was not merely betrayal, it was devastation. A wound struck to the core of him, one he would never forgive. She realized then how completely he had trusted her and how badly she had broken him.

She had not thought, in her wildest imaginings, that she could ever hurt him that way. Even knowing she would betray him, she had not known how much he would be injured by it. She shouldn’t have the capacity for that, the power over him. And yet there he was, wounded.

She thinks on it and she looks directly into his eyes, something she has never quite dared to do. Like everything else about him, they are stunning - the green so green, his eyelashes long and delicate and pretty. He is too much for her, she cannot take him in. He is too beautiful, too volatile, too… Jaime.

She has hardly strength enough to raise her voice, but she spends it here. It is the only thing she wants him to know.

“Jaime... I am so very sorry...”

Right away she sees that there is nothing she could have said to hurt him more. For a second, he wavers. All around his eyes his face tightens into an expression of deep sorrow. Behind his grass-green eyes she can see the wound that she has struck, raw and bleeding. Then his jaw clenches, and he swallows hard, and he makes himself smile. An awful, painful smile.

“Call me Kingslayer.”

Then he releases her and rises slowly to his feet. He leaves her alone in the tent, and the nightmare goes on.

#angstfest #the good news is there is more after this #the bad news is it will get worse before it gets better #I'M SORRY #Ring of Fire #(working title)#tumblr fic

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gffa · 4 years

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The Rise of Kylo Ren #2 | The Last Jedi One of the most interesting moments from TRORK #2 is that Ben and Snoke are having a mental conversation while Luke is in the room and seems none the wiser for it, that it made me think of how everything Luke says in his depression funk about the Jedi Order isn’t really precisely about them, but about himself. Rian Johnson said this about Luke blaming the Jedi Order: "Writing Luke… the first thing I had to figure out is, ‘Why is he on that island?’ That’s the first thing I had to crack. He’s taken himself out of the fight, his friends are fighting and dying the good fight, and he’s sitting on an island, hiding. So I had to come up with a reason he was there that was 1) active and 2) positive and 3) something that I could genuinely believe, I could think if I were in Luke’s shoes. And the thing that I came to, the thing that seemed to make sense to me, the first thing I got to that I really believed in was this notion that he sees this hero worship of him and of the Jedi as something that is detrimental to the galaxy. “That the universe has put its faith in this false god of the Jedi and they need to basically forget the religion so they can get back to God, so that light can rise from a worthier source. And because he’s the last Jedi and a symbol of that it then becomes this self-sacrifice, he has take himself out of it, when he knows his friends are dying, when the thing he’d most like to do is get back in the fight. "He’s taken the weight of the world on his shoulders, taken himself out of the equation, so that the Jedi can die out, so that light can rise from a worthier source. "So, in his own way, similar to Kylo, he’s trying to disconnect, he’s trying to throw away the past, he’s saying 'Let’s kill religion. It’s the thing that’s messing us up, thing thing right here, let’s kill it.’ "And the truth is, it’s a personal failure. It’s not religion[’s fault], it’s his own human nature that’s betrayed him.” –Rian Johnson The truth is, it’s a personal failure. It’s not religion’s fault, it’s his own human nature that’s betrayed him. This, in addition to how everything Luke says in those scenes, “You think what? I'm gonna walk out with a laser sword and face down the whole First Order?” is exactly what he does at the end of the film, how he recognizes that he is not the last Jedi and the big huge point of that entire part of the movie was that, yes, the Jedi are a symbol of hope and light in the galaxy, a necessary and good one, which shows that the above scene in TLJ is set up precisely to be knocked down--including Luke’s depression, his blaming the Jedi Order, and his blaming of himself. Because, as we see in The Rise of Kylo Ren--that if the Jedi Order were really at fault for Anakin’s choices or the rise of Palpatine, then Luke is as well at fault, because he didn’t stop Snoke, he didn’t stop Palpatine, he was responsible for Ben’s training and didn’t stop the choices Ben made on his own. Given that George Lucas has often said that Star Wars is about choice, I don’t think the bigger narrative take-away should be that, oh, these other people are responsible for Anakin and Ben’s choices, especially when we see that they are trying to help and they’re giving good advice based on what information they have. We see the Jedi caring about Anakin and offering him help, we see Anakin turning away from that help because it’s not the magic answer he wanted. We’re starting to see some of what made Ben turn, that he’s having these secret conversations with Snoke behind Luke’s back (which of course echo Anakin and Palpatine’s conversations, the dripping poison into his ear in the guise of a friendly mentor who just wants to help, but is instead telling them to embrace all these things that will lead to poison when left unchecked, as that’s how the Force works) and it’s hard to find the balance between respecting that other people need their boundaries, need to have a private space in their head, you have to trust them to make the right choices when you’ve offered to help, because you can’t forcibly pry them open and make them spill all their secrets, that only leads to resentment and distrust. Which gives TLJ a lot of important context (which was already there, but this deepens and furthers it) in that Luke’s words aren’t really about “my heroes were actually assholes” but instead that “I feel responsible for this thing and so I’m going to lash out at someone else, despite that I’m really lashing out at myself”. With this comic as an expansion on the above, Luke’s words take on a new context, that it’s about his own personal failings that are being cast onto the Jedi Order, because Luke feels so horrible about all of this, he’s in such a bad place, that he’s nearly lost his compassion, nearly lost his empathy. He behaves like a real asshole to Rey, furthering our understanding that this is an angry, bitter Luke who has stepped off the Jedi path of compassion and care for others. It’s not gone, there’s something in him crying out to do the right thing again, depression trying to smother that spark, especially as anger is something he’s always struggled with (as all people do), from ANH to ESB to ROTJ to all the comics in between, Luke has struggled with this. What Luke is really saying is: “At the height of my powers, I allowed Snoke (and Sidious) to rise (again), create the First Order, and wipe my students out. I was a Jedi Master who was responsible for the training and creation of Kylo Ren.” Because he was literally right there in the room while Snoke was manipulating Ben and he feels like its his fault that he didn’t see it. And depression becomes a hell of a drug once it gets its hooks into you and you can’t stop feeling like everything is your fault, your fault, your fault, even when we have to allow other people their agency to make their own choices, we can only provide support and the willingness to listen and help if they’re ready for it. But depression brain lies and makes us think it’s all our fault. /as someone who has dealt with depression brain pretty much all my life

#luke skywalker #ben solo #supreme leader snoke #meta #comics #reading comics: the rise of kylo ren #wedneday spoilers

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infinite-xerath · 3 years

Text

Xerath Interactions For Every Champ

I’ve done this before, but since we have some new characters and reworks, I figure I’d go and give this another shot.

Aatrox: “Just like the empire you served, Aatrox, you are now but a shadow of greatness.”

Ahri: “The temptations of flesh do not sway me, fox.”

Akali: “Flee into your smoke, girl; it will not hide you from me!”

Alistar: “You are not yet free of your chains, minotaur; join me, and reap your revenge!”

Amumu: “Friends will inevitably betray you, child...”

Anivia: “I needed only one rebirth to achieve greatness!”

Annie: “You hold great potential, child...”

Aphelios: “You conjure weapons from another realm? Show me more.”

Ashe: “You would unite your homeland, but I shall unite the world!”

Aurelion Sol: “I acknowledge your strength, star dragon, but I am power incarnate!”

Azir: “Cling to your precious Sun, Azir; I have no more need of it!”

Bard: “You may witness my triumph, storyteller, but do not interfere!”

Blitzcrank: “Such a crude golem...”

Brand: “A power rivaling even my own... I think I shall take it!”

Braum: “Cower behind your shield; it makes no difference!”

Caitlyn: “Mine is the only law that matters!”

Camille: “I will tear that gem from your chest, machine...”

Cassiopeia: “You sought power in the tomb, serpent, and you found me.”

Cho’Gath: “You think to devour me, beast? I welcome you to try!”

Corki: “I shall blast that infernal machine from the sky!”

Darius: “You are the mightiest warrior of Noxus? How underwhelming.”

Diana: “I tore the Sun from the sky. Shall I treat the moon in-kind?”

Dr. Mundo: “Abomination! You dare to approach me?”

Draven: “Look upon me, mortal, and witness TRUE greatness.”

Ekko: “The power to control time, in the hands of a mere child!? I shall rectify this at once.”

Elise: “You think yourself immortal? Allow me to enlighten you.”

Evelynn: “I will teach you TRUE agony, demon.”

Ezreal: “Surrender that gauntlet, boy, or I will claim it from your ashes.”

Fiddlesticks: “Fear? I have cast such emotions aside.”

Fiora: “Nobility means nothing to a god.”

Fizz: “Your childish antics end here, creature!”

Galio: “You consume magic, but even a titan has limits!”

Gangplank: “Yet another dethroned king, grasping for his lost throne...”

Garen: “Crushing Demacia will be child’s play compared to Shurima.”

Gnar: “A primal rage stirs in this whelp... Interesting...”

Gragas: “Such simpletons are beneath my notice.”

Graves: “Another mercenary? Let us put your skills to the test...”

Hecarim: “A horse without its reigns? I shall soon correct that...”

Heimerdinger: “A dull mind with delusions of brilliance.”

Illaoi: “I claimed what was mine. Now, the world will move as I will it!”

Irelia: “Entertain me, dancer. That is your purpose, is it not?”

Ivern: “Your influence in the desert is lacking, ‘green father.’”

Janna: “A guardian that relies on the strength of others is meaningless...”

Jarvan IV: “What is a king to a god, Demacian? Just a man with fleeting authority.”

Jax: “Join me, Icathian, and I will see the Void itself burned!”

Jayce: “You will not be the first hero I crush, nor the last...”

Jhin: “Mad though you may be, I could offer you a greater stage...”

Jinx: “You think you know chaos, girl? Your rampage is but child’s play.”

Kai’Sa: “If a mere mortal can survive the Void, then destroying it will be easier than I imagined...”

Kalista: “Azir made an oath he could never keep; HE is the betrayer!”

Karma: “They say your wisdom is unrivaled, yet you are still foolish enough to stand against me?”

Karthus: “You mistake eternal damnation for eternal greatness, lich.”

Kassadin: “You fight a battle you cannot win; surrender your relics, and I will finish it in your stead.”

Katarina: “Your sister proved most useful, assassin...”

Kayle: “I answer to no judgement but my own!”

Kayn: “You struggle endlessly for control of one-another; I shall put you both out of your misery!”

Kennen: “You are swift as lightning, yordle, but my fury is the storm!”

Kha’Zix: “I stand at the apex of life; you can never hope to reach my level!”

Kindred: “When next I strike down Azir, ensure he does not return!”

Kled: “A mad yordle on a frightful drakalops? Is this meant to be a threat?”

Kog’Maw: “I shall end your hunger... Along with your existence!”

LeBlanc: “Your petty tricks cannot deceive me, witch!”

Lee Sin: “A pity you cannot see the error in opposing me...”

Leona: “No matter how many avatars of the sun stand against me, I shall strike them all down!”

Lillia: “Dreams are but fleeting fantasies; I have no need of them.”

Lissandra: “You think a prison of ice can hold me? You are sorely mistaken.”

Lucian: “Your weapons may banish the dead, but to me, they are little more than toys!”

Lulu: “I sense the most primal of magics within you, yordle. Where did you obtain it?”

Lux: “Your light is but a spark next to me, girl!”

Malphite: “What sort of imbecile gives life to a mountain?”

Malzahar: “You are no prophet, Malzahar; you are merely a puppet!”

Maokai: “You seek to liberate your home from the dead? That can be arranged...”

Master Yi: “A master of the blade is no match for a master of the arcane!”

Miss Fortune: “Your city requires order, and I alone can restore it.”

Mordekaiser: “You may rule the realm of the dead, but Runeterra is MINE!”

Morgana: “If you would embrace chains, then perhaps you may have mine.”

Nami: “A civilization beneath the sea? Interesting...”

Nasus: “Come to face me again, Nasus? It will end no differently than your prior attempts!”

Nautilus: “I do not pay tribute to false gods!”

Neeko: “My essence is too great for you to handle, trickster.”

Nidalee: “Human, beast, it matters not; you will bow all-the-same!”

Nocturne: “My nightmares ended long ago, demon. Now, yours begin!”

Nunu and Willump: “Naive child. You are merely a pawn, just as I was once...”

Olaf: “No death will immortalize your name, fool; I alone am eternal!”

Orianna: “To preserve your life, you became a mere husk... I almost pity you, machine.”

Ornn: “Forge for me a weapon to shatter these chains, mountain god!”

Pantheon: “You will fall before me, Targonian, just as Asose did...”

Poppy: “The world I create shall have no need of heroes.”

Pyke: “Your mind is already shattered. Now, I shall break the rest of you!”

Qiyana: “Power? Authority? Let me teach you what those words truly mean, child!”

Quinn: “Tell Demacia what you have found, scout. Whatever defenses they prepare, I WILL break!”

Rakan: “Human, vastaya, it matters not; I shall reign over both!”

Rammus: “The beast of legend... Come, let us see if your stories hold true!”

Rek’Sai: “When I am rid of you, the Great Sai will be mine!”

Rell: “Pledge your power to me, child, and let us dismantle Noxus together...”

Renekton: “Do you still recall who imprisoned us, Renekton? Do not forget the root of your hatred...”

Rengar: “I can offer you elusive prey, hunter; her name is Sivir...”

Riven: “You would challenge me with a broken blade? Are all Noxians so foolish?”

Rumble: “Yordles are said to be honored creatures. Looking upon you, I fail to see why.”

Ryze: “The World Runes must be kept from mortal hands... That is why I shall harness their power!”

Samira: “You say I destroyed your home? You will have to be more specific...”

Sejuani: “You survived the harshness of your homeland, just as I survived mine...”

Senna: “Darkness, light, it matters not; no power can rival my own!”

Seraphine: “You seek to unite your home? I will unite the WORLD, child.”

Sett: “You fight for entertainment? Very well... Entertain me.”

Shaco: “I will not indulge your twisted games, jester. Perish!”

Shen: “I alone can bring stability to this world.”

Shyvana: “Such power... Why do you waste it in service to imbeciles?”

Singed: “You are little more than a walking corpse; I will return you to the grave!”

Sion: “You think you know rage? The Butcher shall enlighten you...”

Sivir: “The kin of Azir, wielding the Chalicar... You cannot be allowed to live!”

Skarner: “So the Brackern are more than a fable... But only just.”

Sona: “A fine instrument... Go on then. Play for your emperor.”

Soraka: “You bound yourself to flesh and blood, but I have surpassed it!”

Swain: “Vision, might, guile... I am the embodiment of your ideals, general.”

Sylas: “You and I are much alike... Stand with me, and Demacia WILL fall.”

Syndra: “Your magic is potent, Syndra, but your mind is dull and clouded!”

Tahm Kench: “You have nothing to offer me, demon. Begone from my sight!”

Taliyah: “You will tell me where she went, child, or I will pry it from your dying breaths!”

Talon: “You are not the first assassin I have faced...”

Taric: “My radiance far surpasses any gem, Targonian.”

Teemo: “Your tricks cannot hide you forever, yordle...”

Thresh: “No prison can hold me, least of all your frail lantern.”

Tristana: “You wish to become a soldier? That can be arranged...”

Trundle: “You think yourself clever, troll? That you would provoke me says otherwise.”

Tryndamere: “Mightier warriors have failed to best me. You shall fare no better.”

Twisted Fate: “You confuse petty tricks for magic, gambler. That was your greatest and final mistake!”

Twitch: “It seems the Voidborn are not the only vermin I must exterminate...”

Udyr: “Do you truly control the spirits within, or do they control you?”

Urgot: “I am the ONLY one with the might to stand above all others.”

Varus: “A mighty Sunborn, reduced to a squabbling trio of corpses...”

Vayne: “YOU are Demacia’s protector from darkness? This will be easier than I had imagined...”

Veigar: “You think yourself evil incarnate? How amusing...”

Vel’Koz: “Not even YOUR twisted mind could fathom the secrets I possess.”

Vi: “To think a city that prides itself on brilliance would birth a brute such as you...”

Viego: “You are but the shadow of a man clinging to petty emotions; you are CERTAINLY no king.”

Viktor: “I alone have achieved perfection, and perfection cannot be copied.”

Vladimir: “I congratulate you on your mastery of the most primitive spellcraft known to man.”

Volibear: “Even the storm bends to my will!”

Warwick: “Another dog to hound me? I shall return you to your leash!”

Wukong: “No level of skill may rival pure power, ape!”

Xayah: “Human, vastaya, it matters not; I shall reign over both!”

Xin Zhao: “They say your will is unbreakable... I beg to differ.”

Yasuo: “What do you know of the girl called Taliyah?”

Yone: “You come to me seeking answer? Prove you are worthy of them!”

Yorick: “You would fight the undead... By raising the undead? Imbecile.”

Yuumi: “The book shall be mine, cat!”

ZAC: “What manner of twisted sorcery gave rise to an abomination such as this?”

Zed: “I will burn away your shadows and armor, and expose you for the weakling you are!”

Ziggs: “I may have use for weapons such as yours...”

Zilean: “You saved your people from the Void, only to imprison them beyond time? Icathia truly was a land of fools...”

Zoe: “Celestial magic is not a plaything, girl!”

Zyra: “The desert is no place you. Return to the jungle, or be pruned.”

#Taunts #Xerath taunts #Yup I did another one #Every single Champ #Hoo boy

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