#until something so catastrophic happens it can’t be ignored - but by then it’ll be too late anyway.
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Culinary Chaos
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Request: Yes
“ Teaching Spencer how to cook and him being all pouty when it doesn't turn out great so the reader comforts him and makes him feel better🥺”
Summary: Spencer meets your Parents and invites them for dinner at his apartment, knowing full well he can’t cook. Even with your help, he still manages to ruin dinner. Luckily, Dad’s got him covered.
Length: 1.3k
Characters: Spencer Reid, Reader, Reader’s Mother & Father
Content Warnings: Curse words
A/N: Hiiii, this probably wasn’t what you were asking for, but its sweet and it’s what fell out of my brain today... I hope you enjoy it :) xx
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Instant regret filled Spencer’s body as he realized what he’d done. Dating for 6 months, you had introduced your boyfriend to your parents at a family dinner they had invited him to. With your background, your Father had cooked this beautiful meal, enjoyed by everyone, but especially Spencer. There was nothing he loved more than home cooked food. You guessed it was because of how he grew up...
And that’s where Spencer decided to invite your parents for dinner, at his apartment, on Saturday night.
As soon as you left and got into your car, Spencer lost it. He frantically ran his hands through his hair and jittered his leg around. Anxiety not only filled his stomach, but yours too.
“Why did I do that?” His voice shook.
“Because you’re a nice person, and you wanted to make a good impression” You nodded.
“Uh huh, yeah, well” You could tell that the higher his voice got, the more he was panicking, “I don’t even own pots and pans” The dread washed over him as he realized he wasn’t capable of making anything that wasn’t coffee or toast.
You wanted to laugh but didn’t want to further embarrass him. Spencer was quiet from there until you got to his apartment. You tried to converse with him, but all he could do was be in his head and bounce his leg up and down.
Spencer led you into his apartment, his pace quicker than normal. Before you knew it, he was tearing his kitchen apart, while you sat and watched on in utter surprise. Spencer didn’t half ass things, he always gave it 100% and more often than not, he was successful.
“You need to stop panicking” You said sternly, finally having had enough of this chaotic Spencer.
“What am I going to do?!” He near on shouted, frustrated with himself. You approached him, taking him into your arms and holding onto him as tightly as possible. After a minute, he finally melted. You could feel his energy shift. You rubbed your hand up the length of his back, “I’m going to help you, if you would just calm down” You giggled.
When you parted, he was softer, slower. That frantic energy had dissipated. You helped him put his kitchen wares back in the cupboards and decided what he was going to make for dinner. You were going to keep it simple, with a roast beef and vegetables. Something you knew your parents liked & something you could cook, so you could teach Spence. When you explained the logistics and wrote a shopping list together, he calmed and was much happier.
——————- Saturday Afternoon ———————
The shopping was done, Spencer was prepared, and you had brought a baking dish from your apartment for the roast. He had started on the vegetables, Spencer’s concentration through the roof. You stood behind him, lovingly wrapping your arms around his middle and drawing in his scent from the back of his shirt. You planted small kisses on his back and ran your hands down his sides. But Spencer ignored you, he kept peeling and chopping vegetables.
“You’re staring at those carrots as if they’re going to run away” You whispered up to him.
“They might if you keep distracting me” He chuckled.
More time passed, more time where you were not the center of his attention and it was bugging you. Now he was preparing the meat. He was doing everything exactly how you told him. When you were finally fed up with being ignored, you decided to take your shower and get dressed for dinner. Your parents would be here in about an hour, and Spencer was already ready. He’d been ready for hours, perpetually worrying he was going to mess something up.
You came back to the kitchen, smoke billowing out of the oven into Spencer’s face.
“I’ve been gone 45 minutes, all you had to do was let it sit?!” You exclaimed, watching him hurricane right back into chaos.
“Babe, what’s going?” You asked, now frantic yourself.
“The fucking meat is on fire” Spencer’s voice was high and scratchy, his stress filled the room much like a smoke. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing.
Spencer donned odd oven mitts and pulled the baking dish from the oven, a medium sized fire spread across the whole of the meat, engulfing it. Spencer dropped the baking dish into the sink, throwing a tea towel over the top of, hoping to smother it out. An enormous crack rang out, the baking dish breaking in half over the heat.
You took it upon yourself to open all the windows and waved one of Spence’s jumper around to sweep the smoke out of the apartment. Once it was clearer to see in the kitchen, you went back to check on Spencer. He sat against the counter where the sink was, elbows on his knees and hands over his face.
“This... is a disaster” He mumbled sadly. You took a seat next to him, linking your arm around his and kissed him on his arm.
“Ah, it’s not so bad” You smiled, “It’ll be a funny story one day”.
“Not today, it’s not funny today” He grumbled, “Your parents are going to be here any minute. My apartment is smoky, the charcoal ball in the sink is ruined and there’s nothing in the apartment for dinner” He almost began to laugh, but you were sure that was to keep from crying. Spencer wasn’t always this way in regard to failing; this particular meal was very important to him. He’d never been in contact with a partner’s parents before, so this was special.
You stood, reached your hand down to him. Pulling Spencer up, you reefed him into a bear hug.
“Everything will be okay” You squeezed him tight, his chin resting on your head. You knew what your parents were like, they wouldn’t have ever held this against Spencer. The doorbell rang out, just what you needed. The kitchen was a mess, and the smoke hadn’t cleared, you didn’t want Spencer to be embarrassed.
But he pulled up his metaphorical socks and answered the door. He shook your Fathers hand and kissed your Mothers cheek as they entered the apartment. You greeted them, watching their faces as they observed the chaos.
“What’s happened here?” Your Father asked softly, walking into the kitchen, and lifting the tea towel in the sink. The black ball of burnt meat lay underneath. “Dear me” Y/F/n smiled.
“Yeah... I... can’t cook” Spencer confessed.
“It’s harder than it looks, isn’t it?” Your Mother hummed. She herself wasn’t a good cook.
“That’s an understatement” The corners of Spencer’s mouth were twisted into a smile.
“Can I give you some advice?” Y/F/n asked gently, not wanting to put him off trying again.
“Of course, Sir, please” Spencer approached the kitchen, excited to learn. Your mother and you stood in the entryway, watching on.
“I assume this caught fire” Your Dad laughed, waving soft smoke out of his face, “Which means, your oven was too high and the fat caught fire. The oven then becomes a furnace and suddenly, bam! You’ve lost your roast” Y/F/n chuckled.
“So, next time I should do it on a lower heat for longer?” Spencer asked gingerly.
“Oh Absolutely, that way is better anyway, it cooks nicer. I wouldn’t worry too much about this though, I set fire to a few before I got a good one, didn’t I darling?” Y/F/n turned back to your Mother and laughed. She nodded along, chuckling herself.
Spencer’s anxiety over the whole situation, disappeared. It was comforting for him knowing that even good cooks, like y/F/n, had catastrophes like this.
“So, shall we order a pizza?” Y/M/n suggested.
“Pizza this time, but next time, we do a roast. Together, I’ll show you how to get it perfect” Y/F/n draped his arm around Spencer’s shoulder, leading him to the living room to order that pizza.
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#spencer reid fanfic#spencer reid fic#spencer reid#spencer reid x reader#spencer x reader's family#spencer reid fluff#doctor spencer reid#dr spencer reid#dr reid#mgg#mgg fluff#mathew gray gubler#mathew gray gubler fanfiction#mathew gray gubler fic#criminal minds self insert#criminal minds fanfiction#criminal minds fandom#criminal minds#criminal minds fanfic#criminal minds fic#spencer reid self insert
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Okay, so I read what you think will happen next. I totally agree that it’s likely to happen.
You’re totally right that Boomer hasn’t changed i noticed it a lot in this chapter. He just wants to make Bubbles happy and she’s not stupid. She has already noticed, I’m sure of it. She just doesn’t want to admit it to herself. She’s gone through so many boyfriends she just wants one to go right. So she pushes it aside.
As for Boomer, I hope we get some serious emotions from this. I could see Him getting involved with Boomer too. If you remember about a chapter ago we found out that Boomer was Him’s favorite. Him might use this to pull him back. Not only that but I think Boomer might still have some loyalty to Him. “They were inseparable” or I wonder if we’ll find something ELSE out.
If that happens I think Brick will panic. Completely, I could see him having a panic attack which would probably get the reds relationship back together. I don’t know though.
What I really wanted to discuss with you was Butch. Brick has changed. We all canes it but has Butch beyond giving up his list for other women? I’m not so sure that he has. He is still more than willing to go with Brick and live that life. Of course he is. He’s a green but I just don’t see that he’s changed anymore than Boomer has. Thoughts?
Oooh, you got some really interesting predictions. I didn’t even think about how Him would factor in to this whole catastrophe. You’re right that He’s going to come stir things up
Honesty tho, I’m kind of opposite your opinion. I think Butch is the only one of the boys who’s had any improvement
Brick has obviously changed. Chapter 1 Brick NEVER would’ve done what he did last chapter. I’m hesitant to say that he’s gotten better because Brick doesn’t see himself as better. In his mind, Brick is still the biggest baddest guy there is. I really don’t know how he justifies his good deeds to himself. I truly think he just ignores it. Because Brick still considers himself as capable of big, evil acts, he would go through with them. Brick won’t improve until he realizes that he has
That the opposite of Boomer’s problem. Boomer ignores that he hasn’t actually changed. He thinks of himself as good. Boomer can’t improve until he realizes he’s bad and Brick can’t improve until he realizes he’s good
Now let’s talk about my main man Butch. Maybe my love for Butch is blinding me from the truth, but I don’t think so. Butch was absolutely intolerable at the beginning of the story. Like wow he had the shittiest personality around. The Butch we have now is light years apart from who he was
Butch’s lust for other women has diminished, if not completely vanished. Last chapter, he only brought up Blossom’s beauty as a joke. I think even he sees now how ridiculous his obsession with her was. It’s been several chapters since he last hit on her. Any time he brings up another girl, it’s really just to get a rise out of Buttercup, but it’s obvious he only has eyes for Buttercup.
His out of control violence has been gone for a while. The last time it happened was when he beat up the guy who sexually harassed Buttercup, but buttercup was egging him on. He loved chasing down the mugger last chapter, but he never lost control and did something super uncalled for. His violence was probably just really pent up sexual frustration that got released two chapters ago, so now that rage is nowhere to be found
Butch is different from his brothers because he doesn’t consider himself good or evil. He’s too simpleminded for that. Butch just does whatever sounds good at the time
Boomer and Brick are going to require big revelations to improve, but Butch doesn’t need that. Butch just hasn’t realized he has an option besides going with Brick to take over JS. Once Boomer decides to break his promise to Brick, it’ll make Butch realize that he could too. Butch’s choice will depend less on if he considers himself good or evil, and depend on if he’s more loyal to Brick or more loyal to Buttercup
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Could you do like a short piece where Daveed and reader are a thing but not really a couple. And he ruins it by not wanting more but comes back and apologises. Thanks!
Title: Stepping Up
Pairing: Daveed Diggs x Reader
Note: Thanks anon! First time I’m writing Daveed. This was fun and challenging.
Word Count: 1.7K
Warnings: mentions of sex. Slight angst. I think that’s it but let me know
"U up?"
Two words and a question mark. That was all it took and you felt your heart start pounding in your chest. Your feet started moving around, unable to stay in one place. You had to shred the duvet, you had started sweating. Two words and a fucking question mark and he could make your body betray you. Two words and you were ready for him.
You had to actively remind yourself that you were in withdrawal. That you couldn't hit him back no matter what. That he hadn't treated you the way you deserved. That he was fine and sweet and wonderful - but a dick nonetheless.
Still, it was hard to resist temptation. If you finally allowed yourself to text him back he would be here in a jiffy. You needed it. You missed him. And suddenly everything came rushing back: Daveed's athletic body the first time you'd seen him jump around on stage, his smile as he had introduced himself to you, his teasing manner as he had thrown around millions of jokes to you and the rest of your cast-mates. How you had already fallen for his wicked charms by the end of the first rehearsal. How you had flirted desperately to get him to notice you, and how he had finally pulled you backstage and kissed you in secret. It had all lead to a daring affair between the two of you, Daveed fucking you roughly every day in between rehearsals and later in between shows. His long fingers curling inside you while you moaned his name, the taste of him on your lips, his demanding movements as he took you in various positions all over your dressing room.
And no one could know. Not even Jas or Leslie or Oak. Daveed had made you promise not to tell - that this was your personal thing. You had agreed and said 'of course' right before he had hoisted you up beside the powder room mirror and slid into you. At first, the sneaking around had been nothing but arousing - you one hundred percent condoned it; your only goal back then had been to keep fucking Daveed in your costumes, the blue revolutionary jacket always open against his toned chest, but as the weeks proceeded, you felt yourself wanting more from him.
You wanted to be able to snog him senseless every time you saw him. You wanted to intertwine your fingers with his in public. Treat him to dinner. Take him home. Watch movies on lazy Sundays. Run your hands over his abs in your own bed. Waking up to find him covering your body with kisses.
But Daveed had said no. That he didn't want those things. That he didn't want to engage in anything serious with someone he worked with. That you were just co-workers who helped each other relieve some of the stress that the highly demanding job craved. Nothing more. In other words, you deduced that you were his stress ball - and you got angry! You yelled, and you threatened to kick him out of your dressing room, and you even threw a small lipstick at him, but his chocolate brown eyes were so sweet and so kind that you eventually felt yourself nodding along to his arguments of how the two of you could mess up the entire production if you started dating and things didn't work out. You sighed and you nodded and you agreed with him. And not even ten minutes later had he pulled off your panties, bent you over the couch, and dropped to his knees behind you. A lousy way to make up for it.
You had let it continue like this for eight months until his contract finally ran out and you were no longer co-workers. You had been looking forward to this. On his last night at the theatre, Daveed had stumbled into your dressing room in his Jefferson robe. The door behind him had barely closed before he had ripped your corset open, his warm fingers immediately rolling your nipples they way he knew you liked it. He had pressed his pelvis up against you and whispered in your ear that he had been hard on stage all night, patiently waiting for the show to be over so he could come see you. And you had decided that now was the time; slowly, you had turned around in his arms with a smirk and you had asked him out seeing as you wouldn't be working together anymore. You had thought it was a sure thing. But Daveed had pulled down your pants mumbling "My contract's in effect until tomorrow," right before you had felt his tongue on your skin.
"So what happens if I ask you again tomorrow?" You'd panted as his tongue was joined by his fingers.
"It'll still be a no," he grinned up at you, apparently unaware of your aching heart. He was a good man. If he knew the effect he had on you, he would've either stepped back or stepped up.
"And what happens after tonight?" You'd asked.
"We keep fucking," he had grinned with a content sigh as he spread your legs apart.
That was five weeks ago.
Now you had endured five weeks of Daveed constantly texting you that he was stressed, or hard, or thinking about you. Five weeks of him sending you dirty texts explicitly describing what he wanted to do to you. Five weeks of you ignoring him completely.
And now you were staring at his text consisting of two words and a question mark, contemplating if a small toe-dip into your old addiction was such a catastrophe. You felt your phone buzz in your hand as another text from him ticked in: 'I know you're reading my texts. Please stop ignoring me I miss you.'
You almost choked. In the year you'd known Daveed this was the most sensitive he'd ever gotten with you. You read the second text over and over and over again contemplating what to do; text him back? Call him? Or keep ignoring him?
In the end, you decided to call him up. He needed to be told of. He answered before the fourth ring.
"Hey," he almost whispered.
"Daveed," you let out a sigh, "you can't keep texting me."
"I know. I know I'm sorry," he mumbled, "are you mad at me?"
"Of course I'm not mad at you," you said quietly, "but things can't go on like this."
"I know... Are you in love with me?" He said abruptly but in a soft voice.
You went completely quiet when you felt your heart ache. So he did know about it. He had managed to put two and two together... "it isn't fair of you to ask me that," you almost whispered, "you know I am."
Daveed went quiet too and you could hear his steady breathing on the other end of the phone line. After a couple of seconds he finally said, "can I come over?"
"I'm not sure it's a good idea."
"Please. I have to see you. I want to apologise properly," he groaned painfully, "can I please come over?"
Unable to resist him, you breathed a short "yes," and ten minutes later opened the door to him.
"Hey," his face curled up in a smile the minute you came into sight. He stepped closer to you, and pulled you in for a soft hug, "you look cute."
"Yeah, well thanks," you mumbled against his neck. You didn't want to reciprocate his compliment even though he did look awfully cute too.
He followed you to the living room.
"Whiskey?" You asked him.
"Nah, I gotta stay sober for this," he shook his head.
"Sober for what?" You asked quietly.
"I - ehm - I wanted to apologise. Like a man," he looked at you with a firm gaze, "I've been a dick and I've been treating you badly."
"Yeah," you nodded and folded your arms across your chest, "you've been acting like an ass. When did you realise?"
"It's embarrassing for me, but I honestly didn't realise before you started ignoring me. I was so used to having you around me all the time, and suddenly I missed you like crazy," he took a deep breath before he continued, "I was so sexually frustrated that I called a friend back home in California and told him about it all. I thought he would agree with me and call you stone-cold or something like that but instead he called me an idiot. He called me out for the way I've been treating you. He made me realise why you wanted to ask me out. I didn't even realise. I'm very sorry."
"It's okay," you said softly, "I know you didn't mean to."
"Good," Daveed nodded and looked like a schoolboy who'd just been scolded and you suddenly felt bad for him.
"I didn't mean to ignore your texts. After your time was up at the theatre, I wanted to keep seeing you - it was just too rough. I had to back off."
"I'm glad you took care of yourself. It's made me realise some stuff about myself that I want to change. I want to be better."
"And how do you plan on doing that?"
"Let me start by making it up to you," he smiled, "tomorrow's Valentines day. Let me treat you to dinner. Give you the proper date you deserve."
"I'm not going on a date with you just because you're sexually frustrated and you know I'm an easy fuck," you huffed.
"No! Never! But how about going on a date with me because I like you and I want to see where it could go?"
You shot him a look.
"I understand if you don't believe me but in the past couple of weeks I haven't just missed having sex with you. I've really missed... you. The goofing around, the banter, your infectious laughter. I want to treat you to a date. Let me take you out."
You looked at him suspiciously, "romantically?"
"Yes. Rafa was right. I have a crush on you too. Let's see where this goes."
A small smile crept onto your lips, "okay. If you're sure."
"I'm positive," he grinned and pulled you in for a hug, "fuck I've missed you."
@ramp-it-up
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Meeting and Dating Harvey Kinkle
(My messy gif)(Requested by anonymous)
- Harvey and you first met when you; quite literally, bumped into each other while on your way to class. It took him a moment to get over how gorgeous you were but once he did, he shyly apologized and helped you pick up your books.
- You assured him that it was fine and before he could manage to get in another word, you rushed off so that you could get to class on time. Unbeknownst to you, for Harvey, it was love at first crash.
- For the next week or so, he literally just keeps embarrassing himself in front of you. While he’s mortified and feels like he can never show his face in school again, you think his clumsiness is cute ....in a dorky sort of way.
- You won’t realize it at first but every time he does something humiliating in front of you, it was while he was trying to strike up a conversation with you. Like: Oh look, she’s alone; let me go say something to her. Trips over his own feet and goes down like a sack of potatoes.
- But as fate would have it, his clumsiness would be what brings you too together. He’d been in gym class, playing basketball with the other boys in his class when you dropped in to give your teacher a form that they needed. Upon seeing you, he got distracted, tripped up by another person, and wound up smashing his nose into the polished wooden floor.
- Since you were there, your teacher asked you to walk him to the nurse which you hurriedly did, still in shock at the sudden catastrophe that had unraveled before you. You tried to ignore how oddly pretty he was with blood running down his face, asking if he was alright while he just weakly smiled at you and tried to act tough. You lingered in the nurses office for a little bit before the bell rang and you were forced to go to your next class.
- Later that day, while you were sitting and eating your lunch. He approached you, his nose all taped up and plugged with cotton, asking if he could sit down and thanking you for taking him to the nurse. The two of you had your first actual conversation and seemed to hit it off right away.
- You and Harvey become fast friends while your budding feelings for each other begin to bloom. Harvey’s sort of shy and awkward so it’s gonna take him a little while to work up the nerve to ask you out, just be patient with him, it’ll happen at some point.
- When he finally does ask you out, he invites you to go see a movie with him; your choice since he mainly just wants to stare at your face the entire time. You should see his face when you agree, it’s a mixture between awe and pure joy, like every single dream of his has just come true all at once.
- When he comes to pick you up that night, he makes sure to tell you how pretty you look and dashes forward to open his car door for you, giving you a little smile as you hop into his passengers seat.
- Like I said before, he pretty much just watches you instead of watching the movie, so when you go to grab a slice of pizza afterwards, he has to pretend to know what you’re talking about every time you reference it. Thankfully, you don’t notice and your night goes on without a hitch.
- The two of you share your first kiss about a week after he asks you out. The two of you are sat in his car after another one of your dates and this slow song comes on on the radio. When you look at him, he’s already looking at you and when he begins to lean in, you lean in too.
- After the two of you pull away, he confesses that he’d been waiting to do that all week. All you can do in response is smile and lean in for another one.
- You agree to be his girlfriend that same night and the two of you have never looked back ever since.
- He loves pda but he always keeps it pretty innocent. An an arm around your shoulder, a peck here and there; things like that,
- Goofing off together. You’re always doing adorably childish things with each other though he likes to keep it behind closed doors since he isn’t fond of making a fool of himself if he doesn’t have to.
- Cheek kisses.
- Hugs from behind.
- To be honest, hugging you is almost better than kissing you in Harvey’s eyes. He just loves wrapping you up in his arms, so much so that he never really wants to let go.
- Pizza parlor dates.
- Study dates.
- Playing board games at your house since his family doesn’t play them.
- Concert dates. He likes surprising you with tickets to see your favorite bands whenever they’re in town.
- Listen: the boy likes sports so you’re either going to be very happy alongside him or be forced to tolerate them just to make him happy.
- Going to all his football practices and games. He calls you his lucky charm even though your presence has never gotten him off the bench.
- Wearing his letterman jacket.
- He likes walking you to class. He always grabs your books and carries them for you, usually in one hand so he can hold your hand with the other.
- Pretty much everyone in school thinks you’re adorable together. Every now and again, someone will tell you how cute you guys are and/or you’ll be voted the cutest couple in school.
- Sitting in the courtyard together. If he wants to meet up with you after school, then you can rest assured that it’s going to be there.
- Random compliments. He just can’t help but tell you how pretty you look or how great something you made was. You need to know how wonderful you are!
- He gets all giddy and flustered whenever you compliment him back. His cheeks always turn this cute shade of pink as he erupts into shy giggles, a big adorable grin plastered on his face.
- He mainly just calls you by your real name or an abbreviation of it. He likes your name more than any pet name he could ever give you. He has called you princess on account of him being the Termite Prince though.
- Sharing desserts.
- Handwritten love letters. They may not be the best but you don’t care, you just love the thought behind them.
- He never and I mean never forgets your anniversary or your birthday. He’s always excited to see and give you his gift whenever the special day comes around.
- He gifts you a promise ring after the two of you have been dating for a while. He pretty much confesses right then and there that he plans on replacing it with an engagement ring in the future.
- Getting a special engraved bracelet. He can’t help but smile when he sees you wearing it and will occasionally fiddle with it when he’s bored/nervous.
- He’s got your photo taped to his locker door and framed by his bedside. Whenever he’s in a dilemma, he’ll look at it and ask himself what you’d do, or stare at it solemnly when you don’t come to school.
- He likes being able to drive you home from school. It makes him feel important and gives him more time alone with you.
- Kissing in his car. The two of you have a particular place where you park every time you want some alone time.
- What is there to not like about cuddling? He likes being the big spoon but it honestly doesn’t really matter to him, as long as he’s snuggling you, he’s happy.
- Making sure he’s alright after one of his many accidents. He always jokes that a kiss will make “it” better.
- He shyly asks for kisses whenever he wants them. You can’t help but give them to him, after all, he asked for them so nicely~
- All of your pets love him, even if they don’t usually like people. For some reason, they’re just infatuated with him; and who is he to deny them affection?
- Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact that you’re absolutely sure that he loves you, you’d assume he was only with you for your pets. He’s always playing with, petting, and being there for them as though they were his own.
- He once became adamant on learning how to braid your hair and spent like three hours mastering it so now he’s a pro. Oftentimes, he’ll absentmindedly start to do it while you’re sitting between his legs.
- Watching him take care of and play with his little sister.
- Dancing together.
- Always sitting together at lunch. He insists on taking the seat in front of you
- Motorcycle rides. He likes feeling you cling onto him.
- Having to put up with Libby. She may be mean to you but hey, you’re the one who got the guy in the end, right?
- He does get jealous, usually when there’s a good reason to be even if that reason turns out to be a misunderstanding. Most of the time he just winds up going off and sulking until you find and confront him, reassuring him that you only love him.
- He’s subtly protective of you, mainly because you’ve never been in a very dangerous situation. What I mean by subtly protective is: he’ll walk on the side of the street closest to the road, hold your hand in big crowds, give you his jacket, etc; little things that show you that he cares for your wellbeing and safety.
- The two of you really don’t fight all that often. You’ve only had a few arguments here and there and they never really last long. He doesn’t yell at you, he isn’t really capable of doing so; not for an entire argument anyways.
- He always apologizes when he’s in the wrong because it eats him up on the inside. He hates the idea of making you upset, especially for a stupid and wrong reason.
- He tells you he loves you constantly and you can tell just by the look in his eyes while he watches you, that he really does.
- You may breakup once or twice over the years but you always seem to make your way back to each other. I guess the two of you were just meant to be.
- Like I said before, he’s completely transparent with his plans on marrying you in the future. He was ready to spend the rest of his life with you when he first met you so now it’s just a matter of time.
#90s movie imagine#90s movie headcanons#90s movie headcanon#90s movie imagines#sabrina the teenage witch imagine#sabrina the teenage witch headcanons#sabrina the teenage witch headcanon#sabrina the teenage witch imagines#harvey kinkle imagine#harvey kinkle imagines#harvey kinkle headcanons#harvey kink headcanon
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Star of Wonder
Summary: Virgil’s parents have stifled his questions, and his chances to follow the star to his soulmate with their strict Christian doctrine. That doesn’t stop him from plotting his escape, nor his soulmate from deciding to find him instead.
Warnings: overly strict parents
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“As you will see in your history books, the common belief among Christians is that the stars leading us to our soulmates originated from the birth of Jesus. While many historians disagree with this, due to mentions of soulmates prior to when those stories were first written down, and the lack of archaeological evidence for Jesus's birth being heralded in the way the Bible describes it, many people do follow this belief.” Virgil's teacher had explained in their class. Another student had asked about the story their parents had used to describe soulmates and he was once again questioning everything his evangelical family insisted was true, despite the evidence against them.
So far he'd remained quiet, avoiding the scolding that any questions to his parents understanding of the Bible or Christianity brought, but this had a major question rattling around his mind that he needed to ask. “Mrs Williams showed us the cave paintings showing people following stars for their soulmates today. Do you think the Wise Men were hoping to find their soulmates when they followed it to Jesus? Was that who their gifts were actually for?” He asked that evening when they'd been discussing his classes from the day.
His Dad always had strong views about what he should or shouldn't learn and had often visited the school to demand something was removed or not taught to his son. Virgil could only thank his determined head teacher for refusing to make special accommodations, but it did lead to interrogations over what the classes he took taught him.
Virgil shivered as a frozen solid glared turned to him after the question. “Are you insinuating there could be anything unpure about the immaculate birth? That anyone favoured in the Bible could have such twisted selfish reasons to try and find the Saviour?” His father demanded, voice raising with every word.
The lecture and telling off Virgil received after that lasted a full hour, and ended up with none of their family properly finishing their meal. If he had been reluctant to share his thoughts about religion or soulmates to his family before then, Virgil was never going to bring it up now.
That didn't stop his parents trying to act like the closest family there ever was, but not even strangers on the street could be fooled to believe it. Sickly sweet words of “You never open up to us. We're here and we'll accept the things you share with us” never did pair well when moments later in the exact same tone the words would become “I don't care that you haven't a soulmate, I care that you're refusing to say a thing about it. Just accept it and let us arrange a marriage for you to a nice Christian girl in our Church. I'm sure Gertrude said her daughter hasn't seen a star yet.”
Virgil did everything he could to avoid Gertrude in the Church after that. Her daughter was barely 10 and far too young for the star to have appeared for her; Never mind that he did have a star, hovering by the sunset. He did try to at least talk to the children in the Church, and let them know that asking questions was okay, but usually better to be directed to people who are open to them. It was the least he could do to hopefully give them a better time of it than he had with his parents.
He went through the actions of following their wishes, applying to the local colleges and doing the volunteering they insisted the family had to do, quietly messaging online forums for support and help. Virgil was doing everything he could to get his route out of the town and chance to follow his star as soon as college began. He never accepted the place his parents thought, but sent his acceptance letter off to the college two states to the west and had packed his suitcase already. As soon as he heard when move in day would be for the dormitories Virgil was going to be on a train there. His parents couldn't then try to track him down using the car they'd given him only to claim use of it if ever they were attending separate functions.
There was no certainty about where the star was leading him. Whomever his soulmate was lived too far away so the star remained high high in the sky but Virgil hoped it would lower at least somewhat when he got further away from his home town.
The star moving towards him and getting noticeably lower each day after school finished for the summer was something Virgil realised with dread. His parents had very clear views over who he should end up with, completely opposite to the people that had attracted Virgil before. Whomever his soulmate was though now seemed to be heading in his direction and rapidly.
Virgil kept an eye on it, watching from his bedroom window, bringing cloud gazing into the activities they'd use to occupy the kids in the playscheme, anything else he could think of to watch the stars movement and try to guess when they'd arrive.
The suitcase was completely packed with all the last things he'd been keeping out of it when the star was level with the roofs of the houses. Virgil didn't know who his soulmate was, didn't have a clue what their relationship would be when they arrived, but if they were going to come seek him out, he was taking any chance at escape they offered.
He was watching from his window that night, almost at midnight, just wondering if the star was going to stop moving and rest for the night or if he'd be meeting his Soulmate that night. The car that turned down the road looked worse for wear but not half so much as the person that jumped out of it as soon as they drew level with his house. The car hadn't even stopped when that happened, but he didn't have time to stop and think about that.
Virgil while mentally relieved that his soulmate was at least masculine framed knew that if they revealed themself to be his soulmate, especially after knocking on the door in the middle of the night, well catastrophic would be putting it lightly. He was grabbing his suitcase, hurrying downstairs as quietly as possible and still didn't manage to open the door before the first knock had sounded.
Looking at the person, Virgil covered their mouth instantly, hearing movement upstairs. “Sorry, I knocked something. Just wanted a glass of water to see if it'll help my mind settle. I think I can been a racoon in the trash so I'll chase it off while I'm down here.” He called upstairs, not loud enough to wake his parents, but enough that they'd hear if one had woken up.
A glance down the street showed another door getting knocked on by the driver of the car so Virgil shoved his case out of the door. “I'm Virgil, your soulmate if the star on my head doesn't give that away. Worst type of Christians up there so lets get this in the car and figure out what can happen then. If you'd prefer to just dump me in a motel somewhere close to you it would be better than here.” He hissed out, ignoring that his hand was now getting licked until he had the door pulled shut.
“I'm Remus, pretty one. You seriously running away with me in the middle of the night? Have you heard some of the most brilliant stories that come from people doing that?” His soulmate leant into his space. “You smell good, but I still can't decide what pronouns to use for you. I'm he/him, and so's Ro-bro. You know who he's going to be waking up?”
The wave towards the car at the end of the road had Virgil snort, “The pretentious git leading the choir. I try my best not to know him. I've stuck with he/him pronouns so far, but if that changes I'll let you know.”
“Are we really running, or can me and Ro have a sleep before you want to get away? Either works cause crashes are great fun to get out of and you're more likely to get into them when driving tired.” Remus asked, taking the suitcase and beginning to head back down the road.
“I'm not gonna change your plans. Just tell me what you're intending and I'll see if I can help, like by pointing out there's a fully furnished but currently empty house 2 blocks away. Might be worth it to crash there tonight.” Virgil had checked the area once he saw the star getting close to his town. Breaking into places would cause him a heck of a lot of anxiety over what would happen if they got caught but facing a screaming fit from his parents was worse.
Remus didn't care though, already loading the car and rushing over to Ro. “My soulmate wants us to break into a place a bit away so I'm stealing the car. Either get your soulmate to let you stay over or come find us. I'll park as close in front of the place as Vi-vi lets me.”
Now they were a bit closer Virgil could see Remus was identical to Ro. It felt sort of like he was high on sleep deprivation and meeting his soulmate, all his anxiety muffled through a fog of knowing change had arrived and he wouldn't have to pander to his parents religion anymore.
This was just the start of an adventure but he could keep the star close by now.
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Hey there! I was wondering if you could do a Top Gun request. It can be anyone you feel like, basically character goes over to find reader after a really stressful day, and they pull up to readers house/apartment to find her completely rocking out, dancing, singing, playing air guitar, etc. She then explains after caught that’s just how she can finally relax. I know it’s corny 😂, preferably with 80’s rock music! Thank so much! 💛
I love this request so much, so thank you for leaving it! I thoroughly enjoyed writing this because I enjoy this type of music, and it's probably something that would happen to me😅 I hope you like it!
You Do This To Unwind?
Nick "Goose" Bradshaw x reader (platonic)
Warnings: none
Masterlist
A/N: I apologise if the formatting on some of the verses has messed up, I'm not the best when it comes to sorting those kinda things😅
Songs Referenced (All as requested by @piperlikesallthings ) :
Dancing With Myself - Billy Idol
I Hate Myself For Loving You - Joan Jett and The Blackhearts
Barracuda - Heart
I don't even look as I throw my bag into the corner, groaning as I shuffle into the living room of my comfortable home, glad now that I put in the extra money to buy an offsite house to come back to, not really feeling like facing the rest of the aviators back at base all at once tonight. Flicking the lights on, I stand and stare out around the room for a second, before shrugging off my uniform jacket and tossing it down on the sofa, stretching out my muscles as I walk over to the coffee table, where a small stereo sits. Bending over, I quickly change the tape inside it and fiddle with the buttons, smiling tiredly to myself as the opening lines to Dancing With Myself by Billy Idol start to play, my body instantly starting to sway in time with the music.
As the music gets louder and louder, the troubles of the day start to fall away, my brain instantly starting to forget the near-catastrophic training flight I partook in today, the stern words of my commander overwhelmed by the more carefree vocals of the song. A smile works it's way onto my face as I focus on the rhythmic music, the tensions starting to drain from my muscles until I start dancing little more wildly, my hands instinctually moving to turn the volume up even further, the prominent guitar melodies encouraging me to join in with my own imaginary instrument. My fingers start to run up and down an invisible fret board, body moving in time with each change in tempo or rhythm, each movement becoming less and less coordinated as I start singing along, my voice slightly hoarse;
"So let's sink another drink Cause it'll give me time to think If I had the chance I'd ask the world to dance And I'll be dancin' with myself!"
Still smiling broadly, I throw myself to one of the chairs, continuing to sing and play the air guitar until the song is over, at which point I dramatically drop to my knees, as if onstage at a concert, breathing heavily as the last chords play out. Upon hearing the beginning of the next song, however, I jump back to my feet, ignoring the tired feeling in my body as I start bouncing to the beat again, the words of Joan Jett and The Blackhearts' I Hate Myself For Loving You erupting from my mouth as they do from the speakers on the stereo:
"Midnight, gettin' uptight Where are you? You said you'd meet me, now it's quarter to two I know I'm hangin' but I'm still wantin' you."
I move my body along to the beat and flow of the music, very much enjoying the feeling of letting go of the resolve I'm required to carry in the sky, my wild movements uncontrolled and loose, allowing me time to relax as I dance, my mind not fixated on the prospect of training as it stays open and mostly blank. At some point, I climb onto the the coffee table and start ferociously playing the invisible guitar in my grip, singing loudly and passionately as I rock out to myself, completely missing the sound of the front door opening.
*
The car engine gently hums to a halt as I turn the key in the ignition, the headlights ahead of me fading out as the vehicle quietens, allowing me to hear the thumping rhythm emanating from the small house to my left, the tune vaguely familiar to me. Frowning to myself, I climb out of the car and slowly walk up to the front door, rolling up my shirt sleeves as I go, finding myself quite warm despite the chill of the night air, instinctually running a hand through my short hair. I cast a quick glance at the window to the living room, glad to see the lights are on, explaining why there is loud music coming from the small building, a small sigh of relief escaping me as I see this; I could really use a talk with (Y/n), given the crappy day Maverick and I had back at the base.
Stepping up to the front door, I ring the doorbell once and knock three times, just as I always have done, before waiting patiently for her to answer. Bouncing slightly on the balls of my feet, I give it five minutes until I try again, frowning a little as I receive no reply again, worry starting to creep into me as I realise something might've happened to her. Thinking quickly, I look around the porch, going to the plant pots and checking underneath them and in their soil, cursing when I find nothing, my eyes eventually falling on the doormat. Cocking my head, I go over to it and lift a corner, smiling briefly to myself as I catch sight of the small silver key lying there, wondering what (Y/n) was thinking when she left it there. Hastily, I grab it and insert it into the door, grinning triumphantly when it goes in smoothly and turns quickly, the door unlocking for me easily, allowing me easy entrance.
Going in, I move straight to where I know the living room is, throwing open the door as I go, ignoring the pulsing music until I catch sight of the scene in front of me. I can't help the small grin that falls into place on my face as I relax back onto my heels, watching as (Y/n) pulls off a guitar riff on an imaginary guitar, her head moving up and down in time as her body rocks in unison, her hair becoming more and more tangled as she moves faster. Evidently, she hasn't noticed my presence yet.
Just as I go to introduce myself, she opens her mouth and starts singing along, a look of surprise spreading across my face as I listen to her, admiring her vocal ability;
"I hate myself for loving you Can't break free from the the things that you do I want to walk but I run back to you, that's why I hate myself for loving you I hate myself for loving you I hate myself for loving you."
The song comes to an end and she leaps from the coffee table she's standing on, landing gracefully in front of the sofa, her eyes opening to find me watching her, a look of horror and embarrassment cutting through the relaxed expression from before, her cheeks burning bright red.
"Hey there." I greet her, smirking.
"H-hey Goose." She responds, wiping sweat from her forehead as she moves to turn down the volume of the next song, Barracuda by Heart.
"You look like you're having fun." I tease her, walking closer as she tries not to start dancing again, the catchy rhythm of the song evidently encouraging her.
"Yeah, I guess...I'm just trying to unwind." She mutters, looming down as I stop in front of her.
"Unwind? Did you have a bad day, too?" I inquire, lifting an eyebrow as I start to bounce a little in time with the beat.
"Yeah. Nearly crashed during training and the commanders weren't happy about it."
"You and me, both." I roll my eyes at the memory, remembering the reason I came here, "You do this to unwind?"
"It helps me relax if I let out all my tensions. Music like this makes me feel happy, so it works a treat." She admits, looking away as if embarrassed.
"Sounds like fun. Can I try?" I ask her, hoping it'll help the two of us.
She shoots me an odd look, but nods anyway.
"Yeah, sure."
Grinning, I turn up the volume on the stereo and grab her hands, starting to dance with her as she let's out a hesitant laugh, unsure of what is happening.
"Come on, (Y/n), loosen up!" I encourage her, spinning her as she starts to join in, the two of us smiling widely at one another as we start moving much more violently, as if pretending to have a competition in who can play the air guitar the best.
Singing along, we feel the tensions in the room fade away, both of us losing ourselves to the music as we bounce about, head banging to the strong beat, most likely annoying the neighbours to no end but neither of us caring too much, too caught up in the moment to do so.
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Rebel Spy - Chapter 13: Trust In The Force
WARNING: major rebels spoiler and ofc mandalorian spoilers
Masterlist
“Right, it’s always nothing isn’t it.”
I see his shoulders stiff as the air gets tenser. I know he can feel the frustration coming off of me. I sit here hoping that he says something, anything to make the tension go away. I want him to tell me what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling. I love him and I just want to know if he’s okay.
But of course, that’s not Din. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t tell me anything. Stars, sometimes this relationship feels entirely one-sided.
I feel the crest take off and soon we get into space. With the ship falling apart he doesn’t want to go into hyperspace sooner than we have to or even at all.
The kid falls asleep in my lap as I stare at the stars trying to ignore the tension and - for some reason- the tears that are started to form in my eyes.
I don’t think the tears are from being sad. No, I’m not sad. The tears are from frustration. Is it too much to ask for him to talk to me? I know he’s not used to sharing his feelings so I shouldn’t push him too much.
The sound of him turning around in his chair snaps me out of my thoughts. However, I don’t make eye contact.
“Cyar'ika.” I don’t look up like he wants me to. It’s mostly because I don’t want to explain the tears threatening to leave my eyes.
“What?” The question comes out broken and barely a whisper.
“Please don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad Din.” I turn my head to look at him, “Honestly.”
“I don’t know how to feel.”
“I know.”
I carefully lift the kid off my lap as I stand up. I sit him back in the chair making sure he’s still fast asleep. Once I’m sure he’s good I take a seat in Din’s lap snuggling myself into him. My head stays under his chin as he pulls me closer to him. I fall asleep listening to his steady heartbeat.
-
“You want me to fit inside there?” I say referring to the very tiny compartment where wires are that we need to get to, to fix the ship.
“Well, I can’t fit.”
“Din I can’t even put my head through there.” The kid’s coo draws our attention toward him. He sits in his pod playing with the stuffed Wookie I got him a few months ago. “You don’t think he could?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
-
“No, don’t put the blue one back. Put the red one where the blue one was. And put the blue one where the red one was.” The kid just continues to look at the wires in his hand.
Din is kneeling next to me as we both try and direct him, “But be careful,” Din warns him, “They’re oppositely charged, so keep them away from each other. Make sure you hold them apart from-” And of course he puts the wires together causing sparks to fly and smoke to fill the compartment.
“That went exactly as how I expected.” Din just sighs next to me, “Are you okay?” I ask the kid and he just responds with a cough. “Okay come on let’s get you out of there.” I motion for the kid to come towards me and he crawls through the compartment and into my arms safely. “So now what?”
“There’s no way we’re making it to Corvus in this shape?”
I look around at the shaky ship that’s covered in fishing nets, “No shit.”
“I think we need to visit some friends for repairs.”
“Back to Nevarro it is then.”
-
We land the razor crest right outside of the city and Greef is there to greet us.
“Looks like someone could use some repairs,” Greef says as Din and I both have to jump off the ramp. Din being extra careful because he’s carrying the kid.
Din and Greef shake hands before Dins asks, “How’s my credit around here?”
“I think something could be arranged. I’ll get my best people on it.” He gets a few people to work on the ship before turning to look at me “Aurora good to see you again.”
I offer him a smile, “You too.”
“And you, come here, little one!” He says referring to the kid. He takes the kid out of Din’s arms and starts asking him all the questions he of course doesn’t have the answer to.
We walk through the city and the streets are full. People are everywhere each booth selling something different. There’s so much life here compared to the last time we were here.
I get pulled out of my thoughts when we stop at the cantina. The one Din almost died in, “Here we are,” Greef says.
“I’m surprised this place is still standing,” Din says.
“Wait until you see what’s inside.”
Din and I exchange a look before following Greef.
Inside is a school. There’s a droid at the front talking about the five major trade routes in the galaxy. “Not what I expected,” I tell Din. It puts a smile on my face to see a place that was once full of death now filled with the next generation.
“We’ll leave the little one here so we can talk business,” Greef says taking the kid to a desk.
“Uh, what?”
“Wait, wherever I go, he goes,” Din also protests.
“Mando please,” Greef says, “Where we’re going, you don’t wanna take a child. Trust me.”
This time Din looks at me and I just shrug my shoulders not really sure if he’ll be safe here or not. “He’ll be fine,” Greef reassures us. Greef puts him in a seat at the end in the second row. “Come on.” Greef walks out.
Din and I linger for a few moments, “Nobody knows we’re here, he’ll be fine,” I say more to myself then Din.
“Right,” Din says and we both walk out.
-
Greef shows up this map of an old imperial base. He says how there’s heavy weaponry and that the black market would love to dismantle and get their hands on. So we agree to help take out what’s left on the base so that Navarro would be completely safe.
Mythrol, one of Din’s old bounties and Greefs bookkeeper, drives us to wherever the base is located. Greef and Mythrol sit in the front while Din and I are in the backseat. Din’s hand has found its usual place on my thigh.
“The whole place is powered by a reactor. So we sneak in overload it and get the hell out of there, “ Greef says.
“Let's be fast,” Din says, “And keep the speeder running.”
We travel a little more before Mythrol stops the speeder at the front door, “Let's go.” I say as we all hop out.
I try pressing a few buttons on the panel but nothing happens, “Controls are using, they’re melted.”
After some convincing, Mythrol decides to get out of the speeder and help us out. He grabs the flange cutter per Greefs request.
While Greef and Mythrol bicker I notice Din is looking up at something. I look up to see a platform above us. And I know exactly what he's thinking.
“Are you gonna…”
“Think it’ll work?”
“It's you, Din, it’ll work.”
“Hold tight,” Is all he says before flying up to the platform. Mythrol tries to use the flange cutter again but all it does is make electricity fly everyone. I look back up at the platform when I hear blaster shots. Then there's screaming and a stormtrooper lands right at my feet. Behind us, the elevator door opens and the three of us pile in.
After a few moments, the elevator door opens and Din is standing there with three stormtroopers laying lifeless around him.
“Good job,” I say to Din as I stand at the edge of the platform looking at the lava.
“The reactor should be set in the heat shaft,” Greef says, “If we drain the cooling lines this whole base will go up in a matter of minutes.”
“Look,” Mythrol says getting our attention, “It's a mint Trexler Marauder. We can get a lot for this on the black market.”
“And it's gonna get vaporized like the rest of this base. Now, let's go,” Din says.
-
Din leads us to the command center. He goes in first and takes out the imp that's in there. The rest of us go in after. I go to the panels, looking through the cameras to find the heat shaft, “Okay I found it, let's go.” Din looks to see where it is before leading us there.
We get there successfully without being spotted. Mythrol opens the door using the code cylinder they swiped on the imp from earlier.
The door opens and we stand on a platform right above a pool of lava. We all look over the edge and Din puts a protective arm out making sure that I don’t fall over.
“That's it,” Greef says pointing to a panel which will make this place blow, “Get on the reactor controls, drain the coolant lines, we’ll watch the door,” Greef says to Mythrol.
He protests at first but Greef threatens to put him back in carbonite. He gets to the pannel and starts pressing buttons but nothing seems to be working, “Hurry up!” Greef tries to rush him. I don’t know what he does but alarms start to go off and the lava below us bubbles.
“All right, she's gonna blow,” Mythrol says getting away from the panel.
We start running down the hallways trying to get out of there as fast as possible.
“How long do we have?” I ask.
“Ten minutes at the most,” Greef answers.
We turn the corner and Din puts his hand up stopping us. In the distance, we hear stormtroopers running to fix what we did.
Din leads us down yet another hallway which brings us to two guys frantically trying to fix what we did. “Destroy it!” one of them say as we walk in. The three of us start shooting them while Mythrol hides behind us.
Din gets one and I get the other. When the shooting stops I look around to where we are exactly. Behind the glass, there are what seem to be like failed clones.
“What the…” Greef says
“I thought this was a forward operating base,” I say still staring at the disfigured body in front of us.
“I thought it was.”
“No, this is a lab. They’re doing some type of experiment, I don’t know exactly but we need to figure it out.” I ask Mythrol if he can get into the system and like always he protest but I get him to do it.
“I don’t like this,” Din says.
“Me either.”
Mythrol gets a Holocron appears at the desk the imps were trying to destroy, “Replicated the results of the subsequent trails, which also resulted in catastrophic failure. There was promising effects for an entire fortnight, but then, sadly, the body rejected the blood. I highly doubt we’ll find a donor with a higher M-count, though. I recommend that we suspend all experimentation. I fear that the volunteer will meet the same regrettable fate if we process with the transfusion. Unfortunatley, we have exhausted our initial supply of blood. The child is small, and I was only able to harvest a limited amount without killing him,” Din and I look at each other and I’m sure under that helmet hes just as shocked as I am, “If these experiments are to continue as requested, we would again require access to the donor, I will not disappoint you again, Moff Gideon.”
Hearing his name makes my body freeze up, my breathing gets shallow, and my heart thumps a mile a minute.
“This must be an old transmission. Moff Gideon is dead,” Din says.
“No, this recording’s three days old,” Mythrol confirms that Moff Gideon is alive.
I fight the tears that want to leave my eyes and I push back all the memories, “Din if he’s alive we have to get to the kid and we have to go now.” He grabs my hand as we ran out of there to get our kid.
-
“You got your eyes on it?” Din asks as I aim the gun at the tiefighter in front of us.
“Hell yeah, I do.” I press the trigger and it hits the fighter directly making it go down in flames.
After getting back to the city and grabbing the kid, we assumed Greef and Mythrol were in trouble considering they weren't back yet. So we got into the new and improved crest and headed over there. We found them in the Trexler Marauder Mythrol pointed out earlier.
“Hang on kid,” Din says but he's very distracted by the blue cookies I’m sure he stole from someone at the school.
Din pulls the lever making the ship go up after the tie fighters and the kid starts to giggle.
I shoot at the fighter but all the shots miss, “We need to get closer.” The ship somehow goes even faster. I hear the beeping meaning that the guns are locked in at the target, again I pull the trigger and the second tiefighter goes down, “One more.” The kid has his hands up cheering us on.
Din turns off the engine making the ship fall for just a moment before turning them back on again so we are right behind the last tiefighter. The tiefighter shoots at us but with Din piloting skills none of the shots hit us. We keep getting closer to the fighter and right before we collide I shoot and it goes down.
“Not too bad huh?” Din says turning around to look at me and the kid. I laugh and the kid throws up. It's blue from the cookies he hasn’t stopped eating.
“Oh stars,” I say in disgust. While Din talks to Greef on the coms I grab the end of Din cape and I try to clean the kid off as best as possible.
After saying bye to Greef Din turns back to us. I unbuckle and kid picking him, “I should get him changed.”
“Wait,” Din stands up placing his hand on my arm, “Are you okay?”
“I’m scared,” I tell him honestly my voice breaking a little, “He scares me, Din. He's not gonna stop until we’re dead.”
Din puts his helmet covered forward against mine, “I’m not gonna let that happen, cyar'ika.”
I nod my head letting a single tear fall before climbing down into the hall to get the kid changed.
-
“Alright so tell me everything you know about Jedi,” Din sits on the cot with the baby in his lap. The ship is on its path for Corvous so we should be there by tomorrow. Din and I are both getting ready for bed after a long couple of weeks.
“Like I said before I ran with a crew. By the time they picked me up they were basically family but they never treated me any different.” I pull one of Dins shirts over my head and I sit down next to him, “There were two Jedi. One master and one padawan.”
“Where are they now?”
“One um- one died so we could live and the other, he- he just went missing. Also so we could live.” Din puts his hand in mine, “I knew another. Fought with him in the rebellion. After the empire fell I lost contact with everybody. I have no idea where he is. I don’t know a lot about Jedi. But I do know they have strong connections to the force and the things they would do, the kid can do.”
-
Din and I step on the ramp looking out at the planet of Corvus. It's dark and gloomy. There's no color in sight. None of the trees have leaves on them. There's no life here.
“This place gives me the creeps,” I tell Din both of us looking around.
“Better than the ice planet.”
I scoff, “Yeah that's for sure.”
Din and I hear cooing and we both turn around to see the kid holding the little metal ball he must have stolen again.
“What did I say about that?” Din takes the ball from him, “This needs to stay in the ship,” and puts it in his utility belt.
He picks up the kid and stands next to me again, “I’ve never had dealings with a Jedi before, so you do the talking.”
“I got you,” I saw with a smile.
“Let's head into town. See if we can pick up a lead.”
-
After walking for a little while we make it to the town. There are stone walls all around it with guards in imp uniforms at the top. The guards have masks that I’ve never seen before. A man in armor asks us what our business is here and Din lies by saying that we’ve been tracking for a few days and that we're looking for a layover. He agrees to open the gate letting us into. The kid is in the bag that's around Din's shoulder this way he stays hidden.
Inside the town, it's just as lifeless. People are around there's just no life in them. Even five years after the empire fell they still find a way to make people miserable.
We walk through the town and neither of us really know what we're looking for. Din tries asking a vendor but they just walk away. We see a man in the alleyway with two children, “You there,” Din says getting the man's attention, “We need some information. We’re looking for someone.”
The man tells the children to leave and then walks up to us, “Please do not speak to them or any of us.” He's scared. It's obvious that everybody in this town is scared.
“Look,” I say softly hoping I can gain some trust since Din is a little intimidating, “We just need to know-” but I get rudely interrupted by two guards saying that the magistrate wants to see us. Giving us really no choice we follow them to wherever this magistrate is.
They lead us to another gate, Outside the gate people are strung up, “Help us,” One of them say as we walk by. The chains electrocute him and he screams out in pain. I wince angry at the fact that I can’t help them at the moment.
The gate opens and inside is the only place on this planet that has green. The trees have leaves on them. There's a bridge over a pond which is also the first water I’ve seen on the planet.
The magistrate asks us to haunt down a Jedi that is after her in exchange for a pure beskar spear. Obviously needing to find Ahsoka Din and I agree.
-
“These are the coordinates, keep your eyes open. We must be close.” We’ve been walking for a while now and so far there are no signs of life. Din hears something in the distance so he places the kid on a rock to be safe.
Looking around we decide that it's a false alarm of course that's before someone jumps out of the tree attacking Din.
Din pushes me out of the way. Once I get my senses back I realize that the flash of white I saw were lightsabers and that this must be Ahsoka Tano. Luckily lightsabers can’t cut through beskar. Din is a great fighter probably the best I’ve ever met but he's no match for a Jedi especially one with lightsabers. There's no point in me trying to join the fight considering a lightsaber could cut through me with ease. So I do the seconded best thing I’m good at. I talk.
“Ahsoka Tano!” I get her attention. She looks at me both her white lightsabers still up, “Bo Katan sent us. I’m Aurora and we need your help.”
She looks down at the kid still sitting on the rock next to me, “I hope it's about him.”
-
Ahsoka and the kid are sitting by a lantern. She requested that she speaks to the kid alone for a moment. So Din and I are away but not too far. I sit down on a rock while he paces back and forth.
“Would you stop pacing, you're making me nervous.”
He stops and looks at me, “You’re not?”
“Trust in the force Din.”
“That means nothing to me.”
I chuckle, “He’ll be fine.”
After a few moments, she picks up the lantern and the kid and walks over to us. She sets the lantern down and hands the kids to me and he sits peacefully in my lap. She sits down on the other rock. They both look at each and she nods while the baby makes what sounds like grunts.
“Is he speaking?” Din asks, “Do you understand him?”
She puts her hands under her robes thinking about her answer, “In a way. Grogu and I can feel each other's thoughts.”
“Grogu?” Din and I say at the same time. The kid coos immediately looking up at Din then at me.
“Yes,” Ahsoka says, "That's his name.”
Din takes a small step closer, “Grogu,” he repeats. He coos again looking at Din. It brings a smile to my face to finally know his name. To see him and Din connect even more.
“He was raised at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Many masters trained him over the years. At the end of the Clone Wars when the Empire rose to power, he was hidden,” Din sits down as he listens, “Someone took him from the Temple. Then his memory becomes...dark. He seemed lost. Alone.” I can feel his slowly falling asleep in my lap, “I’ve only known one other being like this. A wise Jedi master named Yoda.” The name gets Grogu to look up at Ahsoka. They seem to communicate in their own way before his head drops back down again. “Can he still wield the Force?”
“Yes he can,” I answer, “We’ve seen it.”
“To wield the force it takes a great deal of training and discipline.”
“Our task was to bring him to a Jedi,” Din says.
She pauses for a moment, “The Jedi Order fell a long time ago.”
“So did the empire, yet it still hunts him.”
“He needs your help Ahsoka,” I say hoping we can convince her.
There's another long pause before she sighs,” Let him sleep. I’ll test him in the morning.”
-
With it being dark and both of us too tired to walk to the ship we decided to camp. Din made us a fire. Grogu sleeps on the rock as Din and I lay on the floor, my head on his beskar covered chest.
Din and I are relaxed until of course, we hear a branch breaking in the distance. Both of us stumble to our feet grabbing our blasters. It's silent for a moment and all you can hear in the crackle of the fire burning.
Out of the darkness is a small animal. The closer it gets to us the more obvious it is that it's a loth-cat.
I put my blaster down. I bend down near the cat, I put my hand out and it slowly walks to me smelling it. I start to pet him and he purrs at that, “I haven’t seen a loth-cat since well I was on Lothal.”
“You were on Lothal?” Din puts his blaster away sitting back down.
“Yeah, my Jedi friend was from there. You could almost say Lothal is where the rebellion started.”
“We’re not keeping it we have enough pets.”
“You’re so lame.” He laughs at me before laying back down. I join him as we both try to get some rest.
-
In the morning Ahsoka tried getting Grogu to move a rock but when he wouldn’t she asks Din to do it. After he wouldn’t lift the rock he took the metal ball he stuck in his utility belt. The kid pulls the ball to him instantly.
Din and I both walk over to him telling him that he did a good job. I smile at the fact that he was able to do it and at Din’s excitement.
“That's right I knew you could do it,” Din grabs the ball from him.
“He's formed a strong attachment to you,” Ahsoka says, “Both of you. I cannot train him.”
“What?” Din says standing up, “You’ve seen what he can do.”
“His attachment to you two makes him vulnerable to his fears.” I pick Grogu up, “His anger.”
“All the more reason to train him.”
“No,” she steps closer, “I’ve seen what such feelings can do to fully trained Jedi Knight. To the best of us. I will not start this child down that path. Better to let his abilities fade.” She starts to walk away, “I’ve delayed too long. I must get back to the village.”
“The Magistrate sent us to kill you.” This gets her to stop and face us again, “I didn't agree to anything.” Normally I’d be trying to help Din but I don’t want to leave the kid, “We’ll help you with your problem if you see to it that Grogu is properly trained.”
-
Din and I are able to help her get the imps out of this town and free the people who were imprisoned.
We stand outside the gate walls, “I believe this was your payment,” Ahsoka says, holding the beskar spear.
“No. I can’t accept. I didn’t finish the job.”
“No, but this belongs with a Mandalorian.”
“Just take it,” I say and Din grabs the spear from her.
“Wheres your little friend?” She asks.
“He's back at the ship,” I answer her.
“Wait here we’ll go get him.”
-
“Do we have to?” I ask as we approach the ship.
“Yes.”
“But why? She said herself training him was dangerous.” Din presses his vambrace dropping the ramp.
“Because we were tasked-”
“Fuck that. What do you want to do Din?” As usual, he doesn’t answer me he just walks into the hull of the ship.
When I walk in Din has Grogu on his lap as he sits on the edge of the cot leaning against the wall. I lay my head on Din's shoulder trying not to pretend this isn’t breaking my heart.
-
Din carries him as we start to walk out of the ship, "You're like a father to him,” Ahsoka is outside of the ship, “You his mother.” Din and I walk farther down the ramp, “I cannot train him.” I feel a weight get lifted at the idea that I don’t have to do goodbye just yet.
“You made a promise. We held up our end.”
She walks up to us and gently holds Grogu’s hand, “There is one possibility. Go to the planet Tython there you will find the ancient ruins of a temple that has a strong connection to the force. Place Grogu on the seeing stone at the top of the mountain.”
“Then what?” I ask.
“Then Grogu may choose his path. If he reaches out through the Force, there’s a chance a Jedi may sense his presence and come searching for him. Then again, there aren’t many Jedi left.”
“Thank you,” Din says.
“May the force be with you.”
-
taglist: @tortles
#pedro pascal#pedro pascal x reader#pedro pascal x oc#the mandalorian#the mandalorian x oc#the mandalorian x reader#din djarin#din djarin x reader#din djarin x oc#mando x reader#mando#groguo#ahsoka tano#oberyn martell x reader#agent whiskey x reader#javier pena x reader
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Hearts With(out) Chains Chapter 14
Fandom: One Piece
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Gen (eventual Lawlu)
Words: 5213
Characters: Trafalgar Law, Doflamingo, Violet, Baby 5, Trebol, Diamante, Monkey D. Luffy, Robin, Sanji, Usopp, Franky
Notes: I’m taking my turn at the Corazon!Law AU because my brain won’t leave me alone until this is written down. Tags will be updated as the chapters come out.
Summary: Law is reclaimed by the Family when he's 17 and, with Doflamingo holding the lives of his crew as collateral for his good behavior, eventually becomes the third Corazon. Years later, trapped by his impossible situation, Law finds a strange connection to Monkey D. Luffy, which offers a glimpse of something he's repeatedly had ripped away from him: hope.
Previous chapters: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13
Read also at AO3 / FF.N
Two Days Ago
Law stood at the helm of the Thousand Sunny, one hand light on the wheel as he watched Dressrosa come into focus. Though Law’s own ship was a submarine, he’d learned how to sail other vessels well enough and directed the Sunny toward the port. The sea, as expected, was calm, so there was little maneuvering he needed to do. With the weather warming up as the ship approached Dressrosa, Law had discarded his coat and rolled up the sleeves of his hoodie, though he was still warm beneath his hat. The ship was eerily quiet, considering whose home she was.
Law glanced down at the hat in his other hand; he could have put it down on the deck alongside his coat and Kikoku, but he hadn’t been able to when the feeling of the worn straw under his fingers was such a stark reminder of those weeks on Amazon Lily two years earlier—where the whole mess Law now found himself had begun.
As Law steered the Sunny into the familiar docks and dropped anchor, the only people greeting him were dock workers, already unwinding ropes in preparation for securing the ship to the dock. Curious. And fortuitous. The last person Law wanted to run into before seeing Doffy was Violet; the less she knew about what Law had gotten into on Punk Hazard, the better for them both. Though she’d obfuscated for him more than once in the past, she’d never outright lied to Doffy for him—and he wouldn’t ask her to, knowing what she was risking. He’d take the small victories where he could find them.
Straw hat still in hand, though with his heavy coat now draped over it, and Kikoku resting in her usual place against his shoulder, Law pocketed his log pose and hopped down from the ship. He peered down the docks to see the Polar Tang shining brightly in the late-afternoon sun. His chest gave a twinge at the thought of the ship that had been home for the last decade. Would she be able to take the Hearts to freedom? Or would she be stuck docked in the Dressrosan harbor without a crew to sail her after today?
He shook his head and glanced back at the Thousand Sunny once more, looking for anything out of place. When he saw nothing, he took a breath and turned back toward the city. He raised an eyebrow when he noticed the harbor master hurrying toward him.
“Corazon, sir!” he huffed once he reached Law. “My apologies for not greeting you immediately.”
“It’s fine,” Law said, waving him off.
He really wasn’t in the mood for this, but the harbor master’s mood could be a good indicator of how he would be received in the city; if news from Punk Hazard had reached Dressrosa and Law was walking headfirst into a trap, Doffy likely would have had the harbor master and his workers watching for Law’s arrival and trying to detain him until Doffy himself could arrive. The harbor master, however, like most Dressrosans, was too terrified of the executives to lie to their faces—even on order of the king. That he didn’t seem to be hiding any ulterior motives was a positive sign.
“Shall I call a carriage to bring you back to the palace?”
“I’ll walk,” Law said, talking a few steps up the dock.
“Are you sure?” the harbor master asked, falling in step with him. “It’s no trouble and would be faster.”
Law leveled a stare at the man, and he quavered. “O-of course, I didn’t mean to challenge you, sir.” He swallowed before nodding at the Sunny. “And this ship?”
Law forced his lips into a smirk. “A trophy from a defeated pirate crew. Keep it in good shape until the king can inspect it.”
Doffy loved keeping trophies, from plundered goods and hijacked ships to defeated crews themselves—many of whom turned into merchandise—from his many victories, so the harbor master didn’t so much as blink at the explanation.
“Of course, Corazon.”
They’d reached the end of the docks, and the harbor master bowed Law out into the city before turning back to the dock workers and yelling orders at them.
Law strode the familiar streets of the city toward the palace, ignoring the eyes and murmured whispers of his title by the Dressrosan citizens and the toys as he passed; Law always drew a fair amount of attention when he was out, considering his status as second to the king. Being watched didn’t mean Doffy knew what had happened. He forced his tense shoulders down as he walked. He was returning from a straight-forward mission, as he had hundreds of times before. There was nothing different about today.
Pushing aside his paranoia, Law trekked the familiar streets until he reached the palace. The grounds were quiet as he stepped through the gates, and he licked his lips. He was used to the palace being busy, members of the Family and servants alike scurrying around the grounds at all hours of the day. In the late afternoon, he’d expect to see preparations being made for dinner, but, as he walked toward the courtyard, he only saw a few figures moving about in the distance.
“Ah, Corazon!”
Law started as Rosalie, Doffy’s personal aide, came hurrying out of a side hallway. Forcing his expression neutral, he nodded at her.
“The Young Master asked me to find you once you arrived. He’s waiting in his office.”
Law nodded for Rosalie to lead the way, and she turned on her heel to head back into the palace. As they walked, Law considered whether he was more or less likely to be ambushed in Doffy’s office. On the one hand, it held fewer people, which meant fewer enemies for Law to fend off in the case of an attack. On the other hand, it was more isolated from the rest of the palace, meaning fewer people would know what was happening—not that Law would find himself with many allies in the palace if he was outed as a traitor to the Family.
He shook his head; there was no point in catastrophizing until he assessed what information Doffy had. Instead, he addressed Rosalie. As Doffy’s personal aide, she was aware of more goings on in the palace than most, as she was regularly required to track down Family members on short notice for the king.
“The grounds are quiet. Where is everyone?”
She looked back at him to acknowledge that he’d spoken before returning her gaze forward as she strode forward with purpose. “I believe Trebol is with Sugar. Diamante is at the Colosseum, making preparations for the upcoming tournament. I believe Machvise is with him. Pica is at the training grounds, drilling soldiers,” she said, ticking off executives with her fingers. “Dellinger is at the beach with Jora and Lao G. Señor Pink and Gladius left for a mission this morning. Buffalo and Baby 5 went to the market an hour ago. Violet retired to the library after lunch.”
Law nodded, the tension in his shoulders easing a bit. None of that seemed unusual and explained why the grounds were as quiet as they were.
Once they reached Doffy’s office, Rosalie knocked on the door and waited for the king’s call to enter. She ducked inside to inform him of Law’s arrival. A few moments later, she stepped back into the hallway and gestured Law inside.
Law took a steadying breath then strode past Rosalie into the office, suppressing a flinch as the door shut behind him. Doffy sat at his desk, papers spread out in front of him and a pen in hand. Law stepped forward but remained just outside of Doffy’s wingspan—not that it really mattered with his strings. He could have Law trapped with no more than a thought. Law’s fingers itched to activate a Room, but he knew that would only give him away. Instead, he did his best to wrap himself in the cloak that was Corazon, second in command to a Warlord and a king.
Even Corazon, however, knew to wait until Doffy was ready (having learned that lesson the hard way), so he waited. Once Doffy finished signing a document, he put his pen down and looked up at Law. He crossed his arms and tilted his head.
“Welcome back, Corazon.”
Law was unable to read anything in his expression or vocal tone so pressed forward. “Thank you, Young Master.”
“I trust you ran into no further complications?”
Law quirked his lips into one of his trademark smirks. “Of course not. I even brought presents. One is in the harbor.”
Doffy chuckled, a deep, pleased sound that rumbled lightly throughout the small room. “I heard.” Of course he had. “Very impressive. What else?”
Law pulled the straw hat out from under his coat and tossed it onto Doffy’s desk. Doffy froze as he realized what had landed in front of him.
“A trophy,” Law said. “From the head of one of the Worst Generation.”
“Take it, Torao. If it’ll make Mingo believe I’m dead, then take it.”
“Straw Hat-ya, I can’t take this.”
“Shishishi, I know you’ll give it back. I trust you!”
“This hat—” Doffy murmured, turning the worn thing over in his hands, the straw crinkling in the quiet between the two pirates. Doffy looked up sharply at Law. “Do you know who this hat belonged to?” At Law’s frown, Doffy shook his head. “Never mind,” he said, voice gentling. “This is quite the prize.”
Law blinked and caught the hat on instinct when Doffy tossed it back to him.
“You defeated its wearer, my Corazon. It is your trophy.” His lips twitched. “Though I think your own hat suits you better.”
Law snorted. “Not a lot of use for a straw hat in the North.” And Law was, at his core, a child of the North Blue—of winter islands and warfare.
“Indeed.”
“Was there anything else?” Law asked, raising an eyebrow. Impertinence was one of his defining traits, after all.
Doffy waved him off, already looking back toward the paperwork in front of him. “Dinner’s in an hour. Get yourself cleaned up.”
Law gave a shallow bow then turned to leave. Presenting his back to Doffy was one of the hardest things he’d done in a long time, but he forced himself to offer that vulnerability, since, if nothing were wrong, Doffy at his back would be no threat. Breath caught in his throat, Law headed out of Doffy’s office, part of him waiting to be impaled with an onslaught of strings…
But it never came.
He let out the breath he’d been holding when the door shut behind him and very nearly slumped against the wall. But the walls had eyes in the palace, so Law instead straightened his spine and headed to his chambers. He wanted nothing more than to make a direct line to the Hearts’ wing of the palace to check in with his crew, but with the distance he’d kept from them in the previous years, doing so would look out of character.
He encountered only a few servants as he headed for his room. Once he shut the door behind him, he leaned back against it tiredly and ran a hand over his face. He hadn’t been locked up in Seastone and thrown in the dungeon yet, so that was a good sign. Maybe, just maybe, he could get his crew out after all. They’d be on the run, but that would be better than the prison they found themselves in now—and they had allies.
Law dropped his coat on his bed and rested Kikoku on top of it. He placed the straw hat on his desk and pulled his Den Den Mushi from his coat pocket. He put the snail on the desk next to the hat then went into the bathroom, as if to wash up; instead, he activated a Room. He Scanned for the surveillance snail in the vents that kept an eye on his room and, with a quick Shambles, switched it with a snail he’d set up years earlier to broadcast a recorded feed of his empty room. Now it would simply appear that Law was in the shower. He’d found the surveillance snail immediately after he’d moved into the palace at seventeen, though he had no idea how often Doffy checked the feed nearly a decade later. The snail had never been removed, though, so Law worked under the assumption that the Warlord regularly monitored it to be safe.
Law then stepped back into the bedroom and went over to his desk. He pulled out a scrap of paper and scribbled a note: After dinner. Crew meeting. He folded it and pushed his Room in the direction of the Hearts’ quarters until he found Bepo’s room. The bear wasn’t in the room at the moment, but that was not unusual at this time of day. Law switched his note with pen on Bepo’s desk then retracted his Room once more.
That done, he turned to his Den Den Mushi and dialed. He only had to wait two rings before the other side picked up.
“Torao, it’s about time!”
“I told you to give me until nightfall to check in, Straw Hat-ya,” Law snapped, glancing out the window at the late afternoon sun. “I’m early.”
“But it’s boooooring on your ship,” Luffy whined.
Law rolled his eyes. Before arriving in Dressrosa, he’d come up with a plan to sneak the Straw Hats in without them being noticed. Because Doffy had eyes on all the ships coming into and going out of the harbor, it was imperative the Straw Hats stay out of sight as the ship approached. They would stay below deck as Law steered the Thousand Sunny into the harbor.
Then, while Law then checked in with Doflamingo at the palace, pretending the Sunny was a conquest of their fight, the Straw Hats would use their submersible to make their way to the Polar Tang; Doffy would undoubtedly have his men examining the Sunny to see what Law had brought him, so it would be a poor hiding place. The Tang, however, was generally left alone except for some basic maintenance, meaning she would be safe for the Straw Hats to hide out in until Law could contact them with an update and to decide their next move. He’d left them with a hand-drawn map of the palace as well as a rough map of the city itself for them to study while they waited.
Luffy had protested, wanting to see the city and, naturally, try the local cuisine, but his crew had reminded him that they were all supposed to be dead; being recognized would put Law and his nakama in danger, and—after his suggestion that they go into the city in disguises was thoroughly shot down—that had quieted his complaints.
Mostly.
“Boring?” Franky called, affronted, from somewhere in the background. “This ship is super! I want to know everything about her, Tra-bro!”
Law sighed. “Please tell Robo-ya to refrain from destroying my ship before we leave Dressrosa.”
“We’ll rein him in, Torao-kun,” Robin promised, though there was humor in her voice. “What happened with Doflamingo?”
“Mm, yeah. What happened with Mingo?” Luffy echoed. It sounded like he was moving around the Den Den Mushi, likely bursting with pent up energy. Law only hoped his ship would survive the Straw Hats’ cyborg and its bored captain.
“He seemed to take my report at face value,” Law said. “But there’s no telling when he’ll hear from his sources in the Marines about what happened. We’ll still need to move quickly.”
“When do I get to kick his ass?” Luffy asked. Several of the Straw Hats groaned in the background.
“That’s not the point of this, Luffy,” Robin reminded him, not unkindly. “The goal is to get Torao-kun and his nakama out of Dressrosa unnoticed.”
“We’re trying to avoid a fight with a Warlord, Luffy!” Usopp added, a tinge of panic in his voice.
“Fine,” Luffy grumbled.
“I’m expected at dinner with the Family this evening,” Law said, breaking in. “If I skip it, it’ll raise suspicions.”
Luffy whooped in excitement at the thought of food, and Sanji snapped that he’d brought food from the Sunny, which only made the younger captain more excited.
Law grimaced, wondering not for the first time why the mysterious pull in his chest had brought him to these people. He knew the Family was its own type of ridiculous, but the Straw Hats took that to a whole other level. Why did he think he could entrust something as important as his nakama’s lives to them?
“I’ll see my nakama after dinner and contact you then,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Good luck,” Robin said over her chaotic crewmates.
“Same to you,” Law replied then hung up.
For a moment, he stared at the snail then at the hat on the desk next to it. This was a terrible idea, but Law was already in too deep to turn back now.
After a quick shower to wash off the travel and battle from the last two days, Law changed into a clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt then switched the surveillance snail back to the one with live feed and dropped his Room. Pulling his hat on, he glanced at Kikoku but decided not to bring her to dinner; he didn’t usually walk around the palace grounds with the nodachi in hand. His head was starting to ache—the concussion symptoms, while improving, were still bothering him—so he took some painkillers before heading to the dining room.
Though Law was on edge, dinner was a standard Family affair. The only executives not present were Señor Pink and Gladius, who were off the island. Law easily fell into his typical standoffish self, meandering into the dining room a couple of minutes late and sliding into his seat with an insincere smirk. Doffy, who was in the middle of a discussion with Trebol, merely raised an eyebrow at him, and Law shrugged. Doffy huffed once before turning back to Trebol.
Law rarely invited conversation at meals, though Baby 5 wanted to tell anyone who would listen—and for some reason, she thought Law was listening—about the wares she’d found at the market. Law ignored her, picking at his plate without much enthusiasm. The food, as always, was excellent—Doffy had high expectations of those who worked for him; Law’s stomach was simply tied in knots. It was a good thing Law rarely finished his meals, so his lack of appetite tonight didn’t appear unusual.
More than once, Law looked up to see Violet trying to catch his eye from several seats down the table. Law shook his head minutely and looked back down at his plate. He didn’t need to get her involved in this.
Law started when he felt a smack on his arm. He rubbed it with a frown at Baby 5. “What was that for?”
“Are you even listening to me, Corazon?”
Law snorted. “Of course not.”
Baby narrowed her eyes. “You’re such a jerk,” she muttered.
“Don’t act so surprised, Baby,” Law replied, lips twitching. It was easy enough to fall into this familiar pattern of banter with her.
She sighed dramatically. “You have been a jerk since you were ten.”
Law rested his chin on his hand, angling himself toward her slightly. “You want me to hear about your day, but you didn’t even ask me how my mission went.”
She scrunched up her nose then sighed resignedly. “How did your mission go, Corazon?”
Law shrugged, turning back to the table. “Fine.”
“You asshole!” she squawked, whacking him in the arm again. “Did you get rid of all your manners with your spots?”
Law gaped at her a moment before laughing in surprise. He would miss this; Baby was one of the only members of the Family he cared about. She’d been one of the few things that made his return to the Family tolerable.
“Just my people skills.” He picked up a piece of silverware from the table. “I still know a salad fork from a dessert fork.”
The rest of their conversation was cut short as Doffy pushed back from the table and rose. He nodded at the members of the Family gathered around the table.
“The rest of the night is yours. I have work to attend to.” He glanced to the side. “Pica, Machvise, a word in my office.”
As the summoned executives stood to follow Doffy from the dining room, Law pushed himself away from the table and headed for the hallway. He had a few things he needed from his room before meeting with his crew so headed that way; he could have just opened a Room and summoned them, but something told him to reserve his stamina for now.
He was about halfway to his chambers when he stopped. “What do you want, Violet?” He turned to see her turning a corner to face him.
She crossed her arms. “Why were you ignoring me at dinner?”
Law suppressed a sigh. “Because I’m an asshole.”
“True, but that’s not it. Try again.”
“I have a lot on my mind. Now, if you’ll excuse me—” Law started to turn back toward his room. He knew he was being unfair to her, but he didn’t want her reading him. Not today.
“Corazon, stop. Something is going on with you.”
Law turned back to her, jaw clenched. “Violet, don’t.”
“I can just read you to find out,” she threatened, lifting her hands.
Law grabbed her wrists before her hands could reach her face. “Don’t.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Let go.”
“Don’t try to read me, Violet,” Law practically growled. “I mean it. Not this time.”
She let out a huff then nodded. “Fine. Now let go.”
He released her wrists, and she rubbed her left wrist absently. “Something happened on your mission.”
Law chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment before agreeing, “Yes.”
“What can I do?”
He blinked at her in surprise. “What?”
“If you’re in trouble, let me help.”
Law shook his head. She’d been trying to help him almost since he arrived in Dressrosa, and now the only way he could repay her was to keep her out of this mess. She had her father and niece to think about.
“Not for this one.”
“But—”
“Let it go, Violet.” Then he did open a Room and Shamble himself into his chambers, leaving a pen in his place in the hallway.
Years of practice with his powers allowed him to avoid landing awkwardly on his desk, and he dropped to the floor. He opened a drawer in his desk and pushed aside the items inside. He pressed on the right spot, and the false bottom opened. He reached in and grabbed the papers inside then replaced the false bottom and shut the drawer. He spread the papers out on his desk: blueprints of the castle. Violet had once mentioned that there was a secret passageway in the castle that only the Riku family knew about. She hadn’t revealed its location, though, and Law hadn’t asked.
If he could find that on the blueprints now, perhaps he could use it to get his crew out without being detected. He leaned over the paper with a frown, looking for anything that looked out of place or that he didn’t recognize. He could have asked her in the hallway just now, but he didn’t want what he was looking for getting back to Doflamingo—not before he and his nakama were gone, anyway.
He was so focused on the blueprints that he was taken by surprise when his door slammed open, rattling on its hinges. Law jerked upright but didn’t have a chance to react before a wave of mucus slammed him into the far wall. Law’s head slammed back against the wall. His vision darkened, and his body went slack, air leaving his lungs in a sharp exhale.
Goddamn concussion, he thought blearily as the world slowly started coming back into focus in front of him. His doctor side was distantly outraged at the battering his brain was taking, but the rest of him—the part in the here and now—was just trying to breathe.
As he came back to his senses, the first thing he recognized was that he was being held upright against the wall by Trebol’s mucus. Gross.
The shapes in front of him slowly materialized into Trebol and Diamante standing in his doorway.
“What the fuck, Trebol?” Law growled, though his voice lacked the power he wanted to put behind it.
“That’s what we should be asking you, Corazon.”
Law’s stomach dropped as Doffy entered the room behind his two executives. Law could feel the anger radiating off him.
He knows, Law realized. I wasn’t fast enough, and he knows. Fuck.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Law said, glancing around to assess his options. Though the mucus was holding him to the wall, his lower arms were free, so he could still form a Room. Kikoku was on the bed, but he could summon her with a Room.
He just had to do it at the right moment.
Doffy paused at Law’s desk and looked down at the papers. “Blueprints of the castle?” He turned back to Law. “And how did you get your hands on these?” Then he shook his head. “Never mind. I know how resourceful you are. And why would you need blueprints of the castle? Looking for an escape route?”
“Escape? Because that’s gone so well for me in the past,” Law scoffed, though he knew it wasn’t lost on Doffy that he’d side-stepped the question.
“I just heard from some sources in the Marines,” Doffy said, resuming his approach into Law’s space. “You’ll never believe who they have in custody.”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
Law winced as a string sliced through his cheek. It was a shallow cut, but blood dripped down the side of his face. A warning.
“Monet and Caesar,” Doffy said, tilting his head as he looked down at Law. “And I can’t imagine how that could be when you told me you saw them this morning, Corazon.”
Law licked his lips, hating the way he had to look up at the Warlord. “I did see them this morning.” That wasn’t a lie. He’d just… withheld the condition he’d seen them in. “If they were careless enough to get arrested after I left, that’s not on me.”
Another string sliced through Law’s cheek, this one a bit deeper, just below the first cut.
Doffy leaned over to whisper in Law’s ear, “I’d be very careful of what you say next.” The temperature dropping with Doffy’s icy words.
Law swallowed but remained silent. Doffy could probably feel the racing of his heart at this proximity.
“I’m only going to ask once. Did you see Vergo on Punk Hazard?”
“I thought Vergo was here.” Which was true—he had thought that, until Vergo had shown his face on the Straw Hats’ ship the day before.
Doffy straightened and, eyes never leaving Law’s, pulled a Den Den Mushi from his coat. He dialed a number from memory.
The discarded coat on Law’s bed started to ring.
Law cursed silently. He’d completely forgotten to get rid of Vergo’s Den Den Mushi. He’d planned to look it over on the trip from Punk Hazard, but he’d gotten distracted by making plans to get the Straw Hats into Dressrosa, and the snail had remained untouched in his pocket.
Doffy finally tore his gaze from Law and went over to the bed. He grabbed Law��s coat and dug around until he found the buzzing snail. Law’s own Den Den Mushi was on his desk and silent, cutting off that potential excuse.
“This is Vergo’s Den Den Mushi.”
“I…”
“Vergo’s dead,” Doffy said, the snail still ringing in his hand. Doffy’s voice remained low, and Law had, from his childhood, found Doffy’s restrained fury far more terrifying than when the man lost his cool. “His heart had been removed from his chest and squeezed.”
Law was well and truly fucked.
Deciding he had nothing to lose, he flexed his fingers ever-so-slightly in preparation to open a Room—
Then cried out as a blade impaled itself through the palm of his right hand.
It took a moment for his abused brain to register why, other than the pain, this was such a problem.
It was his dominant hand.
The one he used to wield Kikoku.
The one he used to control his Fruit.
The one he led with in surgery.
Oh.
Oh.
“Nuh uh,” Diamante said from the other end of his waving blade. “No tricks, boy.”
“Nene, Corazon. Don’t surgeons need their hands?” Trebol chuckled.
Law made a choked sound as Diamante pulled the blade out. His thoughts spun as his hand dripped blood to the carpet beneath him. He’d felt worse pain than this—nothing he’d experienced had been worse than the final stages of Amber Lead Disease—but this was his hand.
“I can do the other one, Doffy. Make sure he can’t pull anything,” Diamante offered.
“No,” Doffy said, eyeing Law. “He’s no good to me if he can’t use his Fruit.”
Trebol’s mucus retreated, and Law fell forward. Without thinking, he reached out with his hands to catch himself then crumpled into a heap with a cry, hand coming to his chest as an electric shock jolted from his hand through his entire arm. The breath caught in his throat and the room around him fuzzed.
He’d failed.
He’d failed as an executive.
He’d failed as an ally.
He’d failed as a surgeon.
He’d failed as a captain.
He’d failed as a friend.
He’d failed Cora-san.
He barely registered the snapping of Seastone restraints around his wrists, the little strength he had left draining from his body as he went limp on the floor.
From somewhere above him, Doffy spoke, though Law couldn’t make out the words. He winced but didn’t struggle as Trebol and Diamante each grabbed one of his arms. The two executives dragged him bodily down the hallways of the palace, his feet trailing limply behind him. In his peripheral vision, he caught Violet’s shocked expression as the procession passed.
Law grimaced as they reached the stairs to the dungeon but didn’t have the strength to try to get his feet under him, so his legs thumped against each stone step as he was taken down. At the bottom, Trebol and Diamante exchanged a few words with the guard then followed him to what Law assumed was one of the Seastone cells. The guard opened the door, and Law was pulled into the cell and shoved against the wall, forcing the breath from his lungs. The chain between his wrist shackles was hooked above Law’s head before all the figures retreated.
Law slumped forward in defeat.
But he jerked upright at a familiar voice.
“Captain?”
Next chapter
#This kind of exploded on me#trafalgar law#Donquixote Doflamingo#Caitlin's fic#One Piece fanfic#One Piece fanfiction
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hh im kinda new to this so i hope it's okay! how would bubba, billy and stu (poly if that's okay?) and brahms react to having like, a super affectionate s/o who often shys away when she thinks shes being too clingy? thank u! love ur stuff!! ♡
U are an angle, omg thank uuuu
Also, I know that life, bro. Got long, so it’s under the cut~
(...Assuming ‘the cut’ doesn’t decide to not work on mobile. For the fifth time.)
Bubba
He can’t get enough affection ever-- even if he’s mid-kill and you’re like “Bubba, I’m gonna kiss you.” he’ll stop dead in his tracks and get that much needed love from you.
It’s probably not Bubba who makes you feel like you’re being clingy, but his brothers. Drayton and Chop-Top especially: sometimes they can get a little too harsh.
Usually Bubba isn’t one to initiate physical affection, so if you suddenly stop touching him, he'll just be plain confused.
He’ll follow you around and grab the back of your clothes, but he won’t even imply that he’s asking anything. Even if you ask him “What?” he’ll just stare at you nervously and try to figure out how to show what he wants to ask without embarrassing himself, which usually just ends in you turning away to return to what you were doing.
The thing he struggles the most with initiating is holding hands, funnily enough: he doesn’t mind coming up behind you to hug you or petting your hair (given the right atmosphere), but trying to hold your hand is nerve-wracking for him.
He’ll think you’re upset with him, that maybe he did something wrong and you don’t like him anymore-- like I’ve said before, he’s quick to catastrophize. He’s just like a kicked puppy.
If he can get the nerve, he’ll slip his hand into your’s and just. Wait for you to say something, anything.
Billy+Stu (Ghostface)
Both of these boys are kind of clingy themselves, Stu especially.
Billy is more likely to act cool and collected, but he’s totally freaking out (in a good way) internally. He’ll never complain about you being sweet on him.
It probably grosses out their friends how lovey-dovey you three can be. Billy will tell you to ignore them, Stu will call them jealous-- that’s always how it goes.
Maybe one time Stu pulls away from an embrace too fast or he rushes out of bed and forgets to say anything to the extent of “I’ll be right back, I love you, I’ll miss you” or whatever. Or that happens multiple times in a row. Since Stu is so affectionate in the first place, it’s kind of off-putting when he just. Isn’t affectionate?
Billy gives off a certain vibe. That vibe being “back tf off.” He’s got resting bitch face, so. Ya know.
They won’t notice at first-- it’s a three-person relationship, so it can be a bit hard to pick something up when 2/3 people are acting like usual. The boys are probably just as cuddly as usual too with each other, so. It can certainly feel like being a... Third wheel in a two-person relationship.
They’ll only notice after you cancel two dates in a row, at which point they will more or less force their way into talking with you. These dumbasses will absolutely use the phrase “Can we talk about something?” before pulling you aside to show their genuine concern.
Even if you’re not a crier (God, what’s that like? Is it nice?), they’ll act like you are when you’re explaining why you have been withdrawing your affection. Even if you’re more than emotionally alright by the time the conversation is over, you’ll end up at Stu’s place to be Held(TM).
(Honestly, the boys can be quick to forget what your specific brand of presence+touch is like, so they’re just. In heaven. When you’re being affectionate again.)
Brahms
This boy is touch-starved. He almost melts into any physical attention he gets. He craves attention in general.
It’ll take him a while to notice that you’re not returning his touch. Because he will seriously press himself to you that much. Plus, he has no shame when it comes to asking for affection, though he usually just does it in one word: “hug?” or “kiss.”
(Sidenote: “kiss” is almost always a demand, whereas “hug” is almost always a request.)
He will notice if you start to avoid him. Pretty immediately. After all, it takes conscious effort to do it: going outside more often, shutting and/or locking doors, going into rooms that don’t connect to the crawlspace, etc.
As such, he’ll basically. Talk to you within the day. He doesn’t like being seen when he’s speaking, however, so he’ll ask why you’re avoiding him from outside the closed door of a room you’re in.
He’d be very intentional in every word he says-- in the last several hours this has been happening, he’s been thinking over what exactly to say and he’s wound down from being so annoyed he’s almost angry to genuinely afraid you’re going to leave him.
Being violent didn’t work with Greta, so he imagines it wouldn’t work with you either-- what worked with Greta was standing outside the door and asking her why she wasn’t following the rules. So that’s what he’ll do with you too.
If you just unlock the door and head back to sit down, he’ll immediately come over and practically envelope you in a hug. First, he’ll move your hands to hold him. If you’re still hesitant about actually touching him, he’ll just say “Please. Hold me.” in the quietest little voice-- his adult voice, which he specifically doesn’t like using.
If he’s having a particularly bad day (as in his behavior is just terrible) or if his first attempt doesn’t convince you, he might just forgo all this and wait until you’re moving between rooms before holding you so tightly it hurts-- which is very much his intention. And he’ll very lowly ask you-- not even in his child voice, which is honestly the main way you know he’s serious and that a situation may be dangerous-- “what exactly is it you think you’re doing?” or something along those lines. Note that he’s holding you so tightly that it’s hard to breathe, so you probably can’t respond either.
This whole encounter is basically a warning from him-- he’s one entitled little bastard and sometimes it can come from nowhere. He’ll then release his grip and act like nothing happened, then ask for you to hug him-- most likely by stretching his arms out and tilting his head, not actually saying anything verbally.
If you reject him there, he will pause for a second before starting to sob. Whether it’s real or not is up for debate, but he doesn’t exactly know what to do at that point. He doesn’t want to hurt you, frankly-- the thought of getting angry and hurting you scares him.
Hopefully, you’re holding him by now, because otherwise he’s going to be wailing the entire night-- again, whether it’s real or not is up for debate. At worst, he’ll intentionally hurt himself so that you’ll touch him.
#bubba sawyer#bubba x reader#bubba sawyer x reader#billy loomis#billy loomis x reader#stu macher#stu macher x reader#stu x reader x billy#brahms heelshire#brahms the boy#brahms x reader#brahms heelshire x reader#slasher imagines#slasher headcanons#slasher x reader#you can tell i got more and more into it as I went akdsklafldsjfl
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these fools need to learn communication
for @figurative-siren-song‘s Thing!! credits to the fabulous @main-chive and @an-absolute-failure for betaing ( ˘ ³˘)♥ ( ˘ ³˘)♥
Summary: I think the title says it all tbh
Warnings: alcohol mention, insecurity, catastrophizing, Virgil panics some + doesn’t have good self care habits, one (1) curse word, Remus is mentioned
Wordcount: just a little under 6k
Additional note!! The section that begins with “Remy and Janus are cuddling on Remy’s bed...” is a repeat of the previous scene, but from another POV
Virgil is so tired. It feels like every day there’s some new crisis to deal with or important thing to discuss, and he just wants a couple days to himself to unwind a bit.
But since he can’t get that, he wants a few hours to gripe with someone over everything that’s been going down lately.
Roman is way too dramatic for his tastes, and Patton would probably be too nice about what’s happening. So he goes to Logan. (He briefly toys with the idea of going to one of the Others, but things are… tense with them, so he discards it quickly.)
“Yes?” Logan asks, opening the door to their room.
“I was wondering if you, uh, wanted to complain with me about all the stuff that’s been happening lately? There’s been a lot, and you’ve probably had to deal with more of it than me, and I thought you might like to commiserate? It’s chill if you don’t want to, though,” Virgil says, shifting awkwardly.
“You are welcome to join us.” Logan opens the door wider and steps to the side.
“Us?” Virgil echoes, confused, until he goes inside and sees Janus sitting in a beanbag chair, swirling a wine glass idly. “Oh.”
“Lovely to see you too, Virgil,” fae says dryly.
Virgil scrunches up his nose and wonders if getting to complain about all the recent shenanigans is worth spending time in faer company. Janus mimics the expression—is fae mocking him?—and holds up a bottle of wine, shaking it a little to show that it’s still mostly full. Virgil sighs, shrugs, and conjures a plain beanbag and wine glass, collapsing into the former and holding out the latter to Janus. Fae obligingly fills it, and Virgil leans back in his beanbag, sipping it as Logan sits down.
“So what’re we talking about?” Virgil asks.
“Y’know the other day when…”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Virgil squints at Remy.
“Not to be rude,” Logan begins, but Virgil cuts them off.
“What are you doing here?” He demands.
“Real welcoming, Virgil,” Janus remarks snidely.
“He’s intruding on our thing!”
“Yes, and it’s not like you intruded on our thing only a month ago and we were hospitable, right? You totally have the right to snap at Remy.”
“Shut up.”
“Y’all are gossiping, babes,” Remy says. “Why wouldn’t I be here?”
Virgil opens his mouth to protest automatically, then finds that that’s a fair point. Remy does love gossip. He shuts his mouth reluctantly.
“Welcome to the group, Remy,” Janus declares, overexaggerating faer words and smirking at Virgil. He makes a mocking face back but doesn’t comment, crossing his arms as Janus conjures up a beanbag chair for Remy. The little pest. Now everyone but Virgil has a beanbag chair rather than a plain beanbag; this was absolutely deliberate.
Virgil scowls at Janus and sinks further down into his beanbag, letting the conversation flow around him without paying attention to what’s being said. Whatever; at least his seat isn’t a specific shape and therefore can be squished into a different position or turned upside down and still be the same. See any of them try to do that with their chair-shaped beanbags, only good for one shape and if you wanted to shift positions you had to make do with what you had, instead of adjusting the beanbag.
“Virgil?” Logan asks.
“Wh—yeah?”
“Are you alright?”
Virgil pushes himself more upright and sits on his hands. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You sure, babes?” Remy tilts his head down to look over his sunglasses at him.
“Yeah.” Virgil forces a smile. “Just… need to readjust my beanbag.” He stands up and flips it over, squishing it in a few spaces until it’s like he wants. The other three watch him in silence, making the affair at least twice as awkward as it would’ve been if they’d ignored him. Virgil sits back down, face red. “What’re we talking about?”
“These two were telling me about something that happened with Roman yesterday?” Remy says.
“Oh my gosh,” Virgil groans. “Okay, what do you already know?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a crisis, Virgil is having a crisis, a dilemma, a predicament, an emergency; sound the alarms, clang the warning bell, and gather the troops, Virgil has a crush.
This shouldn’t be happening! Not allowed! He’s too emotionally unstable to handle it and will mostly likely make a fool out of himself. Which is also absolutely not allowed.
And! The crush is on Janus, which is yet another not allowed thing. Last Virgil checked, he was still just tolerating faer presence, not getting a crush on faer. That’s just plain rude of his brain, please take it back he doesn’t want it.
He looks up at his ceiling, since that’s as far back as Virgil can roll his eyes without being in pain. Okay, he’s staring his brain down, and he’ll stop having a crush in three, two, one—
He pauses, thinks of Janus, groans. That didn’t work. And to be honest he didn’t really expect it to, but it still? would’ve been nice? if his brain could work with him for once??
Virgil sighs and flops backwards.
Okay, if demanding his brain stop having a crush didn’t work, maybe he can just… avoid faer. Maybe it’s just infatuation or something—doesn’t infatuation happen right after you meet someone? His brain asks. Shut up, he tells it—and if he stays away for a few days it’ll go away. That’s probably it.
He glances over at his minifridge and small hoard of non-perishables and mentally calculates. He’s got enough for about a week, that should be plenty enough time.
Virgil waves his hand and his door locks. There. Now he can just. sit around and avoid thinking about Janus until this crush/infatuation/whatever-it-is goes away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is great, Remy is having a great time, get some bells to ring and a rooftop for him to shout off, because Remy has a crush.
To be accurate, he has three: on Janus, Virgil, and Logan. He isn’t exactly sure when they started, only that he just now realized he has them, but he’s definitely not complaining.
He’s also definitely not going to sit around and pine silently for them or something. If he’s going to get rejected, better to get it over with and work on healing than let himself think there might be a chance for however long. (And, yeah, it would definitely hurt, if one or all of them didn’t like him—hurt a lot—but he’s ignoring that part.) And the revelation is giving him an extra burst of confidence (and it’s not like he didn’t already have that in spades) so he’s going to shoot his shot as soon as possible.
His brain decides the most efficient way to confess to the three of them is to wander around the mindscape until he finds them, so he does that until he bumps into Logan.
“Logan,” Remy declares. “I’m gay.”
“Yes,” Logan says, pulling out their flashcards and flipping through a few of them before pulling one out and showing it to him. “‘We been knew’ that, Remy.”
“Nice,” Remy compliments, throwing an arm around their shoulders. “But you see, my dear nerd, I’m gay for you.” He pokes their chest for emphasis.
Logan turns bright red and alternates between wordlessly gaping and stammering so hard Remy can’t make out anything they’re trying to say. They extract themself from Remy’s arm and smooth out their tie, their blush toning down only slightly.
“I… will have to think on this,” Logan says finally, which Remy interprets as Logan for ‘too gay rn; need some time to calm down and consider my feelings’.
“Cool; take all the time you need,” Remy tells them, flashing them a peace sign. “I’m gonna go find Janus and Virgil, see you in a bit.”
“Alright,” Logan says, and Remy takes that as his cue to wander off in search of his other two crushes.
The next one he runs into is Janus, who he immediately tells “I’m gay.”
“No,” fae snarks. “I thought you were straight.”
Remy gasps and scoffs offendedly (at the same time, because his need to be Dramatic™ at all times overrides any petty things like biology, especially when he’s been teased).
“Well, I was going to say I’m gay for you,” Remy tells faer, pressing a hand to his chest. “But if we’re on such a disconnect I’m just not sure anymore.”
“No, wait!” Janus says. “I’m gay for you too, darling, please.”
Remy immediately decides that any pet names for him are illegal; his face has no right blushing like that just because Janus called him ‘darling’. He covers his face, hoping that’ll hide the blush.
“Fine,” he mutters.
“What was that?” Janus smirks. “I couldn’t hear you through your hands, darling.” Fae gently takes his wrists and pulls his hands down. “There’s your gorgeous face.”
“Rude,” Remy huffs.
“But you’re gay for me anyway,” Janus purrs.
“I regret telling you that.”
“No you don’t.”
“No I don’t,” Remy sighs. “You wanna be boyfriends? Or partners or something, if you don’t want to use ‘boyfriends’?”
“I would love that,” Janus smiles.
“Great, me too.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Logan knocks on Remy’s door.
“Come in!”
Logan walks in, sees Remy and Janus cuddling together, puts two and two together and gets four. Oh, they think, they’re dating.
Logan walks in, sees Remy and Janus cuddling together, and squares the twos instead of adding them. I took too long to answer, they assume. Remy must’ve gotten bored or didn’t want to wait and got with Janus instead.
“Oh,” they say. “My apologies. I’ll leave you two be.” They turn to leave.
“Wait, babes,” Remy says. Logan turns to see him stretching out a hand towards them. “What’d you need?”
“I did not need something, per se,” Logan mumbles. “However, I was going to accept Remy’s implied proposition, though it seems I misinterpreted it.”
“Hon, speak up, I can barely hear you,” Remy tells them. “And use less nerd talk; what I could hear I couldn’t understand.”
Logan sighs. “I interpreted your informing me that you are gay for me as you indirectly asking me to be in a relationship with you, but it seems that was a misstep on my part. If you don’t mind, I’ll be taking my leave now before I embarrass myself further.”
“Wait, why do you think I don’t want to be in a relationship with you?” Remy asks.
“It appears that you are dating Janus?” Logan says. “Did I misinterpret that as well?”
“No, we’re dating, but I wanna date you too,” Remy tells them. “If you don’t like Janus like that you don’t have to date faer, as long as you’re cool with sharing me.”
Logan blushes. “That would be satisfactory.”
“Janus?” Remy looks over to faer.
“I’m fine sharing,” Janus says.
“Actually,” Logan admits, blushing harder. “I feel I should confess that I harbor romantic feelings for you as well, Janus—and Virgil too, while I’m admitting these things—though if you do not wish to be in a romantic relationship with me then I am perfectly content to be metamours with you.”
“I’m certainly not opposed to dating you,” Janus tells them.
“So we’re all dating each other, then?” Remy asks.
“It certainly seems that way,” Logan answers, at the same time Janus says, “Yes.”
“Great.” Remy grins. “Come join the ‘yay I’ve got new boyfriends’ pile, Logan.” He pats the empty patch of bed beside him. Logan wrinkles their nose fondly and sits beside Remy, who pulls them down to sprawl across his stomach and onto Janus’s lap. Logan squawks, and tries to pull themself back up, but Remy pushes them back down, declaring, “No sitting up allowed.”
Logan snorts and looks over to Janus. Fae leans forward to kiss their forehead and then settles back against Remy’s side.
“Traitors, the both of you,” Logan huffs, though they can’t stop the smile spreading across their face as they say it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Remy and Janus are cuddling on Remy’s bed when someone knocks on the door.
“Come in!” Remy calls. Logan walks in, looks at the two of them.
“Oh, my apologies. I’ll leave you two be.” They turn around. Remy stops them and needles them into admitting that Remy had asked them out—the exact same way he had asked Janus out, fae notes—but that was “a misstep on their part” somehow.
“Wait, why do you think I don’t want to be in a relationship with you?” Remy asks.
“It appears you are dating Janus? Did I misinterpret that as well?”
“No, we’re dating, but I want to date you too,” Remy explains. “If you don’t like Janus like that you don’t have to date faer, as long as you’re cool with sharing me.”
And Janus knows he’s just explaining the situation and Logan’s options, but wow, way to let faer have a say in whether or not fae wants to date Logan or share Remy with them. Fae’s fine with both, but that’s not the point.
“That would be satisfactory.” Logan blushes a pretty shade of pink and unkind thoughts who? Janus doesn’t know them.
“Janus?” Remy looks over to faer, silently asking for faer opinion, and that also helps.
“I’m fine sharing,” Janus confirms.
“Actually,” Logan says, blushing harder and it looks like Janus might just have a new favorite color, wow. “I feel I should confess that I harbor romantic feelings for you as well, Janus—and Virgil too, while I’m admitting these things—though if you do not wish to be in a romantic relationship with me then I am perfectly content to be metamours with you.”
“I’m certainly not opposed to dating you.” Janus grins.
“So we’re all dating each other, then?” Remy asks.
“Yes,” Janus says, while Logan answers with, “It certainly seems that way.”
“Great.” Remy grins. Between that smile and Logan’s blush, Janus just might die from gay. “Come join the ‘yay I’ve got two new boyfriends’ pile, Logan.”
Logan wrinkles their nose—how is faer boyfriend so cute—and sits down. Remy pulls them down on both his and faer laps, and he and Logan struggle briefly.
“No sitting up allowed,” Remy declares, and Logan snickers and looks over to Janus, looking a little like they’re trying to ask for help with their eyes. Janus, being the good boyfriend fae is, kisses their forehead.
“Traitors, the both of you,” Logan accuses, smiling.
“You love us, though,” Remy says.
Logan sighs. “I suppose I do.”
“And,” Remy continues. “You said you like Virgil?”
“Yes,” Logan confirms. “Is that a problem for either of you?”
“None here, babes,” Remy says.
“Here either,” Janus adds. Fae kind of fades out the conversation after that, watching Remy and Logan talk and trying not to let faer negative thoughts get the best of faer.
Because fae can’t help but notice how Logan had confessed to Remy before faer. And Remy had asked Logan out before asking faer out.
And Janus knows they both like faer! They’re all in a relationship! Currently cuddling together!
...Still stings, though. (Fae still feels a little like second place.)
“Janus?”
Fae looks up. “Yeah?”
“What do you think of asking Virgil to join our relationship the day after tomorrow when we do our Thing?” Logan asks.
“Sounds good,” Janus says, smile only a little forced. Fae put faer thoughts firmly aside and rejoins the conversation, enjoying the warmth and comfort of faer boyfriends beside and on top of faer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Logan frowns, tapping their foot anxiously a few times.
“Should we give him another few minutes?” They ask. “It’s already been fifteen.”
“I don’t think he’s coming.” Remy says.
“He’s hidden himself away for a few days before, but he’s never missed our Thing,” Janus points out.
“Yeah.” Remy frowns. “Wonder what’s wrong.”
“Me too,” Logan says.
“You think we should go ask him?” Remy asks.
Logan hums, considering it. If Virgil hadn’t come out for their Thing, whatever was keeping him in his room was serious. “Maybe give him another day or two.”
“Alright.”
Janus grimaces, tapping faer foot rapidly. “Do… do you guys want to do it anyway, even though Virgil’s not here?”
“No,” Logan says immediately, shaking their head.
“Me neither,” Janus sighs, slowing their tapping.
“Lo, I know you said to leave him alone, but do you think we could still give him a note or something?” Remy asks, frowning. “I’m worried.”
“I am as well,” Logan admits. “And I don’t see why not.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Virgil sighs and pulls his headphones off, unplugging them from his phone. His legs are a little achy, which is probably a sign he’s been sitting for too long and needs to stretch or something.
He wanders over to the pub table he’s got in the corner, thinking that could be a good spot to set his phone while he dances to music (no one’s around to judge him, it’s fun, and it’s a good way to stretch his legs, okay?).
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees something white on the ground by the door. Crouching down to examine it, it looks like a piece of paper someone folded in half and shoved under the door. Frowning in confusion, he unfolds it.
“Hey, Virgil!” it reads. “It’s been a few days since you emerged from your room and we’re a little worried. Hope you’re alright! Missed you at the Thing today.” It’s signed by Janus, Remy and Logan, though scribbled to the side is the addition, “Apologies for Remy’s poor grammar. I hope you are well. -Logan”
Virgil’s brain latches onto “Missed you at the Thing today.” They’d done it without him? It was their Thing and they’d just excluded him? Had they only noticed he hadn’t left his room because he wasn’t at the Thing? Were they upset he wasn’t there? Like ‘where in the world were you; we had to do the Thing without you’? You aren’t a necessary part of the group, his brain whispers to him, but you bailed on them and they’re mad about it.
Virgil clamps his hands over his ears and plops to the floor. Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, he tells his mind. They don’t hate me; they gave me a letter to check in with me while respecting that I might not want to come out and not wanting to force me to.
Really? Or maybe they just couldn’t be bothered to do more than shove a note under the door.
Shut up.
Virgil focuses on doing his 4-7-8 breathing method and firmly ignores his mind telling him his friends now hate him. When his breathing is finally steady and his brain’s stopped hissing poison, he slowly relaxes his muscles and takes his hands off his ears.
Your friends are still your friends, he reminds himself. They’re concerned about your wellbeing, not mad at you, and they still like you.
Platonically, his mind adds sourly. Virgil frowns at the thought.
So far his plan to get rid of his crush on Janus had only revealed his crushes on Logan and Remy as well. Turns out when you’re avoiding thinking about one friend you like, your mind will just go to your other two friends and present some shiny new ‘liking them as more than friends’ idea to you. Which is just more incentive to hide in his room as long as he can.
Virgil sighs, standing up and placing the note facedown on the table. He’s got the majority of a week before he has to face anyone, and even if he doesn’t feel like dancing anymore, he’s still got plenty to do to occupy his time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Logan knocks firmly on Virgil’s door.
“Virgil,” they call. “It has been five days since anyone has seen you outside your room. This has not happened before and we are all concerned. Please come out to ease our worries.”
No answer. They wait a full minute, their fist still half-raised from knocking, but still nothing.
“Move, please,” Remy says, inserting himself in Logan’s place as they step out of the way. He begins knocking loudly and quickly, barely a step down from banging. “Virgil! Get your pretty ass out here!”
No sign Virgil’s heard anything.
“Maybe he’s asleep?” Logan suggests.
“At 4PM?” Janus asks. “Virgil doesn’t nap and even a night owl like him doesn’t sleep in this late.”
Logan frowns. “Virgil is not an owl—”
“It’s an expression,” Remy explains.
“Ah.”
“Virgil,” Janus tries. “We’re all really worried. Please just open the door? You don’t even have to come out, just let us know you’re alright in there.”
They all watch the doorknob hopefully for a minute. When nothing happens, Remy sighs.
“I don’t think he’s comi—”
There’s a little shrsh of paper brushing against something as a post-it slides under the door. Janus snatches it up eagerly and the other two crowd beside faer to read it.
“I’m fine. Not coming out, sorry.”
Remy sighs again.
“At least we know he’s alright?” Logan offers.
“Yeah,” he agrees, leaning against them. “I’m just worried, y’know? Just a post-it doesn’t really help.”
“I do know; I’m worried too. However, there is nothing we can do to get Virgil out of his room, short of forcing our way inside and dragging him, until he’s ready.”
“Yeah,” Remy says again.
“Wanna go cuddle until we all feel a little better?” Janus offers. Remy smiles softly.
“Yeah.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Virgil scowls at his minifridge. It’s empty, the traitor, and he’s run out of all the food in his room. He has to go out and possibly encounter other people. A tragedy.
He leaves his room at midnight, of course. Less chance of running into people, plus then when Roman makes a comment about how “it’s nice to see you’ve finally emerged from your room” Virgil can laugh at his confusion when he tells him he came out of his room a while ago, princey, where’ve you been?
Less chance of running into people doesn’t equal no chance, unfortunately, and Patton is in the kitchen baking cookies when Virgil comes out to raid it. A weird time to be baking, but Virgil will probably get warm cookies out of it, so he doesn’t question it.
“Hey, Pat,” he greets.
“Hey, kiddo! Good to see you.”
“You too,” Virgil says, shooting him a finger gun. “Anything interesting happen while I was in my room?”
Patton hums thoughtfully. “Remus switched the sugar and salt and the flour and powdered sugar this morning. I borrowed the Lilo and Stitch DVD the other day and Roman and Remus got in a fight about whether or not Roman was hiding it from Remus. Logan stayed up all night on Tuesday and collapsed around lunchtime Wednesday. Janus found another snake in the Imagination and Roman had to steal it to return it home. Oh! Logan and Janus and Remy all got together.”
Virgil freezes. “Like, got together and talked like the four of us usually do?”
“Nope! In a relationship. About the time you hid away in your room, actually.” Patton giggles a little. “It’s been really cute; Remy and Janus carried Logan upstairs after his allnighter and they’re all very sweet together.”
“Oh,” Virgil says, trying not to sound hopelessly crushed.
“Virgil?” Patton asks, turning around to look at him. “You okay?”
He forces a smile. “Just peachy.”
Patton snorts. “I doubt that, but I won’t pry if you don’t want to tell me.”
“Thanks,” Virgil says, smile more genuine now. “Anything else to report?”
“Mmm, I don’t think so,” Patton says. “But if you like, I read a really good book the other day and I could share the plot with you?”
“Sounds good,” Virgil tells him, pushing himself up on the counter as Patton launches into a rambly explanation of the storyline. They pause in the middle to pull the cookies out of the oven, and then munch on them as Patton finishes the story.
“...And then it ends on a nice, hopeful, the-future-holds-great-things ending!” Patton concludes.
“Nice,” Virgil says, shooting Patton a little smile, who returns a beaming one. “Thanks for telling me about it.”
“Thanks for listening!” Patton returns.
“Do you mind if I…” Virgil gestures towards the cookies.
“Take as many as you like,” Patton tells him. Leaning forward conspiratorially, he adds, “If you take all of them and someone washes all the dishes, then the others won’t know there were cookies to have in the first place.”
“Thanks, Patton.”
Virgil scoops up the rest of the cookies—about a dozen or so—and bids Patton goodnight before heading back into his room. He gets a little resealable baggie to slide all the cookies into and sets it on his table.
Then, with nothing else to occupy his mind, he dwells over the fact that Janus, Remy, and Logan are all in a relationship.
Patton said they’d gotten together about the time he locked himself in his room. Had they noticed he wasn’t anywhere to be found and immediately gotten together? And then only given him the note and knocked on his door out of a sense of obligation or something? And maybe because they were mad at him for missing the Thing? They wouldn’t do that.
Would they?
He doesn’t think so.
He hopes not.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“What?”
“Hey, Janus, it’s okay! He’s probably just sleeping or something!”
“No, he doesn’t get to come out at midnight after he’s been in his room for a week and then not come out for breakfast or something so the rest of us can know he’s alive!” Janus fumes. Fae marches over to Virgil’s room and bangs on the door. “Open up before I kick the door down!”
Janus gives him three seconds before fae backs up, planning to kick the door down. Fae could do it. Fae’d seen an article online.
“Jay, honey, wait,” Remy says, putting a hand on faer shoulder. “I’m upset too, but I’m not going to kick his door down.”
“No, because I’m going to do it for you.”
“Can we not kick my door down?” Janus turns to see Virgil, standing half in his doorway, but still out of his room. Fae immediately drags him all the way out and into a hug.
“Only if you promise not to do that again,” fae tells him.
“Fine,” Virgil sighs. He half raises his arms, then hesitates.
“Hug me back, dummy,” Janus demands. Virgil chuckles a little and hugs faer. After a bit longer, Janus gives a final squeeze before releasing him, moving back a step and brushing faerself off. “That was because I missed you, but if you breathe a word of that to anyone I’ll prank you for a week.” Fae punches him. “And that was because you worried me, jerk.”
“Ow!” Virgil rubs his arm. “Sorry for worrying you.”
“Try not to sound too sincere now.” Fae crosses faer arms and rolls faer eyes.
“I really am sorry for worrying you,” Virgil says. “All of you,” he adds, looking over to where Remy and Logan had been silently watching their exchange.
“You’re forgiven,” Remy tells him. “If I get a hug too.”
Virgil shrugs loosely. “Sure.” He hugs Remy, then turns to Logan. They open their arms, and Virgil sinks into them. Janus steals another hug from Virgil once he pulls away from Logan.
“Sap,” Virgil teases.
“You can’t prove anything.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Things have… gone back to normal. Technically.
Virgil hasn’t hidden away for longer than a day again, and even then, it only happened once. They’ve kept doing their Thing every week or so, and to the outside observer nothing would appear different than it had been before.
But it’s… kind of like when one “cleans their room” by shoving all their stuff into a closet. The room may appear neat, but things haven’t been put in their place, just pushed to the side to be ignored.
Similarly, there seems to be a barely-there tension in their interactions with Virgil. Logan doesn’t usually notice it, but sometimes, in lulls of conversation or merely at random intervals, they’ll feel it, simmering under the surface of things. They don’t like it, both because tension, as a rule, is uncomfortable, and because they don’t know why it’s there.
They suspect it has something to do with why Virgil locked himself in his room for a week. He still hasn’t told them why he’d done it, shrugging off any questions or deflecting the conversation away from the topic.
They also think it probably has at least a little to do with the fact that Janus, Remy, and themself still have not informed Virgil of their relationship.
Virgil is smart, and very observant. He has almost certainly picked up on the fact that the three of them are dating. He is also the type of person to pretend he doesn’t know something if he feels it is being kept secret from him, and the type to internally question why information is being “withheld” from him, and assume it is something he has done.
Logan knows this, and has been pushing Janus and Remy to tell Virgil about their relationship. Janus and Remy think they should wait longer, give Virgil more time. The first couple of weeks after Virgil emerged from his room, Logan could excuse, because they’d been rediscovering their rhythm. But enough time has passed that they have all settled back into their rhythm and now they need to inform Virgil of their relationship and correct any misconceptions he most likely has over why they have taken so long to tell him.
To return to the bedroom comparison from earlier, Logan has never been one to shove things into a closet and proclaim a room clean. Everything should be put in its place and the only things to go in the closet should be things that belong there.
This weird tension and putting off informing Virgil of their relationship do not go in “the closet.”
So, a month after the week Virgil locked himself in his room, Logan opens the figurative closet door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“We’re in a relationship,” Logan tells Virgil at one of their Things. Janus and Remy’s gazes both snap over to Logan warningly, but the cat is out of the proverbial bag and this has been a long time coming anyway. “Remy, Janus, and I.”
Virgil stares for a moment.
“Cool,” he says finally. “Congratulations.” And then, since he’s a petty jerk, “Since I locked myself in my room for a bit, right?”
The three of them exchange glances.
“Yes,” Janus tells him.
“How’d you know that, doll?” Remy asks.
“Patton told me.” Virgil half-shrugs. Before he can stop himself, he adds, “Saw your chance and took it, huh?”
Logan blinks. “What do you mean by that?”
“It’s nothing,” Virgil says. If he tells them, they’re going to “correct” him, even if he’s right and they just feel bad about it.
“Um, no, that’s clearly not nothing, hon,” Remy sort of laughs, though his expression is serious. Virgil shrugs again, this time with both shoulders.
“Virgil,” Janus commands. “Tell us.”
Virgil rolls his eyes and tips his head back so he doesn't have to look at them. “I’m just saying, we’re all sort of a group, and you didn’t want to feel awkward with the three of you getting together and me not, so once you noticed I was out of the way, you took the opportunity and asked each other out.”
“No,” Remy corrects, because that is so far from what actually happened it might as well be on the other side of the planet. “That is definitely not what happened, V, dear.”
“Sure,” Virgil agrees, in a way that says he clearly doesn’t believe him but doesn’t want to fight over it.
“You think we, what—saw you locked yourself in your room and decided that was a good chance to exclude you?” Logan asks incredulously.
Virgil snaps and points at them. “That would be what happened.”
“That’s not what happened,” Logan insists.
“Look,” Virgil says, tilting his head up to look at the three of them. “You don’t have to lie to me to be nice or spare my feelings or whatever. I get it.”
“I don’t think you do,” Janus tells him.
“Then explain it to me.”
“I realized how gay I was,” Remy explains. “Ran into Jan and Lo, asked them out, and we all got together. We decided to ask you at the next one of these Things we had, since that was the next time we were guaranteed to all be together alone. When you didn’t show up, we got worried but wanted to give you space, so we mostly left you be until Patton told us you’d come out and then we pulled you out of your room because we figured you were ready enough to come out.”
“And then, what, you just chose not to tell me you guys were dating for a month?” Virgil asks.
“We were trying to find a good time,” Logan tells him.
“It’s been a month; there’s been plenty of time,” Virgil snaps.
Then he stops, tilts his head to the side.
“Wait…” he says slowly. “Did— Did you say ‘ask me’? Like, ask me out?”
“Yeah, duh,” Remy replies.
“You guys like me?”
“I doubt we would hang out with you every week if we disliked you, Virgil.” Janus rolls faer eyes.
“You guys like me romantically?” Virgil amends.
“Yes.”
“Yeah.”
“Duh.”
Virgil curls himself up, burying his head in his knees as he processes this. Remy gently lays a hand on his knee.
“It’s okay if you don’t like us back, or only like one or two of us, hon,” Remy tells him. “But we’d like you to join our relationship, if you’ll have us.”
The knee starts trembling under his hand, and Remy realizes Virgil’s crying. “Oh, hon…” He gathers him up in a hug.
“I—I thought you were avoiding telling me because you didn’t want me to know,” Virgil stammers through his tears. “I thought you’d noticed I left and saw that as your chance to get together without me being around. I thought— I thought—” He starts crying too hard to talk.
Remy holds him, and Janus and Logan move over to them and help whisper assurances that no, they would never, that they love him so much and they’re so sorry it came to this. Their hands on his knee and back and Remy’s arms around him are bright spots of warmth that Virgil relishes.
He cries until he thinks he can’t, until one of them murmurs, “We’re here; we love you,” and sends him to fresh tears. He cries for an hour, at least, and when he’s truly sobbed out all the hurt over this inside him, the other three are still there with him.
“Sorry,” Virgil whispers, not fully trusting his voice.
Logan frowns. “What for?”
He gestures a little to the huddle they’re in. “Messing up this. Crying on you guys for like an hour.”
“You haven’t messed up anything,” Remy assures him. “And we’re happy to let you cry on us all you want.”
“Better than shoving your emotions down and ignoring them as they fester,” Janus adds.
“Yeah, I guess.” Virgil nods and scrubs at his face. “Thanks.”
“You’re very welcome,” Logan says.
“This might be a bad time,” Remy says, “and feel free to tell me off if it is, but does this mean you want to be our boyfriend?”
Virgil laughs, a little wetly. “Yeah. I’d really like that.”
“Good,” Remy says. “We would, too.”
“Celebratory ‘we gained a boyfriend’ cuddles,” Janus declares, pulling them over to the bed. No one resists, and they cuddle until they fall asleep on each other.
#oh my gosh this is so long#I hope you like it casper!!#ts virgil#ts logan#ts janus#ts remy#ts patton#ts roman mention#ts remus mention#analosleepceit#my fics#my writing#nonbinary logan#nonbinary janus#umm i think that's it but lmk if i missed something#sanders sides
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Seafarer
Loosely based on the following prompt by @drink-it-write-it :
“You said that I’d get to have you all weekend. Why can’t you just tell them you can’t go?”-“Because it’s my job, and it’s important.”-“And I’m not?”
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader
Warnings: Angst, talk of groping.
A/N: I personally think this to be an embarrassing piece of work. Nothing more than an exercise in writing internal monologue, particularly of the sad variety. Sad both in terms of content, and quality. You have been warned.
“Sweetheart, open the door.” Bucky mutters, resting his forehead on the solid oak. He got back from his mission half an hour ago, and has spent that time standing at her doorstep, knocking, begging her to let him in. She’s pissed. Has every right to be, Bucky thinks to himself. He made her cry, after all. Left her crying.
“Go. Just go. Back to your apartment, the Compound, I don’t care. Why don’t you just go on another goddamn mission? You seem to love those.” She says, bitterness edging into her tone at his betrayal. Bucky swallows nervously, the lump in his throat becoming more prominent. He opens his mouth to answer, but his voice fails, leaving him gaping like a fish. He tries again.
“Darling, angel, doll-”
“Don’t call me that. You don’t get to call me any of that after abandoning me when I needed you. Go away.” Comes the watery reply, her voice breaking off at the end, like she’s holding back more tears. Of course she is. Any girl stuck with a heartless jerk like him is bound to cry. He knows he can’t leave her like this. Not again.
“I’m not going anywhere until we talk about this.”
“Well then, you’ll be waiting a while.”
“Baby, I-”
“I told you to quit it with the pet names. I won’t tell you again. Fuck off, Bucky.” She orders, voice trembling, heart in her throat and hand clenching the doorknob, as if she’s seconds away from opening it and saying it to his face. Not that she’s in any condition to - tears staining a tale of sorrow down her cheeks, bottom lip shaking and bitten red with the effort of containing her rage.
“I don’t-”
“Please.” She pleads, desperate now. She isn’t sure if she can resist his attempts to speak with her for much longer. Bucky sighs, defeated by the tormented request. It’s no use pushing further. They’re both too emotionally wound up to resolve their conflict reasonably. Why does he have to be the voice of reason? Screw reason.
Still, he turns and leaves, thundering down the stairs. All twelve flights of them. The elevator’s in perfect working condition, but he hates the damn things. There’s no escape route. Unhealthy for his neurotic claustrophobia, catastrophic for emergencies. Disaster waiting to happen.
Much like him and her, he supposes woefully. Their relationship has always been a stormy one. A hurricane. One that she is both the centre of, and a sanctuary from, which, now that he thinks about it, are one and the same thing. It’s calmest in the eye of the storm, right? Suddenly, Bucky isn’t so sure anymore. Doesn’t have to be, really, he’s a soldier, not a sailor. He wants to be a lover, though. A good one. That’s all he was trying to do, when shit hit the fan that day.
“Bucky? What are you doing here?” She says, putting her bag down slowly, in awe of the sight before her. He’s standing in the tiny kitchen of her tiny apartment, next to a dinner-table set for two. A candle-lit dinner table.
“Hi, sweetheart. Thought I’d surprise you.” He smiles sheepishly, coming closer to help her out of her coat. He bends down, unbuckles her shoes. She lets him, but his kindnesses don’t distract from the nightmarish nature of her time at work.
“You've… succeeded.” Her lip wobbles dangerously, like a child on the verge of a tantrum. Bucky picks up on it immediately. It’s only been six months, but he knows her like he knows every fire exit in the building - it’s imprinted into his mind.
“What’s wrong? You look upset.” He asks, rubbing her arms gently. She shakes her head.
“It’ll ruin the mood. I shouldn’t talk about it right now. Let’s just enjoy dinner. Which looks delicious, by the way.” She gestures towards the table, where he’s laid out a lasagna she would’ve inhaled by now if she weren’t so upset.
“Baby, I can see something’s off. Come on, just tell me.” Bucky persists, hand at the small of her back guiding her to the sofa in the adjacent room instead. There are more candles here, lights turned down low, roses in as many vases as they own between the two of them. Looking at all the effort he’s put into tonight’s the drop that makes the bucket run over. The first tears, glimmering in the firelight, roll down her cheeks, as she begins talking.
He should have listened to her, he thinks as he steps out into the September night, bracing himself against the chill that’s already starting to settle in. His every misery begins and ends with this sentiment - he should’ve listened to her. Not pressed the matter. She would have talked when she was ready to. But he didn’t, and as a consequence, is now on the streets of Queens without any idea what to do with himself.
It’s late. Not too late, of course, Bucky would never want to disturb her while she’s sleeping. Would have waited till morning anyway if he wasn’t so anxious about the fragile state of their relationship after the fight they had before he left. But he didn’t. He came here, as soon as formalities like debriefing and cleaning himself up were settled at a break-neck speed. The sun was setting, then. It’s gone now, leaving only darkness punctuated by lampposts, shop signs, and the headlights of oncoming cars. So really, not much darkness at all. It’s only ten, still early, especially for New York, the city that never sleeps. He knows he won’t be able to sleep either, not tonight. The sound of her sobs from that night will haunt him. He recalls the three simple words that started the spectacle that’s driven him out at this hour.
“I got fired.” She says finally, wiping her eyes with the tissue he hands her. New tears immediately replace those she just erased, and from then onwards, it’s a hopeless cause.
“What? Why?” He exclaims, shocked. More than shock, the vibrations of worry shake his system. For her, and on her behalf. She needs this job. Claims she does, anyhow. Bucky’s happy to provide her with anything she could ever ask for, he’s told her as much, but after much arguing, he has been made aware that that’s not how things work. At least not for her. She needs to stand on her own two feet, and if that means working herself to the bone, in addition to her post-graduate studies, then so be it.
“I slapped a patron. He came around the bar - it was a busy night - squeezed my ass and made some lewd comments. Nothing I haven’t heard before, been catcalled more than I can remember, but this was up close. And he touched me, which hasn’t happened before.” She explains, eyes downcast. His blood pressure skyrockets, and he sees red.
“I’m gonna kill him.” He snarls, immediately softening when her gaze turns to him, frightened. He thinks she’s afraid of him, although she would reassure him of the contrary, as she always does, if she was in any state of mind to do so. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.” He tries, gentle this time. She buries her face in his sweater, sobs into his chest. He can feel her chest shaking with the effort of her heaving cries. Bucky wraps his arms around her, heart in his throat at the pain he can physically feel through their points of contact. “Hey, hey, easy there. Calm down, sugar.” This was the wrong thing to say. She straightens up and faces him.
“Calm down? You know what the manager said?” She asks fiercely. Resumes her furious rant when he doesn’t say anything. “He lectured me about the whole the-customer-is-always-right spiel, and how we have to put up with this stuff - as if he’s ever been groped - and then yelled at me for scaring clients. Then he called me a- a dramatic bitch and said I shouldn’t bother to show up to work tomorrow.“ She counts off the three points on her fingers, voice cracking at the end, and closes her eyes and breathes. She turns back to him. "So you see, Bucky, I can’t calm down.”
He grimaces internally at the reminder of the hurt she had exhibited. All the hurt he ignored. No, he most definitely will not be sleeping tonight. There’s no point in going back to his place in Brooklyn, or the Compound, like she suggested. Everything comes back to her. It has to. She’s the moon, and he is the voyager dependent on her for the tides that guide him to shore. She is also the shore itself - a safe place, somewhere to call home and build a life. Not for long, if they can’t resolve this argument. Their latest one. At the moment, he has only the dirty, echoing subway station, and the trains within.
The platform emits the perennial scents of urine and alcohol, and the drunk stragglers responsible for both having taken up their regular spots in the provided area. Lighthouses that repel those who surround them instead of attract them. A strand of hair comes loose from behind Bucky’s ear as a train rushes out from the tunnel to his right; he tucks it in its place impatiently, ice-blue eyes scanning the platform. The brakes screech as the doors open and the soft, robotic voice inside announces the station to its passengers. He throws caution to the wind and enters the train. He doesn’t know where it’s going, but then, he doesn’t know where he’s going either. Doesn’t need to, as long as it takes him away from everything. He’s good at that. Running away. He ran away from Steve at the Triskelion and in Bucharest. He ran away from her when she needed him, because he thought she didn’t.
“What is it, Sam?” He answers the phone, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. Closes his eyes as his teammate delivers the blow. The Avengers are needed, somewhere in the world. Urgently so. “Do I have to? I’m in the middle of something.” He tells Sam, glancing over at her. She’s already figured it out. “Fine, fine. Yeah, I’m ready, give me a call when you get here.” Putting the phone down, he nervously runs his hands through his hair. “I- I have to go.” He says.
“Where?”
“Argentina. One week, tops. I’m sorry.” Bucky apologizes. It’s not enough to quell her concerns. Her pain. The torment he sees in her eyes. He wishes he could stay. Perhaps she’s better off without him, he considers.
“Stay. Please.” Clearly, she disagrees.
“I want to, doll, I really do. But they need me.”
“So do I.”
“Don’t do this to me.” He begs of her, because he can’t bear to see her like this. He’d give her the world if she asked, but at the moment, he can’t even give her the consolation she needs after a traumatic ordeal.
“Bucky, I don’t want to be the damsel in distress here, but I am in distress. I can’t cope with all the shit that went down today. That man- and ugh. Please, Bucky.” She’s pacing now, in front of the coffee table, and the tears are back in full force. Bucky averts his eyes.
“I wish I could, but Sam says-”
“Just tell him you can’t go. This one time.”
“I can’t do that. It’s my job, and it’s important.”
“And I’m not?”
Bucky thumps his head heavily against the window behind him. Closes his eyes against the onslaught of guilt and shame. He shouldn’t have left. Not then, with Sam, and not now, alone. He could have waited in the hallway. Instead he’s gotten on a train bound for nowhere, with nothing on his mind but the one person he can’t live without. Besides Steve, naturally. That punk is the bane of his existence, and Bucky wouldn’t want it any other way. They’re his people. The ones he needs to keep safe at all costs. Sam, too, occasionally, not that Bucky would ever tell him that. Evidently, he failed. He hurt her when he swore that he would be the one defending her from any such thing.
Now here he is, in a train under the city he calls home, but feeling more homesick than he ever has. He never thought he’d fall in love this quickly. Six months is all it took for him to hand his heart over to a woman who seems hell bent on throwing it back in his face. He doesn’t blame her for rejecting his soul, broken and bruised as it is. He does blame himself for thinking that any balm that soothes those scars would last forever. Their courtship was too good to be true. He ponders this, and her tear-streaked face, as the train carries him deeper into a direction he does not care to go. He does not care to go anywhere she isn’t, however, the more he tries to return to her, the further he seems to drift away. Lost at sea, never to be found.
Taglist: @buckyreaderrecs @mermaidxatxheart @corneliabarnes
#bucky barnes x reader#bucky x reader#bucky x reader angst#bucky barnes x reader angst#bucky x y/n#bucky x you#ayesha writes
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Lost in Space Part 12: Ch 3
Previous
Summary: The fate of the universe will be decided in the final five chapters.
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Lost in Space on ao3
Back to back, Mikrovos and Saamuki fought alongside each other against the swarm of The Speaker’s desecrated people. His gauntlets punched through their mask after mask, shattering the faceless covering of unknown substance. Their pieces brushed against the metal and pelted his face before he finished them off with a furious shock wave of energy straight to the jaw. Saamuki kept Two busy as she controlled her flying sword with one hand and decimated row after row of those mindless cloaked figures with the other. I could hear and feel their explosive movements all the way here. So I could only imagine how incredibly loud and heated their zone of nothingness actually is. However, as they still remained to face away from each other, they managed to communicate incredibly well with each other. It is as if they are reading the other’s mind. A few Watchers from either of the two outsmarted the other, disrupting their once seamless attacks. Mikrovos ducked before getting half of his head blasted away. Saamuki’s sword wheeled away from their Lord, jutting the giant’s sword out of their grip in the process, and decapitated the Watcher that was about to kill her husband. While lowered, Mikrovos stabbed the incoming Watcher that was about to take advantage of Saamuki’s distracted state. Midway through that multi-souled being falling, Saamuki’s sword came spinning through them, decapitating before she sent them to dust and once more clashing with Two’s sword.
Five, who’s still back to the floor, clapped, causing the ground beneath their coming rock opponent to open. Again, someone falls from the sky, but unlike the last time, Sakhra’s fall is a loop of him plummeting into the first hole from the second. The no-neck Lord gets a kick out of this. Literally, after a struggle to get back up, they wobble to the repeated falling of Sakhra and kick. He is sent rolling across the floor and tumbling onto Two’s throne, which brings out the nagger of the chair’s owner.
That’s what brings his structure to crack. His chest is splitting and outcomes a bloody cough. He wipes off the green blood from his lips before Five grabs his throat.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had to move this much, but it’s also been the most fun I’ve had in quite a while, so thank you.”
None of us can help. Three placed their ridiculously long hands behind their back. They watch Kaishi having to fight against the laser coming out of One’s reddish eye. The floor beneath her is rupturing, curving inward towards her or piercing towards the sky as One’s veiny weblike structure around their intending to slay eyeball expand and depress as they muster out their mocking. “Commander Kaishi, I’ve heard so much about you. But, after all these years, this is all you’re capable of? Pathetic.”
Out of the three, at least Syco isn’t on edge even though he is busy trying not to get his neck snapped from Six’s fists. Six’s gold swings along with the swing of their fist. Syco dodges and sends a fist the Lord’s way. The Lord catches it, and the two of them grab each other’s second hand. Both proceed to shake as neither wishes to release the other.
As for us three, the rest of the hundred or so other Watchers who aren’t out to kill the lover duo found interest in us, so I’ve barricaded us. All four of Bichak’s eyes, his hands and book, are glowing as all seven crystals spin around him, and the ends of his coat and entire body are drifting upwards. He is whispering what I assume is a spell from the first language. With each new word, they become meshed with the previous. The healer in our group and now brawn punches through the small openings I make. So, preoccupied just like the others. When Watchers begin to climb onto the dome I created around us, I add myself to the list of people that have barked at the defeated Sakhra’s ex-brother and the once late Shiitakee’s boss. “Explain to me why those damn crystals are so important.”
At that, the roof cracks with the strike of the group of Watchers climbing above. I repair it. “Besides the copious amount of years it took to convince the Nantos to grow these after the last time they were asked to farm?”
“Yes.”
Our brawn punches the group of Watchers thumping above.
“These were made to capture the Lords. Saamuki figured it would be impossible to kill the Lords. She said it was a very slim possibility after being corrected by Sakhra, who then said through the little possibility that the energy that would be released would be catastrophic. So, it was Commander Kaishi that proposed we should learn from the tyrannical Knox, which Mikrovos took offense to because it was how you—”
“How I died. Got it. So, how long until those things charge?”
“This isn’t as easy as it looks. I’ve studied for days on end. This is my first time actually doing anything remotely this powerful and will hopefully be the only time I need to. I’m under a lot of pressure right now, you know?”
“I get it, but we don’t have all the time in the world. Universe. How much time do you need?”
“Five minutes.”
“A long five minutes.” On one side, the brawn grabs the faces of two of the Watchers and smashes them together. On another, I send a beam of light through four of them, then another directly at One’s eye. One once again stumbles back. Their one-eye waters. They’re blinded as Three replaces One by taking on Kaishi. The clap from them pushes Kaishi back. She pierces two blades into the floor before getting swooped any further by the heavy breeze but is slapped into the ground.
Three lifts their hand, revealing Kaishi and her broken arm. I’m about to scream, distraught, but I notice her arm reforming first. Nanites. Of course. She stabs right through Three’s incoming hand with her healed one. The Lord plucks it out and looks down, and grunts at the satisfied commander.
Now encircling the floating Three is a golden ball of light. I try taking down Three, but my efforts are merely met with a bounce. Kaishi steps back before my ricocheting blast can hit her. Hundreds of arms even longer than Three’s cartoonishly long arms stretch out from their light. They twist, turn, hop, and glide over the other transparent arms. She’s able to dodge most. Those she can go right through the floor and those she can’t, she tries shooting and slicing through the all too close ones. These split into two, become more arms, and continue towards her until they pause before her when her back meets Syco’s.
I want to burst out of this dome and help them, but I can’t. Those floating crystals that are taking way too long to be usable are our only shot. I can’t keep letting my impulses take the better of me because not only do I know by now that it’ll somehow just make things worse, but it also means letting all their sacrifices go in vain. I choose to believe growing up means understanding there will be times you have to do things you don’t want to do, but that doesn’t mean I can just watch. It doesn’t stop me from flinging the bits of pieces of what was once my blade at Five. They cut right through the arm that’s clinging onto Sakhra. The hand falls with a hard thud, and plenty of blood spills all over Two’s seat. I ignore Two’s reaction and instead focus on the high-pitched cry, nearly the sound a pig makes when endangered, as they try to cauterize the wound.
In contrast, Sakhra tries holding in a cough, which is challenging considering their chest is crushed even if it is repairing, but there’s something different about his healing process. I see numbers, code, squirm towards each other. They bunch up as he tries landing a hit on the pig-like Lord.
One hand creates steam as it heats up the bloody wound, so the Lord is technically handless, yet they’re still landing hit after hit on their not-so-privileged opponent as their kicks smack across Sakhra’s arms. He’s having a tough time defending himself against the surprisingly now light on his feet Five.
With stretched gauntlets, she’s able to keep pace with the barrage of fists and the return of One, who has returned to trying to blast with their one eye. The cyclops’ target is also Syco, who can dodge, but is now having a tough time being Six’s equal as he gets punched in the face multiple times. Things are growing dim, which isn’t entirely figurative as the green giant and I are growing tiresome, pushing off the Watchers, causing us to lose light the slower we become. At least before I’m unable to see what’s happening outside of the dome, Mikrovos and Saamuki remain to have the upper hand. Saamuki even lands a cut across Two when her sword slides across their sword after a cling. The last thing I see before the rest of the Watchers buried us is Two inspecting their wound and being shocked at their blood having been spilled.
I’m crouching because of the weight of keeping this dome from collapsing from the immense amount of added weight. Some parts are cracking again. I reknit them, but once I do, three more pop up. The sounds of their thrashing don’t help my frustration. “Please tell me those things are done charging.”
Both the green one and I try to catch our breaths as we turn around and look at the sweating figure behind us. Bichak’s words are slurred. “Almost. One minute.”
A chunk of the dome above falls between us. It shatters once it hits the ground. A charging hand slides through the hole. I summon a shield before the Watcher can shoot. It smacks their hand out and them away from the dome. We don’t have a second before another replaces them, and we don’t have a minute because the dome’s cracks have become too much for me to fix. “I don’t think we have a minute.”
“Fifty seconds now.” More pieces of the dome are sent falling. The now not so silent one grunts as he shields us from the falling parts. On the other hand, I shoot at the wiggling hands, pushing off the Watchers as well in a seemingly pointless attempt at buying us some time. “Forty-five seconds.”
A pesky Watcher manages to squeeze themselves through one of the widening holes. Another is trying to force itself through as the two of us stand, protecting the four-eyed annoyance and his crystals. My partner punches the Watcher straight through their gut. He then sends another punch their way, but it catches it. With those two entangled, I teleport right beside it. The beam goes right through them and a couple more lying on the other side of the wall. We work through several until the long-awaited words are spoken.
“Done,” Bichak finally announced. He raised a hand into the air, causing the crystals to spin faster as his other hand rose above the sparking book. “I just need room.” I push the remaining dome away from us along with the Watchers around us. I then burst out some more of my energy, killing most of the Watchers around us and the duo some feet beside us. Those left stare.
All seven of the Lords fell on their knees. Streams of rich yellow light are being pulled out of them towards the crystals. Besides Four and Seven, they questioned their weakened states as they’re easily overpowered by Sakhra, Kaishi, Syco, Mikrovos, and Saamuki. Speaking of Seven, with trembling hands, they’re slowly slipping off the chain wrapped around them. Killing all those Watchers took a lot out of me, sure, but not enough to leave me weak, helpless. I’m charging up as I look at Seven who’s eyes smile upon noticing me. My hair is floating around me as I burn with not-so heavenly light.
“There,” One realized and pointed at the levitating man behind me. “Get him.” When the Watchers turned to the Lord then looked back at me, they stepped back. One’s eye glowed. In unison, yellow light escaped from the crevice between their faces and masks. Along with that, their awe seems to die as they dart towards us.
“Shit,” the vegetation finally spoke.
“Yeah.” Back to back, the two of us are preparing for the long fight ahead as the others are busy with the Lords. I’m about to shoot, and he’s about to punch when suddenly Seven gets up from their throne and removes their chain. All of us follow the swinging of their chain as it coils around One’s neck. Before One can react, electrifying energy bolts across the metal, electrocuting the Lord, incapacitating them as they fall face first. As soon as they do, Seven yanks the groaning Lord towards them.
“Seven? What are you—” But it’s too late because Seven sucks up the rest of One, leaving not only the rest of us to stand in utter shock but for Four to slam their book close with a sneer as well.
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Bound by Destiny II, part 1 ― Chapter 25: The Faceless
PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil)
RATING: Mature
⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽
⥼ Bound by Destiny II, part 1 ⥽
While struggling with nightmares of lives she’s never lived, a shadow from the past looming over her city, and the proposed idea that her life may just be a little bit too weird to handle alone, Nadya makes sure to tell herself that everything is perfect just the way it is. If only. When the self-proclaimed King of Vampires (and Maker of her sometimes-girlfriend and always-boss, can’t forget that little tidbit) Gaius Augustine returns intent on claiming Manhattan as the throne that was promised, she and her friends find themselves forced into the task of saving the world. But with millennia-old vampires and an Order of hunters on their heels as well as allies hiding catastrophic secrets at their backs… it won’t be an easy task. Too bad destiny didn’t exactly ask for her input.
Bound by Destiny II and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off, Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].
TAG LIST: @googlesentmehere, @cess02
*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Destiny II tag list!
⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽
A shocking confession leaves Nadya confused and Serafine on edge. But now isn't the time for them to be divided. When a hidden threat makes itself known, the only way they're getting out of the City alive is together... or not at all.
[READ IT ON AO3]
“Cynbel, please let her go.”
It’s not her lack of oxygen that has them on edge. Serafine is a vampire, she doesn’t need to breathe. But something about the sight of her slender neck and how fragile it looks in his broad palm makes Nadya — at the very least — starkly aware of how easily he could separate her head from the rest of her.
Jax is still as stone in her periphery but Nadya hears the all-too-familiar hiss of his katana handle dislodging from the sheath. That very sound has saved her life more than a fair few times but now, of all times, it only fills her with dread.
“Don’t Jax — he doesn’t…” she wishes she hadn’t looked back to see Serafine’s nails digging long red grooves into the pale arm that holds her captive; it’ll haunt her for years to come, “he doesn’t…”
What? He doesn’t know what he’s doing? That’s too tall a tale, one even Nadya herself can’t muster the energy to believe. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
She took everything from him. He’s just returning the favor.
“This isn’t what I wanted… if I had known… if someone had told me this is what I’d learn…”
Nadya almost throws her heart up on the ballroom floor. “Cadence?”
Nothing makes sense. Nothing made sense when she woke up the first day she knew vampires were a real, actual thing and they just haven’t made sense every hour of every day following. Even more now when she takes into account where she is — what she is notwithstanding. And all this happening right in front of her isn’t the exception.
But she knows what it looks like when Cadence is… overtaken by something out of his control. It doesn’t look like this.
With literally no confidence in what she’s doing or that she’ll survive the sheer idiocy of the attempt Nadya starts slowly moving towards them.
Adrian practically chokes. “Nadya—what are you doing?”
“Get the fuck over here—” hisses Lily, too. But the only one who actually does anything is Jax. Classic Action Man.
“Don’t you d—” Jax’s words get cut off, like most angry declarations do, when the back of Nadya’s hand collides with his face. Not that it was her complete intention but it does the trick and gets him to back away. Still she can feel him fuming behind her; hear the full whistle of his sword meeting the open ballroom air and every time his teeth grind together as he thinks up new ways to drag her back just as she ends up too far out of his reach.
“I can do this.” Nadya reassures them, even if she sounds a little meek doing it.
There has never been a point in her entire life where Nadya was taller than the next average human. She has a dozen more things wrong with her to have a complex about; her height is not one of them. But standing at his back Nadya can’t help but feel smaller than she really is. He’s not just tall now, is he? He’s weighed down with thousands of years and no guilt to speak of.
No, Cadence isn’t. Remember that… she has to remember that.
Steeling herself, Nadya reaches up and out with a hand that has no business being that steady when she’s ready to jump out of her own skin… and lays her palm on his back. Even she’s surprised when she sighs in relief. Nothing’s changed yet; Serafine looks ready to claw him down to the bone in the next second or two. But somehow Nadya just knows this isn’t the nightmare scenario they really should have prepared for.
“I’m sorry I called you Cynbel. You’re not him, Cade.”
“On the contrary.”
Nadya’s brow furrows with resolve. “Let her go.”
“Why should I?” before Nadya can even open her mouth, “This is who I’m supposed to be, isn’t it? This is what’s expected of me…”
Serafine’s hands fly to her neck, wiggling two—three fingers in a gap that definitely wasn’t there before. She’s getting through to him. Weirdly, and pretty much solely on luck at this point, but she is.
She takes a moment, puts on her brave face, and presses her hand down hard enough for him to actually feel her touch.
“But is it what you want to do?”
She’s waiting for him to speak when she sees it; the barest flicker of his head from side to side. Whatever came over him to begin with is sucked out into the void just as fast. Cadence recoils far across the room before Serafine’s knees even hit the ground.
Adrian’s at her side immediately. “You’re okay… you’re okay…” Crooning in her ear, kissing the droplets of sweat from her temples and holding her so tight Nadya can see the strain of it on his muscles from here but if their situations were reversed… well she doesn’t comment, leave it at that.
“Adrian —” the woman hiccoughs his name; like there’s no other word that could even compare, “— Adrian I…”
“It’s okay. You’re safe.”
“Non, mon amour… none of us are.”
Serafine’s in good hands — some of the best and Nadya has personal testimony to back her case. But she still lied, and some part of Nadya can’t help but wonder what else she’s hiding behind the psychic walls she knows about and maybe the ones still there just out of her conscious reach. So she doesn’t feel any guilt about turning away from them and running across the room, leaping over broken hunks of wood and a few husks of armor until she’s skidding on her knees along the flagstones to where Cadence sits, huddled. His knees pressed to his chest and a not-so-strange emptiness in his eyes staring through her, rather than at her.
Nadya’s watched herself in the mirror too many times not to know what a panic attack looks like. Immortal or not.
“I’m not him — I’m not him I swear —”
“I know you’re not.”
“But I am. Somewhere I can’t reach — like an itch inside of me and all it takes it one little scratch and suddenly — suddenly I don’t know where I am, or what I’ve done, and there’s always so much blood…”
She tries to laugh it off, “well you are a vampire…” but that’s not helping so probably best to pretend that didn’t happen.
Sometimes all that can be done is nothing at all. So Nadya just sits there. Pulls her own legs up against her chest (though that’s more to keep warm than anything) and rests her chin on her knees while Cadence mumbles whatever he needs to tell himself to calm down. Some of it she recognizes; a litany chant of “I’m not him, I’m not him, I’m not him,” while others are languages she’s heard but doesn’t know, and a few she’s doubtful have been languages for a long time.
Twice Nadya glances over her shoulder and through her hair to check on the others. The first time Adrian and Serafine are right where she left them. The next; they’re gone. Jax and Lily are either too smart or think she’s too dumb to be left with him on her own and, sure, that’s fair. But hopefully the smile she tries to offer them conveys just how much they really mean to her.
A loud thud makes Nadya jump in her boots. Whirling her head around to see Cadence finally easing up in his limbs and a large crack in the stone where the crown of his head decided to take a break. Besides his closed eyes and absolutely no breathing whatsoever, though, he seems relatively unharmed. Physically, anyway.
But he’ll talk when he’s ready. She just waits. and waits. and has an awful lot of time to think about certain things while she’s waiting and none of them are exactly pleasant. Unfortunately the stretching silence is more than ample opportunity for Nadya to finally understand exactly what happened back there.
She kinda wishes she hadn’t.
When Nadya finally looks up again she’s met with the familiar sharp scrutiny of Cadence’s stare. Small blessings. But unfortunately that means no more waiting around.
“You know… don’t you.”
A long, stretched silence. Like Cadence would rather have waited out the decades it took for Nadya to grow old and wither and die just so he wouldn’t have to give her an answer.
Maybe that’s why she’s so surprised that he actually does. His voice so quiet; a whisper on the wind.
“I had my suspicions.”
“Since when?”
His eyes narrow in a glare. “Oh, not long. Just since Valdas showed up on my office doorstep with a bouquet of orchids in one hand and dinner reservations in the other. So… late May, early June?”
“Alright, cool it Sassmaster General. It’s a valid question.”
“… Fair enough. There’s a litany of other small things… ones that could be coincidence on their own but trying to call them that when put together just made me realize I wanted to stay ignorant. Can’t really do that now though, can I?”
Nadya can’t help the frown tugging at the corners of her lips. “Then… why ask me to help you figure it out? Why come all the way upstate to tell me I’m your ‘last chance?’”
Amused, Cadence huffs a wheezing, heartless little laugh. “Because that’s exactly what you were. I never lied — I swear to you on that. But so long as there was even the slightest lack of proof… so long as Kamilah Sayeed bit her tongue in her fear rather than confront me, or Valdas skirted around real truths and didn’t actually know what happened during the War; I could pretend all the signs pointing to me… were meant for someone else.”
With a long groan Nadya leans back, propped up with her palms on the dusty floor and head angled up to the dark-stained ceiling. “Well that’s… great.”
He arches a thick brow. “What is?”
“Oh, you know… Listening to you has me realizing that I owe pretty much everyone in my life giant apology fruit baskets when all this is over.” Rolling her head back to attention; “Because if I sounded half that delusional I have literally no idea how they put up with me.”
It’s more meant to settle her nerves than anything else but hey, the fact it gets the barest quirk of a smile out of him is just a bonus.
“I’m lucky there. Most of the time it’s only Kathy who has to. And she’s contractually obligated, so…”
“Yeah, but she’d be there anyway.”
“You know… I don’t think you’re wrong there.”
His dry laughter doesn’t last long. In fact, it dies out right in the middle — like a scratched record. Nadya looks up to see something pained crossing over Cadence’s expression, making him bite at his lower lip until he’s wiping blood from his chin before it stains his sweater.
“What do you know about him, Nadya?”
She doesn’t need to ask who.
Cadence finally looks her in the eyes again and immediately Nadya wishes he hadn’t. The pain bleeds from him into her soul in scalding waves of despair. “Have you shared in any of his memories? I’m… I’m so sorry if you have. Because from everything I could uncover, he was not the kind of man that someone like yourself would want to get to know. Not in the intimate way the Bloodkeeper can.”
“‘Someone like myself?’”
“Someone good. Someone kind, and caring, and empathetic, and filled with a desire to put their goodness out into the world and who always seeks out the chance to do better — to be better.”
And doesn’t that make her laugh. Nadya can’t really help it.
“Well that’s kind of loaded. You make me sound like some kinda altruistic angel. I’m definitely not.”
“You are compared to him,” the vampire insists; so fiercely and like the louder he speaks the more she’ll believe him — in a way she kind of does, “hell—everyone is compared to him. That’s what it looks like when you put an ordinary person side by side with a monster.”
Nadya thinks back; back to the memory Valdas had used her to relive, to the portraits hanging in the Musea Sanguis and in Marcel’s library, and then back farther still. To things she doesn’t remember—couldn’t be remembering, not with her own mind—times of strange, chaotic confusion. Where the rest of the world was full of noise but muted; empty and hollow and devoid of the things Nadya filled her existence with the most.
Life. Longing. Laughter. Love.
Them.
And all of it gone. No, not gone… something can’t be gone if it never existed in the first place. That’s what makes their arrival so jarring; so violent. Like a knife to her middle and the blade is made of something she needed but could only accept in a terrible, traumatizing way.
Before she knows it, Nadya’s crying. And not even Serafine’s kind of silent, lovely tears either; where she’s shrieking like a banshee but still somehow perfectly pristine. She’s heaving sobs and holding her sweater sleeves to her nose to keep from looking like a snot monster and thank god Cadence is there to hold her glasses to keep her tears from staining them all up. But they sting and burn in her eyes and she misses them so—so much it hurts—so much it’s going to crush her—so much she would rather be anything but conscious if it keeps her from feeling the ache of being apart from them—
He waits until all that awfulness is reduced down to, like, a two to hand Nadya back her glasses. She takes them gratefully, voice thick with a stuffy nose, and wishes there was any way in the world she could play this off as cool.
“Do you want to…”
“It wasn’t me,” Nadya clarifies before Cadence can even get the question out, “I mean… it was me, but it wasn’t… me. Anyway that doesn’t matter.”
He looks doubtful. Glances at something over her shoulder and Nadya’s sure she looks like a real mess but she’s grateful, for once, not to have someone else to shoulder her burdens. They’re never going away. She needs to learn to deal with them by herself too.
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” —a beat— “about that. But I’m not sure about what’s gonna happen going forward.”
His shoulders slump. “Right. Because I…”
“… attacked her, yeah.” Nadya groans and pinches the bridge of her nose. “We really have to stop trying to die before we even make it back up top.” We’re doing Gaius’ work for him.
“It won’t happen again, I assure you.”
Now it’s her turn to look doubtful. Cadence takes it in stride though; like a good trooper. “Honestly,” he continues to insist, “I… will admit I was a little out of sorts back there but, no offense, she’d done the very thing I was hoping no one would ever do.”
“And how can we be sure you won’t…” What’s a nice way to mime slamming one of the most powerful vampires in the world into the wall like she was a rag doll?
“Ah,” he clicks his tongue, suddenly unable to look Nadya in the eyes, “I see what you mean. Well luckily… there’s a simple way to avoid all of that trouble. I don’t fight, I don’t black out.”
Simple, he says, and even shrugs his shoulders like they’re talking about the freakin’ weather, or what to order for appetizers. And very much not about his tendency to go Ultimate Street Fighter on anyone who so much as looks at him the wrong way when he’s like that.
Though… it does tug on a few lightbulbs in her head. “When you saved us in the alley… that was you…”
He nods and finishes it for her; “— avoiding conflict, yes. As far as I can tell, brains over brawn is the best way to go. It doesn’t always happen; my blackouts. But there’s always the risk.”
Nadya sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. “And… if it were to accidentally happen anyway?”
She really doesn’t like the way Cadence’s face falls. At least he’s being honest though…
“As far as I’m aware, and I use the term loosely, Kathy is the only one who can bring me out of those… fits.”
“‘Fits’ being flashes of Cy—” But there’s suddenly a hand over her mouth that’s keeping her from saying the name. Cadence levels a stern frown right in her eyes. The intensity of it both jarring and a little cool at the same time.
“Please… for my sake, and yours, and probably everyone’s. Don’t… don’t say his name.”
“Just in case?”
“Just in case.”
Okay that’s… maybe half of one of their problems solved. Nadya can only hope that wherever Adrian and Serafine are they’re talking, you know with their mouths, and not… anything else. Adrian would vouch for him, right? He knows Cadence pretty well — he’s always at least liked the guy.
Cadence offers Nadya a hand and helps her up. All the color drains from her face in that exact moment; which is just bad timing more than anything.
“Are you alright?” he asks, that same concerned frown back in place like it had never left.
“Yup, peachy keen.”
Note to self!! Do not bring up Adrian’s weird One Nighter with the Bad Guys!!!
When the pair come back up on Lily and Jax, her friends exchange dual looks of ‘yeah, we’re not buying this.’ And it’s sweet — they’re sweet. The best friends a girl could ask for, really. Well… a best friend and a loose acquaintance who happened to be handy with a super sharp sword.
Before they can say anything though Nadya holds up her hands and takes the floor for her own. “Yeah, it’s weird — and yeah there’s a lot that still needs figuring out. But he’s still Cade, he’s still our friend… he’s just more our friend on the sidelines than our friend on the front lines. At least until we get back up to the surface and find this stupid Tree. Okay?”
Neither of them respond. Not an option. “I said o—kay?”
Lily sighs and nods… then leans in none-too-subtly. “This isn’t a Voldemort-and-Quirrell thing, is it?”
And Nadya can say it is with full confidence that she shakes her head. “Think Jekyll and Hyde.”
“You know I can hear you, right?”
They look up into Cadence’s not-at-all amused frown. Well… at least some things were kind of normal still.
Or they were.
Until a loud, hollow groan echoes across every wall and ceiling beam she can see.
GGGGHHHHHHRRRRRR…
Lily (rightfully, even if it stings) glances down at Nadya’s stomach. She throws her arm over it self-consciously. More than a little offended but fear is rapidly overtaking every other emotion she’s capable of.
“Was that —”
“No!”
GGGGGGGHHHHHHRRRRRR…
“Are you s—”
“It wasn’t my stomach, Lil’.”
Who groans beside her. “You couldn’t have pretended with me for like… a minute?” Touche.
GGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHRRRRRRNNNN…
By the third time nobody is moving. Necks craned up to the rafters, flashlights moving this way and that desperate to find the source. Even though, by that third time, they all know a universal truth.
That the noise—whatever it may be (that isn’t Revenge of the Canned Beans)—is way too loud to be coming from inside the Manor.
But not too loud to be echoing on repeat around the cavern just beyond the door.
Way to go Nadya. You just had to jinx it!
Like a group of teenage mystery solvers their gangs collide smack dab in the middle of the front foyer. Adrian and Serafine on one end, Nadya and the gang on the other; and for a brief moment the eerie howling in the distance is forgotten in the face of their more recent… revelations.
Serafine reaches up to her throat unconsciously. The sight makes Cadence swallow and avert his eyes.
“Bigger problems, guys.” Nadya stresses; emphasis on the stress.
Adrian’s frown deepens. “You heard it too then?”
“How could you not?” Jax looks to the gaping space that used to be the front doors as he says it. They’ve barely given it a thought since their arrival. But now… all Nadya can see is a giant hole in their defenses.
Tch, what defenses?
Nobody asked you.
All together (though with Serafine pointedly on one end and Cadence on the other — no complaints here) they empty out of the King’s Manor and into the cavern. The damp air leaves a chalky taste on her tongue, but taste isn’t the sense she needs most right now.
No one moves.
No one speaks.
Nadya doesn’t even give herself the luxury to breathe.
Finally, Lily breaks the silence; raising her voice to be heard over the nearby waterfall. “I can’t tell if I’m just hearing the echo in my head or…”
“I don’t understand…” While the rest of them look around aimlessly for any sign of the disturbing noise’s source, Serafine knows these caverns well. Eagle-eyed her head darts this way and that; locking on to the staircase they arrived from as well as others in the dark too dim for Nadya to see.
Jax scoffs. “What’s not to understand?”
“The Knights collapsed the old districts during their purge. Our path was the way through which I escaped; but the rest have been sealed off ever since.”
“But isn’t there even the slightest chance one of the tunnels could have been discovered?” asks Adrian, whose shoulders slump when she shakes her head.
“Non, not this far down.”
GGGGGGGHHHHHHRRRRRR…
Nadya’s stomach sinks. No matter where they look it all rings the same. The noise is coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once; reverberating through the stone until it isn’t just one sound, but a legion.
This time, Jax doesn’t wait until it fades to voice his frustrations. “Maybe back then it would have been, but we can’t rule anything out.”
“You think we did not anticipate the City lasting through centuries of innovation?”
“Well I sure don’t think a bunch of Dark Ages scavengers anticipated the light bulb.”
“Jax —”
“No, Adrian, he’s right.”
“I don’t recall asking your opinion, Monsieur D’or.”
Senseless arguing. The untraceable growl like an ever-present white noise. It all fades to wordless noise; something Nadya can hear but doesn’t take the time to process.
And through the cacophony of it all she hones in on one sound.
Dainty, whimsical laughter.
She looks back over her shoulder to the Manor’s depths. It suddenly seems so dark inside, which makes sense seeing as they—and their flashlights—are all out here. But the cavern has a natural glow to it. Phosphorescent mushrooms, maybe. Or the way their LEDs catch and sparkle all the way down the waterfall overhead.
It makes the way back in look like a yawning abyss. Beckoning her, calling out for Nadya and her alone.
She allows her feet to carry her back inside; trusts them to guide her to where she needs to be. Every step forward and the laughter grows louder — is joined by the ancient whine of a bow on strings and the pipes whistling in the background. Music fit for a grand party.
Nadya surprises even herself when she isn’t startled by the movement out of the corner of her eye. Maybe because she’s pretty sure at this point her eyes are about as untrustworthy as the rest of her senses. This is a memory. She’s certain of that. What she isn’t certain of, though, is to whom the memory belongs.
Their group is small; no more than five or so, all dressed in dark and rich fabrics and all wearing some form of mask. She only sees half a face; nothing more… and nothing less. Odd, translucent figures flit around them like they exist in some kind of bubble but those never last. Other than Nadya they are the only ones in the foyer but that’s in the here and now. Wherever they really are — whenever they really are — they are huddled away from curious attentions.
The closest figure to her is a man with eyes hidden with a more traditional mask design. If only that did something for bottom half of his face turned down into a frown so sour Nadya feels her own lips start to twitch.
“There’s an awful lot of Faceless here tonight,” says the sour-faced man; turning his nose up at party guests Nadya can’t see, “I would not have wasted my time with such a disparaging lack of prestige.”
Nadya’s brow wrinkles in confusion. Whatever that means. But by the way his entourage reacts he’s speaking boldly and way out of line.
“Really, Marquis?” asks one of his entourage in scandalous whisper.
“I would think not showing your face would be far worse.”
“Indeed.”
“Yes, yes.” Agreement ripples out among them in hushed tones. Nadya can’t see his eyebrows behind the mask covering his forehead but his eyes are definitely narrowed.
“So quick to judge me — yet I’m eager to see how many of you survive the waltz with such slim pickings!”
A woman passes by close enough for Nadya to imagine the tickle of lace trimming on the back of her hand. The Marquis’ crowd parts, unbidden, and allows her to settle at his side. Somehow Nadya knows before the woman even opens her mouth that she is the source of the ghostly laughter that drew Nadya in.
She regards the Marquis with cool expression defined in a waxing crescent of thin silver plating contoured perfectly to her every curve. The gathering shifts dynamics. No longer do they hang on every scathing insult from the Marquis. They would much rather hear what she has to say.
“Indeed Marquis,” comes her soft reply; her voice melodic and darkly alluring, “I share your sentiments. Of course, with the weight of prestige carried by one such as yourself you must not be worried about the inevitable tilt in scales this night.”
The Marquis bristles. Nadya’s arms break out in gooseflesh.
“And what makes the great Duchess say as such?”
“Why my dear Marquis; they do, of course.”
The Duchess points a slender, silk-gloved finger towards the doors leading to the ballroom. She, the Marquis, his adoring fan club — they all turn to witness the arrival of someone Nadya doesn’t get to see. Whoever it is exists outside of what’s left of this memory.
They vanish all at once; the candle blown out by a wind both real and not that carries around Nadya and leaves her… wrathful? No, that isn’t quite the word she’s looking for. Whatever it is it’s something she’s never felt before — and that’s probably not a good thing.
The only thing that comes close is—
“There you are.”
Relief washes the worry away from Adrian’s face when he sees her. If she wasn’t still trying to put a word to this new experience of hers she’d probably echo the sentiment. But her stomach aches — like physically, painfully aches — and she has to rub her palms into her eyes as a wave of exhaustion makes him go temporarily fuzzy.
Hands fall protective on her shoulders. “Please don’t wander off like that again, Nadya…” And for a man without breath he sure sounds like it was punched out of him.
“Sorry.” But it isn’t a sincere apology as much as it is an automatic response. Nadya knows it; worse still Adrian knows it. His grip tightens ever so slightly.
“Adrian?”
“Did you find her?!”
“We’re… in here.” He calls out to answer, and not a moment later the others file into the parlor with varied degrees of relief.
They’re her friends. They care about her. So why does the sight of their faces fill her with a passionate rage?
Something is very very wrong.
“Who are the Faceless?”
A muscle tenses in Serafine’s jaw. The brief, accusatory glance she throws Cadence’s way is about as subtle as a bullhorn.
“Where did you hear that name?”
“That’s not an answer. Who are they?”
On either side of her, Adrian and Lily exchange looks of surprise — and mutually melt into concern. Sure, Nadya will fully own up to the curt, harsh tone she has right now but if they knew what she was feeling… if they could understand even a fraction of the pain roiling in her belly right now they might just be a little testy too.
Realization dawns on the psychic’s face way too slow for Nadya’s current temperament.
“You saw something… a memory.” —and is that a flicker of fear hiding in those eyes?— “What — or who — did you see?”
“Answer the fucking question.”
“Nadya.” And she’s acting like a jerk; she knows that. But the bewildered way Lily accuses her with her own name feels like a knife to the chest.
“What?!”
“No — that’s my question. What is the matter with you?”
Nadya opens her mouth — she can feel a whole litany of insults and jibes right there on the tip of her tongue — so she bites down hard enough to break skin to keep them buried where they belong.
“I—I don’t know…” her words muddled around the stinging cut, “I… I just…”
I’m so…
Dammit! What word is she looking for?!
“The Faceless were the lowest tier of our society,” answers Serafine; finally, “and by all accounts they were the majority of them as well. By our rankings they were forbidden to wear a mask — a status symbol — that would show their face. To do so was a grave insult, with graver consequences.”
“Tch…” Jax shakes his head minutely. “Ridiculous…”
“Think what you will. But they were the foot soldiers the night of the purge; the first to die… for their betters.”
Faceless.
Nameless.
Ageless.
The Manor is suddenly maddeningly quiet.
“Hundreds of them…” she whispers, “hundreds on either side. He hated being seen with them, near them, even far away. What does it matter though? Hundreds of them and he outranked them all… There aren’t enough bodies.”
Cadence sucks in a breath; his teeth clenched. He’s gone pale; as dead on the outside as he technically is inside. “There aren’t enough bodies…” he repeats, each word weighed on his tongue heavy with truth.
The rest of them join him as the historian spins in a wild circle rooted in place. They had pushed the skeletons and their armor aside after that first walk through the Manor’s main passages. It kept them from tripping over scattered bones in the dark. It kept them from having to think about the weight of lost life.
It wasn’t the Marquis’ laughter that drew her back inside.
Nadya looks down at her trembling hands and chokes on her own scream.
The sight is enough to send her into a terrified frenzy. The bulging twisting spiderwebs of black that were now her veins, of greying skin so fragile it feels paper-thin, of talons yellowing with age and crusted with layers upon layers of dried blood…
Forcing a ragged sob through her chest is the hardest thing she’s ever had to do. Like pushing a mountain through a molehill, or mouthfuls of blood down her gullet where her hungry eyes were too big for her stomach. “Getthemoffme —” she shrieks, “— getthemoffmegetthemoffGETTHEMOFF!”
She’ll do it herself if they won’t. Teary, bloodshot eyes falling on the sword just out of reach but strong arms stop her in her tracks; hold her back, stop her from getting rid of these awful—rotting hands—
“NADYA!”
Lily’s always been able to scream louder than her. So loud the echo of it rings high-pitched in her ears long after her best friend has stopped shouting her name. She clutches Nadya’s hands with her own; a horrifying sight. And no matter how hard she pulls Lily doesn’t let go. Adrian doesn’t release her from the captivity of his embrace.
The chill of Lily’s smooth skin burrows a home in her muscles and bones. She squeezes them tightly; bordering on real pain. But nothing is more painful than what’s to come.
“Nadi’…” the way Lily says her name; thick and haggard and with wet tears on her lips, “Nadi’ you’re scaring the shit out of me…”
Good! “Don’t look—don’t look at them. Don’t Lil’ don’t…”
“At what —” her eyes widen in understanding, “— at your hands? Nadya, look.”
She blinks back her tears, her apologies, her pleas of desperation… and sees nothing but her own hands — clammy and shaking but so very human — cradled in Lily’s tender care.
“I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“They’re just hands, baby girl.”
“No—no they were…” But were they, really?
Nadya keens and doubles over as another wave of something tears through her middle. Her legs are ready to give out. Adrian—bless him—is the only thing holding her up now, so she accepts it and sags against his chest too exhausted to move.
Adrian presses a tender kiss to her temple. His lips like a cool palm against her feverish fit of pique. But he’s shaking, filled with a fear all his own. He can’t swallow it down forever.
“Serafine,” he pleads against the shell of Nadya’s ear, “help her… please.”
It’s kind of him to ask, Nadya thinks wistfully, even if it’s too late. Three hundred years—left behind left in the dark—made to flee from the fire—abandoned forgotten sacrificed—scouring endless paths for even a drop enough to slake the thirst—forced to guzzle down the same taint in shared blood over and over and over again—too late.
She can hear Serafine’s somber voice, muffled through the skin tight and calloused over her eardrums. If only Nadya remembered words enough to know what she’s saying.
Words… Finally, an eternity later; she has the right word to describe the pain.
“She feels empty.”
They left her there. Insolent, vainglorious things — and they just left her. Abandoned her despite her prestige, despite her beauty and wit and charm; condemned her to twist and wither both alone and surrounded by her kind.
They let this happen to her. They let her delicate hands warp into talons and did nothing to stop her alabaster skin from greying with disease. They were content to forget her while her long hair falls out in clumps, while her own bone tries to break free from her skin and mars her with protrusions like horns for lack of success.
They honored her in wretched memory. As her youth peeled away, sinking in and hollowing out, until what they remembered and what was left was no longer the same. Until all that was left was an insatiable hunger. A starvation that consumed her — mind, body, and soul.
Her only companion… an emptiness inside.
Until now.
There aren’t enough bodies among the dead. Where did they go?
Stumbling—staggering—starving. Scrambling endlessly through winding passages, surviving on the eternal cycle of their Taint. Unable to find freedom in the tangible darkness.
They didn’t go anywhere. They never left.
Outside the ancient and hallowed walls of the King’s Manor, the horde growls. Louder than before; and now—knowing what they know—far more menacing.
“Lily,” Adrian reacts quickly, motioning for the younger vampire to help him as they both take up on either side of Nadya, their combined strength and her arms over their shoulders practically lifting her off her feet.
“We’re too exposed here. We need to get deeper inside.”
And judging by his tone he knows that his suggestion is less than ideal. But what other choice do they have?
“Do we have any idea how many there could be?”
“Don’t look at me. Those two were the ones here when it happened.”
“Technically —”
“Yeah, I included you in this. Don’t gimme that look.”
“No doubt there were a fair few of those left behind who thought Turning the enemy would be a final insult… but all it takes is one of those vile creatures to breed a swarm.”
There’s a long pause. Then— “Trust me,” says Adrian, “I’ve seen it firsthand.”
Lily wasn’t there that night. At the Musea. She had the pleasure of roughing up Nicole, not going head to head with the things vampire horror stories are made about.
“So… theoretically. How good are our chances?”
Adrian chooses not to answer; and in that moment even the tiniest flicker of optimism is snuffed out.
They regrouped in a second-floor parlor of some kind. Filled with more burned wood than the rest of the Manor and a misshapen, disfigured lump in the corner Nadya comes to realize is a pile of painting canvases. Stacked one on top of the other then set ablaze. Though the smell of oil and paint has long since seeped into the wood, potent enough to make her feel a little woozy, they don’t have any immediate plans to father elsewhere.
This parlor is the only one with a window facing the network of tunnels leading far to the north of Paris. Their only way out.
“We must assume we cannot go back the way we came,” Serafine admits gravely, “even if we managed to slip by a few of them without being heard no doubt the torches have long since attracted them like moths.”
Jax grimaces. “We practically rolled out the red carpet for them, is what you’re saying.”
Nadya doesn’t turn away from the window; doesn’t think she has the strength to do something so strenuous as turn even the tiniest bit. But she sees Serafine’s reflection clear as day, and the woman’s curt nod makes her heart sink.
They probably shouldn’t have put her on lookout duty, all things considered. Not just because every shadow she sees out along the rocks makes her blood freeze in her veins, though that’s definitely a factor.
If I can’t trust my own eyes… how can they?
Talk about being under pressure.
Jax looks at Adrian. “You guys dealt with something similar at that Ball, didn’t you? How’d you take care of them then?”
“We nearly didn’t,” Adrian admits, and it occurs to Nadya this is the first time she’s ever heard him talk about the attack at the Awakening Ball, “and when we learned it was someone from Vega’s Clan who smuggled the initial wave in, our survival seemed less like luck and more like just another part of his plan.”
“But you still fought them off, you still won.” The younger vampire insists.
Frustration starts makes Adrian’s replies terse and forced. “Yes, we did, but that was with the combined strength of the entire Council—including Kamilah’s two thousand years of experience—and more than several of North America’s strongest vampires.
“Not to mention the Trinity.”
The last part he says like more of an afterthought; quieter and more to himself. A muscle ticks in Cadence’s jaw but he remains otherwise silent.
“Then our course is clear,” Serafine steps between them; practically a whole different person than the woman in the ballroom, “we wait for their attack to gauge their numbers. Then we do whatever we can to break through to the Northern Quarter.”
There’s a weight to her words that has nothing to do with the literal Feral horde practically on their doorstep. They don’t have any other choice; not a one of them. They’re the only ones who know what weapon will kill Gaius and if that means only one person pries their way back up to tell the ones fighting back home… so be it.
“I don’t like the thought of waiting them out.”
“You do not have to like it. We have no alternatives.”
“Rrragh!”
Behind her Jax lets out a short growl of frustration. The very sound makes Nadya flinch on her stool; shoulders hunched and shaking like a leaf. The scuffled sounds of his frantic pacing stops immediately. She can feel his eyes boring into her back, watching; waiting for her to break like a little glass figurine.
She’s caught by surprise though when Cadence unfolds his arms and approaches with loud and purposeful strides. She hears every step until he’s at her back like a wall — or a shield.
On the other side of the glass the shadows shift again. Like they sensed the tension easing from her soul for even a fraction of a second and have to make up for the lost time in terrifying her. Nadya decides then that’s more than enough of an excuse to turn her back on them.
When she can finally meet her friends’ eyes she looks up to find Serafine studying her intensely. “Wh-What?” she asks, voice wavering.
It doesn’t help she’s still too scared to look at her own freakin’ hands.
“You were inside the creature’s mind.” Gee, thanks for stating the obvious.
“I know. I was there.”
“Perhaps you could be again.”
“Perhaps you could shut up.”
Lily quirks an eyebrow at her in a silent question. No doubt they’re all wondering just how much of what Nadya says and does is in fact Nadya Al Jamil… and how much is the twisted madness of a starving Feral. But they don’t need to worry; she’s pushed that thing as far out of her little personal space bubble as she could. That anger is one hundred percent hers, and one hundred percent warranted.
Cadence clears his throat over her head. “Well if it’s any consolation, Jax, it won’t be a long wait…” Unprompted, he’s taken up Nadya’s vigil; eyes so wide she can see a thin ring of white around his blue irises and focused far in the cavern’s distance.
The shadows are moving faster now. They scuttle like spiders around shallow cliffs and down the many many staircases, descending on them in a frenzied haze until there aren’t many of them, but instead one big mama shadow heading their way.
There’s no deluding herself now… those aren’t shadows.
#bloodbound#bloodbound fanfiction#kamilah x mc#adrian raines#choices fanfiction#bloodbound mc#mc: nadya al jamil#lily spencer#jax matsuo#serafine dupont#oc: cadence smith#fic: oblivion bound#oblv: bound by destiny ii#oblv: new chapter#; my fics
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desperado
A/N: a continuation of “she got the moon in her eyes” -- recommend you read that first!
summary: Shawn and Catalina deal with the aftermath of their night together
warnings: Language, NSFW in a big way holy cow (unprotected sex, wrap it before you tap it), dom!Shawn comes out to play
WC: 4.4k
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The morning is dark and cold when he leaves her bed, her tangled navy hair, her chapped rosy lips. It’s like the day itself is telling him to turn around and get back under her sheets, nicotine stained and perfume scented. The idea of it sets something off in his gut, a sharp tugging leading in the opposite direction of his heavy stride toward his bike.
He slings a leg across and settles in, pulling his helmet on, careful to avoid his still tender black eye. When he checked in her mirror in the early blue light of dawn, it was starting to go a sickly green-ish around the edges. He’s lucky, he guesses, that Catalina took him home last night before this started. He looks a little gross.
He revs the engine, takes one mournful look back at the little craftsman house and sighs, taking off down Greenfield toward his place.
+
You can’t hear the tinkling bell over the door at Plucky’s Pub, the one meant to signal the arrival of more customers. Catalina doesn’t know why it’s there. But as she’s learned, Plucky’s regulars don’t like change. If the bell was gone, they’d surely notice somehow, the way they notice when Bonnie changes anything -- the price of two fingers of whiskey, the ratty-ass curtains over the south window, even the fucking bar polish they use to clean the damn place.
Catalina doesn’t need the bell, anyway. She can feel it when people walk in, even when the line for the bar is five deep and she can’t see the door. She’s been doing this a long time. Plus, when certain people walk in, you can feel it.
Shawn is the last of his crew through the door. He’s the one they turn to look at. Not even just the straight women -- everyone. He’s just eye-catching. Catalina knows. She understands. He caught her eye, too.
She turns on the block heel of her slingbacks. She doesn’t even want to be tempted to look up at him. It’s been three weeks since she took him home and he left without a word. Things like that just… don’t happen to her.
This one stung. For one thing, she’s not usually the one hosting. She prefers it that way. She can control her exit without the fuss of having to kick someone out. It also means she’s never in the position of having someone leave her to wake up alone.
She didn’t have, like, plans or anything. She wasn’t going to wake up and put on his t-shirt and make him pancakes, for fuck’s sake. That’s so not her style.
It’s the principle of it. He left. He left her. Nobody does that.
Why the fuck did he do that?
She knows it was good. Fuck, she knows it was great. It’s never been like that the first time, not with anyone. She thinks of the way his body stuttered, the groan that sounded like it was coming out of his gut when he came inside her. Her toes tingle thinking about it. She grits her teeth and rocks the cocktail shaker harder in her warm hands.
She does finally turn around because she has to to hand off the drink. It’s admittedly not the best martini she’s ever made. She abused the ice in the shaker for too long, which chips it, which makes it melt faster, which makes it watery, which makes her tip smaller. She grits her teeth, accepting the small bills, tucking them into her bra.
The loud glassy clinking of beer bottles being delivered to a table has her looking up before she can remember to stop. Shawn and his friends are starting with Molsons tonight. Shawn isn’t looking at his bottle as he positions the edge of the cap over the end of the table, slapping the heel of his palm down without flinching.
He’s looking straight at her.
It takes all her self control not to sneer before she turns her gaze down to the next customer. She has to blink a few times not to see his face. She also has to have the poor girl repeat her order three times before her fingers know where to reach to make a gin and tonic.
+
She used to be good at ignoring his eyes on her all night.
Well, that’s not strictly true. She just used to enjoy them a lot more.
She’s not sure why they’re on her now. The curiosity has been well and thoroughly satisfied. He had her, he left. Yes, that makes him a fucking moron of catastrophic proportions, Catalina knows. But why is he still looking?
Every time she glances up, he’s already watching her expectantly. What exactly is he anticipating? Does he expect to see her bursting into tears at the sight of him, or panting over the idea of fucking him again until he comes over and takes her?
If that’s what he’s waiting for, it’ll be a while.
She’s busy, anyway. She has a cling-on tonight.
A cling-on is a term Bonnie uses for guys that latch onto a hot female bartender and attempt to woo her. Catalina’s very familiar with them. She got a lot more when she started at Plucky’s, when her take-no-prisoners reputation wasn’t yet known. But every so often, some poor sap will stumble in and think if he’s persistent enough, he’ll get in her pants. She has half a mind to let him if it’ll run Shawn out of her rattled brain.
But this particular guy is aggressive. She stopped serving him fifteen minutes ago after he knocked over the drink of a biker chick Catalina once took home, but he’s still here, trying to talk to her every time she delivers a drink down to his end of the bar.
She drops a rum and coke onto a coaster for the woman next to him, who looks sweetly concerned. Catalina winks at her assuringly and turns to head for a group of college guys that have just made their way to the bar after a wait.
Before she can move, she feels a tug on the thin strap of her dress. She whirls around, eyes skimming past the horrified look on the woman’s face before she settles on the bleary-eyed fuckwit who just laid a hand on her without her permission.
Then something weird happens.
Catalina’s history of chucking assholes out of Plucky’s for different varieties of bad behavior is long and storied. She’s hardly ever needed help to do it. When she has, it’s been because the losers have had back up, so Shawn and his friends, the de facto security team, stepped in to even the count.
Catalina knows the situation calls for her angriest face, for her to bark “OUT!” loud enough to embarrass the fucker and get him stumbling out the door. She can do it. She doesn’t need help.
But she looks up. Shawn is watching her carefully, beer bottle halfway to his perfect, pillowy lips. She swallows and blinks at him, and it’s enough for him to come running.
In a few strides, he’s there, hustling around the crowd to get behind the bar. His eyes are dark and solid, his jaw is tight. He’s squaring up, looking ready to scream in this guy’s face, but it’s not what Catalina wants.
Instead, she grabs him by the wrist, pins herself to the wall and drags him in.
Shawn doesn’t take long to respond. He sinks one hand into the soft, sweaty hair clinging to the back of her neck and wraps the other around her hip, nipping hard at her lower lip to get a moan vibrating his whole body.
Some patrons cheer. Bonnie casts them a confused sidelong glance from the other end of the bar as she dumps bourbon into a lowball glass. Shawn’s friends exchange amused looks.
Shawn and Catalina don’t see any of it.
Shawn tips his head, pressing his tongue between her lips with a deep sigh that makes his shoulders drop for the first time in weeks. The hand on her hip works his thumb into her hipbone, pulling the loose skirt of her little dress up with every purposeful stroke. Catalina holds him close, massaging her long fingers against his scalp to make his eyes flutter.
She’s the one that breaks away to breathe first. Her lips are wet, parted with the heaving effort of her breath. She looks up at Shawn, eyes wide, expression unreadable. While he stares down at her, she angles her head to look over his shoulder. Her cling-on looks vaguely disgusted, pitching himself off the counter to amble heavily toward the door.
He watches her mask slide back on when she looks back up at him, clearing her throat.
“Thanks.”
The muscle in Shawn’s jaw pulses. He eases off to let her slide out from around his hulking form. She doesn’t bother looking back at him again.
+
Catalina’s not the least bit surprised to see him refuse his friends’ invitation to leave with them after closing time while Catalina is refilling bottles and twirling on her toes to “I Wanna Be Your Lover” by Prince -- one of Bonnie’s favorite post closing time clean up jams.
Catalina is dawdling. Bonnie and Shawn have both clocked it. She’s singing along under her breath, rinsing the funnel leisurely as Bonnie locks doors and gathers cash into a bag for the bank.
Wizened Bonnie with her spiky red pixie cut and her toned, tattooed arms shoots Shawn a look before announcing she’s out for the night. Shawn answers it with a nod. Bonnie hits the stereo on the way out.
It’s quiet. The only sounds left in the dark, empty bar are the splashing of booze as Catalina refills handles and the squeaking of her heels on the sticky floor.
Shawn takes a deep, shaky breath. He runs a hand through his hair and drops the last gulp of Johnnie Walker down his throat before standing, shucking off the Dolly Parton leather jacket. He takes his glass and heads for the bar to return it to Catalina.
She looks up briefly from her careful pour of Jim Beam.
“What’re you still doing here?” she murmurs. It’s gentle, not accusatory. It makes Shawn’s lips curl into a smirk.
“Figured I’d stick around in case that creepy fucker comes back.”
Catalina wets her lips and stands, shaking her hair out over her shoulders. She doesn’t look up from her bottle.
“You know I don’t have a problem handling those losers,” she says breezily. Shawn sees right through it.
“Oh, I know. That’s why it was so cute that you used it as a way to get your tongue in my mouth earlier.”
That gets her attention. Her gaze snaps to his. She tilts her chin up defiantly.
“Some guys don’t respond to my pushback unless they think I “belong” to somebody,” she explains unnecessarily, quirking her fingers in air quotes around “belong.”
Shawn nods thoughtfully, twirling his glass in his fingers before he sets it down on the bar and steps around it to hunch beside her.
“But you don’t belong to anybody, baby,” he purrs in her ear, watching with a rush of heat in his veins as goosebumps pour over her sweet, fragrant neck.
“That’s right,” she snarks back, twisting the cap of a bottle. She turns to put the bottle back. On her way to grab another, Shawn hooks an arm around her waist and lifts her to perch on the edge of the bar counter.
He takes his time looking her over as he makes his way between her thighs. With heavy lids, he watches her breathing quicken. He strokes his broad, rough palms down the outsides of her legs. He pauses. Catalina holds her breath, sure she’s getting another bruising kiss. Instead, he steps back and skillfully hooks his fingers under the ankle strap of her slingbacks, slipping them off and dropping them with a clatter.
“Dunno why you wear those to work,” he comments, gently lowering one leg to focus on the other. He plants her foot at the center of his chest and draws his fingertips teasingly up and down the length and breadth of her moonpale leg.
Catalina grips the edge of the bar and stares at him unblinking. He admires the dips and curves and swells and valleys of her well-used leg, slipping his fingers under the sole of her foot to pluck it off his chest and press his thumbs into the sore tendons.
Catalina’s eyes slam shut. The moan that leaves her throat is beyond obscene. It makes Shawn chuckle. He takes his time, working his fingers with varying pressure around the ball of her foot to the arch to her heel and back again. When he’s satisfied, he lifts her other foot and repeats the massage, intricate and detailed and so tender it makes Catalina’s mind swirl.
“I… they make my ass look amazing,” she answers finally, his question almost forgotten.
Shawn looks up from her eggplant-lacquered toes. “Your ass already looks amazing, Leens. You might as well be comfortable while you look so damn good.”
He lowers her foot and stares up at her. Without removing his gaze, he lifts her claw-like hand off the bar and brings it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss over her knuckles.
“You know, you’re allowed to want to be a damsel in distress sometimes. I won’t think any less of you.”
Catalina balks, her insides twisting. “I don’t need you to save me, Shawn.”
Shawn steps closer, dropping her little hand onto his shoulder.
“I know. But it’s ok if you want me to.”
His lips are soft, plump and whiskey-wet. She gasps into them, her knees falling automatically open to welcome him closer. He takes the invitation happily, pulling her hips tight against his torso as he loses himself in the taste of her sweet mouth. She’s immediately needy, dropping her pretense to take as much of him in her hands as she can. She squeezes the bulk of his shoulders, the swell of his biceps, the soft skin of his neck, the curls behind his ears that have him growling into her lips.
She pulls back. He grunts and chases her down, lunging in for another searing kiss. She lets him take it, the wrinkle between her eyes softening as she rocks her hips against his abdomen and gathers him ever closer. Soon, before she can entirely lose her train of thought, she pulls away again, this time to suck on his jaw to pacify him.
Through wet, biting kisses, she pants, “Want to show you… want to thank you…”
Shawn’s intrigued. His stomach flips. He pulls back and holds her face in his hands.
“How are you going to do that?” he coos, cocky and curious.
Catalina inhales and nudges him back enough to slip down to her feet. She turns him, props him up against the bar and lowers to her knees. His head tosses back. He breathes harder in anticipation.
“Remember how hot and tight my throat was for you?” she breathes, her voice already fucked as she unbuckles his belt and skillfully works his jeans open to free his hard cock, “Remember how good and wet I felt when I was sucking you?”
“Jesus, baby,” Shawn hisses. His cock gives a twitch at her words. She smiles and takes it in her soft hand, stroking it firmly. His eyes flutter.
“Want you to fuck my mouth, Shawn,” she tells him, planting a sweet kiss on his tip. His hips shift forward, searching for her.
“Open up then, princess,” he sighs, shooting her a crooked grin that has her squirming.
Catalina, for once in her life, obeys. She lifts her hair over one shoulder and parts her flushed lips, staring up at him. Shawn groans, easing his cock into her willing mouth slowly. He wants her to enjoy this as much as he knows he will, so he doesn’t go shoving in all at once. He rolls his hips gently, letting her adjust, slick him down with her soft tongue. When she gives a short nod, he rocks harder, a little deeper, until he feels her throat restrict around his shaft.
She’s looking up at him like she doesn’t want to miss a second. Her small hands cling to his hips like she’s afraid he’ll bolt if she doesn’t hold on. Fat fucking chance.
Her mouth really is almost as good as her pussy. Or maybe his stupid horny brain just thinks that right now because he hasn’t had her pussy in weeks, even though it’s all he’s been thinking about when he’s alone, his tight fist failing to bring him the same ecstatic feeling. She’s not afraid of what he’s giving her, even when he reaches down to curl his hand around her thick sheet of hair to control the angle of her wet mouth. She seems hungry for him. It makes his toes curl in his boots.
“Your fucking mouth, Jesus fucking Christ,” Shawn pants, shaking his head with a short, overwhelmed burst of laughter. Catalina groans, scooting closer on her knees. The whine that whistles from Shawn’s nose would embarrass him if he weren’t half gone.
“You like this, don’t you, baby? Like the way I fuck your pretty mouth,” he whispers, awed.
She manages to nod, still looking up at him reverently.
Shawn’s fingers curl into his free fist. The hand in her hair eases her back gently until his cock bobs against her bottom lip.
“Don’t wanna come in your mouth,” he grunts, “Need to feel you come on my face first.”
He watches in delight as her thighs tighten under her pretty skirt. He takes her hands, helping her back to her feet.
“How do you want me?” she asks, glancing around like she’s looking for ideas.
Shawn thinks fast on his feet. He grabs a step stool out from under the bar and positions it beside the counter, helping her to stand on top, facing away from him. She looks back over her shoulder when Shawn’s hands lift the skirt of her dress, his thumbs pressing greedily into the smooth skin of her ass.
Catalina’s eyes drift shut. She’s soaked straight through her lacy baby blue thong. Shawn tugs at it teasingly, letting it snap against her lower back.
“C’mon, Shawn,” she hisses impatiently.
Shawn hums from the back of his throat, amused. “Think you’re gonna get what you need by being a brat?”
He pulls at her panties for real now, watching as they hug her close, clinging to her wetness until they drop around her ankles. He steadies her as she steps out of them, kicking them off the stool.
“Maybe if you ask me nicely,” he suggests, lifting one of her legs so her knee rests on the edge of the bar, spreading her open for him, “I’ll give you what you need.”
Catalina’s vision is blurry. Now that he’s got her where he wants her, ready to give it up if she says the words, even her swollen pride can’t stop her.
She keens loud and looks over her shoulder, watching him drop to his knees so he’s level with her slick wetness.
“Please, Shawn. Fuck. Please. Need your tongue.”
Shawn grins wolfishly and lurches forward, using his gigantic hands to anchor her against the bar and press the flat of his tongue to her dripping pussy.
“Fuck, so wet already,” he laughs after his first taste, “Soaked from sucking on my cock.”
She mewls in agreement, wriggling her hips. He lifts a hand to bring it down against the white flesh of her ass, watching her arch, hearing her squeal.
“So pretty,” he groans before nuzzling his lips back where they belong. His tongue plucks at her clit, wanting her as wet as he can get her. She rocks her hips gently against the bar, stretching her arms out to hold tight to the other side of the counter as he starts fucking her in earnest.
Shawn’s tongue is unforgiving. He flicks it hot and fast against her swollen button, his thumbs sweeping in toward her center, flirting with the idea of filling her with his fingers. He concentrates on suckling at her until she’s bucking so hard against the bar that he can’t hold her still.
“Didn’t take long,” he pants, licking his lips, “Gonna come for me already, princess?”
“Please, please, please,” she chants, “Need to fucking come for you.”
Shawn is smug, landing another harsh smack on her ass, a second red handprint to match the first. “Yeah, baby. Come on my tongue.”
He thrusts his stiff tongue in between her pulsing walls, adjusting his hand so his finger can rock tightly against her clit. She can tell by the pressure mounting against his mouth that she’s almost there. He moans in anticipation and it’s the thing that drives her home.
Shawn holds his mouth fast against her, pressing his tongue in and out as she shakes and screams. He lifts his hands up around her hips, letting his palms be the cushion between her hipbones and the bar counter. He revels in it, in just how long it takes for her to even out and bring her crying whimpers down to ragged gasps.
Shawn hesitates, but pulls back when he feels her shivering at his touch. He straightens up behind her, helps her ease her leg down off the bar and climb off the stool to slump in his arms.
Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes are unfocused, and Shawn has never felt so accomplished. He cradles her against his chest, smiling as she presses open-mouthed kisses through his t-shirt.
“Want more, honey?” he rasps, nosing at her fragrant hair. She nods eagerly.
Shawn reaches down to scoop her up, her legs lifting to twist around his waist. Her body is weak and soft against his as he carries her around the corner, pressing her back into the walk-in fridge door. She hisses at the cool steel before the sound disappears between his lips.
Catalina lifts her limp hands into his hair, squeezing when she feels his hips pin hers into the door and cant, driving his still hard cock against her pussy. She tastes herself, warm and heady on his lips. She writhes, desperately trying to angle herself in a way that will get him nestled up against her entrance for when the next rock of his hips comes.
“Shhh, I know,” he chuckles brusquely, holding her up with one arm so he can maneuver them together, spanking her clit with the head of his cock while he’s at it. She squirms, whimpering and tossing her head.
“Tell me,” he pants, telling himself he’s not begging, “Tell me you want to feel me.”
“Oh god, Shawn,” she moans, “Yes. Please. You make me feel so good.”
The tips of his ears go hot. With a grunt, he thrusts up into her, feeling a ghost of the memory of last time shrug around him. He’s never felt anything like her before. He thought it would’ve worn off after the first time, after he came so hard inside her he truly saw stars. But it’s here again and it has him by the throat.
His breathing is ragged as his chest presses against hers. She’s not mocking him this time, though. She’s brushing her nose over his, wetting her lips to speak, quiet and sweet.
“Nobody fills me like you do.”
Shawn’s instincts return and any remaining sense goes out the window. He growls again, vibrating her around his dick as he starts to set a rhythm that has her bouncing between his hips and the door. She gasps, eyes flying open as her head slams back into the steel. In the quiet bar, the sounds their bodies make together are viscerally filthy. Shawn squeezes his eyes shut to try to ignore it for fear of ending it all too soon. She feels too good. He’s had her once and now, as he has her again, he knows he’s addicted.
Her hips roll with his in perfect time, giving and receiving. Her hot breath on his face makes him feel like he’s buried in a cloud with her. Maybe they won’t have to come out this time. He doesn’t want to.
He shifts his hips to pulse the head of his cock against her g-spot. As badly as he wants to hold her here against him forever, he’s desperate to feel her come again. He knows how good she can do it.
“Lina,” he hears himself murmur, his lips so close to hers that they brush when he speaks, “I know you’re close. I can feel you.”
She’s sure he can. Her whole body is throbbing for him. She’s been holding on by her fingertips, unwilling to end it. She knows when she comes, he’ll follow. And then what?
She groans and shakes her head. “I… I--”
“I know,” he pants, “It’s ok. Just come for me. Want you to come so hard.”
He plunges his face into the crook of her neck, licking and sucking at the spot that got her so crazy for him last time. She cries his name, thrusting her hips harder just before the dam breaks. She soaks him, her body sputtering and stumbling through a fierce orgasm. She chokes on breath and grips his hair so hard she pulls some strands free in her fingers. The pleasure-pain she gives him sends him off the cliff behind her, pulsing hot and fast into her welcoming cunt until he’s spent and barely able to hold them both up.
Shawn eases back, tucking himself into his jeans. Catalina adjusts her skirt and clears her throat, sore from crying out for him.
She drops her head, unable to look at him. Her chest feels tight. The shame of it is seeping in through every pore.
She was so willing to spread her legs for him again after he left her naked and alone in her own bed. She put her desire for a good fuck over her pride. She let him know she needs him.
She can’t think of anything worse.
With a jolt, she heaves off the door and grabs at her panties and the purse she left on the counter, leaving the shoes behind -- they’d only slow her down. Without another look back, she hurries out the door, taking off at a run, barefoot and crying.
-----------
Part 3 coming very soon! Please support my smutty ass and buy me a Ko-fi (link on main page)!
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The Deal (part 8)
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Gryffindor's euphoria for finally conquering the Quidditch Cup lasted at least a week. Even the weather seemed to celebrate with them, and as June approached, the days became serene and sultry, which made Draco even more indisposed than Potter’s satisfied face as the only thing he wanted to do was walk in the meadows and throw himself down on the grass with several pints of frozen pumpkin juice, playing some absent-minded game of Gobstones or watching the huge octopus advancing dreamy on the Lake’s surface with Hermione but she avoided him like the plague so he just studied with Mandy and his friends even though he would’ve greatly preferred the whole matter to be forgotten. Not that it would last much longer: in a short time they would all go home and he had no intention of inviting her to spend even a day at the Manor or to reply to her letters. On the other hand, if he could’ve asked Hermione to spend some time with him, maybe things would’ve settled. But how? If his parents had only caught a glimpse of her curly hair, they would’ve gone mad. The only thing he could do was ask for Pansy’s help even if she seemed to be the only person more nervous than him in the whole castle; even the students who had to do OWLs and NEWTs were more relaxed.
"Buckbeak's appeal is July the 6th." she explained, without even raising her head from the multitude of parchment sheets she was reading. Draco froze: his father must have chosen the last day of exams for a reason. "It’ll be held here." went on Pansy. "Someone from the Ministry and an executioner will come."
So they had already decided, it didn't matter all he, Pansy, Hermione and even Millicent had done to prevent it. Yet there had to be a way to avoid it and Hermione surely knew it.
The exam week began and an unnatural quiet descended on the castle. On Monday the third year students left Transfiguration for lunch, sad and pale, comparing the results and complaining about the difficulty of the tests, including the transformation of a teapot into a tortoise but quite different things buzzed in her mind. If she had used the Time-Turner she would’ve been able to fix the Buckbeak situation but she would’ve betrayed McGonagall's trust since she had told her to use it only and exclusively to attend multiple lessons at the same time. Obviously if she hadn’t done it immense suffering would’ve hit Hagrid with the strength of a hurricane and she loved her sensible friend too much to stand it, not to mention the fact that she would’ve been the reason why Malfoy's hateful victorious smile would die. It would’ve been a great satisfaction, especially after what they had put her through with Draco, although in the end things had gone wrong for different reasons. And here is the other thought that didn’t allow her to concentrate as she wanted, what she had to reject if she wanted to be able to function like a normal person. She ate quickly, trying not to look at the Slytherin's table, and then ran upstairs again for the Charm exam, in which, as Hermione had imagined, cheering charms were asked. Harry exaggerated a little for the tension so that Ron, who was teaming up with him, had hysterical giggles and had to stay in a quiet place for an hour before being able to perform the spell in turn. After dinner, the students hurried back to the common rooms, not to relax, but to revise Care of the Magical Creatures, Potions and Astronomy. The next morning Hagrid attended the exam but he seemed worried, as if he was thinking of something else, and Hermione couldn’t blame him. He had prepared a large tub of Flobberworms for the class and he told them they had to be still alive the next hour to pass the test. Since Flobberworms thrived if left alone, it was the easiest exam they ever took, plus it gave Harry, Ron, that after the cheering charm had started talking to her again, but Hermione also suspected it was because she no longer spoke to Draco, and Hermione a chance to talk to Hagrid.
"Beak is a little down," said Hagrid, bending over with the excuse of checking that Harry's Flobberworm was still alive. “He has been locked up for too long. Anyway, we'll know the day after tomorrow, one way or another.”
Hermione’s heart broke hearing those words but she still couldn’t make a decision about what to do since that afternoon there was the Potions’ exam, which was a total disaster since Hermione couldn’t taking her eyes off Draco, it didn’t matter how hard she tried, and he noticed, which seemed to give him the idea of being able to speak to her again.
"You really don't understand, do you?" she asked, before disappearing into the Astronomy tower. On Wednesday morning it was History of Magic’s turn and Hermione wrote everything she knew about the Middle Ages’ witch hunt, longing to be able to being shut in Pansy’s room eating a large box of ice cream. Instead, in the afternoon, there was Herbology in the greenhouses, under a scorching sun, then all back to the common room with burned neck and back, to wish it was already tomorrow at the same time, when all would be over. The penultimate exam, Thursday morning, was Defense against the Dark Arts. Professor Lupin had concocted the most unusual exam they ever had: a sort of outdoor obstacle course, in which they had to cross a small basin that contained a grindylow, to overcome a series of holes full of red caps, making their way along a path in the swamp ignoring the mischievous advice of a hinkypunk and finally climbing inside an old trunk and fight against a boggart. Hermione did everything perfectly until she got at the last obstacle; after a minute she came out of the trunk crying.
"Hermione!" said Professor Lupin in alarm. "What happens?"
Hermione knew she had simply a boggart in front of her, that that wasn't really Draco and probably he didn't really think those things, but she just couldn't think of anything ridiculous that could make her laugh at that scene. It took a while to calm her down but when she finally regained control of herself, Harry and Ron, who never stopped asking her what she had seen with an extremely worried expression, returned to the castle, where they found Cornelius Fudge, slightly warmed up in his pinstriped cloak , which looked towards the park. At the sight of Harry he greeted him and asked him about the exams while Ron and Hermione, who had never spoken to the Minister of Magic, lingered awkwardly behind him.
"Nice day," said Fudge, glancing at the lake. "What a pity..." He sighed deeply and looked at Harry. “I'm here on an unpleasant mission: the Committee for the Suppression of Dangerous Creatures has requested a witness for the execution of a Hippogriff. And since I already had to come to Hogwarts to see how things are going with Black, they sent me. "
"Does that mean there's already been the appeal?" Ron interrupted, making a step forward.
"No, it's set for this afternoon," said Fudge looking at Ron with curiosity.
"Then you may not have to witness any executions!" said Ron obstinately. "The Hippogriff could even get away with it!"
Before Fudge could answer, two wizards left the castle and joined him. One was so old that seemed to shrivel up before them and the other was tall and robust, with a thin black mustache. Hermione assumed they were representatives of the Dangerous Creature Suppression Committee, because the first wizard squinted at Hagrid's hut and said in a high-pitched voice: “I'm too old for these things... it's at two o'clock, isn't it?"
The wizard with the black mustache was brushing his thumb against something hanging from his belt; Hermione looked better and saw that it was the blade of a shining ax. Ron opened his mouth to say something, but she nudged him and nodded towards the entrance hall just in time.
"Why did you interrupt me?" said Ron furiously as they entered the Great Hall for lunch. "You saw them? They already have the ax ready! This isn’t justice! "
"Ron, your father works for the Ministry, you can't speak to his boss in that tone!" said Hermione but she was upset too, and more than ever reason and feelings fought in her mind. "If this time Hagrid checks our notes and discuss the case properly, they cannot execute Buckbeak .” she said, and she hoped she had put enough conviction in it, because she intended to do something in which they should’ve nothing to do.
All around the students spoke animatedly, waiting cheerfully for the exams’ end that afternoon but Draco didn’t imitate them: Hermione had approached Pansy and the two girls were talking animatedly trying to maintain a soft tone of voice, a distraction that would’ve been fatal if it hadn’t been Draco to eavesdrop. They talked about breaking the rules, which was very unusual for Hermione, and about doing something that, according to Pansy, could’ve had catastrophic consequences. After the Divination exam, Draco decided to follow them. He would never have expected to find them hidden in the Forbidden Forest’s offshoot, waiting for the executioner to suppress the hippogriff but he would’ve expected less to hear Potter and Weasley’s voice coming from Hagrid’s hut when they were nowhere around.
"What are they doing here?" asked Pansy, who was all trembling. What they were going to do must’ve been really dangerous if she was so tense.
"They’ll come to console Hagrid, I suppose. But this complicates things..." Hermione muttered, and Draco could imagine her concentrated expression.
"We have to let him die, don't we? We have to let him die and take the Cloak away from those two idiots so we can hide from ourselves and..." Pansy began, but Hermione silenced her.
"I can't do it. I can't see him die. We have to leave." and she turned so quickly that Draco didn't have time to hide better, so she saw him. For a moment she seemed surprised but then anger took over.
"Wasn't I clear enough? I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to have anything to do with you..." she began, approaching him with great strides, but Draco covered her mouth just in time so as not to let her be heard from Fudge and Macnair , an old friend of his father.
"Please, let's move." Pansy whispered. "I can't stand it, I can't I do it."
They began to rise again in the depths as the sun went down rapidly, the sky, barely visible between the branches, of a light gray streaked with violet. Draco heard Potter and Weasley’s voice again, then a squeak, finally the unmistakable hiss of an ax, followed by a thump. They had done it. Incredulous and emptied by shock, all three were paralyzed with horror. Then they heard a wild howl behind them.
"Hagrid." murmured Hermione. Without thinking, she started to turn, but Pansy and Draco grabbed her by the arms.
"We can't," said Pansy, white as a rag. "Remember what we have to do..." but before she could finish, the other silenced her. Draco had short, irregular breathing. Were they pondering revenge? And on whom? On the members of the Committee? On the Ministry of Magic in person? Or just on the executioner? Taking it out on such an influential member of wizarding society was a stupid decision and Pansy should’ve known better, if not Hermione herself. Or maybe they wanted... Draco tried not to think about it. Even though she was mad at him and his father wasn't exactly a saint, he was certain that Hermione would never try to hurt his family.
"We should go." said Hermione, with a strange resolve in her eyes. They set off for the castle, advancing slowly so as not to be heard. The light now dimmed quickly. When they were forced to move on
open fields, darkness fell like a spell around them.
"Stand still! Ouch! He bit me!" exclaimed Weasley, who had to be well hidden as the voice attracted the attention of all three but he can’t see the specific source of the sound. Hermione, on her part, must’ve saw something since she went down a dozen steps and seemed to lift an invisible veil, revealing both Potter and Weasley.
"You shouldn't be here." she hissed, apparently not at all surprised by the fact that those two idiots had an Invisibility Cloak. "And you should move and make no noise if you don't want Fudge to see you. Or hear you."
"I found Scabbers again!" exclaimed Weasley, as if he hadn't heard what Hermione had just said. "But he doesn't want to be quiet."
He was actually holding a clearly terrified looking mouse who was shaking with all his might to free himself from his grasp.
"Leave that stupid mouse alone!" snapped Pansy. "As you found it once, you'll find it again."
But the rodent slipped between Weasley's fingers, fell to the ground and fled. In one leap, Hermione’s cat, which no one had seen coming, snapped at his heels and before Potter or Hermione could stop him, Ron took off the Invisibility Cloak and disappeared into the darkness.
"Ron!" Hermione moaned, but he didn’t stop so Hermione and Potter exchanged a glance. It was impossible to run under the Cloak, so he came out and both threw themselves in pursuit, imitated by Draco and Pansy who heard their footsteps resound in front of them, and Weasley's cries against Crookshanks. They would all end up in serious trouble because of a stupid decrepit mouse, and Draco would never have forgiven Weasley’s poor ass if it had happened.
#the deal#dramione#hermione granger#draco malfoy#pansy parkinson#millicent bulstrode#harry potter#ron weasley#remus lupin#minerva mcgonagall#rubeus hagrid#hp#poa
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Imperium: Sylvalum
Scio dolorem tuum. (I know your pain.)
It had taken centuries, long and grueling centuries, but the planet was recovering. They had focused on the three continents affected the most by the war: Obi-liv’isk, Siy’valis-um, and Call’dive-ros. In that time they had never seen one of his people. That single fact was enough to make him miserable, for deep down he missed them. Thankfully the feeling was deep enough to go unnoticed by the planet.
Of the most affected continents, Siy’valis-um was the closest to its former glory. It once possessed a similar ecosystem to Prim’ala-dor’ias, but now harbored unseen creatures, more dangerous and predatory, None of the creatures dared to harm him. The planet made sure to tell them what he was.
He walked close to the continent’s greatest lake, along where the water met the land. The water was opaque, but he knew it wasn’t deep, wasn’t one of the many harborers of unseen enemies. He stared out at the expanse, at the old cervus that drank from the shallows. He felt nothing and feared nothing.
The immovable water splashed at his shoes.
“I sense something troubling you, my avatar.”
“We have been together for centuries, and yet we are lonely, and we are tired.” He admitted quietly.
“...Yes, we are. I have neglected you in lieu of rebuilding what was destroyed.”
He turned then, and he faced the gigantic green orb, the mightiest of the continent’s “trees”. However, unlike most its wildlife, the orb housed a planetary parasite, one that had tried to destroy the planet once and for all.
The planet had no name for it aside from the Everqueen. Its planetary guardian, the Endbringer, had trapped it inside halfway though the rebuilding process. The Everqueen slept within it, trapped, contained.
It sent chills down his spine. Oh, how the planet had screamed in pain upon its arrival. To think it could’ve killed everything in its wake and not felt satiated.
“We do not blame you, old friend. You have been working hard these past years.”
The ground quivered beneath his feet.
“But I have neglected your wellbeing. For that, I give my deepest apologies.”
There was silence, and then, a sudden exclamation.
“What if I created a tangible form for myself? A humanoid, so that I could accompany you across my continents. We would be together, physically and mentally.”
“Are you sure that wouldn’t strain our mind?” He asked, concerned but intrigued.
“Even if it did, I owe this to you. You have been alone, all this time.” The wind came to a stop, and he heard the whispers of the creatures around him, saw the wisps of pollen fall to the sand. “I will need your help, however. I can only accomplish this at the Beacon, and I will require components from the land to create this form. I can supply the miranium, but you are free to choose whatever you feel will create the most beautiful form.”
He grinned. When was the last time he had been truly excited by something? Finally, he would not be alone, the planet would be there in a physical form to walk alongside him.
“We will need time,” He said, “But we are willing to help you.”
“Excellent,” The planet whispered lovingly, “I will see you at the Beacon, old friend, and together we shall create something beautiful.”
~
Three months had passed since Pongo disappeared.
L bestowed the news to everyone Pongo considered a friend, and word quickly spread that one of Elma’s own trainees had left BLADE for good. Rumors were abundant; some claimed he had been picked off by an indigen, others wondered if the surviving Ganglion had taken him hostage. And some yet saw right through L’s news - some believed he wouldn’t be gone for long. They knew how dedicated he was to the Interceptors and said he just needed time away to destress, and one day he’d come back as chipper as ever.
L abandoned hope early on that Pongo would ever return. But he kept that notion under careful wraps, especially in front of Lin and Elma.
He was with them both in the commercial district when they got the BLADE-wide emergency notification. Nearly every squad was being sent to Sylvalum to monitor the Noctilucent Sphere. L didn’t need to read the rest of the order to know why.
The flight to Sylvalum was tense. The sky was now crowded with Skells of all shapes and sizes, some carrying large supply crates. When L was close enough to the continent to see the sphere, he saw it shake, he heard a roar loud enough to echo across the ocean. He followed Elma and Lin, who landed near the edge of Lake Ciel. A whole operation had been set up there, with BLADEs going back and forth between tents and small construction points with supplies and information and weapons strapped to their belts. Elma got out quickly, her long sparkling hair catching some of the breeze, and the three of them proceeded towards the largest tent.
Inside, Secretary Nagi and Commander Vandham were bent over a table with a hologram projection. Both looked concerned at its contents. When the three of them entered, only Nagi looked up to acknowledge them.
“Elma. Good, let’s get you filled in,” Nagi said, beckoning for all three of them to wrap around the table, get a better look at the hologram. L understood that it was meant to be a replica of the Noctilucent Sphere, its circular dimensions and its hollow inside. Somehow life had come to inhabit the inner sphere, plantlife and a few sparse indigens.
And of course, there was the Everqueen. But they probably didn’t know how it got inside such a tiny sphere.
Vandham grunted as L passed him to get a better look at the hologram, feigning innocence at its contents. Lin went around with Elma and stayed on Nagi’s side of the table.
“As you know, the Noctilucent Sphere is home to a very large and very dangerous indigen,” Nagi explained, “We’ve been monitoring it closely since we’ve discovered it, and unless it’s disturbed from inside, it tends not to move. But something in the past few days has awakened it, and it seems determined to escape.”
“Damn thing’s causing such a ruckus in there that it’s hard to say whether or not it’ll actually bust out,” Vandham piped up, rubbing his moustache with the inner part of his thumb. “But we’re betting that it will, and soon. Hence the BLADE-wide operation.”
“And nothing akin to this has happened in the past?” Elma asked, “I find it strange that it chooses now of all time to try and escape. Was there some kind of stimuli that aggravated it from inside?”
“None that we know of,” Nagi replied somberly, “If we knew, that would make things much easier on our end, because at least then we could attempt to reverse its effects.”
“So the entire operation that’s on guard outside...that’s precautionary if Pharsis escapes?” Lin said, tapping her chin with her finger. “It’s a good amount of manpower, but -”
“It isn’t enough?” Nagi cut in, “Yes, that’s our greatest fear going into this. However, Elma, you were on to something before, and that’s why we’re assigning you and Irina’s team to head into the sphere and gather intel.”
L’s eyes widened. That was a suicide mission, going into the cage of the very monster that had almost killed Mira thousands of years ago. And yet he seemed to be the only one there with any semblance of anxiety. Lin almost appeared excited at the prospect of going into the sphere.
“I’m all for the idea of gathering intel on how to stop this, Commander, but if I might pose a concern: who’s to say the Skells landing in the opening won’t trigger Pharsis to destroy the sphere?” Elma said, arms crossed.
Nagi took a deep breath, his shoulders stiff. “This is a risk that we have to take if we are to avoid certain catastrophe. I’m not especially keen on the idea myself, but I knew you and your team would be willing to tackle it, potential consequences and all.”
Elma and Lin both nodded. Lin looked to L, raising an eyebrow when she realized he hadn’t agreed along with them. He cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s attention towards him.
“We have a pen’s ink as to what is disturbing the Everqueen,” L told them, trying to ignore his voice cracking, “And we may know how to halt its escape efforts.”
“Why didn’t ya pipe up before, then?” Vandham nudged him with his elbow, a stronger gesture than L anticipated, and one that almost knocked him off balance. “Tell us what ya know!”
All eyes were on L as he did his best to provide an explanation while leaving out the private details, skewing truths where he could. “The Everqueen arrived with the intent to devour the planet. We remember the Endbringer creating its prison to halt its advances, and so the Endbringer would have the necessary strength to fortify its bars again.”
“You mean the Telethia,” Nagi confirmed, “That resides primarily in Noctilum, no?”
“It’s a reasonable assumption to make, though I’ll admit to having seen it fly over Sylvalum before,” Elma said, “Is there any way the Telethia knows that Pharsis is trying to escape? And if not, how would we be able to contact it in time?”
“She most certainly has awareness of the problem on our palms, but her strength on her own will not be enough. We know what the Endbringer requires, but...it is a great distance away from our current position.”
Elma paused, pursing her lips. “How much longer until Pharsis breaks out of the sphere?”
“We can’t be sure,” Nagi said, “At this rate, her escape seems likely within the next twenty four hours. But that’s prone to change considering her strength in this endeavor.”
“Is that enough time to get what you need to the Telethia?” Elma turned to L, crossing her arms.
L paused. There was hope in her expression, in everyone’s eyes. The lie was too convincing, perhaps because it came from a Miran native, perhaps because L was a good liar, perhaps because they needed to hear that there was a way to stop this before it killed them all. But L left out the part about not knowing where the Endbringer’s missing puzzle piece was.
After all, how could he know where Pongo had gone?
But he continued to lie, because Lin’s smile was too excited. Because they needed good news.
“That is quite enough and more!” L said, earning nods from everyone in the tent.
“Then get out there, take whatever and whoever you need,” Vandham ordered, “Just get back here as quick as ya can, huh?”
“Yes, sir!” L rushed out, ducking beneath the tent’s entrance and heading to the outside. Sylvalum’s crisp air greeted him, a sharp presence carrying secrets never heard. L had good memories of this place, having memorized Lake Ciel’s coastline, having befriended many of the indigens around him in the past. They probably knew what was happening just as much as the humans did. L blinked, but kept his eyes closed for a prolonged amount of time, just letting himself go to Sylvalum’s twisted sense of peace.
And that was when he heard it.
The wind changed. Before, it had been playing a gentle song, a whistle barely registered past the screams of the Everqueen. But now there were words mixed in with it, words that L almost didn’t pick up on. Was it even right to call them words? The wind was telling him to turn around, go to the edge of the operation, be quiet. L turned and walked, making sure that his movements were not suspicious. Elma and Lin hadn’t exited the tent with him before, providing the perfect opportunity to go alone, to investigate whatever Sylvalum was trying to hide. It wasn’t a far walk to the edge of the operation, and hardly anyone was there. L ducked away behind a stray tent, looking for what the wind was guiding him towards.
A hand pressed down on his inner arm.
L spun around, mouth open as he was about to ask who, what, why. The wind went silent.
Pongo grinned at him. It was sad, hardened almost, but it was still Pongo’s grin. L barely had time to register the fact that Pongo, the physical Pongo, was standing in front of him before they were hugging each other. Pongo buried his head into L’s chest, and L’s head dangled down, an awkward angle to bend thanks to their height difference. His hair smelled of fresh rain and dampened soil, the water and its earth. They didn’t pull apart when Pongo spoke.
“Are you okay, L’Cirufe?”
What else had L expected him to say? They pulled apart, and L saw Pongo’s tears, a mixture of fear and regret. L kept his hands on Pongo’s shoulder - both for Pongo’s sake, and because L was so scared that he wasn’t real, that if he was he was seconds away from disappearing again.
“We are alright, now that you have returned,” L smiled wide, “We would ask you about your adventures, but time is not to be had.”
“I know. I am not sure I would have come back so soon if it had not been for…”
They both looked up at the sphere, how it shook with the Everqueen’s rage. Nothing needed to be said then. All L knew was the feeling of Pongo’s vest beneath his hands, and the ever increasing tightness in his chest. When Pongo tore his gaze away from the sphere, he wiped his eyes and nose with the back of his sleeve.
“I think we both know how to keep her from escaping,” Pongo said, “But I will need your help to get to Cauldros -”
“No.”
Pongo paused. “L’Cirufe, what other choice do we have? She is going to slaughter everyone here - all of humanity, every indigen, every continent. I cannot let history repeat itself.”
“You will die if you continue down this beaten path,” L argued, his hands tensing on Pongo’s shoulders, “We will not let you do this. You will lose yourself to its power and -”
“I do not care what happens to me,” He interjected, “The planet is not the same as before. It is weak, and if I do not give myself up to it then Mira will never be able to recover. It would never have the time to. This is the most viable option, and I am willing to sacrifice myself for it.”
L took a deep breath, forcing himself to look away. Times were different, that he could understand, but time couldn’t erase the possibility that Pongo would be reduced to what L had become. A living weapon of Mira’s design, out of control and out of touch. Mira could still use Pongo’s body to inflict its will. The Everqueen was not its only target.
“How do you know that it will not use you to carry out any other schemes?” L asked, after the silence had tried to hold them down again.
“I have no way of knowing that,” Pongo admitted, “All I can do is trust that Mira will use my body to restore the balance. Mira is angry at the human race, yes, but more than anything else right now, it...it just wants to be safe. And the Everqueen is the most direct threat to that.”
“If we cannot convince you of the dangers...then we would have no choice but to accompany you,” L said softly, unable to mask the pain in his voice.
“Count us both in, too.”
Pongo’s eyes widened and L turned around, realizing that Elma and Lin were now standing behind him. Elma’s arms were crossed over her chest, her crystalline brow furrowed with a deep confusion, a desire to understand something bigger than herself. Lin ran past L and quickly wrapped her arms around Pongo, who reciprocated just as quickly, even picking her up off the ground and swinging her around in a circle. They both laughed like no time had passed between them.
“How much of the conversation did you drop the evening on?” L asked Elma, saddened that Pongo and Lin’s laughter was doing nothing to improve his mood.
“Most of it,” She said, “Although I’m still trying to piece together what exactly you were talking about. You kept speaking as if Mira - the planet - is some kind of sentient being, one that’s capable of controlling Pongo. Is this true?”
L couldn’t bring himself to answer - it wasn’t a truth he was willing to speak. It was Pongo’s right, and Pongo’s choice. He waited for the raven-haired Interceptor to put Lin down, whispering something quickly before turning to Elma. Traces of his happiness lingered on his lips, but it was too easily tainted by the weight of the situation.
“Yes,” Pongo said, “Mira is a sentient being. I am still trying to figure out what exactly it is, but I can now say with certainty that it created me as a vessel to communicate with humanity. It told me how I can weaken Pharsis and prevent her from escaping.”
“Which is why you have to go to Cauldros,” Elma concluded, “L, I thought you needed to communicate with the Telethia in order to stop Pharsis.”
“We do,” Pongo said, “But...okay, how do I explain this...you know how we have been mining miranium from the planet for the industrial district? Miranium is like the blood of Mira - take too much of it at one time, and the planet will grow incredibly weak. Right now, it is too weak to communicate with the Telethia directly, much less any of the other indigens inhabiting the continents. Hell, Mira only just had the strength to talk to me three months ago, and even those conversations have been few and far between. Since it does not have the strength it needs to command the Endbringer, I will have to go to Mount M’Gando in Cauldros and -”
“And rejoin with the planet,” L mumbled, unable to make eye contact with Pongo. He could feel Pongo’s gaze on him regardless.
“Mira used a lot of miranium to create me. If I were to give my miranium back to Mira, it could use what I have to tell the Telethia to fly to Sylvalum and keep the Everqueen at bay,” Pongo finished.
“Wait, but that would kill you!” Lin cried, “You’re saying you have to sacrifice yourself for this to work!”
“You’re certain that there’s no other solutions?” Elma asked.
Pongo shook his head. “It is too late to tell humanity to stop drilling, and if we were to swap myself for some indigens, it would wipe out an entire continent and then some.”
“You must have a lot of miranium in your body,” She said, a thought spoken out loud, “What about your left arm?”
To L’s surprise, Pongo chuckled at the resurfaced memory. “That is definitely not miranium. A lot of it is in my own bloodstream, especially my heart.”
L finally had the strength to look back up at Pongo, at Elma and Lin. Lin looked as if she were on the brink of tears, and L couldn’t blame her. This was the only way, the only option left to pick. It was no wonder why Mira was mad at humanity - humans had drained it of power, and now they were going to pay the ultimate price. Either the planet’s most beautiful creation would die, or everyone would. Of course the path was clear to Pongo, who would sacrifice himself at every turn to keep friends and strangers alike safe from harm. But to Elma, to Lin, to L…
This was too much.
Elma broke the silence, which L hadn’t noticed was there to begin with. “If this is the only way, we’ll accompany you to Cauldros. Ganglion activity there is still prominent, and we can’t have any distractions.”
“Yeah…” Lin’s response was drawn out, hesitant, “We’ll go with you. There’s no way you’re doing this alone.”
“Thank you both,” Pongo smiled, and suddenly Lin was hugging him again, and he was hugging her back. L could barely hear Lin’s whisper, buried deep in Pongo’s shoulder.
“I only just got you back…”
When they pulled apart, Elma got out her comm device, calling who L assumed to be either Nagi or Vandham. “Change of plans. We’re heading to Cauldros to call the Telethia. Keep us updated if anything changes.”
“Same to you,” Nagi’s voice was scratchy over the intercom, and Elma quickly put her comm device back into a pocket in her armor - which, how did her armor even have pockets? That was the least of L’s concerns, though, and he pushed the thought away.
“Alright then,” Pongo said, facing everyone with a cheerful determination, “To Cauldros.”
#xenoblade x#Imperium: Sylvalum#okay seriously does TF Elma's armor have pockets#also Yay For Sacrifices#I'm gonna have a FIELD DAY with this last chapter#hard to believe we're coming up on Imperium's one year anniversary#I hope this has been a fun ride though!#it's definitely weird for me to be writing a short story
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