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juniorgman187 · 3 years

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The Bones (Reid Series) Part 1

Summary: Almost a year after Maeve’s death, Spencer reaches out to the recipients of Maeve’s donated organs to reconnect with his lost love. However, when the receiver of her heart, Reader, doesn’t write back, Spencer goes on a poorly-motivated mission to find her.

Playlist: “The Bones” by Maren Morris & Hozier (BONUS: song includes major foreshadowing)

A/N: There is an OC in this story because to me, writing “(y/n)” over and over again cheapens the story and doesn’t flow well. It was a personal decision, and to anyone it sincerely bothers, I’m sure there’s a way you can insert your own name instead. This fic is also inspired by “Things We Know By Heart” by Jessi Kirby. Category: Series, Soft Angst, Eventual Smut + NSFW content* Pairing: Spencer Reid POV x Fem!OC Content Warning: allusions to death, mourning, loss, recovery, arrhythmia (this is an intro chapter, so it’ll get more interesting from here I promise) Word Count: 2.2k

This will be a multi-part series.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

It all started that first autumn after Maeve’s death - just five weeks past a year since I parted with her. I was absentmindedly reading when, rather out of the blue, Mary Donovan called to inform me about a Mrs. Rachel Larsen.

Although we didn’t learn her actual name until later, she was first known to us as the recipient of Maeve’s liver. Not a single one of the three of us - Maeve’s parents and me - had expected a recipient to be in contact with us. That inability to predict such an event was caused by my neglect to remember Maeve was an organ donor. It wasn’t particularly relevant in the grand scheme of things, and for that forgetfulness, I was truly ashamed, but after reading Rachel Larsen’s letter together with the Donovans, it all came back to me.

Every single thing.

You see, despite the anonymity of the person writing to us, it was as if I could actually feel Maeve’s soul coming alive again, as strange as that sounds.

She was still here with me ... in some form.

Later that night, when I would return to an empty apartment, I would wonder why I hadn’t thought of reaching out to the recipients before. Even though I’d already started writing a thank you letter back to Rachel, the thirst for more of Maeve became increasingly insatiable.

While I did have fond memories of her to live by, I couldn’t thrive off of them in the way that I did with that letter. Our only moments together worth reliving were those spent over the phone, a time when I didn’t even know what she looked like. But that letter from Rachel Larsen ... it was somehow more wholesome and pure than any memory of the living Maeve that I could cultivate.

You could say I was doing this to ease my mourning, meaning it should’ve made me feel better, but that didn’t stop the guilt from eating away at me piece by piece as I wrote letters to the rest of the recipients.

The Donovans had no idea I was doing this, but I reasoned to myself that they would appreciate the surprise. Though they were still undeniably riddled with grief, smiles embellished their sullen faces when they read about Rachel’s quality of life now with a new liver. So maybe, just maybe, hearing from the rest of the receivers would be good for us all. At least, that’s what I told myself.

In one of those rare moments when inspiration strikes and it courses through your veins at the speed of lightning, I found myself being more productive than I had been in nearly a year. By midnight, I’d successfully composed five letters, each dedicated to the receiver of one of Maeve’s major organs - none of which, though, included my identity.

Given the fragile process of contacting the transplant coordinators, getting consent forms, and premeeting counseling, it would be months, if not years, before I would be able to really speak with these faceless people. Nothing against Donor Family Services - I’m sure they do the best they can - but for me, their best wasn’t good enough. So instead, I enlisted the help of someone I knew could never let me down.

“Are you sure you want me to do this?” Penelope peered up at me from her seat, her pinky finger hesitantly hovering over the ‘enter’ button.

“Yes.”

With just one click, she discovered the addresses of each one of those faceless people. This singular operation, albeit somewhat unethical, was the final piece to my puzzle. All there was left to do now was send the letters to them, with the tenuous hope they might send one back.

Luckily for me, not a single recipient questioned how I managed to find them or why this process wasn’t being handled by Donor Family Services, but I suppose if they did wonder those things, they didn’t feel comfortable asking me. Especially not after they learned who I was in relation to their donor. I didn’t intend to guilt-trip anyone with what I wrote in my letters nor did I want to take advantage of anyone’s empathy, but how could you possibly make a foe out of your organ donor’s grieving boyfriend? Exactly - you can’t. So you don’t. Instead, you send an inviting letter back, telling me you’d love to meet. Which is what four of them did.

Only one person didn’t reply, and while an 80% success rate was great, I simply couldn’t let this one go. Trust me, I would have ... had it been any other organ.

For quite some time, I was the one with Maeve’s heart.

I just needed to see where it was now.

᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃

The heart has several definitions and corresponding connotations.

Scientifically speaking, the heart is a hollow muscular organ that pumps the blood through the circulatory system by rhythmic contraction and dilation. However, figuratively, the heart can be seen as the central or innermost part of something. The heart of a city, for example. But in literature, the heart is symbolic of love. It is often regarded as the source of all knowledge, which is where the comparison between the head and the heart comes from. The head operates logically, whereas the heart functions emotionally, but despite the rationality the head holds, the heart is what people advise you to listen to because it holds the ultimate truth.

The heart, because it is equipped with your truest feelings, supersedes any logic and reason the head might hold.

But you see, I only ever knew Maeve’s mind. I could understand the inner workings of it - I’d probably be able to navigate through her consciousness if I entered it given the fact that our intellect matched one another’s - and I shared nearly identical thought processes with her, but that was all that I ever knew.

And if that was how much knowledge she held in her head alone, then, undoubtedly, her heart held so much more.

Science defines the heart as an organ. Figurative language uses the heart to establish a focal point. Literature likens the heart to love. But I compare her heart to the ocean. Like the sea, Maeve’s heart was 80% undiscovered, and exploration was simply calling my name.

For that reason, and that reason alone, I couldn’t abandon my pursuit of it.

That’s not to say I wasn’t ashamed of this mission, though. If anything, shame for the man I had become in the face of Maeve’s death was the only feeling I was truly capable of anymore. Any other emotions were fleeting or insincere.

Unfortunately, that slimy, disgusting feeling was only amplified times ten when I found myself driving two hours and forty-five minutes to get to Virginia Beach.

No sane man would drive this far on a weekday for even their most prized possession, and yet here I was, exactly 180 miles away from home, seeking out someone who hadn’t had the courtesy to even write me back, let alone agree to meet with me. Who knows if she’d even give me the time of day.

She being Valerie.

“Valerie Elise Bishop was born on August 5th, 1988 in Henderson, Nevada, to parents Andrew and Sara, but when Valerie turned seventeen, she was diagnosed with arrhythmia,” Garcia explained to me over the phone on the car ride here. “It’s when-”

“When the electrical impulses that coordinate your heartbeats don't work properly, causing your heart to beat too fast, too slow or irregularly,” I accidentally cut in. Realizing I interrupted Garcia, I brought her back into the conversation by asking, “I know there are more than 3 million cases per year in the U.S, but isn’t it usually common for ages 60 or older?”

“You are most certainly correct, Boy Wonder. It is more common in ages 60 and older, however, her maternal grandmother passed away from arrhythmia, so the family history increased the likelihood.”

At the sound of this news, I had to pull the car over and physically stop just so I could grasp the weight of what I was really doing.

“In Henderson, Nevada ... maternal grandmother passed away ... family history increased the likelihood …” Garcia’s voice rang in my head.

It was then that I came face to face with the gravity of reality.

Valerie wasn’t just a faceless name or a recipient of Maeve’s heart, she was a person. And her humanity only became more apparent to me the more Penelope spoke.

For god’s sake, she and I grew up in the same state. She and I saw the same sunsets from the same little corner of the earth. She drove down the same highways and byways - we might’ve even crossed paths at one point or another! Not to mention that she lost her grandmother to the same disease that she was suffering from, and if there was one thing consistent about arrhythmia, it was very likely she’d been living with it for decades, if not her entire lifetime. It’s a long term disease that takes years to improve but only seconds to kill. All it would take is just one irregular beat, and she’d be dead. How can you possibly live with that constant fear looming over your head?

She is a person. I had to remind myself. Not just a means to explore more of Maeve.

“Hey, Garcia,” I turned the car back on. “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“What do you mean?” I could just feel panic begin to rise in Garcia.

“No, I’m not talking about life, I’m talking about this.” Though she couldn’t see, I grandly gestured to the location, the car, and the passenger seat that was cluttered with files on Valerie. “I don’t feel right invading her privacy like this. It’s just selfish.”

I wasn’t the only one mourning something here.

“Are you sure?” Penelope clarified. Which was ironic considering she was the one who was unsure of doing any of this, to begin with. What was I thinking? I shouldn’t have dragged Garcia into this. Something as immoral as this was totally against her character, but she did it anyway because her loyalty to her friends conquers all.

Like I said, my shame multiplied times ten. If not for Valerie, then certainly for Penelope.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’m heading home.”

“Okay,” She softly returned. “Be safe.”

“Oh, and Garcia?” I asked before ending the call. “Thanks.”

“Of course. Anything for you, Dr. Reid.”

By the time I ended the call, the sun was already setting - that’s how long I’d been on the road for. The nearly-three-hour drive I would have to make for the second time today meant I wouldn’t be home in time to beat the pitch-black sky, so considering I was already in for a long night, I made a little detour for the one thing I couldn’t go home without.

A piping hot cup of coffee.

I felt something as rewarding as caffeine was well deserved for the self-restraint I demonstrated minutes ago. And maybe it was my exhaustion, both mental and physical, that brought me to the near conclusion that I would truly let this go, but I was honestly feeling like I could accept this. An 80% acceptance rate. Not bad, right?

Though I was basically half-asleep while waiting for my coffee, I could not miss the barista when she said, “Valerie! Your order’s ready!”

What are the chances?

A jolt of energy surged through my body and brought me back to life, causing me to whip my head around at the slightest semblance of movement. On instinct, my gaze gravitated to the woman walking towards the front counter. My pull to her was so strong that even if I hadn’t studied file upon file on her that included pictures of what she looked like, I still would’ve recognized her in a heartbeat.

I just knew. That’s her.

I had no plan whatsoever for how I should approach this, and yet I still rose from my seat, motivated by nothing more than the single belief that I needed to.

Was this the universe telling me that I was meant to run into her after all? That I needed to meet the woman with an oceanic heart?

But when I finally got to where she was, she glided effortlessly past me, not paying any mind to my presence. Why would she though? To her, I was no one. To her, I was the faceless person.

“Excuse me!” I bolted to the front counter after realizing I might’ve just missed my opportunity. The barista, stunned and concerned, furrowed her brows while she waited for my question. “Is that girl a regular here?”

“Valerie?” She pointed in her direction, to which I nodded rapidly. “Oh, yeah. She comes in here all the time. She works just across the street.”

When I came to this coffee shop, it was simply by chance. It wasn’t even the closest cafe, but it was the one I chose to go to for some inexplicable reason.

I’d like to think it was fate. I was meant to be here after all. Because right behind me stood the storefront of a building I had only briefly read about in Valerie’s file.

The Bones, Art Gallery & Studio

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

PART 2 HERE!

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#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fanfiction #the bones #the bones pt 1 #juniorgman187

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thee-morrigan · 2 years

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over those hills

characters/pairing: ricardo ortega x allegra peretti (nb!sidestep, she/they), plus a brief appearance by tía Elena rating: T (language) wc: ~1.1k notes: still on my soft!chargestep bullshit, y’all. Also definitely spoilers (below the cut) for retribution in this one. (mostly passing references, but still). [also on ao3]

The last time you saw stars like this was in the long stretches of desert between Nevada and California. But even then, you never really saw them like this: so bright and vast it’s no wonder people used to believe in gods. Before they knew they could craft their own, through mods or drugs or genetic material, a primordial ooze version two-point-oh.

There was no need for other gods when you knew yourself to be one.

Still, the stars managed to retain some of that esoteric, Old World wonder, the flat, silent expanse of them mirroring that of the Mojave around you, nothing to see for miles and miles and miles but the stars and the moon in all her glory, whose combined light force has rendered the night in a soft and eerie illumination. Even hours after the sun finally sank low enough below the horizon to stop reflecting onto the scrubby earth, you can still see remarkably well in the gloaming-that-is-not-gloaming.

They’re no brighter out here, but you are: strangely still and something approaching an imitation of relaxed, feeling the weight of gravity draw your shoulder blades down along your back, released from their usual position somewhere near your skull, muscles pulled slow and smooth as saltwater taffy in sunlight.

When you saw

(didn’t see)

the stars before, like this, it was nothing like this.

Because you hadn’t dared more than a glance. You could not allow yourself even the full moment’s luxury of tilting your head back to properly acknowledge the infinite space in which you and everyone else floated in imperceptible orbit. Fear and exhaustion had crowded out any room for wonder, then. Pausing to admire nameless constellations might be the last thing you did if you got into the habit of it.

Even now, you know -- you know -- that it’s still folly, this. Allowing yourself to soften, to lower your guard. Perhaps especially now, when you find it too easy to convince yourself you’re as close to safe as you’ve ever been. You know that isn’t true.

No matter what your husk of a heart says.

No matter how diligently Ricardo Ortega has been attempting to revive it.

Insinuating himself into your life as easily as he did the first time, in spite of you and all your deflections, every neat pivot seeming to spin you right back into his orbit rather than outside its pull.

The fact that he’s still so goddamned present should bother you more than it does. Differently than it does — you know the only reasonable response is to be wary, to focus on strengthening your shields against this dangerous softness that Ortega always seems to spark in you, in spite of you.

In spite of him.

In spite of everything that is and is not between you.

In spite of so much of what’s between you being a masterclass in how to lie to your friends while keeping your cards so close to the vest they might as well be woven into the fabric.

Although you suppose you should be grateful he’s so damned nosy. At least right now, anyway. It’s made recovering from two broken legs as comfortable as it probably could be. Between Ortega and his mother, you’ve been downright coddled these past several weeks. And well fed.

“Couldn’t have thrown in improved eyesight with all that other hardware you’re sporting, huh? Because how else could you not have seen how malnourished she’s gotten?”

It’s far from the first time tìa Elena has brought up your wasted frame (“Ay, you’re skin and bones!”), with a mildly censorious glare thrown at her son. Ever since you arrived at the Ranch, Ortega’s mother has been in a flurried rotation of emotions, sentences ricocheting between Spanish and English, some directed at you and others at her son, language and gaze pinballing in step with her feelings.

Ricardo protests that you’re way too heavy to be malnourished and you scowl, throwing him a vulgar gesture that tía Elena doesn’t even bother to pretend she didn’t notice. She’s laughing a little at you both as she rises from her perch on the porch steps, where the three of you had retreated a little while ago to talk and enjoy the cooler air of evening settling in. Thankfully, both Ortegas had seemed perfectly content to carry most of the conversation between the two of them, leaving you to sit and listen. Not that you’d say as much out loud, but you are grateful that Ricardo suggested fresh air after dinner, if only because it meant a break from tía Elena trying to convince you to eat more. You’re lucky she didn’t see you a year ago, before you started training again, trying to rebuild the muscle that had atrophied, lost like so many years

(like so much sanity)

at the Farm.

She announces that she’s going to bed, imploring you both (but mostly you, you mouth at Ortega as she turns towards the house) not to set anything on fire once you’re left unsupervised. She says she’s tired, and maybe she is, but she doesn’t look it; you suspect she’s retiring more to grant you and Ricardo privacy than anything else, and you’re not sure how to feel about that. Or, at least, you’re not sure you want to acknowledge how you feel about that.

“Hey, your eyesight’s not that bad,” you mutter as she leaves, flashing him a brittle ghost of a smile. It’s a little too sharp to be friendly, but still softer than you mean for it to be. “Considering your age, I mean.”

He rolls his eyes, though he looks too amused to appear convincingly offended. “Is it too soon to point out that I’m not the one in the wheelchair? Maybe my old bones aren’t as brittle as yours.”

“You’re lucky I’m in a chair right now, old man, or we could find out how brittle my bones are when I kick your ass.” Your scowl is a little more convincing than his, but only just. There’s no heat in it: just the strange, dangerous sensation of unwinding tension along your spine, a softening around your eyes.

You look back up at the night sky to avoid letting your gaze meet his for too long.

It would have been too dangerous, before, to allow your eyes to drift skyward, taking in the gleaming light above instead of potential threats on the ground. Is still dangerous, you remind yourself.

But not, you think, as dangerous as letting yourself settle into the scintillation reflected in the eyes of the man beside you.

#idk what the point of this even is but like. here's a thing.#(which feels on brand for me anyway)#katie writes things #oc: allegra peretti #ship: a moon in daylight #fhr #chargestep #ricardo ortega

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ceratonia-siliqua · 3 years

Note

Hi! If you’re still accepting prompts, would you consir writing more of the GD Bucky and liefling Peter? I absolutely adored that fic. Your writing is some of the best in the fandom ❤️

Thank you!!! God, I’m sorry this took so long. I thought this would be an easy weekend project and then it became a process of over a month.

This ended up being more of a collection of scenes and I may add more later but for right now I’d like this monster of a piece to be done ^^;

Length: 5k

Warnings: Mentions of abuse, torture, and experimentation, one kinda nasty vomiting scene, suggestion and implications of cannibalism (but it’s never confirmed to be happening, being too sick to eat (don’t know how to tag it other than that).

. . .

The sound of the metal shoot opening made Peter’s entire body clench in fear. The floor began to slope downwards in time with the screech of metal. Peter only added to the noise as his recently clipped claws tried to find purchase on the smooth wall. It was cramped, he was barely able to move as the shoot was made to shunt dead bodies down, not beings with their sense of fear still intact.

His scramble was useless as gravity pulled him downward. He slipped down the slide and in a few terrifying seconds he was dropped onto the dirt. The second his legs were under him, he ran. Sticking close to the wall he tried to find a way out.

The facility held dozens of demons of different creeds and types. All experiments for scientists, their goal unclear to test subjects such as him. All he knew was that this was a pen for one of the most horrifying of all they held captive here. A Greater Demon. They resided just below the Royal bloodline in terms of power and reasons to be feared. Massive and built to be predators, they were imposing to say the least. They are to be feared just on their own. Magic is hardly something they need much of, to the point some wonder if it’s had been bred out of some lines altogether. It didn’t matter though when you’re stuck in a cage with one.

Being a half-demon, Peter shouldn’t even be alive. Most are culled at birth by their parents to spare them from a life as pets or sexual slavery. The market was massive but Peter wasn’t bred for that. One of the human scientists birthed him. His father, a Lesser Demon who had tried to protect him, and when that failed, attempted to kill him. He’d been too young to know him for the time they had shared. Peter was made to be a lab rat, something to examine under a lens.

Now at somewhere between sixteen and eighteen cycles, he had outgrown his usefulness.

Running on all fours, he was slowed by the shattered foot pulled tight to his pelvis. The limb withered by one cruel experiment that had gone too far. It could heal, he could be whole again, but there had been hushed whispers of people beginning to look a little closer at what was done in the labs. Peter was a living mark of their cruelty, the brutality and lengths they would go to in order to make life better for everyone but the demons they shared the earth with.

He would die. Unwelcome in another demon’s territory, he would be slain. If not for that, he would be because he was prey and a source of food. That was what they had thrown him in to be, at least.

The concrete walls that extended into the sky above him went in a gentle curve that hinted at the inclosure being massive and rounded. This was at the edge of the compound, outside in the fresh air and the territory of one of the only demons here with any sense of freedom.

He ran until weakness overtook him. His body burned from the strain and the cold air froze his skin and lungs. With the last bit of his energy he hobbled into the underbrush. The only open space he had seen so far was roughly 15 feet of packed dirt around the perimeter of the cage. The observation towers positioned high atop the walls looked down on him, adding to the vulnerability of being out in the open. His dive into the brush was in the hopes they wouldn’t grow bored and shoot him before the other demon found him. Everyone in the compound knew that dead bodies were what they fed him and Peter was most certainly not dead (yet). He didn’t want them to decide he was better off joining that tradition.

Packing his small body into the cover, he heaved in oxygen, trying desperately to fill his lungs through the panic and adrenaline running through veins. His first time being outside and he was practically shitting himself. He tried to settle down, put his head on straight and just think. He focused on the grass beneath him. The blades tickled, jammed themselves between his toes and the nooks between his paw pads. The sounds of birds made his ears twitch as he strained to pinpoint where they were under the rustling of the trees. He could smell water somewhere nearby and a trace of the earthy smell of another demon. Still on edge but winding down, Peter stayed put, cataloguing all the new sensations as a way to focus and think.

He really couldn’t think of what to do. Greater Demons were not known to share, especially not with other Greater Demons. Most only tolerated each other enough to pop out a few babies and never spoke again. Only Lesser Demons had much of a chance of forming a mating bond and even then waltzing into another’s territory was a sure way to get fucking murdered. He didn’t know much beyond that. Every other demon he had been around in his life was a Lesser Demon or an occasional halfling. He didn’t even know what this mystery being might look like. Just that he had to be massive.

Continuing to move was likely his best bet. If he sat here and stank up the area with his fear he’d be found soon. With his leg tucked against his chest again, he hobbled through the woods. Ears up and alert, he listened while regularly scenting the air. There was always a hint of another, like the very ground was infused with a little bit of the demon. Maybe it was. He had no clue what abilities the other demon would have. He just hoped he didn’t have cloak-

Peter froze, rigid and glued in place. Cloaking abilities. Fuck, fuck!

He tried to make his glance around look casual, like he was debating where he was going next. The same underlying smell of demon hadn’t changed in intensity once and he had been too blind to realize the reason why.

The woods were not quite silent but the noise seemed muted. Though, Peter really had no clue what normal woods should sound like. He scanned for anything amiss, an odd looking tree, an off rift in his vision. He couldn’t pick out a single thing but he knew he was being watched. He had to be. There was no way the other demon didn’t know damn well when feeding time was. He must have hung around the shoot but Peter hadn’t seen anything, bolting before thinking to get his bearings.

What little fur he had began to raise. He stuck out like a sore thumb, muted red skin wasn’t exactly designed to blend in to a green birch forest. Forcing himself to move on like nothing was wrong, he went by gut feeling. Chose a direction away from the concrete walls and the new feeling of being watched.

After an hour, nothing had happened.

The only new development was the tired aching in his ankle and wrists. He’d never had to be active for this long. He didn’t really know what the experiments they did on him were for but endurance hadn’t been something they were looking for.

He needed to rest, badly. His broken leg meant it’s twin was taking on extra weight. The jostling of his movements also didn’t help, making the shards of bone grate uncomfortably by one another. The feeling of being watched was still ever present but he simply could not keep moving. Just dragging himself to the dip amongst the roots of an ancient birch made his sore body throb. Collapsing into the cool hollow was a relief. He curled up, pressing as far back as he could manage and curled up, tail holding his limbs in close.

Closing his eyes, just for a moment, he basked in the momentary stillness. He’s never experienced the form of quiet nature brings. The lack of machines whirring in other rooms was something he hadn’t thought much of until they were gone. The white noise no longer there but instead replaced with wind and the way the leaves and grass knocked together as it brushed past.

Maybe the peace of his surroundings was what prepared him for the shadow that was cast over him.

The slight shift in temperature gave it away, the shadow momentarily cooling his body further before the body heat masked the split second chill. He screwed his eyes shut tight, tucked his face behind the imaginary barrier of his thin tail. Just waited for the pain his life had been defined by to come crashing down, sharp and relentless.

A sudden rumbling that shook the air and ripped a cry from him, short and scared. The sound persisted. He thought it was a growl, had enough sense to let out a terrified sob as hot breath rolled across his back. When a tongue swiped a tongue down his back, he was sure this was the moment he’d died.

He was painfully slow to realize what the sound and touch were.

The purring carried into his bones as his hair and the short fur along his back was groomed. Even understanding the gesture now, he stayed curled, not trusting this to be anything but a way to play with him before brutally crunching his bones into dust.

The lung, large tongue ran down his spine in long, lazy strokes. The tufts of his fur caught just enough to be separated and cleaned. The coarse texture was surprisingly soothing when it met his skin. The demon behind him had to be large with how big just his tongue was, but he was scared to interrupt the moment that might be the only thing keeping him alive for a few seconds longer.

Out of sound to make, he simply trembled when the tongue moved away and a massive paw of a hand scooped him out of the hollow, caging him between claws and a sturdy palm but not crushing. He didn’t fight the litany of ‘please’s that fell from his lips, a poor attempt to have his life spared as the Greater Demon began to move. The makeshift prison was warm at least as the light layer of spit cooled along his back. His injured leg remained safely tucked away to avoid being bumped. He prayed that this wasn’t some off game of cat and mouse, though his chances were admittedly slim.

The shade of the trees turned to an inky black void as he was taken into some sort of den. It seemed to slope into the ground, as if some massive burrow. Eventually light came back, the dancing embers of flames from what he could tell of their flickering brightness.

With a whimper, he was placed carefully on something soft. The plush fur under him was easily identified as he pressed himself into it, making his already small form, tiny. Peter spared a glance at the other demon and all the air inside of him left.

By human standards, he was terrifying, but Peter was more demon than man and the blood that took too it boiled at the sight of the being before him. The demon was male, that was undoubtedly correct. The sheath that protected his penis was a dead give away if the size didn’t do it. He was massive, nine? Ten feet? He had a noble face, set and cut in the way only demons could pull off with all their angles and animalistic notes. The long, black hair waved on it’s way down, surprisingly well kept. His horns were large and silvery, looping once over themselves before turning forward into deadly points. The rest of his body was covered in fur, longer than Peter’s but not by much.

Now having a face, the demon was not as scary. He lacked the ferocity his imagination had assigned the other. Still, he whimpered when a nose was pressed into his belly, wet and slightly chilled.

Peter was rolled onto his back. Tried and failed to flip down onto his belly as his mangled leg was sniffed. Those eyes, full of fire yet piercing blue in color locked with his.

“Who harmed you?”

It was not the question he had been expecting.

“The scientists.” He kept his answer short, tried to pull away from the jaws too close to his limb. One of the oldest demons in the compound had once told him about demons eating broken limbs, choosing to spare the energy it would take to heal it and increase reserves. It was only done in desperation and usually self inflicted but having someone so close to it brought back the memory of the frightening practice.

The demon bared his teeth. Peter flinched. The teeth went away and to Peter’s surprise, the other demon nuzzled against his side, still watching him.

“Name?”

“Peter.” Hopefully the addition of a name meant he wasn’t on the menu.

“Bucky.”

It took Peter a second to realize that was meant to be a name, a returning of introductions. He repeated it out loud, wrapping his tongue around the word. “Bucky.”

The purr was sudden and deafening. Peter’s whimper in response cooled the noise to a loud but manageable rumble. As it continued the tension in his body eased, soaking up the sound until his own tiny chest vibrated in return. There was still fear, but it eased as he let his nerves settle under the calming atmosphere.

Peter was just starting to go lax when his broken leg was extended. He howled and jerked but it was slowly straightened as he was hushed softly. It burned and the muscles felt displaced and wrong, like they were filled with burrs and the sticky grasses one of the scientists always complained about getting stuck to his clothes.

He laid there panting through the pain as his leg was manipulated. It didn’t click as to what was going on until two straight, solid objects sandwiched his mangled leg. He looked down to immediately look away as his swollen, bruised leg was hard enough to look at without it being set into a splint made of large femur bones, their lofty heads cut off so they fit snugly against his skin.

Keeping quiet is hard, but he managed it. Biting back any sound that tried to pry it’s way out. Bucky was careful at least, doing his best not to bump anything that might cause any additional pain or soreness. It was a small relief. He counted the seconds until it stopped. He was too exhausted to fight anything, hell, if Bucky suddenly did decide to eat him there wasn’t even enough left in him to escape that.

To his relief, the manipulation of the joints and limb stopped. He rested, panting, on the furs and staining them with the thin sheen of sweat along his spine. Bucky rumbled once again, a sound that was comforting in a bone deep way that left him too soft to be jittery with anxiety.

“Sleep, you’re safe.”

And, despite everything that says he should not, that he should leave before he loses whatever entertainment value he seems to have, he falls gently into the void.

_______

The days… weeks-- that follow are spent nearly in a daze. His leg began to heal as Bucky carved out a place in his heart.

_______

Waking up each morning to a grooming session was not the way he expected things to go. The first time he shrieked and scared the shit out of them both. The second time he tensed. The third he let out a heaving sigh and only grumbled a complaint when he got a few swipes across his cheek, Bucky simply laughed.

They developed their morning and daily ritual from there. Bucky groomed him, rumbling as he pushed all Peter’s light, fluffy fur forward before smoothing it back out. He lovingly called it “baby fur”. Allegedly because Peter’s was about as soft and as sparse as a newborn. It was only a slightly stinging endearment for a while, gradually growing in affection as he was fawned over by the massive demon. He was kept clean, cleaner than he had ever been. Bucky’s doting keeping dreaded lice and fleas away and but a distant memory sat alongside dirty cages and moldy food.

Bucky appeared to enjoy every second of Peter he could manage to ream out. He was there from the second Peter was awake and hardly strayed until Peter was safely tucked away in sleep. He only disappeared to find food, something Peter tried not to think about much if he could.

His leg healed faster than he expected. Stitched itself back into one piece in a matter of a week or so, ushered forward by rest and a belly full of meat he never asked the origin of. He grew restless once he could bear weight on it, skittered up the walls and lashing his tail. He tried not to do it when Bucky was watching, afraid of being seen as a pest and Bucky growing annoyed enough to do something like re-break the new bone.

Still, the Greater Demon picked up on his little guest’s agitation. He removed the stint and to Peter’s surprise, started nosing him up the ramp that led outside. With a cold nose pressed to his naked back, he was quick to move. Bursting out into the sunshine only to be blinded for a few moments by the white light of the sun. It made him sneeze a few times as his eyes adjusted. The now familiar rumble of Bucky’s laugh had him turning towards the sound, even as his body shook with the force of each sneeze.

Bucky licked a playful strip through Peter’s hair before starting to walk into the woods, stopping and looking to see if Peter was following.

Scrambling after, Peter stuck close at first but as they sank deeper into the woods, he couldn’t help but wander nearby. Bucky stopped to watch him, it took Peter longer than it should have to realize that Bucky seemed… tense.

He was too busy flipping things over and sniffing through the undergrowth. A vole darted by and Peter was transfixed, taking off after it. Dormant hunting skills pushed to the forefront as he managed to snag the soft, fleshy body in his teeth. His teeth dug through the spine, snapped it in two with a crack that startled Peter enough that he dropped it. Embarrassed, he quickly picked it back up in his jaws, turned to show Bucky only to freeze.

There was something dark in his strange companion’s gaze. He couldn’t for the life of him tell what it was but it didn’t feel like something positive. Peter was about to ask what was going on when a growl, a harsh and feral thing, ripped out of Bucky.

Peter dropped to his belly, ears back, eyes wide as he trembled. He didn’t know what was going on and he whimpered as Bucky came at him faster than he thought possible. Slamming his eyes shut, he waited for the punishment that was clearly coming.

When all he heard was the nearly deafening growling without the tear of his own flesh, he dared to peak. The furry expanse of one of Bucky’s hind legs was all he could see. Glancing up he saw the other demon’s belly. Craning his head over his shoulder, he finally processed what was going on.

Turning to face forward, now bristling for a new reason, Peter saw a few scientists in armored suits. Bucky wasn’t going for them but they had clearly stopped coming towards the pair. Peter strained to hear, just barely picking up the English gargle he had grown up around.

“... He’s not normally so aggressive.”

“... --thought he ate the halfling. Why is it still alive?”

“I wonder if he adopted it?”

“No, this looks like mating behavior.”

“Seriously?”

They continued to chitter amongst themselves. Bucky softening his growl to a dangerous rumble but never faltering in his stance. They couldn’t hurt Peter without hurting Bucky in this position, Bucky had lowered himself just enough that his fur was brushing over Peter’s skin. It was a protective move, one that Peter mimicked by staying low in the tall grass around them. He made a quiet noise when Bucky settled entirely on top of him. He was still propped on his own legs but had the smaller demon tucked beneath him like a mother hen, keeping him warm against the cold ground.

Peter jumped (eliciting a startled, sharp growl from Bucky) when a voice broke out amongst the rest, one he recognized. Crawling forward just enough to see, he relaxed as Dr. Rogers came into view, the white star on his armor giving him away if his voice hadn’t already managed to do so.

“What are you all doing? Stop harassing him and work on cleaning up and taking readings.” Dr. Rogers sounded angry, never one to be happy about the demons he oversaw being treated like toys, he was the only scientist Peter would ever be happy to see.

“But Dr. Rogers, look, the demon has something.”

Dr. Rogers looked over, taking the smallest of steps back when he caught the glimpse of Peter’s little horns peaking out above the grass.

“Who is that?”

The scientists shuffled nervously and the air shifted the way it only did when the tank of a man got truly pissed.

“What did you do.” The rage so biting that it couldn’t be read as anything but a statement.

One unlucky man broke the silence, knowing it was better to take the beating now than a worse one later. “It’s the halfling Dr. Potts birthed.”

“Peter? I was told he died, in fact, I was told he passed away under peaceful circumstances.” Oh they’d done it now. There would be some serious hell to pay once they were all safely away from the enclosure and they all knew it. For now though, the doctor decided to turn his attention back on the pair 50 feet away from them. He crouched, helmet obscuring his features as he dug around in his hip pouch. The smell of something sweet hit Peter’s nose, enough for him to perk up and put his head hovering above the grass. Dr. Rogers crept forward slowly and stayed low to the ground, non-threatening as he held out a square of chocolate. Peter couldn’t resist, Dr. Rogers hadn’t ever hurt him, surely he wouldn’t start now with the offering of a sweet treat.

The other scientists made noises of alarm as Peter moved forward. Peter assumed it was about him until he felt Bucky grabbing him by the scruff. He whined, tried to wiggle his way out of the grip, so focused on his treat that the fact he was being held in Bucky’s jaws failed to register in his mind.

He managed to pout as Bucky turned and forced him to stay behind by wrapping Peter up in his tail. The scientists mutter amongst themselves, awe evident in their voice. Peter ignored it until a little line slipped through.

“Dr. Rogers, have you ever seen a Greater take a halfling mate? The sheer size difference alone would surely be enough to prevent such a thing! A breeding would kill something so small!”

Tense, Peter tried not to think about what they were saying. They keep saying the word “mate” like Bucky is interested in such a thing with him. There is no way… Right? Bucky is kind and caring but… No… No, it makes sense. Why else would Bucky let him live?

“Well, we can’t exactly remove him… I guess we’ll just have to let them mate.” He’d never heard Dr. Rogers sound unsure and it made his skin prickle in alarm. Peter looked at the back of Bucky’s head and hoped the other wasn’t going to seriously try to get any body part inside of him. Even a finger seemed too big.

“Alright, enough staring. I have a feeling he’s going to take a swipe at us if we don’t get to work. Just keep a wide berth and do your task.”

“I really can’t believe you expect us to tend to the enclosure. You spoil it, Dr. Rogers.”

“I think some basic hygiene and proper care is a pretty low bar to put as spoiling. He is my subject to oversee and unlike some, I’m not here to go on a power trip and brutalize him for existing. Now get to work. You’re on feces collection and clean up.”

Peter tuned out the groans and complaints as he watched Bucky. Vigilant in his duty of guarding Peter, not so much as twitching or fidgeting in place. Carefully, Peter placed a tiny pawed hand at the base of Bucky’s spine. It was enough to get his attention as that massive head turned to look down at him, somehow managing to make Peter feel focused on without feeling smaller than he already was.

“Are you okay?” Bucky slipped into the tongue of demons, one they had spoken since the start but was startling on Peter’s ears after hearing English after days without it’s constant chatter.

“Yes… Is what they say true?”

“... I don’t understand them. I have no idea what was said.” Bucky looked momentarily bothered but mostly intrigued, cocking his head as they stared at one another.

“Ah… Nevermind then, they just said a few odd things about the trees.” It was a clear lie and Peter looked away as it came out of him but Bucky was kind enough to not push it.

“Let’s get back then. I don’t want any of them near you.” Bucky picks up Peter’s earlier catch, the creature so small it must have seemed less than a mortal to Bucky. Still, Peter’s chest bubbled pleasantly at the sight, something unfamiliar that he put away to study at a later date as Bucky guided him with his tail through the forest and back to their home.

_____

Eating slowly becomes a hard task as they creep into winter. It hadn’t taken terribly long after trying different meats to find out that most of what Bucky had brought him was thankfully game that was periodically released into the enclosure. Still, Peter’s stomach was used to a wider range, potato scraps, pellets, stale breads, over-ripe fruit, and the occasional unwanted vegetable were all parts of his diet. Meat was a rarity and after weeks of nothing but it, his stomach began to revolt. Bucky offered him berries, some rooted vegetables, and the occasional green, and while it helped, meat was still the easiest to come by. Neither of them truly worried about it until Peter couldn’t keep it down.

. .

They had just finished eating, some sort of small mammal that Bucky had torn apart so fast Peter had no clue what it had once been. Carefully sliced into easy pieces, Bucky placed the meat across a clean, flat stone to protect it from dirt. Bucky often ate before getting back, something Peter didn’t ask him about out of fear that it might be worse to know. So, the meal was all his. The first bite went down fine, the hunger that always nibbled at him in the late afternoon taking precedence over anything the rest of his body might have to say. It wasn’t until a fourth of the way through that the meal began to stick and slide down his throat in a way that made his skin prickle. Half way through and he was choking down the meat and gave up two thirds through. Urged to lay down, he curled up on the edge of their nest of furs. Bucky let him rest, gave the food time to mellow and ate the leftovers so they wouldn’t rot out in the open air.

Peter dozes until nausea hits him hard and fast. He wiggled far enough to be off the pelts just as a solid, slimy mass of flesh spills from his mouth with a wet spalt. It had been squashed into a pellet somehow and gleamed with acid. Peter was swept up and back into bed, tucked in and filled with sips of water before Bucky made the disgusting show of failed digestion disappear.

They had assumed that it was just a one-time situation, a fluke. It wasn’t until nothing but the barest of stubby greens that his stomach held fast to any food. He dropped weight, curled up and sickly as the Greater Demon fussed over every detail trying to keep every speck of fat he could manage on his tiny mate’s bones. It was miserable, an utterly grueling experience that left them both worn down. The cold months already tended to lead to more sleepy hours but it became a norm for them to hide out. Honestly, that might have been what saved them.

The scientists, concerned by the disappearing act, somehow managed to figure out the situation. How was beyond Peter’s ability at the time. All he knows is that one day a scientist managed to pull Peter from the cave and the pricks of little needles and some sludge being forced into him. It was a terrible, awful experience that they managed to repeat a few times. Even looking back, he had no clue how Bucky was kept at bay. He sat at Peter’s bedside religiously during those days. He always told himself he would ask one day, but eventually, it became a forgotten memory, one that faded into the background.

#winterspider #peter parker x bucky barnes #cera asks #siliqua writes #marvel #demons au #Anonymous

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f-l0reat · 4 years

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prompt: ssm20d27 // symptoms summary: the amalgamation of pinks and reds and blues of the sky amplify the resounding warmth of her eyes—green as the first buds of spring—and, he thinks, it is a shame that she is blissfully unaware that she is the cure for the human condition. note: oops i’m a little late but here’s a little semi-introspective piece; you can also find it on ao3

there is something strangely calming about walking this path home; the remnants of summer are presented by an ensemble cast of hidden cicadas humming a harmonious melody that masks the sounds of yellowing and reddening leaves drifting through the air before gravity takes its toll and tugs it to the earth.

beside him, sakura seems to have stumbled upon the pitch set by the cicadas and she hums a companion piece. her eyes shut momentarily, a smile stretching across her features, and she extends her arms overhead. she expels a contented sigh as her joints crack to release hours of her lengthy workload in this single motion before her eyes gravitate to meet his. he resists the urge to bring his fingers up to poke at her forehead and drop a kiss at the same spot to secure the adoration he holds for her.

as if she can hear his thoughts, a deeper crinkling sets in the corner of her eyes and she exhales a soft, shy laugh. she steps closer and nudges his side with her elbow; the scent of the antimicrobial soap used at the hospital and the peach of her shampoo permeates the air around him. “i like you like this,” she murmurs. “i told you it suits you.”

he cannot discern whether she’s speaking of the film of color from the setting sun that bathes them or of the peace that the end of the war has brought him. she doesn’t comment, but he thinks it may be all of the above.

in a different life, he would have pulled her close and whispered that there is nothing in this world that suits him better than her, that the light she exudes fills the holes that the pains of his past have created. in this life, he settles for teasingly pushing the flesh of his palm to her face and gently nudging her away, countering, “you like me anyway.”

she swats at his hand, nose scrunching in not-quite disagreement, and hums a note that the cicadas compliment. “i heard it was sweltering hot today. did you manage to put aside some time from your busy schedule to water my plants?” though her eyes have shifted forward, he catches the goading undertones of her question.

his eyes narrow, though he has found that perhaps house-husband is the best term to describe him. while her bones carry the weight of her principal role as the head of konoha general hospital, his bones carry the responsibility of household chores and, more recently, indulging his green thumb.

it started with a few herbs some time after his return from his journey after the war. the counter space in the compact apartment sakura kept—really, only because it was near the hospital and a small strip of restaurants that had saved her more than she is comfortable with saying from suffering through her dismal cooking—had slowly become filled with them to help save them from her aforementioned dismal cooking and, after his interest was piqued by discovering his ability to provide thriving conditions for herbs, there was no stopping the rest of the produce that had eventually followed suit. one too many bouts of gnats floating throughout the already minuscule apartment had led to sakura, feelings be damned, to come a hair-width away from throwing him and his cherry and heirloom tomato sproutlings out, so they found a compromise.

he adjusts his eyes to stare up ahead, where their house lies in the horizon. if he stares long enough, his vision focuses on the towering white structure behind it. sasuke, possessor of the eternal mangekyou sharingan and bestowed to carry the weight of the rinnegan, if left to his own devices, has been known to have focused his energy upon that disconnected greenhouse on the outskirts of their land. admittedly, he might have been committing more time to getting the greenhouse ready, but that is only because winter is drawing near and his wife has forbidden him from growing his produce within the confines of their living space.

this, he can admit, is somewhat unfair because while he cultivated his produce, she developed a love for indoor plants, which have somehow gotten a hold of almost every single surface in their home. well, he acquiesces, at least it is one more thing they can chat about.

though his eyes hold great power, she is the possessor of the ability to read his actions, even when he is not in her immediate line of sight, so he is careful to hide the roll of his eyes. “your plants are too peculiar. ‘tap water makes me unhappy. why did you change the temperature? my leaves are going to brown and shrivel up because you’re so cruel to me’,” he responds in a mocking voice. “mine would be happy rooting on concrete if they had to.”

she snorts. he doesn’t have a clear view, but he can tell her eyes are sparkling. “that’s because mine have class, sasuke-kun, something you obviously know nothing about.” he thinks that’s rich, coming from her, and he says so, which earns a painful pinch to his side. she hears him mutter a quick, “annoying woman,” at which he hears a croak of laughter.

they greet the comfortable silence and bask in it for a short while as they continue on the worn path home.

this allows his twice-worn eyes to follow the trail a particular leaf takes as the gentle breeze carries it onward. it begins its descent, bending and curling in its path, and he ponders over the thought that it will proceed on its predestined path to rest on the worn earth below until a sudden gust causes it to surge skyward. for a split second, he can almost swear that the cicadas halt their hummings to make way for the sound of the leaves resting on the ground to cry out for their missing brethren.

he is pulled from his musing when his sandaled feet crush a feeble twig. his body slows to a stop and his eyes shift upwards. he doesn’t know what he’s looking for or if he’s looking for anything in particular, but he remembers.

he remembers that the weight of his past sins can find ways of creeping up on him. he remembers sometimes that the law is often unfair; an uncomfortable sensation suddenly perches heavily in his chest when he remembers run-ins with civilians and nin alike who have lost so much—sometimes due to his past sins, sometimes due to the inevitability of the war—and he looks down at himself, a former criminal allowed to roam the world and speak freely with his wife about mundane topics. he remembers that although he stumbled upon gardening as a means of release, the tightening in his chest when everything comes bubbling up is as uncontrollable as the sea. it bursts as guilt that eats away at him, one side feeling every bit of undeserving of the happiness he’s finally allowed into his life, the other feeling indescribably ashamed that he has allowed happiness to take up so much room that the memory of the past that have been pushed to the borders of his mind.

wanderlust, he thinks, isn’t embedded in his bones for reasons of being incapable of rooting himself to one spot, rather it’s been embedded in his bones by the persistent reminders of the voices inside of his head to remember.

beside him, sakura seems to sense his contemplation. he stares down and watches her feet carry her until she is stopped right in front of him. he lifts his gaze so that their eyes meet once again, and the soft, understanding smile she presents rings throughout his entire being. she brings her hand up to brush the overgrown hairs that cover his left eye before she slides her fingers down to rest on his chest. he reaches out to grip her white coat; the hammering of his heart against the confines of his lungs slows to a lull. “shall i prepare your travel cloak?” she asks.

the amalgamation of pinks and reds and blues of the sky amplify the resounding warmth of her eyes—green as the first buds of spring—and, he thinks, it is a shame that she is blissfully unaware that she is the cure for the human condition.

he shuts his eyes and draws her close until their foreheads are joined. he breathes her scent and it’s times like this that he wishes the sharingan was capable of memorizing the sweetness that is her, before he presses his lips where it was once connected to his forehead. against her skin, he whispers, “come with me.”

#ssm20d27 #sasusaku #ssfanfiction #also on ao3 #jan writes

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katsukikitten · 4 years

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Weighted

A/N @zbops for you bb as per your request. I hope that this lives up to at least half of your expectations. Thank you so much for supporting me and for encouraging me. Enjoy it and may it help you just a bit more. I send my love XOXO Kitten 💋

It was not unlike you to occasionally stay up late into the night. Late enough to see the moon rise high in the inky black sky watching the constellations move by at a lazy pace.

But to lie awake long enough to greet the sun was abnormal.

At least it was supposed to be abnormal now. Before it was your normal to lose sleep as fat droplets slid from unblinking eyes. Thoughts consuming you with nothing and everything at once.

You thought yourself better.

Not cured, not immune, but well.

Fine and level headed for once.

Yet here you lie again unable to will your exhausted body to sleep as you replay failures from pasted years.

Like an old film one must study to improve but every time it is rewatched another haunting flaw jumps out.

And there is nothing you can do to right your wrong.

Frustrated tears well in your eyes now as you watch the clock for the second week in a row burn an obnoxious 3 am into your retina.

Furious as you thought you had put this problem in its place. That you had long ago learned how to make your demon small and to lock it away.

As with everything in life it adapted, slipping through the bars of its cage only to find itself looming over you once more. Delighting in your anguish as it exploits the coping mechanism you developed.

Turning it on its head to haunt you, to hurt you. To put you in your place as you thought you did it.

Although it knows this will be enough to pain you, it wants to do more.

Truly a petty being as it steals your voice, worming into your head just to whisper.

"Did you really think a few extra hours of training a day would make a difference? That you would suddenly be sought after as a pro hero? You could barely get an apprenticeship and look at how you're failing at that!"*

This dredges up your failure from last week, your first offical mission as apprentice.

What was supposed to be a normal patrol quickly unraveled into a full on street brawl.

You aided your hero holding down the perpetrators bodies with your quirk, straining to keep them in place.

There were tenty or so overpowered drug enhanced strength quirks fighting the pull you placed on them.

Your arm pangs now, reminding you of how it threatened to snap beneath the own weight of your quirk.

"Useless." Its laugh echoes in your ear.

Your temper flares, fist smashing the small black box that mocks you with the time before you rise. Dressing into your training clothes, sliding on your weighted vest as your bruises groan against it. You push your already consistent 1.5 times Earth's gravity pull to a consistent 2.5 for now.

Hands grab for your phone and headphones before fumbling to find your key in your amassed returning symptoms. Throwing piles of clothes, books, and homework onto other piles of long neglected items.

Irritation mixed with a twinge of panic sets in as you look for your FOB that accesses not only the gym you are so desperate to use but also it accesses your dorm building as your dorm room key rests on a chain around your neck. Your memory works overtime as you wonder where it could have been placed.

Was it it Kirishima's room?

Or Bakugou's?

Who's room did the three of you spend the night in last?

You cannot remember, time all runs together much like a watercolor painting caught in the rain.

Colors bleed and the world dips into sun bleached greys as you think of the two of them.

Had you even texted either of them good night?

When was the last time you told them you loved them?

You pick up your phone, bloomed bruised hand winking back at you before the phone obliterates into metal and glass confetti at your feet.

"Fuck." You hiss having forgotten that you had the gravitational pull around your hands as well. Damning yourself for being so careless although you are still careless enough to walk over the shrapnel with bare feet.

It is then you find your key FOB lying in the middle of the chaotic room which you snatch greedily before locking your post nuclear bomb room away.

And with that the thoughts of ash blonde and ruby red hair.

You slink on guilty feet in the shadows of the hall, the moon your only witness as you make your way outside.

The air is cool agaisnt your heated skin, hinting that fall is almost over. That winter will be sure to rear its ugly head and harshly at that.

As if to prove a point an icy wind cuts through your skin deep into your bones, you sigh out upping the force on your body.

The gym is a short walk from the dorm, the night caressing you with soft fingers as it guides you to the thick metal door.

A worried gulp echoes back at you as your hand hovers just before the panel. FOB just out of range to be scanned.

Last time a student was on rest probation their key could only work if Sensei scanned theirs as well.

With gritted teeth you bring the key to kiss smooth plastic. For a moment you're sure it will flash red but when it beeps with a flash of glorious green you cannot help the small smile that spreads across your lips.

They must have forgotten to add those restrictions to yours, that or they didn't think you would disobey your physical therapist and other Sensei.

It doesn't take long before you're sweating.

And the more you swing the harder you make the gravitational pull on your body. The floor groans from the pressure as you push the pull towards you beyond limits for a recovering body, 3.5 times Earth's normal pull. Sweat slides down a bruised nape and drips into now stinging eyes.

You do little to alleviate the pain or sweat that is trying so hard to blind you.

Another swing of your weighted fists has your bones creaking, muscles burning while you have half a mind to add more sand to your wrist and ankle bands.

Hell maybe even more to your vest although it presses against your sternum harshly with each step, threatening to snap a rib. You begin to lose the concentration on the areas you want to afflict as the incresed gravitational begins to spread out. The floor groans harder depsite being designed to withstand many powerful quirks.

A hairline fraction fissures through the smooth wood, attempting to snake up the cinderblock wall.

"None of this is going to change anything. You will still be..."

A heated punch hits the dummy hard, causing it to skid but you advance without letting up, snarling.

"Don't fucking say it."

Another hit to the dummy and you've got it cornered agaisnt the wall but still the voice goes on, a smile dancing along its tone as it purrs.

*"Worthless"*

You begin to jab agaisnt the dummy with enough momentum and force that the padding begins to fall away from its "face" revealing unforgiving metal beneath.

Metal that you pound into anyway.

Metal that warps for a moment from being too close to your pull, still your barrage of fists and feet cease to let up.

You follow up a punch with a round house kick increasing the force on your body subconsciously. As you rotate your vest slams heavily into your ribs and an audible crack echoes around the room.

"Fuck!" You huff slamming your foot against the cool surface, the dummy implodes as you land on your feet.

In that moment the room pops from the pressure as you let up the force. The floor creaks, almost breathing as it returns to normal although now heavily warped. Suddenly you feel as light as a feather. As if at any moment you could float up to the ceiling like a lazy balloon only to get tangled in the harsh overhead lights.

Crimson splatters the floor from your knuckles and spit, hand feathering over your ribs. Sliding beneath dampened fabric, smoothing over already bruised skin. You're sure it will only worsen now that you count, one, two.

Three fucking cracked ribs. Your breaths come out in heavy puffs all echoing back to you as you right your self, eyes seeking out another dummy, ignoring the pain begging you to stop.

But feeling pain was better than feeling that weighted void in your chest.

As if you were a super nova that imploded, pulling everything around you into the darkened abyss.

Turning it all into hollowed nothingness.

The first sparring dummy you spy seems to look at you funny, you rear your fist but before it can make contact a growl cuts out.

"You've done enough little one."

His voice dips low, borderline pissed. It is a warning and one you must obey as the air permeates with salted caramel.

But you're in no mood to deal with Katsuki, no mood to be submissive, obedient or anything relative to feeling at all.

Regardless if it's clearly for your own good.

All you wanted, needed, was for everything to fade.

And maybe to black.

But it doesn't instead he advances hand finding your wrist with a sharp grip, that softens only to assess. Turning your wrist this way and that with heated calculating eyes, before he rips off your weighted vest with a growl. Lifting your shirt to reveal blush black painted beneath your smooth skin. His finger prods your ribs and when he counts them in his head he snarls. You watch his muscles twitch as he holds himself. Muscles that had grown twice their size since first year and yet you were left unchanging.

"Training is futile, you'll always be puny."

You rip your wrist free, teeth bared at an already snarling Bakugou.

"Not. Now." You misread his actions beneath the initial rage. He is concerned but all you see is punishment in his eyes

Disappointment.

You look over Katsuki's sculpted shoulder to see Kirishima waiting at the door with glistening ruby eyes that seem to be torn.

Who does he support? How can he defuse this?

"You're fucking hurt." The blonde bites out venom.

"I'm fucking fine. Drop it!" You shove past him slamming your shoulder into his. He wants so badly to reach for you. To yank you back to him so you can look him in his angry scarlet eyes.

"Oh so the blood on the floor means you're fine? Your cracked ribs and bruised to fuck all body means you're fine?!" His temper shows with deadly pops that dance along his skin.

You weight him and Kirishima down gently as you leave, hoping it slows them down long enough for you to return to the safety of your dorm room.

Katuski snarls as he walks with leaded feet, as if walking through mud under the influence of a muscle relaxer. But he and Kirishima have trained with you plenty of times, not to mention they are exposed to your increased pull.

"Maybe we should give them sometime? They are upset, babe." Kirishima offers only to be met with a glowering glare.

"I've tried listening to you, I've tried it your way and look what has happened." A snarl so low that Kirishima feels his gut twist.

"But..."

"But what?" He turns on his lover quickly, "We gave them two weeks of no contact. This is clearly a symptom we need to bisect before they kill themselves over some stupid fucking training."

Kirishima can do nothing but follow as Bakugou stalks you up the steps that you stomp.

You're seething, steam rising from your skin with each heavy breath as your vision blurs between rational thought and white hot rage.

Rage that is always so easy to give into. Especially when your only other option is immobilzing sadness. Before you know it Bakugou is barking at you from the jamb of the door while your ruby haired boyfriend presses gently against his back.

Trying to remind him that his own irate reaction could further the situation, Bakugou feels it but it is lost as you strip to change. You rip the velcro from your wrists, dropping the fifty pounds weights with a harsh thud. The floor rattles the items on your desk and even the window before you move onto the hundred pound weights on your ankles.

Grumbling as you think of your two hundred and fifty pound vest abandoned in the gym. How hard had Bakugou torn it from your strong yet sleek frame?

Would you have to take it to the support class?

You strip your shirt and then your pants as two sets of red eyes gauge different reactions.

Rubies widen, shining with the threat of tears. While blood scarlet narrow with burning, hot, wrath.

Katsuki knew you were bruised, he knew you had those broken ribs and he knew you were set out of rehabilitation probation due to injuries but he did not know the extent of them.

And how the fuck could he? What with you locking yourself away in your room, refusing to text them, refusing to eat the meals cooked and left for you.

Refusing help as you promised you would not do.

Katsuki's warning signs of blowing do not go unnoticed, a strong hand wraps around his hip. Squeezing, hoping to convey the softness the ash blonde so desperately needs.

It works, at least as far as his quirk goes. Bakugou Katsuki could erupt in more than one way.

"What. The. FUCK?!" He goes to take a step in but Kirishima keeps his grip tight. But that does not stop the tongue lashing you get. Bakugou takes a large slow breath, as you once taught him and snorts it out like a dragon.

"You promised you would stop doing this..." His voice, once soothing now grating your last nerve, "You fucking promised, damn it."

Kirishima gives another small squeeze before piping up.

"We are just worried about you, love. Very worried." His voice cracks at the end, causing Katsuki to look over his shoulder.

The tears well faster over dancing garnets.

From the weight of the guilt something in you finally snaps. The room blurs as you subconsciously pull the force to you, items slowly crushing beneath the weight as you lunge for the first thing you can wrap burning hands on.

Your desk chair to which your hurl while screaming

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Your hot headed boyfriend catches the chair with ease, exploding it on impact.

With an angry enough blast that the paint on the ceiling and walls peel.

Oh if Bakugou wasn't pissed at you before he was now.

And not angry over the fact that you've thrown something at him.

But over the simple fact that you were hurting in deadly silence. So badly suffering that you cannot even rationally express yourself anymore.

And more over he is pissed he has let it get this far.

The glass of your window shatters behind you, both from your exertion and his explosion pulling you into the here and now.

The room spirals as quickly as you do, suddenly forgetting how to breath. Gasping as a fish does out of water before you fall to your knees. The two men rush to you, fearing you'll lose yourself in your panic. Two sets of strong arms wrap around you both crushing you between them.

"You're okay." Kirishima soothes, "You're okay. Just breathe."

Nails bite into toned flesh though you are unsure which unfortunate mail is receiving the half blood moons as tears prick your eyes. Falling towards the Earth as much as you wish they wouldn't. Your stomach lurches, your side screams but it does not stop the racks of sobs that tremor through your body.

You come undone in the worst way before the very two men you wanted, needed to be strong in front of. There was already a detrimental gap between your development and theirs. In every fucking aspect you could think of.

Muscle mass.

Durability.

Capability.

The list could go on.

After some time Bakugou coos to you.

"Now tell me what's wrong."

Kirishima places his head between your shoulder blades, reaching out for Bakugou's hand.

"I...I'm behind. I... I cannot even train right." Tears slip over ruddy cheeks that Katuski gently wipes away.

"Behind how?" Kirishima prompts, letting lazy circles trace your stomach.

"On my first mission I get put on recovery suspension, I worked so so so *hard* to even get that hero to agree to take me on and yet I fucked it all up!" Another frustrated sob that has you hiccuping for a moment. You watch Bakugou's face turn to stone as he tries to calm himself.

"I almost died on one of my first big missions. I sat out for a long time, this was a little bit before you transferred." Kirishima admits, "Resting and PT made me stronger."

"Hell I was behind at one point too. I couldn't even fucking pass the provisional!" Katsuki growls at the thought.

"Neither could Todoroki-kun." Kirishima adds.

"But you three...you three are strong. I'm so....weak." With that Bakugou snaps.

"You think I can run with a two hundred fifty pound weight on my chest and keep pace with Iida's jog? Do you think Kirishima could hold down twenty fucking tweaked out villians at once?" His voice is gruff but his hands are soft as he lifts your chin, purposefully making you hold his gaze as he speaks, "Answer me, little one."

"N...no." You sob, Kirishima's strong arm squeezes tigher around your middle, careful to avoid your ribs, as he peppers kisses over your blackened shoulders.

"Just because your body does not reflect mine or Eijiro's does not mean you are weak. You are strong Y/N. Real fucking strong." He kisses you softly, capturing your lips tenderly as Kirishima kisses along your throat.

"Share this weight with us." Bakugou breathes out after pulling away.

"Its not weak to cry or ask for help baby." Kirishima whispers in your ear, your eyes look over your sturdy shoulder before they fall to their hands intertwined. You notice Bakugou's knuckles turning white. Had you really made them worry this much?

"Isn't that right Suki?" Eji asks, resting his chin in your shoulder. Katsuki looks at him for a long time, this man and you have helped him more than he would ever like to admit. But if this is what brought that natural magnetism about you that attracted him in the first place he'd say it

Fuck, if it brought that blinding smile of yours back to your kissable lips he'd scream if from the fucking roof.

"Yes." He lets out a shaky sigh, "Now please, please let us help you little one."

Searching his eyes you wonder if there will ever be a time when you will stop feeling this way.

When you will stop feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders over little to nothing at all.

When you will stop feeling that black hole that crawled into your chest weighing you down and making you weightless all at once.

When you will stop the haunting feeling of sadness that lingers on the fringes of your every thought, tainting every memory and moment with its shimmering darkness.

You wonder if this cancer, if this demon that has since crawled into your chest and devoured your heart whole will ever die.

Scarlet eyes soften as they rove over your lovely features, strong arms support you from behind and you know what the answer is.

The answer is no.

It will never die, never cease to exist, never leave you alone. It will stay with you until you lie motionless forever and even then it will crawl into your casket cradling your cooling skin.

But you will not stop fighting.

Cannot stop fighting because of the small sliver of a feeling you have now.

The love that resiliently blooms despite the pressure, despite the darkness, despite it being trampled over and fucking over.

You know that these two men are not your worth nor or they your reason for being and even if, Kamisama forbid, you three broke up, you would fight on.

Tooth and nail keeping this demon under the ball of your steel toed boot.

Because in the end, after it is all said in done you will do anything to feel this.

This hope and love that radiates from within. You sigh out a shaky sigh, releasing the tension of your shoulders and the constant pressure you've kept on yourself since that mission, your shoulders sag from relief.

"Thank you, thank you for baring this with me." You squeeze their arms respectively as you speak to them both at once, "I love you."

They speak in unison their two tones melding together and soothing over your skin like an ointment.

"I love you too."

#bakugou x reader #baakugo x reader #gender nuetral reader #katsuki x kirishima #kirishima x reader #bnha x reader #bnha kacchan #bnha fanfiction #kirishima x bakugo x reader #kirishima ejirou #katuski bakugou #bakugou katsuki #bakugou #katsuki bakugou #bnha bakugou #bakugou imagine #kirishima #kirishima imagine

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dropsofletters · 4 years

Text

the ice before the rainbow

title: the ice before the rainbow pairing: nakamoto yuta/reader genre: figure skater!au summary: yuta’s will is crashed after an injury almost ruins his entire career as a figure skater, but he seemingly forgets about something—the rainbow always follows after the rain. unbeknownst to him, the physiatrist who helps him with his injury holds all the colors of the world in her icy stare. type: lots of fluff/tiny bits of angst word count: 11,448

Yuta is in love with ice.

He lived off the feeling of gliding across the ice rink, battling gravity with one pirouette, glistening against the white ice with his bedazzled suits, becoming one with the music, with the cheering, with the air as he flew and fell down to a slow tempo. Yuta felt free, the perfect mixture between the side of his personality he never showed—softer, one that he could never show for the life of him—and his competitiveness. The ache on his feet are his pride, for he is a piece of art while also practicing a sport. In his head, Yuta loves ice because it doesn’t burn him, he considers himself equally as cold, freezing people with just one smile, making the Earth his own with his mightiness.

A failed attempt at a championship is not enough to ruin that; he tries to convince himself, but it actually ruins his situation a little bit. The Triple Axel just took its toll on him when the smile on his face and the cheering from the crowd changed to gasps and his pained expression. Unluckily for him, his femur took most of the fall, a pain so hard that it brought a shiver down his spine, unable to even stand up from the position on the ice. A broken bone later and five weeks of resting to the doctor’s content, Yuta was ready to go back and prepare for the next award under his name. If love is in the name of a sport, then he is going to live up to the expectations he has for romance. Strong. Passionate. Continuous.

His doctor thinks otherwise. Damn, even his own mother thinks that he should really take a break from the sport, perhaps find some kind of job online writing articles about figure skaters and their techniques instead of putting himself on the line, blinded by adrenaline and the need for success. But Yuta is a hard worker, one with the ice, dancing and performing in the air is what makes him live. One jump is not going to stop him, even when his left thigh is in severe pain and he still has to constantly check up on it, go to therapy and contact a masseuse in order to help the ache in his adductors.

The ice skaters at the ice rink welcome him with a smile, even when Yuta is clearly lumping in his walk, pushing the doors open with grins to share with everyone. His usual bag dangles off one shoulder, his ice skates waiting for him in his locker. His lungs get filled with the fog in the atmosphere, listening to the sound of the blades dragging across the ice, an old form of art that people could only appreciate when the Olympics came around. Painters used canvases, figure skaters used ice to draw figures, a dance that leaves an imprint on the floor.

His fingers reach up for his black, long locks, the elastic that he keeps around his wrist wrapping around his hair to pull it up in a small bun. These days, he has let his hair grow longer—sometimes, he thinks it is because he has been training so hard for that damned championship that he didn’t have time to cut his hair or style, or if he is actually just feeling more like himself with longer hair, freer in some kind of way that he can’t explain. Either way, it looks good on pictures, and it would have looked even more perfect with the hair-pins his cousin gifted him for the championship presentation, if only it wasn’t for his fall.

Some of those pictures that got to his email sadly show the most embarrassing moment of his life, but Yuta tries to convince himself he can do it. Gone are the hours to blush or bask in embarrassment, for that is unlike him, and this is the moment to simply practice.

His joints need to be moved, for Yuta is not a man of resting. His ears can almost make out the sound of his weight gliding across the ice, gaining strength and rapidness before lifting himself in the air. If he is lucky, he may stand on his feet instead of falling once again, but that is something that can only be discovered by going to the ice rink and proving to himself that he is, indeed, just as good as he imagines himself to be.

His thoughts are interrupted when he hears the sound of his locker’s door closing, almost taking the skin of his hand if only he hadn’t moved it away quickly. Blurry is his vision by adrenaline and anger when he turns around to look at the subject that had done such a thing, only to be met by two faces—one very familiar, old and wrinkly always wearing the same tacky lycra pants that he wore in his years of glory, and one that he has not seen in his life, or at least hasn’t paid attention to. The first face belongs to his coach, Daniel, and the other one is the face of a woman, letting her gaze wander around the changing rooms.

“Coach, you could have ripped my hand off!”

“You deserve it,” Daniel scolds, the tone of his voice poised as he takes a good look at Yuta. So, he knows he is stubborn, and that is exactly the same reason why he thinks he has been as successful as he is in two completely different fields in sports. Some days, when the coldness clings to the skin on his face so much that it hurts, is when he feels complete. A routine is a challenge for him, a reminder that there is always something better that he could be doing, and the tiredness that welcomes him when he gets home is more than fulfilling. “I had to get a text from one of the older students earlier this morning telling me you had said in the group chat that you were going to come here.” Before Yuta could defend himself, the Coach gives him a pointed look, only capable of shutting Yuta up as he drags himself to sit on the closer bench. “You are going to hurt yourself. You need to get massages first and stretch and do all kinds of things before going back to something as dangerous as the ice—”

“What is a massage going to do for me?” Yuta asks, letting his neck roll until the back of his head tips against one of the lockers. “I am absolutely fine. I need to continue practicing, Coach. This is my way of living, I can’t just stop and not do anything.” His family had been sweet enough to help him out; cooking for him, making sure that he took his pain medicine, fluffing out the pillows that carried the weight of his damned thigh, helping him get off the car when going to the doctor’s office…He is just tired of that. Not to say he doesn’t like the silky feeling of his blankets or being pampered, for one or two days like that every few months is not bad, but it is not enough to keep him going in life. “Do you just want me to not participate in championships so I lose my apartment, the food that I eat—”

“The doctor said, kid,” The Coach leans down in front of him, squinting his eyes at the long-haired ice skater. “That a femoral fracture takes three or four months to heal, and you need your legs to compete.”

“But I feel fine! I can walk now, and the Doctor says I’ve been healing fast.”

“Yes, I can’t argue with that. You’re walking and doing great, but I don’t think you can be skating right now. The Doctor also added you need to get fucking massages, Yuta.” Yuta knows better than to get obsessed with a sport. Most athletes feel like they need to live to an expectation of excellence, that they will only be worthy if they have a million golden medals and the cheers of people by their side, but he can’t help it. In the ice rink he feels functional, like there aren’t any worries in the world—like dropping out of college, one of the biggest problems that he had been facing in the past few years, and the fear of being a forgotten ice skater that could never live off his talent. After all, he had left his career in soccer for something else, something different. “Listen,” Daniel pats Yuta’s thigh and the man flinches, biting down on his bottom lip to muffle the sound. In the past, he has been told he is not good at hiding his feelings—and this is one of the main reasons why. “My uncle is a physiatrist and I called him as soon as I heard you were coming here, because if you’re not going to the doctor, I’m taking the doctor to you—”

“Coach, really, I appreciate your efforts and all…but I’ll be fine.” The ice skater tries to convince, standing up from his spot before giving one of those smile of his, those that battle all kind of badness in the world and replace it with utter happiness. He wants to feel happy and functional again. “Just let me get my ice skates and—”

“Yuta, I said no.” Not to be confused, Daniel is not a stern coach. If Yuta dreams it, he lets him do it. The amount of times Daniel has shaken his head at the thought of one of the jumps Yuta wants to try out is infinite, but he always follows after Yuta’s plans. He has a vision, one with the ice, romance in the form of a dance, but this is the first time Daniel stops him from reuniting with his beloved partner. “My uncle wasn’t available, but he recommended me a recent graduate that does home visits and whatnot. She’s…here, as you can see.” The ice skater’s eyes go over the physiatrist by the Coach’s side. Finally, she shares a glance with him and he sees that poised, rational and composed part most of health workers have. Coated in professionalism and what seems to be shyness, but it is past that—gone are the blushing expressions, the shaking eyes, instead, she simply looks blank. Icy, even. “Be nice to her.”

“Doc, nice to meet you.” He is not blind, of course, enchanted by the way her lips dip with the rose color she applied on them and how she seemed to take a little bit more of time on working that ponytail on her face. In his head, she imagines her as one of those students that always brought a book with themselves and pushed romance to the side in hopes of successful career. “But I’m fine. You can go to your other patients—”

Nonetheless, Daniel scoffs. “Doctor, just…stay.”

“Ah, Mr. Nakamoto, right?” She asks, raising a finger to quirk it up in questioning. Yuta almost wants to laugh at the name, for she doesn’t even look much older than him—perhaps too put together, taken away from medicine school, but not much different from him to have such pleasantries in her way of speaking.

“Yuta.”

“Okay, Yuta.” His name is softly spoken on her voice and he knows that soothing tone; the ones people use when they want the patient to listen to them. “I have heard from your Coach that you had a pretty bad injury, and it is never going to be the same for you when skating. It will be uncomfortable and you will have to get used to it, but to avoid worsening the fracture…” She trails her voice, looking into his eyes once again. “We need to practice a bit, massage the muscles around the thigh, make sure you get used to walking properly without putting much weight on it. This bone receives a lot of impact from movement.”

Daniel hums from somewhere beside Yuta, but he is too concentrated on the woman in front of him. Now, maybe he has had a plethora of women in his dating list—but he has always had something for challenges. He likes, in one way or another, those people who seem like they would never give him the time of the day and try to get their attention. This is one of those cases, but he masks his attraction whilst listening to her. “Did you hear that, Nakamoto?”

Even though she is gorgeous and resting does sound inviting with how his thigh seems to be throbbing in pain right now, he still cannot accept such offer. “But Coach, there is a championship coming nearby and we had already planned having me there.”

“I’ll have any of the other guys in your spot.”

“I do not want any of the other guys. I want to go.” Yuta complains, his jaw tightening in utter frustration. He knew he could have done that jump perfectly, but something had happened—he only wants to practice harder, try and try until his muscles hurt, only to prove to himself that The Triple Axel could be aced by him.

The Coach sighs loudly, pressing two fingertips to his right temple before looking over at the physiatrist. “I am going to look for some cushions so you can lay him down on the bench right there. Talk to him about this until I’m back.” Daniel excuses himself with a bow before getting out of the changing rooms and towards his office.

The thick moment of silence weights so much that it almost brings him down on the bench once again to rest, but then again, that could also be his body talking about how much of a strain he has put on his body in the past few days. Instead, he hears the sound of rustling and then, the lockers making a noise that indicate someone has leaned on them. When he looks to his side, he sees her attention is already on him and with a clear tone, she speaks up. “I know you want to continue practicing and this must be really difficult for you…” This is something that he has heard before and his eyes almost roll thanks to his own frustration, but then he continues. “But it is better to spend a few months away from the sport than just losing the opportunity to skate for the rest of your life.”

“That wouldn’t happen.”

“It could,” She shrugs her shoulders, biting down on her bottom lip before extending her hand for him to take, introducing herself to him. Her skin is cold, perhaps for the atmosphere that he no longer feels around the ice rink, or because something within her heart is like that and it pours out in her body temperature. “I am a physiatrist resident, second year. I may not be much…but I’ll do my best to get you to heal soon. If we work in this together, I may get a few pictures for my thesis and you will get your leg back.”

His eyebrow raises in interest, his brown eyes studying every form of her expression. Red lips, cold eyes, the scowl over her face—natural of her. The solemnity that falls upon her, a sedative of sorts for people who got too close, but Yuta has never been afraid of ice. “Okay. I will do my best, Doctor.”

“Call me by my name.”

“Okay, I will.”

But even though he tries to get to know more about her, there is a barrier around her, an igloo that protects her from someone ever getting too close to her. If anything, Yuta is more concentrated in the pain that shoots up his thigh as she makes him do certain exercises, bringing it up to his chest, then slowly back down, massaging at the muscles and tendons only to hear him take a sharp inhale.

So he really is about to lose his dream to a fracture, huh?

He pushes the thought away, closing his eyes tightly as he asks her more questions, trying to cling to his last bit of sanity while she gives him short answers. Yes. No. Maybe. Okay.

Yuta is in love with the ice, and someone with such a cold personality must be the one to take him back there. He trusts her, strangely enough, something about her knowledge telling him that she is really going to live up to her words.

❄️

The lights of the ice rink are dimmed, casting upon the ice and leaving everything else to pure darkness. Somewhere in its silence, he swears he can hear the security guard lighting up a cigarette, but the heat does not reach him, neither does the smell. The long sleeves of his shirt are pulled down to reach his fingertips, though he wants to extend them in the elegant way he does when on stage—but he fears what is to come. His life is torn in two, in between the version of himself who wants to try getting back to figure skating as soon as possible and the other part of him that is asking for rest, one is heartfelt the other is mental. The voices speak too loud for him to stand, wanting to be left alone even by himself. It has been yet another week of just going to the ice rink simply to watch, to do some exercises with the physiatrist, of simply feeling useless.

It sickens him and of course, this is not the way he wants to feel for the next three months. In his own nostalgic way, he needs to feel the coldness caressing his skin, craves for the feeling of knowing it would only take a second to have him back to whom he used to be. That is why he pushed his bag in his locker, took his ice skates and promised himself that he was going to roam the blades through the thick concoction of frozen water. The same reason why he is earlier than usual, or why he is sitting near the ice in fear of letting go of the wall he is clinging to.

It’s just ice, he convinces himself. He has been there before.

But definitely not with his femur wanting to give up on him.

Though, it’s fine—Yuta claims mentally as he pushes himself towards the ice, both of his hands extended by his side to keep his balance. If Bambi could do it, so can he.

Freedom reaches him for the first time in weeks, though the pain he feels on his leg shoots up to his hip-bone, catching up to his knee when he decides to move quicker, rushing through with his legs in the positions he has learned like the back of his hand. He wants to jump, reach the sky in a twirling motion and land, but he doesn’t understand what is so wrong with that. His fingers move, finally becoming more relaxed when he feels like he has gained some balance. His lip is stuck in between his lips, used as a concentration matter just so he can go for that jump and he tries, gets closer and closer, arms folding to his sides, knees buckling the slightest bit in such a perfect manner that it deserved all the awards in the world. Yuta is one step away from trying the easiest jump he knows when he feels it—

A pain so bad that it has him gasping, losing his balance and reaching for the first thing he feels. Luck is on his side that morning, considering he grabs on to one of the railings near the ice rink and he hangs from it slightly whilst the muscles on his leg tremble. Adductors, the physiatrist had called them one of the many times he tried to embark in conversation with her, and he really wants to extract them from his body the moment he feels such an ache.

More than anything, it is his heart that goes through such agony. The devastation that takes over his body is insufferable, staring at the ice like a lover that is pushing him away, waiting for him to change before they can get back together. He wants to try again; he knows he can do it…

“Yuta!” Someone calls out or him, an exclamation that echoes through the place as they near him. He knows it is a woman, and he also knows that it is his physiatrist, but he doesn’t want to look anywhere in embarrassment, fear or frustration, perhaps all three. Instead, he feels the warmth of her hand—much welcomed whenever she greets him with a high-five, or now, when she holds it to help him up, and then, he hears her voice. “What do you think you are doing?!” She asks him, long gone her poise and soft spoken voice, now exchanged for utter confusion and anger. Finally, he moves the strands of his hair away from his face by shaking his head, looking up at her and resting his weight against that wall.

“I was trying to ice skate.” He says calmly, though she doesn’t seem half as calm. “Didn’t work anyways…” The disappointment that oozes from his words has her sighing, her scowl softening, her hand letting go of his quickly.

“I didn’t give you permission to ice skate.” She presses. “You should be resting and following after the therapy I am giving you. Not ice skating.”

“This is my job…You know this.” Yuta complains, bottom lip jutting out at his words before he groans softly, resting his head against the wall. “And now I’m stuck in here, and my leg really hurts, and I feel like I want to throw a punch but knowing my luck, I’ll probably break whatever bone is in my hands.”

“Bones. There are plenty in just one hand.”

“…Biology wasn’t my forte.” The ice glistens on both of their faces, creating beautiful stars as a reflection in their eyes. Yuta looks at her for a few seconds, wondering why he can’t read her in any possible way—he knows she is smart, but that is common knowledge, he also knows that she doesn’t talk much, but anyone would be able to tell such thing. What is there in her that he simply can’t explain? Something in her gaze, like she has found all the secrets in the world, but she would never give them to anyone even if they tried to get them away from her. “Hey, not to bother you or anything…but I really can’t move and…” For the first time in years, and he means it, his cheeks feel like they are burning for something more than just ice. Yuta doesn’t think he has blushed in the past decade, really, maybe when he was fourteen and had a crush on some girl, but other than that, he has lived his life in absolute peace. “I need someone to get in here and drag me out…or help me out, I can move, just that I’m too chicken to try to extend my leg.”

A shaky breath leaves her lips, the corner of them lifting up in what seems to be a smile. “Okay. Yes, I’ll get in there…I’ll get you out, but listen,” her voice becomes strict in the matter of seconds. “I am giving you an earful after this. You know I am working hard on that leg of yours.”

“I know.” Yuta claims, pointing with his index finger towards the lockers. “Get some skates over there and save me, please.” The whine in his tone is unlike him, he knows, but something within him likes the way she tries to protect him. Sure, the words are there—doctor, med degree, physiatrist, but Yuta likes to believe in his chances of getting her attention, as a friend, maybe.

Or just to get her attention, really. Yuta is not a saint, nor does he claim to be.

Once she is back, he can tell by the way she squats down to put her skates that she is not a professional, not even remotely close to a regular. One, her eyes hold so much fear he thinks she is going to cry right at that moment and if his thigh wasn’t in so much pain, he would have skated over to her just to figure out if she is fine. Two, her steps are anything but certain when she steps into the ice rink. And third, most importantly…the reason why Yuta’s smile widens quickly whilst he is hanging his weight on a railing, is that she wobbles the moment she starts skating. If he can even call it that, because she lands directly on her ass, looking at him with the most precious of surprises in her gaze.

“Oh my God,” Yuta smiles, chuckles a little bit actually, before sighing. “Okay…just…I am sorry for laughing. Get up.”

“I do not know how to skate, Yuta, if you haven’t noticed!” The bitterness in her tone makes her usually poised voice far higher, definitely at the verge of snapping.

“I just figured out. I will do my best to coach you through it—”

“How though?!”

“Just get up!”

By the time she gets to him, Yuta already feels his arms cramping from holding his weight up. Almost like two children learning how to skate, they look like, one because of his injury, another one because they have pushed any life experience apart from studying away just for the mere benefit of having good grades and a successful life. He is the same, without a degree, but giving up on a lot of things just to ice skate.

The fluffiness of the cushions makes him feel sick, much more when his thigh is pressed to his chest and he has the hardest time pushing it down and lifting it back up. Something as mundane as that is difficult for him, and that irks him terribly. His eyes want to get filled with tears, but he deems them ridiculous—what is crying going to do for him? “I hate this,” He mumbles at first, bawling his fists when she helps him push his thigh down, hissing at the pain. “It’s like life doesn’t want me to succeed in anything. When I was a soccer player, I got kicked out because I wasn’t as good as I used to be and now that I’m good at something, I have to destroy it, too.” Maybe, he should be as closed up as her. Icy, instead of loving the ice, but that is unlike him. Instead, he steals a glance at the woman who has her complete attention on him by now.

“It happens to a lot of athletes. It’s bound to happen to you, too.”

“But I didn’t want it to happen to me.”

“I am sure all those athletes who got injured in the past didn’t want it, as well.” She tries to sell the idea to him, taunting it like something normal. “Hey,” She pats his leg, caressing the soft flesh in between her fingertips—a massage, really, this is nothing out of the ordinary, that is her job. “I know it may not be much, but we all go through those times where we feel like our dream is escaping.” The reassurance makes him look up, realizing that she has some kind of doubt written on her face. Perhaps, she feels like he is getting too close. “When I failed my first test in med school, I thought it was over. I said to myself that I had tried so hard to get somewhere, only to ruin it in the first go.” She confesses and Yuta finds it impressive. In the short time they have known each other, she has never talked about herself. “But I realized I was just studying too hard. I took a break, read slowly, knowing that I just had to put little bits of efforts continuously to get to my goal, not try all of it at once.”

“And did it work?”

“I graduated. That’s something.” She replies before patting his leg softly. “So, you can do it. I’m here for you. I ice-skated for you, the least I want is to have a patient that doesn’t listen to me after I did that.”

The conversation that follows soon after feels warmer, and perhaps Yuta should get used to the feel of heat on his skin with every part of her that she uncovers with her words.

❄️

Patience is not his best trait, really.

In the realm of ice, he feels himself getting lost, that much is known, but after his last encounter with ice-skating and a good earful from his physiatrist, he knows better than to simply step in the ice and ruin both his doctor’s work and his career altogether. Always a risk taker, he is, but that trait of his has died down in the dull memory of whom he used to be.

By now, Yuta feels comfortable with the person that knows his muscles, bones and the structure of his impatient brain more than himself. After a month of complete treatment, going back and forth in between his orthopedic surgeon and his physiatrist, Yuta has gotten to know the woman that visits him once a week far more than he ever imagined. With the small structure of coldness that still seeps from her, he gets to see little glimpses of her real personality—the thoughtfulness she puts into her decisions, the moments in which she wants to let go but stops herself in doubtfulness, stories of her childhood that embarrass her when in reality they are the most normal thing in the world. Yuta is a risk taker, the complete opposite of her, but their lines connected in a simplistic dot, far too miniscule for people to notice.

They are so passionate about something that they have turned their backs to everyone else in their lives. Cinematic parallels, some would call this situation to be, and the more he got to know her, the more interested he felt in seeing how their perception of dreams were just so similar.

“Since I can’t ice-skate because of my leg…why don’t you ice-skate for me?”

“Oh, hell no.” She prompts, shaking her head with a smile on her face. “Come on, lift your leg like I told you and stop saying nonsense.”

Yuta does as she says, however, his statement remains intact. “It’s kind of life driving, you know? You need it for movement, and it’s a nice way to distract yourself—”

His eyes trail over her body to see her next movement, for that is what he is supposed to do. Though, inside his head, he couldn’t say he hasn’t seen the outer beauty of the physiatrist, hasn’t gathered confidence to flirt at her only to watch it dissipate thanks to her serious facade. Moments he grabs on to are definitely engraved in his brain, like the one time she seemed both embarrassed and frustrated when she had to ‘save him’ at the ice-rink, or the few times he has seen her angered expression when talking to her colleagues over the phone. Her smile, rarely seen nowadays, is one of his favorites, but in her opinion…she says she smiles too much.

Not enough for him, though.

And she definitely does not smile when Yuta’s good legs—he is getting better, or maybe it is passion that is moving him at this point—practically lead her to pick up the same shoes that she had taken the day he had gotten stuck at the ice rink, making sure to talk about the importance of wearing the garments adequately. His long hair frames his features as he kneels in front of her, tightening them enough to keep them in place before he is up at his feet once again, their faces briefly close. His senses grow aware of her perfume, most of the time forgotten in their rushed meetings, of her hands and how they hold on to his forearms when he puts his own shoes on, too skilled in their own version of art, rough to the touch, somewhat heavy. Yuta notices the lines under her eyes, gift of endless hard-work, the drying lipstick in the inside of her mouth, the soft caress of her eyelashes when she blinks, its own version of purity, he likes to believe.

“Okay, here we go.” The man instructs, pointing at one of the entrances towards the ice-rink. “You’ll be here, alright? And I’ll be on the other side. I want you to skate over to me.” Before she could say anything, Yuta is already moving over the ice, slowly and thoughtful, like he is tracing the outline of his home, full of memories of the past. Once on the other edge, he is fully aware of her complaints.

“Yuta, I swear—! I have worked so hard on your leg and if you end up ruining it—!”

“I will not!” He says, hands raised up in the air in some kind of defeat. He sits down on the edge of the ice-rink, the cold floor passing through the fabric of his jeans. “You are the one skating. This is for future knowledge, you never know when you’re in the middle of nowhere, the ice is coating the street and you have to use two butter knives under your shoes to ice-skate to the other side.”

Now, he knows she doesn’t believe the whole dumb act that he pulls off, trying to feign happiness in this moment of his life. A spider that hangs into webs, afraid of being swept away by more powerful beings, Yuta holds on to the things that make him happy. Sports. Nature. Fun. Jokes. Family. Friendship. Strangely enough, making the physiatrist laugh is up there. “Yuta, for the love of God,” She rolls her eyes, chuckling as her hands wrap tightly around the railings, too afraid of falling on her ass as done previously. “Tell me one situation in real life where that would happen.”

Yuta clicks his tongue, as if the answer is obvious. “In the zombie apocalypse? Zombies can’t skate.”

“No comment.” The tone of her voice has him laughing, so joyous he can feel his heart bursting with heat. “Okay, so, what do I get from this?”

Tilting his head to the side, he responds. “Me, of course.”

“You’re the prize?”

“A good one, indeed!” There it is, the smile he is looking for, the only warm part of her. With his hands clasped together, grip as tight as their bond—not too lose, not too clamped—, he finally decides to speak up. “Walk first, but not completely straight. You need to…put all your weight on the balls of your feet, kneel down a bit, just try that at first.” The instructions process through her brain perfectly, as it seems, taking a few steps that reminded him a lot of the kids that would try ice-skating for the first time. “Stay close to the wall, just in case you fall.”

With a huff leaving her lips, fruit of her own frustration, she sighs. “Yuta, I know I am going to fall!”

“Everyone falls!” His voice is certain, though it wanted to falter. He is the perfect example that even professionals could fall. “Okay, now that you have that down, I know you’re wobbling and all—”

“Whoa, thank you.”

“Just listen to me!”

“I can’t!” The whine on her time is masked by a smile, a reminder that she truly enjoys her time at the ice-rink. He has heard it before, after that apology text he sent her after having her skate towards him, and she simply says she likes it. Perhaps, the coldness is familiar to the temperature at hospitals, or maybe she feels like she is at home—an ice queen in his eyes, really.

“You’re going to glide, which means pushing your weight slightly while keeping balance and to stop, you simply push your knees and toes inwards, that’s the easiest way.” Determination fills her face, mixed with a little bit of doubt, because Yuta’s words sound easy, with the smile on his face both teasing and reassuring. Of course, Yuta knows what he is doing—he may not have been good at biology, but damn is he good at speaking. The debate clubs wanted him, even though he never got in one. “I believe in you.”

Seven falls later and barely a nice try, he still believes in her, but she doesn’t believe in herself anymore.

Patience is not his virtue, sure, but perhaps he is having a good time as he watches her huff with anger, trying once again only to do it with more frustration than the last time. Mind him, it’s cute when he offers her help, only to have her swatting him away with her words. When she slips once more time, this time letting out a groan that rips directly from her chest, Yuta stands up from his position, chuckling along the way before he takes her by the arm, chest to chest by the time she is up at her feet.

“Let me help you.” The words roll of his tongue prettily, but she shakes her head.

“No. This isn’t for me!” Of course she is going to complain, and Yuta takes the time to keep his lips sealed in a nice smile. This is the most ice-less he has ever seen her, showing the human side of her—not that she is not human, but she damn right gives that vibe sometimes. “…What are you planning?”

Slotting his arm in the crook of her elbow, he starts moving at a decent pace; definitely slower than he has ever skated for the past years of his life, but a normal pace for someone as bad as her when it comes to ice-skating. “Just ice-skating with you. I need practice, and you need to learn that stomping on the floor is not gliding.”

She laughs at his words, although a bit deeper than her previous laughs, for the taste of failure clings to her. “This comes to you so naturally.”

A deep sigh leaves him, pushing his body so he is standing in front of her, taking both of her hands in his to keep her balance. His mind is clouded by a repetition of that video he saw of himself falling—failing, becoming exactly what he feared he would ever be. “See? Ice-skating is like dancing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You just have to trust me in this, okay? You’ll learn.” His voice is soft as he speaks to her, ice-skating whilst never looking over his shoulder to see where he is going. He, too, is one with the ice—just like her, but for different reasons.

“I trust you.”

❄️

Never does he pick up his calls, for that is just his trademark. It is not like people make calls nowadays, or that is how he defends himself, texts are far more usual and he can always check up on those at the time he wants, no connotations added to his actions. That is until one Saturday night, when he is watching a compilation of the best jumps in the ice-skating industry on YouTube, he receives a call. His mind ponders on putting his phone aside, waiting for the other person to give up on calling him, and just continue with his sad hours of longing for his career, but then he realizes who it is. His friend the physiatrist, the same person who would much rather call the devil itself rather than asking for help, and if she is calling him instead of texting him, then it must be a pretty difficult situation.

But he gets the short side of the story, a brief invitation to have ice-cream leaving him dumbfounded, but it is not a surprise when he accepts, picking up a pair of jeans and a bomber jacket before heading out the apartment.

The air is too cold, blowing at the strands of his hair that is barely pushed back by a bun, and he cusses at the fabric of his leather jacket. The situation makes him feel odd, given that he has spent so many years of his life surrounded by cold and at one point, he likes to believe he grew used to it but after seeing himself in the reflection of himself the glassed doors of the ice-cream parlor give, he thinks he has changed in the past month and a half. His life is way more simplistic, like it is not his to control anymore. Long gone are the bedazzled suits, the cheering for him, the premises people would put under his name as a representative of the sport. And sometimes, he believes he is not even trying, that he simply has grown used to being like this.

Yet, someone is trying for him, someone is leading him closer to his renewal as an artist and a sportsperson. That, of course, is the same woman that eats ice-cream on the coldest night of the year, not minding her runny nose and the cough that leaves her lips when she takes another spoonful of ice-cream. Seated by one of the tables, all of them would be empty otherwise, is whom he likes to consider his latest friend.

It takes him three minutes exactly, one to order, one to pay, one to get to the table to simply ask what is going on and the ice-queen that he likes to call her leaves the room to be replaced by the fidgety version of herself, the one that doubts. The one that eats at the rough edges of her life, wanting it to be perfect, meticulous inside her head, even biting at parts of her she has grown to love.

Doubt is one hell of a thing, he discovered far too ahead on his ice-skating career. It’s an enemy that people never let go of.

It takes her a moment to speak, before she becomes the most talkative person in the room. Yuta barely got to ask what happened when she starts talking. The tangents of the story keep him interested, listening intently as he gives his own reactions—work is doing fine, as normal as usual; her family life is alright, not too interesting and finally, there is this stone that weights on her heart, the one that has her sighing as she brings another spoonful of ice-cream to her mouth just to tell Yuta the story, and it shows him two things that he had never realized.

This person is someone who he wants to protect, just like how she had protected him—absentmindedly, but she keeps that hope within him of knowing someday he will be back on his feet to give those jumps he likes.

And that said person, said woman, the one that leaves lipstick stains on her spoon of ice cream, does not deserve to be considered cold…when all she does is protect herself.

“I don’t get it,” She pushes the empty container that was once full of ice-cream forward, making Yuta sigh as he drags his seat to be closer to her, bringing his own spoonful up to her lips and she takes it. “I’ve been friends with these people for four years, and it took me damn long to ever open up to them…and they do this to me.” The scoff that leaves her lips is weak and when she looks at him, she can barely hold his gaze. Instead, she takes one of his hands that is placed over the table, as if stopping herself from being sentimental, instead playing with the rings on Yuta’s fingers. “You’re too fucking clingy.” She spits out, venom to her tongue. “I care about them! Is that being fucking clingy?! What kind of bullshit is that—?”

His tongue is too sharp, he realizes, but she wasn’t made of paper—he knows she is strong, because being strong is being able of showing every side of you to someone, and that is exactly what she is doing with. Slowly. “I don’t think they are good friends.”

“But what if I don’t have friends after them?” The question is full of insecurity, dripping with a nostalgia that is uncertain in her. Fear of loneliness, he would call it. “I…I don’t know what to do. I told them to leave me the fuck alone, but—”

Yuta places the spoonful of ice-cream inside her mouth before she could continue speaking, licking his lips soon after. “Hear me out. I don’t know if you have noticed, but I consider you a friend. You have been with me through one of the hardest things in my life and have taken care of me, even when my coach pays you. I really hope you consider me a friend, too, alright?” His tone is so soft, but what he tells her holds weight. Surely, Yuta is not the type of person to claim friendship or to talk about how important a person is to him, but he never wants her to feel alone. Protectiveness, maybe that is what that is called. “And they don’t deserve you. From what you’ve told me, they are just shitty friends.”

“But four years—”

“Four years my ass.” The way he says it brings a smile to her face, long gone the coldness of her fingertips against his rings. “What does time mean when people didn’t value you when you were there for them? They didn’t care about the four years, they don’t care about you. That’s shitty.”

She pushes her lips up, looking into Yuta’s eyes for some type of answer. In his brown eyes, there is something magical, mischief with depth, someone who could hold the most beautiful form of happiness within them. “This is the exact same reason why I am a bitch to everyone.” She comments, making Yuta smile back at her.

“You’re not a bitch to me.”

“Yuta, I scold you all the time.”

“I like it when you scold me.”

She raises an eyebrow at that. “For real?”

He nods his head, looking down at his own cup of ice-cream before deciding to speak his mind out with sentimentalism for once. The thorn of a rose he never wants to hold, called attachment. “You are not a bitch for asking for respect. I think you are great just as you are. With all those angry moments you have with me, like, ninety-seven percent of the time.” The sound of her chuckle is classical music to him, touching his skin, penetrating the surface, reaching his cells and making a home out of him. A home. Warmth. She possesses warmth within her, and she never notices. “Life is so much simpler than friendships and living up to other’s expectations. Just be yourself, and people that are worthy of your time will arrive eventually.” Yuta’s eyelashes flutter at those words, comedic on its purpose. “Like me, who is now going to take you out for dinner because you can’t be eating ice-cream and nothing else.”

“But Yuta—”

Before she could continue complaining, Yuta picks up her purse from the seat in front of him, slotting it over his shoulder before tugging at her hand. “So, what is your favorite food?”

Yuta is in love with ice, but maybe because the friction of the blades creates warmth and leaves beautiful imprints on the surface. He loves it so much that he wants to warm her, make her feel like there is nothing wrong with being cold at times, simply because he is, too.

❄️

Realistically, everyone has that miniscule trait in their personalities that they hate—imperceptible to others, a bother to the person who has to hear their brain constantly for the rest of the day—. She is not the exception, of course, but the way she hides from him throughout their last session of therapy for Yuta’s leg really does make him worry. Just a few nights ago, she had opened up to him, given him the reason why she is so cold in a silver platter, and then she closed up, deciding that maybe Yuta is not worth having a friendship with, that he is just like everyone else and his words will only be a weapon of hatred in the future.

“There, done.” She finishes after endless minutes of silence, patting his leg softly before pulling away. Yuta is seated over the usual bench, cushions included, and he can’t help but look at her face. A shining diamond that people forget about, far too bright for those who feel threatened, perfectly shiny in his gaze. “I am going to go now. Don’t go too hard on your leg yet, don’t do any jumps, but you can start skating faster. Remember, don’t make my two months of work go to waste.”

Something overtakes him, perhaps happiness because this…this he couldn’t have done without her. This type of healing sensation that he feels going up his chest with hope that, someday, sooner than he thinks, he will be back on his championships and his normal training, makes him happy. When he stands up—rather quickly—to take her face in between his hands, cupping her cheeks and moving her face from side to side as he speaks with the biggest smile on his face. “Let’s ice-skate together as a celebration.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” She adds, blinking softly as they exchange glances. To anyone who would see them—it’s too early to even have anyone else but the security guard there—this situation could surely have some kind of thick, waving tension.

“Come on, you know you liked it last time when I taught you the basics.” The cocky smile he gives her must work for something, right?

“I’m starting to believe you have a thing for me when I’m ice-skating.”

Yuta quirks an eyebrow at that, letting go of her to reach for their shoes, ones that he keeps inside his locker just in case she ever decides to ice-skate with him. “…Give me a pretty, intelligent girl and I’m sold but also one that doesn’t even understand the concept of ice-skating and I’m absolutely head over heels.” The flirty comment flows through his lips naturally, like he has been waiting to say it and it would be a lie if he said that was not the case. Endless flirting, he has tried, but she never seems faced by it. “Come on, let’s do it. This is your last day at the ice rink, and probably the last day you’ll ever want to see me.”

As always, he expects a scoff, a huff, something that shows him that she thinks he is the epitome of illegal, but instead, she grips his arm, walking by his side when he starts giving a few steps away from the changing rooms. “That’s not true, Yuta.” She says. “You said a few days ago that we’re friends, too. Like, it’s just a matter of finding time to meet with each other.”

Nothing feels better than breaking a barrier, slowly, with little caresses of warmth to destroy the coldness. Some people would mind getting their hands slightly burned with the touch of distantness, but Yuta knows better. Although very different to anyone who didn’t know them, she and Yuta had become two drops of an abandoned glass of water. Her, with her turmoil of bad friendships. Him, with the near loss of his dream. “I like that,” Yuta grins. “I will always have time for you.”

The promise is spoken just as he interlocks his fingers with hers.

Laughter fills the air when Yuta, instead of simply gliding across the ice-rink with the woman by his side, decides that it is a good idea to slow dance to the rhythm of song they haven’t listened to. They can’t hear it, but Yuta can imagine it—classical, as whimsical as her, just beautiful in tune. Her arms grip his shoulders, sometimes feeling like she loses control of her legs, but his hands rest peacefully around her waist. It’s a moment of grounding, when he finally realizes that there is warmth in her gaze, coquettish features written all over her smile, a moment of peace in between all the bundled up frustration they have felt for the past two months.

From then on, Yuta knew he would always find himself in her arms, perhaps seeking for protection or absentmindedly, protect her as well.

❄️

“When I said I wanted us to go out on a date, is this what you had in mind?”

“Yeah, totally, Yuta. I thought you were going to take me…” After taking a long gulp of his bottle of water—she had drunk hers earlier on the trip—, she continues. “Hiking. Yes. Hiking was in my mind the entire time.”

Her eyes may never contemplate the beauty he has from his line of vision. From where he is standing, watching as she walks in between bushes and rocks, showered in the glow of the sun, she doesn’t see how beautiful she is. Her ears don’t get to hear the reality of her voice, talking with him and bonding in a way that no one would ever accept. Of course, he knows what a normal date consists of—the smell of popcorn at a cinema, perhaps tight clothing for dinner, something in the lines of wanting to show the best version of one-self to the other, but Yuta is as far ahead as he can get on their friendship, deciding instead to do something that would only paint itself as a nice memory in their heads. He wishes to never forget the sight of her, adorable in the swing of her legs while reaching up to him and the smile that follows soon after, irreplaceable in wealth, is a good combination with the sight that they have in front of them. Nature in its usual calmness, a reminder of humbleness and hope, reminiscent of how small they are in comparison of the world.

Feeling small is never a bad thing, he has convinced her time and time again. To her, weakness is the weight on her chest, a pendant that people see and squint their eyes at, but she never judged his feebleness when he was going through the hardest time in his career. In this reminder, he lets himself be engulfed by the delicacy of her touch, feeling how her arms wrap around his waist to rest her chest against his back, looking at the scenery in front of them, long gone from the city, from the ice, from the walls of a hospital. For such otherwise hard-headed, strong, secretive people, there is a soft spot for them to connect. She knows what his are, he knows what hers are. In the time they have known each other, they have talked about their worst times in hopes of making the other feel better.

With the clasp of her hands over his abdomen, sprawled in a way that has his fingers hooking with hers, Yuta looks over his shoulder to look at the adoration in her eyes. For the scenery or for him, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t plan on knowing either, just letting the moment blossom with the feelings that have only grown with time. “Even though I didn’t expect the hiking date and the sweat…I really like this.” Her voice is merely above a whisper, mixing with the wind that blows on his hair. “It reminds me of you. You have always said you like stuff like this.”

“I do,” Completely different from her, he is, in what tastes consist of. “But I like to see you struggling to keep your sarcasm to yourself a bit more.”

After a chuckle, she hits his chest. “Asshole.” Though he knows she doesn’t mean it, the smile on her face still petrified in its spot. “…Is your leg doing fine? I don’t want you to overdo yourself.”

“It feels fine.” The man shrugs his shoulders before bringing her hands up to his lips, pressing a soft kiss on the tender skin. “Someone is worried about me.”

“Of course I worry about you!” She complains quickly, something that comes naturally to her. “Or do you just think I go hiking with good-looking dudes just for fun?”

“I really hope you don’t,” The sweet sound of his laughter has her joining briefly, just in time to look at him when he turns around. His arms find solace in her waist, making her bite the inside of her cheek.

“How are you so good at everything that has to do with your body?” She asks, innocence dripping from her words, but the moment Yuta wiggles his eyebrows, the depths of such a sentence are looked over to simply change its meaning. “…I mean sport-wise, stop being nasty!”

Pulling her body closer to his when she tries to pull away, Yuta looks down at her lips. Goodbye he must have said in the early morning to the lipstick that usually accompanies her, now a brief coat of dried chap-stick covering the surface of her lips. His destination, maybe, that is a better way to put it. “It comes naturally, I guess.” The smile on his lips only gets wider, softer, somehow making her hesitate the slightest to look at all the spaces of his face that she hasn’t studied. In the thirst to get to know him, study him like the books that she knows like the palm of her hand, their bodies grow impossibly closer, connecting two souls in their silent rendezvous. The first movement comes from his lips, a slap to the heart in the form of mawkishness, albeit accepted at this case, rooting to have all of her slowly but deeply at the same time. He doesn’t dance around the subject, doesn’t jump to conclusions, simply keeps it in a soft, gliding motion that makes her feel at ease. His kiss burns, leaves a trail of fire that can only be caused by him, asking for her to remember him, to have him in her dreams, to crave him even when he is there. His kiss is an ode to worship, sweet and kind in his own way, mischievous with his hands, wanting every part of her soul by the time he pulls away, the same grin he always gives her plastered on his lips. “You know what will be even worse?”

Breathless in her spot, her curiousness comes from a clouded mind. “What?”

“Going back.”

“Yuta, is that the first thing you plan to tell me after you kissed me?” She asks, voice rising in its tone as the man begins laughing. In reality, Yuta’s kisses are not his if they don’t end up with the slightest bit of teasing. “I’m going back by myself if you don’t apologize!”

“Make me.” He mumbles, pressing a peck to her lips before resting their foreheads together. “Either way you can’t go back without me. Not with how much you whined to get here.”

“Yuta—!”

❄️

Life can go perfectly well, until there is that flashback in the form of slight physical pain that reminds him nothing will ever be the same.

The darkness of failure engulfs him even when the room is perfectly light, even when he has been able to practice for his comeback at a championship for a little bit over a month, even when his life has been nothing but bright lately. In front of him is someone who deeply cares about him, who likes him for who he is—broken femur or not, figure skater or whatever else he wants to be, and the reminder of his growing insecurity makes him feel sick towards himself. At some point, he lowers his head, something that she is aware of because of the bobby pins she is pushing in his longish hair, moving the wavy strands slightly after the last one.

In there, she really does look like a queen, standing in the middle of his parted legs, practically begging him to look at his ice skating outfit for the upcoming event. Supportive, poised and intelligent she has been, pushing him to take care of his body whilst also believing in himself during practice. The problem comes with the reminder that even physics say that everything that goes up, must go down. His frightening fear of falling goes alongside with the anxiety of not knowing if his time as a figure-skater has passed, long forgotten thanks to his downfall.

Before his thoughts can merge into more of a mess, he feels someone tugging at his hair to bring his gaze up, welcomed by the sight of his girlfriend. Not too long ago, perhaps over two weeks, Yuta had decided to ask her out. It was nothing too serious yet, but the ever-lasting effect of the honeymoon phase is still clinging to him. “Look at you!” The cooing tone on her voice brings the faintest bit of happiness to his features, light in between doubts. “I really like how it fits you.”

Wrapping his arms around her waist, home for his skin whenever they are together, he tilts his head to the side. “I know I look good, but thanks.”

Her finger reaches for his bottom lip, touching it softly—almost like tapping it, really—. “Then, what’s the pout for?”

Unmasked, he feels, but unlike previous people in his life, Yuta doesn’t pull away from her, doesn’t push her away in fear of seemingly being too weak. Instead, his thumbs rub at the skin under her shirt, opting to give a playful bite to her finger that has her rolling her eyes lightly. “…I just feel so stressed. It’s been a while since I’ve figure-skated, like, professionally, you know?” His brown eyes connect with hers, seeking for that depth that always shows him hope. “I’m scared that I’m going to fall on my ass again.”

“On your leg, mind you. Your ass was fine.” She corrects him, watching as the man raises an eyebrow at her as the telltale sign of the beginning of his annoyance. Her arms wrap around his neck, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead that is supposed to heal him, or at the very least, let him know that she is there for him. “And love, you’re excellent at what you do. You’ve worked hard for this. Whatever the outcome is, just know that you went through some rough months and you still—still came back. You’re like the devil of the figure skating community.”

Sometimes, when he looks at her, he wonders if he had melted the ice around her so much that it turned into rain, showcasing all the colors within her in the form of a rainbow. Perhaps, she did the same for him—or rather, he’d confirm that she did. She showed him the simplicities of life in the form of laughter and optimism. “But what if I never go back to being the same Yuta?”

“You will. You’re almost there.”

He looks down, resting his head over her abdomen and pressing a fluttering kiss to the covered skin. “I can’t even have you sit on my leg without complaining after a while,” The tone of his voice is muffled by the fabric of her t-shirt, bringing a frown to her face that he doesn’t see, instead losing himself in the feeling of her fingers going through the free locks of his hair—away from the little half-up-do she did—. “And if I do fall once again, it’s game over for me. I am scared of trying new jumps because I’m afraid I’ll ruin it again…”

“Yuta, you’re not less of a person or a boyfriend or a figure skater because of an injury. You’ve gotten better, with my help and your own will. After basically everyone in your life scolded you, for some reason.” The woman smiles, this time around he is able to see her face, his chin prepped against her abdomen.

“I guess…”

“Come here and give me a kiss,” The quick mumble she gives him is interrupted by her own kiss, filling his soul with colors, creating patterns and pictures for him to remember, to use as energy for when he is on stage once again. “I am proud of you, okay?”

That much is enough.

❄️

“You did great.”

“…Uh-huh, sure.”

She knows him well, that much he can recall, so it is no surprise when he feels her weight pressing to his side on the couch, trying to see what he is looking up on his laptop, early in the morning with his coffee mug completely forgotten in the coffee table—precisely, getting cold, but Yuta doesn’t even remember he served himself coffee with how stressed out he is. Suspiciousness, that is exactly what she feels, but it roams around with worry, seeing that Yuta had gotten to his apartment with his girlfriend just the night before, eyes coated in angered tears after doing an average work, though that was mediocre for him. But as he normally does after talking his heart out, he decides to ignore it, pretend like he simply sees the comedy in everything.

But she sees through that, through the expanse of his eyelashes that still glisten with the reminder of Yuta’s defeat, with the way he frowns at whatever is on the screen and how he immediately freezes at the words she just told him. Pressing her head to his shoulder, she gets to see what he is reading on the screen—an article that talks about the best and the worst figure skaters of the championship he participated in. Much to his delight, he is nowhere near the worst list, but that doesn’t seem to faze him.

“See? Even the professionals think you did great.” She nudges his shoulder, watching a Yuta simply sighs, scrolling lower on the site to show a picture of the winner.

“But I still didn’t win. I had such a good streak last year.” The longing in his voice is enough to bring some kind of disappointment beneath him, carving on his skin and he hates it. He absolutely hates it. Yuta is the type of man to be confident, to know what he is worth, to think he is—at least—three steps ahead anyone who is a competition for him. Yuta just knows better than pitying himself.

So he closes the laptop, putting it on the coffee table before wrapping his arms around his girlfriend, pressing almost all his weight on top of her as he makes her lean back on the couch, the sound of her giggles filling the air. He’s careful, of course, resting his head on top of her chest to hear the rhythmic sound of her heartbeats, followed by her voice: “You’re going to have a good streak soon. I promise. I like it when you’re cuddly, but I don’t like it when you’re cuddly because you’re sad.”

Yuta lifts his gaze at that, pressing a kiss on her collarbone that has him breathing in her scent, grounding him with the reminder of how much work they had gone through to have him there, to have the two of them together. His world is not black and white, it’s painted in colors and it is up to him to create whatever canvas he wants in his future with the shades life gives him. “You know what?” He asks, sitting up on his knees and bringing his hands to the back of her calves, wrapping them around his waist. “You’re fucking right.”

“When am I not?” She asks, making Yuta smile.

“And I want to celebrate because I didn’t fall on my ass yesterday.”

“Okay, valid.” She chuckles, pressing the heel of her feet to his chest. “Do you want to go out for breakfast? It’s on me.”

There are two types of falling, the one that comes physically and he is glad he has avoided that one for a while, but he doesn’t think he’ll be able to stop himself from falling for her. Somehow, without knowing, the person whom he used to compare to ice had warmed him up—and he didn’t even realize.

Yuta is in love with ice, and the ice is in love with him, as it seems.

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deadbiwrites · 4 years

Text

99 Drunk Balloons

(For @nieladasdenani )

Okay, so look.

Kara’s not, like, a prude when it comes to alcohol. She’s down for sneaking a nip of Alex’s whiskey, if only to laugh at her sister’s indignant squawking when she spots Kara’s plunder. She’s cool to drink ridiculous, fruity nonsense with Nia, and to crack open a beer with Clark after choring (read: heckling him from the porch with Lois) on the farm. She’s especially fond of wine with Lena, the way her eyes get brighter and her laughs louder and her lips wine-stained and irresistible- not that Kara is really all that resistant to those lips, anyway…

So yeah, Kara’s no teetotaler. She can handle her alcohol, no problem.

Obviously.

Alien booze, however… she doesn’t have a ton of experience with that. She’s only ever really tried it the one time, and Mon-El had given her the strongest possible shot (like an asshole), and the resulting awful hangover had kinda soured her to the whole thing.

But Lucy is in town for the night, and she’s managed to smuggle not only herself and Vasquez but a bottle of alien booze out of the desert base, and she’s so proud of herself for it that Kara knows that the gig is up before it’s even cracked open.

Lena’s stuck at work, because… something. Kara didn’t- she was paying attention, okay? It’s just that none of the words sounded like real words. But the gist of it was that Lena’s not coming. Which is cool, she’s busy and important and she’s always trying so hard to be everywhere for everyone else that Kara doesn’t have it in her to be upset. Even when it’s, like, super lame.

Ha! Super lame!

“What was that, Kara?” Lucy asks with a devilish grin.

“Nothing. I’m just funny,” Kara informs her, taking another (less than) dainty sip of her drink.

“But are you funny on purpose?” Alex muses.

“Everything I do is on purpose,” Kara sniffs, promptly spilling her drink across the table. A bit fuzzy, but still clear enough to feel the weight of stifled giggles and knowing smirks, Kara rights her empty glass and nods. “See? I was finished with that.”

“Oh my god, she’s wasted,” Nia cackles, delighted.

“I am not!” Kara shouts, instantly shushed by her giggling friends. “I am soberly perfect.” Kara’s brow crinkles, and her head tips to the side. “Oh, wait, no…”

“Oh, honey,” Alex coos at her, pulling Kara snug against her side. Kara briefly considers shrugging her off, but being cuddled is like, her favorite thing in the world, so she decides to roll with it. “Where’s your wife?”

Kara huffs loudly. “She’s not my wife.”

“Not yet,” Lucy says. “What is it, three more weeks?”

“Four,” Kara corrects with what is definitely not her ‘dopey Lena smile’, shut up, Alex. “That’s why she’s stuck at work, I think. Doesn’t wanna worry about stuff before the wedding. Except for, like, the wedding. Hey, d’you think I could get her to do the Cupid Shuffle with me?”

“Only if it’s horizontal,” Lucy says seriously. Kara nods thoughtfully at this.

Alex snorts wine out her nose.

The night continues, the drinks keep flowing, and now they’re all laughing and no one seems to really know why, exactly, but they also can’t stop.

Kara’s butt is vibrating, currently, which is at least a small part of why she’s laughing, because it tickles and oh. Oh! It’s her phone! She fishes it out with no small degree of difficulty.

“Kara’s pants! How may I direct your call?” she chirps.

There’s a soft laugh in her ear. “Hey, love. Are you having fun?”

“Lena! We’re having the most fun of anyone! Alex spat wine everywhere, and Nia might be- yup, she’s asleep. Nia! But yes! Hi! Hello! How is your work going?”

Lena snorts. “It was fine, I’m done now, just about to get in the car and head home.”

“Yaaaaaaay!”

“Have you been drinking a little?”

“Nope! I’ve been drinking a lot,” Kara says with a grin.

“Do you want me to come pick you up on my way?”

Kara positively beams. “Heck yeah, please! Vasquez left, and Nia is asleep and Lucy said something about ‘paratrooping’ that made Alex all red and spit more wine…”

Another snort. “Alright, I’m on my way. You’re at Alex’s, right?”

“Yup! Oh hey! I didn’t tell you the best part!”

“What’s that?”

“I get to see you!”

There’s a huff of what Kara knows after several years to be fondness. Or exasperation. Really they’re one and the same, in her experience. “Oh, lord. You’re a flirty drunk, aren’t you?”

“I have no idea! Am I? And is it working, because I would not mind seeing a boob this evening. Would probably really make this night a ten out of ten, for me. Because boobs are great. ‘specially your boobs. Like, wow.”

“Gross, Kara!” Alex yells, shoving Kara sideways so she flops off of her sister and onto the floor.

“Ow.” Kara turns on her best puppy eyes, though they’re wasted on the non-video call. “Alex hit me.”

“I’m sure she’s sorry.”

Kara hums suspiciously before whisper-shouting, “Are you sorry you hit me?”

“Nope!” Alex says, swatting her on the butt.

“She’s not sorry at all!” Kara gasps. “She hit my butt, and I did not like it! Why do you like that?”

There’s dead silence on all sides before Lucy rolls her head enough to give Alex a shit-eating grin. “You owe me $50.”

“My ears!” Alex wails, immediately grabbing the nearest bottle and upending it into her mouth in the quest for amnesia.

“Okay, so… that just happened. I’m gonna come up to get you, and then we’re gonna go home and I’m gonna not see your sister for a few days. Okay?”

“Okay! She’s mean, anyways.”

“Yes she is.”

***

Lena knew what she was walking into. She’s dealt with drunk people before- she’s been a drunk person, probably with far more regularity than is entirely healthy. She’s handled drunk girlfriends, even.

However.

Drunk Kara is another matter entirely.

“Baby!”

This is Lena’s only warning before her arms are fully of a warm, wiggly, very drunk Kryptonian. Lena manages to catch Kara and herself, barely, only stuttering half a step backward at the impact. “Hi there.”

Kara snuggles deeply into her embrace, pressing her face to Lena’s neck and breathing deeply. “Y’smell so nice. How d’you always smell nice?”

Lena coughs, fighting the good fight against the flush creeping up her neck. She ducks her head to the side, smiling sheepishly and giving the still-conscious occupants of the room a wave. “Hello.”

Lucy offers her a lazy half-wave and Alex glares while Nia snores away. “Hey hey, Luthor. Gonna take her home?”

“Well I’m not flyin’, that’s for sure,” Kara laughs, and Lena suppresses the urge to shudder as Kara’s hot breath puffs against her neck.

“Can’t have Supergirl knocking a jetliner out of the sky,” Lena says with a smile. “That’s a lot of paperwork for you.”

Lucy waves that away with a slow grin. “Nah, I’d just make Alex do it.”

Alex, without looking over or breaking the seal of her lips on the bottle, stretches her leg out, plants her foot firmly to Lucy’s side, and shoves hard, sending Lucy flying.

And with Kara now mouthing wetly at her neck and murmuring things in Kryptonian that she’s extremely glad only she can hear, Lena gives them a parting wave and starts to struggle her way down the hall with Kara’s weight heavy against her side.

“How are you so heavy?” she groans playfully, shifting a bit so Kara’s arm is thrown over her shoulder and hers is wrapped snugly around Kara's waist.

Kara pouts at her, the new position preventing her from being able to reach Lena’s neck with her mouth. “You saying I’m fat?”

“I don’t think anyone on Earth could call you fat. You are shockingly heavy for being as thin as you are, though. I wonder if your bone or muscle structure is denser than ours? Or if it’s a result of Earth’s gravity…”

Kara’s pout deepens. “Sounds like you’re calling me fat with science.”

Lena huffs at her affectionately. “Don’t be a brat. Did you have fun?”

Kara’s face lights up. “We had so much fun! We played games, and Nia learned why she shouldn’t play shot poker with Lucy and Alex, and it turns out that Lucy mixes really good drinks with the stuff I drink- d’you think she practiced? I bet she practiced. We should go ask!” Kara turns on her heel, only stopped when she feels Lena tug her backward by a belt loop. She tips her head back until she can see her upside-down girlfriend- nope! Wait! Fiancee! “No?”

“No. Not unless you want to learn what paratrooping is,” Lena chuckles.

Kara’s nose wrinkled. “I prob’ly don’t.”

“Probably not.”

“Can we get balloons? I just- I really think I need to get a balloon, y’know? You ever just really need to have a balloon?”

Lena grins. “I can’t say that I have, but sure. We can stop and get you a balloon.”

“You’re the best fiancée anywhere, ever. And I’d know, ‘cause like, I’ve been to other anywheres and other evers. And yeah, you definitely win the fiancée contest. By a mile. Because nobody else got their fiancée balloons.”

“Deeply impressed that you managed to say fiancée correctly three times when you can’t walk straight.”

“That’s ‘cause it’s fun to say! And fun to think! We’re almost married! That’s nuts! Who said we were allowed?”

Lena pops onto her tiptoes to plant a sound kiss to Kara’s flushed cheek. “We did, I think.”

“Oh, yeah, right. We’re so smart, for doing that. ‘Cause now you’re my fiancée. Which is fun to say. Know what else is fun to say? Balloon. Balloon, balloon, balloon. Y’ever do that thing, where you say a word so many times that it doesn’t even sound like a real word anymore?”

“Synergy. Margins. Quarterly…” Lena laughs as they finally, mercifully reach the elevator. “Pretty much any time I have a board meeting, at least one word sounds made up by the end.”

“That makes sense. Hey! I bet I can be a balloon!”

“What do you- Kara!”

Kara grins down at her, hovering a foot or so off the ground. “This is fun!”

“Kara, you can’t be a balloon right now, what if someone sees you?”

“They’ll think they’re drunk.”

“That only works when they are drunk. Right now the only drunk one is you.”

“’m not drunk, you’re just blurry,” Kara giggles. “Cute blurry.”

Lena hooks her finger through Kara’s belt loop again when she starts to float too high, relieved when it brings her closer. “Can you be a balloon closer to the ground?”

“I dunno, ‘m just a balloon, Lena, duh.”

Lena snorts, tugging her into the elevator when it arrives, resigned to her fate. “You’re a very talkative balloon.”

“Am I being a bad balloon? You gonna pop me?”

Lena raises an eyebrow. “Is this… supposed to be a euphemism?”

“What’s a euphonium?”

“Right, not a euphemism, got it.”

Kara blinks at her, eyes too-bright in that way they get sometimes when she’s overtired (or, apparently, drunk). “Am I annoying you?”

“No more so than usual,” Lena grins. At Kara’s crestfallen look, she pulls her close until she can wrap her in a proper hug. “You’re not being annoying, love, just funny. And I’m really happy that you had such a good time with your friends, especially since I feel so bad about bailing on you last minute. I’ll carry you home any day of the week, Kara Danvers, because I love you.”

“Even when I’m bein’ a balloon?”

“Nobody I’d rather have on the end of my string,” Lena confirms, thumb tracing over the braided metal band of Kara's betrothal bracelet.

Kara nods with a big, goofy smile, pressing a kiss to Lena’s mouth that tastes… not quite like anything Lena’s ever tasted before. Something sweet and sticky and not exactly unpleasant. “Awesome. Love you too. Can we still go get a balloon?”

Lena laughs loud and bright in the tiny, snail’s pace elevator. “We can get you a dozen balloons.”

(Kara remembers none of this the next morning, and emerges from their bedroom squinting and questioning the large bouquet of balloons emblazoned with messages ranging from 'It's a Boy!' to 'Get Well Soon!'.

Lena is only too delighted to remind her.)

#shameless self promotion #supercorp softness #supercorp #prompts!

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idlecreature · 4 years

Text

it’s a delicate business, and you know just how to charge me

Jonah doesn’t write.

Winter lasts an entire year.

Vampire!Mordechai for Jonah Magnus Week! Part 1/Part 2/Part 3

Rating: Explicit

Relationships: Mordechai Lukas/Barnabas Bennett, Jonah Magnus/Barnabas Bennett

Content warnings: Dubcon, Unhealthy relationships, manipulation (hence the dubcon warning), The Lonely, death of an OC, choking (both sexy and unsexy)

—there is still so much to tell you. I tell you first in my mind and then the effort of writing is too much for me—

The thick, wet cough that drove Barnabas out of Moorland house finally lifts in the night, and Barnabas breathes a little easier. He wriggles as he anticipates leaving his sickbed, but does his level best to enjoy a quiet Sunday morning wrapped in a heavy duvet with the Kempthorne’s dog eating bacon rinds out of the palm of his hand.

Eleanor Kempthorne primly raps on his door. She balances a sleepy Sampson and a tray piled high with papers over her heavily pregnant belly. “Morning,” she says. “I’ve got your news and your letters - tell your friends to go easy or they’ll exhaust all the postmen in London.”

“Still catching up after my vacation in Kent,” Barnabas says, taking the tray from her with an appreciative murmur.

“I’m glad you finally took that vacation, Barny.” Eleanor moves over and sets Sampson down on the bed. The child immediately burrows under the covers and latches onto Barnabas’s side. “The countryside in Kent can be beautiful - shame you went in the dead of winter, with that bad snowstorm! Seven feet of snow, I heard!”

“Y-yes, that was unfortunate,” Barnabas says. He recalls little but pale days, ice crystals suspended in the air, grasses bleached of all colour, winter roses, and after Mordechai returned barely scraps of anything but the furniture of Moorland as Mordechai took him against every chair and every table.

Eleanor flops on the bed next to him, frowning as she presses the flat of her palm against his flushed cheek. “You seem brighter today, but you still have a fever.”

“O - oh, I think I should be well enough to leave soon. I hate to be a burden.”

She shifts on her side to face him. “There’s no rush, Barny. Would you like to read your mail while I read the Bible?” Her smile dimples. “I’ll make it a silent service.”

“That’d be appreciated,” Barnabas mutters. They fall into an easy silence as Eleanor opens her Bible and follows her Reverend husband’s elegant cursive and Barnabas does his reading and little Sampson drools on his arm and the dog gnaws on a pillow’s tasselled edge.

There’s no letter from Jonah. Jonah’s always the first to forgive, and quick to forgive; Barnabas is unsure what to make of his silence, but it fills him with unease.

“Barny,” Eleanor says, sifting a hand through Sampson’s hair. “John and I have been thinking about ways we could make you a part of the family - and how do you feel about becoming a godfather to Sampson and the new baby?”

“Godfather?” Barnabas echoes. “I -”

Eleanor inhales sharply and before Barnabas can flinch away she grabs his hand and holds it against her belly.

“Do you feel that?”

Barnabas’s eyes slip closed, and yes, he feels the rhythmic movement, and deeper, as a body waiting to be born shifts like the turn of the earth. Barnabas can feel the baby’s impatience.

He removes his hand, trying to twist in the bed between the dog across his legs and the five-year-old pinioning his arm. “I don't - I don’t think you want me as part of your family - as an influence over your children. I’m - I’m an atheist.”

Eleanor studies him, eyes dark and solemn, but not shocked or frightened. “Ah,” she says. “I did suspect. And you know I love you regardless?” Her roaming hand moves from Sampson’s crown to Barnabas’s neck, her fingertips catching across the newly knotting scar. “What’s this mark, Barnabas? It looks like -”

He slaps a hand over his neck. “Nothing,” he says. He starts coughing emphatically into his elbow, and the scar is forgotten as Eleanor fusses over him and gets up again to fetch him a fresh pitcher of water, lifting sleeping Sampson up and away, the dog following close on her heels, and abruptly, he is alone.

Little Sampson jerks at Barnabas’s arm like a waterspout as they watch Sampson’s mother being put into the ground.

Barnabas’s body aches with a disquiet pressure that rings like a struck bell through his ribcage and his teeth and all the small bones of his hands. He feels newly aware of each shift of bone under the crushing weight of his flesh.

He remains stoic. For the little boy’s sake.

It’s still the choke of winter, and there are debts to be paid.

Barnabas decides he doesn’t care where Mordechai gets his money. He just wants it. It’s horribly unsentimental of him, but perhaps Jonah was right, and Barnabas’s morals are just gilt-wrapped-guilt, and his goodwill means nothing. It’s the banal truth that the whole of Barnabas’s life is founded on money. The world turns on it. As long as you have enough, you will always be accepted, and you will never be missed.

Barnabas is someone who has always enjoyed the pleasure of a transaction. And if the particulars involve him standing in a mirrored hallway with a monster opening a vein in his neck, then, well.

There are many mouths to feed.

—though it was radiant, crystal-clear, one of those days when the earth just pauses, enchanted by its own beauty, and every new bud whispers: “am I not heavenly fair!” it curls up in your belly, the beauty of life! In spite of everything, one cannot but praise life.—

Whenever Mordechai’s in Edinburgh, they meet in somebody’s garden. Someone’s put a lot of effort into making it a nice garden, into a picture of domesticity, with an apple tree and a lemon tree, marigolds and hydrangeas, and red lilies in terracotta pots. It would be a lovely place to spend an afternoon with a loved one.

Barnabas considers the springtime flowers. They’re nice. Their perfume disguises the heavy tang of blood that always hangs around Mordechai, and that’s also nice.

“We should get some flowers for Moorland,” Barnabas says, mostly to keep up their one-sided conversation. “Different ones, I mean. Reds and pinks and oranges to liven up the place a bit. And maybe a fruiting tree.”

Mordechai forgoes a vocal response as per usual, optioning for a shrug that falls like gravity.

“It could do with a bit of colour,” Barnabas says, trying to goad him into saying something because he’s spent their precious passing afternoon in utter silence and it’s starting to get on Barnabas’s nerves. Barnabas nudges his knee against Mordechai’s thigh.

“I’m colourblind,” Mordechai says eventually. He’s still looking away, squaring his jaw. “All the men in my family are.”

“And you’re... proud... of that pedigree?”

“No.”

Barnabas sighs, following Mordechai’s dour gaze to the patch of violets. Barnabas knows the flower meanings - he memorised a book of them as a child - but he refuses to think about them. He makes no insistence on prescribed symbolism, only the shapes and the colours that the eye takes and the heart interprets.

“What does purple look like, to you?”

“I can’t tell you,” Mordechai says. And Barnabas understands that.

“What colours can you see, then?”

Barnabas places a hand on Mordechai’s back, where a doctor might listen to the auscultations of his heart, and massages the bands of hard muscle over his skin at the place where he is not quite human.

“Blue,” Mordechai says, leaning into his touch. “There is a shade of blue that I find haunts me lately.” And Mordechai presses his gloved hand to the corner of Barnabas’s eye.

His skeleton stings, hisses, and pain lances down his bones. Barnabas gasps and Mordechai pulls his hand back as if bitten. He looks at Barnabas in open shock. ��Did I hurt you?”

“You - you gave me a fright,” Barnabas says. His heart beats quickly in his chest, and his bones still fizz and tingle. “That’s all.”

Mordechai keeps looking at him, and Barnabas worries he’s lapsing back into that dreadful apathetic silence. But Mordechai breathes in, and his gaze collects some focus. He looks at Barnabas properly, then. Deeply. Then he says, “Do you think you could ever love me?”

“I - “ Barnabas says. He wants to bleed into the flowers, into the afternoon. He feels the silver scars under his cravat, their coldness, their weight, like a collar. “Not in this lifetime, I think,” he says, waiting for a flare of embarrassment that doesn’t come. He doesn’t think he’s capable of hurting Mordechai’s feelings.

“Then put your hands around my throat.”

“...”

“Go on.”

Barnabas wraps his fingers around the vertebrae, thumbs touching together on the soft, thin skin over Mordechai’s windpipe, where the ugly gash of a surgical scar bites into his adam’s apple.

“How does that feel?” Mordechai asks.

Mordechai feels cold and dead under his hand, wax-skinned and corpse-damp. There is no thrum of life, no beating vessels that run like roots under his flesh. Barnabas feels like he’s close to learning something about violence and desire, how close they are, how the wires can get crossed. He squeezes Mordechai’s throat, just enough for the vampire to feel the promise of stolen breath.

“Let me make you immortal,” Mordechai says. And he swallows; Barnabas feels the rolling constriction of his throat. “Please, Barnabas,” he whispers.

Barnabas drops his hand to his side. “No.”

Mordechai looks at him furiously, stonily, unrelentingly, but he makes such a small choked-back noise as he wraps Barnabas up in an embrace that offers him little comfort. Barnabas buries his face in Mordechai’s hair, inhaling the scent of blood and frost. It’s Mordechai’s wordless way of showing Barnabas that he means more to him than life.

Mordechai moves in him so slowly, so deliberately, but he’ll still bruise. They take their pleasure from the ransoming of Mordechai’s self-restraint. When he comes, his teeth graze Barnabas’s pulse like a promise, but his jaw does not close. He waits on Barnabas’s word.

When he receives silence, he is not disappointed. He pulls the blankets up over Barnabas’s shoulders and ducks his head so they’re sharing breaths and Mordechai closes his eyes and feigns sleep, but when Barnabas wakes up, several hours later, Mordechai has dropped the pretence of humanity and lies there, sharp and cold, with his fingers ghosting over the shape of Barnabas under the duvet, trembling like fish’s gills desperately working out of the water and it’s a race to see what kills it first, the choke of no oxygen or the drown of its own blood.

“You look pale tonight, Mr. Bennett,” Mrs. Blackwood says. Another Christmas with the Blackwood family, the same faded paper decorations and the sewing hanging limply from lines across the low ceiling. There’s a new smell, polish and boot leather, brought home by the eldest child’s apprenticeship to a shoemaker.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Barnabas says as he sips his sherry. He’s sitting in the best seat in the house, right up against the stove, and it’s stifling him, prickling over his skin and wetting his armpits. He doesn’t dare loosen his cravat, though, the starchy collar scratching uncomfortably at the new necklace of barely-closed wounds.

“We’ll get some colour back in the boy’s cheeks right enough,” Mr. Blackwood says fondly. It’s exactly the kind of thing Barnabas might have wanted his own father to say, once, but now it just sounds gauche. He doesn’t want that anymore, not any part of it.

Barnabas hands his presents to the children: polished toy horses with delicate pink lips and real, curling eyelashes. He barely remembers buying them.

“And we have a Christmas present for you, Mr. Bennett,” Mrs. Blackwood says when her children have stopped crowing and hold their toys against the candle-light so tongues of orange flick over polished white bodies.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary -”

“I must insist,” Mrs. Blackwood says. “Annie knitted it special for you, and she’d be upset something awful if you don’t want it.”

The girl in question blushingly presents her creation. It’s bright red and clumsily knitted, the cabling loose and uneven, but the wool is soft and warm, and it’s the thought that counts. The thought of any one of the hardworking Blackwoods spending any time or money on him -

“Don’t worry about the cost, sweetheart,” Mrs. Blackwood says. “It came out of our James’s Christmas bonus. He’s made a lot of shoes this month, hasn’t he! He’s moving up in the world, and we’re so proud of him, and that’s because of you, Mr. Bennett!”

As she speaks, Mrs. Blackwood takes the scarf and wraps it around Barnabas’s neck. It’s long enough to go around several times. It makes the heat worse, the sweat slicker, pouring out of the reservoir of his body like a spring.

“Thank you, Mr. Bennett,” the James in question says dutifully.

“Mr. Bennett?” Isabel says in alarm.

And, oh, good lord, he’s sobbing. He’s sobbing in front of people he needs to respect him, to see him as a Gentleman, and it’s great, whooping gasps that escape him like a crack in a pressure valve, and it’s all he can do but hastily bid goodbye and push away Isabel’s arm and flee that unbearable heat, the den-like house and the cured-leather and the sweet smell of rum pudding and bodies in close habitation and he stumbles into the winter night and the clarity of the cold, and it’s there, after a few minutes to himself, he realises that he doesn’t want to wear any colours that Mordechai can’t properly see.

Barnabas speeds down Morningside Road, the buildings all endlessly long and featureless dark grey, avoiding every stranger he passes on the street until he comes across a homeless man half-frozen to the pavement under the awning of a business, a newspaper over his face barely stirring with his breath. Barnabas claws off the choking, luridly red scarf and winds it around the man’s neck, tucks the man’s coat around him a little tighter, and pulls off his own gloves and gives them to the man for good measure. The man doesn’t stir.

Barnabas breathes again after that.

—you know M. Everything is give and take with him. When he is away I miss his companionship. I miss talking with the man but when he’s in London or at the garden we can only agree when we are silent or out of each others sight!!! I miss him. I miss you. I hope you can forgive me, Jonah, my foibles and my rash words and my shame. I take it all back. I lie down at your feet and anticipate your heavy tread.—

The sixth time Barnabas arrives at the doorstep of Moorland house to repay a debt, Mordechai is waiting for him. It’s enough of a break in their usual routine that Barnabas approaches cautiously, curiously.

Mordechai offers him a compromise in the form of a small silver ring. It’s a sign of Barnabas’s naivety that he thinks Mordechai is proposing, and he laughs in Mordechai’s face. Mordechai flashes his teeth at him and tells him what it really is: a dressing ring in the fashion of Beau Brummell, a man whom Barnabas has always thought himself as being diametrically opposed to in every regard.

Later, Barnabas takes great pleasure in feeding the ring to Mordechai, watching the glint of metal as it is swallowed, the shiver of it against his prick as Mordechai tugs it gently with his tongue. Barnabas is not as gentle with Mordechai as Mordechai is with him; he likes it when Mordechai chokes, fisting his hand in Mordechai’s pretty curls so he can’t pull his head away, wetting his cheeks and chin with saliva. Barnabas feels the curved piercing bite into the back of Mordechai’s throat, and the catch and pull of his skin must feel like torture. But when Barnabas has found his completion he barely strokes Mordechai before he spills across Barnabas’s hand.

Jonah is always the first to reach out, to reconcile. It’s coming up to a year since they ended that evening with a fight, and Barnabas is starting to believe that after the flames of anger died away, Jonah found that he simply didn't care for Barnabas’s company any more. Barnabas wouldn’t blame him, but it still hurts to lose him. He still sits at his writing desk a little after Christmas and writes a letter with no expectations of a reply, and that, more than anything, makes the yawning pit inside him stretch a little wider.

—anticipate your tread. I think sitting in that garden has made me a very lonely man. There’s something to be said about watching life unfold and feeling completely separate from it. But I must end this letter on a better note: they say in April the snows will have melted and even before it is all quite gone the flowers will begin to rise again...

Please, Jonah, can we be friends again?

Your loyal servant,

Barnabas Bennett.

The cheque comes in the mail, and it is a staggering sum. Enough for Barnabas to set up a proper office, hire a second staff member, open space for another family.

Barnabas wonders what Mordechai will ask of him in return; a sum such as this is a poorly-concealed threat. He could always rip up the cheque. That’s a choice Barnabas could make.

But Barnabas is certain that this is more than what Mordechai can decently afford, he just doesn’t know whether Mordechai knows that. Mordechai is not a fastidious accountant like Barnabas; he spends his money like he has it in infinite supply, hasn’t noticed Barnabas draining him at all, and Barnabas would very much like to continue with the arrangement until he has taken everything from Mordechai, keeping nothing for himself, of course; he wants to drive Mordechai Lukas into the quagmire of desperate poverty as much, and perhaps even more than, he wants to pull families like the Blackwoods out of it, and he doesn’t think he has the willpower to stop himself until he has Mordechai, Moorland house, and the entire Lukas estate crushed into the ground like pale, bloodless worms. He thinks he could love Mordechai, then.

Barnabas’s bones sing softly under his skin as he waits for the cheque to clear.

#[barnabas voice] women want me fish fear me #the magnus archives #barnabas bennett #mordechai lukas #jonah magnus #edit: ONCE AGAIN MISSPELLING JONAHS NAME ON MY BLOG

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imaginesmai · 5 years

Text

Peter Parker- Soul Stone

An anon requested a really angsty imagine about our boy, so here it is! It was requested with the angst alphabet a long time ago, I’m sorry!

Plot: Peter and you are sent to Vormir, to get the soul stone.

Warnings: character’s death, angst.

IMPORTANT THINGS: For this work, Peter didn’t disappeared on the snap.

The hard rocks were bruising your palms, and your knees were probably bleeding already. It was cold in that strange place, but not the good type of cold. Not that coldness where you like to hide under your blanket or where you stop feeling the tips of your fingers. That type of cold was beginning to fill your bones, and they told you that it was a deeper cold than what you had ever felt. Still, you brushed your feelings away and accepted the hand Peter was offering you.

“You know, I wish I would have taken up those climbing classes” you said between short breaths.

“You’re kidding, right?” he laughed. “You would have died before it had even started.”

“So much faith in me” you joked.

When you’re at least one hundred feet above the ground, the gravity, or whatever that planet had, started to weight on you. Peter smiled softly at you and pushed you up. He waited for you to regain your breath watching his surroundings.

In front of him, thousands of kilometres of nothing were waiting for him. As if they were going to swallow him whole. He knew that going to Vormir to get the soul stone was a dangerous travel, but compared to fighting past Capitan America or going to Asgard, it was nothing. Having you with him was just an extra.

“My dad would like this views” you murmured behind him. “You think that suit can take a picture?”

“Mr Stark would like more if we finish this as soon as possible” Peter turned around and looked at you. “I don’t know if he would appreciate me having you here more time than necessary.”

“You need to start losing that fear, Pete” you held his hand. “He likes you, he’s just a little protective. First boyfriend and all.”

Peter and you had been dating for more than three years, you being there for him when all of his friends disappeared during the snap. Your father didn’t like that you were dating the ‘spidey boy’, but he had accepted it after some time. Which didn’t mean that Peter was comfortable around him.

“Just-Let’s finish this and go home. I really want to see if this works.”

“It will. You will get your friends back, don’t worry.”

He leaned down a little and captured your lips with his. The kiss was slow and loving, as if the strange environment around you had disappeared. Neither of you wanted to end it for some reason you couldn’t understand. So, with his arms around your waist and yours around his neck, you kept the position until you had to breath.

Each time you kissed, and each time you tore apart, you couldn’t help the smile that made its way to your lips. Peter Parker was, to you and probably to half of the humanity, the cutest boy alive. After kissing or just holding him for a little longer, you enjoyed the blush that covered his cheeks, and the way his eyes light up with a different brightness. You pecked his lips one last time before turning around again.

“It’s shit that we can’t use our suits” you sighed, watching the huge wall in front of you.

“We don’t know what we are going to find. It’s better if they don’t see us coming” he moved to the next stop, a big rock where you two could step, an offered you his hand. “Come on, let me help you”

The rest of the way was done by Peter mostly. He didn’t need the suit to be able to climb walls, while without your suit, you were just a human girl. Sure, your father had made sure to get you a nano-suit that could be activated with your wrist-clock, but you couldn’t use it yet. It wasn’t even your suit. It was part of Tony’s one; better, because you had every function he had, and worse, because it wasn’t yours.

That left Peter to almost carry you to the top. He would be ahead you, help you when you got stuck and prevent you from falling down a few times. And every time you had to stop, he was by your side with a bright smile.

As you made your third stop in your travel, you took time to marvel at the view in front of you. Not the planet or the strange sky, but the boy who was looking down at you lovingly. There was a moment of peaceful silence that reminded you to those old movies that Peter liked, where the calm preceded the storm. His cute brown eyes didn’t let your brain fully register that thought.

“I know this is the wrong thing to say” you mumbled, not being able to tear your eyes away. “Or to feel.”

“You know you can tell me anything” Peter kneeled in front of you, a cute smile on his face. “I have already accepted that you don’t like Star Wars, what can be worse than that?”

“I’m serious, Pete” you rolled your eyes. “I know that the whole Thanos thing has been awful, and you know I would do anything to bring your friends back, but-“

“I get it” he interrupted you, and you wondered if soulmates were real. “Sure, I’m sad about them. But I’m also glad that this mess brought us together, Y/N.”

For months, and without you knowing, that thought had clouded Peter’s mind too. Ned and his friends were part of his life, a life he lost when he came back to Earth. He had cried, broken things and wished he had made a different call that day. Still, you had travelled across that sadness and had healed him in a way he didn’t know he was broken.

So, yeah, half of him was glad of the snap.

“You’re not a bad person for thinking that way” he put one of his hands on your cheek, stroking it softly.

“Aunt May might be right after all” you chuckled. “The Peter tingle lets you know what I’m about to say.”

“God, please, not you too” Peter groaned. “Seriously, that’s an embarrassing name. You need to stop saying it.”

“Why? I think it’s cool”

Peter interrupted you with a short kiss on the lips that, as usual, left the faint blush on his cheeks. Before he could get up and continue climbing, you took his hand and pushed him back to you.

“I love you” you whispered against his ear.

His arms stood open until he could register the impact of your body. He didn’t know why, but those words sounded deeper, more truthful than any other day he had woken up in your bed, trying to sneak up on Tony. So he hugged you closer and hid his face on your shoulder for the next minute.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peter had heard stories about him. Mostly from Steve, since he had grown pretty close to him since the snap. He liked to joke about how, after seeing how he peeled off his own face, Bucky kept checking every few days if Steve’s one was going to fall off. It was a nice story to listen to, how Capitan America defeated Red Skull and saved the world. When he went home those nights and stared at the ceiling of his room, he thought about how would it feel to do something like that for humanity. If he closed his eyes, he could almost see it:

Spiderman, latest addition of the avengers, returns home as one of the mightiest heroes.

And if he wanted, he could let everyone know who he was. Flash wouldn’t even dare to talk to him ever again, his classmates wouldn’t mock him and his aunt would get the life she deserved. Even better, he would a life with you. He hadn’t been able to go out and have dates, to hold your hand in the park or kiss you goodbye in front of his apartment. The world couldn’t know about you, an important and famous girl, dating just a boy. A kid. Tony had made it the only condition of your relationship. So, in Peter’s eyes, if he saved the world he would be worthy of being with you.

But not always things go as planned. He didn’t plan the Red Skull, the damned cliff and the deal for the stone.

“Why do you have to be so stubborn?!” Peter pulled hardly at his hair, the annoying pain not taking his mind off the horrible situation. “It has to be done this way! Both of us know it!”

“Yeah?! And who says that, hm?!” you screamed back. “You don’t know shit about this, Parker!”

Red Skull had disappeared closely after he had told you how to get the soul stone; one soul for it. Someone had to sacrifice a loved one, and since the first instance, Peter and you had been two stubborn hot heads.

“I know everything that needs to be known” he pointed a shaky finger to you. “You’re Y/N Stark. You are meant to save the world! To great things! I-I can’t go back home knowing I didn’t let that happen”

“What about you? Spiderman, the friendly neighbour. Don’t get me started about how much the world needs you.”

“And what about your father? Did you thought about that?” Peter tried to blink away a few tears. “Have you thought about how will he feel when I return without his daughter?”

For you, it seemed like that argument had been going on and on for hours. It could have been days, minutes or weeks, you didn’t have a way of knowing. But you weren’t going to back down. As soon as the Red Skull had pronounced the words, Peter hadn’t doubt into taking a step forwards. He was ready to lose it all for his friends and for you, he was ready to sacrifice his life for you to have one; you weren’t ready to lose him.

“He loves you too, Pete” you walked closer to him until you were inches apart. “Don’t go over there. I know I have people who love me, but so do you. What about your friends?”

“They are dead!” Peter let out a loud sob, his voice breaking, as your own tears fell down. “They are dead because I couldn’t-“

“What about aunt May? My father? All those people who need Spiderman?”

“But I don’t need them, Y/N” he lowered his voice. “I just need you with me.”

Tears were wetting both of your cheeks, some of them hitting the floor. Peter tried to say something more, but it only came out as pained whimpers. He moved his hands up and down, not touching you and, at the same time, wrapping you around a calming bubble that you had never met.

Because there, watching as the boy you loved rambled about how much he loved you and what you meant to him, you really understood that Spiderman was much more than a superhero. You understood that Peter Parker was a boy with the best intentions for everyone, willing to give everything to those who had nothing. And you remembered a fact about your suit, which in the end was just an extension of Tony’s one.

“Friday?” you cut Peter off, your voice small yet strong. He looked at you with narrowed eyes, not understanding what was going on.

“What are you working on, dad?”

Tony was sitting on his usual spot, behind the enormous computer, where he managed his suit and yours.

“Something new” he mumbled.

“Nano technology is not enough for you?” you chuckled, sitting on the desk.

The screen showed you an image of Peter’s suit, divided in thousands of little buttons that were meant to keep him safe in need.

“You remember how the kid almost killed himself last time?” your dad explained. “All because he couldn’t understand that the building was going to fall, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it.”

In your mind, images of Peter being rushed to the infirmary with a huge bleeding gash on his chest appeared. He had tried to save a woman under a collapsing building, ignoring everyone shouts and warnings. As a result, he almost died and the woman did anyway. You could almost feel the fear and pain again.

“In case he does something like that again, I’m adding something to his suit. It’s called ‘danger on the wheel’. If I activate, the suit will create a safe cover for him for a few minutes.”

“If I’m not wrong, dad, last week you wanted to kill him yourself” you raised a brow, barely containing a smile.

“In my defence, young lady, what he was doing on top of you was highly inappropriate” he turned around on his chair, looking at you with a knowing smirk.

“Then, the ‘danger on the wheel’ is your way of saying that you have finally accepted him?”

“It means that I don’t want you weeping over him, it would be too annoying” he rolled his eyes playfully. “If he’s gonna be my son in law, I better keep him safe.”

You laughed loudly just as Peter entered the lab with a confused yet adorable face, with his pyjamas on and his hair messy. Only if your father knew what you had been doing two minutes ago.

If only he knew what you were going to use the new function for. You smiled at the memory as Peter kept looking at you.

“Yes, Miss Stark?” the mechanic voice answered from your voice.

“Initiate protocol ‘danger on the wheel’, please”

“Danger on-what is that?” Peter asked.

“Of course, Miss Stark.”

Peter didn’t know what happened first. If his suit, the one that your father had given him with so much love, falling onto him like a thousands of bricks. If the lights of your suit flying away towards the cliff. Or if the soft I love you and the ghost feeling of your lips against his, while he screamed his lungs out. Right after those three things, he blacked out.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was the first time Tony had had so many possibilities in front of him and had, willingly, avoided them. The meeting with his father and the reconciliation with Steve had him in a good mood, not everything was lost, it seemed. He could return everything back to its place and get back his life, where his biggest problem is the ‘bug’ that its dating his teenager daughter. He could get used to that.

The smile lasted all the way back home, and he kept it as he watched how all the avengers appeared in front of him. Everyone was happy, everyone had achieved their target and even Thor had a small smirk on his chubby cheeks. A loud hit broke him out of his dream, and he turned just in time to see how Peter crunched into a ball in the ground.

“Kid?” he asked, running towards him. Natasha was trying to help him but, but he refused to move from his position. When Tony reached them, he could hear finally the sobs. “Are you-“

Something wasn’t right in that picture, but he couldn’t place a finger on it. Tony stood on his ground as everyone rushed to Peter and tried to get a response out of him. He had the soul stone on his hand, and seemed unhurt. Only when the pity stares and tearful eyes reached him, he understood.

He had been in the same situation before. For two years, Peter had suffered anxiety and panic attacks, in the school, Tony’s house or his apartment. In his mind, it clicked that all those times Natasha wasn’t holding Peter in her arms while he cried. It was you. He had almost forgotten that you had went too, thinking that you were safe at home.

“I-I’m so-so sorry-y, Mr. S-Stark” Peter managed to get out.

His eyes were red and bloody, his hair sticking in every direction from pulling at it so much. Peter war shaking between sobs while he tried to breath, but Tony could make out some words. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked back expecting to see you.

“Maybe you should sit, Tony” Steve said, his eyes fixed on the ground.

“I don’t-where is she? Where is Y/N?” Tony shook off his hand and kneeled in front of Peter. The boy only cried harder and tried to disappear in Natasha’s chest. “She-She was-I left her with you. She was with you. Right? Where is my daughter?”

“I-I tried-d Mr. Stark-k” Peter sounded so desperate that Tony found not an inch of hate or disappointment for the kid. “Sh-She-I-“

Slowly, Tony sat back on the ground, as he knees could not hold him any longer. He tried to grip onto anything real. The floor, the sky, the sound of distant voices or Peter’s rushed apologies. Who hurt more that day, no one would ever know. If the boy with the heart broken or the father with his baby taken.

But what was real was that, from that moment to his last breath, Tony Stark had only one word on his mind. Revenge. And he was going to kill Thanos, even if it killed him too.

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xxpadfootxx · 4 years

Text

🐾Night Terrors & New Beginnings - Part 2 (Combustion Bonds)🐾

Izuku was a dragon. He was young and spritely with a warm heart and a lively spirit. He was galloping through a forest with his siblings, other dragons like him who were roaring in excitement and pawing at each other playfully. Then Izuku was fighting an older dragon, one who looked powerful. He fought every morning with this older dragon, leaping in the air, twisting, biting, and flying. He beat the air with his small wings, curling his tail underneath him so that the older dragon could not catch hold of it to pull him down. He fought until he finally pinned the bigger dragon beneath him with a fighting move that he had never even seen before. A kind of twirl where he caught the older dragon under the chin by approaching the blind spot, using a flash of shadow to distract the older dragon and then flipping him over by pressing all four of his paws into the dragon's wings and two pressure points at the base of the wings. He roared in victory and looked down at the older dragon who laughed and nuzzled him.

Suddenly there was blood everywhere, he was in a cage with another dragon pup. He knew this dragon as his best friend, the one who had always been nice to him despite the other dragon pups making fun of Izuku for being born without claws. Dead dragon bodies stained the forest red and bones stuck up like thorns in the foliage. He peered through the bars to see cloaked men holding weapons and striking down anything that moved while taking all of the pups and throwing them into cages.

Then everything was dark, he tasted blood on his tongue and felt a warm sticky liquid on his paws. More bodies were here except none of the blood would go away because instead of soaking into the soft earth of the forest floor, it would just spread across the metallic flooring that had replaced the spongy ground of his home. That was when a bunch of random images started flooding his brain at once, moving from a dark cell to a booming city, from visions of dead dragons that looked like him to images of a man with gray hair, cracked lips, and hands covering his body, standing over him with a whip. The whip was raised high above the hand man’s head before it came crashing down with a clap. He felt the pain rip through his back and felt the blood spill over his wings and run down his legs.

“You will obey.” The hand man said in a scratchy voice before raising the whip once more.

~~~

Izuku woke up panting, his throat raw from the screaming. His eyes were wide and sweat was streaming down his face and back. His hands were gripping the front of his shirt to the point that his knuckles were white and his fingers were starting to bruise. He gulped in air as if he had been stuck underwater, looking around at his surroundings in fear and faint curiosity. He was in a hospital room, hooked up to a monitor. His mother was sitting in a chair against the wall, asleep. He looked to his bedside table to see cards and flowers from all of his classmates in class 1-A. He glanced around to the other side of the room and saw his two best friends also sitting in chairs. Tenya Iida was fast asleep just like Izuku’s mother, his mouth open as he snored and his glasses crooked on his face as he leaned his head back against the chair. Ochako Uraraka, on the other hand, was wide awake and reading a book by his bedside. It took Izuku a moment to realize that she was reading the book aloud. She paused when she saw him looking at her, her mouth open to read the next sentence of the book. Immediately, she shut the book and dragged her chair closer to his bedside, her eyes wide with worry.

“Deku!” Ochako whispered. “How are you feeling?”

Izuku looked into her face and analyzed every feature, from her beautiful brown eyes to her soft skin, touched by the adorable blush marks on her cheeks. He blushed when he realized he was ogling her and she was waiting for his answer.

“I’m feeling a little shaken up but otherwise fine,” Izuku said. “What happened, Uraraka? I can’t remember much.”

Ochako’s face darkened a little and he felt his anxiety rise with it.

“It was a dragon attack, Izuku. We don’t know where it came from but we just found you, bleeding and shaking in a tree. Your mother got worried when you didn’t get home on time and so after waiting a while she called the police. We came along to look for you. All Might said that he often saw you take this scenic route home so we searched there first. It took us almost three hours.”

“I was hanging from a tree?” Izuku asked.

“No, not hanging, you were actually resting on a bed of leaves, that was why it was so hard to find you, your green hair blended in with the canopy and your body was obscured by the branches and leaves.”

“Oh,” Izuku thought for a minute, allowing the room to fill up with silence. “Was the dragon there?”

“No, thank god,” Ochako murmured. “We were scared enough already, but I think the bloodthirsty beast was just looking for some extra prey to hunt for, saving you for later. I was really worried for you, we thought you were already dead,” Ochako scratched the back of her head nervously. “I was the one who found you. It was horrible, I was using my gravity quirk to float above the forest for a better bird’s eye view and I just saw you tangled up in the branches like a doll.” She shook her head, tears in her eyes.

“Thank you for finding me, Uraraka, I’m okay I promise.” Izuku pulled her into a half hug and patted her shoulder comfortingly. She nodded against his shoulder.

“I believe you, it was just really scary. I can’t believe you faced off with a dragon on your own and didn’t get torn into little ribbons.”

“Yeah... I can’t believe that either.”

Izuku then placed his hands down on either side of him and tried to sit up, his back numb from laying down for so long. His body was sore but nothing seemed too badly injured. He didn’t know what to think. Maybe the part about the dragon saving him was just a dream? Or maybe the dragon had some sort of quirk that made him see one thing when really he was actually experiencing another? Dragons were known to have quirks, a lower percentage of them did when compared to humans, only about 60% of them had powers but it was still common enough for it to be a possibility. He put weight on his hands to push himself up.

That is when he felt it. A slight shock of pain shot through his hand and a flash of an image of a large black wing briefly obscured his vision, causing Izuku to jump a little and look at the back of his hand.

“Is everything okay Deku?” Ochako asked him as a flash of worry crossed her face.

“Yeah, I’m alright my hand just felt strange for a second there.”

“What do you mean strange?”

“Um…”

Izuku didn’t know what to say as he turned his hand over to examine his palm. Ochako leaned over and gasped as she saw his hand from over Izuku’s shoulder.

“What the hell is that?” Ochako asked in alarm.

“I don’t know.”

Sitting on the side of his palm directly beneath his thumb on his right hand was a circular swirl shape that looked as if it had been engraved into his palm. The skin around the shape was raw and pink but Izuku didn’t believe that that was the source of the pain as the pain he had felt a moment ago felt deeper than that. Maybe he had been poisoned? Izuku tried not to panic at this sudden development and took some calming deep breaths.

“Would you like me to get you the doctor?” Ochako asked, her eyes shining with a mix of worry and fear.

“Yeah, I think that would be a good idea.”

As if on cue, the door to the hospital room opened and the doctor walked in holding a clipboard and wearing a bright smile on his face. Izuku’s mother and Iida jolted awake at the sound of the heavy door shutting behind the doctor.

“Oh, sorry to wake you two! I just thought I would come and check on young Midoriya’s progress. It’s good to see you awake young man.” The doctor said turning to face Izuku.

“Izuku!”

“Midoriya! You’re awake.”

Iida and his mother stood up and moved on either side of him to get a better look at him.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better than I thought I would,” Izuku said with a sigh. “But my hand…”

The doctor said nothing when Izuku raised his hand and showed his palm to the people assembled. His mother gasped and Iida’s eyes widened but the doctor remained silent. Raising a hand to stroke his beard, the doctor hummed in thought and squinted his eyes at the strange marking.

“Does it hurt to touch it or apply pressure to it?”

“Yes, but not surface pain. Although it looks raw I don’t feel any pain when I touch my skin but when I apply too much pressure I feel a pain deep inside myself. I feel it in my bones and lungs rather than my hand. I also have been seeing some strange images when the pressure is applied.”

“Images?” The doctor asked as he scribbled some notes on a notepad.

“Yeah, like memories that are not mine.”

The doctor nodded and finished his writing before he spoke again.

“Alright young Midoriya, thank you for telling me this information. I want to help you but it is not my area of expertise so I am recommending you to a friend of mine who specializes in animal quirk related injuries. I don’t know if that is what this is but she has worked with dragons before and may be able to help you.”

“Thank you so much, Doctor,” Izuku’s mother said, her eyes watering. She leaned forward and held both of her son’s hands in hers. “I want to get this figured out as soon as possible and I want to find the dragon that did this to my son so that it can pay for what it has done to him.”

Izuku knew she was just being protective and that she didn’t actually mean any harm to the dragon but even so, for some reason, he felt a slight rise of panic in his chest at the thought of the dragon being slain.

“Young Midoriya, did you see what kind of dragon it was? If I knew that then I may be able to better determine what kind of damage was done to your body.”

Izuku thought for a moment. He could not remember much but the image of the sleek black dragon with a panther-like face and a wolf-shaped body that was covered in wounds seemed to be permanently burned into his brain. That image triggered a little bit of his memory as he thought about it, and he remembered what a man had said out of the fog swamping his mind.

“I think it was a dragon called a Night Fury,” Izuku said.

The reaction was like that of a bomb going off in the room. The doctor gasped and tripped backward into some medical supplies, sending them crashing to the floor. Inko Midoriya shrieked and launched at her son, enfolding him into a rib-crushing hug. Iida’s jaw dropped and he called out Izuku’s name in shock. Ochako and Izuku were the only ones who did not understand the reaction of the others.

“Are you sure Midoriya?”

“Yes, why? Why is that so hard to believe?”

The doctor rubbed his face and took a deep breath.

“Because never in the history of the existence of humans, quirk or no quirk, has anyone ever survived an attack from a Night Fury. Not much is known about those dragons, only that they are vicious, bloodthirsty, extremely intelligent, and powerful. They never steal food, never show themselves and they never miss.”

#mha fanfiction #mha #bnha fanfiction #bnha #izuku x uraraka #ochako x izuku #izuku midoriya #urakara ochako #ochako #izuocha-fanfic #IzuOcha #ochadeku #dekuchako #deku #uravity #httyd fanfiction #httyd crossover #httyd #how to train your dragon

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spookyspaghettisundae · 4 years

Text

Pancakes Buried Under Ketchup

Kim checked the small leather pouch for its contents: chicken bones, dust of a pearl, rose petals, and a crumpled up poker card. She tied it up with the thin red thread and placed it onto the simple wooden coffin underneath her feet.

It had taken a while to dig a hole this deep and she swore at herself for doing so, but this is how it had to be. She grunted and struggled to clamber back out of the pit, then paused to catch her breath once she had made it back out. Continuous flurries of drizzle made her flannel jacket unpleasantly damp. The smell of ozone and fresh soil permeated the air all around her.

Looking at her weary, shaking hands, dirt clung underneath her fingernails. She grabbed the heavy shovel and winced as its rough wooden handle rubbed against the blisters forming on her fingers as soft red spots.

She sighed deeply before she stabbed the shovel’s blade into the mound of dirt piled up next to the grave. Then she heaved the first shovelful of loose earth onto the coffin’s lid and commenced the drudgery of burying the body down there.

After covering up the grave, she stumbled to an old water pump and a bucket on the same property. The toil this burial had taken on her had left every part of her body sore. It acquainted her with muscles she hadn’t even known before, because now they ached.

With another groan, the metal squeaked away as she pumped. The cold wet wasn’t as clear as she had hoped it to be, but it would suffice for her purposes. Whatever collected in the bucket, she stuck her hands straight into it and then scrubbed her fingers and palms as good as she could.

After flicking and wringing her hands, she splashed her face with handfuls of water carried in her cupped hands, over and over again. She wiped over her face and felt a bit more awake, but yearned for the smell and taste of coffee and its sharp kick to fully keep her up. The breeze combing through the trees around the estate reached her and cut deep into her exposed skin, rendered even colder by the water and dampness clinging onto her face and clothes.

She returned the shovel into her trunk and drove away from the abandoned old home in the woods. During the time that followed, rows and rows of pine trees against a dreary gray sky passed her by, dragging on for an eternity. It might as well have only been a matter of minutes, or it might have been hours—but it all took entirely too long.

Kim found herself fighting against the weight of her eyelids, threatening to shut down on her every few heartbeats. That damned coffee would really be great. Any time now.

Between stretches of clearings and copses, wide grassy hillocks opened up to a vista of mountains in the distance. Somewhere down that road, salvation awaited her.

A lonesome silvery diner stood by the roadside, complete with its red neon sign up top reading, “Jones Diner.”

She swore under her breath to express gratitude to whatever power might hear her and pulled up into a parking space in front of the diner. No other visitors—her car was the only one. Just seeing the bright fluorescent lights inside the big windows helped lift her spirits and wake her up some more. Kim could practically smell the coffee already.

A little bell jingled as she entered. A waitress behind the counter, leaning against it on an elbow, greeted her with a bright cheery smile.

Something about the place was surreal. The dream catcher hanging from the shelf where an old-timey radio stood only cemented that impression. Soft jazz music played its way out of the radio with a tinny tinge to it.

Nevertheless, a sigh of relief escaped Kim when she slid into one of the booths on the side and stretched her tired legs underneath the table.

The waitress was upon her before she knew it. Like she just appeared out of thin air after Kim had blinked. Still with that cheery smile; wide and toothy and lined by bright red lipstick.

“What can I getcha?”

“Coffee. Black, milk. And some pie, I guess?”

“Any particular—”

“Cheapest pie you got,” Kim said with a deadpan stare.

“Apple pie it is. Comin’ right up,” the waitress replied. Whether she concealed a change in mood in response to Kim’s clipped order, or she found it refreshingly honest and to the point, her big smile never faltered.

Like a living whirlwind, she scooted off to take care of the order.

The clink of ceramic pieces made Kim blink and emerge from a haze of dozing off. A cup of piping hot coffee stood on the table in front of her and the waitress put down a plate with a slice of pie on it.

“Enjoy,” the waitress said. Still smiling all the while.

Kim didn’t need anybody to tell her twice. She took a greedy sip from that coffee, relishing its powerful smell as it rose into her nostrils.

Thick fog arose outside. It started to suffocate the view of the mountains and swallow the trees nearby. Kim realized that the coffee failed to wake her up—instead, it calmed her down, making her sleepier than even before.

Kim also realized that the waitress still stood there at the side of her booth. The smile vanished from her face and she took a seat across from her. Kim shot a confused glance over her shoulder just to make sure that nobody else was in the diner, because every warning light inside her mind went on simultaneously.

“You know, folks ‘round here are pretty superstitious,” said the waitress.

Kim just stared at her in disbelief, trying to size her up. Fairly tall, lanky. No tattoos, no piercings, simple make-up, dressed to fit into the diner’s environment as if she had been transported from the 1950s into current day North America.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember asking you anything,” Kim said with an arched brow, delivering her first attempt at telling the waitress to leave her alone and mind her own business without directly saying it.

“My name’s Kim, by the way,” the waitress said.

Kim leaned back and the leather cushions of the booth’s seats crinkled and crunched audibly as she shifted her weight. She was poised to toss the coffee into the waitress’ face and bolt. Something was utterly wrong about all this.

“That’s funny—”

“Your name is Kim too, right?” she asked Kim, her smile returning to her face. All bright pearly-whites. Knowing.

“Lemme guess. You were over at the old McLaughlin residence? It’s a great place to bury bodies for sympathetic magick rituals,” Waitress Kim said.

Kim narrowed her eyes and truly held back now. Her muscles tensed, almost cramping up from the exertion that had strained them earlier. Judging by how Waitress Kim’s eyes darted down and back up to meet Kim’s gaze, she had definitely seen how Kim’s knuckles turned white from gripping the coffee mug tightly.

“The thing about proxy spells is that one simple mistake can cause some really weird things to happen,” Waitress Kim droned on. “One time I screwed up a less dangerous ritual and everything tasted like candle wax and cardboard for a whole month.”

“Who the hell are you? What are you?”

Waitress Kim’s smile widened. It carried an air of something sadistic. Something sinister.

“I told ya, hun. I’m Kim. Question is, who are you?”

Silence draped itself over them while Kim’s mind raced, searching it for possibilities of what any of this meant. Kevin had warned her about strange things happening and taking extra care to perform this ritual correctly, but what sat in front of her now gave off the air of something inhuman. Still, there was no certainty, no knowing.

Its presence reminded her of the entity she had encountered in the otherspace in that coffee shop in Chicago. Why was it always the coffee places?

“Are you a demon?” Kim asked, settling on a straightforward approach.

Waitress Kim maintained her smile. Her gaze stayed locked onto Kim’s eyes, smoldering.

“I’m just the shadows flitting out of sight whenever you turn, honey. What’s in your pocket?”

Kim found that a great question. She crammed a fist into her jacket pocket and dug around until she could produce some folded dollar bills. She tossed them onto the table and leaned over it to counter Waitress Kim’s eerie calm.

“Keep the change,” Kim said.

“Shucks. You never tried the pie,” Waitress Kim said, her smile fading and making way to a cartoonish frown.

She tilted her head as she watched Kim slide out of the booth to get up. But the world spun around Kim, powered by the force of dizziness, making it hard for her to stand. Her knees buckled and her consciousness began to fade. Her vision blurred, and she tried to focus on Waitress Kim to see what she would do. The waitress slid out of the booth as well, standing up.

Wanting to give her no chance, Kim lunged at her but gravity got the better of her. The world tilted sideways and she crashed onto the cold squeaky-shining checkered floor of the diner.

Waitress Kim knelt on the floor beside her and hunched over. She brought her face so close to Kim’s that she could feel the warmth of her breath sweeping over her cheeks, flushing with a strange heat. Kim wanted to get up and lash out. Plant a fist in Waitress Kim’s throat. Up and run to her car. But her body disobeyed her.

“I love New York this time of year. I plan to spend a few weeks there this summer,” Waitress Kim mused. “Have you ever tried pancakes with ketchup on top?”

Kim struggled to understand what she was saying, or what any of it meant.

But none of that mattered.

The wet, weighty sound of a shovelful of dirt hitting something hollow startled her—made her jolt awake. With eyes wide open, all around Kim was darkness but she knew exactly where she found herself. Trapped inside a tight space with no real room to move. It didn’t matter how much she banged her fists against the coffin lid—the person shoveling dirt onto it didn’t give a damn. Or couldn’t hear it.

As the panic pumped adrenaline throughout her body, like a wildfire spreading in her veins, her mind reeled. Her thoughts spun in hopeless circles, praying that this was all just a bad dream. But it was all for naught. She was wide awake.

Another shovelful of dirt hit the lid, piling up. Burying her alive.

—Submitted by Wratts

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milleniaoffamily · 4 years

Text

This is a little one-shot teaser of the Dance AU I’m writing. It will be very long in the end, but I figured I’d give you a taste while I work on it! Thank you to my beautiful friends/sisters for beta-ing this and also everything. Eventually it’ll go up chapter by chapter on AO3. I hope you enjoy!

Quynh climbed the fabric with ease. It was something she’d done thousands of times and she wound it around her leg to let herself hang down to hit a pose. Her legs bent above her, one arm reaching behind her and one gracefully framing her face. The stretch and grip of the aerial silk against her skin was both comforting and intoxicating. Sometimes she felt like a bird as she twirled and dove in the air, defying gravity in a way that sent a rush through her blood. When she let herself fall, the silk around her unwinding rapidly, it took her breath away in the best way. The satisfaction of catching herself before she hit the ground sent sparks of delight through her that she could feel in her bones.

She felt at home in the air. There was nothing up there but the motion and feeling of the dance and the slip and pull of the silks. There was no threat other than gravity and she flirted with the pull of the earth like an on-and-off lover. Quynh had embraced danger since she was little. The flood of adrenaline was always worth the occasional drip of blood or blooming bruise. She learned quickly what things would actually get her hurt and found ways to overcome them. It was a challenge to her and half the fun of life was overcoming challenges.

The air opened beneath her as she lept from one silk to another, instinctively wrapping herself once again. In being bound with the flexible fabric she felt the most free. The music flowed through her and cued each fall, each spin, each push.

I’m forever chasing after time

The world around her blurred out of focus as she tipped her gaze upwards and contracted, the silk wound around her like a thickly corded belt. She spun there, hugging her knees like she did when she couldn’t chase away the whispers of hatred she’d heard time and time again, keeping her eyes on herself in the mirror to avoid the haze of dizziness.

But everybody dies…. Dies

The rolling falls were her favorite. In aerials every move was carefully constructed to lead to the next. With each jump and turn she’d deftly tied stays. She worked with the intuitive rules of physics to end up letting herself whip down and tumble end over end, unafraid because up there she was invincible. Up there she was free.

If I could buy forever at a price, I would buy it twice

As the faithful ties stopped her motion and cradled her, one leg pointing to the heavens and her back arching like the crescent moon, her mind went blank. The song continued on but she hung unceremoniously. Her hands went over her face in an effort to force the muscle memory to take over once again.

But if the earth ends in fire and the seas are frozen in time

There’ll be just one survivor

She dropped the pose and admitted defeat, groaning as she hung limp. Going through the motions of disentangling herself from her silks to descend and restart was always an annoying process. To her surprise, though, claps echoed through the room over the music as her feet touched the floor.

“Looked great,” Andy leaned against the doorway. She could watch Quynh for hours - in fact she had many times.

“Until I forgot where I was going,” Quynh laughed and hugged Andy tightly. They both knew that this was a part of it all. Repetition was a dancer’s best friend. Countless days spent going over and over a piece of choreography until you could do it backwards with your eyes closed fogged over in their memories but the motions still remained in their bones. Some quiet, private nights they would spend hours doing old duets together that their brains had let go of but their muscles still dug up with ease.

The memory that I was yours and you were mine

“I figured you were still convincing those kids to work for you,” The music ran out and only their voices remained to fill the space.

“Oh, no, they weren’t hard to convince. Although they might end up being a little more than I expected. Sometimes I forget what it was like to be just out of conservatory.” Andy let her voice betray the extent to which she’d underestimated the college students’ capacity for nonsense. Quynh laughed brightly, pushing at her shoulder with affection.

“I told you!” Now it was Andy’s turn to playfully nudge her love. Quynh seemed eternal to her sometimes. The woman never slowed. It felt like she’d stumbled into infinity without noticing - her bright fire of youth used the weight of time as fuel instead of being smothered by it. Sometimes Andy needed Quynh to remind her they were children once too, even if she was starting to slow now.

“I’m sure they’ll figure it out. They’ve got you to point them in the right direction.” A brief silence fell as Andy scoffed, though Quynh’s comfort was greatly appreciated. They both knew that the company was the gateway into something new. As long as they were next to each other, though, they would be fine.

“Let me tie you up in the sky?”

“Always.” Andy grinned, taking the sunglasses from where they perched on top of her head, and let Quynh lead her to the center of the room. It was a ritual they’d done for years now - Quynh would guide Andy up the columns of draped silk and deftly move around her, putting her arms and legs in place and binding her tightly. Though she knew very little about how to dance with the stuff there was something exhilarating about letting Quynh have her to hang in the air.

“So what are you going to call this ragtag troupe anyway?” Amusement rounded her voice, a sharp sweetness in her touch as she tucked and prodded. Sometimes Andy would glance over and marvel at her even after all the years. The way she hung effortlessly poised in the air with her focus so intently trained on making sure the fabric would hold Andy’s weight knocked her breath away.

“I’ve been thinking of The Old Guard - since we’re about breaking conventions and all.” There was a pause before Quynh let her go to hang over the air. The complex ties she’d made embraced her body and held her securely frozen in place. She’d barely had to do anything aside from hold her weight steady. Her hands gripped the silks tightly enough that her fingers turned white until Quynh tapped them softly, reminding her that she was secure.

“You’re not nearly as funny as you think you are,” Quynh’s tone had no bite to it. She lovingly took Andy down when she noticed her arms beginning to shake and kissed her on the nose. “It is charming, though.”

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adasexton1993 · 4 years

Text

What Can I Take To Increase My Height Jolting Tips

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#What Can I Take To Increase My Height Jolting Tips #How To Increase The Height After 25

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ks-caster · 4 years

Text

The Future is Infinite (Chapter 2)

Chapter-specific warnings: slightly graphic descriptions of violence in battle, suicidal ideation, character experiences a panic attack, vomiting.

Start

“Steve Rogers,” Steve introduced himself to the strange woman, holding out a hand.

“Octavia,” she responded, switching her sword to her other hand to shake his. Her bare upper arms both seemed to be intact, which was strange, since Steve was absolutely certain her arm had been broken a moment ago. Before he had a chance to comment, a bright yellow light appeared to his left, and all four of them jumped to ready stances, only to be faced with a similarly exhausted and grime-covered group of people limping out of the portal.

“Tony!” Bruce exclaimed, having finally freed himself from the wreckage of Veronica. Steve’s breath caught in his throat - his genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist former friend was indeed limping through the portal, supported by that spider kid from the airport and holding his bleeding torso.

“Time stone,” one of the newcomers was listing as he leaned down to retrieve the glowing dot of green, placing it in an ornate golden pendant he was wearing around his neck. His red cape fluttered eerily against the light breeze.

“What, did Thanos just drop it?” Tony demanded in confusion as the man took a few steps forward to pick up the orange stone, letting it hover over his scarred hand.

“Octavia hacked some of them off the gauntlet before he retreated,” Steve responded. “Where’s…”

“Soul stone,” the grey-streaked man said, holding up the orange gem, and then turned to Octavia. “And the reality stone, safely inhabiting one Octavia Blake. Welcome to Earth your majesty,” he added with a respectful nod to her. Her eyebrows both arched, but her face gave nothing more away.

“And what should I call you? Other than disturbingly well-informed?” she asked coldly, folding her arms across her chest.

“Dr. Strange,” he introduced himself.

“Inhabiting?” Banner repeated, looking quickly between Strange and Octavia.

“The Aether, or Reality Stone, appears in multiple forms,” Strange explained quickly, weaving more golden light around the Soul Stone until it was encased in magic, then releasing the spell to leave a faintly glowing orb of material about the size of a pool ball lying in his hand. “It can be solid, it can be gaseous, or it can inhabit a living host. In this case, it’s inhabiting Octavia.”

“Guessing that’s why my arm suddenly works again,” she responded, flexing the muscle, face betraying nothing about how she felt regarding all of this strangeness. The doctor nodded, pocketing the soul stone and turning to T’Challa as he emerged from the woods, Bucky, Sam and Okoye on his heels.

“And also why your ribs are no longer puncturing your lungs, and so on and so forth,” he finished for her before switching conversations abruptly. “I take it the army has retreated?”

“Moments ago,” T’Challa responded, eyes moving quickly between everyone in the clearing. “Thanos?”

“Ran for his life,” Strange chuckled, “but still has two of the stones in his possession - Space and Power. He’ll be back in search of the others.”

“Then it is imperative that my sister finish removing this one from Vision,” the king responded. “We cannot in good conscience destroy it if it is attached to a living being.”

“Destroy— what the hell did I miss?” Tony demanded as Rhodey emerged from the forest and immediately took him from the spider kid.

“Medical attention first,” T’Challa decided, placing his own shoulder under Steve’s sagging weight, “explanations later.”

“Octavia,” Dr. Strange addressed her, and Steve turned to look in her direction, just in time to see her face go completely blank as she slumped to the ground in a graceless tangle of limbs.

“Her body needs time to get used to its new symbiote,” Strange explained dispassionately as Bucky strode over and lifted her up in a fireman’s carry, her fallen sword fitting neatly into his belt. “Anyway,” he added with something that sounded almost like compassion, “she’s had a worse day than any of us. She could probably use some rest before I make it worse yet.”

-0-

Every cell in Octavia’s body was on fire. The pain had begun after the Big Purple Bastard had slammed her into the ground, but it wasn’t just the feeling of all the bones that had surely shattered at the impact. Before she’d even had a chance to comprehend that pain, the burning had started, covering her whole body and filling her mind with white noise until she could hardly keep from screaming. She’d felt the burn intensify around her back, ribs and broken arm, but then those areas faded back into the agonized mass that was her body a moment later.

She’d forced herself to her feet, tried her best to be aware of her surroundings, but once she knew that her enemy had escaped, all of the energy she’d been expending to keep herself on her feet seemed so pointless. Without really meaning to, she let herself crumple, face pressed into the sweet-smelling grass for what she hoped wouldn’t be the last time.

Still vaguely lucid, she felt someone lift her, and heard snatches of conversation as they went wherever the hell they were going. Pressing her eyes shut, she breathed through the pain, trying not to vomit all over the guy carrying her.

Apparently the Big Purple Bastard’s name was Thanos; he’d gotten one of the gem thingies from Dr. Strange a few minutes before he’d arrived to fight Steve Rogers, and Dr. Strange had known she and Steve would be there to keep him from taking the stones any further when he’d given his up. That was more than a little presumptuous of him, she thought sourly, and the injured man named Tony seemed to agree.

After that, she could no longer focus on anything but how her body felt. At some point her center of gravity moved and she was on the ground again, her stomach heaving up bile and probably nothing else - when had she eaten last? Three days ago? Four? Someone was holding her hair back, and then time seemed to smear itself around her, and she was lying on her back in a bed, with entirely different voices conversing above her.

“When Jane had the Aether inside of her it was killing her!” a man was insisting, loud and agitated.

“Octavia’s people and those on Earth here and now share a common ancestor,” Dr. Strange was explaining tiredly, “but she’s several evolutionary steps farther along. She’ll adapt and survive.”

“Her cells are mutating to handle the stone’s presence,” a reedy woman’s slightly accented voice explained. “Based on the pattern here, I’d say she’ll have reached an optimal balance in about two hours.”

“But if the idea is to blow the thing up, shouldn’t we...” someone else muttered worriedly, and Octavia recognized the voice of the man who’d told Bellamy and the others to stay put. She wondered if they had.

“You don’t blow up an Infinity Stone,” Strange enunciated slowly, cutting the speaker off, and Octavia could almost hear him rolling his eyes. “Sure, Wanda Maximoff’s abilities could have fragmented the mind stone, but only because it would have regenerated inside of her due to the shared nature of her power. No, the stones are here to stay.”

“The ‘here’ part worries me,” interjected a speaker, accompanied by a slightly pained shuffle of footsteps. What had the man in the big red armor called him? Tony?

“You shouldn’t be up yet,” Strange admonished, and a number of other voices began speaking all at once. The cacophony of sound was too much for Octavia to follow, and she drifted again.

-0-

The pain faded to a warm ache that reminded her deliciously of the way her muscles felt after a good workout, and Octavia breathed deeply, savoring the welcome change. She blinked, her eyes taking in the well-lit room without the normal headache of awakening to light in her eyes that she expected.

“Back with us?” Steve’s voice greeted her, and she turned her head to see him in the bed to the right of hers, sitting up, one of his arms wrapped in bandages. Behind him, a man in blue leather armor with some sort of metal sleeve over his arm leaned sideways to look at her around Steve’s torso. Octavia glanced to her left, taking in the continuous row of white-sheeted beds and the clearly injured patients in them, and sat up gingerly, not sure she trusted the newfound relief in her body.

“I came to your planet on a refugee ship,” she started, wanting to rip the bandage off quickly. “Has anyone—”

“T’Challa sent a delegation to welcome them and see them to temporary habitation until there’s a chance to properly relocate them,” Steve assured her. Then he paused, looking uncomfortable. “Dr. Strange instructed the team not to let any of them know you were here. Is… everything okay?” Octavia blinked, taking in the wounded puppy look he was giving her, the way he hunched forwards, and the softness in his voice - and the way his brunette friend’s face was carefully blank, but his eyes were barely restrained from rolling.

She burst out laughing. Doubling over and clutching her miraculously healed ribs, she let her body shake out mirth until she couldn’t breathe.

“What? What did I say?” Steve was asking from somewhere above her.

“I’m sorry,” she giggled helplessly, wiping her eyes. “First I step on you, then I laugh in your face… I’m making a terrible first impression! Not my worst one, I guess,” she added sourly as she got herself under control. “It’s a long story,” she declined to explain, clearing her throat and reached up to pull the last of her hair free of her ruined braid.

“No idea how Dr. Knows-Too-Much knows about it, but I guess he does,” she grumbled.

“Yeah,” a young voice explained suddenly, and three heads lifted to see a teenager reclining in a hammock that was apparently stuck to the ceiling, “Mr. Strange did the time stone thingy and looked into like 14 million different futures while we were on the titan planet.” Lifting himself free of the hammock, he walked down the wall like it was a flat floor and jumped lightly down between the beds.

“How long has he been up there?” the brunette man demanded in a gruff whisper. Steve shrugged helplessly.

“He said there was only one where we win, so I guess this is it. Or I hope so anyway. Hey, they said you basically swallowed an infinity stone - what did it taste like?” Octavia’s eye twitched. Undeterred, the kid forged ahead. “What planet are you from? They were saying you had a common ancestor with humans - I didn’t know that was a thing, like there are other planets out there with other humans on them? That’s so cool!”

“Let her breathe, Peter,” A deep, even voice instructed. Octavia vaguely recognized the richly robed man as the one who’d worn the strange black armor. “I’m sure you have a great many questions,” he added as he reached the end of her bed. She swung her legs over to the left side, avoiding the now-apologizing teenager on her right, and reaching a hand out to shake his offered one. “I am king T’Challa, of Wakanda - the country you are in now. You are welcome here, and at the request of Dr. Strange, we have extended asylum to you until the political situation among your own people can be resolved.”

“Yeah, a resolution would be me dying - or leaving,” Octavia said bluntly, locating her sword leaning against a small table and reaching for it. “I hadn’t intended to stay this long - didn’t expect killing the big purple bastard to be more than one fight.”

“Cocky,” the brunette in the background commented.

“I’m missing something serious here aren’t I?” Peter said quietly.

“Ya’ think?” the brunette hissed.

“Bucky,” Steve said warningly.

“Well,” T’Challa responded calmly, “any plans that involve you dying will need to be postponed - according to our analysis, you’re functionally immortal while the Infinity Stone remains in your system.”

Octavia blinked, not sure what to think about that. She blinked again. And again. King T’Challa was opening his mouth to speak again, and she could see Steve out of the corner of her eye - he had that look again, like he was going to ask if she needed a hug, and—

“Yeah, that’s—” she felt herself saying, “that’s not going to work for me.”

“I understand that you may—” he started, but she cut him off, her words coming out in a sharp growl.

“Shop of! Yu getin laik nada, nomonjoka!” She shoved past him - he reached out to catch her arm but she shook him off. He made another grab, and as she whirled her arm in an arc to dislodge his grip, a blast of red light exploded from her skin where he touched her.

King T’Challa went flying head over heels - Octavia saw Peter jump in and catch him safely out of the corner of her eye as she fled the room.

Her heart was pounding in her throat. People were shouting behind her, and two sets of footsteps started to catch up. She didn’t look back to see whose they were.

Couldn’t even kill one guy.

Couldn’t even walk away afterwards.

Strangers knew everything about her.

Functionally immortal…

She wished the floor would open up and swallow her.

And then she was falling, watching neatly cut sections of floor after floor passing her by. In the space above her she saw Steve and Bucky’s faces staring in shock at her descent, and somehow that snapped her out of whatever state she’d been in; the next floor was solid and she smashed into it. With a bitten off cry of pain she pulled herself to her feet and took off running in the first direction that suited her. What the hell had just happened?

Infinity stone.

Cells mutating.

Functionally immortal.

She fell to her knees in the middle of some hallway somewhere, heaving up bile again. Voices speaking in an unfamiliar language approached her, and she stumbled to her feet again, eyes searching the space for an escape route.

“Octavia!” she heard Steve shout, just as she located an outside window. She bolted for it, unsure of what she hoped to find on the other side: a manageable drop so she could run off into the woods, retrieve her bag, and keep going until she was far, far away from everyone and everything - or a fall far enough to kill her and put her out of everyone’s misery.

With a wave of her hand, she peeled open the glass like a curtain, flinging herself out towards the setting sun.

The fall was long. But before she could get anywhere close to the ground, a sparking gold circle opened up beneath her, and she had the sudden sensation of falling upwards for a moment before crashing back onto a wooden floor. Rolling to her feet in a ready stance, she drew her sword as the portal closed.

“Stephen wasn’t kidding,” a portly man in dark red robes commented with a deep belly laugh. “You really are a live wire.”

Trigedasleng Translations:

I had to make up a couple of words because I couldn’t find the translations online - if you notice an error in my use of trig, please feel free to message me and let me know what it’s supposed to say!

Shop of! Yu getin laik nada, nomonjoka! = Be quiet! You understand nothing, motherfucker!

To Be Continued...

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