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livwritesstuff · 4 months

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uh so i was feeling like writing something angsty and ever since i wrote this a little bit ago i can’t stop thinking about the idea of what the upside down coming back decades later would look like, however it’s a bummer and not the vibe i want for my steddie!dads verse so consider this an au for an au or whatever idk

It’s a normal, average, mundane, regular Wednesday when Dustin calls.

They don’t talk as much as they used to, but that’s adult life, Steve supposes.

They both have entire lives now, spouses and children and jobs that consume pretty much every waking hour. The near-1000 miles that separates Steve and Eddie in Massachusetts from Dustin in Indiana doesn’t help things either, and seeing as how Dustin had long-since inherited the Hawkins Lab research from Owens when he retired back in the mid-2000s, that won’t be changing any time soon.

Steve is home when Dustin calls, and between counseling clients, so when the phone rings and lights up with his name, Steve picks it up with a grin.

“Hey man, what’s goin’ on!”

Nothing but silence comes through Dustin’s end for a while – such a long time that Steve checks to make sure that the call didn’t drop or his phone didn’t die or something (and neither had happened, so it’s definitely a Dustin thing).

“Dustin?” he asks, “You there?”

Silence, still.

Then –

“Steve.”

Dustin sounds…not normal, and Steve feels the grin slide off his face.

“What?”

“Steve,” he chokes, “It’s…it’s back.”

Steve feels his heart stop for a second, feels it like all the blood in his veins came to an abrupt halt for just a moment.

“The Upside Down,” Dustin continues, “It…all of…it’s back.”

He sounds like he’s underwater, or maybe Steve’s the one sinking beneath the surface, just like he’d done forty years ago when he’d taken Dustin’s place on that boat and got dragged into hell through the depths of Lover’s Lake.

Steve hangs up the phone, his hands shaking.

His knees feel shaky too, like they can’t support his weight anymore despite doing so for nearly sixty years.

They’ve been giving him problems lately – his knees. Nothing too crazy; he can still go on his runs and putter around the yard and all that. It’s just a part of aging, he supposes, and he hadn’t minded aging before – liked it, even. Liked his greying hair and the crow’s feet around his eyes and his achy knees, because there’d been a period of time many years ago when he wasn’t sure he’d make it long enough to experience that inevitability of life.

Right this second though, he hates it, hates the way it makes him realize he’s not as nimble as he used to be, the way his reaction time isn’t the same anymore, because he knows that’s what had gotten him through those horrible years back in the mid-eighties.

He lowers himself down, and as his ass hits the tile floor of the bathroom – his daughters’ bathroom, the one they’ve shared practically their whole lives, the one Moe lost her first tooth in, the one Robbie pierced her own ears in, the one Hazel will be getting ready for prom in soon – Dustin calls him again.Steve doesn’t pick up, too busy kicking himself for not considering sooner the possibility of this sooner, for not having a plan ready to execute to keep their daughters safe the way no adult had done for him.

He can feel an old instinct – the urge to gather his loved ones close – starting to kick in, his mind starting to race as he catalogs the people who make up his small corner of the world.

Hazel is easy – she’s at the high school just down the road. He can have her back home, back within arm’s reach, in a matter of minutes.

Robin and Nancy are next closest, still living in Boston after all these years. Steve would wager a guess that they’ll be hearing from Dustin soon if they haven’t already, and then they’ll probably head Steve and Eddie’s way, and then they’ll all regroup.

They’ll figure out what their next moves are.

Moe and Robbie are trickier with both of them living in New York City and likely unwilling to leave their school and their jobs and their friends without any warning whatsoever. Moe is getting more and more reasonable the older she gets, so Steve may have to start with her and hope that Robbie follows.

Moe is twenty-two now.

Moe is older than both of her dads had been when Eddie had nearly died, when Steve had carried him out of hell and made sure he didn’t. All three of their daughters – even seventeen-year-old Hazel – are older than Steve had been when he got sucked into that horrible mess, and they’re still so damn young.

With two decades of parenting under his belt, he finds it kind of unbelievable that anybody had looked at his sixteen-year-old face and seen anything but a child, nevermind actually asked him to do the things that he’d done.

Dustin calls him two more times before he gives up. Only a moment later, Steve hears Eddie’s phone ring downstairs, and then he hears Eddie’s jovial tone as he answers the call.

He goes quiet real quick after that.

Just as Steve is deciding who to call first – Hazel’s school or Moe – his phone vibrates, two quick buzzes that can only indicate a text from Robin.

He opens it.

did dustin call you?

Steve lets out a heavy breath because, fuck, it’s real.

Yeah, he texts back, then adds –

This fucking sucks

40 years

As Steve watches the bubbles of Robin’s incoming response, he can vaguely hear Eddie’s ascent of the stairs, still on the phone with Dustin.

The bubbles disappear.

“Fuck you, Dustin,” he hears Eddie snarl, “This is on you.” There’s silence for a while, and Eddie seems to pause in the hallway just in front of their bedroom door. Then, “Yeah, I’ll talk to him…I know…later, man. Love you. Be safe.”

Steve looks down at his phone to see that Robin is still typing, only for the bubbles to disappear again a second later.

Finally –

nance is going back

i’m going with her

Steve could throw up.

He almost does, he’s pretty sure, although he’s not positive because he might be having an out of body experience, or maybe he’s dissociating, or maybe it’s a fucking PTSD flashback or something. He doesn’t know.

He should know, or so his handful of psych degrees would suggest, and he probably would know if it was happening to someone else, but then again, he’s always worn blinders when it comes to himself.

That was true about him when all this shit started in 1983, and it’s still true now, almost forty years later.

Forty fucking years.

He doesn’t look up when Eddie comes into the bathroom, joining him on the floor with his back against the bathtub.

“Dustin took offense to you hanging up on him,” he says, and Steve can hear the way he’s forcing humor into his tone.

As if any of this shit is funny.

“Erica and the kids left with Claudia,” Eddie continues, answering a question Steve probably would’ve gotten around to asking Dustin himself if it weren’t for the whole hanging up on him thing, “Erica went kicking and screaming, obviously. I offered up our house, but they’re still deciding where they want to camp out. And everyone has agreed not to say a word to Jim and Joyce.��

Yeah, that makes sense, seeing as they’re both in their eighties and perpetually acting like they’re thirty years younger – at a minimum.

Not that Steve would know anything about that.

Definitely not.

“He said he’s one-hundred percent positive that it’s all still contained to Hawkins, so…” Eddie pauses, “We don’t have to, like, track down the girls or anything. Just make sure they don’t go anywhere near Indiana.”

And that, at least, is an actual relief.

“Robin’s going back,” Steve tells him, because there’s no point waiting to address that particular issue in this whole fucking mess.

The so I’m going too is implied, because that has never needed to be said when it came to Steve and Robin.

The way Eddie’s face changes evades Steve’s ability to describe. It makes him regret saying anything – that’s for fucking sure. Makes him wish he’d just snuck away in the dead of night.

“C’mon man, we’ve picked up a whole fuckin’ litter over the years,” Eddie says, and he’s still forcing humor into his tone, “You can’t leave me to fend off the masses alone – the years have made me weak-willed, I’ll surrender immediately.”

Steve manages a snort, but he still looks down at the floor all the same.

Eddie doesn’t say anything else for a while, but his hand wraps around Steve’s ankle as if there was enough brute strength in the one appendage to keep him rooted to the bathroom floor.

(Strangely enough, it feels like there might be).

“Steve,” Eddie finally says, his voice stiff and hard in a way Steve doesn’t think he’s ever heard before, “We are way too old for this shit – Robin and Nance too.”

Eddie pauses.

“Steve,” he says again, “I know how important Robin is. I know, but our children would be fucking devastated if anything happened to you. Don’t think they wouldn’t – and something would most certainly happen to you.”

“Eddie.”

He’s still avoiding his husband’s eyes.

“Steve,” he pleads, something desperate in his voice, “We talked about this. Remember? Last spring, when we watched that stupid zombie show with Hazel? And there was the episode with the old gay guys? We talked about this. You told me not to let you go if this shit came back.”

Steve makes no response. Ed lets out a heavy breath, looking to the ceiling.

They have this conversation every now and then – one of those conversations that always teeters on the edge of an argument – in which Eddie insists that Steve could be fine if their relationship ended in a way that Eddie himself would not. It’s a conversation that Steve hates, because he hates the idea that Eddie – his husband of twenty years and the love of his whole entire life – could still be thinking so low of himself, that there’s any part of him that doesn’t think Steve would be fucking wrecked by losing him.

Still, it had always been a hypothetical. It had never been real.

Suddenly, Steve feels claustrophobic sitting on the floor of his daughters’ bathroom. He gets to his feet and, as he heads for the door, Eddie scrambles up after him.

Halfway down the hall, Eddie lunges for him and catches his arm, wheeling him back around to face him.

“Steve,” Eddie says one more time.

Then, because he apparently has no words ready to follow with, he stops.

“Steve,” Eddie starts again, “Please. You’re everything. I love the girls and I love our life, but Christ, Steve, you’re my entire world. You changed everything for me. You showed me how life could be worth living, and you keep showing me, and I’m not ready to let go of you yet – not even fucking close. Please don’t let this be the way we leave each other.”

Steve finally lets himself look at Eddie’s face, the face he’d fallen in love with decades ago, the face he’s still in love with decades later. He looks at his big eyes and the hint of grey at his hairline and his crows feet and the scarring that creeps up his neck from underneath the collar of his shirt (it’s a shirt he’s had for ages – since before even Moe was born by the looks of it, but so is the rest of his half of their closet).

And he finds himself nodding.

Eddie’s exhale is all desperate relief as he tugs Steve into his arms and wraps them around his shoulders. Steve immediately reciprocates the hug, pulling him in even closer, surprised to feel tears pin-pricking his eyes

“I love you so much, Steve,” Eddie tells him, gripping the back of his t-shirt so tight he feels the collar pulling taut against his throat, “I don’t say that to you enough.”

“You say it all the time,” Steve replies with a wet laugh.

“Not enough,” he shakes his head, and Steve decides there’s no point in arguing.

A minute goes by.

“Fuck,” Steve half-laughs, half-chokes as he lifts his head to meet Eddie’s eyes, “This fucking sucks.”

“I know,” he says.

Again, he reels Steve in, and again, Steve lets him, holding onto his husband like a lifeline, like they’re standing somewhere far more perilous than the carpeted floor of their upstairs hallway.

“I know,” Eddie repeats, “And we’ll…we’ll talk about it but for now, just – can I just hold you for a bit, okay?”

Steve nods again.

“Okay.”

read the extended version on AO3 (i.e. feat. added “flashbacks” so it fits the formatting of the rest of the series)

#eddie calls robbie and moe and tells them to come home – not because they actually need to but because ed knows steve needs them home #i slipped in some sneaky dustin/erica how do we feel about that here on tumblr.com?#steddie #liv’s steddie dads verse #steddie dads #steve harrington #eddie munson

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supercap2319 · 1 year

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Y/N rubbed his horse’s face in comfort, trying not to attract attention to himself from the other past winners of the Hunger Games. It doesn’t work so well. “Y/N.” The young man turned his head and was met with Finnick Odair’s sea green eyes. They’re possibly the greenest eyes that Y/N has ever seen. Greener than grass or the leaves in the trees. “Hello, Finnick. Or is it Mr. Odair?”

He chuckles and gets closer to him, tossing a sugar cube from his left hand and into his right. “Do you want a sugar cube?” He has his hand sticking out in offering, but Y/N doesn’t take it. It’s then that he notices that Finnick’s outfit left little to the imagination. “I mean it’s supposed to be for the horses, but I mean who cares about them, right? They got years to eat sugar, whereas you and I… Well, if we see something sweet, we better grab it quickly.” He licks it in a slow manner and tries to pretend like he’s not seducing Y/N with sugar.

Finnick Odair was as close to a living legend as you could get. He won the sixty-fifth Hungers Games when he was only fourteen years old. That already put him at a higher advantage than Y/N. His beauty was also the key to his success. Tall, athletic, with bronze skin and golden hair, Finnick Odair was a force to be reckoned with, despite his flirting attitude. He won the games with a silver trident that was given to him by sponsors. In a matter of days, the crown was his and the whole Capitol was drooling over him and his success.

Whatever the case, Y/N wasn’t going to allow Finnick to charm him like he had everyone else in his life. He was beautiful. Stunning. And if Y/N would admit it out aloud; he might even have fallen for him as well. But it doesn’t change the fact that he was the enemy and wouldn’t hesitate to kill or hurt Y/N the second he got the chance.

Y/N shook his head. “No, thanks. But I would love to borrow that outfit someday.” He looks down at Finnick’s outfit. If you could call it that. He was draped in a golden net that was knotted at his groin so he couldn’t technically be called naked, but he was as close to it as you could get. With a pretty ocean blue necklace and a shark’s tooth that hung for a cord. Finnick smiles and looks him up and down. “You look pretty terrifying in that getup. What happened to the handsome little boy suits?” He licks his lips, which probably drives most people crazy.

“I outgrew them.”

“You certainly did.” Finnick agrees. He steps closer and runs a hand over Y/N’s outfit. “Shame about this Quell thing. Now, you… you could have made out like a bandit in the Capitol. Jewels, money, anything you wanted.”

“Well, I don’t like jewels. Though, I wouldn’t mind a necklace as pretty as that one you’re wearing. And I have more money than I need, so… what did you do with all your wealth anyway?”

“I haven’t dealt in anything as common as money for years.” Finnick tells him.

“Well, then how do people pay for the pleasure of your company?” Y/N asked him.

“With secrets.” He told him softly. His lips were so close to Y/N’s, that could kiss him if he wanted. And he did. As shameful as that was to admit. “What about you, boy on fire? Any secrets worth my time?” His voice was smooth and husky and Y/N was sure this was how Finnick entrapped all those men and women into his bed. Y/N blushed, but tried to hold his ground.

“None that you would be interested in. Besides, everyone seems to know my secrets before I know them myself.”

“Unfortunately, I think that’s true.” He smiled sadly as he looked to his side."Though, Peeta and Katniss are coming.” He pops another sugar cube in his mouth and smiles charmingly. "Have a good day, Y/N. I’ll definitely be… catching you later.” He winks and saunters off, but not before he bends down to pick up an imaginary object that he dropped and shows off his muscle toned ass in his net outfit. All other Tributes look on in awe. Y/N looks away with a blushing face.

#x male reader #male reader insert #male x male #hunger games #hunger games finnick #finnick odair #finnick odair x you #finnick Odair x male reader #sam claflin #sam claflin x male reader

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ocean-ai · 6 months

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Day 1 - Hongjoong

Pairings: Incubus! Hongjoong X Witch! Reader

Genre: SMUT

Word Count: 2,829

Warnings: Sixty-Nine, Oral (Male and female receiving)

Spicy

You woke up in your room, breath heavy as you composed yourself and sipped water. You weren’t sure what you were dreaming about, but it definitely was not pleasant. You tended to have very vivid dreams, but this one you couldn’t remember. You sighed as you laid back down, feeling a wave of tired take over your body. Shaking yourself of your dream, you drifted off to sleep.

It hadn’t been long before you fell back asleep that you felt a presence in your room. You felt yourself wake up, but you also didn’t feel fully awake. Not thinking much of it, you stayed in bed, taking in the cool air coming from your window. Wait, your window? You could’ve sworn it was closed when you went to bed. Maybe you imagined closing it. You sat up to go close the window and that’s when you saw him, standing by your bed and watching you as you slept.

“What the fuck? Who the hell are you?” You screamed, backing away from the man in your room. “Get out!”

He chuckled as he watched you. “I'm not here to hurt you. Remember when you messed around and did some spells with your friend to summon an incubus because you were lonely? Well, here I am.” His handsome face had amusement written all over it and your body tensed. Shit. This was who you summoned? You didn’t realize your little spell had worked.

“Are you the incubus we called on?” You still weren’t fully sure of your powers, so your friend who was also a witch helped you along.

“Yes, my name is Hongjoong. I knew your friend from before since a friend of mine used to visit her. I was set to visit someone else but, you’re more my type.” He winked, flashing you a smile that made you shiver. His eyes were red and had slits similar to a cat’s eye.

Even though it was dark, you could tell he was very handsome; he had brown curly hair, his features were feminine yet masculine, and a nice body from what you could tell. He was a bit taller than you, too. He was wearing black pants that hung lowly on his hips and a black button up that was unbuttoned at the top.

“One at a time? You don’t visit multiple people in their dreams?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “One supernatural person at a time. We can go through humans easily. But witches? We like to stay with them; even if they don’t always want us.”

You nodded. “What made you agree to visit me? I'm not a very strong witch, you know.”

“Like I said, you're my type. I’m going to have fun with you.” He walked toward your bed, sitting on the edge. His eyes never left you as you watched him. It almost looked like he was floating rather than walking. You had to admit, you got lucky with this one.

“Can I ask you something?” You said, your curiosity getting the better of you.

“Of course,” he smiled at you again, getting a bit closer to you. You were sitting on the other side of your bed, your back against the headrest.

“Did you disguise yourself to what I would like? I heard that your kind can change forms according to their partner.” He was like a walking fantasy for you. He was exactly what you would want in a man.

“A little bit. My body is mine, I just changed part of my appearance to your liking.” His body language had changed, he seemed more open to you. “I know what you like based on your summoning.” He stated, as if that were the most obvious thing.

You nodded, listening to what he just told you. You wanted to be afraid, but you also had to remind yourself that you summoned him and it’s a little late to back out now. He was here, you may as well take advantage. “What are you going to do to me?” You questioned, wondering how far you could go with him.

His smile went from soft to wicked in an instant. “Anything you want me to do, sweetheart. You called upon me and it is my job to satisfy your needs.” He kept his distance from you, but he was still very close. In a weird way, you felt very comfortable around him. “Are you scared?” He asked, voice changing slightly as to not spook you.

You shrugged. “No. Are you going to leave when we’re done?” You had heard stories from other people of their Incubus’ leaving when they were finished with them. Some survived, some didn’t.

He moved to sit next to you and you could feel his body heat on yours. “Since I was summoned, I’ll come back to you whenever you want me. The only way you could get rid of me is if you were to banish me. My kind likes to stay around witches; you’re fun.” He winked. You felt yourself want to give in to him, and that you did. He was just so handsome, how could you resist? Sure, you summoned him, but he was still giving himself up to you. “Tell me, Y/N. What would you like to do? Or would you rather show me?”

You smiled at the demon in your bed, closing the gap between you two as you quickly moved to straddle his waist. His eyes began to glow red as you leaned down to kiss his plump lips. His hands were instantly on your waist, keeping you in place as your lips danced against each other’s. The way he kissed you was unlike any way a mortal man had kissed you. He kissed you as if his life depended on it and you gave it right back to him.

You soon felt one of his hands move up under your shirt and tease your nipple. Since you were in bed, you weren’t wearing a bra. You felt Hongjoong smirk against your kiss before he moved his lips down to your neck, where he sucked lightly and left a hickey on your skin. You wanted to be upset, but you could care less with how delicious his lips felt.

You began to rock your hips against his, creating a friction between the two of you. You felt his cock get hard underneath you, so you began to move a bit faster, stimulating your clit and soaking your panties in the process. He moved his hips in time with yours and you moaned at the feeling. “Does that feel good?” He murmured against your neck before he repositioned you so that you were now underneath him.

He leaned up on his knees and began to unbutton his shirt, exposing his skin under the moonlight coming through your window. It was almost as if he were glowing. For all you know, he could’ve been. But you were too turned on to even consider other visual aspects of a demon as beautiful as him. You wanted nothing more than for him to touch you again, you were worried he wouldn’t if you moved too quickly. So you settled on removing your shirt, leaving your chest now exposed to him.

Hongjoong smirked at you, taking in your body before his eyes settled on your breasts. He was now above you, kissing along your neck and chest. You giggled and moaned at how faint his lips felt on your skin. You felt his tongue circle one of your nipples and your back arched from the feeling. He soon wrapped his lips around your nipple, suckling lightly but hard enough to tug. He switched to your other nipple, giving it the same treatment. He left no inch untouched.

Your hands were in his hair, curling between his locks and pulling slightly. “That’s what you’re into?” He joked. You felt your cheeks get hot at his comment, not realizing you pulled his hair absentmindedly. He chuckled before going back up to kiss your lips. You placed your hands on the nape of his neck, holding him close.

His hand that was on your hip had now moved and was teasing you through your panties. Your hips rocked into his hand, making him smirk again before moving your panties aside and dragging his fingers along your slit. “Fuck,” you moaned out, wanting nothing more than for him to continue touching you.

“So wet for me, darling.” He said softly in your ear, making you shiver at his low tone. You moaned when he slid his finger inside you, going as deep as it could. He moved it slowly to tease you, making sure that he could prolong your pleasure. Though, he had something in mind for you two. With your permission, of course. He may be a demon, but he had rules he had to follow. He didn’t want you to think that he was bad just because he was an Incubus.

He soon added a second finger, stretching you out just how you liked it. Even though this was your first time together, he knew what you liked. Since you summoned him, he knew a thing or two about you. You wanted to ask how he knew, but you figured it was because of what he was. You knew that an Incubus could know all about their partners if they wanted to. Hongjoong definitely wanted to know everything about you. That is why it took a few days for him to show up in front of you - he studied you before coming to visit you.

You held him close, kissing on his neck and jaw. You just wanted to feel every part of him and you never wanted him to leave you. You knew he wouldn’t, but you still wanted him as close as possible in this moment. He was exactly what you needed.

Your moans became louder as he continued to work his fingers inside you, teasing your inner walls and brushing against that sweet spot that drives you crazy. “Hongjoong!” You said loudly as he kept up his movements.

“That’s it, pretty girl, say my name,” He said, knowing just how good he was making you feel. You could feel yourself getting close to your orgasm; your body writhing underneath him. Hongjoong raised himself off you once again to take in how you looked. A devilish smile plastered on his beautiful face as he got you off with just his fingers. Your orgasm ripped through you and you could barely make a sound. He made you feel a little too good. He removed his fingers from your core and placed them in his mouth, licking them clean of your juices. He moaned, “You’re delicious; I want more.”

You looked into his glowing red eyes and you knew you had to prepare yourself to whatever he had planned for you. Your eyes had also wondered as he fully began to remove his clothes. Even though it was dark, you were still able to see the bulge in his pants; his was dick strained against the fabric and all you wanted to do was relieve him. You reached your hand out to unbutton his pants, and he looked down at you, thinking about what he wanted to do next.

Once his pants were down, you had a full view of his cock. You practically drooled at the sight, just wanting it in your mouth and down your throat. You looked into his eyes before you leaned in and gave his tip a little flick with your tongue. He hissed at the contact, but he didn’t let you continue what you were doing. Instead, he pushed you down onto your back, confusing you. “What the hell?” You questioned.

“I have an idea, Y/N. Why don’t we both please each other?” He raised a brow at you and you wanted to know exactly what he meant by that.

You giggled. “Isn’t that what we would be doing anyway?”

He shook his head and stayed silent as he removed your shorts and the rest of his clothes. Now that you were both naked, Hongjoong had positioned you on top of him before you could even register what had happened. Due to your new position, his cock was in your face, ready to be taken care of by you. You’d never been in this position before, and your body surged with excitement. Especially, since you were doing this with a demon.

Hongjoong smirked before he slowly moved his tongue along your core, making you moan out from the new pleasure. The way he slithered his tongue against you had your eyes rolling back. He felt so good to you, but you quickly remembered that he needed to receive pleasure too. His beautiful cock was just begging for you to touch it, the tip red and dripping with precum. You licked his shaft before wrapping your lips around his tip. “Fuck,” you heard him moan, your ears perking up at the sound.

You bobbed your head slowly as to prolong his pleasure. You wanted him to feel as good as he made you feel. His tongue was soon inside you, swirling around and going as deep as it could. Your hips began to move, but Hongjoong held you down to keep you still. You tried your best to not move as much, but it was hard considering the way he tongue moved.

You focused on his cock, wrapping your hand around what didn’t fit in your mouth and stroking him in time with your licks. His own hips bucked slightly when you took him further in, almost touching the back of your throat. You pulled away and smirked before doing tour best to deep throat him. His tip had teased the back of your throat, making you gag around him. The tightness causing him to moan against your center, causing the vribration to go through your whole body.

Hongjoong’s had moved and wrapped his lips around your clit, teasing and sucking. One of his hands was no longer on you, but instead, he slid two fingers inside you easily. You pulled your mouth off his dick to moan out loud, feeling full from his fingers and overly satisfied from his tongue. You knew that being intimate with an Incubus would be fun, but you never imagined that it would surpass any expectation you had. You wanted to be with him as long as you possibly could.

Hongjoong’s fingers teased your inner walls, finding that spot once gain that he found earlier. Hongjoong was toying with your body and you loved every touch, caress and flick of his tongue. You moaned around his cock, making it twitch in your mouth. You felt proud of yourself that you could please a demon like Hongjoong - you never thought that it would be possible.

You once again attempted to deep throat him, taking him as far into your mouth as you possibly could, making Hongjoong’s hips buck into you. You gagged again and pulled away, his dick now messy with your saliva and his precum. You could tell by the way he was breathing that he was going to cum at any minute. Determined to make him cum, you strocked his cock a bit faster while focusing on his head. You licked the underside of his shaft, and you felt him pull away from you to let out one of the loudest and hottest moans you’d heard in your entire life. You kept up your movements and before you knew it, his hipes jerked as he came. You caught some of it, but it mostly landed on part of your face and dripped down onto his thigh.

Hongjoong went back to your core, fingers moving faster in you as they continuously teased your spot. The combination of his tongue lapping at your clit and the way his fingers moved inside you was making you closer and closer to your high. He was quick with his movements, knowing you liked it a bit on the faster side, and he felt you clench around his fingers. “Come on pretty girl, I know you want to cum,” His filthy word went straight to your pussy and you screamed as you came around his fingers and tongue.

Your orgasm rocked though your entire body and you almost felt yourself go limp on top of him. “Fuck!” you yelped as your body twitched from the aftershocks. Hongjoong had removed his fingers, but he still gave your clit some attention. He helped you work through your orgasm and when he felt that you’d had enough, he moved so that he could lay next to you.

You turned to the beautiful man next to you, taking in what had just happened. His red eyes were still glowing, which you knew meant that he wasn’t finished with you. Good, you weren’t finished with him, either.

#Hongjoong x Reader #Hongjoong smut #ATEEZ Smut #Kim Hongjoong #smutmas #this was fun #i like writing supernatural stuff #kpop fanfic #kpop smut

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thesixenthusiast · 1 year

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ruby – eddie roundtree

part one (part two, part three, part four)

pairing: eddie rountree x fem!oc (may change to x reader) warnings: drinking/drugs (billy/daisy's addictions) word count: 1.6k author's note: please bear with me in this, if there's a few time mix ups just with the order of things, please do let me know but i'm trying to find an equal balance between the book and show and it's a little difficult lol

On October 4, 1977, Daisy Jones & The Six performed to a sold out crowd at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. They were one of the biggest bands in the world at the time, fresh off their award-winning, multi-platinum selling album “Aurora.” It would be their final performance.

In the 20 years since, members of the band and their inner circle have refused to speak on the record about what happened… Until now.

–

THE RISE OF THE SIX (1966-1972)

The Six started out as a blues-rock band called the Dunne Brothers in the mid-sixties out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Billy and Graham Dunne were raised by single mother, Marlene Dunne, after their father, William Dunne Sr., left in 1954.

BILLY DUNNE (lead singer, The Six): I always dreamed of something different than the typical laid out career paths. When Graham first got the idea to start a band, I assumed it was just to win back his girlfriend. He was, what fourteen? The kid thought his life was over. [Laughs] I guess in retrospect, maybe it was a good idea.

WARREN ROJAS (drummer, The Six): He was definitely trying to get his girlfriend back.

GRAHAM DUNNE (lead guitar, The Six): We were solid, fine for a while. When Chuck quit, we were out a bassist, which isn’t really something you can do without in a band. Billy originally wanted Eddie to switch to bass, but he wasn’t too keen on that.

EDDIE ROUNDTREE (rhythmic guitar, The Six): I was so sick of Billy trying to run the band, it wasn’t his band, or at least, it wasn’t supposed to be.

WARREN ROJAS: There was this girl in my math class, her uncle owned a music store downtown, and she used to give lessons to kids on weekends, it was mostly just some scheme by her uncle to get people to buy guitars.

BILLY DUNNE: She was a sophomore, a young sophomore at that, she wasn’t even 16 by the time she joined, I was a year out of high school and the rest of the boys are creeping on 17 and 18, she just didn’t fit. Warren gets all the boys on board before bringing the idea up to me so I look like the asshole if I say no, I wanted to say no too, but she was good and I didn’t have another option.

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: She didn’t even show an interest in being in the band, she wasn’t begging us to give her a chance, we were near-stalking her at the music store, waiting for the perfect opportunity to hear her play and casually bring up that we happened to need a bassist.

JULIET OPAL (bassist/singer, The Six): They weren’t nearly as sly as they thought they were. I originally thought it was some attempt at stealing records or 8-tracks, y’know waiting until I wasn’t looking, but they kept coming back, seemingly just waiting for me to do something, what it was I didn’t know, but something.

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: [Sighs] They decided I would be the one to talk to her.

The shop’s bell rang, signaling the door had been opened, which swung Juliet’s attention away from the magazine she was skimming and up to the front of the store, peering through the aisles to see who entered. A boy, one she recognized from the creeping on her from the previous weeks, made himself visible and she was immediately on high alert. He approached the counter, swallowing nerves as he did, and cleared his throat.

“Hi,” his voice was hoarse, she took the awkward silence as a moment to study him, he wore a striped shirt, loose jeans, and brown shoes, his hair could use a comb through. He extended his hand, “I’m Eddie, I think we go to school together.”

“Juliet,” she met his hand, “is that why you’re here, to tell me that we might go to school together? Or is there an ulterior motive, one that may explain why you and your friends have been spying on me the past week,” any speck of confidence Eddie had going into this was entirely gone.

“I’m in a band with some friends and our bassist bailed on us pretty recently. My friend, Warren, he’s a junior like me, I think he’s in your math class, said he saw you play bass and that you were good. We just wanted to see you play before we formally asked.”

“Formally asked what?” She leaned up from her elbows that she had been propped on.

“Oh, to, uh, like,” he stopped himself, licking his lips and sighing, “would you want to maybe play bass for us?” His eyes instantly went to his shoes and he stuffed his hands inside his pockets.

“Can I have a little more info maybe? It’s not personal, I just don’t know you, like at all and you could be the worst players for all I know.”

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: That one hurt, something about a younger kid who you have a solid five inches on insinuating that she’s better than you are, especially when you’re practically on your knees begging for her to help you out can feel like salt being rubbed into a fresh wound.

JULIET OPAL: What else was I supposed to do? [Laughs] Just blindly follow the older boy who had been spying on me for a week to the alleged garage that he practices in with his alleged band and hope for the best? I paid attention in the stranger-danger assemblies, I knew better.

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: I invited her back to Billy and Graham’s but she said she had to close up for her uncle. Once we were out in L.A. she told me she actually just didn’t wanna leave with me and in hindsight, I can’t say I blame her.

The following morning Juliet and the Dunne Brothers skipped their first period and met in the Dunne’s garage. Juliet studied the wads of scribbled sheet music Billy had handed to her without looking her in the eye and she didn’t miss the way Eddie rolled his eyes at his hostility, and Eddie didn’t miss the way her upper lip curled into a smile as she saw his reaction.

After rifling through the stack of papers, she picked out one at random, and set it down on the table in front of her, leaning over to scan in a few times before pulling the strap of her guitar over her head. She looked over to the group of boys, standing huddled together with Billy noticeably further away and Warren nodded fervently at her with a grin overtaking her face.

After she played through the song, Billy made her play another, and another, and two more after that ‘for safety.’ Once he had run out of excuses for her to keep playing, he asked her to step out of the garage so they could confer with each other. After seven minutes and two overheard “c’mon man”s from Warren, Juliet was invited back into the garage and to serve as a temporary bass for the band, just until Billy could come to his final decision.

JULIET OPAL: He was stubborn even then, I’m honestly surprised he let me in.

BILLY DUNNE: I didn’t want to let her in the band.

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: I wanted her in the band, I made sure Billy knew that.

JULIET OPAL: A week after I joined, we were playing a gig with the Winters.

The group stood backstage, listening to the music that was permeating into every corner of the room. Juliet stood sandwiched between Warren and Camila, listening to the band. They had a keyboardist, she caught Juliet’s eye once they had got backstage, when they finished playing and she got offstage, Juliet made a beeline for her, introducing herself.

“I’m Karen,” she introduced herself, “you play with these guys?”

“Mhm, I’m on bass right now, but in an ideal world I’d steal Eddie over there’s job,” she pointed to him and he smiled back, nodding his head up at her, unknowingly, “I won’t though, kinda like him, at least more than I do Billy,” Karen nodded, opening her mouth to excuse herself from the conversation, “y’know I’ve been saying we need a keyboardist.”

“Have you now?” That piqued her interest she stopped in her tracks and smirked over her shoulder.

“No,” she admitted, “but I’ve been thinking it.” Billy hollered her name, gesturing her over to the group, who were making their way onstage. She pulled a receipt with a phone number scribbled across it in black ink and handed it to Karen, “If you ever get sick of them, give me a call, I’ll put in a good word for you.”

“Do you always carry around drug store receipts with your phone number on them?”

“You never know who you might meet,” she shrugged and started sprinting towards the stage before calling out over her shoulder, “worked out this time. Wish me luck!”

KAREN SIRKO (keyboardist, The Six): She was so.. vivacious, so full of life. She apoke about a million miles a minute, if I wasn’t fully interested in what she was saying, I don’t think I would’ve caught a word of it. You have this young girl talking your ear off, she seems entirely sure of herself, but also still feels a need to prove to you that she deserves to be there.

JULIET OPAL: I liked Karen, how could I not? And based on the way events would play out, clearly I wasn’t the only one.

WARREN ROJAS: It was a great gig, Julie did great, not that we weren’t expecting her to, we were just worried about her, she had never done anything in front of a crowd before, but she did everything that actually counted right.

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: On the drive home she sat next to me and she told me I played well, then she leaned in and kinda whispered and she thanked me. She thanked me for being the one to ask her to join because she would’ve said no to anyone else. [Smiles]

#eddie roundtree #eddie roundtree fanfiction #eddie roundtree x reader #eddie loving #eddie loving x reader #daisy jones and the six #daisy jones fanfic #daisy jones and the six fanfiction #daisy jones and the six fanfic #daisy jones x reader #warren rhodes #warren rojas x reader #warren rhodes x reader #graham dunne #billy dunne #camila dunne #eddie roundtree x oc #daisy jones #eddie roundtree smut

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maccreadysbaby · 7 months

Text

A Hundred Days to Become a Wayne

batfamily + oc insert

tw: sickness, vague emeto, delirium, all that fun stuff

wanna start from chapter one or read more? here’s the table of contents!

OH MY GOD WERE GETTING SO CLOSE YOU GUYS, THREE MORE CHAPTERS AHAJEMDN

part twenty-three

❝ BAD TIMING ❞

FRIDAY — 12:02AM — DAY 97

AFTER HIS MELTDOWN AT THE STORE, BENTLEY DECIDED HE NEEDED TO DO SOMETHING, AND FAST. Days had been passing like lightning, and he was growing anxious. The type of anxious that made his stomach hurt. He skipped dinner on day ninety-six by saying he was tired, and went off to his room to make a plan. Patrol had gone back to normal, which meant he had from about midnight to three to properly brood about it.

But the plan never came. He stared at his ceiling for hours and he kept landing on nothing. If he told them, the Waynes might hate him. If he did it, the Waynes would definitely hate him. If he failed, they’d still find out he was a double agent and probably hate him. And as much as he didn’t want to admit it, thinking about that hurt.

Jason came to the Manor on purpose during bad weather so he could be there for him. Dick had been the one to pull him off the street and take him home. Damian trusted him enough to sleep beside him when he was sick, and take him to an art show. Heck, Tim stayed by his side through an entire anxiety attack. Bruce stayed with him through the night after a bad dream. Was he really willing to leave all of that behind? All of the care the Waynes showed him, the lengths they’d gone for him? He’d been given a room, a wardrobe, a stocking, food, and a semblance of family life. All because they cared enough to do it. All for a kid they hardly knew.

Bentley ended up just going to bed, because all the thinking was giving him a headache. He’d make a plan tomorrow, he told himself, a real one.

And then, four hours later, only two hours into day ninety-seven, he woke up. The dim bathroom light and clock that read 2:11am were his only sources of vision.

And he was so hot.

He kicked his blankets off in a feeble attempt at warding off the heat, but it seemed to be coming from inside of him. His stomach was doing flips and he suddenly regretted not eating dinner, even though he’d gone much longer than this without food and it never got all flippy like that. Although he supposed it was probably his intense anxiety making it angry. He also assumed anxiety was the reason his head was throbbing.

He wished he could just make up his mind. No way seemed right, and any direction he chose, he lost. He never got the happy ending.

And he wouldn’t even be having a happy sleep, because apparently Bruce had turned the thermostat from sixty-nine up to the sun. He was too tired to get out of bed, but he spread out on his sheets like a starfish and took off his socks to try and cool down. It didn’t work.

That’s about when he realized he’d been pouring sweat. His pajamas and hair were soaked, and if he cared, he might’ve even changed into different pjs. Some shorts, maybe.

But it didn’t matter. Not much mattered anymore, did it? Not when he was just going to end up losing.

He laid all starfish-ed on his bed for a while until his stomach changed from uncomfortable territory to swallowed an electric eel territory.

He wondered how hard karma was laughing as he curled in a ball on his mattress with a small grumble of discomfort. His skin was burning. His eyes were burning. His brain was burning. His insides felt like they were full of churning lava and when he sat up, the walls swirled and teetered around him, so he laid back down.

Was this really what was going to happen on one of his last days in the manor? Really? Just when he was about to make some kind of decision?

He faded in and out of sleep for a while, and each time he re-emerged, his brain felt more and more foggy. Like it was stuffed with cotton. Each time he was ripped from the depths of slumber, his muscles were more achy, the eel in his stomach was practicing more vigorously for a circus, and any type of movement got difficult and slow like he was underwater. And he kept getting hotter.

He only found the willpower to get up and move when the eel promptly decided it wanted out.

Bentley’s bare feet padded across the hardwood and into the tiled bathroom, his eyes bleary from attempted sleep, and he didn’t even have time to as much as glance at his own reflection before he threw up in the sink. Once, twice, three times.

By the time his body decided it was done revolting against him (for now), he had hot reflex tears streaming down his face and a terrible smelling bathroom. He couldn’t think much between the cotton in his brain and the eel in his stomach, but with the one little coherent part of his brain he managed to grab ahold of, he determined that he wanted Dick. He wanted Dick so bad.

But Nightwing was on patrol, that stupid part of his brain said, and Duke was home but he had SATs this week. Bentley couldn’t get him sick and make him miss them. He’d been studying forever.

You’re more important than all of that stuff, Bentley, Tim’s voice echoed in his head.

But would he be more important than all of that when they realized he was a traitor?

So the ten-year-old sat down against the bathroom sink, tear-streaks and all, and wrapped his arms around his screaming body. Maybe he deserved this for thinking about betraying the Waynes. Or maybe he deserved it for disobeying his father. Or both.

The hours drug on like they were crawling through molasses, and Bentley threw up until there was nothing left. By the time his stomach was void, the sun was peeking into his bedroom, and he was reduced to nothing more than a pitiful little heap on the bath-mat.

Now he was cold. Really cold, but too tired to get up. He felt like his arms and legs were tied to cinder blocks. His throat was completely raw and all he could really do was shiver there, and curl up tighter.

He heard Damian’s door close.

Then heard his door open a little, and a cat meowed.

And after a couple seconds, his door opened further.

“Bentley?”

It was Damian.

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out but a weird rasp. Thankfully, Damian was observant enough to glance in the bathroom.

He was in his school uniform, but he looked more like Robin somehow. Or maybe it was just Bentley’s fever talking. He heard Damian mutter something not in English — what did he speak, Aramaic? No, wait… it was Arabic. Right? It started with an A, Bentley knew that. Why couldn’t he think straight?

He felt little hands scouring him, checking his back, his torso. He didn’t even find it in himself to do anything but curl up more when Damian pressed lightly on his stomach. He did manage to whine lowly when his ice cold hand (seriously, did he put it in a blast chillier?) landed on his forehead. There was a tt.

“I’m afraid this is my fault, although I assumed enough time had passed that you would not fall ill,” Damian stated, and Bentley vaguely saw him pull out his phone. He was crouching now, in front of him. He really looked like Robin. “I will message my father. I apologize that you contracted my illness, but… I did appreciate the company.”

If Bentley had it in him to respond, he didn’t know it.

“He will come upstairs post-haste,” Damian stated. His hand hadn’t left Bentley’s head, but it was okay, he liked it there. “I am sorry.”

Bentley hummed in response, and the comfort of having at least one Wayne within touching distance was enough to lull him into a deeper sleep than he’d gotten all night.

—

When he woke up enough to look around, it was dark outside again, and the lights were dim but harsh enough to make him close his eyes.

He was laying on his bed in what felt like different pajamas. The sterile smell of cleaner wafted from his bathroom, and something cold and terrible was resting on his forehead.

He felt like he’d been run over by a train and scraped off the ground. His stomach still hurt despite being so utterly empty it was probably disintegrating, and his head only felt weirder, floaty. His arms and legs felt like they were tied down. He turned his head to the side just enough to make the cold thing flop off onto the sheets.

“Hey, kiddo. You awake?”

Bentley squirmed in protest, and a small whine fell past his lips when the cold and terrible thing was returned to his head.

“I know, I’m sorry. You have a fever. One-oh-three point two.”

He couldn’t even comprehend the words he was hearing, but he did manage to peel his eyes open. A pair of familiar, ocean-ey blue eyes were staring back at him. He knew whose eyes those were, but he couldn’t think of their name. He whispered the first one that came to mind.

“Nightwing?”

The blue-eyed man frowned. “No, kiddo, it’s Dick.”

Bentley nearly said ‘same thing,’ but apparently he still had some kind of filter online that kept it from slipping out.

“Don’t feel good,” Is what he mumbled instead. Nightwing ran his hand through the kid’s hair, and he leaned into it like some kind of feverish cat.

“I know you don’t. You’re going to be all better soon, I promise,”

About half of him believed that.

His brain kicked on just enough for him to realize it was dark, which meant another day had been wasted, and he only felt worse, which meant he’d probably waste another day, too. What was he supposed to do?

For right now, he started crying.

It wasn’t very hard. Thanks to the fever, he’d have been crying at the drop of a hat anyhow. He always got emotional when he had a fever. He remembered countless hours spent crying in the downstairs bathroom of Whittaker Estate when he was sick.

“It’s okay, kiddo. I’m right here,” Nightwing’s voice came, and the hand kept moving through Bentley’s disgustingly sweaty hair.

He wanted so badly to tell him everything right then. To tell him about his father, about the plan, about how it was day ninety-something and his father would be coming to extract him or whatever soon, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t stop crying enough to talk about it. He couldn’t make his thoughts coherent enough, he knew he wouldn’t make any sense.

Instead of his entire life’s story tumbling from his lips, what really came out between gaspy, body-shaking sobs was a desperate: “Please don’t hate me.”

He thought he heard Nightwing take a deep breath — he didn’t know, between his foggy brain and crying he wasn’t hearing much of anything right.

He didn’t even open his eyes when the mattress dipped next to him and he was pulled into somebody’s arms. Somebody’s arms that were so warm, and he was so cold, somebody’s arms that were so comforting, and he felt so terrible-

There was still a hand moving through his hair, and he was against someone’s shirt. “I would never hate you. None of us would ever hate you.”

Maybe if they learned he was a traitor, they would.

He said nothing, but grabbed onto whatever was closest, and he wasn’t sure if it was a blanket or a shirt that was balled up in his fists. He didn’t open his eyes. He just laid there (sat there? He couldn’t tell if he was sitting up or not.) and cried about all the things he hadn’t cried about yet until his weak body had had enough, and he faded back into blackness.

—

He woke up in the closet.

Wait, no, someone was touching him. He opened his eyes and saw his nice bedroom at Wayne Manor but it suddenly looked a lot like his bedroom at home. He felt like he was on fire and someone kept touching him. He saw the white door at the end of the hall.

“Don’t take me in there,” He murmured to his father, who was touching him, who was right next to him. “Don’t… Don’t put me in there. It’s scary.”

“You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying right here,”

The voice was distant, like someone on a microphone a football field away. It sounded like it was floating. That was his father’s voice, wasn’t it? What was he saying? The white door was still there.

“Don’t… don’t… please, don’t. Please… please don’t put me in there. It’s dark. Please,”

“No one is putting you anywhere, Bentley. You’re in your bed, at the Manor,”

Was the closet door talking? Was Nightwing locked in the closet?

“I’ll be good. I’ll be good, I promise… I promise. Please don’t close the door,”

“God, Dick, he’s delirious,”

“He threw up the last two times Bruce and I tried to give him medicine,”

“What’s his fever?”

“Edging on one-oh-four,”

Bentley started squirming, trying to get away from his father, away from the door.

“N-no! Please don’t close the door, please don’t close the door!”

“Bentley. Bentley, hey, it’s okay. You’re not locked anywhere. Look at me,”

He didn’t look, he only looked at the white door.

“Don’t close the door… don’t close the door… don’t put me in there,”

“Go open the door, Jay,”

Some big black blob opened the closet door.

“The door is open,” The floating voice came. “The door is open. No one’s putting you anywhere.”

His father had opened the door for him? His father wasn’t going to lock him in there anymore? His father was stroking his hair?

He settled back down in the bed as he watched the black blob drift away.

“M’ love you,”

There was a pause, a quiet beat, the closet door stayed open.

“I love you, too, kiddo,”

Bentley floated away on a fluffy cloud of something happy, knowing that his father loved him.

—

dedicated to @sassenashsworld💛

—

tag list!

@fleur-alise @cademygod @sarcopterygiian

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atsadi-shenanigans · 3 months

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Feeding Alligators 38 - Gatekeep

Bite Night 2: Astarion is trying his best but you have the romantic awareness of a potato.

On AO3.

Y’all do not find the demon woman by the time evening rolls around. Wyll curses as the crickets chirp into twilight; stares out at the forest as y’all set up camp. You leave him be—comforting others ain’t your strong suite (you mostly just stand there all awkward because shows are liars and actually saying “there there” pisses people off more than it helps).

Shadowheart swings by to run her jesus hands over you again.

“You still feel stable,” she says.

You nod. Pause a moment, considering. Then, “You’re a cleric, yeah? Like, tied to a god or something?”

Her expression doesn’t budge from the cool neutrality she usually wears. “That’s what clerics are, yes. Why?”

You don’t know what you’re talking about. This world and its customs are fucking foreign as hell. Still. Something shivers in the back of your brain (not the worm this time, which seems to be dozing).

“Paladins are kinda the same? That one back there mentioned Tyr.”

She almost rolls her eyes. “The Lord of Justice. Paladins are sworn to their gods or goddesses. But they’re strictly fighters.”

Shadowheart carries a mace and seems real cozy bashing in skulls with it. You got an idea what that makes a cleric, but you also realize you don’t know which god she’s all cozy with (the concept makes your skin crawl).

“Who do you, uh, serve?” you say, totally suppressing the helpful urge to sneer.

That coolness freezes solid. “We’re all stuck together for the benefit of working as a group. But we barely know each other, and we’re all entitled to our own business.”

Oof. Some kinda sore spot.

You back down. “Sorry, didn’t mean to pry. I just…would you be able to tell? If those guys was, if there was something weird?”

Now she frowns. “Weird?”

Actual gods with real people as their servants (again, you smother your grimace). You don’t know shit, do you?

“Nevermind,” you say. “I just…this is all real new. Sorry to bother you and for, y’know, getting too personal. Won’t happen again.”

The ice around her seems to thaw just a touch. She gives a sharp nod. “Alright. And…thank you. For respecting my privacy.”

Which leaves you at Lae’zel’s tender mercies before bed.

You manage an actual push up.

***

So you’re flying pretty high as you drag your ass to your tent. Half the camp is bedded down for the night. Lae’zel—completely unfazed by running your ass into the dirt without so much as a hair out of place or a bead of sweat on her skin—takes first watch.

The spacing arrangement has definitely gelled; seems you’re assigned to the desk next to Astarion for this quarter. He lounges on his back amidst a pile of pillows—where in the hell did he pick up more of them? As you draw near, he sits up and spins around to face you.

“Hello, darling,” he says. “Always a pleasure to see you sauntering over.”

“Tripping, actually,” you say. You reach for your tent flap. The white of his hair and his shirt glow in your peripheral, and you stop. He stares at you. Expectantly.

…right. Blood.

“Oh, um,” you say. Pause.

“You don’t have to, of course,” he says. “I’ve gone much longer in between meals.”

You fucking forgot. There’s no solid reason for your hesitation, except that this is a change in plans (your fault) and that always wigs you out and having time to mentally prepare (lips, lips) would have been nice.

But you did offer. And he’s waited for you. It’d be bad manners to leave him hanging.

“It’s fine,” you say. Look around. Gale and Wyll are in their tents. Lae’zel stalks the perimeter, and Shadowheart kneels outside her own tent. She looks at you. Her judgment is just as potent at sixty yards. “You wanna take this inside?”

His grin spreads slow and syrupy. “My dear, there’s nothing I’d like more.”

You don’t got much in the way of decoration. Just your bedroll and your pack. You pause a second inside; there ain’t enough room to stand upright. This’d probably be a two-sleeper tent back home. But you got no seats or cushions. Hospitality dictates you let Astarion sit on your bedroll, as the guest.

He ducks in after you, and the tent seems a lot smaller. Y’all are gonna have to sit criss-cross applesauce. Knees touching.

Oh jesus.

“Um.” You clear your throat. “Go ahead and take a seat.”

You busy yourself lighting the small lantern you scrounged up using the (thank FUCK) matches y’all also found. It’s enough light to see his features clear when you turn and find him stooped there, watching you.

“And where will you be, darling?” he says.

You will not clear your throat again. You will not act like some awkward twenty-year-old climbing into a boy’s car for the first time. You are a goddamn adult human and humans touch each other all the time. He’s (sucked) touched your neck before. What you have in mind is far less intimate than that. This whole thing is a casual act born of necessity.

Touching other people is fucking normal.

You just ain��t…used to it.

“I thought it might be easier to control the bleeding if you bit my wrist,” you say. It’s just practicality. Nothing else. Certainly not you being shy all the sudden. Has got nothing to do with the feel of his cool tongue on your fucking neck. Nothing at all.

“Ah,” he says. Gaze flicks down your arm. “If that’s how you’d prefer it. Though, as I’m sure you’re aware, I don’t have, ahem, as much experience with that.”

The blind leading the blind. It’d be funny if you weren’t so full of the heeby-jeebies.

“You wanna try?” you say.

He looks at you. Goddamn, he’s hard to read when he wants to be. Then his usual smile slots into place and his eyelids drop and you struggle not to roll your eyes as he says, “I’m willing to try a lot of things with you.”

Jesus lord on a pogo stick. You turn away to let the eyes roll freely; disguise it as lowering yourself to sit on the grass beneath you. Your bad knee has been acting up worse than usual. It pops as you settle, which makes Astarion pause.

“’M fine,” you say and start to roll up your left sleeve. You wore your worst-off shirt for Lae’zel’s nightly beat down. Won’t hurt if you get more blood on it.

Astarion settles in next to you. Facing you, rather. But that angle won’t work very well, so you turn and shuffle a bit until you’re side-to-side, sort of staring past the other.

You got all the gear this time, too. A shirt you tore apart and washed (in boiling water) for bandages, water, apples, and a goddamn healing potion.

“I won’t take as much this time,” Astarion says.

You nod. There’s no protocol for this, so you lift up your arm and hold it straight out.

He takes it. You expect that. It has to happen; how else is he gonna bite you? Lunge teeth-first, like a dog?

Still.

Cool fingers glide over your forearm, across your palm. You blink fast, but refuse to let your face so much as twitch. Keep your hand and arm steady but pliable, just like you do when a doctor is taking your pulse and blood pressure.

He brings your arm up as his head ducks down. Hovers over your wrist a moment; cool air brushes you as he exhales through his nose and your rebellious skin erupts into goosebumps.

“Sorry,” you say before he can pull some shit. “Tickles.”

He gives you a sly glance out of the corner of his eye. Shithead. Then he presses his lips to your inner wrist.

He holds you like that a moment. His lips certainly are soft and cool. You’re pretty sure every muscle on your frame pulls tight. Then he moves. And it ain’t to bite. He brushes those lips over you, slightly parted, up and down. You’re about to ask what in the hell he’s doing, when he twists your arm to change the position and, apparently, finds (through scent? Touch? Vampire bullshit?) the right spot.

His lips pull back. His brow wrinkles. His pupils are huge and dilated, even for the low light.

His teeth sink in. The pain is sharper, this time. Probably because you see it coming. Twin fangs pierce your skin, sink into muscles. Your arm tries to jerk back, but his grip tightens to bruising.

You gasp. Jerk. Will yourself not to fucking move, because his teeth are buried in your wrist and there’s tendons and ligaments in there.

Then his fangs are out, and his lips come down and seal around the wound.

This time, you can see his face. See the way his eyes roll back. His lids flutter shut. He makes a soft sound against you, low and guttural and for some reason, your face starts to burn.

You tear your gaze away. Do your best to stare at the blue canvas of your tent.

The pain throbs into that pleasant numbness as before. The rest of you relaxes as nerves stop shrieking in alarm. He’s not pulling this time—thank god. Seems content to hold you, grip eased, and lap at it.

Which means that sure is his tongue against you. Again.

You wonder what the thread count is on canvas here in Faerun. Light shines through it, but you ain’t sure about water. Might have to find a magical tarp the next time it storms—

He’s still making sounds. They’re soft. You don’t hear them, not really. But the vibration thrums against your wrist. Short, tiny things. Moans. It don’t seem voluntary. His eyelids still flutter like he’s trying to open them and can’t. He takes a particularly wet suckle, and that pops him free.

He lifts up a second to pant. His lips and teeth are coated in red. A dribble runs down his chin and his nostrils flare.

Your wounds immediately stream. You manage a single “um” before he pulls your arm up so he can lick a strip back up with a groan, and seals his mouth over it again and suck in a gasp through his nose.

And that’s when the numbness…twists, somehow. Morphs a bit. Instead of throbbing nothing, there’s a feel of…heat? A kind of euphoria. Gentle, right now—you really want to sigh and fall backwards—but it seems to be building where his lips touch you. On the prodding of his tongue between the punctures, encouraging more blood to flow. You can almost feel your blood in him. The throb melding with your heartbeat filling his mouth, filling him. The two of you connected in a way you can barely comprehend, and heat blooms between your legs—

Oh motherfucker, he’s got aphrodisiac spit??!

“Astarion,” you say.

He’s not as lost in the sauce this time. He hums. Takes a last slurp and then pulls away. Snatches up one of the rags you set aside for this and clamps it down hard over your wrist.

You hiss. He doesn’t let up. His hands have turned into a vice. Fucker’s gonna bruise tomorrow.

“Lift your arm a little, darling,” he says and you do.

“Didn’t know you knew wound care,” you say. You’re a touch lightheaded, but you ain’t dizzy. Tired and thirsty, mostly.

“In my line of work, you pick up a few things,” he says. And sucks his teeth. His tongue moves around in his mouth (it was just on your skin) as he laps up all traces of your blood.

“So you just didn’t the first time you bit me?”

He turns. Pupils still dilated and if that doesn’t send some kind of prey animal shudder down your spine.

“You told me you did this all the time, little donor.”

“Not through a bite on the neck. And with vampire spit to deal with.”

He shrugs. “As I said, I’ve never had to keep a snack alive.”

The pressure hasn’t wavered. You fully cannot feel your fingers anymore. “Well, thank you. For learning.”

He blinks. Has that weird look you can’t place. Then he, as usual, buries it with smarm. “It has been an absolute pleasure, darling.”

And then he’s leaning in, face all intent, gaze locked on you. A static charge seems to fill the air and your brain starts flipping levers to dump some kinda panic chemicals into your bloodstream. His face is so focused, even as his lids come down and he is entirely too close.

You panic. You ain’t even sure why. Lift your free hand and jab him in the nose and say, “honk” because your brain is a loser and you are a loser and what the fuck, why the fuck is that what you went with??!

Astarion jerks back like you slapped him, the very picture of a pissed off cat. “Excuse you?”

Which send you jerking back because you pushed it too far. Got too weird. Fucked this up and misread something and got too forward a-fucking-gain.

“Sorry!” you say. “I was just, I don’t know, um! I was joking and I’m sorry.”

The two of you sit there, hackles raised, and stare at each other for a long moment. Until he (mercifully) blinks first and smooths his ruffled feathers back down.

“I can’t saw I’ve ever garnered that reaction before,” he says. Studies you, and then looks away (you try hard not to cringe). Then he notices his hands are empty, because you both pulled away.

“Right,” you say and take over pressure duty—the rag has absorbed quite a bit of blood, but when you risk a peek underneath, the wounds only ooze sluggishly.

Awkward silence fills the tent. You can’t go anywhere (and it’s your tent), and he seems kind of stuck on what to do now (how bad did you just fuck this up).

So you reach for your favorite tool: changing the motherfucking subject. “Can I ask you something?”

He finally notices the smear of blood on his chin as is in the process of fastidiously wiping it clean with his fingers and sucking those into his mouth.

You want to ask him about the paladins, but another question comes barreling into your brain and it sounds like a much more bonding topic anyway.

“You remember how I asked what blood tasted like to you?” you say. When he looks over, “I want to experiment with that, if you’re okay with it. Now that I know I can do this kinda regular.”

He wears the most deadpan expression when he says, “Ah, the vampire fetish appears at last.”

“What? No. People do that? No, no, nothing weird. It’s just, you only eat blood and I can’t tell the difference, but you can. So what if we varied up the taste? If I even can? So you can have different things, sorta, too?”

His eyebrow arches at a pace you can only describe as glacial.

“Like, if the next time I donate, say I eat a bunch of fruit. Or apples, really, since that all we ever find. Get them sugars into my blood and see how that comes across to you?”

“And whyever would you do that?”

Well shit, he makes it sound so stupid. Maybe you ought to bury the idea outright. But you notice while the others tolerate him, they ain’t inviting him in for dinner, and you don’t like seeing people left out. And while he’s an asshole, there’s a level of charm to him. He kinda pings on your level, so to speak.

“We all get to eat lots of things,” you say, going with earnestness and hoping he don’t toss it back in your face. “Might as well see if you can benefit off that?”

He don’t say nothing for a while. A long while. It starts to turn uncomfortable, and you’re considering forfeiting your tent and ducking out into the night.

When he says, “”Well, it’s your blood, darling. If you want to tinker around like that, far be it from me to stop you.”

You start to relax. Peace and good feelings restored.

And then, because it’s Astarion and he’s a shithead, he leers in and says, “Though if you truly want to know what you taste like, I know of much better options.”

This fucking—

“I think it’s time for me to take that potion and get some shut eye,” you say. “Thank you for helping.”

His smile doesn’t even twitch. If anything, it gets worse.

“A cruel denial,” he says and presses a hand over his heart. “I shall have to skulk into the night alone and pine away, awaiting our next encounter. Try not to keep me waiting too long to sample your…experiments.”

“Goodnight, Astarion,” you say as dead-voiced as you can.

He rises and steps around you in one swift, fluid motion to duck through the flap behind your back. Before he goes, he gives you another silly bow.

You probably shouldn’t. That voice in the back of your brain (sin, sin, shame, sin) screams about it (talking to a man while you’re alone). But you do your best to bow back while seated. Because your life has got real, real weird, but beneath the bored, dull, and generally uninterested face you slip on everyday, you’re pretty weird yourself.

It’s that little connection. The tentative root unfurling and reaching for something it recognizes. The dare to grasp at something fun, just to spite the universe so intent on burying you.

He grins and lets the tent flap fall shut behind him.

Alone and unseen, you let yourself smile back.

#feeding alligators fic #these two shitheads #bg3 fic #astarion fic #tavstarion #astarion x tav #slow burn #demisexual tav #plus size tav

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lovedrunkheadcanons · 5 months

Text

Chapter Contents

(Arranged Marriage Fic) Read on AO3

Quotes from JJK chapters are not mine.

RATED M

Sister Edith warned her the day she arrived at St. Horatia that The Sight was an unpredictable sort; It bends what nature should not permit; What magic alone cannot teach. “Memory is the foundation of being, mon cherie,” she would say. “The anvil from which our reasoning is forged. Without it, we are nothing.” Perhaps that’s true.

Hannah could not explain how she knew these to be Satoru’s memories - or rather - Satoru’s memories from the perspective of a passerby. Some things you just know for certain.

Blinking, her eyes adjusted to the gloom. This was not her bedroom, and Satoru was not asleep beside her. She began looking around the place and discovered she was still home; the genkan with the Gojo family tree, painted by the great Jakuchū himself, big enough it canvassed the entire wall with songbirds and flowers. But she startled at the sensation of a woman walking directly through her like a figment of imagination, followed closely by two others.

“Hurry, this way,” the leader said. “They’ll be in the reception hall.”

The three women made a right turn and bounded towards their destination like foxes on a hare. Hannah stood bewildered. She had never seen those people before. How had they not bumped into her? She was standing right there.

The little wife checked herself up and down, moving her ligaments, placing her hand on her chest to feel it was beating. She wasn’t cold. She wasn’t hot. Her feet did not sink to the ground.

The nuns warned her of this too; The memory must be experienced till its conclusion. You must stay the course.

“Well.” Hannah gulped. “When in Rome.”

Good thing she knew her way around. However many years into the past, the rooms and hallways had not changed. She walked down the hall for a spell or two before passing the small corridor which led inside the living room. Not the reception hall, so she continued onwards till she passed the English dining room, and then the parlor, then the long L shaped engawa, passing fine storage cabinets, hand painted screens, and a whole plethora of ancient artifacts and treasures. Whenever Hannah walked by a mirror her reflection did not show.

She noticed a lot more people mulling about the house, mostly maids carrying water pitchers and cleaning supplies to and fro, stopping every so often to whisper excitedly in another’s ear. Hannah couldn’t catch their game of telephone, but something was definitely afoot.

She arrived just outside the reception hall. A convalescence of servants surrounded the entrance like hungry news reporters, listening through a slivered crack in the door. None of them made a peep, their eyes fixated on the people conversing in the formal room.

“Abandoned? By who?…”

“Precious little thing…”

“…400 years.”

Not wanting to barge an entry, Hannah thought of staying put with the house staff, but then remembered where she was and felt almost silly for thinking it. She sojourned on, walking through the servants and the door and into the grand reception hall with no pushback.

Her eyes settled on a huddle of seven women, including the three she encountered earlier, all of them dressed in elegant kimonos and fabrics. Now given a better look, none of them seemed a day over sixty, greying strands and scarecrow wrinkles. Whispering in concealed voices, they stood centered around a woman cradling a bundle of blankets.

Hannah stepped closer. Her eyes widened when she saw the small tuft of snow white hair. Tiny nose and tiny hands.

A baby, she marveled. And by the looks of it, not just any baby.

Hannah felt her lips tug into a smile. So this is where you were hiding, you sweet sod. Her husband was sound asleep in his swaddle of blankets, sucking on his tongue, barely a few hours old.

Unfortunately, not everyone was delighted by the prospect.

“Satsuma, that drunken dog,” cursed the woman holding the newborn. “After I told him to be careful. This is the last straw.”

“But is what they say true, Isako-chan?” said the woman nearest. “Does he really possess the…” She lowered the blankets from the sleeping child’s face, but before she could lift his tiny lids open, the woman named Isako rose from her seat and turned him away.

“Bolster our security and fetch a servant to alert Master Tengen at once,” she ordered, cradling the sleeping infant, her prognosis grim. “We must stay vigilant. The Star Plasma Vessel cannot be far behind.”

Three years old. Five years old. Eight and ten. The memories Hannah glimpsed were not linear.

In one instance, the boy would be reading Chinese letters on a page, symbols he could not understand, and speaking them aloud in front of his tutors; sounds they told him to say. Most of it Confucian literature, supplemented with essays relaying the art of classical warfare like Tzūzoku sangokushi and San Lüeh. He seemed to be doing well, however, Hannah held her breath whenever a word was repeated wrongly and his palm would be met with the stinging end of a bamboo rod. Although, he never once shed a tear and would start over from the beginning again, moving on to algebra, and biology, and a few plucks on the shō. His teachers would then instruct him how to compose poetry and practice calligraphy and Hannah questioned whether any of these skills were necessary for a child to master, impressive as they were.

Not unlike her own childhood when she’d been forced to wake at the crack of dawn and feed the horses, the chickens, then milk the cows, and de-muck the barn stalls if needed. Then attend Mass. Go to Medieval History. Change clothes. Pray. Weed the vegetable garden. Go to Geometry. Pray some more. Scrub the floorboards. Hang dry the laundry. Do it all over again the next day. Childhood was a myth.

For him too, it seemed, she thought.

The boy was not given the smallest relaxation. During his afternoons, he would take up kendo and various other mixed martial arts, as well as learning to cast jujutsu. For Hannah, watching from the sidelines was like watching a cotton seed fight the wind. While the boy was tall and sturdy for his age, around seven or eight, he was by no means strong enough to take on a person thrice his size. He was shown no mercy. “You have poor form!” they would bark. “When he was your age, your father could take down two grown men.” This was a lie of course, but she saw something ignite in the boy at being talked down to, an all consuming fire. Every time he was knocked to the floor, bruised and hurting, he’d wipe the sweat off his chin with a grimace and stand back on his feet. Anger, Hannah thought. So much pent up anger.

This would be met with rebellion. By age nine, he stood 4’11 and could creep out of the house without getting caught. These excursions were beyond risky. There existed many who would pay a stiff price for the Six Eyes wielder’s head. When Hannah ventured with him on these clandestine escapades, she would be astounded at how cavalier he was; plotting his escape, walking alone to the bus stop, boarding said bus, then hopping on a random train that would segway them into Tokyo.

They’d walk around the city for hours, dawdling nowhere in particular, strutting about the streets venturing for candy shops and gaming stores; stereotypical boyhood pursuits.

If he was lucky, which he often was, he’d be back home before dawn. If he wasn’t, there'd be no supper for a week, possibly a month.

Still, he was spoiled. Every fortnight, the boy would be subjected to his elderly aunties, cooing and smothering him, pinching his chubby cheeks raw till they turned red. “Toru-kun has been a good boy, hasn’t he?” He had not, objectively speaking, been a good boy, but didn’t want to pass up a cookie when offered. Most of these relatives would be cremated before his eleventh birthday. He wouldn’t mourn them.

Yet for all his prodigious achievements, vast intellect, and tiny seeds of rebellion, Hannah could tell the boy suffered from loneliness. Loneliness. It draped over him like a heavy curtain, obstructing him from peering out into a happier, brighter world. Imperial princes had more freedom than he.

“You shouldn’t be so rough with them.” Hannah knelt on the floor, observing the boy aggressively assemble the legos together, a legion of abandoned toys piled in the corner. “They might break.”

Socializing was a struggle. The other children who visited for play dates sensed something wasn’t right about him, something abnormal; his albino white hair and alien blue eyes. They tried being nice with kind words and toys, but he knew what they were really thinking. He saw it in their stares. They only said those things because their parents told them to. None of them wanted to be his friend. Such sentiments added to the isolation he already harbored being surrounded by adults and strangers his whole life, and rather than cry or internalize it, the boy dealt with his loneliness through violence.

A busted lip for the boy who looked at him funny. A light shove in the pond to the girl who laughed at his hair. Jeers and taunts. He once slipped a small frog down a Kamo girl’s shirt and rolled in howling laughter as she scampered across the room like a decapitated chicken, squealing and crying for her mommy. Made no difference how prominent the children were or what family they hailed from. If they were cruel, he’d be cruel back; an eye for an eye. That’s the quintessential lesson the world taught him.

“Oh, Satoru,” Hannah sighed, crouching in front of the boy after another failed play date, alone again with his legos. Silent tears streamed down his face. He couldn’t hear her. Out of sympathy she lifted a lone hand to cradle his cheek. It coursed through him like mist. “My darling.”

Makoto was his only true companion. He was a royal pain to the other servants, spitting and yelling at them, but never her. It took Hannah a full minute to take in the future housekeeper, then a humble nanny to the Six Eyes wielder. She knew when he was having a good or bad day. Between breaks in his studies and spar sessions, she would sneak wrapped pieces of candy to the boy, shooting him a wink as she plopped it in his palm. He would grin and stuff the candy inside his mouth before anyone saw. Favoritism could’ve gotten the nanny sacked. Her break in protocol showed her tenacity, and perhaps her (not so) hidden affection for the young master.

Hannah would admit, it was quite entertaining watching the woman sprint down the halls to try and apprehend the boy, his little athletic body covered only by a foam of bubbles. Apparently, he took exception with bath time, leaving Makoto to go on a wild goose chase. The marathon was probably the most excitement he had that day. He laughed and laughed and laughed. You’d hardly believe this was the same boy who angrily punched two adult molars out of another kid.

However, much of the time the boy was confined to his bed. His brain was still developing as were the Six Eyes. Like growing bones, the older he got, the more excruciating the migraines. In due time, their technique would activate and there’d be no going back. Some days he could not find the strength to get up.

“I hate them, Koto-chan.”

“No, you mustn’t say such things, sir.”

“But I do. I wish they were gone.”

The beloved nanny pressed a damp cloth to his forehead. “It’ll be alright, sir. Now, shhh, get some rest.”

The boy wearily closed his eyes and Makoto departed. Hannah cozied herself beside him, his small chest breathing in and out. She grinned at watching his lids flicker. “What are you dreaming of?” she whispered, sweeping his hair gently to one side. It didn’t work of course. Like before, her hand disappeared through him.

The light evanesced.

The next memories Hannah saw were of teenagehood, Satoru roughly fifteen or sixteen years old, unscrewing the bolts of a school chair with a wrench. His Jujutsu High uniform looked non-dissimilar to the one he presently wore, darkened round frames shrouding his eyes.

Upon disassembling their bolts, Satoru would set the chairs upright like normal. One poor decision later and, whump, your posterior would be on the floor. Hannah supposed this was his idea of a prank.

“Sorry, is this Room 44B?”

Satoru’s eyes snapped up to inspect the newcomer, taking note of his overgrown raven bangs, inflated bontan pants, and two fingered shoes that looked more to him like socks.

Perhaps a tad nervous, the newcomer scrupulously re-examined the paper he was holding.

“Odd, the map they gave me says…” But he shook his head mid-sentence and offered out his hand. “You know what, forget it. My name is Geto. Geto Suguru.”

The Six Eyes wielder glanced at the hand, but did not take it, and went back to disassembling the chair, answering only after a pause long enough to make the newcomer think he’d been ignored. “Gojo.”

Geto awkwardly cleared his throat and fidgeted. “I assume you’re a first year then?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“What is it you’re doing?

Satoru successfully unmoored another screw and glared. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

Geto cast a critical eye. “Won’t you get in trouble?”

“Probably.” Satoru switched hands, wrenching another bolt free, further showcasing his disinterest. “So, what is it you do again, Yamapi-san?”

“Yamapi?” Apparently, Geto did not take kindly to the comparison. “What do you mean?”

Satoru rolled his eyes and sighed. “Your curse technique; the whole reason they locked you up inside this penitentiary. Unless, of course,” his glasses slid past his nose, “you don’t have one.”

Pleasantries gone cold, Geto pursed his lips and stuffed his fists in his pockets. This asshat. “Curse Manipulation.”

Like the twitching of a cat’s ear, the white-haired teen froze and turned from unbolting the chair to the look at the other freshman. “Prove it.”

Geto wordlessly pulled out what Hannah initially thought was a plum from his back pocket, but was actually a strange, blackened orb. He brought it to his mouth and began taking bites, two, three, till none of it remained.

Then an insect-like curse, a Fly Head, materialized out of thin air, the buzz of its sickly translucent wings making Hannah’s spine prickle. It had the body of a mosquito, but the face of a goggle-eyed dogū. Hannah let go a pathetic shriek when Suguru began waving his wrist about, the curse under his complete control, buzzing around and doing summersaults mid-flight, unable to shake off the technique. Like a zombie, Hannah thought. After a short while, the long banged sorcerer felt he’d gotten his message across and with the snap of his fingers the Fly Head became engulfed in a cloud of flames, disintegrating to smoke and ash.

“Woah-oh, freaky,” Satoru whistled and placed his hands behind his head, chortling a laugh. “I take it back then. Guess this year won't be so boring after all.”

Shoko entered through the door not a second later; shortened bobbed hair, mini skirt, and busy sucking on a lollipop. Her expression was one of close-eyed-smile discontent, looking less than pleased about the two idiots she’d been partnered with. She glanced at one, then the other. “I do RCT,” she said, and that was it. There wasn't any need to say more. Hannah hardly recognized the doctor without the heavy dark circles smudging her eyes. She was very pretty.

Their trinity now complete, Satoru’s memories began unfurling once more like the pages of a long forgotten almanac.

Hannah was handed a mental catalog of his many pranks conducted over his years at Jujutsu High; covering stairwells with pine tar; drawing penises on chalkboards; conspiratorially pouring tubes of micro glitter in the air vents (almost caused a fire). There was one incident when Satoru, for whatever reason, thought it a brilliant idea to unleash a hoard of mice inside the main lobby. The mice took umbrage at being ‘mice-napped’ from their homes and it wasn’t abundantly clear who was chasing whom; the petrified rodents, or the reluctant school staff in charge of rounding them up. There was also the enormous banner which hung in the school cafeteria during the newly minted Goodwill Event with the words “Tokyo rules, Kyoto drools. Satoru is the greatest.”

While most of the Six Eyes wielder’s pranks were harmless, others were downright mean. On more than one occasion Kiyotaka would return back from P.E. to discover his uniform shoes strung from the ceiling by their laces. He had to enlist the help of a teacher to get them down. A sticky note depicting a mediocre Gojo chibi would be found on one or both soles.

Or Utahime, who was a mere hair-length away from skinning the Six Eyes wielder alive for “accidentally” snipping one of her braids clean off with a pair of rusty scissors. Steam was practically billowing out her nostrils.

“She’s such a girl,” Satoru snickered. “What is she cryin’ about anyway? It’s not like hair doesn't grow back.”

The red outline of Utahime’s double slap was visible on his cheeks for a solid week following the incident like a sunburn. “It’s senpai, asshole!!” That happened his second year.

A younger Nanami, known to Hannah now as Kento, also wasn’t spared the torment. He’d never forget waking up from a short-lived nap only to stand in front of the bathroom mirror and find a squiggly mustache and monocle edged in permanent marker on his face; his first week at Jujutsu High. Or the shaving gel in his shoes. Or the thousands of multicolored bouncy balls jammed inside his locker and spilling out onto the hallway. He would never call him senpai.

Throughout this myriad of stunts, Hannah would watch with Satoru, who was either directly involved amidst the chaos, or relishing his handiwork from afar like an evil mastermind.

Kento would say he was starved for attention.

Hannah would say it was something else, something attention seeking couldn’t rectify.

He wasn’t without his virtues however; fun being one of the few. When free, Satoru would encourage the small band of jujutsu sorcerers to hang out after school; usually him, Geto, and Shoko. The arcade was a popular joint to unwind and blow off steam. Here, Gojo and Geto were at their most competitive. Hashing it out over Ace Combat was a healthier alternative than coming to physical blows. It gave Hannah time to reflect.

The yin to Satoru’s yang, Suguru was an enigma to Hannah; opposite him in both demeanor and morals. He always wore his overgrown hair in a topknot, bangs styled to the side, handsome. Fairly tall, but stood at least an inch shorter than his albino companion. She liked Suguru a great deal, but couldn’t recall what about him sounded familiar. She had heard his name before. But when? Where? It took a while for the bells to clang …

“Nobody. Just some guy I used to work with...”

Brilliant! Yes, that’s when; the movie night. Contrary to Satoru’s declaration, however, the two appeared quite close; like soldiers stuck in a platoon who didn’t get along, but would die keeping the other alive if necessary. Mates. Brothers. Rivals. Something more. The truth wasn’t hers to disclose, but “just some guy?” wasn’t cutting it.

Nanami would sometimes tag along, as well as another underclassman by the name of Haibara Yū. Hannah took note of how bright his eyes shone, bursting with ferocious passion and enthusiasm for life, like a perpetual ray of sun. A little cheeky, he spoke quick; rambling on about his sister and family like an auctioneer at an art show. It was difficult to catch everything he said. Hannah found herself smiling nonetheless. Why hadn’t they met yet?

Favorite eateries they frequented included raman shops and karaoke bars and various fast food restaurants where everyone was forced to guess how many cheeseburgers Satoru could gorge in one sitting without throwing up. He always added an extra large fry and chocolate shake. Another reason to avoid fast food all together. Hannah craved a salad.

But she enjoyed partaking in their fun adventures, despite the fact they couldn’t see or hear her. These privileges were unbidden to Hannah as a teen, as a child, as an adult. Reliving them with Satoru and his friends - who she now considered her friends - felt precious. She didn’t want to stop hearing the stories they shared, or how difficult exams were, or what they wanted to do after graduation.

The normalcy it brought. Thinking there could have been a life where Hannah had gone to school, and played rounds of Ace Combat, and ate ice cream in the summer with her friends. And then she was given a cruel reminder there was nothing normal about this. About them.

“It’s such a pain looking out for the weak.”

Satoru, Suguru, and Shoko were sitting in a classroom, waiting for Yaga-sensei to show up. Aggravation gnawed on Suguru’s features.

“Jujutsu exists to protect non-sorcerers, Satoru,” he argued. “It’s our job to safeguard the weak and keep the powerful in check.”

“Please,” Satoru snorted. “Don’t act all high and mighty for spouting that garbage. Applying reasoning and responsibility is what weak people do. Being righteous?” He stuck out his tongue as though to gag. “I hate that stuff.”

Suguru heatedly rose from his chair. He’d grown tired of repeating this conversation over and over. How many times would it take for the knucklehead to learn the errors of his ways? “Let’s take this outside,” he challenged, but Satoru arrogantly dismissed him.

“You lonely? Go by yourself.”

Meanwhile Shoko made like a ballerina and gracefully pirouetted from the classroom. Adios, amigos. It was just the two of them.

Now one on one, Suguru activated his technique, an ugly beast from the cursed void, at the same time Satoru transferred his glasses inside his pocket, aiming for a bruising. However, the looming brawl was short-lived.

The door thrusted open to unveil an irritated Mr. Yaga, no more than a regular teacher at the time. Thus, the two teenagers unanimously sat back in their chairs, pretending they weren’t about to pummel the ever-living shit out of each other. Hannah couldn’t say what followed. The memory fizzled out before she could exhale.

Her stomach felt tied into knots. Who was that nihilist mimicking her husband’s voice and face just now? Someone who hated protecting the vulnerable and weak, believing righteousness was bad, even garbage? The Satoru she knew would never say something so…heartless. Would he?

Hannah could spend eternity ruminating the haughty question, but she wasn’t given the chance. The memories came crashing into her awareness like pressing “fast forward” on a tape recording. Her mind could not keep up.

They were brought to her piecemeal; a young school girl gazing up at a fish tank full of humongous whale sharks; an undetectable assassin, his crooked spear gored through the side of her husband’s neck; the lake of blood; A blinding collision of ultraviolet.

“I alone am the Honored One.”

The shock paralyzed her in the moment. Suddenly she felt she couldn’t breathe. The confusion raging inside her head became awash in a myriad of faces and bright light. All she could think about was Satoru, his lifeless corpse lying on the ground, throat slashed, dead eyes flung wide open. She screamed, wanting to go back to him, but no sound came. The assorted memories kept changing, hurling at the speed of light, faster and faster, refusing to slow down and stop until she’d reached either the Elysian Plain or Hell.

The memories were unrelenting.

“Don’t make me say it again. Suguru has — ”

“She’s a political pawn. The higher-ups should’ve never brought her — ”

“Explain yourself!!”

Hannah saw her bathing through a hole in the wall, naked and singing an Irish lullaby of fairies and ancient worlds, unaware Satoru was also there watching, his desire on full display. If he hadn’t already admitted to his lechery, the unabashed stalking would’ve mortified her. But he had told her of this. He had asked for forgiveness. She had granted it.

They kept coming.

“I thought I had set aside such petty pride.”

“We don’t care if you’re scared — ”

“Are you Gojo Satoru because you’re the strongest, or are you — ”

Satoru carried a dead Amanai across the room, her corpse shrouded in a blood-soaked bed sheet. Killed from the stray bullet yet to be extracted from her skull. People clapped in disturbing applause, smiling like they’d done him a service. His eyes drifted listlessly to Suguru.

“Do you want to kill them all?”

“There’s no point in attempting the impossible — ”

“Is that right? Maybe you’re right! You’re soooo right!!!”

This uneasiness.

Deranged. Utterly maddening. A high.

The vision of unmentionable power.

“Any last words?”

The air grew thinner as Hannah grew unsure. She wondered. Was the world spinning, or hurling on its axis in a straight line? Her heart felt it was beating a million miles, booming loudly in her ears. She thought she might faint. Make it stop, she wanted to cry, but there was no getting off this runaway memory train.

Until she was shown one last memory.

An adult Satoru, her Satoru, sitting in a chair, face buried in his hands. They were in the same hospital room he had brought her home from last night, leaving behind that nightmare of claws and shadow.

“This is all my fault. I fucked up,” he mourned. “I led it right to her.”

Shoko’s hand gripped his shoulder. “You didn’t know, Satoru. None of us did.”

“She could’ve died.”

“But she didn’t. She’s still here. You have to hold on to that.”

Satoru removed his hands and turned to see his unconscious wife lying on the hospital bed, hooked to an IV drip, cannula placed under her nose. They’d just finished her blood transfusion not long ago. The deep, claw-like wounds had been healed, yet her complexion remained pale. Hannah would concur. She looked like death. Satoru bowed his head, the image of a man vanquished with no more fight left to give. He was waving his white flag.

“I love her, Shoko.”

Hannah’s heart ceased all proper function.

Perhaps it was his pride talking, or his gross stubbornness which repelled him from speaking his native tongue. Hannah wasn’t sure if Shoko knew English, but judging by the tender emotion reflected in her soft brown eyes, she seemed to understand the weight of those three words well enough. A magnitude which Hannah had yet to feel.

A thousand images rushed to the forefront of her mind; A bouquet of red roses, two initials carved on a tree, spooning swans, St. Valentine, and Cupid’s golden arrow drawn to its bow. How strange to find herself on its receiving end; that pesky, fickle dart.

The feeling was foreign to her. Not love it’s entirety, per say. Hannah had given and received love from many nuns and teachers over the years, though not the kind Satoru had professed.

Since the day she was born, Hannah was told she was spoiled goods. That her worth was predicated upon her half-sorcerer blood, tainted by the man her mother was foolish enough to bed. A girl like her was meant to stay hidden inside the convents. She was not to leave. She was not to marry, or have a penny to her name, yet fate had intervened and destined her in the arms of a man who bestowed her all three. The guilt churned like a mortar, it’s weight crushing her full force.

Every time she’d been powerless to defend herself, knowing no spells or martial arts; the folly of her own human frailty, Satoru had been there to do what she could not. Companionship. Loyalty. Protection. Whatever it was, he had given it to her without ask. Her own contributions came up short by comparison. It embarrassed her then and embarrassed her still. How conceited she’d been. How childish.

“Ignore half of what he says, lass...”

No, she wouldn’t ignore this. She couldn’t. They had reached the long awaited bridge. He had dutifully crossed it, throwing his heart out on the line, waiting, while she remained dithering on the other side like a coward.

Hannah’s wedding ring felt it was searing her finger, spurning the skin. Go on, then, go on. Only one thing left to do.

The hospital room slowly faded like the closing of a finished book, but no matter.

Her resolution was clear.

There was no turning back the pages.

Chapter Contents

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk fanfic #gojo satoru #satoru gojo #gojo x oc #satoru x oc #gojo takes a wife #romance

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bluestar22x · 11 months

Text

The Great Mountains

The Journey - The Great Mountains

Summary: For enough coin a mercenary will play guardian

Pairing: Pero Tovar x F!Reader

Rating: 18+ series

Warnings: Underage arranged marriage and infertility mentions. Mentions of rape. Murder. See the full warnings list for this series on the masterlist.

Word Count: 3,096

Author’s Note: The Great Mountains are the Alps. I’m sure they weren’t always called the Alps so I took a guess at what people in 1010 or whatever would call them. Also, wow, this chapter got dark for a split second. Sorry.

xxx

Another night. Another dim lit tavern in a small village. Pero Tovar was sipping on another drink, seated in the far back corner of the main room when a bag of coins was tossed in front of him, clinking heavily as it landed on the table.

His eyes shot up from his drink in the direction the bag had come from. There was a man in his early sixties standing at the end of the table, silver hair cropped short, beard well trimmed, one hand on a cane for support. He was well dressed, not a speck of dirt on his expensive shirt and pants. His stance was of someone who was important (or at least thought he was) and knew it. He was studying Pero, like he was trying to get a read on him.

“What’s this?” Pero inquired, tilting his head at the bag.

“Compensation,” the man answered plainly.

“For what?” Pero asked guardedly, an eyebrow cocked.

“I’m hiring you to bring my daughter through The Great Mountains,” the man informed him. “I have overheard that you’ve seen combat and know how to transverse the land. That you work for coin. You could get her to her destination safely.”

“That is true,” Pero confirmed. “But I am a mercenary. A hired swordsman. Not an escort or some kind of a nursemaid.”

“My daughter is far from a child,” the old man told him. “She is getting married to a man in Poland, but she cannot there travel alone, and I cannot go with her. Neither can her future husband pass this way safely, not anymore. With the ongoing war and the danger of bandits, I need someone like you to bring her on this journey. It shouldn’t take you more than a month and a half. You’ll be done with her before the leaves begin to change. I’ll make it worth your time.”

Pero huffed and folded his arms. He shouldn’t have even been entertaining the idea, but he was curious. “What’s the payment?”

The payment was pretty decent. More than Pero was normally paid for a single mission. It would keep him fed and sheltered for a full year if he was mindful of his spending, even if he didn’t do any other jobs. It was suddenly very tempting for him to accept. Even though he’d told the old man he wasn’t an escort, he could be one for that amount of coin.

It didn’t mean he was particularly happy about accepting it. He could only imagine what it would be like traveling through the wilderness and dozens of small villages for so long with a spoiled rich man’s daughter. He could already hear the whining.

But it was a lot of coin.

He sighed. “I’ll only do it if you pay me at least half upfront.”

“You’ll have that and more,” the old man promised. “I’ll be sending you on your way with extra coin so you do not have to spend your own to get her there.”

“And the back half?”

“It will be paid by her fiancé when you deliver her to him.”

Pero nodded. “Alright then. Show me a map of where we need to go and I will get her there.”

The rich man’s daughter was a lot older than Pero had expected, every inch of a mature woman, not the young maiden he’d imagined. Old for a bride-to-be by their century’s standards.

She was as pretty as he figured she’d be though. Definitely eye catching, especially in her dark green flowing dress that was highly inappropriate for traveling on horseback as they would be. She’d be riding sidesaddle, but the dress was long enough it hindered her from mounting and dismounting without assistance.

At least the horse that her father had bought for her to ride was solid. The dapple gray mare was as thick legged as Pero’s black stallion, and appeared to be of good health, her ribs not notable except upon palpation.

There was a quick exchange of greetings between the three of them when they met outside the tavern the morning after he’d agreed to the job, then the rich old man hugged his daughter goodbye, said a few words to her too lowly for Pero to hear, and nudged her towards her horse. The rich man had brought a stable hand with them, and the man helped her up into the saddle quickly, leaving her to adjust her dress and secure her delicate riding boots into the stirrups. After her father and the stable hand left she adjusted the reins in her hands and nodded at Pero without a word, signaling to him that she was ready.

He nodded back at her and started his horse into a fast walk. He could hear her kiss at her horse to get her moving, and after a couple seconds they stepped in stride with him and his horse, shoulder to shoulder.

They were out of the village in a few minutes, through a grassy field in ten, and beginning the climb through the first set of The Great Mountains in an hour.

In all that time, she remained silent, to Pero’s surprise. He was not used to a woman who was this quiet, especially a woman of her high status. Hell, he wasn’t used to riding with anyone that speechless. His last mercenary partner, a good friend, had spoken enough for the both of them. Not that Pero didn’t have his moments.

Usually Pero didn’t mind silence, it was much better than the bellyaching he’d expected, but the more they rode together, the more curious he got as to why she was acting like a mute. Surely she had something on her mind.

“Planning out your wedding?” he guessed out loud.

She craned her neck to put her eyes on him and her eyebrows knitted together, like it displeased her that he had asked, but she was polite when she answered. “No.”

“Thinking of your family?”

She barked a laugh at that question. “I should not. They certainly will never think of me again.”

“Your father seemed to care,” Pero said pointedly.

She snorted, not very lady like. “Seemed. Trust me. He was the most anxious to be rid of me.”

“Last to leave the nest?” Pero inquired.

“How many twenty-nine year olds do you know who are maidens?” she asked.

He thought about it for a moment. “None that weren’t outcasts.”

Outcasts who were disfigured or otherwise deemed not fit for society for one reason or another. This woman was definitely not one of those women.

“Exactly,” she said. “I’m not a maiden; I’m a widow.”

“Oh.” He instantly regretted digging. “Sorry.”

“I’m not,” she told him without hesitation. “It was an arranged marriage. My husband was nearly twice my age and a bastard through and through. I was overjoyed when he was killed in battle. Finally free of him after twelve ridiculously long years.”

Twelve years. That would’ve made her seventeen at the time she’d been forced to marry her first husband. Pero’s jaw twitched. He wasn’t the best example of a man, but he had never stooped to bedding down with a teenager. He knew it wasn’t an uncommon practice in many villages, but he’d grown up in one that detested older men preying on young ladies who were hardly mature yet. He couldn’t comprehend how any father would want that for his daughter. It was a good thing they were over an hour away from the tavern or he may have turned back to give her sorry excuse of a father a piece of his mind...or his fists.

“Is this marriage arranged too?” he questioned instead, not sure he wanted the answer, but wanting to know anyway for some reason.

“It is,” she replied. “I met him once. He’s more my age and seems nice enough, but we lied to him, so I have no idea if that will stick.”

“What do you mean, lied?”

“You sure are nosy for a mercenary,” she quipped. “But I suppose it would be somewhat of a relief to spill my transgression to someone.” She sighed heavily and stared at a snow-capped mountain in the distance. “The man I’m marrying wants children. He was concerned that I had never bore any for my first husband. My father lied to him and said that the three children we’d had all died from a tragic disease two years ago. He made me go along with it, saying my options were too limited not to and he wasn’t going to keep me through the winter. I’d have to lie or live on the streets, maybe work in a whore house. He said I’d be perfect for it.” She chewed her bottom lip, and Pero could see moisture filling her eyes.

“Your father is a bastard,” he declared firmly.

She turned her head to flash him a small smile. “That he is. But he was right. A barren lady is a whore house owner’s dream.”

She clucked at her horse so the mare broke out into a trot, clearly no longer wanting to take part in their conversation. Pero let her put distance between them, respecting that she wanted to be alone, but he made sure she was in sight at all times as he scanned for danger. Bandits, wolves, enemy soldiers. It was early morning, so man and animal alike weren’t likely to be traveling this particular path, but it didn’t hurt to keep an eye out.

It also kept him from thinking too much about his conversation with the woman in his charge. He’d barely known anything about her less than two hours ago and then the next thing he knew he’d known too much. It was his own fault.

Lesson learned.

Traversing The Great Mountains was tedious on the best days and a nightmare on the worst days. The weather always was the biggest factor. On the sunny, dry days, the worst thing that could happen was one of the horses could take a misstep and lose their footing for a split second on a narrow trail, pumping their rider with a shot of adrenaline, but usually not dooming them. The rainy or snowy days were much more frightening. Pero had seen some of the mountain paths give out under horse and rider before, plummeting them to their deaths. He’d also heard of avalanches burying them prematurely on occasion, those few riders who were reckless enough to traverse them in the winter and early spring.

Safe to say Pero avoided the narrow paths on the rainy days, even if they ended up covering less ground in a day because of it.

Outside of the weather, the beginning of Pero’s journey with the rich man’s daughter was surprising calm and predictable.

They spent their days on the trail in peace, nothing but the sound of birds and their horses’ hooves clopping along. Pero only spoke to her if he needed her to direct her horse to a specific spot and she only spoke to him if she needed a break to stretch her legs. Every time she did, he had to help her down, hands under her arms.

They were usually able to stop at a village to rest at night, either in an inn or a private home when someone offered their hospitality to them. It wasn’t common, not with the scar over Pero’s left eye and his grumpy demeanor. The times they were allowed beds in a private home his charge had turned up her charm to convince them.

She’d turned out to be a tough lady. Sitting hours side saddle without complaint, ignoring the flies, enduring the rain. She hadn’t even complained when they’d had to set up camp in the forest, those few nights they weren’t close to a village. Sleeping on the hard ground with nothing to cushion her body.

It was Pero who suggested a week into the trip for her to trade in her dresses to buy a set of feminine riding pants and a couple blouses with vests. He also suggested trading in the side saddle for a normal one, telling her it was better for her to sacrifice some of her femininity in the wilderness than her life. Riding side saddle was dangerous, especially in the mountains.

She did not hesitate, seemingly having thought about making the exchange from the start of her ride, but feeling the need to be proper. She’d needed to be given the okay. It was a strange realization for Pero. Everything about her otherwise screamed independent. She’d been forced into marriage and was about to be forced into a second, but he didn’t get the vibe that she usually was one to ask permission to do anything, which must’ve drove her late husband mad.

Maybe Pero was just making assumptions again, for the wrong reasons. He liked strong minded women, and the more days he spent at her side, the more he felt something for his charge. He was attracted to her. Not just to her beauty, but also her will, her inner strength, and her pose.

By their third week on the trail together, it was eating at him. Especially because she’d finally started talking to him again the last few days, telling him about her childhood with her eight other siblings and asking about his adventures as a mercenary. He answered all her questions as honestly as he could, avoiding any talk of the monsters he’d faced in China. The ones that still haunted his dreams some nights. She’d just think he was crazy.

It wasn’t until the fourth week that something happened to shake their world, to remind them both of the dangers of their reality.

He’d left her with the horses at a post in front of a village store, in the middle of broad daylight, to quickly buy a new girth to replace the worn one on his saddle.

When he’d returned, he was just in time to see his charge get pulled off her mount, kicking and screaming, by three very large men. He gritted his teeth at the sight and unsheathed his sword.

“Let her go!” he commanded.

The men had her on her knees in the mud. One was in the middle of trying to tie her hands behind her back. Fury flared in Pero’s chest at the sight. “Now!”

The men pulled their own swords. “This woman yours, mercenary?” one asked.

Pero shook his head. “No, but she’s under my watch. So back off.”

“We can’t offer you a better deal?” the second inquired. “Such a pretty little thing.” He caressed her right cheek and she flinched away. Pero hated seeing her so afraid.

“You’re quite brash, trying to steal a woman on main, and then making a counter offer when you are threatened for it,” he growled.

“This is our town,” the third, who’d finished binding her hands together, declared. “No one confronts us when we take a woman. We return them, after all. Well, most of them anyway. The ones worth returning.”

The implications of his words made Pero’s skin crawl. He thought the monsters in his dreams were bad. How could any village allow this? Why would anyone stay?

“I don’t make deals with rapists,” Pero told them.

“Too bad,” the second said.

The next thing he knew, the three men were upon him, swords flailing about. They were clearly inexperienced swordsman, and he had armor on, unlike them.

Catching their blades on his own, blocking them, Pero smirked and got to work.

If he ever told the story in the future, he’d play up the fight, make it tense, say that the three men nearly got him, they were that good, but the truth was he wiped the floor with them without a sweat because they were downright awful at it compared to him.

In less than a minute all three of their bodies were laying at his feet.

Without a second glance at them, Pero slid his bloodied sword back into its sheath and marched over to his charge’s side, kneeling at her back to untie her hands.

“Are you okay?” he inquired as she began rubbing her freed wrists.

She nodded at him quickly, and stood, tears of relief forming in her eyes. Without warning she threw herself at him, hugging him tightly. “You saved me.”

“Kind of part of my task,” he said, awkwardly patting her back. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Like she hadn’t heard him, she pulled away, eyes studying his, then pitched forward to plant a kiss on his lips.

Her mouth was so warm and delicate and inviting that for a moment, he lost all sense, deepening the kiss with a groan.

How many times had he daydreamed about how it would be like to kiss her? Countless. But the real deal was even better.

It was only when they had to part for air that his senses returned to him. “We need to get out of here,” he repeated.

He boosted her up into her saddle and climbed into his own, encouraging his stallion into a canter. Her mare followed.

They were quiet for a while after, as they returned to the general safety of the forest on the bright, sunny day. Pero was ready to pretend like the kiss never happened, to just keep going, there was really no need to say anything about it, but his charge was not having it.

“I don’t regret it,” she told him. “You are the best man I’ve ever known.”

“You only feel that way cause I saved your life,” he refuted.

She scoffed. “I’ve liked you long before today. You’re a little rough on the edges, and you’re far from unfamiliar with violence, but you are a good man. You’ve been nothing but thoughtful and patient with me since this trip began.”

“Nothing can come of it,” Pero told her. “I am being paid to bring you to your future husband and I will not touch a woman promised to another man.”

It was a lame excuse, not the truth. He did not hold arranged marriages anywhere near the same standards as a genuine engagement. But she couldn’t be with him. He was a mercenary and she was too sweet for his lifestyle. He could not give her the life she deserved and she would not survive his world. She’d have a better chance with her new husband. She said he’d been nice.

She deserved a chance at nice.

xxx

Masterlist

#The Great Wall Fanfic #Pero Fanfic (Mine)#The Journey Series

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eiirisworkshop · 6 months

Text

Dearly Departed

A post-canon Brokeback Mountain oneshot Available to read on Ao3 here, or as an author-read podfic here.

January, 2005

Alma Monroe parked in front of the little whitewashed Pentecostal church, got out, wrapped her coat more snugly around her, and started going along each row of headstones. A few minutes later, another car pulled up and a woman somewhere in her late fifties or early sixties just like Alma got out and walked to a grave near a white marble obelisk. When Alma got to be one row of graves over from the obelisk the woman looked up at her. "Are you looking for someone?"

"Oh, yes, I am." Alma brushed a strand of hair out of her face. "My ex-husband died recently and I know his best friend is buried in this town, and I couldn't say why but I just felt like I needed to come let him know."

The other woman smiled and looked down. "That's awful good of you. I don't know this grave yard real well, I'm just 'round these parts with my son and his family for the holidays, but I've been here a few times, maybe I can help. What's his name?"

"Jack Twist."

The woman's mouth fell open. "No."

"What?" Alma was taken aback by the woman's reaction. "Did you know him?"

"He was my husband." Lureen touched the headstone in front of her. "He's right here. Half a him, at least. Cremated."

Alma put one gloved hand to her mouth. "Well what are the odds."

"I couldn't say." Lureen held out a hand and Alma shook it. "I'm Lureen."

"Alma."

"Am I right in thinking you were married to Ennis Delmar?"

"I was."

The two women laughed at the unlikeliness of their encounter. Lureen shook her head. "I never imagined I would ever meet you, certainly not here."

"I know." Alma looked down, hesitated, and put her hand next to Lureen's on Jack's tombstone. "I can hardly even believe I'm here. Don't know why but I felt I needed to tell him Ennis is, well, wherever they are."

Lureen nodded. "They were close."

"Real close."

"I stopped countin' how many times Jack drove up to Wyoming."

"Seemed like they were off camping or fishing or whatever every weekend."

"But it couldn't a been more than once a month or two!" Lureen laughed again, shook her head, pressed her lips together, and looked down. "They sure were close."

"Yeah."

Lureen was quiet a moment. "You ever think—" She stopped herself. "Nevermind."

Alma looked at her. "I ever think what?"

"It's nothing." After a long moment Lureen took a breath. "Just, you ever think they mighta been a little too-"

"Too close?" Alma laughed, sounding like a madwoman to her own ears. "Oh I know they were too close." Her hand on the tombstone curled into a crocheted fist. "I saw them."

Lureen's eyes went wide. "Saw them? Doin' what?"

"Kissin'. Kissin' like they were 'bout to tear each other's clothes off right there in the stairwell."

"Oh my God." Lureen put her hand on Alma's. "I had my suspicions but... Bless you for not killin' either of 'em. If I'd seen something like that I definitely mighta shot one if not both."

"Who would you have shot if you only shot one?"

"You know, I don't know. Probably Jack." Lureen affectionately brushed some snow from the tombstone. "I sure don't blame you for leaving 'im. You did leave him, didn't you?"

Alma nodded. "I got to a point I couldn't take anymore."

"I don't think a woman should have to stay in any relationship that isn't working."

"So you and Jack, that worked?"

"Yeah. For a while, at least. Then I just got real good pretending it did."

"Why didn't you leave?"

Lureen was quiet a moment. "Well, in part, because my daddy'd never liked Jack but I married 'im anyway, divorcing 'im woulda been like admitting I was wrong and I was always too stubborn for that. And of course there's also that I loved him, always did, I really didn't want him to go. Then, well, he died, and that changes things. When somebody dies they become almost sacred I guess. Took me a real long time to get past everything. I did remarry eventually, older fellow with just as much money as my daddy had, just like my daddy wanted. He died a few years ago but I knew when I said 'I do' I was fating myself to outlive two husbands."

"I remarried too. He's still around. Had a son with 'im, love 'em both."

"I'm sure you do" Lureen paused, "Did you love Ennis?"

Alma met Lureen's eyes. "Of course I did. Even while I hated him, I don't think I ever stopped loving him. In a way I still haven't."

"I understand."

"Hated Jack, too."

"I know. Somehow I never could hate Ennis, though. Hated every other guy I thought Jack mighta been seein' but couldn't quite hate Ennis." Lureen ignored Alma's startled expression at her mention of other guys. "Maybe because I never saw him, I don't know. The first and only time I ever had anything to do with him was not long after Jack died, he called to ask what had happened."

"He did?"

Lureen nodded. "He did. And I could hear in his voice over the phone how hurt he was. I recognized how he was feelin', it was how I was feelin'. I wanted to hate him, but I understood, and I knew he understood, and I just could not hate him."

Alma nodded and put her hand over Lureen's. "I don't hate either of 'em anymore. I've made my peace with how things were. It's all in the past anyway."

"Right. And, you know, I believe they never meant to hurt anybody."

"No, I don't think so either. But they were trapped."

"By us. Guess you did Ennis a favor in leavin' him."

Alma shook her head. "No, not by us, I don't think. In a way maybe but it musta been more than that."

"You're right, it wasn't us. It was something more."

"Trapped in their own heads more than anythin', I think."

"Maybe." Lureen sighed. "Seems to me they were just trying to do what was expected of 'em even though it wasn't really what they wanted outta life."

"They did the best they could; the best they knew how to do."

"They sure did." Lureen blinked a few times, determined not to cry. "At least now they can be, well, them, I guess. I think they've earned that. Jack sure as hell has waited long enough."

Alma walked around to the side of the tombstone Lureen was standing on. "When did he die?"

"1983. October."

"Yeah, you're right, that's long enough to wait for anything." Alma took a deep breath, knelt, and clasped her hands. Lureen hesitated then assumed the same position as Alma began to speak. "Jack, figured I ought to let you know, Ennis is wherever you are now, hope for both your sakes it's heaven but I'm sure you've wound up in the same place one way or another. Expect he'll be glad to see you. You had best take care a him, you owe me that much and more. Hope you can both be happy. And God, please look after both their sorry, lying, good for nothing asses. Amen."

"Amen." Lureen laughed, stood, and helped Alma up. "That was nice, though. What you said to Jack, and to God, sounds about right."

"Thank you, but I swear when I die I intend to find that man and smack him because I should have but never got the chance and the courage to at the same time."

"This may sound strange, but I hope I die before you because I want to see that."

Both women laughed. Lureen took one of Alma's hands in both her own. "What do you say we go have lunch together? I'm buying."

Alma hesitated them smiled. "Alright."

#eiiri made this #fanfiction #brokeback mountain

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phantomenby · 2 years

Text

My vow to you

@zithera

Where the lost boys where born as vampires and where rejected as children. The reader is an older vampire could find them and take them under their wings. Over time the reader could become a parental figure to them as they teach them how to thrive as vampires. Max could attack them wanting to claim santa carla. He uses the boys as leverage to drive the reader away. Promising that they wouldn't be harmed if she listens to him, to which she reluctantly does. But promises to find a way to free them one day.

This was definitely a serious prompt but im not capable of that so i hope you like it broski <3

"Come with me, I'll keep you safe."

The four of them looked at you with scared eyes, minds overworked with the adrenaline and supernatural blood running through their veins. They were young, you could tell from their boyish faces, such sweet things torn from life too soon.

Holding out your hand, standing in front of them as they stood by the side of the road, blood covering them.

"I promise. You mustn't hesitate the sun will be up soon."

You knew what they were, made just like you, but you had been this way for almost two hundred years. It was almost instinctual the way you approached them, like a mother protecting her youths. The soul bond you shared with them was weak, but it would grow over time.

"Call me darling, I'll keep you safe."

The one with pale blonde hair glanced at his packmates, sharing a silent conversation before he reached towards you, letting you pull him towards the car and open the car door. Poor thing was shaking, his brothers looking at you meekly as they slid in the back.

You sighed, squeezing your eyes shut as you came back to yourself, the foggy glaze over your eyes fading away.

"God..." It had been at least sixty years since the night that you met your boys, almost twenty since you had seen them last.

The night you lost them was one you would never forget, how they became trapped under the influence of an elder vampire.

Maximillian Lawrence Veber.

A demon of a thing, born centuries before you and far more experienced. No matter how much you warned your boys to be careful, to not listen to the pretty promises he made, they didn't listen.

You knew they wanted more independence, but it wasn't safe for them to be allowed free reign over a continent before they fully understood the implications of vampire custom.

Now they were trapped, in some beachside town you couldn't enter, lest Max's ghouls and vile hellhound decided to dispose of you. Any letters you sent never made it back, and any calls were immediately blocked.

But you had a plan.

Oh, little old you had been scheming like never before.

Over the years you had made some interesting friends, particularly those of the mystical variety. Drue was your most beloved companion at the moment, smart and quick-witted, full of all sorts of tricks.

He was standing with you now, wearing some loose flowy pants and a floral-dad-style shirt, eyes scanning over the barrier used to keep you out.

"You know," his pale green eyes flashed over to you, giving you a once over, "I have a spare shirt in the trunk if you wanna change."

You frowned, looking down at your outfit.

It was nice, so blatantly you.

And much more regal than the nomad's attire, from the deep blue pants to the silky white poets shirt, in your right hand was a cane - less for physical assistance and more for hitting people who annoyed you.

"I'm fine, last they saw me I was all black and greys, might as well wear my best for such an occasion."

He grinned, flashing his sharp teeth at you and stepping forward.

You watched on, unsure.

Yes - you had heard of this procedure, read almost a hundred books in your life dedicated to the subject. But nothing beat seeing it in action, and nothing could compare to watching the delicate wisps of pale light emanating from his palms.

"Will they be able to tell it's down?" Your only real concern, the element of surprise was useful and the only real upper hand you had.

Shaking his head, Drue focused harder.

And just like that, as though he was pressing down on a candy glass bubble, the wall began to slip away.

It was just a small crack, a passageway through that only the two of you knew of and could utilize.

"Well well Drue, you have astounded me once again," with that you slipped through, your friend close behind.

Santa Carla was nothing like how you remembered it.

It was louder, wilder. Dangerous.

You knew why. That dreadful Max was nothing compared to you, a pathetic weasel of a man who knew nothing of taking care of others outside of trying to find his perfect bride.

You shuddered at the thought, remembering how he propositioned you, suggesting that you needed a man in your life to keep both yourself and your boys in check.

Evidently, his tremendous parenting skills dwindled to nothing when actually put to the test.

Focusing on Drue instead you watched as he pushed an entire bag of candyfloss in his mouth at once, wincing at the sight of his mouth stretching open uncomfortably.

When he finished he looked at you sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders and licking his fingers, "when in Rome."

You went to respond, stopping when something caught your eye, grabbing Drue and pulling him behind a stall.

There they were.

Your boys.

They had changed, understandably so. Wilder and untamed, their hair still long but styled to suit the current era.

You were happy to see them still together, your greatest fear after all was that they would lose each other, falling apart and alone.

But they were tired. You could tell even from this far, seeing how their eyes were unnaturally purple, shoulders tensed like they were under constant scrutiny.

Max was nowhere to be seen, though you had seen the grand 'Video Max' sign across the boardwalk and had some ideas.

He was known for demanding his name be on everything he owned.

"Is that them?-"

"CHRIST!" You jumped as Drue leaned over your shoulder, moving back behind the stall and giving him your best stink eye as he laughed at your misery, giving a final glance to make sure your boys hadn't noticed.

"Knock it off, the last thing we need is them spotting us before we can get to Max," grabbing his arm you brought him with you, pulling him along behind the long row of stalls until you reached the dreaded store, wincing at the garish design, "you know, for a guy so old I would have thought he'd prefer a classier profession."

Drue snorted, eyes focusing on the store, "hey didn't you say he was like seven feet tall?"

"Uh yeah."

He grabbed your chin, tilting it in the right direction.

And there he was. Max. Your entire body felt ignited with a long dormant rage at the sight of him.

"I'll take your nasty ass vibes as a yes"

A few hours had passed.

The two of you had opted to take to the skies, hiding amongst the clouds.

Well you were hiding, Drue was doing his best to bask in the 'moon glow' which apparently was particularly flavourful tonight.

"Drue please take this seriously, the last thing I need is to explain to some wizard council as to why you were murdered by another vampire in my care."

He didn't respond, walkman on the loudest setting possible.

Rolling your eyes you focused back on the target, watching Max closing down for the day.

He would be heading back to his home soon, the imposing mountain at the far end of the coast.

You would need to strike before he made it, a vampire was bad enough without a hellhound on your tail too.

Honestly, you were surprised he had left the mutt at home, clearly he had grown too comfortable in your absence.

When he walked towards his car you raised yourself back above the clouds, using them for cover as you went to grab Drue, "come on pretty boy, you've finished charging for tonight", ignoring his irritation as you dragged him alongside you.

The drive was long and you kept your movements quick as you weaved across the sky, using the clouds occasionally.

Eventually, Max reached a darker, more desolate part of the roads and you took that chance to strike.

Maybe you should have planned this part out a bit better.

But it was pretty funny watching him get mad when you landed on top of his car, Drue choosing to drop on the engine side, causing smoke to billow out of the vehicle.

"You" Max was seething, eyes wild and jagged fangs protruding from his mouth.

Grinning you gave him a little wave, standing a good couple of feet away from him, "missed me Maxie pad?"

His eyes only burned brighter, shaking before he charged at you.

Unfortunately for him the past twenty years had been an unending battle, not only did your size give you an advantage but also your experience.

So it was easy to sidestep out of his path, missing his thick talons.

"Ooo close one," your own claws were out, much sharper and longer, a gift from your sires own vampiric genetics, "you're gonna have to try much harder if you want to kill me."

You would tire him out, he was old and had become a slug.

It went on like this for some time, with him almost always missing you and you taking the chance to wear him down with a little more force.

He was slowing down, and Drues energy was still flowing through you.

"Giving up max?" You floated around him, watching how his back bled from the deep scratches embedded in his flesh.

He shook his head, grinning with malice, "never."

Unfortunately, someone had caught on to your little game, well, four someones.

Max was more than pleased to see them, you were also, but for a much different reason.

You see, with the breaking of the barrier came with another little issue for Max. Ultimately when his power over the the town was damaged, his power over your boys was too.

Drues magic had been working them over from the moment you stepped over the threshold, even now looking at them you could see the light in their eyes was brighter, the darkness slowly being pulled away.

"Boys," they looked over to you, eyes wide and scared, at you or Max you weren't sure. What had he done to them?

A moment passed. Then another, none of you moved as the four newcomers took in the sight.

On one hand, they were excited to see you, something hopeful blooming in their chests.

Though they were still under Max's control, helpless to watch the scene unfold before them, and unable to assist you.

Speaking of, the tall vamp was looking much chipper as he spoke to them, instructing them to grab you and destroy you.

Only Drue's hard work had finally paid off.

And it was glorious to watch as they launched themselves at Max, catching the older vamp off guard as their talons ripped into him.

You were pulled back softly, being pulled into someone's arms.

You were met with soft blonde hair, long and wild.

"Oh, Paul!" Burying your face in his hair you pulled him closer, his own hold on you growing tighter, "I've missed you."

He hummed, breathing in your scent, a wave of comfort washing over him from the familiarity.

In the background Max was being reduced to nothing, Drue destroying his corpse with a small wave of flames, your boys watching curiously.

Now four sets of eyes were upon you, three watching you anxiously.

Marko was the first to approach, walking towards your outstretched hand, letting you guide him.

His eyes were just as wonderous as you remembered, filled with a fear you knew all too well. A fear you would reject them.

Not allowing him to dwell on it you pulled him close, kissing his cheek and squeezing him as tight as you could.

With that Dwayne and David didn't hesitate to join them, wrapping their arms around you tightly like you would vanish if they didn't hold you close enough.

"I'm here, I won't leave you again. I promise."

#tlb #the lost boys x reader #the lost boys #the lost boys imagines #marko the lost boys #dwayne tlb #the lost boys fic #marko tlb #poly lost boys x reader #david tlb #platonic

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headcanonsandmore · 1 year

Text

Rivers In The Light

Summary: The Fifth Doctor, with Adric, Tegan and Nyssa in tow, arrive in Tudor England for a dance at a local squire's house. However, as Tegan is soon to discover, the local ale (mostly non-alcoholic to humans) has a much more obvious effect on Trakenites...

(Trigger warnings for drinking and drunkenness)

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Read on FFN. Read on AO3.

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Tegan grumbled, stepping into the shoes.

‘I still don’t see why we couldn’t go to the sixties,’ she muttered, irritably. ‘At least the dresses there weren’t so heavy.’

‘I think you look very pretty,’ Nyssa giggled, smiling over at her. The Trakenite was dressed in a similar style of dress, used for Tudor dances. She looked very beautiful.

Tegan felt her cheeks flush slightly.

‘Oh, stop it, Nys.’

Oh, how she wished she hadn’t developed such embarrassingly intense feelings for Nyssa. At first, she’d assumed it was just a little crush, like the sort she’d had on friends when was at boarding school in France, but as the months had steadily widened the gap between their first meeting and the present, Tegan had become more and more aware as to the sheer extent of her feelings.

Of course, she was in love. And it pained her to know that Nyssa probably didn’t even notice. It pained her even more to know that -surely- Nyssa would never see her in the same way.

The Trakenite crossed the floor. She intertwined their fingers, grinning at Tegan.

‘Well, you might think otherwise, but I think you look beautiful,’ she said, cheeks dimpling as her eyes shone. ‘Truly beautiful, Tegan.’

Tegan felt her cheeks flush.

‘Oh, stop making fun, Nys-’

‘I assure you, I’m not making fun,’ Nyssa interjected, giving Tegan’s hand a tender squeeze. ‘Why must you be so harsh on yourself, Tegan?’

‘Thanks,’ Tegan mumbled. ‘I don’t deserve you, Nyssa.’

‘Yes, you do-’

‘Are you two going to be any longer?’

The two young women jumped at the sound of Adric’s voice.

‘J-just a minute!’ Tegan exclaimed, feeling her face burning now. She could hear the sounds of the young boy’s footsteps as he headed back towards the console room.

Nyssa giggled, smiling, squeezed Tegan’s hand again, and led her through the door of their shared room and through the gleaming white corridors of the TARDIS.

As they reached the console room, they found Adric stood by the controls, wearing Tudor period clothing; a pair of stockings with short britches, with a tunic. A slightly-large hat was placed on his moptop of black hair.

He looked even more irritated than normal.

‘I see the Doc forced you into this get-up too,’ Tegan said, in commiseration.

Adric nodded.

‘I suppose it could be worse,’ he said. ‘At least the TARDIS had this in my size.’

At that moment, the Doctor walked in through the main doors. To Tegan’s irritation, he was wearing his normal clothing. Well, if your definition of normal included a beige cricket suit and matching hat, anyway.

‘Ah, lovely!’ the timelord said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them cheerfully. ‘I see you all found clothing in the TARDIS wardrobe.’

‘I see you didn’t,’ Adric said, crossing his arms. ‘Doctor, what was it you said about “fitting into the time period”?’

‘Oh, timelords never worry about that,’ the Doctor said, with an airy wave of his hand. ‘Besides, my clothing fits in anywhere.’

Tegan and Adric shared a look, before sighing. Nyssa giggled, squeezing Tegan’s hand, and led her out of the TARDIS doors after the time lord. Adric followed a couple of paces later.

‘Now, we’ve landed in a lovely part of Dorset,’ said the Doctor, as the four of them walked along the road. ‘The squire of the manor is someone I met while you three were all getting changed, so he knows we’re on our way.’

‘Doctor, how are we going to explain who we all are?’ Tegan asked. The evening was already drawing in, and the sun looked like it would soon sink over the horizon. The squire’s house was visible a few hundred yards along the road.

‘Oh, I mentioned it earlier,’ said the Doctor, voice suddenly rather airy. ‘No need to worry.’

‘Doctor…’ Tegan replied, very slowly. ‘What did you say-’

‘Ah, Doctor!’

A man was stood in front of the main door, smiling widely. He was a cheerful-looking fellow, with a round face and lots of smile lines. Clearly, he was the squire.

‘Hello,’ said the Doctor, shaking the man’s hand. ‘Thank you again for your kind invitation.’

‘No need, no need,’ replied the squire, grinning. ‘It is lovely to meet you; ah, this is your daughter, I see!’

Tegan heard Adric repress a snicker as the squire turned to Tegan.

‘Er… yes,’ she said, suppressing an urge to elbow the boy in the ribs as she shook the squire’s hand. ‘How do you do?’

‘Lovely accent,’ replied the man, smiling. ‘Where are you from, young lady?’

‘And this is my ward,’ said the Doctor quickly, gesturing to Nyssa before Tegan could answer. ‘May I present Nyssa of Traken.’

‘Traken, eh?’ replied the squire, shaking Nyssa’s hand. ‘Is that anywhere near the Baltic? I used to know a merchant who sailed round those parts.’

‘Er…’ Nyssa said, looking a little baffled. ‘Geography was never my strong suit, sir.’

The squire gave a laugh, not seeming to notice Nyssa’s confused expression.

‘Your son, I take it?’ the man asked, now moving on to shake Adric’s hand. ‘How do you do, young fellow?’

‘How do I what?’ replied Adric, looking politely baffled.

The squire laughed, clearly assuming Adric was making a joke.

‘So… are you and Miss Nyssa engaged?’

‘Engaged to what?’ Adric replied, now looking even more confused.

‘To be married, of course.’ said the squire.

Adric made a face.

‘Definitely not,’ he said.

‘Oh, dear!’ exclaimed the squire, with a chuckle. ‘Rather too young for that sort of thing, anyway!’

‘Indeed,’ the Doctor said, quickly. ‘Now, my dear squire, you must tell me about the history of your delightful residence…’

Adric followed the Doctor and the squire inside, looking over his shoulder to shoot an apologetic grimace at Nyssa, who gave a laugh.

‘I don’t think you’re Adric’s type,’ Tegan said.

Nyssa giggled, slipping her hand into Tegan’s.

‘Don’t worry, Tegan,’ she said, cheeks dimpling as she smiled. ‘Adric isn’t really my type, either.’

‘Er…’ Tegan said, mouth suddenly very dry. ‘Good.’

Nyssa let out another giggle, as the two of them headed through the main doors. Tegan, now feeling distinctly flustered, was only dimly aware of the Doctor and Adric continuing the conversation with the squire. She always got like this whenever Nyssa held her hand; it wasn’t fair. Why was her friend so pretty and lovely?

The squire’s house was rather lovely, Tegan had to admit. It was decorated in the sort of style Tegan had seen in history books about the Tudor period, with some tapestries (mainly of nature scenes) on the walls. The floors were mainly wood, but were clearly well cared for. A modest amount of candles were dotted around. This was especially prevalent when they all entered the main hall of the place; it wasn’t especially big, but still large enough to be used as a function room, presumably for dances of the local gentry.

The squire came to a stop beside a long table, and picked up a jug. He then poured the contents into four different cups (glasses being presumably too expensive) and handed them out.

With an air of seeming reluctance, Nyssa let go of Tegan’s hand and took the cup that was offered to her.

‘Cheers,’ said the squire, raising his own cup.

There was a small chorus in response, and then Tegan took a small sip.

It was a lot less bad than she had been expecting. She had always got the sense from History class in school that drunkenness was more common in the Tudor period, but the Doctor had adamantly chastised her for this. Apparently, the assumption that the people in those drank more alcohol due to a lack of clean drinking water was something of an over-exaggeration.

Come to think of it…

‘Doctor,’ Tegan asked, in a whisper to the blonde man, ‘isn’t Ale alcoholic?’

‘Well, in your time, yes,’ replied the time lord. ‘But, in the Tudor period, it was made using a different amount of hops, meaning it was far less alcoholic. I wouldn’t worry, Tegan; the most you’ll get is a little happy.’

Tegan glowered at the blond man as he walked away to converse with the squire, who had started explaining the story of a nearby tapestry.

‘I’m sure the Doctor means well, Tegan,’ Nyssa said, smiling as she took a small sip of her ale.

‘Can you blame me for getting worried?’ Tegan replied, as the two of them sat down in chairs nearby. ‘Adric’s too young to be drinking and, more to the point, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink alcohol before.’

‘True,’ Nyssa giggled. ‘But maybe you can relax a little and just enjoy being back on Earth without us all being in mortal danger.’

Tegan took a look at Nyssa’s smiling face, and her heart softened, as it always did whenever the Trakenite looked like that in her direction.

‘Fair point,’ she said, taking a small sip from her own cup. ‘It is a bit different from Earth in my time, though; Australia hasn’t even been invented yet.’

‘Yes, you can’t regale anyone with stories about… what was that animal you mentioned the other week? The one with soft hair like you?’

‘Koalas?’ Tegan exclaimed. ‘Pretty sure I never mentioned their hair. Why? Do you think my hair is soft?’

‘Just a scientific observation,’ Nyssa said, quickly as she took another sip. Were Tegan’s eyes deceiving her, or were Nyssa’s cheeks turning slightly pink. ‘Your… your hair is very soft.’

‘Er… thank you,’ Tegan replied, feeling slightly out-of-sorts. ‘Listen, I don’t think this ale is my drink of choice; I’ll be back in a bit.’

Nyssa nodded, and Tegan stood up. She headed across the room, and placed her cup down on the table.

‘Miss Tegan?’

She turned. A boy -presumably, a servant in the house- was stood on the other side of the table.

‘Yes?’

‘Would you like something to eat?’

The boy was about Tegan’s age, and had short brown hair, a rounded nose and a few freckles dotted across his face. Lanky, with clothes that didn’t seem to fit quite right, he definitely looked a tad out of place. But his eyes were cheerful and kind.

‘No, thanks,’ Tegan replied. ‘I’m good at the moment. Nice to meet you, by the way; do you work here?’

‘Yes,’ said the boy, smiling. ‘In the kitchens.’

‘I’m Tegan.’

‘Henry.’

The two shook hands.

‘Have you worked here long, then?’ Tegan asked, pouring some spring water for herself out of another jug.

‘Couple of years,’ Henry replied, cheerfully. ‘My sister works here as well; well, when she isn’t giggling with her best friend, that is.’

‘Close, are they? Sounds like me and Nyssa.’

‘Yes, they seem to be in love, so I suppose Miss Nyssa and yourself are very close.’

Tegan choked on her water. Henry gave a laugh, handing her a napkin to wipe her face.

‘Y-yeah,’ Tegan said, feeling rather embarrassed. Oh, god, was she blushing? She probably was. ‘We’re friends.’

‘Yes… very close friends,’ Henry replied, grinning. ‘Are you feeling warm, Miss Tegan? Your face has turned pink.’

‘Oh, stop it!’ Tegan moaned, fanning herself. ‘It’s just that ale!’

‘The… non-alcoholic ale?’ Henry cheeked. ‘If you say so.’

Tegan glared at him for a second, before giving up and letting out a laugh. She then finished off her cup of water.

‘Do they pay you well here?’

‘About right for the area,’ Henry replied. ‘Enough to live on; I still live with my family. Bit of a nightmare when my sister brings her best friend home overnight; I get no sleep at all, with the racket they make.’

Tegan snorted with laughter.

‘My brothers used to get loud with their girlfriends, so I know the feeling. Good to speak to you.’

‘Same here,’ the boy said, smiling. Tegan gave him a quick wave and headed back across the floor. The Doctor was still in the middle of his lengthily conversation with the squire about the history of the house. Knowing the time lord, he probably already knew the place inside-and-out.

Tegan sat down next to Nyssa, who hadn’t moved from where she had sat down earlier. The young woman was still nursing a glass of the ale.

‘Who were you talking to?’ Nyssa asked, her voice slightly slurred. Her frow seemed to furrow in suspicion as she stared over the room at Henry.

‘Boy from the kitchens. Hang on, are you still drinking that ale?’ Tegan asked, bemused. ‘I didn’t think much of it, myself.’

Nyssa let out a little burp, before giggling.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, slightly slurred. ‘This drink is rather wonderful. I feel all… tingly and merry.’

The Trakenite swayed slightly where she sat, leaning against Tegan’s shoulder.

‘Nyssa?’ Tegan asked, slowly. ‘Are you… alright?’

‘Never better,’ Nyssa said, smiling sweetly at her. ‘Oh, you look wonderful in the candlelight, Tegan.’

Tegan felt her heart beat faster. Why was Nyssa looking at her like that? And… wait, something was definitely wrong. Nyssa was not in the habit of being so carefree in the way she moved.

‘Er… shall we get you some water?’ Tegan said, quickly. ‘There’s some over that; come on…’

She stood up, and Nyssa awkwardly followed. However, as she rose to her feet, the Trakenite stumbled, landing against Tegan. The young woman looked upwards into Tegan’s face through her eyelashes, face flushed pink.

‘Oh…’ Nyssa breathed, very softly. ‘Pretty…’

Tegan swallowed. Something was definitely wrong.

‘Nyssa, c’mon, you’re being very…’

‘What?’ Nyssa whispered. ‘What am I being, Tegan?’

‘I… that is…’

Nyssa giggled again, and awkwardly leaned away from Tegan, who took the opportunity to grab the younger woman by the hand.

‘Doctor!’ Tegan exclaimed, half-dragging Nyssa along behind her. ‘Something’s wrong with Nyssa!’

The time lord turned away from the tapestry he had been examining (the squire had presumably been called away for something), and bent down slightly to the level of the two women.

He then snapped his fingers in front of Nyssa’s face. The young woman blinked sleepily.

‘What has she been drinking?’

‘The same as me,’ Tegan said, worried. ‘That ale stuff; but you said it wasn’t alcoholic.’

‘Oh, that would explain it,’ the Doctor said, sighing as he stood back up to his full height. ‘The ale brewed around this time isn’t alcoholic to humans, but it seems that it’s affecting Nyssa’s biology differently.’

‘You… you mean she’s drunk?’

‘Afraid so, yes,’ the Doctor replied. ‘I think perhaps you ought to get her back to the TARDIS and put her to bed.’

‘You… you’re sure there won’t be any other adverse effects?’ Tegan asked. ‘It won’t be poisonous to her or anything?’

‘None more so than alcohol normally is to humans, since it seems to be effecting her the same way. Don’t you worry, Tegan; Nyssa will be fine after a good nights’ sleep and a couple glasses of water.’

The Doctor handed Tegan his TARDIS key.

‘She’ll be fine, Tegan,’ he said, encouragingly. ‘Besides, she’s not going to run into any trouble when she has you with her, is she?’

‘Not bloody likely,’ Tegan said, gripping Nyssa’s hand tightly.

‘Good,’ replied the Doctor. ‘See you later, then.’

Tegan swallowed, and nodded. Nyssa giggled as Tegan turned her around and headed towards the door of the hall, hurrying the younger woman along, with a protective arm around her waist to stop her wobbling too much. Adric gave them a quizzical look as they passed him, but seemed to ascertain Nyssa’s certain and nodded in apparent understanding at Tegan. Somewhat surprisingly, he didn’t even laugh as the two women excited the hall. Maybe he was turning over a new leaf?

‘Miss Tegan?’

It was Henry, the servant boy. He had poked his head out of another doorway.

‘Oh, hi,’ replied Tegan. ‘Sorry, Nyssa’s not feeling very well.’

‘Is she ill?’ asked Henry, looking concerned. ‘Sorry, Miss Nyssa; would you like a cup of water?’

Nyssa stared at him in apparent confusion, as if not quite sure what he was asking.

‘She definitely needs some water,’ Tegan said, steering the younger woman through the door.

It was a kitchen of sorts, albeit one very much different to the kitchens Tegan was used to. No shiny cabinets and running water, that was for sure. Tegan guided Nyssa towards a chair next to the wall, and helped the Trakenite into it. Nyssa wobbled slightly as she sat down, brow still quizzically looking around. Henry was already heading towards another door, presumably the room where the jugs of water were kept in cold storage.

‘I’ll help you, Henry,’ she said, before turning to Nyssa. ‘I’m just going with Henry to…’

Tegan went to move, but found Nyssa’s arm suddenly wrapped around her own waist.

‘Er… Nys?’ she said, looking at the younger woman in bafflement. Nyssa was glaring at Henry with undisguised animosity.

‘Tegan’s mine!’ Nyssa exclaimed, pouting and pulling Tegan closer to her. ‘You can’t have her!’

‘Er… okay,’ said Henry, looking a tad confused as Tegan felt her face flush crimson. ‘I’ll just grab that cup of water…’

The boy hurried into the next room.

‘Nyssa!’ Tegan exclaimed, turning around to the younger woman as best she could, given Nyssa’s arm still wrapped tightly around her waist. ‘That was really rude!’

‘Don’t care,’ Nyssa said, pouting further. ‘He can’t have you.’

‘What are you talking-’

‘Here,’ said Henry, walking back into the room. He passed Nyssa a cup of water with a kind smile. ‘Your water, Miss Nyssa.’

Nyssa begrudgingly took the cup with her free hand and took a sip.

The water seemed to have something of an effect. At the very least, Nyssa removed her arm from around Tegan’s waist, and sat still for a moment, her eyes fluttering shut as she drank a few sips.

‘That’s good; just keep sipping that,’ Tegan said, squeezing Nyssa’s shoulder softly. She then looked over at Henry. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have some spare napkins, would you? I’m worried about her spilling stuff down her dress…’

‘Yeah; just through here.’

Tegan followed Henry into another room that jutted off from the kitchen. Nyssa didn’t object this time, although Tegan could feel the younger woman’s gaze on the back of her head.

‘Er, sorry about that,’ Tegan said, standing in the kitchen as the boy began to look through the cupboards for the napkins. ‘Nyssa’s normally a lot more polite than this. Not sure why she’s being so unpleasant.’

‘Really?’ -Henry let out a chuckle- ‘I would have thought it was quite clear why.’

Tegan ignored that as the boy continued to open and close cupboards, tidying up as he went.

‘Neither of you are from round here, are you?’ he continued, cheerfully. ‘You definitely don’t seem like locals.’

‘It’s…’ Tegan said, slowly. ‘Well, it’s a bit difficult to-’

‘No, I think I understand,’ Henry said. ‘Miss Nyssa is an alien and you’re from the future. It’s fairly obvious.’

‘O-oh,’ Tegan replied. ‘And… this doesn’t bother you?’

‘Why should it?’ the boy replied, smiling. ‘Although I think Miss Nyssa feels a tad threatened by my presence.’

‘T-threatened?’ Tegan repeated, feeling her face heat up again. ‘What are you-’

‘I do have eyes, Miss Tegan,’ Henry chuckled, as he finally found the napkins into Tegan’s hands. ‘You and Miss Nyssa look at each other like my sister does with her best friend.’

‘O-oh.’

Had she really been that obvious? She usually tried to keep her feelings under wraps when looking at Nyssa, just in case it became noticeable.

And-

Wait, was Nyssa looking at her like that as well?

Tegan swallowed. Too much to think about. She needed to focus. Especially on the fact that Henry had probably assumed she was flirting with him earlier; she had a habit of coming across like that with men she met, although she had never understood why.

‘Er, sorry if I gave you the wrong idea, Henry.’

‘Oh, no; you didn’t at all,’ Henry said, cheerfully waving away her apology with good grace. ‘I don’t see anyone that way, so no harm done.’

‘Really?’

Henry nodded.

‘Anyway, you best get back to Miss Nyssa; I imagine she’s already worried that I’m “stealing” you away from her-’

‘Oh, stop it!’ Tegan exclaimed, face burning. ‘She’s drunk; she doesn’t know what she’s saying!’

Henry snorted, as if he didn’t believe a word of it.

‘If you say so, Miss Tegan,’ he replied, grinning. ‘But she was holding on pretty tight to you earlier.’

Tegan unlocked the TARDIS doors with the key, and awkwardly helped Nyssa inside. The younger woman was getting even wobblier on her feet, and it was with relief that Tegan finally opened the door to their shared room. The lights inside automatically switched on, as if the time machine itself understood that Tegan would need both her hands free to help Nyssa across the room.

Although, for some strange reason, the TARDIS decided to only turn the lights on halfway, meaning that a soft, delicate light was the one that illuminated the room. It was as if they were wading through rivers in the light as they approached Nyssa’s bed.

It had taken a while to get Nyssa out of the house, although Henry had helped her through the servant entrances, which cut off a good deal of the route. He had also helped them through the now-dark grounds and out onto the road, holding a small lantern aloft.

He had cheerfully offered to walk them the rest of the way, but Tegan had noticed Nyssa bristle again, and quickly declined. Henry had grinned at her in a somewhat knowing way, before bidding them goodbye and heading back towards the house.

Luckily, it was a clear night and the stars in the sky above had been bright enough for Tegan to help Nyssa along the road without too much issue. She hadn’t even had to use the modern battery-powered-torch she had stashed underneath her dress.

‘Feel hot…’ Nyssa mumbled.

‘That’s the alcohol taking effect,’ Tegan said, helping her friend to sit down on the edge of her bed. ‘I’ll grab you some water and your nightie in a mo, but let’s get you out of your gown, okay?’

‘Too hot…’ Nyssa muttered, nodding in agreeing.

Tegan slowly undid the clasps of the dress, and helped Nyssa out of it. The woman sighed as the weight came away from her. Tegan tried not to look much at Nyssa, instead focusing on folding the dress neatly away. She had always tried to avoid looking too much at Nyssa whenever the younger woman was changing clothes; partially out of a sense that Trakenites might have considered it embarrassing to be looked at whilst disrobing, and partially due to the way her heart hammered painfully against her chest at the thought of Nyssa partially clothed.

Tegan then undid the clasps of her own dress, and climbed out of it. She had to admit, she wasn’t a massive fan of these dresses; they were a little too heavy for her taste.

‘Pretty…’ Nyssa said, staring at Tegan. ‘Very pretty…’

‘C’mon,’ Tegan said, ignoring the flush on her cheeks. ‘Let’s get you some water and then you can get changed.’

Tegan stepped quickly into their bathroom, and filled a cup with water from the tap. She then headed back across the room towards Nyssa, and handed the cup to the Trakenite.

Nyssa took a drink of the water, her eyes flickering softly shut as she swallowed.

‘Feel better?’

‘Mmm,’ Nyssa said, nodding softly. ‘Still a bit too hot.

‘Probably because you’re still wearing your shift,’ Tegan replied, sitting down next to Nyssa. ‘Probably time to get undressed.’

Nyssa grinned. Before Tegan knew what was happening, the young woman had leaned forward and put her hands on the straps of Tegan’s shift, dropping them down over her shoulders.

‘Not me!’ Tegan exclaimed, feeling her face burn as she put the straps back up. Nyssa gave a giddy laugh.

‘Now,’ Tegan continued, trying to establish some calm. ‘You really ought to-’

Tegan’s face flushed as she quickly pushed Nyssa’s hands away from her chest.

‘Nyssa!’ she exclaimed, heart racing. ‘Please!’

The young woman giggled.

‘Whyever not? Oh, Tegan, you have ever such lovely br-’

‘We need to get you into bed!’ Tegan said, quickly.

‘Oh, yes,’ Nyssa said, cheeks pinkening prettily. ‘That sounds wonderful.’

Before she quite realised what was happening, Tegan found herself pulled sideways onto the mattress. With a giggle, Nyssa climbed on top of her, straddling her hips.

‘Bedtime…’ Nyssa slurred, hiccupping again and letting out a giggle. ‘Come to bed with me, Tegan…’

Nyssa leaned down and pressed her lips to Tegan’s. The Australian startled, and Nyssa took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, her hands sinking into the curls of Tegan’s hair.

‘N-Nyssa…’ Tegan gasped, against Nyssa’s lips. ‘What are you-’

Nyssa giggled, angling her head to kiss Tegan better.

‘Ssshhh, my darling…’ she whispered, slurred, inbetween kisses. ‘I can’t kiss you properly if you keep talking…’

Tegan was so flustered by the combination of Nyssa’s lips against her own, Nyssa’s delicate whispers against her skin, and the term of affection, that she was unable to do anything for another few seconds, during which Nyssa deepened her kisses. And, oh, Nyssa really was enjoying this, wasn’t she? Her enthusiasm was shocking and yet exciting at the same time.

And, damn it, Tegan was enjoying it too.

Nyssa’s legs finally gave way, and she landed gently against Tegan, the alcohol presumably making her unable to keep kneeling over the Australian any longer. Nyssa gave another giggle, and continued kissing, now taking the opportunity to begin trails along Tegan’s jawline and down her neck. Nyssa’s hands moved to Tegan’s hair, with one slipping down her chest to-

‘Nyssa; stop,’ Tegan said, softly. She hated it, but she knew she couldn’t let this go any further. ‘You’re drunk, okay?’

‘Hmmm?’

‘You… you don’t really mean what I think you do.’

‘But I do…’

Tegan sighed.

‘That’s just the alcohol talking. I know when you’re sober, you’ll be embarrassed about this, so… just leave it, okay.’

Nyssa pouted.

‘But I do mean it,’ she said, looking adorably earnest.

‘Listen,’ Tegan said, sighing again. She pulled herself up on her elbows, and Nyssa sat up in her lap. ‘Once you’re sobered up and you still want to, we can then, okay?’

Nyssa’s face broke into a huge smile.

‘Really?’

‘I promise,’ Tegan replied.

Nyssa smiled, placing another -far softer- kiss against Tegan’s lips. It was far more tender than the hungry kisses earlier, and it almost felt like a promise.

Tegan gently helped Nyssa out of her lap, and the young woman lay on top of the duvet. Her eyes were already fluttering shut.

Smiling softly, Tegan slipped off of the bed, and eased the duvet out from under Nyssa before placing it on top of her. Nyssa sighed, snuggling into the warmth of the material.

‘Goodnight, Nys,’ Tegan said, softly.

‘G’night…’ Nyssa said, sleepily. ‘Tegan… stay…’

Tegan sighed softly, before climbing under the covers to lay beside the Trakenite. The lights around them slowly lowered, until they were in darkness. Nyssa reached forward and wrapped an arm around Tegan, cuddling up next to her. Tegan smiled, feeling herself steadily falling asleep, in line with Nyssa’s soft breathing so close to her.

Tegan dimly opened her eyes. The clock on the bedside cabinet was showing 7.30am. The TARDIS had a weird internal timekeeping, but it did exist on some form of day and night cycle, if purely to put its inhabitants at ease.

Nyssa stirred next to Tegan, rubbing her eyes blearily.

‘Morning, Nyssa,’ Tegan said, softly. ‘How are you feeling?’

Nyssa stared at her for a second, and Tegan saw the signs of recognition in the young woman’s face as the events of the previous night seemed to come back to her.

‘Oh…’ Nyssa murmured. ‘I… I…’

‘It’s okay,’ Tegan said. ‘You were drunk; you don’t need to explain anything.’

‘E-explain?’

‘The alcohol made you react differently,’ Tegan said, playing with a loose strand of the duvet. She suddenly found that she couldn’t quite look Nyssa in the eye. ‘But it’s okay. I know you don’t see me like that. It’s... fine.’

‘Oh… Tegan…’

There was such emotion in the young woman’s voice that Tegan’s eyes snapped up on their own accord. Nyssa was staring at her, eyes wide and…

‘N-Nyssa?’

Before Tegan quite knew what was happening, Nyssa was straddling her hips, their faces barely an inch apart.

‘Don’t you ever think that I don’t love you.’

Nyssa was staring down at Tegan, her face burning with a fierceness Tegan had never seen before.

‘I… y-you do?’

‘Of course, Tegan,’ Nyssa whispered. ‘How could you ever… oh, Tegan; why else do you think I wanted to kiss you so much for?’

‘O-oh.’

‘I mean, I thought I was being fairly obvious,’ Nyssa continued, now stroking Tegan’s cheek with a gentle finger. ‘I… I wanted to show you that I love you as much as you love me.’

‘W-wait, what?’ Tegan spluttered, face now turning a deep crimson. ‘You… you knew?’

It was Nyssa’s turn to blush.

‘It was rather difficult to miss,’ the Trakenite whispered, cheeks dimpling as she smiled. ‘I had to check the TARDIS databanks to make sure you weren’t ill, given how often the pupils of your eyes were dilating.’

Tegan stared at her, utterly flummoxed and mortified.

‘So… you’re fine with it?’

‘Need I repeat that I love you too, Tegan?’ Nyssa giggled, now leaning in even closer. Her other hand began to trace a line down Tegan’s side. ‘Can we please stop talking? The alcohol’s effects have gone so we can…’

‘N-Nyssa!’ Tegan exclaimed, feeling her face burn even further. She could heat sharply rising in some other -more southerly- places too. ‘What are you-’

‘Tegan,’ Nyssa whispered, gentle as a summer breeze. The light of the room seemed to catch on her long eyelashes. ‘You did promise, my love.’

‘Oh,’ Tegan replied, before letting out a laugh. She grinned up at the woman, feeling her heartrate joyously increasing. ‘Fair point. So… speaking of that promise…’

Nyssa giggled, pressing her lips to Tegan’s once again. It was shaping up to be a rather wonderful way to keep a promise.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading, everyone! Hope you enjoyed this fic!

#doctor who fanfiction #tegan/nyssa #nyssa/tegan #tegan x nyssa #nyssa x tegan #indestructible #heathrow scientific #tyssa #tegan jovanka #nyssa #nyssa of traken #fifth doctor #adric #tw: drunk #tw: drinking #tw: alcohol

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chaos-thirium · 9 months

Note

COMMENTARY THINGBAJIG

Dichotomy because i need to know what your genius was going through before DELICIOUSLY and PAINFULLY setting it up.

When you awoke again, it was much brighter outside, and Connor was most definitely late for work. He didn’t seem to care, though, so you couldn’t bring yourself to either.

“Hank’s late all the time,” he pointed out with a shrug.

You couldn’t really argue with that.

“How are you feeling?” you asked him.

“Good,” he said without hesitation. “Really good.”

You smiled at his confident tone of voice. “I’m glad.”

There was definitely something lighter about him, as if the removal of Sixty had also removed physical weight that had been dragging him down. He hadn’t physically changed, of course, but he seemed more boyish, less troubled. It warmed your heart to see it.

You leaned in to kiss him, and his fingers slid through your hair. His lips parted under yours, and you matched him, letting him in. His tongue was hot and wet, moving expertly over yours, and a rush of heat sizzled through you as you began to comprehend what sort of mood he was in.

You rolled onto your back, and he moved with you, lips still on yours as his body settled in between your legs. You ran your hands up his back, enjoying the feel and weight of him pressing down on you. A subtle roll of his hips had him grinding against you, and you moaned into his mouth. He pulled back to chuckle, and you grinned at the playful spark in his eyes.

“You’ve done this before, right?” you asked.

“Yes, but it didn’t feel like it does with you,” he said, casually boosting your ego. “With you, everything is…amplified, somehow. It’s so much more intense. I never realised there would be a difference between something done for lust and something…so much more.”

Thank you, sweet! I'm always happy to talk about Dichotomy!

Spoilers below.

All these scenes before the Reveal are kind of designed to work on two levels: they had to work as plausible Connor scenes, and they also had to have that Sixty underlayer, where on a second read-through you can see how calculating he's being. He's lying, but where is he lying? Some of this could be 100% sincere.

I wrote Sixty as having an issue with button-down shirts, hence why he appears shirtless so often after swapping with Connor; he can't wait to get the restrictive shirt off. He'll either appear in a t-shirt or half naked. When he joins reader in bed that first night after the separation, he's wearing a t-shirt, but tells us that he chose it as comfortable nightwear, which is definitely something considerate that Connor would do. So it was all about finding a balance between giving little hints and keeping things plausible.

There are some points where reader thinks Connor is a little different, but he's just had a whole other person removed from his brain, so he's bound to be different! Reader has no idea how he should be acting because they didn't know him before. It gives Sixty wiggle room to pretend to be Connor but not lose himself in the process.

The paragraph about feeling lighter is obviously how Sixty feels about having full control of Connor's body, but it also rings true for how Connor will feel later on when he has a body of his own back.

That last little bit of dialogue is interesting. I wrote it as Sixty telling the truth, (perhaps surprising himself as he realises he's being honest), but it's unclear whether he feels like that because he cares about reader or because he's riding a power high and enjoys the manipulation. Maybe he doesn't even know.

I loved writing the duplicity here! Thank you for asking about it 💙

#my fics #asks

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notyetneedcoffee · 2 years

Text

Kicking Up Dust - Part 5

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: None in this chapter. Slow burn to NSFW

A/N: Takes place after ‘Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ with one major exception - Steve Rogers is not dead. He stepped down. This is in line with my Crossroads story. There will also be a parallel Steve story coming.

Part 4 or Master List

The rain came in the next day, Bucky moved his motorcycle into the barn beside your truck. As he came through the back door shaking water off. You were thankful he looked down as his raked his fingers through his hair. It gave you the opportunity to snap you jaw closed and take a calming breath. His light gray tee shirt had gone dark with water and clung to every muscle. He lifted the bottom hem to wipe the water from his face, flashing you his tone abs.

Holy shit. You turned back to the catalog in front of you, chiding yourself. ‘Snap out of it. You’re not a teenager.’

“Good timing.” Bucky sighed. “It’s pouring now.” He tilted his head as you gave a non-committal noise. “I don’t know what I was expecting when you said there was stuff out in the barn, but that building is huge.”

“I think it’s where they ran the nursery business.” You nodded, still avoiding looking at him for fear of blushing. “Back behind the stuff I had the work crews move out, are shelves of gardening equipment, pots, and stuff. There’s even an old tractor.”

“How come no one looted the place?” Bucky noticed your nervousness, but instead of shying away, he sat down next to you and leaned close to read over your shoulder.

“Um, there’s a pretty good plot of land around it, and when I bought it, there was a wire fence surrounding."

“Not exactly a real deterrent.” Bucky pointed at a reproduction doorknob on the catalog page. He noted your intake of breath and felt the almost imperceptible way you leaned toward him. “That one would match the house.”

“I thought so, too.” You looked sideway. His face was mere inches away. “On both counts.”

“Hmm.” He gave you a ghost of smile and leaned back in his seat. “It’s just strange to me that no one, not even kids, would break in if it sat empty for so many years.”

“I agree.” You mirrored his pose. “The realtor said the estate was well known. Come to think of it, the day I took down the fence out front, a local cop came by. I figured he was just being nosy.”

“Maybe they kept an eye on the old place.”

“Could be.” You shrugged. “Don’t know why they would, though.”

Bucky chewed his bottom lip. Why, indeed. Maybe there were other ties around here. His sister wrote a fair amount about her customers and the locals. She had friends. When the weather cleared up, he just may have to make a trip into town to see.

“You look like you’re plotting.” You bumped his knee with your own.

“Not really.” His eyes smiled. “You up for another round of unpacking?”

“You know it.” You grinned.

~~~

“These are amazing!” Bucky laughed out loud.

You were on the other side of the basement. Smiling at the sound, you dashed over. “What?”

He sat cross-legged on the floor in front of an open box. Smiling up at you, he held up a handful of old vinyl records. His smile changed his face, lighting his eyes and making him look younger. You thought he was beautiful.

“Look at these. Dorsey. Benny Goodman. All the greats.” He began looking around him, turning this way and that. “Please tell me there’s a record player around here, too.”

You laughed. “So those are going to start the ‘keep’ pile?”

“Definitely.” Buck slipped the records back in the box and stood up. “I’m taking this upstairs.”

You watched him go, thinking he was rather boyish when happy. Good.

The phone in your pocket buzzed.

Pulling it out you saw a text from Rogers. ‘Did he resurface?’

‘Yes. He’s better. Found a box of swing records.’

You watched the dots, waiting for his reply. They stopped. They started again. ‘Make him dance with you. Bye.’

Digging through the other boxes where Bucky had been sitting, you found another collection of records. These represented the sixties and early seventies. Becca and Archie liked good music. Collections of cocktail party items and decorations filled numerous other boxes.

“Hey Bucky,” You pointed at the other records. “Interested in some Elvis or Stevie Wonder?”

He knelt to flip through the box. Grinning up, he nodded. “I’d like these, too.”

“No record player yet.” You shrugged.

“There’s got to be one somewhere.” He sighed. “Do you think I can still buy one if I need to?”

“Oh yeah, vinyl is hot again.” You paused. “You may have to be sure it plays the right speeds, though.”

“So, ah, Doll.” Bucky rubbed the back of his neck. “I dug through the pantry this morning before you got up. Do you care if I fix dinner?”

Despite your look of surprise, you agreed. He said it would take a while, so he was going to get started.

By the time you heard Bucky call out that dinner would be ready soon, you’d made your way through many more items in the basement. The smell hit as soon as you came onto the ground floor. Onion, meat, and fresh bread. You stomach immediately let you know it wanted food.

Bucky was at the sink, washing a cutting board, as you entered the kitchen. He didn’t look up, but knew you were there. “Do you want to eat at the kitchen table or in one of the other rooms?”

“Here’s good. Can I do anything?”

“Naw, I got it.” He dried his hands, then brought the food to the table. A fresh baked loaf of bread and large stock pot. When he opened the lid, the wonderful smell intensified. He gave you a sheepish smile. “Hope this is okay. All this just made me think about when I was young, and Ma’s navy bean soup just sounded really good."

It was more of a stew than a soup, thick and rich. Bucky immediately dished out big bowls and dove in. He tore off a piece of bread to dunk. By the time you savored your first few bites, he’d inhaled a third of his bowl. It was delicious.

“It’s better with ham hocks,” He shrugged. “But the ham we had works, too.”

“Fantastic.” You buttered bread. They were equally amazing. “It’s really good. You remembered how to make this?”

“Yeah, although it’s taken a few tries over the years to get it right.”

He was becoming more comfortable, opening up about some of the things he remembered. You asked innocent questions about life in Brooklyn and his life before the army. You never knew Steve Rogers led him into fights even as kids.

“The punk couldn’t stand a bully. He’d stand up to them and get his ass beat.” The smile crinkled his eyes as he remembered. “Stevie just wouldn’t stay down.”

“Sounds like the two of you were quite the pair.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Bucky finally pushed the bowl away after finishing his third helping. “We sure have managed to stay tangled up with each other throughout the years.” He gave a dark chuckle. “Good thing we never managed to kill each other.”

The two of you continued to chat lightly about growing up as you cleaned up. You got an idea and began to pull up something on your phone. Bucky slid an open beer to you. “Thanks,” you took a swig of the beer and pushed the button on your phone.

Benny Goodman’s Sing Sing Sing filled the kitchen. Bucky’s eyebrow rose. You shrugged, “Who needs a record player when you have Spotify?” He laughed. You set down your beer and tugged at his shirt. “Dance with me.”

He stiffened. Tension pulled at his face and his jaw clenched. At least he didn’t look away. Finally he muttered, “Ain’t danced since the war.”

“I’m not looking to be swung into the rafters. Just wanting to move around a little.” You shoulders moved with the beat. He just stared. "Fine." You grabbed your beer and drank as you danced alone around the kitchen.

As you stole glances his way, you could see him fight to keep the scowl on his faces. His eyes laughed. Finally he snatched the beer from your hand and swung you around in one fluid motion. For such a solid man, he was light on his feet and had great rhythm.

Pulling you this way, swinging you around that way, he led you around the kitchen like a pro. You squealed as his strong arm picked you off your feet swung you over his hip. Miraculously you landed on your feet. Your surprise turned to a laugh as he never missed a beat.

By the end of the third song you were panting and laughing so hard your side hurt. Bucky swayed to a stop, still holding you close. You felt flushed. The warmth spread lower in your body as his eyes locked upon your mouth. His tongue slipped over his lower lip.

“You’re the first woman in a really, really long time that makes me feel comfortable.”

“First?” You giggled.

“Okay,” He chuckled, “Not counting a bunch of tribal warriors who would just as soon beat the shit out of me as help me.” Bucky brushed a loose strand of hair away from your face. “Definitely the first woman in a really, really long time that I want to kiss.”

“Lucky me.” You whispered, leaning into his chest a little more.

He lowered his head, brushing your lips with a soft kiss. Gentle and tentative. You closed your eyes and melded into him. Barely pulling away, you felt his nose graze yours. A raw hunger flared in your chest, pushing out a low purr. You pulled at him, immediately deepening the kiss so your tongue met his.

Bucky growled and dug his fingers into the back of your neck as he desperately drank down your kiss. No awkwardness. No hesitation. He groaned at the way your body responded to him. Relished the way you kissed him back, as if you knew exactly how he loved to kiss. The scent of your arousal filled his head.

You tugged at his hair and felt him pressed his hardness against your body. When his mouth drifted down to your neck a shiver raced down to your toes. Bucky buried his face in your hair and squeezed you tight, holding you close and breathing hard.

“Don’t mean to rush.” His voice was rough and low, sounding like liquid sex to your ears.

“Not rushing.” You breathed. “You feel so good.”

“Mm-hmm,” He leaned back enough to cup your face in his hands. “I just don’t want to mess up.”

You smiled. “Seems like you know what you’re doing.”

The smile that brightened his face made your heart flutter. “I mean I don’t want to mess up with you.”

“I think you’re doing just fine.” Your fingertips touched the stubble along his jaw.

His lips brushed yours again before whispering against your lips, “Would you still think so if I said I want to take you upstairs and get you out of those clothes?”

Sucking lightly upon his lower lip made him groan. You suddenly pushed away from him and dashed for the stairs, pulling your tee shirt over your head. Just a few steps up, Bucky seized you by the waist and lifting you off your feet. You laughed as he rushed the rest of the way up the stairs and down the hall with you practically thrown over his shoulder.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x you

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